Parley P. (Parley Parker) Pratt

Born in New York in 1807, Parley P. Pratt joined the Latter Day Saint movement in 1830 after encountering the Book of Mormon. He quickly became one of its best-known voices and, in 1835, was ordained as a member of the original Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

Pratt spent much of his adult life traveling, preaching, and writing. Reliable historical sources describe him as an early church leader whose books and pamphlets helped explain and defend the faith in its formative years. He also left a vivid personal record through his autobiographical writings, which have made him one of the most readable firsthand witnesses to early Latter-day Saint history.

His life was also marked by hardship and conflict. He was imprisoned during the Missouri persecutions of the late 1830s, continued his missionary and publishing work afterward, and was killed in Arkansas in 1857. Today he is remembered both as a major early religious leader and as one of the movement’s most influential nineteenth-century writers.