Family
Pratt practiced plural marriage and had 12 wives, 30 children, and 266 grandchildren. In 2011, Pratt's living descendants were estimated to number 30,000 to 50,000. His first wife, Thankful Halsey Pratt, died following childbirth in March 1837. (Thankful was a widow ten years older than Pratt when she married him.) Pratt did, however, marry women averaging ten years younger than himself, the greatest age difference occurring with his marriage to his Ann Agatha Walker who was 18 to his 40 years.
On May 14, 1837, Pratt married his second wife, Mary Ann Frost Stearns (1808–1891), a widow with a daughter. The marriage was performed by Frederick G. Williams. Mary Ann was a native of Bethel, Maine (part of Massachusetts until 1820) whose first relative to join the church was Patty Bartlett Sessions, later a prominent midwife in Utah. Mary Ann was baptized by David W. Patten. She had come to Kirtland as a widow in 1836. Joseph Smith later condemned Latter-Day Saints for "marrying in five or six weeks, or even in two or three months, after the death of their companion." Pratt may have married Mary Ann so quickly to get back his infant son, although he remained in the care of Mary Ann Young for nearly a year after Pratt remarried. Mary Ann and Pratt at times demonstrated a deep companionship in their marriage, most fully shown by her joining her husband in prison in Missouri. After Pratt began practicing polygamy, they became estranged. Pratt suggested his falling out with Mary Ann was "stung by falsehoods which are circulated in the Church".
Some sources state that in 1843, Mary Ann Pratt married Joseph Smith, the church's founder. This marriage, however, does not appear on most lists of Smith's marriages so is unsubstantiated. Olive would marry Smith's successor, Brigham Young, after Smith's death in 1844.
Pratt made several attempts to get Mary Ann to join him in traveling west in 1846 and 1847, but after spending the winter of 1846–47 in an abandoned Nauvoo, she chose to return to Maine. Pratt provided her with clothes and money upon her return to Maine. She received some of the proceeds from the sale of Pratt's home to a Roman Catholic priest; the Nauvoo home is still used as a residence for Catholic priests. In 1852, Mary Ann traveled to Utah Territory, but she and Pratt did not see eye to eye on how to raise their children. Mary Ann received a divorce decree issued by Brigham Young in 1853. Mary Ann then settled in what is now Pleasant Grove, Utah. She worked as a midwife, remained in the LDS Church, and became a leading advocate for LDS women against the attacks of those opposed to plural marriage.
In the fall of 1853, Pratt had seven living wives. These wives were:
Agatha ran a millinery business in Salt Lake City.
Other wives of Pratt:
Martha Monks (1825–?). Married Pratt April 28, 1847. One child died shortly after birth. After this Martha abandoned Pratt in early 1849 and moved to California.
Keziah Downes (1812–1876). Married Pratt on December 27, 1853. They did not have any children. She lived in the same house as five of Pratt's other wives and helped them in raising their children.
Eleanor Jane McComb (1817–1874). Married Pratt on November 14, 1855.
Pratt's constant missions left him little time with his family. After he started practicing plural marriage, the longest period of time he had with his family were the 18 months following his return from a mission to Chile.
According to Terryl L. Givens and Matthew J. Grow, Pratt's "highest happiness was to be surrounded by a teeming domestic world of multiple wives and offspring." They noted that he also had an "antisocial bent".
One of Pratt's grandsons, William King Driggs, was the father of the King Sisters.
Mitt Romney, the Massachusetts governor (2003–07) and the 2012 Republican nominee for the U.S. presidency, is one of Pratt's great-great-grandsons.
One of Pratt's great-great-great-grandsons is Jon Huntsman, the former Utah governor and Ambassador to China, and an unsuccessful candidate for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.
Outside of politics, he was the great-great-grandfather of animator Don Bluth, as well as his brother Toby Bluth.
