Edward BUNKER

                   Edward Bunker and his brother decided the family farm in Maine was not big enough for the two of them.  Edward offered to let his brother have the whole farm if the brother would take care of their elderly parents until they died.  Edward went west.  He came to Kirtland, Ohio, and there heard one of the three witnesses tell the story of the Book of Mormon. He bought a copy and read it.  He joined the Church and went to Nauvoo to see the Prophet Joseph.  He arrived after the martyrdom.  He worked on the temple for board and room.  When the exodus came, he signed on as a teamster for a man with two wagons.  The man had a sick wife and a large family so he had hired a girl to cook and help.  Edward fell in love with the girl, Emily Abbott, and they crosed back across the river to be among the last ones sealed in the Nauvoo Temple.  Crossing Iowa, Edward heard Brigham's request for members of the Mormon Battalion.  With Emily's permission, and not knowing she was pregnant, he joined.  He helped in San Diego.  He was mustered out in Los Angeles.  He and a few others made their way to Sacramento and over the Sierra Nevada mountains.  They helped bury some of the bones of the ill-fated Donner party.  They arrived in Salt Lake City in Sept. 1847.  Brigham had left to return to Omaha (Winter Quarters).  The group of four or five riding mules decided to go east in spite of the approaching winter storms.  He arrived in mid December, sick, worn out, having eaten their mules and receiving some help from Indians with corn.  His story is told in the musical "My Promised Valley" by Crawford Gates.  He was a bishop in Ogden.  He married a widow of a neighbor.  He was sent to England on a mission.  Three years later he returned.  Having a lot of experience he was placed in charge of the third handcart company, which was mostly Welsh.  Knowing it was already late in the season he pushed his people very hard.  Journals say he was "harsh and demanding."  But they had the fastest crossing with the least loss of life of the ten handcart companies, especially the Willey and Martin companies.  Then the journals praised Bunker for his inspired leadership.  He was sent to St. George with the cotton and silk mission in 1861.  He was the second bishop of Santa Clara.  The first bishop quit after the flood.  Bunker served about 10 years and then went to the Virgin Valley... Bunkerville and Mesquite....and served as bishop there for many years.  He was always adventurous.  He wanted to go back to old Mexico.  The Mexican colonies had been organized and polygamy was legal in Mexico.  He took his youngest wife and one son, and they drove a buggy to Colonia Morelos, about sixty miles south of the border, across from New Mexico and southwest from El Paso Texas.  He preached a fine sermon in church and died a few days later.  I have visited the Colony.  There are a few fine brick Mormon homes still standing, but no LDS remain there.  I went to the cemetery, there was no marker on any grave with his name.  One of the Mexican leaders sid, "Pick out any unmarked grave and send a headstone and we will respect it."  My brother Dick and I paid for that to be done.  Only the drug mafia live there now.  Great Grandfather Bunker did it all... Sealed in Nauvoo...Mormon Battalion...Mission to Englland.... Handcart leader....Founder of a valley with his name....and buried in Old Mexico among the Lamanites he had loved.