Lookout Mountain and John Morgan and Southern States Missionaries.

The November 14, Men and Women of Faith in the Latter-days Lecture in the Assembly Hall “Faith to Persevere; Southern States Mission” was highlighted in yesterday’s Church News.  I attended the lecture and enjoyed hearing Heather Seferovich’s research and look into the lives and service of the missionaries who served there. Including Great Grandfather John Hamilton Morgan. The picture included in yesterday’s newspaper account caught my eye. Nicely dressed young men perched on the top of Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

John Morgan’s journal of his years in the South recounts numerous trips to that site. A hike up Lookout Mountain was a rite of passage with President John Morgan and all of his newly arrived missionaries, visiting friends and family.

He recorded two visits to that mountain in 1886. In January John Morgan’s sixteen-year-old daughter Mellie traveled with him as secretary to the SS Mission. She became ill during her stay there and her planned return home had to be delayed. After four-six weeks of convalescing in Tennessee he wrote of his daughter’s renewed health and stamina. Prior to their departure West in the latter part of March he took Mellie and some friends up to Lookout Mountain.

In November of that year his wife Mellie traveled from Salt Lake City to Kansas City to join him for a month in the SS Mission. She accompanied him on his mission work throughout the month, and traveled home with him and converts emigrating West. While they were in Chattanooga John took his wife Mellie to Lookout Mountain.

Lookout Mountain from Wikipedia

On November 24, 1863 the Battle of Lookout Mountain was fought on the slopes of the mountain. The majority of hand to hand combat took place near Cravens' house about halfway to the summit. Lookout Mountain’s shape and location can in some conditions cause a unique weather phenomenon. After dawn, fog will sometimes descend from the cooler mountain top to the valley below and stop about halfway down, an event which took place the day of the battle and is the reason for its romantic name, the "Battle Above the Clouds". The battle was won by Union forces, enabling them to lift the siege of Union forces in Chattanooga.

An account of John Morgan's Civil War Service is posted here at The Ancestor Files.

John Hamilton Morgan Journal, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah.