Asa Starkweather Calkin was born July 5, 1809 in Elizabethtown, New York. He was a lawyer who was certified to try cases before the supreme court for the State of New York. In 1838 he moved his family to Iowa City, Iowa where he practiced law and served as attorney for Johnson County, Iowa. He became acquainted with the Mormon Pioneers moving west to Utah.

 He was soon converted to the L. D. S. Church and came to Utah in 1850. For a number of years he served as a clerk in the Salt Lake Tithing Office, settling tithing at the window. Asa was called on a mission to England in 1855 where he served as a clerk in the Liverpool mission office and become editor of the church magazine, the Millennial Star. When Johnson’s Army was marching to Utah, Brigham Young called all the General Authorities home. Samuel W. Richards served as president of the European Missions for a short time with Asa as his counselor.

When President Richards returned to Salt Lake City, Asa became president of the European Missions with headquarters in Liverpool, England and served as president from 1858 to 1860. During this time some of his financial policies which he introduced for handling church tithing money were adopted by Brigham Young for the entire church. After his mission he was called as a pioneer to the Dixie Mission in 1861. He arrived in Dixie with his three wives, Marietta Simmons Barney, Eliza "Lizzie" Smith, and Agnes Elizabeth Perkes.

The first school in St. George was a large tent provided by Asa. The Calkins family settled in St. George and also Pine Valley, where Asa owned a grist mill and Agnes became a well-known doctor and midwife. Asa had fifteen children of which only five lived to maturity. They were Theodore John, Amy Charlotte (married William Hunter), Asa Stanley Calkin, (married Maggie Mudd), Lottie Agnes, (married Samuel Clark Dodge), and Lucy Ellen, (married Samuel T. Bleak). Asa Starkweather Calkin died at his home in St. George on February 16, 1873.

Alfred B. Stucki (Great grandson of Asa Starkweather Calkin)