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Presendia Lathrop Huntington

Presendia Buell, Presendia Smith, Presendia Kimball, Prescendia, Presendia Lathrop Huntington Buell Kimball

7 September 1810—1 February 1892

Emmeline B. Wells

Born 7 Sept. 1810 at Watertown, Jefferson Co., New York.1 Daughter of William Huntington and Zina Baker.2 Married Norman Buell, 6 Jan. 1827; nine children.3 Baptized as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by Uriah Powell, 6 June 1836, at Kirtland, Geauga Co., Ohio.4 Moved to Lima, Adams Co., Illinois; sealed to Joseph Smith, 11 Dec. 1841.5 Joined the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo, 9 Apr. 1842.6 Married Heber C. Kimball, 7 Nov. 1846, in Nauvoo, Hancock Co., Illinois.7 Migrated to the Salt Lake Valley, along with EBW, in the Heber C. Kimball pioneer company, arriving by 24 Sept. 1848.8 Served as secretary of the Salt Lake City Sixteenth Ward Relief Society, 1868–1892.9 Worked in the Logan temple, 1884–1885.10 Traveled frequently and spoke at Relief Society meetings with EBW.11 Signed “an expression of gratitude” to Utah territorial governor Stephen A. Mann for signing the bill enfranchising Utah women, 9 Feb. 1870.12 Defender of plural marriage; participated in mass meetings to protest antipolygamy legislation.13 Involved in a serious carriage accident, May 1890.14 Died 1 Feb. 1892 at Salt Lake City.15 

The First Fifty Years of Relief Society

16 Born at Watertown, Jefferson County, New York; daughter of Zina Baker and William Huntington. 17 Married first Norman Buell, 1827; seven children. 18 Moved to Kirtland, Geauga County, Ohio; baptized at Kirtland, 1836. 19 Settled at Lima, Adams County, Illinois, 1840. 20 Later identified herself as a plural wife of Joseph Smith, married on December 11, 1841. 21 Joined the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo, Hancock County, Illinois, at its fifth meeting, 1842. 22 Married third Heber C. Kimball as a plural wife, 1845; two children. 23 Separated from Buell after his disaffection from the church, 1846. 24 Migrated to the Salt Lake Valley, 1848. 25 Lived at Salt Lake City and at Provo, Utah County, Utah Territory; settled in the Salt Lake City Sixteenth Ward, 1862. 26 Appointed secretary of the Sixteenth Ward Relief Society at its founding, 1868. 27 Traveled frequently while engaged in Relief Society work, temple work, and ministering to the sick. 28 Died at Salt Lake City. 29 (See Document 1.2, 3.16, 3.17, 3.28, 4.20, first mentioned here)

Footnotes

  1. 1 Presendia H. Kimball, Reminiscences, 1881, [1], MS 742, CHL. Temple Records Index Bureau, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register, 10 December 1845 to 8 February 1846 (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1974), 131 (restricted access). “Family Tree,” database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org, accessed 11 Feb. 2020), Presendia Lathrop Huntington (KWV9-HF4). 

  2. 2 Presendia H. Kimball, Reminiscences, 1881, [1], MS 742, CHL.

  3. 3 Presendia H. Kimball, Reminiscences, 1881, [2], MS 742, CHL.

  4. 4 Presendia H. Kimball, Reminiscences, 1881, [3]–[6], MS 742, CHL.

  5. 5 Presendia H. Kimball, Reminiscences, 1881, [5]–[6], MS 742, CHL. Affidavits about Celestial Marriage, 1869–1915, vol. 1, p. 7, 1 May 1869, Presendia Lathrop Huntington Kimball Affidavit, MS 3423, image 11/100, CHL.

  6. 6 Jill Mulvay Derr, Carol Cornwall Madsen, Kate Holbrook, and Matthew J. Grow, eds., The First Fifty Years of Relief Society (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2016), 47–51.

  7. 7 Lyndon W. Cook, Nauvoo Marriages, Proxy Sealing, 1843–1846 (Provo, UT: Grandin Book, 2004), 55–56. Lisle G. Brown, Nauvoo Sealings, Adoptions, and Anointings: A Comprehensive Register of Persons Receiving LDS Temple Ordinances, 1841–1846 (Salt Lake City: Smith-Pettit Foundation, 2006), 171.

  8. 8 “Presendia Lathrop Buell,” Pioneer Database (https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/overlandtravel/companies/179/heber-c-kimball-company, 11 Mar. 2019).

  9. 9 Sixteenth Ward, Riverside Stake, Sixteenth Ward Manuscript History and Historical Reports, 1849–1968, LR 8335 2, CHL.

  10. 10 Logan Temple, Logan Temple Officers and Workers List, ca. 1901, Prescinda L. Huntington Smith, CR 308 47, images 1, 5/18, CHL.

  11. 11 “A Venerable Woman,” Women’s Exponent, 15 Oct. 1884, 74. Jill Mulvay Derr, Carol Cornwall Madsen, Kate Holbrook, and Matthew J. Grow, eds., The First Fifty Years of Relief Society (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2016), 413, 415–416.

  12. 12 Jill Mulvay Derr, Carol Cornwall Madsen, Kate Holbrook, and Matthew J. Grow, eds., The First Fifty Years of Relief Society (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press), 350–351.

  13. 13 “A Venerable Woman,” Women’s Exponent, 15 Oct. 1884, 59, 73, 74.

  14. 14 “Deplorable Accident,” and “Recovering,” Deseret Weekly News, 24 May 1890, 728.

  15. 15 “Utah, Salt Lake County Death Records, 1849–1949,” p. 47, image 96/223 (1892), Presendia L. Kimball; Salt Lake County Management and Archives, Salt Lake City. “Death of Presendia Kimball,” Deseret Weekly News, 6 Feb. 1892, 214. “Funeral of Presendia Kimball,” Deseret Weekly News, 13 Feb. 1892, 264.

  16. 16 Patriarchal Blessing Index, 1833–2011, vol. 10, p. 309, Presendia Huntington (June 6, 1847), The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, CHL. Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register: Dec. 10, 1845, to Feb. 8, 1846, p. 131 (1846), Presenda Buel [sic], FHL microfilm 962798, item 1, FHL. “Utah Death Registers, 1847–1966,” p. 116 (1892), Presendia L. Kimball; database and images, Ancestry.com (http://ancestry.com, accessed Nov. 2014); citing series 21866, from Utah Department of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Utah State Archives and Records Service, Salt Lake City, UT.

  17. 17 Presendia H. Kimball, reminiscences, Apr. 1 and 16, 1881, CHL. “Utah Death Registers, 1847–1966,” database, Presendia L. Kimball. Patriarchal blessings, 1847, Presendia Huntington. “Death of Presendia Kimball,” Deseret Evening News, Feb. 6, 1892, 4. Edward W. Tullidge, Women of Mormondom (New York: Tullidge and Crandall, 1877), 201–205.

  18. 18 “Death of Presendia Kimball,” 4. “Family Tree,” database, FamilySearch (http://familysearch.org, accessed Nov. 2014), Prescendia [sic] Lathrop Huntington KWV9-HF4 and Norman Buell L4WC-G1M.

  19. 19 “Death of Presendia Kimball,” 4. Crocheron, Representative Women of Deseret, 29.

  20. 20 Lima was a town about thirty miles south of Nauvoo. Crocheron, Representative Women of Deseret, 30. “A Venerable Woman: Presendia Lathrop Kimball,” Woman’s Exponent 11, no. 21 (Apr. 1, 1883): 163. Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997), 122.

  21. 21 Joseph F. Smith, Affidavits about Celestial Marriage, 1869–1915, CHL, Prescenda Lathrop Huntington Kimball, Affidavit, Salt Lake Co., Utah Territory, May 1, 1869, 2:7. In two short autobiographical sketches, written in 1881 and attesting her marriage to Joseph Smith, she signed her name as “Presendia L. Kimball Smith.” Kimball, reminiscences, Apr. 1 and 16, 1881, CHL. Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness, 122–123.

  22. 22 Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, 1841–1846, CHL, entry for Mar. 17, 1842. “Memorial Anniversary. Report of the Relief Society Meeting,” Woman’s Exponent 17, no. 7 (Sept. 1, 1888): 52–54.

  23. 23 Lindon W. Cook, Nauvoo Marriages Proxy Sealings, 1843–1846 (Provo, UT: Grandin Book, 2004), 55. Kimball, reminiscence, Apr. 16, 1881, CHL. Presendia continued to live with Norman Buell after her sealing to Kimball (as she had after her sealing to Smith). Her children with Kimball were born—a daughter in 1849 and a son in 1851—after she separated permanently from Buell. (Compton, In Sacred Loneliness, 125, 131–134.)

  24. 24 Presendia wrote that Norman Buell “left the church” in Missouri in 1839; they remained married until she left him in about 1846. Kimball, reminiscence, Apr. 1, 1881, CHL. E. B. W. [Emmeline B. Wells,] “A Venerable Woman: Presendia Lathrop Kimball,” Woman’s Exponent 11, no. 20 (Mar. 15, 1883): 155. Crocheron, Representative Women of Deseret, 30–31. Compton, In Sacred Loneliness, 122–127, 129–130.

  25. 25 “Presendia Lathrop Huntington,” Church History Biographical Database (history.churchofjesuschrist.org/chd/landing, accessed Nov. 2023).

  26. 26 Compton, In Sacred Loneliness, 134–137.

  27. 27 [Wells,] “A Venerable Woman: Presendia Lathrop Kimball,” Woman’s Exponent 13, no. 8 (Sept. 15, 1844): 59.

  28. 28 Ibid. and [Wells,] “A Venerable Woman,” Woman’s Exponent 13, no. 10 (Oct. 15, 1884): 73–74.

  29. 29 “Utah Death Registers, 1847–1966,” database, Presendia L. Kimball.