Lemuel Sturtevant Leavitt, 1827 — 1916
Lemuel Sturtevant Leavitt, born November 3, 1827, in Compton, Quebec, Canada, was the seventh child and third son of Jeremiah II and Sarah Sturtevant Leavitt. His large extended family left Canada in 1837, when Lemuel was nine years old. The family, having learned of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, left their homes and farms, bound for Kirtland, Ohio to join with the Saints.
About 1840, after a long and circuitous migration, through Kirtland, Ohio and Twelve Mile Grove Illinois, Lemuel’s family arrived at last at Nauvoo, Illinois. Lemuel, now 12 years old, was blessed by the family’s association with the Prophet Joseph Smith, and his testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ became the motivating feature of his life.
Lemuel was first of the family to arrive in the Salt Lake Valley. Having experienced expulsion from Nauvoo, the death of his father and older brother, Wier, he crossed the great plains as a teamster, reaching the valley a year ahead of his widowed mother and younger siblings. They arrived in August, 1850, to find that Lemuel had a small home and a garden waiting for them. Two months later, he married Laura Melvina Thompson. Together they responded to calls to settle at Tooele, then Cache Valley, and finally, in 1857, at Santa Clara. Here, his assignment was to teach the local Indians to plant and harvest a crop.
But crops were hard to grow and harvests scanty. One winter, when the harvest had been particularly meager, the young colony was almost without food. The Indians too, suffered and looked to the people for sustenance. Lemuel Leavitt harnessed his wagon and made his way over the snow-covered mountains to Parowan, Utah, and brought back what flour he could purchase there. But it was all too soon depleted. So again he harnessed the team, this time making his way to Beaver, Utah, more than a hundred miles over the trackless way. Here, Laura Melvina’s brother was the miller and he gave him twice as much flour as he had money to purchase. Lemuel’s feet were frozen on the return, but the people in Santa Clara colony were saved.
In 1862, Laura Melvina Thompson Leavitt died, leaving eight children under 12 years of age. Their one year old twin daughter died a few days later. He cared for his seven children alone for a year. Then Lemuel married Betsy Amelia Mortensen, a young Danish immigrant. She mothered the children and bore one daughter of her own. Scarcely four years later, trouble struck again and Betsy died, leaving the first seven and her own little three year old, Mary Matilda.
A family Craig, living nearby, lost both father and mother. Lemuel, though widowed himself, took the six Craig children into his home and reared them to maturity. A new mother came to brighten the home and lighten the load when he married Mary Ann Morgan Adams. She brought two children from her previous marriage. She bore Lemuel two sons, only one of whom, Lorenzo Calvin, lived to maturity. The second son died at birth.
With his growing sons, he worked on the St George Temple, at the same time laboring to sustain his large family. In January 1877, just before the final dedication of the Temple, he was called as Counselor to Bishop Edward Bunker, in the creation of a United Order settlement at “Mesquite Flats,” 33 miles from Santa Clara. It would later be named Bunkerville.
In 1881 Lemuel Leavitt married a widow with six children, Rebecca Gibbons Waite, for whom he built a home in Bunkerville. To that marriage was born three children. Rebecca died in Bunkerville, Nevada in 1895.
Lemuel Leavitt died in Santa Clara, Utah, October 28, 1916. Mary Ann died in Santa Clara, Utah, January 12, 1922.
We honor here his life of devotion, faithful service, and sacrifice.
The Western Association of Leavitt Families – August 30, 2008