| 723 CHAPTER 42.
BISHOP GEORGE A. BLAKESLEE.
GEORGE A. BLAKESLEE:, eldest child of James Blakeslee, and Louisiana Edmunds Blakeslee, was born August 22, 1826, at Ellisburg, Jefferson County, New York, and is of English and Scotch descent. His mother, Louisiana Edmunds, was a cousin of Judge Edmunds, of Ohio. Her father was a soldier of the Revolution, and was taken prisoner by the British. His father, Apostle James Blakeslee, whose biography will be found in volume 3 of this history, page 756, was an earnest, active, sacrificing minister of the gospel, during the early establishing of the work among the children of men in the nineteenth century. George A. with his parents moved to Perth, Canada, in 1835. After two years they went to St. Lawrence County, New York, and again in one year to Waterville, Oneida County, New York. Thence to Utica, where they remained until 1842. In 1843, they removed to Nauvoo, Illinois, but remained there only a short time, as indicated by the following taken from the diary of James Blakeslee: "At the time we arrived in Nauvoo in 1843, we were reduced in circumstances to that degree that we were almost destitute of both food and raiment, and my health was so impaired as to render it impossible for me to labor with my hands to support my family, and how to sustain ourselves in the city of Nauvoo, I did not know. We, therefore, thought best to move out into the country where we could get labor among the farmers, which we did, and where my family remained until they removed to Hampton, Rock Island County, Illinois, August 27, 1844. In 1848 they removed to Batavia, Kane County, Illinois. During all of these wanderings, Bishop Blakeslee stayed with the
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