1807–1868

Jonathan Oldham Duke was born on 31 August 1807 in Bristol, England. He immigrated to the United States in 1829, accompanied by his wife of one year, Mary (Stone) Duke. While living in New York, Mary’s father introduced Jonathan and Mary to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which the couple joined in 1839.

Accompanied by their four children, Jonathan and Mary left the New York area in 1840 to gather with the Latter-day Saints at Nauvoo, Illinois. The family faced many challenges over the next ten years while living at Nauvoo. In 1850 the family immigrated to Utah in the James Pace Company and settled in Provo. Jonathan was called as Provo’s first Latter-day Saint bishop in 1852, a calling he held until his death sixteen years later.

Mary and Jonathan had six children. When Jonathan married two plural wives, Sarah and Martha Thompson, in 1855 and 1856, the family grew to eventually include twenty-one children. Jonathan worked as a stonemason and farmer. He served as a city councilman and justice of the peace in Provo. Throughout his life, Jonathan was a faithful Latter-day Saint. After Jonathan died on 31 October 1868 in Provo, his granddaughter wrote that, “he had helped the less fortunate so much that when he passed away there was little left of this world’s goods for his family.”

Bibliography

Carter, Kate B. Treasures of Pioneer History. Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1956.

Esshom, Frank. Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah. Salt Lake City: Western Epics, 1966.