Life of David W. Patten, the First Apostolic Martyr

by Lycurgus A. Wilson

Early life of David W. Patten—Parentage—Marriage—Joins the Methodists—Learns of the restoration of the Gospel—Visits his brother—Resume of Church history—Receives Baptism—First mission.

Great men are the Lord's object lessons to the world. They hold out to mankind the measure of truth committed to their generation. As example is greater than precept, so a life may state a truth more forcibly than words.

When He answered the question as to the first great commandment, the Savior did more than satisfy the idle curiosity of the listening crowd, he indicated one of the underlying purposes of this life and stated the principle by which the degree of civilization will be determined.

Measured by the love he bore his Maker and his fellow-men, few greater men have ever lived than David Wyman Patten. With all the intensity of his nature, he served the Lord, and with the same undivided purpose he was devoted to the welfare of humanity. Having in mind that divine precept, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend," the Prophet Joseph Smith said over the remains of this great Apostle, "There lies a man who has done just as he said he would—he has laid down his life for his friends."

Of David's early life little is known. While he was quite young, his parents, Benenio Patten and Abagail Cole Patten, removed from the State of Vermont, where he was born about the year 1800, to the town of Theresa, at Indian River Falls, in the western part of the State of New York.

Leaving home while yet a boy, he made his way to the southeastern part of Michigan, and made himself a home in the woods a short distance above the little town of Dundee, in Monroe County, where he married Miss Phoebe Ann Babcock, in 1828. Here, too, though telling his fellow-religionists that there was no true religion on the earth, he allied himself with the Methodists.

Having been from youth of a religious turn of mind, he had received a particular manifestation of the Holy Ghost when he was twenty-one years of age. Being admonished to humble himself before the Lord and repent of his sins, he enjoyed for the next three years a close communion with the Lord, through visions and dreams of the night. In one of these it was made known to him that the Church of Christ would be established in his day, and he looked forward to such an event with joyous anticipation.

When about the age of twenty-four years, as he tells us in his meager journal, he became, through the cares of the world, neglectful in conduct, and remained so to some extent until he was thirty years old, when, by sincere repentance, he again received a testimony that his sins were forgiven. Under these conditions and at about this time he saw for the first time a copy of the Book of Mormon, but only long enough to read the inspired preface and the testimony of the eleven witnesses. From this time he prayed continually for faith and a more perfect knowledge. It was while living in anticipation of just such an event, therefore, that he received, in the latter part of May, 1832, a letter from his elder brother, John Patten, of Fairplay, Indiana, informing him of the restoration of the Gospel.

The message fairly caused his heart to leap for joy. He seemed conscious of the light which was about to burst upon him. He knew by intuition that his life's darkness was over, and that henceforward he should walk in the light of eternal truth. He arose in the meeting that day—for it was on a Sunday he received the intelligence—and told the assembly that he had at last got word of the Church of Christ.

Impatient to be off, he mounted his old grey mare the next morning and started alone through the woods on a journey of three hundred miles. That part of the country in those days was little more than a wilderness. The roads by which the settlers had come from their eastern homes ran, in the main, east and west, so that David's way to the south led him over hills, through valleys and across rivers by paths almost unknown to the white man; but nature was in her glory, the birds made melody the day through, and, more than all else, his own heart, swelling with gratitude, kept time to the music of the spheres, for God had again spoken from the heavens, the questionings of his soul since boyhood had been answered, and those paths, rough though they were, led to the realization of his highest hopes this side of eternity. That otherwise lonely journey was filled with peace and happiness unspeakable.