Question: After having served in the Mormon Battalion in 1846, how old was Luther William Glazier when he died?
Answer: Luther William Glazier was born 22 March 1823 in Madison, Madison, New York, to Shepherd Glazier and Clarissa Withey. In 1835, when Luther was just twelve years of age, his father heard the Gospel and was converted by Johnathan Dunham and was baptized in May of that year.
In June of 1841, Luther’s father, Shepherd, moved his family to the La Harpe, Illinois area. Luther’s mother, Clarissa, died not long after they arrived. His father married Rosetta Dean in October. That same year, anti-Mormon mobs forced the Glazier family to leave La Harpe, Illinois, and join the Saints in Nauvoo, Illinois. In the early winter of 1846, Luther and his family were driven out of Nauvoo and had to move on to Kanesville, Iowa. Luther’s father, Shepherd, was a cooper by trade, and he made barrels and wheels for the wagons and handcarts going west to Utah.
In the summer of 1846, when Luther was 23 years of age, Captain James Allen arrived with a request to enlist a battalion of 500 volunteers to fight in the Mexican-American War. President Brigham Young saw several possible advantages for the Saints. Their enlistment would be a public relations victory for the church, demonstrating additional evidence of its loyalty to the United States. Furthermore, the men were given a uniform allowance of $42 each, paid in advance, for their one-year enlistment. As they were allowed to wear their civilian clothing for the march, the bulk of those funds was used to purchase wagons, teams, and other necessities for the trek west.
Luther joined the Mormon Battalion, and became a private in Company E, and they set out in July 1846. Luther marched with the Mormon Battalion to Santa Fe, New Mexico, but became ill and was assigned with the Sick Detachment to winter at Fort Pueblo, Colorado. In the spring, members of that company and two other detachments, headed for the Salt Lake Valley, arriving there on July 29, 1847, just a few days after Brigham Young’s Vanguard Company. The Sick Detachment men were dismissed from duty and did not have to go on to California.
In August, Luther returned to the Iowa Territory to rejoin his family. On May 22, 1850, he married Martha Jane Stephenson. The couple decided to stay in Iowa for the next nine years, during which time they had two sons and three daughters.
In the summer of 1851, when Luther’s father, Shepherd, had accumulated enough money, he headed with his family to the Salt Lake Valley. They were in the Easton Kelsey Company, which arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in September 1851. They eventually settled in Provo, Utah.
About 1861, Luther and his family made it the Salt Lake Valley and then moved on to Provo, Utah, where his father and family were living. While in Provo, Luther and Martha had two more daughters, but when their youngest daughter was just five months old, Luther passed away. He died of consumption on 18 February 1865 in Provo, at age 41, and was buried in an unknown grave. Martha remarried and had one daughter. She died in 1901 in Idaho.
Source: Excerpts from story on Luther William Glazier, compiled by Rhonda Seamons in September 2011 and updated in May 2014, FamilySearch.org; excerpts from Shepherd Glazier’s Life Story, FamilySearch.org
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