Edward Partridge

Edward Partridge (August 27, 1793 – May 27, 1840) 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. An early convert to the Latter Day Saint movement, he was the first person to hold the prominent position of Bishop and Presiding Bishop. Partridge expended much of his wealth in support of the movement before he died in 1840 at Nauvoo, Illinois. Joseph Smith commented that his death could be attributed to the stresses and persecutions that he and other Mormon settlers in western Missouri were subjected to by their enemies in the 1830s.
Patridge was the de facto Presiding Bishop of the Church from 1831 until his death. However, the term and formal position of Presiding Bishop of the Church did not come into common usage until after Partridge's death. Nevertheless, it is evident that Partridge was acknowledged (then and now) as a Churchwide authority.
Edward Partridge's family includes the early American poets Rev. Edward Taylor and Anne Bradstreet. His forebears also include a number of notable Anglo-American religious leaders including the Rev. John Cotton, Dean of Emmanuel College, Cambridge who was the spiritual leader of the New England colonies; Rev. Solomon Stoddard, one of the most influential colonial ministers and the grandfather of the famous Rev. Jonathan Edwards and ancestor of United States Vice President Aaron Burr. 
Partridge's forbears include a number of significant early political leaders including Connecticut Governor Thomas Welles, Connecticut and Massachusetts Governor John Haynes, Connecticut Governor George Wyllys, Massachusetts Governor Thomas Dudley, and Massachusetts Governor Simon Bradstreet. His daughter Emily Partridge married the future first Territorial Governor of Utah, Brigham Young. His daughter Eliza Maria Partridge married Utah Territorial Legislator Amasa Mason Lyman, delegate to the California Constitutional Convention and leader of the first organized Anglo-American colony in Southern California and founder of the Salt Lake Tribune. His son Edward Partridge Jr. was a member of the Utah Territorial Legislature and a delegate to the Utah Constitutional Convention. 
==See also==
* Mormon War (1838)
* Council on the Disposition of the Tithes
==External resources==
*Grampa Bill's G.A. Pages
Category:1793 births
Category:1840 deaths
Category:Latter Day Saint bishops
Category:Latter Day Saint martyrs
Category:Latter Day Saint hymnwriters
Category:Converts to Mormonism
Category:Victims of religiously motivated violence in the United States
Category:Presiding bishops of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Category:American Latter Day Saints
Category:American hymnwriters