Parley Pratt

Parley Parker Pratt Sr. (April 12, 1807 – May 13, 1857) was an early leader of the Latter Day Saint movement whose writings became a significant early nineteenth-century exposition of the Latter Day Saint faith. Named in 1835 as one of the first members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Pratt was part of the Quorum's successful mission to Great Britain from 1839 to 1841. Pratt has been called "the Apostle Paul of Mormonism" for his promotion of distinctive Mormon doctrines.

Pratt explored and surveyed Parley's Canyon in Salt Lake City, Utah (named in his honor), and subsequently built and maintained the first road for public transportation in the canyon.

Pratt practiced plural marriage. He was murdered in 1857 by the estranged husband of his twelfth wife. Pratt fathered thirty children. His living descendants in 2011 were estimated to number 30,000 to 50,000. He is the great-great-grandfather of Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican candidate for President of the United States, and Jon Huntsman Jr., diplomat and former Governor of Utah, who served as the U.S. Ambassador to Russia from 2017 to 2019.

Early life and education

Pratt was born in Burlington, New York, to Jared Pratt and his wife, Charity Dickinson , a descendant of Anne Hutchinson. He married Thankful Halsey in Canaan, New York, on September 9, 1827.

The young couple migrated west, where they settled near Cleveland, Ohio, where Pratt purchased land and constructed a home. In Ohio, Pratt became a member of the Reformed Baptist Society, also called "Disciples of Christ", influenced by the preaching of Sidney Rigdon. Pratt soon left his property to take up the ministry as a profession.

Latter Day Saint service

During his youth, Pratt had difficulty accepting prevailing Christian doctrines being taught by various churches. In early 1830 while seeking religious truth through prayer and study, Pratt declared that "the prophecies of the holy prophets were open to my view" and he sensed a strong prompting to preach what he had learned. In August 1830, Pratt and his wife Thankful left their farm near Cleveland, Ohio and headed east toward their childhood home in Canaan, New York.
Along their journey on the Erie Canal between Buffalo and Albany, New York, Parley told his wife that he felt compelled to disembark at Newark, New York and told her to continue on to Albany. It is in Newark that Pratt met a Baptist deacon who spoke of the Book of Mormon and lent Pratt his copy of the book. Convinced of its authenticity, Pratt traveled a short distance to Palmyra, and spoke to Hyrum Smith. Pratt was baptized in Seneca Lake by Oliver Cowdery on or about September 1, 1830, formally joining the church. He was also ordained to the office of elder. Continuing on to his family's home, he introduced his younger brother, Orson Pratt, to Mormonism and baptized him on September 19, 1830.

Arriving in Fayette, New York, in October 1830, Pratt met Joseph Smith and was asked to join a missionary group assigned to preach to the Native American tribes on the Missouri frontier. During the trip west, he and his companions stopped to visit Sidney Rigdon. They were instrumental in converting Rigdon and approximately 130 members of his congregation within three weeks. Pratt became close friends with the Smiths, particularly Joseph, with whom he would later experience persecution and imprisonment, including incarceration at Liberty Jail.

In early 1833, Pratt served as a missionary in Illinois. He went to Jackson County, Missouri, where through the summer he headed the School of the Elders, a gathering of about 60 men who studied religious and secular subjects, similar to the School of the Prophets in Kirtland, Ohio. In the fall of 1833, he served as president of the Mormon branch number 8 in Jackson County and as a leader in the Mormon militia. He was among those Latter Day Saints driven into Clay County, Missouri, by mob violence. In February 1834, Pratt and Lyman Wight headed back to Kirtland to report on the events in Missouri to Joseph Smith. From Kirtland, Pratt traveled with Smith in Pennsylvania and western New York, preaching and trying to recruit people to serve in Zion's Camp. After traveling together for three weeks, during some of this time with Pratt serving as Smith's scribe, Smith returned to Kirtland from Geneseo, New York, for a court case. Pratt continued his missionary efforts along with Henry Brown. Pratt and Brown went to eastern New York to give his family members money to move to Kirtland. They went to Richland, New York, where Pratt convinced Wilford Woodruff, who had been baptized three months before, to join Zion's Camp.

Pratt returned to Missouri later in 1834 as a member of Zion's Camp. After Zion's Camp broke up, Pratt rejoined his wife, Thankful, who had remained in Clay County while he had been traveling. While working as a day laborer, Pratt served on the Missouri High Council. Thankful had run up large debts in Pratt's absence, and when he returned with her to Ohio, some felt he was trying to flee his creditors and criticized him for it.. Pratt settled in New Portage, Ohio (now part of Barberton), where he was the leader of a group of Latter-day Saints there.

More missionary service

In 1835, after his call as an apostle, Pratt served with other apostles in a mission to New York, New England, and eastern Canada. Pratt preached in Upper Canada, in and around Toronto, in 1836. In 1837 and 1838, he preached in New York City.

Pratt later served as a missionary in the southern United States and in England, the Pacific islands, and South America. He moved to Chile to begin missionary work in Valparaíso. In 1852, Pratt and his family left Chile after the death of their child, Omner, without having had much success among the country's Catholic residents.

In addition to having converted his brother Orson and preacher Sidney Rigdon, Parley Pratt introduced the Mormon faith to several future church leaders, including Frederick G. Williams, John Taylor and his wife, Leonora, Isaac Morley, and Joseph Fielding, along with his sisters, Mary and Mercy.

Apostle

In 1835, Pratt entered the leadership of the early Latter Day Saint movement when he was selected as one of the original Quorum of Twelve Apostles. While on a mission to the British Isles in 1839, Pratt edited the newly created periodical, ''Millennial Star''. While presiding over the church's branches and interests in New England and the mid-Atlantic states, Pratt published a periodical entitled ''The Prophet'' from his headquarters in New York City..

Missouri War

After serving as a missionary in New York City, Pratt returned to church headquarters in Missouri in 1838. He was arrested in November 1838, along with Joseph Smith, and was held in prison in Richmond and then Columbia until escaping on July 4, 1839. His writings during this and other imprisonments with Smith comprise many first accounts and stories preserved about Smith.

Writer

Pratt was a noted religious writer and poet. Many of Pratt's writings are the only credible or lasting accounts from important American and Mormon events, such as the Hauns Mill Massacre and the events and conditions of imprisonment with Smith at Liberty Jail.

Pratt's first printed work was "'The Mormons' So Called", a 5500-word account of the persecution of Mormons in Jackson County in 1833.

Pratt wrote an autobiography, published after his death but likely his most widely read work in the 21st century. He published a book of poetry in 1835, the first collection of poems by a Latter-day Saint.Crawley, "Parley P. Pratt", in Arnold K. Garr, Donald Q. Cannon, and Richard O. Cowan (eds), ''Encyclopedia of Latter-day Saint History'' (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book, 2000) pp. 941–42. Some of his poems have become staple Latter Day Saint hymns