RBC | Lydia Wells was born in Salt Lake City, Utah 1856. She planned to marry Edward P. LeCompte in May of 1880. The ceremony was postponed when the Army transferred Edward to the Camp on the White River. E.P.
LeCompte was posted at the Camp on the White River May 1880 to August 21, 1882. I get the feeling that the Camp on the White River was a punitive assignment. Kind of like being sent today to the Aleutian Islands. General Hazen was sent here when he in the Army dog house for his outspoken political views. LeCompte’s posting to Colorado postponed his May marriage to Miss Lydia Wells of Park City. Post records show LeCompte received leave July 25, 1880, for 11 days. Sounds like a honeymoon to me.
In 1882, Dr. LeCompte was still on the White River. Post Remarks from the Camp on the White River stated: “Citizen Physician E.P. LeCompte contract as acting Ast. Surgeon U.S. Army annulled [contract] at his own request …to take effect August 1, 1882.” Apparently, LeCompte had been a contracted employee for a year. I believe during that time, his wife, Lydia was living at the Camp. Why do I think that? Their son, Edward Dexter LeCompte was born in Meeker on April 14, 1882. Although technically he was born at the Camp on the White River, the U.S. Post office was already calling the post office at the trading post, Meeker, Colorado.
That might make him the first white male born in Meeker. After August 1882, E. P. LeCompte was a free agent. There is a knowledge gap between August 1882 and April 1883. He could have returned to Salt Lake City or stayed in the Valley. The White River Valley didn’t need another physician, so he bid on the camp suttler’s contract and won.
In April of 1883 Hugus & Adams was out as Post Traders and Dr. LeCompte was in, at least until October 1883. The Camp was closed and the buildings sold at auction. E. P. LeCompte is listed as shareholder of the Meeker Townsite Company in the 1883 incorporation papers. He obviously felt that he had a ground floor opportunity in the new Meeker. I have no facts, just a guess that he changed his mind, seeing no immediate future in competing with Hugus & Major once they moved back into town. The town was still too small to support him as a private physician. The cattlemen didn’t arrive until 1884 with the big herds.
Anyway, by 1886, Dr. LeCompte was in private practice back in Park City, Utah. His daughter, Hannah, was born there on Feb. 5, 1886. I found an interesting item in the 1887 Meeker Herald. It advertised an unclaimed letter at the post office for E.P. LeCompte. It was probably something from The Publisher’s Clearing House. Those people never give up.
Edward Palmer LeCompte died July 26, 1924, in Park City, Utah. Lydia died in 1926. Their son Edward Dexter LeCompte was appointed to West Point and served later as a surgeon like his father.
Sources: National Park Service website; Park City Utah Museum; U.S. Returns from Posts; Wyomingnewspapers.org; Rio Blanco Historical Society; This Is What I Remember VOL I, page 207, and Vol II page207; newspapers.lib.utah.edu; U.S. Army pension records index; Kansashistory.gov;
