Lemuel Hardison Redd

Redd, Lemuel Hardison, a veteran Elder in the Church, was born in Onslow county, North Carolina, July 31, 1836, the second son and sixth child of John Hardison and Elizabeth Hancock Redd, both of whom were born in the county and State mentioned. His father who was generally known as Captain Redd (as he followed a seafaring life) was a man of letters, engaged in the mercantile business, and was well known and highly respected in the community where he lived. The names of his eight children were: Edward and Harriet who died in infancy, Ann Mariah, Elizabeth Ann, Mary Catharine, Lemuel Hardison, John Holt and Benjamin Jones. At the age of six years Lemuel’s parents heard and obeyed the Gospel at Murfreesborough Tennessee, where they moved in 1838. The family moved to Great Salt Lake Valley in 1850; Lemuel, who was then fourteen years of age, drove an ox-team across the plains from St. Joseph, Missouri. At this time the Saints were visited with the cholera plague, Lemuel and his father both being attacked, but fortunately survived the dread disease. The impressions gained by seeing hundreds of the company buried along the roadside, by fearing the attacks of the Indians, and by witnessing the stampeding of thousands of excited buffalo, which then covered the great plains, ever remained fresh in his memory, and served as charming stories for his children and grandchildren. Captain Sessions, in whose company he traveled, arrived in Salt Lake in October 1850. Lemuel attended school in Provo, then a hamlet of about fifty families. The following spring he, with his father’s family, moved to Spanish Fork, they and the family of William Pace being the pioneers of that place. Here his father helped to build the first saw mill south of Provo.¹

Sources

1 Jenson, Andrew. LDS Biographical Encyclopedia: A Compilation of Biographical Sketches of Prominent Men and Women in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: Andrew Jenson History Co., 1901. https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/2028/records/917