Biography

In 1908, just five years after the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints again opened an evangelizing mission in South Africa, a newly married 36-year-old blacksmith named David Sampson had a chance encounter with one of the faith’s missionaries in Cape Town and soon thereafter joined the American-born church.[1] David’s conversion had a preverbal ripple effect that would ultimately lead to his wife and other members of her family also joining the Latter-day Saints. It would also prompt David to immigrate to Utah where he would be ordained to his new faith’s lay priesthood and join with his wife in temple worship. Eventually, however, Latter-day Saint authorities called David and his wife’s racial identities into question and revoked their temple privileges. There is no evidence, however, that David lost his priesthood office despite concerns over his racial ancestry.

David was in fact of mixed racial heritage or “coloured” in South African terminology. His paternal grandfather, William Sampson, had immigrated from Ireland to Robben Island, just off the coast of Cape Town, South Africa, in the early nineteenth century. There William met a woman named Mary, who was of native African descent. William and Mary fell in love and married and began a family together. Mary gave birth to David’s father, Thomas, on Robben Island in 1838.[2]

David’s father, Thomas Sampson, was thus born to mixed racial parents. Thomas then married David’s mother, Lysa “Eliza” Elsabe Carsten, who was the daughter of at least one mimitted African slave.[3] Due to his father’s Irish ancestry, David was lighter-skinned than someone of Black African descent but would have nonetheless been classified as “Coloured” in South Africa’s racial hierarchy. 

David’s mother gave birth to him in Durbanville in 1872. During his childhood, Durbanville was a thriving transportation hub in the Tygerberg Hills east of Cape Town, with a high-flowing freshwater spring. The economy of Durbanville was powered by three engines — farming, diamond mining on the Orange River, and wagon-making.[4]

Situated 35 miles north of Cape Town, David’s family was shielded somewhat from the full impact of the bubonic plague and smallpox epidemics that swept through central Cape Town during the 1880s.[5] Still, local records show that there were serious outbreaks of typhoid fever in Durbanville due to a lack of sanitation. Cattle manure repeatedly contaminated the city’s key water source.[6] These epidemics had a profound impact on social, political, and racial tensions as the white colonial state blamed the native population and other non-white immigrants for the typhoid outbreaks.[7]

Despite such challenges, David’s father, Thomas, achieved a degree of respectability and was designated as a “retired landowner” by the time he died, an indication that he may have owned farmland.[8] At the very least, it meant that Thomas owned a home and lot, or “erf,” in Durbanville worth at least £25, a status that gave the family financial stability and allowed Thomas to vote.[9]

David Sampson must have inherited his father’s ambition as he grew to maturity. He established himself as a blacksmith which most likely required David, at around age 12-14, to sign a five to seven-year apprenticeship contract with a master. During the apprenticeship, David would have worked his way up from an apprentice to a journeyman, and then to a master blacksmith.[10]

In the 1880s and 1890s, King Brothers Wagon Works was the major employer in Durbanville, building around 400 wagons a month and employing over 200 men. Blacksmiths were integral to wagon construction, tiring wheels (making the iron hoops that went on over the wooden frame), building axles and springs, and making thousands of bolts, rings, and brackets. At its height, King Brothers employed most of the men in Durbanville.[11] David may have also apprenticed in the Salt River Railway Workshop run by the Cape Town Railway.[12] Whichever route he chose, David’s trade would have placed him at the top of the “coloured” pay scale in Durbanville. From the time David entered the labor market to the time he left South Africa, he would have experienced an increase in real wages.[13]

It appears that David wanted to establish a solid financial foundation before he married. He waited until age 30 to wed (about three years later than was typical in South Africa at the time). His wife, Philida Daniels, was 31 (eight years older than the average age at first marriage in Cape Colony at the turn of the century).[14] David and Philida, or “Phyllis” as she was known, were members of the Dutch Reformed Church when they met. In December of 1903, David and Phyllis were married in a ceremony at St. Stephen’s Church, where Phyllis’s brother, William, was a well-established church elder.[15] Within five years, however, David would move in a different religious direction.

In 1903, the same year that David and Phyllis married, Latter-day Saints established a mission in South Africa again. Missionaries C. Perry Rockwood and Fred A. Sheffield from Kaysville, Utah, and Samuel N. Alger Jr. from Roy, Utah, reopened missionary efforts in the Cape Town area and began to teach and baptize those who were receptive to their message.[16] David and Phyllis may have been prepared for Latter-day Saint teachings regarding eternal families due to the loss of their first child, William Thomas Richard Sampson, who died ten days after his birth on 10 September 1907.[17] The death of the couple’s infant son, from “infantile convulsions,” at the family home on Tylden Street in Queenstown, may have been a key factor that opened David and Phyllis’s hearts to the Mormon elders.

David first met the missionaries sometime during the spring of 1908 and was baptized and confirmed by Elder Charles Perry Rockwood in September of the same year.[18] Phyllis was, no doubt, influenced by her husband’s conversion experience; she may have even participated in David’s discussions with the missionaries. But she clearly wanted time to study this new religion for herself. Elder Samuel N. Alger baptized Phyllis, and Elder Rockwood confirmed her on the same day in January 1909, three months after her husband converted.[19]

With David’s stable income as a blacksmith, the couple’s prospects seemed good in Cape Town. However, that soon changed as racial and legal insecurity deepened due to the South Africa Act of 1909, which denied voting rights to all Black South Africans, closely followed by the political union of South African English and Boer (Afrikaner) settlers in 1910.[20] By 1912, the African National Congress was in place, and the dispossession of the non-white population was well underway. South Africa was no longer a welcoming place for anyone with Black ancestry.[21]

Then, 1909 brought tragedy for David and his family. In June, David’s father, Thomas, died in Durbanville at age 71, leaving behind his wife, Eliza, his oldest son, William Daniel, his middle son, David, and his daughter, Elizabeth Jane. Thomas’s estate listed property as both “immovable and movable.”[22] David’s older brother would have been the heir to any land and other real property. He would also, by tradition, have taken on the responsibility of caring for his mother and younger sister. This rupture in David’s life, along with the turbulent political, social, and racial climate, may have been the trigger for David to leave Phyllis with his family in South Africa while he explored better opportunities in Utah.

When David waved goodbye to Phyllis at the Cape Town docks early in the Spring of 1910, Phyllis was in the first few months of pregnancy, and neither of them likely knew it at the time. David traveled from Cape Town to San Francisco on the Mariposa, with a final destination of Farmington, Utah. He carried with him the contact information of an “M.P. Rockwood.”[23] Moses Perry Rockwood was the father of South African missionary Charles Perry Rockwood, who had baptized David. His father had obviously agreed to host David when he first arrived in Utah.[24] David landed at the Port of San Francisco on 13 May 1910.[25] The 37-year-old, light-complected South African, listed his nationality as “Irish” and his occupation as “blacksmith.” Opportunity was just around the corner.

But back home, David’s mother, Eliza Carston, was not doing well following the death of her husband. Her health declined precipitously, leaving David’s siblings, William and Elizabeth, and his pregnant wife, Phyllis, to handle the sudden death of his mother.[26] It was, no doubt, a challenging time for David, as he struggled to find work and a place to live for his family. It was also a challenging time for Phyllis, who was alone in South Africa, pregnant with their son, David Sampson Jr., and trying to support her extended family after the death of her mother-in-law.

Happier times came for the family in 1911 when Phyllis gave birth to David Sampson Jr., on 10 October.[27] A little over a month later, Phyllis took David Jr. before her Latter-day Saint congregation in South Africa, where a fellow congregant blessed him while David Sr. was still in Utah.[28] David spent well over a year in Utah, returning to Phyllis and David Jr. early in the Spring of 1913.[29]

Although there is no known correspondence between David and Phyllis during his time in Utah, it is clear that plans were put in place for emigration. Just a few months after arriving back home in Cape Town, David, Phyllis, their infant son, David Jr., and Phyllis’s nephew Abel Walter Daniels left Cape Town for Utah. They traveled to New York on the steamship Oceanic, stopping over in Europe along the way. The passenger list for the Oceanic records the Sampson family leaving Southampton, England on 3 April 1913. When they arrived at Ellis Island, the manifest lists their home country and city as “S. Africa” and “Cape Town,” but indicates that the nationality of the entire family was “Ireland, Irish.” David, Phyllis, Walter, and David Jr. likely arrived in Utah later that same year.[30]

In Utah, the Sampson family quickly settled in the 33rd Ward in the Salt Lake City Liberty Stake, which became their Latter-day Saint congregation for the time being. The congregation welcomed the immigrants and David and Phyllis formed lifetime connections there. A fellow congregant, John T. Thorup, gave David the Aaronic priesthood, the first level of Latter-day Saint lay priesthood soon after the family’s arrival. Thorup ordained David to the office of Priest within that priesthood on 23 November 1913.[31] Just four months later, on 29 March 1914, another congregant, Wilford A. Haag, ordained David an elder within the higher priesthood.[32]

There is no hint of concern over David or Phyllis’s racial ancestry as these ordinations played out. In fact, those in the family’s congregation were likely unaware of David’s mixed racial heritage. It was not uncommon at the time for a father’s racial ancestry to be applied to his entire family, thus shielding Phyllis and David Jr. from suspicion. The LDS Church census for 1914 lists the family’s residence in the Salt Lake Liberty Stake, and records all of their birthplaces as “Europe.”[33] The next year, David’s application for naturalization listed him as a white 43-year-old blacksmith, with a dark complexion, black hair, and brown eyes.[34]

Clearly, the move to the United States was an opportunity to both improve the family’s economic circumstances and to escape the cultural challenges of their African ancestry.[35] No known photographs or physical descriptions of Phyllis survive but considering that her parents and great-grandparents were native African, she was likely darker than David. Pictures indicate that David was likely light enough to pass as white. The only known photo of David Sr. shows him sitting on the steps of a home with Abel Walter, his nephew, on the far right, and David Jr. in the middle. Even with the shadows in the photo obscuring his face, David senior appears to be more white-presenting than his nephew. There is a surviving photo of David Jr. at age 24 in which the handsome young man appears to have lighter-skin than someone of Black African ancestry, no doubt a reflection of his mixed racial heritage.[36]

It seems that the entire family had slipped through the racial barrier; all are listed as “white” on the 1920 U.S. Census. By that time, they had moved north of Salt Lake City to Layton, in Davis County.[37] Census enumerators at the time had complete discretion in determining race, often basing the race of the entire household on the appearance of the household head, usually the father. This is most likely what happened in the Sampson’s case in 1920.[38]

David and Phyllis continued to communicate with family back in South Africa, particularly Phyllis’s brother, William Daniels, who in 1915 journeyed to Utah, visited with his sister and brother-in-law, and then went to see President Joseph F. Smith. Following his meetings with Church leaders, William decided to join the Church, despite being denied the priesthood. He was baptized in Clearfield, Utah, with his son Simon, and later that same year, returned to South Africa with Simon and Walter.[39] Walter was baptized in Cape Town, South Africa, just before leaving with his uncle and aunt for Utah.[40]

Back in Cape Town, William continued to yearn for ordination to the priesthood himself and the opportunity to receive the highest rituals available within his new faith, including the blessings promised within Latter-day Saint temples. At some point, William became aware of David’s ordination, more than likely because Phyllis wrote to him about it, or it was discussed during his visit in 1915. In Cape Town, William then attempted to leverage that fact to his advantage. At the time, the Latter-day Saint mission in Cape Town, South Africa, was overseen by mission president Nicholas G. Smith. In the hope of also being ordained, William wrote a letter to Smith, indicating “that his brother-in-law, David, had been ordained in Utah.” “Evidently,” William wrote, David “appeared to be white enough.”[41] In response, Smith wrote a letter to the Latter-day Saints’ highest governing body, the First Presidency, requesting an exception for William. The policy at the time was that all male members in South Africa had to prove direct descent from European ancestors to be ordained to the priesthood. The Church had further adopted a “one drop” policy in 1907 that attempted to prevent anyone of African descent, “no matter how remote a degree,” from priesthood ordination or temple admission.[42]

Latter-day Saint leaders in Salt Lake City did not grant an exception for William. Unfortunately, their letter to William is not open to research. However, enough of the correspondence is cited in a Church History Department biography of Phyllis’s brother, William Paul Daniels, to surmise the outcome (along with the fact that no ordination records exist for William).[43] However, William’s question regarding the ordination of his brother-in-law may have had unintended consequences. It likely focused the attention of leaders at the Salt Lake Temple on the racial ancestry of David and Phyllis.

Despite the challenges that William faced in South Africa and the attention he may have drawn to David and Phyllis, they both somehow continued to elude the racial walls of exclusion in Utah until they decided to go to the Salt Lake Temple. It might seem surprising to some that Phyllis and David did not immediately go to the temple after his ordination as an Elder in 1914, since men are technically eligible to take their families to the temple following ordination. At that time, however, temple attendance was much less regular than is customary for Latter-day Saints in the twenty-first century. It was influenced by factors such as distance from the temple, the fact that a single ceremony took half a day, and cultural expectations did not yet emphasize regular temple attendance.[44] 

It also appears that Phyllis and David may have been reluctant to draw any additional attention to their racial background, given the scrutiny they had already received. Perhaps this is why they waited nine years to begin performing temple rituals for themselves and for their families. In the intervening years, the Salt Lake 33rd Ward Relief Society records show that Phyllis was inducted into the Relief Society and actively engaged with other sisters in the ward in gathering and preparing family names for temple rituals.[45]

Church records show that Phyllis was the first to attend the Salt Lake Temple. In April 1923, she was ceremonially baptized on behalf of her paternal Aunt, Martha A. Daniels.[46] It must have been a deeply meaningful experience for her, as evidenced by the fact that in May 1923, both David and Phyllis attended the Salt Lake Temple to participate in the highest rituals of their faith. During this visit, they received their own endowments (a ritualistic enactment of the biblical creation story and of humankind’s journey back into God’s presence). They were also “sealed” or married for eternity and then Phyllis did the endowment work for her great aunt Martha A. Daniels. Latter-day Saints believe these rituals bind familial connections beyond death.[47]

There may have been some sadness as well because there are no records of David and Phyllis’s son, David Sampson Jr. being sealed to his parents. David Junior was baptized and confirmed a member of the church in November 1919, at age 8, but was not sealed to his parents until 2014, well after his death.[48] However, it is also true that during the early 1920s, the ritual sealing of young children to parents was not nearly as common as it is in the twenty-first century.[49]

David and Phyllis returned to the Salt Lake Temple the next month, on 12 June 1923, performing baptisms for Phyllis’s siblings, Simeon John, Jacoba Johanna, and Cornelia Gertrude, as well as her father, William Carl, her mother, Alida Johana, and David’s mother, Lysa Elsabe Carsten.[50] Records show that on the same day, the couple performed confirmations for Lysa Elsabe Carsten, Cornelia Gertrude, Jacoba Johana, and Simeon John.[51]

The Sampsons returned two days later (14 June 1923) to perform the initiatory rituals for Lysa Elsabe, William Carl, and Jacoba Johana and endowment rituals for Phyllis’s father, William Carl, her sister Cornelia Gertrude, and David’s mother, Lysa.[52] On 15 June 1923, Phyllis performed the endowment ritual for her sister Jacoba Johanna.[53]Five days later, David performed the ritual initiatory and endowment for Simeon John, another of Phyllis’s siblings.[54]Finally, on 27 June 1923, both Phyllis and David were ritually sealed to their respective parents, and Phyllis’s siblings Cornelia, Jacoba, and Simeon John were sealed to their parents, William and Alida.[55] The frenetic pace of these temple visits suggests an urgency to get as much accomplished in the shortest possible time. It appears that after this flurry of work was completed, both David and Phyllis may have intentionally stopped attending the temple to avoid undue attention.

Then, in March of 1925, Phyllis went back to the temple to perform a proxy baptism and confirmation ritual for her niece, Sophy Daniels.[56] Despite the possibility of discovery, Phyllis chose to return to the Salt Lake Temple in May 1925 to perform Sophy’s and Cornelia’s initiatory and endowment rituals.[57] At the time, there was no evidence that Phyllis’s racial identity was a point of controversy or discussion. But her attendance pattern suggests that both she and David were hurrying to complete the temple work for their immediate family. It is entirely possible that someone could have raised questions in 1923, and her return in 1925 triggered an official inquiry.

Sometime after May of 1925, the Salt Lake Temple presidency, a group of senior church leaders called to oversee temple operations, called Phyllis’s racial heritage into question (no questions were ever raised about David). George Franklin Richards was the temple president at the time, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and an outspoken proponent of preventing anyone with Black ancestry from receiving the priesthood or going to the temple.[58]At this time, certain leaders felt that any Black ancestry, often referred to as a “one drop” policy, guided decisions in Salt Lake. In 1908, in fact, Richards wrote in his journal that church leaders had already decided that “a man known to have in his veins Negro blood of any degree whatsoever is not entitled to the Priesthood. . . . Neither are they entitled to temple blessings.”[59] This policy almost certainly influenced discussions in the case of the Sampsons. 

Rudger Clawson, also a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles overseeing missionary work in South Africa at that time, had written a letter in 1908 to the South Africa Mission President, Ralph A. Badger, directing that, “No work is being done in the Temples at present, neither has any been done in the past for negro saints. Priesthood cannot be given to the negro, and this rule appears to hold good regarding other ordinances of the Temple.” Clawson went on to say that the “progeny of a white man who mingles his seed with that of a negro, are to be regarded as negroes.”[60]

It is not clear how the news that their temple privileges had been revoked was communicated to David and Phyllis. Phyllis clearly took the lead in defending their temple access. She wrote a letter to George F. Richards in 1926, no doubt pleading for an exception. On 22 March 1926, Richards recorded in his journal that he “obtained an interview with the First Presidency” at which he “presented to them the question of permitting Sister Sampson to continue going to the Temple, it being a question of whether or not she was of Negro blood.” He then wrote that “the matter was taken under advisement by the Presidency,” but did not indicate a decision.[61] Other evidence clearly indicates, however, that the decision was to deny the Sampsons further temple admission. It is interesting to note that George F. Richards noted the question was only related to “Sister Sampson.”

One can only imagine how devastated David and Phyllis were by this turn of events. Records show that Phyllis was in communication with her brother, William Daniels, because he wrote a letter to the First Presidency in defense of both David and Phyllis’s temple access. In his letter, William denied that they had African heritage. Apparently, the First Presidency sent a letter to South African Mission President Nicholas G. Smith in response. The Salt Lake leaders hoped to corroborate William’s denial, but Smith wrote a letter to Heber J. Grant, then president of the Church, declaring Williams’ statement to be “inaccurate.” At this point, President Smith more than likely reported on both David and Phyllis’s African heritage.[62]

After 1926, there are no further records of David or Phyllis performing proxy temple rituals. Clearly, the answer from the First Presidency was to deny them both entry into the temple. For two committed members of the Church, this must have been an extremely difficult time. Despite this, the Sampsons are listed as practicing members in the 1925 Church census. By that time, they had moved back to Salt Lake City and rejoined the 33rd Ward there.[63]

By 1930, the couple’s racial identity must have become public knowledge. David and Phyllis are both listed that year in the U.S. Census, still living in Salt Lake City, but now racially classified as “negro.”[64] In 1930, the Census Bureau permanently removed the term “mulatto,” meant to designate those of mixed racial ancestry, as an option on the census. Census takers were instructed to list anyone of African ancestry as “negro” instead.[65] Ironically, there is no indication that David’s priesthood was revoked. His Salt Lake 33rd Ward membership record continued to contain his priesthood ordination dates, up through 1933 when his records were eventually transferred following his move to Nevada.[66]

 In 1932, David Jr. married Josephine Borger, a white woman from Box Elder County, in northern Utah, and then took a job as a miner in Elko, Nevada.[67] David and Phyllis relocated to Elko along with the newlyweds. It was there that David Sampson died at age 71, on 13 June 1944, in Rio Tinto, Elko County, Nevada. He was buried next to his wife, Phyllis, who died twelve years earlier, in the Mountain City, Nevada, Cemetery.[68] 

David’s death certificate listed his race as white, his birthplace as Durbanville, South Africa, and it noted his service in the Boer War, and his profession as a blacksmith working for the Rio Grande Railroad. The cause of death was listed as “acute myocarditis due to disease of the coronary arteries.”[69] A co-worker of David’s served as witness for his death certificate.[70]

Both David and Phyllis must have spent the last decades of their lives broken-hearted. David’s dream of leaving behind the racial animus of South Africa for a new start in Utah with his family was only partially fulfilled. He had dealt courageously with the death of his parents, in-laws, and an infant son. Initially, he and Phyllis found solace in their new faith after moving to Utah and the promise of connecting their family together through temple worship. Evidence suggests that David yearned for the blessings of the temple in his life. Regrettably, he was unable to escape the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ exclusionary racial policies, which eventually caught up with his family and prevented them from further temple worship. By all accounts, David remained committed to his faith despite the pain of having his temple privileges revoked. Surviving records suggest that he nonetheless remained a priesthood holder, which offers evidence of the inconsistency in the application of racial policies in his chosen faith.[71]

By James Glenn

[1] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, South Africa Mission, CR 375 8, box 2248, folder 1, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[2] South Africa, Cape, Probate records of the Master of the High Court, 1822-1990, microfilm 61,903, entry for Thomas Sampson, 1 May 1909, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[3] The family’s ancestries are traceable through FamilySearch.org, with each ancestor ID listed here: David Samuel Sampson (KWJV-886) was the son of Thomas Sampson (KJPR-94Z) and Lysa “Eliza” Elsabe Carsten (M7M1-X6P). Lysa “Eliza” Elsabe Carsten (M7M1-X6P) was the daughter of Hermanus “Manus” Jacobus Carsten (KHG2-XDM) and Florentina Magdelena Jacobse (KHCF-8MC). “Manus” and Florentina are David’s maternal grandparents. Florentina Magdelena Jacobse (KHCF-8MC) is the woman listed in a slave register with five other enslaved individuals belonging to “the late widow of Ary Jacob Joubert” (Maria Margaretha Gildenhuysen Joubert, L4SR-ZKT), including Florentina’s son Adonis (MWNP-T7J). After their manumission, Florentina married “Manus” and Adonis took the surname “Carsten.” Adonis is likely Manus’ stepson. Adonis later married Apollina Susanna Cornelia Apollos (MWNP-TCZ).

[4] Drusela Numvuzo Yekela, Migration, Land and Minerals in the Making of South Africa, Chapter 3, South Africa History Online; Dr. James Shigley, “Historical Reading List: The Diamond Fields of South Africa: Part 1 (1868-1893),” 29 May 2017, GIA.edu.

[5] Alexander I.R. White, “Global Risks, Divergent Pandemics: Contrasting Responses to the Bubonic Plague and Smallpox in 1901 Cape Town,” Social Science History, Vol. 42, No. 1, Spring 2018, 135-158. “Smallpox at the Cape,” Ancestors Research South Africa.

[6] Henry Lawrence, “Genesis of Typhoid Fever From Cattle Manure in the Cape Colony,” The Lancet, 8 December 1883, 984-986.

[7] Cate Brown and Rembu Magoba, eds., Rivers and Wetlands of Cape Town: Caring for our rich aquatic Heritage (Water Research Commission), Chapter 4.

[8]South Africa, Cape, Death Notice, Master of the High Court, 1822-1990, microfilm 7,844,929, image 90, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[9] Stanley Trapido, “The Origins of the Cape Franchise Qualifications of 1853,” Journal of African History, vol. 5, no.1, (1964), 37-54.

[10] Carohn Cornell and Antonia Malan, Places at the Cape: A Guidebook for Beginner Researchers, Transcription of Estate Papers at the Cape Project, 2005, 8-10. “Blacksmith Indenture,” 17 February 1890, Hawkinge, Kent, Victoria and Albert Museum.

[11] Tess Rodrigues, “The Kings Family’s Legacy in Durbanville,” Durbanville History, 13 June 2024.

[12] “The foundry industry in the Western Cape—then and now,” Castings SA.

[13] Pim de Zwart, “Real wages at the Cape of Good Hope: a long-term perspective, 1652-1912,” Tijdschrift Voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis, 10, no. 2 (June 2013), 28-58.

[14] Jeanne Cilliers and Martine Mariotti, “The shaping of settler fertility transition: eighteenth-and nineteenth-century South African demographic history reconsidered,” European Review of Economic History, 2018, 18-19.

[15] South Africa, Civil Marriage Records, 1801-1974, David Samuel Sampson and Philida Jacoba Elizabeth Februari, 1 Dec 1903, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah. Also found in South Africa, Dutch Reformed Church Registers, Cape Town Archives, 1660-1994, David Samuel Sampson and Philida Jacoba Elizabeth February, 1 December 1903, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah. Don Mack Dalton, Cumorah’s Southern Messenger, vol. 9, no. 2 (20 February 1935), 28. William Paul Daniels’ Testimony, “For eighteen years, I was an Elder in the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa, and laboured [sic] with that fine old man, Rev. Michael C. Botha. After he had retired, I continued to serve with the newly appointed minister.” Evan P. Wright, History of the South African Mission, Period II, 1903-1944, (Evan P. Wright, ca. 1985), 254.

[16] Farrell Ray Monson, “The History of the South Africa Mission (1853-1970),” Master’s Thesis, Brigham Young University, Department of Church History and Doctrine (1971), 38-39.

[17] South Africa, Cape Province, Civil Records, 1840-1972, William Thomas Richard Sampson, 20 September 1907, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah. William Thomas Richard Sampson (M7MB-8XL) FamilySearch.org. Philida Jacoba Elizabeth “Phyllis” February (KPDY-8JG) FamilySearch.org. 

[18] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, South Africa Mission, CR 375 8, box 2248, folder 1, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[19] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Live Member Endowment Records, microfilm 9,034,215, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[20] Rodney Davenport and Christopher Saunders, South Africa: A Modern History, 5th ed. (St. Martin’s Press, 2000), chapter 10. Padraig O’Malley, The Heart of Hope: South Africa’s Transition from Apartheid to Democracy, The Robben Island Mayibuye Archive at the University of Western Cape, Omalley.nelsonmandela.org.

[21] “The Union of South Africa, 1910,” South African History Online, 8 November 2011.

[22] Cape Province, Republic of South Africa, Master of the High Court (Grahamstown), Roll 7,844,929, Image 90, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[23] California, San Francisco, Passenger Lists, 1893-1934, David Samuel Sampson, 1910, microfilm 1,389, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[24] Moses Perry Rockwood (K2MQ-435) FamilySearch.org. Moses Perry Rockwood and Mary Ballam were the parents of South African missionary Charles Perry Rockwood. Charles Perry Rockwood is listed as a son in the household of Moses Rockwood in the 1910 census. United States, 1910 Census, Utah, Davis County, Centerville.

[25] California, San Francisco, Index to San Francisco Passenger Lists, 1893-1934, entry for David Samuel Sampson, 1910, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[26] South Africa, Cape Province, Probate Records of the Master of the High Court, 1822-1990, 7,844,930, Image 1818, Eliza Carsten, Pietermaritzburg Archives (Formerly Natal State Archives), Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[27] David Samuel Sampson Jr (KW63-ND2) FamilySearch.org. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, South Africa Mission, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[28] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, South Africa Mission, CR 375 8, box 2250, folder 1, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[29] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, South Africa Mission, CR 375 8, box 2251, folder 1, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[30] United States Commerce Department, New York, N.Y., Ellis Island Immigration Records: Passenger and Crew Lists, 1892-1925, New York City, April 3, 1913, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah. The 1913 Ellis Island ship manifest shows four family members embarking in Southampton, England on 26 March 1913—David Sr., Mary, Walter, and David M. Ship manifests during this time period often contain inaccuracies with names and ages. It is reasonable to assume that ‘Mary’ is actually Phyllis as the manifest records her as David’s wife and all of David’s entries are correct (e.g., age, occupation, Irish ancestry, origin of Cape Town, S.A.), and that ‘David M.’ who is clearly an infant is David Jr. The addition of ‘Walker’ or ‘Walter’ Sampson, male, age 15, is clearly Phyllis’s nephew, Able Walter Danials. State Archives, Records, 1848-2001, David S. Sampson, Declaration of Intention to Naturalize, 20 May 1915, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[31] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Salt Lake 33rd Ward, Form E, CR 375 8, Box 2233, Folder 1, Item 91, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[32] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Salt Lake 33rd Ward, Form E, 1914, CR 375 8, box 2233, folder 1, item 509, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[33] “Sampson, Phillis Elizabeth,” Presiding Bishopric stake and mission census, 1914, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[34] Utah, State Archives, Records, 1848-2001, David S. Sampson, Declaration of Intention to Naturalize, 20 May 1915, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[35] South Africa, Register of Slaves, 1762-1838, Entry for Manus, 14 May 1816, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah; South Africa, Register of Slaves 1762-1838, 27 June 1828, Entry for Manus and Lea; Hermanus “Manus” Jacobus Carsten (KHG2-XDM) FamilySearch.org; December 26, 1839 Slave Transfer Records Recorded June 27, 1878, to widow of R. Perryn, 74, Widow of the late Reynhard Perryn (Maria Sophia Petronella Riel), record of manumission, entry 113, Florentina Carsten, Female 25 years old; entry 114, Adonis, Male, Born 20 December 1828. David Samuel Sampson (KWJV-886) FamilySearch.org was the son of Thomas Sampson (KJPR-94Z) FamilySearch.org and Lysa “Eliza” Elsabe Carsten (M7M1-X6P) FamilySearch.org. Lysa “Eliza” Elsabe Carsten (M7M1-X6P) FamilySearch.org was the daughter of Hermanus “Manus” Jacobus Carsten (KHG2-XDM) FamilySearch.org and Florentina Magdelena Jacobse (KHCF-8MC) FamilySearch.org. “Manus” and Florentina are David’s maternal grandparents. Florentina Magdelena Jacobse (KHCF-8MC) FamilySearch.org is the woman listed on the slave register with five other enslaved individuals belonging to “the late widow of Ary Jacob Joubert” (Maria Margaretha Gildenhuysen Joubert, (L4SR-ZKT) FamilySearch.org), including Florentina’s son Adonis (MWNP-T7J) FamilySearch.org. After their manumission, Florentina married “Manus” and Adonis took the surname “Carsten.” Adonis is likely Manus’ stepson. Adonis later married Apollina Susanna Cornelia Apollos (MWNP-TCZ) FamilySearch.org.

[36] (Left to Right) David Samuel Sampson Sr., David Sampson Jr., and Abel Walter Daniels, from David Samuel Sampson (KWJV-886) Memories, FamilySearch.org.

[37] United States, 1920 Census, Utah, Davis County, Layton.

[38] Anna Brown and Ziyao Tian, “The changing categories the U.S. Census has used to measure race,” Pew Research Centers, 3 November 2025, accessed 20 November 2025.

[39] Evan P. Wright, History of the South African Mission, 255. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Clinton Ward, CR 375 8, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah; “Personals,” The Herald-Republican (Salt Lake City, Utah), 21 November 1915, 2–A.

[40] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, South Africa Country (Part 2), CR 375 8, Box 6499, Folder 1, Item 51, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[41] “William Paul Daniels,” ChurchofJesusChrist.org, accessed 8 September 2025. See footnote 20, Nicholas G. Smith to the First Presidency, June 17, 1920, First Presidency mission files, 1908, 1915-1949, Church History Library, Salt Lake City. See also footnote 22, Nicholas G. Smith to Heber J. Grant, March 17, 1926; Phyllis Sampson to George F. Richards, August 18, 1926; William Paul Daniels to Heber J. Grant, February 11, 1926; First Presidency mission files, 1908, 1915-1949, Church History Library, Salt Lake City.

[42] W. Paul Reeve, Let’s Talk About Race and Priesthood (Deseret Book, 2023), chapter 13; Extract from George F. Richards, Record of Decisions by the Council of the First Presidency and the Twelve Apostles (no date given but the next decision in order is dated 8 February 1907), in George A. Smith Family Papers, MS 36, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[43] “William Paul Daniels,” ChurchofJesusChrist.org.

[44] Thomas G. Alexander, “Church Administrative Change in the Progressive Period 1898-1930,” in A Firm Foundation: Church Organization and Administration, ed. David J. Whittaker and Arnold K. Garr (Religious Studies Center and Deseret Book, 2011), 295-317. Here Alexander highlights that attendance rates for Church were “very low by present standards, generally under 15 percent. As late as 1900, most members seemed to perceive their primary community to be the general Church.” It was only in 1901, according to Alexander, that Church leaders urged local priesthood quorums to hold regular meetings. In 1907 the “new priesthood movement” began. These same attitudes also influenced temple attendance, which was seen as a special experience with no socially determined frequency for attendance. In general, temple attendance was much less regular than in the twenty-first century. Data provided by scholar Greg Prince shows that lower frequency attendance in Utah may also, no doubt, have been influenced by the fact that a single session in 1920 took over four hours. Greg Prince, “Prince’s Research Excerpts: Temples and Mormonism – 1920,” Mormon Studies, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, accessed 14 November 2025. John A. Widtsoe authored an address in the Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine, in the April 1921 issue, titled “Temple Worship,” where he observed, “There is at present an unusual increased interest in temple activity. Our temples are crowded. The last time that I attended the Salt Lake Temple I was a member of the third company. One started early in the morning, one late in the forenoon, and my company started about 2 o’clock in the afternoon. It was about 6 p.m. before we had completed the day’s work.”

[45]33rd Ward Relief Society Minutes and Records, 1914-1915, CR 9120 14, V1, V2, p.141, 207, 218-220, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[46] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Live Member Endowment Records, microfilm 9,034,215, image 7072, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[47] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Live Member Endowment Records, microfilm 9,034,215, images 7072-7073, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. Records of Sealings of Couples, microfilm 170,580, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. David Simeon Sampson (KWJV-886) FamilySearch.org.

[48] David Samual Sampson Jr. (KW63-ND2) FamilySearch.org.

[49] The work of Johnathan Stapley argues that the path to modern sealing practices was not linear, that the 1920s was a time of standardization of LDS temple practices, and that the process of sealing children to parents was one of several different ways of creating eternal connections. See Johnathan A. Stapley, The Power of Godliness: Mormon Liturgy and Cosmology, (Oxford University Press, 2018), Chapter 2.

[50] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Proxy Member Endowment Records, microfilm 9,034,215, images 7074, 7071. 7070, 7076, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. Lysa Elsabe Carsten (M7M1-X6P),

Alida Johana Daniels (GZXM-1DT), FamilySearch.org.

[51] Lysa Elsabe Carsten (M7M1-X6P), Cornelia Gertrude (GZX9-SGX), Jacoba Johana Daniels (KCXC-RR9)

Simeon John Daniels (KCL4-8RV), FamilySearch.org.

[52] Lysa Elsabe Carsten (M7M1-X6P), William Carl Daniels (GZX9-C3V), Jacoba Johana Daniels (KCXC-RR9), FamilySearch.org. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Proxy Member Endowment Records, microfilm 9,034,215, images 7070, 7076, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. Lysa Elsabe Carsten (M7M1-X6P) FamilySearch.org.

[53] Jacoba Johana Daniels (KCXC-RR9) FamilySearch.org.

[54] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Proxy Member Endowment Records, microfilm 9,034,215, image 7074, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. Simeon John Danials (KCL4-8RV) FamilySearch.org.

[55] Lysa Elsabe Carsten (M7M1-X6P) to spouse Thomas Sampson (KPJR-94Z); David Samuel Sampson (KWJV-886) to his parents Thomas Sampson (KPJR-94Z) and Lysa Elsabe Carsten (M7M1-X6P); Cornelia Gertrude February (GZX9-SGX) to her parents William Carl February (GZX9-C3V) and Alida Johanna February (GZXM-1DT); Jacoba Johana Daniels (KCXC-RR9) to her parents William Carl February (GZX9-C3V) and Alida Johanna February (GZXM-1DT); Simeon John Daniels (KCL4-8RV) to his parents William Carl February (GZX9-C3V) and Alida Johanna February (GZXM-1DT), FamlySearch.org.

[56] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Proxy Member Endowment Records, microfilm 9,034,215, image 7075, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. Sophia Johanna February (PS29-2S3) FamilySearch.org. Sophia was born to Phyllis’s younger brother Paul on 9 June 1898 and died at age 14 on 6 February 1913. The cause of death listed on her death certificate is “Tubercular Kidneys.” She was buried in the Somerset West, Weslyan Grounds, in Stellenbosch, Cape Province, South Africa. National Archives of South Africa, Cape Province Civil Records 1840-1972, Death Entry for Sophia Johanna February, 6 February 1913, Digital Folder, 004874578-005, M968-599, Image 99, FamilySearch.org.

[57] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Proxy Member Endowment Records, microfilm 9,034,215, image 7075, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. Cornelia Gertrude February (GZX9-SGX) FamilySearch.org.

[58] George Franklin Richards, as an apostle, was one of the highest-ranking leaders in the hierarchy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. One of his assignments from 1921-1937 was to oversee the operation of the Salt Lake Temple. See “About George F. Richards and his Journals,” The Journal of George F. Richards, Church Historian’s Press, accessed 1 January 2026. In the April 7, 1939, General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Richards stated clearly his reasons for why Black people could not have the priesthood: “The negro is an unfortunate man. He has been given a black skin. But that is as nothing compared with that greater handicap that he is not permitted to receive the Priesthood and the ordinances of the temple, necessary to prepare men and women to enter into and enjoy a fulness of glory in the celestial kingdom. What is the reason for this condition, we ask, and I find it to my satisfaction to think that as spirit children of our Eternal Father they were not valiant in the fight.” He goes on to posit that, “Somewhere along the line were these spirits, indifferent perhaps, and possibly neutral in the war.” See, Elder George F. Richards, 7 April 1939, General Conference, Conference Reports of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1939), 58-59.

[59] George F. Richards, Journal, 26 August 1908, The Journal of George F. Richards, Church Historian’s Press, accessed 1 January 2026.

[60] Letters of Ralph A. Badger, August 17, 1908, Mission Letters and Papers, October 4, 1910 and October 25, 1910, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[61] George F. Richards, Journal, 22 March 1926, The Journal of George F. Richards, Church Historian’s Press, accessed 1 January 2026.

[62] “William Paul Daniels,” ChurchofJesusChrist.org, footnote 22. President Nicholas Smith wrote to Heber J. Grant, February 11 and March 17, 1926; Phyllis Sampson wrote to George F. Richards, August 18, 1926. All of these letters are in the First Presidency mission files, 1908, 1915-1949. As noted above, it is clear that George F. Richards would not have been supportive of either William’s plea for the priesthood or the Sampsons continued participation in temple ordinances.

[63] “Sampson, David S.,” Presiding Bishopric stake and mission census, 1925, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[64] United States, 1930 Census, Utah, Salt Lake County, Salt Lake City.

[65] Paul Schor, Counting Americans: How the US Census Classified the Nation (Oxford University Press, English translation, 2017), 155, 166-168.

[66] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Salt Lake City 33rd Ward, microfilm 25,669, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[67] Box Elder County, Utah, County Marriages, 1871-1941, David S. Sampson Junior and Josephine Borger, 2 August 1932, Image 108, Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[68] Nevada, State Department of Health, Division of Vital Statistics, Certificate of Death, State file no. 44-793, Registrar’s No: 186, David S. Sampson, 13 June 1944. “Phyllis Sampson,” Deseret News (Salt Lake City, Utah) 19 March 1932, 10.

[69] Nevada State Department of Health Division of Vital Statistics, State file no. 44-793, Registrar’s No: 186.

[70] Nevada State Department of Health Division of Vital Statistics, State file no. 44-793, Registrar’s No: 186.

[71] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Salt Lake City 33rd Ward, microfilm 25,669, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

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