Hosea Stout (September 18, 1810 – March 2, 1889) was an early leader in the Latter Day Saint movement, a Mormon pioneer, soldier, chief of police, lawyer, missionary, and politician in Utah Territory. Stout was from Kentucky and one of the few early Mormons to come from The South. The Latter Day Saint Church occasionally opposed slavery which largely discouraged converts from this region of the U.S. Early life Stout was born in Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, into the large family of Joseph Stout and Ann Smith, both strict Quakers. As a child, Stout was temporarily put in a Shaker school due to his family's financial hardships. However, after four years in the school, his father's circumstances improved and his father removed him from the school. Black Hawk War service In 1832, Stout enlisted with United States Mounted Ranger Battalion under Major Henry Dodge to fight in the Black Hawk War. The U.S. Rangers recruited from frontiersmen who served a one year enlistment and had to provide their own rifles and horses. Latter Day Saints movement During the time of the Black Hawk War, Stout became acquainted with the Latter Day Saints movement and was taught by later apostle Charles C. Rich. In 1837, he sold his business and moved to Caldwell County, Missouri, where the Latter Day Saints had gathered after their expulsion from Jackson County, Missouri, and Kirtland, Ohio. Here he married Samantha Peck. Shortly after this, he was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. During the Missouri Mormon War of 1838, Stout was a member of the Danites, a Latter Day Saint vigilante group, and took a central role in the events of the 1838 Mormon War, and fought in the Battle of Crooked River. After the Latter Day Saints were forced to leave Missouri and moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, Stout served as a bodyguard for Joseph Smith. During this period he was also a commander in the Nauvoo Legion and the Chief of Police of Nauvoo. He was further set apart as President of the eleventh Quorum of Seventies and made a member of the Council of Fifty, an organization created by Joseph Smith in preparation for the Second Coming of Christ. About one month after the death of Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum on June 27, 1844, their brother Samuel H. Smith also died under allegedly suspicious circumstances.