Ben. E. (Benjamin Erastus) Rich

Born in Salt Lake City in 1855, Benjamin Erastus Rich became an important missionary and public spokesman for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He served a mission in Great Britain in the 1880s and later held leadership roles in several U.S. missions, especially in the South and East, where he became known for public debates and energetic preaching.

Rich also worked as a publisher and newspaper man in Idaho. He ran the Rexburg Press, later associated with the Silver Hammer, and wrote fiction as well as missionary pamphlets. His novel Mr. Durant of Salt Lake City, "That Mormon" is the work he is most often remembered for as an author.

He died in New York City in 1913. Today, he is usually remembered as a figure who moved easily between religion, politics, publishing, and storytelling, using print as one of his main tools for persuasion and outreach.