Edward Partridge

Edward Partridge Sr. (August 27, 1793 – May 27, 1840) was one of the earliest converts to the Latter Day Saint movement and served as the first Bishop of the Church.

Early life

Edward Partridge was born on August 27, 1793, to William and Jemima Partridge in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He was the grandson of Massachusetts congressman Oliver Partridge.

Partridge was raised in Massachusetts but moved to Painesville, Ohio, while in his early 20s. There, he married Lydia Clisbee on August 22, 1819, just before his twenty-sixth birthday. Their family grew to include seven children: two sons and five daughters. Partridge was a hatter, and owned his own store in upstate New York. Early on, Partridge was part of the Universal Restorationist movement but he later became a reformed Baptist (also known as the Disciples of Christ or the Campbellites), a religious group led by Sidney Rigdon. in or near Seneca Lake, New York, on December 11, 1830, and upon his return to Painesville discovered that his wife had also become a convert.

Church service After his baptism, Partridge traveled to the Latter Day Saint settlement of Kirtland, Ohio, with Sidney Rigdon and Emma Smith. He then became the first to hold the position of bishop in the Church of Christ.

After Partridge died, his widow Lydia married William Huntington, father of Zina D. H. Young. Partridge's daughter Caroline Ely Partridge married Amasa Lyman, and through this line he became a direct ancestor of James E. Faust, who was a 20th- and 21st-century apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His daughter Emily Partridge was a wife of Brigham Young. His son Edward Partridge Jr. was a religious and political leader in Utah during the territorial period.