Introduction: In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry writes about Jacob Hamblin, a Mormon pioneer known as the “Buckskin Apostle,” with possible Wampanoag and Mayflower family lines. Melissa is a genealogist who has a website, americana-archives.com, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.

Today’s topic is Jacob Vernon Hamblin (1819–1886), aka the “Buckskin Apostle,” a notable Western pioneer, missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), and diplomat to various Native American tribes throughout the Southwest and Great Basin regions.

Jacob traveled extensively and made significant contributions to the European American settlement of southern Utah and northern Arizona, earning recognition as a reliable intermediary between Latter-day Saint settlers and native populations.

Jacob is one of 12 children of Isaiah and Daphne (Haynes) Hamblin, with family roots tracing to early colonial Massachusetts.

He is the biological father of 24 children and provided care for several others whom he subsequently adopted.

Austin Bearse was the fourth great-grandfather of Jacob Hamblin, through his daughter, Sarah Bearse, who married John Hamblin.

Austin and Mary Bearse raised a large family, and many of the prominent families of America today can trace their ancestry to them.

Many genealogists have doubted the claim that Austin’s wife Mary was one of the Wampanoag people, a daughter of John Hyanno, sagamore of the Mattachee Indians of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and granddaughter of the great Indian sachem Iyannough. However, there are no documents to either prove or disprove the family line. There is only oral tradition thus far.

I introduced this subject in my story “Mayflower Descendants & the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe (part 11).”

Unfortunately, there are no records on Mary’s birth or death. And despite Austin Bearse’s eminent position in the community only a few church records, legal documents, and written history exist. There is no death record or probate for him either.

Some of the Hamblin family descendants acknowledge the Wampanoag history and maintain that Jacob’s lifelong missionary work with Native American peoples was influenced by his claimed descent from an Indian chieftain.

I have included the lineage as documented from the Hamblin family record “Our Golden Heritage: The Duane and Addie Noble Hamblin Family,” which shows the Wampanoag line.

Additionally, I am currently researching several possible Mayflower ancestries and will present my findings in subsequent articles. These lines are indicated with asterisks.

• Ihyannough, sachem (chief) of Mattakeese
• John Hyanno married No-Pee, daughter of No-took-seat
• Mary Hyanno married Austin Bearse
• Sarah Bearse married John Hamblin
• Abagail Hamblin married Elkanah Hamblin (cousins)
• Sylvanus Hamblin married Dorcas Fish* (descendant of Mayflower passengers Stephen Hopkins and Thomas Rogers)
• Barnabas Hamblin married Mary Bassett* (direct descendant of Mayflower passengers John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley through daughter Hope, who married John Chipman)
• Isaiah Hamblin married Daphne/Dephine Haynes
• Jacob Hamblin

Researching Jacob’s married life is complicated, as he had five wives:

• 1st Lucinda Taylor, daughter of Daniel and Susan (McCrumbe) Taylor.
• 2nd Rachel (Judd) Henderson, widow of James Madison Henderson and daughter of Arza and Lucinda Abigail (Adams) Judd.
• 3rd Sarah Priscilla Leavitt, daughter of Jeremiah and Sarah (Sturtevant) Leavitt and a direct descendant of Mayflower passengers Francis Cooke, Hester Mahieu, John Billington and wife Elinor. Sarah is also a descendant of Mayflower passenger Peter Brown/Browne and his wife Martha.
• 4th Eliza, a member of the Shivwits Band of Paiute Indians, with whom Jacob had one daughter, Clara Melvina Hamblin, who was raised by sister wives when Eliza took off and married another man.
• 5th Louisa Bonelli, daughter of Hans Georg and Anna Maria (Ammann) Bonelli.

Jacob Hamblin served as an interpreter and negotiator for John Wesley Powell with the Paiute Indians during one of Powell’s explorations, in 1870.

Powell was an American ethnologist, geologist, explorer, and government administrator, recognized for his significant contributions as the first major classifier of Native American languages. He also played a pioneering role in conducting geographical and geological surveys of the Colorado River, the Grand Canyon, and the Rocky Mountains.

Below is a photo of John Wesley Powell and Jacob Hamblin with Paiute Indians on the Kaibab Plateau in 1870.

In a news clip Powell describes Hamblin’s good relations with the Shivwits Band of Paiutes.

This article reads:

This evening the Shi-owits, for whom we had sent, come in, and after supper we hold a long council. A blazing fire is built, and around this we sit – the Indians living here, the Shi-owits – Jacob Hamblin, who is a Mormon missionary, and myself. This man Hamblin speaks their language well, and has a great influence over all the Indians in the region round about. He is a silent, reserved man, and when he speaks it is in a slow, quiet way that inspires great awe. His talk is so low that they must listen attentively to hear, and they sit about him in a deathlike silence. When he finishes a measured sentence, the Chief repeats it, and they all give a solemn grunt in concert. But, first I fill my pipe, light it, and take a few whiffs, then pass it to Hamblin; he smokes it and gives it to the man next, and so it goes around.

An interesting article entitled, “Portrait of a True Pioneer,” featured in a Nevada newspaper in 1969, covers Jacob and his 5th and last wife, Louisa Bonelli (1843-1931), with whom he had six children.

This article reports:

Priscilla [one of Jacob’s wives] was very busy with her duties as nurse and midwife at Santa Clara and this was the first opportunity Louisa had to become close to her new husband. She began to lose her awe of him and to dare to speak freely to him.

The daughter of Louisa, Mrs. Amarilla Lee, told me that it was at this time that Louisa asked Jacob why he talked to himself so much. Jacob’s reply was:

“I have two good reasons. First, I like to talk to a smart man, and next, I like to hear a smart man reply.”

Louisa Bonelli became the fifth wife of Jacob Hamblin at Salt Lake City, Utah, on 16 November 1865, when she was 22 years old. Here is a photo of her when she was 18.

Below is a photo of Louisa with four of her children.

In this photo we see: Louisa (Bonelli) Hamblin (center, sitting in chair); (behind her, left to right) Alice Edna (Hamblin) Brown and Willard Otto Hamblin; (kneeling in front of her, left to right) Amarilla (Hamblin) Lee and Inez Louise (Hamblin) Lee.

To be continued…

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Note on the header image: Jacob Hamblin. Credit: Canyonconnections; Wikimedia Commons.