Jeremiah Leavitt and Sarah Sturdevant

Jeremiah Leavitt was born May 30, 1796 in New Hampshire. Sarah Sturtevant Leavitt was born September 5, 1798 in New Hampshire as well. They are Steve's great-great-great-great grandparents, married in 1817 in Vermont. After their marriage, the Leavitt's moved to Hatley, Canada, where his parents were already living.

 

Mormon elders were in Canada in the 1830's, but none of them found their way to Hatley. Sarah was raised by Presbyterian parents and regularly studied the Bible and prayed on her own. She was seeking a church similar to the early church described in the New Testament. 

A traveler who had attended a Mormon gathering somewhere else loaned the Leavitts a copy of the Book of Mormon. "We believed them without preaching," Jeremiah Leavitt later wrote. About 1838, the extended Leavitt family, including nine children of Jeremiah and Sarah, started as a group to gather with the Saints in Missouri. Delays kept them from joining with the Saints at Far West, but they later moved to Nauvoo, and finally to Utah.

Here is an excerpt from Sarah's journal:

"I read the Book of Mormon, The Doctrine and Covenants, and all the writings I could get from the Latter-day Saints. It was the book of Doctrine and Covenants that confirmed my faith in the work. I knew that no man...that could make such a book or would dare try from any wisdom that man possessed. I knew it was the word of God and a revelation from Heaven and received it as such. I sought with my whole heart a knowledge of the truth and obtained a knowledge that never has nor never will leave me."

During the 13 years it took to move from Hatley, Canada to the Salt Lake Valley, several of the Leavitt's died, including Jeremiah. Sarah continued the journey with her family, and through much travail and sacrifice eventually settled and colonized the Santa Clara River area.

In 1998, a bronze statue of Sarah  was unveiled in a park in Santa Clara, Utah on what would have been Sarah's 200th birthday. "Sarah was a noble woman and a matriarch to more family than perhaps any other person in the LDS Church. She suffered and sacrificed all she had, that we, her posterity, could enjoy life as we do today."

"The monument's purpose is not only to honor Sarah Sturtevant Leavitt, but also to enable her posterity, now and in the future, to have a place where they can come and feel a sense of the connection that exists to each other, and also to the remarkable ancestry so well represented by Sarah. Ours is a rich heritage.   It is hoped that we and our children will learn to love, honor, and cherish it."

(source, source and source)