During the time Marsh was employed by Griswold,[citation needed] he married Elizabeth Godkin in New York City[5] on his 21st birthday in 1820.

In 1829, Marsh unexpectedly left his home in Boston and journeyed west, traveling with Benjamin Hall, one of his friends from the Quietist sect.

[4] Marsh obtained the first sixteen pages of the book as a printer's proof and also met Oliver Cowdery at the printing office.

Shortly after his arrival, Marsh was baptized by David Whitmer in Cayuga Lake on September 3, 1830, and soon after was ordained an elder by Cowdery.

As there was confusion over David W. Patten's birth date,[citation needed] Marsh was identified as the eldest of the apostles and was therefore designated quorum president.

[4] According to Marsh's autobiographical sketch, published in 1864: "In January, 1835, in company with Bishop Partridge and agreeable to revelation, I proceeded to Kirtland, where we arrived early in the spring, when I learned I had been chosen one of the Twelve Apostles.

... May 4, 1835, in company with the Twelve I left Kirtland and preached through the eastern states, holding conferences, regulating and organizing the churches, and returned September 25.

Animosity had been building for years over what one county judge, Samuel Lucas, and other town leaders saw, feeling the Saints and their revelations were threats to their property and political power.

The diary of apostle Wilford Woodruff contains an account of part of that journey: Aug. 20th - Elder [David] Patten preached at the house of Randolph Alexander, and after meeting baptized him and his wife.

[citation needed] On February 10, 1838,[5] Marsh was put in charge of supervising the church in Missouri, with David W. Patten[4] and Brigham Young as his assistants.

[citation needed] In April 1838, Joseph Smith and his first counselor, Sidney Rigdon, moved to Far West, which became the new church headquarters.

According to Reed Peck, two of these Danites, Jared Carter and Dimick B. Huntington, proposed at a meeting that the society should kill the dissenters.

On October 18, a group of Mormons entered Daviess County and engaged in the looting and burning of non-Mormon settlements, including Gallatin.

Marsh stated: A company of about eighty of the Mormons, commanded by a man fictitiously named Captain Fearnot [David W. Patten], marched to Gallatin.

[10]On October 19, 1838, the day after Gallatin was burned, Marsh and fellow apostle, Orson Hyde, left the association of the church.

According to Thomas Job, a missionary of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints serving in Utah, shortly before his death Marsh: had been in the Josephite conference in Salt Lake City, and bore a strong testimony to the truth, and necessity of the reorganization; and when a revelation through young Joseph was read to him he said that it was the voice of God, and again testified that he knew it, and desired us to write to the young prophet to send for him back from here, that he had faith that he would bear the journey, and join the young prophet, if he could go that [last] spring.

[16][17] While not a reason for his withdrawal from the church, Marsh also admitted that polygamy had been a "great bugbear" prior to his rebaptism, his concern about the practice being resolved when he read writings of Orson Pratt on the subject and understanding it to be "heaven's own doctrine"[18][19] Marsh moved west to Utah Territory in 1857 and settled in Spanish Fork and later Ogden.

Marsh's conversion story is occasionally cited as an example of how powerful the Book of Mormon can be in convincing people of the truthfulness of the church.

Brigham Young was an agent who exercised his agency and acted in accordance with correct principles, and he became a mighty instrument in the hands of the Lord.