Edmund Lovell Ellsworth

Edmund Lovell Ellsworth

was born on July 1, 1819, in Paris, Oneida County, New York. His father, Jonathan Patrick Ellsworth, died shortly after his birth, and his mother, Sarah Gallea, raised him under demanding economic circumstances. The family converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1840, prompting a move to Nauvoo, Illinois, where Edmund worked in the temple rock quarry and served as a major in the Nauvoo Legion.

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Edmund became a close associate of Brigham Young, marrying Young's daughter, Elizabeth, as his first wife. Over his lifetime, Edmund practiced plural marriage, having four wives and fathering forty-two children.

Captain of the Handcarts (1856)

In 1854, Edmund was sent on an LDS mission to England, returning in 1856. Upon his arrival in Iowa City, the western terminus of the railroad, church authorities placed him in charge of the first Mormon Handcart Company. The handcart experiment was designed to provide a low-cost method of migration for thousands of poor European converts who could not afford oxen and heavy wagons.

Edmund led a company of two hundred and seventy pioneers on foot, walking thirteen hundred miles across the plains while pulling their belongings in wooden carts. The company arrived in Salt Lake City on September 26, 1856, proving the viability of the handcart system and paving the way for thousands of future settlers.

Builder and Colonizer

In Utah, Edmund was a builder and civic leader. He served as an alderman on the Salt Lake City Council, superintendent of road construction, and helped build bridges and lay tracks for the Utah Central and Utah Northern Railroads. He also played in brass bands and acted in the Salt Lake Theatre.

In 1880, Edmund relocated his families to the remote high country of northern Arizona, establishing agricultural and timber operations in the area that became Show Low, Navajo County. He co-founded the settlement, building cabins, clearing timber, and farming the high-altitude valleys.

Edmund died in Show Low on December 29, 1893, at the age of seventy-four. He was buried in the Adair Cemetery in Show Low. His leadership of the first handcart company and his community-building efforts in Utah and Arizona made him one of the foundational figures of the Western pioneer migration.