David Alvin McClellan

(1865-1953)

I was born June 16, 1865, in a little adobe house near the center of the little town of Payson, Utah, the eighth child of William Carroll and Almeda Day McClellan, who were married in July, 1849.
Father was born in Bedford County, Tennessee, May 12, 1828. His family moved to Illinois in 1833 and was baptized in 1839. They then moved to Council Bluffs, Iowa, in July of 1846 and here father joined the Mormon Battalion. He was released on July 29, 1847. My father with his two families pioneered Utah, Arizona and Mexico. My mother was born November 28, 1831, in Leeds, Ontario, Canada. Her family was converted to the Church in Canada in 1836. A few years later they crossed the St. Lawrence River on ice, into the state of New York.

I never heard of Primary or Mutual when I was a boy and about the only kind of amusement we had was made by ourselves. We made flutes and whistles of willows, and threw mud daubs at barns. Schooling wasn’t too bad while living in Payson. I can’t remember ever disliking any subjects. Reading matter was very scarce in most of the homes, but I spent many happy hours in the barn reading the Book of Mormon.

At the April Conference in 1877 many families were called to Arizona to help build up the country. Among these being my father from Payson and the Isaac Turley family from Beaver, Utah. We left Utah September 24 and arrived in the Lot Smith camp in Sunset, Arizona, November 20. Here we lived in the United Order. On November 20, 1879, their mission at the mill came to an end. Father had already decided that by this time he would move back to Sunset where the children could have better schooling. After two years here we moved again, and spent the next few years moving from town to town.

While living in Pleasanton, New Mexico, in the early part of 1885, rumors that U.S. Marshals were hunting for men with more than one wife reached this remote little village. August of this same year, Father took George and me with him to get his second family, Aunt Elsie, and move them to Mexico. Father and Ed were among the first in the camp, which was later called Colonia Diaz. In just a few months Father returned to the United States and moved our family to Mexico. Being driven to Mexico was a blessing for our family. The Church established colonies where the gospel was to be taught. Children could get a good spiritual upbringing. There were no saloons, or gambling houses, and a tobacco user among the colonists was almost unknown. Of my father’s eleven sons, only one used tobacco for a short time, then stopped for good.

Before the end of 1885, Joseph Fish had surveyed the old town site of Colonia Juarez and people began to move onto lots, living in wagon boxes, dugouts and tents, while they were waiting for approval of the authorities. After gaining consent from Father, I went back to Pleasanton, New Mexico to help earn money for the family. While there I worked, visited with friends, and spent my twenty-first birthday with my sister Maria (Ri) and her husband John Hatch. On September 28 I started back to Mexico, arriving October 9. I made several such trips to the United States, between the building I was helping my father with. One time when I wanted to leave, father told me, “I want you to go up to town and pick you out a lot and go to work improving it and settle down and behave yourself.” I had great respect for my father’s judgment and in the years later I was glad I had taken his advice. I bought a lot from my brother-in-law, Joseph S. Cardon for $20. Ed helped me work out a $19 contract on the West ditch, and I paid one silver peso, which squared the debt. The lot was directly across Main Street from the Turley lot. I liked to hunt, and one time on a trip to Strawberry Valley, with father and Ed, we killed six wild turkeys, our first wild meat. Throughout the years I killed many deer and antelope.

Soon after I returned from one of my trips to the States, I was invited to a party for the young folks at the home of Sixtus E. Johnson. He was among the lucky ones who had a tent to live in. From what I had been hearing, there were some who wanted Esther Turley and me to meet. She was a little under 16 years of age and very pleasing to look at. You might call it love at first sight if you want to. I tried in my blundering way to get her to like me until the Fourth of July, when I got offended over nothing and sulked until November. One night after choir practice I asked the privilege of walking home with her, which she kindly granted. By January 25 I had proposed marriage to her. She wanted a week’s time to decide and consider the matter. It was a long week, but it came to an end. One night as we were walking home we stepped into a shallow dry ditch and both fell. She gave me her answer that night, which was “yes.”

On January 21, 1888, my brother-in-law, Al Bagley asked me to go to his home in Utah and help him drive a bunch of young heifers back to Colonia Juarez. I gladly accepted the offer as it would give me a chance to start laying by the things I thought I wanted and needed before I could marry. I began setting out trees Father had given me and some I had bought, and on the morning of March 12 I was watching for a chance to speak with Brother Turley. He had some grape cuttings I wanted to buy, and I also wanted to ask him for the hand of his daughter.

After talking with all concerned it was decided that the next night, March 13, was the best time for our wedding and then I could take my wife with me to Utah and the Manti Temple. Brother Miles P. Romney, First Counselor, was authorized to perform the ceremony at the home of Esther’s parents. If that could have been done by proxy while I waited outside, it would have saved me a lot of misery. Esther’S parents and sister, and my father and mother and Aunt Elsie were the only family members present. On March 14 we held our wedding dance in the tithing office with Pete Skousen playing the music. March 15 we got an early start on our trip to Utah.

My wife, Esther Turley, was born January 9, 1871, in Beaver, Utah. Her parents were Isaac Turley, born in Canada, November 22, 1837, and Clara Tolton, born in Illinois, April 13, 1852. Esther was the second of twelve children born to them.

After 51 days on our trip to Utah, and working there during the summer, we started on our return trip to Mexico on October 5, taking my sister, Cynthia Bailey, and five children with us. After two months on many rough roads we arrived in Colonia Juarez, December 5, 1888.

My father-in-law had built an adobe house facing main street, leaving the frame house for us. About the only household goods we took to this house were the clothes we had when we left, and our well-worn bedding, no extras. We had a few dishes, mostly the kind used around camps. We lived here for a little more than 2 months, and our first child, Clara Estella, was born, January 30, 1889, then we moved onto a ranch, the McClellan’s and Turley’s working together, caring for the stock, but because of the lack of water and provisions, we moved again onto the lot I had purchased on Main Street. Here we first lived in a wagon box, then in a shed, until we could build a one room adobe house. This was our home for many years and where nine of our children were born, several times throughout these years we added onto this little house.

The winter of 1893 and 1894 was a hard one for us, very little work for me that would bring the necessities of life. I always had a lot of work for myself and was never idle. My brother Ed found work early in the year of 1894 at the Corralitos Mines. One day a note came from him telling me that the boss had said for me to come. He could not pay me carpenter wages, and I was not a carpenter, but he would pay $4 a day, which I considered a very good salary. I had to buy me a hammer, saw and square, and I worked helping Ed for several months and later at the Sabinal Mine. 1895 we spent working with Ed on jobs in and around Colonia Juarez and I also decided to learn more about being a mason by getting some books, which cost me $7. I got some good ideas but they didn’t teach me how to use the trowel and mortar, I had to learn that from experience. We built a special room with fires in it to dry fruit, which saved our fruit that had no market and we did have a good sale for our dried fruit. In 1896 I worked with a small cane mill I had acquired for making molasses during the season and in between times I was building the Harper Hotel with Ed as the carpenter.

In May of 1900 I went to Naco, Sonora with my sister Ri and her husband John Hatch to look for work. Being unsuccessful there I went to Cananea to work in the mine, but the rough companions and hard work didn’t prove very successful so I returned to Naco, finding several odd jobs for a while, and finally returning home in July. Times were very hard and I tried to keep busy with my masonry and building, but too many people were in the same condition as I was. During this time I helped build the band stand and the suspension bridge (called the swinging bridge) in Colonia Juarez.

I was called to the Southwestern States Mission and was set apart in my home Sunday morning, April 10, 1904, by Apostle John W. Taylor. I left home one hour later with my family and father and mother for Colonia Dublan, where I took the 8:00 a.m. train the next morning for El Paso, Texas. My wife went that far to do some shopping for the family. I went on to the Mission Headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri, arriving there April 16, 1904. The mission covered a lot of territory, Oklahoma, Texas and Missouri. We walked many miles, some days as far as 28 and many days in the cold and rain. We had very little money and some days had no dinner or supper. Sometimes we would buy crackers and cheese for a meal. Many times we slept in the schoolhouse or on bare benches, winter and summer. Sometimes we took a hotel room for 25 cents. We often bathed in creeks and did our laundry there. Sometimes the Sisters did the laundry and the Elders worked in the fields, harvesting corn or cotton. Certain parts of the country were very friendly, even the Campbellites and Josephites took us in and fed us well and listened to us. We had to walk 16 miles for our mail. Some of our meetings were held in school houses, but many times the school trustees would refuse us the use of the buildings. We heard of the funeral of President Lorenzo Snow. We walked a few miles to see the damage a cyclone had done. It was terrible, 104 killed and 150 injured. Twenty houses had been completely wiped out and others carried away. I was released May 17, 1906, and met my wife and son David at the station in Casas Grandes, on May 25, with a team and buggy to convey me home. I cannot express the pleasure it was to see my loved ones after an absence of twenty-five and a half months.

After my return home we started building our two story brick home on the same lot, and another child was born to us in July of 1907. During the years 1907 and 1908, with the aid of my brothers, we built our parents a nice comfortable home. We moved into our new home in 1908 and another child was born in November 1909.

Things started to get bad in Juarez. There were so few lots left to build on and the future didn’t look good. Not much of my type of work left. Some of the men decided to investigate some land in Sonora, and finding a new valley where there was plenty of land and water, we decided to buy a tract of land and try farming. In the spring of 1909 I went with my daughter Estella and her husband Sam, and we located in the Colony of San Jose, a few miles distant from Colonia Morelos. We arrived in time to build Estella’S house and get our crops in. I moved my family over in February of 1910. I spent my time working the farm and in the off season working with my brother Ed in the construction business in Colonia Juarez and we also worked on the Pearson sawmill. During this period of my life I recall I did all kinds of work, around my home and for others. Besides working the cane mill and farming I also learned to make shoes and was able to supply the necessary shoes for my family. I also learned to weave chair bottoms, hauled wood, lumber, posts, and produce, fixed fence and slacked lime for the building of the church house.

The San Jose Ward was organized September 12, 1911. I was Ward Clerk to Bishop George H. Martineau and kept the minutes of the Gabilondo Canal Company meetings, while we lived in San Jose. Our Priesthood Meetings were carried on in the usual way, with singing and prayer. We had a comfortable home and our crops were good and we prospered. We were now settled down for sure, among the rattlesnakes, skunks, gila monsters, wildcats, tarantulas and more snakes. One day I was walking along the ditch bank when one hit on the leg, I jumped and used some choice words and looked back just in time to see that it was a stick that I had stepped on which had flipped up to hit me on the leg. During this time in May, 1912 our last baby was born. Our little three-year-old, Hazel, was not in good health and caused us quite a bit of concern.

Then came the trouble with the Mexican Revolution. We were molested a few times and I always carried my rifle to the field with me. Some of our livestock was stolen. They were everywhere it seemed and wanted all our possessions, guns, ammunition, saddles, horses and food. On August 15, (1912), President Hyrum Harris arrived at the home of Bishop Martineau at midnight, advising us to move our families to the United States as soon as it was convenient. We hurriedly made preparations and were ready to leave by the seventeenth. After camping out each night we arrived in Douglas, Arizona on the twenty-first. Here we were placed in tents provided for us by the U.S. government, and while we waited to see if conditions would improve so we could return, I made two trips back to the farm to rescue some of our belongings such as farm implements, our organ and other household furniture and livestock. By September 5, all the women and children were safely in the United States.

Having lived in the refugee camp for several weeks we found it necessary to go somewhere to get settled down. We went to Tucson, Arizona to clear a 40 acre farm we negotiated with the Tucson Farm Company. However, this didn’t work out as we had planned, so we moved back to Douglas for a while then to Tempe where our son David was, and we stayed for a short time with him, trying to get some cows with which to start a dairy farm. We were offered a place east of Chandler which we worked and lived in and around there for some fifteen years before we finally moved to Mesa, Arizona, where we were able to buy a small lot and build a home, most of the work being done by the family. Early in the year of 1930 the Second Ward in Mesa was doing some remodeling and I volunteered some of my services, which later helped me get the job of janitor for eight years.

A daughter, Clara Estella M. Bradshaw, continues this sketch of the life of David Alvin McClellan.
During his life he was Ward Clerk or Secretary of something almost all the time. Mother always sang in the choir and both held many positions in the Church. Father loved to play ball. He played ball in Mexico and with his children and grandchildren. While living on the Walker ranch in Chandler, he first worked on the Arizona Temple and had many interesting stories to tell about it.

In 1938 he began a hobby which earned him the title of the most patient man in Arizona. He was then seventy-three years of age. He began reproducing in miniature, pioneer articles, household furniture, professional tools and farm implements, all exactly to scale. He reproduced the cane mill he used in Mexico, with moving parts that really worked. He also built three types of wagons: a farm wagon, a prairie schooner, and a light spring wagon, all with single trees, tongues and neck yokes, spring seats and wheels, with or without spokes. His workshop was made from cinder block salvaged from the city dump. He made a work table with pockets down the side, “as handy as a pocket in a shirt,” he would say. This was on wheels and could be moved anywhere he was working, and was made from the lining of the chest used to carry and display these articles on the Centennial Tour from Salt Lake City to Nauvoo and back over the old Mormon Trail in 1947. For material from which to make these articles, his friends and family brought him such items as scraps of leather, lumber, hardwood, ashwood, balsam, aluminum, wire, copper, brass, wool, buckskin, toothbrush handles, canvas, rope, string, etc. He made most of the tools he worked with. He worked at this hobby for the last sixteen years of his life, spending sometimes six to eight hours a day. At the end of that time he had a collection of pioneer articles that will be a major attraction in any museum fortunate enough to have them on display.

He died in Mesa, Arizona, January 4-, 1953, at the age of eighty-seven. His wife lived to be ninety-two years of age and died July 10, 1963, leaving some 266 descendants.

Clara Estella Bradshaw, Daughter

Stalwarts South of the Border, 

Nelle Spilsbury Hatch, pg