• Born 1814 Mantua, Ohio
• Baptized 1836
• Ordained Elder during Winter of 1836-7
• Mission to Ohio 1837
• Ordained Seventy July 17, 1840
• Ordained High Priest July 18, 1840!!!
• Mission to England and Europe
• Married Mary Adaline Goddard 1845, three children; later practiced plural marriage
• Ordained Apostle and called to Twelve 1849
• President of the Twelve 1889-1898
• President of the Salt Lake Temple 1893
• Fifth President of the Church 1898-1901
• Died 1901 Salt Lake City, Utah

    President Lorenzo Snow was born April 3, 1814 at Mantua, Ohio, the eldest son of Oliver Snow and Rosetta L. Pettibone Snow. He was a brother of the illustrious Eliza Roxey Snow, which would later make him a brother-in-law to Joseph Smith and later still to Brigham Young. Unlike many of the early Church leaders, Lorenzo did not receive a testimony of the Gospel immediately upon hearing it preached. He did not, in fact, even receive an outpouring of the Holy Ghost after being confirmed a member of the Church.

    About two weeks after being baptized in 1835, he retired to a grove of trees some distance from him home. He reported that as he knelt in prayer, he heard a sound like the rustling of silk gowns, and the Spirit descended immediately upon him. He arose from that prayer with an unshakable testimony that would never falter through the course of a long eventful life. The gentlereader is referred to The Greater Things Web Site for an account of this amazing experience in Lorenzo's own words.

    During the winter between 1836 and 1837, Lorenzo Snow was ordained an Elder. As soon as spring arrived and the snows cleared enough to travel, he began his first Mission, traveling without purse or scrip to Ohio.

    He was ordained to the office of Seventy on July 17, 1840 by Joseph Young. Lorenzo Snow enjoyed perhaps the shortest tenure in priesthood office in the history of the Church, for on the very next day, July 18, 1840, Don Carlos Smith, younger brother of the Prophet, ordained him a High Priest.

    Elder Snow took as his first wife Mary Adaline Goddard in 1845. She would bear him three children. Later he practiced plural marriage taking eight additional wives.

    He and his family started west with the Pioneer Company in 1846, but illness forced them to remain on the trail in Mt. Pisgah, (near Winter Quarters) Nebraska. It was 1848 before they were able to travel on and join the Saints in the Great Basin.

    Lorenzo Snow was ordained an Apostle February 12, 1849 by Heber C. Kimball. Lorenzo Snow served several Missions, including England and Europe. By 1850 he was in Genoa, Italy where he taught the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to citizens of that area for the first time in almost two thousand years.

    Lorenzo Snow proved an able and effective administrator. Given the task of preparing a celebration in 1849 of the original pioneer's arrival in the Great Basin, his production set the pattern of Pioneer Day Parades and pageants that survive to this day. He was instrumental in establishing cooperatives which proved an economic boon the the Saints as they struggled in poverty and isolation. The Lord was preparing his servant for his great work as President of the Church.

    Lorenzo Snow succeeded to the Presidency of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1889 with the death of President John Taylor and subsequent organization of the First Presidency with Wilford Woodruff as President.

    President Wilford Woodruff died on September 2, 1898. When previous Presidents had died, it took a period of between two to three and a half years to reorganize the new Presidency. The Lord revealed that this was not to be and eleven days later, Lorenzo Snow became the fifth President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

    He inherited a Church which was drowning in debt, and he pleaded mightily with the Lord for the solution. Further, the Saints were suffering under a devastating drought. While on a trip to Saint George to preside over a conference, it was revealed to him that the solution to both problems lay in the Saints paying an honest tithing on their income,  Despite his age and infirmity, he delivered a powerful and impassioned plea to the Saints. The Saint George Saints covenanted to obey this commandment and began to do so. President Snow visited other communities delivering the same message. The drought was broken. The Saints were saved from temporal disaster and slowly the Church began to move into financial solvency.

President Lorenzo Snow died on October 10, 1901 in Salt Lake City, Utah.