Thomas Rowell Leavitt
Thomas Rowell "Tom" Leavitt (June 30, 1834 – May 21, 1891) was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the founding settler of Leavitt, Alberta, Canada, which the former Utah sheriff and marshal founded at age 53 after an arduous journey in covered wagons, fleeing a crackdown on polygamy that sent fellow members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints across the border to Mexico and Canada. Early life Leavitt was born at Hatley, Lower Canada, on June 30, 1834, the son of Jeremiah Leavitt and his wife Sarah Sturdevant Leavitt. Jeremiah Leavitt had been born at Grantham, New Hampshire, in 1797, and married Sarah Sturdevant of Grafton County, New Hampshire, on March 6, 1817 in Vermont. Shortly after their marriage, the couple departed for Hatley, only from the Canada–Vermont border, where farmer Jeremiah Leavitt was attracted by the rich soil and plentiful timber. At the time of his immigration to Canada, the area around Hatley was fresh from control of Iroquois Native American tribes. Leavitt cleared his new acreage, on which he built a log cabin, and began raising an eventual family of 10 children. In subsequent years, Jeremiah Leavitt and his wife Sarah joined the Latter-day Saints (Mormons) led by Joseph Smith. Thomas Rowell Leavitt was 16 months old when his parents pulled up stakes to follow Franklin Chamberlain, a Mormon convert who had married Lydia, the oldest child in the Leavitt family. The family returned to the United States, having been converted by Mormon missionaries who swept across eastern Canada on orders of Smith. The Leavitt family remained only briefly in New England, before launching themselves in 1835 towards Kirtland, Ohio, the gathering place of increasing crowds of Mormon converts. In September 1835, the extended Leavitt family came face-to-face with the man who had converted them long distance: Joseph Smith. No diary exists to describe what they made of their leader, but shortly afterwards the family departed with other recent converts to Smith's religion for Nauvoo, Illinois, the next jumping-off point on the Mormons' westward journey. Along the way, Jeremiah Leavitt's elderly mother, Sarah (Shannon) Leavitt, died of exposure. Having arrived in Nauvoo, the Leavitts bought a farm seven miles (11 km) outside town, where they began planting wheat. Anti-Mormon sentiment reached a crescendo shortly afterwards, and in 1844 rioters set upon Smith, killing the church prophet and his brother Hyrum, and setting fire to Mormon properties. On August 8, 1844, church elders voted to replace their deceased prophet with Brigham Young, who shortly afterwards announced his intention to found a Mormon sanctuary safe from persecution. Young's decision was prompted by Illinois's move to expel the settlers from its territory. In 1846, the Leavitt family set out as part of Young's trek, with father Jeremiah dying along the way. Ultimately the family got as far as Council Bluffs, Iowa, where what remained of the family built a house overlooking the Missouri River at Trade Point, where they remained three years.