Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2009 with funding from
Brigham Young University
http://www.archive.org/details/historyofutahcom04whit
"HISTORY °r (JTA
JOHN C. STOEL
To Feramorz Y. Fox
GIFT COLLECTION
Dec. 25 1942
N FOdR VOLTES.
166155
By ORSON F. WHITNEY.
Volume IV. — Biographical.
11 lusf perfect.
History is philosophy teaching by examples. — Herodotus:
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH:
GEORGE Q. CANNON & SONS CO., PUBLISHERS.
OCTOBER, 1904.
COPYRIGHT APPLIED FOR
PREFACE.
/Of T the expiration of fourteen years since the inception of the enterprise known as
\JL Whitney's History of Utah, the fourth and final volume now appears. The
iuuer history of this period would tell for author and publishers a tale of protracted
toil, with many interruptions and suspensions, and a final triumph over obstacles and
discouragements innumerable. But nothing more is desired by them in a prefatory way
than is contained in the following announcement of the pending issuance of the book,
taken from the "Deseret News'' of February 6, 1904. Said that paper:
"This volume is in the nature of a gift to paid-up subscribers for the original set of
three volumes, heretofore issued by the present proprietors and publishers, the George
Q. Cannon & Sons Company of this city.
'"The announcement of the completion of the great work, begun by Bishop O. F.
Whitney, as author, nearly fourteen years ago, will be received with great satisfaction by
his many friends, the subscribers and the public generally.
"It was in the Spring of 1890 that the Bishop was engaged to write this History by a
company organized for the purpose of publishing it, and which employed him at a stated
monthly salary for the literary part of the work. The undertaking was gigantic. To
carry it to success required years of hard labor on the part of the author, as well as the
business heads of the concern; fighting against adverse conditions which were at times
almost overwhelming; so that it may be imagined with what a sense of relief the Bishop
lays aside his pen, and the publishers and proprietors also end their labors.
"Since the inception of the enterprise by Dr. John 0. Williams of Colorado, the
original owner and manager, the business has changed hands. It was purchased by the
present proprietors at a time when the whole project was imperiled, and their purchase
was virtually a rescue of the enterprise. They are now about to make good their pledge
to the public by the issuance of this gift volume, even though it entails upon them a
heavy financial sacrifice.
"The fourth is exclusively a biographical volume, the general narrative embodied in
the complete work having ended with the third. These biographies, between three hun-
dred and four huudred in number, life sketches of prominent citizens of all creeds and
classes, constitute the largest and most valuable collection of the kiud ever published in
this region. They are arranged in such a manner as to afford, so far as possible, a con-
tinuation of the historical narrative previously published, and which ended with the year
the writing of the history began — 1890. By a convenient division into groups, such as
pioneers, congressmen, journalists, lawyers, mining men, farmers, artisans, etc., the
general history, along certain lines, is virtually brought up to date.
"The major portion of this volume was written several years ago, and was ready for
the printer, but financial disappointments, encountered by the management, prevented
PREFACE.
the publication, and Bishop Whitney, in the interval caused by the unavoidable delay, has
re-written the whole book and brought it down to the present, thus making it a more
valuable work than it would otherwise have been.
"The proprietors as well as the author are to be congratulated upon the successful
completion of their great and commendable enterprise."
In conclusion the author desires to express his appreciation of the pleasant relations
that have always existed between him and the publishers, and to give a word of due
praise to Mr. Brigham T. Cannon, the present manager, through whose energetic labors,
loyally backed by his company, the publication has been brought to a successful issue.
Nothing further need be said, except that the author and the publishers are perfectly
satisfied with the reception accorded their work. Wherever the History has gone — and
it will be found in the leading libraries of the land — it has called forth the highest com-
mendation and approval.
"My task is done — my song hath ceased — my theme
Has died into an echo; it is fit
The spell should break of this protracted dream.
The torch shall be extinguished which hath lit
My midnight lamp — and what is writ, is writ —
Would it were worthier!"
Orson Ferguson Whitney.
Salt Lake City, October, 1904.
BIOGRAPHIES.
PIONEER LEADERS AND THEIR ASSOCIATES.
NAME PAGE
Brigharn Young 11
Heber Chase Kimball 1G
Willard Richards 21
Orson Pratt 25
Wilford Woodruff 30
George Albert Smith 33
Amass Mason Lyman _ 39
Ezra Taft Benson 42
Erastus Snow 44
Johu Brown 48
John Pack 50
NAME PAGE
Lorenzo Dow Young 53
Milieu Atwood 55
Jacob Weiler 57
William Clayton 58
Aaron Freeman Fair 59
Truman Osborn Angell CO
Horace Kimball Whitney 61
George Woodward 62
The Three Pioneer Women '
Harriet Page Wheeler Young | „.,
Clara Decker Young
Ellen Sanders Kimball
FIRST IMMIGRANTS.
Parley Parker Pratt 73
Johu Taylor 80
Charles Coulson Rich 85
Daniel Spencer 87
Edward Hunter 91
Jedediah Morgan Grant 94
Abraham Owen Smoot 98
Perrigrine Sessions 102
Joseph Home 103
John Neff 105
Loriu Fair 100
Jacob Houtz 108
Elijah F. Sheets 109
John Xebeker Ill
Charles Crismon 112
Joseph Corrodon Kingsbury 114
Edward Stevenson 115
William C. Staines 116
Nathan Tanner Porter 119
Simpson Montgomery Molen 121
David and Susan Fairbanks 1'24
John Wesley Turner 125
Andrew Love 127
The Woodburys 128
Orson B. aud Susann S. Adams 130
Horace Drake 131
John Gabbott 131
William Harker 132
LEADING COLONIZERS.
Orson Hyde 137
Peter Maughan 140
Anson Call 142
William Wallace Cluff 145
William Budge 149
Francis Asbury Hammond 151
William Miller 153
Thomas Edwin Ricks 156
Joseph Parry 157
William Nicol Fife 162
BIOGRAPHIES.
NAME PAGE
Abram Hatch 165
Edwin D. Woolley, Jr 108
NAME PAGE
George Washington Brimhall 169
John Crook 170
EARLY MILITARY MEN.
Daniel Hanmer Wells 175
James Ferguson 180
Robert Taylor Burton 184
James Brown 187
Warren Stone Snow 188
John Riggs Murdock 189
William Holmes Walker 19'J
John 1). T. McAllister 197
Theodore MeKean 199
Hiram Bradley Clawson 201
William L. N. Allen
203
Myron Tanner 206
Washington Franklin Anderson 207
Marcus LaFayette Shepherd 208
Dimick Baker Huntington 209
— Ira Nathaniel Hinckley 211
Thomas Barthelemy Cardon 212
Zacheus Cheney 213
-Luther Terry Tuttle 215
Robert Piston 216
Henry Phiuehas Richards 217
Daniel Henrie 218
MEN OF AFFAIRS.
Lorenzo Snow 223
Joseph Fielding Smith. 227
Newel Kimball Whitney 233
William Bowker Preston 237
John Rex Winder 240
William Jennings 242
Horace Sunderlin Eldredge 246
Feramorz Little 250
Henry Dinwoodey 252
Nicholas Groesbeek 256
Thomas George Webber 258
Francis Marion L3_man 260
Moses Thatcher
Francis Armstrong.
264
269
David Harold Peery 270
George Teasdale 272
Amos Milton Musser
Alonzo Hazelton Raleigh
274
"77
Leonard Wil ford Hardy 279
Francis Hilliard Dyer 281
Edwin Dilworth Woolley 2S2
Andrew Cunningham 285
Lester James Herrick 2S6
Oliver Goddard Snow 2SS
Charles Woodmansee 292
Sidney Stevens 'J94
Samuel Stephen Jones 296
John William Guthrie 298
William Driver 300
Samuel Pierce Hoyt 303
Edwin Stratford 304
Fred Simon 305
George Dixon Snell 307
Bernard Herman Schettler 308
August Wilhelm Carlson 310
George Montgomery Scott 311
EDITORS AND EDUCATORS.
Franklin Dewey Richards. 315
Anthon Henrik Lund 319
Orson Spencer 320
Samuel Whitney Richards 323
Julian Moses 325
Mary Jane Dilworth Hammond. 326
Karl Gottfried Maescr 327
John Rocky Park 329
Charles William Penrose 333
John Nicholson 336
Charles Carroll Goodwin 341
Byron Groo 342
Joseph Bull 344
Jesse Williams Fox 347
David John. 348
CharlesJolm Thomas 349
George Careless 351
John Silvanus Davis 352
BIOGRAPHIES.
NAME PAGE
Thomas Cott Griggs 353
Joseph Marion Tanner 354
Joseph Thomas Kingsbury 355
•lames Edward Talmage 357
Joshua Hughes Paul 360
NAME PAGE
Benjamin Cluff. Jr 362
William Jasper Kerr 364
Evan Stephens 365
John Jasper McClellan 367
John David Peters 368
FARMERS AND STOCKRAISERS.
Angus Mimn Cannon 373
Canute Peterson 376
John and Amy Bigler 378
Joseph Smith Tanner 379
Elmer Taylor 380
John Stoker 382
Jacob Peart 383
Edward Phillips 385
William D. Roberts 386
John Ford 3SS
David Henry Caldwell 389
George Patten
• harles L. Anderson
Charles Crane 393
John and Mary Spiers 39ii
Cnristopher Jones Arthur 398
John Ellison 398
George Spilsbury 399
John Sivel Smith 400
John Daniel Holladay 401
John Thornlev 402
Robert McQuarrie 402
Francis Webster 403
John Alexander Egbert 404
Elias Asper 404
George Perry.... 405
William Wardle Taylor 406
William Huff Carson 407
Anthony Wayne Bessey 40S
John Enniss 409
Joseph Henry Joseph 410
Ralph H. Hunt 410
James Godfrey 411
Baruard Hartley Greenwood 41.!
John Morrill 414
Thomas Steed 415
John Cole 416
Elias Crane 417
Peter Greenhalgh 418
Christian Anderson 420
Willson Gates Nowers 421
Alexander Robertson 422
Albert Baley Griffin 423
William Whitehead Taylor 424
Thomas Spaekrnan 426
Newton Tuttle 427
James Erwen Bromley 42S
John Croft 429
( 'yrus Sanford 430
John Tickers 431
William Spicer 431
James Armstrong 432
Robert Aldous '. 433
Thomas Heuvy Wilson 433
Thomas Wheeler 434
William Bartlett 435
Rufus Albern Allen 430
William Hyrum Griffin 437
James Fisher 438
Thomas F. H. Morton 438
Orin Alonzo Perry 439
Joseph P. Newman 440
TRADES AND PROFESSIONS.
Joseph Young 443
Levi Richards 445
Joseph Edward Taylor 448
Christian Daniel Fjeldsted 450
John Moburn Kay 452
John Needham 453
Harvey Harris Cluff 455
James Movie 457
Peter Gillespie 459
Edward Lloyd Parry 459
BIOGRAPHIES.
NAME PAGE
John Druce 401
Thomas Fenton 462
John Paternoster Squires 463
Daniel and Agnes Stuart 4lili
William and Agues Douglass.. 468
Andrew Watgon 469
George Stringfellow 470
William Jefferies 471
David Jenkins 472
John Hughes 473
Thomas Wilkins Jones 474
Alexander, Margaret and FannySteele 475
NAME PAGE
Thomas Cooper 476
Abel Parker 477
John P. Wood 477
John Whitmer Hoover 478
Uaac K. Wright 478
Joseph William Taylor 479
Neils Morten Peterson 480
Joseph Marriott 4S0
George Curtis 482
Amos D. Holdaway 482
George M. Kerr 483
MANUFACTURERS AND MINING MEN.
Elias Morris 487
Enoch Bartlett Tripp 488
Philip Pugsley 4112
James F. Woodman 405
William Wallace Chisholm 404
Allen G. Campbell 495
John Beck 496
Christian August Madsen 498
David Elias Browning 499
David Keith 500
Henry Wallace 502
Alfred Solomon 503
Alfred William McCune 505
John J. Daly 500
John Judge 510
Jesse Knight •"> L L
Theodore Bruback 515
Nephi Willard Claytou 510
Charles Edwin Loom' 518
Nephi Packard 518
Thomas Robinson Cutler 510
Richard D. Millett..: 520
John Law Blythe 523
George Richards Jones 524
John X. Smith 525
Thomas Howard 526
LAWYERS AND LEGISLATORS.
Jabez Gridley Sutherland 520
Franklin Snyder Richards 532
Orlando Woodworlh Powers 557
William Howard Dickson 541
Charles Stetson Variau 542
Francis Almond Brown 543
Hugh Sidley Gowaus 540
Nathaniel Henry Felt 548
Lewis Warren Shurtliff 550
Edwin Gordon Woolley 552
Adam Spiers 555
Charles Comstock Richards 557
Richard Whitehead Young 500
James Henry Moyle 564
< 'lesson Selwyne Kinney 505
S. A. Kenner 507
William Critchlow 508
WOMEN OF NOTE.
Eliza Roxy Snow Smith 573
Zina Huntington Young 576
Bathsheba Bigler Smith 578
Jane Snyder Richards 580
Mary Isabella Home 5S4
Emmeline B. Woodward Wells 586
Ruth MosherPack 590
Charilla Abbott Browning 591
Emily Hill Woodinausec 593
Hannah Cornaby 505
Louisa Lula Greene Richards 598
Romania Bunnell Pratt 600
BIOGRAPHIES.
NAME
PAGE
Ellen Brooke Ferguson 602
Emily S. Richards 604
Elizabeth Ann Claridge McCune 006
NAME PACK
Inez Knight Allen 610
Lucy Jane Rrimhall Knight 613
OTHER NOTABLES.
Heber Manning Wells 610
Charles Washington Bennett 620
Alexander Cruickshank Pyper (i'21
Edward Lennox Sloan 622
William Sylvester McCornick 024
Matthew Henry Walker 626
Bolivar Roberts (I2S
Friedrich Johann Kiesel 629
Thomas Cor win Iliff 633
Nathan Tanner 635
Henry Eliot Gibson 638
John Scowcroft 639
Alexander Hamilton Tarbet (W0
Samuel Newhouse 1142
Frank Knox t'A'.\
Perry S. Heath 644
Arthur Benjamin Lewis 645
Henry Gordon Williams : 646
Jeremiah Langford 648
Frank A. Grant 649
Ezra Thompson 651
William Hatfield 652
Henry L. A. Culmer 652
George Dunford Alder (>54
L. M. Olson 055
UTAH IN CONGRESS.
George Quayle Cannon 659
John Milton Bernhisel liliij
William Henry Hooper 666
John Fitch Kinney 008
John T. Caine 671
Joseph LaFayette Rawlins 078
Frank Jenne Cannon 682
Clarence E. Allen 087
Brigham Henry Roberts 088
George Sutherland 694
Thomas Kearns 695
Reed Smoot 098
HISTORIAN AND HISTORY.
The Author and his Work, by John Nicholson
ILLUSTRATIONS.
NAME PAGE
Scenes on the San Pedro. Los Angeles,
and Salt Lake Railroad Frontispiece
Millen Atwood 54
Joseph Corrodon Kingsbury 72
Edward Stevenson 114
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas H. Woodbury. 129
Mr. and Mrs. Orson B. Adams 131~~
Horaee Drake 133
William Harker 13."»
Francis Asbury Hammond 13(5
William D.Hendricks 141
William Holmes Walker 174
Warren Stone Snow 1S9
Luther Terry Tuttle 214
Daniel Henrie 219
Sidney Stevens 222
C. C. Skorup 269
H. W. Maw 277
William Xewton 299
James Smith 305
James Edward Talrnage 314
Charles John Thomas 34S
John Silvauus Davis 353
Angus Munu Cannon 372
Daniel Wood 375
Jacob and Amy Bigler 379
Elmer Taylor 3S1
Jacob Peart 382
Edward Phillips 384
William D.Roberts 387
George Patten 391
Christopher Jones Arthur 393
John Sivel Smith 397
John Daniel Holladay 399
John Thoruley 401
Francis Webster 402
John Alexander Egbert 405
Elias Asper 406
George Perry 407
William Wardle Tavlor 409
NAME PAGE
William Huff Carson 411
Barnard Hartley Greenwood 412
John Morrill 415
Thomas Steed 417
John Cole 419
Peter Greenhalgh 421
Christian Anderson 421
Albert Baley Griffin 422
William Whitehead Taylor 42.".
Thomas Spackman 425
James Erwen Bromley 427
Johu Croft 428
John Vickers 429
James Armstrong 431
Robert Aldous 432
Thomas Henry Wilson 433
Thomas Wheeler 437)
Rufus Albern Allen 435
Willi:>.m Hyrum Griffin 436
James Fisher 437
Orin Alonzo Perry 438
Joseph P. Newman 411
Christian Daniel Fjeldsted 442
Isaac Hunter 447
Edward Lloyd Parry 45S
Andrew Watson 468
David Jenkins 471
Thomas Wilkins Jones 47'!
Alexander, Margaret and Fanny Steel. 475
Thomas Cooper 476
Abel Parker 477
John P. Wood 478
Joseph William Taylor 479
Joseph Marriott 481
George Curtis 4S3
George M. Kerr 485
Mr. and Mrs. David Keith 4S6
John Beck 497
Christian August Madsen 499
Alfred William McCune ."'04
ILLUSTRATIONS.
NAME PAGE
John Judge 511
Theodore Bruback 514
Charles Edwin Loose 517
Nephi Packard 519
Richard D. Millet 521
William Jex 525
Charles Washington Bennett 528
James Henry Moyle 565
Clesson Selwyne Kinney 567
William Critchlow 569
Priseilla Paul Jennings 572
Ruth Mosher Pack 591
Emily Hill Woodmansee 595
Hannah Cornaby 597
Elizabeth Claridge MeCune 607
Inez Knight Allen 611
Lucy Jane Brimhall Knight 612
William Sylvester McCornick 618
Matthew Henry Walker 627
Bolivar Roberts 628
Friedrich Johann Kiesel 629
NAME PAGE
Nathan Tanner 631
Henry Eliot Gibson 633
John Scoweroft 635
Business house of John Scoweroft &
Sous Company 637
Alexander Hamilton Tarbet 630
Samuel Newhouse 641
Frank Knox 643
Perry S. Heath 644
Arthur Benjamin Lewis 645
Mines of the Utah Fuel Company 647
Jeremiah Langford 649
Ezra Thompson 650
William Hatfield 653
George Dunford Alder 655
L. M. Olson 657
John T. Caine 658
William H. King 665
George Sutherland 693
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Kearns 694
Reed Smoot 699
5*
o
i- 5
«*"
= O
PIONEER LEADERS
AND THEIR ASSOCIATES.
BRIGHAM YOUNG.
^IRTUALLY the history of Brigham Young has been told in the preceding volumes;
his great life forming the back-bone of the general narrative therein contained.
The founder of Utah, he was for a period of thirty years the most conspicuous and
most consequential personage within her borders and throughout the vast region
lying between the Missouri river and the Pacific coast. Preeminently America's pioneer
and colonizer, a statesman, a financier, an organizer of industry and a born leader of men,
he was undoubtedly one of the greatest that any age or country has produced.
Brigham Young was a native American, a descendant of the pilgrims and patriots,
and first saw light in the little town of Whitingham, Windham county, Vermont, June
1st, 1S01. His grandfather, Joseph Young, was a surgeon in the Anglo- American army
during the French and Indian war, and his father, John Young, a Revolutionary soldier,
serving under the immediate command of Washington. His mother's maiden name was
Nabbie Howe. He was one of ten children, and the youngest but one of five brothers,
named in their order as follows: John, Joseph, Phineas, Brigham and Lorenzo. His
sisters were Nancy, Fanny, Rhoda, Susan and Nabbie. The first four married and became
respectively Mrs. Kent, Mrs. Murray, Mrs. John P. Greene, and Mrs. James Little.
Nabbie died in her girlhood. In religion, the family were Methodists. Brighani's early
avocations were those of carpenter and joiner, painter and glazier.
At Aurelius. Cayuga countv, New York, on the 8th of October, 1S24, he married
Miriam Works, who bore to him two children, both daughters, who became Mrs. Eliza-
beth Ellsworth and Mrs. Yilate Decker. He lived at Aurelius for about twelve years,
and then moved to Mendon, Monroe county, New York, where his father dwelt.
It was at this time that he first saw the Book of Mormon, a copy of which had been
left at the house of his brother Phineas, in the neighboring town of Victor, by Samuel
H. Smith, a brother to Joseph Smith, the Prophet. Deeply impressed with the prin-
ciples of Mormonism, he, in company with Phineas and his friend Heber C. Kimball,
visited a branch of the Church at Columbia. Bradford county, Pennsylvania, from which
State had previously come several Mormon Elders, preaching the doctrines of their faith
in and around Mendon. Subsequently proceeding to Canada, where his brother Joseph
was laboring in the Methodist ministry, Brigham presented to him the claims of Mor-
monism. He then returned with him to Mendon, where they both joined the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Brigham Young was baptized on the 14th of April, 1832, by Elder Eleazer Miller,
who confirmed him at the water's edge and ordained him an Elder the same evening.
About three weeks later his wife Miriam was baptized. She died in the following Sep-
tember, and he, with his two little daughters, then made his home at Heber C. Kim-
ball's.
His first meeting with the founder of Mormonism was in the fall of the same year,
when he visited Kirtland, Ohio, the headquarters of the Latter-day Saints. Joseph
Smith, it is said, prophesied on that occasion that Brigham Young would yet preside
over the Church. A year later he removed to Kirtland, where, in February, 1834, he
married Mary Ann Angell, who became the mother of sis children, three of whom
survive.
Brigham Young was chosen one of the Twelve Apostles — the council or quorum
second in authority in the Mormon Church — February 14, 1835, and forthwith he entered
upon his eventful and wonderfully successful career. With his quorum he traversed the
Eastern States and Canada, making proselytes to the faith and gathering funds for the
completion of the Kirtland Temple and the purchase of lands in Missouri, where Mormon
colonies from Ohio and the East were settling. When disaffection arose and persecution
threatened the existence of the Church and the lives of its leaders, he stood staunchly
by the Prophet, defending him at his own imminent peril. Finally the opposition became
so fierce, that he as well as the Prophet was compelled to flee from Kirtland.
12 HISTORY OF UTAH.
He next appears at Far West, Missouri, the new gathering place of the Saints.
where, after the apostasy of Thomas B. Marsh and the death of David W. Patten, (his
seniors among the Apostles,) he succeeded to the Presidency of the Twelve. This was
in the very midst of the mob troubles that culminated in the expulsion of the Mormon
community from that State. In the absence of the First Presidency, composed of the
Prophet, his brother Hyrum Smith, and Sidney Rigdon, who had been thrown into
prison, President Young, though not then in Missouri, directed the winter exodus of his
people, and the homeless and plundered refugees — twelve to fifteen thousand in number
— fleeing through frost and snow by the light of their burning dwellings, were safely
landed upon the hospitable shores of Illinois.
His next notable achievement was in connection with the spread of Mormonism in
foreign lands. As early as July, 1838, he and his fellow Apostles had been directed by
the Prophet to take a mission to Europe, and "the word of the Lord" was pledged that
they should depart on a certain day from the Temple lot in Far West. This was before
the mob troubles arose, before the Mormons had been driven, and before there was any
prospect that they would be. But all was now changed, the expulsion was an accom-
plished fact, and it was almost as much as a Mormon's life was worth to be seen in
Missouri. The day set for the departure of the Apostles from Far West (April 26, 1839)
was approaching, but they were far away, and apostates and mobocrats were boasting
that the revelation pertaining to that departure would fail. Before daybreak, however,
on the morning of the day appointed, Brigham Young and others of the Twelve rode
into the town, held a meeting on the Temple lot, and started thence upon their mission,
their enemies meanwhile wrapped in slumber, oblivious of what was taking place.
Delayed by the founding of their new city, Nauvoo, in Hancock county, Illinois, and
by an epidemic of fever and ague that swept over that newly settled section, they did not
cross the Atlantic until about a year later, and even then this indomitable man and his
no less indomitable associates arose from sick beds, leaving their families ailing and
almost destitute, to begin their journey.
Landing at Liverpool penniless and among strangers, April 6, 1840 — Mormonism's
tenth anniversary — they remained in Great Britain a little over a year, during which
time they baptized betweeu seven and eight thousand souls and raised up branches of
the Church in almost every noted city and town throughout the United Kingdom.
They established the periodical known as "The Millennial Star," published five thousand
copies of the Book of Mormon, three thousand hymn books and fifty thousand tracts,
emigrated a thousand souls to Nauvoo, and founded a permanent shipping agency
for the use of future emigration. The British Mission had previously been opened, but
its foundations were now laid broad and deep. The first foreign mission of the Mormon
Church, it still remains the most important proselyting field for the energetic Elders of
this organization.
Briarhani Young, soon after his return from abroad, was taught by the Prophet the
principle of celestial or plural marriage, which he practiced as did others while at Nauvoo.
He married among other women, several of the Prophet's widows. It was not until after
the settlement of Utah, however, that "polygamy'" was proclaimed.
Brigham Young was in the Eastern States, when Joseph and Hyrum Smith were
murdered in Carthage jail, June 27, 1844. The business which had taken him and most
of the Apostles from home was an electioneering mission in the interests of the Prophet,
who was a candidate for the Presidency of the United States. As soon as they heard the
awful tidings of the assassination, they hurried back to Nauvoo.
Their return was timely. The Saints, grief-stricken at the loss of their leaders,
needed the presence of the Apostles, but not merely as a means of consolation. Factions
were forming and a schism threatened the Church. Sidney Rigdon, who had been the
Prophet's first counselor in the First Presidency, was urging with all his eloquence — for
he was an eloquent and a learned man — his claim to the leadership, contending that he
was Joseph's rightful successor; notwithstanding that for some time he had absented
himself from Nauvoo and the society of the Saints, manifesting a disposition to
shirk the trials patiently borne by his much suffering associates. Brigham Young, with
little learning and less eloquence, but speaking straight to the point, maintained the right
of the Twelve Apostles to lead the Church in the absence of the First Presidency, basing
his claim upon the teachings of the martyred Seer, who had declared: "Where lam
not, there is no First Presidency over the Twelve." He had also repeatedly affirmed that
he had rolled the burden of "the kingdom" from his own shoulders upon those
■of the Twelve.
The great majority of the people sustained President] Young, and followed him in the
HISTORY OF UTAH. 13
exodus from Illinois, leaving Elder Rigdon and other claimants at the head of various
small factions which have made no special mark in history. Brigham, by virtue of his
position in the Quorum of the Twelve, was now virtually President of the Church,
though he did not take that title until nearly two years later, when the First Presidency
was again organized. The exodus began in February lS4t>.
Expelled from Nauvoo across the frozeu Mississippi, armed mobs behind them, and
a savage wilderness before, the homeless pilgrims, with their ox-teams and heavily
loaded wagons, halted in their westward flight upon the Missouri river, where, in the
summer of the same year the37 filled a government requisition for five hundred men to serve
the United States in its war against Mexico. Thus originated the famous Mormon Bat-
talion, whose story is told m another place.
President Young and his associates, after raising the Battalion and witnessing its
departure for the West, set about preparing for the journey of the Pioneers to the Rocky
Mountains. This company, including himself, numbered one hundred and forty-three
men, three women and two children, meagerly supplied with wagons, provisions, fire-
arms, plows, seed-grain and the usual camp equipment. Leaving the main body of their
people upon the Missouri, with instructions to follow later, the Pioneers started from
Winter Quarters (now Florence, Nebraska), early in April, 1847. Traversing the track-
less plains and snow-capped mountains, they penetrated to the very heart of the "Great
American Desert, " where they founded Salt Lake City, the parent of hundreds of
cities, towns and villages that have since sprung into existence as Brigham Young's
and Mormonism's gift to civilization. The date of their arrival in Salt Lake Valley was
July 24th, a day thenceforth "set among the high tides of the calendar."
Flinging to the breeze the stars and stripes, these Mormon colonizers took possession
of the country, which then belonged to Mexico, as in the name of the United States, and
after the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, by which, in February, 1S48, the land was ceded
to this nation, they organized, pending the action of Congress upon their petition for a
State government, the Provisional State of Deseret, of which Brigham Young was elected
Governor, March 12, 1849. They thoroughly explored the surrounding region, placated or
subdued the savage tribes (President Young's policy was to feed the Indians rather than
fight them) battled with crickets, grasshoppers and drouth, instituted irrigation, redeemed
arid lands, built cities, established newspapers, founded schools and factories, and made
the whole land hum with the whirring wheels of industry. They were emphatically what
they styled themselves, "the busy bees of the hive of Deseret."
There was but one branch of industry that they did not encourage. It was mining.
In the midst of one of the richest metal-bearing regions in the world, their leader dis-
countenanced mining, advising his people to devote themselves primarily to agriculture.
"We cannot eat gold and silver," said Brigham Young, "We need bread and clothing
first. Neither do we want to bring in here a roving, reckless frontier population to drive
us again from our hard-earned homes. Let mining go for the present, until we are
strong enough to take care of ourselves, and meantime let us devote our energies to
farming, stock-raising, manufacturing, etc., those health-giving pursuits that lie at
the basis of every State's prosperity." Such, if not his precise language, was the sub-
stance of his teachings upon this point. It was the premature opening of the mines,
not mining itself, that he opposed.
Congress denied Deseret's prayer for Statehood, but on the 9th of September, 1850,
organized the Territory of Utah, of which Brigham Young became Governor, by appoint-
ment of President Millard Fillmore, after whom the grateful Mormons named the County
of Millard and City of Fillmore, originally the capital of the Territory. Governor Young
served two terms, and was succeeded in 1858 by Governor Alfred Cumming, a native of
Georgia, Utah's first non-Mormon Executive.
Just prior to Governor Cumming's installation occurred the exciting but bloodless
conflict known as "The Echo Canyon War," but officially styled "The Utah Expedition."
It was the heroic crisis of Brigham Young's life, when, on the loth of September, 1857,
he, as Governor of Utah, proclaimed the Territory under martial law. and forbade the
United States army then on our borders (ordered here by President Buchanan to sup-
press an imaginary Mormon uprising) to cross the confines of the commonwealth. His
purpose was not to defy the national authorities, but to hold in check Johnston's troops
(thus preventing a possible repetition of the anti-Mormon atrocities of Missouri and
Illinois) until the Government — which had been misled by false reports — could investi-
gate the situation and become convinced of its error. Governor Young, backed by the
Utah militia, fully accomplished his design and the affair was amicably settled.
Though no longer Governor of Utah, Brigham Young remained President of the
14 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Mormon Church, and as such was the real power in the land. Under his wise and vigor-
ous administration the country was built up rapidly. The settlements founded by him
and his people on the shores of the Great Salt Lake formed a nucleus for western civiliza-
tion, greatly facilitating the colonization of the vast arid plateau known as the Great
Basin. Idaho, Montana, the Dakotas, Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada (once a part of Utah),
Arizona and New Mexico, owe much in this connection to Utah and her founders.
It was presumed by many that the opening of the great conflict between the Northern
and the Southern States, would find Brigham Young and his people arrayed on the side
of secession and in arms against the Federal government. What was the surprise, there-
fore, when, on the 18th of October, 1861, at the very threshold of the strife, with the tide
of victory running in favor of the Confederacy, there flashed eastward over the wires of
the Overland Telegraph line, just completed to Salt Lake City, the following message
signed by Brigham Young: "Utah has not seceded, but is firm for the Constitution and
laws of our once happy country." At this time also the Mormon leader offered to the
head of the nation the services of a picked body of men to protect the mail route on the
plains, an offer graciously accepted by President Lincoln. Early in 1862, Utah applied
for admission into the Union.
The prevailing prejudice, however, was too dense to be at once dispelled. Hence,
notwithstanding these evidences of loyalty, springing not from policy but from true patri-
otism, a body of Government troops — the California and Nevada volunteers, commanded
by Colonel Patrick E. Connor — were ordered to Utah and assigned the task of "watching
Brigham Young and the Mormons," during this period of national peril. The insult im-
plied by the presence of the troops — who founded Fort Douglas on the bench east of Salt
Lake City — was keenly felt, and considerable friction arose, though no actual collision
occurred between the soldiers and the civilians in general. Gradually the acerbities wore
away and friendly feelings took their place. In after years, when President Young was
summoned to be tried before Chief Justice McKean, who should offer to become one of
his bondsmen but General Patrick Edward Connor, ex-commandant at the Fort, who was
then engaged extensively in mining, of which industry he was Utah's pioneer.
It was twenty-two years after the settlement of Salt Lake Valley when the shriek of
the locomotive broke the stillness of the mountain solitudes, and the peaceful settlements
of the Saints were thrown open to the encroachments of modern civilization. A new era
then dawned upon Deseret. Her days of isolation were ended. Population increased,
commerce expanded and a thousand and one improvements were planned and exploited.
Telegraphs and railroads threw a net-work of steel and electricity over a region formerly
traversed by the slow-going ox-team and lumbering stage coach. The mines, previously
opened, were developed, property of all kinds increased in value, and industry on every
hand felt the thrill of an electric reawakening. Tourists from East and West began
flocking to the Mormon country, to see for themselves the "peculiar people" and their
institutions, trusting no more to the wild tales told by sensational traducers.
In the midst of it all, Biigham Young remained the master mind and leading spirit of
the time. He had predicted the transcontinental railroad and marked out its path while
crossing the plains and mountains in 1847, and now, when it was extending across Utah,
he became a contractor, helping to build the Union Pacific grade through Echo and
Weber canyons. Two and a half years earlier he had established the Deseret Telegraph
line, a local enterprise constructed entirely by Mormon capital and labor under his direc-
tion. In the early "seventies" he with others built the Utah Central and Utah Southern
railroads, the pioneer lines of the Territory, and of the first-named road he was for many
years the President.
But while in sympathy with such enterprises and anxious to forward them, he was
not to be caught napping by the changes that he knew would follow. Just before the
coming of the railroad he organized Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institution, a mam-
moth concern designed to consolidate the commercial interests of his people. In this and
in other ways he successfully met the vigorous and in many respects unfriendly competi-
tion that surged in from outside sources.
With the increase of the Gentile population came the formation of rival political par-
ties, the first that Utah had known. Non-Mormon churches and newspapers also multi-
plied, religious and political agitators made the air sulphurous with their imprecations
against "the dominant power," and Congress at regular intervals was asked to extermi-
nate the remaining "twin relic of barbarism." Still, Mormonism, personified in Brigham
Young, continued to hold its own.
Under the anti-polygamy statute enacted by Congress in July, 1862, but one attempt
was made to prosecute the Mormon leader. This was in March, 1863, when a plot
HISTORY OF UTAH. 15
was said to be forming to arrest him by military force and run him off to the States for
trial. He forestalled the success of the scheme — if such a scheme existed — by surrender-
ing to the United States Marshal and going before Chief Justice Kinney in chambers, where
he was examined and held to bail, but subsequently discharged, there not being sufficient
evidence to justify an indictment. The charge in this case was that of marrying a plural
wife, the only act made punishable by the law of 1862, which was silent as to the main-
tenance of polygamous relations. Thenceforth that law remained a dead letter, no at-
tempt being made to enforce it, the Mormons regarding it as unconstitutional, as it
trenched upon a principle of their religion, and many non-Mormons, including noted
editors, jurists and statesmen, sharing the same view. In 1874 a test-case was instituted,
under President Young's sanction, to secure a decision from the Supreme Court of the
United States, but that decision, sustaining the law's constitutionality, was not rendered
until eighteen months after his death.
But while measurably safe from prosecution under the anti-polygamy act, the Mormon
leader and his compeers were not free from judicial harassments. In the fall of 1871
President Young and others were prosecuted before Chief Justice McKean under a local
law enacted bj- the Mormons themselves against the social evil, adultery and other sexual
sins, and never intended to apply to polygamy or association with plural wives, which was the
head and front of their offending. These prosecutions, with others, were stopped by the
Englebrecht decision of April, 1872, in which the court of last resort held that the
grand jury which had found the indictments was illegal.
A few years later Judge McKean had the Mormon leader again iu the toils. Under his
fostering care had arisen the case of Ann Eliza Young vs. Brigham Young, in which the
plaintiff, one of the defendant's plural wives, sued him for divorce and alimony. The
Judge in his zeal went so far as to give Ann Eliza the status of a legal wife, deciding
against all law and logic that the defendant should pay her alimony pendente lite, to the
amount of nearly ten thousand dollars. Failing to promptly comply with this demand —
which set the whole country in a roar — the venerable founder of Utah was imprisoned by
order of court in the Utah penitentiary. Sentence was passed upon him March 11, 1875
— the term of imprisonment being twenty-four hours — and just one week later the storm
of censure resulting from this act culminated in McKean's removal from office.
In the autumn of the same year President Grant visited Utah, the first Executive of
the Nation to set foot within the Territory. The most interesting incident of his visit
was a cordial interview between him and President Young, who with a party welcomed
the Chief Magistrate at Ogden and rode in the same train with him and his suite to Salt
Lake City. This was the first and only time that Brigham Young met a President of the
United States.
The closing labors of President Young's life, following a vigorous and partly suc-
cessful effort to re-establish the "United Order," (a communal system introduced by the
Prophet Joseph Smith) comprised the dedication in January and April, 1877, of the St.
George Temple — the first Temple erected by the Saints since leaving Nauvoo; also a reor-
ganization of the Stakes of Zion, beginning with St. George Stake on April 7th, and
ending with Box Elder Stake on August 19th of that year. To effect the latter organiza-
tion, he made his final trip beyond the limits of Salt Lake City.
President Young died at his residence, the historic Lion House, August 29, 1877.
He left an estate valued at two and a half million dollars, most of which was divided
among the members of his family. These were numerous, but their number, for sensa-
tional effect, has been grossly exaggerated. His children at his death numbered about
forty. Six of his widows survive. The majority of his families dwelt in the Lion and
Bee-hive houses, where each wife with her children had separate apartments, and where,
contrary to facetious report, all dwelt together in amity. The Gardo House, a handsome
and stately modern mansion, surnamed by non-Mormons the "Amelia Palace," and
pointed out to tourists as the "home of the favorite wife," was in reality the President's
official residence, erected mainly for the entertainment of distinguished visitors.
The best known of President Young's sons are Brigham Young, President of the
Twelve Apostles; Hon. Joseph A. Young, deceased; John W. Young, once a member of
the First Presidency, Inow a noted business man, and Colonel Willard Young, of the
United States Army, who commanded a regiment of Volunteer Engineers during the war
with Spain. Among the President's grand-sons is Major Richard W. Young (like his
Uncle Willard a graduate of West Point) who recently won laurels in the Philippines.
He commanded the Utah Light Artillery at the capture of Manila, and was subsequently
one of the judges of the supreme court at that place. Another grandson, Brigham S.
Young, is a member of the Salt Lake City Board of Education; another is John Willard
16 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Clawson, the painter; and still another, George W. Thatcher, Jr., musician. Elder Sey-
mour B. Young, of the First Council of Seventy; Judge LeGrande Young; Brigham
Bicknell Young, vocalist; Dr. Harry A. Young, killed in the Philippines, and Private
Joseph Young, who died in the same cause, are among the President's nephews. Cor-
poral John Young, slain in battle near Manila, was his grand-nephew. Two of Presi-
dent Young's daughters have been mentioned. In addition might be named, Mrs. Luna
Thatcher, Mrs. Emily Clawson, Mrs. Caroline Cannon, Mrs. Zina Card, Mrs. Maria
Dougall, Mrs. Phebe Beatie, Mrs. Dora Hagan, Mrs. Eva Davis, Mrs. Nettie Easton, Mrs.
Louisa Ferguson, Mrs. Susa Gates, Mrs. Mira Rossiter, Mrs. Clarissa Spencer, Mrs.
Miriam Hardy, Mrs. Josephine Young, Mrs. Fannie Clayton and others. The most noted
grand-daughter is Emma Lucy Gates, the singer.
Brigham Young, like Joseph Smith, was a warm friend of education. Among the
monuments left to perpetuate his memory are two noble institutions of learning, namely,
the Brigham Young Academy and the Brigham Young College, the former at Provo, fifty
miles south, and the latter at Logan, one hundred miles north of Utah's capital. He also
projected the Young University at Salt Lake City, but died before perfecting his plans
concerning it. Believing that man, in order to be fully educated, must be developed
mentally, physically, morally and spiritually, he provided that religion and manual train-
ing should be included in the curricula of the institutions he founded. In the trust deed
endowing the Brigham Young College with ten thousand acres of land (worth now about
$200,000) it was prescribed that no text book should be used which misrepresented or
spoke lightly of "the divine mission of our Savior or of the Prophet Joseph Smith." The
founding of these institutions was not the sum of President Young's labors in the cause
of education. The entire school system of the State, crowded with the University of
Utah, is largely the result of his zealous efforts in this direction.
Among the President's many talents was a genius for architecture, some of the evi-
dences of which are the St. George, Logan, Manti and Salt Lake Temples, and the Salt
Lake Tabernacle. As early as 1862 he built the Salt Lake Theatre, at the time of its
erection the finest temple of the drama between St. Louis and San Francisco. The
Brigham Young Memorial Building, one of a group of structures belonging to the Latter-
day Saints University, founded by the Church at Salt Lake City, was erected with
means raised from the sale of lands whereon he proposed placing the Young Univer-
sity; said lands being donated by his surviving heirs for that purpose.
A mere sketch, this, of the life and character of Utah's illustrious founder. You
who would peruse him more fully, pore over the annals of Mormonism during its first
half century; you who would witness his works, look around you — they are manifest on
every hand, fie was not only a Moses, who led his people into a wilderness, but a Joshua
who established them in a promised land and divided to them their inheritances. He was
the beating heart, the thinking brain, the directing hand in all the wondrous work of
Utah's development, and to a great extent the development of the surrounding States and
Territories, transformed by the touch of industry from a desert of sage-brush and sand,
into an Eden of fertility, a veritable "Garden of the Lord,'' redolent of fruits and blos-
soming with flowers. Brigham Young needs no monument of marble or bronze. His
record is imperishably written upon the minds and hearts of many tens of thousands to
whom he was a benefactor and friend. His name and fame are forever enshrined in the
temple of history, in the Pantheon of memory, in the Westminister Abbey of the soul.
HEBER CHASE KIMBALL.
(J>OR more than two decades after the settlement of Salt Lake Valley, the right-hand
"TV" man of Brigbam Young — one with him in all things pertaining to the upbuilding of
this intermouutain empire — was his life-long friend and associate, Heber C. Kim-
ball; rightly numbered among the greatest and foremost of Utah's founders. One
of the original Twelve Apostles of the Latter-day Church, and the father of its first and
still most important foreign mission, he was a prominent actor as long as he lived in
most of the leading events of its strange and stirring history. A tried and trusted friend
of the Prophet Joseph Smith, he was equally true and steadfast to his successor, whose
first counselor he was, in the Presidency of the Church, from the pioneer year 1847 up to
the day of his death in 1868.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 17
Respecting' the personality of this remarkable man, the writer of this memoir has
said elsewhere: "Tall and powerful of frame, with piercing black eyes that seemed to
read one through, and before whose searching gaze the guilty could not choose but
quail, he moved with a stateliness and majesty all his own, as far removed from
haughtiness and vain pride, as he from the sphere of the upstart who mistakes scorn for
dignity and an overbearing manner as an evidence of gentle blood. Heber C. Kimball
was a humble man, and in his humility, no less than his kingly stature, consisted his
dignity, and no small share of his greatness. It was his intelligence, earnestness, sim-
plicity, sublime faith and unwavering integrity to principle that made him great, not the
apparel he wore, nor the mortal clay in which his spirit was clothed, Nevertheless, na-
ture had given him a noble presence in the flesh, worthy the god-like stature of his
spirit.
"He was a singular compound, in his nature, of courage and timidity, of weakness and
strength; uniting a penchant for mh-th with a proneness tb melancholy, and blending the
lion-like qualities of a leader among men, with the bashfulness and lamb-like simplicity
of a child. He was not a coward; a braver man probably never lived than Heber C.
Kimball. His courage, however, was not of that questionable kind which "knows no
fear;" rather was it of that superior order, that Christ-like bravery, which feels danger
and yet dares to face it. He had all the sensitiveness of the poet — for he was both a
poet and a prophet from his mother's womb — and inherited by birthright the power to
feel pleasure or suffer pain in all its esquisiteness and intensity."
In speaking of Heber C. Kimball as a poet, it is not meant that he was a writer of
rhymes; he probably never made a verse in all his life; but he possessed a poetic soul,
was a thinker of great thoughts, saw into the heart of things, and recognized the poetic
symbolism everywhere pervading the universe. His sermons and sayings abound in
similes, metaphors and comparisons, which came from him as naturally as sparks from a
flaming forge. That he was a prophet, thousands who knew him still testify. Mormon
history is interspersed with allusions to his prophetic gift and with incidents and illustra-
tions of its exercise. It is conceded that with the single exception of Joseph Smith, the
founder of the faith, no Latter-day Saint has ever possessed this power to a greater de-
gree than Heber C. Kimball.
He was an original, even an eccentric character, but withal magnetic, and wonderfully
interesting. He could be as stern as fate, as severe as justice, and his tongue was as a
whip to evil-doers; yet he had a large and benevolent heart, was a natural philanthropist,
a friend to the poor, the oppressed and the unfortunate. While like the roused ocean in his
righteous wrath, he was ever a peace-loving man, wielding a marvelous influence over
the passions and feelings of his fellows. Because of this gift, the Prophet Joseph sur-
named him "the peace-maker." Of great force and energy, of mighty faith and invinc-
ible will, in the presence of rightful authority — which he always recognized — he was as
obedient and submissive as a child.
The Kimballs have long supposed themselves to be of Scotch descent, springing from
the ancient clan of Campbell — a supposition entertained by the illustrious head of the family
during the whole of his life. Recent genealogical research, however, has proved them to
be of English origin, their earliest American ancestor being Richard Kemball, a Puritan,
who emigrated from Ipswich, Suffolk, England, in April, 1634, amidst the revolutionary
agitation resulting in the execution of King Charles the First and the elevation of Crom-
well to the Protectorate. Richard Kemball (whose family name was afterwards rendered
Kimball) settled at Watertown, Massachusetts, from which place his descendants spread
out over New England and the West.
Heber C. Kimball's birthplace was Sheldon, Franklin County, Vermont; the date of
his birth, June 14, 1801. He was the fourth child and second son in a family of
seven. His father, Solomon Farnham Kimball, was born in Massachusetts, and his
mother, whose maiden name was Anna Spaulding, was a native of Plainfleld, New
Hampshire. Heber derived his middle name from a Judge Chase, by whom his father was
reared from a boy. In February, 1811, the Kimballs moved.from Vermont and settled at
West Bloomfield, Ontario County, New York, where Heber, at the age of fourteen, having
quit school, was put to work in his father's blacksmith shop. At nineteen, his father
having met with business reverses and lost his property, he was thrown entirely upon his
own resources. Owingto his peculiar sensitiveness and extreme diffldence,he suffered much
in his lonely hours and friendless situation. He relates that he often went two or three
days without food, "being bashful and not daring to ask for it.'' His brother Charles,
hearing of his condition, sent for him and offered to teach him the potter's trade; an offer
that was gladly accepted. His masterful treatment in after years of his favorite text,
18 HISTORY OF UTAH.
"The clay in the hands of the potter," doubtless owed something to his early intimacy
with that trade, as well as to the lightning-like intuition with which he recognized a
striking simile and aptly and forcibly applied it. Though unlettered and untaught, he
could roll out graceful and beautiful phrases, and his thoughts and sentiments, if crudely
expressed, were frequently brilliant and profound. While living with his brother, the
latter removed to Mendon, Monroe County in the same State, and there Heber finished
learning his trade and began working for wages. Six months later he purchased his
brother's business, and set up in the same line for himself, in which he prospered for up-
wards of ten years.
Meanwhile the sun of love dawned on his horizon. In one of his rides he chanced to
pass, one warm summer day, through the little town of Victor, in the neighboring county
of Ontario. Being thirsty, he drew rein near a house where an old gentleman was at
work in the yard, whom he asked for a drink of water. As the one addressed went to the
well for a fresh bucketful of the cooling liquid, he called to his daughter Vilate to bring
from the house a glass, which he filled and sent by her to the young stranger. Heber was
greatly struck with the beauty and refined modesty of the young girl, whose name he
understood to be "Milatey," and who was the flower and pet of her father's family.
Lingering as long as propriety would permit, or the glass of water would hold out, he
murmured his thanks and rode reluctantly away. It was not long before he again had
"business" in Victor, and again became thirsty (?) just opposite the house where the
young lady lived. Seeing the same old gentleman in the yard, he again hailed him and
asked for a drink of water. This time the owner of the premises offered to wait upon
him in person, but Heber would not have it so, and with the blunt candor for which he
was noted, nearly took the old gentleman's breath by saying, "I would rather "Milatey"
would bring it to me." "Latey," as she was called in the household, accordingly
appeared, did the honors as before, and returned blushing to meet the merriment and
good-natured badinage of her sister and brothers. She, however, was quite as favorably
impressed with the handsome young stranger as he with her. More visits followed,
acquaintance ripened into love, and on November 7, 1822, they were married.
Vilate Murray, for that was her name, was the youngest child of Roswell and Susan-
nah Murray, and was a native of Florida, Montgomery, County, New York, born June 1.
1806. The Murrays were of Scotch descent. As a race they were gentle, kind-hearted,
intelligent and refined. Through many of them ran a vein of poetry. Vilate herself
wrote tender and beautiful verses. She was an ideal wife for a man like Heber C. Kim-
ball, by whom she was ever cherished as the treasure that she was.
Some time in the fall or winter of 1831 five Elders of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints came from Pennsylvania to Victor, five miles from Mendon, and tarried
at the house of Phineas H. Young. These Elders were Eleazer Miller, Elial Strong,
Alpheus Gifford, Enos Curtis and Daniel Bowen. Heber and Vilate Kimball were then
members of the Baptist Church. Having duly investigated the new religion, they
embraced it, Heber being baptized April 15, 1832, by Elder Alpheus Gifford, and Vilate
about two weeks later, by Elder Joseph Young. Brigham Young, Heber's intimate
friend, had been baptized on the 14th of April by Eleazer Miller. A branch was raised
up at Mendon, numbering over thirty souls. Heber, having been ordained an Elder by
Joseph Young, labored with him and his brother Brigham in the ministry.
In the fall of 1832,' the three friends visited Kirtland, Ohio, and there on the 8th of
November met for the first time the Prophet Joseph Smith. A year later Elder Kimball,
having sold his possessions and settled his affairs, moved with his family to Kirtland,
arriving there about the first of November. Four children had been born to him up to
this time, the eldest and youngest of whom were dead. The survivors were William
Henry and Helen Mar. Heber was the only one of his father's household to embrace
Mormonism. He was accompanied to Ohio by Brigham Young and his two little daugh-
ters, who were motherless. In Kirtland, as in Mendon, the families of Brigham and Heber
were as one.
Both these men were enrolled in the little band of heroes, about two hundred strong,
who in May, 1834, under the leadership of the Prophet, set out for Jackson County,
Missouri, to reinstate the Saints in that section upon the lands from which they had been
driven. The story of "Zion's Camp" need not be told here. Suffice it that from the
survivors of that historic organization the Twelve Apostles of the Church were chosen,
at Kirtland, February 14, 1835. Heber C. Kimball was one of them. He accompanied
his quorum on their first mission, preaching and baptizing through the Eastern States and
Canada, counseling the Saints to gather westward and collecting means for the comple-
tion of the Kirtland Temple and for other purposes.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 19
In June, 1837, he was placed at the head of a mission to England — the first foreign
mission of the Church — and accompanied by Orson Hyde, Willard Richards, Joseph Field-
ing, John Goodson, Isaac Russell and John Snyder, sailed from New York, July 1st, land-
ing at Liverpool on the 20th — a month after Queen Victoria was enthroned. Three days
later, at Preston, Apostle Kimball preached the first Mormon discourse ever heard in
alien lands. The first foreign baptisms in the Church took place in the river Ribble at
Preston, on the 30th day of the same month. These baptisms, nine in number, were
performed by him. The first person baptized was George D. Watt, afterwards a promi-
nent Elder in the Church. Having thus gained a foot-hold, the missionaries separated,
Elders Richards and Goodson going to the city of Bedford, Isaac Russell and John
Snyder to Alston in Cumberland, while Apostles Kimball and Hyde, with Joseph Field-
ing, remained in and around Preston. Under their united labors the work spread
rapidly. In eight months they convened and baptized about two thousand souls, most of
them gathered into the fold through the powerful preaching and zealous exertions of the
unlettered but magnetic Apostle, Heber C. Kimball. On April 20, 1838, he with Apostle
Hyde and Elder Russell embarked at Liverpool for home, leaving Joseph Fielding and
Willard Richards, with William Clayton, (a new convert) to preside over the mission
thus founded.
Our Apostle rejoined the main body of his people at Far West, Caldwell County.
Missouri, on July 25th of the same year. He passed with them through the fiery ordeal
of the ensuing autumn and winter, maintaining his integrity without flinching, while a
number of the most prominent Elders weakened and fell away. One of these, William
E. McLellin, who had been an Apostle, came to gloat over his former brethren in chains,
surrounded by the mob forces, and practically under sentence of death, on the public
square at Far West. The apostate inquired for Heber C. Kimball, and having found
him, sneeringly asked if he was now satisfied with the "fallen prophet," meaning Joseph
Smith. The undaunted Apostle replied, '"Yes, I am more satisfied with him a hundred
fold than I ever was before, for I see you in the very position he said you would be in,
if you did not forsake your lying, fornication, adultery and abominations — a Judas to
betray your brethren."
Having regained his liberty, Apostle Kimball visited the Prophet and others in prison,
and assisted President Young to superintend the winter exodus of the Saints from Mis-
souri. He was one of the party who on April 26, 1839, went back to Far West to fulfil
the prediction made concerning them and their start from that place upon the second
Apostolic mission to Europe.
It was September, however, when they left Nauvoo, Illinois, where the main body of
the Saints were settling. Heber and his friend Brigham were so sick they could hardly
travel, and their families, left behind, were ailing and almost destitute. But nobler
women never lived than Vilate Murray Kimball and Mary Ann Augell Young. Heroically
rising to the occasion — not for the first, nor for the last time — they urged their husbands
to leave them, in order to honor the call made upon them and faithfully fulfil their mission.
The Apostles sailed from New York on the 9th of March and landed at Liverpool on
the 6th of April. 1840. After ordaining Willard Richards to the Apostleship, they spread
out over Great Britain, preaching, baptizing, building up branches and organizing con-
ferences. Their success was marvelous. The great London Conference was founded
by Heber C. Kimball, Wilford Woodruff and George A. Smith.
Heber returned to Nauvoo July 1st, 1S41. About this time he accepted and obeyed
the principle of plural marriage, taught to him by the Prophet Joseph, who also prac-
ticed it. His eldest daughter, Helen Mar Kimball, was sealed to the Prophet in that
order. He took an active part in all leading events affecting the Church, performed
various missions in the Eastern States, and was there with most of the Apostles when
Joseph and Hyrurn Smith were murdered in Carthage jail.
In the trying scenes that ensued, beginning with Sidney Rigdon's attempt to seize the
leadership of the Church, and eventuating in the Mormon exodus from Illinois, Heber C.
Kimball stood stalwartly by Brigham Young, sustaining him as the Prophet's rightful
successor, and assisting him heart and hand in all the arduous labors that followed. He
left Nauvoo and joined the camp of the migrating Saints on Sugar Creek, Iowa, Febru-
ary 17, 1S46. He helped President Young in the summer of that year to recruit the
Mormon Battalion on the Missouri River, and accompanied him the next spring across
the plains and over the Rocky Mountains as one of the Utah Pioneers. One of his
wives, Ellen Sanders Kimball, came with him; the other two women in the company be-
ing the wives, respectively, of Brigham Young and his brother, Lorenzo D. Young.
At a Conference held at Winter Quarters, December 27, 1847, after the return of
20 HISTORY OF UTAH.
many of the Pioneers for their families, the First Presidency of the Church — vacant since
the death of the Prophet — was again organized, and Heber C. Kimball became first
counselor to President Brigham Young; Willard Richards being the second counselor.
Early in May, 1848 the First Presidency organized the main body of the Saints on the Elk
Horn, preparatory to leading them to Salt Lake valley. They arrived here in September.
When the Provisional Government of Deseret was organized, Heber C. Kimball was
elected Chief Justice, and was also Lieutenant-Governor of the State. At the October
Conference of that year he introduced the subject of the Perpetual Emigrating Fund
Company, which was forthwith organized. At the legislative session in March, 1851 —
the State of Deseret still existing — he was president of the council branch of the assem-
bly, and in September of the same year was president of the council in the first legisla-
tive assembly of the Territory of Utah. At the laying of the corner stones of the Salt
Lake Temple, April 6, 1853, he assisted President Young to lay the south-east corner
stone, and offered thereon the prayer of consecration.
Mention has been made of President Kimball's prophetic gift. His most famous
prophecy is recorded in another volume of this history. It may here be con-
densed. The incident happened soon after his second arrival in "The Valley,'' and dur-
ing a season of famine, when the half-starved, half-clad settlers, isolated from the civil-
ized world, ''a thousand miles from anywhere," were living on rations, eked out with wild
roots dug from the earth or obtained from the Indians, scarcely knowing where to look
for the next crust of bread or for rags to hide their nakedness. Under these circumstances
Heber C. Kimball, in a public meeting, declared to his astonished hearers that within a
very short time "States goods'' would be sold in Salt Lake City cheaper than in St. Louis
or New York. "I don't believe a word of it," said Charles C. Rich, voicing no doubt the
opinion of nine-tenths of the congregation. "Well, I don't believe it either," said the
Prophet Heber, with a characteristic smile, after he had sat down; "I am afraid I
have missed it this time.''
But the fulfilment came. Not many months after the delivery of the prophecy, the
gold hunters began passing through Salt Lake valley on their way to California; an
event entirely unanticipated by the Mormon settlers. In order to lighten their loads
and expedite progress to the gold fields, they sold at enormous sacrifice the valuable
merchandise with which they had stored their wagons to cross the plains. Their choice,
blooded, but now jaded stock they eagerly exchanged for the fresh mules and
horses of the Pioneers, and bartered off dry goods, groceries, provisions, clothing, tools,
etc., for the most primitive outfits, with barely enough provisions to enable them to
reach their journey"s end. Thus was the prophecy fulfilled. Scores of such incidents
might be recounted, and many are recounted in the author's published life of Heber C.
Kimball.
In the famine of 1856, this great and good man, as provident as he was prophetic,
played a part like unto that of Joseph of old, feeding from his own bins and store-houses
— filled by his foresight in anticipation of the straitness of the times — the nungry
multitude. His own family — a numerous flock — were put upon short rations to enable
him to administer more effectually to the wants of others. Many are the acts of benev-
olence related of President Kimball and his family, especially his noble and unselfish
partner, Vilate, during this season of distress. They kept an open house, feeding
many poor people at their table daily, besides making presents innumerable of bread,
flour and other necessaries that were literally worth their weight in gold.
The fall and winter of the same year witnessed the strenuous and successful exertions
of the First Presidency to rescue the survivors of the belated handcart companies, caught
in the early snows along the Platte and Sweetwater. President Kimball sent two of his
sons, William H. and David P. with the relief corps that went out to meet the immigrants,
taking witli them wagon loads of bedding and provisions for the sufferers. President
Young and others did likewise. This prompt action on the part of the Church authori-
ties saved hundreds of souls from sharing the fate of their unfortunate companions who
had perished.
Preaching, colonizing, traveling through the settlements, encouraging the Saints in
their toils and sacrifices, sitting in council with the Church leaders, ministering in sacred
places, and in various other ways playing the part of a public benefactor — so wore away
the remaining earthly years of President Kimball. His name was a household word
wherever his people dwelt, and "Brother Heber'' was everywhere honored and beloved.
Even the Gentiles esteemed him, admiring his high courage and outspoken candor.
President Kimball was the father of a numerous posterity, mostly sons. The more
notable of these are General William H. Kimball, his deceased brothers, David P. and
HISTORY OF UTAH. 121
Heber P.; his living brothers, Charles S. and Solomon F. ; Jonathan G., one of the
First Seven Presidents of Seventies; Joseph, ex-Bishop of Meadowville; Newel W.,
Bishop's counselor at Logan; Andrew, President of St. Joseph Stake; and Elias S., ex-
President of the Southern States Mission. The best known of his daughters up to the
time of her death, was Helen Mar Kimball Whitney; the most prominent one at present is
Mrs. Alice Kimball Smith.
President Kimball died at his home in Salt Lake City, June 22, 1868; his death being
superinduced by a severe fall sustained several weeks previously. The accident occurred
at Provo, to which place — where lived his wife Lucy and her family — he had driven
from Salt Lake alone, arriving in the night. Near his residence the wheels of his
buggy went suddenly into a ditch throwing him over the forward wheels violently upon
the ground, where he lay for some time stunned and helpless, before being discovered
and assisted into the house. This mishap, though he partly recovered from its effects,
was the forerunner of his fatal illness. He had predicted his own death at the funeral of
his wife Vilate, eight months before, saying sadly as he followed the remains of his be-
loved partner to the tomb, "I shall not be long after her.''
His death was mourned by the whole Church and by many outside its pale, all realiz-
ing that "a prince and a great man had fallen in Israel." President Young said at his
funeral. "He was a man of as much integrity, I presume, as any man who ever lived on
the earth. I have been personally acquainted with him forty-three years, and I can testi-
fy that he has been a man of truth, a man of benevolence, a man that was to be trusted.
* * * We can say of him all that can be said of any good man."
WILLARD RICHARDS.
~*7 I PON the roll of honored names whose records as Pioneers and State-builders make
MM UP the early history of our commonwealth, few shine as luminously as that of
^^ Willard Richards, physician, theologian, historian, journalist and statesman. A
member of the historic band led by Brigham Young from the Missouri River to
Salt Lake Valley in 1847, from that time until the day of his death he was intimately
associated with the great man in the arduous and stupendous labor of establishing the
feet of his people in their new-found home in the wilderness ; in carving out of the desert
and the rock the State whose sovereign star is forty-fifth on the flag of the Union.
Dr. Richards was Secretary of the Provisional Government of Deseret, and after the
organization of the Territory of Utah, for several years did most of the business of the
Territorial Secretary; at the same time presiding over the Council branch of the Legisla-
tive Assembly. He was the first editor and proprietor of the Deseret News, and at the
time of his death, Postmaster of Salt Lake City. During: the last six years of his life he
was one of the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, hold-
ing: simultaneously the office of Church Historian.
Willard Richards was not only a Pioneer of Utah ; he was also the pioneer in Mor-
monism of a numerous and distinguished family, numbering among its members some of
the foremost citizens of the State. An Apostle of the#Church from April, 1840, he shared
with John Taylor, also an Apostle, the tragic honor of being a fellow prisoner with Joseph
and Hyrum Smith when they fell pierced with the bullets of assassins in Carthage jail.
On that occasion, when the bodies of the two martyrs, with that of Apostle Taylor, were
riddled with balls, one of the missiles grazed Willard's neck, carrying away the tip of his
left ear; otherwise he was unhurt, though right in the midst of the massacre. He was a
close friend and confidante of the Prophet, and acted in the capacity of his private secre-
tary up to the very moment of the martyrdom.
Willard Richards was born at Hopkinton, Middlesex county, Massachusetts, June
24, 1804. He was the youngest of eleven children, whose parents were Joseph and
Rhoda Howe Richards. His elder brothers, Phineas and Levi, who followed him into
the Church, and also came to Utah, were both able and worthy men, but Willard was the
master mind of the family. His father was a Revolutionary soldier, and in time of peace
a fairly well-to-do New England farmer. He and his wife belonged to the Congrega-
22 HISTORY OF UTAH.
tional church in Hopkinton, but their children were reared mostly under Presbyterian
influences. When Willard was about nine years old the family removed to Richmond, in
Berkshire county, where his previous training in the common schools was supplemented
with courses of instruction in the high school at that place.
At the early age of sixteen he taught school at Chatham, Columbia county, New York,
and subsequently had charge of schools at Lanesborough, Massachusetts, and other places.
He had an active and penetrating mind, and was given to scientific investigation. In his
leisure hours he studied medicine, electricity and other kindred subjects, delivering lec-
tures thereon. In 1834 he entered the Thompsonian Infirmary at Boston, and practiced
under Dr. Samuel Thompson, founder of the Botanic or Thompsonian school of medicine.
Next year he practiced his profession at Holliston, Massachusetts, where he resided at
the home of Albert P. Rockwood.
It was here that Mormonism found him. Though susceptible to religious influences
from childhood, he had paid but little attention to churches and creeds, and had supposed
at one time that his indifference to such things was due to a reprobate condition of mind.
In his despair he feared that he had committed the unpardonable sin. A great light
burst upon him, he says, when in the summer of 1835 he read the Book of Mormon, a
copy of which had been left by his cousin, Brigham Young, with another cousin, Lucius
Parker, at Southborough. Up to this time Willard had never seen a Latter-day Saint,
and his knowledge of them amounted to nothing more than that "a boy named Joe Smith,
somewhere out West, had found a gold Bible." Opening the book at random, he had
read less than half a page of its contents, when he declared, "God or the devil had a
hand in that book, for man never wrote it." He read it twice through in about ten days,
and was so impressed that he immediately resolved to visit the headquarters of the
Church, seven hundred miles distant, and give Mormonism a thorough investigation.
The execution of his purpose was delayed by an attack of palsy until October of the year
following, when he arrived at Kirtland, Ohio, in company with his brother, Dr. Levi
Richards, who attended him as physician. They were cordially received and entertained
by their cousin Brigham, who was one of the Twelve Apostles.
Willard was baptized at sunset on the last day of December, 1836, Brigham Young
officiating in the ceremony, which was also witnessed by Heber C. Kimball and others
who had spent the afternoon cutting the ice in order to prepare for the baptism. Soon
afterward he was ordained an Elder. Having formed a partnership with Brigham Young,
he accompanied him on a special business trip to the East, from which he returned just
in time to start with Heber C. Kimball, Orson Hyde, Joseph Fielding and others on a
mission to England, June 13, 1837. Abroad, his early field of labor was the Bedford
district. When Apostles Kimball and Hyde returned to America, in April, 1838, they
left Joseph Fielding, Willard Richards and William Clayton in charge of the British Mis-
sion.
While in England Willard met and married Miss Jennetta Richards, daughter of the
Rev. John Richards, Independent Minister, at Walker Fold, Chaidgley, Lancashire. The
young lad}' had been converted to Mormonism by Heber C. Kimball, who, after baptizing
her, met his friend, who had not yet seen her, and said, "Willard, I baptized your wife
today." Some time later, Willard, having formed Jennetta's acquaintance, remarked to
her, "Richards is a good name; I never want to change it, do you, Jennetta!" "No, I
do not," she replied, "and I think I never will." A few months later — September 24,
1838 — they were married. Their first child, a son named Heber John, died suddenly
soon after his birth. Another son was born to them October 11, 1840, and him they also
named Heber John. He is today Dr. Heber John Richards, of Salt Lake City.
At Preston, April 14, 1840, Willard Richards was ordained an Apostle by President
Brigham Young, assisted by other? of the Twelve, then upon their first mission as a quo-
rum in foreign lands. He had been called to the Apostleship by revelation, July 8, 1838.
Willard assisted his brother Apostles in their great work of broadening and strengthening
the foundations of the British Mission. For a while he edited the Millennial Star, then
published at Manchester, during the temporary absence of Parley P. Pratt, who had re-
turned to America for his family.
Returning across the Atlantic in May, 1841, Apostle Richards visited his old home in
Massachusetts, and leaving his family in care of his sisters there (his parents had both
died while he was in England) he proceeded on to Nauvoo, Illinois. He located tempo-
rarily at Warsaw, where he sold lands for the Church, received immigrants, and counseled
the Saints who had settled in that part ; at the same time attending to his other duties as a
general officer of the Church. In October he was elected a member of the city council of
Nauvoo, and on the 11th of December removed to that place. It had previously been
HISTORY OF UTAH. 23
voted by the Apostles in council that he should take charge of the publication of the limes
and Seasons. Two days after his arrival at Nauvoo he was appointed by the Prophet his
private secretary; he also became his general clerk, the recorder for the Temple, and
for the city council, and clerk of the municipal court. "He is a great prop to me in my
labors," wrote the Prophet to Willard's wife, while she was still in Massachusetts. He
kept Joseph's private journal, and made an entry therein only a few minutes before the
tragedy that terminated the earthly life of his beloved leader.
When the Prophet, in the absence of most of the Apostles, felt the toils gathering
round him, and knew that his only safety lay in flight from the murderous mobs that
were thirsting for his blood, Willard Richards was one of those, who on the night of June
22nd, 1844, crossed the Mississippi with him in a skiff, and started for the Rocky Moun-
tains. When, yielding to the importunities of faint-hearted friends, Joseph returned and
surrendered himself into the power of the wretches who had planned his destruction.
Willard still clung to him, and was imprisoned with him, his brother Hyrum and John
Taylor in Carthage jail.
Just before the murder of the two brothers (their jailor having suggested, in view of
certain rumors, that they would be safer in the cell of the prison than in the apartment
they then occupied) the Prophet said to Dr. Richards, "If we go into the cell, will you
go in with us?" The Doctor answered, "Brother Joseph, you did not ask me to cross
the river with you — you did not ask me to come to Carthage — you did not ask me to come
to jail with you — and do you think I will forsake you now ? But I will tell you what I
will do; if you are condemned to be hung for treason, I will be hung in your stead, and
you shall go free." Joseph said, "You cannot." The Doctor replied, "I will."
His subsequent experience in the prison, when it was assaulted by the band of black-
ened assassins who imbrued their hands in the blood of the Prophet and the Patriai-ch, is
graphically told in his own thrilling narrative, originally published in the Times and
Seasons, and entitled
"two minutes in jail.
"Possibly the following events occupied near three minutes, but I think only about
two, and have penned them for the gratification of many, friends.
Carthage, June 27, 1844.
"A shower of musket balls were thrown up the stairway against the door of the
prison in the second story, followed by many rapid footsteps.
"While Generals Joseph and Hyrum Smith, Mr. Taylor and myself, who were in the
front chamber, closed the door of our room against the entry at the head of the stairs,
and placed ourselves against it, there being no lock on the door, and no catch that was
useable.
"The door is a common panel, and as soon as we heard the feet at the stairs head, a
ball was sent through the door, which passed between us, and showed that our enemies
were desperadoes, and we must change our position.
"General Joseph Smith, Mr. Taylor and myself sprang back to the front part of the
room, and General Hyrum Smith retreated two-thirds across the chamber in front of and
facing the door.
' A ball was sent through the door which hit Hyrum on the side of the nose, when
he fell backwards, extended at length, without moving his feet.
"From the holes in his vest (the day was warm, and no one had their coats on but
myself,) pantaloons, drawers and shirt, it appears evident that a ball must have been
thrown from without, through the window, which entered his back on the right side, and
passing through lodged against his watch, which was in his right vest pocket, completely
pulverizing the crystal and face, tearing off the hands and mashing the whole body of the
watch. At the same time the ball from the door entered his nose.
"As he struck the floor he exclaimed emphatically, 'I'm a dead man.' Joseph looked
towards him and responded, 'Oh dear! Brother Hyrum,1 and opening the door two or
three inches with his left hand, discharged one barrel of a six shooter (pistol) at random
in the entry, from whence a ball grazed Hyrum's breast, and entering his throat passed
into his head, while other muskets were aimed at him and some balls hit him.
"Joseph continued snapping his revolver round the casing of the door into the space
as before, three barrels of which missed fire, while Mr. Taylor with a walking stick stood
by his side and knocked down the bayonets and muskets which were constantly discharg-
ing through the doorway, while I stood by him, ready to lend any assistance, with an-
other stick, but could not come within striking distance without going directly before the
muzzles of the guns.
24 HISTORY OF UTAH.
"When the revolver failed, we had no more firearms, and expected an immediate
rush of the mob, and the doorway full of muskets, half way in the room, and no hope but
instant death from within.
"Mr. Taylor rushed into the window, which is some fifteen or twenty feet from the
ground. When his body was nearly on a balance, a ball from the door within entered
his leg, and a ball from without struck his watch, a patent lever, in his vest pocket near
the left breast, and smashed it into 'pie,' leaving the hands standing at 5 o'clock, 16 min-
utes, and 26 seconds, the force of which ball threw him back on the floor, and he rolled
under the bed which stood by his side, where he lay motionless, the mob from the door
continuing to fire upon him, cutting away a piece of flesh from his left hip as large as a
man's hand, and were hindered only by my knocking down their muzzles with a stick;
while they continued to reach their guns into the room, probably left-handed, and aimed
their discharge so far round as almost to reach us in the corner of the room to where we
retreated and dodged, and then I recommenced the attack with my stick.
"Joseph attempted, as the last resort, to leap the same window from whence Mr.
Taylor fell, when two balls pierced him from the door, and one entered the right breast
from without, and he fell outward, exclaiming, '0 Lord my God!' As his feet went out
of the window my head went in, the balls whistling all around. He fell on his left side a
dead man.
"At this instant the cry was raised, 'He's leaped the window!' and the mob on the
stairs and in the entry ran out.
"I withdrew from the window, thinking it of no use to leap out on a hundred bayo-
nets, then around General Smith's body.
"Not satisfied with this I again reached my head out of the window, and watched
some seconds to see if there were any signs of life, regardless of my own, determined to
see the end of him I loved. Being fully satisfied that he was dead, with a hundred men
near the body and more coming round the corner of the jail, and expecting a return to
our room, I rushed towards the prison door, at the head of the stairs, and through the
entry from whence the firing had proceeded, to learn if the doors into the prison were open.
"When near the entry, Mr. Taylor cried out, 'Take me.' I pressed my way until I
found all doors unbarred, returning instantly, caught Mr. Taylor under my arm, and
rushed by the stairs into the dungeon, or inner prison, stretched him on the floor and cov-
ered him with a bed in such a manner as not likely to be perceived, expecting an imme-
diate return of the mob.
"I said to Mr. Taylor, 'This is a hard case to lay you on the floor, but if your wounds
are not fatal, I want you to live to tell the story.' I expected to be shot the next mo-
ment, and stood before the door awaiting the onset."
The expected almost happened. While Willard was caring for his wounded friend
in the inner part of the prison, a portion of the mob again rushed up stairs to finish the
fiendish frork already more than half completed. Finding only the dead body of Hyrum
Smith in the front apartment, and supposing the other prisoners to have escaped, they
were again descending the stairs when a loud cry was heard, "The Mormons are coming!-'
Thinking the inhabitants of Nauvoo were upon them, to avenge the murder of the
Prophet, the whole band of assassins broke and fled, seeking refuge in the neighboring
forest. Their groundless fear was shared by the people of Carthage in general, who
fled pell mell, terrified by the thought of a wrathful visitation from the betrayed and
stricken community.
Dr. Richards' marvelous escape from death in the midst of the fiery shower to which
his three friends succumbed, fulfilled a prediction made to him by the Prophet over a
year previously, when he told him that the time would come when the balls would fly
round him like hail, and he would see his friends fall upon the right and upon the left,
but there should not be a hole in his garment. As during that terrible ordeal he was the
personification of calm courage and collected heroism, so in the events immediately fol-
lowing he manifested the highest wisdom and discretion. Writing from Carthage to Nau-
voo, he advised the people to be patient, to trust in God, and not seek to avenge
themselves upon their enemies. He and the Prophet's brother, Samuel H. Smith, with
the wounded John Taylor, then superintended the removal of the bodies of the martyrs
to Nauvoo for burial.
In all subsequent movements of the Church Willard Richards was a recognized
power. He assisted in the inauguration and conduct of the exodus from Illinois, helped
to raise the Mormon Battalion on the Missouri River, and was one of the first enrolled
among the Pioneers who accompanied Brigham Young to the Rocky Mountains.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 25
After the return of the Apostles to Winter Quarters, when the First Presidency was
again organized (December 27, 1847), Willard Richards was chosen second counselor to
President Brighani Young. In the following summer, when the main body of the
migrating Saints crossed the plains, President Richards led one of the three grand divis-
ions into which the numerous companies were organized.
At the election held for officers of the Provisional Government of Deseret, March 12,
1S49, Willard Richards was chosen Secretary of State, and served as such until the
organization by Congress of the Territory of Utah and the arrival of the Territorial
Secretary, B. I). Harris, of Vermont, who did not reach Salt Lake City until late in July,
1851. After the summary departure of Mr. Harris, in September of that year, Dr. Rich-
ards again took up the burden of the Secretary's business — if, indeed, he had laid it
down — and continued to carry it for another year or more, when Secretary Benjamin G.
Ferris appeared upon the scene. Again, after that, official's premature departure, Dr.
Richards was Secretary ml interim.
June 15, 1850, witnessed the publication of the first number of the Deseret News, of
which Willard Richards was editor and proprietor. The News was then a small quarto,
issued weekly, but what it lacked in size it made up in vigor, thanks to the pungent pen
of the ready writer occupying the editorial sanctum. He continued to edit the News as
long as he lived. His incumbency of the position of postmaster covered about the same
period. He had the confidence of the Postmaster General, who respected his judgment
touching postal arrangements throughout the mountain territories.
September 22, 1861, the first Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Utah convened
at Salt Lake City. Willard Richards was a member of the Council. In 1852 he presided
over that body, and succeeded himself at the two following sessions of the Legislature,
which then met annually. The last time that he left his house — a retired little cottage
now on Richards Street, and then only a few rods from the Council House, where the
Legislature convened — it was to discharge his duty as President of the Council on the
final day of the session ending January 20, 1854. In his effort to walk these few rods
from his residence he said to a bystander, "I will go and perform this last duty, if like
John Quiney Adams I die in the attempt." He was suffering from dropsy. He died on
the 11th of March following.
Dr. Richards magnified to the last, along with his other duties, his office as one of
the First Presidency of the Church, enjoying to the full the love and confidence of Presi-
dents Young and Kimball, his associates. The latter once said of him, referring to his
humility and deferential regard for his seniors, "He would never so much as go through
a doorway ahead of me." President Richards, in other words, was a gentleman. His
death, in the prime of life, was regarded, in view of his many gifts and general useful-
ness, as a public calamity.
His immediate descendants — the issue of several marriages — are his sons Heber J.,
Willard B., Joseph S., Calvin W. and Stephen L.; and his daughters, Rhoda Ann Jenetta
(Mrs. Frank Knowlton) deceased; Sarah Ellen (wife of President Joseph F. Smith);
Paulina (Mrs. A. F. Doremus); Alice Ann (widow of the famous Lot Smith) ; Asenath
(widow of Judge Joel Grover) ; Mrs. Phebe Peart and Mrs. Mary Ann VanFleet. Three
of his sons embraced their father's early profession — medicine; and two of them are
still active practitioners at S?' "Lake City.
ORSON PRATT.
7~lTH1S famous Apostle and Pioneer, one of the most prominent figures in the founding
^y of Utah, was born at Hartford, Washington county, New York, September 19,
^ 1811. His parents were Jared and Charity Dickinson Pratt, and his father's ances-
tor, Lieutenant William Pratt, with his elder brother John, was among the first
settlers of Hartford, Connecticut. These brothers were sons of the Rev. William Pratt
of Stevenidge, Hertfordshire, England. Orson Pratt was next to the youngest of six
children, the fourth child in the family being his brother, Parley P. Pratt, destined like
26 HISTORY OF UTAH.
himself to become a noted preacher and writer, and among those first upon the ground
as colonizers and settlers of the Rocky Mountain region. The younger brother is here
given precedence, for the reason that he was one of the Pioneers proper, and the first of
that historic band to set foot upon the site of Salt Lake City, the earliest white settle-
ment in these parts.
The parents of Orson Pratt were poor, and he also was fated to plod through life in
comparative poverty, so far as this world's wealth was concerned; but he was rich in
powers of mind ani accumulations of knowledge, treasures beyond compute. Orson
Pratt was an intellectual millionaire.
His father began life as a weaver, but subsequently became a tiller of the soil. He
taught his children to be moral and honest, and to believe in the Bible, but he had no
faith in creeds and churches. When Orson was three or four years old the family moved
from his birthplace to New Lebanon, Columbia county, in the same State, where he was
sent to school several months in each year until the spring of 1822, when he began hiring
out as a farm boy. At intervals he picked up a knowledge of arithmetic, book-keeping,
geography, grammar and surveying. Though a frequent reader of the scriptures, it was
not until the autumn of 1829 that he began to pray fervently and "seek after the Lord."
This continued for about a year, when two Elders of the Latter-day Church came into
his neighborhood and held several meetings which he attended. One of these Elders
was his brother Parley, a recent convert to the Mormon faith, by whom Orson was bap-
tized on the nineteenth anniversary of his birth.
October of that year found him at the birthplace of the Church — Fayette, Seneca
County, New York — upon a visit to the Prophet Joseph Smith, by whom he was con-
firmed and ordained an Elder on the first day of November. His first mission, taken
soon afterward, was to Colesville, in Broome county. Early in 1831 he followed the
Prophet to Kirtland, Ohio, and after preaching for several months in that region, set out
for Jackson county, Missouri, with his brother Parley, in compliance with a revelation
directing many of the Elders to travel two by two to that land, preaching by the way.
The Pratt brothers held fifty meetings en route and baptized eleven souls.
At Kirtland, January 25, 1832, Orson Pratt was appointed to preside over the Elders
of the Church, and was set apart to that Presidency under the hands of Sidney Rigdon.
At the conference where this appointment was made the Prophet voiced a revelation in
the presence of the whole assembly, assigning many of the Elders to missions. Orson
Pratt and Lyman E. Johnson were sent to the Eastern States. Prior to starting, the
former, on February 2nd, was ordained a High Priest by Sidney Rigdon, under the direc-
tion of the Prophet. During his mission he baptized and confirmed his eldest brother,
Anson Pratt, at Hurlgate, Long Island, and after visiting his parents at Canaan, Colum-
bia county. New York, proceeded northward with Elder Johnson. At Bath, New Hamp-
shire, they baptized, among fourteen others, Amasa M. Lyman. In Vermont they bap-
tized Winslow Farr, William Snow, Zerubbabel Snow and others, and on a subsequent
mission to that State Orson Pratt brought Gardner Snow, Willard Snow and Jacob Gates
into the Church. In the intervals of several other missions to the East, he attended the
School of the Prophets, worked upon the Temple and in the Church printing office at
Kirtland, and boarded for a season in the Prophet's family.
In February, 1831, Orson Pratt and Orson Hyde were directed to travel together and
assist in "gathering up the strength of the Lord's house,'' preparatory to "the redemp-
tion of Zion." Many other Elders participated in this labor, which resulted in the
organization of " Zion's Camp.'1 In the journey to Missouri Orson Pratt had charge of
a number of the wagons. He was one of those attacked with cholera, but his great faith
and iron will saved him while others perished. As one of the standing High Council in
Zion, he with Bishop Edward Partridge visited the scattered Saints in Clay County, set-
ting in order the various branches.
The early part of the year 1835 found him on his way back to Kirtland. under leave
of absence, and accompanied part way by his brother. William D. Pratt. While on his
first visit to Missouri he had suffered from fever and ague, which now returned, brought
on by over-exertion in traveling. "Sometimes." says he, "I lay down upon the wet
prairies, many miles from any house, being unable to travel." In the streets of Colum-
bus, Ohio, a man passed to whom he felt impelled to speak; he proved to be a Latter-
day Saint, the only one in that city. At the home of this brother the worn traveler tar-
ried certain days, and there read in a late number of the "Messenger and Advocate,"
published at Kirtland, that he had been chosen one of the Twelve Apostles, and was re-
quested to be at headquarters on the 26th of April. A two-days journey by stage enabled
him to arrive there on the day appointed.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 27
He was ordained an Apostle under the bands of David Whitmer and Oliver Cowdery,
two of the three witnesses to the Book of Mormon, and on the same day was blessed by
Joseph Smith, Sr., the Prophet's father, who was the Patriarch of the Church. He
accompanied his fellow Apostles on their first mission, through the Middle and Eastern
States, and in < tatober, 1835, raised up a small branch in Beaver county, Pennsylvania,
ordaining- Dr. Sampson Avard an Elder to take charge of it.
The 4th of July, 1836, was Orson Pratt's wedding day. He chose as his wife Miss
Sai-ah M. Bates, sister to Ormus E. Bates, of Henderson, New York. Apostle Luke John-
son performed the ceremony, which took place while they were on a mission in that State.
At the time of the exodus of the Saints from Ohio, Apostle Pratt was presiding over
a large branch of the Church in New York City. Summoned to Missouri, he started
with his family for Ear West, but was detained by the ice at St. Louis, where he arrived
about the middle of November, 1838. He rejoined his driven people at Quincy, Illinois,
the next spring. His brother Parley was at that time a prisoner in the hands of the
Missourians, but made his escape in July following, through the instrumentality of his
brother Orson and other friends. The latter was one of those who risked their lives by
returning to Far West to fulfil prophecy, on the historic date, April 26, 1839.
The ensuing autumn found our Apostle again in New York City, where he embarked
with others of the Twelve in the spring of 1840, for England. April of that year saw
him in Edinburgh, Scotland, where he preached for about nine months and raised up a
branch of over two hundred Latter-day Saints. While upon this mission he published his
noted pamphlet, "Remarkable Visions," which was re-published in New York.
His time from the spring of 1841 to the summer of LS44 was spent at Nauvoo — where
he had charge of a mathematical school and was a member of the City Council — and upon
various missions in the East. As a city councilor he helped to draw up a memorial to
Congress, which he afterwards presented at the seat of government. There he tarried
for ten weeks, preaching, baptizing, and in his leisure moments calculating eclipses and
preparing his first almanac for publication in 1845. It was entitled "The Prophetic
Almanac," and was calculated from the latitude and meridian of Nauvoo and other
American towns. "From 1836 to 1844," says the Apostle, "I occupied much of my
leisure time in study, and made myself thoroughly acquainted with algebra, geometry,
trigonometry, conic -sections, differential and integral calculus, astronomy and most of
the physical sciences. These studies I pursued without the assistance of a teacher." He
was still in the east when he heard of the murder of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, and soon
afterwards he returned to Nauvoo. The following year he presided over the branches in
the Eastern and Middle States, but returned home in November to prepare for his
departure to the West.
He left Nauvoo February 14, 1846, accompanied by his family — four wives and three
small children, the youngest a babe three weeks old. Financially exhausted by his fre-
quent missions and the great amount of gratuitous service he had rendered, he had to be
assisted to an outfit with which to begin the long journey lying before him. April 24th
found him at Garden Grove, where the question of sending a band of pioneers, men
without families, across the Rocky Mountains, with seed-grain, farming utensils, pro-
visions, etc., to prepare for those who would follow, was considered in a council of the
Apostles and laid before the people. At the next halting place, Mount Pisgah, it was
decided by President Young and the Apostles that during the absence of the pioneers the
main body of the people should tarry on the Pottawattomie lands at and around Council
Bluffs, if the Indian owners would consent. While Orson Pratt was following in the
wake of President Young to the Missouri River, one of his wives, Louisa ('handler Pratt,
died of typhus fever on the 12th of June, between Mount Pisgah and Council Bluffs.
In the spring of 1847 he accompanied the President and his pioneer associates on
that historic journey which, beginning in April at the Missouri River, and ending in July
upon the shores of the Great Salt Lake, led to the founding of Utah and the settlement
and development of this intermountain country. Orson Pratt was in charge of the van-
guard sent by President Young, who was ill with mountain fever, from Echo Canyon
across the Wasatch range into Salt Lake Valley. He and Erastus Snow were the first of
the Pioneers to enter the Valley, and the former, as related elsewhere, was the first among
them to plant foot upon the site of Salt Lake City. This was on the 21st of July, three
days before the arrival of President Young. That he was alone at this time was due to
the fact that his comrade had returned toward the mountains to look for his lost coat.
The original survey of Salt Lake City was begun by Orson Pratt, with Henry G. Sher-
wood, on the 2nd of August, and on the 26th of that month, he started, with others of the
pioneers, on the return journey to Winter Quarters.
28 HISTORY OF UTAH.
At a conference held there on April (i, 1848, Apostle Pratt was appointed to succeed
Elder Orson Spencer as President of the European Mission and as editor of the "Millen-
nial Star," and in compliance with that call he with his wife Sarah andthefr children left
Winter Quarters about the middle of May and arrived at Liverpool on the 26th of July.
The British Mission contained at that time about forty thousand Latter-day Saints. The
Apostle's reputation as a preacher and a writer had preceded him, and the sun of his
fame rose well-nigh to its zenith during this period. For three years he labored incess-
antly as President, preacher, editor and author. Every noted town in Great Britain
heard the sound of his voice — deep, sonorous, powerful — proclaiming with fervid and
fearless eloquence the principles he had been sent forth to promulge. While editing the
"Star" he wrote, published and distributed many pamphlets on various subjects pertaining
to the doctrine and history of the Church. With means obtained from the sale of his
works he supplied the urgent needs of a portion of his family left on the Iowa frontier.
In May, 1850, he paid them a visit, and while there received word from President Young
that he was honorably released from his mission and at liberty to return home. Going
back to England he remained until the spring of 1851, and then started for Utah, arriving
here on the 7th of October.
The following winter he sat as a member of the Council in the first legislative assem-
bly of the Territory of Utah, and was in the legislature during every subsequent session
when at home. For several sessions, including the one next preceding his demise, he
was speaker of the House. The winter and spring of 1851-2 was occupied in the delivery
of a series of twelve lectures on astronomy, which awakened general interest. He was
also connected with the University of Deseret as one of its corps of instructors. He was
such an ardent lover of knowledge, and so anxious to disseminate it, that he offered at
one time to teach the youth of the community free, if they would but give their time
to study.
In August, 1852, he was appointed to preside over the Latter-day Saints in all the
States of the Union and in the British Provinces of North America. Establishing his
headquarters at Washington, D. C, he there began the publication of "The Seer," in the
columns of which periodical appeared the Prophet Joseph's Revelation and Prophecy on
War and the Revelation on Celestial marriage, then for the first time given to the world.
In 1853, while still editing "The Seer," he made a flying trip to Liverpool, and from
April, 1856, to January, 1858, was absent from home on another presiding mission in Great
Britain. He returned by way of California, while Johnston's army was in winter quar-
ters east of the Wasatch Mountains. For about two years from 18G2 he presided at St.
George, in Southern Utah.
In April, 1864, Apostle Pratt was set apart for a mission to Austria, and was accom-
panied to Vienna by Elder William W. Biter. Finding the laws of that country too
stringent to allow them to obtain a footing for missionary work, they returned to England,
where in May, 1866, the Apostle published an edition of his mathematical work, "Pratt's
Cubic and Biquadratic Equations." Three years later, in New York City, he transcribed
and published the Book of Mormon in the phonetic characters called the Deseret Alphabet.
— ■•The month of August, 1870, was made memorable by the great public discussion
between Orson Pratt the Mormon Apostle, and Dr. John P. Newman, the Methodist
Chaplain of the United States Senate, upon the subject "Does the Bible sanction poly-
gamy?" This famous debate took place in the Tabernacle at Salt Lake City, in the
presence of ten thousand people, and lasted three days. During its progress the Apostle
amazed and bewildered his learned opponent, not only by his thorough familiarity with
the scriptures, but by his incisive logic, his clear-cut mathematical demonstrations, his
profound knowledge of the original Hebrew and the writings of the most eminent com-
mentators on the Bible.
In 1874 he became the Church Historian, a position held by him during the remainder
of his days. In 1877 he went to England, to transcribe and publish an edition of the
Book of Mormon in the Pitman phonetic characters, but was almost immediately re-called
to Utah by the death of President Brigham Young, in August of that year. In the fall of
1878, accompanied by Apostle Joseph F. Smith, he visited Nauvoo, Kirtland, the Hill
Cumorah and other places of historic interest, and at Richmond, Ray County, Missouri,
had a pleasant interview with David Whitmer, the survivor of the famous Three
Witnesses.
In December of the same year the venerable Apostle started upon his last foreign
mission — his fifteenth voyage across the ocean; this time to stereotype and publish at
Liverpool the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants, as arranged by him in
paragraphs, with foot notes and references. He also published while there his astronomi-
1 66155
HISTORY OF UTAH. 29
cal work "Key to the Universe." Prior to this time he had achieved wide fame in the
field of higher mathematics. As early as November, 1850, he had discovered a law
governing planetary rotation, and subsequently had made other scientific discoveries.
Professor Proctor, the astronomer, while lecturing at Salt Lake City early in the "eight-
ies," referred admiringly, almost reverently, to Professor Pratt, and gave it as his opinion
that there were but four real mathematicians in the world, and Orson Pratt was one of
them. While in London upon his last mission he made a discovery regarding the
chronological symbolism of the Great Pyramid, concei-ning which he had just been
reading. This discovery, he claimed, conclusively demonstrated that the date of the
organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was symbolized in the
grand gallery's chronological floor line.
Though now an old man, with hair and beard as white as snow, he was still physic-
ally and mentally strong and enduring; and while fulfilling this mission worked for
weeks at a stretch, not less than eighteen hours out of the twenty-four. At home again
in September, 1879, he showed in the enfeebled state of his health that the heavy toil
had told severely upon him. From that time he was a sufferer from diabetes, which finally
terminated his life.
This patriarchal Apostle was the father of forty-five children, and, at the time of his
death, sixteen sons and as many daughters were living. Among the sons are Professor
Orson Pratt, musician; Arthur Pratt, ex-chief of police; Laron Pratt, printer; Lorus
Pratt, artist; Milando Pratt, a High Councilor of the Salt Lake Stake of Zion; Ray R.
Pratt and Royal G. Pratt, both of whom enlisted among the Utah Volunteers during the
war with Spain. Among the daughters are Mrs. Willard Weihe, of the Church Histo-
rian's Office, Mrs. Joseph Kimball, Mrs. J. U. Eldredge, Mrs. James Douglass, Mrs.
John Silver, Mrs. Willard Snow, Mrs. Anthony Ivins, Mrs. Alvin Beesley, Mrs. James S.
Morgan, and the late Mrs. F. M. Bishop. Two of the Apostle's grand-daughters, Mrs.
Viola Pratt Gillette and Miss Ruth Eldredge, are known in the professional world; the
former as a singer, the latter as an elocutionist.
Orson Pratt was not only a preacher, eloquent and powerful, a theologian learned
and profound, a linguist to whom the dead languages were an open book, a writer lucid
and logical, and a scientist of eminent attainments; he was also a philosopher, a fact as
clearly evinced in his every day association with his fellows, as in his thoughtful literary
productions. An anecdote or two will suffice to illustrate. One of the evidences of the
humble circumstances in which he lived was a weather-beaten but respectable straw
hat, which he wore both summer and winter. One of his daughters — Mrs. Kimball —
asked him one day, "Father, why do you wear a straw hat in winter?" "To keep my
head warm, my child," he answered. "But is a straw hat warm in winter?'' she per-
sisted. "Warmer than no hat at all, my daughter,'' was the reply, worthy of a
Diogenes. Another incident also portrays the philosophical side of his nature and
emphasizes his powers of concentration and self-mastery; all the more strikingly when
it is known that Orson Pratt was naturally as high-spirited as he was determined. He
was preaching in the open air at Liverpool, when an arrogant, noisy fellow, emerging
from the crowd, planted himself squarely in front and began denouncing him. Without
deigning to notice the interruption, the speaker raised his powerful voice and completely
drowned that of the disturber. The latter then shouted in stentorian tones, but the
Apostle, increasing his own lung power, again rendered him inaudible. This was kept
up until the fellow ceased from sheer exhaustion, and retired amid the laughter of the
bystanders. The speaker then lowered his voice to its normal pitch and calmly continued
his discourse to the end.
Orson Pratt, the meek and faithful Apostle — "the Saint Paul of Mormondom,'' as
Tullidge aptly styled him; a man of whom President Wilford Woodruff said at his funeral,
that he had traveled more miles, preached more sermons, studied and written more
upon the Gospel and upon science than any other man in the Church, — died at his home in
Salt Lake City, October 3rd, 1881. Upon his death bed, just before breathing his last,
he dictated to President Joseph F. Smith, who took down the words as he uttered them,
the following epitaph, to be placed upon his tombstone: "My body sleeps for a moment,
but my testimony lives and shall endure forever."
WILFORD WOODRUFF.
"tJYILFORD the faithful — Wilford the beloved. Iu those two phrases are summed up
I | I the character, the career, and a portion of the reward of that great and good
'"^ man, President Woodruff, one of the pioneer builders of the commonwealth,
which he saw grow from an Infantile colony into a Territory, and finally into a
sovereign State. On almost the identical spot where he and his confreres, in July, 1847,
broke the virgin soil and put in the first seed planted iu Salt Lake valley, he, in July,
1897, unveiled the monument erected by a grateful people to the memory of Brigham
Young and the Pioneers. That was his life's crowning act in a temporal way, as the
dedication of the Salt Lake Temple, a little over four years previous, was its crowning
act in a spiritual way. Thenceforth the tired body, worn out by the ceaseless activity of
the spirit, seemed but awaiting the inevitable dissolution that would prepare the mortal
frame for the peaceful rest of the tomb and open to the immortal intelligence the portals
of paradise.
Wilford Woodruff was a native of Parmington (now Avon), Hartford county, Con-
necticut, and was born March 1st, 1807. He was the son of Aphek Woodruff and his
wife, Beulah Thompson. He came of a hardy, long-lived race — his great-grandfather,
Josiah Woodruff, attaining to the age of nearly a hundred years; and he inherited from
his ancestors the activity, endurance and industrious nature for which he was noted.
Almost from infancy, it seemed as if two opposing powers were at work, one to destroy,
the other to preserve him. This conviction was borne in upon his mind by a remarkable
succession of accidents, from which he recovered or was rescued, as he believed, by an
interposing Providence. He frequently remarked during his life, that every bone in his
body had been broken, excepting his neck and spine.
A miller by vocation, at twenty years of age, after having assisted his father in the
Farmington mills, he took the management of a flouring mill belonging to his aunt,
Helen Wheeler. He afterwards had the charge of flouring mills at South Canton and
New Hartford, Connecticut. In the spring of 1832 he went with his brother Azmon to
Richland, Oswego county, New York, where he purchased a farm and sawmill and set up
iu business for himself.
It was while living at Richland, in the year 1833, that he was converted to Mormou-
ism, which he first heard preached by Zera Pulsipher and Elijah Cheney, two Elders of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Though naturally religious, he was far
from sanctimonious, and up to this time had held aloof from all churches, his course de-
termined by a belief that none of the modern religious societies had divine authority, and
that the true church of Christ would yet be re-established upon the earth. He derived
some of his views from Robert Mason, otherwise known as "The Old Prophet Mason," who
lived at Simsbury, Connecticut. He was thei-efore prepared for the message proclaimed
by Joseph Smith and his followers. He and his brother Azmon both believed, enter-
tained the Elders, and offered themselves for baptism. Wilford being baptized and con-
firmed by Zera Pulsipher December 31st, 1833. Two days later he was ordained to the
office of a Teacher-
Early in February, 1834, he was visited by Elder Parley P. Pratt, under whose
advice and instructions he began at once to make preparations for joining the body of the
Church at Kirtland, Ohio. Having settled up his business, he started with a wagon and
horses, and arrived there on the 25th of April. A week later he became a member of
Zion's Camp, and in May set out for Missouri. At Lyman Wight's house, in Clay county,
Missouri, on the 5th of November, he was ordained a Priest by Elder Simeon Carter, and
soon afterward was sent upon a mission to the Southern States.
Passing through Jackson county, the hotbed of anti-Mormonism. from which section
the Latter-day Saiuts had recently been driven, he and his companion, Elder Harry
Brown, after suffering much from hunger and fatigue, were entertained by a man named
Conner, who gave them breakfast, but cursed them while they were eating it, because
they were Mormons. At Pettyjohn creek, in Arkansas, they called upon Alexander
Akeman, who had belonged to the Church in Jackson county, but had turned against it,
and was now very bitter in his opposition. Wilford Woodruff bore his testimony to the
HISTORY OF UTAH. 31
apostate, who followed him from the house in a great rage, but just before reaching the
object of his wrath fell dead at his feet, as if struck by lightning. Meetings and baptisms
followed, after which the two missionaries proceeded southward, rowing down the Ar-
kansas river in a cottonwood canoe of their own manufacture. From Little Rock they
waded through mud and water on toward Memphis, Tennessee, during which journey
Elder Brown, annoyed by the slow progress they were making, departed, leaving his
companion, who was suffering from rheumatism, sitting on a log in the mud and water,
unable to walk, without food, and far from any house. Kneeling down in the wet, the
young Priest prayed to God, asking Him to heal him. He was instantly relieved of
pain, and continued on his way, preaching wherever he could find hearers.
In Benton county .Tennessee, early in April, 1835, he joined Elder Warren Parrish and
labored with him for over three months, during which time they converted and baptized over
forty persons. Elder Parrish, called to Kirtland, ordained Wilford Woodruff an Elder
(June 28), and the latter, after being left alone, prosecuted his labors in Kentucky and
Tennessee, baptizing over thirty more. Anion": his associates was Abraham Owen
Snioot, whom Elder Parrish had baptized, and whom Elder Woodruff now ordained an
Elder. In April, 1836, the latter labored in Tennessee, under the direction of Apostle
David W. Patten, who, on May 31st, ordained him to the office of a Seventy. Some
months later Elders Woodruff and Smoot were released to go to Kirtland, where they
arrived on the 25th of November, the former having previously organized the first com-
pany of Saints that emigrated from the Southern States. It numbered twent3T-two souls.
Up to this time Wilford Woodruff was a single man, but now he decided to marry.
The lady who became his wife was Phebe W. Carter, to whom he was united April 13th,
1S37. President Frederick G. Williams performing the ceremony at the home of the
Prophet Joseph Smith in Kirtland. The Prophet himself was to have officiated, but was
prevented by a mob. Those were perilous times for the Clnrrch, some of whose leading
men had apostatized and others were preparing to fall away. Wilford Woodruff was
among those who stood staunchly by the Prophet, defending him against the attacks of
his enemies. By Joseph's advice he attended the Temple school and studied English and
Latin for a season, but missionary work was more to his liking, and he was soon on his
way to a new field of labor.
It was on the last day of May, in the year 1837, that he started upon a mission to Fox
Islands, off the coast of Maine. He was now one of the First Quorum of Seventy. After
attending a conference in Canada, and ordaining Elders, Priests, Teachers and Deacons,
he proceeded to Farmington, Connecticut, where he baptized his uncle, Ozem Woodruff,
and others of his kindred. He visited his wife's relatives at Scarborough, Maine, and
then went on to his destination. He was accompanied to Fox Islands by Elder
Jonathan H. Hale. The day they landed, — Sunday, August 20th — Wilford Woodruff
preached the first Mormon sermon ever delivered there, in the only church on North
Island. They preached often and baptized many. In the summer of 1838 Elder
Woodruff baptized his father, his stepmother, his sister Eunice and other relatives in
Connecticut, and after organizing a branch there, went back to Fox Islands, where, on
August 9th he learned of his appointment to fill a vacancy in the quorum of the Twelve
Apostles.
In the ensuing fall, at the head of a company of Saints, including his wife and infant
child, he started through rain, mud, frost and snow for Missouri, but on the way learned
of the exodus of the Church from that state, and so tarried through the winter in Illinois.
At Quincy he met Apostles Brigham Young and John Taylor, whom he afterwards accom-
panied, with others, to Far West, Missouri. ) There, on the 26th of April, 1839, he was
ordained an Apostle by President Brigham Young, the ordination taking place on the
Temple lot, during the meeting held on that memorable morning by those apostolic ful-
fillers of prophecy. George A. Smith was ordained an Apostle at the same meeting.
Returning to Quincy, Wilford Woodruff again met President Joseph Smith, who had just
escaped from captivity in Missouri.
He was with the Prophet in the founding of Nauvoo, and assisted him in the midst
of a fearful epidemic of fever and ague that swept over that section, during which Joseph
healed many that were lying at the noint of death. Not having time to visit and bless
two sick children three miles away, the Prophet gave Elder Woodruff a red silk handker-
chief and told him to go and lay hands on the children and wipe their faces with the
handkerchief and they should be healed. The Apostle did as he was told, and the little
ones recovered. The date of this incident was July 22ud, 1839.
Sick himself with chills and fever, his family also sick, and with only four days' pro-
visions on hand, Apostle Woodruff, on the 8th day of the ensuing August, started upon
32 HISTORY OF UTAH.
his first mission to England. Sailing from New York in company with John Taylor and
Theodore Turley, he landed at Liverpool January 11, 1840. He spent forty days in the
Staffordshire potteries, preachingland baptizing, and then proceeded south into Hereford-
shire, where he found a society called "United Brethren," numbering some six hundred
and fifty souls. In eight days he baptized one hundred and sixty of them, including their
presiding elder, Thomas Kington, and forty-seven other preachers. He also baptized
three clerks of the Church of England, who had been sent by their ministers to watch and
report his movements. A constable who came to arrest him was also gathered into the
fold. After meeting President Young and others of his quorum at Liverpool, where
they landed on the Gth of April, and attending a council and conference at Preston, where
Willard Richards was ordained an Apostle and the missionary work of the Twelve out-
lined, he returned to Herefordshire. There and in Worcestershire and Gloucestershire
he spent seven months. During that time he and his brethren baptized over eighteen
hundred souls, including two hundred preachers of different denominations. In August
he went to London and assisted Heber C. Kimball and George A. Smith to establish Mor-
monism in that great city. In April, 1841, he sailed with President Young and his party
for America, landing at New York about the last of May. Journeying westward, he was
wrecked on Lake Michigan, but escaped and reached Nauvoo on the Gth of October.
He was now placed in charge of the business department of the Church printing
office, and also became a member of the city council. He filled a mission to the East, in
company with Brigham Young and George A. Smith, to collect funds for the Nauvoo
Temple and the Nauvoo House; and later went forth with other Elders to electioneer for
the Prophet in the Presidential campaign of 1844. He little dreamed upon leaving
Nauvoo, May 9th, that he had looked his last, that day, upon the living features of his
revered and beloved leader. He was at Portland, Maine, about to step on board a
steamer bound for Fox Islands, when he saw an account of the murder of Joseph and
Hyrum Smith. He forthwith returned to Boston and accompanied President Young and
others of the Twelve to Nauvoo.
At a council held there soon after their arrival, Wilford Woodruff was appointed to
preside over the British mission, and pursuant to that call landed at Liverpool January
3rd, 1845. April 13th, 1S46, found him back at Nauvoo, where the exodus of the Saints
was in progress. President Young and most of the Apostles having already departed for
the west. As soon as possible he followed with another company, stopping at Mount
Pisgah, one hundred and seventy-two miles from Nauvoo, where, on the 26th of June, he
met Captain James Allen, of the United States army, who had come to present the Gov-
ernment's requisition for the Mormon Battalion. The Apostle at once sent a courier to
the Church leaders at Council Bluffs (whither Captain Allen immediately repaired), and
then, under ad^.tc from President Young, he proceeded to enroll volunteers at Mount
Pisgah. The f< ik.wmg winter he spent on the Missouri River, where occurred one of his
terrible accid^r^, in w hi' h he was crushed by a falling tree. He was healed by the
prayer of faith vui tht administration of the Elders, including President Young.
The next sprine found him on his way across the plains as a member of the Pioneer
Company. He was captain of the first ten wagons in that famous organization. He
arrive/. :n Salt Lake valley on the 24th of July, bringing with him in his carriage Presi-
dent i'.ang, who was sicu. with mountain fever. Pioneer Woodruff's first act after
his auival here was eminendy characterislic of him. It was to plant the seed potatoes
he had brought with him from the frontier. Having assisted to explore the Valley, lay
out Salt Lake City, and erect the Old Fort, he returned with President Young and others
to the Missouri River, where he had left his family. He was there,when the First Presi-
dency was reorganized, but in the spring of 1848 went on a mission to the Eastern States,
from which he returned to Salt Lake City in 1850.
December of that year found him a member of the Council or Senate of the General
Assembly of Deseret, and September following a member of the House in the first Legis-
lative Assembly of the Territory of Utah. He subsequently sat in the Council for a period
of twenty years. He traveled much with President Young, exploring and helping to col-
onize various parts of Utah and establish new settlements.
Wilford Woodruff was a natural agriculturist. Most aptly could he have been
styled the Cincinnatus of Utah. Without worldly ambition, and utterly devoid of show
and ostentation, he shunned prominence rather than courted it, and esteemed place and
power, so far as this world's honors went, as mere baubles, not worth the seeking. He
delighted in tilling the soil and causing it to yield in abundance and variety. It was his
pride and pleasure to find upon his trees or vines an abnormally large peach, apple,
strawberry, or potato, to take its circumference and diameter, and exhibit the same
HISTORY OF UTAH. 33
admiringly to his neighbors. He was the first president of the Utah Horticultural
Society, organized at Salt Lake City in September, 1855, and for a long period was presi-
dent of the Deseret Agricultural and Manufacturing Society. He resided for many years
in what is now the Valley House, which he owned; but he also had a fine farm in the
southern suburbs of the town, the place known as "Woodruff Villa." He loved outdoor
life, was exceedingly active and busy, and when not in his office or away from home, was
sure to be found bustling about his farm, hoeing corn, harvesting grain, building, or en-
gaging in like pursuits.
For one who made no pretensions to education, oratory or literary ability. Wilford
Woodruff was remarkable for his extensive fund of general knowledge, his ready and
rapid utterance, and his graphic powers of description. He perused with avidity the
public prints, which, with the Church woi'ks, constituted the greater part of his reading;
and had a retentive memory and quick recollection of personal experiences and historical
happenings, especially those affecting his people and religion. He kept a daily journal
from the time he entered the ministry up to within two days of his death, and recorded
therein with untiring industry every important event in Mormon history. His well
known zeal and diligence in this direction doubtless suggested him in due time as a
most proper person for Church Historian, to which office he succeeded at the death of
Apostle Orson Pratt, in 1881, having previously held the position of his assistant. He
continued to be Church Historian until he succeeded to the Presidency of the Church.
When the St. George Temple was dedicated, in 1S77, Apostle Woodruff was placed in
charge as its president, and during the next two years he performed an immense amount
of labor in that sacred edifice. More than forty-one thousand vicarious baptisms took
place there during his term of presidency, and of these, three thousand one hundred and
eighty-eight were performed by himself, his family and friends for their dead ancestors.
President Woodruff testified that while in the Temple he received visitations three nights
in succession from prominent Americans of the Colonial period, including the signers of
the Declaration of Independence, who from the spirit world solicited his services in their
behalf. He responded cheerfully, and had the necessary work done for them.
In October, 1880, he was sustained as President of the Twelve Apostles, succeeding
President John Taylor in that position.' During the anti-polygamy crusade following the
enactment of the Edmunds law, March, 188'2. he spent much of his time in Arizona and
Southern Utah, but was at Salt Lake City in February, 1SS6, when the Gardo House, the
President's Office and the Historian's Office were raided by the United States marshal
and his deputies, in quest of Presidents Taylor, Cannon and Smith. President Woodruff
was in the Historian's Office at the time, with Apostles Erastus Snow- and Franklin D.
Richards. Calmly walking into the street, he passed by the officers into the crowd, appa-
rently unrecognized
At the death of President Taylor, in July, 1887, he succeeded virtually to the leader-
ship of the Church, which then rested upon the Apostolic Council over which he presided.
On April 9, 1889, the Council of the First Presidency was reorganized and Wilford Wood-
ruff was sustained as President of the Church, with George Q. Cannon and Joseph F.
Smith as his counselors. He succeeded President Taylor as Trustee-in-trust, for the
Church, also as president of Z. C. M. I. and of Zion's Savings Bank.
On September, 24. 1S90, President Woodruff issued the famous "Manifesto," discon-
tinuing the practice of plural marriage; a declaration accepted and sutained by the
Church at the following October Conference. The people were told by their leader that
the Lord accepted their sacrifices in behalf of the principle, and desired them now to sub-
mit to the law of the land. They obeyed.
An era of good feeling ensued. Mormons and Gentiles affiliated socially and
politically, and were friendly as never before. Local political lines, upon which a long
and bitter fight had been waged, were obliterated; the People's party and subsequently
the Liberal party disbanded, and the citizens generally, regardless of past prejudices and
affiliations, divided on national party lines, mostly as Democrats and Republicans. The
crusade — a six years' reign of terror — came to an end. Presidents Harrison and
Cleveland, in successive proclamations, pardoned all polygamists, and the Mormon
Church property, forfeited and escheated to the government under the provisions of the
Edmunds-Tucker law of March, 18S7, was restored bv act of Congress to its rightful
owner. Utah, a Territory since September 9, 1S50, on January 4, 1896, was admitted
into the Union as a State.
In the midst of these changes — predicted in a general way by President Woodruff at
the dedication of the Salt Lake Temple. April. 1893 — the venerable leader in the fall of
that year visited the World's Fair at Chicago, accompanying the Tabernacle Choir, which
34 HISTORY OF UTAH.
there competed with the trained choristers of Wales and other countries, and in the great
vocal contest bore off second prize. President Woodruff and party, including his
wife, Emma Smith Woodruff, and other members of his family, Presidents George Q.
Cannon and Joseph F. Smith, with members of their families, were everywhere greeted
cordially and received with honor. Especially was this the case at Independence, Jack-
son county, Missouri, from which part, just sixty years before, the Latter-day Saints had
been ruthlessly expelled by mob violence. By the civic authorities of Independence and
by the Elders of the so-called Reorganized Church there residing, the Utah visitors were
warmly welcomed and treated with the utmost courtesy.
The year 1897 was a notable one in the life of President Woodruff and in the history
of the commonwealth of which he was one of the principal founders. It was Utah's year
of jubilee. On March 1st, the President attained his ninetieth anniversary, an
event celebrated at the great Tabernacle in the presence of an immense gathering of
friends, including the Governor of the State, members of the Legislature and other public
officials, Mormons and non-Mormons. At the close of the proceedings, which were also
in honor of Mrs. Emma Woodruff, who was fifty-nine years old that day, a reception was
held, the entire assemblage passing by and shaking hands with the venerable leader and
his wife. On July '20th, at the openiug of the Utah Pioneer Jubilee, the President, though
in feeble health, officiated in the ceremony of unveiling the statue of President Brigham
Young surmounting the monument erected in his honor and that of the Pioneers. In the
afternoon he attended the reception at the Tabernacle, where he was presented with a
gold badge designed for the oldest Pioneer present. July 22nd. the third day of the fes-
tival, he was crowned with flowers at the Taberuaele by the children who had marched in
that day's procession; the floral wreath being presented and placed upon the brow of the
aged Pioneer by little Ida Taylor Whittaker, a grand-daughter of President John Taylor.
July 24th, the closing day of the celebration, President Woodruff, in his carriage, headed
the great Pioneer pageant, and was greeted with enthusiasm by the multitude.
/A year later to the day he made a speech at the dedication of the Old Fort Square as a
public park of Salt Lake City; and within the next three weeks set out upon a visit to San
Francisco — the visit from which he was destined not to return alive. ) For several years
he had taken frequent trips to California, where he obtained relief from his besetting ail-
ment, insomnia. During one of these trips, in 1896, while fishing at Catalina Islands, the
aged sportsman, assisted by his wife, had hauled out a yellow tail weighing thirty pounds.
He was as proud of his catch as if it had been a five-pound strawberry, picked from his
patch at Woodruff Villa. His love for rod and gun was almost equal to his fondness for
hoe and sickle. An event of his last visit to the coast was his attendance, by invitation,
in company with President George Q. Cannon, at a banquet given on the evening of Au-
gust 27, 1898, by the Bohemian Club of San Francisco, in honor of an octogenarian,
who addressed the assemblage. The company, surprised and delighted at the vigor
manifested by their aged friend, were simply astounded when President Woodruff, then
in his ninety-second year, promptly responded to a call for an impromptu speech, with
even more vigor and vivacity.
The next day was the Sabbath: and the President addressed the Latter-day Saints
of the San Francisco branch at their regular meeting in that city. This was his. last
public appearance. On Tuesday he was taken ill, and though everything possible was
done for him that skill and kindness could devise, he gradually sank into the sleep of
death, passing peacefully away at twenty minutes to seven o'clock on the morning of the
2nd of September. He died at the home of Colonel Isaac Trumbo, where he and his party
had been most kindly entertained. Accompanied by his wife Emma and other friends, the
remains of the deceased leader were brought home for burial. The funeral services
were held in the Tabernacle on the 8th of September.
President Woodruff during his life was married five times, and was the father of
thirty-one children, one of whom, his son Abraham Owen Woodruff , is now one of the
Twelve Apostles. The eldest son bears his father's full name. These two, with his sons
James, Asahel, David and Newton, are probably the male descendants best known in the
community. Among the President's daughters are Mrs. Phebe Snow, Mrs. Beulah
Beatie, Mrs. Belle Moses, Mrs. Clara Beebe, Mrs. Blanche Daynes, Mrs. Alice McEwan
and Miss Mary Woodruff.
Wilt'ord Woodruff was beloved by his people for his great integrity, and was univers-
ally esteemed for his honest and guileless nature. He had no enemies, and in his case —
though such examples are rare — this fact constituted a credit shadowed by no element of
reproach. His crowning characteristic, next to fidelity and devotion to principle, was his
simple, childlike humility. He was "an Israelite indeed,'' in whom there was "no guile."
GEORGE ALBERT SMITH.
\J/HERE were giants in the earth in those days." Scarcely more apt were these words
1$) t° the days described in Genesis than to the days of George A. Smith and his fel-
;ir low founders of Utah. Seldom have so many great spirits been grouped in any one
period as were gathered around the Prophet Joseph Smith and President Brigham
Young, assisting the former in the establishment of a new religion, and the latter in the
building up of a new commonwealth. Among these none loomed grander, in mature and
later years, and none were humbler and more unassuming, than the beloved and revered
"George A." whose name, thus affectionately abridged, remains a synonym for all that is
upright, noble and good in the lexicon of the Latter-day Saints. A big-hearted, broad-
minded philanthropist, a giant in intellect and almost a giant in physique, he was for
many years the historian and general recorder of his Church, holding simultaneously the
Apostleship, and during the last seven years of his life he was one of the council of the
First Presidency.
George A. Smith was born at Potsdam, St. Lawrence county. New York, June 26,
1S17. His father, John Smith, and his mother. Clarissa Lyman Smith, were both natives
of Xew Hamphshire. His first American ancestor came from England early in the seven-
teenth century. John Smith was uncle to the Prophet Joseph and the Patriarch Hyrum
Smith, consequently George A. was first cousin to those worthies. He bore the same rela-
tion to Judge Elias Smith, was second cousin to President Joseph F. Smith, and father to
John Henry Smith, the Apostle. Among the best known of his descendants are his
daughters Mrs. Clarence Merrill and Mrs. William X. Williams, his grandson, George A.
Smith, and his granddaughter, Mrs. Alice Merrill Home, all residents of Salt Lake City.
His early life, checkered more or less with perils and mishaps through which he passed
without any permanent evil results, was spent under the immediate watcheare of his
parents. They were members of the Congregational church, and he himself was strictly
trained therein until he was fifteen years of age; but he was an independent thinker and
soon broke sway from the churches and creeds of his time. His father being an invalid,
the son was under ihe necessity of laboring constantly to supply the needs of the home.
His opportunities for education were therefore limited, but he valued knowledge and
made every effort in his power to obtain it. He early showed signs of a superior intellect,
and his memory, as he grew older, became phenomenal. Though genial and humorous
in disposition, he was old-fashioned in his ways, caring little or nothing for the company
of children of his own age, so far as their fun and frivolity were concerned, and preferring
and seeking the society of older people. He was a great favorite with his grandfather,
Asael Smith, a veteran of the Revolution and the war of 1812, and would climb upon the
old man's knees and listen spell-bound to his thrilling narrations of his experience while
fighting for liberty and independence.
In the year 1828 came to this branch of the Smith family the news of the discovery
by their kinsman Joseph Smith, at Manchester. Ontario county, of the famous golden
plates from which he translated the Book of Mormon. A copy of this book was
brought to them two years later by Joseph Smith, Sr., and his son, Don Carlos, a
younger brother of the Prophet. George A. read the book very carefully, and after
thorough inquiry and investigation, accepted it as an inspired record. A wealthy and
influential Presbyterian in his neighborhood offered to send him to college as a prepar-
ation for the Christian ministry if he would promise not to become a Mormon, but he
declined the offer, and on the 10th of September, 1832, joined the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints. He was baptized by Elder Joseph H. Wakefield, and confirmed by
Elder Solomon Humphrey.
In May, 1833, he removed with his parents to Kirtland. Ohio, and during the sum-
mer of that year quarried and hauled rock for the building of the Kirtland Temple. The
5th of May, 183-1, found him on his way to Missouri as a member of Zion's Camp. He
walked the entire distance to Clay county — where most of the Saints expelled from Jack-
son county had gathered — in forty-five days; a distance of a thousand miles; his outfit
consisting of a musket, a blanket and a knapsack. During the last three weeks of the
journey he was the Prophet's personal attendant or "armor bearer.'' Sleeping in the
36 HISTORY OF UTAH.
same tent with Joseph and Hyrum, and present at most of the councils held, he acquired
much information that afterwards proved invaluable to him, regarding the Prophet's
manner and method of governing men and settling difficulties. He returned to Kirtland
early in August of the same year. When the time came to ordain the Twelve Apostles
and the first Seventies of the Church, he was oi-dained a Seventy under the hands of
Joseph Smith, Sr., Joseph Smith, Jr., and Sidney Rigdon, the last named being mouth.
The date of his ordination was March 1, 1835. He was set apart as a member of the
first quorum of Seventy.
Between May, 1835, and April, 1838, he fulfilled three missions, the first in company
with Elder Lyman Smith in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York; the second in Ohio, and
the third in southeastern Ohio and northwestern Virginia. In the intervals he attended
school at Kirtland. While upon the third mission he taught grammar classes, thereby
earning means to purchase clothing. This mission was a very arduous one. He met
with much opposition, held public debates with ministers of various denominations, and
suffered for six weeks with inflammatory rheumatism, caused by exposure and privation
while traveling through all kinds of weather and experiencing all sorts of treatment in a
wild and sparsely inhabited region. While thus occupied he met the lady who was des-
tined to become his wife — Miss Bathsheba W. Bigler, of Harrison county, West Virginia.
The summer of 1838 found him located at Adam-Ondi— Ahman, Daviess county,
Missouri, where on the 28th of June he was ordained a High Priest and set apart as a
member of the High Council of that Stake. In the fall of the year, with his cousin, Don
Carlos Smith, he went upon a mission through Kentucky and Tennessee. During his
absence the Prophet and many of his brethren were made prisoners and various atrocities
were perpetrated by the Missourians upon the Mormon settlers. George A. and Don
Carlos, while on their way home, were pursued by a mob and came nigh perishing in a
storm on the prairie.
On April 26, 1839, George A. Smith was ordained an Apostle, to fill a vacancy in the
quorum, caused by the apostasy of Thomas B. Marsh. His ordination took place on the
Temple corner-stone at Far West, then all but deserted by Latter-day Saints, who had
been driven from Missouri into Illinois. He was ordained under the hands of Brigham
Young and several other Apostles, Heber C. Kimball being mouth. He soon set out with
a majority of his quorum upon their mission to Great Britain, and though suffering much
sickness, steadily held on his way, preaching through Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsyl-
vania, New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut.
April 6, 1840, was the date of his landing in England. He labored in the counties
of Lancaster, Chester, Stafford, Warwick, Worcester, Hereford, Gloucester, Essex and
Middlesex; and with Heber C. Kimball and Wilford Woodruff built up a branch of the
Church in London. It required a strong effort to introduce Mormonism in the Metropolis,
and much street preaching had to be done. Apostle Smith there injured his left lung,
which troubled him during the remainder of his life and finally caused his death.
At Nauvoo, to which place he returned early in July, 1841, he married, on the 25th
of that month, Miss Bathsheba W. Bigler, who as Mrs. Bathsheba W. Smith has long
held a prominent place among the women of Utah. In February, 1842. he was elected
a city councilor, and a year later an alderman of Nauvoo. He was successively a chap-
lain and Quarter-master General of the Legion, also a trustee of the Nauvoo House
Association. In 1842, 1843 and 1844 he did considerable ministerial work in Illinois and
in states farther east. He was in Michigan when his kinsmen, Joseph and Hyrum Smith,
were murdered in Carthage jail.
When the time came to evacuate Nauvoo, George A. Smith was one of the first of the
Mormon leaders to set out for the West. An anecdote aptly illustrating his character
finds its place at this point. At a council where the subject of the exodus was being
considered, a great many discouraging views were expressed, when Geoi'ge A., after
listening intently to the pessimistic sentiments, and it coming his turn to speak, arose
and said: ''Well, brethren, if there's no God in Israel, we're a sucked in set of fellows;
I'm going to cross the river. " A general laugh followed, hope was kindled in every
heart and the spirit of gloom that had rested upon the assembly was at once dispelled.
Short speeches and shorter prayers were characteristic of George A. Smith, and his utter-
ances were always pithy and to the point.
He accompanied the vanguard of the migrating Church across Iowa to the Missouri
river, where, after many hardships and delays, caused by wet weather and bad roads, they
arrived about the first of July, 1840. He had five men to assist him in building bridges,
constructing ferry boats and driving and caring for teams, but when the Mormon Bat-
talion was called for, these men all enlisted, leaving him with the teams on his hands. At
HISTORY OF UTAH. 37
Winter Quarters he constructed by his own labor five cabins of logs and earth for the use
of his family. At the expiration of six months they were compelled by government
officers to remove to the east side of the river. There he built four cabins, which were
occupied by his family until June. 1840. While on the west side, one of his wives, Xancy
Clement Smith, aud four of his children died from scurvy, superinduced by a lack of
vegetable diet. As a cure for this disease, which was prevalent, he urged upon the peo-
ple the cultivation of the potato, visiting their camps for that purpose. This caused him
to be called "the potato Saint."
During the pioneer journey of 1847 he walked a distance of seventeen hundred
miles, and was for six weeks without bread: but was better off than most of the company,
for he had about twenty-five pounds of flour locked up in his trunk, unknown to any one.
This he issued by eupfulls to the sick, some of whom attributed to it the preservation of
their lives. He entered "the Valley" on the '22nd of July, two days before the arrival of
President Young, and states in his journal that he planted the first potato put in the soil
of Salt Lake valley. A cabin built by him as a portion of the Old Fort was occupied by
his aged sire, "Father John Smith," who was in the immigration immediately following
the Pioneers and became president of the first Stake of Zion organized in the Rocky
mountains.
Having returned with President Young to the Missouri river, our Apostle had
charge, after the departure of the First Presidency in 1S48, of the emigration at Kanes-
ville. or Council Bluffs, and in the last of the westbound companies of 1849, he set out
with his family for Salt Lake valley. His heavily loaded teams encountered severe
storms, the cattle were stampeded, aud at South Pass seventy of his animals were frozen.
He arrived at his journey's end on the 27th of October.
Hon. George A. Smith was a member of the Senate of the Provisional State of
Deseret. and reported the first bill printed for the consideration of the General Assembly.
It was a bill for the organization of the Judiciary. He also reported a bill relating to the con-
struction of a national railroad across the continent. The Assembly having provided for the
organization of Iron county, of which he was appointed "Chief Justice," with 'power to
proceed," he raised a company of one hundred and eighteen volunteers, and in December,
1850, accompanied by about thirty families, started southward to plant a colony in the
vicinity of the Little Salt Lake. The expedition after crossing five ranges of mountains,
located on Centre Creek, where they unfurled the stars aud stripes and organized the
county of Iron. During that winter he taught school, having thirty-five pupils, to whom
he lectured on English grammar around the evening camp tire.
At the first Territorial election in August, 1851, he was elected to the Council of the
Legislature. In the following October he was commissioned Postmaster of Centre Creek,
by Postmaster-Generai Hall. In November he was commissioned by Governor Young as
Colonel of Cavalry in the Iron military district. He was afterwards placed in charge of
the njilitia throughout Southern Utah, and instructed to take measures for the defense
and safety of the inhabitants against Chief Walker and bis blood-thirsty bands, who had
begun to rob aud kill the settlers. In 1852 he was appointed to preside over Church affairs
in Utah County and to exercise a general supervision over all the colonies in the southern
part of the Territory.
Possessed of a legal and statesmanlike mind, he early turned to the study of law and
constitutional principles. In October, 1851, while vet a tyro in the profession, he
defended in the district court at Salt Lake City, Howard Egan, one of his fellow Pion-
eers, who was on trial for slaying James Monroe, the seducer of his wife. Parts of the
notable speech delivered by him on that occasion, and which brought a verdict of acquittal
from the jury, may be found in the twenty-third chapter of our first volume. It should be
stated that George A. Smith practised law for the pure love of justice and the legal
science. His services were given free, not only to the defendant Egan, but to all his
other clients as well. He was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of Utah and
received his certificate as an attorney and counselor at law aud solicitor in chancery,
February 2nd, 1855.
At the General Conference of the Church in 1854, he was elected Historian and General
Recorder, and immediately went to work compiling the documentary history of Joseph
Smith. Assisted by four clerks, he compiled and recorded the Prophet's history from
February 20, 1S43, to the date of his death, June 27. 1S44, and also supplied from mem-
ory and other sources blanks in the record compiled by President Willard Richards, his
predecessor, who had written on the margin "To be supplied by George A. Smith."
He was a member of the Constitutional Convention of March, 1850, and was elected
by that body one of two delegates to proceed to Washington and present the proposed
38 HISTORY OF UTAH.
State Constitution and its accompanying Memorial to Congress. The other delegate was
John Taylor, who was editing "The Mormon" in New York City. This political mission
was given to Apostle Smith as a respite from his too close application to the Historian's
office. The only response vouchsafed to Utah's appeal for statehood was the stopping of
the mails and the setting of an army in motion for the invasion of the Territory. Our
Apostle was absent in the East for about eleven months, during which time, besides
attending to his duties as a delegate, he preached in nine States of the Union. He
returned in time to take part in the general preparations for defense made by the people
of Utah at the approach of Johnston's army.
In the fall of 18C0 he suffered a terrible shock in the tidings brought to him of the
murder of his eldest son, George A. Smith, Jr., who was killed by Navajo Indians, about
thirty-five miles north of the Moquis villages in New Mexico, now Arizona. It was many
months before he fully recovered from the effect produced upon him by this lamentable
tragedy. In I860, owing to the incursions of Indians upon the southeastern settlements,
he organized the militia of the Iron military district into a brigade of three regiments,
embraced in the counties of Iron, Washington, Kane and Beaver, and established posts
to prevent the inroads of Ute and Navajo Indians. He was then an aid-de-camp of
Lieutenant-General Wells. He received a commission as Brigadier-General from
Governor Charles Durkee on April 11th of the same year.
For many years George A. Smith had charge of the extension of settlements in
Southern Utah, embracing the cotton districts in Washington and Kane counties. He
was known as the father of the Southern Utah settlements, the chief of which, St. George,
was named after him. He was elected every two years to the Council of the Legislative
Assembly, and up to 1864 served as a member of every session except one. From 1804
to 1870 he was President ot the Council.
At the October Conference in 1808 came his elevation to the First Presidency, to fill
the vacancy caused by the death of President Heber C. Kimball, first counselor to Presi-
dent Brigham Young. The selection of George A. Smith for this important position gave
universal satisfaction.
In October, 1872, President Smith set out upon a special mission to Palestine, to
bless the land that it might be redeemed from sterility, and to dedicate it for the speedy
restoration of the tribes of Israel. The members of the party were George A. Smith,
Lorenzo Snow, Paul A. Schettler, Feramorz Little, George Dunford, Thomas W. Jennings,
Eliza R. Snow and Clara S. Little. From Genoa, George Dunford returned and Albert
Carrington took his place, completing the tour. After leaving England they passed through
Holland, Belgium, France and Italy, thence sailing to Egypt and Palestine. An interest-
ing incident of the journey was a call upon President Thiers of the French Republic.
President Smith much enjoyed the tour, especially of the Holy Land. Having accom-
plished his mission, he returned by way of Constantinople and Athens to Trieste, and
visited the principal cities of Austria and Germany. May 18th, 1873, found him and his
party in London, and on the 28th of that month they sailed for home, arriving at Salt
Lake City on the 18th of June.
During President Smith's absence, he had been appointed Trustee-in-trust for the
Church, which office he held until his death. After his return from abroad he spent con-
siderable time in his name-sake city, St. George, encouraging the building of the Temple
at that place. A zealous advocate of the United Order, which President Young sought
to establish, he preached much upon that theme in various parts of the Territory.
While returning from St. George to Salt Lake in February, 1875, either while
journeying or soon after his arrival here, he was attacked with a severe cold, which set-
tled upon his lungs, depriving him of the use of his voice. This affliction, combined with
a very peculiar manifestation of insomnia, which prevented him from sleeping except in
an upright posture, and then only at short intervals, finally caused his death, September
1st, 1875.
President George A. Smith possessed great qualities of mind and heart. Humble as
a child, he was every inch a man; prudent and wise, yet fearless as a lion. He was a
counselor par excellence, respectful to authority, but no cringing sycophant. When
asked for his opinion he gave it candidly, whether or not it agreed with opinions already
expressed. If his counsel was rejected — a very rare occurrence — he was not offended,
and if opposite advice prevailed, he stood one with his brethren in carrying out the
policy agreed upon. A great economist, he dressed plainly, lived within his means and
zealously advocated home manufactures. Public-spirited and generous, his acts of bene-
volence and charity were many, but entirely without ostentation. He was a man of few
words, but his speeches abounded in apt anecdotes and illustrations. He was noted for
HISTORY OF UTAH. 39
his good judgment, bis capacious and retentive memory, and his sound, common sense.
President Young said at his funeral that he had known him for forty-two years, had
traveled and labored with him in the ministry during much of that time, and believed him
to be as faithful a boy and man as ever lived. He added these telling words: "I never
knew of his neglecting or over-doing a duty. He was a man of sterling integrity, a
cabinet of history, and always true to his friends."
AMASA MASON LYMAN.
j. "^HE name of this noted man — Apostle and Pioneer — is inseparably interwoven with
fjj T\ the early history of Utah and other parts of the West. An industrious colonizer,
\\ an eloquent orator, and a leader of more than ordinary ability, he was with the
Mormon Church and people from the days of Kirtland until long after the settle-
ment of Salt Lake Valley. He performed many missions, and passed through some
thrilling experiences during the anti-Mormon troubles in Missouri. Loved and trusted
by the Prophet Joseph Smith, whose affection he warmly returned, and whose confi-
dence he merited, he was likewise a staunch and able supporter of President Brighani
Young in all the toils and trials of the exodus from Illinois and the exploration and col-
onization of the western wilderness. At the time of his death he was still a resident of
Utah, though no longer a member of the Mormon community.
Amasa M. Lyman was the third son of Roswell Lyman and his wife Martha Mason,
and was born in Lyman township, Grafton county, New Hampshire, March 30, 1813. He
was less than two years old when his father, in order to mend his fortune, started for the
West. He never returned, and is supposed to have died near New Orleans, six years
after his departure from home. Amasa's eldest brother, Mason, was indentured to a New
Hampshire farmer. His elder brother Elijah died in infancy. Himself, his younger brother
Elias and his sister Ruth remained with their mother until she re-married, when Amasa
was placed in charge of his grandfather, Perez Mason, with whom he lived until he was
eleven years of age. At that time the old gentleman went to reside with his eldest son,
Perley Mason, and his grandson, accompanying him, remained at his uncle's home during
the next seven years.
Amasa was about eighteen when his mind became thoughtful upon the subject of re-
ligion, and he remained in that condition, though not uniting himself with anj- church,
until the spring of 1832, when he heard the Gospel preached by Lyman E. Johnson and
Orson Pratt. This was his first acquaintance with Mormonism. He was baptized by
Elder Johnson on April 27th of that year and confirmed by Elder Pratt the day follow-
ing. Soon after, on account of the ill-feeling that arose in his uncle's household over his
conversion to the unpopular faith, he resolved to leave and go to the West.
Accordingly, on the 7th of May, 1832, he bade adieu to the family and started upon
a journey of seven hundred miles. He had but a few dollars in cash, and after this
means was exhausted, mostly in traveling by stage and canal, he walked some distance to
Palmyra, Wayne county, New York, where he found employment with Mr. Thomas
Lacky. This was the man who bought the farm of Martin Harris when he sold it to
raise money with which to publish the Book of Mormon. After working for Mr. Lacky
about two weeks and receiving four and a half dollars in wages, Amasa continued his
journey by way of Buffalo, Lake Erie and Cleveland, to Hiram, Portage county, Ohio,
where he arrived on the 5th of June. There he was kindly received and entertained by
Father John Johnson, whose son Lyman had baptized him.
It was at Father Johnson's house that the Prophet Joseph Smith and Elder Sidney
Rigdon were staying when they were brutally mobbed on the night of March 2oth of that
year. The Prophet was now absent on a visit to Missouri, but he returned to reside at
Johnson's about the 1st of July, and it was there and then that young Lyman first met
him. The latter, having entered the employ of Father Johnson, continued working for
him until some time in August, when the Prophet said to him, "Brother Amasa, the Lord
requires your labors in the vineyard." He at once replied, "I will go,'' though up to
that time he had had no experience as a preacher. He was ordained an Elder under the
hands of the Prophet and Elder Frederick G. Williams on the 23rd of August, and next
40 HISTORY OF UTAH.
day he and Zerubbabel Snow (ordained an Elder at the same time) started upon their
first mission. They labored in Southern Ohio and in Cabell county, Virginia, until
spring, baptizing about forty souls.
Prom Kirtland, Ohio, March 21st, 1833, Elder Lyman started upon his second mis-
sion, having as his companion Elder William F. Cahoon. He traveled in the State of
New York for about eight months, and saw one hundred souls added to the Church. He
then set out for Kirtland, but on the way met Elders Lyman E Johnson, Orson Pratt
and John Murdock in Erie county, Pennsylvania, where a conference was held and
Elder Lyman ordained a High Priest under the hands of Lyman E. Johnson and Orson
Pratt. He next proceeded to Livingston county. New York, where he labored until early
in 1834, when, in company with Alva L. Tippetts, he visited his native State, but was
soon recalled to Kirtland and enrolled as a member of Zion's Camp. The two sons of
Father John Tanner, of Warren county, New York, — John J. and Nathan — accompan-
ied him to Ohio. There he turned over to the Prophet money aud teams contributed by
Father Tanner and others for the expedition to Missouri. His connection with Zion's
Camp extended until the disbar.dment in Clay county, Missouri, where he assisted in tak-
ing a census of the Latter-day Saints in that section. He then returned to Kirtland, ar-
riving there May 26, 1835, having, on the way, in company with Elder Heman T. Hyde,
preached, baptized, and raised up a branch in Madison county, Illinois.
During the three weeks that he remained at the Church headquarters. Elder Lyman
married his first wife, Louisa Maria Tanner, daughter of Father John Tanner, previously
mentioned; the same who was afterwards craelly maltreated by the mob in Missouri.
The marriage was solemnized by Elder Seymour Branson. Five days later the young
husband was agaiu in the mission field, mostly in the State of New York, where he la-
bored with success. He was now a member of the first quorum of Seventy, having been
ordained about the time of his marriage, by Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery and Sidney
Rigdon. The following winter he spent at Kirtland, attending the Temple school, and in
the spring again labored in New York State, where he performed the ceremony of mar-
riage uniting his brother-in-law and fellow missionary, Nathan Tanner, to Miss Rachel
Smith. Now came a short mission to Erie county, Pennsylvania, and then his removal
to Missouri.
Amasa M. Lyman set out for the new gathering place at Far West in the autumn of
1837. He and his family were accompanied by Nathan Tanner and household, and Mr.
Jared Randall, who had been engaged to provide the means of transportation. Arriving
in Caldwell county, Missouri, Mr. Lyman left his family there while he sought and found
employment at Fort Leavenworth, where he worked through the winter. In the spring he
did a job of work on the courthouse in Chariton county, and then rejoined his family.
When the difficulties arose that eventuated in the expulsion of his people from Missouri,
he took the field and was in the very thick of the trouble. Early in October, 1838, he was
deputed by the authorities at Far West to find a way to the beleagured Saints at Dewitt,
Carroll county, who were surrounded by mobs in such a way as to preclude any approach
to them by ordinary routes, in consequence of which little or nothing could be learned of
them. Selecting James Dunn as his companion, and disguising himself in such a manner
as to completely conceal his identity, he went forth upon his dangerous errand. The two
reached Dewitt in safety, but found the place almost deserted, the inhabitants having fled
to Far West. They took dinner with some of the mobbers and departed, but on the way
home were intercepted by armed and mounted Missourians and made prisoners. Their
captors required them to take charge of a cannon they were transporting to Daviess
county for service against the Mormons, and on this cannon they were permitted to ride.
At the end of four days they were liberated, but were compelled to take the back track,
not being allowed to rejoin their friends, then only seven miles away. By a circuitous
route they finally reached Far West.
Mr. Lyman was now given charge of a squad of ten men, whose duty it was to spy
out the enemy and discover their designs. He was near Crooked river, engaged in this
service, when the battle at that place was fought. He was one of the defenders of Far
West, and after the betrayal of the Prophet and his brethren by Colonel Hinekle, and the
surrender of the city, he was also singled out as a prisoner and condemned with
others to be shot next morning, the execution of which murderous sentence was defeated
by General Doniphan. Mr. Lyman was allowed five minutes to bid adieu to his weeping
wife and prattling babe and was then conducted with his fellow prisoners to Jackson
county, and subsequently confined in chains at Richmond, in Ray county. On November
24th he was discharged and made his way back to Far West.
The Sabbath after his release he met Colonel Hinekle, the traitor, who proposed to
HISTORY OF UTAH. 41
him, now that the Prophet was in trouble, from which he stated he would not escape,
that they join and go to the South and build up a church for themselves. Lyman spurned
the base proposition. About this time he was elected a justice of the peace, and did much
clerical work for his brethren when they were compelled by the mob to convey their
lands, purchased from the government, to pay the expenses of the war waged against
them. Though suffering much from sickness at this time, he was closely watched by the
mob commander, Captain Bogart, and his emissaries. In March, 1839, he rejoined his
family at Quincy, Illinois, they having preceded him out of Missouri.
During the spring he was engaged with others in earnest but futile attempts to res-
cue Parley P. Pratt and his fellow prisoners from captivity. The following winter he
resided with his friend Justus Morse in McDonough county, Illinois, where his eldest
son, Francis M. Lyman, the present Apostle, was born, January 12, 1840. Early in the
spring of that year he built a cabin on what was known as the "Half-breed Tract" in Lee
county, Iowa, and having housed his family therein, went to work boating wood on tin-
Mississippi.
A year later he moved to Nauvoo, and shortly afterward went upon a mission of
several months into Northern Illinois, in company with Charles Shumway. A mission to
Indiana, with Peter Haws, to secure means for the building of the Nauvoo Temple and
the Nauvoo House, was followed by a similar errand to Tennessee in the summer of
1842, when he had as his companions Horace K. Whitney, Adam Lightner and subse-
quently Lyman Wight.
Auiasa M. Lyman was ordained an Apostle, August 20, 1842, and on the 10th of
September he started, in company with George A. Smith, on a mission into Southern
Illinois. He was afterwards joined by Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball. The fol-
lowing winter, under the direction of the Prophet, he moved to Henderson county, where
he superintended the survey of a new towusite and began to build, remaining there until
the summer of 1843. When the Prophet was kidnapped by the Missourians Apostle
Lyman participated in the movement that resulted in his rescue. Another mission fol-
lowed, this time to Indiana, where he labored until the spring of 1S44, and then repaired
to Nauvoo.
At the April Conference of the Church he was commissioned to labor with Elder G.
J. Adams in the cities of Cincinnati and Boston. Parting (for the last time) with the
Prophet, who warmly grasped his hand, exhorted him to practice the principles he had
taught him, and gave him a fervent "God bless you," he went forth upon his mission.
He was at Cincinnati in July, when he received the news of the double murder in Carth-
age Jail.
The Twelve Apostles having been acknowledged as the presiding council of the
Church, in lieu of the First Presidency, dissolved, Apostle Lyman, as one of that coun-
cil, continued to play an active part in public affairs. He was in the exodus of 1840. and
was one of the Pioneers who accompanied President Young to the Rocky Mountains in
1847. At Fort Laramie, early in June, he with Thomas Woolsey, John H. Tippetts and
Roswell Stevens, was sent horse-back to Pueblo, to lead thence to Salt Lake valley a
company of Latter-day Saints en route from the State of Mississippi. Owing to this
duty, which was promptly performed, he did not reach the valley until three days after
the main body of the Pioneers. He helped to explore the region, to lay off the city, and
otherwise participated in the initial labors of the original settlers. He returned with
President Young and others to the Missouri River the same season. The next year he,
with his family, came to Salt Lake valley, in charge of a subdivision of the general emi-'
gration led by President Young in person.
Not long after his second arrival here Apostle Lyman was appointed upon a mission
to California, from which he returned in September, 1850. Six months later he and
Apostle Charles C. Rich headed the famous San Bernardino colony, so named from a
ranch purchased by them in Southern California, upon which in the following autumn
theyT settled. The purpose was to found an outfitting post, similar to Kanesville on the
Missouri, in order to facilitate Mormon emigration from the West. The settlement of
San Bernardino was continued until the year 1858, when, owing to the trouble between
Utah and the General Government, it was deemed best to break it up and have the col
onists return to their former homes. This was done.
During the years 1800. 1S01 and 1802 Apostle Lyman was presiding with Apostle
Rich over the European Mission. Returning thence he spent the remainder of his days
in Utah, his home being at Fillmore in Millard County. He was the husband of eight
wives, and the father of thirty-seven children — twenty-two sons and fifteen daughters.
His eventual separation from the Church — an event deeply deplored by the whole Mor-
42 HISTORY OF UTAH.
mon community — was due to his persistent preaching of a doctrine condemned by the
general authorities ; a doctrine involving a virtual repudiation of the atonement of the
Savior. He was excommunicated May 12, 1870, and died at his home in Fillmore, Feb-
ruary 4, 1877.
EZRA TAFT BENSON.
« N Apostle from the summer of 1840, one of the Pioneers of 1847, and otherwise a
man of mark in the Mormon community, the subject of this sketch will be best
remembered for the part played by him in the settlement and development of Cache
valley. Two names are pre-eminently connected with its colonization. They
are Ezra T. Benson and Peter Maughan; the latter the pioneer, and the former the high-
est presiding authority for nearly a decade in that always promising and now prosperous
section. Needless to say that he was a man of force and energy; such qualities were
indispensable in the founders of Utah. A fearless and able expounder of his faith, an
earnest and industrious worker in whatever he undertook, he enjoyed the confidence of
his associates, and exercised a potent influence over the people in their temporal as well
as their spiritual affairs.
The first son of John and Chloe Benson, he was born February 22, 1811, at Men-
don, Worcester county, Massachusetts. His father was a farmer, noted for his industry,
and Ezra, until sixteen years of age, remained at home, working upon the farm. He
then went to live with his sister and her husband, who kept a hotel in the town of Ux-
bridge. He remained with them three years, when the sudden death of his grandfather
Benson, also a farmer, who fell dead while at work in the field, brought about another
change in his life. At the request of his vidowed grandmother, he became the manager
of her farm.
When twenty years of age Ezra T. Benson married Pamelia Andrus, daughter of
Jonathan H. and Lucina Andrus, of Northbridge, in his native county. The next year
he quit farming and went to hotel-keeping, buying out his brother-in-law and running
that business for about two years. He made considerable money, with which he hired a
cotton mill, and with his wife's brother began the manufacture of cotton in the town of
Holland, Massachusetts. Through a combination of causes it proved an unprofitable
venture, and retiring from it, Mr. Benson took a hotel in the same town, and again made
money. He was also appointed postmaster. Though prosperous, he was not content,
having a great desire to go to the West.
This desire was partly put into effect in the spring of 1837, when he and his family
started westward. At Philadelphia, however, a gentleman whose acquaintance he there
formed, persuaded him to go to the town of Salem, promising to assist him in setting up
in business at that place. He remained at Salem for about a year, at the expiration of
which time, though his neighbors offered to render him any aid he might need in a
business way, he again yearned for the West and finally started in that direction.
At St. Louis lie procured a small stock of goods and proceeded up the Illinois river,
not knowing where he should land. Meeting upon the boat a man who proved to be his
father's cousin, and who was living at Griggsville, Illinois, Mr. Benson concluded to stop
there, and did so, but not for long. He moved to Lexington in the same State, and then
to the mouth of the Little Blue, where he aud one Isaac Hill laid out and named the
town of Pike. Here Mr. Benson built a dwelling house and a warehouse and prepared
to stay, but the place was sickly, and he soon longed to be elsewhere.
Early in 1839 he was induced to go to the city of Quincy in quest of a home, and
there he met with the Latter-day Saints, who had just been driven by mob violence out
of Missouri. He heard of them as a very peculiar people, but in listening to the preach-
ing of their Elders, and in conversing with them, he found them very agreeable. During
the following winter he boarded with a family of Latter-day Saints and formed a high
opinion of them.
In the spring of 1840 he took up his residence at Quincy, securing two acres of laud
in the town and building a house thereon. He still associated with the Saints, with whom
he strongly sympathized on account of their persecutions, and held conversations with
HISTORY OF UTAH. 43
them concerning their doctrines. He first saw the Prophet Joseph Smith at a debate
in Quincy between some of the Mormon Elders and a Dr. Nelson, who was much opposed
to them. This debate convinced him that the Latter-day Saints believed and practiced
the truths of the Bible. Though pleased with their victory over Dr. Nelson, Mr. Benson
at that time had no idea that he himself would become a Mormon. Their principles,
however, were the chief topic of conversation with himself, his family and the neighbors,
and he and his wife attended their meetings. She was first to avow a belief in the doc-
trines. When the word went out that the Bensons were believers in Mormonism. a
strong effort was made by their non-Mormon friends to get them to join some other
church. About this time Apostles Orson Hyde and John E. Page visited Quincy, having
started on their mission to the Holy Land. Their preaching resolved Mr. and Mrs. Ben-
son upon joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and they were accord-
ingly baptized by the president of the Quincy branch, July 19, 1840. They recognized
in this event the explanation of the strong desire that had possessed them to come West,
and the feeling of discontent they had experienced in their previous places of residence.
While attending the fall conference of 1840 at Nauvoo, Ezra T. Benson was or-
dained an Elder, and after his return to Quincy he was visited by President Hyrum
Smith, who ordained him a High Priest and appointed him second counselor to the presi-
dent of the stake which he there organized. April, 1841, found him a resident of Nau-
voo, where he bought a lot. fenced and improved it, and built a log house for his family.
From June, 1842, until the fall of 1843 he was upon a mission in the Eastern States, and
in May. 1844, again started East in company with Elder John Pack. They were recalled
to Nauvoo by the tidings of the martyrdom.
The autumn of 1844 found him acting as a member of the High Council at Nauvoo,
and in December of that year he was again sent East upou a mission. He presided over
the Boston Conference until the beginning of May, 1845, when he was counseled to
gather up all the members of the Church who could go, and move them lo Nauvoo. In
the ensuing summer and fall he worked on the Nauvoo Temple, frequently standing
guard all night to keep off the mob then threatening.
In the exodus of 1846 he and his family left in the first company that started for the
West. At Mount Pisgah he was appointed a counselor to Father William Huntington,
who presided there. While at that place he received a letter from President Brigham
Young on the Missouri, informing him of his appointment as an Apostle, to take the place
made vacant by the excommunication of John E. Page. He now moved on to the main
camp at Council Bluffs, where he was ordained to the Apostleship and received into the
Quorum of the Twelve, July 16, 1846. Shortly afterwards he was sent East upon a mis-
sion', from which he returned on the 27th of November.
The next spring found him enrolled as a member of President Young's band of
Pioneers and on his way to the Rocky mountains. After their arrival in Salt Lake valley
he was sent back to meet the oncoming emigration of that season and inform them that a
place of settlement had been found. Having discharged this duty, he returned to the
valley, and then accompanied President Young back to Winter Quarters. About the
close of the year 1847 he started upon another mission to the East, and upon his return
at the expiration of several months was appointed to preside over the Saints in Potta-
wattamie county, Iowa, in which charge he was associated with Apostles Orson Hyde
and George A. Smith.
In the year 1849, in company with Apostle Smith, he moved with his family to Salt
Lake valley. He was dangerously sick while on the way, and was not expected to live,
but the camp fasted and prayed for him, and he recovered and reached his destination.
In 1S51 he was commissioned to proceed to the frontier, gather up the Saints in Potta-
wattamie county, and bring them to Utah. From this mission he retm-ned in August,
1852. He remained at home until 1856, when he was appointed upon a mission to
Europe, where in conjunction with Apostle Orson Pratt, he presided over the British mis-
sion until the fall of 1857, when he was released to return home.
The year 1860 witnessed his removal to Cache valley, where he had been appointed
to preside, virtually as president of the Stake; Peter Maughan being also in authority as
presiding Bishop of those northern settlements. President Benson made his home at
Logan, and continued to reside there until the day of his death.
In the year 1864 he, with Apostle Lorenzo Snow, Elders Joseph F. Smith, William W.
Cluff and Alma L. Smith, were sent upon a special mission to the Sandwich Islands, to
set in order the affairs of the Church in that land, which had been much disturbed by the
nefarious operations of the imposter, Walter M. Gibson, who had palmed himself upon the
credulous native Saints as a sort of kingly and priestly ruler, to whom they must pay
44 HISTORY OF UTAH.
abject homage. Apostle Benson and his companions faithfully executed their errand,
though in attempting to land upon one of the islands, he and Apostle Snow, by the acci-
dental capsizing of their boat, came very near being drowned. This mission, from which
he returned the same year, was his last absence from Utah.
He continued, however, to be prominent in public affairs at home. He had taken
active part in organizing the Provisional Government of Deseret, and after the Territory
of Utah was created he was a member of the House branch of the Legislature for several
sessions. During the last ten years of his life he was continuously a member of the
Council.
When the railroad came, he with Lorin Farr and Chauncey W. West, of Ogden, took
a large grading contract on the Central Pacific and built many miles of that road.
President Benson's mind was much preyed upon during this period through the inability
of himself and his partners to secure a settlement with the railroad company, and it is
supposed that these troubles superinduced his death, which was sudden, like that of his
grandfather, many years before. It was Friday, September 3, 1869, and he had just
arrived at Ogden, from his home in the north, and was in the act of caring for a sick
horse, when he fell dead, stricken with apoplexy. The funeral and burial took place at
Logan on the following Sabbath.
Like most of the Mormon leaders of his time, Ezra T. Benson was the husband and
father of several families. Among his living sons are Messrs. Don and Frank Benson, the
former for several terms City Marshal of Logan. The Apostle was the father also of Mrs.
Belle Goodwin, of Logan; Mrs. Dr. Norcross, formerly of that place; and the late Mrs.
Boliver Roberts, of Salt Lake City.
ERASTUS SNOW.
^"''HE Pioneer who shared with Orson Pratt the distinction of being the first among
f^>) their famous band to enter Salt Lake valley was a prominent Elder and soon be-
;? came an Apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Of all the
distinguished characters surrounding Brigham Young at that or at any subse-
quent period of his life, perhaps no other resembled him in so many respects as did this
man, whose record as a colonizer and a statesman is second only to that of the pioneer
chieftain himself. He was to Southern Utah and farther south what President Young
was to the whole inter-mountain region — its leading explorer and principal founder of
settlements. Abroad he was the father of the Scandinavian Mission, than which few
fields have been more prolific of converts to the Mormon faith or have done more to people
and build up the Rocky Mountain country. At home he was no less a father, a friend,
a wise counselor to the people, and an ever watchful guardian over their interests.
Erastus Snow was a native of St. Johnsbury, Caledonia county, Vermont; born
November 9, 1818. He was a descendant of Richard Snow, who settled in Massachusetts
in 1635, and a son of Levi and Lucina Streeter Snow, whose seven sons and four daugh-
ters were named as follows: Levi Mason, Lucina, William, Zerubbabel, Willard, Mary
M., Shipley W., Erastus, Charles V., Lydia M., and Melissa D.; all born in St. Johus-
bury. The father made no profession of Christianity, but the mother was a member of
the Wesleyan Methodist church. Erastus received a common school education. At the age
of nine his mind was exercised over religion to some extent, and he experienced joy and
satisfaction as the result; but later he "became entangled in the vanities of the world."
He was but a lad of fourteen, when, in the spring of 1832, Elders Orson Pratt and
Luke S. Johnson came to St. Johnsbury preaching the religion of the Latter-day Saints.
He believed the message, and two of his elder brothers, William and Zerubbabel, who
were of age, accepted it and were baptized. Subsequently all the family were converted;
Erastus being baptized by his brother William at Charleston, Vermont, on the 3rd day of
February, 1833. The next year, on the 28th of June, he was ordained a Teacher by
Elder John F. Boynton, and on the 13th of November, a Priest, under the hands of his
brother, William Snow. Up to this time he had labored upon his father's farm, but he
now felt an irresistible desire to preach the Gospel. On the 22nd of November he
HISTORY OF UTAH. 45
started upon his first mission, visiting the surrounding settlements, in company with his
cousin, James Snow. On the Kith of August, 1835, he was ordained an Elder by Luke
S. Johnson, then one of the Twelve Apostles.
December of that year found him a resident of Kirtland, Ohio, where he first met
the Prophet Joseph Smith, and lived for several weeks in his family. During the winter
he attended the Elders' School established by the Prophet, and the following spring,
having been ordained into the second quorum of Seventy, he started upon a mission to
the State of Pennsylvania. In his absence of eight months he baptized eight persons.
The year 1837 and the first half of the year 1838 were also spent upon missions, in Ohio,
Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and other States. He baptized a goodly number, and
returned to Kirtland to find that most of the Saints were moving or preparing to move
to Missouri.
With that State as his destination, he himself left Kirtland on the 25th of June,
1838, arriving at Far West on the 18th of July, and there rejoining his parents, who had
come directly from Vermont. In the troubles that ensued Erastus Snow shouldered a
musket and helped to defend his people against mob violence. He was at Far West
when the town surrendered to the State forces, and was present at the court of inquiry
when the case of the Mormon leaders was considered at Richmond, prior to their im-
prisonment in Liberty jail. During the following: winter he taught school at Far West,
where, on December 13, 1838, he married Miss Artimesia Beman, sister of Elder Alvah
Beman, whose acquaintance he had formed at Kirtland.
In February, 1839, he and others were sent as messengers to the Prophet and his
fellow prisoners in Liberty jail. The visitors were permitted to enter the cell. When
supper was served, the captives, aided by their friends, attempted to escape, but the at-
tempt failed, and all were locked in together. In the trial that followed, Erastus Snow, at
the advice of the Prophet, pleaded his own case and was discharged from custody, the rest
being held to bail. He had a legal mind, like his brother Zerubbabel — noted in Utah
history as Judge Snow — and this may or may not have been the first opportunity for its
exercise. After his release he went to Jefferson City and tried to get the case of his im-
prisoned brethren before the judges of the Supreme Court. This effort was fruitless,
but after, through the influence of the Secretary of State, he secured for them a change
of venue, on the strength of which the prisoners were started for Boone county, when
they succeeded in making their escape.
October, 1839, found him at Montrose, Iowa, across the Mississippi from Nauvoo,
acting as a member of the High Council at that place. Experiences of sickness and
extreme poverty followed; and then a mission to the States of Virginia, New York,
Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, from which he returned to Nauvoo Oc-
tober 21, 1840.
During the next three years he labored as a missionary in the Eastern States, his
wife and child being with him. They resided at Salem, Massachusetts. He had brought
his family back to Nauvoo and was on another mission and at a conference in Salem, when
he learned of the murder of the Prophet and the Patriarch. He immediately returned
home, and was at the memorable meeting on August 8, 1841, when the Twelve Apostles,
with President Brigham Young at their head, were acknowledged by the body of the
Church as the highest existing authority therein. A mission to Wisconsin and Northern
Illinois was then undertaken, but an accident to his horse compelled him to return, and
he was thus enabled to be present at the trial of the murderers of Joseph and Hyrum
Smith, at Carthage, Illinois, in May, 1845. He rightly regarded it as a mere mockery
of justice. His next public service was a mission, about February 1, 1846, to the city of
Quincy, to lay in supplies for the pioneer company, which it was proposed, even at that
early date, to send across the great plains to explore the Rocky Mountains.
In the exodus that followed, Erastus Snow and his family left Nauvoo, crossing the
Mississippi river in a boat, which capsized in mid-stream, part of his goods being thus
destroyed and his eldest child, a daughter five years old, nearly drowned. He left most
of his property, valued at about two thousand dollars, to be disposed of by a committee
appointed for that purpose in behalf of the exiles. He journeyed westward in President
Brigham Young's company, Captain A. P. Rockwood having immediate command of the
subdivision in which he traveled. From Garden Grove he returned to Nauvoo for addi-
tional supplies, and rejoined his family and the main camp of the Saints at Cutler's Park
on the Missouri river.
Having been selected as one of the Pioneers, on April 6, 1847, he blessed and bade
good-bye to his wives and children, and a few days later began the immortal journey
to the Rocky Mountains. Erastus Snow was one of the company who fell sick with
46 HISTORY OF UTAH.
mountain fever, which attacked the camp in the vicinity of South Pass. He soon recov-
ered, and it so chanced that while President Young and others were still suffering: from
that malady, he was dispatched as a messenger from the main camp to Orson Pratt's
vanguard, which was looking out a road over the mountains into Salt Lake valley. He
overtook the vanguard in Emigration canyon, and on the morning of July 21st he, with
Orson Pratt, entered and partly explored the valley. In the subsequent work of explo-
ration, and in laying out the pioneer city, he took a prominent part, and returned as one of
President Young's party to the Missouri river, arriving there on the 31st of October.
He was six weeks without tasting bread, buffalo meat forming the staple of subsistence
during that period. He found his family well, though one child, a son, had died during
his absence; making two that had perished in the wilderness.
At the special conference held in December of that year on the Missouri river,
Erastus Snow was called to accompany Ezra T. Benson to the Eastern States, to solicit
from the Saints residing there, and from all who wished to contribute, means to enable
the poor at Winter Quarters to emigrate to Salt Lake valley. They visited Boston, New
York and other eastern cities, and returned in April, 1848, to Winter Quarters. Having
assisted in organizing the emigration on the Elk Horn, Erastus Snow with his family left
that point on the 5th of June, traveling in President Young's company, and arriving in
Salt Lake valley on the 20th of September.
His first appointment after his arrival here was as second counselor to Elder Charles
C. Rich, who had succeeded Father John Smith (the Patriarch of the Church) as Pres-
ident of the Salt Lake Stake of Zion. Next came his call to the Apostleship,
February 12, 1849, when he was ordained as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve
under the hands of Presidents Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards;
Apostles Parley P. Pratt and John Taylor assisting in the ordination. He was active in
the organization of the Provisional Government of Deseret, and was a member of the
first legislative council. In the militia organization of that period he officiated as a
chaplain. When not occupied with public duties, he was engaged in building houses,
improving his farm, and otherwise providing for his family.
At the General Conference of the Church in October, 1849, the Apostle was called
upon his first foreign mission; it was to the kingdom of Denmark. Taking leave of his
family and his widowed mother, he set out on the 19th of October, in company with
thirty-four other missionaries bound for various nations. The main incident of the
journey across the plains was an attack made upon the little party by about two hundred
Indians, Cheyennes, during a noon-day halt on the Platte river, forty miles above Fort
Laramie. The Indians, who were mounted, charged furiously upon the camp, but the
missionaries, who were on the alert, staunchly stood their ground and defeated the pur-
pose of the maurauders, which was evidently to frighten the campers, plunder their
wagons and run off their stock.
Sailing from Boston on the 3rd day of April, Apostle Snow arrived at Liverpool on
the 10th of that month, and after visiting the Saints in England, Scotland and Wales,
and receiving contributions in aid of his mission, be set sail for Copenhagen in company
with Elders George P. Dykes and John E. Forsgren. Elder P. 0. Hansen, a native of
Copenhagen, had preceded the party from England. About two months later, on the
12th day of August, 1850, Apostle Snow baptized fifteen persons in the river Oresund,
near the Danish capital. He and his assistants continued to labor energetically, and
during the next eighteen months nearly six hundred members were added to the Church
in Denmark; also a few in Norway and Sweden. Thus was founded the Scandinavian
Mission. Its founder returned to Utah in the summer of 1852.
In October of the ensuing year Apostle Snow was called, with Apostle George A.
Smith, to take fifty families and strenghten the settlements in Iron county. He per-
formed this duty, and was sent the next year to take charge of the Church at St. Louis and in
the Western States. He organized on November 4. 1854, a Stake of Zion in St. Louis, and
began the same month the publication of the St. Louis "Luminary." He also superintended
the Chrch emigration. He returned from this mission in September, 1855. In 1856 and
again in 1860 he filled brief missions to the States. The latter was taken in compauy
with Apostle Orson Pratt; Governor Alfred dimming and his wife being their fellow
travelers across the plains.
The year 1801 witnessed a renewal of our Apostle's labors in Southern Utah — virtu-
ally the beginning of his long and useful career as a colonizer in that and adjacent parts.
Again he accompanied George A. Smith and a special expedition. They went this time
with a view to locating and founding settlements on the Rio Virgen and Santa Clara
rivers, and incidentally to raise cotton in that region, to offset the prevailing scarcity of
HISTORY OF UTAH. 47
the article occasioned by the outbreak of the Civil War. They camped on the 3rd day of
December near the site of the present city of St. George, so named in honor of the leader,
George A. Smith. Other settlements were located the same year.
Erastus Snow settled at St. George, and for many years devoted a great deal of his
time to the building up of that place and the surrounding country, over which as an
Apostle he presided. He served for a long period as a member of the city council of St.
George, and represented the Southern counties — Washington, Kane, Iron and San Juan
— in the Council branch of the Legislative Assembly. He was a legislator almost contin-
uously from the time of his settling in the South until he was disfranchised under the
anti-polygamy provisions of the Edmunds Law.
He passed through all the hardships and privations incident to the settlement of
Southern Utah and Southeastern Nevada, thoroughly exploring those parts, locating set-
tlements in the most desirable places, and giving directions to the settlers for their de-
fense and the protection of the general public against Indian depredations. Especially
was this the case in the early "sixties" when the Navajoes frequently crossed the Colo-
rado river, driving off stock and murdering defenseless citizens in the weaker settle-
ments and on the public highways. He was Brigadier-General, and as such commander
of the Iron military district, and was chief counselor and adviser to the people through-
out the southern country.
In the years 1873, 1875 and 1880 Apostle Snow performed short missions to the
East. During the first of these he crossed the Atlantic, re- visiting Scandinavia. In
1878 he served as a member of Zion's Board of Trade, and the same year visited and set
in order the branches of the Church in Arizona and New Mexico. In November, 18S2,
he was appointed by the First Presidency, with authority to call to his aid others, to go
to Arizona and to the States of Chihuahua and Sonora in Old Mexico, with a view to lo-
cating and purchasing lands near the borders of the two nations, as a gathering place for
Latter-day Saints. While he was upon this mission in Southern Arizona, his first wife,
Artimesia Beman Snow, died in St. George, December 20, 1882.
In January, 1885, Apostle Snow accompanied President John Taylor and party on
their trip to Arizona and Mexico, and in 188G he went with Apostle Moses Thatcher and
others to the City of Mexico, where they purchased large tracts of land in Northern Chi-
huahua, where the settlements of Diaz, Juarez, and Pachecho were afterwards founded,
chiefly by Latter-day Saints fleeing from the rigors of "the crusade." He left Juarez in
the latter part of July, 1SS7, having been summoned to Salt Lake City by the tidings of
the approaching death of President Taylor, who was sick in exjle.
Alter the death of that leader— the Twelve having assumed the Presidency of the
Church — Apostle Snow returned to St. George, where he spent most of the following
winter. In the spring he came back to Salt Lake City, where he continued to reside and
to discharge the duties of his Apostleship until he fell sick with his final illness, which
terminated his lite May 27, 1S88.
Apostle Snow was the husband of four wives, and the father of thirty-five children,
twenty of whom, twelve sons and eight daughters, are living. Of the former, the be>4
kuowu are Mahonri M.. Willard, Frank K., 5loroni, George A. and Edward H., the last
named the President of St. George Stake. Mahonri is a member of the High Council of that
Stake, and Moroni a Bishop in Provo. The other sous named are business men of more
or less prominence. Erastus B. Snow, deceased, was one of the Stake Presidency at St.
George. Apostle Snow's eldest daughter is Mrs. Sarah L. Thurston, of Santa Ana, Cal-
ifornia; others of the daughters are Mrs. Artimesia Seegmiller, Mrs. Elizabeth Ivins,
Mrs. Susie Young, Mrs. Josephine Tanner, Mrs. Georgie Thatcher and Mrs. Martha
Keat.
During the anti-polygamy crusade, when the Mormon leaders were much sought for
by the minions of the law, Apostle Snow escaped arrest, though frequently in close prox-
imity to the raiding deputies. Notably was this the case in February, 1886. On the 8th-
of that month he was in the Church Historian's Office while that and the adjacent build-
ings were being searched by the United States Marshal and his men, and five days later
was on the same train with President George Q. Cannon en route to Mexico, when the
latter was arrested at Humboldt Wells, Nevada. He spent much of the time of his
exile in visiting and counseling the people of the Southern settlements, both in public
and private, the former when he could do so with safety, the latter in season and out of
season, as his sense of duty impelled.
Erastus Snow was a man of great practical wisdom, and withal an eloquent speaker;
fiery in his youth, deliberate in his age, and noted always for the soundness of his views
and the logic of his utterances. He was eccentric to a degree, but his eccentricities were
48 HISTORY OF UTAH.
only character marks that endeared him to his friends and associates. A mental por-
trait of the man, sitting in his buggy in the midst of a stream, reading a newspaper,
while waiting for his balky horse to get ready to go on, is but one of many such pictures
called up by the mention of his name. He was as patient and stoical in trouble, as in
action he was fearless and wise. Wherever there are Latter-day Saints, at home or
abroad, few names and memories are more affectionately cherished than those of the
Apostle and Pioneer, Erastus Snow.
JOHN BROWN.
T OHN BROWN and Orson Pratt were the first of the Pioneer company to gaze upon
¥ ' the valley of the Great Salt Lake. The former was a native of Sumner county,
@) Tennessee, where he was born October 23, 1820. His father, John Brown, was
a native of North Carolina, and his mother, Martha Chapman, was from Virginia.
They were in humble circumstances, but by frugal living maintained themselves in com-
fort, and reared a5family of fourteen chidren, John being the twelfth.
In 1829 the family moved to Perry county, Illinois, where the father died three
years later. At the age of seventeen John was left alone with his mother, five of the
other children being dead and the rest married and settled. In the spring of 1S37, for
better educational advantages, he was sent back to Tennessee to attend school and
live with his uncle, John Chapman. While there he was converted to the Baptist faith.
He afterwards converted his mother and other members of the family, who previously
were Presbyterians. His vacation was spent at home, but he returned to school the next
year — 1839 — his mother accompanying him.
Upon their return to Illinois in the fall, they first heard of Mormonism, "some
strange men" having been preaching the new religion in their neighborhood. The Elders
had baptized a few persons and caused considerable excitement, which gradually abated
upon their going away. Young Brown, though much imprsssed by what he heard con-
cerning them and their doctrines, remained a zealous member of the Baptist Church and
was urged by the clergy to increase his educational qualifications with a view to entering
the ministry. He had some desire for an education, but the other proposition did not
harmonize with his feelings.
In the spring of 1841 he took a school in order to raise means to enable him to com-
plete his education. One of the patrons of the school, a cousin of his who had become a
Latter-day Saint, took great pains to bring the Mormon publications to John's notice,
but in vain. Equally unavailing were the further efforts of his Baptist friends to induce
him to become a minister of that persuasion.
Finally Elder George P. Dykes came from Nauvoo, stayed at the cousin's home, and
obtained permission to preach in John's school house, which was surrounded by a field
where the farmers were harvesting. The Elder addressed the farm workers during the
noon recess on three successive days, and Mr. Brown, though shunning him as much as
possible, became a little acquainted and rather reluctantly conversed with him. The re-
sult was his conversion to Mormonism, which was a great shock to his mother and other
relatives, who told him they would rather have buried him. He was baptized on a Friday
morning, before breakfast. The news of his conversion spread throughout the district,
for he had been a very popular young man: and one night his school house was burued
down by incendiaries.
After consulting with the trustees, and collecting what money he could, he started
for Nauvoo, taking steamboat at St. Louis, and arriving at his destination a few days be-
fore the October conference of 1841. He knew but one man there — the Elder who had
baptized him, but soon became acquainted with the Prophet Joseph Smith, his brother
Hyrum and other Mormon leaders, who treated him with great kindness. Firmer than
before in his faith, he paid a visit, in March, 1842, to his mother and friends, who ex-
pressed great surprise that he was not "cured of Mormonism." He preached to some,
and it was said of him, "He is calculated to do more harm than any other Mormon in this
region."
HISTORY OF UTAH. 49
At the April conference of 1843 he was called on a mission to the Southern States,
and in company with another Elder traversed without purse or scrip parts of Kentucky,
Alabama and Mississippi. He met with much success, baptizing in a few months over
one hundred persons. While upon this mission, in Monroe county, Mississippi, May 21,
1844, he married. He was prosecuting his labors in the South when the news came of
the murder of Joseph and Hyrum Smith.
In response to a call for men to work upon the temple at Nauvoo, he returned to that
place with five others in the year 1845. He was enrolled in an organization called "The
Whittling and Whistling Club," which took the place of police, after the Illinois legisla-
ture repealed the Nauvoo charter. Says he, "We worked on the temple during the day
and whittled and whistled through the streets at night, keeping everything in order, and
guarding the city against mobs. There was no need of a curfew bell in those times; none
were seen upon the streets, except those on duty." In about two months he returned to
Mississippi for his wife ; and at Nauvoo built a house ; but soon after its completion came
the exodus of 184G.
Having some property in Mississippi, the Browns returned to that state, with orders
to join the Nauvoo companies on the Platte river. Mr. Brown's brother-in-law, William
Crosby, was with him. He disposed of some property in Illinois and sent the means
to Nauvoo, to assist the poor families that were about to leave. He then started on a
direct route to Independence, Missouri, where he was joined by his cousin Robert Crow
and others; in all, twenty families with twenty-five wagons. They took the Oregon trail,
without pilot or guard, and struck the Platte at Grand Island. They could hear nothing
of the Nauvoo companies, and at Fort Laramie decided to winter at Pueblo, being piloted
thither by a mountaineer named John Reshaw, a Frenchman with an Indian wife.
Thanks to this man's tact and acquaintance with the Indian tribes, no trouble with the
redskins occurred, though one notable incident took place.
An Indian youth fancied a young married woman in the company and insisted that
she should become his wife. He offered her husband five horses in exchange for her,
and was quite insulted when the offer — a great one in the eyes of him who made it — was
declined. Trouble threatened. He said he would treat her well; he was not poor; he
had several horses and plenty of tobacco. Other Indians began to take an interest in the
trade, and Reshaw, acting as interpreter, saw that the matter would have to be disposed
of. Being-well acquainted with the language, manners and customs of the savages, he
began to talk to them, telling them the Americans were like the Indians —they did not
like to sell their squaws to strangers; that he was among the Indians five years before
they would sell him a squaw. This explanation, with a few presents, passed the matter
off satisfactorily.
At one point in the journey the Cheyenne Indians swarmed around the little com-
pany in thousands, demanding tribute of them for passing through their country. Under
Reshaw's instructions they prepared a meal for the savages, explained their inability to
pay tribute owing to the fewness of their numbers, and were permitted to move on un-
molested.
Crossing to the right bank of the South Platte, the party went up to Cherry Creek,
where the city of Denver now stands, and then trayeled across the country to Pueblo,
where "there was one log house and some lodges occupied by mountaineers, with Mexi-
can wives." There they received their first tidings of those who had left Nauvoo. They
were at Council Bluffs, where five hundred of them had volunteered in the United States
service for the Mexican war, and were then on the march to Santa Fe.
"Our next business," says Mr. Brown, "was to prepare our company for winter. A
plat of ground was selected on the river bottom, and two rows of log houses, built of
Cottonwood timber, and facing each other in parallel lines, were constructed. The ends
of the street thus formed were left open, but could be barricaded in case of emergency.
In a short time every family had a house to live in. We organized them into a branch of
the Church, with a presiding Elder and counselors, and gave them instructions regarding
their duties as Saints. We told them to remain there till they had word from headquar-
ters. The detached members of the Mormon Battalion, left at Santa Fe as not being
able to cross the deserts to California, had to draw their supplies from the government
depot at Bent's Fort on the Arkansas river, about fifty miles below where we had located
our little company. When they heard of us they came and joined us."
Seven of the Brown party, including himself, now returned to Mississippi for their
families. They traveled part way with a government ox-train bound for Fort Leaven-
worth, and met en route Colonel Sterling Price with a regiment on the way to New
Mexico; also the main body of the Mormon Battalion. They reached Mississippi in No-
50 HISTORY OF UTAH.
vember. Three weeks later messengers from Council Bluffs brought word that they
should leave their families at home another year, and furnish some able bodied men with
proper outfits to accompany the Apostles as pioneers to the Rocky Mountains.
On January 10, 1847, John Brown started for Council Bluffs, a distance of a thou-
sand miles. He was accompanied by another white man and four colored servants. The
change of climate proved too severe for the latter, two of whom perished on the way. At
Winter Quarters he was chosen captain of the thirteenth ten of the pioneer company,
and was appointed one of a hunting party to kill game as it might be needed. His colored
servants were also taken along.
On the way to the mountains the Pioneers picked up the Mississippi company left at
Pueblo, and led them to Salt Lake Valley, which was first sighted by John Brown and
Orson Pratt from the crest of Big Mountain on the 19th of July. The former arrived
with President Young on the 24th. On August 21st, he with two others made the ascent
of Twin Peaks, taking the altitude; Albert Carrington being the engineer. The meas-
urement was 11,219 feet above the sea level. Five days later he started back to the
States, accompanying President Young and traveling in the same wagon with George A.
Smith. Leaving his fellow pioneers at Winter Quarters, he proceeded on to Mississippi,
arriving there in December. The next year he emigrated with his family to Utah, trav-
eling from Council Bluffs in Amasa Lyman's company, and arriving in Salt Lake Valley
on the 16th of October.
"I settled," says he, "between the Cottonwoods. ten miles south of the city. Late
in the year, near Christmas, a troop of men were sent into Utah valley to chastise a little
thieving band of Indians. I was in this expedition. We met the savages and had a
skirmish with them on a little creek afterwards called Battle Creek. We killed four and
took the rest prisoners."
In November, 1849, John Brown, as captain of fifty, accompanied Parley P. Pratt's
exploring expedition into Southern Utah. About the same time he became a director of
the Perpetual Emigrating Fund Company, and in the fall of 1850 went back to the fron-
tier as its agent, carrying five thousand dollars in gold for the purchase of oxen and sup-
plies for the emigration. He conducted a large train to Utah the next season. On No-
vember 15, 1851, he was elected to fill a vacancy in the first Territorial legislature. In
1852 he went upon a mission to New Orleans, and returning the following year conducted
a company of English emigrants to Salt Lake valley.
In 1855 he removed to Lehi, and while there represented Utah county in the legisla-
ture. In the spring of 1857 he accompanied President Young to Fort Lemhi on Salmon
river, and in the fall of that year took part in the "Echo Canyon war." In 1861-2 he
fulfilled a mission to England, and soon after his return was made president of the 68th
quorum of Seventy.
In February, 1863, he became bishop of Pleasant Grove, succeeding Henson Walker
in that position. He remained bishop for twenty-nine years, and was then released at
his own request, on account of failing health. In the interim he performed a two years'
mission to the Southern States.
John Brown was in every sense a representative man. The public offices held by
him were numerous. He was Colonel in the Utah militia and an aid-de-camp on the
Lieutenant-general's staff as early as April, 1852; was mayor of Pleasant Grove for twenty
consecutive years; selectman and member of the county court for two years, and a mem-
ber of the legislature in 1874 and again in 1876. His life was one of energy, industry
and fidelity to every trust He died November 4, 1896, at his home in Pleasant Grove.
JOHN PACK.
"OHN PACK, a prominent member of the Pioneer company, was born of American
'• parents in St. Johns, New Brunswick. Lower Canada, May 20, 1809. His father
was George Pack and his mother, before marriage, Philotte Greene, second cousin to
General Nathaniel Greene of Revolutionary fame. They were farmers, fairly well-
-do, and their children numbered twelve, five sons and seven daughters.
When John was about eight years old the family moved to Rutland. Jefferson county.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 51
New York. There he worked on his father's farm, clearing off timber and doing general
farm labor until he was twenty-one. At intervals he attended school and received the
rudimental education common at that time. His natural ineliuation was towards farming
and stock raising, and he succeeded to that degree that he finally purchased from his
parents the old homestead, managed the farm at a profit, and provided for his father and
mother in their declining years.
His early manhood was passed at Watertown, near Rutland, where on the 10th of Octo-
ber,1S32, he married Julia Ives of that place. On the 8th of March, 1836, he and his wife were
baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. Father and mother Pack
had previously been baptized. John sent them to Kirtlaud, Ohio, in 1836, and the next
year, as soon as he had sold his property, followed them, his wife and her mother, Lucy
Paine Ives, accompanying him.
He purchased a farm near the Kirtlaud Temple aud partly built a saw-mill, which he
sold at a great sacrifice when he moved, in the year 1838, to Missouri. His parents, as
well as his immmediate family, settled with him on a farm in Caldwell county, eighteen
miles from the city of Far West.
They were barely established in their new home when the mob troubles began.
One day Mr. Pack, having received word from his sister Phoebe, residing at Huntsville,
some distance away, that her husband was dead and she and her children sick, started
with his wife for that place for the purpose of bringing the afflicted family to his ownhame.
When near the crossing of Grand river, a mob of twenty-five men on horseback came
from a side, road, formed a line in front of and behind them, and demanded to know if
they were Mormons. They answered in the affirmative, and were then told that they
were prisoners. They were taken by their captors several miles out of their road to a camp
in the timber, where were five hundred armed men, under the command of Sashiel
Woods, a Presbyterian minister. His men yelled like demons when their comrades rode
into camp with the two prisoners. Woods ordered Mr. Pack to go with him aud others
through an opening in the bushes, at the same time telling Mrs. Pack that she could go to
a grog shop near by. She, however, was about to follow her husband, saying she was
willing to die with him, when he requested her to remain with the horse and wagon,
assuring her that he would be back soon aud that he did not fear the mob. Seated on
the ground in a circle around him, they first examined the contents of his valise, but
finding nothing by which to condemn him as "a Mormon spy," the mob leader next
demanded that he deny that Joseph Smith was a Prophet. The prisoner refused to do
so, whereupon Woods asked some one to volunteer to shoot him. Mr. Pack then arose
and adressed the crowd in such a way as to cause them one by one to go away, leaving
him alone with their leader. A voice from the camp called out "Let the d — d
Mormon go." He and his wife were then marched back to the point where they were
arrested, and there released, the mob jeering and yelling after them as they crossed the
river, and threatening to kill them if they returned that way. They heeded not the
threat, but returned with their sick relatives along the same road; and though again
threatened by some of the mob, they were not otherwise molested; perhaps for the reason
that Mr. Pack, after dark, left the main road aud taking the stars for his guide,
proceeded by another way to his home, where he arrived a little before daylight.
Subsequently he and his family were driven by the mob into Far West, and were there
when the Prophet with others was court-martialed and sentenced to be shot. After the
surrender of the city, John Pack helped William Bosley to escape, the latter being wanted
by the mob on a trumped-up charge of murder, he having been present at the Crooked
river battle.
In the Mormon exodus from Missouri Mr. Pack proceeded to Pike county, Illinois,
where he resided near the town of Perry until 1840, aud then moved to Nauvoo. When
the Prophet was kidnapped by Sheriff Reynolds of Jackson county, Missouri, John Pack,
at the head of twenty-five men, was among those who went to his rescue. He was on a
mission in New Jersey, with Ezra T. Benson, when the Prophet and the Patriarch
were murdered.
An Elder since the year 1836, he had spent three mouths in the ministry in Pike
county, and subsequently had filled a short mission to the State of Maine. On the Sth of
October, 1844, he was ordained a Seventy and became senior president of the Eight
Quorum, which had just been organized. Later he was ordained a High Priest. In a
military capacity he was major in the First Regiment, Second Cohort, Nauvoo Legion,
taking rank July 21, 1843. He was commissioned by Governor Ford on the 28th of the
following October.
In the exodus from Illinois, he traveled in Heber C. Kimball's company to the
52 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Missouri river, and in the spring of 1847 left his family at Winter Quarters while he
accompanied President Young as a pioneer to the Rocky Mountains. He was appointed
major in the military organization of the camp, and with the vanguard entered Salt Lake
valley on the 22nd of July. Next day he returned with Joseph Matthews to meet
President Young and report that the other divisions of the company had entered and
partly explored the valley. He returned with the President the same season to the
Missouri river.
Early in the spring of 1848 he made a small farm on Pigeon Creek, Iowa, but
abandoned it the same year in order to come to Utah. He was captain of a company in
President Kimball's division, which left the Elkhorn early in June. While camped on
the Horn, the Indians raided their cattle, killing one of Mr. Pack's oxen in the river.
The savages were followed and a skirmish ensued, in which Thomas E. Ricks was shot and
left for dead, Howard Egau wounded in the wrist, and two horses shot under William
H. Kimball. Mr. Pack tried to yoke in a small cow in place of his dead ox, when a
strange ox came and tried to get into the yoke. As no owner could be found for the
animal, he was yoked in and driven to Utah, doing excellent service all the way. After-
wards, the ox having shed his hair, the brand U. S. was found upon him. Mr. Pack
entered Salt Lake valley (for the third time) on the 19th of October.
He settled in the Seventeenth Ward, Salt Lake City. He labored in the canyons,
and hauled logs to a saw-mill in City Creek canyon and to Chase's mill upon the site
now known as Liberty Park, thus procuring lumber with which to build. He erected the
first dancing hall in Utah, and in this building Livingston and Kincaid opened the first
store. Later it was used by the University of Deseret. Mr. Pack also kept a boarding
house, most of his guests being gold hunters on their way to California.
In the spring of 1849 he plowed new land in Farmington, Davis county, and raised
a crop of corn, making a water ditch on the mountain side to ward off the crickets, which
he fought daily. Later he procured eighty acres of new laud in West Bountiful, where
he built another home. Before this was finished, however, he went upon a foreign
mission, and it was his eldest son, Ward E. Pack, then but fifteen years old, aided by the
women and children, who fenced the land, plowed, drove team and sustained the family
during his father's three years absence. The latter started upon his mission October 19,
1849, accompanying Apostle John Taylor and Elder Curtis E. Bolton to France. He
returned home in 1852.
During the year 1S55 he lost most of his crop by grasshoppers, but unselfishly shared
the scanty remainder with his brethren and sisters who had none. In 1856 he helped to
settle Carson valley, which was then in Utah, and was absent upon this mission from
April till September. While crossing the desert, at the Sink of the Humboldt river his
horses tired out, and his company having gone ahead, he and his animals nearly perished
for want of water; but by dint of perseverance he succeeded in saving all. In 1857 he
assisted in detaining Johnston's army at Fort Bridger, and in "the move"of 1858 camped
with his family on Shanghai Bottom, south-west of Battle Creek, now Pleasant Grove.
In 1861-2 he procured quite a large piece of land, at Kamas, Summit county, where
he built another home. From 1861 to 1865 he was engaged with his son Ward E. Pack
and Charles L. Russell in the manufacture of lumber; also carrying on the dairying business
with his sons from 1863 to 1868. From November, 1869, to March, 1870, he was absent
upon a mission to the Middle and Eastern States. He was greatly interested in agri-
culture and stock raising, and from the time of the organization of the Deseret Agricultural
and Manufacturing Society, was identified with it, doing much to promote its interests
and its exhibitions, especially in the live stock department.
John Pack died at his home in Salt Lake City on the 4th day of April, 1885. His death
was quite sudden, being due to heart failure. He left a numerous family, being the
husband of six wives — namely, Julia Ives, Nancy Boothe, Ruth Mosher, Mary Jane
Walker, Jessie Sterling and Lucy Jane Giles — and was the father of forty-three children.
LORENZO DOW YOUNG.
/7»)ORENZO D. YOUNG, youngest brother to President Brigbam Young, and for many
If years a Bisbop and a Patriarch in the Mormon community, was born at Smyrna,
■^^ Chenango county, New York, October 19, 1807. His health was feeble when a boy,
and his mother dying when he was a little over seven years old, he was partly
prepared, in very early life, for the hard experiences attending his subsequent career.
He was born a pioneer, his parents, at that time, dwelling in a dense forest. The family
was in adverse circumstances, suffering most of the inconveniences incidental to life in a
primitive region: hence they were unable to give their children much education. At sis,
fourteen and fifteen years of age, Lorenzo went to school for a few weeks — not to exceed
six months in all.
When ten years old he was apprenticed to his brother-in-law, James Little, and
remained with him five years, working hard and learning the trade of gardener and
nurseryman, in which he became quite proficient. He was naturally inclined to gardening,
fruitgrowing and a farming life generally, which stood him in good stead in after years.
In 1832 he was induced to read the Book of Mormon. This decided his future, for
he was immediately baptized into the Mormon Church. He moved to Kirtland, Ohio,
and assisted to build the Temple at that place, having charge of the outside plastering,
which was pronounced a fine piece of workmanship. He was also called upon to preach
the Gospel to the people of Ohio and the surrounding States.
He next went to Missouri, where he bought a hundred and sixty acres of land and
built a good log-house, but when he had cultivated the land and had a thousand bushels
of corn ready to harvest, the anti-Mormon mobs drove him away. They took his property,
including three cows and a yoke of oxen; the latter being killed for beef to supply
General Clark's mob militia. His next home was at Nauvoo, Illinois, whence he was
ariven with the main body of his people early in 1846. He spent the following winter
at the Mormon camps on the Missouri river.
The time had now come for the Pioneers to cross the Great Plains to the Rocky
Mountains. Lorenzo D. Young was included in that historic band, also his wife, Harriet
Page Wheeler Young, his son Lorenzo Sobieski Young, and his step-son, Isaac Perry
Decker; the latter two being the only children in the company. It was no part of the
original plan to include women and children therein, but Lorenzo's wife was in feeble
health, and fearing to leave her behind, and hoping that the open air of the plains and
mountains would benefit her, he persuaded his brother, President Yroung, to allow her
to accompany him. The two other women pioneers — Clara Decker Young, wife of
President Young, and Ellen Sanders Kimball, wife of Apostle Heber C. Kimball — were
then added. April 7th, 1847, was the date of Lorenzo's start from the Missouri river,
and the following July 24th the date of his entrance into Salt Lake valley. He was
one of the third "Ten," of which his brother Phineas was captain. He made the trip
with one two-horse team, one four-ox team, and also brought a cow and some chickens.
His first act after arriving in the valley was to plant a few potatoes that he had brought
with him from the frontier. He succeeded in raising and saving a few small tubers for
seed. The next year he raised a few more, which he dealt out in two-quart lots to
some of his fellow settlers.
Lorenzo D. Young was the father of the first white male child native to Salt Lake
valley. This child, the son of his wife Harriet, was born September 20, 1847, and was
named for his father, Lorenzo Dow Young. He died March 22, 1848.
Mr. Young, after camping successively on the south and north branches of City
Creek, and living a few weeks in the fort on Pioneer Square, built a house near the spot
where the Bee-Hive house now stands. His experience during the cricket plague of 1848,
and the famine years following, when his family subsisted each person on a daily
allowance of four ounces of flour, without vegetables, and with wild roots aud boiled
raw-hides to eke out their scanty store, was the general experience of the early settlers.
In the spring of 1849, he made a trip to the States, taking with him his wife Harriet,
and his stepson. Isaac Perry Decker. They traveled in company with Dr. John M.
Bernhisel, who was en route to the Nation's capital on business connected with the newly
organized government of the State of Deseret. Mr. Young only went as far as Missouri,
returning in 1850, bringing a flock of five hundred sheep and some fine blooded cows.
54 HISTORY OF UTAH.
He clamed to have owned the first thoroughbred Devonshire bull ever brought to Utah.
At the outset of the homeward journey, he joined his train of fifteen wagons to James
Lake's train of fifty, their company including sixty or seventy men. Near one of the
Pawnee Indian villages, a young man of the tribe rode in among the sheep, and with the
utmost sang froid speared one of the lambs and rode off with it. The Pioneer's blood was
up in an instant. The Indian was pursued, shot at, and, as his fellows claimed, severely
wounded in the leg by a young Irishman having charge of the sheep. As indemnity
the savages demanded five beeves, which the owner refused, at the same time agreeing to
give two beeves. The proffer was rejected and the Indians returned to their village. At
sunrise next morning hundreds of Pawnees, armed and in war paint, rode into the camp,
where their chief reiterated the demand for five beeves. Again ' Uncle Lorenzo"
refused, reminding them that the young Indian was the aggressor and had deserved his
fate; and while for peace sake he was willing to part with two of his cattle, he was not
willing to be robbed and would not give more. The chief's eyes snapped angrily as this
bold answer was interpreted to him, and he looked around significantly upon his assembled
braves, who apparently where only awaiting the signal to help themselves to the sheep and
cattle of the company. The sturdy pioneer also looked around; his wife and little stepson
were sitting in the wagon, listening, and the teams were all ready to start. Taking up
his rifle and a large pistol, both well loaded, he turned to the chief and said: "I am
prepared to defend myself and my property, and our men are likewise armed and read/.
If you or any of your tribe attempt to molest us or stampede our stock, I'll kill you that
instant." He then gave the order to advance, and the train moved on, all the Indians
following. A mile was traversed in silence, when suddenly the chief, turning to his
baud, uttered a peculiar yell, whereupon they all wheeled about and returned, leaving
the intrepid company to pursue its way over the plains.
With the sheep and cattle that he' brought from the States Mr. Young stocked a
ranch opposite Willow Creek, on the west bank of the Jordan. It was a time when horse
thieves were giving trouble, and a secret guard had been placed by the sheriff at the
White Bridge over the river, with instructions to intercept and arrest the marauders.
One evening — it was March 1st, 1851, — as Mr. Young was returning on horseback from
his ranch, he was hailed in a somewhat boisterous manner by the guard, whom he mistook
for drunken campers. Refusing to halt at their command, he was fired at by three men,
and seriously wounded in the left arm, the ball severing the main artery and causing him
to bleed profusely. With characteristic doggedness he rode on, but nearly bled to death
before reaching the house of Daniel Daniels, a friend, about half a mile from the scene
of the shooting. Says Mr. Young: "Brother Daniels went for Brother Thomas Jeremy,
close by, and they two laid hands on me, and asked the Lord to stop the flow of blood
from my wounded arm. It stopped immediately. The main artery was cut above the
elbow, and but for this timely relief I should have bled to death."
Early in the same year Lorenzo D. Young was ordained Bishop of the Eighteenth
ward, Salt Lake City. He served in that capacity until 1878, when, his health becoming
feeble, he resigned, nominating Orson P. Whitney, the present Bishop, as his
successor. Four years prior to his retirement he had been given charge of a corps of
home missionaries, with Apostle Orson Pratt and Bishop Reuben Miller as his assistants.
For three years he traveled, preached and visited in most of the stakes of Zion,
administering to the sick, comforting the afflicted, and encouraging the wealthy to aid
and befriend the poor. Shortly before the death of President Young, in 1877, Bishop
Young was ordained by him a Patriarch, and in this capacity he ministered much comfort
and encouragement, especially to the poor, the sick and the sorrowful. He held this
office during the remainder of his days.
He was married five times. By his first wife, Persis Goodall, whom he wedded
June 6, 1826, he was I he father of ten children, including the late Bishop William G.
Young and Elder Joseph W Young, who died President of St. George Stake. She was
also the mother of Lorenzo S. Young, who accompanied his father upon the pioneer
journey. By his second wife, Harriet Page Wheeler, whom he married March 9, 1843,
he had two sons, John Brigham and Lorenzo D., Jr., who both died in childhood. His
third wife, Hannah Ida Hewitt, had five children, one of whom, Brigham Willard Young,
died July 20, 1887, while on a mission in New Zealand. The fourth wife, Eleanor Jones, was
the mother of four. By his last wife, Anna Larsen, he had three sons, the eldest of
whom, Dr. Harry A. Young, of the Utah Batteries, was killed in the Philippines,
February 6, 1899.
Another serious accident, and one from which he never fully recovered, befell the aged
Bishop in the summer of 1872. It was the 4th of July, and he was riding in a buggy behind
cMUU^t/, <Pwv#-^*?//
' i~+*» &*.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 55
a spirited ruare along Second South Street, when a boy, intent only on the celebration
then in progress, threw a lighted tire-cracker under the mare's feet. Frightened by the
report, she jumped, and kicking with both feet, came down astride the thills. The
Bishop was violently thrown out. and on being raised from the ground, it was thought
that his neck was broken and he was dead. He was resuscitated, however, and taken to his
home, but remained bed-fast for weeks, unable to speak above a whisper. Though able to be
about, he never saw a well day afterwards. On the 21st of November, 1895, the venerable'
Pioneer and Patriarch passed to his well earned rest.
MILLEN A'fWOOD.
jr< PIONEER of 1S47. a handcart veteran of 1S56, and at the time of hisdeath Bishopof
^*£ the Thirteenth Ward. Salt Lake City, the subject of this sketch was born atWilliner-
•ir ton. Tolland county, Connecticut. May 24, 1S17. He was the son of Pan Atwood
and his wife Polly Sawyer. His father, who was a farmer, had poor health, inso-
much that he required his son's almost constant assistance upon the farm, and was
therefore unable to give him many opportunities for education. The boy remained with his
parents until he was twenty-one, and then went to learn the mason's trade of his brother,
remaining with him until he was twenty-three.
During the year 1840 he learned that Mormon Elders were preaching at the house of
a neighbor. He attended one of the meetings, and for the first time heard a discourse
upon the principles taught by the Latter-day Saints. The preacher was Joseph T. Ball.
Young Atwood at once became a believer. Many Tears later, speaking of his conversion,
he remarked in his quaint humorous way: "Something got down into me that has never
gone out since."
Filled with the "spirit of the gathering," though not yet baptized. Millen Atwood
set out for Nauvoo April '27. 1S41. He arrived there on the 21st of Hay. and for the tirst
time beheld the Prophet Joseph Smith. All his former ideas regarding the venerable
appearance and solemn gravity of a prophet vanished like smoke when he came in con-
tact with the genial, jocular leader of the Latter-day Saints, witnessed his frank, open
manner, and felt the spell of his kindly influence. His disappointment was a delight. He
felt perfectly at home with the Prophet on conversing with him. for the first time, two da\ s
after his arrival.
He was baptized in the Mississippi river. August 2nd, 1841; and on April 10th,
1S42. was ordained an E'der of the Church. Soon after his ordination — which was under
the hands of Apostle Willard Richards — he was called on a preaching mission through the
States of Illinois. New York and Connecticut. He traveled "without purse or script"
and passed through many hardships and vicissitudes, but on the whole greatly enjoyed
his labors. m
From Chicago he went by boat to Oswego, through the kindness of a gentleman who
paid his fare, thus obviating a long and wearisome tramp. Hearing there were some Latter-
day Saints in Oswego, he made diligent search for them and was sent by different people
from place to place, only to find that he had been hoaxed. Tired and hungry, he sat
down on a hitching rail to rest. Presently a man approached driving a span of horses.
Elder Atwood asked him it he was the mau he was looking for. and received the rough
answer. "No. but I am the devil." Discovering the Elder's .ailing, the mau abused him
shamefully with his tongue, ordering him to get off the rail, or he would kick him off. at
the same time shaking his tist at him. Atwood calmly replied that he was tired and wanted
to rest, and would not get off the rail till he was ready. Suddenly the man's manner
changed. He became mild and sjentle. took the Elder into his home, entertained him
hospitably and procured the scoolhouse for him to preach in. A large congregation
listened to him. among them his erratic entertainer whose name was LeRoy Burt. Before
his Mormon visitor left, he begged his pardon a dozen times and fully made amends for
his former rudeness.
During the same mission Elder Atwood and a companion applied for entertainment
at the home of a Baptist preacher, who was very bitter against the Mormons. He said
56 HISTORY OF UTAH.
he would take them in, not as servants of the Lord, but as "vagabonds of the earth."
They stayed over night and in the morning as they were leaving Atwood said to him: "In-
asmuch as you have entertained us as servants of God, you shall have the reward of a
servant of God." "I entertained you as vagabonds," the old Baptist shouted savagely.
"Well, then, you shall have a vagabond's reward," replied Atwood and departed.
He arrived at his father's home July 18th, 1844. Soon after he went to New York,
where he first heard of the martyrdom of the Prophet and the Patriarch. He continued
preaching until March 17th, 1845, and then in response to a general call for the Elders
in the field, he returned to Nauvoo. arriving there on the 7th of April.
Three days later he received a patriarchal blessing under the hands of Father John
Smith, who had succeeded the martyred Hyrurn as Patriarch of the Church. About the
same time he was ordained a Seventy and set apart as a member of the Tenth Quorum.
The remainder of his time at Nauvoo was occupied in working on the Temple and the
Nauvoo House and in making wagons to enable the Saints to move West.
He left Nauvoo in the exodus, February 6, 1846, and proceeded with the main body
of the exiles through rain, mud and frost to the Missouri river, enduring untold hardships
on the way. In February, 1847, he made a trip from Winter Quarters to Mount Pisgah
for Elder Charles C. Rich, which he describes as the hardest journey he ever undertook.
On returning to the Missouri, he was appointed one of the Pioneers to explore the Rocky
Mountains, and left Winter Quarters on the 8th of April, westward bound.
One day while passing through a stretch of hostile Indian country, President Young
told the members of the company to keep close to camp and not scatter. Feed being
scarce, some of the horses strayed out quite a distauce and a number of the Pioneers
accompaniel them as guards. Suddenly a host of Indians swept down upon them,
frightening the horses and causing considerable excitement among the men. Pioneer
Atwood kept hold of a horse's lariat, and was dragged along at a furious rate. Every
time he shouted "whoa," an Indian would thwack the horse, increasing its speed. Finally
the Pioneer had to relax his grip and went tumbling head over heels among rocks and
bnish, skinning his face badly, but receiving no serious injury. The Indians drove off
quite a number of the animals, but no one was killed. Our friend entered Salt Lake
valley on the 24th of July, and later in the year returned with President Young to the
Missouri river.
In January, 1848, he went back to Nauvoo and gathered up a quantity of goods,
returning with them in March to Winter Quarters. There he was introduced by Presi-
dent Young to the lady who became his wife, Miss Relief Cram, whom he married April
20th, of that year. He had for his wedding tour a second crossing of the plains, begin-
ning this journey on May 19th, and ending it four months later to the day. He and his
wife were members of President Young's company.
February, 1850, found Millen Atwood in Utah county, fighting Indians. He was in
the Provo battle, escaping without injury, and returned to Salt Lake City, bringing a
wagon load of Indian prisoners. The next winter his father's household arrived from the
East to make Utah their home.
The next notable event in his life was a mission to Great Britain, upon which he
started September Kith, 1852. He first labored in Scotland, and was then President,
successively, of the Carlisle and Bradford conferences. Subsequently he became pastor of
the district comprising the conferences of Wiltshire, Somersetshire and Landsend.
Released to return home he sailed from Liverpool May 4th, 1850, and reached the
Iowa camping ground on the 27th of June. He crossed the plains in one of the handcart
companies of that season, leaving the frontier on the 15th of July and reaching Salt Lake
City on the 9th of November. His splendid courage, rare endurance and fatherly kind-
ness to his fellow travelers during that terrible experience is still remembered and eu-
logized by survivors of the same.
In common with most of his fellow citizens he took part in the "Echo Canyon war,"
and was in the "move south" that followed. Afterwards he was a member for many
years of the Salt Lake City police force — one of the "old guard" that did so much to pre-
serve order and protect life and property in those early troublous times.
From March 9, 1851, to May 9, 1873 Millen Atwood was a member and one of the
Presidency of the 6th Quorum of Seventy, an office to which he was set apart by Presi-
dent Joseph Young. On the latter date he was ordained a High Priest and set apart by
President Dauiel H. Wells as a High councilor of the Salt Lake Stake. He acted in that
calling until December 25, 1881, when he became Bishop of the Thirteenth Ward, being
set apart by President Joseph F. Smith. From 1877 until called into the Bishopric he
served as a home missionary of the Stake.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 57
Among other admirable qualities possessed by Bishop Atwood was a rich vein of
humor, which expressed itself iu quaintest forms on all occasions. Some samples of it
have been given during the course of this narrative. It was the manner as much as the
matter of his sayings that made them humorous, and the former, of course, cannot be
reproduced. Steadfast as a rock in his convictions, he once remarked in the hearing of
the writer, "You can't kick some people out of the Church; they won't go; but others
you can feed on pies, plum puddings and pigs, and they'll apostatize." Honest, upright,
fearless and outspoken, he lived and died a man of unblemished integrity. The date of
his death was December 17, 1890.
JACOB WEILER.
■T^ONEST, thrifty and prosperous, possessed of fair intellectual gifts, and manifesting
M| moral worth and integrity through all the stages of his career, the late Bishop
(s> Weiler, while peaceful and conservative in his disposition, was independent and
courageous, with a mind of his own and an opinion fearlessly expressed whenever
occasion required. He was a prominent city and county official, was Bishop of the Third
Ward for a period of nearly forty years, and died a Patriarch of the Salt Lake Stake
of Zion.
The son of Joseph Weiler and his wife Rose Anna Styers, Jacob was born in
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, March 14, 1808. His father was a well-to-do farmer,
and farm-work was the son's favorite occupation. Milling and distilling were also among
his early labors. He received but a moderate education, his boyhood and manhood being
mostly spent upon the farm.
In the year 1810 he embraced Mormonism, having previously become acquainted
with the Prophet Joseph Smith. He was baptized in Chester County, and in 1841, with
the first company of Latter-day Saints that left that part, went to Nauvoo. There he
purchased a lot from the Prophet and remained until the Mormon exodus.
Upon the Missouri river he was enrolled as one of the Pioneers who in 1847 crossed
the plains and mountains to Salt Lake valley. Jacob Weiler, with Orson Pratt and
Shadrach Roundy, entered the vallejT on the 23rd of July. He started to return with
President Young to Winter Quarters, but meeting his family near South Pass (they were
traveling in Edward Hunter's company of emigrants) he returned with them to the shores
of the Great Salt Lake. The next morning after meeting his family, with characteristic
prudence and foresight he put them upon rations, in order to eke out their store of
provisions until a crop could be raised in their new-found home.
They first lived in the Old Fort, but in the fall of 1848 moved out upon a lot in the
southern part of the city. It was on Seventh South street, in the section now known as
the Third Ward, of which Mr. Weiler afterwards became the Bishop. President Young
gave him the privilege of exchanging the lot he had drawn for one nearer the center of
town, but he replied that inasmuch as he was going to farm, he would prefer the location
that had fallen to him. He was very successful in farming, having been reared to it
from childhood, and he gave many of his brethren the benefit of his knowledge and
experience in that line. President George Q. Cannon said at the funeral of Bishop Weiler
that the deceased gave him his first instruction in agriculture.
It is related that during a grasshopper scourge, when the pests had devoured the
vegetation of the country and eaten up the Bishop's wheat and other small grain crops,
he planted corn with the hoe. covering up in every hill from one to half a dozen grass-
hoppers. As the result, he had the best crop of corn ever raised in this country, and for
it was offered by a prominent merchant two and a half dollars a bushel for speculative
purposes. The Bishop would not let him have it, but sold it out to poor people who could
only buy a half bushel or a bushel at a time, and would only accept pay at the rate of
two dollars a bushel.
Jacob Weiler was ordained a High Priest and set apart as Bishop of the Third Ward
in October, 185G. He served in that capacity until 1895 when, on account of his age and
infirmities, he was honorably released from the Bishopric. He was then ordained a
Patriarch under the hands of President Wilford Woodruff.
He had previously been upon two missions to the Eastern States, preaching and
gathering genealogies of his ancestors; and had once started upon a mission to Europe,
58 HISTORY OF UTAH.
in company with Apostle Ovson Hyde and others, but wasjrecalled from|New York, as
the company was too large.
In early days Mr. Weiler served as a Selectman of Salt Lake county for several years.
In 1880 and 1882 he sat in the city council, representing the First Precinct.
The venerable Patriarch left a patriarchal household. He had been three times
married. His first wife, Maria Malin, he wedded August 12, 1830. His second wife was
Elizabeth McElroy, and his third wife Harriet Emily Smith. His own children numbered
seven, and besides these he had two adopted children. His third son, Elijah Malin Weiler,
like his deceased sire, has figured prominently as a city and county official. The date of his
father's death was March 24, 1896.
WILLIAM CLAYTON,
pT^HE Claytons are of English origin, the head of the family in Utah and in Mormon
IQ) history being a convert of the mission founded by Apostle Heber C. Kimball and
^ST his confreres at Preston, Lancashire, and other parts of England in 1837-8. William
Clayton was the son of Thomas Clayton, a school teacher, and was born at Pen-
wortham, in Lancashire, July 17, 1814. His mother's name before marriage was Ann
Critchlow.
William received a good common school education. His mind was capacious, and
he was energetic, practical and progressive. He was one of the presidency left to pre-
side over the British Mission after the return of Apostles Kimball and Hyde to America
and it was through his labors that Mormonism obtained a footing in the great manufact-
uring town of Manchester, which soon rivalled Preston in the number of its converts, and
ere long became the headquarters of the mission. Elder Clayton had charge of the work
in Manchester until he emigrated to America in the year 1840.
At Nauvoo, Illinois,— whither he and Elder Theodore Turley conducted one of the
earliest companies of the English Saints — William Clayton became the trusted friend and
private secretary of the Prophet Joseph Smith. It was he who wrote, at the Prophet's
dictation, the revelation on Celestial Marriage, July 12, 1843.
In the exodus from Illinois he was Clerk of the Camp of Israel, and in the Pioneer
Company was one of two historians (Willard Richards being the other) specially
appointed to record the incidents of the remarkable journey of the Pioneers across the
great plains. To his carefully kept journals of that period history owes much. He pos-
sessed considerable inventive genius, one of the evidences of which was the construction
of an odometer (called by the Pioneers "roadometer") by means of which was registered
from day to day the number of miles traveled by these pilgrims who became the founders
of Utah.
He was also gifted in music, and transmitted his ability in that and in other lines to
his posterity. His favorite instrument was the violin. He was a member of "Ballou's
Band," one of the earliest and most talented of Utah's musical organizations.
In youth and early manhood, Mr. Clayton was of a jovial and lively turn, but as he
advanced in years he became serious and even solemn in mien and deportment. Silent
and secretive, he was a deep thinker, a clear writer and an impressive speaker. He read
much and kept abreast of the leading questions of his time.
In business he was straightforward, methodical, and the soul of punctuality. He
kept his promises, and expected others to keep theirs. He had little use for a man who
would lightly break his word, even by tardiness in keeping an appointment. He was
seldom seen in public, though he attended meetings aad was devoted to his religion. His
office hours were from half past seven a. m. until six p. m.; after which he was not
accessible to any ordinary demand upon his time.
In the Utah Militia he was one of the corps of Topographical Engineers, acting in
that capacity at the time of the "Echo Canyon War.'' At the inception of Z. C. M. I.
he became Secretary of the mammoth concern, holding that position from October, 1868,
until October, 1871. He was for many years Auditor of Public Accounts, both for the
provisional State of Deseret and the Territory of Utah, and was also Territorial Recorder
of Marks and Brands. These offices he held at the time of his death. He was for many
years a notary public, and did a great deal of notarial work. At one time he possessed
considerable property, but became poor, owing to unfortunate mining investments.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 59
His family was patriarchal. He was the father of forty-one children. His wives
were Ruth Moon, Margaret Moon, Alice Hardman, Diantha Farr, Augusta Braddock,
Sarah Ann Walters, Maria Lyman and Ann Higgs. He died at his home in Salt Lake
City, December 4, 1879.
AARON FREEMAN FARR.
PIONEER, colonizer, magistrate and missionary, the Hon. Aaron F. Farr has had a
busy life, of which the foregoing are only a few of the prominent features. He
was one of the earliest of our magistrates, was twice probate judge of Weber
county, and afterwards county selectman, an alderman, and for many years treas-
urer of Ogden city. He also sat as a member of the Territorial Legislatui'e. At the age
of eighty-two, in spite of the many toils and troubles through which he has passed, he is
still hale and hearty.
The son of Winslow Farr and Olive Hovey Freeman, he was born October 31, 1818,
in the town of Waterford, Caledonia county, Vermont. There his early boyhood was
passed. When about nine years old he moved with his father's family to Charleston, Or-
leans county, settling on the Clyde river in a dense wilderness, where he assisted in clear-
ing a heavy timbered farm and building a home. It was a farm of a hundred acres, in
addition to which his father owned two hundred acres of land covered with pine timber,
and had a saw mill on the Clyde. Aaron received a common school education, necessarily
limited, owing to his close occupation at home. Educated in the school of experience, he
was prepared from boyhood for his future life as a pioneer.
Nothing very important took place with him until Elders Lyman E. Johnson and
Orson Pratt, in the year 1832, came preaching Mormonism in his neighborhood. Aaron
at once believed, and with his father's household embraced the faith. He was baptized
by Elder Johnson and confirmed by Elder Pratt.
In the year 1837 he moved with his parents to Kirtland, Ohio, where he remained
until the spring of 1838. He then started with his brother Lorin on foot for Far West,
Missouri. Their purpose was to locate a new home for their parents. Soon after his ar-
rival there, which was about the middle of June, Aaron was called by the Prophet Joseph
Smith to accompany him and a few others into Daviess county to locate a settlement on
Grand river. This led to the establishment of Adaui-ondi- Airman. The same month, in
company with three others, he went to Fort Leavenworth to find employment, and re-
mained there four months, chopping wood and making brick, returning to Far West in
February. By this time the mob troubles were over, barring the exodus of the Saints
from the state, which took place that winter. Spring found the Farr family at Lima,
Illinois, where they rented a farm. A year later they moved to Nauvoo. Aaron superin-
tended his father's farm, and was thus engaged until 1842, when he was called by the
Prophet to take a mission through Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. He returned to Nauvoo
about the middle of July, 1843, and remained there working upon the temple, improving
the parental farm and sharing in the general experiences of his people.
On January 16, 1844, Aaron F. Farr married Persis Atherton at the Mansion House,
Nauvoo, the ceremony being performed by the Prophet. This was only a few months
before his martyrdom. The Farrs accompanied President Brigham Young in the exodus
of 1846, and camped with him upon the Missouri river.
In February, 1847, Aaron was called to be one of the Pioneers, who were to precede
the main body of the people farther West. His outfit consisted of a mule team and
wagon, with farming utensils, seeds and provisions for two persons. His traveling com-
panion was Nathaniel Fairbanks. He left another outfit, consisting of one wagon, two
yoke of oxen and two cows, for his family, who were to follow in June.
The date of his departure from Winter Quarters was the 7th of April. While on the
way up the Platte, his companion, Fairbanks, was bitten by a rattlesnake and came near
losing his life. In ten minutes he lost the use of his limbs, and his foot and leg turned
black to the knee. Mr. Farr and an associate carried him on their backs a mile and a
half to camp, where his case was attended to, and with skillful nursing he recovered.
At the crossing of Green river, President Young deemed it advisable to send back a
small detachment to pilot the oncoming emigration through the Black Hills. Aaron Farr
and five others were selected for this duty. Sending his team and outfit on to Salt Lake
60 HISTORY OF UTAH.
valley, be and his party returned and met the advance company of emigrants — Daniel
Spencer's hundred — about two hundred miles below Fort Laramie. He was assigned a
position with his wagon and family in Ira Eldredge's fifty, and turning west once more,
traveled on to the valley, arriving here on the 20th of September.
Immediately he prepared to make a home. He went to the canyon, got out logs, and
soon erected a small house in the "middle fort." In the spring of 1848 he moved ten
miles south, near Big Cottonwood, where he built the first log house. In the fall he re-
turned to Salt Lake City and began building in the Seventeenth ward. There a portion
of his family resided for many years.
Previous to the organization of the State of Deseret Mr. Farr was appointed by
President Young to act as a civil magistrate. As such he transacted, he claims, the first
judicial business in Utah. He has in his possession the docket of the court, opening with
the year 1850. That same year he went with George A. Smith to Iron county, and there
raised a crop of grain, returning in the fall to Salt Lake City.
At a special conference of the Church in 1852, Aaron Farr, with three other Elders
— Darwin Richardson, A. B. Lambson and Jesse Turpin — was given a mission to the
West India Islands. Arriving at Jamaica, they hired a hall and attempted to preach, but
were mobbed and opposed on every hand. The population was mostly colored, and there
was no police protection. The persecution was so violent that it was thought advisable
to return to America. Accordingly, as soon as an American ship arrived at the islands,
they took passage for New York, where they arrived on the 18th of February, 1853.
Orson Pratt was then presiding over the Eastern States Mission, and Elder Farr
was appointed by him to labor in the Northern states. This he did until the spring of
1854, when he was appointed to succeed Horace S. Eldredge in the presidency of the St.
Louis conference. He himself was soon succeeded by Milo Andrus. Released to return,
he arrived home on the 31st of October.
January 28, 1855, he entered into the order of plural marriage, his second wife, Lu-
cretia Ball Thorp, being married to him by President Brigham Young at Salt Lake City.
The following year found him at Fillmore, acting as a deputy marshal, in attendance
upon the Supreme Court of the Territory. The same year he went to Los Vegas, Ari-
zona, on a colonizing mission, from which he returned in the fall.
March, 1857, witnessed his removal to Ogden, Weber county, which has ever since
been his home. In the move following the "Echo Canyon war," he camped with the
main body of the people on the Provo Bottoms, where he remained until after the U. S.
peace commissioners and the Mormon leaders had met and settled the pending difficulty.
In January, 1859, he was elected by the Legislature probate judge of Weber county,
which office he held until 1861, when he was succeeded by Hon. Francis A. Brown. In
May, 1863, he succeeded Judge Brown in the same position, and from that time held the
judgeship for Weber county until March, 1869, when he was succeeded by Hon. Franklin
D. Richards. In the fall of that year he filled a short mission to the Eastern states, re-
turning in the spring of 1870. In 1872 he represented Weber county in the lower house
of the Legislature, and in 1873 served the county in the capacity of selectman. He was
an alderman of Ogden city for a short time, to fill a vacancy in the council, and for many
years held the office of city treasurer. This closed his public life. He next turned his
attention to his private interests, such as farming, milling, and improving his city prop-
erty. Judge Farr is the father of Hon. Aaron F. Farr, Jr., and Lucian Farr, of Logan,
Cache county, and is father-in-law to Hon. Moses Thatcher of Salt Lake City.
TRUMAN OSBORN ANGELL.
"Z- "fp be the architect of the Salt Lake Temple is glory enough for one human life ;
\^\ and this glory rests upon the late Truman 0. Angell of Salt Lake City. To the
, i great task assigned him in connection with that splendid edifice he gave the best
years of his existence, and from the day of its inception to the day of his death —
a period of thirty-four years — it was present with him day and night, the darling project
of his fondest dreams. What though the sublime ideas embodied in the sacred structure
were admitted by him to have come from higher sources, he none the less was the
artist who seized upon those ideas and rendered them practicable; and though another
HISTORY OF UTAH. 61
may have planned, it was he who executed the glorious work, 'which, completed, stands as
a monument to his memory.
But Truman 0. Angell has another title to fame. He was one of the Pioneers
who in July, 1847, planted their feet upon the site of Salt Lake City, laid out the town,
and saw their leader designate the spot where would be reared "the Temple of our God."
He was brother-in-law to President Brigham Young, who married his sister, Mary Aim
Angell, at Kirtland, Ohio, in the year 1834.
The son of James W. Angell and his wife Phebe Morton, Truman was born at North
Providence. Rhode Island, June 5, 1810. Until twenty-one he resided at or near his
birthplace, earning his living from his sixth until his eighteenth year by working upon a
farm. His parents were very poor, and could give him but little education. Two winters
at school embraced all his opportunities in that line. He was a natural architect, and
shed tears of joy when at the age of seventeen the opportunity was given him to learn
the trade of carpenter and joiner.
In Janury, 1833, he became a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints, and accompanied it during all its subsequent migrations, passing through many
sufferings and privations, and finally forsaking civilization and plunging with his people
into the western wilderness. The spring of 1S47 found him enrolled in the Pioneer band
and on his way from the Missouri river to Salt Lake valley. He settled in the pioneer
city, and as stated had charge of the Temple as its architect from the beginning in April.
1853, up to the day of his death, October, 16, 1887.
Truman O. Angell was three times married, being what is called in common parlance
"a polj'gamist." Plural marriage was a principle of his religion, and as such was
practiced by him conscientiously. The names of his wives were Polly Johnson, Susan E.
Savage and Mary Ann Johnson, and his marriage dates, October 7, 1832, April 20, 1851,
and June 17, 1855. His children numbered an even score, and of these thirteen are living.
HORACE KIMBALL WHITNEY.
^"■'HE eldest son of Newel K. Whitney and his first wife Elizabeth Ann Smith, the
f^»} subject of this story was born at Kirtland, Geauga county, Ohio, July 25, 1S23.
^r His parents being well-to-do and desirous that their children should be educated, he
was given every advantage of schooling that his time and environment afforded.
He inherited and acquired a taste for learning that lasted throughout his life. In his
Imy hood he was quite a prodigy among his mates, owing to his scholarly attainments.
"Ask Horace," became a proverb among those seeking for information upon almost
any subject. He was known as "the walking dictionary."
A mere child when his parents were converted to Mormonism in the autumn of 1830,
he was only a lad when the Prophet Joseph Smith founded at Kirtland schools for the
study of ancient languages and science. He was one of the first pupils enrolled, and by
his quick apprehension soon acquired a proficient knowledge of Hebrew, Greek and
Latin. He was also an expert mathematician. Later he cultivated music to a considerable
degree, sang melodiously and played the flute like a master. His musical gifts stood
him in good stead in after years, when he became a member of various bands and
orchestras.
As a youth he was very fond of athletic sports, especially swimming, at which he was
strong and skillful. He is reputed to have saved the life of a playmate, a boy older than
himself, who, caught in a snag or gnarl of roots at the bottom of a deep mill-pond, was
drowning, when Horace dove after him, brought him to the surface and swam with him
to the shore. His general intelligence, his fondness for sports, added to his genial nature,
made him a favorite with the Prophet, who afterwards married his sister Sarah.
Horace moved with his parents from Kirtland in the fall of 1838, when they started
for Far West, Missouri, following the main body of the Latter-day Saints, but were
intercepted by the news of the mob troubles and "the pending expulsion of their people
from that State. They spent the ensuing winter at Carrolton, Illinois. In order to help
support the familv Horace engaged as a school teacher in the district where he resided,
62 HISTORY OF UTAH.
and although only in his sixteenth year, passed a satisfactory examination and was accepted.
He was several years under the statutory age, but being large and slightly bearded,
seemed older. When the examining trustee queried, "I should say you were about
twenty-one, Mr. Whitney," the youth replied, "You need'nt guess again," and the ex-
amination closed.
At Nauvoo he learned the printer's trade, being employed upon the "Times and
Seasons" as a compositor, and having as a fellow employee George Q, Cannon, who was
several years younger than himself. Horace was one of the force of compositors who in
]850 set the first type for the Deseret News at Salt Lake City. While still at Nauvoo he
accompanied Amasa M. Lyman on a mission to the State of Tennessee.
On the thir"d day of February, 1846, Horace K. Whitney married Helen Mar
Kimball, who had previously been sealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith. The marriage
took place in the Nauvoo Temple. President Brigham Young officiating. In Utah he
wedded two other wives, Lucy Bloxom and Mary Cravath.
Horace was in the exodus of the Saints from Illinois, and on the Missouri he and
his younger brother Orson were enrolled in the Pioneer Company, which after crossing
the great plains, entered Salt Lake valley on the 24th of July, 1847. He returned to
Winter Quarters for his family, and came again to the mountains in the autumn of 1848.
He settled permanently at Salt Lake City.
His subsequent life was peaceful and comparatively uneventful. He was a Major of
Topographical Engineers in the Nauvoo Legion, and while his family went south to
Provo in the move of 1858, he remained as one of the guards at Salt Lake City while
Johnston's army passed through the all but deserted town. A great lover of the drama,
he was for many years a member of the Deseret Dramatic Association, both at the Social
Hall and the Salt Lake Theatre, playing various parts with rocognized ability. After
leaving the stage he was a flutist in the orchestra for several years.
During almost his entire life in Utah he was a book-keeper in the office of President
Brigham Young, a position held by him at the time of his death. In troublous times he
united with his duties as clerk those of a guard over the President. He was an incessant
reader in his later days, and was never so contented as when seated in his arm chair
devouring the works of the great masters of literature, or applauding at the temple of
Thespis the triumphs of histrionic and musical genius. He naturally shunned publicity,
was sensitive, modest and retiring, and though a charming conversationalist, a facile
writer, and highly gifted in various ways, was absolutely without ambition for official
station. His one absence from Utah, after his arrival here in 1848, was in 1809-70, when
he spent several months, including the winter, upon a mission in the Eastern States.
Horace K. Whitney, an honest man, passed away at his home in the presence of his
family, on the 22nd of November, 1884. At his funeral, held three days later. Apostle
Wilford Woodruff and a number of other old-time associates united in paying high
tribute to his character. He left two wives, and his living children at his death
numbered sixteen.
GEORGE WOODWARD.
p^HE son of George Woodward, Sr., and Jemima Shinn, the subject of this sketch
l^>) was born September 9, 1817, on his father's farm in Monmouth county, New Jersey.
;j His parents were in confortable circumstances, and he received the education
usually afforded farmers' boys in those days. At the age of seventeen, after obtain-
ing his father's consent, he went to Philadelphia and learned the brick-laying .ti'ade,
which he followed for several years.
While living in Philadelphia he joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints, September 7, 1840. In April, 1841, he left his father's home and started for
Nauvoo, Illinois, arriving there on the first day qf May. He labored at mason work from
that time until the exodus of the Saints into the wilderness. He was well acquainted with
the Prophet Joseph Smith and the other Mormon leaders, and was active in helping to
protect the homes of the people from mob violence.
He left Nauvoo July 10,1840, having one wagon, two yoke of oxen and a limited sup-
HISTORY OF UTAH. 63
ply of provisions as the sum of his earthly possessions. Crossing Iowa, he wintered on
the Missouri River, and was there chosen one of the Pioneers to accompany President
Brigharu Young: to the Rocky Mountains.
He was enrolled as a member of the twelfth "Ten,"' of which Morton Jacobs was
captain. He drove the team that drew the cannon brought by the Pioneers to Salt Lake
valley, and on the plains served as a night guard. At Green River he was given the
privilege, with several others, of returning to meet his family in the emigration that was
following. Consequently he did not reach the Valley until September 25, two months
and one day after the arrival of the main body of the Pioneers.
Until October, 1861, Mr. Woodward and his wife lived at Salt Lake City. He then
joined a company of men who were called to go south and make a new settlement. This
company was led by George A. Smith and Erastus Snow. Halting near the junction of
the Rio Virgen and Santa Clara Rivers, they laid out the city of St. George, where the
Woodwards have since resided. Mrs. Woodward's maiden name was Thomazin Down-
ing. They were married August 14, 1843, and have one child, a daughter — Mary Wood-
ward.
Mr. Woodward has held no civic office, but has been more or less prominent ecclesias-
tically and in a military way. He was a Seventy in 1844 and a High Priest in 1856, when
he became counselor to Bishop E. F. Sheets of the Eighth Ward, Salt Lake City. In
St. George he served as a Ward Teacher and a Home Missionary, and on July 2, 1882,
was made a member of the High Council. In September, 1893, he was elected a mem-
ber of the Board of Directors of the St. George Temple, in the building of which, as well
as in the construction of the Manti, Salt Lake and Nauvoo temples, he aided materially.
At Nauvoo he was a lieutenant in the Legion, and at Salt Lake City a captain of in-
fantry, and went with his company to Echo Canyon in 1857. He was also a captain of
infantry in the Iron military district, and saw service in the operations against the Indians
from 1866 to 1869. The life of George Woodward is that of a frugal, honest and indus-
trious man, one who has established a claim to the respect and esteem of his contempor-
aries and posterity.
THE THREE PIONEER WOMEN.
VI/HE three women enrolled among the Pioneers at Winter Quarters, and who accom-
\^ panied their husbands to Salt Lake valley in 1847, were Harriet Page Wheeler
f> Young, wife of Lorenzo D. Young; Clara Decker Young, wife of Brigham Young;
and Ellen Sanders Kimball, wife of Heber C. Kimball. A brief biography is here
given of each of this triad of heroines, the first of whom was mother to the second, and
mother also to one of the two children who accompanied the Pioneers on their journey.
She properly takes precedence in this series of sketches.
Harriet Page Wheeler Young, daughter of Oliver Wheeler and his wife Hannah
Ashby, was a native of Hillsborough, Hillsborough county, New Hampshire, and was
born September 7, 1803. She was the eldest of five children. The ancestors of the
Wheeler family were from Wales, whence they emigrated to America five generations
before Harriet was born, settling on Massachusetts Bay.
A year or two after her birth her parents moved from Hillsborough, her father's
birthplace, to Salem, Massachusetts, the birthplace of her mother. There Harriet was
reared to womanhood. She was kept at school from five to ten years of age, after which
she went to work in one of the Salem factories, where she learned to spin flax and wool,
and became an expert. Her mother taught her to weave, and she was also an accom-
plished milliner and an excellent cook.
She early showed herself to be a woman of character. A young man of immoral
habits once paid court to her. Learning of his evil tendencies, she forthwith broke off
with him, refusing any longer to receive his visits. He persisted in his attentions, and to
avoid him she temporarily left home and stayed at the house of a friend. Ascertaining
her whereabouts, her suitor followed, in a half drunken condition, and finding that she
64 HISTORY OF UTAH.
was alone in the house, and being denied admittance, he attempted to force an entrance
through the basement. Harriet, though somewhat alarmed, maintained coolness and
presence of mind — qualities for which she was noted — and having no means of defense,
sought safety in flight. Running upstairs, she passed through the attic, out upon the
roof, jumped thence to another roof several feet below, thence to the ground, and scaling
a high fence, ran breathless to the house of a neighbor, where she was safe from further
intrusion.
She is next heard of as the wife of Isaac Decker, of Phelps, New York, about four
and a half miles from the Hill Cumorah, the repository of the famous golden plates. She
had formed Mr. Decker's acquaintance while teaching school at this little town. At the
time of her marriage she was seventeen years of age. Her three eldest children, Lucy,
who (as well as Clara) married President Brigham Young; Charles, the well known
"Charlie'' Decker of early times; and her name-sake daughter Harriet, who became
Mrs. Ephraim H. Hanks, were born at Phelps. Her fourth child, Clarissa Caroline (abbre-
viated to Clara) and her fifth child, Fannie, who married Peramorz Little, were born at
Freedom, Catteraugus county, in the same state.
The Deckers had migrated to the state of Ohio and had settled at New Portage, in
Portage county, when they united with the Latter-day Saints. Subsequently they re-
moved to Franklin, a day's travel from Kirtland, the headquarters of the Mormon com-
munity. Isaac Decker was a well to do farmer, but beggared himself in a vain attempt,
made also by others equally devoted and self-sacrificing, to save the financial credit of
of the Church at the time of the Kirtland bank failure.
The homeless family in the latter part of 1837, moved to Kirtland. The Church was
then on the eve of its exodus to Missouri. The Deckers desired to go, but were without
means to undertake the journey, one of a thousand miles. They found a kind friend in
Lorenzo D. Young, who selling his farm, fitted out several teams to convey himself and
his family to Missouri. With characteristic generosity he gave one of his teams to Isaac
Decker, and otherwise helped to prepare him for the journey, which they performed in
company.
They arrived at Far West in March, 1838, having traveled part way with the Prophet
Joseph Smith, his brother Hyrum, and Lorenzo's brother Brigham, all refugees, fleeing
from mob violence. The Decker family settled in Daviess county, but afterwards moved
to Far West. After the fall of that city they fled to Quincy, Illinois, and next resided at
Winchester, Scott county, in that state. There Harriet's son Isaac Perry was born.
In 1841 they took up their abode at Nauvoo, where Harriet separated from Isaac
Decker and married Lorenzo D. Young, March 9, 1843. Her first child by her second
husband, a son named John Brigham, was born September 15, 1844, and died the same
day. With her husband and children she crossed the frozen Mississippi in February,
1846, and after camping for some weeks on Sugar Creek, Iowa, proceeded with the mi-
grating Saints to the Missouri river. In the spring of 1847 she was permitted to join the
Pioneer company and go with her husband to the mountains. With them went her little
son, Isaac Perry Decker, and her husband's son, Lorenzo Sobieski Young. It is needless
to say that Harriet and her sister Pioneers were "ministering angels'' during that long
aid wearisome journey, especially toward the close, when cases of sickness among the
Pioneers were quite numerous.
They entered Salt Lake valley on the 24th of July, in company with President Brig-
ham Young. The emotions of our three heroines as they gazed upon the barren prospect
— a wilderness of sagebrush and sunflowers, of alkaline pools and saleratus beds, of ster-
ile rocks and burning sands, where chirped the cricket, flitted the lizard and hissed the
rattlesnake — ran in diverse channels. The President's wife, Clara, was the most stoical
of the three; the others were very despondent. Harriet's heart sank within her, brave
as she was, and she was ready to burst into tears at the thought of passing the remainder
of her days amid such surroundings. "Lorenzo," said she to her husband, "we have
traveled fifteen hundred miles over prairies, deserts and mountains, but feeble as I am I
would rather go a thousand miles farther than stay in such a desolate place."
Her gloomy feelings may be partly accounted for from the fact that she was soon to
become a mother. On the 20th of September, less than two months after her arrival with
the Pioneers — many of whom were now on the way back to Winter Quarters — she gave
birth to a son, the first white male child born in Salt Lake valley. He was named for his
father, Lorenzo Dow Young, and was a bright little fellow, giving great promise. Five
months later, however, he fell before the scythe of the universal reaper.
The family first camped upon the south branch of City Creek, about where the Meth-
odist church now stands, and then upon the north branch of that stream, near the spot
HISTORY OF UTAH. 65
now occupied by the Latter-day Saints' University. They next lived in the Port on Pio-
neer Square, but in December moved into a new log house built by Mr. Young near the
site of the present Beehive house. The first tree planted in Salt Lake valley, and no
doubt in all Utah, was embedded in-the soil of those premises by Harriet Page Wheeler
Young.
It was against the advice of their friends at the Fort — about a mile away — that the
Youngs moved that early into their new domicile, the first house erected outside the en-
closure. It was feared they would be molested by hostile Indians. An incident occurred
that winter which must have convinced them that those apprehensions were not entirely
groundless.
Harriet Young, with her infant child, was sitting one day in her solitary home — the
rest of the family being away — when a fierce, ill-looking savage, known throughout the
region as "a bad Indian," came to the door and asked for "biscuit." Going to her hum-
ble larder, she took from it two of three small biscuits — all the bread she had — and gave
them to her dusky visitor. He accepted them, but asked for more. She then gave him
the remaining one, but still he demanded more. She informed him that she had no more.
Furious, he fitted an arrow to his bow and advanced, aiming at her heart, fiercely repeat-
ing his demand. Cool and collected, the brave woman faced her swarthy foe, and for a
moment thought her last hour and that of her helpless babe had come. Not yet. An
idea strikes her. In the next room, securely fastened, is a large dog, a powerful mastiff,
purchased by her husband on leaving the fort, and kept upon the premises for just such
emergencies as the one now threatening. Making a sign to the savage, as of compliance
with his request, she passed into the next room, and hastily untying the dog, cried,
"seize him." Like lightning the mastiff darted through the doorway, and a shriek of
terror, quickly followed by a howl of pain, as the sharp canine teeth met in the redskin's
thigh, told how well the faithful brute comprehended his mistress' peril and his own duty
in her defense. In all probability the prostrate and pleading Indian would never again
have risen, had not our heroine, in whose generous heart pity for the vanquished wretch
at once took the place of the just anger she had felt, after prudently relieving him of his
bow and arrow, called off the dog and set the wounded Lamanite at libety. He was badly
hurt, and cried bitterly. Mrs. Young magnanimously washed the wound, applied a large
sticking plaster to the injured part, and sent him away a wiser if not a better Indian.
Excepting a journey to the States in the spring of 1849, from which she returned the
following summer, her life after the original arrival in the Valley, was passed amid the
scenes and circumstances familiar to the early settlers of this region. The journey in
question was taken in company with her husband and her son Isaac Perry Decker; Dr.
John M. Bernhisel also crossing the plains at the same time on his way to Washington.
The Youngs went to Missouri where they spent the winter, and in the spring started back
to Utah. They were at Oregon, Upper Missouri, when another thrilling incident took place.
To Cartersville, about sixty miles away, Mr. Young desired to send the sum of $300 to
his brother Joseph, to assist him to emigrate. Too busy to go himself, he entrusted the
errand to his wife, and she in a carriage drawn by two horses and accompanied by her
little son, eight years old, set out for that place. On the way she had to cross a floating
bridge over a deep, swift running stream, swollen by the spring floods. A part of -the
bridge was submerged, and the water covering it so muddy that the timbers were
invisible. The result was that one of the forward wheels ran off, nearly capsizing the
vehicle into the rushing current. It was a critical moment, but Mrs. Young was equal to
it. Keeping firm hold of the lines, and preserving as usual her mental poise, she guided
the team so skilfully that the wheel which had run off, regained the bridge, and they
reached the shore in safety.
Harriet Page Wheeler Young died at her home in Salt Lake City, September 22nd,
1871. Her death was immediately due to a complication of disorders, but in a general
way it was the breaking down of a system, naturally delicate, under the manifold cares
and labors of nearly three score and ten eventful years.
Clara Decker Young, the second of our three heroines, was the daughter, as stated,
of the first. She was of the same sterling mettle as her noble mother, and even more
heroic, as shown. She was born July 22nd, 1828; the place of her birth has already been
given.
Always a delicate child, Clara, when not quite three years old, met with a fearful aud
well-nigh fatal accident. Her father was busy chopping wood one day, when the little
66 HISTORY OF UTAH.
one, who was nearly always at his heels, toddled out to the woodshed where he was work-
ing. She drew near unobserved, and as he raised his ax to strike, ran right under it. Be-
fore he could prevent, the blow descended, almost cleaving her skull. She fell, as the
horrified parent supposed, dead. Half mad with grief he bore her to the house, where
the stricken mother and family shared in his sorrow and despair. A young surgeon
chanced to be living in the family, so that immediate aid was at hand, though all supposed
life extinct. Seizing the forlorn hope that possibly the child might not be dead, but only
stunned — as it was discovered that the thick wadding of the little woolen hood she wore
had partly broken the force of the blow and prevented the ax from penetrating to the
brain — the surgeon experimentally put a spoonful of liquor between her lips, whereupon
she moved one finger. Every possible effort was then made to restore her, and with
eventual success, though for six months she hovered between life and death, and was
anxiously watched, night and day, the house meanwhile being kept almost deathly still.
It was nearly a year before she spoke a loud word. The wound, which was a long gash
running back near the middle of the head, was stitched, and finally it healed, though leav-
ing a deep scar which remained to her dying day.
Clara was about five years of age when her parents moved to the State of Ohio, and
from that time until she was fifteen — when she underwent another long spell of sickness,
during which her life was many times despaired of — her history in general is that of her
mother, already related. Though delicate, she had inherited that mother's plucky spirit,
with presence of mind and powers of patient endurance that never deserted her.
Clara married when very young. She was not yet sixteen, when, at Nauvoo, Illinois,
she gave her heart and hand to Brigham Young, the future leader of the Latter-day
Saints, who was then President of the Twelve Apostles. The date of this marriage, which
took place in the Temple, was May 8, 1843. The President had previously wedded her
sister Lucy; both entering into the order of plural marriage.
In the exodus from Illinois they accompanied their husband and the rest of his family
from Nauvoo to Winter Quarters. When the Pioneer company was formed the President
requested Clara to be his companion upon the journey. It being his wish, she consented,
though her inclinations were all the other way. Having arrived in Salt Lake Valley,
it thenceforth remained her home.
"Aunt Clara," as she was called, resided for many years with most of the President's
other families in the Lion House, and it was there, during the troublous times following
the establishment of Camp Floyd by Johnston's army, that a thrilling experience befell
her. She was sitting one evening in her apartments — her immediate family being away,
and the others in rooms remote from hers, — when she was roused from reverie by a
knock at the door opening into the long hall extending through the building. "Come
in,'' said she, without lifting her eyes from the work engaging her hands. The door
opened, and in walked — what? She scarcely knew for a moment, so shocked was she by
the appearance of the being that met her gaze; a man, tall, fierce-looking, his eyes
glittering like stars, his hair unkempt and his clothing torn, who, shutting the door behind
him, asked to see President Young.
Clara, naturally enough, was alarmed, but mastering her feelings, and betraying no
sign of fear, she quietly informed the horrible intruder that the President was not in.
"Where is he?" demanded the maniac, for maniac the man was. "I think he went
out with Brother So-and-So," naming some-one habitually upon the premises — "but I'll
see if I can find him for you. This way if you please; " and taking the light she led the
way through the long intersecting halls to the office between the Lion and the Bee-Hive
houses, where she knew a guard was stationed. The madman meekly followed, com-
pletely under the spell of her cool self-possession. Reaching the door of a room adjoin-
ing the President's office, she said to him, "There, if you'll step in and wait a few mo-
ments, I'll inquire if he's here." He did as she desired, when she closed the door, and
hastened to inform the guard. Upon returning with him to the room where she had left
the unwelcome visitor it was found that he had flown. A thorough search of the
premises failed to discover him, and Mrs. Young, greatly relieved by the thought that he
had decamped, returned to her apartments.
She had scarcely reseated herself, when there came another knock at the door.
Thinking it was the guard this time, she again said "Come in;" when, to her horror, in
walked the madman once more, the hideous grin on his countenance — gory from a wound
received in falling or in running against some object in the dark — showing how much ha
admired his own cunning -by which he had eluded pursuit. Before he could speak,
however, or attack her, if such was his intent, the guard, who had been watching for him,
suddenly entered, and the dangerous fellow was secured and taken away.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 67
This was but one of several such attempts, undertaken by maniacs and others, to
assult and murder the Mormon leader; but they all proved abortive. Brigham Young-,
unlike Joseph Smith, was not destined to die by the hand of an assassin.
Clara D. Young was a natural mother, and played the part of one, not only to her
own offspring, but to the children of her sister wife, Margaret Alley Young, who died
five days after the birth of her son, Mahonri, since deceased, and when her daugther,
Mrs. Eva Y^oung Davis, was less than three years old. These motherless little ones were
as dear to "Aunt Clara" as her own flesh and blood, and they repaid her with filial affec-
tion equally tender. Of her own children — two sons and three daughters — the boys, Jedediah
G. and Albert J., both died very young; but her girls Jeinette, Nabbie and Talula, re-
mained to comfort her declining years and smoothe her pillow at the final hour of
parting.
Mention should be made also of her motherly care and training of a young Indian
girl, rescued from a cruel death under the following circumstances. One of the customs
in vogue among the savages found here by the early settlers was to kill, if they could not
sell their prisoners, taken in war among themselves. During one of the early winters several
Indian children were ransomed by some of the settlers to save them from being shot or
tortured to death by their merciless captors. One of these was a girl rescued by Charlie
Decker, who purchased her and placed her in his sister's care by whom she was reared
to womanhood. "Sally," as she was called, was a genuine savage, and it required all
the patience and perseverance that "Aunt Clara" could command to correct her Indian
manners and morals and rear her in the ways of civilization. She succeeded, however,
admirably and the girl grew up a neat and accomplished housekeeper, the peer in these
respects of any of her white sisters. She was also a devout Latter-day Saint. From a
pure sense of duty she married, as a plural wife, Kanosh, a semi-civilized chief, with a
view to carrying to his tribe the benefits of the religious and domestic training she had
received. But the change from civilization to semi-savagery was too sudden and too
great for her, and she soon died, sincerely mourned by all who knew her and esteemed
her for her virtues.
Clara Decker Young survived her two sister Pioneers a little over seventeen years.
During that period she witnessed the death of her husband. The closing part of her own
life was passed in the quietude and seclusion of her home just north of the Social Hall,
whither she removed from the Lion house some time before her husband's demise. Her
summons to rejoin him, her mother and her children in the spirit world, came on the 5th
day of January, 1889, when she succumbed to heart-failure — that heart which for sixty
years had throbbed with love for humanity and had never failed.
In the village or parish of Ten, Telemarken, Norway, was born in the year 1824 a
little girl who in after years was known as Ellen Sanders Kimball. No part of this title
was hers originally, her maiden name, Ellen Sanders, being bestowed upon her in
America, probably for the reason that it was more easily pronounced than the Norwegian
name with which she was christened as an infant in her far off native land.
She was the daughter of Y'sten and Aasa Sondrason, and her own full name was
Aagaata YTsten Dater Bake, which by interpretation is Aagaata, Ysten's daughter, of the
Bake farm. She was the third born of the household, there being in all seven children,
five girls and two boys, namely, Caroline, Margaret, Ellen, Helga, Sondra, Aasa and Ole.
Helga's name was Anglicised to Harriet, and Ole was surnamed George.
Ellen's father was a farmer, and though not wealthy, was considered prosperous in
that country, where the sum of two thousand dollars, which would have covered the value
of his earthly possessions, was deemed at that time, among folk of his class, quite a
fortune. In what way Ellen's childhood was passed, must lie left to the reader's imagi-
nation. As a farmer's daughter, among the mountains of Norway, her life was doubt-
less frugal and peaceful, and her habits industrious aud thrifty. She possessed a kind,
sympathetic heart, and a very hospitable nature, but was not always of a happy disposi-
tion. Her moods were often extremes; sometimes merry, sometimes melancholly. She
had an intelligent mind, and her spirit was brave and true.
In the early part of 1S37, when Ellen was about thirteen years old, her parents,
with a view to improving their temporal condition and providing more liberally for the
future of their children, resolved to emigrate to America. The farm was sold and the
family fitted out for the journey. Leaving home, they proceeded to Skeen, or Dramen,
and embarked for Gottenborg, Sweden, where they arrived in the early part of June.
68 HISTORY OF UTAH.
There thev took passage on board a Swedish brig, laden with iron and bound for New
York.
Among the passengers, likewise emigrating with his pai-ents to the New World, was
a lad named Canute Peterson, the same who recently died, President of the Sanpete
Stake of Zion. He was about the age of Ellen, both having been born the same year. If
young Peterson possessed the same genial qualities that characterized the man in
after life, which there is no reason to doubt, he probably did much for the homeless emi-
grants, his countrymen, in whiling away the tedium of the long voyage over the ocean.
The Hogan family, relatives of the Sondrasons, came in the same ship. The company,
after several weeks upon the sea, landed at New York about the middle of August.
At Chicago, to which point they proceeded, Ellen with her parents and the rest of the
family separated from the Petersons and Hogans, who remained in Illinois, and went to
the State of Indiana, where her father took up land, built a house, plowed and put in
crops. He was a generous man, so much so that he had retained but little of the means
realized from the sale of his possessions in Norway. After paying the passage of him-
self and his family over the ocean, he had quite a sum of money left, but had loaned or
given away the greater part of it to poor people whom he met on the way. He had a
stout heart and a strong arm, however, and went to work with a will to found a new home
in the land of his adoption.
About a year after they landed in America, Ellen's mother sickened and died. Her
elder sister Margaret had died some time before. Some three weeks after her mother's
death, her father, who was sick at the same time, also succumbed and passed away. Thus
thick and fast misfortunes fell upon them. The orphaned children, left among strangers,
soon lost what remained of their father's property, and a year or two after his death, they
removed from Indiana to Illinois, making their way to La Salle county, where dwelt
their relatives and others speaking their native tongue. There the homeless children
separated, the girls finding employment as hired helps in families, and the boys securing
labor suited to their tender years. They were seven or eight miles from the town of
Ottawa, where Ellen lived in service for a while.
Up to this time neither she nor her kindred had heard of Mormonism, or if hearing
of it, had formed any definite idea concerning the new religion, which had swept over
several of the States and had been brought to the attention of the Government at Wash-
ington. Nauvoo, the gathering place of the Saints, was about one hundred and eighty
miles from La Salle.
Sometime in the year 1842 Elder George P. Dykes and a fellow missionary named
Hendrickson, from Nauvoo, came into La Salle county preaching the Gospel. In the
spring or summer of the same year Ellen joined the Latter-day Church, being baptized,
with her brother Sondra, by an Elder named Duall. Her sister Harriet joined several
months later. A branch was raised up in La Salle, numbering nearly one hundred souls;
Ole Hyer being its president, and young Canute Peterson a member. Subsequently
Apostles Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball and Parley P. Pratt visited the place to orga-
nize a Stake of Zion, to be called "New Norway." Some surveys were made, and the
project was then abandoned.
In October, 1S44, Ellen Sanders, with her sister Harriet, her little brother Sondra
and Canute Peterson, went to Nauvoo, arriving in that city — thenceforth, until the Mor-
mon exodus, the home of the two sisters — a day or two before the general conference of
the Church. Sondra returned to La Salle with his employer, Jacob Anderson, who had
brought the party in his team to the city of the martyred Seer. Ellen and Harriet con-
tinued to "live out," the former first dwelling in the family of Charles C. Rich, and after-
wards in the family of Heber C. Kimball, of which, on the 7th of January, 1846, she
became a permanent member. She and her sister Harriet were both married to Apostle
Kimball in the Temple, by President Brigham Young. This was just before the exodus,
which began in February.
At the organization of the Pioneer company on the Missouri river, Ellen Kimball was
permitted to accompany her husband upon the westward journey, for the hardships of
which the toils and trials of her early life had well inured her. She was poorly prepared,
however, for the scene of desolation into which she was suddenly ushered when on July
'24th, 1847. she gazed for the first time upon the barren valley of the desert-laving Inland
Sea.
During the absence of her husband, who on August 26th of that year set out upon
the return journey to the Missouri Eiver, to bring the rest of his family to the Valley,
Mrs. Kimball dwelt in the fort erected by the Pioneers. Subsequently she had a home on
City Creek. While living in the Fort her first child was born, a son named Samuel, who
HISTORY OF UTAH. 69
died within a year. Of the four children born to her subsequently, the eldest two, Joseph
S. and Augusta, were twins, who died in their youth; the remaining two, Jedediah and
Rosalia, still live.
In 1869, the year after the death of her husband, Mrs. Kimball removed with many
others of his family, to Meadowville, in Bear Lake Valley, where she lived with her
children. She still owned property in Salt Lake City, and several times visited her friends
here from her new home in the North. In the summer or fall of 1871 she returned for the
last time to the Valley which she had been one of the first to enter nearly a quai'ter of a
century before. She came to consult a physician regaining a dropsical affection that was
troubling her. Temporary relief was obtained, but she suffered a relapse, and repairing
to the home of her brother, Sondra Sanders, in South Cottonwood, on the 22nd of Novem-
ber she breathed her last.
FIRST IMMIGRANTS.
'&-d &/A//1* ((/> - ^s-//&J<v-t<t^i/
PARLEY PARKER PRATT.
/J* MONG the earliest colonizers of the Rocky Mountain region was Mormonism's poet-
1^ Apostle, Parley P. Pratt. He with Apostle John Taylor led the first immigration
^■^ that followed in the wake of the Pioneers from the Missouri River to Salt Lake
valley. Were it not for this circumstance, his proper place in this volume would
be among orators and men of letters ; for he was one of the greatest speakers and writers
that Mormonism has produced. An early convert to the faith of the Latter-day Saints,
he came into the fold at a time when the infant and persecuted cause had need of such a
champion to present its claims and defend its position, and for more than a quarter of a
century he stood in the front rank of its ablest and most eloquent expounders. One of
its original Twelve Apostles, from first to last he was a zealous and tireless worker in its
interests.
Parley P. Pratt was the third son of Jared and Charity Pratt, of Burlington, Otsego
county. New York, where he was born April 12, 1S07. His father was a farmer, but not
a prosperous one ; also a school teacher and an instructor in vocal music. A man of
excellent morals, religiously inclined, but belonging to no church, by example and precept
he instilled into the minds of his children veneration for God, the Savior and the holy
scriptures. Parley received a common school education, supplemented by extensive
reading. A book was his favorite and almost constant companion. At home, in the
intervals of farm labor, under the careful tuition of his pious and virtuous mother, he
familiarized himself with the Bible, and at school mastered the four fundamental
branches of learning. His natural gifts and close application enabled him to make rapid
progress, insomuch that his teacher would often point him out as an example to his fellow
students.
Leaving school when about sixteen, he resumed his life of toil. He and his brother
William purchased a farm in the woods near Oswego, on Lake Ontario, but adversity
pursued them, and failing to make the second payment on the land, they lost it. Parley
now joined the Baptist church, and in October, 1S2G, started for northern Ohio, where he
bargained for a piece of forest land and began to build a home. The next summer he
returned to New York state, and on the 9th of September, at Canaan, Columbia county,
then the home of his parents, he married the girl that he loved — Thankful Halsey. The
following spring found the young couple settled in a log dwelling in the midst of a small
clearing on the forest-fringed shores of Lake Erie.
About this time Parley P. Pratt formed the acquaintance of Sidney Rigdon, a minis-
ter of the Reformed Baptists, or Campbellites, who came into his neighborhood from the
State of Pennsylvania. Parley was much impressed with his doctrines, and after hearing
him preach several times, he and his wife became members of Mr. Rigdon's congregation.
In August, 1S30, he resolved to devote himself to the ministry. Selling out at a
sacrifice, he and his wife, abandoning their home in the wilderness, traveled eastward
to his native state. Stopping to preach near Rochester — while his wife continued
the journey homeward — Parley stayed over night at the house of an old Baptist deacon
named Hamlin, and there for the first time saw the Book of Mormon, which he perused
with the deepest interest.
He immediately resolved to visit Manchester and have an interview with Joseph
Smith, Jr., the translator of the record. He found that the young prophet had removed
to Pennsylvania, but met his brother, Hyrum Smith, who kindly received him and accom-
panied him to Fayette, the birthplace of the Mormon church, where, being fully con-
verted, he was baptized by Oliver Cowdery, September 1. 1S30.
Having been ordained an Elder, he re-visited his old home in Canaan, and there con-
verted and baptized his younger brother, Orson. He then returned to Manchester, and
met for the first time the Prophet Joseph Smith. History is indebted to Parley P. Pratt
for the following pen portrait of the founder of Mormonism in his maturer years:
"President Joseph Smith was in person tall and well built, strong and active; of a
light complexion, light hair, blue eyes, very little beard, and of an expression peculiar to
himself, on which the eye naturallv rested with interest, and was never weary of behold-
74 HISTORY OF UTAH.
ing. His countenance was ever mild, affable, beaming with intelligence and benevo-
lence, mingled with a look of interest and an unconscious smile, or cheerfulness, and
entirely free from all restraint or affectation of gravity; and there was something con-
nected with the serene and steady penetrating glance of his eye, as if he would probe
the deepest abyss of the human heart, gaze into eternity, penetrate the heavens, and
comprehend all worlds.
" He possessed a noble boldness and independence of character; his manner was
easy and familiar; his rebuke terrible as the lion; his benevolence as unbounded as the
ocean; his intelligence universal, and his language abounding in original eloquence
peculiar to himself — not polished — not studied — not smooth and softened by education
and refined by art; but flowing forth in its own native simplicity, and profusely abound-
ing in variety of subject and manner. He interested and edified, while at the same time
he amused and entertained his audience ; and none listened to him that were ever weary
of his discourse; I have even known him to retain a congregation of willing and anxious
listeners for many hours together, in the midst of cold or sunshine, rain or wind, while
they were laughing at one moment and weeping the next. Even his most bitter enemies
were generally overcome if he could once get their ears.
"I have known him when chained and surrounded with armed murderers and assas-
sins, who were heaping upon him every possible insult and abuse, rise up in the majesty
of a son of God and rebuke them in the name of Jesus Christ, till they quailed before
him, dropped their weapons, and on their knees begged his pardon and ceased their
abuse.
"In short, in him the characters of a Daniel and a Cyrus were wonderfully blended.
The gifts, wisdom and devotion of a Daniel were united with the boldness, courage, tem-
perance, perseverance and generosity of a Cyrus. And had he been spared a martyr's
fate till mature manhood and age, he was certainly endued with powers and ability to
have revolutionized the world in many respects and to have transmitted to posterity a
name associated with more brilliant and glorious acts than has yet fallen to the lot of
mortals. As it is, his works will live to endless ages, and unnumbered millions yet
unborn will mention his name with honor, as a noble instrument in the hands of God,
who during his short and youthful career laid the foundation of that kingdom spoken of
by Daniel the Prophet, which should break in pieces all other kingdoms and stand
forever. ''
Late in October, 1830, Parley P. Pratt, in company with Oliver Cowdery, Peter
Whitmer. Jr., and Ziba Peterson, set out from Fayette upon a mission to the Lamanites,
or American Indians — the first mission undertaken by Elders of the Church outside the
region where Mormonism originated. They started afoot, and after visiting the Catter-
augus Indians near Buffalo, New York, proceeded on to Kirtland, Ohio, where they con-
verted and baptized in three weeks one hundred and twenty-seven souls. Among these
were Sidney Rigdon, Parley's former pastor, to whom he was the first to present the
Book of Mormon. Ordaining him and others to the Priesthood, the four Elders, accom
panied by Frederick G. Williams, trudged on westward, preaching and baptizing at
every opportunity. Near the mouth of Black River Parley was arrested on a trivial
chai-ge and held till morning, when he escaped and rejoined his companions. At San-
dusky they spent several days with another Indian tribe — the Wyandots — and then by
way of Cincinnati, on steamboat and afoot, reached St. Louis. It was now mid-winter.
Traversing the bleak and storm-swept prairies, they arrived at Independence, Jackson
county, Missouri, on the extreme frontier of the nation.
Elders Cowdery and Pratt, crossing the border into Indian Territory, preached to
the Shawnees and Delawares and presented to the aged sachem of those tribes the Book
of Mormon. They converted Mr. Pool, the government blacksmith for the Indians, who
served them as interpreter, and were on the point of converting many of the red men,
when, through the influence of Christian missionaries with government agents, they
were compelled to quit the Territory. Their mission to the Lamanites was not very fruit-
ful of results, but they accomplished one purpose of their errand, in planting their feet
upon the spot afterwards designated as the site of the city of Zion.
The early part of the following summer found Parley P. Pratt back at Kirtland,
where he reported to the Prophet and the Church, which now had its headquarters there,
the labors of himself and his brethren in Missouri. September of the same year wit-
nessed his return to that State, in company with his brother Orson. By that time the
Prophet and many other Elders, who had traveled two by two to "the land of Zion,'' had
been there, held a conference, organized a stake, and after consecrating ground for the
building of a city and a temple, had returned to the East. Early in 1832 Parley rejoined
HISTORY OF UTAH 75
his wife at Kirtland, and the following summer moved with her to Missouri. During the
next twelve months he was busy laboring in the ministry, cultivating the soil and teach-
ing a school of Elders, numbering some sixty members, who met in the open air under
the tall trees in a retired part of the wilderness. In the fall of 1S33 arose the persecu-
tion by which the Mormon colony was expelled from Jackson county. Parley P. Pratt
was in the very thick of the fray, defending himself and his friends, as best he could.
from mob violence, and seeking earnestly but vainly for redress of grievances. At one
time he was brutally assaulted by one of the mob, who with clubbed musket dealt him a
terrific blow from behind, nearly splitting his skull. Most of the refugees fled into Clay
county.
Parley P. Pratt and Lyman Wight, having carried to Kirtland a report of the Jack-
son county troubles, were commissioned by the Prophet to proceed eastward, collect
means and raise recruits for Zion's Camp, which in May, 1S34, set out for Missouri, "to
redeem Zion." He accompanied the expedition, but was chiefly engaged as a recruiting
officer, visiting branches of the church along the way, gathering men and means and fall-
ing in with the camp at various points. He and Orson Hyde, by request of the Prophet,
called upon Governor Daniel Dunklin, at Jefferson City, Missouri, asking him to send a
sufficient military force to reinstate the persecuted people and protect them in the pos-
session of their homes in Jackson county. The governor acknowledged the justice of
the demand, but frankly replied that he did not dare execute the laws in that respect, for
fear of deluging the State in civil war. After the disbandment of the "Camp," Parley
returned to his home in Clay county. In October he and his wife set out for Kirtland,
but tarried through the winter at New Portage, about fifty miles from that place.
At Kirtland. on February- 21, 1835, Parley P. Pratt was ordained one of the Twelve
Apostles, under the hands of Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer. While
waiting for his fellow Apostles to complete their preparations for a mission to the East, he
visited the neighboring: town of Mentor, where he attempted to hold an open air meeting
from the steps of a Campbellite church; but a mob of about fifty men. headed by a brass
band, interrupted him, pelted him with eggs and forced him to retire. Returning from
his eastern mission in August of the same year, he took up permanent residence at Kirt-
land, where, during the following winter, he attended the Hebrew school opened in the
unfinished temple.
Up to this time Parley P. Pratt was childless, and his wife an invalid, showing
Sj mptoms of consumption. In debt for his expenses through the winter and for the
purchase of a new home, he was in doubt, as spring approached and the Elders pre-
pared to go forth upon missions, as to whether it was his duty to do likewise, or stay at
home and endeavor to sustain his family and pay his debts. One evening, after he had
retired, and was pondering upon his future course, there came a knock at his door. He
arose and opened it, when in walked Heber C. Kimball and others. They blessed him
and his wife and the Apostle Heber prophesied that she should be healed from that hour
and bear a son whose name should be Parley. The prospective sire was told to go forth
into the ministry, taking no thought for his debts or the necessaries of life, for the Lord
would supply him with means for all purposes. He was to go to the city of Toronto, in
L pper Canada, where he would find a people prepared to receive his message; he should
organize the Church among them, and he was promised that from things growing out of
this mission Mormonism would spread into England and cause a great work to be done in
that land.
The Apostle Parley believed and acted promptly. He started upon his mission in com-
pany with a Canadian brother named Xiekerson, who paid his traveling expenses as far
as Hamilton, on Lake Ontario, where they parted. Having preached two or three times
in that town, the Apostle pushed on to Toronto, carrying a letter of introduction to John
Taylor of that place, from a merchant in Hamilton, who had accompanied the voluntary
offer of the letter with a gift of ten dollars, to enable the bearer to reach his destination.
Mr. and Mrs. Taylor received him kindly, though the former was rather reserved at first
and gave him no direct encouragement. By others he was absolutely refused hospitality
and denied permission to preach in any of their churches or homes. He was about to
leave the city, thinking his friend Heber must have made a mistake in pointing out such
a hard-hearted place as a promising field for converts, when he chanced to meet at Mrs.
Taylor's a friend of hers. Mrs. Walton, a widow, who offered to entertain him and allow
him to hold meetings in her house. The result was the introduction of the Apostle to a
society of religious people who were seeking for spiritual light independent of the
churches to which they belonged. Manv of these he converted, including the widow
Walton and her household. John Taylor and wife, Joseph Fielding and his two sisters,
76 HISTORY OF UTAH.
one of whom became the wife of Hyrum Smith, the Patriarch of the Church, and mother
of Joseph F. Smith, its present President. Upon a subsequent visit to Toronto, Parley
was aided by his fellow Apostle, Orson Hyde. The work spread rapidly, and in various
parts branches were built up, over which John Taylor, ordained an Elder, was left to
preside.
Not long after Apostle Pratt's second return from Canada his first-born child, a son
whom he named Parley, was born at Kirtland, March 25, 1837, within a year of the
date of Heber C. Kimball's prophecy, another section of which was fulfilled when Joseph
Fielding, Isaac Russell, John Goodson and John Snider, Canadian Elders and Priests,
were selected to accompany Apostles Kimball and Hyde and Elder Willard Richards to
England, to lay the foundations of the British Mission. It was a letter written by
Joseph Fielding to his brother, the Rev. James Fielding of Preston, England, that paved
the way for the first preaching by these missionaries in that land. The Canadian
Saints also assisted their father in the Gospel to meet his financial obligations.
A sad sequel to so much success was the death of Parley's wife, who to the great
grief of her husband passed into the spirit life about three hours after the birth of her
child of promise. She had been healed of her seven years' illness, according to the Apos-
tle's prediction, but literally gave her life for her child, launching with almost her latest
breath his frail bark upon the troubled sea of mortality. Placing the motherless babe in
the care of a kind neighbor who had just lost her infant, the sad-hearted sire sought relief
in the consoling labors of the ministry.
Home again after a short mission to Canada, he found himself involved in the whelm-
ing tide of discord and dissension then sweeping over the Church at Kirtland. Sorely
tried and tempted (and who that has not been shall judge him?)even this man of mighty
faith murmured, but by a heroic effort overcame himself, repented and was forgiven.
The candor with which he confesses his faults in the record that he has left, when he could
easily have omitted all reference to them, gives an insight into the nobility of his character,
in striking contrast to the conduct of some, who, too proud or too politic to acknowledge
their own defects, are prone to point out their neighbor's imperfections, seen dimly through
the "beam" in their own eyes, blinded perhaps by gazing too intently at "spots upon the
sun."
Parley P. Pratt's next mission was to the city of New York, where he arrived late in
July, 1837. He took lodgings and began to preach and write, producing at this time his
evangelic work "The Voice of Warning" and publishing the first edition of over four
thousand copies. At first he found the metropolis a hard aud unfruitful field. Six months
he and Elijah Fordham, a resident Elder, "preached, advertised, printed, published, testi-
fied, visited, talked, prayed and wept, in vain." Only six souls were baptized. But they
continued their labor, and finally broke the ice and found smooth sailing. A chairmaker
fitted up a large room and gave the Elders the use of it to preach in; a Methodist clergy-
man invited them to his home for a similar purpose, subsequently joining the Church; and
the Apostle, by invitation of the Freeththinkers, delivered a course of lectures in Tam-
many Hall. He soon had fifteen preaching places in the city, all filled to overflowing.
Many were baptized aud branches of the Church were formed in New York, Brooklyn,
Jersey City and other places.
In April, 1838, Apostle Pratt migrated once more to Missouri. He had previously
married Mary Ann Frost Stearns, widow of Nathan Stearns, who had a daughter four
years old. He was active in building up the Church in Caldwell and adjoining counties,
and when the mob troubles arose was one of tho most conspicuous targets for Missourian
animosity. He was at the battle of Crooked River, fighting side by side with Captain
David W. Patten, when that hero fell, and was afterwards one of the defenders of Far
West and one of the Mormon leaders betrayed by Colonel Hinckle into the hands of
General Lucas, the commander of the state forces. Without a hearing he and his friends,
Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Hyrum Smith, Lyman Wight, George Robinson and Amasa
M. Lyman were seutenced to be shot, but the execution of the murderous decree was pre-
vented by Brigadier-General Doniphan, one of the Missourian officers, who denounced it
as cold-blooded murder, and threateued to withdraw his troops from the scene. After a
painful parting with his family, in the presence of armed guards — his wife sick in bed
with a three months infant — the Apostle and his fellow prisoners were paraded by General
Wilson through Jackson county, and then sent to Richmond, Ray county, where they
were put in chains under a strong guard commanded by Colonel Sterling Price. From this
heartless wretch and his horde of armed ruffians the helpless captives suffered every in-
dignity. Describing a memorable incident of their confinement, Parley says:
"In one of those tedious nights, we had lain as if in sleep till the hour of midnight had
HISTORY OF UTAH. 77
passed and our ears and hearts had been pained while we listened for hours to the obscene
jests, the horrid oaths, the dreadful blasphemies and filthy language of our guards.
Colonel Price at their head, as they recounted to each other their deeds of rapine, murder,
robbery, etc., which they had committed among the Mormons, while at Far West and
vicinity. They even boasted of defiling by force wives, daughters, virgins, and of shoot-
ing or dashing out the brains of men, women and children.
"I had listened until I became so disgusted, shocked, horrified and so filled with the
spirit of indignant justice that I could scarcely refrain from rising upon my feet and rebuk-
the guards; but had said nothing to Joseph or any one else, although I lay next to him
and knew he was awake. On a sudden he arose to his feet and spoke in a voice of thunder,
or as the roaring lion, uttering as near as I can recollect the following words:
"Silence, ye fiends of the infernal pit! In the name of Jesus Christ I rebuke you
and command you to be still; I will not live another minute and hear such language.
Cease such talk, or you or I die this instant!''
"He ceased to speak. He stood erect inferrible majesty, chained, and without a
weapon; calm, unruffled and dignified as an angel, he looked upon the quailing guards,
whose weapons were lowered or dropped to the ground, whose knees smote together, and
who, shrinking into a corner or crouching at his feet, begged his pardon and remained quiet
till a change of guards.
"I have seen the ministers of justice, clothed in majesterial robes, and criminals
arraigned before them, while life was suspended on a breath, in the courts of England: I
have witnessed a congress in solemn session, to give laws to nations; I have tried to con-
ceive of kings, of royal courts, of thrones and crowns; and of emperors assembled to de-
cide the fate of kingdoms; but dignity and majesty have I seen but once, as it stood in
chains at midnight in a dungeon, in an obscure village of Missouri."
The Prophet and a few friends were committed to Liberty jail, Clay county, on a
charge of treason, while Apostle Pratt and four others were confined in Richmond jail.
Ray county, accused of murder. The basis of this charge was their participation in
the battle of Crooked River. Eight months of dreary imprisonment followed, and then,
on July 4th, 1S39, Parley P. Pratt, with Morris Phelps and King Follett, made a daring
and successful break for liberty.
The Apostle, who was the last of the imprisoned leaders to escape from captivity,
almost immediately set out with the majority of his quorum for foreign lands. At Pres-
ton, England, April 15, 1840, he was appointed editor and publisher of the Millennial
Star and associated with Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball on a Church publishing
committee; also with Brigham Young and John Taylor upon a committee to compile a
hymn book for the Latter-day Saints. The first number of the Star was issued in May of
that year. On its cover appeared Parley P. Pratt's well known hymn "The morning
breaks, the shadows flee,1' written expressly for the introduction of the periodical. The
hymn book subsequently published, contained nearly fifty original hymns and songs com-
posed by him for that work. While editing and publishing the Star, he preached to vast
congregations in and around Manchester, then the headquarters of the mission. During
the summer he returned to America for his family, it having been decided that he should
remain to preside after the other Apostles had departed. He continued to preside, to
edit the Star and superintend the emigration until October, 1842, when he appointed
Thomas Ward his successor, with Lorenzo Snow and Hyrum Clark as associates and
sailed for America, reaching Nauvoo by way of New Orleans, early in February, 1843.
In common with most of the Twelve, he was absent from home at the time of the
murder of the Prophet and the Patriarch. Filled with premonitions of evil, he was
returning to Nauvoo, when, from some passengers who came aboard his steamer at a land-
ing in Wisconsin, fifty or sixty miles from Chicago, he heard of the awful crime. He
was the first of the absent apostles to return, and with Willard Richards and John Taylor
succeeded in preventing premature action in the choosing of a successor to the martyred
Seer. He accepted Brigham Young, in lieu of Sidney Rigdon, as the rightful leader of
the Church.
From December, 1844, until August, 1845, in company with Ezra T.Benson and
another Elder he was in New York City, setting in order the branches there, which had been
led astray by William Smith, Samuel Brannan and others, most of whom were afterwards
excommunicated. The following February he was one of the leaders of the exodus from
Illinois; he assisted to found Garden Grove, discovered and named Mount Pisgah, and
after reaching the Missouri River was appointed upon a mission to England, with Orson
Hyde and John Taylor.
The three Apostles set out for Europe in the summer of 1S40. At Fort Leavenworth
78 HISTORY OF UTAH.
they were generously aided by the members of the Mormon Battalion, who had drawn
their first pay from the government. The soldiers also made up a purse of five or six
thousand dollars for their families at Council Bluffs. Parley returned and delivered this
money to President Young, and then followed in the wake of Apostles Hyde and Taylor.
He landed at Liverpool on the 1-tth of October, accompanied by Franklin D. and Samuel
W. Richards. Having executed their errand — which was to regulate the affairs of the
British mission, demoralized through the operations of the "Joint Stock Company" — the
three Apostles returned to America.
Parley P. Pratt reached the Missouri river on the 8th of April, 1847, just before the
departure of P .-^sident Young and the Pioneers for the West. They expressed an earnest
wish for him to accompany them, but his circumstances seemed to forbid, and fhey did not
press the point. He followed in the first emigration, which he helped to organize, met
the returning Pioneers on the Sweetwater, and arrived in Salt Lake Valley late in Sep-
tember.
Passing by his early hardships and privations, the founding of the Provisional Gov-
ernment of Deseret, whose constitution he helped to frame; the exploring expedition led
by him into Southern Utah in the winter of 1849-50, with his prior and subsequent ser-
vices in the Legislature, we come to his first Pacific mission, upon which he started
March 16, 1851. He was accompanied by John M unlock, Rufus Allen, Francis A. Ham-
mond and others, and traveled in a company that was going with Charles C. Rich and
Amasa M. Lyman to Southern California. The crossing of the southern desert he de-
scribes as the hardest experience of his life. At San Francisco he preached, baptized a
number of persons, and on July 20th organized the San Francisco Branch, over which he
presided, holding at the same time the presidency of all the islands and coasts of the
Pacific.
He began at this time his literary master-piece the "Key to Theology," but before it
was completed, sailed on the 5th of September for South America, landing at Valparaiso,
Chile, on the 8th of November. His wife Phebe and Elder Rufus Allen accompanied him.
They resided for about a month at Quillota, a small town thirty-six miles from the port of
landing, devoting their time to studying the language, laws, customs, history and religion
of the country. Their means being exhausted, they were compelled to return to California,
without having mastered the language sufficiently to preach the gospel in Spanish
America.
Apostle Pratt returned to Salt Lake City on the 18th of October, 1852. The follow-
ing two winters he sat in the Council branch of the Legislative Assembly. In the in-
tervals of these and his local ministerial labors, he served as a Univerisity Regent, studied
and wrote much and taught the Spanish language.
The 5th of May, 1854, found him again on his way to California. During this mis-
sion he prepared his autobiography, assisted by Elder George Q. Cannon. He also wrote
for the press, refuting slanders upon Utah and her people, and boldly challenged to de-
bate the ablest lawyers and clergymen in the country. Summoned home in 1855, he
was at Fillmore the following winter, acting as chaplain of the legislative Council, and
read to the joint assembly, by request, his fine address on "Marriage and Morals in Utah."
In the constitutional convention held the next spring he sat as a delegate of Salt Lake
county.
On the 11th of September, 1856, Parley P. Pratt started upon his last mission — the
one from which he never returned. Upon leaving Salt Lake City, his home, he was in-
structed by the First Presidency to travel and preach as the Spirit impelled, to assist
Apostle John Taylor in New York by writing for "The Mormon," to render similar aid to
Apostle Erastus Snow at St. Louis, if the publication of "The Luminary'' were resumed,
and to return to Utah the following season. Agreeable to these instructions he proceeded
to St. Louis, where he tarried for about a month, and then went to New York, remain-
ing there and in the vicinity until February, 1857, when he started westward, arriving at
St. Louis on the night of the 23rd. After laboring there for a time, he left for the State
of Arkansas, and almost the next definite news concerning him was the terrible tidings of
his assassination.
He was murdered by Hector H. McLean near Van Buren, Arkansas, May 13th, 1857.
The bloody deed was in fulfillment of a threat made previously. It seems that Apostle
Pratt while in San Francisco had made the acquaintance of the McLeans, a Southern
family, and that Mrs. McLean, a refined and educated lady, who had become a Latter-day
Saint while the Apostle was in South America, had subsequently visited him and his wife,
much to the displeasure of her husband, a savagely jealous man, who, though he had
consented to her joining the Church, had made her life a burden on account of it.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 79
especially when he was drinking heavily. After suffering much ill treatment from him —
being brutally thrust into the street one night and compelled to take lodgings at a hotel,
which outrage was supplemented by another more cruel still, the stealing of her children,
who were put on board a ship without her knowledge and sent to New Orleans — she re-
fused to longer live with McLean or to regard him as her husband. Having followed her
children to the home of her parents, who were rigid Presbyterians, and prevented her
from associating with her little ones, except in the presence of others (fearing she would
make "Mormons" of them) she finally came to Utah, arriving here in September, 1855.
She taught school for several months, and on the anniversary of her arrival at Salt
Lake, set out for the East, with several other ladies, traveling in the same company with
Apostle Pratt and other missionaries. Her purpose in going was to recover her children,
and in this she was assisted indirectly by the Apostle.
She succeeded in securing the children, took them to Houston, Texas, and thence
proceeded northward with some emigrants toward a point where she could fall in with
the regular emigration for Utah. Near Port Gibson, Indian Territory, she was over-
taken by the enraged McLean, who again tore her children from her and had her arrested
on a charge of larceny — the theft of the clothing worn by the little ones. McLean also pro-
cured the arrest of Apostle Pratt and others, as parties to the alleged theft; though an-
other account states that the Apostle was charged with abducting the children and alien-
ating from McLean the affections of his wife. The prisoners were taken to Van Buren,
examined before a United States court, and discharged, nothing being found against
them.
The Apostle, after his acquittal, mounted a horse and started northward, and ten
minutes later was followed by McLean and several confederates. Overtaking the object
of their pursuit, they began firing at him, six bullets passing harmlessly through the skirts
of his coat. By that time one of the pursuers, whose horse was the fleetest, had headed
the victim, who, thrown into close contact with McLean, was stabbed by him repeatedly
with a bowie knife in the left side. The assassin savagely turned the knife in each
ghastly wound as he inflicted it. The murdered man, who was unarmed, fell from his
horse, and while lying upon the ground was shot through the breast by his blood-thirsty
assailant, with a pistol snatched from the hand of an accomplice. He lived two and a
half hours, bearing testimony almost with his dying breath to the truth of Mormonism
and the divine mission of Joseph Smith. After lying by the roadside for some time, he
was carried into a neighboring house, and there breathed his last. The body was cared
for by friends, and buried about a mile from the scene of the tragedy.
Parley P. Pratt entered into the patriarchal order of marriage while at Nauvoo. His
family was large, and his direct descendants are now quite numerous. His eldest son and
namesake died a few years since at Salt Lake City. Among his living sons are Moroni
L., a member of the High Council in Utah Stake; Nephi, President of the North-western
States Mission; Helaman, one of the Presidency of Juarez Stake, Mexico; Moroni W., a
Bishop in Idaho, aud Mathoni W., a salesman of Z. C. M. I. Among the more noted of
the daughters are Mrs. Olivia Driggs, Mrs. Agatha Ridges, Mrs. Malona Eldredge, Mrs.
Belinda Musser (deceased,) Mrs. Cornelia Driggs, (deceased,) Mrs. Mary Young, Mrs.
Evelyn Woods, Mrs. Phebe Holdaway, Mrs. Lucy Russell, Mrs. Etta Russell and Mrs.
Isabelle Eleanor Robinson.
Up to the period of his untimely death, Parley P. Pratt had probably traveled more
miles, preached more sermons and published more original literature in behalf of Mor-
monism than any other of its numerous missionaries. His wonderfully successful work,
the "Voice of Warning,'' which has passed through many editions and been printed in
various languages, has alone converted thousands to the faith, while his poetic and
philosophic" Key to Theology'' has delighted multitudes in almost every clime. He had the
true genius of the poet, and if like many another son of the Muses he was somewhat lack-
ing in culture, it was due, not to indolence or indifference on his part, but to lowly cir-
cumstances and limited educational opportunities. Had he lived longer and been given
the necessary leisure, he might have produced a great poem ; as it is, he was the composer
of some beautiful hymns, while scattered through his prose writings are fragments of verse
that would do honor to any bard. As a preacher he perhaps had no equal in the Church;
not even his mighty brother Orson nor the eloquent Sidney Rigdon approaching him in
this respect. He suffered much for his religion's sake, was poor all his life, owing largely
to his incessant labors and sacrifices in its cause, and passed away leaving an imperish-
able name as a heritage to a numerous and noble posterity.
JOHN TAYLOR.
SHE foremost man in Utah after the death of Brigham Young was John Taylor, who
succeeded him as President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He
was by birth an Englishman; Milnthorpe, near Lake Windemere, in the county of
Westmoreland, the place, and November 1, 1808, the date of his nativity. The
son of James Taylor, a government exciseman, and his wife Agnes, a descendant of
Richard Whittington, famous in song and story as Lord Mayor of London, young Taylor
at the age of fourteen became a cooper's apprentice in Liverpool, and subsequently
learned the turner's trade at Penrith in Cumberland. His first schooling was at the vil-
lage of Hale, Westmoreland, where his parents lived on a small estate bequeathed to the
head of the house by an uncle. They were members of the Church of England, as was
their son, who had been baptized into that church in his infancy. When about sixteen,
yielding to the conviction that the Methodists had more light than the Established
Church, he joined them and became a local preacher of that persuasion.
About the year 1830 he emigrated to America, following his parents, who were then
residing at Toronto in Upper Canada. There he connected himself with the local Metho-
dist society. Among the members of that body was Miss Leonora Cannon, daughter of
Captain George Cannon, of Peel, Isle of Man, and aunt to George Q. Cannon, the future
Apostle. She had come to America as companion to the wife of a Mr. Mason, private
secretary of Lord Aylmer, Governor-General of Canada. John Taylor was her class
leader; an attachment sprang up between them and in the year 1833 they were married.
Mrs. Taylor was a refined and intelligent woman, well educated, witty, and withal beau-
tiful. Her husband had had fewer opportunities, but he was an extensive reader and had
acquired a rich fund of general information. He was a close student of the Bible, well
versed in history, an able writer, an eloquent speaker and a skilled debater. Dignified in
mien, stalwart in frame, he was courageous, independent, firm as a rock, of blameless
life and unwavering integrity. When not filled with serious thoughts, he was brimming
with jovial good nature.
Mr. Taylor had not been long in Toronto when he united himself with a number of
scholarly gentlemen, sincere seekers after religious truth, who were fasting, praying and
poring over the scriptures, in the hope of receiving fresh light to guide them. The
result of their earnest quest was a conviction that something better than was offered
by modern Christianity, with which they were all dissatisfied, had been or was about to
be revealed for the salvation of mankind.
Such was John Taylor's frame of mind, when, early in the year 1836, Parley P.
Pratt, one of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
came to the city of Toronto, introducing Mormonism in that part. Prejudiced against
the Mormons from the many wild tales and rumors afloat concerning them, Mr. Taylor
received their representative with some reserve, and cautiously compared his teachings
with the doctrines of the Bible. Finding to his astonishment that they were the same he
gradually overcame his prejudice, and he and his wife were baptized as Latter-day Saints
May 9, 1836. Ordained an Elder by Apostle Pratt, he was shortly afterwards set apart
by him and Apostle Hyde to preside over the branches of the Church in Upper Canada.
In March, 1837, he visited Kirtland, where he first met the Prophet Joseph Smith,
and was his guest while sojourning there. It was a period of disaffection among leading
men of the Church and feelings of intense bitterness prevailed. He attended a meeting
in the Temple, at which Warren Parrish made a violent attack upon the character of the
Prophet. Elder Taylor defended the absent leader, and endeavored to pour oil upon the
troubled waters. Soon after his return to Canada the apostate element at Kirtland made
an attempt to supersede him in the presidency of the Canadian branches, for which pur-
pose they sent Dr. Sampson Avard, a High Priest, to Toronto, to preside. Unsuspicious
of trickery, and accepting Avard's letter of appointment — which was signed by his
quorum— as sufficient, Elder Taylor gave way, but was subsequently visited by the
Prophet, who, after reprimanding Elder Avard for his act of usurpation and chiding
HISTORY OF UTAH. 81
Elder Taylor for submitting to it, ordained the latter a High Priest and re-appointed him
to preside. Thedate of this ordination was August 31, 1837.
The following winter he removed to Kirtland, proceeding thence in the general exo-
dus of the Saints to Missouri. Near Columbus, Ohio, he awed into respectful silence,
and by his tact and eloquence wrung courteous treatment from a mob which had come
into a meeting where he was speaking for the purpose of tarring and feathering him. At
DeWitt, Carroll county, Missouri, he and his party, numbering twenty-four, were con-
fronted by an armed mob of one hundred and fifty, led by Abbott Hancock and Sashiel
Woods, the former a Baptist, the latter a Presbyterian minister, who afler some parley-
ing retired and permitted them to continue on to Far West. He was a witness to the
outrages perpetrated by the Missourians upon the new settlers, and a participant in the
scenes of peril and disaster ending in the imprisonment of the Prophet and other leaders
and the expulsion of the Mormon community from the State. That he bravely and 'iu-
flinchingly bore his part of the general burden of sorrow and trial we may be sure.
John Taylor knew no fear, and shirked no responsibility or sacrifice that his duty
entailed.
As early as the fall of 1837 he had been told by the Prophet that he would be chosen
an Apostle, and at a conference in Far West, October, 1838, it was voted that he fill the
vacancy in the quorum of the Twelve occasioned by the apostasy of John S. Boynton.
This was agreeable to a revelation given in July of that year. The High Council at Far
West took similar action on the 19th of December, and on that day John Taylor was or-
dained an Apostle under the hands of Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball.
He was among the defenders of Adam-Ondi-Ahman and Far West, and after the im-
prisonment of the First Presidency he visited them several times in Liberty jail. He
was one of a committee appointed to memorialize the Missouri Legislature for redress of
grievances, and was also appointed with Bishop Edward Partridge to draft a similar peti-
tion to the General Government. He assisted President Young to superintend the exodus
of the Saints from Missouri, and was with him and others of the Twelve when they made
their famous ride from Quincy to Far West, prior to starting upon their mission to Great
Britain.
Leaving his family quartered in some old log barracks at Montrose, Iowa, Apostle
Taylor started upon this mission August 8, 1839. At Nauvoo he was joined by Wilford
Woodruff, and these two were the first of the Twelve to sail. Elder Theodore Turley
accompanied them. They embarked at New York on the 10th of December and landed at
Liverpool on the 11th of January, 1840. At a council held in Preston with Elder Wil-
lard Richards and others in charge of the British Mission, it was decided that Apostle
Taylor should labor in Liverpool, with Elder Joseph Fielding to assist him. They imme-
diately began operations in that city, where they drew their first converts, ten in num-
ber, from a congregation raised up by the Rev. Timothy R. Matthews, a brother-in-law
to Elder Fielding and formerly a Church of England minister, who had once contem-
plated being a Latter-day Saint, and was now making proselytes by preaching Mormon
doctrines. Apostle Taylor was still in Liverpool when President Brigham Young, with
Apostles Heber C. Kimball, Parley P. Pratt, Orson Pratt, George A. Smith and Elder
Reuben Hedlock arrived from America. He was clerk of the council at Preston when
Willard Richards was ordained to the Apostleship, and was appointed one of a committee
to select hymns and compile a hymn book for the Latter-day Saints. The choice was a
happy one, since John Taylor, as well as Parley P. Pratt, his associate in that work, was
poetic in his tendencies.
Returning by appointment to Liverpool, he ordained a number of Elders and Priests
and set them to preaching in the public parks, on the streets, and wherever they could
find hearers. In July he passed over to Ireland, and preached in the court house at
Newry in County Down. This was the introduction of Mormonism in the Emerald Isle.
The first person baptized there was Thomas Tate. The Apostle next took steamer to
Glasgow, and after preaching to the Saints in that city, returned to Liverpool and deliv-
ered a course of lectures at the Music Hall in Bold Street. This hall became a regular
place of meeting for the Saints. On the 16th of September, with Elders Hiram Clark
and William Mitchell, he sailed for the Isle of Man, arriving at Doutrlas next day. There
he delivered a course of lectures, held public discussions with and published pamphlets in
reply to various clergymen who had attacked him, stirred up things in general among the
religious people of the island, baptized a goodly number, organized a branch, and then
went back to Liverpool. The remainder of his time while in Europe was spent in
preaching and in the emigrational department of the mission. He returned to America
with President Young and other Apostles, arriving at Nauvoo July 1, 1841.
82 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Shortly after his return he was taught the principle of plural marriage by the
Prophet Joseph Smith, who told him if it were not practiced the kingdom of God could
not go one step farther. At Nauvoo he married three wives, and subsequently several
more. He was a member of the city council, one of the Regents of the University, Judge
Advocate with the rank of Colonel in the Nauvoo Legion, associate editor and afterwards
chief editor of the "Times and Seasons." He was also editor and proprietor of the
"Nauvoo Neighbor," in the columns of which paper, in February, 1844, he nominated
Joseph Smith for the Presidency of the United States.
His connection with the press at Nauvoo explains his presence there and at Carthage
during the events leading up to and including the murder of Joseph and Hyrum Smith;
all the other Apostles, excepting Willard Richards, the Church Historian, being absent,
electioneering in the interest of the Prophet, at the time of his assassination. Prior to
the tragedy, in the midst of the troubles threatening Nauvoo, after the destruction of the
"Expositor" press and the placing of the city under martial law, John Taylor and John
M. Bernhisel went to Carthage and presented to Governor Ford the true state of affairs.
They received from him the most solemn assurances that if the Prophet and his friends
would come unarmed to Carthage to be tried, their lives should be protected. He
pledged his faith and the faith of the State for their safety.
When Joseph and Hyrum, on the 24th of June, set out for Carthage, to surrender
themselves as the Governor had proposed, John Taylor was one of those who accompan-
ied them, and when they were thrust into jail he and Willard Richards voluntarily shared
their imprisonment. In the afternoon of the fatal 27th, while the four friends sat con-
versing, Apostle Taylor, outraged by the treatment they had received, said, "Brother
Joseph, if you will permit it and say the word, I will have you out of this prison in five
hours, if the jail has to come down to do it." His idea was to go to Nauvoo and return
with a sufficient force to liberate his friends. But the Prophet would not sanction such a
step. The Apostle then sang a hymn to raise their drooping spirits, and soon after the
jail was assaulted by the mob who shot to death the Prophet and the Patriarch.
In the midst of the melee our Apostle stood at the door with a heavy walking stick,
beating down the muskets of the assassins that were belching deadly volleys into the
room. After Joseph and Hyrum were dead, he himself was struck by a ball in the left
thigh, while preparing to leap from the window whence the Prophet had fallen. Another
missile, from the outside, striking his watch, threw him back into the room, and this was
all that prevented him from descending upon the bayonets of the mob. In his wounded
state he dragged himself under a bedstead that stood near, and while doing so received
three other wounds, one a little below the left knee, one in his left hip, and another in the
left fore-arm and hand. The Prophet's fall from the window drew the murderers to the
yard below, which incident saved the lives of John Taylor and Willard Richards, the lat-
ter the only one of the four prisoners who escaped unhai'med. As soon as practicable
Apostle Taylor, who had been carried by Doctor Richards for safety into the cell of the
prison, was removed to Hamilton's hotel in Carthage, and subsequently to Nauvoo.
Accompanied by his family he left that city in the exodus, February 16, 1846. The
17th of June found him at Council Bluffs, from which point, the same summer, he with
Parley P. Pratt and Orson Hyde started for Liverpool, to set in order the affairs of the
British Mission, which had been more or less demoralized by the malodorous "Joint
Stock'' operations of its presidency — Reuben Hedlock, Thomas Ward and John Banks.
Apostle Taylor arrived at Liverpool on the 3rd of October. He and his associates fully
accomplished their purpose, excommunicating Elder Hedlock (who had fled at their ap-
proach, refusing to meet with them) and dealing more leniently with the other offenders.
On the 7th of February, 1847, the three Apostles sailed for America. Orson Hyde landed
at New York, but the others, coming by way of New Orleans and St. Louis, reached
Winter Quarters soon after the Pioneers left that place to make their camp on the Elk
Horn.
President Young and other leaders returned to meet Apostles Pratt and Taylor and
receive from them, not only a report of their mission, but from the latter about two thous-
and dollars in gold, sent by the British Saints to aid the Church in its migration into the
wilderness. Apostle Taylor also brought with him a set of surveying instruments, with
which Orson Pratt, a few months later, laid out Salt Lake City.
After the departure of President Young and the Pioneers, in April, Parley P. Pratt
and John Taylor exercised a general superintendency over affairs at Winter Quarters,
and with Isaac Morley and Newel K. Whitney organized the immigration that crossed
the plains that season. It was about the 21st of June when these Apostles, with six hun-
dred wagons and upwards of fifteen hundred souls, began the journey from the Elk Horn.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 83
John Taylor's division met and feasted the returning Pioneers at the upper crossing of
the Sweetwater, and continuing westward entered Salt Lake valley on the 5th of October.
During the following two years he shared the hard experiences common to the lot of the
first settlers of this region.
In 1849 he was called to head a mission to France, and in company with Lorenzo
Snow, Erastus Snow and Franklin D. Richards, who were on their way to Italy, Den-
mark and England, respectively, he set out on the 19th of October to re-ci-oss the plains.
Other missionaries were also in the company. John Taylor, with Curtis E. Bolton and
John Pack, sailed from New York May 27, 1850, and after a brief stay in England
crossed over to France. At Boulogne-sur-Mer, where he arrived on the 18th of June, he
delivered a course of lectures, wrote letters to the press and held a public discussion with
three reverend gentlemen, C. W. Cleeve. James Robertson and Phillip Cater. He then
visited Paris, where he studied French, preached, baptized a few souls, organized a
branch and made arrangements for translating the Book of Mormon into the Gallic
tongue. In May, 1851, he began publishing a monthly periodical, "Etoile du Deseret."
He was assisted in the work of translation by Elder Bolton and by Louis Bertrand and
other French converts. Branches were also organized in Havre, Calais, Boulogne and
other places. During the summer he went to Hamburg with Elder George P. Dykes and
others, where he superintended the translation of the Book of Mormon into German, pub-
lished "Zion's Panier," raised up a branch, and then returned to Paris, arriving a few
days after the overthrow of the French Republic by Louis Napoleon's famous coup d' etat.
Having held a farewell conference with the French Saints, he went back to England and
sailed for home, arriving at Salt Lake City August 20, 1852. He brought with him the
machinery for a beet sugar plant, manufactured in Liverpool at a cost of twelve thousand
five hundred dollars; also the busts of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, prepared under his per-
sonal direction by one of the first artists of England.
Two years were spent in Utah, and then came a call to preside over the Eastern
States Mission, to supervise the emigration and publish a paper in the interest of the
Mormon cause. Resigning as a member-elect of the Legislature, our Apostle, accom-
panied by his son, George J. Taylor, and by Elders Jeter Clinton, Nathaniel H. Felt,
Alexander Robbins and Angus M. Cannon, set out in the fall of 1854 for New York City.
There the first number of his paper, "The Mormon," was issued February 17, 1855. It
defended the principle and practice of plural marriage, opposed secession, and advocated
the construction of a railroad to the Pacific coast. The editor had several interviews at
Washington with President Franklin Pierce, and in the summer of 1856, in company
with George A. Smith, presented at the seat of government Utah's prayer for statehood.
At the outbreak of the '"Utah War" in 1857, he returned home, leaving "The Mormon"
in charge of William I. Appleby and T. B. H. Stenhouse, who continued its publication
until the 19th of September.
Apostle Taylor reached Salt Lake City on the 7th of August. All was excitement,
owing to the reported coming of Johnston's army. In a discourse delivered early in
September, just after the arrival of Captain Van Vliet, who preceded the army and was
present at the meeting, the Apostle said, addressing the congregation: "Would you if
necessary, brethren, put the torch to your buildings and lav them in ashes, and wander
houseless in these mountains?"
President Young: "Try the vote."
Apostle Taylor: "All you that are willing to set fire to your property and lay it in
ashes rather than submit to their military rule and oppression, manifest it by raising your
hands.''
There was a unanimous response from the four thousand people present.
Apostle Taylor: "I know what your feelings are. We have been persecuted and
robbed long enough, and in the name of Israel's God we will be free.'"
The congregation responded with a loud and fervent Amen, and President Young
added: "I say amen all the time to that." It was after this that the correspondence,
partly published in our first volume, occurred between Apostle Taylor and Captain Marey.
In the subsequent adjustment of difficulties, the 'Champion of Liberty" played a promi-
nent part.
From 1857 to 1876, John Taylor was a member of the Utah Legislature, and for the
first five sessions of that period Speaker of the House. From 1868 to 1870 he was Pro-
bate Judge of Utah county. In 1869 he hf Id his celebrated controversy with Vice-Presi-
dent Colfax through the columns of the New York press, and from 1871 to 1875 he pub-
lished a series of letters in the "Deseret News," reviewing the situation in Utah, denounc-
ing Territorial government as un-American and oppressive, but warning the people
84 HISTORY OF UTAH.
against violent resistance to Judge McKean's high-handed and exasperating course. In
1877 he was elected Territorial Superintendent of Schools, and served as such for several
years.
The next important event in his history was his elevation to the leadership of the
Church, to which he virtually succeeded at the death of President Young, August 29,
1877. He had been for some years President of the Twelve Apostles. He continued to
act in that capacity until October, 1880, when the First Presidency was again organized,
with John Taylor, George Q. Cannon and Joseph F. Smith as its personnel. Meantime
the Church in 1880 celebrated its jubilee.
In the latter part of December, 1881, President Taylor moved into the Gardo House,
a stately and beautiful mansion built by President Young and owned by the Church, the
use of which as a family residence had been voted to him at the April conference of 1879.
His first act after taking up his abode there was to give a New Year's reception to his
friends and the general public, about two thousand of whom, Mormons and Gentiles,
called upon him, tendered their congratulations and partook of his hospitality.
It was the calm before the storm. Two months later came the enactment of the Ed-
munds law, supplementing the anti-polygamy act of 1862, which in January, 1879, after
remaining a dead letter for seventeen years, was declared constitutional by the Supreme
Court of the United States. The Edmunds law, like its predecessor, made punishable by
fine and imprisonment the marrying of plural wives, but went further than the other stat-
ute, in that it not only inflicted heavier penalties for that offense, but also made punish-
able, as unlawful cohabitation, the living with plural wives; in fact, the mere acknowl-
edgement of a plural wife, even if married prior to the enactment of the anti-polygamy
laws, was construed and punished by the Federal courts as "unlawful cohabitation."
The "Crusade," as it was called, began almost simultaneously in Utah, Idaho and Ari-
zona, wherever the Latter-day Saints had settlements. During its continuance, in March,
1887, the Edmunds act was supplemented by the Edmund«-Tucker law, under which
most of the property of the Mormon Church was forfeited and escheated to the govern-
ment.
Upon the sufferings inflicted during that time of trouble, no citizen of Utah loves to
dwell. From 1884 to 1890 the Territory was raked as with a sharp-toothed harrow, and
the Church made to weep bitter and even bloody tears. Hordes of deputy marshals,
turned loose upon the helpless community, hunted their victims — polygamists and their
families — with all the assiduity of sleuth-hounds. Men and women were agonized to an
extent almost unbearable. One man — a Mormon citizen of repute — was shot and killed
by an over-zealous deputy, who, indicted and tried for man-slaughter, was acquitted in
the District court. Delicate women, fleeing from arrest, often in the night time, died
from terror, exposure and exhaustion, or suffered injuries from which they never recov-
ered. The exehecquer of the Federal courts was swollen to repletion from fines collected
in polygamous cases, and the penitentiaries were crowded with convicts for conscience sake.
Nearly a thousand convictions under the anti-polygamy statutes testify to the rigor of
the crusade and the sincerity of the Mormon people in this crucial test of their integrity.
Scarcely a man, and not one woman — for women and children were imprisoned also —
weakened under the terrible strain brought to bear by the iron hand of the Government,
and purchased immunity from persecution by a "promise to obey.'' One of the First
Presidency (George Q. Cannon), two of the Apostles (Lorenzo Snow and Francis M.
Lyman), and hundreds of other Elders — among the most reputable men in the commun-
ity —were fined and imprisoned, and nearly all the Church leaders were driven into exile.
The settlements of the Saints in Mexico and Canada were greatly strengthened by emi-
grations from Utah and Arizona during this period.
President Taylor's last appearance in public was on Sunday, February 1, 1885, when
he preached his final discourse in the Tabernacle at Salt Lake City. He had just returned
from Mexico and California, after a tour through the settlements of the Saints in Ari-
zona, which were among the first to be harassed by the crusade. That night he went
into retirement and was never again se^n in life except by a few trusted friends, most of
them his body guards or the companions .if his exile. He died July 25, 1887, at the home
of Thomas F. Rouche, in Kaysville, Davis county, Utah, a victim of the crusade, a mar-
tyr to his religious convictions. His funeral was held four days later, at the Tabernacle
in Salt Lake City.
President Taylor was the father of a large family. Among his living sons are
George J. Taylor, a High Councilor of the Salt Lake Stake; John W. Taylor, one of the
Twelve Apostles; Moses W. Taylor, President of Summit Stake; Frank Y. Taylor,
President of Granite Stake, and Thomas E. Taylor, Bishop's counselor in the Fourteenth
HISTORY OF UTAH. 85
Ward, Salt Lake City. There are others more or less prominent in business. Among
his daughters are Mrs. Alonzo E. Hyde. Mrs. L. John Nuttall, Mrs. Rodney C. Badger,
Mrs. Daniel Harrington and Mrs. John M. Whittaker.
CHARLES COULSON RICH.
>KENERAL CHARLES C. RICH, who led one of the first companies that followed the
\*f) Pioneers to Salt Lake valley, and who became the founder of Rich county, which
^ST was named for him by the Legislature, was born August 21, ISO!), in Campbell
county, Kentucky. He was the only son of Joseph Rich and his wife Nancy 0.
Neal. He came of a pioneer ancestry, his grandfather, Thomas Rich, who married Ann
Pool, settling in Kentucky when there were very few white people there. His fathers
early playmates were Indian boys.
Charles was reared in Indiana, to which State his parents removed when he was quite
young. They engaged in farming. He went to school and helped on the farm until he
was twenty years of age, when he began to think of starting out in life for himself. He
had learned the cooper's trade, but never followed it. His parents, who were well-to-do
people for those times, could not endure the thought of their only son leaving home, and
to please them he continued to abide there. In addition to his farm labors he taught a
country school, having previously received as good an education as the time and place
could afford. Reserved and studious in disposition, his inquiring mind was ever anxious
to know the why and wherefore of things. In case of anything new he demanded to know
before accepting it. He was very fond of athletic sports, liked fine horses and cattle,
and true to his Kentucky instincts enjoyed a good horserace, though he never did any
betting. He was cool-headed and courageous, and grew up a man of sterling worth and
integrity.
Religiously inclined from childhood, when he first heard of Mormonism, which was in
the year 1831, he began to investigate it. This was in Tazewell county, Illinois, whither
the family had removed the year previous. After due deliberation he was converted, and
on April 1st, 1832, became a member of the Mormon Church. Early the next month he
started for Kirtland, Ohio, to visit the Prophet Joseph Smith, and while on the way, in
Fountain county. Indiana, he was ordained to the office of an Elder. May 16th. He arrived
at Kirtland about the middle of June, and there met the Prophet and his associates, with
whom he formed a lasting friendship.
During the next few years he traveled as a missionary through the States of Kentucky,
Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois; also making two trips to Missouri, with Lyman Wight, to buy
and enter land for the Church. In 1834 he was a member of Zion's Camp, holding the
position of captain of ten, and was identified with that organization until its disbandment.
He was ordained a High Priest in the Kirtland Temple, April 12, ISoli. by Hyrum Smith
and John Smith, and at Far West, Missouri, in Augut, 1S37, was ordained President
of the High Priests' quorum, under the hands of William W. Phelps and John Whitmer.
During his residence at Far West, on the 11th of February, 183S, he married Sarah D.
Pea, who for fifty-five years was a faithful companion, the sharerof his joys and sorrows
through life. She bore to him nine children.
During the persecutions in Caldwell and Daviess counties, Charles C. Rich was
elected captain of fifty, and was at the battle of Crooked River, next in command to
David W. Patten, who was slain. After he tell, Captain Rich carried matters to a suc-
cessful issue, gaining a complete victory over the mob force led by the Methodist priest
Bogart. Upon returning to Far West. Captain Rich went out to meet the State forces
sent against the city by Governor Boggs. He had in charge two of their number as prison-
ers, and carried a flag of truce. Bogart came out to meet him; he told the men to pass,
and then, Rich turning to leave, the mob leader fired upon him, twenty feet away.
In consequence of these troubles Captain Rich l, who was one of those charged with murder
for being present at the Crooked River battle) was forced to flee into Illinois, where his
wife rejoined him in February, 1839. They resided at Quincy until September of that
year, and then moved to Xauvoo.
There, in October, 1839, Charles C. Rich was chosen a member of the High Council,
86 HISTORY OF UTAH.
and in March, 1841, was appointed counselor to the President of the Stake. He was
successively commissioned by the Governor of Illinois, Captain, Brevet-Colonel, Colonel
and Brigadier-General in the Nauvoo Legion, and during the year 1843 was employed
much in public business, civil and military. He had charge of the finances connected
with the building of the arsenal, and was intimately associated with Lieutenant-General
Joseph Smith. When Major-General Wilson Law was suspended and about to be court-
martialed, General Rich was ordered to take command of the Legion. This was in April,
1844. The following September Governor Ford commissioned him as Major-General.
Meantime had occured the murder of Generals Joseph and Hyrum Smith, who were slain
while Charles C. Rich, with George A. Smith, was electioneering for the Prophet in the
state of Michigan. He was a member of the Masonic Lodge of Nauvoo, an Alderman of
the city, and prominentlj identified with all public matters and move ments in his vicin-
ity. Prior to leaving: Nauvoo he entered into the order of celestial marriage.
In the Mormon exodus from Illinois he with his family and a company of ten
men crossed the Mississippi on the ice, February 13, 1846, and after many hardships and
much sickness arrived at Mount Pisgah, Iowa. There he was appointed one of the pres-
idency of the stake, William Huntington and Ezra T. Benson being his associates. The
death of Father Huntington and the call of Elder Benson to the Apostleship left him in
sole charge at Mount Pisgah. During an epidemic of chills and fever, fatal to many, he
fell sick and was bed-ridden for over two months, but having'recovered he moved on to
Council Bluffs, where he arrived in March, 1847. Soon after the Pioneers started for the
Rocky Mountains, he went back to Nauvoo on business, and returned to the Bluffs on the
21st day of May, bringing his parents with him. On the 14th of June he left Winter
Quarters, bound for Salt Lake valley.
General Rich was in command of what was known as the "Artillery Company,"
which, with the other companies that crossed the plains that season, was organized on the
Elk Horn. These companies, five in number, commanded respectively by Charles C.
Rich, Daniel Spencer, Edward Hunter, Jedediah M. Grant and Abraham 0. Smoot, with
John Young in immediate general command, and Apostles Parley P. Pratt and John
Taylor exercising supervision over the whole, started from that point on or about the 21st
of June. General Rich had two pieces of cannon, a powder wagon, and a boat on runn-
ing-gears, over which was hung a large brass bell, used to summon the people to prayers
and to sound the alarm when danger threatened. He was outfitted with wagons, oxen,
horses, cows, sheep, farming implements, etc. His family and teamsters numbered
seventeen souls. The artillery company, after meeting President Young and the return-
ing Pioneers at Pacific Springs hurried on westward, General Rich's aged mother being
very sick and anxious to see Salt Lake Valley before she died. They arrived here on the 3rd
of October, and two days later she expired, this being the first death of an adult among
the earliest settlers. She was buried beside Jedediah M. Grant's wife, who had died in
the mountains and whose remains were brought to the valley for interment.
The day that General Rich arrived the first stake organization in the Rocky Moun-
tain region went into effect. The personnel of the stake presidency was John Smith,
Charles C. Rich and John Young, the first named uncle to the Prophet Joseph Smith, the
last named brother to President Brigham Young. A year later, when Father Smith was
released, owing to his duties as Patriarch of the Church, Charles C. Rich became Presi-
dent of the Stake, with John Young and Erastus Snow as his counselors.
The 12th of February, 1849, witnessed his call to the Apostleship and his ordination
as a member of the quorum of the Twelve. He sat in the constitutional convention which
met on the 8th, 9th and 10th of the following month and adopted the Constitution of the
State of Deseret, whi'ch he had helped to frame. He next organized, under the direction
of the General Assembly, the militia, which retained the old title of "Nauvoo Legion.''
He was assisted in this labor by Daniel H. Wells, the future commander of the Legion.
The fall of the same year found Apostle Rich on his way to California, to fulfil a mis-
sion to which he had been called in conjunction with Apostle Amasa M. Lyman. Accom-
panied by Francis M. Pomeroy, George Q. Cannon, James S. Brown and others, he left
Salt Lake City on the 8th of October, taking the southern route, and nearly perishing on
the desert for want of water, providentially supplied by a rain, some of which he and his
party secured by digging holes in the sand. He finally reached San Francisco in safety.
Havina: joined Apostle Lyman and assisted him in organizing a branch of the Church and
looking out a place in which to colonize Mormon converts coming from the Pacific Islands,
Apostle Rich returned home, this time taking, the northern route, and arriving at Salt
Lake City November 12, 1850.
A winter in the Legislature as a member of the Council, was followed by another mis-
HISTORY OF UTAH. 87
sion to California, upon which he started withAniasa M. Lyman early in March, 1851. A
portion of his family accompanied him, also many other colonists. On the 22nd of Sep-
tember, the same year, the two Apostles purchased for the Church the Ranch of San
Bernardino, in Southern California, containing an area of twenty square miles. It was
a Mexican land grant, and the price paid for it to the Spanish grantees was $77,500.
The colonists built homes, stores, mills and made a prosperous settlement, having a city
government with Charles C. Rich as Mayor, elected November 30, 1855.
The outbreak of the Utah war brought him back to Salt Lake City, where he arrived
in June, 1S57. At the request of Governor Young, he went with General Wells to Echo
canyon, whence he returned to accompany the general move south in the spring of 1858.
Having settled his family at Provo. he came back to act as one of the council who met
the peace commissioners sent to Utah by the President of the United States. The trouble
being over, he brought his family home and began working on his farm. The following
winter he represented Davis county in the Legislature.
In the spring of 1860 Apostle Rich was appointed one of the Presidency of the Euro-
pean Mission, his associates being Amasa M. Lyman and George Q. Cannon. Accom-
panied by his eldest son, Joseph C, and by Apostle Lyman, with his son, Francis M., he
left Salt Lake City on the 1st of May, sailed from New York on the 14th of July, and
landed at Liverpool thirteen days later. Apostle Cannon joined them in the fall. After
traveling over Europe in the interest of the Church, Presidents Rich and Lyman were re-
leased to return in the spring of 1S62. The former, having visited his relatives in Ken-
tucky and Indiana, and assisted to organize the season's emigration on the frontier,
arrived home on the 18th of September.
Next came, in the spring of 1863, his call to settle Bear Lake Valley. Forthwith
he moved a portion of his family thither, his aged father accompanying him and dying at
the town of Paris at the age of eighty-one. The Apostle made new homes for his family,
erected a grist-mill, a saw-mill, and took the lead in building up a prosperous line of settle-
ments. During several sessions he represented Rich and Cache counties in the legisla-
ture. In order to reach Salt Lake City, where the Assembly met, he crossed the moun-
tains on snow-shoes, making several such trips, which, on account of his weight, tried his
endurance severely. He held various offices of public trust, and presided over Bear Lake
Stake until released at the time of the general reorganization.
In the summer of 1S72 he and his sou Joseph attended the Rich family reunion at
Truro, Cape Cod, Massachusetts; a notable gathering, at which were present two thous-
and people from all parts of the world, fifteen hundred of the name of Rich, and the rest
related by marriage. President Rich, as has been stated, practiced plural marriage.
He was the father of fifty children, twenty-nine sons and twenty-one daughters. The best
known of these are Mrs. Sarah Jane Rich Miller, of Salt Lake City: Hon. Joseph C. Rich,
of Paris, Idaho; Elder William L. Rich, of the Presidency of Bear Lake Stake; Messrs.
Sam Rich and George Q. Rich, attorneys-at-law, Logan, Utah; Doctors Rich and Rich.
of Ogden: and Elder Ben E. Rich, of Rexburg, Idaho, now presiding over the Southern
States Mission.
President Charles C. Rich died at his home in Paris, Bear Lake County, Idaho, No-
vember 17. 1883. His death was due to a paralytic stroke, sustained three years previ-
ous. After receiving this stroke, which rendered him helpless, he was ordered by his
physician to Salt Lake City, where he remained through the winter, returning to Bear
Lake in February, 1881. He improved some but did not regain the use of his limbs. In
October, 1882, he agaiu visited Salt Lake, attendins: the General Conference one day.
Returning home, he remained there until his final summons sounded.
DANIEL SPENCER.
"jr^HE pioneer of the noted Spencer family, both in the settlement of Utah and in the
I*) acceptance of Mormonism, was Daniel Spencer, a native of West Stockbridgc,
^8r Berkshire county. Massachusetts. He was the son of Daniel Spencer and Chloe
Wilson, and was one of eleven children born to that worthy pair. The father
was a Revolutionary soldier, who enlisted in the Continental army at the age of sixteen,
88 HISTORY OF UTAH.
and remained with it until the British surrender at Yorktown, whieh he witnessed. His
ancestors were English. Gerard Spencer, the earliest known settler of this branch of
the family in America, was the founder of Hadam, Connecticut, and a member of the
State Assembly. Daniel and Chloe Spencer were exemplary and highly esteemed mem-
bers of the Baptist church. They were only in moderate circumstances, but placed
within the reach of their children every available advantage for education. Their son
Daniel, who was successively Mayor of Nauvoo, a member of the Utah Legislature, one
of the Presidency of the British Mission, and died President of the Salt Lake Stake of
Zion, was born July 20, 1794.
"During my childhood," says he, "the young and growing family of my father left
no surplus means over and above their kind and generous support. They sent me to the
district school during the winter months until I was about eleven years of age. I ob-
tained a fair, common school education. At twelve years of age I was set to freighting
marble with teams to Hudson, distant about thirty miles. At the age of fourteen I was
placed in charge of my father's farm, and was accorded much praise for my successful
management.''
His desire, however, was to become a merchant, and at the age of nineteen he prom-
ised his father that if he would let him begin life on his own account, he would present
him with the first hundred dollars he could save. His father consented, and Daniel hired
out to one Joseph Cone, of Harrowiston, Litchfield county, Connecticut, who sent him
with team and wagon loaded with merchandise to sell in North and South Carolina. He
worked for Mr. Cone two years, and then began business for himself. Soon he had sev-
eral of his brothers engaged with him, merchandising in the Carolinas and in Georgia
and Alabama. They spent the winters south and the summers in the New England
States. Daniel made quite an amount of money and did much more for his father than
he had promised him. About the year 1820 he entered into the mercantile business in
his native town, having as silent partners Charles and Bilson Boynton. His salary as
manager, together with profits, he turned into the general store, intending in time to be-
come sole proprietor. This partnership existed until after Mr. Spencer embraced Mor-
monism. Not long after that the Boyntons went into bankruptcy, and by taking advan-
tage of the bankrupt act, caused Mr. Spencer to lose heavily.
On the 21st of January, 1823, Daniel Spencer married Sophronia E. Pomeroy,
daughter of General Grove Pomeroy, ex-member of the State Assembly of Massachusetts.
By her he had one son, Claudius Victor, now a prominent citizen of Salt Lake City. She
died October 5, 1833, and about two years later he married Sarah Lester Van Schoonoven,
who bore him two sons that died early, and two daughters, Amanda and Mary Leone.
This wife died at Nauvoo.
"In my early years," says Daniel Spencer. "I had entertained great reverence for
God and had sought him often in secret prayer, but could not unite with any of the
churches. Nevertheless, at one time there came to me the conviction that baptism by im-
mersion was essential, and I journeyed about forty miles to my brother Orson's, who was
a Close Communion Baptist minister, and he buried me in the water in the likeness'of the
burial and resurrection of Christ; but I refused to take membership in the Baptist
church. My son Claudius was baptized by him at the same time.
"During the winter of 1838 I met a Mormou Elder on the street of our town, who
said he had been trying through the day to get a place where he could preach. He was
poorly clad, his extremities were frost-bitten, and altogether he was a peculiar looking
minister. Being chairman of the school board, I told him he could have the school house
to preach in, and I sent Edwin Morgan to light and warm the room. When Morgan
reached the house he found parties inside who had locked him out and refused him ad-
mission. When he reported this I told him to take an ax, and if the parties did not open
the door to chop it up and warm the room with it. I took pains to spread notice of the
meeting, and sent my little son to invite the Presbyterian minister, Nathan Shaw, to go
with me to hear the Elder. His answer was, 'Tell your father I would as soon go to hear
the devil.' The meeting was largely attended by members of the different churches, but
at the close, when the Elder stated that he was a stranger, thirteen hundred miles from
home, without purse or scrip, and asked if any one would keep him over night for
Christ's and the Gospel's sake, not an answer came from any church member. After a
painful silence, I stepped into the open aisle and invited him home with me. I refused
to discuss Mormonism with him, and next morning I took him to my store and clothed
him comfortably.
"In about a month he came again. I obtained for him the Presbyterian meeting
house and entertained him as before. On leaving he left some books; these I read and
HISTORY OF UTAH 89
soon became interested, to the extent that I closed my store and gave my whole attention
to comparing- the claims of the Mormons with the Bible. One forenoon, while reading the
Book of Mormon, the conviction came to me with great power that Mormonism was true,
and involuntarily I exclaimed. 'My God. it is true, but it will cost me friends and kindred,
and all that I have on earth.
"A few days after this I sent notice to the entire townspeople that at noon of a cer-
tain day I should be baptized by the Mormon Eldei — Stephen Buruham. A vast concourse
came to see the ice broken in the river and the ordinance performed. After I was con-
firmed. I spoke to the people in anew language, which, knowinsr me as they did, created a
profound sensation. I was ordained an Elder, and did much preaching in Berkshire
county. After my baptism, my good father and mother aud my good Baptist brother
Orson told me in an interview that they did not wish any further association with me
until I gave up my awful delusion. However, in time I performed the same ordinance
for my brother as a Mormon Elder that he once performed for me as a Baptist Elder, and
1 had the pleasure of gathering father and mother to Nauvoo.''
The Spencer record goes on to tell how Elders Franklin D. Richards and Stephen Burn-
ham. on the 19th of April, 1840. organized a branch of the Church at West Stockbridge, con-
sisting of thirty members, among whom were a merchant named Crandall and his wife.
who was a sister to Senator Uoseoe Conkling. Without exception the standing of the
members in society was of the best. The branch included the Saints in the adjoining
town of Richmond, the home of the Richards family.
Mr. Spencer had accumulated considerable property, much of it in real estate. As
a general impression prevailed that all Mormons must gather to Nauvoo. his neighbors
thought that by combining to withhold offers they could get his property very cheap. He
thwarted their purpose, which he had shrewdly divined, by purchasing new properties,
including a heavily timbered farm, with shares in a saw mill, leaving it to be inferred
that he was not going to Nauvoo. Having regained, by this tactical course, his former
business footing, he suceeded in disposing of most of his property at its full value, and
then started for Nauvoo. taking with him a stock of broadcloths and satinets. He was
accompanied by his family, by his brother Hyrum Spencer. Daniel Hendricks and their
families, and was followed by the predictions of many well meaning friends to the effect
that he would lose all his worldly possessions. They promised, moreover, that if he would
write back that he wished to return, they would raise means for his deliverance. He
prospered, he says, in spite of being mobbed, plundered and driven, far more than those
who gave him this friendly warning.
At Nauvoo he entered government land, built a substantial, two story brick house in
the city, and with his brother Hyrum fenced and improved a farm of one hundred and
sixty acres *ix miles out of town. In 1S42 ho wont upon a mission to Canada, and in
1843 upon a mission to the Indians. During the latter year he was elected a member of
the city council of Nauvoo. In February. 1844, he was selected as one of an exploring
expedition, organized by the Prophet Joseph Smith to seek a new home for his persecuted
people beyond the Rocky Mountains. The departure of this expedition was prevented
by the death of the Prophet, and the carrying out of the plan on a more extended scale
fell to the lot of President Brigham Young and the Utah Pioneers. Soon after the trag-
edy at Carthage Daniel Spencer was chosen by vote of the city council Mayor of Nauvoo,
succeeding the martyred Seer in that position, which he held until the repeal of the
Nauvoo charter.
Returning from a mission to Massachusetts, he joined the exodus of the Saints.
crossed the Mississippi on the ice. and sought refuge with his people in the wilds of
snow-covered Iowa. There, by the hardships and exposures encountered, he lost some
of his dearest relatives and friends, among them his wife Mary, whom he had married at
Nauvoo.
"I wish here,'' says Elder Spencer, "'to make affectionate and honorable mention of
my brother Hyrum, whose life before association with our people, and his devotion and
loyalty after joining them, were worthy of the highest praise. Ho was as brave in spirit
as he was powerful in physique. He left Nauvoo with the first out-going Saints as cap-
tain of fifty in the company organized under my presidency. During the journey from
Nauvoo to Garden Grove he organized the labor force of the camp, and took contracts
from the settlers bordering our route of travel, to chop timber, split rails, etc., thereby
procuring sustenance for the camp and acquiring other much needed means for the feeble
and ailing. The next morning after his arrival at Garden Grove he voluntarily started
I iack to Nauvoo. Through great efforts he succeeded in emigrating several poor families,
and also sold some of the propertv left by the three Spencer brothers, taking payment in
6
90 HISTORY OF UTAH.
stock cattle. Immediately trumped up writs and attachments were issued to hold the
property until the mob which was gathering should come into Nauvoo. By almost super-
human exertions he escaped with the cattle and means — crossing the Mississippi sixty miles
above Nauvoo, while the sheriff and posse were waiting to intercept him forty miles be-
low the city — and all but reached the camp of the Saints at Mount Pisgah; though he did
so as a martyr, his exposures, anxieties and labors having killed him. He died some
miles east of the settlement, and the body was brought therefor burial."
Following the Indian trail across Iowa, eamping much of the time in close proximity
to Indians and herding cattle on their grounds, Daniel Spencer and his fellow fugitives
reached Council Bluffs. During the winter of 184G-7 he acted as a bishop on the Missouri
river, and fitted out three of the Pioneers, Francis Boggs, Elijah Newman and Levi Ken-
dall, letting them have two yoke of oxen, with wagon, provisions, farming tools, seed
grain, etc. "If their testimony be true," says he, ''these oxen drew the plow that turned
the first sod in Salt Lake valley."
After the Pioneers had departed, Daniel Spencer's company of one hundred wagons
was i-e- organized, and in June, 1S47, they left the Elk Horn for the Rocky Mountains.
They followed the trail of the Pioneers, and were the first company to arrive after them
in the valley of the Great Salt Lake. The date of his arrival was the 23rd of September.
Daniel Spencer settled at Salt Lake City, dwelling on the corner where the Miller
hotel now stands. He engaged in farming and various industries, and gathered around
him considerable property, though prior to that he passed through many hardships and
privations. Referring to the cricket plague of 1848, and to certain cynical statements to
the effect that the gulls came to the rescue of the settlers by instinct, and not by provi-
dential interposition, he says: "I ask how that instinct brought them in just the forty-
eight hours to save the settlement, and I venture the assertion that an honest person can-
not be found who witnessed that occurrence and has lived to the present, but will testify
that there was a ratio of a thousand gulls then to one hundred seen here by our peo-
ple before or since." Daniel Spencer formed a pai'tnership with Jacob Gates,
Jesse C. Little, and his son Claudius V. Spencer, in opening a ranch in Rush valley,
from which they were unjustly ousted by soldiers from Camp Floyd, in March, 1859. On
that occasion his nephew, Howard 0. Spencer, was brutally assaulted by Sergeant Ralph
Pike, as related elsewhere.
At the re-organization of the Salt Lake Stake of Zion, February 13, 1849, Daniel
Spencer became its President, with David Fullmer and Willard Snow as his counselors.
At that time he was a member of the High Council, having held that position since Octo-
ber 3, 1847. He was President of the Stake for nineteen years, during which period
his decisions were invariably sustained when passed upon by the First Presidency. He
was a prominent member of the Perpetual Emigrating Fund Company, and transacted
much of its business. From 1852 to 1856 he was in Europe, serving from May 14, 1853,
until March 15, 1856, as first counselor to the President of the British Mission. On the
last named date he sailed for America to act as agent in the United States to forward the
Mormon emigration to Utah. He arrived home on the 4th day of October.
The following winter found him in the Legislature, a member of the House of Rep-
resentatives. He had previously been a member of the House in Utah's first legislative
assembly. In the sessions of 1861-2, 1862-3 and 1S64-5 he was a member of the Coun-
cil. His first public service in Salt Lake valley, in a secular way, was in 1848, when he
was appointed Roadmaster. He was also one of the original members of the Board of
Regents of the University of Deseret.
Daniel Spencer stood at the Head of a numerous household. After the death of his
wife Mary he married his brother Hyrum's widow, Emily Thompson Spencer, by whom
he had two sons, Jared and John D., and four daughters, Aurelia, Sophia, Emma and
Josephine. His wife Sarah Jane Grey bore him three sons, Orson, Mark and Grove, and
one daughter, Sophronia. His wife Elizabeth Funnell had four daughters, Georgiana,
Chloe, Elizabeth and Cordelia, and one son, Henry W. By his wife Mary Jane Cutcliffe
he had three daughters, Lydia, Alvira and Amelia, and one son. Samuel G. President
Spencer died at his home in Salt Lake City December 8, 1868, leaving to his posterity the
prestige of an honored name and the inspiration of a life filled with noble deeds, crowned
•with faith, humility and self-sacrifice.
EDWARD HUNTER.
^f^HE name of Bishop Hunter is a household word in Utah, where the memory of his
tx) words and deeds is as fresh as the springtime grasses and flowers that grow above
^jT his grave. He led one of the first companies of immigrants that settled Salt Lake
valley, and for thirty-two years was the Presiding Bishop of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The second son and seventh child of Edward and Hannah Hunter, he was born in
Newtown Township, Delaware county, Pennsylvania, June 22, 1793. His paternal
ancestors were from the North of England, and on his mother's side he was of Welsh
extraction. John Hunter, his great-grandfather, passed over to Ireland some time in the
seventeeth century and served as a lieutenant of cavalry under William of Orange at
the Battle of the Boyne, where he was wounded. He afterwards came to America and
settled in Delaware county, Pennsylvania, about twelve miles from Philadelphia. Edward
Hunter, Esq., the Bishop's father, was justice of the peace in Delaware county for forty
years. On his mother's side three generations back was Robert Owen of North Wales,
a man of wealth and character, a firm sympathizer with Cromwell and the Protectorate,
who on the restoration of Charles the Second, refused to take the oath of allegiance, and
was imprisoned for five years. After his release he emigrated to America and purchased
property near the "City of Brotherly Love." Like the founder of that city, Robert
Owen was a quaker. His son George sat in the State Legislature and held various
positions of public trust.
It was the intention of Edward's father to give him a thorough scholastic training.
The boy, however, expressed a preference for farm life, and his choice was humored,
though he was prevailed upon to acquire a trade, and became proficient as a tanner and
currier. He subsequently attended school and mastered the science of surveying.
Finally he went into business in Philadelphia with a merchant named Bomount.
When he was twenty-two years of age his father died. Edward was offered his
position as justice of the peace, but declined it on account of his youth. He was also
tendered the Federal candidacy for, and certain election to, the Pennsylvania Legislature,
but would not accept it as he was a Democrat and chose to remain one. He served seven
years as a cavalry volunteer and three years as a county commissioner of Delaware
county, receiving at the election a higher vote than any other officer on the ticket. After
farming in Delaware county for four or five years he removed to Chester county, where
he purchased a fine farm of five hundred acres, well stocked and cultivated. He there
married Ann Standley, the youngest daughter of Jacob and Martha Standley, an honest,
capable family of that vicinity. He was then about forty years of age.
He had always desired to serve God acceptably, but following the counsel of his
father, had connected himself with no religious sect. He held sacred the right of all
men to worship according to the dictates of conscience. His father told him that
the American form of government was too good for a wicked world, and that its bles-
sings of liberty would not be appreciated or the rights it guarantees respected. He was
asked to grant the privilege to have erected on his land a building for educational pur-
poses and in which public meetings might be held. He agreed to give the land for ninety-
nine years and to help build the house, provided all persons and persuasions might meet
in it to worship God. This was particularly set forth in the articles of agreement, and
the building was erected. It was known as the West lSlautmeal Seminary. Mr. Hunter
was successful in business, and was respected and looked up to by his neighbors and the
people for many miles around as a man of character and integrity.
Such were the circumstances surrounding him when in the spring of 1839 he heard
of a strange sect called Mormons, some of whose preachers, traveling through that
region, had learned of the West Nantmeal Seminary and had taken steps to procure the
hall for meetings. Immediately a tumult was raised, and it was declared by some of the
leading residents that it would not do to have the Mormons there. "Why not?" inquired
Mr. Hunter. "Oh, they are such a terrible people," was the reply. "Why terrible?" he
asked. "Why — why — stammered the accusers — Dr. Davis says they are a terrible people,
a very dangerous people, and that it will not do to let then preach there." "Oh, that's
92 HISTORY OF UTAH.
it," said the honest, independent land-owner, his Democratic blood beginning to boil.
"When I gave the lease for that land, and helped to build that house, it was particularly
agreed and stated in the lease that people of every religion should have the privilege of
meeting there to worship God, Now, those Mormons are goingtohave their rights, or else
the lease is out and I'll take the Seminary." This determined speech brought the bigots
to their senses, and no further objecton was raised.
Soon after this Mr. Hunter, hearing that a Mormon Elder was to preach at a place called
Locust Grove, a few miles away, mounted his horse and rode to the meeting for the express
purpose of seeing that the stranger was not imposed upon. The Elder's name was Elijah H.
Davis. "He was a humble young man," says the Bishop, "the first one that I was im-
pressed was sent of God. Robert Johnson, one of the trustees, after requesting the
Elder to speak on the atonement, interrupted him and ordered him to stop. I sprang up and
said, 'He is a stranger and shall have justice. We will hear him, and then hear you.'
There were many present opposed to the Mormons, but I resolved that Mr. Davis should
be protected, if I had to meet the rabble on their own ground. I kept my eye on them and
determined to stand by him at the risk of person and property. I had friends, though
Mr. Davis had none. Mr. J. Johnson, brother to Robert, came to me as I was going out
and apologized for the latter's conduct." Though soon converted, Mr. Hunter was
not immediately baptized, but his house, from that time forth, was a home for all Mormon
Elders traveling in the vicinity.
During the winter of 1839-40 he was visited by the Prophet Joseph Smith, who was
on his way back from Washington, after presenting to President Van Buren and to
Congress the memorial of the Latter-day Saints, setting forth the wrongs they had suffered
in Missouri and asking for redress of grievances. The Prophet preached at the Seminary
and spent several days with Mr. Hunter before proceeding westward. The latter accom-
panied his visitor to Downingtown, the nearest railroad station, where he was to take the
train for Philadelphia. While waiting for the train, they called on the Hon. Joshua
Hunt, a State Senator, who received them very hospitably.
Edward Hunter became a Latterday Saint on the 8th of October, 1840, being baptized
by Apostle Orson Hyde, who was on his way to Palestine. Soon afterwards he re-
ceived a visit from the Prophet's brother, Hyrum Smith, the Patriarch of the Church.
He attended conference at Philadelphia and subscribed liberally towards the building of
the Nauvoo House and Temple. At a subsequent visit of the Patriarch's, as they were
walking along the banks of the Brandywine. Mr. Hunter (the conversation being upon
the subject of departed spirits) inquired concerning his children who were dead, particu-
larly a little boy, George Washington Hunter, an excellent child to whom he was much
attached. The Patriarch replied: "Your son will act as an angel to you— not your
guardian angel, but an auxiliary angel, to assist you in extreme trials." A year and a
half later, in an hour of deep depression, the little boy appeared to his father in vision.
Said the latter, "He was more perfect than in natural life— the same blue eyes, curly
hair, fair complexion and a most beautiful appearance. I felt disposed to keep him, and
offered inducements for him to remain. He then said in his old familiar voice, 'George
has many friends in heaven.' "
In June, 1842, Edward Hunter i-emoved with his family to Nauvoo, taking with him
seven thousand dollars in money and four or five thousand dollars in goods of different
kinds, and placing all in the hands of the Prophet to be used for the general advancement
of the cause. He had visited Nauvoo the previous September, purchasing a farm and
several town lots, and on returning to Pennsylvania had sold two of his farms there and
invested considerable means in merchandise. He paid out thousands of dollars to im-
prove his property in and around Nauvoo and furnished many persons with employment.
According to Joseph's own words, he assisted him in one year to the extent of fifteen
thousand dollars. He gave so much to the Church that finally the Prophet told him he
had done enough and to reserve the residue of his means for his own use.
About a year after his removal to Nauvoo he was arrested with several others on a
trumped-up charge of treason and taken to Carthage for trial. No one appeared against
them, and they were set at liberty. He was at the trial of the Prophet in Springfield
when Judge Pope declared, after the verdict of acquittal had been rendered, that the
Mormon leader should not be tormented any longer by such vexatious prosecutions.
During those troublous times, when the Prophet's life was sought, he was hid up for long
periods in Edward Hunter's house, and during one of these seasons of retirement he
voiced under that faithful friend's roof the latter part of the revelation upon baptism for
the dead.
Edward Hunter was one of the City Council of Nauvoo which authorized the abate-
HISTORY OF UTAH. 93
ment of the "Expositor," and, at the Prophet's request, he went to Springfield with two
others to represent to Governor Ford matters in their proper light, and ask him to use his
influence to allay the excitement and hostility that had set in like a flood against the
Mormons. Joseph's parting words to him were, "You have known me for several years;
say to the Governor under oath everything good and bad you know of me." The Mor-
mon messengers did not see the Governor, who had gone to Carthage, but they delivered
their message to his wife.
The nest that Edward Hunter saw of the Pi-ophet and his brother Hyrum was their
dead bodies when they were brought from Carthage to Nauvoo for burial. Says he:
"We formed two lines to receive them. I was placed at the extreme right, to wheel in
after the bodies and march to the mansion. As we passed the Temple there were crowds
of mourners there, lamenting the great loss of our Prophet and our Patriarch. The scene
was enough to melt the soul of man. Colonel Brewer, a United States officer, myself and
others took Brother Joseph's body into the Mansion House. When we went to the wagon
to get the corpse, Colonel Brewer taking up the Prophet's coat and hat, which were cov-
ered with blood and dirt, said, 'Mr. Hunter, vengeance and death await the perpetrators
of this deed.' At midnight Brothers D. Huntington, G. Goldsmith, William Huntington
and myself carried the body of Joseph from the Mansion House to the Nauvoo House, and
put him and Hyrum in one grave. Their death was hard to bear. Our hope was almost
gone."
Soon after the Prophet's death, Edward Hunter was ordained a High Priest and set
apart as Bishop of the Fifth Ward of Nauvoo. He was ordained by Brigham Young,
Heber C. Kimball and Newel K. Whitney, the first named being mouth. He was Bishop
of that Ward for about two years, and until he left Nauvoo in the spring or summer of
1846 to join the main body of the Saints at Winter Quarters. He was delayed by sickness
for several weeks in Iowa. By the exodus he sustained a loss in property of about fifty
thousand dollars. He spent the winter of 1846-7, while suffering much from sickness in
his family, preparing and fitting out for the West. He was appointed Captain of one
hundred wagons and followed in the wake of the Pioneers, six or eight weeks after their
departure, arriving in Salt Lake Valley September '29, 1847.
In the fall of 1849 Bishop Hunter was sent by the First Presidency back to the Mis-
souri River to superintend the emigration of the poor, agreeable to the plan instituted by
the Perpetual Emigrating Fund Company, of which he was the accredited agent. He
took with him funds to the amount of five thousand dollars, to be used for the purpose
indicated. He returned to Salt Lake City early in October, 1850.
A few days previous the death of one of his dearest friends had taken place — Bishop
Newel K. Whitney. Bishop Hunter, who had presided for some time over the Thirteenth
Ward, succeeded Bishop Whitney as the Presiding Bishop of the Church, April, 1851.
For a year or more Presidents Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball, who had acted as
counselors to his predecessor, continued to act in that capacity to him. Afterwards
Leonard W. Hardy and Jesse C. Little were his counselors. Later on, Robert T. Burton
took the place vacated by Bishop Little. Oh the 6th of April, 1853, when the corner-
stones of the Salt Lake Temple were laid, Bishop Hunter and others l'epresenting the
Presidency of the Aaronic Priesthood, laid the South-west cornerstone, and standing
thereon he delivered the oration.
It would require a volume to tell all that could be told of the life and character of this
good and noble man. Honest, straight-forward, candid even to bluntness, his heart
overflowed with kindness and he enjoyed the love and confidence of all who knew him.
Childlike and humble, he was nevertheless shrewd and discerning, and though eccentric
and sometimes brusque in manner, charitable and open-handed to all, even to tramps and
vagrants. These he would quote in his humorous way: "Hunting work, hunting work,
yes. yes, but I guess they don't want to find it very bad. Feed 'em, brethren, feed 'em.
musn't let 'em starve." He was a great exhorter to faithfulness. His familiar injunc-
tion, "pay your tithing and be blessed," has passed into a proverb.
Bishop Hunter was the husband of four wives, namely, Ann Standley, Laura Shimer,
Susannah Waim and Henrietta Spencer. He was the father of thirteen children, nine of
whom, six sons and three daughters, at last accounts were living. Among his sons the
1 test known are Rodolph E., William W., Oscar F., Edward W. and Daniel W. Their
venerable father passed away October 16, 1883, at his home in Salt Lake City. Among
those who visited him during his last illness were President John Taylor and Apostle
Eiastus Snow. His final words were similar to those uttered by the martyred Prophet as
he fell dead in Carthage jail. "Oh Lord, my God!-'
JEDEDIAH MORGAN GRANT.
*j[T was said at the funeral of Jedediah M. Grant that he was capable of living as long and
| learning as much in twenty-five years as most men could in a hundred. The speaker
4* was President Brigham Young, who in the death of the man thus eulogized had lost a
beloved friend and wise counselor, his associate in the First Presidency of the Church ; a
man who had literally worn out his life and apparently perished before his time as the
result of his zealous and incessant labors in the interests of the cause to which his life
was consecrated. It is a matter of profound regret that such men, whose examples
and precepts were an inspiration and an incentive to thousands, should pass into the
spirit world, taking with them the volume of their lives and depriving posterity of the
pleasure and profit of perusing the precious pages. This man kept no journal, but that.
the omission was not due to indolence or apathy on his part need not be told to any one
who knew him. It was not in him to neglect a duty, to shirk a responsibility, or underdo
any task that might be placed upon him. He was probably too busy in the midst of his
multifarious public tasks to note down his numerous acts and sayings — which also he may
have undervalued — and he did not anticipate, any more than the community which
mourned his untimely death, the sudden termination of his useful career. From various
sources the biographer gleans the following items of the personal experience of this
remarkable man, one of the most original and most interesting characters in Mormon
history.
Jedediah M. Grant, son of Joshua and Thalia Grant, was born at Windsor, Broome
county, New York, on the 21st of February, 1816. He was therefore but a lad of four-
teen when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized in the neighboring
town of Fayette. It was from Broome county that Joseph Knight came, who rendered
such timely assistance to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery while they were translating.
at Harmony, Pennsylvania, the golden plates of the Book of Mormon. It was there that
Mormonism made many of its earliest converts. Whether or not Jedediah M. Grant came
in contact with it at that period, we are uninformed. He was baptized March 21, 183.'}.
by John F. Boynton, afterwards one of the Twelve Apostles.
The next spring we find him enrolled as a member of Zion's Camp, on his way from
Northern Ohio to Western Missouri, and we may be sure that throughout that perilous
pilgrimage he played a brave and manly part, returning with honor, his integrity un-
shaken, his soul weighed in the balance and not found wanting. This indeed proved to
be one of the main purposes of that famous expedition, whose avowed object was "tin-
redemption of Zion;" for out of the ranks of the survivors of Zion's Camp were chosen
the Twelve Apostles and the Seventies, or assistant Apostles, the first known in tin-
Church. One of the latter was Jedediah M. Grant, who was ordained under the hands of
the Prophet Joseph Smith and others at Kirtland, Ohio, February 28, 1835. He became
a member of the First Quorum of Seventy, which included such men as Joseph Young.
Zerubbabel S.ow, George A. Smith, Amasa M. Lyman, Almon W. Babbitt, and others
who became prominent in Utah.
Soon after receiving this ordination he performed his first preaching mission, in com-
pany with Elder Harvey Stanley. Having spent the summer laboring in the ministry, he
returned to Kirtland and worked during the winter upon the Temple, and after attending
the dedication of the sacred house, went upon another mission. This time he traveled
alone, and between April, 1836, and March, 1837, visited many places in his native State,
preaching to multitudes and baptizing twenty-three persons, among them his brother
Austin. At Fallsburg he raised up a branch of the Church.
On June G, 1837, he set out from Kirtland upon his first mission to the South, a field
in which was acquired most of his missionary fame. By way of New York, Pennsylvania
and other States, he passed into North Carolina, where he made a prolonged stay, labor-
ing assiduously and with success, preaching in chapels, public buildings, private homes,
and at times in the open-air by the roadside, wherever opportunity offered. Though not
an educated man. he was wonderfully bright and intelligent, a natural logician, with a
thorough knowledge of the scriptures, a ready and forceful delivery, and a most original
and effective way of presenting and driving home an argument. Shrewd and quick-
HISTORY OF UTAH. 95
vitted, he saw in a moment the weakness of an opponent's position, and like lightning
attacked and demolished it. His style — for all that he was practical — was poetic, full of
fire and replete with imagery. Withal, though of sound judgment, prudent and far-
sighted, he was perfectly fearless, daring, dashing — just the man to please the chivalrous
and tiery Southerners. In a series of discussions with Methodist ministers he gave great
sport to the Carolinians and gained much repute as a scriptorian and debater. Having
made manv friends and some converts, he returned to Ohio in time to participate in the
general removal of the Saints to Missouri.
Leaving Kirtland on the 9th of October, he arrived at Fur West on the l'2th of
November, lS^iS. having visited on the way his brother, George D. Grant, who was a fel-
low prisoner witli the Prophet in Richmond jail. In the exodus from Missouri he accom-
panied his father's family to Knox county, Illinois, where he remained several months,
laboring in the ministry, prior to visiting, in May, 1839, the future home of his people at
Commerce, Hancock county, Illinois.
The peeled and scattered Saints were just beginning to gather at that place, where
arose the city of Nauvoo, when Jedediah M. Grant started upon his second mission to the
Southern States, to which he was called at a conference held in Quincy on the 1st of June.
His field of labor comprised Virginia and North Carolina, and among the Elders 'who ac-
companied him was his brother Joshua. He made his headquarters at Burke's Garden,
Tazewell county, Virginia, where a branch numbering some sixty members soon sprang
up. From that point radiated under his direction the energies and activities of a corps of
efficient subordinates, until a wide and extensive field was occupied. Among the friends
made by him at that place was Colonel Peter Litz, a man of considerable wealth and in-
fluence, who permitted him to hold meetings at his home. At one of them, held in the
orchard on a Sabbath day, Miss Floyd, sister to Hon. John B. Floyd, afterwards
Secretary of War. who had driven up in her carriage to where she might hear the speaker.
alighted and came forward at the close of the meeting, introduced herself and proffered
her friendship to Elder Grant. It seems that this lad}', as intelligent and well
informed as she was broad-minded and liberal, had been induced to go and hear the
"Mormon Elder"' by reading in her Bible that morning Paul's admonition, "Prove all
things; hold fast that which is good." To her amazement Elder Grant preached from
this very text, and so powerfully as to win Miss Floyd's admiration and lasting good-will.
She was a Catholic in religion, but she remarked to him. while entertaining him at her
hospitable home, that she was fully persuaded that if Catholicism was not true, Mormon-
ism was; Mormonism. in her esteem, standing next to Catholicism.
Many are the interesting anecdotes related of Jedediah M. Kraut — the Lorenzo Dow
of that region — whose fearless advocacy of truth and right, and daring denunciation of
falsehood aud wrong, with his ready speech, quick wit. incisive logic and adroit handling
of his subjects, won him many friends and admirers, made numerous converts, and set
the whole country in an uproar. The late T. B. Lewis, who traveled long afterwards as
a missionary through Virginia and North Carolina, brought home several good stories
told of him by old-time residents of those parts. One of these we give entire:
"In the early part of Elder Grant's ministry he gained quite a reputation as a ready
speaker, frequently responding to invitations to preach upon subjects or texts that might
be selected by his hearers at the time of beginning his meeting. It became a matter of
wonder with many as to how and when he prepared his sermons. In reply to their
queries, he informed them that he never prepared his sermons as other ministers did.
'Of course,' said he, 'I read and store my mind with a knowledge of Gospel truths, but
I never study up a sermon.' They did not believe he told the truth, for they thought it
impossible for a man to preach such sermons without careful preparation. So in order to
prove it, a number of persons decided to put him to the test. They asked him if he would
preach at a certain time aud place from a text selected by them, which they would give
him on his arrival at the place of meeting, thus allowing him no time to prepare. To
gratify them he consented. The place selected was Jeffersonville, the seat of Tazewell
county, at that time the home of John B. Floyd (subsequently Secretary of War), and
many other prominent men. The room chosen was in the courthouse. At the hour ap-
pointed the place was packed, Mr. Floyd and a number of lawyers and ministers being
present and occupying front seats. Elder Grant came in. walked to the stand and
opened the meeting as usual. At the close of the second hymn a clerk stepped forward
and handed him a paper. He uufolded it and found it to be blank. Without any mark
of surprise, he held it up before the audience and said:
' "My friends, I am here according to agreement to preach from such a text as these
gentlemen might select for me. I have it here in my hand. I don't wish you to become
96 HISTORY OF UTAH.
offended at me, for I am under promise to preach from the text selected; if any one is to
blame, you must blame those who selected it. I knew nothing of what text they would
choose, but of all texts this is my favorite one. You see the paper is blank (at the same
time holding it up to view). You sectarians down there believe that out of nothing God
created all things, and now you wish me to create a sermon from nothing, for this paper
is blank. You believe in a God that has neither body, parts nor passions. Such a God
I conceive to be a perfect blank, just as my text is. You believe in a church without
prophets, apostles, evangelists, etc. Such a church would be a perfect blank, as com-
pared with the Church of Christ, and this agrees with my text. You have located your
heaven beyond the bounds of time and space. It exists nowhere; consequently your
heaven is blank, like unto my text.' Thus he went on, until he had torn to pieces all the
tenets of faith professed by his hearers, and then proclaimed the principles of the Gospel
in power. He wound up by asking 'Have I stuck to the text, and does that satisfy you?'
"As soon as he sat down Mr. Floyd jumped up and said: 'Mr. Grant, if you are not
a lawyer you ought to be one.' Then turning to the people he added, 'Gentlemen, you
have listened to a wonderful discourse, and with amazement. Now take a look at Mr.
Grant's clothes; look at his coat, his elbows are almost out. .and his knees are almost
through; let us take up a collection.' Ashe sat down another eminent lawyer, Joseph
Stras, Esq., still living in Jeffersonville, arose and said, "I am good for one sleeve in a
coat and one leg iu a pair of pants for Mr. Grant.' The Presiding Elder of the M. E.
Church, South, was requested to pass the hat around, but replied that he would not take
up a collection for a Mormon preacher. 'Yes, you will,' said Mr. Floyd. 'Pass it around,'
said Mr. Stras, and the cry was taken up and repeated by the audience, until for the sake
of peace the minister had to yield. He marched around with a hat in his hand, receiving con-
tributions, which resulted in a collection sufficient to purchase a fine suit of clothes, a
horse, saddle and bridle for Elder Grant, and not one contributor a member of the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; though some subsequent!}' joined."
At another time, according to Mr. Lewis, Elder Grant was challenged by an eminent
minister named Baldwin, to a discussion. He promptly took up the gauntlet, the pre-
liminaries were arranged, and in the presence of an immense throng, which crowded the
fine, large church of the challenging party, the discussion took place. Just before it
began, Elder Grant arose and said: "Mr. Baldwin, before we proceed any further may
I ask you a question?" "Certainly," answered Baldwin. "Who stands at the head of
your church in South-west Virginia?" "I do, sir, I do," quickly and austerely replied
the one addressed. "All right," said Grant, "I wanted to know that I had i worthy foe."
A smile rippled over the audience, Mr. Baldwin looked confused, and then fell into the
trap laid for him. "Mr. Grant," said he, "I would like to ask who stands at the head of
your church in South-west Virginia?" "Jesus Christ, sir," was the prompt reply, which
had the effect of a Lyddite bomb in scattering the ideas of the reverend gentleman, giving
the Elder an advantage at the outset, which he continued to press to the end.
Another anecdote is to the effect that while he was filling an appointment in a log
schoolhouse, in an out of the way locality, two young fellows planked themselves down
on a bench immediately in front of him and began playing cards while he was speaking.
Noticing their conduct, which was beginning to disturb the meeting, Elder Grant stopped
short in his discourse, leaned over the pulpit, pointed his long finger at the two
hoodlums and fixing his eagle eye upon them, said: "Look here, young men, if the
Holy Ghost in the toe of my boot gets into the seat of your pants, you'll go out of this
house a heap sight quicker than you came in." There was no more card playing in
that meeting. "I can see the devil in your eyes,'' an irate matron once said to him. "I
didn't know that my eyes were a looking-glass," was the ready retort.
He concluded his labors in the South some time in 1842, and after a series of pro-
tracted meetings at Burke's Garden, lasting five days, during which in the intervals of
preaching he and his co-laborers were kept busy baptizing converts, he set out for Nauvoo,
followed by the blessings and good wishes of the warm-hearted Virginians, who shed
I ears at his departure.
From June, 1843, to March, 1844, he presided over the Saints in the city of Phila-
delphia, and on May 9th of the latter year started from Nauvoo with Wilford Woodruff
and George A. Smith on the memorable political tour which began just prior to the
Prophet's martyrdom. Recalled suddenly to Nauvoo, he chanced to be there at the time
of the Carthage jail tragedy, and was sent to carry the awful news to the Apostles and
Elders iu the East. He was also requested to resume his former position in Philadelphia.
Just prior to starting on this mission, July 2nd, 1844, he married Miss Caroline Van
Dyke, Bishop Newel K. Whitney performing the ceremony. His wife accompanied him
HISTORY OF UTAH. 97
to Philadelphia. While there he published a series of effective letters against the claims
put forth by Sidney Rigdon as the would-be successor to the Prophet. He returned to
Nauvoo iu May, 1S45, and on December 2nd of that year was set apart as one of the First
Seven Presidents of Seventies, under the hands of Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball,
Parley P. Pratt and other Apostles.
In the exodus of the following February he was among the first to cross the Missis-
sippi and start for the West. From Winter Quarters in the winter of 1S40-7, he went
East on a short mission, at which time he purchased tin- materials for the "mammoth
flag" of local fame. He went as far as Philadelphia, transacting important Church busi-
ness, and returned in June, 1847, iu time to cross the plaius with that season's emigration.
He was captain of the Third Hundred, and under him were Joseph B. Noble and Willaid
Snow as captains of fifties. On the Sweetwater, early in September, he reported to
President Young his recent mission and the state of public feeling in the East on the
Mormon question. At this point Captain Grant lost many of his cattle, killed by drinking
the alkali water abounding there. But this was not the worst of his misfortunes. He
had previously buried a little daughter by the wayside, and now. as he approached the
end of the long and toilsome journey, his wife died. Agreeable to her request, her re-
mains were brought in^o Salt Lake Valley for burial, arriving here early in October.
In May, 1849, when the local militia was organized, Jedediah M. Grant was elected
Brigadier-General of the First Brigade. This was the cavalry cohort, the other, com-
posed of infantry, being commanded by Brigadier-General Horace S. Eldredge. Daniel
H. Wells was Major-General of the Legion, but when, in October, 18.52, he became
Lieutenant-General, Jedediah M. Grant was promoted to the Major-Generalship, and
held that office until his death. He was a most efficient officer, courageous, energetic and
just. It is said of him that in difficulties with the Indians, he was not only wise and
tactful, but was as jealous of their rights as he was of the safety of the white settlers.
In the fall of 1849 he went East on business and was captain of the company of mis-
sionaries who traveled with him, including Apostles John Taylor, Lorenzo Snow, Erastus
Snow, Franklin D. Richards, Bishop Edward Hunter and others, most of them on their
way to Europe. While nooning on the Platte River, one cold wintry day, they were
charged upon by a large party of Cheyennes, who, gaudily attired in war-paint and
feathers, were on their way to attack a hostile band of the Crows. General Grant acted
with his usual promptness and decision, immediately forming his men into line to meet
the expected onslaught. The Indians, whose purpose was plunder rather than bloodshed,
after vainly endeavoring to break the intrepid line, or flank it, were brought to a dead
halt in front, about a rod and a half away. Some parleying ensued between the Indian
chiefs and the leading Elders, and then, after the passing of gifts and an interchange of
courtesies, the erstwhile belligerent savages shook hands with and allowed the mission-
aries to proceed on their way. General Grant returned to Utah in charge of a train of
merchandise.
Jedediah M. Grant was the first Mayor of Salt Lake City, holding the office from
Januai'y, 1851, when the city was incorporated, first by appointment of the Governor and
legislature, and from April of that year by election under the municipal charter. He was
a capable, energetic Mayor, just and impartial, and occupied the position by continuous
election as long as he lived.
He was also elected a member of the first legislative assembly of the Territory, but
resigned immediately after taking his seat in the Council, in order to go East upon a
special mission and co-operate with Utah's Delegate, Dr. John M. Bernhisel, in counter-
acting the efforts of the runaway judges, Brocchus and Brandebury, who with Secretary
Harris were seeking to spread false reports concerning the people of Utah (See chapter 23,
volume 1). Mayor Grant's letters on the absconding officials, addressed to Editor James
Gordon Bennett, the elder, and published in the New York Herald, form a series of the
raciest epistles that ever emanated from a Utah pen. They were afterwards printed in
pamphlet form and circulated widely through the East, creating considerable of a sensa-
tion. They completely spiked the guns of the would-be defamers of the Territory,
breaking the back of their report before it was presented to the public.
Returning to Utah in 18.52, Mayor Grant was again elected to the legislature, and
was chosen Speaker of the House of Representatives, a position filled by him also at the
three subsequent annual sessions. He was an excellent presiding officer, his quick per-
ception, sound practical judgment and high sense of right, enabling him to render
valual'e assistance to his fellow law-makers.
A i the death of Willard Richards in 1854, Jedediah M. Grant succeeded him as second
counselor to President Young in the First Presidency of the Cluuvii. In this capacity he
98 HISTORY OF UTAH.
performed his great and final work as the main promoter of the famous "Reformation,"
a great spiritual revival that swept like a mighty tidal wave over the Church from
the fall of 1850 into the summer following. All the leading authorities engaged in it, but
the principal worker was President Grant, who labored so zealously, arduously and in-
cessantly in its interest that he strove beyond his strength and broke down his constitution.
He died December 1, 1850, in the forty-first year of his age. His death was deeply
lamented by the whole community, and by none more pi-ofoundly than by Presidents
Young and Kimball, his immediate associates. "Oh for another Jeddie! " was a frequent
expression on the lips of President Young in after years; a simple and pathetic plaint
that spoke volumes.
President Grant left several families, but his children were not particularly numer-
ous. They numbered ten in all. Pour of his wives each bore one child, a son, named
respectively George S., Joshua F., Brigham F., and Heber J., the three last named living
and well known citizens of the State. He was the father also of Jedediah M. Grant and
Mrs. Henrietta Marshall, both of Randolph, Rich county, and of Joseph Hyrnm Grant,
one of the Presidency of Davis Stake. His most distinguished son is Apostle Heber
J. Grant, the founder of the Japanese Mission, whose versatile abilities, energetic action,
frank, ready, off-hand address and various excellent qualities, are reminiscent of his illus-
trious sire. From a passing allusion in Mayor Grant's letters to the New York Herald,
we learn that his father's paternal grandfather came from Scotland, while his later ances-
tors were all New En<^landers of the oldest stock, two of them fighting for independence
in I he War of the Revolution. '
ABRAHAM OWEN SMOOT.
fMONG the stalwarts who stood shoulder to shoulder with Brigham Young and his
compeers in the founding of this commonwealth, no man made a better record than
he whose honored name gives caption to this article. A settler of Salt Lake valley
in 1847, when he led one of the first companies of immigrants hither, he crossed
and reorossed the great plains many times in the public interest, and was one of the most
active spirits in building up the country and promoting the welfare of its people. He was
the second Mayor of Salt Lake City, and afterwards Mayor of Provo, serving simultane-
ously for many years as a member of the Territorial legislature. At the time of his death
he was a Patriarch of the Church, and for twenty-seven years had been Pi-esident of the
Utah Stake of Zion.
Untrained, so far as scholastic culture went, he was possessed of gifts that made him
equal to all emergencies, and as colonizer, financier, civic officer and legislator, as well
as missionary, Bishop and Stake President, he made his mark and wrote success upon all
his varied undertakings. He ranked with I lie best and strongest men of the community
in ability, in wisdom and in force of character. He frequently sat in council with the
General Authorities' of the Church, or was consulted by them when matters of moment
were considered affecting the welfare of the community; and this not only while he
resided in Salt Lake, but after his removal to Provo.
Large of frame, with strong features, one of the most prominent of which was a pair
of piercing black eyes set beneath bushy beetling brows; while utterly devoid of osten-
tation, there was a dignity to his presence, a, rugged grandeur to his physique that made him
a striking personality wherever he appeared. When he spoke men listened, "every word
seemed to weigh a pound," and a natural impediment in his speech (a defect that vanished
as lie wanned to his (heme) but added force and impressiveness to his delivery; like a
boulder in the bed of a mountain stream. Always practical and generally serious, he
could be mirthful in season, and sentiment as well as humor bubbled up from the recesses
of his soul like a sparkling spring on a rocky, weather- scarred mountain side. Shrewd
but honest in his dealings, and eai-nest in his convictions, no man was firmer in main-
taining what he fell to be right, or more fearless in denouncing what he believed to
be wrong. »
Abraham (). Smoot was a native American, of the old chivalrous Southern 4tock.
He was born at Owenton, Owen county, Kentucky, February 17, 1815. His anci itors
HISTORY OF UTAH. 99
were Scotch, Irish and English, and wore among- the early settlers of Virginia, whence
his parents migrated to Kentucky about the beginning of the nineteenth century.
Colonel Owen, his mother's cousin, for whom he was named, was killed at the battle of
Tippecanoe. His great grandmother, Edith Jackson, was related to the ancestors of
"Stonewall" Jackson. His father, George W. Smoot, was a physician and an attorney,
and his mother. Ann Rowlett Smoot, a remarkably bright and capable woman, combining
with her intelligence unusual strength of character. The eldest child, Nancy Beal,
married John Freeman; the eldest son, William, was a physician, and the second son,
Reed, a farmer; Martisia, the second daughter, became Mrs. Samuel Smith, mother to
Mrs. Emma Woodruff of Salt Lake City. Then followed Abraham Owen and his three
sisters, Jemima, Sophia and Cinderella.
The boy "Owen" was about seven years old when he moved with the family into
South-western Kentucky. Six years later they crossed into Tennessee, settling on Blood
River. Young Smoot grew up a farmer and backwoodsman. He received little schooling,
but was shrewd, apt and self-reliant, well fitted in various ways for his future career as
a colonizer. His father died in 1828. and his mother married again . The name of her second
husband was Levi Taylor. Most of the family embraced Mormonism, which was preached
in that part by David W. Patten, Wilford Woodruff and others. A. 0. Smoot was
baptized by Warren Parrish, March 22, 1835.
Soon after his baptism he was made a Deacon, and on February 26, 1836, Wilford
Woodruff ordained him an Elder. He now entered the ministry, traveling, preaching
and baptizing in the surrounding counties, both of Tennessee and Kentucky. At different
times he had as his companions Apostle Patten, Elder Woodruff and other prominent
missionaries. On October 13th of that year, in company with Wilford Woodruff, he
started for Kirtland, Ohio, preaching and visiting by the way. Near Louisville he called
upon some of his relatives, the Smoots and Rowletts, and then visited his birth-place.
Prior to leaving Kentucky he cast his first vote for a President of the United States,
Martin Van Buren, who was elected. He reached Kirtland on the 25th of November.
During his stay there he was kindly entertained bv Warren Parrish, who had been
the means of bringing him into the Church. On the day of his arrival he visited the
Temple, where he met for the first time the Prophet Joseph Smith. He had a view of
the famous mummies which the Prophet had purchased, and of the papyrus found with
them, from which was translated the Book of Abraham. Sunday, November 27th, he
spoke in the Temple, reporting his labors in the South. Early in December he started
to attend the Temple school, but about this time began to feel the rigor of the northern
climate and fell sick. Several weeks elapsed before he again stood upon his feet, a well
man. It was while he was at Kirtland that the spirit of disaffection arose which carried
away some of the leading Elders, Warren Parrish included. Efforts were made to induce
Elder Smoot to join them, but with characteristic firmness he repelled every overture of
the apostates.
By the advice of the Prophet and for the benefit of his health, he left Kirtland
January 25, 1837, for his old home in the South. The day before his departure he
was blessed by Father Joseph Smith, the Patriarch of the Church. He arrived at Blood
River on the 16th of February, and there found Apostle David W. Patten. Elder Henry
G. Sherwood had recently arrived from Kirtland to take charge of the branches in
Kentucky and Tennessee. After resting a few days Elder Smoot assisted his step-father
and the family to load up and start for Western Missouri, where the Latter-day Saints
were gathering. He piloted his relatives thither, preaching with Elder Sherwood en route.
Passing through St. Louis, he arrived at Far West on the 2nd of June. His mother's
family settled at Ambrosia, in Daviess county.
About the beginning of the year 1838 he went upon a five months mission through
Southern Missouri and into Arkansas, where he preached the funeral sermon of Major John
P. Houston, brother to the famous Sam'Houston, and aided some of his relatives, the
Rowletts, to move to Far West. He next assisted Surveyor Ripley in laying off the town
of Adam Ondi-Ahman. While thus engaged he came upon the ruins of an ancient altar,
the same afterwards declared by the Prophet to be the identical altar upon which Adam
offered sacrifices after being driven out of Eden. The sacred garden, the Prophet said,
was in Jackson county.
When Caldwell and Daviess counties were invaded by the Missourian mobs, and
peace was changed to war and desolation. A. 0. Smoot girded on his arms and went
forth to the field of strife in defense of his people. He was in several -skirmlshc ;s with
the enemy, and at the surrender of Far West became a prisoner in the hr.ods >j! the State
forces. While yet a captive, confined to the limits of the fallen city, he married
100 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Margaret Thompson McMeans Atkinson, a widow with one child: a woman of noble
presence and noble character, who will be remembered and revered as "Ma" Smoot.
Her <mly child, the son of her hrst husband, Charles Atkinson, bears the nam< of William
C. A. Smoot, and was one of the Utah Pioneers. The date of her second marriage was
November 11, 1838.
After the expulsion from Missouri the newly wedded pair dwelt for a season in some
old barracks at Montrose, Iowa, and subsequently settled at Zarahemla, a place founded
by the Prophet in that vicinity. In the Stake organization established there A. O. Smoot
was a member of the High Council. Soon he was called to take a mission to South
Carolina.
Accompanied by his wife he started upon this mission August 2f>. 1841, pro-
ceeding southward in a light one-horse vehicle. At Post Oak Springs, Roan county,
Tennessee, they tarried certain days with Mrs. Smoot's brother, Andrew McMeans, and
were there joined by her mother, Esther McMeans, from Alabama, whom Elder Smoot
baptized. He continued laboring in that vicinity until February, when he parted with his
wile (who returned to Nauvoo, with her mother) and set out for South Carolina. Near
Chesterville he visited "Ma" Smoot's birthplace, an incident which he mentions very
feelingly. "To think" says he. "that I stood on the ground so often pressed by the
innocent footsteps of the prattling child in whom I had found a kind and affectionate
companion and faithful friend, but who was now separated far from me, gave me feelings
of no ordinary kind." On the evening of April 5th, 1S42, in a hired hall on Queen Street,
lie preached the first Mormon sermon ever heard in the city of Charleston. L. M. Davis
was his fellow missionary. Unable to awaken any interest in Mormonism, they left
Charleston, Elder Davis sailing on April 9th for Boston, and Elder Smoot starting on
the 14th to return the way he came. He reached Nauvoo three months later to the day.
During the ensuing fall and winter he presided, by appointment of the Prophet, over
a branch of the Church at Keokuk, Iowa.
A. O. Smoot was one of those who in May, 1844, — Joseph Smith then being a
Presidential candidate — went forth to present the Prophet's views on the Powers and
Policy of the Federal Government. At Dresden, Weakley county, Tennessee, he
addressed a meeting in the court house, which was fired upon and pelted with brick-
bats while he, was speaking. Subsequently he and other Elders from Nauvoo, while
attempting to hold a conference in the same building, were expelled by the rabble,
incited by a Mr. Cardwell and a Dr. Bell, who proclaimed them to be "Abolitionists."
The basis of the charge was that section of the Prophet's political views referring to the
purchase of the slaves and their emancipation by the General Government. Elder Smoot
had distributed many copies of the pamphlet and was negotiating for the issuance of a new
edition, when he was threatened with the anti-Abolition law; he therefore deemed it
wise to desist and await further instructions from Nauvoo. At Williamsport, Maury
county, early in July, he heard the terrible tidings of the Prophet's mm'der. He at
once returned to Illinois.
In November of the same year he was given a mission by President Young and
the Apostles to preside over the Saints in the Southern States, with headquarters in
Fayette county, Alabama. His wife, with her child and mother accompanied him, the
boy being left at Eagle Creek, Tennessee, to attend school. This mission ended in the
spring of 1845. He afterwards made several trips to the South, collecting means to as-
sist the Church in the pending exodus, and preparing the scattered Saints for that event.
When at home he served on the Nauvoo police force. During the winter of 1845-6 he
officiated in the Temple.
One of the wives sealed to him during this period was Emily Hill Harris, like his
first wife a widow and a native of South Carolina. She was a woman of natural refine-
ment and of many excellent qualities. Reared in the South, she had joined the Church
while on a visit to her sister, Mrs. Mary Hill Crismon, at Macedonia, near Nauvoo, in
1843. By her first husband, Zachai'iah Harris, she had two children — William J. Harris,
now of Provo, and the late Mrs. Artimisia Maxtield, of South Cottonwood. By her second
husband, whom she married January 18, 1846, she had four — Albert, Margaret T. (Mrs.
W. H. Dusenberry) Emily and Zina Beal (Mrs. O. F. Whitney).
Mr. Smoot was sick with chills and fever when the exodus from Nauvoo began, but
he soon joined the companies moving westward. His wives Margaret and Emily accom-
panied him. His sisters also emigrated, but his mother, his brother Reed (who was never
a Mormon i and other relatives remained in Illinois. His brother William was dead. At
Winlei Quartets .he joined the regular emigration of 1847 and was captain of the division
known' as the fourth hundred, having under him as captains of fifties George B. Wallace
HISTORY OF UTAH. 101
and Samuel Russell. His company left the Elkhorn early in July and entered Salt Lake
valley in the latter part of September, being the second of the four companies to
arrive.
In the first Stake organization in Salt Lake Valley, A. 0. Smoot was a member of the
High Council. He held this position from October, 1847, until February, 1849, when he
was called to be the Bishop of the Fifteenth Ward. He had previously served as a justice
of the peace, adjudicating, he claimed, the first difficulty that arose between members of
the infant colony. When the gold seekers began to arrive, on their way to California,
Justice Smoot settled many cases for them, involving in some instances thousands of
dollars. Some of the litigants were experienced lawyers, but they invariably respected
the sound, common-sense decisions of the sturdy Mormon magistrate.
In the fall of 1849 he went with Jedediah M. Grant to the frontier, and returned the
next year, bringing a train of merchandise for Livingston & Kincaid. About that time
he was appointed to preside over Little Cottonwood Ward, and was given charge of the
Church farm in that locality. In the autumn of 1851 he was sent to Europe, and landed
at Liverpool New Year's clay, 1852. The same season he conducted across the ocean and
the plains the first company emigrating from foreign lands under the auspices of the Per-
petual Emigrating Fund Company. Having safely delivered his charge, he immediately
returned to Green River and South Pass to meet and help in another company that was
bringing sugar machinery to Utah. Bishop Smoot was then placed in charge of Sugar
House Ward, so named for the sugar works established there. He managed the Church
farm (afterwards President Young's Forest Farm) and raised beets for the manufacture
of sugar. He made several trips to the States, assisting in emigrational matters, pur-
chasing goods and supplies, and transacting other business for the Church.
In May, 1855, he married Diana Eldredge, daughter of Ira Eldredge of Salt Lake
City: and in February, 1856, he wedded his last wife, 'Anna Kerstina Morrison, a native of
Brekka, Norway. The names of these estimable ladies, with those of his other wives,
are synonyms for virtue and integrity. Mrs. Diana Smoot became the mother of thirteen
children, including Hon. A. 0. Smoot, Mrs. David Beebe, Mrs. J. W. Bean, Mrs. M. H.
Hardy, Mrs. George Robison, Mrs. Thomas Pierpont, and Messrs. Parley, Alma and
Wilford Smoot. Mrs. Anna Smoot was the mother of seven, her third-born, Reed Smoot,
being now an Apostle, and her youngest child, Ida Smoot Dusenberry, one of the general
presidency of the Relief Society. Her other living children are Mrs. George S. Taylor,
Mrs. Myron Newell, Mrs. C. A. Glazier, and her sons George and Brigham.
A. 0. Smoot had- been Alderman of the Fifth Precinct of Salt Lake City four years
when, in February, 1857, he was first elected to the Mayoralty; prior to which he had
served by appointment several months of the unexpired term of his deceased predecessor
Mayor Grant. One of his first acts as Mayor was to bring to par value the city scrip,
which had been selling at less than fifty cents on the dollar. From 1856 to 1866 his
history is the history of Salt Lake City, whose affairs he managed wisely and well during
a very important period, one calling for the exercise of courage, firmness, coolness and
sound judgment, qualities possessed by him in a high degree. It was he who brought to
Utah in 1857 the first news of the coming of the government troops, he having gone East
in June of that year to carry the mails for the newly organized "Y. X. Company," which
had established stations between Salt Lake and Independence, Missouri. How he rode
night and day to bring the war tidings, which he delivered to Governor Young and his
associates while they were celebrating the 24th of July at the head of Big Cottonwood
canyon, is told in the first volume of this historj-. During the Echo Canyon campaign he
was kept at home by his duties in the Mayoi'alty, and in the move that followed he took
his family to Pond Town, now Salem, whence he returned, after peace was declared, to
Salt Lake.
In February, 1868, he moved to Provo, being sent by President Young to preside
over the Utah Stake of Zion. His wife Emily and her family accompanied him. and sub-
sequently the rest of his household joined him there. A few days after his arrival he was
elected Mayor of Provo, and by re-election was continued in that office for twelve years.
He was also a member for the same period of the Council branch of the legislature, repre-
senting Utah and Wasatch counties.
He was barely established in his new home when the great co-operative movement
began, for the consolidation of Mormon mercantile interests. Provo had the first co-
operative store under the new system, and it was A. 0. Smoot and other enterprising
spirits who started it. He was its president. This was several months before the parent
institution at Salt Lake City opened its doors. Subsequently he and others built the
Provo Woolen Mills, which, backed by his capital and influence, and under the efficient
102 HISTORY OF UTAH.
management of his sen Reed, have achieved a splendid success. He had built at Salt
Lake City in 1807, with his partners Bishop John Sharp and General Robert T. Burton,
the Wasatch Woolen Mills, in which he owned a third interest for nearly thirty years. He
was ever an ardent advocate of home industries. At home or abroad, in public or in
private, his stalwart frame was invariably clothed in home-spun. He instituted the Provo
Lumber Manufacturing and Building Company, and was one of the founders of the First
National Bank of that city. In short, he was the leader in every movement for the devel-
opment of Utah county, and for more than a quarter of a century the financial backbone
and head of spiritual and temporal affairs in that section. He owned farms, city lots,
cattle, sheep, mercantile and bank stock; erected, occupied and rented various business
blocks, and was accounted a wealthy man.
His wealth, however, was not accumulated by a life devoted to the pursuit of riches.
While an excellent manager, a capable man of affairs, as a public servant he labored
without pay. For his ten years of faithful and efficient service as Mayor of Salt Lake-
City, when he frequently worked from six o'clock in the morning until ten and eleven at
night, imperiling health and life for the common weal, he accepted not a dollar of com-
pensation; and the same is true of his career as Mayor of Provo. At the same time, to
worthy enterprises and to the poor be gave most liberally. When the Brigham Young
Academy was threatened with ruin — a debt of more than a hundred thousand dollars
hanging over it for the erection of a new building to succeed one destroyed by fire — it
was A. 0. Smoot who came to the rescue of the institution, the success of which he
deemed a sacred legacy left him by its illustrious founder. For the debts of the Academy
he made himself personally liable, and for years before the Church was able to assume
the heavy burden, he bore it alone, at a time, too, when there seemed absolutely no hope
of relief. If one thing more than another shortened the life of President Smoot it was
the weight of care voluntarily assumed by him in behalf of that worthy but then strug-
gling institution. Over its doorway should be written three names — Brigham Young,
Abraham O. Smoot and Karl G. Maeser. President Smoot's losses in connection with
the Academy, and the general collapse following "the boom" of 1888-0, greatly reduced
the sum of his temporal possessions, and at his death his estate was so involved that the
executors, with the consent of the heirs, who had received next to nothing of their in-
heritance, finally sold the property to pay its debts.
During the long period of President Smoot's residence at Provo he left Utah but
twice, and then for purposes of change and recreation. In 1880 he went to the Sandwich
Islands, accompanied by his son Reed, and later in that decade he visited his old Kentucky
home. While upon the latter trip he met at St. Louis an old seedy, broken-down in-
dividual, who sought him out at his hotel and introduced himself as W. W. Drummond,
the same who as a Federal Judge in Utah had caused the sending of Johnston's army to
the Territory in 1857.
President Smoot's native hospitality was abundantly shown throughout his life. He
virtually kept open house, welcoming beneath his roof and around his table thousands
of travelers who passed his way. It was in these and in many other directions, that the
graces of motherly kindness and unselfishness were manifested conspicuously by his
devoted partners. His wives Margaret, Emily and Anna preceded him into the spirit
world. His wife Diana is still living. Full of years and ripe in wisdom, the venerable
Patriarch, on March 0, 1895, passed to his eternal rest.
PERRIGRINE SESSIONS.
0f\ ATERIALS are not at hand for an extended biography of this veteran, who was
'I one of the earliest settlers of Salt Lake valley, and was the Pioneer of Davis
y county. He was a Captain of Fifty in Daniel Spencer's Hundred, and arrived
upon the shores of the Great Salt Lake precisely two months after the advent of
President Young and the Pioneer company. He helped to colonize Carson valley, but soon
returned to Davis county, where he resided during the greater part of his life of nearly
four score years.
Perrigrine Sessions was a native of Newry, Oxford county, State of Maine, and was
HISTORY OF UTAH. 103
born June 15, 1814. His parents were David and Patty Sessions; the father a well-to-do
farmer and stock raiser, possessing also a grist-mill, a saw-mill and other machinery.
The son received a good education, but spent all the years of his boyhood and early man-
hood upon the home farm, which he seldom left except to market products, which had to
be taken to Portland, sixty miles away. He was a natural farmer and stock raiser, and
these pursuits, with milling, completely occupied his time. He lived with his father until
the hitter's death in 1849, and was always his partner in business, the two holding their
property in common.
Just when the Sessions family became connected with Mormonism, the writer of this
sketch is not informed. They left the State of Maine in June, 1837, and journeyed by
way of the intervening States and Lake Erie to Kirtland, Ohio, where they joined the
main body of their co-religionists. Perrigrine Sessions was then a married man, having
wedded Julia Killgore September 31, 1834.
A few years later the family took up their residence at Nauvoo, Illinois, where they
remained until the exodus. Mr. Sessions was a member of the Nauvoo police force, and
one of the body guard of the Prophet Joseph Smith. From Winter Quarters, on the
Missouri River, he and his family crossed the plains to Salt Lake valley in the emigra-
tion of 1847.
Four days after his arrival at the Pioneer settlement, Perrigrine Sessions moved his
wagons northward about ten miles, and camped upon the spot where sprang up Sessions'
Settlement, since called Bountiful. There he located permanently, and was the first set-
tler of the section now comprised in Davis county.
When Johnston's army invaded Utah iu 1857-8, the Sessions family went south as
far as American Fork, taking with them twenty-eight wagon loads of provisions and uten-
sils; but after peace was declared they returned to their home in the north. Mr.. Sessions
continued in farming and stock raising, and also engaged in the milling business with
President Heber C. Kimball. Later he took stock iu the Bountiful and Brigham City
Co-opei-ative institutions, and was also interested in Z. C. M. 1. at Salt Lake City. From
1871 to 1877 he was the postmaster at Bountiful.
Perrigrine Sessions was counselor to the first Bishop of North Canyon Ward — the
first ward organization in his neighborhood — and held that position until the ward was
re-organized under its new name Bountiful. Subsequently he was President of the High
Priests' Quorum of Davis Stake for a number of years. Prior to that he held the office
of a Seventy, to which he was ordained at Kirtland in 1S37.
His missionary record is as follows: In 1839-40 he went upon a mission to Maine,
and again visited that State as a missionary in 1841-2. From September, 1852, until
August, 1854, he was on a mission to England, and in 1856-7 was colonizing with a
portion of his family in Carson valley, then in Utah, but now in Nevada. In 1868 he
again visited his native State, but returned home sick the year following. In 1870 he
went to Maine to gather genealogical information, and in 1877—8 was there on a mission,
in company with Elders William I. Atkinson and Judson Tolman.
In the building of temples, churches, school houses, and in the immigration and sup-
port of the poor, Perrigrine Sessions played his part. He was industrious, frugal and
thrifty, and gathered around him considerable property. He had a large family — nine
wives and fifty-two children — thirty-eight of the latter living at last accounts, and at his
death he left to each of his wives a comfortable home, with ample means to support and
educate his children. He died at East Bountiful June 3, 1893.
JOSEPH HORNE,
•■NAPTAIN JOSEPH HORNE 'S introduction into Utah history came as early as Octo- ,
f^/ ber, 1847, when at the head of fifty wagons, a portion of the first emigration that
^"^ followed the Pioneers from Winter Quarters, he entered Salt Lake valley, which
was thenceforth his home. A Latter-day Saint since 1836, he had passed with
his people through the most troublous scenes in their experience, holding successively the
offices of Deacon, Elder and Seventy. In Utah he explored and colonized extensively and
held various public positions, such as school trustee, justice of the peace, poundkeeper,
104 HISTORY OF UTAH.
watermaster, and member of the city council of Salt Lake. He also became a Bishop's
counselor, a High Councilor and finally a Patriarch, holding the last named position at
the time of his death.
Joseph Home, son of Joseph and Maria Maidens Home, was a native of London,
England, when- he was born January 17, 1812. When he was six years old his parents
emigrated to Canada and settled at a place called Little York, now the city of Toronto.
They were of the poorer class of people, the father being a shoemaker by trade, and as
there were very few schools in the country districts, where they dwelt, the boy Joseph
had little opportunity for education. About the year 1822 the family moved eight miles
into the timbered country to open up a farm, and there his time was spent clearing land
and farming until he was twenty-four years of age, when he married.
The lady who became his wife was Miss Mary Isabella Hales, like himself a native of
England, but at that time a resident in his neighborhood. The date of their marriage
was May 9, 1836. Two months later the young couple were baptized into the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day-Saints. In the spring of 1837 they became acquainted with
the Prophet Joseph Smith, and in the following year moved to Far West, Missouri, where
they passed through the mob troubles of that period. From 1839 to 1S42 they resided at
Quincy, Illinois, prior to moving to Nauvoo. Soon after settling at the latter place Mr.
Home engaged in mercantile, business, which he continued as long as he remained
there. He was ordained a Seventy, and shortly afterwards was set apart as one of the
presidency of the twenty-eighth quorum of Seventy.
He left Nauvoo in February, 1846, in the first company of Saints that started for the
West. His family then consisted of himself, his wife and three children— boys. His
daughter, Elizabeth Ann, was born at Mount Pisgah as they journeyed. They also
brought with them a man and his wife and a boy who drove one of their teams. They
spent the next winter on the Missouri river, and on the 15th of June, 1847, resumed their
westward journey. Bishop Edward Hunter was captain of the company in which they
traveled, and under him Mr. Home was captain of the first fifty wagons. They arrived in
Salt Lake Valley on the 6th of October.
Up to the spring of 1849, Mr. Home and his family lived in the Old Fort, and then
moved into the Fourteenth Ward of Salt Lake City. In August, 1850, he was called by
President Brigham Young as one of a committee of four to explore Sanpete valley, his
associates being William W. Phelps, Dimick B. Huntington and Ira Willis. While on
this trip he with Messrs. Phelps and Willis ascended Mount Nebo, so named by Judge
Phelps. They located the site of Manti, and dedicated the whole valley for settlement
by the Latter-day Saints. In November of the same year Mr. Home accompanied Parley
P. Pratt's exploring expedition to the Rio Yirgen river, returning in February, 1851. In
the fall of that year he was one of a company called to go with George A. Smith to Iron
county, where they founded the settlement of Parowan.
From 1854 to 1858 he superintended the tithing labor, team work, etc., on the Tem-
ple block at Salt Lake City, and during the latter year was called by President Young to
take charge of a company of men and go to the Rio Virgen, there to make and work a
cotton farm. This occupied two years. In 1861 and 1862 he had charge of a company
of men and teams that went back to the Missouri river for emigrants.
While Salt Lake City was yet in its infancy he was elected a member of the city
council and held that position until the year 1858. In 1878 he was elected justice of the
peace for the Second Precinct, holding that office for six years. He was city pound-
keeper for four years and for several years city, watermaster, also serving as a school trustee.
In 1S52 he became a counselor to Bishop Abraham Hoagland, of the Fourteenth
Ward, and held that position until the spring of 1861. On June 4th, 1873, he was made
a member of the High Council of the Salt Lake Stake of Zion, and acted as such until
March 18, 1890, when, owing to a defect in his hearing, he was honorably released from
that position. On the same day he was ordained a Patriarch under the hands of Presi-
dents Wilford Woodruff, George Q. Cannon and Joseph F. Smith, the second named
being mouth. The venerable Patriarch notes in his journal that he has done work for the
living and the dead in all the Temples that have been reared by the Latter-day Saints.
Up to 1888 he continued to reside in the Fourteenth Ward, but during that year he moved
into a new home that he had built in the Eighteenth Ward.
Patriarch Joseph Home died at his home in Salt Lake City on the 27th day of April,
1897. He was the father of twenty-live children, fifteen of them, including three pairs of
twins, being the children of his first wife, Mary Isabella Hales. The remaining ten are
the children of his second wife, Mary P. Shepherd, whom he married in 1856. The
Homes are an exemplary family, highly esteemed in the community.
JOHN NEFF.
J?r*HE founder of Mill Creek, where h" built the first grist-mill south of Salt Lake City,
f#) the subject of this narrative was a native of Strasburg. Lancaster county, Pennsyl-
^jr vania. and was born September 19, 1794. His parents were John and Barbara
Herr Neff. They were wealthy and gave their son a good education, both in Eng-
lish and in German. He was particularly noted for his fine penmanship. His boyhood
and early manhood were passed in his native place, where he became a farmer and stock
raiser and withal a shrewd business mau. His father and Mr. Frank Kendig were the
owners of a woolen factory near his home, but failed in business when John was quite
young. He bought them out, thus obtaining his start in life, securing the factory at a
very low figure, as the neighbors, out of respect, would not bid against the son in pur-
chasing his father's property. While carrying on farming and stock-raising he also had
a distillery and manufactured liquor.
In politics he was a Whig, and was intimately acquainted with President Buchanan,
Thaddeus Stevens and other leading politicians of the time. In his youth he saw General
LaFayette, during his last visit to America, and would often describe the personal ap-
pearance of the distinguished Frenchman. He as well as his parents was highly
respected, their names being among the most honored in their neighborhood.
The first Mormon meeting attended by John Neff resulted in his conversion to the
faith of the Latter-day Saints. The meeting was held in a schoolhouse near his home in
Lancaster county, and the preacher was Elder Henry Deem. Soon after this he was
baptized, and from that hour until his death his religion was to him the most precious
thing in existence.
In the year 1821 he married Mary Barr, daughter of Christian and Susanna Brene-
man Barr. who was ever a faithful and devoted companion, united with him in all things.
In the spring of 1844, accompanied by his wife and child, a daughter named Barbara, he
visited Nauvoo, Illinois, for the purpose of seeing the Prophet Joseph Smith, and pur-
chasing property in the City of the Saints, with a view to moving there at an early day.
The visitors were warmly welcomed by the Prophet, whom they heard many times in
public and in private. On one occasion he said in their hearing that he should not live
long. They stayed during their visit at the Mansion House, and left Nauvoo about six
weeks before the martyrdom.
Returning to their home in Pennsylvania, they remained until the summer of 1S46,
when, having disposed of their property at a great sacrifice, they set out to join their
people, who were then in the midst of the exodus from Illinois. Mr. Neff had an excel-
lent outfit, for he was still well-to-do, notwithstanding his financial sacrifices. Histeams,
carriages and equipment were of the best.
He passed the winter of 1S46-7 on the Missouri River, where he outfitted Orrin
Porter Rockwell, one of the Pioneers; and after their departure for the West he made
preparations to follow them in the first company of emigrants to Salt Lake valley. He
was organized in the division commanded by Jedediah M. Grant, and between him and
Captain Grant, Uncle John Young and other prominent men there sprang up a warm
friendship. He entered the valley on the 2nd of October.
He first made his home in the "'Old Fort,'' but early in the spring of 1848 he began
the construction of a grist mill below the mouth of Mill Creek canyon. During the summer
he moved out to that vicinity, where sprang up a settlement of which he was virtually the
founder. His mill was completed and began to grind during the winter of 1S48-9.
Father Neff was active from the first in developing the agricultural resources of the
country, planting potatoes from seed brought by the Pioneers. During the dark days
that followed, when the crops of the settlers were threatened and at times devoured by
crickets and grasshoppers, he was always hopeful and predicted the prosperity that
would follow. He was a generous and charitable mau. freely imparting of his substance
for the relief of the poor and needy.
7
106 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Modest and retiring, he shrank from public life and notoriety, and the offices held
by him were few. In the Church he was a High Priest, and he accompanied President
Young and party on a mission to Salmon River. He also acted as a commissioner to
locate University lands. This seems to have been the extent of his official service,
though not by any means the limit of his usefulness to the public.
John Neff was the father of five sons and five daughters. His youngest son and
name-sake is now Bishop of East Mill Creek. The honored sire departed this life May 9,
1869, at his old home in the settlement that he founded.
LORIN FARR.
^-"*HE Fairs of Utah are a numerous and an influential family, especially in Weber
f!j>J county, where the subject of this story resides. The life of Hon. Lorin Farr has
jj been active, useful, and replete with interesting incidents. Than he, none of the
founders of our States have made more honorable records, whatever may be said
of more illustrious ones. To speak of greater gifts and larger opportunities, is not to dis-
parage those possessed by a man whose abilities as a colonizer, a law-maker and an
executive are so well known and recognized. The simple fact that for twenty-two years
he was mayor of the second city in Utah is an eloquent tribute to his worth and the es-
teem in which he was held by his fellow citizens. Those were times, too, when the best
men were sought for and put in office, men of honesty and integrity, who could be relied
upon to expend the public revenues wisely and economically and administer the affairs of
government in the interest of the entire people. No man was given office as a reward
for political service, partisan politics was almost unknown, and the spoils system had no
place in public life. For a period of equal length to that during which he was Mayor of
Ogden, Mr. Farr presided over the Weber Stake of Zion, and for twenty-eight years he
represented Weber, Box Elder and Cache counties, and some of the time Carson county,
in the Territorial legislature.
Lorin Farr was born July 27, 1820, in Waterford, Caledonia county, Vermont. His
parents were Winslow and Olive Hovey Freeman Farr, and his earliest American ances-
tor was George Farr, who emigrated from London, England, in 1629, as a ship-builder for a
Boston company. His father was a well-to-do farmer, prominent and influential, holding
the office of judge of the county court. When Lorin was about eight years old the family
moved to Charleston, Orleans county, forty miles north of their former home, and it was
there that they became connected with Mormonism. They were converted under the
preaching of Orson Pratt who, by the laying on of hands, was instrumental in healing
Mrs. Farr of consumption and other ailments from which she had been a sufferer for five
years. The healing was instantaneous and permanent; she who was then an invalid,
thirty-two years of age, living until she was ninety-four.
Lorin was baptized a Latter-day Saint in the spring of 1832, being then eleven years
of age. Five years later he removed with his parents to northern Ohio, and in the gen-
eral Mormon migration from that part to the State of Missouri, he and his brother Aaron
walked the whole distance from Kirtland to Far West. This was in the spring of 1838.
The following winter he was in the exodus of his people from Missouri to Illinois, and
while in both those States he lived a good deal of the time in the family of the Prophet
Joseph Smith.
Hitherto a farmer and a carpenter, Lorin, who had received a good common educa-
tion, now turned his attention to school teaching. He taught for a number of years at
Nauvoo and the vicinity, the children of the Prophet and those of Brigham Young,
Heber C. Kimball, John Taylor and other leading men being among his pupils. In the
spring of 1842, by direction of the Prophet, he was ordained an Elder of the Church, and
in the fall of 1844, under the hands of Elder Charles C. Rich, was ordained to the office
of High Priest. While still at Nauvoo, on New Year's day, 1845, he married his first
wife, Nancy B. Chase. Early the next year he bade farewell to that city and the State
of Illinois, and with the main body of the exiled Saints passed over the frozen Mississippi
and traveled across the Territory of Iowa on his way to the Rocky Mountains.
From the Missouri river, where he remained until the summer of 1847, he journeyed
HISTORY OF UTAH 107
westward in the companies that followed immediately behind the Pioneers, leaving the
Elk Horn in June. These companies comprised about six hundred wagons, with fifteen
hundred human beings and five thousand head of stock. His individual outfit was a
wagon, two yoke of oxen, two yoke of cows and provisions to last him and those depend-
ent upon him eighteen months. His family was then small, consisting of his wife and
his little son Enoch. He first traveled in A. O. Smoot's hundred and George B. Wal-
lace's fifty, but during the latter part of the journey he was in Daniel Spencer's hundred
and Ira Eldredge's fifty. He reached Salt Lake valley September 21, 1847.
After living awhile in the "Old Port,'' he moved onto a lot north-west of the Temple
block and adjoining the corner now occupied by the residence of Hon. Moses Thatcher.
His first domicile in the valley was his wagon box, taken off the running-gears and made
into a temporary abode; but he and his brother Aaron soon hauled logs from the canyon
and built homes of a more comfortable character. Their houses in the fort had whip
sawed lumber floors and were among the best constructed there. Lorin had brought
with him from Winter Quarters all kinds of seeds, and these he planted in the spring of
1848. Most of his crop was devoured by the crickets before they were destroyed by the
gulls, but he raised enough to support his family till another harvest time, and had con-
siderable to spare. Some of his neighbors were forced to eat thistle roots, raw hides and
even wolf meat. Many put their families upon rations. He was not reduced to this nec-
essity, owing to the fact, he says, that he had an economical wife, who managed so well
that the family had enough to eat and something to give away.
In March, 1850, by special request of President Young, Lorin Fair removed to
Ogden "to locate and take charge of the northern colonies.'' He with Charles Hubbard
built, in the summer of the same year, the first saw mill and grist mill north of Salt. Lake
City. In the fall he bought out Mr. Hubbard and conducted the milling business alone
for several years, after which he took in as a pai'tner his brother Aaron.
In the fall of 1851 the colonists on the Weber had considerable trouble with the
Indians, caused by the accidental killing of the Shoshone chief Terakee by Urban Stew-
art, one of the settlers. The chief, who was a noble specimen of his race, and very
friendly to the whites, had gone into Mr. Stewart's corn-field one night aboiit eleven
o'clock to get his horses out of the corn, when the owner, hearing a noise and supposing
it to proceed from some animal, wild or tame, that had strayed into his enclosure, iinpi'u-
dently fired his gun in that direction. The bullet struck Terakee, killing him instantly.
Much beloved by his people, his tragic death was deeply lamented, and for a time it
seemed as if the Shoshones could not be placated, but would take revenge on the whole
colony for the unwise act of one of its members. As it was, the Indians, on the day fol-
lowing the accident, shot and killed one of Mr. Farr's men, his best mechanic, while at
work upon his mills. Mr. Stewart regretted his rashness as much as any one, but that
did not bring the dead to life, though his explanation and apologies, with the protesta-
tions of his associates, did much to appease the wrath of the red men. The settlers,
however, fearful of a massacre, lived for several years in forts. A large portion of the
immigration of 1851 was sent to strengthen the Weber county settlements. The first
military organization of the county was formed about this time; it comprised all the mili-
tia in the Territory north of Davis county, and was organized by President Lorin Farr.
Elected Mayor of Ogden in the spring of 1851, he was re-elected every two years
until he had had ten consecutive terms of office. He retired in November, 1870, but in
1876 was again elected for two years, making his aggregate period in the Mayoralty
twenty-two years. From 1852 until 1880 he was a member of the Utah legislature.
Meantime, in the summer of 1868, in connection with Chauncey W. West and Ezra T.
Benson, he took a contract from Governor Leland Stanford, of California, President of
the Central Pacific railroad, and did the grading for two hundred miles of that road west
of Ogden.
In November, 1870, President Farr took his first and only foreign mission, which
was to Europe. He had always been of a religious turn, and had done much preaching
in his time, but his ministerial labors were generally at home, where his services were
most needed. He not only preached the gospel, but practiced it, "trying to persuade
men, women and children to live better lives in every way. I have labored all my life,''
he says, "to promote religious sentiment and make laws to protect the same. I have
tried to do all the good I could, and as little harm as possible.''
Mr. Farr was a member of the Constitutional Convention, which in 1895 framed the
State Constitution upon which Utah was admitted into the Union. Since then he has led
a quiet, uneventful life at his home in the city of Ogden. He is the father of forty child-
ren. His first wife, who has been named, and his plural wives, Sarah Giles, Olive Ann
108 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Jones, Mary Bingham and Nicoline Erickson, are all dead. He has recently married
again. Some years ago Mr. Farr met with an accident, a very painful fall, which at
first threatened to be fatal, but he recovered and regained much of his old time sprightly
vigor. At this writing he is in the eighty-third year of his age.
JACOB HOUTZ.
(7^ OR many years a prominent citizen, both of Salt Lake and Springville.Jacob Houtz made
"tv" a record as an enterprising and successful man of business, a founder and promoter
of various industries. He was born near Selin's Grove, Union county, Pennsylvania,
October 12, 1814, and his boyhood and early manhood were passed in the same locality.
His parents were prospei'ous, owning a fine farm on the banks of the Susquehanna river,
and their son received as good an education as the time and place could afford. When
not at school he helped his father upon the farm.
Jacob was but seven years old when his mother, Elizabeth Zellir Houtz passed from
earth, but he found a good friend in Catherine Zellir, his mother's sister, who
became his father's second wife. He remained at the old homestead until his own mar-
riage, in January, 1840. The maiden name of his wife was Lydia Mace.
In September, 1844, he became a Latter-day Saint, and at Nauvoo, about two years
later, was ordained to the office of a Seventy. Accompanying his people into the wilder-
ness, Mr. Houtz found himself, at the opening of the year 1847, at Council Bluffs and in
May of that year he joined the emigration that was being organized near Winter Quarters
to follow the Pioneers across the great plains. He was outfitted with two wagons, two
ox-teams and a sufficiency of food and clothing for himself and family. They traveled in
Daniel Spencer's hundred", and arrived in Salt Lake valley on the 23rd of September.
The Houtzes settled first at Salt Lake City, where the head of the family became a
Bishop's counselor, first to Bishop William Hickenlooper, and afterwards to Bishop
Elijah F. Sheets, of the Eighth Ward, holding the latter position until he moved from
Salt Lake to Springville.
Meantime, in September, 1852, he was called with Elder Orson Spencer upon a mis-
sion to the kingdom of Prussia. They arrived at Hamburg on the 22nd of November,
and three days later reached Berlin. Mr. Houtz writes: "Our passports having been
presented to the government officials, we were in due time required to appear at police
headquarters, where we were closely scrutinized and thoroughly questioned as to our
business, our religion and the causes that brought us to that country. The court, determ-
ining that the Gospel as taught by the Latter-day Saints would not be permitted in
Prussia, made an order prohibiting its introduction and commanding us to leave Berlin
and the kingdom by seven o'clock next morning, and not return, on pain of transporta-
tion. We applied to the American legation at Berlin (Messrs. Bernard and Fay) for such
relief as they could give us, but were informed that the laws of Prussia were absolute,
the religion national, and that wisdom would dictate obedience to the order. Conse-
quently we returned to Liverpool, reporting to President Samuel Richards, of the British
Mission, the unfavorable treatment we had received. We were advised by him to return
to America, and lay the matter before Apostle Orson Pratt, then editing "The Seer" at
Washington, D. C. We did so, and Brother Pratt advised our return to Utah." While
yet in the East Elder Houtz visited his birthplace, where he enjoyed a brief stay among
his relatives, one of whom, his widowed sister, Mrs. Catherine Boyer, he converted, and
she, with six small children, accompanied him to Utah. He arrived home in September,
1853.
Since 1851 he had been interested in business at Springville, where he had taken up
a farm and built a grist mill on Spring Creek, about a mile north of the village. In the
spring of 1854 he began at that place the erection of a second flouring mill, and in 1855
completed one of the best mills in the Territory. In 1803, in partnership with William J.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 109
Stewart and William Bringhurst, he began the erection of a cotton factory, which was
completed in 186G-7 at a cost of about eighteen thousand dollars. In the spring of 1868
Mr. Houtz made Springville his permanent home. During the Walker, Blaekhawk and
other Indian wars he rendeied material aid to the fighting frontiersmen in the way of
supplies, equipment and other necessaries. In 1869 he fulfilled a mission to the States.
Forty years of his active life were passed in milling, manufacturing, merchandizing
and farming, but after the year 1888, he followed the more quiet and peaceful labors of
fruit and farm cidture. His wife Lydia died that year. He had two other wives, and his
children in all number fourteen. His death occurred at Springville, December 11, 1896.
He was the father of Mrs. Mary E. Snow, wife of the late President Lorenzo Snow, and
others of his descendants are well known citizens of the commonwealth.
ELIJAH F. SHEETS.
QS Captain of Ten in the immigration of 1847, Elijah F. Sheets, the venerable
Bishop of the Eighth Ward, came to Salt Lake valley in September of that year.
During most of the time since, though he has colonized and lived in other parts
of L'tah, Salt Lake City has been his home. He was one of our earliest Aldermen.
and has held various other positions of prominence, among them those of Traveling
Bishop and Assistant to the Trustee in-Trust.
A native of Chester county, Pennsylvania, Elijah Funk Sheets, son of Frederick
Sheets and his wife Hannah Page, was born March 22, 1821. His parents were in
moderate circumstances, and followed farming for a livelihood. He received but little
education, either before or after their death, which double calamity came upon him when
he was only six years old. Between the ages of eight and sixteen, he attended school
about six weeks in each year. For two years after the death of his father and mother he
lived with the parents of the latter, and then sought and found employment with Edward
Hunter, the future Presiding Bishop, who became his life-long friend and associate. This
was before either of them had heard of Mortnonism.
He was employed for nine years at farming and stock-raising, and resided during
that period in Mr. Hunter's family. Thus early was he initiated into the duties that fell to
him so abundantly in after years, when he superintended the live-stock interests of the
Church. At seventeen, having quit Mr. Hunter's employ, he apprenticed himself for three
years to Taylor Dillworth. to learn the blacksmith's trade. It was during his apprentice-
ship that Mormonism was preached in Chester county and the vicinity by Lorenzo D.
Barnes, Edwin D. Woolley and other Elders from Nauvoo. He embraced the Gospel, as
taught by them, and was baptized July 5. 1840, by Elder Erastus Snow.
In 1841 he moved to Nauvoo, arriving there in September. He was one of a hundred
men who volunteered to work free on the Xmuvoo Temple for a period of six months, be-
ginning with the spring of 1842. Having fulfilled this contract, he went on a mission to
his old home in Pennsylvania, accompanied by Elder Joseph A. Stratton. He was gone
twenty months. The}* baptized about sixty souls, and returned with a company of
thirty to Nauvoo.
Mr. Sheets had only been home a few days, when, on May 21, 1844, he started upon
a mission to England. Having fulfilled this mission, at the expiration of nearly two years
he returned to Nauvoo in time to join the exodus of the Saints from Illinois. Owing to
his long absence from home he was poorly prepared for the long journey that lay before
him. but with one yoke of oxen, one cow and an old wagon of his own, with another yoke
of oxen borrowed from Elder Stratton. he made a start about May 1st, 1846, following
the trail of the companies that had preceded him to Mount Pisgah, Garden Grove and
Winter Quarters.
At the last named place he tarried one winter, having a serious time with sickness,
by which he lost his wife, Margaret Hutchinson, whom he had married January 16. 1846,
the day that he was released from his English mission. He also buried at Winter Quarters
his first-born child. He married his second wife, Susannah Musser, April 6, 1S47, and about
110 HISTORY OF UTAH.
the 1st of June started for the Rocky Mountains, following in the wake of the Pioneers. He
was a captain of ten wagons in Perrigrine Sessions' fifty, Daniel Spencer's hundred.
Among the incidents of the journey, he mentions a vast herd of buffalo coming up to
water at the Platte, and states that it was only after a great deal of labor, shouting and
shooting that they were able to turn the tremendous herd and prevent the whole camp,
women, children and all, from being trodden under foot. The date of arrival in Salt
Lake valley was the 22nd of September.
After camping in the "Old Fort" and unloading his wagon, Mr. Sheets went into
the canyon to help make roads and get out logs for a house and for fuel during the win-
ter. He then began laboring at his trade (blacksmithing) with Burr Frost, and continued
at that work until December, 1850, when he was called with George A. Smith and a
hundred and twenty others to go south and settle Iron county. Upon the site of Parowan
he and his family resided until the spring of 1851, when he was called back to Salt Lake
City. Here he worked at farming and blacksmithing until he was appointed by the
municipal authorities Watermaster and Street Supervisor. Soon he was elected a mem-
ber of the City Council, during Mayor Grant's administration, and subsequently was
Alderman of the First Municipal Ward under Mayor Smoot for a period of twelve years.
On May 11, 1856, Elijah F. Sheets was taken from the Second Quorum of Seventies,
of which he was one of the Presidents, and ordained a High Priest and set apart as Bishop
of the Eighth Ward, which position he still holds. Associated with him as counselors
have been such men as Jacob Houtz, George Woodward, Levi Stewart, Robert Daft,
Alexander Pyper, Henry W. Lawrence, J. D. T. McAllister, Joseph McMurrin, Isaac
Brockbank and others.
'"In February, 1868," says Bishop Sheets, "I was called with many others by Presi-
dent Young to Provo, to try and bring order out of chaos. On our arrival there, the
Utah Stake was reorganized, with A. 0. Smoot as President and William Miller and my-
self as counselors. I was also elected a city councilor. We commenced to build the
Provo Woolen Mills, in which work I took an active part. I also, with A. O. Smoot, took
a contract to help build the Union Pacific railroad. We organized a company of about
seventy-five men on a co-operative plan, and contracted for fifty thousand dollars worth of
work. We made a good profit. President Smoot and myself built by contract the Co-
operative East Store of Provo. From October, 1869, I was absent on a six months' mis-
sion to Pennsylvania and New York. In February, 1870, I was appointed Assessor and
Collector of Utah county."
In April, 1871, Bishop Sheets was again summoned back to Salt Lake, where
he was appointed Traveling Bishop for Utah, Juab, Millard, Sevier, Sanpete and Tooele
counties. It was his duty to take general supervision of the Church tithing in those dis-
tricts, and see that it was forwarded, in kind as received, to the General Tithing Store,
unless otherwise directed by the First Presidency. In August of the same year he was
given charge of all the Church stock and pasture lands, succeeding Briant Stringham,
deceased, in that place of trust. In the winter of 1872-3 he accompanied President Young,
Colonel Thomas L. Kane and others to St. George, at which time the Temple at that
place was located. In April, 1S73, he was chosen by President Young an assistant to the
Trustee-in-trust, which appointment was continued under the administration of President
Taylor.
Bishop Sheets has always been a thrifty and substantial citizen, a promoter of worthy
enterprises, ever interested in the welfare of the people and the State at large. As early
as the "fifties" he was a Major in the Nauvoo Legion, and as late as the "eighties" an
Alderman of Salt Lake City. He is a stockholder in Z. C. M. I., in the Provo Woolen
Mills, the Provo National and Savings Bank, Zion's Savings Bank and Trust Company
and the State Bank of Utah.
His household is of a patriarchal character. He entered into the order of plural
marriage in February, 1857, when he married Elizabeth Leaver. In December, 1861, he
wedded Emma Spencer. He has had twenty-eight children, most of whom are living.
Being liable to prosecution under the Edmunds Law, in October, 1887, he went into semi-
retirement, as most of the Church authorities had previously done. But it was not for
long. Preferring to face the issue, on the 13th of October, 1888, he gave himself up to
the United States marshal, and going before Chief Justice Sanford, in the Third Dis-
trict Court, there pleaded guilty to the charge of unlawful cohabitation — the living with,
or having of more than one wife — and received his sentence, a fine of one hundred and
fifty dollars and costs and eighty days imprisonment in the Utah penitentiary. About a
uundred and fifty other Elders of the Church were serving sentences for similar causes at
tne same time. Since his release from prison the veteran has lived a quiet, retired life.
HISTORY OF UTAH. Ill
attending faithfully to his ecclesiastical and other duties, and devoting much time to
sacred labors in the Salt Lake Temple, where he has been one of the regular workers
since the dedication.
JOHN NEBEKER.
JOHN NEBEKER was the eldest of five brothers who were among the earliest settlers
of Utah. Three besides himself — Henry, Peter and George — came to Salt Lake
valley in 1847, and the other, Lewis, arrived a few years later. All the Nebekers
of this region are descendants of these brothers, and all of that name in America
are related to them. John was captain of ten in George B. Wallace's fifty and
A. 0. Smoot's hundred, a part of the first emigration that came to make homes in the
midst of the Rocky Mountains. As colonizer, civic officer, legislator, and every other
capacity in which he acted, he was a faithful, industrious worker and an honest, straight-
forward man.
His parents were George and Susannah Meridith Nebeker, and he was nest to the
eldest of their eight sons and two daughters. The date of his birth was August 1, 1813;
the place, Newport, Newcastle county, Delaware. Up to thirteen years of age he attended
the common schools of his neighborhood, and then studied at home under the tutelage
of his father, who had a finished commercial education. The latter was foreman of a
cotton factory in Delaware and a farmer in Illinois. He was also a government
surveyor in Ohio. The mother was an intelligent and thoroughly good woman, the
daughter of a Baptist clergyman of Wilmington, Delaware.
Their son John, who beeame proficient in mathematics, leaned toward civil engi-
neering, and also had a taste for the legal profession. He would have succeeded in
either had he been given the necessary education. At Covinsrton, Fountain county,
Indiana, he learned the saddle and harness-making trade, and this with farm work and
labor in the cotton factory occupied his time until he attained his majority. Moving to
Vermillion county, Illinois, he there made a home, dealt in horses, bought and sold
furs, and was accounted a solid citizen. In politics he was a Whig, but he had many warm
friends in the Democratic party. He was now a married man, having wedded Lurena
Fitzgerald, a native of Pennsylvania, at Reily, Butler county, Ohio, October 25, 1835.
Mr. Nebeker became a Latter-day Saint during a visit to Nauvoo in the winter
of 1845-6; his wife and his mother having previously been converted to the Mormon
faith. Prior to taking this step he had thought of going to Oregon, but now he deter-
mined to follow the fortunes of the Saints. His political friends sought to dissuade
him from his purpose, offering him various inducements to remain, but he was firm in
his resolve to share the lot of his exiled co-religionists.
With a good outfit of wagons and cattle he left Vermillion county in the fall ot
1846, and arrived at Winter Quarters on the Missouri in time to assist in fitting out the
Pioneers, one of whom, Perry Fitzgerald, was his wife's brother. After their departure
he joined the general emigration, which in June, 1847, set out for the Rocky Mountains.
On the way his son Ashton was run over by a wagon and had his thigh broken. The
fractured bones were set by Luke Johnson and Henry I. Doremus, the boy playing
with a pocket knife while the operation was in progress, which was thought remarkable,
no soothing drug having been administered to the little hero to prepare him for the
ordeal. The date of arrival in Salt Lake valley was the '20th of September.
Mr. Nebeker and his familv. having lived iu the "South Fort," an adjunct of
the "Old Fort," until the spring "of 1849, moved onto a city lot (lot 4, Block 116, Plat "A,"
Salt Lake City survey) and in that vicinity, it is claimed, he cut the first wheat that
ripened and was harvested in this inter-mountain region. It is also said that he had one
of the two apple trees that first bore fruit in Utah, the other tree being raised by President
Brigham Young. The Nebeker tree ripened its fruit the first year of bearing. He took
a great interest in the cultivation of fruit trees, he and his brothers bringing with them
from Illinois quite a quantity of apple seeds and peach pits, which being divided, the
Nebekers planted one portion and William C. Staines the other. The young trees that
sprang from these plantings, especially those raised by Mr. Staines — for the others were
destroyed by crickets — are believed to have stocked most of the early orchards of Salt
112 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Lake valley. Mr. Nebeker not only kept his own orchards in fine condition, but assisted
his neighbors in caring for theirs, giving his advice and instruction free. The general
exellence of Utah fruit up to the invasion of the codling moth in 18G9 was largely due to
the public-spirited and unselfish labors of John Nebeker.
Prior to the organization of the Provisional State of Deseret, and while yet a resi-
dent of the fort, he acted as a deputy-marshal, first under Marshal John Van Cott
and then under Marshal Horace S. Eldredge; his duties corresponding with those of a
deputy sheriff of to-day. Many tough characters coming with the gold seekers on their
way to California, Deputy Nebeker more than once had to arrest such persons, and for
lack of a place of confinement would take them to his home and board and lodge, them
there, until their cases were disposed of by due process of law. It is related that for
several weeks he had three men, encumbered with ball and chain, eating at table with his
family and sleeping in the same room with himself and some of his children.
About the year 1852 he was a justice of the peace at Salt Lake City, but as such was
more of an arbitrator than a judicial officer, it being his practice to get the parties,
plaintiff and defendant, together, out of court, and in a neighborly way induce them to
an amicable settlement of their difficulty. He got no fee for such services, but for that
he cared little, so long as he could promote peace and save expense to his
fellows.
In the fall of 1853 he presided over the missionary company which located and built
Fort Supply on Smith's Fork, near Fort Bridger, a movement intended to exert acivilizing
influence over the Shoshone Indians. While there he represented Green River county in
the Territorial legislature. The mission was abandoned in 1854, and three years later the
fort was destroyed at the approach of Johnston's army.
In the fall of 1861 Mr. Nebeker moved with a portion of his family (he had married a
plural wife, Mary Woodcock, in September, 1854) to Toquerville, in Washington county,
where he raised cotton, built and operated a cotton gin, and was associated with Apostle
Erastus Snow in the settlement of Southern Utah, including what is now Lincoln county,
Nevada, where he presided for some time, enjoying the confidence and good will of both
Mormons and non-Mormons. In 1869-70 he went upon a mission to Illinois and
Indiana.
From 1870 to 1872 he was Probate Judge of Kane county, and in the latter year
represented that county in the Constitutional Convention. He now returned north and
located a part of his family at Laketown, in Rich county, which section he represented in
the legislature of 1874. Ecclesiastically, he was president of the Elders' quorum for
several years after the settlement of Utah, and at a later period was a member of the
High Priests' quorum.
John Nebeker was a man of veracity, of character and integrity. Possessed of a
keenly sympathetic nature, he was ready at all times to render assistance to any one in
trouble. He practiced self-denial, despised pffeminacy, and was noted for his impartiality
and high sense of justice. If a member of his own family were a party to a dispute, and
he the arbitrator, he would lean almost to the other side in his efforts to be fair to the
stranger, giving him the benefit of every doubt. He was very much inclined to take an
unselfish interest in the welfare of others, generally thinking first of the comfort of those
around him, and of his own comfort last. He was the father of ten sons and six
daughters, most of whom grew to maturity. His sons William Perry, Ira and
Aquila are among the best known of his descendants. He died October 25, 1886, at his
home in Laketown.
CHARLES CRISMON.
fHE pioneer mill-builder of Utah, also a prominent colonizer in California and in
Arizona, Charles Crismon was known as a man of ability and enterprise. He was
born December 5, 1805, in Christian county, Kentucky, and remained there until
the year 1830, when he married and moved to Jackson county, Illinois, where he
settled down to farming and building mills. The maiden name of his wife was Mary Hill.
Mr. Crismon joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1837. Early in
HISTORY OF UTAH. 113
1838. during the Mormon exodus from Ohio to Missouri, he went with his team to assist
the Prophet Joseph Smith in moving to the latter State. He then sold his property in
Illinois and took his family to Missouri, arriving near Far West about the last of August.
Later in the year, when the persecution against the .Saints was raging, he moved into
that city and remained there untii the general expulsion.
In the early part of 1S39 he was in Morgan county, Illinois, and in 1842 settled at
Macedonia. Hancock county, about twenty miles in an easterly direction from Nauvoo.
He there engaged in null budding, and was the owner of a carding machine at that place.
In December. 1S45, he took up his abode at Xauvoo, where he resided until the Mormon
exodus from Illinois.
Crossing the Mississippi on the 8th of February, 1S40, he and his family joined the
camps on Sugar Creek. They were connected with Bishop George Miller's company,
which was in advance of the others most of the way to the Missouri River. Mr. Crismon
was captain under Bishop Miller, and remained in that position until after the founding
of the settlement of Ponca, to which point the Bishop led his detachment in disobedience
to the instructions of President Young. The latter desired him to establish a temporary
settlement at or near Grand Island, along the line of travel, but Miller, who was becom-
ing disaffected, led his company out of the line of travel, across the country to the junction
of the Running Water and Missouri rivers, about one hundred and fifty miles north of
Winter Quarters. After wintering there and enduring many hardships, most of the com-
pany, the Crismons included, having lost confidence in Miller, found their way back to
Winter Quarters, where they joined the main body of the Saints.
Mr. Crismon had returned from Ponca in advance of his family, and in the winter of
1846-7 was sent by President Young on a mission to Mississippi, to visit some families in
that State and make arrangements for their emigration to the West. He was accom-
panied on this mission by Bryant Nowlen, and returned with John Brown, who was
chosen one of the Pioneers. The Mississippi Saints joined the Pioneers at Fort Laramie
and accompanied them to Salt Lake valley.
His family having joined him, Mr. Crismon, with his son George, made two trips
with teams into Missouri to obtain supplies for the westward journey. At Winter Quar-
ters they were detained while getting their grain ground, and consequently were the last
of the season's emigrants to cross the Elk Horn and connect themselves with the com-
panies then moving. They reached the Horn the day that Jacob Wetherby was killed by
Indians. They joined Jedediah M. Grant's hundred, and were in Willard Snow's fifty
and Jacob Gates' ten, all the way to Salt Lake valley.
Among the exciting incidents of the trip was a stampede of cattle, about two hundred
and fifty miles west of the Missouri. In this stampede Mr. Crismon lost an ox. which
returned to Winter Quarters. It was taken from the estray pound there, by a friend of
the owner, and delivered to him in Salt Lake valley in the fall of 184S. This was rather
remarkable, considering the distance the ox had to travel back to Winter Quarters, over
country covered with buffalo and infested by Indians. The estray pound bill was five
cents— another remarkable circumstance, in view of the rates that now prevail.
During the latter part of 1847 Mr. Crismon, while living in the Old Fort, built a small
grist mill at the mouth of City Creek canyon, near the point where Third Street now
crosses the bed of that stream. It was the first mill built in this region. On the same
creek, a short distance above, he put up a saw mill, and this was one of the first saw mills
erected here. In the fall of 1S48 he sold both mills to President Brigham Young, who
operated them for many years. About the same time he built a home near the site of the
present Penitentiary, and resided there until he removed to California.
It was in the latter part of April, 1849, that Charles Crismon and his family set out
for the laud of gold. They took the Humboldt route and arrived at Sacramento on the
3rd of July. At that time there was but one house in the town, though there was a num-
ber of tents. He was engaged in mining at Mormon Bar on the north fork of American
River, for a few months, and during the following winter lived at Mission Dolores, San
Francisco. In July, 1850, he removed to the Cheno Ranch in the southern part of the
State, and assisted to found, in 1851, the city of San Bernardino. He built the first saw-
mill south of Santa Cruz, and one of the first grist-mills in that place. In the Stake
organization at San Bernardino he was a member of the High Council.
He returned to Utah in 1S58, locating in the Fourteenth Ward, Salt Lake City. He
built the Husler mill in 1S65 and during the next twelve years was engaged in freighting,
railroad contracting, stock-raising, coal-mining and gold and silver mining. He is said
to have introduced into Utah the transitory system of sheep-herding, moving camp on
wheels from desert to mountain, with the alternation of the winter and summer seasons.
114 HISTORY OF UTAH.
In 1878 Mr. Crismon removed to Arizona. He was one of the early settlers of Salt
River valley, and built the second grist mill there. His home was near Mesa City, and
be was a member of the High Council of Maricopa Stake. He died March 23, 1890.
Among his sons are the well known Crismon brothers, George, Charles, John and Scott.
He had three families in Arizona.
JOSEPH CORRODON KINGSBURY.
fHIGH Councilor at Kirtland, an assistant to the Trustee-in-trust at Nauvoo, and
one of the early Bishops in Utah, Joseph C. Kingsbury was a historical character
in the midst of his people, the Latter-day Saints. He will best be remembered
by the present generation for his extended connection with and superintendency
of the General Tithing Store at Salt Lake City.
He was a native of Connecticut, born at Endfield, in Hartford county, on the 2nd of
May, 1812. His father's name was Solomon Kingsbury, and his mother's maiden name
Bashebe Peas. On his mother's side he was descended from Governor Bradford, and on
his father's, from one of two Kingsbury brothers who landed at Salem, Massachusetts, in
John Winthrop's company, in 1630. He was but a year old when his parents moved to
Painesville, Ohio, and but two years of age when his mother died, leaving four children,
himself the youngest. His father, who was a farmer, a merchant and for some time
County Judge, died when Joseph was nineteen.
The days of his youth were partly spent on a farm. At sixteen he went to work on
his own account, superintending the weighing of ore and coal for the Geauga Iron
Company. In the fall of 1830 he clerked in a merchant's store at Ashtabula. He left
there in the fall of 1831, and after assisting his brother, who was in business at Chagrin,
returned to Painesville. In December of the same year he went to Kirtland, where he
was employed first by a Mr. Knight, and afterwards by Newel K. Whitney,
whom he had known for some years, and who was then a Mormon merchant and the
Bishop of Kirtland.
From Bishop Whitney and his wife young Kingsbury heard much of Mor-
monism, and soon he was converted to the faith, becoming a member of the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints January 15, 1832. He was ordained an Elder July
23, 1833, being one of twenty-four Elders chosen to lay the cornerstones of the Kirtland
Temple on that day. His ordination as a High Priest came in November. 1835, when on
the 13th of that month he was made a High Councilor of the Kirtland Stake of Zion.
Meantime he had been clerking in Bishop Whitney's store.
He now took a mission to the Eastern States, laboring in New York for about three
months and then returning to Kirtland, where he again worked for Bishop Whitney,
whose relative, Caroline Whitney, he married, February 3, 1836. Their first child, a son
named Joseph W., was born February 13,1837, but died August 13, 1838, while the family
were on the way to Missouri. There they passed through the tribulations that came upon
their people, and next resided successively at Quincy, Illinois, and Montrose, Iowa. In
1841 they became residents of Nauvoo.
Bishop Whitney was agent at this time for the Prophet Joseph Smith, having charge
of his store, and Mr. Kingsbury was his assistant. On the 16th of October, 1842, his
wife died. In July following he went upon a mission to the Eastern States, laboring
among his relatives, as well as the people generally, and returning to Nauvoo, in com-
pany with Horace K. Whitney, a month after the murder of the Prophet. In November,
1844, Mr. Kingsbury was again engaged by Bishop Whitney, who was acting as Trustee-
in-trust for the Chui'ch. In 1843, prior to going upon his mission, he had copied for the
Bishop the original manuscript of the revelation on celestial marriage, which had been
written by William Clayton at the Prophet's dictation. Thus it happened that when the
original was destroyed, (as related elsewhere) an exact copy was in existence, in the
hand-writing of Joseph C.Kingsbury. On November22, 1845, he married Dorcas A. Moor.
In the exodus of February, 1846, he traveled with Bishop Whitney to the Missouri
river, where in the ensuing summer, when the general emigration was organized, he and
'J0
QlcluAaJuC M&i/&HA(™^,
HISTORY OF UTAH. 115
his family became part of A. 0. Smoot's hundred and George B. Wallace's fifty. Thus
the}- came to Salt Lake valley, arriving here on the 29th of September.
Mr. Kingsbury, after residing for a year and a half in the "Old Fort." which he
had helped to build, moved on to his lot in the Second Ward of Salt Lake City. He
acted for a while as a counselor to John Lowry, the Bishop of the Ward, but on July 13,
1851, he succeeded Lowry in that position. In October, 1S52, he moved to Ogden and
afterwards to East Weber, from which place he proceeded to Provo in the general move of
1858. In September of the same year Salt Lake City became his permanent home.
In 1860 began his long connection with the General Tithing Store, of which in 1867
he was made superintendent. There he was under the direction of Presiding Bishop
Edward Hunter, with whom he was as much in favor as he had been with Bishop Whitney,
Hunter's predecessor. January 25, 1SS3, was the date of his ordination as a Patriarch.
He remained superintendent of the Tithiug Office up to within a few years of his death,
and was then given a position at the Salt Lake Temple. He died October 15, 1898.
Joseph C. Kingsbury was a man of blameless life and of the strictest integrity. He
was trusted as few men were by the Prophet Joseph Smith, and was equally loyal to his
successors. He had a conservative, constant, gentle nature, was fervent in his religion,
yet charitable and liberal to all men, was fearless in spirit and faithful in the discharge
of every duty. A frontiersman during the first half of his life, he received little schooling,
but he was interested in education, and did all he could for his children in that direction.
He was the father of President Joseph T. Kingsbury, of the University of Utah, a man
who bids fair to be as widely known and as deservedly esteemed as his deceased sire.
EDWARD STEVENSON,
aMONG those who came to Salt Lake valley in 1S47 was Edward Stevenson, for
many years a prominent Elder and zealous missionary of the Mormon Church: at
the time of his death one of the First Council of Seventy. He was a Captain of
Ten in the Artillery Company, led by General Charles C. Rich. He spent a great
deal of his time upon missions, foreign and local, and it was through his efforts that
Martin Harris, one of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon, was brought back into
the fold and ended his days in Utah.
Edward Stevenson, a son of Joseph and Elizabeth Stevens Stevenson, was born
May 1st, 1820, at Gibraltar, where his parents then resided, his father beiugiu the employ
of the British Government. He was the fourth-born in a family of five sons and two
daughters. The family came to America in 1827, and the father died when Edward was
eleven years old. He was living with his mother in the State of Michigan, and was
thirteen years of age, when he first heard the Gospel preached by Mormon Elders — Jared
Carter and Joseph Woods. He believed their testimonies, and on December, 20, 1833,
was baptized by Elder Japhet Fosdirk. His mother and others of the family were also
baptized.
Joining the main body of the Saints, they endured the hardships and persecutions
incident to Mormon life in the early times. At Far West, Missouri, Edward Stevenson
became intimately acquainted with the Prophet Joseph Smith, whom he had first met at
his mother's home in Michigan. As a youth of eighteen, he took an active part in the
defense of Far West, where, thinly clad and shivering with cold, he stood guard over the
Prophet night after night. After the exodus from Missouri, he was a resident of Mont-
rose, Iowa, opposite Nauvoo. At the latter place, on May 1st, 1845, he was ordained a
Seventy, under the hands of President Joseph Young and others. Afterwards he became a
president of the Thirtieth Quorum of Seventy, and was for many vears its senior
president.
Subsequent to his arrival in Salt Lake valley in the fall of 1847, he crossed the
plains eighteen times, and the Atlantic Ocean eight times, as a missionary of the Church.
In 1852 he was called by President Brigham Young to select a missionary companion and
go and open a mission in Gibraltar. He chose Elder Nathan T. Porter, and forthwith
the two proceeded to their field of labor. Elder Porter, not being native born, was
expelled from the place two weeks after his arrival; but it was different with Elder
Stevenson, who, being a native, could not lawfully be banished. He preached, baptized,
and organized a branch of eighteen members, which he left in charge of a Priest upon
116 HISTORY OF UTAH.
being released to go to England, where he spent the remaining part of his three years
mission, returning home in September, 1855. Across the ocean he had charge of a large
company of emigrating Saints of different nationalities, and at St. Louis was placed at
the head of a Texan company bound for Utah, their president having become ill.
Cholera was raging among them and many died, but Elder Stevenson, putting faith in a
promise made to him, that if he would go trusting in the Lord not a new case should
appear, piloted them through in safety, the promise being verified.
In 18J7-S he fulfilled a mission to the States, returning as leader of a large company
of immigrants. He was also in Echo Canyon at that period, assisting to delay Johnston's
army, and while there had a son born, whom he named Joseph Echo, in commemoration
of those times. He held the office of a chaplain in the militia. Subsequently he stood
guard over the Beehive and Lion houses, in days deemed perilous to President Young-
In 1869-70 he fulfilled another mission to the States.
In reporting this mission to President Young, Elder Stevenson spoke to him con-
cerning Martin Harris, who was living at Kirtland, Ohio, and had expressed a desire to
come to Utah: whereupon President Young gave him a special mission to bring Martin
Harris to the headquarters of the Church. He willingly responded, and on August 30,
1870, arrived at Salt Lake City, in company with the aged Witness. At the American
hotel in Chicago, while the two were en route to the West, Harris bore a firm and fervent
testimony to a large number of people respecting the visitation of the augtl who had
shown to him and his fellow witnesses the golden plates of the Book of Mormon. It was
not the first time that Stevenson had heard Harris so testify. He had also listened to
Oliver Cowdery's solemn declaration upon the same subject. Subsequently he visited
David Whitmer', and heard his statement, which was to the same effect.
From 1805 to 1877 Edward Stevenson traveled as a special home missionary among
the settlements of the Saints, visiting every town and village in Utah, some of them many
times. During this period he performed three special missons to the States, two of which
have been mentioned. The third was in 1872, when he also went to Canada. He ful-
filled in 1877-8 a mission to the Southern States, in 1883-4 another mission to the United
States and Canada, and in 1886 a mission to the United States and to Europe. In 1888,
in company with Elders Andrew Jenson and Joseph S. Black, he revisited the scenes of
early Mormon history, obtaining much valuable information of a historical nature, which
was afterwards published.
His call into the First Council of Seventy came on the 9th of October, 1894. He was
set apart by Apostle Brigham Young. From that time until his death he labored assidu-
ously in the duties of his calling. In 1895 he took another trip to Missouri, his wife
Elizabeth accompanying him. He filled a special mission to Mexico, and was engaged in
missionary labors in the North-west, when he was taken sick at Walla Walla, Washington,
September 11, 1896. This was the forerunner of his fatal illness, which began in December
of that year and ended January 27, 1897, when he passed away at his home in Salt
Lake City.
President Stevenson was the husband of four wives and the father of twenty-eight
children, an even score of them boys. Notwithstanding his almost incessant labors in
the ministry — paying his own expenses most of the time — he accumulated property,
some of which, in real estate, he bequeathed to the Latter-day Saints University. He
was a very exemplary man, strictly temperate in his habits, a ready speaker, an interesting
writer and an entertaining conversationalist. Among his published writings is a pamphlet
entitled "Reminiscences of the Prophet Joseph."
WILLIAM C. STAINES.
QNOTHER of the original immigrants to Sail Lake valley was William C. Staines,
for many years the emigration agent of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints. He was Utah's first public librarian, and an early member of the city
council of Salt Lake. He was a merchant at one time, but his special delight
was in the cultivation of fruits and flowers, and as a director of the Deseret Agricultural
and Manufacturing Society he rendered valuable service. He was a man of industrious
HISTORY OF UTAH. 117
habits, of precise businesslike methods; honest, candid and outspoken, yet withal of
a kind and genial disposition. In the course of his career he mingled with many
people and wilh all classes, and was universally respected and esteemed.
A native of Higham Ferries, Northamptonshire, England, where he was born
September 126, 1818, he was very young when his parents moved to Beddenham, near
Bedford, about forty miles from London. There he was sent to school, much against his
will, for he had little liking for books when a boy, and hated the confinement of the
school room. He had a passion for floricultiu-e and horticulture, manifested most
practically in after years, when also he deeply regretted his early indifference to
education. What helped to make school distasteful to him was an accident which befell
him when he was thirteen years of age. While playing on the ice, he fell, injuring his
spine and causing a deformity, attended with much pain, from which he suffered severely
for twenty years. In fact, he was never entirely free from it. This misfortune, while it
materially lessened his stature, did not detract from the pleasant impression made by his
frank, open countenance and kindly manner. As a youth he worked with other laborers
in his father's garden.
It was on the twenty- third anniversary of his birth that he first heard of Mor-
monism, from one of its authorized representatives — Elder George J. Adams. Hebelieved,
was baptized and confirmed, and at his confirmation was promised the gifts of prophecy,
healing, tongues and their interpretation; which promise was amply fulfilled. Among
the Elders met by him in England was Lorenzo Snow, who presided over the London
Conference, and was afterwards one of the presidency of the British Mission. Mr.
Staines testifies to certain predictions made to him by President Snow, which were
marvelously verified.
Until January, 1843, he labored in the ministry in his native land, and then sailed
for America, reaching Nauvoo, by way of New Orleans and St. Louis, on April 12th of
the same year. A note of his journey up the Mississippi illustrates a mistaken
notion had in England respecting the condition of the negro slaves in this country.
When about nine years of age he had been informed that these slaves all worked in chains
upon rice and sugar plantations in the Southern States. His sympathies were so aroused
by the woeful tale that he refrained from eating sugar in order that the money thus saved
might go to a fund that was being raised in England for the emancipation of slaves in
America. Concerning his observations at New Orleans and along the Mississippi, he
says: "Here to my surprise I found them driving fine mule teams, being trusted with
cartloads of valuable merchandise, taking the same to all parts of the city and country,
apparently equal with the free white man, except in being slaves and owned by someone.
I found them working as porters, warehousemen, firemen on steamboats, etc., and their
food was as good as that of white men performing like labor. I must confess that this
surprised me, and for the first time I regretted that I had quit eating sugar to help free
the negro. I found him in slavery having all the sugar he needed and with a better
breakfast than any farm laborer in England could afford- to eat. The negro firemen on
the steamboat informed me that they all belonged to one master, who lived about fifty
miles from New Orleans, and he allowed them to work out and gave them one-third of
what they earned. They received twenty-four dollars a month and board; and the eight
dollars, with boai'd, that went to them was better wages than a man working on a farm
in England was getting at that time. They said they had a good master and did not
want to leave him." Mr. Staines, however, while undeceived as to the actual condition of
most of the slaves in the Southern States, was not converted from his opposition to
slavery, for he realized that grave abuses attended the system.
The day after landing at Nauvoo he met the Prophet Joseph Smith, whom he
recognized instantly, having seen him in a vision while crossing the sea. The next
day he heard him preach for the first time. At Nauvoo he was employed a good deal
upon the Temple. He happened to be in St. Louis when the Prophet and his brother
were slain, and when told of the tragedy was unable to speak to his informant for
some moments, so deep was his emotion. Returning to Nauvoo he beheld the bodies of the
martyrs lying in state. He says: "I have seen England mourning for two of her kings
and for the husband of her queen, when every shop in London was closed, when every
church bell tolled, when every man who drove a coach, cab or conveyance of any kind
had a piece of crape tied to the handle of his whip. Accompanied by Brother Amasa
Lyman, I rode for miles through the city, while the burial services were being performed
at Windsor Castle. It was indeed a solemn sight. I have seen this nation mourn for its
chief magistrate — President Lincoln. But the scene at Nauvoo was far more affecting.
The grief and sorrow of the Latter-day Saints was heart-felt. It was the mourning of a
118 HISTORY OF UTAH.
community of many thousands, all of whom revered these martyred brethren as their
fathers and benefactors, and the sight of their bleeding bodies — for their blood had not
ceased to flow as they lay in their coffins — was a sight never to be forgotten. The mour-
ning I witnessed for kings and for our nation's chief was onlv here and there manifested
by tears; but for the two who suffered for their religion and their friends, the whole
people wept in going to and from the scene — all, all were weeping.17 Mr. Staines was
one of those who attended the memorable meeting where Brigham Voung was recognized
and accepted by the Saints as the lawful successor to the martyred Prophet. "Brigham's
voice," says he, "was as the voice of Joseph; I thought it was his, and so did the
thousands who heard it."
In the exodus from Nauvoo William C. Staines was in Charles Shumway's company
of fifty, the first to cross the Mississippi and start westward. He was at Sugar Creek,
Garden Grove, Mount Pisgah and Winter Quarters. Three weeks before reaching the
last-named place he was prostrated with fever and ague. His narrative thus continues:
"I was traveling at the time in Bishop George Miller's family, and they were all very kind
to me in my affliction. By the time we reached the Missouri river we got entirely out of
meat and very short of breadstuffs. Our company had been selling and exchanging every-
thing that could be spared, even to feather beds, for provisions, and many had become
discouraged, >ot knowing where to get future supplies. Bishop Miller called a meeting
of the company, raised sufficient means to purchase grain and flour for temporary relief,
and prophesied that there would be an abundance of corn in camp before we crossed
the river. This prediction was fulfilled a few days later, when an Indian trader, Mr.
Tarpee, came into camp and made a contract with the Bishop to bring a lot of robes and
skins from a point up the river, where he and his fellow traders had been bartering with
the Indians. It was usual to bring these articles down in boats made of buffalo skins,
but this season the rains had been insufficient to swell the river so that the boats could
pass over the shallow places. Hence it was proposed to bring them in wagons. Mr.
Tarpee pledged himself to forfeit several wagon loads of corn if anything should occur to
break the contract. Something did occur, for about three o'clock the next afternoon, just as
the wagons were ready to start, Mr. Tarpee came and informed the Bishop that a messenger
had arrived from his traders, stating that heavy rains had fallen and that they were
bringing: their robes and furs by water and had no use for teams. He then told the
Bishop to send his wagons to the trading post and he would pay the forfeit. The Bishop
protested that under the circumstances he had no claim, but Tarpee insisted and the
wagons were sent and returned loaded with corn. The Bishop afterwards made another
prediction of the same kind, which was just as remarkably fulfilled." Mr. Staines'
interesting account of his subsequent experience among the Indians is here summarized:
Soon after the oi'ganization and departure of the Mormon Battalion, a company, led
by Bishop Miller left Winter Quarters with the intention of crossing the Rocky Mountains
that season (1846), but upon reaching the Pawnee Indian Mission, which they found
deserted, they received instructions from President Young and the Apostles, still on the
Missouri, to winter on Grand Island. About the same time eight Ponca chiefs, whose
tribe had been at war with the Pawnees, arrived at the Mission for the purpose of making
peace with their foes, whom they expected to find there. These chiefs proposed that
the Mormon company winter with them in their country, which they said was "three
sleeps," or three days travel from the Mission. They promised the emigrants timber for
houses and fuel, with pasturage for their cattle. Preferring this prospect — interpreted
to him by James Emmett — to a stay on Grand Island without the consent of the Pawnees,
who were far away and were said to be "mad," Bishop Miller called a council of his
brethren, and a majority favoring the Ponca proposition, it was accepted and acted
upon. The "three sleeps" proved to be three days and nights travel with ponies, or
eleven days for the wagons, over hard, rough roads. Having reached their destination,
Miller's company camped near the junction of the Running Water and the Missouri rivers,
and there formed a settlement named Ponca.
Early in October the Indians informed their white friends that they would soon leave
for their winter hunting grounds, and would like some of the brethren to accompany
them. They were especially desirous that William C. Staines should go, he having partly
learned the Indian tongue and made himself popular with them by acting as cobbler,
mending their pouches, bridles, etc. Bishop Miller demurred, Mr. Staines being still a
member of his family and in delicate health, but the latter, who was much interested in
these Indians and desired to do them good, pleaded so earnestly for the privilege of
going, that the Bishop finally consented. In all six white men went with the Indians on
this hunt, but three soon returned, and finally all left excepting Mr. Staines, who
HISTORY OF UTAH. 119
slept in the chief's tent and was named by him "Waddeskippe." meaning a steel to strike
flint for tire. He remained with them six months, instructing them in the principles of
the Gospel and acquainting them with the history of the Latter-day Saints. He taught the
squaws how to braid their hair, witnessed some wonderful buffalo hunts, and passed
through a variety of experiences. The Indians were very kind to him, receiving his in-
structions with interest, aud he became quite proficient in the Ponca language. Upon
his departure, he left with the chief a copy of the Book of Mormon. During eighteen
weeks of his life among the Poneas Mr. Staines ate no vegetables or bread, subsisting
almost entirely on fresh meat: as the result he suffered terribly from scurvy. Id February,
1847, he bade his Indian friends farewell and rejoined his brethren. They received him
with joy and astonishment, it having been reported to them that he was dead.
The date of Mr. Staines' arrival in Salt Lake valley was September 15, 1S47. During
the first years of his residence here he engaged in various avocations. An expert gardener,
he not only cultivated fruits and flowers upon his own premises, but superintended at
one time the gardens and orchards of President Brigham Young. He had a farm of three
hundred acres in Davis county, and his home in Salt Lake City, which he sold to
William Jennings, who there built the Devereaux House, was ''a thing of beauty," a
veritable bower of roses. His connection with the D. A. it M. Society began in January,
1856. His interest and success in fruit culture is partly indicated by the fact that on one
occasion — September 18, 1S57 — he had upon his table fom his own orchard six kinds of
peaches, some of them measuring nearly ten inches in circumference; also grapes of his
own raising.
William C. Staines became the Territorial Librarian, by appointment of the Governor
and Legislative Assembly, in the winter of 1851—2. The library, for which Congress
had appropriated five thousand dollars, was opened in the Council House at Salt Lake
City. In 1853 he was one of a posse to guard the Overland Mail route against hostile
Indians, and in 1857 he served in Echo Canyon. Two years later he became one of the
mercantile firm of Staines, Needham and Company, whose stock of merchandise cost
seventy-five thousand dollars. In April of that year he was elected to the city council,
and in December of the year following was called upon a mission to his native land.
where he remained until 1863. He was then appointed the Church emigration agent, and
faithfully and efficiently served in that capacity during the remaining eighteen years of
his life. He made regular annual trips between Salt Lake City and New York, his duties
requiring his presence in the East during the spring, summer and fall, after which he
would return to spend the winter with his family and friends in Utah.
Mr. Staines was twice married, but died without issue. One of his latest acts, after
providing liberally for his widows, was to deed a large amount of valuable property to
the Church of which he had been for so many years a zealous and exemplary member. He
died August 3, 1881.
NATHAN TANNER PORTER.
JONATHAN T. PORTER was the son of Sanford and Nancy Warner Porter, and
1^, was born at Corinth, Orange county, Vermont. July 10. 1S20. The same year
his father sold his homestead, and moved with his family — including two sons and
two daughters older than Nathan — to Augusta, Oneida county. New York. The
following year they moved into the State of Ohio, locating in Liberty township, Trum-
bull county. There they resided about six years, and then started for Illinois, journey-
ing by flat-boat down the Mahonan, Beaver and Ohio rivers as far as Evansville, Indiana,
and traveling thence three hundred miles by land. Locating in Tazewell county, near
the Illinois river, in June, 1828, they remained in that vicinity until the fall of 1831.
By this time Nathan's parents and their elder children had joined the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and now they again set their faces westward to cast
in their lot with the Mormon colony then settling in Jackson county. Missouri. With
several other families they arrived at Independence March 1,1832, having spent the
previous winter traveling, pitching their tents by the way. They were among those
driven by mob violence from their possessions in the fall of 1833.
120 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Nathan was now thirteen years of age and had become a member of the Church by
baptism. He felt a deep interest in his religion, so far as he could comprehend its prin-
ciples. He passed through the trying ordeals of the succeeding five years, ending with
the expulsion of the Saints from Missouri and their settlement in Illinois. He remained
with his father and the family, following the occupation of farming, until the fall of
1841, when, having been ordained a Seventy, he was sent upon a mission to the Eastern
States.
Iu company with Elder Henry Mowery he left his home in Lee county, Iowa, three
miles west of Nauvoo, about the 1st of September. In Clinton county, Indiana, where
they labored during the fall, they added sixty members to the Church, organizing them
into three branches. Elder Mowery then returned home, but Elder Porter, with Elder
William J. Earl, extended his labors into the State of Ohio, returning to Iowa in October,
1812.
Called with many other Elders to preach the gospel and incidentally to present a
document written by Joseph Smith, then a Presidential candidate, upon the policy and
powers of the Federal Government, Nathan T. Porter, with John Cooper, in May, 1844,
took passage on a Mississippi steamboat, and by way of St. Louis and the Ohio river,
reached Chillicothe. "On the way," says he, "we embraced the opportunity of present-
ing the political document to our fellow passengers, doctors, lawyers and others, who,
assembling on deck, listened attentively to its reading. The reader was a prominent
attorney. At the close he remarked, 'Gentlemen, that is a masterpiece of statesmanship,
and if Joe Smith is let alone, he will go into the Presidential chair.' A voice was heard,
'I'll vote for him.' The Prophet's views created a profound impression, and became the
leading comment." The Elders had but fairly begun their labors when the report of the
Carthage jail horror reached them. They returned to Nauvoo, and there mingled their
tears with those who mourned the loss of the Prophet and Patriarch. "Again," says
Elder Porter, "I resumed my labors at home. Securing a piece of land, I brought it
under cultivation, but before I could build, our people fled once more from their oppres-
sors, and sought a home in the valleys of the Rocky Mountains."
Accompanying his father, mother, two brothers and a sister, Nathan T. Porter
arrived upon the shores of the Great Salt Lake in October, 1S47. After assisting his
father to cultivate a small piece of land, he secured for himself a home. He married
Rebecca Ann Cherry, who shared with him the toils and hardships incident to the times.
After a lapse of four years he was called upon a mission to Europe, his destination being
the Rock of Gibraltar.
In company with some sevent} other missionaries, in chai'ge of Apostle ( >rson Pratt.
he lefi Stilt Lake City, September 22, 1S32, crossing the plains with mule and horse
teams. Must of the company were bound for Europe. Sailing from New York on the
17th of December, Elder Porter landed at Liverpool January 5, 1853, and on the 29th of
that month he and ElderEdward Stevenson took passage from Southampton, and after
touching at Vigo, Lisbon and Cadiz, arrived on the morning of the 8th of March at the
fortress of Gibraltar.
Says he: "We learned that ministers of the Gospel were required to obtain a license,
otherwise they were not permitted to hold meetings in the garrison. We applied to the
chief magistrate for a license, but received a positive denial; we would not be permitted
to hold meetings indoors or outdoors. Being a foreigner, I could not even remain in the
garrison without a permit; one was granted to me, but for fifteen days only. At the ex-
piration of that time I applied through the American consul — a Mr. Sprague — for a
renewal of the permit, and he applied to the chief magistrate, but the renewal was
denied, for the reason that I had been distributing tracts, thereby causing a disturbance
in the churches. I then asked the consul, as an American citizen, to provide me with
means to convey me to my native shore; but he informed me that he was only authorized
to furnish such means to sailors. Having been told by the chief magistrate that I must
leave the garrison or be put out by the police, and not having sufficient money to procure
a cabin passage without leaving Elder Stevenson destitute, I went immediately to the
office of the general ship agent, to see if I could secure a steerage passage to Southamp-
ton ou a steam-packet that had just come in from Constantinople. There was no steer-
age passage on the chart, and the cabin fare was nine pounds. I stated my case in part
and asked for a reduction, which was brusquely refused, but afterwards, ou hearing my
whole story, the agent politely apologized, and granted me a steerage rate — four pounds.
This enabled me to leave a few pounds with Elder Stevenson, who, being a native of
Gibraltar, was allowed to remain. Ou the first day of April, 1S53, I found myself glid-
ing up the straits on the way back into the Atlantic. As night came on I acquainted the
HISTORY OF UTAH. 12]
cook and chief steward with my circumstance-; and the nature of my calling, soliciting
their hospitality in providing me with a berth in the cabin. This they readily granted,
and I had cabin fare during the voyage back to Southampton."
Mr. Porter remained in England, laboring successively as a Traveling Elder in the
Heading. Esses and Kent conferences, under Elders William Gill Mills. Martin M.
Slack and Thomas Broderick. and then succeeding Elder Noah T. Guynian in the presi-
dency of the Worcestershire conference. On January 1, 1856, he was i-eleased to return
home.
This was the year of the famous handcart emigration. Crossing the Atlantic in a
company of three hundred Saints, he lauded at New York, but owing to a severe illness,
which seized him during the voyage, he was too feeble to go on with the company, and
had to be left in care of a Brother Beasdon at his residence in Williamsburg. For a
time his life was despaired of. but he recovered and proceeded to the frontier. His nar-
rative thus continues:
"'Upon our arrival at Iowa City, the point of outfitting for the plains, I found the
company which had left me in New York many weeks before — they were still on the
camp ground, engaged in making handcarts. I understood that a contract had been
made with parties in St. Louis to furnish the carts, but the contractors had failed, and
the carts were now being made on the ground. This caused much delay. It was not
until about the 10th of August that the camp ground was cleared and all moved on
in an organized capacity. I was appointed to assist Captain Benjamin Hodgetts, in
what was called the Independent Company, fitted out by their own means with wagons
and teams, and traveling in close proximity to the handcart companies. We reacned
Winter Quarters (now Florence) September 1st, and without delay moved on, with un-
usual anxiety for a successful journey across the plains. The first of November found
us at the last crossing of the "Platte, where we encountered a snow storm and were
detained by it several days. Upon the experiences of suffering and death that followed I
will not dwell. Finally all were made glad by meeting men and teams from Salt Lake
City, bringing supplies and aid, which were much needed. The handcart workers, who
were all worn out. were now released and with the other members of those companies
conveyed the remainder of the way in wagons, as comfortably as circumstances would
permit. On rny arrival in Emigration Canyon. I was met by two of my brothers, who
escorted me to my home, where I had the great joy of embracing the rest of my dear
ones, after an absence of four vears and three months; it being now December, 15,
1856."
About this time he married his seeond wife, Eliza Ford. He passed through the
general experience of his people at the time of the "Echo Canyon war" and "the
move," and for a decade or more after, his life was peaceful and uneventful. In 1S69
and in 1872 he fulfilled two missions to the States, acting in the interim as a home mis-
sionary. His residence was at Centerville, Davis county. After his last return from the
East he resumed his labors as a home missionary, acted as County Superintendent of
Sabbath Schools, and became counselor to Bishop William R. Smith, of Centerville.
These duties occupied most of his time up to June 17, 1S77. when the Davis Stake was
organized, and he was released from the Bishopric and made a member of the High
Council. He retained for many years the superintendency of the Sabbath Schools. So
wore away the remaining part of his life. Nathan T. Porter, an honest, modest, upright
man, a good and useful citizen, died at his home in Centerville on the 9th_day of April,
1897. He was the father of ten children.
SIMPSON MONTGOMERY MOLEN,
»
^\XE of the earliest settlers of Utah, and for many years a prominent citizen of
1^1 Cache county, where he was a college trustee, a Bishop, and subsequently a mem-
(g) ber of the Stake Presidency, S. M. Molen was a native of Jacksonville. Morgan
county. Illinois, born September 14, 1832. He was the second son of Jesse and
Lurany Huffafcer Molen, who were the parents of thirteen children. When a mere child
he moved with his father's family to Bureau county in the same State, close to the fron-
122 HISTORY OF UTAH.
tier. There they purchased a tract of land and began to cultivate it and make improve-
ments. In the course of a few years it became a pleasant and comfortable home.
About the year 1843 Mormon Elders began preaching in their neighborhood, and the
Molen family were converted and baptized. When it became known that they had
joined the unpopular church it created some excitement; their old Wends turned against
them, and though previously respected and esteemed, they were now shunned and
despised as "fanatics deluded by Joe Smith." They were not long in determining that it
was not only a duty but a privilege for them to live with the main body of their people.
The boy Simpson was very urgent upon this point, and so, about the spring of 1845, the
family sold out at a great sacrifice and moved to Camp Creek, Hancock count y, thirteen
miles from the city of Nauvoo. There they purchased a new home and made many im-
provements, but were not destined to remain long to enjoy them.
When the anti-Mormons, not content with having caused the murder of the Prophet
and the Patriarch, began burning the homes and devastating the fields of Mormon set-
tlers around Nauvoo, the Molen family fled to that city, whence they were expelled
with many others in the fall of 1S46 by the mob forces. They parted with their property
on Camp Creek, worth about two thousand dollars, for an old wagon and two yoke of
oxen, and with these joined the exodus. At this time Simpson and several other mem-
bers of the family were prostrated with fever and ague, and in this condition they began
the westward journey.
They spent the following winter near Oskaloosa, Iowa, and then, after procuring a
scanty supply of provisions and clothing, resumed their dreary march to Winter Quar-
ters. They joined the emigration of 1847, being organized in Jedediah M. Grant's hun-
dred, Willard Snow's fifty, and after a tedious journey of three months, enlivened only
by stampedes, buffalo hunts and interviews with roving bands of Indians, reached Salt
Lake valley.
The Molens pitched their tent near the "Old Fort," the nucleus of the pioneer settle-
ment. "Shortly after reaching this place of rest,'' says Simpson, "we were advised by
the authorities of the Church to weigh our supplies and put ourselves on rations, that
there might be sufficient food to last us until harvest; there being no chance to replenish
our scanty store. To this end the number of days was calculated, when we discovered
to our great surprise that we had only about one ounce of flour a day for each member of
the family. We had but little meat, no milk, no fruit nor vegetables to help out the
meagre allowance. The children, twelve in number, were all hale and hearty, and to
have to be reduced to such rations was the source of much suffering — indeed it seemed
almost like starvation. Fortunately the winter was mild and open, and the family sought
for and dug thistle roots, which we substituted as an article of food. These roots, how-
ever, while they appeased the cravings of hunger, furnished but little nutriment. When
spring opened the sego root was found, and this was more nutritious. These roots, with
"greens'' and the milk from a few cows, enabled us to keep body and soul together until a
kind providence blessed us with a harvest of wheat, corn and vegetables. But a long
time elapsed even after food became plentiful, before the cravings of hunger could be
satisfied by eating a hearty meal."
In 1848 Simpson's eldest brother, Alexander, went to the frontier with a team to
assist the emigration, but when he met them he left the team and continued on to the
States. His departure and the failure of his father's health left much of the responsi-
bility of providing for the family upon the younger son, who, owing to the unsettled
state of affairs, had little opportunity to acquire an education. His cares and responsi-
bilities were much increased by the death of his father in the spring of 1852.
Two years later he was called upon a mission to the Sandwich Islands. In company
with other missionaries he traveled by team to San Pedro, California, and thence up the
coast by steamboat to San Francisco, where he embarked on a sailing vessel for Hono-
lulu. He was nineteen days at sea. While on this mission he suffered many hardships,
endured hunger and fatigue, but enjoyed his labors in the ministry. He acquired a
knowledge of the Hawaiian language, traveled a great deal and preached to the natives
in their own tongue. After four years of faithful service he returned to Utah.
He now made his home at Lehi, where he became acquainted with Miss Jane E.
Hyde, daughter of William Hyde, the future Bishop of Hyde Park and Probate Judge of
Cache county. On August 7, 1859, Miss Hyde became Mrs. S. M. Molen. In the spring
of 1860 the young husband with his wife and father-in-law, moved to Cache valley, set-
tling on a plain five miles north of Logan. There sprang up the settlement of Hyde
Park, which Mr. Molen helped to found. He became first counselor to Bishop Hyde,
when the latter was appointed to preside there. He had always taken a great interest in
HISTORY OF UTAH? 123
military matters, and when the militia of Cache valley was organized he became identi-
fied therewith, and was earnest and energetic in discharging his duties as a citizen sol-
dier. Within a few years he rose from the ranks first to be sergeant and then lieutenant-
colonel of infantry.
In 1S64 Mr. Molen went to Illinois to settle some business pertaining to the family
estate, and while in the East he purchased on commission a large stock of merchandise
and freighted the same to Utah. In ISliS he was chosen to take charge of a large emi-
gration train, consisting of sixty wagons, with ox teams, sent from Utah to the terminus
of the Union Pacific Railroad, then at North Platte. This mission he performed to the
entire satisfaction of the Church authorities, the owners of the teams and the five hun-
dred emigrants brought by him to Utah. A most lamentable accident, however, befell
his company at Green River on the 25th of June. They were crossing the river at Robi-
son's ferry, a large number of men with four yoke of oxen being on board the ferryboat.
The river was very high, with a strong wind blowing. When fairly out in the river the
boat began to dip water and became so heavy that it sank, breaking the guy rope and
drifting down stream. The current swept away men. oxen and all loose timbers, mixed
up in great confusion; men hanging to timbers and to the horns and tails of oxen as the
wild waters carried tliem on. The boat, after the freight was swept from it, came to the
surface. Mr. Molen and one or two others got aboard and threw out ropes to those in the
water, encouraging the ones they could not reach to stick to their pieces of timber. They
landed the boat about three miles down the river, between a small island and the main
shore. On that island they found Julius Johnson, who had floated to that point on a
piece of timber. When the roll was called, after the company had crossed, six men
failed to respond — Thomas Yeates of Millville. Niels Christopherson and Peter Smith of
Manti, Peter Neilson of Fairview, Chris Jensen and Chris Nebellah of Mount Pleasant —
all supposed to be drowned.
In 1874-0 Mr. Molen rilled another mission to the States, traveling and preaching in
Iowa. Illinois and Kentucky, visiting many relatives and gathering the genealogy of his
ancestors. In the spring of 1S76 he went upon a second mission to the Sandwich
Islands, taking apart of his family with him and remaining there tlvree years and three
months. The latter part of the time he presided over the mission and superintended the
work on the Church farm and sugar plantation at Laie. He became acquainted with a
number of the leading men of the Hawaiian nation, and with some of the members of
the royal family. Among the latter were King Kalakaua, Queen Kapiollani and ex-
Queen Emma, whom he had the honor of entertaining at the plantation. He returned
home in 1879.
Shortly afterwards he was set apart as first counselor to Bishop Robert Daines of
Hyde Park. He had not been long at home when he met with a serious accident, by jump-
ing in the dark from a moving train. He was severely bruised and shaken up and one of
his arms broken. In August of the same year he was elected assessor and collector of
Cache county. Many years later he served two terms as county assessor.
On the 10th of September, 1SS2, Simpson M. Molen succeeded 0, N. Liljenquist as
Bishop of Hyruru, being set apart by Apostle Moses Thatcher and President William B.
Preston, the latter then at the head of Cache Stake. He made his home in Hyrum, and
presided over that ward for eight years, when he was chosen first counselor to the Stake
President, Orson Smith. This office he held until 1899. Mr. Molen had always been
greatly interested in education. A year before he became Bishop of Hyruni he was
appointed by the President of the Church one of the Board of Trustees of the Brigham
Young College at Logan. He retained this position until the day of his death, November
29, 1900.
Mr. Molen was a modest, unassuming gentleman, and while progressive, was not
aggressive, seeming to lack confidence in his own ability. He found no pleasure in con-
tention, was not much of an orator, but led out in public enterprises, such as the making
of roads, the building of bridges and the erection of churches and school houses. He
was kind-hearted and clnritable, liberal. in his views, liked to see fair play, and was an
honest man, who took pride in paying his debts. In politics he was a staunch Democrat.
DAVID AND SUSAN FAIRBANKS.
^."^HE Fairbanks family is supposed to be of Scotch origin, the first settlers in this
f|j>J country making their home in New England. Joseph Fairbanks, father to the
;f subject of this sketch, was a native of Worcester county, Massachusetts, as was
also Polly Brooks Fairbanks, the mother. The former died at Winter Quarters in
February, 1847; the latter at Payson, Utah, in January, 1860. They had thirteen
children, five of whom became Latter-day Saints and settlers in this part. Henry, the
youngest, was a member of the Mormon Battalion.
David Fairbanks, the original Bishop of the First Ward, Salt Lake City, was born
March 14, 1810, at Peru, Bennington county, Vermont. In his early boyhood his parents
moved to Sand}' Hill, Washington county, New York, and subsequently to Bergen county,
New Jersey. His father was a stone mason and contractor on the Morristown canal and
his sons worked with him. David received a common school education.
In November, 1838, he married Miss Susan Mandeville. In 1842 he heard the Gospel
preached by Mormon Elders, and in March, 1843, was baptized by Elder Selah Lane, at
Mead's Basin, New Jersey. In 1844 his father, who had also been converted, with four sons
and a daughter and that daughter's husband, Dr. Henry I. Doremus, left New Jersey
by various routes for Nauvoo; David, his wife, and two younger brothers going by
team. They arrived at their destination on July 5th, shortly after the Carthage jail
calamity. David bought a farm of a hundred and sixty acres, four miles east of
Nauvoo, built a good brick house, and was about to begin sowing wheat when called to
assist in the exodus from Illinois. He left his plow in the furrow, but reserved a peck
of wheat and afterwards planted it in Utah, securing a return of about twelve
bushels.
While on the Missouri river he offered to enlist in the Mormon Battalion, but as
his brother Henry had already enlisted, he was counseled by President Young to
remain and assist in taking care of the poor, including the soldiers' families. He was
ordained a Bishop of one of the Wards at Winter Quarters, where his father died as stated.
It is related that while traveling through Iowa the old gentlemen was very feeble, and
the rough fare of the camp not being palatable to him, he one day expressed a desire
for some soup. He had no sooner uttered the wish than a fine plump bird alighted
on his knee. He reached forth his hand, caught the bird, and in a short time it
was converted into a bowl of nourishing soup, of which he partook with relish.
In the fall of 1846 Bishop Fairbanks was told by President Young to prepare to
follow the Pioneers who would cross the plains next season. He traveled in Apostle
Taylor's company. An amusing incident of the trip is thus related: "A strong wind
blew for days, and Brother Taylor was in a position to get the dust. Our wagons
traveled four abreast. After some days Brother Taylor asked permission to change sides,
which was granted. The wind then changed and he got all the dust again. In the
evening he asked permission to take his old place." In a stampede a large number of
the stock were lost, but the only animal of the Bishop's that ran off was the laziest
one he had. He arrived at Salt Lake valley October 6, 1847.
When Salt Lake City was divided into ecclesiastical wards — February 14, 1849 —
David Fairbanks was chosen Bishop of the First Ward (a position for which Peter McCue
had previously been mentioned) and was also a justice of the peace. He served in
these capacities until April, 1851, when the city Bishops were advised to go out into
the neighboring country and take up farms. Accordingly he moved south, intending to
stop at American Fork, but continued on as far as Payson. The Bishop there, James
Pace, did not deem it advisable for any more families to settle in that place, as there
was not enough water for the fifteen families already on the ground. Hence Mr.
Fairbanks went two miles east of Payson and threw a bank across a ravine in which
a spring was located, thus forming a large pond or reservoir. They broke ground,
raised some splendid crops, and founded Pondtown, now called Salem; David Fairbanks,
his brother John, David Crockett and Henry Nebeker being the first settlers.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 125
After raising two crops of wheat, Mr. Fairbanks moved to Payson, owing to Indian
troubles then pending. He and his family had previously become well acquainted with
a tribe of Indians inhabiting the southern part of Utah county, and the most friendly
relations existed between them. This was very fortunate, for when the Walker war broke
out, Mr. Fail-banks made a forced ride to Nephi to warn President George A. Smith of an
Indian ambush in Salt Creek canyon, and was only spared by the skulking redskins along
his route through the influence of "Ponnawatts," a friendly Indian, who persuaded the
others not to fire upon his white friend. Two men returned with him for protection.
The trip was so trying that it was several weeks before he recovered from the strain.
In October, 1864, he was called on a mission to the "Muddy," and the following
February he joined the settlers who had preceded him to that locality. There he remained
two years, when, on account of ill health, caused by the hardships encountered, he
was released. His son Cornelius remained until the mission was abandoned.
Returning to Payson, the ex-Bishop took up his permanent residence there. He
held the positions of city marshal, school trustee, city counselor, etc., serving in all
these offices without pay. He was also president of the High Priests' quorum. He
owned one of the largest and finest farms in Utah county, and carried on farming
quite extensively until the infirmities of age compelled him to withdraw from the labors
and cares of active life.
His wife, Susan Mandeville Fairbanks, was descended from one of the old American
families. Her ancestors were Hollanders. They came to this country in 1640, in a vessel
chartered from the Dutch East India Company. They were fugitives from religious
persecution. Her great-grandfather landed on Manhattan Island, now New York City.
His son William used to tell how he drove his herd over the famous "cow-paths" from the
Hudson to East river, along what is now Chatham Street.
Susan was the fourth child of Cornelius William Mandeville and his wife Janes Jones.
She was born September 23, 1819, at Pompton Plains, Pequanca Township, New Jersey.
Her father, a well-to-do farmer, held many offices in the gift of the people, and when he
died was a Major-General in the State Militia. She well remembered his association with
such men as President Andrew Jackson, Ben Wade and other notable persons of
that day.
Susan Mandeville was married to David Fairbanks November 26, 1838. In July.
1842, she heard Mormonism preached by Elders Curtis E. Bolton and John Leach, and a
week later was baptized, preceding: her husband into the Church. She moved with
him to Nauvoo, where she resided until the spring of 1846.
At Winter Quarters she suffered severely from sickness brought on by hardship
and exposure. Her life was despaired of, but when the time came for their departure
for the Rocky mountains, Dr. Willard Richards told her husband to start with her, sick
as she was, and promised that she should recover. She was placed on a bed in a
wagon, and improvement followed from the first day of the journey.
In Salt Lake valley and elsewhere she passed through the hardships and trials incident
to the early times. She accompanied her husband to Payson, and resided there more or
less continously during the rest of her life. She was identified with the Relief Society of
the place from its inception, and spent much time and means striving to establish the silk
industry. She was the mother of thirteen children, ten of whom at last accounts were
living.
JOHN WESLEY TURNER.
j?T\ S a boy of fifteen John W. Turner came to Salt Lake valley in the immigration of
*5&r 1847. He and his parents were members of A. 0. Smoot's company of one
■f hundred. They left Wiuter Quarters about the last of May, started from the
Elkhorn eai-ly in July and arrived here late in September. This boy in after years
became Sheriff of Utah county, and was one of the bravest and most efficient civil officers
in the intermountain country.
The son of Chauncey Turner and his wife Hanna Franklin Redfield, he was born at
126 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Avon, Livingston county, New York, November 21, 1832. When he was very young his
parents moved to Kirtland, Ohio, where he was baptized a Latter-day Saint. His father
was a farmer and a school teacher, and John worked upon the farm and improved what
chances he had for education. These, however, were limited.
In 1845 the family moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, where they were in very poor
circumstances, some money possessed by them having been stolen. John's father
placed much confidence in him, even when a boy, and relied upon him to a great extent
when means had to be raised for their journey westward. Procuring a wagon and some
oxen, with about a year's provisions, they left Nauvoo in 1840, and joined at Winter
Quarters in 1847 the general emigration for Salt Lake valley. An incident occurred on
the Sweetwater that showed the tactful nature of the lad, who was never at a loss for
some resource to extricate himself or his friends from trouble. Some of the cattle having
died from drinking alkali water, his father became somewhat discouraged and ask«d what
they should do. The son promptly replied: "'Put the harness on one ox and we'll have
a spike-team." This was done, and they pulled through successfully.
The family first resided at Salt Lake City, but in 1848 they moved to Sessions' settle-
ment (now Bountiful) where they remained until the next year, and then went to Provo.
There John W. Turner settled permanently. He was in his twenty-first year when, on
the first day of December, 1853, he married; his wife's maiden name being Sarah Louisa
Fausett, the mother of his ten children.
From April to August of the same year he had been with Captain Wall on an Indian
expedition. His next experience among the red men was as a missionary to the Los Vegas
Indians, beginning in May, 1855. He returned in December of that year for supplies,
which he conveyed to the mission the following spring. Early in 1857 he came back to
Provo, and on April 21st started with the handcart missionaries for the East. He filled
a mission in Canada, and returned home May 21, 1858. He held successively the offices
of Elder and Seventy, and at the close of his life was one of the presidency of the Forty-
fifth Quorum of Seventy. He took especial pleasure in his duties as a home
missionary.
In business Mr. Turner was associated with such men as James A. Bean, Henry C.
Rogers and S. S. Jones, and was an officer in most of the co-operative institutions of his
section. He engaged in farming, stock-raising, freighting and contracting, and was very
successsful in these pursuits. His civic record comprises the offices of city councilor and
city marshal of Provo, deputy-sheriff and sheriff of Utah county. He was marshal from 1875
continously for about twelve years, and sheriff from 1876 until 1889. During much of the
latter period he acted as a United States deputy-marshal, under U. S. Marshals Shaughnessy
and Ireland.
The greatest grief of his life came to him in the month of July, 1880, when his eldest
son, John Franklin Turner, was murdered by Fred Hopt, alias Fred Welcome, at or near
Park City, the body of the victim being afterwards conveyed by the assassin to Echo
Canyon, where it was secreted. The murderer's motive seems to have been a mixed one
of robbery and revenge. He had been in Sheriff Turner's custody several times as a
criminal, and on one occasion, it is said, young Turner helped to arrest him. He was
treated with great consideration, however. — the Turners being kind-hearted and humane —
and had apparently forgotten any previous unpleasantness between him and them, when
he accompanied the son to Park City for the purpose of securing employment. There he
took to drinking, and one night, it appears, returned to camp and brained his victim
with an ax as he lay asleep. Placing the corpse in one of Turner's two wagons, he drove
the murdered man's double-teams eastward, camping in Echo Canyon, where he hid the
body behind a large rock, and then proceeded into Wyoming. The body being discovered
and identified, Sheriff Turner, though overwhelmed with grief, immediately started in
pursuit of the murderer of his boy. He discovered piece by piece his stolen property,
which Hopt had disposed of at different points along the way, and finally captured the
criminal and brought him back to Utah. As the train bearing them passed the point
where young Turner's dead body had been found, the iron-nerved sheriff was visibly
affected, and prudently handed his gun to a fellow officer, lest he might do violence to
the assassin.
Sheriff Turner's whole subsequent course was equally wise and commendable. For
seven years — the period intervening between the murder of his son and the execution of the
murderer — he was under the terrible strain entailed by the law's delay and the defendant's
four trials and convictions, three of which, owing to irregularities in the proceedings, proved
abortive, the decisions being reversed by the Supreme Court of the United States. After
the third conviction, in June, 1884 (See volume 3, page 101) public sentiment, exasperated
HISTORY OF UTAH. 127
by the delay, demanded that the execution take place, but as this would have deprived
the defendant of the benefit of his appeal to the court of last resort, a reprieve was
granted by the Governor after an order staying the execution had beeu refused by the
local Federal courts. Sheriff Turner acquiesced, as usual, in the law's vindication; no
reversal of the fourth decision followed, and the condemned man finally paid the penalty of
his crime, being shot to death August 11. 1SS7. within the walls of the Utah penitentiary.
Jack Emerson, alias John MeConnell, whom Hopt accused of committing the murder,
and who was sentenced to the penitentiary for life, was pardoned by the Governor several
years later, there being reason to believe him innocent.
John W. Turner died at the home of his son, Charles H. Turner, in Provo, January
20. 1895, after an attack of nervous prostration, lasting about two months. He was a
man of sterling integrity, honest in his dealings, true to his friends and generous to his
foes. He had a wide reputation as one of the most successful detectives and criminal
hunters of his time. His successes, however, did not make him vain. His greatest
comforts and pleasures were those of home and family. Nevertheless he would
sacrifice pleasure and property at any time to obey a call of duty, never stopping to
consider whether or not he would be remunerated for his services. His courage was
equal to any oecason. Few men have exhibited greater nerve or presence of mind,
higher regard for law or better self-control when surrounded by circumstances of a trying
character. He was faithful to his religious convictions, but always gentlemanly in
asserting them. Genial, sociable and benevolent, in his death the public lost an
intrepid and devoted servant, the poor a sympathizing and charitable friend.
ANDREW LOVE,
QUTAH veteran of 1847, the subjeet of this narrative was born at Bullocks Creek,
York district. South Carolina, December 1, 1808. When six years old he went
with his parents to Missouri, first to St. Louis county, and then, after several
other moves, to Pike county, in the fall of 1817. Taking up heavily timbered land,
they cleared five acres, improved it and planted and raised a crop. John Love the father
died September 4, ISIS, leaving Andrew's mother. Elizabeth Ewing Love, and two sons.
On December 7th of the same year she gave birth to twins. Much suffering and privation
followed the father's death.
Though his inclination was to stock-raising and farming, Andrew apprenticed himself
to the blacksmithing trade, and having served his time, worked in different places. His
schooling was limited, but by self-help he secured a fairly good education. On the Sth
of December. 1S34, he was united in marriage to Nancy Maria Bigelow, at Decatur, Illinois.
At Lovington, in that State, he owned three hundred acres of land. For a time he kept
a tavern. He studied law, with the intention of graduating, but circumstances prevented
it. In 1S40 he was postmaster at Lovington, and it was there that he was baptized into
the Mormon Church, June 1st. 1844. Immediately after joining the Church he was
ordained an Elder, and shortly afterwards a Seventy.
In the spring of 1846 the Loves were preparing to move West, when they were noti-
fied by an armed mob that they must go within a certain time — almost immediately.
Accordingly they crossed the Mississippi at Fort Madison, arriving at Highland Grove,
on Keg Creek, Iowa, in August. There they passed the winter. Early next spring Mr.
Love went to Missouri to get an outfit for the mountains, and returning with three
wagons, sufficient teams, bread-stuffs, clothing, etc., they left Highland Grove June 9,
1S47. They ferried the Missouri river at Winter Quarters; also ferried the Elk Horn,
where they camped until the compauies formed that were to follow the Pioneers. The
Love family traveled in Jedediah M. Grant's hundred, Joseph B. Noble's fifty, and
Josiah Miller's ten. Their destination being unknown to the journeying band, it was
with great delight that they came one day upon a buffalo skull, inscribed with directions
from the Pioneers, who had passed that way. At Strawberry Creek the company met a
number of the Pioneers returning. Here is a leaf from Mr. Love's diary:
"Arrived in Great Salt Lake valley October 4. '47; built a cabin of adobes made after
the Spanish style (sixteen inches long, eight inches wide and four inches thick) — two
128 HISTORY OF UTAH.
small rooms and one small store-room; took my wagon-bed for flooring; covered the
walls with poles, grass and dirt.
"Plowed land and sowed grain in February, '48. Early in spring crickets came;
still we plowed, sowed, planted, ditched, fenced, and the crickets grew fat, field after
field succumbing to the invaders. Hope seemed to stand aloof. All of a sudden the
gulls came and made a desolating war on the crickets. The colony was saved, and with
right good will we acknowledged the hand of the Lord in it. Harvested that fall one
hundred bushels of corn and eighteen of wheat."
Until 1^50 Mr. Love and his family, after moving from their primitive hut at the
south-east corner of the Fort, resided on a city lot in the Seventh Ward. The next year
found them at Little Salt Lake valley, now in Iron county, and the year following at
Willow Creek, now Mona, Juab county. There his wife died November 27, 1352, leaving
him with two little daughters. Says he: "Our crops were growing nicely, when the
Indians drove us in a hurry to Salt Creek (Nephi). We mustered into companies,
drilled, stood guard, herded, built a fort, armed on all occasions — the everlasting six-
shooter' in our belts. Here took up new land, improved it and helped to build a city
wall around nine blocks — six feet at the base and tapering up to two-and-a half feet at
the top, twelve feet high."
On the 8th of March, 1854, Andrew Love married Sarah Maria Humphrey, and seven
months later he wedded his third wife, Clementine Henrietta Henroid. October, 1857,
found him in Echo canyon, under Warren S. Snow's command. Since January, 1854,
he had held a first lieutenancy in the Juab military district, and was also commissary of
subsistence. In consequence of the winter's exposure during that memorable campaign,
he suffered much from rheumatism in after life, his deafness also dating from that time.
His wife Clementine died September 20, 1858. From December, 1864, until August,
1S69, he taught school "drawn crooked all this time," says he, "by rheumatism, but
sincerely thankful to God for many blessings."
Mr. Love's official record comprises the following named offices: Alderman and
school trustee, May, 1854; legislative representative for Juab county, 1852; county
recorder, August, 1858; probate judge, 1859; justice of the peace, August, 1871; county
superintendent of district schools, 1877. He was ordained one of the presidents of the
forty-second quorum of Seventy, May 19, 1857, and a High Priest September 20, 1868.
He was president of the High Priests' quorum of Juab Stake.
From October, 1869, until March, 1870, he was absent upon a mission to the States.
The death of the worthy veteran, at the age of 82 years, occured at his home in Nephi,
December 7, 1890. He left a large family, his children numbering an even score.
THE WOODBURYS.
^"''HE head of this family in Utah, Thomas Hobart Woodbury, was one of the fathers
fjjij of horticulture in these parts, and was the founder of the Pioneer Nursery at Salt
;± Lake City. He and his first wife, Catherine R. H. Woodbury, came to "the valley"
in the original immigration of 1847.
Thomas began life at New Salem, Franklin county, Massachusetts, July 4th, 1822.
His parents were Jeremiah and Betsy Bartlett Woodbury. The father was a farmer, and
the family were in moderate but comfortable circumstances. The son received a common
education, attending school during the winter, and working on the farm in summer. He
passed his boyhood in his native county, employing himself at times in dressing and
splitting the palm leaf and making hats of that material. When eighteen years of age he
turned to wagon-making and wood- working. His inclination, however, was to farming
and gardening, which he afterwards studied and practiced scientifically.
His life was upiight and straightforward. He attended regularly the Baptist church
and Sunday School, but did not become a member of that religious body. In September,
1841, he was baptized a Latter-day Saint, and in December of the same year was ordained an
Elder of the Church. On May 8, 1842, he married in his native town Catherine Rebecca
Haskell, and they moved the same year to Nauvoo.
Mrs. Woodbury was of Puritan descent from both parents — -Samuel Haskell and
csn-d -yMst!&?
"?
■ ■
CUS/U, r t >■' I
^ -
, ''
HISTORY OF UTAH. 129
Elizabeth Reynolds, who were well-to-do farm folk, much respected and esteemed; her
brothers holding positions of honor. She was born at New Salem, July 6th, 1816, and
lived at her father's home until she married. She had a common school education, and
followed the vocation of straw-braider and dressmaker. She was a liberal-minded, large-
hearted woman, a faithful companion to the husband of her choice.
At Nauvoo Mr. Woodbury rented a farm of the Prophet Joseph Smith. He was
there ordained a Seventy, and connected with the eighteenth quorum. He and his wife
were sharers in the troubles of those times, and in the general exodus left Nauvoo with
a wagon and team, some seed grain and eighteen months provisions. The wagon Wood-
bury himself constructed: it had no paint and very little iron, but served very fairly the
purpose of its creation. Having crossed the Missouri river, the Woodbury s were organized
in A. 0. Smoot's one hundred, George B. Wallace's fifty, and crossed the plains, arriving
in Salt Lake valley September, '26, 1847.
Upon his arrival here Mr. Woodbury was stricken with mountain fever, brought on
by hardship and exposure. "Notwithstanding the many toils, worriments and anxieties
that beset us," says he, "we could rejoice with grateful hearts when looking back upon
the poverty and sickness that abounded before the Saints left Nauvoo. We all had fever
and ague and plenty of poverty at that time." Rallying from his illness, he was con-
fronted with the problem of how to prepare for winter. He must have a house, but of what
should it be made — logs and adobes, or willows and mud? He built his walls of adobe,
and covered them with poles, willows, hay and dirt; a very good roof in dry weather,
but "in ease of a shower, it did not quit raining quite so soon inside as out." On leaving
the Fort he made a home in the Seventh Ward. Salt Lake City. Of his early experience
at farming, he writes:
"I had my land to cultivate for the coming season. It was at the south end of the
Big Field, between Mill Creek and Big Cottonwood, on the brow of the bench, and very
sloping. Near by was one of the favorite hatching grounds of the crickets. They hatched
early, and were ready to devour the fir*t blade of corn that came in sight. They began
to eat up what I had planted, but I had them herded off by the time they had eaten
about an acre. The land lying a little below, some fifteen or twenty acres, was entirely
bare of everything, also another larger piece, a little above; the same as part of mine.
It never started again to grow anything. I fought crickets until they were all killed, or
had laid their eggs in the ground and disappeared. These eggs were in great abundance,
which was a great care upon my mind for the coming year. I drew my land (by
lot) the second year a little below the piece I had the first year; a portion of that
previously devastated. The crickets hatched the second spring — 1S49 — but an over-
ruling Hand was against them and they disappeared. Wheat and corn grew without being
molested, and we had plenty to eat, which was appreciated, for our rations had been short
for two years. We had been without bread a little while each year, during which time
we ate thistle roots."
The Woodburys continued to reside at Salt Lake City until 1861, when they moved
to Grafton, in Kane county. The head of the family at this time was second counselor
to Bishop William G. Perkins of the Seventh Ward, but was called to "Dixie" on a mission,
to start a nursery and supply the people in that section with fruit trees. Says he:
"I started about'the first of November, taking with me young trees of all the varieties I
had. and arrived at my destination about the first of December, with the trees in good
condition. I pitted them out near the bank of the Rio Virgen river. A freshet came,
and the river kept rising until I had to move my trees in the middle of the night, the
water following close at my heels, and taking away most of the ground on which the
trees were pitted. This narrow escape from failure was followed by others, insects attacking
small seeds and seedlings, but these pests were to a great extent overcome, and the ven-
ture finally proved successful."
In Grafton, at the organization of the town. Thomas H. Woodbury was made post-
master and justice of the peace, which offices he held until the place was abandoned
on account of Indian troubles, the inhabitants moving to Rockville. He now had two
families, having married his second wife. Harriet Miller, in the fall of 1851. His first
wife, after residing at Grafton nearly two years, returned north on account of her
daughter's delicate health. Two years later she became connected with the Relief
Society. In December, 1866, her husband, owing to poor health, also returned
to Salt Lake City. There he served as a Ward Teacher for some time, and on August
29. 1S73, was given his old position iu the Bishopric, as second counselor to Bishop
William Thorn. He continued to reside at his old home during the remainder of
his days.
130 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Thomas H. Woodbury was one of the earliest members of the Gardener's Club, after-
wards the Horticultural Society, with which he was connected for many years. For
about forty years he was the chief proprietor of the Pioneer Nursery, those interested
with him in the business being members of his family. He was a High Priest from
February 25, 1852, and was still acting: in the Bishopric at the time of his death. He
was also a zealous and prominent worker in the Sunday School, and being; an amiable,
kind-hearted man, was well beloved by the children and all his associates. By his first
wife he was the father of five children, and by his second wife the father of two. Mrs.
Catherine Woodbury also had an adopted child. Both his wives and five of his children
preceded him into the life beyond. The date of his death was June 6, 1899.
ORSON B. AND SUSANN S. ADAMS.
fHIS worthy pair were among the first settlers of Salt Lake valley, arriving here only
a few days after the advent of the Pioneers, whose trail they had followed from
Fort Laramie. They came with Captain Brown's detachment of the Mormon Bat-
talion, and as members of that body had passed the previous winter at Pueblo.
They early migrated into Southern Utah, where they helped to found Parowan, Harris-
burg and other settlements, and in that part they passed the remainder of their lives.
Orson B. Adams was born March 9, 1815, at Alexander, Genesee county, New York,
but was living in Morgan county, Illinois, when he became acquainted with his future
wife, Miss Susann Smith, whom he married there, March 20, 1836. She was the daugh-
ter of Anthony and Mahurin Smith and a native of Greyson county, Kentucky, where she
was born May 30, 1819. Her father died during her infancy, and her mother re-married
when Susann was about eight years old. The name of her step-father was Meeks. In
the fall of 1834 the family moved to Morgan county, Illinois.
Mr. and Mrs. Adams settled in Brown county, and in March, 1840, they joined the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Two years later they took up their residence at
Nauvoo, remaining there until the general exodus. Both were strongly attached to their
religion, and the kind and charitable disposition of Mrs. Adams, with a natural aptitude
for nursing the sick, made her a worthy acquisition to the Relief Society, organized by the
Prophet Joseph Smith. She was one of its earliest members.
In June, 1846, they crossed the Mississippi and traveled with other Mormon exiles
across Iowa to Council Bluffs. There, in July of that year, Mr. Adams enlisted as a
member of the Mormon Battalion. His wife, having no children at that time, enlisted
also, and in the capacity of a laundress accompanied the troops as far as Sante Fe. She
also served as a nurse, attending the sick and disabled, and administering comfort and
cheer to all needing consolation. They arrived at Sante Fe on the 12th of October, and
after resting a few days, in company with those deemed unable to pursue the further
journey to California, they marched northward to Pueblo, where they remained until June,
1847, and then set out for Salt Lake valley. They had previously heard from President
Young and the Pioneers, who had passed Fort Laramie and were on their way to the
shores of the Inland Sea. Mr. Adams' term of enlistment from July 16, 1846, to July 16,
1847, expired during his journey hither. He and his wife entered Salt Lake valley on the
29th of July.
Their experience during the first few years was that of their fellow settlers in the
Fort and subsequently in the pioneer city and its vicinity. Until the wheat harvest of
1848 their subsistence was chiefly of "roots and greens." Twenty bushels of ripe wheat
having rewarded their first farming labors, their gratitude and thanksgiving knew no
bounds. In the midst of the new colony Mrs. Adams found ample opportunity for the
exercise of the gifts with which nature had endowed her — those for ministei-ing to the
sick. These qualifications, it seems, were so well known and recognized that they con-
stituted one of the main causes for the early removal of the family to another part.
Called to settle in Iron county, they proceeded to Parowan in 1851 or 1852, and there
Mrs. Adams was blessed by Apostle George A. Smith, the founder of the place, and set
apart to wait upon her sex as a midwife. This calling she pursued for thirty-eight years,
"-'*
<#
sudo^rLy
tS zAfot'
&~m^ y
CoWV^
(TV
/yvisd
HISTORY OF UTAH. 131
with marked success, officiating- at the birth of many of the present inhabitants of Paro-
wan and other towns. At one time the Adamses resided at Paragoonah.
Early in the "sixties." they again moved southward, settling; at the new town of
Harrisburg. Washington county, where Mrs. Adams spent the remainder of her days. She
held office in the presidency of the local Relief Society, and occupied a position therein at
the time of her death. She died January 23, 1892, in the seventy-third year of her age.
Her husband, her aged mother, a daughter, an adopted son, and three orphan children
whom she had reared, were among those who mourned her loss.
The widowed husband took up his abode with his daughter. Mrs. Susann Adams
Harris, in the neighboring town of Leeds, where he continued to reside until the day of
his death. February 4. 1901. He kept no record of his life, but was known as a good and
useful citizen, faithful, like his sainted wife, to his religious convictions.
HORACE DRAKE
*"*"ORACE DRAKE, another emigrant of 1S47, a resident of Centerville at the present
tit time, is a native of Hartford. Trumbull county. Ohio, where he was born April 19,
/ji 1S26. His father's name was Daniel Drake, and his mother's, before her marriage,
Patience Perkins. They were hardworking people, the father a farmer, and the
mother a spinner and weaver. They soon won a competence by their industry, but as
Horace had to help earn a livelihood for the family, he was not favored with very much
schooling. He was about eight years of age when he moved with his parents to Illinois.
Having become Latter-day Saints, they joined the exodus of their people in May.
1846, and started westward, crossing the Mississippi at Fort Madison. They fitted them-
selves out with two wagons and ox teams and began the journey across the plains in June,
1S47. as members of Captain Daniel Spencer's company. Horace by this time was an
expert huntsman, and contributed to the game supplies of the camp along the way. He
much enjoyed the trip. He arrived in Salt Lake valley on the 19th of September, a few
days ahead of his company.
He first settled upon the site of Salt Lake City. On the third day of October, a little more
than three years after his arrival here, he married Miss Diana E. Holbrook, who at eight
years of age had traveled with her father, Chandler Holbrook, in Zion's camp: the only
female, it is claimed, in that organization. Mr. and Mrs. Drake have quite a family of
sons and daughters, namely, Horace L., Cyrus H., Eunice D.. Samuel, Joseph, Hyrum,
Alice E., Jedediah M.. Daniel C, Roseto A., James A. and Edith L. Some of them are
married.
Mr. Drake was ordained a Seventy on February S. 1850, and eleven years later was
chosen one of the Presidency of the Tenth Quorum. In the Utah militia he was drum-
major in the first regiment of the Nauvoo Legion. His vocation is that of a farmer and
stock-raiser. He is also mechanically inclined, and would have been skillful with tools
had he been apprenticed to a trade.
In May. 1SS7, he and his family moved to Davis county, where they still reside. Mr.
Drake is an honest man. a quiet unassuming citizen, one who attends to his own business
and lets other people's affairs alone. He came West, as he says, "to get out from under
the yoke oj oppression'' and find a place where he could "worship God according to the
dictates of conscience."
JOHN GABBOTT.
j[OHN GABBOTT, of Farmers' Ward. Salt Lake county, is a native of Nauvoo, Illinois,
T" but has been a resident of Utah since he was six years old. His parents were Edward
.J and Sarah Ann Rigby Gabbott. who emigrated from Leyland, Lancashire, England,
in 1841. They were baptized by Heber C. Kimball during his first mission to Eng-
land. The father was in poor circumstances, employed in a bleaching works in England,
132 HISTORY OF UTAH.
and followed farming after coming to America. His son John, who was born October 4,
1842, was between three and four years old at the time of the exodus from Illinois.
Among the incidents which made a vivid impression upon his mind was the death of
his mother, who was run over by a wagon while traveling across Iowa. The family were
poorly outfitted for the long journey westward. They left the Missouri River in the
spring of 1848, and arrived in Salt Lake valley in September.
They settled in the Seventh Ward, but prior to that lived in the Port, where Father
Gabbott built an adobe house of one room, covered with poles, canes and earth, but hav-
ing no floor. In that humble domicile they spent the first two winters. The first school
that John attended was in the Fort. He afterwards went to the Seventh District school.
Says he: "Events of interest to children in those times were the training days of the
Nauvoo Legion and the celebrations of the Fourth and Twenty-fourth of July. I remem-
ber also the riot on Christmas day, I think it was 1855, between the citizens and the
soldiers of Colonel Steptoe's command. I was on Main street at the time and saw the
soldiers fire on the crowd across the street."
"On June 11, 1866," says Mr. Gabbott, "I started with General D. H. Wells and
escort for Sanpete county, where I spent six weeks of that summer in the Blackhawk
Indian war. We assisted the people of Circleville on the Upper Sevier to remove to
Sanpete county for safety from the Indians." When at home he was occupied with farm-
ing, teaming, wood-hauling and canyon work. Latterly he has engaged in gardening
and in the nursery business.
In May, 1868, he married Emma Twiggs, and in the fall of that year went with her
to settle on the "Muddy." There he remained until 1869, when, the place being selected
by the government as an Indian reservation, he returned to Salt Lake City. He had
previously lived in Sugar House Ward, but in 1870 moved to the Seventh Ward, where he
resided until 1874, when he built his present home in Farmers' Ward. When that Ward
was organized, July 22, 1877, he was chosen second counselor to Bishop Lewis H. Mous-
ley, and on September 12, 1886, (Bishop Mousley having moved away and the Ward being
re-organized) he was made first counselor to Bishop Henry F. Burton, which position he
holds at the present time.
J October 22, 1878, witnessed the death of Mrs. Emma T. Gabbott, who had borne to
her husband four children, two boys and two girls. In March, 1879, he married Olive R.
Crossgrove, who also became the mother of four children, three boys and one girl. She
died in 1888, and since that time Mr. Gabbott has remained a widower.
Among the offices held by him are those of school trustee and justice of the peace.
The former he held continuously from November, 1876, for a period of nineteen years.
In politics he is a Democrat and has represented his party in County and State Conven-
tions as a delegate. Ecclesiastically he took part in the organization (January 28, 1900)
of the Granite Stake of Zion, with which Farmers' Ward is now connected.
WILLIAM HARKER.
VLr'O William Harker belongs the distinction of being Utah's oldest native white male
Ijjj inhabitant. The date of his birth was September 26, 1847; its place, the head of
^i; Echo Canyon. He is the son of Joseph and Susan Sneath Harker, who as mem-
bers of the first immigration that followed the Pioneers, were nearing the goal of
their hopes and desii'es — Salt Lake valley — when this child was born to them. Six days
prior to his advent a son had been born to Mr. and Mrs. Lorenzo D. Young, already in
the valley; and on the 9th of the preceding August Mrs. Cathering Campbell Steele, wife
of John Steele, a member of the Mormon Battalion, had given birth to a daughter, the
first white child born in Utah. This daughter, now Mrs. James Stapley, resides at
Kanarra, Kane county. Bishop Young's little boy did not live very long. Thus it hap-
pens that William Harker, the subject of this sketch, is to-day Utah's oldest white male
native.
He has led a humble, though useful and honorable life, his early boyhood being
passed at what was known as the "Old English Fort," on the west side of the Jordan, to
which place his parents moved in the spring of 1848. They were very poor at that time,
g -
< t-
HISTORY OF UTAH. 133
having to dig thistle roots as a part of their living. The father was a farmer, possessing
little but what he produced from the soil, until 1S55, when he procured three head of
sheep and began sheep raising. William's early labors were at herding sheep, and this
so occupied him that he received but little education. His youth was passed at Taylors-
ville and in Rush valley.
William Harker was married January 19, 1867. to Frances Elizabeth Wright, who
has borne to him ten children. He went on a mission to the State of Indiana in Septem-
ber, 18S*2, but was released on account of sickness, and returned home the following
June. He is still living at Taylorsville.
LEADING COLONIZERS
-7
/?
# T?Y7yi/8r} l~ ' '
ORSON HYDE.
QPOSTLE ORSON HYDE was best known in Utah as the leading spirit of the San-
pete settlements, over which he presided up to the day of his death. He was also
the chief colonizer of Carson valley, now in the State of Nevada. A very early
convert to Mormonism, he was one of its original Twelve Apostles, one of the
founders of the British Mission, and the first Mormon Elder to set foot upon the soil of
Palestine. As an orator he had few equals in the Church, and he was also an able writer.
He had a legal mind, was an experienced legislator, and possessed many excellent quali-
ties, among which were his humility and that indomitable pluck and perseverance by
which he overcame the obstacles of poverty and frontier environment, and made
himself an educated man, fitted for the prominent place and weighty responsibilities as-
signed to him.
The son of Nathan and Sally Thorp Hyde, he was born at Oxford, New Haven
county, Connecticut, January 8, 1805. He was next to the youngest of eight sons and
three daughters, and was but seven years of age when his mother died, soon after giving
birth to her youngest son. She was a pious member of the Methodist Episcopal church.
Her husband was a man of many gifts, and by vocation a boot and shoe maker. After
the death of his wife he enlisted in the United States army, serving in the war of 1812,
and several years later was accidentally drowned while attempting to swim a river in
Derby, Connecticut.
There, after the death of his mother, Orson lived with Nathan Wheeler, until he was
eighteen years of age. The rest of the family were scattered in various places. He was
but fourteen when in company with Nathan Wooster, Mr. Wheeler's nephew, he went to
Kirtland, Ohio, where his foster-father had purchased a farm. The two walked all the
way from Derby to Kirtland with knapsacks on their backs, containing clothes, bread,
cheese and dried beef for their journey. Wooster was a strong man, but young Hyde
kept up with him, trudging from thirty to forty miles a day until the entire distance — six
hundred miles — was traversed.
Upon his eighteenth anniversary, Orson Hyde bade the Wheeler family good bye and
went forth to seek his fortune. A suit of home-made woolen clothes, two red flannel
shirts, two pairs of socks, a pair of coarse shoes, an old hat, and six and a quarter cents
in cash comprised his capital stock and entire outfit. But he had more than these — his
native ability and energy, which no amount of money or clothing could purchase. He
first hired out to Grandison Newell at or near Kirtland, and worked for six months, at
six dollars a mouth, in a small iron foundry, where he learned to mould clock-bells,
and irons, sleigh shoes and other articles. He then hired out for another six months to
Orrin Holmes, a wool carder at Kirtland. Next he was employed as a clerk in the store
of Gilbert and Whitney at that place, and after working for them one or two years, he
hired two carding machines, from the earnings of which he cleared in one season six
hundred dollars in cash. Winter coming- on he again clerked for Gilbert and Whitney
until spring, and then assisted them in the manufacture of pot and pearl ash.
The year 1827 witnessed his conversion to Methodism, the result of his attendance at
a camp meeting six miles from Kirtland. The revival spread to that place, where the
young convert was appointed a class-leader. About this time vague reports came in the
newspapers of a "gold bible" that had been"dug out of a rock'' in the Stateof New York.
It was regarded as a hoax, but Orson Hyde said, on hearing of it, "Who knows but this
gold bible may break up all our religion and change its whole features and bearings."
Not long after, Sidney Rigdon and the Campbellite propaganda came th.-it way. and Mr.
Hyde, becoming a convert to this faith, now began to prepare himself for the ministry.
At the home of Mr. Rigdon in Mentor he .spent several months studying English gram-
mar under his tuition. lie then took two terms at the Burton Academy, reviewing
grammar, geography, arithmetic and rhetoric. Returning to Mentor, he spent a season
with a young man named Matthew J. Clapp, whose father kept the public library. There
9
138 HISTORY OF UTAH.
he read history, science and literature until his mind was pretty well stored. Ordained
an elder in the Campbellite church, he accompanied Mr. Rigdon to Elyria, Lorain county,
and to Florence, Huron county, where they baptized many and organized several
branches, over which, in the spring of 1830, Mr. Hyde was made pastor, and took up his
residence among them. In the intervals of preaching and ministering in his pastorate he
taught school at Florence.
Next came the advent of Mormouism, preached in his neighorhood in the fall of the
same year by Samuel H. Smith, Peter Whitmer, Ziba Peterson and Frederick G. Williams.
They exhibited the so-called "gold bible," the Book of Mormon, which Mr. Hyde read, and
concluded at first that it was a piece of fiction. While preaching against it, at a place called
Ridgeville, near Elyria, his conscience pricked him, and he resolved that he would
assail it no more until he had thoroughly investigated the subject. At the close of school
in the summer of 1831 he returned to Kirtland, where Sidney Rigdon, A. S. Gilbert,
Newel K. Whitney and others of his acquaintance had embraced the Mormon faith, and
where the Prophet Joseph Smith then resided. Under cover of a clerkship with Gilbert
and Whitney, he gave Mormouism a close and careful study, the result being his conver-
sion. He was baptized by Sidney Rigdon, October 30, 1831, and confirmed and ordained
an Elder the same day under the hands of the Prophet and Elder Rigdon. A few days
later the Prophet ordained him a High Priest, at a conference in Orange, and sent him
and Hyrum Smith upon a mission to Elyria and Florence. In these places they con-
verted and baptized many of Elder Hyde's Campbellite friends and organized two or
three branches of the Church.
Then followed a mission to the Eastern States, in company with Samuel H. Smith.
At Weslfield, New York, early in 1832, they preached to a crowded audience. After they
had spoken, a man in the congregation arose and stated that he had known Joseph Smith
from boyhood, proceeding then to give what purported to be his history. Says Elder
Hyde: "He soon came to where he said Joseph did some mean act and ran away. An-
other gentleman, who happened to know that the speaker, on account of his mean acts,
had recently run away from his former place of abode, here interrupted him by asking
how long it was after Joseph ran away till he started. The question discomfited the
speaker, who sat down amid the hisses and uproar of the multitude. The two Elders
preached and baptized in Massachusetts, Maine and Rhode Island, and at Lowell Orson
Hyde called upon his sister, Mrs. Laura Hyde North, whom he had not seen for twenty-
five years. She received him very coolly and rejected his testimony. At Providence
they met with violent opposition. December found them again at Kirtland. During
the spring and summer of 1833 Elder Hyde labored with Hyrum Smith, mostly in Erie
county, Pennsylvania.
The same summer Orson Hyde with John Gould was appointed to carry to Mis-
souri special instructions from the Prophet to the Latter-day Saints in that State.
They arrived at Independence just as the trouble began which culminated in the ex-
pulsion of the Saints from Jackson county; and returning they bore the news of the
outrages to Kirtland. The following winter Orson Hyde with Orson Pratt went to
Pennsylvania and New York to preach the gospel and gather recruits for Zion's
Camp. He joined the expedition at Dayton, Ohio, and donated to it between one and two
hundred dollars of his own money, which he had collected at Florence. He and Par-
ley P. Pratt were deputed to call upon Governor Daniel Dunklin at Jefferon City, and
plead the cause of their driven and plundered people. After returning from Missouri
Orson Hyde married at Kirtland Marinda N. Johnson, daughter of John and Elsa
Johnson and sister of Lyman E. and Luke S. Johnson, afterwards two of his fellow
apostles. The marriage ceremony was performed September 4, 1834, by Elder Sidney
Rigdon.
The Twelve Apostles were chosen the following February. In the spring Apostle
Hyde accompanied his quorum on their first mssion, traversing the states of Ver-
mont and New Hampshire. The spring of 1830 found him in New York State,
preaching in the vicinity of Rochester. At Buffalo he fell in with Joseph and Hyrum
Smith, and after parting with them proceeded to Canada, where he joined Parley P.
Pratt, with whom he labored very successfully. At Scarborough he had a debate
with a Presbyterian minister named Jenkins, who had challenged him to a discussion.
After an all day verbal cannonade the Presbyterian threw up his hands, exclaim-
ing, "Abominable! I have heard enough of such stuff!'' Apostle Hyde at once
rejoined, "Ladies and gentlemen, I should consider it highly dishonorable to continue
to beat my antagonist alter he has cried enough." About forty persons were bap-
tized immediately alter the debate. Mrs. Hyde joined her husband in Canada, and
HISTORY OF UTAH. 139
he continued to labor there until fall, when he returned to Kirtland and spent the fol-
lowing winter studying Hebrew.
The summer of 1837 saw him on his way to England with Heber C. Kimball,
Willard Richards and others. They labored in Lancashire and Yorkshire, baptized
nearly two thousand souls, founded the British Mission, and returned to America, our
subject arriving at Kirtland May 21, 1838.
In the summer of the same year he moved with his family to Far West, M ssouri,
where soon after his arrival he was attacked with billious fever, and did not fully
recover until the spring of 1S39. While in this feeble and debilitated state he drifted
away from the society of the Saints for a season, though he never lost his standing in
the Church: and after it was driven out of Missouri he came back, and was restored
to his former position. He settled with the Saints at Commerce (Nauvoo), and there
took the ague, which lasted for months, and was well nigh fatal to him and his fam-
ily. At the April conference of 1840 he presented almost the appearance of a
skeleton.
It was at this conference that Apostles Orson Hyde and John E. Page were appointed
upon a mission to Palestine. They started, but Page fell by the way. His companion
kept on his course, crossing to Eugland, where his fellow Apostles were laboring, and
then passing over to Bavaria, where he studied the German language. He next proceeded
to Constantinople, and from that point visited Cairo and Alexandria, and finally reached
the Holy Land. Asceuding the Mount of Olives above Jerusalem, on Sunday morning,
October 24, 1S41, he dedicated and consecrated the land for the gathering of the scat-
tered children of Judah. In witness of his act he erected two piles of stones — one upon
Mount Olivet and the other upon Mount Zion. Having suffered many hardships and pri-
vations, he returned home in the latter part of December, 1842.
At the death of the Prophet and the Patriarch, and the defection of Sidney Rigdon,
Orson Hyde stood staunchly by Brigham Young and his brethren of the Twelve, and ac-
companied the Church into the wilderness. In the summer of 1846, he, with Parley P.
Pratt and John Taylor, went upon a mission to England, where they stamped out "joint
stockism," and then returned to Winter Quarters on the Missouri — Elders Pratt and Tay-
lor in advance of Elder Hyde, who did not reach the Mormon camps until after the de-
parture of the Pioneers for the Rocky Mountains. His two confreres followed the
Pioneers the same season, and this left Apostle Hyde in charge of affairs on the frontier.
After the return of President Young and his party from Salt Lake valley, a council
was held at the home of Orson Hyde and the matter of reorganizing the First Presidency
considered by the Twelve Apostles. Apostle Hyde moved that Brigham Young be Pres-
ident of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint», and that he nonrnate his two
counselors. Wilford Woodruff seconded the motion, and it was carried unanimously. The
date of this action, which was subsequently confirmed by the Saints in General Confer-
ence, was December 5, IS47. Early m the summer of 1848 the First Presidency and the
main body of the people set out for Salt Lake valley, but Apostle Hyde still remained
on the Missouri, where he published at Kanesville (Council Bluffs) the "Frontier Guar-
dian," and had charge of the emigrational business of the Church. He came to Utah and
settled in Salt Lake City in 1851.
In May. 1855, he led a colony to Carson valley, then in Utah, being accompanied
thither by United States Marshal Joseph L. Heywood and Associate Justice George P.
Stiles. These three had been empowered by the legislature to help establish in the Carson
valley region the boundary between Utah and California; a similar commission from
that State being sent for the same purpose. This duty doue, thej7 organized Car-
son county. Orson Hyde becoming the probate judge. At the time of the Buchanan
expedition most of the Carson valley settlements were broken up, the Mormons returning
to Salt Lake valley.
About the year 1S60 our Apostle was appointed by the Presidency of the Church to
take charge of its affairs in Sanpete Stake. He made his home in Spring City, where he
continued to reside until his death. November 2S, 1878. He left a large family, being the
husband of several wives and tne father of numerous children, some of whom have risen
to prominence in the community of which their honored sire was so long a notable mem-
ber. For many years he represented Sanpete and other counties in the Legislatiye As-
sembly, and was one of the committee for the construction of the Manti Temple. Active
and zealous in the discharge of his apostolic duties, he was beloved and respected by
a wide circle of friends and acquaintances, and died as he had lived, a firm believer in
the divine mission of the Prophet Joseph Smith and his successors.
PETER MAUGHAN.
■ NE of the most prominent of Utah's colonizers, and a sterling character in the
Mormon community, was Peter Maughan, the pioneer of Cache valley. He was
born at Brekenridge, in the Parish of Farley, Cumberland, England, May 7, 1811.
His parents were William and Martha Maughan. The boy received a good
common school education and passed his early boyhood upon his father's farm. When
about fourteen years of age he went to Alston, where he labored in the lead mines,
and while there, in the spring of 1829, he married Miss Ruth Harrison, who bore to him
six children. She died at Alston in 1841.
This place was one of the first in Great Britain to hear Mormonism, which was
preached there in the summer of 1837 by some of the missionaries who accompanied
Apostles Heber C. Kimball and Orson Hyde to that land. Mr. Maughan became a convert
to the faith in the year 1838, and in the spring of 1841, after being ordained an Elder by
President Brigham Young, he emigrated to America, taking his children with him. The
youngest of these, a babe, died during the voyage and was buried at sea. He crossed
the Atlantic in the same ship that carried President Young and the Apostles back to their
native land.
Arriving at New Yoi-k he first went to Kirtland, where he met Mrs. Mary Ann Weston
Davis, a widow, who subsequently became his wife. After a two months sojourn at that
place he proceeded on by way of the Lakes to Illinois, and reached Nauvoo in the fall.
The following winter (1S41-2) he and Mrs. Davis were -married, Apostle John Taylor
officiating. At Nauvoo he followed the trade of a stone mason.
In the spring of 1844 Peter Maughan, with John Saunders and Jacob Peart, was
sent by the Prophet Joseph Smith up the Mississippi and Rock rivers in search of stone
coal for the Church. They purchased on Rock river eighty acres, with an excellent bed
of coal, five feet thick. They returned to Nauvoo to find the city under martial law for
the defense of the people against mob violence; and this, they learned, was the so-called
act of treason for which the Prophet was to be tried at Carthage.
After the murder of Joseph and Hyrum, the Maughan, Saunders and Peart families
resided at Rock Island for some time, opening out a coal bank by direction of the Church
authorities. Mr. Maughan was still there, detained by the sickness of himself and family,
when the Mormon exodus from Illinois began. In order to get help, so as to be able to
follow the Church to the Rocky mountains, he went to the lead mines at Galena, landing
at New Diggings, twelve miles above that place, on the 15th of April, 1846. There he
remained with his family until 1850.
In the spring of that year, having obtained means for their outfit, they took up their
line of march for Salt Lake City. At Kanesville, Iowa, they were organized into Captain
William Wall's company of fifty, Mr. Maughan being captain of ten. They left the
Missouri river in June, and had a great deal of sickness and some deaths from cholera
while on the plains. The Maughan family had a special cause for sorrow. Peter Maughan,
Jr., aged about three years, on the 1-th of July fell out of a wagon and was run over
and fatally injured. They buried him by the wayside. The date of arrival at Salt Lake
City was the 17th of September.
Mr. Maughan first settled in Tooele county, where he took up a farm. He searched
for lead in the mountains, but did not find any. When Tooele county was organized he
was appointed county clerk and assessor, and held those offices until 1853. He was also
a selectman of the county and recorder for Tooele city, and subsequently became county
treasurer. In company with Ormus E. Bates and Bishop John Rowberry he located
E. T. City, where in October, 1854, he was appointed to preside, with G. W. Bryan and
Howard Coray as his counselors.
On July 21st, 1856, Peter Maughan was sent by President Young to locate a settle-
ment in Cache valley, and accompanied by his son William H. Maughan, Zial Riggs,
>t^KF"
g^g§@s^^
HISTORY OF UTAH. 141
George W. Bryan. John Tate and Morgan Morgan, be proceeded to that part and made
choice of the south end of the valley as the site for the new settlement. Returning to
Tooele county (where in August of that year he was elected a representative to the
Legislature) he moved his family to Cache valley; G. W. Brvan. Zial Riggs, Francis
Gunnell, 0. D. Thompson and their families eoing also to that part. They arrived on
the 15th of September, and having spent two days looking around the valley, went to work
building houses, cutting hay from the wild arrass growing there, and otherwise settling in
permanent abodes. Wellsville, the settlement they founded, was originally Maughan's
Fort. It was renamed in honor of President Daniel H. Wells. Such was the origin of
the first settlement in Cache valley. The first child born there was Elizabeth Maughan,
daughter of Peter and Mary Maughan; the date of her birth being September '27, 1S56.
Early in December of the same year the Legislature met at Fillmore, but on account
of the death of Hon. A. W. Babbitt, the Territorial secretary, and the entire lack of
preparation for the assembly, it adjourned the same day that it convened — December 8 —
to meet in the Social Hall at Salt Lake City. Peter Maughan was present. He speaks
glowingly of the great discourses delivered during the session by Presidents Bri^ham
Young and Heber C. Kimball — the greatest discourses he ever heard; and also refers to
the Reformation then in progress throughout the Church, and the large amount of business
transacted for the Territory by its representatives. The session continued from the 18th
of December, 1S56. until the 16th of January, 1S57. "Next day," says Mr. Maughan
"I filed my bond for Probate Judge of Cache county, having been elected to that office
by the legislature."
The following passage is taken from a sketch written by Mrs. Mary Aim Maughan,
relative to their early experiences in Cache valley. Referring to the time of their arrival
there she says: "On the nig-ht of September 26th we had our first snow. It was very
deep. In the midst of it, on the morning of the 27th, our first daughter was born — the
first white native of Cache valley. Having moved into our log cabins, Mr. Maughan
started for Fillmore on the 25th of November. The storm he speaks of must have reached
Cache, for our fences, wood-pile, wagon, etc. were soon covered up by drifting snow.
We did not see them again until spring. We dug down to the end of a log of wood, drew
it out and cut it. When that was burned we got another the same way. We dug ditches
in the snow to keep the cattle off the tops of our hay-stacks. It was a very cold wiuter.
The next spring and summer we raised some crops, and then came the year of
the move."
Early in that year the Maughans started south with their loaded wagons, and after
camping some time at Brigham city, proceeded on to Salem. Utah county. Returning
north in Julv. 1S5S. they spent the winter at Rogers Pond, a mile north-west of Willard,
and finally, in April 1859. reached Cache valley.
That region now began to be settled rapidly. Logan and Providence being
the next places founded. Regarding the meagre postal facilities of the period. Mrs.
Maughan says: "There were many letters brought and left with me for people that had
come to Cache. I remember one addressed to "Mr. somewhere in Cache valley;
go find him:' I sent it up north; as it did not come back, I suppose it found him.' She
continues: "From this time the settlements were laid out by Mr. Maughan as fast as he
could do so. He was at home very little. In the fall of '59, Brother Benson came with
others of the Twelve to help organize the Cache Valley Stake of Zion and name the settle-
ments then made. Mr. Maughan was appointed Presiding Bishop and President, and was
counseled to move to Logan, as the most central place. In May, 1861, we moved to
Logan. The Indians were then very troublesome."
Not only was Peter Maughan the presiding ecclesiast in Cache valley, but he continued
to represent that part in the Territorial legislature, acting in each capacity as long as he
lived. He was regimental quartermaster of the Cache valley military district, holding
the rank of Colonel, and was a prominent officer iu many public associations. Tall of
stature, robust, and of fine physical development, he was admired, respected and beloved
by the people in general; also by the Indians, many of whom attended his funeral and
sincerely mourned the loss of their kind and fatherly friend.
He died at his home in Logan, April 24, 1871. He was the father of eighteen
children, the offspring of his three wives, Ruth Harrison. Mary Ann Weston and Elizabeth
Prater. His son William H. was for many years Bishop of Wellsville, and his son
Willard W. is now one of the presidency of Cache stake. He was the grandfather of
Mrs. Joseph Howell, the wife of our present representative in Congress.
ANSON CALL.
p3^HE name of Call will always be associated with the founding of Utah, and especially
1$} Davis county, where the subject of this story settled as early as the fall of 1848.
<!r The name is also identified with early American history, ancestors of his figuring
in the war of the Revolution and in the Indian wars of the Colonies. Anson Call's
grandfather, Joseph Call, was at the battle of Bunker Hill and afterwards served under
Washington. The brother of his great-grandfather fell with the gallant Wolfe upon the
heights of Abraham.
Anson Call, son of Cyril Call and his wife Sally Tiffany, was born in the town of
Fletcher, Franklin county, Vermont, May 13, 1810. His mother was the daughter of
Christopher Tiffany, a German immigrant. When Anson was seven years old the family
migrated to Geauga (now Lake) county, Ohio. There they were much afflicted with
sickness and reduced to lowly circumstances. These misfortunes, with the new condition
of the country, pi-e vented the boy from receiving much education. He was trained, however,
to habits of industry and self-reliance. His early labors were in farming, but at odd times
he took contracts in and around the' iron mines. He married, on the 3rd of October, 1833,
Mary Flint, daughter of Rufus and Hannah Haws Flint; the father a wealthy farmer from
Vermont, who, having willed his farm in Ohio to his daugthers Hannah and Mary, after-
wards disinherited them for joining the Mormons.
The Calls were Methodists in religion. Anson, on hearing Mormonism preached by
Brigham Young, John P. Greene, Almon W. Babbitt and other Elders from Kirtland,
had a hard struggle with himself before he yielded to his convictions and espoused the
unpopular faith. He studied it for three years, and then, after boldly asserting its truth
in a Methodist meeting, set out for Kirtland, where he was baptized by William Smith,
the brother of the Prophet, May 21, 1836. He was confirmed by David Whitmer in the
Temple. At this time he was miraculously healed of an impediment in his speech, and
promised that the healing should be permanent so long as he used his tongue for the
advancement of the Truth. He was ordained an Elder (subsequently a Seventy) and
preached the Gospel to his Methodist friends, about thirty of whom were converted and
baptized. His wife and his father's family followed him into the Church.
In March, 1838, he left Kirtland for Missouri, accompanied by his father and his
brother Harvey. They traveled part way with Asahel Smith, uncle to the Prophet. On
a steamboat going up the Missouri they met Colonel (afterwards General) Moses Wilson,
who had helped to drive the Saints from Jackson county, and who told this party that he
intended to assist in the Mormon expulsion from Caldwell county. He advised them not
to go to Far West, for if they did they were sure to be killed. They replied, "We are'no
better than our brethren, and if they die, we are willing to die with them." The boat
touched at Jefferson City, where Colonel Wilson introduced his Mormon acquaintances to
Governor Boggs and other anti-Mormons. Arriving at his destination Mr. Call purchased
land in Caldwell county, and by July of that year, had his familv comfortably settled upon
his farm on Grand river.
In September he was visited by the Prophet, his brother Hyrum and Sidney Rigdon.
The Prophet told him and his neighbors that there was trouble ahead, and advised them
to abandon their homes and move to Far West or Adam-Ondi-Ahman. Neglecting to
take the warning promptly — as they desired to save their crops — they found themselves
in a few days beset by mobs, and were forced to flee in the night, by an unfrequented
road, to "Diahman." Prior to their flight, Mr. Call had hid in a bunch of cornstalks and
fed for four days, Phineas H. Young, whom the mob had threatened to kill.
Anson Call was among those who surrendered to General Parks at Diahman. He
received a permit from that officer to go to Far West and then leave the State. This was
after the imprisonment of the Prophet. Father Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were
among the people counseling and comforting them; for they were harassed continually.
They were not permitted to leave the town except to get fire-wood, and though ordered to
HISTORY OF UTAH. 143
leave the State, were not allowed to collect their horses and cattle for that purpose. Two or
three epistles from the Prophet in Liberty jail came to them, but to hear them read and
receive other instructions from their leaders the men had to steal their way in the night to
a school-house about two miles from Far West.
One day — December 23. 1*38 — Mr. Call, unknown to the mob, left the city to go to
a farm in another county to make sale of two-thirds of thirty acres of corn that he had
raised on shares. At Fredericksburg, in Ray county, he was captured by ten armed
Missourians and subjected to much abuse. They threatened to whip and hang him, and
repeatedly slapped his face with their hands and the backs of their bowie-knives,
tantalizing him in various ways and daring him to fight. He was uuarmed and bore the
brutal treatment patiently. As they were about to tie. before whipping him, he suddenly
conceived a plan of escape. Calling to a grocer, who was leaning out of his window near
by, he asked for a bottle of whisky. A bottle and a glass were handed to him. He
toasted his persecutors and drank to them, telling them they were the bravest and best men
he had ever met. and then invited them to drink. Their chivalrous souls were so stirred by
the compliment (whose irony they did not perceive) and by the prospect of a drink, that
they accepted the invitation, and while they were drinking Call bounded away like a deer
and disappeared in the neighboring thicket. Though hotly pursued, he evaded them,
and five miles away reached the home of a friendly Missourian, whose wife was a
Mormon. There he was permitted to stay over night. He arrived at Far West on
Christmas day.
Soon after this he decided to visit his farm on Grand river, to see if he could obtain
some property to help him out of the State. President Young and Father Smith
advised him not to go, as he might fare worse than he did in Ray county; but his
situation was so desperate that he resolved to risk all consequences. He found his
farm in the possession of one of the men from whom he had purchased it — George
W. O'Xeil, who with his partner, one Culp, was taking advantage of the times to rob
the owner. These men set upon Mr Call, abused, beat him and forced him to flee for
his life. Bleeding from his injuries he returned to Far West, more than ever convinced
that the way of counsel was the way of safety.
In January, 1839, some apostates, including Lyman Cowdery, David Whitmer and
William E. McLellin, endeavored to use him in a conspiracy against the Prophet, upon
whom they sought to fasten a false charge of perjury: but Call, seeing through their
design, refused to became their tool. About the middle of February he and his house-
hold started for Illinois; the snow a foot deep and the cold intense. They suffered
severely before reaching Palmyra, near the State border, where Anson found his father
and his cousin, Orvis Call, with their families. The father rented a farm in Hancock
county, five miles from Warsaw, and Anson took a sub-contract on a railroad. This
enabled him to employ a number of his destitute brethren. He resided near Warsaw,
and afterwards, with Chester Loveland, rented a farm near Carthage.
In March, 1841, he moved to Ramus, about twenty miles from Xauvoo, where he
purchased a tract of land. There a Stake of Zion was organized, and he was made
a member of the High Council. In the spring of 1842 he took up his residence at
Xauvoo. At Montrose, Iowa, on August 8th of that year, he heard the Prophet
predict that the Saints would be driven west and would become a migthy people in
the midst of the Rocky mountains. From the fall of 1842 to the spring of 1843 he
traveled as a missionary through Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, in company with F. B.
Cummins.
In June, 1844, Anson Call, with David Evans, was appointed to visit the leaders of
the mob forces then gathering against Nauvoo, and endeavor to effect a peaceab'e settle-
ment of the pending troubles. They were unsuccessful and barely escaped mob violence.
They also visited Judge Thomas of the circuit court, then sitting at Knoxville, eighty
miles from Xauvoo, and tried to get a change of venue by which the Prophet — accused
of treason and riot — might be brought before that tribunal instead of being taken to
Carthage, which town was swarming with enemies who had sworn to kill him. Judge
Thomas declined to interfere, remarking that it was better one or two men should be
killed than that a whole people should perish. Messrs. Call and Evans delivered this
answer to Emma Smith, who promised to send it to her husband, then on the west side of
the Mississippi. Willard Richards told Anson Call that this was never done.
June 24, 1844, was the last day that he saw the Prophet alive. Joseph bade farewell
to the Legion near the Masonic- Hall, saying: '"Boys. I have come to bid you good bye;
I am going to leave you for a while." He turned in the saddle, raised his hand and
added, "You are my boys, and I bless you in the name of Israel's God. Be faithful
144 HISTORY OF UTAH.
and true, and you shall have your reward — farewell." He then set out for Carthage.
"Sunday morning, June 28" — says Mr. Call — "O. P. Rockwell rode into Nauvoo at full
speed, with the sweat dripping from his horse, shouting 'Joseph is killed — Joseph is
killed; they have killed him — they have' killed him!'"
A few days after the murder he visited Carthage and was shown through the jail.
He saw Hyrum Smith's blood on the floor of the fatal room, and the Prophet's blood on
the well curb outside the prison. He met a number of the murderers, among them
Captain Robert Smith of the Carthage Greys. Says he: "I suppose I was the first man
who ever testified to him that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. He never could look
me in the face afterwards."
Anson Call was one of the posse led by Sheriff Backenstos against the mob that soon
began to burn Mormon homes around Nauvoo, with a view to compelling the Saints to
leave the State. He sold his place in Nauvoo for one-fourth of its value, and on June 15,
1846, left in the general exodus. It was a day of mourning for him and his family, his
infant son having been found dead in bed that morniug. He overtook his father at Mount
Pisgah, and in due time reached Council Bluffs. There another sad event occured, his
son Moroni dying on the 9th of July, soon after his arrival at the head camps of
the Saints.
Notwithstanding the lateness of the season, and the call for the Mormon Bat-
lion, it was the original purpose of the Apostles, according to Mr. Call, to pioneer the
western wilderness before the close of 1846. Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball
each organized a company of seventy-five wagons for that purpose, and Anson Call, as
captain of the first ten in President Young's division, started for the Rocky mountains,
leaving the Elk Horn on the 22nd of July. At the Pawnee Mission on Loup Fork they
overtook fifty-two wagons led by Bishop George Miller and James Emmett. While
camping on the west side of the Loup, an express came from the Apostles, instructing
them to travel no farther that season, and naming twelve men, with Bishop Miller as
President, a council to direct the affairs of the companies that had reached that point.
How they resolved to winter with the friendly Ponca Indians, at the .-junction of the
Running Water and the Missouri, and were kindly entertained by them till spring, has
been related, notably in the biographies of William C. Staines and Charles Crismon.
In February, 1847, Ezra T. Benson and Erastus Snow arrived at Ponca from Winter
Quarters, with instructions to Bishop Miller and the companies with him to return to the
latter point and replenish their teams and stock of provisions before going to the
mountains. These instructions Miller refused to obey, stating that he did not consider
the Apostles had any right to dictate to the people of his camp. He claimed the right
to lead them himself by virtue of a special appointment from the Prophet Joseph
Smith. Anson Call and ten membei's of the council opposed Miller's claim, contending
that the Twelve Apostles were the legitimate leaders of the Church, and they induced all
but the occupants of five or six wagons (who followed Miller and Emmett to Texas) to
return to Winter Quarters. During the absence of the pioneers Anson. Call farmed on
the Pottawattomie lauds east of the Missouri river, and after their return he prepared to
accompany the emigration of 1848 to Salt Lake valley. He was connected with President
Young's company and had charge of twenty wagons. Leaving the Elk Horn on the
27th of June, he arrived in the valley on the 19th of September.
Three days later he moved ten miles north to what is now Bountiful, Davis county,
but was then or soon afterwards named North Canyon Ward. He had always been a
successful farmer, and in this locality his good fortune did not desert him ; though at first
he met with some reverses. His oxen were poor, and his cows helped to plow the new
soil. Logs, procured from the neighboring canyon, were whip-sawed and converted
into lumber, and in due time comfortable log dwellings, with lumber roofs and floors
housed him and his family. In the cricket plague of 1848-9 he succeeded in saving most
of his crops, gathering two hundred bushels of small grain from five bushels of seed;
also quite a crop of corn. In the harvest of 1850 he gathered a thousand bushels
of grain.
In September, 1849, Anson Call became Bishop of North Canyon Ward, but in
October, he was appointed by the First Presidency to assist George A. Smith and others
in colonizing Little Salt Lake valley. He commanded fifty of the one hundred wagons
sent south for that purpose. Leaving Salt Lake City on the 7th of December, he
camped on the present site of Parowan January 12, 1851. He took an active part in
founding the settlement, and was elected justice of the peace of the new colony. In
the spring he led another company from the north to strengthen the Iron county
settlement. In June he visited his home in Davis county, and then led a colony to
HISTORY OF UTAH. 145
Pauvan valley. Before starting he was appointed at the October Conference president
of this colony, and at a special session of the legislature was appointed Probate Judge of
Millard county, which he was directed to organize. He arrived on Chalk Creek in
November, 1851. President Young, Orson Pratt and others were already there and had
laid out a city named Fillmore, designed to be the capital of Utah. President Call led
out in all the labors required of the colony. In August, 1852, he was elected to
represent Millard county in the Legislature. During his sojourn at Fillmore the Indians
were troublesome: the Walker war was in progress and the Pauvant Indians were also
on the warpath. It was this tribe that massacred Captain Gunnison and party in the fall
of 1853 (See volume one, pages 522-527). President Call's mission to the South ended
in the following spring.
In the autumn of 1854 he took up a large farm in Box Elder county and founded
Call's Fort, the object being to furnish profitable labor to the poor emigrated by the
Perpetual Emigrating Fund. In May, 1S55, he was appointed a deputy to the United
States Marshal, Joseph L. Hey wood, and in that capacity he met Judge Drummond on his
arrival in Utah and escorted him to Fillmore. In April, 1856, he helped to establish the
Carson valley colony, returning in time to assist the illfated handcart companies into Salt
Lake valley. He and his sons, Anson V. and Chester, took part in the Echo Canyon war,
and in the temporary move that followed the family went to Payson. In October, 1864,
he was directed by the First Presidency to assist in planting a colony near the Colorado
river in South-western Utah, and was also made the agent for leading merchants of Salt
Lake City to select a site for a warehouse on the Colorado, with a view to bringing goods
into Utah by that route. It was intended at the time that Mormon immigration should also
come that way.
In 1870-71 Mr. Call, accompanied by his wife Mary and Mrs. Hannah Holbrook,
visited their relatives in Ohio, Vermont and other States. In 1872 he accompanied
President George A. Smith and the "Palestine Party" as far as England, spending
several months traveling in that country and in Ireland. Upon his return he was
appointed to preside over the home missionaries of Davis county, acting at the same time
as Bishop of Bountiful. When the Davis Stake was organized in 1877 he was chosen one
of the counselors to President William R. Smith — a position held by him during the
remainder of his life. He was succeeded as Bishop by his son Chester.
Anson Call was the the husband of sis wives, namely, Mary Flint, Maria Bowen,
Margaretta Clark, Emma Summers, Heuriette Williams Call (the widow of his brother
Josiah) and Ann Clark. His children number twenty-three. He died at his home in
Bountiful, Sunday, August 31, 1890.
WILLIAM WALLACE CLUFF.
'HE Cluffs are of Anglo-Dutch descent, their earliest American ancestor coming from
Yorkshire, England, between the years 1630^0. One of two Cluff brothers, William
and Jeremiah, who then lauded in America, after living for a time near Boston,
moved to Durham, New Hampshire, the headquarters of that branch of the family
from which the Utah Cluffs are descended. They get their Teutonic blood from an
ancestress who was the daughter of a rich merchant of Hamburg, exiled by her father to
the New World because she loved and contemplated an alliance with his gardener. In
America she married a man named Meda, and had a daughter who in due time wedded a
Cluff. The descendants of this pair have helped to people Utah.
David Cluff, the parent stem of the local stock, was a veteran of the war of 1S12,
and an uncle of his fought the British at the battle of Bunker Hill, while another uncle
was an active politician, repeatedly a member of the New Hampshire legislature. David's
father was a well-to-do farmer. He himself was a ship carpenter by trade, but a pioneer
by nature. In the year 1830, while on his way to Ohio on a canal boat in the State of
New York, he met Martin Harris, the Book of Mormon witness, who was going on his first
mission. From him Mr. Cluff learned all about Joseph Smith and Mormonism, and
purchased from him one of the original published copies of the book, the perusal of which,
with Harris's earnest testimony, paved the way for his acceptance of Mormonism. This
146 HISTOEY OF UTAH.
took place in the fall of 1831, while he was a resident of Willoughby, three miles from
Kirtland, which place he visited in the summer of that year and there became acquainted
with the Prophet Joseph Smith.
William W. Cluff. fifth child and fourth son of David Cluff and his wife Betsey Hall,
was born at Willoughby, Geauga county, Ohio, March 8, 1832. He was but four years
old when the family moved to Kirland, where the father worked upon the Temple, and
after a mission to Canada and the Eastern States, started in 1838 for Missouri. He had
only got as far as Springfield, Illinois, when most of his family were prostrated with chills
and tever, which interruption in their journey prevented them from participating in the
troublous scenes at and around Far West. In the spring of 1840 they proceeded
to Commerce, which became Nauvoo, Father Cluff had just returned from a mission
to the Eastern States when the martyrdom of the Prophet and the Patriarch took place.
At Nauvoo he carried on the business of cabinet making and building; also working on
the Temple. May, 1846, the year of the exodus, found him and his family temporarily
located at Mount Pisgah, Iowa, where they remained for two years.
While residing there William W., then a boy of fifteen, met with an adventure that
nearly proved fatal to him. He and another lad had been employed by Bishop Edward
Hunter, Church agent, to drive some loose stock westward from Sarpee's Point. One
afternoon, a little west of the Missouri river, they were attacked by three drunken
Indians, one of whom, maddened at being thrown from his horse, sprang upon young
Cluff with a bowie knife and tried to stab him. By a quick movement he avoided the
blow, the knife grazing his shoulder. While the Indian was catching his horse the boys
made good their escape.
William remained in the vicinity of Winter Qurters that summer, suffering a severe
attack of chills and fever, and in the fall was taken by his father back to Mount Pisgah.
The family next settled at Mosquito Creek, two miles south of Council Bluffs, where
they fenced and cultivated quite a large tract of land. They crossed the plains in 1850,
as members of Bishop Hunter's company, leaving the Bluffs in the spring or early summer,
and arriving at Salt Lake City on the 3rd of October.
The Cluffs settled at Provo, then an infantile village, which they did much to develop
and improve. They were one of the principal families in that part. The father and his
grown sons each took up twenty acres of land at the foot of the mountain, where the
State Asylum now stands, also establishing themselves in the town proper. It is
claimed for David Cluff that he planted the first fruit trees and raised the first fruit in
Provo; also that he built the first cabinet shop there, his older boys working with him at
that trade. William was mainly occupied upon the farm. It was he who took up and
enclosed the lot upon which the old Provo meetinghouse still stands.
In April, 1854, he, with eighteen other young Elders, was called upon a mission to
the Sandwich Islands. Included in this company were Joseph F. Smith, John T. Caine,
Silas Smith, Ward E. Pack and Simpson M. Molen. Elder Cluff labored on the islands
of Oahu, Maui and Hawaii. He learned the native tongue very thoroughly, baptized
many, organized branches of the Church and performed all the duties of a presiding and
traveling Elder. Honorably released, he sailed with other returning missionaries from
Honolulu, and landed about Christmas time, 1857, at San Francisco.
They found that city and the vieinity much excited over President Buchanan's "Utah
Expedition." Anti-Mormon sentiment was rampant. Deeming it prudent under the
circumstances not to disclose their identily as Mormons, they sought and found employ-
ment at some sawmills near Redwood City. One of these mills was owned by a well-to-do
Mormon named Eli Whipple, and the other by a non-Mormon. At the latter place Elder
Cluff and two of his fellows obtained work. They gained the respect and good will of the
wood-choppers, some of whom were radical anti-Mormons; on Sundays they would sit
around the boarding house, drinking, gambling and discussing the Utah situation. When
the account of Lot Smith's exploit reached them through the California papers, there was
a terrible state of excitement, and one of the men, taking the floor, harangued the others,
declaring that every Mormon ought to be hung, that he would like to volunteer to go
and hang every Mormon that could be found, and that if he could come across a
Mormon at that moment he would help to hang him to the nearest tree. Mr. Cluff, unable
any longer to restrain his indignation, laid down the paper he had been reading and
stepping up in front of the speaker said, "My friend, I am a Mormon; suppose you
commence with me." The effect was electrical; the bully slunk away, and the rest of
the men crowded around Cluff, shouting "Bully for you!" "Hurrah for you, my boy,"
and slapping him approvingly on the shoulder. They had liked him before; now they
admired and befriended him, and from that moment he and his two Mormon friends were
HISTORY OF UTAH. 147
under their special protection. Later, when it was rumored that Eli Whipple and a
lot of Mormons rendezvousing at his mill, were going to Utah, and a mob threatened to
rise and prevent them from leaving, or what was equivalent, to disarm them beforehand,
which would have exposed them to numberless dangers en route, the men at the other
mill warned those who were threatened and offered to form an armed escort for Cluff and
his companions and see them safe out of the State. In company with the Whipples and
others he started for Utah March 15, 1S58, arriving at Provo on the 11th of June.
This was right in the midst of the "move" preceding the march of Johnston's army
through Salt Lake City; a spectacle witnessed by Mr. Cluff, who, with General James
Ferguson, John T. Caine and Horace K. Whitney, was in the cupola of the Beehive house,
on guard ready to note any hostile demonstration on the part of the government troops,
and sound the alarm, which would have meant the burning of the city by its founders.
After the return from the move Mr. Cluff attended the Academy at Salt Lake, conducted
by Professors Orson Pratt and James Cobb, and was still there when called upon a
mission to Scandinavia. At this time he was engaged to be married to Miss Ann Whipple,
daughter of Eli Whipple, the Redwood lumber merchant, having formed her aequiaintance
in California. His mission postponed the marriage.
September 27. 1859, was the date of his departure from Salt Lake City, in a company
headed by Apostles Orson Pratt, Erastus Snow and George Q. Cannon. Hon. William
H. Hooper, Utah's Delegate to Congress, also went along. In the East Elder Cluff
visited the old family homestead at Durham, and after spending several days among his
kindred sailed from New York for Liverpool. His fellow missionaries to Scandinavia
were Jesse N. Smith and J. P. R. Johnson. They sailed for Rotterdam, and thence by
way of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein reached Copenhagen. They were welcomed by
Elder John Van Cott, then presiding in Scandinavia. Elder Cluff studied the Danish
language while staj-iug with a family of Saints on the Island of Sjelland, and after three
months began to preach in that tongue. He traveled through the whole mission, comprising
Denmark, Norway and Sweden, part of the time in company with Apostles Amasa M.
Lyman and Charles C. Rich. Other visitors from England were Apostle George Q.
Cannon and wife, Elder Joseph F. Smith and his cousin Samuel H. B. Smith. At the
head of a large company of emigrating Saints he returned home in 18G3.
The Whipple family were then residing at Pine valley, Southern Utah, and thither, after
a short rest at Provo. Mr. Cluff proceeded. October 24, 1S63 — the day after his arrival at
the Whipple home — he and his betrothed became husband and wife. They took up then-
residence at Provo. By appointment of President Young Elder Cluff labored some six
weeks among the Scandinavian Saints in Utah, Juab and Sanpete counties, and was then
called, with Elders Joseph F. Smith and Alma L. Smith, to accompany Apostles Ezra T.
Benson and Lorenzo Snow to the Sandwich Islands. The purpose of this mission was to
stamp out the Gibson imposture (see biographies of Presidents Lorenzo Snow and Joseph
F. Smith) and set in order the affairs of the Hawaiian Mission. The party reached
Honolulu about the 27th of March, and sailed two days later for the Island of Maui, their
bark, the schooner "Nettie Men-ill," Captain Fisher, coming to anchor on the morning
of the 31st about a mile from the mouth of the little harbor of Lahaina. Mr. Cluff thus
relates what followed:
"Apostles Ezra T. Benson and Lorenzo Snow, Brother Alma L. Smith and myself
got into a small boat to go ashore. Brother Joseph F. Smith, as he afterwards stated, had
some misgivings about going in that boat, but the manifestation was not sufficiently strong
to indicate any general accident. He preferred to remain on board the vessel until the
boat returned. The boat started for the shore; in addition to our party, it contained
the captain (a white man), two or three native passengers, and the boat's crew, who were
also natives; likewise some barrels and boxes.
"The entrance to the harbor is a very narrow passage between coral reefs, and when
the sea is rough it is very dangerous on account of the breakers. Where the vessel lay
the sea was not rough, but only presented the appearance of heavy swells rolling on the
shore. As we approached the reef, it was evident to me that the surf was running
higher then we anticipated. I called the captain's attention to the fact. We were running
quartering across the waves, and I suggested that we change our course, so as to run at
right angles with them. He replied that he did not think there was any danger, and our
course was not changed. We went but little farther when a heavy swell struck the boat
and carried us before it about fifty yards. When the swell passed, it left us in a trough
between two huge waves. It was too late to retrieve our error, and we must run our
chances. When the second swell struck the boat it raised the stern so high that the
steerman's oar was out of the water, and he lost control of the boat. It rode on the swell
148 HISTORY OF UTAH.
a short distance and swung around just as the wave began to break. We were almost
instantly capsized into the the dashing:, foaming sea.
"I felt no concern for myself about drowning, for while on my former mission I had
learned to swim and sport in the surf of those shores. The last I remembered of Brother
Snow was as tlie boat was going over, when I saw him seize the gunwale of it with both
hands. Fearing that the upper edge of the boat or the barrels might hit and injure me,
I plunged head foremost into the water. After swimming a short distance I came to the
surface without being strangled or injured. The boat was bottom upwards, and barrels,
hats and umbrellas were floating in every direction. I swam to the boat, and as there
was nothing to cling to on the bottom, I reached under and seized the edge of it. About
the same time Brother Benson came up near me, and readily got hold of the boat. The
natives soon appeared and swam about quite unconcerned for their own safety. Brother
Alma L. Smith came up on the opposite side from Brother Benson and myself. He was
considerably strangled, but succeeded in securing a hold on the boat. A short time
afterwards the Captain was discoved about fifty yards from us. Two of his sailors swam
to his assistance, and, one on each side, succeeded in keeping him on the surface, although
life was apparently extinct. Nothing had yet been seen of Brother Snow, although
the natives had been swimming and diving in every direction in search of him."
Elder duff's narrative then goes on to tell how two life boats put out from the shore,
about a quarter of a mile distant, and how he and his friends, with the apparently lifeless
body of Apostle Snow (which had been finally recovered by one of the native divers) were
taken into one of the boats, while the captain and his attendants were taken into the
other, and all carried to shore. The Captain, after being worked over for some time,
was brought to life. He would probably not have been in much danger had it not been
for a sack containing four or five hundred dollars in silver, which he held in his hand,
clinging to it with great tenacity. When the boat capsized, the weight of the silver took
him to the bottom. The natives dove and brought him up still clinging to the sack.
When his vitality was restored, the first thing he inquired after was the money, intimating to
the natives with peculiar emphasis that it wouid not have been well for them to have lost it.
To resuscitate Apostle Snow was a much more difficult task." Elders Cluff and Smith
administered to him repeatedly; first while his cold, stiff body lay across their laps in the
boat. On reaching the shore, they carried him to some large empty barrels lying upon
the sandy beach, and having laid him face downward over one of these, they rolled him
back and forth until all the water he had swallowed was ejected. They washed his face
with camphor, furnished by Mr. Adams, a merchant, but still he showed no signs of life.
The bystanders said that nothing more could be done for him, but his friends would not
give him up. Finally they were impressed to place their mouths over his and inflate his
lungs, breathing in and drawing out the air in imitation of the natural process. This
finally resulted in his restoration. A Portuguese gentleman living at Lahaina, who from
the first had rendered much assistance, now invited the Elders to fake Apostle Snow
to his house, an offer gladly accepted, there being no Saints in that place.
After seeing the Apostle out of danger, Elder Cluff returned to the schooner and
acquainted Elder Joseph F. Smith with the happy outcome of the alarming and all but
fatal accident. The latter, having witnessed the mishap, had been under a terrible
strain of anxiety. He had been told by a native that the captain and an elderly man
were drowned, and had supposed the latter to be Apostle Benson. When he found
that all were safe, he was so overjoyed that the sudden revulsion of feeling almost over-
came him.
Mr. Cluff returned to Utah in December of the same year, arriving at Salt Lake
City on the day the legislature convened. He was chosen messenger of the Council.
In February, 1865, he was appointed Presiding Bishop of Summit, Wasatch atid
Morgan counties, and in May of that year moved with his family from Provo to Coalville.
This town was located under his direction in the spring of 1866, and prompted by his
ambition and energy, the people of the place began the erection of a school and meeting
house. The same year he was elected to represent Summit county in the legislature. He
presided over the three counties named until the fall of 1867, when Wasatch county was
separated from his district. From the spring of 1869 until the summer of 1871 he was
absent from home, presiding over the Scandinavian Mission.
In 1872 he sat in the Constitutional Convention, of which Hon. Thomas Fitch, Colonel
Akers, General Barnum, Ex-Governor Fuller and Hadley D. Johnson, all non-Mormons,
were members. He was also in the Constitutional Convention of 1884, acting as its chap-
lain. He was repeatedly elected to the House and three times to the Council of the Leg-
islative Assembly, and in 1882-3 was President of the Council.
HISTORY OF UTAH. ]49
When the Summit Stake of Zion was organized, July, 9, 1877, William W. Cluff
was made its president, and served in that capacity until 1901, when he was honorably
released. In June, 1887, he made his third trip to the Sandwich Islands, transacting
business for the Church and returning home in July. In politics Mr. Cluff is a staunch
Democrat. He is recognized as a man of sterling worth, one whose record speaks for
him in no uncertain tones as a staunch and sturdy builder of the commonwealth which
ranks him among its prominent and respected citizens.
WILLIAM BUDGE.
a NOTED name, both in Utah and Idaho, is that of the President of the Bear Lake
Stake of Zion. He is a Scotchman by birth, but has been an American citizen
during the greater part of his life. He emigrated from his native land nearly
forty years ago, and ever since, except for comparatively brief periods when duty
called him abroad, he has been actively engaged in building up the inter-mountain coun-
try. As a pioneer and colonizer, a law-maker and man of affairs, as well as an ecclesi-
ast, his record is one of the best among those of his class. A man of character and
intelligence, dignified of mien, gentlemanly in deportment, modest yet masterful, pru-
dent, self-reliant, full of courage and integrity— such is William Budge, the subject of
this biography.
He was bom at Lanark, Lanarkshire, May 1st, 182S. His father was William
Budge, and his mother before marriage, Mary Scott. They were in fair circumstances
for members of the poorer class. In the early part of his life William Budge, Sr., was
a British soldier, honorably discharged after seven years of faithful service in the
West Indies. Later, he was a merchant in Lanark, but was unfortunate in business as
the result of accommodating his friends. He afterwards became a traveling agent for
the great publishing house of Fullerton & Company, Glasgow, and resided successively
at Lanark, Wishaw, Airdrie, Glasgow and Campbelltou. In these places William's boyhood
was passed. He had very little schooling, owing in part to these frequent removals of
the family, and in part to the primitive character of the schools in the places named.
In his youth he was inclined to the ministry, but circumstances rendered it impos-
sible for him to embrace that calling. At twenty he was in the boot and shoe business
at Glasgow, and it was then that he first heard the Gospel preached by Elders of the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This was in the fall of 1818. On the 31st
of December he was baptized by Elder John McMillan in the river Clyde, and from that
time he was engaged in local Church work until April 22, 1851, when he was called to
general missionary duty by George B. Wallace, one of the presidency of the European
Mission, who ordained him an Elder on the same day. He had been a Teacher since
May 27. 1849, and a Priest since September 22, 1850.
His new field of labor was in the Carlisle conference, under the presidency of Ap-
pleton M. Harmon, who assigned him to the town of Workington, in the county of Cum-
berland. There were no Saints there until Elder Budge baptized a number of believers.
Later, his field of labor embraced also the town of Whitehaven, where he baptized seve-
ral. In September, 1851, he was transferred to the western districi of the Glasgow confer-
ence, and subsequently to the Southampton conference. In the latter field he baptized
seventy or eighty. From March 19 to July 25,1854. he labored in theNorwich conference,
and then received an appointment to repair to Cambridge and labor in that city of colleges.
On the 28th of August he was appointed by Apostle Franklin I). Richards, who with
Elders Geoige B. Wallace and Daniel Spencer presided over the mission, to labor in
Switzerland and Italy, under the presidency of Daniel Tyler. Elder Budge thus narrates
some of his experiences on the continent:
"On the 30th of September, 1854, I arrived in Geneva, Switzerland, and was as-
signed to labor in Zurich. < >n the 5th of October I reached Weiningen, six miles from
Zurich, in company with Elder George Mayer, who had charge of this part of the mis-
sion. It was a time of trouble for the Saints; one Elder had been recently banished
from the country, and President Mayer was being looked after by the civil authorities,
the result being his banishment also. I labored in this mission until the latter part of
150 HISTORY OF UTAH.
the ensuing April, when I was obliged to leave the country, having been arrested thir-
teen times within three months, sometimes detained two or three hours or more, and im-
prisoned on one occasion for four days.
"I arrived at Liverpool April 28, 1855, and was appointed to labor in the Norwich
pastorate under the direction of Elder Charles R. Dana. The time was spent very inter-
estingly until, in response to an appointment by President Richards to introduce the
Gospel in the kingdom of Saxony, I left England September 22 of that year and arrived
in Dresden on the 28th.
"It being a few years after the general political disturbances that took place in a
number of the continental nations, the authorities were very strict; civil regulations
made passports necessary everywhere, and the conduct and object of strangers were
strictly investigated; it was therefore almost impossible to carry out the purpose of my
mission.
"1 lived at the house of Dr. Karl G. MsBser, who had written a letter of inquiry
about our faith, in response to which I had come. He had exceeding great faith in the
truth as revealed to him, and was an energetic and constant help in such efforts as we
were able to make. It came to pass that, following Dr. Ma'ser, several relatives and
friends accepted the principles of the Gospel, and on the evening of October 19 were
baptized by President F. D. Richards, assisted by myself. President Richards,
under whose direction the mission was opened, in company with Elder Wm. H. Kimball,
paid us a visit on his way to other fields of labor on the continent, and in response to our
wishes he administered the ordinance of baptism, as above stated, in the river Elbe, and
during his brief stay instructed us in many things, which increased our faith and joy in
the Gospel.
"I was ordained a Seventy under the hands of President Richards and Elder Kimball
on the 21st of October, 1855."
After laboring for some time under adverse conditions — his movements all the while
watched narrowly by the police — Elder Budge, in order to avoid bringing trouble upon him-
self and his friends, and agreeable to instructions from President Richards, left Dresden on
the 18th of November, and arrived at Geneva, Switzerland, on the evening of the 20th. He
found President Tyler sick; he had been released to return home and desired Elder Budge
to remain with him until he was able toti'avel. He recovered slawly, so that it was not
until tlic 27th that he left Geneva, arriving in London on the 30th of that month.
Elder Budge's next appointment was as'a traveling Elder in the London conference,
over which he was appointed to preside July 26, 1856. In the latter part of 1857 he was
placed in charge of the Birmingham pastorate, comprising four conferences, and while
acting in that capacity was appointed, March 14, 1858, second counselor to Elder Asa
Calkin, who had succeeded Apostle Richards as President of the mission. This office,
with his pastorate, he held until May 11, 1860, when he sailed from Liverpool for Amer-
ica, his family — for he was now a married man — accompanying him. They landed at
New York.
From that city to Florence, Nebraska, he had charge of the company of Saints that
emigrated with him from Europe, and at the end of this section of the journey was given
command of the last company that crossed the plains that season; this appointment came
from Apostle George Q. Cannon. Captain Budge had Nephi Johnson, ,an experienced
frontiersman, as his assistant. The company comprised seventy-two wagons, the cap-
tain's outfit consisting of one wagon, one small tent, three yoke of cattle and two cows,
for the accommodation of ten persons. There was also a saddle pony for his special use.
They left Florence about July 25, 1860. The journey was comparatively uneventful,
though not without incidents of a stirring character. A numerous band of Indians con-
fronted them at one time, demanding something to eat in a very peremptory manner,
and were appeased with a liberal donation from the wagons. At another time, an im-
mense herd of buffalo, so vast as to be absolutely beyond estimate, temporarily impeded
their progress. The company was also treated to the exciting spectacle of a stampede
among their teams, but no damage resulted, except in the loss of a few cans and kettles
not properly secured to the wagons. At Laramie, Captain Budge and his assistant, Mr.
Johnson, visited the fort and called at the postoffice, which was also the store. While
there a number of soldiers, returning from Camp Floyd and encamped near by, came in.
One of them, noticing that Johnson had a pistol with the letters "U. S." upon it, offici-
ously informed him that it belonged to the United States. Johnson replied that possibly
it hail, once, and pulling the pistol out, asked deliberately if there was anyone present
who wanted to take it. His manner did not encourage anyone to accept the invitation,
and the incident closed with his coolly replacing the weapon in its scabbard.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 151
Captain Budge and his company reached Salt Lake valley on the 5th of October. He
settled first at Farmington, Davis county, renting a dilapidated log house of one room,
with no windows. There was plenty of ventilation, however, for a person could "stand
in the. center of the room and look in all directions through the chinks between the logs.''
Says he: "We had no furniture. Early in the morning after our arrival a neighbor
called and offered me a job of digging potatoes on shares, which I readily accepted.
From that time on I labored for day's wages wherever my services were required. The
highest wages in those days for common labor was a bushel of wheat a day, worth in the
market sixty-five cents. Everything to be bought as merchandise was high: Nails sev-
enty-five cents a pound, sugar one dollar, tea between three and four dollars a pound,
with everything else in proportion. Notwithstanding this, we enjoyed life and prospered,
although we had little to eat during' the first winter but bread, potatoes and some tea saved
from our traveling store. The following summer I raised sugar cane on shares, in con-
nection with such other work as I could obtain. I was elected justice of the peace at
Farmington August 4, 18(12, and the same year was appointed assessor and collector of
Davis county."
In February, 1804, William Budge removed to Providence, Cache county, where he
resided for six years, being Bishop of the ward during that period. In 1805 he was ap-
pointed assessor and collector of Cache county for a term of six years. While there he
was thrice appointed assistant assessor of internal revenue, his first appointment dating
from March 23, 1806. He became postmaster at Providence September 18, 1800, and on
May 14, 1SGS, was commissioned a major of infantry in the Nauvoo Legion. His career
as Bishop of Providence began officially on January 10, 1804, when he was ordained a
High Priest and set apart to act in that capacity.
In Jul}', 1870, he removed to Paris, Idaho, where he held the position of Presiding
Bishop of the Bear Lake settlements until August 26, 1877, when he was appointed President
of the Stake, which position he still holds. From June 14, 1878, until November 6, 1880,
he fulfilled a mission as President of the Church in Europe. His first political office in
Idaho was deputy surveyor of Oneida county, for which he was chosen July 23. 1872.
He was Bear Lake county's first member in the Council of the Idaho legislature
during the sessions of 1876-7 and 1SS0-1. When the Territory became a State, he
was elected to the Senate, and served during the session of 1898-9.
Since taking tip his residence in Idaho, a combination of circumstances has
placed him prominently before the public as a political representative of the Mormon
community. As such he has held many responsible positions, and has been able at dif-
ferent times to render considerable assistance to many who were in trouble during the
crusade under the anti-polygamy laws. He twice visited Washington, D. O, in the in-
terests of the Mormon people of Idaho; once when prejudice ran very high and the
Federal courts were unwarrantably severe against those accused of polygamy or unlaw-
ful cohabitation; and again, in order to oppose the passage of the Idaho Statehood bill,
because of the test-oath provision that it contained. During the crusade he was him-
self arrested at Ogden, Utah, and transferred to Idaho, where he was tried for unlaw-
ful cohabitation. The trial, which took place at Blackfoot, was a protracted one,
ending in his acquittal.
President Budge is the husband of three wives, whose names with the dates of mar-
riage are as follows: Julia Stratford, November 24, 1856; Eliza Pritchard, September 9,
1861; Ann Hyer, April 5, 1868. His children number twenty-five. His business affairs
have been of a personal nature, with the exception of an interest in two saw-mills, two
co-operative stores, and an extensive cattle ranch. He lives, like the Thane of Cawdor,
"a prosperous gentleman."
FRANCIS ASBURY HAMMOND.
fHE stirring story of Utah colonization would not be complete without the biography of
Hon. F. A. Hammond, who settled in Salt Lake valley in September, 1848, and died
President of the San Juan Stake of Zion in November, 1900. He was born at
Patchoarue, Suffolk county, Long Island, on the first day of November in the year
1822. His parents were Samuel G. and Charity Edwards Hammond. His father was a
boot and shoe maker, and also carried on the business of tanning and currying, with
152 HISTORY OF UTAH.
saddle and harness making. Francis as a youth did not devote himself exclusively to the
vocation of his sire, but learned enough concerning all these branches of industry to
enable him in after years to establish them.
When about fourteen years old he began going to sea in small coasting vessels as
cook or cabin boy at a salary of four dollars a month. This was during the summer. In
the winter he worked with his father, and part of the time attended school. Being
attached to a sea-faring life, he chose it as his vocation, with the ambition of becoming
master of a ship. He continued in the coasting business until the year 1840, when he
shipped as able seaman on board the bark "White Cake," Captain Daniel Fitch, with
whom he started on a whaling expedition. They sailed from New London 'in company
with the Brig "Somerset," commanded by Captain Beck. The two captains were the
sole owners of the vessels. They whaled in Nu Bay, latitude forty degrees south, and all
down the South American coast to Cape Horn and the Falkland Islands.
At Falkland during a gale the crew of the "White Cake" refused to go on shore to carry
freight from a ship-wreck for the benefit of the captains, and for this Hammond and two
other seamen were put in irons. He seems to have regained the confidence of his
master, however, for he was subsequently made steward of the vessel. Moreover, he was
placed in charge of certain prisoners — the chief mate and the ex-steward; the former a
Mr. Allen, and the latter a Portuguese. Owing to extreme rough treatment received from
the masters while moored in Nu Bay, Mr. Allen had run away, in company with the
steward, taking with him a new whale boat, a chronometer, a coast chart, all the specie
on board and all the arms and ammunition. They were pursued and brought back in
irons, and Mr. Hammond, having been made steward, was given charge of them until the
vessel arrived at Rio Janeiro, where they were turned over to the American consul, with
witnesses who accompanied them to the United States. Hammond was one of these
witnesses. On board the sloop of war "Decatur," Captain Farragut, they reached
Richmond, Virginia, and on May, 5, 1842, a trial was held and the prisoners, charged
with piracy, were set free, as the charge could not be sustained.
Hammond's next sea-faring venture was a whaling voyage to the Arctic Ocean,
upon which he sailed from Sag Harbor, Long Island, on the ship "Thames," Captain
Jeremiah Hedges, June 23, 1843. He shipped as boat steerer, a petty officer privileged
to live aft and associate with the chief officers. After rounding the cape of Good Hope,
where Captain Hedges was sent home sick, and the chief mate, Mr. Bishop, became
captain, they pursued their way across the Indian and South Pacific oceans, landing in
March, 1844, in the Hawaiian Islands, at the very spot where the famous Captain Cook
was killed by the natives.
While whaling in Okhotsk Sea Mr. Hammond was disabled by an accident, which
nearly cost him his life, and was the indirect cause of changing the whole course of his
career. He was bracing with all his might against a large cask of oil, when a barrel of
flour, headed up in an empty ninety gallon cask, fell fifteen feet and struck him in the
small of the back. The captain and fellow officers, believing him to be fatally injured,
put him ashore at Lahaina, Sandwich Islands. In two months he was sufficiently
recovered to set up a shoe-making establishment, which he conducted until the fall of 1847,
when he sailed for San Francisco, intending to go on to New York, marry, and return to
make his home in the Islands. He little knew that at this very time the woman he was
destined to wed was on her way to meet him; though as unaware of his existence as he
of hers until a year after her arrival as a Mormon emigrant girl in the valley of the Great
Salt Lake.
Our sailor friend was no sooner well ashore than he set up a shoe shop and industri-
ously plied his vocation. Among the new acquaintances made by him were some of the
Latter-day Saints who had come to California with Samuel Brannan on the ship
"Brooklyn;" also certain members of the Mormon Battalion. Acquaintance with these
people was followed by conversion to their faith, and on the last day of December, 1847,
Francis A. Hammond became a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints. The next May he set out for the newly discovered gold mines, and after digging
gold on Mormon Island for six or seven weeks, returned to San Francisco, where he
purchased an outfit for Salt Lake valley and straightway took up his journey hither.
He arrived at the "Old Fort" on the (ith of September, 1848, in company with
quite a number of other immigrants to the mountain home of the Saints. Here he met
and married, two months and five days after his arrival, Miss Mary Jane Dilworth, who
had been teaching school in the fort, and was the pioneer teacher of Utah. President
Heber C. Kimball performed the marriage ceremony. In March, 1851, the young hus-
band and father — for by that time he had a child six months old — was called on a mission
HISTORY OF UTAH. 153
to the Sandwich Islands. His wife and child accompanied him. The family were gone
about six years, returning to Utah in the summer of 1857, having passed the previous
winter at San Bernardino, California. They had barely reached their home on Big
Cottonwood when the news came of the coming of Johnston's army. The returned
missionary forthwith joined the militia and spent much of the following winter in Echo
Canyon. In the "move" he took his family to Payson, whence they returned in mid-
summer of 1858 to their home in Salt Lake valley.
In March, 1859, the Hammonds moved to Ogden, where the head of the house went
into business with Bishop Chauncey W. West, in the manufacture of leather, boots and
shoes, saddles and harness. During this period he was counselor to Bishop West, justice
of the peace and a member of the city council. In the summer of 1865 he made a trip to
the Sandwich Islands, in company with Elder George Nebeker, to purchase for the
Church the famous plantation at Laie. The purchase was effected, and quite a colony of
native Saints located there.
Upon returning home in the fall he was called to take charge of the Latter-day
Saints at Huutsville, in Ogden valley, and was afterwards ordained a Bishop and placed
to preside there.* During the construction of the railroad across Utah he took a number
of contracts, both on the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific lines. In the fall of 1869
he was one of five hundred missionaries called to visit various parts of the United States
and do all in their power among relatives, friends and others to modify the intense
bitterness that prevailed against the Mormon people. He returned home in the spring of
1870. He was a member of the Weber county court for sis years, and after retiring
from office spent some time traveling through Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Old
Mexico, looking out suitable places for settlements. By this time he had been called to
part with his beloved wife, Mary Jane Dilworth Hammond, who died at their home in
Huntsville just before completing her forty-sixth year.
In December, 18S4, Bishop Hammond was called to preside over the San Juan Stake
of Zion, and spent a portion of the winter traveling in that part, accompanied by his son.
In the fall of 1885, with his own and some other families, he moved thither, first residing
at Bluff, San Juan county, and afterwards at Moab, Grand county; the latter place
as well as the former included in his Stake, which comprised parts of Utah, Colorado
and New Mexico. President Hammond spent the winter of 1888 at Washington, D. C,
in the interest of the San Juan county settlers, and in connection with what was known
as the Southern Ute Indian Removal bill. He was Probate Judge for San Juan
county under the Territorial regime, and represented that part in the Constitutional
Convention of 1895.
Up to the day of his death, though he had entered upon his seventy-ninth year,
he was comparatively hale and active. He would brave all sorts of weather and
travel over all kinds of counti-y in making his regular visits to the various Wards embraced
in the Stake over which he presided. It was w7hile performing such a duty that he was
accidentally killed by being thrown from a wagon in a runaway at Bloomfield, New
Mexico, November 27, 1900. His death was deeply regretted, for he had many friends,
and was a genial warm-hearted gentleman. He had been thrice married, but only one
of his wives survived him. He was the father of fifteen children. During his extended
career as a colonizer he built or purchased twenty-five different homes.
WILLIAM MILLER.
rj)ISHOP William Miller, of Provo, Utah county, who died on the 7th of August, 1875,
T^J had been a settler in Utah since 1819 and a veteran of the Latter-day Church since
•^"^ the days of Kirtland. He passed through the persecutions of Missouri, helped to
build Nauvoo, and on arriving in Utah took a prominent part in colonizing the
southern counties. He will also be remembered in Mormon history for the "Bogus
Brigham" incident, which happened just before the Saints left Nauvoo. Many good
works remain to perpetuate his memory.
The son of Seth and Martha Tilden Miller, he was born at Avon, Livingston county,
New York, on the 8th of January, 1814. His ancestors were English and among the
first settlers of New England. His father and mother were natives of Connecticut and
10
154 HISTORY OF UTAH
Massachusetts, respectively, but soon after their marriage they migrated to the western
part of the State of New York. Their occupation was farming and stock-raising.
They were the parents of nine children, all prominent and well-to-do members of
society.
When William was about seventeen years of age there was an unusual excitement
over religion in his neighborhood, and yielding to repeated solicitations he put his name
down as a probationer for six months. Shortly afterwards he heard a Mormon Elder
preach the "new doctrine," as it was called. He did not immediately embrace the faith
of the Saints, but read the Book of Mormon, compared it with the Bible, and for a year
attended all Mormon meetings held in his vicinit}7.
On his eighteenth anniversary his father gave him a thousand dollars, with the
privilege of beginning life for himself, and soon after he accompanied some of his
associates to the wilds of Michigan, intending to invest his money in land. Returning
home, he found himself unable to command his capital immediately, it being loaned out,
and so settled down for the winter and attended the district school. His opportunities for
education had all along been very limited. In the spring — still disappointed about his
money — he turned his attention to farming.
During the following summer he again became interested in the doctrines of the
Latter-day Saints. Renewed investigation resulted in his conversion, and in the fall of
the same year he set out for Kirtland, Ohio, where he met the Prophet Joseph Smith
and became a member of the Church that he had founded. The date of his baptism was
October 2S, 1833.
On May 1st of the year following he married Phebe Scott, one of his early playmates,
who was also a firm believer in Mormonism. She was baptized the same spring. In the
autumn they moved to Kirtland, where they rented a house, purchased seventy acres of land
and expected to remain permanently. There Mr. Miller was ordained an Elder and
subsequently a Seventy of the Church. The latter ordination was under the hands of
the First Presidency in February, 1835, when our subject became a member of the second
quorum of Seventy. Then followed a preaching mission to his native State, where
he organized several branches of the Church.
In the spring of 1838 he removed to Far West, Missouri, and from beginning to end
of the mob troubles in that State was in the very thick of the fray, constantly on duty,
helping to protect the lives and property of his people. On one occasion he with others
secreted from the anti-Mormon plunderers a printing press and valuable papers by
placing them in a hole dug in the ground and covering them with a haystack. He was
among those compelled to deed away their lands to defray the expanses of the war waged
against them. February, 1839, found him at Quincy, Illinois, where President Sidney
Rigdon counseled him and other exiles to scatter for the time being as a measure of
safety. In Sangamon county he rented farms, and resided until the spring: of 1841 at
Booneville, where he baptized some twenty persons and raised up a branch.
At Nauvoo, his next place of residence, he was taught the principle of plural marriage
by the Prophet, and a few months after the martyrdom, on December 22, 1844, he married
as a plural wife Marilla Johnson, daughter of Aaron Johnson, the marriage taking place
in the presence and with the full consent of his first wife. Mr. Miller assisted in all the
public works at Nauvoo, was present when the cornerstone and capstone of the Temple
were laid, and officiated in the sacred house from its opening until the exodus.
A remarkable and humorous episode occurred while he was laboring in the Temple
in the latter part of December, 1845. It was a time of great peril for the Mormon leaders,
especially Brigham Young, who as President of the Twelve Apostles had come to the
front as successor to the martyred Prophet. The anti-Mornions, having accomplished the
murder of Joseph and Hyrum. were anxious to get Brigham into their power, and
repeatedly sent officers from Carthage to Nauvoo to arrest him. One day a posse was
detected lurking around the Temple, and President Young, within, was informed that they
were waiting for him. Seeing Elder Miller across the hall, the President requested him
to go down and impersonate him. The latter promptly complied, throwing on Heber C.
Kimball's cloak, which was similar in size and color to the President's and descending
the stairs to the Temple door, where Brigham's carriage stood in waiting. As he was
about entering the carriage an officer stepped up to him and said, "You are my prisoner."
Miller made no resistance, but requested the officer to accompany him to the Mansion
House, that he might consult his lawyer, a Mr. Edmunds. The officer consented. As
the carriage drove up to the Mansion House, quite a crowd gathered around, among them
the sons of President Young and Apostle Kimball, who, shaking with inward mirth over
the ruse that was being practiced, contributed to its success by shedding an abundance
H1ST0EY OF UTAH. 155
of crocodile tears while bidding their "father" farewell. Lawyer Edmunds agreed to go
to Carthage with Mr. Miller and -see him safe through. Entering the officer's vehicle,
they forthwith set out for that place. When within two or three miles of it the posse
halted, and rising in their wagons, shouted vociferously, "We've got him! We've
him!" On entering the town the supposed Brigham was put under a strong guard in an
upper room of the principal hotel, and kept there until supper time, when he was taken
to the dining hall. While eating he was pointed out to curious callers as Brigham Young.
Finally a man named Thatcher, who had once been a Mormon, came in. and asked the
landlord where Brigham Young was. "That is Mr. Young," answered the landlord,
pointing to the prisoner. "Where?" inquired Thatcher — "I don't see any one that looks
like Brigham." The landlord told him that it was the stout man who was eating.
"Oh hell!" exclaimed Thatcher. "That ain't Brigham Young; that's Bill Miller, my old
neighbor." Upon hearing this the landlord informed the officer, who, much agitated, came
and took Miller away. Having him alone he said. "Why in hell did'nt you tell me your
name.'" "You didn't ask me my name." Miller calmly replied, "Well what is your
name?" "My name is William Miller." The officer left the room in a rage, followed
by his quondam prisoner, who walked off with Lawyer Edmunds, Sheriff Backenstos
and other non-Mormon friends, who secreted him and subsequently saw him safe back to
Xauvoo. It is needless to add that the joke was much enjoyed by the Mormons and by
all friendly to them among the Gentiles.
At the beginning of the exodus Mr. Miller was sick and did not leave Nauvoo until
May, 1S46. At Garden Grove he helped to fence, plow and put in crops, which he left
for others to harvest, and continued on to the Missouri river, where he helped to found
Winter Quarters. Bound for Utah, he crossed the river from Kanesville with his loaded
teams April 25, 1849. He had taken a contract from Livingston and Kincaid to haul
four thousand pounds of merchandise at ten dollars a hundred to Salt Lake City, and had
received part of his pay in advance. He joined a company of one hundred wagons
organized by George A. Smith, and headed by Orson Spencer, and was made captain of
the first fifty, William Hyde being captain of the second fifty. At Loup Fork where they
were detained a week on account of high water, several persons in the company died
from cholera.
Mr. Miller arrived at Salt Lake City on the 20th of September. He purchased a
house and lot in the Sixteenth Ward and fenced a farm of thirty acres on the west side of
the Jordan. The next spring he built a house of adobes. Spring had not come, however,
when in response to a call from Governor Young he went with others to the relief of the
settlers of Provo, who were attacked by Indians. He remained with the scouting parties
in pursuit of the hostiles until the militia were recalled and discharged.
About the middle of September, 1S50, having been appointed one of the judges of
Utah county under the Provisional Government of Deseret, he moved to that part in
company with his father-in-law, Bishop Aaron Johnson. He settled first at Springville.
the site of which he had selected during a previous visit. In the spring of 1851 he built
the first adobe house at that place, and assisted to fence sixty acres of land, from which
were raised that season four hundred bushels of wheat. The same spring he organized
and was appointed captain of a company of cavalry for the protection of the settlers
against Indians. In the ensuing August he was elected to the Territorial legislature. In
the fall of 1852 he was called to Iron county to strengthen the new settlements in that
section, which were threatened by Indians. He built a house and located a farm,
expecting to remain, but a treaty having been made with the savages, he returned early
in 1853 to Springville. He now became first counselor to Bishop Johnson, and during
the next three years was occupied in farming, in canyon work and in the duties of his
various offices.
From April, 1856, until the beginning of 1858, he was absent upon a mission to
England, crossing the plains, going, in a large company commanded by A. O. Smoot,
himself acting as captain of the guard. They suffered many hardships, encountering
severe storms, but finally got through in safety. During his journey to the Atlantic
coast he made his last visit to his birthplace, where his brothers and sisters received him
very kindly. Abroad he labored in the Birmingham conference, and was afterwards one
of the Presidency of the Welsh Mission. Called home with other Elders, in consequence
of the war troubles of 1S57, he returned with Apostles Orson Pratt, Ezra T. Benson and
others, traveling incognito owing to the anti-Mormon bitterness that prevailed. They
landed at New York on the 25th of October, but learning that Johnston's army was then
on the plains en route to Utah, they re-embarked and proceeded homeward by way of
Panama and San Francisco, arriving here about New Year's day.
156 HISTORY OF UTAH.
William Miller was next made Bishop of Provo, presiding also over the other settle-
ments of the Saints in Utah county. This appointment came in July, 1860. He and his
family were escorted from Springville to Provo by a company of cavalry and a brass
band, the day of their removal — the 24th — being the occasion of a big celebration of
Pioneer Day at the latter place. During his administration the Provo meeting house was
completed, furnished and dedicated, under great disadvantages, owing to Indian
depredations and hard times. He paid into the meeting house fund over a thousand
dollars, and also donated liberally toward the establishment of the Deseret Telegraph
line. He built the house afterwards occupied by President Young's family in Provo,
and now the residence of Judge Warren N. Dusenberry. Bishop Miller sold this place to
the President. Later he erected the Excelsior House in that towu, and it was there that
he died. The particulars of the outrage perpetrated upon him and other residents of the
Garden city on the night of September 22, 1870, by drunken soldiers from Camp Rawlins,
is related elsewhere (chapter 18, volume I). Bishop Miller was always a public worker.
He was Mayor of Provo for several terms, and also an alderman of the city. In the
militia organization he was quarter-master of both Provo and Springville. Sober,
industrious, kind, sociable and jovial, he looked upon the bright side of life, was warm-
hearted and hospitable to strangers, and as true as tried steel to his friends.
THOMAS EDWIN RICKS.
^THOMAS E. RICKS was born on the 21st of July, 182S, in Trigg county, Kentucky.
V$} His parents were Joel Ricks and Elenor Martin. They moved while he was yet
|> an infant to Madison county, Illinois, where his boyhood was spent until he was
eighteen years of age. His time was mostly occupied in assisting his father, who
was a hard-working and prosperous farmer. On March 27, 1844, he had a thigh broken
by being thrown from a horse, an accident that caused one of his legs to be much shorter
than the other, thus making him a cripple for life; but for all that he was very active and
hard-working and remained so to the end of his days. Reared on the frontiers of
Western Illinois, where educational facilities were very limited, he was able to acquire
but little book learning, and what he did obtain was mostly at odd times by dint of his
own unaided efforts at the home fireside.
He was baptized a Latter-day Saint February 14, 1S45, and in September of the same
year went with his father's family to Nauvoo, where he worked on the Temple during the
fall and winter. In October he was ordained an Elder under the hands of Jesse Baker.
The following February, the exodus from Illinois having begun, his father sent him with
a team to assist Charles C. Rich in moving West. He crossed the Mississippi on the 8th
of that month, joined the camps on Sugar Creek and traveled with the family of Elder
Rich to Council Bluffs. His father's family having arrived there, they went into Winter
Quarters, remaining on the Missouri until the spring of 1848.
The elder Ricks being in good circumstances, they were able to fit themselves out
very comfortably for the journey across the plains, and also to lend considerable aid to
others. They traveled under the direction of Apostle Heber C. Kimball, with whom, as
well as with other leaders of the people, a close intimacy was formed. On the Elk Horn
river, on the third day of June, while attempting to recover some stock driven off by the
Indians, Thomas was shot by them, and for a time his life was despaired of, the doctor
declaring, while probing for the three balls that had entered his body, that he could not
live three hours. He was administered to by the Elders, however, and promised that he
should live. He recovered, and for fifty-two years his life continued to be active
and useful.
He arrived in Salt Lake valley September 24, 1848, and settled first at Centerville in
Davis county. In 1S52 he moved to Farmington, where he made his home until 1859,
when he removed to Logan, Cache county. There he resided for twenty-four years, and
during this period was mostly engaged in farming and stock-raising. In 1883 he was
called by the Church authorities to lead a colony into Snake River valley, Idaho, and
HISTORY OF UTAH. 157
there, at the town of Rexburg — named in his honor after the original spelling of his
family name — he resided up to the time of his death.
At various times he formed business associations and undertook enterprises which
generally proved successful. For twenty years he was interested in milling at Logan,
with William D. Hendricks of Richmond, and was also associated with him for several
years in railroad construction. He was president of the Rexburg Milling Company and
of the Rexburg Co-operative Store.
Among the missions he fulfilled was one to the Indians at Los Vegas. New Mexico,
in April, 1855. He left home in May of that year, and returned in September, 1856. In
1S63 and in 1S06 he crossed and recrossed the plains, bringing emigrants to Utah. From
October, 1S69, to March, 1870, he was on a mission to the States, and from May, 1885.
to November, 1886, on a mission to Great Britain. He took active part as an officer of
the Church from his earliest connection with it and was advanced step by step until he
became the President of a Stake. He was always generous and charitable with his
means, and in the days of his greatest prosperity was styled "the friend of the poor."
For many years lie was a Colonel in the Utah militia, and during early troubles with
the Indians was a minute man, ready to start at a moment's notice to defend the lives and
property of the people. He was for several years sheriff of Cache county, and it was
during his tenure of that office that the incident occured which formed the basis of
the charge upon which he was tried and acquitted, as narrated in chapter twenty-seven,
volume two, of this history.
Thomas E. Ricks was always looked upon as a proper man to take charge of public
enterprises, such as the construction of canyon roads, irrigation canals and ditches,
especially in times when all was done by donation. Should his Bishop or the President
of his Stake ask him to superintend such a labor, he would never shrink nor shirk, whatever
sacrifice it entailed. He was always on hand to do his duty, and always respectful and
obedient to his superiors in authority. He was President of Bannock Stake for many
years, and after it was divided he continued to be President of Fremont Stake, holding
that position unlil his death. He was married August 18, 1852, to Tabitha Hendricks;
March 27, 1S57 to Tamar Loader and Jane Shupe: December 6, 1863, to Ruth C. Dilley;
and November 29, 1866, to Ellen Maria Yallop. His children number forty-three.
President Ricks died at his home in Rexburg, September 28, 1901.
JOSEPH PARRY.
fHE biography of Joseph Parry possesses much interest, not only for his family and
friends, but also for the general reader. Many incidents connected with the settle-
ment of the north country by colonizers from Utah — full details of which have never
been published — are noted in his journal. Among other matters, the opening of
the Salmon River Mission, which has received but meagre notice thus far, is graphically
described by Mr. Parry, and will appear in its proper place.
Joseph Parry was the youngest of eight sons and five daughters, the children of Ed-
ward and Mary Foulkes Parry. He was born April 4, 1S25, at New Market, in Flintshire,
North Wales. His parents were not rich in worldly goods, but were honest, industrious
and frugal, and sought earnestly to impress those virtues upon the minds of their children.
The father was a tenant farmer, and from the products of the field, supplemented by the
earnings of a house kept for the entertainment of travelers, he supported his family. At
the age of thirteen, death deprived Joseph of his mother, whom he loved devotedly, and
four years later his father died. Thus early he began to fight the battle of life, unaided
except by Providence, in whom he had an abiding trust.
Soon after the death of his father he went to the city of Liverpool, landing there
without money, and so far as he knew, without friends. It was not long, however, before
he met an old acquaintance, William Jones, through whose timely help he was soon able
to provide for his own needs. Parry was a carpenter, and worked at his trade while in
Liverpool. He had been in that city but a short time, when his uncle John Parry and
family left Wales and settled at Birkenhead, where they became Latter-day Saints, and
158 HISTORY OF UTAH.
were very desirous that he also should become one. On the 2nd of October, 1846, he
attended a Mormon meeting in Liverpool, where he saw for the first time Orson Hyde and
John Taylor, who were introduced to the congregation as Apostles, just arrived from
America. The latter preached on the first principles of the Gospel, which he testified had
been restored through Joseph Smith by an angel from heaven. Parry continued to in-
vestigate until he became convinced of the truth of Mormonism, and was baptized Decem-
ber 31st of the same year by Elder Thomas Thomas, and confirmed by Elder Simeon
Carter.
In the spring of 1847, he was ordained by Elder Carter a Priest, and subsequently
fulfilled a short mission to his native country. His brothers and sisters rejected his testi-
mony, regarding him as deluded, and his sister Elizabeth, deeply distressed at his joining
a people "everywhere spoken evil of," declared that she would rather have followed him
to his grave. Her Mormon brother told her that she would yet change her views, become
a Latter-day Saint and follow him to Zion. This prophecy was literally fulfilled, not only
his sister but her husband and children being afterwards converted, and coming to Utah.
They were in the handcart emigration.
September 1, 1848, was Joseph Parry's wedding day. He married Jane Payne.
They desired to come to America, but not having sufficient means to pay both fares at one
time, by mutual agreement the husband came first. It was only six days after his mar-
riage when he sailed from Liverpool with two hundred and thirty other Latter-day Saints
on board the ''Erin's Queen." The company was in charge of Simeon Carter. At New
Orleans, where they landed on the 29th of October, Parry obtained employment and
began to save money to send for his wife. In December the cholera broke out, and many
thousands fell victims to its fearful ravages. He relates that during a seven days' trip up
the Mississippi river to St. Louis, thirty-seven of his fellow-passengers died of the plague.
Joseph himself escaped, but his wife, who sailed from Liverpool January 29, 1849, on
board the "Zetland," and arrived at New Orleans on the 2nd of April, died seventeen
days after a happy reunion with her husband. The same day his uncle John Parry, wife
and son Caleb reached that port, but were unable to land long enough to visit their kins-
man in his affliction.
Soon after the death of his wife Mr. Parry went to St. Louis, where the cholera was
also raging, thousands dying of it. In January, 1850, he formed the acquaintance of
Miss Eliza Tunks of Herefordshire, England, and on the first of the following April she
became his wife. In May they moved to Kanesville, (Council Bluffs) where he bought a
lot, built a log house, and remained a resident until the summer of 1S52, when he started
for Utah. He was in William Morgan's ox-team company, the thirteenth of the season.
July 1st was the date of his departure from the frontier, and he was about three months
in reaching Salt Lake City. The journey was uneventful, barring a few deaths from
cholera, and the loss of some horses and cattle stolen by Indians.
Upon his arrival in "the valley'' Mr. Parry was met by his uncle John, whose hos-
pitable home he shared until he could provide for himself and family. He found employ-
ment at the Temple block, taking his pay in provisions, money being very scarce and not
even groceries obtainable. He witnessed the laying of the Temple corner-stones in April,
1853, and in November of the same year was ordained a Seventy and united with the
Thirty-seventh Quoiaiin. He had been an Elder since the spring of 1852.
Early in 1S53 he moved to Ogden, and made that city his permanent home. He with
others did the carpenter work on the first adobe house erected there — the residence of
Hon. Lorin Parr. The following spring he purchased a lot and built a logcabin as a
temporary dwelling. The same year he formed a partnership with John I). Reese and
Daniel Leigh, and erected a saw-mill on Boxelder Creek, above the site of Brigham City,
which was not then surveyed. The mill was completed in 1855, and was the first one
built north of Weber county.
how came what Mr. Parry considers the most important and most interesting part
of his history since arriving in Utah — his Salmon River mission and the opening of the
northern country to civilization; a work in which the Mormon people were some years in
advance of any other white settlers. April 7th, 1855, was the date of his appointment,
with twenty-six other Elders, organized under the Presidency of Thomas S. Smith, to
take a mission to the northern Indians, and the 25th of the same mouth was the time they
wire set apart for that purpose by Apostle Lorenzo Snow at Ogden. May 17th was the
day of t heir departure. They were under instructions to settle among the Flatheads, the
Bannocks or the Shoshones. They were to teach them the arts of civilization and induce
them if possible to abandon their savage customs and live at peace with each other and
with the whites. The missionaries were also instructed to take provisions enouerh to last
HISTORY OF UTAH. 159
them at least one year, so as not to be a burden upon the natives. They were enjoined to
be strictly honest in all their dealing's with them, and were promised by the authorities of
the Church that if they would go in humility and faith, and labor diligently to discharge
their duties, the blessings of the Almighty would attend them in their ministry.
Proceeding northward about four hundred miles, they camped, June 15th, upon
the east fork of Salmon river, naming the place Fort Lemhi. Throughout the jour-
ney, which was intricate, and they were without a guide, they had made their own
roads over the mountains and through the forests, and had bridged the intervening
streams. The country was little known to the white man, though it formed part of Wash-
ington Territory, and was inhabited only by savage tribes — the Bannocks, Shoshones,
Nez Perces and others, who were very numerous. George W. Hill was the interpreter
through whom the colonists talked to the natives and made them understand that they
were their friends and had come to help them — to teach them how to till the soil, build
houses and live in them like white people. They were asked if they had any objection to
the missionaries settling among them at that place. They answered that they had no ob-
jection; they received the Elders kindly and extended to them a hearty welcome, giving
them permission to cut timber and occupy laud, but not allowing them to kill their game
or catch their fish — large salmon, filling the streams. They could, however, have all the
fish and game they needed for table use in exchange for such articles as they had to dis-
pose of that were desired by the Indians. This was their fishing point, and the time — the
latter part of June — their fishing season, when the salmon came from the ocean and
traveled up the streams as far as they could, to spawn. During the season the Indians
caught a large number of salmou daily, using willow traps for the purpose. Sometimes
they would take from a hundred and fifty to two hundred at "acatch." In this way they
soon laid in an abundant supply for winter food.
The missionaries camped on a small creek flowing into the east fork of Salmon river,
building a dam in the creek and bringing the water upon the land in order to plow and
irrigate their garden crops of peas, potatoes, etc. This was the first planting and irrigat-
ing done in the far north, comprising parts of the present States of Idaho and Montana.
But the season was too far advanced for the crops to mature. The colonists next erected a
palisade fort, and then put up their log cabins, also building strong corrals for the safety
of their stock. While no hostility had been shown by the red men, the missionaries, who
were few in number, deemed it wise to take every precaution against surprise or open
attack. Wherever they went they were fully armed. Through the summer months they
labored assiduously, late and early, to prepare for winter. During August some of them
went home for supplies and seed for the next year, returning in the following November.
David Moore brought his wife and his daughter Louisa, who was subsequently married at
the mission to Lewis W. Shurtliff. Francello Durfee and Charles McGeary also brought
their wives. These were the first white women to settle in that country.
Winter set in as early as November, and this induced many of the Indians to camp
near the fort, expecting the occupants to share their provisions with them. This they did,
until they found they were getting very short themselves. At the opening of December
President Smith discovered that they had only flour enough to last till March, and it would
be necessary for some of the colonists to go at once for more supplies and return early in
the spring. Joseph Parry, George W. Hill and seven others volunteered for this service,
and began their perilous journey on the 4th day of December. The snow was nine inches
deep, and they had two mountain ranges to cross before reaching Ogden. Ascending the
Salmon River pass, the altitude increased, and the snow became much deeper. The cold
was intense, especially on the summit of the pass. Their outfit consisted of six yoke of
oxen, three wagons and a small allowance of provisions. One of the wagons they were
compelled to leave in the Bannock pass, on account of the deep snow. The Kith of the
month found them at Fort Hall, without provisions. The snow there was about fifteen
inches. Captain Grant, iu charge of this trading post, received them kindly, but was
unable to let them have any flour, his own supply being nearly exhausted. He furnished
them, however, with all the beef they wanted, and let them have some groceries, blankets
and moccasins. They were still one hundred and eighty miles from the source of their
supplies, and had only beef to eat. On the Bannock mountains the snow was so deep as
to greatly impede travel, and it became a serious question as to whether they could cross
the range at all. They determined to try. One day they wallowed through the snow
from early morning until late at night, and only made three miles. The whole of the
distance the men had to tramp down the snow to make a road for the teams to travel in.
That night they camped in the mountains in the midst of a fierce snow-storm, without
wood, water, supper, or feed for their oxen. Their situation was perilous in the extreme!
160 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Next morning they descended the mountains without breaking their fast, and camped
near a large spring — the head of Malad river. At that point the cattle were able to
pick a little grass and crop a little sage-brush on the hillside, where the wind had blown
away the snow. On the 21st they camped at Deep Creek, near where Malad city now
stands, and the following night stayed with a few families who had settled near the line
between Utah and Washington Territories, and who furnished them with supper and
breakfast. These families were the first settlers in Malad valley. On the 23rd they
reached Bear River, which they had hoped to ferry, but the ferrymen were gone, so they
broke the ice, which was not thick enough to bear their wagons, and forded the deep and
icy stream. They arrived at Ogden the day after Christmas.
When starting upon this northei'n mission Elder Parry had left his family in what he
deemed ''a deplorable state." His wife had been bed-ridden for six months. She had
three small children, one an infant, and her only assistance was a little girl. But the
brave woman murmured not; she encouraged her husband to fulfill an honorable mission,
and was fully resigned to it. On returning he found his family in a much better condi-
tion. The winter of 1855-6 was the severest yet known in Utah. During the previous
summer the grasshoppers had destroyed the crops, and it was estimated that nine-tenths
of the cattle, horses and other live stock died of starvation — at least in certain localities.
It was known as the "Hard Winter." Deep snow covered the ground from November,
1855, to the middle of March, 1856. On the 2Sth of that month Mr. Parry again left his
Ogden home in charge of the company returning to Fort Lemhi. A number of new
colonists, also taking supplies, went with them to strengthen the mission. They reached
their destination on the first of May, and found the colony in good health and spirits.
That year they planted a great deal of grain and vegetables, but the grasshoppers
devoured the crops and left the fields desolate. A few scattered hills of wheat escaped
and matured, and this demonstrated that under favorable conditions errain could be raised
in that altitude, which trappers and others had declared was too high for the purpose.
During the summer the colonists suffered for lack of bread, though they had plenty of
meat, fish, butter and milk. President Smith again found it necessary to send to Utah
for supplies. The same year Joseph Parry, with David Moore and B. F. Cummings, Sr.,
built a small grist-mill. In the fall Parry and George W. Hill were sent to Utah to bring
in the mails. They returned to Fort Lemhi in the spring. In the fall more men arrived
with provisions, and more homes were built and other improvements made.
The spring of 1857 opened bright and promising, and preparations were made
for planting a large area with grain and vegetables. The missionaries had made
some progress in studying the Shoshone language, and could now converse with the
Indians and explain to them the Gospel. Two years before, they had baptized
some of the natives, both men and women. They were treated by all with great
kindness, and felt as safe among them as among their friends at home. It was difficult,
however, to induce the red men to labor. They considered the whites better adapted for
that purpose, and declined to study this branch of the education offered them. During
the spring Presidents Brigham Young, Heber C.Kimball and Daniel H. Wells, with some
of the Apostles and a large number of prominent Elders from Utah, visited the Mission.
The President held several meetings and gave much valuable instruction, also expressing
himself as well pleased with the labors of the missionaries and with the peaceable
disposition manifested by the Indians. He reminded his brethren, however, that they
were far from help, in the event of a hostile outbreak, and counseled them to be constantly
on their guard, prepared for any emergency that might arise. He advised them to be
patient, kind and generous to the red men, to be diligent and faithful in their labors
among them, and by precept and example encourage them to lead better lives, doing
nothing that would retard their progress or bring reproach upon them. Shortly after the
departure of the President and his party several of the missionaries went home for their
families, returning in October, accompanied also by some new missionaries and their
wives. Another fort was now built farther down the valley, about three miles north of
Lemhi. This year they had heavy crops of wheat and other grain, also potatoes and
various vegetables, thus demonstrating that cereals of all kinds could be raised there.
They had built the first houses and mills, dug the first water ditches, and inaugurated the
irrigation system that has redeemed that land from sterility and made agriculture possible
in Idaho, Montana and adjacent parts.
In September, 1857, Joseph Parry and Gilbert Belknap carried the mail from Lemhi
to Utah, and two days after their arrival home — about the last of that month — they were
mustered into active service in the Nauvoo Legion and marched with a company of
infantry to Echo Canyon to help repel Johnston's army. Later they served in the cavalry,
HISTORY OF UTAH. 161
under Lot Smith and Porter Rockwell. In the latter part of November they were honorably
discharged to return home.
The following: winter witnessed the breaking; up of the Salmon River Mission. Mr.
Party's account of this event is as follows: On February 25, 1858, a large number of
Bannocks and Shoshoues made an unprovoked raid on the stock herds of the misssion,
firing: on the herdsmen, badly wounding two (Andrew Quigley, left for dead, with his
skull crushed in, and Fountain Welsh, stripped, beaten and also left for dead) and chasing
the remaining one, Orson Rose, to the fort. President Smith and another man, who were
out getting wood, saw the attack, hastened to the fort, procured help and started to head
off the fleeing cattle. In this attempt George McBride was shot dead and scalped by the
Indians, and President Smith was wounded in the arm. A bullet also passed through his
hat and another cut his suspender. In their flight with the cattle down the valley the
Indians met James Miller, Haskell V. Shurtliff and Oliver Robinson, coming up from the
lower fort. They fired upon them, killing Miller and wounding the two others, whc
succeeded in reaching Fort Lemhi. Two hundred head of cattle and thirty head of
horses were driven off. At the time of the attack the colony comprised forty men, fifteen
women and a number of children. They could not account for the abrupt outbreak. They
had given the natives no cause for enmity, had treated them with uniform kindness from
the first, and had aided them in every way as far as possible. It was believed that the
raid was incited by unfriendly mountaineers and Indian agents. Ezra Barnard and
Baldwin H. Watts were sent at once to Salt Lake City to report the matter to President
Young, who immediately dispatched one hundred mounted men, with twenty baggage
wagons, under Colonel Cunningham, to bring home the missionaries and their families.
As soon as practicable after the arrival of the relief expedition the colonists organized
into two companies, and on the 27th of March the first company, with ox teams and a
guard of horsemen, stai-ted out, the remainder following and overtaking them next day.
B. F. Cummings, Sr., George W. Hill, Baldwin H. Watts. Bailey Lake and others were sent
in advance to report the condition of the companies to President Young. The Indians
pursued these messengers for several hundred miles, overtaking them at Cedar Springs,
where they killed Bailey Lake and stole some of the horses. The others escaped unin-
jured. The company following found the body of Lake, where he was killed. During
this dangerous journey two girl babies were born, to the wives of H. Harmon and Israel
J. Clark. The tragic ending of the mission left its members in an almost destitute
condition. They had invested their all to establish it, and now had to begin life again.
Besides their improvements, they left fifteen hundred bushels of wheat behind them.
They arrived home only to find that their kindred and friends had gone south in "the
move." Joseph Parry participated in this exodus.
His life, after returning to Ogden, continued to be busy and useful. He held various
prominent positions, sat for several 3Tears in the city council, both as councilman and
alderman, was a member of the local board of education and President of the Third
Ecclesiastical District of Ogden. In 1868 he with William N. Fife built by contract
several miles of the Central Pacific railroad, west of and extending into Ogden. From
May, 1870, to May, 1871, he was on a mission to his native land, where he presided over
the Swansea Conference.
His wife Eliza had died July 3, 1864. Before her death he had married Ann Malan.
Afterwards he wedded Olive Ann Stone and Susan A. Wright Brown. His plural marriage
relations made him liable to prosecution under the Edmunds law, and an indictment was
found against him by the grand jury of the First Judical District. On December 21,
1SS6, he went into court with bondsmen and surrendered, and having pleaded guilty to
cohabitation with more than one wife, on January 8, 1887, he was sentenced by Judge
Henderson to six months imprisonment in the Utah penitentiary and to pay a fine of three
hundred dollars. He served his term and paid his fine. He is the father of twenty-three
children, fifteen of them boys, and of these ten boys and five girls were living, at last
accounts.
Mr. Parry is still a prominent and prosperous resident of the Junction City, counting
among his holdings, stock in the State Bank of Utah and Consolidated Wagon and Machine
Company. He is a member of the High Council and a home missionary of the Weber
Stake of Zion. A devoted and earnest advocate of his religious faith, he is known and
recognized as a man of integrity, who would dare any danger, endure any toil or make
any reasonable sacrifice to advance the interests of the sacred cause he has espoused and
live up to his convictions of duty.
WILLIAM NICOL FIFE.
fmt WIDE-AWAKE, useful career, thrilling and even tragic in some of its phases, is
\~\ that of William N. Fife, a prominent citizen of Weber county, who has also been
a colonizer in Arizona. A native of Scotland, he was born at Kincardine, Perth-
shire, on the 16th of October, 1831. His parents were John and Mary M. Nicol
Fife. The father was reared on a farm, but later in life followed surveying as a profes-
sion. William received a good education, and at the age of fifteen was apprenticed to a
carpenter and builder for a period of five years.
At the end of his apprenticeship he found employment in the city of Glasgow, with
the firm of J. Nairn and Sons, builders, and remained with them for nine months, after
which he fitted out for Melbourne, Australia, to go into the building business with his
uncle, Thomas Fife, who for eight years had been a resident of that land.
He sailed from Glasgow August 2, 1852, and next day reached Liverpool, intending
to travel through England and re-sail in the winter from London. At Manchester he
entered into a contract with a building firm for one month, and took lodgings in a house'
which proved to be the Mormon conference house. There he met Alexander F. McDonald,
Cyrus H. Wheelock and other missionaries from Utah, and was converted to their faith.
He was baptized by an Elder named Lamb, and confirmed by one Elder France, on the
first day of October. The course of his life was now completely changed; he thought no
more of going to Australia, but made up his mind to emigrate to Utah.
On the 7th of April, 1853, he sailed with a company of Latter-day Saints for New
Orleans, where he arrived on the 2nd of June. There he met John Brown, the Utah
Pioneer, who took charge of this the last company that crossed the plains to Salt Lake
valley that season. Mr. Fife was the carpenter and a captain of ten among these emi-
grants, whom he helped to fit out at Keokuk, Iowa. They started from that point on the
27th of June — fifty-five wagons, with two yoke of oxen to each wagon — and reached Salt
Lake City on the 20th of October. Seven lives were lost between Liverpool and the end
of the journey.
Mr. Fife's first employer in Utah was President Heber C. Kimball, with whom he
remained, in charge of his building business, for eighteen months, and at whose house he
married, July 9, 1854, his first wife, Miss Diana Davis, daughter of Daniel and Sarah
Davis; President Kimball performing the ceremony. Their first child, Sarah Jane Fife,
was born July 10, 1855, at her father's home in the Sixteenth Ward.
In the fall of 1856, the Fife family moved to Ogden, the head of the house having
entered into a contract to complete the Tabernacle in that city. His partner was Walter
Thompson. The other parties to the contract were Chauncey W. West and Albern Allen.
His first son, William Wilson Fife, was born at Ogden, August 16, 1S57. This was the
year of the Echo Canyon war, in which Mr. Fife, who had seen volunteer service in the
Indian troubles of 1853, and had risen from corporal to second lieutenant in the militia,
figured as first lieutenant and subsequently as quartermaster, with the rank of captain.
He went with the Weber and Box Elder militia to head off Colonel Alexander, who was
endeavoring to enter Salt Lake valley by way of Soda Springs; and afterwards served in
Echo Canyon. Returning [from the "move," Mr. Fife next entered into building con-
tracts at the military post founded by the government troops in Cedar valley.
This," says he, "brought a great amount of money into the Territory. In company
with my old friend, Walter Thompson, I started for Camp Floyd, arriving: there Septem-
ber 15, 1858. We entered into a contract to put up government buildings at the post.
We were treated with great courtesy by General Johnston and the other officers, and
profited handsomely by our contract. In 1859 we built a tannery for West and Ham-
mond at Ogden; also stables for Wells Fargo and Company, who were running a stage
line from Salt Lake City to Montana. In 1860 I helped to finish the Seventies' Hall in
Salt Lake; and later assisted to build the Ogden House for C. W. West, a store for
William Jennings at Salt Lake City, and many other buildings of note.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 163
In April, 1SC2, Mr. Fife was appointed city marshal of Ogden, succeeding James
McGay, and was elected to the same office February 1, 1S03, and re-elected for many
succeeding terms. Subsequently he was coroner for Weber county and pound-keeper of
his district. In April, 1863, he was a member of the High Council of Weber Stake. In
the fall of 1S64, he presided over the local dramatic association.
All along he continued to be active and prominent in military matters. As regi-
mental Adjutant, he organized the first company of militia in Ogden valley, July 24, 1862.
In January following he witnessed the battle of Bear River, where Colonel Connor anni-
hilated the hostile Shoshones of Southern Idaho. Marshal Fife assisted in getting teams
to convey the wounded soldiers to Ogden. On July 1, 1866, he became a Colonel of In-
fantry in the Weber Military district.
In 1868, when contracts were let to build the grade of the transcontinental railroad
across Utah, he, with Joseph Parry, to whom he was second counselor in the third eccles-
iastical district of Ogden, took a contract to build several miles of the Central Pacific
road between Promontory and Ogden. Between September 28 and the following Decem-
ber they completed the work, paying off their men and doing well for themselves. At
the jubilation over the advent of the iron horse into Ogden Mr. Fife was marshal of the
day. About this time he acted as a school trustee, and at all times did everything in his
power for the improvement and advancement of the town. Concerning some of the events
following the advent of the railroad he says:
"In May, 1870, the smallpox was brought into Ogden, supposedly by an Indian
squaw. The first person taken down with it, a Mrs. Eggleston, died, and later some of
Walter Thompson's family were afflicted with it, and one died. John Murphy and his
wife also fell sick, and Mayor Farr thought it best to move them up on Brick Creek. Ac-
cordingly I erected a lumber room and moved them to it, furnishing them with food and
other necessaries. The city was placed under quarantine, and I was instructed to follow
up the disease with disinfectants and place a yellow flag in front of every afflicted house.
I attended to this duty personally. By July forty cases were moved from their city homes
to Farr's Grove on the banks of the Ogden river, the Mayor assisting me in this work.
Very soon he was taken down with the disease, though in a mild form, and was also
moved to the grove, where at the end of July I had eighty-nine cases. I got good kind
nurses for the sick, and by strict regulations in the camp and the city the contagion was
prevented from spreading any further. About half the people in camp I furnished with
supplies from Z. C. M. I., at the expense of the city. A great portion of the time I was
on the move day and night, and though handling most of the sick people in taking them
to the grove. I was not attacked by the disease. Only seven of the eighty-nine cases
proved fatal, and by the end of October all survivors were back in their homes. In 1876
the smallpox again took Ogden by storm, and as city marshal I worked day and night to
destroy the disease. It was practically a repetition of my former experience, though
most of the sick were quarantined in their own homes. Many lives were saved, and by
the 2Sth of December the quarantine was raised. The scourge lasted over three months.
The city paid me well for my services, and many leading men of the town presented me
with tokens of respect.
"Many strangers from East and West had made their homes in Ogden; the hotels
were crowded, and the railroads brought many bad characters. I had plenty to do, mak-
ing many arrests, newly equipping the police force, furnishing and refitting the city hall
and adding more cells for prisoners. Among the cases brought to justice was a man
named Lee, living with some ticket brokers at the Ogden depot. He had committed a
dastardly outrage on a Mrs. Farley, a lady from the East. I followed him to Tacoma,
Nevada, and arrested him in bed in the presence of four of his friends; a local officer
accompanying me. I hand-cuffed my man and brought him back to Utah, where he was
tried, found guilty and sentenced to the penitentiary for four years."'
In the fall of 1S73 Mr. Fife went on a mission to his native land, and at Glasgow
hunted up and visited his relatives, whom he had not seen for twenty-three years. None
of them knew him. He found his father and his grandmother, the latter in her ninety-
third year. He describes it as "a great meeting.'' He fulfilled a successful mission,
baptizing many, and having charge of the Mormon emigration from Glasgow to Liver-
pool, by appointment of President Joseph F. Smith. He returned home in November,
1874. From 1877 to 1880 he superintended the erection of various buildiugs, the last
being the Central schoolhouse at Ogden, considered at the time the finest school building
in the Territory.
He next turned his attention to the South, starting early in November, 1880, with a
view to exploring in Arizona and Mexico. He was accompanied by his second wife, a
164 HISTORY OF UTAH.
■widow of Captain James Brown ; and by her son Orson, her daughter Cynthia and his
first wife's sons, John D. and Walter F. Fife. By way of Kane county they crossed the
Buckskin mountains, the Big and Little Colorado rivers, and arrived on the Gila February
1, 1881. After exploring a week in that vicinity they proceeded on through the San
Simon valley, struck the S. P. R. R. (just completed) and thence by way of the Apache
Pass reached the great Sulphur Spring valley, where Mr. Fife left his family while he ex-
plored Sonora in Mexico; an account of which he wrote to President John Taylor. In the
Sulphur Spring valley, at a place called Oak Grove, he located a fine ranch, and there, on
the closing day of 1881, was joined by his first wife, Diana, his eldest son William W. and
his daughter Agnes.
The country in which they settled, which was grassy, wooded and fertile, was claimed
by the Chiricahua Apaches, who because of their blood-thirstiness had been placed by the
government on the San Carlos reservation. In the spring of 1882 these Indians broke
away from the reservation, got into the mountains and went into Mexico, some of them
also making a raid on the Arizona ranches. "My teams," says Mr. Fife, "were at the
time in Pinery Canyon, nine miles above the ranch, at Lobley's logging camp; my son
John D. being engaged in hauling logs to the silver mines at Tombstone. The Indians
surprised them, killing Lobley and his partner, Fenroy. My son made for the hills and
defended himself, fighting them alone, fifteen in number. He received two wounds; they
tried to burn him out, but he made his escape; the animals were run off by the Indians.
He was taken to Rigg's Ranch, and afterwards to my home. We followed the Indians,
who went through the mountains to Sonora. I now built an adobe house to supplement
my frame house, and provided it with port-holes on three sides as a protection against
Indians. Soon after this I was visited by Brothers Erastus Snow, Moses Thatcher and
Christopher Layton. whom I assisted in exploring for the benefit of our people." Mr.
Fife also aided General Crook, who had been sent by the government to put the Indians
back upon the reservation. He speaks of him as a brave, wise and kind officer. The
Indians yielded to his persuasions, and he did the country a great service.
And now came an' episode that cast a deep shadow over a career for the most part
happy and prosperous. On the 10th of September, 1883, Mrs. Diana Fife was murdered
at Oak Grove ranch by a Mexican desperado, whose purpose seems to have been plunder.
The day before the deed was done Mr. Fife had gone to the nearest Wells Fargo Com-
pany's office, forty-five miles away, to express money to some of his folks who had been
to the St. George Temple and were expected home after visiting friends in Ogden. His
sons John and Walter were down on the bottom lands, cutting hay, and the only ones at
the ranch were his wife Diana, her daughter Agnes and a hired man, a worthy, kind-
hearted Mexican, who chopped wood and did other work about the place. Choosing his
time, the desperado, who had evidently planned the murder of all three, presented him-
self at the door, and diverting Mrs. Fife's attention by saying "Look!" — at the same
time pointing to a window — he drew a pistol and shot her. The ball passed through the
upper part of her hip, and she fell mortally wounded. He then aimed at the daughter,
but the gun would not revolve. At this moment the hired man sprang upon and disarmed
the murderer, and as he fled fired several shots after him, none of which took effect. He
made for the hills and escaped. Mrs. Fife died in a short time. Her husband arrived
home at daybreak next morning, to receive, along with the terrible tidings, the sympathy
of many kind friends who had gathered to offer aid and condolence. With characteristic
promptness he had the news spread in all directions, and every available man and boy
was soon in the saddle, scouring the country in quest of the assassin. By ten o'clock
that forenoon he was run down, captured and brought back, within half a mile of the
scene of his crime, where he was examined, but would make no confession. A hundred
men demanded his immediate death, and he was forthwith "strung up;" a horseman at
one end of the rope being ordered to "take him off at full gallop." He hung for two
days upon a tall oak tree, awaiting the arrival of the County officers.
Another Indian outbreak is described by Mr. Fife, the result, in his opinion, of the
ill-advised appointment by President Arthur, in February, 1885, of an incompetent Indian
agent. The savages killed men and destroyed property wherever they could. General
Crook again took the field, and under orders from President Cleveland, captured most of
the Indians and shipped them from Bowie Station to Florida. General Miles finished the
work, though he was not as successful as General Crook had been, and finally Geronimo
and the rest of the savages wei-e taken out of the country. The troops were stationed at
and near the Fife ranch during much of the trouble.
In 1887 Mr. Fife assisted Apostle Ei-astus Snow and others in exploring parts of
Mexico, and subsequently sent one of his families to reside there. His third wife, Cyn-
HISTOEY OF UTAH. ]65
thia, and her family took up their abode at Oak Grove ranch. He is at present among
his children in Ogden. One of his sons — John D. Fife — is in business at Salt Lake
City.
ABRAM HATCH.
eOLONIZER, merchant, missionary, legislator, Bishop and Stake President, the
Honorable Abram Hatch has a career crowded with incidents of an interesting
and instructive character. Though not, in a natal sense, a son of Utah, by far
the greater part of his life has been identified with the growth and development
of this commonwealth. He is a "Green Mountain boy," descended from a veteran of the
Revolution — Captain Jeremiah Hatch — who served under the great Washington. A
thorough American, his conduct through life has been characterized by a love for his
country's institutions and the sacred rights of man for which his forefathers contended.
Abram Hatch, son of Hezekiah and Aldura Sumner Hatch, was born January 3, 1830,
at Lincoln, Addison county. Vermont. He was educated in the common schools of
Lincoln and Bristol until about ten years of age, when he moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, the
headquarters of tne Latter-day Saints. This was in the fall of 1840. Early in that year
his father's family and some of their immediate connections had been converted to Mor-
monism through the preaching of Elder Peltiah Brown. Abram's mother died in the
spring, and about six months later the family removed to Nauvoo. Hezekiah Hatch
was a wealthy farmer in Vermont, and withal a man of education. He bought property
in Xauvoo, built a fine brick house there, and opened a farm on the adjoining prairie.
He died in 1841. After that Abram lived with his grandfather. His uncle Jeremiah
came from North Carolina to administer the estate. At the death of the Prophet and
the succession of President Young to the leadership of the Church, this uncle became an
adherent of Sidney Rigdon's, married one of his daughters, and was one of his
apostles; but the rest of the family, including Abram, his brothers, and the old Revolu-
tionary grandsire, followed the fortunes of the main body of the Saints.
During the mob depredations around Nauvoo, instituted for the purpose of
compelling the Mormon people to leave the State, Abram Hatch was with the posse of
three hundred men who made a tour of Hancock county in company with Sheriff Back-
enstos, to arrest the leaders of the mob. In the exodus that followed he drove a team in the
first company that moved west from the rendezvous on Sugar Creek, after the passage of
the Mississippi.
From Garden Grove he returned with others to Nauvoo for provisions. He found
letters awaiting him there from his uncle Jeremiah, urging him to come to Greencastle,
Pennsylvania, and complete his education. This had been the dream of his life, and
he forthwith set out for that place. On arriving there, he found that his uncle had over-
rated his ability to send him to college. Though deeply disappointed he did not despair,
but immediately sought and found practical employment first in Ebenezer Robinson's
printing office, where the Latter-day Saints' Herald was published in the interest of Elder
Rigdon's church, and afterwards with a merchant named Newton, a member of that body.
While at Greencastle, Abram saw the entire failure of the Rigdonite movement.
His emplover's business having collapsed, he next sought to enlist as a soldier for
the Mexican war. which was then in progress. He was rejected by the recruiting officers
at Chambersburg on account of his youth and immature size, being only seventeen years
old. He also tried to enter Girard college, but not being a native of Pennsylvania, was
unsuccessful. Thwarted in his aspirations for a collegiate education, he again turned to
the west, resolving in all the enthusiasm and buoyancy of youth, to push earnestly into
practical life, leaving his further education to general experience under the dispensations
of providence.
At Pittsburg he found employment in a boat store and bakery, and soon afterwards
secured a situation as cook on a coal boat plying between that point and New Orleans, a
distance of two thousand miles. Returning from a successful voyage, he took his former
situation at advanced wages, and shortly afterwards made tvro or three trips as cabin
1GG HISTORY OF UTAH.
boy on a steamboat running between Pittsburg and Cincinnati. After being employed
upon the rivers for some time, he proceeded to rejoin his brother Jeremiah, who was
living on Sugar Creek, in Iowa. In the fall of that year — 1847 — he went with his brother
and family 'to Florence, Nebraska, then called Winter Quarters, to which point Presi-
dent Young and many of the Pioneers had just returned after planting a colony in Salt
Lake valley.
Electrified by the accounts they gave of their journey and the country they had seen,
Abram resolved to emigrate to the Rocky mountains and establish a home for himself in
the midst of his people. With this end in view he went to St. Louis in the summer of
1848 and followed steamboating on the rivers, part of the time as cabin boy and subse-
quently as deck hand, carefully saving his wages to purchase a suitable outfit with which
to cross the plains. The following year he spent at St. Joseph, Missouri, accumulating
means for the same purpose.
It was in the spring of 1850 that he, with his brothers Jeremiah and Lorenzo, his
sisters Adeline and Elizabeth, with others, crossed the Missouri river on flat boats and
began their journey westward. The captain of their company was David Evans. Abram
drove his own team. His outfit consisted of one wagon, two yoke of oxen, two yoke of
cows, farming tools, clothing and a year's provisions. He took great delight in hunting,
and assisted in killing buffalo to supply food for the train. On the loth of September
they entered Salt Lake valley. He and his brothers remained at Salt Lake City during
the fall and winter, but in the spring of 1851 moved to Utah county, where Abram and
Lorenzo assisted in building and were part owners of the first grist mill erected in the
northern part of that county.
On the 22nd of September, 1852, Abram Hatch married Permelia Jane Lott, Bishop
Isaac Houston performing the ceremony. He settled at Lehi and engaged in farming,
merchandizing and trading. He also kept a hotel. In 1861 and 1863 he crossed and re-
crosed the plains for the purpose of bringing emigrants to Utah and freighting merchan-
dise for his store. In all, he traversed the plains eleven times as missionary, merchant
and traveler.
In the spring of 1864 Mr. Hatch was called to fulfill a three years mission to
Europe. Leaving his business affairs in charge of his wife, he set out about the last of
June with President Daniel H.Wells and Apostle Brigham Young, Jr., who, with their wives
— Mrs. Hannah C. Wells and Mrs. Catherine C. Young — were also en route for Europe.
The wagon train they traveled in was commanded by Captain John R. Murdock. By
way of Chicago and Niagara Falls, Mr. Hatch reached New York, and sailed thence
on an Anchor line steamer for Glasgow, where he landed and proceeded to
Liverpool. He was appointed by the President of the European Mission, George Q.
Cannon, to labor in the Birmingham conference under the presidency of Elder William
H. Sherman, who tenderly nursed him through an attack of smallpox during his ministry
in that conference. His traveling companion was Elder Francis Piatt. At a general
council in December, at which were present Daniel H. Wells, then President of the
Mission, Orson Pratt, Brigham Young, Jr., William B. Preston, Moses Thatcher, and
other notable Elders, he was appointed president of the Manchester district, including
Liverpool, Preston and the Isle of Man. He was subsequently appointed to the Bir-
mingham pastorate, including the Warwickshire, Staffordshire and Birmingham confer-
ences. His health failing, he took a tour on the continent, visiting the principal cities of
France, Switzerland and Holland. Returning to Great Britain, he completed his mission,
from which he was released in December, 1866.
Prior to his departure for home, he visited various points of interest in the British
Isles, and in company with Heber John Richards and William W. Riter, passed over into
Ireland. The Fenian excitement was then at its height, and on landing at Dublin, Elder
Hatch, to his amazement, was arrested and conducted to the guard house on suspicion
of being Stevens, the chief of the conspirators. He soon succeeded in convincing the
officers that it was a case of mistaken identity, and was set at liberty. On emerging
from the guard house, he and his friends were surrounded by a mob, shouting and yell-
ing (for the people still supposed Hatch to be Stephens), and it reauired the assistance
of a force of police to enable the three Elders to make their way through the dense and
agitated crowd to their hotel. After two days in Ireland, they gladly returned to Liver-
pool.
It was on March 26, 1867, that Mr. Hatch set sail from that port, homeward
bound. He took passage on the "Great Eastern," and had as fellow- passengers to New
York such notables as Cyrus W. Field, of Atlantic cable fame, Paul Du Challieu, the
African traveler and explorer, and Jules Verne, the French author, who in his "Floating
HISTORY OF UTAH. 167
City," afterwards published, made very favorable mention of "Mr. Hatch the Elder."
whose announcement to lecture on Mormonism in the ship's saloon was cancelled "as the
wives of the Puritans on board did not approve of their husbands becoming acquainted
with the mysteries of Mormonism." Several interviews upon that subject, however, took
place between Elder Hatch and Mr. Field, and this, too, at the latter's own seeking. He
seemed greatly interested in what he heard. An accident occurred at the very beginning
of the voyage, in which four sailors were killed and twelve others wounded. It occurred
while raising the anchor with a steam engine, the catch breaking with fatal results. An-
other incident of the voyage was a terrible storm, followed by a burial at sea, the dead
man being a sailor, the captain's nephew, who died from injuries received during the
tempest.
At New York, where he landed in April, Mr. Hatch tarried several weeks, acting
as Church advance agent (according to a request made of him at, Liverpool by Brigham
Young, Jr., President of the European Mission) and purchasing goods for his Utah
store. He visited his relatives in Vermont, erected a marble tombstone over his mother's
grave at Lincoln, and also visited Sidney Rigdon and family at Friendship, Western
New York. Luring his interview with the once famous leader, whom he describes as a
"grand looking old man, large and portly," who impressed him with his "intellectual
importance;" Mr. Hatch said, "Elder Rigdon, it is reputed that you wrote the Book
of Mormon; did you or did you not? What is your testimony — your dying testimony ?"
The answer came without hesitation, "I did not write the Book of Mormon. It is the
revelations of Jesus Chi-ist." Mr. Bigdon still felt bad towards President Young, whom
he accused of supplanting him and by his shrewdness depriving him of his rights as the
lawful successor to Joseph Smith. Mr. Hatch regarded Rigdon as "an intellectual
giant of a certain type," as "a man of extraordinary spiritual aspirations," yet "lack-
ing in the elements of a great leader."
Mr. Hatch arrived home in August, and in a few weeks was called by President
YouDg to go to Wasatch county and act as a Presiding Bishop in that section. At this
time he was a member of the 44th quorum of Seventies. President Young ordained him
a High Priest, and set him apart for his Bishopric December 2, 1867. He had previously
removed to his new home in Heber City, where he devoted himself to the task of build-
ing up the town and county. He was for six years probate judge of Wasatch county,
and for twenty-three years continuously represented the county in the territorial legisla-
ture. In 1877, when the stakes of Zion were organized. Bishop Hatch was made President
of Wasatch stake. He continued in the mercantile business and organized a co-operative
store, the business of which has constantly increased. His two oldest sons are associated
with him in merchandizing and stock raising. In addition to his other public duties, he
has performed military service, leading a company of cavalry to the relief of the Salmon
river settlement late in the fifties.
In November, 1SS0, President Hatch was called upon to mourn the loss of his
wife, who died after a lingering illness of four months, and was buried in the cemetery
at Lehi beside their two sons, Rodolph and John, who died while their father was in
England. In addition to these, she had borne him five children, namely, Joseph, the
eldest, superintendent of the co-operative store; Abram C, who has charge of the horse
and cattle herds; Minnie A., who is married to Captain Pardon Dodds, of Ashley valley;
Emma Jane and Lucy Ann. In April, 1S82, President Hatch married Miss Ruth Wool-
ley, daughter of the late Bishop Edwin D. Wolley, of Salt Lake City. By her he has
had four children — John, Mary Ann. Fanny La Prele and Edwin D.
In 1883 Mr. Hatch made a trip to Washington, D. C, for the purpose of getting a
claim allowed by the government. In this he was successful. While there he attended
a reception given by President Arthur, and to which he was accompanied by Mrs. Belva
A. Lockwood, Washington's lady lawyer. He also formed the acquaintance of Senator
Edmunds, Secretary Teller, Major Powell and other notable men. In 1885 he attended the
St. Louis cattle convention, and by request officiated as chaplain. He was accompanied
by his wife and by Judge Woolley and wife, of Washington county, Utah. After
getting through with the business and festivities of the occasion, the party took train for
Memphis, and from there floated down to New Orleans on a palace steamer to attend the
Southern and Central American Exposition.
Mr. Hatch is a natural humorist and is noted for his genial disposition. He has a
happy home, which is always open to his friends. He is benevolent and charitable, and
has ever been greatly interested in education. As a member of the Utah Legislature
he brought in the bill setting apart a portion of the public revenue for the benefit of the
common schools. He was also the member who first moved the passage of the woman
168 HISTORY OF UTAH.
suffrage act, afterwards repealed by the Edmunds law. He remained President- of
Wasatch Stake until 1901, when, on account of failing health, he was honorably released
from his long and faithful service in that capacity.
EDWIN D. WOOLLEY, JR.
(2)NERGETIC, thrifty and prosperous, straight-forward, out-spoken and manly, of
r-^j stalwart build and vigorous mentality, the name-sake son of Bishop Edwin D.
^^ Wolley has inherited many of the qualities of his worthy and distinguished father.
He was born at Nauvoo, Illinois, April 30, 1845, and was a little toddling child
when he came with his parents to Salt Lake valley. His mother's maiden name was
Mary Wickersham. The family arrived here in the fall of 1848.
In the Pioneer city of the Rocky mountains the Wolleys made their home, and here
Edwin's boyhood and early manhood were passed. He spent the winter of 1865-6 at St.
George, and saw service in the Navajo war, being one of a party who recovered the body
of Dr. Whitmore, who was killed by the Indians near Pipe Springs. Returning to Salt
Lake City the following spring, he served in the Blackhawk Indian war, under Colonel
Heber P. Kimball. In 1867 he again visited St. George, spending the winter there.
In the spring of 1868 he married Miss Emma Geneva Bentley, of that place, the
ceremony being performed at Salt Lake City. The following winter he took up a permanent
residence at St. George, where he employed his time in farming and freighting.
In 1869 he went to California for goods for the St. George Co-operative store, but
instead of returning with goods, he brought home the dead body of his brother, Franklin
B. Woolley, who had been killed by Indians near San Bernardino, on March Hist of that
year, while returning from a similar errand to that upon which Edwin had started. The
latter held at St. George the offices of constable, deputy-sheriff and justice of the peace,
and was also a member of the city council.
When the United Order was organized by President Brigham Young, in 1874, Mr. Wool-
ley took a prominent part in the movement. Three years later he married his second wife,
Florence Snow, and in the spring of 1877 went upon a mission to Europe, where he labored
in the British Mission. Returning thence after faithfully discharging his duty, he made
preparations a few years later to change his place of residence from St. George to Upper
Kanab, in Kane county.
This change was effected in 1882. He located a fine ranch in a beautiful picturesque
spot known as "Wolley's," where the writer of this sketch had the pleasure some years
later of visiting him and a portion of his estimable family and partaking of their bounteous
and whole-souled hospitality. The other part of his household — Mrs. Florence Snow Woolley
and her children — were living at that time in Arizona. Mr. Woolley turned his attention
to farming, stock-raising and dairying, in all of which he prospered.
In June, 1884, he became President of the Kanab Stake of Zion, being set apart
under the hands of Apostles Erastus Snow and John W. Taylor. In 1889 he moved to
Kanab, his present home, where he engaged in stock-raising and merchandizing. All
that can be said of any one who has led a frontier life, breaking ground, fighting Indians,
constructing roads, bridges, dams and ditches, erecting meeting houses and schoolhouses,
and building up the country in general, can be said of the subject of this brief biography
— too brief to do full justice to a good and worthy man, the beau ideal of a colonizer,
following in the footsteps of his honored sire, who was prominent among the fonnders
of Utah.
GEORGE WASHINGTON BRIMHALL.
fT>ROM childhood the life of George W. Brimhall was an eventful one. It began in
~TV~ the far East, in the Chestnut Woods on Canada Creek, New York, where he was
born November 14, 1814. When but five years old he fell from the limb of a cherry
tree, thirty feet, and was picked up for dead, but was restored through the nursing and
faith of his prayerful mother. He remembered that the following winter the snow drifted
ten feet deep, covering the fences. During that period the family lived mostly on potatoes,
roasted in the ashes; the father being away most of the time.
In October, 1827, the Brimhalls moved to Olean Point, and the next spring to Melville
on Oswao Creek, which flows into the Alleghany river. There the father rented a saw
mill, made and sold lumber at six dollars a thousand, shingles at one dollar a thousand,
and paid twenty-four dollars a barrel for flour, beans, pork and maple sugar, shipped from
what is now Pittsburg in large canoes, five hundred miles, through an Indian country.
At this place George, by an accident among the logs, came near losing his life, and while
out in the woods searching for a cow, narrowly escaped being killed by a panther. Having
about thirty thousand feet of lumber, and as many shingles, they prepared a raft eighty
feet long, and loading everything upon it, including the entire family, they went down
the Alleghany to Fort Diem Quesna (Pittsburg), where they sold their lumber. Starting
again with the raft they were soon on the Ohio river, finally landing at Lawrenceburg,
Dearborn county, Indiana, twelve miles from which place they purchased a quarter section
of lumber land and worked on it for ten years, making a good home.
In 1835, being nearly twenty-one years of age, George was left in charge of the farm,
and during the summer he joined a surveying party which surveyed the lands once occupied
by the Miami Indians, who were being moved west across the Missouri. He tells of one
old Indian whom he found sitting on a large log and looking very serious. When the
staff was planted on the log and the chain men came up rattling the links, the old man .
gazed until his eyes were dimmed with tears and his bosom heaved with emotion. Without
saying a word he hobbled away into the thick forest. The white man's progress was the
red man's doom.
The year 1837 found George and his father at Pleasant Grove, McHenry county,
Illinois, where they bought out some squatters, securing three hundred and twenty acres
of choice timber and prairie land, for which they afterwards paid the government. Here
the son would have settled, but being disappointed in love, after building a house, fencing
a farm and renting it, he went off, "oblivious of everything except his books and his
music." He returned to visit his mother, and after roaming around considerably, finally
married. Five years later a growing estrangement between him and his wife culminated
in their separation.
About this time, while bowed by the weight of that sorrow, he had a vision, which
he thus describes: "Standing at my door 1 saw myself walking toward the West under
a canopy of brilliant clouds that I had seen once before. I saw myself traversing undulating
plains, crossing rivulets, creeks and rivers, rising higher and higher to the table lands of
great and lofty mountains, whose peaks reached through the clouds. Often I wandered,
climbing over craggy rocks, glaciers, clifts and snow-drifts, which had not b«en disturbed
for centuries, with and without road, trail or path, and descending with care over
precipices seemingly impossible to pass without swift destruction. At last I emerged
into a beautiful valley, six thousand feet above the level of the sea, lying north and south
between the Rocky and the Sierra Nevada mountains, uninhabited save by a few partly
nude, desolate human beings, eating roots and insects for a subsistence." The same
year he realized the fulfillment of his vision; for on the 10th of July he with his brothers
John and Noah emerged from the mouth of Emigration Canyon and joined the early
settlers of Salt Lake valley.
In the winter of 1850-1 George W. Brimhall accompanied George A. Smith and other
colonists to Iron county, touching en route at the Spanish Fork river, where afterwards
170 HISTORY OF UTAH.
arose the settlement that became his permanent home. He speaks of the since noted
mounds and inscriptions at Paragoonah, and of meeting with the Indian chief "Walker,"
concerning whom and his people, upon whose lands the colonists settled, Mr. Brimhall
says: "This warlike chief held despotic sway over all the tribes of that region. Not a
gun was discharged, not a deer killed or a fish caught without his say, when, where and
the quantity. But the might of the despot was about to be broken. The cry 'Walker is
coming!' helped to complete our fort in quick time, and he arrived only to be
disappointed. A peace commission was sent to him, but he was found to be moody, as
in deep reflection. Our animals were in the fort, our pickets posted, double guard on
duty, composed of men who were not to be surprised and murdered by Walker's
treachery. Next morning he came up to 'narrowap' (trade). He had three Indian
child prisoners, whom he tied to the sage-brush to feed on grass, which they did with
relish. A council of the whole colony was held, and we agreed to give Walker a beef,
though we had none to spare, but thought it cheaper to feed than fight him. Mrs. Decker
Smith and J. P. Barnard purchased the little prisoners with a horse, and they soon made
progress in civilization. Clearing land, plowing and sowing, making ditches and watering
was our next business. Every officer did his duty; no fees, no salary, the honor of the
position being the only compensation for services. I was road commissioner and prose-
cuting attorney, and was drawn to my highest tension. The county of Iron was then
several hundred miles long and a hundred and fifty miles broad, containing probably
about three thousand inhabitants, dwelling in log cabins, wagons and tents. Our wheat
bid fair for half a crop and our cereals were excellent, but there was no threshing machine,
no grist mill and no saw mill in that section. It was now the fall of 1851."
Mr. Brimhall represented Iron county in the session of the Territorial legislature
which convened at Salt Lake City, January 5, 1852. Clad in a new buckskin suit, he
became known as "the buckskin orator." He served during three sessions. He was one
of the early settlers of Ogden, moving there in November, 1854, and serving three
years as a city councilor. Resigning that position in 1863, he moved with his family
back to Salt Lake City.
He was one of those called in 1864 to strengthen the settlements on the Rio Virgen
river, and had some severe experiences in the heat and drouth of the southern country,
receiving on one occasion a sunstroke. Says he; "I told my little boy, George H., to
take my body back with him when he went home to Salt Lake. He promised he would,
which was all I wished. I said good-bye to my wife and children. My spirit arose out of my
body and was ascending from it very slowly, feeling perfectly happy and without pain.
Looking down I saw Thomas Rhoades and another man with their hands upon my head,
and I heard Brother Rhoades say, 'In the name of Jesus Christ come back into your body
and live again.' I began to settle down, my spirit entering my body again, but not
without much pain. In a few days I was well."
Mr. Brimhall was instrumental in forming a treaty for the Mormon people with five
nations of Indians. He and his brother Norman, assisted by John Cox, made the treaty,
and neither party has ever violated it. The aged colonizer died September 30, 1895, at
his home in Spanish Fork, holding the office of a Patriarch in the Utah stake of Zion. He
is the father of numerous children, the most noted of whom, the son of his wife Rachel
Ann Mayer, is Professor George H. Brimhall, of the Brigham Young Academy.
JOHN CROOK.
JOHN CROOK was born at Topping, a village of Lancashire, England, October 9, 1831.
His parents were Dan Crook and Margaret Kay. When four years old he met with
a painful accident, the mark of which he bears to this day. He was playing on the
hearthstone of his father's home, when his clothes caught fire; he ran into the open
air, the wind fanning the flames, and only through the timely assistance of a lady who
caught him and doused him in a rain barrel did he escape being burned to death.
The parents were in moderate circumstances. The father had been reared on a
farm, but after marriage had secured a position in the Eagley Mills, near Topping. The
son received a common English education, attending a primary school until eight years
HISTORY OF UTAH. 171
of age. At nine he with a sister was put to work in the factory, winding or filling spools
for their father. John labored one half the day and attended school the remaining half;
this being compulsory by law and by the master of the mills. The tuition was six cents
a week, which amount was held out of the boy's wages. Children under thirteen were
not allowed to work full time, but John, being large of stature, was passed by the medical
examiner for that age when twelve. He was then apprenticed to William Cooper, in the
same factory, for five years. He gained a knowledge of weaviug braces and all kinds of
broad tapes, for binding carpets, etc. During his apprenticeship his wages began at six
shillings a week, and increased one shilling a week each year. After serving his time he
engaged in piece-work, which increased his income to twelve or fourteen shillings. This
employment the young man followed until he was eighteen years of age.
On Christmas day of 1850 — by which time the family had become Latter-day
Saints — John Crook, his father, his two sisters and a brother-in-law left their homes and
took train for Liverpool, there to embark for America, their ultimate destination being
Utah. They sailed on the ship "Ellen,'' January 8, 1851. In the Irish Channel about
midnight a schooner ran across the track of the "Ellen," becoming entangled in
her jib-boom, and in swinging around broke the fore and main yardarms. The event
created consternation on board, but the passengers were finally quieted. The vessel put
into Cardigan Bay,- North Wales, for repairs, and remained there two weeks on account
of headwinds. The captain became impatient to again set sail, and for eight days or
more was tacking about in the channel, finding it very difficult, as some punster observed,
"to get clear of Cape Clear." During one night the wind shifted in the vessel's favor,
and on the morning of January 31st she was on the broad bosom of the Atlantic, sailing
westward at the rate of nine knots an hour. No further delay ensued until she was becalmed
three or four days in the West Indies. She arrived at the bar of the Mississippi on the
12th of March, and was towed across by a steam tug, reaching New Orleans early in the
morning of the 14th; progress being slow on account of two other vessels attached to the
tug. Five days later the company of emigrants in which the Crook family were traveling
left New Orleans for St. Louis; a seven days passage. On the 13th of April they left St.
Louis for Kanesville, twenty days being consumed in the journey thither, as the Missis-
sippi was very low.
John Crook remained on the frontier until the summer of 1856. Meantime his father
died in August, 1852, sadly disappointed at not being able to come to Utah that year;
and John was thus left with the care of his single sister, younger than himself, on his
hands. About this time also he was afflicted with chills and fever, from which he suffered
intermittently for eight months. He became very weak, but between attacks managed to
make barely enough to sustain life, by chopping cord wood. He was paid for his work
in bad flour, sour and almost worthless. But better days came. His sister married, John
prospered, and in 1856 he had a good outfit with which to cross the plains.
Leaving both his sisters behind, they having joined the "Josephites," he started
from Florence, Nebraska, bound for Utah, on June 5th of that year, coming by way of
the Elkhorn, Loup Fork and North Platte, the route generally pursued by Mormon
emigrants. P. C. Merril was captain of fifty, and E. B. Tripp captain of ten in the same
company. The usual experiences of buffalo hunts and stampedes befell, and what was
far more important to Mr. Crook, he formed the acquaintance of his future wife, who
was also in the company. The passage of the plains thus became a pleasure trip, replete
with romance.
It was August 15, 1856, when they encamped on the old Union Square in Salt Lake
City. Mr. Crook remained here but three days, and then proceeded to Provo, where he
bought land and built a dwelling house. There he married on September 6th of the same
year Mary Giles, the lady previously mentioned, Bishop J. 0. Luke performing the
ceremony. During his three years residence at Provo occurred the "Echo Canyon war,"
in which he participated.
May 1st, 1859, witnessed his removal to Timpanogas valley — now Wasatch county —
which he had first visited in 1858 with Surveyor J. C. Snow and others, at which time
they surveyed lands south-west of where Heber City now stands. John Crook was one
of the founders of Heber, his being one of the first seventeen families in that place. On
May 5th, 1859 he and Thomas Rasband, with two yoke of cattle'and a plow, turned their
first furrow in Timpanogas or Provo valley. The weather was so cold, even in the vernal
season, that they had to wear overcoats and mittens. The outlook was forbidding, but
the doughty colonizers were not discouraged, and providence smiled upon their labors.
Fencing, farming, fort and bridge building, and the construction of canyon roads were
all included in the work of building up Wasatch county. The oarly settlers experienced
172 HISTORY OF UTAH.
much trouble from grasshoppers, and at times it was difficult to obtain flour, there being
no grist mill at Heber. Mr. Crook was in the Blackhawk Indian war, and did considerable
fighting. In the Wasatch militar}' district in 1868 he was Adjutant of the First
Battalion of Infantry. His life-record is filled with interesting experiences too numerous
to mention in this narrative. A single page, description of his methods of dealing with
the grasshoppers must suffice: "During the years 1868 and 1870 grasshoppers took
almost all the crops in the valley. I saved five acres of wheat each year, by running a
stream of water around the land. Early in the morning the whole family, including my
wife, would go out with long willows and drive back the hoppers that had jumped the
ditch, working all day to keep them back. We would drive them into the streams, having
peeled willows slanting downward in the bank of the ditch. This worked them off down
stream, away from the land. This was kept up for four weeks or more. The hoppers
began to fly and then we quit. By this method we raised enough grain for bread until
another harvest." Among other hardships of frontier life he mentions the fact that as
late as 1862 there was no grist mill in the valley, the settlers taking their grain to Provo
to grind. That year the Provo canyon road was washed out, leaving them to live on
chopped boiled wheat until spring, when they took their grist to Hoytsville.
John Crook was one of the first to introduce fruit culture in Wasatch county, where
many disappointing experiences in this direction finally resulted in gratifying success.
He has acted as corresponding secretary of Wasatch county to the Agricultural Bureau
at Washington, D. C; and for many years, and at last accounts, was a director and
President of the Wasatch Agricultural Society. He has also acted as voluntary observer
for the National Weather Bureau. Among other positions held by him are the following:
Choir leader at Heber City for seventeen years; first counselor to Bishop William Forman,
of the Heber West Ward, chosen July 2nd, 1877; and a High Councillor of Wasatch stake,
set apart November 2nd, 1884. He has also served as a home missionary. He was a
school trustee from 1864 to 1872, and road supervisor from 1868 to 1870. , Since 1862 he
has been connected with the Heber City dramatic company.
In 1882 he became interested in the business of lumbering and quarrying with his
friend Forman. Later the firm of Forman and Crook dissolved and was succeeded by
that of J. Crook and Sons, quarrymen. Mrs. Crook died September 13, 1888. Mr. Crook
has had nine children, seven of whom were living when the materials for this article
were furnished. The worthy pioneer, fast aging, but firm as ever in his principles,
still resides in the mountain-walled city of which he was one of the founders.
EARLY MILITARY MEN
■ . .
//7. ^ P<///iJ^
DANIEL HANMER WELLS.
■f^NO grander name adorns the pages of Utah's history, and few names are more
ISc illustrious in Mormon annals, than that of General Daniel H. Wells. He was
^ emphatically a man among men. Like a granite mountain, its very ruggedness
enhancing its sublimity, his great life and character loomed above the lives and
characters of most of his fellows. He was a man innately great, one who needed not tne
trappings and the suits of office, or even the glamour of splendid achievements, to make
him seem great, and was so constituted that he could not be flattered into the idea that
his soul was any larger on a mountaiu top than in a valley, in office or out of it; or that
honor, happiness and success depend necessarily upon the admiration and plaudits of the
world. He was willing to sacrifice even his good name — far more to him than wealth or
titles — to win the approval of his conscience and the favor of his Maker; and he made
that sacrifice, freery and voluntarily, when he associated himself with the unpopular
people and religion which to him were the people and religion of the Most High God.
Daniel H. Wells was the only son of Daniel Wells by his second wife Catherine
Chapin, and was born at Trenton, Oneida county, New York, October 27, 1814. He had
an only sister. Catherine Chapin Wells, and five half-sisters, the issue of his father's first
marriage. On the paternal side he was descended from Thomas Wells, the fourth
governor of Connecticut, and on the maternal side from David Chapin, a veteran of the
Revolution, who served under Washington and was a scion of one of the oldest and most
distinguished familes of New England.
When Daniel was twelve years old he was left, by the death of his father, with the
care of his mother and younger sister upon his hands, the other members of the family being
beyond the need of help. Large of stature and strong of limb, he did a man's work, it is
said, while receiving a boy's pay; laboring at this period upon a farm. At the age of
eighteen, in the settlement of his father's estate, he and his sister received a little means,
which enabled them to migrate with their mother to Marietta, Ohio, where Daniel taught
school one winter, and the next spring moved to Illinois, settling at a little place called
Commerce, where afterwards arose the beautiful Mormon city of Nauvoo.
It was here that he came in contact with the Latter-day Saints; not immediately,
however, their headquarters being still at Kirtlaud, Ohio, when he settled on the banks
of the Mississippi. Taking up virgin land, he cleared it of timber, built a small house,
farmed, planted orchards, and otherwise developed and beautified his new home on the
borders of the western wilderness. He supported his mother and sister until they
married, and he himself had entered the state of wedlock. His wife's maiden name was
Eliza Robison, sister to the late Lewis Robison, of Salt Lake City. They married about
the year 1835, and a year later a son whom they named Albert was born to them. They
prospered, accumulated large tracts of land, and laid the foundation for future wealth
and independence.
Before attaining his majority. Mr. Wells had entered upon his official career, being
first elected constable and then justice of the peace. He was an officer in the first
military organization of Hancock county. In polities a staunch Whig, he merged into a
Republican and remained one to the end of his days. He was active and prominent
in the political conventions of that period, and though not a professor of religion, was
much esteemed by men of all creeds and parties. As a private citizen he frequently
arbitrated his neighbors' differences, and as "Squire" Wells became noted for his
wisdom, impartiality and high sense of justice. His name was a synonym for courage
and integrity. An affectionate husband and father, a true and faithful friend, he was
broad-minded and charitable to all nun. a lover of his country, a fearless champion
of freedom, and a foe to oppression in all its forms.
He was in his twenty-fifth year, when, in the spring of 1839, the outcast Mormons,
expelled from Missouri, began gathering at and around Commerce, Hancock county,
176 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Illinois. With characteristic generosity, he at once befriended the homeless people and
extended to them a cordial and hearty welcome. His American pride, patriotism and
sense of justice were outraged by the cruel and inhuman treatment to which they had been
subjected. He might have speculated out of their necessities, but would not. Platting
his land into city lots, he let them have it almost on their own terms. On a portion of
eighty acres that had belonged to him, on a bluff above the village, was built the
Nauvoo Temple.
Though not connected with Mormonism until after the death of its founder, Daniel H.
Wells was always a faithful friend to the Prophet and his associates, and at the first
municipal election held under the Nauvoo chatter, February 1, 1841, he was chosen an alder-
man and a member of the city council. He was also a regent of the university, and
became brigadier-general in the Legion. He was ever a wise counselor, and the Prophet
often advised with him regarding measures and movements for the welfare of the people.
Though re-elected alderman in 1843, he does not seem to have been present at the
fateful meeting of the city council, June 10, 1844, when the municipal authorities
decreed the abatement of the Nauvoo Expositor, the event that precipitated the murder
of the Prophet and the Patriarch. "Squire" Wells heard the case for and against the
defendants, after they had been liberated on habeas corpus by the municipal court, and
after examining, discharged them, their course in relation to the "Expositor" being found
strictly legal under the charter and ordinances of the city.
After discharging the Prophet (who was mayor of Nauvoo) the "Squire" advised
him to go to Carthage and be tried before an anti-Mormon magistrate, urging this as the
most prudent and politic course that could be taken, and as the best means of disarming
prejudice and opposition. "I believe he could have gone then in safety," said General
Wells, relating this incident in after years, "but instead he started for the Rocky
mountains. Returning, he went to Carthage, but at a time when I would no more have
advised it than I would have advised him to enter the mouth of hell." He recognized,
however, that it was the Prophet's destiny that was leading him. The hour of martyrdom
had struck, and the pre-destined victim was ready for the sacrifice.
"Squire" Wells' indignation at the cowardly crime which robbed the Latter-day
Saints of their foremost leaders, was only equalled by the strength of his stern protest
against the demand made by Governor Ford for the arms of the Nauvoo Legion. He
did not become a Mormon until two years later, when the exodus of the Saints from
Illinois was well nigh complete, and the remnant left in the doomed city of Nauvoo were
threatened by armed mobs who came against them in violation of the most solemn treaties.
In this hour of extreme peril, when cowards would have quailed and most men hesitated,
Daniel H. Wells cast in his lot with the plundered and oppressed people, resolving to
share in their persecutions and die if need be in their defense. He was baptized
August 9, 1846.
b In the seige and battle of Nauvoo, which began on the 12th of September and continued
for several days, General Wells played a prominent and valiant part, acting as aid to
Lieutenant-Colonel Cutler in command of the citizen force, which after a hard fight
succeeded in repulsing Brockman and his "regulators." During the whole of the fighting,
he on his white charger was a conspicuous mark for the rifles and cannon of the enemy, but
escaped unhurt. When the city surrendered, he departed, with others, and after reaching
the Iowa shore was still a mark for the artillery of the invaders, who had again broken
their pledges and begun to plunder and abuse the defenseless citizens. General Wells
picked up one of the cannon balls and sent it with his compliments to the Governor of
Iowa, whose Territory had thus been assailed. In a one-horse buggy he rode day and
night to reach the companies ahead and represent the situation at Nauvoo, so that teams
might be sent back for the relief of those who had been expelled from the city.
In embracing the faith and following the fortunes of the Saints, Daniel H. Wells made a
sacrifice before which the heart of man stands still ; he sundered the strongest and sweetest
of human ties and laid his tenderest feelings upon the altar. His wife, whom he dearly
loved, refused to follow him, and when he. broken-hearted over the separation, left Nauvoo,
she and her little son, their only child, remained behind. He gave them all his property,
retaining only the outfit with which he traveled West. He reached Winter Quarters, joined
the general emigration of 1848, and acted as aide-de-camp to President Brigham Young
on the second journey of the great Pioneer to the Rocky mountains.
As he had been intimate with the Prophet Joseph Smith at Nauvoo, so he became
the familiar associate of President Young and the other Mormon leaders prior and
subsequent to the founding of Salt Lake City. He resided first in the Eighth Ward, but
in accordance with President Young's desire afterwards moved into the Eighteenth Ward,
HISTORY OF UTAH. 177
where the President himself resided. In a small adobe house east of the old Deseret News
corner, most of his children were born. He afterwards purchased the corner upon which
the Templeton building now stands, with a large house erected by Apostle Ezra T. Benson,
who had moved to Cache valley. In Salt Lake and Utah counties he also acquired
valuable farm and city properties. He promoted various industries, and engaged in
sundry enterprises. He was the first to develop the coal mines of Summit county, and
for many years owned and operated lumber mills in Big Cottonwod canyon. The
manufacture of nails was successfully carried on under his management. In 1872 he
established the Salt Lake City gas works, the forerunner of the present Utah Light and
Power Company, and for years bore almost unassisted the heavy burden of that then
unremunerative enterprise.
At the organization of the Provisional Government Daniel H. Wells was attorney-
general and subsequently chief justice of Deseret. He sat in the first legislative council.
In the Territorial legislature he was a member of the council for many terms, and a
member of most of the constitutional conventions preceding statehood. He was
a natural legislator, and his advice and assistance in the framing of public documents and
the adoption and execution of public measures and policies were invaluable. He had
clear perceptions of legal points and was familiar with constitutional principles. He like-
wise possessed great executive ability, a fact recognized by his repeated elections to the
mayoralty of Salt Lake City, which he held for ten consecutive years, beginning with
1866. Up to 18S2, when disfranchised under the operations of the Edmunds law, he was
a member of the city council.
As early as 1848 he was appointed superintendent of Public Works — a semi-
ecclesiastical position — and acted in that capacity at the laying of the corner stones of the
Salt Lake Temple in 1853, and for many years thereafter. He superintended the building
of the old Council House, in which the courts of Utah were originally held, and which
became the temporary home of the University of Deseret. Of that institution he was one
of the first regents, and from 1869 to 1878 was its chancellor. This was the period of
the University's revival, and virtually the beginning of its career. Though not himself a
scholar, he was a zealous friend and promoter of education. A constant reader, he
delighted in music, poetry and the drama. Though a good writer, a terse and logical
reasoner, he was but an iudifferent orator, the matter of his public discourses being much
superior to the manner of their delivery.
In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints he held the offices of Elder, High
Priest and Apostle; and on the 4th of January, 1857, became one of the First Presidency,
chosen to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Jedediah M. Grant, second counselor to
President Brigham Young. He held this position for twenty years and until the death of
President Young, when he became a counselor to the Twelve Apostles, who had succeeded
to the Presidency.
It is as General Wells that this great man will be best remembered by the non-Mormon
citizens of our State. His military career was replete with stirring incidents, from the
battle of Nauvoo down to the disbandment of the Nauvoo Legion, as the Utah militia
was originally styled. He it was who, with General Charles C. Rich, supervised the
organization of the militia at the inception and under the direction of the Provisional
Government of Deseret. Daniel H. Wells was elected major-general by the State
Assembly, May 26, 1849, and received the rank of lieutenant-general — a title first borne
by the Prophet Joseph Smith and subsequently by President Brigham Young1 —
March 27, 1852. Under the Territorial militia law he was re-elected lieutenant-general,
April 6, 1857, and as such commanded the forces that opposed the advance of General
Johnston into Salt Lake valley during the ensuing fall and winter. Cool-headed,
courageous and tactful, Daniel H. Wells was a born commander, and his great abilities
never shone to better advantage than in the famous Echo Canyon campaign, conducted
by him, under the ever wise direction of Governor Young, with consummate skill. During
the Indian troubles in Utah and Sanpete counties General Wells took the field in person,
routing the savages at every point. His spirited contention with Governor Shaffer for the
rights of the Legion, when some of its officers were arrested for carrying arms in a
Fourth of July celebration, was one of many incidents in which his patriotic liberty-
loving spirit was manifested.
President Wells spent the greater part of the years 1864 and 1865 at Liverpool,
presiding over the European Mission, returning in the fall of the last-named year to Utah.
In 1868, at the death of his associate President Heber C. Kimball, he succeeded him in
charge of the Endowment House, which served the purpose of the present Salt
Lake Temple.
178 HISTORY OF UTAH.
In October, 1871, he was arrested on a trumped up charge made by the notorious
cut-throat Bill Hickman, who confessed to the killing of one Richard Yates, at the mouth
of Echo Canyon in 1857, and was induced by certain anti-Mormon agitators to implicate
General Wells and other prominent Mormons in his crime. It was recognized that the
real cause of the prosecution was President Wells' high position in the Mormon Church,
and a judicial warfare against prostitution, gambling and liquor-selling instituted by him
as mayor of Salt Lake City against friends of the carpet-bag coterie. At Fort Douglas,
where the veteran was temporarily held iu durance, he was treated most courteously by
General Morrow, the commander of the post, who had no sympathy with the vexatious
proceeding. Two days after his arrest, which was on Saturday, the 28th, the defendant
made application by his attorneys (who had advised him that it would be vain) to be
admitted to bail. To the surprise of every one, Judge McKean granted the application,
accepting bail in the sum of fifty thousand dollars, though the prosecution demanded half
a million. The whole affair was quashed by the Englebrecht decision of 1872.
Mayor Wells was the central figure of an exciting and perilous tumult in the summer
of 1874, when at a general election held on the 4th of August (George Q. Cannon and
Robert N. Baskin being the rival candidates for delegate to Congress) the United States
Marshal, General Maxwell, attempted to take control of the election. The trouble occurred
in the Fifth Precinct, the polling place of which was the old City Hall, where a large
force of armed deputy-marshals, backed by a mob, came into collision with the police,
who arrested several disorderly persons, and were themselves arrested by Maxwell's
deputies. Excitement rose to fever heat. Mayor Wells, endeavoring to suppress the
tumult, was assaulted and his coat torn to ribbons, before the police could rescue him and
force back his ruffian assailants. The front doors were now closed, shutting out the mob,
while the police, a goodly array of determined stalwarts, thronged the hallway, awaiting
the word of command, which soon came. The tall, angular figure of the lion-hearted
mayor, stern as a statue of fate, now appeared upon the balcony, above the howling
crowd, whom he commanded to disperse. The answer was a storm of yells and hisses,
with shouts of "shooc him! shoot him!" intermingling. "Officers, do your duty,"
exclaimed the mayor, and the next moment the great doors opened and out came the
police, with the force and impetuosity of a mountain torrent, striking right and left with
their clubs as they passed through, scattering the confused mob in every direction. Broken
heads were plentiful that afternoon, though there were no fatalities, and the mayor
and police remained victors of the scene. They were arrested next day and placed under
heavy bonds, but nothing came of the attempt made to prosecute them for their stout and
effectual vindication of the law. Their conduct was overwhelmingly approved by the
citizens, and the affair was soon forgotten by the public, though remembered for life by
certain individuals, who had had it impressed upon them physically as well as
mentally.
President Wells, with Presidents Young and Kimball did a great deal of traveling
through Utah, locating and organizing settlements and counseling the people for their ■
general welfare. In the summer of 1876 he was placed in charge of a company to visit and
encourage the newly founded settlements of the Saints in Arizona, and while on the trip
narrowly escaped drowning in the Colorado river. He was crossing that stream at
Lee's Ferry, when the boat containing his traveling wagon and outfit, with himself and a
number of his party, was capsized into the rushing waters. President Wells was a poor
swimmer, and was weighed down with his boots and clothing, but he calmly struck out
for the shore, and succeeded in reaching it by what seemed to him a miracle. He felt
while in the water as if he were buoyed up by invisible hands. Bishop Roundy, another
of the party, who was an expert swimmer, was drowned.
An event that portrayed in glowing colors the character of Daniel H. Wells was the one
leading to his imprisonment for alleged contempt of court, in refusing to disclose upon
the witness stand, in the Miles polygamy case, the sacred mysteries of the Endowment
House. During his examination before Associate Justice Emerson, he was asked to
describe the apparel worn in the house by persons who went there to be married. He
declined to answer and was remanded to the custody of the marshal. Next day, being
again questioned, he replied, "I declined to answer that question yesterday, and do so
to-day, because I am under moral and sacred obligations not to answer, and it is inter-
woven in my character never to betray a friend, a brother, my country, my religion or my
God." He was fined one hundred dollars and imprisoned for two days in the Utah
Penitentiary, to which place he had previously of his own volition accompanied President
Young, when the latter, in March, 1875, was imprisoned for alleged contempt of court
by order of Chief Justice McKean. At the expiration of his forty-eight hours of durance,
HISTORY OF UTAH. 179
General Wells, on May 6, 1879, was escorted from the Penitentiary to Salt Lake City by
a triumphal procession of about ten thousand people, shouting his praises and applauding
his heroism.
At the outbreak of the anti-polygamy crusade he was the husband of seven wives, whom
he had married since coming to Utah, and the father by them of thirty-seven children,
twenty-four of whom were living. He was therefore liable to prosecution under the
Edmunds law. The course he would have taken had he been brought before the courts
on account of his marital relations, is perfectly clear to all who were acquainted with the
man. There would have been no weakening; it would have been fine and imprisonment,
or even death, before dishonor. But in December, 1SS4, he was sent to preside again
over the European Mission, and remained there laboring energetically, though in feeble
health, until honorably released in January, 1887. He then returned to America, and
after visiting relatives in the Eastern States, reached home in July of that year. He was
not molested by the crusaders, and appeared in public with perfect impunity, though the
anti-polygamy movement was still in progress.
His next appointment was as President of the Manti Temple, in May, 1888. The
choice of such a man for such a place was a most happy one. He had been familiar with
Temple work for many years, and had taken great delight therein. The doctrines of
Mnrmonism embracing salvation for the dead — one of the main purposes for which
Mormon Temples are erected — were the ones that originally attracted him, and the per-
formances of sacred ordinances in behalf of his kindred and friends who had passed away
gave his generous and philanthropic soul unalloyed happiness. He had been present at
the dedication of the St. George, Logan and Manti temples, and had offered the dedicatory
prayer when the first named building was consecrated. The peaceful atmosphere of the
House of God was most congenial to him in his declining years and the gradually failing
condition of his physical health. He officiated in the Temple and as counselor to the Twelve
Apostles until stricken with his final illness.
Perhaps nothing gave the venerable leader greater satisfaction in a material way
than the fact that he was able to leave his family, whom he fondly loved, in com-
fortable circumstances. He had been heavily involved financially for many years prior
to 1S89, having pledged all his property for the success of the gas works which he had
founded. An affectionate and indulgent husband and father, liberal to friends and
employes, and lavish in his hospitality, — all these had combined to embarrass him, and
he had seen his large possessions slip piece by piece into the vortex represented by his
liabilities, until from a position of comparative wealth he was reduced to one almost of
distress. By a superhuman effort, marvelous at his time of life, he succeeded in
extricating himself and saving a portion of his property. Selling at a most propitious
time the remnant of his real estate, he paid off debts amounting to hundreds of thousands
of dollars, and then purchased homes for his families, in which he left them when he
departed. He also gave to his numerous sons and daughters, such as were in a position to
avail themselves of it, the precious legacy of a good education, besides doing all in his
power to make them good and useful citizens, honorable, upright, exemplary members
of society.
General Wells died at Salt Lake City, which had been his home for upwards of forty
years. March '24, 1891, the immediate cause of his death being pleuro-pneumonia. He
departed peacefully, without pain, and conscious to the last. His family is one of the best
known and most distinguished in the State. He was the father of Heber M. Wells, the pres-
ent Governor of Utah; of Rulon S. Wells, one of the First Council of Seventy; Junius F.
Wells, a prominent business man and pioneer worker in the great Mutual Improvement
cause: Melvin D.Wells, a High Councillor of the Salt Lake Stake of Zion; and Lieutenant
Briant H. Wells, U. S. A., a West Point graduate, who was wounded at the battle of
Santiago de Cuba, and is now serving his country in the Philippines. The eldest son, the
Rev. Albert Wells, is an Episcopalian minister, residing at last accounts in Grand Rapids,
Michigan. Among the other sons are Joseph S., Gershom B., Victor P., Louis R. and
Charles H., all well known business men. The best known of the living daughters are
Mrs. Abbie C. Young, Mrs. May W. Whitney, Misses Kate, Lyde and Emmeline Wells,
Mrs. Emily W. Grant, Mrs. Annie W. Cannon, Mrs. Nettie Culmer, Mrs. Clara Hedges and
Mrs. Edna W. Sloan. The surviving: widows of General Wells are Mrs. Martha G. H.
Wells. Mrs. Lydia A. Wells. Mrs. Susan H. Wells, Mrs. Hannah C. Wells, and Mrs.
Emmeline B. Wells, all women of worth and integrity.
JAMES FERGUSON.
fOLDIER, actor, orator and lawyer, one of the brightest and most versatile minds,
and from what his friends say of him, one of the most winsome and loveable
natures, James Ferguson was a native of Belfast, Ireland, born on the 28th of
February, 1828. His parents were Francis and Mary Patrick Ferguson, and he
was the second son and eldest but two of their seven children. The family were in humble
cicumstances, but the children were sent to school and were also carefully trained in the
religion of their parents, staunch Methodists. When James was a little over nine years
old, his mother died — an event touehingly referred to in his journal — and before he was
thirteen he bade farewell to home and friends and went to Liverpool, having accepted a
situation there, procured for him through the kindness of Mr. Phillip Johnston, one of his
father's friends.
Tuesday, December 29, 1840, was the date of his departure from Ireland. Accom-
panied by his father, he took passage on the steamer "Falcon" and arrived at Liverpool
between five and six o'clock the same evening. The business house by which he was
employed was that of Steains & Rowley, afterwards Steains, Rowley & Co., tea dealers;
and at the beginning of 1841 he was bound to them as an apprentice for seven years. He
resided at the home of John Clements, 13 Skelhorne Street, and through him and his son
Gilbert became acquainted with the Latter-day Saints, who had a flourishing branch in
Liverpool and were holding regular meetings at the Music Hall in Bold Street. Young
Ferguson was naturally of a religious turn, and in his childhood had often been impressed
with the eloquent sermons delivered by the expounders of his parents' creed. What had
most affected his tender mind was "the awful hell" pictured by them as the eternal
abode of unrepentant sinners. True to the teachings of his parents, and influenced more
or less by the terrible portrayals of the preachers, he led a godly life, and taking the
"penitent form" at the Methodist meetings, tried hard to convince himself that he was
converted and saved. He was not clear upon the point, however, and became entirely
unsettled after hearing a sermon by a Mormon Elder — George J. Adams — delivered at the
Hall in Bold Street.
During his sojourn in Liverpool James revisited the scenes of his childhood, and soon
afterward his father and his youngest brother, John Patrick Ferguson, with an uncle and
aunt, emigrated to America, sailing for New York February 22, 1842, to be followed a
year and a half later by his brother Francis and his sisters Margaret, Jane and Mary
Ann. The parting advice which James Ferguson received from his sire was to continue
attending the Methodist class meetings and not go near the Latter-day Saints.
This advice, however, the boy found it impossible to obey. He was drawn irresistibly
to the Mormon meetings, and some of his most esteemed associates were converts to that
faith. One incident that had a great effect upon him was hearing a woman speak
in tongues at an outdoor meeting in Toxteth Park, a meeting he had reluctantly consented
to attend at the request of Mr. Clements, who desired him to accompany his son thither.
The father and son were Latter-day Saints, but the mother was much opposed to
Mormonism, and made it decidedly uncomfortable for Gilbert and his friend "Jim" after
they began attending the Bold Street meetings.
James Ferguson joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in May, 1842,
being baptized on the 25th of that month by Elder John Lindsay in the river Mersey. He
was confirmed the Sunday following — May 29th. He received the gift of tongues and
frequently used it in the meetings of the Saints. He, Gilbert Clements and George Q.
Cannon, boys together, were members of the Bold Street choir. His father wrote to him
from Staten Island, expressing the hope that he was still attending his class meetings
(Methodist, of course) and James answered, informing him that he had become a Latter-
day Saint and advising him to do likewise. At the same time he dutifully submitted to
his sire his reasons for taking that important step.
Ordained a Priest April 16, 1843, he became a zealous and efficient missionary in
HISTOEY OF UTAH. 181
Liverpool and the surrounding region. Winning in manner, talented to an unusual
degree, quick-witted and eloquent, he rendered valiant service to the Mormon cause
during the remaining years of his sojourn in that land. Among his most valued friends
was Elder John Webster, his Nestor in the Church and a second father to him, who sailed
for America in March, 1844. He afterwards became a protege of Wilford Woodruff, the
Apostle, by whose advice and assistance he finally reached the haven of his hopes, the
"Land of Zion." At Newton, near Warrington, some miles from Liverpool, he became
acquainted with and enamored of Miss Jane Robinson, whom he afterwards married. She
was a Mormon girl and like himself an "exile of Erin." In a manuscript book of poems
dedicated to her in October, 1851, are many tender stanzas addressed to her.
At the opening of 1S46 James Ferguson left the employment of Steains, Rowley &Co.,
with whom he had served five years, and on the 16th of January went on board the ship
"Liverpool," bound for New Orleans. On the same vessel were Elder Elijah F. Sheets,
returning from his English mission, and his wife Margaret Hutchinson, who was married
to him on board by Apostle Woodruff, who, after performing the ceremony, returned
with Elders Reuben Hedloek and Amos Fielding to Liverpool, leaving the company of
Saints to begin their voyage. The only exciting incident of the sea journey was after the
ship arrived at New Orleans and was being towed into harbor. It was the 23rd of March.
In crossing the bar, the "Liverpool" ran foul of the "Thomas Perkins" lying at anchor,
and carried away the jib-boom and part of the rigging. The "Liverpool's" fore-top
mast was broken and her rigging badly damaged by the collision, Down upon her
deck came the jib-boom of the other vessel, nearly all the passengers being on deck at the
time and on the side where the damage was done. "The mercy of God alone," says
Ferguson, "preserved us from much loss of life."
Landing on the morning of the 25th, he took steamer on the night of the 27th for
St. Louis, reaching that city on the evening of April 3rd. He there met his old friend
John Webster, and wept to find that he had been disfellowshiped from the Church.
"May God grant," says he, "a sweet termination to so bitter a matter." Continuing
his journey northward, he reached Montrose, crossed the Mississippi in a skiff, and
arrived at Nauvoo on the 6th of April. Apostle Orson Hyde was then in charge of the
Saints in the half-deserted city, President Brigham Young and most of the Twelve, at
the head of a company of about two thousand souls, having departed for the West.
On the 13th of April Apostle Woodruff arrived from England, and it was in his
company that James Ferguson joined the general exodus. He speaks of meeting at
Nauvoo the Cannon boys and others whom he had known in Liverpool, and concerning
his occupation while at Nauvoo, says, "I am getting acquainted with a variety of
employments, such as milking, chopping, feeding, driving oxen and mules, and several
other minor requisites." He left Nauvoo April 30th, with two wagons, two yoke of oxen,
two cows and a calf belonging to Apostle Woodruff. The weather was rainy and dismal,
progress slow and difficult, and conditions anything but comfortable.
He reached Mount Pisgah on the 15th of June, and was there when Captain James
Allen of the United States army arrived with a letter from President Polk, requesting the
Mormon authorities to furnish five hundred men "to go as pioneers and plant the
standard of the United States in California," then a province of Mexico. Captain Allen
was referred to President Young and the authorities at Council Bluffs. Ferguson con-
tinued on his way and arrived at the Bluffs on the 9th of July.
A week later he enlisted in the Mormon Battalion, and on July 21st started with his
comrades for Fort Leavenworth, where they were armed and equipped for the campaign.
He was enrolled in Company "A," Captain Jefferson Hunt, and held the rank of
sergeant-major. His ready pen was serviceable in making up the muster rolls of the
Battalion, and having been appointed by Dr. Willard Richards "the historian of the
campaign," he kept a graphic account of the movements of the volunteers throughout
their long and toilsome tramp to the Pacific Coast. A prayerful, devout spirit pervades
his record from beginning to end. Cromwell and his "Ironsides," though more sancti-
monious were not more truly religious than these Mormon volunteers, who with the
blessing of their Apostolic leaders upon their heads, went forth to do service in their
country's cause. An interesting feature of their camp life was a debating society, in
which, we may be sure, young Ferguson — almost a Robert Emmett in eloquence — shone
with lustre. His wit and humor enlivened every s'cene, and he was a universal favorite.
The details of this unparalleled infantry march — so designated by Colonel Cooke, who led
the Battalion from Santa Fe into Southern California— cannot be given here. Suffice it,
that after untold hardships and privations, incident to the traversing of an untrodden
wilderness, Sergeant Ferguson and his comrades reached their destination, and after a
182 HISTORY OF UTAH.
year's faithful service — the term for which they had enlisted — were honorably discharged
at Los Angeles, July 16, 1847.
James Ferguson remained in California until 1848. in October of which year
he arrived at Salt Lake City, where he established a permanent home. Soon after
his arrival he was elected sheriff of Salt Lake county, and held that office for several
years. In the original organization of the militia he was second lieutenant of Com-
pany "A," first regiment, Nauvoo Legion, and subsequently captain of company "B"
in the same regiment. They were known as "Life Guards" or "Minute Men." He
was with Captain George D. Grant's command, which, in February, 1850, operated
against the hostile Indians in Utah county, (see chapter 22, volume I) and was
a member of the dashing cavalry squad which, at Provo river, stormed and captured a
strongly fortified position, thus turning the tide of battle against the savage foe.
His rise was rapid, his rare and varied gifts, which were much in demand, readily
paving his way to positions of honor and responsibility. At the organization of the
Utah legislature in December, 1852, he was elected (not for the first time) secretary of
the council, and served in that capacity during one or more sessions of the Assembly.
Earlier in the year, when the office of Teri-itorial attorney-general was created by the
legislature, he was the original incumbent of that position. He was also a member of
the legislative council. As natural a lawyer as he was an orator (though self-taught in
both) he took first rank among local members of the legal profession, and bid fair to
become famous as a jurist far beyond the borders of this isolated, mountain-girt common-
wealth. He began to study law about the time of his arrival in Salt Lake valley. He
read much, had a retentive memory and his brilliant intellect speedily mastered any
subject upon which he bent its energies.
He was early identified with the Deseret Dramatic Association, and on New Year's
day, 1853, at the opening of the Social Hall — Utah's chief home of the drama until the
Salt Lake Theatre was built — he delivered an address in behalf of that organization.
According to his diary he made his first professional appearance at the Social Hall on the
evening of January 17, 1853, enacting the title role in "Don Caesar de Bazan;" a farce
entitled "The Irish Lion" supplementing the main performance. Two nights later he
appeared as "Claude Melnotte" in "The Lady of Lyons," and through the remainder of
the season was busy mastering and interpreting such characters as "Rolla," "Hamlet,"
"Iago," "Petruchio," etc. During much of this time he was occupied during the day in
the legislature; also with prosecuting cases in court and discharging his duties as
sheriff.
The night before the corner-stones of the Salt Lake Temple were laid it devolved
upon him to post guards about the grounds as a preliminary to the ceremony of the
day following. He was occassionally called upon to guard President Young and other
Church leaders in their travels to and fro, especially through the Indian country. He
was not only trusted but beloved by the President and his associates, who much enjoyed
his society and were often made merry by his witticisms. General Daniel H. Wells was
particularly fond of him. He was once heard to say that he never loved man more than
he loved James Ferguson. Among his most intimate friends were Horace K. Whitney,
Robert T. Burton and James M. Barlow.
At the General Conference in April, 1854, James Ferguson was appointed upon a
mission to his native land. He now held the office of a Seventy. Prior to his departure
he was given a complimentary benefit by the Deseret Dramalic Association, in con-
junction with three other members of that organization, namely, John T. Caine, William
C. Dunbar and James M. Barlow, who were also going upon missions. The four
benefits took place at the Social Hall, Elder Ferguson's on the night of April 22nd, when
he appeared as "Ingomar" and recited "Phaudry Cahore." Ferguson's recitatons were
famous, particularly his "Phaudry Cahore," and as an actor he was gifted above the
many. "Claude Melnotte" was perhaps the most noted of his impersonations. No player
was better qualified to speak his lines "trippingly on the tongue." His voice vas
musical, his manner winning, and in his soul burned the true dramatic fire.
He started upon his mission May 1st, 1S54, in company with Cyrus H. Wheelock,
William C. Dunbar, Seth M. Blair and other Elders bound for Great Britain. They sailed
from New York on the 24th of June and landed at Liverpool on the 5th of July. Apostle
Franklin D. Richards was then presiding over the European Mission, and he and his
brother Samuel were the first to meet and welcome the missionaries from America. Elder
Ferguson speaks appreciatively of their great kindness to him. He was made pastor of
the Church in Ireland, and barring travels in Scotland and other parts of the British
Isles, spent most of his time there. Having accomplished his mission, during the last few
HISTORY OF UTAH. 183
weeks of which he was in the London pastorate with Elder W. C. Dunbar, he was honorably
released, and on March 21, 1856, was appointed president of the company of emigrating
Saints that sailed two days later on the ship "Enoch Train." Edmond Ellsworth and
Daniel D. McArthur were his counselors. The company landed at Boston April 29, and
on May 19 reached Iowa City, the outfitting point for the journey across the plains. There
President Ferguson and his counselors received from the company a unanimous vote of
thanks for the able and faithful manner iu which they had discharged their duties. At
parting with the Saints in Ireland, Elder Fergusou, whose military record was well
known, had been presented with a handsome cavalry sword, as a mark of admiration
and esteem.
Released from his presidency at Iowa City, he with Apostle Franklin D. Richards,
Elders Daniel Spencer, Cyrus H. Wheelock, Joseph A. Young, William H. Kimball and
other returning missionaries, preceded the several companies congregated on the frontier
to Salt Lake valley. It was the year of the awful handcart disaster. Learning after
his arrival home that the emigrants — who had started too late in the season — were
perishing in the snow along the Platte and Sweetwater, James Ferguson at once joined
the relief corps that went to the rescue of the unfortunates.
In January. 1857, Lieutenant-general Wells, commander of the Nauvoo Legion, was
authorized by the Legislature to choose six or more eoimuissoned officers and with their
assistance draft a system of laws and regulations for that body. He selected among others
James Ferguson, whom he subsequently named as a member of his staff, with the rank
of adjutant-general. This was shortly before the opening of the famous Echo Canyon
campaign, in which he figured prominently. He accompanied his chief to the front in
September of that year, and remained until far into the winter. A fragment of his
eloquent letter to Colonel Phillip St. George Cooke, U. S. A., the old commander of the
Mormon Battalion, who was with General Johnston in the invasion of Utah, may be found
on page 660 of the first volume of this history. After his return home and up to and
during the "Move," his time was occupied with the usual routine of business ill the
adjutant-general's department. He was one of those left on guard at the Bee-Hive house
when Johnston's army passed through Salt Lake City.
In the summer of 1859, in conjunction with Seth M. Blair and Hosea Stout, General
Ferguson established the journal known as "The Mountaineer," in opposition to "The
Valley Tan," an anti-Mormon paper that had originated at Camp Floyd, but was then
being published at Salt Lake City. The "Mountaineer" issued its first number on the
27th of August. Besides attending to his editorial duties, he continued practicing in the
courts. We find him in January of this year, defending himself, and that successfully,
before Judge Sinclair, iu the district court, against a charge of intimidating Judge Stiles
in November, 1856; one of the charges cited to sustain the false theory of a Mormon in-
surrection and justify the sending of Johnston's army to Utah.
His last appearance iu court was on the 13th of August, 1863, when he assisted in
the defense of a man named Dives, on trial for larceny. General Ferguson was ill, and
on the adjournment of court returned home and never again left it alive. His health had
been failing for several years, and though he was scarcely in his prime — between thirty-five
and thirty-sis years of age — his death had been anticipated. He expired at 12:45 a. m.
Sunday, August 30, 1863, at his home in the Fourteenth Ward. His decease was much
lamented. The members of the bar met on the day of his funeral, August 31st — and
passed appropriate resolutions to his memory. The funeral was attended by President
Young and other Church dignitaries and prominent citizens, and in the presence of a
vast throng the remains were laid to rest in the city cemetery.
General Fergusou was four times married. His wife Jane Robinson has already been
named. His wife Lucy Xutting, whom he met in California was one of the "Brooklyn"
company who landed there with Elder Samuel Branuan in 1S46. Another wife was
Margaret Gutteridge. a talented singer at the Social Hall entertainments. His wife Phillis
Hardy, whose acquaintance he formed in Scotland, was a handcart heroine. He was
the father of thirteen children, ten of whom are living, namely: Mrs. Julia F. Brown, of
Liberty. Idaho: Mrs. Lucv Fox, of Lehi, Utah; Hon. James X. Ferguson, of Salt Lake
City: Mrs. Sarah Clark, now in Oregon; Mrs. Mary P. F. Keith, of Salt Lake City:
Daniel H. Ferguson, a well known mining foreman; Mrs. Kathleen F. Burton, of Salt
Lake City: Mont Ferguson, of Park City; Barlow Ferguson, of the law firm of Ferguson
& Cannon, and Fergus Ferguson, of Salt Lake City.
ROBERT TAYLOR BURTON.
i<J^"AMOUS in Utah history as General Burton, and equally noted in later Mormon
"♦£- history as Bishop Burton, the subject of this sketch, one of the Presiding Bishop-
*■ ric of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was born at Amersberg,
Canada West, October 25, 1821. The son of Samuel and Hannah Shipley Bur-
ton, he was the tenth in a family of fourteen children, seven of whom were born in
England, and the others in America. His grandparents, Samuel and Mary Johnson
Burton, were of Yorkshire, England, whence his parents emigrated in the year 1817,
sailing from the port of Hull. Arriving in America, they settled at Poultneyville,
Ontario (now Wayne) county, New York, where they resided two or three years, and
then moved to western Canada. Thence they returned in 1828 to the United States and
settled on a farm of one hundred and sixty acres near the mouth of the Maumee river,
where the city of Toledo now stands. After a few years residence in Ohio they removed
to Adrian, Michigan, where they were among the very earliest settlers. Finding it
impossible to dispose of his Canadian property to advantage, Robert's father returned
with his family to that country.
Some time in the autumn of 1837 two Mormon missionaries came into the neighbor-
hood where the Burton family resided. As usual they were shunned by the various
religious denominations and refused permission to preach in the churches and public
buildings. Resenting this inhospitable treatment of the strangers, Robert T. Burton,
then only about sixteen years of age, but always a lover of justice and fair play, per-
suaded his father to entertain the two Elders and provide a place in which they might
expound their views. Soon after this the youth visited some relatives in the State of
Ohio, spending the winter at school, and the next summer helping his widowed sister,
Mrs. Jane Layborne, upon her farm. During his absence from home his father's family
were converted to Mormonism. He was informed of this fact by his mother, who in
September visited him and her kindred in Ohio and requested him to accompany his par-
ents to Far West, Caldwell county, Missouri, where the Latter-day Saints were gathering
in large numbers. He consented to do so, though not without some reluctance, the re-
sult of certain rumors unfavorable to the Saints then afloat in northern Ohio. Returning
to Canada, he was himself converted to the faith which his parents had espoused, and
was baptized by Elder Henry Cook, October 23, 1838.
In the latter part of that month he left with his father's family for Far West, and
had got as far as Walnut Grove, Knox County, Illinois, when he learned of the terrible
persecution of the Saints in Missouri. He therefore concluded, with others, to remain
at Walnut Grove, where a Mormon branch was organized, and where the Burton family
resided for about two years. They then migrated to Nauvoo, and resided there until the
exodus. From June, 1843, until June, 1844, Robert T. Burton, then an Elder of the
Church, was absent from home on a mission in Illinois, Michigan and Ohio, in company
with Elder Nathaniel "V. Jones. Having baptized a goodly number and organized several
branches they returned to Nauvoo, Elder Burton's arrival being just two weeks before
the martyrdom of the Prophet and the Patriarch.
At this time he performed his first military duty, enlisting in Captain Gleason's
cavalry company, Nauvoo Legion. He was on guard in Nauvoo at the time of the
Carthage jail tragedy, and for some time afterwards was constantly on duty there and in
the vicinity, endeavoring to protect the oppressed Saints from rapine and robbery. A
lover of music, and talented in that line, he became a member of the Nauvoo brass band
and Nauvoo choir, besides performing other public duties. In January, 1845, he was
called on a special mission, with Elder Samuel W. Richards, and traveled through some
of the central counties of Illinois, seeking to allay the bitter prejudice prevailing against
his people.
He returned from this mission in time to be married on December 18th of the same
HISTORY OF UTAH. 185
year, to Miss Maria S. Haven, the ceremony uniting the young couple being performed
by President Brigham Young at the home of the bride's parents in Nauvoo. The nearest
approach to a wedding tour experienced by Mr. and Mrs. Burton was the exodus of the
ensuing February, when the Saints began leaving Nauvoo upon their long and toilsome
pilgrimage into the unknown West. The Burtons were in one of the first companies
that started, crossing the Mississippi river on the ice, February 11th, and encamping on
the western bank. The snow was about eighteen inches deep, and the weather extremely
cold — so cold that many of the homeless pilgrims were compelled to cross and re-cross
the frozen river several times, with teams and wagons, for additional supplies of clothing,
bedding and provisions.
The Burtons left Sugar Creek in the general move westward. Owing to the absence
of roads and the wet weather, progress was slow and difficult. The country was covered
with water and mud almost the entire distance to the Missouri river, where they arrived
about the middle of June. The main camp was at Council Bluffs, but Mr. Burton, with
his wife and his aged parents, made a temporary home at a point lower down the river.
There his mother died, a victim of the hardships of the enforced exodus, and was buried in
a lonely grave on the banks of the Missouri. The survivors of the family, after accumu-
lating the necessary teams and supplies, left their Missouri home and on May 20, 1848,
rejoined the main body of the Saints at Winter Quarters.
By this time the Pioneers had been to the Rocky Mountains and had returned, and
President Young and his associates were now organizing the main emigration. Robert
T. Burton and his family were in the company led by President Young, with whom they
came to Salt Lake Valley, arriving here in the latter part of September. During the
journey Mr. Burton acted as bugler of the camp. He lived in the Old Fort until January,
1849, when Salt Lake City having been laid out, he moved into the Fifteenth Ward, first
living with his brother-in-law, William Coray, but removing on the 15th of August to the
corner of Second West and First South Streets, where he still resides.
In the fall of that year the local militia was organized, under the reminiscent title of
"Nauvoo Legion." Robert T. Burton was appointed bugler in the first company of
cavalry that was formed — the one commanded by Captain George D. Grant. In Febru-
ary, 1850, this company was called into active service to defend the settlers in Utah
county against hostile Indians. Leaving Salt Lake City on the evening of the 7th, they
traveled all night, arriving at Provo early in the morning. They found the Indians
strongly entrenched on the south bank of Provo river, where for three days they stoutly
defended themselves against Captain Grant's minute men and others of the militia. On
the third day a little squad of cavalry made a determined assault upon the enemy's posi-
tion, and after receiving the Indian fire, which momentarily checked their impetuous
charge, rallied, swept on and captured a barricade formed by a double log-house, from
which the savages flea precipitately. In the very thick of the fray, two of the cavalry-
men— Robert T. Burton and Lot Smith — heedless of the bullets that whistled past their
ears, rode round to the front of the house and spurred their horses into the passage way
between the log buildings. They were the first of the troopers inside the house, most of
their comrades sawing through the logs at the rear. The campaign was very successful,
the Indians being driven into the mountains.
In September of the same year Mr. Burton was one of a company ordered north
against the Shoshone Indians, and in November he and his comrades were again in Utah
county, operating against the remnant of the tribe they had fought there the previous
spring. While on this campaign he was elected lieutenant. In December he was ordered
to Tooele county, in pursuit of marauding savages. This trip was a very trying one, the
company having no tents, no shelter of any kind, and being without sufficient bedding or
clothing. After a hard experience they returned, having accomplished very little. In
June, 1851, he accompanied another expedition against the Indians on the Western desert,
and though the men suffered for want of water, they were entirely successful. In a battle
fought at the edge of the desert west of Skull valley nearly all the hostiles were killed.
The next spring he took a small company of men to Green river, to serve papers
issued from the district court, and protect the settlers in that part from Indians and rene-
gade white men. In 1853 he was elected captain of Company "A" — the original cavalry
corps — and on March 1, 1855, received his commission as major. Two years later, on
the 12th of June, he was commissioned colonel.
In October, 1856, he accompanied the relief corps that went out to meet and help in
the belated handcart companies, struggling through the snow five or six hundred miles
east of Salt Lake City. The weather was intensely cold, and not only the immigrants,
but their rescuers ran short of provisions and were reduced to one-fourth rations until the
12
186 HISTORY OF UTAH.
arrival of further relief. After the companies had been provided for as well as possible
under the circumstances, Major Burton was placed in charge of the train and conducted
it to Salt Lake, arriving here on the last day of November. "This," says he, "was the
hardest trip of my life; many of the immigrants died from cold and hunger and were
buried by the roadside."
The next fall and winter found him in the thick of the trouble known as the "Echo
Canyon War." As early as the 15th of August, pursuant to orders previously issued, he
started eastward at the head of about eighty mounted men, to assist the immigration then
en route to Salt Lake valley, take observations as to the movements of the government
troops also on the way to Utah, and report the information to headquarters. He faith-
fully carried out his instructions. Meeting, at Devil's Gate, on the 21st of September,
the vanguard of Johnston's army, commanded by Colonel E. B. Alexander, Colonel
Burton and his scouts hovered in their vicinity, watching and reporting their movements,
until they arrived on Ham's Fork, twenty miles northeast of Port Bridger. At the latter
point Colonel Burton joined General Wells, the commander of the Learion, now opposing,
by order of Governor Young, the further advance of the invaders. About the middle of
October, Burton, with a heavy force of cavalry, intercepted Alexander, who, finding his
way through Echo canyon blocked with ice and snow and barred by hostile militia, at-
tempted a detour northward, presumably to enter Salt Lake valley by the Fort Hall route.
He was compelled to return and camp on Black's Fork, wherein November he was joined
by General Johnston. The Federal army having gone into winter quarters at Fort
Bridger, Colonel Burton rejoined General Wells in Echo canyon, remaining there until
the 5th of December, when he returned to Salt Lake City. In the spring of 1858, when
the people moved south to avoid a possible collision with the United States troops, who
were preparing to march through the city, Colonel Burton was left with a force of militia
to guard the property of the absent community.
In 1862, by order of Acting- Governor Fuller, he proceeded with a company of picked
men to the Platte river, for the purpose of protecting the mails from Indians and lawless
white men, who, taking advantage of the outbreak of the Civil War, were attacking and
burning mail stations, driving off stock, waylaying stage coaches, killing passengers and
committing other depredations. In June of the same year occurred the "Morrisite War,"
in which Colonel Burton, as deputy of the Territorial Marshal, commanded the posse sent
against the rebellious Morrisites bj' order of Chief Justice Kinney of the Third District
court. The details of this affair, including General Burton's trial on a trumped up charge
of murder, with his triumphant acquittal (March 7, 1879) by a jury composed equally of
Mormons and non-Mormons, are fully related in the second and third volumes of this
history. Robert T. Burton received his commission as Major-General from Governor
Durkee in 1868. Up to the disbandment of the Legion in 1870, he, under Lieutenant-
General Wells, was one of the principals in perfecting the organization and directing the
operations of the Territorial militia.
In addition to his military offices he has held civic positions as follows: Constable
of Salt Lake City in 1852; United States deputy. marshal in 1853 and for many years after;
sheriff, assessor and collector of Salt Lake county for twenty years from 1854; Territorial
deputy-marshal from 1861 until several years later; United States collector of internal
revenue for Utah, by appointment of President Lincoln, from 1862 to 1869; assessor of
Salt Lake county in 1S80; member of the city council from 1856 to 1873, and member of
the Legislative Council from 1855 to 1887. While serving in the Legislature in 1876,
Hon. Robert T. Burton, Hon. Abraham 0. Smoot and Hon. Silas S. Smith were appointed
a committee to arrange, compile and publish all the laws of the Territory of Utah then in
force. From 1880 to 1884 General Burton was one of the Board of Regents of the Uni-
versity of Deseret.
His ecclesiastical record since coming to Utah is as follows: In 1859 he was ap-
pointed counselor to Bishop Andrew Cunningham of the Fifteenth Ward, and in 1867 he
became the Bishop of that Ward. In November, 1869, he went upon a mission to the
Eastern States, during which he spent some time in the city of Washington, assisting
' Utah's Delegate, Hon. William H. Hooper, in the interests of his constituency. In May,
1873, he left for Europe, to fulfill a mission, and while absent visited various parts of
Great Britain and the Continent. Returning to England, he was appointed president of
the London conference. July, 1875, found him again in Utah. During that year, and
while still in England, he had been chosen second counselor to Edward Hunter, the Pre-
siding Bishop of the Church, but he continued to act as Bishop of the Fifteenth Ward
until 1877. After the death of Bishop Hunter, he became first counselor to his successor,
Bishop William B. Preston. The date of this appointment was July 31, 1884. Since
that time he has continued to act in this capacity.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 187
Bishop Burton was one of the first of our citizens to engage in home manufacture.
He with Abraham 0. Smoot and John Sharp built the Wasatch Woolen Mills on Parley's
Canyon creek, southeast of Salt Lake City. He has a fine farm on State street, in the
southern suburbs, and for many years has engaged in farming and stock-raising.
General Burton has been thrice married, and is the father of a numerous family,
mostly sons. The best known of these are William S. Burton, contractor and builder;
Charles S. Burton, cashier of the State Bank of Utah and adjutant-general in the
militia; Bishop Henry F. Burton, of Farmers' Ward, Salt Lake county; Willard Burton,
prominent in Sabbath school work, and Theodore Burton, of the Burton Coal and Lumber
Company. His eldest daughter, Teresa, is Mrs. Lewis S. Hills. In his eighty-second
year, the General is still active in his labors, and is daily at his post of duty in the office
of the Presiding Bishop. Courage, uprightness and fidelity are among the most promi-
nent traits manifested by the esteemed veteran during his long and eventful career.
JAMES BROWN.
•^APTAIN JAMES BROWN was a native of Roan county, North Carolina, and was
\9J born September 30, 1801. His parents were James and Mary Williams Brown.
^"^^ The father was a veteran of the Revolutionary war, having fought under General
Francis Marion. While the father farmed, the mother spun, wove and made all
the clothing of the family. Their circumstances were only moderate. James in early
boyhood helped his father upon the farm and at intervals attended school, receiving a
common English education, supplemented by general reading and wide practical experience.
He was inclined to literary pursuits, taught school in his early manhood, was a Baptist
preacher for a time and served two or three terms as sheriff in the county of Roan. He
had a natural leaning towards the law, but never studied it so extensively as to prepare
himself to practice. He was married in 1823 to Martha Stephens.
In the year 1834 he migrated from North Carolina and settled in Brown county,
Illinois, where he built a home, but subsequently sold out and moved into Adams county,
where about the year 1837 he took up a farm and built. The following year he became
a Latter-day Saint. On September 28, 1840, his wife died, leaving him with eight sons
and one daughter, the youngest, his son Moroni, only three days old. About the 1st of
January, 1841, he married again, and then took up his residence at Nauvoo, where he
was soon called into the ministry. He filled a mission to *he Southern States, visiting
his relatives in North Carolina, and also spent a great deal of time in gathering means for
the building of the Nauvoo Temple. He formed a business partnership with a man
named Moffit, owning a mill at Augusta, Iowa.
He was with the Saints in their exodus, and at Council Bluffs in the summer of 1846
enlisted in the Mormon Battalion, becoming captain of company "C." At Santa Fe he
was placed in charge of certain detachments of the battalion, disabled by their long and
arduous march to that point, and was ordered to Pueblo to pass the winter, while the
main body, under Colonel Philip St. George Cooke, pushed on to the Pacific coast. The
next spring Captain Brown and his command prepared to march thither, but instead of
taking the southern route, pursued by their comrades, they traveled by way of Fort
Laramie and South Pass, thus falling in with the Pioneers under President Brigham
Young and following immediately behind them to Salt Lake valley.
They arrived here on the 29th of July. By this time the battalion's term of enlist-
ment had expired, and Captain Brown determined to tarry and rest his teams, while
awaiting further orders from his military superiors. Early in August he set out for
California, taking the muster roll of his detachment for the purpose of drawing the pay
due from the Government to the men of his command; the battalion having been honor-
ably discharged at Los Angeles.
Returning from San Francisco in December, 1847, he purchased from Miles M.
Goodyear, an old frontiersman, a log fort and lauds on the Weber river, paying for them
the sum of three thousand dollars. Thither he removed in January, 1848, his sons Jesse
and Alexander accompanying him. In the spring of that year they plowed and sowed a
few acres with wheat and also planted corn, potatoes, cabbage, turnips and watermelons.
]88 HISTORY OF UTAH.
The spot upon which they located was a portion of the site of the present city of Ogden,
the first settlement in Weber county, of which Captain Brown may be considered the
pioneer and one of the principal founders. He was not only first upon the ground —
barring the primitive occupancy of Mr. Goodyear, who had a Mexican land grant and was
in no way connected with the Mormon community — but he encouraged others to settle in
that part, generously allowing his brethren to build and plant upon portions of the tract
he had purchased, and taking no pay from them for that privilege. The government was
less generous to him, for many years later, ignoring Goodyear's grant from the Mexican
government — supposed to have been confirmed when this region was ceded to the United
States — it assumed ownership of the land, gave to the Union Pacific railroad on its subsidy
each alternate section of the tract and required the old settlers, including Captain Brown's
immediate descendants, to repurchase the homes and farms that they had held for twenty
years.
Captain Brown built the first bridges over the Weber and Ogden rivers, and was
proprietor of the same from 1849 to 1853, having a charter from the Legislature to build
these bridges and collect toll for the term of five years. He was assessor and collector of
taxes in 1850 and 1851, and a member of the Ogden city council from 1S55 continuously
to the time of his death. During most of that period he acted as justice of the peace. He
also served a number of terms in the Legislature in the early "fifties," and was intimately
associated with Presidents Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball and most of the Church
leaders of his time.
In the fall of 1852 he went upon a mission to British Guiana, proceeding to San
Diego, California, thence by sailing vessel to the Isthmus of Panama, and across it to his
place of destination. Finding conditions unfavorable for the introduction of the Gospel
in that land, he returned home, coming back by way of St. Louis, where he assisted in
the Church emigration of 1853 and 1854. He took charge of a company across the
plains, and arrived at Salt Lake City in October of the last-named year. When the Weber
Stake was organized he became first counselor to President Lorin Farr.
Captain Brown's main characteristics were honesty, truthfulness and integrity. He
fearlessly stood by and maintained whatever he believed to be just and right. He was an
excellent judge of human nature, and detested a hypocrite, a thief and a liar. Out-spoken
and even hot-tempered when provoked, he was nevertheless tender-hearted and ready to
forgive on the slightest show of repentance. He was gifted as a speaker, upright as a
judge, and would go as far in defending the rights of a beggar as of a man in high station
or worth his millions. His sympathies were always with the poor and down-trodden,
especially when they had justice on their side. His many acts of benevolence and charity
in the early days of famine and poverty are proverbial among the old-time settlers of
Weber county.
After the death of his first wife, Captain Brown married four times, the names of his
wives being Susan Foutz, Esther Rapier, Sally Wood and Mary Black. Mary Black
Brown is reputedly the pioneer cheese maker of Utah. He was the father of twenty-
eight children, sixteen of them boys. A number of his sons have risen to prominence,
both in ecclesiastical and civil capacities. The captain died at his home in Ogden, Sep-
tember 30, 1863, the sixty-second anniversary of his birth. His death was the result of
an accident which had befallen him five days previously. He was working at a molasses
mill, expressing the juice of the sugar cane, when his arm caught in the cogs of a roller
and was so lacerated that mortification set in and death was inevitable.
WARREN STONE SNOW.
.ENERAL WARREN S. SNOW, the son of Gardner and Sarah Sawyer Hastings
Snow, was born at Chesterfield, Mew Hampshire, June 15, 1818. His father was
a farmer and carpenter, and the family were in good circumstances. At four
years of age Warren moved with his parents to St. Johnsbury, Vermont, and
remained there until he was fifteen.
His education was such as the common schools of the period were able to impart.
He was noted as a woodsman and bear hunter — an excellent preparation for his after
HISTORY OF UTAH. 189
career as an Indian fighter — but as a regular vocation he chose the more peaceable and
lucrative employment of cooper.
St. Johnsbury was a town to which Mormonism penetrated at an early day. It was
the birthplace of Erastus Snow, who became a leading light of the Church, and was one
of the places visited by the Mormon Apostles on their first mission from Kirtland, Ohio,
in 1835. Warren Snow, a preacher at fifteen years of age, there embraced the Gospel.
He was in no way related to Erastus Snow or Lorenzo Snow, the two Apostles.
He removed to Kirtland in June, 1830, and thence to Lima, Hancock county, Illinois,
in 1840. He was a captain of militia in Cole county, and a lieutenant in the Nauvoo
Legion.
Warren Snow was not in the exodus of the Saints from Illinois; it was six years after
that event that he moved westward through Iowa toward the main emigrant rendezvous
on the Missouri river. The date of starting was May 10, 1852. From the Missouri he
led a company of fifty wagons across the plains to Utah. He was comfortably outfitted
with ox team and all the necessary equipment, and the journey, barring some sickness
and two deaths in the company, was pleasant and prosperous. Three births occurred on
the way. There were sixty cases of cholera among the emigrants, but none of them
proved fatal.
He arrived at his journey's end on the 12th of November, 1852, and settled first at
Salt Lake City. Two years later he removed to Manti, Sanpete county, which became
his permanent home. Before coming to Utah he had worked at cooperage and had done
some freighting. Both these vocations, appropriate to life in a new country, found
plenty of exercise after his arrival here.
Warren Snow soon rose to prominence; his rustling, energetic nature, commending
him for promotion. He was made a Bishop, and presided as such from 1853 until 1859
over all the settlements of Sanpete county. He was city marshal of Manti in 1853, and
in 1855 was a member of the Utah legislature, serving three terms in the House and two
in the Council. In 1857 he was a major in the Utah militia, and operated in Echo canyon,
assisting to repel Johnston's army. In April, 1861, he took a mission to Europe, from
which he returned in November, 1864, leading a company of emigrants across the plains.
The year 1865 witnessed the beginning of the Black Hawk Indian war, in which
Warren S. Snow, then general in the Sanpete County military district, figured promi-
nently and won enviable laurels. A full account of the conflict, and incidents of his
connection therewith, is given in Chapter IX, Volume II, of this history.
In 1865 he entered into the mercantile business; Hon. George W. Peacock being in-
terested with him. The same year he was elected mayor of Manti, serving for two years
in that capacity. Prom 1871 to 1872 he was a member of the Manti city council.
His wife, Mary Ann Voorhees, whom he married December 23, 1841, bore to him
eight children, named in their order as follows: Joseph Smith, Gardner Elisha, Warren
Franklin, Elizabeth Ann, Samuel Perry, Mary Ann, Melissa Jane and Luella. He also
had other families, the names of whose members are not accessible at this writing.
General Snow died at Manti, September 21, 1896. His prevailing characteristics
were courage, energy, candor (even to bluntness) and an authoritative manner and dis-
position that many deemed arbitrary. Hence he made enemies as well as friends. Despite
his military brusqueness, he was jovial and good-natured, and was esteemed for many
excellent qualities. Without much education, he was nevertheless an able business man,
and as a frontiersman and Indian fighter he shone with lustre.
JOHN RIGGS MURDOCK.
JOHN R. MURDOCK was born on the 13th day of September, 1826, in Orange town-
ship, Cuyahoga county, Ohio, about fourteen miles east of the city of Cleveland.
His parents were descendants of some of the oldest families in New England, who
did their share in the establishment of a civilization on this western continent, and
bravely aided the colonial patriots in their struggle for independence. His father was
John Murdock, and his mother, before marriage, Julia Clapp, daughter of Judge Orrice
Clapp of Mentor, Ohio, a direct descendant of Captain Roger Clapp, who came from
190 HISTORY OF UTAH.
England in 1630 and was captain of Fort Independence in Boston Harbor for a period of
twenty-one years. There were five children in the family — Orrice C, John R., Phoebe,
Joseph and Julia, the last two being twins. At the birth of these babes, the mother died.
"Fresh in my memory," says Mr. Murdock, "is the death of my mother, which
occured at Warrensville, adjoining the place where I was born. I was only six years
old, and we children had been staying with some neighbors. When father came and told
us the sad news, it was heart-rending to hear little Phoebe, only two years old, cry as
if her heart would break, for her dead mother. After disposing of his household
effects, father gave us into other hands to be cared for, and went into the mission field,
where he labored continuously for five years."
Joseph and Julia were given to the Prophet Joseph Smith and his wife Emma, who
had just buried twin babes, and it was while assisting his wife with these adopted children,
who were sick, that the Prophet was dragged from his bed by a mob at Hiram,
Portage county, on the night of March 25, 1832, and cruelly maltreated. As a result of
this outrage, one of the sick infants — the boy — died a few days later. For some time
the children all remained near their native place. The three older ones were put under
the care of Caleb Baldwin, who soon migrated to Missouri, settling at Independence,
Jackson county. There Bishop Edward Partridge secured places for them in different
families.
John was sent to live with Morris C. Phelps, who had no son. Consequently his
young protege was often entrusted with duties, the performance of which could scarcely
have been expected of a maturer person. But he was always treated with the utmost
kindness, and considered himself fortunate in being placed in a good home, though
among strangers. He remained in the Phelps family until the year 1838, by which time
they had moved from Jackson county into Clay county, and thence into Caldwell. Mr. Phelps
being much away, the care of the farm and stock was left almost wholly in the hands
of young Murdock, who was still a mere lad. He was intimately associated with the
stirring scenes and incidents of Mormon history at that period, and a sharer in the suf-
ferings of his people. While at Independence, he drove one of the teams that plowed
the ground preparatory to the laying of the foundations of the projected Temple. He
was present when the Prophet and other prominent men, Mr. Phelps among the number,
were seized by the Missiourians and thrown into prison. Educational advantages were
extremely limited with the people of the West at that time, and especially to a boy who
was compelled almost from infancy to be self-supporting. But the spirit of his Puritan
ancestors was strong within him, and he was endowed by nature and experience with
the requisite qualifications for the life that lay before him.
When the Phelps family left Missouri in May, 1839, the head of the house was still
in prison, and among their possessions were a hundred head of cattle, which had to be
driven across the country a distance of three hundred miles. This task was assigned to
John R. Murdock, and was successfully performed by him. He always had a remark-
able aptitude in the care of horses and cattle. Arriving in Illinois, John's father
insisted upon his leaving the home of Mr. Phelps and taking up his residence under the
paternal roof. This was a severe trial to the young man, for, as stated, Mr. and Mrs.
Phelps had always been very kind to him. However, he obeyed his father, and with his
brother Orrice opened a new farm in Adams county, Illinois. Thence they moved to
Nauvoo, where also he assisted his father in farming.
During this time the family was visited by a relative, Levi Murdock, from Indiana.
He prevailed upon the father to allow John to go back home with him in the fall. The
latter remained in Indiana about eight months, spending most of his time making
maple sugar from the sap. In the spring, becoming very homesick, he decided to return
to Nauvoo, though he had no way, except walking, to accomplish the journey, one of
three hundred miles through a new, thinly settled country. He started out alone, with a
little bundle on his back and $ 1.25 in his pocket, and at length reached home.
After working sometime for a man named Garner, he went to live with Coi-nelius P.
Lott, who had charge of the Prophet Joseph Smith's farm. John soon became very much
attached to the family and they to him. It was here that he met the beautiful girl who
afterwards became his wife — Almira Henrietta Lott, the third daughter of the household.
He continued to work on the farm until the Saints left for the West. In speaking of the
Prophet Mr. Murdock says: "He was one of the most admirable of men, both for
physical and mental attractions. Anyone with him would feel that he was in the presence
of a superior; and yet he was so genial, kind and loveable! He often came out to his
farm and brought his family, as they were on terms of great intimacy with Father
Lott's family. We all learned to love and revere him. He used to relate to us manv
HISTORY OF UTAH. 191
incidents of his life. In all kinds of farm work he was an expert, and scarcely ever met his
equal as an athlete. How well I remember the day he called at the farm and bid us
good-bye — he was then on his way to Carthaare! "
In the exodus John R. Murdock assisted Father Lott and his family to move to
Council Bluffs. On the 16th of July, 1S46, he enlisted in the Mormon Battalion, and
marched with his comrades to California. Before leaving he and Almira became en-
gaged. He pays this pretty tribute to her constancy: "She, who was so greatly admired
for her beauty and intelligence, that her hand was sought by many, while separated from
me for over two years, and in the greatest uncertainty as to whether I would ever
return, remained true to her promise." Mr. Murdock was one of the youngest men in
the Battalion. He tells many interesting stories of its camp-life, forced marches, etc.
He was in the Government service for a year, and shortly after being mustered out, left
California for Salt Lake valley, arriving here on October 12, 1847. He found his father
and family, svho had come into the valley a month before.
In the spring of 1848, he was called to go with Captain Ira Eldredge to meet
President Brigham Young and company on the Sweetwater. They also met President
Kimball's company, in which was Father Lott's family, and John was once more with his
sweetheart. The young couple were married in Salt Lake City, November 12, 1849,
President Kimball performing the ceremony. Their first home was in this part, where
Mr. Murdock was an energetic laborer in developing the country. He was in the Provo
Indian campaign of 1850, and in the spring of the year following moved with his family
to Lehi, where were very few settlers at that time. The people had much trouble with the
Indians, and were on guard day and night. Mr. Murdock was one of the first mayors
of that town. In 1853 he went upon a mission into Southern Utah to preach the Gospel
to the red men and teach them the arts of civilization. The efforts of himself and fellow
missionaries were rewarded with fair success. In 1856 he was one of the relief party
sent out to assist the belated hand-cart immigrants into Salt Lake valley.
The year of the "Echo Canyon War," 1857-8, he made two trips from Salt Lake City
to Independence. Missouri, accomplishing some marvelous feats of early day travel.
The entire distance of twelve hundred miles was covered in fifteen days, with only three
changes of animals; and this without injury to the teams, owing to Mr. Murdock's
extensive knowledge of horses and his skill in caring for them. At this -time he was
the bearer of very important messages to Governor Brigham Young. Before and after his
removal south, he brought several companies of immigrants across the plains, and was one
of the most successful in such undertakings. His knowledge of the country, his courage
and hardihood, his skill with animals and his military training, made him an exceptionally
good commander.
The year 1864 witnessed his removal to Beaver, where he has ever since resided.
He went at the call of President Young, to be a Bishop in that part. He held the office
for ten years, during which time he was unceasing in his labors to build up the country.
When the Beaver stake was organized, Bishop Murdock was made its President, and
served in that capacity until recent years. To mention the enterprises with which he
was connected would be to name nearly all that have grown up in that section. A co-
operative store and the Beaver Woolen Mills were among the first with which he was
associated. He has also been interested in some of the leading business concerns of the
State, and in addition to mercantile and agricultural pursuits, has engaged extensively in
cattle and sheep raising. During the Indian troubles of that region he took an active
part in defending the settlers, and at the same time was popular with the Indians, being
able to speak their language. He was probate judge of Beaver county for four years,
during which time he entered the townsites of Greenville, Adamsville and Minersville.
For a great many terms, he was Beaver's representative in the Territorial legislature,
and in the State legislature of 1899 was the senior member of the house of repre-
sentatives. He sat in the Constitutional Conventions of 1872 and 1895, helping to frame
on the latter occasion the constitution upon which Utah was admitted into the Union.
Formerly a member of the People's party, at the division on national party lines, he
announced himself a Republican, and since then has been a staunch member of that party.
He has been connected with the National Republican League and the Republican
State central committee. At the World's Fair in 1893 he was one of the agricultural
commissioners from Utah.
Though no longer President of Beaver Stake — having been honorably released from
his long and useful service in that position — Mr. Murdock is still a prominent and
influential citizen, taking active interest, as ever, in religious and benevolent as well
as political movements. He has donated liberally toward the construction of temples and
192 HISTORY OF UTAH.
other public buildings. His ecclesiastical labors comprise a mission to the Southern
States in 1880. He has always been a promoter of education, his own limited oppor-
tunities at school increasing rather than diminishing his interest in that direction. On the
abandonment of Fort Cameron as military post, he with his son-in-law, Hon. Philo T.
Farnsworth, purchased in connection with the Church that property, and in 1897 the two
gentlemen gave their interest therein to the Brigham Young Academy, which has
established at that point — -about two miles east of Beaver — a very successful branch of
that noble institution of learning.
Hon. John B. Murdock is now in his seventy-seventh year; his life has been one of
unceasing toil, yet he is still in the possession of all his faculties. He is the father of
nineteen children, eight of them by his first wife, Almira Lott, who died in 1878, after
being an invalid for many years. She left four sons and one daughter, three of her boys
having preceded her into the spirit world. By his second wife, Mary Ellen Wolfenden,
he has had ten children; and by his third wife, May Bain, one.
WILLIAM HOLMES WALKER.
fHE subject of this narrative was a member of the Mormon Battalion and virtually
one of the pioneers of Utah. The son of John and Lydia Holmes Walker, he was
born at Peacham, Caledonia county, Vermont, August 28, 1820. His parents
were members of the Congregational church, and he was trained in all the tenets
of the same. When, in the spring of 1832, his father joined the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints, William, who at that time was from home, living with an uncle and
attending school, shared with his devout mother and other relatives the astonishment
and disgust experienced by them on learning of what had taken place. John Walker,
a carpenter by trade and something of a machinist, went soon after his baptism to
Stanstead Plains, Canada, where he had charge of a manufacturing establishment,
putting in improved machinery. During his absence his wife made a diligent and
thorough investigation of Mormonism, with the result that she herself was converted.
After her husband's return home, she and her children in 1834 accompanied him to
Ogdensburg, New York, where there was an organized branch of the Church. They
resided there three or four years, and in 1835 William, one of his brothers and two
sisters embraced the faith.
In the spring of 1838 the Walkers with several other families left Ogdensburg for
Western Missouri, where they arrived just as the anti-Mormon troubles were at their
height. While traveling through the State they were surrounded by an armed mob who
searched their wagons, robbed them of their rifles and ammunition and warned them that
they would be killed if they went any farther. Terrified by these threats two families
stayed behind, while the others continued on to Shoal Creek, camping five miles below
Haun's Mill. William's father visited that ill-starred settlement in quest of information as to
the true state of affairs, and was there when Comstock's murderous ruffians fell upon the
defenseless settlers and massacred nearly a score. Mr. Walker was wounded, and
while hiding under some slabs that projected over or leaned against the bank of the creek
near the mill, witnessed the brutal butchery of the revolutionary veteran, Father
McBride, who, while pleading for mercy, was hacked to pieces by a stalwart Missourian
with an old corn-cutter. Refugees from the mills reported the massacre to the campers
on Shoal Creek, who supposed Mr. Walker to be among the slain. To their great joy
they learned to the contrary after moving their camp about one hundred miles, when
William sought and found his sire and brought him back to his family and friends. In
November, while temporarily occupying a log house, the Walkers, father and son, assisted
President Joseph Young and family, refugees from Haun's Mill, a distance of a hundred
and fifty miles, on their way to Illinois.
The Walker family left Missouri early in 1839 and settled nearQuincy, Illinois, where
the father obtained work at his trade, while his sons William and Lewis tilled a farm
that he had rented. During his subsequent mission through the Middle States, it was
their labor that supported the family. William Walker's first meeting with the Prophet
HISTORY OF UTAH. 193
Joseph Smith, with whom he became very intimate, was in the spring of 1840, when he
was sent by his father to transact some business with him at Nauvoo. He arrived at the
Prophet's home about nine o'clock in the evening, just as the family were singing
before the usual evening prayer; Emma Smith, the Prophet's wife, leading the melodious
chant. "I thought," says he, "I had never heard such sweet, heavenly music, and I was
equally impressed with the prayer offered by the Prophet."
William and his parents having moved to Nauvoo, he was welcomed into the
Prophet's home, where he remained during the nest three years as a member of the
household. As early as January, 1841, if not earlier, the. Prophet spoke to him about
the principle of plural marriage, and in the spring of 1843, Father Walker being absent
on a mission, Joseph asked and obtained William's consent to marry his sister Lucy. His
sire subsequently sanctioned the proceedings. William says of the Prophet: "The
more extensive my acquaintance and experience with him, the more my confidence
increased in him. I worked in the hay field with him, when he assisted in mowing grass
with a scythe, many a day putting in ten hours work. Very few if any were his superiors
in that kind of labor. I was entrusted by him with important business. The Urim and
Thummim was once in my charge for the time being. On one occasion when he was the
mayor of Nauvoo, it became his duty to fine a negro for selling liquor in violation of the
city ordinances. The negro begged for leniency, stating that his object in selling the
liquor was to raise money to send for his family. The mayor would not shrink from
his duty; he fined him seventy-five dollars, but added that if he would honor the law in
future, he would make him a present of a horse to aid him in his purpose. The gift was
gladly accepted and the required promise made. When the Mansion House was finished
and furnished and the Prophet and his family moved into it, I had charge of it under his
direction. In regard to his private life, as to purity, honesty, charity, benevolence,
refinement of feeling and nobility of character, his superior did not exist on earth.
An incident occured at the Mansion House to illustrate his contempt for and detestation of
anything low and vile. Not long1 after the house was opened as a hotel, a stranger came
and registered his name. Just before supper he insulted one of the hired girls. The Prophet
heard of it after the stranger had retired, and next morning met him as he came down
from his room. 'Sir,' said he, 'I understand that you insulted one of the employes of
this house last evening.' The fellow began to make all kinds of apologies, but the
Prophet cut him short by telling him to get into his buggy and leave the place at once, and
this in such unmistakable language and in such a tone as to almost make the man's hair
stand on end. He offered to pay his bill, but his money was refused. 'I want you to
get out,' said the indignant proprietor. 'I want none of your money, nor the money of
any man of your stamp.' Thereupon the stranger made a hasty exit."
November 1st, 1843, witnessed the marrige of William Holmes Walker wilh Olive
Hovey Parr, daughter of Winslow and Olive Hovey Freeman Farr. He and his wife
boarded at the Mansion House for six months, and then moved into a two-story brick house
on Parley Street, belonging to the Prophet. William's mother was now dead, his father
was on a mission, and five of his younger brothers and sisters were living with him. He
still continued in the Prophet s employ, loaded and hauled rock for the Temple and officiated
as president of the young men's and young ladies' relief society, organized to supply the
needs of the poor.
When the Prophet was about to go to Carthage to give himself up for trial, he sent
William Walker to Burlington for an important witness, whose affidavit was secured and
sent to Carthage by express. The same day it was returned to him with the request
that he go again for the witness. He started immediately, rode all night, and while
taking breakfast with George J. Adams at Augusta, heard the awful news of the
massacre in Carthage jail. He returned to Nauvoo in time to meet the dead bodies of
Joseph and Hyrum on their arrival there. In the fall of 1845 he assisted to quell the
mobs that wei-e burning Mormon property around Nauvoo, and during the remaining
months of his residence there made preparations to accompany his people in their
westward flight.
The date of his departure from Nauvoo was February 21, 1846. He crossed the
Mississippi (two miles wide) on the ice, and joined the migrating Saints on Sugar Creek.
The camp was so organized that all able-bodied men who could possibly be spared went
ahead and took contracts for splitting rails, building fences, or any other work that could
be had, in order to supply the camp with grain. Mr. Walker, with his brother-in-law,
Aaron F. Farr and Lorenzo D. Young, went into northern Missouri to trade their horses
for oxen, which were found much better than horses for the journey. From that time
he was actively engaged in hauling supplies through the storms that beat upon the
194 HISTORY OF UTAH.
travelers, almost incessantly, as they wended their way towards the Missouri river, where
he arrived with the advance company about the middle of June.
Next came the call for the Battalion. "I enlisted," says Mr. Walker, "more as a
necessity than as a volunteer. It was a heavy draft upon the camp, and it required
much effort upon the part of President Young and others to meet the demand." He
was in Company "B," Jesse D. Hunter, Captain. Prom Fort Leavenworth to Santa
Fe he suffered much with chills and fever, and experienced rather harsh treatment from
some in command, who did not realize his weak condition and required service impos-
sible for him to perform. Finally the medical examiner passed upon his case, excused him,
and he was sent with the disabled portion of the Battalion to Pueblo, where he passed the
winter. This detachment left Pueblo late in May, 1847. Mr. Walker with a few others
went on in advance and overtook the Pioneers at G-reen river, from which point he
returned with a number of them on horseback to meet his family in the following emi-
gration. He rode for days barefooted, (his moccasins being worn out), with a handker-
chief wrapped around the foot that was exposed to the sun. Near Fort Kearney he
met his wife, who had driven two yoke of oxen most of the way from the Missouri river,
and was now sick, worn out with fatigue. They arrived in Salt Lake valley on the
first day of October.
His wagon box was his first abode, but he lost no time in going to the canyon for logs
to build a house, into which he moved in December. "Aaron F. Farr and myself cut
the logs and sawed the first lumber in Utah, and I made the first three-panel doors. I
also worked on the first grist-mill, a corn cracker, run by water power, and built by
Charles Crismon on City Creek. I then hewed timber and framed a saw mill for Heber
C. Kimball. Subsequently I worked on Neff's flouring mill. I drew a lot one mile north
of what is now called Holladay, and after getting the ground broke, sent my oxen back
to the Missouri river to help the immigration. In 1848 I fought the crickets, and the next
year moved my house out of the Fort onto my city lot in the Sixteenth ward. I traded with
the Indians and gold diggers, the latter on their way to California, and at the same time
cultivated my laud. In November of that year my brother Edwin, a member of the
Battalion, who had served in the second enlistment, arrived from California. In the
Provo Indian campaign of February, 1850, I drove the old cannon called 'Long Range.'
I was in the thick of the fight on Provo river and in the final combat at the head of Utah
Lake, where the hostiles were almost annihilated. On the 28th of the following April, I
married Mary Jane Shadding, and next day went to Farmington to build and open a
farm. In the fall my father arrived from Winter Quarters. The next year I built a two-
story house at Salt Lake City, and in December, with my father-in law, Winslow Farr,
and my brother-in-law, Aaron F. Farr, began opening a road, building bridges and
hewing timber for a saw-mill in Little Cottonwood Canyon. Our mill was just ready to
raise, and I had started for Salt Lake to get men to help us put it up, when I learned that
I had been called on a mission to South Afriea. Instead of taking out men to raise the
mill, I took one out to purchase my interest therein."
Elder Walker started upon bis mission about the middle of September, 1852,
accompanied by Jesse Haven and Leonard I. Smith. He left his affairs in the hands of
an Englishman named Hill, a bad man who had been recommended to him as a good one,
and who wasted his substance, mistreated his family and absconded before his employer's
return. While the latter and his companions were crossing the plains an attempt was
made, presumably, by Indians, to run off their horses, quite a numerous band, as they
were traveling in company with many other Elders, bound for missions in various parts.
They had just made camp one evening on the Platte, when a strange horse, saddled but
riderless, came galloping in from the darkness. A powder horn and a tin cup were tied
to the horn of the saddle, and every jump made by the horse produced a peculiar ring
and rattle. The unusual noise frightened the other horses, and quick as a flash they
started on a stampede and were chased for six miles before they could be checked and
turned. Proceeding on their way the missionaries soon met a band of Pawnees, three
thousand strong, who divided to the right and left and allowed them to pass, showing
no signs of hostility, though they had burned the grass for a distance of a hundred and
fifty miles.
At Kanesville Elder Walker made arrangraents for the emigration of his youngest
sister, Mary, the next season. He then went on to Illinois to visit his brother Lorin,
who had married the eldest daughter of the martyred Patriarch Hyrum Smith. He spent
two days with the Prophet's family, at Nauvoo, and was kindly received b}' them. Emma
Smith had remai-ried, and was then Mrs. Major Bidamon. He found his brother at Mace-
donia, where also dwelt the Prophet's sisters, Catherine and Sophronia, both widows.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 195
All were glad to see him. He assisted Lorin in his preparations to emigrate to Utah.
At Washington, D. C, he visited both houses of Congress, by invitation of his friend,
Delegate Bernhisel. and on the 16th of December sailed from New York, landing at
Liverpool on the 3rd of January. Elder Walker had his first experience in public speaking
at Preston, the birthplace of the British Mission. Having visited Wales and various parts
of England, he sailed from London for the Cape of Good Hope on the 11th of February.
Crossing the Equator, he and his party escaped the usual experience meted out to
neophites in Neptune's realm — :. e., a salt water douse, a lathering with tar and a shave
with an iron hoop — by informing the sea-god, or the sailor impersonating him, that tney
were missionaries. A small present was accepted as a substitute for the usual ceremony
of initiation.
Elders Walker, Haven and Smith landed at the Cape of Good Hope April 19, 1853.
The usual storms were raging in that locality. They preached in Cape Town and other
places and met with much opposition, being mobbed repeatedly and slandered almost
incessantly. The first six months they baptized forty-five persons and organized two
branches of the Church. In November Elder Walker visited the Eastern province, on the
borders of Kaffirland, and at Beaufort baptized nine and organized a branch. He also
held some interesting meetings at Grahamtown and other points, laboring arduously
against great opposition. Subsequently he was joined by his companions. At the close
of his ministry in that land two conferences had been established" at Beaufort and Port
Elizabeth. One of his converts was Charles Roper, a wealthy rancher at Wintberg, who,
when the ship-owners formed a league refusing to carry Mormon emigrants out of the
country, purchased with others a ship called the "Unity" and placed it at the disposal of
the missionaries. Thereupon the ship-owners gave notice that they would carry all
Mormon emigrants that wanted to go. Elder Walker had been sustained as president
of the South African Mission, Elder Smith had been released to take the first company to
Utah, and Elder Haven was on the point of sailing for Liverpool, to report progress to
the Presidency of the European Mission, when a letter came from President Brigham
Young honorably releasing them to return home.
Sailing from Cape Town November 27, 1855, their ship, the "Unity," on December 13
touched at St. Helena, where they viewed Napoleon's tomb and preached under the
shade of some trees on one of the streets of the town. Subsequently Elder Walker
preached on board, the captain and crew paying respectful attention. The ship arrived
at the London docks, January 30, 1856. Elder Walker left it at Gravesend, and took
train for London, thence proceeding to Liverpool, where he met in council with President
Franklin D. Richards, Daniel Spencer, George D. Grant, William H. Kimball, John Kay,
Thomas Williams, James Little, Edward Tullidge and others, and after reporting his
mission, discussed with them the subject, "Wheel-barrow or Handcart Emigration."
Late in February he sailed from Liverpool on the ship "Caravan," with a company of
Saints presided over by Daniel Tyler, to whom he acted as first counselor; Edward Bunker
and Leonard I. Smith being the other counselors. From New York, where they landed
late in March, Elder Walker had charge of the company to Iowa City, which was reached
early in April. While waiting the word to start across the plains he visited relatives and
friends in Illinois, among them the venerable Lucy Smith, the Prophet's mother, who was
nearing the end of her life. He assisted President Daniel Spencer in emigrational
matters on the frontier, and was preparing to follow the handcart companies, with his
brother Lorin and family, but found it impossible to secure teamsters that late in the
season; it being about the first of October when he reached Winter Quarters. He there-
fore remained on the Missouri, and escaped the disaster that befell the companies on the
plains. At the head of a company of emigrants he reached Salt Lake City September 1st,
1857, having been absent from home five years, lacking fifteen days.
Scarcely had he greeted his family when he was called to take part in the "Echo
Canyon war." He was all ready to go, when he was assigned the duty of selecting and
forwarding supplies to his comrades at the front. Returning from the move in July,
185S, he purchased a farm four miles west of Ogden. August 30th of that year was the
date of his marriage to his third wife, Olive Louisa Bingham. He now added to agri-
culture the occupation of dairying. He also established a carding machine at Farmington,
freighting the machinery from the East. He had barely put up his buildings for this
industry when he was called upon a mission into Southern Utah.
In company with his wife Olive H. he started upon this mission in May, 1862. At
Toquerville, where they settled, he planted cotton, sugar cane and grape vines. In July
he returned to Salt Lake to procure a cotton gin, but found no machinist who could
make one. He next engaged in freighting from California and the East. In the spring
196 HISTORY OF UTAH.
of 18G3 he sent two four-mule teams to the States, with baled cotton for William S.
Godbe, his wagons bringing- back new card clothing for his carding machine. With four
of his teams his brother Edwin freighted between Salt Lake, Boise City and Southern
California. In 1864 he and his little son Simeon went to the Missouri river, taking pas-
sengers and bringing back freight. At Deseret he put up a flouring mill and in Oak Creek
canyon a saw mill. On April 24, 1865, he married his fourth wife, Harriet Paul, who
went to "Dixie" to live, his wife Olive L. going to Deseret. In the spring of 1866 he
arrived at Salt Lake City from the south, with two tons of cotton for President Young's
Deseret Mills. He was now released from the Dixie mission, sold out his interests there,
and concentrated his energies upon his mills.
In the fall of 1872 Mr. Walker sold to the Utah Central railroad company a lot in
Salt Lake City for eight thousand dollars, and purchased with the greater part of the
proceeds the Parr estate on Big Cottonwood, resolving to turn his attention to farming
and initiate his sons in that line. A serious accident befell him about this time, a young
horse rearing up and striking its hoof on his shoulder, knocking the bone down into the
armpit. Drs. Bernhisel and Benedict reduced the dislocation, but it was six months
before the patient could raise his hand to the top of his head. In June, 1874, he
became interested in a stamp mill at Ophir, and for a short time was business manager
of the concern. In March, 1875, he began building his first house at Big Cottonwood,
where he afterwards built two others. On completing the structure he fitted up a room
as a school, hired a teacher and had fifteen of his children taught there. The neighbors
also sent their children to this school, which was quite successful. In February, 1876,
he was elected senior school trustee for the district and during his term of office a new
school house was erected, for which he took the contract, advancing means for the
materials. He also made the desks and other furniture, did the painting and varnishing,
and provided a large bell for the cupola of the building. His last act as trustee was to
have the school-house grounds fenced, leveled, sown to grass and planted with shade
trees; also to arrange for the care and cultivation of the same during the next five years.
William Walker was one of the first stockholders in Z. C. M. I., and also took stock in
the Sixteenth ward co-operative store. He is now a stockholder in the Utah Sugar
Company.
In April, 1884, he accompanied four of his married sons to Idaho, where they
purchased and took up lands at Lewisville. There he settled with a portion of his
family, and with his sons William A. and Don C. opened a small store, which was after-
wards closed out to Z. C. M. I. He left Utah just in time to escape the beginning of the
anti-polygamy crusade, but soon found that he was not much safer in Idaho, since the
crusade began there about the same time. To avoid the prowling deputies he went into
retirement for a season, camping out in the woods in an ingeniously planned retreat
which he finally had to abandon as danger drew nearer.
During the winter of 1885-6, and at intervals during the next five years, he worked
in the Logan Temple, where his sisters, Lucy, Jane and Mary assisted him in sacred
labors for their dead ancestors. Leaving Logan in February, 1891, he worked during
the next few weeks on the Salt Lake County Seminary, making a donation of half his labor
to the institution. He was then engaged for six months on the Salt Lake Temple, laying
floors, donating half his labor in like manner. He had the same tools that he had
used on the Nauvoo Temple fifty years before. In July, 1893, he began working in the
Salt Lake Temple, and until recently was regularly engaged there.
On May 20, 1892, the worthy veteran, a Seventy since December, 1844, and one of
the presidency of the Fifty-seventh quorum since July 27, 1869, was ordained a High
Priest and Patriarch, under the hands of Presidents George Q. Cannon and Joseph F.
Smith, the latter pronouncing the ordination. He still resides at Holladay, whence he
reported himself in 1897 to the Utah Jubilee Commission, and from them received due
recognition as one of the pioneer founders of the commonwealth.
JOHN D. T. MCALLISTER.
aCTIVE and eventful has been the life of John D. T. McAllister. A native of the
State of Delaware, where, in the town of Lewis, county of Sussex, he was born
February 19, 1*27, he came to Utah in the year 1851. Save for periods of
temporary absence, in response to the calls of duty, he has ever since resided here.
His father, William James Frazier McAllister, was a blacksmith, who, burned out at
his home in Delaware, moved to the city of Philadelphia, where he continued to ply his
trade. His mother before marriage was Elizabeth Thompson. She was a pilot's daughter,
and was employed by the government in making clothes for the soldiers and marines.
They were honest, hardworking people, and trained their son in habits of morality and
industry; a training he has never dishonored. Their home in "the Quaker City" was
near the Navy Yard, and the Yellor Cottage grounds, where John's chief delight, as a
child, was to watch the parades and maneuvers of the military.
He attended the Christ Church Sabbath school and the common schools of Philadel-
phia. At eight years of age he folded papers in the office of the "Saturday Courier," and
also worked at the "Messenger" office and for a book publishing company, as "roller
boy" and "flyer." When old enough he was sent to learn farming with his relatives in
Delaware. Subsequently he followed blacksmithing, carpentering and shoe-making in
Philadelphia. Energetic and progressive, he was at work whenever he was not in school.
On the 12th of October, 1844, he joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
his baptism taking place in the Delaware river, near Gloucester, New Jersey. Elder
Albert Lutz baptized him, and shortly afterwards the young convert was ordained a Priest
and officiated as such in the Philadelphia branch of the Church. While thus engaged the
"spirit of gathering" came upon him, and he decided to emigrate to Utah. Leaving his
old home, he proceeded to Kanesville, Iowa, the Mormon outfitting point, and there for
a season kept store for Joseph E. Johnson. About this time he was ordained to the office
of an Elder.
It was on June 20, 1851, that Mr. McAllister, now a married man, (having wedded
Miss Ellen Handley, July 5, 1847) set out for the Eoeky mountains. He had the usual
emigrant outfit — ox-team, wagon, clothing, bedding, provisions, and cooking utensils.
He was appointed clerk of a company of fifty wagons, commanded by Alfred Cordon.
Owing to high water, a new route was taken, heading the Elk Horn. Many interesting
incidents occurred on the way. At times the buffalo were so numerous as to impede travel,
and it was necessary to call a halt in order to let them pass. An accident befell a boy
who was driving for Allen Stouts; the fore wheels of his wagon, which was heavily
loaded with plows, suddenly dropped into a "buffalo wash," and he was thrown out
and run over diagonally from head to foot; he was quite seriously injured, but after
being blessed by the Elders recovered. The McAllister family were "dumped out" un-
ceremoniously on one occassion, their wagon turning bottom side up down "a sidliug
place," burying its occupants under the load. None were injured, though the little ones
emerged purple in face, but the fresh air soon revived them. Mr. McAllister states that
they had but to hang their cans of milk to the wagon and the contents were churned
into butter by jogging over the rough roads. The tables were often supplied with
antelope, prairie-chickens and other game, and in places fish were caught. The men
built bridges or waded the streams, carrying when necessary the women and children
on their backs. Salt Lake valley was reached on the 1st of October.
Mr. McAllister settled in Salt Lake City, buying and selling land and building homes
in various parts: one upon the block now occupied by the 0. S. L. railroad depot, one in
the "Big Field" south of the city, and another on the spot where the fire department
now stands. Like most of his fellows, he worked at various employments in those early
times. He helped to build mills in the canvons and dwelling houses in the city and other
places. For a time he taught school in the Eighth ward.
198 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Soon after his arrival in Utah he was ordained a Seventy, and as such undertook
his first foreign mission, to which he was appointed on the 8th of April, 1853. He
labored in the south of England, in the Wiltshire and Landsend conferences; also as
president of the Belfast conference, embracing the province of Ulster in Ireland. He
likewise visited Scotland and Wales. The date of his return was October 4, 1856. In
January, 1857, he became one of the presidency of the 16th quorum of Seventy.
Though a man of peace, Mr. McAllister had a military spirit and bearing. Tall, straight,
and well proportioned, in his youth he was an ideal officer, seemingly born to command.
Soon after returning from Europe, he was commissioned by Governor Young to raise a
company of Life Guards, and on June 27, 1857, was elected major of cavalry in the Great
Salt Lake military district. He served in that capacity during the ''Echo Canyon war."
This was the beginning of his military record, which extended to past the year 1877.
In September, 1860, he went upon another mission — first to the States, where he
presided over all the branches of the Church east of the Rocky mountains, and afterwards
to England, where he presided three months over the Birmingham conference, and was
then released to conduct a company of emigrants to Utah. He returned to Salt Lake
City in October, 1862.
In January following, by the joint vote of the Legislative Assembly, John D. T.
McAllister was elected territorial marshal, an office held by him through re-election until
late in the "Seventies." In the discharge of his duty, he traveled much on foot, the
emoluments of the marshalship not being sufficient to justify the expense of a conveyance
at all times. In all his experience as an officer of the peace, he was never under the
necessity of using a weapon, not even a club.
Beginning with February, 1866, he was marshal of Salt Lake City for ten years, and
during the same period was chief of the fire department. In January, 1869, and in
January, 1870, he was sergeant-at-arms for the legislative council, of which he had
formerly been foreman, and was marshal of the day at the celebration, January 10, 1870,
in honor of the driving of the last spike of the Utah Central railroad. As city marshal
he was present at the breaking and dedication of ground for the city water works, Sep-
tember 3, 1872. These ceremonies took place in City Creek canyon. Among those
present were President Brigham Young, Mayor Daniel H. Wells, Hon. George A. Smith,
the members of the municipal council, and other city officials, Surveyor Jesse W.
Fox, Engineer William J. Silver, Superintendent John Sharp, U. C. R. R., and Super-
intendent Feramorz Little, U. S. R. R. The dedicator prayer was offered by Alder-
man Isaac Groo. Mayor Wells moved the first shovelful of earth, and he and George
A. Smith were the speakers of the occasion.
During much of his official career, Mr. McAllister was counselor to Bishop Elijah F.
Sheets, of the Eighth ward, and was Acting-Bishop during the latter's absence upon a
mission. This service began early in 1865. In business he was connected with the
Eighth Ward Industrial Society and the Eighth Ward co-operative store; also holding
stock in Z. C. M. I., the parent institution. In 1876 he took charge of President Young's
woollen factory, and was also in business with C. M. Donelson.
Concerning one of his experiences while chief of the Salt Lake fire department he
thus writes: "A little after ten o'clock at night, October, 24, 1873, I was awakened
by the fire alarm. The Clift House roof was on fire. When I arrived on the scene
the boys had a line of hose up in the attic, but the smoke was so dense that I ordered
the hose men out upon the roof. I also ordered the gas turned off, but the pipes of the
upper story burst before it was done, and this set a flame rolling through that story.
I took position on the east cornice, top of the building, pipe in hand, throwing water
into the flames, three of the firemen with me. We did good work. The cornice under
our feet took fire, and we had to change our position. In doing so, the hose rope caught
my leg, throwing me on m37 back. Had I fallen a few inches either way. I would have
gone into the flames or down upon the side-walk. I arose at once to a sitting posture, and
caught the top of the ladder as the hose dragged me along, its weight of water hanging
on my left ankle and spraining it very badly I remained on duty until eight o'clock
next morning, when the fire was all out. The first and second stories were preserved.
My assistants. Andrew Burt, Henry Dinwoodey, and Engineer Thomas Higgs were men
in the right place. Indeed I may say as much of all the brigade. Assistant Dinwoodey
had a narrow escape from death. Captain Burt was in the thickest of the work. Howard
Spencer was bruised on both arms. W. Hall, of the Alert Hose Company, of which my
brother Richard was foreman, became insensible from exhaustion, his clothing being
frozen on his body. At half past eight I walked home. I was laid up for several
days."
HISTORY OF UTAH. 199
In October, 187C, Mr. McAllister moved to St. George, where he engaged in
Temple work, for which an extended experience in the Endowment House had well
qualified him. On the 5th of the ensuing April, he was chosen to preside over the St.
George stake of Zion, being ordained for that purpose a High Priest by President
Brigham Young. This was one of the latest ordinations performed by the President,
who died in the following August. While at St. George, President McAllister did
considerable missionary work among the Indians. He was there elected a brigadier-
general of militia, having previously reached the grade of lieutenant-colonel. He was
connected with the Rio Virgen Manufacturing Company, operating a woolen and cotton
factory, and for a number of years was its president. He also presided over the local
dramatic association, and was prominent in other organizations. He was still a resident
of St. George when he received a call from the Church authorities to preside over the
Manti Temple, as successor to Apostle Anthon H. Lund, who had been appointed to
preside over the European Mission. The date of President McAllister's appointment
was May 4, 1893.
President McAllister stands at the head of a patriarchal household, having early
entered into the practice of plural marriage. He has had nine wives and is the father
of thirty children. He now resides at Manti, still active in the performance of his duties
as president of the Temple there, and at each recurring General Conference, his still
stately figure is a familiar sight upon the streets of Utah's capital.
THEODORE MCKEAN.
^"^HE quiet little village of Allentown, Monmouth county, New Jersey, was the
f3j} birthplace of Colonel Theodore McKean ; the date of his birth, October 26, 1829.
;? His parents were Washington McKean and Margaret Ivins. The family home was
at Toms River, New Jersey, where the father kept a store; but the mother, when
Theodore was born, was visiting at the home of the parental grandfather in Allentown.
The boy's school days began very early, and by the excessive application to study-
required of him by one of his teachers, he so weakened his physical organization that for
some time his life was in a critical state. After partly recovering his health he returned
to school, but only for two or three terms. His studies were continued under able but
less exacting preceptors, and during the intervals his time was employed principally in
his father's store, where he obtained a knowledge of the mercantile business. When he
had reached the age of sixteen, a friend of his parents, Professor William Mann, at
Mount Holly Academy, Burlington county, New Jersey, took charge of his education.
Along with other studies, a thorough course in theoretical and practical surveying and
civil engineering was given to young McKean.
Having received a good education, he returned to Toms River, where he clerked for
his father, and was then employed as bookkeeper by his uncles, Thomas W. and Anthony
Ivins, who were extensively engaged in shipping and merchandising. It was during this
period that he married; his choice as a wife being Miss Mary P. Gulick, daughter of
Captain Stephen J. Gulick, a lady whom he had known and admired from his early youth.
He built a house at Toms River, and there he and his wife resided.
His acquaintance with Mormonism began when he was a boy, his mother having
joined the Latter-day Saints in the year 1839. He attended many meetings with her,
and heard Sidney Rigdon, Wilford Woodruff and other Elders preach, but not being
religiously inclined, he was not baptized until November 27. 1851. Thirteen days later
he was ordained an Elder.
He now began to think of "gathering to Zion," and on the 5th of April. 1853, set
out for Utah, in company with his grandmother, Mrs. Ivins, his uncles Israel and Anthony
Ivins and others. By way of St. Louis, where they met Apostle Orson Pratt and Horace
S. Eldredge, they proceeded to Independence, Missouri, and there purchased their outfits
for the passage of the plains. Starting with mule teams on the 24th of May, they
arrived at Salt Lake City on the 11th of August. Mr. McKean remained here only-
long enough to assist his uncle Anthony in arranging and disposing of the merchandise
he had brought with him, and then returned East, arriving at Toms River on the 8th of
200 HISTORY OF UTAH.
October. He spent the winter with his family, and in the spring assisted his uncles
Thomas and Anthony Ivins to purchase goods in Philadelphia. June 27, 1854, found him
back at Salt Lake City, whither he was accompanied by John R. Robbins and John
Needham.
From September, 1854, to July, 1857, Theodore McKean was in the East, purchasing
goods for his uncle, Mr. Ivins, who had opened a store at Salt Lake City. He presided
in 1855-57 over the Toms River branch of the Church : having been appointed to that
position by Apostle John Taylor, who had charge of the eastern branches and was
publishing "The Mormon" in New York City. His family was still with him. He
labored at various employments, surveying, clerking, etc., and was appointed deputy
sheriff of Ocean county, New Jersey.
Having sold his home at Toms River, Mr. McKean, accompanied by his wife and three
children, on June 1st, 1857, set out for the West. They left Westport, Missouri on the
13th of that month, in a carriage drawn by four mules, and started to cross the plains
alone. The Indians were very troublesome and many emigrants had been killed by them.
After journeying for several days, they were overtaken by Colonel F. W. Lander, in
charge of a government surveying expedition, with whom they traveled very pleasantly
as far as the Sweetwater. This being the year of the "Echo Canyon war," Colonel
Lander was apprehensive that the Mormons would capture his stock. He had been warned
to beware of Porter Rockwell as a dangerous man to encounter. As luck would have
it, Porter came along with the mails about this time, and was introduced by Mr.
McKean. The latter afterwards introduced Colonel Lander to President Young at Salt
Lake City.
Mr. McKean did not arrive in time to take part in the opening phases of "the war,"
but in March, 1858, he accompanied an expedition led by General George D. Grant and
Colonel William H. Kimball against the hostile Indians in Skull valley. They encountered
a very severe snowstorm, pursued and exchanged shots with the retreating redskins, but
were unable to follow them farther on account of deep snow and other obstacles. In the
"move," he and his family went to Springville. He had two teams, one of which was
driven by his wife. Returning to Provo, he erected a small log house, and was just about
to occupy it when word came that the trouble was over and that the people might return to
their homes. The McKeans resumed their residence at Salt Lake City.
The rabble that followed Johnston's army made things very uncomfortable in and
around the capital for some time, and it was with difficulty that order could be maintained.
To help keep the peace a great many special police were sworn in, among them Theodore
McKean. On April 29, 1859, he joined the second battalion of cavalry, "Life Guards,"
Major J. D. T. McAllister commanding, and early in May was ordered with others to the
mountains west of the city, to watch the movements of the government troops at Camp
Floyd, it being rumored that they contemplated an attack from that direction. The
expected event did not take place.
On September 30th of the same year Mr. McKean was appointed to fill a vacancy in
the city council, and in February, 1860, was elected to the same position. He was a
city councillor continuously for sixteen years; acting also as chairman of the board of
inspectors of school teachers, superintendent of the city asylum and hospital, and super-
intendent of water works. In 1872 and again in 1873, he visited various eastern cities in
the interest of the waterworks department. In January, 1860, he had been given by
the Legislature the office of territorial road commissioner, which he held until it was
abolished. In August of that year he was elected surveyor of Salt Lake county, and in
September was appointed county treasurer, to fill a vacancy caused by the resignation of
James W. Cummings. He held this office by repeated elections until August, 1876.
About September 1st, i860, in company with President Daniel H. Wells, Robert T.
Burton, Briant Stringham and Stephen Taylor, he explored the Weber river region for
coal. With General Burton and Mr. Taylor he discovered in Grass Creek canyon a vein
of coal ten feet, eleven inches thick. Later in the month he visited the Grass Creek coal
beds with President Young and party.
The same month witnessed his appoinment by Governor Alfred Cumming as
territorial marshal, in which position he was succeeded by Henry W. Lawrence, under
whom he subsequently served as a deputy. In that capacity he accompanied the posse
led by his associate deputy, Robert T. Burton, against the rebellious Morrisites, June,
1862. In November of the same year he was appointed by General Burton, then collector
of internal revenue for Utah, his deputy, a position held until June 1st, 1869, when he
served three months as deputy collector for the first division.
His title of colonel dates from Februry 1st, 1868, when he was commissioned by
HISTORY OF UTAH. 201
Governor Durkee as colonel and adjutant of the first division, Nauvoo Legion, Major-
General Burton commanding. Prior to this he was lieutenant of Company "C," first
cavalry, Captain Brighani Young, Jr., and had succeeded Captain Young in that
command.
From November 15, 1869, to February 22, 1870, he was absent upon a mission to the
Eastern States, from which he was recalled to give testimony as a witness in a case then
pending in the district court. His aged mother accompanied him to Utah. In 1875-6 he
filled another mission to the East, visiting the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia.
In August, 1876, came his election as sheriff of Salt Lake county, which position he
held continuously until October, 1883, when he resigned. In business he had become
connected with Z. C. M. I. as a director in October, 1872, and a year later was vice-
president of the institution, re-elected in 1876. He also took an active part in politics,
was a member of the central committee of the people's party at the time of its organiza-
tion, and held the office of secretary until the summer of 1876. He was also a school
trustee in the sixteenth district for a number of years.
Ecclesiastically he was no less active and prominent. Some of his early labors in the
ministry have already been mentioned. He held the office of a Seventy from April, 1859,
and for a long time was clerk of the eighth quorum, of which, in March 1863, he
became one of the presidency. He also served as a ward teacher and a Sunday school
superintendent. On November 23, 1868, he was set apart as a High Councilor of the
Salt Lake stake of Zion. On January 17, 1872, he became counselor to Bishop Kesler of
the Sixteenth ward. His ordination as a High Priest came in June, 1877. He continued
to act as counselor to Bishop Kesler until December, 1884. After retiring from the
Bishopric he became a home missionary of the stake, and in July, 1891, went upon a
mission to Europe, from which, owing to ill health, lie was released in the following
autumn.
After this array of facts and figures, it is not necessary to say that the life of
Theodore McKean was a very busy one; neither need it be told that it was a life of
honor and usefulness. He was a genial gentleman, a faithful official and a man much
esteemed. He had three wives, two of them simultaneously, and was the father of
twenty-two children, sixteen of whom were living when this sketch was written. Colonel
McKean died at Salt Lake City, July 9, 1897.
HIRAM BRADLEY CLAWSON.
(J>"EW men are better known in the Mormon community, or have been more active in
"wv" the social, commercial, professional and military life of Utah than General H. B.
Clawson. He is a native of Utica, Oneida county, New York, and was born
November 7, 1826. What education he received, outside the hard but effectual
school of practical life, was at the Utica Academy. He was but a child when his father
died, and not yet in his "teens" when his widowed mother joined the Latter-day Saints.
About three years later, in 1841, Mrs. Clawson and her family of two sons and two
daughters migrated to Nauvoo.
It was there that young Clawson began his dramatic career, which extended over a
period of many years, dating from his initial performance at Nauvoo, where the Prophet
Joseph Smith fostered the drama in its purity, to the time of his retiring from the
management of the Salt Lake Theatre, built and owned by President Brigham Young.
Hiram Clawson was a born actor, and in the line of parts usually essayed by him —
comic or character roles — displayed ability of no common order. Many of his children
have inherited his dramatic talent, and have shone with lustre upon the local stage. He
was a pupil of Thomas A. Lyne, a tragedian of the Edwin Forrest school, who played at
Nauvoo under the patronage of the Prophet, during Mr. Clawson's residence at that
place, and afterwards at Salt Lake City, under the management of his former protege.
Mr. Clawson's residence here dates from his arrival with President Brigham Young
and the general immigration of 1848. In common with most of the early settlers he had
to turn his hand to almost any kind of labor in order to earn a livelihood, and luckily
13
202 HISTORY OF UTAH.
had picked up a knowledge of several trades, which he found very useful in the building
up of the new country. He had charge of the masons who erected the old Council House,
and previously a little adobe office adjoining that structure on the south, the latter the
first adobe building in Salt Lake valley. At one time he acted temporarily as architect
of the Salt Lake Temple, during the absence of Truman O. Angell upon a mission. He
was early called into President Young's office as a clerk, and was soon put in charge of
his private business, which he managed for many years.
As early as 1850-51 he resumed his dramatic career, playing "Jaques Strop" to John
Kay's "Robert Macaire" at the primitive theatre known as the "Old Bowery," on Temple
Block. His future wife, Miss Margaret Judd, took part in the same performance, being cast
for the role of "Clementina." He subsequently played at the Social Hall, which at the
opening of 1853 superseded the Bowery as the main Thespian temple in these parts. In
1862, when the Salt Lake Theatre was completed, he was placed in charge of it as
manager, being one of the original members of the Deseret Dramatic Association. He
soon retired from the stage, but maintained his managerial connection with the Theatre,
in conjunction with John T. Caine and others, for many years.
General Clawson's military record began about the year 1850. He was at the Provo
Indian fight in February of that year — as related elsewhere — and subsequently became
aid-de-camp to General Daniel H. Wells, the commander of the Nauvoo Legion. At the
time of the disbandment of the Legion, in 1870, he had risen to the rank of adjutant-
general, having succeeded General James Ferguson, deceased, in 1863. As early as 1864 he
was treasurer of Salt Lake City, and was also an early member of the Territorial legislature.
For many years prior to 1865 Mr. Clawson had charge of President Young's
private store, but in the spring of the year mentioned he engaged in the mercantile
business on his own account, as junior partner to Horace S. Eldredge, having bought
out the interest of William H. Hooper in the firm of Hooper and Eldredge. As
purchaser for the new bouse Mr. Clawson made various trips to the East, and continued
in business with General Eldredge until the firm closed out to Zion's Co-operative
Mercantile Institution, organized in October, 1868. Of that mammoth concern, Mr.
Clawson was the first general superintendent. He retired fron the superintendency in
1873, but at the expiration of eighteen months, when his successor, Captain Hooper,
resigned, he again became superintendent. It was during his second term that the
institution built and moved into its large store on Main Street. On October 4, 1875, he
again resigned the superintendency of Z. C. M. I., having bought out its agricultural,
hide and wool departments, which he continued to own and conduct during the next
ten years.
One cause of his retiring from the mercantile business was his indictment for
unlawful cohabitation under the provisions of the Edmunds law. At the beginning of
the anti-polygamy crusade he had four living wives and a numerous and interesting
family of children. The details of his severe arraignment before Chief Justice Zane and
his sentence by that magistrate to the full extent of the law — six months imprison-
ment and a fine of three hundred dollars and costs — are given in Chapter XV, Volume III
of this history. Bishop Clawson — for he had been Bishop of the Twelfth ward for
some years — could have escaped fine and imprisonment by promising to obey the law;
but as this involved a repudiation of the sacred relationships he had entered into with
his plural wives, he chose — to use his own words — "prison andhonor" rather than "liberty
and dishonor."
The names of his wives were Ellen Spencer Clawson, Margaret Judd Clawson, Alice
Young Clawson and Emily Young Clawson; the first a daughter of Hon. Orson Spencer, the
second the Miss Judd previously mentioned, and the other two daughters of President
Brigham Young. All were living at this time excepting Mrs. Alice Clawson.
After his emergence from the penitentiary — where, as usual with such cases, the
term of his sentence was materially shortened by good behavior — Bishop Clawson took
an active part in bringing about the changed conditions which have resulted in the
amicable adjustment of local troubles and the giving of Statehood to Utah. For the
purpose of using influence to that end he went East repeatedly, visiting Washington,
D. C, in company with President George Q. Cannon, Colonel Isaac Trumbo and others,
and the fact that peace now reigns in Utah is due in no small degree to their energetic
efforts to secure the precious boon for themselves and their fellow citizens. Specially
commissioned by the Church authorities, Bishop Clawson also visited Arizona, at the
outbreak of the crusade, and through the good offices of Governor Zulick of that Territory,
succeeded in establishing relations favorable to his people, which have ever since
been respected and adhered to by the officials of that commonwealth.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 203
Of late years Mr. Clawson has been enganged in mining. Aside from this he is no
longer in business, though he looks after his vested interests with his old time sagacity.
In his seventy-seventh year, he is hale and hearty, is still Bishop of the Twelfth
ward, and active in the performance of his duties. He is the father, by his first wife, of
Hon. Spencer Clawson. a well known business man, ex-chairman of the Utah Pioneer
Jubilee Commission; by his second wife, of Rudger Clawson. the Apostle; and by his
third wife, Alice, of J. Willard Clawson, the artist. He has other sons and daughters,
both prominent and talented, but the members of his household are too numerous to
be mentioned, all, in a sketch of this character.
WILLIAM L. N. ALLEN.
ytTlLLIAM LAND NUTTLE ALLEN came to Utah in 1S53 and died in 1893, thus
111 completing a round of forty years as a resident of this commonwealth. He was
^»^ by birth an Englishman, the place of his nativity being Kingston-on-Hull, York-
shire: the date thereof May 22, 1825. The only child of Thomas Allen and his
wife Mary Nuttle, he was left an orphan in his infancy, his mother dying when he was
seventeen months old. at which time his father was absent on a sea voyage from which
he never returned. At the death of his mother his father's aunt, Miss Susannah Land,
took him to her home in Cambridgeshire, where he remained for a few years, and was
then placed at school in Hull, remaining there until he was twelve years of age. After
leaving school he became an errand boy in a butchering establishment, receiving half a
crown a week for his services. Before he was fifteen he had three narrow escapes from
drowning, the first when he was a mere child, and the others at twelve and fourteen
respectively. In the first and third instances he fell into a river, and on the latter
occasion was rescued by a companion when he was sinking the third time.
At fourteen he was bound apprentice for seven years to William Barry, of Hull, to
learn the trade of cabinet-making. The first two years he received no salary, the next
two years he received five shillings a week, the fifth year six shillings, the sixth year
seven shillings, and the seventh year eight to twelve shillings a week. His great aunt,
Miss Land, boarded and clothed him.
He had served about three years of his time, when he and three of his fellow
apprentices came to the conclusion that thirteen hours a day was more labor than should
be imposed upon them. They accordingly headed a movement for the relief of them-
selves and their ''fellow slaves and apprentices of the cabinet trade! " A call addressed to
all such was posted up in the market place one Saturday evening and resulted in bringing
out about two hundred apprentices and hundreds of their sympathizers to a meeting
held at noon on the following Monday. Speeches were made and the apprentices then
formed two abreast and marched through the streets, carrying banners inscribed,
"Twelve hours to constitute a day's work." They visited the various masters, some of
whom conceded the point at issue and their hands returned to work. Others refused,
Allen's master backing up his refusal with an oath and a threat to have his hands
arrested.
This he proceeded to do, about twenty-five of them being served with warrants.
Allen gave himself up the next day. The magistrate, after hearing the complaints of the
apprentices, ruled that the thirteen-hour regulation, which, though not originally legal,
had crystalized into a custom of twenty years standing, was just as binding as if provided
for by law. However, he informed them that they would be pardoned if they would
return to work and serve the hours required by their masters. They declined , deeming
it unjust, and were forthwith sentenced to hard labor in Hull jail, some for thirty days
and others for six weeks. Allen and his mates, the instigators of the move, were given
three months. All were marched off, followed by an immense throng of sympathizers,
who cheered the prisoners as the jail doors closed upon them. They were at once put to
hard labor, Allen and the other leaders being placed on the tread-mill, an act which
aroused the indignation of the townspeople who heard of it, including the masters
who had sought to punish the boys. The harsh treatment they received did not
204 HISTORY OF UTAH.
humiliate them, but instilled hatred and revenge into their hearts. They had broken no
law, and felt that they had asked nothing unreasonable — merely an hour each day for
recreation and reading — and to be punished as criminals when they had been guilty of no
crime, seemed more than they could bear.
Young Allen, as he pondered over the situation, grew desperate, and one day, being
almost exhausted, and feeling a sense of fierce wrath which had never before and never
after possessed him, he threw himself backward off the wheel, imperiling his own life
and unknowingly the lives of others. He fell clear of the wheel, struck his head on the
pavement below, and was picked up for dead. A physician was summoned, who
pronounced him alive, but physically incapable of the tread-mill strain. He was never
put upon the wheel again. During this time the townspeople were exerting themselves
to have the boys liberated, and a mammoth petition for their pardon was sent to her
Majesty Queen Victoria, then in the eighth year of her reign. The result was that all
were pardoned, after a month's incarceration. They returned to work, the masters
conceding to them half an hour a day, making the time twelve and a half hours instead
of thirteen, as before. Allen served his full apprenticeship and was honorably discharged
in August, 1846.
He came of a respectable middle-class parentage, his father being a purser on an
English merchantman. The great aunt who reared him was a maiden lady in com-
fortable circumstances, who well filled the place of a mother, and gave him from his
sixth to his twelfth year as good an education as the common schools of Hull could
afford. He was endowed with more than ordinary intelligence and made the best of his
opportunities. Thoroughness and skill were characteristic of him. Having become a
first-class cabinet maker, he followed that pursuit, both at Hull, his birth place, and in
the neighboring town of Goole. At the latter place he spent about a year, from the spring
of 1848, and while there made the acquaintance of Miss Hannah Jackson, a well-to-do
farmer's daughter, whom he married on August 14th of that year.
It was at Goole, in October, 1848, that he first heard of Mormonism from one of its
disciples, Thomas Jackson, a fellow- workman, who was an Elder of the Church. Con-
verted to the faith, he was baptized by this.Elder on the 27th of that month. A few weeks
later he was ordained a Teacher and began his ministerial laboi's at Goole, putting his
whole soul into the work. In January, 1849, he was ordained an Elder. In April
following he returned to his native town, where he continued laboring in the local ministry,
at the same time working at his trade. Two of his favorite places for open-air preaching
were at the statue of King William in the market place of Hull, and on the Dock Green,
opposite the jail in which he had been imprisoned. At these places he could be seen
every Sunday, discussing with ministers and laymen of other denominations, and even
with atheists, but in such an amiable and kind spirit that offense was impossible. He
would always part with his opponent with a friendly hand-shake and an invitation to come
again. Magnetic to a degree, he could gain the ear of the most cultured and the most
skeptical. He was an impressive speaker, an excellent singer, and would often pour
forth his sentiments in original verse. He was energetic and enthusiastic in his search
for knowledge. Every moment that could be spared from business was devoted to study.
He was seldom seen on the sti-eet alone, without an open book in his hand and his mind
absorbed in its contents. A friend once remonstrated with him saying, "Such intense
application will ruin your eyesight." William replied, "If I get my mind well stored
with knowledge, I shall not miss my sight." In March, 1851, he was appointed to
preside over the Hull Branch, and served zealously and untiringly in that position for
about two years, when he emigrated to America.
January 17, 1853, was the date of departure from Liverpool. He was accompanied
by his young wife and infant son. The ship in which they sailed was the "Ellen Maria."
Forty-eight days were consumed in making the voyage to New Orleans. It was a
pleasant trip in the main, but was marred by a fearful storm in mid-ocean. The vessel
was tossed about like a stick of driftwood. The sails were close reefed, and all the pas-
sengers— over three hundred souls — were ordered below and kept under hatches
until the storm had subsided. For a time hope seemed vain and death inevitable. The
strain was so great on some that it was feared they would lose their reason. There
was one fatality; Mrs. Charles Barnes, who was in a delicate conditon. becoming terror-
stricken and finally yielding up her life, a fact not discovered until the tempest had
abated. She was a close friend of Mrs. Allen. Having reached New Orleans, the
Aliens proceeded to St. Louis, where the head of the family secured six weeks' employ-
ment. They then went on to Keokuk, Iowa, and thence in an ox team wagon to Winter
Quarters.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 205
They left the latter point, in a company bound for Salt Lake City, on the 14th of
July. Three days later a death occurred, that of a child named Emma Bickington, for
whom Mr. Allen made a coffin. He entered Salt Lake valley on the 12th of October,
penniless, and the provisions of the company were all consumed. He was unable to
take from the local post office two letters awaiting him here, held for ten cents postage.
He and his fellow travelers found themselves dependent upon the inhabitants of the
valley for food as well as shelter.
The first home of the Aliens in Utah was a tent on Union Square; then a lumber
shanty about ten feet by ten, which they jointly occupied with a cooper. Owing to the
primitive circumstances by which they were surrounded, they were obliged to turn their
hands to many things unthought of before. Many articles used in house-keeping, such
as soap, candles, starch, molasses, etc., they had to make or go without. Still the
satisfaction of reaching the City of the Saints, where saloons, and dens of vice were
unknown, and where locks on the doors and the guarding of property from thieves were
unnecessary, made up for all. For seven years Mr. Allen was a carpenter on the
public works. Subsequently with his sons he carried on the business of contracting
and building, at the same time doing considerable cabinet making and turning out first
class work, some of which found its way into the far East, being taken there by those
who saw and appreciated its excellence. In 1854, the year he filed declaration of
intention to became a citizen of the United States, he built himself a home — the first
house in the area now occupied by the Twenty-first ward. There on the same spot of
ground he resided for forty years.
Early in 1857 he was elected aid-de-camp to Colonel Ross, Third Infantry, Nauvoo
Legion, and in October accompanied a detachment of twelve hundred and fifty men to
Echo Canyon to aid in checking the advance of Johnston's army. The march was made
under extreme difficulties owing to the deep snow. They crossed Big Mountain with the
snow up to their waists, and on reaching East Canyon Creek, at ten, p. m., foot-sore, weary
and wet to the skin, slept on the bare ground without cover during the remainder of the
night. Mr. Allen contracted a severe cold, which developed into asthma and eventually
brought him to his grave. In "the move" he and his family went to Parowan, returning
to find their home almost in ruins.
In April, 1866, he was elected captain of infantry (commissioned later by Governor
Durkee) and in the summer, as adjutant to Major Andrew Burt, he accompanied a
military expedition to Sanpete to protect the settlers there from hostile Indians. Here
he had a narrow escape from death. His company was stationed between Fountain
Green and Moroni; it was night, and all hands save himself and the guards had re-
tired. On the surrounding hills the Indian signal fires could be seen. Knowing that
the men were all fatigued by their recent journey from Salt Lake, anxious for the
welfare of those who slumbered, and desiring to give the sentries special instructions,
he left his quarters and visited the outposts to see if they were awake. One of the sentries,
as he approached, demanded the pass-word, but Captain Allen, not hearing the call,
gave no response, whereupon the sentry — S. P. Neve — fired. Fortunately the bullet
missed its mark, and the Captain, unhurt, was recognized before a second shot
was sent.
Up to January, 1854, Mr. Allen held the office of an Elder. He was then ordained a
Seventy and remained one until November, 1856, when he became a High Priest. In
October of that year the Eighteenth ward, which then covered all that section of the city
east of Main and north of South Temple Street, was divided, the Twentieth ward being
organized out of the eastern portion, with John Sharp as Bishop and W. L. N. Allen as
his second counselor. This position he held for twenty-one years. On July 5th, 1877,
the Twenty-first ward was organized out of the eastern part of the Twentieth, the two
being divided by "H" Street. Andrew Burt was made Bishop of the new ward, and
W. L. N. Allen his second counselor. After the death of Bishop Burt, who was murdered
August 25, 1883, Elder Allen succeeded him in office, remaining Bishop of the Twenty-
first ward until the day of his death, October 16, 1893.
As a Bishop he was a father to his people, and his ward in all its branches and
departments was one of the most perfectly organized in the Church. He had a kind
and generous nature, and was faithful and thorough in the performance of his duties.
These qualities, with his well known honesty and integrity, made him many friends.
He was justice of the peace for the Fourth Precinct for eight years, from August,
1874. He was the husband of two wives, the one already named, and Mary Jane
Snowball, whom he married in February, 1857. Each wife bore to him five sons and
three daughters.
MYRON TANNER.
yQT NATIVE of the Empire State, a member of the Mormon Battalion, a settler in
I Utah in 1847, Bishop, civic official and promoter of various enterprises, the
^"^ name of Myron Tanner stands out prominently in the list of Utah county's leading
citizens and business men. He was born June 7, 1826, at Bolton, on the banks
of Lake George, where he remained until he was eight years of age, when he removed
with his parents — John and Elizabeth Besswick Tanner — to Kirtland, Ohio, starting for
that place on Christmas morning, 1834. The family were well off for those days. The
father gave two thousand dollars to redeem a mortgage on the land where stood the
Kirtland Temple. Myron was at the dedication of that sacred house.
In 1838 the family removed to Missouri, arriving there about the last of summer.
The following winter they were driven out with the rest of the Latter-day Saints, and
spent the next eight years in Illinois and Iowa. Myron worked on the farm and
attended school until the summer of 1846. when he enlisted in the Battalion and marched
with his comrades westward to Santa Fe.
At that point, when the disabled portion of the command was placed under Captain
James Brown and ordered to Pueblo, Mr. Tanner was included, he being sick seven
months out of the fifteen consumed on the journey. How this detachment started for
California by way of Fort Laramie and were discharged in Salt Lake valley, has been
many times related. Mr. Tanner entered the valley July 29, 1847. He first settled on
Little Cottonwood.
About the year 1849 he went to California, where he worked for two and a half years
in the gold mines, and then went to San Bernardino, where he remained until 1855, in
the spring of which year he came back to Salt Lake City. In the autumn he returned
to San Bernardino, but in May, 1856, was again in Salt Lake, where he married on the
26th of that month, Mary Jane Mount, after which he removed to Payson, residing
there until the fall of 1860. Thence he removed to Provo, which was his residence at the
time of his death.
Mr. Tanner did not figure as a missionary in the outside world, but was a generous
helper in the cause of immigration, sending teams to the Missouri river and contributing
means to bring the poor to Utah as long as the Perpetual Emigrating Fund had an
existence. At the time of the move, in 1858, while he was at Payson, he furnished and
ran a six-mule team for two months, helping the people south. At Nauvoo he held the
office of a Seventy. In November, 1864, he became Bishop of the Third ward of Provo,
and continued in that office until 1891.
He was elected to the Provo city council in 1861, and re-elected in 1866, 1868,
1870, 1872, 1876, 1878, 1880, 1882 and 1896. He was chosen county selectman in 1869,
and held that office for five terms, or fifteen years in all. He affiliated with the People's
party until the division on national lines, when he became connected with the Republican
party. He was a member of the Board of the Brigham Young Academy from its in-
ception until 1898; and previously a member for three years of the Board of the Provo
Branch of the University of Deseret. For a long period he was on the Board of Church
schools for Utah stake.
In a business way he was interested in various enterprises. As early as 1858 he and
his two brothers owned a large herd of stock at Beaver, and lost six thousand dollars
worth, stolen by Indians. He owned one-twentieth of the stock of the Provo "East Co-op.,"
the first co-operative institution organized in Utah, and was Vice-president of the same
from its organization until the year 1890. Of the Provo Woollen Mills he was one of the
incorporators. He was superintendent of them one year, and owned at his death several
thousand dollars of the stock. He was also interested in the Utah county herd and was
president of the same for several years.
Bishop Tanner, by his first wife, Mary Jane Mount, was the father of six boys and
three girls; and by his second wife, Ann Crosby, the father of five boys and three girls.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 207
The most distinguished member of his family is Dr. Joseph M. Tanner, a prominent
educator, at this writing General Superintendent of the Latter-day Saints Schools.
Bishop Tanner died while on a visit to his son, the Doctor, at Salt Lake City, January 11,
1903.
WASHINGTON FRANKLIN ANDERSON.
/^\R. W. F. ANDERSON, the veteran physician and surgeon, is a true type of the
^pJ genuine Southern gentleman; as indeed he ought to be, being a native of the
"Old Dominion," where he was born of goodly parents and reared amid refined
if not luxurious surroundings. His father, Leroy Anderson, was a teacher of
Greek and Roman classics and of French and English literature, while his mother, whose
maiden name was Hannah Wright Southgate, was an instructor in music. They were
in moderate circumstances, but gave their son an excellent education, first in the common
schools of Williamsburg, his birthplace, and afterwards in the universities of Virginia
and Maryland. In both these institutions he was a medical student; for it was to medicine,
rather than music and literature that he was inclined; though always having a love
for the artistic and beautiful. The study and practice of surgery were to him a special
delight, and in this, as well as in the physician's branch of the profession, he was
destined to attain unusual prominence.
He was born January 6, 1823. After a boyhood passed at Williamsburg, Richmond,
Norfolk and Portsmouth, Virginia, and in Mobile and Sumpter counties, Alabama — a
period comparatively uneventful — he entered upon the practice of his profession, and
was thus engaged at the city of Mobile, when the Mexican war broke out, April, 1846.
Dr. Anderson hastened to enlist in his country's cause, joiuing the Alabama regiment
and serving in the ranks as orderly- sergeant of his company. At the expiration of his term
of service he, with his comrades, was honorably mustered out by an officer of the United
States army. He then removed to Yorktown, Virginia, where he practiced medicine until
the spring of 1849, when he determined to emigrate to California. For a year, however,
he was detained in Sumpter county, Alabama. During his stay there he took much interest
in the study of Free Masonry, and became a Free and Accepted Mason. In the spring
of 1850 he was made an Odd Fellow, at Gainesville, in the same State.
In March of that year he started on his overland journey to California. He made
his outfit at Independence, Missouri, and left there on the 11th of May. A tedious journey
of four months brought him to the city of Sacramento. He practiced his profession
in a mining camp near Placerville, and in 1S51 married his first wife, Mrs. Matilda Dunlap,
a most excellent woman.
The Doctor continued to be much interested in Free Masonry. In Yolo county,
California, in 1854, he succeeded Worshipful Master Gray as Master of Yolo Lodge, F.
and A. M., No. 81, then working under a dispensation from the Grand Lodge of California.
In the following year he was elected Master of the Chartered Lodge, in which capacity he
served until his removal to Utah. He was also elected a magistrate in his township, and
acted for several years as justice of the peace. On the last day of 1856 he was baptized
into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His wife also joined the Church,
and together they prepared for the journey to Utah. Prior to leaving California, he was
ordained an Elder by Henry G. Boyle in Yolo county, January, 1857.
Five months later he set out for Utah, equipped with traveling wagon, horses and
provisions for the trip. The route followed was over the Sierra Nevada mountains,
through Carson valley, up the Humboldt river, Raft river, and down the Malad. Mr.
and Mrs. Anderson crossed the Sierra Nevadas with Hezekiah Thatcher's family, who
were returning to Utah after an extended sojourn iu the Golden State. They joined
Perigrine Sessions' Carson valley company, with William Jennings, Robert Sharkey,
Isaac Hunter and others, en route to Salt Lake valley. The journey consumed about
six weeks. They arrived here about the middle of August.
Dr. Anderson settled at Salt Lake City, where he has ever since resided. He
arrived in a warlike time. Johnston's army was marching westward to put down an
imaginary Mormon rebellion, and the Utah militia was being placed in a state of
preparation to repel the invasion. The Doctor was appointed by Colonel Thomas Callister
the surgeon of his regiment, and in November, 1857, he marched to Echo Canyon, where
208 HISTORY OF UTAH.
the militia were concentrating. He also served there in the spring of 1858. In the
general move south he took his family to Payson, whence he returned to his regiment at
Salt Lake City to guard the property which the people had left behind them. After peace
was declared, his family came back to the city.
The following year, 1859, Mrs. Anderson left Utah and returned to California, where
she had children living, the issue of a former mariage. To her second husband, Dr.
Anderson, she bore no children. In 1862 he married his second wife, Isabella Evans,
the ceremony uniting them being performed by President Brigham Young. Her children
number thirteen, namely, Belle, Hannah, Justina, Leroy, Frank, Mabel, Guy, Winifred,
Leonore, Sibyl, Kathleen, Vivienne and Patrick. The second daughter, Hannah, a very
estimable young lady, died some years since, much lamented.
On the 6th of August, 1860, Dr. Anderson was elected a member of the Utah legis-
lature, representing the city of Salt Lake. This was during the administration of
Governor Alfred Cumming. On February 26, 1868, he received the appointment of
surgeon, First Division, Nauvoo Legion, and was a member of the staff of Major-General
Robert T. Burton. This was under the Governorship of Hon. Charles Durkee. He
held the office of quarantine physician of Salt Lake City for several years, and was
chairman of the board of examination of physicians. He was president of the first medical
society organized in Utah, with Dr. J. F. Hamilton vice-president, Dr. Heber John
Richards, secretary, and Drs. Benedict, Williamson, Douglass. Taggart, Allen Fowler and
Seymor B. Young as fellow-members. He was associated with Dr. Heber John Richards
as a business partner in 1S72-3, and with Dr. Joseph S. Richards in 1876-8. Without
solicitation on his part, he was appointed county physician of Salt Lake county, and with his
daughter, Mrs. B. A. Gemmell, M. D., served in that capacity in 1897 and 1898. In
the early part of his medical career in Utah Dr. Anderson had a very extensive practice
in his favorite department, surgery, but owing to ill-health and the infirmities of ad-
vancing age, he has been compelled to retire from active service in that direction.
MARCUS LAFAYETTE SHEPHERD.
jORN in the town of Chagrin, Cayahoga county, Ohio, October 10, 1824, and chris-
tened after the famous hero Marquis de Lafayette — whose title was anglicized to
Marcus for the purpose — the subject of this sketch has been successively a member of
the Mormon Battalion, a settler of Utah in 1848, a major of militia, the mayor of
a city and a ward Bishop. He is now one of the presidency of the Beaver Stake of Zion.
His parents — Samuel and Rosy Laney Shepherd — joined the Latter-day Saints in time
to settle in Jackson county, Missouri, in 1832, and were with the ill-fated colonists when
they were driven thence in the autumn of the year following. Marcus accompanied his
parents through the persecutions of that period, down to the final expulsion of the Saints
from the State.
The Shepherds settled near Carthage, Hancock county, Illinois— where the Mormon
leaders, Joseph and Hyruin Smith were afterwards murdered — and afterwards moved to
Nauvoo. The father was a wagon maker by trade and a prosperous one. He had
considerable means when he went to Missouri, but was much reduced in circumstances
by the persecutions and drivings in that state. At Nauvoo he again prospered. Marcus
received but little education in his youth, but later in life acquired through home study
quite a knowledge of mathematics. Naturally inclined to farming and stock-raising, he
passed the greater part of his early life upon the farm. He led a sober life, was very
industrious, always made money and never wasted it. He attended Sabbath meetings
whenever possible and faithfully observed the requirements of his religion. His parents
being Latter-day Saints, he was familiar with the doctrines of Mormonism from boyhood.
In due time he was baptized into the Church.
In the exodus of 1846, he accompanied his migrating people to the Missouri river.
When the call came for the Battalion, Marcus L. Shepherd was one of those who enlisted
and performed the unparalleled march undertaken by that devoted body of infantry.
After the discharge at Los Angeles, in July, 1847, he found employment, first at whip-
sawing and afterwards at gold mining, in California.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 209
As soon as practicable he rejoined his people, who were settling on the shores of
the Great Salt Lake. Loading up his puck animals — nine horses and five mules — with
a stock of groceries and clothing-, he started in October. 1S48, for Salt Lake valley.
His company consisted of twelve persons, he being the leader. They came by way
of Carson and the Humboldt to Ruby valley, thence across the desert and around the
south side of the Lake. They had a very prosperous journey, only one incident of an
unusual character occurring on the way. when, to use his language, "Indians to the
number of two or three hundred formed across the road, ten or twelve deep, and extending
for a long way on each side. I saw it was fight or do worse, so we made a charge as
fast as the packs could so. with myself and another ahead. We drove them from the
ground without a shot."
Mr. Shepherd first settled at Cottonwood, south of Salt Lake City. On March 9,
1851, he married Harriet Editha Parrish, and the same year accompanied Apostles Amasa
M. Lyman and Charles C. Rich, with many others, to California, where they purchased
and settled the ranch of San Bernardino. He returned to L^tah in the winter of 18.37— S, at
the time of the general return of Mormon colonists and missionaries, consequent upon the
"Buchanan War." He now settled at Beaver City, which has ever since been his home.
Says he. "I had the first brick made in Beaver County and the first two-story house built
there. I was the first in the Territory to keep sheep on the moveable plan. I made a
great many trips in pursuit of Indians, when they raided our stock, and when we over-
took them, which we did on one occasion, I talked to them in a friendly manner and
did them no harm, although they were completely in our hands. It proved to be of
benefit to the place afterwards."
It was in the year 1S63 that Mr. Shepherd became major of militia, an office held by
him up to the time of the general disbandment in 1S70. In 1893 he was elected mayor
of Beaver. Always a friend to education and progress, he has encouraged public improve-
ments, and is reputed to have done as much for school houses and meeting houses as
any other man in Beaver county, if not more. In 1S69 came his call to the Bishopric.
As such he presided over the First ward of Beaver for several years and was then
chosen counselor to the President of the Stake. Between October, 1881, and June, 1882,
he fulfilled a mission to Kansas and Iowa.
By his first wife President Shepherd is the father of ten children, three of whom
died in infancy. By his second wife, Cedaressa Cartwright. whom he married De-
cember 13. 1S69, he is the father of seven, four of these dying in childhood. For the
sake of his wives and his children, whom he would not discard, nor repudiate his
sacred relations with them, he underwent fine and imprisonment in 1886. during the
prevalence of the anti-polygamy crusade.
DIMICK BAKER HUNTINGTON.
^*
p^HIS veteran will be remembered for four main facts in his history: (1) His
rii) associations with the Prophet Joseph Smith : (2) his membership in the Mormon
it Battalion; (3) his early and long continued service as an Indian interpreter;
(1) his connection with" Dimick's Band." one of the earliest musical organizations
in Utah. He was an honest, true-hearted man, who faithfully performed his duty in every
position assigned him.
The son of William and Zina Baker Huntington, he was born May '2(5, 1S0S, at
Watertown. Jefferson county. New York. There he passed his early boyhood. He
had a martial spirit and delighted in "playing soldier" and training the lads of his
neighborhood. His father was a well-to-do farmer and gave his son a good common school
education. When eleven years of aae he was disabled for farm work by lameness,
resulting from a fever, in consequence of which he took to traveling as a peddler and
tinker to earn his livelihood. He afterwards learned shoemaking and blacksmithing, the
latter after living on the frontier. On April 28, 1830. he married, his wife's maiden
name being Fanny Maria Allen. She became the mother of seven children.
In 1S35 Dimick B. Huntington joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
210 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Saints, and in May of the next year moved to Kirtland, Ohio. The following summer
found him in Missouri, where he passed through all the troubles that arose between the
Missounans and the Mormon settlers. He was constable at Far West, and a brave and
efficient officer. On one occasion he stepped between the Prophet Joseph Smith and a
club that was raised to strike him. He would have died for his leader at any time, and as
long as Joseph lived he was one of his most faithful friends. At Nauvoo he held various
offices in the city government, and was one of those arrested with the Prophet for the abate-
ment of the paper known as the "Expositor." After the murder of Joseph and Hyrum
and the return of the dead bodies from Carthage, he was one of those who bore the
remains of the martyrs to their earthly resting place.
He left Nauvoo in the exodus of February, 1846, pursued by military officers, and was
obliged to separate himself from his family temporarily in order to escape. He proceeded
to the Missouri river, where in July he enlisted as a member of the famous Battalion. He
was in Company "D," commanded by Captain Nelson Higgins, and besides performing the
ordinary duties of a soldier, served his comrades in the capacity of blacksmith. At Santa
Fe he was detached with others from the main command, and sent to Pueblo, his family
being withhim. A child was born to him at that place, January 1st, 1847; an Indiansquaw
acting as midwife. He started with Captain Brown for California on May 24th of that
year, but only got as far as Salt Lake valley, the Battalion's term of enlistment having
expired. He entered the valley twenty-one days after the Pioneers. Says he:
"Through all my travels in the Battalion, to Pueblo, back to Laramie and on to Salt
Lake valley, I carried in my wagon a bushel of wheat, and during the winter of '47
slept with it under my bed, keeping it for seed. For three months my family tasted no
bread. We dug thistle roots and other native growths and had some poor beef, with a
little milk, but no butter. Early in the spring of '48 I rode one hundred and fifteen
miles to Fort Bridger and bought a quart of little potatoes about the size of pigeon
eggs, at twenty-five cents each. From these I raised that year about a bushel of potatoes,
but ate none of them. I planted them in 1849 and have had plenty of potatoes
ever since."
Mr. Huntington first lived in the "Old Fort," but in 1849 went to Provo and in 1850
to Sanpete to help establish colonies in those places, being chosen for this task because of
his qualifications as an Indian interpreter, and because recognized by the red men as their
friend. He learned to talk in the Indian tongue soon after his arrival in the mountains,
and this, he says, was in fulfillment of a promise made to him by the Prophet Joseph
at Quincy, Illinois, in 1839. He was Utah's first Indian interpreter and his presence was
necessary at all meetings between the settlers and the savages.
He was in the first fight with the Indians at Battle Creek, March 5, 1849, and at the
beginning of the action took command, in the absence of the colonel. He was also in the
Indian fight at Provo, with his two sons, Allen and Lot. He accompanied Parley Pratt's
exploring expedition to Iron county in 1850, and in 1853, at the close of the Walker war,
was sent by Governor Young, superintendent of Indian affairs, to arrange a treaty of
peace with that turbulent chieftain. Says Mr. Huntington:
While in conversation with the chief in his tent, he called me to the door and
directed my attention to two braves who were driving an Indian prisoner before them.
I asked, 'What are they going to do?' 'Watch,' he said, and in a moment or two they
shot the prisoner, as a part of the traditional rites of the treaty. Walker remained
peaceable until his death, and I was present at his burial, which was attended with all the
traditional and superstitious observances. A consultation was held among the braves
as to whether one of the chief's wives should be killed and sent to the happy hunting
grounds along with him, but it was finally decided that a male Piute prisoner should
accompany him. Accordingly the prisoner was buried with the chief — buried alive,
but only to his shoulders, and left to die at the will of 'Shinob' (God). I acted as
master of ceremonies at a grand treaty between the Utes and Shoshones at Salt Lake
City in 1854, and fed both tribes at my table. That treaty was never broken."
When not among the Indians, trading and interpreting, Mr. Huntington pursued the
vocation of blacksmith, doing work of that description for both whites and reds. He
was a great lover of martial music and did much to promote its cultivation in the various
settlements. He made drums, founded musical schools, and was drum^najor of the old-
time martial band, named in his honor, "Dimick's Band;" his own pride and glory, and
the delight of every urchin in Salt Lake valley.
Dimick B. Huntington was the husband of two wives and the father of nine children.
He was own brother to the late Zina D. H. Young, of Salt Lake City, and to Oliver
Huntington, Esq., who still lives at Springville. In the Church he held the offices of
HISTORY OF UTAH. 211
Elder and High Priest, to the first of which he was ordained at Kirtland, and to the
latter at Salt Lake City. For many years and up to the time of his death — February 1,
1S79 — he was a Patriarch of the Salt Lake Stake of Zion.
IRA NATHANIEL HINCKLEY.
f"RA N. HINCKLEY, the builder of Cove Creek fort, and now president of the Mil-
| lard stake of Zion, has been a resident of Utah since 1850. He is a Canadian by
*?* birth, but has lived in the United States nearly the whole of his life — a life of toil
and hardship in its earlier phases — an honorable and a useful one throughout.
He first saw the light of this world in the district of Johnston, Upper Canada, Octo-
ber 30, 182S. His father, Erastus N. Hinckley, died when he was two years old; his
mother, Lois (or Louise) Judd Hinckley, died when he was fourteen. His father was a
navigator, and when on land followed the pursuit of a master mechanic. He was not
well-to-do financially, and in consequence Ira's educational opportunities were few, if in-
deed he can be said to have had any. Three months in a common school comprised his
entire tuition.
When nine years of age he went to Springfield, Ohio, and remained there for four
years. He drove a cart on the national turnpike when so small that his mother had to
bridle and collar the horses for him. At the age of thirteen he removed to Springfield,
Illinois. It was there that his mother died. He stayed at Springfield five years, farm-
ing, hauling wood, and doing such other work as he could find. His inclination ran to
farming and stock raising, but he also had considerable talent for mechanism, inherited
from his father. He became distinguished in his locality as a very efficient horse-shoer
and blacksmith. He was active and industrious, and took a lively interest in the public
events of his time.
Ira N. Hinckley became connected with Mormonism about the time of the exodus of
the Latter-day Saints from Illinois. He walked to Nauvoo, a distance of one hundred
and twenty miles, in four days, carrying a grip sack weighing forty pounds. From there
he proceeded to Winter Quarters. where he helped to build a grist mill. The following win-
ter found him in Missouri, splitting rails, blaeksmithing, and assisting to make and trim
wagons, living meanwhile with his uncle, Benjamin Boyce. Going to Iowa, his uncle
died with cholera, and Ira was obliged to bury him without assistance.
While in Missouri, Mr. Hinckley married his first wife, Eliza Jane Evans, daughter
of David Evans, afterwards Bishop of Lehi. The date of the wedding was July 17, 1848.
In April, 1S50, they started from Platte county, Missouri, en route for Utah. They had
an infant daughter, and were also accompanied by a half-brother of Mr. Hinckley's.
Their outfit comprised one wagon, three yoke of oxen, and other live stock, with clothing
and provisions to last them for eighteen months. Joining a company led by Captain Evans,
they crossed the Missouri river at Council Bluffs, and traveled up the Platte to Sweet-
water, where Captain Bair took command. On the way Mr. Hinckley suffered a very sad
loss, his wife and brother dying from cholera in one day — June 15, 1850 — leaving him
with his little daughter only nine months old. He arrived at Salt Lake City on the 30th
of October.
He settled in the First ward, and for the next fourteen years Salt Lake City was his
home. He was on the police force five years, from 1851 to 1856, and in the latter year
went out in the interests of the Brigham Young Express Company to superintend the
building of a block fort. He was absent from home five and a half months. In 1862
he served the United States for three and a half months in the capacity of veterinary sur-
geon of Captain Lot Smith's command, protecting the overland mail against Indian depre-
dations. He was orderly sergeant in Captain Hardy's first company, Nauvoo Legion, and
for five years, from 1S51 to 1856, aide-de-camp to Colonel Harmon.
In 1864 he removed to Coalville, Summit county, where he resided for three years,
and then removed to Cove Creek, Millard county, being called there by President Brig-
ham Young to superintend the building of a fort as a protection against hostile Indians.
There he dwelt for ten years. In 1S77 he took up his abode at Fillmore, his present
place of residence. The same year he became president of the Millard stake, having
previously been one of the presidency of the Twenty-second quorum of Seventies.
212 HISTORY OF UTAH.
President Hinckley has never taken a foreign mission, but has always been active
in religious, educational and benevolent movements at home. He was well acquainted
with President Young and traveled with him considerably. He has also been in touch
with other representative men of the Church. In 1878 he accompanied Apostle Erastus
Snow on amission through Southern Utah, Arizona and New Mexico. While at Salt Lake
City he was in business with Edward Cuthbert, and at Coalville with William W. Cluff;
in Millard county his business associates have been numerous, comprising such men as
Lafayette Holbrook, Joseph V. Robison and others. He was mayor of Fillmore during
1878, and under his direction some lasting and important improvements were made
there. He has always encouraged and contributed generously to the cause of edu-
cation.
His family record shows him to be the father, by his first wife, of one child, a
daughter, named after her mother, Eliza Jane. His second wife, Adelaide C. Noble,
whom he married iu 1853, is the mother of ten children — Martha A., Minerva A., .Luna
A., Lucian N., Frank, Edwin S., Nellie, Samuel E., Irene and Sarah; and his third wife,
Angeline W. Noble, married in 1854, is the mother of eight, Emily A., La Verna, Ira N.,
Amelia C, Harvey N., Briant S., Alonzo A., and Elmer E. President Hinckley's second
and third wives were the daughters of Lucian Noble.
THOMAS BARTHELEMY CARDON.
S^S[ SOLDIER of the Union in the Civil War, and for many years a prominent citizen
1^ of Logan, T. B. Cardon was by birth an Italian, the exact place and date of his
^""^ nativity being Brae, Pra-Rustin, Piedmont, August 28, 1842. His parents were
Phillippe and Martha Maria Toum Cardon. Their ancestors were of theVadois or
Waldenses, and among the remnant of that people who were driven from Switzerland
by the Church of Rome about the beginning of the eighteenth century. They were in
comfortable circumstances, owning the home they occupied and the small farm and vine-
yard they cultivated. When not thus employed they were engaged in silk culture. The
father was also a builder. As a boy Thomas assisted him in the vineyard and also as a
mason and carpenter. A few short winter terms in a common school, where French and
Italian were taught, comprised his earliest education. He was an artist by instinct,
possessing a refined soul, and the world was to him an open book, in which he read deeper
and loftier lessons then those taught in the schools.
Up to the age of twelve he remained in his native land, where, in 1852, his father and
mother, himself, four of his brothers and two sisters joined the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints. Two years later the family emigrated to Utah, sailing from Italy in
January and coming by way of New Orleans to Kansas City, whence they traveled over-
land to Salt Lake City, arriving here late in October. Jabez Woodard had charge of their
company on the sea, and R. L. Campbell on the plains. Many were afflicted with the
cholera, among them Thomas and one of his sisters. They settled first at Mariottsville,
near Ogden, whence they went south in the move of 1858 and afterwards returned to
Weber county.
• Thomas, then a boy of sixteen, after assisting his father's family to return, visited
Camp Floyd for the purpose of obtaining employment. Ambitious for an education, and
being told by some of his countrymen at the post that if he enlisted he would have the
privilege of attending the camp school free, he joined the army and became bugler in
Company "G," United States Tenth Infantry. He learned the English language from a
comrade, who, like himself, spoke French, and having an inherent love for culture,
pursued his studies alone, acquiring by diligence a fund of useful knowledge.
Weary of camp life, he applied in 1860 for his discharge, but before it reached him
the Civil War broke out. Here was activity, the thing he desired, and he now withdrew
his application and started with his company for the East. The founder of Camp Floyd,
General A. S. Johnston, and some of his troops, espoused the Confederate cause, but the
company with which T. B. Cardon was connected proceeded to Washington, D. C, and
joined the Union forces. On March 10, 1862, his regiment was called into active service,
and he was at the headquarters of General McLellan, commander of the Army of the
HISTORY OF UTAH. 213
Potomac, from the opening of the campaign that year until after the battle of Malvern
Hill. He was in the battles of Big Bethel, Yorktown, Williamsbury, Gaines Hill, Fair
Oaks, and the famous Seven Days Fight before Richmond.
On the second day of the last named engagement, June 27, 1862, he was seriously
wounded in the left arm and side. While he was being borne from the field in the arms of
two comrades, one of them had a leg torn away by the explosion of a bombshell and the other
was killed by a rifle ball from one of the enemy's sharpshooters. It was not designed,
however, that Thomas B. Cardon should perish on the field of battle. Though carried
to the hospital and placed in the charnel house with those who had died of their
wounds — for he was apparently lifeless and was reported dead — he revived nest
morning about day-break and succeeded in rejoining his brigade, after being hotly
pursued by the enemy's pickets. His wounds healed in time, but he was rendered
incapable of further service, and on February 2, 1863, was honorably discharged. For
his services in defense of the Union he was afterwards granted a pension of ten dollars a
month, which he drew as long as he lived.
From the convalescent camp near Alexandria, he proceeded to Washington, where he
remained a month, and then visited York, Pennsylvania, where he learned the art of
photography. He next moved to Harrisburg, where he obtained a situation and worked
at his profession, subsequently opening an art gallery. In 1865 he went to Nebraska,
settling in Nebraska City, and in 1867 rejoined his relatives in Utah. They were then
living at Logan.
There he established an art gallery, carried on the photographer's business, and also
opened a watchmaking and jewelry establishment, the first one in that city. He was
successful in business for many years, when reverses came and his fortune was swept
away. On November 13, 1871, he married Lucy Smith, daughter of Bishop Thomas X.
Smith of Logan, and sister to Orson Smith, ex-president of the Cache Stake of Zion. She
bore to him eleven children. Mr. Cardon had two other wives, one of whom has five
children.
He held various public positions in Logan. He served nine years as city recorder,
and in 1882 and in 1884 was elected an alderman and sat in the city council. In 1886
he was again nominated for that office, but declined the honor. At the time of his death
he was city auditor. In all positions of trust, he exhibited not only skill and ability
but steadfast honesty of purpose.
To his religion he was true as steel. As a home missionary of Cache stake, and an
assistant superintendent of the Sabbath schools of Logan he labored with honor to himself
and with helpfulness to those with whom he came in contact. Throughout his life his convic-
tions and sentiments were pure and exalted. He held successively the offices of Elder and
Seventy, being ordained to the former in 1870, and to the latter in 1884. He was president
of the Second quorum of Elders, and one of the presidency of the Sixty-fourth quorum of
Seventies. He died at his home in Logan, February 15, 1898. Beloved in life, in death
he was widely and sincerely mourned.
ZACHEUS CHENEY.
vfX VETERAN of the Mormon Battalion, Zacheus Cheney, a settler of Utah in 1857,
■fSjr lived and died respected and esteemed by a wide circle of friends and acquaint-
JJT auees. His birthday was April 22. 1818; the place Sempronius, Cayuga county,
New York. His parents were Elijah and Aehsa Thompson Cheney. He lived in
Cayuga county until six years of age, and then moved with his father's family to Scott,
Courtland county, where he attended school. When old enough he helped his father in
clearing the timber from his land. It was a good farm of fifty acres, and a very comfortable
home. Elijah Cheney, a veteran of the war of 1812, had been baptized a Latter-day
Saint and ordained an Elder in 1833, and it was he, with Zera Pulsipher, who introduced
Mormonism to Wilford Woodruff, the future Apostle and President. Zacheus was bap-
tized in May, 1834.
In 1S35 the family moved to Kirtland, Ohio, where the youth worked on the Temple
and attended the Hebrew school taught in the attic rooms of that building by Professor
Seixas of New York City. In 1839 they started for Far West, but were detained at Coles
214 HISTORY OF UTAH.
county, Illinois, by sickness, and before they could rejoin the main body of the Saints
the latter had been driven out of Missouri. At Camp Creek, Hancock county, Illinois,
the Cheneys settled in 1843. Zacheus served in the Nauvoo Legion, and was afterwards
one of the petit jury that tried the murderers of the Prophet Joseph Smith. The identity
of the assassins was known, but could not be proved in court, owing to the intense anti-
Mormon prejudice that prevailed. Hence the jury, under instructions from the judge, re-
turned a verdict of not guilty.
At Nauvoo Zacheus Cheney followed the vocation of a farmer, to which he was naturally
inclined. In the exodus he crossed the Mississippi at Fort Madison, May 3, 1846, and
overtaking the vanguard of his people at Mount Pisgah, traveled with President Young's
company to the Missouri river. There, on the 16th of July, he enlisted in the Mormon
Battalion. What followed in his experience he thus relates:
"It was a day of sadness, of mourning and of parting. The tears fell like rain. We
commenced our march for Fort Leavenworth, and on arriving there received our arms
and equipments and started for Santa Fe, a distance of over seven hundred miles.
There Colonel Cooke took command, and we marched two hundred and fifty miles down
the Rio Grande. When we left the river we were put on half rations — one half-pound of
flour and one pound of beef. Our pilots wanted us to go down to the city of Sonora and
winter there, as they knew of no other route, and this was afterwards chosen by the
officers in council, though the men were opposed to it. We traveled over a couutry un-
explored for about five hundred miles, and came to a Spanish town called Tuejon. It con-
tained about five hundred inhabitants, two hundred regular soldiers and a large amount of
government stores. The soldiers fled at our approach, and we raised the American flag.
We then marched over an eighty-mile desert, and arrived at the Pima Indian village on
the Gila river. Traveling down to the mouth of that river, we crossed the Colorado. We
then had a ninety-five mile desert to cross, where we were required to dig wells to
obtain water. We were put on one-fourth rations of flour and very poor beef; but we
soon arrived at Warner's ranch, where we got plenty of beef, and at San Diego we rested
for a short time. We then marched to the San Luis Rey Mission, and remained there
about a month. Company "B," to which I belonged, under the command of Captain
Hunter, was sent back to San Diego to take charge of that place. The other companies
were sent to Los Angeles. We had to live on beef and mustard greens until a vessel,
sent to the Sandwich Islands, returned with provisions, which was more than three
months. Our battalion was a very poor lot of boys when we arrived at San Diego. We
had passed through the extremes of hunger, thirst and fatigue, and were nearly without
clothes. I have seen some so nearly exhausted and famished that they wanted to be left
by the roadside to die, but the rear guard would bring them along. Company "B" was
afterwards ordered to Los Angeles, where all the companies were discharged, July 16,
1847."
After receiving his discharge, Mr. Cheney went to San Francisco, where, in the
spring of 1848, he and James Balie made and burned fifty thousand brick, claimed to
be the first brick made in San Francisco. He then went to the gold mines at Mormon
Island, south fork of American river, Iwhere in the summer of 1848 he married Mary Ann
Fisher, daughter of Adam Fisher, of Chester county, Pennsylvania. Returning to San
Francisco, he lived there till the spring of 1850, when he moved to Alameda county, upon
a farm he had purchased, and worked at farming and building. His wife gave birth to
a daughter on Christmas day, 1850, and on New Year's day, 1851, the mother died.
On January 10, 1853, Mr. Cheney married Amanda M. Evans. The same year he
was ordained an Elder and presided over the San Francisco branch of the Church. In
1856 Elder George Q. Cannon, who was presiding over the California mission, set him
apart as president of the Alameda branch, members of which in 1857 formed a company
to come to Utah. He was appointed captain. Leaving Alameda on the 28th of August
—his personal outfit consisting of two wagons and a carriage drawn by mules — he and
his company, traveling over the Carson Valley route, arrived at Salt Lake City on the
third day of November.
Mr. Cheney settled at Centerville, and thenceforward that place was his home, bar-
ring a two months' residence at Lehi during "the move,'' and an absence of several
months at the opening of the Muddy mission, where he helped to establish a settlement.
On March 10, 1858, he was appointed justice of the peace for Centerville precinct, to fill
the unexpired term of Judson Stoddard, and in August of that year was elected to the
same office, and re-elected in 1860. For several years he sent wagons, teams and pro-
visions to the Missouri river, to bring poor emigrants to Utah. He donated liberally for
the building of the Salt Lake Temple, and always did his share in the furtherance of
g^^tsC&c/i (7/ g^<<^£u^
HISTORY OF UTAH. 215
public enterprises. Here, as in California and in the East, he devoted himself to
farming. The veteran died at his home in Centerville, March 7, 1898. He was the
father of eight children.
LUTHER TERRY TUTTLE.
S2f MEMBER of the Mormon Battalion, a citizen of Utah since 1863, a prominent
1^ business man of Manti — of which town he has been mayor twice in succession —
^"^ and a member for several terms of the Legislature, the Honorable Luther T.
Tuttle has had a career to which the following brief sketch, based upon meagre
details furnished mostly by himself, will hardly do justice. He is a native of New York
City, where he was born November 19, 1825. His father, Terry Tuttle, was a ship-
builder, in good financial circumstances, having a number of men in his employ: but
he died when Luther was an infant of fourteen months; consequently it was his mother,
Ellen Tuttle. who reared him and superintended his education. The latter, however,
was very limited.
Up to the age of thirteen his boyhood was passed in his native city, but in the fall
of 1838 he left with his mother for Missouri, where they experienced the vicissitudes
caused by the persecution of the Latter-day Saints by the Missourians. About that
time Luther went to live with his uncle, a hotel keeper in St. Louis. The Tuttle family —
consisting of the mother, three sons and one daughter — were also in Illinois, where the
subject of this sketch — the youngest in the fatuity — engaged in farming. He was with
his people in the exodus from that State, and the same year enlisted in the famous
Battalion, being then in his twenty-first year.
Three days before this event, on July 13, 1846, he had married Abigail Haws, at
Council Bluffs, Iowa. He served eighteen months in the Battalion and held the rank
of orderly sergeant. After receiving his discharge in California, he returned to Council
Bluffs, where he engaged in mercantile and other pursuits. He was in the fur trade as
agent for Peter A. Sarpey of the American Fur Company. Next he engaged in the
lumber business at Macedonia, twenty-five miles east of Council Bluffs, where he built
a saw mill and afterwards a flouring mill. He was in the ruiHing business at Macedonia
until he came to Utah.
Well fitted out for the journey, he began it on the 10th of June, 1863. With his
family and teams he left Iowa without any company, but fell in with some travelers on
the road, namely, Thomas Clark, Robert Colwell and others, residents of Provo, Utah,
whose teams were loaded with stoves and other goods for the home market. On the
4th of July, determined to celebrate the nation's birthday, but having no flag, they put
a handkerchief on a whip-stock and allowed it to flutter in the breeze. Overtaking a
freight train encamped on the road, they were mistaken, owing to the color of their
improvised flag, for Secessionists, and were not permitted to pass through the camp;
consequently had to go round it.
Mr. Tuttle and his family arrived at their journey's end on the 25th of August.
He settled at Manti, where he has ever since resided. He formed a partnership with
E. W. Fox, and opened a general store under the firm name of Tuttle & Fox. The business
was successful, but five years later, the great Co-operative movement having begun, it
was sold to Z. C. M. I., with which Mr. Tuttle was connected for several years. In
1875 he embarked with Harrison Edwards in a general merchandise and lumber business,
which grew rapidly. A few years later Mr. Tuttle's sons, Albert and Frank, were ad-
mitted to the firm which in time came to be known as L. T. Tuttle and Sons. In 1894
the firm erected one of the finest business blocks in Southern Utah. In 1890, Mr. Tuttle
organized the Manti Savings Bank, with a capital of $ 25,000, which has since doubled,
and was chosen president of the institution. He is a stockholder in the Co-operative
Roller Mills and also extensively engaged in sheep-raising.
Mr. Tuttle took an active part in the Indian war of the "sixties." of which Sanpete
county and vicinity was the chief battle ground. He held a colonel's commission under
General Warren S. Snow. He has been more or less connected with all social and
political movements in that part ever since his arrival in Utah. He was Mayor of Manti
216 HISTORY OF UTAH.
for two terms, and represented his county in the Legislature during four terms — three
in the Council and one in the House. Three of these terms — consecutive — were in the
years 1884, 18S6 and 18SS. His latest term as a legislator was in 1892. Ecclesiastically
he is a member of the High Priests quorum and has been a High Councillor of Sanpete
stake for eighteen or twenty years.
Mr. Tuttle has been twice married. The name of his first wife, with date and place
of marriage, has been given. His second wife was Lola Ann Haws, his first wife's sister,
whom he married January 27, 1850. His children are twelve in number, namely,
Louise, Luther, Charlotte, Albert, Terry, Frank P., John Henry, Louis E., Lola Ann,
Lillie Belle, Ethella C. and Alphius H. Three of Mr. Tuttle's sons have been in business
with him, namely, Albert, Frank and Louis. His son Albert was accidentally killed,
New Years day, 1895, by a fall on the sidewalk, causing concussion of the brain. He
was a prominent and influential business man and politician, was cashier of the Manti
Savings bank, treasurer of the Central Utah Wool Company, one of the firm of L. T.
Tuttle & Co., a member of the City Council, and an active charter member of the A. 0. U. W.
Frank and Louis Tuttle are both substantial business men and have prospered as
merchants, farmers and wool-growers.
ROBERT PIXTON.
[S soldier and early colonizer the name of Robert Pixton finds its place in the history
of the founders of this commonwealth. He was a native of England, born in the
city of Manchester, February 27, 1819. His parents were George and Mary Pixton,
but of his youthful life, schooling, occupation, or the occupation and condition of his par-
ents, we are not informed. He was but nineteen years old when he married, and but
twenty-one when he determined to try his fortunes in the New World.
Leaving his family in England, he took passage on the ship "Tapseot," which carried
across the Atlantic a company of Latter-day Saints. Becoming acquainted with some
of them, he resolved to go to Nauvoo, where in the year 1S42 he was baptized by Elder
Thomas Bateman, and cast in his lot with the Mormon people. His family followed him
to America, reaching Nauvoo in 1843, and there they continued to reside until the
exodus. Mr. Pixton hired out to President Brigham Young, to drive an ox team
to Sugar Creek, and from that point returned to Nauvoo, and started with his family
for the West.
While they were traveling between Garden Grove and Mount Pisgah the call came
from the government for five hundred able-bodied men to aid in the war against Mexico.
Robert Pixton volunteered, and thus became one of the famous Mormon Battalion,
sharing the long forced inarches and other severe experiences of those heroic men, and
receiving an honorable discharge, with his comrades, in California. There he remained
divring the winter of 1847-8. He testifies to the first discovery of gold in that land, though
not by the renowned Mr. Marshall, but by a Mr. Willis, one of the Battalion boys, while
digging a mill-race for Captain Sutter.
Mr. Pixton arrived in Salt Lake valley October 4, 1848, and here found his family, who
had arrived a week before. His wife Elizabeth, like others of those early heroines, had driven
an ox team across the plains from the Missouri river. They settled at Salt Lake City and
lived here until 1862, when the head of the house was called on a mission to Europe.
After an absence of three and a half years, he returned, and soon was called to go and
settle in '"Dixie" and help build up Southern Utah. Later he came back to Salt Lake
county, settling at Taylorsville, where he departed this life November 26, 1881.
He was a man much respected for faithfulness to duty and for his well known honesty
and integrity.
HENRY PHINEHAS RICHARDS.
•-NOLONEL HENRY P. RICHARDS, son of Phinehas and Wealthy Dewey Richards,
(€/ was born at Richmond, Berkshire county, Massachusetts, November 30, 1831. He
^ was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when eight
years of age, and in 1843 emigrated with his father's family to Nauvoo, Illinois.
He left that place in the general exodus of the Church, May 19, 1846, and spent the win-
ter of 1847-8 at Winter Quarters on the Missouri river. On the 3rd of July following he
resumed his journey westward, arriving in Salt Lake valley on the 19th of October. Dur-
ing this journey he drove an ox-team for a Mrs. Moss, whose husband was on a mission
to England. He had charge of two teams all the way across the plains. He stood guard
every third night for half the night, and not being of a robust constitution, many times
he felt that he would have to succumb to the hardships and fatigues of the journey.
For a number of years after his arrival in the valley he labored for the support of
his parents. While yet in his "teens," he was officially connected in a modest way with
the Provisional Government of Deseret, being messenger of the House of Representa-
tives during the first two sessions.
In the winter of 1850 he took an active part in organizing a dramatic company, "the
first one west of the Missouri river,'' and played in the opening piece presented by it,
namely, "The Triumph of Innocence,'" produced at the "Old Bowery" on Temple Block.
A brief account of this pioneer dramatic organization and Mr. Richards' connection with
it, is given in the second volume of this history, where the gentleman's portrait also
appears.
On December 30, 1852, Henry P. Richards was united in marriage with Margaret
Minerva Empey, daughter of William A. Empey, one of the Utah Pioneers, and sister to
Nelson A. Empey, the present Bishop of the Thirteenth Ward, Salt Lake City. Presi-
dent Willard Richards, the bridegroom's uncle, performed the marriage ceremony.
Henry was now an Elder of the Church, but on the 17th of April, 1854, he was or-
dained a Seventy, under the hands of President Joseph Young, Sr., and became identified
with the Eighth Quorum. On the oth of May following he started with eighteen other
Elders on a mission to the Hawaiian Islands, traveling the southern route by team to
California, and in due time reaching his destination. He readily acquired a knowledge
of the native tongue, and labored successfully on the Islands of Hawaii, Maui, Molokai,
Lanai, Oahu and Kanai. During his absence from home his eldest child, a daughter, was
born, June 11, 1854; consequently she was nearly three-and-a-half years old before her
father had the privilege of seeing her. She was named for him, Henrietta, and is now
Mrs. Oliver Ostler.
Some months after his return from his mission, and upon the approach of Johnston's
army, Mr. Richards moved south to Provo, where his family remained until the fugitive
people generally returned to their homes. He had not arrived from the Islands in time
to take part in the military operations in and around Echo Canyon, but he afterwards
became quite prominently connected with the "Nauvoo Legion,'' as the Utah militia was
then styled. On August 21, 1865, he was commissioned by Acting-Governor Amos Reed
quartermaster and commissary of the Second Brigade, First Division, and on July 13,
1866, was commissioned by Governor Charles Durkee first aid-de-camp on the staff of the
commander of that brigade, with the rank of colonel of infantry; having previously held
the rank of lieutenant colonel.
He also arose ecclesiastically. On the 11th of September, 1869, he was made one of
the Presidents of the Eighth Quorum of Seventy, which position he held until May 9,
1873, when he was ordained a High Priest and set apart as an alternate High Councilor
of the Salt Lake Stake of Zion. This ordination was under the hands of President
Joseph F. Smith and the Stake Presidency. On September 8, 1890, he was enrolled as a
regular member of the High Council, which position he still holds.
At the semi-annual conference of the Church in October, 1876, he was called to take
a second mission to the Sandwich Islands, and on the 27th of the ensuing December left
his home to fulfill the duty assigned him. At San Francisco he took passage on the
steamship "City of New York" and arrived at Honolulu January 12, 1877. Again he
labored on all the principal islands, and met with many old friends and acquaintances
whom he had known nearly a quarter of a century before. He also had several inter-
15
218 HISTORY OF UTAH.
views with the king concerning the unjust treatment of Mormon Elders in that land by
some of the officials of the government. His Majesty, without reserve, expressed his
desire that the Elders should enjoy all the rights and privileges enjoyed by ministers of
other denominations. Elder Richards presented the Queen, Kapiolani, with a hand-
somely bound volume of the Book of Mormon, published in her own language. He also
traveled a short time with Her Majesty on the island of Hawaii, partaking of her hospi-
tality, and assisting her on different occasions in organizing her "Hoola Hooulu Lahui,"
an organization similar to the Relief Society of the Latter-day Saints.
While staying a short time at Laie, on Oahu, the native assessor and collector of
the district assessed a personal tax against Elder Richards, as he had usually done
against other Mormon missionaries, notwithstanding a law exempting Christian ministers
of all denominations regularly engaged in their vocation. He refused to pay the tax
(five dollars) on these grounds, and was arrested and arraigned before the native judge,
who decided that he would have to pay it, as he did not consider him a Christian minister.
An appeal was taken and the case heard by Judge McCully, of the supreme court of the
kingdom, the attorney- general of the crown prosecuting. The decision of the lower
court was reversed, and the case decided in favor of Elder Richards, thereby placing him
and his brethren on an equal footing before the law with ministers of other denomina-
tions. He also had several interviews with his Excellency, J. Mott Smith, minister of
the interior, and was successful in allaying much prejudice in relation to the marriage
question. He procured a license to solemnize marriages throughout the kingdom, which
privilege had not been granted to the Mormon Elders for many years, and the withholding
of which had worked great inconvenience and hardship; on several occasions, when
members of the Church had applied to ministers of other denominations to unite them in
marriage, they had refused to do so unless they would renounce their religion. This mis-
sion was of about two-and-a-half years duration, and when he returned to Utah Elder
Richards brought four natives of the Islands with him.
In the Sunday School cause he was for many years a diligent and devoted worker
connected with it almost from the time that Sabbath Schools were first organized at Salt
Lake City. In the Fourteenth Ward, where he then resided, he filled successively the
positions of teacher, secretary, assistant superintendent and finally superintendent of the
Sunday School; holding the last-named position for nearly eight years from June, 1881.
During much of this period he served as a trustee of the school district, first elected July
10, 1882, re-elected in July, 1885, and serving in all six years.
Mr. Richards is naturally inclined to mercantile pursuits, and while at home, during
a period of thirty-five years, has been actively engaged in that direction. He was for
many years a leading salesman of Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institution, and for
some time at the head of the wholesale dry goods department. He has held similar posi-
tions of trust and responsibility in other leading houses of Salt Lake City. He is a re-
fined and courteous gentleman, genial in manner and disposition and readily makes
friends and retains them. In April, 1898, he was appointed oil and food inspector and
assistant sanitary inspector of Salt Lake City, and held that office for a number of years.
Mr. and Mrs. Richards are the parents of eight children, named as follows: Henrietta,
Mary Ann, Joseph Henry, Minerva, William Phinehas, Nelson Alonzo, Henry Willard
and Emma Wealthy. Of these, Joseph, Nelson, Henry and Emma are dead. Henrietta,
as stated, is now Mrs. Oliver Ostler; Mary Ann is Mrs. Alonzo Young; and Minerva,
Mrs. Richard W. Young. For some years Colonel Richards has resided on Second Street,
in the Eighteenth Ward, where he built a new home after selling to advantage his prop-
erty in the Fourteenth Ward.
DANIEL HENRIE.
<J~N ANIEL HENRIE was a member of the Mormon Battalion, and is a veteran of three
pi Indian wars. He was born in Miami Township, Hamilton county, Ohio,
^^ November 15, 1825. His parents were William and Myra Mayall Henrie. The
Henries were from Virginia, and were reputedly of Revolutionary stock. His
father's family, having become Latter-day Saints, moved to Nauvoo in 1842. There they
/> (xyvujJ^ /HaaAAJL^
HISTORY OF UTAH. 219
secured eighty acres of land, and had settled down to make a comfortable living when
came the exodus of 1S46.
At Council Bluffs, in July of that year, Daniel Henrie, then in his twenty-first
year, enlisted in the Mormon Battalion, and was one of those who performed the un-
paralleled infantry march so highly eulogized by their commander, Colonel Cooke, of
the United States regular arrny. He, it seems, was not the only officer who appreciated the
achievements of the Battalion. Says Henrie: "'General Kearney told us that Napoleon
Bonaparte crossed the Alps, but that we had done more, for we had crossed a continent."
He remained in California until July 16, 1849 — the anniversary of his enlistment three
years before — and then started for Utah in a company led by Captain Thomas Rhoades.
Here he decided to enter the state of wedlock, and on the 29th of October, the same
j-ear, he married Amanda Braby. The young couple took up their residence at Bountiful,
but soon after their marriage started for Mauti, Sanpete county, on a visit to Mrs.
Henrie's parents, who had settled in that part the year previous. They were detained a
week at Provo by the Indian troubles then prevailing there, and during the rest of the
journey southward encountered severe snowstorms, which greatly impeded travel and
barely permitted them to reach their destination by means of snowshoes and hand-sleds
utilized for the purpose. The snow was from two-and-a-half to fifteen feet deep, the
latter in the banks and drifts. That winter the people of Manti lost about half their cattle,
some of them, every hoof, on account of the deep snows and terrible storms. In April Mr.
Henrie returned to his home in Davis county, his progress northward through melting snows
and rivers of mud being quite as toilsome as his journey south had been. Soon after-
wards he returned to Manti. where he and his family have ever since resided.
During the Sanpete Indian wars he did yeoman service, fighting back the hostile
redskins and building forts as a protection against their ravages. He moved four times
in Manti and helped to build as many forts. He was captain of Company "A," Second
Infantry, Nauvoo Legion. For thirty-five years he was senior president of the -ISth quorum
of Seventies, and held the office of a Seventy some years prior to his presiding appoint-
ment, but at the present time he is one of the presidency of the High Priests' quorum of
Sanpete stake. He is the father of eighteen children, most of whom, including eight
sons, are living.
MEN OF AFFAIRS.
LORENZO SNOW.
eORENZO SNOW, the fifth President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints, and one of the greatest financiers that Mormonism has produced, was a
native of the State of Ohio, born at Mantua, Portage county, April 3, 1814, His
father, Oliver Snow, was from Massachusetts, and his mother, Rosetta L. Pettibone
Snow, from Connecticut. Lorenzo was their eldest son. He was reared with the rest
of his fathers family upon a farm, and from childhood exhibited energy and decision of
character. While yet a boy, his sire being much away on public'business, he was frequently
left in charge of affairs, and became accustomed to responsibilities, which he discharged
with scrupulous punctuality. Pond of books, he was ever a student, whether at home or
abroad. Springing from a Puritanic and patriotic ancestry, he inherited reverence for
the Supreme Being and love of liberty and country as a birthright. His earliest ambition
was to be a soldier, not because he loved strife, but was charmed with the romance and
chivalry of a military career. He held a commission from the Governor of Ohio, first
as an ensign and afterwards as a lieutenant in the State militia.
Religiously trained by pious Baptist parents, up to the age of twenty-two he professed
no particular faith. Upon attaining his majority, desirous of a classic education, he
entered Oberlin College, at that time exclusively a Presbyterian institution, to which he was
admitted as a special favor through the influence of an intimate friend connected
therewith. He remained impervious to the teachings of orthodox Christianity, but in
June, 1830, having visited Kirtland, the headquarters of the Latter-day Saints, to see
his sister Eliza, a recent convert to Mormonism, and complete his classical course in the
Hebrew school founded by the Prophet Joseph Smith, he was himself converted to the
faith. Baptism was administered to him by John F. Boynton, one of the Twelve
Apostles.
As an Elder of the Church Lorenzo Snow, early in 1837, preached among his
relatives and friends in Ohio. In the spring of 1S38 he moved with his parents, who had
also become Latter-day Saints, to Missouri, whither the Mormon people were then
migrating. He was on a mission to Kentucky when they were driven into Illinois, and
it was at their new city, Nauvoo, in Hancock county, that he rejoined them about the
first of May, 1840. The same month he started upon his first mission to Europe.
While in England he became successively President of the London Conference and
one of the presidency of the European Mission, the latter by appointment of Parley P.
Pratt, who was just retiring from the presidency. In the former capacity it fell to his
lot to present to her Majesty, Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort two handsomely
bound copies of the Book of Mormon, specially prepared for that purpose under the
direction of President Brigham Young prior to his return to America in'1841. The
presentation was made through the politeness of Sir Henry Wheatley. At the head of
a large company of emigrating Saints Elder Snow arrived at Nauvoo in April, 1843.
Soon after his return he was taught by the Prophet, who had married his sister,
Eliza R. Snow, as a plural wife, the principle of celestial marriage. In obedience to
this principle, Lorenzo wedded two wives simultaneously, Mary Adaline Goddard and
Charlotte Squires, and while still at Nauvoo added two others to his household — Sarah Ann
Priehard and Harriet Amelia Squires. There he taught school, was a captain in the Legion,
and one of an expedition appointed to explore California and Oregon, with a view to finding
a home for the Saints, beyond the Rocky mountains. This expedition never left Nauvoo,
being detained by the troubles preceding the Prophet's martyrdom. In the Presidential
campaign of 1844 he electioneered in Ohio for the Prophet, who was a candiate for the
nation's chief magistracy.
In the exodus of 1840 he was captain of ten wagons, and in the general emigration
of 1848 captain of a hundred in the great company led by President Brigham Young
from the Missouri river to Salt Lake valley. His fifth wife, Eleanor Houtz, was married
to him by President Young the day they left the Elk Horn. Three children were born to
224 HISTORY OF UTAH.
him, and one of them died, during the exodus. In their mountain home the Snow family
passed through the usual pioneer experiences, living in log huts, subsisting on roots,
and rawhides, mingled with short rations of flour, in the early days of privation and
poverty.
Lorenzo Snow was called to the Apostleship, February 12, 1849. He was ordained
under the hands of the First Presidency — Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball and Willard
Richards— assisted by Parley P. Pratt and John Taylor, two of the quorum of the Twelve.
At the same time Charles C. Rich, Erastus Snow and Franklin D. Richards were made
Apostles. In October of the same year he was appointed to establish a mission in Italy
and adjacent countries, and thus was one of the first missionaries sent out from the
Rocky mountains. Traversing again the Indian-infested plains, he made his way to Liver-
pool, and thence to his continental destination.
On the 25th of November, 1850, Apostle Snow, with three other Elders — Joseph
Toronto, T. B. H. Stenhouse and Jabez Woodard — organized the Italian Mission on the
summit of a snow-crowned peak overlooking the valley of Piedmont. His first converts
were among the Waldenses. From there the work spread to Switzerland and other
parts. He caused the Book of Mormon and several pamphlets he had written to be
translated and published in Italian, and wrote home a series of letters descriptive of Italy
and the Italian Mission. Having established Mormonism in the land of the Caesars and
the land of William Tell, he turned his attention to the East, sending Elders to Calcutta
and Bombay, and making arrangements for a missionary to labor on the island of Malta.
He then started for India, but was detained at Malta by an accident to his ship, and
being under instructions from Utah to return in time to take part in the ceremony of
laying the corner stones of the Salt Lake Temple, was compelled to forego his design
of visiting the far East and returning home over the waters of the Pacific. By way of
Gibraltar, Portsmouth, London, Liverpool, New York and St. Louis, he reached Salt
Lake City in July, 1852.
His next achievement was the founding of Brigham City, on the site of which a small
settlement had been formed, but was greatly in need of reinforcement, and of govern-
ment by a master spirit, such as now came to it in the person of this zealous and ener-
getic Apostle. Taking with him a company of fifty families, he settled there in the fall
of 1853. He was the first president of Box Elder stake, an office held by him until
August, 1877, when he was honorably released and his eldest son, Oliver Goddard Snow,
chosen in his stead. When the county was organized he represented it in the Legislature,
to which he had been first elected in 1852, while yet a resident of Salt Lake City. The
northern district repi-esented by him comprised the counties of Box Elder and Weber.
For thirty years he was continuously a member of the Legislature, and during about twelve
years presided over the Council branch of the Assembly.
Apostle Snow was within three days of his fiftieth anniversary when he met with an
almost fatal accident. He was drowned in the Pacific Ocean, at the island of Maui, one
of the Hawaiian group, March 31, 1864. The mishap occurred as follows: In company
with Apostle Ezra T. Benson, Elders Joseph F. Smith, William W. Cluff and Alma L.
Smith, he was sent to the Islands to set in order the affairs of the Hawaiian Mission,
which had become sadly demoralized through the nefarious operations of an apostate
named Walter M. Gibson. This man, an American Elder, had gone to the Islands
and imposed himself upon the unsuspecting native Saints (left without guidance from
Utah since the Echo Canyon war period) as a spiritual and temporal ruler, to whom they
must pay abject homage. He had organized the Church according to his own schemes
for personal aggrandisement, had ordained Apostles, High Priests and Elders, charging
them heavy fees for their ordinations, and with the means thus obtained had purchased
one half the island of Lanai, where he had gathered the Saints into a sort of theocratic
kingdom, of which he was the ruling power, falsely claiming to be authorized by and
yet superior to President Brigham Young. It was to correct this condition of affairs
(reported by certain native Elders in a letter to the general authorities) that Apostle
Snow and his brethren went forth. Leaving Utah by stage about March 1st, and sailing
from San Francisco, they arrived at Honolulu about the 27th of that month. Sailing
thence two days later, their bark, the schooner "Nettie Merrill," came to anchor on the
morning of the 31st about a mile from the mouth of the little harbor of Lahaina. The
sea was rather rough, especially at the mouth of the harbor — a narrow passage between
coral reefs — and in attempting to land, the ship's small boat, containing Messrs. Snow,
Benson, Cluff, Alma L. Smith, the .captain and several native passengers and sailors,
was capsized into the foaming surf. Apostle Snow and the captain were drowned, but
were taken from the waves, and after protracted and persistent labor resuscitated. A
HISTORY OF UTAH. 225
peculiar and ingenious process was employed in the Apostle's restoration. Rolled upon
a barrel until all the water he had swallowed was ejected, he showed no signs of life,
until those in attendance upon him, his fellow missionaries, had placed their mouths to his
and inflated his lungs, inhaling and exhaling in imitation of natural respiration. (See
biography of William Wallace Cluff). By this means he was gradually brought back to
consciousness. He and his brethren successfully accomplished their mission. They cut
Gibson off the Church, after vainly endeavoring to win him to repentance, and regulated
the affairs of the mission so seriously disturbed by him. Leaving Elder Joseph F. Smith
to preside in that land, with Elders William W. Cluff and Alma L. Smith as his assis-
tants, the two Apostles returned to Utah.
Soon after his return Lorenzo Snow entered upon his great work of organizing
the Brigham City Mercantile and Manufacturing Association, otherwise known as the
United Order of Brigham City. It began with a small mercantile business, in which
were four stockholders, including himself, with a capital of about three thousand dollars,
upon which dividends were paid in merchandise, amounting usually to about twenty-
five per cent per annum. As the enterprise prospered, they continued receiving capital
stock and adding new names as stockholders, until they had a surplus capital and
had succeeded in uniting the interests of the people and securing their patronage. Then
followed the establishment of home industries, a score or more of which sprang into
existence, each paying dividends in the articles produced. Hundreds of people were
furnished with employment, new, substantial and commodious buildings were erected
for the various departments, and everything was moving prosperously with the great and
growing concern, when a series of disasters — fire, vexatious law suits, illegal and oppres-
sive taxation, etc. — put a stop to the progress of the Order and in the end worked its
downfall. How the scrip of the association, with that of Z. C. M. L, was heavily
taxed by the U. S. Revenue Collector, Colonel O. J. Hollister — whose action was after-
wards reversed by the Supreme Court of the nation — has been told in another place.
The success of the magnificent enterprise during the twenty years of its existence, will
ever stand as a monument to the practical genius, industrial thrift and business sagacity
of its founder. It is not too much to say that the fictitious achievements of M. Madeleine,
Mayor of M. Sur M — , as portrayed by Victor Hugo in "Les Miserables" — found a
historical parallel in the actual achievements of President Lorenzo Snow, head of the
United Order of Brigham City.
In October, 1872, he started upon a special mission to Palestine, accompanying President
George A. Smith and party, for the purpose of dedicating that land for the return of the
Jews. The party included President Snow's sister, Eliza R. Snow Smith, and other
prominent citizens of Salt Lake City. They passed through Great Britain to the
continent, called upon M. Thiers, president of the French Republic, and then proceeded
on to Egypt and the Orient. Having accomplished their mission, they returned by way
of Constantinople, Athens and Vienna to England, and thence home. The correspond-
ence of these tourists, much of which was furnished by the Apostle Lorenzo, is a classic
contribution to Mormon literature. While at the Vienna World's Fair, early in 1873, he
received word of his appointment as assistant counselor to President Brigham Young.
He was busy during the next decade with the multifarious home duties devolving
upon him.
The seventieth anniversary of the Apostle's birth, April 3, 1884, was made
memorable by a grand family reunion at Brighan City. The members of the Snow
family present, including wives, children, grandchildren and married connections,
numbered about one hundred and twenty-five. In addition to his wives who have been
named he had married since coming to Utah four others, namely, Caroline Horton, Mary
Elizabeth Houtz, Phebe Amelia Woodruff and Minnie Jensen. His wives Charlotte and
Caroline were dead, and most of the others, like himself, were now far advanced in years.
He acknowledged and supported them all, but was living with only one wife — out of
deference to the requirements of the Edmunds law — when the anti-polygamy crusade
under that statute began. He had been laboring as a missionary among the Indians of
Idaho, Wyoming and other parts, and had recently returned from one of these trips and
was resting quietly at his home in Brigham City, when suddenly he was pounced upon
by seven deputy marshals and made a prisoner. The deputies, who had driven from
Ogden during the night, surrounded the Apostle's home just before day-break, No-
vember 20, 1885. Ransacking the house from cellar to garret, they finally discovered
the object of their quest in an ingeniously planned retreat, and took him into custody.
The details of his arrest, his subsequent trials and convictions — three times for one
alleged offense — his eleven months imprisonment, his refusal of Governor West's offer
226 HISTORY OF UTAH.
of amnesty, made on condition that he would obey a law aimed at a principle of his re-
ligion, and his eventual release from the penitentiary by a decision of the court of last
resort, shattering the illegal doctrine of "segregation," under which his triple sentence
had been imposed, are all familiar facts of history and are related elsewhere. The date
of his sentence by Judge Powers in the First District Court at Ogden was January 16,
1886; the date of his deliverance from prison, February 8, 1887.
The accession of Wilford Woodruff to the Presidency of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints, April 6, 1889, made Lorenzo Snow the senior in the council
of the Twelve Apostles, and on the same day he was sustained as president of that
body. This position he held until September 13, 1898, eleven days after the death of
President Woodruff, when he succeeded him at the head of the Church. He chose as
his counselors George Q. Cannon and Joseph F. Smith, who had been the counselors
of his two predecessors. Since the dedication of the Salt Lake Temple, in April, 1893,
in which he took an active and prominent part, he had been its president, and had
previously served as one of the Logan Temple committee, until the completion of that
edifice in May, 1884.
President Snow's first moves were largely of a financial character, designed to
relieve the Church of the heavy burden of debt that had rested upon it since the con-
fiscation of its property under the Edmunds-Tucker act, in the latter part of the
"eighties." As Trustee-in-Trust he authorized two bond issues, aggregating a million
dollars, and with the means thus obtained — almost entirely from home capitalists —
paid the Church's most pressing obligations and materially reduced the rate of interest
it was paying upon borrowed money.
This done, he threw his soul into a movement, one of the most notable in the
history of the Church, and which may be designated as a revival and reform in the
observance of the law of tithing by its members. It began in May, 1899. Proceed-
ing with a large party to St. George, at the extreme southern end of the State, he there
proclaimed as the word of the Lord to the Latter-day Saints that if they would continue
to reap the fruition of His promises of peace and prosperity, they must obey the divine
law in relation to tithes and offerings. Past remissness would be forgiven, if the future
witnessed a faithful observance of the statute, and heaven would shower its blessings
more abundantly than ever upon them; out if the law were not honored, calamities would
come and the people would be scourged for their disobedience. He gave them to under-
stand that they were to pay their tithing, not because it would get the Church out of
debt — which was merely an incident — but because it was the law of the Lord and must be
obeyed. Other speakers took up the theme, and it was echoed and re-echoed throughout
the region. From St. George the great reformatory wave rolled northward, thronged
meetings, characterized by great enthusiasm, being held at all principal points south and
north of Salt Lake City, and subsequently wherever the Saints had settlements. One of
the gatherings was a great fast-meeting of the Priesthood, held in the Salt Lake Temple
in the summer of that year. The effect of the movement was instantaneous. Tithes and
offerings came pouring in with a promptness and plenitude unknown for years, and in
many ways the Church's condition improved and its prospects brightened. President
Snow had previously possessed the love and confidence of his people, and now these good
feelings were increased and intensified.
A pleasant little episode, preceding this reform movement, was the visit of President
Snow and his counselors to the Trans- Mississippi Exposition at Omaha, where they were
received with kindest courtesy by the officials in charge, and on the 20th of October —
"Utah day'' — were invited to address the multitude assembled upon the Fair grounds.
Among other courtesies of which President Snow was subsequently the recipient was an
invitation to contribute an article on the past, present and future of Mormonism to the
Land of Sunshine," a California magazine of merit and influence, since published under
its new name of "Out West.'' The article, entitled "Mormonism— What it has done —
What it is doing — What it aims to do," was duly furnished and published, and was copied
by many other periodicals throughout the United States. Just before the article ap-
peared in print, the venerable leader was stricken with his fatal illness.
At the opening of the year 1899 President Snow put his name as Trustee-in-Trust at
the head of the Deseret News, the official organ of the Church, whose plant had been
leased temporarily to a local publishing company. Since that time the Church has con-
tinued its management of the pioneer journal, then reassumed; with Charles W. Penrose
as editor and Horace G. Whitney as business manager. Under President Snow's adminis-
tration a new home for the "News" was built upon the corner once occupied by the
Council House, at the intersection of Main and South Temple Streets. It is conceded to
HISTORY OP UTAH. 227
be the handsomest and best business block in Salt Lake City. President Snow took up
his abode in the Bee Hive House, formerly owned and occupied by President Young. As
a result of his accession to the Presidency of the Church he became the head of Zion's
Co-operative Mercantile Institution and of Zion's Saving's Bank and Trust Company. As
a matter of course he was a stockholder in Z. C. M. I. and had holdings in other prom-
inent business concerns.
His death occurred at 3:35 p. m., Thursday, October 10, 1901. It was due to an
attack of bronchitis, caused by a severe cold, which had troubled him for several weeks.
His last appearance in public was on the previous Sunday, in the afternoon of which he
attended the General Conference, and spoke for a short time, though with difficulty. The
end came virtually without warning, and startled the whole community by its suddenness.
President Snow's mentality was a rare and varied combination. He was a natural
financier, and at the same time a spiritually minded man. of literary tastes and poetic tem-
perament. He was not sanctimonious, but at the same time was a pattern of piety, an
exemplary Christian gentleman, zealous, devoted, broad-minded and charitable. No
tyrant, but a man of firm will, prompt in deciding, fearless and thorough in executing;
no politician, yet wisely politic. Shrewd and sagacious, no one ever imposed upon him
without his knowing it, and few cared to impose upon him twice. Bland and soft spoken
as a rule, he could be stern, and was plain and straightforward in expressing his views,
though ever deferential to his superiors. Once convinced that he was correct, he adhered
to his idea with inflexible resolution. He did not purposely make enemies, but neither
did he fear them, "When I know I am right, I would as lief have some enemies as not,"
was one of his characteristic sayings. Another: "I do not want this administration to be
known as Lorenzo Snow's administration, but as God's, through Loi-enzo Snow." While
spirited and independent, he was not combative, but was essentially a man of peace, a
humanitarian. In his public discourses he spoke straight to the point, and his manner
and diction were entirely without ostentation.
There was not in all Utah, nor in the entire West a more interesting personality. In
the eighty-eighth year of his age, his past life crowded with stirring events, he remained
up to within a few weeks of his death in comparatively sound health, with powers of
mind and body unimpaired, a physical and mental marvel, an embodiment of calm hope
and cheerfulness serene. Placidity of mind, even in the midst of trouble and danger,
was characteristic of President Snow. He made the best of every situation, and adapted
himself readily to his surroundings, however uncomfortable and oppressive they might
be; holding it to be the part of true wisdom, the optimistic stoicism expected of a Saint,
to seek to derive from every condition the knowledge and discipline which the All-wise
Dispenser of human affairs intended it to bestow. He owed to this faculty and dispo-
sition, as much as to his virtuous and temperate life, that remarkable perpetuation of
youthful vigor which, as a gulf stream in the Arctic waters of his life, softened and tem-
pered for him the frostiness of advancing age.
JOSEPH FIELDING SMITH.
"•7" J PON no other man in Utah rests such a burden of public business and responsibility
Igl as upon the Trustee-in-Trust of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
^"^ The present incumbent of that office, who is also the President of the Church, is
the name-sake nephew of the martyred Prophet Joseph Smith, and a son of the
Patriarch Hyrum Smith, who was his fellow victim in the mournful tragedy at Carthage.
Among all the stalwarts of the Church, past and present, few if any are recognized as
stronger characters than the subject of this story. He is strong because he is honest,
brave and determined, and has behind him a record of unblemished integrity, of unflinch-
ing and unflagging devotion to duty. These qualities, added to his higli position and illus-
trious lineage, give him a prestige with his people absolutely unrivalled at the present
time. It is as a citizen and a business man, rather than an ecelesiast, that this writing
should speak of him, yet so intimately interwoven are these two phases of his career, that
it would be next to impossible to separate them.
Joseph F. Smith was born at Far West, Caldwell county, Missouri, November 13,
228 HISTORY OF UTAH.
1838. His mother, whose maiden name was Mary Fielding, was a native of Huntingtdon-
shire, England, who had followed her brother Joseph and her sister Mercy to Canada,
late in the "twenties," and with them had been converted to Mormonism by Parley P.
Pratt, at or near the town of Toronto. She was married to Hyruni Smith in December,
1837 — his first wife, Jerusha Bardon, having died previously — and assuming the full care
of his five motherless children she accompanied him from Ohio to Missouri, where the
main body of the Church was then settling. She was a woman of heroic soul, and had
need to be, for heavy were the trials awaiting her. She was about to become a mother
when the anti-Mormon troubles in Caldwell county arose, and the mob forces, trans-
formed into State militia by Governor Boggs, moved against the doomed city of Far West.
Her child was born only eleven days after she had passed through a most painful experi-
ence— an enforced parting with her husband, who at the surrender of the city was be-
trayed, with his brother the Prophet and other Church leaders, into the hands of their
enemies, court-martialed and sentenced to be shot. Through the humane heroism of
General Doniphan, one of the Missourian officers, who denounced the proposed deed as
cold-blooded murder and threatened to withdraw his troops from the scene, the sanguin-
ary edict was rescinded; but Hyrum Smith was still a prisoner, in the shadow of death,
when his infant son, Joseph F., came into the world.
And what a world, could those innocent eyes have surveyed it at that moment ! A
father in prison for the Gospel's sake, the mother prostrate in her humble cabin home;
on every side the glitter of hostile swords and bayonets, and far around the smoking
smouldering ruins of ravaged fields and homesteads. Some of the mobbing plundeiers,
while sacking the defenseless city, rudely thrust themselves into the sick woman's pres-
ence, and in their reckless search for articles of value, pulled a bed to pieces, tossing the
matti-ess upon another bed where the babe lay sleeping. The little fellow was almost
smothered, when, black in the face, he was rescued from his perilous position. What
wonder if some of the iron of those times entered into the soul of the child, nursing from
his mother's breast a wholesome hatred of mobs and tyranny that never has been and
never will be quenched !
In the exodus of the persecuted people from Missouri, Joseph was taken by his
mother, with the rest of the children, toQuincy, Illinois, where, early in 1839, the husband
and father, escaping from captivity, rejoined them. They soon moved to Commerce,
which became Nauvoo, and it was there that Joseph's early boyhood was passed. There
he attended school, taught successively by Miss Marilla Johnson, Miss Hulda Barnes and
James Monroe. Miss Barnes, who afterwards married Heber C. Kimball, kept school in
a brick office owned and used by Joseph's father as Patriarch of the Church. He well
remembers his sire, his uncle Joseph, and the last lime that he looked upon them alive,
at his mother's home, just before they set out for Carthage to surrender themselves into
the power of those who had decreed their destruction. The Prophet, taking his little
nephew on his knee, said to Hyrum, "What makes Joseph so pale ?'' "It's his nature, I
presume," answered the father. As a child his skin was unusually white, almost pallid,
and yet he was perfectly healthy, with the promise of a strong physique wrapped up in
his sturdy frame. His early paleness he attributes to the fact that during the first five
years of his life he took no nourishment but milk, having a distaste for any other kind of
food. He attended the funeral of the martyrs, and recalls very vividly the agony of his
Aunt Emma, who swooned at beholding the bullet-pierced body of her husband. His
mother's sorrow, though deep, was not so demonstrative.
The family of Hyrum Smith were unprepared to leave Nauvoo with the first com-
panies that started in the exodus of 1846; all save John, Joseph F.'s elder brother, now the
Church Patriarch, who accompanied Heber C. Kimball to the Missouri river. In Septem-
ber following the widow and her family, taking what household effects were moveable,
crossed the Mississippi in a flat-boat, towed by a skiff, and camped on the Iowa side, a
little below the town of Montrose. With no covering but the sky and the clouds that ever
and anon drenched them with the early autumnal showers, they witnessed from afar the
bambardment and gallant defense of Nauvoo, which was then being besieged by an over-
whelming mob force, and fell a prey to the brutal Broekman and his so-called "regu-
lators,'' who summarily expelled the remnant of the Saints from the city. At their Iowa
camp the Smith family remained only long enough to secure an outfit for the journey west-
ward. The mother, who was a smart business woman, soon had matters arranged. With her
brother, Joseph Fielding, she went to the towns down the river, where they exchanged real
estate and improvements in Hancock county for teams, wagons and provisions. Herself
driving one of the teams, the boy Joseph riding a pony and bringing up the loose stock of
the little company, they proceeded on toward the Missouri river, meeting on the way her
HISTORY OF UTAH. 229
son John, who returned with them to Winter Quarters. As assistants Mrs. Smith had Elijah
Clifford, George Mills and James Lawsou, the last-named connected with the family.
While living at Winter Quarters, where they remained until the spring of 1848,
Joseph made a trip into Missouri with his mother and uncle, to get provisions, driving one
of the teams. He also acted as herd-boy for the family. One day in the fall of 1847 he
was chased and captured by Indians, who swooped down upon him and his fellow herders
and tried to run off their stock. He had no fear, and but one thought relative to the situa-
tion, and that was — "If the cattle are stolen how shall we get to the valley next season?"
The idea appalled him, and he determined to avert at any cost such a calamity. With the
Indians in full pursuit, he forthwith started for the cattle and stampeded them in the di-
rection of home. They were soon beyond probability of capture, but the boy found him-
self hemmed in by the howling savages, who, coming upon him in two bands from oppo-
site directions, rode with him between them for some distance. They were nearly naked
and fiercely painted, but unarmed, save for their riding whips. Finally those behind
rushed upon the lad, lifted him from his pony and dashed him to the ground, where he
lay while the whole hooting cavalcade passed over him. They might have done more, but
no sooner had they unhorsed him than they caught sight of a company of men and teams
going for hay on a hill overlooking the broad ravine where the incident took place. This
caused them to turn and flee. The daring herd-boy was uninjured, and the cattle saved:
for though temporarily lost, they were soon recovered.
The journey to the mountains was resumed the next spring. The Smith family were
organized into one of the companies of fifty wagons belonging to the division of President
Heber C. Kimball. The captain of that fifty, an aged man of rather irritable temper,
finding the widow poorly prepared for the trip in the matter of teams, brusquely advised
her to remain at Winter Quarters until another season. His cold and crabbed manner
wounded the sensitive, high-spirited woman, whose courage and determination, however,
made her equal to the situation. Upon the captain's telling her that if she persisted in
going she would be a burden to the company all the way, she calmly looked him in the eye
and said, "Father , I'll beat you to the valley, and I'll ask no help from you either."
This colloquy occurred on the Elk Horn river, where the emigration was organized. She
forthwith returned to Winter Quarters, borrowed and purchased on time enough cattle for
her needs, and was back upon the Horn in time to roll out with the rest of the com-
pany.
The captain, irritated by her prophetic speech as much as by her persistency, main-
tained his ill nature throughout the journey, and whenever any accident befell nerhe failed
not to remind her of his prediction. She as faithfully remembered her own, and kept on
her way, nothing daunted. One of her oxen, poisoned from eating some wild plant, fell
sick in the yoke and was thought to be dying. All was consternation, but the widow's
firm faith met the occasion. Taking from her wagon a bottle of consecrated oil, she re-
quested the Elders to anoint and administer to the sick ox. They did so, and before
they had taken their hands from its head it arose and went on. A similar incident oc-
cured a few days later. On the Sweetwater they met James Lawson, who had returned
after taking a part of the family to Utah.
Between the Big and the Little mountains, where the company encamped, some of
the widow's cattle strayed, and when the time came to move they had not been found.
The train went on without them. Says President Smith, "I was not then ten years old,
but I remembered my mother's prophecy, and said to myself, as the wagons were wind-
ing their way slowly up the east slope of Little mountain, 'Everything mother said about
this journey has come to pass up to the present, but now the prediction fails; we shall be the
last to enter the valley.' " Not so — that widow's words seemingly had been recorded, and the
very elements charged with the responsibility of their fulfillment. A fierce thunderstorm
suddenly broke over the canyon — a veritable "cloud-burst" — and the rain descended in
torrents. All progress was checked. The cattle were unhitched, the teamsters driven to
shelter, and the wagons blocked on the hillside, waiting for the tempest to subside It
ceased as suddenly as it began, and the sun shone out in all its glory; but before the de-
layed train could again get under way, up came John Smith with the widow's cattle,
which were now quickly yoked to the family wagons. "Shall we wait for the others ?"
asked one. "No,'' said Mrs. Smith, with resolution, "they did not wait for us — we are
under no obligations to wait for them." And with as much dignity as that manifested
by Marshal Ney when, returning from Moscow, ragged, hungry and half frozen, he proud-
ly announced himself as "the rear-guard of the grand army," our heroine rolled past the
belated company, past the wagons of the chagrined and mortified captain, and literally
"beat him into the valley." She arrived at the Old Fort about eleven oclock on the night
230 HISTORY OF UTAH.
of the 23rd of September. Next day was Sunday, and the company eame in at about five
p. m., an hour after the dismissal of the Sabbath services, which the widow and her fam-
ily attended.
A few days later they moved out upon Mill Creek, where they built a log cabin and
lived in it and in their tent and wagons during the winter. When spring came they went
to farming, taking up a piece of land about midway between Mill Creek and Parley's Can-
yon creek. There the widow resided until her death in September, 1852, and thei-e Joseph
"lived with his brother and sisters until 1854, when he went upon his first mission as an
Elder of the Church. He had been baptized a member of it by President Heber C. Kimball
in the fall of 1850. The family left by his mother consisted of himself, his younger sister
Martha (her only children) his brother John and his sisters Lovina, Jerusha and Sarah.
His life up to this time was that of the average Mormon boy; when not at school, tilling
the soil, tending stock, hauling wood from the canyons, and sharing in all the toils and
hardships incident to the colonizing of the wilderness. His schooling at this period was
limited to the winter terms between the fall of 1850 and the spring of 1854, during which
he was taught by various preceptors, among them D. M. Merrick, who was his teacher less
than a month, but from whom he learned more than from all the rest combined. Excep-
tion must be made, however, of his devoted mother, who as long as she lived was his
principal teacher.
He was between fifteen and sixteen years of age when he received his first ordination
in the Priesthood, being ordained an Elder by Apostle George A. Smith, assisted by Elder
James W. Cummings. This was in May, 1854, when he started upon the mission men-
tioned, which was to the Sandwich Islands. He was gone nearly four years, returning in
February, 1858, in time to participate in the closing phases of the "Echo canyon war."
He reported for service to Governor Young the next morning after returning from the
Islands. A sleepless night followed, during which he sat up moulding rifle bullets from
a pig of lead brought by him from a Mormon smelter at Los Vegas. Proceeding to Echo
canyon, he was assigned to Colonel Callister's cavalry command, and was with him and
with Colonel H. P. Kimball up to the time of Governor Cumming's entry into Salt Lake
valley. He followed with a dozen other horsemen as a detail guard, close upon the heels
of his Excellency.
He also accompanied Porter Rockwell and a squad of ten or twelve mounted rangers
out into the hills to watch further movements of the Government troops at Camp Scott.
On this trip they met the peace commissioners, Messrs. Powell and McCullough, and re-
ceived from them copies of President Buchannan's superfluous pardon. They also met
Mr. Morrell, the first Gentile postmaster of Salt Lake City, who was coming to claim
his position; and wrere hospitably entertained by him. They remained in the mountains
until just before Johnston's army marched through Salt Lake City, at which time
Joseph P. Smith was among those on guard in the all but deserted town. His brother
and sisters had gone in the move to Provo, and it was there that he rejoined them after
the "war" was over. In July they all returned to Salt Lake.
The following winter he held his first civic office — that of sergeant-at-arms in the
Council of the Territorial legislature, which met in the Social Hall. Subsequently he
served in the same capacity when the Assembly convened in the Council House. In
the Church he was now a Seventy, having been ordained one in March 1858, under the
hands of Elder George Meyers. In May, 1859, he married, and during the succeeding
summer worked in the western canyons, cutting and hauling poles to fence land over
Jordan. There and at the old homestead he farmed, living alternately at the latter place
and with his aunt, Mrs. Mercy R. Thompson, until he rented a house in the vicinity
where he now resides, on the block south of old Union Square. On the 16th of October,
1859, President Brigham Young ordained him a High Priest and set him apart as a
High Councillor of the Salt Lake Stake of Zion.
In the spring of 1860 he was called upon his first mission to Europe. The company
in which he crossed the plains included Amasa M. Lyman and Charles C. Rich, two of the
Twelve Apostles, with Elders Francis M. Lyman and Walter M. Gibson. The last named,
who only went to the States, he was next to encounter as an apostate in the Sandwich
Islands. All the money the young missionary had at this time was a twenty-dollar gold
piece, given him by President Young just before leaving home. He and his friends
were obliged to borrow money in the East in order to reach their destination. In England
he labored first in the Leeds conference, under Elder Thomas Wallace, whom he
succeeded as pastor of the Sheffield district, comprising the Sheffield, Leeds, Hull and
Lincolnshire conferences, of which he continued in charge until released to return home.
The late President George Q. Cannon was then presiding over the European Mission
HISTORY OF UTAH. 231
(having: succeeded Amasa M. Lyman), and by his invitation Elder Smith accompanied
him on a pleasant sis weeks' tour through the Scandinavian conferences, visiting Copen-
hagen and Aalborg in Denmark and Malnaoe in Sweden.
He crossed the sea, homeward bound, in the summer of 1863, the steamer upon
which he sailed having two narrow escapes — one at night in mid-ocean, when the sound
of a ship's bell in a dense fog barely averted a collision with a sailing vessel; the other
off the Banks of Newfoundland, where the steamer, while delivering the mail at St.
Johns during a thick fog, struck upon a reef, but steamed into safe waters, with nothing
more serious resulting than a grazed keel and a general fright among crew and pas-
sengers. They also came close to icebergs, one of them three miles long and three
hundred feet high, as reported by the captain, after careful observation. At Liverpool
President Cannon had entrusted to Elder Smith his family, Mrs. Elizabeth H. Cannon,
two young ladies and two children, for whom it was expected special accommodations
would be provided for the passage of the plains by the Church emigration agent at New
York City; Elder Smith to have charge of the outfit. The agent, however, failed to
provide it, and sent Mrs. Cannon and her family home in an emigrant company. Her
infant child died during the journey. Elder Smith followed in Captain John Woolley's
company, acting as chaplain. At Green River he joined Lewis Robison and a party
who had come to meet and take charge of a wagon-load of powder, which it was supposed
the troops at Fort Douglas intended to confiscate. The powder was unkegged, sacked
and loaded upon mules, for transportation by another route to Salt Lake, where he arrived
late in September.
His next mission was to the Sandwich Islands, whither he went the next spring
with Ezra T. Benson, Lorenzo Snow, William W. Cluff and Alma L. Smith, for
the purpose of confronting the imposter Walter M. Gibson and putting a stop to his
fraudulent operations among the native Mormon converts; as narrated in the biography
of President Snow. From the deck of the schooner which carried the party from
Honolulu, he witnessed on March 31st the accidental drowning of Apostle Snow in the
rough waters of Lahaina harbor. He had declined to enter the boat with the othei-s, or
to disembark while the waves were running high, as he was familiar with the coast at
that point. Rejoining his brethren on shore he assisted to care for the restored Apostle
until he was well again.
Joseph F. Smith was signally instrumental in loosing the strong hold that Gibson
had acquired over the simple-minded and credulous natives, and in setting right the
affairs of the mission thus demoralized. He addressed the people in their native tongue,
and — to use the language of President Snow — "it seemed impossible for any man to
speak with greater power and demonstration of the Spirit." He also acted as inter-
preter for the Apostles when they addressed the assembled Saints, in reply to Gibson's
preposterous claims. Finding it impossible to reclaim him, they were forced to cut him
off the Church, whose affairs in that land, when the Apostles returned to America, were
placed in charge of Elder Smith, with Elders William W. Cluff and Alma L. Smith as
his assistants. The three made a tour of all the islands, and meantime were joined by
Elders John R. Young and Benjamin Cluff, all working energetically against the Gibson
imposture, and winning back those whom he had deceived. President Smith and his
assistants recommended to President Young by letter the gathering of all the Hawaiian
Saints to one place, where they might be better taught and disciplined in the Gospel and
in industrial pursuits. One of the spots proposed by them was afterwards chosen,
namely, a tract of land which became and now is the sugar plantation of Laie, on the
island of Oahu, the present headquarters of the mission. The men sent from Utah to
purchase this property — Francis A. Hammond and George Nebeker — were met by
President Smith at Sau Francisco, while on his way home early in 1865.
The date of his ordination to the Apostleship was July 1, 1866, at which time he
was filling a clerkship in the Historian's Office, a position given him by President Young
soon after his second return from the Islands. There, as an assistant to his kinsman,
George A. Smith, the Church Historian, he remained for eight years, serving during
the same period as clerk of the Endowment House. He was ordained an Apostle by
President Brigham Young, assisted by the Twelve, but did not become a member of the
Apostolic Council until October, 1867, when he was set apart to take the place previously
occupied by Amasa M. Lyman.
From the spring of 1874 to the fall of 1875, he was absent from home presiding
over the European Mission, from which charge be was released and recalled to Utah on
account of the death of President George A. Smith. He next presided over the Davis
stake of Zion until 1877, when, after attending the dedication of the St. George Temple
232 HISTORY OF UTAH).
in April, he was again sent to Liverpool to preside. Joined there by Orson Pratt, he
visited with him various parts of Great Britain, one object of their tour being the selection of
phonetic type for the publication of the Book of Mormon in the characters of the Pitman
alphabet. In September both were summoned home, owing to the death of President
Young. A year later he accompanied Apostle Pratt to the States, calling upon David
Whitmer and William E. McLellin, the former at Richmond, the latter at Independence,
Missouri; and touching also at Far West, Piano and Kirtland. At New York he wrote
for publication the incidents of the journey, and subsequently delivered in Utah another
fruit of it in the form of an interesting lecture on ' Early Scenes and Incidents of
Church History."
From that time forth he was much in council with President John Taylor, the chief
of the Twelve Apostles, and when on the 10th of October, 1880, the First Presidency
was again organized, he was sustained in General Conference as President Taylor's
second counselor. This office he held until the President's death, July 25, 1887, when he
resumed his former place in the quorum of the Twelve. In April, 1889, he was chosen
second counselor to President Wilford Woodruff, and acted as such until the latter's death,
September 2, 1898. Eleven days later he became second conselor to President Lorenzo
Snow, which position he held until October 6, 1901, when he succeeded President
George Q. Cannon, deceased, as first counselor: Apostle Rudger Clawson being chosen
the second. Four days later occurred the death of President Snow, and on the 17th of
that month Joseph F. Smith succeeded him as the head of the Church, selecting Bishop
John R. Winder and Apostle Anthon H. Lund as his counselors. Thus did this orphan
boy rise step by step, through hardship and privation, by faithful devotion to duty,
from the very bottom to the very top of the ladder of official advancement in the Church
which his martyred father helped to found.
During the latter part of President Taylor's administration — while the anti-polygamy
crusade was at its height — President Smith was absent from home, compelled, with most
of the Church leaders, to "take the underground," owing to the extreme bitterness that
prevailed. From October, 1884, to September, 1891, he was not seen publicly in Utah,
and spent much of this period in the Sandwich Islands, returning just before the death
of President Taylor, whom he attended in exile during his last moments. He then
visited the East, and did much to prepare the way for the changed conditions that have
obtained since the issuance, in September, 1890, of President Woodruff's Manifesto
suspending the practice of plural marriage. President Smith, who has several families,
was one of those who received amnesty from President Harrison, September 10, 1891,
the date of his emergence from "the underground." He has five living wives and
thirty-six living children, and enjoys the love and devotion of his entire family, whose
members are honorable and exemplary without exception.
President Smith's official record is not all ecclesiastical. Under the former regime
he served repeatedly as legislator, city councillor and University regent, with his customary
zeal and efficiency. He was the main mover in securing for Salt Lake City those valu-
able properties, Liberty Park and Pioneer Square, purchased from heirs of the late
President Young. The Mayor and many members of the Council were strongly opposed
to it. but Councillor Smith's arguments prevailed and the purchase was made. When
Union Square was granted by the city to the University, he insisted upon a clause in the
deed, making the property revert to the grantor, if ever used for any but educational
purposes. He was in the city council and in the legislature when the first city bond
issue was authorized, and took the ground that the bonds should be made non-taxable, in
order to keep them at home. The proposition was defeated, and the event justified his
prescience; the bonds being sold in the East. He served seven consecutive terms, from
1865 to 1874, in the House of Representatives, and during the sessions of 1880 and 1882 sat
in the Council of the Legislative Assembly. He was President of the Council in 1882, and
presided over the Constitutional Convention held the same year. His civic labors would
undoubtedly have continued, but for his disqualification under the operations of the
Edmunds law.
In business President Smith is regarded as a safe and careful financier. He has
been prominent for many years as a promoter of mercantile and industrial enterprises.
He assisted to organize Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institution, of which he is now
the head, and has been one of its directors almost from the beginning. Prior to be-
coming president, he was vice-president of that mammoth institution. He was also
active in establishing co-operative stores in Utah, Summit and Sanpete Counties, in-
vesting means in many of them. He is president of Zion's Savings Bank and Trust
Company, and of the State Bank of Utah, both of which he helped to organize. He
HISTORY OF UTAH. 233
was one of the originators of the Utah Sugar Company, over which he presides. He is
president of the Consolidated Wagon and Machine Company, and of the Utah Light and
Power Company, and a director in several other concerns.
In the auxiliary organizations of the Church he is at the head of the Young Men's
Mutual Improvement Association, of the Deseret Sunday School Union and the General
Church Board of Education, and is editorially connected with the "Juvenile Instructor"
and the "Improvement Era," the latter the organ of the young men's cause. As Trustee-
in-Trust he holds the legal title to all the property of the Church and controls its journal-
istic organ, the "Deseret News." Among his numerous responsibilities is the presidency
of the Salt Lake Temple.
In person tall and commanding, President Smith is of powerful physique, and like
his uncle, the Prophet, a natural athlete. Intensely earnest, sensitive and high-spirited,
a foe to everything in the form of oppression, he is a natural champion of the weak and
defenseless. His strongest traits are courage and integrity. He fears no man, and would
die before betraying a friend or sacrificing his religious principles. He is a model hus-
band and father, and his love for family and kindred is proverbial. Hospitable and soci-
able, he is fond of fun in due season, but never allows it to interfere with his duties. He
is a good writer, an entertaining conversationalist, and a wonderfully impressive public
speaker. The latter is his forte. Deliberate and slow of utterance until aroused, his
words then come like a torrent, with the roar of the cataract and thunder-peal. In
forceful and vehement eloquence — the result of strong and intense feeling — -no orator in
the communitj' can compare with him. Chaste in life, upright in dealing, both for his
revered ancestry and his own innate worth, as well as his exalted position, he possesses,
as few men can possess, the love and confidence of his people.
NEWEL KIMBALL WHITNEY.
(@) MINENTLY a man of affairs was Newel K. Whitney, one of Utah's and Mor-
fg)f monism's earliest and ablest business men; at the time of his death the Presiding
Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Eccentric to a
degree, his eccentricities ran to order, system and discipline. He was punctu-
ality itself, honest, thorough, candid, straightforward; and he demanded the same
qualities in others. If he did not find them, he was apt to be irritated. "A place
for everything and everything in its place," may be said to have been his ruling motto.
Though not college-bred, he was well educated, and was a man of great natural in-
telligence, one who read and thought much and kept abreast of the spirit of the times.
His first American ancestors were John and Elinor Whitney, who emigrated from
England and settled at Watertown, Massachusetts, in the year 1635. Eli Whitney,
the inventor of the cotton gin; Professor Josiah Whitney, of Harvard University;
Myron Whitney, the famous vocalist, and Hon. William C. Whitney, ex-Secretary of
the United States Navy, are branches of the same lineal tree. From the recently
published Whitney genealogy it appears that the founder of the family in England
was Turstin the Fleming, standard-bearer of William the Conqueror at the battle of
Hastings. His son Eustace, in the subsequent apportionment of estates, received from
the king the Parish of Whitney on the river Wye, Herefordshire, near the border of
Wales: and was thenceforth known as Sir Eustace de Whituey, the originator of the
family name.
Newel K. Whitney was the eldest son and second child of Samuel and Susannah
Kimball Whitney, and was born at Marlborough, Windham County, Vermont, Feb-
ruary 5, 1795. There were nine children in the family. His early life was that of
the average New England boy, farming in summer, attending school in winter, and
choring the year round, working at anything that came in his way by which he could
turn an honest penny and assist his parents in the struggle of life. He was a natural
business man. with an inclination toward trading and merchandising, in which he was
destined to achieve success.
The time of his removal from his native town is uncertain. Like many another
poor boy, with his fortune in heart, hand and brain, and in the little pack that he
16
234 HISTORY OF UTAH.
carried on his shoulder, he bade farewell at an early day to father, mother, brothers,
sisters, and the scenes and associations of childhood, and went forth to seek what the
future held in store. Enterprising and tactful, he was not long in quest of employment
before finding1 it. At the age of nineteen he was a sutler or merchant in a small way
at the historic village of Plattsburg, on the western shore of Lake Champlain. It
was in Plattsburg Bay that the naval battle of Champlain was fought, during the war of
1812; the English flotilla under Commodore Downey being defeated by the American
Commodore McDonough, while the British land force, under Sir George Prevost, was
vanquished by General McComb. Young Whitney shouldered a musket and took part
in the engagement on land. Several of his kindred — one of them a direct ancestor — had
fought in the Colonial army during the Revolution.
Possibly it was his mercantile relations at Plattsburg, in 1814, that made him
acquainted with the traders and trappers of Green Bay, Lake Michigan, where, after
losing most of his property by the war, he established himself as an Indian trader. An
incident occurred there which came near costing him his life. A drunken savage,
incensed at Mr. Whitney's refusal to supply him with liquor, pursued him, weapon in
hand, and was just about to strike, when a young Indian girl named Modalena seized him
and held on at the peril of her own life until his intended victim was safe out of the way.
One of Newel K. Whitney's daughters — Mrs. Isabel M. Sears — bears the name Modalena
in memory of the dusky heroine who saved her father's life.
Leaving Lake Michigan, he went to Painesville, Ohio, where he fell in with a
merchant named Algernon Sidney Gilbert — as noted a name as his own in early Mormon
history — who, recognizing his business qualifications and feeling a friendly interest for
him, took him into his store and taught him book-keeping. This was about the year 1817.
Several years later he became the junior partner in the firm of Gilbert and Whitney, at
Kirtlaud, not far from Painesville, and a few miles inland from Lake Erie.
The 20th of October, 1822, was his wedding day. He married Elizabeth Ann Smith,
a young lady from Connecticut, who had come out West with a maiden aunt to whom
she was devotedly attached. He had formed her acquaintance while passing through
the place where she resided, in his travels to and from the city of New York. Speaking
of her husband, Mrs. Whitney says: "He had thrift and energy and accumulated prop-
perty faster than most of his associates. He was proverbially lucky in all his under-
takings. Our tastes, our feelings were congenial, and we were a happy couple with
bright prospects in store. We prospered in all our efforts to accumulate wealth, insomuch
that among our friends it was often remarked that nothing of N. K.'s ever got lost on
the Lake, and no product of his exportation was ever low in the market."
In religion Mr. Whitney had been a Unitarian, but now he and his wife were Camp-
bellites, members of the congregation of which Sidney Rigdon was the local head and in
which Parley P. Pratt, prior to his conversion to Mormonism, was a rising preacher.
They were converted and baptized as Latter-day Saints when Elders Cowdery, Whitmer,
Pratt and Peterson came to Ohio in the fall of 1830, on their way to fulfill their mission to
the Lamanites.
When Joseph Smith arrived at Kirtland in February, 1831, his sleigh, containing
himself, his wife Emma, and one or two other persons, drew up in front of the store of
Gilbert and Whitney, and the youthful Prophet, alighting and entering, thus addressed
the junior partner: "Newel K. Whitney, thou art the man," at the same time extending
his hand as if to an old and familiar acquaintance. "You have the advantage of me,"
said the one addressed, mechanically taking the proffered hand, a mystified look over-
spreading his countenance. — "I could not call you by name as you have me." "lam
Joseph the Prophet," said the stranger, smiling. — "You've prayed me here, now what do
you want of me?'' — referring to a vision in which he had seen the merchant and his wife
praying for his coming to Kirtland. This was Newel K. Whitney's introduction to the
founder of Mormonism. He cordially welcomed the Prophet and his wife, and of their
entertainment at his home Joseph says: "We were kindly received and welcomed into the
house of Brother N. K. Whitney. I and my wife lived in the family of Brother Whitney
several weeks, and received every kindness and attention that could be expected, and
especially from Sister Whitney."
The appointment of Newel K. Whitney as Bishop of Kirtland and the Eastern
branches of the Church was the next important event in his history. He was the second
man called to the Bishopric in the Latter-day Church. The first Bishop, Edward Par-
tridge, waa then presiding in Jackson county, Missouri, and for several months Elder
Whitney had been acting as his agent in Ohio. As the work increased and the Stake at
Kirtland grew, it became necessary to give it a Bishopric of its own. Bishop Whitney's
HISTORY OF UTAH. 235
call came on December 4, 1831. In his sacred office he assisted to establish the United
Order at Kirtland and in the surrounding region.
On the second day of April, 18312, he started with the Prophet on the latter's second
visit to Missouri. Having transacted the business that took them to Independence, they
set out on the 6th of May to return. Between Vincennes, Indiana, and New Albany,
near the falls of the Ohio river, the horses of the coach in which they were traveling took
fright and ran away. While going at full speed, the Prophet and the Bishop leaped from
the vehicle. The former cleared the wheels and landed in safety, but the latter, his coat
being fast, caught his foot in the wheel, and was thrown to the ground with great
violence, breaking his leg and foot in several places. This mishap delayed them for four
weeks at a public house in Greenville. Dr. Porter, the landlord's brother, who set the
broken limb, remarked, not knowing the identity of the two travelers, that it was a pity
they did not have some Mormons there, as they could set broken bones or do anything
else. An incident occurred to hasten their departure from the place before the Bishop
was hardly in a condition to travel. It was an attempt made to kill the Prophet by
mixing poison with his food. A violent attack of vomiting, with profuse heinmorhage,
resulted, but the victim of the outrage, making his way to the bedside of his sick friend,
was administered to by him and instantly healed. He himself had repeatedly administered
to the Bishop, and the latter had rapidly recovered. The day after the attempted
poisoning they left Greenville, and a prosperous journey enabled them to reach Kirtland
some time in June.
Bishop Whitney made various missionary and business trips to the East with the
Prophet and his brother Hyrum, and labored zealously in discharging the duties of his
calling. He brought his father, mother and other relatives into the Church, and his
parents took up their abode at Kirtland, where both died and were buried. One of the
memorable incidents of those times was a great "feast for the poor," provided by the
Bishop and his kindhearted wife; a festival lasting several days, during which hundreds
of poor people were fed bounteously at the richly-laden tables, the affair also being
graced by the presence of the Prophet and other notables. At the inception of the
United Order the Bishop, who was a wealthy man, consecrated all his property to the
common cause, and conducted his former mercantile business as a stewardship in the
interest of the community. Though never as rich again — his whole time being devoted to
the service of the Church — he was always able to accumulate property, except when pre-
vented by the mobbings and drivings of his people.
In the apostasy and persecution that culminated in the flight of the Prophet from
Kirtland, and the exodus of the Church to Missouri, Bishop Whitney was among those
who remaind true to Joseph, and in the fall of 1838 he set out to rejoin the Saints at Par
West and Adam-Ondi-Ahman, having been summoned to the latter place to preside.
Before he could reach his destination the mob troubles arose, resulting in the imprison-
ment of the Prophet and the expulsion of his followers from Missouri. The Bishop and
his family went as far as St. Louis, where the reports that had reached them of the
terrible outrages in Caldwell and Daviess counties were confirmed. They returned north-
ward to Carrollton, Greene County, Illinois, where the head of the house settled his
family temporarily, while he went back to Kirtland on Church business, there to await
further instructions from his leader. He returned to Carrollton in the spring of 1839,
just in time to join his family in fleeing across the Mississippi, a mob having foi-ined
against them, headed by a man named Bellows, who had known them at Kirtland. They
made their way to Quincy, where they rejoined the main body of the Church and sub-
sequently met the Prophet and his fellow prisoners after their escape from Missouri.
Agreeable to an appointment made at a conference held in Quincy on tnej3th of May,
Bishop Whitney arrived at Commerce — afterwards named Nauvoo — on the 17th of June.
His mission was to act in unison with other Bishops in settling the Saints upon the lands
purchased for them in that section. On the 5th of October he was appointed Bishop of
the Middle ward of Nauvoo, and officiated as such for several years, prior to being
called to the Presiding Bishopric, which call seems to have come shortly before or just
after the beginning of the exodus. He moved his family to Nauvoo in the spring of 1840.
At first they resided in a very unhealthy neighborhood, and all fell sick with fever and
ague. The Prophet, on visiting them and witnessing their condition, invited them to
occupy a comfortable cottage on his own premises, in a much healthier locality. Thus
was fulfilled a promise and a prophecy made by him to Mrs. Whitney on his first arrival
in Kirtland, when he said that even as she had opened her house to him and his when
he was homeless, he would yet do a similar act for her and her family. Elizabeth
Ann Whitney, while at Nauvoo, became first counselor to Emma Smith, the Prophet's
236 HISTORY OF UTAH.
wife, in the presidency of the original Relief Society, organized by the founder of
the Church.
At the first municipal election held there February 1st, 1841, Newel K. Whitney
was chosen an Alderman of the city, and soon after he became one of the Board of
Regents of the projected University. He valued education, and did all in his power to
promote it and give to his children the advantages of scholastic training. At Nauvoo he was
in charge of the private business of the Prophet, who for some time conducted a store.
Among the wives sealed to the Prophet was Bishop Whitney's eldest daughter,
Sarah Ann, the first woman given in plural marriage by and with the consent of both
parents. Her father officiated in the ceremony, which took place at Nauvoo, July 27,
1842, nearly a year before the revelation on celestial marriage was recorded; though
the principle had been confided to the Bishop by the Prophet at Kirtland. The original
manuscript of the revelation, dated July 12, 1843, and taken down by William Clayton,
the Prophet's scribe, was given to the Bishop for safe keeping. He had his clerk,
Joseph C. Kingsbury, copy it, and it was this copy — the original having been destroyed —
that Bishop Whitney delivered to President Young at Winter Quarters in 1846-7, and from
which plural marriage was published to the world in 1852.
Newel K. Whitney left Nauvoo in the general exodus of the Saints, arriving at the
camps on Sugar Creek February 17, 1846. At Winter Quarters he officiated as Presiding
Bishop and Trustee-in-trust for the Church. To the latter of these offices he had been
appointed, in conjunction with Bishop George Miller, at the death of President Joseph
Smith. Bishop Miller left the Church while on the frontier, and the office of Trustee-in-
trust then continued with Bishop Whitney until his death; Presidents Brigham Young
and Heber C. Kimball acting with him in an advisory capacity while he discharged its
functions. At his death President Young became Trusiee-in-trust. From Winter Quarters,
in the spring of 1847, two of the Bishop's sons, Horace K. and Orson K., went West
with the Pioneers, himself remaining where his services were most needed and acting
with Father Isaac Morley as a committee to organize the first emigration. On"the return
of President Young and the Pioneers from the Rocky mountains, Bishop Whitney went
out to meet them with wagons and supplies from Winter Quarters. The next year he
led one of the subdivisions of the emigration to Salt Lake valley, arriving here on the 8th of
October. As his wagons rolled into the settlement the General Conference of the Church
was just closing.
During the two remaining years of his life the Bishop's time was taken up with
numerous labors, cares and responsibilities, both ecclesiastical and secular. At the
organization of the Provisional Government, March 12, 1849, he was chosen Treasurer
and Associate Justice of the State of Deseret. Had he lived longer he would probably
have been as prominent in the government of the Territory of Utah.
He died September 23, 1850, from a severe attack of bilious pleurisy, which had
seized him two days before, while attending to certain of his duties as Presiding Bishop
at the Public Works on Temple Block. A post mortem tribute to his memory, published
in the Deseret Weekly News of September 28, says: "Thus in full strength and mature
years has one of the oldest, most exemplary and most useful members of the Church
fallen suddenly by the cruel agency of the King of Terrors. In him the Church suffers
the loss of a wise and able counselor and a thorough and straight-forward business
man. It was ever more gratifying to him to pay a debt than to contract one, and when
all his debts were paid he was a happy man, though he had nothing left but his own moral
and muscular energy. He has gone down to the grave leaving a spotless name behind him,
and thousands to mourn the loss of such a valuable man."
Bishop Whitney had three wives and was the father of fourteen children. Eleven
of these were by his first wife, Elizabeth Ann Smith, famous in Mormon history as
"Mother" Whitney. She was the daughter of Gibson Smith, who joined the Church at
an early day, officiated as an Elder, and in his old age came to Utah and died here.
"Mother" Whitney survived her husband thirty-two years, dying at Salt Lake City,
February 15, 1882. Her living children are John S. Whitney, of Mendon, and Mrs.
Mary Jane Whitney Groo, of Salt Lake City. The best known of the dead are Horace K.
and Orson K., already named; Mrs. Maria Whitney Hall, Joshua K. and Don Carlos.
By bis second wife, Emmeline Blanche Woodward (now Mrs. E. B. Wells), the Bishop
had two children, both daughters — Mrs. S. W. Sears, of Salt Lake City, and Mrs. W. W.
Woods, of Wallace, Idaho. His third wife, Ann Houston (whom, as well as his second
wife, he married at Nauvoo), bore to him one child, a son — Jethro H. Whitney, of Park
City. The biography of the Bishop's eldest born — Horace K. Whitney, the Pioneer, —
appears in another place.
WILLIAM BOWKER PRESTON.
. **■
-,^HE present incumbent of the office of Presiding Bishop in the Church of Jesus
mi >\ Christ of Latter-day Saints is a native of Franklin county, Virginia, where he
^ y opened his eyes to the light of this world on the 24th of November, 1830. He is
therefore almost as old as the Church in which he has played so prominent a part.
His father was Christopher Preston, and his mother, before marriage, Martha Mitchell
Claytor. He was the third child in a family of seven.
The Bishop's early ancestors were from Lancashire, England. It is supposed that
the town of Preston, famous in Mormon history as the place where the first European
converts were made, took its name from some member of his family. During the perse-
cutions which marked the reign of the Catholic queen, "Bloody Mary," the Prestons,
who were stout Protestants, fled to Ireland, and during subsequent persecutions by the
Catholics in the "Green Isle," several members of the family emigrated to America, set-
tling in the "Old Dominion." Bishop Preston's father was a cousin to William Ballard
Preston of Virginia and W. C. Preston of North Carolina, both members of Congress
from their respective states.
Christopher Preston was a well-to-do farmer, and naturally enough his son's earliest
recollections are associated with the harvest field. There he acquired much of that
practical knowledge which fitted him for his future career as pioneer, farmer and colon-
izer. At the age of nineteen he changed his avocation as tiller of the soil for that of
clerk in a store, first in the immediate vicinity of his home, and afterwards at Lynchburg,
forty-five miles from where he was born. He continued in that occupation until 1853,
when, in his twenty-second year, he went forth to see and battle with the world.
He had often heard of the wonderful land of California — the golden magnet of the
great West, and with the motive of the sight-seer rather than the placer-hunter, was
drawn thither to behold that marvelous amalgamation of men of all characters and
nations which the gold-seeking stream of emigration, pouring in by land and sea, was
depositing in the lap of the new El Dorado. Caring little or nothing for the life of a
gold-digger, and having gratified the original desire that impelled him westward, he
settled down in Yolo county as a farmer and stock raiser. He had for his neighbors the
Thatcher famdy, who were Latter-day Saints and had passed through Utah prior to set-
tling on the Pacific coast. Through them he became acquainted with the history and
religion of the Mormon people, of whom till then he had scarcely heard.
William B. Preston was baptized into the Latter-day Church by Elder Henry G.
Boyle in February, 1857. Immediately he was called into the ministry by Apostle George
Q. Cannon, then in charge of the Pacific Coast mission, and being ordained an Elder,
traveled in Upper California and the region round about. He labored in that capacity
until President Brigham Young, in the fall of 1857, called home the Elders and Saints
outside of Utah, in consequence of the invasion of Johnston's army. The company in
which Elder Preston traveled to Utah included Moses Thatcher, and Mrs. Elizabeth
Hoagland Cannon, wife of George Q. Cannon, whose eldest son, John Q., was born in
California, and was then an infant in arms. Henry G. Boyle was captain of the com-
pany, he being familiar with the route, as he had been a member of the Mormon Battalion.
It being too late in the season to cross by the northern route, they traveled south from
Sacramento, and by way of Los Angeles and San Bernardino, to southern Utah, thence
north to Salt Lake City. Here they arrived on New Year's day, 1858.
The acquaintance and friendship of the future Bishop with the Thatcher family had
ripened into a fonder feeling between him and one of its members, and on the li4th of
February, the second month after their arrival in this city, he married Miss Harriet A.
Thatcher, a lady of estimable qualities, well adapted by nature, training and experience
to be the wife of such a man. They were well mated, and have always been happy in
each other's companionship.
238 HISTORY OF UTAH.
The organizatian of the "Minute Men" by President Brighain Young, to meet the
exigencies of those stirring times, included William B. Preston, who with his wife was in
the general move south, which occurred soon after their marriage. They proceeded as
far as Payson. The same spring he went back to the Platte Bridge with twenty-two others
to bring to Utah a lot of merchandise, which at the outbreak of the trouble between Utah
and the general government, had been cached by the "Y. X. Company." This expe-
dition involved considerable risk, as the Echo Canyon episode was hardly over and the
United States troops at Camp Scott (Fort Bridger) were still watching Mormon move-
ments with suspicious eyes. After some narrow escapes, the mission of the trusty band
was successfully accomplished, and they returned in safety to their homes.
Mr. Preston prepared to settle at Payson, and with this object in view, built a
house there, making the adobes and shingles with his own hands. The following winter
he went with others to California to purchase clothing and other merchandise for Father
Thatcher's store at Salt Lake City. After an eventful experience, both ways, he returned
in the spring of 1S59 with two wagon loads of merchant freight, of which the people
here stood much in need.
He now reconsidered his intention of settling at Payson, and with Father Thatcher
and his family resolved to move north and assist in colonizing Cache valley. This inten-
tion was carried into effect in August, 1859, when William B. Preston, with his wife and
two of his brothers-in-law, John B. and Aaron Thatcher, left Payson and journeyed to
Cache valley, then a region of grass and sagebrush. "This is good enough for me,"
said Preston laconically, as he halted and staked out his horses on the banks of Logan
river, the others doing likewise. They camped and prepared to locate their homes on
the site of the present city of Logan, which they helped to found.
They were busy erecting their houses when in November of that year Orson Hyde
and Ezra T. Benson, two of the Twelve Apostles, were sent by President Young to or-
granize the Cache valley settlements (Wellsville and Logan), which had been located
by the pioneer, Peter Maughan. "Who are you going to have for Bishop of Logan?"
Apostle Hyde inquired of Bishop Muighan. The latter, pointing to Preston's house,
said, "There's a young man living in that house — a very enterprising, go-ahead man —
who I think will make a good bishop. He and the Thatcher boys have done the most
in the way of building and improving since they came here. They have worked day and
night." The Apostle seemed satisfied with this plain-spoken recommend, and accord-
ingly, on November 14, 1859, William B. Preston was ordained a High Priest and set
apart as Bishop of Logan, under the hands of Orson Hyde, Ezra T. Benson and Peter
Maughan. The population of the place then comprised seventeen families.
The next enterprise in which the young Bishop took a leading and active part was
the construction of the Logan aud Hyde Park canal. The successful accomplishment of
that work, with the beneficent results that have followed, are due in no small degree to
the native energy and ability of William B. Preston. Early in 1860, while two feet of
snow yet "lingered in the lap of spring," he assisted Surveyor Jesse W. Fox in laying off
the city of Logan, and during that year spent much of his time in receiving and assisting
to settle new comers, who now began to migrate thither in large numbers. In 1860-61,
under a new apportioument of representation, by which Cache county was given two
representatives and one councilor, Mr. Preston was elected a representative, and spent
the winter of 1862-3 in the Territorial legislature. The two following winters were passed
in like manner. Meantime, in 1863 and 1864, he made two trips to the Missouri river
with ox teams to emigrate the poor.
At the General Conference of the Church in April, 1S65, he was called with forty-six
others on a mission to Europe, and was given charge of the company as far as New York.
In those days of ox teams and stage coaches such a trust meant far more than it could
possibly mean at the present time. He left Salt Lake City on the 20th of May, and
arriving at New York, decided to visit, before sailing, his parents in Virginia, whom he
had not seen for thirteen years, and of whom he had heard nothing during the civil war.
He found them broken up and ruined in property, as a result of the great conflict, of
which Virginia was the chief battle ground; but he enjoyed a very pleasant visit with
them nevertheless. After a brief stay among his relatives, he returned to New York
and sailed for Liverpool, arriving at that port on the 23rd of August.
He was assigned to the Newcastle and Durham conference as its president, and
labored there until January, 1866, when he was called by the presidency of the mission to
take charge of the business department of the Liverpool office. There he worked for
three years, during which, in August, 1867, he visited the Paris Exposition. Released
from his mission, he sailed for home on July 14, 186S, in charge of a company of six
HISTORY' OF UTAH. 239
hundred and fifty emigrating1 Saints, and reached Salt Lake City early in the following
September.
The advent of the railroad, which was then being pushed to completion, opened
to him a new field in which to operate, and in the winter of 1S6S-9 we find him in Echo
canyon, a sub-contractor under President Brigham Young, engaged in constructing the
Union Pacific railroad. Returning to Logan, he resumed his duties as bishop, and at the
next general election was again chosen to represent Cache county in the legislature. After
the death of Peter Maughan, the presiding bishop of Cache stake, in April, 1S71. William
B. Preston was chosen to succeed him in that capacity.
In August of the same year the Utah Northern railroad was projected. Bishop Preston
was one of the leading spirits of the enterprise, and under President Young probably
did more than anyone else to unite the people of Cache valley in the execution of the
project. A construction company was organized, with John W. Young as president and
William B. Preston as vice-president and assistant superintendent. The road was com-
pleted to Franklin, Idaho, in May, 1S74. Bishop Preston remained its vice-president
until the property passed into the possession of the Union Pacific company.
When, in Hay. 1S77. the Cache Stake was reorganized by President Young, William
B. Preston was appointed first counselor to President Moses Thatcher. Milton S. Ham-
mond being the second counselor. President Young died in the following August. Mr.
Preston held this position until Moses Thatcher was called into the quorum of the
Twelve, April, 1879, when he succeeded him as president of Cache Stake.
The death of Edward Hunter, Presiding Bishop of the Church, October 16, 1883,
left that office vacant until the following spring, when in General Conference, April 6,
1SS4, William B. Preston was called to the high and responsible position that he now
occupies. He is a man well fitted for its duties and responsibilities. Thoroughly prac-
tical in his views and methods, he combines the intelligence of the progressive business
man. with the energy and ability to put his ideas into execution. A man more of deeds than
of words, though not lackingin either when occasion arises, he has made his presence and
influence vividly felt in the sacred and important calling whose duties he so ably discharges.
Not the least among the Bishop's claims to popularity — for popular he is, not only
with his own people, but with non-Mormons as well — is the humorous phase of his
nature. Though devoted to his religion, and faithful in its observances, he is anything
but sanctimonious. He is quick to see the funny side of things, loves a good joke,
laughs heartily, and has a fund of humorous stories and illustrations, which often find
their way into his conversations and public discourses. He has been twice married, his
second wife being now dead, and he is the father of nine children, six of whom are living.
The children of his first wife, Harriet Thatcher, are as follows: Alfred (dead) ; William
B., Jr., of Logan: Mrs. Alley Martineau, of Logan: Mrs. May Movie, of Salt Lake City.
By his second wife, Bertha Anderson, he has five children, Lee, Stephen (dead), Nephi
(dead), Samuel and Mary.
Most of the Bishop's property is in Cache valley, though he has various holdings
and interests in other parts. In addition to a thriving agricultural and stock farm near
Logan, he is the owner of another near Bedford, Wvoming. He is a stockholder in Z.
C. M. I. and in the State Bank of Utah. Of the latter, since its inception in May, 1890,
he has been a director and the vice-president; he is also chairman of its executive com-
mittee. He succeeded A. 0. Smoot as president of the Provo Woolen Mills, in which he
was previously a director. He presides over the Nevada Land and Live Stock Company,
and over the Industrial Bureau, organized at Salt Lake City in 1898, for the purpose of
furnishing the unemployed with remunerative labor and giving information to new-
comers in quest of homes. For many years he has been a member of the board of trus-
tees of the Brigham Young College, and is chairman of its executive committee.
The immediate responsibility for the construction of the Salt Lake Temple rested
upon the shoulders of the Presiding Bishopric, who collected and handled the means and
materials used in the work and paid the laborers employed there. Bishop Preston was
one of those who, in the interests of economy, advised and urged an increase in the
working force, so as to push the edifice to completion in April, 1S93. that it might be
dedicated on the fortieth anniversary of the laying of the corner stones. His advice was
acted upon, and his second counselor, Bishop John R. Winder, was given special charge of
the work of completion, which was crowned by the dedication of the building at the
appointed time. In the midst of his many labors Bishop Preston found time to act as a
member of the Constitutional Convention of 1895, to which he was duly elected, and
which framed the constitution upon which Utah, in January, 1S96, was admitted into the
Union as a State.
240 HISTORY OF UTAH.
With the advent into power of President Lorenzo Snow, and the consequent awak-
ening1 of the Latter-day Saints to a fuller realization of their duties relative to
the law of tithing, the labors and responsibilities of the Presiding Bishopric were
materially increased, and the same may be said with reference to the succeeding
administration of President Joseph F. Smith. Many changes have been made in the
mode of collecting, caring for and disbursing tithing funds and properties, and new
instructions covering all these points in detail have had to be issued to presidents of
stakes, bishops of wards and stake tithing clerks throughout the Church. Under the
Trustee-in-Trust, the weight of this heavy responsibility has rested upon Bishop Preston
and his counselors. In addition to his regular duties as bishop, with others entailed by
the various offices he holds, he had the superintendeucy of the new Deseret News building,
which, as it stands completed, is recognized as the finest and most imposing business
block in Salt Lake City. Bishop Preston's counselors, up to October, 1901, were Robert
T. Burton and John R. Winder, but at that time Bishop Winder was called into the First
Presidency, and Orrin P. Miller was chosen second counselor to the Presiding Bishop
of the Church.
JOHN REX WINDER.
©ISTINCTIVELY a business man, formerly Bishop, now President John R. Winder
is by birth an Englishman, but has passed the most of his long and useful life in
Utah, as a resident of Salt Lake City. His parents, Richard and Sophia Winder,
were members of the Church of England, and were living at Biddenden, in the
county of Kent, when their distinguised son was born, December 11, 1821. He was
baptized when an infant, according to the rites of the Established Church, and at fourteen
years of age was confirmed a member of the same under the hands of the Archbishop of
Canterbury. He received but a limited education, as he had to depend early in life upon
his own exertions.
A leather and shoe man by vocation, he secured at the age of twenty a situation in
London, at a fashionable West End shoe store. He married on November 24, 1845, Miss
Ellen Walters. About two years later he and his family took up their residence in
Liverpool, where he had charge of a large establishment for a boot and shoe merchant
named Collinson, who had come to London and solicited his services as manager. During
the next five years Mr. Winder continued to reside in Liverpool.
There, in July, 1848, he first heard of Mormonism. The manner in which it was
brought to his notice was unique, and the incident illustrates how large results may come
from a seemingly small cause. His whole subsequent career hinged upon what most men
would call an accident, but which he himself has always recognized as a manifestation
of the overruling providence of God. He picked up in the store one day a fragment of
a torn-up letter, on which were the words "Latter-day Saints." Wondering what they
meant — for he had never seen or heard the name before — he asked one of the clerks
about it, and was told that there was a church in America that went by that name, that
they were also called "Mormons," that they had a Prophet named Joseph Smith, and
that a branch of the church held regular meetings in Liverpool, at the Music Hall in Bold
Street. Impelled by curiosity, he attended one of these meetings, and heard Elder
Orson Spencer discourse upon the first principles of the Gospel. Though hid from the
view of the speaker, peeping through the banister of a back staircase up which he had
crept to listen, "I thought," says Mr. Winder, "he knew I was there, for every word he
spoke fit my case and seemed'to be for my express benefit. I began to examine into
the principles taught, and soon became convinced of their truth. I was baptized a
Latter-day Saint by Elder Thomas D. Brown, September 20, 1848, and on the 15th of the
following month my wife was baptized by Orson Pratt, one of the Twelve Apostles."
They were associated with the Liverpool Branch until February, 1853, when they left
their native land and sailed for America, their destination beiug Salt Lake City. At
this time they had three children living and one dead, two of the former being twin
daughters about four mouths old. The ship on which they sailed was the "Elvira Owen."
HISTORY OF UTAH. 241
When about ten days out from Liverpool Mr. Winder was taken down with smallpox,
having caught it from a child who had brought it on board and was in the next apart-
ment, of the vessel. He was the first to discover the presence of the disease on board.
Soon four others were seized with it. The sick were all quarantined in a little house
built on deck. Mrs. Winder was thus left with her three children, including the twin
babes, to care for without the assistance of her husband; which was no small task on
ship-board. Only one of the five cases proved fatal — that of a young man named
William Jones, lying next to Mr. Winder, who says of the situation: "In a short time
the sailors came and took the dead body and cast it into the sea. As I lay there
pondering, I heard them say, 'we will have him next,' meaning me. I did not believe
what they said. I had a living faith that I would recover and get to Zion." Having
regained his health, he with his family proceeded by way of New Orleans and St. Louis
to Keokuk, Iowa, where he joined a company of Latter-day Saints commanded by
Captain Joseph W. Young and bound for Utah. With them he crossed the plains and
mountains, arriving at Salt Lake City October 10, 1853.
Soon after his arrival here he resumed business in the leather line; first with
Samuel Mulliner, in the manufacture of saddles, boots and shoes. They also conducted
a tannery. In 1855 he formed a partnership with William Jennings, proprietor of the
Meat Market Tannery and manufacturer of boots, shoes, saddles, harness and leather
goods in general. He continued in this business until after the return from "'the move"
in July, 1858. Having dissolved partnership with Mr. Jennings, he entered into one
with President Brigham Young and Feramorz Little. They built a tannery on Parley's
Canyon creek, and conducted it until the native bark for tanning became scarce, when
they were unable to compete with importations, and the tanning business was suspended.
It was during this period that he purchased his present home, "Poplar Farm," in the
southern suburbs of Salt Lake City, and began farming and stock-raising, pursuits in
which he has always taken great delight.
At an early day Mr. Winder became prominent as a military man. He joined the
Nauvoo Legion in 1855. He was captain of a company of lancers during the Echo
Canyon campaign, and after Johnston's army went into winter quarters at FortBridger —
when most of the militia returned to their homes — he was left with fifty men to guard the
approaches to Salt Lake valley and sound the alarm of any new movement on the part of
the Government troops. Captain Winder's letter of instructions from Lieutenant-General
Wells may be found on page 661 of our first volume. He was relieved of vidette duty about
Christmas time, 1857, Major Hampden S. Beatie taking his place at Camp Weber, but
was soon again in the saddle, raising eighty-five mounted men in March, 1858, to
accompany General George D. Grant on an Indian expedition in Tooele valley. They
went in pursuit of a band of hostiles who had stolen a large number of horses from the
settlers in that section. The pursuing party were caught in a terrible storm on the
desert, where they lost the trail of the Indians, and so returned. Soon afterwards
Captain Winder was again given charge of the defenses in Echo Canyon, and he re-
mained there until peace was declared. During the years A865, 1866 and 1867 he was
engaged in the Blackhawk Indian war in Sanpete county, part of the time as aid to
General Wells. In 1868 he collected and made up the accounts of the expenses of that
war, amounting to eleven hundred thousand dollars, which was chargeable to the
Federal Government. The claim was submitted to Congress by Utah's Delegate, Hon.
William H. Hooper, but has never yet been paid. In the militia Mr. Winder rose to the
rank of lieutenant-colonel of cavalry.
For fourteen successive years, beginning with 1870, John E. Winder was assessor
and collector of Salt Lake City, and while holding that position he served three terms
in the City Council, from 1872 to 1878. In 1884 he resigned as assessor and collector,
and was appointed watermaster, holding that office until April, 1887, when he retired
from it to enter upon his labors as second counselor to the Presiding Bishop of the Church,
William B. Preston. He was set apart to this sacred calling on the 25th of that month,
under the hands of President George Q. Cannon and Apostle Franklin D. Richards.
In April, 1892, when the great Salt Lake Temple was approaching completion,
Bishop Winder was given special charge of the work, the design being to finish the
structure forthwith and have it ready for dedication in April, 1893, forty years from the
time of its commencement. He discharged this important duty with characteristic energy
and zeal, pushing the work through with dispatch, and thus enabling the general
authorities to dedicate the splendid edifice at the time appointed. So pleased was
President Joseph F. Smith— then second counselor to President Woodruff — with the
faithful and efficient labors of Bishop Winder on the Temple, that during the dedication
242 HISTORY OF UTAH.
he made a special reference to them and pronounced a blessing upon him for time and all
eternity. The Bishop was a liberal donor to the fund that met the heavy expenses
entailed, and at the opening in May, 1893, he was appointed and set apart as first
assistant to President Lorenzo Snow, who was given charge of the Temple. He still
occupies the same position under President Joseph F. Smith.
Prior to his later appointments in the Church, President Winder held successively
the following named offices and positions: He was a Seventy from 1851, and one of
the presidency of the Twelfth quorum from 1855. On March 4, 1872, he was ordained
a High Priest by Presiding Bisbop Edward Hunter, and set apart to take charge of the
Fourteenth ward, Salt Lake City, during the absence of Bishop Thomas Taylor on a
mission. Subsequently he acted as Bishop Taylor's first counselor. In April, 1872,
while still in the Bishopric, he became a member of the High Council of the Salt Lake
Stake of Zion.
In addition to these responsibilities there have rested upon him such trusts as United
States Gauger in the Internal Revenue Department, the presidency for many years
•f the Deseret Agricultural and Manufacturing Society, and under the old political
regime the chairmanship for a long period of the Territorial and County Central Com-
mittees of the People's Party. He was also a member of one of the early Constitutional
Conventions. He was a director of the Utah Iron Manufacturing Company, and is now
a director of the Utah and Ogden Sugar companies, Zion's Co-operative Mercantile
Institution, the Deseret National Bank, the Deseret Savings Bank and Zion's Savings
Bank and Trust Company. He is president of the Deseret Investment Company, and
vice-president of the Utah Light and Power Company.
Since the 17th of October, 1901, John R. Winder has been one of the First Presidency
of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, having been chosen on that day first
counselor to President Joseph F. Smith. As may be readily surmised, his life has been
a most busy and withal a very useful one. His mind is an encyclopedia of general
information on Utah affairs, much of which pertains to times fast passing beyond the
memory of the oldest inhabitant. In business he is known as "a rustler." He has a
sensitive nature, and is quick to think, speak and act, but when not burdened with care
is full of jovial good nature. Honorable in his dealings, successful in his undertakings,
he is eminently a good citizen, devoted to his religion and to the general interests of
the State.
President Winder's first wife, Mrs. Ellen Walters Winder, a faithful and amiable
companion, died November 7, 1892. She was the mother of ten children six of whom are
living. By his second wife, Elizabeth Parker, now dead, whom he married in 1856, he
is the father of ten children, all living. His present wife, to whom he was united
October 28, 1893, was Miss Maria Burnham, of Fruitland, New Mexico. At the advanced
age of eighty-one years the veteran is still in good health, brisk, lively, active in the
performance of his many duties, and seems to enjoy life as much as in the days of his
youth and prime.
WILLIAM JENNINGS.
yJYILLIAM JENNINGS' chief title to fame is in his career as one of the principal
I j I founders of Utah's commerce. An early advocate and establisher of home
^^ industries, he was also a merchant, a cattle man, a railroad magnate, a city coun-
cilor, a member of the Territorial Legislature and finally mayor of Salt Lake
City. A man of wealth, a generous and hospitable entertainer, he welcomed across
the threshold of his home the most distinguished visitors to Utah, including President
Grant, Ex-Secretary Seward, General Sherman, General Sheridan, Lord and Lady
Dufferin and many more. It was at the Jennings home on Main street that the Colfax
party was entertained in June, 1865; and it was at the Devereux House, on South
Temple Street — Mr. Jennings' later residence — that President Brigham Young met
Ex-Secretary Seward in 1869.
That the Utah merchant enjoyed these visits of the great is certain, but it is
also true that these famous personages were no more welcome in his spacious parlors
HISTORY OF UTAH. 243
and at his sumptuous table than the old-time friends whom he had known in the days
of poverty and famine. He was not an enthusiast in religion, but he accepted the fun-
damentals thereof, and exemplified in characteristic directions his faith in Mormonism.
At his death, Utah lost a financial genius, one of the main pillars of her commercial
life. Buildings, farms, railroads, grist-mills, factories — these were his monuments.
He accumulated a handsome fortune and was known as Utah's merchant prince. He
gave much to charity, established worthy enterprises, provided employment for in-
dustrious hands, and in various ways built up his adopted country. Local investment
was his motto, home development his aim, and to give Utah pre-eminence his leading
ambition.
An Englishman by birth, the son of Isaac and Jane Thornton Jennings, he was
born at Yardley, near the city of Birmingham, September 13, 1823. His father came
of a good family and made himself wealthy in the butchering business. William
did not receive much education, owing in part to a disinclination for the hard, dry
tasks of the school-room, and in part to a delicate constitution, which his parents
were unwilling to jeopardize by close confinement and discipline. When he was seven
years old he accidentally broke his thigh bone and for fifteen months was on crutches.
His five brothers and five sisters went to boarding school and were well educated.
William left school at the age of eleven, and at fourteen plunged into business as an
assistant to his sire.
Even at that early day he manifested the keenness, sagacity and business promp-
titude that made him in time one of the leading merchants and financiers of the West.
It is related how he went to Coalsell Market on a certain occasion to buy cattle.
Having made some first-class selections, he asked the owner his price. Amused at
the lad's precocity, the farmer, in a bantering spirit, put a very low figure upon the
cattle. "I'll take them," said Jennings, and the farmer, still in jest, concluded the
sale; whereupon William, taking out his scissors, quickly cut the Jennings' mark on
each of the beasts and paid the money. The joking farmer then tried to recede from
the transaction, but the boy, unawed by his bluster, appealed to the bystanders, who
sustained him in the fairness of his purchase. Chagrined for having paid so dearly
for his whistle, the seller reluctantly yielded the point and surrendered the cattle.
William Jennings came to America the year that Salt Lake Valley was settled.
He was not at that time a Latter-day Saint, and in leaving home and beginning life
for himself in a foreign land among strangers, was actuated purely by that spirit of
independent enterprise which was so notable a characteristic of his nature. His parents
and other members of the family did not approve of the step, but offered no strenuous
opposition. In leaving home at such a time he forfeited his family portion, but the
fortune afterwards amassed by him was much larger than that divided among his
father's heirs. He landed in New York early in the month of October.
There he remained through the winter, working at six dollars a week for a Mr.
Taylor, a pork-packer of Manchester, England. The next year he made his way to
the State of Ohio, where he was robbed of all the money he possessed— some four or
five hundred dollars — and in absolute destitution sought and found employment as a
journeyman butcher at a small salary. In March, 1849, he left Ohio for Missouri,
staying a while at St. Louis, and then proceeding to St. Joseph, where he worked at
trimming bacon and butchering. In the fall an attack of cholera prostrated him for
four weeks, and on recovering he found himself again penniless and two hundred
dollars in debt. In this extremity he was befriended by a Catholic priest, one Father
Scanlan, who lent him fifty dollars, which small but timely loan, judiciously handled, put
him on his feet again and gave him his first successful start in the New World.
Mr. Jennings' well-known friendly feeling for the Catholics is thus explained.
While at St. Joseph he married Jane Walker, a Mormon emigrant girl, on her way
to Utah from her native England, and though he did not immediately join the Church
of which she was a member, this marriage was the beginning of his relations with the
Latter-day Saints, and it undoubtedly led to his settlement in the Rocky Mountain
region. The date of the marriage was July 2, 1851. The young couple left St. Joseph
in the spring of 1852, and arrived at Salt Lake City early in the fall. Mr. Jennings
brought with him three wagons loaded with aroceries, in which all his means was in-
vested. These goods he sold in Utah at a handsome profit. Soon after his arrivel here
he joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and on July 28, 1855, married
his second wife, Priscilla Paul, another young English girl, who had recently emigrated
from the land of her birth.
During the first three years of his residence at Salt Lake City, Mr. Jennings devoted
244 HISTORY OF UTAH.
himself exclusively to the butchering business, a line of industry that had made his father
wealthy, and which he himself had followed in a small way with varying success after his
arrival in America. At the expiration of that period, he added to his meat-shop a
tannery, manufacturing leather from the hides of his slaughtered beeves, then working
up the leather into saddles, harness, boots and shoes. His original venture and each
succeeding extension of his business was a success.
During a mission to Carson Valley in 185G, he supplied with meat the mining camps
of that region. He built himself a substantial house of logs, which he had cut from the
surrounding mountains. In this humble abode his wife Priscilla lived, and there her
first child was born — Captain Prank W. Jennings, February 25, 1857. The sire was
absent upon this mission sixteen months, returning to Salt Lake City in the summer
of 1857.
On arriving here he found the people greatly excited over the prospect of a collision
with the general government. Johnston's army was on its way to Utah, industry was
paralyzed and business almost at a standstill. Undaunted by the prospect of invasion
and devastation, which were the common talk, the returned missionary embarked in
business on quite an extensive scale, building on the spot afterwards occupied by his
Eagle Emporium a large meat establishment, which he maintained as best he could during
the absence from the city of almost its entire population. The Jennings family spent the
period of "the move'' at Provo.
In the year 1800 the head of the house branched out in the mercantile business. He
purchased from Solomon Young a stock of dry goods amounting to forty thousand dollars.
He was now the leading merchant of Utah. In 1801 he contracted to supply poles upon
which to stretch the wires of the Overland Telegraph Line, between Salt Lake City and
Ruby Valley. He also took a large contract to supply grain for the Overland Mail
Company. The same year found him in San Francisco, purchasing merchandise for his
store. After the establishment of Fort Douglas, the commissariat relied upon him for
much that it consumed. In 1863 he added to merchandizing banking and brokerage.
He exported Utah products to the mines outside of the Territory, and is said to have been
the first Salt Lake merchant to buy and ship Montana gold-dust. He was also the owner
of the first steam flouring mill in Utah.
In 1864 he built the Eagle Emporium, and during that year purchased large quantities
of goods in New York, St. Louis, San Francisco and Salt Lake City. In addition to
these purchases, and against the advice and protest of his business managers, he also
bought from Major Barrows a mammoth train-load of goods, amounting to a quarter of
a million dollars. This bold and hazardous venture proved to be the luckiest hit of his
mercantile career. He not only reaped handsome profits from a ready sale of his mer-
chandise, but enhanced his prestige as a merchant, and indirectly the commercial
standing of Utah, by the extensive and successful deal.
Two anecdotes told of Mr. Jennings aptly illustrate his native shrewdness and
sagacity. The first pertains to his grain contract with the Overland Mail Company in
1861. Seventy-five thousand bushels — about all the grain the Territory then produced —
was needed by that company, and the contract to supply it was made binding upon
Mr. Jennings by a forfeiture of five thousand dollars if not fulfilled. The company itself
was not placed under bonds. The merchant at once began to buy grain, and contrary
to his understanding at the time of signing the contract, the company began buying also.
He protested, but his protest was unavailing, and Mr. Jennings soon saw that it would
be impossible for him to fulfill his contract if the company persisted in buying in
opposition to him. However he kept on buying and filling his bins and cellars with grain.
The company also continued buying. Finnally Jennings, seized with an idea, asked the
other parties if the payment of the five thousand dollar forfeiture would satisfy the
contract. There was a prompt answer in the affirmative and a no less prompt payment
of the forfeiture. The contract was cancelled and the merchant was free, with thirty
thousand bushels of grain on hand, nearly half the grain product of the Territory
and nearly half the amount needed by the Overland Mail Company. Both parties
continued to buy, but Jennings, having the inside track as a member of the com-
munity, as well as his native push and ability as a trader, soon distanced his com-
petitor and succeeded in corralling the greater part of the grain product. And now
came the climax, with a triumph for Jennings, which his opponents might have fore-
seen had they been anywhere near his equals in business acumen. The Mail Company,
which needed the grain, must either purchase it from Jennings at his own price— which
was now a high one — or else freight grain from the Missouri River or the Pacific Coast.
Distance and delay forbade the latter course, and at length they came and bought the
HISTORY OF UTAH. 245
merchant's grain at a much higher price than he had paid for it, thus wiping out the
forfeiture and giving him a heavy margin besides. "When a boy," said Mr. Jennings,
"my father told me always to look for a thing where I had lost it. I had lost Ave
thousand dollars on that grain contract, and it was to the Overland Mail Company that I
had to look for it. The experience taught me, however, never to bind myself in a
contract unless I bound the other party equally."
The other incident happened in 1865. For two years Mr. Jennings had been engaged
in buying gold-dust and had bought as high as ten thousand dollars' worth in a single day.
Mr. Halsey, the superintendent of Ben Holladay's local banking house, was also in this
business, and in order to gejt rid of the Jennings competition, he went to the merchant
and requested him to stick to his legitimate vocation and not buy any more gold-dust.
Jennings replied that he was the oldest gold-dust buyer in the country, and he did not
propose to retire that early from a branch of business which had been so profitable to him.
Well," said Halsey, in anger, "If you do not quit buying, I will run you out of the
business." "How?" asked the merchant. The banker replied: "I carry the express,
and I express for whom I choose.'' Jennings retorted, "I don't care a d n for
you or your express either." They parted, each resolved upon a financial fight.
Jennings led out by paying for gold-dust twenty-five cents more an ounce than, pre-
viously. Halsey retaliated by paying fifty cents more an ounce, and thus they went
on until gold-dust was worth more in Salt Lake than in New York. Jennings, through
another person, then sold all his gold-dust to Halsey at the greatly advanced figure.
He quit buying for a few days till the price fell to its former level, wheu he revived
the competition until gold-dust again ran up above New York figures. Again and
again he sold to Halsey through another man, until finally the banker, getting wind
of the game, cried quits, ackuowledged himself beaten, and asked Jennings to come
to terms, by signing an agreement between them. The merchant refused to sign,
but verbally agreed upon a cessation of financial hostilities.
In 1867 Mr. Jennings purchased from Hon. Joseph A. Young, who had previously
purchased it from Mr. William C. Staines, the property afterwards known as the
Devereaux House and grounds, adding to the original lot several pieces of realty on the
same block, and superseding the handsome Staines cottage with a more pretentious
mansion, while retaining and improving the rare orchards and flower gardens which the
original owner had planted and cultivated. The Devereaux House was called after the
Jennings family residence in England. It became noted for its hospitality, especially as
a place where distinguished visitors were entertained. With one exception, it was the
only private home honored by President Grant with a personal call during his brief stay
at Salt Lake City in 1875. The following year Mr. Jennings, with his daughters Jane
and Priscilla, while on their way to Europe, called upon President and Mrs. Grant at the
White House in Washington, and were cordially received and entertained.
William Jennings was one of the organizers of the Utah Central railroad company
in 1869, at which time he became the vice-president of the road, holding that position
during the remainder of his life. He also helped to organize the Utah Southern railroad
company, and succeeded Brigham Young as its president. Prior to this he had sat in
the Legislature under the administration of Governor Doty, who commissioned him a
lieutenant-colonel in the Militia. In later years he was a director of the Deseret
National Bank.
At the inception of Zion's Cooperative Mercantile Institution, when the Gentile
merchants of Utah were in open hostility to the movement, and many Mormon merchants
were hesitating, William Jennings threw the weight of his wealth and influence into the
scale with President Young and those who stood by him in the inauguration of the mighty
enterprise, thus contributing: greatly to its success. He was the first to lease his premises
and sell his stock to the institution, in which he became a shareholder to the amount of
seventy-five thousand dollars. From November, 1873, to May, 1875, he was superin-
tendent of Z. C. M. I., and from October, 1877, to the date of his death— January 15,
1886— was its vice-president. He was also superintendent from February, 1881, to
May, 1883.
The year 1882 witnessed the election of Mr. Jennings as Mayor of Salt Lake City.
He made a good record in that capacity and one that gave general satisfaction. It was.
during his administration that Liberty Park was formally opened to the public. Had it
not been for the anti-polygamy crusade under the Edmunds law, which caused him to be
temporarily disfranchised, he would have been nominated for at least another term as
mayor. He had but one plural wife, namely Mrs. Priscilla Paul Jennings, already named,
whom he had married prior to the enactment of the anti-polj'gamy law of 1862. This
246 HISTORY OF UTAH.
marriage, therefore, did not violate that law, which, while it prohibited plural marriages,
was silent upon the subject of maintaining polygamous relations. This practice, under
the term "unlawful cohabitation," along with polygamy or the marrying of plural wives,
was made punishable by the Edmunds law of 1882; but by that time Mr. Jennings was
no longer in polygamy, his first wife having died eleven years before the Edmunds law
was enacted. Since her death he had continued to live with his second and only remaining
wife. Thus he had violated neither the law of 18G2 nor the law of 1882; yet under the
strained ruling of the Utah Commission, expressed in the phrase "once a polygamist
always a polygamist," he was denied registration as a voter, and until the Supreme Court
of the United States shattered the unjust decision, he remained disfranchised. His right
to vote and hold office being restored to him, he was urged'by Gentiles as well as Mormons
to run again for the mayoralty, but declined. The following year he died.
William Jennings was the father of twenty-five children, thirteen of whom, with his
widow, survived him. To these he left the bulk of his fortune. He had eleven children
by his first wife and fourteen by his second. His eldest living child, the son of his
first wife, is Thomas W. Jennings, Esq., of Salt Lake City. His three surviving
daughters, Jane, Priscilla and May, are respectively Mrs. James A. Eldredge, Mrs. W.
W. Riter and Mrs. Scott Crismon. The first Mrs. Jennings was a very estimable
lady, and the present Mrs. Jennings, (the mother of Mrs. Riter and Mrs. Crismon)
is no less so. A woman of generous sympathies, exceptionally kind-hearted and benev-
olent, her life is filled with deeds of charity and philanthropy. She is socially prominent,
public-spirited, and active in woman's work. Her name is connected with sericulture
and other industrial enterprises, likewise with Temple ministrations and various religious
functions. In short, it is a synonym for hospitality, liberality, and helpfulness to every
worthy cause.
HORACE SUNDERLIN ELDREDGE.
cg^ROM the first an influential man in the pioneer community, prominent as civic
"TV" and military officer, afterwards as missionary, merchant and banker, and for
many years one of the First Council of Seventy in the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints, Horace S. Eldredge needs no introduction to the local reader;
neither indeed to thousands beyond the borders of Utah who knew and respected him
as a man of worth and integrity. A condensed history of his active and useful life
is here given.
Born at Brutus, Cayuga County, New York, February 6, 1816, he was nurtured
by kind and indulgent parents until eight years of age, when death called his mother
to another sphere. Left in the care of his eldest sister and a pious aunt, he was care-
fully trained morally and religiously, and at sixteen united himself with the Baptist
church. He soon found that he could not fully subscribe to the tenets of that faith,
but continued in it until the spring of 1836, when for the first time he heard a sermon
by a Mormon Elder. After some investigation he was converted and baptized into the
unpopular Church, in joining which he much displeased his friends, some of whom
persecuted him in consequence. During the summer of the same year he married, the
maiden name of his wife being Betsy Ann Chase. The young couple settled on a
farm near Indianapolis, with every prospect before them of a peaceful and happy life.
Desirous of associating himself with the Latter-day Saints, who were moving from
Ohio to Missouri, Mr. Eldredge sold his farm, with most of his effects, and in the fall
of 1838 moved to Far West, where he purchased two hundred and thirty acres of land,
with a house and lot, trusting by industry and economy to secure a comfortable living
and make a permanent home. His anticipations were not to be realized — not in that
• region. The Mormon people were soon compelled to leave the State, and Mr. Eldredge
and his wife, leaving Missouri in December, returned temporarily to their friends in
Indiana. He was never reimbursed for the lauds taken from him by the Missourians.
In the fall of 1840 he moved to Nauvoo, where he helped to build the Temple, residing
there until the exodus.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 247
The autumn of 1846 found him at Winter Quarters, on the west bank of the Missouri,
where, says he, "I got my little family under the first and only roof they had been under
since the early spring." During the two winters that he remained on the frontier he
buried two of his children. Early in 1848 he joined the general emigration, in the com-
pany led by President Brigham Young, and journeyed to the Rocky Mountains, arriving
in Salt Lake Valley on the 22nd of September. He had been over three months on the
way, living in tents and wagons.
Mr. Eldredge's personal record of those primitive times describes the cricket plague
of 1848, the wonderful deliverance of the settlers by the gulls, and the grand harvest
feast of July 24, 1849, concerning which he says: "Long tables were set in the bowery
and loaded with the rich products of the Valley. All were made welcome, there being
many strangers present who were on their way to the gold mines in California. Being
myself one of the committee of arrangements and marshal of the day, I had plenty to do,
but it gave me great pleasure to see so happy an assemblage of people, after all we had
passed through." He was early made marshal of the Territory, assessor and collector of
taxes and brigadier-general in the militia. His record continues: "Desirous of encou-
raging agriculture, and taking great pleasure in that pursuit, I commenced a small farm
in the country. I also built a residence in the city, and moved into it in the spring of
1852. This was the first comfortable house we had had since we left Nauvoo."
In the fall of that year he was given a mission to preside over the St. Louis Con-
ference and act as general emigration and purchasing agent for the Church. In company
with eighty other Elders, he left home on the 15th of September, traveling with mule and
horse teams to the Missouri river, and reaching St. Louis in November, almost an entire
stranger there. He did not long remain one, however, as his duties brought him in con-
tact, not only with the Saints in and around the city, but with many prominent business
men outside the Church. In the spring of 1853 the Mormon emigration from Europe
amounted to about three thousand souls, requiring over three hundred wagons and a
thousand head of cattle to transport them across the plains. The American emigration
swelled it to over four hundred wagons and nearly two thousand head of cattle. An im-
mense amount of labor was required to deliver these at the overland starting point, and
to purchase provisions, outfits and all the necessaries for three months of camp life.
After seeing the last company started, President Eldredge. agreeable to a kind suggestion
received in a letter from President Brigham Young, avoided the heated and sickly season
in St. Louis by spending a few weeks very pleasantly with relatives and friends in the
State of New York. The approach of winter found him back in St. Louis, associating
happily with his new-found friends and laying plans for the next season's emigration,
which was also very large. He received orders from Salt Lake to purchase a vast quantity
of merchandise, machinery, agricultural implements, etc., and provide wagons, teams and
teamsters for their transportation. Nearly the whole of this great labor devolved upon
him in person. Expressive of their appreciation of his arduous and faithful services the
"Mormon Social Club,'' on the evening of January 30, 1854, gave him a complimentary'
benefit at one of the St. Louis Theatres, and presented him with a handsome gold rine:
as a further testimonial of their esteem.
He accompanied the next season's emigration to Utah. The European emigrants
then came by way of New Orleans, up the Mississippi to Kansas City, the starting point
for the West. This year the cholera broke out in the camps, and sixty deaths occurred.
After an experience full of toil and care, he and his charge reached Salt Lake City in safety.
In October of this year he became one of the First Council of Seventy, succeeding Presi-
dent Jedediah M. Grant in that position. He spent the following winter in the Legislature.
In the fall of 1856 he had his first mercantile transaction with his future partner, William
H. Hooper, entering into an arrangement to take a stock of goods to Provo, where he
rented a store, sold quite a quantity of goods and bought several hundred head of cattle.
July, 1857, found him back in St. Louis, presiding as before. "During this season,"
says he, "great excitement prevailed throughout the United States with regard to the
so-called 'Mormon war.' General Johnston was placed in command of two thousand five
hundred men, with all the necessary supplies, arms, ammunition and implements, to march
against and annihilate the Mormons. It was frequently remarked to me that these troops
would use up the Mormons and leave not even a grease-spot. One prominent business
man said, in the kindest feeling I believe, 'If I were you I would immediately fetch my
family away from Utah, for they are bound to destroy your people.' I replied that I con-
sidered my family safer in Utah than I would if they were in St. Louis. He seemed sur-
prised, and almost ridiculed the idea. During the war between the North and the South
(it was in 1864, if my memory serves me) I stood upon the sidewalk in St. Louis, in com-
248 HISTORY OF UTAH.
pany with the same gentleman, viewing a regiment of soldiers marching down to go on
board a steamer that was waiting to bear them to the battlefield. He said to me, 'I would
to God that my family and effects were in Utah.' Circumstances had somewhat changed
his feelings."
General Eldredge continued his labors in St. Louis until July 31, 1857, and then
visited Washington, Philadelphia and New York on business, calling on his way at Indi-
anapolis, his former home. He returned to St. Louis on the 16th of August, narrowly
escaping a railroad wreck en route. September found him at Florence, Nebraska (old
Winter Quarters) where he enjoyed the hospitality of Alexander C. Pyper. afterwards a
prominent citizen of Utah. One of his trips took him to Hancock County, Illinois; he
visited Nauvoo and Carthage, returning by way of Quincy, where he was exposed to
smallpox, and as the result was sick for two weeks, with a fever, during which he was
kindly nursed by Mrs. Joseph Savage, whom his record mentions gratefully. At this
period the mails from Salt Lake City were cut off by Johnston's army, and news from
home was very meagre, only a little coming now and then by way of California. During
the fall and winter all communications were cut off. "This," says the General, "placed
me in a very unpleasent situation in my business relations, as I had depended upon re-
mittances from Salt Lake to meet certain obligations. Some of my creditors, as well
as myself, were put to inconvenience, but subsequently, I am glad to say, every dollar
was paid with interest, to their entire satisfaction."
The opening of the year 1858 found him again in the East. In Long Island he visited
the Benedict and Pettit families, afterwards prominent in Utah, and in Washington, D. C.
called on Utah's delegate, Dr. Bernhisel, and transacted business with the Post Office de-
partment. Finding that the postmaster at Independence, Missouri, (a Mr. McClenehen)
had made incorrect returns of the mail service between that point and Salt Lake City,
reporting but three trips when there had been six, he visited that official and had him
make the necessary corrections.
There was very little Mormon emigration that season, owing to the presence of the
Federal troops at Fort Bridger, but General Eldredge decided to pay his family in Utah
another visit, and with that end in view went to Des Moines, Iowa, early in April, to confer
with Elder Joseph W. Young and other missionaries from Europe, who were about to
rendezvouz at Florence and start across the plains. He also met at Des Moines the noto-
rious John C. Bennett, whom he had not seen since the days of Nauvoo. "He looked,"
says the General, "like a poor, God-forsaken creature; his business was nursing pigs,
lambs and Shangai chickens, as he professed to be a dealer in improved stock." From
Florence, on the 1st of June, our friend and his party started for Utah, and on the 6th
met an escort from the Territory conveying Colonel Thomas L. Kane to the East. They
encountered Indians, who innocently caused a stampede among their animals, five teams
running away; but no serious accident occurred, and the travelers parted from the red
men in peace, alter making them presents of flour, crackers, sugar, coffee and tobacco.
They found no troops at Fort Bridger, Johnston having marched to the site of Camp Floyd.
Reaching Salt Lake City on the 9th of July, Mr. Eldredge discovered that his family had
gone south in the general move. Two days later he rejoined them at Provo, and subse-
quently brought them back home.
About the middle of September he started on another trip to the States, accompanied
by his wife and child, and by Elders George Q. Cannon, Joseph W. Young, Horton D.
Haight and Frederick Kesler. His object was to purchase merchandise and machinery
(some of the goods for himself) and freight the same to Utah the following spring. Says
he as in the latter part of April, 1859, he saw his train of merchandise start for the
mountains, "It was the handsomest train I ever saw on the plains. It consisted of
seventy-two wagons, all of uniform style and each drawn by three yoke of oxen. It rolled
out of Florence in charge of Captain Horton D. Haight, and reached Salt Lake City in
seventy-two days, in good trim; about the quickest trip a freight train of that size and
kind ever made.'' The General followed in a light vehicle, passing his train and reaching
home about the middle of August. He sold an interest in his merchandise to William H.
Hooper and opened out for business, in which they were very successful. Mr. Eldredge
and George Cronyn managed the store, Captain Hooper having been elected Delegate to
Congress.
The next year he made another trip to the States, to replenish his stock of merchan-
dise and purchase machinery for a paper mill. At the nation's capital he was introduced
to President Buchanan by Delegate Hooper. The two partners went to New York to make
their purchases. Following their train from the frontier, they crossed the plains to-
gether in a comfortable phaeton. Upon the arrival of their goods at Salt Lake City they
HISTORY OF UTAH. 249
opened out for business in a store owned by Captain Hooper, then standing on the
corner now occupied by the Deseret National Bank. Under the firm name of Hooper,
Eldredge and Co. (George Cronyn being a silent partner, with a small interest) they
began a successful business, which continued for several years. Early in 1862. after the
close of the legislature, to which he had been elected the previous fall, General Eldredge
again went East to procure merchandise and superintend the season's emigration. The
next year he made another trip for a similar purpose, purchasing this time cotton and
woollen machinery for President Young. In the spring of 18G4 Hooper and Eldredge
purchased in the East goods amounting at first cost to over one hundred and fifty
thousand dollars. The freight upon them was over eighty thousand dollars. They now
opened for business in the Livingston & Bell building, later known as the old Consti-
tution building.
In the spring of 1S65 William H. Hooper sold his interest to Hiram B. Clawson, and
the firm name was then changed to Eldredge and Clawson. The junior partner went to
New York, purchased goods for the house, and contracted with parties known as the
Butterfield Company to do the freighting west from the Missouri river. That company,
knowing little about freighting over the plains, and having inexperienced managers, were
late in starting; in consequence the train was overtaken by storms and snowed in; many
of their animals perished, and the goods did not reach Salt Lake City until late the next
spring. The loss to the firm was heavy; the goods had to be paid for early, and yet were
not received until a year after the purchase. Though much embarrassed, the merchants
were not discouraged, and in the spring of 1866 Mr. Clawson again went East and pur-
chased a fine stock of goods. That year the freighting was more successful, but the year
following the firm met with another misfortune. Mr. Clawson had purchased a splendid
stock and shipped it, care of the Union Pacific railroad to Omaha, whence it was to be
forwarded by rail to the terminus at Julesburg. A train carrying about twenty thousand
dollars worth of these goods was attacked by Indians near Plum Creek on the Platte river,
the cars burned and the goods destroyed. On learning of this calamity Mr. Clawson re-
turned to New York and duplicated the purchase. But these losses and delays were great
drawbacks. The railroad managers refusing to settle with the merchants, the latter
brought suit and obtained judgment for $19,500; but an appeal was taken. To save time
and money the}' compromised the suit for three thousand dollars less than the judgment,
and in 1871 received their money, after waiting for it about four years.
In October, 1868, Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institution was organized, and in
the spring of 1869 it began business. Eldredge & Clawson, with other merchants, sold
out to the mammoth concern. General Eldredge took $25,000 worth of Z. C. M. I. stock
to start with, and afterwards increased it to over $60,000. He was elected a director in
the first organization and held that position during the remainder of his life. He also
became president and subsequently superintendent of the great institution.
In June, 1869, he engaged in the banking business with William H. Hooper and
Lewis S. Hills, the last named gentleman being cashier of the bank, which opened in a
small adobe building under the firm name of Hooper, Eldredge & Co , with a paid-up
capital of $50,000. In 1870 it increased its capital and changed its name to the Bank of
Deseret. In 1872 it organized as the Deseret National Bank, with a capital of $200,000,
depositing the necessary bonds and issuing $180,000 in national currency. William H.
Hooper was president, Horace S. Eldredge vice-president, and Lewis S. Hills cashier.
From May, 1870, to June, 1871, President Eldredge was absent from home, presiding
over the European Mission. He was accompanied abroad by his second wife, Mrs. Chloe
Redfield Eldredge. Prior to their return they visited most of the large cities of Great
Britain, France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Scandinavia. No sooner was he at
home again than he was involved in business as usual, visiting California and the East in
the interests of Z. C. M. I., of which in April, 1873, he was elected president. He held
the office for six months, and then resigned to make way for the re-election of President
Brigham Young. During the summer of that year, in the midst of a general panic that
was" sweeping over the land, he visited the East in behalf of the institution over which he
presided. In 1874, at the request of Captain Hooper, superintendent of Z. C. M. I., he
went East, accompanied by Spencer Clawson, to purchase goods for the spring trade.
In October, 1876, General Eldredge was solicited to take charge of the institution as
superintendent, and having been elected to that office he entered upon his duties on the
first day of November. He held the position for four years and three months, resigning
February 1, 1SS1, when he was succeeded by William Jennings. During the period of
his supei-intendency an addition was built to the large store on Main Street and a branch
building erected at Ogden. He was re-elected Superintendent in June, 1S83, and held
17
250 HISTORY OF UTAH.
that position until the day of his death. It was he who built the Z. C. M. I. shoe factory,
and the last drive he took was to inspect that building, which was just about completed
and the factory ready to start when he died, September 6, 1888. General Eldredge had
been married five times. He left twenty children to share in his estate, a portion of which
he bequeathed to the cause of education in the Church of which he was one of the leading
authorities.
FERAMORZ LITTLE,
kNE of the main pillars of Utah's financial and commercial life was Feramorz Little,
for three consecutive terms the mayor of Salt Lake City, and for many years
among the leading citizens of the commonwealth. He was born June 14, 1820,
in the town of Aurelius, Cayuga county, New York. He came to Utah in
September, 1850, and died at Salt Lake City in August, 1887. His father, James Little,
emigrated to America from Ireland, early in the nineteenth century, and family records
show that in the year 1690 his ancestors passed over from England to the "Green Isle."
The mother of Feramorz was Susan Young Little, a sister to Brigham Young, the
founder of Utah.
When he was but four years old his father died, leaving him, with two brothers,
Edwin and James, wholly dependent upon their widowed mother. She, with her slender
means, did what she could for her children, but they had few opportunities for advance-
ment. At the age of eight "Ferry" went to live with Solomon Chamberlain, of Spring-
water, New York. Ever after he maintained himself entirely by his own exertions,
evincing even in his earliest years the independence of character that marked his future
life. He remained in the employ of General Chamberlain until he arrived at manhood, in
summer working on the farm, and in winter attending the village school.
In the early days of Mormonism Susan Little joined the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints and moved West with her brothers, who were all prominent members
of the Mormon community. For a penniless youth the Great West had many attractions,
and Feramorz Little, at the age of twenty-three, decided to follow his mother and relatives.
In 1843 he left his native state and traveled horseback as far as St. Louis, where he met
his mother after a separation of ten years. There and in Illinois he engaged in farming,
school-teaching and the grocery business. At Nauvoo he married in 1846 Fannie M. Decker,
sister to Lucy and Clara Decker, who were the wives of President Brigham Young.
In 1850 Mr. Little, desiring to see his mother and relatives, who had migrated to
Utah, contracted with Messrs. Livingston and Kincaid, non-Mormon merchants of Salt
Lake City, to freight goods to this point from Fort Kearney, now Nebraska City. At
that time he was in business at St. Louis, and not yet connected with the Mormon
Church. He arrived here September 23, 1850. His objective point was California, but
finding ample scope for his ambitions in the development of Utah, he settled among his
numerous family friends, became a Latter-day Saint, and subsequently one of the
Bishopric of the Thirteenth Ward, in which part of the Mormon capital he resided. He
joined the Church in 1852, and in 1858, according to the custom of those times, he married
Miss Annie E. Little and Miss Julia A. Hampton.
Soon after his arrival in Utah he showed his industrial activity by building a dam,
the first across the Jordan river, at a cost of twelve thousand dollars, and constructing
the first canal that took water from that stream for purposes of irrigation. In the summer
of 1851 he contracted with S. H. Woodson to carry the United States mail between Salt
Lake City and Laramie, a distance of more than five hundred miles, with no settlement and
but one trading post — Fort Bridger — between. His partners in the contract, which
lasted until January, 1853, were Charles Decker and Ephraim K. Hanks, his brothers-
in-law. During the two winters the mail-carriers endured the greatest hardships,
scarcity of food and fuel, blinding snow-storms and almost impassable mountains being
a few of the difficulties encountered; but the trips were successfully made. Mr. Little's
experience and forethought often saved his companions from suffering and death. In
HISTORY OF UTAH. 251
1856 he contracted to carry the mail between Salt Lake City and Independence, Missouri.
The carriers now traveled with mules and a light wag-on; formerly pack animals
had been used. They encountered the usual obstacles, making at times but eight miles
a day, and subsisting on parched corn and raw buffalo meat. The trip to Independence
consumed three months.
Arriving there early in 1857, Mr. Little, with Mr. Hanks, found the inhabitants in
a state of excitement over the sensational anti-Mormon reports set in circulation by
Judge Drummond, who with other slanderers of the people of Utah had made the nation
believe that the Mormons were in a state of rebellion against the government. These
reports Mr. Little denounced as false. Having occasion to go to Washington, D. C, to
collect his money for carrying the mails, he went on to New York, where he wrote to
the "Herald" of that city, refuting the foul calumnies. His letter to the great journal —
dated April 15, 1857 — is reproduced on page 596 of our first volume.
Continuing his industrial career, Mr. Little conducted a flouring mill at the mouth
of Parley's Canyon, making his home there in the early days. In his youth he had
worked in the leather business, and this doubtless led him to engage in tanning at that
place, where he had as his partners in this industry his uncle, President Young, and John
R. Winder. He also carried on blacksmithing and shoemaking, and established a school
for his children and those of his workmen. He built five saw mills in the canyons of
the Wasatch range, and for years carried on a prosperous lumbering business. He was
the builder of the Utah penitentiary on its present site.
In 1859 he brought large quantities of merchandise from Omaha to Salt Lake City,
and in 1863 was appointed emigration agent for the Church. Under his supervision
five hundred teams were fitted out, carrying three thousand emigrants, and involving
an outlay of one hundred thousand dollars. In 1865 he, with President Young, purchased
the Salt Lake House, then the leading local hotel. It was on the east side of Main
Street, about midway between First and Second South streets. He remained its
proprietor for several years. When the railroad came he engaged as a contractor in
building the Union Pacific road, and subsequently was superintendent of the Utah Central
and Utah Southern lines, holding the latter position until 1S72, when he went abroad
with President George A. Smith and party on their tour of Europe and the Orient. His
extensive business interests were ablv managed in his absence by his son, James
T. Little.
Accompanied by his daughter Claire (now Mrs. H. B. Clawson, Jr.) he left home
with the Palestine party in November, 1872. The object of this visit to that land was
to oless it, that the curse of barreness and desolation might be removed, and it again
become fruitful and fitted for the return of the scattered tribes of Israel. Accordingly on
March 2, 1873, President Smith and party ascended the Mount of Olives, where the
sacred ceremony was performed. Going and coming they visited the principal cities and
places of interest in Europe, Egypt and Asia Minor. In France they had an interview
with President Thiers and visited the French Assembly. The Littles returned home in
May, 1873.
Two years later Feramorz Little and his brother James fulfilled a mission to the Eastern
States, calling upon numerous relatives in New York, and obtaining a genealogical record
of their father's ancestors. Liberal in their views, they were generally treated with
courtesy while preaching, and succeeded in removing from the minds of the people many
false impressions concerning Mormonism. Among other points of interest touched by
their travels were the Hill Cumorah in Wayne county, New York, and the Temple site
in Jackson county, Missouri.
During the last few years of his life Mr. Little occupied various positions of public trust.
He was one of the Board of Regents of the University of Deseret, a member of the City
Council, and in 1876 was elected mayor of Salt Lake City, serving in that capacity, as
stated, for three consecutive terms. During the period of his mayoralty the Salt Lake
and Jordan canal was constructed under his supervision, the streets improved, the water
works extended, and the purchase of Liberty Park and Pioneer Square effected. In
the latter part of his life he gave special attention to banking. He was a director of
the Deseret National Bank and virtually one of its founders. At the time of his death
he was its vice-president. He was also a director of the Ogden National Bank, and was
likewise interested in Z. C. M. I.
In June, 1881, Mr. Little sustained a severe loss in the death of his wife Fannie. As
already stated, he had married two other wives; but he was again a single man when
he married Miss Rebecca E. Mantle. His death occurred in August, 18S7. While
visiting the Blackfoot Ranch, of which he was president, he was stricken with a severe
252 HISTORY OF UTAH.
illness, and it was aggravated by the journey home, which required three days. Typhoid
fever set in, terminating, on the 14th of the month, his earthly existence.
His death was universally regretted. He was recognized as one of Utah's ablest
business men and foremost citizens. A man of honesty and integrity, he manifested
eminent administrative ability and marked devotion to the public welfare. He was loved
by both rich and poor for his keen sense of justice and great kindness of heart. Disliking
ostentation, he distributed large sums in benevolence and charity of which only his
family and most intimate friends were aware. Among the evidences of his philanthropic
spirit is a row of comfortable cottages, built by him for the poor of the Thirteenth
Ward, and still serving the purpose for which they were erected. Feramorz Little was
essentially a self-made man, indebted for his success to a kind Providence and the
sterling qualities of his nature.
HENRY DINWOODEY.
/TJ* NATIVE of the village of Latchford, in the county of Cheshire, England, where he
(*J was born September 11, 1825; a fatherless apprentice at the age of thirteen; an
^■^ emigrant to America at twenty-four, and a settler in Utah at thirty; the present
head of the H. Dinwoodey Furniture Company — the largest concern of its kind in
this region — has a career which affords an example of what may be accomplished, in spite
of many obstacles, by native pluck, patient industry and the wise management and pru-
dent foresight which are the financier's main secrets of success. Henry Dinwoodey's
early ancestors were Scotch, but his paternal grandparents were natives of the Isle of
Man, while his grandparents on the maternal side were of Somersetshire, England. His
father, James Dinwoodey, was born at Douglas, and his mother, whose maiden name was
Elizabeth Mills, at Babcary. They had six children, named in their order as follows:
Charlotte, Henry, Frances, William, John and James. All these were born at Latchford,
near Warrington, about eighteen miles from Liverpool.
A blacksmith of small means, Henry's father was unable to give him many oppor-
tunities for education, though up to his thirteenth or fourteenth year the boy attended
school at intervals and acquired some knowledge of the rudiments. At nine years he be-
gan working in a rope walk, where it was his duty to turn a wheel, but it was not long
before he secured a situation in a chandler's store. He remained there until he was thir-
teen, when, his father dying, he felt it incumbent on him to enlarge his sphere of useful-
nessj the better to help his widowed mother provide for the family.
Desirous of becoming a builder, he gave notice to his employer that he wished to
leave his situation. The latter strongly objected and offered him every inducement to
remain. The lad was firm, however, and so fixed in his resolve that he finally ran away,
and for the next eight days resided with an aunt in Liverpool. Not even the appearance
upon the scene of his employer, (who was also the parish constable) with a pair of hand-
cuffs, with which he hoped to frighten the boy into acquiescence, could induce him to re-
turn home, though he subsequently did so of his own volition, much to the relief of his
mother.
But he was done with selling soap and candles. Purchasing on time a second-band
set of carpenter's tools, he apprenticed himself to an old gentleman named Pierpoint, a
builder at Warrington. At the expiration of three years Mr. Pierpoint died, thus cancel-
ling the engagement, and young Dinwoodey then worked for another large builder named
Elsby, also of Warrington, at higher wages than he had received before. He also ob-
tained from Mr. Elsby a situation for his brother William, to learn the trade of brick
mason. When he was about nineteen, his mother married again, and Henry, giving up
his situation, left Warrington and went to Newton-in-the-Willows, where he obtained em-
ployment as pattern maker in the Vulcan Iron Foundry, remaining there for over a year.
During this time he boarded at the home of Charles Simpkins, an Elder of the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in whose house religious meetings were held by the
local members of that body. It was here that he first investigated Mormonism. Con-
vinced of its truth, he was baptized by Elder Simpkins February 23, 1845.
Moving back to Warrington, he continued working at his trade, and there became
acquainted with Miss Ellen Gore, daughter of John and Alice Gore, of St. Helen's. She
HISTORY OF UTAH. 253
was a staunch Methodist, but in a short time he converted her to Morrnonisru, and she al-
so joined the Church. Henry Dinwoodey and Ellen Gore were married at Latchford,
February 8, 1846. They took up their residence at Warrington, where, in the year 1847,
the young husband was ordained a deacon and subsequently a teacher in the Church.
The dates of these ordinations were January 24th and September 20th. respectively. He
and a few others rented a room, of which he had charge, and in it were held meetings of
the Warrington Branch. He continued to reside there until Septembers, 1849, when,
with his wife and his brother John, he emigrated, sailing from Liverpool for New Or-
leans on board the ship "Berlin."
During the voyage the cholera broke out, and forty-three persons died and were
buried in the sea. Neither Mr. Dinwoodey nor his wife took the disease — though she was
in very delicate health, while he waited upon the sick and helped to bury the dead — but
his brother John came down with it, and except for good attention and a vigorous appli-
cation of cayenne pepper inside and out, would probably have succumbed to the dread
malady. They landed at New Orleans on the 23rd of October, and remained there until
the following spring. Mr. Dinwoodey worked at carpentering, for three dollars a day
(four times as much as he had received in England for the same labor) and then engaged
with one James Stevens in the manufacture of rain-water cisterns. Nearly every house
in New Orleans was supplied with a cistern, rain water being used there for culinary pur-
poses, as preferable to the muddy water of the Mississippi, the only other kind ob-
tainable.
In April, 1850, the family removed to St. Louis, journeying up the Mississippi on a
steamboat. At the corner of Sixth Street and Washington Avenue they rented a small
store, where Mrs. Dinwoodey opened a business of dry goods and notions, while her hus-
band obtained a good situation as head pattern maker in Dowdell's Foundry. In 1852 he
was joined by his brother William, who arrived at St. Louis with the Needham family,
and the next year his mother and his step-father, John Evans, reached there, bringing
with them his brother James. Shortly after their arrival his brother John, who had a
situation on a steamboat plying between St. Louis and New Orleans, accidentally fell
overboard and was drowned, his body never being recovered. Henry Dinwoodey *vas an
active member of the St. Louis branch of the Church, whose president, Thomas Rigley,
ordained him an Elder. April 3, 1851.
In the spring of 1855 he announced to Mr. Dowdell his intention of leaving for Salt
Lake City. The latter used every inducement to dissuade him from his purpose, sitting
by his bench for hours talking with him on the subject, and telling him that he felt sure the
Mormons were deluded and misguided. Finding he could not change his mind, he parted
regretfully with his valued employee, and promised that if he ever repented of his action
, he had but to let him know and he would send him the means to return. It was in May
that he left St. Louis, taking a passage for himself and wife on a steamboat to Atchison,
Kansas, where he purchased a wagon and cattle for the journey across the plains. Among
his effects was a small lot of merchandise. He made the trip in Captain John Hindley's
independent company, and arrived at Salt Lake City about the middle of September.
The Dinwoodeys first rented a room in a house owned by Vincent Shurtliff, at the corner
of Third South and First West streets, and already partly occupied by James Needham and
family. The following spring they moved into a house built by Mr. Dinwoodey on an ad-
joining lot, for which he had traded his oxen and wagon. He worked at the carpenter's
trade, and subsequently entered into a partnership with James Bird, cabinet maker,
whose place of business was about opposite to wheie the Salt Lake Tribune office now
stands. This partnership continued until the fall of 1857, when trade was prostrated by
news of the approach of Johnston's army. Mr. Dinwoodey joined the militia and helped
to repel the invaders, serving first in a troop of lancers under Captain H. B. Clawsou.
between Salt Lake City and Fort Bridger, and afterwards in an infantry company in Echo
and Weber canyons. He returned home in December. His appointment as captain
of infantry came twelve years later.
In the move of 1858 he went south as far as American Fork canyon, having first
piled his house full of wood and shavings, preparatory to the fiery sacrifice contem-
plated by the Saints should the United States troops, in their march through the all
but deserted city, attempt to molest person or property. He journeyed southward in
a borrowed wagon, well loaded with provisions and other articles, and drawn by two
yoke of unbroken steers, whose restive gyrations endangered at every stage the lives
and limbs of the migrating household. While in American Fork canyon, Messrs.
Dinwoodey and Bird repaired an old saw mill they had found there, and spent the
time of their exile in making lumber and shoe pegs. Returning home after peace was
254 HISTORY OF UTAH.
declared, Mr. Dinwoodey proceeded to lay the foundatio?is of the splendid business with
which his name has been identified for upwards of forty ye.-trs.
As compared with its present proportions, how poor and small the beginnings of
this important enterprise! Its founder, in partnership with a man named Olson, rented
in 1^58 from Levi Richards a piece of ground on the east side of Main Street, between
South Temple and First South streets, there building a shop and beginning the manu-
facture, from native lumber, of hand-made furniture. In a short time — his partner
having left and gone to farming — Mr. Dinwoodey built an addition to the shop, em-
ployed more men and for some time did a good business. It soon increased to such
an extent that more room was required, and about the year 1861, he bargained with
Thomas Bullock for a piece of land fronting northward on First South street, between
Main and West Temple, — a portion of the premises he now occupies. He paid for this
land by fencing in the remainder of Mr. Bullock's lot with a board fence six feet high.
In the rear of his newly purchased ground he put up a lumber workshop (still re-
taining his place on Main Street) and three years later this was followed by a more
commodious workshop, with a store in front, both built of adobes. By that time he
had purchased of Joseph Tyrell a piece of land on the east, where an addition to the
store was erected. As these improvements were made, he continually added' to his
force of employes. Money being very scarce in those times, he had to barter and
exchange his manufactures for merchandise, produce or other home-made articles, with
which he paid his men.
'1 was always on hand for a trade," says Mr. Dinwoodey, "scarcely anything
coming amiss — lumber, adobes, beef, provisions, boots and shoes, and even beet mo-
lasses and soft soap being taken in exchange. There was no regular pay-day, but
whenever a man required anything, I would give him an order on some tradesman,
with whom I kept a credit account, exchanging my goods for his. I thus enabled
many of my employes to obtain homes. When one of them stated to me that he wished
to purchase a certain lot and build himself a house, I would trade for the land for
him and give him an order on the lumberman, adobe maker, brick mason, etc., and
by this means he would get his house built and would repay me in labor, which pay-
ment being complete, I would give him a deed for his property."
About the year 1866, in order to facilitate the manufacture of furniture, Mr. Din-
woodey sent East for a small steam engine of four-horse power, the first one imported
for this purpose into the Territory. Before it arrived, however he sold it to Latimer,
Taylor and Company, having purchased in the meantime a ten-horse power engine from
a gentleman who had been experimenting in oil wells on Bear River. Fixing up a
little rude machinery' — turning-lathe, circular saw, boring machine, etc., he went on
working with these until the advent of the railroad, when he imported additional ma-
chinery and a considerable quantity and variety of furniture, such as he could not
manufacture. This was the first furniture brought to Utah for sale. To place his order
for this and his new machinery — which altogether cost him about two thousand dollars —
he went East on May 1st, 1869, taking the cars at the terminal point a little above Ogden.
He was in New York City when the last spike connecting the Union Pacific and Central
Pacific roads was driven at Promontory. His goods, having arrived, were hauled from
Ogden to Salt Lake with ox-teams, the Utah Central railroad not yet being built. The
new machinery, consisting of a planer, morticing and shaping machines and other tools,
greatly facilitated his manufacture of furniture, and he also did quite a large business in
sawing, turning and planing lumber for the public.
As a result of the coming of the railroad, the city began to grow very fast, many im-
provements being made in buildings, etc., especially on Main Street, where Mr. Dinwoodey
found it necessary in 1871 to pull down his old board store and shop, and erect a two-story
building of more approved style. This, however, did not fully accommodate his steadily
increasing trade, and a portion of his stock had to be moved to his First South Street store.
He continued business at both places for a season, and then, leasing his Main street prop-
erty, removed his entire stock to First South street, where he has carried on the furniture
business exclusively up to the present time.
In 1873 he contracted with Folsom and Romney to build him a new three-story brick
structure, eighty feet deep by thirty-nine feet wide, to make room for which a portion of
the old adobe store was taken down. This improvement enabled him to make the largest
display of furniture between Omaha and San Francisco. A new factory and new work-
shops were also erected, the former near the Dinwoodey residence on First West street,
the latter in the rear of the store, an east end addition to which soon followed, giving an
entire frontage of sixty-two feet. The wallpaper and carpet business was then added,
HISTORY OF UTAH. 255
and eventually hardware and croekeiy. In 18S5 drummers took the road in the interests
of the house, which thereby obtained larger wholesale orders and extended its business
connections with retail merchants in the surrounding' Territories. Goods were often
shipped at the rate of a car-load a day, exclusive of city orders. In 1888, the business —
begun thirty years before, with a few home-made tables and chairs, worth less than a
hundred dollars in articles of exchange — had grown to over one hundred thousand dollars,
cash value.
In May, 1S90, came a disastrous fire, sweeping away the results of many years of in-
dustry. It destroyed many thousands of dollars worth of goods, completely gutted the
building, and rendered necessary the erection of a new store, with shops and other
appurtenances. The new structure, mammoth in proportions, palatial in appearance, was
completed and opened in December of the same year, and since then the Dinwoodey Fur-
niture Company has soared phoenix-like to success. The loss inflicted by the fire was
ftbout one hundred and thirty thousand dollars, over half of which was covered by insu-
ance. The business at present represents an invested capital of two hundred thousand
dollars.
While carrying on the furniture trade, Mr. Dinwoodey has been prominently connected
with other enterprises and industries. In 1874 he became a life member of the Deseret
Agricultural and Manufacturing Society, and for years was a director and the treasurer
of that organization. In 1S79 he was a director of the Utah Eastern railway, and in 1880
treasurer of the Home Coal company. In 1881 he was appointed by the Board of Trade
chairman of committees to investigate the subjects of home-made furniture and home-
made glue. In 1886 he was a director of the Wire Fence and Wire Mattress Manufac-
turing Company, which he helped to incorporate. He also assisted to organize a wool
mattress manufacturing company, and was one of its directors. He was requested to take
the presidency of these concerns, but declined. The same year he was elected a director
of the Home Fire Insurance Company. He was also a director of the Deseret Tannery and
of the Blackfoot Land and Cattle Company. He was for some time a director of the Deseret
National Bank. Since November 10, 1888, he has been a director of Z. C. M. I., and since
April, 1889, a director of the Salt Lake City street railroad.
So much for his business career. Let us now speak of him politically. While at St.
Louis in July, 1854, he declared his intention to become a citizen of the United States, and
on September 7, 1865, he was naturalized in the probate court of Salt Lake county. A
question afterwards arose as to the authority of probate courts in such matters, and he
applied for citizenship in the Third District court; his application being granted No-
vember 3, 1868. As early as 1865 he was a trustee of the Seventh School district. In
September, 1874, he was appointed a member of the Salt Lake City Council, to fill a
vacancy caused by the death of Thomas Williams. He was elected an Alderman from the
Second Precinct in February, 1876, and re-elected in 1S7S, 1880 and 1882. The large
majoritj7 by which he was chosen was made up of both Mormons and Gentiles. He retired
in 1884, disqualified under the Edmunds law. While in the City Council he was chairman
of such important committees as finance, fire department, gas works, water works
and improvements. Prior to becoming a member of that body, he held appointments
under the municipal government, first as foreman of the Deseret Hook and Ladder Com-
pany, Salt Lake Fire Brigade (July, 1871) and two years later as assistant engineer of the
Fire Department. He declined the appointment of captain of brigade on account of
defective hearing. In 1880 he was elected by the Legislature a regent of the University
of Deseret, and re-elected in 1882. In 1881 he served as a member of the University
building committee.
Ecclesiastically Mr. Dinwodey is also prominent. In the winter of 1855 he was ordained
a Seventy and became a member of the Thirteenth quorum. In 1S71 he was made a
counselor to Bishop William Thorn of the Seventh Ward ( having previously acted as a Ward
teacher), and after serving two years in that capacity was chosen a High Councillor of
the Salt Lake Stake, which position he still occupies.
By his first wife Ellen Gore, who died March 20, 1886, he was childless; by his
second wife, Anne Hill, he is the father of eight children, five sons and three daughters;
and by his third wife, Sarah Kinnersley, the father of one, a daughter. His aged
mother died June 1, 1881. In 1882 and 1883 he took trips to California and the East,
accompanied by members of his family, and early in 1885 made a tour of the Middle and
Southern states, visiting the International Exhibition at New Orleans. During one of
these jaunts he visited his brother William and family in St. Louis.
In June, 1885, the anti-polygamy crusade being at its height, he was arrested and
taken before U. S. Commissioner McKay, where he waived examination and was held in
256 HISTORY OF UTAH.
bonds of fifteen hundred dollars to await the action of the grand jury. He was duly indicted,
and in February, 1886, appeared in court, pleaded guilty to living with his wives, and
was sentenced to the full penalty for unlawful cohabitation — a fine of three hundred
dollars and costs and six months imprisonment in the penitentiary. He entered the
prison on the 23rd of February, served his term, minus the time remitted for good
behavior, and was released on the 26th of July. It was during the period of his
incarceration that his wife Ellen died. She was the companion of his youth, and he felt
her loss keenly. "It was a sad blow to me," said he, "especially under the circumstances,
which prevented my being by her side at such a time. I was allowed by the authorities
to visit her once during her illness, when she was not expected to survive, and after her
death to attend the funeral services, after which I returned to the penitentiary."
In 1891 and again in 1892, Mr. Dinwoodey went to England, re-visiting the scenes
of his childhood, and seeking rest, health and diversion. Members of his family accom-
panied him. He has provided handsome homes for his two living wives. Most of his
children are married, his four daughters being respectively, Mrs. Joseph A. Jennings,
Mrs. Richard P. Morris, Mrs. James H. Moyle and Mrs. William C. Wright. His eldest
son, Henry Mills Dinwoodey, is associated with him in business. His youngest son,
Leroy Gore, is at Stanford University, in California. In his seventy-eighth year Mr.
Dinwoodey continues hale and hearty, and when not traveling, may be seen daily at his
place of business. He is one of the solid men of the community, respected and esteemed
by a wide circle of friends.
NICHOLAS GROESBECK.
PROMINENT and successful in business was Nicholas Groesbeck, of Salt Lake
City; a native of Rensselaer county, New York, born September 5, 1819, and
a resident of Utah from the year 1856 to the day of his death, June 29, 1884. His
parents, Harmon and Mary Bovee Groesbeck, were farm folk, energetic and
industrious, striving with every faculty to gain a livelihood and educate their children.
They lived in Rensselaer county until Nicholas was six years old, when they moved to
Chataqua county, and subsequently to Genesee county, where the father died when the
son was about nine years of age. He was a very sickly child and was not expected to
live from week to week, which fact accounts for the little schooling he received — only
about nine months in all — during the winters of three years.
When Nicholas was twenty, he removed with his mother and the family to Spring-
field, Illinois, arriving there in September, 1839. Up to this time he had been an invalid,
but now his health improved, and he was able, to do manual labor. A natural trader,
possessing excellent judgment, which almost invariably led him to the safe side of a
bargain, he dealt in hay, wood, coal, etc., and with cash thus obtained purchased
at a discount promissory notes upon which he could realize later. He labored and
speculated in Springfield for seventeen years, and accumulated a fortune of fifteen to
twenty thousand dollars, which made him a comparatively wealthy man for those
times.
He had embraced Mormonism the year before he removed to Illinois, where he con-
tinued to reside until he emigrated to Utah. He had a good outfit, consisting of five
wagons, six yoke of oxen, a carriage, five horses, and five Durham cows. The wagons
were loaded with household goods and merchandise. He had been a, married man since
March 25, 1841, when he wedded Miss Elizabeth Thompson, who became the mother of
his nine children. He emigrated two families in addition to his own. The Groesbecks
left Springfield on the 12th of May, Winter Quarters on the 3rd of July, and arrived at
Salt Lake City on the 2nd of October. They were in John Banks' company of fifty
wagons, ten of which were in charge of Mr. Groesbeck. Among the incidents of the
journey was a stampede on July 24th. in which a boy named Burton was killed. On
the 28th they sighted the first buffalo, and the next day came upon thousands of them
HISTORY OF UTAH. 257
—"north, south and west, nothing but a heaving mass of buffalo;'' on the 30th, one
of Mr. Groesbeck's teamsters, Solomon Call, was accidentally shot and killed.
Early in 1857 Nicholas Groesbeck was sent east as an agent of the Y. X. com-
pany, to transact business in St. Louis, Chicago, New York and other cities, and
forward the mails from Independence, Missouri, to Salt Lake City. A. O. Smoot and
others were also sent upon similar errands. The mails being refused at Independence,
— the government having determined to make war upon Utah — Messrs. Groesbeck and
Smoot decided to break up the various mail stations founded by the home company and
move the outfits westward. Mayor Smoot, with Judson Stoddard and others, undertook
this task, carrying the war news to Utah, while Mr. Groesbeck remained on the frontier
long enough to load up and bring on a train of merchandise owned by the Church,
President Young, himself and other parties. Among the goods was a thousand pounds of
powder, liable with the rest of the merchandise to confiscation by the United States army,
then about starting west. General Johnston refused Mr. Groesbeck a pass, at the same
time telling him that as soon as the rumor was verified, that the government supply
trains sent on ahead had been burned by the Mormons near Green River, he would make
him and his men prisoners and confiscate the teams, wagons and merchandise. Knowing
it to be a fact that the trains and supplies had been burned, Mr. Groesbeck pushed on
rapidly until he came to the Platte bridge, where he made a conditional sale of every-
thing excepting his mules, to a man named Mishaw, who owned the trading post at that
point, taking his receipt and agreement to deliver merchandise, wagons and all. when
called for, upon payment of storage for the same. He then bought riding and pack
saddles, and he and his men, mounting the mules, struck into the mountains, leaving the
old emigrant road fifty or seventy-five miles to the north, and coming out upon Green
river just below the point where the Union Pacific railroad now crosses it. At Fort
Bridger he met a detachment of the Utah militia, who were there to watch the movements
of the advancing army. He was gladly greeted by them, as it was supposed he had been
captured by the government troops. Arriving home, Mr. Groesbeck and his friends were
heartily welcomed by President Young and his associates, and their faithful services
commended. In May, 1S5S, he went back to the Platte bridge, where Mr. Mishaw
returned to him his merchandise, wagons, etc., all in good condition, and with these he
arrived once more in safety at Salt Lake City.
At the time of "the move" the Groesbecks went to Springville, where the head of the
family established a store, which, after running it successfully for six years, he sold to
his eldest son, Nicholas H. Groesbeck, and then turned his attention to the improvement
of his property in Salt Lake City. He had purchased in the fall of ISoS the corner upon
which the Wasatch block, including the Kenyon hotel, now stands. Everything he
turned to prospered. His family residence was in the Seventeenth ward, near the north-
ern terminus of West Temple street.
In 1867-8 he fulfilled a mission to Great Britain, laboring while abroad in the Not-
tingham conference. His office in the Church was that of a Seventy, to which he had
been ordained at Nauvoo, Illinois. He was connected with the Fifty-fourth quorum.
Before or after his mission to England he fulfilled one to the Eastern states.
In 1869, the railroad having arrived, and the mines of Utah being re-opened,
Mr. Groesbeck turned his attention to mining. With his three eldest sons — Nicholas,
William and John — and four other men, he began operations in LittleCottonwood canyon,
where they worked with no apparent success until the winter of 1870-71, when they
opened up the great Flagstaff mine, which was sold by him in London for half a million
dollars. In 1872 he built the Groesbock block, and in 1873-4 about two-thirds of the
Wasatch block, including the main entrance and north wing. The building remained in
that condition until 1881, when he built the south wing, thus completing the structure
according to the architect's design. He was largely interested in the development of
coal and iron mines in Summit and Iron counties. In the Great Western Iron company
he held the office of a director. Everything that tended to build up and beautify Salt
Lake City met with his hearty approval, and his pocket book was always open and his
money ready for the promotion of the work. His wealth consisted mostly of real estate,
mines, mercantile and bank stock. He was a public-spirited, enterprising citizen, and his
life was pure and exemplary. At one time he was a member of the city council.
Mr. Groesbeck's greatest sorrow came when his wife died, December 28, 1883. He
did not long remain to mourn her loss. It was only six months and one day later when
he followed her across the dark waters into the bright beyond. He died at his home,
surrounded by his children, passing away in peace, firm in the religious faith which he
had espoused when a youth of nineteen.
THOMAS GEORGE WEBBER.
px^HREE qualities have contributed about equally to the success and prominence of
{<$} Colonel Thomas G. Webber, best known for his extended connection with Zion's
^T Co-operative Mercantile Institution, of which he has been for many years secretary,
superintendent and director. Those qualities are business acumen, executive
thoroughness, and a gentlemanly urbanity as winsome as it is inexhaustible. For the
first and third of these he is indebted mostly to nature, supplemented of course by edu-
cation and experience; the second is due to his early training as a civil engineer, his
subsequent career in the army, and his thirty-three years of continuous commercial
activity. A native of Exeter, England, where he was born September 17, 1836, a comer
to America in 1855, and a resident of Utah since the winter of 1863-4, he has figured
prominently not only in business concerns, where undoubtedly lies his forte, but in civic,
military and educational affairs, rendering intelligent and efficient service in all. He
helped to start the first daily paper in Utah, and was its business manager until leaving
it to accept a position in the great institution with which he has ever since been
identified.
The Webbers are an old Devonshire family, living for centuries at and in the vicinity
of the ancient town of Exeter. The parents of this subject were Thomas Bray and
Charlotte D. B. Webber. The family were in moderate circumstances. The father,
a scientific man, was a civil engineer and government superintendent of the telegraph
lines in Devon and Cornwall. The son received a good education. Inclining to his
father's profession, he was trained in that line. Mathematics and drawing were his
delight, he was thorough and systematic in his studies, and became quite a proficient
scholar. When about sixteen years of age his mother died, and he was placed by his
father in an engineer's office, where he was practically fitted for this profession.
While yet a student he conceived the idea of cossing the Atlantic and trying his
fortune in the New World, his mind being led out in this direction by the departure of
one of his fellow students for Brazil, where he had been offered a position on one of the
government railroads. Young Webber, however, preferred the United States as a field
for his own operations, and in the fall of 1855, in company with a Mr. Kraus, a German
gentleman of his acciuaintance, he sailed for New York, where, soon after their arrival,
an engineer's and surveyor's office was opened by them. In a sho'.t time, however ,the
partnership, by mutual consent, was dissolved.
It was in 1857, the same year that the Government troops under General Albert
Sydney Johnston were ordered i.o Utah, that Mr. Webber, then a youth of twenty,
entered the United States army. He was not destined, however, to take part in the
campaign against the people whom he afterwards joined. He served in Arizona and
California until the outbreak of the Civil Wai, when he proceeded, by way of Panama,
with a portion of his regiment, to New York and Washington. The early part of 1862
found him enrolled in the Army of the Potomac, marching to Portress Monroe. Under
McClellan, Burnside, Hooker and Meade, he took part in the Peninsular and other
campaigns, and was present at the battles of Yorktown, Williamsburg, Gaines Mill, White
Oak Swamp, Fredericksburg, Kelly's Ford, Chancellorsville, Upperville, Gettysburg and
Williamsport. It is needless to say that the young soldier, with these names in his
personal lexicon, saw plenty of active service during those terrible times. He remained
with the army until the fall of 1863, passing through the various grades and becoming
successively commissary, quartermaster and adjutant of his regiment.
While serving in the West in 1858 he had become acquainted with a man named
Eben Miller, an Elder of the Latter-day Church, who presented to him the principles of
his religion. With these Mr. Webber was favorably impressed, and on learning, about
the time he resigned from the army, that his friend Miller was at Florence, Nebraska,
on his way to Utah, he started for that point with the intention of joining him and
HISTORY OF UTAH. 259
coming west. He bad reached St. Joseph, Missouri, when he learned that Miller would
not cross the plains that season: he therefore changed his course to Atchison, Kansas,
where he took stage for Salt Lake City.
He had not been long in Utah when he formed the acquaintance of the lady who
was destined to become his wife — Miss Nellie Richards, daughter of Apostle Franklin D.
Richards and his wife Charlotte Fox Richards. The young woman was a native of Salt
Lake City. She was married to Colonel Webber, May 25, 1SG7. They have ever been
a congenial and happy couple and are the parents of six children. Several years before
they wedded, Mr. Webber embraced the religion of the Latter-day Saints, which was the
purpose of his coining here, and during a portion of that period he had been intimately
associated with his future father- in-law, who was a brigadier-general in the Utah militia.
He himself was commissioned lieutenant-colonel of artillery, and afterwards he became
adjutant of the Second Brigade and a member of General Richards' staff.
Meantime he had associated himself in business with T. B. H. Stenhouse in the
founding of the Salt Lake Daily Telegraph. This was in the spring of 1864. The first
number of the Telegraph appeared on the 4th of July. Mr. Webber was business
manager of the paper, and remained with it until after its removal to Ogden early in
1S6'J. His connection with the Ogden Daily Telegraph was very brief. It had barely
announced the important event of the meeting of the two great railroads — the Union
Paeific aud Central Pacific — at Promontory, on the historic 10th of May, when he
left it to accept a position with Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institution. This brought
him back to Salt Lake City.
His business ability had long been recognized, and his punctual, systematic methods
were proverbial. These qualifications, combined with his quiet gentlemanly deportment,
and emphasized by faithful service in the general office of the institution, commended
him for early promotion, and in October, 1871, he was chosen secretary of Z. C. M. I.
In April, 1875, the office of treasurer was added, and he held the dual position until
October, 1S76, when he resigned, having been called upon a religious mission to Europe.
En route to his field of labor, he visited the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia, in
company with General H. B. Clawson.
While abroad he toured England, France, Italy and Switzerland, first, however,
visiting his friends and relatives in Devonshire. His fellow travelers on the Continent
were Franklin S. Richards and H. B. Clawson, Jr. From Bern he went to Baden and
Bavaria, remaining in the region of the Rhine until the winter of 1877-8, wheu he was
sent for by the Church authorities, his assistance being needed in the settlement of
President Brigham Young's estate. He forthwith returned to America, meeting his wife
at New York and returning with her to Utah. Twenty-two years later they together
made the tour of Europe.
In the fall of 1878, at the annual meeting of stock-holders of Z. C. M. I., he was again
elected secretary and treasurer of the institution. He served in that dual capacity
during the next ten years, when the two offices were separated, Mr. Webber retaining
that of secretary aud becoming at the same time general superintendent. He had
previously been assistant superintendent under General Eldredge. He still continues to hold
the two positions. His fine executive ability, military precision, perfect business
methods and honest aud prudent administration have made him indispensable to the
great mercantile house with-which he has been so long connected.
For a period of six years and up to 1890, when the People's party, of which he was
a member, lost control for the first time of the government of Salt Lake City, Colonel
Webber sat in the City Council, the first two years as a councillor and the remaining
four as an alderman, representing the Second Municipal Ward. In 1S81 he was secretary
and treasurer of Zion's Central Board of Trade, and in the latter part of the "eighties,"
treasurer of the Board of Regents of the University of Deseret. Among the prominent
enterprises witli which he is still connected are Zion's Savings Bank and Trust Company,
Zion's Benefit Building Society, the Home Fire Insurance Company, the Utah Jobbers
Association, the Postal Telegraph-Cable Company and the Utah Light and Power
Company. In all these he is a director. Of the Building Society he has been president
since its inception in June, 1883, and he is second vice-president of the Utah Light and
Power Company; having previously been president of the Salt Lake and Ogden Gas and
Electric Light Companies. He also presides over the Salt Lake Public Library. In
the Church he holds the office of a Seventy.
The Webbers dwell in a handsome home crowning a spur of the hill at the lower
end of Second Street; a fine location, convenient to business, removed from noise and
traffic, aud commanding a broad and beautiful view of Salt Lake valley. They are
260 HISTORY OF UTAH.
hospitable entertainers, popular in society, and what is far more, generous and kind-
hearted, especially to the poor and unfortunate. Public-spirited, liberal in his contri-
butions to every worthy cause, Colonel Webber is ever thoughtful and considerate of his
fellows, and many a good deed done by him and his estimable wife has never found its
way into print. Their living children, four in number, are, Mrs. Charlotte B. Franken, Miss
Georgina B. Webber, Mrs. Ethelyn B. Nye and Mr. Shirly T. B. Webber, all of Salt
Lake City.
FRANCIS MARION LYMAN.
■y I NDOUBTEDLY the most prominent, and certainly one of the most energetic workers
■ igj in the younger generation of the leading Mormon authorities, is Francis M.
^*^ Lyman the Apostle. That he is energetic and industrious, or what in business
parlance is termed "a rustler,'' is perhaps not to be placed entirely to his personal
credit, since he was born so, inheriting those qualities from his immediate ancestors;
but that he turned his energies as a youth into proper channels and has steadfastly
directed them to righteous ends, is very much to his credit, and no fair verdict
would withhold from him this meed of praise. As a public teacher, private adviser
and practical exponent of the principles he advocates, he stands in the front rank.
He will be remembered for his strict ideas on temperance — the keeping of the
Word of Wisdom, as the Mormon temperance revelation is styled; but there are many
other themes upon which he discourses just as earnestly, and the sphere of his activities
is wide and far-reaching.
The eldest son of Amasa M. Lyman and his first wife, Louisa M. Tanner, he was born
January 12, 1840, on the site of the present town of Good Hope, McDonough County,
Illinois. His parents at the time were homeless, having been driven with the main body
of the Latter-day Saints out of Missouri. They were spending the winter with an old
friend, Justus Morse, when their son was born. As an infant he was taken by his parents
to Iowa, then to Nauvoo, Illinois, whence he accompanied them in the winter of 1842 to
Shoekequon, Henderson county, in that State, and in 1843 to Alquina, Fayette county,
Indiana. There they remained until after the martyrdom of the Prophet and the Patriarch,
and then moved back to Nauvoo.
Francis was but six years old when his mother and four children, including himself,
all in charge of his grandfather John Tanner, joined the westward exodus of his people,
leaving Nauvoo in June. His father, then an Apostle, was with President Young and other
leaders, who had started with the head companies about three months before. Arriving
at Winter Quarters, the boy remained there until the spring of 1848, and then set out for
Salt Lake valley. On the way his father baptized him in the Elkhorn on the first day of
July. He drove an ox-team across the plains, arriving at Salt Lake City on the 19th of
October.
In 1851 young Lyman accompanied his father and the family to San Bernardino,
California, where, save for two or three trips back to Utah, he resided until 1858. He
had had some schooling at Winter Quarters, and at different times was taught in Salt Lake
county, but most of his school days were in the Cajon Pass, under a large sycamore tree,
with James H. Rawlins as teacher, and at San Bernardino, during the early years of his
residence there. In his trips across the deserts he had considerable experience in freighting,
also in the care and handling of horses and cattle. He traversed that route sixteen times.
At San Bernardino he worked at the joiner's trade with Thomas W. Whittaker.
In the spring of 1857 he started upon a mission to Europe, but the coming of John-
ston's army changed the program, and from Salt Lake City, to which point he had accom-
panied his father and others from the West, he was sent back with instructions to assist
in winding up the affairs of the California colony. Before leaving San Bernardino, he
married, November 18, 1857, Miss Rhoda Ann Taylor, the ceremony being performed by
Elder William J. Cox, the president of the settlement. During the following winter
he made two trips to Utah, moving his own and his father's family. .
Early in 1858 he accompanied his sire and others on an exploring expedition as
far as the Beal and Bishop Crossing of the Colorado river. In the fall of 1859 he
had charge of the family farm in Davis county, and during the winter was president
HISTORY OF UTAH. 261
of the Young Men's Literary Association of Farmington He had been an Elder of
the Church since 1836, when he was ordained by his father at San Bernardino. January
7, I860, witnessed his ordination as a Seventy under the hands of Elder John S. Gleason,
at Farmington.
In the spring of 1860 he was again called on a mission to Europe. Having moved
his wife and child to Beaver, quartering them in a log house that he had built — the
first house he ever owned — he started from Salt Lake City on the flrst day of May, in
company with his father and many others. At Kirtland, Ohio, he was shown through
the temple by Martin Harris, and after visiting relatives in New Hampshire, Vermont and
Massachusetts, he and his sire, with their party, sailed from New York on the 14th of July.
Abroad he labored as a traveling Elder in the London Conference, and subsequently as
president of the Essex Conference. Released in May, 1862, he was made second counselor
to President William Gibson, in charge of a company of over eight hundred emigrating
Saints. From New York he had sole charge of the company to Florence, from which
point he accompanied his father, Apostle Charles C. Rich, Captain Hooper and others to
Salt Lake City. October found him again with his family.
Under President Young's advice he now made his home at Fillmore, where he resided
for the next fourteen years or more. During that period he held many offices and was
prominently connected with all the important affairs of the county. As assistant assessor
of internal revenue, he served successively under assessors Jesse C. Little, A. L. Chati-
lain, John Smith, Richard V. Morris and John P. Tagsrart. The same year that he re-
ceived this appointment — 1866 — he and his father built a flouring mill at Fillmore and
engaged largely in the flour and grain trade; also in other business pursuits. In Sep-
tember, 1867, he was commissioned a lieutenant-colonel of militia. In 1869 he represented
Millard county in the General Assembly of the State of Deseret — which still had a
nominal existence — and subsequently represented [that county in the Territorial Legisla-
ture, during the seventeenth, eighteenth, twenty-second and twenty-third sessions. At
the organization of the Millard Stake of Zion, March 9, 1869, he became a member of the
High Council, being ordained a High Priest on the 13th of that month by President
Thomas Callister. He was prosecuting attorney and superintendent of common schools
for Millard county, and for many years its clerk and recorder. Most of the local cooper-
ative companies made him their secretary and treasurer, and he did nearly all the laud
business in that part. While still residing there he wedded his second wife, Miss Clara
Caroline Callister, President Daniel H. Wells performing the ceremony at Salt Lake City,
October 4, 1869.
From the fall of 1S73 until the fall of 1875 he was absent from home, fulfilling another
mission in Europe. He presided successively over the Nottingham and London confer-
ences, and between these appointments toured Wales, Scotland, the Isle of Man, Den-
mark, Germany, Switzerland and France, having as traveling companions at different
times President Joseph F. Smith, Elder John Henry Smith and others. At home again,
he was present at the dedication of the St. George Temple, and about two months later
received an appointment to preside over the Tooele Stake, being sustained in that position
at its organization June 24, 1877. James Ure and William Jeffries were his counselors.
President Lyman forthwith took up his residence in the city of Tooele, a residence
maintained up to the present time. In August, 1878, he was elected Recorder of Tooele
County, and was chosen to represent it in the legislature. The election was fairly won by
the People's party, but the Liberals, having a majority of the members of the County
Court, acting as a board of canvassers, succeeded in having their defeated candidates
counted in. The case went into the courts, and affer an eight months struggle the right
triumphed, Mr. Lyman and his confreres being installed in the offices to which they had
been elected. The full story is told in chapter five of the preceding volume.
Francis M. Lyman was chosen one of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints, at the General Conference held at Salt Lake City, October 10,
1880. His call and that of John Henry Smith to the Apostleship were made to fill vacancies
in the quorum of the Twelve, caused by the re-organization of the First Presidency.
Elder Lyman at the time was absent on a tour through Southern Utah and adjacent parts,
in company with Apostles Erastus Snow and Brigham Young. Having returned he was
ordained an Apostle on the 27th of October, by President John Taylor, assisted by his
counselors and several of the Twelve.
His first mission as an Apostle was to the Goose Creek country, in Cassia county,
Idaho, where a number of families from Tooele Stake were settling. With others of his
quorum he made repeated visits to these settlements, and in 1882 they completed the or-
ganization of the Cassia Ward. Between December, 1880, and October, 1881, he and
262 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Apostle John Henry Smith toured many of the stakes, organizing a ward at Frisco in June
of the latter year. From Bear Lake they were suddenly recalled to join President Taylor
and party in a visit to the southern settlements. The death of his daughter Alta com-
pelled a premature return of Apostle Lyman from St. George, hut after her burial he re-
joined the President and completed the tour.
The opening of 1882 found Hon. F. M. Lyman again in the Legislature as a represen-
tative from Tooele county. He was Speaker of the House, and as such signed two
memorials to Congress, which was then about to pass the Edmunds bill, asking that body
not to act hastily upon the extreme measures then pending before it, and requesting a
committee of investigation into Utah affairs. In April he moved a part of his family to
Provo, where his elder children entered the Brigham Young Academy.
In November of the same year he was appointed by the First Presidency to labor in
the interest of the Indians — the Shoshones of Tooele county and the Utes of Uintah, and
forthwith set about the fulfillment of the task assigned him At Deep Creek, early in 1883,
he received by purchase over a thousand acres of watered land, much of it fenced and
some of it improved with buildings, etc., for the establishment of an Indian mission.
William Lee was placed to preside and other missionaries were appointed to live aud labor
there with their families. The Apostle preached to the Shoshones, and then proceeded
to the county of the Uintah Indians. While in the Currant Creek region, on the 12th of
May, he was seized with a terrible pain, threatening a fatal rupture, but was healed
through the laying on of hands by the Elders in camp, Abram Hatch, and others. Kindly
received by the Indian agent, J. J. Critchlow, at Uintah, and J. F. Minniss, at Ouray, the
Apostle and his party held meetings on the reservation, attended by whites and Indians
alike. Jeremiah Hatch and others were selected and set apart as missionaries to the red
men. In the following August the Apostle and his son F. M. Lyman, Jr., visited the
Indian ward of Indianola. and with a company, including an Indian Elder named Nephi.
from Uintah, made a trip to Strawberry valley, where they baptized three Lamanites.
Many other visits to the Stakes followed.
In April, 1884, he accompanied President Taylor and a committee on iron works to
Iron City, aud in May and June visited with Brigham Young the settlements of the
Saints in Arizona. At Prescott they were courteously received by Governor F. A.
Tritle, Judge Sumner Howard (formerly of Utah) and other prominent officials.
Preaching missions to the north and south followed, during which the High Council of
Bannock Stake and several Bishoprics were organized. Accompanying him through the
South, besides other Apostles, were such men as A. K. Thurber, Edward M. Dalton
and Jesse W. Crosby, Jr. Christmas time found him at Payson, attending a three days
reunion of the Tanner family, from which his mother came. From Adamsville, he was
summoned by telegram to Salt Lake City to accompany President Taylor and party on
a journey of several weeks through the South.
The journey projected was the one taken by the President early in January, 1885,
about the beginning of the anti-polygamy crusade, which drove most of the Church
leaders into exile. They visited and comforted the Saints in Arizona, who were the first
to feel the rigors of the raid, and Apostle Lyman, accompanied by Christopher Layton,
president of Maricopa stake, called upon Elders Flake and Skouson in the Yuma peni-
tentiary, they being the first prisoners for conscience sake committed to that institution.
The party passed through New Mexico, visited Sonora in Old Mexico, and returned by
way of Los Angeles and San Francisco to Salt Lake City. Our Apostle attended the
General Conference at Logan in October. November found him again on his way
to Mexico, in company with Erastus Snow and Brigham Young, visiting en route
the settlements of the Saints on the Little Colorado, in eastern Arizona, aDd on the Gila.
The murderous Apaches were stealing and killing on every hand. Near Safford, on the
first of December, and on the very road they had passed over three days before, two young
men, Lorenzo S. and Seth Wright, were shot to death by Apaches. The three Apostles
spoke at the funeral of their murdered brethren at Layton on the second of December.
Having explored as far south as Arispe, the ex-capital of Sonora, Apostle Lyman took
train at Benson for Salt Lake City.
The increasing rigor of the crusade now made it unsafe for him to remain in Utah.
His family had been summoned as witnesses before the grand jury at Salt Lake City, on
January 19, 1886, and from that time until December, 1888. he was absent from home,
though laboring as zealously as ever in the interests of his Church and people. He was
in constant communication with the First Presidency and the president of his quorum, in
exile, and under their direction visited the Saints north, south, east and west, discharging
with thoroughness and fidelity the duties of his calling. Much of his time "on the under-
HISTORY OF UTAH. 263
ground" was spent in the study of ancient and modern history and other works. He also
wrote the personal record of his life, covering- the thirty years when he did not keep
a daily journal, and bringing the story up to date.
At Logan, in September, 1S86, he met at night with Elder Charles 0. Card, and
instructed him regarding his pioneer trip into British Columbia; the movement result-
ing in the founding of Alberta stake. In the summer of 1S87, Apostles Lyman,
Young and Smith organized the Snowflake and St. Johns stakes, with Jesse N. Smith
and David K. Udall as their respective presidents.
October of that year found Mr. Lyman on his way east, taking with him his aged
mother to visit, at Kirtland, Ohio, her only sister, from whom she had been separated
for fifty years. They touched at Independence and Richmond, Missouri (visiting David
Whitmer at the latter place), and at Carthage and Nauvoo, Illinois. Leaving his mother
at Kirtland. he extended his travels as far as Palmyra, Manchester and the Hill Cumorah,
in New York state: also Philadelphia and New York city. He found many of his kindred
in that region, and at Paluivra called on Major John H. Gilbert, the compositor of the first
edition of the Book of Mormon — a genial, well preserved old gentleman, then eighty-five
years of age. At Washington, D. C, he was accorded a brief interview with President
Grover Cleveland.
Much of the year 1SS8 was spent by Apostle Lyman in council with his quorum,
which was then the supreme authority of the Church. In May he participated in the
dedicatory services of the Manti temple, and in June had the honor of inaugurating the
oi-dinances in that sacred house. In September, when President George Q. Cannon
surrendered to the United States marshal and was sent to the penitentiary, Apostle Lyman
concluded to do likewise as soon as he should return from a mission to Canada, upon
which he had just been appointed. He performed this mission in company with Apostle
John W. Taylor. They organized a bishopric at Cardston, made the Canadian mission a
part of Cache stake, and at Ottawa consulted with Sir John A. McDonald and other min-
isters of the Dominion regarding the Mormon settlements it was designed to plant in the
Northwest Territory. They were kindly received, and every legal encouragement offered
the Saints to locate permanently in Canada.
On the 12th of December, two days after his return from the north, Mr. Lyman sur-
rendered to United States Marshal Dyer, and going before Chief Justice Sandford in the
Third District court, pleaded guiltv to unlawful cohabitation, for which, under the segre-
gating process he had been indicted five times. Four of the indictments were dismissed,
and upon the fifth he was sentenced, January 14, 18S9, to eighty-five days' imprisonment
in the Utah penitentiary, and to pay a fine of two hundred dollars and costs. During a
part of his term he was a fellow prisoner with President Cannon and about a hundred
and twenty others of their co-religionists. Apostle Lyman was released on the 8th of
April, and proceeded directly to the Tabernacle, where the General Conference was in
session. He was one of those who addressed the assembled Saints. At this conference
the First Presidency was again organized, President Wilford Woodruff succeeding Presi-
dent John Taylor at the head of the Church. During the remainder of the year, and
from that time forth, the Apostle was busy traveling through the stakes, devoting himself,
as usual, to the work of the ministry, and to other public labors. In 1890, he was one
of the leading spirits in putting in, at a cost of twenty thousand dollars, a system of
waterworks for Tooele city. In January, 1892, he attended the dedication of the new
Brigham Young Academy building at Provo.
In April of the same year he was present at the laying of the capstone of the Salt
Lake Temple, and on that occasion, in the presence of forty thousand people, he offered
a resolution, proposing that the vast assemblage pledge themselves, collectively and
individually, to furnish, as fast as might be needed, all the money required to complete
the Temple at the earliest time possible, so that the dedication might take place on April
6, 1893. The resolution was unanimously and enthusiastically adopted. The speaker
then stated that he would head a subscription list with a donation of a thousand dollars to
advance the object expressed in the rt solution. He subsequently visited the various stakes,
in company with Heber J. Grant, soliciting contributions for the completion of the
sacred edifice, the dedication of which he attended at the appointed time.
In June. 1892, he visited his son, Richard R. Lyman, who was taking a four
years' course in civil engineering at Ann Arbor, Michigan, his daughter. Miss Lucy S.
Lyman, accompanying him from Manassa, Colorado. During this trip he attended with
Junius F. Wells the National Democratic Convention, in the great "Wigwam" at Chicago,
where Grover Cleveland was nominated for his second term as President. In the latter
part of that year a great sorrow befell the Apostle in the death of his wife Clara, fortv-
264 HISTORY OF UTAH.
two years of age, and his son Don, six years of age, at Manassa. The husband and
father was at Beaver, Utah, when his wife died, and on his way to Manassa when his little
son died, two days later. He took them home to Tooele, and buried them in one grave.
In February and March, 1894, he fulfilled a brief mission to California, accompanied
by his wife Rhoda: Elder B. H. Roberts being his traveling companion and chief spokes-
man. They held numerous meetings in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Bernardino
and San Diego, and their labors gave new life and impetus to the California Mission.
In the summer of 1895 he took his annual tour of the southern stakes, accompanied
by Elder Abram Hatch. At St. George he was introduced by Elder Anthony W. Ivins
to several Wallipai Indians from the Arizona side of the Colorado, who had been sent by
their chiefs to visit, at Washakie, in Box Elder county, a village of Indians living happily
on their own lands, in their own houses, and some of whom were said to be resurrected
beings. The Apostle gave the visitors a correct account of the Washakie Indians, stat-
ing that there was no truth in the report that any of them were resurrected, and that
whenever anything of the kind occurred their Mormon friends would send them reliable
information respecting it. He then visited Lincoln county, Nevada, his party increased
by the addition of A. W. Ivins and Erastus B. Snow. At Bunkerville they found Orange
L. Wight, eldest son of Lyman Wight, who, over seventy years of age, had returned to
the Church after an absence of fifty years. The last six weeks of this year were spent by
the Apostle in Arizona and in Chihuahua, Mexico. Assisted by George Teasdale,
he permanently organized the Juarez Stake, with Anthony W. Ivins as president and
Henry Eyring and Helaman Pratt as counselors.
At the time of the division of the people of Utah on national party lines (1891-2) Mr.
Lyman's voice was heard throughout his extensive travels, counseling moderation and
the avoidance of all bitterness between brethren on account of political differences. He
emphasized the fact that every man was entitled to take his choice of parties, and that
there was no orthodox or Church politics. This did not prevent the reconvened Demo-
cratic convention, held at the Salt Lake Theatre in October, 1895, from making certain
charges against him, accusing him of using Church influence to promote the election of
the Republican candidate for delegate to Congress. The truth of these charges he
emphatically denied.
In the midst of his apostolic labors Mr. Lyman has engaged extensively in business,
though only in an indirect way, as an investor in various prosperous concerns, several of
them co-operative in character. For many years he was in the sheep industry, but sold
out in 1889. In February, 1892, he became a director of Zion's Savings Bank and Trust
company, and in April of the same year was elected a director of Z. C. M. I.,. to fill a va-
cancy caused by the death of director John Sharp. He was one of the founders of the
Utah Sugar company, in which he is still a stockholder. He has not only made, but has
lost money in his efforts to promote home industries and enterprises.
The names of his wives have been given. His children number in all twenty-one,
and of these seven boys and nine girls are living. He is an exemplary husband and
father, and though firm in rule, is still kind and genial. Strong and robust, almost
a giant iu physique, he has preserved and perpetuated his natural vigor by abstinence
and self-denial. President Lyman — for since 1901 he has been presiding over the Euro-
pean mission — is the possessor of marked administrative ability, is a good writer and an
interesting and impressive speaker. Probably his most pronounced characteristic is his
incessant industry. He is zeal personified — a tireless worker in any direction in which
he bends his unusual energies.
MOSES THATCHER.
QCQUAINTANCE between the subject and the writer of this sketch began in the
winter of 1878-9, when the former was president of the Cache Stake of Zion, the
Z. C. M. I. superintendent at Logan, a promoter of railroads and other enterprises,
an orator, a writer and a member of the Legislature, rapidly rising to positions of
still greater prominence. Courteous and hospitable, with a pleasant smile and a hearty
hand-shake for even the stranger within the gates, to know him was to love him and to
HISTORY OF UTAH. 2(i5
be drawn to hiru by the power of his personal magnetism. President Young had re-
garded him almost as a son, and he was also popular with President Taylor and the
leading Church officials of that period. His name was second to none in Northern
Utah, and wherever he went his mental brightness, moral courage, gentlemanly de-
portment and many affable qualities made friends and retained them.
The sixth of eight sons, who with an only sister were the children of Hezekiah
and Alley Kitchen Thatcher, he was born in Sangamon county, Illinois, on the second
day of February, 1S4'2. His parents were poor during the early part of their married
life, and their temporal condition was not improved by the persecutions which finally
drove them, with their people, the Latter-day Saints, into the western wilderness; a
tragic drama upon which the curtain rose when Moses was about four years old. He
vividly remembers the scenes and circumstances of the exodus and the subsequent
toils and privations of the migrating Church. He crossed the plains with his father's
family in the summer of 1S47, accompanying the first emigration that followed Pres-
ident Brigham Young and the Pioneers from the Missouri river to Salt Lake valley.
"Hungry for an entire year." is his comprehensive comment upou his experience
from September, 1847. the month of his arrival here, to September, 1848, the year of
the cricket plague and a consequent scarcity of bread-stuffs among the early settlers.
During that interim, in order to augment the household's scanty supply of food, he dug sego
roots on the mountain sides and cut thistles on the Jordan bottoms. He well remembers
the first harvest feast in the old Fort, where his father's family resided; the incident
being impressed upon his mind not onhT by the fact that he had enough to eat that day,
but also by the accidental killing of a young companion, crushed by the rolling of a log
down the skids of a saw-pit. He also recalls being annoyed and frightened by Indians,
while herding sheep near the Warm Springs, the savages lassoing the lambs of his flock
and compelling the. ad to part with his frugal meal of corn cake as a ransom.
In the spring of 1849 Moses went with his parents to California, where the family
lived during the next eight years. He was eleven years old before he had an opportunity
to attend school, but was intelligent and made rapid advancement, though he received
only a common education. As a boy he accumulated some means at mining, using a
miner's washing pan and a butcher-knife to pick out the sand and gold from crevices of
rock ledges on the banks of the American river. This was near Salmon Falls and Mormon
Island. His father kept an eating house at Auburn, and in those days of plenty and pro-
digality the boy frequently received from travelers a dollar, two dollars and even five
dollars for taking a horse to water.
The Thatchers settled in Yolo county, where in addition to placer-mining they carried
on farming and stock-raising. Though strangers in a strange land, they still retained
their religion, and in 1S56 Mormon Elders, making their appearance in that region, found
several of the younger members of the family already converted and awaiting baptism.
Moses Thatcher was baptized and confirmed December 29. 1S56. by Elder Henry G. Boyle,
who ordained him an Elder March 23. 1S57. As a lad of fifteen he labored in the ministry
with Elder Boyle, and his brothers Joseph and Aaron also performed missionary work in
California. Says Moses: "Though in contact with frontier society from early boyhood,
and though that society was ofteu boisterous, rude and blasphemous, niy nature, as far
back as I can remember, was always religiously inclined, and the more serious problems
of life afforded the greatest attraction and received most attention."
Moses Thatcher, like many another "forest-born Demosthenes" — nay, like the great
Athenian himself, in his first attempt at public speaking made a flat failure. As a rider
of bronchoes and a lassoer of wild steers he had been a pronounced success, but when
asked to bear his testimony in a small meeting of the Saints he found himself powerless
to utter a word. He besought Elder Boyle not to call upon him to preach or pray while
they were traveling, and the latter for a season mercifully granted his request. On one
occasion, however, without being asked to speak, he arose of his own volition, in a Meth-
odist meeting, where the Mormon leaders had been attacked, and having obtained per-
mission to reply to a reverend gentleman, one Mr. Blythe, who made the assault, poured
forth a torrent of eloquence that startled not only his hearers but himself, and completely
refuted the false statements made concerning the characters of Joseph Smith and Brigham
Young. He was a natural orator, but knew it not, and though sensitive and shrinking —
like most men of finely organized natures — he had an abundance of moral courage to
offset all tendencies to timidity. From the hour that he broke the ice of diffidence and
defended the dead and living leaders of his Church, he was fluent and free in expression,
and as he advanced in knowledge and experience he became noted for his musical and
soul-stirring eloquence.
18
266 HISTORY OF UTAH.
In the fall of 1857, in response to a call to "come home," issued by President Young
to the Elders laboring in various parts — a call deemed expedient in view of the impending
invasion by Johnston's army — Moses Thatcher, with his brothers John and Aaron, and
his prospective brother-in-law, William B. Preston, made preparations to migrate to
Utah. His parents, and the rest of the family had already returned hither, and from
means left by them their sons fitted themselves out with teams, wagons, arms and am-
munition. They started in October from near Pataluma, Sonoma county, and pro-
ceeding thence to Los Angeles and San Bernardino, took the southern route across
the desert. In their company were such men as William H. Shearman and Henry G.
Boyle, the latter being captain. Mrs. Elizabeth H. Cannon, with her infant son John
Q. Cannon, joined them at San Bernardino. Near the Muddy they met a large hunting
party of Piute Indians, who seemed hungry and aggressive. The missionaries felt it
wise to put on a bold front. There were only seven men in the company, but all
were well armed. Some of the Indians attempted to search the wagons for flour,
blankets and other articles, which a preceding company of emigrants had told them
to expect, but the Thatcher boys and their friends resisted, using their horse-whips upon
the redskins until they yielded, and then feeding them.
January 1st, 1858, found the party at Salt Lake City. While his bi-others John,
Aaron and George joined the militia, serving in Echo canyon and other parts (the
oldest brother, Joseph, being at Salmon river) Moses, then about sixteen, attended school.
Subsequently he became a member of the special police force at Salt Lake City, during
the troublous times following the founding of Camp Floyd. In "the move" he went to
Payson, and in the winter of 1859-60 accompanied his father and others to Cache
valley, where the family afterwards settled. During the winter of 1860-61 he attended
the University of Deseret, and the next spring moved to Logan, which for more than three
decades thereafter was his permanent home.
In April, 1862, he married, his bride being Miss Lettie Farr, daughter of Aaron
F. Farr, one of the Pioneers. Four years later he went upon a mission to Europe.
He held at that time the office of a Seventy, to which he had been ordained by Pres-
ident Young in the winter of 1859. He presided successively over the Birmingham
and Cheltenham conferences, and performed a successful mission, though his health was
considerably impaired by exposure in the damp climate of England. He won his way
readily to the hearts of the people, and wherever he went their affections followed him.
He visited the Paris Exhibition in 1807, and returned to Utah in August, 1868.
He now became very active in the Sabbath school cause, and for the next nine
years was superintendent of the Sunday schools of Cache valley. Prior to going to
England he had had some experience in military matters, acting as a "minute man"
under Captain Thomas E. Ricks. In 1868-9 he was a member of General Hyde's
staff in the Cache military district. From 1872 to 1882 he was continuously a member
of the Territorial legislature, serving as such until disqualified by the Edmunds law.
He was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1872, and one of the delegates
authorized to present the Constitution and Memorial to Congress.
In business Moses Thatcher was first associated with his father, in merchandising,
both before and after his mission to England. Subsequently he was a salesman with
N. S. Ransohoff and Company, at Salt Lake City, and senior partner of the firm of
Thatcher and Shearman, at Logan. He was general manager of the Logan Co-operative
Institution, and later, when it became a branch of Z. C. M. I., was its superintendent.
When the Utah Northern railroad company was organized, August, 1870, he was its
secretary, and subsequently he became superintendent of the road.
In May, 1877, at the re-organization of the Cache Stake of Zion, Moses Thatcher
was ordained a High Priest and set apart to preside over the Stake. His ordination
was under the hands of President Brigham Young. He held that position until he
was called into the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, to fill a vacancy caused by the death
of Orson Hyde. He was ordained an Apostle April 9, 1879, by President John Taylor.
He assisted the President to organize Zion's Central Board of Trade, and in 1878-9,
having already organized the Cache valley board of trade, was authorized by him to effect
similar organizations in the southern counties of Utah. Having accomplished this work,
he was called by the council of the Apostles, over which President Taylor presided, to
open the Mexican mission.
Associated with him in this important labor were Elders James Z. Stewart and
Meliton G. Trejo. He left Utah October 26, 1879, and taking steamer at New Orleans,
reached Vera Cruz on the 14th of November. Two days later he was at the City of
Mexico. Among the first Mormon converts made at the Mexican capital were Dr. Platino
HISTORY OF UTAH. 267
C. Rhodacanaty and Salviano Artiato, who were baptized by the Apostle in the baths of
the Garden of Olives. A branch was soon organized and Dr. Rhodacanaty, previously
ordained an Elder, was set apart to preside over it. Before the year closed sixteen bap-
tisms had been recorded, and the 'Voice of Warning" had been partly translated into
Spanish; besides several articles written and published in the Mexican newspapers,
setting forth the principles of Mormonism and defending their practice. The Apostle
was kindly received by and made friends of the leading government officials, notably
Judge Ignacio M. Altamirano, of the supreme court of the republic; Senor Don Carlos
Pacheco, minister of war; Senor Sarate, minister of foreign affairs; M. Fernandez Leal,
minister of public works and colonization, and Senor Ignacio Mariscal, minister of justice.
He also formed the acquaintance of editors and men of influence, Mexicans, Americans
and Englishmen, from whom he secured many favors in behalf of the cause he represented.
Through William Pritchard, an English newspaper correspondent, he became acquainted
with Emelio Biebuyck, a Belgian gentleman, who had a colonization contract with the
Mexican government and was a warm advocate of Mormon colonization in that land.
He submitted a most favorable proposition for colonizing, which he and Apostle Tatcher
afterwards laid before President Taylor and the council of the Twelve at Salt Lake City,
but which was deemed premature and was therefore not acted upon. The Apostle arrived
home from his first mission to Mexico in the latter part of March, 1880.
During his second mission to that land, upon which he started in November of the
same year, he presented full sets of the Mormon doctrinal works to the Mexican Geograph-
ical Society and the National Museum Library. He wrote and published his pamphlets
"Divine Origin of the Book of Mormon' and "Mormon Polygamy and Christian Monogamy
Compared,'' caused other pamphlets to be published and extensively circulated, and baptized
a goodly number of persons. He was assisted in his labors by Elders Feramorz L. Young,
a son of President Brigham Young, who had accompanied him from Salt Lake City. The
Church in Mexico now numbered sixty-one members. Released by telegraphic message
on August 6, 1881, the Apostle, with Elder Young and. a young convert named Fernando
Lara, left the City of Mexico for home, by way of Vera Cruz, Havana and New York.
During the voyage Elder Young fell sick with typhoid-pneumonia, and on the night of
September 27th, to the great grief of his companion and friend, he died. The steamer
was then between Havana and the coast of Florida, and there being insufficient ice on
board to preserve the body, and no means of embalming it, a burial in the sea was neces-
sitated. The Apostle reached home on the 8th of October, much impaired in health and
depressed in spirits as the result of his sad experience.
The month of February, 1882, found him at the City of Washington, working against
the passage of the Edmunds bill, which was then pending in Congress. He was associated
in this labor with his fellow, Apostle John Henry Smith. The two carried with them to
the seat of government numerously signed petitions, asking the Nation's lawmakers to
send a commission of investigation to Utah prior to passing further proscriptive legislation
against the Mormon people. In Chicago and New York they endeavored to enlist the in-
fluence of great mercantile houses doing business in Utah, in the same direction.
The following winter was spent by Apostle Thatcher in exploring parts of Mexico,
with a view to finding and purchasing some place suitable for Mormon settlements in
that land. He was now in company with the veteran colonizer, Erastus Snow. In
July, 1883, he went on a mission to the northern Indians — Crows, Flatheads and Sho-
shones — and was accompanied by William B. Preston, Junius F. Wells and others.
The winter of 1883-4 he spent at the national capital, assisting Delegate Caine in be-
half of Utah and her interests. A year later came the outbreak of the anti-polygamy
crusade.
In January, 1885, our Apostle accompanied President Taylor and party to Arizona
and Mexico, and was appointed chairman of a committee to explore and purchase lands in
the latter country upon which the persecuted Saints might settle. The other members of
the committee were Alexander F. McDonald, Christopher Layton, Jesse N. Smith and
Lot Smith. During a subsequent visit to Mexico he familiarized himself with Mexican
land matters and located some of the exiles from Arizona upon leased lands in the State
of Chihuahua. The governor of that State, influenced by certain Americans residing
there, issued in April, 1885, an order of expulsion against the Saints on the Rio Casas
Grande, but through the influence of Moses Thatcher and Brigham Young, who visited the
government officials at the City of Mexico, the order was revoked. The governor, reaf-
firming it, was promptly removed from office. It was on July 4th of this year — when,
in token of the general mourning that prevailed in consequence of the times, the
American flag was half-masted at Salt Lake City — that Mr. Thatcher delivered his eloquent
268 HISTORY OF UTAH.
and burning Independence Day oration, which so pleased the Mormons and incensed the
Gentiles assembled on the occasion. From that hour Moses Thatcher was a marked man,
and was very much "wanted" by the minions of the crusade.
In July, 1886, he was again in Mexico, assisting Erastus Snow to settle a Mormon
colony there. Arrangements were then made which resulted in the purchase of "Corrales
Basin,'' including Hop and Strawberry valleys, comprising nearly seventy-five thousand
acres of timber, grazing and farming land. On January 1, 1887, he dedicated the new
townsite of Juarez, and then proceeded to St. Louis, where he purchased milling ma-
chinery for the young and growing colony.
Again he was in Mexico in the summer of 1888, and a portion of the time the present
writer was with him. He had but lately returned from this trip, when at ten o'clock in
the evening of the 4th of September, two United States deputy marshals, Messrs. Steele
and Whetstone, called at his home in Logan and served upon him a warrant of arrest,*
charging him with unlawful cohabitation, contrary to the provisions of the Edmunds law.
He courteously invited them in, that they might read the warrant by the light of a lamp,
and then accompanied them to the office of the U. S. commissioner, where he gave bonds
for his appearance when wanted. Three days later he was examined and discharged,
there being no evidence upon which to hold him. He had two plural wives. Mrs. Lydia
Ann Clayton Thatcher and Mrs. Georgie Snow Thatcher, and by each, as well as by his
first wife, was the father of several children.
The Manifesto having been issued, the anti-polygamy crusade at an end, and the
people of Utah, abandoning local political lines, having ranged themselves under the
banner of one or the other of the great national parties, Moses Thatcher, agreeable to his
predilections, declared himself a Democrat, and was immediately recognized as one of the
ablest and most influential members of his party. In short, he was a Democratic leader,
and as such took active part in all the principal campaigns between 1891 and 1894. In
the fall of the latter year he was elected to the Constitutional Convention which framed
the Constitution upon which Utah in 1896 was admitted into the sisterhood of States. For
many months prior to the convention Mr. Thatcher's healthl had been very poor, and
during a part of the session he was too sick to attend. He was there, however, during
the most important part, and rendered valuable assistance in the framing of the State's
fundamental law.
In the fall of 1895, at the Democratic Territorial Convention held in Ogden, Moses
Thatcher and Joseph L. Rawlins were nominated by acclamation for the United State
Senate, to be voted for in the joint assembly of the legislature of 1896 — the first
and special legislature of our newly created State. The assembly, however, was
Republican, and two Republican Senators were therefore chosen, namely, Frank J. Cannon
and Arthur Brown. The same year occurred the unfortunate difference between Mr.
Thatcher and his quorum, which resulted in the Apostleship being taken from him, though
he still retained his membership in the Church. In 1897 another election for United
States Senator became necessary — Arthur Brown having served out the short term for
which he was chosen. The assembly was now Democratic. Mr. Thatcher and his former
colleague, Mr. Rawlins, were both candidates at this election, and after a spirited and
stubborn contest, during which the former came within one of being elected, Mr, Rawlins
was chosen by a vote of thirty-two to thirty-one.
Since leaving the field of active politics, while not losing his old time interest therein,
and occasionally speaking, as his health would permit, at campaign meetings, Mr.
Thatcher has devoted himself almost exclusively to business pursuits, chiefly banking and
mining. For many years he was a director and the vice-president of Z. C. M. I., but is
not now an officer of that institution, though still a stockholder therein. He is vice-pres-
ident of the.Deseret National Bank at Salt Lake City, and president of Thatcher Brothers
Banking Company at Logan; having recently succeeded his brother, the late George W.
Thatcher, in the latter place. He was one of the promoters of the Utah Sugar Factory,
now in successful operation at Lehi. He was one of the original Trustees of the Brigham
Young College— a position held by him for about twenty years — and is now a regent of
the University of Utah. Though still owning his home at Logan, where many of his
business interests are, Mr. Thatcher, since the year 1896, has been a resident of
Salt Lake City.
4
oV
V^Vf
FRANCIS ARMSTRONG.
(jJRAXCIS ARMSTRONG, mayor of Salt Lake City, commissioner of Salt Lake
"TV" county, and one of Utah's most prominent and most prosperous business men, was
of English birth, though he came to America when a mere boy. The place of his
nativity was Plain Miller, in the countv of Northumberland, where the family had
resided for seven generations. The date of his birth was October 3, 1839. His parents
were William and Mary Kirk Armstrong. The father was a machinist and worked for
Stephenson and Harthorn, in the machine shops at Newcastle-on-Tyne, where he helped
to construct the first locomotive made in England.
In the year 1851 the Armstrong family — father, mother and twelve children —
emigrated to Canada, settling near Hamilton, Wentworth county, where the father
carried on his trade of blacksmithing and was also the owner of a large farm. They were
well-to-do people. '"Frank" could have had every advantage of education had he
remained at home, but at the age of sixteen he was seized with a desire to travel, and
realized his desire by proceeding to the State of Missouri, where he remained until he
was twenty-one. At home he had worked upon his father's farm, attending during the
winters the village school. Upon reaching Richmond, Missouri, he worked for a Dr.
Davis in a flouring mill, and subsequently in a saw mill, continuing in the lumber business
with that gentleman until he came to Utah. At Richmond he also formed the aquaintanee
of David Whitnier, the Book of Mormon witness.
Mr. Armstrong started for Salt Lake City in the spring of 1S61, crossing the plains
in an independent company commanded by Captain Homer Duncan. This company
had left the frontier at Florence before Armstrong and others from Richmond arrived
there; but they soon overtook it and traveled in the train to Salt Lake valley, where
they arrived about the middle of September. At this time Mr. Armstrong was not yet a
Latter-day Saint.
He first went to work hauling wood for a man named Mousley, and was next
engaged in President Young's flouring mill at the mouth of Parley's canyon. In the
spring of 1862 he began working for Feramorz Little at his lumbering mill in Big
Cottonwood canyon. At the expiration of several years he purchased the mill from Mr.
Little for twenty-one thousand dollars. He then started in business for himself, forming
a partnership with Charles Bagrley and conducting a general lumbering business. The
firm of Armstrong and Bagley prospei-ed, and the senior partner next purchased an
interest in the business of Latimer, Taylor and Rornney, manufacturers of doors and
sash. Later he engaged in other enterprises, which netted handsome returns. On the
10th of December, 1S64, he married Isabella Siddoway, a lady of sterling qualities.
They became the parents of eleven children. The family maintained a permanent
residence at Salt Lake City.
In 1S78 Mr. Armstrong was elected to the city council, and was re-elected in 1880.
In 1SS1 and again in 1SS5 he was chosen a selectman of Salt Lake county. In 1SS6 he
became mayor of Salt Lake City, and served as such for two terms. On the day of his
re-election, February 13, 1SSS, an attempt was made by certain real estate speculators
to jump the city lands on Arsenal Hill and in other parts of the town. Mayor Armstrong
and a posse of officers promptly ejected the intruders and effectively vindicated and
maintained the rights of the municipality, both with physical force and in the legal
proceedings that followed; as related in chapter twenty-three of the previous volume.
After retiring as major he was again county selectman, and at the time of his death
was serving as county commissioner. At this time also he was president of the Utah
Commercial and Ravings Bank, the Western Loan and Savings Company, the Utah Power
Company and the Blackfoot Stock Company; was vice-president of the Taylor, Romney,
Armstrong Company, a director in the Salt Lake City Railroad Company and the Salt
Lake Livery and Transfer Company, and prominently connected with the Utah Sugar
Company and numerous other concerns.
•270 flISTOEY OF UTAH.
Francis Armstrong was emphatically a self-made man. Pushing, energetic and
fearless, he made his way in life by sheer force of his native ability, coupled with hard
and persistent toil, for which he was peculiarly well fitted, being a man of powerful
physique. Aggressive and even combative when need be, he was far from quarrelsome
in his disposition. He was generous-hearted and liberal, not only in his views, but
with his means, and as a rule was brimming over with jovial good nature. In his death,
at scarcely three-score years, the community suffered a distinct loss, which it feels to this
day. He died at his home in the Eleventh Ward, June 15, 1899.
DAVID HAROLD PEERY.
mERCHANT, banker, manufacturer, and at the time of his death one of the weal-
thiest citizens of the State, the Hon. D. H. Peery was a native of the "Old
Dominion," having been born in Tazewell county, Virginia, May 16, 1824. His
father, Major David Peery, was a prosperous farmer, owning lands, live-stock
and negroes. Thus he was amply able to give his children a good education. His son
David passed through the common schools, and in the years 1842 and 1843 went to
Emery and Henry College. His boyhood was spent in Virginia and Kentucky, and his
early manhood in his native State. When not attending school, he worked as a boy
upon his father's farm.
Farming was not his favorite occupation, however. He was a born financier,
naturally inclined to follow merchandising and banking, pursuits in which he was
destined to amass a fortune. His life upon the farm, exclusive of his school and college
days, extended from his eighth to his eighteenth year.
In 1844-5, having left college, he taught school, but abandoned the vocation of
pedagogue for the more congenial one of store-keeping. He began business as a
merchant with his brother, John D. Peery, in Tazewell county, in 1846. Subsequently
he opened a bank. He continued merchandising and banking with success until the
outbreak of the Civil War. He had been married between eight and nine years when
the war began, having wedded on December 30, 1852, Miss Nancy C. Higginbotham,
daughter of William E. and Louisa Ward Higginbotham. The family were Latter-day
Saints. Of his war record and his subsequent experience Mr. Peery says:
"In 1S62 I volunteered and entered the confederate army of Eastern Kentucky,
as assistant commissary under General Humphrey Marshall. Up to 1861 I had been
remarkably prosperous, being out of debt, and worth more than $150,000 with a good
name and character. In 1861 began a series of misfortunes and disasters in my affairs.
My oldest son died May 1st, 1861. In June, 1862, while in the army, I was taken down
with typhoid fever, and was removed in an ambulance to my father's house; and while I
was sick my father and mother (Eleanor Harman Peery) and father-in-law, William
Higginbotham, all died of the same disease. In July, 1862, being still sick, I was moved
to my residence in Burkes Garden; and September 30, 1862, my wife died. Soon there-
after my other children died, with the exception of Lettie, who is now the wife of
C. C. Richards.
"Being much distressed in mind, I became greatly interested in the Gospel, reading
the Bible and the writings of Parley and Orson Pratt, and became convinced of the truth
of the Latter-day work. One of the doctrines that particularly impressed me was
marriage for eternity. In November, 1S62, I was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints by a local Elder — Absalom Young — when the snow was a foot
deep, and the ice six inches thick.
In December, 1862, I returned to the confederate army and acted as sutler under
the command of General Williams of Kentucky. In the spring of 1863, while in the
army, I was again taken down with typhoid fever. During my former sickness I lay
for six weeks; now I lay for four weeks at the point of death. July 18, 1863, while I was
still in the army, my residence, store and six adjacent houses filled with goods and
provisions — property valued at $50,000 — were burned to the ground by the Union
army. There was nothing saved and no insurance.
'In 1864, believing in the Gospel, and feeling that these were the last days spoken
HISTORY OF UTAH. 271
of by the prophets, when the judgments of God would be poured out upon the earth,
and knowing that I should gather with those of my faith in the land of Zion, I started
for Utah in company with Mrs. Louisa Higginbotham, my mother-in-law, her three
children Simon, Letitia and Frank and my surviving child Lettie. Arriving at Omaha,
we bought three ox-wagons, six yoke of cattle and two cows, with goods and provisions.
We left there June 4, 1S64 in an independent company. The Indians were bad that
year, and our train was attacked two or three times, but we were blessed, none of us
being killed, and we lost no stock or goods. We came by way of the Platte and Sweet-
water rivers to South Pass, aud arrived at Salt Lake City August 31. 1864."
Mr. Peery first settled at Mill Creek, where he taught school. In 1865 he was at
Cottonwood, where he bought a farm of Dr. Henry Lees and worked it for two years.
On April 10th of the year named he married Letitia Higginbotham, the sister of his
deceased wife. She bore to him eight children, namely, David Henry. Joseph Stras,
Horace Eldredge, John Harold, Margaret Louise, Francis Simon, Louis Hyrum and
Harman.
In October, 1S66, the Peerys moved to Ogden, where in a few years they rose
to prominence and affluence. They were in very moderate circumstances, however,
when they made the Junction City their home. Mr. Peery then owned a half interest
in a threshing machine, the other half being owned by John C. Thompson. In the winter
of 1S66-7 he taught school at Ogden, but at the opening of spring again abandoned
that vocation for the one most congenial to his tastes. On the 24th of March he began
clerking in the store of Bishop Chauncey W. West, and in November, having sold land
and collected debts in Virginia, he bought Bishop West's stock of merchandise, and
formed a partnership with L. J. Herriek, another prominent citizen of Ogden. Peery
and Herriek did a prosperous business up to March, 1869, when, co-operation carrying
all before it, they sold out to make room for the Ogden branch of Z. C. M. I. Mr.
Peery was made manager of the branch concern by selection of President Brigham
Young. In July he resigned the management, but after returning from a visit to
Virginia, resumed it, retaining the position until September, 1875, when he again
resigned.
Meantime he had gone into the milling business, purchasing from William Jennings
the Weber mills and adjacent lands. The date of the purchase was December 6,
1S72. These mills Mr. Peery refitted. On August 5, 1S73, he lost twenty thousand
dollars by fire, which swept away his residence and a new store-house filled with
merchandise. The property was not insured.
Soon after resigningthe Z. C. M. I. management the second time, he took a mission to
the Southern States, to which he was called in October, 1S75. He labored in Texas.
Tennessee and Virginia. He had held for several years the office of a Seventy, and
since March 27. 1869, had been one of the presidency of the seventy-sixth quorum. In the
re-organization of the Stakes of Zion, just prior to the death of President Young, David
H. Peery was chosen by him to preside over the Weber Stake. He held that office from
May 27, 1S77, until October 19, 1882, when he resigned.
In business he still continued to prosper, notwithstanding his losses by fire. On
February 19. 1881, the Ogden Herald Publishing Company was organized, with D. H.
Peery as president. The paper had a successful run, without debt, and up to the date
of Mr. Peery's resignation from its presidency, in 1883. its stock remained at par. In
July of the previous year another visitation of the fire fiend took the Weber mills, store-
house, wheat, flour and merchandise, inflicting a total loss of sixty thousand dollars.
Mr. Peery at this time was absent in Virginia. His agent having neglected to renew
the insurance upon the property, nothing was recovered. In 1SS3 Mr. Peery in partner-
ship with James Mack, rebuilt the Weber Mills and renamed them the Phoenix mills.
In September of that year he was made a director, and in October became president,
of the First National Bank of Ogden. Five years later he was elected a director of the
Deseret National Bank of Salt Lake City and of Thatcher Brothers Banking Company of
Logan. On April 15, 1887, he became president of the Ogden Chamber of Commerce.
So much for his business record and relations, with his offices and labors eccle-
siastical. Running parallel for much of the time is the summary of his civic honors and
responsibilities. During the sessions of 1878, 1S80, 1882 and 1884 he representeded
Weber county in the Territorial legislature. On June 7, 1882, he was appointed by the
Constitutional Convention, then sitting at Salt Lake City, a delegate to Washington, to
work for the admission of Utah into the Union. He and his fellow delegates, John T.
Caine and Franklin S. Richards, promptly fulfilled this duty, and on November 28th of
the same year the three went to Washington on a similar errand in company with Presi-
272 HISTORY OF UTAH.
dent George Q. Cannon. On February 12, 1883, Mr. Peery was elected Mayor of Ogden,
and he was re-elected in 1885. Two years later he was a member of the Constitutional
Convention, the one that adopted a State Constitution proposing to prohibit and punish
polygamy.
Mr. Peery passed the remaining years of his life as a resident of the city that wit-
nessed his rise to wealth and position, and over which he was twice called to preside as
Mayor. The palatial home built by him in Ogden is one of the most elegant mansions in
the State. In politics he was a staunch Democrat, and loved to call himself "a typical
son of Virginia." For several years prior to his death he led a quiet life, surrounded by
his children and grandchildren, peacefully descending the western decline of the hill up
whose sunrise slope he had so energetically and successfully climbed. He was a man of
general intelligence and wide reading, cherished the chivalrous traits and traditions of
the South, and was proverbial for his hospitality, which was shared alike by rich and
poor. He died September 17, 1901, leaving an estate bordering in value upon three-quar-
ters of a million.
GEORGE TEASDALE.
T WAS born," says^he subject of this sketch, "in the city of London, England, on the
I 8th of December, 1831. My parents' names were William Russel and Harriet
*** Henrietta Tidey Teasdale. I received an ordinary scholastic education, finishing at the
London University school. I commenced my business life in the office of an architect
and surveyor, who proved to be an adventurer, obtaining pupils for the sake of the amount
paid for instruction. My nest venture was at a wholesale stationer's, but acting on the
advice of my father, I consented to learn the upholstering business, so I was apprenticed
to Mr. William Edney, of the firm of Druce & Company, Baker Street, Regent's Park.
My mother was a member the Church of England. From her I received my early
impressions of religion, my father being a man of the world, taking little or no interest
in any such matters. I attended the services, learned the collects and prayers usual in
that religious denomination, but it made so little impression on me that I never was con-
firmed into the Church. I had faith in Christ, and from a child was more or less familiar
with the scriptures.
"In the year 1851 I became acquainted with the system called 'Mormonism,' through
reading a tract bearing that title published by the tract society of the Church of England.
My impression is that the tract was written against the Moi-mons, but as I had always
heard that they were a low, ignoront people, I gave no particular attention to it. Closely
following this, one of that despised denomination came to work at the same establish-
ment, and as soon as it was found out, I shared in the universal feeling of prejudice and
dislike. He was a plain, unassuming man, who attended to his own business, but his
fellows would strive to have him in debate at every opportunity. Almost all were
opposed to him. I was struck by the power of his tesiniony; he was so positive that
God had again revealed himself from the heavens and that Joseph Smith was a true
prophet. Notwithstanding he had but a limited education, no one could overcome him in
argument. Having always regarded religion as a mere matter of faith, I was surprised
to hear so firm and bold a testimony. This I presume caused me to investigate for
myself.
"As soon as I commenced to investigate, I found that I had to meet considerable
opposition and threats of the consequences if I allied myself with 'that abominable
people.' But I calmly and prayerfully continued my investigation and was finally con-
verted to the faith. This was much to my dismay, for I could see what effect it would
have. But fearing God more than man, I took up the cross by obeying the doctrine.
I lost all standing among my friends, who regarded me as a dupe of wicked men. But
I obtained a knowledge that God lived and that Jesus was the Christ — a living testimony
of the truth."
It was in the year 1852 that Mr. Teasdale connected himself with the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The date of his baptism was the 8th of August. He
was ordained a Teacher, then a Priest, and subsequently an Elder, and took an active
HISTORY OF UTAH. 273
part in preaching the Gospel wherever he had opportunity. He lectured upon its
principles in the various branches of the London conference. In 1855 he was appointed
to preside over the Souierstown branch of that conference, and also held the positions of
conference clerk, auditor of the book agenc3T accounts and president of the tract
distributing association.
Shortly after joining the Church, he made the acquaintance of an excellent young
lady by the name of Emily Emma Brown, and in 1853 he married her. She too
was a zealous Latter-day Saint and faithfully stood by her husband, encouraging and
assisting him in his religious duties. In 1857 he was called to devote his whole
time to the ministry, which was quite a trial to him, for he had a flue situation, a pleasant
home and many comforts, which he would now have to relinquish, and go forth preaching
"without purse or scrip." At first he felt that he could not tell his wife, but upon convers-
ing with her about the matter he found her the true-hearted woman that she had ever been,
devoted to her religion, and willing to share in all the vicissitudes that might come upon
them in their new experience. He accepted the call, sold out, and prepared to go forth.
At this time he received an appointment to preside over the Cambridge conference, the
members of which were fewer than those of the Souierstown branch. Leaving his wife
as comfortably situated as he could, he departed for his new field of labor, entering upon
his duties with faith, hope and zeal. Subsequently the young couple lived frugally and
happily in a small cottage in the city of Cambridge. During his labors there he explained
the principles of Mormonism to many of the students of the famous university, who out
of curiosity attended the meetings of the Saints.
In the year 1S5S his field of labor was enlarged. He was given pastoral charge of
the Wiltshire, Landsend and South conferences, and took up his abode in the city of Bath,
traveling in that section until the fall of 1859, when he was appointed to the charge of the
Scottish Mission, comprising the Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee conferences. He
resided at Edinburgh, in the new town, and traveled through "'Auld Scotia" with a great
deal of pleasure, preaching, encouraging the Saints, assisting the emigration, taking
companies to the shipping port of Liverpool and gaining a most valuable experience.
In 1S61 came his opportunity to emigrate. Mr. Teasdale and his wife had
two living children at this time and had buried two. They were poor and had the
experience of a steerage passage in an emigrant ship — the sailing vessel "Underwriter,''
from Liverpool to New Vork. They there took rail to St. Joseph, Missouri, and thence
steamed up to Florence, Nebraska. Mrs. Teasdale, raised in refinement, bore up bravely
without murmuring, amid all the hardships of the journey, during which one of her
children, sick and at the point of death, was miraculously healed. At Florence Elder
Teasdale was detained to assist in the emigration, laboring as clerk and book-keeper under
the direction of Elder Jacob Gates, who had charge of the provision department. The
family crossed the plains in the last company of the season, commanded by Sextus E.
Johnson, Mr. Teasdale acting as its recorder. He and a companion, having a wagon
between them, drove two yoke of cattle across the plains. They arrived at Great Salt
Lake City (as it was then called) in the autumn.
Looking around for something to do — for he had not only his family to support, but
his emigration to pay — the newly arrived immigrant accepted an offer to teach the
Twentieth Ward school, and forthwith took up his residence in that part. His pupils
were young, but he felt a great deal of interest in them, teaching not only a day school,
but an evening school, and this enabled him to live through the winter. Fond of singing,
he joined the Ward and the Tabernacle choirs; and subsequently the Deseret Dramatic
Association, enjoying himself very much in the gratuitous services thus rendered.
He also assisted the Bishop in the Ward tithing accounts.
In 1862 he accepted a situation in President Young's store, under the direction of
Hiram B. Clawson, who had the management of the President's business. Here he felt at
home, having charge of a full stock of goods, and entered upon his labors very readily.
His time was occupied with the store, the dramatic association, the Tabernacle choir and
his Ward duties. It was about this time that he was ordained a Seventy, a member of the
Forty-first Quorum. He remained with President Y«.ung until the fall of 1867, when he
was appointed to take charge of the General Tithing Store.
In the spring of 1S6S he was called on a mission to England. Accepting the call, he
crossed the plains with a little company of missionaries for whom he acted as cook, the
others also being assigned to various duties. At New York he was detained to assist in
the season's emigration, and after the last company had left for the West, he crossed
over to Liverpool in company with Albert Carrington and Jesse N. Smith, the former
going to preside over the British Mission, and the latter over the Scandinavian Mission.
274 HISTORY OF UTAH.
On his arrival at Liverpool Elder Teasdale was appointed sub-editor of the "Millennial
Star." He remained in England about a year, writing1 for the "Star," visiting and preaching
in Birmingham, Manchester and London, also in Wales and Ireland, and then returned to
New York, where he assisted William C. Staines with the emigration. At intervals he
preached in Brooklyn, New Jersey and Philadelphia. The season's work having ended, he
returned to Utah, taking rail as far as Evanston, and then stage to Salt Lake City. The
train in which he traveled ran into another train and there was a general smashup, but
only a few persons were hurt; none of Elder Teasdale's party.
The great cooperative movement was now well under way, and the returned mis-
sionary accepted the offer of a situation, first in the drug department, to assist in
arranging the stock, and then in the produce department, which had just been started,
and of which he became the manager, opening up a business of several hundred thousand
dollars per annum. During this period he became well acquainted with several Pacific
Coast firms with whom Z. C. M. I. did business.
In the year 1874 he had the misfortune to lose his wife, the partner of his joys and
sorrows for twenty-one years. "After her funeral,'' says he, "the house seemed desolate.''
The following year he was called upon a mission to the Southern States, and traveled
through various parts of Tennessee and Virginia. He was released to return home in
1876, but would have felt satisfied to remain longer, so successful and enjoyable were
his labors, especially among the Virginians of Rutland and Tazewell counties. He
visited the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia, and came home by way of Canada
and Niagara Falls. On his arrival at Salt Lake City he again became associated with Z.
C. M. I. and resumed his labors as a home missionary, in which capacity he had served
since returning from his mission in 1869.
In the summer of 1877 he was called to preside over the Juab Stake of Zion, being
ordained a High Priest and set apart as President of that Stake under the hands of
President Brigham Young. He was given charge of the Nephi Tithing Office and became
the Presiding Bishop's agent for the Stake. He also accepted the agency of the Board of
Trade and took contracts for the building of a portion of the Utah Southern railroad.
He was president of the local cooperative store and secretary and treasurer of the
Nephi Milling and Manufacturing Company. He was elected to the Council of the
Territorial Legislature for two sessions, those of 1880 and 1882.
On the 13th of October, 1882, George Teasdale was called into the quorum of the
Twelve Apostles. He was ordained under the hands of President John Taylor. In
1883 he took a mission to Indian Territory and in 1885 visited the Southern Stakes and
was appointed on a mission to Mexico, where he assisted in the establishment of the
colonies of Diaz, Dublan, Juarez, Pacheco and Garcia in Chihuahua, and Oaxaca in
Sonora.
In November, 1886, he was appointed to the European Mission, and in 1887 took charge
of the same, remaining abroad for about four years. In November, 1890, he returned to
the Mexican Mission and organized it into a Stake with all the necessary officers and
associations. In 1895, after effecting, in conjunction with his fellow Apostle, F. M.
Lyman, a permanent organization of Juarez Stake, he returned to Utah, taking up his
abode at Nephi, where he still resides.
Mr. Teasdale has crossed the Atlantic seven times, and has preached the Gospel in
many lands. Among the countries visited by him are France, Switzerland, Germany,
Russia, Denmark, Sweden and Norway. He wrote the widely distributed tracts, "Glad
Tidings of Great Joy" and "Restoration of the Everlasting Gospel," and has also written
for and corresponded with the "Deseret News" and other home publications. He has been
a diligent and successful worker in the Sunday School cause, and wherever he labors
manifests zeal, energy and fidelity.
AMOS MILTON MUSSER.
^"^HIS gentleman's name will live in the history of Utah for its connection with some
f^»j of the most important enterprises that have built up the Territory and the State.
;? As an advocate and promoter of such enterprises he has ever stood in the front
rank, laboring with might and means for their advancement. Needless to say
that he is a very practical man. He is a good speaker and writer, and has employed both
HISTORY OF UTAH. 275
tongue and pen, at home and abroad, in the spiritual and material interests of the com-
munity with which he has been so long and prominently identified.
The son of Samuel Musser and his wife Ann Barr, he was born in Donegal township,
Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, on the 20th of May, 1830. He was only about two years
old when his father died, leaving his mother a widow with four children. As soon as he
was old enough he went to work to help support the family, and was thus prevented from
attending school as much as he desired. He had a bright mind, however, and at every
opportunity picked up useful knowledge and stored it away in his retentive memory.
About the year 1837, the mother having married Abraham Bitner, the family moved to
Illinois and settled near Quincy. A few years later they were again found in Pennsyl-
vania, having returned on account of Father Bitner's sickness, which soon resulted in his
death.
During her second widowhood Mrs. Bitner was converted to the Mormon faith, and
in 184G she and her family moved to Nauvoo, only to find the city deserted by the main
body of the Saints, who had begun their western exodus. With the remnant who were
too poor to move, the widow and her children were driven by the mob across the
Mississippi into Iowa; young Musser having previously taken part in the defense of
Nauvoo. He was within a few feet of Captain William Anderson and his son Augustus
when they were shot down by the mob, September 12, 1846.
On reaching Eddyville. Iowa, he found employment as clerk in a store, and remained
there uutil the spring of 1S51, when he started for Utah. While on the way, at Kanes-
ville, on the 24th of May, he became a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-
day Saints, being baptized by Elder James Allred and confirmed by Apostle Orson Hyde.
He reached Salt Lake City in the fall, and a few days after his arrival accepted a
position offered him by President Brigham Young as clerk and scribe in the General
Tithing Office.
The following year he was appointed upon a mission to Hindoostan, being ordained
a Seventy and set apart for his mission under the hands of Wilford Woodruff and Lorenzo
Snow, two of the Twelve Apostles, and Joseph Young, the senior president of the
Seventies; the last-named being mouth in the ordination, which took place October 16,
1852. In company with other Elders he arrived at Calcutta in the spring of 1853. After
laboring in that city about eight months, he with Elder Truman Leonard joined Elder
Hugh Findley in Bombay. Thence he was sent to Kurrachee, Scinde, where he remained
until summoned home by President Young. Sailing from India early in 1856, but reaching
London too late to accompany the season's emigration, he labored in England and Wales
until the spring of 1857, when he again set out for home, reaching here in the fall. He
had been absent five years and had circumscribed the globe, going by way of the Pacific
and Indian Oceans and returning over the waters of the South and North Atlantic. This
long mission was performed literally without purse or scrip. At no time during his sojourn
abroad or his journey around the world had he occasion to beg for food, clothing, lodging
or means of transportation, all these being seasonably furnished through friends raised up
by Providence.
He again entered the General Tithing Office, where he remained until the following
year, when he was given by the First Presidency an appointment as Traveling Bishop,
which position he held from 1858 to 1876. His duty was to visit the various Stakes
and Wards and attend to all matters pertaining to the collection, forwarding and re-
porting of the tithes and offerings of the Saints, to collect monies due the Church and
the Perpetual Emigrating Fund, and to transact other business under the general di-
rection of the First Presidency and the Presiding Bishopric. The Wards in Utah and
the neighboring Territories then numbered over three hundred.
Bishop Musser was one of the ten incorporators of the Deseret Telegraph Company,
January 18, 1867, and about a month later he was placed in charge of its affairs as
general superintendent. This position, with that of director, he held for over nine
years. Under his superintendency the company's lines— which when he took charge
consisted of a single line just opened between Salt Lake City and Ogden— we:e greatly
improved and extended in many directions. In 1868 the gross receipts in tolls amounted
to $S,462.23. In 1873 they were $75,620.62: the receipts of the Pioche, Nevada, office
alone being $33,478. S3 for that year. After retiring from the management of the Tele-
graph Company, Mr. Musser introduced the telephone into Salt Lake City, and still
later the phonograph. In April, 1873, he was appointed an assistant to the Trustee-
in-Trust of the Church.
In the fall of 1876, he was assigned a mission to the Eastern States, his labors
being confined to his native Pennsylvania, where he re-visited the scenes of his boy-
276 HISTORY OF UTAH.
hood, preached wherever opportunity afforded, and published several Gospel pamphlets,
which were widely read and highly commended, especially one in relation to plural mar-
riage, which was pronounced by Apostle Orson Hyde one of the ablest arguments on the
subject that he had ever read.
After his return home Elder Musser was employed in the President's Office for a
time, and was then given an appointment in the office of the Church Historian, with a
special commission from the First Presidency to keep a record of all persecutive acts
against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with the names of the perpe-
trators of those acts. That he has well and faithfully performed this duty the well kept
records of his office testify. He has written much for the press on practical subjects, and
is the author of several valuable works, mostly in pamphlet form. His "Fruits of Mor-
monism,'' published in 1878, had a wide circulation, and in the hands of the missionaries
has done great good. This work, while yet in manuscript, received the following endorse-
ment from Apostles Orson Pratt and Joseph F. Smith: "We are anxious that a copy of
your pamphlet entitled "Fruits of Mormonism by non-Mormon Witnesses," be placed in
the hands of every officer of the government, member of congress, governor and ruler in
Christendom; in the possession of our missionaries it will be a valuable work, and it
should be circulated as widely as possible." In November, 1879, Mr. Musser launched
the initial number of the "Utah Farmer, ' which received the hearty endorsement of the
Presiding Bishopric, and of the president and boai-d of the Deseret Agricultural and Man-
ufacturing Society. The most uniaue of his literary ventures was "The Palantic," a
monthly serial on miscellaneous subjects, making the defense of the Saints and their faith
the paramount issue. A host of friends heartily endorsed this paper. His style is terse,
vigorous and caustic, particularly when provoked in behalf of his religion or any other
worthy cause.
As stated, Mr. Musser is a very practical man. In emigrational matters, in the
building of forts, temples and telegraph lines, in colonization, irrigation, co-operation,
foreign and home missions, the organization of new wards and the promotion of numer-
ous home industi'ies, he has rendered valuable and substantial aid. For years he was
prominently connected with the D. A. & M. Society, being a director, the secretary, treas-
urer and general traveling agent of the same; and held similar offices in connection with
the Utah Silk Association. Of the Deseret Bee Association he was president. He was a
first subscriber to and promoter of the Great Western Iron Company, and of the Utah
Eastern, Salt Lake and Fort Douglas, Juab. Sanpete and Sevier Valley railroads. He
was one of the incorporators of Zion's Savings Bank and Trust Company and of the State
Bank of Utah, and for nearly two decades prior to Statehood held the office of Territorial
Fish and Game Commissioner, and planted in the public waters many millions of choice
fish and fish-fry. His connection with the Deseret Telegraph Company and other enter-
prises has already been mentioned.
Elder Musser has ever been a staunch defender of the principle of plural marriage.
He had four wives sealed to him in the following order: Ann Leaver, by President Brig-
ham Young, January 9, 1858; Mary Elizabeth White, by President Heber C. Kimball,
October 1, 1864; Belinda Pratt, by President Brigham Young, September 4, 1872; and
Annie Seegmiller, by President Daniel H. Wells, January 30, 1874. These ladies, the
peers of their sex in all the virtues and graces that adorn true womanhood, are the
mothers of twenty sons and fifteen daughters, who in mental, physical and moral quali-
ties reflect credit upon their parentage. After the passage by Congress of the anti-polyg-
amy act of 1862, when a case was needed to test the constitutionality of that statute,
Elder Musser volunteered for the purpose, proposing to furnish evidence for his own con-
viction ; but instead, the case of George Reynolds was taken. At the outbreak of the
anti-polygamy raid under the Edmunds law, the Musser case was one of the earliest that
found its way into court. Charged with unlawful cohabitation, that is, living with his
plural wives, he was arrested April 1st, and his case came to trial April 30, 1885. A ver-
dict of guilty was rendered, and on the 9th of May the defendant was arraigned for sen-
tence before Chief Justice Zane, in the Third District Court at Salt Lake City. An
account of the interesting colloquy that took place between the prisoner at the bar and the
judge upon the bench is given in the sixteenth chapter of our third volume. At the con-
clusion of the dialogue the defendant was sentenced to pav a fine of three hundred dol-
lars and to be imprisoned in the penitentiary for six months; this for acknowledging and
supporting his wives and children, for nothing else had been proved against him. He
served his full term in prison, minus the time remitted bylaw on account of good behavior.
Elder Musser maintains that these anti-polygamy prosecutions were instituted in
malice and hypocrisy, or were based upon a gross misconception of facts. Says he: "The
df, 7^n ^h
ju^s-
HISTORY OF UTAH. 277
makers and enforcers of the law decided without investigation that the polygamous prac-
tices of the Mormons were base and immoral, whereas the very reverse is the truth. If
licentiousness had been the underlying motive, how foolish of us to assume the perplex-
ing and costly responsibilities of rearing large families of children, training, educating
and providing homes for them and their mothers, in face of the intense odium and hatred
of our enemies, to say nothing of fines, imprisonments, mobbings and drivings; and all
this simply to pander to a depraved appetite, which might easily have been sated by
adopting the diabolical arts and practices that prevail in every community throughout
Christendom. With us the basic aim and divine purpose of marriage, either plural or
single, is children — next to eternal salvation the most precious of all the blessings that
our Heavenly Father has to bestow upon his sons and daughters. The successful hus-
band and father, wife and mother, will be esteemed by the final Judge as pre-eminently
the greatest of all the benefactors of the human race." Mr. Musser is an earnest advo-
cate of the science of stirpiculture. He believes that the status of manhood, physically,
mentally and morally, is deplorably low, and that by rigid observance of the laws of life
it can be raised until a more perfect type is attained.
A. M. Musser is a thorough-going Latter-day Saint, proud of his religion, his church
membership and the sacred authority held by him in connection therewith. For a num-
ber of years prior to April 25, 1874, he was one of the seven Presidents of the fifty-
seventh quorum of Seventy; but upon that date he entered the High Priest's quorum.
He still retains his position in the Historian's Office, and at each succeeding General Con-
ference is sustained as an assistant to the Church Historian
ALONZO HAZELTON RALEIGH.
jISHOP, or Alderman Raleigh — for by either title was he commonly known — came
to Utah in the year 1848. He was of New England stock, and of just such
sterling mettle as was needed to colonize, in the days of his ancestors, the rocky
shores of the Atlantic, and in his own days the arid waste known as the "Great
American Desert." He was a native of the "Granite State," and there was something
very suggestive of granite in his composition. Firm as a rock in his convictions, especi-
ally those of a religious nature, he was noted for strength of will, self reliance and per-
sistency. His leading traits were tenacity of purpose and integrity to his principles.
His great-grandfather, Philip Raleigh, emigrated from the north of Ireland with
a body of Scotch Presbyterians in 1744, and settled at Antrim, Hillsborough county,
New Hampshire; while his great-grandmother, Sarah Joiner, came over about the same
time from England. Major Raleigh, the Bishop's grandfather, was in the battle of
Lexington. The maiden name of his grandmother was Sarah Hazelton.
Alonzo H. Raleigh, son of James Lane Raleigh and his wife Susan McCoy, was
born at Francistown, Hillsborough county, New Hampshire, November 7, 1818. His
parents were also natives of that State. His father was a mechanic and could build
a loom or cut a millstone with equal facility; but later in life, having lost one of his
legs by an accident, he confined himself mostly to the tailor's trade; though poor, he
kept his son at school as long as practicable. At eight years of age the boy was put
to work upon a farm until he was fourteen. During that period he attended school about
three months each winter, and toiled from fourteen to sixteen hours a day in summer.
Next he was apprenticed to a mason, whose trade he learned in all its branches. His
boyhood and part of his early manhood were spent in New Hampshire, where he worked
for a short time in a cotton factory. Afterwards he went to Boston, Massachusetts, and
there finished learning his trade and set up in business as a bricklayer. During two
winters he kept a restaurant in Boston, and a part of two summers worked at his trade in
the city of New York.
His winters, as a usual thing, were devoted to study. That of 1839-40 was passed
at Portsmouth, N. H., where he attended the lectures of Mr. Miller, of Second Advent
fame, but was not convinced by the latter's announcement that the Savior would come to
the earth in 1843. Religiously inclined, he investigated the claims of the various Christian
sects, but not until he heard Mormonism was he persuaded to unite himself with any
278 HISTORY OF UTAH.
religious body. Father F. Nickerson was the first Mormon preacher he ever heard, but
it was Elder George J. Adams who baptized him, in Boston, July, 1842.
On August 17th of the same year Alonzo H. Raleigh married Mary Ann Tabor,
daughter of John and Mary B. Tabor, of Albany, York county, Maine. In the fall he
closed up his business in Boston, preparatory to moving to Nauvoo, Illinois. It was on
the first day of May, 1843, that the Raleighs started for the West, traveling by rail, canal-
boat and steamboat, and reaching their destination on the first of June. Purchasing a
house and lot at Nauvoo, Mr. Raleigh went to work at his trade, laboring very hard the
first year "from sun-up to sun-down," which was the rule in those days, when, as he ob-
serves, "wages were about half what they are now, yet working men and their families
were comfortable and happy, with no strikes, no feuds between capital and labor, and not
near so much beer drunk and cigars smoked as at this writing — 1891."
He continues: "I took stock in the Music Hall, Masonic Hall, Seventies' Council Hall,
Nauvoo House and all public institutions and enterprises. The face brick-work of the
Nauvoo House I superintended, and laid the north half of the west front, besides building
several brick residences. About this time I was made a York Mason and attained to the
Master's degree. My wife, Mary Ann Tabor, died at Nauvoo October 27, 1843, aged
twenty-one years; and my first son, Alonzo Tabor, died there January 29, 1844, aged four
months and two days. On February 22nd of that year I married Caroline Lucy Curtis,
daughter of Jacob and Sophronia Curtis. I had made the acquaintance of the Patriarch
Hyrum Smith in Boston. At Nauvoo I became acquainted with his brother the Prophet,
and lived a near neighbor to him for a year prior to the martyrdom. I viewed his body
and that of the Patriarch, after they were murdered and brought to Nauvoo for burial."
The Raleighs were in the exodus of 1846, leaving Nauvoo on the 10th of May and
traveling to the Missouri river, where they encamped with the main body of the migrating
Saints. The head of the family, in the spring of 1847, went to St. Joseph, Missouri,
where he worked at his trade and provided himself with an outfit for crossing the plains.
It was an ox-team and wagon loaded with supplies and tools for farming and building.
He also had cows, pigs and chickens, and had sent tools and seeds with the Pioneers, who
used them to advantage on their arrival in Salt Lake valley. His own start to the moun-
tains was made in the spring of 1848. He traveled in fleber C. Kimball's company of
five hundred wagons, and in Henry Herriman's hundred. At the Elk Horn the Indians
undertook to drive off their stock, and Howard Egan was shot in the wrist and Thomas
E. Ricks in the thigh. Mary Smith, widow of the murdered Patriarch, with her family,
was in this emigration, and Raleigh relates how he and others went out one day with their
rifles and brought the widow and her wagons into camp out of danger; she having fallen
behind. He arrived in the Valley about the first of September.
Locating his family — consisting of his wife and infant daughter, Caroline C. — in a
dugout on Mill Creek, he immediatley went to work building some shelters called "adobe
rows" for President Heber C. Kimball and Bishop Newel K. Whitney, laboring at this
until stopped by the winter snows. "During the winter," says he, "I employed myself
in reading and in preparing materials for building a house for my family in the spring.
In the years 1849 and 1850 I conducted my building business successfully, and in the
spring of 1851 was called by President Brigham Young to take charge of the mason
department of the Public Works, upon which I concentrated my whole energy until
labor was suspended during the so-called "Buchanan war" and "the move." In Oc-
tober, 1853, I superintended the building of the Nineteenth Ward section of the city wall,
and was trustee for that portion of the enterprise." Prior to this, in 1851, he had been
appointed to preside over the newly organized Deseret Dramatic Association, and did so
for several years, being succeeded by James W. Cummings.
A Teacher in the Church while a resident of Boston, and a Seventy at Nauvoo, he
was ordained July 13, 1851, a High Priest by Presiding Bishop Edward Hunter, who set
him apart to act as counselor to Bishop James Hendricks of the Nineteenth Ward. At
this time he was one of the presidency of the Fifth quorum of Seventy. At the April
Conference of 1856 he was called to be the Bishop of the Nineteenth Ward, and on the
6th of May was set apart by Bishop Hunter to that office. Several years later he was
appointed to preside also over the Brighton Ward. In October, 1869, he went upon a
short mission to the New England States. In 1876 he assisted to open and carry on the
work in the St. George Temple. From January, 1878, to December, 1884, he was a
home missionary of the Salt Lake Stake, and on January 25, 1883, was ordained a
Patriarch by President Wilford Woodruff. About two years later he became an alternate
High Councillor of the Stake, and in July, 1886, was made a director of the Stake
corporation.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 279
Mr. Raleigh's military record dated from the days of Nauvoo, where he held a first
lieutenant's commission in the Legion. During the early Indian wars in Utah he
accompanied George D. Grant, William H. Kimball, James Ferguson, Porter Rockwell
and other officers upon various expeditions. He was elected a major in the militia
April 20, 1857, and in September was appointed adjutant of the second regiment,
second brigade, first division. The following winter found him in Echo Canyon,
where he inspected, by order of Lieutenant- General Wells the earth works there
constructed to repel the invasion by Johnston's army. His command built stations,
cleared roads and erected stone batteries. At the time Johnston marched through Salt
Lake City Major Raleigh was among those left on guard with orders to burn the town if
the troops made any attempt upon the property of the absent citizens.
His political life covered a period of nearly thirty years. When he retired from
office in February, 1884, he was the oldest alderman in Utah, probably in all America,
having held that office almost continuously since September, 1854. He represented the
Third Precinct of Salt Lake City. He was mayor pro tern, from May until September,
1857, during the absence of Mayor A. O. Smoot, who had gone East on public business.
In 1S58-9 he was a grand juror in Judge Sinclair's court. He was justice of the peace
for the city and county of Salt Lake when they constituted but one precinct, and when
the city was divided into five precincts he was justice of the Third. He held this office,
with that of alderman, until disqualified by the Edmunds law, at which time he was also
city inspector of buildings — the sole incumbent of that office since its creation in March,
1860. In August, 1877, he was elected to and subsequently sat in the council of the
Legislative assembly.
Under date of May 9, 1891, the veteran writes: "To-day we had a visit from
President Harrison. I saw him while passing in the procession, which reminded me
that when President Grant visited us, in 1875, I was appointed one of a committee of
three to escort him from Ogden to Salt Lake City; Hon. George Q. Cannon and Alder-
man A. C. Pyper being the other committeemen. My life has been a very busy one,
full of cares and anxieties; most of it, however, pleasant and agreeable. My success
has been largely due to my early training in habits of industry and frugality, order and
classification of business — a place for everything and everything in its place. I have
been anxious to do what I could for the benefit of humanity, whether or not there was
dollars and cents in it or any earthly reward; nor do I claim that in this I have been
less selfish than other men, but have simply had an eye to the future, as well as to
the present. I am satisfied that in the life to come the eternal law of justice will
reward every man for the deeds done here, whether they be good or evil, few or
many."
The venerable Bishop maintained that one of the best acts of his life was his
obedience to the principle of plural marriage, for which he was disfranchised and dis-
qualified to hold office. He was not otherwise molested, being absent in California
during the period of the crusade. The names of two of his wives have been given. The
others were Elizabeth Yearsley, Julia Curtis, Nancy Ann Redden, Elizabeth Ann Player,
Emily Player, and Nancy Brooks. He was the father of thirteen sons and eleven daugh-
ters. His last important public service was as a member of the Constitutional Convention
in 1895. He died May 16. 1901. It was his first illness, his health having been phenom-
enally good all his days.
LEONARD WILFORD HARDY.
)ISHOP LEONARD W. HARDY, who died one of the Presiding Bishopric of the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was a native of Bradford, Essex coun-
ty, Massachusetts, where he was born on the last day of the year 1805. He was
only eight days younger than the Prophet Joseph Smith. His parents were Simon
and Rhoda Hardy. His early boyhood and a portion of his manhood were passed at Brad-
ford, where, when a small boy, he had a terrible experience in a tornado, which blew
down his father's house and killed his little sister, three years old; or injured her so badly
that she died two days later. Leonard was carried many rods from the house and depos-
280 HISTORY OF UTAH.
ited upon the ground without injury. The rain came down in torrents, and he crawled
for shelter into a barrel wedged between two trees.
Simon Hardy was a shoemaker, who made a good livinsr, but did not accumulate
wealth. The son learned the father's trade, but it did not agree with his health, so he
went to farming, which suited him better. His education was limited, but he was a smart,
energetic boy. who always sustained a good character, and was respected by all who knew
him. After he grew to manhood he held several offices of trust in his native town.
He became a Latter-day Saint in 1832, being baptized by Elder Orson Hyde on De-
cember 2nd of that year. Soon afterwards he was ordained an Elder and labored in the
ministry as far as he had opportunity. He started December 6, 1844, upon a misson to
England, in company with Apostle Wilford Woodruff and other Elders. They sailed on
the ship "John R. Skiddey," and after a rough passage landed at Liverpool on the 3rd
of January, 1845. Elder Hardy labored awhile in the Manchester conference, with
Elder M. Homes as a companion, and was then appointed to preside over the Preston con-
ference, in which capacity he labored until the 31st of August. The first night after his
arrival in Preston, he was placed in a bed where a person had just died from smallpox,
and the linen of which had not been changed. The result was an attack of that disease,
which came very nearly terminating his life. Recovering his health, he continued his
faithful labors and baptized many. Released of his charge at Preston, he labored in
various English conferences until the 19th of October, when he took passage for his re-
turn to America.
Before leaving England he requested President Woodruff to lay his hands upon his
head and give him a blessing. The Apostle consented, and in the blessing told him that
he should arrive home in safety, and that he should spend his last days as one of the lead-
ing Bishops of the land of Zion. Astounded by such a promise, Elder Hardy remarked,
"Brother Woodruff, I can comprehend arriving home in safety, but I cannot comprehend
being a leading Bishop in the Land of Zion." The Apostle told him to wait and see, and
if it did not come to pass, he would acknowledge that the spirit which dictated it was not
the Spirit of Truth. Having arrived home, he removed with his family (he had been a
married man since October 12, 1826) to Peterborough, New Hampshire, where he entered
into the mercantile business with Jesse C. Little, and continued in it until he con-
cluded to come to Utah, when he closed out his interests.
He came West in 1850, in a company led by Apostle Wilford Woodruff, who after
the return of the Pioneers from the Salt Lake valley to Winter Quarters, had been com-
missioned to gather up the Latter-day Saints remaining in the East and lead them to the
Rocky Mountains. The company numbered about a hundered souls. The Hardy family
joined them at Boston, and left that city on the 9th of April. In the organization on the
frontier he was appointed captain of the first fifty wagons, two of which, one drawn by a
span of horses, and the other by two yoke of oxen, were his own. The cholera visited all
the traveling camps that season, and this one did not escape. Eleven of its members
died. Captain Hardy was attacked with the disease, and on the day that he was at the
lowest stage, a stampede occurred, the excitement of which was such that it nearly
cost him his life. As was the case when he had the smallpox in England, the prayer of
faith was effectual in his recovery. He arrived at Salt Lake City on the 14th of October.
For awhile he was engaged as a salesman in various mercantile houses; first for Ed-
win D. Woolley, and afterwards for Oscar H. Cogswell, Livingston and Kincaid, Living-
ston and Bell, and others. His services were soon needed, however, in a public capacity,
and he was made captain of police of Salt Lake City. Subsequently he became a member
of the City Council, serving as such from April, 1859, to February, 1866. As early as
March, 1851, he was elected captain of Company D., Second Regiment, Second Cohort,
Nauvoo Legion, and was commissioned by Governor Brigham Young. He took part in
the Echo Canyon campaign, in "the move" that followed, and in all the general events of
that period.
His first call to the Bishopric came on the 6th of April, 1856, when he was set apart
to preside over the Twelfth Ward of Salt Lake City. On June 21st of the same year there
was added to this charge the Bishopric pro tern of the Eleventh Ward. On the 12th of
October he became first counselor to Bishop Edward Hunter in the Presiding Bishopric
of the Church; thus fulfilling the prediction of Wilford Woodruff made to him in England
eleven years before. He officiated as first counselor to Bishop Hunter until the latter's
death in October, 1883, and as first counselor to his successor, Bishop Preston, until his
own demise, July 31, 1884. His death was due to paralysis, which had attacked him about
two months previous.
Bishop Hardy left a large family. He had four wives and eighteen children. His
HISTORY OF UTAH. 281
first wife was Elizabeth Nichols Goodridge, widow of Barnard Goodridge, of Georgetown,
Massachusetts. To her second husband she bore three children, (one of them, a daughter
named Clarissa now living) and died at Salt Lake City, October 13, 1872. His second
wife was Sophia L. Goodridge, whom he married November 2S, 1850. She bore to him
nine children, namely, Leonard G., Oscar H., William B., Sophia M., Penelope, Lusan-
nah J., Jesse W., George G., and Martha, all living except Lusannah J. (Mrs. H. T. Mc-
Ewan) and Oscar H. By his third wife, Esther S. Goodridge, married to him August 20,
1855, the Bishop had Ave children, three of whom are living, Esther Isabelle, Owen S.
and Rhoda Alice. He married his fourth wife, Harriet A. Goodridge, March 28, 1858,
and by her he had one child, Frankie, who died when three years old. The Bishop's early
home was in the Twelfth Ward, where he maintained a residence during the remainder of
his life. In 1858 he purchased a farm in Parley's Canyon, and moved a portion of his
family there, keeping a station for Ben Holladay's overland stage line. In 1874 he made
a home in Sugar House Ward, and it was there that he died.
Bishop Hardy's life was one of unceasing activity. Excepting a short mission to the
East, froni November, 1869, to March, 1870 — most of which was spent in his native state
— the whole of his time since arriving here in 1850 was occupied in building up Utah.
Even after he was stricken with paralysis, and knew that death would soon summon him,
the energetic spirit of the man would not allow him to be absent from his post of duty.
Day after day he might be seen at the office of the Presiding Bishop, attending to busi-
ness as best he could, when he was really unfit to leave home. His name was a synonym
for uprightness and integrity.
FRANCIS MILLIARD DYER.
<T**RANK DYER, locally famous as United States Marshal of Utah during the latter
"TT" part of the anti-polj-gamy crusade, and as receiver of the Mormon Church
property confiscated under the operations of the Edmunds-Tucker Act, was a
native of Yazoo City, Mississippi, where he was born September 5, 1854. His
parents were Frank B. and Winifred S. Dyer. The father died when the son was
eight years old, and the mother then taught school to make a living for herself and
her children.
Frank's early manhood was passed in his native place, where at the age of sixteen
he was made a deputy sheriff under his uncle, Frank P. Hilliard, and served in that
capacity four years. After his uncle's death he managed a plantation for Mrs. Hilliard,
but not liking farming, came West to try his fortune at mining. Before going on the
plantation he bought the Yazoo Herald, and ran it for a short time, not to exceed a few
months, since it was only about two years after he left the sheriff's office that he arrived
in Utah, reaching Salt Lake City April 6, 1876.
He settled first in Bingham Canyon, where he engaged in mining until 1878. when
he went to Alta, Little Cottonwood, remaining there about a year, and returning to
Bingham in the summer of 1879. He was not successful at mining. June, 1883, found
him at Park City, where he took the contract to haul the ore from the Crescent mine,
which was then shipping from seventy-five to one hundred tons a day. In the summer
of 1884 he built the Crescent tramway.
His political career in Utah began in 1886, when he was appointed by President
Cleveland United States Marshal for the Territory, succeeding Edward A. Ireland in that
position. The date of his appointment was the 12th of April, but he did not receive his
commission until the 16th of June, during which mouth he removed to Salt Lake City
and entered upon his duties as marshal. His record as such from that time until June,
1889, is a part of the general history of the commonwealth, already told. During the
month last named he resigned his office, owing to the election of a republican
President — Benjamin Harrison. He was succeeded as marshal by Elias H. Parsons,
who was appointed on the 12th of July.
During the period of his marshalship, Mr. Dyer, on November 7, 1887, was appointed
by the Supreme Court of Utah, receiver to take charge of the Mormon Church property,
pending the litigation which had recently begun for its forfeiture and escheatment to the
19
282 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Government. Receiver Dyer gave bonds in the sum of three hundred thousand dollars, and
at once began to make seizures of real estate and personalty, pursuant to the order of
the court. The value of the Church property held by him in July, 1888, aggregated
nearly eight hundred thousand dollars. The full particulars of these and other pro-
ceedings connected with the subject may be found in the twenty-second, twenty-fourth
and twenty-seventh chapters of the previous volume. Mr. Dyer continued in the office
of receiver until July, 1890, when he was succeeded by Henry W. Lawrence. In the
spring of that year he became associated with the Salt Lake City Gas and Electric Light
Company, and was its manager and treasurer during the remaining years of his life.
Mr. Dyer was not a religious man; he belonged to no church; but was a Free
Mason, an Odd Fellow and a member of the Ancient Order of United Workmen. He was
naturally kind-hearted and generous, a true son of the Sunny South. It is related that
when the measures known as the Cullom and Struble bills, for the wholesale disfranchise-
ment of the Mormon people, were pending in Congress, and local agitators were laboring
hard to induce him to sign a petition for the passage of those bills, he refused to do so
on the ground that he had lived south of the Mason and Dixon line during the trying
days of "Reconstruction," and knew what it was to be persecuted under "carpet-bag"
rule. It is said also that his brother, Mr. A. G. Dyer, was one with him in this attitude.
An ardent Democrat, he played a very prominent part in local politics, and did as much
as any man to bring about the division on national party lines that took place early in the
nineties. Energetic and ambitious, had he lived he would doubtless have forged to the
fore in politics, as well as in business; but at the very opening of the new era of Utah's
political life he fell a victim to the grim destroyer, dying March 25, 1892. His fatal
ailment was peritonitis, or as it was afterwards named, appendicitis.
Mr. Dyer left a wife and three children, with many friends, to mourn his loss. His
wife, who was once Miss Ellen F. Tavey, and who married him in July, 1880, after his
death became Mrs. J. W. Searles, of Phoenix, Arizona. She died at Salt Lake City
May 5, 1S99, from the same disease that caused the death of her first husband. Mr.
Dyer's children, Frank H., Winifred and Ella P., lived with their uncle, A. G. Dyer, for
a time, but are now with their father's half-sister, Mrs. George H. Wood, of Salt Lake
City. Mrs. Wood, the wife of ex-county auditor George H. Wood, is a lady of intelli-
gence and character, a prominent worker in the local Democratic clubs. Her aged mother,
Mrs. Winifred S. Grissom, who is also the mother of the ex-marshal, is a member of
Mrs. Woods' household.
EDWIN DILWORTH WOOLLEY.
fgi STERLING character in the Mormon community from the days of Kirtland, was
I Edwin D. Woolley, for many years Bishop of the Thirteenth Ward, Salt Lake City.
^""^ He was a native of West Chester, Chester county, Pennsylvania, and was born
June 28, 1807. His father was John Woolley and his mother, as a maiden, Rachel
Dilworth. They were Quakers, and Edwin himself was reared one. His early boyhood
was passed at and in the vicinity of New Lynn Township, in his native county. John
Woolley was a well-to-do farmer, and the son followed the sire's vocation, attending at
intervals the village school, where he acquired a good common education. His practical
business-like mind did the rest, absorbing useful information from all sources.
When he was nineteen his mother died, and six years later his father followed her, leav-
ing him, the eldest of seven children, to care for the others. This duty he discharged most
faithfully, winning the love and esteem of his brothers and sisters, who regarded him
more as a father than a brother, as well they might, for he performed a father's part to-
wards them until they were capable of earing for themselves. The youngest was but
seven years old when Edwin was left with this weighty responsibility upon his shoulders.
The year before his father died he married Miss Mary Wickersham, of East
Rochester, Ohio, who had moved with her parents from Pennsylvania, and with whom
he had carried on a courtship by correspondence. The marriage took place at East
Rochester, March 24, 1831, the young man making the long journey (long for those days)
HISTORY OF UTAH. 283
over the Alleghany mountains for that purpose. He returned to Pennsylvania with his
wife as company.
A year after his father's death he moved with his wife, brothers and sisters to Ohio,
settling at East Rochester, where he engaged in farming and also kept the village tavern,
adding a year later a store to his other enterprises. He had two farms, and as coal
underlaid the land to a considerable extent, coal-mining became one of his occupations. As
may be surmised, he was exceedingly busy, and this indeed was one of his prominent
characteristics. All his life Edwin D. Woolley was a pattern of industry.
During the year 1837 he visited Kir t land, eighty or ninety miles away, for the
purpose of meeting the Prophet Joseph Smith, of whom he had heard much. He did
not meet the Prophet, who was in retirement, owing to mobocratic threatenings; but he
formed the acquaintance of his father, Joseph Smith, Sr., the Patriarch, whom he found
at Portage, also in seclusion, and who accepted his invitation to accompany him home
and spend the winter. During the sojourn of the Patriarch at his house Edwin D.
Woolley was baptized a Latter-day Saint, December '24, 1837, Elder Lorenzo Barnes
officiating in the ceremony. The day following his baptism he was ordained a High Priest
and set apart to preside over the East Rochester branch of the Church.
In the winter of 1838-9 he went upon his first mission, visiting his native state and
county and bearing his testimony to old-time friends and acquaintances. Among these
was Edward Hunter, who in Utah became the Presiding Bishop of the Church. He and
Edwin D. Woolley were congenial spirits, and the mutual friendship formed by them
in youth remained firm and unbroken to the end. At Quincy, Illinois, to which place
he removed in 1839, Mr. Woolley met for the first time Presidents Joseph and Hyrum
Smith, and the acquaintance there begun with them ripened into close friendship.
Having settled on the site of Nauvoo, Elder Woolley in the fall of 1840 took a mission
to the State of Pennsylvania, where he converted and baptized quite a number of
people. While upon this mission, traveling as usual without means and walking
through the country, he came one day to a toll gate, through which he was allowed to
pass free, according to custom, on stating that he was a minister of the Gospel. He had
proceeded about three miles farther when he heard the clatter of hoofs on the road
behind him. Turning he saw two horsemen approaching at full gallop. They soon
overtook him, and one of the men, placing his hand on the Elder's shoulder said, "You're
no preacher, d you, and you've got to go back with us and pay your fee, and pay
a fine as well." Elder Woolley replied, "If you will get a hall and furnish an audience,
I'll show you whether I'm a preacher or not." The proposition seemed to suit the men,
and they decided to put him to the test. They provided the hall and gave out notices of
the meeting to be held, meanwhile holding the preacher in custody. A large congrega-
tion gathered, and he preached to them with such force and fervor that those having him
in charge, convinced of the validity of his claim, straightway released him. He paid
neither fee nor fine, and was so well satisfied with his reception that he remained in that
neighborhood for some time, preaching and making converts. This incident occurred
at the town of Strasburg.
On returning to Nauvoo, Mr. Woolley engaged in the mercantile business. One day
the Prophet called upon him and said, "Brother Woolley, we want all your goods for
the building up of the Kingdom of God." He forthwith went to work and packed up
ready for removal all the goods in his store, except some held on commission from
different firms, and then, going to the Prophet, said, "Brother Joseph, I wish to know
if you also want the goods that I hold on commission, and will pay the houses in St.
Louis and other places where I obtained them ; also whether you will send teams to take
the goods away, or wish me to deliver them." The Prophet answered by asking, "And
you have packed all your goods, except those that you hold on commission, and are
ready to deliver them?" "Yes," was the reply. "Then," said the Prophet, with deep
feeling, putting his hand affectionately on his friend's shoulder, "Take your goods, re-
place them on your shelves and go on with your business." He had been testing him,
.is he tested others, to see if he was willing to sacrifice all for the Gospel's sake. The
issue left the question unclouded. He frequently let the Prophet have money by loan and
otherwise, furnishing him five hundred dollars at one time to pay a lawyer for procuring
his release from the Missouri officers who had kidnapped him.
In 1842-3 Elder Woolley was on a mission in Massachusetts and Connecticut, but
was at Nauvoo in 1844, the year of the martyrdom. Joseph and Hyrum called at his
house just before setting out for Carthage, and it was on leaving there, it is claimed,
that the Prophet uttered those memorable words: "I am going like a lamb to the
slaughter."
284 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Edwin D. Woolley left Nauvoo in the exodus, June 5, 1846. He had three wives
and seven children at this time, and all accompanied him to Winter Quarters, except
his second wife, Louisa Chapin Gordon, who with her one child, Edwin Gordon, ramained
at Montrose, Iowa, and then removed to Galesburg, Illinois, where she died April 29,
1849; her child being taken to the home of his maternal grandmother in Massachusetts.
From Winter Quarters, in September, 1846, Mr. Woolley and Bishop Whitney went
back to Nauvoo on Church business, but were partly frustrated by the mob, then in
possession of the city. At Winter Quarters during the following winter Mr. Woolley
worked in Bishop Whitney's store, and in 1847-8 worked for Mudge and Jennison,
merchants.
He and his family crossed the plains in the emigration of 1848, being organized in
the division led by President Brigham Young. They arrived at Salt Lake City on the
20th of September. After camping a few days outside the Old Fort, they located on a city
lot at the corner of Third East and Third South streets, where the head of the family
built a small house of adobes, made by himself from clay upon the premises. Upon this
lot Hammond Hall now stands. Procuring lands in the field south of the city, he went to
farming and at such other pioneer work as was found necessary.
In 1849-50 he was on a mission in the East, assisting Bishop Hunter with the
emigration and buying goods for the Church. When he retmmed home in the fall of
the latter year, he brought with him his little son, Edwin Gordon, then about five years
of age. In 1853 he was commissioned by President Young to take a herd of cattle to
California and dispose of them. Having accomplished this task, which occupied about
five months, he was employed by the President to superintend his private business,
which was very extensive. In this capacity he had to do with farming, stock-raising,
building, repairing canyon roads for lumber and wood hauling, the manufacture of
lumber, flour and other products, and the keeping of a store, a meat market and other
supply depots for the paying of workmen and the furnishing of merchandise and food
supplies for the President's family. He attended to this business for several years, at
the same time superintending his own, which was carried on by his sons, all working
with him and under his direction. After leaving President Young's employ, he engaged
in merchandising in the Tithing Office building, and when "the move" came, he carried
his merchandise with him to Provo, where he continued his business until his return to
Salt Lake City. In 1860 he fitted up teams and wagons, and taking three of his sons
went to the Missouri river and brought back a stock of merchandise, part of the goods to be
sold on commission, and the remainder to stock a store for E. D. Woolley and Sons. In
his absence two of his sons worked in the fields and carried on farming.
As early as 1849 Edwin D. Woolley was a member of the local High Council. In
November, 1853, he became Bishop of the Thirteenth Ward, succeeding Edward Hunter
in that office, the latter having been called to the Presiding Bishopric. At that time he
moved his family from the Ninth Ward, first to a small adobe house just east of the
Tithing Office corner, and then into a new two-story adobe house, which he had built
just north of the Social Hall — the premises now owned by Hon. Spencer Clawson. The
Bishop had another residence on the east side of the same block. Later he moved to the
corner of Second East and Second South streets. His family was large, and what is far
better, exemplary.
Bishop Woolley's official record in Utah dates from September, 1S51, when he sat
in the first Territorial legislature, as a member of the House of Representatives. He was
several times re-elected. In later years he was for a long period recorder of Salt Lake
county. Among other public works he helped to organize the Deseret Telegraph
company, of which he was one of the incorporators. He was ever conscientious in the
dischai-ge of his duties, public and private, civic and ecclesiastical. Devout in his religion,
he was at the same time intensely practical. Outspoken and independent, he was a
hater of shams and impostures, but underneath his blunt and fearless candor there was
great kindness of heart. The worthy poor who applied to him for aid never went away
empty handed. He was a plain, honest man, of unquestioned integrity.
Bishop Woolley died at his home in Salt Lake City, October 14, 18S1. His family
is still numerous and highly esteemed. Some of his sons have risen to prominence.
The eldest, John W., is a High Councillor in Davis Stake, and Samuel W. holds a
similar position in Tooele Stake, where he is also a Patriarch. Edwin D. is president
of Kanab Stake, and Edwin G., ex-probate judge of Washington county. Orson A. is
one of the Presidency of Alberta Stake; Hyrum S., a prominent business man; Marcellus
S., Bishop of the Twenty-first Ward, Salt Lake City; and Edwin T., Bishop of the
Fourth Ward, Ogden. George E. was formerly a Bishop's counselor. Two other
HISTORY OF UTAH. 285
prominent sons, deceased, were Franklin B., of St. George (killed by Indians in
California in 1869), and Henry A., eomnionly called "Bert," of Salt Lake City. Among
the Bishop's living daughters are Mrs. Rachel Simmons and Mrs. Henrietta Simmons,
of Salt Lake City; Mrs. Abram Hatch, of Heber City, and Mrs. Andrew Kimball, of
Thatcher, Arizona.
ANDREW CUNNINGHAM.
c7>OR twenty years a prominent figure in the social and official life of Utah, and
"ff especially of Salt Lake City, Bishop Andrew Cunningham is remembered as a man
of sterling qualities. Meager as are the details furnished for his biography, they
suffice to show him the maker of a record at once useful and honorable. He died
before the advent of railroads and other bustling agencies of civilization, but during the
extended period between that epoch and the earliest days of colonizing in this region, he
played an active and at times a stirring part.
He was the son of Adam Cunningham and his wife Amilla Lyons, and was born Sep-
tember 22, 1816, near Clarksburg, Harrison county, now in West Virginia. His ances-
tors on both sides were Virginians from the colonial period, aud his mother's progenitors
were of Dutch descent. His parents were farm owners in a small way, and Andrew's
boyhood was spent upon his father's farm. He had very little schooling — about four
winters in all, at the only school taught in his neighborhood. About the year 1829 his
father was accidentally drowned while returning from Clarksburg with a marriage license
for his daughter Sarah, who was about to marry Jacob Bigler.
Ten years later Andrew, anticipating Horace Greely's advice to young men, went
West to grow up with the country. He proceeded to Western Illinois, and settled near
the town of Quincy, returning thence to Virginia in the fall of 1840 to move his mother
and her family to his new home. The nest spring found them on their way West, the
party consisting of Andrew, his mother, his brothers John, William, Addison and Gran-
ville, and his sisters Susan and Sarah. About July, 1841, he married Lucinda Rawlins.
His residence in Illinois brought him into contact with the Latter-day Saints, who in
the winter of 1S38-9 were driven out of Missouri, and for a while congregated near
Quincy in large numbers. Andrew Cunningham and his wife were both converted to
Mormonism, and joined the Church not long after their marriage. Their eldest child,
James Alma Cunningham, was born June 14, 1842.
Six years later the Cunninghams emigrated to the Rocky Mountains, starting in the
spring of 1848 from Council Bluffs. The head of the family was captain of a company of
ten, who were the owners of twenty-seven wagons. His own outfit consisted of two
wagons, one drawn by a pair of horses, and the other by a yoke of oxen and a yoke of
cows. They arrived in Salt Lake Valley on the 12th of October, and settled first near the
old Pioneer Square.
They became identified with the Fifteenth Ward, where Mr. Cunningham, from 1851
to 1853, was counselor to Bishop Nathaniel V. Jones, and acting Bishop of the Ward
until about September, 1855, when he went upon a mission to Illinois and the neighbor-
ing States, from which he returned in August, 1857. Prior to going upon this mission he
was deputy-sheriff under Sheriff Robert T. Burton, and they two built by contract the
Salt Lake County courthouse. Contracting, freighting and farming were Mr. Cunning-
ham's principal occupations.
The year he returned from his mission was the year of the "Echo Canyon war,"
which began in the latter part of September, 1857, so far as Utah was concerned, with
the investment by the militia of the mountain passes of the Wasatch, in response to Gov-
ernor Young's proclamation placing the Territory under martial law. About the time of
this movement a small company of men, numbering about fifty, volunteered to go to the
Snake River country, form a new settlement there, and watch any movement that might
be made by Johnston's army or other hostile force in that direction. At the head of this
company was Captain Andrew Cunningham. They settled near the present town of
Blaekfoot, Idaho, but were recalled to Salt Lake City the same winter. In the move that
286 HISTORY OF UTAH.
preceded the arrival of the government troops at this point the Cunningham family went
to Lehi, but returned to their former home in the summer of 1858.
In 1859 Andrew Cunningham became Bishop of the Fifteenth Ward, and served in
that capacity for about nine years. From 1859 to 1862 he was the marshal of Salt Lake
City, and some time during the "sixties" was for two terms a member of the city council.
Among his business associates were Robert T. Burton and Robert J. Golding. He had
just resigned his office as Bishop, owing to fast failing health, when he died at his home
in the Fifteenth Ward, March 2, 1868. He was the father of several children, five of
whom are living, namely: James Alma, the well known mining man; Mrs. Lucinda Ann
Ure, Hyrum R., Joseph R., and Mrs. Eustacia Weiser. His widow, Mrs. Lucinda Raw-
lins Cunningham, died within recent years.
LESTER JAMES HERRICK.
^"''HE Herricks trace their ancestry back to the tenth century, locating them in
I^jj Leicestershire, England. It is believed that the name Lester, a popular one in
;* the family, was adopted by them from the love they bore the land of their
progenitors. Two brothers of this lineage emigrated to America in the seventeenth
century. Such is the statement made by a very elaborate genealogical work published
by Lucius C. Herrick, M. D., of Columbus, Ohio. Lester J. Herrick, the fourth son of
Lemuel and Sally Herrick, was born at Nelson Park, Portage county, in that State,
December 14, 1827.
Some time in 1830 — the year the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was
organized — his parents became members of this religious body. They were among the
Mormon colonists who settled in Jackson county, Missouri, in 1831, and were driven
thence by mob violence in 1833. They afterwards settled with the Saints at Far West,
and were again driven by mobs, this time beyond the borders of the State. They next
resided at Commerce, subsequently known as Nauvoo, where the mother died in 1841,
worn out by the hardships, privations and sufferings of the preceding years of perse-
cution. In 1842 the family took up their abode at Morley's settlement, where, two years
later, they apain experienced the wrath of the lawless marauder in the destruction of home
and property. Returning to Nauvoo, they remained there until the exodus of 1S46.
During the life-time of the Prophet and the Patriarch, the Herricks were often visited
by them, and their kindly ministrations left a lasting impression upon the mind of young
Lester, who was in his seventeenth year at the time of the martyrdom.
The next resting place for the family was Mount Pisgah, from which place they
went into Missouri, sojourning there for several years. While dwelling in that State
Lester paid a visit to his brother Alonzo, who was living in Ohio. In going up the
river he contracted a severe cold, terminating in an attack of bronchitis, which afflic-
tion he never entirely overcame, his otherwise strong constitution being unable to resist
the subtle encroachment of the disease. As a result consumption developed in after
years. From Missouri the family, excepting the two elder brothers, Alonzo T. and
Clinton, the former still in Ohio, the latter in Indiana, crossed the plains to Utah,
arriving at Salt Lake City on the 22nd of September, 1850. Lester's sister Amanda
died on the journey from cholera.
After a short rest at the pioneer city, the family proceeded to Weber county,
where they settled permanently. Father Herrick carried the chain for Jesse W. Fox in
the first survey of the city of Ogden. The new-comers built a house in "Brown's
Fort," and there spent their first winter in Utah. In the spring they erected a more
commodious building. The member5; of the family now separated through marriage.
Diana Herrick married Bishop Isaac Clark, and in July of that year (1851) Lester J.
Herrick married Sarah A. Gartfer. His twin sister, Lucy Jane, was married the same
day to Barnabus Lake. A few months later his brother Nelson wedded a daughter of
R. D. Sprague. The eldest sister, Eliza Herrick Keyes, who had largely filled the place
of mother to the rest, removed with her husband, Harrison Keyes, and her sisters
Lucinda and Mary, with their husbands, to Oregon. The Keyes family returned to
Ogden in 1866. Father Herrick died five years earlier.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 287
In a new country so remote from the civilized world, few opportunities to obtain a
livelihood presented themselves outside of agriculture. Lester took up land and
established himself as a farmer. Devoted to his religion, in the fall of 1856 he was chosen
second counselor to Bishop Bunker of the Second Ward of Ogden. In August, 1857,
he married his second wife, Mary Brooks, and in the autumn and winter following shared
in the excitement and privations incident to the campaign against Johnston's army and
the general move that followed. Ten years later he married his third and last wife, Agnes
McQuarrie.
As early as 1S58, Mr. Herrick was elected sheriff of Weber county, his commission,
from Governor Alfred Cummiug, being the first official document issued by that
Executive. In 1S60 he was chosen a selectman of the county. For several years he
served upon the regular police force of Ogden, until elected in February of the last-
named year a member of the city council. Shortly after this election he became
Bishop of the Second Ward, and selected Hugh Findlay and Rufus Allen as his
counselors. In February, 1865, he became an alderman of the city, and was re-elected
to the same office in 1867.
In the fall of the latter year he formed a partnership with David H. Peery in a
general merchandise business. Mr. Peery, who had come from Virginia a few years
before, was a man of considerable means. Mr. Herrick's capital was largely in his
popularity with the people. The business venture was a financial success. In 1870,
when Z. C. M. I. was establishing its branches throughout the Territory, the firm sold
out to the parent institution at Salt Lake City. Prior to this, upon the advent of the
railroad, Mr. Herrick availed himself of the improved facilities for travel by visiting the
Eastern States and spending several weeks in the society of relatives and old-time
friends, whom he had not seen for twenty years.
Upon the death of Chauncey W. West, the Presiding Bishop of Weber county, an event
that occurred January 9, 1870, President Brigham Young appointed Lester J. Herrick
to succeed him in that position, which he successfully and honorably filled for a period
of about five years. In February, 1871, he was elected mayor of Ogden, and re-elected
in 1873, 1S75, 1879 and 1881, thus serving five terms, or a period of ten years in that
capacity. A part of this time, from April, 1873, to June, 1874, he was absent upon a
mission to Europe, presiding first over the London Conference, and afterwards over the
European Mission, during a temporary home-coming of President Albert Carrington. It
was during the succeeding administration of President Joseph F. Smith that Elder
Herrick was honorably released from his mission. Before returning, and while super-
vising the affairs of the Church in Europe, he visited Paris, Berlin, the World's Fair at
Vienna, Italy, Switzerland, the Channel Islands, Isle of Man and Ireland; the expense
of the tour, which was made for his personal information and benefit, being borne by
his private purse. He often remarked that no previous outlay of time and money had
brought such profitable returns or produced such genuine satisfaction. He bad had
but little schooling in his youth, owing to the drivings and persecutions in which he
had shared, but he was a man of intelligence, who appreciated knowledge, and did
all in his power to possess and promote it.
He had barely returned home, when in August, 1874, he was chosen by the popular
vote a member of the Weber county court. The next year he entered into a co-partner-
ship with D. H. Peery, W. W. Burton and others, and did a successful business in
grain, milling and general merchandise until 1880, when the firm dissolved. In the re-
organization of Weber Stake, in 1877, he was appointed by President Brigham Young
first counselor to David H. Peery in the Stake Presidency. In August he was re-elected
to the office of county selectman. In 1882, with his wife Sarah, he visited among
kindred and friends in the Eastern States. The same year he associated himself with
others in the wagon, machinery and implement business, under the firm name of Burton,
Herrick and White. After six years of success the capital was enlarged, new stock-
holders added, and the firm name changed to the Consolidated Implement Company,
Mr. Herrick still holding a large interest in the concern.
Prior to this time, failing health had necessitated his retirement from public life. Gentile
and Mormon alike did him honor upon his relinquishment of the mayoralty in 1883. A
banquet was given, on which occasion, after several addresses had been made, highly
complimentary to and eulogistic of the distinguished guest, a handsome silver breakfast
set was presented to him, with a beautifully framed and engrossed testimonial, con-
taining his own steel portrait and the photographs of a large number of leading citizens
who had served with him in various official positions. His health continuing to decline,
he sought relief in the invigorating climate of the Pacific Coast, spending two years in
288 HISTORY OF UTAH.
San Bernardino, from 1885 to 1887. During his absence from home he received every
attention that medical skill and tender nursing could bestow, but all in vain. For the
next five years he was an invalid, calmly and patiently awaiting the end that he knew
to be inevitable. Death had no terrors for him. He intelligently and philosophically
anticipated the change, which came April 18, 1892, to waft him to a better world. He
was greatly lamented, for he was widely known and well beloved, and his funeral was
one of the largest ever held in Ogden. The deceased left three wives and twelve
children. Three of his offspring had died when young. In addition to his own surviving
children he reared to womanhood a daughter of his deceased brother Nelson.
In the foregoing summary reference is made only to the most prominent events in
the career of Mr. Herrick. He filled many responsible positions, civic and ecclesiastical,
and was faithful and true to every trust, winning the confidence of those above him in
authority, and the love and esteem of the people. As a counselor and presiding officer
he was very efficient. He invariably presided at the trials before the High Council.
Deliberate, sound in judgment, firm in decision, he was an intelligent and logical
expounder of his ideas and convictions on all public questions and matters pertaining to
both church and state. Genial and pleasant to all, and with ready conversational
powers, he made for himself a host of friends. At the head of municipal affairs he
manifested the possession of marked executive ability. Liberal, progressive and enter-
prising, he enjoyed the support and esteem of his colleagues. He greatly improved
Ogden's sanitary condition by drainage; he was a director in the development of her
system of waterworks, and by his special efforts she was the first of the inter-mountain
cities to have her streets lighted with electricity. He had previously taken a very active
part in inducing the Central Pacific and Union Pacific companies to make Ogden the
junction of the two railroads, thus laying the foundation upon which the city has been
built up and made prominent a* a commercial center.
OLIVER GODDARD SNOW.
fHE eldest son of the late President Lorenzo Snow, by his first wife, Mary Adaline
Goddard Snow, the subject of this sketch is to-day one of Utah's pushing and pros-
perous business men. Inheriting from his father the qualities of a financier, and
now in the very prime of life, he has an unbroken record of business successes
extending through a period of many years. He is an affable gentleman, who easily wins
his way among all classes of people. Though the greater part of his past was spent at
Brigham City, he is a native of Salt Lake, where he was born February 20, 1849; and
since the summer of the year 1900 he and his family have resided here.
Oliver was a little over four years old when he moved with his parents to the site of
Brigham City, then occupied by a crude and primitive settlement known as the "Old
Fort." There his father built a commodious dwelling, and with a view to promoting the
spirit of brotherhood in the little community, of which he was the leading spirit, opened
his house for a series of public entertainments. One of Oliver's earliest recollections is his
maiden speech" delivered at the initial performance; a speech composed for him by his
sire, and beginning with the couplet:
"Ladies and gentlemen, one and all,
I welcome you to my father's hall."
For the manner in which he acquitted himself on that occasion he was awarded a
pocket knife. The next notable event in which he figured (for a Yankee boy's acquisition
of his first pocket knife is to him a notable event) was his baptism at eight years of age,
on a bitter cold day, in the mill race of the settlement; Elder William Neeley officiating.
Oliver's father confirmed him a member of the Church.
Another incident of his early life dates in the following spring. It was a time when
horse thieves abounded, dangerous and desperate characters, one of whom this nine-year-
old boy was the means of capturing. Upon entering his father's pasture one evening,
he saw two horses tied to a bunch of willows, and supposing they belonged to the Bishop,
HISTORY OF UTAH. 289
he took them to him. The Bishop did not own the animals, but had them secured for the
night. Early next morning, as Oliver was driving his cows to pasture, a dark-visaged
man emerged from a thicket bj7 the roadside, and displaying a six-shooter, demanded in
a gruff tone if he knew where the two horses were. The trembling urchin frankly told
the whole story, whereupon the stranger, pointing to the calibre of his revolver, said.
"Unless you bring those horses back I will put a bullet through you of that size." Glad
when the interview ended, the boy lost no time in reaching home, where he learned that
the owner of the horses, from whom they had been stolen, had just arrived from Salt
Lake City. The officers were at once notified of the whereabouts of the thief, and he
was soon in custody.
Oliver G. Snow was but fifteen years of age when he was ordained to the office
of a Seventy — a member of the fifty-eighth quorum — and was still a mere stripling
when, at the re-organization of the militia in his county, he was made standard-bearer
on the staff of Colonel Chester Loveland. His being taken by his father upon one of
President Young's tours through the southern settlements, is among the pleasant rem-
iniscences of that period. In the spring of 1868 he with others made a trip East to
bring a company of emigrants across the plains. On the return journey they had a
fierce encounter with Indians, who ran off fifty head of stock, which Oliver and his
companions, after some hair-breadth escapes, succeeded in recovering.
This was the year that the railroad was built across Utah. In the autumn Oliver
worked on the grade, and after the driving of the last spike at Promontory, May 10, 1869,
he acted as mail carrier from Brigham City to Bonneville, a distance of twelve miles,
delivering and receiving mail to and from messengers on the Central Pacific trains. He
also hauled freight with a four-horse team from Salt Lake City to Brigham for the local
co-operative store. During the fall and winter of 1869 he attended the University of
Deseret, as a student under Dr. John R. Park. It was there that the writer first met him.
They were desk-mates at the University, which then had its home in the old Council
House.
In May, 1870, Oliver was called upon a mission to Great Britain. Though his predi-
lections were not toward the ministry, he promptly responded to the call, and within five
days was on his way to Liverpool. He was appointed to labor in the Manchester confer-
ence, under the presidency of Elder David Brinton, with whom he made the round of the
various branches. It was about this time that Charles Dickens died, concerning which
event our young missionary relates the following anecdote: "While waiting refreshments
at a hotel in Bolton, a gentleman stranger of fine presence, whom we afterwards learned
was a prominent journalist, entered the room where many people were seated, some in
groups and others as wall flowers, when the strange man commenced to eulogize Mr.
Dickens, giving an account of his death, the great loss the community would sustain by
his demise; and in beautiful language and dramatic eloquence portrayed the great worth
and superior abilities of the deceased, adding that it would have been better that a
thousand Britons had died, than for that noble man to give up his life. Finally, striking
his broad, intellectual forehead with the palm of his hand, he exclaimed, as if his whole
soul was filled? with anguish: "What, oh, what was God Almighty thinking of when he
caused that great and noble man to die1?" We concluded that, although the speaker was
considered great among his fellows, he certainly must be out of joint where that expres-
sion originated."
In June, 1871, Elder Snow was appointed to preside over the Leeds conference, in
which capacity he labored for eighteen months. He attended one evening a lecture deliv-
ered by an apostle of the so-called Apostolic Church, and became the object of a per-
sonal reference from the speaker, who, entirely unprovoked by Elder Snow, emptied the
vials of his wrath upon the Mormon leaders and upon Mormonism in general. He then
apologized to his hearers for thus occupying time that should have been devoted to his
subject proper, and wound up by challenging the Elder to come forward at the close of
the lecture and deny if he could the charges he had made. Accordingly, at the close,
Elder Snow went forward, and was about to contradict the calumnies, when the lecturer
angrily and vehemently objected to his speaking. The audience, however, were deter-
mined that he should be heard. Cries of "Let the Mormon Elder speak" resounded
through the hall. The owner of the place arose and requested that no disturbance be
made, adding that while the position assumed by the apostle seemed strange, still he had
rented the hall and had the right to dictate as to who should speak. Elder Snow replied
that no one would regret a disturbance more than himself; that he had simply accepted a
challenge supposed by him to have been made in good faith, and without the least design
of transcending any rule of propriety; but inasmuch as his opponent persisted in main-
290 HISTORY OF UTAH.
taining his very singular point of refusal, he thought he could well afford to content him-
self with the result. The upshot of the incident was that the apostle lost prestige and had
to abandon his lectures before the end of his engagement, while on the other hand many
who had never before given the subject of Mormonism any attention, began to manifest
a spirit of inquiry.
Daring the year 1872 Elder Snow visited Scotland in company with Elder George
Reynolds, who was temporarily presiding over the European mission in the absence of
Apostle Albert Carrington. They sailed upon Loch Lomond, climbed Ben Lomond, and
saw the principal points of interest in and around Edinburgh and other historic places.
He also visited the English cities, Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, London, Durham
and Newcastle. In Birmingham the sight that most interested him was the famous pen
factory of Gillott & Sons, where he '"was amused to learn that so simple an article passed
through twenty-four different processes before it became a finished pen." At the expir-
ation of two and a half years from the time he landed on British shores — during which
period he had baptized about forty souls — he was released to return home. It was No-
vember 13, 1872, when he arrived again at Brigharn City.
Soon after his return he was made a member of the High Council of Box Elder Stake.
In a business way he was employed in the mercantile department of the Brigham City
Mercantile and Manufacturing Association, first as clerk and subsequently as assistant
book-keeper, which position he held for several years. On the 13th of October, 1873, he
married Miss Mary B. Peirce, daughter of Eli Harvey Peirce and Susannah Neff Peirce.
His father-in-law was one of the Pioneers of Utah and was the first Bishop of
Brigham City.
In October, 1875, came a call for a mission to the States, during which Elder Snow
visited his father's birth-place, Mantua, Portage county, Ohio, preaching in the town hall to
a splendid audience. He also visited Oberlin, where his father had attended college, and
at another point on his way East called on his aged grandmother, Mrs. Goddard, who had
been a Latter-day Saint for many years, and had expressed a desire to accompany him
to Utah. He found her very feeble, she being in her ninetieth year, yet elated over
the prospect of coming West. She did not live to undertake the journey. Elder Snow
preached her funeral sermon and saw her laid to rest.
In August, 1877, the Box Elder Stake was re-organized, a step rendered necessary
by a decision of the First Presidency that the Apostles who had been presiding in the
Stakes should be relieved of that responsibility. Lorenzo Snow was thus released from
acting any longer as president of Box Elder Stake. President Young, who attended the
conference at which the re-organization was effected (it was his last visit to Brigham
City) asked President Snow to name his successor. "We have left that entirely to you,"
was the reply. President Young then proposed that Oliver G. Snow be chosen to
preside over the Stake, and the retiring president nominated Elijah Box and Isaac Smith
as the counselors in the new organization. The selections were satisfactory to the
people and were unanimously sustained. In presenting Oliver's name President Young
said: "Brother Lorenzo Snow has been for many years building up and sustaining a
system to unite the people in their financial affairs, which I approve, and in order that
he may not be embarrassed or in any way interrupted in that direction, we propose
his son Oliver to occupy this position — he will take his father's counsel and be one
with him."
In January, 1878, Oliver G. Snow was elected a member of the board of directors
of the Brigham City Mercantile and Manufacturing Association, and was re-elected
annually for a number of years. He became the largest individual owner of stock in that
concern. In August, 1880, he was elected assessor and collector of Box Elder county, suc-
ceeding M. D. Rosenbaum, whose deputy assessor he had been since the spring. The same
month witnessed his election to the house branch of the Utah legislature. He was re-
turned to several subsequent sessions.
In 1881, he established a very successful wagon and implement business at Brigham
City, which he conducted individually at first, and then took in as a partner his half-brother
Alphonzo, under the firm name of 0. G. Snow and Brother. Several years later the
concern was incorporated, with Oliver G. Snow as president, and continued to flourish
as the Box Elder Wagon and Hardware Company. Soon after the incorporation,
however, he sold out his interest and further invested in the Brigham City Mercantile
and Manufacturing Association. During 1882 and 1883 he was assessor and collector
of Brigham City, and simultaneously assessor and collector of the county. His connection
with tbe latter office ceased in 1888. Two years later he was elected county treasurer.
In October. 1889, having sold his co-operative stock, he established the Bank of
HISTORY OF UTAH. 291
Brigharn City, of which he was proprietor and manager. He built up a fine business,
having depositors from all over northern Utah and southern Idaho. Subsequently he
took in as a partner John T. Rich. They bought out the Utah Loan and Trust Company,
which some years before had erected a fine building at Brigharn City with the design
of carrying on an extensive business. Just before starting the bank Mr. Snow established
a real estate and general insurance agency, which he continued to conduct as long as he
remained in Brigharn City.
During the year 1889 he performed a very important work in the promotion of the
Bear River Canal, a project inaugurated by Mr. John R. Bothwell, for the reclaiming
of arid lands in and adjacent to Box Elder county. Mr. Snow, though having no
personal interest in the matter, entered heart and soul into the enterprise, which he
regarded as a great public benefit. He lent Mr. Bothwell a thousand dollars to make
the preliminary survey, and otherwise encouraged him to proceed. He secured for him
about three hundred contracts from owners of land in Bear River valley, who agreed,
in consideration of the construction of the canal, to take a certain quantity of water
therefrom; promising to pay a specified amount per acre as a bonus and a stipulated sum
each year thereafter as rental. Mr. Bothwell took these contracts to Kansas City, and
there interested Messrs. Jarvis and Conklin in the enterprise. Utah people had been
scheming for a generation to induce capitalists to advance money for getting water out
of Bear River, but monied men, not knowing what the water was worth and what their
returns might be, had persistently refused to make the investment. Now, however, they
had the documentary evidence before them, showing what farmers wei-e willing to pay
for the water. The three hundred contracts secured by Mr. Snow plainly indicated the
value placed upon it by owners of lands; consequently Jarvis and Conklin furnished the
money, amounting to nearly one and a half million dollars, for the construction of the
canal. Mr. Bothwell said that without those contracts he never could have interested
capitalists in the enterprise. After the work was well under way he stated in an inter-
view published in the Ogden "Standard," that Oliver G. Snow had done more towards
inaugurating this project than any other person in Utah.
In 1893 Mr. Snow sold his banking interests, and purchased the Brigharn City
Electric Light plant, which he changed from a steam-power to a water-power plant,
thereby saving a large expense in the item of fuel. The previous year he had been
appointed by the Supreme Court of Utah a United States commissioner for Box Elder
county, but owing to pressure of business had been compelled to decline the honor. In
1S94 he purchased a ranch of three thousand acres in south-eastern Nevada, and the next
year sold a half interest therein, his partner running the ranch while he enlarged die
insurance business he had been building up for several years.
In the year 1900 he became president of the Western One Hundred Thousand
Dollars Club of the New York Life Insurance Company, by virtue of having written more
applications for insurance than any other agent in the western division. In April, at
a banquet given to the club by the officers of the company at the Palace Hotel in San
Francisco, Vice-President Kingsley, in a neat speech, presented Mr. Snow with a
beautiful gavel made from a solid piece of pure ivory, encircled with a band of silver,
containing the inscription: "Presented to Oliver G. Snow, President of the Western
$100,000 Club, 1900, by the New York Life Insurance Company." He also became a
member of the Two Hundred Thousand Dollars Club, and in September attended its
annual convention at Lake Champlain. The following year he accepted the general
agency for Utah and Idaho of the Prudential Insurance Company of America.
He was now a resident of Salt Lake City. Thirteen years before removing from
Brigharn City he had ceased to be president of Box Elder Stake. As long as he held
that position, he faithfully discharged the duties incumbent upon him, organizing new
wards, quorums and auxiliary associations, and building up the stake generally. He
assisted to lay the corner stones of the Logan Temple, and in April, 18S5, after the be-
ginning of the anti-polygamy crusade, served as one of the committee appointed to draft
a "Declaration of Grievances and Protest" against the high-handed and oppressive
actions of the crusaders. About this time he decided to resign as stake president, the'
duties of which calling were never entirely congenial to him. Upon mentioning the
matter to his father and to President John Taylor, they temporarily dissuaded him from
his design. He effected his purpose, however, in the fall of 18S7. tendering his resig-
nation at a quarterly conference, the first one held in the stake after the death of
President Taylor. This step was very much regretted by his co-laborers, who held him
in the highest esteem.
While a resident of Brigharn City Mr. Snow built several of the best buildings in
292 HISTORY OF UTAH.
that place, some of which would do credit to larger towns. As a resident of Salt Lake
he has continued to be active and progressive. In October, 1901, soon after the death
of his father, he was appointed special administrator of President Snow's estate, and at
a meeting of the heirs, held in the Bee-hive House, was nominated and by unanimous
vote recommended to the district court for appointment as administrator. Having been
appointed, he qualified in the following December. In March. 1902, was organized the
Union Savings and Investment Company, of which Mr. Snow was elected vice-president
and manager. He is the largest owner of capital stock in this concern, which is forging
ahead by leaps and bounds, and promises, at this writing, to become one of the largest
institutions of its kind in the western country.
CHARLES WOODMANSEE.
•"NHARLES WOODMANSEE came of a sturdy race of New Englanders. His ances-
\^j tors were among the earliest settlers on the North Atlantic coast. They emigrated
from England in the seventeenth century, and were identified with the colony in
Massachusetts. Gabriel Woodmansee was the founder of the family. He was a
prominent minister in the Society of Friends, a man of peace and good will, much perse-
cuted by other professed followers of Christ, who had fled from the mother country to a
land where they could enjoy religious freedom. Towards him and his co-religionists they
manifested the bitterest hatred. The ill treatment became so intolerable that he with
others left that inhospitable section for the eastern coast of New Jersey, where they found
rest, peace and immunity from oppression. Of his subsequent history there seems to be
no record.
Charles was the son of James and Sarah Woodmansee. His mother's maiden name
was Terrell. He was born March 4, 1828, in Highland county, Ohio, where his father
carried on farming. Like other boys of his period he was anxious to acquire an educa-
tion, but the limited means of his parents forbade much in the way of mental culture.
He attended the village schools, receiving such instruction as they were able to impart,
and was ever studious and industrious, devoting his spare time to the acquisition of all
the useful knowledge he could obtain. When about ten years old he moved with his par-
ents to Iowa, settling on the Mississippi river, near the site of the present city of Bur-
lington. There he continued to assist his father in agricultural pursuits until he had at-
tained his majority.
During their residence in Iowa his parents joined the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints. They faithfully adhered to its doctrines and taught its principles by
precept and example. His mother died in 184."), and the father survived her but four
years. After the demise of his parents, Charles, with his brothers Joseph and Henry, con-
tinued to cultivate the homestead farm until the year 1853, when they concluded to dis-
pose of the property, move out west, and seek their fortunes beyond the Rocky Mountains.
At Salt Lake City they established a mercantile house under the firm name of Wood-
mansee Brothers, and thus were anions the early founders of the commerce of the inter-
mountain region. Charles attended to all the outside business of the firm. Fond of
traveling, he visited the various settlements and extended the trade abroad, while Joseph
and Henry watched over its interests at home. Their commercial enterprises grew and
flourished, and within a year from their beginning they had established branch houses in
all parts of Utah. Charles was the active genius of the firm. He was destined to sever
his commercial relations with his brothers, and carve out a career for himself.
In the year 1854 he moved to Ogden. The place at that time was in almost a primi-
tive condition; the land for the most part barren and unproductive. Wolves were num-
erous, and crickets and grasshoppers swarmed over the country. But Mr. Woodmansee
liked the locality. He believed there was a bright future for Ogden. He purchased real
estate and determined to make the place his permanent home. During the same year he
became a Latter-day Saint, being baptized at Mound Fort, one of the Ogden suburbs, by
Elder Armsted Moffit. He was identified with the Church and its people all the rest of
his life.
The firm of Woodmansee Brothers continued to prosper and accumulate wealth. To
HISTORY OF UTAH. 293
their mercantile operations they added stock-raising and trading. Their cattle, horses
and other herds were numerous and covered a large area of the vast range extending
north and south for many miles. In 1864 by mutual consent the partnership between
Charles and his brothers was dissolved.
After the dissolution he moved to Mound Fort, where he established himself in busi-
ness and was very successful. On the 4th of September, 1864, he was united in wedlock
to Miss Harriet E. Porter, the marriage taking place at Salt Lake City. The issue of
this union was three sons and seven daughters, all but one of them living at last accounts.
In 1865 Mr. Woodmansee built an adobe store on the west side of Main street, in
Ogden, and thoroughly stocked it with merchandise. His business expanded rapidly and
he kept abreast with the times and the spirit of improvement. Nearly four years later
he erected a large stone building on the east side of Main street, about the center of the
block, and there continued a prosperous mercantile career until 1874, when he closed out
this branch of business and engaged in other pursuits, in all of which he was signally
successful.
It was he who inaugurated the dramatic era in Ogden. This was in the year 1870,
when he purchased a large building of Wells Fargo and Company — which they had used
as a station — and at an outlay of several thousand dollars converted it into a theatre; the
first institution of its kind in the Junction City. He expended large sums of money in
providing scenery, costumes and properties for his new enterprise. The 4th of June
found the appointments all complete, and on that night a well filled house witnessed the
production of the great temperance drama, "Ten Nights in a Bar Room." The play was
well presented, the box receipts were satisfactory, and the proprietor was gratified with
his success. This presentation was followed by many others. Amateur performances
had previously been given in Ogden, but it remained for Mr. Woodmansee to introduce
and establish the legitimate drama, and furnish the public with regular popular entertain-
ments. He was the sole proprietor of the theatre, assuming and promptly paying all
financial liabilities connected therewith. In 1881, after eleven years of successful exper-
ience in this line, the finale came, the curtain fell, and he retired from the dramatic
world; the building being leased and used for other purposes.
Thenceforth Mr. Woodmansee devoted most of his time to the improvement of his
farm, gardens and orchards, all of which, under his thoughtful, skillful management be-
came highly productive, yielding prolific crops which found a ready market and netted
the owner good profits. He continued to improve his immense real property, erecting
business houses or residences for occupancy by those who lacked capital or the inclina-
tion to invest it in such ways. He died March 24, 1894, of neuralgia of the heart, after
an illness of only three days. He had accumulated a fortune of nearly half a million,
which he disposed of by will, bequeathing the larger part of it to his beloved and faithful
wife, but making ample provision for all his family. His wife and his eldest son, Charles
H. — an excellent business man — were appointed by him his executors.
Charles Woodmansee was one of Ogden's most enterprising and most prosperous cit-
izens. He came to Utah when the sagebrush and the greasewood held sway over this
newly acquired part of the public domain, and by his indomitable energy, industry and
skill contributed materially toward the colonization of the wilderness, converting it into
fruitful fields and pleasant homes. Though of a peaceable and retiring disposition, he
possessed much force of character. Few men did more in founding the city of Ogden
and making it what it is today. He was identified with its growth and improvement from
the time he made it his home up to the last hour of his earthly life. As a business man
he was keen, quick to grasp a proposition, and prompt to avail himself of legitimate ad-
vantages presented; but was fair and honest in his dealings. He never aspired to politi-
cal prominence, preferring the comforts and pleasures of domestic life to the agitations
of the public arena. He was not very demonstrative in religious affairs, and was liberal
in all that affected the consciences of men and their obligations to their Creator. As a
citizen none were more loyal than he; as a neighbor he was kind, considerate and oblig-
ing; as a friend constant and true; and as a husband and father, affectionate and devot-
edly attached to wife, children and kinsfolk.
SIDNEY STEVENS.
fYNONYMOUS with business enterprise and honorable dealing, is the name of
Sidney Stevens; an Englishman by birth, but a settler in Utah as early as 1863.
He came from Somersethshire, where he was born at the town of Nunney, near
Bath, June 18, 1838. His parents were James and Hannah Martin Stevens; the
father a fairly well-to-do leather merchant, owner of a property known as Castle Green,
adjoining Nunney Castle, on which he had a shoe factory, a residence and a number of
tenant cottages. Sidney was educated at the Turner Institute, in his native town, a
school of high repute in the county of Somerset.
There were two factions in this school, one composed of young men residents of Nun-
ney, and the other of young men of the neighboring town of Wanstrow. The latter were
looked upon by the resident youths as interlopers and rivals. Between the factions a
feud sprang up, and one day, during the absence of the chief professor, who had left
the school in charge of his assistant, the Nunney students determined to make an assault
upon the Wanstrowites, who were the weaker party. The attack was to be made just
as they were leaving their boarding house, at the close of the school week, to return to
their own town to spend Saturday and Sunday with their parents. As they issued
forth they were immediately surrounded. A fierce fight was imminent, when Sidney
Stevens, mounting the iron fence of the boarding house and addressing the Nunney
boys, appealed to their sense of honor and love of fair play, urging that if they conquered
the weaker party it would bring no credit to them for courage, and would disgrace the
school and cause the ring-leaders to be expelled. This sensible speech had the desired
effect, and a peaceable adjustment of differences followed.
Young Stevens left school when about fifteen, in order to assist his father. At the
solicitation of his Wanstrow schoolmates and their parents, who greatly admired the
stand he had taken at the time of the pending melee, he embarked in business at that
town as a manufacturer of boots and shoes, also as a dealer in grain. His business,
fostered by such friendly patronage, grew rapidly, and he was soon able to employ quite
a number of hands.
One of his workmen was a young Latter-day Saint, against whom prejudice ran so
high that his fellow employes, incited by one of their number, combined against him
and demanded his discharge, telling their employer that either they or the Mormon
must leave the place. Mr. Stevens, indignant at this display of bigotry and malice,
replied in equally plain terms. He told the men that they had no right to interfere with
the young Mormon or his religion, nor he with theirs; that if they wanted to leave his
employ that was their privilege, but he would not discharge any man on account of his
religious faith. Again his firmness and common sense triumphed. The men, ashamed
of their narrowness, yielded the point, and the trouble ended. Subsequently his Mormon
employee, being about to emigrate to Utah, informed Mr. Stevens of the fact and gave
him the usual month's notice. The latter, valuing the youth for his excellent conduct and
faithful service, tried to induce him to remain, offering to increase his wages and make
him his foreman. "Not if you would treble my wages," was the zealous reply, and
seizing the opportunity afforded by his employer's expressed interest and surprise, the
young disciple explained the doctrines and bore testimony to him of the truth of
Mormonism. He also left with him some of Orson Pratt's tracts on the first principles of
the Gospel. These tracts were perused very carefully, and they, with other Mormon
works, led to the conversion of Sidney Stevens.
He was baptized a Latter-day Saint on the 21st of December. 1861. For a while,
in consequence of the step he had taken, some of his patrons forsook him, but he gained
others in their stead, and finally those who had left came back to him, and he continued
to be respected for his honesty and manliness, nothwithstanding his espousal of the un-
popular religion. His business duties took him to the markets of Froome, Bath, Bristol,
London, Dover, Liverpool and other cities. By the authorities of the Bristol conference,
HISTORY OF UTAH. 295
with which Wanstrow was connected, he was appointed to preach through the towns
and villages of that part. Being a man of means, he assisted many to emigrate to Utah.
Desirous himself of emigrating, in the fall of 1862 he advertised his business for sale,
and sold it in the following February. He then made preparations to embark for
America.
The date of sailing was May 23, 1863; his ship the "Antarctic," bound for New
York. The day before his departure from Liverpool he married in that city Miss Mae
J. Thick, a young lady from Hallwell in Dorsetshire, who accompanied him on his
voyage, and in Utah became the mother of his twelve children. At New York the
young couple remained for a time, but about the 17th of July they left for St. Joseph,
Missouri, where Mr. Stevens purchased a stock of sugar, tea, coffee and other merchandise,
and went with it on a steamboat up the Missouri river to Omaha, where he joined an
independent company to cross the plains. Subsequently, however, he accepted an offer
from Captain Daniel McArthur to travel with a company of Latter-day Saints which he
was conducting to Utah. He mentions among his associates on the overland journey
William De La Mar, John Needham, George Staneforth and Feramorz Little, and says
of the last-named: "I shall always think of Brother Little with kind remembrance. We
became acquainted seemingly on sight. He gave me much valuable advice, and assisted
me in purchasing cattle, wagons and other equipage necessary to the journey across
the plains.
Mr. Stevens reached Salt Lake City about the 8th of October. After selling and
otherwise disposing of some of the goods and outfits that he had brought with him, he
moved, in the latter part of December, to Kaysville, where he made other sales and
engaged in farming. In March, 1S65, he moved to Ogden, but only lived there until
May, and then settled at North Ogden, upon a place that he had purchased.
His first real business venture in Utah was made during the same year, when he
purchased some iron and steel in the East and had it freighted in wagons across the
plains. He employed local mechanics to convert this material into plows and harrows,
using native maple for the beams and other timber parts. These implements he sold,
taking payment in grain, hides and produce. He built a tannery and converted the
hides into leather; the produce he shipped to Montana. The following year he imported
plow-bottoms, wagons and sugar-cane mills, which he sold for flour, leather and other
produce, shipping the same to Montana and receiving gold-dust in payment. During
the year 1867 he continued in the same line of business, adding to his tannery, built in
1866, a small shoe shop and harness factory. In the fall of 1867 he began the erection
of a two-story building, said to be the first burnt brick store in Utah. He continued
to import farm implements in a small way, and also to manufacture harness, boots and
shoes. He increased the capacity of his business, and found markets in Northern
Utah, Idaho and Montana. He continued the same on a larger scale in 1868 and 1869,
the latter year bringing his eastern purchases by rail to the terminus of the Union
Pacific, and thence by wagons to North Ogden. He still exchanged Utah products for
Idaho and Montana gold-dust.
In the year 1870 there was a change of methods, owing to the advent of the rail-
road. Competition sprang up, business increased, and a ready market for grain, dried
fruit and other produce was found in the East. The demand in Idaho and Montana
continued, and times were much improved, the circulating medium being mostly money.
In 1871 Mr. Stevens paid cash for farm produce and found ready markets both East
and West. In 1872 the dried fruit industry increased and became quite remunerative.
The sale of it and other1 products brought much money into the country, thus enabling
the farmers to develop the resources. By means of their patronage Mr. Stevens built
up a fine mercantile business, which, with his tannery, shoe and harness factory,
gave employment to many hands. After a run of seven years the tannery was dis-
continued, as it was found impossible for home-made leathers to compete any longer with
the imported article.
The year 1874 witnessed the removal of the implement business to Ogden. It was set up
on what is now Twenty-fourth street, at the corner of Washington avenue, the other
establishments being continued at North Ogden. In 1876 Mr. Stevens moved his
machinery and implement business into larger quarters, on what is now Twenty-fifth
street, opening in connection therewith a lumber yard, in order to dispose of the product
of several saw mills, which he had sold, but whose purchasers had been unable to cash
their lumber. This branch of industry developed into a successful building material
department. The continuous increase of the machinery, implement and vehicle trade
throughout Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and Nevada, necessitated in 1877 many agents, and
296 HISTORY OF UTAH.
later led to the building of branch stores and warehouses at various points, for greater
convenience in distribution. In 1878 Mr. Stevens purchased the site of his first business
location on Washington avenue, where he built, near the corner of Twenty-fourth
street, a brick block of three stories, the erection of which at that time was considered by
many a piece of extreme folly, it being believed that no three-story structure, put up
at the current cost of building, could be made to pay. The venture, however, proved
a success, encouraging others to build in like manner.
In the year 188S he purchased another piece of land on Washington avenue
(between Twenty-fifth and Twenty-sixth streets) and having built another three-story
block, with commodious warehouses at the rear, in 1889 he moved from Twenty-fifth
street to his present establishment, which at the time of its erection was probably the largest
and most convenient carriage repository and implement house in the West. By careful
personal selection of goods, having a constant eye to their adaptability to the climate
and needs of this region, he built up a first-class business, commanding the best of trade,
and while on his trips East, purchasing vehicles, implements and machinery, he
found a market each year for thousands of carloads of grain and produce, which
he shipped out of Utah.
Rapid had been the rise to prominence and prosperity of this rustling and enter-
prising business man; but he had worked hard for his deserved success, and was destined
moreover to have his full share of calamity. A fire at North Ogden on July 4, 1885, —
caused by the careless dropping of a lighted match into the midst of some cotton
batting in the upper part of Mr. Stevens' store — utterly ruined the structure, and
necessitated its being re-built. When this was done, there was added above the store a
fine commodious entertainment hall. Later years were also calamitous for Mr. Stevens, who
suffered severely from fires, costing him in the aggregate over one hundred thousand
dollars. The first of these broke out on the evening of September 11, 1893, in some
cornice works adjoining his place of business, and being fanned into his warehouses
in the rear, inflicted a loss of twenty thousand dollars to his stock and buildings. The
fire department, coming o.uiekly to the rescue, saved the carriage repository and three-
fourths of the stock. His next fire was on Juty 8, 1894, and was one of several that broke
out simultaneously in some of the largest business blocks of Ogden, during the railroad
strike and Industrial Army troubles. Among the buildings fired were the Grand Opera
House, the Boyle Furniture Company and the Stevens warehouses and repository. His
total loss in buildings and their contents was upwards of a hundred thousand dollars,
only thirteen thousand of it covered by insurance. It was said by some that the fires
were started by the strikers, but Mr. Stevens, in the light of later developments, came
to the conclusion that the strikers were not the guilty parties. "I believe," says he,
"that it was a time selected by bad men to burn up the best buildings in the city. I was
somewhat discouraged, but the many letters of sympathy received, promising continuance
of patronage, led me to rebuild, aud in one year I succeeded in replacing the ware-
houses, repositoi-y and stock as before. Notwithstanding the depressed times in which
the disaster occurred, I maintained an unquestioned credit with manufacturers of my line
of goods, and can say that no just obligation was ever presented and not paid." Mr.
Stevens is still in business at this writing, and enjoys as ever the respect, esteem and
confidence of the community which has witnessed with pride and satisfaction his
well merited success.
SAMUEL STEPHEN JONES.
LREADY, concerning this well known and successful business man, our history
has had something to say, especially in connection with co-operation in 1868-9.
In the establishment of Z. C. M. I., Mr. Jones played a notable part, not only as a
merchant at Provo, but as a missionary in the cause of co-operation through the
southern counties. He was one of the pioneers of that great mercantile movement. And
now as to his antecedents and early history before and after coming to Utah :
S. S. Jones is by birth an Englishman, the place of his nativity being the Angel Inn,
at Brentford, in Middlesex, where he opened his eyes upon this world February 9, 1837.
His parents, Samuel and Sarah Bradshaw Jones, were tavern keepers on an extensive
scale. His grandfather was a horticulturist, cultivating about a hundred acres of land
HISTORY OF UTAH. 297
to supply with fruits and vegetables the London markets. The occupation of his parents
accustomed him to company from a child. At an early age he was placed at school under
a teacher who had served in the British army in India, and who occasionally enlivened the
tedium of the school-room with sketches of personal adventure. He did not attend school
much after twelve years of age, but being quick to observe and having a variety of
experiences he obtained a practical education as he went along. His early boyhood "was
passed at Brentford, where he frequented with his father and uncles the Market Gardens.
As a lad he was employed at a tea merchant's store in Tottenham Court Road, London,
connected with which establishment was a post and money-order office. There he obtained
a good idea of business methods, with habits of accuracy and dispatch.
He had just turned nineteen when he sailed for America, his motive in emigrating
being a religious one, without which he probably would never have left his native land.
A firm believer in the divine mission of Joseph Smith, and having embraced the Gospel
as promulgated by the Latter-day Saints, his next care was to "gather to Zion," in other
words, go to Utah. His religious views were very objectionable to most of his relatives,
who refused to aid him to emigrate, and he had great opposition to overcome before
leaving. Partly by his own exertions, and partly by assistance from the Perpetual Emi-
grating Fund, he succeeded finally in setting sail for the haven of his hopes.
It was in the latter part of May, 1S56, that he embarked at Liverpool on the sailing
ship "Horizon," William Reed, Captain. The company of Saints with which he was
connected was in charge of Elders Edward Martin and Daniel Tyler, and with him were
his mother, his brother, his affianced wife and a lady friend who afterwards married his
brother. They were eight weeks upon the sea, and did not start across the plains until
early in September. They were in the ill-fated handcart companies, whose pitiful and
tragic tale has been told in a previous volume. Mr. Jones and his party were in Captain
Martin's company, which, caught in the early snows and wintry winds, lost over a fourth
of their number by death. Of the experience of himself and fellow immigrants Mr. Jones
says sententiously, "After we left Laramie it was one long funeral march until we arrived
in Salt Lake City; and we never would have got there had not President Young exerted
himself in sending out teams to our aid." He reached here on the 30th of November — a
little over six months from Liverpool.
Having settled at Provo, which has ever since been his home, he married on his birth-
day, when twenty years of age. Miss Lydia Elizabeth Hooker, who had come with him
from England. His first labors in Utah were mainly in helping to fence fields and past-
ures from lands then unoccupied. Says he: "I have worked day after day on a bread
and water menu, making ditches and canals that now irrigate some of the most fertile
portions of Utah county. I have planted several orchards, also many shade trees and
oi-namental trees. My apple orchard is a great source of supply to my family and brings
a good income."
In early days he was major and adjutant in one of the regiments of the Utah militia.
During the Blackhawk war he assisted Colonel L. John Nuttall all one summer and part
of the next in outfitting and forwarding volunteers to the scene of operations against the
Indians. Subsequently he went with the colonel to the front, as one of about sixty
mounted men mustered into service at Payson. This was in August, 1866. "In Sevier
county." says he, "we pastured our horses in the deserted grain fields of the terrified
settlers, and passed the well marked spots where travelers in teams had been captured,
slain and scalped by the redskins. We returned after serving our term and suffering
serious loss in our business arrangements."
Mr. Jones next engaged in merchandising, for which he has a natural aptitude. He
also succeeded as a farmer and a contractor. At various times he has been in business
with such men as Peter Stubbs, Joseph Birch, George W. Bean, A. O. Smoot and most
of the business men of Provo. He had bought out the mercantile stock of Birch and
Robinson, and had effected a partnership with Ben Bachman, a Jew, when the ball of
co-operation was set rolling by President Young and others at the October conference of
1868. Foreseeing the inevitable, Mr. Jones took the initiative in his town, by suggesting
to David John, President Smoot and others the immediate establishment of a co-operative
institution at that place. Subsequently he helped to inaugurate the system. How he
labored to that end. both as a merchant and as a missionary, closing out his own business
and accepting the position of superintendent of the Provo "West Co-op" is related in the
thirteenth chapter of our second volume.
S. S. Jones has been a contractor on a large scale, especially in timber, railroad ties,
etc., to furnish which he has had to open up canyons and run saw-mills. With Thomas R.
Cutler, of Lehi, he contracted with the Denver and Rio Grande Western railway to make the
19
298 HISTORY OF UTAH.
big cut at the Point of the Mountain, through which that road entered Salt Lake Valley.
He advanced the funds to build the first charcoal kilns in Spanish Fork canyon, where an
extensive business sprang up, giving employment to hundreds of families. His principal
business since 1890 has been in mining. With others he opened up the Sioux and Utah
properties in Tintic district, and he holds quite an amount of stock therein. He was vice-
president of the Sioux, and president of the Utah, consolidated mining and milling com-
panies. Until recently he was engaged in his old occupation of merchant, and did con-
siderable in the way of bringing good breeds of cattle, especially Jerseys, into the coun-
try.
In the Church of which he is a member Mr. Jones has held successively the offices of
Deacon, Priest, Seventy and High Priest; the last-named bi'ing his present calling. He
has been one of the presidency of the fifty-second quorum of Seventy, second counselor
to the president of the high priests' quorum, and a member of the High Council of Utah
stake. In May, 1872, he went upon a mission to Europe, returning in July, 1873. In
civic affairs he has also been prominent, holding consecutively at Provo the offices of city
councilor, alderman and mayor.
Mr. Jones' children by his first wife are Mrs. Mary Ann Jones Smoot and Mrs. Ann;e
Jones Atkin. His other wives are Julia Ipson, Annie Johnson and Emma Allman; his
other children, Albert S., Tenie, Eugene, Samuel J., John Milton, Horatio, Lydie, Pearl,
Ralph and Eva.
Among the notable persons met by Mr. Jones, he mentions in his record General
Garfield, to whom he was introduced on the roof of the Provo Woolen Mills, during the
visit of the illustrious congressman and future president to Utah early in the "seventies."
Years later, when word came of Garfield's tragic death, he was one of the speakers at the
memorial services held in Provo in honor of the martyred President. He is a man of
varied gifts, not the least of which is a leaning toward literature. A well written sketch
entitled, "Adown the Provo River," descriptive of that beautiful stream in its meander-
ings from its source among the mountain springs to where it loses its identity in Utah
lake, shows that S. S. Jones could have succeeded as a writer, as well as a man of affairs.
JOHN WILLIAM GUTHRIE.
(J>ORMERLY merchant, banker and mayor of Corinne, and latterly a resident of Ogden,
"Tv" John W.Guthrie, one of the founders of the former city, is a type of Utah's successful
and substantial business men. Though mainly identified with the North, and
particularly with the two cities named, he is known over the State as an enter-
prising and progressive citizen, and what is better, as a big souled, generous-hearted man.
His coming to Utah was simultaneous with the advent of the Union Pacific railroad,
which in May, 1869, reached its terminus and welding point with the Central Pacific at
Promontory, on the northern shore of the Great Salt Lake. Guthrie preceded the rail-
road to the vicinity in question ; for we find him in January of that year — two months before
the locomotive steamed into Ogden — assisting to lay out the town of Corinne. He had
followed up the construction of the road from Green River, Wyoming, doing business at
various points until the grade was built and the track laid through Echo and Weber can-
yons. With the quick eye of the practiced buisness man — for he had been in business
since he was sixteen years of age, and was now thirty-nine — he foresaw that a bustling
town must needs spring up near the point of meeting between the two great iron high-
ways; and he concluded, as did other enterprising spirits, that the site of Corinne, near
the mouth of Bear River, was the most eligible place for such a city. And so it proved
to be, as long as the joint terminus of the two railroads remained at Promontory. It was
the removal of that terminus to Ogden that prevented Corinne from becoming a great city,
and fulfilling the expectations of its founders.
Foreseeing the junction of the two roads at Promontory, but not the removal to
Ogden, Guthrie and his friends laid out the city of Corinne. In March, when the sale of
lots began, he was one of the largest purchasers of real estate, and at once set up as a lead-
ing merchant of the place. Corinne was known as "the Gentile City,'' and to it the Gen-
tiles flocked. Mr. Guthrie there established the first railroad shipping business in Utah,
finding a market for the farm products of Box Elder and Cache counties, which he sent
p/lClu^- %uaj !
U ' (HL
HISTORY OF UTAH. 299
westward over the Central Pacific. He dealt principally in eggs and butter, and his busi-
ness in that line increased to such proportions that it required a capital of thirty thousand
dollars to handle it. The dimensions of his store were one hundred and thirty two by twenty-
two feet, with a basement under the entire building, and an ice house in the center of the store,
extending from cellar to roof, and having a capacity of one hundred and fifty tons of ice.
In addition to his wholesale produce trade, he carried on a general merchandise business,
and in 1S72 added banking. In those days — the palmy days of Corinne — nearly all the
freight and travel for Idaho and Montana landed there, and Guthrie did a great deal of
forwarding, especially of miner's supplies, to those parts.
After the first five years Corinne began to wane. Ogden, the Junction City, proving
too powerful a competitor for her enterprising neighbor. Prosperity gradually forsook
"the burg on the Bear." and reared her throne on the banks of the Weber. Thither
Corinne's buisness men followed her. compelling her to still yield them tribute. While
not abandoning Corinne, in whose future he had implicit faith, Mr. Guthrie, keenly alive
to the superior advantages offered elsewhere, in 1S75 engaged in business at Ogden,
associating himself with H. 0. Harkness and J. M. Langodorf, and establishing the
banking business of J. W. Guthrie and Company. He also purchased several vacant lots
in Ogden and erected thereon substantial brick business blocks.
In 1S7S — the year that he became mayor of Corinne — he sold his interest in the
Ogden banking business, but continued banking at Corinne. The same year he closed
out his produce business in that city. In 1SS0 he re-engaged in banking at Ogden, join-
ing with R. M. Dooly. L. B. Adams and others in forming the house of Guthrie, Dooly
and Company, which in 1SS4 was merged into the Utah National Bank. In 1882 he ceased
merchandising at Corinne, but continued to figure as a banker there. So far as real
estate was concerned, he was the principal owner of the town, and for many suc-
ceeding terms was elected Mayor.
John W. Guthrie is a typical American, a genuine son of the soil. His great grand-
father came from Scotland and settled in Virginia about the middle of the eighteenth
century. There his grandfather. William Guthrie, was born, but he remored to Kentuckv.
the native state of his son William, and his grandson, our Mr. Guthrie. William Guthrie,
Jr.. married Elizabeth James, daughter of John James, an owner of lands and slaves in
Kentucky and Indiana. She was the mother of John W. Guthrie, who was born in Shelby
eounty. January 23, 1830. The eldest son of his father — a well-to-do farmer and lane1
owner — he had two sisters older than himself, three younger brothers and a younger sis-
ter, all of whom were living at last accounts in Crawfordsville, Indiana. In the public
schools of that place John W. was educated, and there he first engaged in business.
He was a natural merchant, and made money, most of which he gave to his father.
In 1S49. the year of the California gold fever, his uncle, John Guthrie, went to the
Pacific coast, where he was destined to become wealthy. In 1S51 the name-sake
nephew determined to seek his fortune in the land of gold. He set out for California
on the 22nd of January. 1S52, sailing from New York on the steamship "Ohio.'' After
crossing the Isthmus he continued his voyage on the steamship "Panama." reaching
San Francisco on the first of April. He at once proceeded to the northern mines, and
in Yuba. Butte and Siskio counties engaged in the butchering business. In Siskio
he did his first and only mining, which proved unprofitable, and he returned to his
former occupation.
In August. 1855, he started to return to Indiana, taking the Nicaragua route.
Walker, the noted fillibuster, had reached San Juan del Norte two days before Guthrie
arrived there. He was one of twenty-five men who guarded a shipment of treasure,
amounting to more than one and a quarter millions, across the Isthmus. By way of
New York he reached Crawfordsville on the 25th of September. He remained only
until the 6th of the following May. when he set out again for California, arriving
there in July.
In Napa county he purchased one hundred acres of land (now within city limits)
and went to farming: but that process of money-making was too slow for his energetic
spirit, and he soon sold out. and re-engaged in the butchering and merchandising business
at North San Juan. Nevada county, in the northern part of the State. In three years,
dating from March. 1857, he made sixty thousand dollars, but lost most of it during
the next three years by a depreciation in property and by business transactions with
men who failed to meet their financial obligations. In 1862, on the 25th of September.
Mr. Guthrie — up to to that time a bachelor — married Miss Mary B. Gaynor. Their
first and onlv child, a daughter whom they named Mary Elizabeth, was born August
22. 1863.
300 HISTORY OF UTAH.
About two years later Mr. Guthrie went to Idaho, thence to Montana, and from
there to Green River, Wyoming; from which point we have traced his personal history
up to the present time. He is no longer in public life, being well advanced in years,
and is not as active in business as formerly; though he still has large holdings in real
estate and banking stock, and is accounted one of the solid men of the Junction City.
WILLIAM DRIVER.
mRS. HARRIET RUTH COOKE, of New York, in a "Genealogical Memoir of the
Descendants of Robert and Phebe Driver, of Lynn, Massachusetts," who came
from England in the year 1630, traces their lineage back to the reign of King
Edward the First. The name Driver, it appears, has also been prominent in
Flanders, Belgium and Germany. In English history the name is represented by members
of Parliament, mayors of cities and the clergy, while in America the Drivers have been
ship-owners, sea captains and officers in the army.
William Driver, the subject of this biography, was the son of George and Mary
Killingworth Driver, and was born at Bury, St. Edmunds, county of Suffolk, England,
May 3, 1837. His father was an architect and builder, and for many years carried on
a successful and lucrative business. A venture upon a large contract, however, proved
his financial ruin. The mother owned in her own right considerable property, which,
having been mortgaged, was lost in the same unfortunate undertaking. The father went
to London, where he became foreman of Myers and Company, large contractors and
builders. He died April 25, 1852, leaving his wife with five sons, William being the
eldest. He spent his boyhood attending the common schools in the village of Feltwell,
Norfolk, the home of his mother's family.
At the age of twelve he had formed the acquaintance of Richard Smith, an Elder of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to whom he became strongly attached.
He attended the meetings of the Saints and was baptized into the Church by Elder
Thomas J. Stayner, November 25, 1851. In May following he was ordained a Deacon
by Elder Henry Kitteringham, and in August a Priest, by Elder John Hyde. He was
the youngest Priest in the Norwich conference. He did considerable preaching in his
native place and the adjacent villages, and frequently presided at meetings. At seventeen,
becoming tired of working upon the farm, and disappointed in the conduct of an uncle
who had failed to keep his promise to apprentice him to the carpenter's trade, he left
home and obtained employment in the laboratory of Price's Patent Candle Company,
Battersea, London, where he remained until called to the ministry.
This call came in August, 1856, when he was sent to travel and preach in the
Kent conference, under the direction of President John M. Browne. He had been
ordained an Elder the month previous, under the hands of Elder John Lloyd Baker, in
the Chelsea branch of the London conference. He proceeded to Brighton, the famous
watering place, where he began to preach the Gospel and distribute tracts under the
district president, Elder Joseph Silver. On the third day of September Elder Driver
was seized with cholera, and suffered great agony. At one stage of the disease he was
pronounced dead, but he recovered, and after three weeks of prostration resumed his mis-
sionary labors. At the opening of 1857 he was sent to preside over the Hastings district,
and while there some remarkable experiences befell him. On two occasions he was
attacked by evil spirits, the first time about midnight of February 23rd, at the house of
Henry Whatman, in Brede Mills, when he was nearly choked to death, and delivered
only after Elder Whatman had administered to him, rebuking the influences of darkness.
The next assault was on June 22nd, while in a house at Hastings. On this occasion he
was struck as with a strong electric current, his whole body assuming the color of blood,
with violent pains in the head, the effects of which confined him to his bed for many
days. He also witnessed a remarkable case of healing in the same house a short time
after, when a boy, whose head was covered with a sore disease, pronounced incurable
by medical attendants, was administered to by the Elders and completely restored
to health.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 301
His mother dying on the 30th of August, that year, Elder Driver felt it incumbent
upon him to retire from the ministry and seek employment, in order to assist in sup-
porting his younger brothers. Through the influence of Squire Buckworth. a friend of
his father's, he was nominated for employment at the general post office in London, but
not having recovered from the effects of the cholera and his subsequent experiences
with evil spirits, he failed to pass the medical examination pre-requisite to obtaining
such employment. For a short time he returned to the ministry, laboring in the London
conference, under the presidency of Elder William Budge.
On the 16th of August, 1858, William Driver married Charlotte Emblen Boulter, of
Hastiugs in Sussex, the ceremony being performed at Holy Trinity church in Brompton.
There have been born from this union seven boys and eleven girls, most of whom died
in early infancy; three sons and four daughters are still living. After his marriage Mr.
Driver again sought the kind offices of Squire Buckworth. who interested himself with
Mr. Bagge, member of Parliament for West Norfolk, Mr. Headlam, solicitor general of
England, and the Duke of Argyle, to obtain for him a position in the Custom House
department. The nomination was secured, Driver's name being advanced on the list
over a thousand others, but the same excuse prevailed as before — physical disqualification.
Mr. Richards, of the civil service commission, subsequently said to Mr. Driver, "You
fool, didn't you know that two guineas would have passed you all right?" The latter
confessed, doubtless with some pride, that he did not know enough to bribe an officer.
Mrs. Driver was a niece of the celebrated revivalist, William Carter, of London, who
obtained for her husband the position of reporter and general assistant in the office of
the "Messenger," a religious paper. The proprietor soon learned that his new employee
was a Mormon, and immediately discharged him. The next move was to Brighton,
where Mr. Driver followed painting for a livelihood, at the same time presiding over
the local branch of the Church. There his son George was born, August 9, 1859. He
soon returned to London and obtained a situation in Price's Chemical Works, Battersea.
He now presided over the Wandsworth branch of the London conference. A few years
passed pleasantly, during which he improved his opportunities for studying chemistry.
Three more children were added to the household, and preparations were made for a
long journey.
The Drivers, bound for Utah, sailed from Liverpool on the ship "Caroline," May 5,
1866. Previous to their departure, while carting their baggage down St. Ann's Hill,
Wandsworth, the vehicle broke down, scattering family and trunks in all directions, and
injuring the second son, William, a child of two and a half years. The extent of his
hurt was not known until they had been several days at sea, when the little fellow died,
and was buried in the Atlantic. When off the Isle of Wight, owing to a severe storm
and heavy fog, the vessel came within a few rods of the shore, and only the momentary
lifting of the fog enabled the pilot, who had lost his course, to put about just in time to
avoid being wrecked on the coast. During the storm the sails were torn to pieces, the
yards snapped like tender sticks and the ropes broke as readily as whipcord. The
captain anchored for repairs on the "Mother Banks." Three times before reaching
New York the vessel caught fire, and at one time there was four feet of water in the
hold. The "Caroline" landed her passengers on the 10th of June. Steamboat was
taken to New Haven, Connecticut, and thence the railroad, by way of Montreal, Toronto,
Chicago, Quincy and St. Joseph, to the terminus in Wyoming. The trip by rail was at times
very exciting. At St. Albans, Vermont, the baggage of the passengers was destroyed by fire.
At Buchanan, one hundred and oighty-nine miles from Detroit, the train broke in two, the
forward cars with the engine running nearly a mile without injury, while of the rear cars four
were wrecked, one having four wheels broken off, another the top crushed, the third its
end and sides smashed, and the fourth turned completely over and across the track.
These cars were all filled with Mormon emigrants, not one of whom was killed or maimed,
and all escaped serious injury. The railroad employees said, "It is a d Mormon
miracle." The company left the camp in Wyoming on the 16th of July, in Captain J. D.
Halliday's train of sixty-four wagons. During the greater part of the journey Mr. Driver
was sick with fever, and for several days his life was despaired of; but by his wife's
tender nursing, under the blessing of God, he was restored to health. Through her
faithful labors and anxiety on his account, Mrs. Driver nearly sacrificed herself. In
order to procure nourishment suitable to his broken down and enfeebled condition, she
worked at washing and rendered other service to families more blessed with the good
things of life. Her own health gave way, and at Hardy's station she fell insensible,
overcome by fatigue and exhaustion. She recovered, however, and the family reached
Salt Lake City on the '25th of September.
302 HISTORY OF UTAH.
They found in Utah conditions so new and crude that choice of the manner of obtaining
a livelihood had to be deferred. "No railroads, no manufactures, no machine shops, no
illumination by gas or electricity; a few efforts had been made in some of these direc-
tions of industrial activity, but invariably loss and discouragement had followed the
undertaking." A line of telegraph wires had been strung, bringing several settlements
within easy reach of Salt Lake City, and Mr. Driver engaged his services to the Western
Union (subsequently the Deseret) Telegraph Company, constructing a line from Chicken
Creek to Gunnison. Under the direction of superintendent A. M. Musser, he labored
for the company from Logan to St. George. One day, while at work on the top of a
pple twenty-five feet high, he fell to the ground, but fortunately alighted on his feet and
sustained no injury. At Cove Creek Fort, two hundred miles from home, he received a
telegram that his wife was dying, but before he could reach her, aided by kind friends,
she recovered. A short time after this Mr. Driver was employed at teaming by Mr. Musser,
and assisted a company of emigrants from the plains to Salt Lake City. His next
employment was on the grade of the Union Pacific railroad at Mountain Green, under a
contract of Apostle John Taylor's. This was in 1868. While thus engaged, camp
supplies failed on one occasion, a circumstance that necessitated his walking, without
food, a distance of thirty-eight miles to Salt Lake City. Furnished with supplies and a
team, he returned and hauled rock until the middle of November.
Upon a recommendation from Mr. Musser, he nest obtained employment with
William S. Godbe, as office clerk and cashier. Godbe and Company having opened a
drug store in Ogden, which by improper management had lost the firm money, they
resolved in December of this year upon a change, and accordingly sent Messrs. Octave
Ursenbach and William Driver to conduct the business. In a short time Ursenbach
retired, and Driver succeeded to his position. A prosperous run of business followed,
and in seven months the trial balance sheet showed a net profit of five thousand dollars.
The company, on selling out, in June, 1871, to Wright, Peery and King, sent Mr. Driver
a letter of thanks for his faithful and efficient management.. They offered him a
position at Salt Lake City, but anticipating a good future for Ogden, he declined and
remained a resident of the Junction City.
Forthwith he formed a co-partnership with Dr. C. S. Nellis, and under it conducted
a drug business for two years, when the partnership was dissolved by mutual agreement,
Mr. Driver buying out his partner. In 1874 he built the first three-story building in
Ogden, and opened it as "The City Drug Store." The third floor of the structure was
rented to the Masonic Order, which occupied it for nine years; it was pronounced by
Judge Bennett, at the dedication ceremonies, "the finest hall between Omaha and
Sacramento." The iron columns supporting the front of the building were manufactured
by Davis and Howe, founders, at Salt Lake City, and were the first pillai-s cast in Utah.
In 1878 Mr. Driver admitted his eldest son George as a partner in the business, and the
firm name of Driver and Son became well known and popular throughout Northern Utah,
Idaho, Montana, Nevada and Wyoming. In all these sections they did a thriving
business. Branch houses were established at Logan, Brigham City and Montpelier. In
1879-80 Mr. Driver, having been ordained by President Joseph Young to the office of a
Seventy, spent a year very pleasantly and profitably as a missionary in Great Britain,
during the administration of President William Budge, who, with Bishop George H.
Taylor, then presiding over the London conference, warmly commended his industrious,
spirited and "more than commonly successful labors." Prior to returning home he also
toured Scotland and parts of France.
William Driver became a citizen of the United States, September 20, 1871. In 1874,
at a caucus of the People's party, he was nominated for alderman of the first municipal
ward of Ogden, but declined the nomination in favor of Edwin Stratford. At a con-
vention held in February, 1886, he was the unanimous choice for councilor from that
ward ; he was duly elected and served on the committees of finance, claims and streets, being
chairman of the latter. He was an alternate delegate to the Constitutional Convention of
1887, and on November 6, 1894, was elected a Republican member of the Constitutional
Convention of 1895.
A few of the honorary and official positions filled by Mr. Driver since his arrival in
Utah are here given. In 1884 he was elected a director of the Molecular Telephone
Company, and in April, 1S87, a director of the Ogden City Board of Trade. In
November of the same year he became first vice-president of that Board. He was one
of the incorporators and a director of the first street railway of Ogden, and for a long
time a director in the Davis and Weber County Canal Company. His latest term of
public .service was as the predecessor of the present mayor of Ogden. He has never
HISTORY ;0F UTAH. 303
sought official preferment, but has been pushed to the front by his appreciative fellow
citizens. To his progressive ideas are due many of Ogden's substantial improvements.
He is still at the head of the firm of Driver and Sons and actively engaged in its
business, which owes to him its great success.
SAMUEL PIERCE HOYT.
p^HE founder of Hoytsville was a native of Chester, New Hampshire, where he was
l^j) born November 21, 1807. The son of James and Pamelia Hoy t, he was the
;> eldest of their eleven children. The father was for many years an invalid, unable
to work, and the boy was the main dependence of the family. Hence he received
little schooling, attending school but twelve weeks before he was fourteen years of a^e,
at which time he went to work for Robert Folsome as hostler, retaining that position
until he was twenty-one. Soon after he engaged in the butchering business and prospered,
aiding his mother in the support and education of the younger children, and starting a
bank account. During these years of toil he was given to thoughtful study, and obtained
a good practical education, which was added to in after time.
In Nashua, New Hampshire, April 17, 1834, Samuel P. Hoyt married Emily
Smith, sister to the late Judge Elias Smith, and a cousin to the martyred Prophet.
They made their home at Derry in the same State until 1838, when, having become
Latter-day Saints, they migrated to Missouri, where they passed through the persecutions
that soon came upon their people. Subsequently they settled at Nauvoo, Illinois, but
after a year moved to Nashville, Iowa. There Mr. Hoyt made a home, and engaged in
the business of supplying with wood the steamboats plying up and down the great rivers.
He was there when his kinsman, the Prophet, crossed the Mississippi and started for the
Rocky Mountains, a few days prior to his martyrdom. Mr. Hoyt supplied him with
money to aid him in escaping from his enemies. Twice during his residence at Nashville
he journeyed to the New England States to visit his relatives.
On March 1, 1851, he joined a company of emigrants and started for Salt Lake City,
arriving here on the 29th of September. President Brigham Young, then Governor of
Utah, was calling for volunteers to settle Fillmore, the proposed State capital. Respond-
ing to this call, the Hoyts continued their journey, and on the 28th of November arrived
on Chalk Creek, having traveled for nine months with no other home than a covered
wagon. With his usual promptness and enterprise Mr. Hoyt erected a commodious
house and began once more to gather around him the comforts of life. He was soon
established in business, running a tannery and a store, and was also occupied in farm-
ing.
In the fall of 1854 he was directed by President Young to start the State House at
Fillmore, for the erection of which the President had taken a contract from the Govern-
ment. It was a prodigious undertaking for those times, and the obstacles were many, but
with almost superhuman energy Mr. Hoyt overcame them. He burnt lime by night,
quarried rock by day, and advanced money to purchase and bring glass, putty and finish-
ing nails from California. An extra duty placed upon him was the care of nine yoke of oxen,
which, after hauling supplies and materials to Fillmore, had to be recruited and returned in
good condition to Salt Lake City. The State House was built and the legislature met within
its walls for the first time December 10, 1855. During the famine of the year following
Mr. Hoyt, having laid up several thousand bushels of wheat, supplied many poor people
who would otherwise have suffered from the prevailing scarcity. He with others took
the census of the place and weighed out his wheat at so many pounds per capita. In
return many gave their notes, payable after the next harvest, but few were able to redeem
them, and payment was not enforced. During this year Mr. Hoyt married his second
wife, Emma Burbidge, who became the mother of his eleven children.
About this time he was appointed by the Government an Indian agent, and advanced
the means to equip an Indian farm for the Pahvant tribe. He held the position of agent
for many years, furnishing the Indians with supplies from his store, and was known to
them as "Potatt" (clerk) — a name given to him by the Pahvant chief Kanosh. At the
304 HISTORY OF UTAH.
advice of President Young he started to build a first-class flouring mill at Fillmore, but
after constructing the head-race and beginning the tail-race — both of which he was re-
quired to cover the entire length — he found the enterprise too costly and ordered the
work stopped. President Young, visiting Fillmore and viewing the situation, said to him,
"Go to Weber; they want and need a mill there." This advice determined him upon
removing to Summit county, his future home.
He left Fillmore on the 18th of May, and arrived on the Weber, near Coalville, on
the 1st of June, 1861. He had with him the machinery he had ordered for a mill, but
had abandonded all the rest of the materials. Messrs. Fox and Kesler were employed to
locate and survey a new mill site, and the place when selected was called with the sur-
rounding country, Hoytsville. It is situated about three miles above Coalville. Mr. Hoyt
immediately began work on his mill, in the midst of many difficulties. Men and provis-
ions had to be brought from Salt Lake City over and across the swollen streams. There
being but few settlers along the river, very few bridges had been built. About the only
one which then spanned the stream had been broken down by the wagon that brought
his mill burrs from Fillmore. The mill was completed in the fall of 1862, and was run
during the winter and for several succeeding years — at too great an expense, it is claimed,
for any profit to be realized.
In the spring of 1863 Mr. Hoyt re-crossed the great plains, taking wool to the eastern
market, and bringing back machinery, including a wood and an iron turning lathe. The
iron lathe, which was erected on the public works at Salt Lake City, is reputed to have
been the first one brought to Utah. After completing his mill, Mr. Hoyt erected a large
sandstone house and a carding mill. In the spring of 1869 the Weber altered its course, and
the mill was closed down, after which the owner turned his attention to farming, stock-
raising and mining. He took up a ranch near Kamas, and there spent the remaining
years of his life. He died August 12, 1889, and was buried near his home in Hoytsville.
EDWIN STRATFORD.
p^HE late Bishop Stratford, one of the strong men of Weber county, was a native
l^D of Maldon, Essex, England, and was born February 6, 1833. He was the eldest
ii of ten children, whose parents were George and Eliza Barwell Stratford. They
belonged to the working class, the father being a cabinet-maker and the mother
a dressmaker. Their son received a common education in the English schools, and was
naturally inclined to horticulture and floriculture as a vocation. When he was ten years
of age his parents moved to London, where Edwin became a newsboy. Later the family
moved back to Maldon. They were members of the Wesleyan church.
In the year 1851 Elder Charles W. Penrose came preaching the Latter-day Gospel
in and around Maldon. He converted among others the Stratford family, and married Edwin's
sister Lucetta. Edwin Stratford was baptized on May 9th of that year. The same
month he was ordained a Priest, and the next year was called into the ministry, laboring
in the village of Essex. He was then nineteen, and for five years continued to preach
"Mormonism" wherever he could find people willing to listen.
December 25, 1855, was the date of his marriage to Mariana Crabb of Danbury,
in Essex, and February 18, 1856, was the date upon which the young couple sailed from
Liverpool on the ship "Caravan," bound for New York. In that city Mr. Stratford
worked at various occupations, but soon removed to Tarrytown, where he remained
until 1857, and then resumed his journey westward. At Iowa City he secured employ-
ment at chopping wood. He spent the following winter on the west side of the Missouri,
and there he and his family had their first experience in real hard times. They
subsisted on bread made of shorts, and burned stumps for fuel. In the spring they
returned to Iowa City, where Elder Stratford became counselor to Apostle John Taylor,
who presided over the branch of the Church there organized. A friendship sprang up
between the two men, which lasted through life. When the Apostle returned to Utah,
Elder Stratford succeeded him as president of the branch. He remained there working
upon a farm until May, 1861, when he set out for Salt Lake City.
From Florence, Nebraska, where his father died and was buried, Elder Stratford,
his wife and three children, started across the plains on the 25th of June. Their outfit
.^vwvjLd
HISTORY OF UTAH. 305
consisted of an ox and cow team and they traveled in Captain Homer Duncan's company,
which arrived at Salt Lake City on the 15th of September. They spent the following1
winter at Farmington, where the whole family fell sick with mountain fever. He bought
a lot and built a house, paying for them in labor at whatever he could find to do. During
his residence at Farmington he was ordained a Seventy and became connected with
the Fifty-sixth quorum.
About two years later, in 1S64, he moved to Providence, where he bought another
lot and built his second log house, roofed with soil in lieu of shingles. He helped to
build canals and canyon roads, tilled a small farm, and for two winters taught school in
Millville, two miles distant, walking to and from that village mornings and evenings.
While living at Providence he was for some time deputy assessor and collector for
Cache county.
In October, 1872, he took up his residence in Ogden, and became manager of the
"Ogden Junction. " a paper edited by his brother-m-law, Mr. Penrose. This position
he held for two years, and was then for eight years manager of the George A. Lowe
implement business. In 1S82 he founded the business house of E. Stratford and Sons,
furniture dealers, and during the rest of his life was one of the principal owners therein.
From June t>, 1S77, when he was ordained a High Priest, to January 21. 1883,
Edwin Stratford was first counselor to Bishop N. C. Flygare of the Ogden First Ward,
then comprising the present Fourth and Fifth Wards. When Bishop Flygare became a
member of the Stake Presidency, his first counselor became Bishop in his stead, being
set apart by President John Taylor at the home of Franklin D. Richards. In May, 1S87,
the Ward was divided, and Bishop Stratford was retained to preside over the north
half, now known as the Fourth Ward. This office he held up to the time of his death.
Mr. Stratford was assessor and collector for Ogden City, one term, and is said to
have been the first incumbent of that position to collect all the taxes. He also made
assessments that had never been made before. For two terms he was a member of the
city council; for one term a member of the Territorial legislature, and at the time of his
death president of the board of trustees of the State School for the Deaf and Blind.
Prior to the ushering in of the new political era he was a staunch pillar in the
People's party, and during the troublous times of the crusade, when a delegation of
Mormon business ment went East to try and abate the fury of the rising storm, he was
numbered among them. After the new era dawned he identified himself with the
Republican party and assisted to establish its principles in Utah. He ran for the
constitutional convention of 1S95, and was defeated by a narrow margin.
Bishop Stratford was a great lover of flowers and spent much time in cultivating,
admiring and enjoying them. The care and culture of trees and plants were always a
delight to him. He was an earnest, honest man, sincere in his convictions and fearless
in expressing them. His manner was brusque, even blunt at times, but it was candor,
not unkindness that made it so. He performed his duty faithfully as he saw it; he was
wise in council, and his judgment was often consulted upon important matters by those above
him in authority, both in church and state. He was the father of seven sons and two
daughters, and eight of his children, with their mother, were present at his bedside
when he breathed his last. He died at his home in Ogden, Sunday, October 8, 1899.
FRED SIMON.
QGOOD man gone," was the expression heard on every hand, when on the morning
of the 10th of May, 1S99, the news circulated that Fred Simon, ex-president
of the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce, had passed into the great beyond. He
had made many friends during his sojourn of twenty-nine years in this com-
munity, and its members, regardless of creed, party or condition, felt a sense of sorrow
and of personal loss over his untimely demise. His death was due to apoplexy, and it
came after an illness of only a few hours.
Fred Simon was of Jewish origin, justly proud of his birth and lineage, and pos-
sessed of many of the best and noblest qualities of his race. He was a man of brains,
and what is better still, a man of heart and soul. Energetic, persevering and indus-
trious, he was also kind and benevolent, public-spirited and patriotic, a lover of justice
306 HISTORY OF UTAH.
and fair-play, who had the candor as well as the courage of his convictions. If he
died in reduced circumstances, it was because he was more charitable than provident,
more impulsive than calculating, more given to the pursuit of lofty ideals and less to
the mad race after materialities, than is usual with men of his class.
A native of the village of Thorn, in the kingdom of Prussia, where he was born
August 10, 1853, he was but a boy of fifteen when he landed at Castle Garden, New
York, practically penniless, a stranger in a strange land. He was a student by nature,
and fairly well educated, but financial reverses had prevented his parents from giving
him a thorough collegiate training. After two months in the American metropolis,
during which time he experienced many hardships and privations, he found work in
a German publishing house, where by a faithful discharge of the onerous duties in-
cumbent upon him, he soon won the confidence and grew steadily in the favor of his
employer. It was not long before he had saved sufficient means for his traveling ex-
penses to the West, and in 1870— the year following the advent of the railroad — he
arrived in Utah.
Dry Canyon was his first place of settlement. There and in other parts of the Terri-
tory he followed various pursuits. In 187G he established himself in business at Salt Lake
City, where he founded the wholesale millinery firm of Simon Brothers, which, well
managed, prospered for years before hard times brought reverses and compelled
dissolution. He was one of the main promoters and strongest pillars of the Salt Lake
Chamber of Commerce, which he might almost be said to have created, and in 1890 he
was honored with a unanimous election to the presidency of that institution. He was the
originator of the Utah Loan and Building Association, secretary and manager of the
Salt Lake Coal Company, and manager of the Salt Lake Canal Company. He was also
interested in fruit culture in Boise valley, Idaho, where he erected a fine evaporating
plant. He figured in various other enterprises that were calculated to benefit and build
up the inter-mountain country.
Mr. Simon was at the height of his good furtune and popularity when he married
Miss Teresa Goldberg, of Salt Lake City, in the year 1883. Three children, two boys and
a edrl, came to bless their union, which was a very happy one. He was a devoted husband
and father, well worthy of the steadfast love and loyalty evinced for him by his affec-
tionate wife and children. But the heart of this man beat not only for family, kindred
and immediate friends; it throbbed with good-will for the entire community. His purse,
credit and influence could always be counted upon in aid of any benevolent and worthy
enterprise.
The Mormon people will ever remember him kindly, and his Gentile friends cannot
fail to admire him, for his brave and manly attitude in opposition to the movements made
in the latter part of the "eighties" for the disfranchisement of the great majority of
Utah's citizens, merely for their religious belief. The astounding, un-American proposition
filled Fred Simon's soul with indignation, and braving all consequences he boldly
denounced the Congressional measures pending to that end, and with others worked
Trojan-like against them. He saw a better way to bring about peace and concord than
by the so-called heroic plan proposed, and forthwith set about putting his ideas into
execution. The schism in the ranks of the Liberal party, inaugurated by him and his
associates at that time, and the influence exerted by them at the seat of government, did
as much as anything to give the disfranchisement schemes their death-blow; and the
changed conditions that followed, culminating in Statehood for the once distracted Ter-
ritory, were due in no small degree to the individual labors of this staunch friend of Utah.
Mr. Simon was a great lover of literature, a natural patron of the arts and sciences.
In leisure moments he penned his thoughts in vigorous language and eloquent style. He
had a fluent tongue, hampered though it was by his foreign dialect, and had he been
trained for it, he might have shone as a writer and an oi'ator. Among business men he
was known as "a hustler.'' If an enterprise needed pushing Fred Simon was immediately
thought of and sought after, as the very man for the purpose. He never despaired, never
lost hope, and never knew when he was defeated. Twice he won and lost a fortune, and
was steadily winning his way, in the face of mountainous obstacles, toward the acquisition
of a third, when the angel of death touched him and summoned him to his rest.
GEORGE DIXON SNELL.
>T"HE ancestors of this gentleman were English, but his branch of the family has
\3S been in America since the year 1G65. They were related by marriage to the
t famous orator Wendell Phillips, and the no less famous poet William Cullen
Bryant. Cyrus Snell and his wife Rhoda Barnes were among the first converts to
Mormonism in the Province of New Brunswick, where, in the town of Sackville,
Westmoreland county, March 18, 1836, their third son, the subject of this sketch, was
born. He received a common school education, and as soon as he was well into his
"teens" went to work for his father, who was the owner of a woolen mill, purchased
many years before from his uncle, Alden Snell. The mill was improved and a prosperous
business conducted until the spring of 1853, when the property was sold, as the family
was coming to Utah.
In company with his parents and their household George D. Snell left New
Brunswick in April of that year, and proceeded to the State of Wisconsin, where dwelt
his mother's relatives. There the party remained until the spring of 1854. Having
purchased an outfit for the plains — four wagons, two horses, ten yoke of oxen and
twenty-two cows — they started in April for the frontier, and by way of Council Bluffs
and the old Mormon trail up the Platte reached Salt Lake City on the 27th of August.
They first resided in the Seventh Ward, but at the opening of 1855 removed to Spanish
Pork, where the father had purchased a farm and made other preparations to permanently
settle. The first season he and his three sons, John, Cyrus aud George, planted thirty
acres in wheat, from which they realized but fifteen bushels, owing to the ravages
of the grasshoppers.
In the spring of 1856 George, with his brother Cyrus, went to California, making
the trip with pack animals. As far as Carson valley they were accompanied by eight
others. They remained in the Golden State until the summer of 1857, when they
resolved to return and share the fate of their friends in Utah, who were threatened with
extermination by Johnston's army. George was not a Latter-day Saint at that time,
but his heart was with the people to whom his parents and kindred belonged. The two
brothers started from Sacramento on the 5th of July. At Carson valley they joined a
Mormon company in which were Father Hezekiah Thatcher and most of the members of
his family, likewise returning to Utah. The company was commanded by Perrigrine
Sessions, and consisted of about thirty teams and teamsters, with ten horsemen, in-
cluding the Snell brothers. One day while they were traveling up the Humboldt a
numerous band of Indians suddenly issued from a canyon and charged furiously upon
them. Captain Sessions and his men promptly met the emergency. The wagons closed
together, the women and children retired out of sight, the teamsters with arms in
readiness walked beside their teams, and the horsemen spurred to the front with leveled
rifles. The Indians thus confronted came to a halt about one hundred yards from the
road, and formed a line facing it and their white opponents, while the wagons passed
behind, traveling on without interruption. The horse guard followed, keeping their
guns on the enemy until out of range, while the Indians, after huddling together for a brief
consultation, wheeled about and rode rapidly away. Subsequently the Sessions company
came upon a camp of Missourians, who for three days had been guarding their stock,
afraid to go on, as the Indians had repeatedly threatened to attack them. When the
Mormons appeared the women of the camp ran to them imploring protection. Among
the campers was a young fellow who, with his brother and an old man, had left another
company farther back and had been attacked by the savages five days before. Two of
the three had been killed, the young man alone escaping and joining the Missourians.
Half the Mormon horsemen went out into the hills and recovered the bodies of the
murdered men, bringing them to camp, where they were buried in the presence of the
two companies. Having encouraged the Missourians to proceed on their way west,
Captain Sessions and his wagons continued on to Utah. It was in the latter part of August
that George D. Snell arrived at his father's home in Spanish Fork.
308 HISTORY OF UTAH.
He served in Echo Canyon under Colonel A. K. Thurber, and at the close of the
campaign became a Latter-day Saint. The ice was cut for the baptism, which was
administered by Bishop Thurber. In October, 1858, he became a member of the Spanish
Fork police force. The following spring he purchased four hundred acres of land — a
tract located by Enoch Reese — and after selling a portion of it engaged in farming, to
which he added freighting for the next fourteen years. He made three trips to Los
Angeles for goods, and numerous trips to nearly all the mining camps of Montana, Idaho
and Nevada. On January 1, 1863, he married Sinia Lucinda Dennis, by whom he had
a son and two daughters, who all died in infancy. His wife died March 24, 1868, and
in October of that year he married Aleianderina McClean. She bore him six sons and
a daughter. In May, 1879, he married Thorgather Bjearnson, who became the mother
of two daughters.
Mr. Snell served upon the local police force until May, 1861, and was then elected
mayor of the city, for a term of two years. Again in April, 1865, he was chosen mayor,
to fill the unexpired term of A. K. Thurber, who resigned to go on a mission to Europe.
In the militia he served in various capacities. He was elected captain of a company,
and five years later became lieutenant-colonel in the Utah county military district. In
March, 1867, he was appointed brigade aid-de-camp, ranking as colonel of infantry,
and serving in that position until Governor Schaffer forbade the usual musters. During
the Blackhawk war, General Thurber being absent in England. Colonel Snell had com-
mand of the post. From April to July, 1867, he was absent on a trip to the mining
camps of Montana, where he disposed of a herd of surplus stock for the people of
Spanish Fork and Springville, who commissioned him to sell it that it might not fall into
the hands of the Indians.
In November, 1868, he went on a mission to the Muddy, where he used up all his
means, excepting his farm, iu a vain endeavor to establish permanent settlements in that
section. The mission being abandoned, he returned to Spanish Fork in March, 1S71. About
two years later he was re-lected mayor, and during this term issued the deeds to the
lands in the towusite entry. Four consecutive terms as mayor followed, closing in
February, 1883. Meantime he had been serving as Bishop of Spanish Fork since
July 10, 1874, when he was installed by President A. 0. Smoot, of Utah Stake, under an
appointment from President Brigham Young. At the re-organization in June, 1877, he was
ordained a High Priest, and set apart as Bishop by Apostle Erastus Snow. His previous
ordinations were those of Elder and Seventy, the former in February, 1858, the latter in
May, 1868. In 1879 he was elected to represent Utah county in the legislature, and in
1882 was chosen to represent it in the Constitutional Convention.
This was the year of the enactment of the Edmunds law, under which, two or three
years later, a general anti-polygamy crusade was inaugurated. In the very heat of it, on
October 1, 1886, Bishop Snell was arrested by Deputy-marshal Vandereook on a charge of
unlawful cohabitation. The charge against him contained four counts, and he was
placed under bonds of twenty-five hundred dollars. Having been convicted, he was
sentenced by Judge Henderson, April 12, 1887, to pay a fine of two hundred dollars and
costs, and be imprisoned for six months in the penitentiary. He served his term, less
the time allowed for good behavior, and was released from prison on the 11th of
September.
In business Mr. Snell has aided and directed in a number of local enterprises. He
was president of the Spanish Fork Co-operative Institution for fifteen years, during
which period their new roller mill was built, a three-story brick building erected, and
the business of the institution more than doubled. He has served on educational and
school boards, and in 1S91 assisted in founding the Spanish Fork Bank, of which he be-
came the first president. He is now Bishop of the Second Ward in that town, which has
recently become a part of the newly organized Nebo Stake.
BERNHARD HERMAN SCHETTLER.
f NATIVE of Neuwied, Rhine-Prussia, Germany, born January 19, 1833, this well
known business man of Salt Lake City came to Utah in the fall of 1861, and has
ever since resided here. His parents were Friedrich August Sehettler and Caro-
line Louise Zipperlen Sehettler. They were in comfortable circumstances, and
used what means they could for the education of their children, five sons and two daugh-
HISTORY OF UTAH. 309
ters. Bernhard was a delicate child, and on that account, as he was often sick, his prog-
ress at school was much interrupted. He was a bright boy, however, and made good
use of his opportunities, acquiring a knowledge of all the various branches of learning
taught in the high school of his native place — one of the best institutions of its kind in
Germany. When he left school at the age of fifteen he knew equally well three languages, •
German, English and French. He next studied book-keeping and the mercantile business,
and studied them practically, engaging himself for that purpose to a dry goods merchant
for four years. The latter part of this period he spent in a wholesale mercantile estab-
lishment at Dusseldorf on the Rhine, where he remained until October, 1852.
His father had died two years before, at the age of fifty-five years, and now, upon
the advice of his mother. Bernhard prepared to emigrate to America. He left home on
the 26th of February, 1853, and after visiting his sister Emily and an uncle at Courbe-
voie, near Paris, sailed from Havre for New York on the 15th of March. His ship, the
Helvetia, after a prosperous though stormy voyage, reached her port of destination on
the 15th of April. In New York City Mr. Schettler remained for eight years, following
the mercantile business. He was also a book-keeper in the Oi-iental Bank. His mother
and sister kept house for him, and his brother Paul, who had likewise followed him to
America, shared his domicile.
During these years his mind was much occupied with reflections upon religion and
the general condition of the human family. He greatly desired to know something con-
cerning the future life and the object of the present existence. One day — it was Febru-
ary 22. 1S60 — his brother Paul disclosed to him the fact that on the 9th of that month he
had embraced the faith known as Mormonism, under the ministration of Elder George Q.
Cannon. Bernhard received the news with astonishment, but such was his love and
respect for his brother, whom he knew to be honest and sincere, that he determined to
investigate the claims of his newly adopted religion. He went to the meetings of the
Saints in Williamsburg, opposite New York, and began reading the doctrinal works of
the Church. The result was his own conversion. After several interviews with Elder
Cannon he was baptized by him in the East River, near Greenpoint Bridge, on the even-
ing of May 7, 1S60.
Soon after this he made ready to come to Utah. He left New York about the mid-
dle of June, 1861, and proceeded to Florence, Nebraska, where he remained three weeks
with the emigrating Saints at that point, prior to starting across the plains. He met
there his brother Paul, who, having preceded him to Utah, was now returning as a mis-
sionary to Holland. Bernhard's outfit for the overland journey consisted of a Schuttler
wagon, heavily loaded with household goods and merchandise, and drawn by three yoke
of oxen and one yoke of cows. The company in which he traveled was first under
Joseph W. Young, but it was so large that it had to be divided, Heber P. Kimball taking
one division and Anson Harman the other; Captain Young going ahead with a mule team.
Mr. Schettler was in Kimball's division, Christian Hirschi being his teamster, and two
Swiss sisters doing the cooking and washing. They started from Florence on or about
the 4th of July, pursuing the usual route up the Platte. Several mishaps befell them on
the way. Near Laramie a man out hunting strayed from the train, and though it laid
over a day seaching for him, he was never found. Mr. Schettler lost two of his best oxen
by [alkali. In all, the company lost about forty head of cattle that way. Six or eight
persons died and were buried by the roadside. Otherwise the journey was pleasant,
though our travelers were not sorry when it ended, as the nights were becoming very cold.
By way of Green River, Fort Bridger, Echo and Parley's canyons, they reached Salt Lake
City, camping on the Eighth Ward Square at four o'clock in the afternoon of the 23rd of
September. Mr. Schettler was hospitably received by and taken to the home of Claudius
V. Spencer.
Upon the recommendation of Apostle Orson Pratt, he was soon engaged as a clerk by
President Brigham Young, and appointed by David 0. Calder, the President's chief clerk,
to take charge of the books of the Perpetual Emigrating Fund Company. In that depart-
ment he labored until the last of September. 1S72, when he took the place of his brother,
Paul A. Sehetteler, as Treasurer of Salt Lake City, during the latter's absence in Pales-
tine with President George A. Smith and party. In the summer of 1873, his brother
having returned and resumed his place, B. H. Schettler made preparations for starting
the business of Zion's Savings Bank and Trust Company, which had just been organized.
Of this institution he was assistant cashier. It was a position requiring efficiency and a
great deal of hard work, but the incumbent was fully equal to all demands. He served
the bank faithfully from the time it began, in October, 1873, until he severed his connec-
tion with it in order to go into business for himself.
310 HISTORY OF UTAH.
A rather sensational incident occurred in his experience while he was with Zion's
Savings Bank. On the 10th of July, 1883, two of several young men who had planned
to rob the bank, seizing an opportune time when the assistant cashier was alone, entered
its place of business on Main Street. One of the twain engaged Mr. Schettler's attention,
on a pretense of arranging for the collection of some money, and while conversing with
the latter, his accomplice handed him, in such a way as to keep it hidden in front of
the counter, an iron rod — the end-gate rod of a wagon. With this the chief robber, a
powerfully built young fellow, at a moment when Mr. Schettler's face presented a profile
view, dealt him a terrific swinging blow across the top of the head, bending the rod
nearly double and inflicting a ghastly scalp wound. Had he not heard the "swish" of
the rod, and turned his face to his assailant, at the same time throwing back his head,
the blow might have been fatal. As it was he was felled to the floor, where he lay
insensible for fifteen minutes, giving ample time for the thieves to escape, after helping
themselves to the loose cash lying about. The sum of $224 was taken. Mr. Sehettler,
knowing the parties, on recovering consciousness acquainted the police with their
identity, and they were arrested, one of them in a house of ill-fame. Upon his
person was found $160 of the amount stolen from the bank, the balance of which was
never recovered. The two robbers were convicted and imprisoned, one serving out his
term, and the other, who had been given a longer sentence, being pardoned by the
Governor of the Territory, after spending six months in the penitentiary.
Mr. Sehettler had been a married man since May 17, 1862, when he wedded Susan
Maria MeCaw. It was a very happy union, though childless. Seven and a half years
later his wife died, and on August 7, 1871, he again entered the state of wedlock,
marrying two wives, Mary Morgan and Martha Wallace. Two others were sealed to him,
namely, Elizabeth Parry and Agathy Peters, on October 9, 1876, and August 8, 1878,
respectively. His children number nineteen, ten of them boys, and sixteen of the total
number are living.
Early in 1888 he was arrested, charged with violating the Edmunds law in living
with his wives. He gave evidence against himself, and was sentenced by Chief Justice
Zane to pay a fine of three hundred dollars and to be imprisoned for six months in the
penitentiary. He was an inmate of that place from February 29 to May 2nd of the year
named, when he was pardoned by President Cleveland.
Since January, 1892, when he severed his connection with Zion's Savings Bank
and Trust Company, Mr. Sehettler has been in the banking business for himself; his
sons assisting him. A number of his children have fine musical abilities. His eldest
son, Cornelius, an expert performer on the guitar and mandolin, won first prize — a
valuable music box — for the rendition of Xicolai's "Merry Wives of Windsor," as a guitar
solo at the Denver Eisteddfod in 1896; he also won the first of six prizes offered by Mr.
Schaefer at a method competition in Chicago, October, 1897. The prize in this
instance was a beautifully ornamented Washburn guitar, the finger-board of which was of
carved and figured pearl. Mr. Schettler's son Gerard Herman is a violinist of promise.
In the Church Mr. Sehettler holds the office of a Seventy, to which he was ordained
in 1862. For over thirty years he has been one of the presidency of a quorum of
Seventy. In the Eighteenth Ward, where he resides, he has been Ward clerk,
Sunday School superintendent, acting Teacher and acting Priest. During the long
period of his residence in Utah he has been absent from home but twice, once in 1870,
when he visited relatives in the East, and again in 1877-8, when he fulfilled a mission to
Holland. He is a shrewd and efficient business man, one whose name is a synonym for
punctuality and the faithful performance of duty.
AUGUST WILHELM CARLSON.
\jyHE present treasurer of Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institution is a native of
ffij Karlskrona, Sweden, where he was born on the 28th of August, 1844. There
^ he received his education and was trained for the Royal Navy in the schools
connected with the admiralty of the Swedish government. At eighteen years of
age he became acquainted with the teachings of the Latter-day Saints, and was baptized
into the Church, March 15, 1863. The year following he was sent as a traveling Elder
HISTORY OF UTAH. 311
to the Gothenburg conference, where he remained until the spring of 1S65, when he was
called to Copenhagen, to labor in the office of the "Scandinavian Star." In the spring
of 1S66 he spent some time in Hamburg, assisting to get ready the sailing vessels for
that season's emigration. A year later he was called to the "Millennial Star" office at
Liverpool, and labored there until the fall of 1871, when he was released and came
to Utah.
He had only been a few days in Salt Lake City when he became identified with
Z. C. M. L, as book-keeper in the general office. In August, 1S77, he responded to a
call from the First Presidency and went to Copenhagen, where during the following year
he translated and published the Book of Mormon in the Swedish language, and
attended to various duties in connection with the Scandinavian Mission. On his way to
Copenhagen he stayed over at Liverpool long enough to assist Apostle Orson Pratt in
comparing the notes for the new English edition of the Book of Mormon, divided into
chapters and verses, which was about to be published there. After fulfilling his mis-
sion to Scandinavia he returned to Utah and resumed his duties with Z. C. M. I. On
the 10th of October, 1888, he was appointed assistant secretary and treasurer of the
institution, and the year after was elected treasurer.
Mr. Carlson's leisure time has been taken up with various public duties. During the
year IS72 he acted as a Ward teacher in the Twentieth Ward, which was then his place
of residence. Since then he has resided in the Nineteenth Ward, where he was clerk
and teacher until he went on his mission in 1877. Upon his return he was appointed
one of the Presidency of the Scandinavian meetings at Salt Lake City, and served in
that capacity until May S. 1881, when he was ordained a High Priest and set apart as
counselor to Bishop Richard V. Morris. To the latter's successor. Bishop James Watson, he
was also counselor, and after the Bishop's death, on June 27, 1SS9, he had charge of
the Ward until the new Bishopric was installed, February 16, 1S90. At present he is
an alternate High Councillor of the Salt Lake Stake. He was one of the organizers of
the Young Men's Institute of the Nineteenth Ward in 1S74, and for many 3rears has
done faithful service as a home missionary of the Stake.
He was also one of the organizers and first directors of Zion's Benefit Building
Society, and is now vice-president of the same. He served on the Board of Regents of
the Universitv of Deseret from 1S86 to 1S90, inclusive, and on the Board of Trustees
of the Utah School for the Deaf and Blind for three years, 1896-1899. During 18S8
and 1S89 he was in the city council. He acted on the committee for the relief of the
Schofield sufferers in the summer of 1900, and was a member of the committee that
erected the Latter-day Saints' Business College the same year. He is a director
of the Deseret National Bank, the Deseret Savings Bank and the State Bank of Utah.
Mr. Carlson is a courteous and amiable gentleman, of pleasing address and winsome
manners, active and prompt, careful and attentive to all matters under his care.
That he is both intelligent and reliable is shown by his selection for so many and varied
important responsibilities. His wife, whose maiden name was Mary Priscilla Spencer,
and to whom he was married April 22, 1872, shares his well-merited popularity.
GEORGE MONTGOMERY SCOTT.
fHIS gentleman bears the distinction of having been the first non-Mormon mayor of
Salt Lake City. Prior to his tenure of that office, members of the Liberal party
had been connected with the city government, as for instance, Messrs. McCornick.
Dooley, Roberts and Sowles. elected to the City Council in 1888; but these
gentlemen were there by courtesy of the People's party, whose managers, in order that
the non-Mormon taxpayers might be represented in the administration of municipal
affairs, gave to the Liberals, who were in the minority, four places on the winning
ticket. There had also been Liberal members of the legislature, one in 1886, five in
1888; but these represented mere sectional successes, in districts where the non-Mormon
element predominated. It was not until 1889 and 1S90 that the Liberal party be&au
to score complete and sweeping victories, and never did it achieve a more important
one than the capture of Salt Lake City in February, 1890. It was then that Mr. Scott
was elected mayor.
312 HISTORY OF UTAH.
At the time of his election he had been a resident of Salt Lake City for about
nineteen years, and during this period had been engaged continuously in the mercantile
business. He was therefore in no sense a carpetbagger, but a solid, substantial citizen,
and undoubtedly this fact did much to inspire confidence in him and his administration.
He had come here from California to establish the hardware business, under the firm
name of Scott-Dunham and Company, which was changed in 1873 to George M. Scott
and Company; and he was in that business at the time of his election to the mayoralty.
His previous record had been that of a quiet, steady-going, straight-forward man of
affairs, and in his subsequent official career he successfully maintained his reputation.
His administration was energetic and progressive, and so far as he was concerned was
marked with honesty and efficiency. He served his full term as mayor, retiring from
office in February, 1892.
George M. Scott was born July 27, 1835, at Chazy, Clinton county, New York, and was
educated in the common schools of the vicinity and in the academy at Troy- His father was a
merchant . and he himself was naturally inclined to a mercantile life, upon which he
finally entered. He went to California in 1852, and in January, 18<1, came to Utah,
where until recently he continued to carry on the hardware business. The final name
of his firm was the George M. Scott-Strevell Hardware Company, an incorporation
which has now changed its name to the Strevell-Petterson Company; Mr. Scott having
retired in order to return to California, where he will henceforth reside.
EDITORS • EDUCATORS
20
FRANKLIN DEWEY RICHARDS.
'HE Historian of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at the time this
History had its inception, and who rendered valuable advisory aid to the author,
was also one of the Twelve Apostles of that Church, and lived to become the
President of the Apostolic Council. He was still in this position, and in that of
Church Historian, when he passed away. The life of Franklin D. Richards affords an
example of steadfast devotion to duty and of success in the discharge of many varied
and important responsibilities. Beginning his career amid humble surroundings, first
as a farm boy, then as a missionary, he rose steadily to prominence both in civil and
religious affairs, and died one of the most honored and most conspicuous figures in
the community.
He was a native of the State of Massachusetts, bom at Richmond, in Berkshire
county, April 2, 1821; and was a youth of seventeen when he espoused the cause of
Mormonism, being baptized by his father, Phineas Richards, in the waters of Mill Creek,
in his native town. The original conversions to the faith in the Richards family had
been brought about through the agency of their cousin, Brigham Young, one of the
Apostles of the Latter-day Church, who with his brother Joseph, also a leading Elder,
visited Richmond in the summer of 1836, taking with him the Book of Mormon. This
record was carefully perused by his kindred, and by none more carefully than the
youth Franklin, one of the most studious and thoughtful minds among them. Its
perusal, in the intervals of farm labor, converted him, as it had previously con-
verted his father, his mother, Wealthy Dewey Richards, his uncles Willard and Levi,
and other members of the family, some of whom, at the time of Franklin's baptism,
(June 3, 1838) were with the main body of the Church, which was then moving from
Ohio to Missouri.
In the fall of the same year he bade farewell to home and kindred and set out for
Far West, the central place of gathering. The war between Mormons and Missourians
was now raging, and the awful news of the atrocities committed upon the new settlers
by the older inhabitants, reached the ears of the young convert, toilsomely trudging his
hopeful way toward the scene of the prevailing troubles. As he passed through the
trampled fields and smoldering ruins of once flourishing but now deserted homesteads,
and at Haun's Mill stood upon the spot where nearly a score of defenseless settlers had
been butchered by an armed mob and their bodies thrown into an old well, he little
knew that in that rude receptacle, covered up with rocks and soil, lay all that was
mortal of his beloved brother, George Spencer Richards, one of the victims of the
massacre.
It was in May, 1839, that Franklin joined his expatriated people at Quincy, Illinois.
There he first met the Prophet Joseph Smith. Proceeding to Nauvoo, he received his
first appointment to the mission field, having previously been ordained a Seventy of the
Church, in April, 1840. The field assigned to him was Northern Indiana, where he
labored zealously and successfully, converting and baptizing many.
At the town of La Porte he formed the acquaintance of Isaac Snyder and family,
natives of the Eastern States, who had been converted to Mormonism in Canada, and
had come as far as Indiana on their way to the new gathering place of their people. In
their hospitable home the young missionary was nursed back to health from a severe
spell of sickness, resulting from his arduous labors in that somewhat unhealthy climate.
Though active and quick to recuperate, he was never robust; his constitution, lithe and
elastic, resembling the willow rather than the oak, more easily bent than broken. He
was unmarried, and while at the Snyder home he selected the youngest daughter of the
household for his future companion. Franklin D. Richards and Jane Snyder were
married at the little village of Job Creek, near La Harpe, about thirty miles from
Nauvoo, December IS. 1842.
The young wife was about to become a mother, when in the midst of the exodus of
the Saints from Illinois her husband set out upon his first mission to foreiern lands. A
316 HISTORY OF UTAH.
High Priest since 1844, he had been called during that year to preach the Gospel in
Europe, and had gone as far as the Atlantic seaboard (discharging on the way a semi-
political duty in the interests of the Prophet) when he was recalled by the terrible
tidings of the Carthage jail tragedy. He was given a special mission to the State of
Michigan, where he gathered means for the completion of the Nauvoo Temple, to which he
contributed the labor of his hands as carpenter and painter. Then came the second
call to Europe. Leaving Nauvoo early in July, he sailed from New York in the latter
part of September.
God is never cruel, but his providences, designed for man's development, somelimes
seem so. While Franklin D. Richards, homeless and almost penniless, was making his
way eastward to the port where he would embark for a distant laud, his invalid wife,
whom he had left at the camp of the exiles on Sugar Creek, westward bound, gave birth
to a son, her second child, and the babe, after drawing a few faint breaths, pillowed its
head in eternal sleep upon the breast of its broken-hearted mother. The sad news
reached the young husband and father just as he was on the eve of sailing. During
his absence, his only remaining child, a beautiful little daughter named Wealthy, also
died, as did his brother Joseph W.; the former at Winter Qurters, on the Missouri
river, and the latter at Pueblo, now in Colorado, while on his waj' to California, as a
member of the Mormon Battalion.
Landing at Liverpool about the middle of October, Elder Richards was appointed
to preside over the Church in Scotland. In January, 1847, he rilled a brief interregnum —
between the departure of Apostle Orson Hyde and the arrival of Elder Orson Spencer — as
presideut of the European Mission. He was chosen by the latter his counselor, and
subsequently labored in the Bath, Bristol and Trowbridge conferences, which he re-
organized as the South conference. At the head of a company of Saints, and with his
brother Samuel, who had been his co-laborer in Scotland, he sailed from Liverpool
February 20, 1848, and by way of New Orleans and St. Louis reached Winter Quarters,
where his wife awaited him. He was in time to cross the plains with the First
Presidency, Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards, who led the main
body of the migrating Church to Salt Lake valley that season. Franklin was captain
over fifty wagons in the division commanded by President Richards. He reached his
journey's end on the 19th of October.
The 12th of the following February witnessed his ordination to the Apostleship,
under the hands of the First Presidency; and in October of that year he started upon
his second mission to Europe; this time to relieve President Orson Pratt, at Liverpool.
He established in that land the Perpetual Emigrating Fund, which in Utah he had
helped to institute, and in 18.V2 he forwarded the first company of European Saints that
emigrated under its auspices. The mighty work accomplished by him during this and
his two subsequent foreign missions, can only be briefly summarized. Under him and
his brother Samuel (who presided during the first interregnum) Mormonism in the
British Isles reached the zenith of its prosperity. It had previously numbered some
forty thousand converts in that country, and now, between the summers of 1850 and
1852 sixteen thousand additional baptisms were recorded. A more perfect organization
of branches, conferences and pastorates was effected throughout the mission, new
editions of the Hymn Book and Voice of Warning were issued, the Pearl of Great Price was
compiled, the Book of Mormon stereotyped, and the business of the Liverpool office
doubled. It was also planned to make the "Milennial Star" a weekly instead of a semi-
monthly periodical, with an increase iu the number of its issue, and to change the route
of Mormon emigration from Liverpool, making it go by way of New York instead of by
the old, perilous and sickly route via New Orleans and St. Louis.
Our Apostle returned to Utah in the summer of 1852. He attended the special
conference held at Salt Lake City in August, when the principle of plural marriage —
which he had long since accepted and obeyed — was first publicly promnlged; he spent the
two following winters in the legislature, and in April, 1853, participated in the ceremony of
dedicating the grounds and laying the corner stones of the Salt Lake Temple. Subse-
quently he made trips to Iron county, to establish the iron works projected by President
Young, some of the arrangements for which had been made by himself and his fellow
Apostle, Erastus Snow, while in Europe. During the winter of 1853-4 he was requested
by the President to prepare to resume his missionary laboi's abroad. His letter of
appointment authorized him ''to preside over all the conferences and all the affairs of the
Church iu the British Islands and adjacent countries." This meant that he was to
direct the work in the East Indies, in Africa, Australia and New Zealand, as well as in
Great Britain and on the continent of Em'ope. Prior to his departure his uncle, Pres-
HISTORY OF UTAH. 317
ident Willard Richards, died, and the Apostle Franklin succeeded him as the virtual head
of the Richards family.
He arrived at Liverpool June 4, 1S54, and as soon as practicable made an extended
tour of the various continental branches. During a subsequent trip to the continent he
organized the Saxon Mission, previously opened under his direction, and baptized Dr.
Karl G. Maeser, one of the most notable of the German converts. In 1855 he leased
for the Church the premises known as 4'2 Islington, Liverpool, which have ever since
remained the chief office and headquarters of the European Mission. Between 1854
and 1856 one thousand emigrants were shipped under his direction from Liverpool to
New York. President Richards was a father to the Elders under his charge, and they
loved him for his sunny affable nature, his gentlemanly courtesy and great kindness of
heart. Everywhere the work throve amazingly under his administration, though he
labored much of the time under bodily weakness and debility. President Orson Pratt,
who succeeded him in July, 1856, in announcing that fact through the "Star." said of
his predecessor: "A rapid extension of the work of the gathering has been a prominent
feature of his administration, the last great act of which — the introduction of the
practice of the law of tithing among the Saints in Europe — is a fitting close to his
extensive and important labors. We receive the work from the hands of President
Richards with great satisfaction and pleasure on account of the healthy and flourishing
condition in which we find it."
He left Liverpool on the 26th of July and arrived at Salt Lake City on the 4th of
October. He assisted in the reformation then in progress throughout the Church, and during
the winter of 1S56-7 was again in the legislature and was re-elected a regent of the
University of Deseret. The following April he become a brigadier general in the militia
and partook of the general experiences attending the invasion of Utah by Johnston's
army. For several years he was active in ecclesiastical, political, military and educa-
tional work for the public, and in his spare time was engaged in farming and milliug
on his own account. In July, 1866, he was appointed upon another mission to Europe.
Pursuant to this appointment he landed at Liverpool in September of that year.
He first made an extended tour through Great Britain, Scandinavia and other parts,
acquainting himself thoroughly with the affairs of the mission, to the presidency of
which he succeeded in July, 1S67. The retiring President, Brigham Young. Jr.. in
announcing the installation of his successor, predicted that a fresh impetus would be
given the work under his administration. The words were scarcely uttered when they
began to be fulfilled. Rallying the Elders to his support and reinforcing their faith with
his own infectious enthusiasm, he sent them forth with renewed zeal and determination.
Within the next twelve months three thousand four hundred and fifty-seven souls were
baptized in Great Britain alone, and in the same time two thousand three hundred were
emigrated to Utah. Steamships were now used instead of sailing vessels for the
Church emigration. On arriving home in October, 1868, the Apostle received from
President Young a warm and appreciative greeting, and was congratulated upon his
revival of the work in the British Mission.
The period of this return witnessed the advent into Utah of the trans-continental
railroad, which, after the welding ceremony at promontory, made Ogden the joint
terminus of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific lines, under the surname of the
"Junction City." There, by President Young's advice and appointment, President
Richards made his permanent home, having charge for some years of the Weber Stake
of Zion. It fell to him and his fellow citizens of Ogden to welcome the arrival of the
"iron horse" two months before the meeting of the roads at Promontory. In February
of the same year he was elected probate judge, and during the period of his official
tenure — from March. 1869, to September, 1SS3 — Weber county was greatly built up and
improved. In January, 1870, he with others founded the "Ogden Junction," a paper
of which he was for some time the editor.
Judge Richards' court had original and appellate jurisdiction in common law and
chancery cases until 1S74. when the Poland law limited the jurisdiction of the probate
courts. Many important cases, both civil and criminal, were tried before him, and his
decisions, when appealed from, invariably stood unreversed by the higher tribunals.
The noted mandamus case of Kimball versus Richards, in which, during the autumn of
1SS2 it was sought to take from him his office under the provisions of the Hoar
Amendment, and the failure of that attempt through the stout defense maintained by
him as the virtual champion of hundreds of other officials throughout the Territory, are the
subject of extended comment in the seventh chapter of the previous volume. Franklin
D. Richards held the office of probate judge of Weber county until his successor, instead
318 HISTORY OF UTAH.
of being appointed by the Governor under a strained construction of the Hoar Amend-
ment, was duly elected and qualified — the point for which he and his confreres had all
along been contending.
The Apostle's time and talents, after his retirement from the judicial bench, were
devoted almost exclusively to the duties of his sacred calling. In April, 1884, he was
made the assistant to Wilford Woodruff, the Church Historian, whom he succeeded in
that office five years later, when the latter became President of the Church. During
the greater part of the anti-polygamy crusade— 1884 to 1890 — he was one of the very few
Mormon leaders who were not compelled to go into retirement, and during most of
that period he presided at the General Conferences and gave advice and direction to
the Saints as the visible representative of the absent Presidency. We caunot speak
of his wealth and vested interests; he had none; his life was not devoted to the
accumulation of property.
The accession of President Lorenzo Snow to the chief place of authority in the
Church made Franklin D. Richards the senior in the Council of the Twelve Apostles, and
on September 13, 1898, he was sustained by that Council as its president. Thenceforth
he continued in the active discharge of his Apostolic and other duties, laboring so
zealously, especially in the great tithing reform movement, that it was feared by his
family and friends that he would break down under the burden. His silent reply to their
expressed solicitude — a reply written in his private journal — was to the effect that he
had never learned to shirk his duty and must continue along that line to the end.
The end came — the beginning of it in August, 1899, when his health failed, and
he was forced to take the rest that he had hitherto denied himself. A trip to California,
transiently but not permanently helpful, succeeded, and a few months after his return,
at fourteen minutes past midnight, on the 9th day of December, his freed spirit passed to
its eternal rest.
President Franklin D. Richards was one of the most studious, and propably the
most widely read of the Apostles composing the Council over which he presided. He
was a life long student of books and of human nature, keen, sagacious and thoughtful.
He read everything good in science, history and religion; following faithfully the ad-
monition of the Prophet Joseph Smith: "Seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom;
seek learning by study and also by faith." He held with the Prophet that "the
glory of God is intelligence," and was not afraid to bask in its light and warm himself
in its rays; knowing that that intelligence, though reflected from many prisms, could
have but one prime source. Huxley, Darwin, Spencer, Tyndall, with other scientists and
philosophers, whose choicest works adorned his library and were perused by him with
profound respect for the learning of their authors, only confirmed him in his faith as a
follower of Jesus Christ and a convert to Joseph Smith. He contended for the
necessary harmony of true religion with true science, and only cast away what he con-
sidered dross in both.
In all his wide and extended intercourse with men of all classes and conditions, he
maintained his independence, never swerving from his convictions. His faith — as re-
marked by one speaker at his funeral — "was strong enough to stand alone." Charitable
to all and speaking evil of none, if men misjudged him he bore it patiently, knowing
that time is the friend of innocence and that justice will inevitably vindicate the right.
He was a patient man, one who endui-ed much, and bore it uncomplainingly. During his
last illness, even when sickest he would not complain, and when asked as to his con-
dition, would answer, "Comfortable, comfortable;" though the loved ones about him
knew it was to allay their anxiety that he thus replied, and that the comfort he referred
to was more of the mind and heart than of the body. He was also a man who achieved
much aud will long be remembered for the noble works that he performed. An Apostle
for fifty years; a legislator, many times re-elected; a University regent, a civic and
military officer; Church Historian, President of the State Genealogical aud Historical
societies, and finally President of the Twelve Apostles; in every capacity he labored
with intelligence, wisdom and zeal, carving out a name and fame more lasting than
the archives of the Church and Commonwealth he so faithfully served.
ANTHON HENRIK LUND.
p^HE present Historian of the Latter-day Church, who is also one of its First Pres-
to >) idency, is a native of Aalborg, Denmark, where he was born May 15, 1844. He
^ !; was not quite four years old when he lost his mother, and although so young he
vividly recalls the circumstances of her sickness, death and burial. She died
while his father was serving his country in the war between Denmark and Slesvig-
Holstein. Anthon's grandmother, a woman of strong character and sterling qualities,
took his mother's place. After returning from the war in 1851, his father moved from
Aalborg and desired to take his son with him, but the boy pleaded to be left with his
grandmother. At the age of four he had been put to school. Studious and quick to
learn, he made rapid progress. Reading was his favorite pastime, and his little pocket
money was spent at the bookdealer's. At seven he was sent to the city schools, where he
gained the first place at twelve.
Some five years before, one of his uncles had joined the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saiuts, and later his grandmother became a member of that body. This
brought the boy into contact with the "Mormons." Young as he was, he carefully read
all their works, was convinced of the truth of their doctrines, and when twelve years
of age was baptized into the Church. At thirteen he was called to labor in the Aalborg
conference, his duties being to teach English to the emigrating Saints, to distribute
tract* and assist the Elders in holding meetings. At sixteen he was appointed to
preside over the Aalborg branch, at that time one of the largest in Scandinavia; also
to act as Traveling Elder in five other branches. In these positions he not only gained
the love of the Saints, but was made a welcome guest at many other homes.
At the age of eighteen Mr. Lund, with his grandmother, emigrated to Utah, leaving
Aalborg April 6, 1862, and sailing from Hamburg on the ship "Benjamin Franklin."
The 28th of May was the date of landing at New York, and the 23rd of September the
date of arrival at Salt Lake City. Anthon now parted from his grandmother, who joined
her son at Cedar City, he himself preferring Sanpete as a place of residence, as he had
many friends there. At Fairview he worked at farm labor for three months, and then
moved to Mount Pleasant, where he engaged in various pursuits. He was not idle a
day. John Barton of that town offered him a home in his family if he would be a tutor
to his children. The young man accepted the offer — all the more welcome as he
naturally loved teaching — and continued to reside with the Bartons until he married. In
1864 he was a teamster to the Missouri river and back, bringing emigrants to Utah.
In the winter of 1864-5 he taught school, and the next year clerked in a store.
In the fall of 1865 Anthon H. Lund responded to a call made by President Brigham
Young for a certain number of young men to come to Salt Lake City and study telegraphy
under the veteran operator John Clowes. Among his fellow students were Moses
Thatcher and John Henry Smith. The call had been issued in anticipation of the
establishment of the Deseret Telegraph line, upon which Mr. Lund in 1866 became a
regular operator at Mount Pleasant. He continued as such for three years. In connection
with his telegraph office he conducted a photograph gallery, and in 1868 to his other
duties were added those of secretary of the local co-operative institution. He was also
a member of the first city council of that place.
The 2nd of May. 1870, was his wedding day. He married Miss Sarah Ann Peterson,
daughter of Bishop Canute Peterson, of Ephraim, to which town he now removed; not
without many regrets for the severance of social and business ties at Mount Pleasant.
The year after his marriage he went upon a mission to his native land, accompanying
his father-in-law, who was sent to preside over the Church in Scandinavia. Mr. Lund
had charge of the Copenhagen Office of the European Mission. He was absent from
Utah about seventeen mouths, and would have remained longer away but for the serious
illness of his wife, which caused him to be summoned home.
After another winter at his favorite occupation of school teaching, he was made
320 HISTORY OF UTAH.
head clerk of the Ephraim Co-operative store. Soon he was given charge as superintend-
ent, and continued in that position for ten years, duriner which period it became one
of the best and soundest institutions of its kind. The stock, which was down to fifty
cents on the dollar when he took charge, paid the first year twelve and a-half per cent,
the second year fifteen per cent, and for many years thereafter twenty-five per cent in
dividends. In 1883 came another mission to Europe, where he succeeded Christian
D. Fjeldsted as president of the Scandinavian Mission. He had previously been a high
councillor and the clerk of Sanpete Stake, also superintendent of the Ephraim Sunday
schools. He i-emained abroad until November, 1885, and returned home to learn that he had
been elected, in anticipation of his early release from his mission, a member of the
Territorial legislature. He served during the session of 1886, and was returned in 1888,
when he introduced in the House of Representatives his bills for the establishment of
the Reform School and the Agricultural College, both of which became law.
In 1S88 he was made vice-president of the Manti Temple, and at the death of its
president, Daniel H. Wells, in March, 1891, was chosen to succeed him. His call to the
Apostleship came in October, 1889. Prom 189.'i to 189G he presided over the European
Mission, and in 1897 visited the Orient for the purpose of fully organizing the Turkish
Mission and looking out a suitable spot for the colonization of native Latter-day Saints in
the Land of Palestine. After due investigation it was decided to abandon the colonizing
scheme, or defer its execution, owing to the instability of the Turkish government and
the insufficiency of its guarantees. Apostle Lund, during his travels in the Levant,
became well acquainted with the country and its conditions, knowledge which has proved
of great value to him. He returned home in June, 1898.
The close of the year 1899 brought with it his appointment to the responsible
position of Church Historian, to which he succeeded at the death of President Franklin
D. Richards; also succeeding him as president of the State Genealogical Society. He
had previously been acting as superintendent of Religion Classes, and as one of the
original members of the General Church Board of Education; places held by him at the
present time. On the 17th of October, 1901, he was chosen second counselor to Pres-
ident Joseph F. Smith, by virtue of which appointment he became one of the First Pres-
idency of the Church.
President Lund, though not mainly a business man, is an able man of affairs, as
his past successes show. He is president of the Utah National Bank, vice-president of Zion's
Savings Bank and Trust Company, and a director of Zion's Co-operative Mercantile
Institution, also of the Saltair Beach Company and various other concerns. His most
decided leanings are literary, and had not his education been interrupted in childhood
by his early call to the ministry, he might have shone as a linguist and a man of letters.
As it is, he has had editorial experience, first upon three papers simultaneously at
Copenhagen, and afterwards upon the "Millennial Star" at Liverpool. As Church
Historian he with his assistants is engaged in the important work of preparing for
publication the History of the Church, the first volume of which has already been
issued. He is a man of general intelligence, noted for the clearness of his views and the
soundness of his judgment; while the purity of his life, the uprightness of his character,
with the mildness, magnanimity and sweet charitableness of his nature, make him
beloved wherever known and render him popular with all his associates.
ORSON SPENCER.
^ ^HE first chancellor of the University of Deseret — now University of Utah — was Orson
Ijjjj Spencer; a deathless name, in Mormon annals, if only for its connection with
;■. the celebrated "Spencer's Letters;" a doctrinal work that has done distinguished
service in the cause. Its author was prominent in the Church from the days of
Nauvoo, where he figured as one of the faculty of the University projected by the Prophet
Joseph Smith. In Utah he was a member of the first legislature that convened after the
organization of the Territory. Prior to that time he had presided over the British Mission.
Gifted as a writer, able as a speaker and eminent as a theologian; a refined and scholarly
man; a Baptist minister before his conversion to Mormonism; his "Letters," exegetical of
HISTORY OF UTAH. 321
the principles of the faith, are one of the real classics that the Church possesses. His
whole heart was in his religion; his sacrifices for its sake were many, and he died while
absent from home in the discharge of the sacred duties it imposed upon him.
Orson Spencer was born at West Stoekbridge, Berkshire county. Massachusetts,
March 14, 1802. He was next to the youngest of eleven children, and one of twins, the
other being a girl. The mother, unable to care for both the children, gave the little girl
into the charge of a nurse, who aecidently killed the babe, by lying upon it while sleeping.
At the age of fourteen Orson underwent a severe spell of sickness, which came near cost-
ing him his life. While much heated from athletic sports, of which he was very fond, he
bathed in cold water, bringing on an attack of typhus fever, from which he did not re-
cover for nine months. Even then he did not entirely recover, for the fever ultimately
settled in his right leg, laming him permanently. At fifteen he was a student at Lenox
Academy in his native county, and at twenty-two a graduate with high honors from Union
College, in the State of New York. The next year he taught in an Academy at Washing-
ton, Wilkes county, Georgia, at which time he employed his leisure hours in studying law.
Soon after this he experienced religion, joining the Baptist Church and resolving to
prepare himself for the ministry. With this end in view he entered the Theological Col-
lege at Hamilton, New York, graduating thence in 1829. On the 13th of April, 1830, he
married Catherine Curtis, daughter of Deacon Samuel Curtis, of Canaan county, in that
state. He now moved to Saybrook, Connecticut, where he had been called to labor in the
ministry. While living there two children were born to him, Catharine, the eldest, dying
when two years old, and Ellen Curtis, the younger, living to become Mrs. H. B. Clawson
of Salt Lake City. The third child, also a daughter, was born at Deep River, and was
named Aurelia. She is now Mrs. Thomas Rogers, of Farmiugton. Some time after her
birth her parents moved into the suburbs of Middlefield, Hampshire county, Massachusetts,
where three more children were added to the family: Cathai'ine Curtis, widow of Apostle
Brigham Young; 'Howard 0. and George B. ; all well known in Utah. Mrs. Aurelia
Spencer Rogers,who by the way is the founder of the Latter-day Saints PrimaryAssociations,
has written an interesting sketch of her father's life. In it she tells the story of the
famil3''s conversion to Mormonism — brought to them in the year 1840 by her uncle Daniel
Spencer, from West Stoekbridge, a day's journey from Middlefield. Says she:
"My parents could not reject the truth, although father held back a little at first, per-
haps for the sake of argument. They sat up late every night during the few days my
uncle stayed, conversing upon the principles of this new doctrine, which was to make such
a change in their lives. One evening my mother said, looking at my father, "Orson, you
know this is true." He felt to acknowledge it, and they both shed tears.
Soon after they were both baptized. The next consideration was how to gather with the
Saints, who were then settling at Nauvoo, Illinois. Father must give up his means of
making a livelihood and meet the scorn and derision of his old friends; but once convinced
that he was right, nothing could turn him from his purpose. He accordingly took steps
to dispose of his private property, in which was a library of choice books. He settled up
all business accounts, and in the spring of 1841, started for West Stoekbridge, the place
of his birth, where his parents still lived. Uncle Hyrum Spencer had
also joined the Church. It had been decided by the Spencer brothers
that my father should go to Nauvoo first and look out places to locate, while my uncles
should stay until they could sell their property, which they did, and emigrated the next
year. ' '
At Nauvoo Orson Spencer taught school, and was one of the faculty, as stated, of
the University there projected. In the fall of 1842 he opened a small store, and was oc-
cupied in this business until the following spring, when he was elected an alderman of
the city. Two more children blessed his home during his residence at Nauvoo, namely,
Lucy Curtis, who lived to become Mrs. George W. Grant, and Chloe, who died at thirteen
months. The mother, Catherine Curtis Spencer, a most estimable woman, educated and
refined, fell a victim to the hardships and exposures of the exodus from Illinois. She died
March 12, 1846, at Indian Creek, near Keosaqua, Iowa. Her remains were conveyed to
Nauvoo and buried, at night, beside those of her youngest child.
"While a portion of the Saints were camped at Garden Grove,'' writes Mrs. Rogers,
"my Uncle Hyrum Spencer and Uncle Daniel's son, Claudius V.. went back to Nauvoo, to
try to sell the valuable farms of the Spencer brothers. While returning Uncle Hyrum
died before reaching camp and was buried at Mount Pisgah. He left
eight children by the wife of his youth and two by his then living wife, formerly Miss
Emily Thompson, whom he married at Nauvoo. The two sons of Uncle Hyrum's now
living are Charles and Hyrum T., the latter bishop of Pleasant Green, Salt Lake county,
322 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Utah. * Before leaving Nauvoo, father had been called to go on a mis-
sion to England, but owing to the persecutions his departure had been postponed. While
at the Bluffs, he was notified to be ready to start late in the fall. He therefore made
arrangements to fill the appointment, and went with us across the Missouri river to Winter
Quarters, where he put up a log cabin, into which we moved before it was finished.
Catharine and I were just recovering from a spell of sickness, when our
father bade us farewell and started on a three years mission, leaviag us in charge of a
good man and his wife — James and Mary Bullock, who looked after our interests the same
as their own. We kept house by ourselves, Ellen acting the part of a
little mother."
Elder Spencer had been appointed to edit the "Millenial Star" and preside over the
British Mission. He arrived at Liverpool January 23, 1847. A false report of his death
had preceded him, and the announcement, with an obituary notice, had been published in
the 'Star." Moreover, Elder Franklin D. Richards had been summoned from Glasgow to
Liverpool, to take charge of the mission, whose president, Orson Hyde, was about to
return to America. To the great joy of all, Elder Spencer, over whom they had mourned,
arrived safe, and forthwith entered zealously upon his labors. He met with much success.
In his farewell address to the Saints in Europe, January 1, 1849, he states that about ten
thousand had been added to Christ by baptism during the two previous years. He had
been succeeded as president of the mission by Orson Pratt in August, 1848, but had re-
mained in England to recruit his health, which was seriously impaired, prior to under-
taking the long joivrney home. That home was now in Utah, whither his motherless
children, left at Winter Quarters, had preceded him, crossing the plains with President
Brigham Young in the season of 1S48. President Spencer, three months after, his arrival
in England, had married Martha Knight, of Lancaster, who became the mother of four
children— Martha E., born in England; Albert J., William C. and June Knight, born after
the arrival of their parents in Utah. The company of Saints led by him from Liverpool
in 1S49, suffered severely from cholera while ascending the Missouri river. He reached
Salt Lake City late in September.
The Legislature of Deseret, on February 28, 1850, organized a State University, of
which Orson Spencer was chosen chancellor. This was several months before the organi-
zation of the Territory of Utah. The University was opened in November of that year,
"in Mrs. Pack's house, Seventeenth Ward," Dr. Cyrus Collins, A. M., who was on his way
to California, being temporarily engaged to take charge of it. After he retired, Chan-
cellor Spencer assumed the duties of a professor in the institution, assisted by William W.
Phelps. In September, 1851, he sat as a member of the council in the first session of
the Territorial legislature. About this time he married his third wife, Jane Davis, who
bore to him one child, a daughter named Luna. He also had a wife named Margaret
Miller, but she had no children.
In the summer of 1852 Orson Spencer, accompanied by Jacob Houtz, started upon a
mission to Prussia. They arrived at Berlin on the 25th of the following Januan'. They
were not permitted to preach, and on the 2nd of February were banished from the king-
dom. They managed to circulate a few tracts in secret, prior to taking their departure
for England, where they labored in the ministry for a short time, before returning to
Utah. While at Liverpool, on his way to Berlin, Elder Spencer had written the last of
his series of ' Letters," most of which had previously been published and passed through
several editions. These letters, fifteen in number, the first written at Nauvoo, November
17, 1842; the next thirteen'at Liverpool, between May 15, and December 13, 1847; and
the final one on January 30, 1853, were called forth by an epistle from a Baptist minister,
Rev. William Crowel, A. M., editor of the "Christian Watchman,'' at Boston, Massachu-
setts. This gentleman had made inquiries of Mr. Spencer, whom he knew at Middlefield,
concerning Mormonism and its adherents, asking him as a friend to give an expression of
his religious views and the reasons that had induced him to change from the Baptist to
the Mormon faith. The first letter, in reply, was written under the advice of the Prophet
Joseph Smith; the remaining ones under the sanction of President Brigham Young. It
was the perusal of the opening letter that suggested to Eliza R. Snow the theme of her
beautiful poem, "Evening Thoughts, or What it is to be a Saint." "Spencer's Letters"
have been the means of converting many to Mormonism. The date of their author's re-
turn from his last mission to Europe was August 24, 1853.
His final errand as a minister of the Gospel was undertaken in the summer of the
year following, when by appointment of the First Presidency he proceedsd to Cincinnati,
Ohio, where he labored until July, 1855. He was then sent for by Apostle Erastus Snow,
to take editorial charge of a paper, published by the Latter-day Saints at St. Louis. He
HISTORY OF UTAH. 323
immediately responded to this summons, and was duly installed as editor of the St. Louis
"Luminary;" presiding simultaneously over the Latter-day Saints in the Ohio and Mis-
sissippi valleys. His health had not been good for some time, but he suffered uncom-
plainingly, and entered upon his missionary labors with his old time zeal and devotion.
He had not been long in St. Louis when he was commissioned by President Young to
visit the Cherokee Indian nation, a mission which he filled in August and September, ac-
companied by Elder James McGaw. While among the Cherokees he was attacked with
chills and fever. He returned at once to St. Louis, where he arrived on the 17th of Sep-
tember, very much fatigued and debilitated. Typhoid fever ensued, and on the 15th of
October, 1855, he breathed his last. His remains were temporarily buried at St. Louis,
but in the summer of 1S56 they were taken up and sent home; the final interment being
in the Salt Lake City cemetery.
SAMUEL WHITNEY RICHARDS.
fk DISTINGUISHED member of a distinguished family is Hon. S. W. Richards, of
JjfjlJ. Salt Lake City. Younger brother to the late President Franklin D. Richards, and
■^ elder brother to Colonel Henry P. Richards, whose biographies appear elsewhere,
his mother, Wealthy Dewey Richards, was of the same lineal stock as Admiral
George Dewey, the hero of Manila Bay. The subject of this sketch was one of the
original regents of the University of Deseret, a member of the first city council of Salt
Lake City, and a representative for several sessions in the Territorial legislature. He
presided twice over the European Mission, edited the "Millennial Star,'' and per-
formed a great ministerial work in the British Isles and adjacent countries.
A native of Richmond, Berkshire county, Massachusetts, he was born August 9,
18'24. Like the Master whom he was destined to serve he came into the world a carpen-
ter's son, and early acquainted himself with carpentering and cabinet work. He had a
common school education; he labored summers upon the farm, and traveled at times as a
trader in several of the New England States. At the age of eighteen he assisted in the
construction of a railroad that was being built through his native town, and had charge
of forty men on the line from Richmond to Pittsfield. After completing that piece of work
he superintended another from the New York State line to Pittsfield, and upon that con-
tinued to be engaged up to the time of leaving Massachusetts for Illinois.
He had been baptized a Latter-day Saint in the fall of 1838. The year of his removal
to Nauvoo was 1S43. He now resumed carpenter work, and labored nearly three years
on the Nauvoo Temple. In the spring of 1S44, a few months before the Prophet's death,
an exploring expedition was organized by his direction to seek a home for the Saints be-
yond the Rocky Mountains. Samuel W. Richards was one of the members of this pro-
posed expedition, which was organized and at weekly meetings was addressed by Presi-
dents Sidney Rigdon, Hyruru Smith and occasionally by the Prophet, who instructed the
explorers upon the duties that would be required of them. The expedition never left
Nauvoo, being detained by events terminating in the martyrdom. It is Mr. Richards' be-
lief that if Joseph and Hyrum, when they crossed the Mississippi and started West, had
continued on their way, instead of returning and surrendering themselves into the hands
of their murderers, this band of explorers would have accompanied them to the Rocky
Mountains.
While still at Nauvoo. on January 29, 1S46, Samuel W. Richards was united in mar-
riage to Mary Haskin Parker, daughter of John and Ellen Parker, of Chaidgley, Lanca-
shire, England. He had been married but a few months when he was called with his
brother Franklin to labor as an Elder in the British Mission. They left Nauvoo early in
July, sailed from New York in the latter part of September and lauded at Liverpool about
the middle of October. The Richards brothers were appointed to Scotland, and Samuel
remained there, meeting with much success, long after Franklin had been called to Liver-
pool to assist at the headquarters of the Mission. Both the brothers were noted for their
324 HISTORY OF UTAH.
pleasing address, gentlemanly affability and the ease with which they won their way to
the hearts of the people, making friends and converts on every hand.
Early in 1848 Samuel returned with his brother and a company of Latter-day Saints
to America. While the others continued on to Salt Lake Valley he remained with his fam-
ily in Upper Missouri, where in the winter of 1S4S-9 he became acquainted with Oliver
Cowdery, one of the three witnesses to the Book of Mormon, who was returning from
Winter Quarters after reuniting with the Church, from which he had been absent for
about ten years. Oliver was on his way to visit his brother-in-law, David Whitmer, at
Richmond, Missouri, prior to coming to Utah. For three weeks, during a snow blockade,
Elder Richards entertained Elder Cowdery and enjoyed his relation of reminiscences con-
nected with the rise of Mormonism. On reaching Richmond Oliver sickened and died.
The next year Mr. Richards and his family came to Utah, or as it was then called,
"Deseret."
At the organization of the Salt Lake City government, in January, 1851, Samuel W.
Richards became a member of the city council by appointment of the Governor and
legislature pending the first election under the city charter. The year before he had been
made a regent of the newly created University. He helped to frame the first
city ordinances, but had not been long in the council when he was called to resume his
ministerial labors in Europe. There, in the summer of 1852, after laboring some months
as a Traveling Elder, he succeeded his brother Franklin in charge of the mission, the
latter returning to Utah.
During the next two years he forwarded many thousands of souls to Utah and gained
the reputation of conducting the best shipping agency in Great Britain. In 1854 he was
summoned under the Queen's seal to appear before the House of Commons Commictee on
Emigrant Ships, to give information and offer suggestions for the improvement of the
emigration laws of Great Britain. The committee consisted of fifteen members. John
0:Connell, Esq., chairman. President Richards' recommendations on several points
were adopted and embodied in a new passenger act passed by the British Parliament about
the same time with one of like character enacted by the Congress of the United States.
At this time he edited and published the "Millennial Star," then a weekly with a vast circu-
lation, and also two semi-monthly journals. The British Isles, France and Switzerland
comprised the field of his personal labors. He returned to Utah in 1854.
Elected to the legislature he served in the House of Representatives for three con-
secutive sessions; the Assembly then meeting annually. In 1856, having previously
made a study of the law, he was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of Utah. In
March of the same year he sat as a member of the Constitutional Convention.
In 1857, the year of the Buchanan expedition, he was prominent in military move-
ments. He had held for several years the office of Brigade Quartermaster and Commis-
sary, with the rank of Lientenant-Colonel, to which he was commissioned by Governor
Brigham Young. In the summer of the year that the Federal troops entered Utah, and
as soon as the Governor had decided to place the Territory under martial law, Colonel
Richards was sent with a special message to President Buchanan, informing him that his
army could not enter Utah until satisfactory arrangements has been made, by commis-
sion or otherwise. This bold message was delivered to the President through Colonel
Thomas L. Kane, who afterwards played the part of mediator between the Chief Magis-
trate and the Mormon people. After delivering to Colonel Kane the dispatches entrusted
to him, and securing his services as a messenger to the President, Colonel Richards
crossed the Atlantic, carrying instructions to the Mormon missionaries in Europe to re-
turn as soon as possible. For several months he presided over the Mission. In 1858 he
led home a small company of Elders, arriving at Salt Lake City in May. A fuller account
of this expedition is contained in chapter thirty-one of our first volume.
From 1854 to 1860 Mr. Richards served again as a city councilor, and from 1860 to
1861 as an alderman of the municipality. In the latter year the Legislature appointed
him Probate Judge of Davis county, and soon after the Supreme Court made him a
United States Commissioner. In May, 1864, he was commissioned Colonel of militia, and
in February, 1866, was re-elected alderman of the second municipal ward of Salt Lake
City.
His wife, Mary Haskin Parker, died at Salt Lake City, June 3, 1860. She was in
her thirty-fifth year, and had borne to him five children. His second marriage was with
Mary Ann Parker, his living wife, by whom he has had ten children. By his third wife,
Helena L. Robinson, who died July 18, 1883, he is the father of eleven children, and by
his fourth wife. Jane Mayer, who died May 15, 1867, the father of one. In 1871-2
Elder Richards was on a mission in his native State and in other parts of New England.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 325
While the Salt Lake Temple was nearing completion he was engaged for about two
years in assisting to complete the decorative work in the carving department. In
1895-6-7 he presided over the Eastern States Mission, and in this field and period of his
labors became acquainted with many leading men of the nation, including editors, minis-
ters, judges, authors and professors, with some of whom he still corresponds. His time
and services are now regularly employed in the Temple.
JULIAN MOSES.
^-"T'HE first man known to have taught a school in Utah, or in the region now bearing
1^ that name, was the late Julian Moses, of East Mill Creek, Salt Lake county. He
i? was a native of Norfolk, Connecticut, and was born April 11. 1810. His father and
mother, Jesse and Esther Brown Moses, were both descended from old Puritan
families. Julian's early boyhood was passed at home with his parents, who were
considered wealthy for those times. They owned a large farm and dairy, and were very
thrifty people. As a lad he was delicate, and even in manhoood never became robust.
When quite young he was sent to school; and this, according to his own statement, was
much against his will, since his mother often accompanied him with a stick, to ensure his
attendance. He acquired a good education in all the common branches, as well as con-
siderable knowledge of the sciences and classics.
At the age of nineteen he moved to Canaan, Connecticut, where he taught school for
several seasons, with excellent success. While he was there the town was visited by
Mormon Elders. He attended their meetings, and was converted and baptized into the
Latter-day Church. From that time until his death at the ripe age of eighty-two, he
shared the vicissitudes of his people.
Parting with his parents and the rest of the family, excepting his brother James, who
accompanied him, he went to Kirtland, Ohio, and there met the Prophet Joseph Smith.
Each of the young men had five hundred dollars in cash, the sum total of their worldly
wealth, and this they gave freely to the Prophet, who was in financial straits at the
time. Julian attended the school established at Kirtland and was a classmate of Wilford
Woodruff, between whom and himself there sprang up a strong and enduring friendship.
He filled several missions in the Eastern and Southern States, where he made friends and
converts. He was never mobbed, and was rarely interfered with in any way, as he was
careful to preach only the principles of the Gospel, and avoid giving offense by attacking
other people and their creeds. He accompanied the Church to Missouri and Illinois, and
was with it in the exodus to the Rocky Mountains.
In March, 1845. he had married Barbara M. Neff. daughter of Johu and Mary Barr
Neff, with whom he crossed the plains in Jedediah M. Grant's hundred and Joseph
B. Noble's fifty in the summer and fall of 1S47. He arrived in Salt Lake Valley on the
'2nd of October. He spent the following winter in the Old Fort, where he taught school,
thus becaming the first male school teacher in Utah; the first female teacher being Miss
Mary Jane Dilworth. who became Mrs. F. A. Hammond. From the Fori Mr. Moses moved
to the east side of the Tenth Ward Square, where he is said to have raised, in 184S, the
heaviest crop of corn in Utah, averaging fifty bushels to the acre.
In 1S49 or 1850 he was called on a mission to the Society Islands. There he labored
for over three years. He was among the first to visit Tahiti, where he was very success-
ful, so much so that the French government sent a man of war to take him and his com-
panion away. On his return home he stayed in California a long while, working for Cap-
tain Sutter, the same who owned the mill-race in which gold was first discovered in that
land. Mr. Moses brought home quite a large sum in gold as the fruits of his industry
while there. He had been absent five years.
He now took up his abode at Mill Creek, where his father-in-law had erected a grist-
mill and a few settlers had broken land. He secured a farm of about one hundred and
twenty acres, which he cultivated with skill and success. He had few equals in this line
of industry. Year after year during times of scarcity, caused by the ravages of crickets
and grasshoppers, he furnished seed grain to his less successsful neighbors for miles
around. He made it a rule to have at least a two years supply of grain on hand.
Julian Moses was a wide-awake, intelligent Latter-day Saint. He was one of the
326 HISTORY OF UTAH.
presidents of the sixty-second quorum of Seventy. At one time he presided over the
branch now known as East Mill Creek Ward, and for many years was justice of the peace
for that precinct. By his first wife he had no children; by his second wife, Ruth
Ridge, whom he married in 1856, he had four, three of whom, all daughters, are still liv-
ing. His eldest born, a son named Julian N., died at the age of eighteen. The date of
the father's death was April 12, 1892.
MARY JANE DILWORTH HAMMOND.
~Y fTAH'S pioneer lady school teacher came to Salt Lake valley with the first immigra-
te! tion, arriving here in the fall of 1847, soon after the advent of the Pioneers. She
^^ as well as Mr. Moses, whose biography has been given, taught school in the Old
Fort during the following winter. She was then unmarried, and had come from
the far East as a Mormon emigrant girl, little realizing that her place in the history of
the commonwealth founded on the shores of the Great Salt Lake, would be among the
pioneer educators of the State.
Mary Jane Dilworth was the daughter of Caleb and Eliza Dilworth, and was a native
of Chester county. Pennsylvania, where she was born July 29. 1S31. At the age of fifteen
she was baptized a Latter-day Saint, and moved to Nauvoo in April. 1846, two months
after the beginning of the Mormon exodus to the West. She was at Winter Quarters on
the Missouri in 1846-7, and crossed the plains to Salt Lake valley in one of the first emi-
grant trains organized to follow the pioneers. She came here in the family of William
Bringhurst. and on her arrival took up her residence in the Old Fort, where, as stated,
she taught school in the winter of 1847-8. She was then a little over sixteen years of age.
She was but seventeen when, on the 11th of November, 1S48, she married Francis
Asbury Hammond, who had joined the Church in California, and had recently arrived
from the West. Early in 1851, with an infant in arms, she started with her husband for
the Sandwich Islands. During his mission of six years in that land, while he preached the
gospel and performed other missionary service, she labored as faithfully, teaching school
and instructing in needle work; endearing herself to the natives in such a way as to win
the loving title of "Mother." She also attended to the needs of the missionaries, and
though her duties were manifold, she never complained, but performed them with cheerful
willingness. She was ever ready to enlighten the ignorant and comfort those who
mourned. Her house was a home for the Elders, and one of them (George Q. Cannon)
said at her funeral that she was indeed to them "a sister." While on the Islands she bore
to her husband three children.
They returned to Utah in the summer of 1857. and in the move of 1858, proceeded
from their home on Big Cottonwood to Payson, where they resided until the general
return. From March, 1859, until the fall of 1865, or a little later, the Hammonds resided
at Ogden, where the husband and father was in business and also prominent in Church
and civic affairs. There his devoted wife manifested as ever the spirit of a true pioneer,
encouraging the building up of the place and making many friends by her sweet and
saintlike disposition. The summer of 1865 she spent with her children in Salt Lake City,
during a brief absence of Mr. Hammond in the Sandwich Islands.
Upon his return she accompanied him to Huntsville, in Ogden valley, he having been
called to take charge of the Saints who had settled there. Mr. Hammond was made Bishop,
and Mrs. Hammond president of the Relief Society of Huntsville, and in that capacity she
served up to the day of her death. She was always at her post, though the mother of a
large and growing family, and was eminently successful in discharging all the duties in-
cumbent upon her. She died June 6, 1877. just before completing her forty-sixth year.
Her death was deeply mourned, for she was greatly beloved and esteemed. A feature of
the funeral service was an excellent discourse by Apostle George Q. Cannon, who with
other notable visitors was present at the obsequies. The grave of Mrs. Hammond was
the first one in the new Huntsville cemetery, which was dedicated by Apostle Cannon on
that day.
KARL GOTTFRIED MAESER.
/pvOCTOR KARL G. MAESER'S name stands for the successful establishment of the
vpl educational system of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: a system
^^ conceived by the Prophet Joseph Smith, and founded by President Brighain Young
and his successors, with this man, Dr. Maeser, as the strong right hand in its
accomplishment. He was a school teacher for over half a century, a resident of Utah for
more than four decades, and lived three years longer than the proverbial three score and
ten allotted to man. He held many positions of honor and trust, mostly in educational
spheres, and was reverenced in life and lamented in death by multitudes of men and women
who had been his pupils in past times.
Dr. Maeser was a typical German, proud of his nationality — if pride can be said to
belong to a soul truly humble — and was a worthy representative of the best and noblest
traditions of the fatherland. The son of Gottfried Maeser, an artist employed in the
famous Dresden china works, at Meissen, in the kingdom of Saxony, he was born there
January 10, 1S28. As a child he attended the public schools of his native town, and at
the age of twenty was graduated from the School Teachers' Seminary in Dresden, some
fifteen miles from Meissen. For a time he served as private tutor in certain prominent
Protestant families of Bohemia, and then taught in one of the large city schools of Dres-
den, where he had as a fellow teacher his life-long friend and associate, Edward Schoen-
feld, to-day a resident of Brighton. Salt Lake County. The two young men married sis-
ters, daughters of Emmanuel Mieth, and sisters to Mrs. Camilla Cobb, now of Salt Lake
City. The last-named lady, her father dying when she was very young, was adopted by
Mr. Maeser and brought by him to Utah. He left the city school to become the chief pre-
ceptor at the Budig Institute, also in Dresden, and it was while there that he married
Anna Mieth, whose father was the principal of one of the city schools.
At this time he and his friend Schoenfeld — both destined to become devout Latter-day
Saints and zealous missionaries — were sceptically inclined, with science and philosophy,
exclusive of what was commonly called religion, as their guiding stars. Mr. Maeser1 s
first intimation of Mormonism was when, as a child, he saw in some paper a pictorial
illustration of the early mobbings and drivings of the Latter-day Saints, probably in Mis-
souri, with certain comments upon their faith and origin. The impression then made
upon his mind remained, developing eventually into a spirit of inquiry regarding the his-
tory and doctrines of the peculiar people. In 1S53 he obtained through a stranger in an
indirect way the address of Elder John Van Cott, at Copenhagen, and through him the
address of Elder Daniel Tyler, then presiding over the Swiss and German mission. Elder
Tyler sent Messrs. Maeser and Schoenfeld some religious pamphlets, so poorly translated
as to provoke at first their merriment, but as they read on they became interested and
forgot the manner in the matter of the presentation. Subsequently he wrote to them,
proposing to send a missionary to Dresden, and asking advice as to how one should intro-
duce himself in that part, where there was no religious liberty. They replied that he
might come as an instructor, and upon this hint Elder Tyler wrote to President Franklin
D. Richards at Liverpool, who sent Elder William Budge to introduce the Gospel in the
kingdom of Saxony.
Elder Budge arrived at Dresden late in September, 185.5, and there became the guest
of Mr. Maeser, living at his house and privately instructing him, his family and a few
friends in the principles of the Gospel, as promulgated by the Latter-day Saints. "He
taught us," says Mr. Schoenfeld, "by using a Bible that had the German text in one col-
ume and the English in the other; in this way he pointed out the striking passages, for
neither could speak the other's language." A great change now came over the young
pedagogue: from a sceptic he was transformed into a religious devotee, and on the night
of the 14th of October was baptized a Latter-day Saint by President Franklin D. Rich-
ards, assisted by Elder Budge, who stood on one side of the convert during the adminis-
tration of the ordinance in the river Elbe, and not only helped to immerse him, but re-
328 HISTOEY OF UTAH.
peated in German for his benefit the words of the baptismal rite (which he had learned
in the Teutonic tongue) as they were uttered in English by the Apostle. Edward Schoen-
feld was baptized in like manner at the same time, as was also another school teacher
named Martin. While returning home Dr. Maeser and President Richards conversed
freely, each using his own language, but making himself clearly understood to the other
through the spiritual gift of interpretation. Mrs. Maeser, her mother and other relatives
embraced the faith soon afterwards, and in the Maeser home on the following Sabbath
President Richards organized the first branch of the Church in Saxony.
Voluntarily resigning his position at Dresden — for he knew the storm it would evoke
when he became known as a "Mormon'' — Mr. Maeser left his native land and went
to London, whither Mr. Schoenfeld had preceded him. He labored there as a missionary,
mainly among the German inhabitants of the great city, where he built up a branch of
the Church. In 1857 he crossed the Atlantic, and having landed at Philadelphia, served
there as a missionary under President Angus M. Cannon. During the panic of that year
he trudged on foot to Richmond, Virginia, where he sought and found employment as a
music teacher, and had among his pupils members of the family of ex-President John
Tyler. Six months later he responded to a call to preside over the Philadelphia confer-
ence, and remained there, holding that position, until June, 1800, when he started for
Utah, arriving in October at Salt Lake City.
From the first of his residence here he practiced his profession of pedagogue, open-
ing a school in the Fifteenth Ward, and subsequently, under the patronage of Bishop John
Sharp, C. R. Savage and other influential members of the Twentieth Ward, accepting the
principalship of a school in their locality, where his efficient labors were as highly appre-
ciated as thev had been urgently solicited. In 1864 President Brigham Young made him
the private tutor of his family, and during this period he was also the organist of the
Tabernacle choir.
In 1867 he was called to preside over the Swiss and German Mission, which appoint-
ment gave him an opportunity to manifest his rare abilities as an organizer and a disci-
plinarian. A marked feature of his administration was the creation of "a wonderful sys-
tem of teacher's report books" by which it was absolutely impossible for a visiting teach-
er to shirk his duty, without its being known. He also established "Der Stern," the or-
gan of the Mission, which paper has now flourished for thirty-four years and has wrought
much for the "Mormon" cause in that land. Returning home about the year 1870 he re-
sumed his occupation of school teaching, and continued to reside at Salt Lake City until
1876.
The time had now come for Dr. Maeser to begin the magnificent work for which all
his previous experiences seemed to have been a mere preparation, namely, the establish-
ment of the Church school system of the Latter-day Saints, commencing with the found-
ing of the Brigham Young Academy at Provo. To this work he was appointed by Presi-
dent Young himself, in the last year but one of that great man's life. It was a stupendous
undertaking, before which most men, even most educators, would have quailed. The
Academy was but a name, there was no endowment at that time, and the only instruction
given to the indomitable tutor by his chief, when he bade him go and organize the institu-
tion was substantially this: "Brother Maeser. don't attempt to teach even the multipli-
cation table without the Spirit of the Lord." With this bare hint, so brief in form, but so
replete in suggestiveness, the veteran departed, and how well and thoroughly he did the
work assigned him, not only the present tells, but the future will testify. Dr. Maeser's
style of teaching was ever vigorous, and at times vehement; he not only invited attention,
he compelled it, and could be ironically stern or pathetically mild, as the occasion de-
manded. His heart was pure and his life was blameless; he inculcated truthfulness and
chastity as cardinal points of character, and he was so magnetic that his students were
drawn to him as irresistibly as the needle to the pole.
Up to the fall of 1888 he continued to be the principal of the Brigham Young Aca-
demy, which he nourished from next to nothing into a powerful institution, whose influ-
ence for good has been wide-felt. President Young in the initiative was its founder, and
he with President Smoot and others were its financial pillars, but Dr. Maeser was its act-
ive creator and guiding genius to success. Educationally he was both architect and build-
er of the Brigham Young Academy. His work was highly valued by the Church author-
ities, for he not only turned out educated men and women, but turned them out Latter-day
Saints, prepared alike for the ordinary duties of life, the work of the schoolroom, and the
labors of the mission field. He was now given the position of General Superintendent of
Church Schools — the splendid system sprung from the parent stem that lie had planted,
and it might almost be added, watered with his tears; so great had been its straggles and
HISTORY OF UTAH. 329
trials during the early years of its existence. The 9th of July was the date of his appointment
as superintendent and it was understood that he would remain in charge of the B. Y. Academy,
but his increasing- duties soon rendered necessary a change whereby he might be relieved
from the active conduct of one institution and thus enabled to travel more and give his time
and services to many. He was therefore succeeded by Dr. James E. Talmage, one of his
former pupils, and at the time an associate teacher in the Academy, where also have
taught such men as Dr. Joseph M. Tanner. Professor Benjamin Cluff, Jr., Professor
George H. Brimhall and others of Dr. Maeser's educational proteges. As (reneral Super-
intendent he organized many Stake Academies and regularly visited the Church schools far
and wide, extending his trips of inspection and instruction from Canada on the north to
Mexico on the south. In 1894 were added to his honors, labors and cares those involved
iu his appointment as Second Assistant General Superintendent of the Latter-day Saints
Sunday Schools, whose growth and progress he had done much to promote.
In 189o the venerable doctor sat as a member of the Constitutional Convention, help-
ing to frame the organic law for the proposed State of Utah, which instrument received
the benefits of his constructive wisdom and wide experience as an educator, materially
affecting for good the public school system. The same year the Democratic State Convention
nominated him for Superintendent of Public Instruction, but it being a Republican year
his opponent, Dr. John R. Park, was elected. The veteran's fiftieth anniversary as a
teacher and an educational advocate was fittingly observed in 1S9S by his old-time stu-
dents at the Brigham Young Academy. A host of friends attended the jubilee, which was
a splendid success in every particular. Dr. Maeser continued to serve as General Seper-
intendent of Church Schools, and also upon the General Board of the Deseret Sunday
School Union up to the day of his death, which took place at his home in Salt Lake City,
February 15, 1901. He was given a public funeral from the Tabernacle. The wife of
his youth had preceded him into the spirit world. His second wife, whose maiden name
was Emilie Tompke. still survives. He was the father of Professor Reinhard Maeser,
now of the Beaver Stake Academy; also of Professor Emil Maeser. the recently appointed
principal of the preparatory department of the Latter-day Saints' University. He had in
all nine children, five of whom are living.
JOHN ROCKY PARK.
TX explanation of the form in which the following biography appears, it may be
T necessary to remind the reader that on Wednesday, February 0, 1901, the Senate
*?* and House of Representatives of the Utah Legislature convened in joint session
for the purpose of hearing an address from the present writer (then a member
of the Senate), upon the life and character of Dr. John R. Park, for several years and
up to the time of his death State Superintendent of Public Instruction, in whose honor a
resolution of respect had been introduced by Senator Edward M. Allison. Accompany-
ing the resolution was a request for the delivery of the address in question, the full text
of which is appended:
Mr. President, Members of the Legislature, Ladies and Gentlemen: — 1 approach the
fulfillment of the duty assigned me — that of delivering an address upon the life and char-
acter of Dr. John R. Park — with mingled feelings of diffidence and pleasure: pleasure at
being permitted to pay tribute to the memory of an old and valued friend, and incident-
ally to the great cause which he represented; diffidence due to the reflection that what-
ever I say of him or of that cause, must necessarily fail of doing full justice to either.
It would be unnecessary before an audience such as this to pronounce an extended
eulogy upon education. It is impossible to exaggerate its merits; it would be superfluous
to sound its praises. Permit me, however, to premise my subject proper with a few
thoughts upon the general theme of education — at once the loftiest and sublimest, "he
profoundest and most far-reaching theme that the finite mind can grasp.
In its broadest and highest sense, education is not limited to the discipline of the
schoolroom. It is synonymous with progress, eternal progress, in all the departments of
human activity. Nay, more, is not every form of life, animate or inanimate, in process
of education, of preparation for something higher, nobler and better to come? The in-
21
330 HISTORY OF UTAH.
sect on the wing-, the flower that blooms in beauty on the mountain side, the cultured tree
of the garden, man in all his varied relations and pursuits, earth in her diurnal revolu-
tions, and all the suns and stars of all the systems seen and unseen — all these are at
school, are pupils of the infinite creative Intelligence which called them into being that it
might train them to perfection.
The schoolroom is but the vestibule of a great temple of learning, which, for want of
a better name, we may term the University of Human Experience. And if we reason
spiritually, this mortal life is no more than the preface to a book, the prelude to a poem,
the prologue to a play. I prefer interlude to prelude, however, since, if man's spirit be
eternal, as we are taught, then is this life an intermediate, rather than a primary depart-
ment of eternity's school; the preparatory grades being a thing of the past, and the uni-
versity still a thing of the future.
Education, human education, is the leading out and lifting up of the soul into the
full, ripe, complete enjoyment of all its powers potential. To educate men and women
is to put them in full command of themselves, to completely possess them of their native
faculties, which are only half possessed until they are educated. Education imparts
nothing but discipline and development. It does not increase the number of man's origi-
nal talents; it adds nothing to the sum of his inherent capabilities; but it improves those
talents, it develops and strengthens those capabilities. Education supplements creation,
and moves next to it in the procession of infinite progress. Education completes what
nature has begun, or it begins where creation leaves off; and yet, if creation is but or-
ganization out of self-existent materials, then are creation and education interchangeable
terms.
This being true of education, what then of the educator? What may be said of him?
What may not be said of him, if he be faithful to his trust, loyal to his mission, without
doubt one of the grandest and noblest given to man? The educator stands next to the
creator, and in the highest instance of illustration possible, they are identical — the two
are combined in one. Did not the greatest of all teachers, He who spake as never man
spake, say to His disciples, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." It has been
said that who ever causes two blades of grass to grow where but one grew before, is a
benefactor. He is more — he is an educator, a creator, a developer of latent powers.
The instructor does for his pupils what the husbandman does for his plants and trees —
cultivates, nourishes, cares for and protects them, places them in those conditions where
they can best expand according to the laws of their being. He does not create the fac-
ulties of the pupil any more than the gardener creates the constituents of the tree; but
he educes or leads out those faculties, trains and develops them, converting the potential
into the actual. This is the highest glory of the educator; this is the acme of his achieve-
ment.
Too often the service performed by him is overlooked; not by the pupil, who must
indeed be an ingrate or an imbecile to forget or fail to appreciate what has been done
for him by his tutor, but by that areh-ingrate, theofttimes imbecile world, which, absorbed
in the shallow contemplation of results, cares little or nothing for the causes that pro-
duced them. An Alexander may make the earth tremble with the maitial tread of his
all-conquering phalanxes — the mere echo of which comes rumbling down the ages like
the sound of distant thunder; but an Aristotle must have other claims upon immortality
than to have been the tutor of Alexander, in order that his name may shine as brightly
upon fame's scroll as that of his illustrious pupil. Should not the tree be honored as well
as the fruit? Should not the roots be equal with the branches?
But let us turn to another picture. Let us speak of a modern educator, not an Aris-
totle, either in science or philosophy, but a plain, modest, tireless and devoted worker,
who during a sojourn of over thirty-six years in the midst of this community, made an
impress for good upon the minds of thousands, some of whom may possibly live to do
more for mankind than Alexander ever dreamed of doing, and who built for himself in
the hearts and memories of a host of pupils a monument more enduring than marble or
bronze. I speak of Dr. John R. Park, whom I knew almost intimately, first as my tutor
at the University, next as an associate in the government of that institution, and at all
times as a patient, faithful, persistent toiler in its interests.
The educational status of our mountain-girt, ^desert-hemmed and all but isolated Ter-
ritory in tlie decade of the "sixties," is remembered by more than one educator of that
period and by many laymen as well. Utah had no public school system at that time, in
the sense that we now use the phrase; though there were schools in almost every settle-
ment within her borders. In Salt Lake City they were plentiful, and such men as Dr.
Maeser, Bartlett Tripp, Alexander Ott, Dr. Doremus, Lucius W. Peck, Prof. Reager and
HISTORY OF UTAH. 331
other able pedagogues conducted thriving schools in various parts of the town. But
these schools bore no relation to one another, were bound together by no particular tie.
were supported mainly by tuition fees, and had as their only connecting link a statistical
report furnished annually by each to the Territorial Superintendent of Schools. The
University of Deseret (now University of Utah), which had been founded early in 1850,
less than three years after the advent of the Pioneers into Salt Lake Valley, if not dead,
was sleeping, and the ward or village schools — many of them an almost exact duplication
of the '"noisy mansion" humorously described by Goldsmith in the ''Deserted Village,"
reigned supreme.
Such was the situation when Dr. Park came among us; a school teacher, a mining
prospector, a migratory spirit on his way to the Pacific Coast; a lone man, wifeless, child-
less, and one who chose to remain so. It was well, considering the work that lay before
him. It was said of the great Washington that nature gave him no children in order
that he might be the Father of his Country. As truly might it be said of Dr. Park, that
he had neither wife nor child, in order, it would seem, that he might devote himself the
more fully, and with all the zeal of a Catholic priest laboring in the interests of Mother
Church, to the cause of education in Utah. He was married to that cause. Education
was his wife, and his children vere the University of Utah and the public school system
of the present time. He could almost say with Richelieu:
"I have recreated France; and from the ashes
Of the old feudal and decrepit carcase,
Civilization on her luminous wings
Soars, Phoenix-like, to Jove."
For "France" read Utah — educational Utah — and for "civilization" substitute learn-
ing, and the application is complete, with barely a suggestion of hyperbole.
Dr. Park came of a Scotch and Franco-German lineage, some of his mother's ances-
tors being Huguenots. His American forefathers sided with the patriots in the War for
Independence. He himself was a native of Tiffin, Seneca county, Ohio, where he was
born May 7, 1833. His father was a storekeeper and farmer, and John, as a youth,
taught school in winter and worked upon the home farm in summer. He was educated
in the district schools of his native county, in Heidelberg college at Tiffin, in the Ohio
Wesleyan university, and the University of the City of New York. From the medical
department of the last named institution he was graduated in the spring of 1S57 with the
professional title of M. D. He practiced medicine in Ohio, but finding the life of a phy-
sician uncongenial he abandoned it for pedagogy, a vocation that he had followed pre-
viously.
Having a strong desire to visit California, imbibed in a great measure through the
representations of his three elder brothers, who had spent several years in the Golden
State, early in the spring of 1861 he set out for the West, with Denver or Pike's Peak as
the first objective point. After exploring the mines in that region, he resolved in Sep-
tember of the same year to continue his journey westward. It being so late in the sea-
son, he had some difficulty in finding any one who would undertake the journey with
him, especially since it was rumored that the Indians were on the warpath and that the
Mormons had turned secessionists. Finally he induced a Canadian Frenchman to accom-
pany him; an outfiit was procured and the journey begun. They reached Salt Lake City
on the last day of September and camped on Emigration square, near the site of the
present City and County building.
The elements gave them a cool reception, for on the following morning, October 1st,
1861. they arose from under a covering of snow, which had fallen during the night; but
by the warm-hearted people of the valley (whom they found to be loyal to the Union),
they were made welcome, so much so that Dr. Park resolved to remain in Utah during
the winter. He secured employment as a district school teacher at Draper, in the south-
ern part of Salt Lake county, and while teaching school he investigated and embraced
the Mormon faith. The next spring he carried out his design of visiting the Pacific
Coast, organizing a company for that purpose, and traversing with ox-team parts of the
present States of Idaho. Montana. Washington and Oregon. During a portion of his
absence from Utah he taught school and conducted a mercantile business. He returned
here in 1864, and again settled at Draper, taking charge of the public school at that place.
His fame as a preceptor now reached the ears of the Regents of the University, who,
in the latter part of the "sixties," made a strong effort to revive that institution, and
332 HISTORY OF UTAH.
succeeded in establishing it as a commercial school under the direction of Mr. David O.
Calder. The home of the University at that time was the old Council House, since swept
away by fire, but which then stood upon the corner now occupied by the rapidly rising
walls of the new Deseret News building. It was in the spring of 1869 that Dr. Park was
elected by the Board of Regents, president of the University. Coming to Salt Lake City,
he organized the institution thoroughly on a basis of classical, scientific and normal in-
struction, adapted to the practical needs of the Territory. His success was marked and
instantaneous, and it is not too much to say that to the impetus given the cause of educa-
tion by Irs labors in and out of the University is mostly due the present flourishing status
of that institution and the existence of the thriving public school system of today.
In 1871-2 he visited the Eastern States and Europe, where he noted the progress
made in higher and popular education. Returning to Utah in the fall of the latter year,,
he resumed his position as president of the University and pushed with vigor instruction
in the practical principles of learning. From 1879 to 1881. in the intervals of school work,
and at the request of the Territorial Superintendent of District Schools, he traveled in
the intei-ests of the same, visiting nearly every settlement in Utah. In 1892, on account
of failing health, the veteran educator resigned his position as president of the Univer-
sity, but three years later — Utah then being about to enter the Union — he was elected on
the Republican ticket our first State Superintendent of Public Instruction, which office
he held up to the day of his death.
After leaving the University, Dr. Park made large gifts of books to its library and
collections to its museum, and in various other ways showed his deep and abiding interest
in its welfare. I have said that the University was his child; if may well be called so,
for he adopted it in its childhood and reared it to maturity. At his death he made it his
sole heir, bequeathing to it all his property. He was provident and well-to-do, and it
was his fatherly and philanthropic wish that the State's leading educational institution,
whose long and arduous struggles he had witnessed, should profit by his death, as it had
profited by his life. His estate was valued at $45,000.
During the three and twenty years that he presided over the University, Dr. Park
enjoyed a popularity that falls to the lot of few men in public station. He was loved by
his students with a fervor and devotion suggestive of the love felt by Napoleon's "Old
Guard" for the "Little Corporal." He was also respected and esteemed by the faculty
over which he presided, and by the board of regents who presided over him.
His methods of instruction were plain, simple and effective. He invested the dryest
subject with a charm fascinating even to the dullest mind. As Gladstone, by his oratory,
"could make pippins and cheese interesting and tea serious," so Dr. Park, by his native
tact and the lucidity of his style, could make mathematics a delight, grammar and rhet-
oric a dream. He was magnetic to a degree, governing less by rule than by his personal
influence, which was remarkable. At the same time he imposed strict and wholesome
regulations and required that they be respected and obeyed. By a look he could com-
mand silence, and had but to speak in his low, distinct and earnest voice, and he made
an impression as lasting as life itself.
Dignified, yet never haughty, and always condescending, he preserved an unbroken
equanimity. Though stern betimes, he would not scold. His self-command was admir-
able. He frequently manifested mirth, but never gave way to or encouraged excessive
levity. It was his custom, if he heard a pupil speaking loudly enough to disturb the class
he was instructing, to stop the recitation and fix his eye upon the offender, who, as his
voice rose higher and higher amid the general silence that grew deeper and deeper, would
soon find himself the cynosure of all eyes, and the most embarrassed and best puuished
pupil in the school. After frowning for some moments at the humiliated and now thor-
oughly penitent transgressor, the doctor would quietly resume the recitation as if nothing
had happened. In delivering his instructions he would never shoot over the heads of the
students, but with Dickens-like simplicity and purity of diction, would come down to
their level and talk with them in a way that they eoidd understand. This, with his per-
sonal magnetism, and his habit of impressing upon all that "attention is the mother of
memory." was the main secret of his success. While not a religious man, he i\;is moral-
ity personified. An unchaste word, an indecent expression, uttered by one of the stu-
dents in his presence, was sure to meet with his reproof, administered in such a way,
however, that the guilty one would feel grateful and thank him for the correction.
Dr. Park, who for several years had been a sufferer from heart trouble, died at his
home in Salt Lake City on the 29th day of September, 1900. He was given a public
funeral, and was buried with distinguished honors, all the principal State officials, with
his fellow educators and many ol his old-time students attending, and some of them par-
HISTORY OF UTAH. 333
ticipating in the obsequies. The services were at the Assembly Hall; the interment was
in the City Cemetery.
What more remains to be -aid? We honor ourselves, fellow-citizens, fellow-legisla-
tors. in honoring- the memory and cherishing- the example of such a man as Dr. John R.
Park, the father of our State University, the regenerator of education in Utah.
"I weep for Adonais — he is dead!
Oh weep for Adonais, though our tears
Thaw not the frost which binds 50 dear a head!
And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years
To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers
And teach them thine own sorrow! Say: "With me
Died Adonais! 'Till the future dares
Forget the past, his fate and fame shall be
An echo and a light unto eternity."
CHARLES WILLIAM PENROSE.
^> YX< >NYMOUS with rapid thought, ready utterance and untiring activity is the
^^ name of the veteran editor of the "Deseret News." A scion of well known Cornish
(jg? families, who were stockholders of tin mines, he was born in Camberwell,
London, England, on the fourth day of February. 1S3'2. Studious and inquiring,
apt and quick to learn, he speedily mastered at school the common rudiments of education.
He read the scriptures when only tout years old. and was well versed in the doctrines,
sayings and predictions of the Savior, the prophets and the apostles. This paved the
way for his acquaintance with and subsequent acceptance of Mormonisin. which attracted
his attention while a mere lad, and in due time, after he had thoroughly investigated and
compared its teachings with the Bible, numbered him among its converts. He joined the
Church in London May 14, 1850: the only member of his father's family who has ever
become a Latter-day Saint.
In January. 1851, when not yet nineteen years of age, he was ordained an Elder,
. and sent by the authorities of the British mission from the London conference to Maldon,
in Essex, to preach the Gospel, break new ground, and build up branches of the Church.
This was much in opposition to the wishes of his friends and to his own pecuniary
interests. He had been offered, on condition of remaining at home, a life situation in a
government office. He started upon his mission early in March, on foot, without a penny
in his pocket, and without even a change of clothing. With bleeding feet but undaunted
heart he reached Maldon. having slept out of doors, for the first time in his life, during
the chilly night previous. He was an utter stranger in the town, and the first Mormon
missionary to visit that part. He met much opposition, but steadily worked his way, and
succeeded in raising up branches in Maldon, Danbury, Chelmsford, Colchester and
other places, baptizing a great number of persons of both sexes, many of whom are now
in Utah. He possessed the gift of healing to a remarkable degree. For seven years
he labored in poor agricultural districts, suffering many hardships and trudging be-
tween three and four thousand miles every year. Everywhere his labors were emi-
nently successful. It was during this period that he married Miss Lncetta Stratford,
of Maldon. sister to the late Bishop Edwin Stratford, of Ogdcn. who with the rest of
the family was brought into the Church by Elder Penrose. The date of his marriage
was January 21. 1855.
Next he was called to preside over the London conference, and subsequently- was
placed in charge of the Cheltenham Pastorate, consisting of the Cheltenham. Monmouth-
shire. Worcestershire and Herefordshire conferences. Later he presided over the Bir-
mingham pastorate, comprising the Birmingham. Warwickshire, Staffordshire and Shrop-
shire conferences. His brilliant pen was almost as busy at this time as his ready tongue.
He wrote many theological articles for the Millennial Star, and out of the silken and
golden threads of his poetical thoughts and emotions wove the fabric of his beautiful
songs of Zion. which have gladdened so many hearts and inspired so many souls on
both hemispheres.
334 HISTORY OF UTAH.
In the year 1861 he emigrated to Utah, crossing the sea in the sailing ship "Under-
writer," assisting in the charge of 620 passengers, living with them in the steerage
during the thirty days passage from Liverpool to New York, and helping to care for
them on the journey through the States to the Missouri river. He crossed the plains
with his family and his wife's relatives, driving his own ox team, and was eleven weeks
on the way. Arriving in Utah, he settled at Farmington, where for the first time he
went to work in the fields, climbing the mountains for fire wood, and laboring at the
hardest kind of physical work, for which he was naturally unfitted. During the winters
he taught school. He made headway and acquired a small home. Id the fall of 1864,
at the solicitation of Ezra T. Benson, one of the Twelve Apostles, he moved to Cache
valley, where he again labored for a home and taught school. He had barely secured
some land and a log cabin when he was called to take a mission to England. He now
held the office of a Seventy, having been ordained one of the presidents of the Fifty-
sixth quorum during his residence at Farmington.
In company with some forty other missionaries, in charge of Elder William B.
Preston, he set out in May, 1805, upon his second journey across the plains; this time
with mule teams, but walking most of the way. The Indians were very hostile, and people
were killed before and behind the little band of missionaries, but they got through in
safety, and sailed from New York for Liverpool. In his native land Elder Penrose
labored with success among the Lancashire colliers, and on the first of February, 1866,
was sent to preside over the Essex conference, which he had built up several years
before. In the following June he was made president of the London conference. He
traveled all over the British isles, and visited Paris during the great exposition. The last
two years of his mission he labored in the editorial department of the "Millennial Star," and
otherwise assisted the president of the mission, Franklin D. Richards, in and out of the
Liverpool office. At the close of the emigration season of 1808, he was honorably released
and sailed for home, landing at New York, proceeding by rail to Point of Rocks, and there
taking stage to Salt Lake City.
At Logan, where he continued to reside, he now engaged in mercantile pursuits with
William H. Shearman. The firm of Shearman and Penrose did a fine business until the
great co-operative movement was started, when the whole stock was turned over to the
new institution. On May 1st, 1809, Mr. Penrose became secretary and treasurer of the
Logan co-operative concern, and was also bookkeeper for the store. He was a home mis-
sionary, a member of the High Council, and took active part in all Church movements in
Cache Stake.
January, 1870, witnessed his removal to Ogden, and simultaneously the beginning
of his extended career as a journalist. The "Ogden Junction" had just been started, and by
invitation of President Franklin D. Richards, one of its founders, who was the editor, he
took sub-editorial charge of the paper, which was then a semi-weekly. After a year of
such service he was made editor-in-chief, and subsequently business manager as well. In
September, 1872, he started the daily ''Junction," and much of the time was its editor,
local reporter, business manager and traveling agent, all in one. The "Junction" became
noted for the "snap and ginger" of his pungent writings, but the strain was heavy upon
him, and during this period he was terribly overworked. Having acquired American
citizenship, he was elected to the Ogden city council, and from February 13, 1871, served
through four consecutive terms, or eight continuous years. Whenever there were two
parties in the field his name was found on both tickets. In the Church he advanced to
the grade of High Priest, and at the organization of the Weber Stake of Zion was made a
member of the High Council; likewise acting as a home missionary.
He was also a live worker in all political movements. He sat as a member from
Weber county in the Constitutional Convention of 1872, helping to frame, not only the
Constitution of the State of Deseret, but the memorial to Congress, asking for admission
into the Union. The same year he represented his count}- in the Democratic Territorial
Convention, composed of both Mormons and Gentiles, and nominated for his wing of the
party George Q. Cannon as Delegate to Congress. He was secretary of the People's
County Central committee. In August, 1874, he was elected to the legislature, and while
serving in that capacity wrote all the editorials and legislative reports for the "Ogden Junc-
tion." The following year, finding himself over-worked, he resigned the business manage-
ment of the paper, but continued as its editor, and did all the literary work, local and
telegraph included, for both the daily and semi-weekly issues; at the same time continuing
to be active in church and municipal affairs.
In 1877, by request of President Brigham Young, he removed to Salt Lake City and
became connected with the "Deseret News," then under the general editorial management
HISTORY OF UTAH. 335
of George Q. Cannon and Brigharn Young, Jr. The "Junction" company keenly felt his
loss, and offered to give him the paper entirely if he would remain, but a wider Held was
opening for his activities, and his services were needed in the larger sphere. Upon the
organization of the Deseret News Company, at the first meeting of its board of directors,
September 3, 1880, he was made editor-iu-ehief of the pioneer journal. In 1S79 he was
chosen to represent Salt Lake county in the Legislature, bjing specially elected to fill a
vacancy caused by the death of member-elect Albert P. Kockwood. Among many bills
introduced by him during the session that followed was one to take away all political dis-
abilities from women. He battled stoutly for it, and it passed both houses, but was
vetoed by the Governor. Mr. Penrose was re-elected and served in the legislature of
1SS2. He was also a member of the Constitutional Convention of that year, rendering
similar service as before. All this time he was performing editorial work for the "Deseret
News."
In August, 1884, he became one of the presidency of the Salt Lake Stake of Zion. He
was chosen at a Stake conference held on the 2nd bf that month to fill a vacancy caused by
the death of Elder David 0. Calder. first counselor to President Angus M. Cannon. Joseph
E. Taylor now became first counselor, and Charles W. Penrose succeeded him as second
counselor in the stake presidency. He was already acting as a home missionary, traveling
and preaching in many places, and his voice was often heard in the Tabernacle and in
other large congregations of the Saints. In the fall of 1883, in order to recuperate his
overtaxed energies, he took a trip over the Denver and Rio Grande railroad in company
with C. R. Savage, the photographer; proceeding first to Denver, thence southward
through Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and California, and returning to Utah over
the Central Pacific route. In the fall of 1884 he delivered in the Twelfth Ward assembly
hall Sunday evening lectures on "Blood Atonement." the "Mountain Meadows Massacre"
and other themes, refuting the common stories in relation to the same, and answering
objections to and charges against the faith and practice of the Latter-day Saints. His
continued defense of the Mormon cause, politically and religiously, by press discussions,
public speeches and private interviews with strangers, caused him to be singled out, when
the Edmunds law began to be enforced, as a conspicuous target by the anti Mormon
crusaders.
In January, 1885, he was sent on a brief mission to the States. During his absence
his legal wife and family, down to a boy eight years old, were compelled to go before the
grand jury. His wife refused to testify, but the evidence desired was extorted from the
children. While in the States the husband and father was appointed on a mission to
England, He forthwith bade farewell by letter to those whom he held most dear, and
again crossed over to his native land. By President Daniel H. Wells, then at the head of
the European mission, he was appointed to preside over the London conference and to
assist editorially upon the "Millennial Star." He revived the work in London, wrote ar-
ticles for the metropolitan press, helped to ship emigrants from Liverpool and attended
conferences with President Wells all over England. Scotland and Wales. He also visited
Ireland, preaching in the open air in the city of Belfast to three thousand people. A great
uproar ensued, followed by a spirited discussion in the local papers. He went to Dublin,
to the Isle of Man, and from there to the lake district of England. He accompanied Pres-
ident Wells on his continental tour through Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Germany and
Switzerland, and preached in Copenhagen, Christiania, Stockholm, Berlin and Bern, re-
turning to England by way of Paris. He made a stir in sevei-al English towns and brought
many people into the Church. While abroad he corresponded with the "Deseret News" over
the nom de plume of "Exile."
He returned to Utah and resumed the editorship of the "News" in the summer of 1887,
having been released from his mission by cable message from President John Taylor.
He spent two winters in Washington and other eastern cities, and in company with Mr.
F. S. Richards visited President Cleveland and all the members of the House and Senate
iu the interests of the Mormon question and Utah statehood. He also wrote articles for
the eastern press. In Utah he took an active part as a leader of the People's party in its
closing contests with the Liberals. He wrote the history of the Ogden and Salt Lake City
campaigns of 1889 and 1890. As a witness in the proceedings before Judge Anderson,
in November of the'former year, when Mormon aliens were denied citizenship on account
of their religious faith, he was imprisoned for about a week in the Utah penitentiary for
refusing to answer the irrelevant question "How many wives have you?" After the dis-
bandment of the People's party in 1S91 he became a member of the Democratic party, and
in 1892 attended the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
In the fall of the same year he left the "Deseret News," which had passed
336 HISTORY OF UTAH.
temporarily under auother management, and became assistant editor of the "Salt Lake
Herald." Subsequently he was editor-in-chief of that paper, but left it in 1895, and
became an assistant to the Church Historian, Franklin. D. Richards. During this period
he wrote many magazine articles and published a series of tracts entitled, "Rays of
Living Light," also a pamphlet on "Priesthood and Presidency," the former on the
first principles of the Gospel, the latter in refutation of "Josephite" claims. These
with other pamphlets written by him, including "Mormon Doctrine Plain and Simple,"
and his lectures previously named, have been numerously published and widely
circulated. He was professor of theology in the Brigham Young Academy at Provo,
and lectured there for two and a half years, discharging meanwhile his various other
duties.
At the opening of 1899 he was called by President Lorenzo Snow to take his former
position as editor-in-chief of the "Deseret News; " associated with Horace G. Whitney
as business manager. Under their joint labors the success of the paper has been little
short of phenomenal, justifying the News Company in its latest and most important
venture — the erection upon the old Council House corner, diagonally across Main
Street from its former place of business, of a splendid modernly equipped six-story
building, as a new and fitting home for the pioneer journal of the Rocky Mountains.
In the intervals of his almost incessant labors, literary and ecclesiastical, Mr.
Penrose is continually interviewed by newspaper men, clergymen, tourists and others,
seeking information or advice on Utah and Mormon affairs. During the summer of
1902 he was absent from home for several weeks, touring California, Oregon and other
parts of the Pacific Coast with his fellow members of the Utah Press Association. His
first trip to the West had been taken under quite different circumstances. It was in
the fall of 1876, while he was still editor of the "Ogden Junction." He then went to
California to represent Thomas and Esther Duce, mother and son, in the adjustment of
a monetary issue. The Duces had been shot by a Wells Fargo and Company's guard, who
dropped his gun, a double-barreled weapon loaded with slugs, the whole contents being
fired into them. The son was literally riddled, and the mother shot in the throat. The
Duces were residents of Hyde Park, Cache county, and were at the Ogden depot on
their way to attend conference at Salt Lake City, when the accident occurred. Mr.
Penrose assisted to dress the wounds. Both patients recovered. The Wells Fargo
people disclaimed responsibility in the premises, but Mr. Penrose met with the managers
in San Francisco and prevailed upon them to the extent of obtaining five thousand dollars
as compensation for the injured ones.
In his seventy-second year, Mr. Penrose is still active and may be found daily at his
desk in the "News" office, performing the regular work of an editor. The Sabbath finds him
at. the Tabernacle or elsewhere, preaching or otherwise officiating in his sacred office.
As one of the Salt Lake Stake Presidency he is frequently in session with the High
Council in the adjustment of difficulties and the adjudication of cases that arise from
time to time within this jurisdiction. His life, it is needless to say, has been a very
busy and withal a very useful one, and it bids fair to abide so to the end. "Better to wear
out than rust out," says the adage, and no career exemplifies the proverb more strikingly
than that of Charles W. Penrose. He is the husband of three wives, two of them still
living, and the father of twenty-eight children, many of whom are married and
have families.
JOHN NICHOLSON.
TNTREPID, honest, earnest, true — these four words sum up the character of John
Nicholson, as the author has known him by an acquaintance extending through a
y quarter of a century. If this man ever feared man, either morally or physically,
never to the writer's knowledge has he shown it. The phrase "terribly in earnest"
describes one feature of his character. True to his friends and to his principles, he is
a hater of falsehood, hypocrisy and deception.
A native of St. Boswells, a small village of Roxburgshire. Scotland, where he was
born July 13, 1839, he was the fourth in a family of seven children, whose parents
HISTORY OF UTAH. 337
were John Nicholson and Elizabeth Hewison. His earliest recollection runs back to a
smalt hamlet called Carfrae Mill, from which when he was six years old the family
moved to Kelso on the Tweed. When he was ten they removed to Edinburgh, the
capital. His childhood was passed in comparative poverty, and his opportunities for
education were few. One of his vacations was spent in a tobacco factory, where he
turned a wheel by striking the rim with the palm of his hand, thus supplying the
necessary force to enable the journeyman to twist the leaf into the manufactured
product. His pay — thirty-six cents a week — he regularly turned over to his mother,
whom he dearly loved. He left school shortly after reaching the age of thirteen, and
engaged as an apprentice to a painter and paperhanger.
From a boy he manifested a brave and independent spirit, enshrined though it was
in a body far from robust. Healthy, active, and even athletic — for he was an expert
wrestler — he was still delicately organized; but in his youth and later manhood there
was enough iron in his composition — and hot iron at that — to make it extremely
hazardous to trespass upon his rights or impose upon anyone to whom he was a friend.
A natural foe to oppression, he took little account of odds when he stood up in his own
defense, or flew to the rescue of the weak and unfortunate. It is related how he
interfered on one occasion with a big brutal fellow, much larger than himself, who was
cruelly beating a comparatively small man. By clinching with him and hurling him
three times to the earth in succession, John finally overcame him, meanwhile permitting
his victim to make good his escape. But while combative to a degree, young Nicholson
was in no sense an habitual "scrapper;" he loved peace, and was tender-hearted as a
child. His love for little children, by the way, is proverbial. His mind had a religious
bent; he was of a poetic nature, and his solemn earnestness (though mirth and humor
were alternating traits) well became him as a future warrior of the Cross. He was fond of
writing, and gratified his literary taste while yet a youth, by penning correspondence
for neighbors, poor people who could not write.
Though never doubting the existence of God, of whom he had a vivid impression
from childhood, it was not until converted to Mormonism that he connected himself
with any religious body. The first Mormon testimony he ever heard was from an
Elder preaching one Sabbath afternoon on a public highway in Edinburgh. Most of
the crowd hooted and threatened the speaker and his companion, but John listened
respectfully and was very much impressed. He was then about sixteen. Three
years later, while working on a palatial residence called Harden Grange, at Bingley,
in Yorkshire, England, he picked up a pamphlet entitled "The Necessity of Miracles,"
written by Orson Pratt, the Apostle. Having read it through without stopping, he
declared it true, and to a fellow workman, who made some slighting remark about the
Mormons, he rejoined, "I do not know about that; but I know this is true." After
returning to Edinburgh he met the man whom he had first heard testify to the restoration
of the Gospel, and who in response to an inquiry said, "Yes, I am an Elder of the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; and you" — pointing to John — "shall be
one also." He was baptized by this Elder — the late Robert Hogg, of Morgan, Utah —
on the 8th of April, 1861. Elder David M. Stuart confirmed him on the following
Sabbath, (April 14th), and uttered a prophecy concerning the young convert that was
strikingly fulfilled. He was ordained a Deacon and appointed clerk of the Edinburgh
branch, and this was soon followed by his ordination as a Priest.
In April, 1863, he was ordained an Elder by George Peacock, president of the
Edinburgh conference, and during the same mouth, at the suggestion of President
George Q. Cannon, then in charge at Liverpool, he was called to devote his entire time
fo the ministry. The call was a severe trial to him, owing to the condition in which
he would have to leave his parents. His mother had just recovered from a severe
spell of sickness, his father was out of employment, and for some time John had been
their chief support. Within three days, however, he was on his way to Leeds, there to
labor temporarily until assigned to a permanent field. He started with half a crown
(sixty cents) in his pocket, exclusive of his railroad fare. He labored successively in
the Leeds and Hull conferences, presided for a year over the Sheffield conference, and
in January, 1865, was appointed to the presidency, of the Birmingham conference, one
of the most fruitful fields in Great Britain. This appointment came from President
Daniel H. Wells, who had succeeded President Cannon in charge of the European
Mission.
One of Elder Nicholson's experiences in the Sheffield conference was associated
with a district meeting held at Whitington, and attended by members of the Church
residing in that town and at the neighboring village of Barrow Hill. A mob smashed
338 HISTORY OF UTAH. #
with stones the windows of the meeting house, and tried to break in the door, but failed.
Then came a lull, and the service proceeded. At the close a number of those present,
Elder Nicholson included, had to walk two or three miles to their places of abode. A
friend on the outside advised them to keep off the main road, as the mob had gone
that way to ambush them. They therefore went along a narrow cut with high banks,
where trucks were run to and from iron mines. The mob, learning of this, rushed up
behind them, yelling, cursing and pelting them with stones. One of the party, struck
on the head, was half stunned, but was assisted onward. At the end of the cut a pile
of rocks was descried, and Elder Nicholson called on the brethren to halt and "give it"
to the mobbers. Instead of obeying, they rushed for the nearest fence, climbed it and
sped for home, all but one, who temporarily stood ground with the Elder. The mob,
appearing in the open, resumed the rock-pelting process. Nicholson was struck on the
breast with a large missile, the blow causing him to gasp audibly; but thanks to a thick
handkerchief in his breast pocket, he was only slightly hurt. Over the fence now went
his companion, leaving him alone, the concentrated point of attack. His native courage
did not forsake him. Walking towards the mob, he rebuked them, telling them they
were a pack of contemptible cowards. Awed by his audacious fearlessness, they
dropped their rocks and before he could reach them, turned up the cut and vanished
from view. He had evidently described them accurately.
The spring of 1860 witnessed his departure from his native land. He was released
by the President of the Mission, Brigham Young, Jr., and appointed to take charge of
some three hundred and fifty emigrants, whose destination was Utah. The vessel
chartered for them was the "American Congress," Albert Woodward, Captain. It was
the last sailing vessel that left Europe with a company of Latter-day Saints; the era of
the steamship having arrived. They sailed from London on the 23rd of May, and
anchored in New York harbor on the 4th of July.
During the voyage they barely escaped shipwreck on the rocks of New Foundland,
and only escaped, it would seem, by a direct interposition of providence. A dense fog
had prevailed for four days, preventing the Captain from using his sextant. Nevertheless
he pushed on, anxious to make time. On one of these foggy days he, Elder Nicholson
and Elder John Rider were conversing on the quarter deck, when the last-named, who
happened to be looking ahead, suddenly pointed and said, "Captain, what is that?"
The Captain made no reply — there was no time for words — but he acted. Leaping to the
wheel house, he struck the man at the wheel a blow that sent him through the opposite
door sprawling on the deck; himself seizing the wheel and shouting with the voice of a
lion, "All hands aloft to bout ship! " The cry was echoed by the first officer, and in less
time than it takes to tell it the rigging was alive with men, each working with tremendous
activity. The ship had been sailing directly toward the rocks, and was turned just in
time to avoid a terrible calamity. What had enabled John Rider to see the breakers
ahead was the sudden lifting of the fog, like a raised curtain, thus disclosing the
danger. When the vessel came to anchor a great fire was raging in New York City,
resulting in an extensive destruction of docks, warehouses and shipping.
The remainder of the journey to the frontier, then in Wyoming, came to an end on
the 15th of July. During his stay at the outfitting camp Elder Nicholson, who was now
penniless — having spent all his money on the people in his charge — did clerical work
for the emigration, and on the 7th of August left for Utah in Captain Joseph S. Rawlins'
ox-team train, of which he was chaplain, commissariat, clerk and dispenser of medicines.
He also acted as arbitrator in cases of difficulty, and ofticiated on several occasions
as sexton. There were nine deaths during the overland journey, incidents of a most
pathetic character. The company reached Salt Lake City on the 1st of October. One
of the first to meet them was President Brigham Young, who came to their camp on
Emigration Square. This was John Nicholson's first sight of the great leader, whose
personality much impressed him. "Have you any relatives here?" the President kindly
inquired. "None," answered the newly arrived immigrant. "Never mind," was the
cheering reply, accompanied with a benevolent smile — "you have lots of friends."
John obtained employment as a house painter, but was soon called away from it
to canvass for the "Juvenile Instructor," which bad just been established by his some-
time President, Apostle George Q. Cannon. He traveled over a large portion of the
Territory on horseback, a mode of travel entirely new to him; though the horse he rode
was old enough and stiff enough to make up for his rider's lack of experience.
Experience came quickly in the shape of several involuntary somersaults performed
over the neck of the tall, gaunt auirnal, which had a disagreeable and dangerous
habit of falling on his knees when going down hill. Fortunately no serious injury
HISTORY OF UTAH. 339
resulted to the horseman. Several years later, however, while riding another animal
near Wellsville, Cache county, he met with a most painful accident. His horse, slipping
on the ice, fell upon him with such force as to tear apart the bones at the knee
joint of his right leg, inflicting a fearful wound. Surgical treatment and good nursing,
under the divine blessing, gave him back his health, but he was partly lame for life.
This mishap, which occurred in 1S69, injured the same limb that had been hurt by a
fall when he was a youth of eighteen, practicing' his trade as painter and paperhanger.
John Nicholson became a married man June 1st, 1867, when he wedded Miss Susannah
Keep, who has borne to him ten children. In October, 1871, he entered into the
same relationship with Miss Miranda Cutler, by whom he has had five children. By
this time he had begun his journalistic career. While in the British Mission he had
been a frequent contributor to the "Millennial Star," and in Utah he furnished oc-
casional articles to the "Salt Lake Daily Telegraph." From January to April, 1868,
he was regularly employed upon the "Telegraph," and was then tendered a position on
the "Deseret News," then in charge of Apostle George Q. Cannon. Except for
occasional periods of absence, while fulfilling missions or performing other labors, he
remained with the "News" during the next twenty-five years.
In the winter of 1872-3 he organized with others the Twentieth Ward Institute, a
forerunner of the great Mutual Improvement Association now spreading like a network
over the entire Church. He was its first president, twice re-elected, but was unable to
serve the third term, owing to a territorial division between the Twentieth and
Eighteenth Wards, which made him a resident of the latter. In February, 1876, he
became one of the presidency of the Twenty-fourth quorum of Seventy, and on the 8th
of the ensuing July was ordained a High Priest by President Daniel H. Wells, and set
apart as first counselor to the Bishop of the Eighteenth Ward, Lorenzo D. Young. In
December of that 3-ear he was made secretary of the General Committee, Y. M. M. I, A.,
and in the spring of 1878 president of the Y. M. M. I. A. of Salt Lake Stake, but was
unable to fill these places for any length of time, owing to a call to take a mission to
Europe, for which he left home in August of the year last-named.
His chief duty while abroad consisted in editing the "Millennial Star," under the
direction of President William Budge. In the intervals of literary labor he visited most
of the conferences of the Mission, preaching and baptizing wherever he had opportunity.
He returned to Utah in charge of a company of three hundred and fifty emigrants, ar-
arriving at his home in Salt Lake City on the llth of November, 18S0. He continued
to reside here, but for several months during 1881 he edited, by appointment of President
John Taylor, the "Ogden Herald," a journal newly established to succeed the "Ogden
Junction." In the antumn of that year he was called to resume his former position on
the "News," that of local editor, which during his absence in Europe and while at
Ogden had been occupied by the present writer, whose services were now required in
the British Mission. Near the close of 1884 the full conduct of the "News" devolved
upon associate-editor Nicholson, during the absence in Europe of the editor-in-chief,
Charles W. Penrose. At that time the author of this sketch was again the city editor.
Mr. Nicholson continued to do the work of chief editor until October, 1885.
This was in the very thick of the anti-polygamy crusade ; and the vigorous manner in
which the "News" thundered away at the abuses of the hour soon brought upon the
courageous journalist, whose caustic pen had excoriated judges, prosecutors, marshals
and raiders in general, the inevitable visitation. On March 7, 18S5, he was arrested,
charged with unlawful cohabitation, and placed under bonds to await the action
of the grand jury, which promptly indicted him. Arraigned before Chief Justice
Zane, he declined to plead, and a plea of not guilty was directed to be entered in
his case. At the solicitation of the defendant, an agreement was reached by
counsel on both sides, that he himself would give all the evidence necessary to
insure conviction, provided the members of his family would not be compelled to
testify. Under this arrangement he was tried, convicted and sentenced on the 13th
of October, for acknowledging and living with his wives. In response to a question
from the Judge as to whether he had anything to say before sentence was passed, he
made a very earnest and impressive address, notable for its marked effect upon the
court and all present. His fine was three hundred dollars and costs and his term of
imprisonment six months in the Utah penitentiary. He was incarcerated on the day of
his sentence. Prior to entering the prison he had an interview with President John
Taylor, in exile, who said to him three times when bidding him farewell, "John
never surrender.''
He underwent a severe ordeal while in prison. His dying father, aged seventy-five
3+0 HISTORY OF UTAH.
years, having expressed a desire to see his son, application was made to the United
States Marshal, Edward A. Ireland, for that privilege. The marshal flatly refused, and
also denied a subsequent request for the prisoner to attend the funeral of his sire. It
must have surprised that official, therefore — though it was perfectly characteristic of his
Mormon captive — when the latter some time later defended Mr. Ireland through the
public press against false and unjust charges made against him in the papers over
alleged abuses at the penitentiary. While an inmate of the place our friend framed a
bill to lessen for good conduct the terms of the convicts. This bill, presented in the
legislature of 18S6, was passed by that body and approved by Governor Murray. It is
a liberal measure, still in force, and is commonly known as the '"Copper Act." Its author
made copious notes, during his imprisonment, of incidents both humorous and pathetic
that came under his observation. One of his books, "The Martyrdom of Joseph
Standing," was written in the penitentiary, from data furnished by his fellow prisoner,
Elder Rudger Clawson, an eye-witness to the murder of the young missionary. Mr.
Nicholson has written and printed various other books and pamplets, among them, "The
Means of Escape." "The Latter-day Prophet," "Comprehensive Salvation," "The
Preceptor." etc. He has contributed to various local magazines, occasionally to eastern
publications, and is also the author of hymns and poems. His style in speaking and in
writing is vigorous and impressive. He is an original thinker, a logical reasoner and
when strongly moved an intense and powerful speaker. He can be either humorous or
pathetic, and of satire he is a master. His lecture on the "Tennessee Massacre and its
Causes" — delivered first in the Twelfth Ward Hall and afterwards, by request, in the
Salt Lake Theatre, September 22, 18S4, was a remarkable emanation of satire and
denunciation.
On emerging from the penitentiary in March, 1886, Mr. Nicholson resumed his posi-
tion as associate-editor of the "Deseret News." He remained upon the staff of the pioneer
journal until September 30, 1892, when with Mr. Penrose and other old-time employes,
he went out with the incoming of a new management. In the course of his valedictory
the veteran editor-in-chief said: "Of my associate-editor, Elder John Nicholson, who also
retires from this office, I cannot speak but in terms of the highest praise. The soul of
honor and integrity, a man of sound judgment and unswerving faith, he has given his
whole force of mind and character to the promotion of the public welfare, which has been
identified with the "Deseret News." While yet upon the News, from May to September,
1891, Mr. Nicholson visited his native land, where, in addition to doing service as a mis-
sionary, he obtained valuable genealogical data relating to his ancestors.
Since April, 1893. he has been connected with the Salt Lake Temple, first as chair-
man of a committee appointed by the First Presidency to take charge of and conduct the
admission of the Latter-day Saints to that edifice, to witness and take part in the cere-
monies of its dedication. These proceedings lasted from the Cth to the 18th of April, and
continued on the 23rd and 24th. It was estimated that seventy thousand people passed
through the building, not counting six thousand Sunday school children admitted on the
21st and 22nd of that month. Pending the beginning of regular work in the Temple,
John Nicholson was appointed its chief recorder, which position he still holds. He also
retains the clerkship of the General Conference, to which he was appointed in April,
1884. From June, 1888, he was a member of the Board of Education of Salt Lake Stake,
and is still one of the trustees of the institution then known as the Latter-day Saints'
Academy, and now as the Latter-day Saints' University. He has been from the firsr —
November 13, 1894 — a director and vice-president of the Genealogical Society of Utah.
Since April, 1897, he has been one of the General Church Board of Education. He was
one of the founders of Zion's Benefit Building Society, and a member of its original Board
of directors; and since March, 1S97, has been chairman of the State Board of Labor,
Conciliation and Arbitration. In politics he is a republican.
His voice is still heard from the lecture platform. He has acted as a home missionary
ever since the system was established, and since May 11, 1887, he has been a member of
the High Council of the Salt Lake Stake of Zion. His strong love of justice, outspoken
candor and conscientious regard for truth and right, with sound judgment, keen percep-
tion and all-round intelligence, eminently qualify him for the duties and responsibilities
of that sacred and important position.
CHARLES CARROLL GOODWIN.
PJT'HE veteran ex-editor of the Salt Lake "Tribune" and present editor of "Good-
r$J win's Weekly.'* when asked the question, "What vocation or industry were you
^T naturally inclined to follow'?'' replied, "I think I would have been a writer had I
been better equipped." The modest answer fails to do justice to the splendid
talents and acquirements of a man famed over the West, and of repute even in the far
East, as a journalist of exceptional ability. True, there is nothing so good but it might
be better, and it is the mission of education to make things better; but it is also true that
what we call education covers but a limited field. To thoughtful souls the mountains, the
rocks, the forests, the desert, the sea-, and the hearts of men, are all books, and the lessons
they teach are sometimes deeper than those taught in the schools. In all these Judge
Goodwin has taken degrees.
He is a native of the Empire State, having been born at Riga, Monroe county, New
York, on the 4th of April, 1832. His parents were Jesse and Dollie Goodwin. His father, who
■was a farmer in fair circumstances, gave his son a good education. He passed through
the common schools and the academy, and was fitted, except in languages, for the senior
year at college. His boyhood and early manhood were spent upon the home farm in the
beautiful Genesee valley, near the city of Rochester.
In the year 1852, attracted by the fast growing fame of California, he left his
native State and migrated to the Land of Gold, but strange to say, did not engage in
mining there. At Marysville he established himself in the lumbering business, and met
with success, but at the expiration of four years was burned out. His education now
served him in good stead, and for a season he taught school, at the same time studying
law. In 1859 he was admitted to practice. This was in Plumas county, California, where
he also engaged in merchandising.
The fame of Nevada — then Western Utah — was now beginning to spread, and in the
year 1S60 he crossed the Sierras, taking up his abode at Silver City. On the Carson river,
near Dayton, he built a quartz mill, which was swept away by a great freshet on January
13, 1862. This second stroke of calamity disgusted him with business for a while, and
he again turned to the legal profession. After the admission of Nevada as a State he
became Judge of the Second District court during its first term, being elected to this po-
sition at Washoe, near Virginia City. He next drifted into journalism, becoming in 1869
the editor of the "Inland Empire'' at Hamilton. He then went to mining, but in 1874 was
again at the head of a newspaper — the "Virginia City Enterprise" — of which he remained
the editor until 1880, the year of his removal to Utah.
Judge Goodwin came here to engage in mining: for though the editorial profession
had given him fame, it had given him little else, as is usual with men of his class. He
purchased mines in the Lincoln district. Beaver county, and worked them until the inevi-
table disaster came, and he was drowned out by a great inflow of water. It seemed as if
fate, which intended him for a literary career, was whipping him back to his post of duty,
which he had temporarily abandoned.
It was about this time that he was offered the chair of editor-in-chief of the Salt Lake
"Tribune." Having accepted the offer, he straightway took up his residence at Salt
Lake City. He was a most valuable acquisition to the "Tribune" staff, and under him
that journal, always able, developed into a great and powerful newspaper. His associates
■were P. H. Lannan, business manager, and Colonel William Nelson, the managing editor.
While performing his editorial duties, Judge Goodwin was also active in political move-
ments. Under the old regime, in the year 1890, he was the Liberal candidate for Dele-
gate to Congress, and was defeated by the People's candidate, Hon. John T.' Caine. In
1892. shortly before the dissolution of the Liberal party, he was a delegate of the Repub-
lican wing of that organization to the National Republican Convention at "Minneapolis.
In 1S95 he sat as a Republican in the Constitutional Convention, assisting to frame the
342 HISTORY OF UTAH.
fundamental law upon which Utah was admitted into the Union. In addition to impor-
tant regular committees, he served upon one specially appointed to revise the completed
constitution prior to its transmission to Washington.
In the fall of 1901, when the "Tribune" changed hands, passing into the possession
of eastern parties, with Perry S. Heath as publisher and manager, Judge Goodwin and
Mr. Lannan severed their connection with it, and the former for a season went back to
mining. In May, 1902, "Goodwin's Weekly" was established by the Judge and his step-
son, Mr. "Tod" Goodwin, and the pens of both are now regularly employed upon that
periodical.
A versatile writer, Judge Goodwin, it has truly been said, ranges in style "from the
bitterest sarcasm to the tenderest pathos; at times be seems to write with gall, and again
with the tears of children." While he has acquired his greatest fame in journalism, he is
more than a journalist: he is a poet and a novelist, and is never so happy as when soaring
on the wings of some great thought into the realms of the ideal. His poems have never
been published in book form, but they should be; one of them entitled "The Prospector''
has been widely quoted over the West. Even his editorial writings often hear the stamp
of poetic genius. His charming stories "The Comstock Club'' and "The Wedge of Gold"
appeared in 1892 and 1S94 respectively.
While it is as a writer that he chiefly shines, he is also an able speaker, his oratory
being much in demand at political meetings, banquets and public gatherings of various
kinds. He is the king of toastmasters, and wit and humor flow from him as from a per-
nennial fountain. Though naturally modest and retiring, he is nevertheless the life of
every company that includes him, his inexhaustible fund of anecdote being a special
feature of his ability as a social entertainer. He resides with his family in a handsome
home on South Temple street, between Fourth and Fifth East streets, Salt Lake City.
BYRON GROO.
TTYHEN the history of Utah journalism comes to be written it will give prominent
III place to the name of Byron Groo, for many years the editor of the "Salt Lake
'"^ Herald." The faithful, able and long continued service performed by this
gentleman in that capacity is only to be appreciated by those who are aware
of the weighty labors and responsibilities devolving upon one in his position during
that early and important period. Early is the proper word, for it was as far back as
1873 that Mr. Groo became connected with the "Herald," and during the entire period
of this connection, Utah, now a sovereign State, was in Territorial vassalage; she was a
storm center, a religious and political battleground, where the hearts of men, now clasp-
ing hands in amity and working shoulder to shoulder for the general progress, were
kindled to mutual hatred and incessant strife by the prejudices, bigotries and petty ty-
rannies of those times. To be the editor of an independent paper, to steer clear of rocks
and whirlpools constantly in the way, to sail between Scylla and Charybdis, maintaining
and defending the rights and liberties of the entire people, pouring oil on troubled waters,
or wielding the lightnings and thunders of indignant justice, and winning from all classes,
if not their unqualified approval, at all events their respect, and their patronage in days
of hardship and comparative poverty; — such was the task put upon the shoulders of this
man and executed by him with courage, judgment and skill. No man in the community
has a better record in this line of duty. His name stands as a reminiscent type of inde-
pendent journalism, as the editor of "the people's paper" during the really representative
period of its history.
Byron Groo, the second son of the late Isaac. Groo and his wife Sarah E. Gillett —
excellent people of sterling qualities — was born August 11, 1849, at Grahamsville, Sullivan
county, New York. His father was a farmer and a school teacher, both in the Empire
State and during the early years of his residence in Utah, to which Territory he came in
the year 1854. bringing with him his wife and three children. They settled permanently
at Salt Lake City. As a boy Byron attended the Ward schools in winter, and in summer
his life was that of the average lad of pioneer times, herding, gardening, laboring on the
farm and hauling wood from the canyons. In 18G5 he attended the school taught by
HISTORY OF UTAH. 343
Bnrtlett Tripp in that part of the city known as the Fourteenth Ward; and during 1869
and 1870 he was a student at the University of Deseret, whose home was then the old
Council House, the predecessor as to site of the new Deseret News Building. The author
of this sketch, six years his junior, was a fellow student with Mr. Groo in both these in-
stitutions. "I have always thought," says he, "that the best of my education was ac-
quired by study nights and mornings and at such times as could be spared from work.''
At the age of seventeen he had advanced far enough seholastically to take charge of the
Eighth Ward school, which he taught during the winters of I860 and 1867.
Prior to this time he had had some experience as an Indian fighter, serving as a vol-
unteer under Major Casper, in the Blackhawk war in Sanpete county, during the summer
of 1866. He went as a private, and returned a lieutenant, having acquitted himself in
such a manner as to fairly win this distinction. Naturally courageous and of strong phy-
sique. Byron Groo, whenever it was his cue to fight — be the foe white or red — knew it
without a prompter.
The spring of 186S found him in Weber canyon, working upon a contract taken by
his father on the Union Pacific railroad, whose line, with that of the Central Pacific, was
then being built across Utah. Byron had charge of the offices at the grading camps.
The work was completed during the winter of 1868-9. His father at this time was super-
visor of streets and watermaster for Salt Lake City, and the son in 1870 was appointed
the sire's assistant in those positions. Two years later he became a deputy Territorial
marshal, also a deputy city marshal, and served in the dual capacity until March, 1S73,
when he resigned.
His resignation as a public official was due to his acceptance of a position on the
"Salt Lake Herald," then in the third year of its existence, with the brilliant Edward L.
Sloan as editor. It was at Mr. Sloan's solicitation that he became one of his associates
upon the "Herald'' staff. Three years later, after the death of Mr. Sloan, under whom he
had served with fidelity as city editor, and had also written many leading articles, Mr.
Groo succeeded him at the head of the paper. He continued to be its editor-in-chief
until October, 1892. ,
By that time he had become a husband and the father of a family, having married in
1875 Miss Julia K. Sutherland, the intelligent and accomplished daughter of Judge J. G.
Sutherland, one of the leading lights of the Utah bar. Miss Sutherland herself had
studied the legal science and was a notary public and clerk in her father's office prior to
becoming the wife of Mr. Groo. Four children blessed the congenial and happy union,
namely, Jean, Elizabeth Ro-e, Pauline B. and Jay S. ; the first-named now the wife of
Rev. Harry St. Clair Hathawav, of Brooklyn, New York, and the third the wife of Arthur
Davies, ofPark City, Utah.
While Mr. Groo professes no religion, he has always had a friendly feeling for the
community in which he was reared, and which has witnessed his rise to usefulness and
prominence. This has caused him at times to be classed as "a Mormon" by opponents
of the unpopular creed. Instance the episode of his personal encounter, while editor of
the "Herald," with Colonel Oliver A. Patton, then register of the U. S. Laud Office, whom
the paper had justly criticised for his brutal treatment of an aged man named Pettit,
struck with a whip by the imperious official for protesting against his trespass upon pri-
vate property while hunting along- the banks of the Jordan. Mr. Groo had also exposed
the register's crookedness in the Land Office, where he had taken illegal fees and was
viciously unjust in his treatment of Mormon entrvmen. Meeting the editor on the street,
Patton assaulted him, and was promptly knocked down by the latter, whose punishment
of the unchivalrous upstart was immediately heralded to the world by the local agent of
the Associated Press as "another Mormon outrage."
But while combative, when need be, Mr. Groo is not quarrelsome. On the contrary.
he is of a genial disposition, full of fun. though never allowing it to descend to ribaldry
and disorder. He is fond of reviewing books, is well read in the classics and is poetic in
his tastes. He it was who introduced to the Utah public (through the "Herald") the
writings of the now world-renowned Ella Wheeler Wilcox, known theu only as "the poetess
of Wisconsin." He was ever encouraging and pushing to the front young men and
women who manifested any inclination towards or ability in literature, and it is a matter
of just pride with him to note the progress and success achieved in this direction by many
whom he thus helped as boys and girls. As an editor he was always clearheaded, always
evinced good judgment, knowing what to say and what not to say — a very essential requisite
in journalism.
In politics Mr. Groo has been a life-long Democrat. During the long period of Re -
publican supremacy ending with the election of Cleveland and Hendricks in 1884, he con-
344 HISTORY OF UTAH.
stantly predicted eventual Democratic success, and though Utah was only a Territory,
with no vote in the Electoral College, he steadfastly held aloft the banner of Democracy
as the harbinger of ultimate Statehood. When the turn of tide came that he had foretold,
and the town went wild with the Democratic jubilation over the result of the Presidentia'
election, Byron Groo and the "Herald'' were remembered. A surging sea of humanity
surrounded the newspaper office, and compelled the modest editor by their shouts and
solicitations to appear upon the balcony before they would disperse. Mr. Groo — though
oratory is not his forte — responded in a few fitting words, amid the general enthusiasm.
Soon after retiring from the "Herald," he weut to Washington with other leading
Democrats, at the request of Delegate Caine, in the interest of the movement then made
to secure statehood, returning in the spring of 1893, after the adjournment of the special
session of the Senate succeeding the second inauguration of President Cleveland. In
June of that year he was appointed by the President the register of the United States
Land Office for the District of Utah, and continued in this position until November, 1897,
exhibiting during his incumbency all the qualifications of a capable and reliable official.
In March of the last-named year he was appointed by Governor Wells a member of the
State Board of Land Commissioners, but did not qualify until relieved of his duties as
register of the Land Office. Just after becoming a member of that Board he was elected
its secretary, and has remained such up to the present time, under re-appointments and
re-elections in 1899, 1901 and 1903. In business Mr. Groo is a director of the State Bank
of Utah, director and vice-president of the Utah Commercial and Savings Bank, and di-
rector of the Commercial and Savings Bank of Lehi. He was for years a director of the
"Herald'' Company, maintaining the connection until he severed his relations with that
paper. Most of his life has been spent, in Utah, but he has made trips East and West,
and has a warm affection for his native State, where many of his kindred still dwell.
JOSEPH BULL.
^"^HIS veteran votary of ' the art preservative, known in earlier years from the Atlantic
Cj)0 to the Pacific, wherever he traveled, as "the Mormon newspaper man," has been
* a resident of Utah since the year 1851. During most of this period of residence he
has been connected with the "Deseret News." Excepting the times of his absence
upon foreign missions, his labors of near!}' five years in the Temple, and a few weeks
spent with the "Salt Lake Herald" he has been continuously with the "News" since 1852,
making him that paper's oldest employee. During this half century of service he has
seen the small printing plant brought to Utah by the pioneers grow, and has aided in its
growth, until it has become one of the best equipped newspaper plants and publishing
establishments in the West.
Mr. Bull is a native of Leicester, Leicestershire, England, where he was born January
25, 1832, the son of Daniel Bull and his wife Elizabeth Burdette. As an infant he was
left motherless, and at the age of fourteen, having received a common school education,
he was apprenticed to a printer, but did not serve out his apprenticeship, owing to the
failure of the firm with which he was connected. To perfect himself in the art he moved
to Birmingham, where, as he had first class credentials, he soon obtained employment in
a leading book and job printing establishment. He retained that situation until De?em-
ber, 1850, when he graduated as a journeyman.
By that time he had become a convert to Mormonism, which he first heard preached
in 1846. He was baptized in February, 1848; the only member of his father's family to
embrace the faith. As assistant steward in a company of Latter-day Saints, presided over
by James W. Cummings, Crandall Dunn and William Moss, he sailed from Liverpool on
the ship "Ellen,'' January G, 1851, and by way of New Orleans and St. Louis, reached
Council Bluffs, where he worked for a short time in the office of the "Frontier Guardian,"
a paper established by Orson Hyde, in charge of Church affairs on the Missouri. On the
10th of May he set out for Utah, having an opportunity to cross the plains as a driver
of stock for Mr. David Wilkin. He was given his board, but had to haul seventy-five
pounds of baggage. Wilkin's outfit, consisting of ten wagons and about two hundred
HISTORY OF UTAH. 345
head of loose stock, was organized in Luman A. Shurtliff s company of fifty. Finding it
dangerous to cross the Elkhorn, swollen by unusually heavy rains to a river about four
miles wide, they took a new route toward the headwaters of that stream. After traveling
over a hundred miles, they were overtaken by messengers from President Hyde, ordering
them back to the Missouri river, to travel iu larger companies, in consequence of threat-
ened Indian hostilities. They accordingly returned, and took the old pioneer route near
Fort Kearney. There Mr. Wilkin decided to leave the main company and travel sepa-
rately. Owing to this decision, Mr. Bull, driving the loose stock the entire journey on
foot, arrived at Salt Lake City on the 15th of September.
His first employment in "The Valley" was as an assistant to masons and plasterers.
He also worked in the canyons, getting out wood. Early in January, 1852, he was en-
gaged by President Willard Richards, the editor of the Deseret News, on the printer's
staff of that establishment. In February of the same year he printed in colored inks and
gold bronze the first ball invitation card for the first typograpical festival held in Utah.
He made the inks himself from dry colors he had brought with him.
Two years and more had passed when our printer friend determined to enter the state
of wedlock. He chose for his companion Miss Emma Green, formerly of Birmingham,
Warwickshire, England, who had left Liverpool February 5, 1853, on the ship "Jersey''
and had come by way of New Orleans to Salt Lake City, arriving here on the 10th of Octo-
ber. She walked nearly the entire distance of thirteen hundred miles from Keokuk,
Iowa. She was the daughter of James Green and Eliza Cheshire, and the only member
of her family who joined the Latter-day Church. The date of her marriage to Mr. Bull
was October 28, 1854. She was the pioneer professional dressmaker of Utah, and a
member of the early dramatic association, making her first appearance in the character of
"Hermon" in the play of Damon and Pythias.
In April, 1855, Joseph Bull was called on a mission to California, his companions
being George Q. Cannon and Matthew F. Wilkie. The special object of the mission was
the printing of the Book of Mormon in the Hawaiian language, and afterwards the publi-
cation of the "Western Standard." In company with Charles C. Rich, they left Salt Lake
City on the 10th of May, proceeding with mule teams to San Bernardino, and from San
Pedro by steamer to San Francisco, arriving there iu the latter part of June. The type-
setting and printing of two thousand copies of the Book of Mormon kept Elders Cannon.
Bull and Wilkie busy until January, 1856, and on February 23rd of that year they issued
the first number of the "Standard." From April, 185G, to July, 1857, Elder Bull was
president of the San Francisco conference, and had made arrangements to fulfill a mission
to the Sandwich Islands, to publish a newspaper in the native language, when a call from
President Young for the Elders to return to Utah, on account of the "Buchannan war,"
broke up the Western Mission. He returned in company with Orson Pratt, Ezra T.
Benson, John Scott, John M. Kay, George Q. Cannon and others, arriving at Salt Lake
City in January, 1858. He found his wife in good health, and saw for the first time his
eldest-born son, Joseph, then two and a-half years old.
Having resumed his labors in the "News" office, Mr. Bull was appointed by President
Young to execute for the Deseret Currency Association the first copper plate printing
done in Utah; David McKenzie being the engraver of the plates. He was engaged in
this work at the time of the general move, and in the summer went to Provo, taking the
press and material. Returning, he resumed work on the "News" in the fall. Thenar
status having prevented the establishment from obtaining its usual printing materials from
the East, Mr. Bull was dispatched to San Francisco, to purchase a supply. He made the
round trip between February 21, and May 27, 1859, an unprecedentedly rapid journey for
those times. On the home trip from San Pedro he assisted in driving one of the eight-
mule teams that carried the freight, and from Santa Clara traveled day and night by stage,
with a supply of paper, thereby preventing the "News" from suspending publication.
He now became a member of the Mechanics Dramatic Association, of which the
veteran actor Phil Margetts was president. During his connection with that organization
he sustained such roles as "Old Mike" in Luke the Laborer, "Duke. Aranza" in the Honey-
moon, and "Iago" in Othello. His wife was also a member of this association.
Mr. Bull had been a special agent for the "News"— traveling on horse-back through
the Territory— until April, 1860, and in August of that year had been appointed foreman
of the printing department, when he was called by President Young to accompany George
Q. Cannon, then an Apostle, to Europe on a mission. September 27th witnessed their
start with mule-teams across the plains, and December 12th their landing at Liverpool.
Elder Bull presided over the Bedfordshire conference until 1863. when he was appointed
to preside over the Leeds District, comprising the Sheffield, Leeds and Hull conferences.
:;4(j HISTORY OF UTAH.
He also labored in the "Millennial Star" office, and under President Cannon's direction
superintended the publication of several of the standard Church works. As one of the
presidency of a company of over eight hundred emigrants — his associates in charge being
Thomas E. Jeremy and George G. Bywater — he left Liverpool May 21, 1864, and arrived
home in September, having crossed the plains in Captain Joseph S. Rawlins's train, of
which he was chaplain.
From October, 1865, to February, 1866, he was absent on another trip to San Fran-
cisco, where he purchased a year's supply of printing materials for the "Deseret News"
and a year's supply of paper for George Q. Cannon, upon which to print the first volume
of the "Juvenile Instructor." He remained with the "News" until the fall of that year,
when he was released by President Young to take charge of the publication and business
of the "Instructor" for Apostle Cannon. That paper on the next New Year's day appeared
in its new dress, enlarged to eight pages. In December, 1866, Mr. Bull, with Edward L.
Sloan started "The Curtain" for the Salt Lake Theatre, the first theatrical program printed
in Utah.
His next special business trip was to the Eastern States, to purchase materials and
solicit advertisements and subscriptions for the "Deseret News," of which George Q.
Cannon was now editor, Mr. Bull had been released from the "Instructor," and appointed
foreman of the "News." Starting in February, 1868, and bearing an autograph letter of
introduction from President Brighain Young, he visited many of the manufacturing and
commercial cities where Salt Lake merchants had been purchasing supplies, and set be-
fore the business houses the advantages of advertising in the "News," especially as anew
era in mercantile matters was about to open, upon the completion of the Union Pacific
railroad, then built as far west as Cheyenne. In Chicago, where only three firms had
been doing business with Utah, he remained for some time, securing advertisements for
the daily, semi-weekly and weekly issues of the "News." New York and other cities
were visited with like success. He also purchased presses, type, book-binding materials
and supplies for the home paper mill. ' He returned after an absence of about seven
months. So well pleased was Editor Cannon with his success that he sent him the same
year on similiar business, with like results. Until the fall of 1877, with the exception of
three trips made by others, Mr. Bull continued every year to go East, and occasionally to
California, for the "News," resuming charge of the printing department as often as he
returned.
Another mission to Great Britain now came, his wife accompanying him on a visit to
her relations. They arrived in Liverpool November 15, 1877. She came home after a
very pleasant year spent with her kindred, but her husband remained abroad until the
fall of 1S79, when he again had charge, with Elders William Bramall and Andrew Wat-
son, of a company of emigrants bound for Utah. During his mission Elder Bull labored
in the Liverpool and Birmingham conferences, but in October, 187S, was appointed by
President William Budge to work exclusively in the printing department of the Liverpool
office. December brought Apostle Orson Pratt from Utah, he having been appointed,
with Elder Bull as his assistant, to procure the electrotyping of the Book of Mormon with
foot-notes. Proceeding to London, they completed the book in about three months, and
then obtained electro-plates of the Doctrine and Covenants, with references; Mr. Bull in
this work superintending his department. During this period, while he superintended
the general printing of the British Mission, besides editions of the Book of Mormon and
the Doctrine and Covenants, there were issued from the press editions of Spencer's Let-
ters, Pearl of Great Price, Orson Pratt's Key to the Universe and about a quarter of a
million tracts.
In November, 1879, he resumed his labors in the newspaper and job departments of
the "Deseret News." In February following he went on his usual Eastern and Western
business trips. In 1SS7 he was appointed superintendent of the newspaper, book, job
and press departments. Returning he continued to act as purchasing agent and
advertising solicitor for the "News," and by his straightforward course gained the
confidence and respect of those with whom he had business relations. Being a
practical printer and press-man, he was enabled to buy to advantage, and his purchases
gave satisfaction. In 1890 he bought and shipped to Salt Lake City a first class Bullock
perfecting press, with latest improvements and a complete stereotyping outfit, the first
brought to Utah. He also assisted in starting the "News" type foundry. During his
association with the paper he had several opportunities to engage in other printing
enterprises, but preferred to remain with the pioneer establishment.
His connection therewith ceased — permanently he supposed — temporarily as it
proved — on the last day of September, 1892, when the management underwent an entire
HISTORY OF UTAH. 347
change. In January following he made a successful business trip to the Eastern States
for the '"Salt Lake Herald," replenishing its columns with first class advertisements. He
then went back to the "News" for a short time.
Soon after the opening of the Salt Lake Temple — May 23, 1893 — he became one of
its attaches; his wife also being one of the regular workers there. Mrs. Bull died of
pneumonia on the 24th of October, 1S95, and on January 8, 1897, the widowed husband
married again, choosing for his wife Miss Zina V. Hyde, a daughter of Apostle Orson
Hyde and his wife Marianda. This lady had been a Temple worker for several
years and it was within the sacred building that she and her husband were wedded,
the ceremony being performed by President Lorenzo Snow. After his retirement from
the Temple. Mr. Bull was again connected with the book and job department of the
''Deseret News," and at this writing he is employed in the newspaper department
of that journal.
JESSE WILLIAMS FOX.
TDENTIFIED with the early educational history of the commonwealth are the name
| and labors of Jesse W. Fox, for many years the public surveyor, not only for Salt
T Lake City, but also for the Territory of Utah. He was the son of Samuel and Lucy
Williams Fox, and was born March 31, 1819, at Adams Center, Jefferson county,
New York. In that part his boyhood and early manhood were passed. His father was
a well-to-do farmer, and Jesse was a seminary graduate. For a profession he naturally
inclined to civil engineering, but his early labors were in school teaching. During that
period he investigated the principles of Mormonism, and being converted thereto, fol-
lowed his brother William and his sister Charlotte, who were Latter-day Saints, to Nau-
voo, Illinois. He arrived there just after the bodies of the martyred Prophet and
Patriarch were brought from Carthage, and was permitted to view them as they lay in state
at the Mansion House.
A few days later, on the 10th of July, 1844, he embraced the faith for which the two
brothers had died. He remained at Nauvoo for about two years, teaching school a great
part of the time. He left Illinois at the time of the general exodus, and would have
come west, probably as a pioneer, but his health failing, he was counseled by President
Brigham Young to return to his old home in the State of New York, where he re-
mained until early in 1S49, when he again started for the Rocky Mountains.
Arriving at the Missouri river, he joined a company of fifty wagons, commanded by
William Miller, with whom he crossed the plains. Just before passing the Missouri,
Mr. Fox was married to Eliza J. Gibbs, in the ferry house on the east bank of the river,
George A. Smith, the Apostle, performing the ceremony. When the company reached
the Loup Fork the cholera broke out and several persons died. The rest of the journey
was comparatively uneventful. It began at Council Bluffs in the spring and ended at
Salt Lake City in' the fall.
The Fox family settled at Salt Lake City, but the head of the house was soon called
to help in the settlement of Sanpete valley. At Manti he taught school and built a home,
expecting to move his family to that part; but about this time a vacancy occurred in the
office of Territorial Surveyor, and Mr. Fox, having returned to Salt Lake City for his
household and effects, was requested to remain and fill that position. He was Territorial
Surveyor from that time until the office was abolished by the Legislature. The office of
city surveyor was also placed upon him, and he served in that capacity until February.
1876, when his son Jesse succeeded him.
He surveyed the sites of the Salt Lake, Logan and Manti temples, the larger part of
Salt Lake City, as well as Provo, Fillmore. Manti, Ogden, Brigham, Logan and many
other towns. He located and surveyed the principal canals in Utah, and was for many
years chief engineer of the Utah Central, Utah Southern and Utah Southern Extension
railroads. He accompanied President Young on many of his early tours, locating cities
and settlements. On one occasion he was taken prisoner, it is said, by the chief Black-
hawk, whose name has been given to one of the early Indian wars. This truculent savage,
when a boy, had been a pupil under Jesse W.Fox at Manti. and evidently remembered him
348 HISTORY OF UTAH.
for his well known kindness and affability. At all events, he would not harm him, nor
suffer him to be detained, but provided him with an Indian escort to guard him safe to
his destination. In addition to the practice of his profession, Mr. Fox carried on farm-
ing to some extent. Much of his surveying work he did free, regarding it in the light
of a mission.
He was twice married, his second wife being Elizabeth Foss Cowley, a widow, and
the mother of Matthias F. Cowley, the Apostle. His first wife, Eliza J. Gibbs, bore
to him four children. Of these, his only son, Jesse W., has figured successively as High
Councilor and Bishop's counselor in the Salt Lake Stake; and his daughter, Mrs. Georg-
iana Young, is president of the Kindergarten Association of the State. Lottie, his only
child by his second wife, is married to Lieutenant George Seaman.
Jesse W. Fox was a thoroughly good and upright man. For a long period he was
the senior president of a quorum of seventy, but was subsequently ordained a High Priest
by President John Taylor, and at the time of his death was a High Councilor in the Salt
Lake Stake of Zion. He traveled little outside of Utah, but in 1882 visited his old
home and relatives in the State of New York. He was one of the original force of
workers in the Salt Lake Temple, and was engaged in that labor at the time of his de-
cease. He died April 1, 1894.
DAVID JOHN.
kNE of Utah's early educators, though for many years he has not pursued the
vocation of a pedagogue, is David John, now President of the Utah Stake of Zion.
He was born a Welshman, January 29, 1833, and has been a resident of Utah
since September 13, 1861. He was one of the projectors and main advocates of the
great co-operative movement of 1868, and it was through the labors of such men as he
that it was given the impetus which sent it forward to success.
David John's birthplace was Little Newcastle, Pembrokeshire, South Wales. His
father was Daniel John, and his mother as a maiden, Mary Williams. The father was
a prosperous farmer and was likewise engaged in successful business as a clothier. David
received a good education, first in a private school near his home, and afterward in the
Haverfordwest Baptist College, from which he was graduated. When a boy of fourteen
he heard Mormonism preached in the streets of his native town, and being converted to
the faith was baptized a Latter-day Saint, in spite of the remonstrances of his parents,
who forced him to attend the Baptist church until he became of age, when he had
greater liberty to attend the meetings of his own choice.
Having received the Priesthood, he started out in June, 1856, as a Traveling Eldei
in Wales. He was naturally a preacher, a fiery and impassioned one, and everywhere a
zealous laborer in the cause. His advancement was rapid. In 1857 he was president
of the Flintshire conference, and in December of the same year, counselor to the pres-
ident of the Welsh Mission, serving in that capacity for a year, when he was transferred
to England. He presided over the Nottingham conference until March, 1860, and then
had pastoral charge of the Nottingham, Leicester and Derby conferences until January,
1861. That was the year of his emigration to Utah. He was now a married man, having
wedded February 8, 1860, Miss Mary Wride, of Cardiff, South Wales.
Parting with his parents, who sorrowed much over his religious course, he paid the
passage of himself, his wife and child across the ocean, and on the 6th of April
sailed from Liverpool on the ship ''Manchester," Captain Trask. The emigrating Saints
on board this vessel were in charge of Elder Claudius V. Spencer. They landed at
New York, and proceeded by rail to St. Joseph, Missouri, whence they made their way
to Florence, Nebraska, arriving there on the 24th of May. David John and his brother-
in-law, Barry Wride, purchased a good outfit and crossed the plains in an independent
company commanded by Homer Duncan. Driving oxen was a new experience to our
Welsh friend, and the duties and labors of camp life had all to be learned. Twice he
narrowly escaped drowning, his life being saved by William Coslett, while crossing the
Platte. On the Sweetwater he and his wife buried their only child, a sweet little girl
of eight months, and wended their way westward, sorrowing over their loss, but trusting
HISTORY OF UTAH. 349
in God, who subsequently gave them other children. In due time they reached their
journey's end.
Mr. John settled at Provo, where he has ever since resided. He had not been
there quite a year when he was called and set apart as counselor to the Bishop of the
Third Ward. This office he held from September 10, 1862, to June 4, 1877, when he
became first counselor to President A. 0. Srnoot of Utah Stake. He continued as such
until the death of President Smoot, and then served as first counselor to his successor,
President Edward Partridge, until his death in November, 1900. In January, 1901,
Utah Stake was divided into three, and of that which retained the old name, Utah
Stake, comprising Provo, Springville and a few adjacent settlements, David John was
made president.
During the early part of his life in Utah Mr. John was a school teacher, a vocation
to which he was naturally inclined, and afterwards, for a period of fifteen years, he was
one of the trustees of the Provo district schools. He is particularly known for his
faithful and long continued service as superintendent of the Utah Stake Sunday
Schools, a position held by him for twenty-eight years, from October, 1865, to July,
1893. During five years of his Bishopric he acted as local agent for the Presiding
Bishop, Edward Hunter. From May, 1871, to July, 1872, he was on a mission to
Great Britain, where he presided over the Welsh conference for over a year.
He was a partner with A. O. Smoot in the lumber and coal business, under the
firm name of Smoot and John. He was also connected with the Provo Co-operative
institution, which antedated the organization of Z. C. M. I. at Salt Lake City — the
parent of hundreds of such business houses all over the Territory, but not of the
one established at Provo by A. O. Smoot, S. S. Jones, David John and their associates.
He was likewise engaged in the Provo Woolen Mills, which he left to fill the position of
Bishop's agent, previously mentioned.
By his first wife, Mary Wride, David John is the father of nine children; and by
his second wife, Jane Cree, whom he married October 10, 1865. the father of eleven.
In the anti-polygamy crusade he was singled out as one of the victims of the movement
made against the heads of such patriarchal households, and being convicted of living
with his wives, contrary to the provisions of the Edmunds law, was sent to the
penitentiary, of which he was an inmate from March 7, to August 6, 1887. He
suffered willingly rather than renounce a principle of his religion or cast off an}- portion
of his family. His wives and children are dear to him, and he has taken great pains to
educate the latter in the best schools available. He is of a spiritual temperament, is
intellectual and scholarly in his tastes, and has ever been a friend to education.
CHARLES JOHN THOMAS.
PROFESSOR C. J. THOMAS, one of Utah's best known musical men, the original
leader of the Salt Lake Theatre orchestra, and at one time the director of the
Tabernacle choir, was born at Burnley, Lancashire, England, November 20, 1832.
He was the eldest son of Joseph K. and Margaret S. Thomas. At the age of seven
his father began to teach him his profession — that of music — and when nine years old he
made his first appearance in public, playing with his sire at the Theatre Royal, New
Castle-on-Tyne. He soon drifted to that Mecca of English musicians, London, where he
studied harmony under the tutorship of Professor Thirlwall, of the Theatre Royal, Covent
Garden, and graduated with honors for one so young.
In the year 1850, while still in London, he first heard the Gospel preached by Elders
of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and in September of the same year he
was baptized a member of the same. He was engaged then as a musician at the Rosher-
ville Gardens, Gravesend, Kent. In 1853 he traveled from London to Scotland with an
Italian opera company, under the direction of the celebrated Carl Anchutze. The greatest
bass singer of that period, Herr Carl Formes, was one of the company. This engage-
ment lasted for three seasons. In 1S54 he published some of his first musical composi-
tions, which had been successfully performed at several London theatres. In 1S56 he was
offered the position of band-master on her Majesty's Ship "Great Marlborough" — a vessel
of one hundred and thirty-one guns — for a three years cruise; but being in poor health
350 HISTORY OF UTAH.
he had to decline the offer. During the season of 1858 he played at the Crystal Palace,
Sydenham. At that time the great Handel festival took place, with two thousand in the
chorus, and five hundred in the orchestra, under the direction of Sir Michael Costa. From
1858 to 1860 Professor Thomas gave occasional concerts, with over a hundred voices in
the chorus.
The latter year witnessed his departure from his native land. Arriving at New York
he remained there long enough to fill several engagements with the orchestras of the
leading theatres. In 1861 he moved farther west, reaching Salt Lake City on the 23rd of
September. Shortly after his arrival here he was appointed leader of the late Captain
Ballo's band. When the Salt Lake Theatre was opened, and an experienced conductor
for the orchestra was wanted by the management, Professor Thomas, whose reputation
had preceded him, was the person selected to fill the position. He fully justified the trust
reposed in him, by his usefulness and tact on all occasions, and was widely known and
recognized as an excellent dramatic musician. Almost simultaneous with his first appea-
rance at the Theatre, March 6, 1802, when the building was dedicated, was his appoint-
ment, on the 13th of April, as director of the Tabernacle choir, which, prior to his time,
under the leadership of Father James Smithies, had never aspired to a status beyond that
of an ordinary country church choir. Under Professor Thomas a decided improvement
was soon manifest. During his engagement at the Theatre numerous musical plays, with
a few burlesques, extravaganzas and operas, were produced under his direction. Fre-
quently he was complimented by members of eastern companies for the efficient manner
in which the orchestra rendered the new and difficult music. A great deal of the local
music was of his own composing; it was not a day of railroads, and it took four or five
months to get things from the East. To Professor Thomas belongs the honor of leading
the first orchestra, giving the first concert, and having the first benefit in the Salt Lake
Theatre.
In November, 1865, he was called to go to Southern Utah, for the purpose of teaching
vocal and instrumental music, and while residing at St. George he organized several
bands and choirs in the settlements of that region. In 1868 he moved to Beaver, and
there followed his profession until March, 1871, when President Brigham Young called
him back to Salt Lake City to resume his old position at the Theatre. In July, 1874, he
conducted a great musical festival in the Tabernacle, and did the same in 1875 and 1876,
on which occasions between four and five thousand Sunday school children participated
in the singing, aided by the Theatre orchestra and the great organ. All these were suc-
cessful musical events. In May, 1875, musical matters being at a very low ebb, Mr.
Thomas was appointed by President Young the custodian of the Temple block.
In June, 1883, there was given to him the training of a chorus of over three hundred
voices for the Theodore Thomas grand concert in the Tabernacle. The great orchestral
conductor praised him for his work, and remarked that the chorus was the best he had
heard outside of New York. From 1885 to 1888 our friend was absent on a mission to
his native land, and on returning was given his old position at the Temple block. On June
6, 1892, there was to be a musical contest in the Tabernacle, and Professor Thomas was
requested, on two weeks notice, to take charge of a newly organized male chorus of about
seventy voices that were to compete for the principal prize (two hundred and fifty dollars),
offered for the best rendition of Adolph Adams' celebrated "'Comrades in Arms." There
were four competing male choruses — one from Utah county, one from Weber county, one
from Oneida county, Idaho, and the other the Salt Lake City chorus trained by Professor
Thomas. The last was victorious. In 1893, a few days before the departure of the Taber-
nacle choir for the World's Fair at Chicago, Professor Evan Stephens, the leader, re-
quested Mr. Thomas to take the singers who were left and furnish music two or three
Sabbaths for the Tabernacle services. He did so and gave good satisfaction. He was at
this time in charge of the musical exercises at the Salt Lake Temple, a position given him
at the very opening of that edifice.
In summing up it may be said that the advent of Charles J. Thomas marked
an epoch in the early musical history of Salt Lake City and other parts. He
long held a prominent musical position, and among other organizations was the
leader of the Union Glee Club and Zion's Choral Society. Though no longer in
public life, he sees with satifaction, in the present degree of perfection attained by
the divine art in Utah, the result of his own untiring labors and those of his musical
confreres. He has been a married man since 1854. His first wife, Charlotte Gibby, died
January 7, 1875; and on February 8, 1878, he married Amy H. Adams, his present wife.
He is the father of thirteen children, and of these four sons and two daughters are
living.
GEORGE CARELESS.
a MOTHER epoch iu our musical history began with the coming of Professor George
Careless from London, in the year 1864. He was a native of that great city, where
he was born on the 24fh of September, 1S39. As a boy he exhibited musical ability
of a high order, and became a student in the Royal Academy. Having advanced far
enough to qualify himself for orchestral work, he accepted positions at Exeter Hall,
Drury Lane, and the Crystal Palace, in concerts, operas, and oratorios, under such
prominent leaders as Costa, Arditi and others, and was thus engaged when his atten-
tion was drawn to Mormonism, which was then flourishing in the British Isles. He
was baptized and confirmed a Latter-Saint by Elder John Hyde, October 6, 1850, and
for the next fourteen years, having been ordained to the Priesthood, he labored in
various positions. Most of his work was confined to the metropolis, where he directed
the choir of the local branch, and was active and prominent in all gatherings of the
Saints where music was a feature. Associated with hitn as a member of the choir,
was the talented singer, Miss Lavinia Triplett, a native of the Isle of Jersey, whom
he married after their arrival in Utah.
Professor Careless took up his residence at Salt Lake City, where he became the
leader of the Theatre orchestra and the conductor of the Tabernacle choir. The for-
mer position he held for twelve years, or two separate periods of six years each, while
the latter place was filled by him continuously for fifteen years. During a portion
of this time, he was a partner with David 0. Calder in the music business, and with
him established the "Musical Times."
In 1S75 he organized a combination of soloists and instrumentalists. Mormon and
non-Mormon, and with the Tabernacle choir gave an excellent rendition of Handel's
"Messiah," the first grand effort at oratorio ever heard in Utah. It was a stupen-
dous labor to train the singers for their task, only two or three of whom had ever
heard an oratorio — but the patient and indefatiguable leader was equal to the under-
taking, and competent critics pronounced the performance superior to renditions of
the same oratorio in the larger cities of the country. His principal soloist on all
occasions was his wife, Mrs. Lavinia Careless, whom he married in January, 1866.
She possessed a remarkable soprano voice, and for many years was pre-eminently
Utah's queen of song. Much of her excellence as a vocalist was due to the careful
training she received from her husband.
In 1ST!) he orgauized the Careless orchestra, composed of some thirty-five pieces
— the best instrumental talent available — and for several years gave orchestral concerts
of a high class and successful in every way. He also conducted Zion's Choral Union
and the Philharmonic Society, and at the Theatre wielded the baton over "H. M. S. Pin-
afore," "The Mikado." "Pirates of Penzance," and other local operatic presentations.
Not only as a leader, but as a composer, he shone with lustre in the musical firmament,
and for awhile was professor of vocal and instrumental music in the University of Des-
eret. He directed the orchestra at the grand Parepa Rosa concert in the Salt Lake Theatre
on the evening of November 16. 1868, and presided on many similar occasions. On great
fourth of July celebrations, common in Utah in early days, Professor Careless would fre-
quently compose the music that was rendered. When, in August, 18S0, he resigned the
leadership of the Tabernacle choir, a feeling of general regret was felt throughout the
community.
In July, 18S.">, his wife died, in the thirty-ninth year of her age, and in March, 1888,
he married again, his second and present wife being Miss Jane Davis, daughter of Edward
W. Davis of Salt Lake City. It was about this time that the Latter-day Saints Psalmody
was compiled, with Professor Careless as chairman of the committee upon this important
work. Much of the music contained in the Psalmody, and, it need scarcely be said to
those acquainted with his eminent abilities, many of its rarest gems, are of his composi-
352 HISTORY OF UTAH.
tion. He has retired from public life, but is still engaged as a teacher of music at Salt
Lake City. When the musical history of the community is written it will place on high
the name of the veteran leader and composer, George Edward Percy Careless.
JOHN SILVANUS DAVIS.
.JyHIS veteran printer and song writer was born June 7, 1822, in the town of Carmar-
CtJ then, Carmarthenshire, South Wales. He was the son of James Silvanus Davis
<£; and his wife Anne Walters. His father was a minister in the Congregational
church, to the tenets of which he himself adhered during the earlier part of his
boyhood. He received a fair education, such as was obtainable at that period. During
his scholastic training he developed a talent for literary work, and selected as a vocation
the printer's trade, to which he apprenticed himself in December, 1835, for a term of
seven years, which he faithfully served. He mastered his trade so thoroughly that he
became the foreman of a large establishment, in which the printer's business was carried
on in all its branches.
He joined the Latter-day Saints on the 19th of April, 1846', and being called to the
ministry, labored diligently with tongue and pen, to promote the cause that he had espoused.
He performed a great work in the translation and publication of the standard Church
works in the Welsh vernacular. In 18.V2 he translated the Book of Mormon (Llyfer Mor-
mon), three facts in connection with which are worthy of note: (1) The entire translation
was written with one quill pen; (2) as soon as the work was completed, a copy was sent
to Mr. Evans, editor of the "Seren Gomer," a very scholarly man, with the request that
he examine it ci-itically, and he, having done so, returned the manuscript with the remark
that it was a pity such valuable labor in producing so perfect a translation had been be-
stowed upon so worthless a work as the Book of Mormon; (3) the work was translated in
parts, and each part as soon as issued was published, sold and paid for, the entire labor oc-
cupying less than a year. The translation itself was free. The first published copy of the
book, elegantly bound in morocco, and inscribed and dedicated to President Brigham
Young, was sent to Utah in charge of one of the Welsh Elders who emigrated that
season.
Mr. Davis translated and published the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of
Great Price, with numerous pamphlets and writings of leading Elders of the Church, and
compiled a collection of over five hundred hymns, sacred songs and poems, many of which
were of his own composition. He was the author of a large number of pamphlets in
which the principles and doctrines of the Latter-day Saints were set forth in an able and
interesting manner. His style was original, and was characterized by touches of humor,
his works combining logical clearness and persuasive force. The success of the Mormon
cause in Wales was due in no small degree to his faithful and zealous labors in its behalf.
From January 1, 1849, to March 8, 1850, he was second counselor to William Phil-
lips, who presided over the Church in Wales, and was his first counselor from the latter
date until he started for Utah. For sis years he was the editor and publisher of "Zion's
Trumpet" ("Udgoru Sion"), and while holding that position gave a hundred pounds
sterling towards the emigration of indigent Latter-day Saints to America. He married
on December 30, 1850, Elizabeth Phillips, and the issue of this union was a daughter,
their only child, Julia Elizabeth Davis, now Mrs. Joseph L. Rawlins, of Salt Lake
City.
The family bade farewell to native land on the 27th of January, 1854, when they
embarked at Liverpool on the ship "Golconda," bound for New Orleans. Arriving at
that port on the 18th of March, they proceeded up the Mississippi to St. Louis and up the
Missouri to the frontier, where they started across the plains in a company commanded
by Job Smith. During the journey they narrowly escaped death several times from
cholera and other causes, but reached Salt Lake City in safety on the 25th of September.
Here Mr. Davis permanently settled, purchasing from President Young a corner lot
at the intersection of Fourth South and Second East streets, upon which he resided until
the day of his death. He was early connected with the "Deseret News" establishment,
and during the move in 1858 was for sis months with the press at Fillmore, where the
'News" was temporarily issued and other works published. For two years he was man-
//// ■ '. y '/'■'■'
HISTORY OF UTAH. 353
ager of "The Mountaineer,'' a paper established at Salt Lake City by James Ferguson,
Seth M. Blair and Hosea Stout. He frequently contributed articles to the local press,
and was the author of various popular songs, two of the more noted being "The Busy
Bees of Deseret." written in 1S57, and "All are Talking of Utah,'' composed ten years
later.
In the Church Mr. Davis held the office of High Priest. He filled no missions abroad,
but did much work at home, mostly in a literary way, and took a general interest in what-
ever tended to promote the welfare of the people. He was of a retiring disposition, gentle
but impressive in manner, a deliberate thinker, and a vigorous writer. In the latter part
of his life he went out of the printing business, and engaged for a while in merchandising,
but finally retired from business altogether. He died as he had lived true to his convic-
tions. The date of his death was June 11, 1S82. His wife, as well as his daughter,
survive him.
THOMAS COTT GRIGGS.
^"''HE educational work done by Mr. Griggs has been mostly in connection with
t^ j) Sabbath Schools and musical organizations. He is an experienced choir leader,
<; a talented singer, a pleasing composer, an able business man, and a winning and
affable gentleman. He was born at Dover, Kent, England, June 19, 1845. His
parents were Charles and Charlotte Foreman Griggs, and he was the youngest of three
sons. His father, who was a channel pilot, died when Thomas was nine years old,
leaving lr.ru to be reared by his mother, a most excellent woman, a thrifty housewife
and a proficient worker with the needle. The family were in moderate circumstances.
Thomas had a taste for reading, and studied the Bible through when quite young.
Before his father's death he attended a boy's academy for about eighteen months, but
had no schooling afterwards. Becoming acquainted with the Latter-day Saints, both
missionaries and converts, he attended their meetings, and was baptized into the Church
on the 17th of May, 1856. His mother and other relatives were also converts to
the faith.
Soon after his baptism he emigrated with his mother to America, landing at Boston,
July 11, 1S56. He remained there nearly five years, working at various employments,
helping to get means to come to Utah. In his earlier boyhood, his father being a mariner,
and himself in the habit of visiting ship-yards and seeing vessels, he had cherished a
strong desire to become a ship builder: instead of which, after acting as a peddler's
assistant, an employee in glass-working and rope-making establishments, and as a cash
boy, he became a salesman in the large dry goods house of George Turnbull and
Company, Boston. At the same time he was an ordained Teacher in the Boston branch
of the Church.
With just enough means to pay their emigrant fare from Boston to Florence,
Nebraska, Thomas and his mother, on the 10th of June, 1861, started for Utah,
traveling by rail and steamboat by way of New York, Cleveland, Chicago and St. Joseph.
They were in time to cross the plains in a company of Church teams led by Captain
Joseph Home. It was the year the Civil War broke out. and large bodies of troops
were encountered, moving to the front. Says Mr. Griggs, "Some of the soldiers,
who were drunk, abused us, and one of our company, James Slack, was killed while
resisting an intruder. In Missouri bridges were burned before and behind us, trains
riddled with bullets, troops under arms and places under martial law. We met the Camp
Floyd soldiers from Utah going to the seat of war. In an accident my dear grandmother
was killed by being run over, and was hurriedly buried on the plains."
The company arrived at Salt Lake City on the 13th of September. Mr. Griggs
spent a short time under the friendly roof of Mr. and Mrs. John Nash. His first work
in Utah was digging potatoes on shares. He then hired out to William Hapgood,
assisting him to make beet molasses, and afterwards enterd the employ of William
Eddington. who kept a small general store on Main Street. Among his duties was that
of instructor to Mr. Eddington's son Henry. Afterwards he entered the employ of
Chislett and Clark, and was in charge of their business at Logan, until it closed
354 HISTORY OF UTAH.
out, when he returned to Salt Lake City, walking the entire distance, to secure
employment at Walker Brother's new store. He remained with that firm about six
years, spending a portion of the time at their branch store in Fairfield — old Camp
Floyd. He returned to Salt Lake in I860, and settled permanently in the Fifteenth
Ward, where he still resides. He was successively in the employ of Eldredge and
Clawson, William Jennings and Z. C. M. I., beginning with the last-named institution
at its inception and continuing with it for five years. He then became connected with
the Fifteenth Ward store, of which he was for many years the manager.
While at Fairfield Mr. Griggs received his first lessons in vocal music, B. B.
Messenger being his tutor. He became the choir leader at that place, and after his
return to Salt Lake, renewed a previous connection with the Tabernacle choir, continuing
it to date. He was a member of Eardley and Croxall's brass bands, the Philharmonic
and Zion's Choral societies, and the Union Glee Club. He studied harmony under Professor
George Careless. For many years he conducted the Fifteenth Ward Choir, and engaged
in much other musical labor. As a member of the Tabernacle choir he sang in the
great musical contest at the World's Fair, September 8, 1893, and three years
later accompanied that portion of the choir which made the tour of California. He was
active in the publication of the Latter-day Saints' Psalmody, and assisted in the publica-
tion of the various works issued by the Deseret Sunday School Union.
Mr. Griggs has been twice married, first to Jeanette S. Ure, February 2, 1870, and
next to Mary A. Price, February 23, 1879. He has quite a large family of children.
He was arrested during the anti-polygamy crusade, but was acquitted. His successive
offices in the Church are those of Teacher, Elder and Seventy. He is now one of the
presidents of the Second quorum of Seventy. In earlier days he served as a lieutenant
of militia and a school trustee.
In 1876 he took a trip to England, touching at the Centennial Exhibition en route;
and in 1880-81 he performed a mission to his native land. His mother, with whom he had
been very closely associated all his life, died, to his great grief, soon after his return home.
For nearly seventeen years he was superintendent of the Fifteenth Ward Sunday School,
and in 1891 he was called to be superintendent of Sunday Schools for the Salt Lake
Stake. Since 1878 he has held a position on the General Board of the Deseret
Sunday School Union, and is still acting as the business manager of that splendid
organization.
JOSEPH MARION TANNER.
fjT\R. MAESER'S successor as general superintendent of Church Schools was
pj one of his former pupils, a graduate of the Brigham Young Academy, and
subsequently a teacher in that institution. Joseph Marion Tanner was born
March 26, 1859, on the southern shore of Utah Lake, about three miles from
Payson. He was about three years old when his father, Myron Tanner (whose biography
appears elsewhere) left this ranch life and settled in Provo, where he became a
Bishop and engaged in milling. His mother, Mary Jane Mount Tanner, was a
woman of refined poetic tastes. The boy received his early training in the district
schools of the town, and at the age of fourteen began a three years term of service in
the Provo Woolen Mills, which his father had helped to found.
It was during this period that Dr. Maeser opened at Provo the Brigham Young
Academy. Unable to leave his work, young Tanner, with a large number of his fellow
laborers, organized a night class and secured the Doctor's services as teacher. After
leaving the Woolen Mills he entered the Academy as a regular student, and graduated
in the first class of the institution in 1877. The next year he married, the maiden name
of_his wife being Jennie Harrington. He continued his studies at the Academy until
1879, when he began practical work as a civil engineer on the line of the D. and R. G.
railway through Utah valley. He was offered engineering work by the same railroad
company in Texas, but accepted instead the professorship of mathematics in the B. Y.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 355
Academy. He continued his school work in Provo for five years, and in the fall of 1883
he was appointed city surveyor.
In 1884 he went on a mission to Switzerland and Germany, spending much of his
time in Berlin, where he studied the German language and other branches of learnimr.
He traveled through most of the European countries, visiting those places especially
interesting to a student of history. In the fall of 1885 he was called, with Elder Jacob
Spori, to open a mission in the Orient and had his office at Constantinople. A tour of the
classical countries along the Eastern Mediterranean and into the Holy Land, under-
taken in the spring of 1886. resulted in the opening of a mission in Palestine and
Armenia. On returning from the Orient he completed the tour of Europe, traveling
five months in Italy and other countries. During his three and a half years abroad he
studied, besides German and French, the Turkish and Arabic tongues, also the ancient
classical languages, which he had taken while in the Academy at Provo.
Soon after his return to Utah a system of Church schools was organized, and he was
one of three men appointed at its head; the others being Karl G. Maeser and James E.
Talmage. Upon each of these was conferred the Doctor's degree, Mr. Tanner receiving that
of Doctor of Mathematics and Didactics. In the summer of 1888 he was elected president
of the Brigham Young College at Logan, and served as such until the spring of 1891,
when he resigned his position to go to Harvard; a number of his College students
accompanying him. During his last half year at Cambridge, where most of the time he
studied law. his health broke down, obliging him to return.
He now opened a law office at Salt Lake City, and in 1895, when the Territory of
Utah was undergoing the process of entrance into the Union, he was engaged to deliver
a series of lectures in the Latter-day Saints' College, on the subject of constitution-
making. During the same year he was appointed a member of the Deseret Sunday
School Union Board. In January. 1896, he became by appointment our first state
supreme court reporter, editing volumes thirteen to seventeen of the Utah reports. In
May of the same year he was elected president of the Agricultural College at Logan,
and was also its professor of commercial law and constitutional history. He retired from
the Agricultural College in 1900, and since May 1901, has been at the head of the Church
school system, traveling almost constantly in its interests. He likewise succeeded Dr.
Maeser as second assistant superintendent of Sunday Schools. Dr. Tanner, it is
needless to add, is a very well educated man. He speaks and writes with thoughtful
impressiveness, and is recognized as a man of character and unusual ability.
JOSEPH THOMAS KINGSBURY.
kO man born and reared in Utah has made a better record consistent with his
abilities and opportunities than the present educational head of the University
of Utah; a man esteemed for his many amiable qualities, his thorough-going
honesty and integrity, his achievements in science and his unselfish devotion to
the cause of education. Diffident in the extreme when a boy, Dr. Kingsbury suffered
on this account much embarrassment and annoyance, and in view of that well-known
propensity it is almost a marvel in the eyes of his early associates to see him in the
high and responsible position that he now occupies. That he merited it is beyond
question; that he sought it no one can truthfully say. It came as the natural reward of
a commendable ambition, supplemented by determined, persistent and successful en-
deavors to discipline and develop his faculties and make himself useful in the world.
He has overcome his diffidence to a great extent, but still retains the modesty and
amiability that characterized his younger years.
The son of Joseph C. Kingsbury and his wife Dorcas Moore, he was born at
East Weber, Weber county, Utah, November 4, 1853; but his boyhood was passed in
Salt Lake City, where he has since almost continuously resided. His mother, a delicate
and sensitive woman, died when he was sixteen, worn out by the toils and hardships of
pioneer times. His father's biograph3T is given in this volume. Joseph's parents were
in poor circumstances in his early childhood, but later they were more comfortably situ-
ated. Before deciding to become an educator he spent the greater part of his time in
356 HISTORY OF UTAH.
farming:, canyon work and teaming. He also did some book-keeping, and was active in
Sunday schools, and in literary and debating societies.
His education was but fragmentary until he entered the University of Deseret. and
at the time that he began to appreciate the value of learning, it was almost impossible to
obtain at home any beyond that given in the common schools. After three years at the
institution named he went to Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, where for parts of
two school years he pursued a course in physics and chemistry. Subsequently he took non-
resident work in the Wesleyan University, Bloomington, Illinois, winning the degrees of
Ph. B., A. M., and Ph. D. In 1878 he became connected with the home University as
instructor in chemistry, and was finally called to the ohair of chemistry and physics. In
August, 1879. he married Miss Jane Mair, who is the mother of his six children.
In 1892, upon the resignation of Dr. John R. Park, he became acting president of the
University, and during a trying period of two years, successfully and satisfactorily dis-
charged the duties of that office, besides doing most of the work imposed upon him by his
professorship. Upon the election of Dr. James E. Talmage as president he retired, but
did so with the full confidence of the Regents and the faculty, to devote his entire time to
the field of physical science. In fact he retired of his own volition, and welcomed the
election of his successor, in order to concentrate at one place and under one management
the higher education of the State; his desire in that direction being greater than any am-
bition of his for personal aggrandizement. In this the great effort of his life for which he
sacrificed so much, he had accumulated much data, consisting of letters from many
leading educators throughout the nation, in support of his ideas upon the proposed con-
centration. In April, 1897. when Dr. Talmage resigned, Dr. Kingsbury was elected pre-
sident of the University of Utah.
This institution was incorporated by the Provisional Government of Deseret, February
28, 1S50; hence its original title — University of Deseret. The control of it was vested in
a chancellor and twelve regents, to be elected at each annual session of the Legislature;
and it was to receive an annual appropriation of five thousand dollars from the public
treasury. The first meeting of the board of regents was held March 13, 1850, when a
committee was appointed to officiate with Governor Young in the selection of a site for
the University ana in choosing locations for primary schools, as "feeders" to the so-called
"Parent School." At this time no common school law had been enacted. The Parent
School opened November 11, 1S50, in a private home in the Seventeenth Ward, and held
its second term in the Council House, at the corner of Main and South Temple streets.
The first instructor was Dr. Cyrus Collins, A. M., a sojourner in Salt Lake City, on his
way to California. He was soon succeeded by the chancellor, Orson Spencer, assisted by
Regent W. W. Phelps. At the Council House the tuition was reduced from eight dollars
to five dollars a quarter, and the original design of having a separate school for women
was abandoned, both sexes being now admitted. In October, 1851, Regent Orson Pratt
was added as an instructor. For a while the school was held in the Thirteenth Ward,
where a University building was projected. Shortly after, owing to a lack of funds and
the absence of "feeders,'" it was suspended, and fifteen years elapsed before the chan-
cellor and board of regents, regularly elected by the Territorial legislature, felt justified
in again instituting school work under the auspices of the University. Meanwhile, how-
ever, they were authorized by the Assembly to appoint a superintendent, who acting with
them and under their direction, devoted himself to the task of building up a primary
public school system throughout the Territory.
The University resumed work in November, 1867, under the supervision of David O.
Calder, who, until March, 1869, conducted it successfully as a commercial school,
its quarters being in the Council House. Mr. Calder having resigned, the board
of regents chose as his successor Dr. John K. Park. The institution now entered
upon a career of comparative prosperity. The work was laid out in five courses, pre-
paratory, normal, commercial, scientific and classical. The enrollment of students the
first year was 223; the second year, 546. The University became very popular; it was
well patronized directly by the people, and fostered and encouraged by liberal appropri-
tions from the Legislature. After a sojourn of several years in the Council House it took
up its abode in the Union Academy building, opposite Union Square, a valuable ten acre
block subsequently bestowed by Salt Lake City upon the University for a building site.
Then came the erection of a building, the first the University had owned, progress
upon which was arrested midway by the unfortunate misunderstanding between Governor
Murray and the Legislature, related elsewhere. By the Governor's veto of the appropri-
ation bill the University was left without funds either to complete its building or continue
its educational work. Its very existence was threatened, but in this extremity the presi-
HISTORY OF UTAH. 357
dent and professors promptly offered their services free, until something- could be done to
relieve the situation. Members of the board of regents and other public spirited citizens
as promptly came forward with their private means to the rescue and support of the im-
perilled institution. Governor Murray's successor. Governor West, was a man of more
liberal ideas, and by his action, in connection with the Legislature, funds were furnished
the University with which to reimburse its rescuers, complete its building and liquidate
all obligations against it.
In 1884 the legislature amended the charter of the institution, giving it definite
power to confer degrees, and in 1S92 a new charter was enacted, reducing the mem-
bership of the governing board from thirteen to nine, and changing the title "University
of Deseret" to "University of Utah." June of that year witnessed the resignation of Dr.
Park, who as president and an active professor of the institution had done more than any
one else to place it upon the plane designed by its founders and give it prestige and influ-
ence among the educational establishments of the country. Joseph T. Kingsbury, the
senior professor, succeeded Dr. Park, under the title of acting president. How he re-
tired in 1894, to make way for the election of Dr. Talmage, whose three years of efficient
work as president was followed by Dr. Kingsbury's election in 1897, has already been
told.
Thus from a beginning so small that the entire work of instruction was performed
by a single teacher, the University has grown steadily to its present creditable propor-
tions, when it has over six hundred students enrolled in preparatory, normal and collegiate
courses, with twenty-four professors and instructors, exclusive of the instructors in the
training school. Its courses in general science, liberal arts, letters, mining and advanced
normal work lead to the degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science. In April,
1S94. the institution received a valuable endowment from the Salt Lake Literary and
Scientific Association, which endowed the chair of geology in the amount of sixty thousand
dollars; and about the same time Dr. Park donated to the University his splendid private
library of nearly four thousand volumes, also a collection of natural history specimens.
In 1S90 the legislature transferred to it the miscellaneous works of the Territorial library.
The University's latest bequest was another munificent gift from Dr. Park, who at his
death in September, 1900, caused it to inherit the bulk of his estate.
At this writing the University of Utah is occupying its new and permanent home, on
a magnificent site of sixty acres, formerly a part of the Fort Douglas Reservation, and
granted by act of Congress to the young and growing institution. Lying at the foot hills
of the Wasach range, overlooking city, valley and lake, a more commodious or more beau-
tiful campus could not be found in Salt Lake valley or any where else in Utah. The Legis-
gislature of 1899 appropriated two hundred thousand dollars for the removal of the Uni-
versity to its present site, where suitable buildings have since been erected and occupied.
One of these buildings in 1902 was accidentally destroyed by fire, but it has been rebuilt.
The University is now in a flourishing condition.
JAMES EDWARD TALMAGE.
§T the little town of Hungerford, Berkshire. England, on the 21st of September,
1862, was born to James Joyce Talmage and his wife, Susannah Preater, a son,
Y the eldest male and second child among eleven having the same parentage. This
son, who was christened James Edward, is known to-day as Dr. James E.
Talmage of Salt Lake City. The first twelve years of his life were spent at Hungerford.
and at the long-time family home of the Talmages in Ramsbury, Wiltshire. His parents
were Latter-day Saints, and he himself was baptized one at ten years of age, by his
father, who was an Elder in the Church. The first office in the Priesthood held by
James was that of Deacon, to which he was ordained in August, 1873. He received
the rudiments of an education in the national schools of Hungerford and the board
school of Ramsbury. He manifested from childhood a thirst for knowledge, with powers
for its acquisition and retention, that was prophetic of his subsequent success and
present eminence in the educational world.
358 HISTORY OF UTAH.
He was but a lad of thirteen when he emigrated with his parents and their other
children to Utah, arriving at Salt Lake City in June, 1876. The family took up their
residence at Provo, where James continued his school course in the Brigham Young
Academy, which institution he entered in August, a few weeks after his arrival, at the
beginning of the first regular academic year. It was then that he came under the able
direction of Dr. Karl G. Maeser, for whom he, in common with many of the youth of
the Latter-day Saints, developed a love amouuting to reverence. From the normal
department of the Academy he graduated first in his class, June 20, 1879, and was at
once engaged as a teacher in the institution. For three years thereafter he conducted
the classes of academic grade in the sciences, pursuing meanwhile his own studies, with
special attention to chemistry and geology. He graduated from the collegiate department
of the Academy, June 17, 1881. By this time he was an Elder of the Church, having
been oi-dained in June, 1880, prior to when, since December. 1877, he had been an ordained
Teacher. During his career as an instructor in the B. Y. Academy he was called to
spend his summers in educational work, traveling in company with and laboring under
the direction of Professor Maeser, visiting schools and holding educational meetings
among the people in Utah and Idaho.
In August 1882 he entered Lehigh University, at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, to
pursue collegiate courses of study. Though fully matriculated, and therefore eligible to
registration as a candidate for a degree, he enrolled as a special student in order
to secure the advantages of greater latitude in choice of studies and amount of work.
He remained at Lehigh a little over a year, during which time he 'made an enviable
record as a student of ability aud industry. His desire was to devote as much time as
possible to laboratory work, facilities for which were lacking in the home institutions;
and as the days at Lehigh were all too short for the labor, he offered his services
without pay as assistant to the night-watchman, and so gained access to the laboratories
during the dark hours as well as during the day. His work in the University was so
successful that he was offered a position as assistant in the laboratory, but he decided
to withdraw and enter another institution. His reasons were thus written at the time:
"I am very desirous to know by practical experience of more institutions than one. I
meet men, each of them a graduate from some great University, and each so patriotic
in a narrow way that he considers as excellent only that which has been adopted at his
particular school. I would wish a broader acquaintance with institutions and men; and
therefore, though at the sacrifice of my chances to win a diploma, I am leaving Lehigh,
to enter, perhaps not a better, but anyway another institution.-' Later, however, he
received from Lehigh his baccalaureate degree.
September, 1883, found him entered as a special student at Johns Hopkins
University, Baltimore, Maryland, where he devoted his attention to chemistry, biology
and geology. He remained there until the following summer. His college course was
attended with considerable self-sacrifice. He had to live in the most economical manner
possible in order to continue his work. Though careful to refrain from any effort to
force his religious views upon others, he found abundant oppportunity, in answering
inquiring investigators, to make known to professors and fellow students the funda-
mental principles of the faith he professed. From first to last he was known in the
institutions he attended as a "Mormon," and concerning this he says: "Far from
bringing me annoyance and persecution, the fact that I belonged to the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints insured me kind attention and a fair measure of
respect. Many times the knowledge of my religious profession brought me in
contact with influential persons, most of whom have remained my firm friends until
this day. Of course. I had to take much banter from students and others who
knew little or nothing of our people aside from the unfair reputation in which they
were held; but closer companionship and earnest conversation seldom failed to develop a
lasting friendship between us."
While Mr. Talmage was still a student at Johns Hopkins University, Henry Ward
Beeeher delivered a lecture at Baltimore, in the course of which he made certain state-
ments regarding the Latter-day Saints which his young Mormon auditor knew to be
incorrect. He therefore sought an interview with the distinguished churchman, and
finding that he had left the city, addressed to him an open letter, defending the people
of Utah from the misrepresentations made. This letter was published in the "Day," a
Baltimore evening paper, March (i, 1884. "I was convinced," Mr. Talmage wrote
home, "of the sincerity of Mr. Beecher's utterances, but I knew him to be mistaken.
I have always had great respect for the gentleman; and even on the occasion of
his Baltimore lecture he paid strong tributes of praise to our people for their industry
HISTORY OF UTAH. 359
and thrift, but he added certain misstatements, which I believe were based on an
unintentional misapprehension of the facts. I have no doubt that the distinguished
preacher will take ruy feeble protest in good part."
In the autumn of 1884 our student friend w^is summoned home by the institution
to which he had promised his allegiance — the Brigham Young Academy. During the
preceding winter it had suffered the memorable loss of its buildings by fire, and it was
now in great financial straits. Its devoted teachers rallied to its support, and
carried on the work in the spirit of true missionaries. Mr. Talmage re-entered the
Academy in September as professor of chemistry and geology and director of the
scientific departments, which position he retained until the autumn of 1888. During this
time he filled several offices in church and municipality, among them those of Alternate
in the High Council of Utah Stake, one of the stake superintendency of Sunday Schools,
city councillor, alderman and justice of the peace. In June, 1888, he entered the state
of wedlock, his wedding day being the 14th of the month. His bride was Miss Mary May
Booth, daughter of Richard Thornton Booth and Elsie Edge Booth, of Alpine, Utah. The
marriage ceremony was performed by President Daniel H. Wells in the Manti Temple.
The union was a happy one, and seven children have blessed the home.
The same season that witnessed his marriage made him the recipient of another
distinguished honor. In anticipation of Professor Maeser's withdrawal from the active
direction of the B Y. Academy, owing to his increasing labors as general superintendent
of Church schools, the Academy board of directors designated James E. Talmage as the
principal of that institution. He had done little more than outline the plans for the
ensuing year and prepare the current annual for publication, when he was called by the
presiding authorities of the Church and its educational board to the principalship of the
Salt Lake Stake Academy — afterwards the Latter-day-Sajnts' College, and now the
Latter-day Saints' University. The Stake Academy prior to this time had comprised little
in the way of advanced courses, and it was with the purpose of building up the academic
and collegiate departments that Professor Talmage was placed in charge. He still
continued his individual work of study and investigation, and in 1889 was created a
Doctor in Science and Didactics by the General Board of Education of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints. Later he received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from
the Illinois Wesleyan University. His thesis for the doctorate, entitled "The Past and
Present of the Great Salt Lake," has been extensively copied and quoted.
From principal of the Salt Lake Stake Academy, he became president of the Latter-
day Saints' College, with the institution's advance in rank. He remained in charge until
January, 1802, when by direction of the General Board of Education he was released
from the College to labor in connection with Captain (now Colonel) Willard Young, in
the establishment of the Church University. After its first and only year of active
work, the Church University in 1894 was suspended, it being evident to those in
authority that more in the way of higher education could be accomplished by co-operation
with the State University. In 1893 he became connected with the faculty of the
University of Utah, as Professor of Metallurgy, and in April, 1894, was elected Deseret
Professor of Geology in that institution, this chair having been specially endowed
under provision of law by the Salt Lake Literary and Scientific Association. The Board
of Regents promptly confirmed him in this position, and at the same meeting elected him
president of the University. He retained these places until June, 1897, when he retired
from the presidency, in order to devote himself more exclusively to the work of the
department of geology.
Aside from his actual labor in institutions of instruction, Dr. Talmage has been inde-
fatigable in promoting scientific study among the people. In January, 1891, he was
placed in charge of the Deseret Museum, and he still retains the presidency of that insti-
tution. Under his guidance the museum has developed with marked rapidity, and at pres-
ent is regarded as one of the choicest collections of its kind in the West. His skill as a
microscopist became known in the halls of the microscopical societies, and in February,
1891, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society of London. In December,
1894, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh; an honor that has been
conferred on few Americans. The sponsors who voluntarily presented him for election
were men of great distinction and fame — Professor D'Arey W. Thompson, C. B.; Pro-
fessor Copeland, Astronomer- Royal for Scotland and a vice-president of the Royal Society
of Edinburgh; Professor James Geikie, the eminent geologist, also a vice-president of
that society; and Professor Tait, the widely famed physicist and mathematician, secretary
of the same. Two days after his election to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Dr. Talmage
was made a Fellow of the Geological Society of London. In December, 1897, he became
360 HISTORY OF UTAH.
a Fellow of the Geological Society of America. In addition to these distinguished organ-
izations, in each of which he holds a life fellowship, he is a life associate in the Victoria
Institute, or Philosophical Society of Great Britain; a life member in the American Asso-
ciation for the Advancement of Science; and a corresponding member of the Eoyal
Scottish Geographical Society.
Professionally a scientist and a preceptor, with gifts and powers equalled by few,
Dr. Talmage is also a writer and speaker of great ability and skill. He is an absolute
master of English both by pen and tongue, and possesses a musical eloquence of marvelous
fluency and precision. His style of oratory, though not stentorian, is wonderfully im-
pressive, and his well stored mind, capacious memory, quick recollection and remark-
able readiness of speech, render him a beau-ideal instructor, in public or in private. He
is the author of several text books and other works on scientific and theological subjects.
In 1888 his "First Book of Nature" appeared; this has been republished for use in schools.
In 1891 the first edition of "Domestic Science" was published, also a prescribed text book
for schools, adopted successively by Territorial and State authority. In 1899 the "Ar-
ticles of Faith" — a series of lectures on the principal doctrines of the Latter-day Saints,
and in part a compilation of lectures delivered by the author before the theology classes
of the Church University and other institutions — was published by the Church. To these
works should be added a booklet "The Great Salt Lake Present and Past." with numerous
papers and articles contributed to scientific, technical and local periodicals, through many
years of literary activity.
Dr. Talmage has been an extensive traveler, his journeyings having for their purpose
the pursuit of information. He first returned to his native Britain in 1891, and in all has
visited Europe six times in the interests of study and investigation. He has traversed
most of the European countries, some of them several times, and has prosecuted his
studies among the snows and glaciers of the Alps, and on the volcanoes of the Mediter-
ranean. He was a delegate from the Royal Society of Edinburgh to the International
Geological Congress, held at St. Petersburg in 1897, and in connection with this visit he
traversed Russia-in-Europe and crossed the Urals into Siberia. On the return journey
he reached the Crimea, crossed the Black Sea, and passed through Austria-Hungary,
Poland, Switzerland and France. He occupies a prominent place as a lecturer, and has
delivered addresses by invitation in many of the principal cities of Great Britain and the
United States.
JOSHUA HUGHES PAUL.
fHE President of the Latter-day Saints University of Salt Lake City is a native of
this place, and was born January 20, 1803. His father, James Patten Paul, was
a Scotchman from Ayr, and his mother, Elizabeth Evans Paul, an English woman
from near Stratford-on-Avon, the home of Shakespeare. Both had been married
prior to their meeting, and each had children by the former marriage. Joshua, when a
boy, attended the ward schools and herded cows for President Brigham Young. He was
in this service, and about fourteen years of age, at the time of the President's death.
One of his early tutors was Professor Karl G. Maeser. For a year he worked with his
father at carpentering, and was then employed for two years at the Salt Lake Brewery,
as foreman of the bottling department, having at times as many as twenty boys under
his direction. He continued at that employment until he was eighteen.
Fired with the ambition to become a scholar, he now entered the University of
Deseret, under Dr. John R. Park, with whom he became a favorite for his bright intellect
and faithful devotion to study. He graduated in the normal and natural science
courses, and was made an instructor and later a professor in that institution, where he
served nine years as a teacher. In 1889 he became associate editor of the "Salt Lake
Herald," with Byron Groo, editor-in-chief, but after one year's service he resigned that
position in order to accept the presidency of the Brigham Young College at Logan. This
position he held for three years, and left it to accept the presidency of the Agricultural
College of Utah. Two years later he went upon a mission to Europe, laboring first in
HISTORY OF UTAH. 361
the Scottish conference and afterwards presiding over the Birmingham conference. He
returned home at the end of October, 1898. He now resumed residence at Salt Lake
City. For six months he was engaged on the editorial staff of the "Deseret News," and
quit that position to become president of the Latter-day Saints' College, which has since
changed its name to the Latter-day Saints' University.
In politics President Paul is a Democrat, and in political philosophy an advocate
of tariff reform, the income tax and the municipal ownership of public utilities.
Philosophy is his favorite study, but he is also very fond of science, poetry, and the
kindred arts. In addition to the State University certificates held by him, he has received
the degrees of Ph. B., M. A. and Ph. D., from the Illinois Wesleyan University. The
General Church Board of Education has conferred upon him the degrees of Bachelor of
Science and Didactics and Doctor of Letters and Didactics. He is a scholarly speaker
and writer, and has spoken and written upon educational, religious and political subjects
throughout the State and elsewhere. He has a fluent tongue, his style is lucid and
logical, and he is a keen, caustic, fearless and ready debater. As a preceptor he stands
in the first rank of his profession, and also possesses executive ability of a high order.
He has been a marrried man since June 12, 1883, when he wedded Miss Annie M.
Pettigrew, daughter of David Pettigrew, a veteran of the Mormon Battalion, whose sire
was a soldier of the Revolution.
The Latter-day Saints' University is a theological school, with high school, normal,
business and college courses of study. It was organized in November, 1886, under the
name of the Salt Lake Academy, with Angus M. Cannon, William B. Dougall, Alonzo E.
Hyde, Spencer Clawson, Francis Cope, Rodney C. Badger, William H. Rowe and William
A. Rossiter as trustees, and Willard Done as principal. In July, 1888, the Board of
Education of the Salt Lake Stake was organized and placed in control of the institution,
which was then named the Salt Lake Stake Academy; Dr. James E. Talmage being
chosen principal. On May 15, 1889, the name of the institution was changed to the
Latter-day Saints' College, and the standard of instruction was raised; no students below the
ninth grade being admitted thereafter. In January, 1892, Willard Done succeeded Dr.
Talmage as principal, and in October, 1895, the trustees changed his title to that of
president of the faculty. A college course of four years, leading to the degree of
Ph. B. was established, and the grade and character of the work were further improved.
The College became involved in debt, and in the spring of 1899 most of the teachers
engaged elsewhere. President Done resigned, and in July following J. H. Paul was
elected president. The faculty was immediately reorganized, and in September the
College was again opened for the reception of students. On June 21, 1901, the name of
the institution was again changed, and it became what it is to-day, the Latter-day Saints'
University.
Until the fall of 1891 the Social Hall was occupied, but at that time a larger building
was procured at 233 W. First North street. For a time the high school and normal de-
partments occupied a building at 145 W. First North street. In the winter of 1898 the
business department was removed to the sixth floor of the Templeton, and in September,
1899, all departments were located on the fifth and sixth floors of that building. The
Social Hall, in which the school began its existence, was used in 1900 as a gymnasium,
with baths, and contained also the College library and reading room, with the physical,
biological, and chemical laboratories. It is now the chemical laboratory. The institution
began in 1886 with two teachers and one hundred and thirty-five students. In 1900 it
had sixteen regular and several special professors and instructors, with an enrollment of
nearly five hundred regular students.
The University now has its own home — a splendid group of buildings on Main street,
near its intersection with North Temple street, and almost facing the magnificent edifice
which gives its name to the latter thoroughfare. The first building to appear was the
Business College, erected by the institution itself; then came Barratt Hall, reared by the
late Mrs. Matilda M. Barratt, who made the bequest in memory of her deceased son, Sa-
muel M. Barratt; the third and latest structure is the Bi-igham Young Memorial Building,
erected with means from the estate of President Brignam Young, donated with the consent
of his surviving heirs. The means in question was obtained from the sale of a valuable
piece of real estate upon which President Young in his lifetime designed to erect a Uni-
versity bearing his name. Among others who have made liberal donations to the institu-
tion are the late Horace S. Eldredge, the late Edward Stevenson and Moses Thatcher, of
Salt Lake City; Ezra T. Clark of Farmington; and John S. Smith of Kaysville. The
present status of the University may be summed up thus: It had in 1902-3, an enrollment
of about thirteen hundred students, eight hundred of whom were pursuing regular courses.
23
362 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Six four-year courses, of high school grade, and two college courses, leading to the degrees
of Ph. B. and B. S. respectively, were offered at this time.
The Latter-day Saints University is organized under the laws of the State of Utah,
by articles of incorporation that define its powers, prescribe its duties, and indicate speci-
fically its sphere of operations. Article IV declares that "the nature and objects of this
association shall be to found a university, with colleges, academies, schools, institutes,
museums, galleries of art, libraries, laboratories, gymnasiums, and all proper accessories,
where instruction of the highest grade possible to its resources shall be given to both
sexes in science, literature, art, mechanical pursuits, and in the principles of the Gospel
as taught by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The chief aim and object
of the institution shall be to make of its students and graduates worthy citizens and true
followers of Jesus Christ, by fitting them for some useful pursuit, by strengthening in
their minds a pure attachment to the Constitution of the United States and to our repub-
lican institutions, by teaching them the lessons of purity, morality and upright conduct,
and by giving them, as far as possible, an understanding of the plan of salvation revealed
by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Nothing that is contrary to the laws of the land
shall ever be taught in said institution."
BENJAMIN CLUFF, JR.
^"''HIS gentleman is the president of the Brigham Young Academy. He was born at
!<<>} Provo, February 7, 1858, but at four years of age moved with his parents to
;; Logan, where he remained until he was seven, when his mother was called with
her children to join her husband, who was then on a mission in the Sandwich
Islands. In a company presided over by Elder George Nebeker, the family proceeded
by team to California, where they took ship to Honolulu. At Laie the boy remained with
his parents for five years. There was little chance for schooling there, but the environ-
ments— the broad ocean, with its never ceasing waves, dashing mountain high at
times against the rocky shore; the mountains volcanic and precipitous, covered with
beautiful tropical verdure, furnished excellent opportunities for one kind of education,
tending to give bent to his mind and exercising a great influence over his after life.
He learned the native language, and spoke it as easily as his own tongue. He
helped to pick the first cotton grown on the Laie plantation, and assisted in building the
first sugar mill and manufacturing the first sugar there.
At Logan, after his return in 1870, Benjamin helped his father at carpenter work
during the summer, and attended school in winter; but he did not like it, and cared
little or nothing for education until about fifteen, when an inspiration seized him and he
resolved to be more studious. Early in 1875 he left Logan for Coalville, where he was
employed by his uncle, William W. Cluff, President of Summit Stake, and for two years
was in the post office and tithing office at that place. He was not charmed with his work,
but he loved the Coalville city library, and was the librarian for over a year. He
became thoroughly imbued with the desire for an education, and having heard of the
establishment of the Brigham Young Academy at Provo, he determined to attend it.
It was in May, 1877, that he started for his native town, and not having money to spare
for a railroad ticket, set out on foot. In that manner, and with the aid of passing
teams, he soon covered the intervening distance of sixty-five miles.
The next morning after his arrival in Provo, "Bennie," chaperoned by his uncle,
Harvey H. Cluff, one of the directors of the Academy, entered that institution, and met
for the first time the man who was to have so much influence over his future life — Dr.
Karl G. Maeser. School lacked but three weeks of closing for the year, but during that
short period the youth became so interested in his studies that he determined to put
forth every effort to continue. During the summer vacation, he hauled coal and produce
between Coalville and Provo, and earned sufficient means to start in school at the
opening of the next year; though an event happened at that time that nearly changed
the course of his life. The day before school opened he was sent for by his father, who
had purchased a farm on Center Creek, in Wasatch County, and wanted his son to help
HISTORY OF UTAH. 363
him cultivate it. He offered him a third interest in the farm if he would assist him to
develop it. The boy told his father that he would stay if he insisted, but he would
much prefer going to school. "And I would like to have you go, but I cannot afford
to send you and I need your labor here." The son replied, "I know you need my
labor, and I am in duty bound to stay with you, but if you will release me, as if I were
of age, I will never ask you for assistance; I will work my own way through school."
This proposition was accepted, and though it was late at night, the boy saddled up and
rode to Provo, arriving next morning in time for the opening of school.
To help pay his expenses he engaged as a sub-janitor in the Academy, and was
soon made head janitor over the whole building. At the organization of the normal
class he was chosen one of its members, and soon after was installed as teacher of the
primary department. His second vacation was spent in a similar manner to the first.
At the opening of the second year everything was bright before him, when his school
work was suddenly closed by a call in October, 1878, to take a mission to the Sandwich
Islands. It was a severe trial, but he determined to honor the call, and forthwith
announced to the Church authorities his readiness to respond. It was almost like going
home, owing to his former residence in and around Laie.
He returned to Utah in the spring of 1882, and at the fall opening of the
B. Y. Academy was engaged as instructor in mathematics. Among his fellow teachers
were James E. Talmage, Joseph M. Tanner and Joseph B. Keeler, who had been
his fellow students. In August, 1884, he married the eldest daughter of David John,
one of the presidency of Utah Stake. In the fall of the same year he was appointed
stake superintendent of the Y. M. M. I. A. Two years later he obtained leave of absence
from the Academy and matriculated in the University of Michigan. While there he
debated before the Students' Association on the affirmative of the question, "Resolved
that Utah is ready for Statehood." He also answered Mrs. Angie Newman, of
Industrial Home notoriety, in her attacks upon Utah and the Mormons. Graduating in
1890 with the degree of Bachelor of Science, after returning home he was engaged in
his alma mater as instructor in the theory and practice of teaching. He was soon made
assistant principal, and at the completion of the new Academy building in January, 1892,
was placed as principal, and subsequently became president of the institution.
The Brigham Young Academy was founded October 16, 1875; at least that was the
date upon which President Young signed the deed of trust. A preliminary session of the
school was held soon after, with Warren N. Dusenberry as principal. He was succeeded
by Dr. Karl G. Maeser, who opened the first academic year. August 21, 1876. During
the first term there was an enrollment of twenty-nine pupils, among whom were Joseph
B. Keeler, George H. Brimhall, Joseph M. Tanner, James E. Talmage and others who
have since become prominent in educational matters. The building in which the school
was originally held was designed for a mercantile business on its first floor, and for a
theatre and dance hall on the second floor. A basement story, or cellar, always damp
and musty, rendered the whole place unhealthy, and Dr. Maeser often spoke of it as
"my coffin." The school grew rapidly. In the second academic year a normal depart-
ment was added, followed soon by an academic department, then by a music department,
a scientific department, etc. At the close of the seventh year more room was needed,
and in the fall of 18S3, mainly through the liberality of President A. 0. Smoot, com-
modious additions were built; but before these were used and just prior to the opening
of the second semester of 1883—4, on the night of the 4th of January the entire building
was consumed by fire.
It looked as if the Academy itself would have to cease; but such was not the case.
Temporary quarters were provided in the basement of the Latter-day Saints' meeting
house, in a bank building just erected, and in a new building owned by S. S. Jones.
The next year the upper story of the Z. C. M. I. large warehouse near the railroad
station, was rented and fitted up for school purposes. At the same time a block in the
upper part of town was purchased and the foundation of a large building laid. In the
warehouse, however, the school remained for over seven years. But it had reached its
growth, and when Professor Cluff returned from Ann Arbor in 1890, a movement was
already on foot to finish the new building upon the foundation previously laid. He
and other members of the faculty, with the Board, took up the matter with vigor, so
that by the opening of the second semester in 1892 the second and third stories had been
completed and the school moved into its new quarters. To finish the building Pres-
ident Smoot and other members of the Board mortgaged their private property.
Expansion was now possible. Regular courses of four years were laid out, a primary
school was organized as a regular eight grade common school, and a kindergarten
department instituted; the commercial department developed into a commercial college;
364
HISTORY OF UTAH.
and in a year or two the Academy, previously a highly developed common school, with
a normal department covering two years, took on the aspect of a well organized college
and high school. Its growth from the first had been steady, in spite of many draw-
backs.
In 1893 Professor Cluff returned to Ann Arbor, there pursuing graduate studies
and receiving the degree of Master of Science, after which he visited leading educational
institutions in the United States and Canada, with a view to gathering the most improved
ideas for normal schools and colleges. The next year a normal training school was organized
in the Academy. In the fall of 1898 a branch of the institution was established at Fort
Cameron, near Beaver. About this time the General Church Board of Education con-
ferred upon Professor Cluff the degree of Doctor of Didactis. A unique movement was
the exploring expedition led by him to South America, starting April 17, 1900, with
mounts and pack animals, traversing Southern Utah, Arizona, Mexico, Central America
and the Isthmus of Panama, and proceeding as far south as Bogota, the capital of the
United States of Colombia. Some perilous experiences were undergone and some
interesting explorations made. The expedition, which originally numbered about fifteen
persons, several of whom returned while en route southward, reached home, February
7, 1902.
At the beginning of the next school year a further development was made in the
Academy. The domestic organization, heretofore separating the students according to
their places of residence in Provo City, now divided them according to the Stakes from
which they came, with a president, two counselors, and a clerk, chosen from among the
students of each stake; while to one of the professors was assigned the direction of the
work. These departments assumed the dignity of schools. A change was also made in
the Sunday work, and from a i-egular Sunday school there was organized a Sunday
Normal school, giving instructions to officers and teachers of Sabbath schools, Mutual
Improvement and other auxilliary associations.
During President Cluff s administration the following departments and libraries have
been founded in the Brigham Young Academy: The laboratory of physics, by the Holt
family; the laboratory of chemistry, by the Magleby family; the laboratory of general
mechanics, by the Beckstead family; the laboratory of natural science, by the Hindley
family; a library of general scientific works, by F. Warren Smith of California; a
library of philosophy, by the class of 1897; a library of theology, by the class of 1898;
and a library of general literature, by the class of 1900. Among recent gifts to
the institution was one from Miss Emma Lucy Gates, a granddaughter of President
Young, who shortly after her return from Europe in the fall of 1902, donated the sum
of one thousand dollars, the entire net proceeds of a concert given at Provo by the
talented young vocalist.
The Academy as it now stands comprises a kindergarten with its training school, a
preparatory school, a missionary school, a music school, a school for normal training,
a high school, a commercial school and a college. Over each school is placed a
principal, and over the college a dean. Besides the regular work, instructions are
given in mechanics, domestic science, and domestic art, or needle work. The enroll-
ment for 1902-3 in all the departments, exclusive of the kindergarten and training
school, lacked but ten of fourteen hundred, while that in the Beaver branch was two
hundred and forty-three, making in all sixteen hundred and thirty-three.
WILLIAM JASPER KERR.
Q MOTHER son of Utah who has risen to prominence in the educational sphere is Pres-
ident William J. Kerr, the present head of the State Agricultural College. He is
a native of Richmond, Cache County, where he was born November 17, 1863. His
father was a farmer, and the son received a common school education in his native
town. In 1882 he entered the University of Deseret, where he pursued the normal course,
and since that time he has been engaged in educational work. During the two years
HISTORY OF UTAH. 365
1885-87 he taught in the public schools of Sniithfield, and in September of the latter year
was employed as instructor in physiology, geology and physics in the Brigham Young
College at Logan. From 1888 to 1890 he was instructor in mathematics in the same in-
stitution.
During this period Mr. Kerr pursued a systematic course of private study, supple-
mented with special instruction from competent teachers. In 1890 he resigned his posi-
tion in the Brigham Young College, and proceeding to Ithaca, New York, entered Cornell
University, where he studied during the year 1890-91 and through the three following
summers. While in the East he visited a number of the leading colleges and universities
of the United States and Canada. Returning home he spent another year in the Brigham
Young College as instructor in mathematics, and in 1892 accepted the professorship of
mathematics and astronomy in the University of Utah, formerlythe University of Deseret.
This chair he filled until June, 1894, at which time he resigned the position in order to
accept the presidency of the Brigham Young College.
Prior to his time this institution — founded by President Brigham Young July 24,
1877 — had been under the principalship of such prominent educators as Miss Ida lone
Cook, James Z. Stewart, Dr. J. M. Tanner, and Professor J. H. Paul. William J. Kerr
was the first head of the institution .to have the title of president. At the meeting of the
Board of Trustees where this title was created and placed upon him, it was decided to
augment the faculty, extend the courses and inaugurate other changes that would raise the
standard of the institution and place it more strictly on a college basis. Seven professor-
ships were established, the entrance requirements were increased, the academic and nor-
mal courses extended from two to three years, and college courses established in general
science and letters, each extending through four years and leading to degrees. The facili-
ties for college work were also increased in various ways. The first degrees were con-
ferred in June, 1895. February of that year witnessed the opening to the public of the
Brigham Young College free library and reading room in the same building containing the
museum. The executive committee of the board of trustees, to whose enterprise, aided
by President Kerr, this marked improvement was mainly due, were George W. Thatcher,
Moses Thatcher and Simpson M. Molen. The impulse given to the institution was such
that its facilities soon proved inadequate, and as the enrollment of students increased it
was found necessary to provide further accommodations.
Up to the close of 1898 the college had its headquarters in a four story brick and
stone building, built in 1883-4, on a campus of about seven acres, situated near the cen-
ter of the city; the site purchased and the building erected partly with the proceeds of
the college endowment of nearly ten thousand acres of land given to it by its founder.
Upon a portion of this campus was erected by popular subscription in 1897-8, a hand-
somer and much larger building of brick and stone, which the institution has occupied
since the time given. President Kerr remained with the school until July 1, 1900, when
he resigned his position to accept the presidency of the Agricultural College, situated on
the foot hills overlooking the same town. He was succeeded at the B. Y. College by
President James H. Linford, one of his former force of instructors.
President Kerr is a specialist in mathematics, and his talents have been recognized
at home and abroad. He is a member of the American Mathematical Society and was
the founder of the Mathematical Society of Utah, over which he has presided by re-
peated annual elections since its inception in 1892. He is also a member of the Ameri-
can Association for the Advancement of Science. He was a member of the Constitut-
ional Convention of 1895, and president of the Utah State Teachers' Association in 1897-8.
He possesses marked administrative ability, is energetic, progressive and generally suc-
cessful in whatever he undertakes. His wife, whom he married in July, 1885, was Miss
Leonora Hamilton, formerly of Mill Creek, Salt Lake County.
EVAN STEPHENS.
^"*HE noted leader of the famous Tabernacle choir is a native of Pencader, Carmar-
\*[) thenshire, South Wales, where he was born June 28, 1854. His origin was hum-
;; ble, his father and mother, David and Jane Stephens, being farm laborers for daily
wages. His brothers and sisters likewise "worked out." Evan was a rather sickly
child, and consequently was kept much at home. He learned to read Welsh at his moth-
3G6 HISTORY OF UTAH.
er's knee, and when six years old was sent to the village school, where he learned English
and was taught reading, writing, arithmetic, spelling and a little grammar. At ten years
of age he worked on a farm and at twelve emigrated with his parents to Utah. The pur-
pose of the family in coming here was purely religious: they being members of the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They were assisted in their emigration by
Evan's brother and sister, who had preceded them to the Rocky mountains, but they
came away from their native land with little more than the clothing they wore.
Leaving Wales in May, 1866, they took passage on the sailing vessel "Arkwright,"
which landed them at New York, whence they proceeded through Canada to Chicago,
thence to St. Joseph and up the Missouri river to near Omaha, where they outfitted for
the journey across the plains. They traveled with ox-teams in a company commanded by
Captain Rawlins, but the boy Evan walked most of the way. The company was largely
composed of Scandinavians. The Stephens family reached their destination on the 2nd
of October, and made their home at Willard, Box Elder County, Utah.
Up to this time the future leader and composer had heard but little music, and was
wholly untutored in the art. He was a musical genius, however, and the latent spark
within him was soon kindled to a bright blaze. Deeply interested in the subject, he con-
nected himself with the ward choir as an alto boy, learning to read and subsequently to
write and compose music without the aid of a teacher. He was then about fourteen. It
is said that he would sometimes jot down the notes on a piece of shingle, while out herd-
ing sheep in the sagebrush or on the mountains. Says he: "I know of no one who wrote
music in that part of the country at that time. 1 simply composed because I was so
strongly impelled to do so that I could not help trying, and gradually learned by practice
to write and harmonize correctly. I had reached this stage in 1871, when in my seven-
teenth year I was the leader of the Willard choir." Later he organized reading and
singing classes, which he taught at night, his days being occupied with team work, can-
yon labor, etc. He also learned to play the cabinet organ fairly, first practicing on a
battered old instrument in the loft of a barn.
In 1879 he was called to Logan to be the organist of the Tabernacle choir at that
place. While officiating in this capacity he labored at "striking" in a blacksmith shop at
the railroad depot ; but disliking the work he left it after two months trial and returned
to Willard. A few months later he went to Logan to teach music, giving on an average
ten private lessons daily. He taught children's classes, numbering about three hundred,
and some adult classes, including the Tabernacle choir, of which he was again the organ-
ist. Under his labors and those of Professor Lewis, the leader, this body of singers at-
tained a marked degree of efficiency. Professor Stephens gave four operas of his own
composing (claimed by him to be the first original words and music ever given in Utah)
and the performances were all successful.
In March, 1882, he removed to Salt Lake City, intending to study the pipe organ. He
took a few lessons from Professor Joseph J. Daynes, the organist at the Tabernacle, and
then, at the request of the officers of the Deseret Sunday School Union, particularly
Assistant General Superintendent George Goddai'd, he took up classes of Sabbath School
children, beginning with two hundred and fifty selected voices. In six months he had
over a thousand students and had become too busy to continue his own studies. Dr. John
R. Park, the president of the University, had Professor Stephens engaged to teach music in
that institution. He uses his own method of teaching, which may be called a combination
of staff and tonic sol fa, graded according to bis ideas of natural progress.
In 1886 Professor Stephens attended for a year the New England Conservatory of
Music, Boston, studying especially composition under some of the best American teachers.
Returning to Utah he organized and taught classes. His adult class in 1888-9 became
"Stephen's Opera Company," whieh gave with fine success at the Salt Lake Theatre, the
"Bohemian Girl,'' "Daughter of the Regiment" and "Martha,'' besides studying "La
Traviata," "Ernani" and "II Trovatore.'' In 1889, Gilinore, the great bandmaster, en-
gaged Mr. Stephens to organize a chorus of about three hundred voices for a festival in
the Tabernacle. This led to the organization of the Salt Lake Choral Society, which
flourished for four or five years, giving two festivals, a performance of Haydn's "Creation"
and one of Dudley Buck's "Light of Asia."
The success of the Salt Lake Choral Society led to a reorganization of the Tabernacle
choir on a large scale, and the engagement of Professor Stephens as its reorganizer and
director. This was in 1890. The choir membership since then has averaged over five
hundred, and is slightly over that at the present time. The choir has been self-support-
ing since its reorganization, having done a business financially of about fifty thousand
dollars, including a trip in 1893 to the World's Fair at Chicago, where, in competition
HISTORY OF UTAH. 367
with the trained choristers of the Eastern States, Wales and other countries, it bore off
the second prize (one thousand dollars) in the great vocal contest. In the spring of 1896
it made a successful tour of Northern California, and the same year visited Denver. It
has since been twice to California. It is the largest choir in the world, and has been
highly praised by such eminent musicians as Paderewski, Nordica, Gilmore, Sousa,
Melba and many more.
Professor Stephens introduced the study of music into the public schools of Salt Lake
City, having charge of the instruction during the first two years. He has given concerts
of his own compositions, oratorios, contatas and operatic selections. He competed for
and won the prize for the best musical composition set to the words of the "Pioneer Ode"
at the Utah Jubilee, in July, 1897. In 1900 and 1902 he made tours of musical observa-
tion and inspection through the United States and Europe. ■
JOHN JASPER MCCLELLAN.
^"^HE modest town of Payson has the honor of producing the Tabernacle organist.
!<<>} John J. McClellan, one of the leading musicians of the State. His father, whose
* y full name he bears, was a native of Illinois, and while yet there he became
identified with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He moved west-
ward with the main body of his people. Upon his arrival here in 1848, he settled for a
few months at Salt Lake City, and then went to Utah County, where he ever after made
his home. He was a farmer and a stock-raiser, but also took an active part in civic
affairs, serving for many years in the city council of Payson, and holding for eight years
the office of mayor. An advocate and promoter of irrigation, he was largely instru-
mental in getting the reservoirs built for which that town is noted. He died in August,
1896. The mother of our subject, Eliza Barbara Walser McClellan, is a native of
Switzerland. She emigrated with her parents to Utah after joining the Church in
Europe.
Professor McClellan was born April 20, 1874. Most of his boyhood was spent in
going to school. He had a taste for printing, and while yet a youth published, with
a partner, Payson's first regular newspaper, of which he was the half owner. It soon
became evident, however, that he was destined for something more than printer's
ink and the mental grind of the editorial sanctum. He early evinced musical genius,
and during the two years that he successfully conducted the Payson "Enterprise" he
studied music with local teachers and made fine progress in the art.
In 1889 he went to Saginaw, Michigan, and took up serious musical study under an
eminent German master, Albert W. Platte, with whom he remained for eighteen months.
He then went to Ann Arbor, where he entered the University School of Music, taking
a post graduate course under the famous organist and musician, Dr. Albert Stanley,
and the celebrated German pianist, Johann Erich Schmaal. The second year of his
piano study was with the world renowned master, Alberto Jonas. He graduated in
June, 1896, the first pupil turned out by the institution named, and the first Utah boy
to graduate from a school of that character.
Returning he entered immediately upon his musical career; at the same time marrying,
in July of that year, the girl of his choice, Miss Mary Douglass, of Payson. For two years
he was professor of music in the Latter-day Saints College at Salt Lake City, and was
next engaged in the Brieham Young: Academy at Provo, where for another year he gave the
music department half his time, and spent the remainder in Salt Lake, as teacher of
piano, organ and harmony. After the termination of his teaching career in the B. Y.
Academy he took his wife and children to Europe, where he had as masters Xaver
Scharwenka and Ernst Jedliczka, two of the greatest of the old world. While in Berlin
he got out the musical part of an excellent hymnal for the Church, under the direction
of Elder Arnold Schulthess, who then presided over the German mission. Ten thousand
copies of this hymnal were printed, and it stands to-day a monument to all concerned
in its production.
Mr. McClellan returned to Utah in August, 1900. He was at once made professor
368 HISTORY OF UTAH.
of music in the State University; and early in September the authorities of the Church
chose him to be the organist of the Tabernacle, a position for which he is admirably
adapted, and which he fills with marked distinction and unquestioned skill. The Salt
Lake Opera Company also engaged him as their musical director, and under him
presented seven important operas of the lighter order. His musical ability gave him wide
local fame, which speedily overran home bounderies and gained him repute abroad. Indeed,
while at Ann Arbor, he was the director and organist of the Catholic Church, and won
golden opinions for his efficient service in that capacity.
The Tabernacle organ recitals, now so widely and favorably known, were inaugurated
by Professor McClellan. He was instrumental in getting the Church authorities to
modernize the great organ, which was done in May, 1901, by the W. W. Kimball
Company of Chicago, whose effective work upon the grand and matchless instrument has
made it in many respects the finest organ in the world. In variety of construction,
and the massing of tonal qualities, it is pronounced by competent critics to be without
a peer. During the summer season free semi-weekly recitals are given by the Professor
upon the organ, at which the attendance ranges from one thousand to six thousand and
more. In addition to these regular recitals he gives many extra ones by direction of the
First Presidency. Recently he gave an organ recital at Denver, in connection with the
great annual musical festival in that city, at which the other artists were the Theodore
Thomas Orchestra of Chicago and four of America's best vocalists. Mr. McClellan's
fine work won him an ovation and gained him a national reputation. He has accom-
panied some of the greatest American artists, and nearly all the really great local singers,
at their debuts or at subsequent times.
Professor McClellan is not only a musical performer of great soulfulness and
delicacy of taste; he is also a talented composer. At present he is writing several
songs and anthems; also a comic opera entitled "The Rose of Japan," the librettist of
which is a resident of New York City. This opera is nearly completed, and will be pro-
duced first in the metropolis. The Professor is engaged to some extent in business,
being a director of the D. 0. Calder's Sons Company, the oldest and leading musical
house in Salt Lake City. He is the secretary of the firm. He finds his greatest enjoy-
ment— outside the society of wife and children — in organ work and in teaching his many
pupils. As piano and theory instructor his services are demanded to the extent that he
is one of the busiest of men. In the Church he holds the office of an Elder. With all the
tender sensitiveness of the true artist, he is of a sweet and amiable disposition, makes
friends wherever he goes, and is popular with all classes of people.
JOHN DAVID PETERS.
^ATIVE to Utah, and of Welsh descent, John D. Peters looked first upon
the light at Salt Lake City, May 10, 1850, less than three years after the advent of
the Pioneers. His parents, David and Laura Peters, had emigrated from near
Harlech, Merionethshire, North Wales, the year before he was born. His father
was a carder and spinner in his native land, owning the factory in which he worked, and
employing several hands; but upon coming to Utah, like most of the emigrants of early
days, he turned his attention to farming.
John was but three years old when the family moved to Brigham City, where, and
at Three Mile Creek, a settlement in the neighborhood, the most of his life has been
spent. He had no leaning toward any special vocation, but adapted himself to his cir-
cumstances and surroundings, beginning life as a tiller of the soil. At an early age he
became a member, by baptism, of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
His opportunities for education were meagre until he attained the age of twenty-one,
by which time he was a married man, having wedded at Salt Lake City, November 22,
1869, Miss Louisa E. Bingham. In 1873 he attended the High School at Logan, under
Professor Davis. Subsequently he taught school at Three Mile Creek during the winter
mouths, and farmed during the summer, until 1882, when he attended the University of
Utah as a normal student. Afterwards he taught school for three years at Brigham City.
In August, 1883, he was elected, and two years later re-elected, Superintendent of Schools
for Box Elder County.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 369
At Three Mile Creek he was Bishop's counselor from 1877 until 1890 — serving also
for ten years as superintendent of the Sunday School — and was then made a high coun-
cilor of the Box Elder Stake of Zion. He had previously been elected, in August, 1886,
probate judge of the county, and held that office until March, 1889, when he was suc-
ceeded by E. P. Johnson, an appointee of President Cleveland's.
In 1888 Mr. Peters was elected to the board of the Deseret Agricultural and Manu-
facturing Society, the members of which were chosen by the joint vote of the legislative
assembly. In 1890 he became connected with the Brigham City Bank, of which for
several years he was the cashier. In 1890 also he was elected county clerk, and retained
this position until January, 1893.
In 1S91 he was elected to the Legislature, and sat as a lawmaker during the session
of 1892. The same year he became the mayor of Brigham City, re-elected in 1893. In
1895 he was a member of the Convention that framed the Constitution upon which Utah
was admitted into the Union.
The labors of the Convention were barely over when Mr. Peters made preparations
to go to Europe, on a mission to which he had been called by the authorities of the
Church. He started June 29, 1895, and indue time landed at Liverpool. He was ap-
pointed by President Anthon H. Lund, then presiding over the European Mission, to the
Welsh Conference, where he labored as a traveling Elder until February 10, 1896, when
he was appointed to preside over that Conference. Honorably released, he left Cardiff,
August 4, 1897, and proceeding to Glasgow, sailed on the fifth of that month for New York
on the steamship '"Furnessia." The 21st of August found him at home in Brigham City.
He resumed his duties upon the farm until winter set in, and then taught school un-
til spring. In July, 189S, he was once more elected superintendent of schools for
Box Elder County. Since then his time has been variously occupied in business and in
the discharge of his ecclesiastical duties. He is accounted a solid citizen, and is a good
husband and father. His children number ten — six sons and four daughters — and all
but one of them are living.
FARMERS AND
STOCK-RAISERS.
ANGUS MUNN CANNON.
PROMINENT in various ways and in business a successful farmer and stock-raiser,
Angus M. Cannon, President of the Salt Lake Stake of Zion, is given the right of
precedence in this group of biographies. He has been a resident of Utah since the
fall of 1849, when as an orphan boy of fifteen he entered Salt Lake Valley,
having trudged afoot almost the entire distance from the Missouri river. Though of
Manx parentage, he is of English birth; his native place being the city of Liverpool,
where he was born May 17, 1S34. His parents were George and Ann Quayle Cannon.
At the age of three and a half years he went to live with his maternal grandmother on
the Isle of Man, where he remained until he was five. Angus was the second son and
fourth child in the family; the other children, named in their order, being George Q.,
Mary Alice, Ann, John Q., David H. and Leonora. The parents were baptized Latter-
day Saints February 11, 1840, by Apostle John Taylor, who had married in Canada,
Leonora Cannon, the father's sister. Angus was blessed by the Elders of the Church the
same year.
In September, 1842, the family started for America, taking passage in the ship
"Sidney,'' with a company of Saints presided over by Elder Levi Richards. The second
day out from Liverpool the mother, Ann Quayle Cannon, was taken sick, and after an
illness of six weeks she died and was buried in the ocean. She had anticipated such a
fate, but could not be dissuaded from undertaking the voyage, so desirous was she of
gathering with her children to the bosom of the Church. Such was the exalted religious
nature of this heroic woman, whose sons were destined to become leaders in the Church,
and whose daughters have been noted for their genuine womanly qualities and unswerv-
ing devotion to the principles for which their martyr mother gave her life.
After a voyage of eight weeks the family reached New Orleans, whence they pro-
ceeded to St. Louis, and there passed the winter. In the spring they went up to Nauvoo
on the "Maid of Iowa," a steamboat owned by the Church and commanded by Captain
Dan Jones. Owing to the change of climate, several members of the household were
prostrated with fever and ague. During the succeeding year the father, George Cannon,
married Mary Edwards White, a widow from North Wales, who bore to him his
daughter Elizabeth. He subsequently went to St. Louis to obtain work, and while there
suddenly fell sick and died. The remainder of the year (1S44) Angus was cared for by
his father's widow, and in the autumn was baptized into the Church by Elder Lyman 0.
Littlefield. The next year he with his brother David and his sister Leonora went to live
with their sister Mary Alice and her husband Charles Lambert.
The fall of 1S46 found the orphan boy and his relatives on the west bank of the Miss-
issippi, with their faces toward the Rocky mountains. With the remnant of the Saints
they had been driven by the mob from Nauvoo, enduring the trials and witnessing the
scenes incident to that tragic episode. Proceeding to the Missouri river, where the main
body of the exiled Church had halted, they built for themselves a humble home for winter
shelter. In 1847, after the departure of the pioneers for the West, the eldest son, George
Q., and his sister Ann journeyed also from Winter Quarters, with their uncle, John
Taylor, and the emigration of that season. The rest of the family, who later went into
Missouri, remained behind to prepare for their further pilgrimage.
It was in the spring of 1849 that Angus M. Cannon started for Salt Lake Valley.
He reached his destination in the autumn, just one day after his brother, George Q. ,bad de-
parted on a mission to the Sandwich Islands, leaving for the use of his younger brothers
and sisters the matured crops which he had planted in the spring. The year 1850 was
mainly spent in farming and in hauling wood from the canyons, after which Angus went
with George A. Smith's colony to Iron county, reaching the site of the present town of
Parowan in January, 1851. He made the first adobes in that settlement. In May he
returned to Salt Lake and spent the remainder of the year working on the farm and in
374 HISTORY OF UTAH.
the canyon. In the spring of 1852 he was ordained to the office of a Seventy, and the
same year he became a printer's apprentice in the "Deseret News'' establishment.
The year 1854 brought with it a call to a mission in the Eastern States, to preach the
Gospel and assist in the publication of "The Mormon," a paper edited and published by
Apostle John Taylor in New York City. After laboring for some time in that city and m
Brooklyn, Elder Cannon was sent to Hartford and other parts of Connecticut, and subse-
quently labored in New Jersey and in the Philadelphia conference. In Franklin county,
Pennsylvania, and other places, he baptized many, and in this work was joined by his
cousin, Elder George J. Taylor. In the springof 1856 he succeeded Jeter Clinton as presi-
dent of the Philadelphia conference, comprising Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware,
and Eastern Maryland. The following spring he became first counselor to Elder William
I. Appleby, who had been appointed to preside over the Eastern States Mission. In ad-
dition to his other duties Elder Cannon superintended the Church emigration. Honor-
ably released, he left Philadelphia for home in March, 1858. He had suffered from
sickness before starting, and on the way west was detained at Crescent City, near Council
Bluffs, for about a month by an attack of fever.
He arrived at Salt Lake City on the 21st of June. Finding the place deserted by
most of its inhabitants, who had moved south at the approach of Johnston's army, he pro-
ceeded to Fillmore and there met his brother, George Q., after a separation of eleven
years. He returned to Salt Lake the same summer. The next year he became one of
the presidency of the Thirtieth Quorum of Seventy. In 1860, under the firm name of
Cannon, Eardley & Brothers, he founded a pottery business, but the new enterprise was
barely on its feet when the head of the firm was called, with others, in the latter part of
1861, to settle in Southern Utah. With his usual promptitude he responded to the call,
and traveled to the banks of the Rio Virgen.
He was associated with Erastus Snow and Jacob Gates, on a committee to locate the
city of St. George. He was the first mayor of that town, holding the office for two terms.
For four years he was prosecuting attorney for Washington county, and for two years
district attorney for the Second Judicial District. In the fall of 1864 he went with Anson
Call and others to locate a warehouse at the head of navigation on the Colorado river.
They founded Callville, and brought a steamboat fifteen miles above Roaring Rapids, be-
yond which point Colonel Ives, of the United States army, had declared no such boat
could ascend.
In a regiment of militia known as the "Iron Brigade," Angus M. Cannon was elected
major, and later lieutenant-colonel. He was one of ninety men, all members of that
regiment, who searched for and recovered the bodies of Dr. J. M. Whitmore and Robert
Mclntyre, killed by Indians at Pipe Springs. This was in midwinter, 1866;
the snow covering the ground. Dr. Whitmore, formerly of Texas and afterwards of
Salt Lake City, was on a mission in "Dixie" and owned a ranch at the Springs. Mr.
Mclntyre was in the doctor's employ, and they were out on the range hunting cattle,
when they were surprised and murdered a few miles south of the ranch. The militia was
notified and the ninety men under Colonel D. D. McArthur, Lieutenant-Colonel Cannon
and Major Pierce, all mounted, set out to search forfthe bodies, and if possible to appre-
hend and punish the murderers. They captured a Piute Indian who confessed to having
witnessed the killing of Dr. Whitmore and his companion, but blamed it upon the Nava-
joes. Subsequently he conducted them to the scene of the murder, where the bodies,
pierced with bullets and arrows, were found under the snow. While a portion of the
party stood gazing on the ghastly sight, another squad under command of Captain James
Andrus rode up, having other Indians in custody. These were also Piutes, and it appeared
that they had done the deed of blood. They were therefore executed on the spot where
the crime had been committed; all save the informer, whose life was spared, according to
promise.
Ill health, caused by the malaria of the southern country, compelled Mr. Cannon to
come north in 1867, when he made a trip into Montana, having charge of a train of freight
wagons. Later in the year he was released from the Dixie Mission to take charge of the
business department of the "Deseret News." It was under his management that the
"News'' was first issued as a daily paper. He held that position until 1874, but meantime,
in I860, fulfilled another mission to the East, upon which he was gone six months.
From 1874 to 1876 he was engaged in the coal businsss, also in the wagon and imple-
ment business. In August of the latter year he was elected Recorder of Salt Lake
County, and re-elected in 1880, holding the office eight years. Prior to this he had
engaged in farming and stock raising, and had taken up a farm near the Jordan Nar-
rows, at the southern end of Salt Lake Valley. His city residence was in the Fourteenth
iz&T-Z^J^
■
HISTORY OF UTAH. 375
Ward. About the year 1873 he became second counselor to Bishop Thomas Taylor of
that Ward. He was afterward ordained a High Priest and set apart as a member of
the High Council of the Salt Lake Stake. In April, 1876, he was appointed by Presi-
dent Brigham Young to preside over the stake. This position he still holds. At the
time of his appointment the stake comprised not only the whole of Salt Lake County,
but also the counties of Tooele, Davis, Morgan, Summit and Wasatch. It is now
the largest and most important of the three stakes into which Salt Lake County has
recently been divided.
At the breaking out of the anti-polygamy crusade the prominence and activity
of President Angus M. Cannon made him a marked man to the crusaders, and the
fact that he had arranged his household to conform to the requirements of the
Edmunds law — practically living apart from all his families — did not protect him. He
was known to be the husband of several wives, and the courts ruled that it was not necessary
for a polygamist to live with his wives in order to commit "unlawful cohabitation."
The offense was complete if he acknowledged them. Under such a ruling no polyga-
mist could escape without proving recreant to the most sacred obligations. He was
arrested January 20, 1885, and placed under bonds. The details of his preliminary exam-
ination before U. S. Commissioner McKay, and his trial before Chief Justice Zane
may be found in chapters twelve and thirteen of the previous volume. His trial began
on the 27th and ended on the 29th of April, when a verdict of guilty was rendered.
On the 9th of May he was sentenced to pay a fine of three hundred dollars and to be
imprisoned for sis months in the penitentiary. He was incarcerated the same' day.
His case was appealed to the Supreme Court of the Territory, and was taken on a writ
of error to the Supreme Court of the United States, both tribunals sustaining the decis-
ion of the trial court. Pending the final adjudication he remained in prison over two
months in excess of his time, in order to obtain from the court of last resort, for the pub-
lic benefit, an authoritative definition of the legal scope of the term "unlawful cohabita-
tion." This definition the court gave; it was to the effect that the offense of unlawful
cohabitation was complete without sexual association when a man "flaunted in the face
of the world the ostentation and opportunities of a polygamous household." On the day
that this decision was rendered (December 14, 1885) President Cannon paid his fine and
emerged from the penitentiary. How the Supreme Court of the United States,
having resolved to dismiss the Snow case for want of jurisdiction, subsequently re-
called its mandate in the Cannon case, and dismissed it on the same ground, is also
related in the previous volume.
Immediately on regaining his liberty President Cannon went into voluntary retire-
ment, threats having been made to rearrest and return him to prison, since he still
acknowledged more than one woman as his wives. On the 24th of November, he was
again taken into custody, charged with unlawful cohabitation, and placed under bonds of
ten thousand dollars. Arraigned before Commissioner McKay in December, he was
arrested on three more charges, two for unlawful cohabitation and one for polygamy. The
examination failed to fasten any of these charges upon him, and he was accordingly set
free.
Angus M. Cannon's life in Utah has been such as to familiarize him with the condi-
tion of all classes of her people, and his labors have been of a character to acquaint him
with the natural wealth and vast resources of the State. He has engaged quite exten-
sively in farming, stock raising and coal mining, and during recent years in mining for
the precious metals. He has developed large mines in the Dugway district, Tooele County
— mines giving great promise, but at present unprofitable to work, owing to a lack of
railroad facilities. He has also been an extensive operator in the Mercur district,
where some of the mines opened by him have sold for large sums, not large enough, how-
ever, to entirely reimburse him for the expensive development of these and his Dugway
properties. His laboi-s in cattle and horse-raising, have been profitable to himself and
beneficial to the community. Pew men equal him in judgment of cattle. He is a natural
horseman and an expert shot.
In his ecclesiatical labors he has been unusually successful. Ever active and on the
alert, he is a very efficient stake president. As presiding officer of the High Council,
required to render decisions for its acceptance or rejection, he has been sustained by
that body in every instance except one, and even in that case the party against whom
the decision was rendered accepted it as just and satisfactory. No decision emanating
from the High Council during his presidency of nearly twenty- eight years has been
reversed. At the time of his appointment as president of the stake, David 0. Calder
was chosen his first counselor and Joseph E. Taylor his second counselor. Upon the
376 HISTORY OF UTAH.
death of Elder Calder in 1884, Joseph E. Taylor became first, and Charles W. Penrose
second counselor; and such is the personnel of the stake presidency at this time.
In addition to the characteristics noted Angus M. Caunon possesses other distin-
guishing traits. Exceptionally zealous and devoted to duty, he is also a man without
fear. Deferential to his superiors, he demands that his own authority be respected.
Though at times stern, he possesses great kindness of heart, and is generosity itself
whenever his friends are in trouble. From the warmth and impulsiveness of his nature
one could well suppose him to have sprung from the sunny South, rather than from the
fogs and mists of a northern island. By his several wives he is the father of numerous
children, some of whom have risen to prominence.
CANUTE PETERSON.
TN Central and Southern Utah few men were better known, and none will be remem-
'¥' bered more favorably, than Canute Peterson, who died a Patriarch in the Latter-
4* day Church and president of the South Sanpete Stake of Zion. He was a man
of genial qualities and general intelligence, respected and esteemed by all classes.
A natural humorist, he was ever brimming over with good nature, and was as hospitable
and kind as he was mirthful and entertaining. By birth a Norseman, he inherited the
noblest qualities of his race, and in the building up of this State, especially the part
known as Sanpete County, with which his name is identified, he was a power for good
from first to last. A prominent ecclesiast, and an all-round man of affairs, his principal
vocation was farming, in which he engaged on quite an extensive scale. He was a
father not only to the Scandinavian people, but to all the people over whom he presided,
and he enjoyed their love and confidence to the end of his days.
Canute Peterson was born in Eidsfjord, Hardanger, Norway, May 13, 1824. As a
lad of thirteen he emigrated with his parents to America, taking passage at Gotten-
borg, Sweden, for New York, on board a Swedish brig whose captain was a Norwegian.
They sailed early in June and landed about the middle of August. Among the passengers
were the Sondrason and Hogan families, also Norwegians and acquaintances of the
Petersons. Ellen Sondrason, a little girl of Canute's own age, lived to become Mrs.
Ellen Sanders Kimball, one of Utah's three Pioneer Women. From New York the
Peterson family and their friends proceeded to Chicago, where the Sondrasons left them
and went to Indiana. The Petersons and Hogans remained in Illinois, settling in La
Salle county. Up to this time they had heard nothing of Mormonism, except in the way
of vague rumor and sensational report; but they were destined to become well acquainted
with that religion, whose future home, Nauvoo, was less than two hundred miles from
their place of residence.
In the year, 1842, Mormon missionaries from Nauvoo made their appearance in
La Salle county, Elder George P. Dykes being the leader of the party. They preached
the Gospel and baptized nearly a hundred persons, among them Canute Peterson, then
a youth of eighteen, who became a Latter-day Saint on August 12th of that year.
A branch was raised up, with Ole Hyer as its president. Subsequently a stake to be
known as "New Norway" was projected at La Salle, which part was visited for that
purpose by the Apostles Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball and Parley P. Pratt; also
at another time by Wilford Woodruff and George A. Smith. It was predicted that a
temple would be reared at that place. Pursuant to these ends some surveys were
made, but the project was then abandoned.
In October, 1844, Canute Peterson paid a visit to Nauvoo. attending the first general
conference of the Church held after the murder of the Prophet and the Patriarch. While
there he was ordained to the office of a Seventy and called into the ministry. His first
mission was to Wisconsin, where he labored successfully among the Norwegian in-
habitants of that State, converting and baptizing quite a number and organizing a
branch of the Church. His associate in this labor was Elder Gudmund Haugaas.
The year 1849 witnessed his migration to the West, in company with his young
wife, Sarah Ann Nelson. She was a very estimable woman, well fitted to be the wife
of such a man. Though American born, she was of Norwegian extraction. Her parents
HISTORY OF UTAH. 377
were Quakers, who left Norway in 1S25 to escape religious persecution. They were
passengers in the little sloop "Restaurationen," otherwise known as "the Norwegian
Mayflower," and were among the first Scandinavian emigrants to the New World.
Their daughter Sarah was born in Kendall Township, Orleans Count v. New York.
February 16, 1827. \fter her father's death, when she was a mere child, she went with
her mother to La Salle County Illinois. There she taught school, and became acquainted
with Canute Peterson, whom she admired for his genial nature and sturdy manly
qualities. She was particularly struck with his great kindness to his widowed mother,
whose chief support he was. Sarah Nelson became a Latter-day Saint in the midst of
the persecution of the Mormon people in Illinois, and accompanied them into the
wilderness, parting for the Gospel's sake with even her beloved mother, who, still a
Quaker, with others of her kindred remained behind. Before reaching the Missouri
river she was attacked with cholera, and was miraculously healed under the administra-
tion of Canute Peterson, who had learned to love her dearly. The feeling was mutual,
and on reaching Mount Pisgah early in 1S49 they were married, Apostle Orson Hyde
performing the ceremony.
The Petersons arrived at Salt Lake City late in October the same year. They lived
through the winter in the Old Fort, where their first child, a son, was born, February,
1S50. Soon they were called with others to settle Lehi, and forthwith took up their
residence at that place. While living there Elder Peterson was given by the Church
authorities a mission to his native land. September, 1852, found him on his way
to Europe. His wife, who was an excellent manager, supported herself and the children
during his absence. She was of a cheerful, optimistic nature, always looking on the
bright side of things, and though her trials and privations were many, she never became
discouraged, and never faltered in her faith. She had a kind, motherly heart, was
naturally hospitable, and possessed in a marked degree the cardinal graces of faith,
hope and charity.
Her husband was absent four years. At Copenhagen he was sent to labor in
Norway, and in company with Elders G. N. Hogan and Carl C. N. Dorius he arrived at
Risoer, May 10, 1S53. In the Risoer, Brevig and Frederikstad branches and sur-
rounding parts he labored for several months, adding numbers to the Church. He
was then chosen by the pesident of the mission to introduce the Latter-day Gospel in
Christiania, the capital, fie entered zealously upon his task, and after much labor and
many hardships, caused by the opposition of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities, a branch
was organized in that city December 8, 1853. Among those who assisted in the work
were Elders C. C. A. Christensen, Carl C. N. Dorius and J. F. F. Dorius. The Chri-
stiania branch soon became one of the most flourishing branches in Norway, and is now
one of the most important in the Church. Elder Peterson returned to Utah at the head
of a large company of Scandinavian, English and American Saints.
He continued to reside at Lehi, where he was counselor to Bishop David Evans,
until 1867, when he was called to be the Bishop of Ephraim, in Sanpete County. The
Indian wars in that section were then raging, and it was a time of great peril and
agitation. Bishop Peterson played a notable part in bringing about peace with the
red men, ten of whose leaders came to his house in August, 1868, and there made an
agreement to cease hostilities; a treaty that has never been broken. "The White
Father" was the name reverentially bestowed upon him by the now friendly Lamanites.
Mrs. Peterson, soon after her arrival at Ephraim, was chosen by the sisters of the Relief
Society to preside over their local organization. Under her able management it became
very prosperous, owning a hall of its own, caring faithfully for the poor and sick,
storing up grain, assisting missionaries and their families, making generous donations
toward the building of the Manti Temple, and aiding in the emigration of the poor;
raising thousands of dollars for this purpose in Ephraim alone.
From 1871 to 1873 Canute Peterson presided over the Scandinavian Mission,
bringing home with him on his return a large company of emigrants from that land.
In 1877 he was chosen by President Brigham Young, who also set him apart, to preside
over the Sanpete Stake of Zion, and in that capacity he served his people well and
faithfully for many years. So united was his stake, and so popular was he as its pres-
ident, that he was called by the Gentiles "King Canute," partly in derision and partly
in admiration of his successful administration. His wife Sarah was made counselor to
Mrs. M. A. P. Hyde, President of the Stake Relief Societies, thus enlarging the sphere of
her activities. But while, like her husband, a public servant, visiling the various towns
and holding frequent meetings with the sisters, she continued to discharge her domestic
duties, in which she was expert, and was the same loving mother and affectionate wife
24
378 HISTORY OF UTAH.
as before. She had nine children in all, two daughters and five sons surviving- her.
She died May 20, 1890, much mourned, especially by her husband and his other wives,
who with the children and kindred all were devotedly attached to her.
President Peterson had three families, and at the time of his death was the father of
fourteen living children. Some years before, he had been ordained a Patriarch, and he
officiated in that calling along with his duties as stake president. In December, 1900,
Sanpete County, previously one stake, was divided into two, and he was retained to
preside over the South Sanpete Stake, embracing the town of Ephraim, his long-time
home. He died there, October 14, 1902.
JACOB AND AMY B1GLER.
QMONG the immigrants to Utah in 1852 was Judge Jacob G. Bigler and his wife Amy
L. Chase Bigler, of Kanesville, Pottawattomie County, Iowa. They were veteran
Latter-day Saints. The husband had been not only a civil magistrate, but a
Bishop and a member of the High Council at Kanesville. In Utah he was given
a Bishopric, and repeatedly represented his section in the legislature. He was the
first president of Juab Stake, in which he now holds the office of a Patriarch.
Jacob Bigler was born near Shinnston, Harrison County, West Virginina, April 4,
1813. His parents were Mark and Susannah Ogden Bigler, humble farm folk, and
Jacob's early life vas spent upon his father's farm, clearing land, tilling the soil and
raising stock. He embraced Mormonism, June 10, 1838, at Far West, Missouri, where
he had purchased for his father and himself a farm of two hundred and forty acres,
agreeing to pay two thousand dollars for the same, and binding the bargain with a
tenth part of that sum paid down. This done, he returned to Virginia and helped
his father dispose of the home farm. Leaving his sire to sell the personal property, he
took his mother and his three sisters, Sarah, Bathsheba W., and Melissa J., to Far West,
to occupy the newly purchased property. Meantime Governor Boggs had issued his
exterminating order, and the Biglers with the main body of their people were compelled
to flee from Missouri. They left Far West, February 11, 1839. and were at Quincy,
Illinois, when, about the first of May, the husband and father rejoined them.
Jacob became intimately acquainted with the Prophet and his family, and helped to
move them from Quincy to Commerce. The Egyptian mummies, purchased by the
Prophet while at Kirtland, formed a part of his load. His father dying in September, 1839,
Jacob and his mother settled the estate and in the spring of 1840 moved the family to
Nauvoo. His first marriage was with Mary Ann Boggess, in Virginia, April 19, 1841.
She died at Nauvoo, October 29, 1842, and on June 18, 1844, he married Amy L. Chase.
This lady, the daughter of Abner Chase and his wife Amy Scott, was born in Lincoln
County, Vermont, November 7, 1822. She was only seven years old when her father
died, and her mother was left with nine children, the eldest a son of nineteen. The
family being poor, the girl strove in every way to provide for herself and lighten the
burden of her mother. Her education was necessarily limited, though whenever
possible she attended the district, schools. She was eighteen when she first heard of
Mormonism. Her uncle, Ezra Chase, came to Vermont on a mission, and converted her
to the faith in the fall of 1840. Three years later, with her mother, two brothers and
other relatives she arrived at Nauvoo, where she made the acquaintance of the man
she married.
August, 1846, found the worthy couple at Winter Quarters, west of the Missouri,
whence they removed in the spring of 1848 to east of the river, and a year later to
Kanesville, where Mr. Bigler was made Bishop, and given charge of the general
tithing office in Pottawattomie County. He received tithing from seventeen wards, and
looked after the poor who had been driven from Nauvoo and were unable to pursue
their journey westward. As stated, he was a member of the High Council at Kanes-
ville. In August, 1849, he was chosen justice of the peace, and a year later elected
probate judge of the county.
In June, 1852, he and his faithful wife started for Utah, arriving at Salt Lake City
^ e-^z^ ~4yf v3-<--^uL^
^/■/yyiM cfL /£<,cn£A^
HISTORY OF UTAH. 379
in September. They settled at Nephi, where in November of that year Mr. Bigler was
ordained and set apart as Bishop of Juab County under the hands of George A. Smith.
In August, 1853, he was elected to the legislature, and between that time and 1868 served
for six sessions in that capacity. In 1859 he became mayor of Nephi. In April, 1861, he
was released from the Bishopric and sent to Europe, where he had charge of the Irish
Mission, with headquarters at Belfast. In May, 1862, he had charge of the European
Mission during the temporary absence of President George Q. Cannon in Washington,
D. C. He returned home in September, 1863.
In February, 1864, Mr. Bigler was appointed by the legislature probate judge of
Juab County. He held that office continuously until August, 1S76, the last two years
under an election by the voters. In 1868 he became President of Juab Stake, and in
1869, 1871 and 1875 was chosen from Juab and Millard Counties to the council of the
legislative assembly. He resigned the stake presidency in 1871, expecting to go to
Mexico with President Brigham Young; but at St. George he was released to return,
owing to his election to the legislature. In June. 1878, he was set apart as a Patriarch
of Juab Stake, and since then has held no other public position.
All the years of his long sojourn in Utah his devoted partner has stood by* him,
sharing his toils, sorrows and joys. Upon the organization of a Relief Society in
Nephi, in June, 1868, she was chosen secretary of the same, serving as such until 1879,
when she became secretary of the stake organization of that society. In 1883 she
was chosen first counselor in the stake presidency of the Relief Society. She is the
mother of ten of her husband's eighteen children, the rest being the children of bis
other wives. The Bigler family are numerous and are highly respected and esteemed.
JOSEPH SMITH TANNER.
p! ""•'HE Tanner family have figured prominently and prosperously in Utah from the
ti ?\ beginning. The founder of it in Mormonism was John Tanner, of Warren county,
ii New York, a flourishing farmer, one of the few well-to-do persons who attached
themselves to this unpopular cause almost at its inception, and contributed generously
for its support and advancement. His liberality to the poor Saints, when moving to Kirt-
land, Ohio, their first gathering place, with his donations for the building of the Temple
there, and for other sacred enterprises, well-nigh impoverished him. Having expended
the greater part of ten thousand dollars — a large fortune at that time — in helping on the
work, he found himself comparatively a poor man, though previously he had been con-
sidered wealthy. The Prophet comforted him with the prediction that his children
should never want for bread. It is with the personal history of one of those children — a
namesake of the Prophet, and one in whom the promise has been amply verified — that this
sketch has to do.
Joseph Smith Tanner, son of John and Eliza Beswick Tanner, was born at Bolton,
Warren County, New York, June 11, 1833. He was very young when his parents moved
to Ohio, thence to Missouri, and thence to Illinois, following the fortunes of their people.
He was only seven years of age when they went to Iowa to reside, and but fifteen when
they left the frontier and started for \he Rocky Mountains. This wandering life and the
hardships connected with it prevented the boy from getting much schooling. In fact, he
did not attend school at all; but that he appreciated education was afterwards shown in
the superior advantages placed by him within the reach of his children.
It was in the latter part of May, 1848, that he left Winter Quarters with his parents,
bound for the valley of the Great Salt Lake. Their outfit for the journey consisted of
six yoke of cows, with a bull in a crooked yoke on the lead. Joseph was driver. They
traveled under the general direction of Amasa M. Lyman, who had married Joseph's
aunt, and were in Homer Duncan's "ten" of Joseph Matthew's "fifty." They reached
their destination about the last of September. Joseph, who was naturally inclined to farm-
ing and stock-raising, settled with his parents at Little Cottonwood, where he resided for
two and a half years, managing the farm after the death of his father, which occurred
April 13, 1850.
His mother and her family were among those called to accompany Amasa M. Lyman
to San Bernardino, California, to form a settlement there. They left for that place March
380 HISTORY OF UTAH.
5, 1851, and were absent from Utah seven years, returning only when San Bernardino
was abandoned, at the prospect of war between this Territory and the United States.
Mrs. Tanner came home first with the teams, and was met on the Santa Clara by her son
Myron, while Joseph remained to settle up their affairs in California, after which he
returned to Utah in company with Colonel Thomas L. Kane, who had been appointed by
President Buchanan to mediate between the Federal Government and the Mormons, and
had chosen a circuitous route from Washington. Concerning that time — his closing days
in California — Mr. Tanner says :
"'On the 4th of February, 1S58, a mob of about seventy-five men, led by one Pickett,
collected to prevent Colonel Kane from entering Utah. Only five Mormons besides my-
self were there at the time. We intended to take the Colonel's papers to Utah, if he was
prevented from going; but after a long talk with Colonel Kane, Pickett told the rest of
the men that it was all right, and Kane was allowed to depart, which he did on the 6th
of February. I accompanied him, reaching Parowan on the 20th. The Colonel arrived
at Salt Lake City several days later. I went back and met my teams, which had been
sent for the rest of our possessions, on the Santa Clara. I reloaded them at Cedar City
and staVted March 3rd with my brother Freeman, on mules, for Payson, arriving there
on the 8th. This place has been my home ever since, except while on a mission to the
Muddy. At the time of the move I furnished three teams and helped people from Salt
Lake City into Utah County."
Up to about the year lS67 Mr. Tanner followed the business of freighting, at one
time very lucrative in Utah. From the fall of 1868 until the spring of 1870 he was on
his mission to the Muddy. Of his subsequent career he says: "I was interested in bus-
iness with my brothers Myron and Freeman, both in California and for some time after re-
turning to Utah. I assisted in organizing the Co-operative Dairy Company at Payson, and
for six years was a member of the County Herd Board. For some time I was agent for
the Herd, and afterwards its vice-president. When the company dissolved, I was chair-
man of a committe appointed to wind up its affairs and settle with the stockholders. I
was a member of the first board of directors of the Provo Woolen Mills and have been a
member ever since. About 1872 I was elected president of the Payson Co-operative In-
stitution, which position I held about fifteen years. For many years I have presided over
the Co-operative Meat Market, and have been a director of the Payson Exchange Savings
Bank since its organization."
For six years, between 1867 and 1880, Mr. Tanner was a member of the city council.
He then served three years as mayor, from 1881 to 18S4, after which he again became a
councilman. In the Church he has been an Elder since 1857, and a High Priest since
August 22, 1871, when he was set apart as Bishop of Payson. He was released from the
Bishopric December 22, 1S91. By his first wife, Elizabeth Clark Haws, whom he mar-
ried February 17, 1860, he is the father of fourteen children, the majority of whom, with
their mother, are dead. After the death of this wife, he married, August 17. 1882, Jan-
nett Hamilton, who is the mother of seven children. The ex-Bishop's most prominent
son is Judge Henry S. Tanner, of Salt Lake City.
ELMER TAYLOR.
^"^HE late Elmer Taylor, of Juab, was born at Grafton, Lorain County, Ohio. Novem-
I^D ber 4, 1831. His parents were Benjamin Franklin and Aun Mennell Taylor, the
;? former a native of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, and the latter of Yorkshire,
England. They had twelve children. Elmer being the third child and second son.
The parents became Latter-day Saints in 1841, and all the children were baptized except
one which died in infancy. Elmer's baptism took place in 1844, at Macedonia, Hancock
County, Illinois, to which place the family had moved the year before. From 1841 to
1843 he had lived with his grandparents, Crispin and Elizabeth Mennell. As a boy of
thirteen, herding cows on the prairie five miles from Carthage, he saw on the fatal 27th
of June, 1844. a portion of the mob that murdered Joseph and Hyrum Smith.
Two years later he was in the exodus, and as a bare-footed boy trudged his way to
Council Bluffs, where he remained until 1850, barring three and a half months spent in
Missouri, where he worked at breaking land and at other farm labor to get clothing and
supplies for his father's family. His first pair of shoes from the spring of 1846 until late
tA,
^-f /?A
HISTORY OF UTAH. 381
in December, 184S. were made from an old pair of boots sriven him while in Missouri. It
was about the middle of July, 1S50. that he started for Salt Lake City in Captain Foote's
"hundred" and Abraham Coon's "Ten.'' The third day cholera attacked the camp, a
man named Brown being the first one to succumb. Half of Horace Spafford's family,
the mother and five children who were traveling with the Taylors, also died, the father and
five children recovering. Several of Captain Coon's family were fatally stricken,
but none of the Taylor family, twelve in number, were even assailed. In all there were
about thirty victims. Elmer assisted in digging the graves and burying the dead. Eight
miles above Fort Laramie. Mattison Welsh and Nelson Spafford narrowly escaped drown-
ing while swimming the Platte, driving stock to feed. Elmer Taylor was of the party,
and though a poor swimmer, while his companions were experts, by holding on to an ox's
tail he crossed and recrossed the deep, swift-running stream without difficulty. On the
Sweetwater his father nearly died from being poisoned by a snake.
The family first settled on Little Cottonwood, living in a dugout during the winter,
and cutting hay for their cattle on the Jordon bottoms. For their winter's bread they
threshed wheat on shares with a flail, receiving every tenth bushel as their pay. The
market price of wheat was three dollars a bushel. At Springville, in December, 1S.">0,
Elmer Taylor married Wealtha Ann Spafford. It was the first marriage performed in
that place. He stayed in Springville until March. 1851. and then returned to Cottonwood,
preparatory to accompanying Amasa M. Lyman and Charles C. Rich to Southern
California.
The Taylor family — one of about eighty called by the Presidency to form a colony in
that part — left Little Cottonwood early in the spring of 1S51, a borrowed wagon drawn
by a yoke of wild four-year old steers, with two small cows, two hundred pounds of
flour, two pounds of coffee, and a little parcel of meat, comprising their entire equipment.
By way of Fillmore. Parowan and the Southern desert they reached Cajon Pass on the
1st of July. There the company camped several weeks, pending the purchase of the San
Bernardino Ranch, where they settled. The area of this ranch was fifteen to twenty
miles long by seven or eight miles wide. The pri?e paid for it to the Spanish owners
was ••?77,o00. A part was paid down and the remainder in installments, all the colonists
pledging themselves to assist until full payment had been made. The first labor required
was the building of a stockade as a protection against Indians, and the erection of adobe
dwellings inside. Mr. Taylor and his family lived in a brush shanty until he could build
a better house of adobes made by his own hand and of logs hauled fron the canyon.
Three weeks after getting into his new domicile — and he was the first of the settlers to
thus house himself — his eldest child was born. He did the mason work on other houses,
made adobes at Ei Monte, worked in a vineyard at Los Angeles, and helped to build a
saw mill and a grist mill, the first flour from which sold at fifteen dollars a hundred. He
afterwards procured a team and freighted lumber and merchandise to and from Los
Angeles. In the spring of ISoo he went with Mattison Welsh. A. J. Workman, Isaac
Yager and Martin Taylor to the Kearn River mines, to work for money to pay on the
ranch. They had a pack train of eight mules and one saddle horse, and expected to stay
all summer, but finding little or no gold, they sold their outfit and started for home.
Wandering from their course, they nearly perished for want of water, but finally reached
San Bernardino. Having rented his farm for the summer, Mr. Taylor found himself
with some leisure on his hands, and decided to use it in visiting his old home.
He started for Utah on the ISth of April, six days after returning from the mines.
His family came with him. They visited relatives and friends at Springville. where he
helped to put up the walls of a fort and haul rock for the large meeting house. In the
autumn he returned to California, and during the winter continued at freighting. In
that occupation, and in farming, he spent the two succeeding years, when, the San Ber-
nardino colony being broken up. he returned to Utah, arriving here in December, 1857.
He made a short stay at Cedar City, before continuing on to Springville. where he re-
mained until 1S58 and then moved to Beaver. There he farmed and engaged in the
lumbering business until fall, when he sold out and went to California. He and his
brother Martin bought and run a sawmill during the winter, and the next year pur-
chased and brought to Utah a band of California horses. Elmer's family followed him.
and December found them again in Springville, where they purchased a home and settled.
In October. 1861, Mr. Taylor married his second wife, Mary Elizabeth Jennings.
He traded between California and Utah, planted and raised the first lucern in Springville.
and in 1S63 started in the butchering business. The next year he put up a molassess mill.
In April, 1S66. with other volunteers, he pursued Indians who had been stealing cattle
west of Utah Lake, and brought back some prisoners with several hundred head of
382 HISTORY OF UTAH.
stolen stock. Returning to Springville, he found that he had been called on a mission to
Europe.
In two weeks he was on his way. In Illinois he visited Carthage jail, and at Foun-
tain Green was shown by Watson Faben, an old friend, the pistol had by the Prophet
Joseph Smith when he was killed. At Elder Taylor's request Mr. Faben sent this pistol
to Utah as a relic. He visited relatives in Illinois and Ohio, and at New York paid eighty-
five dollars in greenbacks, then worth fifty cents on the dollar, for his passage across the
ocean. His steamer, the "City of Cork," ran against an iceberg, but otherwise the voyage
of thirteen days was very pleasant. He had as fellow passengers Moses Thatcher, Isaac
Kimball, Thede Spencer and other Elders. At Liverpool he made his maiden speech in a
large hall in the presence of three hundred people. He labored in the Norwich and Bir-
mingham conferences. Returning home in 1867, he crossed from Liverpool to New
York on the "Great Eastern," with Elder Abram Hatch and such notables as Cyrus W.
Field, Paul Du Challieu, and Jules Verne. The great steamship had just been remodeled
to carry people to the Paris Exposition, and had a capacity for three thousand first class
passengers. Heavy storms were encountered near the banks of New Foundland, and
the ship lost thirty feet of bulwarks and shipped fpur hundred tons of water, which was
not pumped out until she reached New York. The waves were so high and the vessel so
long that she would run two thirds of her length into swells before raising. Finally she
had to change her course and run five hundred miles south, losing one and a half days.
There was great excitement when the bulwarks went, and preparations were made for
lowering the life boats and putting on life preservers, in case the vessel had to be aban-
doned. It took her seven hours to get out of the swells. After the storm many pleasant
entertainments took place in the grand salon. Every day two manuscript papers were
written and read in the evening. One was "The Ocean Times," edited by two young
English officers from India, and "The Daily Telegraph," edited by Mr. McAlpin, a New
York journalist. Mr. Field lectured on telegraphy and the laying of the Atlantic cable,
and several lectures were delivered by Mr. Du Challieu, who exhibited the skeletons of
an African and a gorilla and pointed out their similarity. There was also a negro min-
strel performance. New York was reached early in April. There Elder Taylor called
on Captain William H. Hooper, who was sick, and after visiting relatives in Ohio, went
with Elder Hatch to Omaha to make arrangements with the railroads for the transporta-
tion of Utah emigrants to North Platte, thus saving six hundred miles for the teams that
came to meet them. From North Platte he drove a four horse team with a load of goods
for Mr. Hatch as far as Echo canyon, and there took stage for home.
At Springville he resumed his old business of butchering and molasses making, and
the next year started into sheep raising with his brother Martin. In the fall of 1868 he
was called to go to "Dixie,'' but was released by President Young after reaching Levan,
and advised to remain there and continue raising sheep, which was then a new industry
in Utah. In the spring of 1869, when Levan was organized into a ward, with Samuel
Pitchforth as presiding Elder, Mr. Taylor became one of his counselors. In 1870 he
succeeded President Pitchforth. The year before he had helped to organize the co-oper-
ative store at that place, of which he was one of the directors. In 1873 he was elected
president of the store, and held that position till the day of his death. This business,
beginning with a capital stock of three hundred and fifty dollars, was re-incorporated for
five thousand and subsequently for ten thousand dollars.
In 1874 Mr. Taylor resigned his office as President of Levan Ward, and four years
later moved to Juab, of which ward he became the first Bishop, holding the office for four-
teen years, and resigning it on account of failing health. He was also president of the Juab
co-operative store. He lived to see all his children, six daughters and four sons, married
and comfortably settled. He died in April, 1896, surrounded by his family, and lamented
by the whole community.
JOHN STOKER.
+OHN STOKER was one of the founders of Davis County, and for over twenty-three
| years the Bishop of Bountiful, where some of his descendants still reside. He
g| was a major of infantry in the Utah militia, and repeatedly represented his county
in the Territorial legislature. He was one of the strong and substantial men of his
section, and lived and died widely respected and esteemed.
&
¥^r^^\g^^/-~
HISTORY OF UTAH. 383
He was born March 8, 1817; Jackson County, Ohio, being his birthplace. His
parents were David and Barbara Greybill Stoker. The father was a farmer, and to that
pursuit and the kindred one of cattle-raising the son was naturally inclined. His early
labors, however, were in splitting rails and rafting logs down the Ohio river. Subse-
quently he engaged in farming. He received when a boy such education as was
usually given in the common schools of the period. His youthful years were passed in
and around his native place.
The date of his conversion to Mormonism is not given. He was with the Church
in Missouri in 1838 — during which year he married Jane McDaniel — and was driven by
the mob from Daviess and Caldwell counties. He was also in the exodus of the Saints
from Illinois, and had previously passed through many persecutions with his peple.
After starting west in 1846 he spent two years at Mount Pisgah, where most of his time
was taken up in caring for the sick. He left that point with ox-team, wagon and a scant
supply of provisions in April, 1848, and arrived at the Missouri river in time to join the
general emigration to the Rocky Mountains. John Stoker was captain of "fifty" in
Lorenzo Snow's "hundred" of the division led by President Brigham Young. He
reached Salt Lake valley on the 22nd of September.
He made his home at Bountiful, where he engaged in farming, stock-raising, and
eventually in merchandising. He was one of the main promoters and stockholders of the
co-operative institution established at that place. He became Bishop of Bountiful,
January 20, 1851, and held the office until August 4, 1874, when he resigned on account
of failing health. Meantime he performed a mission in Iowa, Ohio and Kentucky,
where he visited in 1869-70 many relatives and friends and gathered family genealogies.
It was in earlier times that he sat in the legislature, both at Fillmore and at Salt Lake
City. Bishop Stoker was the father of six children. His son David is now Bishop of
East Bountiful, where the father died, June 11, 1881.
JACOB PEART.
JACOB PEART, son of Jacob and Elizabeth Holden Peart, was born at Alston,"
Cumberland County, England, July 1, 1835, about two years before Mormonism
spread to the shores of Europe. His parents were both natives of Alston, and his
father was one of the first converts made there by Elder Isaac Russell and John
Snyder in 1837. He was also one of the first Elders ordained in that land, presiding
over the Alston and Brampton branches. Jacob Peart. Sr., was one of six brothers, and
the only one, so far as known, to become a Latter-day Saint.
The family, consisting of father, mother, two sons and four daughters, emigrated
to America in 1841, leaving England on the 15th of February, and reaching Nauvoo,
Illinois, on the 30th of April. Five weeks after their arrival there the mother died, and
her four daughters soon followed her. Her son Jacob was sick at the same time, but
was healed by the power of faith, under the administration of the Prophet Joseph Smith.
When eight years of age, seeing some Elders baptizing in the Mississippi river, he
asked to be baptized. The date of his initiation into the Church was August 27, 1843.
Jacob's father assisted in building the Nauvoo Temple, which he himself describes
as a beautiful structure of blue limestone. It was about the time of the completion of
this edifice that his only brother, John Peart, aged about twenty, died at Galena,
Wisconsin, whither he had gone to seek employment. Among his personal reminiscences
is the sight he had of the murdered Prophet and Patriarch, when their bodies were
brought from Carthage to Nauvoo, and lay in state at the Mansion House. Says he:
'I stood on Mulholland Street and saw them pass. Many of the people were in tears,
and some wept aloud. It was feared that mobs would attack the city, and my father
spent many nights on guard, with others of the brethren."
Jacob Peart the sire was a member of the Nauvoo brass band, whose music did so
much to cheer the hearts of the exiled Saints on their journey west. He left Nauvoo
with his family — for he had married again — February 15, 1846. Now came days of
hardship and privation such as they had never known. Says Jacob the son: "Our
384 HISTORY OF UTAH.
living was principally parched meal, and after working all day in the rain, we would
have to build fires and dry our clothes before retiring. At Garden Grove father helped
to build fences for three hundred acres of land, also constructing log houses and assisting
to cultivate the soil. Prom there we went to Mount Pisgah, where the Saints again
halted, broke land and planted as before. About this time father with others was
counseled to seek temporary employment in Missouri. We traveled over a lonely wilderness
without road or guide, and almost without provisions. Starvation stared us in the face,
when, as we approached a forest, a man unexpectedly appeared. He said he could not
rest, for he felt impressed that some one was near. He took us to his cabin and treated
us kindly. We soon arrived at St. Joseph, and while there I earned sufficient means to
get an outfit to take us to the Rocky Mountains. Father received word from Willard
Richards, one of the Apostles, to come to Winter Quarters and start for the mountains;
but being delayed by a big storm, we arrived three days too late to go with the companies
that reached Salt Lake Valley in 1847. Our provisions we distributed among the Saints.
Father went back to St. Joseph to get another outfit, and I remained with the rest of
the family at Winter Quarters. In the spring of 1848 we started in President Brigham
Young's company for Salt Lake Valley. I was then thirteen years of age, and drove
three yoke of oxen across the plains. We arrived here on the 120th of September."
Mr. Peart's father secured the lot where the Metropolitan hotel now stands, and
upon it built three adobe rooms, in which the family dwelt. They suffered during the
winter from cold and hunger. In 1849 came the gold hunters, from whom provisions
and supplies were obtained. At fifteen Jacob began working in the canyon, hauling
wood and rock; he also did a great deal of mason work. He furnished the rock for
Joseph Woodmansee's store on Main Street, receiving for it twenty-five hundred dollars.
He worked on the "Spanish Wall" built around Salt Lake City, and on the Cottonwood
canal, designed for shipping rock to the Temple. He served with the militia in Echo
Canyon in the fall and winter of 1857, and in February, 1858, was one of a company
called to go to the Rio Virgen and open a cotton farm. He remained there seven
months, and returned on account of illness. He relates, as an incident of his sojourn
in the South, an attempt made upon his life by an Indian, who, supposed to be friendly,
accompanied him to Parowan for a load of flour. While ascending a steep and rocky
grade, he asked the Indian to get out and walk a little way in order to lighten the burden
for the team. The red man's blood boiled at the suggestion, and it was not until he had
been urged, by deed as well as word, that he complied with the request. A few minutes
later Mr. Peart, happening to look around, caught him in the act of aiming an arrow at
him. The Indian passed it off as a jest, but subsequently repeated the hostile perform-
' ance. Thereupon Mr. Peart leveled his gun upon him, and compelled him to walk ahead
of the wagon, where he could keep an eye on him. The Indians as a rule were friendly
to the colonists, though the latter received word that the question of "wiping them
out" was seriously debated at one time by their swarthy neighbors in council.
Jacob Peart married on July 20, 1860. Miss Margaret Gray, a beautiful English
girl, who had immigrated with her mother and sister about five years before. Her
parents, John and Sarah Gray, had been converted by Orson Pratt, the Apostle, and
bad joined the the Church in 1849. This was when Margaret was six years old, she
having been born at Hull, in Yorkshire, September 4, 1843. Her father, a well-to-do
mechanic and engineer, had invented when a mere youth an improvement on the
locomotive that had been adopted by the railroads of England. He was a superintendent
of iron works at Bradford, where he died of cholera in 1854. The hospitable home of
the Grays in Liverpool was much frequented by the Elders on missions. In 1855 the
widowed mother with two little daughters sailed for America, leaving behind them in
litigation much money and other property that would not have been sacrificed, as it was,
had they remained in England; but they were devout Latter-day Saints, willing to make
sacrifices for their religion. They came directly to Salt Lake City, and it was here that
Margaret Gray, at the age of seventeen, became the wife of Jacob Peart. Her sister,
Sarah Jane, married Daniel Spencer. Mrs. Peart is the mothei of twelve children. In
May, 1869, Mr. Peart married another estimable lady — Phoebe Amelia Richards,
daughter of Willard and Mary Richards. She lives at Farmington, and is the mother of
seven children.
In August, 1864, the head of the family moved from his place in the Fourteenth
Ward, two and a half miles south, into what is now Farmers Ward, where his time was
mostly spent in farming, teaming and building. Jacob Peart, Sr., died at his son's
home, April 20, 1874. He was a man much esteemed, and his funeral was largely
attended. About the year 1882 Mr. Peart engaged in merchandizing, at the same time
(_ y ' • ^CL7~-QJ
tfy~i£i
HISTORY OF UTAH. 385
farming on an extensive scale. In addition to his real estate in Farmer's Ward he owned
a dry farm of five hundred acres in Bos Elder Count}-. He now keeps a store in Forest
Dale, just beyond the limits of Salt Lake City.
His life has been that of an honest hard-working man, a man of peace, though not
lacking in spirit when occasion required. He has held at various times such offices as
Sunday school superintendent, district school trustee and home missionary, and has
lobored conscientiously for the public weal. Though not highly educated — the toils and
privations of his boyhood rendering much schooling in his case impossible — he is a man
of intelligence and independent thought, possessing a fund of good sense and experience,
far more serviceable in this practical work-a-day world than mere book learning. His
failure to become more prominent has been largely due to his innate modesty and
Jove of retirement.
EDWARD PHILLIPS.
fjj) VERY reader of Mormon history is acquainted with the wonderful missionary work
fs\* done by Wilford Woodruff, the Apostle, in Herefordshire, England, in the
early part of 1S40. It was there that he converted and baptized so many
of the religious society called "United Brethren,-' including nearly fifty of their
preachers. One of these was Edward Phillips, who died December 1, 189G, the oldest
resident of Kaysville, Utah.
He was born in Oxnall, Gloucestershire, England, April 2, 1813. By the death of
his father, William Phillips, a farm superintendent, Edward at the age of twelve
was left to the cai-e of his mother, Mary Ann Presdee Phillips, who had borne eleven
children. The father had been working a farm which he had leased at Credley, in Here-
fordshire. Edward continued farming, and also learned the blacksmithing trade. Like
his mother. he was religiously inclined, and associated himself with the "United Brethren,"
under Father Thomas Kingston. The}' remained members of that congregation until
the advent of the Mormon Elders into their neighborhood. Edward was the only male
member of his father's family to receive the Latter-day Gospel. He first heard Wilford
Woodruff preach at Ridgeway Cross, on or about the 15th of March. 1810. A day or two
later he was baptized; by the Apostle, and his [mother and his sister Susan followed him
into the Church. Almost immediately he was ordained a Priest and placed in charge of
two branches, Ashfield and Crocrut, in Worcestershire. The tall of the same year he
was ordained an Elder, and in company with Elder John Gailey preached in the Forest
of Dean, Gloucestershire.
In 1841 he emigrated to America, sailing from Bristol for Quebec on the 8th of Au-
gust with a company of about one hundred Saints under Elder Thomas Richardson.
From Quebec they proceeded by way of Montreal, Niagara Falls, Buffalo and Chicago to
Nauvoo, where they arrived in the latter part of October. Elder Phillips became well
acquainted with the Prophet and the Patriarch. He quarried rock for the Nauvoo Tem-
ple, and while boarding with au old friend, a shoemaker named Jenkins, met the woman
who became his wife, Hannah Simmons. She had preceded him a few weeks to America.
They were married Aueust 2, 1842, at Camp Creek, Hancock Countv. Illinois, bv Heber
C. Kimball.
Mi. Phillips was a member of the Nauvoo Legion, and was under arms with his
comrades when the Prophet, as lieutenant-general, reviewed them for the last time, and
told them he would die for them: a prediction fulfilled a few days later. It was near his
home that the martyrs Joseph and Hyrum were buried, after the bodies were brought
from Carthage. Mr. Phillips was an eye-witness of the famous incident in which "the
mantle" of the Prophet fell upon President Young. Just before leaving Nauvoo he
went to the house of a man named McDonald, near McQueen's mill, to try and sell his little
farm. "There,'" says he. "I found some of Joseph and Hyrum's murderers, drinking
together. One of them was Tom Dickson, who lived at Lneas Grove, in Hancock County,
an old professed friend of mine. If it had not been for him I guess I would have been
butchered too: they placed a pistol in the hands of an eight year old boy and told him
386 HISTORY OF UTAH.
to say 'D n you, sir, I could kill you." The little fellow swung his revolver and acted
quite bravely over the affair."
In May, 1846, the Phillips family started for the West, crossing the Mississippi at
Fort Madison, and traversing with great difficuly muddy, rain-soaked Iowa. At Council
Point they remained until the spring of 1849, when they set out for Salt Lake Valley in
Captain Gulley's company. The cholera attacked the camp, and many succumbed to the
dread disease, among them Captain Gulley, who was succeeded by Orson Spencer. The
cholera also attacked the Indians, and made them ver3' angry with the whites for "curs-
ing their country." When the emigrants arrived at Scotch Bluff, soldiers from Fort
Laramie came out to meet them and guard them to the post. They reached their jour-
ney's end in October.
During the winter of 1849-50 Edward Phillips and John H. Creen explored what is
now Davis County in quest of farming lands, the Phillips family living meanwhile in a
little log house built with timber brought from Red Butte canyon. The two explorers
went as far as the Sand Ridge, where they encountered deep snow, frozen so hard that
they could not travel beyond. Returning they stayed over night with S. 0. Holmes, the
first settler on the site of Kaysville. On or about April 10, 1850, Mr. Phillips moved his
family to that place, thus becoming the second settler. Bishop Kay, for whom the set-
tlement was named, arrived next day. Mr. Phillips claims to have built the first house
and carried the chain for the first survey. Included in his family was his aged mother,
who at eighty-two gleaned wheat, raised potatoes and dug and carried them into
her cellar. The same year she gave a yoke of oxen to help emigrate the poor from
England. Until ninety-six she officiated as the midwife of the settlement, and was
unusually successful in her vocation. At her death she was supposed to be the oldest
woman in Utah.
Mr. Phillips was sick at the time of the Echo canyon trouble, but sent a hired man
to take his place at the front. He relates how President Young received the news of the
coming of Johnston's army, he being with the President at the head of Big Cottonwood
canyon when the messenger arrived: "At the close of the evening's program the Presi-
dent called for prayer, and broke the news to us. He was very wrathful. I shall never
forget his expressions. He said: 'I have stated that if they would let me alone for ten
years I would ask no odds of them, and I ask none of them ; for if I did ask odds I
would hare to take ends.' "
Returning from the move in 1858 Mr. Phillips continued to reside at Kaysville, where
on the 27th of February, 1859, he became president of the High Priests' quorum, being
nominated for that position by Bishop Allen Taylor. This office he held up to the day of
his death. He continued to carry on agriculture, having a farm of a hundred acres,
divided into twelve fields, designed for carrying on the sheep industry. He had three
fine artesian wells, one supplying a fish pond covering one acre and well stocked with
carp. He was the father of eighteen children, twelve of whom survived him. During
his long life of nearly eighty-four years, he manifested all the qualities of a good and
honorable man, and died widely respected and esteemed.
WILLIAM D. ROBERTS.
a MONO the early settlers of Utah were the Roberts family, including the brothers
Bolivar and William D.; the former now deceased, the latter still living at his old
home in Provo. He was born at Winchester, Scott County, Illinois, September
4, 1835. When between ten and eleveu years old he left his native State with
his father's family (it was the year of the Mormon exodus) and settled temporarily at
Garden Grove, Iowa, where they remained until 1849, and then moved to Lancaster, Mis-
souri. Thence in 1850 Bolivar came to Utah, and William, his father, mother, and other
members of the household followed in 1851. In September of that year they settled at
Provo, where during the winter William was baptized a Latter-day Saint.
The next spring he with his father and his brother Bolivar went to California, arriv-
ing at Placerville, then called "Hang Town,'' on the 9th of July. There the two brothers
engaged in mining, while the father practiced medicine. In the winter of 1852-3 they
.■■ ■
rffc&fl2A~6
HISTORY OF UTAH. 387
moved to San Jose, where they passed the winter and then took up their residence at San
Bernardino, with the Latter-day Saints there located. In the fall of 1S53 the father returned
to Lancaster. Missouri, but his sons remained in the West. William engaged in farming
at Eel river, and was there joined at harvest time by Bolivar, who had been to Utah. It
was the intention of both to return here at once, as soon as they could market William's
crop, from which he expected to realize four or five thousand dollars, by shipping it to
Trinidad, twenty-live miles up the coast. It consisted of one hundred and fifteen thou-
sand pounds of grain and potatoes. There being no place to store freight below deck
on the steamer they engaged, they were forced to put their stuff on deck, where it was
exposed to a heavy storm and greatly damaged, so that they realized but three hundred and
sixty dollars from its sale, after paying all expenses. With this money they purchased a
mule and a miner's outfit, and started for Northern California, where they engaged in
placer mining at Cox"s Bar on the Trinity river, and subsequently went into the lumber-
ing business. While thus engaged William decided to return to Utah, and did so, fitting
out at San Bernardino, and arriving at Provo in December, 1S55, with a horse, saddle,
bridle, leggings, spurs, a six-shooter and two twenty-dollar gold pieces, the savings from
nearly four year's labor in California. He had seen perilous times in that State, and had
come near losing his life on three separate occasions at the hands of Spaniards, whose
hatred of Americans was intense.
Soon after reaching Provo he became one of a posse summoned by Deputy United
States Marshal Thomas Johnson for the purpose of arresting the Indian Chief Tintic and
his hostile band, who had been stealing and running off stock belonging to the settlers.
The party numbered twenty-five men. They pursued the Indians into Rush Valley, and
might have captured them had not the marshal ordered a retreat, after finding the Indians
entrenched behind the rocks and in the cedars on the mountain side. Tintic, when sum-
moned to surrender, refused, saying he was hungry for a fight, and at the same time
firing upon the posse, one of the balls passing between Mr. Roberts and George Parrish,
who were standing side by side in the line about two hundred yards from the savages.
They were much chagrined at the marshal's order, which permitted the hostiles to escape,
taking with them a large number of horses and cattle belonging to the settlers. During
the trouble about twelve white people were killed by tke Indians.
In 1856 Mr. Roberts moved to Pleasant Grove, where he spent the summer, but re-
turned to Provo in the fall. There he engaged in farming and other work. He was one
of the relief party that brought from Fort Bridger the last of the handcart immigrants
who suffered so terribly that season. In 18o7 he went with Daniel W. Jones out on the
Sweetwater trading with the immigrants, and while there was taken prisoner by the Crow
Indians and held over night, but was rescued next morning by a company on their way
to California. He returned to Utah in the fall, and made a trip during the winter to
southern California, bringing back a band of wild horses and several hundred head of
sheep. He took part in the Echo Canyon campaign, and it was about this time that his
brother Clark, who had been in the East, returned to Utah and took his mother and his
brothers Homer and Byron back to Missouri.
William still clung to the West. In 1858 he freighted and carried passengers be-
tween Salt Lake City and Los Angeles, and in April, 1S59, started to visit his parents
in Missouri, going by way of California, the Isthmus and New York City, owing to hos-
tile Indians on the eastern route. He remained in Missouri until the soring of 1860,
when he purchased a drove of cattle and brought them across the plains. During
the following winter he imported bees from Los Angeles, bringing eighteen colonies that
trip, and importing in all over six hundred colonies o£ the honey makers. He next loaded
his freight teams for Austin. Nevada, and during his journey thither was instrumental in
capturing a murderer named John Wabb, who with another. Ransom G. Young, had
killed with a hatchet three traveling companions, two brothers by the name of Woll-
man and a man named McCoy, at Shell Creek, Nevada. Mr. Roberts, assisted by Peter
Neiee. arrested Wabb five miles west of Camp Floyd. After having him heavily ironed,
under the direction of Sheriff Robert T. Burton, and by request of the superintendent
of the Overland stage line, he put him on the coach and started, intending to take him
to Austin. Nevada, for trial. When they reached Shell Creek, however, they found a
posse of between fifty and a hundred men. who had the other murderer in custody, and
everything in readiness for lynching the two, which they did in less than an hour after
Mr. Roberts* arrival.
His next trip was to the East, by the Overland stage line. The Civil War was in progress
and many perils beset the way. On his railroad journey through Missouri he passed both
Federal and Confederate lines at different points, and finally reached Lancaster, where
388 HISTORY OF UTAH.
he met his father, mother and three of his brothers. His oldest brother, Don, who had
not been to Utah, was with General Price in the Confederate army. On the 6th of Feb-
ruary, 1862, William D. Roberts married Miss Maria Lusk. and at the opening of spring
he and his wife, with his mother, brothers and two of his wife's brothers left Lancaster
for Utah, where all arrived in safety.
During his long residence at Provo Mr. Roberts has been busy at various occupa-
tions, and has done considerable towards building up his part of the State. He erected
two large brick houses, one of which is now used as a hotel, and also erected a brick
house upon his farm. He has set out orchards and vineyards, and imported blooded
horses, cattle, pigs and chickens. He was one of a company that imported the first
steam power threshing machine and the first steam power brick machine ever brought to
Utah. He has discovered and developed mines in the Tintic district, and has spent much
money in the timber and lumber business. He belonged to the first dramatic association
in Provo and the first brass band in Utah County. He was a member of the city council
for five years, two of them as an alderman, and was the first postmaster of Provo after
Utah was admitted as a State. He has had eleven children. He has been a Seventy
since May 17, 1857, and is the senior president of the thirty-fourth quorum. He has
recently tilled missions to Great Britain and California.
JOHN FORD.
JOHN FORD, of Centreville, who died November 24, 1902, was a patriarch in the
Church, and had been a settler in Utah since 1854. He was born at Gravely,
Cambridgshire, England, March 8, 1807. and was the son of Thomas Ford and his wife
Sarah Turner Mason. His parents were very poor, and for a long period day
laborers at whatever they could find to do. They were ambitious, however, and in due
time went on a farm, to handle sheep and cattle. After the father's death the mother
taught the village school. John went to school three days and was then taught by his
mother at home. From his sisters he learned to braid straw. He herded sheep, followed
the plow and did general farm work. Later he bought and sold cattle. sheep and hogs, kept
a meat shop and ran a hotel. He was honest, Industrious, religiously inclined, and earnest
in whatever he believed to be right. In 1833 he married Rebecca Chandler, and in the
spring of 1849 v/as baptized a Latter-day Saint.
Bound for Utah he left his native place on the 9th of February, 1854. Two days
later he sailed from Liverpool on the ship ''Windemere," in acompany of Saints presided
over by Elder Daniel Garns. They had been two weeks at sea when small pox broke out,
and eleven of the company, including two of Mr. Ford's family, were stricken. To add
to their troubles a terrible storm arose, lasting about eighteen hours. In the midst of it
the captain said to President Garns, "If there is a God, as you people believe, call upon
him to save us, for I have done all I can.'' The Saints assembled for prayer, the ship
weathered the gale and the company landed at New Orleans. They had been nine weeks
and four days upon the water. Twenty-one cases of small pox were taken to the hospital.
At St. Louis the cholera attacked them and for two weeks the company was quarantined;
a great many died. At Kansas City two of Mr. Ford's sons, Thomas and William, were
sent back to drive in Church teams. While in the performance of this duty Thomas was
taken with cholera and died. The sad news, carried by William to the family, reached
them the night after their departure from Kansas City. Job Smith was captain of their
company across the plains. On the way west the mountain fever broke out, carrying
off two other members of the Ford family, who were buried near Laramie. Mr. Ford
was also taken sick, and sent to a man named Jarvis, who had a barrel of brandy, for a
little of the liquor. Jarvis refused it, saying, ''I will not break the seal until we reach
Salt Lake City;" whereupon Captain Smith prophesied that the brandy would never
reach Salt Lake City. While coming down Emigration canyon the wagon containing it
upset, and the barrel was lost in the mountain stream.
The Ford family arrived here on the 24th of September. For a year they lived on
Thomas King's farm west of the city, where the grasshoppers destroyed the crop they
were raising. They then had the Duell farm at Centreville for two and a half years. The
HISTORY OF UTAH. 389
move of 1858 took them to Springville, and from 1859 until 1864 they cultivated the Stand-
ish farm at Centreville. Mr. Ford then bought the Ricks farm at that place, and resided
there during' the rest of his life. When he first arrived in Salt Lake Valley he had but
ten cents in money. The first few years after, he and his family suffered some for want
of food. They lived on bran bread, smutty wheat flour and thistle roots, and were glad
to get them, for even these were not plentiful. "It was very trying to me,'' says Mr.
Ford, "to see my children cry for food when I did not have enough to give them, but I
never felt to complain, and was never sorry that I left my sative land for the Gospel's
sake.'' Those early days of hardship passed, he began to prosper financially. His princi-
pal business was farming and stock-raising, in which he engaged with his sons. For four
years he and they were interested with William R. Smith, in the Davis County Co-oper-
ative herd. With this exception Mr. Ford's partnerships were confined to his own family.
He prospered in material things, and at the time of his death was very well to do.
He fulfilled no foreign mission, but was a zealous Church member, serving for many
years as a ward teacher, also as an assistant superintendent of the Sunday school. He
was ordained a Patriarch June 13, 1897, by President Joseph F. Smith. At his death
he was buried in the Centreville cemetery by the side of his first wife, the mother of all
his children, six of whom are living. His second wife Mary A. Wright, whom he mar-
ried in 1883, also survives.
DAVID HENRY CALDWELL.
S^M CANADIAN by birth, and a settler in Utah during the early "fifties," D. H. Cald-
I well, farmer, colonizer, Indian fighter and Bishop, has a career that commands re-
^""^ spect from all who appreciate the sterling qualities of the devoted men and women
who laid the foundations of this commonwealth. He was the pioneer of St. John,
Tooele County, where he built the first log house, soon after his arrival there.
He was born September 12, 1828, in Lanark, Bathurst District, Upper Canada. His
father, David Caldwell, was a well-to-do farmer and stock-raiser, owning two hundred
acres of land, which the son, until he was fourteen years of age, helped him to cultivate.
The senior Mr. Caldwell did not belong to any church until he heard Mormonism preached,
, whereupon he let the Elders have his hoiise to hold meetings in and joined the Church al-
most immediately. He sold his place in Canada, about the year 1845, intending to go
to Nauvoo, for which point he started; but his health being poor he tarried in the State of
Michigan and died there about the year 1852. In Monroe County of that State David's
early manhood was passed. His course of life was sober, moral and industrious. While
there he became a Latter-day Saint, and was ordained to the office of a teacher.
The year after his father's death he with his mother, Mary Ann Vaughan Caldwell,
and two brothers younger than himself, set out for Utah. They were comfortably out-
fitted for the journey (David having a good farm in Michigan) and drove two wagons, one
drawn by two span of horses, the other by three yoke of oxen. They also had two cows
and were well supplied with provisions, clothing and other necessaries. They started in
April, and on the 27th of June joined a company of fifty-six wagons at Winter Quarters.
This company was commanded by Moses Clawson, a Mormon missionary returning from
England. The Caldwells had the only horse team in the company. In three stampedes that
befell them while on the plains, this was the only team that did not share in the general
excitement and agitation, which, however, passed off without injury to any one. The
only other incident of any consequence to the emigrants was the riding into camp one
night of three mountaineers, suspicious looking characters, whom it was deemed wise to
put a guard upon till morning. The Caldwells arrived at Salt Lake City, September 17,
1853.
David spent three years and six months in Salt Lake Valley, living at a fort built up-
on the spot where Taylorsville now stands. While there he married, January 24, 1856,
Fanny Catherine Johnson, and in the spring of 1857 moved to Rush Valley, settling
at a place called Shambip, the first settlement in the valley. It was presided over by
Elder Luke Johnson, ex-Apostle and one of the Utah pioneers. In September, 1868, Mr.
Caldwell removed to St. John, of which place, as stated, he was the pioneer and founder.
390 HISTORY OF UTAH.
"When we first settled Rush Valley" says he, "the Indians were very troublesome,
particularly -while Johnston's army was on our borders. After our day's work was done
we had to stand guard at night, the men taking turns, and after all our precaution some
of our cattle were killed by the savages, and one man was slain by them at the south end
of the valley, while he and others were making a farm there, on the site of the present
town of Vernon. I have been on three expeditions to recover stock stolen by Indians —
one in May, 1S57, when Richard Warburton was captain; one in August, 1858, to recover
the body of Joseph Vernon, killed by the redskins, at which time Luke Johnson was cap-
tain; and one in July, 1859, when I myself was in command. The last expedition went to
Granite Mountain after stolen cattle, all of which were recovered except one, which the
Indians had killed and partly eaten. They got into the mountains and shot at us a num-
ber of times, one of our horses being wounded in a front leg, the ball passing between
the bone and muscle just above the fetlock joint. To our surprise it did not even make
the horse lame, and it was ridden back home the same as the other horses."
Captain Caldwell had previously served in the Utah militia, from 1855 to 1857, when
he had command of a company in Salt Lake County. Concerning his ecclesiastical ap-
pointments and services he says: "When I moved to Rush Valley I continued to act in
the capacity of a teacher. For twenty-one years I was a Bishop's counselor, and for
nine years held the office of Bishop. I have been a member of the Y. M. M. I. A. since
its organization. From November 12, 1871, to March 14, 1872, I fulfilled a mission in
the Northern States/' In a civic capacity Mr. Caldwell was prominent at the time of the
fall of the "Tooele Republic," his name, as a County Selectman, being upon the People's
ticket, the election of which, in August, 1878, with the subsequent litigation, wrested
Tooele County from the grasp of the Liberal spoilers. Farming and stock-raising has
been his principal business through life. For thirteen years he was in partnership with
his youngest brother. His family is a large one, the children of his first wife numbering
sixteen. By his second wife, Harriet Staples, whom he married in 1871, he had but one
child, which died in infancy.
GEORGE PATTEN
/TV.EORGE PATTEN, of Payson, was born October 20, 1828, in Chester County, Penn-
l<$) sylvania. His father was William Cornwell Patten, and his mother's maiden name
^jT Juliana Bench. The father was a weaver and plasterer, and the family was poor,so
that George received little schooling. They lived in Chester County until 1835, on
the first day of which year the mother died, and the father's mother then took charge of
the household. She was from Philadelphia, to which city the family now moved. When
George was eight years old his father sent him to Kent County, Delaware, to live with a
cousin and learn farming. He remained there until the fall of 1842, when his father
came for him and took him back to Philadelphia.
The family by this time had embraced Mormonism and a few days after the boy's re-
turn they were on their way to Nauvoo, with a company of Saints in charge of Edson
Whipple. They settled at Montrose, Iowa. George worked as a quarryman and stone-
cutter for the Nauvoo Temple, and helped his father to lath-and-plaster a portion of the
building. During the winter of 1S43-4 he went to school. In 1845 he was enrolled in
the Nauvoo Legion, and in February, 1846, was ordained to the office of a Seventy.
In the exodus he accompanied Charles C. Rich as far as Mount Pisgah, suffering
much sickness while on the way. In the summer of 1S46 he returned to Nauvoo. He
made another trip to Mount Pisgah, accompanied by Augustus Anderson, who returned
to Nauvoo a week or two before him, and was killed with his father, Captain William
Anderson, while defending the city against the mob early in September of that year.
Their burial took place the day that young Patten arrived home. The next evening he
went to see his father, who was in camp facing the enemy at the northeast part of town.
The mob, he states, were camped on the east side of Hyrum Smith's farm, and the "Mor-
mons" and "New Citizens" on the west side. He was just east of the Nauvoo brickyard,
when a cannon ball, fired by the besiegers, struck the ground near him, bounding on its
way until its force was spent. He relates how, after the treaty of peace was signed, and
HISTORY OF UTAH. 391
•while the homeless people were huddled together on the bank of the Mississippi, ready to
cross, the mob came down upon them and stripped them of their firearms, their only means
of protection in the exodus. They took his father's rifle, and would have taken his gun
also, but being warned of their approach, he had buried it just before the maurauders
came up. The summer of 1S47 found father and son at Winter Quarters, where they
built a home for the family and then 'went into Missouri for employment. In the spring
of ISoO. with two old wagons, drawn by cows and steers, they started across the plains
in Wilford Woodruff's "hundred." Edson Whipple's "fifty. " leaving the Missouri river
about the 20th of June and arriving at Salt Lake City early in October.
The father was one of the founders of Payson. The son settled at what is now
Alpine, where he with others made a settlement and called it Mountainville. They lived
in log houses with ground floors, lumber doors and factory cloth windows. On February
20, 1851, Georse Patten married Mary Jane Nelson, daughter of Edmon Nelson, a Jack-
son County veteran. In 1S53 the Mountainville settlers built a fort, by direction of
President b oung. as a protection against hostile Indians, and meanwhile moved their
families to Salt Lake City for safety.
In the fall of 1S54 Mr. Patten sold out at Mountainville. and joined his father at Pay-
son, where he went to farming. In 1S55 came the grasshoppers and laid the fields waste.
Mr. Patten sowed sixteen acres with wheat and reaped two and a half bushels. After the
grasshoppers had gone, he sowed two acres with wheat and harvested thirteen bushels.
In February. 1856, he accompanied Thomas Johnson, deputy of United States Marshal
Heywood, with a posse, in pursuit of Chief Tintic, [whose hostile band were killing men
and driving off stock west of Utah'Lake. The pursuers crossed the lake on the ice. with
saddle horses and baggage wagons, went through the canyon where the town of Eureka
now stands, and followed the Indians in a south-westerly direction near to the present site
of Deseret. The Indians grot away, but the posse recaptured about one hundred head of
cattle.
In October of that year Mr. Patten went to Salt Lake City with a load of grain, ex-
pecting to be gone five days, but was absent instead five weeks, being mustered into ser-
vice to help in the handcart companies from Fort Bridger. During this time his wife
had to chop her own wood and feed the stock, with snow a foot deep most of the time.
The following interesting note is found in Mr. Patten's record: "About the fourth of
September, 1S">7. an express came from Parowan to Governor Young, regarding the
Indians surrounding some emigrants at Mountain Meadows. I furnished a horse post
haste to take the express to Provo, eighteen miles distant." The following winter he
served in Echo Canyon, against Johnston's army, and afterwards had charge of ten
men, at Ham's Fork and Fort Bridger, watching the movement of the government
troops. Subsequently he went with Lot Smith to Green River, and performed other
similar service. "I was out in rain and snow, cold and hunger, rough and tumble, for
ten weeks, my wife getting along the best she could with her children in my absence."
Mr. Patten became a major in the militia.
In 1860-61 he furnished a yoke of oxen to help in the emigration, and in 1862 went
with Captain Homer Duncan to Omaha for the same purpose. It was a season of high
water, and the bridge over the Sweetwater was considered so unsafe that the coiupany
owning it would not let the wagons cross. Captain Duncan ordered a bridge built from
two log houses just erected but was persuaded by Mr. Patten, who was an experienced
raftsman, to let him build a raft, instead, and in this manner the stream was safely passed.
Next came a call to the "Muddy Mission." Says he: "President Young said at
that conference (October, 1865) that he did not expect all who were called to move to that
country, but he wanted them to use their means for its settlement: so I fitted out a wagon
and team, supplied with provisions and seeds, and sent a man with it to St. Thomas. In
the spring of 1S66 I went down to see the country. While there parties wished me to
put up a molasses mill, and having a mill at Payson I took it down to St. Thomas and set
it to work in the fall. I also bought a cotton gin. and got a small gearing up to run it.
At St. George. President Erastus Snow counseled me not to move to the Muddy for a few
days, until company could be obtained, as the Indians were troublesome. I bought a lot
in St. George and began improving it. In about a mouth I went on to St. Thomas, put
up a water wheel, attached my gearing and set the cotton gin going. There being a
mountain of fine salt near. I bought a small pair of burrs, and attaching them to my little
water power, ground salt for the people of "Dixie," as well as those of Cedar. Parowan
and other places. I also took a fanning mill to St. Thomas. The Muddy was supposed
to be in the south-west corner of Utah, but when boundaries were established our settle-
ments fell in Nevada. Taxation was so heavy that it was deemed best to vacate that part.
392 . HISTORY OF UTAH.
which was done, by President Young's direction, in the spring of 1871. In the breakup
of St. Thomas I lost a thousand dollars. I helped to improve Harrisburg as well as St.
George. Just before moving from the Muddy, I was on a short mission to the States,
visiting Indiana, Pennsylvania and Delaware."
In August, 1873, Mr. Patten was elected constable at Payson. In February, 1877,
he was chosen a member of the city council. In 1882 he purchased for four thousand
dollars a dilapidated ranch in Juab County, and went to work fencing and improving
it, driving wells and planting a nursery. He named the place ''Poplar Row."
In the spring of 1889, he visited the Mormon colonies in Mexico, and in the fall
returned to that country with two of his sons, and purchased land and water at Colonia
Dublan. In 1891 he explored farther south, returning in September to Dublan, and
inaugurating the work of building a meeting house. He remained in Mexico four
years, exerting every energy to improve the country. One of his sons settled and died
there, leaving a wife and twelve children. This son, George W. Patten, was one of
eight children borne by his mother, Mary Jane Nelson Patten, who died July 6, 1896.
The husband and father still lives at his old home in Payson.
CHARLES L. ANDERSON.
/») X-MAYOR of Grantsville, and repeatedly a member of the Territorial legislature, this
£e)/" gentleman is now one of the presidency of the Tooele Stake of Zion. He is of Scan-
^■^ dinavian origin, having been born in Dais Land, Sweden, on the 11th of April,
1846. His parents were Anders and Kaisa Anderson. The father was a well-to-do
farmer, but so zealous in his religion that he let all his property go to emigrate people
of his faith.
Charles remained in his native land until fifteen years of age, working on his father's
farm and taking care of the horses and cattle. A great lover of horses, he was naturally
inclined to stockraising and farming. A horse was the first thing he ever owned. He
received a common school education. He was strictly moral, and always of a religious
turn. His parents being devout Latter-day Saints, it was but natural that he should be
taught and trained in the principles of their religion. His conviction of its truth, how-
ever, was the result of independent investigation. When he left his native land it was
to be "one with the Saints" in the Zion of the Rocky Mountains.
He was very comfortably outfitted for the long journey, which began on the 5th of
April and ended on the 10th of October, 1862. He came by way of Hamburg to New York,
and proceeded thence to the Missouri river, in a company of emigrants presided over by
H. Christoffersen. Crossing the plains, young Anderson drove a wagon with four or five
yoke of OKen. He slept on the ground for over three months, the time consumed in
making the trip from the frontier. He settled at Grantsville, where he has ever since
resided.
During his first year in Utah he hired out to work for eleven dollars a month. After-
wards he received sixty dofiars a month. He gave all his earnings, except what it cost to
clothe him, to his poor parents. In 1866 he drove team to the Missouri river and back,
bringing in immigrants. The next year he rnaiTied, the partner of his choice being Miss
Ellen Okerberry, who has made him a^faithful and devoted wife. Their wedding day was
March 16, 1867. "We were married a year," says Mr. Anderson, "before we had a chair
to sit on. I farmed on shares for W. C. Rydalch for three years; this was during the
grasshopper war; hence I raised no crops. Soon after the grasshoppers left I took up a
farm of my own, and have had chairs to sit on ever since."
In 1876 Mr. Anderson was elected mayor of Grantsville. He was again elected in
1882, and re-elected in 1884, serving three terms. In 1882 and 1886 he represented
Tooele County in the legislature. In politics he is a Republican. Ecclesiastically he
acted as a ward teacher for years, and was for some time stake president of the Y. M. M.
I. A. On January 31, 1881, he was ordained a High Priest and set apart as a High Coun-
cilor of the stake. On October 28, 1882, he became first counselor to the president of the
stake, Hugh S. Gowans.
Mr. Anderson and his wife are the parents of eight children, two of whom died in
infancy. The survivors are Charles Leroy, John Andrew, Ellen Adelia, Joan Hortense,
(_ s^7^~ ^^oS^r^t-^^-
HISTORY OF UTAH. 393
Edna Beatrice and Phillos Czern. The family are musically inclined and talented in
various directions. One of the sons is a cultured musician, who studied in the most fa-
mous conservatories of Germany and Austria. He is known to-day as Professor J. A.
Anderson, of Salt Lake City. A daughter (Ellen Adelia) plays the piano, sings well and
is passionately fond of poetry. She is now Mrs. H. W. Early of New York City. Re-
ferring: to his son, the professor. Mr. Anderson wrote in a letter to his biographer: ''My
son John A. went to Europe on the 15th of June. 189.'!. for the purpose of studying music.
He first went to the Royal Conservatory of Leipsie, and there finished a ten years course
in four years. Besides studying the piano, which is his forte, and the violin, he took a
course in vocal music. In June, 1897, he went to Vienna to take a course under the
world-reuowned Leschetizky, under whom he studied for two years. My son traveled and
did a good deal of missionary work during1 vacation while in Germany. In New York,
on his way home, he selected a Steinway concert grand piano of the finest make. It cost
$1,550, and will have a place in his studio."
Mr. Anderson has a pleasant home in Grantsville, where his friends and even chance
acquaintances art hospitably entertained. He has a well stocked library, and is a man of
general intelligence. Though a prosperous farmer, it was in the sheep business that he
made most of his money. During the years 1S93-4-.") he had as a partner in this industry
his brother Gustave. Most of his business operations are conducted in Grantsville, but his
engagements frequently take him to other parts. He is a prosperous and an exemplary
citizen.
CHARLES CRANE,
^HE Crane family are identified with Southern Utah, and more especially with Millard
I^D County, where the subject of this sketch settled about twenty- five years ago, a
,? young man and single. For many years he had been a wanderer, and had seen
life in some of its sternest phases. When a mere boy he enlisted in the Union
army, and throughout the whole of our terrible civil strife kept up a steady tramp with
the loyal legions of the Republic. Those crucial years gave to his boyhood strength and
courage, with abundant experience in the clamor and carnage of more than twenty his-
toric battlefields. In Utah he became a sheep and wool man, one of the best known in
the West, and has also been prominent in politics. His friends claim that to him, more
than to any other man. belongs the title "Father of the Republican party in Utah.''
It was in the yesr 1S43 that the infant Charles Crane came as a Christmas gift to his
parents: their ninth and last child. He was born in Yoxford, England. His father was
a man of sturdy, honest habits, and his mother a woman of firm and noble character,
unswer/ing in faith and piety. The boy was put to school very early, and at six years
read with ease and fluency. When nine years old he came with his parents to America,
April 8, 1833, being the date of their embarkation. His child sister. Adaline. died dur-
ing the voyage and was buried in the ocean. The family arrived at Gait, Canada, about
six weeks after leaving England.
Charles remained at Gait, attending school much of the time, until fourteen years
of age. when the desire to see the world and battle for himself was so strong within him
that his parents gave reluctant consent for him to leave home. He went to La Fayette,
Indiana, where he remained for six months, learning the carpenter's trade. At the end
of that time the old desire to travel returned, and again he went forth, this time to the
Southern States, arriving at New Orleans in May, 1859. In that city, and at Houston,
Galveston, and other places he tarried for more than a year. The abuses of slavery that
he witnessed harassed and haunted his soul, and he returned north a confirmed abo-
itionist, so far as his feelings were concerned. It was in March. 1861, that he left Hous-
'ton and svent back to La Fayette, where, on the 10th of April, a heavy sorrow befell him
in the death of his brother James, two days after the capitulation of Fort Sumter.
Grief and patriotism tilled the young man's soul.
The attack on Sumter fired the Northern heart; President Lincoln issued his call
for seventy-five thousand volunteers, and in less than three days Charles Crane was mus-
tered into service, the youngest volunteer in his regiment — the Tenth Indiana, William
25
394 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Wilson, captain. He was only seventeen, and looked much younger. The regiment
went into quarters at Camp Morton, Indianapolis, where he became drill master of his
company, holding the rank of corporal. The regiment remained in camp a few weeks,
during which time they were drilled and uniformed. They then went to Parkersburg,
Virginia, where they were under General McClellan, and took the most active part in the
battle of Rich Mountain, August, 1861, losing several men. The time of enlistment
(three months) having expired, they returned to Indianapolis and were discharged.
Young Crane now went to Canada to see his parents, but remained there only a
month. Returning to Indiana he again joined the army, September 19, 1801, becoming
a member of Company D, First Regiment, Mechanic Pusileers, Captain John Lawson.
They went into camp at Fort Douglass, Chicago, where they did service in guarding pris-
oners of war. Crane was sergeant and became drill master of his company, as also for regi-
mental drill. The Fusileers being disbanded by order of the secretary of war, he was
discharged, January 28, 1862, but shortly after re-enlisted, this time in the Sixty-third
Indiana Volunteers. He belonged to Company A, and was commissioned first sergeant.
At Indianapolis companies A, B, C and D, were formed into a battalion with John S.
Williams as lieutenant-colonel. They first guarded prisoners at Camp Morton, but on
the 27th of May were ordered east and stationed at Alexandria, Virginia, where they did
provost duty until August, and were then transferred to General Pope's command. Now
came the memorable battle of Manassas — a three days engagement. The battalion with
which Crane was connected went into action two hundred and twenty strong, but at the
end of the three days it had only nineteen fit for duty, the rest being "killed, wounded
and missing." He himself was struck with a fragment of shell in the right knee, crush-
ing the knee-cap. The remnant of the battalion followed up to Antietam, but were not
called into serious action. Early in October they returned to Indianapolis, and the regi-
mental organization was completed by the addition of six more companies. In December
six. including Crane's, were transferred to Sbepherdsville, Kentucky, and employed in
guarding the Louisville and Nashville railroad. While in this service they had several
skirmishes with the enemy. On January 15, 1864, the regiment was re-united at Camp
Nelson, Kentucky, and on February 25th started for Knoxville, Tennessee, one hundred
and eighty-five miles, over almost impassable roads, arriving there on the 15th of March.
Thence they went to Bull's Gap, and on April 23rd moved in the direction of Jonesboro,
marching one hundred miles in four days, burning bridges and destroying track along
the line of the Tennessee and Virginia railroad. On April 28th they started to join
Sherman, and were with him in his famous march to the sea.
On the 9th and 10th of May the Sixty-third Indiana was in the battle of Rocky-
faced Ridge, and afterwards moved through Snake Creek Gap to Resaca, where it
charged across an open field, more than half a miie, under a terrific fire from the
enemy, taking a portion of the Confederate works; loss, eighteen killed and ninety-
four wounded. On the 18th of May there was another engagement at Cassville,
in which the enemy was driven all that day and the next. The regiment reached
Cartersville on the 23rd, and three days later moved on to the Dallas line, where they
went into an entrenched position, and were under the fire of three Confederate batteries,
until relieved on the 1st of June. Sixteen were wounded at this place. From June
3rd to June 0th the regiment lay in line of battle behind works of its own eon-
struction, losing one killed and one wounded. It next came into action an June 15th,
near Last Mountain, losing six killed and eight wounded. On the 17th it moved fur-
ward to the Keuesaw line under a brisk fire, but without loss. It crossed Noses Creek
under a heavy fire, losing two men. On the 27th it was again engaged on the enemy's
left, and lost three men. On the 8th of July it forded the Chattahoochie river, wading
the stream, a rapid current, neck deep, without losing a man. These were the first troops
across. They came into the neighborhood of Atlanta on July 20th, and on the 22nd
Mr. Crane participated in the great battle where McPherson fell. From this time for
two months his regiment was extremely busy, marching and counter-marching, guard-
ing roads and bridges, often losing a man or two in a sharp skirmish. On the 5th of
September it started for Decatur, reaching that place on the Sth; and there had an en-
trenched camp, in which it rested from the labors of the Atlanta campaign.
Early in October. 1804, the Sixty-third moved with forces under General Thomas to
meet General Hood's attempt upon the Federal communications, marching rapidly and
constantly until the 7th of November, when it left Dalton for Nashville by railroad, and
moved thence to Pulaski, where occurred a brisk engagement. At Franklin, on Novem-
ber 30th, it took part in another great battle. There the Confederate General Pat
Cleburne was killed. Mr. Crane has one of the general's spurs, taken from his boot
HISTORY OF UTAH. 395
after the battle. On the 17th of December the regiment joined in pursuit of Hood, go-
ing as far as Clifton on the Tennessee river, whence it started for Alexandria, Virginia.
Sailing from that point February 3, 1865, and landing near Fort Fisher, North Carolina,
it participated in the difficult and unsuccessful attempt to turn Hood's position. On Feb-
ruary 18th, it engaged the enemy at Fort Anderson, and then marched to Wilmington,
skirmishing by the way. On the 12th of March, after an arduous tramp of one hundred
miles through swamps and mud, it reached Kingston, and moved thence to Goldborough,
Raleigh, and by rail to Greensb-rro, where it remained until June 21, 1865, when it was
mustered out of service.
The war being over, our soldier-citizen turned his attention to the pursuits of peace.
He was a man of untiring energy, to whom action and achievement were essential. He
had a leaning towards mechanism, and a genius for invention. He made money rapidly,
but his investments "fled from him like the mirage of the desert." Again he went to
New Orleans, where he studied architecture and building, theoretically and practically.
In Texas he superintended the construction of Forts Stockton and Concho. While in
the South he also studied ship-building and car-building. He invested in a band of
sheep and goats, but so many of them were killed by lynxes, coyotes, and panthers, that
he soon sold them to prevent their entire destruction.
In the year 186S he came West. In Nevada he was known as a master millwright,
commanding from ten to twenty-five dollars a day. He superintended the construc-
tion of several quartz mills for American and English companies, and then went north
to Victoria, B.C., thence on to Alaska. Returning, after a season spent among the gold
placers of that region, he roamed over Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho, Colorado,
Arizona, and in 1872 found himself in Utah. Here he erected the largest concentrating
plant then known in the West. Having secured a patent on a machine for concentrating
low grade ores, he sold it, and with the proceeds purchased a band of sheep in Nevada
and drove them to Utah.
Settling at Kanosh, in Millard County, where he entered lands, he stocked his farm and
began to build up what has been known as the most complete sheep ranch in these parts.
His sheep and wool interest continued to improve and his flocks increased from year to
year, both in numbers and quality. He became a recognized authority on sheep and
wool, and on January 9, 18S8, when the Utah Wool Growers Association was formed,
he was chosen president of that important organization. He corresponded much with the
newspapers, and kept in touch with all the leading questions of the day.
In politics he acted and voted with the Liberal party, and was one of its most zeal-
ous and efficient members. Nationally he was a Republican; this choice being largely
due to his connection with the wool interests. When the time came for the people of
the Territory to bury old issues and divide on national party lines, he was among the
first to welcome the changed conditions and throw in his lot with the Republican party
of Utah, born April 27, 1891. In this connection it has been said of him:
"It is clearly evident that the organization and progress of republicanism in Utah
have been largely dependent upon the labor and influence of Mr. Crane. We have seen
l hat for several years prior to the division movement he was holding up the banner of
Republicanism as the palladium of prosperity for the sheep and wool business. The first
general election after division, August 3, 1891, resulted in the following vote: Demo-
cratic. 14,308; Liberal. 7,442; Republican, (i 232— an aggregate of about 28,000. The
presidential year, 1892, brought with it a campaign in Utah that was unexcelled in any
State or Territory in the Union with respect to earnestness, effectiveness and educational
results. The Republican convention on SeptemDer 15th was large, enthusiastic, spirited,
and independent. After a two days' contest, the choice of the convention for Delegate to
Congress centered upon Frank J. Cannon, a representative of young Utah, and a young
man of marked ability and oratorical power. By the logic of the situation, Mr. Crane
became the chairman of the Territorial committee, he having been a staunch and most
effective supporter of Mr. Cannon. He sought to decline the chairmanship on account
of his private business engagements, but finally yielded to the importunities of his friends,
accepted the responsibility, and brought to the discharge of its duties all the energy,
promptness and fertility of resource that have characterized his business management
throughout his entire career.
""At this time the Republican party in Utah was void of organization, except in three
counties; and here Mr. Crane's determined energy and ability as an organizer was fully
demonstrated. In less than thirty days every precinct in the Territory (over three
hundred) had a complete organization of Republicans. Under his chairmanship the
?ucc eding campaign was a grand one. full of energy and enthusiasm, full of houe and
396 HISTORY OF UTAH.
hard work, ending in glorious and lasting results. It was wonderful in its educational
power. Hundreds of speeches were made daily, tons of political literature were dis-
tributed, and the people thoroughly aroused. The result was a greatly increased aggre-
gate vote — 34.577, or 10,812 more than was cast at the preceding Delegate election
in November, 1890. The vote was divided as follows: Republicans, 12,39.") — a gain of
6,000 over the year previous, or about one hundred 'per cent; Democrat, 15,201 — a gain
of about five per cent over the year previous; Liberal, (i,98G — a loss of 450 as compared
with the previous vote, although the Gentile element had greatly increased. General
Clarkson said that this was the most bitterly contested, the most aggressive, and the
most ably conducted political campaign he had ever seen."
The same writer eulogizes Mr. Crane for his shrewd and indomitable labors during
the season of depression that followed this election; telling how he went himself and
sent others all over the Territory, at his own expense, through mud, sleet and storm,
sparing neither money nor trouble to bring to the attention of the people the disasters
claimed to have been caused by Democracy and its recent success in the nation; the
result being a Republican majority in both branches of the legislature.
Hon. Charles Crane was an active working member — he could not be anything else
— of the Constitutional Convention of 1S95, which gave to Utah the fundamental law
upon which she was admitted into the Union as a State. Retiring from the chairmanship
of the Republican committee, he managed, after the advent of Statehood, Colonel Isaac
Trumbo's independent campaign for the United States Senatorship. That the latter failed
to secure the legislative nomination was not due to any lack of zealous and efficient ser-
vice on the part of his staunch supporter.
Subsequently there came a great change in Mr. Crane's political sympathies and
affiliations. The attitude of the Republican party on national issues completely alienated
him therefrom, and he figured in the campaign of 1899 as a Democrat. Since then he has
joined with the Socialists, but is no longer as active in politics as he once was. He still
resides in Utah, is frequently seen upon the streets of the capital, and devotes himself
almost exclusively to the pursuits of business.
JOHN AND MARY SPIERS.
\Jj'HIS worthy couple were among the founders of Plain City. Both are of English
CtJ birth, and settlers of Utah in the early fifties. John Spiers, second son of
<Si Samuel and Elizabeth Spiers, was born at Redmarley, in Worcestershire,
February 19, 1822. His boyhood was passed in his native village. His father,
who was a sawyer, died when John was five years old. leaving the support of
three children upon the mother, who was a seamstress, With her earnings she gave
them what education she could, comprising reading, writing and an imperfect knowledge
of arithmetic. At ten John went to work for a builder, ami acquired some skill at
bricklaying. His parents belonged to the Church of England, but at an early age he
became dissatisfied with that church, and joined the "United Brethren." He was one
of those converted to Mormonism by Wilford Woodruff, in March, 1840, being baptized
by the Apostle on the 0th of April.
Having been ordained a Priest, he forthwith began to preach the Gospel. In No-
vember, 1840, he helped Elder Henry Glover establish a branch of the Church in
Cheltenham, and in the following February labored with Elder Samuel Warren in the
northern part of Herefordshire. He was made an Elder in March, 1841, and continued
in the ministry for two years, laboring in England and Wales. With the assistance of
others lie built up six branches.
March 8, 1843, was the date of his sailing for America. He reached Xauvoo on
the 31st of May. On the 4th of July he married Mary Marlow Wright, a widow, who
died September 12, 1845. He was enrolled in the first company of Saints that left
Nauvoo in 1S40, but by request tarried a season, and was there when the city was
besieged and the remnant driven out. The following winter he spent in Iowa, and the
spring of 1847 found him at Council Bluffs. In 1848 he accompanied Orson Pratt on a
mssiou to England. While on this missiou he met and married Mary Ann Winfield,
HISTORY OF UTAH. 397
the joint subject of this sketch, who came with him to America. Arriving at the frontier,
and procuring a wagon, an ox-team and two cows, the family — father, mother and one
child — started for Utah, passing the Missouri river on the 10th of June. Their company
comprised fifty families, traveling under Captain William Lang. Elder Spiers officiated
as chaplain. Two stampedes occured, but little damage resulted. They reached Salt Lake
City on the 6th of September.
Soon after his arrival here, Mr. Spiers moved to Lehi. He there taught the district
school, purchased materials and built a home, took up land and planted crops. All
looked promising; but in the fall of 1S53 the Walker Indian war broke out, and in
obedience to the military authorities, the people tore down their houses and transformed
them into fortifications. While in the midst of this work Mr. Spiers was called to help
protect the settlers of Iron County. He assisted in building the walls of a fort, but un-
able to stand the cold, as he was a sufferer from asthma, he returned in the spring of
1854 to Lehi. The crops of 1855 suffered from grasshoppers, but Mr. Spiers saved a
little wheat, the flour from which sold at the rate of sixteen pounds for a dollar. Pro-
visions were scarce, but hard labor at farming and building were productive of a liveli-
hood. Early in 1858 there was another Indian uprising, and Mr. Spiers, as a captain
of militia, again did service against the redskins.
In March, 1S59, he went with others to Weber County and helped to settle Plain
City, which became his permanent home. There he farmed and gardened and was as
ever an industrious and studious man. At Lehi he had been the first city recorder, also
a member of the city council. At Plain City he became secretary of the Church Associa-
tion, and later secretary of an irrigation company. The latter position he filled for
thirty years. He was also justice of the peace, county selectman, school trustee, and
the holder of several minor offices. In 1877, for acting as justice under an appointment
from the county court, to fill an unexpired term, he was indicted by the grand jury
and tried before Associate Justice Emerson. That magistrate had the ease dismissed, on
the ground that while the appointment was illegal, the defendant had acted in good faith,
believing it legal. He was afterwards elected for several terms to the same office. His
ecclesiastical labors include twelve years of service as superintendent of the Plain City
Sunday schools. He was first counselor to Bishop L. W. Shurtliff, and continued as
such to Bishop G. W. Bramwell.
His wife, Mary Anne Addison Winfield, was born at Foulden, Norfolk, England, April
20, 1822. She was the daughter of Edward and Elizabeth Addison, but when she was a
babe her father died, and upon her mother's second marriage she was adopted by her
grandfather, James Winfield, who raised her as his own. He was a man of wealth and
position, and gave the girl a good education. She grew a loving companion to her
grandsire, and in his latter days was his housekeeper. She was for some time a Sunday
school teacher in the Methodist church, but in the spring of 1847, while living near
Norwich, she became acquainted with Mormonism. She was very sick at the time.
Elder Thomas Smith explained to her the principles of the Gospel, and promised that
if she would believe and be baptized she should be healed. She had not been able to
walk for weeks, but inspired by this promise she went in a carriage to the river in
Norwich and was baptized by Elder John Harris. The river banks and boats were
crowded with specators, including many of her Sunday school associates, eager to behold
the baptism. She was duly immersed and walked out of the water well. Mr. Winfield
himself joined the Church, and built the Saints a chapel. He died shortly after-
wards.
Miss Winfield, now a zealous Latter-day Saint, married on November 13, 1S49, Eldei
John Spiers, who had been sent to labor in Norwich. She greatly assisted him in his work.
They resided at Bedford for years, and in January, 1852, crossed the ocean, landing at New
Orleans, and proceeding by way of St. Louis and St. Joseph to Council Bluffs, where
the3' began the journey of the plains. The general course of the good lady's life in Utah
may be gleaned from the account given of her husband's experience. She was his faith-
ful companion in all the toils aud trials of early times. She is the mother of six children,
the youngest of whom was accidentally drowned when two years old, in an irrigation
canal. For many years Mrs. Spiers was secretary of the Plain City Relief Society, and
for aught known at this writing is still acting in that capacity.
CHRISTOHER JONES ARTHUR.
ZK WELSHMAN by birth, C. J. Arthur, now a prominent citizen of Cedar City, first
*«gjr saw the light in the village of Abersyehan, near Pontypool, Monmouthshire,
y South Wales, March 9, 1832. His father was Christopher Abel Arthur, and his
mother, before marriage, Ann Jones. Their son received a common school edu-
cation, beginnine in the academy at Stanbenoch, Monmouthshire, and ending in the
academy at Hallen, Gloucestershire, England. His parents belonged to the middle class.
The father kept a store in connection with a large bakery, and employed three assistants
tn the business.
Mr. Arthur was not quite twenty-one when he started with his parents for Utah,
sailing from Liverpool on the 25th of February, 1853. He was not then a Latter-day
Saint, but was baptized while crossing the Atlantic. The commander of the vessel, Cap-
tain David Brown, two mates, the carpenter, the cook, eighteen seamen, and twelve
other passengers were also baptized at the same time, in a large vat placed on the main
deck. The senior Mr. Arthur was president of the ship's company of Saints. They
held a conference on the Oth of April, before landing. By way of New Orleans and St.
Louis they reached the frontier, and crossed the plains in Claudius V. Spencer's com-
pany, arriving at Salt Lake City late in September.
Mr. Arthur's father, who had been captain of fifty wagons on the plains, bought a
farm of over a hundred acres at Big Cottonwood, where the family resided from Septem-
ber, 1853, until March, 1854. Then they moved to Cedar City, where the father was a
director of the Iron Company and the superintendent of its farm. At the time of his
arrival the town was fortified against the Indians, who had been quite hostile, keeping
the people in daily fear of an attaek. Gradually a better feeling was engendered among
the red men, and their inroads upon the settlers ceased.
C. J. Arthur made Cedar City his permanent home. He became interested in mer-
cantile co-operation, also in the sheep industry, and took a leading part in all business
affairs in his section. He was successively city councilor, alderman, and mayor, and in
the Church was president of Seventies, High Priest, Bishop's counselor and Bishop. He
served as a school trustee, and as aide to Colonel Dame in the militia. He was also
ward and stake tithing clerk. In 1883-4-5 he performed a mission to Great Britain,
laboring in the Sheffield conference and in the business department of the Liverpool
office.
Mr. Arthur has been married four times and is the father of twelve children. His
first wife was Caroline Eliza Haight, daughter of Isaac. C. Haight. She died March 3,
1874. He. next married Aun E. Perry, and subsequently Marion Brown and Jane
Condie. In May, 1889, having been convicted of unlawful cohabitation under the Ed-
munds law, he was sentenced by Judge Anderson to pay a fine of three hundred dollars
and costs and be imprisoned for six months in the penitentiary. He paid his fine, and
through good behavior was released before the expiration of his term of imprisonment.
At last accounts he was officiating as a Patriarch, and still acting as stake tithing clerk
and Presiding Bishop's agent, positions held by him for over thirty years.
JOHN ELLISON.
HIS venerable Patriarch, for many years a resident of Kaysville, was born May 23,
) 1818, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, near Clitheroe, Lancashire, England. His
parents were Matthew and Jennie Ellison, tenant fanners. When about ten years
old he was sent to school, and remained at it until about fifteen, receiving for a
■A'
W
/%?&u6
HISTOEY OF UTAH. 399
country lad a good education. After leaving school he was a help to his parents, driving
team, plowing, sowing, mowing, and doing general farm work.
When about twenty, up to which time he had never been from home, he received
the Gospel from Heber C. Kimball and Joseph Fielding. In January, 1838, he was
ordained a Teacher, and in April following a Priest. In 1839 he became an Elder, and
in 1840 traveled in the ministry with Francis Moon. For three years he traversed the
neighborhood where he was born, bearing testimony of the Latter-day work and occa-
sionally assisting his parents upon the farm.
In February, 1841, he married Alice Pilling, and the day after his wedding started
for Liverpool to come to America, his wife accompanying him. They sailed on the ship
"Echo," Daniel Browett being in charge of their company, and a voyage of eight weeks
and one day brought them to New Orleans, whence they steamed up the Mississippi to Nau-
voo. They were three weeks on the river.
At Nauvoo, Mr. Ellison worked for the Prophet Joseph Smith, farming, fencing,
and making other improvements. When the Saints left Illinois, having lost his property,
he went to St. Louis to obtain employment, and was in the Union Printing office until
May, 1851, when he started for the Rocky mountains. Detained by sickness at
Council Bluffs, he did not arrive in Salt Lake City until September 12, 1852.
He first settled on the Jordan river, renting a farm from President Heber C. Kim-
ball. In 1853 he lost his crop on account of high water. He then moved to Kaysville.
taking up his present farm February 15, 1854. One of his important labors was in 1875
or 1876, when he assisted Bishop Christopher Layton in gathering up the Church sheep,
from Cache valley to Sanpete, and taking them to Cove Creek, where they were cleansed
from the disease called "the scab." They were called to this labor by President Brig-
ham Young.
By his first wife, Alice Pilling, Mr. Ellison had a family of ten children. Two of
his sons died in St. Louis, and in 1863 one of his daughters was fatally scalded. The
mother died November 8, 1886. His second wife, Mary A. Kidd, whom he married about
1870, died March 18, 1890; and on May 20, 1896, he married his third wife, Grace
Ellison.
He was a Seventy of the Church in the days of Nauvoo, his ordination to that office
taking place December 22, 1844. He was a member of the fourteenth quorum. After
the Davis stake was organized he became a High Councilor. He traveled as an as-
sistant superintendent of Sunday schools for sixteen years, and was then made a Patri-
arch. He was known as an honest, straightforward man,
GEORGE SPILSBURY.
-EORGE, the fourth son of William J. and Hannah Haden Spilsbury, was born at
Leigh, Worcestershire, England, April 21, 1823. His father was a bricklayer and
plasterer, and the son, following his own inclination, worked with him at his
trade, while the mother kept a small grocery store. He spent very little time at
school, yet enough to learn reading, writing, and arithmetic. "At the age of sixteen,"
says he, "under a large oak tree, in a field near my home, a voice declared to me that I
should be a minister of the Gospel; which prediction has been fulfilled."
He labored with his father up to the age of seventeen, when he first heard Mormon-
ism preached at the home of George Brooks, in Leigh parish. He was baptized and con-
firmed a Latter-day Saint the same evening — October 11, 1840. The followinsr Febru-
ary he was ordained a Priest, and in July started on a mission to Herefordshire and
Wales, from which he returned in the summer of 1842, having baptized seventeen per-
sons. On the 5th of the following September he married Fannie Smith, and from that
time worked at bricklaying and plastering, to earn means with which to emigrate to
Nauvoo.
The newly-wedded pair sailed from Liverpool on the ship "Yorkshire," March 8,
1843. When near the Gulf of Mexico, a squall one night struck the ship with such force
that the masts, sails, and rigging were carried overboard, but no lives were lost. At the
end of a long and rough voyage the vessel anchored at New Orleans. The Spilsburys
400 HISTORY OF UTAH.
had not a dollar with which to buy provisions or pay their way up the Mississippi.
Thomas Bullock lent them enough money to supply them with provisions, and by giving
his clothing as security the young husband finally succeeded in raising sufficient means
to take him and his wife to Nauvoo. They landed there on the 31st of May.
While a resident of that city, Mr. Spilsbury occupied himself in various ways — build-
ing, chopping wood, and quarrying stone for the Temple and the Nauvoo House. He
also spent much time on guard, protecting the Prophet and the people from mob vio-
lence. He was at Nauvoo the day the martyred Prophet and Patriarch were brought
from Carthage amid the sorrow and lamentation of a grief-stricken people. Elder Spils-
bury— for he was both Elder and Seventy at this time — was present at the dedication of
the Nauvoo Temple, and in the exodus of the Saints from Illinois.
It was not until the 3rd of July, 1850, that he left the Missouri river for Utah, trav-
eling in Bishop Edward Hunter's company up the south side of the Platte. He had joined
teams with Charles N. Smith, and they had one wagon, two yoke of oxen, and two yoke
of cows. The second day out, the Stars and Stripes were unfurled and the Nation's
birthday celebrated. A son, Alma Platte, was born to Mrs. Spilsbury while traveling
along the river on the 5th of August. When only eight days old the child with its mother
narron-ly escaped a fatality; the wagon containing them being upset down a bank four or
five feet into the water. After considerable searching, Bishop Hunter found the
child, apparently dead, but when administered to it revived. No ill effects followed the
accident. At Fort Laramie some thieves, with old rawhides on their backs, stampeded
the cattle of the camp, but after a hard chase, all the auimals were recovered. The com-
pany reached Salt Lake City on the 3rd of October.
The family were in the move of 1858. They settled at Draper in 1859, and in 1862
went to Dixie, starting from Draper on the 2nd day of December. At Pine Creek hill,
Beaver County, they were snowed in four days, with about three feet of snow, and ex-
tricated themselves with difficulty. They arrived at Grafton the day before Christmas.
There they remained until I860, when they had to move to Rockville, for protection
against the Indians. In 1868 they removed to Toquerville, where they now reside. Prior
to going south, Mr. Spilsbury had entered into the practice of plural marriage, with Ann
Coop and Harriet Wonfor, the former in July, 1854, the latter in March, 1856. His last
wife, Lydia Applegate, he wedded in 1886. He is the father of thirteen children, but
only five of them are living.
Mr. Spilsbury was adjutant and captain in the Iron County military district in 1868;
selectman of Kane County from 1873 to 1S82; county treasurer from 1877 to 1881, and
justice of the peace in 1S72, 1877 and 1879. During his residence at Draper, in 1862, he
was postmaster at that place. He has performed the duties of ward and county superin-
tendent of Sunday schools, assistant superintendent of the St. George Stake Sundays cliools,
and stake missionary in the Sabbath school cause. He has been president of the Y. M.
M. I. A. at Toquerville, and later became a High Priest and first counselor to Bishop
William A. Bringhurst of that place.
JOHN SIVEL SMITH.
<j>ATHER JOHN S. SMITH, a Kaysville patriarch, has more than one title to
jv fame, fairly won during his fifty-three years residence in Utah. A Latter-day
Saint from the days of Kirtland and Nauvoo, he was one of the founders of
Draper, and a very early settler at Kaysville, where he purchased the farm of
Bishop Kay, for whom that setllement was named. There he was Bishop's counselor
under two administrations. His latest act of philanthropy was a handsome gift of money
to the Latter-day Saints University of Salt Lake City.
John Sivel Smith was born in Redmarley, Worcestershire, England, March 10, 1809.
He was a farmer's son, but at the age of fifteen was apprenticed to the trade of carpenter
and wheelwright, at which he served five years and three months, faithfully filling up
his time. On February l.'i, 1S38, he married Jane Wadley. who has borne him four
sons and seven daughters.
Mr. Smith became a Latter-day Saint in May 1810. The next year he emigrated to
*m&
HISTORY OF UTAH. 401
America, residing at Kirtland, Ohio, for sixteen months, and in the fall of 1842 moving
to Nauvoo, Illinois, where he and his family shared with the Saints in the trials and
vicissitudes of that period. They left Nauvoo in the spring of 1S46 for Council Bluffs,
and in 1S50 came to Utah.
After a half year's residence at Salt Lake City Mr. Smith moved to Willow Creek,
now Draper, where he helped to develop that section. He served iu Echo Canyon in 1857,
and the same year moved his family to Kaysville, settling them upon the farm that he
had purchased" the year before. He prospered financially and was prominent eccles-
iastically, being a counselor to Bishop Allen Taylor and afterwards to Bishop Christopher
Layton. As old age and infirmities came on, he was honorably released from the toils
and cares of the Bishopric and given the office of a Patriarch, which he has honored up
to the present time.
JOHN DANIEL HOLLADAY.
JOHN D. HOLLADAY is a native of Marion County, Alabama, where he was born
June 22, 1S26. His parents, John Holladay and Catherine Busby Higgins, were
early settlers of that State, and farming and stock-raising were their chief
occupation. Their son divided his time In boyhood between helping his father upon
the farm and attending the local schools, where he acquired a limited knowledge of the
rudimental branches. He remained with his parents until he was eighteen, when in
June, 1844, he joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
In March. 1S45, he left home, traveling by team to Memphis, Tennessee, and
thence by steamer to Nauvoo. where he worked upon the Temple and Nauvoo House;
also in the quarry getting out stone for those buildings. In December he returned to
Alabama and helped his father and family, who where also Latter-day Saints, to fit out
for the West.
Traveling through Missouri, they left that State at Independence, Jackson County,
in March. 184li, aud struck the Platte at or near Grand Island, proceeding up that stream
to Fort Laramie, and thence south to Pueblo on the Arkansas river. Mr. Holladay's
father was captain ot the company, and all the family but himself wintered at Pueblo
and reached Salt Lake Valley in July, 1S47, a few days after the Pioneers.
John D. returned to Alabama in the fall of 184G, to close up his father's business.
He reached Salt Lake Valley in September, 1848. He was in Amasa Lyman's company.
under James Flake, captain of fifty. A pleasant incident of his journey across the
plains was his betrothal to Miss Mahalia Ann Rebecca Matthews, whom he married in
October, shortly after their arrival in "the Valley."
He found his father and the family settled on Big Cottonwood Creek, at the place
now called Holladay. His father was Bishop at that place. The son received from the
sire as a weddiug present a wagon, a yoke of oxen, a cow, a stewing pot, a frying pan,
two knives and forks, two tin plates and one iron spoon; also a log cabin, a bedstead and
some provisions — a first-class outfit in those days.
He resided at Holladay until March, 1851, when he accompanied Amasa M. Lyman
and Charles C. Rich to California, having previously explored Southern Utah with Parley
P. Pratt. At San Bernardino, where he remained until the latter part of 1857, he was a
high councilor of the stake. Returning to Utah in the following January, he lived at
Beaver until late in the fall, and then took up his residence at Santaquin, where in
lS75-ti he was Presiding Elder.
While at Beaver, iu 1S5S. Mr. Holladay was a captain of militia, and in that capacity
led a company through the Wasatch range in pursuit of a thieving band of Indians, who
had made a raid on the stock of the settlement, running off sixty or seventy head of
horses and mules, with twelve to fifteen head of fat cattle. The pursuit was kept up
for three days, but their provisions being exhausted, they were forced to abandon it
and return, after suffering many hardships. Mr. Holladay was also captain of a
company at Santaquin. aud was active in the militia until it was disorganized. In
business he was associated with the company that established the Santaquin Co-operative
402 HISTORY OF UTAH.
store, and was a director in and president of the same. He was also in the lumber business,
David Holladay and Norman Taylor being his partners.
His public services comprise the charge of one of the Church trains to the Missouri
river and return in 1866, and a mission to the Southern States from the spring of 1868
until the spring of 1870. He was deputy-sheriff of Utah County in 1876-7, part of
which time he was employed by U. S. Marshal Nelson at the Utah Penitentiary. In
the spring of 1895 he sat in the constitutional conveution, prior to the admission of
Utah as a state. He has been twice married, his second wife being Joannah Blake, and
is the father of a score of children.
JOHN THORNLEY.
JOHN THORNLEY, of Kaysville, was born June 25, 1822, at Leyland, Lancashire,
England. He was the son of Thomas Thornley and his wife Ann Bolton. When
about five years of age he moved with his parents to Preston, and was a lad of fifteen
when Heber C; Kimball and Orson Hyde,with|their"party, arrived at that place, which
witnessed the first preaching of Mormonism in the British Isles. He was baptized a
Latter-day Saint February 2, 1839. On the 25th of November, 1843, he married Martha
Seed, who had been a Latter-day Saint since October, 1837, and was one of the first
women baptized by the Elders in England. She was a noble character and proved a
congenial companion to the man she married.
Mr. and Mrs. Thornley, with their two children, emigrated to America in 1855,
sailing from Liverpool on the 20th of February, and landing at Philadelphia on the 20th
of April. Crossing the Alleghany mountains, they ascended the rivers to St. Louis, and
from there proceeded to Atchison, where they were detained a month, waiting for wag-
ons and supplies. In June they started across the plains with ox teams, arriving at
Salt Lake City on the third day of September. They wintered in the City and then went
to Kaysville, where they took up land and established a home.
The usual experiences of the early settlers were had by this worthy couple in their
new environment. Mr. Thornley claims to have raised the first alfalfa in Utah. He was
an Echo Canyon veteran, and for thirty-five years was one of the presidency of the
fifty-fifth quorum of Seventy. In 1892 he became connected with the High Priests'
quorum. His wife, Martha Seed Thornley, died December 17, 1894, leaving her husband
and three children to mourn her loss. Since 1895, Mr. Thornley has held the office of a
Patriarch.
ROBERT McQUARRIE.
,F Gaelic origin, and inherting the sturdy qualities of his race, the subject of this
sketch was born August 17, 1832, at Bruntylen, North Knapdale, Argyleshire,
Scotland. His parents were Allan and Agnes Mathieson McQuarrie. Robert was
the eldest of seven children, and the one upon whom devolved at an early age
the duty of helping to support the family. They were very poor. The father was a
farm laborer, but became disabled owing to a lame leg, which after years of suffering he
was compelled to have amputated. Work with him was then a thing of the past, and
the mother, assisted by her sons Robert and Hector, toiled hard for a living. Robert
received a very limited education. He was naturally inclined to mechanism, but his
early labors were at gardening and farming. His boyhood and early manhood were
passed at Kilmalcolm, in Renfrewshire, where he was employed successively by a Mr.
Davidson, by the Rev. John Parker, and also on the Castlehill farm, owned by hisgrand-
uncle-in-law, Robert Holm.
■
*- ^L£o^-£^l4 i^yiyt^Ll.
6st
HISTORY OF UTAH. 403
Robert McQuarrie became a Latter-day Saint October 19, 1853. Three and a half
years later, with means left them by the death of Robert Holm and his wife Mary Gra-
ham, he, with his father, mother, brothers John and Neil and sisters Agnes and Mary,
emigrated to America. They started from Greenock on the river Clyde March 19, 1857,
and went by way of Liverpool to Boston, and thence to Council Bluffs. Their company
on shipboard was commanded by James P. Park, and on the plains by Jesse B. Martin.
They left Iowa city on the 3rd of June, and after some exciting experiences in stam-
pedes, during which two persons were killed and others, including Mrs. McQuarrie, in-
jured, reached Salt Lake City on the 12th of September.
This was the year of the invasion by Johnston's army, which was not far in the rear
of the emigrants on the way to Utah. The day after the McQuarries arrived at Salt
Lake City occurred the historic interview between Governor Young and Captain Van
Vliet. relative to the proposed wintering of the Federal troops in Salt Lake Valley. Mr.
McQuarrie settled permanently in Ogden. From 1SG0 to 1S70 he acted as a ward
teacher, and was then appointed president of the second ecclesiastical district, now the
Second Ward of that city. On May 28, 1870, he was made Bishop of the ward. By this
time he was a married man, having wedded on April 29, 1860, Mena Funk.
Bishop MeQuarrie's official record, if written in full, would be quite voluminous. As
early as April, 1863, he was a lieutenant in the militia, and from 1869 to 1871 on the
Ogden City police force. From May. 1872. to May, 1874, he was absent on a mission
to his native land. Having returned home, he was appointed treasurer for Weber
County in November, 1S75. and was elected to that office in 1876 and 1S80. From
February, 1877. he was a city councilman, until appointed alderman for the Second Ward,
March 15, 18S2. He was elected to the same office in February, 1SS5. For two years
he was treasurer of Ogden City, and for three years a selectman for Weber County. He
is a man much esteemed by his neighbors and the community in general, and has always
been true to every trust.
FRANCIS WEBSTER.
<J"vRANCIS WEBSTER, of Cedar City, is one of the surviving veterans of the hand-
tT cart emigration. He traversed the plains in Captain Martin's ill-fated company,
and witnessed the worst phases of that disastrous expedition. He was born in
Sutton, Norfolk. England, February 8, 1830, the son of Thomas Webster and his
wife Mary Goward. His parents were in poor circumstances, the father being a farm
laborer for daily wages. Francis attended a common school for four years, and worked
on the farm until he was sixteen. He became a Latter-day Saint at Wymondham, in
April. 1S4S.
Two months later he sailed for Australia, and after a stormy voyage landed at Syd-
ney on the 11th of October. A year later he embarked for the California gold fields,
touching at New Zealand and at Honolulu, and landing at San Francisco March 31, 1850.
There and on the Cabaverus river he labored and mined until March, 1S52, when he
returned to England by way of the Isthmus of Panama. His stay in his native land was
short. The following September found him again in California. In June, 1855, he again
returned to England, landing in London, and on December 5th of that year he married
Miss Ann Elizabeth Parsons.
With his bride he remained in the metropolis until May 23, 1S56, when they sailed
for America, with Utah as their destination. Disembarking at Boston on the 30th of
June, they proceeded to Iowa City, and began their journey across the plains on the
27th of July. Mr. Webster had paid five hundred dollars for cattle and wagons for
the overland trip, but the plans were changed and the money transferred in order that
others might join the ha> leart emigration. Mr. Webster pulled his cart from Iowa
City to Devil's Gate, without help, in spite of sickness, hardships and privation. While
at Wolf Creek, near Platte River, in Nebraska, his first child, a daughter named Amy
Elizabeth, was born. The Websters arrived at Salt Lake City on the 30th of November.
Thej- settled at Cedar City, which is still their home. They are the parents of ten
children.
For two terms of two years each, from February, 1863, Mr. Webster was a city
404 HISTORY OF UTAH.
councilman. He was the first alderman of Cedar City, elected in February, 1807. In
August, 1870, he was justice of the peace for the precinct, and in 1872 mayor and ex-
officio justice, re-elected at the end of two years. In August, 1876, he was elected to
the twenty-third session of the territorial legislature, in which he represented the people
of his district. Ecclesiastically he has also been, and is still, prominent. From 1857 to
1866 he served as a ward Teacher, and was then ordained a Seventy and became the
sixth president of the sixty-third quorum. On March 14, 1809, he was ordained a High
Priest, and set apart as a high councilor of the Parowan Stake of Zion. Between 1877
and 1889 he served three periods as a Bishop's counselor, and in September of the latter
year became second counselor to the Stake President, Thomas J. Jones. He is now first
counselor to Uriah T. Jones, the president of that Stake.
JOHN ALEXANDER EGBERT.
BISHOP EGBERT, of West Jordan, was but seven years old when he crossed the
plains from the Missouri River to Salt Lake Valley. The son of Samuel and
Margaret M. B. Egbert, he was born March 28, 1842, in Hancock County,
Illinois. In the exodus of the Saints from that State, he, with his parents, was
among those driven westward, but it was three years before the family rejoined the main
bods' of the Church in Utah. The journey from the frontier was accomplished between
June and October, 1849. Although a mere child at the time, many trying incidents were
riveted upon the mind of the boy colonizer.
The family settled west of the Jordan River. Among young Egbert's experiences
were the grasshopper raids and Indian troubles of early years. He helped to fight the
former and stood guard against the latter while yet a lad in his teens, besides perform-
ing other duties of a public character. He served in Echo Canyon, 1857-8, and during
the general move was one of those left to guard the property of the absent settlers. On
March 12, 1860, he was married to Emma Grimmett. Ten children were the issue of the
union.
In October, 1869, he was called on a mission to "Dixie," and in November of that
year arrived on the Muddy, from which place he was sent to Long Valley. Finally he
settled at Meadow Valley Wash, and remained there until June, 1870, when, the water
failing, the settlement was abandoned. In the fall of that year, Mr. Egbert was called
with John Bennion to take charge of the live stock of the Dixie Mission. In the per-
formance of that duty tbey moved with their families to Panacea, in Meadow Valley, and
thence, in 1871, to Deseret Springs. Early in 1872 he moved his family to Eagleville. The
line between Utah and Nevada being run, the western part of the Dixie country fell into
the latter.
The Egberts now moved back to West Jordan, arriving there in July, 1872. In
June, 1881, Mrs. Egbert was called into the great beyond, leaving her husband with
six small children in the home. In March, 1882, he married Araminta Elizabeth Bate-
man, by whom he has had eleven children.
Mr. Egbert was a lieutenant in the Utah militia until it was disbanded by the gov-
ernor in 1870. For several years he was president of the twelfth quorum of Elders, and in
March, 1886, was set apart as one of the presidency of the thirty-third quorum of Sev-
enty. That position he held until June 1, 1890, when he was ordained a High Priest by
President Lorenzo Snow and set apart as Bishop of the West Jordan Ward, the office held
by him at the present time.
ELIAS ASPER
^"^HE late Bishop Asper, of Echo, was the son of George and Salome F. Asper. He
f^^ was born March 7, 1820, in York County, Pennsylvania. A few years after-
;? wards the family moved to Mifflin Township, Cumberland County, and there Elias
grew to manhood. His opportunities for education were limited to the district
y.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 403
schools in their primitive state, yet by hard study in and out of school he qualified suf-
ficiently to receive appointments from the Board of Education as a teacher for a number
of terms. On the 2nd of September, 1S45, he married Mary Dredge, who died five months
later. On March (!. 1S49, lie married Jane McCune Morrow.
Soon after his second marriage he moved to Morrow County, Ohio, where he fol-
lowed stock raising and farming, and during the wiuter months taught school. In March,
1S.">7, lie became a Latter-day Saint, and in the summer of I860 proceeded with his fam-
ily to Council Bluffs. Iowa, with the intention of coming to Utah, which he did the next
year, making the entire trip from Ohio in wagons. From Florence, Nebraska, he was
captain of a company of about fifty.
He settled on the Weber Kiver, near the mouth of Echo Canyon, where he built
a house immediately after camping there in September, 1861. During the Indian
troubles of 1867-8 he temporarily moved to Coalville, returning in 1S69 to Echo. He be-
came Bishop of that place July 12, 1S77. This office, with that of a member of the stake
board of education, he held up to the day of his death. He also occupied other positions
of trust and honor. He was a county selectman two years and probate judge four years,
discharging the duties of those offices to the satisfaction of those who elected him. Being-
a pioneer in his section, he was exposed to many hardships, but remained hearty and
rugged until within a few weeks of his death, when he was seized with what was sup-
posed to be bronchial pneumonia, which proved fatal March 1.3, 1S94.
GEORGE PERRY.
Aj^-EORGE PERRY, of Cedar City, in which section he was virtually a pioneer, has
It) been a resident of Utah since 1852. The place of his nativity was the parish of
^gr Upton, St. Lanards. Gloucestershire. England; the date, February 5, 1825. His
father and mother, George and Elizabeth Perry, were wage earners upon a farm.
When be was about four years old his mother died, leaving five small children. All the
schooling be received was in Sunday school. At seven he worked with his father,
earning a penny a day, his grandmother taking care of the rest of the family. A few
years later his father married a widow with four children, and soon the family moved to
the Forest of Dean, where George was set to work in the coal mines.
In 1S41 Mormonism was introduced into that part by Elders David Moss and John
Gailey. and the Perry family, having opened their house for them to preach in, were soon
converted to the faith. George, his father and step-mother were baptized at the same
time. Ordained successively a Teacher and a Priest in 1843, he began to preach the
Gospel, in company with William Tingel and Thomas Morgan, and several small branches
were raised up as the result. About this time he left his father's home, but continued
working in the coal mines, preaching by night and on Sundays. He was getting ready
to emigrate to Nauvoo when the Prophet's martyrdom put a temporary stop to the
gathering. In March. 1846. he moved to Wigan, in Lancashire, where he earned good wages
at coal mining, and associated himself with a few scattered Saints. A branch was soon
organized there, with Elder Joseph Moss as president. On August 9. 1847, George Perry
married Susanna Ward, daughter of George and Alice Ward, and on February 2S, 1848,
he was ordained an Elder, under the hands of Joseph Moss.
The Perrys sailed for America September 4. 1850, in a company of about three
hundred Saints. Elder David Sudworth presiding. The ship was the "North Atlantic."
The vovage was pleasant, though two deaths occurred: one an aged man. buried in the
sea. and the other a child, whose remains were brought to New Orleans. At St. Louis
most of the company were met by kindred or acquaintances, but the Perrys found no one
they knew, and remained on the boat until a man named William Foster, seeing them
there, took them to his home and kept them for nearly two weeks. Mr. Perry soon found
work in a coal mine at Dryhill. Times were good and money plentiful. He still kept his
face Zionward, and having secured two yoke of oxen and a wagon, with other necessaries
for the journey, he and his family on April 12. 1852, joiued a small company bound for Utah.
They went up the Mississippi to Churchville, and thence across Iowa to Kanesville.
406 HISTORY OF UTAH.
James Jeppson was captain of the company, which made good time across the plains,
arriving at Salt Lake City on the 20th of August.
The day after their arrival President Young employed Mr. Perry and others to make
a mill pond just south of the city. He continued working for the President until the
October conference, when a call was made for families to settle in Iron County. In
reponse to this call he and his family with others were soon on their way south. They
arrived at Cedar City on the 5th of November, and were kindly received by the local
authorities, who, uuder instructions from President Young, looked after the needs of the
newcomers, giving them a great feast about Christmas time. Perry secured a city lot,
built a log house, and got his family into it before winter.
In the spring of 1853 he and his neighbors began to make a road up the canyon.
They searched for coal, found some, and opened a mine for the settlement. Times were
hard, and a bread and water diet was no uncommon thing. In July the place was put
under martial law, and a constant guard and drill kept up, owing to Indian troubles in
Utah County, which it was feared might spread into Southern Utah. But the settlers
of Cedar were not molested. In the fall two hundred families came to strengthen the
settlement. In the spring of 1854 a large field was surveyed and fenced, and consider-
able grain sowed, but in 1855 the grasshoppers destroyed most of the crops. This
caused much suffering for want of bread, and there was also a lack of clothing. A
dissatisfied feeling arose, and many moved away, some to Beaver and some to California.
The few left were unable to keep up the public works instituted by the original force,
and part of the land they had fenced had to be abandoned. George Perry was among
those who remained.
"In 1855," says he, "President Young and party came down, and seeing our
condition, and fearing that the settlement was in danger from floods, he chose a new
site, the present one, and counseled the people to move onto it as fast as they could.
They did so, building new homes and improving the place as rapidly as means and
circumstances would allow. It had been said that fruit could not be raised here, but some
of the brethren got some seedling apple trees, and in a few years John M. Higbee raised
the first seedling apple and called it "the pioneer." In the winter and spring of
1859-60 a new field of four hundred acres of excellent land was taken up west of the city
plat, and in 1S04 three hundred additional acres were enclosed. I was one of the com-
mittee in this labor. Not finding employment in the coal mines, I had to turn my
attention to farming. These two fields brought our farming interests nearer home.
The early settlers had endured great hardships and privations, but now prosperity began
to smile upon us; quite a number of good buildings were put up; and there has been a
steady growth to the place ever since. Today Cedar will compare favorably with any
city of like population in the State."
From September, 1882, until November, 1S83, Elder Perry was absent upon
a mission to Great Britain, and it was there that this writer met him. He was a
faithful worker and a sympathetic and effective speaker. He labored in the Liverpool
and Bristol conferences. Since April, 1803, he had held the office of a Seventy, and
since November, 1S72, had been one of the presidency of the Sixty-third quorum. His
health failed in Bristol and he was honorably released to return home. In 1^86 he was
elected a member of the city council of Cedar, also a district school trustee; offices
previously held by him. He served his third term, and was then disfranchised; not
because he had broken any law, but because he would not take the oath formulated by
the Utah Commission under the Edmunds- Tucker act. On September 20, 1891, he was
ordained a High Priest. Since September, 1895, he has been a widower. He is the father
of eleven children, most of them living.
WILLIAM WARDLE TAYLOR.
Y3)ORN in Warwickshire, England, June 13, 1846, the subject of this brief story was
*fgj brought when a babe to America, by his parents, William and Elizabeth Wardle
Taylor. They lived for several years at Alton, New York. They were Latter-day
Saints, and were preparing to come to Utah when the father was suddenly taken
ill and died. The widowed mother, notwithstanding this trouble, determined to carry
(^"iUl^^ ^2^Ce^
tyz-frA c/^tsi^
HISTORY OF UTAH. 407
out her intention of moving West, and with what means she had, including a wagon,
with oxen and cows, she started April 1,1852, for Salt Lake Valley. The company in
which she traveled was under the direction of Elder Thomas Tidwell. She then had
three children. Her fourth child was born while the company was passing through Echo
Canyon.
William W., then a little over six years of age, settled with his mother in the Elev-
enth Ward. Salt Lake City. Part of his boyhood was spent at Calder's farm. His father
had been a tiller of the soil, and it was therefore but natural that the boy's mind should
turn that way. He also engaged in canyon weak. Necessarily his education was scant,
the support of his mother largely devolving upon him at an early age. The family re-
sided continuously at Salt Lake City, except at the time of the "Move," when they dwelt
for a season at Payson, returning thence to their old home.
When a youth of eighteen. Mr. Taylor joined the cavalry company of Captain
Edward Gest, at Mill Creek, and at twenty enlisted for the Blackhawk war, in Colonel
Kimball's command. He relates many interesting experiences connected with that
stirring campaign against the Indians. He was in the thickest of the fight at Thistle
Valley, where he lost his riding horse, and took part in protecting the people of Sanpete
when danger threatened them from the savages. The 25th of May, 1SG6, witnessed his
marriage to Emily M. Blackruau, who became the mother of his five children — a fine set
of boys and girls.
For many years. Mr. Taylor, as a High Priest of the Church, served as first coun-
selor to the Bishop of Mountain Dell, during the successive administrations of Bishops
James Laird and William B. Hardy. He was superintendent of the Sunday school at
"The Dell" for fifteen years. He now resides in Salt Lake City, and is a highly esteemed
member of the Eleventh Ward, the home of his childhood. He has succeeded both as a
farmer and as a sheep and cattle man.
WILLIAM HUFF CARSON.
S£t SETTLER in Utah since 1 So 1 . and for many years a resident of Cedar Valley,
1 where once flourished Camp Floyd, the bearer of this name was originally from
^^ Wayne Township. Mifflin County, Pennsylvania, where he was born January 8.
ISIS. His parents were George and Annie Huff Carson, and he was their eldest
child. Of Scotch-Irish ancestry, his grandfather, William Carson, emigrated from the
north of Ireland in time to take up arms in the cause of American independence. He
fought under General Washington at the battle of Long Island, and served as a regular
throughout the war. William H. inherited the characteristics of his patriotic, libertv-
loving grandfather.
The first years of his life were spent in his native State, after which he moved with
his parents to Ohio. They were farm folk, in humble circumstances, but were able to
maintain their large family in comfort, raising excellent crops in various places from
lands owned and cultivated by themselves. William's education was limited, but was
sufficient to enable him to transact business intelligently, and that was quite an acquisition
in those days for a farmer's boy on the frontier. In religion the father was a Presbyterian
aud the mother a Quaker.
They were converted to Mormonism through the preaching of Elders David Whitmer
and Harvey Whitlock, at Sugar Creek, Worcester County, Ohio, and were among the
Latter-day Saints who settled in Jackson County. Missouri, where their sou William was
baptized and confirmed by Elder Wheeler Baldwin in 1S33. The same year they were
expelled with their co-religionists by mob violence from Jackson County, and for the
next five years lived in Clay County, prior to making their home for a brief period in
Caldwell County, whence they were driven with their people into Illinois. In Adams
County of that State they remained for about twelve years.
About the time of his removal to Illinois. William H. Carson, then twenty-one years
of age. married Corilla Egbert, who made him a faithful and devoted wife. She was
the mother of seven children, six of whom were born before the family started for Utah.
here to rejoin the main body of the Church. It was early in the spring of 1S-">1 that thev
. set out for Salt Lake Valley, with a comfortable ox team outfit and the usual stock of sup-
408 HISTORY OF UTAH.
plies for a journey across the plains. The Mormon emigrant train in which they trav-
eled from the frontier was under the direction of Captain Harry Walton. There were
sixty wagons, divided into sections of ten, and of one ten Mr. Carson was captain. All
in all it was a pleasant journey, though two deaths occurred on the way, those of Mother
Thompson and Miss Kingsley, the latter killed by jumping from a runaway wagon during
a stampede. The blood of slain buffalo, smelt by the oxen, had maddened them and thus
caused the disaster. Captain Carson's team was the only one that did not run away.
He controlled his oxen by means of rope lines, which he had taken the precaution to
arrange. His seventh child. William H. Carson, Jun., was born just after rounding the
head of Big Horn River, which was not fordable at the time. He arrived at his journey's
end in September.
He settled first at South Cottonwood, ten miles south of Salt Lake City. The same
fall his father, then in his sixty-fourth year, fell sick and died, and less than three years
later, on July 7, 1S54, his beloved wife passed into rest, and was buried beside his father
at Little Cottonwood. In 1S55 he married again. A year later he moved to Cedar Val-
ley, where he became a resident of Fairfield, built in after years on the site of the gov-
ernment post founded by General Johnston. He and his brothers performed military
service against the Indians, and George and Washington Carson were killed by the sav-
ages. His brother John was a Bishop for over thirty years. By farming and stock-
raising he acquired a competence, enabling him to live in comparative independence.
William H. Carson has been thrice married, his second and third wives being Tri-
phena Ursula Goddard and Emily Ann McMinds. He is the father of seventeen children.
The character and career of the worthy veteran is thus eulogized by a Mend: "His life
record has been a beautiful reflection of those graces which ennobled his grandsires and
made the name of Scotch Presbyterianism a synonym for champion of Christian liberty.
Worship of God, love of freedom, fidelity to purpose, and devotion to family, have found
expression in all his relations of life — religious, civil, and domestic — making him the be-
loved husband and father, the trusted church member, the true friend, kind neighbor,
and helpful guardian of the public weal."
ANTHONY WAYNE BESSEY.
^^HE bearer of this semi-warlike name is not a man of strife, but a lover and pursuer
V'?\ of peace, a prominent citizeu of Manti, where he has resided for forty-five years.
ii But while a man of peace, he has seen warlike service. He was a captain of cav-
alry in the Blackhawk war. when Sanpete County and other parts were raided and
ravaged by the redskins. He has also been mayor of his town, and for many years a
High Councilor of the Sanpete Stake of Zion. Mr. Bessey has followed farming for a
livelihood, believing it to be the vocation best suited to his nature, "giving health of
body, peace of mind, and the most independence.'1 He has never aspired to office, but
has discharged with fidelity the various public trusts placed upon him.
He is a native of the State of Maine; born at Bethel, in Oxford County, August IS,
lS3o. His parents, Anthony and Thankful Stearns Bessey, had nine children. The
tirst eight years of his life were spent upon his father's farm, which in 1S43 was sold, his
parents, who were Latter-day Saints, intending to move to Nauvoo, Illinois. The Proph-
et's murdei changed their plans, and purchasing a lot and building a house at Reading,
Massachusetts, twelve miles from Boston, they remained there until 185G. when they
again started for the West.
Anthony was the only one of his father's four sons to embrace the religion of his
parents. He well remembers the taunts and jeers flung at him by his schoolmates for
being "a little Mormon,'' though at that time he had not been baptized. He marveled at
this petty persecution, knowing his father and mother to be honest, God-fearing people,
and seeing no reason why he and they should be hated for their religion. He received
a common school education, which ended at sixteen years of age. At ten he began to
learn the shoemaker's trade, but it proved unhealthy, and at seventeen he went to learn
the cabinet maker's trade. He worked at that for three years, and then returned for an-
■ - ""
HISTORY OF UTAH. 409
other year to shoernaking. On October 12, 1856, he married Susan Matilda Lane, at
Ruruford, in his native State.
Six months later he started with his wife for Utah, leaving Boston by rail April 6,
1S-37. At Wapello. Iowa, he bought two yoke of oxen and a wagon, with the necessary
supplies, and proceeded to Florence, Nebraska. There they tarried until the 14th of
June. On the evening of that day. having moved out upon a creek seven miles west of
the settlement, he and his wife were baptized Latter-day Saints by Elder Andrew Cun-
ningham, under whose direction, with that of Jacob Bigler. a company was organized to
cross the plains. William Walker was captain. The train was made up of Mormons and
a few Gentiles, most of the latter on their way to California. Anthony's mother came
with him. his father having died in Iowa. The journey, arduous but uneventful, ended
for the Mormons at Salt Lake City on the 6th of September.
In Utah, Mr. Bessey worked at shoemaking for a while, and then turned to farming.
He served in Echo Canyon in 1S57-8. and in the "'Move'' went to Battle Creek, now Pleas-
ant Grove, and thence to Manti. where he arrived on the 1st of September, 1S58. In
1S63 he went to the Missouri River for emigrants. Says he:"In all the hardships incident
to the settlement of a new country I have done the part allotted me; have passed through
Indian wars and grasshopper wars, and have been happy in the thought that I was shar-
ing in the joys and sorrows of the people of God. I have never been brought before any
court or tribunal in my life; have never committed any crime or breach of the peace;
neither have I accused my fellow man before any officer of the law.
A. W. Bessey was elected mayor of Manti in 1873, and served as such for two years.
From May to October, 187S, he fulfilled a mission to Canada and the New England
States. He has been an Elder since 1S5S, and a Seventy since 1S61. In August, 1879,
he became a member of the High Council. He was for two years a regular worker in
the Manti Temple under President Daniel H. Wells. He was a member of the city
council during 1883. 1884, 1887, 18SS, 1889, and 1890, and subsequently acted in tha"t
capacity, being elected on the Democratic ticket. He is the father of six sons and two
daughters.
JOHN ENNISS.
JOHN ENNISS, second son of John and Hannah Park Enniss, was born December 10,
1S21, in Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, England. At eleven years of age he
was left fatherless, and the care of his mother and the family devolved upon him.
He became a farmer and stock-raiser. About June, 1S41, he was baptized a Lat-
ter-day Saint by Elder John Rogers, and later was ordained a Priest. On December 14,
1845, he married Elizabeth Boulter. In June, 1847, he was ordained an Elder by John
Johnson, the president of his conference, and was called to preside over the Puncil
branch of the same. This position he held until he and his family emigrated to
America.
September 2 , 1S49 , was the date of sailing. They landed at New Orleans on the 27th of
October, and remained there during the winter, Mr. Enniss working on the docks to secure
funds for the journey up the river to Council Bluffs, where he and his party arrived in
the spring of 1850. Another stop was now necessary, to recruit finances for the crossing
ot the plains. He worked at farming and timbering for the Otto and Omaha Indian
Missions in Nebraska. In the fall of 1S50 a fire destroyed his dwelling and household
effects, and this misfortune, with the sickness and death of his wife's parents and other
reiatives, made it impossible for him to move farther west until the spring of 1852,
when with his wife and family he came to Utah in Thomas TidweLTs ox-team company,
arriving at Salt Lake City in the fall.
Mr. Enniss worked a while for Willard Richards, and in the spring of 1853 settled
at Draper (then South Willow Creek), where he has since continued to reside. He has
pursued the peaceful vocation of a farmer, and while performing no missions abroad,
has always been on hand with his means, influence and personal labors for the develop-
ment of the country and the defense of its inhabitants. By his first wife he is the father
of eight children. By his second wife, Jane Oaky, whom he married in 1855, he is the
26
410 HISTORY OF UTAH.
father of two, one of whom died in infancy. In the Church he has served as a Ward
Teacher, and has held successively the offices of Seventy and High Priest. To the latter,
his present calling', he was ordained February 2, 1901.
JOSEPH HENRY JOSEPH.
(5)X-BISHOP JOSEPH, of Adamsville, has been a resident of Utah since 1861. He
t&r was a colonizer in various parts before taking up his abode in Beaver County. The
son of Henry Joseph and his wife Ann Thomas, he was born in Llanelly,
Carmarthenshire, South Wales, November 17, 1830. His father was once a farmer,
but in later years was employed in a copper plant, and the family were in fairly
comfortable circumstances. The boy's labors were confined to coal mining. At nine
years of age he was badly burned by an explosion of gas in a mine. Surgeons gave up
all hope of his recovering his eyesight, but after two months it returned. He attended
night school and the Sabbath school of his district, but in the little education he received
he was mainly self-taught. He led a moral life, but did not join any of the
religious sects.
In June, 1S49, he became a Latter-day Saint, and the same year was ordained
successively a Deacon and a Priest. The next year he became an Elder. In March,
1853, he landed at New York, on his? way to Utah, but tarried at Miuersville, Ohio,
where on the 15th of February, 1855, he married Mary Ann Richards, daughter of
Thomas and Elizabeth Richards. On the first day of June, 1861, he again started for
Utah, crossing the plains with an ox-team outfit in a company led by David Cannon. He
arrived at Salt Lake City on the 15th of August.
The Joseph family went first to Logan, but in December of the same year, by
persuasion of Mrs. Joseph's father they sold out and moved to Parowan, where a small
farm was purchased and occupied for three years. At the end of that time Mr. Joseph
answered a call for men to settle Panguitch, then in Iron County, and reached there in
time to plant a spring crop in 1864. He was now given the office of a Seventy.
The Indians became troublesome, and the militia, under Captain John Lowder, was
called into service to protect the homes and families of the settlers. The men stood
guard night and day by turn, but in spite of every precaution their herds were raided
and many of their cattle stolen. It became necessary to plow in companies of ten, with
firearms ready for instant use; and thus the plucky toilers succeeded in putting in three
crops. In June, 1866, by order of President Young and General Wells, the place was
abandoned, the people going to various other settlements for protection. Until March,
1867, the Josephs were at Paragoonah.
They settled finally at Adamsville, their fourth home in Utah. The year after they
arrived there, the grasshoppers came in clouds, "darkening the sun and destroying the
crops for five years in succession." For several years Mr. Joseph kept a store at that
place. His call to the Bishopric came in 1877, when he was set apart by Wilford
Woodruff. He had been a High Priest since 1874. From 1882 to 1888 he was a select-
man of Beaver County. In 1886 he resigned his office of Bishop, on account of old age.
He is the father of ten children.
RALPH H. HUNT.
t£\ALPH H. HUNT of West Weber, was born February 3, 1845, at Poughkeepsie,
pc New York, and was the son of John Jackson Hunt and his wife Mary Ann Hills.
\g His father, a machinist by trade, was superintendent of the Garnerville Paint Works.
He was in good circumstances and his son received a fair education. His early
boyhood was passed at Haverstraw, Rockland County, in his native state, and he was
^■■i-^,K \:i<
■■■
4for 9r.
l&^/PH-J
HISTORY OF UTAH. 411
kept at school until he was fifteen. A natural carpenter and farmer, he chose these
vocations as a means of livelihood.
He came to Utah when he was sixteen, accompanying his parents, who were Latter-
day Saints. Mormonism was also his religion. With three yoke of oxen, four cows and a
wagon loaded with provisions and other necessaries, the family left the frontier on the 1st
of July, 1861, in a company commanded by Captain Read and including such well-known
names as John Druce, Allen Frost, James Freeze and John Blakemore. The Indians
were very troublesome, and much night herding was necessary to prevent the cattle from
being stolen. The company had a hard time crossing Green River, where young Hunt
was in the water five hours. They arrived at Salt Lake City on the 16th of September.
The family settled first in the Seventh Ward, but about six months later moved into
the Sixth Ward, and in September, 1863, into the Fourteenth Ward, where they contin-
ued to reside until they went to Weber County. Ralph's first occupation in Utah was
wood hauling from the canyons, first for the family supply of winter fuel, and afterwards
for the public market. In 1862 he hauled wood for Camp Douglas. It sold at ten dollars
a cord, and three days with an ox team were required to make a trip to the canyon and
back, when hauling from over the Big Mountain. In 1863 he worked with his father at
house carpentering, and in 1861 labored in City Creek canyon, getting out lumber for the
Tabernacle. He was employed by Joseph A. Young in 1865, and in 1866 again
assisted his father. The old gentleman died in October of that year, and Ralph then
worked for Captain Hooper as a carpenter until 1869, when he was employed by Latimer
& Taylor in their sash and door factory. He now married, choosing as his partner
Sarah Skelton, who has borne to him six children. The date of his marriage was Octo-
ber 9, 1869. Six months later he moved to West Weber, where he has ever since
resided.
His course of life in that locality has been that of a general colonizer. Besides
working at his trade, and at farming, he has engaged with his son in the cattle and sheep
business. He has helped to build bridges, construct canals, dig ditches, and has taken
an active part in all public enterprises in his neighborhood. He has been a school trustee
and a trustee of the Hooper Irrigation Company, also secretary and treasurer of the
West Weber branch of that concern. He has always been charitable and open-handed
to the poor. His office in the Church is that of an Elder, to which he was ordained in 1869.
Prior to 1891 his political affiliation was with the People's party, but since the division on
new lines he has been a straight Republican.
JAMES GODFREY,
tAMES GODFREY of South Cottonwood was born in North Perthton Parish, Somerset-
[ shire, England, January 5, 1840. His parents were Charles and Caroline Trott
SJ Godfrey. His mother was left a widow with seven children, the oldest of whom, a
son named William, was then eighteen, and the youngest, James, two and a half
years of age. His early boyhood was passed on his mother's farm, which with the
assistance of her children she was able to keep, and rear her family respectably; but
such of them as had not received schooling before the death of their father had very
little afterwards. When James was nine years old his youngest sister was accidently
drowned. His highest ambition was farming and stock-raising. He possessed consider-
able ingenuity, even as a boy, when he was set to scare the birds off the ripening grain.
He did this by fastening together a lot of old tins and stringing them from one tree to
another, so that by pulling at one end he could set the whole strand of improvised bells
to jinglingand rattling all down the field, much to the discomfiture of the birds and his
own amusement.
His mother was a staunch member of the Church of England, but on first hearing
Mormonism preached she was converted and became just as firm a Latter-day Saint.
Her son Charles and her daughter Mary soon followed her example. The zealous mother
had a stone font built in the brook on her farm, that the Elders might baptize there. She
was persecuted on every hand; her neighbors even threatening to burn her house.
Finally she had to give up her business, which was carried on by her second son George.
By him and his good wife James was treated very kindly. When he was thirteen his
412 HISTORY OF UTAH.
brother Charles emigrated to Utah. At fifteen he himself was confirmed in the Estab-
lished Church, and a few years later the Methodists tried hard to convert him, but all to
no purpose. He had make up his mind to be a Latter-day Saint. He was baptized by
Elder William Willes, March 2, 1864.
Two months and eight days later he and his mother started for Utah. All three of
his sisters were dead, and his brother George, to whom his mother deeded her property,
promised to sell out the next year and follow her to the Rocky Mountains. They sailed
from London on the 10th of June. There were eleven hundred passengers on board.
Mrs. Godfrey paid fifty pounds sterling for a second class passage. She was sixty-four
years old, but stood the journey better than her son. It was a stormy voyage; two deaths
occurred; and the ship was nearly eight weeks in reaching New York. The journey
through the States to the frontier was very difficult and trying; the Civil War was in prog-
ress and many obstacles were encountered. On the plains there was considerable sick-
ness. One of the wagons accidentally passed over the body of a woman, who was terribly
mangled. Mr. Godfrey was taken down with mountain fever, and was thought to be
dying, but was healed by faith under the hands of Captain Wan-en Snow. The next
morning word came to their wagon that Elder John Kay, also sick with the fever, was
dead. At Green River the Godfreys were met by the son and brother Charles, and came
on ahead of the company, arriving at Salt Lake City on the 27th of October. The same
day they went out to Cottonwood, where James spent the winter going to school.
Early in the spring he plowed and sowed land for John Kelly west of the Jordan,
earning eighty dollars in ten days. He then hauled wood from the canyons, to sell, and
also lumber for the building of the Tabernacle. In the fall he traded his team and
wagon for one-half of a four-mule team, worth at that time fifteen hundred dollars, and
engaged in freighting. For his first round trip between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles,
in company with Heber P. Kimball and others, he received nine hundred dollars in gold.
He was now in partnership with his brother. A freighting trip to Helena, Montana, was
also successful. He afterwards hauled wheat for Joseph Young, grain for the Overland
Stage Company, hay for William Jennings, and granite for the Temple. When the
Blackhawk Indian war broke out, he was sick, but paid a man three hundred dollars to
take his place at the front. After recovering his health, he took the South Cottonwood
cattle herd, grazing them in Parley's canyon and beyond.
In the fall of the same year Mr. Godfrey bought his first farm. During the winter
he dissolved partnership with his brother, who soon afterwards died. In the spring of
1868 with four others he took a sub-contract from President Brigham Young to grade a
portion of the Union Pacific railroad down Echo canyon. The next winter he bought
beef cattle for Richard Maxfield, who kept a butcher shop in the canyon. A few years
later he married his brother's widow, and subsequently two other wives. He has reared
a large family of children.
In 1881 he was on a mission for several months in the Northern States, and was
mobbed and dragged with a rope on one occasion, while preaching the Gospel with Elder
William M. Palmer. From this mission, much to his regret, he was compelled to return
prematurely, on account of sickness. At home his health improved, and he completed a
house he had left unfinished when he responded to the call to go into the mission field.
"In August, 1885," says Mr. Godfrey, "I was out in the field cutting lucern, when
Brother Charles H. Wilcken came to me and wanted to know if I had some rooms to rent.
I said no. He then informed me that he wished to get a place for President John Taylor,
President Geooge Q. Cannon and party, who were on the 'underground.' I told him they
were heartily welcome to the whole house, and I thanked the Lord that I was worthy to
be of service to them. They came on the 19th of that month, and stayed with us until
January 9, 1886. We had some very interesting times while they were with us. We
had a little boy, Horace T. Godfrey, whose birthday came on the 1st of November — the
same as President Taylor's: he used to call him his little twin and gave him candy
every time he took his walks in the pasture. The little boy got so used to having candy
that whenever he saw the President starting out he would run and stand in the doorway,
and the President would laugh and say, 'I must pay toll.' We had another little boy
who was two months old when they came, and President Taylor blessed him and named
him John, but he died when he was fourteen months old. When Christmas came Presi-
dent Cannon made all the children a present which they cherish to this day. One Sunday
morning President Taylor, with Charles Wilcken and Charles Barrell, was out for a
stroll, when a man saw them and reported it. This rendered necessary their departure.
Our home was very lonesome after they left. The following summer the President and
his party came to see us again; they were then from the Paper Mills, and were closely
■
A
tfs\syx.
<?isi^L
^-& «- 4* ^
HISTORY OF UTAH. 413
followed by the marshals. Just before reaching our place there is a bend in the road,
and a little hill before getting down into the field. Arriving there they vanished from
view, and the officers went on to Murray, where they told some of the people that they
could not imagine where the men went, for they were almost upon them when they dis-
appeared.'*
Mr. Godfrey has been an Elder of the Church since November, 1S65, and a Seventy
since the spring of 1S66. In 1875 he was made one of the presidency of the seventy-
third quorum. He has served as a Ward Teacher, Sunday school superintendent, and
President of the Y. M. M. I. A. He was a director of the South Cottonwood store for
twenty-five years, and has since been president and superintendent of the People's
Co-op. at that place. He still holds on to farming and stockraismg, at which, in spite of
many hardships, he has been unusually successful.
BARNARD HARTLEY GREENWOOD.
lAENARD H. GREENWOOD, of Inveiury, Sevier County, has been a resident
of Utah since 1852. He was born near Warsaw. Hancock County, Illinois,
September 9, 1849, his parents, William Greenwood and Ann Hartley Greenwood,
having emigrated from Europe about two years previously. They remained in
Illinois until the fall of 1851", when thev moved West, remaining through the winter at
Council Bluffs, and continuing on to Utah the next season. They lived at American
Fork a short time, and then settled at Cedar City, on account of the prospective develop-
ment of iron and coal mines in that vicinity. Their hopes in that respect not being
realized, they removed north in the spring of 1856, and were among the first settlers
of Beaver City.
It was there that the boy Barnard began to develop the sterling qualities for which
he is now known. From eight years of age until manhood he was engaged in farming,
canyon work, care of stock, and in guarding persons and property from the Indian raids
of those early years. From 1S64 until 1872 he served in the cavalry of the Utah militia,
under Captain John Hunt, Major James Low and others, often acting as escort to
various officials passing through Southern Utah.
In April, 1866, he accompanied Captain Daniel Thompson's ox-team train to the
Missouri river, returning with a company of emigrants. This was before Barnard was
seventeen. He drove four yoke of cattle and brought fourteen persons, with seven
hundred and fifty pounds of Church freight, reaching Salt Lake City in October of the
same year. All the way from Baker's Canyon he encountered severe storms, the snow in
places being two feet deep. Shortly after his return he with others went across the
mountains into Circle Valley, to assist the settlers who were obliged to vacate their
homes on the Sevier river, owing to the raids of the Indian chief Blackhawk and his
hostile band. In 1867 he worked on the new meeting house at Beaver, and hauled
lumber for the construction of the Cove Creek fort in Millard County. On account of the
unsettled condition of Southern Utah the cause of education was slow of development,
and the public duties of young Greenwood prevented him from receiving much schooling.
His parents were short of means, and the family had increased until it now numbered
eleven children. In 1868 Barnard was engaged in logging and steam saw-milling, and
spent the greater part of three years in that business and in freighting and wood con-
tracting about the mines, both in Utah and Eastern Nevada. On December 19, 1871,
he was united in marriage to Miss Eunice Howd. daughter of Simeon Howd, the
pioneer settler of Beaver. She is the mother of nine children, most of them living.
In January. £873, Mr. Greenwood with three others was called on a mission of ex-
ploration in Arizona. The party, in charge of Bishop L. W. Roundy, proceeded with
wagons as far as Lee's ferry on the Colorado river, and thence with pack animals. In
the San Francisco mountains they encountered severe snow storms, and had to guard
their animals from the thieving Apaches. They visited the friendly Moquis and Navajoes,
examined the valley of the Little Colorado and other localities, and returned in about
two months and made their report. On the return trip Mr. Greenwood and William Flake
ook a cut-off from Upper Kanab towards Beaver, but not allowing for the severity of
414 HISTORY OF UTAH.
the winter, and getting into the high mountains toward Panguiteh, where the snow was
deep and crusted and their horses became lame, they finally had to "take the back track."
Sliding down a steep mountain they dropped into Long Valley, and thence following
down the Rio Virgen by way of Roekville and Toquerville, reached home a week after
the rest of the party. Their absence had caused alarm, and when they arrived a
company was being organized to search for them. Two days later, March 11, 1873,
Mr. Greenwood's first child was born — a son named Hartley. The father farmed through
the summer and towards winter worked at the Mountain Queen mine, near the eastern
boundary of Nevada. He earned three hundred and fifty dollars, but did not receive
his pay.
In the spring of 1874 the United Order was organized at Beaver, taking in the major
part of the people. Mr. Greenwood put in his property and labored at plowing, seeding
and fencing farms on South Creek. Under his direction a pasture and a slaughter
house were established. The Order lasted but six mouths, and upon its dissolution Mr.
Greenwood turned his capital stock into the Cooperative Herd. In 1875 he engaged
with Simeon Howd to furnish bark for the Co-operative Tannery, receiving his pay in
leather. While seeking an exchange of grain for leather in Sevier County, he decided to
try his fortune as a farmer in that land of Indian raids and other hardships. He secured
some laud at Central, five miles south of Richfield, put up a log house, and about the
1st of February, 1876, moved his family to his new home. There a reasonable degree of
prosperity has crowned his energetic and steadfast efforts to build up that section of
the country.
At the time of the reorganization of Sevier Stake — July 15, 1877 — Barnard H.
Greenwood was ordained a High Priest and set apart as first counselor to Bishop William
A. Stewart of Inverury Ward, comprising the settlements of Central and Anabella.
About the same time be took charge of the Sunday schools as superintendent. In May,
1882, a vacancy occurred in the Bishopric, caused by the resignation of Bishop James
Sellers, and Elder Greenwood was chosen to succeed him. He was set apart on the
10th of June, by Francis M. Lyman and John Henry Smith. This office lie continues
to hold.
In November, 1883, he was appointed by the county court a selectman of Sevier
County, to fill a vacancy occasioned by the resignation of Joseph S. Home. He was
elected to the same office in 18"<4, and continued to hold it until 1890. Among his ser-
vices as selectman may be mentioned the rebuilding of the Clear Creek canyon road and
the construction of several bridges across the Sevier river. He often officiated as water
commissioner, to divide the waters of that stream to the various canals, in times of
scarcity. His business associations are numerous. He is a prominent stockholder and
director in the Elsinore Roller Mill Company; president of the Central Co-operative
Mercantile Institution; and vice-president of the Richfield Creamery Company. He has
been prominently interested in the planning and management of the Sevier Valley
Canal Company, laboring long and faithfully for its success, and is now vice-
president of that concern and a heavy stockholder therein. He also holds stock in the
Elsinore Canal Company, is a director of the Richfield Canal Company, and is interested
in a reservoir at Cove Creek.
JOHN MORRILL.
JOHN MORRILL, of Junction, Piute County, came to Utah with his parents when
about four years old. His father was Laban Morrill, of Vermont, and his mother
as a maiden Permelia H. Drury, of Massachusetts. John was born February 21,
1848, at Garden Grove, Iowa, to which place the family had proceeded in the exodus
of the Latter-day Saints from Illinois. They crossed the plains with an ox-team in the
summer of 1852, arriving here in the fall. They settled first at Springville, but after
residing there a year or two were called to go to Iron County. They helped to
found Cedar City, and assisted in making a settlement at Johnson's Fort. They followed
farming and stock-raising, but in early times were very poor.
John remained in Iron County until twenty-six years of age. He followed his sire's
7/5Wf
HISTORY OF UTAH. 415
vocation, working on the farm and in the canyons, fencing: and clearing land, digging
canals, and teaming on the road. His chances for education were few, but he was of a
studious nature, and succeeded fairly well, considering his oDportunities. He was
strictly temperate in his habits, and with plenty of outdoor exercise grew up strong and
healthy, standing six feet four inches in height, with an average weight of nearly two
hundred pounds. Between childhood and mature manhood a series of accidents befell
him, which he thus describes:
'"When about twelve years old I was thrown from a horse and dragged by the
stirrup quite a distance, before my shoe came off and my foot was liberated; but this was
not until my clothing and skin were torn, and I received a cvit across the forehead,
presumably from the hoof of the animal. A few days later I was thrown from the back
of the same horse, sustaining a severe injury of the ankle, which was very painful and
nearly resulted in mortification; this accident crippled melfor several weeks. Several
times I have been run over by a wagon, but no bones broken. My last experience of
this kind was about the year 1S98. While walking beside a half-loaded wagon I went
to reach for the lines, which were fastened to the front end-gate, and in doing so I slipped
and was carried under the front wheel, with my leg in such a position that the wheel
rested upon it in two places. My body being in front of the wheel, I could not drive
forward without its following along up my body, and perhaps running over my head.
It was a painful position, and I began to think I should have to remain there, pinned
under the wheel until some passer by came to my rescue. I could not endure this idea,
so I struggled with all my strength, and finally succeeded in extricating myself from one
of the most disagreeable situations I was ever in. At another time I was thrown head-
foremost from a load of wood into about eight inches of fresh snow, by the breaking of
the rack stakes and the rolling of the wood from under me: some of it landing on top,
cutting a gash in my scalp."
In 1874 — the year that he left Iron County — Mr. Morrill married on the 18th of May
Esther E. LeBaron, by whom he has had nine children. He spent about five years in
Salt Lake and Utah counties, principally in the latter part, and in April, 1879, moved to
his present home in Piute County. He has never been called into the mission field, but
has always bad plenty to do at home, and has taken an active part in ecclesiastical as
well as civic affairs. He was president of the Ward Teachers at Spring Lake, in 1877-8,
and at Junction on the Sth of May, 1881, was ordained a High Priest and set apart as
Bishop's counselor, serving as such until January, 1895. From 1886 to 1896 he was
prominently connected with the affairs of Piute County, serving three terms as county
clerk, and one term as deputy. He has also held the offices of county treasurer and
county recorder. Since May, 18S1, he has been postmaster at Junction, and since
January 5, 1895, the Bishop of that place.
THOMAS STEED.
•T^ATHER THOMAS STEED is a native of England, born at Great Malvern, in
"Tv" Worcestershire, December 13, 1826. His parents, Thomas and Charlotte Burston
Steed, were hard working, industrious people of the class known as market
gardeners, supporting their large family by cultivating the soil. The boy had
little chance for schooling, but studied nights for what he learned from books, and from
six to twelve years of age was sent to the Church of England Sunday school. Says he:
"We were dressed in uniform and marched in double file to Church twice on Sunday,
going in at 9 a. m., and being dismissed at 4 p. m."
In 1S40 he became a Latter-day Saint. To earn means to enable him to emigrate,
he left home and worked as gardener for a gentleman named Campbell, the "Squire" of
the neighborhood. This employment began in 1S41. Three year later, on the 21st of
January, he sailed for America, arriving at Nauvoo, Illinois, April 13. 1844. He was
a natural farmer, and during much of the time that he remained there farming was his
occupation, though he also worked at rock quarrying, brick making, lime burning,
teaming and masonry. He also stood guard as a member of the Nauvoo Legion. Driven
by the mob in 1846, he lost all his possessions, and went to Keokuk, Iowa, to earn
416 HISTORY OF UTAH.
means to obtain an outfit with which to follow the main body of his people to the
Rooky Mountains.
Four years passed before he found himself able to start, but on the first day of May,
1850, he left Keokuk, with his wife and children. He had one horse team and one
consisting of four yoke of oxen; also four cows, some seed grain and a year's provisions.
The little company in which he started westward comprised sixteen souls, traveling in
five wagons. By way of Garden Grove they reached Kanesville, and having crossed the
Missouri river by ferry, joined a company of fifty wagons led by Milo Andrus across the
plains. They proceeded up the south side of the Platte, and though the cholera raged
around them, decimating other companies of emigrants, the Andrus company came
through in safety. From the Sweetwater to Green River, owing to a scarcity of feed,
they were guided along a new way by Barney Ward, the mountaineer, who met them for
that purpose. Mr. Steed arrived in Salt Lake Valley on the 28th of August. He lived
here nine months, and then moved to Farmington, where he has ever since resided.
He settled on the first stream south of that place, at the mouth of a canyon still
called by his name. He led a busy and a useful life, helping to make the roads, open up the
canyons and otherwise develop the country. In February, 1853, he took his team and
camped in the street at Salt Lake City, while assisting to get out the foundations for the
Temple. Later he made several trips to the East, helping in the handcart companies and
other immigration. He served in Echo Canyon in 1S57, and m the move went to Mona,
after making all preparations and leaving a guard behind to burn what property he
could not take with him, rather than have it fall in the hands of the enemy. He has
aided in building school houses, meeting houses and temples, has contributed thousands
of dollars to church charities, and has always been a humble, unassuming, industrious
and honest man.
As early as 1842, while yet in England, he had been ordained to the office of a Priest,
and at Nauvoo, in April, 1815, had been ordained a Seventy. He became a High Priest,
June 16, 1877, when he was set apart as first counselor to the president of Davis Stake,
Thomas S. Smith. He was also first counselor to President Joel Parrish of that stake.
He has been a Patriarch since March, 1899. From June, 1875. to March, 1877, he was
absent upon a mission to Australia and New Zealand, going by way of New York and
London to Melbourne, and returning by way of San Francisco, thus circumnavigating
the globe. He was a Sunday school teacher for thirty-five years and a member of the
Ward choir for fort}- years.
In a civic capacity he has served as road supervisor, water master and school trustee.
He was one of the founders of the Farmington Co-operative Store, the Farmington Com-
mercial and Manufacturing Company's store, the Davis County Bank, the State Bank and
the Utah Sugar Company. He was also one the first to own stock in Z. C. M. I. and in the
Co-operative Wagon and Machine Company. Thus it will be seen that he is a thrifty and
substantial citizen. He is the father of ten sons and six daughters, all the children of
his wife Laura Lucinda Reed, whom he married at Keokuk, Iowa, on his twentieth
birthday.
JOHN COLE.
S^f N early convert to Mormonism in the British Isles, and one of the second company
1^ of Latter-day Saints to emigrate from that land, John Cole, now of Willard City,
^"^ was born at Bishop'sFroome, Herefordshire, England, July 8, 1821. His parents,
William and Ann Fenner Cole, had eight children, and lived in humble circum-
stances upon a farm. All the schooling he received was prior to being put to work at
eight years of age, following the plow and otherwise assisting his father. At ten he was
apprenticed to a wheelwright, serving five years to learn the trade, and then continuing
at it for wages until he left his native land. In the manufacture of wagons and agricul-
tural implements he labored from twelve to fourteen hours a day. He was a conscien-
tious youth, and led a sober, industrious life.
He became a latter-day Saint in 1840, and in September of that year sailed from
On
2 ^^A ft J
-t /- ^
HISTORY OF UTAH. 417
Liverpool on the ship "North America," in a company of Saints presided over by Elder
Theodore Turley. Landing: at New York, he proceeded by way of the Hudson River and
the lakes to Chicago, and thence by team and tlat boat to Nauvoo. In 1S42 he married.
He had three wives, namely. Charlotte Jenkins. Mary Ann Cordon and Helena Danielson.
He and his family were in the esodus of 1S46, and from Council Bluffs came to Utah in
1850. They were outfitted with a wagon, two yoke of oxen and one yoke of cows — a
splendid team for the journey — and traveled in Captain Gardiner Snow's company,
several of whom died of cholera on the way. The dates enclosing: the journey from the
Missouri River to Salt Lake Valley were the 20th of June and the 6th of October.
Mr. Cole first settled at American Fork. He took part in the Walker Indian war,
fought the invading: grasshoppers, and in the fall of 1S56 helped the belated handcart
companies into Salt Lake City. In the spring of 1859 he moved to his present home in
Bos Elder County. There in 1S67 he was a prime mover in establishing the Willard
Mercantile Association, of which he was one of the directors. He has been connected
in business with Harding Brothers, E. Pettiugill and others, and at the same time has car-
ried on farming. His life in Utah has been one of peace and privacy, assuming no other
titles than those of an honest man and a trustworthy citizen. He is the father of fifteen
children. One of his grandsons is a graduate of West Point and an officer in the army
of the United States.
ELIAS CRANE
(g* LIAS CRANE, of Salina, has been a settler in Utah since 1857, and has passed
ftY through many interesting experiences, especially during the Indian wars of the
^"^ '"sixties.'* regarding which he relates some thrilling incidents. He is of English
origiu. born at Dunton, Bassett, in Leicestershire, November 29, 1829. His par-
ents, Joseph and Sarah Bryan Crane, were stocking weavers in humble circumstances,
and Elias as a youth followed the same vocation. He disliked it, however, and at the first
opportunity forsook it for other labor. He received no schooling save a little at the Pro-
testant Sunday school. At seventeen he was employed as groom by a railroad con-
tractor at Clifton. in Warwickshire, whose business took him toDoneaster in Yorkshire. He
was thus occupied for three years. At home again he was converted to the Mormon faith,
and on March 15, 1851, walked ten miles to the city of Leicester to be baptized. He fol-
lowed brick-making in Staffordshire until 1S56, when he started for Utah, sailing from
Liverpool on the 19th of February, with barely enough money to pay his passage across
the ocean.
He landed at New York without a cent, and made his way to Pittston. Pennsylvania,
where he worked six months for a brickmaker, prior to going on to St. Louis. There he
spent the winter, and reached Florence, Nebraska, the next spring. On June 13, 1857, he
married Elizabeth Smith, an English girl from Bedfordshire, whom he had met while
on the ocean. Elder A. Milton Musser officiating in the ceremony. "While at Florence,"
says he, "Apostle Erastus Snow reeeived a letter informing him of the assassination of
Parley P. Pratt, in Arkansas, and shortly afterwards he and Apostle John Taylor had to
flee for their lives. We were camped at Wood River when they with others came and
obtained their outfits for crossing the plains. They left under the protection of a cloud,
which encircled them and hid them from view. Through the day parties on their track
inquired of our captain concerning their whereabouts."
The same season, under the direction of Emigration Agent Musser, and the com-
mand of Captain Israel Evans, Mr. Crane started westward, pulling a handcart over a
thousand miles and reaching Salt Lake City on the 9th of September. He settled in the
Twentieth Ward; took part in the Echo Canyon campaign; and went in the move to
Springville. Thence he removed to Manti, where he dwelt until 1S64, and then with
about thirty others helped to settle Sevier County, locating at Salina, his present home.
Of the Indian depredations in that part during 18(15-66, he thus writes:
"On April 10. 1S65, the Indians in and near Salina ran off about ninetv-five head of
stock, and killed Barney Ward, the Indian trader, and James Anderson. The two had
been hunting stock in Salina Canyon, when they were met by the redskins, killed, scalped
418 HISTORY OF UTAH.
and the bodies stripped of their clothing. I lost in this raid a yoke of cattle and a cow,
in value at that time about two hundred dollars. A company of men from Sanpete, under
Reddick N. Allred, Nathaniel Beach and Daniel B. Funk, followed on the trail to recover
the cattle and chastise the Indians, but were ambushed at the "Alum Beds,'' about fifteen
miles up the canyon, where in a narrow, rocky trail in a deep holl »w the Indians had
them surrounded. Opening fire from seventy or eighty rifles, they totally demoralized
the militiamen, killing two of them and causing a general stampede of the remainder.
The fugitives, some without hats, made the greatest speed possible to Salina, where they
arrived about four o'clock in the afternoon. The two killed men were William Kearnes,
son of Bishop Kearnes of Gunnison, and a young man from Ephraim. The corpses lay as
they fell for a week, when Chief Sanpitch interceded with the Indians, and they allowed
us to go and get the bodies.
"The next raid was on the 13th of April, 1866, the Indians this time taking all the
stock the settlers then owned — one hundred and nineteen head. It subsequently developed
that the savages had been watching Salina from the hills for a week, and had wittingly chosen
a day when the settlers, busily engaged in building a fort, had turned all their cows and
work cattle into the herd. The marauders, in a body of about forty, came from the hills
mounted, and as many more came afoot from the hollows east of town. Our sheepherder,
a Swedishman from North Bend (Fairview) was shot in the back and killed. Swinging
around north of the settlement the thieves captured about nine yoke of cattle belonging
to three teams camped there, fitted out and on their way to the Missouri River for emi-
grants. The drivers narrowly escaped with their lives by running into town. The red-
skins took breakfast at the wagons, destroyed everything they could not carry away, in-
cluding a valuable surveying instrument belonging to Edward Fox of Sanpete, and then
continued toward the Sevier River, surrounding our herd which was there feeding, and
driving away every hoof of stock belonging to the settlement. Our cattle herder, a young
man named Christian Nielsen, seeing the Indians coming, jumped into the river and was
never seen or heard of afterwards. His younger brother, Emil Nielsen, twelve or thir-
teen years old, was shot with arrows and left for dead; but using great caution, he waited
where he lay until all was quiet around him, and then waded the river up to his neck and
came home about four o'clock in the afternoon more dead than alive. He survived the
shock and is alive aud well today. The settlers gathered up all the horses available —
eight head — and endeavored to save the herd. They had it surrounded once, but being
greatly outnumbered by the Indians, and overpowered they gave up the chase in despair.
The savages remained in the vicinity until about four p. m., tantalizing and bantering
the settlers, inviting them in a mocking manner to come and get their oxen and cows,
saying, 'You will want wood in the winter, and your papooses will want milk,' etc. All
our resources gone, nothing was left for us but to abandon the settlement and move
north, which we did with the aid of our Sanpete brethren. Since its resettlement in 1870
Salina has gradually increased in size, and bids fair to become second to no place in the
County."
In Utah Mr. Crane has devoted himself to farming. Among his reminiscences of
hardship are the grasshopper visitations of 1867 and 1868. He was then living at Manti.
His experience with these pests was doubly trying after being driven from his home by
the Indians. In the Church he has held the offices of Teacher, Priest. Elder and High
Priest; the last named his office at the present time. He presided for a long while over
the High Priests' quorum at Salina, and from 1880 to 1883 was counselor to Bishop Jens
Jensen of that place. His secular offices have been few. He has been the local water-
master, and at last accounts was president of the Salina Roller Mill Company. His chil-
dren number nine. He has led a temperate, frugal life, and is highly esteemed among
his acquaintances.
PETER GREENHALGH.
QNOTHER life of toil and of triumph over hardship is that of Peter Greenhalgh,
formerly of Utah, and now of Southern Idaho. The son of William and Margaret
Hope Greenhalgh, he was born at Tyldsley-Leigh, Lancashire. England, March 1,
1830. His parents were in pretty good circumstances, but they brought up their
children to work, placing them as they became of suitable age, in the woolen mills to
\yL^ Lo-^_
HISTORY OF UTAH. 419
learn weaving. Peter had a few months training in the village school. He preferred
farming to weaving, and the time came when he was able to make the change, but not
until after his arrival in Utah. Up to the age of thirteen he lived at the village of New-
ton, five miles from Manchester, and then moved with his parents to Pendleton, three
miles nearer that city. At twenty-one the family removed to Radcliff, and there Peter,
who was an Independent Calvinist, became a Latter-day Saint. He was married at Rad-
cliff to Sarah Heald, May 2, 1852.
In the spring of 1854, the Saints about to emigrate from Great Britain were formed
into what was known as the "Thirteen Pound Company.'' Mr. Greenhalgh and his wife
were numbered among them. They left Liverpool on the 8th of April, under the direc-
tion of Elder William Taylor, and by way of New Orleans reached Kansas City, whence
they journeyed across the plains under Captain William Empey, arriving at Salt Lake
City on the 24th of October. Mr. G-reenhalgh, who with others had walked ahead of the
wagons from Echo Canyon, arrived four days earlier.
He immediately went to work digging potatoes, and with such zest — for he liked the
labor — that he overtaxed his strength and was temporarily disabled. Early in November
he walked to Kaysville, through a drizzling rain, and slept that night in his wet clothing
in a wheat bin. The weather was very cold. The next day he arrived at Willow Creek,
where he temporarily settled. There he helped John Woods make five thousand adobes.
The next summer he worked on the Church farm in Cache Valley. At Willow Creek in
the spring of 1856 he made the adobes and hauled the rock for the first house he ever
owned. A year later he and his brother, by cutting a ditch on the farm of Alanson
Allen, at Three Mile Creek, earned a yoke of oxen, which proved a very valuable acqui-
sition. He served in Echo Canyon the next winter, and in the move went to Fillmore,
returning thence to Willow Creek, now Willard City.
"In September, 1863," says Mr. Greenhalgh, "I was called with others to go with
Apostle Charles C. Rich and settle in Bear Lake Valley. We arrived there on the 29th
of that month, and surely it was a bare looking valley. To put up hay for the winter we
had to wade in the slough knee deep in water, cut the grass with a scythe and pack it out
with pitchforks. It was a miserable looking country, and many became disheartened and
left. In the spring of '64 we tried to plow, but found the ground so dry and hard that
we could not do anything. We commenced to make a canal to irrigate, but the ditch was
laid off up hill, as was often the case. On the night of the 12th of May snow fell about
four inches deep. We all went to work the next day. Of course the grain was late and got
frozen. We had to tramp it out with horses. John Macreary and I got a grist ready, and
with several others went to Cache Valley to get it ground. We called at all the mills as
we passed through the valley, but they refused to grind out frozen wheat;' so we drove
over to Brigham City, and called on the miller there, who was an old acquaintance of
mine when we lived at Willow Creek. The mill had been broken down and was just
ready to start up again. There was not a bushel of wheat in the mill. The miller said
he would grind for us, and have us all ready to start home the next morning, and he did.
On the way home we had to double teams to climb the "Big Dugway.'' While going
up the steepest part of the road, the tongue-chain of the team ahead of ours broke. Think
of it, a loaded wagon coming down that steep mountain ! Tim Lish, who was driv-
ing the team called out to me "to take hold of the wheel and hold the wagon!"
I acknowledge the hand of the Lord in what followed. Prom some cause or other the
run-away wagon was cramped and thrown across the road just ahead of my team, and
there it stood all right. We reached home in safety. The next grist I had to tramp out
with oxen on the ice, and grind it in a coffee mill. We had hard times for a few years,
fighting grasshoppers, crickets, etc., but now all that is changed."
Mr. Greenhalgh settled at Bloomington, where most of his business and other inter-
ests now are. He has been interested in the co-operative store at that place for over thirty
years, and at one time owned stock in the co-operative saw mill, which no longer exists.
He has never taken a foreign mission, his labors being required at home, where he has
served as choir leader and Sunday school superintendent for upwards of thirty years. He
has held the offices of Priest, Elder and Seventy, and since August 25, 1877, has been
a High Priest and a High Councilor of the Bear Lake Stake of Zion. He is the father
of ten children.
CHRISTIAN ANDERSON.
a PROMINENT and enterprising citizen is the present Bishop of Fillmore. He
was born May 6, 1840, in the small village of Gulborg, Island of Falster, Den-
mark. He was the youngest of ten children, supported by their parents, who
were both well educated, from the proceeds of school teaching and weaving.
They all belonged to the Lutheran Church, the state church of the kingdom. In the
summer of 1853 Christian heard while at school that the Mormons were going to preach
in a neighboring town. His mother, who was then a widow, gave him permission to go
and hear them, on condition that he would first do a certain amount of work, which the
good woman hoped would keep him engaged until the meeting was over. It did so, but
the boy conversed with the Elders after meeting, and was very favoraby impressed with
them. The following winter his mother and brother John were converted and baptized,
and Christian soon followed them into the Church, being baptized March 9, 1854. Prior
to this he had been living with the Lutheran priest of his parish, who had angrily driven
him away upon his declaring his intention to embrace Mormonism. After his bap-
tism he showed the priest his certificate of membership in the Latter-day Church, and
was told that he was lost beyond redemption.
In the spring of 1856 his mother and eldest sister emigrated to Utah, crossing
the plains in the first handcart company. Christian remained in his native land. working
at brick making and farming, studying the German language and serving in the minis-
try, first as a Teacher, then as a Priest, and suffering the usual persecutions. He made
two trips to Copenhagen, with emigrants, laboring there as a missionary and working
at stone cutting and other occupations, until April, 1862. when he crossed the Atlantic
in a large company bound for Utah. He secured free passage by engaging as cook for
the Saints, but as the captain had already employed one, he was not called into that ser-
vice. He acted as interpreter for the Scandinavians on board, having studied English
while in Denmark. A stormy voyage, with much sickness and some deaths, ended at
New York, from which point the company proceeded by rail and steamboat to Florence,
Nebraska, where it outfitted for the journey across the plains. There Mr. Anderson
saw ox teams for the first time in his life.
September found him at Salt Lake City, and October at Moroni, where dwelt his
mother. In November he joined his brother-in-law, John Sorenson, at Gunnison. His
first labors in Utah were at threshing wheat and weaving cloth. He helped to construct
the Gunnison irrigating canal, surveyed by C. A. Madsen, when the town was moved
from its former to its present site, and for doing ditch work was given some land in
field and town. He built a log house and went to farming. On August 6, 1863, he
married Rasmine Andersen, a widow. The same summer he set up a shoe shop, to help
support his family. In January, 1865, he was a settler at Richfield, and passed
through the Indian troubles aud privations that followed. Says he: "The nearest
grist mill was at Manti, about fifty miles north, and on account of the Indians we could
not travel in safety, except in strong companies. Often a big crowd would gather
around the only hand-mill in town, eaeh waiting a chance to grind a little wheat to
make bread, while others did not have the wheat to grind." When the Sevier Valley
settlements were abandoned in 1867, Mr. Anderson moved back to Sanpete.
In April, 1868, he took up his residence at Fillmore. There he worked at stone
cutting and shoe making. He served as ward teacher, as school trustee, and as first
counselor to Nephi Pratt, the president of the Elders. In 1872 he was employed to
keep in repair the telegraph line through Millard County, and in 1873 took charge of
the Co-operative Meat Market. The same year be was ordained a Seventy and became
one of the presidency of the forty-second quorum. In June, 1875, he married his
second wife, Anna Kirstine Beauregard. She died January 6, 1877. In August, 1875,
he was elected to the city council, and had charge of the United Order Shoe Shop and
Meat Market. In June. 1876, he was ordained a High Priest and became a member of
/
sZ-e-C^r?
<y^/Zs£~tfjC''
'/Ujlsw^
1/
C^£^
£3U^2
HISTORY OF UTAH. 421
the High Council. In the spring of 1S77 he attended the dedication of the St. George
temple, and in August of that year was elected justice of the peace for Fillmore City.
He was also appointed city stock inspector, and became a director in the Co-operative
Mercantile, Institution and the Co-operative Stock-raising Company. He was also
Bishop's counselor and .secretary of the High Priests' quorum. Other offices held by
him were vice-president of the Co-operative Mercantile Institution, city recorder,
county recorder, probate clerk, county clerk, stake clerk and historian. He was also
a practicing attorney, secretary and treasurer of the co-operative store, manager of a
meat market and a dealer in wool, hides and furs. In 1878 he married his third and
fourth wives, Anna D. and Hannah K. Christiansen. He became the father of more
than twenty children.
During the anti polygamy crusade and while "on the underground," in February,
188S. he was chosen at the Millard Stake conference, president of the High Priests'
quorum. His houses were raided by the deputies, but he succeeded in evading them
until the morning of June 7, 1889, when he was arrested by deputy marshal Rasmus
Clausen. In September of the same year he was tried before Judge Judd at Provo,
and being convicted of "adultery," for living with his plural wives, (the evidence of
which he had himself given to the grand jury) was sentenced to seventeen months in
the penitentiary. While there he had charge of the prison library and commissariat,
was secretary of the Sunday school, and employed his spare time in studying the
Spanish language.
In the spring of 1892 he bought a stock of drugs, built a store, and set up the only
drug business in Millard County. In September, 1894, he was appointed by the Demo-
cratic county court to the office of county treasurer, and along with the duties of the
same continued to discharge those of president of the High Priests' Quorum, clerk
of the High Council, secretary and treasurer of the Millard Stake Academy and other
positions. For a time he was acting Bishop of Fillmore, and was set apart as Bishop
of that ward January 27, 1901.
WILLSON GATES NOWERS.
"~kNE of the first settlers of Beaver County, and still a prominent citizen of that
part, is W. G. Nowers, a native of Dover, Kent, England. He was born
March 8, 1828. His father, Edward Nowers. was descended from a noble Nor-
man family, and his mother, Susannah Gates Nowers, from the French Walloons.
The father was a clerk for more than fifty-five years for Mr. Latham, agent for Llyod's
Shipping Underwriters and Insurance Company, and was thus engaged at the time of
his death. Willson was born in the house of his grandfather, who, left alone in his
old age, had persuaded the family to occupy a portion of his residence. He took a great
interest in the boy, who was sent to school at five years of age, and continued until he
was fourteen. His grandfather wished him to study law, but as he was naturally
inclined to mechanism his father had him apprenticed to a coach-maker. The appren-
ticeship proved very irksome, "a sort of white slavery," and time and again he resolved
to abandon it.
His deliverance came with his conversion to Mormonism. when he determined to
emigrate to Utah. He sailed from Liverpool March 4, 1851, in the ship "Olympus,"
which encountered in mid ocean a terrific storm. Th« fore-mast was swept away, the
main-mast badly injured, the vessel sprung a leak, and a most critical aspect of affairs
was presented. The captain sent word to Elder William Howell, president of the com-
pany of Saints on board, that if the Mormon God could do anything to save the ship
He had better do it at once, or all would go to the bottom within the nest four hours!
The ship was saved, and as many said, "by the Mormon God." Fifty persons were
baptized into the Church during the voyage, some in the ocean and others in a large
barrel on deck. Mr. Nowers was commissary of the company while on the water, and
his associations were of the pleasantest character. A landing was made at New Orleans
on the 27th of April. The Saints proceeded up the Mississippi and the Missouri to
Council Bluffs, and from Kanesville and Winter Quarters came by ox team to Utah,
422 HISTORY OF UTAH.
arriving at Salt Lake City on the first of October. They traveled under the direction of
Alfred Cordon and Orson Pratt, with Henry Gouldsbury as captain of ten.
Mr. Nowers resided in Salt Lake City until April, 1853. when he moved to Parowan.
He assisted in building George A. Smith's mill at that place. In 1855 he lost his entire
wheat crop, fifteen acres, by grasshoppers. He helped in the construction of the wall
around the town and erected two of the great gates of the fort. At Parowan, on June
28, 1855, he married Sarah Anderson, daughter of Miles and Nancy Anderson, who
became the mother of eight children. In February, 1856, he changed his residence to
Beaver County, where he engaged in farming, mill-building and pioneer work generally.
As a major of militia he saw active service in the early Indian wars, and during the
Blackhawk affair was despoiled of his stock in two different raids. At another time he
pursued an Indian who had stolen a horse, and not only rescued the one taken, but
captured the one on which the thief rode, together with his equipments, even to moc-
casins and provisions. The Indian escaped unhurt.
Mr. Nowers was the first recorder of Beaver City, and the first treasurer of Beaver
County. For some time he was justice of the peace, and at different times city coun-
cilor, county recorder and county surveyor. In the Church he has acted as a
Teacher, as a member of the High Council, and has held various offices from Deacon up
to High Priest. In 1892 he fulfilled a mission to Great Britain. In March, 1883, he
became the clerk of Beaver Stake, and served for several years in that capacity. He
has been a progressive citizen, active in building up the country. His business connec-
tions have been mainly with co-operative institutions, while following the occupation of
a farmer.
ALEXANDER ROBERTSON.
ZTv NATIVE of Glenisla, Forfarshire, Scotland, where he was born August 11, 1831,
Jsr Alexander Robertson has been a settler in Utah since 1852 and a resident of
■}* Springville since 1857. He has had an interesting career. He was quite active
as a colonizer at one time, and subsequently rose to political prominence.
Always conservative, while he believes the Mormon people to be the people of God, he
has never occupied any official position in the Church.
His parents were John and Elizabeth Edward Robertson; the father a tenant
farmer, who rented six acres of land and kept a country inn. He died when Alexander
was two years old. The family were poor, but the boy received a fair education, and
when twelve years old hired out as a herder to the farmers of the neighborhood, receiv-
ing fifteen shillings for eight months' service. When about fifteen he worked upon a
farm for a shilling a day without board. When nineteen he emigrated with his mother
and six brothers to America. He was next to the youngest member in the family.
They left Liverpool January 11, 1850, on a sailing vessel named the "Argo," and
were two months in reaching New Orleans. Robert Campbell had charge of the com-
pany as far as Council Bluffs. The Robertsons did not cross the plains that season, nor
the next, but tarried at Kanesville, where they purchased a small farm. "Aleck" sawed
lumber and ran a ferry boat. Fever and ague abounded, and the mother died there.
Two of her sons drove team for Halladay and Warner, merchants, in order to get
to Utah.
"Aleck" came here in 1852, driving team for his oldest brother, who furnished him
with his board. His effects were freighted at his own expense He was then twenty-
one years of age. The company in which he traveled consisted of fifty wagons, com-
manded by Isaac M. Stewart. There was a good deal of cholera on the plains that sea-
son, and many died. At Fort Bridger Mr. Robertson and several other young men,
owing to a scarcity of provisions, shouldered their blankets and proceeded on foot ahead
of the wagons to Salt Lake City, arriving here some time in September.
He worked for Robert Gardiner that fall, at a saw mill on the Jordan, and a year
later settled at Palmyra, on Spanish Fork River. Meantime he had been employed for
his board by Samuel Mulliner at his tan yard at American Fork, and by Robert Gardi-
ner, helping to build an adobe fort on the hill by Gardiner's mill and standing guard at
^ut~^
HISTORY OF UTAH. 423
the mouth of Mill Creek Canyon. After moving to Spanish Fork he worked nearly all
winter on the mountains east of that settlement, sliding timber for a stockade fort. It
was the time of the Walker war. in which he took an active part.
Early in the spring of 1856 Mr. Robertson was one of eighty horsemen who crossed
the south end of Utah Lake on the ice, in pursuit of Tintic's band of Indians, who had
stolen stock from the settlers west of the lake. The company took two days' provisions
and were gone ten days. They recovered sixty-eierht head of horn stock and about
thirty horses, returning by way of Nephi, where they were cordially received, their ser-
vices being much appreciated. Mr. Robertson was also present at a disturbance on the
Indian farm at Spanish Fork, when Dr. Garland Hurt was Indian agent, and chief San-
pitch manifested his ugly temper.
After returning from the pursuit of Tintic's band, he went to Fort Supply, a new
settlement twelve miles south of Fort Bridger, where he remained until the fall of 1857.
when he and his fellow settlers left by the light of their burning homes, to which they
had set fire at the approach of Johnston's army. He had stood picket guard for about
two months between Fort Bridger and Green River, and was with Lot Smith and Porter
Rockwell throughout the ensuing campaign.
In the latter part of 1857 he settled at Springville, his present home. In 1861 he
went with his team to the Missouri River to help bring in the Church emigration. He
had previously made two trips for a similar purpose, one in August, 1851, and the other
very late in the fall of 1856. This time he helped to rescue the handcart emigrants.
The snow was four feet deep in East Canyon and sixteen feet deep on Big Mountain,
and the weather extremely cold.
Alexander Robertson married on Decemcer 20, 1863, Abigail Thorn, who died Jan-
uary 7, 1883, without issue. In May, 1884, he married Henrietta I. Smith, who after
bearing him one child, died February 23, 1885. On the third day of the following July
he married Lucy M. Smith, his present wife, by whom he has had four children. He
was elected, in August, 1873, to the Springville city council, and served in that position
for eight years. During the winter of 1873^4 he worked on the St. George Temple.
For two years he was mayor of Springville. In the fall of 1893 he was a candidate for
the Legislature. He claims that although elected by a majority, he was unjustly ousted
by the opposite party.
ALBERT BALEY GRIFFIN.
^"'•'HE late A. B. Griffin, of Kanarra, was the son of Samuel and Sylvia Bradley
!<•) Griffin, and was born February 28, 1809, at Essex, Chittenden County, Vermont.
^ * His early labors were in helping his father, who was a farmer in moderate cir-
cumstances. He led a quiet, moral and industrious life, and most of his educa-
tion was in the school of everyday experience. In 1830 he married Abigail Barney,
and seven years later, with his wife and son, Charles Emerson Griffin, moved to Mon-
ton, Ohio, twelve miles from Kirtland.
In 1842 two Mormon missionaries visited the neighborhood. Becoming interested
in their doctrines, he invited them to his home. Shortly afterwards he and his wife
became Latter-day Saints. Preparatory to going to Nauvoo, he sold his farm at Mon-
son, giving about four hundred dollars' worth of property to a man named Sylvester
Brooks, who represented himself as a Mormon missionary. He subsequently proved to
be an apostate. In return for the property Mr. Griffin was to receive a piece of land
near Nauvoo. Thither they journeyed in the fall of 1844, and after passing the winter
with Alfred Randall, moved to a place called Pilot Grove, in the vicinity of the pur-
chased farm, which was found to consist of about twenty acres of wild land. Mr.
Griffin labored at various kinds of work during the summer of 1845, and in the fall
moved back to Nauvoo, for protection against the mobs that were committing depreda-
tions upon Mormon homes. He exchanged his farm for a yoke of oxen and a dilapidated
wagon, which he finally made fit for travel, and with these he joined the exodus of 1846.
Prior to that event he frequently shouldered his rifle, and with others repaired to the
424 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Temple to stand guard, sometimes remaining all night, ready for any emergency. He
was well acquainted with President Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Parley P. Pratt,
Orson Pratt and other leaders, with whom he journeyed westward. He helped to con-
struct a bridge over the Elkhorn, where he met Colouel Thomas L. Kaue, who remained
with him and his fellow workmen several days. At Winter Quarters he was one of the
first to erect a log cabin and move into it. Until Father Neff completed his grist mill,
corn and buckwheat raised during the season of 1847 had to be pounded in large mortars
made for the purpose of converting the grain into food. The Griffin family passed
through many privations, and in 1848 came in President Kimball's company to Salt
Lake Valley. Mr. Griffin was a captain of ten, and had charge of the family of Wins-
low Farr, who had been called east upon a mission. They reached their destination on
the 15th of October.
The Griffins settled in the Sixteenth Ward. They lived in a log cabin, with dirt
roof and floor, the father and son drawing firewood from the Jordan River on a hand
sled, and working for household necessities. For eleven years they were on the Church
Farm, where the head of the house labored, by appointment of President Young, under
the direction of Father Lott. receiving as compensation wagons, horses, implements,
etc., in addition to the sustenance of his family. After a three years' residence in
Sugar House Ward he moved to Coalville, and a year later to Long Valley, which place
was vacated on account of Indian difficulties. He had previously stood guard against
the Indians in Parley's Park, and had served in the Blackhawk war, holding the office
of sergeant. He married his second wife, Laura Emily Beebe, in 1854. He was the
father of seven children. In the Church he was a Seventy, and from 1865 to 1877
ser/ed as a Bishop's counselor. In business he was associated with various co-operative
concerns. The last years of his life were spent at his home in Kanarra.
WILLIAM WHITEHEAD TAYLOR.
kN a small dairy farm kept by his parents in Tetlow Fold, Oldham, Lancashire,
England, was born December 12, 1828, the subject of this brief story. He was
the youngest of the seven children of Samuel and Sarah Whitehead Taylor, who
though belonging to the working class were in comfortable circumstances. Wil-
liam lived on the farm until he left England for America. He had little education, but
was fond of books, and spent most of his evenings at home, reading to his mother,
whom he loved devotedly. He thought once of becoming a school teacher, but was
obliged to forego his purpose, being without means to pay for an education. He was a
member of the Church of England, but became a Latter-day Saint through the influence
of his brother James, who was president of the Oldham branch.
Utah-bound, he sailed from Liverpool September 5, 1849, following his brothers
James and Thomas, who had left England the year before. His ship was the "Berlin.''
During the passage cholera broke out and in twenty days forty-five deaths occurred.
By way of New Orleans he reached St. Louis, where his brothers welcomed him. In
the spring of 1850, he with his brother James and William H. Stott proceeded to Coun-
cil Bluffs, from which place James returned to St. Louis, while William remained with
the Stott family and experienced, as he says, the hardest time he had ever known. "We
worked hard, but the man for whom we did most of the work was very unfortunate.
We lived a long distance from Kanesville, and at one time got out of bread stuffs. I
went and tried to borrow a little flour or cornmeal ; I did not get it, but found a man
sitting astride a beuch, grating corn on a home-made grater; he let me have the grater
and some ears of corn, saying I could take them and do as he was doing. I never ate
better mush than was made from that corn. I had no bed to lie on, and did not have my
clothing off for twelve weeks. I went to St. Louis for the winter, going down the river
on the ill-fated "Saluda," which was afterwards blown up at Lexington." A particular
friend of his at St. Louis was a young man named Edson Bartram, whom he mentions
gratefully in his journal. On the 6th of April, 1852, Mr. Taylor started for Utah, in a
company commanded by Isaac Bullock, under whom Stephen McBride was captain of
HISTORY OF UTAH. 425
ten. They broke camp near Winter Quarters, resuming the westward journey on the
4th of July. Of an interesting adventure that befell him on the plains Mr. Taylor
thus writes:
"On the 8th of September I was traveling along with Brother and Sister John
Gregory. One of his oxen was lame, which caused us to fall behind the company.
When we caught up with them they had turned out at Pacific Springs, and as the place
was swampy Captain McBride advised Brother Gregory to drive on to a place a few
miles ahead, where the company intended camping for the night. Gregory did so, but
the compauy passed us just at dusk and did not stop there. We were up and off early
next morning, but could see nothing of them. About noon we came to two roads, one
leading to the left, and seeing wagons on that road we took it and traveled until late in
the afternoon, when I proposed to go ahead and see if it was our company. 1 did so,
making all the speed possible on foot, and at length caught up with the wagons, which
proved to be a part of the eighth company. Ours was the seventeenth. Away to the
right I could see dust arising, and concluded that it must be our wagons on the other
road. It was nearly sundown, but I determined to see if my surmise was correct, and if
it proved to be our company, to get a horse, ride back to the Gregorys, and get them on
the right track. I started, and after going with all speed for i >me time, I found that
I had been following whirlwinds; yet as far ahead as I could see was what appeared
to be a train of wagons. Night was near, but I concluded to go forward, and just
at dusk, when nearly exhausted, I reached the object of my pursuit, and found it to be
a fringe of willows on the bank of a creek! I felt a little bad, but waded the creek
and began to look for wagon tracks. I had just found the road, and thought to remain
there till morning, when I was startled by someone calling to me, and could just discern
a person on horseback on the other side of the creek. He called again, and I felt sure
it was an Indian. I answered; he plunged in the stream with his horse, and I started
to meet him. He was an Indian. We shook hands, and I made signs that I was
lost. He seemed to understand me, and wanted me to go with him. I said I was a
"Mormon." He showed me that I was in danger from wolves at that place, so I con-
cluded to go with him. I was not afraid; I trusted in God, and felt that all was well.
My strange acquaintance wished me to get up Lehind him, but I was too stiff and tired
to mount. He took my hand, and we recrossed the creek and started for the Indian's
camp. I was an object of great interest upon arriving there. My Lamanite friend told
his squaw (or I thought he did from the signs used) how he had found me. I sat by
the fire and warmed myself, after which he spread some skins, and showed me that I
could lie down. He placed a small buudle for a pillow and covered me with a buffalo
robe. After I had rested a little while, he touched me on the hand to call my atten-
tion, and I saw that they had prepared me a nice piece of meat. I understood him
to say it was sheep. He also brought me water, and seemed highly pleased to see
me eat and drink. After a while the fire began to burn low, and the camp became
quiet, all retiring to rest. I did not sleep much, the night was so cold; towards
morning it froze sharply. During the night the Indian got up and went out, soon
returning with arms full of sagebrush and making a big fire. He felt my feet several
times to see if they were getting warm. He did not lie down again, but by the firelight
began fixing his arrows, etc. As soon as daylight showed I wanted to start in search
of our camp, but he would not let me go, showing me by signs that I would still be in
danger from the wolves. He pointed in the direction of our camp, and made motions
to indicate the gradual breaking of day, the rising of smoke from the camp fires, etc.;
this he did by imitation, acting as if very cold, holding his hands over fancied fires, and
rubbing them together, seeming pleased and grateful with the warmth. He then took
the fingers of the left hand, and crossing them with the right, showed me that we
would go to the Mormon camp on horseback. As soon as it was light enough to dis-
tinguish objects he brought the horses. The one he gave me to ride struck me as
being very much like one I had seen in our company, belonging to a man named
Watts, and a pony tied to the horse's tail also looked very familiar. We mounted and
started for the camp, and had only gone a short distance when we came upon Mr.
Watts, who had been out hunting a lost cow, and whose horses had strayed while he
was sleeping. The Indian must have thought they were mine. Mr. Watts took the
grey mare that I was riding, and continued his search for the cow, leaving me the
pony, on which I rode with my Indian friend to camp. When we arrived, the captain's
wife. Sister McBride, made us an excellent breakfast, after which she gave the Indian
some sweet cake to take to his squaw and papooses. He left us highly pleased. I
felt in my soul to bless him for his kindness I acknowledged the hand of the Lord in
27
426 HISTORY OF UTAH.
it: and I ask, What white man could have done more? Brother Gregory struck the
road at Gieen River."
About noon of the twenty-fifth of September the company reached Salt Lake City.
Two days later Mr. Taylor went to work making adobes, and afterwards engaged in
fencing and building. He helped to build the Fifteenth Ward schoolhouse, and to
excavate for the Salt Lake Temple, whose cornerstones he saw laid and dedicated. In
October, 1853, he moved to Lehi, where he has ever since led a busy and industrious
life. He first engaged in farming, taking the Fotheringham farm on shares, with his
brothers Thomas and James. He now owns this land, which as early as 1854 produced
good sugar beets. The mercantile business was followed some time by the brothers,
under the firm name of T. and W. Taylor, their business being conducted both at Lehi
and Salt Lake City. The same year that witnessed his removal to Lehi, also saw his
marriage to Nannie Standring. Four years later he married Charlotte E. Leggett, the
mother of his five children.
Up to February, 1853, Mr. Taylor held the office of a Priest, to which he had been
ordained in September, 1848. He next became a Seventy, and served as such until
February, 1891, when he was ordained a High Priest. In May, 1855, he labored for a
short time in the White Mountain mission, and from the sprine: of 1809 to the fall of
1870 was absent upon a mission to England, where he labored as a traveling Elder in
the Manchester conference, and afterwards presided successively over that and the
Leeds conferences. He returned home on account of ill health. He prefers a quiet life
and was never very much of a public man, though at one time he served in the city
council, and was connected with the local military organization. He has also assisted
in the Sunday school, and was secretary of the Lehi Dramatic Association, sustaining
leading roles in many of the plays presented by it.
THOMAS SPACKMAN.
fHOMAS SPACKMAN, son of Thomas E. S. Spackman and his wife Ann Bushel,
was born in the City of London, March 25, 1839, and emigrated with his
parents to America when ten years old. In New irork City, the father, who was
a maker of watch springs, and in fairly good circumstances, plied his trade
during the remainder of his days. When Thomas was sixteen he left home, and after
spending a season in the Wisconsin Pinery, went on to the Ohio river, where he was
employed on a steamboat. When nineteen he was second mate of a boat called "The
Red Wing," plying between Napoleon and Little Rock, Arkansas. In March, 1859, he
was seized with the Pike's Peak gold excitement, and proceeding to Fort Leavenworth,
fitted out with three other men a handcart for the gold diggings. At Fort Kearney
news met them of the Pike's Peak collapse. Mr. Spaceman's three companions now
turned back, but he hiring an ox-team passage, resolved to go on to California.
He arrived at Salt Lake City, July 24, 1859, and while resting his oxen prior to
continuing on his way, he attended out of curiosity the Old Tabernacle, where he heard
Orson Pratt deliver a discourse upon the principle of plural marriage. It was delivered
at the request of a gentile. At the end of a week Mr. Spackman resumed his journey
westward, but at Centreville one of his oxen sickened and died, and he himself was taken
down with rheumatism. Having recovered, he hired out to work for John P. Porter,
Sr., of that place, who owned a saw-mill in Hardscrabble canyon, Morgan County. He
was thus employed for about ten months.
In 1800 he settled at Porterville, and in March, 1803, entered the state of wedlock,
marrying Sarah Ann Criddle, formerly of Taunton, Somersetshire, England. By this
marriage he has twelve children. In May, 1873, he removed to Saleratus Creek, Rich
County, where he was in the cattle business, and in the spring of 1883 returned to
Davis County, settling at Farmington. In May, 1887, he married his second wife, Alice
Carter, of Porterville, who has borne to him six children. At Porterville and at Farming-
ton he resided with his two families until August, 1902, when he moved the former
household to Stirling, Alberta, Canada.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 427
Mr. Spackman is a natural mechanic. While a mere lad he learned from his father
the trade of watch-spring making'. Since starting out for himself he has practiced various
vocations, such as cook, logger, sawyer engineer, farmer, rancher, cattle buyer and
storekeeper, and has been fairly successful in all. When the United Order was started
at Porterville he put his all into it and was a director of the organization. He served as a
school trustee, and in 1883 was in partnership with William Thompson of Evanston,
Wyoming, in the cattle business. In 1891 he started the Utah Produce Store in Salt Lake
City, and later incorporated it as the Utah Produce and Commission Company. In 1892
he was manager of the Morgan Co-operative store, and in 1893 the principal mover in
the building of the Morgan Mill and Elevator, which he also incorporated.
Up to the time of coming to Utah Mr. Spackman professed the Baptist faith. He
was naturally religious, and led a temperate and moral life. Not long after his arrival
here he became a Latter-day Saint, and in time was ordained to the office of a Seventy.
During a two years mission to Great Britain, from March 1889 to March 1891, when he
labored in the Manchester conference and part of the time presided over the same, he
spent over three thousand dollars in preaching the Gospel, buying tracts, advertising the
Church works, and assisting in the emigration of the Saints, fie has always been a
liberal donor to good and benevolent causes. His record speaks for him as the life ex-
perience of a good and worthy man, a prosperous and progressive citizen.
NEWTON TUTTLE,
/T)| NATURAL mechanic, a blacksmith by trade, and for many years a manufacturer,
I I fruit raiser and general farmer, Newton Tuttle is a native of the State of Con-
^""^ necticut, born at North Haven, April 13, 1825. His parents, Zerah P. and Maria
Todd Tuttle, were well-to-do farming people, and the father was also a school
teacher. Newton received a common school education, and spent one winter in the high
school. His early labors were at farming. He then learned blacksmithing, and became
very proficient. He could make "anything in iron from an auger to an anchor." He
was temperate, moral, honest, and religiously inclined. At North Haven, on November
24, 1848, he married Lucinda S. Mix. fie was still learning his trade when he first heard
of the M >rmons. Some of the Elders, unable to get a church to preach in, were per-
mitted by Mr. Sharon Bassett, Mr. Tuttle's employer, to hold meetings in his house, and it
was there that Newton became acquainted with their doctrines. He was baptized
October 13, 1850, by John Doolittle. His wife also joined the Church. They were the
only ones of their respective families to become Latter-day Saints.
They left for Utah, April 1, 1854, proceeding by way of Pittsburgh and Cincinnati
to Fort Leavenworth, where Mrs. Tuttle died on the 14th of May. Two weeks later Mr.
Tuttle fell sick with bilious fever and was bedfast for three weeks. Recovering, he
joined an emigrant company, commanded by William Fields and Isaac Groo, and started
across the plains. He had two yoke of oxen, a new wagon and plenty of provisions;
also his blacksmithing tools, with which he did the shoeing of the company and repaired
occasional breakdowns. On the 15th of June his only child, a little girl, five years old,
became ill, and eight days later died about forty miles from Fort Leavenworth. Three
others of the company fell victims to cholera. The bereaved husband and father
reached his journey's end on the 19th of September.
He settled at Bountiful, which has ever since been his home. The first winter he
lived with Amos P. Stone, a blacksmith, whose eldest daughter, Emily A., he married
April 7, 1855. He went to housekeeping in a small log room, furnished with table,
bedstead, chairs and stools of his own manufacture. The next year he got logs from
the canyon and built a new house on a piece of land he had purchased and paid for in
labor. These were his first possessions in Utah. In 1857 he was in Echo Canyon as
adjutant of a company of infantry, and was with Major Lot Smith in his memorable
raid on the government supply trains.
After returning from the move in 1858, which he did in time for harvest, he made
a machine and went to making brooms, raising broom corn on land rented from Anson
Call on shares. He soon worked up quite a business in brooms, employing for a long
428 HISTORY OF UTAH.
time three men and two women in their manufacture, and finding a ready market
around home, in Salt Lake City and the southern settlements. He continued in the
business until 1870, when, having purchased land and planted fruit trees of various
kinds, he left off making brooms, which were then imported very cheap, and turned
his attention to fruit raising, which became his main occupation. For twenty years he
had one of the finest orchards in Utah, and in addition to his children who were large
enough to work, he employed three or four men and from five to eight girls in picking,
caring for and marketing the product.
In the fall of 1800, he and John Kynaston made a beet press, and manufactured, it
is claimed, the first beet molasses in Utah. He was also one of the first to plant lucern
seed here. "It grew nicely,'' says he; "but the horses and cows would not touch it; we
tried every animal in the neighborhood, and none would eat it except a donkey." Mr.
Tuttle was an early member of the D. A. & M. Society, and has been associated in bus-
iness with various prominent men in Davis County. In 1879, he and his sons set up an
apiary, securing some bees that they had seen drinking at a spring. They have over
fifty hives at present, and have taken out, some years, over a thousand pounds of honey.
At one time Mr. Tuttle owned forty acres of land on the bench, but he has disposed of a
large portion of it to his married children. By his second wife he has had seven sons
and three daughters.
Ecclesiastically he has served as Ward Clerk and Teacher, and in a civil capacity as
Watermaster. Some years since, he went to Connecticut to get the genealogies of his
ancestors, and was authorized to preach, but his relatives would not listen to him on the
subject of religion. He was for many years a Seventy, and since November, 1897, has
held the office of a High Priest. He has lived a useful life, full of good deeds and
worthy examples.
JAMES ERWEN BROMLEY.
^."^HE late James E. Bromley came to Utah in July, 1854, and settled at the mouth of
C'J'J Echo canyon, where he maintained a continuous residence up to the day of his
ii death. He was a native of the state of Michigan, born at Sturgis Prairie, St.
Joseph County, September 7, 1832. His parents were William and Jane Brom-
ley. His father was a well-to-do farmer and stockraiser. He passed his boyhood upon
the home farm, in his native village, where he received the rudiments of a common
school education. He was always fond of horses, and understood them, and his am-
bition as he grew up, was to be a stage driver, the business of staging being then in its
prime. At the age of eighteen he went to Toledo, Ohio; from there to Chicago, and
thence to Springfield, Illinois, as an employee of various stage companies. His next
move was to Missouri, with the old Frink and Walker stages, and at Weston, in that
state, he was promoted from local agent to division superintendent of his company.
Mr. Bromley came to Utah in charge of the monthly mail, driving a mail coach
and six mules, with changes at Laramie, Kearney and Bridger. This journey began on
the 14th of June and ended on the 28th of July. He remained with the Overland
Stage Company until 1850, when the mail was taken off between Independence and Salt
Lake City, and he went into the employment of the Pacific Wagon Road Expedition, of
which William J. Moraran was superintendent and J. W. Lander chief engineer. The
expedition started in May, 1857. It was intercepted on the Sweetwater, by the news of
the coming of Johnston's army. Mr. Bromley, who was not then a Latter-day Saint,
was sent to meet the troops, and was given the position of guide to the armv. At South
Pass, General Johnston took charge of the three hundred and twenty-five mules and
forty-two wagons, there encamped, and this broke up the Pacific Wagon Road Ex-
pedition, whose members returned and wintered at Fort Bridger.
In the spring, Mr. Bromley went to work for J. M. Hockaday, who had been to
Washington and had the mail route restored between Atchison and Salt Lake City.
Says our subject: "I was put in charge of the road; 1 bought mules, built stations,
c7
£^*-?
HISTORY OF UTAH. 429
fought Indians and did even-thing that came in the line of my duty. I started from
Atchison, and, as I got one division in order, I was sent to the nest, until, finally, I was
permanently located on the Salt Lake division; having charge of the road from Pacific
Springs to Salt Lake City, until the spring of 18G4. In 1861 the Pony express was put
on. I bought the horses in Salt Lake, to stock the line to Port Laramie, -•id hired many
of Utah's young men to ride those horses. Nobly and well they did thew work."
Mr. Bromley now entered the state of wedlock. The date of his marriage was
August 12, 1861; his wife, Elizabeth Major Stevenson, by whom he became the father
of two sons and two daughters. In 1864, the veteran stage driver was sent by Ben Hol-
laday to lay out a stage roule to Walla Walla and Virginia City, Montana. Leaving
Salt Lake on the 12th of March, he located and built fifty-six new stations on those
lines, and on the 1st of July started the mails from Walla Walla, Virginia City and Salt
Lake. Every mail arrived at its destination on schedule time. He called it the best job
of the kind he had ever done on such short notice.
About this time he resolved to go into business for himself. He tried merchandis-
ing for a while, with indifferent success, and then ran a hot«l. Later, he settled down
to ranching, at his old home, at the mouth of the canyon, where the remainder of his days
were peacefully spent. A few years before his death he yielded to a religious convic-
tion that had gradually possessed him. and became a member of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints. His widow, Mrs. E. M. Bromley, still resides on the old
homestead.
JOHN CROFT.
JOHN CROFT, of Morgan County, came to Utah, from England, in September, 1860.
He was born at Primrose Hill, Bingley Parish, Yorkshire, July 16, 1836. His
father, John Croft, was a coachman. His mother, Ann Howland Croft, was a de-
cendant of John Howlaud, who came over to America in the "Mayflower." The
subject of this sketch had an only brother, two and a half years younger than himself.
This brother, Howland Croft, crossed the Atlantic in 1867, and in 1894 was manager and
senior proprietor of the Linden Worsted Mills, Camden, New Jersey.
When John was two years old, he moved with his parents to Wilsden, in Yorkshire.
When he was six years of age his father was killed by an accident. Soon after this, the
boy was put to work in a worsted mill, working as a ''half timer," eight hours a day,
and attending, two hours a day, the national school at Wilsden. When he was twelve,
his mother died, and he went to live with his eldest sister, at Huddersfield. There he
was put to work in a large tobbacco factory. He was the only employee of the estab-
lishment that did not use the weed. During this period, he attended night school and
Sabbath school. At seventeen he was apprenticed to a joiner and builder, and at the
end of three years was released and went to Liverpool to work at his trade. He was a
natural mechanic. After a few months service, he was appointed foreman for the firm
that employed him.
It was at this time that he first heard the doctrines of the Latter-day Saints, taught
by one of the workmen, and after duly investigatingthe same, he was baptized June 27,
1856. His employer was much displeased, when he learned what had taken place, and
offered him substantial inducements to leave the Latter-day Saints and join the Epis-
copalians, but Mr. Croft declined the offer. Giving up his situation at Liverpool, he
went to Manchester, where he worked on the Exposition building, and labored as a
traveling Elder iu the Manchester conference. On January 1, 1858, he was made
president of that conference. Just a week later he became a married man, wedding
Miss Amelia Mitchell, of Manchester. He presided there until released to come
to Utah. Accompanied by his wife, he crossed the ocean in a ship-load of Latter-day
Saints, presided over by Elder J. D. Ross, whose assistant he was during the voyage.
It began at Liverpool on the 30th of March, and ended at New York on the 1st of May,
1860. On the plains he was captain of the guard. The journey from Florence to Salt
Lake City terminated on the 2nd of September.
430 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Mr. Croft resided, for a while, in the Eighth Ward, and was a carpenter on the Pub-
lic Works. In April, 1861, he moved to Weber Valley, which was then in Davis County,
settling at Weber City, now Peterson, Morgan County, with John Bond and others.
There he followed farming, with occasional johs of carpentering, for a livelihood. He
experienced the usual vicissitudes of pioneer life, sometimes being without flour for sev-
eral months, and subsisting upon pigweeds and potatoes. He assisted in surveying
Weber City and Enterprise, and helped to construct the ditches that supply those places
with irrigating water. He was watertnaster of the Enterprise Bottom ditch, and the
original promoter of the Enterprise Bench ditch, the latter seven miles long and mostly on
the mountain side. It is the longest irrigating canal in Morgan County. By means of
it, several hundred acres of arid land have been made valuable for farming purposes.
The cost of construction was over four thousand dollars.
Mr. Croft has always been interested in education. He favored a free school sys-
tem, and for twenty years worked faithfully for its establishment. He helped to build
the first school house in Weber Valley, and was elected one of the original board of
school trustees. He opened the first Sabbath schooi in Weber Valley in 1863, and be-
came first assistant superintendent of Sunday schools for Morgan Stake. He was a
home missionary of that Stake for several years, and was first counselor to Bishop John
K. Hall, of Enterprise Ward, from its organization up to the year 1888. From 1877 to
1878, he was justice of the peace for Petersjn precinct; and from 1879 to 1881, a
selectman for Morgan County. Among his recent labors are the search for, and discov-
ery of, artesian wells and coal mines, in the development of which he has spent thous-
ands of dollars. He has always been a liberal donor for public purposes. One of his
latest official appointments was that of postmaster of Peterson. Mr. Croft is the father
of eleven childien.
CYRUS SANFORD.
^^\YRUS SANFORD, of Springville. is the son of Ira Sanford and his wife Margaret
l^/ Bradenburg, and was born at Bristol, Addison County, Vermont, December 16,
^"^ 1813. His childhood was passed at Canton, St. Lawrence County, New York,
where he worked with his father, who was a farmer and potash monger. Stock-
raising and farming placed the family in moderate circumstances, and the boy was
enabled to attend school. Having attained the age of twenty-one he moved to Schuyler
County, Illinois, where he continued farming. At Steam Mill Branch, Adams County,
in the year 1840, he was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Four years prior, in October, 1836, he had married Sylvia Elmina Stockwell, who be-
came the mother of his nine children.
In the exodus of the Saints to the West, Mr. Sanford and his wife left Illinois,
crossing the Mississippi at Warsaw. They were fitted out with two wagons, two yoke of
cattle and a span of horses. Mrs. Sanford had charge of one wagon and five children
on the journey to the Missouri. Mr. Sanford was ill when the Mormon Battalion was
organized, or in all probability he would have been a member of that organization. He
and his family remained at Council Bluffs three years before undertaking to traverse the
western plains. William Snow was captain of the Hundred and James McLellan captain
of the Fifty, in which they came to Utah. Cholera attacked the camp and fifteen per-
sons died. About the middle of October, 1850, the company reached Salt Lake City.
The Sanfords settled at Springville, which was then called Hobble Creek. The head
of the house was one of those who went with Anson Call to locate the town of Fillmore.
He was successively captain and major of militia, and in the Blackhawk and Walker
Indian wars carried express and saw the thickest of the fighting. He was constable of
Springville for four years, city marshal for a like period, mayor for the same length of
time, and justice of the peace for fourteen years. It was Mayor Sanford who entered
the townsite. He assisted the early emigration from the frontier, and in 1871-2 fulfilled
^^^Y^W^^^-vg
H1ST0KY OF UTAH. 431
a brief mission to the State of Illinois, where he obtained his genealogy. In the Church
his offices are those of Seventy and High Priest, to the former of which he was ordained
about lS-Ki. and to the latter in 1S61.
JOHN VICKERS.
0ATERIALS have not been furnished for an extended biography of this veteran,
an early and prominent citizen of Nephi, and a settler in Utah since 1852. In
this brief mention it can only be said of him that he was born December 16,
1S22. at South Clefton. Nottingham, England, and became a Latter-day Saint
February 16, 1S4S. He emigrated from his native land in October. 1S50. and was
aboard the ship '"James Pennil*' when she was dismasted in the Gulf of Mexico. He
arrived at St. Louis in December of the same year, and in 1S52 came to Utah, reaching
Salt Lake City on the third day of September. In the latter part of the same month he
took up his residence at Nephi, and has resided there since that time. He saw active
service as a militiaman during the Blackhawk and Walker Indian wars, and has held
various ecclesiastical positions. He was called to labor in the St. George and Manti
Temples, and has done considerable work in those sacred edifices. He has six living
children, all residing in Nephi.
WILLIAM SPICER.
Q VETERAN of the handcart year — 1S56 — the year that he crossed the plains and
settled in Utah. — William Spicer is a native of Ducksford. Cambridgeshire, Eng-
land, where he was born April 23. 1S27. His parents were David and Rachel
Shaw Spicer. Their occupation was farming and their circumstances fairly good.
William received a common school education, and passed his boyhood and early man-
hood at various employments. While a young man he became connected with the Lon-
don police force, and afterwards engaged in the grain business at Shoreditch. On the
21st of June, 1S47, he married Elizabeth "Mary Cripps. Having becomfe a Latter-day
Saint he was ordained an Elder in the Finsburv Branch, May 12, 1851. Five years later
he and his wife emigrated to America.
Sailing from Liverpool on the 25th of May, by way of Boston and Iowa City, they
reached Florence, Nebraska, on the 4th of September. Most of the season's emigration
for Utah crossed the plains with handcarts, and the two rear companies, commanded by
Captain Willey and Captain Martin, met with a grievous disaster, through being belated
and caught in the early snows while nearing the Rocky Mountains. The Spicers were
in Captain Hunt's wagon company, which left the frontier shortly after the last handcart
company had departed. Says our subject: "On October 20. at the last crossing of the
Platte, we were overtaken by a severe snow storm, which necessitated the suspension of
travel for four days. There we lost many head of stock. We were glad to make beef
of the dead animals, on account of the scarcity of provisions. At this place we over-
took the last handcart company. (Martin's^ and assisted in getting the company across
the river. I carried many on my back, and assisted others with their carts, making
about sixty trips across the water. We contended with severe frost and snow from this
point until our arrival at Devil's Gate, where we encountered another severe storm. During
our stay at Pacific Springs we lost the best of our remaining cattle, four head of which
returned to Devil's Gate, a distance pf about eighty miles, and furnished oeef to the
guard remaining there in charge of the emigrant property, who became almost destitute
of provisions. From Pacific Springs west our company, being short of teams, had great
difficulty in traveling. At Sandy we received cattle from Fort Supply, which brought
us to Fort Bridger, and there we remained until teams and supplies came from Salt
Lake City. We reached our journey's end on the loth of December."
432 ' HISTORY OF UTAH.
Mr. Spicer settled at Salt Lake City, which has ever since been his home. In the
spring of 1857 he volunteered to assist in establishing the Brigbam Young Express Com-
pany eastward, and on the return trip to bring freight and property left at Devil's Gate
by the previous season's emigration. This duty he faithfully performed. During the
general move in 1858 he camped on the Utah Lake bottoms, but returned to Salt Lake
in July of the same year, and immediately after engaged in the tanning business for
Cummings aud Jones, working for them, for the Church tannery, and for others in that
line of labor for several years. His natural vocation, however, was farming, and to this
he returned, and has pursued it more or less continuously up to the present. Since set-
tling in Utah he has made three short visits to his native laud— the first in May, 1876,
the second in June, 1890, and the third in June, 1898. He has also visited California.
He now holds the office of a High Priest, to which he was ordained June 27. 1891.
Though advanced in years, he is still hale and hearty, and has a sturdy, prepossessing
appearance, rare among men of his age and experience. He is an honest, upright man,
much respected and esteemed.
JAMES ARMSTRONG.
^^HE subject of this sketch was originally from England, and is today a well-to-do
C*?\ citizen of Ephraim, Sanpete County, where he has lived since the time of "The
ii Move." He was born in St. Mary's Parish, Carlisle, Cumberland County, No-
vember 24, 1844. His lather, William Armstrong, was a native of Glasgow, and
his mother, Agnes Smith Parker Armstrong, also of Scotch descent, though born in the
city of Carlisle. Her father, John Parker, was in America in the service of King George
during the war of 1812, and embraced Mormonism in England in 1840, dying in the
faith in 1848. Other members of the family were valiant fighters on land and sea. Wil-
liam and Agnes Armstrong were married at St. Mary's Church, December 23, 1843.
Their first child, James, was born eleven months later. Their second child. Ann, and
their third child, Robert, were also born in Carlisle. The last-named died a few days
after his birth. The parents had become Latter-day Saints some years before.
Bound for Utah, they sailed from Liverpool on the ship "Zetland," January 28,
1849. They were accompanied by their two children, James and Ann, and by two of
Mrs. Armstrong's brothers, John and Thomas, and were listed in a company of Saints
under President Orson Spencer. By way of New Orleans they reached St. Louis on the
13th of April. There the cholera was raging, and on the 28th of June the little girl,
Ann Armstrong, fell a victim to the malady. The husband and father died on the 22nd
of September. In the spring of 1850 his widow gave birth to a son, who was named
for his deceased sire. Delayed by these vicissitudes, the family remained in St. Louis
for several years, suffering other calamities during the period of their residence there.
Soon after the death of her husband Mrs. Armstrong moved to another part of the city,
but was barely settled when a fire destroyed most of her effects, while thieves preyed
upon the portion saved from the flames. At this trying time she found a friend in a
Presbyterian minister, who supplied the immediate wants of the family and obtained
employment for the widow, now thrown upon her own resources. The journey to Utah
was resumed in 1854, in a company led by Horace S. Eldredge, whose traveling com-
panion was Orson Pratt. Early in October it ended at Salt Lake City.
Here the Armstrong family resided until 1858, when they settled in Sanpete County.
They experienced poverty, Indian raids and various other hardships incident to the
redemption of that once arid section. They made their home at Ephraim. School facil-
ities were meagre, and James received but little education, attending school in wiuter
and working at whatever he could in summer. He had had some schooling in St. Louis.
He was a natural mechanic and an industrious laborer. In the Blackhawk war he saw
active service, and twice during engagements with the Indians narrowly escaped with his
life. At one time a bullet pierced his hat, aud on another occasion one passed through
his sleeve next to his body.
At Salt Lake City, in August, 1871, James Armstrong was married to Annie K.
.
.H -W*k
-Crv\j
HISTORY OF UTAH. 433
Olson, the eldest daughter of Peter K. and Annie Olson, of Ephraim. Eleven children
have blessed their union, and of these seven are living. In the Church Mr. Armstrong
holds the office of a Seventy. He has repeatedly been elected to the city council, first
as a People's party man for 1888 and 1889, and next as a Democrat for 1896 and 1897.
As a farmer he has under cultivation about one hundred and fifty acres of land, and
raises yearly between two and three thousand bushels of grain, with seventy or eighty
tons of hay. He has also prospered in the sheep industrj7. He and his partner are the
owners of about four thousand head of sheep.
ROBERT ALDOUS.
^"''HIS veteran, who in 1853 saw the end of his long and. wearisome journey across
f^D the western plains, was born in Kelsale, Suffolk, England, July 17, 1811. His
|| parents, James and Mary Page Aldous, were in good circumstances, the father,
a carpenter by trade, occupying the position of chief steward to the Rev. L. R.
Brown at Huntington. Robert received such an education as the common schools of his
vicinity could afford, and at the age of seventeen made Fen Stanton, Huntingtonshire,
his place of residence. There he learned carpenteriug, and assisted his father on the
Br.iwn estate. He first heard the Gospel preached by a Mormon Elder in front of his
father's house. He was baptized a Latter day Saint December 23, 1849. Six months
later he was ordained an Elder, and soon after was appointed president of the Fen Stan-
ton Branch. The duties of that office he faithfully discharged as long as he remained in
his native land.
He emigrated to America about 1851, and after tarrying two years in St. Louis
started for Utah in a company led by Claudius V. Spencer. His outfit consisted of a
wagon, a yoke of oxen and a cow. The only exciting incident of the journey was when
the travelers met a band of five hundred Indians, whom they placated with gifts of sugar
and tobacco, and were allowed to pass on unmolested. The date of arrival at Salt Lake
City was September 14, 1853. After a month's stay in the city Mr. Aldous moved to
Ogden, and thence went to Bingham's Fort, now Lynne. There he remained seven
years. In 1862 he settled in his present home, Huntsville, of which place he has ever
since been a prominent citizen. He has been a married man since 1835, the maiden
name of his wife being Mary Ann Parkin. They are the parents of six children.
Since his arrival in Utah Mr. Aldous has labored at various employments — first upon
the public works at Salt Lake City, then upon the Ogden Tabernacle, and in the opening
of Ogden Canyon, where he superintended the building of three bridges. He helped to
build the first log school house in Huntsville, and superintended the building of a rock
school house at the same place; also assisting with his means in the erection of the
present meeting house and other edifices. He was one of the first school teachers in the
town, and for five years was water master, serving in both positions without compensa-
tion. In the Church he has held successively the offices of Elder, Seventy and High
Priest.
THOMAS HENRY WILSON.
QMONG the arrivals at Salt Lake City in the fall of 1855 was Thomas H. Wilson, a
young Englishman, then in the twenty-sixth year of his age. A native of
Swainby, Yorkshire, he was born April 14, 1830, the son of John and Ann Wil-
son, who were farm laborers. At Cleveland, in his native shire, he received
when a boy a limited education, and spent, the greater part of his time until his twenty-
fifth year in following the vocation of his parents. The last three years of that period
434 HISTORY OF UTAH.
were passed in contracting, draining and harvesting. His father was a Wesleyan Meth-
odist, but prior to becoming a Latter-day Saint Thomas professed no religion. He was
baptized at Faceby, in Yorkshire, January 1, 1855.
The same year, on the 27th of February, he started for Utah, sailing from Liverpool
and landing at Philadelphia, with a company of Saints in charge of Elder John S. Full-
mer. By way of Pittsburgh and St. Louis, they reached Atchison, and under the direc-
tion of Captain Richard Ballantyne, left Mormon Grove early in July. Mr. Wilson, who
emigrated by means of the Perpetual Emigrating Fund, drove a Church baggage wagon
from that point to Salt Lake City, where he arrived on the 25th of September.
He settled permanently at Payson, where he arrived October 22, 1855. He was at
Salt Lake City late in 1856 — the year of the handcart disaster— and from the 3rd to the
17th of December was engaged in helping Captain Hodgett's and Captain Hunt's wagon
companies from Fort Bridger. The relief company had six wagon loads of flour from
Payson. During this trip Mr. Wilson suffered much from cold and exposure. The next
winter found him in Echo canyon, serving in the Utah County cavalry, under Captain
William Maxwell, in the campaign against Johnston's army. Prior and subsequent to
that time he saw service in the Indian wars. He married on July 17, 1859, Caroline
Annie Merchant, a native of Allen River, New South Wales, Australia. They have had
seven sons and three daughters.
From 1873 to 1881 Mr. Wilson served as justice of the peace for the precinct of
Payson, and made the first justice's docket kept there. From 1877 to 1883 he was alder-
man and ex-officio member of the city council, and from 1887 to 1891 city justice of the
peace. Again he was in the city council in 1891, 1892 and 1893, and from 1S94 to 1898
was the city's prosecuting attorney. In November, 1898 he was re-elected precinct jus-
tice of the peace. In the Church, prior to being ordained a Seventy, May 24, 1857, he
had served in all the offices of the Lesser Priesthood. On November 26, 1893, he was
ordained a High Priest, which office he holds at the present time.
THOMAS WHEELER.
^^NAPTAIN of militia, justice of the peace and Bishop's counselor are among the titles
l€y borne by Thomas Wheeler, of South Cottonwood, during his residence in Utah.
^"^^ He came from England, where he was born in the parish of Little Birch, Here-
fordshire, on the 25th of January, 1830. His father was Samuel Wheeler, a
farmer, and in his boyhood Thomas had to help him in that kind of work. He was
also the main assistant of his mother, Sarah Walters Wheeler, in her household duties.
The father was thrifty, providing well- for his family, and managing to save a little
money and let it out at interest; but as he died about the year 1844, leaving another son
who was feeble, the work and business of the farm largely devolved upon Thomas, then
between fourteen and fifteen years of age.
While still in England he became a Latter-day Saint. He married on January 23,
1853, Ann Walker, who has borne him five sons and four daughters. A month after his
marriage he and his wife, with her father and others, sailed from Liverpool for New
Orleans, whence they steamed up the Mississippi, and by way of Keokuk reached Coun-
cil Bluffs, joining there a company of wagons commanded by Claudius V. Spencer, with
whom they crossed the plains, arriving at Salt Lake City on the 20th of September.
Mr. Wheeler settled first in the Sixteenth Ward. He worked upon the Spanish wall
that was being built around the city, and at other jobs, until the fall of 1855, when he
moved to South Cottonwood. He was one of those present with Governor Brigham
Young in Big Bottonwood Canyon when word came that Johnston's army was on its
way to exterminate the Mormons. As one of the militia he went out to meet the troops,
and remained in Echo Canyon during the winter. At home he carried on farming and
stock raising, and also engaged in the butchering business.
In the Church Mr. Wheeler has held the offices of Priest, Seventy and High Priest.
In 1877 he became first counselor to Bishop Joseph S. Rawlins, holding that office for
many years. From 1875 to 1877 he was absent on a mission to Great Britain, laboring
part of the time as traveling Elder in the Birmingham conference, and the rest of the
g/^<?™a^ c/t /?A*JXfi>s
■
,c=i
K. v\P*-
HISTORY OF UTAH. 435
lime as president of that conference. He has been watermaster, road supervisor, pound
keeper and justice of the peace. At one time he was captain of the South Cottonwood
militia. He is recognized as a good citizen, a man of integrity, a true friend and a faith-
ful public officer.
WILLIAM BARTLETT.
^H.HE youngest of six children, born to Joseph and Sarah Castle Bartlett, the subject
V$) of this sketch opened his eyes to the light, March 15, 1846. His birthplace was
if Kingtown, Warwickshire, England. At the time of his birth, his parents were
Latter-day Saints, and had been since 1837. At eight years of age, William was
baptized into the Church, and about that time he started to work for a farmer in the
neighborhood. His duty was to scare the crows and other birds off the newly planted
ground and ripening grain. He next drove team for another farmer, and then went to
work for Lord Willaby, on his estate between Kingtown and Warwick. He had no
chance for schooling. His parents were very poor, and were trying to save means to
emigrate to Utah. He endeavored to assist them. Two of his brothers, George and
Thomas, were already in America. The latter had sailed at the age of sixteen, and dur-
ing a storm at sea, had had his leg broken by the falling of the main mast of the vessel.
Landing at New York, he was kindly cared for until his limb was strong again, when he
went to work, and after paying the expenses incurred by his accident, saved money and
sent it home, to help the rest of the family to emigrate. Leaving New York, he made
his way westward, but was never heard from again. William, with his father and
mother, left England in the spring of 1858, and after a rough voyage of eight weeks,
reached New York, and from there went to Indiana, where they remained two years,
until they had accumulated sufficient means to bring them to Utah.
Says Mr. Bartlett: " In the early part of 18b'0 we left for Salt Lake City, in a
company of Saints, my father and another man having purchased a team and wagon for
the journey. Myself and another boy drove team to work our way across the plains.
This was the first year that ox teams were sent to meet the Saints; also the last year
that handcarts were used. We left Council Bluffs in June, and arrived at Salt Lake City
in September. We had no friends and knew not where to go. The man with whom my
father owned a share in the team and wagon, desired to buy from him, and promised to
pay part in money. My father consented, and the man drove off, but never fulfilled his
promise to pay. We were left in a destitute condition, with not a cent of money, noth-
ing to eat, no place to go, and scarcely anything to wear."
He then proceeds to tell how he and his father got work from Bishop Thurston,
in Weber Valley, receiving in return, their board and clothing, necessarily of the coars-
est kind. They roomed in a wagon box until Christmas, and then, with logs kindly fur-
nished them by the Bishop, put up a rude hut, in which they lived the rest of the winter.
Boiled wheat was their ouly diet part of the time. Mrs. Bartlett, the mother, lost her
health during that period of poverty and privation. The father and son continued to
work for Bishop Thurston, and afterwards were employed by Colonel Little and a Mr.
Meacham, breaking land, fencing and farming, until, finally, they procured a yoke of
cattle, a piece of ground, and a log house of their own. From that time they began
working for themselves.
In 1863, William Bartlett drove team to and from the Missouri river, for Joseph
Noble, of Bountiful, bringing immigration to Utah. Going, the Indians stole their horses;
they were delayed two months on the Missouri, awaiting the arrival of the immigrants
from Liverpool; and coming, were halted by a company of Union troops, who com-
pelled the teamsters to take an oath that they would not feed or in anyway sustain a
Southern soldier. As William was not of age, he was not required to take this oath.
The next spring he sent his own team back to meet the emigrants, and when they re-
turned in the fall, they were poor, broken down and useless. Money was exceedingly
scarce. He received word from Salt Lake City that there were two letters in the post-
office for members of the family, with twenty-five cents due on each letter. As they had
no cash, and nothing that would sell for cash, except a little flaxseed, he took about
436 HISTORY OF UTAH.
half a bushel on his shoulder, and trudged with it all the way to Salt Lake, where he ob-
tained a little money and secured the letters. There were seasons of high water that
brought bounteous harvests, and grasshopper raids that left the people almost destitute.
The year the railroad was built across Utah, Mr. Bartlett worked a while on the
grade, and then went back to the railroad terminus — Benton, on the North Platte — to
meet a company of immigrants. Arriving there, he and his companions learned to their
dismay, that the company had not left Liverpool, and for two months they had to care
for their cattle and find feed for them, while waiting for the emigration. He was com-
pensated, however, by meeting on this trip, his future wife, Charlotte Robertson, who
came with her mother, brother and sisters, from Scotland, that season. They were
married at Salt Lake City, October 12, 1868.
The young couple remained but five weeks in Weber Valley, and then moved to
Lake Town, Bear Lake Valley, where seven families had settled before them. On the
way, they barely escaped freezing to death, in a terrible snow storm. The winter was
very severe; their wheat had all been eaten by the grasshoppers; but there was plenty
of fish in the lake, which could be caught in the tributary streams, by means of willow
baskets. They lived in a log hut which they found empty, and endured all manner of
hardships. "In the summer, hundrers of Indians came into the valley. They were of
manj' different tribes, and met for the purpose of making peace with each other. While
this was a good thing for the Indians, it was a bad thing for us — they begged so much
and were so impudent and threatening. When the women were at home alone, they had
to lock the doors. The whites were nearly starved; the Indians also, and, in order to
feed them, we had to go fishing, and divide the proceeds with them. Before they left,
they began to steal our cattle; and when they started off, some of them came back one
night and stole five of our horses. This left me without a team again. On September
25, 1809, our first child, a daughter, was born. That fall the grasshoppers came by the
million, and the next year they ate everything as fast as it grew."
In the spring of 1872, Mr. Bartlett procured a horse team from his father, and
moved to Almy, Wyoming, locating on a stock ranch, where he met with fair success,
and made a comfortable living for his family. His mother died there, August 7, 1874.
About three years later, his brother George died, leaving his father and himself the only
ones of the family alive. He resided on his ranch twelve years. During most of that
time, he was a home missionary of the Almy Ward.
Next, he procured a farm at Kanesville, near Ogden, and, in June, 1884, moved his
family to his new home. There ho was made first assistant superintendent of the Sunday
school. His father, who lived with him, died May 4, 1887. His own family consisted
of his wife, three sons and six daughters. Mr. Bartlett, at last accounts, was still resid-
ing at Kanesville, one of the worthy and substantial citizens of that place.
RUFUS ALBERN ALLEN.
kUMBERED among the members of the Constitutional Convention of 1895 was Hon.
Rufus A. Allen, now of Kingston, Piute County, a native son of the Territory
which he helped to invest with Statehood. He had been probate judge prior to
being sent to the Convention, and was the Bishop of his Ward at the time of his
election. In addition to much clerical and judicial work, the former as assessor and
collector, he has followed more or less continuously the avocation of a farmer, leading
a life of steadiness and sobriety.
The son of Rufus C. Allen and his wife Lavenia H. Yearsley, he was born at Old
Harmony, Washington County, Utah, in the year 1856. His father was a High Councilor
of the Stake. A year later his parents moved to Pinto Creek, and later to the city of
Ogden, where at four years of age the boy began going to school. His school days, how-
ever, were of short duration. In 1861 he went with his parents to an unsettled part of
Washington County, called Cottonwood Creek, there to reside; and in 1862 the family
moved to a ranch on Laverkin Creek, in the same County. The fall of the ensuing year
saw them on North Creek, near Virgen City, where Rufus was baptized a Latter-day
Saint. In 1866, owing to the depredations of the Piute and Navajo Indians, the Aliens
o^^y^~
7/^b
y^^H-e^
HISTORY OF UTAH. 437
settled in Kanarra. At the age of thirteen the lad shouldered his musket and stood guard
night and day during the troubles of those times. As a boy he experienced the life of a
pioneer, and as a growing youth many of its hardships and vicissitudes.
When the United Order was organized in 1874, young Allen was one of its members.
He labored upon a farm, under the auspices of that organization, and never regretted
his experience therein. Hurt by a runaway accident in 1875. he was temporarily dis-
abled for farm work, and after being bed-ridden for two months, as soon as strong enough
he was sent to the University of Deseret. He finished a year's course as a normal
student, at Salt Lake City, never missing an hour of school, and never failing in prep-
aration. This was the close of his school life. Shortly after returning home, in the
fall of 1877, he was called to work on the Manti Temple, and labored there about three
months.
In the spring of 1878 Rufus and his brother, C. W. Allen, settled on the Sevier
River, at Junction, where they tilled the soil and in other ways prepared permanent places
of residence. On June 18, 1879, he married Miss Sarah Ann Higgins, of Kanarra, the
ceremony taking place in the St. George Temple. His career as a public official began
in August, 1880, when he was elected assessor and collector of Piute County. After
serving three years in that capacity he was chosen probate judge. He knew comparative-
ly nothing of the new duties devolving upon him, but by hard study became acquainted
with the requirements of the position, and filled it to the satisfaction of his constituents.
He was probate judge for seven years, and was then re-elected assessor and collector.
At the end of a four years term he was chosen to represent his district in the Constitu-
tional Convention. His first experience in the Bishopric was as counselor to Bishop
William King, from 1883 to 1837. He then succeeded Bishop King, and is the
present Bishop of Kingston, in Panguitch Stake.
WILLIAM HYRUM GRIFFIN.
klSHOP Griffin, of Newton, is a native of Naunton, Beachamp, Worcestershire Eng-
fSj land, and was born November 3, 1848. His father's name was William Griffin,
and his mother's maiden name Mary Pitts. They were very poor, the father work-
ing on a farm for small wages, and the mother doing washing and other house
work to support the family. As soon as their little son was able he did what he could to
help them. His boyhood and youth were passed amid scenes of toil and poverty, with
little or no pleasure to enliven them. He had no schooling, save in the Church of Eng-
land Sunday school that he attended. He began working at eight years of age, herding
cows and pigs at two cents a day. At ten he worked on a farm continuing at that labor
for five years. Subsequently he was employed in a grist mill. Farming was his natural
vocation. He had to work so hard that finally he was glad to leave his native land, in
the hope of bettering his fortune. "I thought very little of religion at that time," said
he, "and would have gone any where for a change."
Sailing from Liverpool in May, 18C4, at the end of six weeks he landed at New York,
with a sigh of relief, for he had had a hard experience on the ocean, being sick most of
the time. During the voyage the ship caught fire, and though the flames were soon sub-
dued, cooking was stopped for three days, causing considerable inconvenience. At Omaha,
to which point he proceeded by rail, young Griffin joined a private company in charge of
James R. Miller, for whom he drove team across the plains. His experience was that of
the average teamster, driving day- times and taking his turn as herdsman every fourth or
fifth night. He arrived at Salt Lake City in October.
He settled first at Mill Creek, the home of his employer, Mr. Miller, but in Novem-
ber, 1867, moved to Clarkston, where he resided until April, 1871, when he took up his
residence in the neighboring town of Newton. By this time he had become a zealous
Latter-day Saint. On the 14th of June, 1877, he was made second counselor to Bishop
William P. Rigby, and on the 24th of June, 1884, first counselor to Bishop Hans Funk.
He was himself set apart as Bishop of Newton on the 5th of February, 1893.
Bishop Griffin became a married man while a resident of Clarkston, his first wife be-
ing Bessie Threhren. They were wedded October 3, 1870, and have had three children.
438 HISTORY OF UTAH.
He subsequently practiced plural marriage, and in consequence served three and a half
years in the penitentiary. Says he: "I was treated well while in the 'pen' but I have
no desire to go there again. My life in Utah has been a happy one; I have had good
health and very little trouble, everything moving smoothly along."
JAMES FISHER.
JAMES FISHER, of Meadowville, is of Scottish birth, the place of his nativity being
Pinkiln, Minegaff; the date, January 14, 1820. His father was Joseph Fisher, and
his mother as a maiden Margaret Lewis. The father, a man of feeble health, varied
his occupation between school teaching and weaving. The family were in poor
circumstances. In 1823 they migrated to Ireland, but two 3'ears later re-crossed the
channel and settled near Oldham in Lancashire. Before James had completed his ninth
year he was put to work in a cotton mill, at which business he worked for twenty years,
becoming a first class cotton spinner. Most of the schooling he received was in Sabbath
and night schools. He was strongly inclined to mechanism.
He became a Latter-day Saint at Oldham in 1843, and was then and there ordained
a Deacon in the Church. A year later he wedded Hannah, daughter of William and
Sarah L. Stott. The date of the marriage was November 17, 1844. It has been a
happy union, and his wife has borne him five children. He crossed the Atlantic in
1849. During the voyage to New Orleans there were forty two deaths from cholera.
Mr. and Mrs. Fisher, who then had but one child, wintered at St. Louis, where he wai
carpenter on a beil boat employed in raising the wreckage of steamboats burned and
sunk during the great fire of 1848. In 1850 the family settled about six miles south of
Kanesville, in Iowa, and a year later Mr. Fisher, then an Elder, was appointed Bishop
of Highland Grove, which position he held until coming to Utah in 1852. He left the
Missouri River on the 4th of July, and arrived at Salt Lake City early in October.
The Fisher family, after a few days' rest, moved south to Fillmore, where a settle-
ment had recently been formed. Many hardships were experienced in building up the
country. The nearest settlement was Nephi, where all the milling had to be done.
During the winter of 1852-3 half the settlers were entirely out of flour, and there was
but little left among the remainder. Six or eight wagons were loaded with wheat to be
floured at Nephi. In two days they reached Round Valley, where Scipio now stands.
A severe snow storm overtook them in the night, and continued next day, causing much
difficulty in finding their strayed oxen. Teams and teamsters, worn out from wallowing
through the snow, then retraced their weary steps to Fillmore. The people there had
to grind wheat for bread in coffee mills for several weeks, until a small pair of burrs
could be hewn from native rock and set to work, when they were able to obtain their
chopped feed in larger quantities. In 1853 there was a general Indian uprising. How
the settlers fought and toiled in those times has been told in other pages.
In the spring of 1865, having purchased a town lot and farm in Meadowville, eight
miles south of Fillmore, Mr. Fisher moved his family to that place, where he has since
resided. He then held the office of a Seventy, having been ordained on New Year's
day, 1857. At Meadowville he acted as Ward Teacher ten or twelve years, and in July,
1877, was ordained a High Priest and set apart as first counselor to the Bishop, serving
about twelve years in that capacity. In business he has been connected with co-opera-
tive institutions, and has followed with success merchandising as w«ll as farming and
stock raising.
THOMAS F H. MORTON.
fHE late T. F. H. Morton was formerly well known as the manager of the City Liq-
uor Store, conducted by the corporation of Salt Lake City. Afterwards he was in
the liquor business on his own account, but quit it from conscientious scruples, and
spent the remainder of his life as a farmer. He was a good and worthy man, and
lived and died respected and esteemed. His real name was Thomas Fincher Harry. He
& tftr
HISTORY OF UTAH. 439
was the son of William Harry and his wife Hannah Tanner. Upon his petition the nam©
Morton was added at the twentieth session of the Territorial legislature.
A native of the State of Ohio, he was born at Aldridge's Run, Penu Township, Mor-
gan County, September 27, 1832. He passed his boyhood at and around Cheneyville,
and his early manhood on Federal Creek. At ten years of age he was left motherless.
His father, a weaver by trade, was engaged also in agriculture, and Thomas worked upon
the farm in summer and attended school in winter. He received a good common educa-
tion, and while yet a young man taught school. He led a moral life, and was reared a
Quaker, though he never really belonged to any religious denomination until he embraced
Mormonism. In his twenty-second year, March 9, 1854, he married Mary Ann Croy,
who became the mother of seven children.
Having joined the Latter-day Saints, he was desirous of uniting himself with the
body of the Church, and accordingly set out for Utah, starting on the 23rd of August,
1865. He had his own outfit and drove his ofd ox team, crossing the plains in Sidney
Willis' company, under the direction of Bishop Thomas Taylor. A stampede of cattle
occurred on the way, causing a number of severe casualties and a delay of two days for
the repairing of broken wagons. Thomas escaped with a fractured collarbone. He
reached Salt Lake City on the 29th of November.
For many years he resided in the Third Ward. He was naturally inclined to mer-
chandising, but does not seem to have carried it on in Utah, except in the line of business
previously mentioned. On June 15, 1874, he married Julia Ann Conley, who became the
mother of five children. From October, 1876, to June, 1877, he was absent from home
on a mission to the Eastern States.
In April, 1878, he moved with his family to Farmers' Ward, in the southern suburbs
of Salt Lake City. Another mission, this time to Great Britain, took him from home in
April, 1834, and from it he returned in June, 1886. He held the office of a Seventy in
the Church, and was one of the Presidents of the Fourth Quorum. For the sake of his
religion he suffered fine and imprisonment during the anti"polygamy crusade, his convic-
tion for unlawful cohabitation being on the 1st of October, 1886. The remainder of his
days were spent in the quietude of home life and in the peaceful pursuits of farming.
ORIN ALONZO PERRY.
yrNTIL recent years the Bishop of Three Mile Creek, Box Elder Stake, 0. A.
IS.J Perry is a native of the State of New York, born in Lewis Township, Essex
^"^ County, September 11, 1817. His parents, Gustavus A. and Eunice W. Perry,
were honest and industrious people; the father a tiller of the soil, supplementing
his earnings as a farmer by occasionally working as a sawyer in a mill. Oriu's boyhood
was passed at the place of his birth and in the peaceful pursuits of husbandry. He
desired to be a carpenter, and early acquired considerable skill in the use of tools. His
early labors were with his father on the farm and in the mill, with winter sessions at the
common school, where he picked up the rudiments of an education.
As an incident of his boyhood, when about thirteen he recalls the sudden appear-
ance of a strange visitor at his father's house in Essex County — "a striking personality,
with long hair and beard, who on entering said, 'Peace be to the inhabitants of this
house.' He gave an elucidation of ancient prophecy, saying that ere long the kingdom
of God would be established and would flourish mightily in the West." Mr. Perry well
remembers the remarkable impression made upon the household, especially when the
visitor spoke of an ancient record they would yet behold — a record containing the ever-
lasting Gospel. This visitation prepared the family for the reception of Mormonism,
which came to them about the year 1832, when Amasa M. Lyman, William E. McLellin,
Jared Carter and other Elders preached in their neighborhood. The senior Mr. Perry
granted them the use of his house, and soon after became a Latter-day Saint. Both
parents passed through the subsequent vicissitudes of Mormon history, and their bones
now repose in Utah soil.
Orin joined the Church at Far West, Missouri, in the winter of 1838-9. He had
previously become acquainted with Presidents Joseph and Hyrum Smith, and had taken
up arms in defense of the Mormons against the Missourians. After fleeing from that
440 HISTORY OF UTAH.
State he dwelt successively in Adams County and Hancock County, Illinois, and shared in
the after inobbings and drivings of his people. He lived in Missouri until 1855, and
then came to Utah, accompanied by his brother Henry, who owned two wagons and six
yoke of oxen. Orin drove one of the wagons from Atchison to Salt Lake City. John
Hindley was captain, and such men as Henry Dinwoodey, Peter Boyle and David Dun-
kenson were members of the company. While at Mormon Grove Mr. Perry was ap-
pointed to go to Leavenworth and bring up a company of sixty wagons, Danish emi-
grants. It was then that he formed the acquaintance of Jane McLaws, whom he after-
wards married. He and his brother Henry, being good shots, were appointed "Nina-
rods," to supply the camp with buffalo and other game. They reached their journey's
end early in September.
Mr. Perry took up his residence at Three Mile Creek, where, excepting a few weeks
spent in Salem at the time of the move, he has continuously resided. He had previously
served in Echo Canyon, where he seriously injured his hand and was honorably dis-
charged from active duty. He farmed for a livelihood, and assisted President Lorenzo
Snow in settling and building up Box Elder County. He was head Teacher of his ward
for about fifteen years, and was one of the fifty-eighth quorum of Seventy. He helped
to organize the United Order in that part. He belonged to the School of the Prophets,
and in August, 1877, when President Young perfected the organization of Box Elder
Stake, he became Bishop of Three Mile Creek.
He relates the following incident of his experience in the fall of 1893: "I had
been confined to my bed for a long time with la grippe, and all efforts for my relief
seemed unavailing. I daily grew worse and my sufferings were intolerable. Almost in
despair I prayed one night that if my life's mission were ended I might be released to
join my brethren behind the veil. That same night a glorious vision flooded my room
with its radiance, and I beheld advancing to my bedside the well known form and fea-
tures of the Prophet Joseph Smith. Laying his hands upon my head he rebuked the
disease, and the pain left me instantly. He spoke to me of a mission yet future, in the
redemption of Zion. My spiritual eyes were opened, and I beheld the army of God's
strength, the pride of His house, with resurrected beings among them, perfectly organ-
ized and equipped; with Joseph at their head. The word was given and a start was made
for Zion. I was instantly healed of my sickness, and I hope to see a glorious fulfillment
of the vision vouchsafed me."
Bishop Perry has been three times married, first to Mary Hoops, in Adams County,
Illinois. September 20, 1840; next to Francis Russell, in Platte County, Missouri, Sep-
tember 7, 1853; and then to Jane McLaws, at Salt Lake City, October 0, 1856. The
first wife had five children, the second wife one, and the third none. She was a most
estimable woman, however, much beloved by her husband, and presided over the Ward
Relief Society from its organization to the day of her death, June 12, 1891.
JOSEPH. P. NEWMAN.
JOSEPH P. NEWMAN, of Big Cottonwood, has been a resident of that place since the
fall of 1853, when he arrived in Utah as an emigrant from Europe. He was born at
Portobello, Staffordshire, England, February 20, 1845. His parents were Joseph
and Elizabeth Newman. His father while in England was a jobbing smith and lock
maker, but in Utah he carried on farming. He was only in moderate circumstances.
The purpose of the family in coming here was to be with the main body of their people.
They sailed from England on the day that Joseph was eight years old. By way of New
Orleans and St. Louis they reached Council Bluffs, where they joined a company under
Claudius V. Spencer, with whom they crossed the plains, arriving at Salt Lake City on
the 20th of September.
The Newmans settled at Big Cottonwood, where Joseph grew to manhood. When
twenty-one years of age he spent about four months in Montana. His early labors were
in herding and farming. He married on the 1st of May, 1876, Elias Ann Moses, and
became the father of nine children. He has held the office of constable in the Big Cot-
tonwood Precinct, and is an Elder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
He is known as a modest, unassuming man, peacefully carrying on business with his
neighbors.
^^ (/> flU/tri^U:4su^
TRADES AND
PROFESSIONS.
28
^60(^>^^ct
JOSEPH YOUNG.
/"5)0VED for the purity of his life and the sweet saintliness of his nature, "Uncle" Jos-
jf eph Young will live in history as the senior President of the Seventies in the Church
■^■^ of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His sacred calling, with his faithful and
long-continued service in the ministry, to which most of his time was necessarily
devoted, has driven from the minds of many people and kept from many others the knowl-
edge of the fact, that this good and worthy man had a secular calling as well, one which
he practiced when opportunity afforded or necessity required, and by virtue of which he
takes the place assigned him at the head of this group of biographies. Like his younger
brother, President Brigham Young, he was a painter and glazier, a skilled workman in
his line of labor, which he carried on industriously in his younger years and until the
demands of public duty in spiritual directions rendered it impossible for him to pursue it
longer.
Joseph Young, the second of ten children, issue of the marriage of John Young and
Nabbie Howe, was born April 7, 1797, at Hopkinton, Middlesex county, Massachusetts.
He early imbibed the spirit of religion, and became a member of the Methodist church,
whose doctrines he was engaged in preaching when, early in the spring of 1832, bis bro-
ther Brigham came to Canada, where Joseph was laboring, bringing him a copy of the
Book of Mormon, assuring him that a Prophet had arisen, and that the Church of Jesus
Christ had again been established upon the earth. Both brothers then returned home-
ward, Brigham to Mendou, Monroe County, New York, where he was baptized a Latter-
day Saint on the 14th of April. Joseph had been baptized just eight days before by Elder
Daniel Bowen, at Columbia, Pennsylvania. A few days later he was ordained an Elder
under the hands of Ezra Landon. After preaching in the State of New York for several
months, he was called on a mission to Canada, to which part he proceeded with his
brother Phineas, Eleazer Miller and others. They were gone about four months, during
which time they raised up two small branches. In the autumn of 1832 Joseph Young,
with his brother Brigham and Heber C. Kimball, visited Kirtland, Ohio, and there met
for the first time the Prophet Joseph Smith. His next mission was to Canada, where in
the winter of 1832-3 he and his brother Brigham baptized upwards of forty souls and
organized at West Lowboro a branch of about twenty members. On the 18th of Febru-
ary, 1834, he married Jane Adeline Bicknell.
This was the year of the Zion's Camp expedition. Joseph Young was one of that his-
toric organization, whose members offered their lives, ostensibly to reinstate their plund-
ered and driven co-religionists upon th?ir lands in Jackson county, Missouri; in reality
to prove their integrity and demonstrate their worthiness to bear a sacred and important
responsibility soon to be placed upon many of them. Under the heading "A Scrap of
History" President Joseph Young writes as follows in relation to the organization of the
Seventies: ''On the 8th day of February, in the year of our Lord, 1835, the Prophet
Joseph Smith called Elders Brigham and Joseph Young to the chamber of his residence
in Kirtland, Ohio; it being the Sabbath day. After they were seated and he had made
some preliminaries, he proceeded to relate a vision he had seen, in regard to the state and
condition of those Elders who died in Zion's Camp in Missouri. He said: 'Brethren, I
have seen those men who died of the cholera in our camp; and the Lord knows, if I get a
mansion as bright as theirs, I ask no more.' At this relation he wept, and for sometime
could not speak because of his tender feelings in memory of his brethren. When he had
somewhat relieved himself, he resumed the conversation, and addressing himself to
Brother Brigham Young he said: 'I wish you to notify all the brethren living in the
branches within a reasonable distance from this place, to meet at a general conference
on Saturday next. I shall then and there appoint twelve special witnesses to open the
door of the Gospel to foreign nations, and you (speaking to Brother Brigham) will be
one of them.' " The prophet, according to the narrator, then explained the duties of
444 HISTORY OF UTAH.
the Twelve Apostles, after which he turned to Joseph Young and said with much earn-
estness: "Brother Joseph, the Lord has made you President of the Seventies."
Upon the 28th of that month the first quorum of Seventy were chosen and
ordained, under the hands of the Prophet and other Church leaders. Joseph Young was
the second name upon the list, and he was one of the original Seven Presidents of that
body. Soon afterwards he succeeded to the first or senior place, which he retained to
the end of his life, thus realizing the Prophet's forecast concerning him. Not loner after
the organization of this quorum the Prophet said in the course of an address to them:
"Brethren, some of you are angry with me because you did not fight in Missouri; but
let me tell you, God did not want you to fight. He could not organize his Kingdom, with
twelve men to open the Gospel door to the nations of the earth, and with seventy men
under their direction to follow in their tracks, unless he took them from a body of men
who had offered their lives, and who had made as great a sacrifice as did Abraham.
Now the Lord has got his Twelve and his Seventy, and there will be other quorums of
Seventies called, who will make the sacrifice, and those who will not make their sacri-
fices and their offerings now will make them hereafter."
At Kirtland and at other places where he resided, Joseph Young, in the intervals of
his ministerial labors, worked as a painter and glazier. He was loved by the Prophet,
and was popular with the people, not alone for his integrity, but for the sunny charitable-
ness of his soul, his genuine kindness of heart. He would share his last crust with any
one in need, and thought little of material things as compared with the riches of eternity.
His appropriate place was in the ministry, and wherever he labored he met with success.
In 1835, in company with Elder Burr Riggs, he fulfilled a mission to the States of New
York and Massachusetts, and later, under instructions from the Prophet, accompanied his
brother Brigham to the East, where they visited among relatives and friends, many of
whom afterwards came into the church.
On the 6th of July, 1838, he and his family, with many other Latter-day Saints, left
Kirtland for Missouri, to which part the main body of the Church was then moving.
He arrived at Haun's Mill, about twenty miles south of Far West, on the 28th of October,
and there was an eye-wituess to the horrible massacre of a score of his hapless co-religion-
ists, just two days later. He and his loved ones escaped almost by miracle, and during the
following winter were driven with the rest of the Saints out of Missouri, under the
exterminating order of Governor Boggs. The month of May, 1839, found them at
Quincy, Illinois. There he farmed one season, and then, in the spring of 1840, moved
to Commerce, the site of Nauvoo, in the building up of which place he played a full part,
working at his trade and attending to his ministerial duties. He was on a mission in
Ohio, laying before the people of that State the political views of the Prophet Joseph
Smith, then a Presidential candidate, when he learned of the murder of Joseph and
Hyrum Smith in Carthage jail. He immediately returned to Nauvoo.
The year 1846 found him on his way west, in the general exodus of his people.
He reached Winter Quarters, and moved from there to Carterville. Iowa, where
he remained until 1850, when with his family he crossed the plains in wagons drawn by
ox teams. Settling at Salt Lake City, he lived here during the remainder of his life.
He traveled and preached extensively in Utah and adjacent parts, and in 1870 fulfilled a
prediction made by the Prophet concerning him nearly thirty years before, by crossing
the ocean and preaching the Gospel in Great Britain. He never wearied of proclaiming
the principles of his faith. Several weeks prior to his death he manifested the weakness
and debility incident to old age, and on July 16, 1881, quietly fell asleep, surrounded by
his kindred and friends.
He had several families, and left quite a numerous posterity. Among the more
noted of his children are President Seymour B. Young, who has succeeded to the office
held by his sire in the First Council of Seventy; Judge LeGrande Young a leading mem-
ber of the Utah Bar; and Mr. Brigham Bicknell Young, the talented vocalist, now a re-
sident of Chicago. Many of his family are musically inclined, and he himself was a.
great lover of music, a sweet singer, and a composer of hymns. His thoughtful disposi-
tion and general literary style are shown in the following choice passage from a treatise
upon one of his favorite themes: "Man of himself is an instrument of music; and when
the chords of which he is composed are touched, the sounds appeal to his spirit, and the
sentiment to his understanding. If the strains are harmonious, he. enjoys them with
supreme delight; whether the tones are from a human voice or from an instrument, they
arrest his attention and absorb his whole being.''
President Joseph Young was a man of mercy and benevolence, full of kindness
and good works, of integrity to the cause which he espoused in his early manhood,
HISTORY OF UTAH. 445
and to which he gave nearly fifty years of his blameless and devoted life. Sensitive and
high-spirited, as unwilling as any man to be imposed upon, he had full control over his
feelings, was patient and affable, a sympathizer with others in affliction, and an example
of charity and philanthropy to all.
LEVI RICHARDS.
JN the early days, if one citizen of Utah, conversing with another, had referred to
| "Dr. Richards,'' he would probably have been asked which one he meant, Dr. Wil-
"y lard, Dr. Phinehas, or Dr. Levi Richards, brothers and residents of Salt Lake City.
A similar question might be asked today, when three of the sons of the first named
gentleman, all residents of Utah's capital, are well known members of the medical
fraternity.
Dr. Levi Richards was the fourth son and ninth child of Joseph and Rhoda (Howe)
Richards, and was born at Hopkinton, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, April 14, 1799.
His father was a Revolutionary soldier. His mother was the eldest child of Phinehas
and Susannah (Goddard) Howe, the maternal grandparents of President Brigham Young.
Levi in his youth was brought up as a farmer, though he had a natural genius for the
mechanical arts, and at the age of eighteen he obtained a situation that tended to im-
prove and develop his ability in that direction. For fifteen years or more he devoted his
energies to various mechanical pursuits and to the study of scientific works treating of
those branches in which he was most interested.
In his earl3- manhood he was also devoted to music, which was somewhat singular,
from the fact that as a boy he manifested scarcely a common aptitude for tbat art. He
could scarcely whistle a tune. When about fourteen, however, a strain of the old famil-
iar air, "Yankee Doodle," came to him, and after this he attended singing school, and
by diligent study and practice acquired some proficiency in singing; though he inclined"
more to instrumental music, and learned to play on several instruments. His favorite, a
clarionet, is still preserved in his family; also his commission as "a musician of the
band of music attached to the second brigade and ninth division of the militia of Massa-
chusetts," given at Dalton, July 4, 1817.
But while pursuing these special studies, the young man did not neglect to lay a
solid foundation of the ordinary branches of education. He qualified himself as a school
teacher, and when nineteen years of age received a certificate from the school com-
mittee at Richmond, Berkshire County, in his native State, to the effect that he was a
qualified instructor in the sciences commonly taught in the district schools, and bore an
unblemished moral character. Much sickness in his father's family induced him to give
attention to the use of botanical medicines, and he became a skillful and successful phys-
ician of the botanical or Thompsonian school.
It was in the year 1835 that he first became interested in Mormonism, through read-
ing- the Book of Mormon, which made a profound impression upon him. In October,
1836, he with his younger brother Willard left their business and traveled to Kirtland,
Ohio, there to investigate for themselves the new and strange religion. They became
acquainted with the Prophet Joseph Smith, and being convinced of the truth of his
teachings, were soon initiated into the Church by baptism.
Having taken up his residence at Kirtland, Dr. Richards thought to relinquish the
practice of medicine and devote himself to the work of the ministry; but being called
upon by sick friends to prescribe for them, he did so with such success that solicitations
increased and a general practice ensued. Among his patrons were the leaders, Joseph
and Hyrum Smith. Apropos of this mention, the Prophet, in his personal history,
under date of April 14, 1837, writes: "I had continued to grow worse and worse until
my sufferings were excruciating, and although in the midst of it all I felt to rejoice in
the salvation of Israel's God, yet I found it expedient to call to my assistance those
means which a kind providence had provided for the restoration of the sick, in
connection with the ordinances; and Dr. Levi Richards, at my request, administered
to me herbs and mild food, and nursed me with all tenderness and attention; and
my Heavenly Father blessed his administrations to the ease and comforting of my sys-
446 HISTORY OF UTAH.
tern, for I began to amend in a short time, and in a few days was able to return to my
usual labors." Thus pressed into service in his professional capacity, Dr. Richards de-
voted much time and attention to cariug for the sick and comforting the afflicted among
the people around him. He shared in the privations and persecutions of that period, and
faithfully fulfilled many important trusts placed upon him by the Prophet and other
Church authorities.
He left Kirtland in company with his cousin, Brigham Young, when the latter, on
December 22, 1837, fled from that place to escape mob violence, threatened because of
his fidelity to the Prophet. Levi traveled with Brigham to Far West, and was in Mis-
souri during the mob troubles that followed, culminating in the exodus of the Saints to
Illinois. In the midst of these scenes he was called upon to part with his beloved sister,
Hepsibah, who died at Far West, September 30, 1838. She was several years his
senior, and had kept house for him in Kirtland and afterwards in Missouri, whither she
had followed him. Of a refined and intellectual nature, she manifested during that
arduous and perilous journey and in all the trials and privations incident to those times,
admirable constancy and fortitude.
The history of Joseph Smith, at the date of January 29, 1839, says: "When the
Saints commenced removing from Far West, they shipped as many families and goods
as possible at Richmond, to go down the Missouri River, etc., to Quincy, Illinois. This
mission was in charge of Elders Levi Richards and Reuben Hedlock, who were appointed
by the committee." The name of Levi Richards also appears in the list of those who
donated property to assist the poor among the Saints out of Missouri. He continued to
reside at Quincy during the year 1839. suffering much from fever and ague, common
diseases in that part. Sick for seven weeks, he was reduced almost to a skeleton.
When able to be around, his time was occupied in attendance upon the sick. In a letter
to his brother Willard in England, dated at Quincy, September 22, 1839, he speaks of
the trying scenes through which he had passed, and adds, "Persecution has been the
almost constant companion of the Church since you left, as I can witness. It truly
seems as though judgment had begun at the house of God."
In the year 1840, Dr. Richards was called on a mission to England. Accepting the
call, he sailed from New York, landed at Liverpool and spent two years laboring in
Herefordshire, Monmouthshire, Gloucestershire and other parts. The purity of his
'character and his self-sacrificing nature, manifest in all his teachings and actions, aided
in winning many souls to Christ, and often in establishing peace and good fellowship
where previous to his approach confusion and strife had prevailed. Hundreds remem-
ber him as one whose daily walk and conversation were calculated to enkindle that di-
vine love and establish that sacred unity which always exist among those truly called the
children of God. He returned by way of New Orleans to Nauvoo, early in 1843, bring-
ing with him about one hundred and eighty emigrants from Europe.
At Nauvoo Dr. Richards held various offices of public trust. He was a member of
the city council, elected to take the place of Brigham Young during the latter's absence
in the spring and summer of 1844. In that capacity he voted for the abatement of the
Nauvoo "Expositor,'' having previously spoken in favor of such a step, and was one of
those arrested, tried and acquitted for that official action. In the Nauvoo Legion he was
first lieutenant of a company of infantry of which Lorenzo Snow was captain. He was
subsequently elected surgeon-general of the Legion. The Prophet's confidence in him,
as a physician as well as a man, continued; one evidence of which is the following com-
pliment paid him in Joseph's journal, April 19, 1843: "I will say that that man [point-
ing to Levi Richards] is the best physician I have ever been acquainted with." " Firm
as the bills," was an allusion made to him by Heber C. Kimball, in a letter to Willard
Richards, while the latter was still in Europe.
Among the Saints who emigrated from England to Illinois was Miss Sarah Griffith,
a very estimable lady of scholastic attainments and deep religious fervor. An attach-
ment sprang up between her and Dr. Richards, which resulted in their marriage at Nau-
voo, Christmas day, 1843, President Brigham Young performing the ceremony. Their
only child, Levi Willard Richards, was born there June 12, 1845. A brief sketch of
the antecedents of Mrs. Sarah Griffith Richards is here given.
She was born in the town of Monmouth, Monmouthshire, December 26, 1802. Her
father, David Griffith, was a native of Glamorganshire, South Wales, and had served in
the British army. Her mother, whose maiden name was Mary Steed, was the daughter
of Michael Steed, one of the old residents of Monmouth. When Sarah, their first born,
was about two years old, the mother was left a widow with two children, Sarah and her
infant sister Mary. Sarah grew up under the watchcare of her grandfather Steed until
y^f&Lj££^.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 447
she was verging: upon womanhood, when her mother, after remaining a widow some fif-
teen years, married John Evans of Hereford, a baker and confectioner. The family
resided in London for two years, and then retired to the country, near Mr. Evans' native
town.
Always eager for an education, and with a decided taste for art, Sarah had but lim-
ited opportunity to gratify her inclinations in that direction until she was about nineteen.
She was then offered the privilege of going upon the Continent in the service of a prom-
inent family, and pursuing studies which would qualify her to become a governess. Ac-
cepting the offer, she went abroad, spending some time in several countries, mostly in
Brussels, the capital of Belgium. She studied, besides the ordinary branches, drawing,
painting, music and the languages, rising early and working hard in order to become
proficient. She mastered the French language and was thoroughly conversant with her
own. Her favorite instruments were the harp and guitar. In after years she was the
intimate friend and associate of Miss Weigall, a very intelligent lady, sister of the cel-
eorated artist Charles H. Weigall. She was living as governess in the family of Mr.
Greenall, near Liverpool, when she was induced by her mother, her step-father and sis-
ters, who had become Latter-day Saints, to investigate their religion. Elder John
Needham called on her, at their solicitation, and left with her the Book of Mormon,
which she promised to read. The result was her conversion, followed by baptism, July
22. 1841. It was in the autumn of the year following that she emigrated to Nauvoo,
bringing with her a special recommend from Thomas Ward, president of the British mis-
sion, to Mrs. Emma Smith, the Prophet's wife, bespeaking her kindly interest in Miss
Griffith, as a very accomplished lady who had sacrificed much for the truth's sake. The
date of this recommend was September 2, 1843.
Another estimable lady, married to Dr. Richards at Nauvoo, was Persis Goodall,
who had been the wife of Lorenzo D. Young. She was the daughter of Joel and Mary
(Swain) Goodall; was born March 15, 1806, at Watertown, Jefferson County, New York,
and was the youngest but one of thirteen children. By her first husband she became
the mother of ten children, one of whom, Lorenzo S. Young, accompanied the Pioneers
to Salt Lake Valley in 1847. It was in the year 1831 that she identified herself with the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She shared in the trials and sufferings of
her people in Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, at Winter Quarters and in Salt Lake Valley, where
she arrived September 29, 1850. Persis was a thoroughly domesticated woman, and
though her school days were limited, she acquired a good education. At Kirtland she
attended the Hebrew class taught by Prof. Seixas, and notwithstanding her other duties
made such progress in that language as to elicit special commendation from the teacher.
Dr. Richards with his family was with the Saints in the long and tedious journey
from Nauvoo to Winter Quarters. There he spent two years, actively and variously
employed. Then came another call to England, and as this second mission was to be
for five years, he was advised to take his wife, Sarah, with him. Their three year old
son, a delicate child, they were counseled to send to the Rocky Mountains with his
Uncle Willard and Aunt Rhoda, the latter his father's eldest and unmarried sister, noted
for her kindness, industry and skill in the domestic arts. President Young promised
them that the little one would live and thrive if taken to the mountains, but could give
them no assurance that he would survive a voyage across the ocean. It was a severe
trial to the fond parents to leave their only child, but they made the sacrifice, and on
July 3, 1848, simultaneously with the evacuation of Winter Quarters by the main body
of the Saints, crossed the ferry into Iowa, and on the 8th of August started f3r Eng-
land, traveling by ox team as far as Keokuk, where they took steamer down the Missis-
sippi River. The "Millennial Star" of December 15 announced their safe arrival at
Liverpool.
They were absent for over five years, during which time Dr. Richards, as one of
the presidency of the British Mission, traveled extensively, preaching and administering
in the ordinances of the Gospel. They sailed for America on the ship "Cambria,"
April 30, 1853. In noting the departure, the editor of the "Star" referred to Elder Rich-
ards' eminently useful labors in that land, his rare qualifications for the work of the
ministry, due in part to his many years of intimacy with the Prophet and the highest
councils of the Church, and his constant service in connection with it; speaking also of
the wisdom of his counsels and the faithfulness and diligence of his labors among the
Sain's in England, which had secured to him an undying remembrance with many thou-
sands, whose faith and prayers would go with him as he journeyed to the valleys of the
mountains.
Landing at Boston, May 13, 1S53, Dr. Richards and his wife, after visiting relatives
448 HISTORY OF UTAH.
in Massachusetts, continued ou to Utah, where they arrived in the fall of the same year.
The meeting with their little son, now over eight years old, was very affecting. He had
outgrown nearly all recollection of them, but soon learned to know and love them devot-
edly. Dr. Richards settled at Salt Lake City, where he spent the remainder of his life,
excepting a few months passed at Provo during ''the move" in 1858. He had borne
the office of High Priest since the days of Kirtland. where, soon after his baptism, in the
early part of 1837, he had been ordained to that office by the president of the High
Priests' quorum, Don Carlos Smith, brother of the Prophet. In the vear 1874 he was
ordained a Patriarch.
He did not engage again in the active practice of his profession, but as an eelectic
physician freely gave advice to his friends jwho came to him for consultation. In the
early part of his residence here he was a member of the standing "Board of Examina-
tion of Physicians" of Salt Lake City. His health and strength had been much im-
paired in previous years by waiting on the sick and by other hardships endured. He
now gave his attention more to agricultural and mechanical pursuits, preferring the in-
ventive and experimental, and the introduction and testing of new and promising fruits,
vegetables and other plants; also the improvement of those already in use. He was
equally interested and active in every improvement, especially those of a hygienic na-
ture. While leading a quiet life, he never lost interest in public affairs, especially those
pertaining to the educational and spiritual progress of the community. As far back as
1855 he was made an honorary member of the Typographical Association; and in 1873
became an honorary member of the Twentieth Ward Institute. As early as August 25,
1856, he was a charter member of the Deseret Agricultural and Manufacturing Society,
of which Bishop Edward Hunter was then president. At the Territorial Fairs held under
its auspices, he served upon important committees, such as fruits, flowers, medicinal
plants, etc.
He fell asleep in the seventy-eighth year of his age; his death, a peaceful and quiet
change, taking place at his home in the midst of his family, Sunday morning, June 18,
1876. The speakers at the funeral were John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, Franklin D.
Richards, Joseph Young and Lorenzo D. Young; President Brigham Young was in
southern Utah at the time. All testified to the worth and integrity of the deceased; re-
ferring also to his modest, unassuming life, his firmness and courage, his charitable and
peace-making disposition, along which lines his career had been remarkable. His wife
Sarah survived him sixteen years, passing away June 7, 1892; and on September 16,
1894 his wife Persis also entered into rest. His sister Rhoda died in 1879. His only
son, Elder Levi W. Richards, with his family, resides at the old homestead in the Twen-
tieth Ward. This son, it is but just to say, inherits not only his father's honorable
name but also his sterling virtues.
JOSEPH EDWARD TAYLOR.
"Y \ TAH'S pioneer undertaker, and the sexton of Salt Lake City for nearly a quarter of a
IgJ century, the subject of this sketch, now one of the presidency of the Salt Lake
^"^ Stake of Zion, was born at Horsham, Sussex County, England, December 11, 1830.
He was a convert to Mormonism in 1846, and a settler in Utah in 1852. Few men
are better known in these parts. His bright and penetrating mind, his zealous and ener-
getic labors, with an honorable course through life, have given him a goodly reputation
and established him in the confidence of his fellow citizens.
Joseph E. Taylor is the son of George Edward Grove Taylor and his wife Ann
Wickes, who were also the parents of three daughters. He was but an infant of nine
months when the family moved from his birthplace to that of his mother, Tetbury, in
Gloucestershire, where he remained until nearly ten and a half years old. They then re-
moved to Spilsby in Lincolnshire, the father, who carried on the tailoring and clothing
business, having accepted the superintendency of a large clothing house at that place.
They resided there until 1846, when they removed to Hull in Yorkshire. Though pos-
sessed of only moderate means, the family were in comfortable circumstances.
Joseph received a good common education. His early training was of a rigid Chris-
HISTORY OF UTAH. 449
tian character. His mother, like her ancestors, was a devout Calvinist of the old school,
a firm believer in its extreme doctrines of predestination, fore-ordination, etc., more
simply expressed in the saying', "If you are born to be saved, you will be saved, and if
you are born .o be damned, you will be damned." His father was a "Free Salvationist,"
aud consequently more liberal in his opinions. He established a church in Hull, and be-
came its minister; also a noted temperance lecturer.
From early boyhood Joseph manifested independence of character, with a disposition
to choose for himself in the matter of churches and religions, that was quite alarming to
his pious, well-meaning mother, whom he seriously offended many times by calling in
question her religious views. She would often say to him in reply, ''What does such a
boy understand about religion?" "You had better wait until you grow up before ex-
pressing opinions in opposition to the true Christian faith." He was only about twelve
when he thus began to revolt against the doctrines of Calvin. It was his independence of
thought and familiarity with the scriptures — which he had studied from childhood — that
prepared him to intelligently investigate the claims and tenets of the Latter-day Saints,
to which he was introduced almost accidentally soon after the family settled in Hull. He
was baptized by an Elder named Beecroft.
When he made known to his parents his conversion to Mormonism both were greatly
surprised, and his mother terribly shocked. The tiers affected her so severely that she
became hysterical and remained for some time in that condition. The more stoical father
contented himself with declaring that he could overthrow the Mormon doctrines with
scriptural texts alone. Soon after, however, they both joined the Church of which their
son had become a live and active member, and were devoted to it during the remainder
of their lives.
At the age of seventeen Joseph was ordained a Priest and sent to travel in the Lin-
colnshire conference. Many of his experiences were remarkable, and his success in some
places phenomenal. At eighteen he was ordained an Elder, and as such diligently con-
tinued his labors in the ministry, opening new fields in many towns and villages. In the
larger cities on the Sabbath he would often hold four or five meetings in and out of doors,
in as many public places, doing his own singing, besides preaching and praying, as he
was generally alone. In the early part of 1850 a minister of the Campbellite Church
challenged him to a public discussion. He accepted the challenge, and gave th6 free use
of a large hall he had rented for the purpose. The discussion continued during eleven
successive Sabbath afternoons, and was attended by crowds of people. At the close the
decision was in the young Elder's favor, though the reverend gentleman with whom he de-
bated— a gentleman indeed, full of fairness and courtesy — was a man of more than ordi-
nary ability. Says Mr. Taylor: "While I give God the glory for my signal success in
this discussion, I have often thought that sympathy for the beardless stripling, standing
alone against a venerable divine, prompted a decision on the part of the unbelieving in
my favor. Several ministers who attended kept a marked silence during the proceedings,
perhaps out of sympathy also." As a result of the discussion the hall was also filled to
overflowing at the evening meetings, where he preached. At the end of three months a
large branch of the Church was organized in that town. While performing these labors
he received very liberal donations from strangers. The money that came to him from
members of his Church amounted to only about sixty-five dollars, during a period of over
two years spent in missionary labor.
He was just past twenty when he left England for America, sailing on the ship
"Ellen," bound for New Orleans; James W. Cummings being president of the company
of Saints in which he emigrated. He embarked on the 4th of January, and landed on
the 15th of March, 1851. The voyage was prosperous, except for an accident that oc-
curred the second night out from Liverpool, when the "Ellen" ran foul of a schooner,
breaking her own main yard-arm, her jib-boom and other parts of the rigging; compelling
her to go into Cardigan Bay for repairs. She remained there until the 23rd of January, when
she again set sail. From New Orleans Mr. Taylor and his fellow emigrants steamed up
to St. Louis, where he was delayed a whole season by a severe spell of sickness. At the
opening of 1852 he proceeded to Council Bluffs, and from that point crossed the plains
to Utah, paying his passage by driving team. It was the 6th of September when he ar-
rived at Salt Lake City.
He settled first in the Eleventh Ward. On the 21st of September, 1853, he married
his first wife, Louisa Rebecca Capener, who became the mother of ten children. During
the first six years of his residence in Utah he engaged in various avocations, necessary in
those days, after which he entered into partnership with his wife's father, William
Capener, in the furniture business. This partnership continued until 1866, by which time
450 HISTORY OF UTAH.
he was serving as sexton of Salt Lake City, and conducting an undertaking establishment,
which has continued unto the present time.
As early as 1853 Elder Taylor was ordained to the office of a Seventy, and part of
the next two years he was one of the presidency of the Thirty-first quorum. In 1855 he
was ordained a High Priest and chosen as counselor to Bishop John Lytle, of the Eleventh
Ward; afterwards serving as counselor to Bishop Alexander McRae. In the fall of 1875
he went upon a mission to Iowa andNebraska, laboring zealously among the "Josephites,"
until April, 1876, when he was called home by President Brigham Young to be set apart
as one of the presidency of the Salt Lake Stake of Zion. He was second counselor to
President Angus M. Cannon, until the death of his first counselor, David 0. Calder, in
July, 1884, when he succeeded to that position; Charles W. Penrose being selected as
second counselor. His secular offices comprise those of captain of infantry in the Terri-
torial militia, June 1857; city sexton from 1864 to 1888; and representative in the State
Legi>lature during the session of 1897.
Mr. Taylor is the husband and father of several families. By his plural wives he has
had twelve children, or twenty-two in all. His eldest son, Joseph William, as well as his
sons Samuel and Alma, have adopted their sire's vocation, the undertaking business.
Alma, one of the sons of his second wife, Lisadore Williams, is a natural orator, and a
young man of much promise. He was one of the Elders who assisted to open the Japa
nese mission in 1901. During the anti-polygamy crusade the father spent five years in
exile, and after his return was arrested on an indictment found during his absence, charg-
ing him with unlawful cohabitation. The indictment contained eight counts, his being
one of the "segregated" cases. The count selected by the prosecution upon which to try
him faded to convict; the jury returned a verdict of not guilty; and the defendant was
discharged.
He has always been active in the social and political life of the commonwealth, and is
no less zealous and wide-awake in religious and benevolent movements. He is a pillar of
strength in the cause of education. The valiant and successful service rendered by him
in support of the Latter-day Saints' College (now University) when that noble institution
was about to collapse for want of means for its continuance, will be an enduring monu-
ment to his memory. When all hope was lost he declared that heaven would be dis-
pleased with the Saints if they abandoned the school, and he gave the positive assurance
that the necessary means would be forthcoming if prudent steps were taken in that di-
rection. He agreed to solicit subscriptions, donated a thousand dollars himself, and suc-
ceeded in raising some eleven thousand dollars besides. Others, inspired by his example
and stirring words, came also to the rescue, and the present prosperous condition of the
Latter-day Saints' University includes the result.
Mr. Taylor is an original thinker, an able speaker and writer, and has a clear and
incisive manner of expression. His perceptions are keen, his judgment sound, and his
sense of justice such that he is recognized as a worthy and proper imcumbent of the
sacred position he occupies. He still conducts his undertaking establishment — one of the
largest and best equipped in this region — near his residence in the Thirteenth Ward, Salt
Lake City.
CHRISTIAN DANIEL FJELDSTED.
^^HIS gentleman, as his name indicates, is of Scandinavian origin. He is one of
vj those chosen sons of the North who have risen to official prominence in the
.f Latter-day Church, which, when he was a youth of twenty-two, numbered him
among its converts. He is by trade a foundryman, a moulder in iron and brass,
but has also earned on farming, harness-making and other lines of business. He came
to Utah in 1858, and since 1884 has been one of the First Council of Seventy, the third
quorum in authority in the Church.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 451
Christian D. Fjeldsted, son of Henrik Ludvig Fjeldsted and his wife Anna Cartrine
Heudriksen. was born at Sunbyvester, on Atnager, Copenhagen, Denmark, February 20,
1829. His parents were respectable people of the working class, and they taught their
children to be industrious and independent. His father was a miller by vocation. At
ten years of age Christian, with his eldest brother, leaving their suburban home, went to
the city of Copenhagen to try and earn a livelihood. There he began to learn harness-
making. At twelve he returned to Amager and worked around as a farm boy until he
was fourteen, when he entered a foundry and began to master the trade of iron and brass
moulding. He continued at this employment until he was twenty-four, receiving at first
small wages, with a gradual increase as he became proficient. Meantime his school days,
few in number, had come and gone, but his observing mind and retentive memory,
supplementing what school training he had received, finally made him the possessor of a
fair education. He married on April 12, 1849, Karen Olson, who in Denmark bore him
four children, three boys and a girl; another daughter being born after their arrival in
Utah.
C. D. Fjeldsted became a Latter-day Saint January 20, 1852, and on the 16th of
August, the same year, he was ordained a Priest and called to preside over a district of
the branch to which he belonged. Meantime his zeal in preaching to his fellow workmen,
had caused him to be dismissed from his employment, and that too on a cold winter day,
when he had not a penny for the support of himself and his family. Nothing1 daunted he
kept on preaching, and soon found secular employment as well. Every week for
a year and a half he held prayer meetings in his own home. On Sundays he usually per-
formed missionary work in the adjacent towns and villages. July 25, 1853, witnessed
his ordination as an Elder and his call to labor as a traveling missionary in the Copen-
hagen conference. A year later he was appointed to preside over the Aalborg con-
ference. He met with much success, hundreds of souls being converted during the two
years that he ministered in that capacity.
February 15. 185S, was the date of his departure for Utah, accompanied by his wife
aud children. The company in which they traveled had to change its course, owing to
trouble with ice at Hamburg. They sailed for England from Bremen, but a storm of
several days drove them back to that port, whence they made another start on the 12th
of March, and lauded two days later on British shores. The voyage from Liverpool to
New York was made between March 22 and April 24, and on the 1st of May they reached
Iowa City. There they were delayed six weeks, owing to trouble in Utah connected with
the invasion by Johnston's artny. The single men of the company went first, and after-
wards the married men. Some terriffic thunder storms were encountered, and one day
fourteen of the company were partially struck by lightning, but all survived the shock.
The Fjeldsteds arrived in Salt Lake City on the 5th of October. For nine years the head
of the house worked at a foundrv in Sugar House Ward, and during the same period acted
as a Teacher under Bishop A. 0. Smoot, who presided there.
In April, 1S07, Mr. Fjeldsted, who now held the office of a Seventy, was called and
set apart with others for a mission to Europe. While crossing the plains, eastward
bound, one of the company was killed by Indians. Abroad he labored as President suc-
cessively of the Aalborg and Christiania conferences, Denmark. He returned to Utah in
August 1870, and for about two years continued to ply his vocation of fouudryman. In
May 1872 he was appointed to labor as a missionary among the Scandinavians residing
in the counties north of Salt Lake City. He took up his residence at Logan, where he
served part of the time as counselor to Bishop B. M. Lewis.
In 1881 he was called by President John Taylor to preside over the Scandinavian
Mission, and was absent upon this duty from August 9th of that year until April 28, 1884.
Upon this date he was set apart as one of the first seven Presidents of the Seventies. He
labored in this calling among the quorums of the Seventies until October, 1S8G, when he
took another mission to Scandinavia, presiding in that laud, as the successor to Elder N.
C. Flygare, from October, 1888, until the fall of 1S90, when he returned to Utah. In May
1890 he was appointed upon a special mission to the Scandinavian people of the United
States. He made his headquarters in the city of Chicago, and remained in the field until
the fall of that year, when he was released by President Wilford Woodruff to return
home.
Since then President Fjeldsted has continued his labors among the Seventies, aud
has filled another mission to his native land, the latter duty beginning in April, 1901.
Though aged, he is still active, possessing a strong constitution, inured to hardship by
temperance, morality, and a lifetime of honest toil. He has a genial nature, an affable
452 HISTORY OF UTAH.
manner and a quaint, original manner of speaking. He is a modest, hard-working, ex-
emplary citizen, a zealous churchman, devoted to his religion, and is loved and respected
wherever known.
JOHN MOBURN KAY.
§Y vocation a foundryman, and by nature a musician of marked ability, one of the
picturesque figures of early times in Utah, was John M. Kay of Salt Lake City.
He was a born master of song, the possessor of a melodious and stentorian voice,
and his soul-stirring vocalism, in the sacred "songs of Zion," not only charmed
the fire-side circle and larger social gatherings, but gladdened the hearts of thousands of
homeless pilgrims, plodding their weary way over barren plains and bleak mountains to
the haven of their hopes in the west. As a singer and an actor he appeared frequently
upon the stage at the Social Hall, and was known as a comedian of rare merit. His
"Robert McCaire" was especially fine. Scarcely second to hismusicaland dramatic gifts,
was his skill as a mechanic, a worker in metals. He made the dies and the tools with
which the dies were made, for the mint which coined in 1849, out of California gold dust,
the first gold coins used in the inter-mountain region.
John Kay came from Bury, Lancashire, England, where he was born October 6, 1817.
His father, James Kay, was a foundryman, and the boy himself, at the early age of six
years, entered his uncle's iron and brass foundry, mastering the trade and getting jour-
neymen's wages at seventeen. His musical ability was manifest at an early day, both
vocally and instrumentally. He had a fine healthy physique, and was so agile in jump-
ing and in other manly sports that he was called "the India rubber man.'' The only
schooling he received was in Sunday school. His jovial nature and keen sense of humor,
frequently displayed in harmless practical jokes, made him one of the most entertaining
of men. His spirit was chivalrous, aud he would always defend the oppressed.
It was partly due to this disposition that he bcame a Latter- day Saint. One of his
fellow employes at St. Helens, to which town he had removed to work in a foundry,
was a member of the unpopular church-a small, timid man, ridiculed by his shop-mates,
who went so far as to offer him violence. Without knowing anything about his religion,
John Kay defended him and thrashed his leading assailant. Curiosity then led him to in-
quire into the little man's faith. The result was his conversion and baptism in the fall of
1841. He was immediately ordained an Elder, and for some time labored in the minis-
try, but in September, 1842, sailed for America, reaching Nauvoo in the ensuing spring.
There he became a major in the famous Legion; also a member of the Nauvoo brass band
and the police force. Owing to his musical talent aud his genial social qualities he was
often invited by the Prophet Joseph Smith to assist in the entertainment of visitors.
In the exodus from Illinois, he was with President Young's company, which he and
others helped to sustain by going into Missouri and giving concerts, from the proceeds of
which supplies for the destitute people and hungry animals were obtained. He after-
wards joined Bishop's Miller's company and spent the winter of 1846-7 among the Ponca
Indians. On the way'back to Winter Quarters he came near starving, and the cold was
so intense that his feet were badly frozen. He and another messenger had been sent
after provisions for the hungry people at Ponca. John Kay crossed the plains with his
own teams, but traveled in the company led by President Young in the emigration of
184S, arriving in Salt Lake Valley on the 20th of September.
He settled permanently on the corner of South Temple and Fourth East streets,
where a portion of his family still resides. His trade of moulding and pattern-making in
iron and brass came at once into play, and in the winter of 1848-9 he made, by request
of President Young, the paraphernalia of the mint, which he was instructed to operate.
The steel for the dies was furnished by Joseph L. Heywood, and Mr. Kay was assisted in
the blacksmithing work by Alfred Lamson. Says Mr. Heywood. who was our Territory's
first United States Marshal: "In 1850 I presented some of the Utah coins at the U. S.
Mint in Philadelphia, where the mechanical work of John M. Kay was highly praised."
Mr. Kay is said to have made the first brass casting in Utah, also the first iron casting,
assisted by Phillip Margetts and another worker. He rendered service in the early In-
HISTORY OF UTAH. 453
dian wars, sometimes acting as surgeon, for he had studied surgery and dentistry, which
he practiced during the remainder of his life.
Between the spring of 1855 and January, 1858, he was absent upon a mission to
Europe, from which he returned in company with Orson Pratt and other Elders by
way of the Isthmus of Panama and the State of California. He saw service in Echo can-
yon, as one of Governor Cumming's escort to Salt Lake City, appointed specially to en-
tertain his Excellency; and was on guard in the town when Johnston's army passed
through. In the fall of 1860 he went upon another mission to Europe, where he labored
as before in his native land; though on the former occasion he traveled some on the
continent. This last mission extended through four years. Honorably released he set
out to return to Utah, but did not reach home alive.
It was at the head of a company of emigrating Saints that he sailed from London on
the ship "Hudson" early in 1864. After reaching New York his labors were very ard-
uous. He was a large man, weighing about two hundred and fifty pounds, and the
weather was extremely warm. The Civil War was closing, and some of the troops en-
countered by the emigrants on the way to the outfitting camps in Wyoming, manifested
much bitterness towards them. At one point they drove them through a river, with the
rain falling in torrents, which exposure caused much sickness and some deaths in the
campany. Expostulating with the soldiers on their conduct, Elder Kay said: "If you
have no respect for the living, will you not look with mercy on the sick and dying, and
consider the sacred dead?'' In reply one of the soldiers said, "If you say another word
I will rip you up, if you were Jesus Christ himself.'' After reaching the point where he
was relieved of his command by the arrival of the Church teams from Salt Lake Valley,
the devoted Elder fell sick — some said with mountain fever. He traveled on with the rest,
however, and seemed to improve up to the evening before his death, when he stood in his
tent door and sang, as he had often sung, to cheer the hearts of his fellow pilgrims to
Zion.
He died suddenly and apparently without pain, at two o'clock in the morning, Sep-
tember 27, 1864, at a point seven miles west of Little Laramie, in what was then the
Territory of Colorado. Thev buried him at the foot of the Black Hills, taking a board
from each wagon until sufficient lumber was procured to make a coffin in which to enclose
his remains. His death caused profound sorrow in Utah, in England, and wherever he
was known. John Kay was not only a man of gifts; he was also a man of integrity. A
fitting epitaph to his noble life is found in his own words, uttered to a friend on leaving
England. "With all my faults, I never saw a moment since I knew the truth that I did
not love it, and was not willing to place my body in the gap to save my brethren from
danger."
JOHN NEEDHAM.
QMONG early mercantile names few are better known in Utah than the late John
Needham; a comer to the Bocky Mountains in 1851. He was a native of Leeds,
Yorkshire, England, and was born April 1, 1819. His parents. James and Mary
(Armitage) Needham, were in good circumstances, and prominent in the social
life of that city. The father was chief clerk, director and traveling agent for a large
tanning and leather merchant, bearing much of the responsibility of the proprietor, and
reputedly a part owner in the business. John's earliest recollection was an accident, in
which he was run over by a drunken horseman and had a narrow escape from death.
He was then about four years old, and the family were residing at Warrington, near
Liverpool. At an early age he entered school, and at fourteen was allowed to choose a
trade. His inclination being to a mercantile life, he was apprenticed to the firm of Crop
and Pierpoint, whose establishment employed from thirty to forty clerks. He remained
■ with them until he was seventeen, when they went out of business and he was given his
indentures. He then worked for several months in Liverpool, at Beckworth's Emporium,
Paradise Street, and was nearly eighteen when he took a situation with Hyams and
Company, at Preston.
There for the first time he heard the doctrines of Mormonism, taught by its earliest
454 HISTORY OF UTAH.
missionaries from America. He became very much interested, attended the Mormon
meetings, and was discharged by his employer for so doing. Nothing daunted, he was
baptized into the Church. In becoming a Latter-day Saint he sorely grieved his father,
who shared in the general prejudice against the unpopular people. As John was a minor,
his parent took him home for a few months, and then got him a situation in Manchester,
hoping to wean him from his "folly." In vain, for Mormonism, planted at Preston,
spread to Manchester, where young Needham assisted in the work. Again his sire took
him home, and after a few weeks secured him a new situation in Staffordshire. Again
the Mormon Elders appeared upon the scene, and again young Needham did what he
could to help them, finally leaving his situation and giving his whole time to the ministry.
He was ordained an Elder, and preached the Gospel among strangers, without purse or
scrip, from 1S38 to 1843, during which period he labored, first under George A. Smith in
Staffordshire, and subsequently in Birmingham, Dudley, and other places. In 1S40 he
labored in Wales and Monmouthshire, where for a number of years he was president of
a conference.
His connection with Mormonism had estranged him from his family, whose members
were forbidden by the father to hold any communication with him, until he should forsake
the hated religion. His mother's heart remained tender towards him, however, and she
occasionally assisted him in a small way. About the year 1S42 a great change came over
his sire, who sent for him and gave him the privilege to bring home any other Elder he
might choose. The old gentleman's bitterness had departed, and so far were his feelings
modified that he offered to give John a good outfit of all he wanted with which to cross
the sea and Jgather with the Saints at Nauvoo; an offer most gladly accepted. The
next year he emigrated, sailing from Liverpool to New Orleans, and thence ascendingthe
Mississippi to Nauvoo. "The Apostles had prophesied," says Mr. Needham, "that I
should be the means in God's hands of bringing my father's house into the Church; and
at a time when my father was the most bitter against me. In a few years, becoming re-
duced in circumstances, he wrote me of the fact, and I sent my brother James with means
to England to bring my parents and all the family to my home. They came, and at
Kanesville, Iowa, I baptized my father into the Church of Jesus Christ." His mother
had died while coming up the Mississippi.
While at Nauvoo John Needham married, on September 21, 1843, Sarah Ann Booth,
Patriarch Hyrum Smith performing the ceremony. He helped to defend the city against
the mob in September, 1840. Subsequently he was in business at St. Louis. It was
from there that he sent his brother James after his parents, as related. The spring
of 1851 found him en route from Kanesville to Salt Lake City, and with him his
wife and two children, his aged father and his sister Eliza. He had a good outfit, in-
cluding horses, cattle, teamsters, a carriage and several wagons of merchandise. The
company was commanded by Captain Nebeker. While traveling up the Platte Mrs.
Needham gave birth to a fine boy, who was named Robert Platte. Autumn found them
at their journey's end. The Needhams settled in the Eighth Ward, where they resided
for nearly forty years. In 1859 John's father, who was a High Priest in the Church,
went on a visit to his son Arthur at St. Louis, and died there in the eightieth year of his
age.
The year after his arrival in Utah John Needham went into business, opening a store
in the Eighth Ward. Soon after he became junior partner in the firm of Robbins and
Needham. and went East to buy goods for the same. He also purchased a large stock of
merchandise for I. M. Homer and Company. Upon his return, by advice of President
Brigham Young, the two firms consolidated. It proved an unfortunate investment, Mr.
Needham losing all he had put into it. He possessed other property, however, including
a farm at West Jordan, and during the famine times that followed had a plenteous store
of provisions, including flour, grain, bran, shorts, etc., which would have been ample for
the needs of himself and family, had he not shared, as did others equally provident, with
his poorer neighbors who had little or none. His family had to dig roots and eat bran
and shorts, and that in very small cakes, twice a day, in order to subsist. "I shall never
forget those days,'' says Mr. Needham. "Many a strong man came begging and crying
for flour, or any kind of food, offering to buy it at any price, and to exchange all kinds of
valuables for it. Every Latter-day Saint let what he had go as long as it lasted. Strange
things happened in those times; God's power was seen and felt; I know for myself that
our flour bin was emptied and scraped many times, and yet we kept finding a little flour
in it when it was needed most." Speaking of the move of 1858 he continues: "It was
the general feeling that we had left our homes for good and would not return. I took my
family to Springville, and then came back to help guard the city. My wife from the first
HISTORY OF UTAH. 455
persisted that all would return in a few months, and I had such faith in her prediction
that I planted tny lot, and was considered very foolish for so doing. But it proved a great
blessing to my family on their return, and all agreed that my wife had guessed right, if
nothing more.''
Soon after this, Mr. Needham went into business with William C. Staines, under the
firm name of Staines, Needham and Company, and continued in that relation until called
upon a mission to his native land. He was absent from the fall of 1800 until the fall of
1803, and returned in charge of a company of emigrants. Having no business of his own,
he now clerked for William Jennings, and also served Kimball and Lawrence in the same
capacity. Later he purchased goods in the East for Henry Woodmansee, whose business
he conducted for a time. At the inception of Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institution,
he assisted to organize and open the great concern, and for several years was in charge
of its clothing department.
The year 1890 witnessed his removal to Logan, whither he went for better health,
hoping also to improve his financial circumstances. The trials of life had been heavy up-
on him. He had lost his first wife, Sarah Ann Booth, his second wife, Martha Milnes,
his son Charles Albert, his brother James and other near relatives. His wife Martha Rose
Turner accompanied him to Logan. He was the father of twenty-two children, eleven of
whom were then living. In the Church he held the office of a Seventy, and since the year
1852 had been one of the presidency of the Thirteenth Quorum. He had much sickness
during his later years, and died at Logan, June 14, 1901, his remains being brought to
Salt Lake City for burial.
HARVEY HARRIS CLUFF.
mR. CLUFF is a native of Kirtland, Ohio, where he was born January 9, 1836. His
father. David Cluff, Sr., was a ship carpenter by trade, and worked during his
youth at the Durham wharfs in New Hamphire. His mother, Betsy Hall Cluff,
was deft in the use of the hand-loom. She wove from the raw material clothing
for her entire family of twelve children, until age made it impossible for her to continue
longer at such labor. They were members of the Latter-day Church, and in comfortable
circumstances, though the persecutions through which they passed with their people pre-
vented the accumulation of much wealth.
Harvey was but four years old when the family moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, following
the fortunes of the Saints. They arrived there in 1S40, having been detained for some
time at Springfield, the State capital, by a visitation of chills and fever. The boy's earli-
est and most vivid recollection of the Prophet Joseph Smith was in hearing him preach in
a bowery near the Temple. Himself and other lads had gathered upon the steps for the
purpose of listening, when a policeman began to crowd them back, whereupon the
Prophet, stopping in his discourse, told the officer to let the boys alone. "They will hear
something," said he, "that they will never forget.''
Young Cluff had just entered upon his eleventh year when the Saints began to leave
Nauvoo for the West. His father's family did not arrive in Utah until 1850, in the spring
of which year they started from Mosquito Creek, near Council' Bluffs. Bishop Edward
Hunter had charge of the company. After leaving Fort Kearney they were joined by a
deserter from that post, who oveftook them during the noon hour and stopped to rest.
Presently soldiers were seen approaching, and hastily mounting his best horse, the
stranger struck across the hills, the soldiers in hot pursuit. Next day they were met re-
turning with their prisoner. Another exciting incident occurred a few days out from
Fort Laramie, when half the teams stampeded andwere halted within a hundred feet of
the steep bank of the river. The company arrived at Salt Lake City early in October.
Favorable reports from Utah County induced the Cluff family to settle at Provo,
where there were only a few families at that time. As these had many hardships to en-
counter, not the least of which were the Indian troubles of the period, the arrival of the
new-comers caused much rejoicing. They assisted in the construction of a new fort of
log-houses, built together and forming four angles, all facing a courtyard or square, in
the center of which stood the schoolhouse, used also for religious worship. There Harvey
456 HISTORY OF UTAH.
spent his first school days. The colonists increased in number until it was safe to lay out
a city and build upon lots. While herding sheep on the mountain sides the boy was a
great student of the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants, the perusal of
which prepared him for his future labors in the ministry. He well remembers the grass-
hopper visitation of 1853, and the pangs of hunger felt by him during the famine that
followed.
The winter of 1854-5 he spent with his brother David at Parowan. He attended the
general conference at Salt Lake City in October, 185G, when President Young called for
volunteers to nelp in the belated hand-cart companies. Promptly offering his services he
started next day with forty others, having twenty-two four-horse teams loaded with sup-
plies for the perishing immigrants. Before meeting the handcarts the relief party was
forced by a northern blizzard to take shelter some miles off the main road, in the willows
skirting the banks of the Sweetwater, and Harvey Cluff was selected to carry a sign board,
indicating the camp, up to the road, and place it conspicuously. In the afternoon of the
same day Captain Willie and a fellow traveler rode into camp. His company was snowed
in some twenty-five miles away. Had the twain not seen the sign board, night would
have overtaken them near South Pass, the coldest region on the plains, and in the storm
then raging thev must have perished. Mr. Cluff passed through all the hardships of that
perilous expedition and returned home on the 19th of December. He had been absent
seventy-two days.
January 24, 1857, was the date of his marriage to Miss Margaret Ann Foster. In
the summer of that year he was employed by Major Seth M. Blair at Salt Lake City, and
in the fall served with the militia in Echo Canyon. "The idea never occurred to me,"
says Mr. Cluff, "that I was bearing arms against my country; I fully believed I was
standing against a murderous force of invaders, and that as soon as possible the President
of the United States would send commissioners to investigate the situation, and on the
truth being known at Washington, the troops would be withdrawn." He was afterwards
a captain of militia at Provo, and in 1865 received a major's commission from the
Governor.
Farming had been the chief employment of his first years in Utah, though cabinet
work was his natural vocation. In the spring of 1860 the Cluff brothers — David, Moses,
Benjamin, William W. and Harvey — began the erection of the largest wood manufacturing
establishment south of Salt Lake City. Not one of the five was able at that time to raise
twenty-five dollars in ready means, but all worked with a will, and the building was com-
pleted by Christmas. Part of it was used as a ball room and theatre, and for many years
"Cluff's Hall" was famous as Provo's chief place of amusement. The proceeds of the
first ball given there went to purchase a bell for the meeting house.
In April, 1865, Harvey H. Cluff was called on a mission to Great Britain. He was
then one of the presidents of the forty-fifth quorum of Seventy. He labored in the Man-
chester conference six months, and then had charge of the Glasgow conference and the
entire Scottish district up to the time of his return. He was president, he records, of the
last company of emigrating Saints that left Liverpool in a sailing vessel — "The Constitu-
tion." This was in the spring of 1868.
At home again, he re-engaged with his brother David in the cabinet business. In
October, 1869, he was called on a mission to the Sandwich Islands. He spent nearly five
years in that land, returning in August, 1S74. He was now employed as a salesman in
the "East Co-op." store at Provo, and also had charge of the Utah County printing estab-
lishment. In the spring of 1875 he became assessor and collector of the city and county.
He served two terms as a member of the city council. During 1875 he was made Bishop
of the Fourth Ward, being called and set apart to that office by President Brigham Young.
He held the position until June 2, 1877, when he was appointed second counselor to Pres-
ident A. 0. Smoot of Utah Stake.
While acting in that capacity he was called in April, 1879, upon his second mission
to the Sandwich Islands. He presided over the Church th«re, and had charge of the sugar
plantation at Laie. He erected a new sugar mill at a cost of twenty-four thousand dollars,
and his financial report for the three years ending June 30, 1882, showed a net gain of
twenty-eight thousand dollars. The Elders assisting him were Joseph H. Dean, Jacob
F. Gates, William D. Alexander, H. A. Woolley, Benjamin Cluff, Jr., Samuel E. Woolley,
Sidney Coray, James H. Gardner, Samuel Gentry, Carl Anderson and James Knell.
President Cluff returned home August 18, 1882, accompanied by eight Hawaiian Saints.
He was now chosen to superintend the erection of the Utah Stake tabernacle, and also
became manager of the Provo Lumber Manufacturing and Building Company.
On September 20, 1882, his wife Margaret died, an event which he describes as the
HISTORY OF UTAH. 457
most heart-rending trial of his life. She was an amiable, faithful and devoted companion,
and had been with him on both his missions to the Sandwich Islands. He had at this
time two other wives, namely. Emily G. Till and Sarah Eggertson, whom he had married
in July. 1S77. He is the father of sixteen children. His plural marriage relations rend-
ering him liable to prosecution under the Edmunds law. he left home in August, 1SSG, for
Arizona, partly to avoid arrest and partly to visit the graves of his parents, who had laid
down their lives pioneering in a new country. Having accomplished his purpose, he
proceeded to San Francisco, where he took steamer for Oregon, returning thence
to I'tah.
On the 16th of May, 1SS9, he was appointed by the First Presidency one of a com-
mittee of three to select a suitable place in which to colonize the Hawaiian Saints, such as
had already come or might yet come to Utah. His associates were his brother William
W. Cluff and F. A. Mitchell. The committee reported on a number of localities, and
finally a place in Skull Valley. Tooele County, was chosen. Harvey Clufi was appointed
to take charere of the Hawaiians and colonize them there. The date of his appointment
was August 21, 1SS9. and on the 2Sth of that month he arrived with the colony at
"Josepa." A year later, while the Fir.st Presidency were attending the anniversary cele-
bration, he was released, and Elder William King appointed to succeed him. He returned
to Prove, resuming his duties as one of the presidency of Utah Stake. During 1S91 he
superintended the erection of the new Brigham Young Academy building. With that
institution he had long been connected as one of it s board of directors.
In 1802. Elder King having died, President Cluff was again placed in charge of the
Hawaiian colony, being released on the 17th of October from his position in the Stake
Presidency. 'Josepa" — a Kanaka rendering of Joseph — was named in honor of Pres-
ident Joseph F. Smith, one of the fathers of the Hawaiian Mission. At last accounts it
had a membership of one hundred and fifteen souls. The chief object in ci _ the
island people was to furnish them with continuous employment and guard against the
possibility of their drifting into objectionable society. President Cluff remained in charge
at '"Josepa" until March. 1901.
JAMES MOYLE.
QMONG leading Utah names — made prominent by native ability and their connection
with public works of note — is that of the late James Movie, the well known con-
tractor and builder: at the time of his death the superintendent of the Salt Lake Tem-
ple. An Englishman by birth, he was a natural mechanic, and became a master of his
art. He was a man of blameless life — of strong character ami strict integrity. A more
honest soul never lived: he would almost wroi - E to do right by a neighbor; and
nest to this pronounced trait, which made him universally esteemed, he was noted for his
studious nature and intense love of learning. Though having but a common education to
begin with, he supplemented it with extensive reading and the thoughtful consideration
of many subjects —chiefly those relating to his business and his religion; and was care-
ful to place within the reach of his children every available opportunity for scholastic
culture. IK- was a devout Latter day Saint, and came to I'iah tor the sake of his relig-
ious convictions, when not quite nineteen years of age.
The Movies iu Great Britain are numerous, and of a noble family, dating from the
time of the Norman conquest. James Movie, the grandfather of our subject, was a man
of education and influence: as was also the other grandsire, William Beer, who possessed
w.alth. was an elector for Parliament, and a master mason in building forts and fort-
ifications for the British government. Two of his sons were commissioned officers in
the army. The parents of our James Movie — John Etowe Movie and his wile Fhillipa
Beer— were temporarily living at Rosemelin, in the County of Cornwall, when James
was born there ou the last day of October, 1835. His father was a stone-cutter and
mason, and the son followed the same vocation.
The family became Latter-day Saints in Devonshire, about the year 1So2; and four
years later most of them emigrated to Utah, in one of the first hand-cart companies of
1856. James was already here, having come two years earlier. He sailed from Liver-
29
458 HISTORY OF UTAH.
pool March 12. 1854, and reached New Orleans early in May. Among the perils en-
countered by him and his fellow emigrants was the dread scourge cholera, from which
many died; but he, although he waited upon the sufferers, passed through it unscathed,
and continuing his journey westward, arrived at Salt Lake City on the thirtieth day of
September.
A few days after his arrival he was employed by President Brigham Young, who
was then building the Lion House. After the completion of that historic structure Mr.
Moyle went to work on the Temple Block. The 22nd of July, 1856, witnessed his marri-
age to Elizabeth Wood, daughter of Daniel and Mary (Snyder) Wood. In December of
the same year he purchased property in the Fifteenth Ward, where he resided during the
next thirty years. In the winter of 1857-8 he saw military service in Echo canyon, and
during the general move that followed took his wife to Springville, where he left her
while he returned to Salt Lake to help guard the city, and set fire to it if necessary, at
the time that Johnston's army passed through. Subsequently he held a commission from
the Governor of Utah as a captain in the militia.
In the spring of 1859 Mr. Moyle began his career as a contractor and builder. He
erected a number of stores and public buildings in Salt Lake City, and after finishing the
city jail, put in the rock work of the principal bridges on the western division of the
Union Pacific railroad; also constructing that company's large round-house at Evanston,
Wyoming. In most of these works he had as a partner Peter Gillespie; at other times,
John Parry. He continued as a contractor until 1875, when he was called by President
Young to take charge of the builders and stone-cutters on the Temple Block. As fore-
man of that department he served until 1886, when he was appointed general superin-
tendent, which position he held during the remainder of his life. In 18"*5-6 he built new
homes for his families — for he now had two wives, and by each a number of children — in
the Eighteenth Ward, where he resided until death summoned him.
It is scarcely necessary to say that a man of his class, character and prominence —
the honored head of a plural household- beame an early victim of the anti-polygamy
crusade. Under the segregating process, he was indicted three times for unlawful
cohabitation, by the grand jury of the Third District court, at the September term, 1885;
and during the February term, 1886, his case came to trial before Chief Justice Zane.
To spare his family the pain of being dragged into court, he took the witness stand
against himself and volunteered the evidence upon which he was convicted. He ad-
mitted that he had two wives, that he loved, honored and lived with them, and sup-
ported them and their children. He was sentenced March 1, 1886, to six months imprison-
ment in the Utah Penitentiary, and to pay a fine of three hundred dollars and costs. He
served out his sentence, barring the time remitted for good behavior, and his fine being
paid he was set at liberty. While in prison he spent much of his time in reading,
storing his mind with useful knowledge, which had been his practice through life. He
was well read in geology, also in chemistry and mineralogy.
Up to May, 1887, Elder Moyle's office in the Church was that of a Seventy, but at that
time he was ordained a High Priest and set apart as an alternate High Councilor of the Salt
Lake Stake of Zion. In this capacity he served faithfully to the end. He was a natural
arbitrator and peace-maker, and disagreements among his workmen seldom went past
him to his superiors; his high sense of justice and kind persuasiveness being ample
fur the settlement of almost any dispute that might arise. As superintendent at the
Temple Block, he had an average of one hundred under his control — at times one
hundred and fifty — and by all he was respected as a man of sound judgment, honest
purpose atid stainless life. Withal he was modest and unpretentious. Though not
given to financial pursuits — his tastes and inclinations being mainly those of a student —
he was as practical and far-seeing in temporal matters, as he was spiritually-minded,
moral and upright. While not wealthy, he was well to do; succeeding in business
and accumulating sufficient means to comfortably sustain his large family.
lie died at his home in Salt Lake City, December 8, 1890. He had twenty-four
children, twelve of whom, with his widows — Elizabeth Wood Moyle and Margaret
Cannell Moyle — still survive. He was the father of Hon. James H. Moyle, the well
known lawyer and democratic leader; of Oscar W. Moyle, Esq., another prominent
attornev. a member of the Salt Lake City Board of Education; and of various other bright
boys and girls, whom he took exceptional pride in rearing as useful and honorable
members of society. His chief ambition in later life was to educate his children, and to
accomplish this he was willing to make any sacrifice.
iS
a^/
PETER GILLESPIE.
PETER GILLESPIE. JR., son of Peter Gillespie and his wife Martha Scott, was
born at Denny, Stirlingshire, Scotland, June 24. 18*22. His father was a stone
mason, and in the city of Glasgow, at the age of twelve, young Peter was appren-
ticed to a stone-cutter, whose trade he thoroughly mastered. His parents were
poor, consequently he received but little education. He worked twelve hours a day, and
attended school at night.
In Glasgow, when he was twenty years of age, he embraced the latter-day Gospel,
and thenceforth labored as a local missionary, also working energetically for means to
emigrate to Utah. He sailed for America January 22. 1851, and landed on the 20th of
March at New Orleans. From that point he proceeded to Alton, Illinois, where he
worked on the Chicago and Alton Railroad, to procure means for an outfit to bring him
farther west. With an ex-team, wagon, and provisions for the journey, he started
April 18, 1S53, for Quincy, and there crossed the Mississippi to Keokuk, where a com-
pany was organized under the direction of Moses Clawson to cross the plains. It was a
season of high water, the rivers overflowing the country for miles, and in addition to
these obstacles their cattle stampeded twice, breaking a uumber of wagons. Herds of
buffalo were encountered daily, and in one of them all the loose stock of the company
were run off. but were subsequently recovered. September 18 was the date of arrival
iu Utah.
Mr. Gillespie settled first in Tooele County, where he remained four years. In the
Indian troubles of 1853-4 he took an active part, stauding guard every other night to
protect the lives and property of the white settlers. In the grasshopper famine that
followed, all his crops were destroyed, and he and his family went without bread for
weeks at a time, subsisting upon segoes and other wild I'oots.
In 1S57. at the call of President Brighatn Young, he moved to Salt Lake City to
work on the Temple. He served in Echo canyon that year, and in the move of the year
following went to Pondtown (now Paysou) returning north with the rest of the inhab-
itants. He cut stone for the Salt Lake Temple from foundation to capstone, and when
not thus employed, worked upon other important buildings and enterprises. In con-
junction with James Movie he did all the stonework on the bridges of the Union Pacific
Railroad from Devil's Gate to Echo: the work upon the Temple not being in progress at
the time.
Mr. Gillespie's ecclesiastical labors include forty years experience as a ward teacher,
and many years service as superintendent of the Sixteenth Ward Sunday school. He
was ordained to the Priesthood in 1846. and became a Seventy in 1857. In his latter
years he was one of the presidency of the 24th Quorum of Seventy. He married on
June 9, 1845, Margaret Melntyre. and after her death wedded Lavinia Hampton. He
was the father of eight children. He died in January. 1896.
EDWARD LLOYD PARRY.
^JTHE mountains of Wales have furnished much of the brain and brawn that have built
vO nP Utah and made her name illustrious in the mighty commonwealth of American
^f States. The staunch and sturdy virtues of the Welsh, which make them good and
desirable citizens wherever they settle, shine nowhere more luminously than in the
annals of the colonization of the valleys of the Rocky Mountains. Something of this will
460 HISTORY OF UTAH.
be shown in the appended biography of Edward L. Parry, master mason and temple
builder, now a resident of Manti, in the County of Sanpete.
He was born August 25, 1818, at or near the village of St. George, Denbighshire,
North Wales, and was the son of Edward Parry and his wife Mary Lloyd. His mother
died when he was four and a half years old, leaving three children, his two sisters and
himself. The gh-ls were taken care of by separate nurses, to each of whom the father
paid three shillings a week, while he and his little son went to live with his parents.
Edward's father, like his father and grandfather before him, was a well-to-do mason and
brick-layer. The lad attended school until twelve years of age, and then worked with his
sire at the mason's trade. At fourteen he received another term of schooling, and when
about twenty-five attended nightschool. Until grown to manhood he worked at his chosen
trade of stone-mason and brick-layei in his native village and the adjacent towns, erect-
ing dwellings, churches, vicarages, railroad bridges, etc., and laboring a great deal about
the estate of Lord Diuorben.
Naturally religious, he frequently attended the Church of England services, and heard
ministers of other denominations, but could not be induced to join any of them. He was
immediately converted, however, on hearing for the first time an Elder of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was baptized March 2, 1848, by Abel Evans, and
confirmed at the riverside. About five weeks later he was ordained a Priest. During the
summer of that year his wife, Elizabeth Evans Parry, whom he had married August 16,
1810, also joined the Church, as did his father and a number of other relatives. He was
ordained an Elder, January 21, 1849, and about a year later called to preside over the
Abergele Branch. In February, 1851, he was set apart as first counselor to the presi-
dent of the Denbighshire conference, and labored faithfully as a missionary in that field
until he emigrated to America. He kept open house for the Elders and Saints, providing
them with food, shelter, clothing and money for traveling expenses.
He came to Utah in L853, assisted by the Perpetual Emigrating Fund Company, which
he promptly reimbursed as soon as he could earn the necessary means. He was also
aided to some extent by his relatives in Wales, and by a lady friend in Liverpool, from
which port he sailed with his wife, on the 5th of February; Elder George Halliday having
charge of the little company of Latter-day Saints on board. They were just six weeks in
getting to New Orleans, and arrived at Keokuk on the first of April. There they re-
mained eitrht weeks, dining which time Mr. Parry worked for a Mr. Brown across the
Mississippi. This gentleman so valued his services that he offered him a city lot and
promised to build him a house and give him his own time to pay for it, if he would stay
there; but Parry, thanking him, refused the kind offer, as he was bent upon coming to
Utah. Having procured the necessary ox teams and wagons, he and his friends set out
to cross the plains. Joseph W. Young was captain of the company, and Mr. Parry cap-
tain of the guard. One of his duties was to go ahead each day and select the most suit-
able place for camping. He also acted as commissary. There were fifty-six wagons in
the train, some of whose occupants were known as the Independent Company, some as
the Ten Pound Company, and others as the Perpetual Emigration Company. Mr. Parry
arrived at Salt Lake City on the 10th of October.
Here he resided until the fall of 1850, when, in the anticipation of "hard times,'' he
moved to Oirden, where he had an opportunity to do some work and obtain wheat and
other commodities for pay. In the season of scarcity that followed he and his family did
not suffer, and were able to help the needy. In February, 1857, he was called back to
Salt Like City to work on the Temple. The manner of this call was unique, but char-
acteristic, of the one who made it — President Heber C. Kimball. Meeting Parry, he
placed his hand upon his shouldei and said, "Brother Edward, I want you to pull up
stakes and come to the city and live, to work on the Temple; will you do it?" "I will if
you say so," said Parry. "Well don't I say so?" was the smiling retort. Within three
weeks the move was made; and Mr. Parry went to work at the Temple Block, and con-
tinued to labor there as long as he resided in Salt Lake City. During the winter of
1857-8 he worked on the breastworks and wigwams in Echo Canyon, and in the move
went to Springville, returning to Salt Lake City early in July, 1858. He continued upon
the Public Works until April, 1S02, when he was called to settle in Southern Utah.
He arrived at St. George on the 5th of June, the same year, accompanied by his sec-
ond wile, Ann Parry, whom he had married February 19, 1857. By his first wife he
was childless, but. eleven children were the issue of the second marriage. He took with
him his little son Edward Thomas, and his foster son George Brooks, leaving his daugh-
ter Elizabeth Ann. with his wife Elizabeth, at Salt Lake City until August, 1803, when
he moved the rest of his family to "Dixie." There he had charge of the mason work of
HISTORY OF UTAH. 461
the St. George Hall, the Tabernacle, the County court house, Erastus Snow's residence
and many other building's. He raised the Washington factory one story higher, built a
house for President Brigham Young, and was master mason of the St. George Temple,
laying the fouv corner stones, by President Young's direction, without the usual cere-
monies, it being desirable to hurry the work along. He also assisted Daniel McArthur,
David Cannon and others to locate a fort south-east of St. George, and during the Indian
troubles there stood guard many nights to protect the settlers and their property. While
at St. George he lost two children, his daughters Artimisia and Minnie, one dying in
February and the other in March, 1871.
In April, 1877, Mr. Parry was called by President Young to take charge of the mason
and stone work of the Manti Temple. Pursuant to this call, he with a part of his family
at rived at Manti, with the President, on the 24th of that month; the rest of his family
following in October. The site chosen for the Temple was covered by a hill — almost a
mountain, of rock, which had to be moved in order to make room for the edifice. "We
were about two years," says Parry, "in building the terrace walls and leveling the hill,
to get ready for laying the corner-stones. They were laid April 14, 1879. The south-east
cornerstone contained a treasure box, making three treasure boxes that I had assisted in
setting in Temples.''
Mr. Parry, in connection with his sons, engaged in the stone mason and building business.
They took up a quarry near Ephraim, known as the Sanpete White Oolite Stone Quarry,
the same from which the large stones in the cornice of the Manti Temple towers were ob-
tained, also the stone of which the Salt Lake Temple Annex is composed. Both his wives
died at Manti, Elizabeth on August 11, 1880, and Ann on August 16, 1886. For many
years Mr. Parry held the office of a Seventy, to which he was ordained at the organization
of the thirty-seventh quorum, January 12, 1854. He is now a High Priest.
JOHN DRUCE.
-.^HE late John Druce of Salt Lake City was a native of England, born in the Parish
\ttj of Mitcham, Merton, in Surrey, June 18,1818. His father, John Druce, was an
^ engraver, with an establishment of his own, where his sons were taught in that
art. His mother, Sophia Bragg Druce, was for thirty-one years the matron of the
church school at Merton, where John received his early education under her tutelage.
Later he attended the Arthur Academy for boys, in Mitcham. Thoughtful and obedient,
he always studied the wishes and interests of his parents. At twelve years of age he
taught a small class in the Mitcham Church Sunday school. For a time he worked in a
large confectionery establishment, owned by a cousin in London, but did not like the em-
ployment, and was glad to return home. He was strongly inclined to study financial
questions, and took naturally to mathematics and mechanism.
In the year 1840 he made his abode in the city of Manchester, where he was em-
ployed in the McEntire engraving department of the Ducie print works. He was very
much respected by his employers and fellow workmen, and was connected with that es-
tablishment as long as he remained in his native laud. The year of his removal to Man-
chester was the year that Mormonism made that city its headquarters in the British Isles.
Mr. Druce, having become acquainted with the Latter-day Saints and their doctrines,
was baptized into the Church August 8, 1841, by Parley P. Pratt, who was then presid-
ing in Great Britain. Soon he was called into the ministry, and labored faithfully for
the cause, presiding at different times over the branches of Stockport, Crossmore, Sul-
ford and Middleton. He remained in England until twenty-eight years of age. when he
emigrated to America, accompanied by his wife, Julia A. Jinks Druce, whom he had
married June 19, 1842.
They landed at New York on the 26th of March, 1846, and at Haverstraw, Rockland
county, in the same State, Mr. Druce was employed at the Garnerville Print Works,
where he remained for fifteen years. He served the firm faithfully, gained the con-
fidence of his employers, and became head of the engraving department. When he
was about to leave they offered him inducements to remain, but financial considerations
had no weight with him, as compared with his religious convictions. Deeming it his
462 HISTORY OF UTAH.
duty to gather with the Saints, he started for Utah, accompanied by his wife and seven
children. He also had with him a cook and two teamsters, one of the latter his nephew.
He left Haverstraw June 11, 1861, and by railroad and steamboat via Chicago and
St. Joseph, reached Florence, Nebraska, on the 21st of that month. Says he, "It was a
very critical time to travel through the States. The Civil War had just begun and the
feeling against the Saints was quite bitter. At Dunkirk, New York, the company was
detained part of a day and all one night, none being allowed to leave the depot. At
Quincy, Illinois, men gathered about the train, swearing and uttering threats, but none
were harmed. At Hannibal, Missouri, the train of cars was taken away by soldiers, in
order to clear the road, the guerillas having set fire to the bridge over which the train
must pass. None were allowed to leave the depot; all slept on the station floor." Mr.
Druce had a good outfit of two Chicago wagons, we'll loaded with supplies, five yoke of
oxen and three cows. He and his party joined Ira Reed's independent company and
started across the plains on the 4th of July, reaching Salt Lake City on the 16th of Sep-
tember.
He bought a house and lot in the Twelfth Ward, where he resided continuously un-
til the day of his death. He also owned at one time property in Pleasant Grove. His
Twelfth Ward purchase was an old adobe house, cold and leaky, insomuch that the
family had to open umbrellas and fasten them over the beds to keep off the rain, which,
finding its way through the mud roof, at times made matters very unpleasant. As there
was no engraving to be done, he determined to learn some other trade, and as building
seemed to be a most necessary occupation, he concluded to be a carpenter. Aided by
Wilford Woodruff and Daniel H. Wells, he was employed at the carpenter shops on. Tem-
ple Block, and there learned the trade in question. Subsequently he helped to erect the
Salt Lake Theatre and other notable structures. As builder and contractor he formed a
partnership with William Robinson, and later was associated with his sons, John A. and
Edgar W. Druce. Under great difficulties he Duilt up a business that enabled him to
support his family in comparative comfort, and made a good home for himself in his de-
clining years. He always had the respect and confidence of those who employed him,
and was ever honest and conscientious in his dealings. He became the father of nine
children.
In the Church John Druce held the office of Priest as early as October, 1841, and in
April, 1843, he was ordained an Elder. February, 1862, witnessed his ordination as a
Seventy, and in October, 1866, he was a president of the Twenty-first Quorum. In 1876-7
he filled a mission to the Eastern States, presiding by appointment of President
Brigham Young over the States of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Returning
home he was chosen, June 21, 1877, first counselor to the Bishop of the Twelfth Ward,
which position he held for over twenty years, under the successive administrations of
Bishop A. C. Pyper and Bishop H. B. Clawson. His name was a synonym for fidelity
and devotion to duty. He was particularly attentive to the needs of the poor, and helped
them in many ways. During his two decades of faithful service as Bishop's counselor he
had the unlimited confidence and esteem of the authorities and people of his Ward and all
others with whom he wTas connected.
His death was due to paralysis, the first stroke of which came on May 18, 1888. He
recovered sufficiently after a few months to enable him to attend to his Ward duties again,
but on March 12, 1895, he suffered another stroke, which deprived him of the use of his
right arm. For about two years he was unable to walk, though his general health re-
mained good, and he was able to attend to business affairs at home. September 29, 1897,
he was taken in a carriage to the President's Office, where he was ordained a Patriarch
under the hands of Presidents George Q. Cannon. Joseph F. Smith and Franklin D.
Richards, the second-named being mouth. This was the last time that he left his home
alive. A week later to the day his spirit suddenly departed from its earthly tabernacle.
THOMAS FENTON.
VERYONE of extended residence at Salt Lake City up to the close of the decade of
the "eighties," was familiar with the form and features of the veteran florist and
nurseryman, Thomas Fenton. An Englishman by birth he was a settler in these parts
four years after the arrival of the Pioneers, and a continuous dweller in Utah from
HISTORY OF UTAH. 4(13
that time until the day of his death. He was an honest, upright man, devoted to his re-
ligion, industrious, frugal, exemplary, and respected by all his acquaintances.
The son of Robert and Mary Anderson Fenton, and the eldest in a family of nine
children, he was born at Wheatly, Nottinghamshire, England, on the 7th of April, 1822.
His early boyhood was passed at Carleton, in his native shire, and what scholastic train-
ing he received was in a village school. His father was a working farmer, in comfortable
circumstances, and Thomas was naturally inclined to farming and gardening. In these
pursuits and the kindred one of floriculture he received a thorough practical education.
He also had some experience in railroad building.
Both as boy and young man he was an earnest inquirer after religion, and when
about eighteen he was much impressed with the principles of the Wesleyau Methodist
church, which he afterwards joined, becoming a class leader therein. The more he read
the Bible, however — with the contents of which he was very familial- — the more dissatis-
fied he became with his religious status. The first time he heard the Gospel preached by
a. Latter-day Saint he was converted, and after prolonged and prayerful consideration was
baptized July 19, 1848. From that time he was not only a firm believer, but a faithful
worker in everything pertaining to his calling and standing in the Church. "His religion,
spiritually and temporally, was the first thing with him all the time."
Prior to hearing of the Latter-day Saints, he had wanted to know of life in America,
and a few months after his baptism he emigrated to New Orleans and from there passed
up the Mississippi to St. Louis. In May, 1851, be started for Utah. His wife, Emma
Alcroft Fenton, whom he had married in 1843, was with him in these journeyings. He
engaged for himself and wife part of a wagon owned by Alexander Robbins, and drove
an ox-team across the plains. The company in which he traveled was commanded by Cap-
tain John Brown, one of the Pioneers and afterwards Bishop of Pleasant Grove. He ar-
rived at his journey's end on the 30th of September.
The Fentons rented part of a house in the Fifteenth Ward, but in 1852 they pur-
chased a house and lot in the Sixth Ward. In 1S56 they removed to Ogden, intending to
settle there, but after buying a house and two lots in that city, and finding themselves
unable to purchase farming land in the vicinity, they returned in February, 1857, to their
old home in Salt Lake City. Having purchased two-and-a-half lots close to his home and
planted a good fruit orchard. Mr. Fenton next seeded, planted and established a first
class nursery. Afterwards, as his sons grew old enough to go into business with him, he
purchased thirty acres of land a few blocks away for nursery stock, and kept his green
and hot houses, rose gardens, etc., in the Sixth Ward.
While conducting his private business Mr. Fenton performed various duties of a pub-
lic character. He was never known to neglect a duty, secular or ecclesiastical. He was
ordained a High Priest in 1853. and took an active part in the ward of which he was a
member. He also served as an officer of the militia in early years. He was thrice mar-
ried, twice after coming to Utah, and was the father of eighteen children, twelve of whom
are living. He married his second wife, Emma C. Trenton, in 1S54, and his third wife,
Anne Maria Wilson Trenton, in 1866. He died in January,- 1890.
JOHN PATERNOSTER SQUIRES.
O* QUIRES' barber shop was one of the landmarks at Salt Lake City in early days, and
(2j the veteran proprietor of the establishment was known throughout Utah and had
Yj|^ patrons from all parts of the Territory. His shop on Main street was a social cen-
ter, and his name almost a household word, not only at the capital, but in many
homes in other towns. 'He was barber for President Brigham Young and other Church
leaders, and in connection with his regular work made wigs and beards for the Deseret
Dramatic Assx'iation.
John P. Squires was a settler in Utah as early as September, 1853. He came from
England, where he was born, at Welwyn, in Herefordshire, December 2.3, 1820. His
parents were poor, but honest and industri >us people, the father, Thomas Squires, being
a gardener, and the mother, Sarah Paternoster Squires, the daughter of a farm laborer.
When John was but an infant the family moved to the town of Hertford, where he spent
his boyhood. He received very little schooling, about two years in all, after which he
464 HISTORY OF UTAH.
went to work in a nursery garden, to help support bis father's large family. He was a
regular attendant at Sunday School, however, and at a review received the highest prize
for committing to memory and reciting the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, one of the Psalms
and answering questions from a catechism. At fifteen or sixteen he moved with his par-
ents to the village of Hatfield, seven miles from Hertford, there working with his father in
preparing oak bark for a tannery, a labor that he very much disliked, though willing to
perform it in order to aid his sire. It was about this time that he settled upon the vocation he
was to follow through life. His eldest sister had married a barber, and they resided at
Welwyn, John's birthplace, about five miles from Hatfield. To learn barberiug he
walked to Welwyn every Saturday, returning Sunday, so as to be ready for work with
his father on Monday morning. About the year 1841 he established himself as a barber
at Putney, and continued in the business as long as he remained in England. On the
21st of August, 1843, he was united in marriage to Catherine H. Fell.
Mr. Squires and his wife became Latter-day Saints March 21, 1847. They were bap-
tized by Elder Moses Martin. Ordained a Priest on the 23rd of July, and an Elder on
the 27t*h of February, the same year, Mr. Squires from that time until he started for
Utah was busy preaching the gospel and otherwise officiating in his sacred office. The
date of sailing from Liverpool was February 28. 1853. In addition to his wife and four
children, his father-in-law and a young woman named Louisa Snow were in his party.
He came in what was called the "Ten Pound Company," paying eighty pounds sterling
for their ocean passage and overland journey. He had scarcely a penny left for inci-
dental expenses. By way of New Orleans and St. Louis they reached the camping
ground near Keokuk, and were there organized to cross the plains under the leadership
of Elder Jacob Gates. Mrs. Squires' father remained at Council Bluffs, and from there
went to St. Louis, where he died. The "Ten Pound Company'' had one wagon for ten
persons. At Pacific Springs, on the 12th of September, Mr. and Mrs. Squires lost by
death their little son Richard, four years old. They buried him next day at Little Sandy,
twenty-seven miles farther west. They arrived at Salt Lake City on the 30th of Septem-
ber. Mr. Squires thus relates his first experiences in "the Valley:"
"After staying over night with an aged friend, whose acquaintance I had made in
the Old Country, and who lived in an adobe hut of one room, in the Tenth Ward, I went
up town to seek employment, for I was entirely out of funds. After looking about for
awhile I found myself in the only barber shop in Utah. The barber being out and a cus-
tomer in a hurry to be shaved, I informed him that I was a barber, and if it met with his
approval I would shave him. He took the chair, and while I was in the act of polishing
him up, in walked the barber and proprietor. He complained of being sick and seemed
pleased at what I was doing. He made arrangements with me to work for him for a few
days, it being near the October Conference, and also invited me to take dinner. My
appetite was exceedingly keen and I enjoyed the repast.
"I next worked at digging potatoes on shares. Before I undertook this job I moved
my family into a small one-roomed house in the Seventeenth Ward. At that time we had
neither chair, stool nor box to sit upon. Neither had we a cooking utensil, but a neigh-
bor lent us a broken skillet lid on which to bake our bread. After baking some flat pieces
of dough, made of flour and water, we were all seated on the floor, partaking of our meal
when our landlord opened the door and walked in. He stood for a few moments, earn-
estly beholding us, and then said. 'Brother Squires, your spoke of the wheel is on the
ground, and when it moves you must rise, for you can't get any lower than you now
are.' My wife being of a sensitive nature could scarcely refrain from weeping.
"Having no opportunity to rent a shop on Main street — there were no shops there
for barbers— and being bound to do something in my line, I took my satchel, which con-
tained a set of barber's tools, and started out to seek employment. The first house I came
to I inquired of a lady who stood at an open door if she would like to have her children's
hair cut. She answered no. I then proceeded to the next building, which was the
blacksmith shop of Haslam & Hamer. I made known my business and soon I had them
seated on the anvil and left them all with clean chins. The same day I shaved butchers,
tinners, chair and furniture makers in their respective shops, and went home rejoicing,
loaded with meat, tea, sugar, and various other household supplies. A day or two later
I met on the street a well-known and respected citizen — David Candland — who asked me
if I were the 'itinerant barber,' and directed me to go to his house and cut his children's
hair. Brother George B. Wallace built me a small shop on his property in the Seven-
teenth Ward, where I did a fair business during the following winter. In March, 1854,
Brother William Hennefer, the Main street barber, being called on a mission to Southern
Utah, solicited me to take charge of his shop, as a partner. I did so, and moved my
HISTORY OF UTAH. 465
family into the Fourteenth Ward, where I rented a small house of Sister Sarah Snyder
Richards, a lady of sterling worth, a friend to the poor and afflicted. September 30th of
this year my oldest brother, Thomas, arrived in Salt Lake City, and made his home for
awhile with my family."
In the latter part of 1854 Mr. Squires purchased from President Brigharn Young a
lot in the Twentieth Ward, paying oue hundred dollars for ten by ten rods, and built
thereon a cottage of two rooms, which he and his family occupied through the winter,
without waiting for it to be lathed and plastered. They were mightily pleased to be in a
house of their own. In 1857-8 he served in Echo canyon, and in the move went to Nephi
trudging most of the way on foot. He now had two wives, having married in February,
1857, Johanna Marie Jensen. Returning from the south, he found his home in Salt Lake
City occupied by a strange family from the north. He soon proved ownership, however,
and resumed possession.
In March, 1861, he closed his business on Main street, and hired out to President
Young to open and run a barber shop inside the Eagle Gate. There he worked through
the summer, and in the fall moved the business into an old building that stood where the
Gardo House now stands. In connection with the barbering business he made wigs,
beards, etc., for the Deseret Dramatic Association. He accompanied President Young
on his annual trips through the Territory, and became vers* intimate with him and his
family. Through the President's influence he secured from Bishop Edward Hunter a
frontage of nineteen feet on Main street, paying for it the sum of nineteen hundred dol-
lars. There he built a barber shop and dwelling house, which he occupied for many
years. There had been periods, notably the summer of 1857, when the Squires family,
owing to dull times, had to turn out and glean wheat in the fields, but now the barbering
business flourished, and having sons to assist him, he was enabled to provide comfortably
for his large family. Besides the two wives named he married two others, namely, Elea-
nor F. Cox, in November, 1866 (his first wife then being dead), and Emily E. Swain, in
March. 1868. He became the father of seventeen sons and sixteen daughters, twenty-
two of whom are living.
In the Church he held the office of a Seventy from August, 1854, and in 1861 he was
ordained a High Priest under the hands of Presidents Brigham Young and John Taylor.
At that time he was set apart as a High Councilor of the Salt Lake Stake of Zion, in
which capacity he served for several years. In October, 1873, came a call for a foreign
mission. Lauding at Liverpool on the 12th of November, he first visited relatives and
friends and renewed acquaintance with the scenes and associations of his childhood. His
account of his visit to his native place borders on the pathetic: "I opened the door with
out knocking, and walked into the old tenement house where I spent the first eight years
of my earthly existence. I asked the occupants if I might see if the old stairway with
the closet beneath was there as it was forty-five years before. I found it still the same,
and being invited I ascended the stairway, entered the room and beheld the place where
I used to say my prayers before I 'laid me in my little bed.' Feelings were awakened in
my bosom that had lain dormant for years. I wended my steps to other scenes. Trees
were still standing, beneath the giant limbs of which I used to play when a little child.
Large rivers as I then thought them to be, seemed now but little brooks. I walked about
beholding other sights of an endearing nature, until I felt sad and weary; so I walked to
my lodgings and lay down to rest."
Elder Squires labored in the London Conference. During a portion of his time
abroad he was given permission to practice his vocation. In his London barber shop he
availed himself of many an opportunity to present the principles of his faith, and the
truth concerning Utah and her people, to customers while shaving them. He returned
home early in October. 1875. In his absence his sons had conducted his business, which
continued to prosper long after the elder ones married and moved away.
During the period of "the crusade" Mr. Squires made his home for a time in Mexico,
where in one of the Mormon settlements he acted as superintendent of the Sunday7
School. Returning he was arrested on a charge of unlawful cohabitation, convicted in
the Third District court, and on May 31, 1888, fined three hundred dollars and costs and
sentenced to six months imprisonment. He remained in the penitentiary until the 5th of
the following October, when he received an unconditional pardon from President Cleve-
land.
The veteran spent his remaining days at his home in Salt Lake City. Latterly he
was a resident of the First Ward, where for a time he plied razor and brush in a neat
little shop built by him upon his own premises. He gradually became quite feeble, up-
wards of eighty years having piled their snows upon him, and for some months prior to
466 HISTORY OF UTAH.
his death he was confined to his house, unable any longer to practice the vocation which
had made him in other days the best known barber in the inter-mountain region. He
died November 13, 1901.
DANIEL AND AGNES STUART.
^\WELLERS at Salt Lake City early in the decade of the "sixties" were familiar with
1*1 a weather-worn Main street sign reading "D. Stuart, Boot and Shoe Maker." The
^^ proprietor of the little shop thus indicated, which occupied a building some rods
north of what is now the Deseret National Bank, was Daniel Stuart, the present
capitalist and money-lender. He came to Utah from England in 1850. The place of his
birth was the town of Lancaster, in the county of Lancashire, and the date of his nativ-
ity, May 3, 1820. His parents were John and Christiana Monroe Stuart, the father a
carpet weaver, dependent upon his labor for a living. Daniel's early boyhood and man-
hood were passed in the town of Kendall. He had no opportunity for education, except
in a night school for a short time. He went to work when about seven years of age in a
carding mill, and was then iu a carpet factory for a little while. At the age of fourteen
he was apprenticed to the trade of boot and shoe making, his term of service being seven
years.
At twenty-four he married, the partner of his choice being Miss Agnes Huddlestone,
a lady's maid. She was a native of Gasgath near logs, in the county of Westmoreland,
where she was born August 17, 1821. Her parents were Adam and Margaret Nelson
Huddlestone. The father was a bobbin turner, overseer and solicitor for a factory, of
which he eventually became the owner. Agnes received but a limited education, never
attending school after the age of eight, when she went to live as companion to an old
lady, with whom she remained for about eleven years. During that time she had no
companions of her own age, and was taught to sew, embroider and otherwise use the
needle with skill. Her only recreations were her visits to her parents, and to her aged
grandparents, who were Quakers. In these visits she was accompanied by her mistress.
After she died Agnes went to live with her Aunt Chadick in Lancashire; a milliner, dress-
maker and teacher, with whom she was very happy, for this aunt, having no children of
her own, made a great favorite of her niece. Two years later she went into service as
lady's maid to four young ladies, who treated her more as a companion than as a servant,
and with them she remained for about two years, prior to her marriage with Daniel Stu-
art. The wedding took place iu an Episcopal church, May 26, 1844. They oung couple
moved from Kendall to various towns, wherever the work of the husband called him.
Their first child, a son named George, was bom February 27, 1845, and on February 17,
1848, a daughter, Margaret Ann Kanatta, was added to the household.
Before her birth the family had embraced the faith of the Latter-day Saints, and at
the time »he was born they were in the city of Liverpool, en-route to Utah, awaiting the
sailing of the ship in which they were to cross the Atlantic. This ship was the "Kanatta,''
a three masted American vessel, and after it little Margaret Stuart was named. She was
but three days old when she and her sick mother wei-e taken on board and the long voy-
age begun. The company of Saints in which they came over was in charge of Elder
Franklin D. Richards, who was returning from his first mission to Europe. His brother
Samuel, Cyrus H. Wheelock and Andrew Cahoon were his assistants. A storm in the
Irish Channel came nigh wrecking the ship, and there was one death, an old man, who
was buried in the sea in the usual manner. These were the maiu incidents of the voy-
age. By way of New Orleans and the Mississippi and Missouri rivers the Stuarts reached
Winter Quarters, but did not find themselves in a condition to cross the plains that sea-
son.
Unable to secure work at his trade on the frontier, Mr. Stuart decided to remove to
St. Joseph, Missouri, where he might obtain means with which to continue his journey to
Utah, and to this plan his Bishop assented. His little daughter died on the way, and
was buried at Savannah, twenty miles above St. Joseph. Arriving there, Mr. and Mrs.
Stuart were both attacked with ague, and having no money, they called at a house and
asked if they could be given lodging. A woman came to the door, scanned them nar-
HISTORY OF UTAH. 467
rowly and said, "You look sick, what is the matter with you? They explained their cir-
cumstances, and the woman's husband, who was a blacksmith, then appeared upon the
scene. '"We will lie on the floor." said Mr. Stuart. "No,'' replied the good man, "you
and your wife and child shall have the bed, and myself and family will take the floor, as
we are well." "So, through God's mercy,'' says Mr. Stuart, "we were housed for the
night." He continues:
"In the morning I started out to look for work, and meeting a man, asked him where
I could find a shoe shop. He inquired where I was from, and on being told, remarked
that pegs were used in the manufacture of shoes in this country. I told him that a man
came over to England and showed me his peg shoes, and that after securing possession
of them in exchange for a pair of sowed shoes, I took the pegged ones to pieces, found
out how they were made and made a similar pair, which I then had on. 'Let me see them'
he said. I held up my foot, he glanced at it, and said, 'I will give you work.' "I re-
turned to tell my wife of our good prospect, and found her and our friends, the black-
smith and his wife, in trouble over a threat made by his landlord to turn him out, if he
allowed us to stay with them, as we were Mormons. I told him not to fear, that we were
Latter-day Saints and would do him no harm, that having secured work I would be able
in a few days to find a home for my family and we would sell some of our clothing and
pay him well for all that he did for us. So he let us stay. I worked steadily and we
prospered. My wife also worked. I soon opened a shop of my own with a partner. A
large emigration for Pike's Peak came that way, and we had all the work that we could
do. I was soon able to buy a log house and a lot, which I sold to good advantage, bought
a wagon, three yoke of oxen and laid in sufficient provisions for our journey to Utah."
Our friends left the frontier on the 1st of June, 1850, crossing the plains in a com-
pany commanded by Milo Andrus. They met and surmounted the usual obstacles, and
experienced at one point the excitement of a stampede, caused by a young man, who was
a practical joker, disguising himself in a buffalo robe and running among the cattle,
thus frightening them. Quiet was soon restored and all went on tranquilly. The com-
pany arrived at Salt Lake City on the 1st of August. The Stuarts rented a room in the
Old Fort and there spent the winter. In the spring they bought a small lot on Main
street, and started building a home by planting four posts in the ground and hanging
quilts thereon, with a wagon sheet for a roof anda wagon box for a bed room. "In these
palatial quarters," says Mrs. Stuart, "my daughter Christiana was born, June 4, 1851.
After becoming settled here some few comforts were obtained at the rate of three dollars
fi pound for tea, one dollar a pound for sugar and a dollar a yard for calico. Very little
money was in circulation, and business was done on store orders, squash and pumpkins."
In the spring of 1853 Mr. Stuart volunteered with others to go to the assistance of
the Iron County settlers, who had been driven from their homes by the Indians of Chief
Walker's band. The militia drove the savages out of the homes they had seized and in-
to the mountains, but did not follow them any farther, such being their instructions from
Governor Young. One evening as some of the militia were seated around the camp fire,
a double-barrel pistol was accidentally discharged, one bullet passing through the wrist of a
man named Bird, and the other whizzing by Mr. Stuart's ear. The same year, on the
24th of November his daughter Zina Agnes was born, named after Zina D. H. Young,
who had shown kindness to the mother. "At this period," Mrs. Stuart writes, "we had
secured a comfortable house for those times, though it had cost us an infinite amount of
labor and self-denial. To assist my husband in founding a home, I made candles, soap
and quilts, besides sewing carpet rags. In 1854 my husband went on a mission to Car-
son, Nevada, and during his absence I supported myself and children. This was a per-
iod when our settlement was afflicted with a severe famine, and my veins were tinged
green from the effects of a diet of roots and greens."
Concerning his Carson Valley mission, Mr. Stuart says: "A number of families had
been called to settle the valley. Colonel Reese had charge of the so-called Mormon Sta-
tion, where I was located. I took up one hundred and sixty acres of land, through which
ran the Carson river Brother Ninde and myself opened a shop together, he doing
tailoring and I shoemaking and repairing. We were the only two men in the settlement
whose wives were not there; so we batched it together. Orson Hyde was our President.
I was there eighteen months.'' Mr. Stuart's next mission was to the Southern States in
1878-9. He was gone about ten months, and suffered much from scurvy, caused by a
lack of vegetable diet, a hard winter having made vegetables scarce in the South.
Up to the year 1869 Mr. Stuart continued working at his trade, in his own shop. He
then opened a grocery store, under the firm name of Stuart &Son. In 1871 he retired
from active business, and since then has done little more than look after his loans. In
468 HISTORY OF UTAH.
the Church, besides filling the missions mentioned, he has acted as Ward teacher, and
was once a member of the Thirty-third quorum of Seventy. At the present time he is a
High Priest. His son George is a Bishop in the Church, and he as well as his sisters,
Christie and Zina, married long since and have families.
WiLLIAM AND AGNES DOUGLASS.
yt'YHILE the Emerald Isle has done much to peoplo America, and especially the North
I ¥ I Atlantic shore, it has not been very prolific of converts to the religion whose de-
^**' votees were the pioneers and founders of Utah. Such converts as Mormouism has
made there, however, have been mostly choice spirits, distinguished for kind-
ness of heart — that proverbial Irish quality — and often for brilliancy and power of intellect.
Mention need only be made of the Fergusons, the Lynches, the Sloans, Taggarts and
others, and the foregoing assertion is amply verified. What the present writer has to do is to
present a biographical sketch of William and Agnes Douglass, of Payson, both of whom
hailed originally from Hibernia.
William Douglass was a tailor by trade, but will best be remembered for his connec-
tion with the co-operative movement at Payson, and with mercantile matters in general at
that place, where he resided for nearly thirty-five years, the greater part of the period of
his residence in Utah. He was born in the parish of Donagore, County Antrim, Ireland,
on the 2nd of February, 1819, and was the son of Samuel and Agnes (Gamble) Douglass.
His father was an independent and wealthy farmer, who gave him every available advan-
tage in the way of education. He attended school continuously from childhood until six-
teen years of age. He was then given his choice of a trade, and following his bent he
chose tailoring, thereby displeasing his father, who deemed the occupation beneath the
dignity of a member of his family. Young Douglass thought differently, and this disa-
greement caused him to leave home. He went to Scotland, and established himself as a
tailor in the town of Campsey, where he soon built up a prosperous business. It was at
Campsey that he came in contact with Mormouism. and was converted to it, being bap-
tized March 27, 1842.
That also was the year of his marriage. The ladv who became his wife was Miss
Agnes Cross, and she was from the same part of the Green Isle as himself. Her birthplace
was the parish of Cairmoney, in County Antrim, where she was born on the 6th of
April, 1818. Her parents were John and Margaret (McCune) Cross, and her early days
had been passed in Ireland, where she was educated in the common schools. She became
a seamstress and dressmaker, and while a young woman went to Scotland. There at the
age of nineteen she joined the Established Chuich, and remained a member of it until
March 29, 1842, when she was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints. The next notable event in her history was her marriage to William Douglass, on
the 14th of the following October.
Two years later the young couple emigrated to America, leaving Campsey September
6, 1844. and sailing from Liverpool four days afterwards; their only child accompany-
ing them. Their ship was the "Norfolk." They arrived at St. Louis on the 23rd of
November, and thence went up the Mississippi to Nauvoo. At the headquarters of the
Saints they purchased a lot and erected a house in 1845. Mr. Douglass was ordained a
Seventy in the Nauvoo Temple, on the 27th of October, the same year.
In April, 1840, the exodus to the West having begun, he left Nauvoo and went to St.
Louis, where he worked at his trade for a time, and then engaged in the mercantile busi-
ness. He would take goods into the country, sell them and solicit orders for more. He
prospered in this line of work. He hadagenial, lively nature, and was popular both with
the people and with the merchants, who when he made known his intention of moving
West, expressed much regret, and desired that he should take a stock of goods and con-
tinue business with them after he had reached his journey's end. Having settled his
affairs, and provided himself with a good supply of clothing, farm implements and pro-
visions, he and his family set out for the Rocky Mountains.
They left St Louis on the 10th of March, 1848, traveling by team to Winter Quarters,
where they arrived in time to join the first companies that emigrated to Salt Lake Valley
that season. They were comfortably outfitted with a new wagon, two yoke of oxen and
two cows, and were organized in President Brigham Young's company, first division,
■ - .■ -■ .
s f? fy t/A e** / /vaithryi ,
HISTORY OF UTAH. 469
Erastus Snow, captain. They left Winter Quarters for the Elkhorn, where the companies
were organized, on the 17th of May, and the next day, while still en route, Mrs. Doug-lass
gave birth to a child, her eldest sou, who was named William John. On May 21st they
resumed their journey to the Elkhorn, and on the 2nd of June a general start was made
for the mountains. The Douglass family arrived in Salt Lake Valley on the 23rd of Sep-
tember.
They ?amped near the Old Fort until the townsite was laid out, aud then settled in
the First Ward. The men were formed into companies to make adobes and procure
lumber for building purposes, and to cut hay for winter use. Mr. Douglass went with
the haying party. Before snow came all were supplied with building materials and feed
for their stock. He assisted in making canals, irrigating ditches and other public im-
provements, and aided with his means during the early troubles with the Indians.
In the general move of 1S5S he went south and settled at Payson, which became his
permanent home. During the Blackhawk war he acted as commissary for the militia and
aided materially the companies sent from Paysou to protect the inhabitants of the Indian-
raided districts. In lSG'L he established a mercantile business, in which he prospered.
Seven years later he with others founded a co-operative store, of which for twelve years
he was the successful superintendent. In 1SS0 he resigned the superiritendeney of that
institution and went into a general mercantile business with his sons. In this also he
succeeded. He was charitable, benevolent, straight-forward aud honorable in his deal-
ings. "Do right and fear not" was his motto. In the Church he held the office of High
Priest, to which he was ordained on the 21st of August, 1S70. He died August 19, 1892,
His faithful wife and widow, who survives, has been for tuany years an active worker
in the great organization known as the Relief Society. She joined it at Salt Lake City,
and labored as a member of it four years prior to her removal to Paysou. In that town
she has been first counselor to the president of the local branch of the society for up-
wards of twenty-five years. Mrs. Douglass is the mother of eight children, evenly divided
as to sex. She is grandmother to Mrs. John J. McLellan of Salt Lake City. A woman of
many excellent qualities, she is respected and esteemed by a wide circle of acquaintances.
ANDREW WATSON
Q SURVIVOR of the handcart immigration of 185G and now a Patriarch in the
Utah Stake of Zion, Andrew Watson, of Provo, was born at Kettlebridge,
Fifeshire. Scotland, October 13. 1832. He was the son of,. James Watson and his
wife Janet Rumgay. The family were in humble circumstances, the lather work-
ing for weekly wages as engine-tender at the Burnturk collieries. The position was one
of care and responsibilitv for the safety of his fellow workmen. At eight years of age
Andrew moved with his parents to Balmaleolm, another village, where, as at his birth-
place, the principal occupation of the people was hand-loom linen weaving. There he
attended the common school, where the Bible was used as a text book. He served a two
years apprenticeship at linen weaving, but had a natural liking for mechanism and the
supervision of machinery. At his father's death iu 1850, he took his place. Two years
later he moved to Lumphinan's Coal and Iron Works, where he continued to labor as
engine-tender.
He was religiously trained, led a godly life, and was acquainted with the scriptures
and the doctrines of different churches, though he joined none until he became a mem-
ber of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This was when he was about
twentv-one. He was ordained a Priest December IS. 1853, and an Elder June 25, 1855.
During the latter year he was called into the ministry, and labored for nearly twelve
months among Saints and strangers prior to coming to Utah.
Upon leaving his mother's home at Lumphinan's. April 28, 185G. he received from
her the sum of ten pounds, also a suit of clothes from the Saints with whom he had
labored as a missionary. By way of Glasgow and Edinburgh he reached Liverpool,
sailed thence to New York, proceeded to Chicago, and left that city on the 23rd of June
for the outfitting camps on the frontier. It was the year of the great handcart emi-
gration. Young Watson was enrolled in Captain James C. Willie's company, one of
those that suffered most severely while dragging their handcarts through the piercing
winds and heavy snows of the succeeding autumn. He records that on the 19th of Oc-
470 HISTORY OF UTAH.
tober the last morsel of food was served, and the relief wagons arrived on the 21st, just
in time to rescue the starving companies. At Rocky Ridge and South Pass a fierce
storm was encountered, and again the heroic little band were thrown into terrible danger.
Fifteen died from fatigue and exposure. He himself was thoroughly exhausted, and
would have perished but for the kind efforts of some of his companions who encouraged
and urged him on. He makes special mention of a Sister Tofield, a Sister Evans, and
of William Leadingharn, captain of the guard, who proved themselves in that awful ex-
tremity devoted and self-sacrificing friends. The date of his arrival at Salt Lake City
was the 9th of November.
Mr. Watson settled permanently at Provo, to which place he was sent by Bishop
Edward Hunter. He did much pioneer work in that part, and helped to build the
Woolen Mills, in which he is still a stockholder. On the 16th of October, 1860, he
married Jane Allen. From May 17, 1857, to June 20, 1877, he held the office of a
Seventy, and was connected with the forty-fifth quorum. He was then ordained a High
Priest and set apart as first counselor to Bishop John E. Booth, of the Fourth Ward;
serving also as first counselor to his successor, Bishop Joseph B. Keeler, until December
9, 1900, when he was released, owing to age and declining health. Meantime, from
1877 to 1S79, he had visited his native Scotland as a missionary. He was ordained a
Patriarch under the hands of Reed Smoot the Apostle, June 24, 1902. By his first wife,
who died March 21, 1882, he is the father of five children, and has two others by adop-
tion. He married his second wife, Margaret Mathers, in January, 1882. A friend of the
subject has said of this good and worthy man:
"Andrew Watson's life has been so close an exemplification of the divine injunction,
'let not thy right hand know what thy left nand doeth,' that it would be almost impossible
to get from him a resume of his life further than matters of name and date. The writer
has seen him in conversation with friends, when his face has become animated and tears
streamed down his aged cheeks, as he bore testimouy to the goodness of God and the
divine mission of Joseph Smith. His boyhood days were spent in an almost constant
struggle for the support of himself and his father's family. His greatest joy was that
brought by the gospel. His hardships in crossing the plains with a hand-cart company
came very near costing him his life. One of his greatest desires now, as he nears the
close of life, is to thank those good sisters, his traveling companions (whose ad-
dresses he has lost), for the sacrifices they made for him when strength failed and he
became stiffened with cold and fatigue. To their kindness and God's mercy he owes his
life — that beautiful life which has been an example of true Christian piety to all who
know him.
"The pioneer residents of Provo remember him as a young man of twenty-five,
toiling in a blacksmith shop, where plowshares were made from wagon tires; again mak-
ing ditches, grading canyon roads and carding wool at Holdaway's carding machines and
the new Woolen Mills, thus helping to make and increase the industries of the growing
town. In the move from Salt Lake City he was a prominent worker, and through many
nights of that perilous time he stood as guardsmau. Through his liberal contributions
the emigration fund was often swelled, though his mother, the dearest emigrant to him,
did not live to use the means he provided for her journey to Zion.
"Through the long years that have followed those pioneer days, whether years of
adversity or of prosperity, Brother Watson and his devoted holpmeets, Sisters Jane and
Maggie, with one accord have held open their hearts and their home for the poor that
need aid and the distressed that need comfort. Their home has always been a home for
the widow and the orphan, and many such have fouud shelter therein. The heavens still
look on and bless his life, and when the books are opened before the Eternal Judge,
Andrew Watson shall not lack for the good testimony of men and of angels. The Father
will surely say, 'Good and faithful servant, enter thou into my rest.' ''
GEORGE STRINGFELLOW.
f FAMILIAR figure upon the streets of Utah's capital is George Stringfellow, for
many years a member of the thriving firm of Stringfellow Brothers, tradesmen. He
was a city councilor under the old regime; he has done active and energetic service
as a missionary in foreign lands, and is still a prominent citizen of the common-
wealth.
w
T(/
C4f ylinj
HISTORY OF UTAH. 471
He was born in Hucknall, parish of Sutton-in-Ashfleld, Nottinghamshire, England,
September 17, 1834. He passed his boyhood in his native parish and at Skegby. where
he was in regular attendance at the Sabbath school, either of the Church of England or
of the Particular Baptists. His mother, Lucy Tagg Stringfellow, was religiously in-
clined, and the boy followed after her teachings. Joseph Stringfellow, the father, was a
manufacturer of hosiery, and furnished employment at home for his family. George had
few opportunities for education, but eagerly grasped those that came in his way, and suc-
ceeded in getting along in the world.
At the age of fourteen he joined the Latter-day Saints, being the first of his family
to take that step. At nineteen he was set apart as a Traveling Elder in the Nottingham
Conference, and labored in that capacity for nearly three years. He was inclined to
business pursuits, and at twenty-five chose his father's vocation for a livelihood, and had
quite a number of hands in his employ. In connection with the manufacture of hosiery
he conducted for some years a grocery store. Later he held a responsible position in a
silk factory, where he kept the time of five hundred to seven hundred employes. He
was thus engaged until coming to America. He was a member of the Rural Library So-
ciety, an organization among the business class of his town, and was well and favorably
known, in spite of the fact that he belonged to the unpopular ''Mormons." The Society
in question managed all local public festivities. Many of its members were connected
with the Church of England.
May 20, 1864, found Mr. Stringfellow and his mother enrolled in a company of Lat-
ter-day Saints, ready to sail on the ship "General McLellan" for America. Thirty-two
days later they landed at New York, and thence steamed up the Hudson river to Albany,
where they took rail for St. Joseph, Missouri. The Civil War was in progress, and much
of the track had been torn up by the Confederates. These and other troubles caused
many delays. From St. Joseph the Stringfellows took passage up the Missouri river to
Wyoming, and from there came on to Utah in a company under the direction of Captain
Joseph S. Rawlins. The mother came near dying during the journey; in fact she was
thought to be dead, and the train stopped half a day for burial services. She was healed
by the power of faith. Later Mr. Stringfellow and a man named Greenwood were taken
dangerously ill, and at Bear River a special conveyance was secured to carry them to Salt
Lake City, where better aid could be secured. They hastened on ahead of the company,
but the third day Mr. Greenwood died, with his head on his friend's shoulder. At mid-
night Coalville was reached, and at the hospitable home of the Bishop of that place a kind
welcome was accorded the surviving sufferer. Next day he was taken through to Salt
Lake City, and was well cared for until health returned, at the home of his friend Joseph
Bull.
Mr. Stringfellow first settled at Draper, but at the expiration of a year he moved with
his mother and his brother Samuel to Salt Lake City, to go into business. A start was
made on a small scale, but success crowned the efforts of the brothers, who are today well
to do and prosperous. They are no longer in the mercantile business, but are the own-
ers of rented blocks and real estate.
George Stringfellow married on the 1st of April, 1867, Grace E. Wilkinson, who has
borne to him eight children, mostly sons. In October, 1880, he went upon a mission to
Great Britain, having under his direction a company of Elders. He labored in the Lon-
don Conference until May, 1881, when he was appointed to preside over the Nottingham
Conference. October, 1882, found him sailing homeward in charge of a company of mis-
sionaries and emigrating Saints, numbering four hundred and sixteen souls. Thus ended
one of two visits made by him to Europe since taking up his residence in Utah. Elected
to the city council, he served the muncipality from 1884 to 1886, since which time he has
held no official position, but has devoted himself diligently to private business pursuits.
He is known to-day as a capitalist. His son, Joseph W., an attorney, is law partner of
ex-Chief Justice Zane.
WILLIAM JEFFERIES.
/^j| MONG the foremost citizens of Tooele county, is William Jefferies of Grantsville,
II formerly one of the presidency of Tooele Stake. He is a native of England, born
in Goodeaves, Kilmersdon parish, Somersetshire, March 8, 1831. His father,
William Jefferies, was by trade a blacksmith, but became a licensed cattle dealer
and storekeeper, owning also a small dairy conducted by his wife, Lita Flower Jefferies.
472 HISTORY OF UTAH.
The father was a devout Methodist class leader and local preacher, and the son, who was
also religiously inclined, took part in this service, while attending the Church of England
day schools. When in his eleventh year his mother died, and shortly after his father's
second marriage, during the same year, he left home to work his own way in the world.
Any honest job, from mason-tending to coal-mining, was willingly undertaken. In
his fifteenth year he worked in a tips and nail factory at Bristol, where he was also em-
ployed in Stothert, Slaughter & Company's locomotive and steamboat shops. There he
became familiar with and learned to like the trade of a machinist. He spent part of a
year in Wales, at the Ebbw Vale Iron Works, but returned to Bristol and the employ of
Stothert. Slaughter & Company, with whom lie remained until twenty-six years of age.
He supplemented his common school education, received in childhood, withcourses in pen-
manship, book-keeping and stenography, and in various ways sought to improve his
mind and make his life more useful.
He embraced Mormonism and entered the ministry early in 1857. On the 3rd of
April, 1801 , he married Mary Frances Ould, and ten days later they embarked at Liver-
pool for New York, en route for Utah. Having some extra means, he generously paid
the fares of three other adults across the ocean and their expenses over the plains. Mr.
Jefferies, with Claudius V. Spencer and Edward Haiiham, presided over a company of
Saints from Liverpool to Florence, where he was appointed emigration clerk under Elder
Joseph W. Young. On the plains he also served as chaplain. He entered Salt Lake
Valley on the 23rd of September.
A little later he moved to Grantsville, under an appointment from President Brigham
Yonng to act as tithing clerk under Bishop William G. Young of that place. He contin-
ued in that office until March 1, LS78. In 1802 and 1863 he employed his spare time in
teaching school. In 1807 he assisted to organize the first municipal government in
Grantsville, and was one of the first officers of the same. In March, 18(i!l, he helped to
establish a co-operative store, and became secretary and treasurer, and subsequently
superintendent of the same, serving in all three offices, though not continuously, until
September, 1891. From August, 1879, to August, 1883, he was for two consecutive terms
Mayor of Grantsville.
1 1 is ecclesiastical offices are quite numerous. In 1804 he presided over the Elders
Quorum, and in 1809 was first counselor to the Ward President. In November, 1873, he
became President of Grantsville Ward, and in June, 1877, at the organization of Tooele
Stake, was appointed second counselor t<> its President, F. M. Lyman. Five months later
Elder Jefferies resigned. In January, 187!), he became a member of the High Council. In
1880 he was superintendent of the Grantsville Sunday School, and in 1882 superintendent
of Sunday Schools for the Stake. In 1884 he became one of the presidency of the High
Priests Quorum. In July, 1888, he was chosen Srst counselor to William (i. Collett,
Bishop of Grantsville, and in January, 1S!).">, first counselor to John Gillespie, president
of the High Priests Quorum of Tooele Stake. Elder Jefferies is the father of twelve chil-
dren.
DAVID JENKINS.
(^""X AVID JENKINS, civil engineer, a surveyor I'm- many years in Utah and in Idaho,
l£l was born September 27, 1813, in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania. His father,
David Jenkins, was a native of Maryland, though of Welsh parentage, ami his
mother, Jane Ferguson Jenkins, was of Scotch descent. Her father. John Fergu-
son, came from Edinburgh to Philadelphia in time to be present at the taking '>!' Quebec.
Her mother, Mary Craig Ferguson, was DOM in England. David's grandfather. Thomas
Jenkins, was horn either on the ocean coining from Wales, or very soon after his parents
landed in America.
David's father died in November, 1816. The boy was a cripple from two years old.
When he was eight years of age an Indian came to his father's house and offered to
'doctor" the lad. He waited on him for three months and helped him considerably, after
which lie departed as mysteriously as he had come. The family never heard of him again.
David was kept at school until about eighteen, when he left home to make his own way
^^K^
HISTORY OF UTAH. 473
in the world. His first position was with a man who conducted a large malting and brew-
ing establishment, where part of his duty was to keep the office books. A year later he
worked for another man, some forty miles away. He accumulated one hundred and sixty
dollars in cash, and then went to trading, buying and selling anything that brought a
profit. He soon doubled bis capital, which gradually increased until he was in comfort-
able circumstances.
David Jenkins first heard the Latter-day Gospel from Elder Henry Dean in 1839.
Haviug learned that a Mormon was going to preach at "the brick sehoolhouse," he, out
of ruere curiosity, mounted his horse and rode to the place. A large crowd had gathered
outside the door, which was locked, but it was soon forced open, and all filed in filling
the house. He took a seat on the stand beside the speaker, in order to be certain of what
was said. Convinced of the truth of the doctrines advanced, he was baptized shortly
afterwards by Elder Elisha Davis, who in Utah lived many years at Lehi. Mr. Jenkins
was the only one in the congregation that joined the Church. The year 1S40 found him
at Nauvoo, where he became acquainted with the Prophet Joseph Smith. He left there
tor Council Bluffs in 1S47, and came on to Utah in 1850.
He made his home at Ogden. He was elected surveyor of Weber County in 1S.V2.
and for thirty-five years surveying was his regular business. He ran the first line for the
Bear River canal, the company now working that enterprise following his line closely, as
he ascertained by personal inspection. He has engaged in various pursuits, and claims
to have operated the first distillery in Utah, as early as 1851. At last accounts Mr. Jen-
kins was in excellent health, except for his life-long lameness, and though between
eighty and ninety years of age his eye was not dim, and he had never found it neces-
sary to use spectacles.
JOHN HUGHES.
"jfOHN HUGHES, the veteran stone-cutter, is a native of Llanledan, Denbigh, North
f Wales, where he was born in December. 1S14. His parents were John Hughes and
aj Ann Jones. They were poor working people, the father a common laborer. He died
when his son was about three years old. The boy's education was very limited, con-
sisting of what little he could learn iu Sunday School. He was inclined to mason work,
but was not able always to obtain it. and therefore labored at times upon a farm.
He was married about the year 1840 to Sarah Jones, by whom he had one child, a
daughter named Ann, whose married name is Treharne. They settled in the little town
of Llangollen. Denbigh, where they first heard Mormonism, it being preached to them
by Elder Abel Evans. Mr. Hughes was baptized into the Church on the 24th of April,
1S47. His wife was also baptized. They were the only members of the Church in that
locality. In the year 1856 they made up their minds to emigrate to Utah. Weary of their
isolation, they desired to be with the main body of the Saints in the far off "Valleys of
the Mountains." They were not very well fitted out for the journey; in fact, it was all
they could do to get the necessary means for their emigration.
They sailed from Liverpool on the 18th of April, and five weeks later landed at
Boston. From that point they journeyed to Iowa City, where the}- went into camp, un-
der command of Captain Dan Jones, and remained for nine weeks, waiting for the hand-
carts to be made, with which they were to cross the plains. That the Hughes family
were not numbered with the ill-fated emigrants who suffered so disastrously that season,
was due to mere chance, if not to providential interposition. It being late when the com-
pany started, Mr. Hughes, as if warned prophetically of the fate impending over the em-
isrrauts, obtained permission from Elders Daniel Spencer and Erastus Suow to remain at
Florence, instead of coming on to Utah that year. At Florence he tarried four years,
and during that time helped to build, at the call of Bishop Cunningham, the little town
of Genoa. He also secured means tor a better outfit for the westward journey.
Early in the season of 18(30 he started for Utah. The company in which he traveled
was commanded by John Smith, then as now the Patriarch of the Church. They arrived
at Salt Lake City in August. Mr. Hughes first settled in the Seventh Ward, but after-
30
474 HISTORY OF UTAH.
wards moved to the Fifteenth Ward, where he still resides. He worked as a stone-cutter
on the Temple between twenty-five and thirty years. He was for many years Ward
Teacher, and now holds the office of High Priest.
THOMAS WILKINS JONES.
kF Welsh parentage, Mr. Jones was originally a Canadian, born in the city of Quebec,
September 12, 1834. His parents, James Bray Jones and Elizabeth Brown Wilkins
Jones, were natives of Caerphilly, Glamorganshire, Wales, but emigrated to Quebec
soon after their marriage, which took place March 23, 1832. The father was an
engraver and copper plate printer, and on arriving in Canada he opened an establish-
ment, which he conducted until his death, an event that occurred on the day that
Thomas was seven years old. After the death of her husband Mrs. Jones, with her
children, returned to Wales, where in March, 1846, Thomas was apprenticed to a tailor,
Mr. William James. Having served his regular apprenticeship, he began business as a
.journeyman tailor in the town of Cardiff, and was thus engaged when in 1850 he heard
the Gospel preached by Elders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Con-
verted to the faith, he was baptized by Elder William Willes in the river Taff , at Cardiff,
the same year.
He came back to America in 1853, sailing from Liverpool on the 5th of February,
and landing six weeks later, atter a pleasant voyage, at New Orleans, where he took
steamer for Keokuk, Iowa, via St. Louis. From Keokuk he came by ox team toSalt Lake
City, arriving here on the 19th of September. He spent the first winter at Kaysville,
and in 1851 went to Ogden, where he has ever since resided. That now beautiful and
thriving city, when first he looked upon it was a mere country village, half covered with
sagebrush, and with scarcely a decent tenement to be seen.
He had resided in Ogden about a year, when on July 23, 1855, he was ordained to
the office of a Seventy, made a member of the seventh quorum, and sent with others up-
on a mission to Fort Supply, now in Wyoming, but then in Utah. Having occasion to
return to Ogden, he with several companions, all mounted, started for that place on the
7th of March, 1856. Snow had fallen to an unusual depth that winter, but just how deep
it was the travelers did not learn until they reached Bear River, where it lay piled up in
great banks, and became deeper and deeper as they proceeded. In Weber Canyon they
were compelled to turn their animals loose to shift for themselves, while the riders per-
formed the rest of the journey on foot. It took them ten days to traverse the remaining
distance, ordinarily a journey of two or three days.
Mr. Jones' main purpose in making this arduous and perilous trip was soon apparent.
On the third day of the following month he married Miss Sarah Jane Foy, the bride's
father performing the ceremony. The heavy snows having abated, the young husband
retured to Fort Supply, taking his wife, and they remained there until the post was
broken up on the approach of Johnston's army. They then returned to Ogden.
This was in 1857, in the fall of which year Mr, Jones was mustered into service in
the militia. He accompanied his brigade to Marsh Valley, Idaho, to intercept the United
States troops under Colonel Alexander, who was making a detour from Black's Fork,
with a view, it was supposed, to entering Salt Lake Valley from the north. Mr. Jones
afterwards served in Echo canyon until operations came to a standstill, the government
troops going into winter quarters at Fort Bridger and most of the militia returning to
their homes. Mr. Jones returned to Ogden on the 4th of December. In the move of
1858 he went to Spanish Fork, and after peace was declared returned to Ogden to settle
down and make a permanent home for his family. In 1862 his mother came from Wales
and settled at Ogden, where she died December 29, 1891, in the eighty-sixth year of her
age.
In the year 1870 Mr. Jones opened a merchant tailoring establishment, which, be-
ginning small, grew to be the largest concern of its kind in Northern Utah. He employed
a number of skilled workmen, had a good local patronage, and was extensively supported
in numerous other towns along the lines of the railroads, east to Wyoming, west to Nev-
^^£^-***<«£>L ^cj,-£z^?
<s/La.-?^4rya.?A-£& c/jLyMJ^zC-
.*£& &
y^Z^l^yy^'
■ .
HISTORY OF UTAH. 475
ada, and north through Idaho into Montana. His business included men's furnishing
goods, and his establishment was in every respect first class.
On the 10th of May, 1S73, Mr. Jones suffered a severe loss in the death of his wife,
who had borne him nine children. On March 2, 1874, he was united in marriage with
his present wife, who was then Miss Louisa Goodale. She is the mother of eleven chil-
dren. In the midst of his more practical pursuits Mr. Jones found time to cultivate the
intellectual and artistic side of his nature. For a period of ten years he was connected
with the local Home Dramatic Association. As a successful business man, honest, ener-
getic and industrious, a law-abiding and progressive citizen, and a man true to his relig-
ious and political convictions, he is honored and respected by his fellow townsmen, and
may justly be considered one of the representative men of the Junction City.
ALEXANDER, MARGARET AND FANNY STEEL
•JJLEXANDER STEEL, a Scotchman by birth, a weaver by trade, and for many
l/J years a resident of Salt Lake City, was born at Galston, in Ayrshire, on the 1st
^"^ of April, 1824. His parents were Hamilton and Jane (Morton) Steel. He was
nearly twenty-one years of age when he married Margaret Farquhar. a native of
Kilmarnock, born July 16, 1S23, the daughter of John Farquhar and his wife Jane
Templeton. She also was a weaver, and had moved with her parents to Galston about
two years before her marriage. The wedding day was January 31, 1845. Mr. and Mrs.
Steel became Latter-day Saints in 1849, he on the 28th of October, when he was baptized
at Kilmarnock by Wiliiam Lindsay and confirmed by James Paton; she on the 14th of
December, when she was baptized by George Speirs and confirmed by James Paton.
The Elders were sent from Kilmarnock to Galston, where the Steel family opened their
house to them for preaching purposes. Soon there was a branch there of about twenty
members, over which Mr. Steel presided until he and his wife emigrated to America.
This event occurred early in 1856. They landed at New York on the 29th of March, and
proceeded at once to Lawrence, Massachusetts, where a brother of Mrs. Steel resided.
With him they lived for some time, and then went to house-keeping for themselves. They
had been some time in Lawrence before they learned that other Latter-day Saints were
there. Mr. Steel, who was very susceptible to spiritual impressions, had an intuition one
day that a young man who had just passed him was a Latter-day Saint. He followed
him. and found that his impression was correct. The young man told him where there
were many more of his faith, some of whom had lately landed from Europe. From that
time the Saints at Lawrence affiliated with each other, and finally an Elder <?ame and ■
organized them into a branch. Four of the brethren had previously presided over
branches, but Alexander Steel was the one selected to preside at Lawrence. He chose as
one of his counselors Joseph Warburton. The Saints held meetings in their homes, and
would sometimes visit their co-religionists at Groveland and Lowell. The Steels were
three years at Lawrence, during which time they worked at weaving for their support
and to get means with which to continue their journey westward. In the spring of 1S59
they started for Salt Lake City. Edward Stevenson was captain of their company, which
reached its destination about the middle of September. The Steels crossed the plains and
mountains on foot.
What to do for a living they did not know. They were in a new country among
strangers, and at first their trade of weaving was not available as a means of earning
a livelihood. James Muir took them into his home for two weeks. The first work done by
Mr. Steel in Utah was helping to repair a broken lime kiln : after which he dug potatoes,
working with Samuel Young on "Squire'" Wells' farm. Sometime afterwards he pro-
cured a loom from President Wells, and labored at weaving for the family, alter-
nating this work, which was in the winter time, with gardening through the summer,
under the direction of William Wagstaff. Subsequently he obtained work at the
Wasatch Woolen Mills. Meantime he resided successively in the Third and Twelfth
Wards, prior to taking up his abode in the First. There his good wife was a diligent
worker in the Relief Society, over which she presided for a great many years, also carry-
ing on the profession of Midwife, until old age put a stop to her active service in those
directions.
476 HISTORY OF UTAH.
In 1862, on the 4th of October, Mr. Steel married a second wife in the person of
Fanny Cartwright, daughter of John and Ann Smith Cartwright, aud a native of Derby,
Derbyshire, England, born September 17th, 1838. She was baptized a Latter-day Saint
when very young, and labored in the silk factories at weaving until she came to America
in 1801, leaving her parents behind. Arriving in Utah, she stayed some time at Provo,
and then came to Salt Lake City and hired out to do housework. Becoming acquainted
with Mr. Steel, she married him as stated. He was then working at the woolen mills
established by Smoot, Sharp and Burton below the mouth of Parley's Canyon, and she,
learning power-loom weaving, worked with him. She became president of the First
Ward Primary Association.
They were a happy family until the anti-polygamy raid under the Edmunds law,
when Mrs. Fanny Steel lost her mind for a season, through the excitement and agitation
of that troubled period. The head of the house was sent on a mission to Scotland, but
returned before the raid was over, and had the satisfaction of seeing his afflicted wife in
her right mind again. She lived until June 20, 1896. His first wife, Margaret, with
whom he had lived happily for fifty-seven years, departed this life April 9,' 1902. Both
women were devout Latter-day Saints, who made every sacrifice required by their
religion. Neil her of them bore children. The aged husband in his eightieth year, is as
firm and zealous as ever in the cause to which he gave the best years of his life. He
now resides at Mendon, in Cache County.
THOMAS COOPER.
(J)X-BISHOP COOPER, of Monroe, is a native of England, born at Hingham, Nor-
ms'j* folk, June 17, 1834. His Father. Robert Cooper, was a brick mason, and his
mother, Ann Thompson Cooper, helped to support the family by working in the
field. One of their son's earliest recollections is dropping wheat and otherwise
assisting his mother at farming. This was when he was seven years old. Even at that
tender age his school days were over and he had entered upon a life-long career of hard
work. The father had less schooling than the son, for he could neither read nor write.
Mr. Cooper speaks of his extreme youth as a period of adversity, during which he often
lacked the common necessaries of life. His constitution was rather weak, hardly fitted
for the kind of labor that fell to his lot.
At twelve he was apprenticed to a shoemaker, though he naturally inclined towards
carpentering and building. After mastering his trade his labors alternated between shoe-
making and farming until he was sixteen, when on June 20. 1S50. he joined the Latter-
day Saints. He now settled down as a shoemaker, and resided for some time at Nor-
wich. Ou September 5. 1853, he entered the state of wedlock, his wife's maiden name
being Eliza Ward. In 1855 he moved to London.
Bound for Utah, he sailed on the ship ''Hudson," June 3, 1S04. The company of
Saints in which he emigrated was presided over by Elder John Kay. The Civil War was
in full blast aud Confederate cruisers were playing havoc with Union commerce upon the
seas. One of these cruisers, the "Florida," ran the "Hudson" down three times in two
days, but finding that she was a British vessel, did not attempt to injure her. From New
York the emigrants proceeded to Florence, Nebraska, where they were met by Captain
Warren Snow with ox teams. Mr. Cooper was very sick on the plains, but recovered,
and reached Salt Lake City ou the third day of November.
He spent the winter at Bountiful, living with Thomas Bottrel. and then returned to
Salt Lake, where he went to work at shoemakingfor William Jennings, living meanwhile
with Robert Dye in the Twentieth Ward. The summer of 1807 found him serving in the
Blackhawk war in Sanpete County, as a member of Captain W. L. Binder's company.
At Gunnison he quarried rock, burnt lime and helped to build a fort and barracks, be-
side doing military duty. While burning lime he and his comrades were attacked about
ten o'clock one night by Indians, who came down upon them under cover of the heavy
cedars, and shot and killed John Hay, an estimable young man, whose death was much
deplored. Mr. Cooper returned home in the fall. In the militia he was first sergeant,
then lieutenant, and finally captain. Connected with his company was George Q. Can-
c^/u^u^ (^o^J^a^
HISTORY OF UTAH. 477
non, the Apostle. He still worked at shoemaking as an employe of James L. Buntiner,
E. B. Tripp and others. During the excitement of the "McKean period" he served on
the special police force
September, 1S72, saw him on his way to Sevier County, where he permanently set-
tled. At Monroe he worked for the Co-operative store and for Jesse B. Hesse. He be-
came head Teacher of the ward, second counselor to Bishop Harris, and after the latter's
death in 1SS4, succeeded him as Bishop of Monroe, holding that office until recent years.
He has held every grade of Priesthood up to High Priest, excepting that of Deacon, and
has always been an earnest worker in the Sunday schools. He was a member of the
county court one term, and justice of the peace three terms. He is the husband of
three wives, two of whom, Mary Ann Rice Winters and Mary Ann Funnell, he married
in the summer of 1S6S. He has no living children, but has reared nine.
ABEL PARKER.
"Z3r* HE late Abel Parker of Tooele County was one of the thirteen children of James
IQ Parker and his wife Nancy Fulford, and was born in Brockville, Ontario. Canada,
<j> June 27. IS 15. His father was a veteran of the war of 1S1'2. James Parker's oc-
cupation was farming and squaring timber, from which work he realized barely
sufficient means to support his family. Abel's education was limited. When fifteen
years of age he was sent up the St. Lawrence some seventy-five miles, to live with an
uncle and learn blacksmithing. This, with sawmilling comprised his early labors. In
January. 1S3S. he married the widow of George Elliott, whose maiden name was Isabella
Marshall: a native of Deanston, Perthshire, Scotland.
The same year he was baptized a Latter-day Saint at Oak Point. New xrork. In 1843
he moved to Youngstown, in that state and the next year to Holdimand, Ontario, on the
Grand river, residing in that part until his removal to Iowa in 1S57. He had left his
early home with the expectation of going to Nauvoo, Illinois, but had been prevented by
sickness and poverty. He was now hindered from going on to LUah because of Johns-
ton's army, which was moving West.
He started from Plattsmourh. Nebraska, for Salt Lake City, in the latter part of
August, 1862. He was well outfitted with teams and wagons, and had seventy-five head
of cattle, with the machinery for a saw mill. His wagons proceeded alone up the south
bank of the Platte, and wintered forty miles north-east of the present city of Denver. He
made friends with the Indians and traded with them. He and his party reached their des-
tination June 23. 18(53.
Settling in Middle Canyon one and a half miles from Tooele City, he resided there
until his death, January 22. 1S96. His wife preceded him into the spirit world one year,
eight months aud twenty-two days. Thev were the parents of five children. In business
Mr. Parker was connected with the Tooele County Co-operative Stock Company, and the
Tooele County Co-operative Milling Company. He was also president of the Tooele City
Co-operative Mercantile Institution. He was generous, benevolent and charitable. In the
Church he held the office of High Priest, to which he was ordained February 15, 1S65.
Fur about fifteen years he was one of the Presidency of the High Priests' Quorum of
Tooele Stake.
JOHN P. WOOD,
^P*HE late John P. Wood, of Willard, was a carpenter by rrade, and a Latter-day
fJj Saint veteran from the days of Nauvoo. He was an Englishman by birth, a
TjT native of Didsbnry. Lancashire, where he opened his eyes to the lisiht on the 25th
of August. ISIS. His parents were William aud Nancy Wood. He was baptized
into the Latter-day Church by Elder Hiram Clark, at Stockport, in Cheshire. March 31,
478 HISTORY OF UTAH.
1843, and confirmed by Elder Joseph Walker on the following 11th of June. A year
later he was ordained to the office of a Priest.
The fall of 1S44 witnessed his arrival at Nauvoo. He was then a married man, hav-
ing wedded at Manchester in 1840 his first wife. Ann Leigh, who bore to him six sons.
Upon reaching Nauvoo he applied to the martyred Prophet's widow, Emma Smith, who
gave him employment at his trade. In September. 1845, he was ordained to the office of
a Seventy, under the hands of the presidency of the Thirtieth quorum, with which he
became connected. He shared the persecutions of the Saints in Illinois, and came at an
early day to Salt Lake valley. Here his wife died, and here he married again, the
maiden name of his second wife being Ellen Chatterley, She had three children. The
date of this marriage was November 29, 1851.
Not long afterwards the family moved to Box Elder County, settling in Wiliard City,
where Mr. Wood married his third wife, Ellen Hankinson, June 13, 1856. She became
the mother of twelve children. During the same year Mr. Wood was ordained a High
Priest and set apart as a member of the High Council of Box Elder Stake, then presided
over by Lorenzo Snow, one of the Twelve Apostles. For forty years he was secretary
of the High Priests1 quorum of that stake. In May, 1882, he went upon a mission to his
native land, where he labored with his usual fidelity until honorably released, when he
returned home in charge of a company of emigrating Saints. He was a good, and
worthy man, in every way deserving of the esteem he inspired and the confidence re-
posed in him. He died at Wiliard, April 18, 1899.
JOHN WHITMER HOOVER.
JOHN W. HOOVER is a native of Bridgeport, Franklin County, Pennsylvania, where
he was born November 18, 1834. There he passed his boyhood until eight years of
age. His parents were Abraham and Mary Adair Hoover. They were well-to-do
people, engaged in farming, milling and merchandising. Being Latter-day Saints
they removed,to Nauvoo, Illinois, the gathering place of their people, in 1S42. The
migratory life lead by the family in connection with the Church, prevented the boy
from receiving much education. His early labors were in farming, though he naturally
inclined to milling as a vocation, and in Utah engaged in this business.
After leaving Nauvoo the family resided at St. Joseph. Missouri, where the father
died and John and bis younger brother were left to care for their widowed mother. He
came to Utah in 1854, starting from the frontier about the first of June and reaching Salt
Lake valley in October. He traveled with a merchandise train belonging to Middleton
and Riley of St. Joseph, and drove an ox team from the Missouri river.
Arriving in Utah he settled first at Sessions' settlement, now Bountiful, where he re-
mained until October, 1850, when he removed to Springville. There he engaged in the
milling business at the Houtz flouring niill. In February, 1861, he removed to Provo,
and has since resided there. He was associated in business with Myron Tanner from 1S63
to 1880, and since that time has been in business with his sons. He has five sons and
six daughters. The maiden name of his wife was Mary Elizabeth Coursey.
ISAAC K. WRIGHT.
fHE Wrights came from Ohio, where at Springfield, in Clark County, the subject of
this sketch was born September 29, 1849. His parents were Abraham R. and
Mary Ann Wright. They were poor, and could not give their children much edu-
cation. Isaac was but seven years old when the family, who were Latter-day
Saints, emigrated to Utah. Proceeding to the frontier, they joined a company of emi-
'/r/J
i^c^
H1ST0KY OF UTAH. 479
grants under Captain A. 0. Smoot, and traveled by ox team as far as Green river, from
which point they had a horse team to Salt Lake City, arriving on the 2nd of November.
Here Isaac grew to manhood. His early labors were on the farm, but at eighteen
he learned the blacksmith's trade and carried on that business until the winter of 1874-5._
when he removed to Sevier County, where he has resided up to the present time. While
still at Salt Lake City, he became more or less prominent in athletic sports, notably base-
ball, and having a powerful phyique, it was easy for him to excel in that direction. He
belonged to the once famous "Step-and-Feteh It'' team, organized in the Seventeenth
Ward, where he also learned and pursued the trade of blacksmith at the shop of the
veteran smith Martin H. Peck.
May 17, 1875, was Mr. Wright's wedding day. He married Henrietta Wall, who
has borne to him eight children, evenly divided as boys and girls. In April, 1889, he ful-
filled a mission to Canada, from which he returned, on account of ill health, in Septem-
ber, 1890. Prior and subsequent to that time he was active in the Sunday school cause.
His home is in Richfield.
In politics Mr. Wright is a Democrat. Recommended by his party for probate
judge of Sevier county, he was appointed to that office by President Cleveland in
February, 1895, and served until Utah became a State. In 1896 he was elected to the
State Senate, drawing the long term, covering four years. Under the Territorial regime,
in the latter part of the "eighties," he had served for three years as city councilman.
Since the division on national party lines he has been quite active in politics, and has
been sent as a delegate to all the Democratic conventions. His majority over his Repub-
lican opponent when elected State Senator, was nearly eight hundred.
JOSEPH WILLIAM TAYOR.
p^HE eldest son of Utah's pioneer undertaker, Mr. Taylor has risen to rival promi:
l^i^ nence with his sire in the business to which both have devoted the best years of
^^ their lives. A genial and affable gentleman, possessing to a marked degree the
tenderness and tact required by his vocation, he enjoys a measure of popularity
unexcelled by any local competitor in his line. His parents are Joseph E. and Louisa
R. (Capener) Tavlor, and he was born at Salt Lake City, January 15, 1855. The family
were in comfortable circumstances, and Joseph, who was one of several children, re-
ceived a good education, principally if not entirely in the common schools of his native
place. In the intervals of and after completing his school life, he followed the under-
taking business as an assistant to his father, from 1864 until 1876. In December of the
latter year he left Salt Lake City to fulfill a mission in Europe as an Elder of the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
As a passenger from New York on the steamship "Wyoming," he landed at Liver-
pool on the 6th of January, 1877. He was set apart by President Albert Carrington,
then at the head of the European mission, to labor as a traveling Elder in South Wales,
where he served as a missionary until the 17th of September, the same year, when he
returned to Liverpool and was appointed to labor in the Newcastle conference. There
he remained until October, 1878, when he was honorably released from his mission and
forthwith returned home.
From November, 1878, until September, 1879, he worked with his father in the under-
taking business, and then left home, having accepted employment as Pacific Express
messenger and train baggage man on the Utah Southern Railroad, running between
Juab and Milford. While thus engaged he married on April 15, 1880, Miss Margaret
Littlefair, of Stockton-on-Tees, County of Durham, England, the marriage ceremony
being performed by President Joseph F. Smith in the Endowment House at Salt Lake
City. In April, 1881, Mr. Taylor, still in the employ of the railroad, was transferred
from Juab to Ogden, working on the Utah Northern during its construction, as Pacific
Express messenger and train baggage man, and running as far as Butte, Montana. This
employment continued until September, 1882.
He then left Ogden and came back to Salt Lake City. Here he purchased ground.
480 HISTORY OF UTAH.
erected a two-story building, and on January 16, 1883, began business for himself as an
undertaker. He soon became popular, and consequently prospered. In March, 1892,
he took down his two-story building and erected another of four stories, with basement,
known as the Taylor Block. 21-23-25, West Temple Street. The same year he began
the study of embalming, and in due time became proficient in that science. He holds
to-day diplomas from three different colleges, and two state licenses, and is widely known
as a leading undertaker and licensed embalmer.
In April, 1902, Mr. Taylor having purchased that valuable piece of residence
property, known as the Carrington corner, on Main and North Temple Streets, began
the erection of a handsome new home, which has recently been completed. There he
and his wife now reside. Their home life is a happy one.
NEILS MORTEN PETERSON.
»cv M. PETERSON, surveyor, now a resident of Richfield, Utah, is a native of Den-
f I mark, born at Lynghuns, Albeck Sogn, Hjorring Amt, November 12, 1819. He
*■&•■* was the son of Morten and Kirsten C. Peterson. The father was a farmer and
the family was in comfortable circumstances. Neils was sent to the common
schools, and passed his boyhood at and in the vicinity of his father's farm. When a
young man he moved to Idskou, Woer Sogn, a neighboring town, where he followed
brick-making, bridge buildine and farming for a livelihood. He owned a farm, and
through government contracts for building highways, accumulated considerable means.
In 18.")0 he married Mattie C. Jenson, and eight years later became a Latter day Saint.
In 1862 he and his family emigrated to Utah, crossing the Atlantic in a sailing vessel
with a company of Saints under Elder C. A. Madsen. They landed at New York, and
proceeded by way of St. Joseph, Missouri, to Omalia, whence they crossed the plains in
an independent ox-team company under the direction of Elder John Van Cott. They
readied Salt Lake City on the 22ud of Septemb er.
Mr. Peterson settled first at Pleasant Grove, but moved in March, 1864, to what is
now Richfield. He proved an enterprising citizen and a capable public servant. He
was chosen counry selectman in 1865, and in the capacity of surveyor engineered and
leveled the Richfield irrigation canal, after two unsuccessful attempts by other parties.
This canal, from the Sevier river, made possible homes for hundreds of people. Mr.
Peterson was still serving as county selectman when in 1867, on account of the Black-
hawk war, the Sevier settlements were temporarily abandoned. He moved his family to
Ephraim, took an active part against the Indians, and at the close of 1871 returned to
Richfield. He was immediately chosen Bishop's counselor and served as such until 1876;
also serving a second term as county selectman, from 1871 to 1875. During the first two
years of that period he was likewise county surveyor. In 1874 he married his second
wife, Hannah Larsen. He is the father of thirteen children. From 1876 to 1878 he was
absent upon amission in Scandinavia, where he had charge successively of the Norway
and Aalborg conferences.
Since the resettlement of Sevier Valley Mr. Peterson has located several canals,
which are now in successful operation. They include the Sevier Valley Canal, constructed
from the Sevier river to Richfield during recent years, and in course of construction,
when this article was written, from that town northward, to cover thousands of acres of
desert land, yet to become one of the best farming regions in the State.
JOSEPH MARRIOTT.
t OSEPH MARRIOTT, of Murray, was born April 4, 1838, in the village of Sutton,
J Nottinghamshire, England. His parents were Henry and Esther Marriott, and he
was their eldest son. He was eleven years old when his father and mother were
baptized into the Sutton branch of the fihurcb of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
A vear or two later he went to work in the Plesley cotton mills, and while there suffered
. rspy.w , ,
d^^jCf^^*?^*^1-'
HISTORY OF UTAH. 481
much petty persecution on account of the religion of his parents. On one occasion
four of his fellow employes, young men, members of the Reformed Methodist church,
seized him, saying derisively that they would anoint him with oil and brush him clean.
Thereupon they poured mill oil over him and put his head under a revolving brush, used
for brushing cards, pulling his hair and making his skin very sore. This was the
first time he ever used profane language. "You d curses," he exclaimed, as he
writhed and struggled in the hands of his tormentors. This ill treatment determined him
to be a Latter-day Saint, and he was baptized by his father at Mansfield Wood House,
where the family then resided, June 11, 1853.
Two years later his father sailed for America, and during two years more the mother
lived as best she could, assisted by the labors of her children. Joseph, after leaving
the cotton mills, worked in the potteries and coal mines. In 1857 his mother and sister
came to America, and he and his brother Thomas then lived with James Briggs, and subse-
quently with John Woodhead, the latter at Pilley in Yorkshire. Here was a branch of the
Church, in which Joseph was ordained a Priest. He remained there until the fall of 1859,
and then went to Clay Cross, where he and his brother stayed as long as they remained
in their native land.
In a company of Latter-day Saints presided over by Elder J. D. Ross, they sailed
for America. April 1, 1860, and a month later found Joseph Marriott iu New York City.
He proceeded to his fathers home in Alton, Illinois, but left there on the 4th of July,
setting out for the East on foot, alone, without a cent in his pocket, and with nothing
in his hands but a concertina, which he played by the wayside. He was a good singer.
having sung iu choirs in the old country, and managed to pick up a living by his music.
At Chicago he hired out to Perry Jones, of South Grove, to work in the harvest field.
His associates were very hard upon the Mormons, one old man saying that if he saw a
Mormon crossing his field he would take his gun and shoot him down. In this unfriendly
atmosphere he remained until the middle of April, 1861, by which time he bad changed
his mind about going East and had determined to come to Utah. Proceeding to Florence,
Nebraska, he crossed tbe plains that season in a company arriving at Salt Lake City
about the middle of September. He was met by Uncle Benny Green of Draper, a great
friend of his father's who had come to meet his boys in this company. He invited young
Marriott home with him.
Until March 1, 1*62, he worked for bsard and clothing at Draper, and then came
to Salt Lake City, where he dug ditches, herded cows and went to work in the city
pottery. On the 1st of December, the same year, he married Elizabeth, widow of Joseph
Wardell. In June, 1864, he moved to West Weber, but iu 1870 gave up his farm at that
place and moved to Honeyville, and thence to Corinne, where he ran a job wagon until
the spring of 1S72. Business falling off. he had to move again, this time to West Jordan,
where he drove team till fall, and then took up a homestead a mile east of Sandy. He
lived in a tent until snow came, and was about to build a house and execute a contract
on the big canal west of the Jordan, when his wife died, June 11, 1S73. He greatly
missed bis kind and faithful companion. She did his reading for him, he being unedu-
cated at that time. Six weeks after his wife's death, her infant died also. Deprived of
his wife's help in reading, the bereaved husband set to work determinedly to learn to
read for himself, and after much labor he succeeded.
Having built upon his homestead and cultivated his land, discovering aud utilizing
a water supply that made him independent of his neighbors, he entered again into the
state of wedlock, marrying August 20, 1876. Martha Larkins, a member of the "'He-
organized Church," with which he had become, or was about to become connected.
She died March 2S, 1888. His house being lonely and desolate, he married a few
weeks later Elizabeth Wiechart, a widow with five children. She died November 20.
1895, and on February 9, 1896, he married another widow, Mrs. Mary Nelson, who had
two children.
About the year, 1SS1. Mr. Marriott began to study medicine, and after getting a
good knowledge of herbs, he started to sell medicines among his neighbors. He
traveled by team, carried a large stock of drugs, and business increased with him until
he had a route all through Salt Lake County. In April. 1885, he sold his homestead to
Thomas Graves, aud bought from him a saloon at Murray, which he forthwith con-
verted into a drug store. In 1SS9 he was a student in the National School of Pharmacy,
and though he studied at home, as before, his rating in pharmacy was sixty per cent.
When the Utah Pharmaceutical Association was organized. April 5. 1S92. Mr. Marriott
became a member of that b >dy. Iu July. 1894, he received from the medical board of
examiners a certificate authorizing him to practice medicine as a non-graduate practi-
482 HISTORY OF UTAH.
tioner. In politics he is a Democrat. He claims to have brought to Murray the first
printing press; also to have been the first school assessor and collector for the Sandy
district. At intervals between farming and practicing medicine he has labored with his
father as a preacher of the Re-organized Church among the southern settlements of
the County.
GEORGE CURTIS.
^J^HE son of a poor whale fisherman, and by trade, a wool sorter, Mr. Curtis was
((G)\ born at Beccles, county of Suffolk, England, March 20, 1820. His parents were
\*S Richard and Mary Curtis. The first thirteen years of his boyhood was passed at
Shadentteld, in his native county. He then went to Warely, Yorkshire, to learn
his trade, at the factory of the Samuel and William Smith Worsted Manufacturing Com-
pany. His only education was acquired from practical experience in business, and in
daily contact with his fellow men. He was temperate and industrious, and earned an
honest living.
It was in Yorkshire that he became a Latter-day Saint, being baptized at the town
of Bradford, on the 11th of August, 1850. He did not immediately "gather to Zion; " in
fact he remained, after joining the Church, twenty years in the old country. June 21,
1870, was the date of his departure from his native land, in a company of Saints, in
charge of Elder Robert P. Neslen, on the steamship "Wyoming." At New York, the
boat was quarantined on account of smallpox, and the entire ship's company vaccinated.
By way of the Union Pacific railroad and its connections, they reached Salt Lake City,
on the 11th of July. Mr. Curtis first settled in the Sixth Ward, but after sixteen months
he moved to Sugar House Ward, which has ever since been his home.
His life in Utah has been comparatively uneventful, but by no means idle and uninter-
esting. He has been a steady worker in his Ward, and was a director in the Ecclesiast-
ical Corporation thereof, from the time of its organization. He has two wives, Jane
Adamson and Catherine J. Lindsey, married respectively, oa February 28, 1850, and
December 24, 1871. He has two children, both daughters, Emily and Annie. He is a
kind husband and father, a good neighbor, a loyal citizen and an honest man. His office
in the Church is that of Elder.
AMOS D. HOLDAWAY.
0)'
. R. HOLDAWAY is a native of Utah, born at Provo, January 23. 1853. His parents,
Shadrach Holdaway and Lucinda Haws, were married at Salt Lake City, De-
cember 24, 1848. His father was a member of the Mormon Battalion. The
family was far from wealthy, and Amos received but an elementary education,
attending school, while a boy, about three months in the year. The rest of his time was
employed in various ways, assisting his father to earn a livelihood.
The son's inclination was to no particular pursuit or profession, though there was a
time when he would have studied law in preference to any other branch of knowledge,
had the opportunity been open to him; but his lot forbade, and he was forced to content
himself with humbler labors and less pretentious ambitions.
His early boyhood was passed at the "Garden City," as Provo has come to be called.
He worked in a carding machine, and at times upon the farm. Later he drove oxen and
engaged in lumbering. In his manhood he became a railroad contractor aud builder, and
was associated in business with James E. Daniels, Jr. On the 10th of October, 1872, he
married Lydia Thrower, of Norwich, England, by whom he has had eight children, six of
them boys.
i^c?
HISTORY OF UTAH. 483
In the year 1880. Mr. Holdaway began a sis year's term of service as a member of
the City Council, of Provo, in which capacity he also served during' 1888 and 1889.
From June, 1SS2. to March, 1893, he was a member of the Utah County Court; from April,
18SG, to February 1890, one of the board of directors of the Insane Asylum; and from
1890 to 1896, a director of the Deseret Agricultural and Manufacturing Society. His
judgment and discretion were recognized by his being selected as a member of a council
of twelve, chosen in 1884, to settle the controversy known as the "Jordan Dam Case,"
between Utah and Salt Lake counties. In the same case, he represented Utah couDty,
as referee, in 1895. In religion, Mr. Holdaway is a Latter-day Saint, holding the office
of High Priest, to which he was ordained November 1, 1S84, under the hands of Pres-
ident George Q. Cannon. Aside from certain honors bestowed on him. in recognition of
his worth — honors which no man can achieve — he has riseu to prominence by his own
unaided exertions.
GEORGE M. KERR.
^"''HIS gentleman holds the responsible position of depot master at the Union railway
f^jj depot in Ogden. He is of Scotch parentage, though born on English soil, name-
\f ly: at Newcastle-on-Tyne, in the County of Northumberland, April 8, 1S41. He
had attained his fifteenth year when he joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Lat-
ter-day Saints, and was eight days over twenty-two years of age when he married Jane
Affleck, who came with him to America.
They sailed May 30, 1863, on the ship "Cynosure," and landed at New York on the
21st of July. They crossed the plains with ox teams, in a company led by Captain
Thomas Ricks, leaving Florence on the 9th of August and arriving at Salt Lake City on
the 4th of October. Mr. Kerr and his wife walked the whole of the way. For about
two weeks he worked in the Deseret News office, taking the place of a man who was sick.
He then went to Ogden, which has ever since been his home.
At first he labored at anything that he could find to do. but the coming of the rail-
road gave him regular employment. On the first of May, 1868, he worked on the
construction of the Union Pacific, and the same year was with the Benson-Farr and
West contract on the Central Pacific, remaining there until the completion of the line.
He then took a contract for grading on the Utah Central, and when that road was com-
pleted worked on the section until April 24, 1871. Upon that date he became porter and
assistant to the baggage master of the Central Pacific company at Ogden. July 1. 1872,
he was appointed baggage master for the same road, and remained in that position until
the Union depot was ready for occupancy, when he was made depot master, the position
held by him at the present time.
MANUFACTURERS
AND
MINING MEN.
tZw-t-C ' tsl^c^t&zf
ELIAS MORRIS.
£§) LIAS MORRIS, the well known builder and manufacturer, who came to Utah in the
l§[ year 1852, was one of the most useful and enterprising men that ever took up resi-
dence within our borders. He was born at Stanfair, Talhairn, Denbighshire, North
Wales, June 30, 1825, and was the son of John and Barbara Morris, who were the
parents of seven sons and five daughters. His father was a mason and taught his son
that trade when he was twelve or fourteen years old, prior to which time he spent fifteen
months at school under the Rev. Thomas Lloyd in the town of Abergele, to which place
the family had moved. The father took contracts to build bridges and prisons for the
counties of Denbigh and Montgomery. Elias attended mason and kept his father's books,
at the same time learning to cut and set stone. When about fifteen he kept books for
William Jones, a builder at Mottram, Yorkshire, England, and after leaving his employ
wanted to go to sea, but could not find a ship to which he could apprentice himself.
Subsequently he worked upon St. George's hall, Liverpool, and also plied his trade at
Manchester and in other parts of England. He was a member of the Bricklayer's Society
and of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
He had returned to Abergele and was working there, when Elder John Parry, Jr.,
came into that part preaching Mormonism. He was invited to tea by Elias' mother,
much to her son's disgust, for he shared the prevailing prejudice against the "deluded
Mormons;" but soon he heard Elder Parry preach, and two days later offered himself as
a convert to the faith. He was baptized March 17, 1849, in the sea at Point-of-Air light-
house, near New Market, where there was a small branch of the Church. He was the first
Mormon convert in Abergele. He at once entered the ministry, preaching on Sundays
and week nights, and in a short time baptized a goodly number of persons, including his
sister Barbara and his brother Richard V.. who, like himself, became a Bishop in Utah.
Up to December, 1819, he officiated as a Priest, and was then ordained an Elder under
the hands of Elder Abel Evans.
In September, 1851, there was a conference of the Latter-day Saints at Holywell, in
Flintshire district, over which William Parry presided, with Elias Morris as his first
counselor. Apostle John Taylor attended this conference, and there engaged Mr. Morris
to go with him to Utah in the interests of a sugar company he had organized for the
manufacture of beet sugar at Salt Lake City.
In charge of the machinery for this enterprise, and a small company of emigrating
Saints, he set sail from Liverpool in the latter part of March, 1852, and by way of New
Orleans and St. Louis, reached Kanesville, Iowa, where the machinery was loaded into
wagons for the passage of the plains. At that point, on the 23rd of May, Elias Morris
married Mary Parry, daughter of John and Elizabeth Parry, of Newmarket, Wales, who
had preceded him a few weeks across the Atlantic. The marriage ceremony was per-
formed by President Orson Hyde. A few days later the company traveled down the Mis-
souri to Fort Leavenworth, and on the 4th of July started across the plains. Philip De
La Mar was captain of the company, with Elias Morris as chaplain and captain of ten.
They had a hard time during their laborious journey of four months, but after suffering
from snow, hunger stampedes and other unpleasant visitations, they reached Green River,
where they were met by A. 0. Smoot, who had been sent out by President Brigham Young
with teams and supplies to help them in. "While Mr. Smoot stood at our camp-fire, sym-
pathizing with our wretched condition," says Mr. Morris, "he noticed three large, white
letters — D. M. C. — painted on the sugar boilers. He asked us the meaning of the letters,
but receiving no answer, said humorously, 'I think I can tell you — D. M. C. means in this
case, D Miserable Company,' and we agreed that he was right."
They reached Salt Lake City about the middle of November. It had been the design
to set up the sugar works at Provo, and to that point the machinery was taken. Soon,
however, the sugar company was dissolved, and the machinery turned over to the Church,
which subsecjuently built the Sugar House, southeast of Salt Lake City.
488 HISTORY OF UTAH.
In April, 1853, Elias Morris, selling out at Provo, where he had settled, moved to
Cedar City; and there superintended the construction of furnaces for the manufacture of
iron; a company having been organized for that purpose. Considerable iron was made,
but not in sufficient quantity nor of good enough quality to render the enterprise a suc-
cess, and for want of funds the company failed. Mr. Morris remained in the South doing
all he could to build up the country, until the spring of 1860, when he returned north, in-
tending to go on to Logan, where he had previously selected a city lot and farm. By ad-
vice of President Young, he reconsidered this design and settled at Salt Lake City.
That year he with others built a grist mill at Farmington for Franklin D. Richards,
and in 1801 he began to work on the Salt Lake Theatre. In 1802 he and John Parry set
stone for the Temple on that portion of the work which had been condemned and ordered
rebuilt by President Young. The same year he and I. C. Morris built a bake oven at Camp
Douglas for John Sharp, who had contracted with the military authorities for its construc-
tion. In 1804 Elias Morris built by contract the Eagle Emporium for William Jennings,
the Godbe building just opposite, and N. S. Ransohoff's store, completing the three struc-
tures before winter set in. In the fall he and H. Eceles took a contract to cut flagging
for the Temple.
In the spring of 1865 came a call for a mission to Wales, a mission honorably ful-
filled. He returned home in June, 1869, at the head of a company of three hundred and
sixty-five Saints. Soon afterwards he entered into a co-partnership with Samuel L. Evans,
under the firm name of Morris & Evans, builders. Upon the opening of the mining in-
dustry in Utah they made a specialty of the manufacture of fire-brick and the putting up
of furnaces. Morris and Evans built the Germania works, also smelters at Sandy, Bing-
ham, Little Cottonwood, Flagstaff, East Canyon, Stockton and American Fork; they
erected the Ontario mill and put in the Cornish pump at the Ontario mine. Park City; al-
so erecting many other buildings, including the basement story of the Temple, the Deser-
et National Bank, Z. C. M. I., Mayor Little's residence and the University. After the
death of Mr. Evans Mr. Morris carried on the business in his own name. He also launched
out in the establishment of home industries, such as a tannery, the Salt Lake foundry, a soap
factory, the Utah Cement Company, a slate quarry and the Utah Sugar Factory. In 1891,
in partnership with Houlahan and Griffith, he contracted to lay the eut-stone and brick-
work of the City and County Building, also the gravity sewer of Salt Lake City.
For four years Elias Morris served as a member of the city council, and for one term
as a director of the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce (see chapter 27, volume 3). He
was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1895, and was treasurer and director
in the Eisteddfod Association, whose great musical festivals gave him much delight. As
early as April 1878 he was a member of the High Council of the Salt Lake Stake, and in Sep-
tember, 1888, was set apart as president of the High Priests Quorum. In May, 1890, he
succeeded Joseph Pollard, deceased, as Bishop of the Fifteenth Ward, and was acting in
that office at the time of his death.
This deeply deplored event took place on the forty-ninth anniversary of his baptism.
It was due to an accidental fall down an unguarded elevator shaft, in a building on Main
Street, two doors south of the Tetnpleton, where a meeting of the Cambrian Association
was in progress for the preparation of an Eisteddfod. Mr. Morris had previously had sever-
al severe falls, in one of which he was precipitated, by the giving way of a scaffold, thirty-
five feet to the pavement. This was when a young man in Wales; those who witnessed
the mishap cried out that he was killed, but he soon revived and fifteen minutes later went
up the ladder and built a new scaffold. The fatal fall of March 17, 1898, was only about
twelve feet, but he was then nearly seventy-three years of age. He lived but three days
after the accident, which was supplemented by an attack of pneumonia. He was the hus-
band of two wives and the father of twenty-one children. An upright, honest man, he
will be remembered as a useful and distinguished citizen of the commonwealth.
ENOCH BARTLETT TRIPP.
^T*> HE ancestors of E. B. Tripp for several generations were'Americans, and took part
(fc\ in some of the most illustrious events of their country's history. His father, Wil-
XzJ liam Tripp, served in the war of 1812; and his grandfather, bearing the same
name, was a Revolutionary soldier— a corporal in the Continental army. Robert
Tripp, his great grandfather, was the son of Sylvanus Tripp, who settled about the year
HISTORY OF UTAH. 489
'168(1 at Kiltery, in Maine. His mother, whose maiden name was Xaamah Hall Bartlett,
was related through her ancestors to Josiah Bartlett, one of the signers of the Declaration
of Independence. Enoch's father was an Episcopal Methodist preacher, and sat
in the Legislature of the State of Maine. He was also a boot and shoemaker, and
spent most of his time at that trade, which he taught to his son.
Enoch was born at Bethel, Oxford county, Maine, May 29, 1823. He lived
with his parents until he was about thirteen years old, by which time he had be-
come proficient in the boot and shoe business, and had acquired a good common educa-
tion. Fond of books, he was a moral lad, of steady and industrious habits. This repu-
tation secured for him, in March. 1836, employment with a merchant named Plummer 1*.
Todd, of South Ripley, who, being sheriff of the county and consequently much absent
from home, had need of a good, reliable clerk. Enoch, though so young, answered every
purpose of his employer, who trusted him implicitly, often leaving the store for many
weeks entirely in his charge. He remained with Mr. Todd about seven month:-., when
the latter died and Enoch returned to his father, at the village of Cambridge, resuming
work in the shop and upon the farm. He was but fourteen when he was left in charge
of his father's business, while his parents went upon a visit to his mother's kindred in
the western part of the State.
Among the interesting incidents of that period was one in which Enoch came
near getting a sound Hogging for an act of theft committed by another. His re-
putation for truth and honesty was all that protected him, for appearances were de-
cidedly against him. He had seut his brother Robert, two years younger than himself,
to the pasture for the cows, and as night came on and Robert did not return he became
anxious and started out to find him. On his way to his father's pasture he had to cross
a field belonging to an old gentleman named Xathan Clark, who owned a fine orchard
adjoining. "It was dark," says Enoch, "and I could hardly see my hand before
me. I had got about half way across his field when I heard a voice saying, 'Stop, you
rascal.' Halting a moment, I heard some one jump the orchard fence and run towards
me. Immediately a young man ran past, and in another moment old Mr. Clark came
up. He was greatly excited, and siezing me said, 'You rascal, I've got you now; I'll
whip you nearly to death.' 'What do you want to whip me for ?' I enquired. Rec-
ognizing my voice, he said, 'Enoch, I never would have thought it of you — going
into my orchard and stealing my fruit.' I replied that I had not been in his orchard and
had never taken any of his fruit without permission. 'Dou't lie to me,' he exclaimed,
'for you were in mv orchard, stealing fruit, and I followed you and caught you here. I
would have suspected every other boy in the village before you.' He took me to a piece
of timber near by, cut a good beech stick, and said he would teach me never to do the
like again. I persisted in my denial, but it only made him angrier and more determined
to whip me, not only for stealing, hut for lying, as he alleged. Finally I said, 'Mr. Clark,
before you whip me, will you hear my story?' I then told him how I came to be in his
field, and what I had witnessed there. He believed me, threw down his stick and
asked my forgiveness; and from that time, whenever he met me, he would speak of the
incident and lament his hasty course."
Enoch continued to live with his parents until he was sixteen. He then set up a
shoe shop at Cambridge, and with money thus earned paid for his father a balance of two
hundred dollars due on a farm he had purchased. In recognition of this act, and of
his past faithfulness, his father, on the 10th of May, 1841, released him from all obliga-
tions as to time and service during his minority, and made him a free man at eighteen,
to do business in his own name. The youth now closed his busine-s at Cambridge, ami
for two years attended the academy at Farmington, working at his trade during vaca-
tions, on Saturdays and at "odd spells." Then followed a year and a half at West
Wilton, where he worked for Mr. Oliver Soper. and studied medicine under a Dr.
Kilburn. In September. 1S4.">, he visited his parents at \Ye.-t Ripley, and was induced by
Mr. Adonijah Webber to become Ins partner in a mercantile business at that place. The
venture proved unprofitable, and Mr. Tripp soon drew out of it. At this time there was
a great excitement about the western country, and he made up his mind to seek his for-
tune there.
It was the first day of November, 1S4.">, when he bade farewell to his kindred ami
started upon his journey. He traveled by stage, railroad, canal-boat and steamboat, to
Boston, Albany, Buffalo and Cleveland. At a hotel in the last-named city he saw an ad-
vertisement to the effect that the Mormons were selling out at a great sacrifice, to go to
the Rocky Mountains, and that great bargaius were to be had at Nauvoo. Thither he
31
490 HISTORY OF UTAH.
determined to go, and after a hard and perilous trip, involving a wreck on the Ohio
river, finally reached Springfield, Illinois, and took stage to Carthage.
There, the landlord of the hotel, learning that he was going to Nauvoo, inquired if he
was a Mormon. "I am not," said Mr. Tripp, "and never expect to be; I am going on a
speculation; I understand they are selling their property at a great sacrifice." The
landlord told liim that it was very dangerous to go to Nauvoo at present, as the
Mormons were killing all strangers that came that way, for their money, clothing and
property; even on the sides of the streets dead men could be seen most of the time. "I
asked why such things were allowed. He answered that they were going to put a stop to
it, and had taken the law into their own hands for that purpose. They had already
killed 'Joe Smith and his brother Hyrum, and a posse was now out after 'Old Brigham
Young,' the present leader, and he would soon share the same fate. He added that the
Mormons kept armed men stationed around Nauvoo, for five miles out, to waylay
people going into the city.
"My mind was wrought up to such a pitch that I was on the point of abandoning the
trip, but as my mother's sister, Patty Sessions, and other relatives lived there, and I
needed rest, I nerved myself for the ordeal. I knew that the Sessions family were good
folks before they were Mormons, and were great friends to my folks, and I decided to go
and place myself under their protection. No sooner had I made this resolve than I heard an
awful tumult outside. The landlord informed me that the posse had just arrived with
'old Brigham Young.' In the morning, as we were taking our seats at the breakfast
table, a lawyer came into the room and asked, 'Where is Brigham Young?' A certain
person was pointed out to him. 'Oh h — 11!' he exclaimed — 'that ain't Brigham Young —
it's Bill Miller. The officer of the posse was very indignant over the ruse practiced upon
him, (see biography of William Miller) but the prisoner went free. Mr. Miller and I
were the only passengers to Nauvoo. I reached there without molestation, and was
warmly welcomed by my Mormon relatives."
Mr. Tripp, however, was much prejudiced against the Saints, thinking they were
mostly thieves and murderers, but being introduced into their society and to some of
their leading men, and noting their prayerfulness and purity of life, he concluded
that the evil reports concerning them were not true. His record relates how he read the
Church works, became converted, and was baptized by Heber C. Kimball, the Apostle,
February 1, 1846. The next evening he was ordained a Seventy in the Nauvoo Temple,
it being the last night that ordinances were performed in that sacred house.
On the 29th of March, the same year, Enoch B. Tripp married Roxanna Billings.
The young husband, by advice, remained at Nauvoo after the main body of the Saints
had departed, as one of the "new citizens," helping to protect property and the
poor people left behind. That he might do this the more effectually he concealed the
fact that he was a Mormon. He taught school for several months, and as a preceptor
was very popular. Among his pupils were the children of the martyred Prophet —
Joseph, Frederick, Alexander, and an adopted daughter named Julia. He continued his
school until the mob came against the city, when he joined with his fellows in defending
their homes against the invaders. He witnessed the death of Captain Anderson and
his son, killed by the mob, also of Isaac Norris, who, with his breast torn open by a
cannon ball, fell just in front of him, as he was riding to take a message to Captain
Anderson from Major Clifford, who had been commissioned by the Governor of Illinois
to defend Nauvoo. After the surrender, Mr. and Mrs. Tripp, having locked up their
house, with all their effects in it except a little clothing and bedding that could be packed,
took a steamboat that stopped at the landing for a few moments, and crossed to
Burlington, Iowa, where they spent the winter.
There Mr. Tripp, after some difficulty, and when reduced to his last dime, found
employment as a shoe-maker with a Mr. Vanderson, and was kindly aided by one of that
gentleman's employes, William G. Hacket, who had known his father and his brother,
General William Tripp, in the State of Maine. In the spring, through the kind offices of
Mr. R. S. Adams, a leather merchant formerly of Boston, he established himself inthe boot
and shoe business at Wapello, Iowa, where he prospered, addine to his possessions in the
spring of 1849 the drug store of C. M. McDaniel, who sold out very cheap in order to go
to California. Mr. Tripp continued m both lines of trade and flourished, fitting out gold-
hunters and other west-bouud travelers until the fall of 1852, when he disposed of
his stock and entered the dry goods and grocery business, wholesale and retail, also
dealing largely in real estate. His business increased until it became a heavy burden
upon him, taxing both body and mind.
He relates how Heber C. Kimball, on leaving Nauvoo, had told him that when the
HISTORY OF UTAH. 491
time came for kiui to rejoin his people he should be prompted by the Spirit; and how, on
the night of February 7, 1853, he heard a voice, which said to him three times, "Get ye
up into the Valleys of the Mountains." He obeyed the mandate, closing out his business,
and fitting up four wagons, with four yoke of oxen to each wagon, for the journey
across the plains. He also fitted up a large wagon for his wife and three children. This
vehicle had all the conveniences and comforts of a house, the wagon-bed being on springs,
with wide projections over the wheels for sitting or sleeping purposes. There was a
stove for heating or cooking, a door with steps at the rear, and curtains all round to roll
up or bv.tton down: in short, the wagon, even on a stormy day, was as comfortable as a
room in a house. It was drawn by four large gentle mares. There was also a
large family tent. Boxing up all his best goods and loading them into the four ox
wagons, Mr. Tripp engaged for these eight teamsters, designing to drive the other team
himself. Leaving the rest of his unsold property with an agent, he started on the third
day of April for Utah. For prudential reasons he still maintained secrecy on the subject
of his religious faith, and was supposed to be migrating to the Laud of Gold. At
Council Bluffs a company was organized with him as captain. He had a prosperous
trip, and arrived at Salt Lake City on the '27th of July. He now informed his teamsters
that he intended to stay in Utah. He paid them off, and all but one went on to
California.
Mr. Tripp first settled at Bountiful, where his cousin, David Sessions lived. There he
opened a store and found ready sale for his goods, dwelling meanwhile in his tent and
wagon. About six weeks later he returned to Salt Lake City and bought a place in the
Nineteenth Waul — a house of two rooms for which he paid five hundred dollars in goods,
horses, wagon, etc. The balance of his merchandise he sold to William Nixon. Soon after
this he bought a home in the Sixteenth Ward, completing a house partly built upon the lot
by its former owner, Frederick Palmer. His next move was to purchase from Livings-
ton and Kincaid a stock of imported leather, which he manufactured into boots and shoes.
Thenceforth he continued in that line of business.
September, 1854, found him on his way to Texas, to fulfill a mission. He had as
traveling companions across the plains John Taylor the Apostle, Preston Thomas, Nath-
anial H. Felt, Jeter Clinton and others. At the Missouri river they parted company.
Elder Tripp, after transacting business at Wapello, Iowa, visited his aged parents in
Maine, prior to proceeding to Texas. In New York City he contributed forty dollars to
help President Taylor start "The Mormon." Subsequently the latter changed his mission .
from Texas to Maine, where he began laboring in January, 1855. Thei-e being a few Lat-
ter-day Saints in Bethel and Newry, he gathered them into a branch under the presidency
of Josiah Smith, a relative by marriage of George A. Smith, the Church Historian. He
organized another branch out of members living in the towns of Mexico and Rumford,
appointing Osgood Virgin to preside over it. He was kiudly received by his kindred, held
many meetings in various parts, and some of them were attended by his sire, who on one
occasion was invited by his son, after he had spoken, to address those assembled. The
old gentleman, who was still a Methodist preacher, arose and remarked that he had list-
ened with much interest to what his son had said, and that it was all Bible doctrine. He
closed by saying that his own attitude towards Mormonism was illustrated by an ancedote
of a man who. passing an orchard, said, as he saw in an apple tree a good many clubs
thrown there by passers by, "Either there is fine fruit there, or else a hornet's nest."
After baptizing a goodly number, Elder Tripp returned to Iowa, whither some of his con-
verts accompanied him. In the spring of 1856, with another stock of goods, he set out
for Salt Lake Valley. He reached home on the 15th of August, and found his family
well, though his wife had lost an infant, his fourth son, born duriug the father's absence.
Mr. Tripp resumed business as boot and shoe manufacturer and merchant, and also
began farming, having fifteen acres of land in the "Big Field" south of Salt Lake City.
In April, 1857. he accompanied the First Presidency to Salmon River. After returning he
closed up his mercantile business and turned his attention more particularly to farming.
He was captain of militia in the Echo Canyon campaign, and in "the move" took his
family to Provo. He notes, in his account of this episode, that it was the first time the
Saints, after an exodus, returned to their homes.
In the winter of 1859-00 he taught school iu the Sixteenth Ward, where he also acted
as school trustee and watermaster. In I860 he resumed the manufacture of boots and
shoes, and in 1863 opened a tannery, making leather of all kinds. In 1865 he re-entered
the mercantile business. Iu 1866-7 he had a saw-mill in Bingham Canyon, and a lumber
yard in Salt Lake City, where he was justice of the peace for the Third Precinct. From
October. 1867, to April. 1868, he was absent on the "Muddy Mission," from which here-
4112 HISTORY OF UTAH.
turned much improved in health. Agreeable to President Young's advice he now went
out of business as a merchant, and devoted himself entirely to agriculture, living upon
his farm of one hundred and ninety acres in South Cottonwood. There he was school
trustee, water-master and justice of the peace.
He spent the winter of 1S71-2 on a mission in Maine, visiting and preaching to his rel-
atives and friends and gathering the genealogies of his ancestors. This was the last
time he saw his parents. On parting with his father, the latter confessed to him a belief
in the truth of Mormonism. His rext trip to his native State was early in 188G, when
he left home "on the underground" to elude the minions of the crusade. He visited the
graves of his parents, was treated kindly by all he met, and returning home, spent the
winter with his son Wallace at Willow Springs. In November, 1887, he was arrested
and taken before U. S. Commissioner Norrell, charged with unlawful cohabitation, under
the Edmunds law. Nothing being found against him, the case was dismissed. Since that
time he has lived upon his farm, working occasionally in the Temples, and realizing to
the full a blessing pronounced upon him by President Young to the effect that his last
days should be his healthiest, happiest and best.
Enoch B. Tripp, as already implied, has practiced the principle of plural marriage.
He is the father of thirty-two children, and has sixty-five grandchildren and several
great-grandchildren. He has held important ecclesiastical positions. Since the spring
of 1858 he has been one of the presidency of the Thirty-third quorum of Seveiitv. and
from 1878 was for several years an alternate in the First Council of Seventy. In 1882,
and until a new organization was effected, he was one of the presidents over all the
Seventies, in the Salt Lake Stake. He is the senior president of his quorum at
the present time.
PHILIP PUGSLEY.
PROMINENT as a promoter of industries, and prosperous above many of his fellows.
the late Philip Pugsley, of Salt Lake City, was a native of England, having been born
in the Parish of Witheypool, Somersetshire, December 18, 1S22. His father's name
was Philip Pugsley. and his mother's maiden name, Mary Baker. His father was
a laboring man, but later became a contractor. He took a contract to cut down Exmove
Forest, at which time his son had charge of the work for three years. Young Philip's
early boyhood was passed in Darlick Parish, North Moulten, Devonshire, where he was
employed by a man named Mercer, a stock-raiser, who shipped his stock to America.
Having traveled considerably over England tor Mr. Mercer, Philip entered the employ i f
H. W. Green, a large maltster and hop-dealer at Bristol, and had entire charge of his
business.
In July. 1S46. he became a Latter-day Saint, being baptized by Elder George
Halliday. who subsequently baptized his parents and two sisters. In 1853 he emigrated
to Utah, coming iu what was called the "Ten Pound Company." He sailed from his
native land on the 2Sth of March, and was eight weeks on the water, proceeding by way
of New Orleans to Keokuk, where a company of wagons was organized under Captain
Jacob Gates, who started across the plains from Council Bluffs. Mr. Pugsley arrived at
Salt Lake City on the last day of September.
He had at this time a wife and baby, a ten cent piece and the clothes he stood up in.
He went to work for Ira Ames in the tannery business. Later on. having prospered,
he bought the tannery and also purchased the old Synder flouring mill, which he operated
successfully. He spent considerable money trying to develop the iron industry in
Southern Utah. Always a strong advocate of home industries, he became largely
interested in such enterprises as the Ogdeu Woollen Mills, the Salt Lake Foundry and
the Salt Lake Soap Factory. At one time he had a large interest in the coal mines of
Pleasant Valley, but sold it to the Union Pacific railroad company. He mined
quite extensively and with varied success in Utah. Montana. Idaho, Nevada and
Arizona.
In the Church Mr. Pugsley held successively the offices of Teacher, Priest.
Elder and High Priest. He was a captain in the militia and a recruiting officer when
HISTORY OF UTAH. 493
Johnston's army invaded Utah. In 1S65 he was sent by President Young to the
Sandwich Islands to determine the advisability of establishing- there a tanning and leather
manufacturing business. He started from home in June and returned in October. He
always took a prominent part in benevolent and charitable movements. In politics
his sympathies were with the Democrats.
Philip Pcgsley was the husband of two wives, Mary Roach and Clarissa Ames, to the
former of whom he was married in June, 1851, and to the latter in July, 1857. His
children number fifteen. One of hi-; daughters is the wife of Ezra Thompson, the
former mayor of Salt Lake City. Mr. Pugsley had many vested interests and was a large
land-holder, owning real estate in various parts. His health becoming feeble, he re-
tired from active business several years before his death, which occurred on the 7th of
August, 1903.
JAMES F. WOODMAN.
•"^APTAIN WOODMAN, the well-known mining magnate, whose name will live in
V^ the history of our State in connection with those famous mines, the Emma and
^"^^ the Centennial-Eureka,of which he was the discoverer, came west in IS57, and made
his first visit to Utah in the spring of 1865. He was by birth an Englishman, and
his family were well-to-do land holders, but while yet a youth, the spirit of adventure im-
pelled him across the Atlantic. He settled in Canada, where for some time he was en-
gaged in railroading, prior to setting out for California, drawn thither by the magnetic
excitement of the world-renowned gold discovery, which was then at its very height.
Arriving on the coast, he spent the nest few years in placer mining, but was un-
successful, and in the hope of bettering his fortunes, he crossed the Sierras into Nevada
and became interested in some equally unsuccessful mining properties in that part.
Thence, he went to Wyoming, to examine some oil springs, of which he had heard, and
while upon this journey, he and his friend, Captain J. M. Day, passed through Salt Lake
City, where they made the acquaintance of General P. E Conner and Robert B. Chisholm,
who were mining both in Utah and Nevada. Soon after this visit, Captain Woodman
settled permanently at Salt Lake Cit\ , where he maintained a continuous residence up to
the time of his death.
Until 1868 the Captain's mining experience in Utah was a repetition of what he had
passed through in California and Nevada, but better days were in store for him, and they
came with the discover}- and location of the Emma mine, in Little Cottonwood canyon. His
interest in this celebrated property he sold in 1S71, for one hundred and ten thousand
dollars. The Walkei Brothers, who next eontiolled the mine, disposed of it to a British
Syndicate for five millions. Prior to selling his interest in the Emma, Mr. Woodman located
and worked a copper claim in Bingham Canyon, from which was taken the first copper ore
shipped out of the State. Soon after the turn of the financial tide in his favor, he married
Miss Fannie Corwin, of Cleveland, Ohio, from whom he was parted, after a brief period
of wedded happiness, by death, in the year 1S76. This calamity was prefaced by others
in which his fortune was completely swept away. He did not lack for friends, however,
though for some time ill luck continued to pursue him in his mining operations.
The year that his wife died he located, in the Tintic District, the Centennial- Eureka
mine, which was prospected and developed by himself andW. W. Chisholm, whose biography
is given in this same group. For eight years their labors yielded them little in the way
of reward, but finally fortune smiled once more upon the veteran miner, who is said to
have realized in one way and another from this rich and productive property, a full half
million dollars. A few years since, he parted with his interest therein, but continued to
own and work mining properties in various parts. The Winnamuck, in Bingham, was
large! j- owned by him, though he lost heavily through his connection with that once pros-
perous mine. He also owned claims in the Deep Creek country, which death prevented
him from developing as he designed. Among his holdings was considerable valuable
property in the city of rhicago, where he was visiting at the time of his demise.
In Salt Lake City, Captain Woodman resided at the Alta Club. He had no children,
and his nearest relative in these parts was Mr. J. H. Woodman, secretary of the Cun-
494 HISTORY OF UTAH.
nington Mercantile Company. He had a brother living at Ottawa, Canada, and one or
two nephews in New Brunswick, where the Woodmans settled upon coming to America.
A sufferer from dropsy in his old age, Captain Woodman was in Chicago on business, in
the fall of 1901, when he was taken seriously ill, and in the following January his Salt
Lake nephew was summoned to his bedside. All was done for him that could be, but he
grew steadily worse, until death ended his sufferings, March 15, 1902. He left an estate
valued at a quarter of a million. In accordance with his dying request his remains were
taken to Ottawa, for burial.
WILLIAM WALLACE CHISHOLM.
(f^'ORMERLY manager of the Emma, and latterly connected with the Centennial-
"T^' Eureka, two of the most noted mines in the West, Mr. Chisholm first come to Utah
in 1864, and since 1869 has resided here continuously. He is a native of Hazel
Green, Grant County, Wisconsin, and was born June 26, 1842. His father was Robert
Bruce Chisholm, and his mother before marriage, Sarah Van Valkenburg. Prior to set-
tling in Wisconsin, the father had lived in the city of Chicago, where he owned consider-
able property, including the lots upon which the Tremont House now stands. He also
owned one hundred and sixty acres of land near the town of Jefferson, Illinois. He
moved to Chicago some time in the "thirties." He was a practical brick maker, but was
always interested in mining. Until twelve years of age William remained at Hazel
Green, where he received a common school education.
In 1854 he went to Monona, Clayton county, Iowa, to live with an uncle, his mother's
brother, a cabinet maker. That trade the boy followed for two years, and then learned
the printer's trade at Wynona. Minnesota, working on the "Democrat,"' a paper pub-
lished in that city. The "Democrat having failed, he took cases on the "Republican."
The first year of his apprenticeship at printing, he received fifty dollars, the second
year one hundred dollars, and the third year one hundred and fifty dollars. In October,
1863, he went to Elgin, Illinois, where his father had purchased a farm and made a
home. William attended the Elgin Academy.
The great West now attracted the attention of the Chisholms, father and son. The
latter, with a companion, in March, 1864, started for the frontier and beyond, taking train
as far as Marshalltown, Iowa, and proceeding thence by stage to Omaha, where he waited
for his father and his uncle, Ephraim Sackrider, who had remained behind to consum-
mate a cattle deal; purchasing oxen in northern Wisconsin, and thinking to make a quick
sale and a large profit in Chicago, where the "epizootic'' was then raging. But the ven-
ture proved a failure. The elder Mr. Chisholm came onto Omaha by rail, leaving Uncle
Sackrider to follow with ox team from Chicago. William's father and several friends, pur-
chasing at Omaha mule teams and light wagons, started at once for Virginia City, Ne-
vada, leaving him to await the arrival of his uncle,
Joined by that relative, he left Omaha for Virginia City June 4, 1864, and after a
very pleasant trip by way of the North Platte, South Pass and the Landers cut-off, reached
his destination in the following September. Robert B. Chisholm and party, owing to
their quicker method of traveling, had arrived at Virginia City iu June, but not finding
what they expected, had gone on to the Kootenai country, in British Columbia. There
they were again disappointed. They next came to Utah, first to Salt Lake City and then
to Bingham, arriving here before William reached Virginia City. Not finding his father
there, and knowing little about mining at that time, he with his uncle took a contract for
chopping wood in Williams' Gulch, where they stayed until October. He then received
word from his father, with instructions to come to Salt Lake City. They sold their ox-
team outfit, and having bought horses and a light wagon, started for this point, arriving
here some time in November.
The next spring William worked some claims that had been located by his father in
Bingham, but met with no success. Mining in Utah was then in its infancy. In the
fall of that year, being short of cash, he entered the employ of Mr. Will Lynch, driving
team with government grain to Green River. Returning, he met at Fort Bridger Alex-
HISTORY OF UTAH. 495
ander Majors, and contracted with him to go to Hani's Fork and load with freight for
William Jennings. The first of November found him again in Salt Lake City.
Meantime Mr. Chisholrn's father had located claims in the Pahranagat Mining Dis-
trict, and expecting to sell the same, the two, late in November. 1S65, left for their old
home in the East, where several of the claims were placed for small amounts. In the
spring of 1SGG William went to Chicago to follow his trade of printing, taking cases on
the "Post." There he stayed until he came West the second time, traveling by rail the
entire distance, and arriving in Utah May 10, 1SG9, the day of the meeting of the Union
Pacific and Central Pacific roads at Promontory.
Immediately after his arrival he joined the late Captain Woodman at Bingham, and
proceeded with him to Little Cottonwood, where the Emma mine had been located. He as-
sisted Mr. Woodman in the management of that property, and was practically the man-
ager, as the Captain, having other interests, threw the entire work on Mr. Chisholm's
hands. He remained with the Emma until 1872, when, the Walker Brothers getting
control of the property, he retired. Returning to Salt Lake he devoted his time to look-
ing after his father's real estate, buildings, etc.. and his mining interests throughout the
State. On the 9th of February, 1S76. he married Miss N. Jeanette Kendall, sister to J.
D. Kendall, who afterwards became one of his business associates. The same year the
Centennial-Eureka was located, but virtually nothing was done with the property, ex-
cepting the assessment work, until September, 1S84, when Mr. Kendall was put in
charge. The mine was then developed, and has since become a great producer. Mr.
Chisholm has his offiee in the Atlas Block, Salt Lake City.
ALLEN G. CAMPBELL.
* J^HE name of Allen G. Campbell will live in history as that of the man who,
!■!>) early in the decade of the "eighties,'' as the standard bearer of the Liberal Party,
j; contested the seat of Utah's Delegate, Hon. George Q. Cannon, in the national
House of Representatives. He will also be remembered as a wealthy mine
owner and operator, best known in these parts for his connection with the celebrated
Horn Silver Mine, at Frisco, in Beaver County.
Mr. Campbell first came to Utah in the winter of 1S57-S, accompanying Johnston's
army. He was then a young man in his thirties. The gold fields of Montana were the
magnet at that time for many adventurous spirits of his class. Thither he was drawn,
and after trying his luck in various places with indifferent success, he finally drifted
into Diamond City and secured possession of some valuable placer ground in Confeder-
ate Gulch. This was in the latter part of the sixties. He made '"big money." and in
L870 or 1871 returned to Utah. With Matt Culien. Augnatus Byran and Dennis Ryan as
his associates he purchased the Horn Silver mine for twenty-five thousand dollars, and
after working it at a great profit for several years, the partners sold it to a New York
syndicate for five millions.
The next year — 1880 — he came to the front as the candidate of the Liberal Party for
Delegate to Congress, being nominated at an enthusiastic convention held in the Liberal
Institute, Salt Lake City, in the autumn of that year. The nominee was in New York
City at the time, but he immediately set out for home, and telegraphed his acceptance from
Chicago. A rousing campaign followed, and at the election on the 2nd of November, Mr.
Campbell was overwhelmingly defeated, receiving but 1,357 votes as against IS, 508 cast
for his opponent. Then came the contest, based upon Mr. Cannon's alleged disqualifica-
tions, it being charged that he was an unnaturalized alien and a polygamist. Governor
Murray, on these grounds, gave the certificate of election to Mr. Campbell, and the case
was carried to Washington, with the result detailed iu chapters five and six of the
previous volume. Neither Mr. Cannon nor Mr. Campbell was permitted to hold the
delegateship, the seat being declared vacant by the House of Representatives, April 19,
382, a little less than a month after the enactment of the Edmunds law.
Mr. Campbell, upon his return to Utah, was hailed by his friends and fellow Liberals
as a victor, rather than as one vanquished, the denial of a seat in Congress to George
Q. Cannon, the second man in authority iu the Mormon Church, being to them a cause
496 HISTORY OF UTAH.
for much rejoicing. He did not continue prominent in politics, publicity having little or
no attraction for him, but plunged again into business pursuits, especially mining. He re-
mained in Utah for many years, and then moved to Southern California, to develop some
rich gold properties in that region. He left Salt Lake City early in the "nineties," and
spent the last years of his life at Riverside, where he owned valuable real estate and a
fine residence property on Brockton Avenue. There he died, after a gradual decline in
health, June, 1902.
Mr. Campbell was a native of Missouri. He was twice married, and by his first wife
left a son, Charles Campbell, who is believed to be in Kansas, his mother's native State.
By his second wife, Eleanor Crouch Young-, whom he married at Salt Lake City in 1893,
he had three children, two boys and a girl. In addition to hii- mining properties in Utah,
Nevada and California, he owned a large share of the Dooley Block and had other real
estate holdings in this city. He was naturally modest and unassuming, but possessed
an adventurous spirit and tireless energy. In one of his early mining explorations he
pushed into the region now known as Yellowstone Park, and believed himself to be the
first to penetrate it. He was eminently utilitarian, and was generous and benevolent in
the use of his riches.
A silent man, he only incidentally mentioned himself or his works. "I had been
married to him some little time," says his widow, Mrs. Eleanor Campbell, "when there
came to us through the mail a circular from a Kansas institute, calling itself 'Campbell
University.' 'What is that?' I asked. 'Oh, a school I endowed,' he answered carelessly.
During the course of bis life he has taken twelve children to rear and educate, one of
them being only an infant. Four of them were born in Utah. He came home one day
filled with sorrow over the condition of an old mining friend. 'I do not think he will live
long' he said, 'and if we were not situated just as we are I would have him come home here
and take care-of him.' Then he added, 'He is the only man I ever loaned money to
without security who ever paid me.' As I knew his loans of this character amounted to
a large fortune, I did not wonder he had grown to feel that all such charities had been a
mistake, and that the only way to help people is to furnish them with employment.
More than in anything else I think I have seen the greatness of his character in the way
he sustained losses and adversities. All the means he accumulated came, not through
any lucky chance, but by almost superhuman effort and privation, and to such who
know, as the expression is, 'how their money comes,' the loss of it after a life-time's
endeavor is almost always a crushing blow. Mr. Campbell at one time deposited five
hundred' thousand dollars in an Eastern bank, leaving power of attorney with one in
whom he had full confidence. This man had become interested in a railroad scheme,
which he had been made to believe would double an investment in a few months.
Without consulting Mr. Campbell, he invested every dollar of his trust in the undertaking,
and it was speedily spirited away. I never heard him refer to this but twice, and that
incidentally. Over such a loss a man of less character would have been soured for the
remainder of his earthly life. He never allowed his business worriments to follow him
home; no matter how harassing thev might be, they all seemed forgotten when he caught a
glimpse of his children. He was never too busy to give a cordial greeting to any little
child who ma}' have come his way. He was as indifferent to public opinion as one could well
be, seeming entirely unmindful of praise or blame. No one, so far as I know, ever
wrote him a letter of any kind, unless it might be one of abuse, who did not receive an
immediate reply. It was almost impossible to exact a promise from him; for once given,
no effort was too great to accomplish its fulfillment."
JOHN BECK.
^"^HE life of this gentleman, who gave his name to the famous Bullion-Beck Mining
V*j Company, and has won and lost several large fortunes during the course of his ca-
^ reer, is illustrative of the many ups and downs that beset the experience of the aver-
age mining man in the West. But Mr. Beck, while he has made most of his money
at mining, has not always lost it in that way. He has been a large investor in home
industries, many of which have been unprofitable; and has been a liberal donor to pub-
lic institutions and various enterprises of a benevolent character. He is a natural pnil-
HISTORY OF UTAH. 497
antbropist, aDd has given much in the cause of charity. In these ways, as well as in min-
ing reverses, he has parted with the bulk of the wealth which providence at various times
has bestowed upon him. His recuperative power — or as some would say. his good luck,
is something- marvelous; and though in moderate circumstances at present, the public
need not be surprised- if the future may be judged by the past— to hear at any time that
fortune has again smiled on John Beck, and that he is once more a millionaire.
He is a native of Aichelberg, Wurtemberg, Germany, where he was born March 19,
1843. His parents were John aud Caroline (Holl) Beck, and from both he inherited his
benevolent disposition aud enterprising nature. His father, a prosperous vine cultivator,
was scholarly in his tastes and acquirements, and his pious mother a steadfast friend of
education. In the schools of Aichelberg, where their son received his early education, he
showed marked aptitude and made rapid progress. While practical in his aims and achieve-
ments, he has ever manifested a love for the poetic and spiritual, and soars naturally into
the realms of the ideal. At fourteen, yielding to his adventurous spirit and independent
promptings, he left home, proceeding to Stuttgart, where ho found employment at the Cafe
Marqnardt, and resolved to learn the hotel business. In order to thoroughly acquaint
himself with the various methods in vogue, he studied French, English and Italian, with
a view to visiting those countries in the interest of his vocation. In 1860 he removed to
the French part of Switzerland, and there continued his language studies in one of the
leading colleges.
It was here that Mormonism found him, and made him one of its converts in the
year 1861. He in turn converted his relatives, and was placed to preside over a branch
of sixteen members in his native town. Later he labored as a missonary in Wurtemberg
and Baden, aud while so engaged was arrested, imprisoned and dieted on bread and
water for a period of nine days. This persecution but increased his zeal and devotion to
the Mormon cause. We next hear of him presiding over the German conference of the
Swiss mission in 1863, in which capacity he did much effective missionary work.
The month of May, 1864, witnessed his departure from his native land, with twenty
other emigrants for America. They crossed the plains with ox teams, and arrived at
Salt Lake City in the following October. They spent the winter at Lehi, and in the spring
went on to Sevier County, intending to take up homestead sites. It was just before the
breaking out of the Blackhawk war, and Mr. Beck and his party, on their way south, met
that savage chief, who was then on the war-path, aud would probably have attacked
them but for their numbers and strength. At all events, after reaching Richfield they
heard of the murder by Blackhawk and his band of a man and his son, at the very spot
where they had camped with the Indians the night before. In the war that ensued Mr.
Beck lost all his property.
Returning soon to Lehi, he leased a farm on the Lake shore; raised sheep and man-
ufactured charcoal; making sufficient money the fir-it season to purchase a home in the
settlement, where he resided for many years and prospered. In 1865 he married Sarah
Beck, his third cousin, who was also a native of Aichelberg.
His mining career began in 1870, when he purchased an interest in the Eureka mine,
which had recently been discovered in Tintic district. He spent six thousand dollars in
developing that property, but lost everything through vexatious litigation. He was now
poor again, but still undaunted. One day, while examining a large rock in Tintic, his
practiced eye discerned indications which convinced him that he had discovered a valu-
able mine. Posting the usual notice, he at once recorded his claim and began developing
the property, which in due time became the celebrated Bullion-Beck mine. A company
was organized, with himself, the principal owner, as president aud general manager.
Millions in dividends have since been distributed among the stockholders.
Among other mines in which Mr. Beck became interested were the Crown Point, the
Northern Spy. the Governor, and the Buckeye. He was also the main owner of capital
stock in the Utah Asphalt aud Varnish Company, aud in the Ashley Asphalt, Coal Oil
and Gilsonite Company. Many other industries were fostered by him ami among the
valuable properties acquired were the main ownership of the Bullion-Beck Tunnel, and
the sole possession of what he terms the Saratoga Springs of Utah, in Lehi.
Retaining his home and valuable farm at that place, he spent much of his time at
Eureka, to be near the mine of which he was the manager. A branch of the Latter-day
Saints being organized there, he was made president of it, and built and furnished at his own
expense the first Mormon meeting house in that town. He also erected a schoolhouse and
employed a teacher to educate the children of the Eureka miners. In Lehi he built a
theatre, a hall for the Relief Society, and started the first brass band. He also set out
with trees th« eight-acre block now known as the Lehi City Park.
498 HISTORY OF UTAH.
In 1887 he took a voluntary mission to Germany, a portion of his family accompany-
ing him. During his labors he organized a new branch of the Church in Stuttgart, and as-
sisted at this and at other times in the emigration of about two hundred Latter-day Saints,
furnishing the heads of families with employment in his Utah mines. He returned from
Europe in 1889, and spent much of the next three years in California, where, during the
period of the crusade, a portion of his family resided. He now had several wives, and
was one of the latest victims of the anti-polygamy movement, undergoing fine, but not
imprisonment, for the sake of his convictions.
About the year 1S90 he took up his permanent residence at Salt Lake City, where at
one time he owned five handsome homes. He went on acquiring valuable properties,
mines and else; purchased the Hot Springs near the city and converted it into a sanitar-
ium; raised fine horses and cattle; planted rich orchards and vineyards; helped to found
and promote the Deaf Mute Institute of Utah, and to establish at Lehi the pioneer sugar
factory of the State. In fact, scarcely an enterprise has been begun, an educational
institute founded, or any worthy movement made in Mr. Beck's vicinity, during the whole
period of his residence in the West, that has not profited by his generosity, whenever he
had the means. He is kind-hearted and generous to a fault, and loves to do benevo-
lent deeds and lead out in useful enterprises.
He is at present residing at his home on North State Street, where his wife Sarah
died November 7, 1894. She was the mother of nine children. By his other wives,
Louisa Matti (also deceased), Bertha Goss, Matilda Goss, and Louisa Goss, he is the
father of seven more. Of varied experience and of general intelligence, Mr. Beck is
an interesting personality, a good conversationalist and a fluent public speaker. Poetic in
his inclinations, he is never tired of using similes and comparisons, which flow from him
as from a perennial fountain. He is ingenious and inventive, and has a passion for in-
dustrial experiments. He is well read, has a rich fund of anecdote, and is a genial,
whole-souled gentleman, well liked by all his associates. In his sixty-first 3'ear he is
healthy and active, still engaged in developing new enterprises and making history for
himself and the community.
CHRISTIAN AUGUST MADSEN.
BISHOP MADSEN'S name will be perpetuated as a pioneer in the Utah sugar indus-
try. To him and to Arthur Stayuer, the latter now deceased, is due most of the
practical credit for the first successful saccharine experiments in these parts. Mr.
Madsen was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, July 23, 1822. His parents were
Peter Madsen and Emmerenze Hermana Abel. The father, a pious, upright man, a
farmer by vocation, was a native of Fredericksborg, Denmark; and the mother a native
of Moduui, Norway. She died in 1853.
Christian, as a youth of twenty-two years, traveled in Germany and Belgium at pub-
lic expense, for industrial purposes. In 1848-9 he was a volunteer in the Danish army,
and took part in the Schleswig-Holstein war. For some years he held the position of
steward over Count Hallenborg's landed possessions in south Sweden, where, in 1853, the
Gospel found him. He was converted by his father, who had recently become a Latter-
day Saint, and was baptized in Copenhagen, April 1G, 1854. Three years of zealous
missionary work followed, first in Sweden; then as a traveling Elder on Zeeland, Den-
mark; next as president of the Stockholm conference; and finally as pastor over the four
Danish conferences — Fyeu, Fredericia, Aalborg and Vendsyssel.
In 1856 his father started for Utah, but died on the way, while crossing the plains
in the ill-fated handcart companies. The old gentleman sat in camp, with his hands and
head leaning upon his cane, and thus died. He had been praying, and his camp fel-
lows supposed him to be still so engaged. It was some time before they learned that he
was dead. The date of his decease was the 10th of November. Two years later Chiistian
himself emigrated, his wife, Vita Hastrup Madsen, accompanying him. She also died on
the journey, at Bremerhafen, Germany, March 10, 1858.
Upon arriving in Utah Mr. Madsen took up his residence in the Tenth Ward, Salt
Lake City. In the fall of that year he married Anne Marie Sorenson and Marie Chris-
HISTORY OF UTAH. 499
tenson. The second of these wives died in a short time of mountain fever. During his
residence in the Tenth Ward Mr. Madsen, at the request of Bishop Pettigrew, served in
the local Priesthood. He rented from President Young a piece of land, part of the
Church farm, south of the city. Subsequently he made his home in Mill Creek.
In January, 1859, he was ordained a Seventy and became connected with the Fifty-
seventh Quorum. In April of the same year he was called on a mission to Scandinavia,
and on the 26th of that month started from Mill Creek in company with about forty other
missionaries, bound for various fields. They crossed the plains in an ox train of twenty-
two wagons; the first experiment, he says, in sending for emigrants to Florence, Neb-
raska, and returning to Utah the same season, with the same oxen. Joseph W. Young
was captain of the company and Mr. Madsen chaplain. He arrived at Copenhagen in
September, and for the second time was called to labor in the Aalborg and Vendsyssel
conferences. Elder A. Christensen, of Brigham City, assisted him. This was Mormon-
ism's harvest time in Scandinavia, where Elder John Van Cott was then presiding. In
Aalborg and Vendsyssel alone, between September, 1860, and April, 1862, 814 souls were
baptized, and of this number 652 emigrated to America.
Elder Madsen was appointed by President Van Cott to gather up the emigrants
from Jutland, take them by steamer to Kiel, and thence by rail to Hamburg; at which
point he arrived on the 8th of April with 732 emigrating Saiuts. The Mormon emigration
from Scandinavia for that season numbering 1556 souls, was gathered there. It was cal-
culated that an English ocean steamer would carry these people to New York; but the
plan failed, the steamer being condemned by British emigration officers. In the neces-
sary division that followed, Elder Madsen was placed in charge of a company of four
hundred, who sailed on the American bark "Franklin," April 15, 1862. They landed at
New York on the 29th of May, and by rail reached Florence on the 9th of June, their
wagons starting across the plains on the 15th of July. Mr. Madsen was in command of
forty-five wagons, called "independent, "to distinguish them from the Church wagons sent
from Utah, and over this company as well as another led by 0. N. Liljenquist, John
Van Cott presided. They reached Salt Lake City on the 23rd of September.
About this time Mr. Madsen married his fourth wife, Helena Eiuarsen. Soon afterwards
he moved with his family to Gunnison, where he took up a farm and made a permanent
home. There he has been honored with civic positions, such as justice of the peace,
county selectman, and notary public. His military offices ranged from captain to colonel
and chief of staff in brigade. Ecclesiastically he has labored as a home missionary, and
was a High Councilor of Sanpete Stake until May, 1877, when he was made Bishop of
Gunnison, which office he held until July, 1903, retiring with honor in his old age. He
is a kind and affable gentleman, educated, refined, and full of sterling integrity.
DAVID ELIAS BROWNING.
^VAVID BROWNING'S parents, Jonathan and Elizabeth Stalcup Browning, were
pj converts to Mormonism in early days. The father was a blacksmith and gun-
^^ smith, also a buyer and seller of lauds, from which occupations he derived a good
living and placed his family beyond the reach of want. The son, mechanically
inclined, followed for a number of years, the trade of his sire. Jonathan Browning bore
the distinction of being justice of the peace in every county where he resided. David,
who was born January 19, 1829, in Davidson County, Tennessee, passed his early days
on a large farm in Adams County, Illinois. He espoused the religion of his parents
December 9, 1840. In 1842 he moved to Nauvoo, where he attended night school and
grammar class, and during his boyhood and budding manhood, succeeded in acquiring a
fair education.
The exodus of 1840 carried the Brownings to the frontier, where, in 1847, they built
a two-story log house, about one and a half miles from Trader's Point, in the vicinity of
Council Bluffs. They worked at blacksmithing until July, 1852, when they started for
Utah, beginning their journey on the second day of the month. They were equipped
with six wagons, drawn by oxen, cows and young steers, and were under the direction of
Captain Henry Miller, Orson H.yde and Jonathan Browning. David was included in a
500 HISTORY OF UTAH.
company of hunters, organized to supply the emigrants with game. The usual experiences,
cattle stampedes and buffalo herds, were encountered. "I have seen as many as forty
thousand buffalo in one herd," writes Mr. Browning. "We met a herd one day and
killed three, two of which, drawn up alongside the corraled wagons, made our company
a good meal. We placed a notice on the carcass of the third animal, for the third com-
pany to help themselves to beef, giving the time when it was slaughtered." He arrived
at Salt Lake City, September 27, 1852, and three days later settled at Ogden, which was
ever after his home.
On January 27, 1853, David E. Browning married Miss Charilla Abbott; President
Lorin Farr, of the Weber Stake of Zion, performing the ceremony. During the sum-
mer and fall of that year, the young husband was occupied with others in guarding the
trail and entrances to Weber valley, against the Indians. He stood guatd the last night
before the practice was abandoned. The Indian chief, "Little Soldier," became a fast
friend of the family, after the troubles were over. David was dubbed by the red men
"Browning's papoose." He repaired their guns and pistols, and by such acts won and
retained their friendship.
An adobe house, still standing on twenty-seventh street, was built by Mr. Browning
in 1853. There his eight children were born. He purchased from his father a piece of
land on the South Bench, paying for it the sum of one hundred and twenty dollars.
Twenty acres that he owned sold for six thousand dollars, at the time of the boom, but
the same land would not now bring the sixth part of that amount. The present home of
the Browning family, south of the Union depot, was erected in 1874-5.
In 1881 Mr. Browning was involved in a legal difficulty, growing out of a land trans-
action. He had bought a piece of land for one thousand dollars, and the water right was
included in the purchase, but a company, after he had improved the land, claimed that
he had no right to the waters of Birch Creek, for using which, a criminal action was in-
stituted against him. He was fined in the Justice's court, but appealed to the District
court, and a jury trial resulted in his discharge. On June 18, 1888, he brought suit
against the company to recover for the time during which he was restrained from the
use of the water, and for what they had used of it. He succeeded in obtaining judgment
but later sold the water to thf company for $1,750.
Mr. Browning has spent most of his life at home, but in April, 1879, he and a part
of his family toured southern Utah and Nevada, returning in time to attend the funeral
of his father, on June 22nd of that year. In 1893 he went East with members of his
family, visiting the World's Fair and other points of interest. His official record com-
prises membership in the Deseret Agricultural and Manufacturing Society, which he
joined in October, 18G0. The same year he was appointed captain and adjutant in the
Weber military district, and afterwards was sergeant-major on the staff of Colonel
W. N. Fife. In 1875 he was chosen sealer of weights and measures for Ogden City, and
served the public in that capacity up to within a short time of his death, which took
place a few years since, at his home in that town.
DAVID KEITH.
TN the front rank of Utah's mining men, made prominent not by mere wealth, but by
honest, conscientious effort, native ability and innate worth, stands the Hon.
y David Keith of Salt Lake City. He came to Utah from Nevada more than twenty
years ago, settling at Park City, where he became connected with severa of the most
prosperous mines of that section— notably the Ontario and the Silver King, out of
which latter he made his fortune. He resided at "the Park" for many years, where he
was well liked and very popular, especially with his fellow-workmen, noue of whom but
felt free to come to him at any time, for advice, sympathy and assistance. One evidence
of his popularity, was his election in the fall of 1894, by the largest majority that Park
City ever gave a political candidate, to represent Summit County in the Constitutional
Convention, held at Salt Lake City, the year following.
Mr. Keith is of Scotch descent, but a native of Nova Scotia, having been born at
Mabou, Cape Breton, May 27, 1847. He was the youngest of thirteen children, whose
HISTORY OF UTAH. .".01
parents were John and Margaret Ness Keith. His father and mother were both born in Scot-
land, and were married in Nova Scotia. His grandfather, David Ness, built a lighthouse
on the northern coast of Ireland, near Belfast, and was accidentally killed during the work
of construction, for which he had taken the contract.
David Keith's early boyhood was passed on a farm, his sire being a tiller of the soil,
but after the death of his parents, which double sorrow came to him while in his fourteenth
year, he went to work in t he gold mines of Nova Scotia. Up to this time he attended
school, but after engaging in mining, he had no further opportunities for such training.
Thenceforth he was to be educated in the hard school of practical experience, in which
he was a close and careful student, one whose fund of useful information increased from
day to day. Honest and genuine, he made no pretentious to what he did not posse-s.
and from a poor, hard-working boy, developed into an industrious, earnest, plain, and
eventually prosperous man of the people. Before he was eighteen, he had charge of
men, and took mining contracts in his native place. He supported himself, helped others
in distress, and made money enough to take him to California, for which State beset out
when he was twenty years of age, his purpose being to better his temporal condition.
By way of the two oceans and the Isthmus of Panama, he reached San Francisco,
landing there in September, 18G7. Passing through Sabna and Sonoma Counties, he
"staged it" to Sacramento, and thence on to Virgiuia City, Nevada, the same fall. He
worked in the mines for a while, and the nest spring he and three others bought a wood
ranch at Mill Station, Washoe valley. In the summer of 1809, he went back to Virginia
City, where he resumed mining, and followed it almost continuously in that locality, un-
til the spring of 1883. During this time he worked his way up from the position of shift
boss to that of foreman. The last seven years of his sojourn in Nevada, he was foreman
of the Caledonia and Overman mines and shaft; also of the New Overman shaft.
It was in March, 1883, that he came to Park City, Utah, to put in at the Ontario
mine, the great Cornish pumps, used to free the mine from water, until the completion
of the drain tunnel now utilized for that purpose. He was foreman of Ontario Shaft
No. 3 for eight years, during which period, the mine paid seven million dollars in divi-
dends. Those eight years were full of hard work for David Keith. At one time, while
in the mine, he met with an almost fatal accident, being struck by an ascending cage, and
falling a distance of twenty-five feet, where he caught and clung to a plank in the shaft.
His arm was badly crushed and broken. But better days for him were coming.
In November, 1888, while still at the Ontario, he connected himself with the Wood-
side mine, taking charge of the underground work. The next year he bought into a
lease on the Mayflower, the other lesees being Thomas Kearns, John Judge, A. B.
Emery and W. V. Rice. Ore was struck in that mine in April, 1890. In 1891 the same
parties bonded the Silver King, which then consisted of four claims, located by John
Farrish and Cornelius McLaughlin. Mr. Keith now quit working for the Ontario, and
took the management of the Anchor Mining Company. The Silver King Company was
then formed, and it included, besides Mr. Keith and the gentlemen named, Mr. W. H.
Dodge. They sank seven hundred and thirty feet, and drifted two hundred and fifty feet,
before getting a pound of ore. Rich strikes followed, however, and all the owners made
their fortunes. The Silver King is one of the greatest silver and lead mines in the world.
It comprises, with the Mayflower and properties owned by the Silver King Company,
over two thousand acres of patented ground, and has paid several millions in dividends.
As a matter of course, there were law suits, heavy and protracted ones, in the history of
the development of this great property, but at present its sky is unclouded and its pros-
pects flatteringly bright.
As stated, Mr. Keith was a member of the Constitutional Convention, which framed
the fundamental law upon which Utah was admitted into the Union as a State. His
friend and associate. Senator Thomas Kearns, was also a member of that body. Both
were staunch Republicans. In religion, Mr. Keith is a Presbyterian. He is a married
man and the father of five children, namely, Charles F., Margaret, Etta, Lillian
and David F. The first named four are the issue of a former marriage, while the
youngest, a bright little fellow, named after his sire, is the child of his present
wife, formerly Miss Mary Patrick Ferguson. His daughter Lillian is now Mrs.
Albert C. Allen.
Mrs. Mary P. F. Keith, a lady universally esteemed for her goodness of heart, intelli-
gence, modesty, and the strength and sweetness of her character, is the daughter of
General James Ferguson and his wife Jane Robinson, and was born at Salt Lake City,
on the 23rd of October, 1854. Educated in the common schools of her rative town, and
in St. Mark's school, from which institution she was graduated in June, 1875, she
502 HISTORY OF UTAH.
adopted the profession of a teacher, and had charge of the primary department at St.
Marks for three years, after which she taught school at Park City. Returning to Salt
Lake in 1881, she entered the employ of the Rocky Mountain Bell Telephone Company,
and, while with them, returned, in 1888, to Park City, as manager of the telephone ex-
change at that place. She resided there until 189-1, when, on the 12th of June, she
became Mrs. David Keith.
Mr. and Mrs. Keith are an exceedingly well-mated couple, congenial in their tastes
and devoted to each other aud to their children. They are an accession to Salt Lake
society, in every sense of the word. They reside in a handsome new white stone man-
sion, situated on South Temple street.
Mr. Keith's investments are almost entirely in mining property and real estate.
He is a part owner, with Mr. James Ivers, of the Summit Block, on Main street,
and is sole proprietor of the Pioneer Roller Mills, and the ten-acre block known
as the Tenth Ward Square, containing the old Exposition Building. He also owns the
valuable Main street frontage where formerly stood the Walker House, and where he
has since erected that splendid new structure, the David Keith block. All his
holdings are in Utah, aud he has always done everything in his power for the ad-
vancement of the State. He is known among his associates as a man of sterling mettle,
energetic, unassuming, generous and noble.
HENRY WALLACE.
•^jTCTIVE and successful as a founder and promoter of home industries is Henry Wal-
II lace of Salt Lake City. A native of Frome, Somersetshire, England, he was born
^■"^ April 27. 1840. His parents, John and Elizabeth Ashley Wallace, belonged to the
laboring classes, the father being a woolen cloth weaver. Henry received a com-
mon school education, and at an early age was apprenticed to the candy and biscuit man-
ufacturing business. His course of life was temperate and religious. He was baptized a
Latter-day Saint March 16, 1854, by Elder John H. Kelson. Before leaving England he
spent a year in the city of London.
Having resolved to emigrate, he set out for Utah, sailing from Liverpool May 12,
1862. Landing at New York, he proceeded by rail through Canada, and by way of Quincy,
Illinois, and St. Joseph, Missouri, reached Florence, Nebraska. He arrived at St. Joseph
the day after the Confederates were driven out by the Union forces. He was standing
about twenty-five feet from Elder Henry Whittall when the latter was killed bv lightning,
shortly after the arrival at the Floi-enoe camping ground. The company in which he
crossed the plains was commanded by Hancel Harmon. They arrived at their journey's
end on the 5th of October.
Mr. Wallace settled at Salt Lake City, though he first went to work for Levi North,
at Mill Creek, making molasses. Next he helped make the seats for the Bountiful Taber-
nacle. In October, 1863, he entered the employ of William Eddington, at his store on
Main Street, and five years later bought him out. In 1871 he erected a two-story build-
ing on land now occupied by the Calder Music Palace, First South Street, where he- car-
ried >n the manufacture of confectionery uutil 1874, when the business closed out. In
1875 he was employed by William Jennings and Sons, remaining with them until Febru-
ary, 18S5. In April of that year, he formed a partnership with George Husler, and
bought the business of the Utah Cracker Factory, taking the management of it. In 1892
Mr. Husler died, and Mr. Wallace, having purchased his interest, built the present fac-
tory, and in August of that year consolidated with the Amercan Biscuit and Manufactur-
ing Company, of which he became aud is still the manager.
While thus personally occupied he has been interested in various enterprises. He
was present at the first public meeting called by President Brigham Young to discuss the
organization of Z. C. M. I., and subscribed for stock in that concern. He was associated
with James Shelmerdine in the manufacture of hats, and with Arthur Stayner and others
in experimenting with sugar beets. He was one of the first directors of the Utah Sugar
Company, and helped to locate the sugar plant at Lehi. At the first public meeting held
in Salt Lake City to discuss the sugar question he presided.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 503
Mr. Wallace was a school trustee in the Seventh district when the celebrated school
tax case arose in 1S84-5, as related in the previous volume. The taxpayers of the dis-
trict, or the Mormon majority of them, having voted a tax for the erection of a new
schoolhouse, the non-Mormon minority resisted its collection on the ground that the pro-
posed building would be used for the inculcation of Mormon doctrines. The case went
to the district court, and after a full and protracted hearing, Chief Justice Zane decided
that the fears of the non-Mormons were groundless and that the tax levied by the trustees
was lawful. They therefore collected it and built the first free school building in Salt
Lake City.
Prior to the divison on national party lines. Mr. Wallace was a member of the Peo-
ple's party, active in political conventions and serving frequently as a judge of election.
Afterwards he sided with the Democrats. He was a candidate for the Legislature in 1895,
but was defeated. In 1S97 he was nominated by the Democrats, also by the Non-Parti-
sans, and elected a member of the City Council.
Mr. Wallace was a single man when he came to Utah, but married soon after his
arrival here. The partner of his choice. Miss Eleu Harper, became his wife on the 7th of
February, 1863. She has borne him six sons and three daughters. In the spring of
18S9, accompanied by his son Howard and several others, he went to Teton Basin, Idaho,
and assisted to open up that country. In July, 1S90, with his wife and daughter Rosetta,
he went to Europe, his purpose being to gather genealogies, though he was also set apart
as a missionary to preach the Gospel. He. visited Eugland, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and
France, and returned in October of the same year.
At the time of this mission, Mr. Wallace held the office of a Seventy, to which he
was ordained March 18, 1866, having previously been an Elder and a Priest, the former
since 1863, the latter since 1858. In April, 1889, he was set apart as one of the presi-
dency of thfi Twenty-third quorum of Seventy. His latest calling in the Priesthood
came December '24, 1899, when he was ordained a High Priest and set apart as second
counselor to Bishop Thorn of the Seventh Ward. He was one of the Deseret Dra-
matic Syndicate, which in 1902-3 placed upon the boards 0. U. Bean's celebrated play,
"Corianton." He has always been a diligent worker in the Sunday school cause, and
still holds his position in the Bishopric.
ALFRED SOLOMON.
/ft LFRED SOLOMON, boot and shoe manufacturer, ex-marshal of Salt Lake City,
l~J and present Bishop of the Twenty-second Ward, came to Utah when he was
^■"*- twenty-one years of age. He was born in the town of Truro, county of Cornwall,
England, September 10, 1836. His father's name was William Solomon, and his
mother's maiden name, Nancy James Hocking. The father was a shoemaker, employ-
ing a number of men, and his trade was chiefly among miners working in the tin and
copper mines of western Cornwall. Alfred was the seventh son, and one of thirteen chil-
dren. He received a common school education, but at thirteen began working with his
father at the shoemaking trade.
In his eighteenth year he became a Latter-day Saint, being baptized on the 6th of
April, 1854; the only one of his father's family, excepting his married brother William, to
embrace Mormonism at that time. During the next two and a half years he continued
working with his father, at the same time laboring in the interests of his religion, deliver-
ing tracts, accompanying the Elders, and assisting them in their open-air preaching at
Truro and the neighboring towns and villages. Desiring to come to Utah, he began saying
means for that purpose, and when he had enough to pay his passage over the Atlantic-
four pounds and five shillings— sent it to Liverpool, asking those in charge of the Latter-
day Saints' emigration agency to notify him when the next ship would sail. His parents,
setting an inkling of his design, did everything in their power to dissuade him from it.
His mother told him she would rather follow him to the grave than have him go to Amer-
ica and mingle with the Mormons. But all in vain.
Early in 1857, having received word that a ship with Mormon emigrants would
sail trom Liverpool in the latter part of March, he determined to take passage
504 HISTORY OF UTAH.
on it. He was not yet twenty-one, and fearing his parents would prevent him from
leaving home, he left without their knowledge. Only his brother William knew of
his departure. He had scarcely a change of clothing, and just enough money to pay his
fare by steamer from Falmouth, to which place he trudged on foot. He landed at Liv-
erpool penniless, to find that he would have to wait several days for his ship. An old
lady whom he had met on the steamer, and who was going to sail in the same company,
offered to pay his board bill at the lodging house where the.y stayed if he would help her
look after her luggage. While there he received a letter from his parents, containing three
pounds, with which he paid his board bill and bought an overcoat and other necessaries
for the voyage.
He sailed on the 27th of March, and landed at Boston on the 20th of April. Having
no more money, he had made up his mind that he would have to stay there for a sea-
son, when, to his great joy, two of the brethren whose acquaintance he had made
while on the ocean, offered to lend him enough to take him to Iowa City, the west-
ern railroad terminus at that time. The fare was ten dollars and fifty cents. At
Iowa City he found that the trains to take the companies across the plains — one half with
ox teams the other half with handcarts — would not be ready for three weeks. While
waiting on the frontier, Mr. Solomon worked for Senator Kirk wood, of Iowa, fencing corn
fields, at a dollar a day. On the eve of the departure of the ox train, Jesse B. Martin,
who had been appointed captain of it. came to him, and asked him to drive his team to
Utah. He gladly accepted the offer, and with the money received frotn Senator Kirk-
wood, after reimbursing those who had paid his railroad fare from Boston, he fitted him-
self out for the journey. He left Iowa City about the 20th of May. Between Wood
River and the Black Hills great herds of buffalo were encountered, so dense that the train
was compelled to stop at times and let them pass. Some mornings the men had to go out-
side the camp and shoot off their guns to scare away the buffalo from the cattle, which
became frightened and stampeded, both in and out of the yoke. In one stampede three
persons were killed. The plains abounded in game, herds of deer and antelope being
seen on either side of the road most of the time, while herds of elk were often descried
on the banks of the Plattei One day John Taylor and Erastus Snow overtook the com-
pany, and told them of the killing of Parley P. Pratt, in Arkansas, also of the coming of
Johnston's army. Mr. Solomon reached Salt Lake City on the 12th of September.
Three days after his arrival the Territory of Utah was placed under martial law by Gov-
ernor Brigham Young, as a measure of defense against the invading force. The newly-ar-
rived immigrant began working for Samuel Mulliner at shoemaking, but owing to the un-
settled state of affairs, very little labor of that kind was done, as all were preparing to
meet the army. He served in Echo canyon that winter, and was one of the guards left at
Salt Lake City, when the people moved south. After the move he worked for Robert J.
Golding, having charge of his shoemaking department. He was one of the special police
called into service under Mayor A. 0. Smoot, to keep in control the rough element that
had followed the troops to Utah. He assisted Captain Andrew Burt, the brave and cap-
able chief of police, in the detective department, and was one of the nosse who went with
Deputy Territorial Marshal Robert T. Burton to arrest the rebellious Morrisites in 18(52.
He was an artilleryman under Major Ladd in the old militia organization, and one of the
original members of the Salt Lake Fire Department. From 1870 to 18S0 he served as
constable of the Third precinct.
About the year 1870 Alfred Solomon, with hi* brothers William and James, formed
a co-partnership as manufacturers of boots and shoes. A year or two later William was
called to settle in Arizona, and Alfred and James continued the business. They were the
first, it is claimed, to introduce machinery into Utah for such manufactures. Their prod-
uct was purchased at wholesale by Z. C. M. I. until that institution began to manufacture
the same line of goods. Solomon Brothers then staited their wholesale and retail business,
which has continued to this day.
Alfred Solomon has been a married man since June IS. 1S00, when he wedded Ellen
Gyde, who died November 20. 1871. Prior to her decease, he had married, on March 28,
1S08, his second wife, Emma S. Brown, who died May 10, 1S77. His third and present
wife, Mary Louisa Solomon, was married to him September 22, 1S73. Thus, while he
had lived in polygamy, and reared a large family of children, he was not living in such
relations at the time of the enactment of the Edmunds law. His hospitable home was
open to those '"on the underground" in consequence of the crusade, and in this and
other ways he proved to the exiled Church leaders a staunch and faithful friend.
In February, 1SS0, he was elected city marshal and appointed chief of police, and
by re-election and re-appointment served in those offices until the Liberal party took the
§K§§%3^SS«*
hi Ujmj<
HISTORY OF UTAH. 505
city government in 1890. Marshal Solomon's most distinguished service was in Fein- nary,
1888, when in conjunction with Mayor Armstrong and a posse, he ejected the land jumpers
from the public lands of Salt Lake City, as related in the twenty-third chapter of the
previous volume.
In the Church, Mr. Solomon was a ward teacher for thirty years, and a Sunday school
superintendent for seven years, prior to which he had served fifteen years in the
Sunday school cause. He became Bishop of the Twenty-second Ward March 31, 1889,
the date of its organization. From the summer of 1891 to that of 1S93 he was absent
upon a mission to his native land. He presided successively over the Newcastle and
Cheltenham conferences, and had temporary charge of the Eui-opean mission, from the
departure of President Brigham Young, who had been summoned to the dedication of the
Salt Lake Temple, until the arrival of his successor, President Anthon H. Lund. On his
way home, Bishop Solomon visited the World's Fair at Chicago. On July 17, 1894, he was
called by President Lorenzo Snow to labor in the Salt Lake Temple, where he has con-
tinued as a regular worker up to the present time.
ALFRED WILLIAM McCUNE.
JT was a golden utterance of the lamented Garfield, that he never met a ragged
barefooted urchin but he felt like taking off his hat to him, for he never knew what
possibilities might be buttoned up beneath his tattered coat. The sentiment was par-
ticularly appropriate from one, who, a ragged urchin himself at the outset of his
career, had risen from the lowliest walks of life to some of its most exalted stations. Had
General Garfield, who visited Utah in the summer of 1872, antedated that visit wilh one
tenor twelve years earlier, and made himself personally acquainted with the settlements
south of Salt Lake City, he might have met a ragged, barefooted little boy. who used to
tend sheep in the vicinity of Salt Creek, now Nephi. That boy was "Alf" McCune, the
present rich mine owner and railroad man, a sketch of whose busy career will now be
laid before the reader.
Mr. McCune is not a native of Utah, though he has lived here nearly all his life. His
father. Matthew McCune, originally from the Isle of Man, was a British soldier, stationed
at Calcutta, aud it was there, in the citadel of Fort William, that A. W. McCune was born,
June 11, 1S49. His mother, Sarah Scott McCune, was from London, where she and many
generations of her ancestors were born and bred. She was the mother of seven sous and
one daughter, named as follows: Alexander J., Agnes J., Henry F.. Alfred R. William
T., George, Alfred W., and Edward J. AH were born in India, where their parents had
resided since 1835, and all the children but the four boys, HenrjT, George, Alfred W. and
Edward, died there. Alexander, when seven years of age, fell a victim to the bite of a
mad dog, and Agnes died in her infancy. Alfred R. and William T., aged four and two
years respectively, were carried off in one day by Asiatic cholera.
Early in the "fifties" Mormon missionaries appeared upon the scene, and converted
among others the McCune family, wTho, when Alfred W. was about five years old,
moved from Calcutta to Rangoon, Burmah, where the soldier sire was next stationed.
There Alfred attended a little school, taught in his father's house by William Willes, the
Mormon missionary. Other Elders from Utah in India at that time were Nathaniel V.
Jones, A. Milton Musser, Chauncey W. West, Richard Ballantyne, Elam Luddiugton,
Truman Leonard and William Fotheringham. Joining the Church to which these El-
ders belonged was but the prelude to coming to Utah, a project determined on by the
McCunes soon after their conversion.
Captain McCune — for that was the father's rank, won during twenty-four years of
service in the British army— resigned his position in the artillery corps, and set saii from
Calcutta December 6, 1856. This was shortly before the breaking out of the great Sepoy
mutiny. That he emigrated just when he did, was regarded by Captain McCune as
providential, for had he delayed his departure a few weeks longer, he would have found
it difficult if not impossible to leave. He and his family might have shared the fate of
other Europeans massacred by the Sepoys during that perilous period. They sailed in
an American ship, the "Escort," Captain Hussey, and were one hundred and eight days
82
506 HISTORY OF UTAH.
upon the sea, landing at New York early in March, 1857. They disembarked in the midst
of a snow storm. "My mind is very clear upon that point," said A. W. McCune to the
writer, "for I had never seen snow before: I took it for salt, while my brother Ed thought
it was sugar."
The family remained in New York about three months, and then proceeded by way
of Chicago to Iowa City. Crossing the Missouri River at Florence, they pursued the
usual route up the Platte, two ox-teams, and two Schuttler wagons, well loaded with
supplies, comprising their outfit for the journey to the Rocky Mountains. Captain Mc-
Cune drove one team and his son Henry the other. They traveled in a company led by
Jacob Hoffein. It was the year of the Echo canyon war trouble, and Johnston's army was
on the march to Utah. The McCunes and their company passed and repassed the troops
at different points, but were not molested by them, and arrived safe at Salt Lake City on
the 21st of September.
For some weeks they occupied a house belonging toElam Luddington, in the eastern
part of town, but late in the fall, or early in the winter, they removed to Farniington,
where they took the farm of Truman Leonard, to work it on shares. Alfred's brother
Henry spent the winter in Echo canyon, helping to repel the invaders. In the move of
185S the McCunes went to Nephi, where they permanently settled. There the mother and
father both died, the former in 1877, the latter in 1800. Father McCune was a pensioner
of the British government to the end of his days. There also died his son George, at the
age of twenty-four, leaving a widow and two children; and there the eldest and youngest
of the surviving brothers, Henry and Edward, still reside.
It was at Nephi that A. W. McCune grew to manhood. His first employments were
sheep herding, farming and stock-raising. At nineteen he worked on the Union Pacific
railroad, then being constructed through eastern Utah, trundling a wheelbarrow, and at
times wielding pick and shovel, on Sharp and Little's contract in Echo canyon. After-
wards he went into the cattle business with his brother Edward, in Juab county and on
the Sevier river, and continued in it as long as it was profitable. The construction of the
Utah Southern — the first railroad south of Salt Lake City — gave Mr. McCune an oppor-
tunity to show some of his ability as a financier. He first made money by running a
grain car and following up the extension of the road. His partner was Joel Grover, of
Nephi. Subsequently they took in a third partner, Walter P. Read, of that town, and
filled a contract for railroad building between Milford and Frisco. At the former place
Grover, McCune and Read had a store. These enterprises, with business trips to Pioche,
St. George, Silver Reef and other Doints, netted the firm in 1879 about eighteen thousand
dollars. By this time Mr. McCune had entered into a contract of another kind, having
married Miss Elizabeth Ann Claridge, of Nephi. The date of their union was July 1,
1872.
In the fall of 1879, Mr. McCune and his partners engaged in railroad building in
Colorado, taking contracts on the Rio Grande road, along the San Juan river. (Due
contract extended into New Mexico. It threatened at first to end disastrously, owing to
the heavy winter, but as usual with McCune's ventures, it turned out a success. The
next contract taken by them was on the Denver and South Park line. They also built
fifty-four miles of the Denver and New Orleans road, between Colorado Springs and
Pueblo. Grover, McCune and Read were next heard of in the north, constructing in
1882 twenty miles of the Oregon Short Line, west of American Falls, Idaho. Seventeen
miles of his contract was very heavy work, full of cuts and fills, and much of it through
solid rock. At the same time they engaged to deliver twenty-five thousand cords of wood
to the Lexington mine, at Butte, Montana. This contract and others of a similar kind
led to the dissolution of the partnership existing between the three friends, Messrs.
Grover and Read, fearful of failure, selling out to McCune, who, after vainly endeav-
oring to persuade them to continue with him, all undismayed "went it alone."
It was in the winter of 1882 that he thus launched out by himself. His good luck
did not desert him, and he soon realized the fruits of a prediction made by him to his
ex-partners, that they would regret their separation from him. He made money at
every turn. He bought out Joseph Broufchton and Company, a thriving mercantile
house at Walkersville, a suburb of Butte; contracted with the Alice Mining Company to
furnish twenty thousand cords of wood; and after filling that contract, furnished the
same company with many thousands of cords more. About a year after the dissolution
of his old partnership, he formed another with John Caplis, of Butte, who was with him in
the mercantile business, in wood contracts and in railroad building, until he also thought
it prudent to retire, and let McCune "go it alone." The latter went on making money.
He was a veritable Midas — whatever he touched turned to gold.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 507
His next railroad contract covered two hundred miles of the Montana Central, from
Great Falls to Butte. This was in 1885-6. His partners were Hugh Kirkendall, of
Helena, John Caplis and Walter P. Head. The venture was entirely successful. McCune
also built branches for the Union Pacific company, from their main line (the 0. S. L.) to
the Alice, Anaconda and other mines. A very important contract, Erom which he realized
a large amount of money, was one taken from the Anaconda company to furnish timber
for their mines. It necessitated the construction of an immense V-shaped flume, and the
diverting of waters from the eastern to the western side of the great continental water-
shed, a distance of twenty-six miles. Many predicted failure, but McCune saw money in
the enterprise. He bought out Caplis and took in Marcus Daly, representing the Anaconda
company, as his partner in the contract. It lasted for eleven years, and paid in dividends
seven hundred and sixty thousand dollars. During that time many thousands of cords of
wood were flumed down from the mountains to the mines.
After getting this great work under way, Mr. MeCune turned his attention to min-
ing. He sent Mr. Al. Wheeler, of local baseball fame, up into British Columbia, where,
at Ainsworth, on Kootenai lake, the latter located for his employer some fifteen or twenty
claims. The mo-t important of these was the "Skyline." so named from its lofty alti-
tude, more than five thousand feet above the lake. In 1891 he purchased through his
manager, Scott McDonald, a half-interest in the celebrated Payne mine, the first claim
located in the Slocan district, B. C. In 1896 he had a law suit aver this valuable prop-
erty with a partner, Steve Bailey, and compromised by buying him out, purchasing
from him at the same time three other claims in the district. On the 6th of December,
that year, the Payne began shipping ore, and thenceforth averaged from fifty thousand
to one hundred thousand dollars a month in dividends. Up to February 1, 1899, the
mine was owned by three men — two-fifths by Mr. McCune and the rest by William L.
Hoge and Scott McDonald. Subsequently Mr. McDonald sold out entirely, and Messrs.
McCune and Hoge in part to a Montreal syndicate for a very large sum of money. Mr.
McCune also invested in several mines in the Trail Creek district (Roseland, B. C.) One
of these, the Nickel Plate, sold for $225,000; and another, the War Eagle, after paying
handsome dividends, for $750,000. He retains possession of many claims in the same
camp, and is also the owner of valuable mines in Utah and Montana.
In the latter part of 1888 the McCunes became residents of Salt Lake City, purchas-
ing as their home a handsome dwelling erected by Mr. Joseph Jennings, at the corner of
Second West and South Temple streets. In April following, Mr. McCune became con- -
nected with the Salt Lake City railroad, Utah's pioneer street car line, one-third of
which he acquired by purchase. Simultaneously with his elect-ion as a director and vice-
president of the company, came a new era in the history of the road, electricity being
substituted for horse power, and other improvements made, costing in the aggregate about
a million dollars. This outlay, with the changes in equipment and conduct, placed it felly
abreast of enterprises of its class in all parts of the country. The Salt Lake City Railroad
company finally absorbed its rival, the Rapid Transit company, and in the consolidated
concern Mr. McCune is a heavy owner. He is also largely interested in the Utah Power
company, and in the jewelry business of the J. H. Leyson company. He was for some
time a part owner of the Salt Lake "Herald."
In the spring of 1898. after returning from an extended tour in Europe (visited pre-
viously by Mr. MeCune) he and his wife with their family entered into a rented occu-
pancy of the famous Gardo House, the parlors of which they adorned with choice
specimens of marble statuary purchased by them in Italy. In August of the same year
Mr. McCnne, with William L. Hoge, of Anaconda, Montana, and David Eceles, of Ogden,
Utah, inaugurated the Utah and Pacific railroad, designed to be built from Milford, the
southern terminus of the Oregon Short Line, to Los Angeles, and thence on to the coast.
The construction of the new line began in September, and work was completed to the
State line about the 1st of July, 1899.
In the fall of 1898 Mr. McCune decided to become a candidate for the United States
Senate, in which a vacancy was about to occur through the expiration of the term of Sen-
ator Frank J. Cannon, elected by the Republican majority of Utah's first State Legisla-
ture in January, 1896. Owing to the attitude of the Republican party on the silver
question, which had caused Senator Cannon and other Republican champions of free
silver to bolt the St. Louis convention, the Legislature of 1899 was overwhelmingly
Democratic, and Mr. McCune, a staunch Democrat, who had worked zealously for and con-
tributed much to the party's success in Utah, entered upon the race for the senatorship with
very fair prospects of success. His main competitors were Judge William H. King, Utah's
Democratic Representative in Congress; the veteran Democratic leader, Judge Powers;
508 HISTORY OF UTAH.
and Senator Cannon himself; the last named the avowed choice of the Weber county
legislators, elected on a fusion ticket containing the names of Democrats, Republicans,
and Populists. The Republicans, who had but fifteen of the sixty-three votes of the
joint assembly, maintained a partisan solidarity, as usual in such cases; voting as a unit,
with one or two exceptions, for one prominent Republican and then another, merely as a
compliment to the nominee. The contest was spirited and stubborn, but finally Mr. Mc-
Cune led the race and was within one or two votes of election, when, just before the east-
ing of the one hundred and twenty-second ballot, on Saturday, the 18th of February,
a most unexpected denouement occurred — Representative Albert A. Law, of Cache
county, a Republican who had bolted his party caucus and joined with the fusionists in
supporting Senator Cannon, arose in his place and hurled charges of attempted bribery
against Mr. McCune, alleging that he had offered him for his vote the sum of fifteen hun-
dred dollars.
An investigation was at once ordered by the Assembly, and a committee in which
the three elements — -Democratic, Republican and Fusionist — were represented, was ap-
pointed to conduct the same. During the course of the inquiry, which was thorough,
Mr. McCune indignantly and emphatically denied Mr. Law's charge, and alleged that it
was a conspiracy to ruin his chances of election. The committee, after hearing the evi-
dence and arguments of counsel, and carefully weighing the same, reported their find-
ings. Five of the seven committeemen united in a decision to the effect that the charge
of bribery had not been sustained, while the remaining two filed a dissenting opinion.
The reports were read to the Assembly on Monday, March 6, 1899, and the committee
was discharged with a vote of thanks for its labors.
The balloting continued from day to day until midnight of the 8th of March, the last
day of the legislative session. Most of Mr. McCune's supporters stood loyally by him,
and he still remained the leading candidate. Not even the introduction, at the last mo-
ment, of the powerful name of Hon. George Q. Cannon, as a Republican candidate for the
senatorship, could sweep him off his feet, though it temporarily diminished the number
of his supporters. Most of those who fell away came back to him, and with the rest went
down with him, flags flying, he and all the other candidates failing to secure the required
majority. The final ballot — the one hundred and forty-ninth — being cast, the vote stood
thus: Alfred W. McCune, 25; William H. King, 12; George Q. Cannon. 15; Frank J.
Cannon, 7; George Sutherland, 3. The joint assembly dissolved without electing a
United States Senator. Mr. McCune accepted his defeat gracefully — if defeat it could be
styled, since no one was victorious — and the evening after the adjournment of the Legis-
lature he invited its members, the senatorial candidates, and his political friends and
foes in general, to a reception and banquet at the Kenyon. A few weeks later, accom-
panied by Mr. Fisher Harris, his campaign manager, Mr. Waldemar Van Cott, one of his
attorneys, and other intimate friends, he took a trip to Europe to recruit his mental and
physical energies, which had been heavily taxed by the excitement, agitation and anxieties
of the campaign.
Since returning from Europe in June, 1899, Mr. McCune has been kept very busy, buy-
ing and selling mines, building and conducting railroads, and watching over the many and
varied enterprises in which his wealth is invested. In September of that year he went to
New York, and was present at the magnificent reception given by the citizens of the me-
tropolis to the great naval hero, Admiral Dewey. His latest venture is the building of a
railroad and the development of vast copper mines in far away Peru, which country he
first visited in June, 1901. Returning some mouths later, he moved his family from the
Ellerbeck home in the Eighteenth Ward — temporarily rented by them after leaving the
Gardo House — into the splendid new mansion erected by him on the spur of the hill at
the head of Main Street; a palatial property second to none in Utah in beauty of design
and delightful situation.
Mr. and Mrs. McCune are the parents of nine children: Alfred W., Jr.. Harry B.,
Earl Vivian, Raymond, Fay (Mrs. Raymond Naylor), Frank C, Jacketta (Mrs. Ernest
Greene), Marcus and Elizabeth C, all living but Harry and Frank. At this writing, Mr.
McCune is again in Peru, conducting the mighty enterprise inaugurated by him in that
land.
JOHN J. DALY.
QMERICAN-BORN. this gentleman, one of our most prominent and most prosperous
mining men, first came to Utah in 1873, apd again in 1876, when he settled here
permanently. His father, James Daly, and his mother, Mary (Moxin) Daly, were
natives of Ireland. Both died before he was twelve years of age. The place of
his birth was Morris, Grundy County, Illinois; the date, October 18, 1853.
When only fifteen, young Daly started out to make his way alone in the world.
Joining a steamboat expedition, he worked his passage up the Missouri river to Fort
Benton, Montana. Having to depend entirely upon his own resources, he accepted the
first employment that offered, which was a position with a post trader, and for two years
was employed at various Indian trading posts. The hardships encountered at these
outposts of civilization were difficult at times for even hardened frontiersmen of mature
age to bear, yet this mere boy struggled on and was equal to every emergency. Once
he was sent alone by his employer from Fort Peek to Fort Benton, a distance of over
two hundred miles, through a hostile Indian country, for the mail. For days he camped
out at night on the bleak hillsides, and on the return trip was overtaken by a severe
storm. When he finally arrived at the home station, his face, hands aud feet were so
badly frozen that for weeks he was confined to his "bunk" in a comfortless frontier
cabin. His heartless employer, while the lad was recovering and was scarcely able to
move about on his crippled feet, one day struck him a cruel blow, because he did not
move faster. He might have suffered more, but for the interference of an old trapper,
who witnessed the inhuman act, and told Daly's employer, in a quiet way, that if he ever
struck the boy again he would kill him. The warning was heeded. This act of kind-
ness Daly afterwards repaid by saving the life of the man who had befriended him; and
that, too, at the risk of his own life.
For a time Mr. Daly engaged in mining in Montana. In 1871 he went to White
Pine, Nevada, where he followed the occupation of a miner and prospector. About two
years later he visited Utah on a prospecting tour, but returned soon to Nevada. In
the fall of 1875 there was trouble with the Indians in the eastern part of that State, and
Governor Bradley called for volunteers from among the miners employed at Eureka.
Mr. Daly with many others responded to the call. Major Jonn H. Dennis was placed in
command. The prompt action of the Governor and the ready response of the sturdy
miners prevented serious trouble with the savages. The State afterwards recognized
the service of the volunteers by paying all the men miners wages for the time they
were at the front.
The next year found Mr. Daly a resident of Utah. At one time he was a guard
at the penitentiary. For several years he prospected in the mountains near Park City,
locating several claims, and serving as general manager of the Crescent, at that time one
of the most noted mines in this part. In 1883 he organized the Daly Mining Com-
pany, incorporating it upon claims previously located by him. He served as vice-president
and general manager of this company until 1888. During his management of the Daly,
the Marsac mill was built, and paid for out of the proceeds of the mine. Extensive
development work had demonstrated the richness of the ore bodies, and on retiring Mr.
Daly turned over the property to his successor in splendid condition, with several hundred
thousand dollars in the treasury. It was his greatest victory, preceded as it had been by
his greatest struggle in mining operations. On retiring from the management of this
mine, he took a contract to drive a tunnel of eight thousand feet for the Anchor Mining
Company, in doing which he opened up ore bodies from which several million dollars
worth of ore was extracted.
Immediately after completing his contract with the Anchor Company, he began the
work of developing what subsequently became the Daly- West mine. This property,
which consisted of several claims, had been acquired by Mr. Daly and associates while
he was engaged in other mining operations in and around Park City; he owning an
undivided half interest. Alone and unaided he pushed the work of development, his
associates declining at first to join him. He expended a fortune, amounting to many
hundred thousands of dollars, in the work of development, before incorporating his
510 HISTORY OF UTAH.
interest, in 1893, as the Daiy-West Mining Company. His struggle in overcoming the
many obstacles encountered in the opening up of this great mine forms one of the most
interesting chapters in the history of the famous Park City District, and demonstrates
with emphasis the indomitable pluck and perseverance of John J. Daly. In 1899, as
a result of his personal efforts, he succeeded in overcoming the difficulties which up
to that time had prevented the profitable working of the Daly-West mine. He now re-
organized the company, and in less than six months was able to pay a handsome profit
in the vay of dividends to the stockholders, thus adding another trophy to his long list
of successes in the development of mines. At present the Daly-West is the heaviest
dividend payer among all the mines in the State, not excepting the celebrated Silver
King. One of his latest creations is 'the Daly-Judge Mining Company, of which he is
president. He is also president of the Utah Commercial National Bank and the
Syndicate Investment Company; and is vice-president of the Utah Savings and Trust
Company.
Mr. Daly has never sought to be a politician, or in any sense a public man, but
his fellow citizens have frequently honored him by electing him to positions of prominence
and trust. Early in his career he affiliated with the Republicans, and until 1896, when the
Republican National Convention declaimed for the gold standard, he was a member of
that party. At the Republican Territorial Convention, held at Ogden in 1888, he was
unanimously elected one of the delegates to the National Convention which nominated
Benjamin Harrison for President. In 1889 he was appointed by the Governor a member
of the Territorial Loan Commission; in 1890 he was elected to the Salt Lake City
Council; and in 1891 was appointed a member of the Board of Regents of the University
of Deseret. Twice he was elected president of the Alta Club, of Salt Lake City, serving
during the years 1898 and 1899. In every instance he discharged the duties of his office to
the satisfaction of all concerned. As stated, he affiliated with the Republicans until
1896. That year, he united with most of the members of the Republican party of Utah,
in support of Mr. Bryan, on the issue of the free coinage of silver, and was the unani-
mous choice of the Silver-Republicans and Democrats as one of the State's three
presidential electors. Having been elected, he joined in casting Utah's vote for Mr.
Bryan.
Mr. Daly is recognized as a man of ability, capable of rendering sound judgment
upon any subject with which he is familiar. He is a well informed man of affairs, pos-
sessed of a practical education in the strictest sense of the term; an education obtained
mainly from the book of nature and the volume of every day experience. He never
attended school, except for a period of about two years, and this before he was fifteen
years of age. Except for the qualities of pluck and perseverance, which he inherited
from his parents, he may in very truth be recorded as self-made. He has been a married
man since March 1, 1880, when he wedded Miss Eliza M. Benson, from Liverpool, Eng-
land. They are the parents of three sons and five daughters, all but one of them living.
The Dalys for many years have been residents of Salt Lake City.
JOHN JUDGE.
ST* MEMORABLE name in the mining history of the State, is that of the late John
I Judge, formerly of Park City, but at the time of his death, a resident of Salt
^"^ Lake. He was a veteran of the Civil War, an experienced and successful mining
man, and a first rate good fellow in every sense of the term. He left his widow
and children a handsome fortune, his principal holdings being in the celebrated Silver
King mine, of which he was one of the original owners.
John Judge, son of John and Annie Judge, was born in County Sligo, Ireland, some
time in the year 1845. He came to America when an infant, and his early boyhood
was passed at Osable Forks, and Black Brook, Essex County, New York. He was
educated in the common schools. His parents were well-to-do farmers, and farming and
mining were the vocations that he was naturally inclined to follow. He worked in the
u.
'_J?b
H1ST0KY OF UTAH. '.11
mines front the time he was fourteen years of age, and lived at Black Brook until he
was eighteen.
He then enlisted in the UnioD Army, as a private in Company "K," Second Regi-
ment, New York Veteran Volunteer Cavalry, otherwise known as the "Empire Light
Cavalry." He served a little over two years. He was wounded, and was a prisoner for
eight months in Shrevesport, Louisiana, and in Tyler. Texas. His wounds were gun-shot
wounds, in the right hand and in one of his ankles. During a part of the time that be was
a prisoner, he lived on a p:ut of cob-meal a day. On account of his wounds, he drew/»
pension from the government, at the rate of twelve dollars a month. At Port Henry,
November 25, 1S67, he married Mary Harney, who became the mother of his five
children.
Mr. Judire came to Utah in April, 1870. He was a guard at the Penitentiary for
some time, and afterwards a miner at Wood River. Idaho. Returning to Utah, he went
to Park City, where he did considerable prospecting and worked upon some of the most
valuable properties in that section, notably the Daly mine. He was one of the original
lessees of the "Mayflower." the profits from which, purchased the Silver King claims.
When the Silver King Mining Company was organized. Mr. Judge was left off the Board
of Directors at his own request, he being in very poor health, and Mr. James [vers, pre-
viously his business partner, was placed thereon, to represent the Judge interest. Like
his friends and associates. Messrs. Keith. Kearns and others. Mr. Judge, or rather his
estate, became rich through his connection with the Silver King. He died September
14. 1892. His demise was much lamented. He was a kind-hearted, generous, upright,
honest man, whom everybody loved and respected. "A good, square man;" "a fine fel-
low;'' "a better man never lived;" are phrases still heard, concerning him, from the lips
of his many friends and acquaintances. His wife and children reside in a handsome
home, on East South Temple street. Salt Lake City.
JESSE KNIGHT.
f^f STRANGE and interesting career is that of the leading living representative of the
I historic Knight family, a name identified with Mormonism at its very birth, and
^""^ more or less closely connected with the early settlement of Utah. Joseph Knight, the
grandfather of Jesse — an elderly man in good circumstances, residing at Colesville.
New York — rendered substantial aid to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery. while they
were translating, at Harmony, Pennsylvania, in 1829, the plates of the Book of Mormon,
and afterwards befriended the boy prophet when he was hounded and persecuted. Newel
Knight, Jesse's father, was the subject of the first miracle recorded in Mormon history.
He was praying in the woods for light-and guidance in relation to the latter-day Gospel,
which he had heard preached, but had not embraced, when he was seized upon by some
terrible power, from which he was delivered only after the Prophet had laid hands upon
him and rebuked the evil one in the name of Jesus Christ. Newel Knight was one of
Joseph Smith's first converts, was always his faithful friend, and held various respons-
ible positions in the Church.
Jesse's mother, prior to her marriage with his father, was Lydia Goldthwait Bailey.
widow of Calvin Bailey. She married Newel Knight at Kirtland, Ohio, in November,
1834, the Prophet officiating. It was the first marriage ceremony that he ever performed.
Newel's first wife, Sally Coburn Knight, had died in Jackson County. Missouri, in Aug-
ust. 1S33. leaving a little son named Samuel. Lydia Knight was a remarkable character,
endowed not only with sublime faith and rare spiritual gifts, but also with much native
pluck and business ability. Her life reads like a dramatic poem, fraught with grand and
beautiful lessons of courage, patience and implicit trust in God. The Kuight family
passed through all the persecutions that befell their people in Missouri, and settled with
them at Nauvoo, Illinois, where, on the 6th of September, 1845. the subject of this sketch
was born.
Jesse Knight was the sixth of seven children born to Newel and Lydia Knight, and
named in their order as follows: Sally, James, Joseph. Newel. Lydia. Jesse and Hyruni.
The fatherdied in January. 1S47. at Pouca. west of the Missouri river, to which point Bishop
512 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Miller's company, in which he was included, had proceeded in the exodus of the Saints from
Illinois. The widowed Lydia, with her seven small children, the eldest a girl of eleven
years, was left to battle with the hardships and piivations of frontier life some three
years longer, before setting out for Salt Lake Valley. Her little step-son, Samuel, pre-
ceded the rest of the family to the Rocky Mountains, and Mrs. Knight herself would have
crossed the plains earlier had she not parted with her outfit and impoverished herself in
order to assist other emigrants. As a result she and her children lived in a cave part of
the time after their removal from Ponca to Winter Quarters, where the mother took in
washing and performed other menial tasks to sustain herself and her little ones. Though
not born to such labors, she had been more or less disciplined for them during the re-
peated mobbiugs and drivings of her people, and by her experience at Nauvoo, where
she was one of the original members of the Relief Society, organized for the care of the
poor by the Prophet Joseph Smith.
The eagerly awaited opportunity to emigrate came to Mrs. Knight early in 1S50,
when, her two wagons having returned from the Valley, (one a useless wreck, the other
susceptible of repairs)the indomitable little woman hired two yoke of Church cattle, and
on the 1st of June started with her children for this place. The company in which she traveled
was commanded by Bishop Edward Hunter, the agent of the Perpetual Emigrating Fund
Company, who, before leaving home, had received instructions from President Brigham
Young to exercise a kindly watchcare over the widow and her family and bring them
across the plains that season. Jesse Haven was captain of the ten wagons that included
her vehicle, which was driven most of the way by her little son James, aged twelve. He,
with others of the children, trudged on foot the greater part of the way to Salt Lake
City, where they arrived on the third day of October.
Mrs. Knight settled in the First Ward. She bought a vacant lot and erected a hum-
ble log and adobe dwelling, in which she opened a small school, teaching her own
children and those of the neighbors, during the winter. She succeeded so well that she
was solicited to take the Ward school, and did so in the spring. Her first act, after ob-
taining enough means, was to pay her debt of sixty dollars to the Perpetual Em-
igrating Fund for the use of the cattle in crossing the plains. In the fall of 1851 she
married John Dalton, and moved with her children upon a farm six miles south of the
city. Jesse's earliest recollections are attending his mother's school and herding cows
on the East Bench. Afterwards he worked on his step-father's farm, tending sheep. A
pet lamb was given to him by Mr. Dalton, and this increased until he had ten sheep of
his own, the first property he ever possessed. Five years later, his mother having sep-
arated from Mr. Dalton, Jesse left his little flock behind, and returned with his mother
to the city, where she again taught school. When he was about sixteen, she married
James McLellan, of Payson, and moved south, ultimately settling at St. George, where
she was an active and zealous worker in the Temple. Jesse did not live with his mother
from this time, but started out in life for himself, making his home at Provo.
For about ayear he was in the employ of Mr. Ben Roberts, on Fish Spring Desert,
putting up hay for the Overland Mail station at that point. He then went with the
Church trains to the Missouri river and back, driving an ox team and bringing in im-
migrants. Next, he took up freighting as a regular occupation, between home and the
mining camps of Nevada and Montana. He bought and paid for a yoke of cattle, and
had another yoke and a wagon on credit. He took a load of potatoes, also obtained on
credit, to Montana, but was unable to sell them for money, and so traded them for an-
other yoke of cattle. He then went on to Last Chance (now Helena) and spent the sum-
mer in logging, at which he made money. It was the time when the operations of the
highwaymen known as "Road Agents'' and their exterminators, the "Vigilance Com-
mittee," were in full blast. Jesse remembers seeing one morning, while driving into
Helena with a load of lumber, the dead body of a man hanging to a tree, having been
strung up during the night by the "Vigilantes.'' During the six months more or less
that he was in Montana, he did not see a familiar face. He was entirely among strangers,
aud was called by them "the young Mormon." He returned to Utah just before the
Blackhawk war broke out, and saw three months service, scouting in the mountains and
guarding the settlements south of Provo against the Indians. He was in Captain Alva
Green's cavalry company. At the expiration of his time of service he lesumed his occu-
pation of freighting.
The year 1868 found him working on the railroad, helping to build the grade of the
Union Pacific, at Quaking Asp Ridge, east of Evanston, Wyoming. His implements
were scraper and plow. He stayed till the snow came, and returned home well paid for
his season's labor. The same winter he hauled timbers for the construction of the rail-
HISTORY OF UTAH. 513
road through Weber cauyon. There he remained until about Christmas time, when he
set out for home, intending to be married on New Year's day, but in Provo canyon he was
snowed in, and the wedding had to be postponed. This was the second postponement of the
happy event, the first one occurring while he was on the railroad in Wyoming, making
money, for which reason it was deemed inadvisable to forsake his employment. His intended
wife was Miss Amanda McEwan, daughter of John and Amanda McEwan, of Provo, a
young lady whom he had loved since she was a little girl of thirteen. She was now
seventeen and he twenty-three. They were finally married at Salt Lake City, January
18, 1869. Their first child, a daughter, named Lydia Minerva, was born at Provo,
May 19, 1870.
The young husband and father continued freighting and teaming in the canyons,
getting out rock at one time, for the foundations of the Provo Wollen Mills. He was at
Promontory when the last spike was driven uniting the Union Pacific and Central Pacific
railroads, and there took a contract from a Mr. Kenner, to deliver nine hundred cords of
wood. He was at Tintic immediately after the fiist mines were discovered in that dis-
trict, and made some locations, from which, however, he has never yet realized anything.
He hauled the first ore from the Mt. Nebo mines to the Homansville smelter, in Tintic,
and also hauled ore from the West Tintic mines. Soon after he went into the cattle bus-
iness, selling out at Provo and moving onto a ranch two and a half miles below Payson,
where he had forty acres of land, to which he has continually added. There he reared
his family. He gave up freighting, and went to buying and selling cattle, farming,
dairying, and occasionally investing in mines; but it was not until many years later
that his mining investments became profitable.
He led a reckless life, so far as religion was concerned, associating with rough men,
and regarding most pious people as hypocrites. He had forsaken entirely his Mormon
affiliations, and in politics was accounted a member of the Liberal Party. The causes
assigned by him for this were two-fold. In the first place he was unable to separate the
principles of religion from the practices of certain men who professed them; in the next
place he was always for the "under dog in the fight" — a position occupied by the Liberal
Party at that time. Hence it had his sympathy. For fifteen years he never went inside
a meetinghouse or performed any other religious act. He did not teach his children to
be baptized, but told them to wait until the}' were grown, when they could decide all
such questions for themselves. In short, he was indifferent to, and even prejudiced
against all religious forms.
But a great change was about to come over him. When the "Loyal League" was
organized, in the fall of 1S86, with the object, as stated in its constitution, to present a
united opposition to the "political rule and law-defying practices of the Mormon Church,''
and oppose the admission of Utah into the Union, it became most popular in the min-
ing camps, where the non-Mormon element predominated. One of its effects, as noticed
by Mr. Knight, was to work hardship to the Mormon minority in those places, some of
whom were refused employment and even discharged from it because they would not
subscribe to an oath not to uphold or sustain any person who believed in or practiced
polygamy; in other words, would not renounce their Church leaders. Jesse Knight's
soul revolted against this oppression; these Mormons were now the "under dog in the
fight," and his feelings began to undergo a change, this time in favor of his own people.
One night he was shown in a dream that certain persons, amongthem a young man whom
he had known from boyhood, had combined to defraud him in a mining deal. The next
day, after denouncing them on the mere strength of his dream — which subsequent devel-
opments justified — he walked up over a mountain to trace the outcroppings of a vein of
ore previously located by him. Ashe went he communed with himself, musing sadly,
and at a certain point sat down under a tree. He was alone. His betrayal by men whom
he had trusted, and especially by one almost as dear to him as his own son, was agreat
sorrow to him, and he wept bitterly. In the midst of his mournful reflections he was as-
tounded to hear a voice speaking to him, as from out the midday heavens. It gave him
to understand, he relates, that the Mormon people were his people; that this country had
been prepared for them by the decree of heaven; and that they would remain here and
fulfil their divine destiny, as foretold by their martyred Prophet; it bore testimony to him
that if he ever came to anything good, or achieved any marked success, in mining or in
anything else, it would be as a Mormon, and not as one of his people's opponents. He
was overwhelmed. Trembling in every limb, and almost unable to walk, he made his
way back to camp. From that hour he was a changed man. The death of his daughter
Minnie, to whom he was devotedly attached, on December 28 of the same year — 1887 —
514 HISTORY OF UTAH.
saddened him still more, and caused him to ponder more seriously than ever upon his
past life and future course.
The parties who had deceived him were endeavoring: to purchase from him certain
claims in Tint ic, and he had verbally bonded his interest therein for a period of two weeks.
The very night that the option expired he had the dream in question, followed next day
by the still more remarkable manifestation of the voice. He refused to sell Ids claims, or
to have any luii her dealings with the parties, and now proceeded to buy up the adjoining
ground, paying for it the sum of four hundred and fifty dollars. About two years later
he sold the claims for fourteen thousand dollars, and the proceeds of this sale, added to
his ranch and cattle business, made him worth about thirty thousand dollars. It was the
beginning of his success in mining. He located the Humbug mine — whose vein he was trac-
ing when the voice spoke to him — and though not immediately remunerative, it ultimate-
ly became one of the principal sources of his wealth. Just prior to the fourteen thousand
dollar sale — in which the June Bug and Jesse Knight properties changed hands — he re-
moved his family to Provo, in order to give his children better advantages for religious
and scholastic training. He was now firmly resolved to be a Latter-day Saint, and to
have his family taught and trained in the religion of his fathers. He quit his old compan-
ions, began going to meeting, and attended faithfully to his spiritual duties.
Open-handed and charitable, he deemed it his duty to aid every one in distress,
especially poor people who applied to him for assistance. To such an extent did he pur-
sue this course, signing notes for others, and almost invariably paying them when they
fell due, that he soon found himself "flat broke," his money gone and his credit fast go-
ing. In his extremity he mortgaged his wife's home, which he had built for her in Provo,.
a proceeding acquiesced in by his devoted partner for the purpose of saving his credit.
He now went back upon his ranch, and was no longer numbered among the prosperous
men of his section. But it was only for a season. In 1896 a rich strike was made in the
Humbug mine, and in a few months Jesse Knight was again upon his feet, "making
money easy." He now purchased from Mr. McCrystal and the Fred Auerbach estate the
Uncle Sam mine, paying for it twenty-six thousand dollars, and within the next three
years he cleared from that and the Humbug property three hundred thousand. His in-
come from both soon averaged ten thousand dollars a month.
At the mines he founded the settlement that now bears his name, probably the only
mining camp in Utah and the entire West which has no drinking saloon. The absence
of such an institution at Knightville is due to the fact that there are few if any drinkers
among the miners there employed. The settlement was founded with twenty families,
but this number was soon more than doubled. Mr. Knight made an agreement with his
employes at the outset, and rules were adopted to this effect: He would raise their
wages without being asked; he would not run a boarding house and require them to pat-
ronize it, as often done in other places; and would arbitrarily take nothing out of their
wages for hospital funds, insurance fees, or other purposes; nor would he permit his
superintendent or foreman to question any man as to his religion or politics. In return
for these concessions Mr. Knight was to be free to summarily discharge men who were
found spending their wages for drink and neglecting to support their families. He in-
sisted upon being left at liberty to employ men who would properly care for those depend-
ent upon them, and not waste their substance in riotous living. Any foreman failing to
report transgressors of this agreement, if he knew of them, was also liable to immed-
iate discharge. The workings of this regulation and the results have been most satisfac-
tory. Industry, peace and temperance prevail at Knightville. Out of the first money
cleared from his mines Mr. Knight built a meeting house for the use of the miners and
their families — the deeds of which were given to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints — and this building is now used for religious purposes, and also as a school house
by the inhabitants of the place.
Jesse Knight is a liberal donor, not only to his own church, but to other worthy
causes. He does not lend money recklessly as he once did, but is very considerate to-
wards poor people who come to him to borrow, lending when he has means to lend at
reasonable and even low rates of interest. He believes it to be his mission to help the
poor and do good with the wealth that God has given him. "The earth," says he, "is
the Lord's bank, and no man has a right to take money out of that bank and use it ex-
travagantly upon himserf." Mr. Knight practices what he preaches. He lives in a com-
fortable home, but plainly and unostentatiously, affecting nothing showy in his apparel.
Humble and earnest in manner, simple in his tastes, and sincere in his convictions, he is
fearless and outspoken in his opinions. As an incident of his conscientious course it may
be mentioned that when the Smoot estate, in 1897, passed under the hammer and was
HISTORY OF UTAH. 515
soM to pay its debts, leaving the widow and children of President A. 0. Sruoot without a
dollar of tbe fortune be bad accumulated, Jesse Knight, at a time when property would
scarcely sell at all, or if sold would bring only about a third of it> value, bid in the estat<
for thirty-six thousand dollars, the amount of its debts, and then, retaining only enough
to make himself secure, handed back the rest of the property to the heirs, enabling them
to organize the Smoot Investment Company. When he has bought in mortgages he has
.(■ml tbe interest from as high as eighteen down to six per cent, and onee, when in-
vited to go into an enterprise that was paying eighteen percent dividends, he refused on
the groin. d that it was robbing the poor to enrich the stockholders.
Mr. and Mrs. Knight are the parents of six children, five of them living, namely.
Oscar Raymond. Jesse William. Amanda Inez, Jennie Pearl, and Addie Iona. Mr.
Knight's sons are associated with him in busiuess. They and their sister Inez. — whose
biography appears elsewhere — have performed successful missions in Europe. His son
Jesse VY\ has been a bishop at Raymond, Canada, — a settlement founded by his father—
and lias recently been made one of the Presidency of the newly organized Taylor Stake,
in that land, where Knight and Sons have invested extersively in cattle, and are now-
erecting a large sugar factory.
THEODORE BRUBACK.
•"NOLOXEL BRUBACK is a typical Western State builder, as shown by bis life in
\Qs Utah. Since his arrival here he has been one of our busiest men, probably eu-
^"^ gaged in promoting as many diversified interests as any other resident of the
State. He has developed not only gold and silver mines, but coal mines, stone
quarries and water companies, as well as building railroads.
He became President and General Manager of the Sanpete Valley Railway in 1887,
when it was a poorly constructed, badly equipped, narrow gauge "streak of rust," which
had been unprofitable from its construction until that time. Colonel Bruback took over
this property (only twenty miles in length), broadened the gauge, reconstructed it en-
tirely and extended it, until at the present it has become a standard gauge, well con-
structed and finely equipped railway, some sixty miles in length, doing a profitable busi-
ness, which bids fair to increase as the years go by.
The Colonel has developed a coal mine at Morrison, the terminus of the Sanpete
Valley Railway, after almost insurmountable difficulties, which would[have discouraged most
men, and has made a profitable enterprise out of this great interest. He developed the
Nebo Brown Stone Quarry, of which he is the chief owner, and placed upon the market
the finest brown stone found west of the Rocky mountains; a fact attested by what he
terms bis monument — tbe superb Deseret Kens building, one of the finest buildings west
of the Mississippi river.
Colonel Bruback created the Gold Belt Water Company, which supplies the mines,
mills and town of Mercur with water, making it possible to live there and operate mines
in the most economical manner. The great difficulty that confronted the mines and mills
of Mercur was the want of water, and although it was necessary to raise it over an alti-
tude of fifteen hundred feet, through miles of pipe, in order to get it into Mercur. and
notwithstanding the difficulty was pronounced insurmountable by engineers and mining
men, the Colonel's courage and enterprise were equal to the task. He constructed and
is now operating the Gold Belt Water Company, which enables Mercur to produce mil-
lions of gold annually. In addition to this, he has developed and is chief owner of many
mines in Utah and Idaho. He has large real estate interests in Salt Lake City, and
other parts of the State, and is always ready to assist in the promotion of any enter-
prise productive of good.
Colonel Bruback was born in Pittsburg. Pennsylvania. March 7, 1851. He came
west in 1877 and engaged in the mining and stock business in Wyoming Territory, where
he was one of the pioneers for many years. He settled at Salt Lake City in 1SS6. During
that year he married Jessie White MeLane, daughter of Colonel John W. McLane. one
of the heroes of the Civil War, who gave his life for his country, and after whom the G.
516 HISTORY OF UTAH.
A. R. Post at Erie, Pennsylvania, is named. Colonel Bruback has two children, Theodore
McLane and Jessie Elizabeth. His family is well known and always welcome in the social
circles of Salt Lake City.
Colonel Bruback was appointed aide-de-camp on the staff of Governor Wells, with
the rank of lieutenant colonel, by which appointment he received his title. He is at the
present time about fifty-two years of age, in excellent health, and bids fair to be en-
gaged for many years to come in furthering the establishment of large enterprises in this
State.
NEPHI WILLARD CLAYTON.
tMONG native Utah men who forged to the fore during the notable decade of the
"nineties" looms prominently Colonel N.W. Clayton, of Salt Lake City. A scion of
Y one of the best known families of pioneer times — his sire being one of the original
band led by Brigham Young from the Missouri river to the Rocky mountains —
Colonel Clayton has identified himself with various important enterprises which have
done their share towards building up the State that his honored father helped to found.
The son of William Clayton and his wife Augusta Braddock, he was born at Salt
Lake City, October 8, 1855. He received a common education, but left school at the age
of thirteen, to battle with life's sterner and more practical phases. Working at anything
that presented itself during his youthful years — from laboring on a railroad gravel train
to playing the violin in "Clayton's band," an organization formed by him and his broth-
ers, most of whom, like himself, were musically inclined — he found himself, at seventeen,
occupying the position of feeder in a salt mill owned by Mr. F. A. Mitchell, whose fore-
man he soon became. These were the first places that he ever held.
Young Clayton next went into his father's office, assisting him as auditor of public
accounts until the year 1879, when he succeeded him in that position. The controversy
over the right of the Governor of Utah, under the Territorial regime, to appoint the aud-
itor and other officers made by law elective, first by the legislature and afterwards by
popular vote, has been detailed elsewhere in this history (pages 195, 197, 500, 616, and
724 volume three) and need not now be recounted. Suffice it, that after four years of liti-
gation, in which Mr. Clayton and his confrere James Jack, the Territorial Treasurer, sus-
tained a gallant fight against what they and most of their fellow citizens deemed an
arbitrary attempt on the part of the Executive to usurp rights belonging to the people,
they gracefully yielded to a decision of the court of last resort, delivered January 6, 1890,
and surrendered the offices in question to the Governor's appointees.
During the year 1889 Mr. Clayton had purchased from Mr. Jere Langford his inter-
est in certain salt deposits on the eastern shore of the Great Salt Lake, and with James
Jack, Henry Snell and Jere Langford, had incorporated the Inland Salt Company, of which
he was the manager. This was the first salt refinery established in Utah — the first
attempt to utilize in any but a crude and imperfect way the natural saline treasures for
which the State is now famous. That the Inland Salt Company succeeded is evident from
the fact that in 1892, when Mr. Clayton and his associates sold out to Kansas capitalists, it
was at a net profit of $150,000.
When Mr. Clayton retired from this business it was with the intention of traveling
around the world, but he relinquished that design at the request of influential citizens
who desired him to undertake the construction and management of a first-class health
and pleasure resort on the shores of the lake; also the construction and management of
a railroad from Salt Lake City to the proposed resort. Thus were projected the famous
Saltair Pavilion and the Salt Lake and Los Angeles railroad. A site for the former was
selected on the east side of the lake, and the preliminary work of railroad construction
immediately begun. It was pushed rapidly to completion, and work upon the bathing resort
followed, the first pile for the mammoth pavilion — built like Venice upon the waters — be-
ing driven January 1. 1893. Work upon the superstructure was commenced on the 1st of
February, and completed early in June. The railroad company and the beach company
were kept distinct, but Colonel Clayton was manager of both, and of the latter organiza-
tion he was president.
(>^r^-
HISTORY OF UTAH. 517
The construction of the Salt Lake and Los Angeles railroad — so named because Los
Angeles was originally the objective point — opened the way for another important business
venture. In 1893 was organized the Intermouutain Salt Company, of which N. W. Clay-
ton, its main promoter, became manager. He retained his place at the head of this con-
cern until May, 1898, when a consolidation of the Intermountain and Inland Salt com-
panies was effected, and he was chosen manager of the combined organization, which is
now doing business under the new name of the Inland Crystal Salt Company. Colonel
Clayton in 1S99 retired from the management of Saltair Beach and its tributary line
of railroad, but he is still managing the Iuland Crystal Salt Company. In the handling
of these various enterprises he has had a valuable assistant in the person of his brother,
Mr. Isaac A. Clayton, the present secretary and treasurer of the Salt company and ex-sec-
retary and treasurer of the other concerns mentioned.
Colonel Clayton owes his title to his appointment as aide-de-camp on the staff of the
Governor of Utah, with the rank of lieutenant colonel. This appointment came in 1894,
at the reorganization of the militia by Governor Caleb W. West, two years before the
advent of Statehood. He was appointed to the same position by Governor Heber M. Wells
in 1896. The Colonel is a married man, having wedded Mrs. Sybella Johnson Young
June 24, 18S4. He is the father of seven children. As already stated, he is musically
inclined, probably possessing more native ability in that direction than any of his numer-
ous brothers and sisters; which is saying much, since the divine art is inherent in the
Clayton family. As a child he taught himself the violin and concertina, later on master-
ing the piano. His daughter Sybella, a musical prodigy from childhood, is a skilled per-
former on the same instrument, and is at present a pupil of the noted Alberto Jonas,
of Detroit. Colonel Clayton is president of the Clayton Music Company, the lead-
ing music firm of the State, and is president of the Brigham Young Trust Company. With
his charming wife and interesting household he resides in an elegant home on Second
street, Salt Lake City, where they are proverbial for hospitable entertainment and the
virtues that adorn and make happy the domestic circle.
A few words more, before closing this biogaphy, in relation to Saltair, that beauti-
ful and unique creation which has done so much in late years to make Utah famous. The
general idea of a resort of this character did not originate with Colonel Clayton, but with
those who solicited him to undertake its construction and management; yet it is un-
doubtedly due to him that it was built on so magnificent a scale. The original projectors
— careful and conservative men — demurred to his daring design to erect a pavilion worthy
of New York, London or Paris, in the vicinity of a city like Salt Lake; but he argued
that Salt Lake had a future, that Saltair would attract population and capital, and that
to build less expensively than he proposed would be to foredoom the enterprise, which would
not then be able to compete with Garfield and other lake resorts already established and
backed by powerful railroad influence, and would sooner or later be absorbed by them.
His argument prevailed, and the result was "beautiful Saltair.'' The architect of the
pavilion was Richard Kletting, of Salt Lake City; but the oriental character of the struc-
ture was suggested by Mr. G. Henry Snell, whose name in abbreviated form has previ-
ously been mentioned, and who returned from a tour around the world in time to take an
interest, financially and artistically in the enterprise. Mr. Snell, Colonel Clayton and
James Jack were the heaviest stockholders in Saltair — a name suggested by Mr, Spencer
Clawson.
The broad and beautiful pavilion, with its expansive dome, Moorish towers and
curving, outstretched arms, sits upon the water in the form of a crescent, originally
four thousand feet from the shore, with which it is connected by a railroad bridge and
platform that enable the crowded trains to land their passengers immediately in front of
the main structure. It has twenty-five hundred supports of ten-inch piling. The total
length of the buildings is 1,115 feet, the total width 335 feet, and the height from the
water to the top of the main tower 130 feet. The pavilion proper is divided into two
compartments, the upper floor being the ballroom, and the lower floor the refreshment
room. In the wings are the bathrooms numbering 620. The ballroom, oblong in shape,
is covered with a concave ceiling, supported by forty-four iron arches, studded with
electric lights: the sides beintr open to admit the invigorating saline breezes, and at the
same time afford a broad and extended view of the island-dotted lake and the adjacent
mountains. The dimensions of the dancing floor are 250 by 140 feet, and of the lower
floor 253 by 151 feet. The pavilion and its appurtenances are lighted with electricity, the
grand arch over the entrance presenting on gala nights a gorgeous and dazzling spec-
tacle. Forty arc lights and twelve hundred and fifty incandescents, surmounted by one
arc light of two thousand candle power, serve to brilliantly illuminate this palatial resort,
518 HISTORY OF UTAH.
— the largest and in some respects the most splendidly equipped of its kind in the
world.
Saltair, with its railroad — which, including side tracks, is fifteen miles long — was
constructed at a cost of nearly half a million dollars. Of this amount, $225,000 was ex-
pended on the railroad. The contract price for the pavilion was $108,000, but the con-
tractors could not complete it for that sum. and the Beach Company generously came to
the rescue with an additional appropriation. Both railroad and pavillion were built by
Salt Lake capital and Salt Lake workmen. At this writing extensive improvements are
in progress at Saltair, owing to the recent subsidence of the waters of the Lake. It is
strictly a temperance resort, ably and morally managed.
CHARLES EDWIN LOOSE.
/^f NOTHER prominent mining man is Hon. C. E. Loose, of Provo, a resident of Utah
II since i860, and a State Senator since 1902. He has mined in California as well as
in Utah, and has taken a leading part in politics in his section. He is a wealthy
man, and his business interests are large and varied.
Mr. Loose was born in Quiney, Illinois, September 10,1853. From his parents,
Robert Loose, and Betsey Jane Tenny Loose, he inherited a strong physique, with the
energy and industry which have characterized his career, and to which his success is
mainly due. His father died w"hen Charles was nine months old, and his mother, who
was a woman of education and enterprise, taught in the 'public schools of Quiney in order
to support her family. She continued to be thus employed until the year 1800, when she
came with her family to Utah.
At the age of sixteen, and during the year that witnessed the completion of the trans-
continental railroad, Charles went to California, and there engaged in mining, which he
has followed ever since. The year 1885 found him back in Utah, opening up mines in
the Tintic district. In 1892 he took up a permanent residence in Provo. and has since
been an important financial factor in the building up and improvement of that ciry.
An ardent Republican, Mr. Loose straightway identified himself with the newly or-
ganized Republican party of Utah, and to the labors of such men as he is largely due
Utah's position iu the column of Republican States. In 1900 he was sent as a delegate
to the National Republican convention at Philadelphia, where he assisted in nominating
William McKinley for President and Theodore Roosevelt for Vice-President. After
their election, he was the elector chosen to carry the three votes of Utah to Washington.
In 1902 he was elected State Senator from the Seventh Senatoi-ial District. Most of his
interests are in mining, but he is also engaged in banking to some extent, being Vice-
President of the Provo Commercial and Savings Bank, and is also a large investor in
business blocks and real estate. He is liberal with his means, and has made munificent
donations for the public weal.
NEPHI PACKARD,
tEPHI PACKARD, ex-Bishop of Springville, and now a well known mining man, is a
native of the State of Ohio, born at the town of Parkman, in Geauga County, July
1, 1832. His parents were Noah Packard and Sophia Bundy. Nephi was only a
little over three years old when, in September, 1835, the family took up their residence at
Kirtland. the headquarters of the Latter-day Saints, with whom they were connected.
There the boy became acquainted with the Prophet Joseph Smith and many of the first
Elders of the Church. In the fall of 1S38 his parents with their children started for the
State of Missouri, but wintered at a place called Wellsville. on the Ohio river, fifty miles
^LZJU &i.qJZcaJ>(?{
HISTORY OF UTAH. 519
below Pittsburg. In the spring they continued journeying to Missouri, but on arriving
at St. Louis, learned that the Saints had been expelled trotn the State. They joined the
main body at Quincy, Illinois, where they remained a short season, and then moved onto
a farm near La Harpe. There they resided until May, 1S39, when they moved to Xau-
voo. X'ephi joined the Church by baptism just after becoming eight years of age.
He was almost fourteen and still living with hi< parents, when the exodus of the
Saints from Illinois began. The family, not being: able to go West, moved to a place
called Hazel Green, in Grant County. Wisconsin, where the boy worked in the lead mines,
continuing in that employment until April. L850, on the 22nd of which month they started
for Salt Lake City. At Kanesville they were organized in Captain 1'foutz's "hun-
dred." Captain William Wall's "titty." and Peter Maughan's "ten." On the plains the
cholera attacked the company, which arrived at its destination on the 17th of Septem-
ber.
Young Packard's first employment in these parts was in digging a mill-race for
Archibald Gardner, on the Jordan river, fifteen miles south of Salt Lake City. The work
was completed before Christmas. Shortly after he moved to Hobble Creek, now Spriug-
ville, where he arrived on the 5th of February, 1-851. He labored hard in the building up
of that settlement, and passed through all the Indian wars of his region, serving in Cap-
tain Matthew Caldwell's company of mounted minute men daring the Walker war, and
under call of U. S. Marshal Heywood in the Tintic war. The greater part of his time
was spent in farming and freighting. As a freighter he crossed the plains four times,
making five trips in all with teams.
Next came the opening of the Utah mines. Mr. Packard followed mining and mer-
chandising until 1883, when on the 4th of March he was called to preside as Bishop of
Springville. being ordained under the hands of Presidents Joseph F. Smith, Wilford
Woodruff, A. 0. Smoot and David John. He continued in that position until Springville
was divided into four Wards, since which time he has devoted himself to mining. He has
been a married man since November 10. 1861, when he wedded Elizabeth Clucas, the
mother of his five sons and four daughters, .-.even of whom are living. Mr. Packard is
an amiable gentleman, of unusual intelligence, and a man of strict honesty aud integrity.
THOMAS ROBINSON CUTLER.
'HIRTY-XIXE years ago there arrived at Salt Lake City, as a convert to Mormomsm
and an immigrant to the latter-day Zion. a young Englishman a little over twenty
years of age, who, trained as a mercantile clerk in his native land, had driven an
ox-team across the plains and mountains to Utah. As if to emphasize the irony
of the situation, which demanded of our early settlers, whatever their predilections and
past experiences, that they adapt themselves to their primitive surroundings and become
"all things to all men," his first employment in his new home was "digging carrots on
shares," in order to obtain means for his subsistence during the approaching winter.
Fortunately for him and those partly dependent upon him. this youth possessed in an
unusual degree those powers of adaptability which, in a country such as this was.
constituted one of the surest passports to success, and indeed have ever been a most
prominent factor in the expansion and development of the Great West. Added to this
quality was a natural inclination to industry, combined with business tact and strong
tenacity of purpose: and to these gifts, supplemented by honest and upright dealing,
this man. now in the prime of life, owes his present social aud financial standing.
Thomas R. Cutler, vice-president and manager of the Utah Sugar Company, and a
pillar of stength in various other prosperous business concerns, was born in Sheffield,
England, June 2, 1844. It may be noted as a double coincidence that his father, John
Cutler, was a cutler by trade in that famed center of English industry where cutlers
"most do congregate." The boy derived his middle name from his mother, Elizabeth
Robinson Cutler, the amiable, faithful and devoted companion of his equally worthy
father. Thomas received an ordinary education, and at the age of fifteen, ambitious to
become self-sustaining, and his tendencies being to a commercial life, he entered, the
employ of a large wholesale and foreign mercantile house, that of S. and J. Watts and
520 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Company, Manchester. There he remained until March. 1864, when, the family having
become Latter-day Saints, he severed his connection with the concern in order to ac-
company his parents to Utah. He was one of four brothers that emigrated at that time,
three of whom are still living and are prominent in Utah business circles. Two
sisters completed the family party, which, sailing from Liverpool in April of that year,
safely accomplished the ocean voyage and overland journey, and arrived at Salt Lake City
on the 6th of October.
As soon as practicable after his arrival Mr. Cutler again turned his attention to
commercial pursuits, and in the year 1865, having settled in Utah county, he became
an employee of the T. and W. Taylor Mercantile Company of Lehi, where he has ever since
resided. He remained with the Taylors for several years, and then engaged in the cattle
and sheep business and other pursuits. Two or three years later, in April, 1872, he
organized the People's Co-operative Institution of Lehi, a successful business house,
which has never failed to pay dividends from the day of its organization. He is still the
president of that prosperous institution, and acted as its manager until the year 1889,
when he accepted the management of the Utah Sugar Company, whose phenomenal
success has been largely due to his rare business sagacity and indefatigable labors in
its behalf. In the year 1899 he organized the Lehi Commercial and Savings Bank, of
which he is still a director. He is also a director of the Provo Woolen Mills, the most
successful enterprise of its kind yet established in Utah, and is connected in a similar
capacity with the Cutler Brothers Company of Salt Lake City. He has also engaged to-
some extent in mining. He is a married man, with a large and interesting family, and
since September 5, 1879, has held the highest ecclesiastical position in the Lehi Ward,
that of Bishop. While not a professional politician, he has been active in the interests
of the Republican party in Utah, and has been prominently connected with the Lehi
city government.
Bishop Cutler is a natural financier, instinctively a business man, of quick and far-
reaching calculation. As a result he is well-to-do. He would be wealthy if he were less
generous and sympathetic, his disposition in that direction amounting almost to a fault ;
if such qualities can be called faults. His heart is ever open and his hand ever
ready to help the unfortunate. Always a faithful and conscientious employee, as an
overseer and director of men he shines conspicuously. He is a good judge of character,
his system and discipline are thorough, and his industry proverbial. He will work
night and day when necessary to pi-oinote the interests of any cause with which he may
be identified. Though never robust, he has always been energetic, and at the age of fifty-
nine is still in sound health, aud on the up-grade physically as well as mentally, thanks
to the open-air employment required by his general oversight of the beet-gi-owing,
sugar-making industry with which he is connected. In spite of his great activity, Mr.
Cutler is of a modest, retiring nature, and is an amiable, affable gentleman, much
esteemed throughout the community.
RICHARD D. MILLET.
•"VAPTAIN MILLET, the well known capitalist and mining man, came to America
l@^ from his native England in April, 186-4, and has been a citizen of Utah since the
fall of 1892. As a mining and mechanical engineer, and as foreman aud superin-
tendent of various valuable properties, he was known in the West and in parts of
South America long before takinir up his residence at Salt Lake City. Here he has
prospered both in mining and in mercantile matters, and is now a large owner of real
estate, with a variety of vested interests. He was one of the organizers of the Keith-
O'Brien store, its first vice-president, and is also connected with Z. C. M. I., the Deseret
National Bank, the Consolidated Wagon and Machine Company, the Utah Sugar Com-
pany and other institutions.
A Cornishman by birth, the date of his nativity was April 29, 1839; the place, about
two miles west of Truro, in the famous mining region of Cornwall. His father, James
Millet, was a mining man. as were others of the family, which also included doctors,
lawyers and ministers. His mother's maiden name was Mary Ann Richards, whose
HISTORY OF UTAH. 521
father was a noted mining man in Cornwall, and likewise a wealthy farmer. Richard
was the younger of two sous, and was only three years old when his father died. Some-
time afterwards his mother married her cousin, Samuel Richards, a well-to-do farmer and
a widower with two daughters. A few years after this marriage, the family farm being
ruined by poisonous fumes and gases from lead smelting works erected less than half a
mile away, the parents were compelled to abandon the property, move onto a smaller
farm, and begin life over again, with seven children on their hands; Richard and his
brother, the older ones, going to work and helping to maintain the household. Finally
they succeeded in becoming fairly well off, though Richard after leaving home, never
failed to send them each year, as long as they lived, a few pounds by way of remem-
brance.
All the schooling he received was before reaching the age of eleven years: and this
was in a private school, where the master taught the boys, and his wife or daughter the
girls, the principle instruction for the latter being in knitting and sewing. "I often wish,"
says the Captain, "When I see these beautiful schoolhouses, colleges and universities,
with their elegant furniture, artificial heating, and everything to make things pleasant,
that I could be a boy again, in order to enjoy some of these advantages. There were no
public schools in my neighborhood, and the one I attended had no fire, no maps, no dec-
orations— only long, hardwood benches, without backs, and some rude pegs for the chil-
dren to hang their hats on. or what they called hats."
At eleven he went to work to become a mining and a mechanical engineer, and, as
customary in those days, had to begin at the very bottom of the ladder, giving a portion
of his time in turn to the mines, surface workings, foundries, machine shops and smelters.
His first work was on the dressing floor of a tin mine, where he swept up the loose parti-
cles of tin, kept the floor clean, and received for his labor two pence, or four cents a day.
The work was out of doors, only the engine, boiler and stamp mill being covered, and it
was done by men, women, boys and girls, who would toil on in the rain until soaking
wet, with the water running out of their shoes, and then go home, losing their wages
for the rest of the day. Young Millet was next placed in a lead and silver smelter,
a large concern working three or four hundred hands, and receiving ore from various
parts of the world. All the work was done by hand. There were no blast furnaces —
only draft furnaces of the very crudest kind. The silver was separated from the lead by
crystalization and oxidation. The silver was refined in a large furnace in a cupule, which
would hold from fifteen hundred to eighteen hundred pounds of the metal. In the subse-
quent processes women were employed as well as men. Richard's duty was to pick up
any little particles of silver that might fly away when the cooled contents -of the cupule
were cut up with chisel and sledge-hammer. After two years in the several depart-
ments of this smelter, he put in about five years learning the various branches of the
machinist business, in shops and foundries three miles from home, and in which he
worked from six o'clock in the morning until six at night. If there was any over time,
he would use it in earning a little extra money, and was befriended in such ventures by
the foreman, who took a great interest in him.
At the end of three years he was sent to erect mining machinery and set up water
works, having charge of ten to fifty men, some of whom were over sixty years old, and
had been at this kind of labor for forty years. It was about this time that the title of Cap-
tain was bestowed upon him. it being applied to men of his class, in charge of
work in mining regions. He succeeded so well that parties ordering machinery would
make it a part of their contract that he should set it up. He erected some of the largest
pumping plants in Cornwall, placed pumps in mines, and made notable improvements iu
the arrangement of pumps and in the operating gear of the engines. At the age of
twenty-one he took a year's vacation and attended one of the best mining schools in Corn-
wall, studying mathematics and mechanical drawing, and paying for his tuition with
money saved from his earnings. He afterwards traveled through different parts of Eng-
land studying machinery for various manufacturies.
In the course of his travels he learned a great deal about America, and finally de-
cided to come to this country. His employers threw every obstacle in the way. His
uncles offered him a farm if he would not leave England, and other inducements were
given him to remain. But he was determined to cross the Atlantic, and accordingly in the
month that witnessed his twenty-fifth anniversary he sailed from Liverpool for New York
on his way to California. Continuing by steamer to Aspinwall, he crossed the Isthmus of
Panama, and arrived in San Francisco about the 4th of July. He did not know a soul
in the United States. It was during the Civil War. and thousands of men from all over
the country had come West to escape being drafted into the army. Business was dull
33
522 HISTORY OF UTAH.
and the outlook dark. The Captain, however, had landed with one hundred English
sovereigns, or about five hundred dollars, in his possession. He had been in San Fran-
ciseo but a few days when he met Captain Dick Burrows, who introduced himself as an
old employee of Richard's father. Burrows had been a mining superintendent, and showed
the son of his former employer a great deal of courtesy. After a few weeks the latter
got a position in a mining camp, to put up a little quartz mill and hoisting works — doing
most of the work himself — and from that time on he had all the employment he wanted.
Within six months he was offered such positions as foreman, mill superintendent and
general manager of mines.
He had been in this country twenty-four years when he was cabled by a London syn-
dicate, at the head of which were the celebrated Baring Brothers, asking him to come to
London at their expense, to consult about mines and the treatment of ores in the Argen-
tine Republic. Accepting the call with great pleasure, he set out for his native land,
taking advantage of the trip to visit his old home, where he found none of the family left
except a half-sister. He engaged with the London syndicate for four years, and went to
South America as consul. ing engineer for all their properties, under a contract empower-
ing him to hire or discharge any person connected with the mines, without notifying the
London office. He was in Brazil on business during the revolution, proceeding to that
country overland from Uruguay; a very dangerous trip, owing to the troubled times. His
object was to report on some mines which his company was operating there, and to in-
spect the work of a frontier railroad, for which they had a contract from the Uruguay
and Brazilian governments; a road in course of construction at the time of the Baring
Brothers failure. Refused a passport by the American Consul at Buenos Ayres and
Monte Video, he outfitted with horses, provisions, etc., and started. The dividing line
between the two countries was a desperate and dangerous region, swarming with armed
ruffians, supposed to be smugglers, and hence hostile to the railroad. Arrested by them.
Captain Millet was compelled, in order to save his life, to conceal the real purpose of his
errand, and represent himself as an Englishman traveling for his health. After detain-
ing him three days they let him go on his way. He visited one mine, and then received
word from London to proceed on to Sanscope, in Brazil, and report on a property that
bad been offered at the company's headquarters. The party offering it was a young man
named Albuquerque, a Brazilian, who had a grant or concession from his government of
several thousand acres of ground, represented as very rich and valuable for mining pur-
poses. Albuquerque went with Millet to inspect the property. Says the latter:
"We went by steamer from Rio Grande de Soul to Port Allegra, which took four
days on the rivers and lakes. From there we went by rail and horseback on a journey
of two weeks to reach the supposed mining district. I had with me, beside Mr. Albu-
querque, a young Canadian from Sherbrook, Canada, who had charge of the mines in
Brazil. To get to the property we crossed rivers where we had to kneel on the saddle to
keep out of the water; we passed through forests of gum and other trees, where monkies
were jumping from limb to limb, parrots chattering, and occasionally a big snake hanging
to a branch above our heads. When we arrived at our destination I found rolling hills
with plenty of grass, a great many cattle of the Texan type, and a few water holes from
which the cattle drank. Around these water holes there was a little brush or scrubby
timber. There was no sign of quartz;the ground had never been broken; nor was there
anything to indicate mineral. I asked Mr. Albuquerque where the mines were. He
said: 'You have to sink to find the mines.' 1 said: "What was your idea in getting a
concession for mines here?' He replied that he had been reading American books and
American literature on mines, which books said that it was very important there should
be plenty of wood and water, and he thought this would be a good place to look for a
mine. My report to the London company was that there were no mines and no water,
and that all the wood in the camp would not run a cook stove more than six months for a
large mining company. Within two hours we had started to return over the same route
to Rio Grande de Soul. There I met another obstacle. Not having a passport into
Brazil, I was not permitted to leave the country. During my thirty days detention I be-
came very well acquainted with the American consul, and was invited with him to take
part in the ceremony of laying the cornerstone for a monument to be erected in memory
of the emancipation of the slaves of Brazil. Finally, through the influence of a Mr. St.
Clair, agent for the Lambert and Holt line of steamers, I was taken in s small boat out
to a steamer lying in the stream, and in this way returned to Monte Video without a
passport."
Captain Millet's contract with the London syndicate gave them all his time, but dur-
ing the period he was in their employ he examined mines for French. German and Italian
HISTORY OF UTAH. 523
companies, his reports going to the home office, which paid him a princely salary, ami of
course collected the fees, whatever they were, for these examinations. He had with him
several Canadians, some Americans from the United States, and Englishmen in charge
of the various properties. His company owned all the street car lines in Buenos Ayres
and La Plata, some of the lines at Rosario and Monte Video, had their own steamboats
and railroads, and brought down their own freight and supplies to Buenos Ayres.
His home at this time was in Lead City, South Dakota. His wife was Florence
Alexander, the only child of Wesley and Sarah E. Alexander, and a native of Kentucky.
Her parents left that State during the Civil War, and after a brief stay at Alder Gulch,
Montana, moved to Helena, from which place their daughter was sent East to school. She
was a graduate from the Monticello Female Seminary at Godfrey, Illinois. In 1878 the
family moved to the Black Hills in Wyoming, and it was there that Miss Alexander met
and married Captain Millet. October 127, 18S0. Having returned to his home on a six
months leave of absence, the Captain was offered a London position as consulting engin-
neerfor mines in West Africa; but the death of his wife, on December 29, 1890, three days
after the death of her father, from pneumonia, prevented him from accepting this situ-
ation. He also decided not to leave the United States again and sent his resignation to
the London company. He had no children, and he and his wife's mother were left alone.
After some six months he accepted a position with an English and New York company as
consulting engineer for their mines in the United States, with headquarters in Colorado,
where they had a great many properties. He examined mines for them in New Mexico,
Idaho. Utah, Nevada, South Dakota and Colorado. It was while in the service of this
company that he made his first visit to Salt Lake City, though he had previously passed
through Ogdeu many times.
For some years he had been looking around for a place to settle and spend the rest
of his life, always fearing that he would not be able to find a place to suit, having trav-
eled so much and seen so much of the world. He was favorably impressed with Salt
Lake, and decided that it was the place he had been looking for so long. Returning to
Colorado, he sent in his resignation, which called for three months notice, and gave up a
position of ten thousand dollars a year, with expenses, in order to carry out his new pur-
pose. He bought a home in Salt Lake City, loaned money on real estate, bank and com-
mercial securities, and prospered in all his ventures.
Upon settling here the Captain decided to quit mining entirely. He is still interested,
however, in the mines of Utah and South Dakota. In 1901 he visited Australia in the
interest of an English company, and while there was offered the best position ever ten-
dered him, to locate in Melbourne, as consulting engineer for some British capitalists
owning mines in West Australia. Victoria and Tasmania; but he declined to accept,
owing to his desire to remain in the United States and be buried beside his beloved wife.
Sayshe: "I have never regretted my move in coming to Salt Lake City. The climate is per-
fect; prospects for business are very good, and all with whom I have been associated,
both Mormon aud Gentile, have treated me with the greatest respect, and I consider them
honest and trustworthy people. 1 have had a large enough experience to know that their
religion or politics must never be allowed to interfere with my business or social friend-
ships. All people have a right to their beliefs, and so long as they are good, honest folks
they suit me.''
JOHN LAW BLYTHE
•»-
>d/HE late John L. Blythe, of Salt Lake City, was a native of Newmunkland, Lanark,
^>j Scotland, and was born June 27, 1829. His parents were John Blythe and Eliz-
;■. abeth Law. He was but an infant of nine months when his father died, and as
soon as he was old enough he had to work hard for the support of his widowed
mother. Consequently he received but little schooling, the whole of it being comprised
in six months attendance at an evening school. His was a thoughtful mind, however,
one that readily learned by observation and experience. His vocation was that of a coal
miner, and he was a sober and industrious workman. He lived in Newmunkland until
524 HISTORY OF UTAH.
eighteen years of age, and then emigrated to America, settling among the coal mines of
Carbondale, Pennsylvania.
How long be remained in that State, we are not informed, but soon after the break-
ing out of the gold excitement in California, we find him on his way to the Pacific coast,
sailing around Cape Horn, and landing at the Bay of San Francisco. An expert miner,
he soon found employment, and prosperity smiled upon him.
About the year 1854, he formed the acquaintance of Mrs. Margaret Mitchell Stubbart,
a widow and a Latter-day Saint, from Illinois. She converted him and he married her.
His conversion took place at Nevada, California, whence he proceeded to San Francisco,
in order to be baptized by Elder George Q. Cannon. On the day that he was baptized
he paid to the Church, as tithing, one thousand dollars in gold.
The year 1859 witnessed the removal of the Blythe family to Utah. They had good
outfits and their wagons were loaded with merchandise of various kinds. They started
in August, and came by way of the old California trail. At Snake River Mrs. Blythe
gave birth to a child. Mrs. Gorden, one of their fellow travelers, was killed by a run-
away. They reached Salt Lake City in the latter part of October.
They took up their abode in the Thirteenth Ward. Soon after his arrival here.
Elder Blythe was appointed a member of the High Council of the Stake. He also acted
as a Ward Teacher and a Teacher of the High Priests. He served six months in the
Sanpete County Indian wars, and early in the "seventies'* accompanied the first Mormon
colonists to Arizona, serving eighteen months in that mission.
In Kanab and in Arizona, as well as at Salt Lake City, after his return, he estab-
lished small communities, patterned as far as circumstances would allow, after the plan
of the United Order, and for some time maintained them successfully. He afterwards
served for two years as a missionary in Scotland, and subsequently had a year's mission
in that land and a three year's mission in Australia. The last three years of his life
were spent as a worker in the Logan Temple. He died in April. 1893.
John L. Blythe was a thoroughly good and honest man, devoted to his religion and
faithful in the performance of every duty that it entailed. He was the father of ten
children, four sons and six daughters. Five of these were the children of his first wife,
and five the children of his second wife, who died in 1895. His BTstwife is still living.
GEORGE RICHARDS JONES.
jISHOP GEORGE R. JONES, of Salt Lake City, was born at Devanden, in the
Parish of New Church, Monmouthshire, England, January 21, 183G. His parents
were George and Ann Richards Jones. The first nineteen years of his lite were
spent in and about the Parish of Tintern Abbey, on the river Wye, where he
worked with his father, who was a lime burner and hoop maker. In both these occupa-
tions the young man had some experience, as well as in brick-making and farming. His
life was one of frugality, honesty and industry. He never contracted a debt that he
could not and did not pay. His education, so far as schooling went, was all received in
Sunday school.
When about twenty-one years of age, he embraced the Mormon faith, in Shropshire,
and when a little past twenty-three, emigrated to Utah. He was accompanied by his
wife, Harriet Bruckshaw Jones, whom he had Married March 7, lS'ii), in Shrewsbury.
The 11th of April, that year, was the date of sailing; their ship the "William Tapseot,"
on which was a company of emigrating Saints, in charge of Elder Robert F. Neslen.
The journey from the Atlantic coast was by rail to Chicago, whence, via Detroit, St.
Joseph and the Missouri river, thev reached Florence. Nebraska. There Mr. Jones and
his wife joined a handcart company, led by Captain George Rawley, and started in good
season across the plains. They encountered the usual hardships, and arrived at Salt
Lake City on the 4th of September.
Mr. Jones first settled in the Nineteenth Ward, living there for six years, after which
he moved to Brighton. Five years later he returned to Salt Lake City, where he now
resides. Regarding his early experience in Utah, he says: "I first went to work for
4/<
GyC^tx
HISTORY OF UTAH.
;>L';>
John Nebeker, laboring six months tor twenty dollars and my board. My wife lived in
the house with his family, and made more money than 1 did. In the spring of 1SG0, we
went to housekeeping on the Jordan river, in a house belonging to Brother Nebeker.
I could get no money for my work, but had plenty to eat. If we got thirty dollars in store-
pay during the year, we were very lucky. My wife taught school, and we thus obtained
milk and butter for our bread. We had to brown wheat, corn and barley to make coffee.
and use wild rose leaves for tea. I had no hat for twelve years, except straw hats made
by ourselves. We had no sugar, but used beet molasses, and occasionally cane molasses.
We had little clothing until my wife learned to spin the wool, dye the cloth and make
the garments. We could not afford to buy them. We made our own soap and candles,
and grew our own spices, mustard, etc. At Brighton, in the fall of 1868, I planted five
acres of wheat, and in the spring, eight acres more: but the next June the grasshoppers
came, and in two days devoured all the spring wheat, with the leaves and part of the
heads of the fall sowing. I was badly discouraged, and started to cut down what re-
mained, for feed; but on the way to the field I was prompted not to do so, and asaresult,
reaped one hundred bushels of g >od wheat."
In 1S72, Mr. Jones begati the manufacture of lime, and has continued in that bus-
iness up to the present. His lime kilns are on the western slope of the Wasatch moun-
tains, in the northern suburb of Salt Lake City. He has been an Elder in the Church
since March, 1861. In 1SU8 he was ordained a Seventy, and on December 13, 1891, a
High Priest. He has been for some years the Bishop of the Twenty-third Ward, in the
Salt Lake Stake of Zion.
JOHN X. SMITH
^7^ HE parents of our subject, John Smith and Sarah S. Smith, kept a public house and
[(S)\ grocery shop at Rauuds, Northamptonshire, England. They were also jobbers in
V-^ pillow laces and carried on the shoe-making business. These sources of income
placed them in comfortable circumstances. Their only son, John X., was born at
Raunds, September 9, 1827. From seven to fifteen years of age he attended school,
but prior to that time had moved from his native place to live with a cousin; an event
following the death of his mother. Having resided at various places in Bedfordshire and
Huntingdonshire, he returned with his father to Raunds, where a small farm had been
taken by the family. He was inclined to farming, but having become apprenticed to his
father's trade, shoe-making, he followed that vocation up to the time of leaving England.
He was twenty-one years of age when he became converted to Mormonism, being
baptized on a winter's night, when the ice had to be broken in order to reach the water.
His father and other relatives were very much opposed to this step, but the former helped
him to an outfit of clothing and gave him five pounds sterling when he left home, Febru-
ary 26, 1851. Seven days later began his voyage across the Atlantic. Terrible storms
were encountered, and at one time a watery grave seemed opening for all. Evil spirits
also attacked some on board. The prayers of the Saints — there were two hundred and
forty-five on the vessel — finally prevailed; an event deemed miraculous by more than the
fifty persons baptized into the Church while still in mid-ocean. From New Orleans,
where the company landed on the 27th of April, they proceeded by steamboat to St. Louis
and Council Bluffs, from which point Mr. Smith crossed the plains as driver of an ox-
team loaded with freight for Elder Robinson, ex-president of the St. Louis branch. The
company in which he traveled were bound, some for Utah and some for California.
Twenty miles from Salt Lake City he was left in the mountains, with one companion in
charge of some broken loaded wagons and wornout oxen, with but two quarts of corn-
meal upon which to subsist until a supply7 of provisions could be sent to him from the
city. The cornmeal, with some scraps of food found by rummaging through the wagons,
barely sustained life until the provisions arrived, several days later than expected. He
reached Salt Lake City on the 1st of October.
After a few days of involuntary fasting, due to diffidence in making his wants known,
Mr. Smith was given food and shelter by an aged lady known as "'Mothor Taylor,'' who
also found him employment at shoe-making. He subsequently made adobes, and with
the proceeds of this manufacture procured a small piece of land, the sale of which en-
526 HISTORY OF UTAH.
abled him to purchase a field of ten acres near Cedar City, where he settled and went to
farming. In the spring of 1855 he went two hundred miles south of that place to work
on a military road in course of construction from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles. The
contractor was James Leich. At the Muddy their provisions gave out, and while waiting
for supplies they lived two days with the Indians, subsisting chiefly upon fish and pine-
nuts. Mr. Smith also assisted in the construction of two forts, one at Parowau, the other
at Cedar. He well remembers the "grasshopper wars," when for weeks he went with-
out bread, living on roots and greens, or a little milk thickened with barley meal.
At Cedar, July 24, 1855, he married Margaret Patterson, who has borne him four-
teen children. He was connected with the militia under General ErastusSuow, and took
part in guarding against Indian depredations, as well as in the suppression of lawless
bands infesting the stock ranges. His missionary labors have been chiefly local. He
was one of the presidency of the Elders' quorum of Cedar City, and afterwards counselor
to Bishop Ashworth at Beaver. In July, 1877, he becamd Bishop of Beaver. In business
he has been identified with co-operative associations, and has engaged in wool manufac-
ture, merchandising and stock-raising. He is practical, industrious, and a liberal donor
to the cause of education.
THOMAS HOWARD.
fHOMAS HOWARD, the veteran paper maker, was born March 4, 1815, in Wrex-
ham, Denbighshire, North Wales, which place his parents, Thomas and Sarah
Mackell Howard, quitted when he was only nine weeks old. They settled in Hamp-
ton Gay, Oxfordshire, England, whither they trudged on foot, with their infant in
arms. The father was engaged to take charge of a paper mill, and the son followed the
sire's vocation from childhood. The elder Howard was a deacon of the Established
Church. There being no school in the village, the boy received practically no education,
though he learned to read and write at home. At Hampton Gay he spent his first four-
teen years, after which the family moved to Wooburn, in Buckinghamshire, where the
father joined the VVesleyan Methodist Church. While yet a young man Thomas became
a Latter day Saint. His conversion to the Mormon faith caused him to be turned out of
employment, and he was counseled by the Elders to emigrate to Utah, which he did in the
year 1851.
Mr. Howard was first married in 1838, to Martha Savage, who died in January, 1S44.
He then married Sarah Langley, who came with him to America. In addition to his own
family, numbering seven, he brought with him as far as St. Louis another family of eight
persons, the recipients of his benevolence. They sailed from Liverpool on the 4th of
March. Nine days out the Howards lost their youngest child, an infant who was buried
in the sea. From New Orleans the party proceeded up the great rivers to Council Bluffs,
where Mr. Howard purchased a wagon and cattle, and in a company commanded by
Alfred Cordon crossed the plains. High water necessitated a circuitous route, and the
long and weaiisome journey ended at Salt Lake City on the 1st of October.
The Howards lived in the Tenth Ward for about eight months and then moved to
Red Butte Canyon, to conduct a toll gate. Since that time they have resided successively
in the Eleventh Ward, in Mill Creek and Sugar House Wards, and sincpl878 in Salt Lake
City. In 1854, by aid and permission of President Brigham Young, Mr. Howard, with a
partner, Thomas Hollis, engaged in his early pursuit of paper making, occupying a small
mill on the Temple block. He was among those who volunteered, at the call of President
Young, in 1857, to settle the Snake River country, but after a short stay in that region
was counseled to return. Ordained a Seventy in 1852, he was placed in the twenty-
third quorum. In January, 1891, he became a High Priest. His wife Sarah died in 1885,
and the next year he married his present wife, Sarah A. Shires. He is the father of nine
children.
LAWYERS AND
LEGISLATORS.
JABEZ GRIDLEY SUTHERLAND,
-Jj'HE Nestor of the Utah Bar for nearly a quarter of a century was Judge J. G. Suther-
Cyj land, of Salt Lake City. Coming from the State of Michigan, where he had acquired
|l fame and prominence as a jurist, his great ability and profound learning as a lawyer
were quickly recognized, and he won almost immediately a leading place among the
local members of his profession. He was the first president of the Salt Lake Bar Association,
also of the Utah Bar Association, subsequently organized; was the author of law books of
national repute; the professor of legal science in the Territorial University, and during
the whole period of his residence here a successful praotictioner and an authority on ques-
tions and principles of jurisprudence.
Judge Sutherland furnished in his life a striking illustration of what can be accom-
plished by ambition to achieve, devotion to purpose, and steady, well directed, intelli-
gent application. As a boy he was ambitious to become a lawyer, as a youth he deter-
mined to be a lawyer, as a man he became a lawyer. During all the years, since as a
lad toiling on the farm he was inspired with the idea that of all the walks in life the law
woidd be most to his liking, his constant aim and effort were to probe deeper into the
masterful if not mysterious science which is a controling principle in the affairs of men
and governments; and to go as far as study, thought and his capabilities would permit.
Those who knew the Judge, in or out of the profession, say that he never tired
of the law — never wearied of disentangling its intricacies; and that he liked to solve and
make plain its knotty problems; that there was no legal question so complicated and pu/./.l-
ingthat he hesitated to undertake its solution, no proposition so forbidding that he feared
to approach it.
J. G. Sutherland came of that good old New England stock which has furnished so
much of the stamina, earnestness and patriotism of the American race, and whose char-
acteristics are found and clearly distinguishable wherever the descendants of the early
settlers of the continent planted themselves. He was born October 6, 18'25, at Van Bu-
ren, Onondaera County, New York; his father, Solomon Sutherland, having come from
Rutland, Vermont, of which state the Sutherlands were native as far back as the records
of the family run. The father was a farmer, and like others of his class in Western New
York at that time, was not burdened with wealth. The absolute necessities for the family
were won by the incessant toil of all its members, and very little was known of luxuries.
When Jabez was eight years old they moved to Orleans County iu the same state,
and three years later into what was then the far West, settling in Genessee County, Ter-
ritory of Michigan. That was long before the West knew railroads. Prom Detroit to the
new home the journey was made by ox team, Jabez, young as he was, driving. They
were pioneers in the true sense. The farm was a tract of land purchased from the gov-
ernment, and the house was in a veritable wilderness, the nearest neighbor being three
miles away. During the summer the boy worked on the farm, and in winter attended
school at Detroit. In the winter of 1838-9 he went to school at Birmingham. But op-
portunities for education were few, even had there been time for it. His life was one of
constant toil and many hardships, with very little in it to encourage a boy or excite his
ambition.
In 1841 — young Sutherland being then in his sixteenth year — the father was ruined
financially through bad speculations, and the home was lost. Discouraging as was the
outlook for a lad of his age, Jabez did not lose heart. Rather did the adversity which
had come upon him develop his inherent qualities of manhood and inspire him to greater
effort. Thrown upon his own resources, he returned to his native state, where he sought
and found employment as a farm laborer. While at home, working on the farm, he had
been a persistent reader and diligent student, devoting all his spare time to books. He
now carefully saved his scant wages of the summer to enable him to go to school in win-
ter. The second winter after his return to New York he attended the Academy at Man-
lius; his evenings being given to teaching the common branches to the factory girls.
530 HISTORY OF UTAH.
This ended his school days. In 1S4.'1 he returned to Michigan, working' on the farm in
summer, and in winter teaching school.
As a boy of thirteen he had indulged the hope of one day becoming a lawyer, and
Inspired by this ambition he continually worked to that end. In the summer of 1844 he
entered the office of Colonel William M. Fenton, a leading attorney of his section, and
began the study of law. At the end of two years he had progressed so far that when
Fenton, his friend and preceptor, moved from the town, young Sutherland retained the
office and much of the business. Two years later, although he had never been inside of
a law school, nor attended a course of law lectures, he passed a highly creditable exami-
nation and was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of the State. The thorough-
ness which marked his whole legal career was manifest from the first, and at once gave
him recognition by bench and bar. A few months after his admission he was appointed
by the Governor prosecuting attorney for Saginaw County, and went to Saginaw City to
reside; his home thereafter as long as he remained in Michigan.
In 1850 he was elected a member of the convention to revise the State Constitution.
Though the youngest delegate in that body, he took a prominent part in its deliberations,
and the evidences of his thought and labor are found in many parts of the Michigan Con-
stitution an organic law so nearly perfect that the people of the State have since refused
to change it, and which has served as a model for many State Constitutions subsequently
framed. Among other features earnestly advocated by him with winning effect, were
the abolition of the grand jury, the creation of a Supreme Court absolutely independent
of the local courts, and the establishment of a free school system. In 1852 he was elect-
ed to the lower house of the State Legislature and served with distinction.
Judge Sutherland was never a politician, as the word is understood in these days.
Always a Democrat — an advocate of the principles of Democracy — he was far from being
an unreasoning or blind partisan. He preferred law to politics, and gave his life to the
former, dabbling but little in the latter. About the only really enthusiastic work he ever
did as a partisan was in the Presidential campaign of 1S50, when he stumped his State for
James Buchanan, delivering twenty-five speeches and throwing the energy of youth and
earnestness into the work. So strenuous were hisefforts that he impaired, through speak-
ing in the open air, his powerful and sonorous voice, thus putting an end to his hopes and
ambitions, if he entertained any. in the line of oratory. This event may have helped to
turn him from polities, thus changing the course of his life. At all events he was never
again active in a partisan sense, and such honors and positions of trust as came to him
afterwards, came not as a reward for party service, if even on account of party affilia-
tion. In 1858 he was nominated by the Democrats for Attorney-General of the State:
an honor unsought by him. In 1870 he was elected from the Sixth Michigan District to
the Forty-Second Congress, his nomination and election being the result of a combination
of the better elements in each party to defeat and overthrow ring politics. While the
district was overwhelmingly Republican, Sutherland's popularity and recognized ability
caused him to be elected by a satisfactory majority, and without great effort on his part.
His services in the House were characterized by the same degree of care and attention to
duty as had marked his course in every other work undertaken by him.
Meantime, his career upon the bench had long since begun. In 1803. when but
thirty-eight years of age, he was nominated by the Democrats as Judge of the Tenth Jud-
icial District, and though the district was largely Republican, he was elected for the six
years term bjT an overwhelming majority, many Republicans having entered the cam-
paign in his interest. At the conclusion of his term he was renominated by both Demo-
crats and Republicans, and re-elected without opposition. It was while he was on the
bench, in 1807, that another convention was called to revise the State Constitution and
Judge Sutherland was elected a delegate. The revision was rejected by the people, who
preferred the Constitution of 1850. To the bench he brought the same degree of earnest-
ness and thoroughness which had characterized him as a student and practitioner. His
district was one of the largest in the State, both as to the territory- embraced and the
litigation it produced. Working hard himself and insisting upon promptitude and sys-
tem on the part of the attorneys, he kept the docket (dear. He was known from one end
of the State to the other, and his decisions, always carefully prepared, are today quoted
as clear, concise and correct interpretations and applications of the law.
Judge Sutherland came to Salt Lake City in 1873, not with the view or determina-
tion at that time of making Utah his home, but to visit for a few weeks an acquaintance
and friend of his earlier life, Hon. George C. Bates, then United States attorney for this
district, and to try the effect of the salubrious climate and bracing atmosphere of the
Rocky Mountain region upon his physical health, which he found, after retiring from
HISTORY OF UTAH. 531
Congress, to be much worn down. Arriving here, he improved rapidly, and soon felt as
if his youth had almost been renewed. His old-time love for work and application con-
tinued, and with it there was a return of the physical power and mental ability which
were failing him in Michigan. It was this that determined him to remove permanently
to Salt Lake City — though it was almost like beginning life anew — and this removal, he
always believed, added many years to his earthly existence.
lb-re he formed a partnership with Judge Bates. The fame of Sutherland's ability
as a lawyer had preceded him only in moderate degree, but it was not long before it was
known that he was in the foremost rank of the profession. Almost from the first he was
recognized as a learned attorney, and was conceded a leading place in the bar of Utah,
which has ever been noted as among the ablest in the land. Business also came to him
beyond his most sanguine expectations. It was a time of much litigation, largely grow-
ing out of the strained relations existing between '"Mormons" aud "Gentiles," and the
determination and efforts of the Federal Government and its local representatives to
<-rush the power of "the dominant church" in Utah. Judge Sutherland was retained by
President Brigham Young, and for a long time was legal adviser of the Church during
the troublous days when the contest referred to permeated with its influence aud effects
-every branch and department of the government, involving not only the civil but the mil-
itary administration. Judge Sutherland was unwavering on the side of the local com-
munity as against the encroachments and usurpations of those wielding the authority
and power of the government. The business that flowed into his office was immense,
the first year's fees aggregating nearly forty thousand dollars. Within a year after his
arrival at Salt Lake City he concluded to make this place his permanent home and cast in
his lot with the community. Accordingly in 1874 he moved his family here. His wife
was Mrs. Sarah D. Thurber Sutherland, whom he had married at Flint, Michigan, in 1847.
They had four children.
The auspicious beginning in Utah was followed by a career of uninterrupted success
and prosperity. At the bar he steadily progressed, and grew in the esteem and favor of
the people. He was connected with many of the great law suits of local fame, involving
not only property rights, but personal rights and liberties as well; but it was not as a
trial lawyer that the Judge won his greatest fame and achieved his most pronounced suc-
cesses. He preferred the work of the office, the delving into the intricacies of the law,
the unraveling of the knotty problems of a science that is full of entanglements to the
mind of the layman. Though having a practice so extensive that it would have con-
sumed all the hours of a moderate worker, he found time and opportunity to write two
exhaustive works on law, namely, "Sutherland on Damages," and "Sutherland on Stat-
utory Construction." undertaken at the solicitation of Callaghan and Company, law pub-
lishers of Chicago, who had known him on the bench in Michigan. The first named work
was begun in 1875 and completed in 1882. It appeared in three large volumes, aud was
at once recognized as authority and as the most thorough and complete work on the sub-
ject ever published. It has had an extensive sale ami is found on the shelves of law lib-
raries throughout the country. In 1893 it was fully revised and brought down to date,
the larger edition greatly increasing the popularity of the production. "Statutory Con-
struction." complete in one volume, came out in 1801, and like "Damages," at once
became popular, and was accepted as authority upon the subject treated.
In 1881 the Salt Lake Bar Association was organized. Judge Sutherland was unan-
imously chosen the first president, and was afterwards re-elected to that position. In
1894 the Territorial Bar Association was formed, an organization much broader in its
scope, contemplating the association for mutual benefit, and the elevation of the practice
of tin- noble profession of the law. By common consent Judge Sutherland was selected
for president of the new organization, and at the annual meeting in L895 was unanimously
re-elected. In 1SS9 he was chosen a member of the faculty of what is now the Univer-
sity of Utah, and as law professor of that institution delivered a course of interesting and
highly instructive lectures.
In private life the Judge was one of the most genial and sociable of men, an excel-
lent conversationalist, a good story teller, possessing a rich vein of humor. A keen wit,
he was quick and apt at repartee, and his wide information and extensive knowledge of
affairs made him most companionable. He was an extensive reader, keeping up with the
literature of the day in its various branches, and had a large miscellaneous library, em-
bracing not only literature, but art, science and history; and with his books he was ex-
ceedingly familiar. His wife, Mrs. Sarah D. T. Sutherland, died at Salt Lake City in
August, 1893. She was the mother of Mrs. Byron Groo, of this city; Mrs. Andrew Hay.
-of Los Angeles; Fenton Sutherland, who died here in 1891; and Edsvard P. Sutherland,
5312 HISTORY OF UTAH.
of Los Angeles. Several years after her death the Judge married Miss Emma Lee. lit
March, 1897, his health having failed, he went to California, where, at the town of Berke-
ley, after a lingering attack of paralysis, he died on the night of November 20, 1902.
Judge Sutherland's career clearly demonstrates that it is not always essential for
one to follow schools and specified courses of instruction, as marked out by trained and
professignal educators, in order to become learned. Than he, few men saw less of the
interior of the school house, or had less to do with schoolmasters; while of colleges aud
college professors he knew nothing. His learning was the fruit of application and re-
search, outlined and directed by himself, and systematized in his own brain. While he was
the earnest and interested friend and advocate of schools and of thorough education, he
believed there was more in the determination aud devotion of the individual, after the
way had been pointed out, than in the routine and systematic teaching and training prac-
ticed in schools and colleges; in other words, that if one would accomplish anything, he
must rely upon his own efforts, inspired ami guided by his aims and ambitions, rather
than following beaten paths and pursuing regularly defined ways.
FRANKLIN SNYDER RICHARDS.
>Of NATIVE of Salt Lake valley, born while Utah was yet a wilderness, inhabited by
l^ wild beasts, savage tribes and a few white settlers, who, some two or three yeais
r^ before, had been flung as outcasts from the face of civilization across the bosom
of nature's wastes, the subject of this sketch, Hon. Franklin S. Richards, has
lived to see the desert blossom, has witnessed all the stages of growth and development
through which the place of his nativity has progressed from the most primitive condi-
tion to its present proud, prosperous and happy state. Not only has he beheld that
growth, he has contributed to it, assisted in it, and in his way has done as much in
that direction as any son of Utah within her borders. A thoughtful student from his
earliest year*, a lawyer of note during the past quarter of a century, a frequent pleader
at the bar of the highest tribunal in the land, defending with eloquent voice the rights
and liberties of his people, a lawmaker and a political leader, Mr. Richards has made a
name and fame that shine with lustre, not only here but elsewhere. Though of promi-
nent aud influential parentage, he is not one of those who owe all to their lineage and
nothing to themselves. His promotion, though rapid at times, has not been "through
the cabin window." He has faithfully earned and fairly won his laurels.
Franklin S. Richards, the eldest living child of the late President Franklin Dewey
Richards and his wife Jane Snyder, was born at Salt Lake City on the 20th of June,
1849. The so-called "city'' was then a mere infantile colony, with which the parents
had become connected eight months before. The mother had been a great sufferer,
having lost her first two children in the exodus from Nauvoo, and after the birth of this,
her third child, it was feared for a time that not only his life, but her own would suc-
eumo to the hardships and unpropitious circumstances surrounding them. But the
mother was not destined to die thus prematurely, and the babe born under these primi-
tive and painful conditions was fated also to survive. He grew and prospered, and
though never robust, waged frem boyhood up to manhood a successful battle against all
the obstacles to his physical and mental progress.
Inheriting from both parents intellectuality, perseverance and concentration, this
studious boy was early placed at the best schools in his neighborhood, and while yet a
child laid the foundation for the education and culture that were to follow. He was only
seventeen years old when his father, an Apostle, departed upon his last mission to
Europe, but was so well advanced scholastically that he was able to take charge of a
large and select school, which he taught during the next three years. Meanwhile he
pursued his own higher studies under private tutors.
On the 18th of December, 1868, he entered the state of wedlock, the partner of his
choice being Miss Emily S. Tanner, of Salt Lake City. She was a very congenial com-
panion and their married life has been prosperous and happy. For many years Mrs.
Richards has been numbered among the notable women of Utah. Her sons, Franklin
Dewey and Joseph Tanner Richards, are prominent members of the bar, having been ad-
mitted to the Supreme Court of the United States, as well as of Utah and California.
Early in 1809, the newly married couple, as a portion of the family of President
HISTORY OF UTAH. 533
Franklin D. Richards, who had been appointed to preside over the Weber Stake of Zion,
removed to Ogden, and it was there that Franklin S. began to study law, abandoning a
previously formed purpose of pursuing the study of medicine and surger}7. What
helped to determine his choice between the two professions, and caused him to embrace
the former after partly fitting himself for the latter, was the advice of President Brig-
ham Young, aud the great need existing in his locality for a competent legal adviser
and practitioner. Ogden at that time had no resident lawyer, there were but few estab-
lished legal forms, the railroad had arrived, and the public lands were just coming into
market. Appointed clerk of the Probate Court and subsequently elected county re-
corder, he applied himself to the difficult and important task of formulating methods
and devising systems for keeping the public records, to bring order out of chaos in the
department over which he presided. He was signally successful, winning encomiums for
the excellent condition of the records in his care aud the able manner in which he dis-
charged the duties of his office, from President Young and many others. He served
eight years as recorder, nine years as clerk, and then retired, declining re-election.
Much of the time of this official tenure he was engaged during his leisure hours in
readiug law, not with any law firm but entirely by himself and without the opportunity
of attending a single law lecture. He studied comprehensively and mastered thor-
oughly the different branches of the science, becoming especially interested in the sub-
ject of constitutional law. On the 10th of June, 1874, he was admitted to the bar of the
Third District Court, at Salt Lake City, and in the afternoon of the same day to the bar
of the Supreme Court of the Territory. "Rather rapid promotion," critically com-
mented Chief Justice McKean, when the veteran attorney Frank Tilford. without solici-
tation on the part of Mr. Richards or any of his friends, presented his name for admis-
sion to the Supreme Court, only a few hours after his admission in the District Court.
'"True, your honor," replied Tilford, "but the gentleman deserves the promotion. He
would do honor to the bar of any court." No further question was raised, and the chief
justice blandly said: "Mr. Richards, we take pleasure in admitting you to the bar of this
court, and we trust your progress in the profession may be as rapid as vour promotion
has been today."
The hope thus graciously expressed was abundantly realized, the young lawyer's
progress being as rapid as his warmest friends could wish. His first case in court was
one in which he defended a man charged with murder, and in which the prosecution was
conducted by a very able and eloquent California lawyer. Nothing daunted by the repu-
tation and ability of his opponent, young Richards fought with such skill and vigor as to
astonish his friends, vanquish the opposition and secure his client's discharge. His suc-
cess brought him into immediate prominence in the profession, and not long after he
was chosen to act as attorney for Ogden City and Weber County, which dual position he
held for many yeais.
The spring of 1S77 found him on his way to Europe as a missionary, crossing the
Atlantic in company with President Joseph F. Smith, then one of the Twelve Apostles.
They arrived at Liverpool on the 27th of May. During the summer he visited and so-
journed in parts of France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and other countries, absorbing
with the keen zest of the intellectual tourist and shrewd practical observer the sights and
scenes of those historic lands. After returning to England, he sojourned a while in Lon-
don, and then went to the south coast, but bis health failed under the rigors of the cli-
mate, so he was honorably released, and returned home in the fall of 1877, with Orson
Pratt and Joseph F. Smith.
It was during the successive administrations of President John Taylor and President
Wilford Woodruff that Mr. Richards attaiued to his greatest prominence as attorney for
the Church in the long aud expensive litigation that characterized and rendered peculiar
that eventful period. First came, in 1879, the litigation over President Young's estate,
which brought Mr. Richards to the front in all the legal business of the Church. He had
as a law partner at that time Judge Rufus K. Williams, formerly chief justice of the
supreme court of Kentucky, the name of the firm being Richards & Williams. To the
histor3T of that litigation, an entire chapter is devoted in the second volume of this work.
It may be said here, however, that the skillful conduct of the case for the Church and
the satisfactory and permanent settlement effected with the litigant heirs of the Presi-
dent, were due in no small degree to the intelligence, tact and diplomacy of the rising
young attorney. In the spring of 1881, Mr. Richards was admitted to the bar of the
supreme court of California.
In the summer of ISS'2 he represented Weber County in the Constitutional Conven-
tion, and at the close of its labors, in which he took a very active part, he was elected
534 HISTORY OF UTAH.
one of the delegates to present the Constitution to Congress; Hons. John T. Caine and
David H. Peery being his associates. This was several months after the enactment of
the Edmunds law and about two years before the penal phase of that statute began to
be enforced in Utah and the adjoining Territories. While at Washington, Mr. Richards
made the acquaintance of hundreds of noted men, Senators, Congressmen, government
officials and others, and formed a close and lasting friendship with the eminent constitu-
tional lawyer, Judge Jeremiah S. Black, who came to the capital to confer with him on
legal business in behalf of the people of Utah, whose liberties were assailed by the re-
cent congressional legislation. Mr. Richards, after leaving Washington, visited Judge
Black, by invitation, at "Brockie," his beautiful home near York, Pennsylvania, where
he remained for several days, the recipient of every courtesy and consideration, while he
and his host consulted upon the great question of the rights and remedies of the people
of Utah under the Constitution. There were three great questions for I hem to determine:
(1) the situation, involving a knowledge of the history of the people and of the local
statutes; (2) to determine therefrom and from the laws of Congress what were the con-
stitutional rights of the people; (3) the legel remedies, or how to maintain those rights.
November, 1882, found Mr. Richards again at the national capital, in company with
his colleagues, Messrs. Caine and Peery, and ex-Delegate Cannon, all working earnestly
for statehood. It was Utah's application at this time that gave Judge Black an oppor-
tunity to deliver his great argument before the Judiciary Committed of the House of
Representatives upon "Federal Jurisdiction in the Territories." During this visit to
Washington, Mr. Richards, upon the motion of Judge Black, was admitted to the bar of
the Supreme Court of the United States, January 30, 1883. Journeying homeward in
February, with his wife, they had as fellow travelers from New York to Salt Lake City
Sergeant William Ballantyue, the famous English barrister, and Mr. Phil Robinson, the
noted war correspondent of the "London Daily Telegraph," who was on his way west as
special correspondent of the "New York World.'' It was a happy chance that threw the
three gentlemen together, and the opportunity to impart to the distinguished visitors
correct information regarding Utah and her affairs was not lost by their companion.
In August, 18S3, Judge Black died, much to the sorrow of Mr. Richards and the
vast majority of the people of these parts, whose cause he had so soulfully and power-
fully championed. The following October, Mr. Richards, with Hon. George Q. Cannon
and Delegate Caine, went east to secure other eminent counsel to plead the cause of the
people of this Territory, thousands of whom had been disfranchised by the arbitrary
rulings of the Utah Commission. Senator Vest, of Missouri, was retained by them.
Before returning home, Mr. Richards reuewed his acquaintance with General Thomas
L. Kane, another true friend of Utah, whose death soon after was also deeply
lamented. Mr. Richards was again at the seat of government, laboring in the same
cause, with Hon. Moses Thatcher, in January, 1884, but was obliged to return home
within a few weeks to take his seat in the Legislature, he having been elected to the
Council from Weber and Box Elder counties.
He was now tendered the office of attorney for Salt Lake City, and accepting the
place, was appointed thereto on the 18th of March, 1S84. He forthwith removed from
Ogden to Salt Lake, thus resuming his residence in his native city after an absence of
fifteen years. He held the office of city attorney, to which he was re-elected every two
years, until February, 1890, when, through the coming into power of the Liberal party,
the municipal control changed hands.
The determination of the government to enforce the anti-polygamy statutes, as
shown by its own expressions and in the policy of its local appointees, seemed to crystal-
ize when the Edmunds bill became a law, and with the advent of Chief Jnstice Zaue the
most searching thoroughness and indiscriminate persistence were inaugurated. Not only
was the relentlessness of former attacks renewed, but new elements were injected into-
the contest, and many unfamiliar phases appeared. The demand was. surrender or be
ground to powder. At the head of the hostile movement were personified the sternness
and uncompromising disposition already known to the people, aloug with a judicial ca-
pacity and bieadth of legal comprehension with which they were not acquainted. To re-
resist the onslaught, it was necessary that able and skillful defenses should be made. For
a defender to be a complete master of the principles and practice of law, was not
enough; to lie in full accord with those proceeded against, knowing their principles and
purposes and thus comprehending the entire situation, was not alone sufficient. Nor
were these united considerations adequate, unless their possessor's mind, heart and soul
were in the work. It is needless- to say that such men are rare, but Utah had a few,
and a leading one in the person of Franklin S. Richards. A nomination, which meant
HISTORY OF UTAH. 535
an election to Congress, was put aside by him at a time when a great reputation could
have been made with a smaller outlay of mental and physical application, and, perhaps,
greater financial returns secured, in order that his whole time and talents might be the
more unreservedly given to the harassed and hunted people, whose cause was his cause,
and who looked to him with a confidence which was nobly sustained throughout the long
and terrible struggle.
The first trial under the new regime was that of Rudger Clawson.for polygamy, and
in which the open venire process for securing a jury was brought into requisition. In
this and the case of Murphy vs. Ramsay, involving a test of the legality of the wholesale
disfranchisement wrought by the Utah Commission, as well as the case of the United States
vs. Angus M. Cannon, embracing a construction of the term, "unlawful cohabitation,"
Mr. Richards was a prominent and effective attorney; but his most trying labors were
yet to come, and these witnessed the ushering in of what might properly be termed the
'"reign of terror." the climax of a crusade, than which none more persistent, far-reach-
ing and dangerous ever overtook any community in the name of law.
Lorenzo Snow, the Apostle, had been indicted three times for the same offense (un-
lawful cohabitation), and under the "segregation" ruling of the trial court, had been
convicted; he was serving out a sentence of six months imprisonment on the first of these,
and his case on appeal had been taken to the Supreme Court of the nation — and lost!
The highest tribunal held that it had no jurisdiction, and dismissed the writ of error, thus
saying in substance that the accused people of Utah were at last hopelessly in the toils of
the Philistine, with every avenue closed against them. The decision was also in the
nature of an announcement that no further cases of that character need be brought up,
the rule being final as to all. The crusaders did not attempt to conceal their gratifica-
tion, which, in some cases, amounted to actual jubilation. They thought they had the
hounded victims completely in their power, and they looked upon the situation as the be-
ginning of the end; which, indeed, it was, but not in accordance with their program.
With grand juries, acting in strict obedience to the mandates of the court, having un-
limited power to indict for every month, week, or day that a man had lived in the pro-
hibited relation, during the period prescribed by the statute of limitation; and a trial jury
acting in strict harmony with the grand jury, it was quite practicable to make an offender's
incarceration in the penitentiary cover his entire life, and work a complete confiscation
of all his property, through the invariably accompanying fines and costs. In this dire
exigency, Mr. Richards had the sympathy of even his opponents, his up-hill struggle be-
ing waged so zealously and unflinchingly against such merciless and apparently invinci-
ble odds. He often worked twenty hours a day, and some nights had no sleep at all.
He was thinking, studying, devising, planning. Surely, he thought, there must be a
road out of the wilderness somewhere — this grand and magnanimous government may
consent to harsh measures in order to prevent violations of law, but it cannot mean to
invoke such extreme methods of subjugation and spoliation; and as if by inspiration, the
means of escape came to him. When the Apostle's first term of imprisonment had ex-
pired, his attorney applied to the trial court for a writ of habeas corpus, on the ground
that the offense of which the defendant had beon convicted was expiated by the full ser-
vice of the sentence, and further punishment was unconstitutional. The writ was re-
fused, of course, and an appeal was again taken to the United States Supreme Court,
which, after a full hearing, decided that the writ might issue, and so ordered. Lorenzo
Snow was discharged, and the "segregation" bubble burst. The crisis was now passed,
and the fragments of the broken cloud floated gradually away. Those who had "taken
to the wilderness," surrendered themselves, with cheerful alacrity; sentences were
served, fines were paid, and a better understanding between the General Government
and the people of Utah prevailed than had ever been known before.
Mr. Richards was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1S87, and chair-
man of the delegation sent by it to present the Constitution of the proposed State of
Utah, to Congress, and work for the admission of the Territory iuto the Union. During
the two succedmg sessions of Congress he was at the national capital most of the time,
and became personally acquainted with nearly all the Senators and a majority of the Mem-
bers of the House of Representatives, including all the leadeis of both branches of Con-
gress. He appeared before committees of the Senate and House, and made some of the
strongest arguments that were presented to them in behalf of the people of Utah. It
can be justly said, that, during the critical period, no man was more valiant in the cause
than he, and none did more to protect the rights of the people and pave the way for
Statehood.
Mr. Richards represented nearly all the leading Mormon defendants, and was counsel
536 HISTORY OF UTAH.
for them, as well as for the Church, in all the noted trials of the period ensuing upon the
enforcement of the Edmunds-Tucker law, including the confiscation suits brought under
that law. He even appeared in cases that arose outside of Utah, notably the Idaho test
oath case, argued for the appellant before the United States Supreme Court by Mr. Rich-
ard and Judge Jeremiah Wilson, in December. 1889. It is worthy of note in this con-
nection, that the brief of appellant contained the Church's "Articles of Faith."
While they were appropriately a part of the case, as showing the creed of the Church,
whose adherents were disfranchised for being members of it, and made the issue more
lucid and comprehensive, one can but admire the ingenuity of counsel in placing them so
conspicuously before the court; and we are led to reflect how results sometimes come
about in the most unexpected ways — how it is that Gospel principles find their way to all
manner of people, the exalted as well as the lowly. In some of the cases before the
Supreme Court he appeared alone, and in others he had eminent counsel associated with
him, such as Hon. James 0. Broadhead, Senator Joseph E. McDonald, Wayne McVeigh,
Senator George G. Vest and George Ticknor Curtis.
In the great political campaign of 18S9-90, which ended in the capture of the gov-
ernment of Salt Lake City by the Liberal party, Mr. Richards marshaled and disciplined
the forces of the People's party, or in other words managed their campaign. While it
was impossible to defeat the foe. it is due to Mr. Richards and his assistants to say
that they "fought a good fight,'' such a one, in fact, as Salt Lake City had never
known. As stated, the Liberal victory ended his connection with the city government.
The same year he represented Salt Lake County in the Legislature, and was chosen
President of the Council.
At the close of the crusade, when Mormons and Gentiles resolved to bury past differ-
ences, wipe out old political lines and become- Democrats and Republicans in the era
then opening upon Utah, Mr. Richards was among the most active in bringing about the
changed conditions that have since prevailed. A staunch Democrat, he gave warm and
zealous support to his party, and in days when its prospects seemed dark and many of
its leaders were disheartened he was ever found with his shoulder to the wheel pushing
uphill, preventing an}' retrograde movement, and from the platform, in public and in
private, giving forth encouragement and good cheer; but he has steadfastly declined
office, although easily within reach of anything within the gift of the people.
In the autumn of 1894, Mr. Richards was elected a member of the Constitutional
Convention, representing the Fourth Precinct of Salt Lake City, where he resides. In
the Convention, which opened on the 4th of March following, he served on various im-
portant committees and rendered valuable aid in framing the fundamental law of the
proposed State of Utah. He will best be remembered, however, for his learned and
logical address in defense of woman suffrage, which, after a spirited and protracted de-
bate, was incorporated in the State Constitution.
When statehood, the object for which he had labored so long and faithfully, was re-
alized, Mr. Richards partially retired from active politics, and devoted himself more
closely to his profession, which he had been forced to neglect, in order to perform his
political obligations. At the opening of 1898, the law partnership which had existed for
several years between him and his son Joseph was dissolved, the latter becoming the
head of another legal firm, and, in January. 1899. another one was formed between the
senior partner and Hon. Charles S. Varian, under the firm name of Richards & Varian.
This partnership ended with the advent of 1904, when our subject became associated
with his son Joseph and Mr. Edward S. Ferry, as senior of the law firm of Richards,
Richards and Feiry. Mr. Richards also continues to be attorney for the Church. He has
conducted many of the most important cases that have been tried in this State, especi-
ally those involving questions of constitutional law and water rights, he being recognized
as a leading authority on these subjects.
As a Church member, he has always been consistent and zealous. Besides honor-
ably filling a foreign mission, he was for many years a member of the High Council and
a home missionary in the Weber Stake of Zion, and has been a home missionary in the
Salt Lake Stake ever since he returned from Ogden, in 1S84. He is a great lover of
home, of family, of kindred, and while a staunch friend to his friends, is not an enemy
to his opponents. He is also noted for his pronounced public spirit, showing a marked
interest in every enterprise that promises to promote the welfare of the community in
which he lives. He is quick to recognize and encourage enterprises of this charac-
ter. As for patriotism, love of country, loyalty to the government and to American
institutions, he inherits these qualities from his Revolutionary ancestors. Prudent and
practical, he is nevertheless enthusiastic, and has the power of communicating his en-
HISTORY OF UTAH. 537
thusiasm to others whom he wishes to impress. He is a man of sentiment, of ideality
and at the same time a man of action, energetic, industrious, shrewd, tactfnl and
wise. Sdeut and reserved, like most students, and often misjudged because of his
abstraction — so easily mistaken for aristocratic exclusiveness — he is genial and even
jovial at times, and is one of those choice spirits who, when best known, are most ap-
preciated. He has a cultured mind, an eloquent tongue, and ranks among the ablest and
brightest members of his profession.
ORLANDO WOODWORTH POWERS.
|I|E want you to know and like all our people. In this vast Tabera: 'ted to
\J^J tin- worship of God, and freely and generously given to your use while you remain,
by the dominant church of Utah, speaking as a Gentile I desire to say thai I want
you to know and to like our Mormon people. In the strenuous days of the past, in the
fierce contention 'hat was here waged by opposing systems, much was said of them that
was harsh and bitter, much of which was unjust. There are no people upon earth more
hospitable and kind. 1 know of no organization that cares so well for the poor and un-
fortunate, and there are no people anywhere more tender and gracious to the aged. Their
belief is their own: and to their belief they are entitled; whether it be correct or ii
rect we leave to the theologians. We know that they are sincere. Time will wear away
the rough edges of past contentions, for Mormons and Gentiles have united to make Utah
the Empire State of the Rocky Mountains. Our children play together. Our sons and
daughters intermarry, whether we will or no, and our young men have fought shoulder
to shoulder and mingled their life blood for that starry flag so reverenced by our order.
We of Utah can work out our own salvation."'
The eloquence of that prince of orators, Judge Powers, never shone to better advan-
tage than in these glowing sentences, an excerpt from the address of welcome delivered
by him as master of ceremonies at the great Elks convention, held in the Tabernacle at
Salt Lake City on the twelfth day of August, 1902. Such things said by such a man on
such an occasion, to the assembled thousands of strangers then within our gates, could
not but be of benefit to the entire community, and in thus lifting his voice for peace,
good will, unity of purpose and liberality of thought and feeling, tin- veteran orator set
an example worthy of emulation, and made a handsome deposit to his own credit in the
bank of public esteem.
Judge Powers knows whereof he speaks. He is no stranger to the people of Utah,
nor are they strangers to him. He has studh d them as a student his favorite book, and
by keenness of perception, soundness of judgment, as well as by extent and variety of
experience as a member of the community, he is well qualified to intelligently pass judg-
ment upon their character, their motives and their course. He came here in the days
that he describes — "the strenuous days of the past"— and has been a prominent and ac-
tive figure iu building up the commonwealth during the "era of good feeling" that dawned
with Statehood and obliterated, let us hope forever, the hateful and hurtful animosities
of earlier times.
The family name. Powers, is from the Norman, Le Poer, borne by an officer of Wil-
liam the Conqueror at the battle of Hastings. Thenceforward it was a name, in both
renderings, carried by knights and members of Parliament all down the centuries. Walter
Power, of Essex. England, emigrated to America, landing at Salem, Massachusetts, in
1054. He was an ancestor of David Powers, of New Hampshire, a soldier of the Revo-
lution, whose son, Captain Peter Powers, was the father of Josiah Woodworth Powers,
who married Julia Wilson Stoddard. This couple were the parents of the subject of this
story. Hyrum Powers, the sculptor, and Abagail Powers Fillmore, wife of President
Millard Fillmore, were among the noted members of the Powers family. Mrs. Fillmore
was second cousin to Judge Powers.
He was bora June 16, 1830, at Pultneyville, Wayne I lounty, New York, sixteen miles
north of the historic village of Palmyra, in which neighborhood "Mormonism" had its ori-
gin. There his early boyhood was passed, his parents being- farmers iu moderate circum-
stances. Possessing no surplus of physical strength, the farm work was harder to him
than to most children, and his apparent lack of interest therein caused his father to des-
34
538 HISTORY OF UTAH.
pair of his ever "amounting to anything in the world." His parents were not able to give
him an elaborate education, though his mother, a very ambitious and intellectual woman,
closely economized and hoarded her earning* that she might devote them to the schooling
of her three children. Only during the winter terms could the boy attend the district
school, where he received the greater part of his education. Subsequently he was sent
for two terms each to the Sodus Academy and the Marion Collegiate Institute of Wayne
County.
While yet a youth he determined to become a lawyer. From a justice of the peace
he procured a copy of the Revised Statutes of New York, which his father was horrified
to find him reading one day in a corner of the rail fence, when he was supposed to be
hoeing corn. At eighteen he was given the cho:ce of taking a course at Cornell Univer-
sity, or of attending the law school at the University of Michigan, there to perfect him-
self for the legal profession. He chose the latter. Prior to this, however, he had tried
his first case. A suit had been instituted by an administrator to recover upon a promis-
sory note, and the defense set up was that the note was a forgery. Young Powers wrote
out his argument and committed it to memory. The verdict was in his favor and for his
services he received five dollars, four of which he immediately invested in "Metcalf on
Contracts,'' the nucleus of his law library.
Graduating from the law school ot the University at Ann Arbor — where he studied
from the fall of 1869 until the spring of 1871 — he returned home, worked on the farm for a
while, and then secured other employment to obtain means with which to start into prac-
tice. In the spring of 1873 he removed to Kalamazoo, Michigan, landing there with
less than one hundred dollars, with no experience in a law office, and practically no ex-
perience at the bar; though he had fought his first political battle the previous autumn,
when he was nominated by the Democrats of the Western Assembly District of Wayne
County for the Legislature of New York. The district being overwhelmingly Republican
he was defeated at the polls, his victorious opponent being Hon. L.T.Yoemaus, abrother-
-in-law of President Cleveland. At Kalamazoo he became clerk in the law office of
May and Buck, aud was allowed his board, with permission to sleep in a room back of
the office. Three mouths later a salary of ten dollars a month was added, but he was
required to put into the firm five hundred dollars worth of law books, the money for
which he borrowed from Mr. loemans, the fatherof his late opponent. George M. Buck,
the junior partner, was prosecuting attorney for Kalamazoo County. He often delegated
to Mr. Powers the trial of minor criminal cases in justice's courts, a practice of inesti-
mable value to him. In 1874 he took the stump for the Democratic party of Kalamazoo
County and thenceforth until he moved from the State, was active in the field of poli-
tics. He was a member of every Democratic State convention, and prepared many of
the party platforms. He evolved aud carried through a plan whereby the Democratic
and Greenback parties effected a union, which resulted in the election of many Dem-
ocratic Congressmen and other officials, and for many years placed Michigan in the col-
umn of doubtful States. He was active as an organizer of political forces, and in each
campaign took a prominent part. His acquaintance was large, extending: into every
county. In the midst of his law practice, which was also extensive, he found time to
act for many years as county chairman for the Democrats of Kalamazoo, »nd to direct his
party in several hard-fought municipal campaigns.
In 1875 the law firm of May aud Buck dissolved, Mr. Powers succeeding to the busi-
ness and associating with him Mr. William H. Daniels, a bright young lawyer. In the
spring of 1870 he was elected city attorney of Kalamazoo, aud in the Presidential cam-
paign of (hat year stumped the State for Samuel J. Tilden. He also took part in the
campaign in Indiana, speaking through the northern part of the State in company with
Governor Thomas A. Hendricks and Hon. Daniel Yoorhees. A strong friendship sprang
up between Mr. Powers and Mr. Hendricks, and the former was a staunch supporter
thereafter of the great Indiana "statesman.
In the year 18S0 Mr. Powers' name was considered in connection with the Demo-
cratic nomination for Congressman from the fourth district of Michigan, a district that
had been represented almost uniformly by a Republican. By accepting this nomination,
which was almost forced upon him, he gave offense to the older element of his party, who
had desired him to withdraw in favor of Dr. Foster Pratt. At the polls he received the
highest vote ever cast up to that time in the district for the Democratic candidate, but
wis defeated by a Republican bearing the invincible name of Julius Caesar Burrows.
The bitterness of feeling engendered among Dr. Pratt's supporters was a factor. Judge
Powers believes, in the fight afterwards waged against his confirmation as Associate
Justice of Utah. Next came two law books from his pen; the first in 1882, the other in
HISTORY OF UTAH. 539
1SS4. The former was upon "Chancery. Practice and Pleading," adapted to the
courts of Michigan, aud today a recognized authority upon the subject of which it
treats. His later volume was entitled "Powers' Practice," treating of practice in the
Supreme Court of the State. It was writteu at the request of the Kichmoud Backus
Company, publishers of law books at Detroit, and met with a good reception from bench
and bar.
The same year he was elected at the Democratic State Convention in Detroit,
one .of four delegates at large to represent the State at the National Convention in
Chicago. The Michigan delegation was divided as to its Presidential choice, a part favor-
ing the nomination of Grover Cleveland, and another part, under the lead of Mr.
Powers, desiring the nomination of Thomas A. Heudncks. The Powers force made a
strong effort to secure the nomination of his distinguished friend; an effort almost suc-
cessful, as the famous "Hendricks Stampede" bears witness, but the "unit rule" and
Cleveland's popularity finally won the day.
In the spring of ISSo Mr. Powers was again elected city attorney of Kalamazoo, and
again offended the Pratt wing of his party by securing for a friend — the editor of the
Democratic paper — the appointment of postmaster: a position desired for Dr. Pratt. At
that time Hon. Don. M. Dickinson of Detroit was just coming iuto prominence in national
politics, and it was by his assistance that Mr. Powers, proceeding to Washington for
that purpose, obtained the appointment for his editor friend. A day or two after Ins ie-
turn to Kalamazoo, as he was passing the telegraph office, he was handed a telegram from
Mr. Dickinson, reading: "Will you accept position of Associate Justice of Utah? An-
swer quick." He had had no thought of such an appointment, but immediately turned
to the telegraph office and wrote the reply. "Yes." That was in April, and in due time
the appointment was made by the President.
Pending his confirmation by the Senate, Judge Powers, in May of that year, came
to Utah, aud having taken the oath of office, entered upon his duties as Associate Justice
aud Judge of the First Judicial District, with headquarters at Ogden. Alternate sessions
of his court were held at Provo, Utah County being included in his district. Much of his
experience upon the bench is related in the previous volume and need not be repeated
here.
In the fall of ISSo there came before hiiu the celebrated case of the Eureka-Hill Min-
ing Company against the Bullion-Beck aud Champion Mining Company, the trial of which
took seventy-eight days aud involved new and intricate questions of miuiug law. It was
about this time that opposition began to his confirmation by the United States Senate.
His opponents in Utah gave aid and encouragement to the dissatisfied members of his
party in the East who were opposiu^ him, aud the contest continued from October until
April. In his efforts to cope with his enemies he exhausted himself financially, aud fin-
ally telegraphed the President, requesting that his name be withdrawn from the consid-
eration of the Senate, or that his resignation be accepted. The President chose the
former course, aud instructed Judge Powers to eoutinue in the performance of his
duties until his successor was appointed. The name of tbat successor. Henry P. Hend-
ersou. of Mason. Michigan, was virtually submitted for his approval before the appoint-
ment was made. It was on the Kith of August. ISSO. that Judge Powers ceased his duties
upon the bench of the Territory of Utah. He returned to Michigan, where he became
editor of the "Daily Democrat" at Grand Rapids: but September. 1SS7. found him back
in Utah, practicing his profession at Salt Lake City.
Our non-Mormon population was now rapidly increasing: for though "the crus-
ade" was still on. "the boom" was being projected, and in a material way all
looked promising. It was foreseen that ere long the Liberal party aud the Peoples'
p\rty in the larger towns of the Territory would about equal each other, and that the
Liberals, who had always been in the minority, might even preponderate. The now hope-
ful party looked around for a leader, aud found the man they needed in Judge Powers.
He iu the fall of 18SS was made chairman of the Liberal Territorial Committee, and con-
ducted a vigorous campaign throughout Utah. A more perfect organization than the
Liberal party had ever had. was effected by him at that time. In the spring of ISS9 he
was called to act as ehairmau of the Liberal Committee for Salt Lake City aud after some
consideration accepted that position and proceeded to lay out the gronud work for the
most hotly contested political campaign ever fought in this section of the country.
The County election iu August of that year was a skirmish Hue of the greater battle
fought in the ensuing February. A count of the votes at the August election showed a
majority of forty-one for the Liberals in Salt Lake City, and as that was the first time
such a thing had ever happened in Salt Lake — though Ogden had gone Liberal the prev-
540 HISTORY OF UTAH.
ious February — the members of the party indulged in great rejoicing. Judge Powers
continued the organization of the Liberal forces by appointing what was called a Super-
visor of Wards, having political charge of the various ecclesiastical Wards of the city.
From June, 1889, to February, 1890, a canvas was made regularly each month and all
details carefully noted; a large force of clerks being kept constantly at work at head-
quarters. As an illustration of the systematic manner in which these canvasses were
conducted, it is stated that the night before the August election, Mr. Dennis Eichnor,
then a clerk in the Liberal headquarters, handed to Judge Powers the result of the final
canvass of the city, in a list of the voters then registered, which showed a Liberal majority
of twenty- seven. In addition to the organization already noted. Judge Powers organized the
various Wards into marching clubs, appointing General P. E. Connor the commanding
officer, and assigning the various companies to regiments. Later, when the canvass was
well completed, the voters were divided into sections of tin, and about four hundred
men were each given a list of ten voters and required to see that those people cast their
ballots on c lection day.
Special mention should be made here of the notorious "registration train," an episode
of that memorable contest. One account ot this incident is given in the preceding vol-
ume. The "other side of the story" is as follows:
At the time of the municipal campaign of 1890 our laws were such that a man could
register by taking the required oath before a notary public in any section of the country,
and by sending that oath to the registration officer, it became the duty of the latter to
put tiie voter upon the list. The Bio G-rande Railroad was broad guaging its track, em-
ploying hundreds of workmen. The company was unwilling to let those workmen come to
Salt Lake City, being feaiful that they would not return to work, and the need of com-
pleting the improvemenl speedily was pressing. Accordingly Judge Powers took the ad-
vice of leading attorneys who counseled him, that it would be proper lor a registration
officer to register any bona fide voters working for the railroad company wherever they
might be found in the Stale, and it was the purpose to advertise the fact thai such would
be done. However, while Judge Powers was absent at Provo, engaged in law business,
some individuals took it upon themselves to hire a special train and start it out id' Salt
Lake City at midnight, sending it along the railroad in a clandestine manner to register
voters; the train containing registration officers. Upon learning what had beer, done.
Judge Powers was very indignant, and when (he registration officers returned he told
them that if they placed upon the registration list any of the names of voters whose
names had been thus secured, he would challenge them at the proper time. As a result
none of them, it is claimed, were placed upon the registration list.
The result of the election was a majority of S40 for the Liberal ticket. Judge Powers
continued to act as chairman of the Liberal committee until the dissolution of the party in
1892.
Anticipating the division on national party lines, he organized what was known
as tin' Tuscarora Society (Democratic Liberals) which grew to a membership of eleven
hundred and was a strong political factor. In 1892 the Tuscarora Society ran a special
train, containing a drum corps and about sixty members of t he organization, to the Na-
tional Democratic Convention at Chicago, which Judge Powers and Mr. Fred J. Kiesel
attended as delegates from Utah, representing the Liberal wing of the local Democracy.
Their right to sit as delegates was contested by Judge Henderson and Hon. John T.
Caine, who had been sent by the newly formed Democratic Party of Utah. The latter were
seated. Soon afterwards the Tuscarora Society merged with the regular Democracy.
Judge Powers was now elected a member of the Territorial legislature, serving dur-
ing the session of 1893. In 189."> he was unanimously chosen chairman of the Dem-
ocratic Territorial Central Committee, and waged a very energetic campaign. He was
re-elected chairman in 1896 — the first year of Statehood — when Utah gave a very heavy
Democratic majority. In December of that year, he resigned as chairman of the Dem-
ocratic State Committee, and announced himself a candidate for the United States
Senate.
Prior to this move, at the request of the National Democratic Committee, he stumped
the States of Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska and Wyoming, speaking part of the time with Hon.
William J. Bryan, the party's Presidential candidate, from the hitter's special train. In
the great Chicago convention, preceding the campaign, he was chairman of the Utah
delegation, and submitted a plan for the organization of silver delegates, which was
adopted and proved very effective, surprising the gold-standard men by its complete-
ness. In the convention he placed in nomination for Vice-President Hon. John W. Daniel
of Virginia, making a speech that was much complimented.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 541
In January, 1S97, the legislature convened and proceeded to elect a United States
Senator. Judge Powers, as stated, was a candidate, but withdrew before the balloting
began, in favor of Hon. Moses Thatcher. The latter, after a spirited contest, was de-
feated by Hon. Joseph L. Rawlins, who was elected to succeed Senator Arthur Brown,
(Republican) who had served the short term of one year. In 1898-9 Judge Powers was
again in the race for the Senate and was one of the leading candidates during the whole
legislative session, which resulted in no Senatorial election. In 1900 he was one of the
Democratic nominees for Elector in the State of Utah.
On the '26th of August, 1899, an attempt was made upon the life of Judge Powers
by means of an infernal machine loaded with giant powder and fulminating caps, con-
tained in a box sent to his address. The machine was ingeniously constructed, but by
one of those fortunate mental warnings which baffle description, the intended victim did
not open the box, but turned it over to the police, who discovered its dangerous charac-
ter. The Governor of Utah offered a reward of five hundred dollars for the arrest and
conviction of the perpetrator of the crime, and he was secured while endeavoring to es-
cape. He proved to be an ex-convict commonly called John Y. Smith, whom the Judge,
while on the bench, had sentenced to imprisonment for train robbery. His trial was had
in December of the same year, aud he was convicted of an assault with intent to murder.
After his conviction he confessed to his connection with the affair, but alleged that he
had an accomplice. He also stated that his true name was Louis James, a cousin of the
notorious bandit Jesse James. The day after he was found guilty he committed suicide
by taking morphine. He was subsequently identified by one who knew him in childhood
as being indeed Louis James.
Judge Powers has been a married man since October 26, 1887. His wife was
Miss Anna Whipple, daughter of Georare Whipple, merchant, an old resident of Burling-
ton, Iowa. Mr. and Mrs. Powers have had two ehilldren. both boys— Don Whipple
Powers, who died in 1889, and Roger Woodworth Powers, a bright boy now in his
"teens." The family have recently moved into their handsome new residence "Linger-
longer," erected on Fort Douglas Avenue, in the eastern part of Salt Lake City.
Judge Powers is the head of the well-known law firm of Powers, Straup and Lippman.
He is employed in cases of the highest importance. His practice is large, extending over
Utah, Montana, Wyoming. Idaho, Nevada and Colorado, and comprises all brauches of
the law. He is still active in politics, frequently presides over conventions, is constantly
called to speak on public occasions, and has long been recognized as a keen-witted
humorist and one of our most brilliant orators. As a political organizer he perhaps has
no equal and as a criminal lawyer no superior, in this or in any of the surrounding States.
WILLIAM HOWARD DICKSON.
aMOXG the names that became prominent in local annals at the beginning of the
anti-polygamy crusade — the enforcement of the statute known as the Edmunds
Law — was that of William H. Dickson, United States District Attorney for Utah
from March, 1884, to May, 1887. It devolved upon this gentleman to serve the
Federal Government in that capacity during the most trying if not the most event-
ful period of our past history. When that painful period closed, when the peace-
ful conditions that have since prevailed were ushered in, and the .Territory was
crowned with Statehood, probably no citizen, certainly no non-Mormon citizen, felt a
greater sense of relief, or welcomed more gladly the grateful change than the ex-
United States Attorney, Mr. Dickson. * A man of determined will and of exceptional
ability as a lawyer, he was a most zealous public official; and if at times in the discharge
of his sworn duties, he seemed harsh, it was not because harshness was natural to him.
but because it was deemed necessary to the proper enforcement of the law. Mr. Dick-
son is anything but harsh; he is polite, mild-mannered, affable, even fuu-loviug in his
disposition; and only serious and stern when having stern and serious business on hand.
It is recognized now that the extreme measures adopted by him in the prosecution of
542 HISTORY OF UTAH.
polygamy cases, were due to his desire, and that of his associates, to compel an early
ending of the crusade, which was almost as .distasteful to him as to the persons whom he
prosecuted.
Mr. Dickson is by birth a Canadian. Soon after his admission to the bar of his
native province, he came to the Pacific coast, and in June, 1874, began the practice of
his profession at Virginia City, Nevada, where he remained until May, 1882, and then
came to Salt Lake City. Here he formed a law partnership with Charles S. Varian, a
prominent lawyer of Nevada, with whom he had been associated during the latter part of
his residence in that State.
His career as United States Attorney for Utah began, as stated, in March, 1884,
under a commission from President Chester A. Arthur. His partner, Mr. Varian, be-
came his assistant. The history of this distinguished twain, from the fall of that year,
when they prosecuted the initial polygamy case of the period — that of the United States
vs. Kudger Clawson — until the spring of 1887, when Mr. Dickson resigned his office, is
largely the history of the so-called crusade in which they so prominently figured, the
details of which are given in the previous volume.
Prior to the new political alignments following the dissolution of the People's and
the Liberal parties, Mr. Dickson was connected with the latter organization, but since it
dissolved he has been a member of the Republican party. His sympathies were with the
Silver Republicans, as against the gold standard policy, and he is to be found, regardless
of partisanship, on the side of good government, opposed to corrupt bossism and
machine methods in politics. In business he is at present the senior partner in the law
firm of Dickson, Ellis and Ellis, of Salt Lal<e City. He has an extended practice,
especially in mining litigation, and is undoubtedly one of the brightest minds of the Utah
bar, and one of the greatest mining lawyers in the West.
CHARLES STETSON VARIAN.
0R. VARIAN became prominent as a citizen of Utah at the beginning of the anti-
polygamv crusade. Prior to that time he had been a citizen of Nevada, holding-
■»- various important positions, ranging from County Treasurer to State Senator,
and from United States District Attorney to Speakerof the House of Representa-
tives. It was, therefore, no novice, but a man of experience in public affairs, and one of
marked ability, who became the assistant of our United States Attorney, Mr. Dickson, at
the opening of the famous crusade.
Charles S. Varian was born at Dayton, Ohio, September 10, 1846. His father was
Miles Varian, a descendent of the French Huguenots, who came to America as a result
of the persecutions culminating in the massacre of St. Bartholomew. His mother's maiden
name was Charlotte Bartlett, a descendant of Robert Bartlett and Richard Warren, Eng-
lish emigrants, the former of whom came over in the "Ann" in 16123, and the latter in
the "Mayflower'' in 1620.
When twenty years of age, young Varian left his native State. He had received
a good education, and was well equipped, mentally and physically, to battle with the
world. He went to California to seek his fortune, but did not remain there long, as in
1867 we find him in Nevada, where a year later he became Treasurer of Humboldt
County. In 1870 he was County Clerk there, and in 1872 State Senator, representing
the same section in the Legislature. He had been admitted to the bar in 1871. He was
also a State Senator in 1874. From 1876 to 1883 he was United States Attorney for
Nevada, during the administrations of Presidents Grant, Hayes and Garfield. He was
elected to the Legislature from Washoe County in 1882, and in the session of the follow-
ing winter became Speaker of the House.
It was about this time that he concluded to become a citizen of Utah. He had had as
a law partner Judge William H. Dickson, who in 1882 removed to Salt Lake City. Here
early in that year the law firm of Dickson and Varian was established. Mr. Varian,
however, did not take up his residence in Utah until 1883. When Mr. Dickson was made
HISTORY OF UTAH. 543
United (States Attorney, Mr. Varian beeanie his assistant. He had been a married man
since July 29, 1871, when he wedded Miss Florence L. Guthrie, like himself a native of
Ohio. They became the parents of four children — all sons.
Mr. Varian served as Assistant United States Attorney for Utah until 1887, in the
fall of which year he ran for the Legislature on the Liberal ticket, to represent the Sec-
ond Precinct of Salt Lake City. He was defeated by John Clark, the candidate of the
People's Party, by a majority of thirty-seven votes. He became United States Attorney
for Utah by appointment of President Harrison in 1889-90, and held the office until April,
1893, when he resigned. He was a member of the Republican National Convention in
1888, and was elected to the Utah Legislature of 1894. The next year he was a member of
the Constitutional Convention — prominent and active in all its deliberations. During
IS96 and 1897 he was President of the Utah Bar Association, and in 1890 President of
the Fire and Police Board of Salt Lake City. He resigned the latter office in order to
take part in the Presidential campaign.
Up to this time Mr. Varian had been a member of the Republican party (acting,
however, with the Liberals before the local division on national party lines) but he was
also a staunch silver man, an ardent supporter of the cause of bi-metalism. The attitude
of his party in favor of the gold standard, as expressed in the platform adopted by the
St. Louis Convention, caused him to join hands with the Democrats and support William
J. Bryan for the Presidency.
Early in 1899 he formed a partnership with Franklin S. Richards, one of the
first of the legal fraternity with whom he crossed swords at the beginning of his ca-
reer in Utah; Mr. Richards being of counsel for the defense in the Rudger Clawson poly-
gamy case and in many other cases of like character, prosecuted by Messrs. Dickson
and Varian. The friendly relations, personal and professional, existing between the
two members of this firm (which has only recently dissolved) are indicative of the changed
conditions that have come over the once distracted commonwealth since Utah was ad-
mitted into the Union.
FRANCIS ALMOND BROWN.
f?\EFORE I would prove recreant to my wives and children and betray my trust, I
L*S wou'd suffer my head to be severed from my body. I have made up my mind
^"^ that while water runs, or grass grows, or a drop of blood flows through my veins,
or I am permitted to breathe the breath of life, I shall obey the supreme laws of
my God, in preference to the changeable and imperfect laws of man." These stirring
words were spoken in the District Court at Ogden, on Tuesday, June 30, 1885. The
speaker was Francis A. Brown, ex-Bishop of the Latter-day Church, and former Probate
Judge of Weber County, who, having acknowledged that he was living with two wives,
whom he had married in obedience to what he deemed a divine law, was about to receive
sentence for unlawful cohabitation in violation of the Edmunds Act.
The heroic speech, of which the quoted sentences are a part, attracted much atten-
tion and elicited unfeigned admiration, even from the Salt Lake "Tribune," the organ of
the crusade, which said at the time: "F. A. Brown, the Mormon Saint convicted in Og-
den on Tuesday last by his own testimony, had the courage of his convictions. However
much one may deplore such wrong-headedness, the admission must be made that here is
a man, one who does not quibble and lie, and who scorns to show the white feather."
The manliness exhibited by Mr. Brown on that occasion was but characteristic of his
course and conduct through life. He was a brave, honest, outspoken man, and nothing
less than his stalwart attitude on that memorable 30th of June was expected of him by
his family and friends or would have been acceptable and satisfactory to his own con-
science.
He came of the old Puritan stock, and was born in Milford, Otsego County, New
York, November 14, 18'2'J; the seventh child of Jesse Brown and his wife Roxana Grant.
His grandfather. John Brown, fought for American freedom and independence. His
father was a Connecticut farmer, but removed early in life to the State of New York,
where amid poor financial circumstances he reared his family of nine children. Only
544 HISTORY OF UTAH.
the commonest rudiments of education could be given them, and the boys in due time
were apprenticed to learn trades.
Francis at the age of ten was bound to Edson Barney, a wheelwright, but being re-
quired to perform heavier work than he was fitted for, his father had him released after
a year's service, whereupon he walked home, a distance of one hundred miles; a rather
remarkable feat for a child of eleven years, and one showing the will power mani-
fested by him so strikingly in after life. He was kindly received by his parents, but
promptly apprenticed again, this time to Chauneey Parsons, a tanner and currier, by
whom he was abused and mistreated, being compi lied to work on his master's farm in-
stead of learning the trade to which he had been bound. A year passed and he again
secured his freedom. He next worked for his brother, Elnathan Grant Brown, a wheel-
wright, remaining with him about two years. At the age of fourteen he determined to
battle through the world for himself. He found employment at logging and floating
lumber, which vocation brought him in contact with the world in the great cities of Phila-
delphia. Baltimore and New York.
The means saved by him he devoted to education, for he was almost an enthusiast
on that subject, and at the age of eighteen he entered the Genesee Wesleyan Seminary
at Lima, New York. He made rapid progress and succeeded admirably in his studies.
At the end of two years the ex-timbennan left the school with honor, fitted to enter the
field as a teacher of others. School-teaching was thenceforth his profession and to it he
devoted himself whenever possible.
While at school his mind had become awakened on the subject of religion and he
had become a member of the Methodist church. After leaving school he attended a re-
vival meeting at Dausvilh-. and it was there that he first heard Mormonism; presented
to him by a young medical student named Joseph West, whose parents were Mormons.
The result was his conversion. He was baptized February 11. 1844, by Elder John
Lane. Be met the usual opposition and calumny, but his inherent courage and hardi-
hood did not forsake him. Ordained an Elder, he labored in the ministry in Pennsyl-
vania and the surrounding region and was thus engaged when he heard of the murder of
Joseph and Hyrum Smith.
Early in October of the same year he set out with others for Nauvoo, and by way
of Kirtland and the Mississippi river reached his destination in the latter part of that
month. Late the S3 year he was ordained a Seventy. He taught a district school
ten miles west of Burlington, Iowa, the same obtained for him by a gentleman who had
assisted him and his friends with means while on their way to Nauvoo. . After a success-
ful winter term he returned to Nauvoo, and in the spring of 1845 taught school in the
Music Hall, with marked success. In the fall of that year he spent four months work-
ing on the Temple. At the time of the exodus he assisted the first companies that left
Nauvoo for the West, and then, in Juue, 1840, went to New York, stopping on the way
at La Porte, Indiana, where he baptized his brother Elisha and wife.
In the East he busied himself with any kind of honorable labor that he could ob-
tain, his chief occupation being lumbering. He was successfully engaged in the manu-
facture of shingles. On March l!l, 1848, he married Elizabeth Lorinda Canfield, who
with her sister had visited Nauvoo in the latter part of 1845 or the beginning of 1846.
The marriage took place at Ossian, Allegheny Couuty, New York, and the ceremony was
performed by Elder Joseph L. France.
The same spring he started for Utah, accompanied by his wife and other relatives,
but at Kanesville found himself short of means and unable to proceed farther. During
the summer he engaged as a deck hand on a river boat plying between St. Louis, St.
Joseph and New Orleans, and the following winter taught school at Council Point, Iowa,
where he built his first house, assisted by the people whose children were to be his pupils.
In that humble frontier habitation, he taughl school until the spring of L850, receiving
the salary of nineteen dollars a month, without board. He now removed to Council
Bluffs, where he clerked in the store of Mr. Cornelius Voorhis, remaining in that gentle-
man's employ until the spring of 1831, when he arranged his affairs and obtained an
outfit with which to take himself and family to Utah.
All was about ready for the start when he received notice from President ( irsmi
Hyde, then presiding over the Church on the frontier, that he was wanted to fill a mission
to Nova Scotia. He immediately sold his outfit and set out upon his mission. The
amount realized from the sale he depended upon to take him to Utah at the (dose of his
missionary Labors, but he never received more than one hundred dollars of it, and this
was live years after the sale was consummated. His companion upon his mission was
Elder David Candland. He preached the Gospel industriously, and at Cape Breton or-
HISTORY OF UTAH. 545
ganized a branch of the Church. At Pope's Harbor, sixty-live miles east of Halifax, he
fell in with some Strangites, one of the Mormon factions that left Nauvoo about the time
of the martyrdom, and baptized a Mr. Middlemiss and wife, two of the members of that
body. A branch was also established in Halifax. Rejoining- his family at Ossian in Feb-
ruary, 1S5'2, he remained there about a year and then again set his face westward.
Arriving at Council Bluffs he found employment in a store until the fall of 1854,
when he entered the schoolroom again, teaching successfully during the following winter.
A further engagement to teach was frustrated by anti- Mormon prejudice, and the trus-
tees reluctantly employed a new teacher, who, falling into disgrace, was forced to flee,
and the leading citizens then hired the Mormon pedagogue to conduct a private school in
the courthouse. "Mormon High School — Knowledge is Power," was the bold sign swung
above the courthouse door by the fearless preceptor. lie now became more popular
than ever, his school completely superseding the public schools of the place. His faith
ful wife Elizabeth had died in June, 1S.">4, leaving him with three children, the youngest
four weeks old. On April l'J, 1850, he married Harriet Canfleld, at Council Bluffs, Iowa,
Elder William H. Kimball performing the ceremony.
Finally, on the 7th of June, L856, he succeeded in leaving the frontier and starting
across the plains, bound for Utah. There were three companies, each of twenty wagons,
in this emigration, and Mr. Brown was captain of the first company. His train reached
Salt Lake City on the 10th of September. He remained two weeks at Salt Lake City,
and then removed to Weber County, by invitation of Bishop Chauneey W. West, whose
brother Joseph bad been the means of converting him to Mormonism. Purchasing a
piece of ground at Slaterville, he there began to build, but no sooner was his house be-
gun than he was asked to remove to Ogden and take charge of a school. He did so, and
thus became the leader, if not practically the founder, of education in Weber County.
He taught each year during the winter mouths for a period of nine years. At first his
was the only school in the city. At the same time he was the first county superintend-
ent of schools, and held that position until the year 1800. By his ability and tact he
gained the good will of parents and children as well as the esteem of the teachers under
him, and by introducing new methods, awakening latent powers and placing in the
schools the best available talent, succeeded in creating a lively interest in educational
affairs.
In 1857, at the time of the "Buchanau Expedition," Francis A. Brown took the field
as adjutant to Colonel David Moore, who had organized the Weber County military dis-
trict, of which Colonel Chauneey W. West was commander. With Colonel Moure and
others he made an incursion to Soda Springs, to watch the mountain passes in that region,
through which it was feared the invading army would attempt to make its way. After re-
turning to Ogden he was ordered to Echo Canyon, where he shared the lot of the main body
of the militia. At the time of the move he was among those left behind to guard the de-
serted homes and fields, and in case of continued hostility on the part of the Government
troops, to lay waste the land.
Peace being declared, Mr. Brown brought his family back from the Provo bottoms,
and during the summer of 1858 resumed his labors as teacher and superintendent of
schools. He also took a leading part in many public improvements and enterprises. In
the spring of 1800, in spite of hostile Indians, who had destroyed every station from
Diamond Springs to the Sink of Carson, he went to California to visit his. only sister,
whom he had not seen for about fourteen years. On his way he assisted in burying
two station hands who had been killed. He returned in the latter part of Septem-
ber, bringing with him his brother-in-law, Dr. William L. Mclntyre, for many years
a leading medical practitioner in Ogden City.
From the spring of 1805 to the fall of 1808 Elder Brown was absent on a mission
to Europe, laboring in Holland two years and in England one year. In the former
country he had as his companion Elder Joseph Weiler. They acquired a fair knowl-
edge of the Dutch language, added sixty persons to the Church, translated the "Voice
of Warning," and apprised the king of Holland of the nature of their message as
Mormon missionaries. In England Elder Brown presided over the Nottingham confer-
ence. After Ins return home he taught school one term, and then served five years as
clerk for Z. C. M. I., at the same time taking a leading part in public affairs.
From January, 1801, to April, 1863, he served Weber County in the capacity of
probate judge, and from February, 1801 to 1879, excepting the period of his foreign
mission, was an alderman of the city of Ogden. He acted as justice of the peace in the
<»gdeu precinct for several years, and for fifteen years was a director and the president
of the Ogden City Bench Canal Company, serving without remuneration. For five years
546 HISTORY OF UTAH.
he was secretary of the Wilson Irrigation Company. A number of years he was presi-
dent of the Central Canal Company, aiding to get the water from Weber river to the vast
area of dry land between Ogden and Kaysville, a district destined to become fruitful.
From 1880 he was engaged principally in farming operations until the establishment of
A. H. Cannon's book store, when he took charge ot that business.
As early as April 2, 1S57, he had obeyed the principle of plural marriage by wedding
Miss Martha Elleu Anderson, a daughter of Captain William Anderson, killed at the
battle of Nauvoo in September, 1846. When the crusade under the Edmunds Act opened
he was among the first in Weber County to answer before the courts. Arrested May 15,
1885, for unlawful cohabitation, he was arraigned before Judge Powers in the First Dis-
trict on the 30th of June. Rather than have his family undergo the mental torture
usually inflicted in such cases, he furnished the evidence for his owa conviction, in a.
speech noted for its heroic fearlessness and steadfast devotion to principle. The most
of this speech, a few lines of which are quoted at the beginning of this article, may be
found in chaptersixteen of the previous volume. On the 11th of July he was sentenced
to imprisonment for six months and fined three hundred dollars. He served his term,
with an additional thirty days for his fine, and was released from prison January 13,
1886, receiving the full benefit of the Copper Act for good behavior.
In 18S9 he was called to fill another mission to the Netherlands, this time being ap-
pointed to preside in that land. He left home on the 16th of January and arrived
at Rotterdam on the first of March. During tnis mission he published the Book of
Mormon (previously translated iuto Dutch by Elder John W. F. Volker, assisted by Elder
Daniel F. Collett) and placed two thousand copies on sale in the leading cities of
Holland. He caused, one copy to be beautifully bound, and sent it, with a "Voice
of Warning," an Epistle of the Twelve, some tracts and an accompanying personal
letter, to the king of the Netherlands, asking him to present the book to his worthy con-
sort, Queen Emma, with the compliments of an American citizen. During his admin-
istration one hundred and twentv-eight persons were added to the Church, and one hun-
dred and twenty were emigrated to Utah. He returned home eatly in 1891.
He continued to reside in Ogden, aud still remained a member of the High Coun-
cil of Weber Stake, in which capacity he had acted for many years. While on his
last mission his health became impaired, and he never regained his usual strength
and power of endurance. He died June 9. 1894. He was the father of fifteen chil-
dren, all but five of them living at last accounts. His fourth son. Captain William
Brown of the Ogden police force, was killed while attempting, with others, to capture
two desperadoes, in the mountains near that city, in April, 1899.
HUGH SIDLEY GOWANS.
.X^'HIS gentleman, once Probate Judge of Tooele County, aud now President of the
IfJ Tooele Stake of Zion, has achieved distinction in a variety of ways. A prominent
|> and successful missionary in foreign lands, he has held various civic aud ecclesias-
tical offices at home, including four terms as Mayor of Tooele City. He was a
notable factor in bringing about the downfall of the Liberal "Republic of Tooele." in
the decade of the "seventies,'' and at the time of the anti-polygamy crusade, was the first
man in Utah to be made a victim of the illegal practice of "segregation;" being indicted
three times for one offense — that of living with his wives.
The son of Robert and Grace (McKay) Gowans, he was born February 23. 1832. in
Perth, Perthshire, ScoJand. While he was quite young his parents moved to the city of
Aberdeen, where he lived and attended the common school until about ten years of age.
Thence he removed with his parents to the town of Arbroath, in Forfarshire, where he
again went to school. There he also learned canvas weaving. In his fifteenth year he
was apprenticed to the baker's trade, serving three years. When he was eighteen he re-
ceived the Gospel as taught by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The
date of his baptism was August 1, 1S50; Joseph Booth being the Elder who admistered
the ordinance.
In consequence of the step he had taken, he had to contend with much opposition
HISTORY OF UTAH. 547
from his parents and other relatives. In July, 1851, he responded to a call made by
Elder James Marsden, President of the Edinburgh conference, for volunteers to preach
the faith, and having been oidained a Priest, started from Dundee, in company with
Robert Bain, to labor in Fifeshire, under the direction of Elder John Duncan. At the
expiration of six months he was called to go to the north of Scotland, and in response to
the call traveled and preached in Stonehaven, Aberdeen. Banff and Portsoy. In the last
named place he was ordained an Elder, uudei the hands of Elders James McN'aughton
and Alexander F. McDonald, the former then presidiug over the Dundee conference.
Having labored in the ministry for eighteen months, he returned home, and succeeded
Elder Joseph Booth in the presidency of the Arbroath branch of the conference.
In 1854 he married Miss Betsey Gowans, the youngest daughter of Andrew and Ann
(McLeish) Gowans. Though of the same name as himself, she was not related to him
before marriage. In 1855 he emigrated with his wife and her parents to Utah, sailing
from Liverpool on the 22nd of April, and landing at New York a month later to the day.
They were in a company of nearly six hundred Latter-day Saints, in charge of Elder
Israel Barlow. Continuing the journey westward by way of Philadelphia. Pittsburgh,
St. Louis. Atchison and Mormon Grove, they crossed the plains in Captain Milo Andrus'
emigrant train, arriving at Salt Lake City on the 24th of October. Mr. Gowans spent
the following winter on the Government reservation in Rush Valley, but in the spring of
1856, in consequence of Indian troubles, he removed to Tooele City, which has ever since
been his home.
Among the offices held by him was that of assessor and collector of Tooele County,
to which he was appointed in 1805, and which he continued to hold six years. August,
1865, also witnessed his first election as Mayor of Tooele, the precursor of three success-
ive re-elections. On May 16, 186S, he was elected Adjutant of Company "A." First Bat-
talion of Cavalry, Nauvoo Legion, and was commissioned as such by Governor Durkee,
with the rank of First Lieutenant. In the Church he held the office of a Seventy, to
which he was ordained under the hands of President Joseph Young, at Salt Lake City,
April 20, 1S57, being set apart as one of the presidents of the forty-third quorum, at its-
organization in Tooele, on the 9th of May, the same year.
In 1872 came a mission to Europe. He crossed the ocean with President George A.
Smith's Palestine party, on the "S. S. Minnesota," of the Guion Line, sailing from
New York on the 6th and landing in Liverpool on the 19th of November. During his
mission Elder Gowans presided successively over the Bedford, the Durham and Newcastle,
and the Manchester conferences; and, honorably released, returned home early in June,
1875.
On the 7th of August. 1876-, he was elected prosecuting attorney for Tooele County;
and on the 27th of the following month was chosen chairman of the Central and Execu-
tive committees of the People's Party in that county, which he helped to recover, as
stated, from Liberal rule. Two years later he was elected Probate Judge, and was re-
elected in August, 1SS0.
At the organization of the Tooele Stake of Zion, in June, 1877, he had been ordained
a High Priest and set apart as a member of the High Council, and was serving as such
when, at a Stake Conference held in Grantsville, January, 1881, he was sustained as
first counselor to Elder Heber J. Grant, the Stake President. In October, 1S82. Elder
Gowans was set apart by President John Taylor to preside over the Stake, succeeding
Elder Grant, who had been called to be one of the Twelve Apostles.
Next came the crusade, in which President Gowans was destined to prominently fig-
ure; he having by this time more than one family, and therefoie liable to prosecution
under the Edmunds law On the 16th of July. 1885, he was arrested at his home by
Deputy U. S. Marshals Greenman and Collins, on a charge of unlawful cohabitation.
Taken before U. S. Commissioner McKay, at Salt Lake City, by that otficial he was
bound over in the sum of fifteen hundred dollars to answer to the Grand Jury. ' Segre-
gation" was now inaugurated, and on the 23rd of September the defendant was arraigned
to plead to three indictments for one offense; his being the first case thus segregated.
To all three indictments he pleaded not guilty, and was placed under three thousand dol-
lar bonds — one thousand dollars on each indictment.
On the 11th of February, 1886, he was brought into court for trial, but was tried
only upon one of the indictments, (the other two being held over for future use) on
the express condition that he would go upon the witness stand and give evidence for the
prosecution against himself. This he did. No other witnesses were called; Judge Zane
charged the jury, and they found a verdict of guilty without leavincr their seats. At the
defendant's request sentence was deferred until the 26th of February, when, upon
548 HISTORY OF UTAH.
answering in the negative the question whether he had any promise to make regarding
the future, he was sentenced to six months imprisonment and fined three hundred dollars
and costs, or a total of five hundred and twenty dollars. The same day he was taken to
the penitentiary, where he served out his sentence, less the time deducted on account of
good behavior. He also served thirty days additional in lieu of his fine, and on the 30th
of August was discharged from custody.
Since then Elder Gowaos has continued to preside over the Tooele Stake, and
atteud to his various business interests, in and about the region of his home. He is a
man of genial presence and address, whom to know is to respect and esteem. He has the
confidence of his superiors in authority, and the love of the people over whom he
presides.
NATHANIEL HENRY FELT.
£^ ALT LAKE CITY'S first Alderman and a member of the earliest Territorial Legis-
(JS lature, the late N. H. Felt was a native of Salem, Esses County, Massachusetts,
Yj~j born February fi, 181G; and was the youngest of the twelve children of Nathaniel
and Hannah (Keeves) Felt. The father, a merchant trader with the West Indies,
died when the son was seven years old. leaving his family in straitened circumstances,
having lost his pioperty, even to the family home, through misfortunes in business, added
to an unusually liberal deposition and a conscientious desire to satisfy every claim made
against him and the firm of which he was a member.
Nathaniel attended the common schools of his native place, and before and after
school hours acted as errand boy for a draper and tailor's establishment. He was not
very robust, but full of ambition to gain a collegiate education. He worked hard in that
direction, but owing to the reduced circumstances of the family had to abandon his pur-
pose just as he was about to enter the high school, and was apprenticed to a tailor at
Lynn, five miles from Salem. He was then fifteen years of age. Six mouths before at-
taining his majority, and through the help of his only surviving brother, he bought
out an establishment in Salem, and was soon employing twenty hands. He increased his
means by swme fortunate ventures in the African and China trade, it being the intention
of himself and brother to found a commercial business.
He also became interested in musical matters, joining the "Divisionary Corps of
Independent Cadets. 'r organized with the Boston Cadets in Colonial times under British
rule. Under their charter they were required to wear scarlet coats, and were entitled to
the right of line in parade, much to the annoyance of other volunteer organizations.
Through his musical interests he became acquainted with Miss Eliza Ann Preston, a
member of another of the old New England families, whom he married on the third day
of October, 183!).
His mother's family was divided in religious belief, but he, though often solicited to
do so, would not identify himself with any of the popular churches. After carefully in-
vestigating "Mormonism," however, he was converted and baptized a Latter-day Saint.
his wife also joining the Church. In the winter of 1843-4 he was appointed presi-
dent of the Salem branch. During this period he became acquainted with such men as
Brigham Young, Orson Pratt and Heber C. Kimball, who were frequent and welcome
visitors at his home, and left it the morning that word was received of the martyrdom of
the Prophet and the Patriarch, Joseph and Hyrum Smith. He had been advised by
President Young to remain at Salem for the present: but as the clouds gathered around
Xauvoo, and the mobs grew more threatening, he determined to join the main body of
the Church at that place.
Accordingly, on the 5th of June, 1845, after closing out his business at a great sacri-
fice, he with his wife and son, Joseph Henry, set out for Xauvoo. There he entered into
business, and continued his labors in the ministry, being ordained one of the presidents
of the twenty-ninth quorum of Seventy. Meantime the completion of the Nauvoo Tem-
ple was being hurried on. and his baggage having arrived from Salem, by way of New
Orleans, some of his furniture, sucb as carpets, tables, chairs, sofa and mirrors, were
used to furnish the sacred house preparatory to the performance of ordinances therein.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 549
He took part in the defense of Nauvoo and was under fire as well as on regular
guard duty. Through over-exertion in assisting the remnant of his co religionists
across the Mississippi, after the departure of the vanguard - which lie was preparing
to follow — he was taken down wilh fever and ague, and his physical condition became
such that he was counseled to take his wife, then almost an invalid, to St. Louis and
postpone his journey to the West. Accordingly he turned over his wagon outfit to
John Taylor, one of the Twelve Apostles, and with his wife and two sons proceeded
to St. Louis, arriving there early in November.
On the 14th of February. 1S47. he was appointed president of the St. Louis con-
ference, then numbering from seven to ten thousand Latter-day Saints, and the only
organized conference in the United Stati s. St. Louis was not only a gathering place
of the Saints driven from Nauvoo, where they went to remain until a more permanent
place was selected by the Pioneers, but it became the outfitting poiut for those travel-
ing wist ward, and also where the missionaries, still sent out by the Church, looked for
and received substantial assistance to take them on their journey, both going and re-
turning. At that point the immigrating Saints were received from foreign lauds, by
water from New Orleans, and there secured their outfits for the crossing of the plains.
Upon X. H. Felt devolved almost entirely the duty of advising these immigrants, pur-
chasing out tits and supplies for them, and chartering the necessary steamboats to take them
to Kanesville. It was always a matter of congratulation with him that no accident oc-
curred to and no scourge of sickness prevailed on any of the vessels thus engaged by him.
There were instances, however, in which steamboats were secured by other persons,
contrary to his advice, and in one of these instances, as soon as he learned of it. he went
to the wharf and urged the Saints to come ashore, telling them the boat was unsafe.
Many took his advice, while others remained on board, and the steamer had hardly left
her moorings when she blew up. several lives being lost, and much baggage de-
stroyed.
At St Louis President Felt opened a correspondence with Colonel Thomas L. Kane,
who afterwards mediated between Utah and the Genera] Government. Included in the
St. Louis Conference were the branches of Alton and Gravois; the latter his especial
pride. There were gathered the coal miners, sturdy, reliable men. such as John Shaip.
Adam Sharp. Adam Hunter and others.
In 1848 President Felt took his family on a visit to their old home in Massachusetts,
where he was received very kindly by friends and relatives, and every inducement offered
him. but without avail, to induce him to give up "Mormonism" and remain. After his
return to St. Louis the city was visited by that terrible scourge, the cholera. Every
morning was heard from the "dead wagon.'* as it passed around, the awful cry, "Bring
out your dead." Accompanying these wagons were immunes, who would enter, take
the c sometimes without any preparation, to the vehicles, and thence to the ceme-
tery, where they were buried in trenches, hundreds at a time. The President of the Con-
ference was constantly called for by the afflicted people, ami responded by visiting,
ministering to and comforting them, scarcely taking time to eat or sleep While many
thousands of the citizens died, and many of the Saints were attacked, nor one of the lat-
ter died through this scourge at that time. During the great tire which followed, not one
of the Saints was burned out. although, as in the case of President Felt, the lire came
right up to their houses. He lived in a frame building, and the tire, skipping it. destroyed
a brick building opposite. The conflagration, while it swept away much property, was
looked upon as a great scavenger, which purified the city after the plague.
In the spring of 1850 the Felt family, consisting of father, mother, two sons and an
infant daughter. started for Salt Lake City .escorted as far as C mncil Bluffs by Ballou's band
discoursing sweet music in their honor. At the Bluffs, with two wagons, four yoke of oxen
and two cows. they joined Heywood and Wbolley's church merchandise train, which arrived
at their destination on ;he 6th of October. They located on Upper Main Street, just op-
posite President Heber C. Kimball's residence, and which is still the old family home-
stead. During the following winter they lived in wagons and tents, and in the spring
built an adobe house of two rooms.
X II. Felt's appointment as Alderman of Great Salt Lake City came on January 9.
1851, from Governor Brigham Voting, under the charter incorporating the city. Later
he was elected Alderman from the Third Municipal Ward, which he represented for years.
In August. 1851, he was elected to the House of Representatives in the first Legislature
of the Territory of Utah. Both in the Territorial and City governments, he served on
many important committees, receiving dignitaries from the East, arranging for memorial
services on the day of President Lincoln's funeral, and taking preliminary steps for
550 HISTORY OF UTAH.
establishing the water and lighting systems of the municipality. Nor was he idle in ec-
clesiastical matters. In 1851 he was appointed a Traveling Bishop, and as such visited
nearly all the settlements and towns in Utah, instructing the Ward Bishops relative to
tithing methods, records, reports, etc. In the militia he was commissioned by Govern-
or Young. April 12, 1852, Chaplain on the general staff of the Legion, with the rank of
Colonel. He had previously accompanied George A. Smith to Little Salt Lake Valley,
where they laid out the town of Parowan.
The winter of 1854-5 found him in New York City, assisting John Taylor to estab-
lish the paper know as "The Mormon," and laboring in emigrational matters. During
this mission, in company with that Apostle and Delegate Bernhisel, he called on President
Franklin Pierce, in Washington, at which time the President made the following state-
ment relative to his recent appointment of Colonel Steptoe to succeed Brigham Young as
Governor of Utah: "Gentlemen, you are well acquainted with the immense outside pres-
sure that popular prejudice has arrayed against your people; this obliges me as Chief
Magistrate to make some show in responding to it, so I have appointed Colonel Steptoe as
Governor of Utah; hut you will readily conceive that Colonel Steptoe, holding an honor-
able position in the United States army, will not be willing to resigu that position for the
uncertain tenure of a four years Governorship of that distant Territory." Elder Felt re-
turned to Salt Lake City in October, 185(1.
Having secured Government contracts to furnish supplies for the troops at Camp
Floyd, he now engaged in the grain and produce business, with David R. Allen, Sr..
establishing stores at Salt Lake City, Nephi and Ephraim. In the years 1805-0-7 he was
upon a mission in Great Britain, where he labored in the office of the "Millennial Star,"
and later as Pastor of the London District. From November, 1809, until May. 1870. he
was a missionary to the New England States, labeling principally in his native Massachu-
setts. For a long period he wa» a member of the High Council, and was actively en-
gaged in public affairs, both of State and Church, until 1873, when he was stricken with
a severe illness, from the effects of which he never entirely recovered.
During his remaining years he acted as a home missionary, and contributed various
articles to the press. He died January 27, 1887, leaving a posterity of eight sons, five
daughters and sixteen grandchildren. He was the husband of three wives — Eliza Ann
Preston, who died June 1!), 1875; Sarah Strange and Mary Louisa Pile, whom he married
respectively March 17, 185-1, and December 7, 1850. In addition to his first wife, two sons
and two daughters preceded him into the great beyond.
LEWIS WARREN SHURTLIFF.
JUDGE SHURTLIFF— for that is his reminiscent title, dating from the time when he
presided over the Probate Court of Weber County — is a native of the State of Ohio,
born at Sullivan, Lorain County, July 24, 1835. His forefathers were of the old Puri-
tan stock, the first of the name in America being William Shurtliff, an Englishman,
who came to Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts, in the year 1034. Some later branches
migrated in 181 1 to the Western Reserve, in Ohio, which was then an almost uninhabited
wilderness. The parents of our subject were Lurnan Andrus Shurtliff and his wife
Eunice B. Gaylord.
Soon after their son's birth they became members of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints, and in 1838 they took Lewis with them on a visit to Kirtland, its head
quarters. Among his earliest recollections is that of being shown, with his parents,
through the Kirtland Temple. The same year the family went to Far West, Missouri,
where they remained until driven out by the mob. After the expulsion from that State
they settled upon the site of Nauvoo, Illinois, and remained there until 1840, when they
proceeded in the general exodus to Council Bluffs.
It was not until the spring of 1851 that the family began their journey to the Rocky
Mountains. After such hardships as few can imagine and none realize unless similarly
situated, they arrived at Salt Lake City on the 23rd of September, the same year. After
a short sojourn in this place, they continued northward to Weber County, where they
settled. They at once began to build log cabins, lay out farms, construct irrigation
HISTORY OF UTAH. 551
ditches, make roads and in various other ways improve the land upon which their homes
were located.
In the fall of 1855 Lewis W. Shurtliff was called upon a mission to Salmon River,
at that time in eastern Oregon, but now in Idaho. A small company had been sent out
in the spring:, and he went early in August. The object of the expedition was to colonize
and found a mission among the Indians in that region. These colonists were the first
white men to plow a furrow in what is now the State of Idaho. They remained there
until, in a severe encounter with the Indians, two of the company were killed and five
wounded. The savages stole and drove away all the cattle and horses, surrounded the
fort, and kept the colonists in a state of siege for thirty days, at the end of which time a
company of two huudred men arrived from Utah to assist the much enduring mission-
aries back to their homes.
They returned just after "the move," in 1858, and on arriving at Salt Lake City
found the place deserted, the inhabitants having gone south, leaving their property ready
for the flames. The returning colonists followed the route taken by the fleeing inhabi-
tants, and at Provo overtook President Brigham Young and many other leading men of
the Church. Mr. Shurtliff was present when the peace commissioners came to treat with
the Mormon leaders, and after peace was delared he returned to his home in Weber
County. In 1863, he made a trip to the Missouri River and back, bringing immigrants
to -Utah. The company with which he was connected had fifty wagons drawn by ox
teams.
In 1SG7 he again crossed the plains, this time with mule teams and on his way to
Great Britain as a missionary. The company of which he was a member met the Union
Pacific Railroad at Julesburg, Nebraska. It was then rapidly pushing its way westward.
While in Europe, where he remained until 1S70, he traveled extensively in England, Ire-
land, Scotland and Wales, and presided over the Nottingham and London conferences.
Crossing over to the continent, he visited France, Switzerland, Germany, Holland, Den-
mark, Sweden and Norway.
Immediately upon his return to Utah he was appointed to preside over the Plain City
Ward, which became under his presidency one of the leading Wards of Weber Stake. In
1883 he became President of that Stake, and took up his residence in Ogden.
During the same year he was appointed County Commissioner, and remained in that
office until 18SG, when he was elected Probate Judge. That year he was chosen a mem-
ber of the Constitutional Convention, and also elected to the Council of the Legislature.
In 1888 he was returned to the Council. He remained Probate Judge until 1889, when'
he was again chosen County Commissioner, serving in that office until the close of 1894.
During the period of his incumbency he had charge of roads, bridges, etc., in which
many improvements were made. New roads, boulevards and public buildings were also
constructed.
Mr. Shurtliff was a delegate to the first two National Irrigation Congresses, and at the
third, held in Denver in 1SH4. he was appointed chairman of the Utah Irrigation Com-
mission. He was a delegate to the first National Trans-Mississippi Commercial Congress,
held at Osrden in 1893. and at San Francisco in 1S94 was made a member of the National
Committee. In 1896 he was appointed Vice President of the Utah division of the Trans-
Mississippi and International Exposition, and was confirmed by the Board of Directors at
Omaha, on the 7th of Auarust, the same year.
Judge Shurtliff was a member of the Senate of the State Legislature both in 1897
and 1899. In the latter session he played a prominent part as chairman of a special
committee appointed to investigate charges of bribery made against senatorial candi-
dates. During this session he was a Fusionist-Democrat. He has since joined the Re-
publican party. In a business way he has been equally prominent. He was president
of the first sti-eet railway company in Ogden, vice-president of the Utah Loan and Trust
Company, and assistant general manager of the Pioneer Electric Power Company.
President Shurtliff has been a married man since January 4, 1858, when he wedded
Louisa C. Smith at Salmon River, while fulfilling his mission as a colonizer in that part.
His wife died in the autumn of 1866, about six months before he started upon his mission
to Europe. Several years later, on April 10, 1S72, he married Emily M. Wainwright,
his present wife.
The family reside in a handsome home in the heart of the city of Ogden. A public-
spirited citizen, President Shurtliff contributes liberally to every worthy cause, and never
tires of pointing out to visitors the good work done by the pioneers and colonizers of
Weber County. After a half century of labor, of manifold struggles, privations and suc-
cesses in the building up of Utah, he finds his greatest source of satisfaction in seeing
552 HISTORY OF UTAH.
the land upon which he entered when it was a wilderness and a political dependency,
now a flourishing domain, wearing the glory of Statehood, and filled with the happy
homes of a thriving and contented people.
EDWIN GORDON WOOLLEY.
£g)X-PROBATE Judge of Washington County, and now a resident of Salt Lake City,
fa)f Hon. Edwin G. Woolley is the only child of the late Bishop Edwin D. Woolley and
his second wife, Louisa Chapin Gordon. He was born at Nauvoo, Hancock CountVi
Illinois, July 30, 1845. His mother, a native of the State of New York, was his
father's first plural wife. At the time of the exodus from Nauvoo she remained hehind with
her child and died at Galesburg, Illinois, April 29, 184!), leaving Edwin, then nearly four
years old, to the care of her mother at Southampton, Massachusetts. To that place the boy
was taken, and remained there in charge of his grandmother until 185(1, when his father
claimed him and brought him to Utah.
He received a mother's care from Mary Wickersham Woolley, the Bishop's first
wife, and was treated the same as her own children. One of her sons, Edwin D. Jr.,
was but three months older than Edwin G., and the two were reared together, more like
twins than ordinary brothers. They attended the primitive schools of the period, and
when old enough worked in the fields and hauled wood and lumber from the canyons.
At the time of the "Echo Canyon war" they were members of a company of light in-
fantry, e posed of fifty boys, each about twelve years et age, and commanded by Cap-
tain John W. Young. This company, uniformed by Governor Brigham Young, was
called the "Hope of Israel." They were well drilled and on the occasion of the historic
celebration at the head of Big Cottonwood Canyon, when the news arrived of the coming
of Johnston's army, they were there in full fighting trim and look part in the exercises.
Mr. Woolley well remembers the hard times in the early settlement of Salt Lake
Valley, when many of the people had little to eat, except what they could get from the
ground in the way of segoes, artichokes and other wild roots, providentially supplied, as
he believes, since they were never so plentiful again; and he also remembers how his
father, the Bishop, ever a hard worker and an excellent provider, fed not only his own
family, who were put upon regular rations at times, but many poor people who came to
him daily for help.
Studiously inclined, the youth mastered the rudiments of an English education, and
when about nineteen essayed the role of school teaching. His father's children and the
children of the neighbors were his pupils, and some of them weie older than their teacher.
Subsequently, with the consent of Ids sire, he apprenticed himself to the carpenter's
trade with Messrs. Folsom and Ronmev. and was put to work in their shops on Temple
Block.
During the summer of 1805 he accompanied his father and President Young to St.
George, and in the fall of 1800, again visited that city, where his brother, Franklin B.
was then living. The following winter he made a trip with a six-mule team to Los An-
geles, California, bringing back goods for F. B. Woolley and Erastus Snow. It was a
hard experience, but he earned enough means to procure a complete set of carpenter tools,
with which he returned to Salt Lake in the spring of 1807 and resumed work al his
trade.
For some years he had been studying music under David 0. Calder, and had been a
member of the Tabernacle choir and other musical organizations, assisting in the chor-
uses at the Salt Lake Theatre. He had also taken small parts in plays produced by the
Deseret Dramatic Association, and had sung minor solo parts in musical presentations.
He continued to advance along these lines and was on the stage with most of the stars
who came to Salt Lake City at that time. He played Francois to T. A. Lyne's Richelieu
and made quite a hit. He also appeared with the Irwins, with George Pauncefort and
with Julia Dean Hayne.
Just as this class of work was becoming very interesting, -he was called on a mission
to Southern Utah, to help strengthen and develop that section. This was at the October
conference of 1807. He was practically without means and had never had very robust
HISTORY OF UTAH. 553
health, but he still owned his set of carpenter tools, and responded to the call, trusting
that he would be able to make a beginning even in "Dixie,'' which was considered a very
hard country to conquer. His "twin," Edwin D., was also called to go, and in less than
three weeks they were on the way, accompanying their brother Franklin B., who had
been attending conference in Salt Lake City. Most of the missionaries called at this
time located on the Muddy River, in Nevada, about ninety miles south-west from St,
George; but the Woolley brothers and a few others located in that towu. Edwin G.
lived with and worked for his brother Franklin, who, by advancing means, assisted him
to procure a home.
He now s.-tw his first Indian service. In February, 1S69, he formed one of a scout-
ting part}- through south-eastern Utah, for the purpose of intercepting marauding bands
of Navajoes, and learning the trails and passes used by them in coming over the Col-
orado on their frequent stealing incursions. Willis Coplan was in command and Edwin
G. Woolley was adjutant of the company. In November of the same year, he was again
in the saddle, pursuing thieving Navajoes, in company with Jacob Hamlin and others.
This time they had a sharp skirmish with the redskins near a place called Pahreah. It
was in March of this year that his brother Franklin was murdered by Indians on the Mo-
jave River in California. He had gone to that State for a train of merchandise with
which to stock the newly organized St. George Co-operative mercantile institution,
which he superintended. The mutilated body, enclosed in a metallic coffin, was brought
home by E. D. Woolley, Jr., one of the freighters, and its arrival at St. George was the
occasion of a great demonstration of sorrow, the deceased being highly respected and
one of the most prominent and useful citizens of the southern country. Edwin G. suc-
ceeded Franklin as U. S. Deputy Collector of Internal Revenue, for Southern Utah, and
about the same time' he was appointed clerk of the High Council of St. George Stake,
a position which he held for many years.
At Salt Lake City, on the 8th of October, 1809, Edwin G. Woolley was united in
marriage to Mary Lavinia Bentley, daughter of Richard and Elizabeth Price Bently,
whose acquaintance he had formed while upon his first visit to St. George. President
Daniel H. Wells officiated in the ceremony. The young couple immediately returned to
St. George, where, on the 1st of September, 1870, their first child was born— Edwin G.
Woolley, Jr.
In 1871 Mr. Woolley was assessor and collector of taxes, both for Washington
county and St. George city. Subsequently he was assessor and collector for the city. He
continued to work as a carpenter, finishing his own house and his brother Edwin's before
laying down hammer and plane and turniug to other pursuits. In June, 1872, he be-
came clerk of the tithing store and several months later a clerk in the co-operative store.
Then followed a mercantile partnership with his brother Edwin and with Daniel and
Adam Segmiller, the business of which he conducted until 1S74, when it was sold to the
St. George Co-operative mercantile institution, of which Mr. Woolley became super-
intendent. He was also assistant secretary of the United Order of St. George Stake,
organized during the same year. In the intervals of these labors he found time to
study law.
The discontinuance of the United Order gave the noted firm of Wooley Lund & Judd
their opportunity. The personnel of this firm was originally as follows: Edwin G.
Woolley, whose occupation has been stated; Robert C. Lund, telegraph operator at St.
George, and Thomas Judd, tithing clerk in that city. These three, taking their cue from
the "Order," on the loth of October, 1875, associated themselves in business, with an
agreement to turn all the property they possessed into the firm, excepting their homes
and some land that would be of no special use to the firm, and to use their means and
time for the benefit of the company, all salaries earned by the members to be the property
of the firm, and each member to draw his living from the common resources. The pos-
sessions of the partners were about equal, and it was understood that they were to
remain equal in every way. They carried on various brauches of business, farming,
stock-raising, exchange, agencies, etc., and all was going swimmingly when at the April
conference in 187(i the three were called on missions. This meant utter financial ruin as
they were then situated, and President Young, after matters were explained to him,
released Mr. Lund to remain at home and look after the business, while his partners
fulfilled their missions.
Mr. Woolley spent about six months in the Eastern States. He attended the
Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, shook hands with President Grant at a public
reception in Washington, D. C; heard Generals Sherman, Sheridan and Hooker at a re-
union of the Army of the Cumberland in Philadelphia, and after visiting relatives in
85
554 HISTORY OF UTAH.
various parts, principally in Ohio, where he spent most of his time, set out for Utah
about the middle of October. He was then holding the office of a Seventy, but was
subsequently ordained a High Priest.
Early in 1878 Woolley, Lund & Judd, associated with Richard Bentley, opened a
store at the Grand Guleh Copper mines in Arizona, seventy-five miles south of St.
George. This venture, ami the opening of a coal mine on Ash Creek, proved un-
successful, but the firm retrieved its losses by establishing a flourishing mercantile
business at St. George. During 1SS0-81 their business grew to considerable proportions.
They took ore hauling contracts and other work at the Silver Reef mines and bought a
two thirds interest in the firm of Liddle Brothers & Company, who were doing the
principal business at the mines. Meantime Mr. Woolley had been elected city recorder
of St. George and prosecuting attorney for Washington County. He had previously
served as justice of the peace, as deputy sheriff, and in a number of other minor
ofiices.
In the early part of 1S81 Mr. Woolley was sent for by his father, Bishop Woolley,
of Salt Lake City, who wished him to take the management of a lawsuit in which he
was involved with some of the heirs of his brother, John M. Woolley, deceased.
The son promptly responded, and after investigating the matter, prepared to fight the
case up to the Supreme Court of the United States. The other side then made advances
for a compromise, which was finally effected. Not long after the suit was settled, the
aged Bishop sent again for Edwin G. to come and help him put his affairs in shape, as he
felt death approaching.
In 1882, Mr. Woolley again went East, this time for rest and recreation, and spent
some time at Sweet Springs, Missouri, where he met Senator Vest and had an interesting
coversation with him on Utah affairs. At Richmond he visited David Whitmer, whom
he described as "a tall, spare man, with white hair, worn somewhat long, of a pleasing
address and kindly looking face, full of intelligence." He received his visitor kindly,
though himself in feeble health, from the effects of a cyclone which had struck his
house some time before. During the interview he reiterated bis testimony as one of the
witnesses to the Book of Mormon. Prior to leaving the Springs, Mr. Woolley had been
asked by a certain physician from Philadelphia, to whom he had made known his inten-
tion of visiting David Whitmer, to find out from him what an angel looked like. Mr.
Whitmer, on being told of this, smilingly said. "You may tell the doctor that angels
don't have wings." Mr. Hughes, a banker of Richmond, declared to Mr. Woolley that
David Whitmer was "a man of the strictest integrity and truthfulness, highly respected
by all who knew him."
Mr. Woolley was an active member of the Constitutional Convention of 1882, and in
August, 1883. he was elected a member of the Legislative Council. At the same time he
was chosen Probate Judge of Washington County, to which office he was twice re-elected.
In the fall of 1S8-1, accompanied by his wife and two daughters, he attended the St.
Louis Cattle Convention, and after it adjourned visited the New Orleans Exposition and
other parts of the South. He sat in the Constitutional Convention of 1887, of which he
was vice-president, and went with the other delegates to Washington to present the Consti-
tution to Congress. During this visit he called upon President Cleveland. He returned
in time to meet with the Legislature in January, 1888, having been re-elected to the
Council.
In the spring of this year he removed with his family to Salt Lake City, to take
charge of the wa«on and implement business established here by Woolley, Lund & Judd.
The business grew very fast, faster indeed than they could find capital with which to
control it, being largely a credit system; and in December, 18S9, it was closed out to the
Co-operative Wagon and Machine Company at a great sacrifice.
Mr. Woolley continued to be active in politics. In 1SS9 he was nominated by the Peo-
ple's Party for the Legislature, but was defeated by the Liberal candidate, Mr. C. E.
Allen. As a central committeman of the People's Party for Salt Lake City, he partici-
pated in the great struggle which ended in the Liberal victory of February, 1890. In
March of that year he was appointed by the Governor a member of the Board of Trustees
of the Territorial Reform School, and re-appninted in 1S92. At the time of the division
on national party lines he took an active part in organizing the Democratic party in Salt
Lake ( Minity. and was subsequently nominated bvthe Democrats for Selectman, but the
Republicans carried the election.
Mr. Woolley had returned to Salt Lake City about the time of ''the boom," and like
many others became involved in the financial maelstrom, losing heavily as the result of
extensive real estate purchases and the subsequent sudden and unexpected shrinkage in
HISTORY OF UTAH. 555
values. In August, 1893, he mined back to St. George, though his sons Gordon and
Richard remained behind— the former as a newspaper reporter, and the latter as an em-
ploye of the Rapid Transit Railway Company. Their lather assumed the management
of the business of Woolley, Lund & Judd at St. George. Heavy losses at Silver Reef,
Salt Lake City, and other places, with the failure of a grading contract on the Union Pa-
cific Railway south of Milford, had reduced the Arm's capital to a very low ebb. and the
strictest economy and attention to business were now necessary.
On February 20. 1S94, Edwin G. Woolley was appointed by President Cleveland to
his old position of Probate Judge of Washington County. He held that place until
January 13. 1S96, when his term expired by act of the Constitution of the State of Utah,
which abolished all such offices. Soon afterwards he applied for admission to the bar of
the Fifth District Court, at the February term, held in St. George, and was duly admitted
after an examination in open court. It was not his purpose to practice law as a pleader,
owing to a serious defect in his hearing, but in order to be able to look after business in
the courts, he qualified himself in the manner stated. Since resuming again his residence
in Salt Lake City he has been employed in the State Laud Office, where he may be seen
daily, working energetically, as is his wont.
ADAM SPE1RS.
/JIDAM SPEIRS, ex-Alderman of Salt Lake City, and present Bishop of the Tenth
II Ward, is a native of Beaver. Beaver County, Pennsylvania, where he was born
^"^ July 7, 1834. His father, Thomas Speirs, came from Scotland with his parents in
1S26, while his mother, Mary Cochrau, was born near Belfast, Maine, where her
ancestors had lived from before the war of the Revolution. The couple met and married
in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Thomas Speirs was a blacksmith and machinist, and forged
the works of the town clock in Philadelphia. Removing to Beaver, he lived there, after
the birth of his sou Adam, for about five years, and then, having become a Latter day
Saint, went with his family to Illinois. He had been converted through the preaching of
Orson Pratt, and forsook a good home and a prosoerous business for the sake of his re-
ligious convictions. They arrived at Commerce, which became Nauvoo, in the spring
of 1S39.
There seven years of Adam's boyhood were passed. He witnessed the marvelous
growth of the city and bears to this day a vivid remembrance of scenes and iucidents
connected with its fate. Chief among these remiuiseences is the martyrdom of the
Prophet and Patriarch. "I well remember," says he. "the long procession that tiled
past during the day that their bodies lay in the Nauvoo Mansion. As the people viewed
the beloved faces and cruel wounds of the martyrs, tears dimmed the eyes of scores of
stalwart men, and hundreds of women wept as if they had lost their first-born. I heard
no threat of vengeance; all was deep sorrow. I also witnessed the desecration of the Tem-
ple by the mob, who. expelled the remnant of the Saints left at Nauvoo after the great
body had beguu their westward march. My father secured two wagons on which were
loaded our household goods, all the bulky furniture being abandoned. The mob searched
the wagon under pretense of finding arms. They took all the money my father had,
some thirty-five dollars, and also a fine rifle belonging to me. We stopped one year at
Montrose, on the Iowa side of the river, where my father worked at his trade and secured
teams for the two wagons, and in November, 1847, we traveled across Iowa to Winter
Quarters. All this while our relatives in the East were pleading with us not to go into
the wilderness where we would be destroyed by Indians or perish from starvation.
"Father improved every opportunity to send his children to school. The family con-
sisted of one daughter aud four sons, I beine; the eldest son. At Winter Quarters under
President Young's direction, a large log schoolhouse was hastily erected and therein a
school, which had a full attendance, was taught by Eli B. Kelsey and wife through the
winter. I was one of the pupils. I have often thought since that such' incidents as this
are a sufficient answer to the baseless charge that the Mormon leaders and the Mormon
556 HISTORY OF UTAH.
people are opposed to education. Here was a community of exiles, camped through the
winter on the Missiouri River and expecting to abandon the place in the spring, erecting
a substantial schoolhouse, that their children might be taught for a few months, before
continuing their travels into the wilderness. No further comment is necessary."
The spring of 1848 saw busy times at Winter Quarters, whose inhabitants were pre-
paring to follow the pioneers and emigrants of the previous year. The Speirs family
traveled with the last company, which was led by Amasa M. Lyman. It left the Missouri
River the first week in July and arrived in Salt Lake Valley on the 17th of October. Says
the Bishop: "1 drove one of the teams — three yoke of oxen, or rather, two yoke of oxen
and one yoke of cows, for the cows had to do their portion. I was fourteen years old
and enjoyed the trip over the wild plains, though handicapped by the loss of my rifle.
We saw thousands of buffalo and passed through large Indian villages — Sioux — but were
not seriously molested. In fact, we were treated better by them than by the Christians
we had left behind.
"Arriving in the valley we immediately set about getting out logs from the canyon
to build a shelter for the coming winter. After completing the sides, canvas was used
for the roof. We did not suffer greatly, though reduced to about one-half rations. In
the spring of 1849 the first contingent of gold diggers, three men with pack animals,
stopped and were entertained at my father's house. They gave us the first account of
the great exodus to the new-found gold fields of California. Thousands of others passed
through during the summer, bartering off to the settlers goods and merchandise of every
description in exchange for fresh ponies, provisions and outfits to enable them to hasten
on to the land of gold."
Adam Speirs learned the blacksmith's trade from his father, and afterwards Worked
at it for many years. During the winter months he attended school in the old Council
House — the University "parent school,'' taught by Orson Spencer and William W. Phelps.
He also attended Professor Orson Pratt's course of lectures on astronomy. On the 6th
of April, 1853, he took part officially, as counselor to the president of the Teachers'
Quorum, in the laying of the corner stones of the Salt Lake Temple; being the youngest
by many years among those who participated in that ceremony. He had been ordained
to the office in question that very day. He was also present at the dedication of the Tem-
ple, forty years later.
During the year 1853 he was one of a company of mounted men, which, under James
Ferguson and William H. Kimball, went east over the emigrant road to protect the in-
coming trains fn?m Indians and lawless whites. After forty days of service, the danger
being past, he returned home, to find that he, with seventy-five others, had been called
to form a colony in the Green River country. John Nebeker was placed in command of
this expedition, which proceeded to the part indicated, and there built Fort Supply, south
of Fort Bridger. now in Wyoming.
About this time Mr. Speirs entered into the state of wedlock, marrying Miss Char-
lotte Clark, whose parents hail shared in the early toils and trials of the Saints, being
driven homeless from two farms in Missouri. President Brigham Young performed the
ceremony, the date of which was December 3, 1854. The Wyoming colonists, after
building their houses and stockade, tried farming, but met with indifferent success, owing
to late and early frosts and snow. Upon the approach of Johnston's army, Fort Supply
was abandoned.
Mr. Speirs had taken an active part in the organization of the militia, and was prob-
ably the youngest man holding the rank of Captain in the Legion. His appointment
came on June 29, 1857. He was one of the escort that met Governor Gumming at Fort
Bridger and accompanied him to Salt Lake City. In the move, the Speirs family went to
Mauti, returning north in the fall.
Their residence was in the Tenth Ward, of which David Pettigrew was then Bishop,
lo whom Elder Speirs became second counselor on the first day of April, 1857. He
served in that capacity until the death of Bishop Pettigrew, in December, 1805, after
which he was first counselor to Bishop John Proctor. After Bishop Proctor's death he
succeeded him, being set apart as Bishop of the Tenth Ward by President John Taylor,
June 20, 1877.
In the year 1870 Adam Speirs was elected justice of the peace for the First Pre-
cinct of Salt Lake City, and was continuously re-elected to that office up to the year 1886.
During three and a half years he acted as police justice. From 1870 to 1882 he was an
alderman, and sat in the city council. In the latter part of the "eighties" he was nomi-
nated on the People's ticket for the Legislature, but the redistricting of the Territory by
the Utah Commission, and the adding of Park City to the First Precinct, gave the election
HISTORY OF UTAH. 557
to the Liberal candidate. In national politics Mr. Speirs Las always been a pronounced
Democrat. He is also an ardent advocate of free schools. He is the father of six sons
and three daughters, and all but three of his children are living.
CHARLES COMSTOCK RICHARDS.
Q LAWYER of repute, a legislator of experience, and a political leader whose abil-
ities are recognized as of the first order, Hon. Charles C. Richards, ex-Secretary
of Utah Territory, is a man who excites interest, not only for what he lias accom-
plished but tor what he may accomplish before his career closes. While among the
leaders of his profession, he is still young, full of lofty ideals and far-reaching ambitions,
and inherits a full measure of the strength of will and tenacity of purpose for which his
ancestors have been noted.
He was born in Salt Lake City, September 10, 1859, and was the youngest of six
children, his parents being Franklin Dewey and Jane (Snyder) Richards. To a liberal
education he has added persistent and continuous study, realizing that there is no royal
road to success, and that advantages are worthless unless accompanied by unremitting
labor and care; so that Mr. Richards, while he has built up a fine practice, is still a stud-
ent, still a worker, still delving in the caves of knowledge, and adding treasures to his
store.
After his school term, he began working in Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institu-
tion, at Ogden, to which place his parents had removed while he was under ten years of
age; and in that establishment he remained until 1873. when he went to work under his
brother Franklin S., who was County Clerk and Recorder of Weber County, In August,
1881, he was elected County Recorder and in August. lv83. County Clerk. The former
office he held until he rescued it in 1884, and the latter, after being twice re-elected, he
resigned in May, 1888. The experience gained in these positions, during a service of
fifteen years, has been of great value to Mr. Richards in his eventful career.
He early developed the native tact and shrewdness so necessary to success in the
legal profession and in politics, and while acting as his brother'* deputy he studied law.
In June, 1884. after examination by a committee appointed for that purpose, he was
admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of the Territory of Utah. Two months later
he was elected Prosecuting Attorney for Weber County. To this office he was twice re-
elected, and then declined re nomination. In December, 1887, he was admitted to the
bar of the Supreme Court of the United States.
As a delegate from Weber County, he sat in the Constitutional Convention of 1887,
and in the fall of that year was elected to represent Weber County m the lower house of
the Legislature, serving in the session of 1888. Some of the best laws framed and en-
acted during that memorable session — when the Liberal element made its first leal show-
ing in Utah's legislative halls, and the Governor's absolute veto was still the dread of the
representatives of the people — owed their existence to the feitile mind, unflagging persis-
tency and shrewd diplomacy of Charles C. Richards. In the fall of 1890 he was elected
to the Council of the Legislative Assembly, and served in the session of 1890, being chair-
man of the Committee on Judiciary and of the Committee on Municipal Corporations and
Towns; also a member of the special committee that framed Utah's first free school law.
It was while he was serving his term in the House thai the law was passed establish-
ing the Territorial Reform School and the Agricultural College. In the face of opposition
that would have daunted most people, but only made him the more determined, he suc-
ceeded in getting the former institution located in Weber County, and later served as a
member of its Board of Trustees. He has taken an active part among the educators of
Utah, and for several years was a member of the Board of Regents for the Deseret Uni-
versity, now the University of Utah.
Mr. Richards early became a leader among Utah's practitioners at the bar. After
the passage of the Edmunds Law, there arose the noted mandamus suit brought by
James N. Kimball against Judge Franklin D. Richards, under the Hoar amendment to
558 HISTORY OF UTAH.
that law, involving the Probate Judgeship of Weber County. The plaintiff had been ap-
pointed to the office by Governor Murray, under the construction of the provisions of that
act, and it was resisted by the defendant. This became a test case, and had relation to
many of the officials in the Territory. The Governor's appointees were expecting to take
the offices, not by popular choice, but by virtue of their appointment under this extra-
legi>lative act, whereby every vestige of representative rule in Utah wou'd have disap-
peared and the situation might easily have assumed the proportions and characteristics of
a crisis. To oppose a statute of Congress was to furnish the Liberals with n.ore am-
munition for their campaign, unless it could be doue strictly within the prescribed rules
of legal procedure. The case was a delicate one to handle, but Franklin S. and Charles
C, two of Judge Richards' sons, managed the case so skillfully, that when the proceed-
ings were ended, the terms of office of the Governor's appointees had expired, and the
old incumbents were succeeded by persons duly elected by the people.
But it was during the crusade which raged during the greater part of that decade,
and in which a large and respectable element of the community were subjected to relent-
less prosecutions, imprisonment and fines, for refusing to abandon a feature of their faith,
that the subject of this article came most conspicuously into prominence. He was
attorney for that class of people within his district and for some outside of it. defending
them with untiring energy and unfailing zeal. He was in the harness continually, some-
times for days and nights without intermission. Numerous instances might be cited,
illustrative of the stress of this sore struggle and the indefatigable valor and skill with
which the hunted refugees were defended and vindicated by this sterling champion of
their rights. It is an epoch never to be forgotten or repeated, and out of it all no name
shines with more lustre than that of Charles C. Richards.
In the midst of it all, his political intuitions were not ignored, but merely held in
restraint until the proper time fcr their development and application should arrive.
Utah's conflicting political elements must be divided by the means prevailing elsewhere,
instead of religious differences as the line of demarcation. But he would not move in so
importaut a matter till the season had come and conditions were ripe; till the slow but
steadily moving hand of time had brought about such amelioration of the bitter strife,
that when the change began nothing could successfully oppose it. And even then, it
took acumen, matured judgment and executive capacity to properly effect the transforma-
tion.
The ranks of the People's (or Mormon) party contained not a few whose devotion
to the cause was great, and who regarded their political organization as a bulwark
against present aggression and threatened subjugation; while the Liberals (or Gentiles),
whose numbers had been steadily growing, and the consummation of whose purposes
seemed to be near at hand, were in many eases loth to give up the chase just as the goal
was in sight. At these times, Mr. Richards was exceedingly active. Much of his time
and attention were taken from business and patriotically bestowed upon the movement
having in view the abolition of existing conditions and the installation of better things
looking to statehood and independence. Not only did he engage diplomatically with
leading Geutile Democrats at home, but placed himself in communication with some of
the great leaders of the Democratic party in the nation. He raised sufficient money and
brought the necessary influence to bear to have such men as Chauncey F. Black, Lawrence
Gardner and William L. Wilson, respectively president, secretary and chairman of the
National Association of Democratic Clubs: U. S. Senator Charles J. Faulkner, of West
Virginia; and William D. Bynum. member of Congress from Indiana, come here and by
word of mouth and personal influence add weight to the movement. Mr. Richards
labored assiduously with the local leaders, those who were most progressive and least
stubborn, gaining point by point, one concession after another, till at last the way was
cleared and the craft successfully launched.
During February and the entire spring of 1891, when the new division movement
was inaugurated, he took an active part in organizing the Democratic party in Utah.
With other prominent local Democrats, he spent the month of February. 1892, at Wash-
ington, D. C, working with Senators and Congressmen, explaining the changed con-
ditions in Utah, and making arguments before the Senate and House committees on Ter-
ritories in favor of local self-government and statehood. He urged them to pass what is
known as the Home Rule bill, knowing that as soon as they decided to pass that meas-
ure, they would substitute an Enabling Act, and Utah would thus become a state.
At the Democratic State Convention held in Ogden, in May, 1892, Mr. Richards
was elected chairman of the Democratic State Committee, and as such he did splendid ser-
vice with the National Committee and the delegates to the National Convention at Chi-
HISTORY OF UTAH. 559
eago, in favor of seating the regular Democratic delegates, Messrs Caine and Henderson,
and excluding the Tuscarora delegates. He sent to each member of the committee and
to each delegate, numbering nearly one thousand, a personal letter and a printed circu-
lar, setting forth the case. He won gloriously, giving evidence in this important contest
of his rare abilities as apolitical leader. As much may be said of his successful con-
duct of the fall campaign of 1S92, when Joseph L. Rawlins was elected over Frank J.
Cannon, Delegate to Congress. During the summer preceding this election, Mr.
Richards was appointed by Governor Cbauncey F. Black, president of the National As-
sociation of Democratic Clubs, a member of the executive committee of that association,
representing Utah. Nevada. Idaho, Wyoming and Colorado, which position he still
holds.
His nest important appointment was as Secretary of the Territory of Utah, an ap-
pointment made by President Grover Cleveland, May 6, 1893, and promptly confirmed
by the Senate when it met in the following December. This was the first time a Mormon
had been appointed to any important Federal position in Utah for nearly forty years.
He received the endorsement of such great Democrats as Hon. J. Sterling Morton, Sec-
retary of Agriculture: United States Senators Gorman and Faulkner, Congressmen Wil-
son and Bynum, Governor Black, and many others. His personal acquaintance with
President Cleveland, who knew of and appreciated his splendid work for the Democratic
party in Utah and adjoining states, had much to do with his appointment. It was not
only a high compliment to Mr. Richards, but through him the undoubted and unequivocal
expression of confidence in the people of whom he was the representative, expressed by
the representative of all the people of the United States. To say that the trust was
faithfully kept, that the class of which he was a type were gratified, not only with the
appointment, but with the appointee and his method of discharging the duties of his high
and responsible station, would be to recite history. Mr. Richards was an efficient and
obliging secretary, and magnified his office to the satisfaction of all concerned.
After the passage of the Enabling Act, it fell to him, as Acting Governor, to issue
the proclamation calling an election of delegates to a convention to form a constitu-
tion for the proposed State of Utah. This election was held in the fall of 1894. and the
Constitutional Convention met in the March following. He continued to serve as Secre-
tary and Acting Governor uutil relieved by the admission of the State. January 4, 1896.
Two days later he rode with Governor-elect Heber M. Wells, in the inaugural parade,
and presided at the ceremonies in the Tabernacle, whereas Acting Governor he delivered
over the executive offices to the Governor of the new State.
Mr. Richards has always been a Democrat, though under the old regime a member of
the People's Party; and has ever been interested and active in politics. He is now de-
voting himself strictly to his profession.
In business circles he has occupied a prominent place at Ogden, his enterprise and
push having been the means of adding much to the metropolitan characteristics of that
growing city. It was through his efforts and investments that the largest, most com-
modious and most modern business block in the State at the time of its erection— the
Utah Loan and Trust Building — was conceived, engineered, and brought to a successful
finish; although the enterprise being ahead of its time and in advance of the requirements
of the town, when the boom burst, he lost more money than he made; but no one com-
plains of this less than himself.
Mr Richards' married life dates from December IS, 1S77, when he wedded Miss
Louisa Letitia Peery, daughter of Hon. David H. Peery, ex-President of Weber Stake,
and one of Utah's prominent capitalists and business men. They are the parents
of six sons and two daughters, one of the latter being dead. The eldest son, Charles C,
Jr., has filled an honorable mission to Germany. In his Church Mr. Richards holds the
office of a Seventy, to which he was ordained in January. 1S84.
Personally, he is tall and well built, his countenance being decidedly of the intellec-
tual type and altogether comely. He is somewhat reserved in demeanor, does not seek
publicity or court applause, and is a fluent and forceful speaker, rising at times to stir-
ring eloquence. With great executive ability and a natural aptitude for legislation, it
will not be surprising if he is found in the councils of the government in the not distant
future.
RICHARD WHITEHEAD YOUNG.
/■VN AJOR RICHARD W. YOUNG was born in the historic Bee Hive House, Salt Lake
1 ? I City, on the 19th of April, 1838. He is the son of Joseph Angell Young, eldest
■^ son of President Brigha.ni Young aDd of Margaret Whitehead, daughter of Richard
Whitehead, formerly of Blackburn. Lancashire, England. Major Young's mother
was born at Blackburn, and emigrated to Utah in the fall of 1856. At the time of her son's
birth the city of Salt Lake was almost deserted, the people having gone south in the great
"Move" caused by the approach of Johnston's army.
He attended various private schools until thirteen years of age, at which lime he be-
gan working for the Utah Central Railroad, in the freight office at Salt Lake City. He
was then employed as collector, bill-clerk, and afterwards as telegraph operator during a
period of eighteen months. He afterwards attended the Deseret University for two years,
where he was a classmate, among o'hers, of Heber M. Wells, Utah's present Governor,
Joseph T. Kingsbury, now President of the University of Utah, and Professor Toronto
of the same institution. During the winter of 18713-4 he taught in the district school at
Richfield. Sevier County, and in 1875-G was principal of the high school at Manti, San-
pete County.
In tlie summer of 1875 he received the appointment from Delegate George Q. Can-
non as cadet to the United States Military Academy at West Point, but was prevented
from going East by the death of his father in August of that year. President Brigham
Young shortly after took cnarge of his education, and in order to give him a substantial
foundation for the profession of architecture, which he desired him to follow, placed him
as an apprentice in the carpenter shop on Temple Block. This apprenticeship lasted dur-
ing parts of 1S7G and 1877. In the fall of the latter year he accepted an appointment as
station agent and incidentally as telegraph operator of the Utah and Northern Railway at
Ogden, Utah. During this service, the general passenger and freight agent of the road
having quit its employment, he was assured the vacancy at an early date, this appoint-
ment resulting largely from the fact of his having figured out for the road a new freight
classification and tariff, which upon submission to the management was adopted almost
without change.
In the spring of 1878 the cadetship was again offered him, and at first declined owing
to his fine prospects in the railway field. Before the appointment of another cadet,
however, the Union Pacific Company acquired possession of the Utah and Northern, and
Richard, helieving that his chances for promotion in the larger company would be slight,
hastened to acquaint Delegate Caunou of his desire to go to West Point. The appoint-
ment was made. His final preparations for the examination were under Dr. John R.
Park, President of the University of Deseret, at the Military Academy on the 12th of
June, 1878. He was successful in passing the entrance examinations.
The classes at the academy are always arranged at beginning according to the alpha-
betical order of their surnames. This brought Mr. Young at the bottom of the class,
which at that time numbered one hundred and twenty-eight members. At the end of the
first year his class standing was forty-three; at the end of the second year twenty-eight;
at the end of the third nineteen; and at the end of the fourth, at graduation, fifteen. He
spent his four years in D. Company of the Corps of Cadets, of which he was successively
a Corporal, First Sergeant and Captain; and at the time of holding the latter position was
the second cadet in military rank at the Academy. During the earlier period of cadetship
he had but one roommate, John H. Beacom, of Ohio, appointed to West Point by Major
McKidey. During the four years he visited home but once — in the summer of 1880.
Upon graduating in 1882, he chose the artillery, and was made additional Second
Lieutenant to the Third U. S. Artillery, but while absent on his graduating leave and
before being required to join his regiment he was transferred to the Fifth U. S. Artillery
as Second Lieutenant. This took him to Governor's Island, New York City, where he re-
mained for four years.
On the oth of September, 1882, he married Miss Minerva Richards, third daughter of
Henry P. and Minerva Empey Richards, by whom he has had eight children, seven of whom
HISTORY OF UTAH. 561
are now alive; two of these were born at Governor's Island, one at Fort Douglas, and
the others at Salt Lake City. Mr. and Mrs. Young are a very congenial and happy couple.
In the fall of 1882, upon joining his post, he became a member of the beginning
clsss at the Law School of Columbia College, New York City, where, in 1884, lie graduated
with the degree of Bachelor of Laws, lie was one of the very firsl officers of the army to
take a college law course, a fact which brought him into prominence as an army lawyer
and resulted in his being detailed on various occasions as Judge Advocate of courts de-
tailed to try army officers. He was assigned to assist Judge Advocate Gardiner, ex-
District Attorney of New York City, and Jeff Chandler in the prosecution of General
Swain; and in 18S."> was appointed by the Secretary of war, Robert T. Lincoln, to the
rank and position of Captain and Acting Judge Advocate of the Department of the East.
This brought Lieutenant Young to the staff of General Winfield Scott Hancock (with
whom he was brought in daily contact, until the death of the latter in 1880) and there-
after for several months to the staff of General John .M Schofield. During his service at
Governor's Island Lieutenant Young also served for a time as Post Adjutant at Fort Col-
umbus, the military station of the Island.
At the suggestion of General Hancock, and at the express request of the publication
committee of the Military Service Institution, Lieutenant Young wrote a work on the
"Legal and Military Considerations affecting the employment of the Military to the Sup-
pression of Mobs," including an article on Martial law. Of this work Major General
John B. Fry, who was Provost Marshal General during the Civil War, said it was the best
and mi>st authoritative work on the subject extant; and Commander Mullan, U. S. Navy,
who had charge of our fleet in Samoa at the time of a local disturbance during which there
arose a controversy with the German fleet captain respecting the limitations of martial
law, wrote Lieutenant Young that his work was the most serviceable of a number on the
same subject which he had. at hand, and that it had conclusively determined a number of
the questions in dispute.
In the fall of 1880 the Lieutenant was ordered to duty with a light battery stationed
at Fort Hamilton, New York Harbor. One of his classmates having at the same time
been assigned to the other light battery, at that time stationed at Fort Douglas, Utah, the
two officers effected a transfer, and Lieutenant Young was appointed by General Sheri-
dan to the battery here at Fort Douglas. This met with severe criticism from the Salt
Lake Tribune, which asserted that it was little short of a crime to send a Mormon officer
to form part of the garrison of Salt Lake City. The commanding general of the army
could not be induced, however, to take this narrow view, and declined to change the
order. A further proof of the narrow prejudice which then characterized the local situ-
ation is found iu the fact that upon Lieutenant Young's application for admission to the
bar of the Supreme Court of Utah in 18S7, the request was refused by the court, notwith-
standing the fact that the applicant held a certificate of admission dated 1884 to practice
in all the courts of New York State. The Utah court required in the face of all precedent,
that he first be subjected to an examination.
Lieutenant Young resigned from the army in the fall of 1888, his resignation taking
effect April 12, 1889, until which time he was granted a leave of absence. He immedi-
ately entered upon the practice of law at Salt Lake City, a second application for admis-
sion to the bar having been granted without condition or requirement. With the excep-
tion of a period of two years between April, 1S94, and April, 1896, when he was manager
of the Salt Lake Herald, he remained iu the practice of his profession, until volunteering
for the Spanish- American war in May, 1898. During this time he was attorney for the
Salt Lake and Los Angeles Railroad Company, the Brigham Young Trust Company, the
Utah Sugar Company, the Home Fire Insurance Company, the State Bank of Utah, the
Co-operative Wagon and Machine Company, etc., etc., and was associate counsel for the
Mormon Church and assistant attorney of Salt Lake City. At the first State election he
was one of the three candidates for the Supreme Court on the Democratic ticket, but
alonar with his associates and the entire State Democratic ticket was defeated.
He was elected to the city council of Salt Lake City in February, 1890, but certifi-
cates of election were issued to the opponents of himself and associates. on the view that
the councilmen were elected by the entire vote of the city and not iu municipal wards.
After a judicial contest lasting seventeen months, the Supreme Court held that each ward
elected its own councilmen, and Mr. Young and his tellow People's party candidates from
the Third and Fourth Municipal Wards were seated.
In September of 1S90, he was a candidate for the Board of Education, just created by
statute, P. L. Williams being his opponent. The result of the election showed an appar-
ent vote of three hundred and thirty for Mr, Young and three hundred and thirty-one for
562 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Mr. Williams. Mr. Young alleged that frauds had been perpetrated at the polls, by
which the popular will had been reversed. Mr. Williams believed the same, and made
but a perfunctory defense to the contest tiled by the former. The case was thoroughly
sifted before Jadge Zane, who as a conclusion declared Mr. Young to have been elected;
the grand jury was called in and a special charge given, calling their attention to the
frauds. The suspected judge of election was indicted, but was acquitted by a jury of poli-
tical confreres. Mr. Young was re-elected to the Board of Education in 1892 for a fur-
ther term of two years, and again in the fall of 1897 for one year. In 1892-94 he was
chosen its Vice-President. The Board was first created in 1890. and so Mr. Young's
service extended over the period of formation, during which the smaller districts of Salt
Lake City were combined, new buildings erected, and the new order of things successfully
inaugurated.
In 1895 Governor West appointed Mr. Young Brigadier General of the National
Guard of Utah, at that time just organized under the provisions of the new militia law.
Governor Wells tendered him a reappointment in 1S90, but the offer was declined, the
demands of his profession being such as to prevent, in his judgment, a proper attention
to the duties of the position.
Under the law of 1896 authorizing: the Governor to appoint a commission of three to
revise and annotate the statutes of Utah, Mr. Young was named as one of the commis-
sioners, and was elected chairman by his associates, Messrs Grant H. Smith and William
A. Lee. The revision was completed and submitted to the Legislature of 1897. It was
passed substantially as prepared, and the commission was continued in office until Novem-
ber 1, 1897, for the purpose of completing the work for publication, by the preparation
of indexes, annotations, cross-references, etc., and to supervise the printing. The com-
pleteness and accuracy of the work reflected great credit upon the commissioners.
Upon the outbreak of the war with Spain in 1898, Mr. Young offered his services to
the Governor, as he felt in duty bound, being a graduate of West Point. The War De-
partment called on the Governor to furnish, among other troops, two batteries of light
artillery, but declined to authorize a battalion organization. This rendered it impossible
for the Governor to name Captain Young as Major for the batteries, as he desired. He
was named the senior Captain, however, and assigned to the command of Battery "A;"
F. A. Grant being appointed Captain of Battery "B.v Each battery, on being mustered
in on the 9th of May, numbered one hundred and twenty-one officers and men, but this
number was soon after increased by recruiting to an aggregate of one hundred and
seventy-three. On July 14, 1898, a third batterv was mustered in under the command
of Captain Prank W. Jennings; this organization, however, got no closer to the seat of
war than San Francisco harbor, where it remained on garrison duty until late in 1898,
when it was mustered out.
The other two batteries, under command of Captain Young, left for San Francisco on
the 20th of May, 1898. and remained in Camp Merritt. under drill and instructions until
the 15th of June, when they embarked for the Philippine Islands, on the second expedi-
tion commanded by General Francis V. Greene. Battery "A" was on the "Colon,"' while
battery "B" was divided between the "China" and the "Zealandia." Upon arriving at
Manila, July 17. the batteries were immediately disembarked on the shore of the bay at
Camp Dewey, just south of the city. The Spanish army was then cooped up in Manila,
almost encircled by the Insurrectionist forces under Aguinaldo. On the 29th of July
Captain Young moved up a platoon of his battery to a line of the insurgent trenches, a
part of battery 'B'' following on the 31st. These guns were of great service in the skirm-
ishes with the Spaniards on the 31st of July and during the early days of August. On
the 13th of that month all the guns of the two battalions were in position, under their re-
spective captains, and joined with the Navy under Admiral Dewey in the bombardment
of the defenses of Manila, which resulted in the capture of that city and its garrison of
about fourteen thousand men. Soon after this the battalions were again organized into a
provisional battalion, under the command of Captain Young, as they had been at Camp
Merritt, San Francisco.
During: the period of comparative quiet which resulted, Captain Young was appointed
Superior Provost Judge of Manila, and performed the duties of this office in addition to
those of Battalion Commander. As Provost Judge he had cognizance of all giaver
crimes and offenses committed by other than American soldiers within the city of Manila.
In November he was mustered in as Major of the Battalion, his commission dating back
by express order of the War Department, to July 14, the date of the muster in of Cap-
tain Jennings' battery. Upon the organization of the Eighth Army Corps into two divi-
sions, the Utah battalion was assigned to the Second, McArthur's division, and Major
HISTORY OF UTAH. 563
Young became Chief of Artillery of the same, remaining as such until tbe 7th of June-
1899. In September and October, Captain Young, in company with Captain Grant, and
the Iatter's son, visited various ports of Japan and China, on leave of absence.
In anticipation of hostilities with the Filipinos, Major Young, under direction of
General McAri bur. made full dispositions for the use of the divisional artillery in the
event of a sudden outbreak. When that outbreak occurred on the 4th of February, Gen-
eral McArthur's message to the Major was to carry out the pre-arranged plau. Accord-
ingly Lieutenant Webb's two guns at Santa Mesa were pulled into position on McLeod
Hill: Captain Wedgewood, with two guns, hurried to San Paloe cemetery; Captaiu Grant
and Lieutenant Critchlow, with three guns, hastened to the San Lazaro Road; one gun
being kept in reserve at the Bilibid prison, under Sergeant Hines; and Lieutenant Sea-
man with one gun, afterwards reinforced by a second brought up by Major Young in
person, was dispatched to the Calooean road to assist the Kansas regiment under
Funston.
Throughout the night and all during the 5th and 6th the battle raged, the Utah artil-
lery being everywhere effective and winning the unstinted praise of the regiments of the
division. The batteries assisted in the capture of the pumping station at Santolan and
played a chief part in the attack on Calooean. Captaiu Grant was detached February 17,
to the command of the gun boat "Lagunade Bay,'' and remained absent from the Battalion
in command of that vessel and others of a small fleet, until June 7, 1899. Major Young
commanded the divisional artillery — consisting of batteries A and B Light Artillery,
Fleming's platoon of Dyer's battery of the 6th U. S. Artillery, Davis' detachment of mar-
ines with a Colt's automatic gun, and a detachment of Regulars from the 6th Artillery
and 14th Infantry, with the armored train — throughout thecampaign, which ended at San
Fernando. He was constantly in the field until ordered to report for duty on the Supreme
Court in the early part of June, and was present in nearly thirty engagements, in which
cannon fire was employed, besides having been repeatedly under fire ou various other
occasions. He has been recommended by Generals McArthur, Anderson and Otis for
the brevet of brigadier-general.
Upon the organization of the Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands, Major Young
was appointed by General Otis as one of the three American members of the court, which
in addition contained six natives of the Islands. General Otis having declined to permit
the Major to return home with the battalion until the court should be fully organized, he
requested to be mustered out in order that promotions might be made among other mem-
bers of the command. Authority for this was obtained from Washington, and on the
28th of June be was mustered out. The next day Captain Grant was mustered in as
Major. The battalion sailed for San Francisco on the 1st of July, Major Young following
on the 17th of the month on a leave of abseuee granted him by General Otis, to enable
him to join his family and determine his future course.
He decided to return and in tbe fall of 1899 again left Utah, accompanied by Mrs,
Young anil his three oldest children, to resume his judicial duties at Manila. He remained
there until June, 1901, serving as associate justice, and as president of the criminal
branch of the Supreme Court. During this service Judge Young assisted in the prepara-
tion of a code for the government of the municipalities of the Islands, and prepared the
code of criminal procedure still in force in all the courts of the archipelago. The last
mentioned code is notable in being the first extension to the Philippines of many of those
personal rights, such as the habeas corpus, confrontation by witnesses, etc., deemed by
the Anglo-Saxon race to be fundamental. It is interesting that the first writ of habeas
corpus issued in the Philippine Islands bore the signature of Judge Young.
Upon his return to Utah, in July, 1901, the subject of our sketch returned to the
practice of law and has now rebuilt a lucrative and active practice, numbering among his
regular clientage some of the heaviest financial interests in the state. In the fall of 1902,
he was nominated by acclamation by the Democratic party as a justice of the Supreme
Court of Utah, but though he ran ahead of his ticket, he was defeated.
In the summer of 1902, he was named by President Roosevelt as a member of the
Board of Visitors to the United States Military Academy at West Point, the occasion be-
ing the centennial anniversary of the founding of the institution. General E. S. Otis, to
whom Major Young communicated his desire for the appointment last named, addressed
a letter for submission to the President iu which he said: ''For his exceptional war ser-
vice in the Philippines; for his labors as judicial officer; for the aid he furnished me in
establishing a code of practice and in preparing order.- amendatory of Spanish law and
legal customs, I could recommend Major Young for almost anything, and unqualifiedly
recommend him for the appointment" sought. A board consisting of Generals Wheaton,
564 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Bates and Funston unanimously recommended Major Young for the brevets of Lienten-
ant-Coloni'l, Colonel, and Brigadier-General. The Major asserts that these honors were
not personal, but rather in recognition of the record made by the splendid organization
which lie had the honor to command. President Roosevelt subsequently nominated the
Major to the Senate for the two brevets first mentioned, but neither these nor any others
resulting from the Spanish-American War have at this date been confirmed.
Major Young is an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
and has occupied positions of prominence in the Mutual Improvement and Sunday School
organizations. He is an able speaker and writer, ami possesses as the complement to a
superior mind, an exceptionally fine physique. He is a strictly temperate honor-
able, upright man, broad-minded and of liberal views. Public-spirited and patriotic,
a true American, loyal to the heart's core, he loves his native Utah and all that per-
tains to her welfare and glory. As a lawyer no less than as a soldier, he stands in the
front rank of his profession.
JAMES HENRY MOYLE,
*£\ATIVE to Utah, and prominent in the legal profession, Hon. James H. Moyle has
W~i£, shown in his life aims and achievements the possibilities lying within the reach of
* *— ' educated talent, persistent effort, honorable purpose and unremitting industry. The
son of James Moyle and his wife Elizabeth Wood, he was horn at Salt Lake City on
the 17th of September, 1858. His father — whose biography appears in this volume —
was of English birth, and for many years a leading builder and contractor in Utah,
where he took up his residence some four years before James was born. His mother was
the youngest child of the first wife of Daniel Wood, who gave his name to Wood's Cross,
a railroad station teu miles north of Salt Lake City. She was born a Latter-day Saint
in Illinois, and came west in the general exodus with her parents, arriving in Salt Lake
Valley soon after the Pioneers. Her mother, Mary Snyder Wood, a woman of noble
character, was of a wealthy and prominent family that moved from New York State into
Canada, where she alone of her family was converted to Mormonism. Her father's an-
cestors w^ere well-to-do New York farmers, and he as well as his wife made many sacri-
fices in yielding to their religious convictions and following the fortunes of the Mormon
people.
James H. Moyle, in his early boyhood, wotked with his father at stone-cutting and
masonry, attending at the same time, whenever possible, the district school of the Fif-
teenth Ward, in which he was born. His father, while careful to teach him a trade, was also
exceedingly anxious about his education, and gave him every advantage that time, place
and limited means could afford. After leaving the district school he attended the Uni-
versity of Deseret, where he was graduated in 1S79. He was a normal studeut of that
institution, but never taught school. He worked at his trade five summers in all, and
even while at the University put in many a Friday afternoon and Saturday cutting stone
and doing the work of a mason. After gradual iug he went on a mission, leaving home
on the first of July, 187!), and laboring while ab-ent in North Carolina, over which con-
ference he presided for about two years. Shortly after his return home, in November,
1881, he again entered the University for the remainder of the school year.
Before going upon his mission he was active in religious work, presiding over the
Ward Mutual Improvement Association, and serving as secretary and assistant superin-
tendent of the Sunday School. He was an Elder at sixteen, a Seventy at seventeen and
a missionary at twenty. Among his later ecclesiastical labors are those of a home mis-
sionary.
While a boy of about fourteen he determined to become a lawyer, and from that time
made it his great ambition; though he confided his cherished design only to his father
and to two or three intimate friends. His opportunity came in September, ISS'2, when
at Ann Arbor he entered the school of political science, a brauch of the literary depart-
ment of the University of Michigan, continuing his studies there for three years. Dur-
ing the last two years he also took the course in the law department, and was graduated
from it in June, 1885.
Upon his return home in the summer of that year, he entered the law office of Frank-
lin S. Richards, and in the fall became assistant City and County Attorney. The next
HISTORY OF UTAH. 565
year he was himself elected Comity Attorney, and was re-elected in 1S8S. during: which
year he was a member of the legislature, and chairman of the committee on education.
This legislature established the Agricultural College, Reform School, School for the
Deaf and Dumb, aud doubled the appropriation for the Normal Department of the Uni-
versity of Deseret. at the same time largely increasing the general appropriation for the
last named institution. The trustees of the Reform School, upon its organization and
before erecting buildings, sent a committee of three through the Eastern States to inves-
tigate reform schools. Mr. Moyle was chairman of that committee, and upon its report
our reform school was established. He was a trustee of the school for six years, and du-
ring the last two years President of the Board. From 1S88 to IS'J'2 he was a director of
the Deseret Agricultural and Manufacturing Society.
In polities Mr Moyle is a Democrat, and one of the recognized leaders of his party in
Utah. He thus declares some of his civic principles: "I believe it to lie one of the high-
est and most important duties of an American citizen to attend political primaries and
conventions. Persons who will not attend such main spriugs of political life and public
service, because they will have to associate with the low aud vicious, deserve to lie de-
nied the right to meet the same class at the polls, for their neglect of duty is as blame-
able as the work of the class they detest, and which they should do all in their power to
counteract. They encourage the vicious in politics by giving them their own way. I
have attended primaries ever since I was seventeen years old, both from a sense of duty
and from taste. When at Ann Arbor in 1S84, I attended every session of the National
Convention at Chicago, which nominated Cleveland for President. I have attended every
State Convention and every Salt Lake County Convention held since the organization of
the Democratic party in Utah." Mr. Moyle might have added that he sometimes pre-
sided over such conventions.
Prior to becoming an active Democrat he was a member of the People's party.
and one of the City Committee which conducted the memorable and fateful cam-
paign of 1S90. He was also one of the Territorial Central Committee which dis-
banded the People's party. As Chairman of the Democratic State Committee,
he successfully conducted the State Campaign in 1808. aud the special election in the
spring of 1900. In the Senatorial campaign of 1S99, at the last hour of the legisla-
tive session, he was made the final nominee of the Democratic caucus, whose
members were largely in the majority in the Joint Assembly: but it was found imposs-
ible to elect any one, owing to serious divisions among the followers of the various candi-
dates. In 1900 he was a candidate for Governor, but the State went Republican, his op*
ponent. Governor Wells, being elected the second time. .
Mr. Moyle has been a married man since November 17. 1S87. His wife was Miss
Alice Evelyn Dinwoodey. qf Salt Lake City. Mr. and Mrs. M >yle have had seven chil-
dren, all living but one. He naturally takes a great interest in business and finance, and
for years has been extensively interested in mining and in the live stock industry. He is
a director of the Consolidated Wagon and Machine Company, also of the Utah Commer-
cial and Savings Bank and various other companies, including the Deseret Live Stock
Company, the largest live stock raising concern in the State. He has always had an in-
tense desire for books and travel, and has indulged his tastes in both directions. With
one or two exceptions, he probably owns the largest private law library in Salt Lake
City, as also one of the largest home libraries. He was a member of the law firm of
Richards and Moyle for several years, and later of the firm of Moyle, Zane and Costigan.
He has no partner at present, but is one of the busiest as he is one of the best lawyers
in his native town.
CLESSON SELWYNE KINNEY.
•"^LESSON S. KINXEV. attorney and author, was born in Huron County. Ohio, in
l€y 1859. He is the eldest son of Edwin and Elizabeth Kinney, and traces his
^■^ ancestry back to the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers. His early education was
obtained from the district schools of his native county, where his father's farm
lay, and his preparatory work was done al Oberlin College, in the same state. Most of
the money necessary to defray the college expenses was earned by him during the long
56G HISTORY OF UTAH.
vacations, and between 1877 and 18S1, while for a period of four years he was in the
service of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad Company.
He was graduated from the University of Michigan with the degree A. B., in 1887.
and in the fall of that year was appointed teacher of English and mathematics in the
high school at Leavenworth, Kansas, where he continued his law studies in the office of
Messrs. Porterand Hunter. In the following April he was admitted to the bar of that
state. At the close of the school year he resigned his position in the high school, and in
July, 1888, settled at Salt Lake City, where he has since resided, in the active practice of
his profession.
Immediately upon settling in the west Mr. Kinney, in connection with his legal prac-
tice, began a systematic study of the law of irrigation and water rights, as applied in the
arid region. At that time the only law to be found upon the subject was in the statutes
and in the scattered decisions of the courts of the Western States and Territories. Mr.
Kinney's ideas upon the subject were finally crystallized in book form, when his splendid
work, "Kinney on Irrigation,' was published by W. H. Loudertuilk. of Washington, D.
C, in 1804. Looking only to the legal phase of the question, and including the law of
water rights, aud the doctrine of appropriation of waters, as the same are construed and
applied in the States and Territories of the arid and semi-arid regions of the country,
this work has become a standard, aud is cited as an authority in all the courts of the
West, and also in the United States Supreme, circuit and district courts.
Mr. Kinney states explicitly in his work how water rights may be acquired, preserved
and lost. Most lucidly is the law explaiued in its origin and in all its stages of develop-
ment. Every part of the work is thorough and accurate. Judge Thomas M. Cooley,
chairman of the Inter-state Commerce Commission, and one of the most eminent jurists,
says of it: "I am gratified to find it has been carefully prepared, and is worthy of high
commendation.'' In the very first chapter of the book, under the sub-head "Value of
Irrigation to Modern Civilization." in the section in which he speaks of the first irrigation
in the United States, Mr. Kinney says: "There is no question but that modern irriga-
tion as known in the arid region of the United States by white English-speaking peo-
ple, was begun by the Mormon pioneers in 1847. They by force of circumstances had
been led to make their homes in the very midst of the great arid West " Following this,
he quotes largely from the speech of President Wilt'ord Woodruff before the Irrigation
Congress held at Salt Lake City in September, 1891, the closing remark of which is:
"We have had to learn by experience, and all that we have obtained in these mountains
has been by irrigation." And Mr. Kinney hasthis to say:' From that time on (July. 1847,)
the Mormons realized that they could succeed only by building ditches and diverting the
streams of water from their natural channels upon their arid lands. As time pr >gressert
their work became more and more systematized and better methods were obtained. Their
policy caused them to spread out and colonize, and for more than forty years their settle-
ments have extended for hundreds of miles from the central point at Salt Lake City."
In speaking of the size of irrigated farms in Utah, he adds: "It will be noticed that the
average size of irrigated farms (twenty-seven acres) is very small. In fact, it is the
smallest of any State or Territory of the arid region. This shows that irrigation in
this Territory has been systematized aud a high grade of cultivation attained."
Upon the historical, economic and legal phases of irrigation, Mr. Kinney has written
a great many magaziue articles. In Septe-nbei, 189.3, he delivered before the Irrigation
Congress held at Albuquerque, New Mexico, an address upon the subject of the constitu-
tionality of the California Irrigation law, known as the Wright law; holding the same to be
constitutional. In closing his address, iie said: "I will now attempt to predict how the
Supreme Court will decide the question. If that court affirms the decision of Judge Ross,
it certainly will reverse itself in what it considered to be the law in the Hager case. With
all respect to Judge Ross, whose opinions are monuments of strength, not only in the juris-
diction where he presides, but also in the whole country, I am constrained to believe
that in this case he erred in judgment, and that the Supreme Court of the United States
will so decide." A little over a year later, the Supreme Court did so decide, and in
much the same language used by Mr. Kinney in presenting his views before the Irriga-
tion Congress.
In 1903 he finished the compilation, and published at his own expense an Index
Digest of the first twenty-five volumes of the Reports of the Supreme Court of Utah.
Several attempts had been made by others to compile a digest of these Reports, but
owing to the fact that Utah is comparatively a small State, and also to the amount of
work required in this compilation, and the large expense attendant thereto, the work
stopped before it was completed. In preface: "The compiler offers no apology for sub-
. ..
HISTORY OF UTAH. 567
mitting this work to the profession, already overburdened with law books. This is the
first digest of the Utah Reports published, and that it is needed was apparent. A great deal
of labor and pains have been expended to make the work as ( plete as possible; and,
while it is too much to expect that no error can be found therein, it is hoped that it will
result iti lightening the labors of those who use our Reports. Should the work accom-
plish this, it will compensate in a large measure for the time and toil expended upon it."
Mr. Kinney is a man of very positive character and of great mental strength. He
believes firmly that labor is the only key to opportunity. It is not chance but industry
that avails. Temporary setbacks have been counted as naught by him. He has faith in his
own destiny, and is not a man to doubt or waver, to be intimidated or coerced, or to ever
spare himself when hard work is to be done.
The first of December, 1880, was Mr. Kinney's wedding day. He married Miss An-
toinette Brown, of Chicago, a lady who was graduated in the same class with himself at
the University of Michigan. Mrs. Kinney is descended from and connected with some of
the oldest New England families. One of her ancestors settled in Connecticut in 1615, and
nearer at hand are the four great-grandfathers, who fought in the American Revolution.
Not a generation since, but some member of the family has left his impress upon the his-
tory of the country. Mrs. Kinney is one of the busiest and most industrious of women.
Interested in literary work, she has been a great help to her husband in that line. Of
their union, one child has been born, Selwyne Perez Kinney, October 15, 1890. On both
sides of this family there is good stock all along the line — clear-headed, frugal, industri-
ous, with mental horizon well developed.
Mr. Kinney has shown his faith in Utah by his constant investments in realty at
Salt Lake City and in other parts. He is also a firm believer in the State's mineral
wealth, holding that nowhere else in the civilized world are there such vast treasure
stores as right here in our own valleys and mountains. A Republican in politics, he is not
ablind partisan, but stands for good government and every needed reform. He was one of
the organizers and charter members of the University Club, and is also a member of the
Alta Club. He is connected with the Utah State Historical Society, and is secretary of
the State Bar Association. At this time (1904) he is the head of a legal firm, having as a
partner Mr. Soren X. Christensen, one of our able criminal lawyers. The Kinneys have
a pleasant home in the eastern part of the city — a home always open to their friends.
S. A. KENNER.
/T)| PROTEGE of the late Judge Sutherland, Mr. Kenner has been a legal practi-
II tioner since the year 1877, when he was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court
^"""^ of the Territory of Utah. Up to that time his was the only application of its kind
first passed upon by the highest tribunal, and afterwards by the lower tribunals of
the commonwealth. Of versatile gifts, he has succeeded not only as a lawyer, but as
a journalist, in which lines he has had a wide and varied experience in these parts. He
is the author of several books, all showing literary merit, and is a natural humorist,
possessing much of the gift and considerable of the personal appearance of that king of
American humorists, Mark Twain. He has held various civic offices, from justice of the
peace up to member of the legislature, and is as much at home in politics as a fish in
water. His tongue is as fluent as his pen; he is witty and eloquent in argument, and on
all occasions a ready and a fearless debater. Coinage is one of his personal traits.
Scipio Africanus Kenner — such was the warlike name bestowed upon him some years
before he had reached the age of consent — was born near the middle of the last century,
in St. Francisville, Missouri. His ancestors were Virginians, but his parents natives of
Kentucky. The family was Southern in its tastes and sympathies, and the father, the
late Foster R. Kenner, at the outbreak of the Civil War was intent upon raising a regi-
ment for the Confederate army. He was only dissuaded from his purpose by the plead-
ings of his mother, a devout and zealous Latter-day Saint, and his own convictions of
the truth of Mormonism, whose founder, Joseph Smith, had prophesied of the great con-
flict then pending. His wife, whose maiden name was Sarah Catherine Kirk wood, was
a blood relation of the noted Confederate raider John Morgan and other distinguished
568 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Southerners. From his fourth year up to the time of the family's removal West,
Scipio was sent to school, and after his arrival at Salt Lake City continued his education
as best he could, in those primitive, non-scholastic times.
His first regular employment in Utah was as an apprentice in the "Deseret News"
establishment, where he served out his time and became a journeyman printer. At
different periods since then he has served in almost every position in the establishment,
including the editorial chair. He was baptized into the Latter-day Church in 1804,
by Elder Lyman 0. Littlefield. Pond of the drama, with other youths of his acquaintance
he early took to the local stage, and while thus connected was associated with the lady
who beame his wife and the mother of his nine children — Miss Isabel Park, daughter of
Hamilton G. Park, of Salt Lake City. They were married in 1871.
While in the East he had acquired some insight into telegraphy, and being apt and
quick to learn, in Utah he completed the mastery of that art and became a skilled
manipulator of the electric keys. Upon the completion of the Deseret Telegraph line he
was stationed as operator at Beaver, and afterwards served at Pioche and in Salt Lake
City. Subsequently he' edited the "Provo Times" and other country papers — all outside
of Salt Lake City being "country" at that time; and later, while working as a printer, he
took up the study of law, in which he was assisted, to some extent, by Judge J. G. Suth-
erland.
After his admission to the bar Mr. Kenner practiced with success at Salt Lake City
and in Southern Utah. He has held at various times, in addition to the offices named,
those of city attorney, county attorney ami assistant United States attorney. Among
the leading papers for which he has done editorial work are the "Ogden Junction" and
the '"Salt Lake Herald." He is the author of the "Union Pacific Haudbook of Utah,"
"The Practical Politician," "Utah As It Is," etc.; the last named book, his most
pretentious literary work, being now in the press. One of his sons was in the United
States army in the Philippines, and another, at this writing, is on a Church mission in the
Netherlands. Mr. Kenner's sign — "Lawyer and Writer" — may still be seen in the
corridors of the Templeton building, Salt Lake City.
WILLIAM CRITCHLOW.
^•~"*HE late William Critchlow, ex-justice of the peace for Weber County, was the son
I^D of David and Margaret (Coe) Critchlow, and was born July 8, 1809, in East Deert
,? Township, Allegheny County. Pennsylvania. He came of a long line of Pres-
byterian ancestors, out in 1824 his parents were converted to the Baptist faith
under the preaching of Andrew Clark, one of Sidney Rigdon's co-laborers. In 1830
William also joined the Baptists, as did subsequently his wife, Harriet Hawkins, of
Indiana County, whom he married February 14, 1832.
His life from the first was busy and eventful, and he endured much suffering and
privation. At nine years of age his system received a severe shock, through bathing in
cold water while in a heated condition, and as a result he was confined to his bed for
a whole year, and could then walk only on crutches. After his recovery he lived with
his grandfather until his father's death in 1828. At nineteen he became the support
of his widowed mother and eight children, his elder brother Benjamin having left home
to study for the Presbyterian ministry. This condition of affairs lasted four years.
After his marriage he left his father's family in the care of his brother Joseph, and
moved to Leechburg, in Armstrong County, where he built a home. Soon, however, he
removed to Saltsburg, and labored on the Pennsylvania canal. While at work on Julv
27, 1838, he was accidentally thrown from the top of the lock gate to the bottom of the ph.,
a distance of eighteen feet, his back striking on the mitre sill of the gate, inflicting
severe physical injuries and rendering him a cripple for life.
In May, 1839, three months after first hearing Mormonism preached, he was
baptized by Elder Samuel James, and ordained an Elder in the following August. In
May 1840 he was called to preside over the Leechburg branch of the Church, which
position he held for three years, and then traveled and preached among his relatives
and friends. April 21, 1844. was the date of his arrival at Nauvoo, where he first met
</h**t?-. -fe^T^L^^-
HISTORY OF UTAH. 569
the Prophet Joseph Smith. The same year lie purchased a farm of twenty-five acres at
Hancock, twenty-seven miles south of the city, and lived there with his family until
September, 1845, when they fled to Nauvoo for safety from the mobs that were plun-
dering and burning Mormon homes. While at Nauvoo he was successively ordained a
Seventy and a High Priest.
In the exodus from Illinois he and his household pitched tent at Garden Grove, Iowa,
from which place he went into Missouri to seek employment. He taught school for
two years in Missouri, and for three years he and his wife taught school at Garden Grove,
where he was elected justice of the peace, and during the last year of his stay presided
over the local branch. May 17, 1851, was the date of his departure for Utah. He arrived
at Salt Lake City on the 24th of September.
A few days later he proceeded to Ogden, where he took up a permanent residence,
which was maintained till the day of his death. He was an active, prominent and
faithful public servant. As early as August, 1852, he was elected justice of the peace;
re-elected in 1854. In March, 1853, he was chosen alderman of the First Ward. As
clerk and recorder of Ogden City he served for eleven years. In August, 1856, he
began twelve years of service as recorder for Weber County. In all these offices the re-
muneration was small, but Mr. Critchlow never complained. In his physical affliction —
a confirmed cripple — he was equally stoical, recognizing the hand of providence in his
calamity. He was the father of four sons and one daughter. He died June 7, 1894,
nearly eighty-five years of age, and holding the office of a Patriarch in the Weber
Stake of Zion.
36
WOMEN OF NOTE.
-^U^£
ELIZA ROXY SNOW SMITH.
^J^HE most prominent Mormon woman of her period was Eliza R. Snow, sister to the
\¥) late President Lorenzo Snow, and one of the wives of the Prophet Joseph Smith.
TjT A gifted and educated lady> she was a born poet, one whose productions found
their way into the public prints many years before her conversion to Mormonism.
■ She was the original secretary of the Relief Society, at its inception in Nauvoo, and in
Utah rose to be the head of that great organization,' which in her time numbered some
three hundred branches. A zealous and untiring worker in woman's cause, she devoted
her life — mind, heart, pen and tongue — to the advancement of her sex, and so far as
her influence extended to the welfare of all mankind. An original thinker, she was
talented not only f.s a writer but as a speaker, and also possessed executive ability of a
high order. Of her poems, the most famous and the most meritorious one is undoubtedly
the sublime hymn, "Oh my Father," so often sung in the sacred gatherings of the
Latter-day Saints. If all her other writings, prose and verse, were swept into oblivion,
this poem alone, the sweetest and sublimest of all the songs of Zion, would perpetuate
her fame and render her name immortal. But she believed, with Lord. Byron, that a
poet should do something more than make verses, and she put that belief into practice,
laboring incessantly for the promulgation of her religious faith, and as a teacher and
counselor to the women of her people.
The daughter of Oliver and Rosetta L. Pettibone Snow, she was a native of Beeket,
Berkshire County, Massachusetts, and was born January '21, 1S04. Her ancestors were
English, but her father was born in Massachusetts, and her mother in Connecticut.
Her grandfather was a Revolutionary soldier. As early as 1806 the family settled at
Mantua, Portage County, Ohio, and were the eleventh family in the township. At this
time Eliza and her elder sister, Leonora Abigail, were the only children iu the household,
but at Mantua fiv« others were added, namely, Amanda Percy, Melissa, Lorenzo,
Lucius Augustus and Samuel Pierce. The Snows were Baptists in religion, but were
broad-minded and liberal to people of all denominations, and their hospitable home was
a resort for intelligent and exemplary spirits. The parents instilled morality into the
minds of their children, gave them the best facilities for culture that time and place
could afford, and trained them to habits of industry and economy.
Eliza was carefully educated, not only mentally, but iu the domestic arts as well.
She entered upon her literary career when quite young, winning repute among publishers
in the surrounding region for her poetic and patriotic effusions. At the age of twenty-
two she was solicited through the press to write a requiem for John Adams and Thomas
Jefferson, whose simultaneous deaths on the Nation's birthday afforded a theme well
suited to the lofty and patriotic spirit that characterized her muse. With the appearance
of the poem requested, the young author found herself becoming famous: but the
prospect of a successful and perhaps brilliant literary career she sacrificed upon the altar
of her religious convictions. Along with her poetic nature, she possessed a profound
and exalted spiritual temperament. The solemn and sublime poetry of the Bible was
her delight. She loved the scriptures and the society of scriptorians, scholars, preachers,
men of learning and eloquence. Among her early acquaintances was Alexander
Campbell, for whom the Campbelhte sect was named; also Sidney Rigdon, his fellow
founder of that denomination, who was afterwards associated with Joseph Smith, the
latter-day Prophet.
She joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on the 5th of April,
1835, after a thorough investigation of its principles, which she was induced to make
through the favorable representations of her mother and her sister Leonora, who had
previously connected themselves with the Mormon cause, aud had visited Kirtland, its
headquarters, not many miles from Mantua. In the autumn of the same year Eliza left
her father's home and took up her residence at Kirtland, where she taught school and
boarded in the Prophet's household. She contributed generously to the building of the
574 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Kirtland Terude, and in return was given a house and lot near that edifice. Part of the
house she dwelt in, and the other part was occupied by her sister, a widow with two
children. Her father also embraced the faith, and soon she welcomed both her parents
and her brothers and sisters to Kirtland.
Late in April, 1838. the Snow family with a few other Saints started for Far West,
Missouri, to which point the Church was then migrating. The first night out they were
kindly entertained at the home of Mrs. Charlotte S. Granger, Eliza's father's sister,
who was a Presbyterian. They reached Far West on the 16th of July. There Eliza
nursed her sick brother Lorenzo, who during an attack of bilious fever was kindly cared
for at the home of Sidney Rigdon. She subsequently rejoined her father's family at
Adatn-Ondi-Ahman, where they purchased two homesteads, with farm crops, and
settled. She states that the Missourians were very anxious to sell, and were obsequiously
kind toward the strangers who had come among them, and who did not suspect, what
the sequel showed, that arrangements had been made by many, prior to selling, to mob
and drive the Saints and retake possession of the purchased premises.
In the troubles that soon arose, Di-Ahman was occupied by the mob forces, and
among others the Snow family was ordered to leave Daviess County within ten days.
Before the time had expired, the former owner of the place came in and looking around,
impudently inquired how soon they would be out of the house. Suppressing with a
strong effort their indignation, they departed. It was a bitter cold day. Eliza, after
assisting to load the wagons, went ahead of the teams, to warm her feet with walking.
A Missourian approehed her and said tauntingly, "I think this will cure you of your
faith." "No sir," replied the undaunted woman, looking him straight in the eye, "it
will take more than this to cure me of my faith." The man's countenance fell, and
shrugging his shoulders he went his way, with the remark, "Well, I must confess that
you are a better soldier than I am." It was the 10th of December when the homeless
family left Di-Ahman, proceeding to Far West, whence the Prophet and other leading
Elders had been dragged to prison in various parts of the State. In March, 1839, the
Snows went to Quincv, Illinois, then to Warren County, and next to LaHarpe, At this
place Lorenzo joined them, returning from a mission, and they soon settled at Com-
merce, afterwards called Nauvoo. There Eliza taught school. She also wrote much,
both in poetry and in prose, her main theme — and it was a thrilling one — being the
recent persecutions of her people. The couplet:
"There's a dark, foul stain on the Eagle's crest;
For Columbia's sons have her sons oppressed'^ —
gives the key-note to her effusions at this period.
The Relief Society was organized by the Prophet Joseph Smith March 17, 1812. As
secretary of that organization Eliza R. Snow wrote the petition proposed by Emma
Smith, the president of the Society, asking protection from the governor of Illinois for
her husband, the Prophet; and she was one of the ladies who presented the petition to
Governor Carlin at his residence in Quincy. ' The 29th of June, that year, was the date
of Eliza's marriage to Joseph Smith. Two years later came the martyrdom. Prostrated
with grief, she regained herself, with a heroic effort, and produced, four days after the
tragic event, that thrilling and admirable poem beginning with the lines:
"Ye heavens attend! Let all the earth give ear!
Let Gods and seraphs, men and angels hear! "
With the spirit of a prophetess and mother in Israel — for though childless she was
destined to be a mother to the women of the Church — she now consecrated herself more
thoroughly than ever to the cause for which her husband had died. Her long record as a
Temple worker began at Nauvoo. In the exodus of February, 1816, she wrote songs to
comfort the Camp of Israel in its wearisome pilgrimage towards the Rocky Mountains.
She drove an ox team part of the way to Winter Quarters, where, owing to constant ex-
posure and continued hardships, she broke down, a siege of chills and fever bringing her
almost to the gates of death. At the close of the year came the tidings of her mother's
death at Walnut Grove, Illinois. Her father had died there the year before. She began
the journey across the plains in June, and arrived in Salt Lake Valley in October,
1847.
She was provided with a home by President Brigham Young, and remained a mem-
ber of his household from that time. In May, 1855, when the Endowment House was
dedicated as a temporary Temple, "Sister Eliza" was requested by President Young to
HISTORY OF UTAH. 575
take charge of and preside over the women's work therein. She held the sacred office
then conferred upon her as long as ordinance work was done in the Endowment
House. In 1866, when the organization of the Relief Sociery began to be general
throughout the Church, she was set apart to preside over the entire sisterhood. In that
position she labored continuously for twenty-one years, until failing health admonished
her to seek rest and quietude within the precincts of her home.
A notable event of her experience was her trip to Palestine, as a member of Presi-
dent George A. Smith's party, which included also her brother Lorenzo, who was then
one of the Twelve Apostles. She left Salt Lake City, and was joined by her brother at
Ogden, on the 26th of October, 1872. In company with President Smith and others they
sailed from New York for Liverpool on the 5th of November. After seeing the sights of
London, the party passed over to Belgium, and thence through France, calling upon
President Thiers at Versailles. They visited Genoa, Venice, Rome and Naples, and from
Brindisi took steamer for Corfu and Alexandria. Late in February they landed at Jaffa,
and the beginning of March found them in Jerusalem. It was Sunday, March 2, 1873,
when they ascended the Mount of Olives and held services, dedicating the land for the
return of the Jews, this being the main purpose of their mission. They then completed
the tour of the Holy Land, occupying in all about a mouth, during which "Sister Eliza,"
then in her seventieth year, slept in a tent, rode donkey-back, and endured the journey
quite as well as the youngest and most vigorous of her fellow tourists. The impressions
received during her travels she embodied in poems and descriptive letters, published in
the home press and subsequently in book form. On the 25th of March the party embarked
for Constantinople. At Athens they took tea with the American minister. After visiting
the World's Fair at Vienna, they returned to England, and about the last of May sailed
for home, arriving here in July.
Invigorated mentally and physically, "Sister Eliza'' now renewed the discharge of
her manifold duties as the leading woman of Mormondom. She traveled north and south
through the settlements, holding meetings and addressing the sisters in many places. In
the fall of 1876 she became superintendent of the Woman's Store, a commission hou6e
for Utah-made goods, opened in the Constitution Building, Salt Lake City. She staunchly
seconded the efforts of Mrs. Aurelia Spencer Rogers, of Farmington, who had taken the
initiative in the establishment of the children's Primary Associations. Literary and poli-
tical work also occupied her attention. In November, 1878, she presided at a grand
mass meeting of Mormon women held in the Salt Lake Theatre, for the purpose of
answering allegations of the newly organized Anti-polygamy Society. Ten years before
she had made a strong and brilliant speech at a similar mass meeting, where the Mormon
women protested against the Cullom Bill then pending in Congress.
On July 17, 1S80, at a meeting held in the Fourteenth Ward Assembly Rooms, Eliza
R. Snow Smith was set apart by President John Taylor to preside over the women's organ-
izations of the Latter-day Saints in all the world. Zina D. H. Young and Elizabeth Ann
Whitney were set apart as her counselors, Sarah M. Kimball as secretary, and Mary Isa-
bella Home as treasurer of the organization. In the following August Sister Eliza took
part in the establishment of a Relief Society at Thistle Valley, where an Indian sister was
chosen one of the counselors; the first Indian woman to hold an office in the Church.
Subsequently a Primary Association was organized there with "ten little Indians'' as its
members. In November of that year "Sister Eliza" aud "Aunt Zina" went by team to
St. George, to work in the Temple. The former's seventy-seventh birthday was publicly
celebrated at St. George, and the city of Ogden paid her a similar tribute simultaneously.
She returned to Salt Lake March 31, 1SS1, and was given a grand reception at her home,
the Lion House. The next important event in which she figured was on July 17, 1882,
when the Deseret Hospital, established by the Mormon sisters, was dedicated, with Eliza
R. Snow Smith as president of the institution.
As early as 1856 she had published her first volume of poems, embodying religious,
historical and political themes. Twenty years later she prepared a second volume of
poems for the press, and also assisted in the publication of Tullidge's "Women of
Mormondom." Other works of hers were "Correspondence of Palestine Tourists," pub-
lished in 1S75; a hymn book, tune book and First and Second Speakers for the Primary
Associations; and the "Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow," published in
1884.
It was in the eighty-fourth year of her age, on the 5th of December, 1887, that this
noble and distinguished woman passed peacefully into eternal rest. She was given a pub-
lic funeral at the Assembly Hall, and her remains were buried in President Young's pri-
vate cemetery, near the tomb of the great man who in life had been her protector, pro-
576 HISTORY OF UTAH.
vider and friend. There was much that suggested Brigham Young in the character and
disposition of this remarkable woman. A lady friend and admirer says of her: "The
rare gifts that she possessed, both spiritual and mental, and her wonderful ability in us-
ing those gifts for the good of all who came within the radius of her widely diffused in-
fluence, gave her a prominence reached by no other woman thus far within the pales of
the Church."
ZINA HUNTINGTON YOUNG.
'HE successor of Eliza R. Snow Smith at the head of the women's organizations
of the Latter-day Saints, was Zina D. H. Young, widow successively of the two
foremost Mormon leaders, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. She was a member
of the first Relief Society at Nauvoo, and when that society was re-organized in
Utah was one of the earliest to be identified therewith. She then held the office of
treasurer, but was subsequently counselor to the President whom she afterwards suc-
ceeded. Among her manifold labors as missionary, counselor, friend and helper to the
women ot her faith, she was promiuent and active in sericulture. She had chai'ge of
President Young's cocoonery and mulberry orchard, laboring therein with her own
hands. At the organization of the Utah Silk Association she became its president.
She also studied medicine, but never practiced as a physician. She worked much in the
temples, was a ministering angel to the sick and sorrowful, and traveled thousands of
miles through the settlements of the Saints, giving comfort and instruction to those of her
sex who were in need of her benevolent ministrations.
Zina Diantha Huntington was born January 31, 1821, at Watertown, Jefferson
•County, New York. Her father, William Huntington, was a veteran of the war of 1812;
her grandfather, of the same name, a soldier of the Revolution; and his brother, Samuel
Huntington, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. The family was
directly descended from Simon Huntington, the Puritan immigrant, who died at sea
while coming to America in 1033. In England the pedigrees of the Huntingtons and the
Washingtons (ancestors of George Washington) meet in the same parentage. Mrs.
Young's father married Zina Baker, whose sire was one of the first physicians in New
Hampshire. Zina Baker's mother was Dorcas Dirnock, descended from the noble family
of Dymock, of Queen Elizabeth's time.
Zina Huntington's childhood was passed at her birthplace, where she continued to
reside until she was fifteen years of age. Her parents were in easy circumstances as
farmers, and the children were reared strictly in the Presbyterian faith. Though
physically frail, the girl was trained in all the duties of the household, and educated
at the district schools. The family raised their own flax and wool and made it into
clothing at home. They also made their own sugar from the maple tree, and had much
to sell, and were largely engaged in dairying and pork raising. Zina made butter and
cheese, and did sewing and knitting in all their branches. It was at Watertown, in
August, 1835, that the family embraced Mormonism; Zina being baptized on the 14th of
that month by Hyrum Smith, the brother of the Prophet.
In October, 1830. the Huntingtons moved to Kirtland, Ohio, the father selling his
farm at a great sacrifice, for a little less than four thousand dollars, all of which he lost
within a year, through the fraudulent dealings of pretended friends. Zina was present
at the dedication of the Kirtland Temple, and witnessed some marvelous manifestations
while in the sacred structure on that and other occasions. She was a member of the
Temple choir. She received the gift of tongues the year that she was baptized;
and after her removal to Kirtland she received the gift of interpretation.
In 1838 the family went to Missouri, where they passed through the persecutions
of that troubled time, and next took up their permanent residence at Nauvoo. The father
was now a widower, his wife having died from fatigue and privations before the family
lefi Missouri. His children who were destined to become prominent were his sons
Dimick and Oliver and his daughters Zina and Prescindia. At Nauvoo Zina married Henry
Jacobs, but the marriage did not prove a happy one, and «. separation ensued. She
was sealed in plural marriage to the Prophet Joseph Smith, and after his death to Pres-
ident Brigham Young.
With him she left Nauvoo in February, 1846, crossing the Mississippi on the ice.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 577
At Mount Pisgah Father Huntington was called to preside, and Zina with her two little
sous, Zebulon and Chariton Jacobs, temporarily remained with him. It was a time
of great trouble, there was much sicknesss in camp, and so many deaths lhat sufficient
coffins could not be obtained. Many were buried with split logs at the bottom of the
grave and brush at the sides, this being all that could be done by the mourners for their
dear departed ones. Finally Zina's father fell sick and died, after which she went to
Winter Quarters and lived with other members of the family of President Young.
In May, 1848, she began the journey to Salt Lake Valley, walking much of the
way, cooking over camp fires and passing through the varied experiences of life upon the
plains. Her brother Oliver drove her team. She arrived here in the fall, and with the
rest of the President's family lived in tents and wagons until log houses could be provided
for them. On the third of April, 1850, her daughter Zina was born, her only child by
President Young, and now Mrs. Zina Y. Card, of Logan. During the move she went to
Provo. but her permanent residence in Utah was Salt Lake City.
Her early connection with the Relief Society has been noted. Apropos of this
subject, it is noted that Mrs. Young came of a family famous for deeds of charity in
different lauds and ages. In Euglaud, toward the clo«e of the eighteenth century, Lady
Salma Huntington gave most of her vast fortune for the introduction of Christianity
among the North American Indians and the founding and maintenance of schools in
which the red men might be instructed in the arts of civilization. Zma Baker
Huntington was "a volunary relief society in herself." At Kirtland it was her custom,
without direction or prompting from any one, to take her daughter Zina in her buggy and
hunt out the distressed and needy in and about that place. Whatever was found
necessary beyond her own means to supply, tuey would travel among the people, in
and out of the Church, and secure. Thus early was "Little Zina" inducted into the
spirit and mission of the Relief Society, although it then had no existence. It was at the
April conference of 18S8 that she was sustained as presideut of the Relief Societies
of the Latter-day Saints in all the world. She became president of the Silk Association,
June 15, 1876.
During the summer of 1879 "Aunt Zina." for the benefit of her health, took a trip
to the Sandwich Islands, accompanied by her niece, Susa Young, now Mrs. Susa Young
Gates. Going and comiug they met mauy persons of note, conversed, distributed
tracts and books, and imparted information regarding Utah and her people. Every-
where Mrs. Young was a cynosure of attraction and the recipient of much attention.
Upon her return home she continued her labors among the Relief Societies, in silk
culture and in Temple work. She spent the winter of 1880-1 at St. George, aud returning
thence with her president, "Sister Eliza," on the last day of March, was met at the rail-
way station by a party of thirty ladies in carriages, who escorted the twain to the Lion
House, where a grand reception was given in their honor.
The following summer Mrs. Young went East, accompanied by her foster-son
Lieutenant (now Colonel) Willard Young. Her purpose was to gather up the records of
her relatives. Dr. Ellen B. Ferguson was one of the party, on her way to New York to
further pursue her medical studies. Prior to their departure the two ladies were set
apart bv the First Presidency of the Church to speak upon the principles of their faith as
opportunity might be afforded. Mrs. Young was cordially received by her relatives, and
she addressed by invitation Sabbath schools and temperance meetings. She attended
the Woman's Congress at Buffalo, New York, but was refused five minutes in which to
represent the women of Utah. After visiting her birthplace, she returned to New York
City to attend the N. W. S. A. Convention, but was not permitted to address the
assemblage. She assisted to organize a Relief Society in New York, and with her foster-
son visited West Point, returniug home, March 7, 1882. At the great gathering of
representative women at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, she sat upon the platform
as the representative of the women of Utah.
Up to the close of her life, in her eighty-first year, this kind, motherly soul moved
about among the women of her people, faithfully discharging the duties incumbent
upon her. Age might dim the splendor of her once sparkling eye, might put broad
streaks of silver in her hair, and cause her upright frame to stoop and her intellect to
lose something of its former strength and lustre, but it could not destroy the benignant
beauty of her smile, the inborn benevolence of her heart, and the integrity of her life
and character; nor prevent her from using the remnant of her vitality in the con-
scientious service of that God whose faithful handmaid she was for more than three
score years. She died, August 28, 1901, at Salt Lake City, soon after returning from a
visit to her daughter, Mrs. Card, then living at Cardston, Canada. From this visit the
578 HISTORY OF UTAH.
aged lady was brought home in au unconscious and dying condition. Her death was
painless and peaceful, and she was buried, afier public honor had been done her remains,
in the Young Family private cemetery.
BATHSHEBA BIGLER SMITH.
p^HIS distinguished lady, now presiding overall the Relief Society organizations of the
\*^ Latter-day Saints, was the first wife of the late President George A. Smith, whom
^i she married at Nauvoo, Illinois, July 25, 1841. She had previously shared in the
hardships and persecutions of the Saints in Missouri, and after her marriage, in the
true spirit of a heroine she partook of the toils and trials attending the exodus of her peo-
ple into the western wilderness. She has been a dweller in Salt Lake Valley since the
fall of 1849, and has passed through all the vicissitudes of pioneer life, witnessing the growth
and growiug with the growth of the commonwealth which for many years past has num-
bered her among its notable women.
Bathsheba VV. Bigler was born near Shinston, Harrison County, West Virginia, May 3,
1822. Her parents were Mark and Susanuah (Ogdeu) Bigler. The father was a Penn-
sylvanian of Dutch descent, a farmer and stock-raiser by occupation, and a man of high
moral character, though not a mi mber of any religious bodj'; the mother, a scion of an
aristocratic, well-to-do Maryland family, pious and gentle, possessing all the hospitable
and generous qualities of the South; she was also an excellent housekeeper and an adept
in the artistic use of the needle. Both were well educated and gave their children, seven
in number, all the advantages of schooling that were to be had in a new country. Their
daughter Bathsheba grew up tall, queenly and beautiful, numbering among other accom-
plishments that of being a skillful and graceful equestrienne. Her engaging personal ap-
pearance was but the reflex of noble qualities of heart and mind.
During her fifteenth year Elders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
came preaching in the neighborhood of her home. No sooner had she heard than she be-
lieved their teachings. Among the Elders who proselyted in Harrison County and became
intimately acquainted with the Bigler family, was young George A. Smith, who, after
completing his circuit, would often rest beneath that hospitable roof-tree. He greatly
admired the charming girl, who with her parents so kindly welcomed him, and she was as
much impressed with his noble appearance, intellect and character. Before he left his
field of labor in West Virginia, he received her promise "to keep his cabin in Missouri."
Bathsheba. with the most of her father's family, was baptized a Latter day Saint on
the 21st of August, 1837. Soon after that event her father sold his home and took his
family to Missouri, where on their arrival they found that state pteparing to make war
against "the Mormons.'' A few nights before they reached Far West, they camped with
a company of Saints from the East, but subsequently separated from them, choosing a
different ferry over Grand River. The company in which the Bigler family traveled
arrived safe at its destination, while the other — the ill-fated settlers at Haun's Mill — were
massacred by the Missourians.
A few days after Bathsheba's arrival at Far West, the battle of Crooked River was
fought, and Captain David W. Patten, fatally wounded, was brought to the house where
she was living. She witnessed the death of this noble leader the night after. She also
saw the Prophet and his brethren taken prisoners by the mob and was an eye-witness to
the cruelties and indignities heaped upon the helpless people by their persecutors.
The Bigler family were at Quiney, Illinois, to greet the captive's on their escape from
Missouri in the spring of 1839, and a year later the family removed to Nauvoo, where
Bathsheba became well acquainted with the Prophet and his family. She had not been
living there much more than a year when she was married to George A. Smith, who was
then the youngest of the Twelve Apostles, and had just returned from a two yearn mission
to England. Elder Don Carlos Smith, George A's cousin, officiated in the ceremony.
Subsequently she was sealed to her husband for time and eternity and gave to him other
wives in the celestial order of marriage.
Mrs. Smith had two children born at Nauvoo, namely her son, George Albert, in
July, 1842, and her daughter Bathsheba, in August, 1844. While there she became con-
nected with the original Relief Society, attending by special invitation the meeting at
HISTORY OF UTAH. 579
which it was organized] by the Prophet. Of the same organization, now grown to vast
proportions, she is today the president.
She left Nauvoo with her husband and the migrating Church on the 9th of February,
1846, headed for the Missouri River and beyond. In her journal she says: ''It would be
vain to attempt to describe how we traveled through snow, wind and rain; how roads had
to be made, bridges built and rafts constructed; how our animals had to drag on with
scanty food, and how we suffered in poverty, sickness and death: but the Lord was with
us and his power was made manifest daily." Among her heaviest griefs at this period
was the death of her mother at Winter Quarters, on the 11th of March, 1847, followed in
April by the birth and death of her last child, a son named John, who lived but four
hours. Her husband was one of the Pioneers of 1847. After his return to the Missouri
River from Salt Lake Valley he remained on the frontier in charge of the' emigration
while most of the leaders, with the main body of the people, again set out for the Rocky
Mountains. This explains whv Mrs. Smith and her family did not reach Salt Lake Valley
until October, 1849.
She was a patient sharer in all the privations and sorrows of pioneer times, living in
tents, wagons and huts, euduriug hardships aud performing labors of which cultured
society ladies know little and care less, but which were necessary in order that such deli-
cate, pleasure-loving creatures might live, move and have a being in this out of the way
corner of the world. In 1858 a comfortable and roomy home was built for her — the His-
torian's Office, dow called; not a very imposing edifice at the present day, but at the time
of its erection as sightly and convenient a domicile as one could desire.
We take this leaf from Mrs. Smith's diary, as showing how she and the Mormon
women generally of that early period occupied themselves: "While at Provo at the
time of the "move" we procured wool and had it made into rolls. Sister Susan, (one of
my husband's wives) and I spent most of the summer spinning by hand, and in the fall
we wove it into jeans, linsey and blankets. My husband had raised a quantity of flax
and during the winter and spring Susan and I spun about thirty pounds. We bought a
loom and I learned to weave. We did all we could to furnish our house. We made our
carpets; spun, colored and wove cloth, flannel, linsey, jeans, kersies, blankets, coverlets
and shawls; wove fringe, wool carpets, stair carpets, rag carpets, spun flux and tow,
and wove table linen, towels, bed-ticking and sewing thread. We also carded, spun and
wove cotton, and made cotton cloth for dresses, bed-spreads, bed-tickine, etc., spun
candle-wicking and spun and wove table cloths. We also knit our own stockings, socks,
hoods, neck wraps, mittens; made netting, embroidery, and did all we could to encour-
age home manufactures. We have exhibited many of our home-made goods at our Territorial
fairs, and they always received favorable attention. In our household affairs we have
aimed to be self-sustaining, not only in spinning, weaving, knitting, etc., but also iu dry-
ing and preserving large quantities of fruit, apples, pears, peaches, plums, apricots,
grapes and currants from our large orchard. We also kept boarders and helped ourselves
very much' in that way. My husband was compelled to be absent much of the time, and
we had to be independent and industrious. When we were getting our orchard started,
and my husband was away, myself and children generally did the irrigating. Sometimes
our turn to have the water would come in the night, and I have been out in the middle of
the night watering the trees and walking near the graves of our dead; Father and Mother
Smith, with others being buried there. But I was not afraid, for I knew them all to be
dear friends, whether in the body or out."
In another place, referring to her husband and herself, she says: "I believe that but
few in the wide world have been as happy as we have been. We have no differences;
our religion and our expectations are the same." This of her sister wives: 'T have
great respect for my husband's other wives. We have worked and toiled together, have
had joy in our labors, have had our recreations and taken comfort in each other's society.
Our faith is the same, our anticipations are the same. I love their children dearly, from
the infant to the grown up man and woman. I rejoice with them in their prosperity aud
sorrow with them in their bereavements, disappointments and trials of life."
The most trying event of her own experience, was the death of her eldest and only
remaining son, George A. Smith, Jr., who was murdered by Navajo Indians, some
thirty-five miles northwest of the Moquis villages in New Mexico, (now Arizona) Novem-
ber 2, 1860. The young man was then about eighteen years of age. He was in company
with the veteran Indian missionary, Jacob Hamliu, and nine others, who were on a mis-
sion to the Moquis Indians, for the purpose of learning their language and making explor-
ations for a wagon route from Washington — then the most southern Utah settlement —
to the western settlements of New Mexico. When about three hundred miles on their
580 HISTORY OF UTAH.
journey, they met a band of Navajos, out hunting. They traded the Indians some knives
for blankets. Young Smith's horse escaping ou* of the band, he mounted another and
followed after it. Three quarters of a mile from camp he met seven Navajos, who
delivered to him the run away horse in the most friendly manner. They also conversed
with him in the Ute language, which he understood. All at once, without the least warn-
ing, they leveled their weapons at him and fired, three arrows and four bullets entering
his body. Though mortally wounded he did not immediately expire, and his companions,
coming to his assistance, placed him on a mule and carried him a distance of eight
miles, when he died in the saddle. The Indians who did the deed were young men.
They were remonstrated with by the older members of their party, who offered to
protect the missionaries if they would immediately return home, to which they agreed.
The Navajos, it seems, had just received word that Lieutenant-Colonel Rubles, of
the United States army, with a detatchment of troops, had burned their villages, two
hundred miles east, massacred two hundred and fifty squaws and pappooses and
killed forty thousand of their sheep. The leceipt'of this intelligence caused the mur-
der of George A. Smith, Jr. His friends would fain have taken his body home, but
the aged Navajos decided that it should be left, and consequently it was abandoned.
Subsequently a party from Southern Utah made a journey of three hundred miles at
an expense of eighteen hundred dollars and recovered the remains of the young mis-
sionary. To both his parents his mutder was a dreadful blow.
During the early "seventies" Mrs. Smith made frequent trips with her husband
through the settlements north and south of Salt Lake City. They were included in
President Young's party on many of the memorable preaching and pioneering tours
of that period. She visited the Saints as far south as the junction of the Rio Virgen
with the Colorado, and as far north as Bear Lake and Soda Springs. The last trip
she took with her husband was early in 1875, from St. George, where they had passed
the winter, to Salt Lake City, where they arrived on the 19th of February.
The ensuing six months was a period of deep anxiety for the faithful wife, who saw
her beloved husband stricken with disease and gradually approaching the grave. Of his
death on the morning of the first of September she says: "He had a very restless night.
The following morning he walked into the front parlor twice. The last time he sat down
in his chair and expired in about five minutes. I could not think of myself; I loved him
more. He was now through; all was quiet, his head lay on my bosom. Good angels
hadcome to receive his precious spirit, perhaps our sons. Prophet, Patriarch, Saints be-
loved were there. And he was gone, my life, my sun, my light, my joy, my lord — yea,
almost my God."
Since her husband's death "Aunt Bathsheba" has continued her labors, public and
private, with the same zeal and energy that characterized her youthful days. Much of
her time has been spent in visiting and ministering to the sick and in traveling through
the settlements, counseling with her sisters of the Relief Society. She has filled with
honor many offices and has done much work in the Temples. She officiated at the open-
ing of the Nauvoo, Logan and Salt Lake Temples, worked with Eliza R. Snow for seven-
teen years in the Endowment House, and in 1893 was set apart with Zina D. H. Young
to preside over the women's department of the Salt Lake Temple. In these sacred duties
she takes great delight. On October 11, 1888. she became second counselor to Mrs. Zina D,
H. Young in the presidency of the National Woman's Relief Societies of the Latter-day
Saints, and after the death of Mrs. Young in 1901, was chosen to succeed her in the chief
position.
JANE SNYDER RICHARDS.
^"^HE history of the Mormon community reads like a tragic, poem, and the heart and
(i^J soul of that poem is in the lives, labors and sacrifices of the heroic women of the
ii community. The present does not and caunot appreciate them; no present ever ap-
preciated itself; but the future, that great reviser and corrector of contemporane-
ous judgments, will recognize their true worth and class them among the noblest spirits
of the past. A condensed life sketch of one of these latter-day heroines is here given.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 581
At the little town of Pamelia, Jefferson County, New York, on the 31st of January,
1823, a babe was born who lived to become Mrs. Jane Snyder Richards; for many years
and up to the present time one of the notable women of this commonwealth. She was the
daughter of Isaac and Lovisa Comstock Snyder, the former a native of Vermont, the lat-
ter of Massachusetts. Her father was a prosperous farmer and stock-raiser. He led an
exemplary life, but belonged to no religious body until he embraced Mormon ism. The
mother was a thrifty housewife and a devout Methodist. They were the parents of nine
sons and two daughters, and of the latter Jane was the younger.
The family were living at East Camden, in the Province of Ontario, Canada, when,
early in 1837, they formed the acquaintance of Elder John E. Page, a missionary of the
Church of Jesus Cnrist of Latter-day Saints. He preached several times in their neigh-
borhood and baptized two of their number, namely, Mrs. Sarah Snyder Jenne, Isaac
Snyder's married daughter, and his son Robert, then an invalid, who was restored to
health by bis baptism. Robert subsequently visited Kirtland, became acquainted with
the Prophet Joseph Smith and returned to Canada as a Mormon missionary. By him
and others the rest of the family were converted, and all were baptized in Canada, ex-
cepting Jane and her brother Jesse.
The Latter-day Saints having migrated to Missouri, the Snyder family, about the 1st
of November, 1838, set out for that laud, but were detained by sickness for several weeks
at La Porte. Indiana, where they learned of the cruel expulsion of their people from the
first named State. Word came to them that Commerce, Hancock County, Illinois — where
afterwards arose the city of Nauvoo — had been selected as a new gathering place, but the
information was supple-nented by a message from the Prophet to the effect that they were
to remain at La Porte for a time, and make a home for the Elders who came that way.
Pursuant to this counsel, they continued to reside there for about two years.
Up to January, 1840, Jane Snyder had not connected herself with the Church of
which most of her fathei's family were members. She was a practical, firm-willed little
body, with a mind of her own, and at the time of which we write, not yet seventeen years
of age. Conscious of no wrong-doing, she saw no necessity for baptism, so far as she
was concerned. Her zealous brother Robert often importuned her upon the subject, be-
seeching her to be baptized for the remission of her sins. "What sins have I commit-
ted?''she asked. "Havel not always obeyed my parents?" During the winter of
1839-40, however, Jane passed through a serious illness, during which she was paralyzed
and brought to the brink of the grave. Through the prayers and administrations of her
brother Robert and other members of the household, she regained her speech, and then,
for the first time, manifested a desire to be baptized. The next day was appointed for
the ceremony. Her illness being known through the neighborhood, when the news spiead
that she was going to be immersed on a mid-winter day in the icy waters of Lake La
Porte, it created considerable excitement and there were threats of arresting Robert Sny-
der if he should thus imperil his sister's life. Three hundred people assembled at the
water's edge to witness the baptism. The ice was thick and a large square hole was cut
in it. Robert let hiuiSelf down into the opening, and his brother George assisted Jane
into the water. Without a tremor she went in, and was then and there "buried with
Christ by baptism," Immediately on coming out of the water she said in a loud, firm
voice: "I want to say to all you people who have come out to see me baptized, that I do
it of my own free will and choice, and if you interfere with the man who has baptised
me, God will interfere with you." Elder Snyder was not molested. His Sister, instead
of being injured, was miraculously healed by the sacred ordinance.
About six months later Jane Snyder met the man whom she was destined to marry,
Franklin D. Richards, the future Apostle, who, in company with Elder Jehial Savage,
arrived at La Porte from Nauvoo as a missionary These Elders stayed at the Snyder
home and were kindly and hospitably entertained. They had traveled afoot and Elder
Savage was sick with chills and fever. He had been acquainted with the Snyder family
in Canada, where he had traveled with Robert in the ministry, and on one occasion had
jestingly promised Jane that he would bring her a husband. The promise thus lightly
made was literally fulfilled, for, in the fall of 1841, something more than a year after
their first meeting, Franklin D. Richards, the young unmarried missionary, and Jane
Snyder were betrothed, and a little over a year later, married. The wedding took place
at Job Creek, near La Harpe, Hancock County, Illinois, to which point the family had re-
moved about the time the young couple plighted their troth. The ceremony uniting them
was performed by Elder Samuel Snyder, brother to the bride and president of the Job
Creek branch. The date was Sunday, December 18, 1842.
The newly wedded pair took up their abode at Nauvoo. where, on the 2nd of Decern-
582 HISTORY OF UTAH.
ber, 1843, their first child was bora. She was a bright and beautiful spirit and was
named Wealthy Lovisa, after both her grand-mothers. With this child in her arms Mrs.
Richards attended the special meeting held on the 8th of August, 1844, where President
Brigham Young stood transfigured before the congregation, many of whom in conse-
quence recognized him as the lawful successor to the Prophet Joseph Smith. Mrs. Rich-
ards is a living witness to the marvelous manifestation. She was sitting in the meeting
and had bent over to pick up a small plaything dropped by her little daughter, when Pres-
ident Young uttered the first words of his address. His voice was that of the Prophet.
On hearing it, she was so startled that she dropped the article she had just taken from
the floor, and on looking up beheld the form and features of the martyred Seer.
The Richards family remained at Nauvoo several months after the main body of the
Church had evacuated the mob-threatened city. On June 11, 1846, they themselves
crossed the Mississippi and started west. They camped for a while on the river bottoms
near Montrose, Iowa, and then wended their way to Sugar Creek. Their traveling outfit
consisted of an old covered wagon drawn by oxen, and they were also supplied wiih a
tent and a sufficiency of clothing, provisions ami cooking utensils. Philo T. Farnsworth
was their teamster and was a kind and faithful friend. The privations and hardships of
the journey were materially enhanced for Mrs. Richards from the fact that she was about
to become a mother. At a certain point a pair of unruly steers yoked to her wagon ran
away, and for some moments the utmost consternation reigned, as the infuriated beasts
dashed wildly on, imperiling the lives of those in the vehicle. Mrs. Richards had just
imprinted on the cheek of her little daughter a farewell kiss prior to dropping her outside
for safety, regardless of what might happen to herself, when the animals were suddenly
stopped in their mad career by some unseen power, and the impending calamity was thus
averted.
Prom Sugar Creek, on the 3rd of July, Elder Richards started on a mission to Eng-
land, leaving his family to continue their journey towards the Missouri River. Twenty
days after his departure, his wife Jane gave birth to a son. her second child, but the
babe had barely opened its eyes when it was summoned back to the spirit world. The
picture of this homeless pilgrim mother, lying helpless in her wagon on the broad and
lonely prairie, her dead babe upon her breast and her husband a thousand miles away,
is pitiful enough to melt a heart of stone. But alas! some hearts seem harder than stone.
A midwife had been summoned from a house five miles back to wait upon, the sick wo-
man. 'Are you prepared to pay me?" was her brusque inquiry, after briefly performing
the functions of her office. "If it were to save my life.'' answered the sufferer faintly,
"I could not give you any money, for I have none; but if you see anything you want,
take it." Whereupon the woman seized a beautiful woolen bed-spread, worth fifteen dol-
lars. "1 may as well take it, for you'll never live to need it." was her heartless remark
as she disappeared, leaving the sick mother and dead child to their fate. The corpse of
the little one was buried at Mt. Pisgah.
At this very time, Mrs. Richards' only remaining child, little Wealthy, not yet three
years old, was lying sick, having been stricken with disease just after her father departed
for England. As they approached the Missouri River she gradually grew weaker and
weaker. She had scarcely eaten anything for a month or more. She was very fond of
potatoes, and one day, while passing a farm-house in the midst of a fine field of these
vegetables, hearing them mentioned, she asked for one. Her grand-mother, Mrs. Sny-
der, proceeded to the house, and from a woman standing in the doorway sought to buy a
potato for the sick child. "I wouldn't sell or give one of you Mormons a potato to save your
lives," was the woman's brutal reply. She had even set her dog upon Mrs. Snyder when
she first saw her approaching. When Wealthy was told of the incident she said, '"Never
mind, mama, she's a wicked woman, isn't she? We wouldn't do that by her, would we?"
The party reached the Missouri River about the first of September, and were re-
ceived and treated with great kindness by President Young, Dr. Richards and the other
Church leaders. Wealthy died and was buried at Cutler's Park, a little west of the river,
on the 14th of September. Those were heart-rending days for Jane Richards. She was
now childless, and felt almost husbandless. In the midst of extreme poverty, the state
of her health was such that during the eighteen months that she sojourned at Winter
quarters her life trembled in the balance. A typical Mormon woman, her experience was
that of many others during that painful period. "It shall yet be said of yon that you have
come up through much tribulation," was a remark made to her by Presidents Young and
Kimball at the time.
Her husband, returning from England, rejoined her at Winter Quarters in the spring
of 1848, and in the summer and fall of that year they crossed the plains to Salt Lake Val-
HISTORY OF UTAH. 583
ley, arriving here on the 19th of October. The journey from Winter Quarters occupied
three and a half months, during two of which Mrs Richards was confined to her bed by
sickness. While her husband was building a small adobe house on a lot that had been
assigned to him, they lived in the covered wagon which had brought them across the
plains.
Eight months later Mrs Richards gave birth to her third child, a son, who was named
Franklin Snyder. The babe was but six days old when a heavy rain fell, against which
the root of rushes and earth covering their humble dwelling afforded no adequate pro-
tection. The result was that the bed in which the sick woman and her infant child lay
was drenched by the down- pour, and she was thrown into a raging fever and brought
near to death's door. She was snatched back to life by the power of faith, her husband
and Elder Daniel Spencer administering the healing ordinance in her behalf. The babe
born amid these untoward circumstances and primitive surroundings, though for a long
time delicate and fragile, grew and prospered, attaining to man's estate and achieving
success and fame. He is known today as the Hon. Franklin S. Richards, of Salt Lake
City.
In due time three other children came to bless her home and complete her family
circle. (1) A daughter named Josephine, now Mrs. Joseph A. West, an amiable and
estimable lady, born May 25, 1853; a diligent Sabbath School and Relief Society worker
in her youth, afterwards one of the Presidency of the Y. L. M. I. A. of Weber Stake,
and today one of the Presidency of the Primary Associations of the Church. (2) A son,
Lorenzo Maeser, b^rn July 5, 1857, a bright, promising boy, who grew to manhood and
married, but died prematurely from the effects of an accident. December 21, 1883. after
having distinguished himself as a shrewd, honorable and successful merchant and busi-
ness man. (3) A son named Charles Comstock, who, like his brother Franklin, is promi-
nent in the legal profession, and some years since was Secretary and Acting Governor of
Utah Territory. The biographies of both are given in this volume.
The boy Franklin was not quite four months old when his father, who had re-
cently been made an Apostle, started on his second mission to England. During his ab-
sence the mother supported herself and her children. Her husband was still absent,
wheu, on March 20, 1856, her widowed mother, Lovisa Comstock Snyder, died. Her
last words, addressed to her daughter Jane, as she embraced her and bade her good-bye,
were: "You have never caused me any sorrow or trouble, but have been a comfort to
me in every way, and I hope your children will be to you what you have been to me."
When, at the request of President Young, her husband, in 1868, took up his residence,
in Ogden, Mrs. Richards began to play a more prominent part in the women's organiza-
tions of the Church. This was by the advice of the president of those organizations,
Eliza R. Snow Smith, who predicted that she would have better health if she would de-
vote more time to the work of the Relief Society. Though dreading publicity, she was
willing: to do all in her power, and after recovering from a long siege of sickness she be-
gan to make frequent visits among the branch societies in Weber Stake, in company with
Sister Eliza. In August, 1872, she became president of the Relief Society of Ogden, and
in July, 1877, was called by President Young to preside over all the Relief Societies of
Weber Stake. This was the first stake organization of the kind perfected in the Church.
Mrs. Richards' last interview with the President was in the following August, when he
went north to organize the Box Elder Stake of Zion, ten days before his death. She
was one of the President's party and during the journey to Brigham City sat near him,
receiving: from the great leader much wise counsel to assist her in her labors.
In the year 1880, she accompanied her husband on trips east and west. During the former
they visited relatives and early Church scenes in the State of New York, saw the sights of
the national capital, and identified on the Missouri River the spot where their little daughter
Wealthy was buried, thirty-four years before. During the trip west they called upon the
historian. Hubert Howe Bancroft, in Sau Francisco, and were received by him with
great kindness and hospitality. In 1884 Mrs. Richards accompanied her son Franklin on
an extended trip, spending a portion of the time in the City of Washington, where she
made the acquaintance of Mrs. Belva A. Lockwood, Miss Susan B. Anthony and other
famous women, and through them exerted an influence favorable to Utah over members
of Congress, which was then considering anti-Mormon legislation.
In October, 1888. Mrs. Richards became first counselor to Zina D. H. Young, Presi-
dent of the National Relief Societies in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Early in 1891. accompanied by Mrs. Sarah M. Kimball, Mrs. E. B. Wells, and other Utah
ladies, she attended the National Council of Women, in session at Washington, D. C,
and secured membership and representation for herself and associates in that great or-
584 HISTORY OF UTAH.
ganization. In 1892, she was appointed Vice-President of the Utah Board of Lady Man-
agers of the World's Fair, and early in 1893, having returned some months from a family
trip to Alaska, she spent several weeks at the great Exposition, with her daughter Joseph-
ine. In 1895, she accompanied her husband and her son Franklin on another visit to the
East.
Mrs. Richards has done work in all the Temples erected by the Saints since the days
of Kirtland. and has attended the dedication of all excepting the Logan Temple. Benev-
olent and charitable by nature, she has always been interested in the salvation of the
weak and wayward. Independent and outspoken, she is still reverential and lespectful
to authority. She is not willing to be imposed upon, nor would she knowingly impose
upon others. She has the reputation of a peace-maker among her associates, she is a
natural and skillful nurse, and as a comforter of the sick and sorrowful, unexcelled.
A severe blow to her was the death of her husband in December, 1899. Up to that
time, though nearing the completion of her seventy-seventh year, she had been active in
public and in private, moving about her home with much of her old-time energy — for she
was always an excellent housewife — and attending the meetings of the Relief Societies
and other gatheriugs. But after the departure of her companion, upon whose love she
had leaned for nearly sixty years, she shunned publicity of every kind and was rarely
seen beyond the precincts of her domestic circle. Later, however, her spirits revived,
and she set about the performance of her public duties with renewed zeal and activity.
A notable affairin which she figured prominently was the celebration by the Weber Relief
Societies of the twenty-fifth anniversary of their Stake organization. The celebration
took place at Ogden, July 19, 1902, iu the new Relief Society building, then dedicated,
and was attended by many prominent people. Mrs. Richards presided over and addressed
the meetings, which were unusually interesting.
MARY ISABELLA HORNE.
0RS. HORNE is not only one of the earliest settlers of Utah, having arrived in
Salt Lake Valley less than three months after the advent of the Pioneers, but
from that time up to the present she has been an active and for many years a
leading spirit in the community. A member of the original Relief Society, or-
ganized at Nauvoo, she has ever since attended the meetings of that organization and
been an industrious worker therein. She has held offices in it for nearly half a century,
and for nearly thirty years has presided over the Relief Societies of the Salt Lake Stake.
She is vice-president of the Utah Silk Association, is the official head of the Woman's
Co-operative Mercantile Institution, and the holder of other positions of honor and trust.
An intelligent thinker aud an able speaker, as an executive officer she has made
her presence felt for good in the discharge of all the various duties incumbent
upon her.
Her maiden name was Mary Isabella Hales. She was born, November 20, 1818,
at Rainham, County of Kent, England. The daughter of Stephen and Mary Ann Hales,
she resided with her parents in her native town until her fourteenth year, when she emi-
grated with them to the city of Toronto, Upper Canada. During the voyage to America
the little girl had almost entire charge of two very young babes, whose mothers were
too ill to care for them. One of these, her brother, died and was buried in the ocean.
When they arrived at Toronto the cholera was raging there, but none of the family were
stricken. Her parents belonged to the laboring class, the father being a shoemaker,
while the mother was an expert needlewoman aud withal an excellent housewife. Their
daughter's school days were limited to two or three years in the public schools of England.
No opportunity to attend school came to her in America. She was a lover of books, how-
ever, and in hei spare time read extensively. She was thoroughly conversant with the
Bible at thirteen years. Industrially her inclinations were to housekeeping and plain and
fancy needlework.
Her girlhood was passed upon a farm in the Township of York, near Toronto. The
eldest daughter in a large family, her early labors were in assisting her mother in
household duties. She was brought up under religious influences, her father being a
HISTORY OF UTAH.
Methodist class leader, also the leader of the singing in a Methodist church, from her
earliest recollection. It was in May, lSMfi, that she first heard the Gospel preached by a
Mormon Elder — Orson Pratt — and in July of the same year she was baptized by Orson
Hyde. Her marriage to Joseph Home had been solemnized on the !>th of the preceding
May. In 1S3S, she accompanied her husband to Far West, Missouri, and after passing
through the persecutions suffered by the Latter-day Saints in that State, resided for
three years at Quincy, Illinois, where she had the pleasure of entertaining the Prophet
Joseph Smith. She moved to Nauvoo early in 1842.
In the exodus of February, 1846, she with her husband and children traveled through
Iowa, among the Pottawattomie Indians, to the Missouri river. While on the way Mrs.
Home gave birth, at Mt. Pisgah, on June 3rd, to her seventh child, a daughter. Three
days later she resumed her journey westward. The following winter was passed at
Winter Quarters.
June 14, 1S47, found her and her family enrolled in Bishop Edward Hunter's com-
pany of one hundred wagons, on the way to Salt Lake Valley. Half these wagons were
under the immediate command of her husband. The family outfit consisted of two heavy
vehicles, loaded with provisions, farming implements, seed grain, bedding, clothing, etc;
also a light one-horse conveyance which Mrs. Home drove. Only two incidents of note
are mentioned by her in connection with the journey across the plains. "One night,"
says she, "while we were on the Platte, hundreds of buffalo crossed the river, heading
directly for the camp. The noise of the splashing in the water and the bellowing was
terrible, and caused considerable commotion and anxiety, but when a few rods away they
turned their course. On another occasion, a band of Indians stopped the company and
would not let us continue our journey until we had given them some provisions and other
presents."
They arrived in Salt Lake Valley, October 6, 1S47, and at first resided on the west
side of the Old Fort, remaining there until March, 1849, when they moved on to their
city lot in the Fourteenth Ward. Concerning her early experiences in the Valley, Mrs.
Home says: "The circumstances surrounding the people the first few years of our
residence in Utah necessitated the devotion of time and energy almost exclusively to
home duties, very little time being given to social pleasures. After our log house had
been built, the problem of what to do for furniture was still harder to solve, as. of course,
very little had been brought with us. One small wooden rocking chair (which one of
my daughters is keeping as a family relic) and a small cook stove comprised our stock of
house furnishings. Cupboards and stools were improvised from packing boxes. Poles
were fastened together and ropes stretched across them for bedsteads. I painted our
door and window frames by mixing together some lamp-black, red lead and skimmed milk,
and rubbing it on with a rag. With a large family to clothe and so little opportunity to
obtain anything in the line of clothing, it required the most rigid economy and a great
deal of mending and making over to keep the children respectably covered. Ofttimes
the boys' pants would be so patched that it was dift'eult to tell what they were originally
made of. Calico curtains were cut up for girls' dresses, and there was no unnecessary
material put in them either.
"As soon as the children were Urge enough to assist in the work, bo5's and girls had
to take an active part. None but those who have experienced it can realize a mother's
feelings when she saw her little boys ten and fourteen years of age take a team and go
to the canyon to be gone over night to get wood: even though they were in company
of older boys >r men. While there was a small school started as soon as possible, there
was very little time for the older children to attend, and on this account many men in
Utah today, who were boys in those early times, are uneducated, so far as scholastic
education is concerned. Still, however, we would take time to read a little and talk to
and instruct our children as much as possible. In October, IS.'iT. my fourteenth child was
born, which made ten then living, four having been called away.
"When the Saints were compelled to leave their homes in the spring of 1S"»S, my
husband was away on a mission in the extreme southern part of Utah, and I had the full
responsibility of packing up and leaving home, to return we knew not when. It was the
1st of May, the peach trees were in bloom, and the city looked like a flower garden,
presenting a most beautiful appearance. I went to President Voting, and he counseled
me what to do and assisted me to get teams for the journey. I drove one of the teams to
Parowan, with my babe, six months old, on my knee, and with three other children
under five years of age. two of them twins. We were absent several months, returning
in October to our much loved home."
As early as 1856 Mrs. Home began her official duties in the Relief Society. She
37
586 HISTORY OF UTAH.
was chosen counselor to Mrs. Phebe Woodruff, who presided over the Fourteenth Ward
branch society, and when it was re-organized in December, 1867, she was appointed
president, holding that position for fourteen years. During this period they built a two-
story brick building and a good substantial adobe granary and had four hundred bushels
of grain stored therein, besides taking care of the poor and assisting in other charitable
works. Next came her appointment, in 1877, as president of the Relief Societies of
the Stake. As early as 1870, when President Young organized the Retrenchment
Association, he appointed Mrs. Home to preside over it. In 1876' she was made vice-
president of the Silk Association, and in 1890 president of the Woman's Co-operative
Mercantile Institution. Besides traveling extensively in the imerests of the Silk Associa-
tion, the Relief Society, the Primary Associations, and other organizations with which
she is or has been connected. Mrs. Home, who is a staunch woman suffragist, has taken
an active part in political movements. At the time of the threatened passage of the Cullom
Bill in 1870, when large mass meetings were held by the Mormon women to protest
a&ainst the contemplated action by Congress, she was one of a committee appointed to
draft resolutions expressive of the general feeling. She has sat in conventions as a dele-
gate, and has pleaded for woman's rights from pulpit and rostrum.
Socially and officially Mrs. Home has enjoyed the friendship and confidence of
the most eminent leaders of her people. In private and in public life she has answered
every requirement and set an example worthy of emulation. A model wife and mother,
she has never found it necessary to neglect her home in order to discharge her public
duties, and her career is a living refutation of the satirical, overdrawn arguments of
anti-suffragists upon this point. She is the mother of fifteen children including three
pairs of twins, and has reared her family in virtue, honor and industry. Eleven of
her children she has seen grow to maturity and enter the state of wedlock. She has sur-
vived her husband, several children, and a much loved grandson, whom she reared from
infancy until his death at sixteen years. In her own eighty-sixth year, she still enjoys
a goodly degree of health, and having long since crossed the summit of life, is
peacefully descending the sunset slope toward the shore of the eternal river.
EMMELINE B. WOODWARD WELLS.
•J* REMARKABLE woman with a remarkable record is Mrs. Emmeline B. Wells, of
l*j Salt Lake City. Proud of her Puritan descent, she has realized in the course of
^■^ her eventful life the best and highest ideals of her heroic ancestors. Though
essentially literary, loving romance and all but worshiping nature, a maker of
verses from childhood and best known for the productions of her pen in poetry and prose,
she is also recognized as possessing marked executive ability, and is appreciated for her
affectionate, altruistic nature and her talent for imparting instruction. Frank and out-
spoken almost to bluntness, her soul overflows with generous impulses, and she is an
ever,ready help to the needy, the sorrowful and the afflicted.
Emmeline Blanche Woodward — for that was her maiden name — was born at Peter-
sham, Worcester County, Massachusetts, February, 2'.), 1828r She was the seventh child
among ten, whose parents were David Woodward and Deidama Hare. The Woodwards came
from England in the year 1630. They were of noble Norman extraction and fought at
Hastings, Agincourt, Edgehill, and upon other fields of fame. One of her father's ances-
tors was killed in King Phillip's war, 1675. The brother of her great-grandfather gave
money to pay the patriot soldiers at the battle of Concord; while her grandfather and her
father served respectively in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. Her passion
for romance, for knightly and patriotic deeds, is thus accounted for. Her father died
when she was four years old, the victim of a runaway accident.
Her literary gifts are largely from the maternal side. As a child she was given the
best educational advantages to be obtained, and was so quick to learn that she graduated
when very young. At fifteen she taught school. Some time during the year 1841 her
mother with her younger children was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-
day Saints. "Emmie," as she was called, was away at the time, attending a select school
for girls, and boarding with a married sister. Both daughters responded to the mother's
HISTORY OF UTAH. 587
invitation to come and hear "the Elders," but were not impressed as she had been. At home,
after the school term closed, Emmie attended the Mormon meetings, and yielding to her
mother's importunities, finally consented to be baptized. The baptism took place March
1, 1842, in a little brook on their own land. The day was very cold, and the ice had to
be cut, for the administration of the ordinance. Seven persons were baptized, Emmie,
the youngest, being last. Much excitement prevailed, threats were made by the town
authorities, and ministers, judges and others came to the water's edge to forbid the
baptism, or learn if she were submitting to it of her own free will and choice. It was a
trying ordeal for the young girl, but she told her mother that the crisis was past, and
thenceforth she would dedicate her life to the work in which she had enlisted. She faith-
fully kept her resolve.
At school, the year after, she endured much ridicule, and her teachers, with others,
were constantly endeavoring to persuade her to renounce the unpopular faith. What her
sensitive nature suffered, and what the conflict in her secret soul, could net be told in
words. The mother, knowing her daughter's temperament, and fearing that her intense
desire for a higher education might induce her to yield to the entreaties of relatives and
friends, arranged to send her to Nauvoo in a company of Latter-day Saints who were
about to migrate. That she might have proper care and protection she was persuaded to
contract a marriage with the son of an influential Elder, the president of the local branch,
and go as a member of his family. The young couple scarcely knew each other, but
were mutually attracted, amrsHi Sunday, July '2S). 1843, the probate judge performed the
ceremony uniting James Harvey Harris and Emmeline Blanche Woodward in marriage.
The bride was but fifteen years and five months old on her wedding day.
The journey westward was begun in April, 1S44. Though pained at the parting, her
mother, for the reason given, was glad to have her go. The first important event that
followed was her meeting with the Prophet Joseph Smith at Nauvoo. She was thrilled
by his very hand shake, and received, she declares, a testimony of his divine mission.
This was not many weeks before the martyrdom. She heard him deliver his last ser-
mons and addresses, and noted the wondrous power that accompanied them. During
that troubled period she developed the abiding faith that helped her through the trying
ordeals then unfolding in her history.
Immediately after the Prophet's death her husband's father and mother left the
Church and moved from Nauvoo. They wished to take their sou and his wife with tbem, and
made them liberal offers — for they had considerable wealth — but the young couple re-
fused to go. Before and after the martyrdom Mr. Harris stood guard many nights as a
member of the Nauvoo Legion, and he and his wife were present at the memorable meet-
ing when "the mantle" of Joseph fell upon Brigham in th"e eyes of the assembled
Saints.
Sunday, the first of September came, and with it the birth of a beautiful little boy,
who at eight days was blessed and named Eugene Henri Harris. The child was
stricken with chills aud fever, which had previously brought the young mother to the
brink of the grave, and on the Gth of October he died. Herself healed by the power of
faith, under the administration of President Brigham Young, she wrote then those tender
little verses published in her book of poems, "Life's Sweetest Flower Seems Gone.'"
Another heavy sorrow followed fast. Her husband, who up to this time had been
tender, kiud-and solicitous, left her, never to return. It was the Kith of November, 1S44,
when he bade her an affectionate farwell, and took steamer for St. Louis, promising to
return in about two weeks. She watched, waited, wept and prayed for his coming; but
in vain. A letter came, full of sympathy, telling her to go to La Harpe, to his father,
mother and brother, and he would soon rejoin her. But follow the apostates she would
not. To her faith, now dearer than ever, she clung tenaciously. One more letter e»me,
then all was over; not another word did she ever receive from him. Unable yet to do
work of any kind, the broken-hearted wife was alone and helpless. It was under these
circumstances that she accepted the offer of a home from a maiden lady, a sister in the
Church, with whom she had traveled from Albany to Nauvoo. Miss Bishop was her
name, and she was a cousin to the wife of Bishop Newel K. Whitney. Subsequently Mrs.
Harris becan:e a member of the Bishop's household.
In September, 184.'), her mother, her two younger sisters, Adeline and Ellen, and
her brother Hiram came from the East. Bidding them adieu in the following February,
she joined the general exodus, little knowing that it was her final parting with her de-
voted mother, whom she expected would follow in one of the later companies. The
heroic woman was among those ruthlessly expelled from Nauvoo, and was striken down
with fever and ague, due to hardships and exposure on the bleak aud rainy shores of
588 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Iowa. While still sick she climbed into a wagon and made a strong effort to rejoin her
friends upon the Missouri, but when about seventy-five miles out she died and was buried
by the wayside. Her motherless little ones arrived at Winter Quarters greatly in need
of care and attention. There as at Nauvoo, Emmie taught school. In the year 1848
they all came with Bishop Whitney to Salt Lake Valley.
The Whitneys camped on the site now occupied by the Latter-day Saints' University.
On the 2nd of November, a few weeks after her arrival, in the wagon with which she had
crossed the plains, and amid a terrific storm of wind and sleet, Mrs. Emmeline B. Whit-
ney gave birth to a daughter — Isabel Modalena, today Mrs. S. W. Sears, of Salt Lake
City. On the 18th of August, 1850, another daughter was born — Melvina Caroline, now
Mrs. W. W. Woods, of Wallace, Idaho. Several weeks later Bishop Whitney died, leav-
ing her a widow with two babes. She had a staunch friend in the Bishop's first wife,
Elizabeth Ann Whitney, and between her and that sainted mother in Israel there always
existed a most tender affection.
<C^Six months of the year 1852, she taught school in a little log school house on what is
now Fourth East Street, between First and Second South. In October of that year she
married General Daniel H. Wells, by whom she had three daughters7*-Ernn)eline, born
September 10, 1853; Elizabeth Ann, (Mrs. John Q. Cannon) born December 7, 1859;
and Martha Louisa, born August 27, 1S02. From 1852 to 1SS8, Mrs. Wells resided on
State Street, a little north of where the Hotel Knutsford now stands. It was in com-
memoration of her long residence there that she wrote the sweet and soulful verses, "The
Dear Old Garden," a favorite with the admirers of her poems.
While her children were young she devoted herself almost exclusively to home. She
sang in the choir at the old Tabernacle, and her literary work went quietly on. She was al-
ways deeply interested in people, in the culture of the youth and the progress of communi-
ties and nations. The advancement of her sex was with her a favorite theme. When the
women of Utah were enfranchised (February, 1870) she was one of the first to wield the
ballot and to recognize in the event one of the indications of a new era.
About this time she began to devote herself more to public affairs. In 1873 her
writings appeared in the "Woman's Exponent." This paper from the first advocated
suffrage principles. Mrs. Wells wrote over the nom de plume of "Blanch Beechwood.''
In 1874 she lent occasional assistance in the editorial department, and on the 1st of May,
1875, was regularly installed as assistant editor. In July, 1877, when the editor, Mrs.
Richards, retired, Mrs. Wells succeeded her at the head of the paper. She has been the
sole editor of the Exponent for more than a quarter of a century.
She early became interested in the relief society, the character and purpose of which
she well understood through her intimate association with "Mother'' Whitney, who had
been counselor, at Nauvoo, to Emma Smith, the first president of the society. She
traveled extensively in Utah and surrounding parts with Eliza R. Snow, Zina D. H. Young
and other leading women, in the interests of the society, and aided also in organizing
Young Ladies' and Primary Associations. In October, 1876, under President Young's
counsel, she took the initiative in the grain-storing movemet, and was made chairman of
the Central Committee organized for that purpose. This was the year of the Centennial
Exhibition. Eliza R. Snow, who had been appointed by the authorities at Philadelphia to
take charge of the work of the Utah women in connection with the event, selected Emme-
line B. Wells as secretary.
By this time her well known interest in woman's suffrage had brought her to the at-
tention of the National Woman's Suffrage Association. In 1874 she had been appointed
its vice-president for Utah. Thenceforth she was destined to be active in public duties
of a general character. She was a member for several years of the Territorial Central
Committee and the Salt Lake County Committee of the People's Party, and in 1882 was
a member of the Constitutional Convention.
Her first public work outside of Utah was her attendance, by the earnest solicitation
of Susan B. Anthony, Sara J. Andrews Spencer and other noted women, at the Conven-
tion of the National Woman's Suffrage Association, held in Washington, D. C, January,
1879. She was accompanied by Zina Young Williams, now Mrs. C. O. Card. They were
well received by the convention, where they spoke from the platform; and by President
and Mrs. Hayes, whorh they visited at the White House. They presented to the President
and to Congress a memorial, asking for the repeal of the anti-polygamy act of 1802, which
had just been declared constitutional. In 1882. Mrs. Wells with Mrs. Zina D. H. Young,
attended the National Suffrage Convention at Omaha, and she there gave an exhaustive
paper upon conditions in Utah.
Three years later during the heat of the crusade under the Edmunds law, she at-
HISTORY OF UTAH. 589
tended another suffrage convention in Washington, and had interviews with prominent
members of Congress upon the Mormon question. She called upon and was graciously
received by Miss Kose Elizabeth Cleveland, President Cleveland's sister, then the lady of
the White House, who conversed with her for over two hours upon the Utah situation. At
parting Miss Cleveland requested another interview, fixing the date. Mrs. Wells had
previously visited, for the first time since 1844, her old home in Massachusetts, and had
called upon kindred and noted people in various places. She dined with Lucy Stone,
spent a day with the poet Whittier, and had tea and an interesting conversation with
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.
Homeward bound by way of Kirtland and Nauvoo, she had reached Kansas City
when a telegram from Utah caused her to return to Washington, where with Dr. Ellen B.
Ferguson, Mrs. Emily S. Richards and Mrs. Josephine Richards West she presented a
memorial of the women of Utah to the President and Congress. The anti-Mormon oppo-
sition was then at its height, and the Supreme Court was hearing the case of the United
States vs. Lorenzo Snow. These ladies listened to the entire argument. They called
upon Senator Edmunds, Senator Ingalls, and other statesmen, and left no stone unturned
to impart correct information upon the subject of Utah and her people. Mrs. Wells and
Dr. Ferguson remained at the capital until May, 1886, trying in vain to prevent the con-
summation of the scheme for the establishment of an industrial home for plural wives in
Utah. Had Congress listened to these ladies, several hundred thousand dollars of public
money spent upon this useless institution might have been saved.
In 1888, when Zina D. H. Young was chosen president of the general Relief Society,
Emmeline B. Wells became its corresponding secretary; and in 1892, when the Relief
Society was incorporated, she was elected general secretary, which position she still
holds. The year before she went to Washington with Mrs. Jane S. Richards to attend
the first session of the National Council of Women, Miss Frances S. Willard, President.
It was then that the Relief Society became affiliated with the Council.
Two years later was held the World's Fair at Chicago. It was largely due to the efforts
of Mrs. Wells, as chairman of the women of Salt Lake County in preparing for the event,
that Gentile, Jewish and Mormon ladies united in making a creditable showing at the in-
ternational exposition. A prominent feature of the Fair was the Congress of represen-
tative women, whose chairman, Mrs. May Wright Sewall, recognizing the importance of
the Relief Society and the Young Ladies' Mutual Improvement Association, used her in-
fluence to the end that each of these should hold department meetings in connection with
the Congress during the first week of its session. At the Relief Society meeting Mrs.
Wells gave a paper, widely copied and quoted, upon "Western Women in Journalism,"
also speaking upon the storing of grain, an entirely new feature in woman's work. By
appointment of the general committee, she presided over one of the meetings of the Con-
gress, held in the Hall of Columbus.
In 1895 she represented Utah at the National Woman's Suffrage Association Conven-
tion in Atlanta. Her address upon our Territory's prospective admission to Statehood
was enthusiastically applauded, and Miss Anthony came forward and embraced her on the
platform. At the National Council held at Washington in February of the same year,
she read a paper entitled "Forty Years in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake,'' which was
reproduced in the leading journals. While there she urged members of Congress to pro-
mote sericulture in Utah, and to grant the petition of the legislature asking that the In-
dustrial Home be given to the women of the Territory for a hospital.
When she returned home the Constitutional Convention was in session. A meeting
of ladies, woman suffragists, at which she presided, was at once held, and steps taken to
secure the equal suffrage plank as a part of the State Constitution. That these efforts met
with success was due in no small degree to her activity and influence. Upon the
adandonment of the old political lines, she had declared herself a Republican, and had
been selected by that party as chairman of the Utah Woman's Republican League. She
was a member of the Republican Territorial Committee, and afterwards vice-chairman of
the State Committee. Just before Statehood came she was nominated for the Legislature,
but withdrew (under protest) when the question arose of the ineligibility of women to
hold office prior to the signing of the Constitution by the President of the United States.
In 1897 she represented Utah at the National Suffrage Convention in Des Moines, and
with Miss Anthony and other ladies spoke upon the suffrage question before the Iowa
Legislature in the Senate chamber. She also attended executive meetings of the National
Council of Women in Chicago, Omaha, New York and Minneapolis, receiving at the last
named place an appointment on a commission of three for woman's work in Cuba, Hawaii
and the Philippines.
590 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Up to 1899 Mrs. Wells had never left her native land. That year she crossed the At-
lantic, and attended the Woman's International Council and Congress in London. With
other delegates she was entertained by the queen and nobility at various great gatherings
in honor of the Council, and during this visit addressed, by invitation, a great meeting at
Convocation Hall, in the Deanery of Westminster Abbey.
In 1901, she witnessed, as the guest of Senator and Mrs. Kearns, the inauguration of
President McKinley, and took part in the meetings of the International Press Association
held about that time. She had previously represented the Press Association at the
National Educational Convention in San Francisco. In 1902 she was again in Washington,
at the National Woman's Suffrage Convention and the Triennial of the Woman's National
Council. She was the first western woman to be elected an officer of that council, holding for
a three years' term, ending February, 1902, the position of second recording secretary.
She has been a patron of the Council — a life position — since 1S94, and is also a life mem-
ber of the National Woman's Suffrage Association.
In the midst of this multiplicity of engagements, some of which have taken her al-
most to the antipodes, she has continued to discharge her editorial duties, with other im-
portant trusts and responsibilities. She has done much literary work outside her paper.
For the Columbian Exposition she edited "Songs and Flowers of the Wasatch," also a
book of prose entitled "Charities and Philanthropies.'' Her poetic volume appeared in
1896. Its general style is suggested by the title, "Musings and Memories;'' a book of
beautiful and tender verse. Her next volume, which is copyrighted and ready for
publication, will be issued as "Aunt Em's Stories." She has corresponded with many
eminent people, both men and women. Her marvelous memor3- is an encyclopedia of
facts upon any subject in which she is interested, and her office and home are a Mecca
for tourists and visitors in quest of information pertaining to her people and their
institutions. Needless to say she is a very busy woman; work is her most congenial
atmosphere, her very breath of life. Did we not know that labor is conducive to longev-
ity, we might wonder that one frail little woman, with a life full of sorrows and cares,
however rife with nervous energy and vitality, could have endured so long and ac-
complished so much.
RUTH MOSHER PACK.
'HIS typical pioneer woman, whose character and experience are thoroughly repre-
sentative of her class, came to Utah inSthe fall of 1S48, with the immigration led
from Winter Quarters by President Brigham Young. She is a Canadian by birth,
but when two years of age was brought by her parents, Silas and Martha Mosher,
from Prescott, where she was born April 12, 1822, to the State of New York, where she
lived until she was twenty-one. Her father owned and cultivated a large farm, and also
took contracts for cutting and shipping timber in great quantities. He made money and
was very prosperous. Ruth received the best education obtainable in the common schools
of that place and period. She was trained to be industrious, and at seventeen appren-
ticed herself to a tailor. She liked the tailoring trade, and has followed it more or less
throughout her life.
Religiously inclined, she was a faithful church-goer, and when ten years of age she
walked three miles to see some Mormon Elders — Ira Patten and Warren Parrish — baptize
six converts in the St. Lawrence river. She was much impressed by what she saw and
heard, but it was not until eleven years later that she herself became a Latter-day Saint. In
1843 she went to Nauvoo, the headquarters of the Church, and took up her abode at the
Mansion House. Prior to leaving the State of New York, Ruth had a remarkable ex-
perience, which was duplicated after her arrival at Nauvoo. She says:
"When I was nineteen years of age I was visited by my sister, who had died a short
time previous; but not having courage to speak, I covered niy face. This was often in
my mind, and after I became a member of the Church I prayed earnestly that if it was
necessary for my sister to speak with me she might come again, and I might have courage
to talk with her. Soon she again came to my bedside, just after daylight, and said, 'I want
to speak with you about the Gospel — you and your posteiity are the only ones to do a
;
&ftrJZ e^e
HISTORY OF UTAH. 591
work for our kindred.' I said, 'Have you heard it preached, and by whom?' She an-
swered, 'Yes; by Elders who have died, and I have received it. I want you to promise
to do a work for me.' (This was before work for the dead was taught). All fear had
left my mind as soon as the first words were exchanged. I asked, 'Are you happy, and
what kind of a piace are you in?' She replied, 'As happy as I can be until you do a
work for me; I am with spirits in prison, who are waiting for work to be done for them.'
She referred to the principle of plural marriage, and begged me, whatever trials I had
to encounter, never to turn away. I pleaded with her to visit our parents and tell them
the Gospel was true. She replied, 'Ruth, it would do no good; if they would not believe
your testimony, they would not believe mine, though I came from the dead.' Then say-
ing her time was up, she withdrew."
Ruth Mosher married John Pack in the year 1845. She was with her husband in
the exodus from Nauvoo, and remained at Winter Quarters, on the Missouri river,
while he as one of the Pioneers accompanied President Young to the Rocky Mountains,
returning to her the same season. Says Mrs. Pack: "When we left Nauvoo we were
well supplied with teams and wagons, and also had a carriage. When we left Winter
Quarters we had two yoke of cattle and one yoke of cows on a good wagon. This team,
myself and Mr. Pack's wife Nancy drove, yoking, unyoking and caring for them. Most
of the time our provisions were parched corn-meal and milk, with once in a while a little
rice and sugar. We left Winter Quarters the latter part of April, if I remember rightly.
Howard Egan was the captain of our ten. We were associated on the journey with the
families of President Young and President Kimball, and drove right behind Brother
Kimball's teams. Mr. Pack had an ox killed in an attack made by Indians on our cattle
at the Elk Horn. The ox belonged to the team that Nancy and I drove. William Kim-
ball and Howard Egan had horses wounded at the same time.''
This emigration reached Sait Lake Vallev in September and October, 1848. The
Packs settled in the Seventeenth ward, where the subject of this narrative resided until
the summer of 1849, when she moved to Farmington to secure a piece of land. She re-
turned to Salt Lake City for the winter, but in the spring went back to Davis county,
settling this time at Bountiful, then called Sessions' Settlement. "Meanwhile," says
her record, "Mr. Pack was called on a mission to France. Mrs. Julia Pack and myself,
assisted by Ward E. Pack, then a young boy, cleared, plowed and sowed about six acres
of land to wheat. We all worked to improve and fence it. In the fall Ward E. cradled
the grain and I assisted in binding it. We threshed it by driving the horses around and
over it, thus tramping it out. We then borrowed a fanning mill of a neighbor to clear
it, we women assisting in all the work. Our first grist was taken to Neff's mill, south of
Salt Lake City.
"In 1803 Mr. Pack moved me with my little family, to Rhodes' Valley, now called
Kamas. The next year the settlers there were counseled to move to Peoa, a distance of
eight miles, as danger from Indians was threatened. We had a number of scares, and
the stock had to be closely guarded; otherwise we were not molested. In the fall we
returned to our homes, the fear of a heavy winter having driven the Indians back to
their lands. In 1873 we were again advised to leave, as the Indians threatened trouble
and the vallev was a remote one. We moved to Salt Lake City, but returned the ensu-
ing summer to Kamas, and have remained here ever since."
On the 4th of April, 1885, Mrs. Pack was left a widow, and since that time she has
busied herself in looking after ber family and property. She is the mother of nine chil-
dren, all but one of them living at last accounts. She keeps the Kamas House for the
entertainment of travelers. She has done a great deal of work in the women's associ-
ations of the Church, and for many years has filled the office of counselor to the Stake
President of the Relief Society. She is a thoroughly good woman, wide-awake, indus-
trious and enterprising.
CHARILLA ABBOTT BROWNING.
•Y\RS. BROWNING came to Utah in 1849. A native of the State of New York, she
I I I was born at Hornellsville, or Arkport, in Steuben county. July 4, 1829. Her
v parents were Stephen and Abagail Smith Abbott, the former from Luzern county,
Pennsylvania, the latter from Ontario county, New York. They were industri-
ous, well-to do-people, engaged in a variety of occupations — farming, furniture making
592 HISTORY OF UTAH.
the manufacture of potash, and the turning out of the finest products of the woolen
mill. Their daughter received a fair education, attending school both in New York and
in Illinois, to which state the family moved when she was about seven years old.
They went down the Alleghany river on a flat boat, touching at Pittsburg and Cin-
cinnati, and thence proceeded by steamboat and wagon to their destination, Perry, Pike
county, Illinois. There Mr. Abbott bought a quarter-section of land, built a log house —
the second one in the place — and started to farming. He afterwards built a two-story
frame house, a furniture shop and a woolen factory. Charilla's natural tendency was to
school teaching and dress making, but as the boys of the household were not old enough,
she and her sisters had to do the work of boys and chore about the farm, planting corn,
gathering eggs and selling them by the barrel in the neighboring market; meanwhile
attending also to household duties.
When she was about thirteen years of age her parents, who were Latter-day Saints,
moved to Nauvoo, and she then resided a couple of months with her uncle, James Abbott,
nursing her invalid grandmother. Finally, after staying with various relatives and ac-
quaintances, she followed her parents to Nauvoo. She was baptized into the Church by
the Prophet Joseph Smith iu May, 1843. She at once became a member of the Relief
Society which he had founded. In October of the same year her mother was left a
widow with eight children and Charilla went to work at fifty cents a week to help main-
tain the family.
In the exodus she drove her mother's ox team wagon, leaving Mosquito Creek July
7, 1S-49, and crossing the Missouri at Winter Quarters. They traveled in the general
emigration of that season under the direction of Captain Case, Elisha Everett and George
A. Smith. Along with them went a Welsh company under Captain Dan Jones. One
Welshman was lost for three days, causing much labor and anxiety among his friends,
until he was found in one of the companies ahead. Precious time was lost by this inci-
dent, and at South Pass the coinpauy was snow-bound for three days. The snow drifted
nearly to the tops of the wagon covers and the wagons had to be dug out. The cattle
stampeded and some were found standing among the willows, belly deep in snow, frozen
to death. Some of the vehicles, having no cattle, had to be abandoned. Two or three
families were put into one wagon and many persons walked, weeping and despairing,
until met and helped in by teams from the valley. All arrived in safety on the 25th of
October.
Two days after their arrival the Abbott family continued their journey northward,
reaching, in the evening of October 27, Captain James Brown's fort on the Weber; the
site of the present city of Ogden. There they settled permanently. Charilla's time was
occupied in teaching school, killing crickets and helping her mother and the rest of the
family make cheese and butter, much of which they sold to emigrants passing through to
California. She remembers a terrible flood in the spring of 1850, when the Weber river
rose so high that the water entered the houses, floated the furniture and compelled a
temporary removal by means of boats, oxen, etc. She helped civilize the Indians in her
vicinity, and took part in the organization of relief societies for the care of the poor and
the gathering of means to maintain those who stood guard during Indian troubles or
went to the frontier to bring in the regular fall immigration. Says she: "It fell to my
lot to teach the first school in my section. It was in a small log house plastered with
mud, having two small windows, and literally a ground floor. The benches were of
slabs. We had few books, aud pens were made of chicken quills. I gathered the alpha-
bet from scraps of paper and pasted the letters on paddles for the A, B, C class. In
winter paths were made for the pupils by taking oxen and dragging logs through the
snow." She describes the long, tedious journeys to Salt Lake City, where wagon loads
of grain were exchanged for store goods, and customers had to put down their names,
with lists of the things they wanted, and take their turns at trading. Sugar was fifty
cents a pound, calico fifty cents a yard, and other articles in proportion. She tells how
the early settlers utilized weed blossoms, bark and roots for dye-stuffs; cat-tails and hay
for beds; greased paper or cloth for window glass; rushes and dirt for shingles; and how
they gathered salaratus from the gulches for bread and soap making, and salt from the
lake to season their frugal meals.
"From 1849 to 1S54," she continues, "we suffered great annoyance from the In-
dians, having to stand guard nights in order to protect our lives and property. Though
kind as a rule, they had their rebellious spells, when our folks would have to get their
chief, 'Little Soldier,' and his associates, confine them in a corral, and guard them there
until they agreed to be peaceful and let our stock alone. They were great hands to slip
around the house when the men were away, and if the latch-string was out, come in and
HISTORY OF UTAH. 593
stand against the door and make the women and children give them what they asked for.
We were glad to go to the fields with the men in order to escape such visits. Once a
year the Indians had their time for hunting game and gathering service berries, which
they had a' way of drying far superior to ours. Everybody was glad to trade with them
for their berries, and for elk, deer and antelope skins to make clothing and moccasins for
the men. Occasionally one tribe would fight another and come back riding, whooping and
yelling through the streets, singing war songs and exhibiting scalps on long poles. They
ate crickets and grasshoppers, first drying them and then grinding them between two
flat rocks, after which they made them into soup. The gulls also helped us to get rid of
the crickets, which were so thick at times that we could not move without stepping on
them. The Indians said that the gulls were never seen here until we came. Our people
built a wall out of day and dirt, ten to fifteen feet high and a mile square, with bastions
and port holes for defense against hostile Indians. It was a great help in that direction,
but it hindered greatly the progress of our farming."
It was in the midst of such primitive conditions that our heroine entered the state of
wedlock, marrying on January 27, 1853, David Elias Browning. The ceremony uniting
them was performed by Lorin Farr, mayor of Ogden City and president of the Weber
Stake of Zion. Eight children blessed their union, and from these have sprung numer-
ous descendants. The Browning family were in "the move" of 1858, camping on the
Provo bottoms for a couple of months, destitute of all comforts, and then returning to
their northern home. "Since those times," says Mrs. Browning, "we have had our
ups and downs and have had to be 'jacks-of -all-trades,' as the saying is; we have worried
through with railroads, booms, bonding and high taxes, until we are pretty nearly used up
by such 'improvements.' ''
During the fall of 1S93, in company with her husband and her daughter-in-law, — her
son Stephen's wife — she had the pleasure of visiting her mother's relatives in Birmingham,
Michigan, eighteen miles from Detroit, where they were received with great kindness.
On their way back to Utah they visited the World's Fair at Chicago, and escaping two
great railroad wrecks, returned in safety to their homes. Mrs. Browning is now a
widow, but is still one of the prominent women of Weber County.
EMILY HILL WOODMANSEE.
POSSESSOR of a poetic as well as a practical mind, Mrs. Woodmansee sprang from
the sturdy stock which has been called "the backbone of English society." Thomas
Hill, her father, was a farmer and land owner at Warminster, in Wiltshire, and he
with his wife, Elizabeth Slade Hill, endeavored to rear their family honorably and
give them a good education. Emily, their youngest daughter, was coin at Warminster,
March 24, 1836. When but a mere child she was much concerned about her eternal sal-
vation. Hungering and thirsting for truth, she searched the scriptures, invariably turn-
ing to the lives of the aneient prophets, and wondering why God did not still speak to
man.
In the year 1S48 her family received a visit from a relative who had just embraced
Mormonism. and from her they heard of Joseph Smith, the latter day prophet, and the
restoration of the ancient Gospel. Hearing that some Mormon Elders were to preach in
the neighborhood, Emil}- attended the meeting, aud although but twelve years of age,
she grasped the purport of their message and was convinced of its truth. On her return
home she astourded the family by declaring that she knew the Latter-day Saints were the
Lord's people, and that she would join them when she was big enough. This she did,
being baptized into the Church March 25, 1852. Her unwavering allegiance to what she
believed to be right, aud the implicit trust in God which the child believer exhibited dur-
ing many trying circumstances that followed, were but germ characteristics of the woman
of mature years.
In spite of intense opposition from her parents and friends, she sailed early in 1856
for America, in company with an older sister (afterwards Mrs. Julia Ivins) who had also
joined the Church. From New York they traveled to Iowa City, and thence, as part of
a company of five hundred Saints, started on the 15th of July for Utah, wading
rivers, crossing prairies, climbing mountains, and pushing handcarts a distance of thir-
teen hundred miles. The winter that year was unusually early and uncommonly severe.
The sufferings of the handcart companies have become historic. Many died, and all would
594 HISTORY OF UTAH.
have perished in the mountain snows but for their timely rescue by relief parties sent out
from Salt Lake Valley. Among her many poetic effusions — for she has been a prolific
writer, and it is natural for her to express her feelings in verse — is one commemorative
of that thrilling part of her personal experience.
In June, 18")7, Miss Hill married, as a plural wife, one of the most talented men in
the community. She and her husband were among the guests invited, a month later, to
celebrate Pioneer Day- Utah's tenth anniversary — at the head of Big Cottonwood
Canyon, in company with President Young and other Church leaders. It was there that
the startling news was received of the coming of an army to put down a supposed Mor-
mon rebellion. Naturally these tidings caused considerable excitement among the pleas-
ure seekers. Returning home, they held public meetings, at one of which it was proposed
that if the army attempted to enter the city it should be set on fire and the people start
upon another exodus. With the horrors of the handcart journey fresh in her memory,
this undaunted woman raised her hand in acquiescence with the rest. She was in the
move south, and returned with the rest of the people after the trouble was over.
The following year a daughter was born to her, and soon after this her husband went
on a mission to England. After three years absence he sent a message, stating that he
should not return, and repudiating the principle of celestial marriage, by virtue of which
she had become his wife. This cruel event came while the Civil War was raging, when
provisions and merchandise of all kinds were very high, and she and her child were left
to destitution, so far as the recreant husband and father knew. But she was a bright and
capable business woman, and by her industry succeeded not only in supporting herself,
but in purchasing a home. Afterwards she was united in marriage to Joseph Woodman-
see, a prominent merchant, and bore to him eight children.
Mrs. Woodmansee has seen many reverses, but her innate courage and ability have
made her equal to all occasions. Her husband having lost heavily in mining speculations,
she again entered upon a business career, and made a phenomenal success in real estate
for several years. She was appointed treasurer of the Woman's Co-operative Store, a
position which she has efficiently filled for the past twelve years. Her busy pen has
brought forth many meritorious productions. In October, 1899, she was awarded a gold
medal for the Sunday School Jubilee prize poem, which runs as follows:
From many far off lands,
Pilgrims in cheerful bands,
With one accord,
Hastened in these last days,
Hither to learn God's ways;
And still they come, to praise
And serve the Lord.
When darkness clothed the land.
The Lord's sufficient hand
Kent yonder sky;
Amid doubt's dreary night,
The Lord's sufficient might,
Restored the Gospel light,
Lest faith should die.
To Him whose heavenly truth
Now gladdens age and youth.
Both great and small.
Give thanks! He still presides,
Who sends us faithful guides;
Thank Him whose love provides
Good gifts for all.
Chorus;
Come! let us joyful be;
Hail Zion's jubilee,
Of Sunday schools!
Sing! for on every side,
Zion has multiplied;
Let God be glorified
Where freedom rules.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 595
One of her best productions is entitled "Western Wilds," with a fragment from
which this sketch will conclude:
Jubilant the song of progress that these Western valleys sing;
Through the grand old mountain gorges, clear, triumphant echoes ring;
Crystal torrents swiftly leaping downward with resistless might.
Onward to the valleys sweeping, shout a chorus of delight.
Countless gushing, gurgling streamlets blend their harmonizing sound —
Caroling as if for gladness, while they scatter life around.
Pastures green and vine filled gardens, humming bees and lowing kine,
Make this second land of Canaan flow with honey, milk and wine;
Here and there in lovely lakelets, sport and thrive the finny brood,
Furnishing fastidious fancies with delicious, dainty food,
Marvels everywhere surround us, gaze on yonder inland sea!
Broad expanse of liquid splendor, Utah's crowning novelty;
Briny billows, flashing, foaming, with old ocean's rise and swell,
Into calmer moods subsiding, always weaving beauty's spell;
Shining waves like glittering silver, mirror such resplendent skies —
Lo! the poet's dreams elysian are revealed to wondering eyes.
By the bracing mountain breezes, even sluggish souls are stirred;
Everywhere the hum of business and of enterprise is heard;
Lo! where reigned primeval silence — desolation's awful hush —
People thrive, and cities flourish, orchards bloom and roses blush;
Isolation's veil is lifted, desolation's day is o'er,
Western Wilds, so called for ages, are advancing to the fore.
HANNAH CORNABY.
^~^HIS aged and respected lady came to Utah with her husband in the fall of 1853. A
Ijij) native of Suffolk, England, she was born in Kose Hall, an ancient and picturesque
i? mansion on the river Waveny, near the town of Beccles, March 17, 1822. Her
maiden name was Hannah Last, and she was the eldest child of William and Han-
nah (Hollingsworth) Last. They were members of the Church of England, but subse-
quently the mother and daughter joined the Congregational society. The girl had a
somewhat lonely childhood, her brother and sister, Benjamin and Eliza, twins, dying at
an early age, and her sister Lydia — too young to be her companion — also passing away.
While Hannah was still a child reverses came to the family, and their beautiful home,
Rose Hall, was exchanged for a pleasant suburban cottage, with rural surroundings.
When she was about seven years old an event occurred that made a deep and lasting im-
pression upon her. Her own words best describe it:
"My father and I were walking in our garden one evening in the mellow twilight, a
quiet grey beauty pervading the scene, when a sudden flash of light made us start! Turn-
ing toward the point whence it proceeded, we saw a remarkable streak of red rising in
the west, which riveted our attention by its brightness. While watching its upward
course, an arm and a hand holding a scroll were plainly visible; and soon the form of a
person appeared, full in sight, following the streak of red before mentioned. A light
similar to the first followed this wonderful personage, and the whole procession slowly
moved through the midst of the heavens and disappeared at the eastern boundary of the
horizon. During the passage of this heavenly being across the entire arch of the sky,
the right hand was in motion, waving the scroll, as if showing it to the inhabitants of the
earth. This wonderful vision having disappeared, my father and I, hand in hand, stood
as if spellbound, when we heard two men, passing along the road (from which a living
fence or hedge separated us) discoursing on what they, as well as ourselves, had seen.
The one remarked to the other, that he thought it could not be an angel, as no wings
were visible; we too had observed this, yet believed it to be an angel. A loose robe
covered the body, leaving the arms and a portion of the limbs visible. As soon as we
were able to walk, we went to the house, when mother saw that something unusual had
596 HISTORY OF UTAH.
happened, and asked what made us so pale. At my request father allowed me to relate
to her what we had seen. WheD I had given an account of this strange phenomenon she
was much affected, and remarked that it was one of the signs of the last days, according
to the Revelation of St. John.''
Hannah's reverence for the Supreme Being was intensified by this remarkable mani-
festation. She loved to be alone, especially at eventide, that she might watch the heavens,
thinking another vision would appear. She continued attending school, was a great
reader, and as she read her religious desires deepened. She was fourteen when her sister
Lydia died, and her grief was so great that her health failed, and it was not until her
departed sister appeared to her that she was comforted. Shortly after she went with her
parents' permission to live with a family of motherless children, who became fondly at-
tached to her, as she to them, and likewise to the admirable and accomplished lady who
in due time became their step-mother. She remained with this family six years.
It was on June 4, 1841, that she was publicly received as a member of the Congre-
gational church, which her mother had previously joined. She greatly appreciated the
mental and moral culture received during this part of her life. Her mind expanded
"like an opening flower to the glad sunshine," and wherever she saw misery, want and
suffering she tried in every way to alleviate it. She became deeply interested in foreign
missions, through listening to the elequent appeals of Williams, Moffat, Pritchard and
other distinguished missionaries. She also labored for the emancipation of the slaves in
the West Indies, and was present at one of the meetings held when the fetters of three
millions of human beings were broken. Her heart still bled for the slaves in America,
and her indignation was raised to burniug shame, as occasionally an escaped slave
reached Britain's emancipated shores and told of the sufferings of his fellows in bondage.
Up to this time Hannah had never known the feeling of love, as it exists between
young people of opposite sexes. Suitors she had many, but none had awakened within
her the divine emotion. One day she was in the town of Beccles on business, when she
chanced to meet a young man, an entire stranger to her. Something whispered "that is
your future husband." Surprised, she turned to look at him, and was annoyed to
find that he also had turned to look. She subsequently related the circumstance to her
sister Amelia, who smilingly exclaimed, "Oh my romantic sister!" whereupon Hannah
replied, "Do not make fun of me; I shall marry that man, or I shall never marry.''
Months passed before she again met the young stranger — Samuel Comal)}7 — who had
come to Beecles to take charge of a public school. A mutual friendship sprang up, ripen-
ing into love, and resulting in marriage, January 30, 1851. Mr. Cornaby, on account of
delicate health, had left college in London and opened a book store in Great Yarmouth,
Norfolk County.
Hannah's introduction to Mormonism was brought about by reading a tract entitled
"Religious Impostors," giving a brief account of Joseph Smith, and announcing his mar-
tyrdom. Another book called "The Mormons," illustrated, and containing copious ex-
tracts from Colonel Thomas L. Kane's lectures before the Historical Society of Pennsyl-
vania, also extracts from Joseph Smith's teachings, likewise fell in her way. Although
the book was written to show the fallacy of Mormonism. it resulted in the conversion of
the Cornabys to that faith. On a cold stormy evening in February, 1852, the good wife
was looking out of the door, watching the progress of the storm, when she saw a man
sheltering uuder the awning in front of the store. She invited him inside for better pro-
tection from the weather. He accepted the invitation with thanks, but assured her that
if she knew who he was she probably would not welcome him under her roof. A little
startled, she answered that she had only done her duty to a fellow creature. He then
introduced himself as George Day, a Mormon Elder, sent to preach the Gospel in that
town. Mrs. Cornaby hastened to call her husband, who received the Elder courteously
and invited him to supper. He spent the evening with them, telling of the latter-day
work, and deeply interesting them with his recital. They procured lodging for him at
a hotel near by, and invited him to breakfast next morning. In the evening of that day
he held a meeting in their house, preaching to them and their neighbors. Soon after a
branch of the Church was organized at Great Yarmouth by Elder Claudius V. Spencer,
who was presiding over the Norwich Conference. Mr. and Mrs. Cornaby were both bap-
tized, the latter some time after the former, owing to the birth of her first child. She
and her party proceeded to the house of a friend near the seaside, where, surrounded by
a mob, and amid a shower of stones and cries of "duck him, duck him," she was bap-
tized by her husband. A few weeks later the Cornabys moved from Yarmouth, where
there was a branch of about twenty-five members, to Norwich, there to take charge of
the book agency of the conference.
/Zi^i. CStr^j-^
/kr
HISTORY OF UTAH. 597
Seven months later they emigrated, leaving Norwich, January i). is.":;, and sailing
from Liverpool in a company of Latter-day Saints on the ship-"Ellen Maria." By way
of New Orleans they reached St. Louis, where Mr. Cornaby obtained work in the book
bindery connected with the "Missouri Republican," whose proprietors, when lie was
about to leave, at the expiration of several weeks, offered him great inducements to
remain. Utah, however, was the goal of their hopes, and nothing could tempt them to
turn aside. They traveled in the Ten Pound Company. At Keokuk a furious storm of
wind and rain overtook them, in the midst of which Mrs. Cornaby 's seeond child was
born prematurely. A serious illness followed. They left that point on the 1st of June,
and on the 12th of October reached Salt Lake City.
The Cornabys resided first in the Eighth Ward, and then moved to the Seventeenth
Ward, where the husband taught the district school and was superintendent of the Sab-
bath school. He was also secretary for United States Marshal Heywood. They bought
a lot and built a home on Arsenal Hill. The year 1855 was a time of famine; bread was
very scarce, flour at ten dollars a hundred, and difficult to obtain at that price. The
school term over, Mr. Cornaby presented his bills, but could get very little flour. He
took a bill of six dollars to President George A. Smith, who told him with great gravity —
being fond of a joke — that he had nothing to pay him but flour, and would have to charge
him six dollars a hundred for it. Watching the schoolmaster's face, President' Smith was
much amused at the look of wonder depicted there. This unexpected supply, used econ-
omically, lasted them during most of the winter. In the spring they dug roots on the Jor-
dan bottoms. These roots were a species of wild artichoke, and when boiled and served
with thickened milk, were very wholesome and palatable.
In October, 1856, the family moved to Spanish Fork. It was a new settlement, and
they grew with its growth, establishing themselves among the substantial citizens of the
place. The move of 185S made the little town quite lively, several families from the
north camping on the Cornaby lot, by permission, and constructing temporary shelters.
In the years following, sickness and death visited the household, carrying away several
of Mrs Cornaby 's children and prostrating her upon a bed of pain for a long period.
These troubles developed her poetic sensibilities, and the gift of writing in verse, pre-
viously possessed and exercised, was bestowed upon her in greater measure. Prior to her
sickness of four years she was engaged in silk culture, using cocoons brought by Bishop
A. K. Thurber from England. While she was sick the Bishop brought Orson Pratt to
see her and examine her work. The Apostle blessed her and predicted (although medical
men had told her she would never walk again) that she should yet arise, visit her neigh-
bors and attend divine worship as usual. This prediction was fulfilled in the spring of
1874, when she was miraculously healed under the administration of her husband and
Elder William H. Darger. The latter told her she should be healed because she had re-
ceived the principle of the United Order — then being established by President Young —
and had permitted her only son to go with a company of young men called to work in a
saw-mill under the auspices of that organization.
Mrs. Cornaby has written poems upon a great variety of themes, and her writings,
both prose and verse, breathe a sweet and sensitive spirit, of native gentility and
educated refinement. A great sorrow came to her and her husband in the death of their
beloved and faithful daughter Mary, a bright, intelligent spirit, conscientious in the dis-
charge of every duty, and a staff and stay to her fond and doting parents. Says her
mother tenderly: "She had suffered so much at different times that we did not think of
death as being near, but on the morning of the first of May, 1870, at the time she had
gone forth many previous May mornings to gather flowers, her spirit took its flight to
that land where flowers never fade.''
In her autobiography, dated January 17, 1881, Mrs. Cornaby says: "It is more than
six years since I was healed by the power of God, and if not robust, my health has been
measurably good, enabling me to some extent to attend to my domestic duties and in the
summer time to enjoy myself in the cultivation of flowers, raising silk and assisting in
our apiary. * * * One thing I have learned and I prize it more than gold or silver;
it is contentment with my lot. I have never known a time in my life when I could
supinely sleep or waste a moment in hopeless sorrow. It has been a hard
struggle to give back to the Father of their spirits the sweet children that were so preci-
ous to me, but my greatest consolation is in knowing that my treasures are laid up in
heaven, safe from the contamination of sin. * * Meanwhile, although our home is
childless, our grand-children often occupy the vacant places, and their tender love and
childish prattle till the void in our hearts which for a time we thought nothing could sup-
ply."
LOUISA LULA GREENE RICHARDS.
*HE prose and verse writings of this talented and amiable lady are so well known
throughout Utah, and her personal ministrations have been so numerous in the
various settlements, that the mere mention of her name will suggest to thou-
sands many a thought and reminiscence with which she is associated. She is
Utah's pioneer woman journalist — the first editor of the "Woman's Exponent," a
paper still in existence, though Mrs. Richards is no longer officially connected with it.
Prior to becoming its editor, she had written much for the press, "Lula" being the nom
de nlume over which her writings generally appeared. She was also active in the Relief
Society, the Retrenchment Society, the Young Ladies' Mutual Improvement Association,
the Children's Primary Association and the Sunday School cause, and continued her
zealous labors therein until failing health and increasing home duties compelled her to
lay aside som.e of her public labors, including those in the editorial sanctum. She is at
this writing one of the regular force of workers in the Salt Lake Temple.
Louisa Lula Greene, daughter of Evan M. and Susan Kent Greene, was born at
Kanesville, Pottawattomie County, Iowa, April 8, 1849. Her parents were both natives
of the State of New York, and came of New England ancestors who had migrated from
Vermont and Massachusetts. Evan and Susan Greene were first cousins by their mothers,
who were sisters to President Brigham Young. Of her mother's thirteen children, Louisa
was the eighth, and was the youngest of seven daughters. Her parents, who were baptized
into the Latter-day Church soon after its organization, were dauntless and faithful in the
many adverse circumstances through which it passed during their lives, and bore a
full part of sorrow and suffering for its sake, abiding patiently and heroically to
the end.
By nature and education Evan M. Greene was well fitted to be a school teacher, and
was an exceptionally good one for his time. In Kirtland he taught an English gram-
mar class, which the Prophet Joseph Smith honored with his personal attendance, and
with him and others he studied the Hebrew language and various branches of learning.
He was also one of the Prophet's trusted clerks. At Kanesville he held the position of
postmaster and was also recorder and treasurer of Pottawattomie County. He remained
there between three and four years, and then moved with his family to Utah, reaching
Salt Lake City in November, 1852.
By request of the Church authorities he at once proceeded to Provo, where he opened
a school, which was considered a very excellent and important one. He was the second
mayor of Provo, and for a number of terms represented Utah County in the Territorial
legislature. In 1855, by legislative appointment, he compiled and published the revised
laws of Utah, containing the acts, resolutions and memorials passed at the several annual
sessions of the Assembly, to which were prefixed the Declaration of Independence, the
Articles of Confederation, the Ordinance of 1787, the Constitution of the United States,
the Naturalization Laws, the Constitution of the Provisional State of Deseret, the Deseret
Laws and the Organic Act of Utah. After the general "Move," the Greene family went
to Grantsville, Tooele County, where the father was again elected to the legislature for
two successive terms. He also held other offices of public trust. Subsequently the family
settled at Smithfield, in Cache County.
Louisa's education was conducted principally at home, under her father's super-
vision. In 1808, she attended school for eight months in Salt Lake City, spending about
half that time at the University of Deseret. She inherited something of her sire's ability
for imparting instruction, and took delight in teaching her younger brothers, and at
times the children of the neighborhood. Among other branches of home work, she
learned knitting and spinning, though much of her childhood and early maidenhood was
occupied in the care of her little brothers, five beinsr born to her mother after her own
birth. Although in her nature the spiritual element predominated, she had a keen relish
fori ively recreation, such as dancing, sleighing and theatricals.
Her love of literature was manifested at an early age. Encouraged by her family
and friends she gave considerable attention to the cultivation of her gift for writing, both
in poetry and prose. A great aid to her in this and in other respects was a corre-
spondence with Eliza R. Snow, carried on at intervals for several years. In the spring
of 1868, when the Relief Society was being organized in the various Wards of the Church,
HISTORY OF UTAH. 599
Louisa was elected secretary of the branch at Smithfield, and in May, 1871, she was
made president of the Young Ladies Retrenchment Association at that place. Both
these offices she resigned in order to become editor of the "Exponent, her acceptance of
that position necessitating her removal to Salt Lake City. The first number of the
paper was issued on President Young's birthday, June 1, 1872, with Louisa Lula Greene
as editor.
A year later, on the 10th of June, she was happily and congenially married to Levi
W. Richards, a worthy and well-known citizen of Salt Lake City. Their first child, a
daughter, was born June 27, 1874, and their second child, another daughter, June 24, 1877.
The same year Mrs. Richards retired from journalism, and was succeeded as editor of the
"Exponent" by Emmeline B. Wells.
Of the seven children born to Mr. and Mrs. Richards, three daughters, Mary Greene,
Mabel Greene and Sarah Greene died in childhood. Their four sons are living. The
eldest, Levi Greene, has been a missionary in Great Britain, and is one of Utah's prom-
ising art students. The second son, Willard Greene, in the spring of 1899 was chosen
with others to assist in colonizing and building up Alberta Stake, Canada. The third
son, Evan Greene, is interested in music, giving special attention to the violin. Heber
Greene, the youngest, a bright boy of fourteen, is attending school.
In the women's organizations of the Church Mrs. Richards is still a zealous worker.
She presided over the Young Ladies' Mutual Improvement Association of the Twentieth
Ward from December, 1882, to September, 1890, when she resigned, owing to other
pressing obligations. She was treasurer of the Relief Society of that Ward from 1882
until 1898. She has been an aid to the General Board of the Primary Associations tor
several years, and has traveled among the diffei'ent branches of the Church in the inter-
ests of the Relief Society, the Young Ladies' and the Children's associations. The Sun-
day School cause receives her earnest support, and for a number of years she was a
member of the Deseret Sunday School Union Board. She was chosen one of the workers
in the Temple soon after its dedication in April. 1893, and has ever since honored that
position.
In 1899, Mrs. Richards fulfilled a short mission to the East, attending a number of
conferences held by the missionaries of the Church in different localities, visiting the
Kirtland Temple, Niagara Falls, and various large cities, and spending some weeks very
pleasantly among relatives in Wisconsin. She met with the Woman's Congress at
Washington in February, saw the sights of the national capital, and with a delegation
of ladies called upon President McKinley at the White House.
She is still a frequent and favorite contributor to the local press, writing principally
for young people and little children. The tendency of her thoughts and labors is toward
the promotion of the highest Christian virtues and the general uplifting of humanity.
Though versatile, and given to pleasant wit and good-humored raillery, the style of
writing most natural to Mrs. Richards is indicated by her poems, "Light, Truth and
Love," and "I want to be Close to you;" the latter a tender little idyl very suggestive of
the child's poet, Eugene Field:
"I WANT TO BE CLOSE TO YOU."
"I want to be close to you, muzzer! "
Whispered my 'two-year-old;'
As we knelt 'round the family altar;
In the twilight pale and cold.
I heard him. with moistened lashes;
For I felt that moment, too,
As my heart reached up to my Father,
"I want to be close to You!"
In mine his small hand nestled,
'Gainst mine his soft cheek press'd,
His bright head on my shoulder,
Found sweet, confiding rest.
And I felt the Father draw me,
Closer and closer yet;
Resting my tired being.
As I did my baby pet!
600 HISTORY OF UTAH.
MI, in my mortal weakness,
Could not turn my child away;
But would rest him upon my bosom,
E'en while we knelt to pray —
How shall mv soul be faithless,
How can I ever fear,
That when I call to my Father,
He will be slow to hear?
Those words of my lisping darling
Which caused my tears to start,
Will ever be sweet to memory,
Always dear to my heart.
When pain or sorrow await me,
With confidence firm and true,
I'll cling to my Father, and whisper,
"I want to be close to You!"
ROMANIA BUNNELL PRATT.
^TXR. ROMANIA B. PRATT, for many years and at the present time holding a
pi prominent place among the women of Utah, is a native of Washington, Wayne
CouDty, Indiana, where she was born on the 8th of August, 1839. Her father was
Luther B. Bunnell, of Warren County, Ohio, and her mother as a maiden, Esther
Mendenhall, of Guilford County, North Carolina. When Romania was about seven
years of age her parents, who were Latter-day Saints, "gathered" with their people to
Nauvoo. She distinctly remembers the Nauvoo Temple, then in an unfinished state, and
her rambles over it from basement to belfry. She also recalls the journey to Winter
Quarters and ths enlistment of the Mormon Battalion.
The mother's health being very poor, the father felt that he could not risk the ex-
posure and hardship of a winter on the frontier, and although President Young, who was
loth to part with him, offered to have a house built for him if he would remain, he
could not overcome the fear that if he did so he would lose his wife; consequently he de-
parted with his family and settled at New Market in the State of Missouri. Subsequently
he went back to Ohio, where he purchased a fine farm. In 1849, when the California
gold fever was raging, Mr- Bunnell caught the contagion and went with a number of
others to the Pacific coast, where he was successful in the mines, but was taken with ty-
phoid fever, died, and was buried at Volcanic Diggings. He had previously cached his
gold from time to time, and only a portion of it was recovered, the dying man being un-
able to indicate to a nephew who reached him before he breathed his last, all the places
where his wealth was buried. The portion of it recovered was sufficient to supply the
needs of his family and educate his children.
Romania attended the Western Agricultural School, a Quaker institution of which
the learned Barnabas Hobbs was principal, and which was situated fifty miles from her
home. She afterwards attended the Female Seminary at Crawfordsville, Indiana, which
was then her home, and where, in addition to the general branches of education, she
studied German, music and painting. She was now nearly sixteen, and her mother, who
still retained her faith in the latter-day work, fearing that her daughter might form an
attachment outside the Church, resolved to sell her home in Crawfordsville and come to
Utah.
She effected the sale, and in June, 1855, started with her four children across the
great plains, traveling in an independent company of fifty wagons under the, direction of
Captain John Hindley. The journey was full of delights to young Romania. She dwells
upon the pleasure she experienced in running ahead of the wagon train with her little
sister, climbing the highest points attainable, "viewing the landscape o'er," tracing the
course of streams, plucking wild flowers, and watching the creeping white line formed
by the covered wagons as they slowly wound their way along the dusty road. In some
HISTORY OF UTAH. 601
parts there was danger from Indians, and the captain would send her an occasional word
of warning, lest she might be captured by them. The evenings were special limes of
pleasure, young and old gathering around thec&D p fin s, telling stoiies, passing jokes, and
singing the songs of Zion. There were no quarrels, no profanity, no ill-natured remarks,
no improper conduct or conversation. All was peace and harmony, every one seeming
desirous to promote the happiness of the others. The journey ended September If, 1855,
when they camped on Union Square, Salt Lake City.
Tt was a time of famine; the grasshoppers had devoured nearly every green thing
growing, and provisions were exceedingly scarce. Flour sold at twenty-five dollars a
hundred, and other articles in proportion. Mrs. Bunnell was an excellent manager,
very economical, and assisted by Romania, who taught school, she succeeded in sus-
taining her family through that trying time.
In the spring of 1857 the mother went East to collect means due the family
from the Bunnell estate, which, when they departed for the West, was in the hands
of an administrator, who excused himself for not giving them more at that time,
with the plea that Brigham Young would take it away from them. During her moth-
er's absence, which covered a period of about six mouths, Komania eared for the
other children who had been left in her charge. When her mother returned she
brought with her, among other household comforts, a piano for the daughter who had
so well and faithfully performed a mother's part while she was away. It was one of
the first pianos brought to Utah. Needless to say the gift was highly prized by the
one who received it and was a great acquisition to the family home. At the time of
"the move" when, at the approach of Johnston's army, the people of Salt Lake City
prepared to put the torch to their property if the troops attempted to molest it, this
instrument was dedicated by its owner to the flames, not, we may rest assured, with-
out some sighs and tears, which were perfectly natural under the circumstances. After
peace was declared — the threatened conflagration having been averted — Romania, re-
turning with her mother and the family from Provo the following winter, found the
dearly prized instrument intact.
On the 23rd of February, 1859, Romania Bunnell married Parley P. Pratt, the
eldest son of Parley P. Pratt, the Apostle. They had seven children, six sons and one
daughter, the daughter and one of the sons dying when very young. The young wife
and mother passed through many scenes of toil and privation, and when her youngest
child was a nursing infant it was decided that she should go East and study medicine.
She left her five sons in the care of her faithful and devoted mother, and although it
wrung her heart to part with them she was sustained by the conviction that it was for
their sakes, in order to provide means for their support and education.
For more than a year after entering upon her medical studies in New York City —
where at first she spent some time in reading the proof-sheets for the Autobiography
of Parley P. Pratt — she pursued the course with unremitting ardor, and then returned
home for the summer. From President Young she received express counsel to go East
again and complete her medical education. Upon explaining her financial situation,
lack of means, etc., she was still advised to go and complete her studies. President
Young told Eliza R. Snow Smith, the leading spirit in the women's organizations of the
Church, to see that "Sister Romania" carried out his counsel.
The ensuing two years she studied at the Woman's Medical College in Pennsylvania,
and was graduated as M. D. in the class of 1877. She spent the vacation between the
winter terms at the Hospital for Women and Children in Boston. There she made a
mark among the students, and was spoken of as a candidate for courses of instruction
in the great medical centers of Europe, to be sent there after graduation, and to com-
pensate for expenses by spending a certain time in the hospital as resident physician.
This, however, would have required a longer stay than she contemplated. She returned
home in September, 1877, and entered upon the practice of her profession.
Dr. Pratt is the first woman who went from Utah to an eastern college and gradu-
ated in medicine and surgery. After practicing for two years she again went to New
York City, where she took courses of study at the Eye and Ear Infirmary, under Dr.
Henry D. Noyes and other eminent physicians. In these, as well as the ordinary branches
of medicine and surgery, she became very proficient. She has performed many delicate
and successful operations on both eye and ear (having removed a number of cataracts)
and lias cured various diseases of those organs. She has also achieved a high reputation
in obstetrics, both as teacher and practitioner. Soon after returning from the East she
was urgently requested by Mrs. Zina D. H. Young and other prominent women to take
up classes in obstetrical science, because of the need of such knowledge among women in
38
602 HISTORY OF UTAH.
the outer settlements. This request she complied with, and since that time she has
taught hundreds of students who have been very successful in their practice.
In June, 1887, Dr. Pratt was installed as resident physieian of the Deseret Hospital,
an institution established by the First Presidency, at her suggestion, some three years
previously. She was one of its original boatd of directors and continued on the board
until she became resident physician. She remained in charge of the hospital until it
was closed for lack of funds, November. 1893. She then returned to private practice, in
which she has continued up to the present time. •
Dr. Pratt has taken a deep interest and generally an active part in all the woman's
movements of her place and period. She was the first president of the Young Ladies
Retrenchment Association of the Twelfth Ward, and resigned that position to go East
and study medicine. She is recognized by Mrs. Susa Young Gates, ex-editor of the
"Young Woman's Journal," as the mother of that periodical, having suggested to Mrs.
Gates, its founder, the starting of just such a magazine. She was assistant secretary of
the central board of the Relief Society for ten years and is still an active member of
that board. She is also a charter member of the Utah Women's Press Club and of the
Reaper's Club, and in 1897-8 was president of the former organization. ■ She has been
a delegate to several political conventions, active in committee work, and is associated
with prominent ladies in social and literary circles. In the decade of the "eighties,"
when it was suggested that ladies might speak from the platform in the interests of the
People's party outside of Salt Lake City, Dr. Pratt, with Mrs. Emmeline B. Wells, pio-
neered this movement, making her first political speech at Ogden. In the midst of her
multifarious duties she found time to accompany the Tabernacle choir on its famous
visit to the World's Fair. 1893.
Dr. Pratt is a firm believer in all the doctrines and principles of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints, and she shows her faith by her works. Her charities are
numerous and wide-spread. Many times the poor have been treated professionally at
reduced prices, often without remuneration, and her hand and purse have been open to
relieve the needy; but her aid to those in want, like her ready sympathy, has not been
proclaimed on the house-tops nor paraded in the public prints. The fact that through
all the years of her active practice she has amassed no great amount of property, tells the
tale of her generosity and self-sacrifice. She is well preserved, and still has a good prac-
tice as physician aud surgeon.
ELLEN BROOKE FERGUSON.
/Cj^\R. FERGUSON was born in Cambridge, England, where her father, William Lombe
l£l Brooke, wis a lawyer of considerable reputation and social prominence. She
received her education principally from private tutors and professors in the
University, as her father believed that a knowledge of Latin, Greek and
mathematics was the best foundation for a sound English education, and did not approve
of the superficial methods that prevailed in the schools and seminaries of that day.
Under his wise and judicious direction, the educaton received by his daughter was so
broad and comprehensive that on reaching womanhood she found herself as well equipped
intellectually as any University graduate for a literary or professional career, and it was
with much chagrin that she found no opportunity offered to women of utilizing such
attainments to gain an independent livelihood. Iu 18f>7, she was married to Dr. William
Ferguson of Loudon, an Edinburgh graduate, and soon after began the study of medicine
in order to help him in his profession.
In IStiO, they came to America, and after traveling through the Eastern States
settled at Eaton, Ohio, just before the breaking out of the Civil War. Having bought
the "Eaton Democrat," a weekly paper, they launched into journalism, Mrs. Ferguson be-
coming associated with her husband in the editorial department. It was then that she
received her first introduction into political life. The question of suffrage for women was
a very iuterestiugone for her, and knowing that it would probably be years before women
would be recognized as the political equals of men, she felt that every opportunity of ex-
tending woman's influence into politics should be used to the utmost, to prove the
HISTORY OF UTAH. 603
justice and reasonableness of her claim to an equal participation in the responsibilities
of government. She entered into both the literary and political work with zest and
energy, and often, when her husband was absent, she furnished all the copy necessary
for each issue of the paper. During the war, party spirit was very bitter, and on more
than one occasion their lives were threatened because they dared to advocate constitu-
tional Democratic principles. As the great conflict progressed nearly all the able bodied
men of the town went into the army, and printers becoming scarce, for several months
the editors and proprietors of the "Democrat" were unable to obtain any help in the
office. This state of affairs compelled Mrs. Ferguson to learn the printing trade, and
frequently, in order to get the.paper out on time, she was obliged not only to furnish all
the copy, but to set up most of the type; being editor, compositor and "printer's devil"
all in one. At the close of the war the Fergusons sold the paper and went back
East.
The next ten years were occupied in public lecturing, principally on woman suffrage;
in educational, literary and medical work, in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois;
until in 1875 Mrs. Ferguson went to England for her health, and traveled for some
months in France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland. On her return home to Illinois in
1870, she found her husband preparing to remove to Utah, having become interested
in the affairs of this Territory through acquaintance with Elder John Morgan and corre-
spondence with President Brigham Young and others.
In company with her husband, Mrs. Ferguson arrived at Salt Lake City in June,
1876, and went direct to St. George, where on the 1st of July they were baptized as
Latter-day Saints by Elder Alexander F. McDonald. In October of the same year they
removed to Provo, and the year following to Salt Lake City, where Mrs. Ferguson again
became engaged in educational work, in connection with Miss Mary Cook, and also con-
tinued the practice of medicine. In 1878, she opened the Utah Conservatory of Music,
in co-operation with the musical establishment of David O. Calder, and for over two years
it was the leading music school of the Territory. In 1880, her husband died at Salt
Lake City.
Having decided to devote herself exclusively to the practice of medicine, Mrs.
Ferguson went to New York in the fall of 1881 to attend the hospital clinics and perfect
herself in certain special departments, such as gynecology, obstetrics, minor surgery, etc.
She s^ent the winter of 1881-2 in this work, visiting anil examining the various hospitals
with a view to specially qualifying herself for hospital work in Utah. In pursuance of
this purpose, on her return home in 1S82 she drew up a plan for the establishment and
maintenance of a Mormon hospital at Salt Lake City, an institution then greatly needed
in the community. The plan provided for a full staff of physicans, surgeons, nurses and
assistants, and when presented to President John Taylor and counselors it was approved
by them, and all possible aid given to help put it into practical operation. The active
co-operation of .the Relief Society and Young Ladies' Mutual Improvement Association,
with generous cash donations from the Presidency and others, supplied sufficient means
to furnish the new institution with all necessary medical and sanitary appliances, as
well as everything requisite for the nursing and care of the sick. In July the Deseret
Hospital was dedicated to the service of humanity and opened for the reception of
patients. For three months Dr. Ferguson had charge of the hospital as house physician
and surgeon, devoting all her time, energy and thought to the interests of the institution.
In 1886, she was sent with other ladies to Washington, D. C, to present to President
Cleveland the protest of the Mormon women against the indignities heaped upon them in
the entorcemant of the Edmunds law.
Having always been a Democrat from principle, when the people of Utah, in pre-
paring for Statehood, divided on national party lines, she joined the Democratic party,
and worked early and late for its success. The women of Utah having formerly exercised
the suffrage, the large majority of them favored its re-establishment, and labored hard
to have the constitution of the new State recognize the political equality of women by an
equal suffrage clause in that instrument None were more zealous in this direction than
Mrs. Ferguson. The equal suffrage clause was incorporated in the Constitution.
The Doctor took a very active part in the polities of the State, and during the cam-
paign of 1896 spoke at hundreds of meetings for Democracy, Bryan and Free Silver.
She was elected an alternate to the National Democratic Convention in Chicago, and had
the honor of being the only woman who occupied a seat in the Convention. At the close
of the campaign she organized the Woman's Democratic Club of Salt Lake City, and
was elected president of the same for two successive years, during which time the
604 HISTORY OF UTAH.
club was an important factor in polities and contributed largely to the success of
the party.
About this time her religious views underwent a change, and her connection with
the Latter-day Church was severed. She now gave her adherence to the system known
as Theosophy. Mrs. Ferguson has had four children, the youngest of whom, a son,
died in infancy. Her sou, Douglas Grant Ferguson, is a resident of Salt Lake City,
while her two daughters, Ethel Brooke and Claire Helene, with their mother, were
residing at last accounts in New York.
EMILY S RICHARDS.
TN nothing does Utah glory more than in her superb and charming womanhood. The
| beauty, purity, intellectual and spiritual endowments of her daughters have no
T superiors the world over; and nowhere than in the metropolis of the State have they
received and developed these gifts and graces more abundantly. Prominent among
the possessors of such attributes, and numbered with the leading women of the common-
wealth, is Mrs. Emily Sophia Richards, born within a stone's throw of the southern suburb
of Salt Lake City, and for many years and at the present time a permanent resident of
this place.
South Cottonwood was her birthplace; her natal day May 13,1850. Her parents,
Nathan and Rachel W. (Smith) Tanner, were originally from the State of New York,
where their progenitors were people of wealth and refinement. The father was a man of
rugged character and of pronounced faith in man's spiritual origin and celestial destiny;
and the mother, likewise, was of strong religious nature, possessing prophetic power,
vivacious, yet of philosophic endurance in days of trial. It is not surprising, therefore,
though her early environment lacked the influence which fashionable society invites and
approves, that their daughter grew up in grace and graciousness, in knowledge and re-
finement, partaking as she did of the spiritual element in her devout parents.
In her rural home, at the base of the snow-crowned Wasatch mountains, she passed
the first six years of her life, developing into girlhood as a flower, blossoming in sweet
simplicity and purity, her mind expanding as her soul grew in grace. She was then taken
by her parents to Salt Lake City, where teachers of talent and learning had charge of
her education. When eighteen years of age. she became the wife of Franklin S. Richards,
one of her former schoolmates, now a leading attorney of the State. The date of their
marriage was December 18, 1868. Five months later the young couple removed to Ogden,
and there the public career of Mrs. Richards began.
Her first appointment was to the position of assistant secretary of the Weber County
Relief Society. She had previously been connected with the Relief Society at Salt Lake
City. Next she was made president of the Young Ladies Mutual Improvement Associa-
tion of Ogden. and vice-president of the county organization of the same, serving- ten
years in that capacity. During this time she made frequent visits to the national capi-
tal, in company with her husband, who argued many important cases before the Supreme
Court of the United States. There she had the opportunity of attending many women's
conventions, and other interesting meetings held at the seat of government.
In 1888 it was deemed desirable to make the Relief Societies and the Young Ladies
Associations auxiliary to the National Women's organizations, which was done, and
Mrs. Richards was appointed to represent them in the first International Council. Its
sessions were held at the Albaugh Opera House in the city of Washington. The event is
well described in the following article from the pen of an able newspaper writer of that
period:
"The leading woman workers of the world were present, and the sessions continued
several days, the local papers being filled with pictures and speeches of noted women.
Just about that time a committee of Utah men was in Washington urging Statehood on
the basis of the constitution formulated and adopted by a convention in Utah in 1887.
The Utah admission question was before Congress, and it had become a subject of public
interest in Washington, being discussed pro and con in the papers and in private circles.
Just at the time of the Woman's World Convention the Utah question attained its high-
HISTORY OF UTAH. 605
est pitch, the custom of polygamy and woman suffrage in Utah being at the moment re-
vived in the public mind in the most aggravated form. At this juncture it was announced
that a Utah lady would address the World's Convention as a representative of Utah. It
was perfectly natural that the immense concourse of people attending the Convention
should forecast the character of the lady who should address them as some masculine
heroine who could wield a battleax or any other weapon in behalf of Utah, in keeping with
their own exaggerated notions of Utah life. And the lady herself, at the hour she had
to appear, could but feel the extreme tension in the public mind; for the morning papers
were bristling with denunciations of Utah institutions. There was an ominous pause in
the great throng when it was anuounced from the platform by the presiding officer that
the lady delegate would address them. Soon the lady appeared, moving forward among
the throng on the rostrum and taking her place beside the narrow reading desk. What
au apparition! It was not a feminine Boanerges, not an Amazon, but a delicate, refined
lady, trembling slightly under the scrutinizing gaze of the multitude, yet reserved, self-
possessed, dignified, and as pure and sweet as an angel. Her appearance was a power-
ful antithesis to their preconceived impressions, and the change of feeling in the audience
was almost instantaneous. The lady's voice began its utterances on a scale of gently
tremulous pathos, and without rising into high pitch, its tenderness subdued every
whisper uutil its words reached every ear in the auditory. The tenor of the address
was what might have been expected by Utah people, an orderly, scholarly presentation,
such as would serve to recite facts and principles and disarm prejudice. It was not the
words themselves, but the gentle spirit, that, like the morning dawn, went with the
words and carried winning grace to every heart. It was wonderful how sympathies
were engendered and asperities removed. When the lady concluded, after half an hour's
reading, there was many a moist eye, and many a listener felt thankful that this gentle
appeal had given them a new. more refreshing and more kindly impression of Utah peo-
ple and institutions. It was the mighty force of the gentle sunlight, that unlocks the ice-
berg from its moorings and sets it afloat upon the broad ocean. We sat near the speaker,
but had never seen her before. We learned afterwards that she was a Mrs. Richards,
wife of Lawyer Richards, of Salt Lake City."
Mrs. Richards herself refers to the occasion as one of the most interesting, not to say
critical experiences of her life. Her name, for some reason, had been passed upon the
program, and another lad}" announced, who was to speak upon the Indian question:
whereupon, she sent a note to the chairman, asking the cause of the omission. The mis-
take was at ouce rectified, and Miss Susan B. Anthony met Mrs. Richards at the wing
and escorted her to the platform with every demonstration of respect. It was feared
that the lady from Utah would not be able to make herself heard throughout the hall —
other speakers having failed in that regard — but to the general surprise and delight, her
clear tones penetrated to the remotest recesses of the building, and her speech was a ver-
itable triumph.
At au executive session of the same convention of women, a president and vice-pres-
ident were appointed to organize suffrage associations in Utah; Mrs. Froiseth, president,
and Mrs. Richards, vice-president. A very prominent Southern woman opposed the
nomination of Mrs. Richards, saying that "Mormonism" and polygamy were synonym-
ous terms, and feeling that the nomination of Mrs. Richards would mean the sustaining
of that principle. This was all quite unexpected by the latter, but she responded in a
short talk, refuting the statement, and giving the names of several Utah men, including
Delegate John T. Caiue, saying that they were Mormons, or Latter-day Saints, but not
polygamists. At the close of Mrs. Richards' talk. Miss Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth
Cady Stanton, Matilda Joslin Gage and other leading suffragists spoke in favor of her
nomination, remarking that when George Q. Cannon sat in Congress, they did not feel,
because of his presence there, that they were sustaining polygamy. Upon Mrs. Richards'
return to Salt Lake City, Mrs. Froiseth decliued to act, saying that suffrage was not
good for Utah, and Mrs. Richards thereupon issued the call and organized the associa-
tions, with Mrs. Sarah M. Kimball, president, herself as vice-president, and Mrs. Emme-
line B. Wells as secretary.
At the time of the World's Fair in Chicago, Mrs. Richards was appointed president
of the Utah Board of Lady Managers. A Chicago paper then said of her: "The
President of the World's Fair Board of Lady Managers from Utah is a handsome wo-
man. Utahn by birth, but of New York descent, She is Emily S. Richards, wife of
Franklin S. Richards, a lawyer of Salt Lake City, who achieved distinction in the law,
and has argued some very important cases before the Supreme Court of the United
606 HISTORY OF UTAH.
States. Not even in metropolitan New York and cultured Massachusetts can the super-
ior of Mrs. Richards be found in originality of work and independence of thought.''
While in Chicago she appeared before the World's Congress of Representative
Women and gave a talk on organization; also a paper on the "Women of Mormondom"
before the Woman's Branch of the Parliament of Religions. She was vice-presi-
dent of the California Mid-winter Fair, in 1893-4. Under appointment of Governor Caleb
W. West, she was vice-president of the Board of Lady Managers of the Cotton States
and International Exposition at Atlanta, Georgia, in 1895, and was delegate to the Wo-
man's Suffrage Association, held at the same place.
Mrs. Richards prepared the memorial and led the victorious campaign for equal suf-
frage at the time of our Constitutional Convention in the spring of 1895, the president of
the Suffrage Association, Mrs. Wells, being absent in Washington. She was elected an
alternate to the National Democratic Convention, which at Chicago in 1896 nominated
William Jennings Bryan for President. She was also appointed a national organizer of
suffrage associations, and spent several weeks in Idaho, working for equal suffrage in
that State. In 1896 she forestalled by private declination the nomination that would have
made her Utah's first lady State Senator. Among many important positions held by her
are those of trustee of the Agricultural College of Utah; director of the Salt Lake City
Free Library; director of the National Relief Society; director of the Orphan's Home
(appointed upon the recommendation of the First Presidency) ; president of the Mothers
Congress; vice-president of the Press Club; director of the Woman's Club; and pres-
ident of the Utah State Council of Women, which she represented at the recent Suffrage
Convention in Washington.
Mrs. Richards' powers have increased with the added experience and wisdom of the
years. While wrapped up in her public work, she is in no sense "a new woman," in the
common acceptance of the term. She seeks not to supplant man in any of his spheres of
activity, but simply vies with him in his efforts for the welfare of the race. She is a
woman of the good old fashioned type, whose home is her earthly paradise. She is the
mother of three sons — Franklin Dewey Richards and Joseph Tanner Richards, both at-
torneys at law: and William Snyder Richards, who died in infancy. In addition, two
daughters have blessed the home, Wealthy Lucile, now Mrs. Oscar Jensen; and little
Emily, the youngest of the household. To her husband Mrs. Richards is a most congenial
companion, and for her children she has all of mother love that the heart can hold.
Though a leader among women, she is gentle, gracious and refined, possessing the
esteem and admiration of hor people, and commanding respect in the councils of women
throughout the world.
ELIZABETH ANN CLARIDGE M^CllNE.
fHE life of this estimable lady, the wife of the rich mining man, A. W. McCune,
of Salt Lake City, is quite as eventful as that of her husband, related elsewhere.
Unlike him, she is a devotee of religion, a zealous Latter-day Saint. She is also
a faithful and devoted wife, who has shared with her life's partner poverty and
hardship, as she now shares with him luxury and wealth. It was 'doubtless due to her
influence that his innate generosity found expression in a handsome gift — five thousand
dollars — to the Salt Lake Temple, when that magnificent edifice was being pushed to
completion. This is only one, however, of many munificent donations made by the
McCunes to various worthy causes.
Elizabeth A. C. McCune, daughter of Samuel and Charlotte Joy Claridge, was born at
Leightou Buzzard, Bedfordshire, England, February 19, 1852. She was an infant of
eleven months when her parents, who had become Latter-day Saints, emigrated to
America. A son two and a half years old was the onty other child in the family at that
time. The Claridges were comfortably situated, but like many other families of the same
religious faith, they sacrificed present conditions and future prospects in the Old World,
and underwent the toils and privations incident to the settlement and building up of a
new country, in order to be loyal to their convictions. They came directly to Utah, arriv-
ing here in the fall of 1853. At Nephi, where they settled, two more children were born
fylxaAM Jgi (frctffy
'■£OV+^
HISTORY OF UTAH. 607
to Mr. and Mrs. Claridge. One of these died in infancy, and the other became Mrs.
Charlotte Joy Claridge Young, wife of Brighani S. Young, of Salt Lake City.
At ''dear old Nephi" — a spot loved by her as fondly as if it had been her birth-
place— Elizabeth Claridge passed all the years of her girlhood. She was a maiden of
fifteen when a call came from President Brigham Young for missionaries to settle "the
Muddy," a hot and desolate region, now partly in southeastern Nevada, Her father was
one of these missionaries, some of whom were called at a meeting held in Nephi and at-
tended by President Young. She says: "I did not hear another name except Samuel
Claridge; and then how I sobbed and cried! The father of the girl sitting next to me
was alsn called 'Why, what are you crying: for,' said she — it doesn't make me cry, I
know my father won't go.' Well, there's the difference, said I; I know my father will
go — that nothing could prevent him, and I wouldn't own him as a father if he would not
go when called. Then I broke down, sobbing- again. Everything occurred to prevent
my father from starting. Just as he was nearly ready, one of his horses got poisoned,
and he had to buy another. A week later one of his big mules was found choked to
death in the barn. Some of our friends said to him, 'Brother Claridge, this shows that
you are not to go.' Father answered, 'it shows me that the adversary is trying to pie-
vent me from going, but I shall go, if I have to walk.' And go he did, selling- out
everything- he owned, including his farm and a new house in which we had just got com-
fortably settled."
Elizabeth's mother and sister remained in Nephi the first year, but she and her
brother Samuel went with their father and his second wife, to help make the new home.
Packing their wagons with a year's provisions, they started in company with George
Harmon aud wife. They were about two weeks in reaching St. George, whence it
required loaded wagons three weeks to reach "the Muddy." The Indians were mak-
ing considerable trouble, stealing stock and killing people, and it was deemed unsafe to
travel except in large companies; but after waiting a week at St. George, and no
other travelers coming along, the Claridges and Harmons, by advice of President
Erastus Snow, moved on toward their destimnation. At one of their camping places
they were visited by a numerous band of Indians, with a herd of horses which they
had evidently stolen, but the emigrants, treating the red men kindly, were not molested
by them.
The quicksands of the Rio Virgen were the first serious obstacle encountered. "This
stream," says Mrs. McCune, "is wide, and very crooked and winding in its course: so
that we had to cross it many times. In some places it was very deep, with quick-
sand at the bottom, and if the horses stopped in those places the wheels sank quickly.
Father first drove a large, strong pair of mules across, hitched to the provision
wagon. He went right through — --o did Brother Harmon, only he took a downward
direction, and his wagon stuck in the quicksand. All three teams were quickly
hitched to his vehicle, and it was pulled out. The next time we crossed Brother
Harmon's wagon stuck again, and was again extricated, whereupon Sister Harmon
said she wouldn't cross again with her husband, for he didn't know how to drive. 'All
right. Sister Harmon,' said father, 'You come and ride with me.' She did so, aud this
time father's wagon got stuck. 'Now,' said he, amid the general laughter, 'we know it
is Sister Harmon that is the cause of the difficulty.' But it was no laughing matter,
for the wagon was fast sinking. The three teams could not move it. Poor Sister Har-
mon had to mount a horse and ride out. She had never been on a horse before,
and I must confess I have seen more graceful riders. Although the poor woman was
in tears, and I realized that the situation was almost tragic, still I laughed till I cried,
and could not help it.'' Mrs. McCune then relates how the three men, in the cold, bleak
morning, the wind blowing fiercely, rolled up their trousers, waded into the stream,
carried every sack of flour to the shore, and finally got the wagon out: though to cap the
climax, the tongue broke, and Father Claridge took a severe chill. Hot drinks and good
nursing soon restored him ; the wagon tongue was mended, and the next day they ar-
rived at St. Joseph, their destination.
Before reaching that point, however, an accident occurred which came near proving
fatal to our heroine. They were ascending a steep, rocky road, on either side of
which was a precipice, when the tongue that was broken in the river gave way and the
heavily loaded wagon rolled down the mountain, scattering flour and provisions in all
directions, and finally plunged over the precipice. As it dashed past the young girl,
who was walking behind, it dragged her dress under the wheel, but she escaped un-
injured. The scene of ruin was too much for her brother, who began to abuse the
country, and vowed that he would not go another step to live in such a place. His
608 HISTORY OF UTAH.
undaunted sister replied, "Well. I shall; I wouldn't back out of this mission if every-
one of the wagons tipped over." "But look at your clothes," said he with a tremor.
"My trunk," says she, "happened to be in this wagon. I had been the telegraph oper-
ator at Nephi for the past year or two, and my salary, though small, had enabled me to
buy some good, comfortable clothes; in fact, I had a fine wardrobe for a girl in those
days; ami now my trunk was all broken to pieces, and my clothes were blowing over
the prairie; but I snapped my finger and said, I don't care that for the clothes."
Father calmly turned to me and said, 'My daughter, the day will come when you will
have much better clothes to wear than those;' a prediction that has certainly been
fulfilled. After gathering up all the things we could find, and leaving one man with
the wagon, the company went on to the settlement.
"And what a place it was! Nothing but deep sand and burning sun; no houses,
only a few tents and dugouts. We all went to work with a will, however, and at the end
of a year we had a fine field of waving grain and one good, large adobe room to live in.
I carried every bucket of mortar and every adobe put into the house. My brother hauled
the adobes, and father laid them, while I carried the hod. Through this adobe episode
we had considerable fun a few years ago. My daughter Jaeketta, then a little girl, was
at one of the city schools, when one of her playmates, becoming angry at her for some-
thing, said tauntingly, 'Miss Jack McCune, you needn't be so stuck up if you do live in
a big house, for your mother used to make dobies.' Jack was horrified, and came flying
home for an explanation. Why, Jack, said I, of course it's true. You see, my daugh-
ter, you have an uncommonly smart mother. Don't you think so? It isn't every little
girl who has a mother that can make adobes."
The Claridges remained on the Muddy until the settlement was broken up, the people
being advised to leave. This was owing to the government survey, which showed that
the land was partly in Nevada, and in that Territory the taxes were so high that these
settlers could not afford to live there. They could sell nothing, and so left their houses
standing empty, and their crops unharvested. They next settled at Long Valley, where
they entered into the United Order, in which the head of the family remained until the
system was abandoned. "During this time," says Elizabeth, "I returned to Nephi on a
visit, and married my old sweetheart, Alf McCune"
Three years later, in 1875, Mrs. McCune, with her infant child, traveled from Nephi
to Long Valley on a visit to her parents. She started in company with a Brother
Stewart and his daughter Ella, having previously written her father to meet her at a
place called Williams' Ranch. The letter miscarrying, Father Claridge did not meet her
at that point, and as the Stewarts went on to Kanab, she got one of the ranchmen to
take her and her child to Hoyt's saw mill, where she had friends. Arriving at the mill,
she found Mrs. Hoyt and three little children alone, the men being a mile or two away,
cutting timber. Mrs. Hoyt informed her that the Bishop of the neighboring settlement
had sent word for all the women folks in that part to be moved into town, as the Indians were
threatening an outbreak, and had sworn to kill ten white men in revenge for one Indian
who had been slain. She further said that they were all ready to go to town the next
morning, and that Mrs. McCune might go with them. As the two women sat chatting
by the fire, where two bake kettles were on the coals, in which loaves of bread were
baking, the children ran in frightened and screaming, announcing that a band of Indians
were corning towards the house. A few moments later a dozen fierce Navajo warriors,
resplendent in war paint and feathers, strode into the room. The women were almost as
much frightened as the children, but their presence of mind did not desert them. At
Mrs. McCune's suggestion, they took the two loaves of hot bread from the bake kettles,
broke them into generous fragments, spread with molasses, and divided them among the
wondering and delighted braves, who devoured the savory morsels with a relish, and
then, taking a drink of water banded to each by the hostess and her visitor, and exclaim-
ing, "Wyno squaw, wyno squaw," shook hands with them and peaceably departed. Mrs.
McCune met her parents next morning.
While her husband was railroading in Colorado, she maintained her residence at
Nephi, but in 1885 she and her children went to Montana, where Mr. McCune was then
engaged in his large wood contract. After a residence of three years in that part they
returned to Utah, taking up their residence at Salt Lake City. She became a regular
worker in the Salt Lake Temple, and was soon prominent among the women of the
Church. She was placed on the general board of the Young Ladies' Mutual Improve-
ment Association as an aid to President Eluiina S. Taylor. Her chief delight is in
attending to the duties imposed by her religion. Though wealthy and surrounded
history of utah. go9
with luxury, she has never forgotten, and is proud to remember, when she was a poor
girl, one of a family who were struggling for a bare subsistence.
In February. 1897. the McCuues started on an extended tour of Europe, visiting
Great Britain, France and Italy, through which countries, as well as the Orient, Mr.
McCune had previously traveled. His wife spent much of her time in the British mis-
sion, where her son Raymond and her nephew. G. W. McCane, were then laboring. In
England the McCuues located at Eastbourne, a fashionable watering place, leasing an
elegant residence belonging to a gentleman who was traveling. There the Elders in
those parts were invited to make their home. Mrs. McCune and her eldest daughter,
Fay, would often take part in the outdoor meetings held by the Mormon missionaries, at
which times it would be announced at the close of the services, that those who desired
to know more of the doctrines advanced might inquire at No. 4, Grange Gardens; and
this to the wide-eyed wonderment of the gaping crowd, it being incomprehensible to
most of them how the Mormons, generally found in the humblest and poorest neighbor-
hoods, could maintain headquarters in a palatial mansion at Eastbourne.
Mrs. McCune and her daughter attended the Queen's Jubilee in London, and at the
conference of the Saints in that great city, the mother was called upon, much to her
astonishment, to address, at one of the evening meetings, a large congregation, attracted
by the announcement that a lady from Utah, who had traveled over Europe with her hus-
band and family, would speak and tell of her experience among the Mormons. The
notice was given out by Elder Joseph W. McMurrin, then one of the Presidency of the
European mission. Though badly frightened, Mrs. McCune heroically performed her
part. "I told them," she 6ays, "that my father had heard and embraced the Gospel
in England, and had left father, mother, brothers and sisters, and with his wife and
babies had emigrated to Utah, to unite with a people who knew God and were trying
to keep His commandments. I told them I had been raised in Utah, and knew almost
every foot of the country and most of the people. I spoke of my extensive travels in Ameri-
ca and Great Britain, and said that nowhere else had 1 found women held in such esteem
as among the Mormons in Utah. Our husbands were proud of their wives and
daughters, and did not consider that they were created solely to wash dishes and tend
babies; but gave them opportunities to attend meetings, lectures, and to become educated.
Mormonism taught that the wife stood shoulder to shoulder with her husband, and
if the Mormon women of Utah had to do half or a quarter of the hard work I saw
women in England doing, they would think themselves cruelly abused, and few of
them would submit to it. Many other things I told them." At the close of the
meeting Mrs. McCune was warmly congratulated, several strangers shaking her
heartily by the hand, with such expressions as "I have always had a desire to see a
Mormon woman and hear her speak," "If more of your women would come over
here, a great amount of good would be done," etc. After this every branch in the
conference wanted her to speak at its meetings, which would have been crowded had
she complied; but her husband (who after locating the family at Eastbourne had re-
turned to Utah) now rejoined her, and they were about to leave England for their
tour on the continent. Her experience as a speaker in the London conference,
though not the result of a regular appointment, was the forerunner of a movement
inaugurated soon after by the Church authorities to send women missionaries to Great
Britain.
During her stay at Eastbourne Mrs. McCune was instrumental in converting two
of her English relatives to Mormonism. One of these was her cousin, Mrs. Eliza-
beth Ward, a widow, who had entertained Elder Raymond MeCune at her home and
had been partly converted by him before his mother's arrival. The other was Mrs.
Mary Chew, sister to Mrs. McCune's father, a tine looking old lady nearly eighty years
of age. They both visited their American kiudi-ed at Eastbourne, where after due
consideration they requested baptism, and the two young Elders McCune were sent
for to perform the ceremony. A Baptist minister, applied to for the use of his baptistery,
consented to let the Elders have it, provided they would allow him to do the baptizing;
but on being questioned as to the source of his authority, he became angry and refused
the use of his font. The baptisms were therefore performed in the waters of the At-
lantic. Mrs. McCune's youngest son. Marcus, who had just turned eight years of age,
was baptized at the same time. Prior to going upon the continent Mrs. McCune sent a
part of her familj — her daughter Jacketta and two smaller children — home to Utah, in
company with Mrs. Ward, while she with her husband and eldest daughter set out for
France and Italy. At Paris they were joined by their son Vivian and his young bride,
610 HISTORY OF UTAH.
who had just arrived from America. A year of travel and sight-seeing made them all
long for home, and in March, 1898, they returned to Salt Lake City.
The next year Mrs. McCune made another trip to Europe, to attend the International
Congress of Women, held in London during June, 1809. At New York in May she met
her husband, who was returning from abroad. While in London she was voted in as a
patron of the Woman's Congress, and at the close of its sessions went with the other
members to Windsor Castle, where they were entertained by the Queen. After visiting,
in company with the presidency of the mission, the various conferences in Great
Britain, on the 26th of August she sailed from Glasgow for home. On the even-
ing of Thursday, August 31, off Cape Race, in latitude 48:30 and longitude 48:44, the
steamship "City of Rome," on which she was a passenger, crashed into an immense ice-
berg, undiscernible till then on account of a dense fog. But for the prompt action
of the captain and crew in stopping the engines and reversing the vessel's course, it
would have been wrecked, with nearly thirteen hundred souls on board. For a few min-
utes after the collision consternation reigned and the scene resounded with the screams of
women and children, who felt sure that the ship was sinking; but their fears were soon
calmed by the officers, and under the skillful manipulation of those in charge, the "City
of Rome,'' only slightly damaged, speedily cleared herself, parting company with the
gigantic obstacle All landed safe at New York on the 4th of September. In 1903 Mrs
McCune, with two children, accompanied her husband to Peru, remaining there nearly a
year. She is still active in woman's work, and in her sphere no lady is more highly or
more worthily esteemed.
INEZ KNIGHT ALLEN.
■fJTVOTHING so successfully confutes the false idea that the Motmon women are de-
ISx graded and down-trodden — an idea born of the grossest misrepresentation — than
the prominence given to ladies by the Church Authorities in missionary work and
other enterprises for which women are peculiarly fitted. For many years, though
in exceptional eases, Mormon women have accompanied their husbands or other male
relatives into the mission field, and not a few have been active and zealous workers
in dispelling prejudice existing against their people and disseminating a knowledge of
their religion. They have attended indoor and outdoor meetings, sung hymns, dis-
tributed tracts, visited strangers, and done everything in their power to help forward
the cause officially represented by their fathers, husbands or brothers, as the duly
authorized missionaries of the Church. But all this was voluntaiy, and more or less
desultory, though undoubtedly productive of much good. It was not until the year 1898
that a movement was set on foot to systematize and render more effective woman's
work in the ministry, when a number of lady missionaries, duly called and commis-
sioned, were sent to preach the Gospel, though not of course to administer its ordi-
nances, that being the exclusive function of the male members of the Church bearing
the Priesthood.
The first regular workers in this direction in Great Britain — the oldest and most
important foreign mission of the Church — were two young ladies born and reared in
Utah, and bearing names well known and honored in the community. They were Inez
Knight and Jennie Brimhall, both of Provo; the former a daughter of Jesse Knight, the
wealthy mining man, the latter a daughter of Prof. George H. Brimhall, of the faculty of
the Brigham Young Academy. In the biography of Mrs. Elizabeth McCune allusion is
made to that lady's appearance at a public meeting of the Saints of the London Confer-
ence in 1897, and to the very cordial reception given her on that occasion, not only by
those of her own faith, but by visiting strangers as well. Mrs. McCune unwittingly
played the part of a pioneer among Mormon lady missionaries, though she had not been
set apart to that service. It was soon after this, however, that the movement in ques-
tion had its origin. At a reception given by the General Board of the Young Ladies
Mutual Improvement Association to the General Board of the Young Men's Mutual Im-
provement Association. early in 1898, President George Q. Cannon stated that it had been
decided "to call some of our wise and prudent women into the missionary field." He
ai&
HISTORY OF UTAH. 611
spoke of Mrs. McCune and her labors in London, and made mention of Mrs. Emma
Whitney Pyper. who had accompanied her husband. Elder George D. Pyper, to
the Tennessee Exposition, where he had charge of the Utah Exhibit in 1897.
He also referred to other ladies who had spoken in public places, and said
that great good could be accomplished by the sisters in this direction. Not long
after the reception Mrs. Harriet Horspool Nye. wife of Elder Ephraim H. Nye, then
presiding over the California Mission, was set apart by Brigham Young, the Apostle, to
preach the Gospel. This was in San Francisco. March 27. 1S9S. Almost immediately
aftei came the call for Miss Knight and Miss Brimhall to take a mission to Great
Britain. They are therefore distinguished as the first ladies sent from Utah under the
new missionary movement to represent Mormonism in the outside world. Subsequently
other lady missionaries were set apart, notably such zealous workers as Lettie Dewey
Campbell. Liza Chipman, -Jean Clara Holbrook and many more.
Amanda Inez Knight, daughter of Jesse Knight and his wife Amanda MeEwan,
was born on a ranch near Payson, on the Sth of September. 1S76. She was the fourth
child and second daughter in the household. The first schooling she received was from
her parents at home, where her playmates were few. With a little girl's fondness for
dolls and other playthings she combined a love of outdoor sports, ball-playing, horse-
back riding, etc.. and was early trained iu small household duties. She always liked
her owu way. working best. a< she states, when given freedom and responsibility. When
a little past eleven years of age she was stricken down with a fever, which also pros-
trated the other children of the family. Her case was considered hopeless, but her
father, who fondly loved her. besought God in great humility to spare her life, promis-
ing that he would do all in his power to train her in the ways of truth and virtue. The
prayer was answered and the promise kept. Through the administration of the Elders
Inez was healed, though for weeks after the crisis was passed the blood could be seen
in dark spots iu her veins, showing the low condition of her vitality.
In the autumn of 1S92 she entered the Normal Training School of the Brigham
Young Academy, where she continued for four consecutive years, but did not graduate.
as she was considered too young. There Professor George H. Brimhall was her most
influential teacher, and her favorite studies were pedagogy, philosophy and training. She
also worked iu the Sunday schools and in the Young Ladies' Mutual Improvement Asso-
ciation. In the fall of 1S96, at her father's request, she spent two months at St. George.
making a record of Temple work done there by her grandmother, Lydia Knight. In
February. 1S97. she visited California with her parents, traveling for two months through
various parts of that State, gratifying her love of the beautiful both in nature and in art.
The following winter she spent in Salt Lake City, studying music, and doing genealogical
work at the Historian's office.
Next came the call for a mission. Though feeling poorly prepared for such an
undertaking — all her inclinations being toward a peaceful home life and the humble
household duties with which she had been familiar from childhood — she trustfully
though timidly accepted the appointment, and was set apart by President Edward Par-
tridge, of Utah Stake, April 1, 1S9S, for a mission to Great Britain. Her friend and
schoolmate Jennie Brimhall was called and set apart at the same time. They departed
the next day for their field of labor, and arrived at Liverpool on the 21st of April. Both
received appointments to labor in the Cheltenham conference, which was subsequently
named the Bristol conference. Says Miss Knight: "My responsibility flashed upon
me when it was announced, at the first open-air meeting I attended (in Oldham, April
23) that real live Mormon women from Utah would speak at the conference next
day. Since then I have been able, by the help of God, to bear my testimony to the
truth of the Gospel and the purity of Latter-day Saint life in Utah many times. At
thirteen conferences this has been my privilege, besides attending to our regular
routine work, indoor and outdoor. Public speaking I knew would try me, but trad-
ing I had an idea would be very easy. My first day at that was iu Bristol. At three
houses they took my tract and spoke civilly to me. but at the fourth, a woman asked
•me .who I was, and learning that I was a Latter-day Saint, she said, 'You don't
know as much about them as I do, or you would not carry their trash around.' I
told her I had lived among them all my life and ought to know. She then asked
me if I knew Mary . I answered no. 'Well then you're a liar; you either
did not come from Utah, or else you know her. because Mormon Elders took her out
six years ago.' She followed me to each gate through the street, to inform them at
each house who I was. Girl-like. I went home and cried.
"At a majority of the houses, however, we received civil treatment, but much in-
612 HISTORY OF UTAH.
difference. During the first summer we spoke in many open-air meetings, usually
having good audiences and kind treatment, but sometimes our meetings were broken
up. One night two partly dressed, dirty women came in the ring and created much
disturbance by rude, boisterous talk, but eventually we were able to continue. We
frequently found a mob of low-class people assembled outside our hall, waiting to
take us home from meeting, but we were always able to get away from them by
stepping onto a tramcar or otherwise."
Miss Knight's companion, Miss Brimhall, after tbe two, with others, had traveled
on the contiuent and visited various parts of Great Britain, left her on the 12th of
November to return home. In company with her brother Raymond she then visited
among the Saints in Bradford and Hull. She attended special meetings in the Leeds
conference, and on the 9th of December began her labors in the London conference,
having Miss Liza Chipman as her companion, and assisting Elders Hindley and
Squires in the Stratford branch. They did much work in the way of trading and
visiting; their labors were among the middle class, and they met with little oppo-
sition. Early in January, 1899, Miss Knight, her brother Raymond and Miss Chip-
man went to Bristol to attend a conference to be held there on the 15th of the
month. They took apartments about forty-five minutes walk form the conference
house (as each local headquarters is called) and pending the gathering of the Saints
spent the time in visiting among former friends and acquaintances. Of her experiences
during this visit to Bristol Miss Knight says:
''I was nearly home-sick, and somewhat discouraged, everything being just familiar
enough to remind me of Jennie and my brother Will, who had gone home; but the cli-
max of my trouble was yet to come. On Saturday evening before conference the Anti-
Mormon League held an opposition meeting in the street just in front of the conference
house. Many wicked lies were told to the crowd that listened, and their attention was
called to 5 Ducie Road, where they were informed Mormon Elders lived, whose purpose
in this land was to induce women to become their plural wives. Nothing of a violent
nature occurred that night, though voices were heard in the vicinity till a late hour. The
meetings next day were comparatively peaceful, a few interruptions and considerable
shuffling of feet in various parts of the hall being the extent of rhe annoyance inflicted
upon us. On Thursday, January 19th, at about four o'clock in tbe afternoon, Sister
Chipman and I walked to the conference house, where we had been invited to tea by the
family that kept the house. Arriving at Ducie Road, we noticed several groups of low-
class people gathered at iutervals and evidently much interested in their gossip. As we
approached the house we saw that mischief was brewing, and no sooner was our inten-
tion to enter the Mormon abode observed, than shouts of 'Mormons,' 'Brighamites,' etc.,
were heard from all directions. Before the door closed behind us, stones and trash of
various kinds were hurled at us. The pelting: continued until the street windows were
badly broken, after which the stones continued for some time to make their way into
the building. I can hardly describe my feelings. At times I felt like laughing at the
performance; at other times it appealed to me more seriously; but I was not afraid.
Finally President Lyman [Platte D. Lyman, then presiding over the European mission]
told my brother to take us girls to our apartmeuts; and so, after receiving 'God bless
you' from Brother Lyman we made our way into the throng, hoping soon to be away
from the uproar. One large, coarse woman, shabbily dressed, and with her hair down in
her eyes, shouted, 'Here's a Mormon and his two wives.' At this others joined in the
chorus, and the attention of all was soon centered upon us. as we hurried away closely
followed bv tbe mob. We were about forty five minutes walk from the police station, to
which point we made our way, various missiles being thrown at us en route Some of the
large boys would run and jostle against us, while others would hit us with their caps.
Sister Chipman was heart-sick and seemed almost unable to proceed until she had some
persuasion, when, taking fresh courage, she pressed bravely on. The words of Christ
in Luke 12: -t, 5, kept passing through my mind, and I was comforted. We escaped be-
ing hurt, save in our feelings, though our clothing was badly soiled and our hats some-
what crumpled. The noise made by our pursuers drew people out of shops and build-
ings for some distance ahead of us, and as we at home stand to view a circus parade, so
they watched us pass along, all save one man who accompanied us most of the way, en-
deavoring to protect us. About five minutes before we reached the police station we met
Brothers .lames and Haddock, with three policemen, who at once stepped between us
and the crowd, which, however, had so increased by this time that it was impossible to
turn them back. Arriving at the station, we were at once hurried into a back room, and
after waiting there about an hour (in which time some tears were shed and a Gospel con-
• &n*ut • / • '////
HISTORY OF UTAH. 613
versation held) [the chief of police took us out of the rear entrance and saw us safe
home."
In June, 1899. Miss Knight received a visit from her mother, who went from Utah
to see her daughter and sou, and to attend, in London, the meetings of the National
Council of Women. Inez accompanied her mother to some of these meetings, also to an
entertainment in Cecil Hall, where many of the aristocracy were assembled. She was
introduced to several women of prominence as a lady from Utah. In the following Sep-
tember she was given a new companion in the person of Miss Jean Clara Holbrook, an-
other Provo girl, and began work in Ashford, Kent, where there was no branch of the
Church, but a good hall to meet in, and several kind friends, some of whom became
converts to the faith. There the two labored from September, 1899, to April, 1900, when
they were transferred to the North London branch, and were joined by Miss Alice Sar-
gent from Hoytsville. Miss Knight remained in North Loudon until released from her
mission to return home. She sailed from Glasgow on the 19th of May and arrived at
Provo on the 11th of June, of the year last named. In her missionary life, pleasant ex-
periences, she states, were many. 'I have rejoiced when the Lord has made me an in-
strument to comfort the downhearted and sick of His fold. In all my labors the com-
panions with whom I was associated were such as to help me to use to the best advantage
my opportunities. A sweet spirit of love aud unity existed between us. In reviewing
my life it seems to me that God has been, more merciful than just in pouring out bless-
ings upon me. Only through the goodness and obedience of my parents aud grandpar-
ents can I account for many ways iu which I have been blessed."
The foregoing sketch portrays but imperfectly the noble qualities of this humble,
modest, unassuming young woman; a maiden when the words quoted were written, now
a happy and contented wife and mother. While at her father's home, the idol of her
parents, she was anything but a spoiled child. If fond of having her own way, and if
given her own way to a great extent, it was because it was recognized as a good way,
and because she could work best when she had freedom and responsibility. Unselfish
and accommodating, she usually put the needs of her friends before her own. She is
shrewd and sensible withal, aud sees quite through the pseudo professions of friendship
that have flowed in upon her since her sire, once poor aud lowly, became rich and influ-
ential. She discerns between true and false, and clings with constancy to the loved com-
panions of her childhood. Her tact in the mission field elicited comment. She would
often enter some squalid home, and by a kind word or deed to an overworked mother —
some much needed act of housekeeping which her good sense told her to quietly perform
without calling attention to it — win the love and confidence of the household, thereby
paving the way for the delivery and reception of her sacred message.
Inez Knight was married to R. Eugene Allen June 11, 1902, at the Salt Lake Tem-
ple. Her husband, the son of Thomas L. and Sarah M. Allen of Coalville, had been
teaching for two years in the business department of the Brigham Young Academy at
Provo. Since his marriage he has been secretary and bookkeeper for his wife's father,
Jesse Kuight, and has invested in the sheep industry in Canada. The uuiou of the
happy aud congenial young couple has been blessed with the birth of a fine boy.
LUCY JANE BRIMHALL KNIGHT.
JENNIE BRIMHALL — for that is the name by which she was known -to her school-
mates— is now Mrs. Jesse W. Knight. She is the daughter of George H. Brimhall
and his wife Alsina E. Wilkins, and is the eldest of their six children. Her natal
day was December 13, 1875. She lived at Spanish Fork, her birthplace, until eleven
or twelve years of age, when the family moved to Provo, where the father, prior to be-
coming a professor in the Brigham Young Academy, was the principal of a district
school. Miss Brimhall was educated in the common schools of Provo, finishing the eighth
grade in the Central School, over which her father presided. Subsequently she was
graduated, after a four years course, from the Brigham Young Academy, as a member of
the class of 1895.
In the fall of that year she went to Bluff City with Miss Vilate Elliott, to teach
614 HISTORY OF UTAH.
in the district school at that place. Miss Elliott was the principal, and Miss Brimhall
her assistant in the primary department. She stayed there through the winter, and in the
spring returned to Provo. In the fall of 1896 she began teaching in the Brigham Young
Academy, having charge of the third and fourth grades, but on account of failing health,
stopped teaching at Christmas time, and went with the Knight family to California,
where she remained some eight weeks. She did not teach any more that year, but
the nest year took the primary department at the Academy, and continued as a teacher
there until called upon her mission to Europe.
She had been contemplating a trip abroad, with her friend and schoolmate Inez
Knight, when the bishop ot her ward, J. B. Keeler, becoming aware of her intention,
asked her if she would go as a missionary. She answered that she would if she were
called. Thereupon Bishop Keeler wrote to President Wilford Woodruff on the subject,
and the result was a letter from the First Presidency to Elder Edward Partridge, pres-
ident of Utah Stake, authorizing him to set apart Miss Brimhall and Miss Knight for a
mission to Great Britain. Elder David John, first counselor to President Partridge, gave
Miss Brimhall her blessing.
She started upon her mission, April 2, 1898, in company with Miss Knight and
several Elders, bound for Liverpool. Nothing of an unusual nature occurred until Easter
Sunday — their first Sabbath on the ocean — when one of their fellow passengers, a stal-
wart German, crazed by sea-sickness, jumped overboard and was drowned. The body
was recovered, and after appropriate funeral services, re-consigned to the waves. Miss
Brimhall escaped the malady that caused the death of her co-voyager, experiencing
no sea- sickness until the return to America.
Arriving at Liverpool, she and Miss Knight were assigned to the Cheltenham con-
ference, but before proceeding to their field of labor they attended and addressed
meetings in other parts. The first Saturday night after their arrival in England they
attended an outdoor meeting at Oldham, where it was announced by one of the presi-
dency of the mission, Elder Joseph W. McMurrin, that "real, live Mormon women from
Utah" would address a meeting the nest day. Thus it was at Oldham that Jennie
Brimhall and Inez Knight first lifted up their voices in public, telling their auditors what
some of them were not very familial' with — the truth about Utah and her people. The hall
was crowded, and their remarks were listened to with rapt attention. The novel spectacle
of two young and innocent girls — whose appearance alone betokened modesty and virtue,
as their utterances showed intelligence and sincerity -declaring in words of soberness that
Morniouism was divine, that it had made them what they were, and had sent them forth
to bear witness of its truth, was a revelation to many. Other ladies from Utah were
present at the meeting, and two of them — Mrs. William T. Noall and her sister Miss Carrie
Smith — also addressed the congregation. They, however, were not regular missionaries,
but merely visitors to Great Britain; Mrs. Noall's husband presiding over the Cheltenham
conference.
Prom Oldham the Misses Brimhall and Knight went to Bradford, to attend the Leeds
conference, and there had their first esperience in open-air speaking. They addressed
meetings indoors and out of doors, and were treated with respectful consideration by
those who assembled to hear them. They nest visited the Saints in Manchester and
Birmingham, holding at the former place their first cottage meeting, and then proceeded
to Cheltenham and Bristol.
During tue mouths of May and June Miss Brimhall and Miss Knight, having ob-
tained leave of absence, traveled for some weeks ou the continent, accompanied by
Elders Raymond Knight and Jesse William Knight, brothers to Inez, then missionaries
in (ireat Britain; also by Elder Noall and his wife. The party visited France, Switzer-
land. Germany, Belgium and Holland, seeing the famous sights of those countries,
and attending conferences of their people in various places. Everywhere the Saints
were delighted to receive the sisters from Utah, greeting them with every demonstration
of welcome.
Returning to England, after a very pleasant tour, our lady missionaries entered upon
their labors with renewed zeal, doing all things required of male missionaries along
the same lines; visitine, tracting, preaching, and exerting themselves to the utmost
to spread a knowledge of the truth respecting their religion and their people. They at-
tended the Welsh conference, and responded to invitations from various parts to address
the meetings of the Saints. The last public meetinsr attended by Miss Brimhall in Great
Britain was at Barusley, in the Sheffield conference, just prior to her departure for
home. She was honorabl3T released from her mission iu October, 1898, and set sail about
the middle of November.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 615
Her release was not due to any desire on her part to return home so soon, but was
brought about by the anxiety of her relatives and friends in Utah, who as the damp
season approached, feared a return of her former trouble (pneumonia) if she remained
in Great Britain during the winter. The recent death, from lung disease, of Elder David
Muir, in Scotland, enhanced the solicitude felt for Miss Brimhall, who was sorely dis-
appointed at receiving her release. Deeply interested in her work, and believing herself
sufficiently acclimated to do so with safety, she greatly desired to remain longer
in the mission field. She yielded, however, to the wishes of her father, and the
advice of the Church authorities, and came home. She was accompanied by Elder Jesse
William Knight, her affianced, who had been released at the same time as herself,
and she had as a lady companion Mrs. Martha Morris, of Salt Lake City. A company
of thirty-six Latter-day Saints, including several returning missionaries, crossed the
Atlantic upon the same steamer. Miss Brimhall arrived home on the 9th of December.
The next important event of her life was her marriage, to Jesse William Knight,
in the Salt Lake Temple, January 18, 1899. Their wedding day was the thirtieth anni-
versary of the wedding day of the bridegroom's parents. The young couple took up
their residence at Provo. In the month of May following her marriage Mrs. Knight
received from the General Church Board of Education her degree of pedagogy, to
which she was entitled the year before, but did not receive it owing to her early depart-
ure for Europe. She is foud of teaching, and her favorite studies are history and
psychology. She also delights in poetry. She enjoyed preaching when she felt in-
spired, but at first it was a great trial to her. She is a modest, unpretentious little
woman, with a sweet, innocent face and ladylike manner, bearing witness to a gentle and
amiable disposition. One of her prominent traits is her great love for her parents.
During the past few years she and hei husband have resided in Canada, where for some
time he was bishop of Raymond, in Alberta Stake, and is now one of the presidency of
the newly organized Taylor Stake. Mrs. Knight is president of the stake organization
of the Younar Ladies' Mutual Improvement Association.
OTHER NOTABLES.
39
■ ■■
HEBER MANNING WELLS.
■y fTAH'S present Governor, one of her most popular and most gifted sons, was born in
IgJ Salt Lake City, August 11, 1859. His parents, Daniel H. and Martha (Harris)
^"^ Wells, were among the first settlers of Salt Lake Valley. Of Revolutionary lineage,
he can point to ancestors who stood side by side with Washington; to some who at
an earlier period held high position in the New England colonies; and going back still
farther, he finds progenitors among the svout companions of William the Conqueror. But
Heber M. Wells is essentially a man of today, and must be given the credit of having
hewn out, in worthy and successful fashion, his own destiny.
He came to the duties of Governor of the State at the age of thirty-six. The respon-
sibilities of such an office are weighty enough for matured men, even where the machin-
ery of government is in well-worn and working order. They were necessarily more
onerous in the case of the new commonwealth, whose transition from territorial conditions
to the full privileges of the Federal sisterhood was completed by his inauguration on the
6th of January, 1890. When it is remembered, too, that there were delicate and perplex-
ing problems which had been associated with the name of Utah for nearly half a century,
the obligations resting upon the youthful executive will suggest themselves forcibly to the
thoughtful reader How well he discharged them, history 'bears vivid witness. How
satisfactory his administration was to his constituents is shown in the fact that at
the close of his first five years' of service, he was renominated by acclamation, and
triumphantly reelected for a second term of four years.
His success has been due not less to his high qualities of heart and mind than to his
courageous and engaging personality . He brought to the office a singularly well-balanced
aptitude for business affairs and a capacity for much and effective work. Since the age
of sixteen, when he completed his course of study in the University of Utah, he had been
in positions of trust and responsibility, both business and official. When, in an exciting
municipal campaign, the strongest candidate of his party for the mayoralty was sought,
he by reason of his effective service as City Recorder and his familiarity with and grasp
of city affairs, was placed at the head of the ticket. When a strong new banking institu
tion began to look about for a cashier, he was promptly selected for the place. Business
concerns desired to have him associated with their management, for he was resourceful,
clear-headed and energetic.
He served as chief clerk of the upper house of the territorial legislature in 1888, and was
a member of the convention which framed the constitution of the present State. When
this document was about to be submitted to the people for their approval, together with
the list of candidates for the state offices, his name headed the Rupubli'can ticket and his
popularity did much to insure its success. It was less than a week before his nomination
when the matter of his becoming a candidate was first mentioned. His competitors were
not more surprised than himself at the favor with which the suggestion was at once re-
ceived. Without headquarters or preliminary campaigning, the nomination came to him
easily, and the result has proved that no mistake was made by the people in electing him.
His liberality of -thought and action has tended to harmonize conflicting elements to a
marked extent, and his firm hand upon the helm has thus far steered the ship of state
most happily through troubled waters. Neither a partisan nor a bigot, he enjoys the
respect of those whose political or religious beliefs differ from his own; while his un-
compromising integrity and rugged bravery in doing what he believes to be right, regard-
less of pressure or persuasion, have endeared him to those who admire honesty in politics
and who look to such men as bright exemplars in the performance of patriotic duty. He
is the fifteenth Governor of Utah, but the first of her native sons to hold that office, and
the first, as shown, to be elected by the people; his fourteen predecessors being Federal
appointees.
Socially, Governor Wells is one of the most charming of men. With a keen sense
of the humorous, he possesses rare gifts as a raconteur, and he is ever a welcome guests. In
620 HISTORY OF UTAH.
earlier years he trod the boards of the Salt Lake Theatre as a member of the Home
Dramatic Club, displaying histrionic talents of uncommon order. His fund of anecdote
is rich and unlimited, and there is an effervescent buoyancy about him that is delieiously
contagious. While always cheerful he is not given to undue levity; and in council he
has the acumen and sagacity which make his conclusions wise and safe. He is one
whom office holding has not spoiled, and it would be difficult to find a public man who is
more generally esteemed. He is a type of the best quality of Utah's young manhood, and
as such has a bright future.
CHARLES WASHINGTON BENNETT.
JUDGE C. W. BENNETT, for thirty-three years a resident of Salt Lake City, and one
of the ablest lawyers in the West, is a native of the Empire State, but came to Utah
from Chicago, soon after the disastrous fire which in 1871 laid the larger part of that
great city in ashes. The son of Ira Bennett and his wife Angelica Templar, he was
born upon his father's farm in Duanesburgh, Schenectady County, New York, October
14, 1833. His grandfather, Amos Bennett, was a patriot soldier of the Revolution. The
father's ancestors came from England, and the mother's from Holland, during the early
days of the Colonies, and both families are of repute and distinction in American history.
The sire, a prosperous farmer and a man of progressive tendencies, gave the son
every available advantage for education. After leaving the district schools of his native
place, he attended the Princetown Academy, and subsequently, having evinced a marked
aptitude for the legal profession, took a course at the Albany Law School, from which in-
stitution he was graduated in 1857, while under twenty-four years of age. The same year
he was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of the State of New York.
Attracted westward by the greater opportunities given in the young and growing
sections of the country to men of his class, he removed to Burlington, Racine County,
Wisconsin, where for three years he practiced his profession. It was during this period
that he entered the state of wedlock, marrying in September, 1858, Miss Isabella E.
Fisher, a beautiful and amiable young lady, like himself a native of New York State and
a scion of one of the old families. Hers, however, was of Scottish origin. Two children,
both daughters, blessed the home. From Burlington the Bennetts removed to Racine,
where the rising young attorney continued his practice and made rapid advance. In the
spring of 1869 he became a resident of Chicago. There he was one of the law firm of
Bentley, Bennett, Ullman and Ives. Two years later came the great conflagration, and
his removal to Salt Lake City, where he has ever since resided.
Judge Bennett's career in Utah is an open book to every citizen of the State. From
the first he was a prominent member of the profession, and it is through the reputation
and standing of such men as he — men of great learning and unimpeachable integrity —
that the Utah Bar has become famous the country over as an association of legal lig-hts
second to none in the nation. He has acted as counsel in many of the most important
actions that have arisen in these parts, cases involving not only immense property inter-
ests, but liberty and even life itself. Most of the great mining suits have retained him
upon one side or the other, and wherever he has stood up in the maintenance of his cause,
his eloquent tongue, polished manner and eminent abilities have made telling and pro-
found impressions.
A Republican in politics from boyhood, his first Presidential vote being cast for
John C. Fremont at the very birth of the party, he has continued a staunch advocate and
supporter of its principles and policies to the present time. He was a zealous worker in
the ranks of the Liberals, during the local controversies ending with the Territorial
regime, but while opposing what he deemed premature movements for Statehood, he
early aligned himself, as was his wont, with the march of progress, and helped the ship
of state across the bar. As early as 1888 he assisted to organize the Salt Lake Chamber
of Commerce, which, while non-sectarian and non-partisan in spirit, was a recognized
HISTORY OF UTAH. 621
movement toward that happier change in social and political conditions that came a few
years later and still prevails throughout this once distracted commonwealth.
Judge Bennett, during the course of his legal experience in Utah, has invariably
been associated with men of talent and distinction — men worthy to be his peers. Such
eminent lawyers as Judge J. Gh Sutherland, Robert Harkness, J. R. McBride, William
M. Bradley, Andrew Howat. George Sutherland and Waldemar Van Cott, have at differ-
ent times been his business partners. In the Masonic Order, with which he has long been
prominently identified, he is a Past Grand Master of Utah and a member of the Chapter.
His estimable wife, Mrs. Isabella E. F. Beunett, died at their home in Salt Lake City,
April 24, 1902. She was a leader in the women's literary and political clubs, a lady of
intelligence, education and refinement, and her death was deeply deplored. Eight days
thereafter her sou-in law, Charles S. Davis, died. Both her daughters, the widowed Mrs.
Maud B. Davis, and Miss Mary Agnes Bennett, survive. Judge Bennett is still active
in his profession, and is the senior in the flourishing law firm of Bennett and Bierer.
ALEXANDER CRUICKSHANK PYPER,
»
-h_'HE upright judge, fearless and impartial, is an admirable character in any com-
\i[) munity, and when, with a disposition to do right between man and man, is com-
if bined a clear insight into the principles governing and the facts accompanying
the cases to be adjudicated, it goes without saying that the possessor of such
qualties in a faction-torn community will be appreciated by the best elements in the com-
monwealth, regardless of party or creed. Such a character was the late Judge Pyper.
Alderman and Police Justice of Salt Lake City, Bishop of the Twelfth -ward, and a suc-
cessful manufacturer and industrialist. His name lives not only in the annals of the
municipality and the church which he so long and faithfully served, but also in the his- '
tory of sericulture and the promotion of various useful enterprises.
Alexander C. Pyper was of Scottish birth and parentage, the date of his nativity being
May 15. 1828, the place Largs, Ayrshire. His father, Alexander Pyper, was in moder-
ate circumstances until a trusted friend left a note for him to pay, which well nigh im-
poverished him. He died when his son was eight years of age, and the boy's education
in consequence was limited. He attended night school, and later secured a business
training. He was of a retiring nature, and did not mingle much with other lads. His
early labors were in burning brick. After his father's death, his mother, Catherine
Monro Pyper, became a milliner and dressmaker. When he was nine years >ld, the
family moved from Largs to Kilburnie, where he remained until he was twenty, and
then came to America. A convert to Mormonism in his boyhood, at seventeen he was
a traveling Elder and spent some time in the ministry in his native land before cross-
ing the ocean.
His first place of residence in the United States for any length of time was St.
Louis. There he dwelt from 1848 until 1853. He attended Jones' commercial college,
from which he was graduated. In this city he married Elizabeth McAllister. He also
engaged in business, and was a valued assistant to Elder Nathaniel H. Felt, presi-
dent of the St. Louis conference. Thence he moved to Council Bluffs, Iowa, at which
place, and subsequently at Florence, Nebraska, of which he was one of the founders,
he conducted a very successful mercantile business, and assisted President Horace S.
Eldredge for several years in emigrational matters. His wife having died, he remarried
on the 24th of December, 1855. The maiden name of his second wife was Christiana
Dollinger, who survives.
The year 1859 witnessed his removal to Utah. The journey across the plains began
at Florence on the 7th of June, and ended at Salt Lake City on the 1st of September.
He was captain of ten wagons in a Church train of about eighty, under Captain Horton
D. Haight, with Bishop Frederick Kesler presiding and acting as commissary. Mr.
Pyper's family then consisted of his wife and three children. In addition to a travel-
ing carriage, he had three wagons loaded with merchandise. He employed four team-
622 HISTORY OF UTAH.
sters and two female helps. He also brought with him Father Durlin, an old friend from
New York City.
Three weeks after his arrival here he settled in the Eighth ward, where he be-
came bishop"s counselor. Subsequently he held the same office in Sugar House ward.
There he established a chemical laboratory, and engaged in the manufacture of white
lead, sulphur and other articles. This was in 1S60. He afterwards conducted a flouring
mill in the same building. Again he entered into merchandising on his own account,
and afterwards was employed by President Brigham Young to attend to his outside
private business. He was thus occupied at the organization of Z. C. M. I., when he
accepted the position as superintendent of its grocery department, which was then in
the old Constitution Building.
Already had begun his career in the municipal government. As early as 1866 he
was elected to the city council from Sugar House, which section was then the Fifth mu-
nicipal ward. After his removal to the heart of the town he was made an Alderman. In
August, 1874, he was appointed Police Justice, and this with the general approbation of
all classes of citizens. Says Tullidge, in his History of Salt Lake City: "The appoint-
ment of Judge Pyper to this important position was very acceptable to the Gentiles
and seceders, for he bore a character of unswerving impartiality. True, he was a
Mormon, but in his own words the stamp of his administration had been given. He
said: 'My education and religion have taught me to deal fairly and justly toward all
men, under the law, irrespective of their religion or their opinions, and regardless of
offenses.' He made good those words.'' As alderman from the Fifth
precinct he continued in the city council to the end of his life, serving in all as one of
that body a period of sixteen years.
In June, 1877, at the time of a general organization of stakes and wards, just prior
to the death of President Young, Alexander C. Pyper was chosen Bishop of the Twelfth
ward; the third man to act in that capacity. This position he held until his death. He
had previously served as superintendent of the ward Sunday school. He was a pioneer
in the Utah silk industry, and spent considerable means in establishing a cocoonery and
mulberry orchard on the bench in the eastern part of town. He took a deep interest in
sericulture, and was one of the most successful producers in the West.
Bishop Pyper was a thoroughly representative man of his period- — the husband and
father of several families. By his first wife, who died at Council Bluffs, he had two
children; by his second wife he was the father of ten, one of them, George D. Pyper,
the well known singer and theatrical manager. The third wife, Jane Tullidge, had nine
children — including a pair of twins. The bishop died July 28, 1882, much lamented by
the whole community. The city council adopted appropriate resolutions, and his funeral
was attended by representative people of all creeds and conditions. Of his twenty-one
children, fourteen remain to perpetuate his memory. His son George succeeded him as
alderman and police justice, and served in that dual office, like his honored sire before
him, to the public satisfaction, as long as the People's party controlled the city govern-
ment.
EDWARD LENNOX SLOAN.
JOURNALISM in Utah and the West will never have a complete history without conspic-
uous and extended reference to the capable and brilliant E. L. Sloan, founder, and
up to the close of his life, editor of the Salt Lake "Herald". The creation of this in-
fluential journal, which still lives, and bids fair to live through the changes of the
future, as it has survived the vicissitudes of the past, was not Mr. Sloan's initial work,
but his crowning achievement in the field of newspaper enterprise. He had been con-
nected successively with the "Millennial Star" at Liverpool, with the "Deseret News"
and "Daily Telegraph" at Salt Lake City, and had originated various publications, prior
to the establishment of the Herald. He was a natural journalist, and very much of a
poet. In early years, before leaving his native Erin, he printed a volume of verse, and
subsequently was the author of poems, hymns, essays and dramas. The period of his life
in Utah was comparatively brief — only eleven years — but he left an enduring impress on
his time, and died lamented by the whole community.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 623
The town of Bangor, County Down, Ireland, was his birthplace, and the date of his
nativity November 9, 1S30. His parents, John and Mary Sloan, were not wealthy, nor
were they as poor as many around them. Moderate circumstances is a phrase that best
describes their earthly lot. Edward received a common school training, which, however,
ended at the age of twelve, when he began to learn the trade of a weaver. While at tin-
loom he studied Latin, under the tutelage of an aged minister of his neighborhood, and
otherwise stored his capacious and retentive mind with the knowledge that qualified him
for his chosen profession. A voracious reader, he devoured book after book of history,
poetry, theology, etc., and his quick apprehension and thorough assimilation mastered
readily any subject that interested him. So vivid, too, was the mental imprint, that in
mature years he could repeat, word for word, without the slighest hesitation, long poems,
and orations, unconned by him since committing them to memory in his childhood.
He was a youth in his "teens'' when he first heard of Mormonism — introduced into
Ireland a.s early as July, 1840, by John Taylor, one of the Twelve Apostles, and after-
wards preached there by various Elders. Who it was that brought young Sloan into the
Church, the present writer is unaware. He appears to have embraced the faith independ-
ently and of his own volition, his parents remaining outside the fold. He was an Elder
at eighteen, and labored as a missionary, first in Ireland, and then in England, Scotland
and Wales. His poetic temperament was evinced at an early age, and at twenty he pub-
lished a collection of his poems in a little volume entitled "The Bard's Offering," under
the patronage of Hon. W. S. Crawford, at Belfast. Prose and verse contributions from
his pen also began to appear in the columns of the "Millennial Star," the organ of the
Church in Europe.
In England, after experience as a Traveling Elder in various parts, he presided over
the Nottingham Conference, and later over the Sheffield and Liverpool Conferences. His
writings for the "Star" brought him to the notice of Edward W. Tullidge, the assistant
editor of that paper, under President George Q. Cannon. This was early in the "sixties."
Mr. Tullidge, a gifted writer himself, and a literary critic of great natural ability, en-
couraged the young writer, and on leaving England for Utah, recommended him to Pres-
ident Cannon as his successor. The appointment was duly made, and Elder Sloan in-
stalled as assistant editor of the "Star." His labors as a religious writer were inter-
spersed with continued service as a preacher of the Gospel, which found in him an able,
fluent and zealous defender.
His own turn came to emigrate in 1863. He sailed from Liverpool on the second
day of June, landing at New York, and proceeding thence to Florence, Nebraska, from
which point he crossed the plains in his own ox team outfit, by the usual route. His fam-
ily came with him, for he was a married man, and had been since 1851, when he wedded
Miss Mary Wallace, like himself a native of the Emerald Isle. They arrived here on the
third day of October, four months and one day after leaving England.
The Sloans settled permanently at Salt Lake City. The head of the family found
immediate employment in the office of President Brigham Young, and from there went
to the Salt Lake Theatre as bookkeeper. He was next engaged as assistant editor of the
"Deseret News," and later became editor of the "Telegraph," then owned by Dr. Fuller
of Chicago, who had purchased it from the original proprietor, Mr. Stenhouse. As a side
enterprise, he founded and conducted "The Curtain," a bright and breezy little paper, .
the official program of the Salt Lake Theatre. In 1869 he published the Salt Lake City
Directory, the first work of its kind ever issued in Utah.
It was on the 5th of June, 1870, that Edward L. Sloan, associated with William C.
Dunbar, began the publication of the Salt Lake Herald, the former being editor, and the
latter business manager. Subsequently John T. Caine became a partner and third owner,
holding the position of managing editor. The "Herald" came into existence as an inde-
pendent paper, the successor of the "Daily Telegraph," suspended. From the first it was
a stout antagonist of the Salt Lake Tribune, which was bitterly anti- Mormon in spirit.
Upon the many abuses of that period — the reign of carpet-bag rule in Utah — the fearless
editor laid a scathing and unsparing hand, and many a despotic official, or other member
of the "ring." winced and cowered under the cutting lash of the Herald's brainy scribe.
One of the "ringites," Major Offley by name, attempted to assassinate the journalist in
his office, presenting a pistol at his breast and demanding the retraction of an article re-
flecting upon his character and course. Mr. Sloan seized the weapon, turning it aside,
and the timely arrival of his associate, Mr. Caine, brought about Offley's arrest and sub-
sequent punishment in Judge McKean's court.
A sample of Mr. Sloan's wit and ready repartee is furnished in the following incident
of those stirring times, during which the Mormon leaders, the most eminent men in the
624 HISTORY OF UTAH.
community, were continually harassed by vexatious prosecutions. General Daniel H.
Wells, the venerable Mayor of Salt Lake City, and one of the First Presidency of the
Church, had been indicted on a trumped up charge of murder, and was about to be ar-
raigned before Chief Justice McKean; Mr. Baskin being the public prosecutor. An an-
ti-Mormon paper referred sneeringly to the defendant, stating that he was the man who
impersonated Christ in the Endowment House ritual, and asking ironically, "When will
Christ be crucified?" The Herald's retort was instant. "On Monday," said Editor
Sloan, "Between Baskin and McKean."
While discharging his editorial duties, he employed his leisure — if an editor may be
said to have any — in writing for the stage. He composed several dramas, one of them
an Indian legend, "The Lily of the Seminoles," first presented at the Salt Lake Theatre
by George B. Waldron and Julia Dean Hayne. As a public speaker his services were
much in demand, and as secretary or reporter of important meetings — for he was an ex-
pert stenographer— his rapid pen was constantly in requisition. An advocate of co-oper-
ation, at the establishment of Z. C. M. I. in 1868-9 he was a missionary in its interest.
In most of the public events of his time he took an active and prominent part. Of genial
temperament and ever ready wit, with a perennial fund of sparkling anecdote, he was the
life and light of every company that included him.
Among the journalistic enterprises fostered by him mention must be made of the
"Woman's Exponent," founded in June, 1872. Miss Lula Greene was the editor of the
paper, but Edward L. Sloan was its projector, and rendered valuable assistance in put-
ting it upon its feet. He was a master of the printing business, more, however, by in-
telligent observation and careful study than by practical experience, and in the adjust-
ment of difficulties between printers in his office, was amply able to meet them on their
own ground. During the last year of his life he published another directory, this time
of Salt Lake City and the Territory of Utah. He died on the 2nd of August, 1874.
Edward L. Sloan was the husband and father of three families. The maiden name
of his first wife has been given. She was a kind-hearted, motherly soul, with the true
Irish hospitality. She survived her husdand about ten years. His other wives were
Phebe Watts and Emma Jones, both excellent women, still living. He had fifteen chil-
dren, but only six of them remain: Robert W., Edward L., Maggie, Lulu W.,
Thomas W., and Walter J. Of the deceased children, four were daughters and five
sons.
Though various^' gifted Mr. Sloan's element was undoubtedly journalism. Among
all the newspaper writers of his period, throughout the West, none eclipsed him and few
could be deemed his equals. He wrote with the dash and daring of a cavalry charge,
the fire of his wit, amid the satire and pathos of his more -serious writing, being compara-
ble to the flash of a sabre stroke or fierce roar of musketry, as the indomitable trooper
with resistless might bears down upon the foe. He was feared, but also admired and re-
spected, even by those whom duty and conviction compelled him to differ with and at
times severely criticise. His death, at the comparatively early age of forty-four, left a
place, not only at his own hearthstone, bat in the community at large, difficult and even
impossible to fill.
WILLIAM SYLVESTER McCORNICK.
p-^HIS well known stalwart of the business world, banker, mining magnate, promoter
f<j >} of railroads and other important enterprises, has been a resident of Utah for over
;? thirty one years. He came here from Nevada, having previously resided in Cali-
fornia, though he was originally from Canada West, where he was born, near Pic-
ton, Ontario, September 14, 1837. His parents were George and Mary McCornick, and
his mother's maiden name was Vance. They were not very well-to-do, a small farm of
poor land comprising most of their worldly possessions, and William as a boy, like other
lads of his time in that country, worked early and late, helping the family to win a liveli-
hood. His early educational opportunities were limited to his attendance, after the age
of nine, and during the winter seasons only, at the village schools, so long as that attend-
ance was practicable. To a mind such as his, however, the world at large was the best
and most useful school, and in his early dealings with men, and his manipulation of af-
HISTORY OP UTAH. 625
fairs, he manifested the intelligence, prudence, self-reliance and integrity that have been
noticeable in all his subsequent career. His natural inclination was to merchandising.
As a youth of twenty-one, he was still residing in his native province, but about that
time the spirit of enterprise, which was strong within him, impelled him to leave home
and seek his fortune elsewhere. It was California that first attracted him, and there he
lived two years, as a rancher in the vicinity of Marysville. Early in the "sixties" the
fame of the great Comstock lode drew him over the Sierras, and the next eleven years of
his life were spent in Nevada, where he engaged in lumbering and mining, and laid the
foundation of his fortune. He was a year in Virginia City, seven years in Austin, two
years in Hamilton, and one year in Belmont.
The date of his arrival at Salt Lake City was May 5, 1871. His purpose in coming
here was to continue the business of lumbering, but in June, 1873, he established a bank,
which has grown with his growth, until today the house of McCornick and Company, of
which he is the head, is distinguished as the largest private banking concern between the
Missouri River and the Pacific Coast. Its original home was in a west side Main Street
building, about midway between First and Second South Streets, but for more than a de-
cade the steadily flourishing and still growing business has occupied a splendid new gray
stone block built by Mr. McCornick on the old Kimball and Lawrence corner. The com-
pany is strong and reliable. The last statement furnished to the Secretary of State, giv-
ing the condition of the bank at the close of business, March 28, 1904, showed the dep-
osits to be over five millions of dollars. This is one of the few private banks in the
United States having a larger business and greater deposits than national banks in the
same localities; a fact that must be accredited to the implicit confidence reposed by the
public in this institution, which trust has never been betrayed.
Mr. McCoruick's experience as a mining man in Nevada was but the prelude to much
larger operations in that line in Utah. He early recognized her potentialities as a great
mining State, and while not plunging into any enterprise — for that is not characteristic of
the man — he has prudently invested his wealth, much of it in mines, and is now a large
owner in some of the most famous properties in this region; notably the Silver King,
Daly- West, Centennial-Eureka and Grand Central, among the heaviest dividend payers in
the West. He is interested in other mines as well, and is conuected with the American
Smelting and Refining Company. He has also done much to promote railroads, and to
encourage and foster various other enterprises.
While not a politician, nor a rabid partisan in any sense, Mr. McCornick has always
taken a keen interest in public affairs, and more than once has come to the fore, at the
urgent solicitation of his fellow citizens, when it was felt that his abilities and the weight
of his name and character were needed to help regulate local conditions and subserve the
common weal. Traditionally a Republican, he was a staunch member of the Liberal
party up to within a short time of its dissolution, which he helped to bring about, with a
view to putting Utah politics upon a broader and higher plane. A virtual step in that
direction was the organization, in April, 1887, of the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce,
of which he was the first president. Another step was the municipal fusion movement of
February, 1888, when the more liberal element of the Liberal party consented to accept
from their old-time antagonists, the People's party, four places upon their councilmanic
ticket, the election of which was a foregone conclusion. Mr. McCornick was one of those
who favored the fusion movement, and his was the first of the four Liberal names upon
the ticket. His confreres were Bolivar Roberts, John E. Dooley and M. B. Sowles. Over-
whelmingly elected, they took their seats in the city council, and continued to hold them
until the Liberal victory in 1890. Several years later Mr. McCornick was again elected
to the city council, another fusion movement having rendered that body practically non-
partisan. The confidence reposed in him by his associates was shown in their choice of
him for president, and in that capacity he helped to inaugurate and carry out needed re-
forms.
For the past fourteen years Mr. McCornick has been president of the board of trustees
of the State Agricultural College, which has grown into a great institution, largely through
his wise and progressive management. He takes a deep interest in education, and ap-
preciates intelligence and ability wherever found. He was the first president of the Alta
Club, a social organization of wealthy business men, and holds at present the following
named offices in various concerns with which he is connected: President of McCornick
and Company, and of the First National Bank of Logan; vice-president of the First Nat-
ional Bank of Nephi, and director of the First National Bank of Park City; treasurer
and director of the Silver King and Daly- West mining companies; treasurer of the Rocky
Mountain Bell Telephone company; director of the San Pedro and Los Angeles and
626 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Oregon Short Line railroad companies; president of the Gold Belt Water Company of
Utah, and of the Raft River Land and Cattle Company of Idaho. He has other valuable
holdings of real estate in Utah and in Mexico. A lover of fine horses, his stable is of the
best, and he owns some of the swiftest roadsters in the State.
Mr. McCornick came to Utah a married man, having wedded, in January, 1867, Miss
Hannah Keogh, of Bellville, in his native province. They are the parents of ten chil-
dren, namely, William, (deceased) Emma, Henry, A.. Harry (deceased), Clarence K.
Willis S., Lewis B.. Anna, Albsrt V., and Genevieve. Mr. and Mrs. McCornick have
traveled much in various parts of the world, and have given their children every advant-
age for culture and development. More than one of them have inherited much of the
father's marked ability. The family live in a handsome residence on a spur of the hill
at the head of Main Street, commanding a splendid view of Salt Lake Valle3'.
MATTHEW. HENRY WALKER.
Y^(OUNGEST of the noted Walker brothers, and one of two survivors of the original
7*J four, M. H. Walker is a prominent figure in the social and commercial history of
this commonwealth. Of English birth, but of American rearing, the son of Mat-
thew Walker and his wife Mercy Long, he was next to the youngest of seven children,
named in their order as follows: Samuel S., Joseph R., David F., Emma E., Mercy,
Matthew H., and a girl who died in infancy, while the family was yet in England. The
sisters Emma and Mercy, with their father, died at St. Louis in 1850, while on the way
to Utah; the mother passed away at Salt Lake City in December, 1803; and the lives
of the brothers Samuel S. and Joseph R., otherwise known as "Sharp" and "Rob"
Walker, after many years of success and prominence as merchants and men of affairs,
ended here, respectively in 1887 and 1901. David F. Walker now resides at San Mateo,
California, so that "M. H.'' is the only one of the first family still maintaining a resi-
dence in this State. He is the president of Walker Brother's Bank, and has large real
estate and other holdings in these parts.
He was born at Yeadon, Yorkshire, England, January 16, 1845. His father was an
inn keeper, a dealer in cloths, and a man of considerable means, much of which he in-
vested in railroad stocks, with unfortunate results. It was about this time that he became
a convert to Mormonism. As customary with such converts, when they could afford it,
he soon started for Utah. Sending his wife and children ahead, he remained behind
some six weeks in order to wind up his affairs. This was in the spring or early summer of
1850, and young "Matt" Walker was then a little over five years of age. From Yeadon
the family proceeded to Leeds, and thence to Liverpool, whence they sailed on the ship
"Hartley'' for New Orleans. Arriving there in safety, they steamed up to St. Louis, and
awaited the coming of the husband and father. He rejoined them in due season, but was
fated to perish, with his two daughters, as related. These troubles delayed the depar-
ture of the survivors for the West. They remained in St. Louis for about two years. The
elder boys with characteristic enterprise, went to peddling, and eventually secured clerk-
ships. They were natural merchants, and came under the notice and into the employ-
ment of William Nixon, who was quite a commercial character in St. Louis, and after-
wards at Salt Lake City. He was known here as "the father of Utah merchants."
Having secured a good outfit, the widowed Mrs. Walker and her four sons set out for
the Rocky Mountains. They joined a wagon train commanded by Captain James Mc-
Graw, but became detached from' the company before reaching their destination. Some
of their cattle gave out, and they entered Salt Lake Valley with a "spike team" to their
covered wagon — a steer and a heifer hitched to the tongue, with an Indian pony on the
lead. The date of their arrival here was September 22, 1852.
They settled first in the Third Ward, but afterwards moved into the Seventh Ward,
where they rented and afterwards purchased residence property, gradually acquiring pos-
session of the greater part of a city block, the one upon which the splendid homes of the
Walker Brothers are now situated. Joseph R. and David F. found employment with Wil-
liam Nixon, the merchant, whom "Rob" Walker in 1856 accompanied to Carson Valley,
"S^"-
HISTORY OF UTAH. 627
while David (called "Fred") remained behind, and like his brother "Sharp,'' already a
farmer, engaged in agriculture. During this period the boy Matthew attended the com-
mon schools ot Salt Lake City, in which he received most of his education.
The famous mercantile firm of Walker Brothers, which was destined to play a not-
able part in the commercial development of the West, was founded in 1S59, about a year
after the establishment of Camp Floyd by General Johnston. The coming of the govern-
ment troops had caused the return of the colonies previously sent out from Salt Lake
City, and among those who then came home were William Nixon and his capable and
trusted employee, Joseph R. Walker. He continued in business with Nixon at Salt Lake
City, and his brother "Fred" now returned to that merchant's employ, taking charge of
a suttlership purchased by Mr. Nixon at Camp Floyd. At times he and his brother "Hob"
would alternate employments, the latter going to Camp Floyd, and the former returning
to the city. Such was the situation when the opportunity came to establish the new firm.
A representative of the firm of Loud, Hosmer and Co., wholesale merchants of San Fran-
cisco, who supplied Mr. Nixon with goods from Southern California, offered to let the
Walker brothers have a stock of goods on credit, amounting in value to ten or fifteen
thousand dollars. The offer was accepted, and a store built and opened at Camp Floyd.
Its success was immediate, and when the post was evacuated in the spring of 1861, and
the government supplies sold at an immense sacrifice, the brothers were among the large
purchasers of goods, which, after the departure of the troops, thev freighted to Salt Lake
City.
Here they opened out for business in a building known as "Daft's Old Store," just
north of Martin's alley, on the west side of Main Street. Subsequently they built, on
the opposite side of the street, the "old Walker store," now the property of Spencer
Clawson, and occupied by the Bon Ton Theatre. At a later period the Walker Brothers
corner was acquired, and the magnificent block erected, the home for many years of the
Walker Brothers general mercantile business, and at the present time of Walker
Brothers' Bank and various offices. The purchase of this block was made in 1866. To
the mercantile business was added that of banking, and in 1871 2 the brothers purchased
an interest in the celebrated Emma mine, which they afterwards sold to American capital-
ists. Real estate purchases and the building of other valuable business blocks followed,
as well as the acquisition of handsome and luxurious homes. The firm's success was
phenomenal, and was checkered with but few reverses, the most notable of which was
the destruction by fire at two different times of the beautiful Walker Opera House, (now
Atlas Block) which burned finally in 1903.
The Walker Brothers were substantial and progressive citizens, public-spirited and
benevolent in the use of their wealth, and though not of the office-holding class, they
were regarded as in every way worthy of political preferment. While not maintaining
the connection formed by their parents with the Mormon community, thev were always
conservative in their course, and opposed to the radical, fire-eating methods by which it
was sought from time to time to solve the vexed Utah problem.
In the varied experiences in which the firm achieved success, Mr. Matt Walker, as
soon as he became old enough, played a full part, along with his elder brothers. Like
them he naturally inclined to a business life, and is rated today as one of our foremost fin-
anciers. After the death of his brother "Rob," he largely drew out of the mercantile
business and turned his attention more to banking, having bought out the interest of the
estate of Joseph R. Walker in the old banking house of Walker Brothers. He became
president in 1903 of Walker Brothers' Bank. The only public office he ever held was that
of member of the Board of Education of Salt Lake City, elected from the Second Pre-
cinct, and holding the position from 1898 to 1902.
He has been a married man since 1865. On his twentieth birthday he wedded Miss
Elizabeth Carson, by whom he became the father of two children, — a son, John H. Walker,
now assistant cashier of the bank, and a daughter, who died at the age of fourteen. The
mother's death occurred in 1S90. Mr. Walker's present wife was as a maiden Miss
Angelena Andrews, but when he wedded her she was a widow, Mrs. Angelena Hague,
relict of the late George Hague. By his second marriage he has a little daughter about
six years old. Mr. and Mrs. Walker are both interested in art and literature, of which
they are generous patrons. In their magnificent home on Main Street are to be found
many master works of local and foreign artists, among them paintings by the following
eminent French masters: Barillot, Leon Perrault, Japy, Ravanne. Petitjean. Charpin,
Chabas and Chretein. Mr. Walker also possesses one of the finest private libraries in the
State. He is at present erecting a new and palatial maDsion on East South Temple
Street, the most fashionable residence quarter of Salt Lake City.
BOLIVAR ROBERTS.
PROMINENT alike in business and official circles, and recognized by all classes of
citizens as a man of ability and probity, the late Bolivar Roberts wa= a resident
in these parts for a period of nearly forty-three years. As mining man and mer-
chant, as city councillor and territorial treasurer, his personal record is inter-
woven with the general history of the commonwealth which he helped to found, and in
which he was for many years a conspicuous figure. Unlike his parents and others of the
family, he was not connected with the Mormon community, but his interests were largely
identified with those of the people composing it, and many of his warm personal friends
were members of that body.
The son of Daniel Roberts and his wife Eliza Aldula Clark, he was born at Win-
chester, Scott county, Illinois, July 4, 1831. He came to Utah when nineteen years of
age, preceding his father, mother, and other members of the family, with whom he lived
successively at Winchester, Milton, Galena, and near Quincy, Illinois; at Garden Giove,
Iowa, and at Lancaster, Missouri. It was from the last-named place that he started early
in the spring of 1850 to cross the plains. His outfit consisted of horse, saddle and bridle,
and he traveled in a company commanded by David Evans. His father was a physician
and surgeon, at one time wealthy, but the family had been much upon the move, and at
this period were only in moderate circumstances. Bolivar had received a limited com-
mon school education, and this, with his native manhood and self-reliance, was about all
the capital with which he started out in the world to seek his fortune. The journey west
was comparatively uneventful, though Bolivar, who was principal hunter for the com*
pany, had some narrow escapes while hunting buffalo. Arriving in Utah, he took up
his residence at Provo, probably because Captain Evans lived in that part, and there his
parents, with most of their children, settled in the fall of 1851.
The spring of 1852 found Bolivar, with his father and his brother William, on the
way to California, taking the northern route, around the Great Salt Lake and down the
Humboldt. They resided successively at Placerville, San Jose and San Bernardino. The
father practiced his profession, while the sons engaged in mining. Dr. Roberts, in 1853,
returned to his old home in Missouri, and Bolivar, coming back to Utah the same season,
remained here about two years, and then rejoined his brother William in California.
After some experiences in farming, placer tuining and lumbering, William returned late
in 1855 to Utah. Bolivar came back in 1856, and went to work for the Overland Mail
and Express Company, between Salt Lake City and Carson City, Nevada, holding posi-
tions of trust and responsibility. He was also superintendent of the Pony Express Com-
pany. In 1859 he located at Dayton, Nevada, where he built a toll bridge across the
Carson River.
Returning to Utah in 1863, he settled at Salt Lake City — his home during the re-
mainder of his life. That year he married Miss Emma Pamelia Benson, daughter of
Hon. Ezra T. Benson, of Logan. The Roberts and Benson families had been acquainted
in Illinois. Five children were the issue of this union, namely, Bolivar Roberts, Jr.,
deceased; Pamelia Aldula, who died in infancy; and Don C, Frank T. and Harry L.
Roberts, who are still living in Salt Lake. Their father took part in the early Indian
wars, and was at one time in charge of a company of scouts. From 1864 to 1868 he was
junior partner in the mercantile firm of Bassett and Roberts, whose place of business
was one door south of the Eagle Emporium, the corner now occupied by the Utah Na-
tional Bank. At the organization of Z. C. M. I. they closed out, selling land and build-
ing to that institution, and their stock of goods to Walker Brothers. Subsequently this
piece of property was exchanged with William Jennings for the present site of the Z. C.
M. I. drug department. After closing out as a merchant, Mr. Roberts became a con-
tractor on the Central Pacific railroad. In 1884 was formed the partnership existing
under the firm name of Roberts and Nelden, druggists, which continued until 1892, when
the senior partner sold out, Mr. Nelden continuing the business.
■ V?
?c^^£^^>
/
HISTOKY OF UTAH. 629
It was in March, 1S86, that Mr. Roberts was appointed, by Governor Murray, treas-
urer of the Territory of Utah, an office held at the time by James Jack, who had been
elected by the people. The contest which arose was over the right claimed by the Exec-
utive to appoint the Treasurer and other officers, under section seven of the Organic Act,
which claim was disputed by the legislature. The Governor's other appointees were
Arthur Pratt as Territorial Auditor and Parley L. Williams as Territorial Superintendent
of District Schools, positions occupied respectively by Nephi W.Clayton and L. John Nut-
tall. The Governor's appointments being ignored by the incumbents, suits for the pos-
session of the offices were planted in the District Court, which, with the Supreme
Court of the Territory, decided in favor of the Governor's nominees. The cases, except-
ing that of Williams versus Nuttall, eliminated from the contest by the Edmunds-Tucker
law, which abolished the office of Territorial Superintendent of Schools, were then
carried to the court of last resort, which high tribunal also stood by the Governor,
deciding the case against the appellants, Messrs. Clayton and Jack, on the 6th of Janu-
ary, 1890. It was held that the Executive had the right to nominate the officers in ques-
tion, and that the legislative act of 1S78. under which the appellants were elected, was
void. The court also decided that, pending action by the legislative council, which had
the right to pass upon the Governor's nominees, the latter were entitled to the offices,
and consequently to the salaries connected therewith from the time of their appointment.
Pursuant to this decision, Mr. Roberts was inducted into the office of Territorial Treasurer.
Two years before, he had been elected city councilor of Salt Lake City, being one of
four prominent Liberals who in February, 1888, accepted plaoes tendered to them on the
People's municipal ticket, the election of which was assured. His Liberal confreres on
the fusion ticket were William S. McCornick. John E. Dooly and M. B. Sowles. The
action of acceptance, though favored by such pronounced Liberals as Colonel 0. J. Hol-
lister, Governor West, U. S. Marshal Dyer. Judge C. C. Goodwin, Dr. J. P. Hamilton, J.
R. McBride, W. H. Dickson, C. S. Variau and many more, was strongly opposed by
others, and the fight over it nearly split the party asunder. The fusionists were victori-
ous, however, and Messrs. Roberts, McCornick, Dooly and Sowles took iheir places in the
city council, and continued to serve therein until 1890.
A year later a great sorrow befell Mr. Roberts in the death of his wife, who expired
on the 10th of February, 1891. He had previously lost his son, Bolivar, Jr., and these
calamities had a visible effect upon his health and spirits. His own death occurred
August 10, 1S93, at his old home on East First South Street. He left a prosperous
estate, combining various intersts, — mining, mercantile, banking, etc. He was a
director of the Deseret National Bank, of the Utah National Bank, and of the Utah Com-
mercial and Savings Bank. He had been president of one of the local building, loan and
trust companies, and in earlier years was a director of the Utah and Nevada railroad.
Uniformly successful in business, he was honest and conscientious in his dealings,
faithful to every trust. Says his brother William: "From the time he left the Missouri
river, he was always where duty called him, and never flinched on account of hardship
or danger. He was generous to a fault, and would not only divide his last crust with a
friend, but would do the same with an enemy, if he knew he was in need. During the
Indian troubles between hei'e and Carson valley, he was always on the road, superintend-
ing the mail and sometimes carrying it himself, when others were afraid to do so. He
and I were together most of the time while he was in California; we worked and "kept
batch" together; and I can say that a truer man to what he thought was right never lived.
He had no enemies that I know of, but hosts of friends, among whom his word was as
good as his bond."
FRIEDRICH JOHANN KIESEL
Q VALOROUS veteran of Liberalism in the past, one of the staunchestof Democrats
ia later days, and at all times an honest, energetic and progressive citizen; such
a portrait sums up the character and career of the Hon. Fred J. Kiesel, of Og-
den. He is one of Utah's leading business men, has represented her in the lead-
ing councils of the State, and is a courteous and affable gentleman; well liked by a large
circle of acquaintances.
630 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Of German birth, he first saw light at Ludwigsburg, in the kingdom of Wurtem-
berg. May 19, 1841; His parents were Friedrieh C. and Louise Buhrer Kiesel; the
father, a shoemaker by trade, the conductor of a large shoe store, employing many
hands. His means enabled him to support in comfort and to fairly educate a numerous
family. Until fourteen years old "Fred" attended the Ludwigsburg Lyceum, where he
was educated primarily for the calling of a Lutheran minister. It was a thorough Ger-
man preparatory school, including ancient and modern languages; and from it, in earlier
days, the poet Schiller and other noted men had graduated. After leaving school he was
apprenticed to an engraver, an imperious and often brutal master, whose rule was so in-
tolerable that the lad ran away twice within a year, and finally embarked for America, a
country possessing for him the greatest fascination.
It was in January, 1857, that he sailed for New York, where he spent a year, fol-
lowing the vocation of an engraver until compelled, by the panic of that time, to make
a livelihood in other ways. He lived successively in New York, Michigan, Ohio, Tennes-
see and Missouri. At Memphis he was clerk in a cigar store, and afterwards foreign de-
livery clerk in the postoffice; the latter being his occupation at the outbreak of the Civil
War. He served twelve months in the Confederate army, and was under General A. S.
Johnston, at the battle of Shiloh, where that hero fell. Subsequently he clerked at
Sedalia, Missouri, and in St. Louis. While with the wholesale dry goods house of Hurt,
Hellmers & Voorhees, in that city, he formed the acquaintance of Henry W. Lawrence,
Robert Sharkey and other Salt Lake merchants who had dealings with the establishment.
He had also heard much of the West from Messrs. Hurt and Voorhees, the former hav-
ing been Indian Superintendent in Utah, and the latter a clerk for the Salt Lake firm of
Livingston & Kincaid. This acquaintance, with brighter prospects that seemed opening
in these parts, finally induced Mr. Kiesel to emigrate. He left St. Louis in May, 1863,
and joining one of Mr. Lawrence's westbound wagon trains, commanded by George
Merrick, drove a cattle team across the plains. His friend and companion was Henry C.
Dosch, now one of the foremost men of Oregon. Ed. Belcher, of Belcher mine fame,
drove team in the same company.
Mr. Kiesel's destination at starting was the Montana gold fields, but at Salt Lake
City, where he arrived during the summer, he entered the employ of a merchant, Abel
Gilbert, by whom he was sent to run a suttler's store at Fort Connor, near Soda Springs.
The nest year he returned to Salt Lake, and in the fall proceeded to Manti, where he set
up a mercantile business in connection with Mr. Fielding H. Lewis. He acted as sub-
agent to Colonel Irish, superintendent of Indian affairs, and was still at Manti when the
Black Hawk war broke out. The first white man killed was Peter Ludvigsen, at Nine
Mile Creek, from which point Mr. Kiesel helped to recover the body. He prudently
withheld the usual government supply of ammunition from the savages, and gave it to
the settlers, to aid them in their defense. During the summer of 1865 he sold out in
Sanpete and returned to Salt Lake City. He was next heard of at Wellsville, where he
founded a store for Mr. Gilbert, and sold a stock of goods to ''old man Allen," and an-
other to Robbins, Sadler it Benson.
After various successful business ventures in Ogden, he established mercantile houses
at Paris and Montpelier, in Idaho. During his career in that part Mr. Fred Wisner, who
had charge of his Montpelier store, was killed by parties unknown. Mr. Kiesel also had a
store at Echo City, and during the building of the Union Pacific, Central Pacific, Utah
and Northern, and Oregon Short Line railroads, he was continuously at the front as
freighter, forwarder, banker and merchant. Meantime he moved his business from Og-
den to Ophir, and bought out Isadore Morris, in Bingham, selling both stores to advan-
tage, prior to taking a trip to Europe early in the "seventies.'' While in his native city,
April, 1873, he married Miss Julia Schausenbach, by whom he is the father of two chil-
dren, his son Fre,d W. and his daughter Wilhelmine.
Returning to Utah in the fall of the same year, Mr. Kiesel bought out Lebenbaum &
Company, at Corinne, and with Gumpert Goldberg founded the house of Fred J. Kiesel
& Company, conducting a wholesale and retail grocery business, and following up the
extension of the railroad as far as Blackfoot, Idaho. There they sold out to Sebree, Ferris
& Co., and returned to Ogden, establishing in that city the first exclusively wholesale
grocery business in Utah. This partnership existed for eight years, during which period
Mr. Kiesel traveled extensively, establishing business communications in the surrounding
Territories. Eventually he sold out to flis partner and went to Toledo, Ohio, where he
conducted a similar business for about a year, when the death of Mr. Goldberg induced
him to return and purchase the old business in Ogden. Branch houses were now opened
at Hailey, Ketchum, Pocatello, and other parts of Idaho, and at Ontario, in Oregon.
sfj?<rt£&*-
HISTORY OF UTAH. 631
Since 1882 the company's commercial operations have steadily increased until the annual
sales in Ogden alone now aggregate about a million dollars. Mr. Kiesel was active in the
building of the Owyhee caual, in eastern Oregon, and the Caldwell and Parma canal, in
Idaho. He promoted the bottling of mineral water at Soda Springs, and helped to es-
tablish the salt works and bathing resort at Syracuse, near Farmington, Utah. Besides
being president of that mammoth concern, the Fred J. Kiesel & Company, he presides
over the Rieger and Lindley Company, of Salt Lake City, and the Oregon Forwarding
Company, of Ontario, Oregon. He owns large ranch interests at Arcadia, Oregon, and
at Parma, Idaho, where he is engaged in the breeding of Percheron horses and fine cat-
tle. He is much interested in horticulture, especially at Arcadia, and in viticulture, par-
ticularly the propagation of resistant vines, at Sacramento. His efforts in this direction
have been much commented ur>on, as his success means the saving of the vineyards of
California from destruction by the ravages of the phyloxera. He is also heavily inter-
ested in the manufacture of California wines and brandies, and in the distribution of the
products of the California winery at Sacramento.
Until recently Mr. Kiesel was a prominent figure in local politics. He was the first
non-Mormon mayor of Ogden, elected in February, 1889. His election was virtually an
entering wedge, which, uniting with other agencies, split the old parties asunder, and
paved the way for the reformed political conditions that now prevail. An out and out
Liberal, frank and fearless in his opposition to what he deemed a union of Church and
State, be fought the People's party zealously and vehemently to the close. Even
after that party disbanded he clung to his Liberal affiliations, and with Judge Powers
sought, though vainly, to represent the old party at the National Democratic convention
in 1892. The same year the Liberals disbanded, and Mr. Kiesel joined the ranks of the
regular Democracy. He was immediately recognized as a leader, and sent to the Con-
stitutional Convention of 1895. He was also a State Senator during the sessions of
1898 and 1900. He has now withdrawn from polities, and is attending exclusively to
business. Says he, with customary frankness: "I have no apology to make for my past
political record; all that I did as a Liberal was necessary to be done. I have no wish to
revive old antagonisms; I am satisfied with things as they are."
Always public-spirited, anxious to do all in his power to promote useful enterprises,
Mr. Kiesel was appointed national commissioner for the World's Fair at Chicago, and
served in that capacity, for Utah, with Colonel P. H. Lannan. He was one of the guar-
antors of the sixty thousand dollars necessary in order that the Territory might be prop-
erly represented at the great exposition; the legislative appropriation having been vetoed
owing to a misunderstanding between the Governor and the assembly. Ogden alone fur-
nished ten thousand dollars of this amount, notwithstanding the financial straitness then
prevailing. The entire sum was repaid by subsequent legislative appropriation.
Than Fred J. Kiesel, no man did more to induce the holding and to insure the suc-
cess of the great National Irrigation Congress at Ogden in 1903. As one of the local
boa'rd of control, and especially as chairman of the executive committee, upon him de-
volved most of the labor and responsibility for the arrangements, and to him, for their
complete success, belongs the lion's share of the credit. The official call for this con-
gress was as follows:
"The eleventh National Irrigation Consrress will be held at Ogden, Utah, September
15th to 18th, inclusive, 1903.
"A convention of vital concern to the American nation; to those who would make
two blades of grass grow where one grew before; to all who realize that water is the
Midas touch which turns the desert sands to gold; a convent;on of specific significance
to the states and territories whose arid lands are to be reclaimed by the federal govern-
ment under the provisions of the national irrigation act, namely, Arizona, California,
Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Nevada, New Mexico,
Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.
"Government and leading irrigation experts, practical farmers, irrigationists, fruit
growers, representatives from state agricultural institutions, state engineers, government
and noted foresters, as well as press representatives, business men, officials and law-
makers, will be in attendance and participate in the discussion.
"The program will include: Practical irrigation and forestry lessons; reports of
experts; application of provisions of the reclamation act; state progress under the na-
tional act; views on settlement of legal complications, and the pertinent and important
theme of colonization.
"Utah, being the pioneer state in irrigation science, proffers special opportunities
632 HISTORY OF UTAH.
for the study of its history and progress. Railroad and other excursions covering this
field will be arranged for delegates by local committees.
"For the first time in the history of the Irrigation Congress, the eleventh conven-
tion has been liberally fostered by state appropriation, which sum has been doubled by
private subscription from officers of the Congress and the citizens of Ogden and Utah,
so that a large fund guarantees the successful conduct of the program and hospitable
entertainment of all visiting delegates.
"Business men will be interested to meet here with electrical and it rigation engineers
to discuss the dual values in storage of torrential streams.
"In the far eastern and southern states of the humid region irrigation methods are
being studied and put into practice to save crops in seasons of drought and to increase
the value of natural resources. Flood sufferers in southern states should confer at this
Congress with those requiring reservoirs at the headwaters of the great rivers. It may
be said, therefore, that the East and South can here learn from the West, and delegates
should attend this Congress, not alone from the sixteen specially-interested far-western
states, but from every state in the Union.
"President Roosevelt, throughout his recent western tour, frequently gave utterance
to his belief that national aid for the reclamation of the arid West is of paramount im-
portance in our national policy; and to foster this policy is the work of this Congress:
"To save the forests and store the floods.''
"The program for the Congress will be carefully arranged with the view of achieving
practical benefits and progress. Specially favorable railroad rates have been secured,
details of which will soon be published. Arrangements for the entertainment of dele-
gates in the attractive city of Ogden will be complete and satisfactory, and reception
committees will meet all trains. The citizens of Ogden have appointed a board of con-
trol to entertain all delegates in co-operation with officers of the Congress. There will
be no advance in hotel rates.
"Newspapers everywhere are earnestly requested to give publicity to this official call
and to inform their readers of the importance of this Congress.
"Governors of the states and mayors of cities and officers of organizations entitled
to appoint delegates are respectfully requested to select men sincerely interested in the
work of — and likely to attend — the Congress.
"The basis of representation in the Congress will be: The governor of each state
and territory to appoint twenty delegates; the mayor of each city of less than twenty-five
thousand population, two delegates; the mayor of each city of more than twenty-five
thousand population, four delegates; each board of county commissioners, two delegates;
each chamber of commerce, board of trade, commercial club or real estate exchange,
two delegates; eachorganized irrigation, agricultural, or live stock association, two dele-
gates; each society of engineers, two delegates; each irrigation company, emigration
society or agricultural college, and each college or university having chairs of hydraulic
engineering or forestry, two delegates.
"The following are delegates by virtue of their respective offices: The President
and members of his cabinet; the duly accredited representative of any foreign nation or
colony; the governor of any state or territory; any member of the United States Senate
or House of Representatives; member of any state or territorial commission; members
of the National Irrigation Association.
"W. A. Clark, President.
"F. J. Kiesel, Chairman Executive Committee.
"Gilbert McClurg. Director Publicity and Program.
"L. W. Shurtliff, Chairman Board of Control.
"H. B. Maxson, Secretary.
"Willis T. Beardsley, First Assistant Secretary."
It remains but to add that the Congress was held, and that it proved to be the great-
est and most important event of its kind in the history of the nation. Senator Clark of
Montana, the mining and railroad magnate, presided over the sessions, and many eloquent
speakers addressed the great throng of enthusiastic delegates. A feature of the occa-
sion was the arid fruit exhibit, in which Mr. Kiesel took special pride. Another of a
different class was the prize irrigation ode, written by Mrs. Virginia Donaghe McClurg
of Colorado Springs, set to music by Professor John J. McClellan of Salt Lake City, and
sung by the Ogden Tabernacle choir, under Director Joseph Ballantyne, at the opening
session. Among the speakers were Governor Heber M. Wells, Senator Clark, Hon.
James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture; Hon. Frederick W. Taylor, Chief of Depart-
ment of Agriculture, St. Louis Exposition; Hon. William E. Smythe, "the father of the
\yvi*^v^ £ ^u >£-<t
HISTORY OF UTAH. 633
Irrigation Congress; Chief Engineer Newell, of United States Irrigation Surveys; Chief
Forrester Pinehot, Senator Newlands of Nevada, Hon. John Henry Smith and many
more almost equally prominent. Letters were read from President Roosevelt, Hon. E.
A. Hitchcock, Secretary of the interior; Senator Chauncey M. Depew and others.
Among the noted visitors were representatives of the governments of France and Mexico,
Count Max Le Couppey de la Forest, and Lieutenant-Colonel Don Ignaeio Altimera, who
both briefly addressed the Congress.
Mr. Kiesel is one of Governor Wells' appointees as commissioner for the Lewis and
Clark Exposition, to be held at Portland, Oregon, in 1905. His has been an active and
busy life, and in his sixty-third year, with undiminished energy, he bids fair to continue
active, busy and useful for a long time to come.
THOMAS COBWIN ILIFF.
.,~*HE immediate ancestors of the Rev. T. C. Iliff, formerly of Salt Lake City, and now
!<<•} of Kansas City, were the Iliff and Teal families of Perry County, Ohio. The Iliffs
i' were originally from Germany, and later from England, emigrating to America
near the close of the Revolution. The Teals were of Protestant Irish extraction.
Both families were early converts to American Methodism, through the labors of
the first Bishop, Francis Asbury, about the year 1800. John Iliff. the paternal grand-
father, went to Ohio from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, in 1S14. when Wesley Iliff, the
father of our subject, was two years old; his new home then a wilderness. Wesley married
Miss Harriet Teal, whose father was also a pioneer of Perry County, where at McCluney,
near the birthplace of General Phillip H. Sheridan, Dr. Iliff was born October 26, 1846.
The babe was christened after the celebrated "Tom" Corwin, who was then in the zenith
of his fame. Reared in the rugged simplicity of the backwoods country home, he shared
the common hardships of the semi-frontier, doing every sort of hard work from early
morning till late at night; the daily athletic outdoor exercise of farm life developing his
naturally robust and healthy body to the fullest complement. Inured thus to toil, he
was prepared for the many and varied experiences that awaited him, — the arduous army
life through which he passed, prior to taking up the taxing pioneer labor of the Rocky
Mountain Methodist itinerary.
Dark and stormy days for the nation were those from 1850 to 1860. The father, Wes-
ley Iliff, was an anti-slavery man, and his home was a station on the line of the historic
"underground" railroad, leading from the Ohio river to the Great Lakes, from slavery to
liberty. Among the Doctor's earliest recollections are those of ihe fleeing slave, escap-
ing from Virginia, seeking freedom under the British flag in Canada. He says: "I can-
not call to mind an hour in those early years when my soul was not on fire for the free-
dom of the black man." ftThen the crisis came, in the nomination and election of Abra-
ham Lincoln, the stentorian voice of young Iliff was heard in the schoolhouse and
throughout the neighborhood, advocating him as the nation's choice for President.
When the assault upon Fort Sumter startled the world, April 12, 1861, the mustering
stations soon became the most popular places of resort. Thomas asked to be allowed to
enlist, but was refused on account of his youth. His eldest brother, John, was the first
volunteer from their native township, and in the charge at Fort Wagner, in sight of
Sumter, gave his right arm in defense of his country's flag. One day in the following
June (1862) Thomas, then in his sixteenth year, was plowing corn in a piece of recently
cleared ground. Reaching the end of the row. he threw his plow down the hill-side,
and going to the mustering station enlisted as a private in an infantry regiment, the
Eighty-eighth Ohio Volunteers. Later he re-enlisted in the Ninth Ohio Cavalry. As none
were accepted if known to be under eighteen years of age, he declared to the mustering
officer that he was "going on nineteen." fie saw service in Kentucky, Tennessee,
Georgia, Alabama, South and North Carolina; was with Burnside at Knoxville, with
Sherman on the famous March to the Sea, and witnessed the surrender to him of the
Confederate General Johnston, following Lee's evacuation of Richmond and his capitu-
lation to Grant. He fought in fifty-three skirmishes and battles; he never surrendered,
never was a prisoner and was never in the guardhouse.
40
634 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Having received in his early boyhood the usual district school education, he entered
the preparatory department of the Ohio University, at Athens, in September, 1865. Con-
densing six years work into five, he was graduated June, 1870, as Bachelor of Arts. In
October of that year the erstwhile Union soldier became an itinerant Methodist preacher,
joining the Ohio Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, at Logan, in that State.
He was asked at that time by Bishop E. R. Ames, who had just returned from a visit to
the Pacific Coast and Utah, to take missionary work in the Rocky Mountains, but the
appointment was not made until February, 1871. On the 22nd of March, the same year,
Mr. Iliff married, at Belpre, Ohio, Miss Mary Robinson, a native of Marietta, in that
State, born March 1, 1850. The young couple proceeded by rail to Corinne, Utah, and
after a wearisome stage ride from that point, reached Missoula, Montana, April 14, 1871.
The following year Mr. Iliff built the first Protestant church in western Montana, hauling
lumber, lime and stone, working with his own hands for three months upon the building,
besides contributing five hundred dollars toward the enterprise. In 1873 he was trans-
ferred to Bozeman, where he built the large brick church still occupied by the Metho-
dists. At the general conference of his church, held at Brooklyn in 1872, Utah, Idaho,
Montana and Western Wyoming were organized into the Rocky Mountain Conference.
This necessitated frequent trips of all the preachers of this vast region to Salt Lake City,
but it was not until 1870 that Mr. Iliff took up his residence here, having been made Pre-
siding Elder of Utah.
Simultaneously with his advent into the Territory he began the reorganization of the
work of his church. This called him into all parts. He was the popular speaker in the
mining camps, and exercised great influence over their inhabitants. In 1880 he was sent
as a delegate to the general conference, which met that year at Cincinnati, and was in-
strumental in having Utah erected into a separate mission. During the next two years
he traveled extensively throughout Europe and the Holy Land, visiting England, Ireland,
and Scotland, Prance, Holland and Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. Austria,
Bulgaria and Turkey, Greece, Syria, Palestine and Egypt. Returning in 1882, he was
made Superintendent of the Utah Mission. Often he did double duty, being for some
years pastor of First Church, Salt Lake City, and once for a period of two years in charge
of Iliff Church, on Ninth East Street. The present structure was erected during his
pastorate. He assisted Chaplain (now Bishop) McCabe in raising forty thousand dollars
to pay the indebtedness on the First Methodist Church. It was largely by his personal
appeals throughout the country and to the various Methodist societies, that the mission-
ary and church extension appropriations were increased, so that the sustaining of a
greatly increased number of churches, schools and missionaries was made possible. In
June, 1887, on the same day, his alma mater conferred upon him the honorary degree of
doctor of divinity.
During the entire period of his residence in Utah Dr. Iliff took an active interest in
the politics of the commonwealth, giving his early allegiance to the Liberal party under
the old regime, and to the Republican party upon the advent of the new era and the con-
sequent abandonment of former political lines. Both these organizations will always asso-
ciate the name of Iliff with their triumphs and vicissitudes. While fighting Mormonism,
he has tried to cultivate friendly relations with the Mormon people, and he was one of the
first among the leading Liberals to speak favorably and hopefully of President Wood-
ruff's Manifesto of 1890, his position being that the Mormon leaders and people should be
given a fair opportunity to demonstrate their obedience to the anti-polygamy laws en-
acted bv Congress. When Hon. B. H. Roberts was elected to Congress, November 8,
1898, Dr. Iliff declared his purpose to do what he could to cause the exclusion or expul-
sion of the Congressman-elect; this, as he claims, not because Mr. Roberts was a Mor-
mon, but because he was a polygamist. He was made chairman of the anti-Roberts com-
mittee appointed by the Salt Lake Ministers Association, and for a year gave much of his
time to delivering addresses all through the nation. He was in attendance at the inves-
tigation of Mr. Roberts' case at Washington, D. C, which resulted in the exclusion of
that gentleman from the House of Representatives, January 25, 1900, by a non-partisan
vote of 208 to 50. Dr. Iliff is heart and soul in the comradeship of the "Old Soldier." In
1893 94 he served as the G. A. R. Department Commander of Utah, and at the National
Grand Encampment held at Louisville, in 1894, was honored with the election to the office
of Chaplain.
At his own request the Doctor was relieved of the superintendeucy of the Utah Mis-
sion February 15, 1901; this being the thirtieth anniversary of his appointment as mis-
sionary in the Rocky Mountains. On the 8th of the following November the Board of
Bishops and the General Committee of the Board of Church Extension elected him one of
-
HISTORY OF UTAH. ■;:!:>
its assistant corresponding secretaries, with headquarters in the West, and it was in pur-
suance of his acceptance of this position that he began his present residence in Kansas
City. His specific field of labor is "all the region between the Mississippi and the Great
Pacific Sea."
In physique Dr. Iliff is above medium height, and of heavy build, with a well-shaped
head fitted to a pair of square shoulders. He was built to endure. With an abundance
of vitality he is social, genial, vigorous in style and virile in expression. He is a natural
orator, and exercises a magnetic influence over his hearers. His eldest daughter, Laura
Cardwell, is married to Albert J. Evans, of University Park. Colorado. The second
daughter, Alice Mae, is the wife of Clifford B. Hamilton, Illinois. The other surviving
children are Wilev Corwin and Lois Lillian.
NATHAN TANNER.
EATHAN TANNER, SR., frontiersman, pioneer and colonizer, is the son of John
and Lydia (Stuart) Tanner, and was born in Greenwich, Washington county,
New York, May 14, 1815. He was named after another Nathan Tanner, a dis-
tant relative and Baptist preacher, a righteous man possessed of prophetic power,
who. some three years before the child was born, asked the parents to give his name to their
next sou. he having no children of his own. Having obtained their consent, he prophe-
sied many things concerning his future namesake that have been remarkably fulfilled.
Nathan's early life was spent on his father's farm. When sixteen years of age he
was baptized into the Latter-day Church, of which, so far as known, he is the oldest
living member. The baptism was administered by Jared Carter, September 10. 1S31.
Soon after, he was ordained a Deacon by John Carter, and subsequently a Priest by
Willard Woodstock, while traveling with him as a missionary in Vermont. Among their
experiences in that State was a case of instantaneous healing, the subject being the wife
of Nathan Place, who had been bedfast for three years. Nathan's schooling up to the
time he entered the ministry was that of the American country-bred boy, to whom the
winter terms of the village school were about the only educational means available.
The month of September, 1S33, found him at Kirtland, Ohio, whither he journeyed
with his brother John, for the purpose of meeting the Prophet Joseph Smith and other
Mormon leaders. The following winter he attended school in his native State, and in
April. 1S34, was summoned to Kirtland, to be enrolled as a member of Zion's Camp. He
was then living just west of Lake George.
The experiences of the historic expedition to Missouri need not be recounted here.
Nathan Tanner bore a full share of the burden resting upon the Camp, and manifested
the integrity and hardihood for which he has ever been noted. He assisted Zerubbabel
Snow in the commissary department, and became very intimate with the Prophet. He was
with him on one occasion while he was wrapped in vision, and saw the future of the coun-
try over which they were traveling. He remained in Missouri about a year, acting as a
teacher among the Saints who had been driven from Jackson county. After purchasing
a piece of land iu that State, he returned to Kirtland and spent the winter of 1834-5 at-
tending the School of the Prophets.
Now came the call of the Twelve Apostles and the organization of the first quorums
of Seventy. Nathan Tanner was ordained a Seventy October 10. 1835, and was made
one of the presidency of the fourth quorum. This was in recognition of his faithful
services as a member of Zion's Camp. The next event in his history was a mission to
the Eastern States, in company with Amasa M. Lyman. While at Bolton. Warren coun-
ty. New York, on June 30, 1836, he married Rachel Winter Smith, daughter of William
and Jane (Calkins) Smith. Autumn found him again in Kirtland. where, during the try-
ing period of apostasy and financial distress through which the Church then passed, he
was faithful to the Prophet and the cause. In attempting, with others, to save the credit
of the Church, he lost all bis property, amounting to many thousands of dollars. When
the mob burned the Church printing office he was called out on guard, and his wife,
owing to the excitement and agitation, gave premature birth to their first child, a daugh-
ter, whom they named Romelia. The little one died within an hour.
In the fall of 1S37, Mr. Tanner, homeless and almost penniless, moved with his
636 HISTORY OF UTAH.
family in the general migration of the Saints to Missouri. His second period of resi-
dence in that State was fraught with perilous experiences. Having no means with which
to build, he occupied part of his brother John's house — they having married sisters — and
went with him from Far West to work for the government at Fort Leavenworth.
When the mob troubles broke out he took an active part in the defense of his people.
As captain of ten, he was with Colonel David Patten and his command when they cap-
tured a cannon from the mob. At another time, while out with a party of scouts, he
called at the house of Colonel Roper, an anti-Mormon, and inquired if he was at home.
The colonel's wife said he was awav. Captain Tanner told her that he wanted to know
whether the coionel was doins* all he could for the extermination of the Mormons, and
was answered in the affirmative. He informed her that he also was out on business af-
fecting that people, and that his men were in need of arms and ammunition; whereupon
Mrs Roper feave him a very fine Kentucky rifle, and another woman delivered to him
eight rifles, secreted in her home for use against the Mormons.
When the mob began burning houses and other property around Diahman and be-
between that place and Far West, no man did more than Nathan Tanner in gathering up
the homeless refugees and conveying them to places of safety. His aged father was
brutally assaulted by Captain Odell, a mob leader, who struck him across the head with
a gun, laying bare the skull and disablinghim. Afterthe surrender of Far West, the heads
of Mormon families were compelled to turn over their property and agree to leave the
State. The deeds were all prepared, ready for signature and acknowledgment. Nathan
Tanner, with a file of gleaming bayonets confronting him, was asked by the notary: "Do
you solemnly swear that you do this freely and voluntarily?" The victim replied, ''Do
you see those bayonets? Doesn't it look as if it was free and voluntary?'" The bold
speech cost him dear. He received a blow in the side from the butt of a musket, and
knew nothing till several hours after, when he found himself among friends, who sup-
posed him dead. The cowardly assault could not have been committed upon him if he
had had a fair chance to fight; for he was of strong physique, and utterly fearless.
At Nauvoo he was one of the explorers chosen by the Prophet to accompany him on
his proposed journey to the Rocky Mountains. Nathan, his brother John and other
select souls were in waiting for Joseph and his companions, when, on the night of June
2U. 1844, they crossed the Mississippi, preparatory to proceeding westward; a plan frus-
trated by their return and the martyrdom. Afterthe Missouri expuison, he lived in Adams
county, Illinois, for about two years, and then moved to Montrose, Iowa, opposite Nau-
voo, dwelling there until the exodus, when he journeyed to Council Bluffs. He relates,
among his adventures, the swimming of the cold and swollen Platte, a mile wide, early
in the spring of 1S4S, to recover stolen horses from the Indians. The same year he came
to Salt Lake Valley, arriving here in the fall.
He settled on what was kown as the Lyman survey, ten miles south of Salt Lake
City, where at one time he owned three hundred and twenty acres of land. He claims to
have been the first to break ground for bringing water from Big and Little Cottonwood
streams. He built a toll road in Little Cottonwood canyon: hauled freight f»r the Over-
land Mail route and for the Government, and poles for the first telegraph line across
the continent. He made several winter trips with teams to Los Angeles, and was
always among the foremost in pushing out and incurring the hardships of pioneer
life. He narrates that in the summer of 1849, while assisting some emigrants to re-
cover stolen stock, he employed an interpreter to talk with an Indian chief, who, it
was supposed, knew something of the missing animals. In the course of the conver-
sation the Indian struck the interpreter across the face with his gun-stock. Mr. Tan-
ner knocked the Indian down, and as he arose and drew his rifle, seized and wrested
it from him, casting it behind him. The brave then drew his bow and arrow, which
met the same fate, as did his knife, also wrenched from him by the sturdy pioneer. His
last weapon taken, and he at the mercy of his opponent — though in no real danger of
harm — the red man ran for his life. The same year Mr. Tanner spent the fall and winter
with Parley P. Pratt and others, exploring southern Utah. As an instance of prompt-
ness with which he always laid aside his own business when the interests of the gen-
eral public were to be subserved, it may be mentioned that in the fall of 1851, being
in Salt Lake City on business, he was asked by General Daniel H. Wells if he could take
Professor Orson Pratt, with his astronomical instruments, south on business. Within
ten minutes he was preparing to go, and left next morning, spending six weeks from
home, furnishing himself and team and doing the service free. For two years he
sent four yoke of cattle, and a third year an eight-mule team with driver, to the fron-
tier, to bring in the immigrating poor.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 637
In the fall of lSol2 Nathan Tanner started, with other Elders, upon a msision to
ihe Sandwich Islands. He proceeded through southern Utah, across the desert to
San Bernardino, and thence by way of Sau Pedro to San Francisco. He now had
several families, and wherever he went candidly acknowledged it, exhibiting the pic-
tures of his wives and children. He was thought no less of for this, and was even
congratulated on the possession of so interesting a household. At San Pedro he at-
tended with others a spiritualistic seance, where the mediums were unable to work,
owing, he claims, to the presence of the Mormon Elders in the meeting. As a compen-
sation to the disappointed audience, Elder Tanner showed them the portraits of the mar-
tyrs Joseph and Hyrum, and of Governor Brigham Young, also a pamphlet containing
the revelation on plural marriage, with a discourse on the same subject by Orson
Pratt. All present were deeply interested. In a conversation that followed the sum of
seventy dollars was given the Elders by non-Mormons, to help them on their way. A
munificent contribution for the same purpose came from John M. Horner, of San Fran-
cisco, who. visited by Elder Tanner in the interest of the missionaries, some of whom
were bound for Australia, some for China, some for Siart and others for Calcutta, gave
two-thirds of the sum required to carry them to their field of labor, namely. $6,250, The
remaining third was donated by his brother. William. John M. Horner was a Mormon but
his brother had never been connected with the Church. The Elders baptized him,
however, before leaving.
The 17th of February, 1853, found Elder Tanner in Honolulu, and ihere, on the
ISth of March, at a conference where were present George Q. Cannon, Francis A. Ham-
mond. Henry W. Bigler. Phillip B. Lewis and other prominent Elders, the last named
was sustained as president of the Sandwich Islands mission, with Nathan Tanner and
Thomas Karren as his counselors. He performed a good and faithful work, suffered
arrest and other petty persecutions, and witnessed various miraculous manifestations.
Among others he converted and baptized Phillip Wort, the French consul. He had a
special mission to the white people on the Islands, but took part in all the general deliber-
ations. He was greatly assisted by Judge Lee, of the Supreme Court, whom he remem-
bers with gratitude. In the spring of 1S54 he was sent to San Francisco to confer with
the authorities of the California mission, with a view to purchasing a vessel to convey
the Hawaiian Saints to San Bernardino, there to settle. He was shipwrecked on the
way. but accomplished his errand and purchased the brig "Rosalind," paying a part of
the price down and getting time on the remainder. Unable to raise means for the final
payment, he was directed by Parley P. Pratt to sell the vessel, and did so for two thou-
sand dollars, accepting eighty dollars down and the balance in notes, rendered worthless
by fraud on the part of the purchaser. Elder Tanner was now honorably released, and
after working a while in the mines on Mormon Island, he contracted to haul freight from
San Bernardino to Salt Lake City, where he arrived, after an absence of about three
years.
His record during the "Echo Canyon war" was that of the average militia man of
the period. He was one of Governor Cumming's escort from Camp Scott to Salt Lake
City. After peace was declared he settled down to the life of a farmer, which has been
his vocation since boyhood. He also carried on freighting, and at one time kept a store
at South Cottonwood. While freighting between Utah and California in 1801 he under-
went a remarkable experience with Indians. He was returning from the west with a
band of over three hundred horses, mostly wild, and with merchandise valued at about
two thousand dollars. He had fourteen men with him. On the Rio Virgen a partv of
Indians, outnumbering his company, ran off all his tame animals, and would have stolen the
rest and probably killed the owner and his friends, had he possessed less presence of
mind and intrepidity. Most of his men being away, caring for the wild horses, he left
the other men in charge of the camp, and mounting his horse and shouldering his rifle,
started out alone in pursuit of the savages. Overtaking a party of fourteen, he leveled
his rifle and commanded them to return, threatening to shoot the first one that resisted.
They instantly divined the cause, but protested their innocence, saying that they had
seen some Indians driving his horses up a neighboring canyon. He compelled them to
return to his camp, however, and kept eleven of them under guard during the night,
permitting the three others to go after the stolen animals, which the}- recovered and
brought back to him. In the morning he gave his prisoners a good breakfast, seasoned
with a timely lecture, and allowed them to take their arms and depart in peace. On the
same trip he saved the life of Charles Flake, who had beaten an Indian for stealing his
horse, and had been whipped in return by a numerous band of braves, who afterwards
followed the wagons for the purpose of taking the young man's life. A plan of escape
638 HISTORY OF UATH.
proposed by Mr. Tanner, was for his friend to go ahead on a fast horse, and ring a bell, thus
inducing the loose animals to follow. Many of them were young colts, which soon tired,
and these, thrown out of the band by the owner, were allowed to be captured by the
redmen, who, thus delayed, permitted the fugitive to get away.
Mention has been made of Mr. Tanner's plural families. He has had five wives, by
whom he is the father of eighteen children, mostly living. Two of his wives, Rachel W.
Smith and Mary R. Baker, he married before coming to Utah; the three others, Persis
Tibbitts, Sarah Littley and Mary Benbow, he wedded subsequent to his arrival here.
He has had homes at Cottonwood, in Salt Lake City, at Wanship, Farmington and
Granger. He was justice of the peace at Wanship, about the only civic position he has
ever occupied In the Church he has held successively the offices of Deacon, Priest,
Elder, Seventy and High Priest, to which last he was ordained some five or six years
since. In addition to the missions mentioned, he has fulfilled two to the Eastern States,
both since the advent of the railroad. He is now a resident of Granger, nine miles
southwest of Salt Lake City.
HENRY ELIOT GIBSON.
/"Jf NATIVE of New York State, born in the town and county of Otsego, January 14,
( ^\ 1827, and a comer to Salt Lake Valley in the fall of 1848, Mr. Gioson is at pres-
^"^ ent a prosperous and respected citizen of Davis County. He was one of the earl-
iest settlers of Cache Valley, has been a colonizer in various parts, and after a long
and active business life, has retired to his farm, at Clearfield, to pass his remaining
years.
With his parents, John and Elizabeth (Wade) Gibson, he spent his early boyhood
at Wheatland, Monroe County, New York, where he attended until fourteen years old,
the district school, working on farms and in a woolen factory during vacations. His
father was a miller, running a country grist-mill, and also, with the help of his boys, cul-
tivating a small piece of land. At the age of seventeen Henry went to Michigan, and in
the spring of 1S45 became a sailor on the Great Lakes. He was naturally inclined to
mechanism, and after a varied experience he returned to his native State, and worked in
a carriage factory at Attica. The occupations named, with those of grocer's clerk, hotel
clerk and teamster, made up the sum of his employments until his removal west.
He became a Latter-day Saint March 29, 1847, and started on April 20, 1848, from
Batavia, New York, for Salt Lake Valley. By rail, steamer and canal boat, he made his
way in an independent company to Winter Quarters, where he joined the general Mormon
emigration, leaving there early in June. He traveled first in Hcber C. Kimball's com-
pany, but the latter half of the journey he was in the company led by President Brigham
Young. He mentions, among the incidents of the journey, the trouble with the In-
dians on the Elkhorn, in which Thomas Ricks and Howard Egan were wounded. The
date of Mr. Gibson's arrival at the Old Fort in Salt Lake Valley was the 20th of Septem-
ber.
Shortly before leaving his native State he had married Eliza M. Gibbs, the date of
the wedding being January 1, 1848. His wife accompanied him to the Valley. Settling
on East Mill Creek, he remained there until October 12, 1849, when he went with Gen-
eral Charles C. Rich to California, returning to Utah January 27, 1851. With the open-
ing of spring he settled on a farm in Ogden, where he remained two years, teaching
school the second winter, and in the spring of 1853 moved back to Mill Creek. There he
manufactured lath and shingles, and resided until 1856-7, when he engaged in farming at
Willard.
Four years later he moved to Richmond, building there the first shingle mill in Cache
Valley. Later, with Thomas Hillyard and W. C. Lewis, he built a saw mill in High
Creek canyon, and helped to build the first flouring mill in Richmond. He continued
farming and also resumed mechanical work. In 1873 he went into the lumber business,
having as partners David Eccles and W. D. Van Noy. This partnership continued seven
years. After it dissolved Mr. Gibson conducted a merchant's lumber yard urtil 1880,
when he sold out and moved onto a small farm in the suburbs of Ogden. He furnished
ftffijOAtih
HISTORY OF UTAH. 639
the capital for a produce and shipping business, conducted by D. G. Nelson, who died
three years later, and Mr. Gibson then continued the wholesale produce business with
C. A. Smurthwaite. Two or three years later this firm dissolved, and he continued alone
in the business until 189(i, when he retired to his farm.
Mr. Gibson's official record includes the adjutancy of a company of militia under
Colonel C. W. West, with whom he served in northern Utah and Echo canyon in 1857; he
was elected justice of the peace at Richmond, and was a member for two terms of the
first city council at that place. He served one term in the Ogden city council during
Mayor Brough's administration. He was president and general manager of the Layton
Mill Company, which he organized, building the mill and putting in the machinery. This
was in 1890. After two years he gave up the management on account of failing health.
Mr Gibson is the head of two households. By his first wife, who has been named,
he is the father of ten children, and by his stcond wife. Isabell V. Kerr, whom he mar-
ried April 12. 1809, he is the father of seven. He was in his seventieth year
when he retired to his Davis County farm. It contained eighty acres. He has an or-
chard of twenty acres, and is still at work, though now seventy-seven years of age, im-
proving his land and managing his affairs.
JOHN SCOWCROFT.
TTVITH the passing of John Seowcroft, who died at his home in Ogden on the 7th of
111 April, 1902, there went into the great beyond the spirit of an upright man,
^^ one who had made a success of life on earth, and who took with him, as a pass-
port to rest and a recommend for promotion in the world to come, the honorable
and consistent record made while here. He was one of Ogden's leading business men,
solid aud substantial, successful in all his undertakings. The founder of a flourishing
firm, he was also an investor and a director in various important concerns, and a promi-
nent promoter of education. He served as a Sunday school superintendent for many
years, and at the time of his death held the office of Bishop's counselor.
He was a native of England, born at Tottington, in Lancashire, December 9, 1S44.
the son of James Seowcroft and his wife Hannah Fairbrother. His parents were hand-
loom weavers, in comfortable circumstances, and at the age of eight years, having left
school, John began working at the same vocation, which he continued until he was four-
teen. His boyhood and early manhood were spent in his native village, near the city of
Manchester, and he there learned the business of confectioner. Always religious, he
took a keen interest in church work, and from the time of his conversion to Mormonism
in 1S61, was a devout and zealous laborer in the ministry. He presided over the Totting-
ton branch of the Church, and was the superintendent of its Sundaj* school. At Has-
lingden, also in Lancashire, he engaged in the wholesale and retail confectionery busi-
ness, in which he was very successful.
He sailed from Liverpool, on the steamship "Wisconsin," of the Guion Line, June
5, 1S80. bringing with him his wife, Mary Fletcher Seowcroft; his four sons. Joseph,
Willard, Heber and Albert; and his daughter, Sara A., now Mrs. George W. McCune.
These, with one other daughter, Florence H., born since their arrival in Utah, make up
the sum total of the children of this worthy pair. The date of arrival here was the 23rd
of June, two weeks and four days after their departure from Europe. The same year
they settled in Ogden, where Mr. Seowcroft entered the employ of R. P. Harris, for
whom he worked several months.
In 1881 he started in business for himself, establishing a confectionery and bakery,
and gradually working into eeneral merchandise. Eventually he branched out into the
wholesale trade, founding the splendid institution that now bears his name. In 1885 he
took in as partner his son Joseph, under the firm name of John Seowcroft & Son. Two
years later his son Willard also became a partner, and the firm name underwent another
appropriate change. Heber and Albert were admitted, respectively, in 18S9 and 1891.
The growth of the business was phenomenal, and the house of Seowcroft & Sons became
known, and is still recognized, as one of the largest wholesale houses of the West. In
1S93 the John Seowcroft & Sons Company was incorporated, and by that title it goes at
the present time. It is exclusively a wholesale institution.
640 HISTORY OF UTAH.
The head of the firm was president, director and manager of the business up to the
year 1900, when, on account of failing health, he resigned as manager, and was suc-
ceeded by his son Joseph in that capacity. He remained president and director, how-
ever, as long as he lived. He was loved by his employes, and highly esteemed among
business associates and the public generally. He was one of the organizers, and the
first piesident of the Weber Club, the business men's association of Ogden, and on his
retirement from business the club conferred upon him the unique distinction of honorary
membership, no other member having been so favored. He was a director of the Ogden
Sugar Company, and of the Ogden State Bank, and served two terms as a member of
the City Board of Education.
For a number of years John Scowcroft was one of the presidency of the seventy-
sixth quorum of Seventy, and was also superintendent of the Second Ward Sunday
School, the ward in which he lived. Eventually he was ordained a His;h Priest, and set
apart as counselor to Bishop Robert McQuarrie, in the same ward; a position held
by him to the end of his days. In 1890, and again in 1901, he visited his
native England, and it was while at his former home in Haslingden, on the
10th of October, in the latter year, that he was stricken with the ailment — paraly-
sis— that finally proved fatal. He recovered sufficiently to return to Utah, but gradu-
ally declined until death released him. In his beautiful dwelling, "Lancaster" — so
named in honor of his old English home — he passed peacefully away in the presence of
his family.
The domestic life of this good and gracious man was as happy as his business career
was prosperous. He charmed everyone he met by his cheerful and amiable courtesy,
and will long be remembered for his genuine goodness of heart. He was a free and
generous giver to charity, and a willing and ready promoter of every worthy cause. His
funeral, on the 13th of April, 1902, was one of the largest gatherings ever seen in Og-
den. It was attended by representative men of all classes, and Mormons and Gentiles
united in testifying to the worth and integrity of the departed. His widow, his four sons
and his two daughters, all survive.
ALEXANDER HAMILTON TARBET.
mR. TARBET'S name stands for success and prominence in the mining and in-
dustrial history of the West. While not a native of Utah, he has spent most
of his life here and in neighboring commonwealths, carving out fortunes and
promoting various important enterprises which have developed and helped to make
prosperous the intermountain country. He is now wealthy, but has been poor and rich
by turns, while manfully struggling up to his present material eminence.
He was born at Iowa City, Iowa, July 21, 1861, a memorable year in the annals of
the Republic, whose very existence was threateded by the formidable movement for
secession culminating in the attack on Fort Sumter, a little over three months before. His
father, Alexander Tarbet, was a farmer and general man of affairs, the owner of a pack-
ing house, a flouring mill and a distillery in Iowa, and afterwards a noted mining man in
Utah. His mother's maiden name was Delia Geoghegan. Until fourteen years of age
"Alex" attended school in his native State, and then came to Salt Lake City, joining his
father, who was already here, mining in Little Cottonwood canyon.
For three years the boy attended, during the winter season, the Salt Lake Collegiate
Institute, the remaining months of each year being spent at his father's mine. There he
acted as shipping clerk, assayer, etc., and acquired a practical knowledge of mining. He
took a great interest in the subject, and was in the mine all his spare time, visiting the
various levels daily, taking observations, making notes of work done, and studying care-
fully the various problems presented. His was an intelligent mind, absorbing knowledge
readily. When any dangerous ground was being brought under control, he was always
there with a boy's curiosity and intense desire to learn. When not otherwise engaged,
he helped the blacksmith to sharpen tools, and was also a good companion to the timber
men. The experience gained served him in good stead in after years, and was really the
basis of his future success.
0> f\*~^(^—-^y \£,v^/t^/o w'i %s-
HISTORY OF UTAH. 641
He was about to enter Princeton College. New Jersey, when the famous litigation
began between the senior Mr. Tarbet and the owners of the Flagstaff mine, forming a
notable chapter in Utah's mining history. The case was so long drawn out and so costly
that the Tarbet fortune was mostly spent in it. the little remaining being swallowed up
by the receiver appointed bv the district judge to take charge of the property. The case
established the now well known principle of mining law, that where a vein crosses a
location, instead of running along the same, the side lines become the end lines as to
extra-lateral rights.
"•Alex*' Tarbet was a youth of seventeen when he entered Butte. Montana, the scene
of his earliest triumphs. He leased a mining prospect and began working it. Low grade
ore was encountered from the first, and finally a rich streak, principally silver, one and a
half inches wide. At the end of a month almost this entire streak, weighing a hundred
and twenty-five pounds, was in a sack and on its way to market, on the back of the sturdy
young prospector, who trudged with it a distance of two and a half miles to Mr. C. T.
Mt-ader, doing business in the firm name of Meader and Swain, and then the prominent
ore buyer of Butte. Meader told Tarbet that he had never purchased so small a quantity
of ore, but encouraged him to carry the sack a quarter of a mile farther to his office. The
youth endeavored to do so, but found himself exhausted, and had to hire an express
wagon to carry the ore. It only brought eighteen dollars, a considerable part of which
was virtually donated bs- the buyer, who took an immediate liking to the young miner,
and began instructing him in the art of ore sampling. He found his pupil surprisingly
apt, the latter having had so much experience at his father's mine.
It was a lucky chance, the acquaintance formed with Mr. Meader, who at once became
his employer. After his first month's labor, at sampling, weighing and shipping ore,
the regular man resigned his position, and young Tarbet, who was his assistant, succeeded
him. Meader was purchasing at this time about thirty thousand dollars worth of ore each
month. His firm handled the output of the Gagnon mine. Tarbet had not been long in
his employ when an incident happened that led to another promotion. While sampling
down in the Gagnon (by the old system of skimming a little from each shovelful sacked,
and a handful from the sample to keep check on it) the foreman of the mine came down
and began to sample by a rather crude system, but one which gave his mine decidedly
the best of the business. Tarbet watched the foreman's unfairness until he could stand
it no longer, and then deliberately upset the sack tampered with, thus spoiling the sample
of the entire shipment of fifty tons. He stood off the enraged foreman, a huge burly
fellow, by using as his defense a sharp shovel, which could be utilized as effectually as a
sabre. This act. instead of losing him his position, gave him better standing with his
employer, who soon afterward put him in charge of his entire business.
In the spring of 1S79 Mr. Meader organized the Montana Copper Company, subse-
quently merged into the Boston and Montana Copper Company, of which Mr. Tarbet was
appointed assistant general manager: a proud position for a youth of eighteen, but one
which his merit fully warranted. His appointment was due to the following incident. A
bad cave had occurred in the Calusa mine, and the superintendent proving incapable,
Mr. Meader requested Mr. Tarbet to take charge. He did so, and within thirty- six hours
had everything in propei shape. In 1SS0 the Bell mine was purchased by Mr. Meader
for his company, upon Tarbet's inspection and recommendation. He was made superin-
tendent of the Bell mine, and remained such until October, 1881, when he resigned.
Returning to Butte in December of that year, after a brief visit to his old home in
Salt Lake, he accepted the superintendence- of the Shakespeare and Parrot mine. In the
spring of 1882 he bonded the Wake Up Jim mine, and developed a property worth one
million dollars. In July of the same year the Bell Mining Company failed, and Mr.
Tarbet. who was a heavy stockholder therein, was again penniless. The Bell mine had
no debts when he left it, but now it was bankrupt, and on his twenty- first birthday, he
found himself in debt nearly fifteen thousand dollars, most of it drawing interest at one
and a half per cent. These debts he gradually paid, and within the next two years he
built the Summit Valley railroad, between the Parrot mine and smelter, a distance of two
and a half miles. This enterprise, ia which he was a third owner, proved very profitable.
In 1SS4 he attended the Colorado State School of Mines, remaining there during the
scholastic year. Returning he engaged with Mr. A. J. Schumacher in smelting, at
Argenta. Montana. This venture failed, owing to the drop of silver in 1SS5.
The following year found Mr. Tarbet in the Cceur d'Alene country, in company with
Oliver Durant. Within thirty days they had bonded the Sunset mine, and sold the same
to W. A. Clark aud brothers, receiving two thousand and five hundred dollars more than
642 HISTORY OF UTAH.
the purchase price, and retaining a one-fifth interest, which they subsequently sold for
thirty-five thousand dollars. In June, 1887, Mr. Tarbet became superintendent of the
Tiger mine, and with Mr. Durant bonded the Union and Tiger fraction, one location
removed from the mine which he superintended, which was one of the great Cceur d'Alene
properties. Reserving a one-eighth interest, they rebonded to Finch and Campbell. The
property was sold to the Omaha and Grant Smelting Company. In the spring of 1888
they bonded the Tuscombia, but the deal was never consummated, owing to adverse
report. In 1889-90 Mr. Tarbet speculated largely in real estate at Spokane, Washington,
where he then lived. He had married on May 22, 1889, Miss Emma Murphy, at Milwau-
kie, Wisconsin.
In November, 1890, a syndicate was formed to purchase the Le Roi mine at Trail
Creek, British Columbia, and in this venture Mr. Tarbet played a prominent part. It
turned out wonderfully well, the product being in gold, silver and copper. The mine,
after paying nearly a half million in dividends, was sold to the London and Globe Devel-
opment Company for six millions, and eventually achieved in the London market over
forty millions.
Early in 1891 Messrs. Tarbet and Durant took a bond on the Centre Star and Idaho
mines, the former adjoining the Le Roi, and the Idaho adjoining the Centre Star. In 1892
these properties were taken under the bond and worked diligently until the crash of 1893,
when operations ceased until July, 1894, by which time the Centre Star Gold Mining and
Smelting Company was organized, with a capital of five hundred thousand dollars. The
shares, at a par value of one dollar, immediately leaped to a premium, fifty thousand
shares selling for sixty thousand dollars. Much work was done, and in August, 1898, the
Centre Star was sold to Godderham and Blackstock, of Toronto, Canada, for two millions.
Shortly after this sale, Tarbet and Durant were offered by the same parties a million
dollars for the Idaho mine. The offer was refused, also a subsequent offer of four mil-
lions, on a bond with large cash payment. The mine still remains in their possession.
Having amassed a splendid fortune, Mr. Tarbet in the spring of 1895 moved back to
Salt Lake City, where he now resides in a handsome home on First Street. Here he has
engaged in various enterprises, including the newspaper business. He was the founder
of the "Inter-mountain Catholic," and has made munificent donations to the Catholic
Church, and to other institutions and causes. He is the chief promoter of the Idaho Con-
solidated Power Company, over which he presides, and is also president of the Bear
Lake Copper Company, the Idaho Gold Mining and Smelting Company, and the Salt Lake
City Water and Electrical Power Company. In politics he is a Democrat, and has been
honored by his party with high positions. At the Kansas City Convention in 1900, when
William J. Bryan was nominated the second time for President, Mr. Tarbet was chair-
man of the Utah delegation. The same year he was on the Democratic ticket for the
Electoral College, but Utah went Republican. He is frequently mentioned in political
circles as eligible for even higher honors.
SAMUEL NEWHOUSE.
jORN in New York City, and educated in the public schools of Philadelphia, Mr.
Newhouse, whose fame as a mining man in Utah began with his ownership of the
celebrated Highland Boy Mine, in July, 1890, had behind him, when he came to
Salt Lake City, an extended and varied business career in the State of Colorado.
As a youth, after emerging from scholastic discipline, he read law with the Hon. Edward
N. Willard, of Scranton, Pennsylvania, and at one time was ambitious to become a
journalist. Neither of these professions, however, was he fated to follow, though for
some time after his arrival at Leadville, Colorado, in 1879, he turned his attention to
newspaper work. He was then twenty-four years of age, bright, capable and promising,
and plunged with avidity into the busy life then opening before him, with all its roman-
tic phases and practical vicissitudes, in the snow-crowned, gold-veined regions of the
Rocky Mountains. From journalism he turned in a short time to freighting, — a very
important and lucrative vocation in and around the Colorado mining camps, — and then,
by a natural process of evolution, drifted into mining, in which he was destined to make
his fortune. Working himself in the mines, he acquired the knowledge and experience,
^nt)c
HISTORY OF UTAH. 643
to be derived in no other way, which has since made him an expert in the recognition and
handling: of great mining properties.
It was in 1885 that Mr. Newhouse concentrated his attention and efforts upon milling.
Two years before, he had married, his bride being; Miss Ida H. Stingley, of Virginia; a
highly accomplished lady, descended from the family of one of the early Presidents of
the Nation, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Mr. Newhouse came to Utah
in 189G, and having secured possession of the Highland Boy mine, he was immediately
classed in business circles as one of the leading capitalists and mining authorities in
the State. The property named, which is in Bingham Canyon, is now incorporated as
the Utah Consolidated Gold Mines, Limited. To give some idea of the extent and value
of this great enterprise, it is but needful to say that a half interest therein was secured
by the famous Standard Oil Company for six million dollars, and that this is regarded as
a trifling sum. in comparison with the recognized worth of the rich properties belonging:
to the company, in which Mr. Newhouse remains a director.
After incorporating the Highland Boy, he went on acquiring: and working other
mines, some of which he secured at a mere nominal value from discouraged owners and
operators; reopening and bringing them to a high state of development. He owns
entirely, or is heavily interested at present in a large number of valuable mines and
properties in Colorado, Utah and California. His official connection with the Boston
Copper Mines, of which he is president and managing director, is a noted leaf in local
history. He is also president of the Denver and Inter-mountain Railway Company, and
the projector, builder and principal owner of the Newhouse Tunnel, at Idaho Springs,
Colorado. In addition to his mining properties, which have made him immensely wealthy,
Mr. Newhouse has valuable real estate holdings, mainly in New York City, where he
recently made a million dollar purchase at the junction of Fifth Avenue, Broadway and
Twenty-third Street, with the purpose of erecting thereon a fifteen story modern build-
ing, worthy of that splendid location. He is now building a railroad in Beaver County,
Utah, and is the founder and owner of the entire town of Newhouse in the same vicinity.
Personally Mr. Newhouse is an amiable and pleasing gentleman, having a brainy
look and a distinguished air, which comports well with his repute for education and
native ability, as well as with his prominence in social and commercial spheres, due to
his unusual success in business and his vast material possessions. His extended interests
require his presence at regular intervals in San Francisco, Salt Lake. Denver, New York
and London, in all of which centers he is a well known and prominent figure. In London
he maintains a magnificent establishment, and the social position of the family in the
world's metropolis is second to none in the American colony. His European business
interests, which are mostly banking, are looked after by his brother, who resides per-
manently abroad for that purpose. At his offices in Salt Lake City he maintains a per-
fectly equipped force of mining experts, surveyors, assayers and chemists. Mr. Newhouse
is a Democrat in politics, ever a liberal donor to the campaign funds of his party, and a
munificent though unostentatious dispenser of charities.
FRANK KNOX.
^^\ONSPICUOUS among pushing and prosperous business men in the West, is the
Ift^ gentleman whose name gives caption to this brief biography. He came to Utah in
^"^^ 1890, with the influx of population resulting from various movements made about
that time to adjust old differences between the two classes of this long divided
commonwealth and inaugurate a new era of political and social reform. Prior to coming
here he had made a remarkable record as a banker and all-around man of affairs, and
sprang: full-armed into the arena of Utah's commercial activity.
Mr. Knox, who is still in his prime, was born at Washington, Iowa. His parents
were in good circumstances, and gave their son every educational advantage, which he
wisel}- improved. Strong in mind, athletic in body, as he grew up he developed sound
judgment and keen discrimination, with habits of promptness and powers of decision,
prophetic of future success. At sixteen years he entered the First National Bank of his
native town, where he laid the foundation of that thorough knowledge of banks and
banking for which he is noted. Always a hard worker, he made it a point to master in
644 HISTOEY OF UTAH.
general and detail every branch of business with which he became connected. In 1885
he went to Kansas, and there founded one National and two State banks, prior to becom-
ing one of the original incorporators of the National Bank of Commerce at Kansas City.
In 1889 he sold out his eastern interests, and during the year following moved to Salt
Lake City, where he has since resided.
Here he established the National Bank of the Republic, of which he is still the head.
It is one of the soundest and most prosperous banking houses in the State, and at present
has the following directory: Frank Knox, President; James A. Murray, Vice-President;
W. F. Adams. Cashier; J. C. Lynch, S. B. Milner, Henry Phipps, G. S. Holmes, Stephen
Hays, and Senator Thomas Kearns; all Utah men but two, namely, Mr. Murray, a prom-
inent mining man of Butte, Montana, and Mr. Phipps, the Pittsburgh millionaire. The
position held by Mr. Knox is no sinecure. He gives personal attention to the affairs of
the bank, and devotes much time and labor in its interests, as well as in those of other
concerns with which he is connected. He makes frequent trips East and West, and keeps
in touch with outside capitalists, for whom he does a great deal of business. An indi-
cation of how his institution stands in the East, and especially with the government, was
shown in 1900 when Congress appropriated half a million dollars for the erection of a
Federal building at Salt Lake City. Mr. Knox was chosen disbursing agent for this fund,
and his bank designated as the depository for the same; a very pretty compliment to the
house, but due in part to his wide acquaintance with leading government officials, includ-
ing President McKinley, members of the Cabinet and a number of United States Senators
and Congressmen.
Mr. Knox is not a politician, but has a thorough knowledge of governmental science
and takes a deep interest in public affairs. During the past ten years he has been identi-
fied with every large movement for the development of Salt Lake as a city and Utah as
a State. He has given much attention to mines and railroads, and has large interests in
both.
He married Miss Granby, of Morris, Illinois, and they have three children. A man
of ability and culture, full of energy and vitality, and withal of an amiable, cheerful dis-
position, Mr. Knox is recognized as a leader among men, and is well liked by a large
circle of acquaintances.
PERRY S. HEATH.
mR. HEATH, until recently the owner of the Salt Lake Tribune first came to
Utah in the summer of 1899, but did not conclude to make his permanent home
in this State until December, 1900. He was one of the incorporators of and
directors in the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad, and has taken
much interest in its extensions and development. He purchased the "Tribune" and as-
sumed, as vice-president, treasurer, publisher and general manager, its entire direc-
tion on October 17, 1901. Mr. Heath has made printing and publishing his life study,
and has a perfect knowledge of the art preservative in all its branches.
A native of the State of Indiana, he was born August 31, 1857. His father was a Method-
ist minister, as were also his maternal grandfather and three uncles. At the age of
thirteen the boy entered a printing office, to learn the trade, and attended at the same
time a night school, in order to complete his education. At twenty, having acquired a
thorough knowledge of printing, he became a reporter, and at twenty-one owned and
edited a newspaper of his own. From 1S81 to 1891 he was a newspaper correspondent at
the city of Washington, and during the latter year purchased the Murat Halstead inter-
ests in the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, and was its president and publisher until
March, 1897.
It was then that he became First Assistant Postmaster-General, a position which he
resigned in July, 1900, when he accepted the secretaryship of the Republican National
committee. He was chairman of the literary bureau of that committee, at its Chicago
and New York headquarters, in 1896. during the memorable campaign of McKinley and
Hobart against Bryan and Sewall. He retained the position of secretary until Febru-
ary, 1901, when he resigned, owing to the death of his friend, Senator Mark Hanna.
1JH-r^^rt^-s- (^^k: o
(mC&K£ju>^<
HISTORY OF UTAH. 645
As a newspaper man Mr. Heath has visited every State and Territory in the Union,
and is probably more widely known than any other man in the inter-mountain country.
Under his ownership and management the entire establishment of the Salt Lake Trib-
une, very soon after his purchase of it, was completely overhauled, new machinery
added, and the policy of the paper greatly changed. Its history, since its establishment
on January 17, 18G8, by William S. Godbe, is well known to the people of this State.
After a brief conservative course, during which Mr. Godbe retained the control, the
paper changed hands and for many years bitterly antagonized the Mormon Church. It
was the 6rgan of the Liberal party as long as that organization continued to exist.
Under Mr. Heath's ownership and management it claimed to be neither Mormon nor Gen-
tile, but a newspaper whose design was to present all the news in unbiased form, yet sup-
porting without stint Republican policies and principles. Aside from this, its aim was to
assist in the upbuilding af Utah and the surrounding States. It is found in the forefront
for progress, and its business, both in circulation and advertising, is said to be much
greater than at any time in its history.
ARTHUR BENJAMIN LEWIS.
0R. LEWIS came to Utah within the last decade, but has made his presence felt
in the development and enrichment of the commonwealth to a far greater extent
than many a man who has spent a lifetime within our borders. He is a native of
Ohio, and was born at Milan, in Erie County, on the 10th of August, 1857; the
son of John C. and Martha L. Lewis. His father was a Methodist minister, and during
war times served as a Captain of infantry — Company I, Thirtieth Ohio Volunteers. The
son received a common school education, and subsequently took a course in the Ohio
Wesleyan University, equipping himself for journalism. Meantime, however, he had
removed with his parents to Nebraska, then a new country, where from the age of twelve
up to the time of going to college, much of his life was spent upon the farm. After com- .
pleting his collegiate course, he returned to Nebraska and became interested in newspaper
and educational work. He founded and managed a number of papers, prior to remov-
ing to Chicago, where a wider field of activity opened to him as managing editor of the
Lumber Trade Journal, with which he was connected for many years.
It was in 1889 that Mr. Lewis decided to come further west, and during that year he
put his decision into practice. One purpose in view was the improvement of his health,
sorely taxed by close application to an in-door business life; but he was also greatly
interested in mining and in irrigation projects, those cardinal features of western indus-
trialism, and these, in a business way, were the magnets that drew him to the Rocky
Mountains. His first experience in mining was in the South Pass district, Wyoming, and
after leaving there he went to Idaho Springs, Colorado, one of the oldest camps in that
State. Seven years were thus spent, and then came his removal to Utah, though he still
retained a home in Chicago. The date of his arrival here was July 30, 1896.
Mostly impressed with the possibilities of the mines in Beaver County, he forthwith
settled there, and during the next four and a half years was busy perfecting plans for
the future. Having purchased or secured option on some of the richest claims in that
region, in December, 1900, he organized and incorporated the Imperial Copper Mining
Company, of which he was elected president. It was capitalized for five million dollars,
at a par value of ten dollars a share. The property of this company comprises forty
claims in the San Francisco Mining district, lying to the north of the famous Horn Silver
mine, and within a short distance of Frisco. The ore bodies in the Imperial mine are
of immense proportious, and the returns, which are in gold and silver as well as copper,
show as high as twenty per cent in copper and from one to eight dollars in gold per ton.
After the floating of the Imperial, Mr. Lewis organized and incorporated the Royal
Copper Mining Company, with a basis of seven hundred acres of valuable ground, con-
taining similar claims to those comprised in the Imperial group. Of this company he was
also president and general manager. His next creation was the Majestic Copper Mining
and Smelting Company, which now owns those valuable properties, the Q. K., the Vicks-
646 HISTORY OF UTAH.
burg, the Old Hickory, the Harrington Hickory and other mines. This company has
erected a fine smelter at Milford.
As already stated, he is deeply interested in irrigation projects. In addition to his
mining properties, he owns a large area of agricultural laud in Beaver County. In Nov-
ember, 1902, he was elected to the State Senate from the Eleventh Senatorial district,
and during the session of 1903 served as chairman of the appropriations, mines and
mining, and printing committees, for which service he was peculiarly well qualified, both
by education and experience.
An amiable and accomplished gentleman, popular with associates and acquaint-
ances, he is a prudent, careful and successful business man, upright in his dealings,
generous in tne use of his means, and fully deserving of the prosperity which has fallen
to his lot.
HENRY GORDON WILLIAMS.
*P"^HE Utah Fuel Company is a corporation that controls the output of some of the rich-
V*J est and most prolific coal mines in the State. Its base of operations is Carbon
i? County, in central Utah. Its headquarters are at Salt Lake City, and its general
manager at the present time is Mr. H. G. Williams, the subject of this narrative.
Necessarily it is one of interest, owing to the prominence of Mr. Williams and the fresh
fame acquired by his company during the recent coal miners' strike, which, though suc-
cessfully met by those in charge of the mines, thanks to the prompt action of Governor
Wells in calling out the militia and dispatching them to the scene of the troubles, still
menaces, though in a milder way, the peace of that section. Mr. Williams is a coal man
of many years experience, having first engaged in the business in the State of Kansas,
seven or eight years before coming to Utah. He is a native American, and by profession
a civil engineer.
Born at the little town of Merton, in Waukesha County, Wisconsin, March 19, 1856,
he was the son of Henry N. Williams and his wife Amanda L. McMillan. They were
farm folk fairly well to do, and were not only able but ambitious to give their son a good
education. He leaned to the law as a profession, and after sixteen years upon the home
farm, during which he received the customary schooling for juveniles, he attended the
Wayland University at Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, preparatory to a course in the Univer-
sity of Chicago. He entered the classical course at the latter institution, but in the junior
year his health failed, and he returned to his old home in Wisconsin.
At the age of twenty-three. Mr. Williams, having qualified himself as a civil engi-
neer, took a position on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroad, with headquarters
first at Nickerson, Kansas, and afterwards at Topeka. In 1884 he engaged in the coal
business with the Osage Carbon Company of Kansas, as traveling sales agent, assistant
superintendent and chief engineer. In 1884-5 he became associated with the Raton Coal
and Coke Company of New Mexico, of which he was afterwards superintendent. Later
he was chief engineer of a number of coal companies, including the San Pedro Coal and
Coke Company of New Mexico, the Trinidad Coal and Coke Company of Colorado, the
Canyon City Coal Company of that state, and the Pittsburgh Coal and Coke Company and
the Osage Carbon Company of Kansas. In the latter part of 1891 he became chief engi-
neer of the Pueblo Smelting and Refining Company, at Pueblo, Colorado; and later the
assistant general manager.
Soon after this he came to Utah, having accepted the position of assistant superin-
tendent of the Pleasant Valley Coal Company. He remained here six months, and then
returned to Colorado, re-engaging with the Pueblo Company. In 1896 he came back to
Utah, resuming his former position as assistant superintendent of the Pleasant Valley
mines, of which he was made assistant general manager in 1900. The company made him
its general manager in 1902, at which time he also became general manager of the Utah
Fuel Company, succeeding Mr. William G. Sharp in those positions. In this capacity he
figured during the strike. A brief history of this event from data furnished by Manager
Williams, is here given:
HISTORY OF UTAH. 647
The strike of the coal miners was inaugurated on November 9, 1903, by order of
John Mitchell, President of the United Mine Workers of America. At this time no com-
plaints had been made and no grievances presented by any of the miners of the Utah
Fuel Company, nor were there in Utah any lodges of the United Mine Workers of
America. None of the grievances formulated by the general organization as a cause for
the strike were applicable to this State. For instance, an eight hour day for miners was
demanded, and this had existed in Utah for some years. The abolishment of the "script
system" was demanded, which had never had an existence in Utah. Good ventilation
was another demand, when no complaints of ventilation had been made, it being a well
known fact that the Utah mines are among the best ventilated in the country, and like-
wise the safest. In no other mines is greater expense incurred or greater care taken in
these directions. As to the question of an increase in wages, the Utah mines, at the time
the strike was inaugurated, were paying as good and even better wages for eight hours
than were being paid for ten hours in Colorado, New Mexico or Wyoming. As to the
recognition of the Union, another point insisted upon, there was no union here to recog-
nize, nor had there ever been.
The full number of men who eventually went out on strike was about twelve hun-
dred, and the great majority of them were Italians. About one hundred and twenty-five
Finns also joined the movement. Comparatively few English-speaking people took part.
Had it not been for the strength of the Italian element, the strike would probably have
failed at the beginning. Not over ten per cent of the foreigners involved in it were
American citizens, and but few of the strikers were natives or permanent citizens of Utah.
It is believed that the general organization of the United Mine Workers brought on the
strike in Utah very largely to help them in their conflict in Colorado, and that the whole
movement was for the purpose of establishing and strengthening the union in the Rocky
Mountain region, it having gained but a partial foothold in Colorado and New Mexico,
and none in Utah. The grievances gotten up by the national organization and sent to
these States with instructions to miners to strike on account of them, had very little to
do with the true cause, which, in all probability, was to organize the miners in these parts
and strengthen the general position of the union throughout the land.
The action taken by Governor Wells in calling out certain companies of the State
militia, and sending them under General John Q. Cannon to Carbon County, has been
mentioned, not only in this sketch, but in the Governor's own biography. The presence
of these troops in the mining regions prevented, in the opinion of the officers of the Utah
Fuel Company, a state of anarchy, which would have made it impossible for them to keep
their mines running and secure men to take the places of the strikers. Men who wished
to continue at work, and did so after the arrival of the militia, expressed themselves
freely aud gratefully regarding the Governor's course and the service rendered by the
troops. They declared that this was all that gave them confidence to continue, as other-
wise they would have been liable, to bodily harm and the destruction of their property,
and also to future persecution. It is given on good authority that in case the coal min-
ers in Utah had been successful, the metal miners would also have gone out on strike, in
connection with the movement of the Western Federation of Miners in Colorado, the
result of which would have been to paralyze all the mining and smelting industries of
Utah, and work injury to business of every character and description.
The Utah Fuel Company, shortly after the institution of the strike, increased the
wages of all its employes, and offered to take back those who had left, but this offer was
refused, under instructions from the general organization, on the ground that the union
must be recognized. In fact, the strikers offered to waive all other demands, including
any raise in wages, if the company would recognize the union and insist upon all its
employes joining it, whether or not they desired to do so. During the strike two noted
agitators successively appeared upon the scene, for the purpose of encouraging the
strikers in their course; the first of these was one Demolli, an Italian, who was arrested
by the militia for inciting to riot, and imprisoned for a brief period. After his liberation
he had an interview with Governor Wells, who advised him to leave the State, upon which
advice he subsequently acted. The other agitator was the notorious "Mother" Jones, who
broke the quarantine rules in Carbon County by visiting certain Italians who had the
smallpox, and was also arrested and jailed. She a'so was soon set free, and left for other
parts.
The present condition is that the Utah Fuel Company is mining all the coal that it
can possibly dispose of, and is in a position to mine still more. Its coke ovens are in full
blast. The new men secured to take the places of the strikers have come almost exclus-
ively from this State, and are proving themselves to be good and efficient workmen.
648 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Manager Williams ascribes the success in dealing with the difficulties of the situation, to
the prompt aid rendered by the Governor and the militia, and to his company's just
treatment of its employes.
JEREMIAH LANGFORD.
j[ERE LANGFORD, General Manager of the Salt Lake and Los Angeles Railway, and
| Superintendent of Saltair Beach, is a native of Rome, Georgia, where he was born
$J September 18, 1848. When about three years old he moved with his parents, Jere-
miah E. and Mary Jane (Jackson) Langford, to the State of Texas, and some four
years later, the family having embraced the Latter day faith, started to cross the plains
with ox team, in a wagon train commanded by Captain Seth M. Blair. It was a calam-
itous experience for the seven-year old boy, whose parents were both attacked with
cholera, and died the same night on Grasshopper Creek, in Kansas. Within a week his
sister, eleven years of age, was also fatally stricken, and a great many others of the com-
pany were carried off by the same dread disease. Jere was thus left a homeless orphan
with three younger brothers, his only surviving relatives. Their father had been a car-
penter and boat builder, and their only property was the outfit with which he had left the
frontier, namely, one wagon, four yoke of oxen, two cows and a horse.
Arriving in Salt Lake Valley in the fall of 1855, the fatherless and motherless children
found homes in various households, where they were kindly cared for and reared to matur-
ity, though hard work, scant schooling and many privations were necessarily their portion
in those primitive times. Jere went to live with Lorenzo Pettit, on the Jordan river,
north-west of Salt Lake City, and was reared on the farm where the copper plant now
stands. Mr. Pettit was childless, and Jere and another boy were raised by him as his
own. He was an excellent, kind-hearted man, and having prospered, he generously
assisted his foster children and all his other relatives with means.
Jere's early life was that of the average Utah boy of his period, and was mostly
occupied in farming, wood-hauling and herding. His cattle roamed the range in Rush
and Skull Valleys, where he spent many winters, returning home in the summer
to work on the farms and in the canyons. He was always busy, toiling from daylight to
dark and sleeping manj' a night on the ground, with scant bedding. No school, no play —
only work, work, work, and that of the hardest kind. But it made a man of him, and
the sturdy boy grew up strong and self-reliant, fitted to cope with life and duty in their
sternest phases. He tells of several trips made with grain and household goods to Lehi
in the spring of 1858 — the year of "the move" — when he was but ten years old. Twice
at least he went alone, driving an ox team both ways. He happened to be at Payson
(then Pond Town) herding cattle on foot when the Indians came down Spanish Fork
canyon and drove off a lot of stock; they passed within two hundred yards of the lad,
but did not see him, on account of the tall sage brush. The next ten years saw him
riding the stock range, logging, fencing, farming and teaming.
His first railroad experience came with the advent of the "iron horse" into the Great
West, the year 1868 witnessing the construction across Utah of the grades of the Union
Pacific and Central Pacific roads. Jere was employed on the former as a grader. He
subsequently turned his attention to freighting, going in 1872 to the L'intah Indian res-
ervation, in eastern Utah, and the following winter to Pioche, Nevada. In 1S73 he was
logging in Big Cottonwood canyon, where he spent two seasons, and then resumed
freighting, this time between Ophir and Salt Lake City. One of the hard and perilous
experiences that befell him soon after, he thus describes:
"In the spring of 1876 I went with Archie Livingston to Green river. The snow
was so deep we could not get through Strawberry Valley, and so went to Salina, up
Saliua canyon, and through Castle Valley. No one was living there. We passed through
Nine Mile canyon and forded the Uintah river. Our pack horse gave out in the canyon,
and we were obliged to leave it there. Two weeks later Livingston sent me after the
horse and pack. While I was gone it rained, and when I got back to the river it was
so swollen that it swam the horses. The stream was overflowing its banks, and I con-
sider it a marvel that I was not drowned. Shortly afterwards Mr. Livingst >n was taken
(^,&Sa^<#ytn^L~
HISTORY OF UTAH. 649
iil with pneumonia, and I started with him for home. The snow covered all the willows
in Strawberry Valley, and we crossed on the frozen crust, breaking through many times.
At the head of Daniel's creek we camped for the night, Mr. Livingston being very weak
and delirious. I was awake all night. We went down Daniel's creek. Many snowslides
filled the canyon, and the creek had cut its way through them. We rode down the creek
bed under the roofs of snow. At Heber I got a buggy and drove Mr. Livingston through
to Salt Lake City, arriving about the 2Sth of May. He died on the 2nd of June."
In September of the same year Mr. Langford went to Corinne, taking with him the
oxen previously used in logging, with freight wagons, which he loaded at that point for
Fort Shaw, Montana. He drove team all the way, the last fifty miles in snow two and
three feet deep, arriving there on Christmas day. The next spring he went down the
Yellowstoue, crossing the river at Canyon creek, the evening before a fight took place
between the Nez Perces and the Second United States Cavalry. He hauled materials for
the building of Fort Custer and Fort Keogh. Wintering on the Yellowstone, he next
hauled material for the construction of Fort Assiniboine, on Milk river. He remained
in Montana until December, 1879.
His next important venture was the starting of the salt works now owned and oper-
ated by the Inland Crystal Salt Company. It was the first successful attempt to make
salt by pumping, and the first that made a pure salt that would not bake or get hard.
The works were on the eastern shore of the Great Salt Lake, and in their neighborhood
the Saltair Pavilion was subsequently erected. In 1893 Mr. Langford, with Orson Smith
and Charles W. Hardy, looked out a route lor a railroad from Salt Lake City to Los
•Angeles, and the next year he went to Southern Nevada to open a gold mine. He
was there two years, during which time he built four quartz mills. The summers
were fearfully hot, the thermometer registering at times one hundred and forty
degrees in the shade. In 1900 he went to Nome, Alaska, witnessing the great rush to
those parts. Again in 1901 he passed down the great Yukon, prior to returning home.
Mr. Langford is an able business man. and an honest, sterling character, well
thought, of by all classes of citizens, and worthy of the success that has crowned his life.
He has been a married man since March 18, 1880, when he wedded Miss Sarah E. Olson,
one of Utah's most amiable daughters and most talented singers. Her father was the
late Sure Olson, the veteran musician. In earlier years she sang much in concerts, was
connected with the Tabernacle choir, and appeared in local operatic presentations. She
was the original "Little Buttercup" in the first rendition of Gilbert and Sullivan's
famous comic opera "H. M. S. Pinafore," on the boards of the Salt Lake Theatre, and
fully shared in the honors of the occasion. She and her husband are the parents of
seven children, al! but one of them living. Mr. Langford was appointed to his present
position of general manager of the Salt Lake and Los Angeles Railroad and the superin-
tendency of Saltair Beach on the first day of May, 1902. Under his able management
the great pavilion with its railroad continues to piosper and maintain all its former
popularity.
FRANK A. GRANT.
kAJOR GRANT is not a native of Utah, but he bravely and faithfully maintained
her honor and distinguished himself by his services in the Philippines, winning
the plaudits of his countrymen, a well-deserved promotion from the government
and a permanent niche in the temple of military fame. From the meager details of
his past, furnished by him for this work, the following narrative is constructed.
The Grants are of Scotch descent, the Major's grandfather being a son of Captain
William Grant of the Seventy-sixth Highlanders, whose father was Baron Grant of Strat-
spey, Scotland. Frank A. Grant was the son of John F. Grant, a contractor of Kings-
ton, Ontario, Upper Canada. He was born there March 31, 1855. He was educated in
the common schools, and when not in school assisted in lumbering and ship building. As
a youth he entered the Old Kingston Military School, from which in due time he was
graduated. He married Miss Isabel J. Ross, daughter of John C. Ross, of Woodstock,
Ontario. About this time he changed his residence to the United States, moving to
650 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Detroit, Michigan, where for several years he was an officer in the Cleveland Steam Nav-
igation Company. The last four years he was the first officer of the steamers "City of
Cleveland" and "City of Mackinac."
He came to Utah about the time of "the boom," soon after the Chamber of Com-
merce at Salt Lake City sent out its famous exposition car to advertise the resources
and attractions of Utah through the large eastern cities. Arriving here in August of
1889, he engaged in mining and also in the real estate and insurance business. His mili-
tary qualifications becoming known, he was appointed, May 13, 1897, Aid-de-camp, with
the rank of Major, on the staff of General Willard Young. He was made inspector of
target practice, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, in July, and elected Colonel of the
First Infantry, N. G. U., in September of the same year.
Then came the war with Spain, at the outbreak of which he volunteered his services
to the Governor of the State. No infantry being called for from this part, he was ap-
pointed Captain of Battery "B,'' Utah Light Artillery. This was the first battery to land
guns on the Island of Luzon. The particulars of the mustering in and departure of the
Utah volunteers for the scene of action in the Philippines is narrated iu the life sketch
of Major R. W Young. In Major Grant's account we come at once to the famous
night battle (as it is called) of July 31, 1898, concerning which he says:
"A great many wild stories have been written about this affair, and none that I have
seen, excepting that written by Mr. Bass, of Harper's Weekly, is in any way correct. On
that day, having received verbal order from General Greene to do so, I placed two guns
in the trenches, and after working hard all day, finishing the emplacements and construct-
ing a temporary magazine for ammunition, 1 returned to camp, leaving Lieutenant Grow,
with a detachment of eighteen men and two guns, Lieutenant Gibbs of Battery "A" also
remaining, with two of their guns and about sixteen men. After returning to camp we
talked about our day's work, had dinner, and about nine o'clock went to bed. Being
tired, I soon fell asleep. About eleven o'clock I was awakened by Sergeant Hines, who
came to my tent and asked me if I had heard the firing. I got up at once and heard
heavj' firing going on at the front. I at once ordered the men to bring out of the tent,
where it had been stored, some ammunition, and in the rain, by the light of lanterns, we-
filled all our limbers and caisson chests. Battery "A" having done the same, we were
all ready to move, when Captain Febiger, of the Twenty-third Infantry, acting on General
Greene's staff, rode up to Major Young and myself and asked us if we were ready to
move. We answered yes. He then added, "Well, the General says you are to await
orders." About this time, the men becoming very eager to advance, and Lieutenant Critch-
low and Dr. Harry Young especially anxious to go forward, representing that they might
be of assistance in a medical way. Major Young and I finally allowed the two doctors
with five men from each battery to go, and there we stood in the rain, listening to what
we supposed a battle, caused by the Spaniards having attacked our lines. This, how-
ever, proved to be a mistake. While Major Young and I were listening, I remember his
asking how many men our troops would lose, and I said about twenty-five.
"This fight was brought on by nervous outposts on either side, who imagined they
saw troops moving against them. Remembering that it was the first time either the vol-
unteers or regular troops had been under fire, it was remarkable that only two men came
rushing through camp. One of these had not only run away from his command, but was
so demoralized that he had gotten away from himself. He cried out wildly as he rushed
along, "Call out the guard, send all the ammunition you have to the front. We are
flauke^. The Utah batteries are no more," etc., etc. We called to our men to stop him
and br, ng him back. On being asked who had sent him he said no one, but that he had
fired away all his ammunition and that he and the first sergeant of his company had
started for camp "and," he concluded, "I outran him." About au hour after the firing
began General Greene rode up in front of my tent, where we were standiug and said we
had better send out some more ammunition. Lieutenant Naylor and I each took a limber
and started for the front, but by the time we arrived all the firing was over.
"All the Utah men had stuck to their posts and private Winkeler had received a
slight,flesh wound in the arm. We found that in that night's fight only one man had been
killed in the trenches, though quite a number had been killed and wounded coming up
from camp, in all, I think, about twenty."
Batteries "Av and "B" took part in the capture of Manila on the 13th of August,
and on the 29th of that month Captains Young and Grant were breveted Majors. At the
outbreak of the insurgent war Captain Grant commauded his battery until February 15,
1899, when he was assigned to the command of the gun-boat Laguca de Bay, a side-
wheeled steamer that General Otis had purchased from some Spanish firm. She had been
.3 /
HISTORY OF UTAH. 651
used as a passenger boat from Manila to Santa Cruz on the Laguna de Bay: beooe the
name she bore. She was about one hundred and twenty-rive feet Ions.' and thirty-seven
and a half feet wide. Captain Grant armored the boat, mounted eight guns upon her
and turned her over to Captain Randolph of the Third Artillery. Under his appointment
of February 15, Captain Grant fhe next day relieved Captain Randolph of his com-
mand of the gun-boat. On March 13, the gun-boat 'Oeste," commanded by Lieutenant
Webb, reported at Pasig Island, and with the two boats Captain Grant made a trip to
the head of the lake, here and there sending hot shots into Filipino housi S and Fortifica-
tions along the banks of the river. Shortly after this the "Napindan" was purchased, also
a side-wheeler that had been a passenger boat. At the recommendation of Captain Grant
Lieutenant Franklin, of the Twenty-third D. S. Infantry, was placed in charge of her,
and she reported on March 2.">th. Later the "Oceania" was titted out. The exploits
of the little fleet, under the direction of the Utah commander, are well-known matters of
general history.
On June 2, 1899, Major Young having beeu appointed a member of the Supreme
Court of the Philippine Islands, Captain Grant was placed in command of the Utah Bat-
teries, and in addition to that still had command of the gun-boats. He was formally
mustered in as Major of the Utah Light Artillery on the '29th of June. Two days later he
sailed with his command for home, having been honorably relieved from further military
duty in the Philippines. Major Grant and the Utah Battalion were mustered out at
San Francisco on the 16th of August, and three days later, at Salt Lake City, they
passed under the arch of welcome and triumph erected in their honor by their grateful
and admiring fellow citizens. F. A. Grant is now a Captain and Assi>taut Quartermaster
in the regular army.
EZRA THOMPSON.
(J\ X MAYOR THOMPSON is a native of Salt Lake City, where he was born July 17,
£?• 1850. His father was Ezra Thompson, and his mother, as a maiden, Lois Trum-
^"^ bull. The father was a millwright, and the family, like most of their neighbors
in the early pioneering times, were in humble circumstances. Ezra passed his
early boyhood in his home town, attending the public schools, mostly during: the winter,
and in summer herding, ehoring and working at odd jobs, whereby he contributed to the
support of the household. He was a strong, athletic youth, fond of manly sports, and at
one time made quite a record as a baseball player. Life's sterner phases, however, soon
drew him away from such alluring pastimes.
Naturally inclined to out-door pursuits, especially teaming, he adopted the vocation
of a freighter, a very lucrative one in these parts during his younger period. From
freighting supplies to the mining camps, he gradually drifted into mining, at which he
made his fortune. His principal field of operations was the Park City district, where he
spent fifteen years as a resident, and became connected with some of the most famous
mines in that section. Among his experiences was a heavy and protracted law suit with
the owners of the celebrated Silver King, in which the question of "apex" was involved.
He made a hard fight, but he was an honorable foe, as his opponents acknowledged, and
the decision going against him in the courts, he respected it in every particular and
cherished no feelings of animosity over the result.
Mr. Thompson entered the marriage state on February 14, 1SS4, wedding Miss
Emily Pugsley. daughter of Phillip Pugsley, the well known manufacturer and mining
man. lately deceased. Mrs. Thompson is a very estimable lady, and the mother of four
children, named in order as follows: Lynn H.. Norinne, Ezra P., and Clyde R. The
parents, after returning from the Park, resided for some years at the corner of Second
West and Fourth North streets, in the midst of the scenes of their childhood, but recently
they have purchased a handsome new home on East South Temple Street, the fashion-
able residence quarter of the city.
Mr. Thompson's public record comprises two terms in the city council of Park City,
and two terms as mayor of his native town. It was in 1899 that he was first elected
mayor of Salt Lake City, and he served the municipality until 1904. He was elected and
652 HISTORY OF UTAH.
re-elected by the Republican party, of which he is a staunch member. He was recognized
as an honest and capable official, and his administrations were successful. Since return-
ing to private life he has devoted himself exclusively to business. His means is mostly
invested in mines and real estate. He loves a good horse, and is often seen behind a
fast roadster, giving his dust to the puffing and hopeless automobile.
WILLIAM HATFIELD,
/Z2f NATIVE of Derbyshire, England, Mr. Hatfield, one of Utah's prosperous mining
I men, has been for the greater part of his life an American citizen and a resident in
^"^ the West. He was born at Codnor Park on the 3rd day of April, 1849, and sailed
from Liverpool for New York on the 31st of May, 18G3. The "Ayrshire," upon
which he embarked, was a sailing vessel, and he was fifty-two days on the ocean, part of
the time becalmed. From New York he went direct by rail to St. Joseph, Missouri, and
thence by boat to Florence, Nebraska. There he joined Captain Haight:s ox wagon
train, bound for Utah, and arrived at Salt Lake City on the 6th of October.
Settling at Spriugville, Mr. Hatfield, until the spring of 1808, pursued the life of a
farmer. He then turned his attention to freighting and mining, his first venture in that
direction being at White Pine, Nevada, during the famous gold excitement in that region.
There he remained until July, 1869, when he returned to Spriugville. The next important
event of his life was his marriage, March 14, 1870, to Rhoda Ann Clements. She be-
came the mother of his seven children, three sons and foui daughters, all but one of them
now living.
A year after his marriage, Mr. Hatfield went to Tintic, where he engaged in mining
and business of various kinds. He was a wide-awake man of affairs, careful and precise
in all his dealings, and prosperity crowned his efforts. One of his early successes was
made while holding a lease of the ground which afterwards became the famous Bullion-
Heck mine. The ore extracted by him was the first mined from that celebrated property.
He was one of the original locators of the Swansea mine, opening it up below what was
then supposed to be water-level, and paying dividends of over $350,000 from what
was believed to be a worked-out mine.
Mr. Hatfield now resides at Salt, Lake City, in a handsome home on East South Tem-
ple Street, the most fashionable residence quarter of the town. Already the possessor of
a large fortune, he is still engaged in mining in the principal camps of Utah, Idaho and
Nevada.
HENRY L. A. CULMER.
T^ARRY CULMER, the well-known artist and business man, is not a native of Utah,
|®1 but has lived here since he was fourteen years of age. A man of versatile talent
(£> and various ambitions, he has achieved his greatest distinction in the domain of
art, but has been equally successful in several other directions.
The son of Frederick and Mary Kennett Culmer, he was born at Oare, Kent coun-
ty, England, on the 25th of March. 1854. His father was a seaman, and hard work and
poverty were the lot of the boy during all his earlier years. At four he left Oare for
London, where from seven until nine he attended the common schools, after which he
was emploved as an errand boy, mostly for printers.
At thirteen he came with his parents, who were Latter-day Saints, to America, sail-
ing from London to New York on the ship "Hudson." They were seven weeks and two
days on the ocean. During the year they remained in New York, Harry secured a situ-
ation as clerk. Utah was the destination, however, and in 1868 the family proceeded by
7^p2^^
HISTORY OF UTAH. 653
rail to Laramie, Wyoming, — then the terminus of the Union Pacific, — where they joined
a, mule train commanded by Captain Loveland, and came to Salt Lake City.
Parallel with his youthful efforts at securing an education, was the working out of
the problem of material support. His parents were still poor, and he and his brothers
helped to support the family. Most of Harry's eighteenth year was spent digging wells
by contract on the dry bench of the Twentieth ward, where he resided. What he de-
nominates his "last and most foolhardy achievement of this kind," was the digging of a
well two hundred and eighteen feet, without any timbering, he working at the bottom of
the shaft while a trustworthy mate operated the windlass. A hair-raising cave-in warned
them to quit, and a pebble no lai-ger than a walnut, falling from the top, nearly cracked
young Culmer's skull. He now changed his vocation, occupying his nineteenth and
twentieth years at the carpenter's bench. Having reached the point where he could
make sash doors, he quit this employment to become a bookkeeper.
He took a morning course in bookkeeping under Prof. John Morgan, the founder of
Morgan's Commercial College, and afterwards attended an evening school taught by Dr.
John R. Park, under whom was revived the University of Deseret. Some special morn-
ing classes at this institution, added to the studies mentioned, made up the sum of the
youth's scholastic training. He was an intelligent thinker, however, and withal an in-
dependent one, as well as a great reader, and went on accumulating knowledge without
the aid of teachers.
If he had a dominant idea as to the choice of a profession, it was to become a writer,
and from his literary productions it is evident that his success in that field would have
been assured. In 1870, at the age of sixteen, he took first prize at the Twentieth ward
fair for the best poem, entitled "The Pioneers." He afterwards produced occasional
poems and miscellaneous prose writings. He connected himself with the Delta Phi De-
bating Society, and later with the Wasatch Literary Association.
During 1875-0 he kept the books for G. F. Culiner & Company, and has since had
charge of the accounts of the various business concerns with which he has been associ-
ated. He has done expert work in this line on various occasions, where large failures
and intricate accounts were to be cleared up, and for ten years was on a committee that
made quarterly examinations of the National Bank of the Republic, of which he was a
director.
From 1870 Mr. Culmer, with partners, carried on a printing and publishing busi-
ness— up to 1879 with John C. Graham, and then, until 1882, with R. G. Sleater.
They printed the "Utah Miner," the first mining paper published in the intermountain
country; issued a small daily paper, "The Times," also the "Salt Lake Journal of Com-
merce;" published the "Gazeteer of Utah," including the first residence directory of
Salt Lake City printed in Utah; also the first guide book to the city and the first volume
of "Tullidge's Quarterly Magazine." Mr. Culmer was editor of the "Miner" and "Jour-
nal of Commerce," associate editor of "The Times," dramatic editor of the "Salt Lake
Herald," and at times editor of the Provo "Enquirer." He contributed to the "Over-
land Monthly" and other magazines. He went out of the printing business to become a
member and financial manager of the firm of G. F. Culmer & Brothers, wholesale and
retail dealers in groceries, paints, oils, glass, etc,; his occupation at the present time.
During his connection with the Culmer firm he has been engaged in various manu-
factures, such as soap, chemicals, jelly and preserves, glass, show-cases, etc., and has
carried on contracts for mining, hauling, and putting in store fronts. The principal
achievement in this line was the paving of eight blocks of Salt Lake City in 1893 with
stone, cement and asphalt, using for the first time Utah asphaltum, an article that has
since come into wide use in eastern cities. As quarry master, he also opened and oper-
ated from 1892 to 1897 the Mountain Stone Company's quarries, and from 1902 to 1904
the Kyune Gray Stone Company quarries, from the products of which many of the finest
structures in Salt Lake City have been built, including the Federal building and Post-
office, now in course of erection.
An important incident of his varied experience was his connection with the Salt Lake
Chamber of Commerce, which, probably more than any one else, he caused to be organ-
ized in 1887. He wrote its articles and the duties of its committees, and served as
director in it for several years. He had charge of the Utah Exposition car, which left
Salt Lake City June 9, 1888, for a tour of the Eastern States, as related in the previous
volume. This car, containing a very complete exhibit of the resources of Utah, was out
three months; it exhibited in sixty cities, entertained two hundred thousand visitors, and
distributed fifty tons of Utah literature, the good effects of which are apparent to this
day. In 1894 he published the "Resources of Utah."
654 HISTORY OF UATH.
Mr. Culmer has been an artist since 1880. His specialty is landscapes. He ex-
hibited first at the Utah Art Association in 1881, and at nearly every subsequent exhibition
in the State, his paintings have been seen and admired. He has been awarded first prize
at several State fairs, and in 1893. for his magnificent painting "The Grand Canyon of
the Colorado," was awarded the State prize of the Utah Art Institute, three hundred dol-
lars. Of that important organization created by legislative enactment in 1899, he was
president during the first two years of its existence.
As illustrator, he has sketched for a number of books and other publications, among
them Whitney's History of Utah, "Outing," the "American Art Annual," and the
"Overland Monthly." He is a member of the Newspaper Artists' Association, New
York, London and Paris, and an exhibitor of the Society of Illustrators, New York.
He has lectured on art and kindred subjects in various parts of Utah and in San Fran-
cisco, and in 1900 he lectured on philosophy, "The Higher Life," and art subjects, for
one week at Camp Reverie, California, alternating with Prof. Eugene Del Mar, Mrs. May
Wright Sewall, Jack London and other noted speakers. Fond of music and the drama, he
has composed a few ballads, marches and waltzes, and written a play or two, besides
directing upon the local stage various successful performances. His first experience as
a stage manager was with the Home Dramatic Club, of which he was a member at its
inception, in April, 1880, and during its earliest brilliant years.
Mr. Culmer married on December 31, 1878, Miss Annette S. Wells, a daughter of
General Daniel H. Wells. They are the parents of four children, all promising and ex-
emplary. The husband and father devotes himself to business during the week, and
spends his Sabbaths and most of his evenings at home, in his studio, his library, or
among the living books and pictures represented by his interesting and affectionate family.
He is devoted to his friends, will perform any reasonable service in their behalf, and is
quick to recognize and encourage merit. Broad-minded and liberal, while tenacious of
his views, he is willing that other men should have and enjoy theirs. Temperance and
moderation are a part of his philosophical make up and life practice.
As already shown, Mr. Culmer is far from being a man of one idea. He started out
with the belief that it is better to be a many-sided man, all roundly developed, than to be
a specialist in any direction. He has been content to forego the fame and temporary
advantage that might accrue from a continued concentration of powers in a single sphere
of activity, for what he conceives the greater and more permanent ^ood resulting from a
dissemination of thought, sympathy and action upon a variety of objects, aimed at suc-
cessively, and all subordinated and made conducive to one mighty end — the ultimate and
all-comprehending purpose of human existence. While not religious, in a church sense,
he is pronouncedly philosophical in his tastes and tendencies, and unites the elevated
and discriminative sense of artist and critic with the shrewdness and worldly wisdom of
the every day man of affairs.
GEORGE DUNFORD ALDER.
PROSPEROUS in business, prominent in politics, and an all round useful citizen and
worthy man, Mr. Alder is a type of the "Young Utah" which of late years has come
to the front as the successor to the "Early Utah" represented by the pioneers and
first settlers of the commonwealth. Though not a native of this State, he is a life-
long resident here, having been brought by his parents from St. Louis, his birth-place, to
Salt Lake City, when he was an infant in arms. His father was the late George A. Alder,
the well known shoe merchant, and his mother, who still lives, is Mrs- Lydia Dunford
Alder, prominent in woman's work, and a frequent contributor in prose and verse to
local magazines. The son's birth date was November 17, 1866, and the date of his ar-
rival in Utah September 26, 1867. The journey from St. Louis began in August of that
year, George's father having charge of the company in which they crossed the plains.
It was a swift trip for those days, horse teams being used. They were four weeks on the
way.
The family, though well connected, were in only moderate circumstances, and
HISTORY OF UTAH. 655
George's school days were therefore limited, but his was a bright and capable mind, and
in the hard practical school of every-day experience he was thoroughly trained. At six
years of age he attended a school conducted by Miss Mary E. Cook in the Social Hall,
his teacher being Miss Louide Ashby. At fourteen he began his business career as cash
boy in Walker Brothers' store, and left there to enter the employ of his grandfather,
George Duuford, the proprietor of a shoe and hat store. In ISSo he worked for William
Jennings and Sons, as assistant finisher in their woolen factory, at the mouth of Parley's
canyon. In 1SS4 he re-entered the employ of Walker Brothers, as clerk in the shoe de-
partment, remaining there until November, 1SS9.
The same year witnessed his marriage on the 10th of September, to Miss Julia Dean
Caine, daughter of Hon. John T. Caine, Utah's Delegate in Congress. A talented, pop-
ular and amiable young lady, she proved a most genial companion to her spouse, and
their married life has been a happy one. They are the parents of six children — Marga-
ret C, Dean C John C, Edwin C., Lawrence C. and Katherine C. Alder.
During the month following his marriage Mr. Alder took up the business of real es-
tate, insurance and loans, with George E. Ensign as his partner, binder the firm name of
Alder and Ensign. Their offices were in the Hooper and Eldredge block. The next year
he engaged with his father in the boot and shoe business, under the firm name of George
A. Alder and Sou, whose place of business was at Number 48 East First South Street.
He severed his connection with this firm to enter the life insurance business, first as gen-
eral manager for the Union Mutual Life Insurance Company of Portland, Maine. In No-
vember. 1S93. he purchased the general agency of the National Life Insurance Company
of Montpelier, Vermout, and was afterwards appointed general manager of that company
for Utah, Idaho and Wyoming. This position he still holds, maintaining supervision over
the work of the company's agents in these three States. His rise to prominence and
prosperity has been rapid, but is based upon solid merit, which rarely fails of recognition
and reward.
In politics Mr. Alder has always been a Democrat, and has worked early and late, in
season and out, for his party. For twelve years he was secretary of the Utah Demo-
cratic Club, and has been district chairman, registration agent and judge of election upon
many occasions. He is also a member of the Commercial Club of Salt Lake City.
Always identified with the fish and game interests of Utah, he was a charter member
of the State Fish and Game Protective Association, and is still secretary-treasurer of that
organization, having served since 1S97. He has written various articles for such maga-
zines as "Field and Stream" and "Outdoor Life." From 1896 to 1899 he was dramatic
editor of the "Deseret Evening News," and is at present theatiical correspondent of the
Bill-board Publishing Company of Cincinnati, Ohio.
At the incoming of the present municipal administration, in January, 1904. Mr. Al-
der was appointed by Mayor Richard P. Morris, and in February confirmed by the coun-
cil, a member of the Boaid of Health of Salt Lake City. In the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints, in which he was reared, he has held the offices of Deacon, Teacher
and Elder, the last-named being his present calling in the Priesthood. He is active in
Sunday School work, having been a teacher therein for twenty years. He was superin-
tendant of the Second Ward Sabbath School from 1S94 to 1899, when he changed his res-
idence to the Eighteenth Ward. The family now reside in a handsome new home on
First Street.
L. M. OLSON
^J^ HE Scandinavian race has furnished to Utah many of her ablest citizens. The
/mS)\ gentleman whose brief life sketch follows is a sturdy son of Sweden, who, begin-
vl/ ning life as an orphan boy in his far off native land, has hewn out a successful
career, and is known today as one of the leading men of Carbon County, having
charge of the affairs of "The Mercantile Company" at Price. He has been postmaster
and Probate Judge in that part, aud has also sat in the legislature.
Mr. Olson was born at Arvika, Sweden, May 17, 1851. At the age of six he was
fatherless and motherless, with no legacy. His foster parents took him to Christiania,
656 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Norway, where he embraced Mormonism, September 27, 1865. Three years later he em-
igrated to Utah, crossing the plains from Laramie, Wyoming, bv mule team, this being
the last year before the railroad penetrated Utah. He settled at Ephraim, Sanpete
County, where he taught school.
He had been ten years in Utah when he was sent upon a mission to his native land.
He labored one year as a Traveling Elder in the Stockholm Conference, and then pre-
sided over the same for two years, returning to Utah in 1881. Resuming his vocation of
school teaching, he continued at it until 1883, when he took charge of the Ephraim Co-
operative store, remaining in that position until 1887.
It was then that he moved to Price, to superintend the affairs of the Emery County
Mercantile Company. He was appointed postmaster at Price in 1887, and continued to
act as such until October, 1889, when he resigned, his successor being appointed upon
his recommendation, without petition or endorsement of the patrons of the office. It was
in 1891 that he was elected to the legislature from the Fourteenth Representative District.
Upon the formation of Carbon Couuty, Mr. Olson was appointed Probate Judge, which
position he held until Utah became a State.
UTAH IN CONGRESS.
vrfu^ o/^-
?
i^ji.
GEORGE QUAYLE CANNON
•
IMPLE justice, if a small act can be said to do justice to a great subject, places the
nf\ Dame of George Q. Cannon at the head of this group of biographies. While not
^T the first of Utah's Congres>ional men in point of time, he was pronouncedly ihe first
among them in power, in personal influence and native ability, and is, therefore,
entitled to the precedence here given. In the biography of his younger brother, Angus M..
published in this volume, his parentage and the history of his father's family have been
sufficiently dwelt upon. Here it is but needful to say that George Q. Cannon, the eldest
of the seven children of George and Ann (Quayle) Cannon, originally from Peel, Isle of
Man. and later of Liverpool. England, was born in that city on the 11th of January.
1S27. He came of sea-faring stock, and the family were devout Christians. George Q.
was a lad of thirteen when the family became Latter-day Saints, converts of John Tay-
lor, one of the Twelve Apostles. who had married in Canada the boy's aunt. Leonora Can-
non. The date of his own baptism was June, 1S40. He received such schooling as the
moderate means of his parents could procure, and from childhood was a rapt student of
the scriptures. Possessed of an unusual mentality, he absorbed knowledge as a sponge
takes in water, and what his quick and wide apprehension encompassed, his marvelous
memory ever after retained.
In September, 1S42, when between fifteen and sixteen years of age, he crossed the
Atlantic with his parents, brothers and sisters, bound for Xauvoo, Illinois, the gathering
place of the Saints. His mother died and was buried in mid-ocean. The rest of the fam-
ily, reaching Xew Orleans, proceeded thence to St. Louis, where they passed the winter.
The spring of 1S43 found them at Xauvoo, where they met the Prophet Joseph Smith.
George Q. knew him at sight, although he had never beheld him until that moment. In the
office of the "Times and Seasons" and the "Xauvoo Neighbor." of which papers his uncle,
John Taylor, was editor, the future journalist learned the printing business, beginning
at the bottom round of the ladder. Two months after the murder of the Prophet and
Patriarch, his father, who had remarried, died while on a business trip to St. Louis, and
with his Uncle Taylor the otherwise homeless orphan boy, leaving Xauvoo in 1846, came
to Salt Lake Valley in the fall of 1S47. arriving here on the third day of October. With
the exception of his sister Ann. who was also in the first emigration, the rest of the fam-
ily remained a year or two longer on the frontier.
In farming, building, teaming and other pursuits incident to pioneer life in this
region, two years passed away, and in the fall of 1S49 youug Cannon accompanied Gen-
eral Charles C. Rich to California. There he worked in the gold mines until the suwiner
or fall of 1S50. when he was called with others upon a mission to the Sandwich Islands.
The details of this, his first important service in the ministry, are given in a little volume
entitled "My First Mission." a product of his pen in after years. He and his compan-
.ons, sailing from San Francisco in the latter part of Xovember. landed at Honolulu on
the 12th of December. They had supposed their mission to be mainly, if not entirely, to
the white people of the islands, and as the reception given them by that class was not
cordial, most of the missionaries were in favor of returning at once to the United States.
Elder Cannon, however, with faith and patience characteristic of him, determined to be-
gin a work among the natives, and his decision became that of a few of his fellows. He
acquired the Hawaiian language rapidlv: and within six weeks after his arrival there was
out among the dark-skinned people, preaching and organizing blanches. The readiness
with which he mastered that strange tongue, and his fluency of utterance therein, he
attributed to miraculous power. The natives loved and revered him as an almost super-
natural being, and his success among them was great. Four other Elders remained with
him. and in three and a half years their combined labors added to the Church over four
thousand souls. Elder Cannon translated the Book of Mormon into the Kanaka lan-
guage, and with his associates arranged forthe purchase of a press and printing materials
660 HISTORY OF UTAH.
for its publication. Returning to California in the summer of 1854, he there assisted
Parley P. Pratt in preparing: his Autobiography. Later in the year he returned to Utah,
ami during the winter served as an attache of the legislature. Up to this time he had
held and magnified the various offices in the Lesser Priesthood, as well as that of Elder.
He now became one of the Presidency of the Thirtieth Quorum of Seventy.
Early in May, 1855, he again left his home in Salt Lake City, having been appointed
to assist Parley P. Pratt in establishing a Church paper at San Francisco. Upon reach-
ing his destination he was set apart to succeed President Pratt over the California and
Oregon Mission. Henow founded the "Western Standard,"' of which he was the editor.
The first number of the paper was issued in February, 1856. Prior to that time Presi-
dent Cannon and his associates. Elders Joseph Bull and Matthew F. Wilkie, had printed
an edition of two thousand copies of the Book of Mormon in the Hawaiian language.
He was now a married man, having wedded, December 10, 1854, Miss Elizabeth Hoag-
land, daughter of Bishop Abraham Hoagland, of the Fourteenth Ward, Salt Lake City.
Mrs. Cannon had accompanied her husband to California, and there their oldest living
child.- John Q. Cannon, was born April 19, 1S57. The pending war between Utah and the
general government broke up the Western Mission and brought the family back to Utah.
Upon his arrival home, January 19, 1858, George Q. Cannon was commissioned
Adjutant-General in the Nauvoo Legion. He helped to organize the army of defense,
until the general move south, at which time, under an appointment from President Brig-
ham Young, he took the press and printing materials of the ''Deseret News" to Fillmore,
and there between April and September of that year, continued the publication of the
paper. Having performed this duty, he was returning north, when at Payson a courier
met him with the word that he had been called upon a mission to the Eastern States. In
less than an hour he had made all his preparations for departure, and leaving his family
by the roadside, he started post-haste for Salt Lake City. Such was his habitual prompt-
ness, and, it may be added, the general rule of action with Mormon missionaries in those
days.
Elder Cannon presided over the Eastern States Mission until the summer of 1860.
He spent considerable time in the city of Washington, where he was destined to figure so
prominently in a political way in after years. Among his friends at the capital was Col-
onel Thomas L. Kane, through whose good offices he met and formed acquaintance with
congressmen, editors and other leading men. While fulfilling this mission he was called
to the Apostleship, October 23, 1859, to fill a vacancy caused by the death of Parley P.
Pratt, who had been murdered in Arkansas more than two years before. This call, as
the writer remembers hearing President Cannon relate, fulfilled a prediction made to him
by the lamented Apostle while the two were together in California: Parley P. Pratt then
prophesying that George Q. Cannon would succeed him in the Quorum of the Twelve.
He received his ordination upon returning to Utah, August 26, 1860.
Almost immediately thereafter he was sent to preside over the European Mission, to
have charge of the Church emigration and edit the "Millennial Star'' at Liverpool. He
reached that port on the 21st of December. Except for a brief trip back to the United
States in 1862, when as Senator-elect for the inchoate State of Deseret, he labored for
Statehood, with his colleague, William H. Hooper, at the American seat of government,
he remained abroad four years. A pen picture of President Cannon at that period, drawn
by Elder John Nicholson, who first met him in Edinburgh in 1862. will here be interest-
ing. Says the Elder: "I was at once struck with the strength of the personality of the
distinguished visitor — a handsome, vigorous man of thirty-five years: his figure of med-
ium height, well rounded and erect; the shapely head crowned with a liberal growth of
black hair; the cheek and upper lip shaved: the chin adorned with a close hirsute growth.
Up to that time his was one of the most striking faces I had seen; the forehead broad and
high — the breadth being especially observable in the upper section; a somewhat large
aquiline no^e. almost approaching the Israelitish in contour; a well formed mouth, with-
out rigidity and with an expression of amiability. The large, clear grey eyes impressed
me most. In the course of conversation. in which he took the lead, the characteristic mobility
of his countenance w.is exhibited." Elder Nicholson also dwells upon the Apostle's per-
sonal traits and varied talents — his devotion to duty, his attention to detail, his regard for
neatness and grammatical precision, his love of children, and his influence over men in
general. President Cannon was never more popular, never more widely beloved, than
while presiding over the European Mission. He returned to Utah in the fall of 1864. He
had sent Ins wife and family home the previous season, and his three-year-old daughter
had died on the plains, an infant son dying also in the ensuing winter
During the next three years he was private secretary to President Brigham Young,
HISTORY OF UTAH. (iGl
s^ and had the full benefit of the great leader's personal friendship and close intimacy, with
the additional advantage of becoming well informed regarding all matters of Church busi-
ness and affairs currenc at headquarters. He was a careful, thoughtful observer, a constant
reader, a student of men and measures, with the power of assimilating and turning what
he saw and heard to practical account. A natural diplomat, with polite address and easy
powers of conversation, he impressed favorably, and in fact magnetized people before
they were aware. More than any of the Mormon leaders, he was prepared to meet men
of the world. It was no mistaken choice, but a most happy selection, that made him,
when the proper time came, Utah's Delegate in Congress. Prior to then he had exper-
ience in the Territorial legislature, as a member of the Council, and in other political
positions.
Ever a lover of little children, and with the rare power of interesting them — for
which purpose he cultivated a natural simpleness of diction — it is not surprising that he
should take a deep interest in the Sabbath School cause, in which he was destined to be-
come a leading light. He organized a Sunday School in the Fourteenth Ward, and in
January, 1866, founded the "Juvenile Instructor," which became the organ of all such
schools in the Church. In 1867 lie was made General Superintendent of the Deseret Sun-
day School Union, a position held by him as long as he lived. In the fall of the same
year he was given charge of the "Deseret News," then published semi-weekly, and he
immediately changed it into a daily paper. He was an organizer and one of the original
directors of Z. C. M. I., and at his death Vice-president of that great institution. He
encouraged and promoted raiboads, manufactures and other enterprises, and played a
promiueut part in most of the beneficent local movements of his time. In 1S71 he went
East on a religious mission, and in 1S72 as a member of the Constitutional Convention,
was one of the delegates sent to Washington to present the oft-repeated prayer for State-
hood.
In August of the same year he was elected Delegate to Congress, succeedinc Hon.
William H. Hooper in that position. As the People's candidate, he defeated his Liberal
opponent. General George R. Maxwell, by the overwhelming vote of 20,969 to 1,942. A
full account of this election and the exciting incidents surrounding it is given in the
twenty-fifth chapter of the second volume of this work. Mr. Cannon did not take his
seat until December, 1S7^, but meantime he assisted Delegate Hooper at Washing-ton, in
resisting legislation hostile to Utah. At the opening of the forty-third Congress, when
the new Delegate presented his cei-tificate and asked to be sworn in, General Maxwell
contested his right to the seat, upon the thread-bare, though still reiterated charges of
disloyalty and polygamy. Unlike Senator Smoot, of recent fame. Delegate Cannon did
have more than one wife, and had been indicted for it by Judge MeKcan's illegal grand
jury, whose findings had been quashed by the Supreme Court of the United States in the
famous Englebrecht decision of April, 1872. The case for General Maxwell was pre-
sented in the House by Mr. Merriam of New York, who was opposed by Mr. Cox, also
of that State. The matter went to the committee on elections, which decided unani-
mously in favor of Mr. Cannon, and the House adopted the committee's report. He
held the Delegateship for five consecutive terms, and until the seat was declared vacant
under the operations of the Edmunds law. The particulars of the Cannon- Campbell con-
test, which resulted in his being unseated, are related in the fifth and sixth chapters of
the third volume. On the 19th of April, 1882, at the close of a fervid and thrilling speech
by Delegate Cannon, protesting against the proposed action, the House of Representa-
tives, yielding to public clamor, denied the right of the gentleman from Utah to longer
represent the Territory in the councils of the Nation. It was during this soul-trying per-
iod that he met with the greatest bereavement of his life, in the death of his beloved wife
Elizabeth, who from her dying bed sent messages of comfort to him. urging him to re-
main at his post of duty, declaring that God could restore her if it was His will, in answer
to her husband's prayer in Washington, as well as if he were at home.
Many members of Congress parted from their friend, "the Mormon Delegate," with
unfeigned regret. He had won his way to their hearts, not more by his uniform court-
esy, his affable and engaging manner, than by his general usefulness as a human book of
ready reference upon Congressional affairs. He had made it a point to acquaint himself
with all departments and functions of the government, also with the names, personal history
and constituencies of every member in both houses of the national legislature, and his
retentive memory and quick recollection enabled him to give information unon those
points at a moment's notice. It was no uncommon thing, when one member was asked
by another some question, to hear the response: "I don't know, ask Mr. Cannon from
Utah; he seems to know everybody." He was regarded by his associates as a wise
662 HISTORY OF UTAH.
statesman, and admired as one of the ablest speakers in the House. While a "silent mem-
ber," as a delegate was expected to be, he wielded great influence, and on more than one
occasion, when accorded cheerful permission, made his ringing eloquence felt for the
good of the people whom he represented.
An episode of his experience during the period of his Delegateship, though not in
any way connected therewith, was his imprisonment in the summer of 1879 for refusing
to obey an unjust order of court. He was then at home, acting as an executor of the
estate of President Brigham Young, some of whose heirs, dissatisfied, had brought suit
against Mr. Cannon and his co-executors, Brigham Youug, Jr., and Albert Carrington, in
the district court. Judge Boreman made an order to increase the already heavy bond of
the administrators, and as they refused to furnish the additional security, deeming it a
spiteful and persecutive decree, they were committed to the penitentiary, where they re-
mained from the 4th to the 28th of August. They were released by order of the Supreme
Court of the Territory, Chief Justice Hunter presiding. Judge Boreman's decree being re-
versed and set aside. At this time Mr. Cannon, with his fellow executor Brigham Young,
Jr., had charge of the "Deseret Evening News," though Charles W. Penrose was the
active editor. It devolved upon Delegate Cannon, while yet in office, to welcome to Utah
two Presidents of the United States, General Grant, in October, 1875, and General Hayes
in September, 1880.
It was in October of the last named year that the First Presidency of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, vacant since the death of President Young in August,
1877, was reorganized, with John Taylor, President of the Twelve Apostles, in the chief
position. He chose George Q. Cannon and Joseph F. Smith as his counselors. The ex-
alted office of First Counselor was held by President Cannon during this and the two suc-
ceeding administrations. Until about the middle of the "eighties,'' he was for several
terms Chaucellor of the University of Deseret, elected by the legislature, and long after
retiring from that office — a step necessitated by the Edmunds law — he continued to be a
member of the General Church Board of Education. In business he and his sons owned
and conducted a printing and publishing establishment — the "Juvenile Instructor" plant
— and subsequently a book and stationery store. His h«me was for years the handsome
residence on South Temple Street, still known as the Cannon House, and still owned by
the family. But he moved into the south-western suburbs of the city, where he redeemed
and made beautiful a waste place, building several fine homes for his families in the sec-
tion now known as Cannon Ward.
/C. ^_The anti-polygamy crusade, which raged from 1884 to 1890, singled out President
Cannon as one of the main objects of its malevolence. His influence being so great, it
was thought by the crusaders that if he could be compelled to surrender, the entire
Church would soon follow his example.^] He, however, preferred exile and imprisonment
to such a course, and in common with most of the Church leaders went into retirement,
remaining on the "underground" for several years; though all the while helping to direct
the general policy of the Church. The most strenuous efforts were put forth for his ar-
rest, not only the Church offices, but his homes being raided repeatedly for that purpose,
and members of the family taken before magistrates and grand juries to testify. The
charge against him was unlawful cohabitation, or living with his plural wives. The de-
tails of his final arrest, escape, subsequent surrender and imprisonment, are set forth at
length in the previous volume. Upon two separate charges, to which he pleaded guilty,
he was sentenced by Chief Justice Sanford, September 17, 1888, to pay a fine of four
hundred and fifty dollars, and be imprisoned in the penitentiary for one hundred and
seventy -five days. Having served his term, minus the time allowed for good behavior,
President Cannon was released on the 21st of Febuary, 1889.
The period of his greatest power and influence followed his incarceration as a pris-
oner for conscience sake. President Taylor having died in exile, President Wilford
Woodruff became the head of the Church, the First Presidency being re-organized in
y/Apiil 1889. Again George Q. Cannon was chosen First Counselor. He bore the heavi-
est part of the burden of that administration, the most notable events of which were the
issuance of the famous Manifesto, discontinuing plural marriages, and the completion and
dedication of the Salt Lake Temple. In the establishment of the Pioneer Power Plant
aud the Utah sugar industry, the promotion of mining, the building of Saltair and a hun-
dred and one other enterprises, a weight of care and responsibility rested upon him that
would have crushed most men, aud told heavily upon him, notwithstanding his great vit-
ality, conserved and perpetuated by a life of temperate and abstemious self-denial.
A restful change was his trip to the World's Fair in the summer aud fall of 1893,
when the First Presidency, with the Tabernacle choir, went to the great exposition by
HISTORY OF UTAH. 663
special train, visiting Independence, Missouri, and other points en route. He also made
occasional visits to the Pacific Coast, and one of the most delightful of these was contin-
ued on to the Sandwich Islands, where in the fall of 1900, he attended as the almost idol-
ized guest of honor the jubilee anniversary of the opening of that mission fifty years be-
fore. With tears and every demonstration of affection, he was met, crowned with gar-
lands, and escorted through the Islands by some of those whom half a century before he
had known and baptized. He was visited by the ex Queen, and at her request he blessed
her. Returning late in January, 1901, to Salt Lake City, he was driven direct from the
depot, after his journey of thousands of miles by land and sea, to the session of the Nat-
ional Live Stock Association, where without a moment for rest or preparation, complying
with the request for a speech, he delivered an address of eloquent interest and power.
But his health, which for two years had been impaired, withstood but poorly the
rigors of a Utah winter, as compared with the balmy gentleness of the Pacific Islands
climate which he had just left, and in Alarch he deemed it advisable to seek relief on the
Coast. The change did not afford benefit, and his illness almost immediately assumed a
fatal form. In the early morning of the 12th of April, at the peaceful old town of Mont-
erey, the end came. The remains were brought home for burial, and after a public fun-
eral in the presence of mourning thousands, were consigned to the family vault in the
city cemetery. Since September, 1898, the deceased had been serving as First Coun-
selor to President Lorenzo Snow.
President Cannon left five wives (his first wife having gone before, as already noted)
and thirty-two children, to mourn the loss of a much loved husband and father. He
dearly loved his family, and the untimely death of his sons David and Abraham, though
received with his customary calmness and resignation, were severe blows to him. David
died while on a mission in Germany, October, 1892, and Abraham at Salt Lake City, July,
1896.
As shown, President Cannon was a man of varied gifts and wide experience. A
natural counselor, his eminence and influence as such were well warranted. As an ora-
tor he shone among the brightest, and almost equal to his powers as a speaker were his
abilities as a writer. Among his literary remains are the "Life of Joseph Smith" and
the "Life of Nephi," the latter a Book of Mormon theme. He had begun a compilation
of the History of the Church when death called him. Able and successful in business,
he prospered as publisher, merchant, mining man and agriculturist. His forte, in secu-
lar affairs, was statecraft, and in the field of diplomacy, Utah, among all her gifted sons,
has not seen his equal. Much of the prestige he possessed was undoubtedly due to his
ecclesiastical prominence; he was an Apostle for twenty-one years, prior to becoming
one of the First Presidency; but it was not office that gave him intellect, eloquence, mag-
netism, and all those rare qualities which enabled him to mould and sway the minds and
hearts of men. He would have been a man of mark in any community. Had he re-
mained in his native England, he would probably have been heard of in Parliament, and
it is within the bounds of conservative calculation to imagine such a one the peer of
Gladstone, Disraeli and other premiers of the realm. The close of his career in Congress,
which marked a division between epochs in local history, was not by any means the end
of his usefulness as a servant of the public. His power did not reach its acme until he
became one of the Presidency of the Church. No man in Utah, after the passing of Pres-
ident Brigham Young, wielded with all classes so great an influence as President George
Q. Cannon, and this influence was felt up to the very close of his life.
JOHN MILTON BERNHISEL.
■yrTAH'S first Delegate in Congress was Dr. John M. Bernhisel, the mere mention of
l$J whose name will recall to the minds of many people yet living the picturesque
figure and refilled nature of this rare old American gentleman. A physician and
surgeon by profession, he was a man of intelligence and culture along various lines, yet
withal unpretentious, modest and retiring. An intimate personal friend of the Prophet
Joseph Smith, he also enjoyed the confidence and friendship of President Brigham Young
and other leaders of the Latter-day Church, of which he was a devoted member. He was a
064 HISTORY OF UTAH.
man of blameless life, a staunch advocate of temperance, which he strictly exemplified,
his abstemiousness in the matter of stimulants extending even to the common condiments
of the table. Though never aggressive, and always genteel and polite, he was possessed
of calm courage and unflinching integrity.
The son of Samuel and Susannah ('Bowe'-) Bernhisel, both natives of Pennsylvania,
he was born near LloyesviHe, Perry County, in that State, June 23, J 709. His father
was a well to do farmer. John was the eldest of nine children, and was destined to out-
live all his brothers and sisters. At the age of fifteen he left home to attend school, and
later entered the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania, from which he was
graduated on the Gth of April, 1827. He settled down to the practice of his profession
in New York City. Never robust, always of slender physique and delicate organization,
his health failed, and with a view to improving it, he undertook a horseback journey to
the State of Missouri, but returned ere long to New York. There he attended the
Episcopal Church, and there he became a Latter-day Saint.
Early in 1842 he changed his place of residence to Nauvoo, Illinois, and at first se-
cured lodgings at the home of a Mr. Snyder, an old acquaintance. The Prophet hav-
ing formed his acquaintance and taken a liking to the courtly, modest gentleman, insisted
upon his removal to the Mansion House, where he became a member of President Smith's
private family. "Here," says the late Dr. W. F. Anderson, a close friend to Dr. Bern-
hisel, "they sat at the same table and discoursed familiarly together. It i< related of
the Doctor that he invariably arose when the Prophet entered the dining room, and when
gently reproved by Joseph, asking why he did so, he would reply gracefully, 'Because
I love to honor the man whom God honors.' He was the soul of etiquette, and some
times perhaps carried politeness to extremes. The motto of the old French nobility,
'Noblesse oblige,' (rank imposes obligation) might appropriately have been applied to
Dr. Bernhisel.
"On one occasion," continues Dr. Anderson, "while out riding together, visiting a
country patient, he related to me many of the Prophet's mental peculiarities, and his
revelations on various subjects, including the pre-existence of spirits, and kindred
themes. We were Dredestined to undergo a probation here, to serve an allotted time
on earth, in order to test our integrity and faith, and determine the fact of our strength
to overcome the wiles and devices of Lucifer. We were too apt to underrate his power;
he is a mighty factor in this world. When driven from the presence of his Father and
Elder Brother, he had influence enough, even in heaven, to take with him one-third of
its hosts, to assist him in his work of destruction. This is his mission, and his wicked
efforts can only be rebuked by the great Jehovah and His Priesthood, which restrains
his power only when attempting too great destruction. The object of Satan is to prevail
over the frailties and ignorance of mankind, and make them subject to his rule. In
every previous dispensation Lucifer has prevailed, and driven the Priesthood from the
earth, but in this seventh and last dispensation the reign of the Son of God and His
Priesthood is firmly established never more to depart, that all the inhabitants of the earth
may partake of its blessings. Lucifer's reign of anarchy prevails at present, and nations
are now arming for the conflict, which they foresee must necessarily ensue. Men will be
slain by millions, and multitudes of survivors will flee to Zion, where it will become the
bounden duty of the Elders of Israel to provide for their sustenance and welfare. Our
present system will eventually resolve itself into a United Order, in which every member
will work, not for his individual aggrandizement, but purely with an earnest desire to pro-
mote the interests of the Kingdom of God on the earth.
"According to Dr. Bernhisel, these were some of the principles enunciated by the
Prophet. When asked by the writer if he really believed such a Utopia would ever be
realized, he replied with enthusiastic fervor, 'As surely as the sun now shines in heaven.'
The writer was much impressed, and vividly recalls the occasion. He regards his former
association with Dr. Bernhisel as one of the most delightful experiences in his life's
career.
"In contemplating that mysterious hond of sympathy which united these two men,
Joseph Smith and John M. Bernhisel, we arrive at the conclusion that in one respect
their similarity was great, — each possessing remarkable integrity. Aside from this,
probably two greater extremes were never associated in so friendly a bond. Dr. Bern-
hisel was a man of education and culture, but naturally shy and retiring, almost a recluse,
never obtrusive, but silent and shrinking from public observation. A confirmed bach-
elor, in that condition he would most probably have remained, but for the teachings of
the Prophet, who strenuously urged him to obey the law and engage in the marital state.
Joseph, on the contrary, from all accounts, was fond of society, freely mingling with
^is&lox^H - VlU*d/.
HISTORY OF UTAH. 665
his fellow men, ami withal an enlightened philanthropist. He was a man of splendid
physique, an athlete, bantering any man for a wrestle, and generally throwing his op-
ponent. These two men, so widely diverse in disposition and habits, were the most con-
genial friends and companions."
During the greater part of his stay in Illinois, Dr. Bernhisel continued to reside at
the Mansion House. In the times that tried men's souls — the dark days preceding and
following the martyrdom — he was weighed in the balance and not found wanting. His
latest recorded service in behalf of the Prophet was an errand to Carthage, in company
with John Taylor, to present to Governor Ford the true situation at Nauvoo, a few days
before the murder of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. In the exodus of the Saints, after re-
maining long enough to settle up some business for the Nauvoo House, he proceeded
with his family to Winter Quarters, and in 1S4S they came in President Heber <'. Kim-
ball's company to Salt Lake Valley.
Upon the dissolution of the Provisional Government of Deseret and the establishment
of the Territory of Utah. Dr. Bernhisel was unanimously elected Delega'e to Cougress;
the first person representing the people of this section to be admitted to the councils of
the nation. In politics he was a Whig, but at this time stood for no particular party,
being sent by the united people of the Territory. The selection of such a person for such a
place was most appropriate. The Doctor was not only a man of culture, thoroughly
versed in political economy, but was well and favorably known at the seat of govern-
ment. He was a personal friend and former classmate of Hon. Simon Cameron, the lead-
ing Senator from Pennsylvania. Judge Kane, with his sons. Col. Thomas L. Kane and
Dr. Kane, the Arctic explorer, as well as Hon. Thaddeus Stevens, were likewise among
his personal friends. Of impressive appearance, and elegant address, courteous and
dignified in demeanor, he could not fail to make a favorable impression. His friend
Stevens remarked that he was the handsomest man in the Congress of the United States.
He was universally respected and esteemed. His modesty, amiability and politeness dis-
armed opposition, and his great influence and friendly relations with powerful Senators
and Representatives enabled him to secure benefits that might otherwise have been de-
nied to the unpopular people of Utah. It was during his Congressional career that our
Territory's memorial for the construction of a great national railroad to the Pacific Coast
was presented. Through his effort;? an act for the suppression of Iudian hostilities was
obtained, and the first postal service between Utah and the East inaugurated. When not
upon the floor of the House, or elsewhei-e watching over the interests of his constituents,
he would be found in the recesses of the library, quietly seeking information and adding
to his store of knowledge.
"My introduction to Dr. Bernhisel." says Dr. Anderson, "was made through a mu-
tual friend in the summer of 1So9. He had just returned from Washington, D. C. At
that period there existed in Salt Lake City a coterie of brilliant minds, representing
science, literature and the belle lettres generally. Prominent among them may be
mentioned Dr. William France, a graduate of Glasgow University, and an expert, not
only in medicine and surgery, but in botany, mineralogy and kindred sciences. He it
was who introduced me to Dr. Bernhisel. There were also the late Horace K. Whitney,
an esteemed personal friend of the writer; Henry W. Naisbitt, William Eddington, James
Ferguson. Leo Hawkins and mauy more. These gentlemen were intimately acquainted
with Dr. Bernhisel, and regarded him with admiration, not only as a physician, but as a
political economist of authority."
Dr. Bernhisel was first elected Delegate on the 4th of August. 1851. He served
continuously as such until 1S59, and was succeeded by Hon. William H. Hooper. In
1861 the Doctor was again elected, and served until 1863, when he retired from public
life. During the earlier and greater part of his period in Congress, the only means of
conveyance over the plains was a crude wagon. There were no bridges over the rivers,
and scarcely a vestige of road for hundreds of miles. Necessarily he made many
journeys to and fro. and was exposed to hardships and dangers. At the time of the trou-
ble between Utah and the general government, when the feeling throughout the country
was so bitter that it was almost as much as one's life was worth to be known as a "Mor-
mon," Dr. Bernhisel went East with as much unconcern for his personal safety as if
everything had been peaceful and pleasant. Upon one of his trips he was made the vic-
tim of a practical joke bv a semi-civilized Indian who carried the mail to Laramie for
Messrs. Little, Decker & Hanks, contractors. Ham's Fork was swollen and filled with
floating ice. The doctor could not swim, and the Indian was to pull him across with a
lariat, attached to his body, the latter agreeing not to pull until the Delegate was ready.
The mischievous Lamanite, however, soused him in suddenly, dragging him through the
42
666 HISTORY OF UTAH.
rushing stream and landing him quickly on the other side. The doctor's native dignity
rather resented this summary action, but he passed it over pleasantly, without a word of
reproach.
In later life Dr. Bernhisel was unfortunate in business, having invested in mines
that proved unprofitable. As a result his last days were clouded with adversity, but
though in reduced circumstances he was still amiable and hopeful, always and in every
place a gentleman. Notwithstanding his delicate constitution, he lived to a good old age,
being in his eighty-third year when he died at his home in Salt Lake City, September
28, 1881. His longevity was doubtless due to his temperate and abstemious habits. His
widow, Mrs. Elizabeth Barker Bernhisel, and several of his children survive.
WILLIAM HENRY HOOPER.
'HE English ancestors of the late Captain Hooper include the name of the martyr,
John Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester, afterwards of Worcester, who wag burned at
the stake in the year 1555, during the reign of England's queen, "Bloody Mary."
Among his American ancestors was William Hooper, of Boston, a signer of the
Declaration of Independence. The earliest member of the family in this country was
Captain Henry Hooper, an officer in the English service and a member of the Provincial
Legislature. From him came the Hoopers of Dorchester County, Maryland, where in
Warwick Manor, Eastern Shore, December 25,1813, the subject of this memoir was born.
He was the son of Henry Hooper and his wife Mary Noel Price, and was named William
Henry after his father and grandfather.
A limited education was all that he received, owing doubtless to the death of his
father, which occurred when William was about three years old. The family were in
poor circumstances, and it required an effort to battle successfully with the world. At
the age of fourteen the boy accepted a clerkship, which enabled him to help his mother
and sisters. In his spare moments he labored upon the farm. When he was seventeen
he removed to Baltimore, where he was clerk in a bank, but on account of failing health
he soon returned to his birthplace, taking with him a stock of goods, with which he went
into business for himself. He was a natural merchant and financier, energetic and tact-
ful, and made up for a lack of scholastic training by shrewd practical wisdom and a
steadily increasing fund of general knowledge. At nineteen he built a coasting steamer,
which he christened the "Benjamin D. Jackson." Shortly afterwards he went to St.
Louis, then a city of six thousand inhabitants; but within a year returned to his native
State.
In 1835 he sold out his business in Maryland, and removed to Galena, Illinois.
There, in the following year, be married Miss Electa Jane Harris, who bore to him two
daughters. The mother died May 15, 1844, about six years before Mr. Hooper came to
Utah. Her daughters also died, May, at Galena, in 1854, and Willimina at Platteville,
Wisconsin, in I860. In Illinois Mr. Hooper engaged in mercantile pursuits, first with
George Wann, under the firm name of Hooper and Wann, subsequently changed to
Hooper, Peck and Soales, merchants, miners, smelterers and steamboat proprietors. Mr.
Hooper built the steamer "Lynx" and several other vessels, and was a steamboat captain
on the Mississippi. The high water disaster near St. Louis, in May 1847, left him penni-
less, and he began life again as clerk at the Planter's House in that city.
Captain Hooper came to Utah in 1850, taking charge of Holladay and Warner's mer-
cantile business at Salt Lake City. He was not then connected with the Latter-day
Church; but on December 24, 1852, he married Miss Mary Ann Kuowlton, a Mormon
girl, and this alliance led to his conversion, about a year later, to her faith. He was elected
a member of the Legislature, and in 1857 was appointed by Governor Brigham
Young, Secretary pro tem of the Territory, succeeding Almon W. Babbitt in that posi-
tion; the latter having been killed by Indians while crossing the plains the previous
season.
In 1859 came his first election as Delegate to Congress. He succeeded Dr. John M.
Bernhisel in that position. He took his seat in the House of Representatives at a time
when the nation was in a turmoil over the pending secession of the Southern States. Utah
HISTORY OF UTAH. 667
was then seeking admission into the Union, and Delegate Hooper, writing from Washing-
ton to Hon. George Q. Cannon, in December 18(i0, said: "I think three-quarters of the
Republicans of the House would vote for our admission, but I may be mistaken. Many
say they would gladly swap the Gulf States for Utah. I tell them that we show our loy-
alty by trying to get in, while others are trying to get out, notwithstanding our grievan-
ces, which are far greater than any of the seceding States; but that I consider we can
redress our grievances better in the Union than out of it." During his first term in Con-
gress, he succeeded in securing a settlement of some of Utah's claims against the general
government, to-wit: the expenses of two unpaid and unrecognized sessions of the Legis-
lature, Governor Young's account against the United States Treasury, and the cost of the
Indian War of 1850.
At the State Convention of Deseret, under which name Utah sought admission into
the Union in 1862, Captain Hooper was elected a Senator, and with his colleague, Hon.
George Q. Cannon, and Dr. Bernhisel, (the latter re-elected Delegate), labored faithfully
though vainly at the nation's capital, to secure Statehood for the Territory. At the ex-
piration of Judge Kinney's term as Delegate, which ended in 1865, Captain Hooper's
name was again put forward, and received the suffrages of the people.
He now served as Delegate during four consecutive terms, making five terms in all.
He was loved by his fellow Congressmen, and wielded a remarkable influence among
them, warding off blow after blow aimed at the people of Utah. During his first term he
possessed much power, but after his return to Congress in 1865-6 he was more potent
than ever. His most memorable speech in the House was against the Cullom Bill, an
anti-polygamy measure, March 23, 1870. Though not a polygamist himself, Delegate
Hooper knew that those of his constituents who practiced that form of marriage were
sincere, and that to them it was a religious principle. He therefore defended them in the
exercise of what they and he deemed their rights under the Constitution. Throughout
his Congressional career he displayed great energy, as he did in every sphere of life in
which he moved. He made a splendid record, doing excellent service to an appreciative
constituency. His genial manner and address, even more than his recognized ability,
gave him a powerful influence in the national legislature, and he was a universal favorite
among the members of the House. His last term expired March 4, 1873. Upon his re-
turn to Utah, on the 15th of that month, he was given a hearty reception, many leading
citizens, with bands of music, going by special train to meet and welcome him home.
His successor as Delegate was Hon. George Q. Cannon.
At the inception of Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institution Captain Hooper, who
had previously figured as a prominent merchant of Utah, became connected with it as a
director, and in 1873 he was elected General Superintendent. He acted in that capacity
for about eighteen months. In October, 1877, he succeeded Brigham Young as Presi-
dent of Z. C. M. I., and like him was retained in office until his death.
Captain Hooper was one of Utah's leading bankers. Associated with Horace S.
Eldredge and Lewis S. Hills, he founded a bank in 1869, and in 1870, with an increased
capital, it was organized as the Bank of Deseret. In 1872 the capital was still further
increased, and the necessary bonds being deposited, the institution became known as the
National Bank of Deseret, of which he was President, remaining such to the end of his
days. He was also a director of the Utah Central Railroad.
William H. Hooper died at his home in Salt Lake City on the 29th of December,
1882. His wife, Mary Ann Knowlton Hooper, survived him a little over four years, dy-
ing March 22. 1887. They were the parents of six daughters and three sons, the two
oldest sons being dead. The living children are as follows: Mary (Mrs. Thomas W.
Jennings); Harriet (Mrs. Willard Young); Elizabeth (Mrs. David C. Dunbar); Annie
(Mrs. Joseph E. Caine) ; Cora (Mrs. Ernest Eldredge); Sidney K., and Alice (Mrs. Guy
G. Palmer).
Military titles seem almost inherent in the Hooper family. While the head of the
Utah branch derived his title from his former occupation of steamboat captain, his great-
great grandfather was a Brigadier General, and others of his American ancestors were
Colonels and Captains in the Colonial service. Three of his daughters, Mrs. Young, Mrs.
Caine and Mrs. Palmer, married officers, — the first and third Captain and Lieutenant,
respectively, in the regular army, and the second, Captain in the Utah Volunteers. Sid-
ney K. Hooper, the only living son, was Second Lieutenant in Torrey's regiment of
Rough Riders. Captain Hooper was an affectionate husband and father, and a genial
kind-hearted gentleman, respected by all classes of the community.
JOHN FITCH KINNEY.
fWICE Chief Justice of Utah, and afterwards the Territory's Delegate at Washing-
ton, the late Judge Kinney, fourth child and second son of Dr. Stephen Fitch Kin-
ney and his wife Abbie Brockway, was born in New Haven, Oswego County, New
York, April 2, 1816. At the age of sixteen, having passed through the public
schools and later attended select schools, he entered the Oswego Academy, where for two
years he pursued the higher branches, after which he entered the law office of Hon. Or-
ville Robinson, with whom he studied law for two and a half years. He then left for
Ohio, settling at Marysville, where he resumed his law studies, and a year later was ad-
mitted to the bar.
On the 29th of January, 1839, he married Hannah Hall, second daughter of Colonel
Samuel Hall, formerly of Batavia, New York, but then residing near Mount Vernon,
Knox County, Ohio. There, from 1840 to 1844, Mr. Kinney practiced successfully his
profession.
In the summer of the latter year he settled in Lee County, Iowa, opposite Hancock
County, Illinois, the section then inhabited by the main body of the Latter-day Saints.
Some of the Mormon settlements were in the State and County where Mr. Kinney resided.
He was twice elected secretary of the legislative council, and in 1840, the year of the
Mormon exodus, he was prosecuting attorney for Lee County. In June, 1847, he was
made president of the State Democratic Convention, and before leaving Iowa City, then
the capital, he was appointed, by Governor Briggs, Justice of the Supreme Court of the
new State of Iowa, to fill a vacancy caused by the resignation of Chief Justice Mason. ■
Judge Kinney held the office under the Governor's appointment for nearly two years, and
was then elected Judee of the Supreme Court for six years, by the joint assembly of the
legislature. In 1850 he was appointed special commissioner to take testimony in a con-
tested Congressional election, involving the legality of the Mormon vote cast at and near
the present city of Council Bluffs; the contestants being William Thompson and Daniel
F. Miller.
In August, 1853, came his appointment, by President Franklin Pierce, as Chief Jus-
tice of the Supreme Court of Utah. He was not an applicant for the place, and was still
a judge of the Supreme Court of Iowa, but in January, 1854, he announced in court his
intention to resign: whereupon a meeting of lawyers was held, and resolutions of regret
unanimously adopted by the members of the bar, that the relations between themselves
and Judger Kinney were to be dissolved. They referred to the uniform dignity, imparti-
ality and courtesy which had marked his course, and declared that in his retirement the
Supreme Bench of the State lost a learned, independent and indefatigable judge, the
l»cal bar an able and distinguished member, and themselves a warm and generous friend.
In the spring of the same year Judge Kinney, his wife and four children left Eastern
Iowa for Utah. They had their private conveyance, and were about four months in mak-
ing the journey. On the way Mrs. Kinney gave birth to a son, the first white child born
in Nebraska after the organization of the Territory.
Judge Kinney was made welcome in Utah, a grand ball being given by the legisla-
ture in honor of him and other new Federal appointees. He and most of the leading
Gentiles then in Utah signed a petition to the President of the United States, asking for
the re-appointment of Brighani Young as Governor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs.
It fell to the lot of the new Chief Justice, in the winter of 1854-5, to try the three Ind-
ians who had been indicted for the murder of Captain Gunnison on the Sevier River in
the previous October. The court was held at Nephi, then called Salt Creek, and was
under the protection of a company of United States soldiers, detailed for that purpose by
Colonel Steptoe, who with his command was wintering in Utah on his way to California.
This protection was deemed necessary, as a band of about one hundred Ute warriors was
camped in close proximity to the court, watching with interest the progress of the trial.
One of the defendants was the Pahvant Chief Kanosh, who was acquitted. The others
were convicted and sentenced to imprisonment in the penitentiary. Says Judge Kinney:
"Captain Gunnison was killed to avenge the whipping of an Indian by an emigrant on
his way to California, and true to Indian character, the blood of some white person was
HISTORY OF UTAH. 669
sought to atone for the outrage. At the tine of the murder of Gunnison, who had been
sent out by the government as a civil engineer to make a preliminary survey of portions
of the Territory, there was much adverse criticism in the Eastern papers as to the causes
which led to his death. The evidence showed conclusively that the Indians committed
the crime of their own volition. The private and official intercourse of Captain Gunnison
with Governor Young was of the most friendly character, and all needful aid in the pros-
ecution of his work was cheerfully extended to the Captain by the Governor." In spite
of this, however, Judge Kinney's associate, Judge Drummond, had the audacity to assert
that Captain Gunnison and his party were murdered by the Indians, under the orders,
advice and direction of the Mormons.
Judge Kinney remained in Utah until the spring of 1856, when he and his family re-
turned to Iowa, to afford his children a better opportunity for attending school. Hence
he was not upon the scene when in the latter part of 1856 and the beginning of 1857, the
trouble began which culminated in the sending of a United States army to Utah. That
trouble originated with the spreading of false reports by Judge Drummond and others,
one of them to the effect that the Federal courts in Utah were interfered with and the
Federal officers constantly insulted, harassed and annoyed by the Mormons, with the
direct knowledge and approbation of Governor Brigham Young.
Judge Kinney had no such tale to tell. He states that he held his sessions of court
without interruption and administered the law alike to Mormon, Jew and Gentile, with-
out interference. That President Buchannan was pleased with Kinney's course, and
eventually took his view of the situation here, is pretty clearly indicated by the fact that
in July, 18G0, two years after the close of the so-called "Mormon War," he appointed
him, without the slightest previous intimation, to his former position as Chief Justice of
Utah. He was then a resident of Nebraska City, where since the spring of 1857 he had
built up a lucrative law practice. This he was reluctant to leave, but felt morally obli-
gated to accept the President's appointment, in order to show, by a repetition of bis
peaceful and pleasant relations with the people of Utah, that a Federal judge who did
his duty and "'minded his own business," was in no danger of insult or annoyance from
the Mormons.
His second journey to Salt Lake City was by stage, and occupied twelve days and
nights without rest. He states, regarding his second term as Chief Justice of Utah, that
"the District and Supreme Courts were held, not only without interruption, but with the
moral support of the Church authorities." As his district embraced Salt Lake City and
the adjoining counties, most of the judicial business of tne Territory came under his jur-
isdiction, including the cases growing out of what was known as the "Morrisite war." It
will be well to preserve Judge Kinney's succinct setting forth of that historic episode. He
says:
"Many criticisms have been indulged in by those not familiar with the facts, which
are simply these: Morris and a number of others banded together in defiance of law, and
for their protection erected a fortification. It was alleged that three men were unlaw-
fully imprisoned by them and were heavily ironed, and for the purpose of their release
an affidavit was filed in my court, accompanied by a petition asking for a writ of habeas
corpus, that the causes for their imprisonment might be inquired into. The writ was is-
sued and served, but was disregarded by Morris, Banks and Cook, the respondents and,
as appeared upon the return by the officer, the authority of the court was openly defied.
This occurred on the 24th of May, 1862. Time was given until June 11th following, in
hope that the parties would reconsider their refusal to obey the mandate of the court,
when on a second application another writ was issued and also one for contempt. The
service of this writ was openly resisted by an armed force inside the stockade, after de-
mand had been made by the marshal, under a flag of truce, for the surrender of the re-
spondents. The resistance by force of arms lasted some three days, and on both sides
people were killed, including Morris. At length the defendants surrendered to the mar-
shal and were brought before the court. At the ensuing March term about ninety were
indicted for resisting the officer, and ten for the murder of Jared Smith of the marshal's
posse, killed on the first day. The trial resulted in the assessment by the jury of a fine
of one hundred dollars each on sixty-six of the defendants, and the conviction of seven
for murder in the second degree.''
In March, 1863, an affidavit was made before Judge Kinney, that Brigham Young
had violated the act of Congress defining and prohibiting polygamy; that is, that he had
recently married a plural wife. The Judge issued a bench warrant directed to the United
States Marshal, requiring him to serve the same, which was immediately done. President
i'oung yielded prompt and willing obedience to the writ, appeared with the Marshal be-
670 HISTORY OF UATH.
fore the Judge in chambers, and on hearing of testimony was bound over for his appear-
ance at the next term of court. This, ready submission by the Mormon leader to the au-
thority of the Judge was a great surprise and an equally great disappointment to some,
who had c >nfidently asserted that Brigham Young would not submit to civil process, and
had hoped, in consequence, to have the opportunity to secure his arrest by military force.
On the ground of an insufficiency of evidence, the Grand Jury failed to indict President
Young, who was duly released from his bonds. In July of the same year Judge Kinney,
who was a staunch Democrat, was removed by a Republican President — Abraham Lin-
coln— and succeeded by Judge Titus, of Philadelphia. The next month he was elected
Delegate to Congress, receiving every vote cast at the election.
The Thirty-eighth Congress, which convened on the first Monday in December, 1863,
is known as "the War Congress." Mr. Kinney's first public appearance on the floor of
the House was January 27, 1864, when he replied to a speech made the day before by
Hon. Fernando Wood, of New York. Mr. Wood was a leader of a small party known in
Congress as the "Copperheads," those opposed to the suppression of the Southern Re-
bellion. He had been Mayor of New York City, was a man of great ability, and a very
fine orator. This was his first speech and it attracted a good deal of attention. He de-
nounced the war for the Union as "a hellish crusade of blood and famine," and incident-
ally referred to the so-called "Mormon rebellion" in these words: "These profligate out-
casts, who have always been hostile to your moral and political institutions, were treated
with by commissioners. Their rebellion commenced early in 1857. The immediate cause
was opposition to the exercise of Federal authority and the appointment of a Territorial
governor. On the 15th of September of that year Brigham Young issued a proclamation
in the style of an independent sovereign, announcing his purpose to resist by force of
arms the entry of the United States troops into the Territory of Utah. He proceeded to
carry out his threats. He organized an army, declared martial law, seized government
fortifications, destroyed government property and put the Territory in a state of com-
plete defense against the Federal army."
Mr. Kinney, though but a few days in Congress, and without preparation, at once
answered this remarkable speech. His time was limited by the Speaker to ten minutes,
but afterwards it was extended, and he spoke for more than half an hour. He denounced
the attack made by Mr. Wood upon the people of Utah as a slanderous accusation; criti-
cised him for his inexcusable exibitiou of malice, so entirely outside the legitimate sub-
ject of discussion, and continued: "The gentleman introduced himself into the House by
declaring the present war to suppress the Rebellion to be inhuman, and for that reason
and because of his known sympathy with rebels against the best government the world
ever saw, his attempt to villify the people of Utah fell comparatively harmless upon the
members of this House and the country." The delegate from Utah declared that a man
who would stand up in the American Congress at a time when the government was strug-
gling for its existence and pronounce the effort made by it to put down the rebellion "a
hellish crusade," ought to be expelled as unworthy to occupy a seat upon that floor. He
pronounced the statement false that the people of Utah had ever been in rebellion against
the government, its laws or its constituted authorities: "I ask the gentleman upon what
he bases his assertion that Governor Young seized government fortifications and de-
stroyed public property. There were no government fortifications in Utah at that time,
and hence none could have been seized by Governor Young. It is true that an army of
formidable proportions and at a great expense to the government was sent to Utah in
1857-8, but that army entered Salt Lake City peaceably and in quiet, not a gun was fired,
not a drop of blood was shed. In place of there having been any resistance to the entry
into the city of the successor to Governor Young, he sent out a company of men, with
the stars and stripes at the head of the column, to escort his successor into the city, who
was not only made welcome, but was inducted into office by his predecessor, without the
slightest interruption." Then followed a splendid eulogy of the labors and sacrifices of
the Mormon people in pioneering and colonizing the great American desert.
Mr. Kinney's speech created a decided sensation, and was extensively copied from
the Congressional Globe into the leading papers of the country. The Philadelphia press
characterized it as a sharp, opportune and overwhelming reply to the "Chief of Copper-
heads." The speech gave its author a prestige which enabled him to secure legislation
for appropriations justly due to, but long witheld from, the Territory and people he
represented. He also obtained favorable action at the Indian Department on applications
for land warrants for military service. These applications, about two hundred in num-
ber, had been ignored and had long remained buried among the files, but on Mr. Kin-
ney's personal appeal to the commissioner, the examiner was ordered to take up all such
HISTOKY OF UTAH. 671
cases. In due time land warrants were issued on every application pending, and forward-
ed to Salt Lake City for the persons entitled to them.
In March 1304. Mr. Kinney prepared a bill for the admission of L'tah into the Union,
supporting its presentation in the House with a prepared and able speech occupying near-
ly two hours in delivery. He attacked the right of Congress under the Federal Constitu-
tion to organize Territorial governments, reviewed the troubles and difficulties endured
by the Mormon people in their removal to and settlement of the valley of the Great Salt
Lake, and refuted the charges of disloyalty made against them. As showing the senti-
ments of himself and his constituents upon the subject of the Civil War, he introduced a
resolution, which was adopted, declaring it to be the duty of Congress to sustain the con-
stituted authority of the country in their efforts to suppress the rebellion.
After the close of Judge Kinney's career in Congress he returned to Nebraska,
where in 1867 he was appointed by the President, Special Indian Commissioner. In 1884
he was appointed by the same authority agent for the Yankton Sioux Indians in South
Dakota. This office he resigned, after a service of nearly five years, in order to escape
the rigors of the northern climate. In 1S90 he removed to San Diego, California, and
there became prominent in public affairs. He was Chairman of the Democratic Central
Committee in 189b', when San Diego County was carried for Mr. Bryan in the President-
ial election, and at the close of his official term in 1898, received from the County Con-
vention a vote of thanks and an expression of confidence for the able and satisfactory
manner in which he had discharged his duties.
In July 1S97 Judge Kinney, after an absence of thirty-four years, revisited Salt
Lake City, coming as a delegate to the Trans-Mississippi Congress. It was Utah's year
of jubilee, and at the great celebration, held from July 20th to the 24th, he renewed his
acquaintance with many old-time friends. During his stay he delivered at Saltair a
speech reminiscent of his early experiences in these parts. Since May 1st, 1S95, he had
been a widower, but on the 9th of May, 1S99, he again entered the state of wedlock,
marrying Mrs. Lucy J. Thurston, the widow of Moses Thurston, one of his former Utah
friends. The marriage occurred at San Diego, but they soon took up their residence at
Salt Lake City, where Judge Kinney died August 16, 1902.
JOHN T. CAINE.
VT^*HE enforced retirement from Congress of Hon. George Q. Cannon — unseated by the
1$) operations of the Edmunds law — opened a new era, or at least an intermedial pe-
^jT riod, in Utah's congressional history, and brought to the front a man typically
representative of the same, Hon. John T. Caine, Mr. Cannon's successor in the
House of Representatives. A native of the Isle of Man, where, in the parish of Kirk
Patrick, he was born January 8, 1S29; an emigrant to America at the age of seventeen;
a merchant's clerk in New York and St. Louis; a school teacher in Utah and a missionary
to the Sandwich Islands; actor, stage manager and editor at Salt Lake City; territorial
legislator, university regent and city recorder; such is a partial epitome of the pre-dele-
gate record of this self-made man, rising step by step from the humblest walks of life to
high and honorable positions.
While in all his public offices, as well as in private concerns, Mr. Caine«displayed
marked ability, and performed the duties of his varied positions with efficiency and fidel-
ity, it is as Utah's Delegate during the stormiest period of her past, that he will be best
rememberd and most fully appreciated. It was there that his more arduous work was
done — the work which elevated him to the lofty place he occupies in the minds of
his fellow citizens. It was there that he devoted all his energies and brought into use all
his powers for the protection of Utah and her people, aud acquired a national reputation
as a determined and manly fighter for the right.
Speaking of the days of his boyhood, Mr. Caine remarked to his biographer: "I
knew if ever I amounted to anything, it would be by my own exertions. I had no one to
help me, and was practically alone in the world; I had confidence, however, that a
straightforward, honorable course, backed by energy and perseverance, would succeed,
and such a course I have endeavored to pursue."
At the tender age of six years, in his far-off island home, he found himself virtually
672 HISTORY OF UTAH.
an orphan. He was an only child, the son of Thomas Caine and his wife Elinor Cubbon.
His father — whose name gives to his the initial T. — emigrated to America; and his mother
died, leaving him in the care of his grandfather, Hugh Cubbon,. a small farmer and tailor.
When about nine years old he was taken to Douglas, the principal town of the island,
where he lived with his father's sister, Mrs. William Cowley, who sent him to school, thus
giving him his first tuition. When about eleven, he took up his residence with his moth-
er's sister, Mrs. John Richardson, who lived at the Ballamoore, near Peel. She
placed him in a positiou to continue his education, and otherwise treated him with great
kindness. The Richardsons were wealthy, possessing valuable business and proper-
ties both in the Isle of Man and in Liverpool. At the latter place Mr. Richardson was
the head of a large merchant tailoring establishment. With a view to fitting John T. to
take a lucrative place therein, his relatives urged him to obtain some knowledge of the
tailor's trade. In deference to their wishes he made the attempt, becoming for a time
an apprentice; but his heart was not in it. the occupation being distasteful to him. His
desire was to be a printer. Neither of these trades, however, was he destined to follow.
It was at Peel that he first heard of Mormonism. This was in 1841. John Taylor,
the Apostle, was preaching in a schoolhouse when young Caine passed by. With a boy's
curiosity, he stepped into the building, and there had his first view of a Mormon, or Lat-
ter-day Saint. Subsequently be heard other Elders preach, and was present at the first
Mormon baptism in Peel. It was at the seaside, near the home of his uncle, John Gracey,
who afterwards joined the Church. Though favorably impressed with this religion, taught
by such men as William Mitchell, William C. Dunbar, and others, he did not at once em-
brace it, though it influenced his determination, formed about this time, to leave the old
country, where he saw little chance to succeed, and seek his fortune in America. A few
pounds left him by his grandfather, added to means furnished by the Richardsons, en-
abled him to carry out his design.
He sailed from Liverpool March 17, 1846, on the bark "Shanunga," accompanied by
a cousin two years younger than himself. An uneventful voyage of six weeks brought
him to New York, where he first found employment in a merchant tailor's establishment.
Having thoroughly investigated the claims of various creeds, he was converted to Mor-
monism, and was baptized by Elder William H. Miles, in East River, March 28, 1847.
On the 11th of the following July he was ordained a Teacher, and officiated as such in
the thriving branch of the Church then existing in the metropolis. The Latter-day
Saints held their meetings at the corner of Broadway and Grand streets. Elder William
I. Appleby presided over the Eastern branches, and many notable missionaries from
Utah, including some of the Apostles, were continually coming and going.
In October 1848, Mr. Caine removed to St. Louis, going by steamboat to Perth Am-
boy, New Jersey — the nearest railroad station — and thence, by way of Philadelphia, to
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, which was as far west as the railroad extended. The remain-
der of the journey was by canal and steamboat, except that the Alleghany mountains
were crossed in open cars, worked on inclined planes by stationary engines.
At St. Louis he became very active in Church work, assisting Daniel Mcintosh, the
clerk of the conference, which then comprised about two thousand Latter-day Saints, and
afterwards succeeding him as clerk. On July 7, 1849, he was ordained an Elder by
Nathaniel H. Felt, the president of the conference. The immediate cause of his ordina-
tion was the presence of cholera in the city, which was suffering terribly from that
scourge, it having come up from New Orleans in the spring. Elder Caine's assistance
was needed in administering to the sick. For three successive years the cholera raged
in St. Louis, and though continually in the midst of it, ministering to its victims, he was
never attacked.
It was during the period of his residence there that Mr. Caine met the estimable lady
who became his wife — Miss Margaret Nightingale, a connection of the Nightingale and
Leach families, who were among the first converts to Mormonism at Preston, England,
in 1837; her grandmother, Mary Leach being the secoud woman baptized into the Church
in Europe. They had emigrated to Nauvoo, and in the exodus drifted to St. Louis. John
T. Caine and Margaret Nightingale were married October 22, 1850. The ceremony was
performed by Elder Alexander Robbins, who had succeeded Elder Felt as president of
the conference. Their first child, a daughter, Agnes E., was born in St. Louis, October
1st. 1851.
That vear Mr. Caine became an American citizen, being naturalized in the court
of common pleas. He acted as general agent for the "Frontier Guardian" — a paper
edited and published by Orson Hyde at Kanesville, Iowa; and assisted in emigrational
and other business for the Church. During the last year of his residence in St. Louis he
HISTORY OF UTAH. 673
was first counselor to the conference president, Elder Thomas Wrigley. While thus
laboring gratuitously, he derived his support from regular employment as a newspaper
carrier, and subsequently as a merchant's clerk. The Caine family left St. Louis on the
8th of May, 1852. Their company, consisting of fifty wagons, commanded by James
McGaw, with John T. Caine as captain of ten, arrived at Salt Lake City on the 20th of
September. The journey was uneventful, excepting several deaths from cholera, which
attacked the company on the plains.
Mr. Caine's first employment in Utah was at digging beets, carrots and other vegetables
on shares. During the winter of 1852-3 he taught a district school at Big Cottonwood, *
ten miles south ot Salt Lake City. Meantime, having become identified with the Deseret
Dramatic Association, which, in January, 1853, opened the Social Hall, he made several
appearances upon the stage. His first appearance in Utah was as "Glavis" in the "Lady
of Lyons," but his first hit was as "Aminadab Sleek," in "The Serious Family,'' a play
in which he had taken part at a charity entertainment in St. Louis. His "Aminadab
Sleek" eaptured the theatre-going public, and John T, Caine was a man of prominence
from that hour. In 1853 he copied plays for the dramatic association, and a year later,
while a clerk in the Tithing Office, had charge of the Social Hall, where his son, John T.
Caine, Jr., was born, March 9, 1851.
In April came a call for a mission to the Sandwich Islands. He was poorly prepared,
in a worldly way, for such an undertaking, having a wife and two children dependent
upon him, and no home in which to leave them. But he found a kind friend in Elder
Joseph Cain, who opened the doors of his own home for the missionary's family, and
treated them with every consideration. To assist him on his way, Mr. Caine was given a
benefit by the Deseret Dramatic Association, as were three other members of that body —
James M. Barlow, William C. Dunbar, and James Ferguson, who were going on
missions to Europe. The aggregate receipts of the four benefits were divided equally
among the missionaries. John T. Caine's benefit was on the evening of April 22nd, the
play being "Pizarro,'' in which he sustained the title role. He received eighty dollars as
his share.
The date of his departure from home was May 4th, 1854. Among his fellow-mission-
aries to the islands were such men as Joseph F. Smith, Silas Smith, Edward Partridge,
William W. Cluff, Henry P. Richards, S. M. Molen, Ward E. Pack, Orson K. Whitney
and William King. They accompanied President Young and party as far as Cedar City,
and thence, under the leadership of Parley P. Pratt, proceeded to San Bernardino, which
was then a Mormon colony. They traveled with wagons and saddle horses, riding at
night, resting and sleeping by day, to avoid the intense heat of the desert. At San Ber-
nardino, where they were kindly received by Presidents Lyman and Rich and others in
charge, they sold their outfits for barely enough to enable them to reach San Francisco,
for which place they set out from San Pedro by steamer. During the summer, in order
to secure funds to pay their passage to the islands, the missionaries sought employment in
and around San Francisco. Elder Caine had the temerity to hire out as a cook, at a ranch
where threshing was in progress. Finals all reached the islands, but not by the same
vessel. His was the brig "Susan Abigail," which arrived at Honolulu the day before
Christmas.
At the first conference of the Hawaiian Mission after his arrival there, Elder Caine
was appointed counselor to Elder Silas Smith, who was made president. Elder Caine
also preiided over the Oahu conference. He lived most of the time at Honolulu, where
some one was needed to attend to correspondence, transact Church business, and repre-
sent the mission in controversies arising from time to time v/ith the Hawaiian govern-
ment, owing to anti-Mormon influences. While thus engaged, he answered an attack
upon the people of Utah, and secured its publication in the "Polynesian,'' the govern-
ment's official organ. This was the first Mormon defense published in a Hawaiian news-
paper. Elder Caine had charge of an English-speaking branch of the Church, largely
made up of emigrants from Australia, detained at Honolulu, their vessel having been
condemned as unseaworthy. Owing to his residence at that place, where English was
very generally spoken, he never acquired a perfect knowledge of the Hawaiian tongue.
The climate of the islands did not agree with him, and this, with the fact that his presence
was needed at home, induced President Young to send for him earlier than had been
designed.
Sailing from Honolulu August 1st, 1856, he arrived on the 24th at San Francisco,
where he remained for a time, doing what service he could among the Saints in that
vicinity. In October he set out for home. At San Bernardino he cast his first vote for a
President of the United States — James Buchanan, the Democratic candidate, who was
674 HISTORY OF UTAH.
elected. He acquired his right to thus vote by living in California thirty days before
the election, which was the law at that time. This was his only opportuuity to vote for
President until he cast his ballot for William J. Bryan, forty years later. Continuing his
journey homeward, he met, between Fillmore and Salt Lake City, some time in December,
the legislative party, on its way to the former place to hold the regular session of the
assembly. Being informed that his name had been proposed for assistant secretary of
the council, he returned with the legislators to Fillmore. They held one meeting, and ad-
journed to Salt Lake, where Mr. Caine served in the position for which he had been nom-
inated. This was his first political office.
After the adjournment of the legislature he was secretary of a commission appointed
to codify all laws of the United States applicable to the Territories. At subsequent
legislative sessions, then held yearly, he continued to be assistant secretary, and after-
wards was secretary of the council for many sessions. He was also military secretary,
with the rank of lieutenant colonel, on the staff of General Wells, commander of the
Nauvoo Legion. After completing his labors upon the code commission, he became pri-
vate clerk to President Brigham Young.
Upon his return from the islands, Mr. Caine resumed his connection with the Deseret
Dramatic Association, and in a short time succeeded David Candland as stage manager
at the Social Hall. He with others urged upon President Young the building of a larger
theatre, where the legitimate drama might be fostered and the play-going public
properly entertained. This led to the erection of the Salt Lake Theatre. In the first
dramatic performance given at that since famous place of amusement, on the evening of
March 8, 1802, Mr. Caine appeared as "Marquis de Volage," in "Pride of the Market.''
Until the introduction of outside talent, he continued to play leading parts at the Theatre,
and was associated with Hiram B. Clawson in its management. He bad charge of the
stage, and all performances were put upon the boards under his supervision. After re-
tiring as an actor, he continued to be stage manager, and in oneway or another was
connected with the Theatre for a period of twenty years. In 1867 Messrs. Clawson and
Caine leased the house from President Young, paying him the first year a rental of
fifteen thousand dollars. The lessees did not make much money that season, but the next
two years, the rent being reduced, they prospered.
In March, 1870, Mr. Caine went to the City of Washington to carry the protest of the
people of Utah against the Cullom Bill, then pending in the United States Senate. This was
his second visit East since coming to Utah, the first being a trip in the spring of 1866,
when, with William Jennings, Hiram B. Clawson, Thomas Taylor and John W. Young,
he crossed the plains by stage, and spent six months in New York and other eastern cities,
assisting to forward the Mormon emigration of that year, and transacting other business
for President Young. The latter trip was by rail, and he remained at the capital until
July, assisting Delegate Hooper in his labors. In 1872 he was a member of the Consti-
tutional Convention. His extended legislative experience, first in a clerical way, and
afterwards as a member of the Council, in which he served during the sessions of 1874-
76-80 82. was preparing him for his own Congressional career.
During his absence in the East, two of his old-time friends, Edward L. Sloan and
William C. Dunbar, established the Salt Lake Herald, for which they had secured the
materials of the Salt Lake Daily Telegraph, suspended. The Herald was founded in
June, 1870, with Mr. Sloan as its editor, and Mr. Dunbar as business manager. They
solicited Mr. Caine to take stock in the enterprise and act as managing editor. At the
same time he was offered by President Young the position of his private secretary. This
offer, owing to the confining nature of the secretary's duties, he felt forced to decline.
He accepted the proposition of Messrs. Sloan and DunDar, taking a third interest in the
Herald, and assuming the position of managing editor. In 1871 he made a flying trip
to Chicago, to secure evidence in support of a charge made by the Herald against Judge
Hawley. who had caused the three proprietors of the paper to be indicted for criminal
libel. He was successful beyond his expectations, but the case never came to trial.
Mr. Caine continued to be managing editor until the Herald Company was incorporated,
and remained many years thereafter a stockholder in the paper. As in the case of the
Theatre, his name will always be identified with its history.
In 1873 he was one of a corporation that purchased from President Young the Salt
Lake Theatre. Transforming the somewhat old-fashioned interior, they made it in every
respect a modern and finely equipped temple of the drama. The management at this
time was Hiram B. Clawson, John T. Caine and Thomas Williams, with James H. Vinson
as stage manager. As a business venture it proved a failure, owing in part to the
heavy expense of remodeling the house and supporting its newly organized stock com-
HISTORY OF UTAH. 675
pany; but mostly to the fact that 1873 was a panic year throughout the nation, and for
several years following there was a wide-spread financial depression. From May to Au-
gust, 1S75, Mr. Caine was absent on a trip to Europe, to recuperate his exhausted ener-
gies, his health beiug almost broken down by his arduous labors as theater and newspaper
manager. During his absence he visited his birthplace and also toured England, France,
Belgium and the Netherlands.
In February, 187G, he was elected recorder of Salt Lake City, an office which he
filled with great efficiency, and to which he was re-elected in 1878, 1880 and 1882. He
served from 1876 to 1880 as aReerentof the University of Deseret, and held various other
responsible positions, figuring in most of the public events of that period. Ecclesiati-
cally he was also prominent. A High Councilor of Salt Lake Stake since October 16,
1859, he was, from October 1868, to April 1876, second counselor in the Stake
Presidency, during the latter part of the administration of Elder Daniel Spencer
and throughout the entire administrations of Presidents John W. Young and
George B. Wallace. At the re-organization of the Stake, just before the death
of President Brigham Young, he retired, but in 1878 was chosen an alternate High
Councilor, and in 1881 a regular member of the High Council. This position he held
until the organization of Ensign Slake (one of four stakes into which Salt Lake City was
divided in the summer of 1904) when he became the senior High Councilor of that Stake.
He is probably the oldest High Councilor in continuous succession in the Church.
In the winter of 1880-81 Mr. Caine was associated with Hon. William H. Hooper as
a representative of Delegate George Q. Cannon, in the contest which then arose, while
the latter was absent at his post of duty in Washington, over his right to a seat in the
House of Representatives. In the subsequent litigation he acted alone as agent for Mr.
Cannon. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1882, and one of seven
delegates who presented the constitution and its accompanying memorial to Congress.
He was now at the threshold of his own Congressional career, upon which he entered
almost at the outset of that tempestuous period known as "the crusade"; Mr. Cannon's
seat in the House having been declared vacant.
It was at a People's party convention, held in Salt Lake City, October 13, 1882, that
Mr. Caine was nominated as Delegate, not only to the Forty-eighth Congress (beginning
March 4, 1883), but to serve out the unexpired portion of his predecessor's term in the
Forty-seventh Congress. His election on the 7th of November was an overwhelming
victory for the People, he receiving 23,039 votes, as against 4,884 cast for his opponent,
Hon. Phillip T. Van Zile, the Liberal candidate. Then followed the futile attempt of Mr.
Van Zile and some of his supporters to prevent Mr. Caine from receiving a certificate
of election and taking his seat in Congress, on the ground that he was a polygamist,
not because he had more than one wife (which he had not) but because he was a mem-
ber of the Mormon Church, ard therefore presumably a believer in polygamy.
Upon a favorable report in his case from the committee on elections, Mr. Caine took
his seat in the House of Representatives January 17, 1883. Barely had he done so when
he was confronted by a measure proposing to amend the so-called Edmunds law. This
new measure was the original of what became, five years later, the Edmunds-Tucker law.
Delegate Caine's maiden effort in Congress was an argument against this bill, and in an-
swer to Mr. Van Zile, who had solicited a hearing thereon, before the Judiciary commit-
tee of the House. His next fight, almost single-handed, was against the Cassady Bill,
before the House committee on Territories. This measure proposed to govern Utah by a
legislative commission. Unlike the former bill, which died in the House, the latter never
got beyond the committee. Many other anti-Mormon measures were introduced during
the Forty-eighth Congress, in which Mr. Caine varied the monotony of such assaults
upou the majority of his constituents, by presenting his first bill for the admission of
Utah into the Union. But the time was not ripe for favorable action.
The Forty-ninth Congress witnessed a resumption of the struggle, and recorded the
enactment of the Edmunds- Tucker law. When this measure was referred to the House
Judiciary Committee, the Chairman, Hon. John Randolph Tucker, was utterly opposed
to it. What caused his sndden change of heart, and induced his championship of the
bill, has never been discovered. Upon its passage in the House Mr. Caine delivered a
vigorous and logical speech against it, and his argument was widely published and
much complimented; but no amount of eloquence or argument could stay the passage
of the bill. Subsequently it was shorn of many of its most objectionable features
while in the hands of a conference committee, one member of which. Hon. Patrick A.
Collins, a pronounced opponent of the measure, had been appointed through the influence
of Mr. Caine. The latter's suggestions for its modification were also heeded by Mr.
676 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Hammond, of Georgia, who succeeded Mr. Tucker on the conference committee, and was
much more conservative than his predecessor. Mr. Tucker was from Virginia, and Mr.
Collins from Massachusetts.
As a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1887, which assembled in June at
Salt Lake City, and over whose deliberations he presided, Mr. Caine strongly urged the
adoption of a clause in the proposed constitution prohibiting polygamy; believing this
to be the true solution of the Mormon problem, and the only course that would satisfy
the government and people of the United States. He presented the constitution and
its accompanying documents to Congress, and on February 18, 1888, before the Senate
Committee on Territories, made a strong argument in support of the honesty and sincer-
ity of the people of Utah in proposing this solution of the vexed question. During the
same year, on the 25th of August and the 4th of October, he delivered in the House his
noted speeches, "Polygamy in Utah a dead issue," and "Mormon facts versus anti-Mor-
mon fictions.'' In the beginning of 1889 he made an able and forcible argument before
the House Committee on Territories, in favor of Utah's admission as a State. All the
while, in and out of Congress, he was stemming a perfect torrent of anti-Utah measures,
one of which, by Senator Paddock of Nebraska, an ex-ruember of the Utah Commission,
proposed the redistrieting and reapportionment of Salt Lake City by the Governor, Secre-
tary and members of that commission, in such a way as to give the Liberals control of
the city government. Senator Cullom, of Illinois, and Delegate Dubois, of Idaho, pre-
sented legislative commission bills. Mr. Caine's plea to Senators and Members was that
they should wait and see if the Edmunds-Tucker law would not accomplish all that was
desired in the settlement of the Mormon question. He introduced a bill for an enabling
act for Utah, and set on foot the movement that resulted in the appointment of a fourth
Federal judge for the Territory. A pleasant episode in the midst of these stormy ex-
periences was his attendance, as Utah's representative, in New York City, April 29, 30,
and May 1st, 1889, at the great celebration in honor of the centennial anniversary of the
inauguration of George Washington as President of the United States.
The opening of the Fifty-first Congress found him at his post, fighting the infamous
measures known as the Cullom and Struble bills, which proposed to disfranchise all mem-
bers of the Mormon Church who were American citizens, and prevent the naturalization
of Mormon aliens. On April 23, 1890, Mr. Caine, before the House Committee on Terri-
tories, delivered a masterful and convincing argument against the Struble bill, which,
though favorably reported, was prevented from coming before the House for action. Our
Delegate and his Congressional friends also blocked the way of the new Edmunds bill,
proposing to devote the funds escheated from the Mormon Church to the public schools
of Utah. Upon the passage of the bill for the admission of Idaho, he made a speech fav-
oring Statehood for that Territory, but opposing those provisions of the enabling act
which disfranchised for their Church membership, all Mormon citizens residing there.
But it was not alone in antagonizing measures inimical to his Mormon constituents,
that our Delegate's zeal and efficiency were shown. He fought repeatedly and success-
fully the proposed removal of the Southern Ute Indians from Colorado to Utah; and se-
cured measures for the relief of the inhabitants of Ferron, Richfield and Morgan, ena-
bling them to increase the area of their townsite entries by filing upon school lands within
their corporate limits. He obtained appropriations for the construction and completion
of the Utah penitentiary, and for the benefit of the Shebit Indians in Washington County.
He presented bills for the erection of government buildings at Salt Lake City and Ogden,
for the creation of a land office at Ogden, and for the granting of a tract of sixty acres
for a University site on the Fort Douglas military reservation. He also secured, during
the anti-polygamy crusade, Presidential clemency and free pardons for many, old and
feeble men who were undergoing imprisonment in the pentientiaries of Utah and other
Territories.
In these and all other matters requiring executive action Mr. Caine speaks in warm
terms of the magnanimity and high sense of justice manifested by President Cleveland.
With the President, the heads of departments, and the attaches of several government
offices, he maintained the most cordial relations. Uniformly dignified and courteous, he
enjoyed the confidence and respect of his associates in Congress, made no enemies and
had many warm friends. During the whole of his experience as Delegate he served as a
member of the Democratic Campaign Committee, representing Utah, and took active
part in all its deliberations for the advancement of Democratic interests in the several
Congressional districts. The influence thus gained was ever at the command of his con-.
stituents, and no citizen of Utah, nor even of Idaho or Arizona, Mormon or non-Mormon,
HISTORY OF UTAH. 677
eve» appealed to him in vain for assistance, when to give such assistance was proper
and possible.
To recount the full story of his combats, victories and defeats in the Forty-eighth,
Forty-ninth, Fiftieth, Fifty-first and Fifty-second Congresses, to each of which he was
elected by an overwhelming majority (his plurality at the last eltction being nearly ten
thousand), is not the present purpose. It might almost be said that a battle royal was
waged from start to finish throughout his eleven years of service, the final victory com-
ing to Mr. Caine and the people for whom he faithfully fought, in the practically unani-
mous consent of all parties to admit Utah into the Union. On January 7, 1892, he intro-
duced in the House the Utah Home Rule bill, duplicated by Mr. Faulkner in the Senate,
and in February considered by the Senate and House Committees on Territories. Dele-
gations from Utah, introduced bv Mr. Caine, spoke for and against the measure; H. W.
Smith, C. C. Richards, J. W. Judd, F. S. Richards, T. J. Anderson, J. L. Rawlins,
F. H. Dyer, and ex-Governor West in favor of it, and O. W. Powers, C. E. Allen, C.
W. Bennett and John Henry Smith in opposition. The latter two argued in favor of
Statehood rather than against Home Rule. Before the Senate Committee Delegate Caine
read the Mormon petition for amnesty, dated December 19, 1891, and signed by the First
Presidency and Twelve Apostles, thus securing its publication as a part of the proceed-
ings. He worked zealously for the Home Rule bill, and on July S, 1892, saw it pass the
House, thus clearing the way for Statehood.
Upon the dissolution of the People's and the Liberal parties, Mr. Caiue, who had
always been a Democrat in spirit, became identified with and one of the leaders of the
Democratic party of Utah. In June, 1S92, he attended as a Delegate the National Demo-
cratic Convention at Chicago, which nominated Grover Cleveland for his second term as
President. There was a contesting delegation, headed by Judge Powers, representing
the Tuscarora Society, mostly Democratic members of the fast dying Liberal party. Mr.
Caine's acquaintance and influence with public men, members of the Convention, was
largely instrumental in seating the regular delegates — Judge Henry P. Henderson and
himself. As a member of the committee oh platform and resolutions, he secured a clause
in the platform favoring Statehood for all the Territories having'the requisite qualifica-
tions. Back again in Congress, he introduced in the House, January 14, 1893, a bill for
an enabling act to admit Utah into the Union, and a similar bill, at his request, was in-
troduced by Mr. Faulkuer m the Senate. It failed of passage owing to the flood of busi-
ness at the close of that session, and the change of administration, but practically iden-
tical with it was the bill that become a law in the next Congress.
With Statehood in sight — the public boon for which he had toiled so long and faith-
fully— Delegate Caine was the logical candidate for re-election in 1892, but it being sug-
gested to him by personal friends among his fellow partisans, after the organization of
the Democratic party of Utah, that in order to show the country that the dissolution of
the People's party was an honest reality, it would be advisable to nominate a non-Mormon
for-Delegate, he willingly sacrificed his own political interests, and heartily joined in the
nomination and zealously worked for the election of Hon. Joseph L. Rawlins. The next
year Utah went Republican, that party electing a majority of the members of the legisla-
ture. Fearing the effect upon Congress, which was strongly Demoeiatic, and was then
considering the Utah Statehood bill, which passed the House in December of that year,
Mr. Caine was prevailed upon by prominent Utah Democrats, in January, 1894. to take
a trip to Washington and consult with Democratic leaders in Congress over the Utah situ-
ation. The result was all that could be desired. While those leaders were disappointed
at the outcome of the election, they declared that the Territory had all the qualifications
for Statehood, and was entitled to admission into the Union. The Enabling Act passed
the Senate in July, 1894, and on the 16th of that month was approved by President
Cleveland.
As Chairman of the Democratic Territorial Committee, Mr. Caiue, in the fall of the
same year, waged an energetic campaign, many Democrats being elected to the Constitu-
tional Convention, which, however, had a Republican majority; that party also electing
the Delegate to Congress, Hon. Frank J. Cannon. In August 1895, Mr. Caine again
went East in the interest of his party. At the Democratic Convention for the nomina-
tion of State officers, held at Ogdeu, in anticipation of Statehood, on the 5th of Septem-
ber, he was almost unanimously nominated for Governor, but in the election, after a thor-
ough canvass of the Territory with Hon. B. H. Roberts, he shared the fate of his party,
receiving 18,519 votes as against 20,833 cast for the successful Republican condidate,
Hon. Heber M. Wells. In 1896 he was nominated for the State Senate, and elected,
receiving a majority of 3,820 votes over any Senatorial candidate on the opposition
678 HISTORY OF UTAH.
ticket. He served but one session in the Senate, having drawn the short or one year
term.
In the interim of retiring from Congress in March, 1893, and the advent of State-
hood in 1896, Mr. Caine was Auditor of Public Accounts for the Territory. He was after-
wards Superintendent of Waterworks for Salt Lake City. In business life he has
also figured prominently. He was one of the original stockholders and directors of Zion's
Savings Bank and Trust Company, and is a director, secretary and treasurer of the Jos-
epa Agricultural and Stock Company, promoting the settlement of native Hawaiians on
a large ranch in Skull Valley.
The family record of Mr. and Mrs. Caine shows them to be the parents of thirteen
children, eight of whom are living, namely, Agnes Ellen, who is Mrs. Arthur Pratt;
John T. Jr., professor in the Agricultural College a! Logan; Albion William, rancher
near Missoula, Montana; Joseph Edgar, ex-Captain of the Utah Volunteer Cavalry , and now
cashier of the Utah Commercial and Savings Bank; Julia Dean, Mrs. George D. Alder;
Charles Arthur, Secretary of the Caine and Hooper Company; Florence Nightingale,
Mrs. Will G. Farrell; Margaret Nightingale, Mrs. William G. Patrick. Though a public
man, whose duties have taken him much from home. Mr. Caine is domestic in his tastes
and devotedly attached to his equally affectionate family.
JOSEPH LAFAYETTE RAWLINS.
JrvNOTHER new political period dawned on Utah with the election of Hon. Joseph L.
ifktL Rawlins as Delegate to Congress. While Statehood had not yet come, it was clearly
•p in sight, and the choice of a non-Mormon to represent the Territory at Washington,
was quite indicative of the great changes at hand, as well as those already here.
The People's party had disbanded, the Liberal party was about to dissolve, and the vot-
ing hosts hitherto divided along religious no less than political lines, were ranging them-
selves under the national party banners of Republicanism and Democracy. Mr. Raw-
lins was the first of Utah's congressional men to be elected under such auspices. Work-
ing zealously for Statehood, and doing as much as any man to secure it, the shining
years of his Delegateship were appropriately crowned with his luminous career as a Sen-
ator of the United States.
Born in the humble walks of life, inured to toil and hardship during all his earlier
years, bravely facing every vicissitude of fortune, and mounting steadily upon the step-
ping-stones of his own merit, among Utah's native sons who have risen to eminence and
made their power felt within and beyond her borders, no name shines brighter in the
political or legal firmament than that of Joseph L. Rawlins, of Salt Lake City. The rural
suburb of Mill Creek was his birthplace, and March 28, 1850, the date of his nativity.
He was the youngest of three children, two of them girls, the issue of the marriage of
Joseph S. and Mary Rawlins; the former a native of Illinois, the latter of Tennessee.
One of his sisters died at the age of thirteen; the other, now a widow, is Mrs. N. J. Kerr,
of Richmond, Utah. When Joseph was two years old his parents settled with several
other families at Draper, then called Willow Creek. There they located and improved
the farm upon which he grew to manhood. Tutored at the village school in winter and
working upon his father's farm in summer, his studious mind grasping and assimilating
all useful knowledge within its reach, the sturdy lad saw the years of his youth roll by,
and at eighteen he piesented himself as a student at the portals of Utah's leading educa-
tional institution, the University of Deseret, which then had its home in the old Council
House, Salt Lake City.
Such was the proficiency of young Rawlins that soon after entering the University,
he was engaged as its instructor in mathematics. Provident and economical, he soon
saved the necessary means to enable him to prosecute still further his studies. In July,
1871, he passed a successful examination and entered the sophomore class in the Univer-
sity of Indiana, at Bloomington. There he completed the classical course, but owing to
failure of funds could not remain for graduation. During the next two years he was pro-
fessor of Greek and Latin at the University of Deseret, and in his spare moments he de-
voted himself to the study of law, in the office of Williams, Young and Sheeks. In 1874
HISTORY OF UTAH. 679
he was admitted to the bar of the Third District Court, and in 1875 to the bar of the Su-
preme Court of the Territory.
He now began the regular practice of the law, and was recognized as possessing
marked aptitude for that profession. Careful and thorough in preparation, logical in
argument, and fervid in oratory, he won with his maiden speech his first case in court, a
speech highly commended by the press and by members of the bar. His first law part-
ner was Mr. Ben Sheeks. In the latter part of 1S78 Mr. Rawlins was admitted to the bar
of the Supreme Court of the United States, and argued his first case before that high tri-
bunal. It was the case of Striugfellow, Jennings el al against the heirs of Joseph Cain,
involving the ownership of the Eagle Emporium corner, now occupied by the Utah Nat-
ional Bank. Mr. Rawlins appeared for the appellant, and the decision was in favor of
his clients.
In 1882 he was a member of the Constitutional Convention — the fourth one in the
history of Utah — which met in April and framed a constitution upon which Congress was
asked to admit the Territory into the Union as a State. This was just after the enact-
ment of the Edmunds law. Mr. Rawlins advocated in committee the insertion of a clause
in the constitution prohibiting polygamy, but as the majority were not prepared to re-
commend such an innovation at that time, the matter did not come before the conven-
tion.
Two years later he entered practical politics by organizing the Young Men's Demo-
cratic Club of Utah, of which he was the President. The impetus to this movement was
the triumph of the national Democracy in the first election of President Grover Cleve-
land, an event celebrated in Utah with the wildest enthusiasm. The object of the organi-
zation was to furnish a rallying point for the young men of the Territory, who, now that
the anti-polygamy crusade was beginning, and cries of "Mormon disfranchisement"
filled the air, would not, it was believed, affiliate with either the anti-Mormon Liberal
party or the pro-Mormon People's party. Under the auspices of the Democratic Club,
at a public meeting held in the Salt Lake Theatre on Jackson day (January S, 1885)
President Rawlins delivered an address that created a profound sensation. Dunne the
year, "Young Democracy" established a paper, the "Salt Lake Democrat," and
put a ticket in the field for the County and District election, but the People's party was
still paramount, and bore down and buried out of sight all opposition. The new move-
ment, not receiving the support it had counted upon, gradually dwindled and died.
Mr. Rawlins still continued his law practice, figuring prominently in many of the
most important cases growing out of the anti-Mormon crusade. During 1885 we find him
in Idaho, arguing before Judge Morgan, in chambers, against the constitutionality of the
test oath legislation by which the disfranchisement of all the Mormons in that Territory
was proposed and finally effected. His bold and successful coup d'etat, adopted and ex-
ecuted by the authorities of Salt Lake City against the land junipers in February, 1888,
is mentioned in the previous volume.
In the fall of that year the bitterness between Mormons and Gentiles, owing to the
operations of the crusade, was such as to preclude all political affiliation between the two
classes. Mormon Democrats who wished to connect themselves with the Democratic
party of Utah-- which after a nominal existence of many years was now beginning to
have an actual being — were peremptorily denied that privilege; the Gentile Democrats
reading them out of the party. Mr. Rawlins, though not a Mormon, felt outraged at this
action, so undemocratic in spirit, and with others took steps to express his emphatic dis-
approval. The result was the organization of the "Democratic Party of the Territory of
Utah," nick-named the "Sage Brush Democracy." Mr. Rawlins took a leading part in
this movement, which nominated for Delegate to Congress Hon. Samuel R. Thurman, of
Utah County. But the Peopie's and the Liberal parties were still too strong to be ma-
terially affected by a third organization, and the "Sage Brush Democracy," like its pre-
decessor, the "Young Democracy," found it impossible to survive.
More successful were the efforts of the indomitable Rawlins and his confreres in the
autumn of 1S90. The "Manifesto," suspending the practice of plural marriage, had then
been issued, and the "crusade" was virtually at an end. At Salt Lake City had been
organized the "Utah Democratic Club," composed chiefly of non-Mormons who had
lately come into the Territory, Colonel H. C. Lett being chairman. The Delegate elec-
tion was approaching, and the People's party and the Liberal party were about to lock
horns in a final struggle. "Mormon disfranchisement" was the key-note of the cam-
paign, and the object in view by the Liberals. Prominent non-Mormons sought to turn
the influence of the Democratic Club to Judge Goodwin, the Liberal candidate, but Mr.
Rawlins, resenting not only the impolicy of such an act, but the flagrant injustice of the
G80 HISTORY OF UTAH.
disfranchisement scheme — especially in view of the changed conditions in Utah — pro-
tested against it with such warmth that a majority of the Club were converted to his
views. The proposition to support ''Goodwin and Disfranchisement" was overwhelm-
ingly defeated. In the spring of 1892 he was one of a committee of Democrats and Re-
publicans who went to the City of Washington to back up the petition of the L'tah legis-
lature for "Home Rule," arguing in support of it before the Senate Committee on Terri-
tories.
In October of the same year, the Democratic and Republican parties of Utah having
been organized, Mr. Rawlins was made the candidate of the Democrats for Delegate to
Congress. His competitors in the race were Frank J. Cannon, Republican, and Clarence
E. Allen, Liberal. The Democratic Convention — one of the largest and most enthusias-
tic political gatherings ever known in Utah — met at Provo, fully three thousand people
being present. Rawlins was nominated by acclamation. A splendid campaign was
fought, terminating in a joint debate between the Democratic and Republican candi-
dates at the Salt Lake Theatre, on the evening of the 7th of November. Next day the
issue was decided at the polls, Mr. Rawlins being elected by a plurality of 2,811.
As Utah's Delegate he took his seat in the House of Representatives, in August,
1893. It was the extra session of the Fifty-third Congress, and the month was devoted
to the discussion of the silver question. His first speech in Congress, which was upon
that subject, was delivered on the 12th of August. It attracted much attention, and was
regarded by those who heard it as one of the best arguments advanced in behalf of the
silver cause.
As soon as practicable Delegate Rawlins drafted and presented a bill for Utah's
admission into the Union. This bill, known as House Resolution 352, was introduced on
the fith of September. 1893. Reported back with an amendment from rhe Committee on
Territories on the 2nd of November, and made the special order for the 8th of Decem-
ber, it was called up on that date, but owing to the filibustering tactics of the Republican
members, who at first opposed the measure, its consideration was postponed four days.
It was then debated two days, and on the 13th of December passed the House, practi-
cally without opposition. Delegate Rawlins spoke to the question on Tuesday, Decem-
ber 12th. In the course of his speech he made his noted reply to Mr. Morse of Massa-
chusetts, who had denounced the people of Utah as murderers, thieves, polygamists, vag-
abonds, etc., and had imputed to Delegate Rawlins a sinister motive in proposing State-
hood for the Territory. Rawlins, after reminding the Representative from Massachus-
etts that conditions had changed in Utah, and that the present generation could not justly
be held responsible for the acts of some of their ancestors, said:
■'Who was responsible for the education of the men who established polygamy in
Utah? I tell you Mr. Chairman, the men who are responsible for it originally were born,
were bred, were educated under the system and civilization of New England. (Applause)
I tell the gentleman now that the moral sentiment which led to its adoption in Utah
* was the outgrowth of that Puritanical sentiment which in some of its excres-
cences in the older days burnt witches, persecuted Quakers, drove out from the commun-
ity Roger Williams, and later produced the gentleman from Massachusetts (Laughter
and applause). * * There is less polygamy, as shown by the records for the last
ten years in Utah, made known and which has come to light, in proportion to population,
than there has been in the same time in the State of Massachusetts. (Great laughter
and applause) When an entire people is arraigned by any gentleman he cer-
tainly ought to be prepared with some evidence to justify what he says. And when a
gentleman rises upon this floor, as the gentleman from Massachusetts did, and makes the
assertion with respect to the people of Utah, that they are murderers, polygamists, thieves,
vagabonds, and is not able to produce one syllable of evidence to justify his statements
he ought to hang his head in shame. He is not worthy to represent a civilized
people (applause)."
The bill for Utah's admission, having passed the House and the Senate, was signed
by President Cleveland on the 16th of July, 1894. It was under this law — known as the
Enabling Act — that the Constitutional Convention met at Salt Lake City and framed the
Constitution upon which Utah, on the -ith of January, 1890, was admitted into the Sist-
erhood of States.
Three days after the introduction of the l'tah Statehood bill Mr. Rawlins introduced
House Resolution 34, providing for the return to the Mormon Church of its personal prop-
erty, valued at four hundred thousand dollars, seized under the operations of the Ed-
munds-Tucker act in 1888-90. This personal property, unlike the real estate of the
Church, had not been confiscated by the Government, there being no warrant in law for
HISTORY OF UTAH. 681
such a proceeding, but had been taken possession of by the Receiver in settling the
affairs of the defunct ecclesiastical corporation. The measure restoring the personal
property to its rightful owner passed the House on the 5th of October, 1893, passed the
Senate on the 20th, and was approved by the President on the 30th of that mouth. Mr.
Rawlins drafted the original resolution, with the amendments in both House and Senate
— amendments to meet objections raised — and engineered its passage from beginning to
end. Five other measures, introduced by him, and passed by the Congress, were H. R.
3135, granting to the University of Utah a site off the public, domain; H. R. 4448, for
relief of persons who had filed declarations of intention to enter desert lands; H. R. 4449,
fixing the limit of indebtedness of Salt Lake City; H. R. 4511, relating to the Uintah and
Uncompaghre Indian reservations; and H. R. 6194, relating to survey and entry of coal
lands.
On the 15th of December, 1894, in the Democratic Convention at Salt Lake City, Mr.
Rawlins was reuomiuated for Delegate by acclamation. This time he was destined to see
defeat. All Utah appreciated bis faithful services in Congress, and his fellow Democrats
stood loyally by him in the campaign and at the polls: but various circumstances con-
spired against him. In the first place the Liberal party had now dissolved, and most of
its members had ranged themselves under the Republican banner. The conversion of
an element hitherto neutral in politics had also strongly re-inforced that organization.
Above all, the "hard times" cry was effectual against the party in power. The result
was a Republican victory, with the election of Frank J. Cannon as Delegate, and a ma-
jority of Republicans in the Constitutional Convention of March, 1895.
Mr. .Rawlins accepted his defeat gracefully. He preferred private to public life,
being much attached to home and family. He had been a married man since December
8, 1876, when he wedded Miss Julia E. Davis, of Salt Lake City; the issue of which
happy union is two sons and three daughters. Moreover, his practice as an attorney —
reluctantly emitted when he accepted his original nomination — was worth three or four
times in money value his position of Delegate in Congress. Repeatedly he had deter-
mined to resign, and refuse other nominations, but had been prevailed upon to alter his
determination by the protests and importunities of his friends. Had the legislature of
1896 (the first after Statehood) been Democratic, Rawlins would have been chosen at
that time a Senator of the United States. As it was, the Republicans, having a majority
in the joint assembly, elected both Senators, namely, Arthur Brown and Frank J. Cannon
— the former for one year, the latter for four years, agreeable to the provisions of the
Federal Constitution. In 1896 Mr. Rawlins was a Delegate to the National Democratic
Convention held in Chicago, where he made a speech seconding the nomination of Rich:
ard P. Bland for the Presidency. He was one of the committee on platform and resolu-
tions, and the author of the tariff plank embodied in that instrument.
In the winter of 1896-7, Mr. Rawlins at the solicitation of numerous friends, became
a candidate for United States Senator, to succeed Arthur Brown, whose term had ex-
pired. The legislature had changed its complexion and was now Democratic. A spirited
contest, in which Moses Thatcher figured as Rawlins' most prominent competitor, ended
in the latter's election on the Fifty-third ballot for a term of six years.
Senator Rawlins took his seat in the upper house of Congress on the 4th of March,
1897. There was an extra spring session, during which the tariff question was consid-
ered; then came the Spanish war, and the recognition of Cuban independence. In the
preliminary and accompanying debates he played a prominent part. When the Philippine
question arose, he was placed on the Senate Committee on the Philippines, and was the
senior Democratic member of that body. A pronounced anti- imperialist, he made vari-
ous speeches along that line while the ratification of the Spanish treat3' was under dis-
cussion, and during the legislation that followed. He was a member of the Senate Com-
mittee on Indian affairs, and of the sub-committee upon whose report an appropriation
was made for the opening of the Uncompaghre Indian reservation. As a member of the
Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds he introduced the bill appropriating half a
million dollars for the erection of a Federal Building at Salt Lake City, and the bill appro-
priating two hundred thousand dollars for the erection of a similar edifice at Ogden; both
of which measures became law. He was also a member of the Committee on Claims, and
in 1898 introduced the bill, which became law, returning the money illegally collected as
a tax on the scrip of Z. C. M. I. and other co-operative institutions. He prepared the
amendment to a pending measure providing for the opening, in October, 1904, of the
Uintah Indian reservation. He helped to frame the Alaskan legislation of 1898, and was
active upon many other questions from the beginning to the end of his Senatorial term.
43
682 HISTORY OF UTAH.
He retired from Congress March 4, 1903, and immediately resumed the practice of
law at Salt Lake City. The latest honor conferred upon him was his election in June,
1904, as a delegate to the National Democratic Convention, which met at St. Louis in
July, and nominated Judge Alton B. Parker of New York for President of the United
States.
FRANK JENNE CANNON.
0) X-SENATOR CANNON is a native son of Utah and was born at Salt Lake City on
fjw* the 2f)th day of January, 1859. Until thirteen years of age his boyhood was passed
^"^ in and around his native place. The writer remembers him when, as lads together,
they attended a little school taught by a German pedagogue in the Fourteenth Ward,
that being the quarter in which Frank's parents, George Q. Cannon and his wife Sarah
Jenne, resided. He was their eldest child. The pedagogue in question was one trained
in all the strictness and rigidity of the Teutonic school. "A man severe he was, and stern
to view," showing little mercy to the truant and idler, but gentle as a woman to any one
he loved, and ready to recoguize merit, and to commend and promote it. Frank J Can-
non was one of the youngest and brightest of his pupils. He was then but six years of
age, yet such were his intelligence and attainments, that he stood abreast of and even
towered above many of his schoolmates, his seniors by several years. Exceedingly sensi-
tive, he would quiver like an aspen if spoken to harshly or subjected to any nervous
strain. Nevertheless, he was courageous, as more than one act of his subsequent life
testifies. His quick apprehension and readiness made him the envy of his fellows, and in
after years, when his marvelous fluency, both as a speaker and a writer, became known,
the admiration of his associates. He was an amiable, good-natured lad, kind-hearted
and generous to all.
Frank had entered that period of his life which the average boy proudly points to as
his "teens," when he went to Ogden, to be employed in the office of the County Recorder,
Franklin S. Richards, his mother's cousin. In his leisure hours he read law with Mr.
Richards, who was a rising attorney, and profited much by that gentleman's studious ex-
ample and systematic discipline. He had intended to practice law, but because of the
strong views expressed by President Brigham Young, in opposition to that pursuit for
Frank, his father indicated his disapproval, and the son reluctantly acquiesced in the deci-
sion. While he did not adopt the legal profession, in which he would have shone with
lustre, his studies along that line laid a good ground work for his future career as a journ-
alist. As deputy recorder of Weber County he served with brief intermissions until he
was eighteen, when he returned to Salt Lake City to complete his education.
While pursuing his studies in the University of Deseret, he worked as a compositor
in the office of the "Juvenile Instructor," having learned the printer's trade during boy-
hood. He thus earned money to pay his tuition at the University, from which he was
graduated at the age of nineteen. Shortly before this event he married, on the 8th of
April, 1878, Miss Martha A. Brown, an Ogden girl, daughter of Hon. Francis A. Brown,
and granddaughter of the heroic Captain William Anderson, who was killed at the battle
of Nauvoo. She became the mother of five children, (the first dying in infancy) and in
her devotion to them and to her husband she has exhibited qualities that prove her in
every way worthy of her ancestry.
Immediately after leaving the University, Mr. Cannon, having resolved upon journ-
alism as a profession, entered the "Deseret News" establishment as a reporter. fie re-
mained there but a short time, however, as better opportunities opened elsewhere. After
working some months as a reporter for the "Ogden Junction," he became connected with
the Junction Publishing Company, under whose auspices the "Logan Leader" was estab-
lished. Of this paper, the predecessor of the present Logan "Journal," Frank J. Cannon
was editor and manager.
In 1880 he exchanged the life of a suburban editor for that of a reporter upon the
"San Francisco Chronicle." Within three months he was a member of the editorial staff
of that spirited and influential journal, and continued in this capacity as long as he re-
mained in California. Returning to Ogden in 1882, he became deputy clerk and recorder
under Lorenzo M. Richards and Charles C. Richards. Two years later he was elected
HISTORY OF UTAH. 683
county recorder. The winter of 1883-4 he spent in the city of Washington, as private
secretary to Hon. John T. Caine, who had succeeded Frank's father as delegate.
In February, 188G, occurred the episode of the assault upon United States Attorney
Dickson, related in the previous volume; an event growing out of the catechization, be-
fore the grand jury, of Mrs. Martha T. Cannon, one of the wives of President Cannon,
who had been arrested for unlawful cohabitation. Although Frank did not strike Mr.
Dickson, he was one of the parties responsible for the act, as he confessed in court,
chivalrously taking upon himself the entire blame. He was fined and imprisoned, and
during the period of his incarceration was engaged in literary work.
In the spriug of 1S87 he became editor of the "Ogdeu Herald," which had succeeded
the ''Junction," and was converted by him from an evening into a morning paper. The
"Herald" was in turn succeeded by the "Standard," established by him in June, 1888.
Meantime he had become further associated with affairs at the national capital. While
there in 1S84, he had formed the acquaintance of many leading men, to whose favor his
father's name was a ready passport, and at the suggestion of his sire, had taken pains
to cultivate editors, statesmen and politicians known to be unfriendly to the majority of
Utah's people. During the year last mentioned he assisted Delegate Caine and Hon. John
W. Young in defeating an anti-Utah measure similar in its provisions to the Edmunds-
Tucker Act. From February to July, 1888, he worked energetically to secure a modifica-
tion of the harsh methods by which the anti-polygamy laws were being enforced. For
this purpose he visited President Cleveland many times, and succeeded in convincing
him. His labors, with others, finally bore fruit in the adoption of a more lenient policy,
as indicated by the appointment of Chief Justice Saudford and other conservative
officials.
In May, 1S90, Mr. Cannon argued before the Senate and House Committees on Ter-
ritories against the Cullom-Struble Bill, by which it was proposed to disfranchise the
great majority of Utah's citizens, simply because they were Mormons. He applied in
person to the Secretary of State, Hon. James G. Blaine, and besought him to use his
powerful influence against the proposed legislation. An argument used by Mr. Cannon
with the Agamemnon of the Republican forces, was that Utah was "not hopelessly Dem-
ocratic." that many of her people were indoctrinated with Republican principles, and that
it wou'.d be suicidal to disfranchise the element that might yet make Utah a Republican
State. "Go home, young man,'' said the plumed knight, sententiously, "and tell your
people that no bill disfranchising any portion of the voters of Utah will pass the present
Congress." Blaine kept his word; the "Manifesto" followed, and nothing more was
heard of the pending disfranchisement of the Mormon people.
In the latter part of 1890, Mr. Cannon, at Ogden, took a prominent part in the
"citizen's movement," whereby the non-partisan ticket, supported by the strongest busi-
ness elements of the town, redeemed it in February, 1891, from Liberal misrule. Chosen
a member of the city council, he served as chairman of the board of public buildings and
grounds. This victory of the non-partisans in the Junction City may be regarded as the
first of the merely political entering wedges that split the old parties asunder and paved
the way for the local division on national party lines. Frank J. Cannon was the first
editor in Utah to advocate a dissolution of the People's and the Liberal parties, and the
establishment here of the national organizations.
The Republican party of Utah, as it now exists, was organized in May, 1891. In
December of the same year, Mr. Cannon, whose political affiliations were that way, went
with others to Washington to secure party recognition from the National Republican
Committee, which met there and selected Minneapolis as the place for holding the next
great convention. The desired recognition having been given, the Utah Republicans met
at Provo and selected 0. J. Salisbury and Frank J. Cannon as delegates to the Minneap-
olis Convention. The Republican wing of the Liberal party (which had not then dis-
banded) also sent two delegates — C. C. Goodwin and C. E. Allen. Both delegations were
seated by the convention.
The fall of 1892 witnessed the nomination of Frank J. Cannon for Delegate to Con-
gress. When asked to allow his name to go before the convention — held in the Salt Lake
Theatre — he replied: "Not if Judge Zane will accept the nomination." He recognized
that the nomination of Judge Zane would do more than anything else to settle the old
controversy, break up the Liberal party, aud establish Republicanism in Utah. Judge
Zane, however, declined, and Frank J. Cannon was nominated. He was defeated at the
polls (Rawlins, the Democrat, being victor that year) but succeeded, in a campaign un-
paralleled for the number of meetings held, in cutting down the Democratic majority.
In November, 1893, he l-etired from the editorship of the "Standard," and helped to
684 HISTORY OF UTAH.
inaugurate the Pioneer Electric Power Plant in Ogden canyon, an enterprise second only
to the electric power plant at Niagara, and containing several more original features. Its
cost was one and a half millions. The projectors were Wilford Woodruff, George Q. Can-
non, Joseph F. Smith, John R. Winder, Fred J. Kiesel, A. B. Patton, and other promin-
ent citizens. C. K. Bannister was the engineer. In the interest of the company Frank
J. Cannon visited the Eastern States and Europe.
At Provo, in the autumn of 1894, he was again nominated by acclamation as the Re-
publican candidate for Delegate, and on the 6th of November was elected, defeating Mr.
Rawlins by a majority of over eighteen hundred votes. The Liberal party was now a
thing of the past, having disbanded in the latter part of 1893. Most of its members were
Republicans by tradition and tendency, and were among those who now carried the party
banner to victory. During the remainder of her Territorial career Mr. Cannon served
Utah as Delegate, and was present at the White House when President Cleveland, on the
4th of January, 1896, signed the bill conferring Statehood upon the Territory. The same
month the retiring Delegate returned to Utah, and at a caucus of Republican legislators
then in session, he was nominated by acclamation as their first choice for United States
Senator. This choice was ratified on the 23rd of January, by the unanimous vote of the
Republican majority in the joint assembly.
Senator Cannon immediately entered upon his duties at the seat of government. In
June of that year (1896) the National Republican Convention met at St. Louis, to nom-
inate their candidate for the Presidency. Among the delegates from Utah were Senator
Frank J. Cannon, Representative Clarence E. Allen, and Hon. Thomas Kearns, all
staunch bi-metallists. Mr. Cannon was a member of the committee on resolutions. Know-
ing that the committee which would frame the platform intended to insert a plank favor-
ing the single gold standard and repudiating bimetallism, many delegates from the West
met in caucus and resolved upon leaving the convention if it ratified the committee's re-
port. The preparation of the document embodying the protest of the bi-metallist delegates,
and the delivery of the "speech of defiance" hurled by them at the convention after the
adoption of the report, were entrusted to Senator Cannon. It was a tense and thrilling
situation, the excitement of the vast throng being wrought to a high pitch. During the
delivery of his impassioned speech, in which he shook the silver gauntlet at the golden
towers, the Senator was repeatedly warned by the chairman in a low voice to desist;
that officer fearing some violent outbreak from the body of the convention, whose mem-
bers, pale with anger and agitation, listened breathlessly, or endeavored to drown with
hisses, the ringing voice of the faithful Abdiel of the bi-metallic cause. The speech at
an end, the champions of silver — Messrs. Teller, Cannon, Kearns, Allen, Dubois and the
rest — retired, walking majestically through the crowded hall, past the tiers on tiers of
benches, filled with frowning faces and swaying forms, towering above their heads like
the cliffs of the Colorado river. It was a rare moment, a dramatic episode, and it
stamped as brave men the principal actors therein.
Senator Cannon supported the Democratic ticket in 1896. In December of that year
the National Silver Republican party was organized for the purpose of maintaining in
line such seceding Republican elements as were not yet ready to enter the Democratic
organization. The national leaders of the Democracy advised this course, hoping to effect
a substantial junction of forces in 1900; and it was by agreement with them that Senator
Cannon refrained from entering the Democratic party after the campaign of 1896. On
the floor of the Senate, in 1897, he spoke against the Dingley Bill, of which speech five
million copies were circulated throughout the United States by the Equitable Tariff Associa-
tion. He took the ground that agriculture was not protected by the bill, and that the
trusts had dominated its schedules. His severance from the Republican party had already
occurred, he having refused to enter any caucus of Republican Senators after the ad-
journment of Congress, in June, 1896. In the fall of 1897 he visited the Orient, spend-
ing some time in China and Japan.
In 1898 he carried the County of Weber for what was known as the Cannon legisla-
tive ticket, against both the Democratic and Republican parties, and at the legislative
session of 1899 he was a candidate for re-election to the United States Senate. During
this session he made a speech in the Salt Lake Theatre on the subject of "Senatorial
Candidates and Pharisees," anwering criticisms against his candidacy. No election of
Senator took place, and his seat remained vacant for two years, when it was filled by the
election of Hon. Thomas Kearns, as a Republican.
In 1900 Mr. Cannon formally entered the Democratic party, acting that year as tem-
porary chairman of the Utah State Convention. Two years later he was made State
Chairman of the Democratic party, and fought a splendid though unsuccessful campaign.
HISTORY OF UTAH. G85
In November, 1903, he joined Major E. A. Littlefield in the establishment at Ogden of
the "Daily Utah State Journal," and became the editor of that live Democratic paper,
which he has made, as he previously made the "Standard," a publication of which any
American city might well be proud. At the State Convention of the Democratic party
in June, 1904, Mr. Cannon was elected a delegate to the St. Louis Convention, serving
as chairman of the Utah delegation, and as one of the committee on platform and reso-
lutions.
Ex-Senator Cannon has long been recognized as one of the finest orators, not only
in Utah, but in all the West. His wealth of vocabulary is only equalled by his wonderful
readiness of thought and voluble eloquence of delivery. A master of repartee, his re-
torts are instant and telling, and he speaks with thrilling and convincing fervor. A sam-
ple of his loftier flights and more thoughtful style is furnished in his memorial address on
the life and character of his fellow Senator, Hon. Joseph H. Earle, of South Carolina, de-
livered in the United States Senate, May, 1897, soon after the death of that distinguished
statesman. Here is the speech in full, as taken from the "Congressional Record."
Mr. Cannon. Mr. President, Joseph H. Earle, the soldier, the Senator, has
answered the last roll call of this world. If the bravery of his career on earth is any
assurance of the composure with which he will confront the judgment seat, we may well
believe that he will stand there serene in the strength which knows no faltering, willing
to receive the appointed decree for all the thoughts and all the words and all the deeds
which marked his little day on earth. It is a splendid hope that the grandest quality of
the human soul — steadfastness — can not be lost in the transition from this life of death to
the deathless life.
"Greater than the affection which prompts us to devote this hour to an expression of
eulogy for the citizen departed, for the friend gone to the other Mansion, for the battle-
nerved arm quieted in the coffin, for the honest voice stilled in the soft night time of the
grave, is the duty upon us to pause in this solemn instant in our country's career and
contemplate the brevity of mundane experience and the speeding toward us all of that
sunset hour when earthly hope and earthly life are enveloped in the shadows. The sense
of death hallows the judgment of men and sanctifies the purpose of nations.
"Let us in this view of our larger duty devote to this memorial service the time which
belongs to the country. Joseph H. Earle and his fellow-Senators met in this official
sphere as birds meet at sea, giving but the signal of a fluttered wing as they drive along
through swirling tempests, and scarcely pausing to turn an eye to watch each other's
flight beyond opposed horizons. I knew this departed one but briefly, and yet admir-
ingly, for he was a soldier-gentleman, so considerate of all the high requirements of social
and official intercourse that every contact with him seemed but to more endear him to his
fellows. I knew him best as the reconciled representative of a reconciled people, as one
who felt that the cause for which he had offered his life was won when it was lost.
"No words from human lips can add to the dignity of that epitaph which his own
career has written; Joseph H. Earle, the orphaned lad, offering his heart's best blood
to the State he loved; Joseph H. Earle, the United States Senator, offering his soul's
best thought to the people of the country which he loved more. That which we can say
must be for the comfort of remaining humanity and not to bless him. It is an instructive
thought that not all the words which earthly pens can trace, nor all the sentiments which
human lips can utter, can add one jot to or take one tittle from the character which was
the formation of his fifty years, as we count earthly time.
"He was a man. And in this one man was folded all the universe, with its dark
abysms of eternal silence, its immeasurable spaces filled with the mysteries of unknowing
and unknown, and with ail its lighted worlds of heavenly harmony, its processional march
of infinite power, and its sublimer mystery of some time knowing all as we are known.
"As the breathing flower, as the wind-stirred leaf, as the upspringing grass blade
contains within its tiny self the problem of progression and its solving, and as it has its
individual and impregnable identity amidst all its fellows, so man, every man, bears
within himself, in the illumination of his soul, the possibility of all knowledge, all virtue,
all law by which the universe is and is governed, all processes by which the worlds are
framed, and, iu its darker chambers, all the possibilities of woe and destruction and infin-
ite gloom; and he has his own individuality, in which, through all the eternity, there can-
not come the unholy intrusion of any other essence.
"This order is not complex; it is of all things most plain — that man of his Creator
born, the chief of all things created, is of the creative power an eternal part. From him,
in earthly life, springs the majesty of nations and the downfall of dynasties.
"If we could know of that hidden thing, the first man, and could lay bare to finite
686 HISTORY OF UTAH.
i
knowledge the wonder of his possibilities, we would see that in him was the germ of al
that was to be — the song of love and the shriek of hate; the whisper of peaee and the
trump of war; the crucifixion and the crucified: the home of hope, where innocence with
inst inct supernatural calls all things good because they are and because they are of God,
and the slaughter pen of infamy, where innocence perishes, doubting of mercy because
it seems to be withheld, and doubting of mercy's God because He does not seem to speak;
the palace and the hovel; the plenty and content which flow from wisdom, and the want
and degredation which come of laws denied; the liberty-crowned domes beneath which
freemen speak for freemen, and the dungeons of the secret tyranny; the fight of savage
men to overcome a savage earth; the triumph of that intellect which, in the evolution of
this life, has grown too large for the limitations of our poor measure of tiiue and space;
the unions and the revolutions; the wandering stars, gathered into one field of blue and
made the flag of a consecrated people, inspired with a holy purpose to redeem the world
for its exaltation as a heavenly home.
"All good, all evil, is his. It is the whisper of his own immortality that asks him on
to deathless deeds; it is the clog of his own earthliness that holds him in the mire of
things that die in their doing. As immortality step by step conquers the earthliness, the
man of the now is rising into realms of greater light, and upon him is dawning the day of
reflected infinite knowledge that peace and order are the law of that universe of which he
holds the essence. To this end he is marching, led on by inspiration, led on by that eternal
impulsion which makes the generations go from good things into better, until — surmount-
ing all — from him, in eternal life, springs the majesty of worlds, peopled and glorious.
"In every evolution which has marked his passage he can see, if he will, the unassail-
able certainty of that eternal time for him. Earthly evolution is but the type of spiritual
evolution. It is the monition of a lesson which we sometimes try to forget, but which
comes to us in the silent watches of the night, in the hour of loneliness at sea, by the
bedside of friends departing, and, more sacredly and certainly than all, in the hope to
meet again the friends already gone.
"This life, as a part of the eternity to which it belongs, is not even as a speck of cos-
mic dust to the infinite space to which it reddens under the crimson sun. There is a
future, as there was a past. As the past is lost to our remembrance lest we lose our ener-
gy by retrospection, so the future is mercifully hidden from us lest we rush from life with
heedless haste or feel a saddened discontent with earth. But that it is, and that it is for-
ever, as it was forever, all the best moments of man bear witness.
"No human soul is satisfied with the hopeless horror of oblivion. To have emerged
from nothingness, to have gasped this earthly air for the fretting instant of a fretted
human life, and then to have entered the domain of nothingness, is to have been of a
humanity damned from birth to death with causeless, useless struggle in a wretched
world of nothingness. The grave is not extinction; it is the door of home; it is God's por-
tal through which we pass from this little light of life to the greater light of better life.
Just so surely as we live to die, just so surely do we only die to live.
"Doubt of eternal life would be a self-inflicted cruelty, if there were room for doubt.
But this is true: It is either oblivion before we were, nothingness now, and oblivion after
we are, or it is life forever. Of these two, every man from whom a dearer than himself
has passed away will, in the holiest chamber of his thought, beneath the stony front
which he presents to all the world, hold fast the hope which is knowledge, that it is life
forever.
"Earthly science has its vast domain, in which it triumphs and subdues; but beyond
the measure of its widening achievements, and beyond the bounded realm of certainty,
abides the unbounded realm of holy faith. Passing all comfort that human lips can of-
fer— balm to the wounded heart, sustenance to the poverty-stricken, justice for the op-
pressed, benediction to the orphaned and the widowed and all who mourn — is the pro-
phetic vision which stands for us through the ages:
1 'Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and
the earth shall cast out the dead.' "
HISTORY OF UTAH. 687
CLARENCE E. ALLEN.
fO this gentleman belongs the distinction of being the first man elected in Utah to
the office of Representative in Congress. He had previously sat in the Territorial
Legislature, as a Liberal, and after the dissolution of the old parties had joined the
ranks of the Republicans. He was a school teacher by profession, and had been
with mining companies in Bingham canyon, prior to his election to the Legislature. The
following is a brief summary of his career.
A native ot Pennsylvania, he was born at Girard, Erie Count}-, September 8, 1852.
His father was a dentist, practicing in that town, but living in the country, where the son
attended the district school until the fall of 1S66, and then spent three terms at Girard
Academy. In 1S68 he entered Grand River Institute, at Austinburg, Ohio, to prepare
for college, and was graduated from that institution in 1872. Meanwhile he taught a district
school one winter, when he was seventeen years of age. During the school year of 1872-
3 he remained at Grand River Institute, teaching as well as studying. In the fall of
1S73, he entered Western Reserve College, at Hudson, (now a department of Western
Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio) as a sophomore. The following year he returned
to Grand River Institute as a teacher, and in the fall of 1875 returned to finish his col-
lege course, graduating with honors in the class of 1S77. He worked his way through
by teaching and sawing wood. In the fall of 1877 he returned to Grand River Institute
as a member of the faculty, and remained there one year, when he was called to Western
Reserve College to become principal of the Preparatory School. He held this position
three years, but the third year taught in the College proper as acting professor of Greek.
On the 28th of November, 1877. Mr. Allen married Corinne M. Tuckerman, daughter
of Professor Jacob Tuckerman, the principal of Grand River Institute. They came to
Utah in August, 1881, the young husband having accepted the position of a teacher in
the Salt Lake Academy. He remained with that institution until 1886, when ill health,
which had caused him to come West, compelled him to resign as preceptor. In order to
get a more active outdoor life, he engaged with the Old Jordan and South Galena Mining
Companies, and was thus occupied when elected from the Bingham-Tooele district to the
Legislature. He was a member of the House of Representatives, in the session of 1888.
Mr. Allen was also in the Legislature of 1890, having been elected the previous fall
from the fifth Salt Lake City precinct, which was then a Representative district. Says
he: "I framed the bills which passed the two houses of the Legislature and became our
school law; one was for cities, the other for the Territory at large. These bills passed
the House as framed; in the Council they were united and minor amendments made and
passed in the form of a substitute, which in turn was amended and passed by the House
and signed by the Governor. To obtain this law I had entered the Legislature."
In 1890, on the 4th of August, Mr. Allen was elected Clerk of Salt Lake County. He
served his full term, and four months over, pursuant to an extension of time authorized
by an act of the Legislature of 1892. He was also appointed by Governor Thomas a
member of the Board of Directors of the Territorial Insane Asylum, and served as such
from April, 1890, to about the same month in 1894.
In the spring of 1892 he was sent to Washington, D. C, to oppose the passage of
the Democratic Home Rule bill and the Republican bill for Utah's admission as a State;
acting in this manner as a representative of the Liberal party, which up to that time had
refused to follow the example of the People's party and dissolve. He was also sent to
the National Republican Convention, held in Minneapolis, the same year; representing
the Republicans who were still members of the Liberal party. He was seated with half
a vote, the opposing delegation — regular Republicans — receiving the same treatment, as
a compromise to help reconcile the two factions. In November of this year Mr. Allen
was admitted to the bar.
In October, 1892, the Liberals nominated him for Congress, to run against Frank J.
Cannon and Joseph L. Rawlins, candidates respectively of the Republican and Demo-
cratic parties. Mr. Allen polled nearly eight thousand votes, the largest vote ever given
688 HISTORY OF UTAH.
any one by the Liberal party at a general election. In this three-corned contest the Dem-
ocratic ticket was victorious.
In 1893, Mr. Allen ran for the Legislature the third time as a Liberal. He was
elected, but after election, the convention which had nominated his ticket re-assembled,
and by resolution declared the Liberal party dissolved, and that those who had been
elected as Liberals should act with their respective parties in the Legislature as Demo-
crats and Republicans. Mr. Allen served as a Republican, and obtained the passage of
a free library bill, which Governor West vetoed. He led a successful fight against the
movement to remove the University to Logan and blend it with the Agricultural College.
He explained that he thought the proposed union would result in the destruction of the
Agricultural College.
In the State Republican Convention of 189-1 Mr. Allen was chosen permanent chair-
man. In 1895 he was nominated and elected to Congress as a Republican. He presented
his credentials January 6, 1896, took the oath of office the following day, and thus be-
came the first Congressional representative of the newly created State of Utah. He was a
staunch silver man. In August, 1893, he had been sent to Washington to fight the pro-
posed repeal of the purchasing clause of the Sherman Silver Act of 1890. His opposi-
tion, though vigorous, was unavailing. In April following his installation as a member
of Congress, he was chosen a delegare to the National Republican Convention at St.
Louis, and with Senators Teller, Dubois, Cannon and others, walked out of the conven-
tion because it adopted a plank favoring the gold standard. He served out his Congres-
sional term, and was succeeded as Representative by Judge William H. King, of Salt
Lake City.
In July, 1896, the Cenntennial-Eureka Mining Company offered Mr. Allen the posi-
tion of general manager of its business. This offer he accepted, and since the beginning
of August, that year, with the exception of three months, when he was completing his
duties as Representative, he has filled the place to the present time. His wife is active
in woman's social and political work. They are the parents of six children and have lost
one by death. Their home is at Salt Lake City.
BRIGHAM HENRY ROBERTS.
T"**ONORABLE B. H. ROBERTS is a personage of more than ordinary interest, not
IS) only from, his official prominence and his powers as an orator and a writer, but also
^> from the many stirring incidents of his eventful career. A man of courage, full of
energy arid vitality, he has risen by sheer force of innate ability, coupled with hard
and honest toil, from the humblest walks of life to positions of honor and eminence. He
is not a native of Utah, though he has lived here since he was nine and a half years
of age. He was born at Warrington, Lancashire, England, an old Roman station at the
head of the tide waters of the Mersey. The date of his birth was March 13, 1857.
His parents were Benjamin and Ann (Everington) Roberts; the father the scion of
an old Sussex family, and the mother a descendant, on the maternal side, of an old Nor-
folk family. Benjamin Roberts belonged to the artisan class, and was a blacksmith at
the Woolwich arsenals, while his father, William Roberts, was an independent ironmon-
ger in comfortable circumstances. The parents of Ann Everington were tillers of the
soil. A woman of strong character, intelligent though untutored, she ever possessed a
love for the beautiful, the noble and refined. She mastered by her own efforts the arts
of reading and writing, and has exhibited at various times in the course of her life those
qualities of courage, independence and determination so conspicuously manifest in the
character of her distinguished son.
Mr. and Mrs. Roberts both became Latter-day Saints, the wife preceding the hus-
band into the Church, which she joined against his will, some time in th3 early "fifties."
In order to be baptized she arose and went to the seaside at three o'clock in the morning,
returning home and to bed before her unwilling spouse had awakened. Afterwards,
finding her wet baptismal clothing, he said to her, "Ann, I believe thee's been dipped."
"Well, what of it?" was her calm reply, and the conversation ended. When the subject
of this sketch, their fourth child and second son, was born, the father wanted him named
HISTORY OF UTAH. 689
Henry, while the mother preferred the name of Brigham, after President Brigham
Young. They finally compromised on both, though Mrs. Roberts virtually had her way,
since she posted off to fast meeting with her infant, and there had him christened Brig-
ham Henry.
The father gradually drifted away from the Church, and a permanent separation took
place between him and his wife a short time before the latter came to Utah, which was
in 1862. Acting under the advice of the presidency of the mission at Liverpool, she
brought with her to the Rocky Mountains her youngest daughter, Annie, and her young-
est son, Thomas, (two years old), leaving behind her eldest daughter, Mary, and her eld-
est living son, Brigham H., whose older brother, Benjamin, had died when he was seven.
Mary was sent to live with a distant relative, while "B. H." was domiciled in a Mormon
family with whom he lived and wandered from place to place during the next four years.
The head of this family, John Gailey* was something of a preacher, though unable
to read and write. His wife would read the Bible to him, and he would commit to mem-
ory the parts he wished to use, also marking them in such a way that he could readily
point them out, if his accuracy were questioned. Listening to these readings, young
Roberts became familiar with many passages of Holy Writ, and this was about the only
schooling he received as long as he remained in England. Gailey would often take the
boy with him to do the singing when he preached at street corners or in other public
places, and thus the lad's induction into the methods of the outdoor ministry came at a
very early day. He remembers Gailey being mobbed on one occasion, and the deliirht
with which he saw his coat-tails vanish around a distant corner — a signal of his escape
from the hands of the ruffians pursuing him — after which he himself shouldered ihe
chair which had served them for a stand, and triumphantly marched off home. Dragged
about by these people, who in the course of their wanderings traversed the pottery dis-
tricts in Staffordshire, also the midland counties, and resided successively in Birmingham,
Manchester and Wolverhampton, the boy saw the extremes of poverty and squalor, and
experienced the sad sensations of utter homelessness.
But better days were coming. In the spring of I860, while at Wolverhampton, he
received a message suminouinfr him to Liverpool, there to join his sister Mary, who was
then nineteen, and come with her to Utah; an opportunity being given by means of the
Perpetual Emigration fund. With a glad heart he obeyed the call, for he was heartily
sick of the life he was leading, and more than anxious to see his sister, and rejoin his
mother and other relatives in Zion. He sailed on the "John Bright" in April, landing
at New York in June, and proceeding thence with the rest of the company — upwards of
seven hundred Latter-day Saints, under Elder C. E. Gillett — to the town of Wyoming,
in Nebraska, where they were outfitted for the passage of the plains. Among his fellow
travelers to Utah were Alfred Lambourne, the artist of to-day, and John H. Gibbs, who
eighteen years later, while B. H. Roberts had charge of the Southern States Mission, was
murdered by a mob in Tennessee. The company, commanded by William H. Chipman,
left che frontier on the 13th of July.
After crossing the Platte, at Eort Laramie, they lost a large number of cattle, stolen
by Indians. The first to discover the redskins, as they were in the act of stampeding
the stock, were young Roberts and another boy, who were bathing at some distance
from camp, in a shallow stream fringed with bushes, near which the cattle and horses
were browsing. The Indian who took the initiative, and whom they plainly saw, though
he did not appear to see them, was ferociously painted with red and yellow ochre, and
frightened the animals by hissing and shaking violently a square piece of dry rawhide,
which rattled ominously. Naked, the two boys sped to camp and gave the alarm. For a
few minutes consternation reigned, women screaming and children crying, while most of
the men started out in pursuit of the stock, which, driven by three mounted Indians,
were now in full flight for the hills. Most of the pursuers were afoot, there being but
three horses left. They had barely started when Captain Chipman, a cool-headed man
of experience, called a halt, and had the men corral the wagons, placing the women and
children inside, and posting guards outside. He then sent three mounted men after the
fast vanishing herd, most of which, tired out, gradually fell behind and were recovered,
though the savages succeeded in running off about one hundred head of cattle. These
they drove into a deep ravine, on the opposite side of which, as the three horsemen ap-
proached the brink, a numerous band of warriors appeared, waving defiance and daring
them to come on. Against such odds it would have been madness to proceed, and so,
abandoning the cattle to their fate, the men returned. Young Roberts was grief-stricken
when he learned that "Old Berrv." the nigh wheel ox of the team he sometimes drove,
and which had "borne him on his back a thousand times," was one of the animals not re-
690 HISTORY OF UTAH.
taken. At South Pass the first snow fell, the boy waking up one morning under a cov-
ering of it — almost the only covering he had — where the night before he had kindled a
fire between two large stones, and curling himself up, had lain down to pleasant dreams.
Mrs. Roberts had sent to the frontier money and clothing for her children, that they
might make their entry into the Valley in a manner to escape notice rather than attract
it by the paucity of their attire. But neither money nor clothing reached them, and they
came to Utah with nothing but the apparel they stood in. By the time they crossed the
Rocky Mountains, "B. H." was "a thing of shreds and patches," insomuch that his sister
took him aside as the train reached the mouth of Emigration Canyon, and begged him
not to show himself, but stay in the wagon until they camped at the place where their
mother would meet them. Having delivered this injunction, she put him in at the front
end of the wagon, — the ordinary "prairie schooner," with front and rear apertures in the
canvas cover, — and he as promptly crawled out at the back, and to her horror was next
seen hatless. unkempt, and with all his rags fluttering in the breeze, heading the proces-
sion through the streets of Salt Lake City. The homeless urchin's first happy experience
in Zion was when accosted by a sweet little girl, neatly and tastefully dressed, with a
basket of peaches and plums on her dimpled arm, she having come out with other resi-
dents of the city, as customary in those good old days, to meet the tired immigrants and
refresh them with the products of the Valley. His next joyful sensation was the meeting
with his mother, who came to their camp in the Tithing Yard, looking for her children,
most of their fellow travelers having already been met and taken away by relatives and
friends. He immediately recognized her, arid ran towards her, feeling intuitively that it
was his mother, though they had not seen each other for nearly five years. The date of
his arrival at Salt Lake City was September 15, 1866.
Mrs. Roberts took her children to her humble home, a little log cabin in East Bount-
iful, Davis County, and it was there that her son spent the remainder of his early boy-
hood. At twelve he went to school one winter and learned to read, and the rest of the
time, when not engaged in mischievous pranks common to boys of his age, worked
around among the farmers, at fifty cents a day, taking his pay in produce and helping
his mother to support the family. At fourteen he went with his step-father to the Ophir
and Jacob City mining districts, and passed the greater part of the three following years,
working prospects on the crest of the hill above the present camp of Mercur.
During one of his visits home his mother advised him to select some occupation and
settle down, and he finally apprenticed himself for three years to James Baird, a Centre-
ville blacksmith, choosing that vocation, not from any natural preference for it, but be-
cause it had been his father's trade in England. He was then seventeen, and by the time
he had served his apprenticeship he was twenty. Part of the agreement was that the
youth should have from one to three months at school each year, and under this arrange-
ment he attended school during the two succeeding winters. In his eighteenth year he
was seized with a passion for reading, and forsaking tiis frivolous companionships, he
plunged into history, biography and other literature. One of his favorite books was the
speeches of Edmund Burke. The histories he read were those of Rome, England and the
United States, and the biographies were of American soldiers, orators and other celebri-
ties. He adopted the plan of studying subjectively, a practice to which he owes not only
his thorough knowledge of the themes and topics that he treats, but his recognized power
and facility for massing facts in an argument.
At nineteen he drifted into religious reading, and joined a theological class, taught
by Nathan Porter, of Centreville, and comprising about twenty young people of both
sexes. It was the teacher's custom to give brief lectures to the class, and finally he asked
the members to do likewise. B. H. Roberts was the first one to volunteer, choosing as
the subject of his address, "The duty of man in his relation to God." It being whisp-
ered around that the "young blacksmith" was going to "preach," and most of the peo-
ple being curious to know how he would acquit himself, the whole village turned out to
hear him. When he arrived upon the scene a jammed house greeted his astonished vis-
ion. At first he thought there must be some mistake; that a public meeting of which
he had not been apprised was in session ; but he was soon fished out of the obscure
corner in which he had seated himself, and was informed that these people were present
to hear him. His teacher, noticing his trepidation, kindly urged him to do his best, and
promised that if he failed to occupy the whole time, he himself would supplement the re-
marks. Thus encouraged, the youth took the stand, but on facing the congregation,
which seemed to concentrate into one great eye, glaring relentlessly upon him, he found
himself paralyzed, unable to move a muscle or utter a word. He stood for some
moments as if petrified, a pitiable object, when suddenly a ringing peal of laughter echoed
HISTORY OF UTAH. 691
through the hall, the source of it unmistakably feminine. As a war-steed at the sound
of a trumpet, the youthful and tongue-tied orator was roused into instant action by this
tantalizing laugh. Defiantly tossing his head, he braced himself, opened Ins mouth, and
spoke with a power and fluency that astonished not only his hearers but himself. He
took three-quarters of an hour, completely presenting his subject, every part of which
seemed burned upon his brain and came rushing through his lips at will. The next Sun-
day he was called upon to speak in meeting, and after that was occasionally asked to oc-
cupy the pulpit at the Ward gatherings. This was the beginning of his ministry.
In September, 1877, he married, his bride being Miss Sarah Louisa Smith, daughter
of President William R. Smith, of Davis Stake. The marriage ceremony was performed
by President John Taylor at Salt Lake City. About this time he began attending the Uni-
versity of Deseret, and in one year (1S77-8) he completed the two years course prescribed
for normal students, graduating at the head of his class, and delivering the commence-
ment day valedictory. ' During a portion of the school year he kept bachelor's hall in a
little log house in the Seventeenth Ward, but frequently would trudge home aud back —
the distance to Centreville was twelve miles — arriving at the University at nine o'clock in
the morning. He had been a member of the Church by baptism — administered by Elder
Seth Dustin at East Bountiful — since 1S07. A few months later he was ordained an
Elder, though only ten or eleven yeai's of age. In 1877, he was ordained a Seventy by
Elder Nathan T. Porter, and became connected with the Nineteenth Quorum.
This was his office in the Priesthood when in 1880 he went upon his first mission. It
was to Sioux City. Iowa, where he had as a companion Elder William M. Palmer. Hav-
ing labored in Iowa and Nebraska for about nine months, he was transferred to the
Southern States Mission, then under the presidency of Elder John Morgan. There he
remained until June. 1882, acting during the last six months as president of the Tennes-
see Conference, comprising the entire State of Tennessee. When he left for home, Pres-
ident Morgan intimated that he would soon be called upon to return. This prediction
was fulfilled, for after teaching in Bountiful during the greater part of the following
winter, he broke up his school in February, 18S3, in order to fulfill another mission to
the South. He now became associate president with Elder Morgan, and under him had
immediate charge of the mission, in which from eighty to one hundred Elders were then
laboring. Twice he made a complete tour of the Southern States, attending conferences
in nine of them, aud superintending at Chattanooga the emigration of the Southern
Saints to Colorado. Early in 1884 he came home for a few months, made a preaching
tour through the Utah settlements, and while it was yet spring returned to the South.
He was next heard of in connection with the terrible Cane Creek massacre, in which
two of his fellow laborers. John H. Gibos and William S. Berry, and two equally dear
friends, Martin S. Condor and J. Riley Hudson, were shot down without provocation by
an infuriated mob, incited to their bloody deed by lying reports, sent out from Salt Lake
City, with a view to creating anti-Mormon sentiment throughout the nation. The date
of the massacre was the 10th of August, 18S4. The hazardous aud heroic part played by
Elder Roberts immediately after the tragedy — his going in disguise, with others, to the
mob-infested region, where the murdered men were buried, recovering the bodies of the
two Elders and sending them to their kindred in Utah, is related in the previous volume.
In the fall of the same year he visited Colorado (to which State he subsequently piloted
a number of the fugitive Cane Creek Saints), and after a pleasant meeting with Presi-
dent Joseph F. Smith, Elders Erastus Snow and John Morgan, came home and attended
the October Conference, after which he returned to the Southern States. Acting under
his direction, the missionaries in that part ceased for some time active ministerial work,
pending the abatement of the agitation caused by the massacre in Tennessee. In the
spring of 1885 he led a company of Saints to Colorado, and then returned to Utah, ar-
riving here soon after the April conference.
At this conference an epistle was read from the First Presidency, John Taylor,
George Q. Cannon and Joseph F. Smith, in exile on account of the anti-polygamy cru-
sade, and at their suggestion a committee was appointed to draft a petition to the Presi-
dent and people of the United States, praying for protection against the harsh and un-
lawful acts of the crusaders. B. H. Roberts was one of this committee, and with two
others, acting as a sub-committee, wrote the "Declaration of Grievances and Protest,"'
which was read and adopted at a mass meeting in the great Tabernacle, where he was
one of the speakers. May 2nd, 1SS5. Early in the summer of 1S8G, Mr. Roberts became
associate editor of the Salt Lake Herald.
The following winter he was charged with violating the Edmunds law. Arrested on
the 2nd of December and taken before U. S. Commissioner McKay, he gave bonds in the
C92 HISTORY OF UTAH.
sum of one thousand dollars. The charge was unlawful cohabitation. As an investiga-
tion would have disclosed a case of polygamy, for which a much heavier penalty was
provided, and owing to the merciless conduct of the crusaders, one of his bondsmen,
Junius P. Wells, suggested the forfeiture of the bond, and upon this suggestion Elder
Roberts acted. It was also desired that he take a mission abroad, pending the subsid-
ence of the excitement. As an example of expeditious action this episode is unique, thus:
He was arrested at six o'clock in the evening, and gave bonds within the hour; at nine
o'clock he was called on a mission to Great Britain ; and at ten he left Salt Lake City on his
way to Liverpool, calling at his home in Centreville en route. A fast team bore him to
Peterson, in Morgan County, where he boarded an east-bound train. Landing at Liver-
pool in the latter part of December, he was warmly welcomed by President Daniel H.
Wells, then at the head of the European Mission. Under him he labored three months
as associate editor of the "Millennial Star," and as his companion visited the various con
ferences in Great Britain. He served in the same capacity for nearly two years under
President Wells' successor, President Teasdale. During this period Elder Roberts tret
the notorious apostate Jarman in discussions at Sheffield Park, Hoyland Common, at
Bermondsey, London, and at Swansea, Wales. At Hoyland he was in great danger from
a mob, which, incited by Jarman and his blood-curdling anti-Mormon fictions, gathered
against him on the common; but he was rescued by the police. He was also mobbed
in London and in Swansea. In the former place sixteen police kept back the excited
crowd, while the Elder took a cab and left the troubled scene. At Swansea another
squad of f uthful officers accompanied him and his friends to their quarters, through the
infuriate rabble. Elder Roberts visited, not only various parts of England and Wales,
but also Ireland and the romantic regions of Scotland. He returned home in October,
188S.
For six mouths he remained "on the underground," writing for the "Contributor," the
Mutual Improvement organ of that period, and other publications; also upon literary
works that afterwards appeared iu book form. His "Life of John Taylor," and "Out-
lines of Ecclesiastical History" were produced at this time; "The Gospel" having been
written while he was in England. The charge of unlawful cohabitation still hung over
him, and on the 1st of May, 1889, he went before Associate Justice Anderson, pleaded
guilty, was fined two hundred dollars, and sentenced to four mouths imprisonment in the
penitentiary. Before surrendering he stipulated that in case he did so. no attempt should
be made to collect the forfeited bond, and Mr. Peters, the prosecuting attorney, con-
sented to this arrangement, being anxious to clear his docket before going out of office.
Elder Roberts spent the summer of 1889 in prison.
He was now one of the General Authorities of the Church, having been set apart as
one of the First Council of Seventy, by Lorenzo Snow the Apostle, in October, 1888, fil-
ling the vacancy left, at the death of President Horace S. Eldredge. The three years fol-
lowing his release from prison were exceedingly busy ones. They witnessed his special
mission to the East, in company with Elder John Morgan, to correct false impressions
concerning affairs in Utah; the raising of the "defense fund," to aid poor men, prose-
cuted under the anti-polygamy laws, to defend their rights and liberties in the courts;
the publishing of his "Outlines;" the writing of a pamphlet entitled "Succession in the
Presidency," a reply to Josephite arguments on that subject; and the issuance of a work
intended to establish the divine mission of Joseph Smith, and entitled "A New Witness
for God." In the spring of 1894, he went with Francis M. Lyman, the Apostle, to open
the Southern California Mission, and in the fall of that year was the authorized represent-
ative of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at the World's Parliament of
Religions. Through the prejudice and bigotry of the reverend gentlemen in charge of
that great gathering, he was denied the privilege of presenting the claims of Mormonism
to the parliament, though he asked no more than was freely accorded to every other re-
presentative, Christian or heathen, upon the floor. He afterwards wrote some stinging
but just criticisms upon the narrow conduct of the parties in question, and they were
published in Chicago and other Eastern papers.
Up to this time B. H. Roberts had played no very prominent part in politics, though
he had always been interested in affairs of government. He had taken an active interest
in the political campaign of 1882, when John T. Caine defeated Phillip T. Van Zile for
the Delegateship, and in 1892, after the local division on national lines, made a speech in
the Democratic Convention at Provo, which attracted much attention. The division in
question had found him thoroughly converted to Democratic principles. In the fall of
1894 he toured the Territory with Hon. Joseph L. Rawlins, the Democratic candidate for
Delegate to Congress, being himself upon the Democratic ticket in Davis County as a
HISTOKY OF UTAH. 693
candidate for the Constitutional Convention. Mr. Rawlins was defeated in his race, but
Mr. Roberts won, and took his seat in March, 1895. He was one of the most prominent
characters in the Convention, which will be remembered for the strong fight made by him
against the woman suffrage plank, which nevertheless was inserted in the State Consti-
tution, of which he was one of the principal framers. The fall of the year found his name
upon the Democratic ticket for Representative in Congress, at the special election held
just prior to the admission of Utah into the Union. His Republican opponent, C. E.
Allen, was elected.
In the ensuing December Mr. Roberts became editor-in-chief of the Salt Lake
Herald, succeeding C. W. Penrose in that position. Having signed, at the April Confer-
ence of 1896, the Declaration of Principles issued by the General Authorities of the
Church, defining the duties of its leading officials who desired to take part in political
campaigns, and concerning which a divergence of view had previously existed between
him and his brethren, he resigned as editor of the Herald, the management of which im-
posed upon him a policy to which he could not conscientiously conform. In July of that
year he went upon a special mission to the large Eastern cities, accompanied by George
D. Pyper, Melvin Ballard and Edwin Midgley, who were his musical assistants. Return-
ing home in April, 1897, he engaged extensively in Mutual Improvement work, being now
an aid to the General Superintendency. In connection with the General Board he pro-
jected the "Improvement Era," the new organ of the Y. M. M. I. A., and with others
toured the northern counties in its interest. The magazine was started without a dollar
of capital, and has thus far achieved a gratifying success. Mr. Roberts remained in
charge of the "Era" — of which President Joseph F. Smith and himself were the editors —
until July, 1899, when, having been elected to Congreis, he retired for the purpose of
entering upon his duties at the seat of Government. His predecessor was Judge William
H. King, who was also destined to be his successor.
It was on the 14th of September, 189S, that Mr. Roberts was nominated the second
time for Representative in Congress by the State Democratic Convention. He was the
choice of a large majority of the delegates, and after a stormy campaign, in spite of the
tremendous opposition brought against him, was triumphantly elected on the 8th of Nov-
ember. Gentiles as well as Mormons voted for him, his heaviest majorities being in
communities almost exclusively non-Mormon, and the general returns gave him a plural-
ity of 5,605 votes. The main opposition to him came from the Salt Lake Tribune, which,
after a season of conservatism, had again become an anti-Mormon paper. Accompanied
by his daughter Adah, he went East in September, 1899, to look after his political inter-
ests and take his seat in the House of Representatives at the opening of Congress in De-
cember.
Meantime a perfect tempest of opposition to the seating of Representative Roberts
had arisen all over the United States, its chief sources being in Utah, where the minis-
ters of the Protestant churches, hostile as ever to Mormonism, joined hands with dis-
gruntled politicians, the Salt Lake "Tribune," the New York "Journal," and other agenc-
ies, in the inauguration of a new anti-Mormon crusade. They focused their efforts upon the
Democratic Congressman-elect, making his alleged "polygamy" and that of other promi-
nent Mormons, falsely charged, like him. with aiming to restore the inhibited institution,
the slogan of their calumnious and abusive campaign. The result is well known. The
National House of Representatives refused to allow Utah's Representative to be sworn
in, and referred his case to a special committee, a majority of which recommended that
he be not seated. On January 25, 1900, the House, in spite of the fact that Mr. Roberts
possessed every qualification prescribed by the Constitution of the United States, and in
spite of his ringing and eloquent protest against the outrage perpetrated upon him and
the sovereign State he represented, voted by a majority of two hundred and sixty-eight
to fifty to exclude him from his seat. It was a victory of prejudice and popular clamor
over principle, exhibiting in a pitiable light the cowardice and bigotry of the mob cowed,
priest-ridden majority in Congress.
While it is true that Mr. Roberts was the husband of three wives, and the father of
eleven children, there was no proof that he had married any wif'e since Statehood, or
since the Manifesto of 1890, discontinuing polygamy. It was manifestly absurd to say
that his election by the Democratic party of Utah — Gentiles as well as Mormons — signi-
fied a determination on the part of the Church to "thrust polygamy down the throat of
Congress," or that Utah, by permitting his election, had "broken her compact with the
nation." This compact was represented by the Enabling Act and the State Constitution,
both of which prohibited polygamy — the marrying of plural wives — but were silent as to
the continuance of plural marriage relations formed prior to Utah's admission into the
694 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Union. The latter, it seems, was the head and front of Mr. Roberts' offending. Yet all
these charges were hurled against him, against the Mormon Church, and against the
State of Utah, during the campaign that ended in his election and the subsequent pro-
ceedings that deprived him of his office.
But men can be useful, and even great, without going to Congress, without holding
any prominent or lucrative position. It is the size of a man's soul, the calibre of his
heart and mind, that makes him great or small. Stilts add nothing to the stature. Denied
the place to which he was lawfully entitled in the legislative halls of the nation, where
he would have towered and shone, he turned his attention to the pursuits of literature,
wielding his potent pen — scarcely second to his magnificent gift of oratory — in the field
of polemics and history. Called 1o the position of an assistant to the Church Historian,
President Anthon H. Lund, he began, early in 1901, under the direction of his chief, a
documentary History of the Church, from the birth of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 'with
whose autobiography it begins. The first and second volumes of this splendid work have
already been issued and widely circulated, and a third volume is in course of preparation.
Among recent polemical controversies in which he has figured is one with the Rev. C. Van
Der Donckt, of the Catholic Church, the substance of which forms the basis of Elder Rob-
ert's latest book, "The Mormon Doctrine of Deity." His voice is still heard from pulpit
and platform, and wherever he speaks crowded audiences attest his continued popularity.
He is withal a generous, high-minded man, warm-hearted, hospitable, and never so happy
as when surrounded by and entertaining his friends.
GEORGE SUTHERLAND.
y TTAH'S Representative in Congress from March 1901, to March 1903, was the Hon.
I@J George Sutherland, of Salt Lake City. He came to the duties of this important
position as well qualified by education and experience as any man yet sent forth by
this commonwealth to plead her cause in the councils of the nation. A lawyer of
repute and distinction for many years, he had been a state senator prior to going to
Washington, and had figured conspicuously in civic affairs almost from his youth. An
intelligent and progressive thinker, of cultured mind, of broad and liberal views, amiable
in spirit, and with polished address, he was in everyway adapted to represent a commun-
ity such as this, and to create the most favorable impression concerning it. That he
made the best use of his opportunities in this direction, serving the people of Utah
faithfully in the office to which their votes had lifted him, his record amply testifies.
Mr. Sutherland is not a native son of the land of the honey-bee, though he emigrated
hither with his parents when he was little more than an infant in arms, and has ever
since made Utah his home. The place of his birth was Buckinghamshire, England; the
date March 25, 1862. He was but two years old when he crossed the Atlantic and came
to the Rocky Mountains. Until ten years of age he lived at Springville, in Utah county,
his father at that time being engaged in mining and trading, taking supplies from Utah
to Virginia City, then the principal mining town in Montana. In 1872 George went with
his parents to Silver City, Tiutic, which was his home during the next six years, with the
exception of two years — 1874 to 1876 — when he was employed in the clothing store of
O'Reilly Brothers, at Salt Lake City.
In 1878 he took up his residence at Provo, within almost a stone's throw of his old
home at Springville. Ambitious,for an education, he looked about for the best available
advantages in that line, and found them in the Brigham Young Academy, then recently
established and as now, the leading institution of higher education south of Utah's cap-
ital. While not connected with the dominant Church, whose leading spirits had found-
ed the Academy, he was on the friendliest terms with his Mormon preceptors and
fellow students, who in turn respected and admired him. Among his classmates were the
men now known as Senator Reed Smoot, ex-Congressman William H. King, the late
Judge Ervin A. Wilson and Representative David H. Morris.
After completing the course at the Brigham Young Academy, Mr. Sutherland studied
law at the University of Michigan, and was admitted to practice in the supreme court of
that State in 1883. Immediately thereafter he returned to Utah and began practicing
A
*>
s
J!^pwz^u(L-^
l^t^__
HISTORY OF UTAH 695
his profession at Provo, where he continued to reside and practice until 1893. He was
married in June, 1883, to Miss Rosamond Lee, a beautiful and accomplished yountr lady,
a native of Utah. They are a happy couple, and have had three children. Mr. Suther-
land, in 1890, ran for mayor of Provo on the Liberal ticket, which, however, lacked the
necessary majority to elect. For a period of four years — 1890 to 1894 — he was president
of the board of the insane 'asylum ; and in 1892, after the division on national party lines,
which he was one of the first among the Liberals to advocate, he was placed in nomina-
tion for Congress in the Republican territorial convention, receiving 205 votes as against
211 for Frank J. Cannon, who was nominated.
Since 1893 Mr. Sutherland has been a resident of Salt Lake City. At that time he
was a member of the law firm of Williams, Van Cott and Sutherland, and later was a
partner with Bennett, Howat, Sutherland and Van Cott. He is now the senior
in the firm of Sutherland, Van Cott and Allison. In 189(5, when Utah entered
the Union, Mr. Sutherland was a member of the first state senate, and served as chair-
man of the senate judiciary committee. In 1900 he was nominated to Congress and elected
on the Republican ticket, succeeding Hon. William H. King, whose second term then
drew to a close. In the House of Representatives he was a member of the irrigation com-
mittee, and helped to frame the irrigation law, so important to the interests of the West.
He took part in the Cuban reciprocity fight, on the side of the opponents of reciprocity.
He declined a reuomination to Congress in 1902, and at the expiration of his term of office
resumed the practice of his profession. His successor was Hon. Joseph Howell. In
1904 Mr. Sutherland went to Chicago as a delegate to the National Republican Conven-
tion.
Mr. Sutherland is essentially a student, but is also a social favorite, his amiable dis-
position, affable manner, upright character and general intelligence giving him the entree
to all circles. A good public speaker, he is noted for his frankness, and for the fearless
expression of his views, but is also known and admired for the liberality of his opinions
and the gentlemanly manner in which he expresses them. He reads much, and is up to
date in his profession and upon all the great questions of the hour.
\
THOMAS KEARNS.
fENATOR THOMAS KEARNS, who has been a resident of Utah since the spring of
1SS3, is a native of Oxford county, Upper Canada, where he was born upon a farm,
April 11, 1862. He was but seven or eight years of age when his parents. Thomas
and Margaret Maher Kearns (both native of Ireland, though they began their mar-
ried life in Canada), removed to the State of Nebraska. There the husband and father
continued his former occupation of farming, to which was added that of stock raising.
His home was in Holt county, in the northern part of the State. Thomas received a com-
mon school education, which, however, ended before he was seventeen, at which time he
left home, attracted by the mining excitement in the Black Hills.
Up to this time he had lived a farm life, though he preferred mining to any other vo-
cation. He did little of it in the Black Hills, however, his first and main occupation
while there being as an employee of a stock association, weighing the different brands of
cattle brought in from the range to be shipped to different points. Afterwards he mined
some, and then returned home, but was soon on his way west once more, and next
turned up in Arizona. At Tombstone he mined and drove team for a season, and early
in the spring of 1883 started for Utah, in company with four other miners, driving a
team across the southern desert. He first sought employment at Tintic, but not obtaining
it readily — though he was promised work in the mines if he would wait for it — he next
went to Springville. where he entered the employ of the Denver and Rio Grande railroad,
which, after completing its line to Salt Lake City, late in March of that year, was pushing
on to its northern terminus at Ogden.
Mr. Kearns' first employment in Utah was on a supply train of this railroad,
running from Springville to Salt Lake City while the extension was in progress. Having
worked long enough to get a "traveling stake," he quit the employment of the road, and
started for Butte, Montana, but at Pocatello turned back and went to Park City, where,
among the rich mines of that section, he was destined to make his fortune.
It was in June, 1883, that he arrived at "the Park." Forthwith he entered the era-
696 HISTORY OF UTAH.
ploy of the Ontario Mining Company, and met for the first time his friend and business
associate, David Keith, who was foreman of Ontario shaft No. 3. Under him Mr. Kearns
worked for some time. While laboring for others he prospected for himself, but not un-
til he quit the Ontario and the Daly (the latter mine being opened up by the former) and
launched forth entirely on his own account, did he strike anything very promising. In
December, 1889, he finally quit those mines and went to work on the Woodside, which
led to the making of his fortune. The Woodside mine was owned by Edward Ferry, who
had leased it to the Wallman Brothers, and from them Mr. Kearns took a contract for
tunnelling. Noticing that the direction of the vein was towards the ground of the May-
flower, an undeveloped property adjoining, he consulted with Mr. Keith, who, represent-
ing both lessors and lessees, had charge of the underground work, and the result was
the leasing of the Mayflower by Mr. Kearns, Mr. Keith, John Judge, A. B. Emery and
W. V. Rice.
Work began on the Mayflower February 1st, 1890, but it was not until April that ore
was struck at a depth of two hundred feet. The Mayflower mine gave to the world one
million, six hudred thousand dollars, and out of this one hundred aud eighty thousand
dollars was expended in litigation with the owners of the Northland, who brought suit
against the Mayflower people, originally for trespass, but eventually for right of title, in
which the question of "apex,' was to determine. The result was a victory for the May-
flower, after one of the longest and hardest fought legal battles in the history of mining
litigation. The mine not only paid the expenses of this protracted and costly controversy,
but paid for itself and four adjoining claims, known as the Silver King group, then owned
by John Farrish and Cornelius McLaughlin (the locators), W. H.Dodge and Martin
MeGraw.
The Silver King ground was bonded by Messrs. Keai'ns and Keith, with their partners,
in October, 1891, and was purchased by them in 1892. In July of that year the SilverKiug
Mining Company was organized, with David Keith as president, Thomas Kearns vice-
president and manager, A. B. Emery secretary, and James Ivers, W. V. Rice and W. H.
Dodge as the other directors. Mr. John Judge, one of the owners, being in very poor
health, requested that he be left off the board, and that Mr. Ivers be placed thereon to
represent the Judge interest, he having previously been a silent partner with that gentle-
man. The Silver King claims were bonded for sixty-five thousand dollars, and forty-six
thousand dollars was spent in sinking and drifting, before the operators struck ore. When
they did strike it, however, they "struck it rich," aud from that time handsome fortunes
for the owners were assured. Within three months the mine paid the bond money and
all its expenses.
Most of wiiat was made in 1892 and 1893 was put back into the mine; other claims
were added, and the work of exploration steadily prosecuted. For every ton of ore
taken out three tons were opened up, and today the Silver King is not only one of the
largest but also one of the best developed mines in the West. It comprises one hundred
and fifty-six claims, or over two thousand acres of patented ground, and is probably the
greatest silver and lead mine in the world. The ore yields from forty to fifty per cent
lead, and from fifty-six to sixty ounces of silver, with a bv product of gold. About seventy
per cent of the entire output of crude ore is shipped to Pueblo, Colorado, to be treated
by the celebrated Guggenheim smelters; the Silver King mill, a spendidly equipped con-
cern, handling the remainder. The dividends, which come with the regularity of clock
work, are one hundred thousand dollars a month.
That much of the past success and present prosperity of the Silver King is due to the
ability and enterprise of Mr. Kearns. who has been its manager from the beginning, is a
simple statement of facts connected with the mine. Not only has he equipped it and
purchased all the holdings connected with it; he has also largely shaped the policy pur-
sued by the directory, which is in perfect harmony with the management. Endowed
with great energy and perseverance, a practical miner and a shrewd man of affairs, he has
used all his ability in the development of this vast mine, which has proved a bonanza to
all connected with it, and to which he points with pride as one of the greatest, if not the
greatest among silver and lead producing properties.
An important change in the life of Mr. Kearns took place just as he was on the eve
of entering, if he had not already entered, upon his success as a prominent mining oper-
ator. It was his marriage, on September 14, 1890, to Miss Jennie Judge, whose uncle,
John Judge, was one of Mr. Kearns' associates in the leasing of the Mayflower and the
subsequent ownership of the Silver King. She was born at Port Henry, Essex county
New York, November 30, 1869, her mother, Jane Pattinson Judge, being American born,
while her father, Patrick Judge, was a native of Ireland, though he had come to this
HISTORY OF UTAH. (397
country when he was but four years of age. He died when Jennie was two years old,
and when she was ten, her mother, who had re-married and was Mrs. William Wilson,
came to Utah, following her husband, who was working in the mines at Park City. Thus
Jennie's childhood was passed at Fort Henry and Park City, at both of which places she
attended school. Among her teachers at the latter place was Miss Mary Ferguson, who
afterwards married David Keith. The youthful Tom Kearns saw little Jennie Judge
grow to womanhood, loved her, and finally told her of his love. Their courtship began in
1SS7. Both good Catholics, the ceremony uniting them as husband and wife was per-
formed by Father Fitzgerald, the priest at Park City. Soon after their marriage, the
young couple visited Mr. Kearns' parents in Nebraska. The old folks were still living
upon their farm in Hoit county. During a subsequent visit, and out of the first money
released from his investments, their son purchased them a comfortable home in the town
of O'Neil, the county seat, where they ended their days. A brother and sister of Mr.
Kearns have since come to Utah.
The future United States Senator was in 1892 a member of the city council of Park
City, and in the fall of 1S94 he was elected to the Constitutional Convention which in
1895 framed the basic law of the present State of Utah. In politics he is a Republican.
He ran for the State Senate in 1895, but was unsuccessful, his Democratic opponent, Mr.
R. C. Chambers, being elected. This result in a Republican stronghold like Park City,
could only have been due to the anti- silver sentiment then pervading the party in the
East. In June, 1896, Mr. Kearns attended as a delegate the National Republican Con-
vention at St. Louis, and was one of the resolute men who walked out of the convention
after it had declared against bi-metallism.
The next important event of his life was his election to the proud positiop of a Sen-
ator of the United States. He was chosen such by the Republican majority of the State
Legislature in January, 1901. He has been very active and influential at Washington,
has traveled much on both hemispheres, and acquired a wide reputation. He has met
and won the friendship of many leading men, and in his European travels has been as
far as Rome, where he had an interview with the Pope, the late Leo XIII, and received
his blessing. He has been a munificent donor to the Catholic church, especially in
Utah, a notable monument to his generosity and that of his wife, being the Kearns St.
Ann's Orphanage, recently erected at Salt Lake City. A brief history of this worthy in-
stitution is here appended.
For almost a decade, St. Ann's Orphanage, which was founded by Bishop Law-
rence Scaulan, of the Catholic church, in 1890-91, had had its quarters in a rather dilap-
idated building at the corner of First South and Third East streets, where it endeavored to
accommodate, regardless of sector creed, about one hundred orphan children, represent-
ing all classes of the community. Among those who took a deep interest in the in-
stitution was Mrs. Jennie Kearns, of Park City, who frequently contributed supplies
for its sustenance. The orphanage, under the direction of the Sisters of the Holy
Cross grew rapidly, and finally the good bishop was obliged to look for a more suit-
able location. In June, 1898, a fifteen acre plot in a field fronting northward on
Twelfth South, between Fourth and Fifth East streets, was offered for sale. Bishop
Scanlan considered it an ideal spot for an orphanage, but hesitated to secure the
option, not knowing where he could obtain the means to pay the purchase price. He
finally accepted the option, depending on Providence, and paid one hundred dollars down.
Soon afterwards, Mr. Kearns, learning of what had taken place, sent word to the bishop
to hold on to the option. Later he called and told him that it was his intention, endorsed
and encouraged bv his wife, not only to pay the purchase price — five thousand dollars —
but to erect a suitable edifice on the ground. True to his promise, in May, 1S99, Mr.
Kearns, accompanied by his wife, visited Bishop Scanlan and informed him that fifty
thousand dollars would he placed to his credit in McCornick's bank for the building of
the new orphanage. The corner stone was laid August 27, 1899, and in due time a sub-
stantial stone and brick structure, capable of accommodating two hundred and fifty in-
mates, was completed and occupied.
Mr. and Mrs. Kearns are the parents of four children, two boys and two girls, all
living but Margaret, their first born, who died in 1893. aged twenty-two months. The
other children are Edmund J., Thomas F. and Helen Marie. Until the fall ot 1899 the
famil3T continued to reside at Park City, usually spending their winters in California.
They afterwards rented the Caine homestead on "B" street, Salt Lake City, but are now
living in their splendid new mansion, a dream of architectural beauty, erected at the cor-
ner of "G" and South Temple streets.
Mr. Kearns' wealth is invested chiefly in mines, real estate and bonds. He is the
44
1598 HISTORY OF UTAH.
sole owner of the Pixton property on Main street, a frontage of eighty-seven feet, for
which he paid ninety thousand dollars. • He owns the Kearns' terraces, at corner of
Sixth South and State, and corner of First and "G" streets. In addition to his holdings
in the Silver King, he is a part owner in the Grand Central, Raymond, Crown Point and
other mines. His interest in the Silver King amounts to nearly one-fifth of its value.
His wealth is constantly increasing, and he is a recognized power in the financial as
well as the political world. His senatorial term expires March 4, 1!)0.">.
REED SMOOT.
TT will not be disputed that the mingling of nationalities by inter-marriage has a ten-
| dency to improve and regenerate. The highest type of white man is the composite
T type, blending in one lineage the best qualities of many. The world-dominating
Anglo-Saxon, with his physical, mental, moral and spiritual excellence, is a result of
race amalgamation — a mixture of Celt, Briton, Saxon, Norman and Dane. The typical
American is the joint product of the most enlightened peoples on earth, and history is
but repeating itself in creating the typical son of Utah, by a union of forces and powers
that are sure to make for the general betterment of mankind.
Senator Reed Smoot is a native of Utah, of all States in the Union the one which
has done most to fulfill the ancient forecast of gathering her sons from far and her
daughters from the ends of the earth. He descends from two great races, both composite
in character, both famous for sterling qualities and the service they have rendered civili-
zation. His father was of the Anglo-Saxon stock which peopled the shores of North
America and founded the mightiest of human governments; while his mother came of a
lineage more ancient still, her ancestors being the adventurous Norsemen, the first
European discoverers of this continent. Abraham Owen Smoot, a power in the found-
ing of Utah, and a social and financial pillar of the commonwealth, was born in the State
of Kentucky, and Anna Kerstina Morrison Smoot came from Brekka, Norway. They
were of heroic mould and mettle, and their distinguished son has inherited man}' of their
noble traits.
Born at Salt Lake City, on the 10th of January, 1802, — about midway of his father's
twelve years of Mayoralty — he was about ten years of age when taken by his parents to
Provo. His father was also Mayor of that city, and simultaneously President of Utah
Stake. Reed has ever since resided there. He supplemented a training received in the
common schools of his native town, with attendance at the Timpanogas branch of the
University of Deseret, an institution succeeded by the Brigham Young Academy, which
his sire helped to found. Reed was one of twenty-nine students with which the Acade-
my, in April 1870, began its first term. Passing through all the higher branches then
taught there, he was at one time the only student in the Academic department, from
which he was graduated iu 1ST!).
From boyhood he determined to be a financier. All his instincts and inclinations
were in that direction, and as soon as he was old enough to form a plan and mark out a
career, that was the end at which he aimed. From both parents he inherited business
tact and executive ability, along with the industrious nature and continuity of purpose
which ai-e the main secrets of every man's success. At school he studied principally
along commercial lines, and at intervals, mainly during vacations, worked in the Prbvo
Woolen Mills, founded by his father the year of Reed's removal to the "Garden City."
He labored iu every department, thereby obtaining a practical insight into manufacture.
Upon entering the mills, this lad of fourteen or fifteen years formed the characteristic
resolve of one day becoming their manager, an ambition subsequently realized.
His first position after leaving school was an humble one in the "Provo Co-op., "the first
institution of its kind established under the impetus of the great co-operative movement
projected by President Brigham Young in 1808. Beginning at the foot of the ladder, he
went to work sacking fruit, sorting potatoes, and doing other odd jobs about the place.
His father, entering the store one day, remarked to the superintendent, R. C. Kirk wood,
"I see you have Reed here, but I guess he won't stay very long." Reed overheard the
remark, ard though it was jokingly made, it caused the youthful sacker of potatoes to
set his teeth doggedly and inwardly determine, "I will stay here until I am superintend-
ent of this institution."
^i <y.
^L^ ^A
HISTORY OF UTAH. 690
Less than eighteen mouths after the prediction was uttered, it was fulfilled. In
September, 1SS0, he became superintendent of the "Provo Coop.," and remained such
until April, 1884. when he was appointed manager of the Woolen Mills, thus realizing
his previous resolve. Between these appointments, two calls came to the mission field,
but both were rescinded by the Church authorities, on the ground that his services were
needed at home. Simultaneously with his second release. he was given by President John
Taylor a five year's mission as manager of the mills. In the interests of this and other
home institutions he visited nearly every State in the Union, and from May to July, 1SS0,
was absent with his father on a trip to the Sandwich Islands.
Reed Smoot's first business venture was the purchase, in December, 1S83, of the
drug department of the Provo Co-operative Institution; X. C. Larsen being his partner.
A year later he bought Mr. Larsen's half interest, and became sole owner of the suc-
cessful concern now conducted under the name of the Smoot Drug Company. Next he
went into the sheep business, at which he made more money than at anything else. He
was also lucky in real estate deals, especially at the time of "the boom" (1888-9) which
favored so few and ruined so many.
It was now desirable that the rising financier should add to his commercial training
the invaluable experience of a missionary. In the fall of 1890 he responded to a Church
call and went to Europe, laboring principally while abroad as bookkeeper and emigration
clerk at the Latter-day Saints" office in Liverpool. He became well acquainted with the
leading officials of the Guion Steamship Line, which for many years handled the bulk of
Mormon emigration from that port, and was a great favorite with Manager George Hams-
den. The head man of the Guion Company, Mr. John A. Marsh, appointed Elder Smoot
his agent as a passage broker, which position, though it brought no salary, was of ad-
vantage 10 the emigrational interests of the Church. At this time a change was made by
which Mormon emigrants were provided with intermediate in lieu of the usual steerage
passage across the Atlantic. Before returning to America, our missionary visited vari-
ous parts of Great Britain, and also toured the continent, passing through Belgium, Hol-
land, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and France. Summoned home by the serious illness
of his father, he reached Provo on the 1st of October, 1891.
For a short time he assisted his sire in the management of the Provo Lumber, Manu-
facturing and Building Company, and in the spring of 1892, he resumed his former posi-
tion as manager of the Woolen Mills. He now launched out in business more extensively
than ever. He was the main promoter of the Provo Commercial and Savings Bank, and
its first president, which position, with the management of the mills, he still holds. He
also engaged in mining, built several business blocks, and became a director in various
concerns. He was one of the original incorporators of the Grand Central mine, and was
elected vice-president of that and the Victoria mining companies. From March, 1894. un-
til Statehood, he served, by appointment of Governor West, as a director of the Terri-
torial Asylum for the Insane. After Utah entered the Union he was appointed by
liovcruor Wells a member of the Semi-Centennial Commission, which conducted so suc-
cessfully the great Pioneer Jubilee.
Two years prior to that event, in April, 188"), he had been made second counselor to
Elder Edward Partridge, who had succeded Heed's father (deceased) as President of
Utah Stake. In that capacity he served until called to the Apostleship, five years later.
He secured, by donation from the people of his Stake, the means that paid the debt
hanging over their unfinished Tabernacle, which was completed through his energetic
labors in a like direction. He also solicited subscriptions for, and was the main factor
in. the ereetion of the new College Hall, an adjunct to his alma mater, the Brigh&R)
Young Academy. Of this now flourishing institution, which has recently been erected
into a university, he is one of the board of trustees and a member of the executive com-
mittee.
Truly can it be said of Reed Smoot that he never sought ecclesiastical preferment.
He worked honestly and faithfully at whatever he had in hand, industry and continuity
being his watchwords, and his talents and labors alone recommended him for ad-
vancement. This accounts for the universal feeling of satisfaction when his name was
presented, and he was unanimously sustained at the General Conference. April 8. 1900,
as one of the Twelve Apostles of the Church.
Up to the spring of 1902 Mr. Smoot, though a staunch Republican, had never put
forth an effort to achieve, even if he cherished, a political ambition; though it is claimed
by some of his friends that long before he became an Apostle he contemplated being a
Senator of the United States. It is also affirmed that he could have been elected such in
1901, had he consented to accept the honor. He anuounced his candidacy in May. 1902,
700 HISTORY OF UTAH.
and in January, 1903, was elected, receiving forty-five of the sixty-three votes compos-
ing the legislative joint assembly. About the first of February he went to Washington,
there being an extra session of Congress, and on the 4th of March was sworn in by
unanimous vote, and was accorded every possible courtesy by Senators, Representatives
and government officials in general. No question was raised as to his eligibility, and
there was no hint of an investigation in his case.
All the trouble and expense that have since been heaped upon him, began with a
protest, signed by eighteen citizens of Utah, and sent to the seat of government soon
after his election. This protest, which was against his being permitted to retain the
Senatorship, took the ground that he was an Apostle of the Mormon Church, an organi-
zation alleged to be hostile in aim and spirit to the government of the United States.
Following this was a similar protest from the Ministerial Association of Utah. One rev-
erend gentleman, Leilech by name, hailing from Salt Lake City, went so far as to accuse
Senator Smoot of being a polygamist, and demanded his expulson on that account.
None of the charges were true, excepting the allegation that Reed Smoot was a Senator of
the United States, and at the same time an Apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints; a position held by Hon. George Q. Cannon during the entire period
of his delegateship.
Mr. Smoot has never had but one wife, namely, Mrs. Alpha M. Eldredge Smoot,
daughter of the late General Horace S. Eldredge. This wife he wedded September 17,
1884, and she is the mother of his six children. Leilech's charge was so manifestly
false, even to the Gentiles, that it fell harmless against the Senator, and proved a boom-
erang upon the head of its author, who was repudiated by a majority of his own church
people, the Methodists of Utah. The other charges, however, continued to be made,
and at the regular session of Congress in December, 1903, petitions and protests in-
numerable, signed by religious organizations and women's associations all over the Union,
began pouring in, demanding the unseating of the Mormon Senator.
In January, 1904, the great and still pending investigation began, at which Senator
Smoot and his immediate interests have been lost sight of in the greater sensation of the
arraignment of theMormonChurch before the SenateCommittee on Privileges and Elections.
The main incident of the investigation, thus far, has been the summoning to Washington of
President Joseph F. Smith, the head of the Church, to testify before the committee regard-
ing the doctrines, aims and spirit of the Latter-day Saints. President Francis M. Lyman,
the senior of the Twelve Apostles, and other leading citizens of Utah, Mormon and Gen-
tile, have likewise been required to testify. At this writing there is a lull in the proceed-
ings of the investigating committee, and some talk of a sub-committee visiting Utah, to
obtain further testimony regarding alleged polygamous practices and Church interference
in politics.
The fight against Senator Smoot has cost him, up to the present, in addition to the
toil and trouble involved in the defense, many thousands of dollars, and is likely to cost
him as much more before the investigation closes. This has all been met out of his
private purse, the government defraying the expense attendant upon the prosecution, in-
cluding the summoning of witnesses. There is a great division of sentiment throughout the
nation, and throughout the civilized world, over these extraordinary proceedings, which have
as their ostensible object the unseating of a United States Senator, but as their real pur-
pose another religio-political assault upon the Church of which he is a member. Senator
Smoot has many friends at Washington and elsewhere; he has been treated with the
utmost courtesy by leading men of the nation, including the members of the investigating
committee, and has received letters of sympathy and encouragement from all parts of
the country. He is not at all dismayed by the tremendous opposition stirred up
against him, and, strong in his sense of innocence, is hopeful of eventual success against
the instigators and promoters of what he and his friends deem a most unwarranted cru-
sade.
In person Mr. Smoot is tall and well proportioned, though his unusual stature makes
him appear slender in frame. He moves with the rapid, energetic stride of the rustling
business man. and business man he is, emphatically. Punctuality itself, always keeping
his appointments, he is a stern critic of men who waste other people's time by failing to
promptly keep theirs. He possesses a fearless candor, but is prudent, respectful, courte-
ous and considerate. His life is strictly moral and his habits abstemious. While not an
orator or a writer, he expresses himself well both by tongue and pen. His genius is
practical and progressive; as a financier and an executive his talents are of the first
order; and as a political general he displays powers that his opponents have every rea-
son to fear.
Historian and History
THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORK.
BY JOHN NICHOLSON.
fISHOP ORSON F. WHITNEY, author of Whitney's History of Utah, was born
at Salt Lake City, Sunday, July 1st, 1855. His father, Horace K. Whitney, was
a pioneer of 1847, and the eldest son of Newel K. Whitney, who died Presiding
Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His mother, Helen
Mar Kimball Whitney, was the eldest daughter of Heber C. Kimball, one of the original
Twelve Apostles of the Church, and at the time of his death a member of the First Presi-
dency. Orson was named for his uncle, Orson K. Whitney, another pioneer, and for his
father's friend, General James Ferguson.
From the first he gave evidence of unusual mental power, particularly in the line of
memory. This is shown by his distinct recollection of incidents connected with his early
childhood, even as far back as "the move," just before Johnston's army passed through
Salt Lake City. The boy was not then three years old. He still retains this precious
gift, which in him is almost phenomenal. It is comparatively easy for him to recall, after
the lapse of many years, details and even the language of anything he has heard or
read that interested him.
Reared in the parental faith, he was educated in the common schools of his native
town and in the University of Deseret. He began with the first reader, and when asked
by his teacher where he had learned his letters, naively replied, "I never did learn 'em
— I always knew 'em;" it being his supposition that nothing could be "learned" out of
school. One of his juvenile feats was to glance hastily at a paragraph in his book, and
then, looking away, repeat the lines, word for word, to the amazement of his fellow
pupils. According to one of his teachers, he always showed power of concentration, re-
maining absorbed in study while his mates were playing, whispering and laughing on
either side of him.
At the age of thirteen his scholastic training was interrupted by his first departure
from hone, when he was employed by his uncle, David P. Kimball, a sub-contractor on
the Union Pacific railroad, in eastern Utah. For two months he carried drinking water
for the graders, and for another month drove team. Of slender build, though healthy
and active, to manage the pair of blind mules entrusted to his care, and fill and empty
the scraper to which they were attached, required all the patience and physical strength
that he could muster. Driving team was not his forte, but the work paid well, and he
liked it for its novelty.
Another suspension of his school career — including baseball and other field sports of
which he was fond — came with his employment as an expressman for Z. C. M. I., and
subsequently as clerk in a music store. The latter position gave him opportunities for
the cultivation of his musical talent. He learned flute and guitar without a teacher; was
a good singer and an expert whistler. By this time also he had become quite an elocu-
tionist. He had been known as the best declaimer in the University.
His final year at that institution was 1S73-4. He was pronounced by his teacher.
Dr. Park, a perfect grammarian, and though in rhetoric self-taught, he had read much,
and in various lines leading up to literature was well advanced. He was the main
founder of the Wasatch Literary Association, of which he was the first president. He
was also connected with the University debating societies. Strange to say, however, in
view of his subsequent course, be took little interest in writing at that time, though a few
crude articles from his pen found their way into print; and no interest at all in oratory,
except to admire it in others. He could not speak five minutes extemporaneously, and
was regarded as anything but fluent or skillful in debate. What was still more surpris-
ing, he hated poetry. — or rather the doggerel verse that sometimes passes for poetry, —
and though spiritually inclined, had little love for religious discipline. With decided
704 HISTORY OF UTAH.
leanings to music and the drama, he was bent upon the stage as a profession, and in every-
thing that tended to qualify him as an actor — voice-training, gesture, fencing, etc., he
took delight and advanced himself by study and practice to a marked degree of effici-
ency.
An amateur "barn-stormer" from childhood, he was seventeen when he made his
debut upon the boards of the Salt Lake Theatre, taking the leading part in a play writ-
ten by one of his youthful associates. So distinct was the hit he made that the manager,
Mr. James Harris, tendered him a permanent place in the Theatre stock company. Out
of regard for his parents, who discouraged his dramatic aspirations, he declined this
templing offer, and for a time held his pet ambition in abeyance. Upon leaving school
he taught music for awhile, and spent one winter as a mercantile clerk in Bingham Can-
yon. He was on the point of leaving for the East, to begin a theatrical career, when
turned from his purpose by a call to the mission held. This was in October, 1876, and
Mr. Whitney was then in his twenty-second year.
During his mission of seventeen months, mostly spent in the States of Pennsylvania
and Ohio, and including a visit to the City of Washington, he had continuous practice in
speaking and writing, and made remarkable progress. He also became zealous in relig-
ion. Indeed his whole life and character underwent a great change. His most note-
worthy productions while away, were a series of descriptive letters to the Salt Lake "Her-
ald," over the nom de plume of "Iago," and several of the pieces now comprised in his
volume of poems. He also corresponded with the "Deseret News" and vigorously defended
his faith in communications to eastern papers. He was encouraged to write by the direct
personal advice of President Brigham Young, who recognized his ability in this direc-
tion and urged him to cultivate his gift for the benefit of his people. The President wrote
to him repeatedly while he was in Ohio, but died before the young missionary returned to
Utah. Among the historic scenes visited by him was Kirtlanct, his father's birthplace,
where his non-Mormon relatives received him with much kindness. In other places he
met the usual opposition. It was his missionary experience that developed him as a
poet. He now loved poetry as much as he had formerly disliked it. He had begun
rhyming at eighteen, but his first published verses were written at Plymouth, Pennsyl-
vania, in December, 1876. He was a self-taught rhymer, as his early pieces showed,
but he read the master poets, and they moulded his style. He returned home in April,
1878.
Immediately he was offered the position of city editor on the Salt Lake "Herald,"
but declined it, as it involved night work and Sabbath labor. Some weeks later he be-
came connected with the "Deseret News," first as clerk and collector, and then as city
editor, succeeding the present writer, who had been called on a mission to Europe. In
July of the same year. Mr. Whitney was made Bishop of the Eighteenth Ward, Salt Lake
City, the successor of Lorenzo D. Young in that office. An Elder since the spring of
1873, and a Seventy since the fall of 1876, he was ordained a High Priest and set apart
to the Bishopric by Daniel H. Wells, Sunday, July 14, 187S. Robert Patrick and Wil-
liam B. Barton were chosen his counselors. Under this administration, which still con-
tinues, the Eighteenth Ward has prospered, until today it is one of the most populous
and most progressive wards in the Church.
In December, 1871), Mr. Whitney married. In February, 1880, he was elected to
the city council — his first civic office. In April of that year he helped to organize the
Home Dramatic Club, of which he was the president, and with which he sustained leading
parts in various plays, mostly at the Salt Lake Theatre. The now famous Maude Adams,
then a child actress, appeared with him and his associates in one of these performances.
Though humorous aud fond of fun, it was in sternly heroic parts that he excelled, and he
was a favorite with the theatre-going public; the realism of his acting being intensified
by a resonant voice and a natural, dignified bearing. His reputation as an orator also
grew. For the proposed opening of Liberty Park, July 4, 1881, he was appointed orator
of the day, but the celebration was abandoned owing to the assassination of President
Garfield.
In the fall of the same year Bishop Whitney went on a mission to Europe. Leaving
home, wife and child, he sailed from New York to Liverpool, landing at that port on the
10th of November. For several months he was a Traveling Elder in London, over which
conference he subsequently presided, and for about a year was associate editor of the
"Millennial Star" at Liverpool, during which time he continued his ministerial labors
and contributed to various papers and magazines. While in England he heard Gladstone
speak in the House of Commons, and witnessed performances by Henry Irving, Sarah
HISTORY OF UTAH. 705
Bernhardt and other famous artists. lie visited various parts of England, Scotland and
Wales, spent a week in Paris, and returned home in July, 1883.
Given his former position on the "News," he remained with that paper for about a
year, when he was tendered the office of city treasurer, made vacant by the death of
Paul A. Schettler. Having served out this appointment, he was placed upon the Peo-
ple's ticket and elected to the same position, whicn he held by successive elections until
1890, when he declined renomination. During about the same period that he was city
treasurer, he was Chancellor of the University of Deseret, elected by the legislature. He
succeeded Hon. George Q. Cannon, and was himself succeeded by Judge Robert Hark-
ness, in that position. Meanwhile, in 18SS, he had his first legislative experience, as chief
clerk of the House of Representatives.
His European mission had further developed him as a speaker and a writer, and his
tongue and pen were now much in demand. He was kept busy, in the intervals of other
engagements, preaching, lecturing, writing and performing other public duties. He was
the first Elder appointed to hold Sabbath services at the Penitentiary during the
anti-polygamy crusade. It was about this time that the town of Whitney, in southern
Idaho, was named after him. He was one of the three framers of the "Declaration of
Grievances and Protest," and the reader of that document at the great Tabernacle mass
meeting in May, 1885. A year later he delivered the address of welcome to Governor
Caleb W. West, on his arrival at Salt Lake City. At the General Conference in Octo-
ber, 1S90, he was called to read President Woodruffs "Manifesto" to the congregation.
The fall of 1SS8 witnessed the publication of the Bishop's first book, "Life of Heber
C. Kimball." The next year his poetic volume appeared. He also prepared about this
time "Later Leaves from the Life of Lorenzo Snow," a biography remaining in manu-
script. He is likewise the author of many poems that have not yet been compiled.
It was in May, 1S90, that Bishop Whitney began his History of Utah. He was the
choice, for this work, of the most prominent men and women in the community, whose
testimonials accompanied the prospectus; and was employed by a publishing company
organized by Dr. John 0. Williams, an experienced book man from the East, who was
the main owner of the enterprise. The Bishop's duties were purely literary; at no time
did he have anything to do with the business management. Dr. Williams and his asso-
ciates, before coming to Utah, had assisted in the canvass for Hall's History of Colorado,
and had also been engaged with Hubert Howe Bancroft, the Pacific States historian.
Mr. Williams was the bearer of high credentials. In Utah certain agents of his. guilty
of irregularities in taking orders, were promptly reprimanded by him and discharged.
So much prejudice arose, however, that he finally felt compelled to retire. In 1891 he
sold the main history business to George Q. Cannon and Sons, publishers, whose purchase
rescued the enterprise from impending disaster. Mr. Whitney continued to be employed
by Cannon and Sons, as he had been employed in the first instance by Dr. Williams, to
write the History. The supplemental canvass for books and portraits was retained by
the original owners, who refused to sell that part of their interest, and for alleged unfair
practices by some of their representatives, the publishers and even the author have been
persistently and wrongfully blamed. After the issuance of the first two volumes, in 189'i-
3, work upon the History was suspended, owing to financial reverses, the author find-
ing employp.ient elsewhere.
He continued to serve the public gratuitously in various ways. At a Unitarian con-
ference held in the Jewish Synagogue at Salt Lake City in 1S92, at which ministers of
various denominations were invited to speak, he represented his Church, by appointment
of the First Presidency. His address was pronounced bv the Rabbi the most impressive
one delivered on the occasion. He was also prominent at peace and charity meetings and
other gatherings of a public character.
In the fall of 1894 Mr. Whitney engaged in his first political campaign. Dp to this
time he had never made a political speech, nor had he united with either of the new or-
ganizations which had superseded the People's and the Liberal parties. His predilec-
tions were for Democracy. Never an office-seeker, and shunning rather than courting
public life, at the solicitation of Democratic leaders, he became a candidate for the Cou-
stii utional Convention, and was elected by the largest majority cast in his precinct. The
pa,rt played by him in the convention— notably in the great woman's suffrage debate —
is well known. He served upon various important committees, and was one of the spe-
cial committee that revised the constitution prior to its transmission to Washington.
In January, 1896, Bishop Whitney accepted a professor's chair in the Brigham
Young College at Logan, and for the next eighteen months was a resident of that town,
and an instructor in Theology and English at the institution named. His speeches in the
706 HISTORY OF UTAH.
Constitutional Convention, advocating: equal suffrage, had been widely published, and up-
on his arrival at Logan he was given an ovation by members of the Utah Woman's Suf-
frage Association. While teaching in the College he lectured in various places, including
the Lo^an Temple. In June, 189G, on Bunker Hill anniversary, he was the guest of
honor at a banquet given by the Sons of the American Revolution, at Salt Lake City;
his speech on "The Genius of Americanism,'' creating a profound impression. He also
addressed the Univeisity Club repeatedly. While yet in Logan, he gave final prepar-
ation to the third volume of hi« History. Resigning" his professorship, he returned in
July, 1897, to his native city, parting regretfully from his fellow professors and the stu-
dents of the College, who highly esteemed him and his efficient service in that institu-
tion. Upon leaving for the north he had been honored with a gold watch presentation
by the people of the Eighteenth Ward, who now gladly welcomed him home, after his
temporary leave of absence.
In the Pioneer Jubilee Bishop Whitney played a prominent part, beginning with the
reading, for President Woodruff, who was too feeble to speak, of the dedicatory prayer
at the unveiling of the pioneer monument. He compiled tor the Jubilee Commission the
"Book of the Pioneers" for the State archives, and contributed to the literature of the
period a poem, "The Lily and the Bee," au allegory of the founding of Utah. His "Ode-
to the Pioneers," adapted from one of his earlier poems, and set to music by Professor
Evan Stephens, was sung with thrilling effect by the Tabernacle choir during the five
days' celebration.
The third volume of Whitney's History of Utah made its appearance in January,
1898. In the fall of that year the author found himself again in politics. He was elected
a State Senator, and sat as such during the sessions of 1899 and 1901. He figured con-
spicuously in both, and during the latter delivered, by request, before the joint assembly,
a memorial address on the life and character of Dr. John R. Park, late Superintendent
of Public Instruction, paying an eloquent tribute to the memory of his old University
teacher. At the close of the session he took a trip to California, his first absence from
the State since his return from Europe, barring three short visits. — to Mexico in 1888. to
the World's Fair in 1S93, and to Idaho and Oregon with the Legislature in 1901. His
trip to Chicago, via Independence, Missouri, was with President Woodruff and party, and
as a guest of the Tabernacle choir, whose spokesman he was at the great exposition in
the presentation of a cane to Director-General Davis. He also spoke for the Utah legis-
lative party in Boise, at a ball given in their honor at the Sanitarium. While in Cali-
fornia he paid a last visit to President George Q. Cannon, who was dying at Monterey.
In May, 1900. the Bishop lost by death his first wife, Mrs. Zina Smoot Whitney,
daughter of the late President A. O. Smoot of Utah Stake. She was the mother of nine
children, eight of whom are living. His present wife, who is the mother of two, and
plays a mother's part to all, is Mrs. May Wells Whitney, daughter of the late General
Daniel H. Wells.
Since the opening of 1899 Bishop Whitney has been connected with the Church His-
torian's Office, and is now a regular assistant to President Anthon H. Lund, the Church
Historian. For several years he has presided over the State Historical Society. Under
contract with the compiling department of the Scientific American, New York City, he
recently prepared the article on Utah for the Encyclopedia Americana. Some of his most
notable lectures are "What is Education," "Oratory, Poesy and Prophecy," "Born
Again," "Dispersion and Gathering of Israel," "A Talk on Napoleon" and 'The Poet
Tennyson." His impressive memorial address on President McKinley, and his anniver-
sary addresses on the Prophet Joseph Smith and President Brigham Young are well re-
membered, as are his able baccalaurate sermons and commencement orations in the Uni-
versity of Utah. Agricultural College, Brigham Young Academy and Latter day Saints'
University. His Tabernacle and Chapel discourses are too numerous to mention.
The Bishop's latest literary work, aside from the completion of his History, i:i his
masterly epic poem "Elias," begun in the summer of 1900, and now being published by
the Knickerbocker Press of New York City. Au elegant autograph edition de luxe, lim-
ited to one hundred and fifty copies, has been subscribed for by leading citizens, Mor-
mons and nou Mormons, iu and out of Utah, and other less costly editions will follow.
The manuscript of the poem was read to select gatherings in Salt Lake, Logan and Provo,
and everywhere evoked enthusiastic praise. To show tneir appreciation of the author's
spleudid achievement, a committee of prominent citizens, namely, Governor Heber M.
Wells, President Anthon H. Lund, Ex-Congressman Ueorge Sutherland, Mr. H. L. A.
Culmer and Major Richard W. Young, voluntarily took charge of the publication.
It will be seen that Bishop Whitney, in the course of his life, has passed through a
HISTORY OF UTAH 707
great variety of experiences, and in most of them has shown adaptability and skill. While
far from impractical, as his clear views of life and duty and his ability to counsel indi-
cate, he probably would not have flourished as merchant, fanner or financier. Never-
theless, he is ingenious and resourceful, and invariably rises to the occasion. His ability
in those lines requiring the exercise of broad intelligence and forceful characteristics is
strikingly pronounced, and his versatility is equal to his ability. As an exponent of the
drama he excelled. As a journalist he showed much capaci'y. yet his preference was
always for the more thoughtful lines of literature. He has demonstrated excellent fitness
for public office, and the same can be said of his ministrations as a church official. He
is in the front rank of Utah's orators, and in the exercise of the forensic gift is clear,
forcible, dignified and convincing, to a degree reached by few. His funeral sermons are
noted for their earnest eloquence and power to console. In literature he shines conspicu-
ously, but all his previous efforts are eclipsed by his latest production, "Elias, an Epic of
the Ages." It is lofty, massive, grand, exhibiting fertility of thought, expansive re-
search and wonderful constructive ability. The great theme that it embodies — Eternal
Truth — has probably never before been treated so comprehensively in a poetic way.
Along with his devotion to literature, he retains his early affection for music and
the drama, and makes it a point to see and hear the most gifted artists, as also the best
preachers and lecturers. He reads only the choicest books, his favorite authors, outside
the prophets and the poets, being Emerson and Carlyle. He composes much in the open
air, seeking solitude for that purpose; and toils early and late, if necessary, in order to
finish or forward any work begun. He is persistent and likes to complete whatever he
undertakes.
In disposition the Bishop is generally serious, and would be melancholly but for a
natural mirthfulness, coupled with strong spiritual qualities, which have held in check
and enabled him to conquer the tendency to despond. Genial and unruffled as a rule,
if imposed upon, he knows it, and the offender also is apt to find it out. At the same
time he is patient, peaceable, and would rather suffer wrong than do wrong. He leans
to lenity, is conscientious, magnanimous, and loves to be just, even to an enemy. It
is not difficult for him to return good for evil, and he readily sympathises with the
weak and unfortunate. While fond of comfort, he cares nothing for wealth, and is of
that class who lay all upon the altar for a conviction.
Addenda.
WILLIAM AND ELIZA JEX.
.,~*HIS worthy pair, the prolific though now aged parents of a numerous flock of chil-
lj< J dren, grandchildren, and greatgrandchildren, about one hundred in all, stand at
|| the head of one of the leading families of Spanish Fork, in which town they have
resided since the time of "the move." when the inhabitants of most of the north-
ern Utah settlements fled southward at the coming of Johnston's army. Prior to that
period they had lived for several years in Salt Lake City. They were originally from
England, where as young people they joined the Latter-day Church, at the usual sacrifice
of home and friends, and were married on ship-board. February "22. 1854, soon after
embarking for America.
William Jex came from Crostwick, in Norfolk, where he was born September .">.
1831. The son of William and Ann (Ward) Jex, he was one of four children, three of
whom died in England. William was but seven years old at the time of his father's
death, which event deprived him of all but two months' schooling and forced him into
service at the tender age of twelve. He worked for a wealthy farmer named Howlett,
and received a shilling a week, boarding and clothing himself: but his wages were gradu-
ally increased until he was paid eight pounds a year, which was considered good wages.
He was about twenty-two when he heard the Gospel preached by the Elders, and being
converted to the "Mormon" faith, was baptized March 3, 1853.
His future wife, Eliza Goodson, daughter of John and Sarah Traxon, had also be-
come a Latter-day Saint, and was on the same ship, the sailing vessel "Windemere,"
when on January 31, 1S54, he went aboard, bound for New Orleans. For three weeks
they lay in harbor, awa:ting favorable conditions for sailing, and it was during this delay
that the young couple were married, Daniel Kearns performing the ceremony that made
them one. A rough passage of nine weeks and four days brought them to the mouth of
the Mississippi river, from which point they proceeded as soon as possible to the outfit-
ting post on the frontier, whence they traveled to Utah in Dr. Richardson's ox team
train, reaching Salt Lake City on the 30th of September.
A farmer from childhood, Mr. Jex found his vocation and the experience it had
given him. just so much ready capital with which to begin life anew in the half desolate
region which was then his home. While farming in a small way, like most of his fellow
settlers, he turned his hand to any kind of honest toil that offered remuneration. He
labored on the foundation of the Salt Lake Temple and upon the wall enclosing the tem-
ple square. In the fall of 1855 he was among those assigned to take Church cattle to
Cache Valley, where the sole evidence of civilization in that now populous and thriving
section, was one little lonely log cabin. During the grasshopper raids of early years he
and his family were driven to the necessity of subsisting for weeks at a time on roots and
thistles, dug from land now in the neighborhood of the Rio Grande Western railroad depot.
In the fall and winter of 1857 he was in Echo canyon as a militiaman, helping to
construct earthworks to repel the invader; his family meantime dwelling in a little
adobe hut. almost destitute of food and clothing. Returning from this military expe-
dition, he followed the example of the citizens in general, and having prepared his
small home for burning, if necessary, joined in the move south, proceeding to Spanish
Fork, where he settled permanent^'.
Mr. Jex spent many years in the canyons, running saw mills, and having charge of
canyon road work. He was active in defending the settlements from the encroachments
of the red men, and was at the battle of Diamond creek, where he and fourteen other
volunteers fought the Indians and recovered a large number of stolen cattle. In this
fight a man named Edmonds was killed and scalped, and Albert Dimock mortally
wounded. Mr. Jex went with Bishop A. K. Thurber, George Bean and two Indian chiefs,
to Rabbit Valley in 1877, to make peace with the savages and explore the country with a
view to the formation of settlements.
His civic record comprises six years as city councilman and several years as school
ADDENDA.
trustee. A devout Latter-day Saint, he is now senior President of thel Fiftieth Quorum
of Seventy. His wife served for many years as President of the Ward Relief Society.
In 1880 he organized the Jex Lumber Company, which was incorporated in 1901, and of
which he is still president and manager. The annual business of this concern is about
fifty thousand dollars.
Father Jex practiced the patriarchal order of marriage, marrying as a second wife
Jemima Cox, by whom he had four children, all dying young. The mother is also dead.
By his first wife, Eliza Goodson Jex, he is the father of eleven children, four sons and
seven daughters, all exemplary and respected members of the community. The family
group, with its connections, includes four Bishops, sixteen ward officers, four stake offi-
cers, the postmaster and the mayor of Spanish Fork. During his seventy-three years
of mortal life, the venerable head of the house, a man of unquestioned integrity, sus-
tained and aided by the loyal devotion of the loving wife of his youth, has done his ut-
most, at all times and olaces, for the development of the country, the rearing of a righte-
ous posterity, and the carving out of a useful and honorable career. That success has
crowned his efforts and those of his faithful companion, is abundantly manifest. They
have prospered both spiritually and temporally; their sons and daughters rise up and
bless them; and wherever known they are sincerely and deservedly esteemed.
NOTES.
Jex. — In explanation of the placing here of the biography of William Jex. whose
steel plate portrait will be found on page 525 of this volume, it is but necessary to say
that the materials for the sketch did not reach the historian in time for its insertion else-
where. The reader will probably notice other portraits, scattered through the four vol-
umes, for which there are no corresponding biographies. The reason for their non-
appearance is that the persons interested have failed to supply the necessary data, though
urgently and in most cases repeatedly requested to do so, in order that the work might
be completed to the satisfaction of all concerned.
The First Indian Fight. — In volume one, page 423, it is stated that the first fight
between the Utah settlers and the Indians took place at Battle creek in the autumn of
1849. It should be March, 1849. See biography of Dimick Baker Huntington.
Tanner, Not Godbe. — On page 667 of the same volume the name of William S.
Godbe is given as traveling companion of Colonel Thomas L. Kane, from California to
Utah, in 1858. It was Joseph Smith Tanner who accompanied Colonel Kane on that
memorable journey. See his biography.
West, Not Hakes. — In the encounter with Indians, mentioned on page 193, volume
two, it was William M. West, not Collins R. Hakes, who received a gun-shot wound in
the shoulder.
Maw. — The list of illustrations, volume four, contains the name of H. W. Maw. It
should be Keziah W. Maw. A fine portrait of the lady will be found on page 277.
Driver. — In the biography of William Driver that gentleman is referred to as an ex-
Mayor of Ogden. Mr. Driver was not Mayor, but President of the Council, in the
Junction city; this in 1902-3.
Goodwin. — A similar mistake has crept into the biography of Judge C. C. Goodwin,
whose son, Mr. Tod Goodwin, is erroneously styled the step-son of his sire.
KIOA
A3NXIHJ&
HVXH dO
AHOISIH
3 1197 00370 9588
Date Due
All library items are subject lo recall at any time.
AUG 3 0 2006
AUG 30 7
ETT*
JUW 35 1W
nrri o?nn
in
MAY 1 3 ''nig
NOV 1 A 7H0P
Brigham Young University
Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Books to Borrow
Open Library
TV News
Understanding 9/11