- 1st President of the St. Johns Arizona Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (1887)
- 1st President of the Mesa Arizona Temple (1927)
- Representative to the Arizona Territorial Legislature
Biography
David King Udall was born 7 September 1851 in St. Louis, Missouri, United States to David Udall (1829-1910) and Eliza King (1826-1863) and died 18 February 1938 St. Johns, Apache County, Arizona, United States of unspecified causes. He married Eliza Luella Stewart (1855-1937) 1 February 1875 in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. He married Ida Frances Hunt (1858-1915) 25 May 1882 in St. George, Washington County, Utah, United States. He married Mary Ann Linton (1865-1951) 9 April 1903 in Preston, Idaho, United States.
David King Udall, Sr. (September 7, 1851 – February 18, 1938) was a representative to the Arizona Territorial Legislature and the founder of the Udall political family. His great-grandson Tom currently represents the state of New Mexico in the United States Senate.
Childhood years
David King Udall was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1851. His parents, David Udall and Eliza King, had immigrated to the United States from England earlier in the year. In 1852 they followed the Mormon Trail to Utah. They settled in Nephi.
Udall spent his childhood farming. As a teenager, he spent a short period as a laborer building the Union Pacific Railroad which became part of the First Transcontinental Railroad.
Early adulthood
In 1875, Udall married his first wife, Eliza Stewart. Shortly thereafter he was called by the LDS Church on a mission to England, where he remained until 1877.
In 1880, while again living in Nephi, Udall was called to be the Mormon bishop in St. Johns, Arizona. At the time, St. Johns was a small and primarily Hispanic Catholic community. Immediately after moving his family there, Udall purchased lands and directed improvements geared toward creating a larger Mormon settlement of the area. The outraged local residents were happy with the prior state of things, and Udall became a hated figure to many.[1]
Polygamy and imprisonment
In 1882, Udall took a second wife, Ida Hunt, a granddaughter of Jefferson Hunt and also through her mother Lois Barnes Pratt, of Addison Pratt. That same year the U.S. Congress passed the Edmunds Act to aid in the prosecution of polygamists. Udall was indicted on charges of unlawful cohabitation in 1884. He was never convicted, because his second wife lived in another town, and prosecutors could not locate Ida to compel her testimony against him.
Prosecutors remained determined to make an example of Udall, and in 1885, he was indicted and convicted on perjury charges, related to a sworn statement he made about the land claim of a fellow Mormon. He spent three months in a Federal Prison in Detroit, Michigan, before receiving a full and unconditional pardon by President Grover Cleveland on December 12, 1885. The perjury conviction stemmed from an affidavit he swore on the land claim of Miles P. Romney (grandfather of George Romney).[2][3] Udall's bail was posted by Baron Goldwater (uncle of Barry).
Later years
Udall was appointed to be a Stake president, a higher position in the LDS leadership, in 1887. He held that position for the next 35 years.
Throughout that time he ran a number of business ventures of varying success.
In 1899, he served a single term as a Republican representative to the Arizona Territorial Legislature (which later became the Arizona Senate after statehood).[4]
In 1903, he quietly married the former Mary Ann Linton, widow of John Hamilton Morgan, who had been a representative to the Utah Territorial Legislature. This marriage ran contrary to the LDS Church's decision to ban polygamy in 1890. Years later Matthias F. Cowley, the official who performed the ceremony, was stripped of his priesthood by the LDS Church. When the marriage came to light, Udall was never sanctioned, but he was forced to cease marital relations with Mary. He did, however, continue to support her and her children (from her marriage to Morgan) financially until the children reached adulthood.
In 1906, a Prescott Federal Grand Jury indicted Udall and several others on charges of polygamy, which was a violation of the Edmunds Act. After Marshal Ben Daniels served Udall and the others, they went to Prescott and paid their fines of $100, and then went back home.[5]
From 1927 to 1934 he served as the president of the LDS Mesa Arizona Temple.
He wrote an autobiography, Arizona Pioneer Mormon, in collaboration with his daughter, by Ida, Pearl Udall Nelson.
His wives, Ida and Eliza, preceded him in death in 1915 and 1937, respectively. He died in 1938 in St. Johns, Arizona.
Children
| Name | Birth | Death | Joined with |
| David Stewart Udall (1878-1878) | |||
| Pearl Udall (1880-1950) | |||
| Erma Udall (1882-1966) | |||
| Mary Udall (1884-1885) | |||
| Luella Udall (1886-1952) | |||
| David King Udall (1888-1960) | |||
| Levi Stewart Udall (1891-1960) | 20 January 1891 St. Johns, Apache County, Arizona, United States | 30 May 1960 Wickenburg, Maricopa County, Arizona, United States | Louisa Lee (1893-1974) |
| Paul Drawbridge Udall (1894-1896) | |||
| Rebecca May Udall (1897-1898) | |||
| Name | Birth | Death | Joined with |
| Pauline Udall (1885-1968) | |||
| Grover Cleveland Udall (1887-1950) | 28 December 1887 Snowflake, Navajo County, Arizona, United States | 2 January 1950 St. Johns, Apache County, Arizona, United States | Dora Sherwood (1886-1976) |
| John Hunt Udall (1889-1959) | 23 August 1889 Snowflake, Arizona, United States | 3 March 1959 Mesa, Arizona, United States | Ruth Woolley Kimball (1892-1915) Leah Smith (1891-1976) |
| Jesse Addison Udall (1893-1980) | 24 June 1893 Eagar, Apache County, Arizona, United States | 11 May 1980 Phoenix, Maricopa County, Arizona, United States | Lela Lee (1895-1976) Lillian Cluff (1900-2000) |
| Don Taylor Udall (1897-1976) | |||
| Gilbert Douglas Udall (1895-1963) | |||
Siblings
| Name | Birth | Death | Joined with |
| John Udall (1846-1846) | |||
| David King Udall (1851-1938) | 7 September 1851 St. Louis, Missouri, United States | 18 February 1938 St. Johns, Apache County, Arizona, United States | Eliza Luella Stewart (1855-1937) Ida Frances Hunt (1858-1915) Mary Ann Linton (1865-1951) |
| William Jesse Udall (1853-1853) | |||
| Eliza Ann Udall (1855-1933) | 20 June 1855 Nephi, Juab County, Utah, United States | 21 April 1913 Safford, Graham County, Arizona, United States | Ammon Meshach Tenney (1844-1925) |
| Mary Ann Udall (1857-1936) | 10 December 1857 Nephi, Utah, United States | 19 April 1936 Los Angeles, California, United States | William Thomas Stewart (1853-1935) |
| Charles Henry Udall (1859-1860) | |||
| Joseph Udall (1861-1949) | 23 June 1861 Nephi, Juab County, Utah, United States | 23 December 1949 Eagar, Apache County, Arizona, United States | Emma Joyce Goldsbrough (1862-1928) Ellen Francis Goldsbrough (1868-1930) Arrilla Hamblin (1886-1962) |
| Name | Birth | Death | Joined with |
| William David Udall (1858-1859) | |||
| Charles Henry Udall (1859-1860) | |||
| Emily Udall (1860-1869) | |||
| Elizabeth Ann Udall (1861-1922) | |||
| Sarah Jane Udall (1863-1955) | |||
| Edwin Udall (1865-1890) | |||
| Louisa Melissa Udall (1867-1892) | |||
| Alice Udall (1869-1955) | 14 March 1869 Nephi, Juab County, Utah, United States | 18 September 1955 Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Utah, United States | John Robert Edgehill (1866-1922) |
| George Albert Udall (1871-1950) | |||
| Emma Keturah Udall (1873-1874) | |||
| Willard Richard Udall (1875-1880) | |||
| Kate Evelyn Udall (1879-1921) | |||
| Alvin Jewell Udall (1882-1962) | |||
See also
- William J. Flake
- Miles Park Romney
Notes
- ^ Miller 1997
- ^ [1]
- ^ David King Udall (1851-1938) Ida Hunt Udall (1858-1915) The Perspective of the West, David King Udall and Pearl Udall Nelson, Arizona Pioneer Mormon (Tucson, 1959) © 2001 THE WEST FILM PROJECT and WETA [2]
- ^ Maria S. ellsworth, ed., Mormon Odyssey: The Story of Ida Hunt Udall, Plural Wife (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992), p. 23
- ^ "Ben Daniels: Felon, Rough Rider and Arizona Marshal". Jay W. Eby. http://www.prescottcorral.org/TT5/BenDaniels.pdf. Retrieved 2014-04-02.
References
- Ellsworth, Maria (1992), Mormon Odyssey: The Story of Ida Hunt Udall, Plural Wife, Chicago, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, ISBN 0252018753
- Miller, Mark Edwin (Spring 1997), "St. Johns' Saints: Inter-ethnic Conflict in Northeastern Arizona, 1880-1885", Journal of Mormon History 23 (1): 66–99
- Udall, David King; Nelson, Pearl Udall (1959), Arizona Pioneer Mormon: David King Udall: His Story and His Family, Tucson: Arizona: Silhouettes Press, OCLC 183273056 Full text online.
- Udall, Morris King (1988), Too Funny To Be President, New York, New York: Henry Holt and Company, ISBN 0805005935, https://archive.org/details/toofunnytobepres00udal
Further reading
- "David King Udall (1851-1938)", The West, PBS, 1996, https://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/s_z/udall.htm
- Herman, Daniel J. (April 2012), "Arizona's Secret History: When Powerful Mormons Went Separate Ways", Common-place (American Antiquarian Society) 12 (3), http://www.common-place.org/vol-12/no-03/herman/
External links
- David King Udall collection at the University of Arizona
- David King Udall collection at Utah State University
Footnotes (including sources)
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