Ruth Mosher

   Ancestral File Number: 1GFQ-VT.

  General Notes:

From Biography and Diaries of Jesse Wentworth Crosby

Ruth Mosher
During the winter of 1843-1844 while Jesse and Benjamin Brown labored in Jefferson County, they converted a twenty-year-old single woman named Ruth Mosher. Ruth had been born in Kingston, Canada in 1824. When Ruth was three, her father moved the family to St. Lawrence Corners, New York where he operated a saw mill.
Ruth first learned of the Mormons when she heard Warren Parrish and Ira Patten preach near her home in 1834. She was ten. She maintained an interest in the Church and was finally baptized in the winter of 1843-44 by Jesse in the St. Lawrence River. They had to cut a hole in the ice so that the baptism could take place.
As a teenager she had become friendly with a Brother and Sister Maynard who lived near her home. Sister Maynard was a tailoress, and Ruth spent time in the Maynard home learning the craft. With them she traveled to Nauvoo in the fall of 1844, leaving her family behind. One of her daughters wrote:
Upon arriving in Nauvoo she [Ruth Mosher] went to work for John Pack in the Mansion House, a building that had formerly belonged to the Prophet Joseph. She arrived there in the autumn after the martyrdom of the prophet. Here she again met Jesse Crosby, the elder who baptized her and they started keeping company. Jesse was called on a mission but before leaving he asked Ruth to be his wife when he returned. She loved him and accepted his ring and said she would give him his answer when he returned. She continued to work at the Mansion House and late in the year of 1845 Pres. Heber C. Kimball called to have a talk with her. He told her that it was the will of the Lord for her to be sealed to John Pack. She had already given up so much for the sake of the Gospel, and wishing to live it in its fullness, she did not hesitate. John Pack was called into the room and they were immediately married, Ruth thinking at the time that she was being sealed for eternity and not for time. As soon as Bro. Kimball had performed the ceremony he said, "Sister Ruth I intended to have you myself but Bro. John got ahead of me." Ruth was a very beautiful and attractive girl.
After the Nauvoo Temple was completed Ruth worked there for six months cutting and making Temple clothes. On Jan. 21, 1846 she was sealed to John Pack in the Nauvoo Temple as his third wife for time and eternity. When Jesse Crosby returned home from his mission, she gave him back his ring but throughout her life she remembered him with tenderest feelings.
Jesse labored on his third mission from August 1843 until April of 1845. It was during this mission that Ruth Mosher was baptized and moved to Nauvoo. Between May of 1845 and May of 1846 Jesse remained in Nauvoo and labored on the temple. Jesse did not serve a mission during this time. It is impossible for the courtship of Ruth Mosher to have occurred exactly as recounted by her daughter, but the idea that Jesse proposed marriage upon his return to Nauvoo in 1845 seems plausible
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Seal to Parents: 27 Apr 1967 LOGAN - Logan Utah

Ruth married John Pack, son of George Pack and Phylotte Greene, in Mar 1845 in Nauvoo, Hancock, Illinois. (John Pack was born on 20 May 1809 in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada, died on 4 Apr 1885 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah and was buried on 4 Apr 1885 in Salt Lake City Cemetery, Salt Lake, Utah.)