Background
Leavitt was born in Stanstead, Lower Canada.
Leavitt was born in Stanstead, Lower Canada.
Although born in Canada, came from a long line of early New Englanders. He is credited as one of the founders of settlements in Washington County, Utah. While is cited in Jon Krakauer"s bestseller, Under the Banner of Heaven, as a participant in the Mountain Meadows massacre of 1857, is said to have never discussed the massacre, except to have remarked later in life, "I thank God that these old hands have never been stained by human blood." "s granddaughter later investigated the Massacre, writing the seminal The Mountain Meadows Massacre.
"We can only wonder as to Dudley"s relation to the Massacre," Brooks wrote of him.
Brooks also devoted a book to her ancestor entitled On the Ragged Edge: The Life and Times of Dudley. married several wives, and spent a decade hiding from federal officers seeking to apprehend polygamists. died in Bunkerville, Nevada, near Mesquite, in 1908. Although polygamy had been outlawed, never abandoned his several families, according to historians.
He was a member of the 1850 Milo Andrus Company, which left the outfitting post at Kanesville, Iowa (present day Council Bluffs) on the June 3 and arrived in Salt Lake Valley on August 30, 1850.
