Charles Ora Card

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Charles Ora Card (1839 – 1906) was the founder of the town of Cardston, Alberta, the first Mormon settlement in Canada. He has been referred to as "Canada's Brigham Young".^[1]

Card founded Cardston in 1887 — in what was then part of the Northwest Territories — under the direction of John Taylor, the president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This was motivated in large part by strained relations the LDS Church was then experiencing with the federal United States government over the church practice of plural marriage in Utah Territory and elsewhere. Card went to Canada as a fugitive from the "raid", having jumped a train following his arrest. Card was the first president of the Alberta Stake of the LDS Church, the first stake established outside of the United States. Leavitt, Alberta, adjacent to Cardston, was founded by Thomas Rowell Leavitt, another Mormon fleeing the U.S. federal crackdown on polygamy.^[2]

Card was born in Ossian, Allegany County, New York. Card's parents joined Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in 1839. In 1846, they moved to St. Joseph County, Michigan. They later moved back to New York. In 1856, the Card family set out to join the body of the Latter-day Saints in Utah Territory. They crossed the plains in one of the wagon companies that went with the Mormon pioneer handcart companies. The family moved first to Farmington, Utah and then to Logan.

In 1871, Card served a as a LDS Church missionary in Michigan, New York and Massachusetts.

Prior to moving to Canada, Card served as the president of the Cache Stake, headquartered in Logan, Utah.^[3]

Charles Ora Card was a son-in-law of Brigham Young, and is the great-grandfather of writer Orson Scott Card.

[edit] See also

Edward J. Wood

[edit] Notes

^ Richard E. Bennett, “Canada: From Struggling Seed, the Church Has Risen to Branching Maple,” Ensign, Sep. 1988, 30.
^ Thomas Rowell Leavitt, Once Upon a Wedding: Stories of Weddings in Western Canada, Nancy Millar, 2000
^ Jenson, Andrew. LDS Biographical Encyclopedia. Vol. 1, p. 156

[edit] References

Richard E. Bennett, “Canada: From Struggling Seed, the Church Has Risen to Branching Maple,” Ensign, Sep. 1988, 30
Neldon Hatch, "A History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Cardston and Area to 1950" in Keith Shaw (ed.) (n.d.). Chief Mountain Country: A History of Cardston and District (Cardston, Alta.: Cardston and District Historical Society) 1:173–182
Andrew Jenson (1971, reprint). Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:297
Don L. Searle, “Cardston—Harvesting a Pioneer Heritage,” Ensign, Apr. 1987, 36
Melvin S. Tagg (1963). A History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Canada, 1830–1963 (Ph.D. thesis, Brigham Young University)