Q&A with Chad Nielsen, Author of A Barn Full of Angels May 11 2026

Greg Kofford Books approached Chad L. Nielson with some questions about his research and writing of A Barn Full of Angels: The Spiritual World and Pioneer Journey of Zerah Pulsipher.

Early Visions and Leadership

Defining “History from the Middle”

Q. You describe Zerah Pulsipher as an “indispensable middle manager” whose life provides a “history from the middle.” Why is focusing on this second tier of leadership—rather than just the “founding prophets”—essential for understanding how the early movement survived profound crises and external persecution?

A. The upper leadership of an organization provides the vision and direction, but that vision doesn’t go anywhere if nobody acts on it. It helps to have middle managers to carry out the directions, work through the on-the-ground realities and unexpected emergencies, and keep the individuals under their direction aligned. Thus, to understand how an institution like the Church functions and carries out initiatives, it is helpful to look at the middle managers who help make them a reality.

The Enchanted Worldview

Q. Zerah’s life was defined by an “enchanted worldview” where the veil between mortality and the spirit world was permeable. How did the early Church successfully institutionalize his type of personal charismatic energy, such as his 1832 vision of angels in the barn, into a structured, hierarchical priesthood?

A. While Pulsipher was a naturally visionary man who experienced "rays of glory" and visits from deceased kin, his membership in the Church transformed these from private experiences into official acts of administration. As a priesthood leader, he did not just pray for the sick; he led formal councils to "rebuke diseases & foul spirits" believed to be the "Destroyer."

A key example of this was the 1835 dispossession of Joseph Hunting. Rather than acting as a lone mystic, as he initially had in managing the man, Pulsipher joined a coordinated body of seven elders who followed the specific direction of a senior leader (Joseph Smith, Sr.) to fast and pray, then offer a rebuke to the evil spirit while laying hands upon his head, until the man was delivered. This merged the raw energy of the supernatural with the bureaucratic order of a priesthood quorum. 

Immediate Inspiration

Q. During his mission to find Wilford Woodruff, Zerah claimed the Spirit told him exactly which "little house in the clearing" to stop at. How did this belief in "propositional revelation" allow him to operate as a missionary without a set map or itinerary?

A. In December 1833, while threshing grain, Pulsipher felt a sudden prompting that he must "go North" because the Lord had work for him. When his wife asked for his destination or how long he would be gone, he admitted he did not know either.

This worldview allowed him to operate with total flexibility. He set out on foot in deep snow with only a general direction. After traveling for two days, he looked ahead at a "little house in the clearing" and told his companion that was exactly where they were to stop.

This reliance on "immediate voice" led him directly to the home of Azmon and Wilford Woodruff. Because Pulsipher believed he was being guided by an "immediate inspiration" similar to that claimed by Quakers or Transcendentalists, he operated by trusting the inner voice that he believed was the Holy Spirit to provide step-by-step instructions for his journey. In this case, at least, that worked out perfectly.

The Kirtland Camp Legacy

Q. You characterize Zerah’s leadership of the Kirtland Camp in 1838 as his “most significant administrative achievement.” Given the extreme poverty of the families involved, what was the most impressive logistical hurdle he and the other presidents of the Seventy overcame during that 800-mile trek?

A. Money was the biggest issue facing them, since they had to get wagons and oxen to carry supplies and possessions, then pay for food and pasturage for over six hundred people and their livestock over the course of a few months.

They had their doubters that this journey could be pulled off. Oliver Granger, for example, skeptically told the seventy that it would be “the greatest thing ever accomplished since the organization of the church or even since the exodus of Israel from Egypt if the Saints in Kirtland considering their poverty should succeed in going from that place in a body,” but that it would “require great wisdom and prudence and the most determined perseverance" to achieve it.^[1]

Somehow, they pulled it off. While preparing to go, they managed to go from six outfits to fifty-eight wagons with teams. Food scarcity remained an issue throughout the expedition, however. In late July, as they approached the western edge of Ohio, Elias Smith felt that they were fed by divine providence: “Here was another manifestation of the power of Jehovah for seven and a half bushels of corn sufficed for the whole camp . . . for the space of three days and there was no lack for food.”^[2] Because of this constant shortage of money and supplies, many people split from the camp for a time to earn money through odd jobs along the way. The entire company stopped for most of August to help build a section of road between Dayton and Springfield, Ohio, to bring in $1,200 (roughly equivalent to $42,600 in 2026).

By the time they reached Springfield, Illinois, the leaders of the Kirtland Camp were concerned that there wouldn’t be enough food or work in Missouri when they arrived, so they were actively encouraging members of the camp to stay where they were if they could. About half of the Kirtland Camp group stayed in Illinois, scattered for work, which saved them from the Mormon-Missouri War. The other half successfully made it to Far West, Missouri, at the start of October. They only had about a month to live there before they had to flee as refugees.
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Theology and Social Dynamics

Patriotism vs. Persecution

Q. Zerah had deep New England Puritan roots and took great pride in his family’s Revolutionary War heritage. How did this ingrained patriotism sharpen the “sting of betrayal” he felt when he was later taken prisoner by a state militia and faced the “extermination order” in Missouri?

A. Zerah Pulsipher loved telling the story of how his father and grandfather both enlisted in the revolutionary forces and fought in the Battle of Bunker Hill. Their role in the war and their close, personal connection to him was a source of pride.

There was a mismatch of expectations, however, where Pulsipher assumed that the American freedom they had fought for would extend to heterodox religious groups like the Latter-day Saints. He found out, however, that the freedom established in America was actually only freedom to exist as White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, while individuals and communities who fell beyond those parameters were subject to violence and opposition, as Catholics and Jews also discovered. The state-sponsored expulsion from Missouri, the assassination of Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith, mob violence in Illinois, and the Utah War were all incidents that drove that point home to Pulsipher and his family. The anti-polygamy crusade would only reinforce this point further, though Pulsipher didn’t live long enough to see the worst of that particular conflict.

Confronting “The Destroyer”

Q. Throughout the book, Zerah and his family identify sickness and death as the work of a literal, malevolent “Destroyer” or “Devil.” How did Zerah use this theology to manage health crises in both the Kirtland Camp and the later settlement at Hebron?

A. The theological assumption that Zerah Pulsipher made was that illness and afflictions were direct attacks by the Devil as “the Destroyer.” As far as my research has indicated, Latter-day Saints at the time believed that these attacks came for one of two reasons: either unrighteous actions provoked the attacks (with God either withdrawing His protection and allowing the Devil to afflict them or decreeing that they be afflicted as chastisement), or their righteousness led to demonic opposition that was experienced as illness or adverse actions from people around them. Most often, Pulsipher assumed the former when disease was involved. This meant that his response to sickness in his community was usually to tell people to shape up and repent. He combined these exhortations with priesthood healing blessings that rebuked the Destroyer as his means of managing disease in settings like the Kirtland Camp and Hebron.

The Tensions of Plural Marriage

Q. You note that Zerah’s daughter, Mariah, recorded deep internal tensions regarding the principle of plural marriage within their household. How does Zerah’s 1855 sermon dismissing a wife’s “hellish fear” of shared affection compare to the actual “lived religion” of the women in his family?

A. It’s hard to know specifically, because the women in the Pulsipher family didn’t leave a lot of commentary about plural marriage. The main exception is Mariah’s dream-vision that you alluded to, where she was concerned about reports that Joseph Smith had practiced polygamy and said that an angel visited to tell her that it was right and to convince her mother and one of her sisters, who didn’t believe it was right, that it was.

Looking at the experiences of Latter-day Saint women more broadly, however, there was an entire spectrum of experience with plural marriage. Sometimes the wives came to be closer friends to each other than to their shared husband, and sometimes they couldn’t stand to be in the same home or even community as each other. In many cases, these women openly defended their choice to practice polygamy, but privately struggled with the realities of sharing a romantic partner and spouse with other women.

There are hints that this struggle was something that Zerah’s wives experienced. In a family meeting in 1855, Zerah said, “Some women think if her husband gets another, wife he can’t love her as he did before—This is a hellish fear.” His perspective was that plural marriage was a divine decree and as such, “A man may have many wives and love each individual, [as] much as he could one when he had no more.” There are some patriarchal assumptions baked into his worldview, however, since he follows this up with the statement, “A man will love his wives just in proportion to their acts of kindness and good works,” placing the burden of earning his love entirely on the women themselves. While everything I’ve seen indicates that Zerah’s three concurrent wives (Mary, Prudence, and Martha) got along without major difficulties, it wasn’t an easy experience for them.

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Institutional and Cultural Conflict

The “Pirate to Navy” Transition

Q. You use the metaphor of a “pirate to navy” transition to describe the Church’s shift from a charismatic movement to a bureaucratic hierarchy. How did Zerah’s 1862 disciplinary trial for performing unauthorized marriages serve as a “poignant symbol” of this transition?

A. The “pirate to navy” metaphor from corporate America. The idea is that when a startup company is new, it acts like a crew of pirates in disruptive ways (such as focusing on new technologies), is nimble in being able to change what they are doing, and acts in a more unregulated space. Those characteristics are helpful to succeeding in fighting for space as a new company, but as a company grows and matures, many of those same attributes can start to act against the company’s best interests. To handle that change, bureaucracy develops, long-term planning becomes more important, and systems of rules become more important to consistently follow, more in line with how a navy operates. The transition between the two is often messy. And while it’s not always appropriate to apply business models to religion, this felt like something you see happening in the early Church.

For example, in 1862, Zerah Pulsipher faced an ecclesiastical trial for performing two plural marriages for a neighbor that weren’t properly authorized. Joseph Smith had made it clear in the 1842 revelation on plural marriage that the president of the Church was the only one to authorize sealings for plural marriages. Brigham Young had tried to follow this “rule of one,” but during the 1856–1857 Mormon Reformation movement, the number of plural marriages overwhelmed his office. As a result, Young began relying more on local officers, like bishops and stake presidents, to act as gatekeepers in approving plural marriage sealings. The mistake that Pulsipher and his neighbor made was that they circumvented their bishop, who then went out of his way to complain to Young about them overlooking his authority. It was a system of rules and bureaucracy that had developed and become the cogs and gears that crushed Pulsipher, resulting in his trial and being released from his calling in the Presidency of the Seventy.

Paradoxes of Colonization

Q. In southern Utah, the Pulsipher family faced a “harsh paradox” where their search for refuge directly devastated the traditional foodways of the Paiute people. How did Zerah and his sons attempt to negotiate peace while simultaneously participating in the displacement of their “Lamanite” neighbors?

A. The settlement of Euro-Americans throughout what is now the United States was a major disaster for the Indigenous peoples who lived here from time immemorial. This included the Latter-day Saint colonization in the Intermountain West. While they fled the United States as refugees and believed that their settlement in the region was sanctioned by God, their presence in Utah decimated the resources that the Numic peoples (i.e., the Shoshone, Utes, Goshutes, and Paiutes) had cultivated and depended upon for hundreds of years.

This was certainly the case in southwestern Utah, which was Paiute land. When they established a ranching community on Shoal Creek, near present-day Enterprise, the Pulsiphers directly contributed to the problems the Paiutes faced. Their cattle ate the rice grass that served as the Paiutes’ main source of calories, and both cattle and planted crops drew heavily on the water that the site provided. The Paiutes were already on the edge of starvation before the Latter-day Saints settled in the community, so they could ill afford this competition for resources. To some degree, the Pulsiphers seemed aware of this impact and offered food and other goods as gifts or as payment for help in maintaining their ranching operations to offset it, which helped to maintain a peaceful relationship with their Paiute neighbors. Some of the children in the community later recalled that they had more Paiute friends than White ones while growing up as a result. Still, the Latter-day Saint settlement in southwestern Utah had a devastating impact on the Paiutes that echoes into the present for the Paiutes.

Diverse Family Records

Q. Your biography weaves together records from Zerah, his wife Mary, and his sons John and Charles. How did having access to John’s “compulsive record-keeping” and Mariah’s “poignant recollections” help you present Zerah in his full complexity, including his faults and blemishes?

A. Autobiographical material is generally going to be biased in ways that present the subject in a good light. For example, Pulsipher only mentions the 1862 trial obliquely: “I discovered that with age that I had approacht to that it began to wair upon my constitution I was advised by some to give up my presidency and let a younger man tak it that would be better qualified to attend to the labours that involved upon it I therefore gave it with the prilege of remaining in the body of the seventies or join the high priest chorum.”^[3] You would have no idea from this alone that there was an ecclesiastical trial for something that Brigham Young said was “truely a great Crime & trifeling with the Holy priesthood,”^[4] which led to Pulsipher being released against his will. It is only when you start bringing in other sources, like letters from his son-in-law, or letters and journal entries from his bishop and Wilford Woodruff, that you start to get a better picture of what happened.

To put it another way, if you only have one view of an individual, it is going to be two-dimensional by nature. Adding more viewpoints allows you to get a more three-dimensional view. Luckily, Zerah Pulsipher’s family left behind some great records that help us flesh out his life.

The Final Resignation

Q. Near the end of his life in Hebron, Zerah was asked to resign his presidency following community discord over a schoolteacher. Was this “weary end” to his leadership a result of his own aging capacity, or was it a final symptom of the institutional shift toward a more bureaucratic, top-down governance?

A. I see it more as a result of an unfortunately fractious community. The town of Hebron was created in direct response to the Utah Black Hawk War, with the neighboring settlement in Clover Valley being commanded to move to the fort that the Pulsiphers had established on Shoal Creek for mutual protection. The two communities never really meshed, and the tensions and disagreements lingered for decades.

When some of the Clover Valley brethren who made up the official school board for the town discussed hiring a local individual to teach school, even though they had already sent for someone in Salt Lake City, Zerah recommended that they wait to see if the one from Salt Lake City arrived before doing so. They saw this as interference and fired off a complaint to Erastus Snow in St. George. Elder Snow was sick of dealing with the bickering after so many years of it and told Zerah to resign, then called an outsider from Washington City to serve as the bishop in his place, sidestepping the friction between the two settler groups in Hebron.

I could see an argument that the top-down governance with leaders making decisions from afar, like forcing the Clover Valley and Shoal Creek settlements together, was a contributing factor. Zerah’s age also probably didn’t help with his ability to keep up with leading the community. But it was ultimately an issue with how the two communities failed to come together successfully that led to his resignation to try to fix the situation.

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¹ Kirtland Camp (Organization), Journal. ↩

² Kirtland Camp (Organization), Journal. ↩

³ ZPAS #3, 29. ↩

⁴ Frederick Kesler, Diary, 1859–1874, April 12, 1862, 106, J. Willard Marriott Digital Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s61v5r47/1084251. ↩

A Barn Full of Angels: The Spiritual World and Pioneer Journey of Zerah Pulsipher will be published in paperback and as an ebook on May 19, 2026.