Elijah Abel

Elijah Abel, or Able (July 25, 1808 – December 25, 1884) was one of the earliest African-American members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He is considered by many to have been the first African-American elder and seventy in the Latter Day Saint movement. Abel, although predominantly of Scotch and English descent, appears by his African heritage to have been the first and one of the few black members in the early history of the church to have received the priesthood. And it was his distinction to be the faith's first missionary to have descended in part through African bloodline. But in 1849, Brigham Young declared all African-Americans ineligible to hold the priesthood and Abel's claim to priesthood right was also challenged. As a skilled carpenter, Abel often committed his services to the furthering of the work and to the building of LDS temples. He died in 1884, shortly after serving a final mission for the church (in his lifetime he officially served three) to Cincinnati, Ohio.

Elijah Abel was born in Frederick-Town, Maryland on 25 July 1808 to Delilah Williams, who was of Scotch descent, and Andrew Abel, an Englishman. A grandmother of Elijah was "half white," or Mulatto; his paternal grandfather, Joseph Abel, was a member of the English House of Commons. Thus was Elijah considered to be "Octoroon," or one-eighth African.

For many years there was apparent confusion regarding his birth-year. Some sources put the year at 1808, others at 1810. However, the 1850 Census record appears to provide sufficient evidence for marking 1808 as the year of Abel's birth. Moreover, both Elijah's patriarchal blessing and his grave marker record "1808" as his birth-year.

Abel's mother, who died when he was 8 years old, was purportedly a slave from South Carolina, but the evidence for this has never been produced, and that Abel's mother was Quadroon, or a quarter-part black, throws some doubt on the assertion. Some authors — both academics and fiction writers — have speculated (but based on the assumption Abel was the son of a slave) that he migrated to Canada, and probably by way of the underground railroad. But this assertion, too, apart from circumstantial evidence, remains entirely unsubstantiated, with William Kesler Jackson, Abel's biographer, indeed stating that, apart from the period of his later missionary service there, "this writer has been unable to find any evidence that Elijah Abel ever lived in Canada."

One intriguing possibility behind young Elijah's removal from Maryland to Ohio, as Jackson and Stevenson both note, is that he may have had a sister, possibly even his twin — Nancy Abel Rousten (1807/8-1896) — who he may have followed to Ohio in 1832, when she moved and settled there (in Milton, Miami County, just a few miles northeast of Cincinnati) with her new husband, George Rousten — a white man of German descent born, remarkably, in Frederick County in 1808, just as Nancy and Elijah were. If such be the case, Nancy more than likely shared with Elijah a one-eighth African bloodline heritage as well (even though census data list her as "Mulatto"). Were then these Marylanders, given such truly diverse heritage, slaves? One truth to consider is that, at least in the western regions of 1820-30s Maryland, as observed by its residents who were living in thecounties of "Frederick, Washington, and Allegheny ... there are but few slaves." But all of this aside, once in Ohio, the Roustens never transitioned again, but were lifelong residents of that state.

Certain it is that young Elijah Abel eventually, by whatever means or motivation, did find his way west to Ohio, for, having now entered his 20s, he was baptized in September 1832 at Cincinnati as a member of Joseph Smith's nascent two-year-old church by local Mormon elder and blacksmith Ezekiel Roberts, a young father of two. Soon after, Abel moved to the Kirtland, Ohio area, to join in fellowship with the main body of Latter-day Saints congregating there (Roberts — who possibly encouraged Abel to relocate as part of the Lord's mandate that His people "gather" at "the Ohio" — may have gone, too, particularly since Roberts is shown by civil records to have stayed connected with the main body of Saints, including being driven with them from Missouri and settling with them at Nauvoo: Roberts signed an 1839 affidavit for Missouri damages and his name appears on 1842 Nauvoo tax records).

Upon the Prophet Joseph Smith's January 1836 declaration that Elijah Abel was "entitled to the Priesthood and all the blessings," Abel — who had been, over the many preceding months, an active participant in the construction of the Kirtland Temple (1833–36) by which the Saints would be "endowed with power from on high" — was ordained an elder of the church on 25 January (the three LDS offices in the Melchizedek Priesthood to which eligible men found worthy were ordained, in their order of ascending hierarchy, are Elder, Seventy, and High Priest). The officiator in that priesthood ordinance was Ambrose Palmer, a high priest who was also branch president in New Portage (now Barberton), Ohio, where Abel was then residing (the ordination was "licensed" at Kirtland on 31 March 1836 by the Prophet Joseph and second counselor in the First Presidency Frederick G. Williams).

Elijah was also at this time blessed to participate in the mighty spirit-filled "Pentecostal season" that accompanied the completion and springtime dedication of the Kirtland Temple, all of which made 1836 a particularly momentous year for him. But then, at year's end, and only 11 months after his priesthood ordination, Abel was, under the hands of Seventies President Zebedee Coltrin, ordained a Seventy and inducted into that priesthood body's Third Quorum on 20 December (and later licensed to said priesthood office at Nauvoo in 1841 by Seventies Presidents Joseph Young, Brigham's brother, and Albert P. Rockwood).

As if such an outpouring of heavenly gifts still weren't enough, Elijah also received at this time his patriarchal blessing under the hands of the Prophet Joseph's father, Presiding Patriarch Joseph Smith, Sr (this ordinal revelation of, what is meant to be, a "declaration of lineage" through the church patriarch was recorded by Warren A. Cowdery, a church scribe and newspaper editor, but also a brother to Assistant President of the Church Oliver Cowdery). The Patriarch began: "Brother Able [sic] ... the Lord hast had his eye upon thee, and brought thee through straits and thou hast come to be rec[k]oned with the saints of the most High." Important here to note, at the outset of this "father's blessing" which Father Smith "seals" upon Abel, is that the revelatory voice itself concedes that "Thou hast been ordained an Elder ... to secure thee against the power of the destroyer" and "thou shalt be blessed even forever" (italics added).

The common practice when giving patriarchal blessings was to declare an individual to be a descendant of a specific tribe of Israel. Abel, however, was declared an "orphan" from a father who "hath never done his duty toward thee," but — just as if he were Father Smith's "own son" — Elijah was promised "Thou shalt be made equal to thy brethren, and thy soul be white in eternity and thy robes glittering." In this way Abel was perhaps instead "adopted" into the House of Israel, for the recorded blessing does not specifically declare his tribal lineage (then, too, with Abel's diverse bloodline mixture, the predominant affiliation may have remained for the patriarch somewhat ambiguous or unclear). The glorious promises the blessing does reveal, including the pronouncement, "Thy name is written in the Lamb's book of life," are duly warranted, however, "because of the covenants of thy fathers" (which terminology does tend to imply for Latter-day Saints, however, an Abrahamic descent). Yet a realization of those promises are still declared contingent upon Abel's "seek[ing] first the kingdom of heaven" (i.e., living a righteous life that seeks to build up God's kingdom on earth while enduring faithfully to the end, to merit one's heavenly crown).

But also in 1836, "to secure [him] against the power of the destroyer," Abel was among those who received the first of the church's revealed "higher" ordinances — that of the "Initiatory" — and he was thus "washed and anointed" in the Kirtland Temple, ostensibly by Judge Alvah Beaman and Ruben P. Hedlock (as is now corroborated by a document that in 2019 was catalogued by archivists of The Joseph Smith Papers project). For although Zebedee Coltrin, some forty-five years after the fact and apparently in error, claimed to have washed and anointed Elijah himself, Abel informed then-Apostle Joseph F. Smith that Coltrin did not in fact perform this sacred ordinance, which now seems supported by evidence.

During the late 1830s, Abel labored as a missionary in New York and Upper Canada, an assignment which, for the Prophet Joseph's part, may have played into a safe-haven and proselyting solution for black slave refugees while also helping to create an effective deflection from perceived Mormon sympathies toward the abolitionist movement in the United States (a perception that agitated an already unfavorable situation for the Latter-day Saints as they sought to realize their dreams for a "Zion" community in Missouri).

In June 1838, while Abel was serving in St. Lawrence County, New York, he baptized 25-year-old Eunice Ross Kinney, who throughout her life and even after Abel's death remembered him as a "powerful" minister, one who had been "ordained [i.e., by proxy sanctioned, commissioned, sent forth with authority] by Joseph the martyr." Abel taught Kinney and others he baptized that "the time was drawing near for [Christ's] coming but He would not come till God had a people prepared to receive Him, with all the gifts and blessings that adorned His church anciently," and Abel in his ministry oft-quoted the Apostle Peter: "Think it not strange, brethren, concerning the fiery trials which are to try you..." (1 Pet 4:12).

Due to civil unrest and rebellion in Upper Canada, Abel's missionary travels were not infrequently punctuated with perilous situations and persecutions; he was even falsely accused of the murder of a family of six and aggressively pursued by a mob bearing hot tar and feathers. And yet such circumstances of unwarranted strife and even torment were certainly not unfamiliar to many Mormon missionaries of the time, nor to their leaders. In retrospect, Abel's providential escape from his enemies in his foreign travels to the East did seem to fulfill a patriarchal promise (while also foreshadowing a dreadful civil war that would soon strike at the heart of his own country):

Thou shalt see [the destroyer's] power in laying waste the nations, & the wicked slaying the wicked, while blood shall run down the streets like water, and thy heart shall weep over their calamities. Angels shall visit thee and thou shalt receive comfort. They shall call thee blessed and deliver thee from thine enemies. They shall break thy bands and keep thee from afflictions.

Abel moved from Kirtland to Commerce (soon renamed Nauvoo), Illinois in 1839, upon returning from his Canadian mission. He may have settled on the property he came to own — Block 111, located northwest of the city "flats", on the banks of the Mississippi. While living at Nauvoo, Abel continued to further immerse himself in church work and activity. One such duty was the sacred privilege of performing "baptisms for the dead" (the second of the church's "higher" ordinances to be revealed), of which Abel is known in his life to have performed at least two: one for a friend by the name of "John F. Lancaster", and one for his mother, Delilah. In this early period of the church, and before the full "temple endowment" or "celestial marriage" rites (among the church's highest) had been revealed, these hallowed ordinances for the Saints' departed loved ones were initially performed, not in temples as they would later be, but generally in the frigid waters of the Mississippi River, upon the winding banks of which their "City Beautiful" had been built. Soon, however, the performance of these rites for the deceased were transferred to more suitable and sacred settings amidst 12-oxen fonts, such as would grace the magnificent Nauvoo Temple then rising majestically on a high bluff above the city — in the splendid construction of which (1841–46) Elijah was blessed to employ his talents.

Another of Abel's duties included acting as an undertaker (for the most part, he was likely responsible for the fashioning of coffins and the digging of graves) at the request of Joseph Smith (this may have been in response to the area-sweeping Malaria epidemic of 1839-40). Abel continued, of course, to work in Nauvoo as a carpenter (he was a member of the group called the House Carpenters of the Town of Nauvoo), and it is clear that while Abel was at Nauvoo he was personally acquainted with the Prophet Joseph, whom he considered a dear friend.

Joseph's high estimation of Abel is palpably evident in the Prophet's dictated phrasing of Elijah's priesthood license: Therein, after declaring his ordination as "an Elder" of the restored church of Christ, Joseph recommends Elijah as his "worthy brother in the Lord," one who is "duly authorized" to spread the gospel in a manner "equal to the authority of that Office" — a man of "good moral character," possessing "zeal for the cause of righteousness," with a "diligent desire to persuade men to forsake evil & embrace truth ... Praying for his success & prosperity in our Redeemer's Cause," the Prophet thus certifies Abel unequivocally, and "confidently" recommends him "to all candid and upright people" as "a worthy member of society" deserving of all "fellowship and esteem."

In turn, Abel's love and devotion for the Prophet were palpably manifest when, on 6 June 1841, he and six other men, including Hosea Stout, quickly mobilized themselves as an expeditionary militia force to attempt the rescue of Joseph Smith after his unlawful arrest by Missouri and Illinois officers at Quincy, Illinois. By the time they reached Quincy, however, Smith having obtained a writ of habeas corpus had been returned safely to Nauvoo.

In 1842 Abel gathered up his belongings (deeding his Block 111 property to Nauvoo Stake President William Marks) and moved again, this time returning back to Cincinnati, Ohio, probably on assignment by Joseph Smith. There he continued his carpentry and boarded for a time with a local painter, one "John Price" on Eighth Street, between Sycamore and Broadway. But on 16 February 1847, thirty-nine-year-old Elijah married 16-year-old Mary Ann Adams of Nashville, Ohio, who was also, in her heritage, one-eighth African-American, or Octoroon. Abel acted as a leader of the church in Cincinnati, and was recognized as such by Joseph Smith, who pronounced to Orson Hyde and others, "Go to Cincinnati ... and find an educated negro, who rides in his carriage, and you will see a man who has risen by the power of his own mind to his exalted state of respectability." Not all church leaders were as accepting of Abel, however.

On 25 June 1843, a regional conference occurred in Cincinnati (then a hot-bed of conflict between what generally were viewed as Underground Railroad-escaping blacks and abolitionist-hating Irish Catholics) where the apostles John E. Page, Orson Pratt, Heber C. Kimball, and future-apostle Lorenzo Snow presided as part of a "Traveling High Council" to organize a Mormon branch there. During the conference questions regarding Abel and his membership were addressed, including those that touched upon recent complaints from some of the local "white" populace about Abel's public preaching activity. Apostle John E. Page stated that while "he respected a coloured Brother, wisdom forbid that we should introduce [him] before the public." Pratt and Kimball supported Page's statements, and the leaders resolved to restrict Abel's activities as a member of the church.

At the conclusion of the conference, Abel was called to serve a second mission locally, but he was instructed to visit and teach only the "coloured population". In their deliberations, the leaders had also referenced some of Abel's potentially threatening actions that stemmed from his time in Upper Canada, where his activity to encourage flight to the American "Zion" from the civil uprisings there was viewed with disdain by his colleagues, for such activity ostensibly may have been seen by the British government as smacking of "pro-American sympathizing," or even treason in absentia — potentially inciting, or further exacerbating, continued revolt. The missionary associates who so accused him (e.g., John Beckstead, Christopher Merkeley, John Broeffle, and also some, incidentally, like Zenas Gurley and James Blakeslee, who later apostatized from the church) cited also Abel's claims "that an elder ... had as much authority" as a high priest in the church and, most outrageously for them — in light of early Mormonism's millenarian worldview that espoused gathering to a "central" Zion — "that there would be stakes of Zion in all the world." Yet despite these allegations of teaching what was, at the time, perceived by many to be "false doctrine," no disciplinary action was taken against Elijah. Indeed, today, Abel's statements seem prophetic.

Up until 1843, Abel had suffered very little discrimination from within the church. The results of the conference, however, marked a turning point for Abel and other colored, faithful adherents of the faith. For the first time, race was used as a criterion for limiting church activities. The leaders of the conference, however, made no statement that would suggest that the resolution of the meeting had been based on heaven-sent revelation or that it constituted any sort of doctrinal mandate, but rather, they deemed it an act of prudence to address the dynamic racial and politically turbulent climate of the times.

As a leader in the church at Cincinnati and one of the three presiding area Seventies at a specially convened branch conference on 1 June 1845, Elijah Abel moved for the excommunication of three women — identified as "Mrs. Carter, Mrs. Evans, and Miss Jane Roberts" — for "speaking disrespectfully against the leaders of the church," a motion which was "moved and seconded." The church, despite reorganization, still reeled in over the loss of its beloved Prophet-martyr, murdered at Carthage Jail, along with his brother Hyrum, by a mob less than a year before. But by overcoming previous dissent and discord, the Cincinnati branch of 32 members "all in good standing" could claim that it was, by mid-1845, more unified than it had been "for the last three years."

The few black individuals adhering to the Latter-day Saint faith had the full fellowship of the early church, including entering into priesthood leadership positions, such as Abel had. In 1844 at Boston, Joseph T. Ball, for example, had been the first man of African descent to become a branch president — indeed, the first ever to preside over an LDS congregation; Ball had been earlier called in 1841 by the Quorum of the Twelve on a mission to South America.

But then, in 1849, Brigham Young, who was the prophet of the church at the time (having succeeded Joseph to the church presidency after the Prophet's martyrdom), issued a church-wide ban on blacks from being ordained to the priesthood (although the policy's initial reveal by Young to the Twelve may have occurred up to two years earlier at Winter Quarters, Nebraska, possibly "between 8 and 14 April 1847"). Young's pronouncements in 1849 constitute the earliest known statements which officially exclude blacks from an ordinal endowment or a wielding of priesthood power, stating in part, "The Lord has given [Cain's descendants] blackness, so as to give the children of Abel an opportunity to cult[ivate] [or 'keep' — i.e., preserve his "priesthood birthright" and maintain as separate] his place with his des[cendants] in the eternal worlds."

This decision may have been brought about, in part, by the actions of William McCary, an African-American convert to the church with mixed Indian blood, living in Cincinnati, who believed he was a prophet and claimed on various occasions to be Jesus and Adam, father of the human race. For in 1847, as the Saints paused at Winter Quarters on the banks of the Missouri, before continuing on to the Rocky Mountains, a seemingly penitent McCary had expressed to Brigham Young and members of the Quorum of the Twelve his anguish and confusion over his racial status, saying that he wished to be seen as "a common brother" despite being "a little shade darker," to which Brigham kindly reassured him: "We don't care about the color ... It's nothing to do with blood, for of one blood has God made all flesh ... We have one of the best Elders, an African in Lowell [Massachusetts] — a barber [referring to Q. Walker Lewis]." President Young enjoined McCary to "shew by your actions" a genuine repentance before God, for, he said, the Saints have but "to serve the Lord with all our hearts" and "repent [to] regain what we have lost."

Yet following this incident at the Mormon encampment, in which McCary had been offered forgiveness and church fellowship by Brigham and the Twelve (who had even, at Young's request, pooled together their private funds to assist him in securing a wagon and supplies to join the Saints in their westward trek), McCary broke their trust and was promptly excommunicated. It was discovered that McCary had performed, within his own house, polygamous "sealings" with Caucasian women that were clearly unauthorized. In the wake of McCary's scandal and excommunication, the Brethren immediately distanced themselves from him while encouraging the Saints, to ensure their own safety, to do the same. For his part, McCary made a "fast trot" from Mormon society and the surrounding settlements, fleeing to Missouri, but then later and finally to Canada.

Some residents of Cincinnati, Winter Quarters, and other townships had entertained McCary's teachings, including his promulgation of an "immediate consummation" sort of polygamous union, and upon whose adherents he was said to confer "priesthood blessings" using a "golden rod."

But even after the 1847-49 official prohibition for all Latter-day Saint "brethren of color," Elijah Abel himself continued to remain involved in the church. As one who already held the priesthood, he continued to serve as a Seventy in Cincinnati (inclusively from 1842 to 1853) and years later, in the autumn of 1883, also served yet another mission to this former hometown shortly before his death.

As the church continued to migrate its members to the mountain-valleys of the West, however, Mormons were exposed to a larger population of blacks, and anti-black political attitudes continued to increase. Even before moving West, other influential black members of the church had included "Black Pete" — a member of the "Morley Family" who in the early days of the church at Kirtland, Ohio became notorious, by drawing from his Protestant revivalist "enthusiasm" and "slave shout" past, in appearing authentic to the area's new members (particularly its young people) as the "revelator" he claimed to be. He was ultimately disfellowshipped by Joseph Smith because of his teachings and ecstatic demonstrations, disappearing from the community soon thereafter. And the aforementioned Q. Walker Lewis from Lowell, Massachusetts, although "well respected by early Mormon leaders," also found himself under scrutiny during this period. Lewis was ordained an elder by William Smith, Joseph Smith Jr.'s younger brother who later apostatized.

And so it was, that by 1847, in the unfavorable light of these and other developments, Abel's authority had begun to be challenged, despite his being well-respected within his church community. In the immediate future span of only fourteen years this worsening social and political climate would culminate in national civil war.

In May 1853, Abel and his family migrated as part of the Appleton M. Harmon pioneer company to Utah Territory, the new headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. After the company's arrival in the Salt Lake Valley on 17 October and his family's initial move to Mill Creek just a few miles south of Salt Lake City, Abel continued to work as a carpenter as part of the LDS public works program. One of his main projects, given his already-rich personal history in temple-building, was the labor he performed in the decades-long construction (1853-1893) of the Salt Lake Temple. By 1860 the Abel family had moved to Salt Lake City's Thirteenth Ward, and only a short distance from the Temple Block. For a short time a 43-year-old white schoolteacher by the name of Alex Warrender, who in 1858 had crossed the overland trail as a teamster, boarded with the Abel family.

Abel himself remained a member of the Seventy and continued to be active in the church. Along with Mary Ann and their oldest son Moroni, Elijah was rebaptized on 15 March 1857 (by priesthood officiator and millwright Archibald Gardner; and confirmed by beekeeper Washington Lemmon) as part of the Brigham Young and Jedediah M. Grant-inspired "Mormon Reformation". In the Saints' storied "Move South" during the Utah War, to avoid conflict with Johnston's invading army in 1858, Abel stayed behind to "assist" his fellow "watchmen" to ensure, should the invaders make any false move, that the emptied city be set aflame and left in ashes. But the U.S. troops marched through Salt Lake City without incident.

In addition to his carpentry, the Abels together managed the Farnham House hotel, located on 2nd South Street, which was advertised as a "first class" boarding house that boasted "good stabling and corrals." The Abels' establishment charged $11/week for room & board ($9/week or $2/day for board only) and 75¢ for a single meal. By 1860, two more children were born to Elijah and Mary Ann, and by 1862, as the War to Prevent Southern Independence raged in the East, their growing family had relocated to the Tenth Ward.

Very little is known about the personal lives of the Abel family. In 1870 they moved forty miles north to Ogden, Utah for a short time before returning to Salt Lake City. Of the known children born to Elijah and Mary Ann, three were born in Cincinnati — Moroni, Enoch, and Anna Rebecca, whom they named after Mary's mother — and five more in Utah Territory, all by 1870: Delilah, whom they named after Abel's mother, Mary, Elijah Jr., Maggie, and Flora. They also took into their home a young woman (about Moroni's age) from Ohio — Rola — whom they adopted. Utah residents during this period remembered the Abel family as traveling up and down the Wasatch front (a mountain valley stretch of contiguous towns from Provo to Ogden) entertaining audiences with their "minstrel shows". Abel biographer W. Kesler Jackson:

It seems most likely that Abel played the fiddle or violin, while the family — including eight children between the ages of about one and twenty years old — acted, danced, sang, or played along with their father on other instruments. "There was a family of colored folks by the name of Able [sic]," remembered one Utah resident, "who went around from ward to ward and put on performances for the public."

Tragedy struck the family in 1871 when firstborn Moroni — son of Elijah and Mary's youth who had crossed the plains with them and just entered manhood — died. And only six years later, after the family had moved back to the territorial capital, Abel's dear Mary Ann herself, his 47-year-old wife of three decades, died of pneumonia on 27 November 1877 ... "Brigham Young died the same year," wrote Russell W. Stevenson, "and Ables [sic] approached John Taylor, his successor, again requesting his endowment," but it was again withheld from him.

Yet notwithstanding the many years of repeated temple-ordinance denials for himself and his family from his honored Brethren (see below), Abel, ever-faithful, served a final mission to Ohio and Canada in 1883-84, during which period of service, however, he became ill. Further-declining health resulted in his returning to Utah in December 1884. Abel died only two weeks after his return, on Christmas Day — "in full faith of the Gospel," his last-day-of-the-year obituary read. His body was interred at Salt Lake City Cemetery alongside Mary (whose headstone reassured loved ones: "Only Sleeping") and where his original grave marker is inscribed with the words of a seemingly reconciled soul: "Elijah Able — At Rest."

Although Abel remained a faithful member of the church his entire life, he was not exempt from discrimination that existed in his church and state. His membership, participation, and leadership in the church both during and after his Illinois and Ohio years was frequently questioned and challenged. After moving to Utah Territory, Abel asked Brigham Young for permission to be sealed to his wife and children, which was denied. Abel again requested a sealing five years later to his deceased wife, son, and daughter, this time from President John Taylor, who then passed it on for the body of the Twelve to consider. But his request was again refused, and neither was he allowed to enter the temple to be endowed.

While there were yet no attempts to take away Abel's priesthood authority, that authority was questioned by church leaders. In 1879, a meeting was held on Saturday, 31 May, at the residence of Provo mayor Abraham O. Smoot to discuss the conflicting versions of Joseph Smith's views on blacks and the priesthood in response to Abel's petition to be sealed to his recently deceased wife. President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles John Taylor, his secretary L. John Nuttall, mayor Smoot, apostle Brigham Young, Jr. (son of the late prophet), and Zebedee Coltrin were in attendance. According to Nuttall, who detailed the meeting in his journal, Coltrin and Smoot made statements about all they could recollect Joseph Smith having ever said about blacks and the priesthood.

John Taylor recounted a story he had remembered and then asked Coltrin to confirm if the account was accurate. In this story, Coltrin had at one time remarked that black people should not have the priesthood, to which Smith had responded with the account of the Apostle Peter's vision in Acts 10, in which he was commanded by God to "not call any man common or unclean" and to teach the Gentiles despite being a Jew himself, implying that blacks should have the priesthood. However, Coltrin denied that this conversation had ever taken place. Though it would seem apparent that the Prophet himself related the story to Taylor, the recorded minutes of the meeting do not make it clear where Taylor originally heard the story.

Smoot — a Southerner from a line of slaveholder progenitors who had himself continued his practice of it in Utah — stated that he, Thomas B. Marsh, Warren Parrish, and David W. Patten had asked Joseph Smith in 1836 and 1838 if blacks could have the priesthood, whereupon Joseph informed them that, while blacks could be baptized, including those who were enslaved (but solely with their master's consent), they could not hold the priesthood (it remains unclear, however, whether Smith's alleged priesthood reference was intended by him to apply only to blacks still in bondage). According to Nuttall, Coltrin and Smoot both wrote down their respective accounts in the course of the meeting, then signed their names to them. The brethren would in their deliberations regarding Abel and the validity of his priesthood ordination adjourn for the present but would, following a brief recess, resume their discussion within a few days' time.

Some scholars of Mormon history describe the recollected statements given at the Smoot home in 1879 as "apocryphal" or, collectively, as "an artifact [...] recorded forty-five years after the fact." In his biography of Abel, W. Kesler Jackson states that the two accounts given touching upon the doctrinal "priesthood and race" question contradict not only each other but also other historical records, just as the "facts" surrounding the actual priesthood ordination of Elijah Abel have long been contradictory, remaining for many years, until only recently, in a rather confused state.

Some sources, for example, state that Abel was ordained to the priesthood by Joseph Smith, while other records indicate that he was ordained by Zebedee Coltrin. He was in fact, as stated and documented above, first ordained to the priesthood by Ambrose Palmer in January 1836, then as a Seventy by Coltrin in December of the same year. Coltrin claimed additionally, however, that Abel had been ordained to the Seventy in exchange for his work on the temples (at Kirtland and Nauvoo), but that Joseph Smith, after Coltrin later confronted him, and upon reflecting a moment on the matter, then realized his "error" and promptly "dropped" Abel, because of "his lineage", from the quorum. Coltrin reported that he had this conversation with Joseph Smith in 1834, yet Abel didn't receive the priesthood nor did Coltrin ordain him a Seventy until 1836 (thus making it impossible for Abel to have been "dropped" from any such ordinal capacity in 1834), nor was construction even begun on the Nauvoo Temple until 1841. Joseph Smith's nephew and later-successor to the church presidency, Joseph F. Smith, contradicted Coltrin, in turn, by professing: "Coltrin's memory [is] incorrect as to Brother Abel being dropped from the quorum of Seventies to which he belonged" (italics added). Smith punctuated his statement by pointing out that he had verified as being in Abel's possession two certificates (which notarized the 1836/1841 priesthood licensings referenced above) that declared Abel to be a bonafide elder of the church and a Seventy.

Even so, what the 'Smoot meeting' at the end of May 1879 accomplished — beyond suddenly bringing into "formal" question Abel's long-held authority in a high-profile (and for Elijah possibly humiliating) setting after more than 40 years — was simply a reaffirmation (though momentarily placed on hold) of the LDS Church's 1849-born policy of excluding blacks from receiving the priesthood. The meeting did not change the fact (as neither those meetings preceding or following it would) that Elijah Abel had long been granted by a prophet of God, and retained yet still, the Melchizedek priesthood.

Within a week after the meeting to discuss Joseph Smith's statements on blacks and the priesthood (a recess that surely afforded Joseph F. Smith the required time for his investigation that resulted in a documented personal interview with Elijah Abel), the appointed brethren met again on 4 June to continue their discussion of the topic. Elijah Abel of course was there, and it may well have been for him somewhat reminiscent of a Salt Lake City Council House meeting he'd attended just two months earlier, on 25 March, consisting of 71 members from the church's 33 Seventies quorums. Abel had, on that occasion, stood and addressed the “general meeting of the Presidents and members of the Seventies," fondly reflecting upon his nearly 45-years’ experience as a priesthood-bearing Latter-day Saint. He had recounted there — as he now did for his brethren again, in the first days of June — “his appointment an[d] ordination as a Seventy, and a member of the 3rd Quorum." He recalled for them Joseph's personal words to him, "that those ... called to the Melchisadec [sic] Priesthood [having] magnified that calling would be sealed up unto eternal life."

"The chronological proximity of the Smoot meeting and Abel's defense at the Seventies meeting," observes Jackson, "seems to indicate that the status of blacks (as it related to priesthood and temple ordinances) was then undergoing deep scrutiny at the highest levels. It makes sense that Abel would be asked to weigh in — as a long-time black Seventy."

Abel again now, in June, found himself personally defending his priesthood before his brethren, outlining especially for President Taylor and Apostle Joseph F. Smith its history — which was indeed precious to him — and reaffirming that the "Prophet Joseph told him he was entitled to the priesthood." Armored with these statements of personal testimony — and the promises he'd received not only from his revered patriarch, but more especially from Father Smith's prophet-son, who was the Lord's chosen mouthpiece on earth — Abel was defending his right to be sealed eternally to his family in the holy temple of God. Abel expressed to President Taylor his lifelong hope that his endowment of priesthood might prove one day "the welding link" (see D&C 128:18) to bond all of God's people together regardless of race.

By meeting's end, John Taylor — concluding at last that Joseph Smith had made "an exception" and had given Abel the priesthood despite his race, perhaps because he was an Octoroon (or one-eighth black) and perhaps also, as per Coltrin's testimony, because he had further proved his worthiness by helping to advance and to build the early church — decided that Abel's priesthood would be "allowed to remain."

Notwithstanding this seeming triumph for Abel, Church President Joseph F. Smith, in 1902, 1904, and 1908 (his memory perhaps in a state of failing recollection of his theretofore stoic defense of Abel and his former pronouncements of 1879 and 1895 to the contrary), declared Abel's ordination to the priesthood as "null and void by [Joseph Smith] himself because of his blackness" — suggesting (based anew on Coltrin's antiquated testimony) that the Prophet Joseph before his death had, in realizing his "mistake", repented of his initial endorsement that Abel receive the priesthood.

These statements just after the turn of the century, particularly astonishing by their posthumous nature (Abel having long-since expired from the world), were clearly inaccurate: for, from the moment of the Prophet Joseph's 1836 sanction of his priesthood ordination at Kirtland, Elijah Abel went on to faithfully serve for nearly half a century in the Third Quorum of the Seventy, until his death in 1884. Now, moreover, scarcely a score of years had passed since Joseph F. Smith had himself been the one to ordain Abel and to set him apart to serve a church mission immediately antecedent to the Mormon elder's death.

President Smith's son who would later succeed him in the presidency, Apostle Joseph Fielding Smith, went so far as to suggest that there had been two Elijah Abels — one white and one black.

Though Abel died in 1884, his life and in particular his ordination to the priesthood were a topic of conversation and debate long after his death. When questions concerning Blacks receiving the priesthood or temple blessings arose, the story of Elijah Abel was often told.

All eligible men within the LDS Church were, of course (albeit more than a century after the 1849 ban), admitted to the priesthood beginning in 1978 — when all former "authority" restrictions based on race were lifted with the revelation received by then-prophet and President of the Church Spencer W. Kimball.

But long even before this, Abel's son and grandson, Enoch and Elijah, had both been ordained already to the Melchizedek priesthood: Enoch was ordained an elder on 27 November 1900; and Elijah to the same office on 29 September 1935.

In 2002, a monument was erected in Salt Lake City over Abel's gravesite by the Missouri Mormon Frontier Foundation and the Genesis Group, to memorialize Abel, his wife, and his descendants. The monument was dedicated by LDS Church Apostle M. Russell Ballard.

• Front of Grave Marker
• Back of Grave Marker