Anthony W. Bessey: A Manti Pioneer Who Built in Stone (1850s)

Anthony W. Bessey was an early settler of Manti, Utah, who probably built his small stone home at 415 North 300 West shortly after his arrival in the Sanpete Valley. Like the early Saints of Manti, he helped transform the frontier into a settled community of the covenant people, building not only homes of stone but a household of faith in the gospel. His life is a faith-promoting witness of the pioneer builders who, with patient hands, raised up the settlements of Zion in the valleys of the territory, and whose quiet labor of stone and mortar became the foundation upon which generations of the Saints would stand.