| Gilbert Belnap | |
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| Personal details | |
| Born | December 22, 1821 Port Hope, Ontario (Upper Canada) |
| Died | February 26, 1899 (aged 77) Hooper, Utah |
| Occupation | Early leader in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; Weber County Sheriff. |
Gilbert Belnap (December 22, 1821 - February 26, 1899) was a Mormon pioneer, 19th-century local level leader in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and an early colonizer of Ogden, Utah, Fort Lemhi, Idaho and Hooper, Utah. [1] [2] [3]
Born in Port Hope, Ontario, Upper Canada, Belnap, the grandson of American Revolutionary War veteran Jesse Belnap, was orphaned at age 10–12. Attaching himself to an American company of light horse rangers as first sergeant, he was taken as prison-of-war in the Upper Canada Rebellion. Following his release, he eventually made his way to Kirtland, Ohio, where he was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints [4] [5] in 1842. Shortly after his baptism, he served a mission with John P. Greene to Upstate New York.
Soon after arriving in Nauvoo, Illinois in 1844, he was called to serve as a bodyguard to Joseph Smith Jr. One special assignment involved attending a meeting of anti-Mormons who were plotting the assassination of Smith. [6] Belnap was at Carthage Jail on June 27, 1844, the day Smith was killed. He and Porter Rockwell were reportedly the first Latter-day Saints who had not been in Carthage at the time of the martyrdom to hear the tragic news. [7] In Nauvoo he was also ordained to the Sixth Quorum of Seventy.
Belnap married Adaline Knight, daughter of early LDS Church leader Vinson Knight and Martha McBride, founding member of the LDS Relief Society less than two months before the Mormons' expulsion from Nauvoo. Following a stay in Winter Quarters and later Fremont County, Iowa, the family departed for Utah in 1850. Belnap was appointed captain of 10 in the Warren Foote Company, 2nd hundred. [8] Soon after departing, Belnap lost his second son and child, 13-month-old John McBride Belnap, [9] who died of cholera in 1850 and was buried in his father's tool chest near the Saline Ford at the confluence of Salt Creek and the Platte River along the Oxbow Trail. (This event that was commemorated in 1997 during the sesquicentennial celebration of the Mormon Trail. [10] [11] [ unreliable source? ])
Upon arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, Belnap was sent to settle in Fort Buenaventura built by Miles Goodyear in Weber County, Utah. In 1852 he was sealed to his first wife's first cousin, Henrietta McBride, in plural marriage. He eventually had 17 children, 15 of whom survived to adulthood, and 160 grandchildren.
In 1855 he was one of the first missionaries called to serve in the Fort Lemhi Mission near present-day Salmon, Idaho, but was recalled in 1858 to serve as a member of the Utah militia during the Utah War. At this time his family participated in the "Move South" to Utah County, Utah.
In early 1868, Belnap moved part of his family to western Weber County to the newly forming community of Hooper, where he was appointed the first "presiding elder" and later as bishop. It is said that Belnap desired to move his family out of Ogden to avoid the corrupting "gentile" influences that were arriving with the coming of the Transcontinental Railroad. In fact, his 40-acre homesite on the east banks of the Weber River in Ogden had been selected as the rail yards of "Junction City." On 8 March 1869, he sat on the reviewing stand with other dignitaries of Weber County for an historic celebration as the tracks and first Union Pacific Railroad engine steamed into Ogden. The old Belnap home was right near where the reviewing platform was built. Three of Gilbert's sons—Gilbert Rosel, Reuben, and Joseph—helped construct the Transcontinental Railroad through Weber Canyon.
He was selected as the first marshal of Ogden City. He also served as Ogden's first prosecuting attorney and first sexton of the Ogden City Cemetery. He later served as Weber County sheriff and held numerous other community positions, including pound keeper, city attorney, county attorney, county assessor and collector, county court selectman, school district trustee, irrigation company trustee, 1872 Utah state constitutional convention delegate, district census taker, and U.S. mail contract awardee.
Descendants of Gilbert Belnap now number over 12,200 and are found in most states and several countries outside the U.S. The Belnap Family Organization, a non-profit ancestral family organization, conducts primary genealogical research and preserves genealogical and other historical information on behalf of descendants of Gilbert Belnap and his wives Adaline Knight and Henrietta McBride and others surnamed Belnap or Belknap. It is one of the oldest and largest such family organizations in the United States, having been established in Utah in 1904.
Gilbert Belnap's descendants have distinguished themselves in a wide variety of fields, including medicine, law, finance, business, religion, sports, politics, music, and education. Some notable descendants include Weber County sheriff Gilbert R. Belnap, Utah politician Arias G. Belnap, musician Ryan Shupe, vocal artist Michael Keith Belnap, LDS Church regional representative and Orlando Florida Temple president Bruce E. Belnap, Brigham Young University College of Religious Education dean B. West Belnap, KSL News executive vice president and COO Jeff Simpson, mission president and physician W. Dean Belnap, prize-winning Latin American journalist David F. Belnap, and LDS General Authority Carl B. Cook, among others.
Lorenzo Snow was an American religious leader who served as the fifth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1898 until his death. Snow was the last president of the LDS Church in the 19th century and the first in the 20th.
Pioneer Day is an official holiday celebrated on July 24 in the American state of Utah, with some celebrations taking place in regions of surrounding states originally settled by Mormon pioneers. It commemorates the entry of Brigham Young and the first group of Mormon pioneers into the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847, where the Latter-day Saints settled after being forced from Nauvoo, Illinois, and other locations in the eastern United States. Parades, fireworks, rodeos, and other festivities help commemorate the event. Similar to July 4, many local and all state-run government offices and many businesses are closed on Pioneer Day.
The Mormon pioneers were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as Latter-day Saints, who migrated beginning in the mid-1840s across the United States from the Midwest to the Salt Lake Valley in what is today the U.S. state of Utah. At the time of the planning of the exodus in 1846, the territory was part of the Republic of Mexico, with which the U.S. soon went to war over a border dispute left unresolved after the annexation of Texas. The Salt Lake Valley became American territory as a result of this war.
Jonathan Browning was an American inventor and gunsmith.
The Nauvoo Brass Band was an official musical organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints when the church's headquarters were located in Nauvoo, Illinois. It was later revived by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Utah Territory.
Joseph Toronto was the first Italian convert to the Latter Day Saint movement and was one of the first missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Italy.
Reynolds Cahoon was an early leader in Latter Day Saint movement and later, in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was one of the inaugural members of the Council of Fifty, organized by Joseph Smith in 1844.
Chauncey Walker West was a Mormon pioneer and was a leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Utah Territory. He was among the church's first missionaries to preach in Sri Lanka.
John Pack was a member of the Council of Fifty and a missionary in the early days of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Edwin Dilworth Woolley, Sr. was a Mormon pioneer, an early Latter-day Saint bishop in Salt Lake City, and a businessman in early Utah Territory who operated mills.
Alexander Neibaur was the first dentist to practice in Utah and first Jew to join the Latter Day Saint movement. He was educated for the profession at the University of Berlin and was a skilled dentist before the establishment of dental schools in America. He was fluent in 7 languages and as many dialects.
Lorin Farr was a Mormon pioneer and the first mayor of Ogden, Utah.
Charles Root Dana was an American Mormon leader, pioneer, and missionary, and a politician in territorial Utah.
Vinson Knight was an early leader in the Latter Day Saint movement. He served as a counselor in the bishopric in Kirtland, Ohio, from 1835 to 1838, then as bishop in Adam-ondi-Ahman in Daviess County, Missouri, from 1838 to 1839, and finally as bishop of the Lower Ward in Nauvoo, Illinois, having been called by Joseph Smith through revelation to that office in January 1841. Knight served as bishop in Nauvoo until his sudden death at age 38.
The Belnap Family Organization is a non-profit ancestral family organization that conducts primary genealogical research and preserves genealogical and other historical information on the Belnap/Belknap family surname, including the descendants of Mormon Pioneer Gilbert Belnap (1821–1899) and his plural wives Adaline Knight (1831–1919) and Henrietta McBride (1821–1899). According to its mission statement, the organization exists "to preserve, perpetuate, and promote family solidarity." It is one of the oldest and largest ancestral family organizations in existence, having been established in Utah in 1904.
Martha McBride Knight Smith Kimball was a founding member of the Relief Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which was organized on her birthday in 1842. She was married to early Latter Day Saint leader Vinson Knight, by whom she had seven children. In 1842 she was sealed as a plural wife to Joseph Smith. In January 1846, she was married polygamously to Heber C. Kimball, by whom she had one child, a son, who was born at Winter Quarters and died there as an infant. She later emigrated to Utah Territory, where she resided in various locations across the territory until her death at age 96. She was a witness to, and in some instances a key participant in, some of the pivotal events in early Latter Day Saint history.
Arias Guy Belnap was a Utah politician and businessman.
Lewis Warren Shurtliff was a Utah politician and a missionary and leader in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Martin Henderson Harris was a Mormon pioneer, LDS Church leader, early Utah horticulturalist, and early colonizer of Harrisville, Utah and Fort Lemhi, Idaho.
Mary Field Garner was an immigrant to the United States from England. She was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a Mormon pioneer.
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