Orrin Porter Rockwell

Orrin Porter Rockwell lived a life that feels more like legend than biography — part frontier lawman, part religious confidant, and all myth in the making. Born in Massachusetts in 1813, he became one of the earliest converts to the Latter‐day Saint movement and grew up alongside the tumultuous rise of the Church. 

From early days he earned a reputation as a fiercely loyal companion to Joseph Smith, stepping over the line from follower to protector. After Smith’s death, Rockwell continued that role for Brigham Young, walking the thin boundary between devout disciple and rough justice operative. 

His life was full of episodes that have grown in the telling. At one point he was accused in the attempted assassination of Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs — an episode cloaked in controversy and murky evidence. Rockwell was arrested but never convicted of the crime itself; what he was convicted of, however, was escaping from jail. 

A powerful legend surrounded his hair. According to stories, Joseph Smith once prophesied that if Rockwell remained loyal and kept his hair uncut, no bullet or blade would harm him. That prophecy became part of his mythic aura. In one memorable twist, when a widow was struck with typhoid and losing hair, Rockwell is said to have cut off locks of his own hair to help her as a wig — an act that momentarily broke his uncut vow, but which reinforced his reputation for devotion and sacrifice. 

In Utah he served as a marshal and frontier enforcer, trotting through rough terrain, clashing with outlaws, and becoming both feared and admired. But unlike many of his contemporaries, his end was not by the barrel of a gun — he died in 1878 of natural causes in Salt Lake City. 

What makes Porter Rockwell captivating is the way his life bridges the sacred and the wild. He is remembered as the bodyguard to prophets and the hand behind dramatic frontier justice. His tales—some true, some embellished—still stir the imagination of those who consider the Old West, the founding of Utah, and the cost of loyalty in the American frontier.