James Laman, also known as Nan-oke-to-enip, was an influential Northwestern Shoshone convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.¹ Because of his command of the English language, he often served as a translator and was an important intermediary between Native and settler societies. James was born to father Pim-me and mother Pah-gwe-nup in the Goose Creek Mountains on the Utah-Nevada border sometime between 1846 and 1850.² For unknown reasons, he was separated from his Shoshone parents as a child or young teenager. He subsequently lived with Brigham City bishop Alvin Nichols and his plural wife Virginia Wright Nichols. Descendants of the Nichols family remembered “Jimmy Layman” as a “cherished member of the household.”³ By 1870, James was listed in census records as a domestic servant in the home of Virginia Nichols.⁴ While living with the Nicholses, he probably became friends with James Brown, another English-speaking Shoshone who lived with a Latter-day Saint family in Ogden.⁵

During his early twenties, James returned to his people. He married a Shoshone woman named Minnie, or Ewads-ingup, and may have lived in the vicinity of Ogden. Minnie also came from the Goose Creek Mountains and was only a few years younger than James. It is probable that they knew one another as children.⁶ Even so, James maintained close contact with the surrounding Euro-American culture. According to the Nichols family, Jimmy returned to their home in Brigham City on at least one occasion for a visit. During his stay, he felt uncomfortable wearing his traditional Shoshone clothing and asked George Nichols to lend him a set of clothes. He then went back to his Shoshone clothing when he left to return to the Shoshone community.⁷

In May 1874, James and his wife accepted baptism from Latter-day Saint missionary George Washington Hill. The previous year, Hill had baptized more than one hundred Northwestern Shoshone under the leadership of Sagwitch. James soon relocated to the Northwestern Shoshone camp near Franklin, Idaho, where Sagwitch and others were working with Hill to establish a farming community. While there, James worked as a farmhand for Latter-day Saint bishop Lorenzo Hatch and was noted for his performance.⁸ It is likely that he also acted as a liaison between Hatch, Sagwitch, and other members of the Shoshone Latter-day Saint community.⁹ During the winter of 1874, James became acquainted with Antelope Jack, or Too-goo-be, a Goshute prophet from western Utah. Antelope Jack had a dream in which three men told him that his people must be baptized by the Latter-day Saints and learn to farm. News of the event caused great excitement among the Northwestern Shoshone. James later translated for Antelope Jack during an interview with Brigham Young.¹⁰

On 22 February 1875, James and Minnie received their endowments and were sealed by apostle Wilford Woodruff at the Endowment House in Salt Lake City. They took part in these sacred ordinances alongside Sagwitch and his wife, Mo-yo-gah, for whom James probably acted as translator. Woodruff recorded that they were the first Native people to participate in these rituals. Over the next several months, James served as an interpreter in the Endowment House along with his friend James Brown and even helped to administer the ceremonies.¹¹

After completing his service in the Endowment House, James became a founding member of several Shoshone farming communities. During the summer of 1875, Latter-day Saint missionaries baptized over eight hundred Shoshone and Bannock from the Fort Hall and Wind River Reservations. These new converts moved to a church farm near Bear River City in northern Utah. Soon after, James formed a partnership with James Brown and twelve other Northwestern Shoshone to establish a farm near Willard. This was approximately fifteen miles south of the main farm. By the end of August, the Bear River farm had been disbanded as a result of the “Corinne Scare.”¹² It is not clear what became of James’s plan to farm at Willard. But the following spring, George Hill helped him to apply for a federal land patent at a new Shoshone farm known as Lemuel’s Garden. James worked this land until 1880, when he moved to a farm near Portage that would eventually be called Washakie.¹³

Little is known about James and Minnie after 1880. Records indicate that James donated labor to build the Logan Temple in the spring of 1879, and he may have continued to do so over the next several years.¹⁴ There is evidence that Minnie died as early as 1883, and it is possible that James left the community for a time.¹⁵ The couple apparently had no children and do not appear in the 1900 census of Washakie.¹⁶ But in 1904, James began collecting rent payments on his old farm at Lemuel’s Garden. He was aided by Moroni Ward, a former Euro-American bishop at Washakie. Interestingly, the land patent was no longer in James’s name. Over twenty years earlier, the application had been canceled and reissued to James Brown. Even so, Ward issued checks to “Jim Laymon” totaling $475 over five years.¹⁷ In 1905 and 1906, James also attended the Washakie Sunday School on several occasions. There he bore testimony, recounted his early life, and provided readings to the congregation.¹⁸ A final rent payment in 1909 is the last documentary record of James’s participation in the Washakie community. His date and place of death are unknown.