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John Menzies Macfarlane

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John Menzies Macfarlane

1833-1892

 Stirling Castle, built on a rocky promontory overlooking the River Forth in the Scottish Highlands, was the birthplace of John Macfarlane, October 11, 1833. 

Like his father, he was given the single name of John, to which she later added the middle name of Menzies. Later, two other children were born to John and Anna Bella Sinclair Macfarlane: Ann and Daniel.

By 1842, most of the family had been baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and, as a member of the new church, Annabella became one of its most active missionaries. With her older son, John M., she sang hymns and preached on street corners. It is thought by many that this was where he first found his love and gift for music.

When their father died, Annabella moved her children to Glasgow, where she took up midwifery and nursing to support her family. Many years later, John M’s descendants, in an effort to substantiate the theory that he had obtained a university education, discovered that in deed John M. Macfarlane from Stirling had studied at the University member, but the date was 1857, several years after John Menzies Macfarlane had already emigrated to Utah.

That he was a learned man there could be no doubt, but it is now believed that the extensive and varied knowledge he gained beyond the sixth grade was entirely self-taught.

The family was helped to emigrate to Utah through the perpetual emigration fund. On February 11, 1852, they set sail for America on the Ellen Marie. After eight weeks and three days, to Garden City, and being stuck on a sidebar in Mississippi River, they finally arrived in New Orleans on April 7, 1852. By September 1852, they had reached the valley of the Great Salt Lake.

As families moved out of the Salt Lake Valley, the Macfarlane’s went to the Cedar City area, where John Menzies Macfarlane taught school in the meeting house which was built against the wall of the Old Fort. His pay was $2-$5 a quarter for each student.  In 1854, a choir was organized at the Old Fort, among its members were John M. and his brother Dan played in numerous productions.

When Brigham Young made a trip to the old Fort, he drove east out of town, and there indicated a new piece of ground which he ordered be surveyed. On the surveying team was John Menzies Macfarlane.

In the midst of all this activity, John Menzies Macfarlane found time to begin showing interest in and Chatterley, a young girl of 17. They were married in the Old Fort, they were later sealed to each other in the Salt Lake Endowment House on November 3, 1857.

Several years after his marriage to a man, John attended the priesthood meeting in which Brigham Young sorted young married men to marry the single women. That night he discussed the matter with him, and much to his surprise— for she had openly expressed her opposition to polygamy— she suggested that she could get along with Agnes Eliza(Tillie) Hayborne, a member of the Cedar City choir which John than directed. But, saying, she doubted that two women could live in harmony in one room. There in the morning John started to work to build another room onto their cabin. He and Tillie were sealed in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City on October 9, 1866.

It is not known when John M. Studied music in composition, but it is known that he owned of well-worn book on harmony instruction. Since nor it was available to accompany the Cedar City choir, he used a tuning fork or pitch pipe to guide the choir members.   McGuire traveled throughout the settlements in southern Utah and became well-known. In the late summer of 1868, Erastus Snow called John M. To move to St. George, Utah as director of the St. George choir, which had been started by Charles J. Thomas, the leader of the Salt Lake Tabernacle Choir.

After settling his family in St. George, John Menzies Macfarlane started up a school was some 90 students, among whom was Elizabeth Jane (Lizzie) Adams. The story is told that one day as she jumped over bench, she exposed the rather shapely ankle, and the teacher observed that someday she would make him a good wife.

Having helped to settle some legal questions in Cedar City, John was also sought after in this regard in St. George, and on January 13, 1869, was admitted to practice law in Washington County.

The purpose for which John Menzies Macfarlane had been called to St. George, to direct the choir and to organize a band, expanded with his organization of the St. George Harmonic Society. He also taught singing lessons.

A friend of John’s, Charles L. Walker, a convert from England and blacksmith in St. George, was also a poet, and John took to putting his friend’s poetry to music or adapting the poetry to already-known sacred music.

This Christmas season of 1869 approach, John Menzies Macfarlane began to think about the music available for a special program. He discussed the matter with his friend Charles and asked Charles to write some poetry for which he, John, would compose music. But the poetry Charles wrote did not seem to fit any music that John had in mind. He finally prayed fervently for help and in the middle of one night it came suddenly in a dream. He awakened his wife, Ann, and told her that he thought he had the words in mind as well as the music.

Together they got up. Ann lighted the “bitch” lamp (a large lantern-type lamp) and held it up so that he could see.  As he hummed, wrote, erased, and wrote again, she became chilled, as she was only in a thin nightgown, and, thinking out loud, said: “Let it go for now and finish it in the morning.” But he brushed her off and continued writing until he finished.

Because he had asked Charles Walker to collaborate with him in the test, John went immediately to Charles the following morning and showed him the music and words and asked Charles to put his name to the manuscript is author of the words, but Charles refused, saying that the words were not his. John never wrote both words and music to another song. But this, “Far Far Away on Judea’s Plains,” which he expected would be sung for that Christmas program and forgotten, has become a traditional Christmas hymn, not only for the LDS Church but for other denominations as well. It was first published in the Juvenile Instructor on December 15, 1889, 20 years after it was written and the December 1961 issue of The Instructor John M. Macfarlane on its cover composing the music.

John may have written many of the pieces of music to Charles L Walker’s poetry, only one such him is known today: “Dearest Children, God is Near You.”

John Menzies Macfarlane conducted the St. George choir at the groundbreaking ceremony for the St. George temple, and again when the last known was laid. He also conducted acquire in a special high mass for the Catholic Church, which is conducted by special permission of LDS Church Authorities, in the St. George Tabernacle.

At the same time that he was occupied with the choir and with teaching, he was becoming a prominent community leader. In 1876, he was elected to the St. George City Council. As he became not respected, he ran for a number of public offices and was never defeated. In 1878, he was elected probate judge. As a surveyor, his services were constantly in demand. He mapped parts of Cedar City and St. George, private properties for individuals, and, in 1870, was elected Washington County Surveyor.

John had long known the family of Samuel L. Adams, and he had watched Elizabeth Jane (Lizzie) from the day her ankle had caught his attention when she jumped over a bench in his schoolroom.  When she became unhappy over the failure of her marriage plans to a Bentley boy, she and her family turned to John to help her.  His two wives were concerned that he might be giving Lizzie too much comfort, but they actually had no idea of his intentions to marry Elizabeth Jane Adams, which he did in the St. George Temple on January 30, 1879 — without informing Ann and Tillie until after the ceremony.  Whether or not this was responsible for creating the coolness with which the other wives accepted her is not known, but it appears that Lizzie did not have the close bond with Ann and Tillie that they had developed with each other.

With the passage of the Edmunds-Tucker Act, John Menzies Macfarlane became increasingly apprehensive about his polygamous situation, and for a time he and his first wife, Ann, hid out at St. Thomas, near Overton, Nevada.  But both ended up contracting malaria and had to return to hid out in and near Cedar City.  Having encouraged by Erastus Snow to join the Mormon colonists in Mexico, John finally decided that it was the only thing to do.  He invited Ann to accompany him, but her recent unpleasant experience of hiding out decided against another such venture.  Tillie was steadfast in wanting to remain with Ann.  So, at the latter’s suggestion, he took the  youngest wife, Lizzie, and their children and departed, via, Kanab, to there await the arrival of Erastus Snow, who had been attending to business matters in Salt Lake City and would travel with them to Mexico.  When a messenger brought news that Brother Snow had succumbed, John M. leaned over his wagon wheel and wept.  It was Erastus Snow who had called him to move to St. George.  They had been close friends, and it was mainly through his encouragement that the Macfarlanes were undertaking this move to Mexico.  But they must go on. 

Three months and many miles later, they arrived in Colonia Juarez, a settlement not yet 18 months old. John M. pitched a tent for the family to live in until they could erect a permanent abode on the lot assigned to them southwest across the street from the public square.  As they crossed the border, the customs officials allowed them to take in surveying instruments and his organ and their personal belongings after payment of considerable duty, but confiscated their furniture.  All they had to sit on in their tent was the spring seat of their wagon. 

John Menzies Macfarlane had little ready cash, even though food items were cheap in Mexico; so he and his son Urie dug post holes, hauled rocks for the foundation for the Co-op Store and helped paint the new store.  He and Louis Cardon laid up the adobes for the gristmill south of town.

Miles P. Romney helped John M. build a one-room log house on their lot, and although it was bare of furnishings and had only cheesecloth-like material, called “factory,” at the windows, it was much better than the tent.  Two days after they moved into the house, their son John Adams was born, but because they now lived in Mexico, they called him Juan.

Soon after their arrival in Colonia, Juarez, John Menzies Macfarlane organized a choir, with rehearsals, as usual, in his home.  He also took up surveying again, and he was responsible for surveying the west side of the Juarez Valley and a “city” in Upper Corrales Valley.  He was drawn again and again to the beauty of Pacheco and dear friends who lived there, among them the Lunts.  He also taught school in Colonia Juarez and he represented the colonists in legal matters at the state capital in Chihuahua City.

In one protracted absence from home, he wrote his wife that she would not know him, for he had lost 32 pounds and now weighed only 206 ½ pounds!  He was remembered as a big man with dark hair and a beard; but when he returned to Salt Lake City for conference in October, 1890, and a reunion with his wife Ann, he had lost considerable weight, his beard had been shaved, and he carried a heavy scar below his left eye, the result of his trying to apprehend someone stealing his wheat.  The thief had struck him with a pitchfork, the blow not only scarring him, but impairing the vision of his eye.

Although he would have liked to remain in Utah with his family there, he returned to Mexico, and had been home just a month when, Almon B. Johnson accepted an invitation to supper at John M.’s so that the two could discuss some surveying Almon wanted done.  As they talked, Almon played with little Juan.  The following morning, Almon, his wife, and two of their children were ill with smallpox.  They were moved to a pesthouse two miles north of town and Agnes Macdonald and one of her sons and Annie Jonson Hilton and Asa Johnson took care of the quarantined family.  In spite of their ministrations, the family died one by one, but miraculously no one else contracted the disease.    

In 1890 John M. agreed to operate a store owned by H. L. Hall in Casas Grandes, and he moved Lizzie and the family into the store compound there.  With this new venture he dreamed of expanding into a mercantile business in several northern Mexican towns, with members of his family running each store.  With this in mind he wrote Ann to sell everything possible to raise the money to send Tillie and her family to him and thereafter to raise money so that she and her family could also join him.

Lizzie was unhappy and afraid in Casas Grandes and prevailed on him to let her move back to Colonia Juarez.  With that, and an unsuccessful attempt to open a store in Dublan, his dreams of a thriving mercantile business faded.

Tillie, however, had followed his instructions to ready her family to move to Mexico.  She raised much of the money for the trip by cooking for a construction crew and by catering for weddings and feasts in St. George.  On November 13, 1891 she and six of her children—her oldest son, Urie, was already with his father in Colonia Juarez—arrived to join the others.  IN preparation for her arrival, John Menzies Macfarlane had built a more commodious house than he had for Lizzie.  The two houses, a corral, vegetable gardens and a young orchard occupied the town lot in Colonia Juarez.

In February 1892, he returned to the mountains above Pacheco to survey.  Because of poisonous snakes and insects in the rocky area in which they camped, the men slept with their boots on, but John M. could not stand his tight boots and so one night removed them to have a good night’s rest.  He awoke during the night experiencing terrible pain in one of his toes.  He was sure he had been bitten by a snake.  In the morning he laboriously put his boots back on, was helped to mount a horse, and somehow rode back to Colonia Juarez, where he collapsed from pain, his foot so swollen that the boot had to be cut off.  He was in such misery from the pain, from asthma, and from insatiable thirst which was followed by nausea and vomiting, that he seldom lay down.  Rather, he sat on the edge of his bed and cradled his head in his arms on a nearby tabletop.

He felt that if he could only return to St. George to Dr. Higgins, he could be cured.  So, when he was well enough to travel, Tillie remained at home in Colonia Juarez to take care of the small children, and Lizzie, Urie, and daughter Caddie accompanied him as far as Deming, from where he traveled by train to Salt Lake City.  He seemed some better there, attended spring conference, and was one of a huge crowd who witnessed the laying of the capstone on the Salt Lake Temple.

From Salt Lake City he returned to St. George, where he was ministered to by Dr. Higgins and family members who took turns helping him out to the porch to get fresh air and making him as comfortable as possible.   Medications and ministrations were in vain, however, and on June 4, 1892, he died.  Telegrams were sent to Tillie and Lizzie in Mexico, but they would not be able to arrive in time for the huge funeral held for him the following day in the St. George Tabernacle, a funeral at which the choir sang, and at which dear friends preached.  Shortly thereafter, Tillie and Lizzie disposed of all the family property in Colonia Juarez, except their husband’s transit and organ, and with help from Utah family members and others, returned to southern Utah to live.

Excerpted by Jeanne J. Hatch from Yours Sincerely, John M. Macfarlane, by L.W. Macfarlane, M.D. Published by L. W. Macfarlane, M.D. Salt Lake City, Utah 1980.

Stalwarts South of the Border, Nelle Spilsbury Hatch, page 449

Sarah Ann Lunt

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Sarah Ann Lunt

1858-1921

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Broughton Lunt

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

Moses Thatcher

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Moses Thatcher

1842-1909

Moses Thatcher, sixth son of eight sons of Hezekiah Thatcher and Alley Kitchen, was born on February 2, 1842, in Sangamon County, Illinois.

The frightening turmoil of the Saints’ exodus from Nauvoo, Illinois, the misery, sickness hunger and death that hung like a cloud over the camps of wandering Mormons, the blistering sun, and unquenched thirst that accompanied his barefoot trek across the plains, and witnessing the death of his childhood chum as he lay crushed under a rolling log…all these deeply impressed young Moses.  But overriding the challenges and trials of his early life was his abiding faith in a benevolent God, a faith inculcated in him early in his tender years by his faithful, trusting mother.

Not forgotten were his memories of early encounters with Indians, one in which he was forced to exchange some cherished corn cakes for less palatable cricket pies.   

With other members of his father’s family, Moses was taken to California in the spring of 1849, where they settled in the area of Sacramento, a village of rude huts and unprotected tents, where people kept their silver dollars sewn in gunny sacks under their beds. 

He attended his first school when he was eleven.  Large for his age, he was humiliated to realize that boys much smaller and younger than he were far ahead of him in class, and so he exerted extra effort to excel.  When not in school, he earned money by digging moss and dirt from the crevices of large rocks along the river.  In a milk pan he washed the moss and dirt and retrieved gold dust which netted him several dollars a day.

His chief delight, however, was found in frequent night religious meetings which he and his parents attended.  He listed with pride as his father explained the Gospel to non-believers and as his mother confounded religious leaders with her simple, direct, unwavering faith.

When at 15 Moses accepted the call to serve as missionary companion to elder Henry G. Boyle, it was with the understanding that he would be just that, a companion. He would not be required to proselyte.  However, within a short time, he was amazed that he was blessed to be able to defend eloquently and knowledgeably the Gospel, not only to friends but to complete strangers.

Lettie Farr became his bride in April 1861, and they settled in Cache Valley, building the first frame house in Logan, Utah.  There Moses joined the “Minute Men” peacekeeping force.

He was called on a mission to Salt Lake City to learn telegraphy in 1865, and in April 1866 was called on a proselyting mission to England.  Upon his release in August 1868, he returned to Logan where he entered into a mercantile business with his father, a business that was later incorporated into ZCMI. He became influential in business and politics in Utah and was a member of the Utah Constitutional Convention of 1872 and a delegate to present the proposed constitution to Congress.  Moses was called as the first President of the Cache Valley Stake on May 21, 1877, and on April 9, 1879, at the age of 37, was called as an Apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Because an influential Greek-Mexican, Dr. Plotino Rhodakanaty, residing in Mexico City, had become interested in the Gospel and had written to President John Taylor requesting additional information about the Church, Moses Thatcher was sent to Mexico City to meet with him personally. He was accompanied by Meliton Gonzalez Trejo, the Spanish translator of the Book of Mormon, and by James Z. Stewart.  Soon after they arrived in Mexico City, in November 1879, they taught and baptized Dr. Rhodakanaty and a native Mexican, Silviano Arteaga.  Within a few days they had baptized six additional men, had formed a Branch of the Church, had invoked the Lord’s blessings on Porfirio Diaz, the Mexican Constitution and governing bodies of the country of Mexico and its inhabitants that they might hear and receive the Gospel message, and Moses Thatcher additionally dedicated the land to missionary work. 

During this introductory visit to Mexico, Apostle Thatcher became acquainted with many prominent educational and political leaders in Mexico and he absorbed all the knowledge he could on the history and customs of this fascinating and powerful country. In his contacts with government officials, he laid the groundwork for the legal acquisition of lands in northern Mexico by the Mormon Colonists. 

In 1882 he and Erastus Snow were called to explore northern Mexico with a view to acquiring land there for possible colonization.  When in 1885 the first Mormon settlers moved into northern Chihuahua, alarmed American residents of Chihuahua prevailed upon the governor to issue an order for expulsion of the Mormons.  Apostles Thatcher and Brigham Young Jr. were able to have the order rescinded in Mexico City, where the matter had been referred.

Moses Thatcher was called to assist Elder Erastus Snow, who had been given charge of the Mormon colonies, in the adjustment of the Saints’ property titles and in the purchase of additional lands for their use.  Because of the time he had spent in Mexico City subsequent to his first, time which included a mission in that area, he had come to know intimately many of the political leaders there, and his service to the colonists was invaluable.  Also, he was able to obtain needed machinery for the Saints and arrange for its importation to Mexico.

At the request of Elder Snow, Moses Thatcher dedicated the townsite of Colonia Juarez on January 1, 1887.  In the years that followed, until his death in 1909, Thatcher maintained a lively interest in the colonies, visiting them often and contributing to their growth and development.

Jeanne J. Hatch

Stalwarts South of the Border, Nelle Spilsbury Hatch,

page 696

Erastus Snow

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Erastus Snow

(1818-1888)

Among the early settlers of Massachusetts colony was the family of the Levi and Lucina Snow, parents of seven sons and two daughters.  All but two of the sons and father Levi accepted the Gospel when missionaries visited them in St. Johnsbury, Caledonia County, Vermont, where Erastus was born on November 9, 1818.

Erastus, 14 years old at the time Elders Pratt and Johnson introduced the Gospel to the Snow family, was zealous in his study of the scriptures and search for truth.  After his baptism on February 3, 1833, he was advanced quickly in the Priesthood. 

On November 8, 1835, he left his home in Vermont to travel to Kirtland, Ohio, where he became acquainted with the Prophet Joseph Smith and where, after attending the Elders’ School, he received his endowments in the Kirtland Temple, and his Patriarchal Blessing under the hands of Joseph Smith, Sr.

On April 16, 1836, after the glorious spiritual experiences he had had in Kirtland, he left on a mission to Pennsylvania where he was successful in converting some 50 people and organizing several Branches of the Church.

This was the commencement of many missionary travels and experiences, confrontations with ministers of other fathers, miraculous healings and considerable verbal and physical abuse.  In June 1838, he joined a company of 40 or 50 Saints, including Heber C. Kimball and Orson Hyde, who had just returned from a successful mission to England, and with them traveled to Far West, Missouri, where he was reunited with his family, who had moved there from Vermont.  When Far West was subsequently besieged by the mob, Erastus, like all the able-bodied Mormon men, was forced to take up arms in defense of their homes and families.  Suffering from fever and ague, which left him extremely weak, he nonetheless stuck bravely to his post.

On December 3, 1838, Erastus and other brethren were sent as messengers to Liberty, Missouri, where the Prophet Joseph was incarcerated.  On the evening of February 8, when the jailer brought food to the prisoners, a previously planned escape attempt failed, and not only were the prisoners locked in their cell again, but their visitors were incarcerated also.  At the suggestion of the Prophet, who promised Erastus success if he would follow counsel, Erastus pled his own case before the court and was set free; the others, with professional lawyers, were freed on bail.

Upon his return to Illinois with his family, Elder Snow commenced a series of missionary assignments that took him throughout the northeastern part of the United States.  Despite continiuing bours of fever and ague, which plagued his family as well, in six months’ time he managed to travel some 5,650 miles, a great deal of the distance on foot, and was responsible for the conversion of many souls and the establishment of numerous Branches of the Church.

His missionary labors continued over the next several years, during which time his wife bore him a daughter and a son.  Occasionally, he was able to return to Nauvoo, Illinois, for counsel and, on one such visit, he was instructed by the Prophet on the principle of celestial and plural marriage.  Sometime later, he obeyed that teaching by having his wife, Artemisia, and a 2nd wife, Minerva, sealed to him.

He and his family suffered the hardships endured by all the Mormon pioneers crossing the plains and the rigors of establishing themselves in a new and barren land, but he was ready for additional missionary service when he was called to establish a Scandinavian mission.

On his way to that field of labor, he stopped in St. Louis and stayed at the home of a Mrs. Streeper.  While there, he contracted a light case of smallpox.    Noting her concern for her family, he promised her that neither she nor her family would have the disease, and they did not.

Elder Snow was responsible for the translation to the Scandinavian languages of many of the Church publications of that day, and the missions flourished under his supervision.  After three years in Scandinavia, he returned to his home and family only to be called on two additional missions which took him away from them again. 

On February 12, 1849, Erastus Snow was ordained an Apostle.

In the early 1860’s, his mission took him to southern Utah and northern Arizona, where he supervised and organized early settlements in those areas.  From there, he supervised and organized the Saints in their move to Mexico.  This was an area which he had previously scouted and which he felt would be suitable for the families of plural marriages who needed to be together but who, out of necessity to avoid persecution, were separated.

In 1882, with Apostle Moses Thatcher, Apostle Snow was on a trip to northern Mexico, attempting to secure lands for the Mormons to colonize.  While there, Erastus received a poignant letter from his 2nd wife, Minerva, advising him of the death of Artemisia on December 21.  The love and devotion which Minerva felt toward his older wife was expressed in simple but eloquent terms:  she wanted to go with her in death, their ties were so fast. 

The ensuing years of his life were devoted to the welfare of the self-exiled Saints in Mexico.  In Colonia Juarez, a town nestled in the narrow valley through which flows the Piedras Verdes River, he built a lovely home near the banks of the East Canal. 

While his energies were directed toward making a comfortable home fo his family in the small Mormon colony, he continued to travel extensively to aid the Saints with land problems which often required meetings with President Porfirio Diaz in Mexico City, and to oversee affairs of the scattered colonies in the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua.  He was in Salt Lake City on business for the colonies when he succumbed to a heart attack on May 27, 1888.

His life spanned an exciting, challenging and remarkable period in the history of the Church, and he was equal to the burdens he was called to bear throughout his lifetime of service during that period.   A deep thinker, a kindhearted and benevolent man of impressive bearing, a man noted for his honesty, a kind father, wise counselor, efficient pioneer and colonizer, and a great statesman—truly, he was an Apostle of the Lord. 

Jeanne J. Hatch

Stalwarts South of the Border, Nelle Spilsbury Hatch, page 627

Henry Eyring

Henry Eyring

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Henry Eyring

(1835-1902)

Genealogists trace the name Eyring back to the time when they accepted Christianity, the meaning of the name being Pagan God of light.

The Eyrings were well-to-do apothecarists.  There father, Edward Christian Eyring, invested his fortune in the factory to manufacture an oak extract for tanning leather and after much hard work and experience, it failed, losing all. His son Henry was born March 8, 1834. Family history says this loss to Henry was probably a blessing in disguise, as it was the cause of his sister Bertha and himself migrating to America where they heard and accepted the Gospel.  Otherwise, he might have remained in Germany living in a season caring nothing for religion.

Henry and his sister Bertha sailed for America in 1853, landing in New York September 8, from where he went to St. Louis, Missouri. There he found employment with a wholesale drug business. There he also became acquainted with Mormonism. On the morning of December 10, 1854 he happened to hear that Mormons were going to meet in a chapel in the city. Out of curiosity he decided to attend, to see some of the desperate characters he had heard so much about. But as the people gathered, each one greeting him as they entered, he was surprised to find them so friendly and sociable, and so different from what he had heard of them. But he was disappointed in this spirited singing and in the quick way Elder Milo explained the principles of the Gospel, being used to solemn  music of the Lutheran Church in Germany and an orthodox Christian minister. The next morning a fellow clerk handed him a copy of Parley P. Pratt’s Voice of Warning, which he read through that night. On being asked how he liked it, he replied he had read many interesting things in it, but could not believe in visits by angels or visions.

At this time he had discarded all religious belief, but was not satisfied with infidelity, and so was ripe for conversion to the truth. As he continued to attend their meetings faithfully, he formed a habit that he continued throughout his life and ever strongly hoped his posterity would adhere to as well. He also continued to read studiously every pamphlet and book he could find in St. Louis having any bearing on the doctrines of the Church. In three months he was thoroughly convinced he had found the truth. But he could not bring himself to the point of being baptized. He prayed earnestly for some manifestation from the Lord concerning this step. His prayers were answered by a dream in which Elder Erastus Snow talked with him and commanded him to be baptized. He further said his companion, Brother Brown, would be the man to do it.

He was baptized March 11, 1855 by Elder William Brown at 7:30 a.m., in a pool of rainwater. In the afternoon Elder Brown confirmed him. April 13, he was made a Deacon, and on May 16 he was ordained to the office of a Priest, on May 13 having preached for the first time. June 17, he baptized his sister Bertha, and on October 11, he was set apart as a missionary to the Cherokee Nation. On October 11, he was set apart to do missionary work under the hand of the President of the Stake.

On October 24, 1855, he settled up his typing and left St. Louis for his mission. Laboring among the Lamanites for four and one-half years, he suffered all manner of hardships and privations; most of the time chills and fever, until his health was almost ruined. He met with some success, baptizing some members and the Church. The authorities of the Church seemed to lose track of the five or six elders in the mission. Inasmuch as he could not get word from the President, Henry decided to ask the Lord in humble prayer if he should leave the mission and go to Zion. His answer came in a dream in which he saw himself in Salt Lake City. He went to President Young and told him he had come without being sent for, but if that was not all right, he would return and finish his mission.

He and Elder Richie started to Zion and on their arrival went to see the President and his dream was literally fulfilled. President Young welcomed them and said they had been expecting them.

On the journey from his mission, Henry fell in with the company of Saints on the plains and became interested in one of them, Mary Bommelli. They had many pleasant walks together ahead of the company and to them it was a very pleasant pilgrimage. They arrived in Salt Lake City August 29, 1860 and on December 14, 1860 they were married.

She was a native of Weingarter, Canton Thurgau, Switzerland, and was born March 10, 1830.  She was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in November, 1854.  She emigrated in 1859, going as far as New York City, and in 1860, crossed the plains to Utah territory.

Henry and his wife settled in Ogden. While there, he joined the military organization, being part of infantry. When they first moved to Ogden, he traded his pony for a city lot which was half swamp. Long years after he had disposed of it, it became very valuable, being used for a railroad depot. From Ogden, he moved to Salt Lake City. Up until this time he had never done any hard manual labor, but being very ambitious he preferred any work he would find rather than be idle.

In June, 1862, he began cutting stones on the Temple block for a $1.25 per day after that he did a lot of copying music. At the October conference in 1862, he volunteered to move to Dixie. On May 1, 1863 his first son was born, Henry Elias.

In October, 1862, they started for Dixie taking passage with John Nebeker. After a tedious journey, they arrived about November 23. They got work at Washington, ginning the cotton where they remained until the latter part of January. They then pitched a borrowed tent on the lot which was their home as long as they remained in St. George. He says:

Our earthly possessions were very limited. We all and some clothing, some bedding, and provisions to eat for three months. We had neither team, wagon, cow, or even chickens. I presume we commenced with as little as anyone ever did in St. George. My wife was a good weaver so we exerted ourselves to get a loom, and when we succeeded in this, her faithful and untiring efforts brought us a good many comforts which we could not have obtained in any other way. I cannot speak too highly of my wife Mary, for through her ceaseless energy and untiring labors, we succeeded with the blessing of heaven to gradually work ourselves up out of extreme poverty.

He tried all kinds of hard work such as farming, gardening, adobe making, stone cutting, living and working on the poorest fare until his health was badly impaired. His first job he says was erecting a sod house 16 ft. square covered with willows and dirt. He says that when he accomplish this he felt proud as it was comfortable and they were better fixed than many of their neighbors. November 6, 1863, Louise was born. They also raise some cotton which his wife woven the cloth, to pay for the building of their first adobe home.

He further stated:

Clara was born July 14, 1865, but died July 13, 1866. On May 27, 1868 Edward Christian was born. In September 1868, I was taken violently ill with rheumantics in the back and hip and was confined to my bed for about three weeks. When I recovered from this sickness I secured employment in the St. George office as assistant to Brother Franklin B. Wooley, clerk of the office.

This change of work benefited him.

January, 1869, money was subscribed for starting a co-op store. From this time on Henry found clerical work which he was well prepared to do. About May 1872, he took charge of the store and under his administration built up a very successful business. He continued with the store until he moved to Mexico in 1877. He was one of the few successful operators of co-op stores. This grew and flourished under his administration, paying handsome dividends all the time. When he arrived in Mexico, he started another co-op store on a small scale but it soon doubled and trebled its capital until it became a very profitable institution.

He might have done as many other co-op superintendents have done, bought up stock and weeded out stockholders to his own gain, but he would not do that. He was content to live and let live. The result was that in each case he turned back to the stockholders a flourishing business. He was an honest man in the truest sense of the word. The success in St. George in the mercantile business was repeated in Colonia Juarez.

On August 12, 1872, he married Deseret Faucett, and on August 1, 1874, he received a call to a mission in Switzerland and Germany. August 31, 1874, he left to fill this call, going by way of New York, Liverpool, London, Antwerp, and Cologne. He traveled very extensively in Germany and Switzerland with his sister Clara. He was banished from Germany and went to Berne, Switzerland, where he edited the Church publication, Der Stern, and translated the Doctrine and Covenants into the German language. He also published tracts and a songbook.

Because of his plural marriages, Henry decided to move to Mexico where he could live peacefully. Apostle Snow invited him to go to the Mexican colonies, promising that he would do better in every way and Mexico than he had ever done in St. George, which proved to be the case.

In February 1887, he left for Mexico with the following members of his family: his wife Deseret, Edward Christian, Annie, and Andrew. He started out with one light wagon and one team, traveling by way of Price, Scandlen Ferry, Hackleberry, Mesa, Fort Bowie, San Simon, La Ascencion, Casas Grandes, and Colonia Juarez.  We arrived there on April 1, 1887.  Father secured two city lots and fenced them and commenced to cultivate and plant trees and vines.  He also built a small log house Deseret.  Then he left to a fill a call to serve as a missionary in Mexico City.

He had faith in Apostle Snow’s promise to him in which he had said, “If you will take this mission, learn the Spanish language, become acquainted with the people, in the laws and customs of the land, as well as with government officials, and through it all learn how to do business in this land, you will be great blessing to the Saints in Mexico.”

Arriving in Mexico, he began study of the Spanish language, although he was then 50 years of age. Yet, he mastered it to the extent that he could transact business in the language, could take care of legal matters and receive instructions from prominent men of the nation, including President Porfirio Diaz himself, without an interpreter. Later at home in Colonia Juarez, he was able to teach the language both to the students in the school and to adults in night school. So far as meeting the success he had hoped for in his missionary work, however, he was somewhat disappointed.

The following is from his journal:

On account of the return of so many of the Mexican Saints who failed to make a location at Colonia Juarez and who told exaggerated tales of woe and disappointment, it was very difficult to make any headway among the members of the Mexican Mission. Nearly all of them believed the false statements about our colony and a bitter feeling was engendered by many. The consequence was that two of the branches that had at one time been the most flourishing, declared themselves independent of me. In addition, a false prophet arose claiming to believe the book of Mormon but taking all manner of false doctrine. Having a very fluent tongue and being a man of force and energy, he upset quite a number of the members. However, a few remained faithful, it was impossible to make any headway by any of the new converts. While there, one man living in Morelos took quite an interest and applied for baptism.  I think I must have converted him for the Lord never did. Being a drunkard, he soon drifted into his old habits and left the Church. Though my mission to Mexico was in some ways unsatisfactory, I believe that as a whole I accomplish what Brother Snow required of me.

Our beloved Apostle and true friend, Erastus Snow, died at Salt Lake City, May 27, 1888. By his death Mexican colonies lost a leader who would greatly have promoted their welfare if he had lived. As it was he had laid the foundation, and his wise counsels are quoted to this day.

Near the close of 1888, there being no new openings and the people of Colonia Juarez being anxious for my return, I turned over the affairs of the mission to John Rogers. I bought a small stock of merchandise for our completed co-op store at Juarez, and then returned, reaching there in company with Annie Snow on December 29, 1888.

I found my family in fair health, except Annie, who was recovering from a severe attack of pneumonia. A frame store having been built, I opened business on January 1, 1889, with a stock of goods of about $1500. At first I opened about two hours in the morning about the same in the evening, working in my lots the remainder of the time. That’s very soon business increased, and my whole time was required. In May 1889, burglars entered the store and got away with about one third of our stock of merchandise. That year, as business was increasing, I sent for my son Edward Christian to help me. He arrived in August, and at once began his work.

August 29, a son named Carlos Fernando, was born. In February, 1890, I went to Mexico City on business for our Colonies.

In April I went to Utah to move my wife, Mary, to Mexico, reaching St. George about the 26. She had been closing out our furniture and I sold one of our water rights to James Andrews for $100 so we had something like $600 to take with us to Mexico. On May 1, 1890, we started for Mexico with myself, wife Mary, Henry, and Ida. Emily, who had married William Snow, son of Erastus Snow, on November 9, 1887, remained in St. George.

We went by team to Milford and by railroad to American Fork, where we visited my sister Bertha.

From American Fork, we went by rail to Deming and from there by team to Colonia Juarez, arriving on May 15, 1890.  During the summer this year I built a brick cottage on my lower lot for my wife, Mary and family, who moved into it about November. February, we received a visit from Apostles Moses Thatcher and George Teasdale. Brother Teasdale returned her call you Diaz where he was temporarily located and about May returned with his wife, Ettie, and her two children and lived with us several weeks. He then moved to the Snow house. Later in the season a temporary organization was effected, called the Mexican Mission with George Teasdale as President, and A. F. Macdonald, and Henry Eyring as counselors.

I attended the October Conference in returning, went in company with Brother Moses Thatcher to Manassa, Colorado. There I met sister Georgina Snow Thatcher, who had a home in Manassa.  While there I posted up the books of the Mexican Colonization and Agricultural Company. I stopped at the house of brother John Morgan who had since died. On October 3, 1891, my daughter Fernanda Carolina was born.

 

In 1893, he attended the dedication of the Salt Lake Temple, and participated in meetings held afterwards by Authorities of the Church in the upper rooms of the Temple. The first two of these meetings were to ascertain to what degree the First Presidency was sustained.  He among others proved they were in full accord and were willing to give full support. At the last meeting at which they fasted and prayed, it was attended by the largest group, 140 people, ever gathered for that purpose. After prayer, they went into another room to partake of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper and were filled with rejoicing.

While in Salt Lake City, he met his daughters, Louise and Emily, and two children and returned with them to Sanpete, and from there started for Mexico. Arriving in Colonia Juarez, May 1, 1893, he found a late frost had destroyed the fruit, including the grapes. The second crops of his muscats did very well. That year, he built a frame house for his wife Deseret into which she moved immediately. That same year he went to Mexico City in company with A.F. Macdonald and Meliton Trejo and, together, were able to get a new contract for colonization. They were also allowed a personal interview with President Porfirio Diaz, who treated them very cordially.

In the spring of 1894, he was appointed by Apostles Brigham Young, Jr. and John Henry Smith to go to Chihuahua City to secure better water rights for Colonia Juarez. There he waited three weeks for an interview with the governor, but was then successful in getting from him a letter to the presidente in Casas Grandes asking him to see that the colonists were not curtailed or crippled in their use of water.

In December 1895, Apostle Francis M. Lyman organized the Juarez Stake of Zion. Anthony W. Ivins, who had been set apart in the office of the First Presidency, was made President and Henry Eyring and Helaman Pratt were sustained as his Counselors.  In the capacity Henry, with his wife Mary, who had been made Stake Relief Society President, and Elder George Teasdale, visited all the settlements in the stake except for the two most recently organized, Colonia García and Colonia Chuhuichupa. These they visited the following year in company with Helaman Pratt.

Although Henry suffered a slight decline in health about this time, he was able to carry on throughout the years, meeting both civic and ecclesiastical responsibilities and finding time to teach Spanish, help those needing it with legal transactions, and taking care of his store.

It has been remarked by men who knew him best that he never stopped growing until his last day. Father’s word was as good is his bond. In all the years that I, Edward Christian, his son, worked with him, I never knew him to do a small mean being. He was free with his means in all public works. He used splendid clean language, free from slang and petty swearing.

It was, as Miles P. Romney said to me once, ”He has a splendid type of European gentleman.”  He was very kind to his wives and children. I never heard him speak an unkind word to one of his wives and he was always kind to his children as well. He had high ideals for education. I think he would have gone to almost any length to help us children become educated. He held high positions in the Church from the beginning and never received a penny for his services. His idea was that if we pay for our services here, we could not expect pay hereafter. He preferred to lay up treasures in heaven and went to his just reward February 10, 1902 in Colonia Juarez.

Edward Christian Eyring, son

Stalwarts South of the Border by Nelle Spilsbury Hatch

pg 152