Edward Partridge | |
---|---|
Bishop of the Church | |
February 4, 1831 | – May 27, 1840|
Personal details | |
Born |
Pittsfield, Massachusetts, United States |
August 27, 1793
Died | May 27, 1840 Nauvoo, Illinois, United States |
(aged 46)
Resting place |
Old Nauvoo Burial Grounds 40°32′13″N 91°21′03″W / 40.5369°N 91.3507°W |
Edward Partridge Sr. (August 27, 1793 – May 27, 1840) was one of the earliest converts to the Latter Day Saint movement and served as its first Bishop of the Church.
Edward Partridge was the grandson of Massachusetts Congressman Oliver Partridge, Esq., and a member of a family noted for commercial, social, political, and military leadership in Western Massachusetts.
Partridge owned a hat-making factory and retail store in Painesville, Ohio. He was sent to New York in 1830 by a group of Painesville citizens to investigate the Latter Day Saint movement. He was baptized a member of the Church of Christ, later renamed The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, in or near Seneca Lake, New York, on December 11, 1830, and upon his return to Painesville discovered that his wife had also become a convert.
Two months later in Kirtland, Ohio, Partridge became the first to hold the prominent position of bishop. In this position he helped lead the Mormon settlement in Jackson County, Missouri, and managed land distribution under the law of consecration. He was tarred and feathered by an anti-Mormon mob in July 1833, then forced to move to Clay County, Missouri, followed by Caldwell County in 1836. During 1835, he served a mission in Illinois, Iowa, Ohio, and Indiana, then entered into another mission in New York and New England. Following the 1838 Mormon War, Patridge was jailed in Richmond, Missouri; in 1839, he was expelled from the state.
Partridge expended much of his wealth in support of the movement before he died in late May 1840 at Nauvoo, Illinois. Joseph Smith suggested that Partridge's death could be attributed to the stress and persecution which he and other Mormon settlers in western Missouri were subjected to in the 1830s.