Charles Pulsipher

 

 

Birth: 20 April 1830 in Spafford, New York, USA

Death: 20 November 1915 in Elmo, Utah, USA

 

 

 

Charles Pulsipher was the son of Zerah Pulsipher (24 January 1789-9 January 1872) and Mary Ann Brown (2 March 1799-7 May 1886). He remembered that his parents joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints when he was two years old and that, as a child, he heard Prophet Joseph Smith speak at the temple in Kirtland, Ohio, USA.

He spent his early years moving from place to place with his family and the rest of the Saints. He even went on expeditions to defend his people from mobs and violence.

In 1845, Charles was ordained to the second quorum of the seventies, and in 1856, he was set apart as a president of one of the quorums.

He helped build that Nauvoo temple and received his endowment in that temple after its completion, on 31 January 1846.

Charles was very devoted to his faith. He kept a journal which is widely available online. In this journal he write much about his religion. I like this story especially:

“During our slow progress of travel four of us went to the edge of the Missouri and built houses and got our pay in provisions and such things as we needed to go on our journey. During our stay there we got acquainted with a fine young lady, a niece of the old gentleman we were working for. She became very much attached to me and said to her brother that she was going to keep me there and not let me go away to the mountains. The rich old farmer saw the kind of feeling she had for me, so just before our job was done, he took me to one side and said to me, ‘I see there is a very affectionate feeling with Sarah and now I want to say to you, you might just as well stop here and live with us and give up the long journey away into the mountains to suffer or maybe be killed by the wild savages. When you get married, I will give you a good outfit, and there is a good 40 acre farm that will be yours as a wedding present. You can settle down and live an easy life with us.’ I thanked him for his kind offer and told him I would consider it. Quite a temptation for a boy of sixteen years old that never had anything before, but the more I thought about it the farther I get from accepting it, for the idea of forsaking my religion and giving up the people I had learned to love did not appeal to me.”

On 30 April 1849, Charles married Ann Beers, with whom he did not have any children.

On 16 July 1856 he married Sariah Eliza Robbins in Salt Lake City, Utah. They had four children together: Mary Ida Pulsipher, Charles Pulsipher, Frances Annie Pulsipher and Sariah Eliza Pulsipher.

On 13 July 1877, Charles married Julia Abby Johnson. Their twelve children were: John William Pulsipher (died as a child), Carlos Derby Pulsipher (died as a newborn), Lorenzo Charles Pulsipher, Evie Pulsipher, Effie Pulsipher, Zerah Cadwallader Pulsipher (died as a child), Sarah Mariah Pulsipher, Wilford Pulsipher, Jennie Pulsipher, Janie Pulsipher (died as a child), Mary Julia Pulsipher and Florence Abby Pulsipher.

In 1886, he was set apart as the bishop of the Huntington Ward (the town of Huntington being his homestead) by Wilford Woodruff, who was an apostle at the time. He was released from this calling by 1897. In 1897 he was ordained as a patriarch.

In 1900, he and his family moved to Mexico to help build the Mormon colony of Saints that were gathering there to escape persecution due to polygamy. They moved back to Utah in 1908.

 

Charles Pulsipher was buried at his homestead in Huntington, Utah, USA with his third wife Julia.