Dimick B. Huntington

Dimick Baker Huntington was the first Indian interpreter in Utah Territory and missionary to many Native Americans. He commissioned the Church History Panorama of C.C.A. Christensen to use in his presentations of the gospel to the Native Americans.

In 1855, he negotiated a peace with the Utes in the Fillmore area. In 1868, he was among those who negotiated the end of Utah’s Black Hawk War. He ordained Kanosh an elder in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Kanosh was a leader of the Pahvant band of Ute Indians and joined the Church in 1858.

In Nauvoo, he served as a constable in Caldwell County, Missouri, and participated int he Battle of Crooked River. He was appointed Nauvoo city marshal in 1841. In 1842, was appointed coroner. After the martyrdom of Joseph Smith, Huntington was among those who prepared Joseph and Hyrum Smith’s bodies for burial and buried them.

He traveled with the Mormon Battalion and served two missions to the Eastern States. He was arrested for destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor press in 1844.

Huntington was with the Parley P. Pratt party that explored southern Utah in 1849. He was one of the first settlers of Provo, Utah.

Huntington was born on May 26, 1808, in Watertown, New York. He and his wife, Fanny Marie Allen, married in 1830 and eventually had nine children. He also married Ellen Sophia Jacobs Flanders and Harriett Augusta Hoagland but had no children with them. He was baptized on August 1, 1835, by Hyrum Smith.

Huntington was also a shoemaker and blacksmith. For the last few years of his life he was a Church patriarch. He died in Salt Lake City on February 1, 1879.