Miles Park Romney

Miles Park Romney (August 18, 1843-March 1904) was born in Nauvoo, Illinois, the son of Miles Romney. He was the president of the St. George Social Hall Company and the St. George Dramatic Association, and also served as a chief of police, attorney-at-law, newspaper editor, and architect. One of his sons, Gaskell Romney, was the father of George W. Romney and grandfather of Mitt Romney.

Miles Park Romney became a builder, moved to Utah, married one woman, did mission work in England, returned to Utah and married another woman on orders from Brigham Young. He became quite prominent in the Mormon community, building Brigham Young’s home and helping to defeat a congressional anti-polygamy law. Miles Park Romney and his three wives and various children were then sent to settle St. Johns, Ariz., as part of the church leadership’s plan to settle across the entire American West. St. Johns was not particularly welcoming to the Mormon newcomers, with Romney, the editor of the local Mormon paper a particular target; Romney became entangled in a non-Mormon led effort to try David King Udall, another prominent Mormon and bishop, for fraud involving a homestead application and after various threats to hang the lot of them, the polygamous Romney family was told to try Mexico instead.

A polygamist, in the aftermath of the Edmunds Anti-Polygamy Act of 1882 (later amended by the Edmunds–Tucker Act, 1887), Romney, on April 7, 1885, joined a party leaving Arizona to find land outside the U.S., in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico, on which his family could settle, free from fear of his arrest. Romney died on February 26, 1904, in Colonia Dublan, Mexico.

Romney's five wives, in order of marriage, were Hannah Hood Hill (1862), Caroline "Carrie" Lambourne (1867), Catherine Jane Cottam (1873), Alice Marie "Annie" Woodbury (1877) and Emily "Millie" Henrietta Eyring Snow (1897). Romney married Hannah Hood Hill on May 10, 1862, at Salt Lake City, Utah.