Priddy Meeks Obituary

Priddy Meeks, Utah's first Thompsonian Botanical Doctor.
The subject of this obituary, Priddy Meeks, was born in Greenville district, South Carolina, Aug. 29th, A.D. 1795. In March 1815 he married Mary Bartlett by whom he had four children. She died in 1824 in Spencer Co., Va. He next married Sarah Mahruin Smith in Grayson Co., Ky. She bore him five children. On Nov. 13th, 1856, he married Mary Jane McCleeve in Salt Lake City, who has born him ten children, eight of whom are living. Brother Meeks received the Gospel in 1840 in Illinois, and in 1842 moved to Nauvoo. He left there with the saints and reached Salt Lake Valley Oct. 1st, 1847. In 1851, volunteers were called for to strenthen the southern settlements of the Territory. Brother Meeks volunteered, and lived in Parowan, Iron County, for ten years, afterwards in Harrisburg. In 1876 he moved to Orderville, Kane County, and joined the United Order. brother Meeks bore a faithful testimony to the truth of the latter-day work, and exhorted his children to the firm and steadfast in the cause of God. He was a strict observer of the Word of Wisdom, and practiced medicine somewhat after the "Thompsonian" school. He was a faithful Latter-day Saint, and departed this life at his residence in Orderville, October 7th, 1886, at the ripe age of 91 years, leaving two wives and a numerous posterity to mourn his departure.
The Deseret News, Vol. XXXV, No. 42, November 3, 1886, p. 2