Benjamin Louis Croff
1847-1937
Benjamin Louis Croff was born March 6th, 1847 at Northfield, Summit County, Ohio, to William Cowe and Julia Ann Boughy. The family moved to the wilds of Sheboygan County, Wisconsin, in 1847, then on to Noble County, Indiana. After two years they move to Cass County, Iowa.
Ben’s father was a blacksmith and wagon maker who, with the help of the oldest son, William, set up blacksmithing on a large scale and did a thriving business with California and Utah immigrants as they moved West. In 1852 Ben’s father started for Oregon but went only as far as Council Bluffs, Iowa, where he decided to build a hotel. This was an important stopping place on the newly-developed Oregon Trail. One of Ben’s childhood memories were those of Mormon handcart companies setting out across the desolate plains.
After two years the Croff family moved to Kansas. They moved to a 160 acre farm that had belonged to an old Dutch plantation owner. It was located in the heavy timber bottom of the Missouri River across from St. Joseph, Missouri. Abraham Lincoln came there, stumping for political office, and seeing wide-eyed Ben standing by the coach, offered his carpet bag to be carried into the hotel. This Ben excitedly did and Lincoln handed him a quarter for it. It was only the second quarter he had earned. Not long after that Ben went to St. Joseph to see a play featuring the actor John Wilkes Booth who later assassinated President Lincoln.
The Civil War came along, scattering father and boys, each finding his own way to the West. Though just a stripling of a boy, at 16, Ben found his way through some of the wildest camps of the Western frontier as a teamster and mine worker. He said of those days, “I never took up any of the bad practices of that environment except swearing, mule-skinner’s vocabulary, but not profanity. I did not smoke, drink, chew or submit myself to loose moral conduct.”
In 1862 Ben reached Denver, then a town of 600 population. He worked in the Black Hawk mines in central Colorado in 1863 to 1864, then drove six yoke of oxen to Camp Douglas, Utah, then trudged on alone to Salt Lake City, half frozen and starved. A kindly Mormon family took him in and fed and lodged him until he could work.
A year later Ben’s father and brother Will arrived, and were baptized, but Ben was not yet converted. In the spring of 1867 a party was made up to prospect for gold in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming, 100 miles east and north of Fort Bridger. Twelve miles east of Fremont Peak the Indians unexpectedly came upon them, and killed seven of the party, as well as nine other men at the Sweetwater Station ten miles east, one at Little Sandy Station, and one more at Big Sandy Station. All three stations were burned, Ben said, “Providence seemed to be caring for me, though I didn’t understand it at the time.”
In 1868 he carried his blankets to Green River crossing, now Green River City. A group of gamblers and entertainment girls with portable halls and dressing rooms were going to a grading camp. They let him load his blankets on their wagon while they all walked to the railroad camp. There were 160 men of all nationalities there. Ben and one or two others took a tape and hand compass, and surveyed a street six blocks long, driving stakes on each side of street. That was the beginning of Evanston, Wyoming. He took a block and could have had any amount more just for staking it out. Still very young, and impatient for faster monetary return, he left it all and moved on to Big Rock at Yellow Creek, near Bear River about six miles west.
There were some 300 men at Yellow Creek, all nationalities, and learning Ben was from Salt Lake City, secretly planned to hang him along with their superintendent. Ben discovered the plot and fled to Salt Lake City, arriving August of 1868 to find great excitement over the new apostate group called the Godbeites. Ben almost joined their following for they had a well edited periodical and were made up of wealthy converts from the cultured class in Great Britain. But before he became a member, the movement fizzled out.
On September 26, 1870 he married Mary Jane Davis, a precious little Welsh girl, in the old Endowment House. Bishop Hoagland had baptized him almost a year before. He and his brother helped build the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads. They were among the first in the Cottonwood and Park City mining district of Utah, 1870-1873, and first to pen the Leeds (sandstone) mining district of southern Utah between 1874-1878.
Benjamin Louis Croff opened a blacksmith shop with Oscar Young, a son of Brigham Young. They made wagons and buggies. Ben shod horses to earn $300.00 for a donation to the tabernacle building; the shop financed his mining. When Oscar was called on a mission, Ben bought his interest and did a good business with government contracts from Camp Douglas and other preferred trade with the leading authorities of the Church. Ben could always get good credit wherever he went. He and his brother Will took a contract with Benson and Farr for the Union Pacific Railroad to do a stretch on the Promontory northwest of Ogden. They had moved to Payson, south of Provo, and Ben became critically ill at the time of departure. Bishop Hoagland and Ben’s father administered to him and he felt better, ordered his brother to make a bed in their wagon for him, and they left in spite of pleadings from his father, and others, not to. They encountered such severe weather that Ben almost died. Their supplies never arrived and the project had to be abandoned for the time being. Ben and Will lived in a cave for a while waiting for the supplies, during which time they were given what they needed in feed for the horses and food for themselves by a branch of a Salt Lake City trading company. They were told, “Take all you want and pay when you get back to Salt Lake headquarters. We know all about you and your credit is good.” They had never seen this man before. They lost all they had in this venture but managed to pay off their debts and their indebtedness on their father’s home.
On April 25, 1885, Benjamin Louis Croff married Hannah Elizabeth McKnight, daughter of Bishop James McKnight of Minersville, Utah, who in his later years became Patriarch. Bishop McKnight was the first Bishop of Minersville. Ben and Hannah were married in the St. George Temple. They had a baby daughter whom they named Mary Jane after Ben’s first wife, she being unable to bear children. This being a polygamous marriage, secrecy was necessary. When it was apparent that Hannah was with child the three decided to hide her in the tunnel of mines so Ben could be free to provide for them. This seemed the only way out for them but it was a great hardship for Hannah and she lost her health.
Apostle Erastus Snow had been involved in the purchase of lands for colonization in Mexico and wrote Benjamin to come, promising him he would make a good living if he did, and saying that he was needed. Ben and Hannah left all their worldly possessions with Jane, hitched a beautiful span of buff horses with black flowing tails and manes to a buckboard, loaded in Hannah with her baby daughter and drove off for Mexico. His huge St. Bernard dog trailed behind. Hannah was well known in that section of the country for her looks and talents in singing and ballroom dancing. She was a small woman, as was Jane. Ben looked very young, had coal black wavy hair and snapping eyes, a well-balanced face and fine features, was six feet, one inch tall, and slender. They excited much attention wherever they went.
It was a hard trip, and took all the strength they had to reach Colonia Juarez. It was almost more than Hannah could bear to lay her little one to rest in desert country near Gallup, New Mexico, never to see the spot again. Further discouragement met them on arrival at the colonies. The poverty of those just getting settled was dire, living in ragged tents, propped-up driftwood cast up from the Piedras Verdes River, caves in the river bank, etcetera.
Brother and Sister Snow welcomed them into their two-room adobe house until a parcel of land was allotted to them. The one they received turned out to be the worst place in the colony, half of it running up the side of a rocky hill. A third of the way down Ben leveled off a strip large enough for a sizable corral and stock sheds. He also terraced off a fine vineyard. The irrigation ditch which he helped construct ran a few feet below the corral, and another branch higher up. The house was built on the next level with a barn at the side. A hundred yards below this was his shop and a lovely orchard. He had the first winter apples and pears raised in the area. He provided handsomely for his family, working 12 hours a day in the shop, taking care of the chores and his place in the few hours remaining. This left scarcely enough time for rest. Their strength became depleted and they had much sickness.
Ben stayed up nights for a week with Jane who was three-and-a-half years old and who had spinal meningitis, which had broken out in the colonies. With ho doctors but Benjamin, the Elders were called in, as always, and she was one of the very few that recovered. There were no after effects of any kind to mar her. He never took his clothes off to sleep in all the time until her crisis was over. Although he was a very stern and exacting man with his family, he was always at the bedside when accident, illness or harm struck. At times he himself became critically ill but always took command and dictated what was to be done.
He participated actively in all the civic affairs of the colonies and helped in getting the schools, tannery, power house, cannery, and telephone company started. He had his own private telephone lines to the mines over 40 miles away. He at one time operated a mercantile store in Colonia Juarez, but had to close it down due to mismanagement by the man he placed in charge of it. He opened up the Guaynopa mining district near the State of Sonora in the high and rugged Sierra Madre Mountains. This was at one time described in leading mining journals as the copper bonanza of North America.
He and Hannah had a large family as follows: Mary Jane, Jane Elizabeth, Julia Maude, Benjamin Louis, Paul Loraine, Ruth, Hannah Eve, and Charles Gordon. After several children arrived, Jane wrote from Utah that although she had been doing well, she wanted to be with the family. Ben told her to sell the home and come to Mexico, leaving his brother Will to manage his property and mine there. Hannah welcomed her into her home as Jane had done years before. They loved each other and liked to be together. Jane loved to do things for the children and they loved her next to their mother. Jane and Hannah would take each other’s part in any issue with Benjamin, and in spite of his high temper, he seemed to think this was all right. When the two of them got together he usually yielded. We know of no other family where this was so much the case.
Ben’s business grew and he found a larger residence was necessary. He bought the large, white, stone house of Apostle John W. Taylor, who had been called back to Salt Lake. Time and space will not permit a full description of all the unusual feathers of this home of two master and many other bedrooms, a large powder room at the foot of the wide oak staircase, a large office for Ben, parlor, a family room, great dining hall, kitchen, pantry, large cellar, two bathrooms (one inside was a luxury in those days), and many closets plus an attic and under-house space that could accommodate several additional rooms. On the second floor the stairway opened through double ornate oak doors to a foyer and large entertainment hall. A very large bay window at the far end of the hall served as a stage when desired, and yet other double doors opened to a 10×14 foot veranda.
Hannah made the old home look almost like a fairy land, and to this new place she applied her taste and skill with great effect, making it the show place of the State of Chihuahua. Many Europeans and North Americans came to Pearson in connection with the lumber business, the mines, and to hunt. They were always given a tour of this place by Dave Spilsbury, a close friend, who ran a tourist and hunting business in Pearson and Nuevo Casas Grandes. There were imported golden maples from Canada and bordering the sidewalks, 85 varieties of tea roses, potted ferns of every kind, mock orange arbors from California, moon-flowers as large as dinner plates, and many other novelties too numerous to mention. Weddings and funerals carried away flowers by the tubful and were hardly missed.
Benjamin Louis Croff and the boys sometimes helped with the flowers but generally hired help was brought in. Once Ben brought a young Yaqui Indian down from the mines to help. It was felt necessary to clothe him at the house, but this was a great disadvantage to him. When only the boys or small children were around he hung shirt and pants on some limb, retaining breech cloth only. But the girls and their friends were always encountering him, shrieking at his nudeness, and embarrassing him. He was a very nice young man and otherwise well behaved. He was fond of Ben and wanted to please him, but begged to go back to the mines, so he was taken back.
Benjamin Louis Croff always signed his name as B.L. Croff, and was soon known simply as B.L. That was the way almost all people referred to him.
Another amusing episode, as told by daughter Hannah, follows:
Father did much buying from a merchant in Casas Grandes named Mari Hilda Pari [Ermeregildo Parra]. He was European (not Mormon)who prospered there, married ten women, had children by all fo them, and could afford many servants, carriages and mounts. Their residence surrounded an entire block with a large lovely patio in the center. Knowing of our new home, they decided to pay us a social visit, never doubting we could cope with the situation. At about 10:30 one morning the colonists were startled to glance up at the dugway coming into town and witness a caravan the likes of which they had never before beheld. There was conjecture as to whether or not the town was being taken over, but by whom and why? No one was able to fathom this phenomenon until the procession wound itself leisurely down and across the river bridge and up to our place. When we recognized who it was, we took what control we could of our surprised expressions and performed such hospitality as we were able to think of on short notice.
After almost an hour of salutations Mother excused herself to give instructions for the preparation of dinner, but they restrained her, saying they had come well prepared with food of their own. It was not too unusual for us to seat 32 persons at meal time, but this time the dining hall was taxed to the limit. However, we had an enjoyable visit, and they departed a few hours before dark.
When the terrible news that the Mormons were to leave Mexico came in 1912, the family was given an hour to throw things in trunks and rush to Pearson where cattle cars waited to transport them to the United States and safety. They left 300 acres of pasture, 70 acres of farm land, two nice orchards, horses, cattle, tow homes, and mines operating at an ambitious rate. Some of the men at the mines were killed, the mill strung all over the hills, and finally, the ore dump, which was rich in gold was raided.
Ben and his two oldest boys stayed behind to protect things from raiders and vandals, hoping the others would return in only a short while, but they finally had to leave with other men, crossing the desert to El Paso. Ben was one of the group captains. Benjamin, Jr. had his beloved dog, Bud, along (son of old Judge, the St. Bernard and a shepherd dog). A rabid coyote attacked the camp and Bud fought it off, receiving wounds. When the dog became sick they had to shoot him, which was almost too much for Benjamin Jr. to bear.
Benjamin Louis Croff was going blind, and trying to recover business losses seemed an impossibility. However, he acquired a big cattle ranch operation in the northern part of the Panhandle in Texas. The drought of 1921 bankrupted this operation along with other cattlemen and several large banks. This left him without hope of keeping up taxes on his mines in Mexico and he lost them by default, being unable to operate them during the long Revolution. He was honored with a fine banquet on his 90th birthday by his priesthood quorum. He died, almost 91, in the home of his third son, Paul, in El Paso, Texas, having lived the last 10 years of his life in almost total blindness. His wife Hannah had preceded him in death almost six years before. Jane still lived with Maude, but died later, and was buried in Virden, New Mexico. She was a fine nurse, and lovingly remembered by many families. All of Hannah’s children loved them both dearly as well as their father.
Hannah Croff Putnam, daughter
Compiled by Nelle Spilsbury Hatch,
Stalwarts South of the Border pg 126