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    Alma Shoshonitz
    (ca. 1838–1889)

    Alma Shoshonitz was a prominent leader of the Northwestern Shoshone Latter-day Saint community at Washakie, Utah Territory, in the 1880s.1 He was born to father Widg-e-gee-an-tack-gwits and mother Pa-be-shatz, likely between 1838 and 1848, near Dove Creek northwest of the Great Salt Lake.2 Shoshonitz means “lay down cattails for teepee,” referring to the wetland plants used for flooring in an Indigenous dwelling.3 Little is known about Shoshonitz’s childhood or young adult life. At some point, he became known to the Euro-American Latter-day Saints who came to the Shoshone debia’ as Yellow (Ohabit in Shoshone).4 He was present at the Bear River Massacre and survived by concealing himself in a snowbank.5 Shortly after, he married Tickamadakey (later known as Sarah Shoshonitz), another massacre survivor whose previous husband and child died in the attack.6 Together, Shoshonitz and Tickamadakey had at least six children, only two of whom lived to adulthood: Cohn (ca. 1864–1949) and Pabagonah (ca. 1867–1895).7 Shoshonitz was among the initial 102 Northwestern Shoshone baptized by George Washington Hill on 5 May 1873 near present-day Deweyville, Utah.8 Two years later, he and Tickamadakey traveled to Salt Lake City, where they received their endowments and were sealed together in the Endowment House.9

    Shoshonitz actively participated in the Northwestern Shoshone attempts to learn Euro-American agriculture after his conversion. In early August 1875, shortly after receiving his endowment, he and thirteen other Northwestern Shoshone, including Sanpitch, James Laman—also known as Nan-oke-to-enip—and James Brown, camped near Willard, Utah Territory, a site that had long held a special significance to Native Peoples, as well as personal significance to Shoshonitz, as many of his immediate family members were reportedly born there.10 His camp was apparently hesitant to join the large Shoshone farming community near Bear River City, possibly because they sensed the growing animosity of the white non-Latter-day Saint settlers at nearby Corinne. Nevertheless, Shoshonitz’s group expressed to local church leaders their desire to farm wheat and potatoes and wanted to know whether Euro-American church leaders thought it was still safe for them to tend to their own crops, and if so, whether they should farm where they were or move to Honeyville or Brigham City.11 It is unclear what advice Shoshonitz and his companions received from church leaders or whether they were among the Shoshone converts forced from the Bear River City farm by the citizens of Corinne later that month.12

    Despite this opposition, Shoshonitz remained in northern Utah, and on 2 June 1876, he applied for an eighty-acre homestead with the assistance of white church leaders, just across the Bear River from Deweyville.13 In 1885, he expanded his homestead to include the neighboring eighty acres to the west.14 Latter-day Saint missionaries George W. Hill, Isaac E. D. Zundel, and Moroni Ward helped him farm his land and build improvements, such as a one-room cabin in 1886.15 By 1887, Shoshonitz reported that his homestead included eight horses, four head of cattle, and dozens of acres of wheat under cultivation.16

    In the meantime, Shoshonitz’s prominence among the Northwestern Shoshone Latter-day Saints was on the rise. At some point before the latter part of 1881, possibly as a sign of his devotion to his newfound faith, he began using the Book of Mormon name Alma as his given name.17 In October 1881, Alma Shoshonitz attended a worship meeting at the recently established settlement of Washakie with the First Presidency in attendance. According to George Q. Cannon, Alma translated President John Taylor’s address to the Shoshone who were present and offered a closing prayer at the meeting.18 By 1884, Zundel, by then the first Euro-American bishop at Washakie, and his wife Elizabeth Harding Zundel considered Alma one of the “principal men” at Washakie, alongside Ech-up-wy or John Moemberg.19

    Likely because of his recognized leadership, Alma was ordained to the priesthood office of a seventy in 1884. Two years earlier, in part as a response to the success of missionary work among the Northwestern Shoshone, Taylor had received a revelation instructing the Twelve Apostles to call upon the seventies of the church to assist in “introducing and maintaining the gospel among the Lamanites throughout the land.”20 Over the next two years, a significant effort was made to reorganize and revitalize seventies quorums throughout the church, and as a part of these efforts, Box Elder Stake leaders asked bishops to submit names of men who could help fill the recently organized Fifty-Second Quorum of the Seventy.21 Bishop Zundel chose Alma as one of three representatives from Washakie, and Seymour B. Young ordained him on 13 April 1884.22 Alma regularly attended his priesthood quorum meetings and occasionally spoke or bore testimony. While many of his words went unrecorded by the white clerks, his reported remarks stated that he “felt well in the work of God” and “he always feels well when he has the spirit of the Lord with him,” that he wished “to be one with the Quorum,” and that he “expressed a determination [to] press forward in the work of God.”23

    According to tradition, Alma was among the many members of the Washakie Ward to contribute labor to the construction of the Logan Temple.24 In March 1885 and February 1886, he went to the temple that he had helped build and performed proxy ordinances for several deceased friends and family members.25 Little is known about his activities in the second half of the 1880s, although he continued to occasionally attend his priesthood quorum meetings. On 15 December 1889, Alma was struck and killed by a train near Collinston, Utah Territory.26

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    Alma Shoshonitz(ca. 1838–1889), Native Saints, accessed May 28, 2026 https://www.churchhistorianspress.org/native-saints/biographies/alma-shoshonitz

      Footnotes

      1. [1]“Alma Shoshonitz,” Church History Biographical Database, history.churchofjesuschrist.org.

      2. [2]Washakie Ward Record of Members, 1885–86, 1938, pp. 2–3, 72–73, Church History Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City (Church History Library hereafter cited as CHL); Endowment House Endowments of the Living, 1851–84, microfilm 183409, vol. J, p. 4, 5 May 1873, FSL; Salt Lake City, UT, Ancestral File Submission Sheets, DGS 8066387, no. 0023830, Pedigree Chart, 10 June 1981, familysearch.org. The 1880 United States census estimated Shoshonitz to be thirty-two years old, resulting in an estimated birth year of 1848. However, in later testimony filed in connection with his homestead claims, Shoshonitz claimed to be forty-five years old in 1883 (with an approximate birth year of 1838) and 1887 (with an approximate birth year of 1842). (1880 U.S. Census, Plymouth Precinct, Box Elder Co., Utah Territory, enumeration dist. 9, p. 98B, familysearch.org; Salt Lake City, Salt Lake Co., UT, Homesteads, 1868–1946, DGS 102115313, no. 2643, 17 Mar. 1883, image 197, familysearch.org; Salt Lake City, Salt Lake Co., UT, Land Records, Homesteads, 1868–1946, DGS 102493793, no. 6701, 14 June 1887, image 564, familysearch.org.)

      3. [3]“Transcript for Shoshone Names Project,” p. 14, Newe Name Translation Project, The Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation Tribal Library, available at Utah State University Digital History Collections, libraryusu.access.preservica.com.

      4. [4]George Washington Hill, Journal, 5 May 1873, George W. Hill Collection, 1840–1908, CHL; Rios Pacheco, interview by Paula B. Watkins, 27 May 2016, transcript, p. 50, CHL.

      5. [5]“Battle of Bear River, Utah,” Salt Lake Tribune, 6 Apr. 1902, 21.

      6. [6]Endowment House Sealings of Couples, Living and by Proxy, 1851–89, microfilm 183400, vol. J, p. 290, 15 June 1875, FSL; Rios Pacheco, interview by Clinton D. Christensen and Cheryl Betenson, 28 Aug. 2012, transcript, p. 5, CHL; “Sarah Shoshonitz,” Church History Biographical Database, history.churchofjesuschrist.org.

      7. [7]Biography of Cohn Shoshonitz Zundel; Logan Temple Endowments for the Dead, 1884–1970, microfilm 177975, vol. D, p. 292, 20 Sept. 1917, FSL; see “Pabagonah Shoshonitz,” Church History Biographical Database, history.churchofjesuschrist.org. According to church records and Cohn Shoshonitz Zundel, the other children were named Twid-gee-gee, Can-o-wipe, Au-tin-a-gus-suk, and Lucy. (Washakie Ward Record of Members, 1885–86, 1938, pp. 2–3, CHL; Portland, Multnomah Co., OR, Native American Probate Records, 1907–74, DGS 103553814, 19 May 1914, image 1622, familysearch.org.)

      8. [8]Hill, Journal, 5 May 1873; see “George Washington Hill,” Church History Biographical Database, history.churchofjesuschrist.org.

      9. [9]Endowment House Endowments of the Living, 1851–84, microfilm 183409, vol. J, p. 4, 5 May 1873, FSL; Endowment House Sealings of Couples, Living and by Proxy, 1851–89, microfilm 183400, vol. J, p. 290, 15 June 1875, FSL.

      10. [10]Amos Warner to George Washington Hill, 2 Aug. 1875, Indian Records, 1873–76, George W. Hill Collection, CHL; biography of James Laman; Steven R. Simms, First Peoples of Great Salt Lake: A Cultural Landscape from Nevada to Wyoming (University of Utah, 2023), 93–95; Washakie Ward Record of Members, pp. 2–3, CHL; see also “Sanpitch Tope,” Church History Biographical Database, history.churchofjesuschrist.org; biography of James Brown Sr.

      11. [11]Amos Warner to George Washington Hill, 2 Aug. 1875, Indian Records, George W. Hill Papers, CHL.

      12. [12]See “The Northwestern Shoshone Mission.”

      13. [13]Salt Lake City, Salt Lake Co., Utah Territory, Homestead Records, 1868–1946, DGS 103553814, no. 2643, 2 June 1876, image 176, familysearch.org.

      14. [14]Salt Lake City, Salt Lake Co., Utah Territory, Homestead Records, 1868–1946, DGS 103553814, no. 6701, 2 Jan. 1885, image 555, familysearch.org.

      15. [15]Isaac E. D. Zundel, Journal, 26 Sept. 1883, Isaac E. and Elizabeth J. Zundel Journals, 1882–1922, CHL; George Washington Hill to John Taylor, 11 Oct. 1886, First Presidency (John Taylor) Correspondence, 1877–87, CHL; Moroni Ward to George Washington Hill, 30 Oct. 1886, First Presidency (John Taylor) Correspondence, CHL; see also “Isaac Eberhard David Zundel” and “Moroni Ward,” Church History Biographical Database, history.churchofjesuschrist.org.

      16. [16]Salt Lake City, Salt Lake Co., Utah Territory, Homesteads, 1868–1946, DGS 102493793, no. 6701, 14 June 1887, image 564, familysearch.org.

      17. [17]For the earliest recorded use of this name, see George Q. Cannon, Journal, 17 Oct. 1881, churchhistorianspress.org/george-q-cannon.

      18. [18]Cannon, Journal, 17 Oct. 1881, churchhistorianspress.org/george-q-cannon; “The Northwestern Shoshone Mission.” Despite Cannon’s account, it is unclear how fluently Alma understood English. In January 1884, Elizabeth Harding Zundel reported that her son David was serving as an interpreter for him at church meetings. (Elizabeth Harding Zundel, Journal, 31 Jan. 1884, Isaac E. and Elizabeth J. Zundel Journals, CHL.)

      19. [19]Zundel, Journal, 2 Feb. 1883; “Bishop Zundell’s Wards,” Deseret Evening News, 9 Sept. 1884, [3]; see also “Elizabeth Jane Harding,” Church History Biographical Database, history.churchofjesuschrist.org; biography of John Moemberg.

      20. [20]Revelation, 13 Oct. 1882, John Taylor Revelations Collection, 1882–86, 1907–79, CHL; “Lamanite Identity,” Church History Topics, churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics.

      21. [21]Revelation, 14 Apr. 1883, John Taylor Revelations Collection, CHL; William G. Hartley, My Fellow Servants: Essays on the History of the Priesthood (BYU Studies, 2010), chap. 11; Seventies Quorum Records, 1844–1975, Minute Book, Quorum 52, 1883–1945, A, vol. 1, 10 Feb. and 8 Mar. 1884, CHL.

      22. [22]Seventies Quorum Records, Minute Book, Quorum 52, A, vol. 1, pp. 10–12; 12 Apr. 1884, CHL; “Seymour B. Young,” Church History Biographical Database, history.churchofjesuschrist.org.

      23. [23]Seventies Quorum Records, Minute Book, Quorum 52, A, vol. 1, 13 July. 1884, 10 Jan. and 7 Feb. 1885, CHL.

      24. [24]Marion Everton, “History of the Logan Temple is Retold,” Herald-Journal (Logan, UT), 18 July 1936, 5.

      25. [25]Washakie Ward Record of Members, 1885–86, 1983, pp. 2–3, CHL.

      26. [26]Seventies Quorum Records, Minute Book, Quorum 52, A, vol. 1, pp. 10–12, CHL; Seymour B. Young to Wilford Woodruff and “Counselors,” 1 Jan. 1893, Wilford Woodruff Stake Correspondence Files, 1887–98, CHL.