He led one of the first groups of Mormon pioneers west from Illinois under the leadership of Brigham Young after Joseph Smith's murder.

President Young asked Rich to open up San Bernardino, California, for settlement in 1850, and Bear Lake Valley, located in Utah and Idaho, in 1863.

Rich founded many communities in Bear Lake Valley, including Paris, Montpelier, Fish Haven, Ovid, Georgetown, St. Charles, Bloomington, Bennington, Wardboro, Dingle, Glencoe and Pegram in Idaho, and Garden City, Meadowville, and Laketown in Utah.

[citation needed] Rich was baptized into the early Latter Day Saint church on April 1, 1832,[2] after having been taught by Lyman Wight in 1831.

After the expulsion of the Latter Day Saints from Missouri, Rich settled in Nauvoo, Illinois, where he was made an original member of the Council of Fifty.

He and his family migrated to what became Utah with the main body of the church in 1847, leading a pioneer company that arrived October of that year.