“We confidently recommend him to all candid and upright people as a worthy member of society.” — Joseph Smith1
Elijah Able was born in 1810 in Washington County, Maryland. He moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he encountered a Latter-day Saint missionary named Ezekiel Roberts and was baptized into the Church in September 1832. In January 1836, he was ordained an elder by Ambrose Palmer and received his elder's license (signed by Joseph Smith1) in March of the same year in Kirtland, Ohio. In December 1836, Zebedee Coltrin ordained him as a member of the Third Quorum of the Seventy in Kirtland.2
Able was a committed member of the Church, serving as an elder and later as a Seventy. He participated in three proselytizing missions for the Church, including one to New York and Canada in 1838.3
