Category Archives: Histories

Samuel Edwin McClellan

Leave a reply

Samuel Edwin McClellan

1867-1957

Samuel Edwin McClellan was born July 23, 1867, in Payson, Utah and was ten years old when his father, William C. McClellan, accepted a call to settle Sunset, Arizona.

He was old enough to remember his school days in Payson and his teacher, Annie Ride, who was again his teacher in Colonia Juarez, Mexico, as the wife of Dennison E. Harris.  Other memories of life in relatively prosperous and fast growing Payson lingered.  He remembered with pride the reputation his father earned as a builder and as town councilman; how hard it was for William C. to sell out, because the Payson people wanted the man to stay more than they wanted to buy his property; that when he did sell, four wagons were required to carry his household goods and merchandise with six yoke of oxen, and a team to hitch to a light wagon to transport the family.  Ed remembered riding a horse and driving the loose stock until he got a saddle boil after which he walked and drove them until the boil healed.  From September 24 to November 20, 1877, he had the excitement of seeing a new country, then, the anxieties of poor feed for animals most of the time, frequent dry camps because the water holes were far apart, straying animals to look for and delays until they were found, and always rough, jolting roads.

It was still new country when Sunset was reached, where a new life awaited them.  Five years in the United Order taught all the participants many things.  The McClellans ate at the “Big Table” and were absorbed into the communal family plan that kept food supplied and prepared. Ed, along with other boys, hoed the corn, cane, and turnips, peeled peaches in the cannery, did chores about the sawmill and between times went to school.  He learned to be self-reliant, trustworthy, capable, and cooperative, sometimes the hard way.  His formal schooling was scattered from Payson to Sunset, to Pleasanton, to Colonia Juarez, a few snatches in the winter months between demands of work about the home or in the fields.  This ended in his early teens, but he didn’t stop learning.  With an alert mind and a love of reading, he gained wisdom and knowledge to compensate for the lack of formal school work.  Later, when his father again became a building contractor in Colonia Juarez and pressed his son into service, Ed found his life’s work.  He liked to make things, and the hum of the saw was music to his ears as it ripped through lumber.  He was intrigued by the possibilities of the carpenter’s steel square and he took pride in making his work strong and true and expressive of the builder he longed to be. He soon learned, however, that there was more to building than measuring lengths of lumber or squaring timbers and he sought to learn more of the art of planning and blueprinting as the initial step in building.  He found his help in a correspondence course to which he zealously subscribed and studied.  By the time he had mastered the rudiments of his craft, there were amply opportunities in the furniture factory.  It was while working here that he lost a finger to one of the power machines.

His first major engineering and construction job was given him by Anthony W. Ivins, the new Stake President.  This was a wagon bridge across the Piedras Verdes River.  Before the days of steel and cement girders such a project was a real challenge.  Ed drew up plans for the bridge as he imagined it should be and set to work.  Stones for the piers were cut and sized at the quarry and hauled in ready to use.  While excavating for the solid foundation, unexpected difficulties arose.  Underground water filled the holes as fast as the men could throw out the sand and gravel.  An extra force of men set to bail the water and a “Chinese Pump” were to no avail.   The excavation remained a well of water and flouted continuous attempts to lay the foundation stones.  Discouraged and exhausted, the men quit.

In desperation, Ed searched his correspondence course for possible help.  There he read how lumber and been used successfully in masonry construction.  Although nothing was said of using lumber for underwater construction, he decided to try it.  He remembered that embedded planks in a wooden turbine he had recently dug up at the powerhouse were in a perfect state of preservation after years of lying in the damp soil of the riverbed.  He devised a heavy plank platform on the water.  On this, the layer of stone was added.  This procedure continued until the stone-covered platform settled squarely in the bottom of the hole.  On this foundation, the pillar could be built up to the desired height.  During the 75 years of constant use, these pillars have stood firm against heavy flood water hurled against them each year.  They still stand firm as a mute tribute to a young, imaginative builder.  When a new bridge to match the new highway was built, these same pillars designed by Samuel Edwin McClellan were used.

Growing prestige as a master builder established Ed as an authority on building problems.  This along with genuine integrity made him good teaching material.    Superintendent and principal Guy C. Wilson was quick to see this and made a position for Ed in the school system.  In 1902, an appropriation was made to create a manual training department for the Juarez Academy designed to give both boys and girls a foundation in manual training.  Ed was given charge of the department.  His first shop-laboratory was the little brick building on the Bailey lot adjacent to the old Academy building and later, a .umber structure on the grounds of the present site of the Academy.

For ten years before the Exodus of 1912 and form many years afterward, Ed passed his craftsmanship on to young people. In addition to a good foundation in woodwork, mechanical drawing and use of the steel square, Ed dispensed lessons from his life on the frontier which had made him resourceful, honest, and forthright.  Students learned that it was professionally sound to be dependable and important to do good, honest, work.

On the heels of this first major assignment, President Ivins gave Ed a second job, acceptance of which was a turning point in his life.  The job was to construct a new Academy building.  Ed considered it a staggering responsibility.  He wrote to teachers of his correspondence courses for blueprint help.  They, sensing the dimensions of the job and regarding Ed as a mere student, offered to take it off his hands and do the job for a price.  President Ivins, before accepting such an offer, requested Ed to draw up the plans for both the first and second stories for consideration of the Board of Education.  Since Ed knew the needs better than anyone else, President Ivins was confident that he would building best what they needed.  For long hours, Ed poured over plans which gradually took shape.  When a pencil sketch was made to his satisfaction, he presented it to Superintendent Wilson and the Board of Education.  The plan was complete with specifications for number and size of classrooms, for stairways, windows, doors and scale drawing of the building.

The plan was accepted and cornerstone laid in January, 1904, and the building completed for school opening time in 1905.  Ed kept on teaching his classes but supervised every detail of construction, not only directing the workmen but in off duty hours doing a large share himself.  Not a detail was neglected, not a school need was overlooked and the end result was a building with large, ample space and well lighted classrooms, a study hall, a library, a principal’s private office, as well as appropriate entrance halls, laboratories, a stage for dramatic productions, an assembly hall, and a building for multiple services.  The assembly hall was especially impressive with a stage at one end.  Equipped with scenery and stage properties, it was suitable for presenting plays, operas, and similar performances.  With chairs and tables in place, the Church Authorities could preside over conferences, the faculty over assembly programs.  Under the stage could be stored the extra benches needed when a dance was to take place.

The building answered the social and educational needs of the community for more than a half-century.  It enjoyed a charmed life during the Revolutionary years, left completely unharmed in any way, and still stands a monument to its builder.

The third major building job for Ed was the El Paso, Texas, Mormon chapel.  Church architects prepared the plans after Ed and Bishop Arwell L. Pierce had inspected many chapels in the Southwest, studying their plans and costs.  But Ed was given a free hand in using his own judgment to improve the building.  Construction occurred at a time when materials were subject to many restrictions.  Ed gave one-third of his wages as a contribution to the chapel building fund.  With the loyal and resourceful support of Bishop Pierce and his Ward in maintaining high standards, notwithstanding great scarcity and panic through the calamity of a bank closing, the building was completed.  When completed it drew the admiration and praise of the church building committee and local builders.  Ed’s picture was afterwards placedin the finished chapel and he was given credit publicly. 

In 1891, at the age of 25, Samuel Edwin McClellan married Bertha Lewis who had come to Mexico to visit her sister, Mrs. Peter McBride.  Mrs. McBride, incidentally, was one of the first LDS women to cross the border when the colonies were first settled.  Over the 64 years of their married life, Bertha stood by his side as a true helpmate and bore him 12 children. Her third baby was still young when she assumed responsibility for the family so that he husband could go on a mission to the United States.  By her own thrifty hands and sale of eggs, butter, and fruit, she maintained her family and her missionary husband.

Ed’s activities in church, civic and social affairs fo the town are still another story.  He served as an officer in Priesthood Quorums and Church auxiliaries, as a teacher, as Bishop’s Counselor, and as a member of the High Council.  His sound judgment and discernment in times of crisis as well as tranquility were highly valued.

Ed’s early continued practice of reading prepared him to share his storehouse of information and to have unusual insight concerning international events, including American involvement abroad.  His own love of freedom made him especially sympathetic to the struggles of people in countries not so free as his own.

Later in life when confined to his bed, Ed expressed his sentiments:

Lying in bed my mind goes round the world, picturing country after country, the people in them and conditions under which they live.  It lingers longest in those satellite countries where the poor people can’t call their souls their own and I think how blest I am to be in a comfortable bed in my own home, with all I need within reach of my hand, surrounded by loved ones and friends who are free to come and go as they wish.  How thankful I am in that freedom for me and my loved ones has been won by patriots who knew its worth.

Ed sang in the first town choir, played in the first band, was a member of the first dramatic association, and played on the first baseball nine.  In choir, Ed’s bass voice was a pleasing support. When amateur operas or dramatic productions were presented, he was usually cast in one of the principal roles.  Old-timers would remember best his interpretation of King Ahasuerus in the opera Queen Esther, and his sympathetic portrayal of “Uncle Tom.”  In both, he justified the choice of the director.

In the band he played the baritone horn.  His was significant part in every band concert, every band-wagon serenade, welcomes to visiting governors, farewells to missionaries, and when the band just played at the band stand in the town park.  Music was in his soul as craftsmanship was in his hand.  Yet, when a call to a Church mission came, he sold his horn and his tools for money to take him to his field of labor.  He trusted to Providence that they would be replaced when he returned.

His deep interest in baseball was in reverse proportion to his smallness in stature.  He became an excellent catcher and long after he served well on the town team he retained a lively interest in the game.  This love for baseball kept him pouring over results of the World Series as reported in newspapers and radio.  He studied the strategy of big league managers and recorded in his memory the names and capabilities of the players occupying the headlines in the news, keeping track of wins and losses of all.  Seated in his armchair before the radio while the World Series was in progress with the newspaper on his knee, he kept up to the minute with the game’s progress.  “This year was the greatest puzzle of them all,” he said chuckling.  “Seven games that looked like any one of them could end the series, where non one scored until the 10th inning, and where the Yanks beat the Dodgers 8-0.”  This excitement as he approached his 90th year.

Dancing was a favorite pastime with Ed.  During his young manhood, he danced nothing but the quadrille and kindred folk dances.  The waltz and other forms of “arm around the waist” dancing were barred by ruling of the Church.  Ed still danced the quadrille wholeheartedly and became a foremost “pigeon wing cutter” as well as expert dance caller.  He prepared the calls one by one and then added a spice and variety to the dance by his frequent introduction of new formations.

In his last years, years of physical infirmity, he remarked, “I think of everyone who has ever lived in this town, remember my work with many of them, feel sorry for those who were unfortunate and feel glad for those who attained success.”

He died of cancer, July 27, 1957 and was buried in the west cemetery of Colonia Juarez.  Twelve children, eight girls, and four boys, survived him.  They and the still standing structures of his superior workmanship are monuments to his active and productive life.  He fills a unique and respected niche in the history of Colonia Juarez and may rightfully be regarded as one of the colonizers who was responsible for promoting high quality performances in every field of human endeavor.

Nelle Spilsbury Hatch

Stalwarts South of the Border, page 432

 

 

 

 

John Edward McNeil

3 Replies

John Edward McNeil

1848-1915

John Edward McNeil was born December 18, 1848, in Douglas, Isle of Man, England.  He was the son of John Corlette and Margaret Cavendish.  They were married October 10, 1847.  They belonged to the Church of England.  They also attended other religious groups, especially the Methodists, but none of these seemed to satisfy their spiritual hunger.  Finally John investigated the Latter-day Saint Church.  He was thrilled and satisfied at last.  He took Margaret to hear their teachings.  After some time she too felt it was right but hesitated to be baptized.  About this time, Margaret, who was always frail and often unable to do her work, became ill and had to be taken to her mother’s home.  It was feared she would not recover.  One day the Mormon Elders came and gave her a special blessing.  The pain left and she was restored to health.  To her, this was a testimony of the truth of the Latter-day Saint Church.  She was baptized April 4, 1851.  A month later, May 6, John was baptized and on the ninth of May he was confirmed.  He was ordained a Priest June 8, 1851.

This Latter-day Saint family living in the Isle of Man now had a strong desire to come to America.  They wanted to make their home with the Saints in Utah. IN January of 1852 John Corlette, his wife Margaret and son John Edward with two brothers, Richard and William, boarded a ship for Liverpool, England.  They later set sail for America, landing in New Orleans.   They were transferred to another boat, sailing up the Mississippi River to St. Louis, Missouri.  The family arrived there in May 1852 and soon set up shop.  Here, on June 27, 1854, Margaret passed away, a victim of the dread disease cholera.  John Corlette later met and married Mary Jane Quinn in September of 1854.  Little John Edward had a mother again, a very kind and good one.

The McNeil family now bent every effort to prepare to move across the great western plains to Utah.  They were unable to get everything ready for the trip with the immigrant train and this was a great disappointment, but they were not afraid to go alone.  Finally the day arrived.  With a wagon, two yoke of oxen, two heifers and a horse, John Corlette and his family started the journey.  In addition to John Edward McNeil, there were three other sons:  Thomas, William and Richard.  The distance was 1,700 miles across uncharted desert land.  There would be wild beasts, Indians, cold and heat, scarcity of food and drink, and many other problems, but there were happy to be on their way.  After traveling a few days, they came to a fork in the road.  Not knowing which road to take, they prayed to be guided.  Their choice was unanimous and right.  Once they saw in the distance what seemed to be a large band of Indians approaching.  The father said, “Do not be afraid, we must feed them; but pray as you have never prayed before.”  They then took soda crackers from their supplies and passed then to each Indian.  It took two dishpans full to go around.  The chief took some of his braves aside and they whispered together.    The McNeils were so relieved when he returned and gave orders for all to ride on.  I’ve always wondered if it wasn’t thirst, after eating the salty crackers that helped make the decision. 

Tired and weary after four months of traveling, they arrived and camped near Fort Douglas, Utah, August 1, 1859.  After a few days they moved to Woods Crossing where they lived in a log cabin belonging to Daniel Woods.  The boys and their father helped Mr. Woods harvest his crops that autumn.  Later the family moved to Bountiful where John Corlette started a small store.  In addition to this they had a shoe business.  They manufactured and repaired shoes.  He also bought land and built a home, for three more sons had come to bless their family.

Between the time of his arrival in Utah in August 1859 and March 1874 when John Edward was married, we have no written record.  But we do know that he had some formal education in medicine.  His father, John Corlette, decided he should have this after his son filled their home and barn with sick or injured birds and animals.  They both loved medicine.

The father became known as “Doctor McNeil” and his son as “Doctor John.”  They worked together helping the sick and needy.  It has been said that no man was ever turned away from the McNeil home and had plenty to do the year around.  We know what his father did so we can be assured that John Edward McNeil helped.  Their skills were so much the same.  They loved helping the sick, carpentering, raising cattle and farming.

They were industrious people.  They kept beautiful flowers growing in the yard.  They did truck gardening and had a find orchard and vineyard.  They sold produce in Salt Lake City.  They hauled logs of the First Ward Chapel in Bountiful, in addition to giving time to hauling material for the Salt Lake Temple, which was at that time under construction.

Of course there was always livestock to care for—cows, horses, pigs and chickens.  John Edward McNeil studied medical books and learned much about music and musical instruments.  He could play drums, various kinds of horns, the violin (or fiddle, as it was called), also the harmonica.  In later life he trained and led Ward choirs.

In 1871, a widow, Lavinia Duffield Snyder, with her two daughters, Margaret Conrad, age 32, and Maria Todd, age 16, came to Salt Lake City by way of train.  Lavinia heard Joseph Smith speak while on a tour through Pennsylvania and she was very interested.  Evidently her husband, George Snyder, was not.  However he was much older than she.  He died and left her a very young widow.  Lavinia left her home and farm in Philadelphia to her son, and wet west.  Lavinia was the daughter of Jesse Duffield and Mary Knowles.  She was born February 17, 1816 in Philadelphia.  Her parents and grandparents were wealthy landowners and business people.  She and her children therefore knew nothing about pioneering or western life.  Although they missed the easy life in the East, they were happy in Salt Lake City, and after becoming acquainted with the Mormon Church and its people they were baptized.

At age 25 John Edward McNeil married Margaret Conrad on March 16, 1874.  She was born October 5, 1850 and was 23 years old.  Margaret had a very good education for those early days, but she was a delicate girl.  Because a doctor advised John Edward to take her south to a warmer climate, they decided to move to Arizona.   Seven years passed, however, before they were able to go.  In the summer of 1881 they were ready for the move so they sent word to his father they were coming.  John Corlette, already living in Arizona, went to Kanab, Utah to accompany them to Show Low.  Winters in this locale proved too sever for one with delicate health.  Consequently, Margaret was told by an Apache doctor that she had consumption and dropsy.  Many of the Saints were currently moving to Mexico because of polygamy.  John Edward McNeil decided to join them, for it would be a warmer climate there.

John Edward and Margaret traveled in a company with others.  According to a record of Joseph Samuel Cardon, they left in early February, 1885.   My mother was told me of many experiences she had on the trip.  At night she and Joseph Cardon’s oldest daughter, Minnie, could see each other around their family campfire, but during all that trip these little nine-year-old girls could never get together to visit or play.  They were both the oldest ones in their families and there was always so much for the children to do. 

In March, according to this same record, they arrived on the Casas Grandes River, near the Mexican town of La Ascension.  They remained in camp a few weeks while making arrangements to pass the custom house. Then the camp was divided by Apostle George Teasdale.  Some stayed to build up Colonia Diaz, but the McNeils went on to the open country near Casas Grandes.  The Latter-day Saint Church had, in the meantime, bought large parcels or tracts of land from the Mexican Government.  The place to which John Edward McNeil’s family went was later named Colonia Juarez.  This was in honor of Benito Juarez, a great Mexican General and President.  Located on the Piedras Verdes River, the climate was mild and the valley wide.  One problem was scarcity of water, but with the Sierra Madre Mountains near, surely dams could be built to hold the water back for irrigation in the growing season.  Their hopes were high.  Streets were laid out, trees planted and a meeting house built.  It was a crude building with split logs for benches, but it was a good start.

The homes were dugouts along the high banks of the river.  Poles were set in front and across these three branches were laid, making shade for each one.  This would all be replaced someday with nice brick homes, gardens and orchards.  The settlers however began to hear rumors that they were on the wrong land.  After some investigation, this was proven true.  The land, after being surveyed, belonged to the San Diego Grant.  They had to move.  Their ground was about two miles on up the river in a long narrow canyon.  This was a shock to all, of course, but there was not time to lose and so they moved.  This disappointment proved a blessing they could not know at the time.  The soil in the new location was just right for fruit growing.  Warm days and cool breezes from the canyon at night helped to give fruit a good flavor.

These were some of the early experiences of the McNeils in Colonia Juarez.  When they arrived, there were four children. The McNeils had lost one daughter, Lizzie Duffield, born October 11, 1878 in Bountiful, Utah.  Margaret’s health did not improve greatly but they were happy in their new home in Mexico and were quite comfortable.

On March 29, 1886, Melissa Snyder was born.  Margaret seemed to be improving, and was able to sit up.  However, after helping her family sing a song, she slumped over and was gone.  This sad event occurred on April 8, 1886, 10 days after the birth.  Their grieving father wrote her mother in Philadelphia, telling all the family there the sad news.  This letter was preserved and later returned to the family.  In it he said he wished he could have gone with her, but he was glad to be able to stay and care for the children.  In those days it was almost impossible to raise a child without breast feeding it.  Melissa was given good care but she lived only a month.  She died May 1, 1886.  John Edward had now lost a wife and two children. He and the Relief Society sisters together cared for the motherless ones.

It was at this time that Rhoda Ann McClellan, about 14 years old, and her mother Alameda went to the McNeil home to see if there was anything they might do to help the family in their time of bereavement.  As they walked, the ground seemed to be moving under their feet.  They stopped and looked about them.  It was an earthquake.  They hurried on, anxious to visit and return home.  At the McNeils everything was in confusion, with broken dishes on the floor and precious window glass shattered to bits.  Otherwise the family was well and bearing its grief bravely.  The tremors continued in to the late afternoon and evening.  From the hills nearby, rocks, large and small, came rolling down.  Trees burned along the forest line, lighting up the surrounding country as if for some special celebration.  Many homes were cracked and some laid to the ground.  In general, there was concern and excitement everywhere.

After Mother Nature quieted down, the people of little Colonia Juarez were overjoyed.  There was a larger stream in the river, fissures the length of the Piedras Verdes had opened up.  Now there was more water.  This was a special blessing they had received.

On December 24, 1886, John Edward McNeil married Mary Emeline Johnson. This lovely girl was the daughter of Sixtus Ellis and Mary Stratton Johnson and was born November 15, 1870, in Virgin City, Utah.  They were neighbors in Colonia Juarez.  To this union five children were born.  Mary Emeline was a devoted mother and stepmother to the first family of children.  Two years after marrying Mary Emeline, John also married her younger sister, Luella Jane Johnson.  To this union nine children were born. 

From Colonia Juarez, John moved his two families to Colonia Chuhuichupa, also in the State of Chihuahua.  Here Mary Emeline died, August 11, 1896, when her son Eloy was four weeks old.  She left five children behind.  These her sister Luella Jane (Aunt Ella as she was lovingly called) took to her heart and home, to raise as her own.  She had four children but lost John Franklin soon after. 

About 1900 the family left Chuhuichupa.  It was such a lovely little mountain town, but cold in the winter and spring.  Snow would sometimes pile up three feet deep.  They moved to Colonia Oaxaca in the State of Sonora.  There it was a milder climate and the family all enjoyed good health.  Here they lied about ten years until, in 1905, a flood came down the river, washing out most of the homes.

On February 16, 1907, the McNeil family moved to Colonia Morelos, Sonora, where they were very happy, living in a brick home purchased from Bishop Orson P. Brown.  Ed and Joseph had to leave school to help support the family.  They found work at the El Tigre mines about 50 miles away.  They weren’t able to come home often as horses provided the only mode of travel.  The family owned a sheep ranch and also a cattle ranch in the mountains.

The Exodus in July 1912 forced all the Mormons to leave the colonies.  The McNeil family moved to Douglas, Arizona, the closest American town to the border.  As was true of all others at the time, they could take only a few clothes and a minimum of bedding.  Everything else was left behind.  At the time the weather was warm.  It was in October, 1912 and all got along fine, although I’m sure living in tents in the winter was not comfortable.  Douglas at this time was very small and the water supply was not sanitary.  In the fall of 1913 there was a typhoid epidemic and give of the McNeil children became ill with the disease.  The health authorities visited the family and tried to have all take to the hospital but John Edward McNeil wanted to keep them home.  He finally let them take three children, but two of these died.  They were Charles Leland, age ten, who died November 6, 1913 and Sixtus Earl, age 16, who passed away November 16, 1923. 

John Edward McNeil and his family were also among the pioneers of Pomerene, Arizona.  While living at Pomerene their grown son, Harlem Leon, was killed in the mines at Bisbee, Arizona, on November 16, 1923. 

Always a carpenter and able to do cabinet work, John Edward McNeil enjoyed building nice homes, churches and places of business.  He served as justice of the peace for a time while living in northern Arizona.  Before leaving Douglas, he was asked by our government to serve as a scout in helping to hunt Pancho Villa.  He directed the search several months in Sonora and nearby states.

John Edward McNeil was a sincere, humble man but also had a sense of humor.  With Ed McClellan he helped extend many short programs with spontaneous wit.  This he especially enjoyed in the early days of Colonia Juarez.  His funny streaked helped him over many rough spots.  Fortunately, several of his grandchildren today have been blessed with the same gift.

Early in 1915 he became so ill that Luella Jane, with two younger daughters, Edna and Ina took him back to Bountiful for special treatments in Salt Lake City.  Here he passed away among his cousins and relatives on September 4, 1915 and was laid to rest in the Bountiful cemetery.

Mary Johnson Cardon, granddaughter

Nelle Spilsbury Hatch

Stalwarts South of the Border, page 455

Adelbert Augustine Taylor

2 Replies

Adelbert Augustine Taylor

1883-1938

Adelbert Augustine Taylor was born April 9, 1883, in Springerville, Arizona.  In the spring of 1881, Adelbert’s father, Earnest Leander Taylor and his mother, mary Magdalene, with two young sons, Guy, nine, and Alonzo, three years of age, moved to Springerville from Santaquin, Utah.

Earnest Leander (or E.L. as he was called) had married a plural wife, Hannah Skousen, in April 1884, and soon thereafter, because of increasing prosecution of polygamists in the Mormon Church, E.L., with his new bride, during the 125 emigrants in the expedition to Mexico to establish colonies to escape the harassment they were undergoing.

After establishing residence in Mexico, E.L. returned to Arizona and moved his wife Mary and her five children to Colonia Juarez, Chihuahua. There Adelbert, the fourth of 12 children born to E.L. and Mary, grew up.

His younger sister, Flora, recounted some of the details of Adelbert’s early life in Colonia Juarez. He recalled that he was a terrible tease, and somewhat of the show-off, a regular Don Juan. He dressed nicely and always had a way with the ladies. Adelbert or Delbert, as he was called through his life, detested his middle name, Augustine, and when Flora divulged it to his girlfriend, Lucille Robinson, whom he later married, she received quite a “licking.”

Adelbert Augustine Taylor attended the elementary or grade school, finished the eighth grade enrolled in the Juarez Stake Academy. He attended intermittently during his late teens years, as he helped his father and older brothers, Guy and Alonzo, in their cattle business. They bought cattle for ranches in northern Mexico, and ship them to the Omaha in Kansas City stockyards. 1902, Delbert, his father and brother going, together with his uncle Pete Skousen and his two sons, went to Raymond, Alberta, Canada, where they purchased to large wheat farms. For two years, the crops were good and they made a lot of money. There in a severe drought came and a hailstorm ruined a good crop of wheat just before it was ready to harvest. Delbert’s sister, Lydia, and her husband, George Redd, went to Canada and worked on the forms for a while, then disposed of all their holdings in Canada and move back to Mexico.

Adelbert Augustine Taylor graduated from the Juarez Stake Academy in 1906. He was a good student, popular, and played the trombone in the Academy band. Soon after his graduation he was called on a mission to Germany. On his return his sweetheart, Lucille Robinson from Colonia Dublan, met him in Salt Lake City and they were married in the Salt Lake Temple on February 10, 1910.

Delbert and Lucille made their home in Colonia Dublan where he principal of the elementary school. His sister, Flora, moved down from Colonia Juarez, lived in their home, and taught the second grade in the Dublan school for a year.

As the business interests of Delbert’s father began driving and expanding, Delbert was taken in as a junior partner, and soon their enterprises included a tannery where hides were processed and fine grades of leather products such a saddles, harnesses, shoes, etc. were manufactured. Delbert’s mission experiences enhanced his ability to relate well with people. He found markets for the company’s products and made deals for needed capital to make carload purchases of cattle hides.

After the Exodus of the Mormon colonists, the Taylor Brothers Company expanded its enterprises, and invested in mining and oil stocks in the states of Guanajuato, Veracruz, and Coahuila. Delbert spent a great deal of time in Mexico City promoting the sale of mining stock which yielded a 25% profit. He was a good salesman and made several trips to California and other parts of the United States and Mexico. However, some of the mining stock proved to be of little value.

In 1920, Delbert and his brother, A.L. dissolved their partnership with their brother Harvey, who retained the flour mills and farms near Colonia Dublan. After liquidating other properties in Chihuahua in El Paso, A. L. and Delbert bought property in the state of Nayarit unless there was a small mine which produced gold and silver ore.

A.L.’s son, Leander, went to the ranch and helped construct the mill for grinding ore. After several years, A.L. And Delbert divided their properties and a nephew, Gene Taylor, joined them working on Delbert’s ranch at San Felipe there is a small village on the ranch supplied sufficient labor to cultivating harvest the many types of crops grown in that area, such as corn, Chile, coffee, beans, mangoes, papayas and other tropical fruits.

In December 1938, A.L. was ambushed, shot and killed by several Mexicans as he was returning from Delbert’s ranch. Delbert’s health deteriorated as he was suffering from a liver ailment. The situation on the ranch became rather volatile. Leander and Gene returned to Sonora and Arizona, where Gene was reunited with his family. Shortly after A.L.’s death, Delbert died on the ranch at San Felipe they and was buried there.

Delbert’s wife, Lucille Taylor, is still alive in 1985 at 96 years of age and living in Colonia Dublan. She and her husband were parents of five children: Arnold, who died in his youth, John Bennion, Ruth, Vilda and Adelbert.

Stalwarts South of the Border, Nelle Spilsbury Hatch page 657

George Conrad Naegle

Leave a reply

George Conrad Naegle

1860-1935

George Conrad Naegle was the son of John Conrad Naegle, of sturdy German ancestry.  His father was born in Albersweiler, Pfalz, Bavaria, September 14, 1825.

The Naegles had lived in this beautiful little village, nestled among foothills on a tributary of the Rhine River since about 1653 when Leonard Negelin, a direct ancestor, was among the first to have settled there with his family after the town was swept clean by a civil war. The Naegles played their part in the history of the town after that time.  Legend affirms that in feudal days there was a castle on every strategic hilltop occupied by lords of the manor or the monks who ruled with them.  Today those same hillsides are terraced to the top since wine making is the foundation of this town’s economic and commercial life and every available foot of ground must be planted to grape vines. George Conrad’s mother, Rosanna Zimmerman (number three of John Conrad’s wives), was born May 1, 1841 in Franklin County Pennsylvania, of the first generation of German immigrants of this line to come to America.

George Conrad Naegle was born October 1, 1860 in Lehi, Utah. He spent his early years there with a garden and orchard to be looked after and animals to be cared for. No doubt he was often at Warren Spring Ranch (now Saratoga) where his father had most of his cattle and horses. As a large family of which she was a member was very strict and religious observance, he had strict training in the principles of the Gospel, but little, if any, formal education. Father, busy with projects for developing the fast-growing empire of Utah, apparently did not since the need for it. One wonders why Grandfather Zimmerman, educated in the universities in Germany in German, French, Latin and English, himself a teacher of renown in the early days, did not leave his cobbler’s bench in all classes for the young of Lehi.

John Conrad’s was a strictly patriarchal home and George Conrad, the oldest son, was his right hand lieutenant.  He made all decisions for all the family, did all the planning, controlled all activities.

Shortly after 1875, George’s parents moved to Beaver, Utah. Their father Naegle found faster for his growing herds of cattle and bands of horses, and an excellent garden spots produce food for the rapidly increasing family. At the stay at Beaver was short-lived. Friends were securing rangeland in the Buckskin Mountains and John Conrad was able to secure land in this region, so he moved Rosanna and family to Toquerville and his stock to Kaibab Forest near the Grand Canyon of the Colorado.

George Conrad was baptized by his father at Lehi, ordained a Deacon in the early 1870’s in Toquerville, made in Elder in 1880, and became a Ward teacher an officer in the first YMMIA organized there. He married Sara Higbee, daughter of pioneer John S. Higbee of Toquerville in the St. George Temple, 18 February, 1880. This he responsibility made him definitely aware of his lack of education. George determined to correct an embarrassing situation. John Conrad readily agreed and purchased a home in Provo where his children might attend Brigham Young Academy. George, now highly motivated, but the preparatory studies in record time and, at the close of the term in 1882, left with credits in bookkeeping, German and other courses, some taken under Karl G. Maeser.

In a cave for he was called to fill a mission in Germany, and on 7 April was ordained a 70 by Francis M. Lyman. He first labored in Switzerland and later in the part of Germany where his father’s people had lived for generations, Albersweiler and Liensweiler. He searched genealogical records together information on the Naegle family line. Later work done by a bonded archivist at Speyer Staatarchiv verify George Conrad’s work for accuracy to the last detail. Scraps of letters to his father at this date have interest:

“In November, 1885, I was called on a special mission to Turkey to aid Elder Jacob Spari and opening a mission in Constantinople. We started for the Orient but in Genoa, Italy, were interrupted by a letter which called us back owing to cholera, which at that time was raging Greece.”

From a later letter:

We distributed two tracts and “Articles of Faith,”     conversely them all [his relatives in Albersweiler]     from the principles of the Gospel, but it remains for   the future to see if any will embrace it. I borne       testimony to many and hope the seed sown will find     some good ground and bring forth fruit. I have five     companions, noble and praiseworthy young men viz:     Elder F. M. Lyman, Jr. of Provo and Elder A. W. Musser of Salt Lake City. The former is president of the   South German Conference in the latter and myself his co-laborers; but we do not enjoy each other’s company very much as we are… in the Missionary field, I desire to be an instrument in His hands and bringing souls to salvation. We have some pretty warm times, especially in the Kingdom of Bavaria from where Elders Smoot and Jennings were banished last June. I was sent there last July from Switzerland and spent two months with the police at my heels, was summoned before the chief of police twice and each time threatened with banishment, but I got over the border into Wurttemberg and escaped being banished. That was in September last and in October Elder F. M. Lyman, Jr. was banished from the kingdom…

After his return the summer of 1886, George Conrad moved his family to Kanab, Kane County, Utah, where he was ordained a High Priest by Thomas Chamberlain and set apart to act as first counselor to Bishop Lawrence C. Mariger. Other positions held by him in Kanab were President of the Ward and Stake YMMIA, Home Missionary, and Clerk of the Stake Board of Education.

In about 1890, having married his second wife, he decided to join his father in a move to Mexico where he had already purchase a tract of land in the Sierra Madre Mountains near Colonia Juarez. After a three month’s trip they arrived in Colonia Pacheco and establish their large herd of cattle on the range nearby. It was there, in June, 1892, that his brother Hyrum was killed by a large brown bear west of Pacheco.

Soon after the said event, typhoid struck family. Sabra had gone to Utah to receive medical aid. His second wife, Anna Foutz, baby girl, and his only son (child of Sabra) were carried away by the scourge. His Mexico family wiped out, the bereaved man left Mexico to join Sabra in Utah.

Church Authorities, realizing that he needed a complete change, called him to preside over the Swiss-German Mission. Accompanied by Sabra, he arrived in Bern, Switzerland, February 16, 1894, and in April took charge of the Mission. He held this position for three years in which time the number of missionaries laboring there increased from 40 to 82. Four of them were his brothers: Heber, Joseph, Casper, and Enoch.

Sabra kept the “Missionary Home” and endeared herself to all who came there. Here they adopted a baby girl, Margie Pope. During this period, George traveled through the entire European mission and Scandinavia with Anthon H. Lund and later again with Rulon S. Wells.

George Conrad was released from his mission, in January 1897, he returned to Colonia Pacheco, Mexico. A year later he moved to Colonia Oaxaca, Sonora, where his father assisted in settling the colony and also Morelos. From Oaxaca he was called on a mission in the interest of the MIA to St. Joseph Stake, Arizona, that he returned home to succeed Franklin Scott as Bishop of the Oaxaca Ward in the Juarez Stake.

In 1889, he married, as a second plural wife, Maggie Romney, daughter of Miles P. Romney and Hannah Hill. Their son, George, was born June 27, 1900. The daughter, Sabra, was born May 25, 1902. With their babies, Maggie went home to Colonia Dublan for a visit. While there, little George died of typhoid fever. A grief stricken father brought his sorrowing wife and baby home. She did not rally but grew weaker day by day. It was realized that she, too, had typhoid fever, of which she died. George Conrad thus found himself 42 years of age with two adopted daughters and an invalid wife, but no son to bear his name.

In 1903, he married the Philindra Keeler and Jennie Jameson.  Philindra’s first born, Joseph Abner, died in September of 1905 of spinal meningitis, but Jennie’s boy, Owen, survived. The family lived through the Oaxaca flood of 1905 which swept away their houses and most of their cattle. This is been George’s means of support all his life. In the fall of 1906, the family moved to Colonia Dublan where they were in 1912 when the Mormons left the colonies, as part of the Exodus, with little cash on hand. Families coming out on the train, where George was in charge of the company, were limited to a bedroll and suitcase her family. With no more than this, a start in a new country had to be made from the ground up.

George Conrad Naegle was killed in an automobile accident in Salt Lake City, July 29, 1935, and was buried in the Wasatch Lawn Cemetery. He left 15 children, five sons and ten daughters, and ever increasing group of grandchildren.

Philinda Keeler Naegle, wife

Stalwarts South of the Border by Nelle Spilsbury Hatch page 499

Charles Whiting Sr.

1 Reply

Charles Whiting Sr.

1852-1917

Charles Whiting Sr. was born in Manti, Sanpete County, Utah on December 16, 1852.  He was the third child of Edwin and his third wife, Mary Elizabeth Cox, in a family of nine children.  Although the mother of Charles Whiting, Mary Cox Whiting, was a school teacher who taught in the small settlements in Utah where they lived, Charles had to help on the farm and did not get much education.

He advanced as far as what was called in those days The Third Grade Reader.  However, Charles loved to read and was self-educated.  His own children loved to hear him read in the evenings by the fireplace such books as Swiss Family Robinson, Robinson Crusoe, and Horatio Alger’s Ragged Dick.

His father, Edwin, and his first three wives crossed the plains after being driven out of their homes in Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1849.  They stopped at Mount Pisgah for a time where Edwin’s father and mother, Elisha and Sally Hulet Whiting died.  Then Edwin and his family moved on to the Salt Lake Valley, tired and wary from their long trek.  Brigham Young sent them on to Sanpete Valley, now Manti, and there Charles was born.  His father married two other women while at Manti, making a total of five wives.

Edwin, who was a horticulturist, found that Manti was too cold for his business so he moved his families back to Hobble Creek Canyon (now Springville) where the climate was milder and there Charles grew up.  He met and married Verona Snow who also was born in Manti on March 27, 1859.  They were married in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City on January 24, 1876.  Verona was a bride of only three weeks when Charles was called, along with about 300 other men, to go to Arizona and settle along the Little Colorado in northern Arizona.  These men tried farming, but when they drew irrigation water onto the land it turned to alkali.  So Charles Whiting, along with J.J. Adams tried raising cattle, but the country was infested with horse thieves and outlaws of the worst kind who stole their stock and made life miserable for them.  By this time Church Authorities had organized the United Order, one camp being called Brigham City near the site of Winslow, Arizona.  Not far from Brigham City was another called Sunset which was presided over by Lot Smith.

While living in the Order, Charles Whiting, with other men, was called by the authorities of the Church to take a plural wife.  This was necessary because there were more women than men who needed protection in the wild, lawless country.   So with the consent of his wife, Verona, Charles was married and sealed to Amy Irene Porter in the St. George Temple on December 1, 1880.  She bore him two children.  Soon after this the Order broke up and Charles with his two wives moved to a little settlement called Wilford in Navajo County, near Snowflake, Arizona.  There two more children were born. 

In the mid-1880’s they were advised by the leaders of the Church to take their wives and move to Mexico where they would be safe under the Mexican flag as they believed that it was not unlawful for a man to have more than one wife in Mexico.  After they moved into the state of Chihuahua early in 1885, another son, Francis Marion, was born to Charles and Verona on May 8, 1885.  He was the first child born in Colonia Diaz and had a wagon box for a bed.  Just a little later a townsite was chosen and Colonia Diaz was established and named for Porfirio Diaz who was the President of Mexico at that time.  Charles was sustained as the First Presiding Elder of the little Branch or camp.

In 1886, Bishop William Derby Johnson, Jr. was made the first Bishop with Martin P. Mortensen and Joseph H. James as his first two Counselors.  Later Charles Whiting and Peter K. Lemmon filled these positions and served until July 11, 1911 when bishop Johnson was released and Ernest Romney was made Bishop.

The summer of 1886, Charles and Verona went back to the White Mountains of Arizona to get some of their belongings and some of their stock which they had left.  Amy stayed with friends while they were gone.  When they returned to Mexico in the fall they were accompanied by Joseph S. Cardon and family.

When the Whitings reached Taylor, Arizona, where Joseph Cardon and the rest of the company were waiting, they were alarmed to find that word had come from the United States officials at Fort Apache that the fierce Indian Chief Geronimo had broken loose from the Fort with a band of his braves, swearing to kill every white man they could find.  People were advised to stay at home and not run the risk of traveling until Geronimo could be captured and subdued again.  Their journey was halted for only a few days, however, for when they conferred with the officials at Fort Apache they were told that if they had quite a number in their party they might be safe because there were soldiers from the Fort trying to hunt down and capture the renegade chief and his band.  So they took the risk and started out. 

They passed Fort Apache unharmed and went on to the Black River Crossing, intending to camp there that night.  But as Brother Cardon was watering his horses on the bank of the river he saw Geronimo on the opposite side.  As Geronimo saw Brother Cardon he grunted, turned his horse and rode up the bank among the trees.  Joseph then went to Charles and told him what he had seen so they decided that it would be better for them to go on up the dugway, after crossing the river, and camp on the top of the mountain. They said nothing to the women for fear of exciting them, and the party proceeded.  The evening meal had been prepared and before eating they all knelt around the fire in prayer, which was their habit.  But now, of course, they realized that they needed the protection of their Heavenly Father in their dangerous situation.  While the prayer was being said a little Indian dog ran into their camp and another could be seen a short distance off.  The horses became excited and they knew Indians were near.  After prayer the men took their guns and crawled in the brush out of camp to investigate.  It was a bright moonlit night and they could see Geronimo with his braves huddled together in a little clearing in the trees as if in consultation.  The men crept back to their camp and stood guard all night.  The women put the children to bed in the wagons, and went to bed also, but they could not sleep.  The men stayed up all night and stood guard with their guns ready, prepared to defend themselves in case of an attack.  But morning came and they were not molested.  Being such a bright moonlit night they could see the Indians as they rode up over the hills in the distance, their silhouettes plainly drawn against the sky.   

The next morning they met soldiers from the fort who told them that at Black River Crossing where they had earlier planned to camp, a boy and a man had been murdered, scalped and their wagons burned.  At Deer Creek, just three miles away, three sheepherders had been killed.  All the way to Mexico they heard of depredations and murders both ahead of and behind them.  They never knew why their lives were spared until their relatives wrote from Taylor, Arizona that a squaw came back to the Fort and told the people there that Geronimo had intended to kill their group, but when he saw them praying to the Great Spirit he was afraid to do so. 

On June 13, 1886 Charles’s second wife, Amy Irene, passed away and in September 1886 her little daughter Linnie followed her in death.  Charles then felt like he would prefer to go back to Springville, Utah, because now he had only one wife, but the leaders of the Church called him to stay in Mexico to help build up that part of the country.  Consequently, in 1889 he was married to Anna Eliza Jacobson.  To this union were born six children.

Charles was always a faithful Latter-day Saint.  When he was driven from Mexico in 1912, he lost all he had except the teams he drove out, but he did not owe one dollar to anyone.  He had always been a faithful tithe payer, and served faithfully in every Church office that he was called to accept.  He lived faithfully and kept the Word of Wisdom in every detail.  He was a quiet man, passive and patient in disposition, a peacemaker, always hating trouble with his fellowman.  Not caring to be a leader, he always liked to be in the background.  He was very modest, kind and patient with his children and was a man of few works.  He never punished his children severely but they knew that when he corrected them or told them to do something that he meant what he said and that he expected obedience.  The held him in high esteem.

For a time Charles was engaged in the cattle business because there had been an abundance of moisture and the range for cattle was especially good.  He was prospering and doing well financially, but because his two oldest sons became involved in with unsavory characters, cowboys and outlaws who sought refuge from the United States law south of the border, he sold his cattle at a sacrifice and made farming as a main occupation.  Colonia Diaz was so close to the border that many rough, bad men drifted in.  There was also the problem of La Ascension, just five miles across the river from Colonia Diaz, where liquor of all kinds could be purchased with no restrictions as to youth.  This had a bad influence on the community.  Charles and Verona decided that if their oldest son, Charlie, who had always been a well-behaved boy, could be led off by bad company, the rest of their sons and those of the second family of Charles were also vulnerable.

After they left Mexico, Verona went with her daughter Amy and family to St. Johns, Arizona.  Charles stayed with his third wife, Eliza, close to the border.  His sons, Charlie and Bernard, also stayed as did Ezreal Thurber, Amy’s husband, to see if they could get some of their property out of Mexico.  They did manage to slip into Diaz to bring out a few articles of furniture and some of their horses and cattle.

Charles and Eliza lived in a little shack at Franklin, Arizona and one day while they were gone it caught fire and was burned to the ground.  All they had left were the clothes they were wearing.  People were very kind and got up a collection for them.  The Bishop of the Ward brought Charles $100 in cash.  He said all his life he had paid his tithing and fast offerings and this $100 received back from the Lord’s storehouse helped him more than any gift he had ever received, for it came when he was really in need.  He moved to St. Johns the next spring and his brother Edwin and his nephew Eddie gave them employment.  His mother had passed away just before they were driven out of Mexico.  She owned two city lots n St. Johns and the brothers of Charles felt like she would want him to have them so they were deeded to him and lumber was available from his brother Edwin’s sawmill.  Consequently two lumber houses were soon built on them, one for Verona and one for Eliza. 

Charles freighted for his brother and sons.  At first he sawed timber for them with his son-in-law Junius Cardon.  The later he hauled grain and other freight including lumber from his brother’s sawmill in the mountains. 

On his 64th birthday, December 16, 1916, the family gave him a surprise party. He had remarked when the youngsters were celebrating their birthdays that he would soon be 64 years old and had never had a party in his life, so we surprised him.  His nephew, Eddie Whiting, brought him a big armchair from the store. He received other nice gifts but did not live long to enjoy them. One day about a year later, while hauling grain from Springerville to St. Johns, his horses became frightened of a dead horse lying by the side of the road.  He had a team of draft horses that were high-spirited and not very well broken.  The team lunged and pulled him off the load.  He fell under the wagon and one wheel ran over his head, crushing his skull.  He died instantly.  This was on December 20, 1917.  His son Bernard was freighting with him just ahead on the road.

This was a terrible tragedy to his families who were dependent on him for support, but his love and kindness was the thing that was missed more than anything else.  He had always had a hard life.  Yet, he had always lived within his means.  He was never rich in worldly goods but had, through the years, built two good brick homes for his two families and owned two farms all paid for.  Then when the Revolutionists drove the colonists out of Mexico, he had to leave everything.

Never did he receive one penny for any of his property in Colonia Diaz.  But he never complained.  He always was a peacemaker, disliking bickering and trouble.  He was also talented but very modest about it.  We loved to hear him sing with his melodious voice.  Although he never wanted to display any of his dramatic ability he was amusing to listen to, especially when he would joke and tell things about the English.  His wife Verona was English and he liked to tease her about her nationality.  His talent was passed on to some of his children.     

His children revere the memory of their dear father who was a shining example of righteousness, patience, ambition and kindness.

Mae Whiting Cardon, daughter.

Nelle Spilsbury Hatch Stalwarts South of the Border page 772

William Carroll McClellan

Leave a reply

William Carroll McClellan

1828-1916

William Carroll McClellan, son of James and Cynthia Stewart McClellan was born in Bedford County, Tennessee, May 12, 1828.  He was the eldest of 12 children, six boys and six girls, all of whom grew to adulthood and married, raising families of their own.  Some of them, including Williams, lived to a ripe old age.

William remembered little of the place of his birth as his parents moved to Shelby County, Illinois in the spring of 1833, when he was five years old.  There they squatted on a quarter section of land but made no effort to prove it.  In 1834, his father bought property from a man named Silver that was already improved with a cabin, smokehouse, and corn crib.  This small claim lay in the bend of the Oker or Kaskaskia River, but it was fenced and the land was “broke.”  The nearest neighbor was three-fourths of a mile away, but the next nearest was two-and one-half miles distant.  Here he spent the following six or seven years of boyhood on the farm, growing corn in the summer, feeding hogs and cattle in the winter, with little chance for education except what his mother could impart of reading and spelling.

His father’s economy and industry soon surrounded the family with the comforts of life.  Hogs and cattle sold well and fattened on the range for most of the year. Chicago and St. Louis furnished good markets for all he had to sell.

Under these prosperous conditions the early Mormon Elders found them and taught them the Resorted Gospel.  His parents were baptized in 1840.  His father, anxious to meet the man through whom the Gospel had been restored, made a trip to Nauvoo, Illinois.  He was so pleased with Prophet Joseph and Nauvoo that he bought property in the fast growing city, and returned home determined to sell out and move to Nauvoo.  This was not an easy thing to do.  Their farm was one of the best and largest in the country, containing 600 acres of cultivated lands.  He finally sold it for part cash and the rest stock.

He sent William to Nauvoo early in the spring of 1841 to look after the land he had bought.  The party tried hard to reach Nauvoo in time for conference on April 6, but arrived the day after.  William was baptized May 12, 1841, when he was 13 years of age.  All summer he chored around their Nauvoo property and returned in the fall to help his father move the family onto it.

Trouble then beset them.  First to happen after arrival was rheumatism, afflicting both his father and other so terribly that they were confined to their beds for three months.  Responsibility for keeping work going both inside and out fell on William, barely 14 years of age.  The great herd of stock they had driven from Shelby needed the card of a man, and a strong one, certainly more than a mere lad was able to give.  During on of the fierce storm that came with winter, the 60 head struck out of their old home, but the river, full of ice, stopped them.  They milled around near the banks until a party took charge and cared for them until spring. Expenses for keeping them cost his father half the heard.  Fortunately, tithing on them had already been paid.  Shares in the Nauvoo House had also been paid, but loss of his stock, with no way of caring for what he had, taxed his resources.  With sickness in the family, bedrock was soon reached.  The slide from plenty to poverty seemed but a short step.  Making a bare living now rested entirely on William’s young shoulders.

All winter he worked for wages.  In fact that was his lot for as long as they lived in Nauvoo.  He worked in the brickyard, did team work, and did much boating and rafting.  The last two years in Nauvoo were spent mostly on the river where, because he could do a man’s work on the water, he was counted on during all hours of the day, and often did emergency work at night.

Near the last of February, 1846, he was asked by J.D. Hunter to meet him and others at night near the upper stone house.  He, Hunter, Charles Hall, Allan Tally, and others with whom he was acquainted, went quietly to Shirt’s lime boat on the bank of the river.  Aboard, they pushed into the stream and floated a mile down the river, pulled ashore and put a wagon and team on board.  William was told to land at a light he could see on the Iowa side.  This was done with few words spoken.  Only two men aboard knew who was being ferried, Hunter and the stranger himself.  William was curious but asked no questions.  This was the beginning of the Exodus.

William stayed several days longer ferrying other parties across.  Then he went home to help get his folks ready to leave with a company.  First he took his father’s team and wagon, loaded with goods, intending to be gone a month.  But instead of being sent back at the end of that time, according to contract, he was sent into Missouri to work for provisions for the camp and was there until May, almost two months.  Letters came from his father concerning his lengthened stay, but they were burned.  Brigham Young, getting word of the inferred absence, wrote William personally, asking him to go to him at once at Garden Grove. He loaded his wagon with cornmeal and bacon, returned to camp and was soon on his way to Nauvoo, accompanied by three or four boys, who had no teams but wanted to return to their folks.

When they reached Nauvoo, he found his folks getting ready to move from the city.  The hostile mobs were making life unendurable.  His party was made of his father, mother, and family, Aunt Matilda Parks, T. C. D. Howell, his grandfather Hugh McClellan, Grandmother Rigby, Gabbit and others.  They crossed the river at Nashville, as there they gained better teams for ferriage.  The weather was hot; they made good time an reached the camp on Mosquito Creek on July 14.  William drove his grandfather’s team on the journey. 

There was recruiting in the camp enlisting men for service in the Mexican War. William’s father gave him the alternative of enlisting and being part of the 500 Mormons they had asked for or taking care of the four families, as well as the families of his Uncle Howell.  William A. Park and James R. Scott were enlisting so William decided to join.  He marked off with the 5th Company to camp on Sarapee’s Point. He received his outfit and supplies at Leavenworth and marched on to Santa Fe.  From here a party of invalids and laundresses left the detachment and were sent to Pueblo, Colorado.  Somewhere on the Rio Grande on November 10, another invalid detachment was sent back to Pueblo.  William was sent with this party to care for the sick.  It was a long, hard trip.  It was terribly cold and four men died; all of them suffered untold hardships, wallowing through the snow, half-clad and half-starved, reaching Pueblo late in December.  Here he stayed until the end of May, faring well with supplies from Bent’s Fort, jutting and getting fresh meat every day.  When he left, they traveled north, striking the old pioneer trail at Fort Laramie, going up the North Platte.  They followed the trail to Salt Lake, arriving July 27, 1847, just three days after Brigham Young and his advance company.  There William was mustered out of the army. 

On August 29, William, in company with 60 men, 30 of them Battalion men, started east for the Missouri River.  They had about six days’ rations per soldier to last them on a journey of 1,000 miles and mostly ox teams to haul them.  The first 500 miles there was no game to be found to stretch out their scanty rations.  The last half of the journey, buffalo furnished fresh meat for the famished men and even a straight meat diet was better than the starvation days, as they had plenty of salt.  They reached camp where William’s parents were the latter part of October, having been absent 14 months.  Both his grandparents had died, but all others were well.  For a year he worked single-handed, jobbing around Missouri. 

On July 19, 1849, he married Almeda Day.  She was his companion until death in 1916, and bore him 12 children in 55 years.  She was a daughter of Hugh and Rhoda Ann Nichols Day and was born in Leeds, Upper Canada, November 28, 1831.  When she was just a child of four, her parents crossed the St. Lawrence River on ice to New York state where the family probably joined the Church.  They sailed by boat through the Great Lakes to Illinois.  She buried her mother in Nauvoo.  There she met William C. McClellan. 

He built a little log cabin and gathered around him enough to make himself and his wife’s family comfortable for the winter.  He intended to stay in Missouri to take over his father’s farm when he moved west in the spring, but the gold rush to California had begun and his father and father-in-law urged him to go.  He had a baby coming, not much to move with, and was hard to convince; but he began making preparations anyway.  He joined his father in putting up a shop for fitting out wagons and other repair work.  But before they were ready to work, the gold hunters were on them, wanting supplies of food and shop work done.  The next June, 1850, he loaded all he had into a wagon and started west with his father, father-in-law, a month-old baby, and reached Salt Lake City early in October.  They passed through a siege of cholera, which cause the death of his brother, and attacked him as well.  He settled in Payson, Utah and lived there for 17 years, going through the hazards of land shortage.  His pioneering in Utah, the first of three such ventures in the United States, bade his pioneering in Mexico an old story. 

In April, 1857, he was ordained President for the 46th Quorum of Seventy.  Then the Utah War came and volunteers were called to guard the pass in the mountains, to fortify and block canyon entrances to keep Johnston’s Army from entering and carrying out threats to exterminate a “seditious and disloyal people.”  William volunteered and all through 1858 did duty in Echo Canyon.  He was called to raise 50 men to help.  Because part of the Payson men he needed were already out, he had to go to Spanish Fork for men to fill his company.  Captain Kite, Major A. K. Thurber of Springville were part of the 500 men who did spectacular work in Echo Canyon under the direction of Lot Smith.  They were instrumental in forcing General Sidney Johnson into winter quarters at Fort Bridger.

In 1863, William’s mother died on April 12, an extreme loss to her family and the community.  She was but 52 years old, so her death was a shock.  William was then called, in company with others, to meet and help incoming immigrants at Florence, Nebraska.  John R. Murdock was captain of this company.  His father, his brother Sam, and himself had a private team, probably owned by Jesse Knight, hauling goods for the company.  They left Florence on the Missouri about the 4th of July on their return home.  The company consisted of about a hundred wagons and four hundred immigrants. 

William was set to caring for women and children who had to walk.  His job was to keep them ahead of the wagons, instead of straggling behind.  William was also camp physician, and kept his medical supplies in his coat pocket.

The Salem Dam near Payson had been washed out four times, taking valuable land with it.  In the settlers’ discouragement they turned to him to replace the dam that meant life to their farms.  The structure he put in the river is still there, having done service for nearly three-quarters of a century.

In the summer of 1865, Indian trouble began.  At first they just acted ugly, but by 1866 they had become mean and hostile and it was necessary to organize for guard duty, keeping men and women in the fields night and day to prevent Indians from even getting near the settlement.  Finally an organized army was necessary for the Walker War was in earnest and William, guarding the settlement, was elected May 8, 1866, Colonel of the 1st Regiment, 2nd Brigade, of Goshen, Santaquin, Salem, and Benjamin.  This was full time work for seven months for the years 1866 and 1867.  There was a little breathing spell during the winter when the Indians could not cross the mountains for the snow.  A treaty of peace was concluded in the fall of 1867 and he resumed his work on Payson where he was a member of the town council, serving several terms. 

William was the prime instigator in extending the borders of Payson and building a canal from the Spanish Fork River.  He kept the work moving, combating the discouragement of those who felt it was too big an undertaking for such a small group of impoverished people.  When the work was finally done, “I am prouder of it,” he said in his journal, “than of any job I was ever connect with.” He was also a prime mover in building the meetinghouse, creating the funds as they went along, and in the process a feeling of unity and brotherhood was made that had not existed before. He also built a Relief Society store.

On May 14, 1873, William entered the practice of polygamy by marriage to Elsie Jane Richardson.  The next year, 1874, he was induced to go in with a few others and made a dairy farm in Grass Valley, Utah County, Utah, a fertile but cold section of the country in the high valleys of the Wasatch Mountains.  Together they farmed a quarter section of farmland and two or three quarters of meadow and pasture land with posts and pole fences.  They built houses and outbuildings and put up quite a lot of hay and made excellent cheese.  William brought in supplies for this mountain valley project.

Early in the spring of 1877, all Payson and Grass Valley plans were interrupted by a call to go with others to settle in Sunset, Arizona, and help establish the United Order.  The call could not have come when prospects for better living were brighter.  He had grown children, some of whom were married yet he began preparations to accept the call.

Fitting wagons to carry foodstuffs, seed and implements, and getting teams and livestock to take along was a matter of ease.  But sales were finally completed satisfactorily, and he pulled out with four wagons, six teams of oxen, a span of horses, and a light wagon, all filled with flour, merchandise and household goods.  A neighbor drove part of his outfit to help him to the first campsite.  William left behind a forest of waving hands from neighbors, all of whom wished him good luck in his new venture.

Not far from Payson, he found his neighbor awaiting him with a broken axle.  But before he had time to investigate, he heard other wagons following with the Payson band in the lead wagon, ready to burst into a lively tune.  Then he knew what was the matter with the “broken axle.”  He also knew, again, what warmth the love and respect of good neighbors can mean and what an uplift their interest in his welfare was.

The United Order was Utopian form of living, where there are no rich and no poor, where everyone shares alike.  By living the Order, the Saints hoped to become like the people of the City of Enoch, so righteous that they “were taken up and were no more, for God had taken them.” Moses, 7:69).  Failing to reach that degree of perfection, they could emulated the Nephites and Lamanites who lived in peace for 200 years after Christ visited this continent, all sharing in common.

Even though the Order, tried by Christ’s Apostles in Jerusalem after His ascension into Heaven, broke up because of weaknesses among its members, and the same failure had come to attempts to establish this Order in modern times, William retaining his hopes that this time it would succeed.  He put all his belongings into the Order when he arrived at Sunset, retaining for his family only what the Order stipulated.  He hoped only for some of the exaltation that blessings from living the Order righteously could bring.  But, after living it for three years and finding that finite men, including himself, were not yet sufficiently perfected, the Order could not be made a success.  He left when the Order dissolved with little more than that which the family wore.  Worse still he was a disillusioned, discouraged man.  For a few years he lived first in one locality then another on the Arizona frontier with little hope of betting his situation until he finally joined a group settling the little town of Pleasanton, New Mexico, a fertile valley near Silver City.

Here a successful and bright future seemed near.  But, too soon, fear was added to the remembered disillusionment and discouragement.  First, there was fear of Indians.  Geronimo and his renegades were on the rampage operating in the area, making fortification necessary for the protection of lives.  Second, there was fear of U.S. Marshals who were invading remote frontiers, bent on arresting every man having more than one wife.

Not relishing the idea of a jail sentence and fine, he acted promptly when, via the grapevine, he heard a “place” had been prepared in Mexico.  He left at once.  With his 16 year old son, Edward, an interpreter and others also seeking the “place,” he left, taking a roundabout way in order to avoid possible encounters with Indians.

They reached La Ascension on February 22, 1885 and with Bate William, who could speak Spanish, they went through the ordeal of customs inspection, a new and bewildering experience.  But more bewildering was that no one was there to lead them to the “place,” or to tell them what to do in the meantime.  They made camp on little Lake Federico where they shot ducks and fought mosquitoes for two weeks when Alexander F. Macdonald and his party, returning from a scouting trip through northern Chihuahua, finally arrived.  He had nothing to tell but to wait until pending land purchases were completed. 

William followed instructions, making camp for himself and others who soon followed and tried to cur his impatience.  He made one trip to Deming for supplies and looked the country over in search of farm land.  Still restless, he finally hitched up his team and returned to Pleasanton, New Mexico, got the farm work going there and with some seed potatoes returned to his camp in Mexico.  There he rented a piece of land from a Mexican and planted his potatoes, but, on account of the drought, not one came up.  He then made another trip to Pleasanton, but stayed only a few days, returning to Mexico about May 1.  By this time he was disgusted, discouraged and desperate enough to return to Pleasanton, get his family into Utah, face the music, or wait until the storm blew over.  Maybe in the country where he had known the greatest peace and prosperity, some of those happy days would return.  He left his grove camp below La Ascension May 19 with this intention but decided, sanely, to spend one more Sunday with the Saints in Camp Diaz.  There, in the meeting, something happened that changed his whole outlook.  A testimony came, a convincing feeling that his mission lay in the land of Mexico., that whatever hardships awaited them, he was part of a people of destiny, and that his place and part in it was to do his best toward fulfilling that mission.

He went to Pleasanton and moved a part of his family not to Utah, but to Mexico.  He joined the people at Camp Turley near San Jose and was in camp when the letter was read from Church Authorities appointing George W. Sevey Presiding Elder.  William raised his had to sustain him and prepared to move with them to land purchased on the Piedras Verdes River.  He was among the number that first settled in Old Town.  By the spring of 1886, he had all his family together there.  He was by now a financial wreck, his experience in Pleasanton having taken what was left after the United Order failure.  But he and his boys dug in, and through sickness, poverty and other ills incident to settling in a foreign land, gradually raised themselves from scratch to a comfortable situation.

He identified himself with the people of Colonia Juarez, did his part toward making it a thriving settlement and set an example of frugality and thrift by getting respectable homes for both his families. He built the first rock house in Old Town, helped survey the East Canal, and made ditches to carry weather from it to town lots.  He worked for good roads and took part in all the labors and doings of the people.

The years of pioneering in Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and finally Mexico, had taken their toll.  As years piled up, his step slowed, his eyes grew dimmer.   He then took time to write the story of his life for his posterity, the closing paragraph of which reads:

    I will leave a large Posterity, and my wish is that none of them will ever do worse than I have done, but as much better as possible.  It would be a great satisfaction if I could know they would all grow up to be honest, virtuous, upright, and useful members of Society, as these ideas have been my hobby through life. Possibly I rode them too hard, at times for my own good, but yet I think of the poet that said, “A wit’s a feather, a chief’s a     rod, but an honest man is the work of God!”

William endured the privations of the Exodus and moved out of the country with other Church members, leaving two commodious and comfortable brick homes, orchards and town property.  But William took it as he did other losses as “all in a day’s work.”  He died April 19, 1916, in Colonia Juarez.  Almeda and Elsie lived on in Utah for several years, both dying in the homes of their children.

Nelle Spilsbury Hatch

Stalwarts South of the Border, page 437

Miles A. Romney

2 Replies

Miles A. Romney

1869-1939

Miles Archibald Romney was an early pioneer of Colonia Juarez.  He explored the unknown forests and the fertile meadows of the colonies and mountains and the land beyond, where the pioneers did their hunting of wild game.

The son of Miles Park and Hannah Hood Hill, Miles was born in St. George, Utah, on November 6, 1869.  He received his infant blessings from his father, who also baprized and confirmed him a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  His father ordained him a Deacon and years later conferred upon him the Melchizedek Priesthood and ordained him an Elder.  Later he became a High Priest.  He was faithful in attending to his spiritual duties.

Miles A. Romney’s grandfather, Miles Romney, was born in Dalton-in-Furness, England in 1806.  A carpenter who specialized in circular stair building, he emigrated to America.  He and his wife, Elizabeth Gaskell, were attracted by a street meeting conducted by Orson Hyde, one of the first Mormon missionaries to England, and in 1839 were baptized.  With other converts from Preston and Manchester, they sailed February 7, 1841, from Liverpool from New Orleans on the Sheffield.  They traveled by boat up the Mississippi River to Nauvoo, Illinois, where Miles worked on the Nauvoo Temple.  Their third son, born August 8, 1843, and named Miles Park Romney, was the father of Miles A. Romney.

Miles Park followed his father, Miles, as a carpenter and builder, as a missionary to England and as a colonizer in St. George, Utah. There, he assisted in building the tabernacle.   Miles A. Romney was faced with responsibilities to help his mother. She was a most courageous woman at that time, always willing and ready to make every sacrifice for the comfort and well-being of her family. This taught her son many lessons and sacrifice and leadership.

Soon after the return of his father, Miles P. was called by the First Presidency of the Church to leave his home in St. George to assist in building of St. John’s, Apache County, Arizona. Miles A., with his sister many, was to go with Catherine (third wife of Miles P.) and family to help establish a home.   The rest would join them later.  While in St. Johns, Miles A. assisted his father in building homes, fencing farm land, and preparing land for planting.  At times he also worked in his father’s printing office editing a paper known as The Orion Era.

Miles P. purchased a tract of 160 acres lying in the mountains west of St. Johns under a law that required the owner to maintain residence on the land over a period of years.  People were hired to remain on the property to fulfill the law.  During one winter Miles A., 13, and Thomas, seven, accompanied by Dick Moffett, were sent to guard the property.  Dick disliked the job and returned to St. Johns, leaving Miles A. and Thomas alone.  Land grabbers, thinking they would find no one on the property at that time of the year, entered the cabin to take over.  To their surprise, Miles A. and Thomas were there guarding the property.  After fixing their own breakfast, they left as unceremoniously as they had come.

Miles A. Romney was only 14 when his father was hounded by U.S. Marshals because of plural marriage.  His father left Snowflake, Arizona.  The next morning Miles A. saddled a horse, while his mother sewed all the money she had into his clothing and sent him to Snowflake with a letter to his father, telling him to keep out of the way.  Miles A. rode all day and part of the night.  He finally located his father who sent instructions back to meet him in Mexico.  Miles A. returned to St. Johns, little realizing the part he would have to take in the absence of his father.   One instruction given Miles A. by his father was to meet him in the Gila Valley with a team and wagon in two weeks.

Miles P. took part of his family by trail to California and thence southeastward through Arizona.  Miles A. and Will met their father in the Gila Valley at San Simon station.  They then all went by team and wagon to Mexico.

In 1886 Miles P. Romney sent his sons Miles A. and Will, with team and wagon, to St. Johns to bring Hannah and children to Mexico.  Miles A. accepted the responsibility and took the family from Arizona to Mexico over rough roads and through Indian country much of the way.  The family had expected to travel with the Skousen family, but when the time came to leave, Hannah and family left alone.  When they arrived at Nutrioso, New Mexico, a short distance from St. Johns, they were advised by friends not to make the trip as Geronimo, the Apache chief, and his band were on the warpath and they would be in great danger.  Hannah turned to her 16 year old son, Miles A., and said, “We will put our trust in our Heavenly Father.”  They left feeling certain He would protect them.

The night they left Nutrioso they were caught in a heavy snowstorm.  Miles A. helped wrap the children in quilts to keep them from the cold, while he and his mother walked along behind the wagon to keep warm.  Apache Hill, down which they must go, was so steep Miles A. and Gaskell had to fasten trees they had cut down to the back of the wagon to keep it from running over the horses.  Several times during the journey Miles A. and his brother removed shoes from the feet of the dead horses and nailed them to the hooves of their own horses whose feet had become tender.

It was a happy ending when they were met by their father and taken to an adobe shelter with a dirt floor and mud roof.  Miles A. did what he could to help his father lighten the burden of caring for a large family.  Many times he and his brothers helped herd cows for the neighbors for a cent and a half per day, per cow.  This gave the boys a feeling of independence and also contributed in a small way towards supporting the family.  Miles A. Romney spent many happy and memorable days as a youth in Colonia Juarez.

Miles Archibald, the oldest son of Hannah, was the only son of Miles P. Romney to live the principle of plural marriage.  His first wife was Frances Turley.  He later married three sisters: Lily, Elizabeth and Emily Burrell.  Miles loved and welcomed each child and gave all an equal opportunity.  While raising a large family they had their trials, but they likewise had their joys.  Many times deep shadows enveloped them because of hardships, but he never seemed discouraged and always carried on with an air that all was well.  He was a man with a tender heart but stern discipline.  Every member of his family recognized his work to be the law by which they must live.  In chastising or correcting his children, he would speak in a positive manner, but never with physical punishment.  I remember one rule he insisted on:  that no son or daughter under 18 years of age should leave home to spend the evening elsewhere without first getting permission.  The fixed hour for coming home was ten o’clock, except in the case of a dance, theatrical or other entertainment that would extend beyond that hour.  It was his idea that house parties should end by ten o’clock.  Should one disobey this standing law, a single glance from Father indicated it had better not happen again.  It would be difficult to say that these rigid methods would be effective in our society today, but they worked when the Saints were isolated from the rest of the world, especially when the Church encouraged such standards.

Soon after his first marriage he filled a two-year mission to the British Isles.  In other Church matters he was also prominent.  He was Stake President of the MIA from 1928 to 1937.  He was also Ward MIA President and for a number of years was a member of the Juarez Stake High Council.  Miles A. was known for powerful talks to the young people, explaining the problems of life and the results of sinful acts.  He was a man of wisdom and understanding.

He enjoyed the role of dance manager which he held for many years in the colonies.  He seemed to comprehend fully the psychology of youth.  He encouraged people to conduct themselves with pride and to have respect for their leaders. 

Miles A. Romney was a pioneer in public speaking and personality development.  He became famous by showing others how to become successful.  He mottos were:   “Believe that you will succeed and you will;” and, “Learn to love, respect and enjoy other people.”

He enjoyed working with people and was successful as a drama director, which he did for many years in the Juarez Ward.  Hours were spent adapting plays, selecting actors, directing rehearsals and supervising scenery, lighting and costuming.  He had a great imagination and vision of play production.  He could hold any audience and portray different emotions from deep love scenes to profound tragedy.  Miles conducted and took the lead at times in such plays as: As You Like it, Cousins, Smiling Through, Charley’s Aunt, Abies’s Irish Rose, Down Black Canyon, Lady of Lyons, The Charcoal Burner and The Silver King.  Many times I blackned my father’s hair with soot mixed with lard to portray certain parts, especially that of a young lover.

The Romney family was one of the first of the Mormon families to pioneer in Mexico.  The boys had many thrilling experiences, and Miles A. had the ability to tell them well.  Convalescing from a badly bruised foot, caused by a large steel beam getting out of control while working on the old wagon bridge that spans the Piedras Verdes River in Colonia Juarez, he had the urge to write several true life stories.  Two of his stories appeared in the early issues of the The Improvement Era:  “A Providential Escape,” and “Providential.”  These were later included in the book Pioneer Stories compiled by Preston Nibley.

Miles A. Romney was a contractor and builder, occupations in which he was very successful.  He worked on the Academy and many of the beautiful homes in Colonia Juarez.  He was a natural-born trader and buyer.  As a result he acquired much of the farming and orchard land adjacent to Colonia Juarez, from which he realized large returns.  Many carloads of apples would be shipped from his orchards to the interior of Mexico.  Miles A. Romney and Joseph T. Bentley kept the electric light company in operation in Colonia Juarez for the benefit of its citizens.  As watermaster for years, he stressed honesty and obedience to the water schedule and always respected the rights of others.

He dedicated the best years of his life to building the community of Colonia Juarez and met death in his early 70’s, as a result of acute heart disease, while in his sleep on November 29, 1939.

Celia R. Geertsen, daughter

Stalwarts South of the Border, Nelle Spilsbury Hatch, page 590

Sarah Ann Lunt

Leave a reply

Sarah Ann Lunt

1858-1921

Sarah Ann Lunt, my mother and the daughter of Edward and Harriet Wood Lunt, was born in Manti, Utah August 11, 1858.  Her family later moved to Nephi, where she grew up.  She early learned to spin, card and weave clothes for the needs of the family which consisted of four brothers, two sisters, and her parents.

The two older brothers were stockmen and Mother spent much time cooking for them on their ranches.  She was unusual in that she knew no fear of man or beast.  At one time while on the ranch an angry steer attempted to gore her and she felled him with a stone.  Her formal schooling amounted to very little.  She often said, “If my school days were all summed up, they would not exceed three weeks.”  Yet, she learned to read and did all her own letter writing.

Henry Lunt, my father, often called on my grandfather at Nephi on his way to and from Salt Lake City to conference.  One morning in the spring of 1877, returning from conference, he in Nephi for a visit.  In the meantime, his team turned short and broke out the wagon tongue.  Getting it repaired delayed his journey for hours, making it possible for my mother and father to get acquainted. The next time Father passed that way, he took Mother with him and they were married January 16, 1878, in the St. George Temple.

Sarah Ann Lunt immediately took control of the hotel in Cedar City.  Aunt Mary Ann and Aunt Ellen, my father’s other wives, had previously taken care of the work but were not at an age of delicate health and could no longer carry on.  They also had the telegraph office to look after and Aunt Ellen was kept busy with that.  She was one of Utah’s first telegraph operators. The hotel and stage line were the main source of support for the entire family which consisted of Father, who was almost blind, Aunt Mary Ann, Aunt Ellen, Mother and some 20 children.

Things went well until the raids on polygamy began.  Father took Aunt Ellen and went to England as a missionary for two years to avoid the law.  After coming home, things were no better.  So, Apostle Erastus Snow said to Mother, “Sarah Ann Lunt, it is our job to take your husband and go to Old Mexico.” Where you can acquire land as a place of refuge.  We have talked to President Porfirio Diaz and he is willing to allow us to live our religion.  We can build up and beautify the country.  Diaz says his people are in need of being taught a better way of living and doing things.  Other people are there and two settlements are already established, Colonia Diaz and Colonia Juarez.”

In response, Mother said, “Brother Snow, do you know what you are asking of me? This hotel is the only means of support for the entire family. Brother Lunt is blind and I am the only one in the family who is able to run it.  We have no means and my oldest son is only eight years old.”  He said, “Sister Lunt, I feel it is the will of god that you should go, and the Lord will open the way if you will but obey.”  Mother prayed and fasted and thought the thing over until Apostle Snow came again.  Mother was strong willed and did not act until she knew it was right.

We left Cedar City later in the evening of November 26, 1887.  There were no farewells. Only the most trusted friends knew we had gone.  Our party consisted of Father, Mother, Edgerton, Broughton, Parley and Edward.  We took the southern route by way of “Dixie.”  We went through Toquerville on to Virgin City and up a canyon called North Creek, where a family by the name of Sanders lived.  It was great grape country.  I will never forget the pickled grapes put down in barrels.  I have never seen any since like them.

We found lodging in a two-room log house which had been used by campers as an old junk house.  One of mother’s first discoveries there was that all we children were lousy.  I well remember the days of scrubbing and cleaning until the pests were exterminated.  Then came the measles.  The remedy was sheep berry tea. It did all that any highly advertised patent medicine could do.  It cured the measles.  While there, we boys learned how to make slat quail traps.  Father bought us a sack of wheat for bait and we climbed the sunny hillsides and found bare spots where the snow had melted off, made a trail of wheat leading to the trap, then waited for the catch.  How happy we were one morning to find we had caught 13 quail in one trap.  How well I remember the quail pie that night.

When the weather permitted, we moved on.  We arrived in February, 1888 at Moccasin Springs, Arizona where we stayed at a stock ranch operated by Christopher Heaton.  My brother, Heaton, was born there.  When he was three weeks old we journeyed on, going by way of Kanab over the Buckskin Mountains to House Rock.  My half-brother Oscar joined us at Pipe Springs and brought the white topped buggy.  We loaded the bedding and provisions and needed camp equipment in the buggy where Mother and the children rode.  The heavier goods were loaded on the big wagon.  On acquiring the new fresh team and hitching them to the buggy, Mother thought it safer to ride on the heavy wagon.  But even then, when going down a steep rocky hill, Mother was thrown from the wagon with the baby.  In trying to protect the baby in the fall, Mother hurt her ankle quite badly.  Father had her sit on a stone and he administered to her.  She recovered sufficiently to continue the journey although she remained lame for months.

Mother had a natural horror of crossing the Colorado River at Lee’s Ferry. Just a short time before we crossed, a man was drowned while attempting to cross.  We had to cross at the upper ferry and it necessitated going over Lee’s Backbone, a very dangerous steep mountain.  I will never forget as we started down the ridge with steep canyons on both the north and the south sides, Oscar fell from the wagon, lodging on the tugs of the team on his back.  The brake came off and the horses were unable to control the wagon.  No matter which way it went it meant certain destruction.  Luckily, Oscar regained control and all was well.  On the river, men had to hold the wagon from tipping into the water.

From the Colorado to the Little Colorado is a barren waste with but little water.  Most of what water was obtained had lodged in the holes in the rocks and had been there for months.  Sheep had also watered at these holes and the liquid was very yellow and brackish.  It always had to be boiled and some substitute flavoring added to be used at all.  On reaching the Little Colorado we had a new experience.  The horses were nearly famished with thirst and, seeing the water, plunged into it and sank deep in quicksand.  After a great deal of exertion we finally got them out. We then traveled up the river to Winslow, Holbrook, and Joseph City, Arizona.  We then went on to Snowflake and Pinedale where we stayed that summer and rented six acres of land.

Brothers Freeman and Flake let us milk a few of their range cows.  Mother did the milking while the boys herded the cows and calves.  The Apache Indians were not under thorough control and often broke off the reservation.  We remained in Pinedale or Fish’s Ranch the winter of 1888 and I went to school at Pinedale a mile away.  Joseph Smith of Snowflake was the teacher.  He lived at the Fish Ranch also.  Many a morning I held to one fork of his swallow tailed coat to keep from being lost in the snow as we trudged on our way to school.  The summer of 1889, Aunt Annie came with her family and joined us at Pinedale with one more wagon and a team.  She then took the buggy back to Cedar City.  In September the rest of us took up the journey again to Mexico. 

Near Show Low, a man by the name of Jeff Adams and his wife fell in with us.  After traveling with us for several days, they pulled on alone and left us.  The next morning, our best horse could not be found and we spent the entire day looking for him, but all in vain.  That made it necessary to use one of the saddle ponies as a work horse and one boy had to walk and drive cows.  In time we reached Pima on the Gila River when we camped near Franklin Scott.  He had arrived some months before and had raised a small crop.  He was also on his way to Mexico.  Here we found our first sweet potatoes, and were they good!  They grew so prolific that George went to help a man dig them on shares and found one so large that he sat on one end and put the other end in the fire to cook.

While on the Gila, Christopher Heaton, Warriner Porter and John Walser joined us with two to four families each.  From then until we reached Colonia Diaz, sometime in December, 1889, our camp looked like the children of Israel in the wilderness.   We would build a big fire at night.  Then we children would play while the older folks would sing hymns, relate past experiences, speak of their future hopes, etc.  Then we would all be called to order and Brother Walser would lead in a hymn.  We would all kneel in our large circle and some of the men would pour out their souls to God for blessings of the day and ask Him to bless and watch over us and our animals as we slept.  All the Porter and Heaton families came down with sore eyes and that spoiled our good play at night.  I can see them still in memory bathing and trying to get their matted eyes open of a morning.

We finally reached Deming, New Mexico, a railroad town before crossing in Mexico.  There we stocked up on a few things we needed, as far as our meager means allowed.  Until then, we had not had a stove to cook on since we left Cedar City, nor a bestead outside of what we had made.  The only furniture we had was one red and one green chair which had been made in Utah with rawhide for the seats.  At Deming, father bought two cast iron cook stoves, one for each of his wives.  They were still in using them when we left Mexico.  He also bought two rockers, and I think a half dozen chairs.  This was the sum total of the furniture we owned.  We did have plenty of good homemade quilts and plenty of empty ticks which we filled with corn husks after we raised corn. We also had three feather beds and several pillows.  Until the first corn crop was harvested in Pacheco, we used pine needles or pulled wild grass to fill the bed ticks.

Upon arriving in Colonia Diaz, we had to leave the only team of horses we had.  They were old and nothing but mares could go on from there duty free.   We also had to leave one of the cows which became too weak to travel.  From Juarez to Pacheco was the end of the journey, as the notorious San Diego Canyon had to be scaled.  We managed to acquire the assistance of lumber haulers who went up empty to get lumber.  We arrived on what was the town site of Pacheco just as the sun was setting in the west.  It had been previously surveyed and laid off into city lots, each lot containing one and one-fourth acres with wide streets and a small alley running through the blocks both ways to avoid corrals being built on the main street. 

There were two small houses built of logs on the town site when we arrived, one owned by George Haws and the other by Alexander F. Macdonald, the latter being the surveyor.  The town was built on a small mesa of about 200 acres, falling away to the south.  A high mountain of 1800 feet to the west and a box canyon 100 feet deep on the east bracketed the town.  The canyon was cut our of solid volcanic rock by the Piedras Verdas River which drained the beautiful yellow pine timber, and provided a living for most occupants of the town by affording lumber for telephone posts, railroad ties, mining timbers, and juniper fence posts.  The lowlands afforded small fertile farms and grazing lands.  The town proved to be a very rocky piece of ground, after the abundant grass was gone, which served as a beautiful garment when we first arrived.

We arrived in Pacheco on January 21, 1890.  The next day was a busy one.  We cut logs, made cribs about two feet high, then put up a ridgepole over which we stretched our wagon covers and gathered pine needles upon which we spread our quilts for beds, making as many as four children beds in each shelter.  Late in the evening of the first day, one of John C. Naegle’s sons arrived at our camp with a load of lumber he had brought from a sawmill in Cave Valley and gave it to us.  We used it to make a spacious kitchen and dining room by lashing a pole between two pine trees and leaning one end of the boards against the poles and letting the other end rest on the ground.  This we called “the shanty.”  George went to take some of the horses “off to the park” as we called it, a small valley at the foot of Garcia Knoll, and came home with a deer tied on behind him.  He was only 15 and what a hero he was.

Yet other colonists soon arrived:  the Scotts, Farnsworth’s, Rowley’s, Cooley’s, Blacks, Heaton’s, Porter’s, Carroll’s and many others.  A log school and church house quickly erected.  A ditch from Water Canyon was to be dug so we could plant orchards and gardens and have water for culinary purposes.  In the meantime, all of our water was either carried or hauled in barrels from streams a mile away.

1891 was a year of severe drought everywhere and food became very scarce.  Also it was an early fall and corn did not mature.  George went to work on the railroad.  Oscar worked at the sawmill and Edgerton went to work for Franklin Spencer.  Father, Tom and I hoed corn at home.  The only good team of mares we had that had reached Mexico had to be sold to make ends meet.  Our suckling colts were killed by mountain lions before the first season was over.  We hoed constantly.  Father (who was nearly blind) had to be nearby so we could tell him which was corn and which was weeds.

Father always took one day off each week for letter writing.  He couldn’t read what he wrote after writing it but by having very heavy lines drown on the paper he could follow them. Parley herded the cows to be sure they would find the best pastures and come safely home each night so that we could obtain the scanty supply of milk they gave.  One day while herding cows he was bitten by a black rattler on his little toe.  His leg swelled up so tight we were afraid it would burst.  We did all we knew for it to no avail until the Lord heard our feeble cry and answered our prayers.

During this time, most who entered the colonies were very destitute.  In Pacheco we were the only ones who had corn.  The year of 1892 was a desperate one, and flour was not to be bought.  The cattle were dying of starvation, but we saved our corn again and had it made into meal.  I well remember how people came to borrow the corn or meal not knowing how or when they would be able to return it. I was too young to sense the gravity of the situation but can year yet the conversations that took place whenever our last sack was being dipped into.  People would come to Father and say, “Brother Lunt, have you any more meal you could lend me, my family hasn’t a dust of breadstuff in the house.” His reply would be, “Ah dear brother, you will have to see Sarah.”  I have heard Mother bear her testimony many times to the fact that she divided down to the last mixing and trusted in the Lord that somehow the way would open so she could feed her own.  Just as the last dust was divided, here came Albert Farnsworth in from working on the “Manana (tomorrow) Railroad” with two four-horse wagons of flour.  By night, Mother would have 1,000 pounds of flour in her house that had been returned for cornmeal.

In 1895 I went to work for Pleasant Williams for $.50 per day and worked until I had earned $60 for which he gave me a horse.  My brother Edgerton also worked for Joshua Stevens at the same price and got another for $50.  They were both two years old.  We waited a year. Got them up and gentled them and it made us our first real team.  The same year, Mother and I and the four youngest children, Heaton, Alma, Owen and Clarence, moved onto the Williams Ranch and rented six acres of land and 15 cows to milk.  Edward was in Chihuahua City working for Lucian Mecham and his wife who were running a hotel there.  Parley, Father and Tom looked after the farm in Pacheco.  In order to do our plowing on the Williams Ranch we borrowed a mule from James Mortensen when he could spare it.  Otherwise, Mother and I used the hoe method. We succeeded, however, in raising several tons of potatoes, a few beans and enough corn to fatten two or three big white hogs, a lot of squash and a good garden.  We moved back to Pacheco for the winter and school.  In those days we would have about three months of school, beginning the first of the year.

In 1897 we bought the Spencer farm at Corrales for $1,000.  We also bought a small cheese factory from George C. Naegle and milked some of his cows on shares and some of Helaman Pratt’s.  Mother’s cheese became famous right away and found a ready sale.  Each year a box of the fruits and vegetables and products of the Mormon colonies was sent to President Porfirio Diaz as a token of our good will to him and our appreciation for letting us live in his nation unmolested.  Included in each box was one of Mother’s cheeses.

Laura Ann Hardy Mecham was the first Relief Society President Pacheco had.  After she moved away, Mother took her place and served as long as we lived there.  During the early days of Pacheco, many of the men died due to exposure and overwork and lack of sufficient food.  Examples are William Haws, John McConkie, and John Rowley.  These men left large families and people had a hard time of it.  Many was the day that a few of the sisters would get together and go over to spend the day with “Aunt Sarah Ann Lunt,” and when the truth was known it was to get a little food as well as have a visit.  As I remember, she always had more than anyone else in town to cook.  She always had a garden as we had a stream of water at all times of our won.  She was a friend to the poor native people of the area as well and they loved her because she never let them go away hungry.    

In 1899 our home in Corrales burned down.  Since Father and Aunt Ellen were getting along in years, Mother wanted to build a brick house large enough to take care of him them, her own family, and also some spare rooms for passersby, as it seemed there were always lots of travelers in the country looking for accommodations.  Mother sent to Helaman Pratt for advice, but he rather discouraged the ideas, thinking it too big a job for her and her boys with the means she had.  It didn’t daunt her.  We went to work and hired a man who knew how to make brick, put up a brick kiln, worked on the sawmill for our lumber and hired a boy whose father was on a mission to Denmark to lay the brick.  We also hired a carpenter and builder.  They all did fine work.

The house was a two-story affair, consisting of nine large rooms.  We had it finished and paid for in 18 months.  Sadly, this was not soon enough for Father to move into because he died on January 22, 1902.  Aunt Ellen was then brought over and she died there.  Aunt Annie also made her home with us for several years until she decided to live with her daughter Ellen in Pacheco.

The big house being finished and the Noroestre Railroad having been completed as far south as Terrazas, it became possible for Mother to entertain guests.  The railroad advertised their road as leading into the Sierra Madre Mountains and as opening up one of the best hunting grounds in America for both small and large game.  This brought many people from all over the United States and Europe to hunt.  And as Corrales and the Lunt house were on the route where they outfitted and quit the wagon road, my brother George took up the hob as a guide to trappers and hunters and became the most famous guide of his day in Mexico, having trapped as many as seven bear in one week. 

Our ranch, being the jumping off place into the unknown wilderness and the only place where people could get hotel accommodations, brought many people of high rank to our home.  Including among them were: Theodore Roosevelt, Dr. Smith, who accompanied him on his African hunt.  German barons, and English dukes and lord.  At one time, William Green, the great Cananea Copper Company owner, brought man of the nation’s great men to the area, including some 27 senators.  They all stayed overnight at the Lunt house.  Although Mother had no education, she felt as free and at home conversing with these people as she did with her own family.

Mother placed great store by her dreams.  She always had a forewarning in a dream before someone died in the community and when she was informed of some sudden death, she would often say, “That is what I saw; it was not quite clear to me, but now it is.”  She was a friend to the sick and always had a little medicine and food for the needy.  As material for burial clothing was hard to get, especially for members who had been through the temple, I have known her to give her own temple clothing for them to bury someone with.

At the time of the Exodus I was in the Mexican town of Toluca on a mission.  The women and children of the colonies went first on a train to El Paso and later the men followed on horseback by way of Hachita, New Mexico.  Rey L. Pratt was President of the Mexican Mission at the time.  Most of the 22 missionaries in the Mexico City area were from the colonies and many of them had families depending on them.  President Pratt, hearing of the colonists all being in El Paso, immediately went there to see what could be done. Mother met him and gave him $50 to give to me, saying, “I want him to say as long as he is needed.  We will get along all right.”  Although President Pratt declined to accept the money, he mind was made up and he accepted.

In the summer of 1913, she thought it her duty to go back to Mexico and put Clarence and Owen in the Juarez Stake Academy.  She was made matron of the Ivins home which had become par to fht eschool and where many outside students lived.  The Ivins lots were used as agricultural experiment farms.  In 1919,  she again returned to Colonia Pacheco, taking Alma and Clarence with her.  To go back to the devastated home in Corrales where she had spent so many struggling but happy years was a trial that few women could endure.  Her once beautiful home was a pile of rubble with only parts of the walls standing.  Fences were gone that once enclosed fertile areas.  There was no stock on the range to be looked after or bring in profit, no bawling of calves.  All was silent except for the chatter of natives that gathered to greet her.  A few homes of her friends had escaped the forest fires that swept the town.  But the once beautiful two-story church with its spires to which she had contributed so much was a skeleton with a leaky roof and glassless windows. 

Undaunted, she moved into the adobe home of her son Heaton, which had not been destroyed.  President Ivins visited them in 1920 and made her youngest son, Clarence Bishop with Harlo Johnson First and William Jarvis Second Counselors.  She re-fenced the fields, obtained more cows, and resumed making cheese.  She was happy again.  To once more be back where her husband and Aunt Ellen were buried was very important to her.  She had given her first child to Aunt Ellen who was unable to have any of her own. 

The Revolution continued.  Firs one man would gain control of the government and then another, and each would print his own money.  As the different leaders lost out, their money became valueless.  The silver dollar always retained its value, but very few silver dollars could be found.  Mother had 45 silver dollars laid away in a baking powder can, hidden in her flour bin, to pay her burial expenses.

During the late summer of 1921 her health failed and she suffered a long sick spell.  She again had a dream.  In November, for of her sons went to visit her:  Broughton, Parley, Edward, and Heaton.  We wanted to bring her out to Duncan, Arizona where we resided and could get the aid of a doctor.  She declined, saying, “I want to stay right here.  If it is the Lord’s will that I should live, He can make me well here, and if my time to die has come, I want to die and be buried here.”  She told us she had dreamed of traveling and entering a deep canyon and as she traveled the walls became higher and steeper, until she reached a point where it looked as though she could go no farther.  Just as she was about to give up going any father, it suddenly opened up into a beautiful valley.  She said, “I don’t know whether it means I am going to get well or pass to the other side.”  She felt sure there would be a sudden change for the better.  Our visit did her good. 

After coming home for three weeks we received a telegram from President John T. Whetten telling us that Mother was worse.  So Edward, Chloe, Heaton’s wife, and myself went back to her bedside, knowing that we would bury her before we returned.  We arrived at her bedside on Christmas Eve and watched over her until 6:00 pm on the 27th when she died with father’s name on her lips, gazing heavenward.   

Being a carpenter, I took some of the boards my mother used to cure her cheese on and made her casket.  Chloe and Lavetta lined it with white bleaching and the Johnson girls trimmed it with lace inside and out.  On the 29th she was buried on the left side of her husband, Henry Lunt.  Aunt Ellen, his first wife, had been buried on his right side.  We dedicated the spot and poured out our souls in gratitude to God that he had given us such noble, God-fearing parents. 

Broughton Lunt

Stalwarts South of the Border, Nelle Spilsbury Hatch, page 413

Charles Julius Rohwer

Charles Julius Rohwer

Leave a reply

 

Charles Julius Rohwer

1838-1907

One of the early settlers in Colonia Diaz, Mexico, was Charles Julius Rohwer.  A convert to the Church, he was born April 10, 1838, in Rendsburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Prussia.  He was baptized November 12, 1862, in Jylland, Denmark, and came to Utah, arriving October 8, 1864.

He arrived in Diaz about the first of January 1890 with his family.  After buying a lot of Main Street, he built a well-constructed two-story adobe house.  An additional room was added to the back of the house, which was used as a “summer kitchen.” Surrounding the lot he built a three-foot adobe wall for protection from intruders as well as from bad weather.

The yard was artistically landscaped with many flowers and plants.  An orchard of fruit trees was planted in the back yard along with some grape vines to complete the landscaping.  He received many compliments on the beauty of the home and its pleasant surroundings.

While the Rohwer family resided in the area, two infants were born to them.  One, a son, died at birth and was buried in the Diaz cemetery.  The other, a daughter Alice, born May 11, 1890 is still living.  She resides in Utah and is 79 years of age (1969).

Although Rowher made several trips back to the States, his family remained in Mexico until 1897.  At this time, the home and property were sold to the Richardson family and the Rohwer family moved back to Utah. 

The remainder of his life was spent farming several areas of northern Utah.  He died September 12, 1907, following a heart attack and was buried in Brigham City, Box Elder County, Utah.

Lucille M. Johnson, granddaughter

Stalwarts South of the Border, Nelle Spilsbury Hatch, page 578