Isaac Ensign, II

ISAAC ENSIGN, EARLY L.D.S. SAINT

Isaac and Mary Bryant - Ensign were early partisans of American prophet Joseph Smith. English born John J. Stocking (born "about 1805" in England) was also an early partisan of the Prophet. John Stocking initially married Isaac and Mary's second daughter, Catherine Emmeline Ensign on Sept. 11, 1832. Subsequent to the death of Catherine Emmeline at a relatively young age, John Stocking thence married Isaac and Mary's fourth daughter, Harriet Ensign. Between these two "sister wives", John Stocking fathered ten children.....Extrapolating from birth data on the children of John Stocking and his "sister wives", it appears that Isaac and Mary's extended family were early residents of the Prophet's for a time successful attempt to establish a new American "City on a Hill" in Nauvoo, IL. Established in the early 1840's, Nauvoo was a serious competitor to become the largest city in Illinois at the time of the Prophet's assassination is 1844.....The combined Ensign and Stocking families suffered more than their share of trials and tribulations in the diaspora to the new American "Zion" in territory then claimed by Mexico. Privation and disease at "Winter Quarters" in Kanesville, Iowa (renamed Council Bluffs in 1852) first claimed Mary Bryant - Esign in the latter part of 1846, thence Stocking daughter Mary Louise on Mar. 18, 1847. To weakened to continue with the rest of the family on the now mythologized first trek to Zion, Isaac Ensign remained in Kanesville and succumbed to disease on July 30, 1847.

Adapted from "The Pitts Family Chronicles" / Chapter 4

Charles Phillip Pitts, M.A. / 2012