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Broadbent, Reuben, a Patriarch in the Kanab Stake of Zion, was born Dec. 23, 1817, at Kexby, near Gainsboro, Lincolnshire, England. His religious training was in the Episcopal Church. He learned the trade of house carpenter from his father and followed that trade all his life. At the age of twenty-nine he married Harriet Otter. He embraced the Gospel being baptized Oct. 26, 1849, and was at once appointed to preach in his home village, with Elder Joseph E. Taylor as companion. Soon after this he came to America. After spending three years in Saint Louis, Mo., where his wife died, he came on to Utah and settled at Farmington, Davis county. Here he designed and superintended the building of the "Rock Meeting House", and helped to build a grist, saw and shingle mill. He belonged to the Farmington Band, which at that time was one of the best bands in Utah. He had now two wives and was just getting in comfortable circumstances when President Young called him to move with his family to the Muddy. After the Muddy Mission was abandoned, he went north once more and settled at American Fork, where he put up an addition to the meeting house. Then a call came to go to Kanab and help Brother James Leithead to build a grist mill. The mill was built, but a flood came that cut a deep channel through the canyon and left the mill high and dry. He then joined Bro. Leithead and others in buying a dilapidated grist mill at Glendale. The mill was refitted and put in good shape, and was doing well till it burned down. The owners, however, rebuilt it, and in time made a roller mill of it; it is now the only flour mill in Kane county. At Kanab, where he still lives and works in his shop, he superintended the building of the Social Hall. Besides these public buildings, there are homes of his designing in every town in which he has lived. He was ordained president of the Eighty-fifth Quorum of Seventy by Elder Jacob Gates, and was later ordained a High Priest; finally he was ordained Patriarch by Apostle Francis M. Lyman.
Andrew Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia: A Compilation of Biographical Sketches of Prominent Men and Women in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 4 vols. Salt Lake City 2:129 |
Biographies 
