Deseret News, June 5, 1891, page 7 [Armstead Moffett Obituary]

MOFFETT.-The news of the death of Brother Ormstead [Armstead] Moffett, which occurred at his residence in Huntsville, Weber county, at 4:35 a.m., April [March] 27 1891, was not entirely unexpected by his numerous friends and relatives, as he had reached the ripe age of 77, and had for five months been gradually failing from the natural infirmity incident to his advanced age. He was the son of Robert Moffett and Bethsina M. Geth [McGeath]; born February 7th 1814, in London [Loudoun] county, Va.
Brother Moffett was a man highly esteemed and respected by his friends and acquaintances for his sterling integrity, untiring energy and, above all, for his openhanded charity. No one ever vainly appealed to him for assistance, if it was in his power to grant it. From 1822 he resided with Isaac Nicholas until his death. After the death of Nicholas, his mother married Garner Pierce[Gainer Pierce] and raised seven children.
In 1835 he went to Columbiana Co., O., where he resided for two years, and while there heard the Gospel, and he and his sister Elizabeth Jane, the only ones of his mother's children, embraced it; he was baptized by Lorenzo Barnes
October 9, 1837, at Rochester, Columbiana County, Ohio. In the fall of 1837 moved with his mother and family, in company with Moses Buck of Richmond, Mo., and from there to Far West. From there he was called to Diamon [Adam-ondi-ahman], where he went in company with Alexander McKay; after
assisting there returned to Far West with A. Lyman and Jacob Scott. The morning of the Crooked River battle he got his message and returned, home, but found it so hot that he was obliged to flee to Far West. As Clark's army was on the
march for that place he lost his horse and had to travel a distance of forty miles, it being the third time he had traveled that road on foot. It was on this journey that he saw the army arrayed against the Mormons, and Joseph, Hyrum
and others betrayed into the enemies' hands.
It was here that the brethren were disarmed and compelled to deed away their property and agree to leave the State. He heard General Clark in a speech say they would never see those prisoners again alive. Brother Moffett was in all
the trials and persecutions through which the Saints had to pass at that time.
He was in the company that fled to Illinois and around Quincy and finally assisted in erecting a settlement at Quincy, Ill. He was called to Tennessee on a mission in 1844 to which call he responded, but was re-called at the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph Smith. In the following year, Jan. 1845, he was married to Mary Jane Emmett, and went with the Emett company up the Iowa river, crossed the
Missouri river in the spring of 1846 and went to Council Bluffs and joined the Saints there that had left Nauvoo and traveled up to Pawnee station and thence to Punca on the Missouri river. From there he removed to Council Bluff. Having consumed nearly all they had in their wanderings, they went down into Iowa and put in a crop, and out of a company of thirty all, except our brother, were sick
with the ague. They were blessed temporally and his sister Elizabeth Jane Pierce and husband, Enoch Burns, and the families of Brothers Simson Emmett, Edson Whipple joined Brother Wilford Woodruff's company and started for the
Great Salt Lake valley June 16, 1850, where they arrived after many hardships October 10, 1850. They were directed to Ogden by Brother H.C. Kimball, under the presidency of Lorin Farr. By the urgent request of Brother Farr he started a blacksmith shop, in which he labored very diligently, make rude tools from raw material, with which the Sainted at that time were enabled to till the soil and
also thwart the Indians, who were very outrageous, on account of which he had to move to Mound Fort.
Brother Moffett was ordained a Seventy in the thirty-eighth quorum, after which he was ordained a High Priest in order to act as Counselor to Bishop Erastus Bingham. He served as clerk for the High Priests' quorum for several years,
then as Counselor to Charles R. Dana, after whose death Brother L. Farr presided and chose Armstead Moffett as Counselor, which office he held up to his death.
He built a house in Ogden City and soon took up land in Ogden valley which he improved. He moved up there and, in company with Captain Hunt, erected a grist mill, which he sold. He then built two saw mills in company with Brothers Perry and Froerer, and with David Garner. In the fall of 1883 he went to Illinois and the surrounding States, for the purpose of getting genealogy, and on his return went to Logan remained there doing work for the dead until 1885, when he returned to the Eastern States for the purpose of gathering genealogy. On his return he moved to Logan city, where he remained and worked in the house of the Lord until he was too feeble, when he returned to his home in Huntsville, where he remained until his death. We can truthfully say of Bro. Moffett he was industrious, honest, temperate and faithful to the cause he espoused; he has
been a man much blessed of God, being able to read common print without the use of spectacles until six months before his death.
The funeral services were held at his residence Sunday, March 29, 1891, at 1:30 p.m. and his remains were laid away in a small cemetery which he had dedicated as a resting place for his household.
The deceased was the father of eighteen children and thirty-six grandchildren, to whom he set a good example, and whose temporal and eternal welfare he had diligently sought to promote.