Charles Ora Card (18391906)
Born | November 5, 1839 in Ossian Township, Allegany County, New York | ||
Died | September 9, 1906 in Logan, Cache, Utah | ||
Father | Cyrus William Card | ||
Mother | Sarah Ann Tuttle | ||
Spouses | Zina Presendia Young (18591951) md. June 17, 1884 | ||
Sources |
When Charles was four (1843), his parents were converted to Mormonism by William Hyde. Three years later they moved from Ossian, New York to Park Centre, Michigan, to care for Charles's widowed grandmotherhis grandfather having died there en route to Nauvoo. Illness continued to plague the family throughout the next year, and they moved back to Ossian. In 1856 the Card family, equipped with two yoke of oxen and a wagon, joined the first Mormon hardcart company traveling across Iowa. Charles was sixteen. He performed guard duty and became a buffalo hunter for the camp. When his father and uncle became sick he became responsible for two wagons and four yoke of oxen, as well as camp duties. Shortly after arriving in the valley in the fall, the Cards moved to Farmington, then, in 1860, to Logan. From December 1864 to April 1866 he attended school in Ogden. During the winter of 1871 he proselyted friends and acquaintances in the east. From 1879 to 1884 he served as second counselor to stake president William B. Preston, then as stake president until August 1890. During the 1870s and 80s he supervised the construction of the Logan Tabernacle (18731877) and Logan Temple (18771884). Charles married four women, including a daughter of Brigham Young and Zina Huntington, Zina Presendia Young Williams; and another woman, who turned against him and tried to have him arrested for polygamy. In September 1886, Card asked President Taylor for permisison to move to Mexico to avoid federal marshals, but Taylor suggested Canada, and in the following spring, the Cash Valley stake president led eight families across the border to Lees Creek in southern Alberta, where, on April 27, 1887 they founded a little colony later known as Cardston. The following year, Card and apostles Francis M. Lyman and John W. Taylor called on Prime Minister John A. MacDonald, requesting the government allow Mormon polygamists to move to Canada and practice their religion freely. The request was denied. In Cardston, the expatriate introduced the first steam saw thresher, directed the first saw mill, and helped establish the first dairy, grist mill, and store. He helped build a canal, four meeting houses, and a two-story school house. |
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Copyright 2001 Scott G. Kenney |