Tag Archives: Colonia Dublan

Guy C. Wilson

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Guy C. Wilson

1964-1942

The paternal ancestors of Guy C. Wilson are to be traced back in English and Scottish history.  The first to come to North American colonies arrived in Boston around 1640.  Guy C. Wilson’s grandfather, for whom he was named, was born in Chittendon County, Vermont, in 1801.  It was this forbearer who, with his father and brothers, joined the Mormon Church and linked their lives with its dramatic early days.

Guy’s grandfather and namesake, with his wife Elizabeth and their family, left Nauvoo with others of the Saints in 1846.  The rigors of the western journey proved too severe and Guy died on 17 September of that same year.  Elizabeth and her 18-year old son Lycurgus, took charge of family affairs and pressed on to the Salt Lake Valley.  There, three years later, when Lycurgus was 21, he married 14-year old Lois Ann Stevens.  This occurred on November 29, 1849.  The couple was called to help settle Sanpete Valley where they assisted in establishing what is now Fairview, Utah.  And it was in Fairview, as the fourth of their eight children, that young Guy Carlton, bearing the name of his grandfather, was born April 19, 1864.

Guy Carlton Wilson’s eldest brother, Lycurgus Arnold, would, like Guy, later become with other members of his large polygamous family, residents of the Mormon Colonies in Mexico.  Two of Guy’s sisters, Ellen Adelia and Mary Mehitable, became the polygamous wives of Philip Harrison Hurst, another Mexican colonist.  Yet another sister married Andrew Peterson of Colonia Juarez. An both of Guy’s parents would later move to the colonies where they died and were buried.

In his youth, Guy received a strict Mormon upbringing.  Unless given permission to do otherwise, he was expected to be home by dark, to report to his parents on every evening’s activity away from home, and to be faithful in his religious duties. Early on, he became attached to the habit of personal prayer, fully convinced that his prayers were always heard and answered.  On one occasion as a boy, however, while searching for a lost cow, he thought he would employ the Lord in his errand.  He knelt down and fervently pleaded that he might locate the animal after crossing the next little hill.  Arising from his prayer, he was certain he would walk straight over the hill and see the cow immediately.  Instead, it was nowhere in sight.  Had God failed him? No.  The boy’s mind reasoned out an explanation that served him well the rest of his life.  “Had the Lord answered that prayer,” he said, “I would have kept Him busy all my life placing things or changing situations to suit my convenience, instead of learning the basic lesson that “the Lord helps those who help themselves.” 

He displayed a zeal for learning and was always an avid reader.  His studious manner earned him an unusual respect from his boyhood peers.  The story is told that at one time he was with a group of friends, sitting around the stove in a Fairview store, listening to a group of laborers that had recently returned from observing mining operations at Bingham.  The men told how they saw water lifted from one side of the canyon to a higher level at the other side by means of a long, specially constructed pipe.  Young Guy protested that this was impossible because, without a pump, water could not be made to rise above its source.  A heated argument followed, with men scoffing at the “know-it-all” kids.”  The other boys insisted, however, that if Guy said it was impossible, so it was.  It finally reached the point that both sides were willing to wager money on their opinions.  One of the boys had recently been orphaned and had inherited a team of matching grays.  He boldly stated, “If you say so, Guy, I’ll bet my team.” That ended the argument and those contending Guy Wilson was wrong, walked away.

Guy’s mother acted for years as both postmistress and telegraph operator in Fairview.  As a boy, Guy learned morse code and often helped his mother with the transmission and receipt of messages.  Inasmuch as these were the years when law enforcement authorities and Mormon polygamists were often engaged in a game of cat and mouse, young Guy, because of the central location and use of the telegraph of both sides, was often witness to the dramatic events of those days.  Sometimes Church leaders or their emissaries would arrive in person, unannounced.  One such occasion was long remembered by Guy.  Porter Rockwell arrived in the middle of a winter’s night.  After sending his telegraph message, he gladly accepted a plate of supper from the Wilson family.  As he sat eating before the open fire, Guy’s curiosity got the better of him, and asked: “Brother Rockwell, how many men have you killed in your life?”  Without a moment’s hesitation, Rockwell replied: ”Well, son, I reckon I never killed a single man that didn’t need killing.”

Recognizing their son’s zeal and special aptitude for learning, his parents fitted up a room with chairs and a blackboard in which Guy regularly met with friends with whom he studied and tutored.  An older brother and sister had already gone on to normal school and were teaching the elementary grades in Pleasant Grove, Utah.  In 1883, at the age of 19, Guy followed them and, in 1884, was himself employed as an elementary school teacher in the same community.  Ever hungry for additional education, in the autumn of 185, at the age of 21, he left Pleasant Grove and enrolled in the Brigham Young Academy.

The year that marked his first experience as a formal school instructor was important for another reason.  In September, 1884, he and Elvira Elizabeth Hartsborg were married in Salt Lake City by Daniel H. Wells.  They saw that first year in Pleasant Grove through together and lived in Provo, Utah, while Guy attended the Brigham Young Academy in 1885.  The next year Guy was called to serve in the Southern States Mission, with Elizabeth remaining in Fairview. Most of the time was spent in Kentucky and West Virginia.  In later years he told him he told his children many tales of the primitive conditions he observed while living in the hill country of those two states.

After being released and returning to Fairview in 1888, Guy and Elizabeth moved to Salt Lake City where he attended normal school in the old Social Hall.  In the fall of 1889, he accepted the position of principal of the district and returned to Fairview.  For the next two years he oversaw Fairview’s schools and served as Counselor to Bishop James C. Peterson.  Then, feeling the need for yet more schooling, he and Elizabeth moved to Provo where he could take additional course work in a variety of subjects.  While there he distinguished himself as an outstanding player on the school’s baseball team.  He also participated on the debating team and took part in dramatics.  He was selected to be “Class Orator” for the Class of 1893.

Guy returned to Fairview as principal of the school district and as a Counselor in the Bishopric.  His schooling and maturity, however, acted to point his interests in new and other directions.  He began reading law and involving himself in local political affairs.  Before long he was elected to the city council, then to the office of Justice of the Peace and, finally as prosecuting attorney.  After adding to these achievements by being elected county commissioner, he resigned his post as school principal and successfully obtained the state Democratic Party’s nomination for the office of State Auditor.  This was in 1895.

By this time Guy and Elizabeth had been married 11 years.  They had prospered.  They had an attractive home, a good team and buggy, and were respected citizens in their community.  Since there was no bank in Fairview at the time, Guy kept his earnings in a box in his bedroom dresser.  He was astonished at how rapidly his savings accumulated.  His and Elizabeth’s needs were modest.  Life seemed abundant in all regards, except for one:  Guy “ached” for children, especially a son.

Then occurred an important coincidence of events.  Anthony W. Ivins was set apart in 1895 to preside over the Mormon colonies in northern Mexico.  Ivins, as a young man, had been one of those who accompanied Daniel W. Jones in his exploring and proselytizing journey into Mexico in the 1870’s.  Like Guy, he had married and gone on a mission in the 1880’s.  He then returned to St. George, and like Guy, had prospered and become active in politics.  By the mid-1890’s he was being considered as the Democratic Party’s nominee for the state’s first race for governorship. 

After visiting the colonies and surveying their needs, Ivins returned to Salt Lake City to confer with Church Authorities at the time of the April general conference in 1896.  Among the most important of his recommendations to Church leaders was the imperative need for an improved school system in the colonies.  Altogether too little had been done in this regard during the 10 years since the colonies had been established.  Specifically, he asked that the Church subsidize a school system that would accommodate the colonists who were there and the hundreds of others who arrived from north of the border each year.  Secondly, he wanted the best young educator that could be found anywhere in the Church to be called on a mission to preside over that system and bring it to a level of excellence that the toiling Saints in Mexico deserved.  The authorities agreed to both requests.  While the Church readily concurred to underwrite an important school system in Mexico, there was uncertainty as to who should be chosen to oversee it.  President Ivins was told to consult Karl G. Maeser, the director the Brigham Young Academy in Provo.  After describing the kind of person required, Dr. Maeser immediately told Ivins, “Guy C. Wilson is your man.”  The result was an invitation to Guy to meet with President George Q. Cannon in his Salt Lake City office.

After being told what it was the authorities wished him to do, and given him time to consider it, Guy decided to accept and so informed President Cannon of his willingness.  However, Guy had previously made preparations to spend the 1896-1897 academic year studying law at the University of Michigan and thus would be unable to go to the colonies until the autumn of 1897.  President Cannon and Ivins both found this to be an acceptable delay.  As it turned out, Guy did not go to Michigan but spent the year studying at Brigham Young University in Provo.  When the agreed upon time arrived, he was given a formal missionary call, complete with the laying on of hands and papers, dated August 31, 1897, signed by the First Presidency of the Church, appointing Guy as head of the school system in the Mormon colonies in Mexico.    Before leaving President Cannon’s office Guy was also told that his calling involved more than presiding over schools.  He was expected to seek out and marry a suitable mate or mates in addition to his present wife.  President Ivins, was informed, had been given authority to solemnize polygamous or “celestial marriages.”  President Cannon assured Guy that the Lord did not want him to be forever childless.  We cannot be entirely sure how Elizabeth responded to this second part of Guy’s calling.  But she chose to stay in Utah when he left for Mexico in the autumn of 1897.  Ant it has been said that she seemed “crushed and rebellious.”

Upon arriving in Colonia Juarez, Guy was introduced to the colonists and their leaders by Karl G. Maeser who made it a point to be present at the time.  Guy, who was almost universally referred to thereafter as “Brother Wilson” or “Professor Wilson” took quarters in the home of Hanna S. Taylor.  Student were invited to visit with him in the Taylor home and, before long, it became one of the favorite locations for young people in Colonia Juarez to meet and socialize.

Making friends with the students and listening to their problems was but a part of the responsibilities Professor Wilson had undertaken. Nevertheless, it was an important part of illustrated one of his best known strength: his capacity for relating to and communicating with others.  It was not just that he was warm and magnetic in his personality.  He also had the ability to quickly elucidate an issue and then, with uncanny skill, bring contentious personalities to a common understanding.  Whether in the classroom or in church or civic gatherings, his remarkable gift for clear exposition and precipitating consensus marked him throughout his life.

A school building being constructed in Colonia Juarez and an addition was already being built when Professor Wilson assumed his responsibilities in the autumn of 1897.  He immediately set about reorganizing tutorial “reader system” used by his predecessor Dennison E. Harris, into a ladder of eight separate grades.  He added an additional teacher and saw 15 students graduate from the eighth grade in the spring of 1898.  More importantly, after making a tour of the colonies and examining their schooling efforts, he concluded that a program for teacher training must be implemented so that local talent could be used to enrich the educational experience of young people in every colony.  The result was the creation of a normal training center in the Juarez school.  In addition to this, each year he added a new grade level of instruction so that, by 1901, six students were graduated and certified to teach in the elementary schools of the Stake.   

In the summer of 1898 he went north to Salt Lake City where he reported to the First Presidency on his progress in turning the colony schools into an integrated system of graded, quality instruction.  Church leaders expressed their approval.  Then President Cannon asked how he was coming in connection with the rest of what he had been urged to do.  Professor Wilson’s reply was, “I’m waiting for her grow up.”  “Good,” said President Cannon, “Then, make it two.”

After his visit to Salt Lake City, Professor Wilson took his wife Elzabeth and spent the next three months attending summer school at the University of Chicago.  When finished he left Elizabeth in Fairview again and returned to the colonies.  He brought with him, as anew members of the faculty, Miss Ella Larson who had specialized in teaching training and dramatics and was a graduate of the Cook County Schools in Chicago and Miss Pearl Thurber, whose training was in music and elementary school and education.  This same school year also saw the completion of new, larger school buildings.  There were now five large, well equipped classrooms, a principal’s office and a library, topped with an attractive belfry. 

Everyone was astonished to see how quickly the new building was filled with a growing student body.  The faculty rapidly expanded to ten teachers.  A movement was soon afoot to erect yet another larger structure.  At a crowded town meeting called to discuss the problem, President Ivins donated five acres of his land for the project and pledges were made by other citizens totaling $12,000.  When matching Church and Stake funds were made available, a beginning on the academy building was possible.  Ground was broken on December 12, 1903, and the new structure opened its doors for use in September 1905.  By 1908, four-year diplomas were being given in high school and normal school, and three-year certificates in domestic science and domestic art.  Students came from all the colonies, many of them living during the school year with families in Colonia Juarez.  As the school grew, three other buildings were added to the school’s physical plant.  With the Academy providing high school education for students from all the colonies, some of whom were trained to return and oversee elementary instruction in their own communicates, the Juarez Stake Academy had become the mother institution for the entire system.

One of the things that is most surprising in the work of the school during these early years was the breadth of its curriculum.  Courses were taught in physics, mathematics, music, bookkeeping, English literature, history, elocution, woodwork, agriculture, Spanish and, for prospective teachers, education philosophy and child psychology.  There were athletic programs that fielded lively teams for both boys and girls.  Student performance of dramas, musicals and operas provided enjoyment for the entire community.  A tasteful but entertaining school paper was published.  In 1903, largely to the work of Charles E. McClellan, a museum was begun.  A brass band, complete with uniforms, a string orchestra, and special choirs were trained.  In all of this one sees the broad educational outlook of Guy C. Wilson.  The quality of work in the schools along with the rising level of culture in the Mormon communities, owed an immense debt to his initiative and vision.      

During these years, Elizabeth sometimes spent Christmas vacations or other brief periods with her husband in the colonies.  Professor Wilson, always anxious to obtain more schooling, had taken her with him while attending summer school at Columbia University in New York City in 1899.  But there seemed to be no indication that tshe was willing to permanently move to Mexico and make a home there.  This reluctance, combined with the childlessness of the marriage and the urgings of President George Q. Cannon, led Professor Wilson to enter “the principle.” We have noted his response to President Cannon in 1898 that he was waiting for a prospective bride “to grow up.”  This suggests he may already have been thinking about young Agnes Melissa Stevens.

The family of David Alma Stevens had arrived in the colonies from New Mexico in 1890.  Before moving to Mexico, David had been among the pioneers of the Hole-in-the Rock expedition of 1879 and 1880.  Later he was involved in the La Plata shootings that were part of the New Mexico range wars.  Though seriously wounded, David had survived and eventually relocated in Colonia Dublan with his wife, Agnes Sariah, and their four children.  The oldest of these was Agnes Melissa who had been born in Fruitland, New Mexico, on September 2, 1883.  Melissa was 14 years old and in the 7th grade when Guy C. Wilson first arrived in 1897.  She was among his students for the next five years and was asked in 1901, even before completing her normal training and receiving her diploma, to teach the 3rd grade in Colonia Juarez.  In the spring of 1902, being 18 years of age, and after a discreet courtship, Melissa was married to Guy C. Wilson as his second living wife.  The ceremony was performed in Professor Wilson’s upstairs office in the old Academy building by President Anthony W. Ivins. 

It will re recalled that President Cannon had at one time suggested to Professor Wilson, regarding the taking of additional wives, that he “make it two.”  The year following his marriage to Melissa Stevens, on 13 May 1903, President Ivins sealed his own daughter, Anna Lowrie Ivins, to Professor Wilson.  A year older than Melissa, Anna had come to the colonies with her rather when he was appointed President of the Stake in 1895.  She had also been one of Professor Wilson’s students.  She and Melissa had been especially close friends during the years previous to their marriages.  In the years they spent as sister wives to Guy C. Wilson their love for each other only deepened.  If Elizabeth withdrew somewhat in her relationship with her husband, the harmony and affection that existed between Melissa and Anna, including among the happiest examples of Mormon polygamy had produced.

The years that followed were in many ways the most rewarding of Guy C. Wilson’s life. Children began to arrive eventually numbering 14 between the two families.  Along with the warmth of his domestic circumstances, his days were brightened by the presence in the colonies of his mother and father, two sisters and a brother, as well as the parents of his young wives.  His talents were being used not only in connection with the administration of the school system, but as a Counselor to his father-in-law, Anthony W. Ivins, in the Stake Presidency.  Finally, he was seeing the results of his labor at the Academy.  Not only had the enrollment grown, but the quality of programs being offered was on a par with the best available at those grade levels anywhere in the United States.  By 1912, for Guy C. Wilson, prospects for the future never seemed better.

The Mexican Revolution of 1910 swept over the colonies.  Although no Mormons lost their lives at the hands of soldiers, there was considerable annoyance with pilfering.  With the demand that colonists give up their guns, Church Authorities feared there would be no way to adequately defend themselves and that injuries would certainly follow.  The result was the well-known Exodus of late July 1912.  Both Melissa and Anna, with their children, were sent by train to El Paso for safety.  Eventually Melissa and her children went to a ranch belonging to her rather, David Alma Stevens, just south of the border in Zaragosa, near the Rio Grande River.  Anna was sent to live with her parents in Salt Lake City.  With both families taken care of, Professor Wilson was given a year’s sabbatical leave by the Church and decided to spend it in post-graduate study with John Dewey, Edward Thorndike and others at Columbia University.  His service at the Juarez Stake Academy was at an end and a new phase of life had begun.  

Upon return from New York City in 1913, Professor Wilson established and oversaw the first seminary program in the Mormon Church.  This was done at Granite High School in Salt Lake City.  This was pioneering of a different kind again, and the fruits of his planting are known to every LDS family in North America today.  In 1915 he became President of the LDS University.  This was a four-year high school and business college.  During his 10 years in that position, buildings were added and in 1920, the curriculum was enlarged to embrace two years of college work.  Also, with B. Cecil Gates, he founded the McCune School of Music.  

In 1926 he was succeeded by Feramorz Y. Fox and accepted an appointment as head of all the Church’s schools and seminaries.  He continued at this until 1930 when he became Dean of the Divison of Religious Education at Brigham Young University.  In addition to writing Church educational manuals, and sitting on numerous boards and committees, Professor Wilson was able to give considerable time to the classroom —- always his greatest professional love.  If there was a particular objective that characterized his work, it was the desire to harmonize secular and scientific knowledge with the teachings of the Church.  He was in adapting theology to the problems of everyday life and his passion for clear and correct exposition was exceeded only by a personal interest in the lives of his students.

By the late 1930’s his health began to decline.  He was able to continue teaching through the autumn quarter of 1941 when, at the closing meeting of one of his classes, he was reported to say:”I have taught my last class.”  This must have been a most difficult moment.  Although he had traveled a long road, he made enormous contributions to the educational systems of the Church in both Mexico and the United States, had trained in classrooms in the finest universities of the land, and had raised two wonderful families with two happy, supporting companions, he was first and last a teacher. It was there that he had used his first to enrich the lives of so many others.

When he died on January 27, 1942 it was entirely appropriate that his funeral was one of the first functions held in the new Joseph F. Smith Memorial building, constructed to house the Division of Religion over which he had presided.  It was also appropriate that at his request, the song sung by a BYU quartet was, “The Teacher’s Work is Done.”

Elizabeth spent her declining years in Salt Lake City, surviving until September 27, 1951.  Melissa moved to Provo in 1926 until after Guy’s death.  She then relocated in California, living at the home of her son, Guy C. Wilson, Jr. She was with her daughter Elizabeth, in La Jolla, California, when she died on March 21, 1965.  Anna continued to make her home in Salt Lake City and passed away on October 30, 1967.  Their children have distinguished themselves in business, education, and other professions.  More than his children, however, there are thousands whose heritage includes the magic of time in a schoolroom with Professor Guy C. Wilson.  The high level of cultural activity and taste, as well as the unusual amount of achievement associated with those who trace their roots to the pre-Exodus period of the Mexican colonies, must be at least partly credited to the influence of this remarkable man.       

B. Carmon Hardy

Stalwarts South of the Border Nelle Spilsbury Hatch, page 781

George Ayers Black

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George Ayers Black

1861-1908

George Ayers Black known as “George A.” the second son and third child of William Valentine Black and Jane Johnston Black, was born in Lisburn, Entrum County, Ireland, in the year 1832.  He moved to Manchester, England with his parents.  There the entire family was baptized into Mormonism and emigrated to the United States.

Landing first in New Orleans, they traveled up the river to St. Louis, Missouri, and from there to Nauvoo, Illinois where they joined their daughter, Mary, who had come over before them.

When the Saints left Nauvoo the Blacks had a wagon but no team, so they pushed the wagon by hand down to the Mississippi dock and ferried it across the river to join the camp of refugees. The family went on to Council Bluffs in the spring, and in 1850 traveled to the Salt Lake Valley with the Pace Company.

After they arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, President Young called William V. Black and family to help settle Manti.  When in 1853 the Walker War commenced, William V. served for two years as a cavalry soldier. 

He first married Almira Ayers, daughter of Caleb and Lucinda Catherine Haggerty Ayers, and in 1857 he married Victoria Ayers, sister of Almira.

George Ayers, Victoria’s first son was born March 3, 1861, in Spring City, Sanpete County, Utah.  While George Ayers Black was still a baby his parents were called by the Church authorities to help settle Utah’s Dixie.  They spent some years in Rockville, then in Kanosh, Millard County, and finally settled in Deseret. 

George A. was not a large man, about five feet nine inches in height, but he enjoyed good health and was blessed with great endurance, enabling him to do a great amount of work.  He had a jovial, happy disposition, loved to sing songs, made friends easily and enjoyed their companionship. 

He left for a Church mission to the Southern States in 1883.  His work was in Tennessee and Kentucky.  While there, he visited the Exposition at Louisville.

George A. was released from his mission November 17, 1885.  He arrived at Oasis depot where he was met by his fiancée Emily Partridge, her brother John and sister Clara, who had traveled all day from Fillmore to meet him.  He and Emily were married in the St. George Temple on December 31, 1885 and lived in Fillmore for a while where he attended school.  The couple did a lot of studying together.

In the spring they moved to Deseret where George A. was employed in his father’s store.  Their first child arrived October 2, 1886, and they named him George Edward.  Their second son, William Shirley, was born January 30, 1889.

In 1891 the family moved to Hinckley a few miles distant and took up a homestead.  Although Hinckley was a sand-swept, dry, alkaline land, George A. sank artesian wells, broke up the soil, built buildings, planted poplar trees for wind breaks, and made his holdings into a very good ranch with cattle, horses, and large stacks of hay.  For their fruit supply they planted currant and gooseberry bushes, which were about the only fruit producing plants that would grow there.

He was made a Counselor to Bishop William Pratt.  His friendly nature, ambition, and public spirit soon made him a leader in the community.  He was helpful in building Hinckley’s church, later known as the “mud temple.”

The third son, David Clisbee, was born July 17, 1892.  Geneva was born September 10, 1895, Carnal Buxton on September 4, 1897, and Victor F. October 14, 1899.  About a month after Victor’s birth Emily, the mother, died, having contracted blood poisoning.  George A. was left with six children under the age of thirteen.  Julia Stout, who lived on the farm adjoining, took baby Victor until he was old enough to return to the family. 

George A. struggled on with some help from relatives and “hired girls” until he fortunately met and fell in love with Artemisia Cox, a sister of Julia Stout.  They were married November 30, 1900 in the St. George Temple.  A daughter, Golda was born October 21, 1901. 

George A. left Salt Lake City on November 22, 1902 for Canada to work as a missionary encouraging enrollment and attendance at the Mutual Improvement Association and selling Era subscriptions.  When a telegram brought word from home that Victor had died, George A. was released from the mission and returned home.

On May 12, 1903, the family moved to Deep Creek, Tooele County, Utah.  There George A. engaged in farming, sawmill work, thrashing grain, helping James A. Faust with the Church farm and befriending and helping the Indians on the nearby reservation.  He soon became a member of the school board which was planning a much-needed building for school and church services.  With the help of his boys and other members, kilns were built and brick and lime produced and the building was soon finished.

Another son, June Whitmore, arrived December 3, 1903.  Many Indian friends wanted George to name the baby Ibapah, the Indian name for Tooele County.

As the years passed George Ayers Black realized that the environment of Deep Creek on the Nevada border was not a suitable one in which to raise his large family.  He decided to move to a more settled community.  Letters had come from the David Stout family praising that part of Mexico where the Stouts were living.  George A. decided to take his wife to Mexico to visit here sisters and to see the country.  With their four small children they made the trip to Guadalupe, Chihuahua.  They liked what they found there and before returning home bought a terreno joining the Stouts’ land.  November 30, 1906 the family moved to Guadalupe to make their home.  It was necessary at first to live in a Mexican adobe house, but he started immediately to assembly material for a new house.  Crops and gardens were planted; trees were set out to beautify the new home.  Soon George was made Presiding Elder of this Branch of the Dublan Ward and he gave Guadalupe dynamic leadership.  Immediately, wishful thinking about a new meeting house was changed into action, and every able-bodied person in the branch was performing his part in the great task of building a house of worship.  Again George A. Built kilns and produced the brick and lime needed for the new chapel.  Within a year it was ready except for the needed furniture, including an organ. 

The Brown family purchased a grain header, a molasses mill, and other farm machinery.  The sons and Emerald Stout operated the header, cutting wheat up and down the valley on both sides of the river.  The Haws and Hatch thrashing machine crew followed, finding George A. a very fine man to work with.  A seventh son, Alma Cox, was born January 15, 1907.    

It became a custom in Guadalupe to celebrate Mexican holidays such as the Cinco de Mayo.  In 1908, the program was especially fine.  Both American and Mexican flags were displayed.  Many Mexican neighbors were invited and attended the gathering in the new church building, and a very friendly feeling prevailed throughout the day.  Quite ironically, however, before the month had passed, George A. was killed—May 30, 1908—by a gun shot from an angry Mexican intended for someone else.  In the early evening George A. had learned about a dispute over water rights that was taking place in the field and went to find out what the trouble was.  As he was approaching the scene a bullet from the Mexican’s gun struck him in the jugular vein, killing him instantly.  His funeral was held in the Dublan Ward Church were large crowds came to pay respects to a man they had known only a short time but for whom they already had great respect and friendship.  The burial was in the Dublan cemetery.

On October 19, 1908, a baby girl, Georgia Ayers, was born to the stricken home.  Artemisia carried on bravely, although her health was poor.  She sent Don, a son, on a Church mission to Mexico City.  After another tragedy in the community, she moved in with the Stouts for better protection.  The older boys worked hard to help support the family— Edward worked for the Juarez power plant: Shirl ran the farm; Don and Geneva attended the Academy.  Shirl married Verna Johnson of Colonia Diaz just before the Exodus.  Edward and Shirl left Mexico overland with a group of men from the colonies, taking the horses.  Other members of the family went by train to El Paso.  Artemisia went from El Paso to Hinckley, Utah, where she lived and raised her small children.  The older children stayed with relatives until they were grown. 

Geneva Black Stout, daughter

Stalwarts South of the Border, Nelle Spilsbury Hatch, page 38

From the history of Shirl Black regarding the death of his father:

     My father was killed 30 May 1908. It was our turn to      take the water, so my brother Edd went up the ditch        to take the water, but some Mexicans were there and        chased him away with knives. He came home and got the      shot gun and asked me to go with him with a shovel.        When we got to the head gate the Mexicans were there,      but they left when they saw us come with the gun. We      took the water. Then Father, who was getting worried,      came there with a boy who could talk Spanish. He got      there just as the Mexicans came back with a gun. They      called out to a Mexican who was with us to get out of      the way. The Jameson boy, who understood them, said,      “Look out’ They are going to shoot.” Edd and I            dropped down behind the ditch bank. The boy and            Mexican who was with us ran down the ditch. We            thought Father went with them, but he just stooped        over and their shot struck him in the neck, coming        out back of his shoulders. They started to follow          those who ran and shot twice more at us. Their shots      went over us. We moved to another place and hid until      they were gone. Then we got up and found Father was        dead.

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Alexander Jameson, Jr.

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Alexander Jameson, Jr.

1859-1943

Alexander Jameson, Jr. was the son of Alexander Jameson and Pirene Brown Ewell.  His grandfather, Charles Jameson, was wounded at Hans Mill.  Charles was also a member of the Mormon Battalion.   

His wife died of cholera while crossing the plains and was buried in Nebraska.  Alex, Jr.’s father drove the ox team and brought his sisters and younger brother to the Salt Lake Valley.

Alexander Jameson, Jr. was born May 18, 1859 in Provo, Utah.  In 1866 the family moved to Goshen, Utah.  During the early settlement of Goshen, Alexander, Jr. remembers his father beating the bass drum every morning at daylight as a signal for grown male members of the Ward to gather at the log schoolhouse where the roll was called and the night guards were relived and day guards appointed to take their places.  As the Indians grew more peaceful, Goshen was moved to its present site where Alexander, Jr. grew to manhood.

He was baptized a member of the LDS Church by Bishop William Price in 1867.  He grew up without being ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood as he was always away from home working, his father being an invalid.  In 1881 he was ordained an Elder by James H. Jenkins.  In 1884 he was ordained a Seventy by Rodger Openshaw.  His name was sent to the First Seven Presidents of Seventy as worthy to be called on a mission.  A little later his brother-in-law met with an accident from which he died.  The brethren asked that Alexander, Jr. not be called as his sister was left with six children and needed him to finish a house that was under construction at the time of her husband’s death. 

Alexander Jameson, Jr. married Millicent Ferris Hatfield on December 29, 1881 in the Salt Lake Endowment House.  Eleven children were born to them.

Because his father was an invalid he had the care of his parents until his father died on October 24, 1884, at which time his mother went to live with his younger sister, Martha J. Christensen.

He bought a city lot in Goshen, Utah and build a home, where they lived until 1889.  He had little opportunity to attend school until he was 30 years of age.  He moved his young family to Provo in 1889.  His wife, Millicent, cooked for students while he attended Brigham Young University.

Dr. Karl G. Maeser called him to go to Castle Dale, Emery County, Utah to organize a church school known as the Emery Stake Academy. 

He was called to serve as a Counselor in the Bishopric of Castle Dale Ward.  On February 4, 1895, he was ordained a Patriarch at 36 years of age.  He was released from the Bishopric a year later.  They lived in a log house until 1895, when they moved into a new brick house, built in front of the log house.  It was a lovely two-story building with eight rooms. One of the rooms upstairs was his office.  He gave many Patriarchal Blessings there.  He also served as Stake Sunday School Superintendent in the Emery Stake.  He taught school until 1900 in Castle Dale, then he moved to Colonia Morelos, Sonora, Mexico.  Here he married a second wife, Mary Amelia Larsen, May 24, 1901.  Five children were born to this union. 

In 1901 the Morelos Ward was organized and Alexander, Jr. was sustained as First Counselor to Bishop Orson P. Brown.  He was in charge of the tithing.

He built a cooler of screen wire tacked to a wooden frame.  On top of the frame was a pan of water.  Burlap covered the frame and the door and enough of the burlap was allowed to reach into the pan of water to soak the burlap to keep it wet.  This is the way they kept food that members had contributed as tithing, such as home-made cheese, butter, vegetables, and eggs.  Grains and hay were kept at the tithing office yard.

Following is a quote from Clara Porter’s life story:

One night while a Priesthood Meeting was being held in the chapel, a volley of shots rang out.  It sounded like cannons, north of town. We always feared a rebel invasion and were always on the alert.  I was at a Primary song practice at the home of my friend Josie Snarr.  Mother was the Primary President and was with us.  She decided to go home and get the tithing records and money and take them to the chapel.  She wrapped the records and money in the blankets with the baby and ran to see what was keeping the men.  They had been singing the closing song loudly, they hadn’t heard the shots.  The men soon organized a posse to investigate.  They learned that two enemy outlaw groups and not the Mexican rebels that were feared.

Another occasion which gave us a shock was when a thief from the United States went into a mining camp, killed the leader, and robbed the miners.  H needed food and fresh horses, so he came to our colony, tied his horse up in the hills at the edge of town and walked to the store for supplies.  He paid for his supplies with money he took from a large roll in a burlap bag.  Our deputy had been informed of the holdup, so he asked the thief some questions.  He ran out of the door and tried to get his horse.  The deputy shot him in the leg.  As he fell he tried to hide the money under his head.  The Mormon men carried him to the tithing office (no jail).  The deputy dressed his wounds and cared for him until the Mexican officials came for him.

In August, 1907, Alexander moved his families to Colonia Dublan, Chihuahua, Mexico, where he rented rooms in Bailey Lake’s new house.

The farmers took turns using the irrigation water.  One evening his son, Arthur Jameson, was irrigating near Brother Black’s farm when he saw a Mexican trying to force Brother Black to give him the stream of water.  Art went over to interpret as Brother Black didn’t understand Spanish very well.  The Mexican became angry and pulled out his gun.  Young Jameson tried to get Brother Black to leave, but he didn’t think the Mexican was serious about shooting.  As art ran to get help he heard a shot.  Sister Black heard the shots also.  They notified the authorities.  When they arrived they found Brother Black dead. 

The few years prior to 1912 were happy ones.  Alexander built and purchased homes for his families, farmed his land and began to get his roots down.  Then the trouble began.  The Revolution left Mexico without a stable government, and danger seemed to beset the Saints at every turn.  Alexander took his turn standing guard, but things became worse and eventually the women and children were placed in box cars and sent to El Paso, Texas.  Jameson remained with the other brethren for a few days longer, in hopes things would clear up and his families could return.

While tending the water in his field, a band of Mexicans surrounded the home of first family.  He returned to the house and found them helping themselves outside and in.  As he approached the front door, two guns were thrust in his face.  He recognized both guns as his own.  One was out of order, and there was no ammunition for the other one.  He took a barrel in each hand, thrust the Mexicans to each side and walked into the house.  The Mexicans exclaimed “Bravo, bravo!”

They were putting on his clothes, even his good white shirts, and helping themselves in general.  He was angry and felt like going to the corner of the room and pulling out the organ, in back of which he had hidden a six-shooter all loaded.  For a moment he wanted to shoot the invaders but controlled his feelings.  After the Mexicans had taken what they wanted, they left.

A short time later he was forced to flee with the other brethren into the mountains and back to the United States.  The first few miles they fled under fire and never had a chance to rest until they reached El Paso.   Having no desire to return to Mexico, he moved his families back to Castle Dale, Utah, where they lived for three years. 

In May, 1916, he moved his families to LaSal, San Juan County, Utah, where new land was being homesteaded.  He brought the improvements of Don Loveridge on 160 acres of land and started dry farming.  The land was rich and in the first few years the crops were good.  He worked in the nearby Big Indian Mine and paid for his land.  He helped build the church house and served a number of years as Bishop of the LaSal Ward.  He served a number of years on the San Juan School Board and was instrumental in getting a schoolhouse constructed.  Theretofore they had held school in the church house.  He continued to give Patriarchal Blessings.

Some dry years came along and many of the people in LaSal left to make their homes elsewhere.  He took the job of watchman at the Big Indian Mill for copper after it ceased operating.  Millicent went to visit some of their children who were living in a number of the western states.  Amelia moved to Moab, Utah so the boys could attend high school.  Here she contracted pneumonia and died on November 6, 1924.  Millicent went to Moab and helped the boys finish that year of school.  Annetta went to live with her Uncle Parley and Aunt Mary Larsen.

After the death of their oldest daughter, Millicent Dorothy Naegle, the Jameson’s moved to Eureka, Utah, to be near their son, Joseph, who was teaching school there, and his family.  Later they moved to Provo, Utah.  Here he was active in the Manavu Ward and gave many Patriarchal Blessings.

On fast day of October, 1943, he gave his last blessing in Manavu Ward.  After October General Conference, 1943, he went with Oscar to LaSal, Utah for a visit.  Here he became ill and was taken to the hospital in Moab, Utah where he died November 2, 1943 at the age of 84 years.

His funeral in Provo, Utah, was well-attended and many wonderful things were said that his service.  President Junius Romney, and old friend and Stake President in Mexico, was one of the speakers.  His life was rich with service to his fellowmen.  He was a scholar, an educator, miner, stockman, a good follower, and a fine leader, and above all a good husband and father.  He was buried at Goshen, Utah. 

Iva Naegle Balmer, granddaughter

 Stalwarts South of the Border by Nelle Spilsbury Hatch page 325

The word Manavu is derived from the Hebrew meaning “beautiful view”; it can be compared with Nauvoo, Illinois, which stands for “beautiful location.”

The Manavu Ward was created April 11, 1920, when the Provo 5th Ward was divided and all that part lying north of 4th North St. and east of 1st East St., extending north to the city limits and east to the mountains, was organized into the Manavu Ward.

Manavu Ward Link to family search.org

Joseph Henry James

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Joseph Henry James

1855-1908

Joseph Henry James, son of Sarah Holyoak and Joseph James, was born October 22, 1855, in Ogden, Weber County, Utah, on of 12 children.  Not much is known about his childhood, but records show he moved to Sunset, Arizona before 1877 where it is supposed he lived the United Order.

He was a short, stout, dark-complexioned man with a keen sense of humor.  His first wife was Elizabeth Salome Broomfield, whom he married July 12, 1877, and from this union were born 14 children.  His second wife was her sister, Mary Eliza, whom he married January 10, 1879, and she also bore him 12 children.  His third wife was Orpha Emelia Rogers whom he married September 12, 1882, and she bore him seven children.

He moved to Mexico in 1885 with his three wives.  They were the first settlers who moved into “Old Town” where they lived in a dugout and had a hard time finding enough food to eat that first winter.  From there he moved to Colonia Dublan, then to Casas Grandes and finally settled in the Sierra Madre Mountains in Hop Valley, near Pacheco, which became his home for as long as he lived.  By this time he had 25 children and he decided it was time for each of his wives to have a home of her own.  So, on the banks of the river where it forked, he built a home for each wife, where, as he said, no matter where high water caught him he always had a home.  Here he planted fruit trees that are still bearing (1967).  He was a good farmer, ran a diary, made cheese and butter and also owned a saw mill and soon had a prosperous little family community.

The Jameses were good hosts and people enjoyed visiting them for they always had a good joke to tell and made everyone feel at home.  Some of his humorous statements are remembered and are in common use today by people who heard him make them.  

In 1908, he and his sons devised a shortcut to get logs from his sawmill at the top of the mountain to the valley by building a chute through which logs could pass.  This would have saved many hours of travel over rough, hazardous roads.  The plan was hailed with delight by some but with skepticism by others.   There was enough interest in its outcome that many lumbermen were watching when the first log was ready to make its triumphant landing.  His son Hollister regulated the take-off of the logs at the top, and then Joe James, with a couple of Mexican helpers, stood at the bottom to enjoy the safe landing and the successful outcome of his revolutionary idea.  This expected thrill was short-lived, for that first log, coming with the speed of an express train, suddenly up-ended and jumped the chute.  Joe James and his helpers, standing in the precise location to catch the full impact of the hurtling logs, were killed instantly.  The scheme that was to have made Joe James immortal died stillborn.  He was buried in the western cemetery April 22, 1908 in Colonia Juarez.  His three widows and his large, sturdy and industrious family were left to mourn his loss and eke out individual existences in various parts of the United States.

His jocular comments on life as he met it have immortalized him among the people who knew him best.  Though it took Joe James to tell a Joe James joke, the following have been preserved through the years and are still in common use in this area:

As Joe was going from Dublan to Juarez on horseback one night, someone had been putting a wire fence up near the road some distance beyond a limestone ridge and had just gotten up one wire of the fence.  Joe, not being able to see it, rode right into it and hut his leg almost half off. When he got to Juarez he wnt to Mrs. Crow, the only doctor they had in Juarez at that time.  She had nothing to give him to deaden the pain.  “Go ahead and sew it up,” Joe said, so she started in on the job.  Joe just sat there telling jokes.  She said she might have to cut the leg off.   When she was about through sewing it on, he said to her, “I’m only going to pay you half price.”  She wanted to know why and he said, “Because it is half cut off now.”

He used to like to tell about the Pacheco farmers.  He said that they would raise a little corn to feed their horses to haul a little lumber so they could have something to feed their horses. 

 One day as he was walking up the street one of the brethren met him and said, “Well, Brother James, I’m sure glad to see you.  I heard that you were dead.”  Joe said, “I did get shot but I turned around so quick that the bullet came out of the same hole it went in.”

Ida Skousen was out in her yard one morning and Joe came along and stopped and talked with her a moment.  As he stated she said, “Brother James you look shorter every time I see you.” He said, “Yes, I get worn off up in the rocks.”

One day as Joe was going down the mountain he met one of the men coming up and stopped to chat a bit.  He noticed one of the men’s horses was slo lame it was holding one leg up.  Joe said, “Can that horse add?”  “No,” said the man, “Why?” Joe said, “I see he was three down and is carrying one.”

Joe said that lumber haulers had to haul their lumber green because it warped so bad if it got dry that both ends tried to get off the mountain at the same time.

I remember at one time Joe raised what he called cow horn turnips.  They would grow way out of the ground.  One day he was to our place and was talking to my mother.  Mother asked him how things were going with him and he said, “Oh, I[m having tough luck.”  Mother asked him what the trouble was and he said, ”The wind is blowing over all over my turnips and I’m breaking all my cant hook handles turning over potatoes to keep them from sunburing, they are growing out of the ground so fast.”

Joe told me about a man who ran a store but could neither read nor write.  He ran a credit account and he would just draw a picture of whatever he sold.  One day a man came in and the storekeeper said to him, “Say, you owe me for a cheese.”  The man said, “I don’t owe you for a cheese.” “Yes, you do,” said the storekeeper.  “I got it down right here.”  The man said, “Let me see,” and he saw the round circle.  “That wasn’t cheese,” he said.  “That was a grinding stone.” “Oh, yes” said the storekeeper.  “I fogot to put the little square hole in the middle of it.”

One year Joe rented a piece of land up the river at a place we called Willow Creek, to a man by the name of Henry, to raise potatoes.  Joe’s cows got to going up the river and eating the man’s potatoes.  The man went down and told Joe to try and take care of his cows.  Joe would make wisecracks and didn’t seem to do anything about it.  So one morning he went down to Joe’s place as joe was just getting ready to go to Juarez.    Henry said, “Joe, I wish you would bring back all the old boxes that you can find.”  Joe looked at him and said, “What in the world do you want things like that for?” Henry said, “To cover what few potato vines your damn cows haven’t ate.”  This was the only time I have ever heard of when Joe didn’t have a wisecrack to reply with, it had surprised him so.  

Someone asked him once how he liked his farm over in Hop Valley.  He said, “Just fine.”  He said he went out to plant some cucumbers and they came up so fast they threw dirt in his eyes.  Then when he looked back the first ones he had planted had runners on and he went to get out of the field but found runners going up his leg and had to cut himself loose to get out.  In fact, they were actually growing so fast, he said, they were dragging the little cucumbers to death. 

Brother Stowell went to visit him at a new home he had built.  The house was right at the base of a hill.  Brother Stowell asked him how he liked it and he said, “Just fine.  I can go out and stand on the back porch and load my shotgun with pumpkin seed and shot them into the hill and then when they are ready and my wife wants one I can go on the porch and shoot one and it will roll right down to the door.”

Joe sent little Ammer over to Pacheco to grind a sack of corn.  He didn’t come back until night and Joe asked him what took I so long getting back.  Ammer said, “That old mill ground so slow I could eat it as fast as it came out until I’d starve to death.”

As some people were building a house Joe was watching them.  A 2×4 slipped off and hit Joe, knocking him out.  When he can go he asked them what had happened and they told him the board had come off and hit him.  He asked if it hurt the board and when they said no he said, “Well, then, what’s the matter?  Let’s get up and go to work.”

Joe asked one of his little boys to go get a hammer for hm.  After some time the boy came back and was standing there when his father asked him if he was the boy he sent after the hammer.  The boy said, “Yes,” and Joe said, “Well, you’ve grown so much since I sent you I didn’t know you.”

Someone asked Joe James why all Mormons rode 3rd class and answered, “Because there is no 4th class.”

When asked the reason of his good potato crop during the drought he said he always planted onions with his potatoes so that the eyes of the potatoes would water themselves.

When asked how he could feed so many children he answered, “I feed them dried apples for breakfast, water for dinner, and let them swell up for supper.”

When asked why he didn’t give a lady that was standing on the train his seat, he answered, because his seat was a birthday present to him.

When a neighbor asked Joe James how he was getting along he answered, “I’m holding my own, I came here with nothing and I’ve still got it.”

Bobby Cochenour and Eulla Davis, granddaughters.

Joseph Henry James Stalwarts South of the Border, Nelle Spilsbury Hatch page 321

George Washington Patten

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George Washington Patten

1853-1863

George Washington Patten, son of George Patten, born October 26, 1828, in Chester County, Pennsylvania and Mary Nelson, born March 8, 1832, in Mt. Vernon, Jefferson, Illinois.

His parents, as teenagers, had joined the LDS Church and were in the midst of the persecutions of the Saints in Missouri and Illinois.  They, with their families, were driven from their homes at the time of the exodus from Nauvoo and crossed the plains, arriving in the Salt Lake Valley in the summer of 1850, settling in Mountainville, (now Alpine, Utah).  It was here that his father met and married Mary Jane Nelson.  To this union were born eight children. George Washington Patten being the second child, born on January 12, 1853 in Alpine, Utah.  His family later moved and settled in various places in and around Payson, Utah.

So far little has been learned about the early childhood of George Washington Patten, but it is believed that most of his time was spent in Payson, Utah.  It was here that he met Lillian Sophia Beckstead who had come from Annabelle, Utah, in 1870 to live with her sister Sarah.  Their friendship grew and they were married on July 24, 1871, she at the age of 15, and he at 18.  Lillian was the daughter of Sidney Marcus Beckstead and Ann Sophia Rollins who were also pioneers in the exodus from Nauvoo. 

The Pattens moved to various locations trying to make a living and settle down.  They found it difficult because of a shortage of water, and soil conditions.  They had many experiences with the Indians..  One one occasion, George had to go to Payson overnight, leaving Lillian with three small children alone.  Early in the evening a crowd of Indians passed the house, and Lillian knew they were drunk.  She was very frightened.  Barring the doors and windows, she prepared to spend the night alone.  Later a knock was heard at the door.  She asked who was there and Chief Santaquin answered, saying some of the Indians had been to Payson and returned drunk and that it would be safer for her to bring the children over to his house and stay all night.   She took the children and spent the night at Chief Santaquin’s home.  He was very good to them while they lived in Thistle Valley. 

In 1890 George decided to move to Mexico.  Their family consisted of ten children, two of which were married.  With very little means to travel he managed to trade a race horse for a wagon and mule team and they started on their long journey with other members of the family.  They had many experiences on this journey, because of traveling conditions, roads and lack of food.  At Lee’s Ferry, the teams, wagons and children were taken over in a large boat run by cable.  In crossing some of the rivers some of the things were lost in quicksand.  They finally arrived in Colonia Dublan on January 10, 1891.  They were on the road two months with their teams and wagons.

They lived in Mexico 21 years before returning to Payson to live.  At first their life in Mexico was very rugged.  When they arrived they were in very poor circumstances, living mostly on corn bread, beans and molasses, using sweetened water on their mush.  Beef was five cents per pound, but money was hard to get and there were things that could not be bought, even if one had the money.

George bought an ox team and his boys would plow with it and go into the mountains for wood.  He served as Deputy Sheriff for a number of years.

It was a terrible struggle for many years but finally the farm was well equipped with machinery and good horses.  The family raised hay, oats, barley, wheat, and cane, making their own molasses—from 400 to 500 gallons at a time.  We had a good orchard and garden, raising our own peanuts.

George died on February 22, 1896, after being kicked by a horse, causing acute Brights Disease.  Lillian was left with nine children and one more was born four months after her husband died.  She had many problems during the ensuing years as one can imagine with such a large family.  But the entire family worked together.  One by one the children were married, and sad events took place on occasions when a dear one was taken away.  Lillian passed December 1, 1916 at Payson, Utah.

Mary Jane McClellan, daughter, and Thelma Patten Allen, granddaughter

Stalwarts South of the Border Nelle Spilsbury Hatch page 517

Ammon Meshach Tenney

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Ammon Meshach Tenney

(1844 – 1925)

Ammon Meshach Tenney was born on the plains of Lee County, Iowa, November 16, 1844, the son of Nathan C. and Olive Strong Tenney.

When Ammon Meshach Tenney was four years of age his parents immigrated to Utah, arriving there in 1848.  Two years later his father was called by President Brigham Young to accompany Amasa Lyman and Charles C. Rich to California for the purpose of establishing a Mormon colony at what is now San Bernardino.  The family remained there until 1857 when they, with all other Latter-day Saints, were called back to the body of the Church in Utah because of the threat of an invading United States army.

Back in Utah, the Tenney family settled at Fort Harmony, Iron County, in the southern part of the state.  Ammon had been named for the great preacher Ammon, told about in the Book of Mormon, had learned Spanish while playing with Mexican children in San Bernardino and was therefore a natural choice to serve as a missionary to the Lamanites.  He was ordained an Elder by President Young at the age of 14, and almost immediately was appointed to go with Jacob Hamblin to serve as interpreter on a mission to the Indians.

The expedition consisted of Jacob Hamblin, Ammon M. Tenney and 11 others.  The party left for this mission in 1858 and headed for the Colorado River region where they spent considerable time among several trives of Indians living on the east side of the river.  Friendly relations were readily established among the Indians through Ammon’s fluency in the Spanish tongue, a language known to the Indians.  This was the beginning of a missionary companionship between Ammon Tenney and Jacob Hamblin that extended over a period of 15 years and resulted directly or indirectly in the establishment of numerous settlements in southern Utah and northern Arizona, in opening new roads into unexplored regions, in strengthening weak settlements and in creating more friendly relationships between the Indians and their white neighbors.

Many hardships were encountered.  Hunger at times compelled them to eat the flesh of worn-out draft animals and the rawhide carried to mend badly worn shoes.  They suffered from excessive summer heat and the biting cold of higher altitudes.  There were also many sleepless nights from fear of attacks by red men on the warpath.

In 1869, at the age of 25, Ammon married Annie Sarah Egar and settled in Kanab on the southern Utah border.  A family incident a little later illustrates his devotion to Church duty.  One of his many mission calls came when a little daughter was critically ill.  He lingered at the home after the rest of the missionary group had left.  After a day’s delay he mounted his horse and rode off.  He had not gone far when he heard an urgent call from his wife, “Come back, Ammon, our child is dying!”  Ammon rode back, administered to the apparently lifeless child and she returned to consciousness almost immediately.  Fighting back tears, Ammon went again to his horse.  “How can you leave us like this?” his wife sobbed.  “If I go I have claim on my Maker, but if I stay, I may forfeit that claim,” he replied, trying hard to keep a steady voice.   He left and the child lived.

In 1875 Ammon was called to participate in that famous first mission to Mexico in company with Daniel W. Jones, Anthony W. Ivins, Wiley C. Jones, Helaman Pratt, James Z. Stewart and Robert H. Smith.  The missionaries, equipped with seven mounts and 17 pack horses, crossed the Colorado River at Lee’s Ferry, and then made their way to the Moqui villages in Arizona, passing enroute through Moenkopi, Navajo Springs, and Willow Springs.  At the seven Moqui Indian villages the missionaries visited with the Indians several days, then pursued their journey toward the Salt River Valley.

They arrived in Phoenix on November 24, 1875, where they were kindly greeted by Judge C. T. Hayden, who furnished them with letters of introduction to Governor Safford and other influential men of Arizona.  In their report to President Young of the opportunities for settlement, attention was called to the many fine facilities on the Salt River Valley for attaining a livelihood. At the village of Sacaton on the Gila River they held their first public meeting with the Indians.  The service was well-attended.  At Tucson the missionaries were tendered the courthouse of the holding of a Sunday meeting.  They were cheered by the kindly reception of the governor.  At a military post near Tucson they sold some of their animals and purchased a spring wagon which added comfort to their journey.

It appears that their intention had been to cross the boundary line into the state of Sonora, but they changed their plans when they heard of the unsettled condition of the Yaquis.  The party therefore crossed at El Paso, except Tenney and Smith, who were appointed to labor in New Mexico among the Pueblos and Zunis.  These two made their way up the Rio Grande River 350 miles to Albuquerque, where they preached for some time without success.

Here Ammon had a dream in which he saw a light in the heavens and became impressed to leave the city of Albuquerque and proceed in the direction of the light.  Slowed by jaded animals, the missionaries subsisted mainly on rabbis, the fruit of Ammon’s marksmanship with a rifle.  The light followed a distance of 125 miles to Fish Springs, New Mexico, then disappeared.  There they met about 20 Zuni men to whom they presented their Gospel message and received permission to hold a meeting, the first since they left El Paso.  Thirteen of the leading Zunis were baptized, including their cacique.  Ammon reports the great joy he experienced when he led from the waters of baptism the first person he had ever baptized.  His strength gave way under the experience.  He was helped from the water by his companion and lay prone upon the grass while Elder Smith baptized the other 12 candidates.

Shortly after this the cacique reported an invasion of grasshoppers which threatened destruction of their crops, at the same time calling attention to blessings promised by the missionaries to those who obeyed the Lord’s commandments.  Ammon realized that this was a test of the faith of the natives and of the missionaries and trembled at the thought.  Gaining confidence he told the cacique that if the Indians would humble themselves on their knees in asking for deliverance from the pest, the grasshoppers would disappear.  Ammon’s missionary companion was doubtful and so expressed himself.  Ammon’s reply was:  “We are the Lord’s servants and He has already manifested His approval of our labors.  He will not fail us.”  Within one hour, so the Indians reported, following their supplication there was not a grasshopper to be seen.  As they arose in their flight they darkened the sun by their numbers.  In their enthusiasm the Indians lifted Ammon to their shoulders and danced about, and had they not been restrained, would have worshiped him.  One hundred fifty Indians were baptized and three Branches of the Church were organized.

Missionary activities were interrupted by a letter from President Brigham Young instructing Ammon to explore northern Arizona and parts of New Mexico for suitable places in which to plant colonies of Latter-day Saints.  Although President Young died soon after, Ammon and his father, Nathan C. Tenney, continued exploration as instructed.  They helped in securing a place on the Little Colorado for the settlement of Woodruff.  While in New Mexico a letter was received from Church headquarters instructing Ammon to go to St. Johns, Arizona, and make the purchase of a tract of land.  There they purchased from Sol Barth, a Jew, and his two brothers land on which one hundred families were called to settle.  Ammon was appointed Presiding Elder of the group and the Lamanite Mission in Arizona and New Mexico, until called by David King Udall to be Bishop of the St. Johns Ward.

Trouble arose between the Mexican population and the Mormons, brought on by the Greer brothers, reckless cowboys.  During this trouble the father of Ammon M. Tenney, Nathan C., while attempting to be peacemaker, was killed.  And during the trying raids on St. Johns by U.S. Marshals against Latter-day Saints suspected of practicing plural marriage, Ammon was harassed almost constantly.  The Deseret News of August 1, 1884, reported:

It seems that when Mr. Tenney was first arrested he was given 15 minutes by Commissioner George A. McCarter to say whether or not his first wife should be present at the examination on the 12th of July; and if he did not promise to have her there, he was told that an officer would be sent after her immediately.  Mr. Tenney promised to have her present, without the aid of an officer, although she was in a “delicate condition” and the distance to where she was at the time was 20 miles.

About the same time an officer went to Mr. Tenney’s house in St. Johns, in search of his reputed plural wife, and when it was ascertained that there was no such person there, the Commissioner went in person to the house, no doubt thinking to overwhelm Mr. Tenney with his august presence.  He told Mr. Tenney that unless he should immediately produce a plural wife for a witness he would issue a search warrant and have the house searched.  Mr. Tenney advised him to do so immediately, and this remarkable U.S. officer departed, apparently not in a very good humor.

That night about ten o’clock, Arthur Tenney, a brother of the accused, discovered three men crawling around the house.  Mr. Tenney ordered them up onto their feet and when they arose with alacrity, when Arthur discovered that that one of the party was Bill Lewis, the land jumper.

On December 7, 1884, Ammon was tried and convicted of polygamy and sentenced to serve three and one half years in the house of correction at Detroit, Michigan.  Two days later he was en route to Detroit to begin his prison sentence.  After serving a term of nearly two years, he was given a reprieve by President Grover Cleveland and walked out of the penitentiary on October 12, 1886, a free man.  Of this experience while in captivity he had this to say:

We were set at liberty on October 12.  I am pleased to say that we are well in body and feeling well in spirits.  I can truthfully say the Lord has borne us up through many a dark and dreary hour.  We had, however, many things to encourage us, such as visits from friends, the News and Juvenile Instructor, not forgetting the kind treatment of officers who frequently manifested a desire to favor us…  Even at the very moment when it seemed as though the heavens were brass over my head and the earth iron under my feet, He [the Lord] strengthened me to press forward… I can truthfully say in behalf of my brethren, as also myself, that in many respects, our minds have been enlightened in a manner they never were before, in regard to the principles of life and salvation, and while I may not know what I may do tomorrow, yet today my greatest desire is to retain in memory what I have passed through.  I know it will serve to make me humble, for I know that I have not at all times bee as humble as I ought to have been.

In November 1887, about a year following his release from prison, Ammon was called on a mission to Sonora, Mexico, to labor among the Indians.  To accompany him were Peter J. Christopherson, Edward E. Richardson and Gilbert D. Greer.  The missionaries set out upon their journey but had not proceeded far when a letter from Church Authorities stated that in consequence of the Yaquis being at war with the government in Mexico there were to continue their labors among the natives in Arizona and New Mexico.  From November 1887 to September 1890, Ammon traveled 5,000 miles by team, on horseback and on foot, preached 135 times and baptized 111 souls.  His labors were chiefly among the Papago and Pima tribes.

After his release from this mission he went to Mexico to establish a home for himself and family in the Mormon colonies, locating in Colonia Dublan.  He was not there long, however, when he was called to reopen the capital city by John Henry Smith and Anthony W. Ivins.  His labors there were crowned with considerable success.  He organized eight Branches of the Church and appointed local Saints to preside over the Branches.  He also set apart 17 local Elders to travel throughout the various cities and villages in proximity to Mexico City.

President Ivins said:

Brother Tenney has been remarkably successful in his missionary labors and had nearly 200       people who appear to be enjoying the Spirit of the Gospel to an unusual degree.  I visited all      the different towns where we have converts with the exception of one or two isolated places, and held meetings with the people.  It was a great surprise and caused my heart to rejoice beyond expression to hear the strong testimonies borne and excellent and logical remarks made by those people.  Sectarians, Methodists in particular, are aroused and are doing all they can to hinder the work, but it grows in spite of them.  At their conference held in Mexico a few days ago one of the ministers reported that unless something could be done to prevent it, the Mormons would take the entire Protestant population.

At the beginning of 1921, in his 77th year, he was among the Yaqui Indians in the state of Sonora.  Elder Tenney said that for 56 years he had been interested in the Yaqui Indians and at last his long-felt desire to be with them was fulfilled.  On his first visit to the Yaquis, he found that they had a Quorum of Twelve Apostles which they claimed was organized among them by Jesus.  They also said Jesus had instructed them to fill vacancies as they occurred, which they had done. These instructions and many more were given them by Jesus in a personal visit.  Ammon asked if they might have received these teachings from the Catholic monks who came with the Spaniards, but the reply was that their religion reached much further back than that of the Spanish conquerors.

Among other exploring expeditions made by Ammon Tenney was one as an interpreter for Major John Wesley Powell down the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River.  It was said that Ammon Tenney understood all Indian dialects west of the Mississippi River.  He was a man of great courage as demonstrated on many occasions during his lifetime.  One such was related by Anthony W. Ivins, a lifelong friend:

Nathan C. Tenney had established a ranch at Short Creek, but abandoned it and moved to Toquerville, about 25 miles distant.  In December, 1866, three horsemen rode out from Toquerville; to the ranch…Nathan C. Tenney carried an old fashioned cap and ball pistol.  Enoch Dodge wsa armed with a light muzzle-loading rifle.  The third member of the party, Ammon M. Tenney was a mere boy, with black hair, dark eyes and a slender body.  He carried an old style six-shooter and was going with his father to look for horses which had strayed from Toquerville back to the ranch.

At the foot of a bluff a corral had been constructed to which the horses, eight in number, were driven and hurriedly caught and necked together.  Signs indicated to the trained eyes of these experienced frontiersmen that Indians were in the neighborhood… The horses were driven from the corral and were heading toward home when the white men found themselves face-to-face with eight Navajos.  The Indians occupied the plain, while the white men returned to the protection of the bluffs.  What was to be done?  That the Indians meant to kill them was plain to the two men.

The boy spoke to the Indians in Spanish and found that he was understood.  A parley ensued, and one fo the Indians… leaving his arms, came out into the circle and invited the boy to meet him and arrange terms of capitulation.  Ammon was about to comply when restrained by his father.  At this juncture the cliffs echoed with war whoops and the men saw eight Indians riding furiously down the plain toward them, their long hair streaming out behind as they unslung their guns and quivers.

“Resistance is now useless,” said the elder Tenney.  “What hope have we against 16 well-armed and mounted men?”  It was at this juncture that the courage and leadership of the boy asserted itself.  Drawing his pistol, he turned down the trail at the base of the bluff, striking the spurs deep into his horse’s sides, and crying, “Follow me,” he rode straight into the Indians who confronted him, firing as he went.  The two men followed.  Against this intrepid charge, the Indians gave way, and the race for life began.  Thus, for more than a mile they rode, the three on the trail, sheltered to the west by the bluff, while the Indians, who were in front of them, behind them, on the plain to the east, kept up a constant fusillade of shots.  Several times the boy, who was a superb horseman and better mounted, had opportunity to outstrip his pursuers and escape, as after he returned to encourage his father and Dodge to be brave and come on. He was thus riding in advance when a sharp cry and rider rolling in the dust.  The Indians, with bows bent to the arrowheads, were bearing down on his father.  Without a moment’s hesitation the boy turned and spurred his horse between his father and the onrushing savages, discharging his pistol in the very faces of the men nearest him.  The Indians wavered, scattered, and falling on the opposite sides of their horses, discharged a volley at the boy.

His father declared that he had been shot, and Dodge, also having been wounded by a bullet, implored the boy to escape and go to his mother.  Instead of doing this, he assisted his father, to his feet, and turning the horses, loose, with the saddles on, assisted and urged the men to climb to the rocks above.  For a few moments the attention of the Indians was attracted to the loose horses and ruing this time the boy succeeded in getting the men up into the rocks, where ne covered their retreat.

A hasty examination showed that the father had not been shot, but that the fall from the horse had dislocated and badly bruised his shoulder.  Dodge had been shot in the leg.  The boy laid down on his back, took his father’s hand in his, and placing one foot on the neck and the other in the arm pit, with a quick and strong twist brought the dislocated joint back into place.  He then placed his hands upon the head of his father, and in a few well- chosen words, laid their condition before the Lord, and prayed that his father might be restored.  The man arose and they retreated a short distance to the west where they concealed themselves in some loose rocks.

Darkness came on and with it the Indians left them.  When it appeared safe, they came out from their hiding place, and guided by the boy slowly made their way to Duncan’s Retreat, from which place they were taken to their home by friends.

The boy still lives, a courageous, devoted man, but never since and probably never again, will a crisis arise demanding the inspiring exhibition of courage here recounted.

The death of Ammon M. Tenney occurred October 28, 1925 at Safford, Arizona.  He left behind a large posterity and a multitude of friends to mourn his going.

Nelle Spilsbury Hatch, Stalwarts South of the Border, page 688.

Frederick Granger Williams II

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Frederick Granger Williams II

(1853 – 1918)

Frederick Granger Williams was born March 29, 1853, in Salt Lake City, Utah.  His parents were Dr. Ezra Granger Williams and Henrietta Crombie.

He was blessed by President Brigham Young in June of 1853.  His mother commenced his schooling, teaching him at home, at the age of seven. He was born in a little white house to the rear of the Hotel Utah, just east of Temple Square.  This house was still standing in 1925.

He married Amanda Burns on January 24, 1876, and was called that same year on a mission to Arizona on the Little Colorado River.  In the fall of 1877 he moved to Ashley’s Fork, now Jensen, Utah.  He was the first Presiding Elder in the Uinta Basin.  In 1879 he returned to Ogden, the home of his parents, working for two years on the Oregon Short Line Railroad at Hams Fork, Wyoming.

In 1886 he started for Mexico by team, and got as far as Fairview, Utah.  While living there he met Nancy Abigail Clement and married her in Salt Lake City on April 8, 1889.  In December of that year he moved to Pleasant View.  He was ordained a High Priest in February of 1890.

He moved to Mexico in August of 1890.  At this time, he, together with several other men in his same circumstances, chartered two large freight cars to make the long journey south.  In the end of one car the livestock was taken care of.  In the other end were placed the farm implements.  The number two car was partitioned off; on half held the household furnishings for four or five families.  The families rode in this way to Denver, Colorado.  There they changed trains, repacking all their belongings to travel on to Deming, New Mexico.

A short time before the family reached Denver, Flora May was stricken with spinal meningitis. By the time they arrived in Deming, she was very low.  Frederick Granger telegraphed to Winslow Farr who was a member of their party but had gone ahead of the group.  He had a place all ready for them when they arrived.  Amanda, the sick girl’s mother, was in very delicate health also. Deming at this time was just a small railroad town out in the desert.  Flora May was so ill it seemed her time had come to go.  The family remained about a month and she was still very ill.  Apostle George W. Teasdale passed through Deming on his way to the colonies to take charge of Mexican affairs for the Church.  Frederick Granger told him of the child’s condition and he came to the house and with Frederick Granger and two or three other Elders, Apostle Teasdale placed his hands on the little girl’s head and gave her a blessing.  He promised her that she would live to fill the measure of her creation and that she should be greatly blessed in life. The child began to mend so rapidly that within a very short time the family started on their way again to Colonia Diaz.  Flor May grew to maturity and raised a family of her own.

While in Diaz, Amanda, Nancy and Elizabeth, wives of Frederick Granger Williams were all very ill with mountain fever.  Elizabeth died.  Amanda’s little girl Hazel also became very ill.  She was six weeks old at the time.  They gave her up for dead.  They were washing her body for burial when she showed signs of life. The Elders administered to her and she immediately rallied and regained her health and lived to rear a lovely family.

The Williams moved to Colonia Dublan, 65 miles farther south of Diaz in 1891, and there Frederick Granger Williams found amply opportunity to be of service to the Mormon community in a variety of ways.  As a young man he had been taught the rudiments of medicine by his father, Dr. Ezra G. Williams, who tried to make a doctor out of him. The son’s tastes, however, were for farming and raising livestock. He became a blacksmith, farmer and rancher.  He did not permit his knowledge of medicine, however, to go unused. For many years he was one of the few trained health specialists available to the colonists.  During his busy lifetime, he delivered many hundreds of babies.

In November, 1909, he moved with his family to Arizona, arriving in Binghampton (now part of Tucson) on December 15. In June, 1914, he started a ranch near Sonoita, Arizona, where he had homesteaded a quarter section of land. It was here, On January 19, 1918, while hauling a load of hay with his son Orin Granger, that he was pulled off the load and instantly killed. Two of his sons have presided over three such missions; Spanish American, Argentine and Uruguayan.  A grandson, James A. Jesperson, is at this time laboring presiding over the Andes Mission, and his granddaughter, Leonor Brown, with her husband, Harold, presided over the Argentine Mission.  Harold is at this time President of the Mexico City Stake.

Frederick Granger Williams grand- and great-grandchildren have spent well over an accumulated 100 years in missionary work among the descendants of Father Lehi in Latin America.  Perhaps it was prophetic that the angel showed our progenitor, Dr. Frederick Granger Williams, the vision in which he saw Lehi’s landing place in South America.  This vision was received in the Kirtland Temple which is constructed on land that he donated to the Church for that purpose.

Frederick Salem Williams, son

Flora May Williams, daughter

and Leonor Jesperson Brown,granddaughter

Stalwarts South of the Border, Nelle Spilsbury Hatch, page 778

Edson Darius Porter of the Mormon Colonies in Mexico

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Edson Darius Porter

of the Mormon Colonies in Mexico

(1859-1933)

 

Edson Darius Porter was born on April 12, 1859 in Provo, Utah, the son of Chauncy Warriner Porter and Lydia Ann Cook.

As early as 1854, members of his father’s family had established what was to become the town of Porterville, Morgan County, Utah. Other family members soon came to this beautiful little valley to make their homes.  It was from here that Edson left to help his brother, Warriner Al Porter, settle in Orderville where the United Order was in practice.  Here in Orderville he met Catherine Aurelia Carling, daughter of Isaac Van Wagoner Carling and Asenath Elizabeth Browning.  They were married in the St. George Temple in June 1880.  This young couple continued to live in Orderville where Edson worked at the leather tannery.  He joined the Order into which he turned a yoke of oxen, valued at $40 each.

In Orderville, Edson served the Church in the capacity of both Secretary and Second Assistant of the Sunday School from October 12, 1884, until October 18, 1885, as First Assistant in the Sunday School.  From October 18, 1885, to September 18, 1887, he served as Sunday School Superintendent.

The Order was dissolved in 1885.  It was on February 19, 1886, following the counsel of the President of the Church, that Edson took Catherine’s sister, Phoebe Malinda, as a plural wife.  He bought land south of the town of Orderville and built a home for his two families.  Here they enclosed 20 acres of land and planted fruit trees and grapes.  He continued with his leather work with the help of his wives, making chaps, harnesses, leather jackets, etc., until they were able to pay for their new home.

There were only about 2 years of peaceful living in this new location as the government commenced persecution of all those who were living in polygamy.  Edson, as did most men, went “underground” for six months to avoid imprisonment. In 1888, after two years of uncertainty and trial, word was received from President Wilford Woodruff that all who wished could move their families into Mexico where land had been purchased and permission had been granted by the Mexican Government for the establishment of Mormon colonies.

From Catherine’s own story comes the following account:

It was on September 4, 1890 that we bade Father, Mother, brothers, sisters, friends and home goodbye.  We bought a tent, a good camp outfit, two almost new wagons, two of the best teams in the country, and an extra horse in case we might need one.  Our brother Isaac, and sister, Eliza, where were not married, took a team and accompanied us the first day and night of our journey.  He had his accordion with him and played sweet music which we shall always remember.

I will describe more fully our camping outfit.  We had our bedsprings fixed in the wagons.  As there was not room for all of us to sleep in the wagons, we pitched the tent at night.  We had camp chairs.  There was a cupboard built in the back of the wagon; the door could be let down to make a table.  Our baking was done in a dutch oven. Everything was arranged as comfortably as possible for the long journey.

Brother Willard Carrol and family accompanied us to Mexico.  They had grown sons and a daughter, one of his sons Thomas Carrol, drove one of our teams.  We appreciated their company.

My children that were living were Arvena, aged nine; Delilah aged six; Geneva, aged four; Clara, aged two; Zenos, aged four and Jesse, aged two.  We passed through miles and miles of plain country.  In places we had to dig deep into the earth to find water four our stock, this made our journey long and dreary at times.  There were times when we would find natural rock tanks filled with water from recent rains.

We had an exciting crossing over the Gilla[Gila]River.  It was swollen so high we felt fortunate to get across, and we thanked our Heavenly Father for helping us cross safely. We continued on through great stretches of unsettled country — country where the cattlemen had bored down into the earth 700 feet to get water for their cattle.  We had to buy all the water we used for ourselves and our animals from there until we reached Colonia Diaz, Mexico.

We were traveling in a stranger’s land.  We came on to guards stationed along the way to tell us what to do.  When we finally arrived at Colonia Diaz, we had been on the road seven weeks.  We stayed here 10 weeks then we moved on up the country another 50 miles to Casa[s] Grandes Valley where Bishop Winslow Farr, Fred G. Williams and Anson B. Call had laid out a mile-square town, Colonia Dublan.

We obtained land on the West side of the river in San Jose.  The Dublan ward was organized with Winslow Farr as bishop.

In Dublan Edson serviced as the First Assistant in the Sunday School, from August 16, 1891 until January 21, 1894.

“Edson,” said Catherine, “was appointed president of the MIA. We found that we could not do justice to our callings, however, on account of living so far away.  So much of the time we couldn’t cross the river because of high water.”

From Clara, daughter of Catherine, we get this incident:

I remember how the river came up; water was so high no one could cross it. We had to stay home a lot, for there were no bridges to cross. One time when we went to Sunday School, the river was so we could cross it. I think there were nine of us in the three seated buggy; Zenos, my oldest brother was running the team — a pair of black ponies. When we went home after Sunday School the river had risen some, but we couldn’t tell how much. We drove in and got right in the middle of the stream where the horses stopped. The water was way up on the sides. They looked back as if to say, “We can’t go any farther.” The water was running into the buggy and almost over our laps. There was a Mexican man standing on the bank watching. He got on his horse and went to tell our father that his children were in the river and couldn’t get out. He brought Father back with him. The Mexican had a long rope which he tied to the saddle horn and wrote out in the stream. He tied the other end of the rope to the buggy tongue, and went ahead and pulled us out. We were a happy bunch of with kids when we got across the river.

From Phoebe’s story we get the following account:

In Dublan we plan to send our children to school, but as my boys [Kate’s older children were girls] were not old enough to trust with the team and flood times, Edson told me I had better drive them over. I said, “I don’t want to drive over and back twice a day.” He said I could spend the day visiting. I asked if he would get the teachers, Brother A. B. Call’s, consent for me to go to school also, I would do it. Edson spoke to them about it, and they said I could go. So I drove the team over to school and back every day while Kate took care of my baby girl and her small children.

We again quote from Catherine:

Dublan grew so rapidly that it was soon the largest Ward in the Stake. At one time there were 1200 members. On account of having a new canal built, which was badly needed, people began to leave for other locations. It was wonderful climate, never very cold in the winter, nor very hot in the summer. Had there been plenty of water for crops, it would have been wonderful country. My eldest son, Edson, was born in Dublan, June 10, 1892. Also Asenath Ann was born to Phoebe.

It was decided the Catherine and her family should go to Juarez, a distance of about 17 miles from the ranch in San Jose. Edson had agreed to go there to make shoes for Henry Eyring’s store. In Juarez in that education would be available for the older girls. Phoebe and her family remained on the ranch. Mexicans were hired to help operate the place. In Juarez, a son, LeGrand, was born to Catherine on August 4, 1894. He lived only 14 months. She became to Juarez also for the birth of her son, Francis Milo, July 16, 1893.

Jesse and Phoebe relate and interesting incident which occurred at this time:

Father was writing it three-year-old filly hunting cows that were on the Helaman Pratt ranch, about 17 miles beyond Colonia Juarez -Juarez being 18 miles from our ranch in San Jose. As he rode up the mountainside he saw what he thought was a post… It turned out to be a mountain lion. It gave a bloodcurdling scream badly frightening Edson. As the lion started to head Father off, he made the cold jump over a deep canyon about six feet wide. Here came the lion after him as he made for the house on the Pratt ranch. He and the mayor got safely into a building, but the lion screamed and watched the house until almost daybreak before it went away.

Just after sunset… Mother called us boys to her side and we knelt in prayer, for she had said she knew our father was in danger. I felt then that the Lord had answered our prayer. I can see even now how we ran to see Father when he came home. He told us how Aunt Kate had called her family together in Juarez just as the sun had started to set, even as we had done. Tears came into Father’s and Mother’s and our eyes as he told us how both his families and prayed for his safety just the time when he was in such danger.

Phoebe and her sons worked the ranch with the age of Mexican helpers. Jesse recalls:  

That fall we had a wonderful crop of corn. We had 50 or so Mexicans shucking corn in the fields, and a few of them were a little tricky. After the crop was hauled out of the field, they would go gleaning and seem to find a great amount of corn as they had hidden it inside places. Mother decided to take us boys to look for the places where they had hidden the court. While we were hunting she found a good pair of woolen pants that had been taken off when the day was warm. Mother washed them well and made a fine coat and pants for me. I was proud of my new suit, and when I went to Juarez to visit Aunt Kate the first thing I told to all was that my suit was made from a pair of Mexican pants mother had found.

After two years in Juarez, Edson and Catherine and their children moved back to San Jose and the farm. Here it was that Amelia and Winnie he were born. Mary was born July 22, 1896, and Winnie, August 7, 1898. During this time in San Jose(it must be kept in mind that San Jose was rather like a suburb of Dublan, hence the two names seem to be used interchangeably), the following children were born to Phoebe: Jonathan, September 20, 1895; Homer, August 29, 1897; and Nathan Edward, August 28, 1899.

In the spring of 1899, Edson was called by the President of the Stake Anthony W. Ivins, to go to Colonia Diaz for colonization purposes. Again he took with him Catherine and her family. He did not want to give the farm in San Jose; so once more he left Phoebe and the sons to operate it. Catherine and Edson stayed at Diaz 19 months. He established a tannery there. Justina was born December 20, 1900. She lived only three weeks.

Return to Dublan, Catherine gave birth to Evan Cook, December 29, 1902 and Margaret Irene on July 5, 1905. To Phoebe were born Eliza Rozena, October 16, 1901, who lived for three years; Ellen Moneta, December 2, 1903; Wilford, June 17, 1906, who lived for one year; Vearl, December 12, 1908, who lived only three weeks. What a trial it must have been to see so many of their children taken in death before they reach maturity.

Again we quote from Catherine’s record:

During the time of the Mexican Revolution we passed through some thrilling and exciting experiences. One day a few weeks before we were driven from our home the Mexican rebels, a tent of them, surrounded our house on the farm at harvest time, and demanded that we let them into search our place. It was just noon and our menfolk were all ready to stop work for dinner. My daughter, Clara, was with me. She could speak Spanish; so she told them are men would soon be coming and they should wait until they arrived home. They said they would not wait. They went through all the rooms— turned up the bedding to see if they could find any arms and ammunition. Their search was in vain that time, and they soon left. They came several times in search of guns.

Phoebe report similar experiences: “The Mexicans wanted our menfolk to help them in the war, but our authorities had said for us to remain neutral. They said, ’Give us your guns, then.’ So our people gave them our guns, as Brother Henry Bowman, the merchant in Dublan had a lot of guns in his store. He told her men to give up their old guns and get new ones from his store; so they did.”

Phoebe further relates that after the main body of people had left the town, a few men stayed on to try to keep things in order. The Mexicans were very surprised to find that these men still had good guns and were both able and willing to protect themselves.

Catherine tells us:

It was on July 28, 1912, late in the afternoon that the Bishop sent a runner over for a place to tell us to be ready to leave on the next train that would take us to El Paso, Texas. We were to meet at 1:00 a.m. at the store where the train would take us on. We had to walk out of our home and leave everything we could not packed into two trunks— cows, horses, chickens, all our food and household things. I have tried to keep myself from grieving about all our losses, for worry and grief do not bring back that which is lost. Several of the wealthiest people I knew did not live long after they left Mexico.

Phoebe, Jesse and Juanita, Clara, Francis, Edward and Moneta were with the first group to leave on the train. A few days later Catherine, Evan, Irene and Winnie left together. Edson left on horseback with the other men of the community.

There was a ruling of the Mexican government that a certain percentage of the land occupied by the Mormon colonists had to be owned by Mexican citizens. Edson Porter, among others, took out Mexican citizenship. He became a Mexican citizen September 7, 1897 it was a blessing to the colonists in general, but for his family have proved to be rather expensive, for after the expulsion of the colonies, at the insistence of the United States, the Mexican Government made a compensatory payment to those people expelled. They were paid $.50 on the dollar of the value of the property which they were required to leave behind them. The property of Edson and his family was valued at $350,000, but because he was Mexican citizen he received no compensation.

The refugees were welcomed in the city of El Paso, Texas. The drying sheds of a lumber yard served as temporary housing for them. That first night 1000 people were camp there. More arrived, but gradually they moved out as decisions were made to pick up and continue with forced alternatives.

The Edson Porter families moved to Clearfield, Utah where already several of the children had located Clearfield, they moved to Holladay, Utah, then to Tooele, then to Clarkdale and Jerome, Arizona. Finally, in 1929, they took up residence in Mesa, Arizona— just three of them now. There were two small homes side by side, very near to the temple. Edson, Catherine, and Phoebe were all temple workers.

On December 10, 1933, Edson died very suddenly of the severe pain in the stomach.

Phoebe married Culver Kartchner, a fellow temple worker, July 28, 1943. She passed away March 14, 1945. It was not until her funeral that all her living children were together— Zenos, Jesse, Francis Milo, Nathan Edward, Ellen Moneta, and Alva Elmo. She was 76 years old.

Catherine continued as a temple ordinance worker until 1941 when she was released because of ill health, at the age of 76. She passed away November 1, 1957, at the age of 92. Edson, Phoebe and Catherine are all buried in the city cemetery, Mesa Arizona.

Edson had many acres of farmland in Mexico. He was also busy with his chosen trade—that leather tanning and making leather goods. There were times when he rented much of his land to a Japanese produce farmer in El Paso, Texas. This man had both Chinese and Japanese workmen with them. Edson’s relationship with these men was very, very, good. The family takes great pride in the story related by elder Matthew Cowley:

When I was in Japan a year ago we found a man who, before the war, was the second largest landowner in all Japan… He had 12 buildings on his property, four or five beautiful homes… hundreds of acres. Finally decided to give this land to the Mormon Church… When asked him why he offered it to the Mormons instead of others. He said, “There is a man here named Mr. Mogi and Mr. Mogi told him to give it to the Mormons. Many years ago he used to live in Mexico among Mormon people. He said, ‘I saw what those people can do, their spirit of cooperation, the way they lived, could, clean living, good habits and morals.’ That has remained with me all days my life. And so I said let’s find the Mormons.” Now we have 1700 acres of ground in Japan—all those beautiful buildings given to the church for nothing, because a man lived among the Mormons in Mexico, and the inspiration which came into his life from those Mormons never left him.

Ione A. Pack, granddaughter

Stalwarts South of the Border Nelle Spilsbury Hatch, pg 530

Winslow Farr Jr.

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Winslow Farr Jr.

(1837-1914)

Winslow Farr Jr. was born May 11, 1837 in Chesterfield, Vermont.  He was the son of Winslow Farr, Sr. and Olive Hovey Freeman.

Two of the very first missionaries for the Church, Orson Pratt and Lyman Johnson were preaching in Vermont.  Winslow Farr, Sr. and two of his sons attended one of their meetings and were so impressed with their message that Winslow invited them to stay overnight at his home.  There Orson Pratt met Winslow’s invalid wife who was seriously ill and not expected to live long.  They discussed the Gospel and Winslow asked Elder Pratt to pray with them.  Elder Pratt prayed earnestly for Olive Farr, that she might be healed.  Arising from his knees, he went to her bedside and took the helpless invalid by the hand, asking her if she thought that God could heal her.  She told him she thought He could if He wanted to.  He said to her, “Olive, in the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to be made whole, and promise you that you shall live until you are satisfied with life.”  She was healed immediately.  She dressed herself and walked around her home singing praises to God.  It caused such rejoicing, the family did not sleep that night.  This miracle caused a great sensation throughout the whole region.  The Farr family joined the Church in April, 1832.

Winslow Farr, Jr. was born to his family five years after his other had been healed and had become a member of the Church.  He had three brothers and two sisters, all much older.  He was a tiny baby when born.  When he became a full-grown man he was over six feet tall and weighed well over 250 pounds.

Winslow Jr. emigrated to Utah with his parents in one of the handcart companies, arriving in the Salt Lake Valley in 1848.  They settled in Big Cottonwood.  There he helped his father work for other settlers as a farmer. In his journal he mentioned many times working for “Brother Brigham.”  He moved to Ogden and there worked at the ZCMI or the Co-op as it was called.  Winslow played the violin very well, a talent that was self-taught.  He played for all the dances throughout the valley and later, when in Mexico, he continued with his playing for all the dances.  He was a good dancer and loved to join in the dances as well as play for them.  He was a good natured man and was said to have the “patience of Job.”  Winslow would never kill snakes, but would carry them away from his land and turn them loose.  He did not believe in loud laughter and even though he was jolly and good natured, was never known to laugh loudly.

In 1859 he married Emily Covington. She bore him 16 children, but only six of them survived.  His second wife was Melvina Bingham.  They were married May 12, 1873 and were the parents of 11 children.  His third marriage was to Matilda Halverson, December 11, 1879.  They had five children, making a total of 21 living children.

Winslow Farr was a Bishop in Ogden and was among the Saints who were sought out by the U.S. Marshal for not complying with the Edmunds-Tucker Law.  At one time while he was a clerk at the Co-op, the officers came to the store to arrest him.  The other clerks warned him and devised a plan.  They put a chair in a large piano box, sat Winslow on it and crated him up writing “Handle with Care” on the box and carried him right past the officers and home in the box.  He later gave himself up and was sentenced to serve in the penitentiary at Salt Lake City.  There were many other Church members and officers serving sentences at the same time, including Brother George Q. Cannon.  While there, he kept busy making walking canes for many of the General Authorities and yarn pillow covers and table scarves for his family.  He was released after six months, after which time, with his families, he started for Mexico.

On their way to Mexico they stopped several times and made temporary homes. Near the southern border of Utah, he preached to the Indians through an interpreter, telling them about their forefathers as told in the Book of Mormon.  They were very receptive and begged him to come back and teach them again.

Winslow Farr Jr. was the first Bishop in Colonia Dublan (1891).  Altogether he served as Bishop for 25 years.  Soon after he arrived in Dublan, he called a meeting and the Saints voted to build a meeting house out of adobes.  The building was 56’ by 26’.

Brother Farr was made vice-presidente in the town.  On two different occasions he met with government officials to try to get them to let Mormons organize a form of protection for their people.  When the uprising began in Mexico, Winslow and his families came back to Utah and with his brother, Lorin Farr, worked in the temples for many years.  He died February 15, 1914 and was buried in Ogden, Utah

Mr. and Mrs. Joseph C. Clayson

Stalwarts South of the Border, Nelle Spilsbury Hatch, page 185

Winslow Farr Jr. made several trips from Colonia Dublan traveling back to Ogden.  During one trip he brought his brother Lorin Farr(known as the father of Ogden) back to Dublan with him.  He left Dublan for a final time in 1906. You can read more about Winslow Farr Jr at the Winslow Farr Sr. Organization website.

 

Warriner Ahaz Porter of the Mormon Colonies in Mexico

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Warriner Ahaz Porter

of

the Mormon Colonies in Mexico

(1848 – 1932)

Warriner Ahaz Porter was born May 20, 1848, at Winter Quarters, Florence, Nebraska.  His parents, Chauncy Warriner and Lydia Ann Cook Porter were encamped there with others of Mormon Church who had been driven from their homes in Nauvoo.  In the fall of that same year, Lydia Ann Porter crossed the plains to Utah in a covered wagon, taking with her the infant Warriner and four young stepchildren.

After their arrival in Salt Lake City, they suffered through a year of near starvation before Chauncy was able to join them in the fall of 1849.  Soon after settling in Salt Lake City, he was assigned to manage a sawmill in the Mill Creek area south of the city.  In the autumn of 1854 they moved to Centerville.

The settlers living in Centerville during those early years were beset by many hardships and privations.  Food was very scarce, and cloth or wool for weaving was almost impossible to find.  For this reason, young Warriner worked as a farm laborer at the age of seven, using his earnings to help with the finances of the home.  His formal schooling was very limited, as school was held for only two or three months a year, during the coldest weather when there was less demand for manual labor.

In 1858, Chauncy Porter moved his family to Morgan County, where he went into business with his brothers running a sawmill.  They later founded  a community know as Porterville.  Once again, Warriner was denied a chance for the education he desired so much, but he learned a valuable lessons in knowing how to work with his hands, and grew up strong, independent, and able to support himself at several occupations.

In Porterville there lived the family of Richard S. and Elizabeth Norwood.  Through the years of growing up together, Warriner and Mary Malinda Norwood fell in love. They were married in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City, on October 5, 1867.

Warriner had been raised in a home where plural marriage was accepted as part of his religion.  He was sincerely convinced that it was right, and therefore on July 21, 1873, after he and Mary had three children, he married Martha Norwood, Mary’s younger sister.

The people in Porterville made an attempt to organize themselves in the United Order.  The experiment lasted only 18 months, but the  Porter family believed this to be the right way of life, if people could only learn to live its principles.  Warriner sold his home and farm and moved to southern Utah were the United Order had been set up in the small town of Orderville, Kane County.  Each adult in the Order was assigned to work at the task best suited to his or her talents.  Warriner worked in the cabinet and carpenter shop and later became the manager of all furniture making in the Order.

In addition to this work in the Order, Warriner was busy in church and in civic affairs.  He served as a Ward Teacher, Sunday School Teacher, a member of the Stake Sunday School Superintendency, and a High Councilman.  For a time he was the sheriff of Kane County.  Warriner always felt that the time years he spent in Orderville were the most pleasant of his life.

While living in Orderville, Warriner married his third wife.  On April 23, 1879, he married Rachel Ann Black, a daughter of William Morley and Maria Hansen Black.

When the United States Congress passed laws against plural marriage, it became illegal for any man living this principle to vote, to hold public office or to own property.  Men were hounded, persecuted and even imprisoned.  So these good men who married in the sincere belief that they were doing right were forced to make a grim decision.  They must abandon the wives and children whom they loved, or they must seek some other locality where they might live together as families, free from persecution.  After asking advice from the President of the Church, Warriner decided the only solution was to take his family, leave the United States and settle in the Mormon colonies which were being established in Mexico.

The summer of 1889 was spent in preparation. Property must be sold and business affairs settled.  Clothing must be provided for two years, and wagons teams and supplies must be assembled.  At the time the Porter family began the exodus to Mexico, Mary had eight children, one of whom was married.  Martha had four living children, the oldest just 15 years old, and Rachel’s four living children were all under nine years of age.  Each of the wives was leaving behind a small grave, for each had lost a child.  They had no hopes that they would  ever again see the friends and family they were leaving in Utah, so the start of the journey was tinged with sadness.

On October 3, 1889, the long line of wagons left Orderville.  The Porter family traveled with a good friend, Christopher Heaton, who later married Phoebe Ellen Billingsly, a sister to Mary and Martha Norwood.  Tragedy struck within weeks of their departure. On October 28, Warriner Eugene, Mary’s oldest son, died at Black Rock crossing of the Little Colorado.  He had not been in good health for a long time, and the hardships of the trip overtaxed his heart.  The grief-stricken father and brother retraced their way back about three miles to a small station where they were able salvage enough lumber to make a simple casket.   He was then carried another 10 miles to the town of St. Joseph, Arizona.  Some of Warriner’s people lived there, and it was a great comfort that they did not have to bury him among strangers.

After weary weeks, the travelers reached Deming , New Mexico.  Some miles beyond Deming, they were required to pass through customers.  A bond was set on all their property with instructions that they must return within six months, bringing each item of property to prove it had not been sold in Mexico.  In this way the bond would be lifted.

After crossing the border at Las Palomas, they followed the Boca Grande, traveling along the west bank until they reached the Mormon settlement at Colonia Diaz.  Before they could rest, however, they had to go on to Ascension to report to the Mexican Government.  They arrived there on December 17, 1889.

Warriner returned his family to Diaz and then went on a tour of the colonies of Dublan, Juarez and Pacheco to decide where it would be best for them to settle.  The mountains near Pacheco were covered with tall pines, the first Warriner had seen for many weeks, and he felt that this was the place for him.  Hence, on February 3, 1890, the Porters and Heatons settled in Pacheco on a three-acre flat near the river and under the hills on the northeast side of town.  They tunneled back into the hill to make dugouts, stretched out their tents, and by using the wagon boxes for bedrooms were able to settle into temporary quarters.

Because of his skill as a carpenter, Warriner found a job building a millhouse near Juarez.  But before the task was more than started, he was stricken by a severe attack of chills and fever which left him unable to work for over three months.  Another three months was spent in returning to lift his bond in Deming, so the first years in Pacheco were lean ones.  Most of the bread was made from corn grown by the Mexicans which had to be hauled 40 miles over almost impassable roads.  This corn bread with Mexican beans and molasses made up the major part of their diet.  Deer and turkey could be found in the hills, but the men could spare little time for hunting.

By the fall of 1891, through much back-breaking effort, the families had adequate housing, a good crop of corn and potatoes and a vegetable garden.  A team and tow of the wagons had been traded for milk cows, so living conditions began to improve.  Warriner found, however, that the little farm had insufficient water in the dry season, while the rainy season brought floods roaring down the canyon to wash out dams and ditches. 

When they received an offer of land in Cave Valley, the Porters and Heatons sold the farm and moved, arriving in Cave Valley in the spring of 1892.  Warriner bought a house and lot with a nice orchard and also a small farm.  Then he and Chris Heaton went into partnership and bought a combination shigle and grist mill and they began to prosper. 

During the summer of 1893, Martha Porter became very ill.  On August 21, she died, leaving four children, one of whom was married.  So once again the Porter family was plunged into sorrow.  The three wives had lived together in complete harmony.  The children hardly knew which mother was their own.  Mary and Rachel took Marth’as children and raised them with the same love they showed toward the children born to them. 

Cave Valley was organized in the United Order early in 1893 with Christopher Heaton as President and William Morley Black and Warriner Porter as Vice Presidents.  When the Order leased a sawmill near Pacheco, Warriner was assigned to manage it.  For two years, he and Rachel lived there while Mary kept things going in Cave Valley. 

Christopher Heaton was killed by Mexicans while working at the manufacture of molasses in the Casas Grandes Valley.  Warriner was stunned by this loss, as Chris had been a brother as well as a good friend.  Phoebe Ellen, Heaton’s wife, moved her family back to Utah.

William M. Black was then made President of the Order, but it was not to last much longer.  The settlers were forced to leave their homes because of a misunderstanding about financial arrangements.  The Order was dissolved and the settlers moved back to the other colonies.  With others, Warriner chose to move to Pacheco.

A short time before Chris Heaton’s death, Warriner had bought his share of the mill.  But tragically, just after making the final payment on it, the mill burned to the ground.

While living in Cave Valley, four more daughters had been born.  Mary’s daughter was the last of her 11 children.  The first of three daughters born to Rachel during this period lived only a few weeks, so there was another small grave to leave behind.

The move to Pacheco necessitated the buying of a farm, as all the Church land under irrigation had been taken up.  The farm that Warriner purchased contained a very good site for a water-powered mill.  The dam which had furnished water for this area had been washed out, leaving the farms with and the mill high and dry.  Warriner offered to rebuild one third of the dam if other farmers would help with the rest.  It was finally agreed that each famer should pay for his share according to the size of his farm.  Warriner’s farm was of such size that he ended up being responsible for building two-thirds of the dam and two-thirds of the upkeep of the ditches.  When a water company was formed he was logically elected president.

After moving his families to Pacheco in 1897, Warriner returned to Cave Valley and gathered up all of the equipment which had not been destroyed in the fire with the mill.  He was also able to salvage enough lumber from the old home to build two rooms on his farm.  By constructing a workshop near the mill, he provided adequate shelter for his families.  During the next three years Warriner and his boys managed to add eleven rooms to the house.  This home served as comfortable living quarters for both families.  There was an enormous living room in the center which was shared by both families, while on each side were the private living quarters, so that each family could have its own individuality.  This was a happy time for the family, marred only by the death of Rachel’s year-old son on August of 1899.

In 1903 Warriner sold the shingle mill, keeping the little gristmill to grind his own grain and that of the mountain settlements.  He purchased a sawmill and was soon selling lumber throughout the colonies.  This mill was operated near Garcia for a time and was then moved to Pacheco.  In 1905 it was decided to move the mill back to the boundary line between Pacheco and Garcia, locating near the head of Round Valley Draw.  His sons were now able to do most of the milling, while Warriner drove a four-horse team, hauling lumber to the various settlements.

Then disaster struck again in the form of the worst flood ever to hit the valley.  It tore the mill from its foundation and carried with it over 50,000 feet of lumber which was scattered in all directions.  Once again this intrepid pioneer gathered up the pieces and started over.  The mill was rebuilt a few miles down the canyon, although it meant a debt of over $1,000, an overwhelming amount for those days.  After the mill was completed, Warriner went into partnership with his son, Omni, who then took over management of the mill.

The Pacheco Land Company was formed about this time for the purpose of assisting settlers to purchase their land from the Church and owning it on a private basis.  Warriner was chosen president of the company and spent many hours of his time helping to complete the negotiations.

The Porters met with another business failure when they took a contract to float a large amount of timber down into the Casas Valley where it was to be milled at the railroad.  They had somply taken on more than could be accomplished and so were not able to fulfill the contract.

The immense financial loss of this experience really hurt, but it seemed as nothing to Warriner compared to the loss of his wife Rachel.  She died on May 5, 1906, just eight days after the birth of her 14th child. The baby daughter lived only one day.  Rachel left 11 living children, one of whom was married and one living away from home. 

It was hard to adjust to this loss, but as always, their faith gave them the needed strength.  Mary, now 55 years old, became a 2nd mother to Rachel’s children, just as she and Rachel had for the children that Martha had left. Of the three families, there were four boys and ten girls still at home.  With a family of this size, Warriner could not afford to be idle.  He tunred the sawmill over to his sons, keeping a one- half share, and operated the shingle mill as well as doing carpenter work, cabinet building, and farming.

Somehow, Warriner always found time to carry his full share of responsibility in church and community. He served as President of the Pacheco Land Company and as a school trustee, and was always on hand to help with community improvements.  His church positions included being a teacher in the Ward, a Stake High Councilman, a Stake Missionary assigned to visit all the Wards, and many other callings through the years.

In 1910, a terrible epidemic of typhoid fever rated through the colonies.  Rachel’s daughter Hortense, a lovely girl of 20, was stricken with the disease.  She died on August 30, 1910.  It was a great blow to lose her in her young womanhood.

In 1911 and the early months of 1912 Warriner spent a great deal of time and money in a complete remodeling of the shingle mill.  He had no sooner put it into operation than they were forced to leave it.  The civil war in Mexico was growing worse and the Mormon colonists were ordered by their leaders to leave the country.  They were given 36 hours in which to reach the nearest railroad, 35 miles away.  Each family was allowed to take only a small amount of clothing and bedding and just enough supplies to get them to El Paso.

Thus, on July 30, 1912, the Porters took their departure from Mexico, leaving an estimated $30,000 worth of property, none which was recovered in Warriner’s lifetime.  After settling his bills and collecting the little he could of money owed to him, Warriner had $17.00 in his pocket with which to move 7 people over 1,000 miles.  His married daughter and her family, number six, also traveled with them, making Warriner responsible for 13 people.

How they accomplished this is another story in itself.  But through their faith and their industry they succeeded.  Because some family members had previously moved to the small town of Grayson, in southeastern Utah, it was decided to move there.  Warriner and Mary Porter lived in Grayson, now Blanding, in San Juan County, Utah, until 1922.  Then they moved to Salt Lake City where they spent their declining years working in the temple. 

Mary passed away on September 10, 1929, at the age of 78.  Warriner carried on alone, faithful and active to the end of his life, which came on May 28, 1932, just after his 84th birthday.

Warriner Ahaz Porter stood at the head of a numerous posterity.  He was the father of 30 children, 10 boys, and 20 girls.  At the time of his death he could count 125 grandchildren and 55 great grandchildren.  Although the last years of his life were spent in poverty in a financial sense, he was wealthy in those riches of life which count the most.      

Carol P. Lyman, granddaughter

Stalwarts South of the Border Nelle Spilsbury Hatch, page 537

Mormon Colonies in Mexico