Edmund Durfee
Latter-Day Saint martyr (1788-1845)

Edmund Durfee (Durfy) Sr. (October 3, 1788 – November 15, 1845) was an American settler and early member of the Latter Day Saint movement who is remembered as a martyr by Latter-day Saints.
Biography
Born in Tiverton, Rhode Island, Durfee was a farmer, carpenter, and millwright. He married Magdalena Pickle, and they later became the parents of thirteen children. The Durfees joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the 1830s in Ohio. After being driven as religious refugees from Mormon settlements in Ohio and Missouri (see Missouri Executive Order 44), they moved to Morley's Settlement in Hancock County, Illinois, about 25 miles due south of Nauvoo, Illinois.
In September 1845, a mob of anti-Mormon arsonists rushed upon Morley's Settlement. They burned down the Durfee home and, shortly thereafter, burned down the homes of dozens of other Mormon families. The morning following, Solomon Hancock sent word of the burnings to President Brigham Young in Nauvoo:
"Dear Brother,
I will agreeably to your request send you some of the particulars of what has been done. On the other side of the branch, it is a scene of desolation.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Edmund Durfee” is latter-Day Saint martyr (1788-1845). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Edmund, Durfee and Latter-Day, not as a finished interpretation.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 16, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q5339431. VIAF identifies the subject as 305857234. The Library of Congress control number is no2013137378. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1788 and 1845.
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This entry incorporates text from “Edmund Durfee” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.