Andrew Durfee: Private, Company A — A Founding-Era Saint Who Marched at the Head of the Mormon Battalion Column (1818–1890)

Andrew Durfee was born around 1818 and came from a family with deep roots in the early Restoration. The Durfee family was among the earliest converts to the Church, with members who had been present in Kirtland and Nauvoo before the great exodus west. When the Mormon Battalion was organized in July 1846, Andrew Durfee enlisted in Company A — the lead company — under Captain Jefferson Hunt.

Serving in Company A meant marching at the front of the entire Battalion column — first through the tall grass of Kansas, first into the New Mexico desert, first across the wilderness that separated the United States from California. Captain Hunt was a man of legendary endurance and faith, and the soldiers of Company A marched in his example.

For a man from a family that had already given so much — the Durfees had suffered through Missouri expulsions and the Nauvoo exodus — the Battalion call was one more chapter in a long story of sacrifice. Andrew Durfee answered it as his family had answered every call before: he went.

After his discharge in July 1847, Durfee returned to Utah and settled there. He was part of the first generation of Utah pioneers, contributing to the establishment of communities in the Salt Lake Valley and surrounding areas. He lived out the rest of his life in the faith he had inherited and confirmed through his own experience.

Andrew Durfee died around 1890 in Utah. His family's long history in the Church, combined with his own Battalion service, makes him one of the founding generation's most rooted witnesses.