Jedediah Morgan Grant was Salt Lake City's all-time renaissance man.
Who else has served as city mayor while filling posts as major general in the local militia, the speaker of the territory House of Representatives and a member of the LDS First Presidency?Call it a conflict of interest today. But a well-rounded, diverse man like Grant was apparently just what the Salt Lake Valley's founding fathers wanted in their young city's first mayor.
Grant certainly didn't inherit a promising political legacy. Aside from Grant's Feb. 21, 1816, birthdate, little is known about his humble childhood in Broome County, New York.
Still, historians believe Grant's love of books and learning must have been instilled in youth by his parents, Joshua and Thalia Grant.
Young Jedediah's path to civic duty in the Rocky Mountains began when he was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by Elder John F. Boynton, who later became a Mormon apostle.
Soon he was accompanying to Missouri a group of Mormon men referred to as "Zion's Camp," exhibiting "a goodly portion, for one so young, of that integrity, zeal, and unwavering effort and constancy in behalf of the cause of truth, that invariably characterized his life," noted the city historian.
After living more then a decade with the early church members in Nauvoo, Grant headed west in 1846 with the first wave of pioneers fleeing persecution. During a short mission that interrupted his trek, Grant purchased material for a giant flag that later flew over Salt Lake City.
Grant was later called to captain a group of pioneers, arriving in the Salt Lake Valley in October of 1847. His stay in the virgin territory was short. Assignments soon took him beyond Fort Bridger and duty in the Nauvoo Legion.
"He was an efficient officer, valiant, energetic and just," wrote Edward Tullidge. "In the difficulties with the Indians he manifested considerable skill, and always was regarded as eminently jealous of the rights of the red men as well as the safety of the whites."
Grant returned to the Salt Lake Valley for good when the area was incorporated on Jan. 19, 1851. He was appointed mayor by the Territorial Legislature and immediately - with the help of the City Council - appointed the city's first recorder, treasurer and marshal.
After organizing Great Salt Lake City's first tax system, Grant called for the division of the city into municipal wards.
The feisty mayor retained his office months later in a general election. The next year he was chosen speaker of the House of Representatives in the Legislative Assembly of the territory in 1852.
Throughout his political career, he fulfilled LDS church assignments as one of the first seven presidents of the Seventy, and later as an apostle and second counselor to President Brigham Young.
Grant was serving his sixth year as Salt Lake's mayor when he died on Dec. 1, 1856 at the age of 40. Days before his passing, Grant's wife, Rachel, gave birth to a son named Heber Jeddy Grant who later became the president of the LDS Church.
Following Mayor Grant's death, the editor of the Deseret News wrote "Brother Grant needs no eulogy, and least of all such an one as our language could portray, for his whole life was one of noble and diligent action upon the side of truth, of high-toned and correct example to all who desire to be saved in the Kingdom of our God."