Mary Lewis: Click here for Family Search Profile
Born: 3 April 1763 Lee, Berkshire, Massachusetts, United States
Baptized: Oct 1830
Died:6 March 1835 Clay, Missouri, United States
Burial: Click here for find-a-grave
The Story of Mary Lewis is amazing. She and her family were one of the first members of the church, and I would not be surprised if she was the first person baptized with Lamanite blood in this dispensation. Her great Grandmother was an Indian woman who's name was running deer.
Conversion, 1830 The Hulets, had heard that a man named Joseph Smith found a book written by civilized people who once lived in the Americas. Sylvester Hulet, Mary's thirty year old son, traveled 175 miles from Ohio to New York to learn about The Book of Mormon in January of 1830. He was in New York right after the first books were printed and someone sold him a copy. He was really excited because in those days the books were very scarce because they only printed a few the first time. There, in March, Sylvester was baptized, a month before the Church was organized. He took The Book of Mormon back with him for the family to read as they sat around the fireplace in the evenings. They listened while it was read, and it struck their hearts. One day Joseph Smith and Parley P. Pratt came to their door and asked if they could come into their home and have a meeting. They were invited in. Joseph told them how he got the Book of Mormon from the Angel Moroni, and as he talked, his eyes shone and he had such a spirit about him that they knew he was speaking the truth. In October of 1830, when Oliver Cowdry, Ziba Peterson, and Parley P. Pratt went to Ohio as missionaries, the Hulets were baptized: Sally, now forty three; her mother, Mary Lewis Hulet, age sixty seven; and Sally's siblings: Charles, Charlotte, and Rhoda. (Mary Lewis Hulet was a widow when she was baptized. Her husband, Sylvanus Hulett, had died six years earlier.) Elisha (Sally's Husband) did not join the Church at this time. The Hulets were one of the very first families to join the Church. They never forgot the great experience of Joseph Smith bearing his testimony to them and bringing them the truth.
Running Deer Appears to descendant
Mary was left without either of her parents when she was only nine years of age. When a researcher asked Sylvanus Hulet if the Hulets/Howletts had any Indian blood in them, his reply was "not a drop." [from: The Hulet Quarterly, September 1971]. Other family stories indicate that Mary Lewis was descended from an Indian woman named Running Deer.
Quoting from a letter from Orvill Cox Day dated February 7, 1967 comes the following:
"July 6, 1966, I got Running Deer's name from cousin Clare Christensen; he got it from cousin Howard R. Driggs, now dead. He from his grandmother, Emeline Whiting Cox who died in 1895; she was the first wife of F. Walter Cox of Manti. Emeline from her mother, Sally Hulet Whiting who died about 1846 in Iowa; she from her mother, Mary Lewis Hulet. Also apparently, on her way from Massachusetts to Ohio, Sally seems to have visited with her Mohawk Indian relatives about 1811, in northern New York. Mary Lewis was great grandaughter of Josnorum Scoenonti or Running Deer.
July 16, 1966, at 4:30 a.m., she visited me; I was awake. She said she was appearing as she looked at age 18 just before she married a white man; tall, athletic, beautiful, and very appealing; wearing yellowish-brown buckskin, beaded moccasins; leggings - ankles to waist; dress, shoulders almost to knees. She said she was converted; wants temple work done; then go to happy paradise and learn the gospel thoroughly, then return to her people, helled and damned from progress, as a savior on mount Zion. Had been a choice spirit in heaven; asked permission to be born to the family of Lehi that she might bring salvation to them.
July 30, got the name Josnorum Scoenonti from Utah's representative in Washington, D.D. He got it from the Indian dictionary - for Running Deer.
Oct 6, got permission for her temple work to be done.
I suppose she will try to convert her own family, first and then they will help us to find their genealogy. The prophet Joseph said, "The greatest responsibility the Lord has laid on this people is to seek after our dead." Seek means search and that means research or genealogy." Signed, Orville Cox Day
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