John Meirs Horner

Born in Monmouth County, New Jersey; baptized there in 1840; sailed to California with his wife on ship Brooklyn in 1846; settled in the area of the south bay near present-day Fremont; served as president of the Church branch there; obtained significant fortune as a farmer selling to gold miners; helped secure the mortgage for the Latter-day settlement of San Bernardino; paid most of the passage for the nine missionaries who arrived in Hawai‘i in February 1853; helped Hawaiian missionaries purchase a printing press and a ship to enable Latter-day Saints to emigrate from the islands to California; moved to Hawai‘i in 1879; established a plantation on the island of Hawai‘i; served in the Hawaiian legislature, where he was known as a temperance advocate; died at Pa‘auilo, Hawai‘i. (See Bullock, Ship Brooklyn Saints, 202; Horner, “Adventures of a Pioneer”; Patton, California Mormons, 82–104; Ellsworth, History of Louisa Barnes Pratt, 233–34; Davies, Mormon Gold, 403; GQC journal, Nov. 17, 21, 1853; Mar. 20, 1854.)