{"id":924,"date":"2026-05-31T19:36:44","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T19:36:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=924"},"modified":"2026-05-31T19:36:44","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T19:36:44","slug":"historical-stories-of-northwestern-shoshone-latter-day-saints-featured-on-new-website","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=924","title":{"rendered":"Historical stories of Northwestern Shoshone Latter-day Saints featured on new website"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A new history website has been released from a collaboration between The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and theNorthwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation (NWBSN), a federally recognized tribe whose members are the direct descendants of the survivors of the 1863 Bear River Massacre. <\/p>\n

Read more Opinion: Utah\u2019s oil and gas bonding reform shows the value of practical progress \u2014 let\u2019s keep going<\/a><\/p>\n

Published by the Church Historian\u2019s Press, the website is entitled \u201cNative Saints: The Washakie Ward\u201d and tells the story of one of the first Indigenous congregations in the Church of Jesus Christ, a Northwestern Shoshone ward that operated between 1880 and 1966. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe collaboration is something we\u2019ve always wanted,\u201d Brad Parry, vice chairman of the NWBSN, said in a press release. \u201cI think this is something that our ancestors have wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Washakie Ward was founded in 1880 as a farming village and Indigenous congregation just four miles south of the Utah-Idaho border. The new website details how this place became a physical and spiritual home for many Shoshone during the 86 years following their earlier struggle to \u201csurvive Euro-American migrant and settler incursions within the Shoshone debia\u2019<\/i>, or homeland.\u201d<\/p>\n

This new publication draws upon earlier work in \u201cSaints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days,\u201d which documents experiences of Northwestern Shoshone Latter-day Saints. <\/p>\n

The multiyear effort involved six leaders of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation, seven historians from the Church History Department and eight editors.<\/p>\n

30 biographies and 1,500 individual profiles<\/h3>\n

Central to the website is the database of 1,555 profiles of Northwestern Shoshone men, women and children whose names appear in Church records because they either accepted baptism into the church or died as children in these families. <\/p>\n

Volunteer missionaries at the Church History Library and FamilySearch indexed the Washakie Ward records for two years, scouring missionary journals, letters, reports and record books. Along with typical genealogical information, the records include baptismal and other ordinance records and church participation in the form of prayers given, talks delivered, musical numbers performed, and callings and leadership positions held. <\/p>\n

The website also features 30 biographies of prominent individuals connected to the early Northwestern Shoshone Latter-day Saint community in northern Utah. That includes: <\/p>\n