Tag Archives: Mormon Colonies in Mexico

John Fenn

1 Reply

                          John Fenn

                          1863-1921

John Fenn, a rugged adventurous pioneer to the Mormon colonies in Mexico was a native of England, born in Eaton Bray, Bedfordshire, April 2, 1854. His father, George Fenn, of Manti, Utah, was serving as a Mormon missionary in the area of his homeland of Bedfordshire. His mother, Eliza Dyer Ward, a young widow with a small daughter, Ann, married George in 1853 at Eaton Bray.

After being released in the fall of 1854, Elder Fenn, his wife, Eliza, stepdaughter Ann Ward, now six years of age, and baby son John sailed on the ship William Statson April 26, 1855 and stopped off at St. Louis, Missouri. Here they received love and help from John Fenn, the 75 year-old “patriarch” who had left England in 1851 intending to come to Zion but arriving in St. Louis, Missouri, in ill-health at the age of seventy-two was unable to continue on to Utah. He opened his home in St. Louis to many of his descendants who arrived with weakened bodies half-starved from their rough sea voyage. Baby John became very attached to his great-grandfather and namesake. John’s little brother, Alfred, was born July 13, 1856, at St. Louis.

In 1857, at Conference, John’s father, George Fenn, was called to settle at Genoa, Nebraska to help establish an important “lifeline” to the steady streams of immigrants. This would be the first rest-stop for the Saints going west from the Omaha-Council Bluffs area (then Kanesville). In 1859 this little family, along with all the other settlers, were cruelly driven out by the Indian Agent.

Eliza was expecting and in delicate health. Her heart was heavy as she gave a last look at the burning ruins and the area where her baby son, Walter, had been buried sixteen months previously. The journey back to Council Bluffs, Iowa, of over one hundred miles was a trying, uncomfortable experience. Six weeks later, Eliza Fenn gave birth to twin sons while the husband and children were hauling wood to keep warm. The mother and babies died and were buried in the same coffin. This was a severe shock to the little family. By this date the death toll of Fenn relatives had mounted to twelve souls, all attempting to get to Zion.

In the spring of 1860 this motherless family, consisting of George Fenn, age thirty, Ann Ward, age twelve, John Fenn, age seven, the principal character of this writing, and Alfred, age four, joined with the Saints who were coming through Utah with Captain John Smith’s ox team. They settled in Provo.

That same year, in the fall of 1860, John’s father took Sarah Ann Jarvis as his wife. From this union John Fenn gained five sisters and one brother. At the request of President Brigham Young the family moved in 1862 to Gunnison, Utah. Here they lived for seventeen years, experiencing much Indian treachery, especially during the Black Hawk War.

As a young single boy, John freighted with his own wagon and team from Gunnison, Utah and other communities to Pioche, Nevada, the nearest railroad point. At the age of twenty, on August 3, 1874, John was ordained an Elder by Daniel H. Wells and married Matilda Sorensen that same day.  His wife had told him that she would not marry him unless he took her to the Salt Lake Endowment House.

From Gunnison they moved to Salina where John ventured into several businesses. At one time he had a salt mine and boiled salt. In 1884 he was running a saw mill in the mountains. He was very successful financially there. Five children were born in Salina: Annie, September 23, 1875; John Alfred, September 26, 1877; George Alma, September 29, 1879; Joseph Hyrum, December 17, 1881; and Sarah Eliza Fenn, November 29, 1883. About this time the law of polygamy was being practiced among the members of the Church and John Fenn was contemplating taking a plural wife. Lucy Ann Brown Lindquist had been divorced and had one living daughter, Lucy Ann Victoria Lindquist, age six years. John seriously considered both his and her situation. He was prayerful about this undertaking and he heard a voice which said: “If you want another wife go ahead, but don’t trifle with the principle.” I suppose this meant, marry for the principle and not for the lust of it. He wouldn’t have married her if it had not been right to do so. They were married in Salt Lake City, on January 10, 1884.

On December 8, 1884 Lucy gave birth to a baby girl, Emma. As soon as the marshals who were federal officers heard of this birth they were determined to arrest either the wives or the husband. This birth took place in Washington, near St. George, Utah, en route to Arizona. The officers were paid the handsome bounty of $500.00 per head for the capture of the husband. So in order to escape being imprisoned, one or the other wife had to live on the “underground.” Consequently Lucy, the second wife, lived in obscure shadows in numerous places always under threat and struggle. This situation became so serious that it set off a chain of moves that seemingly never ceased. John Fenn was so well known by everyone in Salina that he had to disguise himself when he went there. He sometimes had to hide out by retiring to the timber until after sundown for fear the marshal would return. At times while traveling he had to walk at a hiding distance from the teams and wagons.

In January, 1885, when baby Emma was almost two months old, John moved Lucy to Arizona and joined a company of Saints who were going to Mexico. Apostle George Teasdale was in this group. He had on chaps and avoided being captured by the marshals by passing as a miner. It was a nice trip. When we arrived at the timbers where there was snow and mud, Brother Teasdale would walk and sing hymns.

Finally, we arrived at Colonia Diaz. On one occasion, in the camp at Diaz, while sleeping in their covered wagon, a voice awakened John and said to him if he wanted his wife, Matilda to live, to pray for her so he awakened his wife Lucy, telling her that Matilda was very sick. He started to get Apostle Teasdale and the camp up, but this voice said for him to pray, so they kneeled in bed, and at that very time she was made well. Up in Salina it was midnight and twelve women were in the room. They said, “Poor sister Fenn is gone.” That was when Dad got up and prayed. She came back, and got well. We stayed only a month and a few days in Mexico that time. Next morning, all were off for Utah.

When we reached the Colorado River at Lee’s Back Bone, they shot off a signal with a gun and Brother Johnson came with his little boat. He said, “I always take the women folks over first.” They had the animals swim across. The wagons were taken apart in order to get them across. There was one whirlpool after another. He said he had never seen so many at one time. Brother Fenn came with the last load. He said he was ready at any moment to pull off his clothes and swim. The current was very dangerous. Driving up and down the steep banks of the Colorado River in order to get to Utah, the brakes not holding, is an experience so frightening that the next trip, if it were possible, you prefer to walk.

After four months, having returned to Salina to get Matilda and family, all moved to Mexico. It too was a long tedious trip. We traveled in our “big outfit” and didn’t have to do the cooking. Arriving again in Diaz, he bought sixty acres or lots, and built two rooms with a willow and mud roof. It was hard living in Mexico for there was little to be had. The $2000 in twenty-dollar gold pieces he had brought didn’t last long caring for the two families.

Again they returned to Utah. For the next two or three years both families lived in a tiny community known as Pleasantdale, Piute County, Utah. John Fenn was well known by all who lived in Salina. He had to leave that area in such a hurry, that he sold his property for whatever he could get out of it. In fact he was never able to collect all that was owed him.

One time, about 1887, Pa, Ma, and Tilde, (as they were affectionately called) were traveling south, having camped in the mountains with their teams and families.

As Mother told it:

Pa was off getting some money that was coming to him down in Rabbit Valley, I had a dream…. in this dream the deputy marshal came to camp. I woke up and asked the Lord what I was to do. Then a voice came to me and told me to send Aunt Lucy, Pa’s second wife, to Box Creek. I got out of bed and spoke to Lucy and told her the deputy marshall would be here before sundown after her. She said that it was just a dream and didn’t amount to a thing. I had dreamed that the deputy knew Pa and Aunt Lucy, but didn’t know me. I asked Lucy, “Do you know where Box Creek is?” “I know,” she said, “but it’s just a scheme of yours to get me away so you can have John to yourself!” (Matilda said she didn’t know where Box Creek was). I told her if she would go I would let George, my son, take the team and take her. At that moment Tory, Aunt Lucy’s oldest daughter, and Pa’s stepdaughter, woke up and said, “Mother I dreamed that the deputy marshall came and got you!” “Well,” Lucy said, “I’d better go then.” I sent my boys up in the hills to get the teams. We prepared breakfast while they were gone, and as soon as possible we got them off. This left myself, my children, Annie, Joe, and Sarah in camp.

About sundown, as I had dreamed, here came the marshal. He rode up to the spring on his horse with a badge on just as I had seen him in my dream. He came up to camp where I was baking bread and said, “Good evening madam, where are you traveling to?” I told him to New Mexico. “Have you any sheep or cattle around here?” I told him all we had was two cows a team and a wagon. I had sent Sarah and Joe after the cows to bring them in to the spring to water. I was sure that if the marshal came they would ask the children what their name was, so I had told them to say Sorensen, (my maiden name) if he asked them. Joe was six years old and Sarah was four. When the marshal heard the bells on the cows coming over the hill he thought it was Pa, and started over to meet them. He asked Joe where his father was. Pa had gone to Rabbit Valley, but Joe told him Manti. Then he said, “What’s your father’s name?” Joe said, after studying a moment and forgetting Sorensen, “I forgot.” The marshal said, “You ignorant little fool!” and rode off.

That night a terrible thunder and rain storm came.  I was alone with the children. Early next morning I saw a man coming over the hill. He looked like a tramp with a gun on his shoulder. I was very frightened with no man in camp. I wondered what that old fellow would do. As he neared the camp I discovered it was John, my husband! I hurried to him and told him to retire to the timber, as I was afraid the marshal would come back. I took him out some breakfast, and he stayed hid until about sundown. We then harnessed up, and being short of food, prepared to leave. We were not in sheep country, but a sheep came up over the hill, and we killed it. While we were dressing it out the cows strayed. Pa took the lantern and tracked them; they were headed on their way home. We left that night for Box Creek. I drove the team. Pa went on horseback through the hills. Annie, twelve years old, drove the cows. We traveled all night.

Next morning we arrived at Koosharem. There was a celebration up at Fish Creek. People were gathered. A couple of marshals came by, but as there was no man they did not molest us. From there we went to Box Creek where we found Aunt Lucy. Pa came and we stayed all night. The following morning we took off for Mexico. We settled in Colonia Diaz, Chihuahua, and stayed there the rest of that summer. Pa had rented his place and sheep while we were gone. However, not long after we had arrived in Mexico we heard that a man had logs for a house and was going to jump our place. John Fenn apparently did not have legal title to his place in Mt. Pleasant Creek. We hurried back and the man, hearing of our return, left. Two weeks later, on November 14, 1887, Moroni was born.

Soon, the marshals became tougher and, as one can see, the Fenn families never remained very long in one place. John was often dubbed, “The Rambler,” “The Wanderer,” or the “Rolling Stone.” He couldn’t wait for the grass to grow up under his feet. He was forced to live this way soon after he was called to participate in the principle of plural marriage. The spirit of persecution and hatred became so great that he knew but a few short periods of peace and contentment.

In order not to lose his dual citizenship in the United States and in Mexico, John stayed in the United States for about six months at a time spanning two countries many times until the year 1892. The amount of traveling he did would dwarf that of a military man of his day. In Mexico, John Fenn went into freighting in a big way. He bought large freight teams. He freighted from Nacozari to Naco and Cananea, Sonora, with six to eight mules pulling two connected wagons. When Moroni was eleven and Alvah was nine, their father put them to freighting. It took them seventeen days to make the round trip. “For two years,” Alvah recalls, “we were up at four a.m, and worked sometimes until midnight. I guess I was picked on the most. Seems Dad always took me along, when he went to freight. Of course he believed in ‘not sparing the rod’ (raw hide whip). When the others were in school I was on the freight road.” After the freight (produce, feed, hay etc.) was unloaded at Nacozari, on their return trip to Naco, they carried copper bars which weighed from 300 to 400 pounds each. These boys did their own cooking and caring for their animals. They usually made the trip by themselves. In those days it was “Root Hog or die” and it took the children as well as the parents to make the living. John Fenn had six wagons going some of the time.

During this freighting period the families or part of them lived for a time at Naco, Cos Station, and later at Calabasa Flat. Cos Station was about half-way between Naco and Nacozari. At Calabasa Flat we built a corral and got permission to milk range cows and sold the milk, butter and cheese to the passersby. We had a great time riding horses, gathering walnuts, acorns, choke cherries and going swimming. There was a good-sized camp here with the Jespersons, Yorgensons, Fenns and Orin Barney and family, also some Mexican families up in this canyon. Those are cherished memories.

In 1900, John again moved his families, this time to Nacozari, Sonora, where new mines had just opened. Leaving Colonia Diaz, the group traveled through Ojitos, Pinuelas, Las Varas, and Pulpit Canyon to Colonia Oaxaca, Sonora. From there they pushed on through Colonia Morelos past “Niggerhead” and then to Naco, Sonora. The family had several teams and wagons and joined several hundred other outfits hauling supplies ninety miles from Naco to Jimmy Douglas’ new mine at Nacozari. While in Nacozari John bought a herd of sixty-eight cows from John Holstead.

In 1902, the Fenns moved to Colonia Morelos taking their new herd of cattle with them. They bought land on the south side of the Bavispe River near the Orin Barney and William Beecroft farms. Alvah and his brothers were quickly at work making adobe bricks for their two new houses–one for each of John’s two families. The first year we had a nice crop of wheat. I helped Father along with the rest of the boys. We pulled and cut with a sickle five large stacks of wheat. We had 200 bushels of wheat. I will always remember that hard-earned wheat. We ground some on a hand mill. We also had a mill in town. We would take wheat there and get flour, shorts and bran in return.

While living in Colonia Morelos, Moroni went out deer hunting one day. He accidentally shot his gun and the bullet went through his left leg. He lay there for twenty-four hours before he was found. He had nearly bled to death, and it took him some time to recover. His left leg always bothered him and he always had a slight limp. Mother Fenn was blessed with the ability to have dreams that foretold events that were happening or were going to happen. At this particular time that Moroni was shot, his parents were freighting either from Corralitos or Nacozari. The night Moroni was shot, she dreamed that something was seriously wrong with some member of her family. She told her husband about it and he only laughed at her fears. The next night she dreamed again. This time she could clearly see Moroni and that something was wrong with his leg. She also saw a man riding a bay horse bringing them the news. Again she told her husband and the others about the dream, and urged him to turn back to Morelos and see what had happened. John Fenn only scoffed at her and continued on their way. Later on in the day, George Bunker came riding a bay horse and told them the news. The abashed John gave his wife a look of respect and belief and turned his teams back towards Morelos at a fast pace. Never again did he doubt the authenticity of his wife’S dreams.

The great Bavispe flood of 1905 was a mile wide, over the tops of trees. It wiped out almost everything in the upper town of Oaxaca. It washed sand around the trunks of our trees in the orchard until the trunks were covered up. The water was a mile wide from us to town. What a sight to behold! It washed one of our little adobe houses down. Mother was living in it at that time. The men moved her out just in time, the water was ready to run in their wagon box. She had some nice black hens in our little ocotillo coop, but it just bent it over slanting. The chickens stayed on the roosts and were saved. Our crops were all gone. The entire irrigation system was wiped out. The Fenns having lost heavily moved to Nacozari. Traveling home from Douglas, Joseph E. Scott saw cupboards, beds and parts of houses etc., going down the Bavispe. To avoid facing starvation the men and boys went to work at freighting or in the mines, and doing different kinds of work.

Walter Fenn described Morelos as follows:

Now, to us, we were living in a land flowing with milk and honey. We had plenty of milk, butter, eggs, cottage cheese as well as queso blanco (white cheese). I remember plowing up sweet potatoes. Samples of some of them rolled out in front of the plow as big as boulders. They averaged around thirteen pounds each. When we tried to sell them some people thought they were hollow, but they were not. From the sale of our wheat and potatoes Mother bought bolts or rolls of gingham and denim for making shirts and overalls. Mother always saw to it that there was a garden planted. She always had a flock of chickens so she could trade eggs and butter at the store for a few essentials she needed. In these later years we always had a bin full of wheat that we could take to the mill and bring back flour, bran shorts, cereal or Graham flour. Each year we planted enough potatoes to store for the entire winter and seed for the following summer. We usually grew two crops of potatoes a year.

We weren’t to enjoy this peace and self-sufficiency too long, for in the year of 1912 there was an outbreak of a revolution against the Mexican Government in which the government was overthrown and a new administration took over. In order that the Mormon people wouldn’t be involved on either side they thought it better to leave the country and return to the U.S.A.

As Moroni Fenn described it:

In 1912, the Mexican Revolution began. All the able­bodied men were organized and were given guns. I was made a captain in the organization, but before they had a chance to fight, the Church ordered all the Mormons to leave Mexico. The people in and around Morelos got word that a group of rebels were heading their way and that they were stealing, burning and killing everything they came to, so the poor disheartened people loaded what they could onto their wagons and left for Douglas, Arizona. There near Douglas, the American government let them have a little land to live on until they found something better. The Mormons pitched tents, made lean-tos and fixed up whatever they could find to live in at this place which was called Sunnyside. All the odd-looking living quarters were quite a sight to behold, and the residents of Douglas made trips out there to view the spectacle. Curious people from Douglas came out to gaze at them and try to ascertain if they really did have horns as some had heard.

Joseph E. Scott relates:

After the Federal army left, Willard, Charlie (his brother) and I went back with a wagon hoping to get the grist mill (worth $25,000.00). We had spies out on the hills on each side watching for the rebels. One came back saying that the “Red Flaggers” were coming. They were called that because they had four men on horseback out in front carrying big red flags. As we were coming out with our loads we met them about 2 or 3 miles out of town. I can remember old Salazar, the leader. He motioned his men to get into the wagons to search them. We had melons, flour and peaches. We had just one gun, a 45-90. He took it and wrote out a little note saying that they would pay for it after the war was over. He didn’t bother the rest of the stuff. We were sure scared and glad when he told us that we could go on. The Mexicans had taken my room-full of wheat (200 bushels). They had slaughtered all our chickens in the adobe house and just left the feathers and things there. The Government gave us a pass on the railroad to any place in the United States that we wanted to go. We went to Salt Lake City. We went through the Salt Lake Temple, then we went to Provo where the rest of the family was.

After Parley Fenn returned from his mission in May 1913 he decided to return to Morelos and again take possession of properties, rebuild ditches, etc. He and his brothers, Moroni, Arthur, Kenneth and others worked there until the Villa Revolution forced them to go to the U.S. border in November 1915. He married Grace Jarvis April 8, 1915 in Salt Lake City. Six or seven months later he took his bride and Nellie down to Colonia Morelos. They were only partly settled when the four hour order came to leave. There was little time to prepare as the Pancho Villa army was approaching. Grace was making bread which she quickly finished. Arthur was working with molasses which he quickly buried and they dropped everything and left.

They arrived in Douglas and camped for the night. The next morning, Ed Haymore invited them to stop at his home. Arthur took his outfit and went on to his mother’s in Thatcher. In a matter of days (November, 1915), Villa’s troops arrived and bombarded Agua Prieta. There was great excitement in Douglas. The 10th U.S. Cavalry was alerted and kept on guard duty. Afterward, the main part of Villa’s forces moved on toward Naco.

After things quieted down, Parley bravely went back to Morelos alone to see how affairs were. He described the experience as follows:

The army had camped in our yard. Their animals had cleaned the fields, even eating the straw off brush sheds.  The dresser drawers had been used for feed boxes. Pictures and valuables had been strewn around or burned and ruined. All grain bins were emptied; all baled hay devoured and everything inside left bare except the cluttered dooryard. The main army had moved on before others arrived with stolen cattle to slaughter. Some thirty head of beef had been killed in the yard and only the choice parts taken. The remainder was left strewn around. The Fenn ranch was a sickening sight!

On the way down to Morelos, Par ley counted seventy dead horses along the road. They had been shot when they had “given out” to prevent them from falling into the hands of the enemy. At first, at the smell of the dead animals, Parley’s team snorted, shied, reared and tried to run away with him but they became so accustomed to the sight he could almost drive over the dead carcasses before he reached the colony.

Moroni Fenn took his family back to Morelos for a few months in the Spring of 1916 and began farming. They lived in Orin Barney’s empty home. Most of the fighting had subsided, but groups of soldiers were returning to their homes and as they needed food and transportation, they would help themselves to what they needed.

Moroni took his family back to Sunnyside after the crops were in. He went back and forth to Mexico the next two or three years, leaving the family in and around Douglas. It was during this time that he had a contract to haul bat guano from a cave in Mexico. He hauled seven boxcar loads and shipped it to California. The nitrogen in the guano was used for explosives and the phosphate for fertilizers.

Moroni loved Mexico and the people there and felt that it was his home, also he could not stand being away from his family very long, so sometime in 1917 they moved back to Mexico to the Batepito ranch (belonging to John Fenn before the Exodus of 1912). The ranch was not far from Morelos. His older brother, Joe, also moved his family to the same place.

Both Joe and Moroni loved the Mexican people. He was known to give his hat or coat to some unfortunate Mexican and do without himself. This is one reason the Mexican people thought so much of him. The men from Pancho Villa’s army who came straggling by were the very lowest class of Mexicans, always dirty and wretched looking yet they were welcome at the Fenn farm, sharing the food that was on the stove with them. Sometimes the Fenn’s had to get tough and send these misfits on their way. One lanky, long legged unshaven character had to bend out his legs or walk them along as his tiny burro carried him down the road, while a short-legged companion rode a big stallion, both singing of their renegade-idol, Pancho Villa.

It seemed that the Governor of Sonora, Elias Calles, was a personal friend of Moroni’s and there were negotiations and a promise to furnish a teacher and books for the children but the tragedy of the 1918 flu epidemic changed Moroni’s life drastically. With his wife and baby buried and gone and family scattered he turned to other fields.

After the Exodus in 1912, during the Mexican Revolution we left our homes and farms and went to Douglas with the other Mormon families and lived there in government tents for a while. From there we went to Pomerene and then to Gila Valley and lived there for a few years. Later in 1917 we returned to Pomerene and bought a place and built a home.

In 1920, early in April, Grandfather and Grandmother Fenn left their invalid daughter, Geneva, to make a trip to Salt Lake City by train to have some temple work done for Grandmother’s mother, Ane Caroline Pedersen. During this time John Fenn did not have very good health. He had stomach aches and his food would not digest. Eventually food soured in his stomach and would not pass. He went to Bisbee, Arizona and entered the hospital where he underwent surgery. He had cancer and a few days later he died on July 31, 1921, and was buried at Pomerene.

After his death Grandmother Fenn sold the property to Joe Western and with her daughter, Geneva, moved to Solomonville, Arizona to live with her daughter, Sarah, and Orin Barney. There Geneva died in 1923.  In 1932 they moved to Mesa, Arizona to live the rest of their days.

They built a home in the shadows of the Mesa temple and began work at the temple.  During the summer months when the temple was closed, Grandmother visited with some of her children and grandchildren. She will always be remembered as a kind, sweet-tempered person. She passed away January 29, 1937, in Mesa, Arizona. Funeral services were held in Pomerene, Arizona and she was buried next to her companion, John Fenn. She left a numerous posterity that will always remember her as a good mother, grandmother and a great pioneer.

                  Bearl Fenn Gashler, granddaughter

                  Stalwarts South of the Border,

                  Nelle Spilsbury Hatch page 

Charles Eli McClellan

Leave a reply

Charles Eli McClellan

1875-1967

Charles Eli McClellan was the twelfth and last child of William Carroll McClellan and his first wife, Almeda Day. He was born February 8, 1875, in Payson, Utah County, Utah. When he was two his family moved to Sunset, Arizona, and lived under the United Order there four years.

The earliest memories which he has recorded were at Sunset. The family then moved to Forest Dale, Arizona. This was found to be on Indian land, so after only one year they moved on to Pleasanton, New Mexico. At Pleasanton, he recalls, he helped with the family chores and in particular with the removal of unending rocks and weeds from the garden. Here he also attended a one-room school and received the beginnings of his lifelong education.

At the age of ten, Charles Eli McClellan and his family migrated to Mexico which was to be his home for the next twenty-seven years. Here he added to his meager education in a larger school with a better building and more teachers. He learned rapidly and became a foremost student of Dennison E. Harris. Having mastered the fundamentals he was asked to teach and in the spring of 1895, at the age of twenty, he began teaching grade school in Colonia Juarez. This opened a new life for him and inspired a teaching career.

Before the year was out, he had learned much about discipline, individual differences and the common sense approach to problems. He also realized that further education for himself was imperative. So he attended Brigham Young Academy in Provo the following year and then in the fall of 1897 Charles Eli McClellan was called to serve a mission in Colorado in the newly established Western States Mission.

Charles Eli McClellan served there without purse or script for two and one-half years and was released in the spring of 1900. On April 11, 1900, he and Josephine Haws were married in the Salt Lake Temple. She was the first child of George Martin Haws and his first wife, Josephine Cluff, who had lived in Mexico since 1891. Charles began teaching at the Juarez Stake Academy in the fall of 1900 and taught there continuously until the summer of 1912.

During these years he was in charge of the English department and taught kindred subjects the entire time. For the first three years, he was a student as well, for he had not yet graduated from high school. In 1903 he and Franklin S. Harris were formally graduated from an accredited four-year high school course at the Juarez Stake Academy.

His love for oral English and his admiration for classical use of words brought deep appreciation of language to the minds of those he taught. His precise diction made him exemplary and his approach to the mastery of fundamentals was effective and stimulating.

He developed in himself an advanced philosophy of education and psychology. He put human welfare as the final goal and held that any course failing to build integrity and character was only partially achieving its objective. From the outset, he looked past the subject material to the pupil, and recognized each as being important and distinct from any other individual. This was a basic tenet throughout his lifetime of teaching. He looked for the good in every pupil. His task was not done when the class was finished. Through personal contact he set more than one pair of feet on the path of better living and greater self-realization.

Charles Eli McClellan recognized that people learn faster when they are interested and was brave enough to break away from traditional teaching procedures. One of his novel plans has been used in countless ways since he introduced it.  He had pupils write to pupils of other English classes in far away places, using, of course, clear and correct English. Replies came from Florida, Maine, Michigan and other parts of the United States as well as from islands of the seas. They contained choice descriptions of the localities from which they had been written as well as interesting information about the writers. The natural result was an aroused interest in composition, letter writing and descriptive language.

Eventually specimens of the flora and fauna of various regions were exchanged which became the beginning of a school museum. Mining men donated various mineral specimens in their various steps of refinement. A room was fitted with shelves, tables and stands for the various displays. Arrows gathered by President Ivins from the body of the Apache Kid were added and taxidermists, both local and foreign, stuffed and mounted birds and animals. Bottles were filled with rare reptiles from local and foreign places, carefully preserved in alcohol. The outcome of the freshman English class project was the establishment of an enviable high school museum.

Though always busy with school activities, Charles Eli McClellan was equally immersed in church activities. Soon after his return to the colonies from his mission, he was called by Bishop Joseph C. Bentley to be the Superintendent of the Sunday School. At the same time, in the years 1902-1905, he taught a Stake training class for missionaries. This course was instigated by examining boards and the Seven Presidents of the Seventies. Those who enrolled in it were expected to make the same sacrifices to master its fundamentals and complete the course that a real mission would require. In addition to Gospel principles, lectures treating problems incident to missionary life were added by faculty members, Mission Presidents, returned Elders, and Church and Stake Authorities.

After four years he was called to be a Counselor to Bishop Bentley where he served for four additional years. In his final four years in Mexico he served as Second Counselor to President Junius Romney during the years leading up to the Exodus in 1912.

Even with all of his regular duties and callings he found time to promote extra-curricular activities for the students. Story telling, public speaking, and debating were all outcomes of his oral English classes and provided many school and evening programs, giving at the same experience and personal growth to the participating students.

He also fostered dramatics for both the school and the Ward auxiliaries. He carried on the work started by Miles P. Romney. He directed plays, promoted school dramas and provided school and community with theatrical events several times a year. The events ranged from light comedy to Shakespearean productions. On occasion he participated in as well as directed a play. He loved this activity and was particularly pleased by the training and development it brought to the participants. His was a dynamic means of teaching the dramatic arts while entertaining and having fun.

The Mexico years were exciting but also brought great sorrow. During this time Charles and Josephine became the parents of six children, four girls and two boys. But they were grief-stricken during the final four and one-half years as they stood helplessly by as death took two of the girls and both of the boys. This may have precipitated a return to the United States.

In the summer of 1912 Charles Eli McClellan returned to Provo, with his family, to  continue his studies at Brigham Young University. When the Exodus occurred at the end of July, 1912, he went from Provo to El Paso to see how the refugees from the colonies were faring. He went down into the colonies to evaluate the situation relative to possible return of the colonists. He reported to Church Authorities that he could see nothing to assure the safety of a return at that time. He then returned to Provo and completed his B.A. degree in 1914.

While Charles Eli McClellan was in school another son was born. After graduation Charles became Superintendent for one year of the Independent School District in Rigby, Idaho. This was followed by two years as President of the Hinckley Academy, in Hinckley, Utah. While there, they were blessed with two more sons. They then returned to Rigby where Charles was Superintendent of Schools for the years 1918-1921.

In 1921 they moved to Logan, where Charles was a student and part-time instructor at Utah Agricultural College, later to become Utah State University. In 1923 he received a Master’s Degree there and became a full-time teacher. Soon after, in 1924, their last child, a boy, was born.  This was their first child to be born in a hospital.

With interruptions for graduate study at Stanford and Columbia, he taught continuously at Utah State, advancing to Full Professor. He served one year as Acting Dean of the School of Education. He was the prime mover behind the establishment of a school for teacher training. He officially retired in 1945 but continued to teach part-time for several years thereafter.

His teaching at Utah State was characterized by a basic philosophy developed in his early years of teaching at Juarez Stake Academy. Always he put the needs of the student as an individual ahead of the course material and inculcated this philosophy into many of the hundreds of teachers and teachers-to-be who came under his influence. Many students have commented that in his classes, as in none other, they were encouraged to really develop their thinking abilities.

While teaching and well into his retirement years, he was active in church and community affairs. After retirement, Charles and Josie, as he called her, remained in their home in Logan where he enjoyed life as a Professor Emeritus and in 1959 he was presented with the University’s Distinguished Service Award. Josephine continued to extend her great love for children and was known affectionately as “grandma” to all of the little ones in the neighborhood. Failing health finally took her life in 1959 at the age of eighty-one.

A year later Charles married a widow, Mae McAllister, who had been a fellow teacher at Juarez Stake Academy fifty years earlier. She passed away in 1966 and Charles died in the fall of 1967 at the age of ninety-two.

Cyril E. McClellan, son

Stalwarts South of the Border, Nelle Spilsbury Hatch

Page 422

Franklin Stewart Harris

1 Reply

 

Franklin Stewart Harris

1884 – 1960

Details of activities and achievement of this illustrious educator, administrator, and ambassador of goodwill need no repetition. But mention of them assures him a place among the stalwarts of the Mormon colonies in Mexico. His heritage, his natural adaptabilities as well as his basic potentialities assure him this claim.

Franklin S. Harris was born into a family of educators. His father and mother, Dennison Emer and Eunice Stewart Harris were both students of Karl G. Maeser. They met and marr ied while attending Brigham Young Academy. Both did competent work in the schoolroom before and after marriage, first in the Nebo District in Utah and later in the pre-Juarez Stake Academy days in Colonia Juarez.

Frank, their second son, was born in Benjamin, Utah, August 27, 1884 and was but five years of age when his parents joined their educational efforts with the struggling settlers of Colonia Juarez. They were a vital part of the community life until Frank was nineteen years of age. His growing-up days afforded experiences that laid a firm foundation for his future greatness. Being a grandson of sturdy pioneers on both sides of the family, he was richly endowed with resourcefulness, endurance, an abiding faith in God, and a consuming desire to qualify for whatever life had to offer. Many of his future positions of trust stemmed from lessons learned in these early years.

Frail and delicate in health during his childhood years, he would sit much of his time, looking at pictures in a book and holding a pet. His love for good books and his later ability to author several important textbooks had their beginnings in these early years. What he read from them made a profound impression on his life. No matter where his travels took him in later life, he never bypassed a library building nor failed to browse through its aisles to leaf through its. most appealing volumes. “I like the feel of a good book in my hand,” was his usual comment at the end of these visits.

From this came his wide reading habits, his ability to assimilate information, to classify and use it to make him an authority on many vital questions. The value of good books and voluminous reference material geared his promotion of adequate library facilities in every university he headed, and filled them with books containing information in all fields.

As a boy Franklin S. Harris was taught the Spanish language in school, and was provided with infinite opportunities to use it in free conversation with natives of Mexico, working, playing and later doing business with them. This made it easy to love those of another race, to respect their customs and way of life. From this he found that mastering one foreign language was an open sesame to the fundamentals of another and being able to understand a foreign people. Growing up on a foreign frontier, he worked for what he had, or went without. From his first job, clerking in his father’s store, he learned to hand Ie money, to be strict in accounting for what passed through his hands. Later as an administrator of large universities, where he had to handle great sums of money, these fundamentals helped. Riding the range and rounding up cattle to preserve and build up a good herd gave him genuine respect for a good mount. He never outgrew his love for a faithful horse, nor lost his enjoyment of the feeling of a sturdy, dependable animal under him.

His interest in food preservation originated in Mexico also. Until a cannery, in which he worked, was instituted, the only means of enjoyment of fruits and vegetables the year-round was through drying apples, peaches, grapes, green corn and squash. The only means of keeping pork, beef and butter for year-round consumption was in preserving it in brine or dry salt.

Through his continued interest in this subject, he became chairman of the United National Food and Agricultural Association of Greece in 1946 where his findings were of international benefit.

In his evening strolls from home on star lit nights, study of the stars and other heavenly bodies became a favorite pastime. He often said, “No place in the world stars seem so close and friendly” as he found them on these strolls. He came to know many of the common constellations. At an early age he could talk understandingly of heavenly bodies and impart his awe and amazement of the perfect order in the universe. On one of his trips through the deserts in Iran, his group had been following the tracks of a truck, for there was no road. When the truck tracks disappeared, everyone had a different idea about which way they should go. Frank quietly said,

“We will sit and wait until it is dark. Then I can tell you by the stars the direction we should take.”

Frank was an independent thinker and worked out his own problems, never asking for help until he had done all he could for himself. He also learned the value of time, and was always willing to do his share of work. These stable qualities contributed immensely to his future success.

With the coming of Guy C. Wilson to Colonia Juarez in 1897, Frank’s school life took on more purpose. He was just ready to enter his freshman year. This was a privilege made possible after only ten years of settlement.

Ordinarily high school privileges were not possible in so short a time, and Frank was not slow in realizing this opportunity as an outlet to his ambitions. He was primed to be fed educationally by this dynamic Utah-trained educator and to digest his teachings. Under Professor Wilson’s stimulating direction, learning-hungry Frank went fast. Quoting his brother, we read:

Education was not the only manifestation of quality among these resourceful pioneers. Though poor in material things they were rich in aspirations of the cultural and spiritual attainments. Mediocrity and the shoddy were looked upon with disfavor, while excellence and high quality were sought. As early as the 1890s many cultural achievements were manifest. A band under the direction of German-trained John J. Walser was organized in which Frank played the cornet. Local dramatics and musical presentations were of a high order. A well-trained Ward choir directed by Walser enriched the weekly Sacrament meetings in which Frank sang a tenor part. Intense interest in these cultural activities were developed in Frank.

His reward was the cultural uplift such things gave to his life. Frank also was influenced by the missionary system that, in spite of poor conditions, sent several missionaries a year to all parts of the world. In this atmosphere, Frank passed through four years of high school and graduated in May 1903. His appetite for learning had been whetted so that nothing but a college degree could be considered. Three months after his graduation from high school, he enrolled in the Brigham Young University to begin a brilliant career. He was primed and readied for a dedicated life by taking seriously what his mother had often repeated: “Preparation is the key that opens the door of opportunity.”

Franklin S. Harris returned to Colonia Juarez after one year at the Brigham Young University to be a fellow teacher with Guy C. Wilson, and proved by the efficient way he opened scientific doors to students so inclined, that the torch Professor Wilson had lit for him was being passed on to others still burning. His father moved his family from Colonia Juarez that year, 1904, to a farm near Cardston, Canada. So the community in which he had grown up saw him no more as a resident. During college years he met and married Estella Spilsbury, daughter of Moroni and Rosalie Haight Spilsbury of Toquerville, Utah. The marriage began a long, happy fruitful life together and was solemnized in the Salt Lake Temple June 8, 1908. Together they reared six children, all of whom do honor to his name, one of them being the well-known columnist for the Improvement Era, where for twenty-five years approximately he shared his scientific findings under the title, “Exploring the Universe.” All are graduates, even Estella, of the Brigham Young University.

Franklin S. Harris received his Bachelor Degree from the Brigham Young University in 1907 and his Ph.D. in soil sciences, chemistry and plant physiology from Cornell University at Ithaca, New York in 1911. Less than ten years later he was appointed President of the Brigham Young University. He was then thirty-six years old. Because of his doctorate, his training under Dr. Widtsoe, his teaching at the Agricultural College in Logan and his magnetic personality, he was rated the best man in the State of Utah for the position. His twenty-four years of service proved this to be no exaggeration. His fame as an agronomist was worldwide, and his textbooks are yet in demand.

In one year Franklin S. Harris increased the enrollment from 425 to 800, and in twenty-four years to more than 3000. There was only one college within the university, education, when he began. “Not everyone who enters the BYU wants to be a teacher,” he reasoned. “There must be other departments added for training in other fields.” Five more colleges were added in less than four years: the College of Arts and Sciences; the College of Applied Science; the College of Commerce; and finally, the College of Fine Arts.

Later a Graduate School and Extension Division were added. His annual budget was less than 5 percent of what other universities were receiving. Yet with his ability to stretch dollars and make every penny do maximum service, and by insisting that every department stay within its budget, he saved enough to buy property on “Temple Hill” for an expanded BYU campus, and began the fabulous building program that still is in progress.

The Maeser Memorial was the only building on the upper campus. To it were added seven more buildings: The Heber J. Grant Library in 1925; the Stadium in 1929; the Brimhall Building in 1935; the Stadium House in 1936; the dormitories, Allen Hall for men and Amanda Knight Hall for women in 1938; and the Joseph Smith Memorial building. The J. Reuben Clark Library replaced the Heber J. Grant Library in 1963. The George A. Smith Field House was added to the Stadium about the same time. And vision of what has since been accomplished building-wise was in mind.

As his school expanded, his popularity with teachers and students grew. He was friendly and helpful and his office door stood open always for free entrance of students or teachers with problems to discuss. This easy accessibility to his office made Franklin S. Harris personally acquainted with many students and teachers. He could call more of them by their first name than any other administrator on campus. He curtailed the fraternity system extensively, viewing it as a detriment to academic attainment, and as insufficiently democratic. He controlled his students by giving them just one rule to follow, which was: “Make every thought and act of your life while attending the Brigham Young University square with the teachings of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” He set the example and required faculty members to do the same.

While Franklin S. Harris was changing the Brigham Young University from a small unknown college into a renowned institution of learning, he was filling other assignments of a world-wide nature. In 1929 he was chairman of an American Commission to travel to the Soviet Union to observe the living conditions of the Jewish people. After traveling through parts of Europe and European Russia his commission went to Eastern Siberia to explore the agricultural possibilities of land which was thought to be a suitable place for Jewish colonization. Franklin S. Harris reported his findings to Jewish leaders in Europe and his descriptions of various colonization projects were welcomed by influential American Jews. In 1939 Franklin S. Harris served a year as agricultural advisor to the Shah of Persia. Sometime later he returned to set up a workable four-point program. He later returned to Persia (now Iran) again in 1952, after he left the Brigham Young University and was President of the Utah Agricultural College in Logan, Utah. Even after his retirement in 1950, he undertook similar missions. He raised the standards of production, improved methods, and made lasting friends from His Majesty the Shah to the lowliest workman. His reputation as an agricultural advisor never suffered a decline.

His appointment to become President of the Utah State Agricultural College caused deep regret in the separation from his beloved BYU, but he entered his new duties in the fall of 1945. Franklin S. Harris held this position until the spring of 1950, and remained President Emeritus of this institution until he died. Death marked the passing of a remarkable educator, a lover of mankind and a world-wide benefactor. He died April 18, 1960 and was laid to rest in the Salt Lake City cemetery. He was mourned and revered by his family and legions of friends. His funeral service was held in the Assembly Hall on Temple Square, Salt Lake City and his memorial services were held in the George Albert Smith Field House on the campus of his beloved Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, May 23, 1960.

In 1962, a lasting memorial for Franklin S. Harris was planned and in 1965 BYU’s largest academic building, the Franklin S. Harris Fine Arts Center was dedicated. It is a structure that dramatically perpetuates his love of the Fine Arts, his appreciation of the culture that produced it and his dedication to the promotion of a keener appreciation of the beauty of art.

The building, while perpetuating the memory of a revered founder, is truly an art center, a sight-lifter for all who enter and a cultural uplift to the campus. It is also a reminder of one who enriched life and added beauty to that of others.

Nelle Spilsbury Hatch

Stalwarts South of the Border, by Nelle Spilsbury Hatch

Page 234

Junius Romney

Leave a reply

Junius Romney

1878-1971

Born March 12, 1878, in St. George, Utah, Junius Romney was the son of Miles Park and Catherine Cottam Romney.

Miles Park’s father, Miles, had moved to St. George under the direction of Church leaders and was playing a significant role as a builder, supervising, for example, the construction of the tabernacle.  Miles Park assisted in that construction as head of the carpentry shop.  He had other business interests and civic commitments, most notable in drama, and served in various church administrative capacities.  Catherine, Junius’s mother, was born to a family which had settled in St. George in 1862.  Because Miles Park had five wives, several of whom had large families, brothers, sisters, and cousins abounded.

When he was three years old, Junius accompanied his his family to St. Johns, Arizona, one of several centers of Mormon settlement on the Little Colorado River.  They first settled in town in a log cabin with a dirt floor, later replaced with a nice frame home.  The Romney family was in the middle of an intense anti-Mormon campaign to which Miles P. responded vigorously as editor of a newspaper and which forced Catherine and others to flee their homes periodically.  This persecution became so intense that Junius and most of his family returned to St. George in 1884.

This second period in St. George was temporary while Miles P.  and others investigated places in Mexico to which they could flee for safety.  Junius and his family lived with Catherine’s parents, the Cottams, who at the same time furnished a hiding place for Wilford Woodruff who was being pursued by government authorities.  To help support the family, Junuius tended cows in the surrounding desert.  So hot was the sand at the time that he recollects moving from the shade of one bush to another, crying as he stood on one bare foot and then the other to allow each an opportunity to cool.  When he reached eight years of age, he was baptized in the temple font.  Then in 1886, Catherine and her children were instructed to join Miles P. and others in Mexico.  The Cottams generously outfitted them with clothing and, following blessing from Wilford Woodruff, Junius Romney and the others left for their new home in Mexico. 

During January of 1887, they traveled by train to Deming, New Mexico, then by wagon into Mexico.  ON the way, Junuius was thrown from the wagon and run over.  His ear, torn almost completely from his head, was replaced and bandaged in place by his mother.  On arriving in Colonia Juarez, the newcomers joined two of Miles P.’s other families—Annie’s, who was living in a dugout beside the river in the “Old Town,” and Hannah’s, who lived in a house of vertical poles called a “stockade house.”  Catherine’s house was their wagon box to which were attached a bowery and a small wooden room.

Life was simple and family centered—simple clothes, straw or husk tick on the beds, a diet of corn, beans, molasses, greens and thinned milk, and occasional treats of wheat flour bread.  In his later years, Junius still enjoyed the simplicity of a sweet apple off a tree or a dinner of cheese, bread, and milk.

After about a year in Colonia Juarez, the three Romney wives and the family of Helaman Pratt moved to Cliff Ranch, a small valley along the Piedras Verdes Riverin the mountains.  Here they lived for about two years in seclusion.  This required independence and innovation.  Junius Romney recalls how his mother and the other adults provided religious and intellectual instruction in addition to the necessities of life.  Work included herding cows barefoot in the snow and building irrigation systems.  Natural greens, potatoes, and grains were staples with treats of molasses cake, nuts and potato pie.  In addition to other qualities he may have developed there, Cliff Ranch increased Junius Romney’s appreciation of his family.

In the fall of 1890, the Romney’s returned to Colonia Juarez, and not long thereafter, Junius Romney moved to a farm which his father had purchased about a mile west of Casas Grandes.  There, with his Aunt Hannah and her family, he worked for three years and received the benefit of three months’ formal schooling per year in Colonia Juarez.

In his 16th year, Junius Romney became an employee of the Juarez Cooperative Mercantile Institution.  This led him into his vocation as a businessman and into a close association with Henry Eyring, the manager.  In that occupation, he became acquainted with the Mexican people, merchandising procedures, Mexican law, bookkeeping, Spanish, and the postal service.  He soon became postmaster, a position he held for 13 years.  Junius later observed how much he owed to Henry Eyring, who also taught frugality through making bags out of newspapers in order to save buying them commercially.

It was during this time that Junius Romney became acquainted with Gertude Stowell, daughter of Brigham and Olive Bybee Stowell.  Brigham operated the mill on the east side of the river south of town and owned a cattle ranch north of town.  Gertrude grew up willing to work hard, a trait she preserved throughout her life, and was also interested in intellectual activities and things of beauty. After she broke her engagement to another young man, Junius courted her earnestly.  His correspondence with her progressed from “Dear Friend” to Dearest Gertrude” and culminated in their marriage in the Salt Lake Temple on October 10, 1900. 

Junius Romney continued his work in the Juarez Mercantile as their family began to grow.  Olive was born in 1901, Junius Stowell, called J.S., in 1903, and Catherine (Kathleen), in 1905.  That Kathleen survived, having been born at only two and one-half pounds while both parents were suffering from typhoid fever, is something of a miracle.  Margaret was born in 1909.  Catherine, Junius’s mother, lived with them for a time after the death of Miles P. in 1904. 

The typhoid fever that both Junius and Gertrude suffered was accompanied with pneumonia for Junius, but after limited professional medical care and extensive aid from family and friends, they recovered.

More important, for Junius, was the fact that an early administration by Church Elders did not heal him. He concluded that the Lord needed to impress him that he indeed had typhoid fever and his eventual recovery indicated that the Lord had a purpose for his life, a purpose he saw fulfilled in his role as leader during the Exodus of 1912. Successful healings from priesthood administration shortly thereafter reinforced this opinion.

The young couple lived in an adobe house directly north of the lot upon which the Anthony W. Ivins house once stood and the Ward building now stands. In about 1906, a substantial brick house, which still stands, was built. The bricks were cooperatively prepared with several other families.

The resulting structure with its clean lines and decorative wooden trim was equal to any similar sized house built in Salt Lake City at the time, and, in fact, reflected the strong North American orientation of the colonists.

Junius continued to work in the Juarez Mercantile store until about 1902. He thereafter worked for the Juarez Tanning and Manufacturing Company until about 1907. He continued as postmaster, handling business from a room made on their front porch. In addition to this work, Junius was very much involved in other business activities such as buying and selling animals and land, and supervising some agricultural production. He handled some legal matters for colonists and taught bookkeeping and Spanish at the Juarez Academy.

For two months during the summer of 1903, while Gertrude tended the post office and their two young children, Junius Romney went to Salt Lake City where he attended the LDS Business College. His studies included penmanship, bookkeeping, and typing. Among his extra-curricular activities were attendance at bicycle races at Saltair, as well as visiting relatives. In addition to the three three-month periods of schooling while he lived on the farm near Casas Grandes, and about three years of taking classes at the Academy just before his marriage, this stay at the business college concluded his formal education.

During these early years of marriage, Junius served as Second Counselor in the Stake Sunday School Superintendency. During a very busy January, 1902, he served as an MIA Missionary in which calling he participated in a flurry of meetings in Colonia Juarez. He also served as Stake Clerk, which with his Sunday School calling, led him to visit throughout the colonies and to become acquainted with the conditions of the Church and the people. He also learned much of Church administration.

Two major recreational activities occurred during these years. The first was a visit in 1904 by Junius Romney and a friend to the World’s Fair in St. Louis. The second was a trip in company with the Stake President, Anthony W. Ivins, into the Sierra Madres where President Ivins owned some land. Junius fished and hunted and, more significantly, enjoyed the association of the man whom he was soon to succeed as Stake President.

As the government of President Diaz came under attack and was eventually defeated by the forces of Francisco I. Madero, the Mormon colonies were drawn into the struggle. Junius processed various damage claims submitted by the colonists to contending parties, and, as President of the Stake, he became directly involved in the aftermath of the death of Juan Sosa, which occurred in Colonia Juarez in 1911. In the Sosa matter, he assisted in hiding colonists who, as deputies, had participated in the shooting. He eventually met with a local judge and sent a letter to President Madero on behalf of the fugitives. This letter at last reached Abraham Gonzales, formerly Governor of Chihuahua and then Secretary of the Interior in Mexico City. Gonzales directed that the prosecution of the Mormon deputies be discontinued. Eventually the matter was forgotten as the military struggle increased in intensity.

Soon after President Ivins was called to be a member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, John Henry Smith and George F. Richards of the same quorum came to Colonia Juarez to reorganize the Stake. In the meetings of March 7 and 8, 1908, these visiting authorities selected Junius Romney as the new Stake President with Hyrum H. Harris and Charles E. McClellan as Counselors. The visiting authorities indicated that plural marriages were no longer to be performed in Mexico as they had been since 1890. Because he had not been directly involved in these recent plural marriages and was living in monogamy, Junius was a good choice to implement that policy.

As Stake President, Junius traveled to Mexico City to review the missionary work there and at least twice attended general conference in Salt Lake City. He also traveled to Chihuahua City where he talked with the President of Mexico, Porfirio Diaz, who exhibited considerable interest in and affection for the Mormon colonists. The authoritarian government under Diaz and the work of the Mormon colonists were complementary. The government provided the climate in which the Church members could live in relative security with little interference. The colonists contributed to political and social stability and grew outstanding agricultural products, both qualities that Diaz wanted demonstrated to the native Mexicans.

Routine church business was also handled. His correspondence notes action on a possible Branch of the Church near Chihuahua City, operation of the Church auxiliaries with a Stake activity calendar for the four months through August of 1912, concern in one Ward over lagging tithing payments and pride of another Ward over anticipated benefits from a newly completed reservoir. That the Revolution was intruding upon Church work is indicated by the inability of President Romney to obtain signatures of all Ward Bishops on a document, and instructions to avoid purchasing grain from native Mexicans since the soldiers might need it.

Although the tempo of the Revolution demanded increasingly more attention, Junius still pursued his business interests in a way that indicated he intended to stay indefinitely in Mexico. He was involved in agreements to buy and sell land, a proposal to build a fruit cannery in Colonia Juarez, and the purchase of some 715 fruit trees to be planted on his land.

One of the first direct confrontations between the Revolutionaries and Mormons came in February, 1912, with a demand by Enrique Portillo for weapons. Portillo was a local leader of rebels under Pascual Orozco who by that time was opposing Madero. In company with Joseph C. Bentley and Guy C. Wilson, Junius told Portillo that the only way he would get Mormon guns was with smoke coming out of the barrels. After Junius reported this incident to the First Presidency in Salt Lake City, he received a letter from them which he considered very important. The First Presidency approved the action taken, but said that a different set of circumstances might call for a different response. They advised that the foremost concern should be the safety of members of the Church. A letter from Anthony W. Ivins at this time promised no loss of lives if the Saints were faithful. Some, not including Junius, interpreted this to mean that the colonists could always safely remain in Mexico.

Besides the admonition to care for the safety of the colonists, the policy of neutrality urged on the Saints was important to Junius. This policy was directed to all U. S. citizens from authorities in Washington, D.C. Moreover, the General Authorities advocated neutrality for Church members in Mexico. Regardless of personal feelings, Junius and other leaders attempted to be neutral. This was not an easy policy to follow since soldiers from both sides often forcibly requisitioned horses and other supplies. During the early stages of the Revolution, the soldiers were urged to respect neutrality.

While attempting to remain neutral, the colonists recognized a need to obtain weapons equal in quality to those possessed by the warring factions around them. Accordingly, the Stake leaders attempted unsuccessfully to import high powered rifles in December of 1911. Then in April, 1912, after the U.S. embargo was proclaimed, rifles were smuggled in and distributed to the various colonies from Junius’s home in Colonia Juarez.

After initial success against the government, Orozco was defeated in several battles in May, 1912, and retreated northward toward the colonies. At the same time, Mexicans responded to the killing of a Mexican, surprised during a robbery in Colonia Diaz, by killing James Harvey, a colonist. President Romney in company with several Mexican officials from Casas Grandes rode in a buggy to Colonia Diaz and defused the threatening situation. This experience further impressed Junius with the explosive conditions in which they found themselves and the danger of resorting to an armed defense. As a result, he reaffirmed his belief in the policy of neutrality and the necessity of the Mormons getting through the conflict with a minimal loss of life.

Junius wrote to the First Presidency requesting instruction on what to do and asking that Anthony W. Ivins be sent to the colonies to counsel with them. The First Presidency told Junius to do what he thought best after counseling with other Church leaders in the Stake. Elder Ivins traveled to the colonies and returned to El Paso where he remained throughout the Exodus.

After being defeated by federal forces in early July, 1912, the Orozco rebels moved to El Paso where they made their headquarters. This was usually a place where Revolutionaries could be resupplied with arms and ammunition, but because of the U. S. embargo, Orozco was unable to rebuild his army. So the rebels turned to the Mormon colonists who, they believed, had weapons they could obtain.

General Salazar, a local rebel leader, called Junius to his headquarters in Casas Grandes and there demanded a list of the colonists’ guns. After consultation with the leaders in Colonia Juarez and Colonia Dublan, Junius requested the information from each colony.

Faced with this increased pressure, representatives from throughout the colonies met with the Stake Presidency to decide how to proceed. The group decided to continue to pursue a policy of neutrality and to act unitedly under the direction of the Stake Presidency.

On July 13, 1912, when news reached Colonia Juarez that rebels in Colonia Diaz were demanding guns from the colonists, a meeting of eleven local men and two members of the Stake Presidency was convened at Junius’s home. The group sent messengers to Colonia Diaz with letters previously issued by rebel leaders urging respect for the neutrality of the Mormons. Junius Romney and Hyrum Harris of the Stake Presidency were instructed to confer with General Salazar to persuade him to call off the rebels. Junius prepared a letter to General Orozco in EI Paso which he sent with Ed Richardson.

That same night Junius and Hyrum Harris rode to Casas Grandes where they located General Salazar. Having prevailed upon a guard to awake the general, Romney described the crisis. Salazar lashed out at the rebel leader in Colonia Diaz, saying that he should not have made that demand, todavia no (not yet). Junius reports that those last two words caused a chill to run up his back, since it seemed to be the general’s intention to sometime require weapons of the colonists. Such a demand, Junius foresaw, would perpetrate a crisis. Romney and Harris received an order from Salazar which they took to Colonia Dublan for delivery to Colonia Diaz.

The next day, Junius traveled by train to El Paso to confer with Elder Ivins. On the way he had a conversation with General Salazar who said he intended to do something to force the U.S. to intervene militarily in the Revolution. In El Paso, Elder Ivins seemed to think that Junius was overly concerned. Still, they jointly sent a telegram to the First Presidency requesting instructions. The reply said that “the course to be pursued by our people in Mexico must be determined by yourself, Romney and the leading men of the Juarez Stake.” Romney was looking for specific instructions, but received none. He later reflected that if the Lord intended to have his people removed from Mexico, it was better that he, rather than Elder Ivins who had put his life into building the colonies, should lead that evacuation. Although Ivins visited the colonies for several days during the next two weeks, he gave no more specific instructions on what to do.

Orson P. Brown, the colonists’ representative in El Paso, wrote Junius that the State Department had indicated that the Mormons could not expect U.S. governmental support in the event they defended themselves. Brown predicted that the colonists would have to leave their homes.

Fearing the worst, Junius wrote a letter on July 24, advising the mountain colonies to be prepared to leave on a moment’s notice, should the need arise.

Two days later, Junius, in company with four other colonists, traveled to Casas Grandes for a meeting with General Salazar. The general and his aid, Demetrio Ponce, a Mexican who lived among the Mormons, ordered Junius Romney and Henry E. Bowman to deliver Mormon owned guns and ammunition to the rebels. Junius refused to do so and was supported in his decision by Bowman. Bowman’s support was further evidence to Junius that the Lord was directing things since such support was essential to the later evacuation, and the older man had previously been somewhat critical of the young Stake President. Salazar then directed some soldiers to accompany the Mormons to Colonia Dublan where they were ordered to collect weapons, by force if necessary.

In Dublan, Junius Romney conferred with Bishop Thurber and other men. They decided that some compliance was required, so instructions were sent for colonists to bring in their poorest weapons. The rebels were temporarily pacified when these deliveries were made at the schoolhouse.

In the same meeting, it was decided to send the Mormon women and children to EI Paso for their safety. Henry Bowman left at once for Texas to arrange for their arrival and a few colonists departed with him that very day. Junius composed a letter to Colonia Diaz describing what had occurred and directing the colonists in that community to follow the same procedure for evacuation.

That same evening, Romney returned to Colonia Juarez where he joined a meeting of the men already in progress. Bishop Joseph C. Bentley and others were not in favor of anyone leaving the colonies, but after some discussion and a recommendation from President Romney that they evacuate their women and children, he and the others agreed to comply and to urge others to do the same. Those at the meeting also agreed to relinquish their poorest weapons to the rebels.

On Sunday, July 28, some weapons and ammunition from the Juarez colonists were delivered at the bandstand to the rebels. Junius sent messages to the mountain colonies of Colonia Pacheco, Garcia, and Chuhuichupa advising them to be prepared to give up some of their weapons and to send their women and children to EI Paso. He told his wife, Gertrude, that the Bishop was in charge of the evacuation and would help them leave. He bid his family farewell and departed to Casas Grandes to meet with General Salazar.

The actions on July 27 and 28 left the colonies occupied only by adult men. Each town was furnished with a small contingent of rebel soldiers who were responsible for keeping the peace and protecting the colonists who had presumably relinquished their weapons. During the next few days of relative calm, Junius wrote to the various colonies to apprise them of the situation and to advise them to act moderately, with the highest priority being given to safeguarding the lives of the men.

The situation took a turn for the worse when other rebel soldiers began moving through the colonies after having been defeated in a battle with the federals in Sonora on July 31. Uncertain about the intentions of these new arrivals, Junius and other men met in the store on August 2 and decided to call a general meeting for that night. Junius and some others understood that the night meeting was to decide on a course of action. However, as men were notified of the meeting, some understood that they were to leave town that night and go into the mountains.

That night, as Junius started toward the designated meeting place north of town, he was told that some men had already gone into the mountains. He was convinced that the rebels in town would conclude that those who left were on their way to join the federals and any men who remained would be in serious danger. Junius was unable to consult with other leaders as he had previously done, but what he needed to do seemed clear to him. His decision was to have all the men remaining in the colonies congregate at the Stairs, a previously designated site in the mountains farther up the Piedras Verdes River. Then he sat under a lantern in the bottom of the Macdonald Springs Canyon and prepared letters for Colonia Dublan and the mountain colonies, instructing the men to meet at once at the Stairs.

On the other side of the river, a significant number of the Juarez men had met at the designated site north of town, but when they did not find President Romney or the others there, they returned to their homes. When Junius discovered this later in the morning of August 3, he attempted to countermand his instructions to Dublan, but the men had already left. Later, Junius, his brother Park, and Samuel B. McClellan encountered these Dublan men and accompanied them to the Stairs.

The men who remained in Juarez, including Bishop Bentley, initially decided to go to the Stairs, but when the rebels were frightened away by the news of approaching federals, they wrote to those in the mountains expecting that they would return to the colonies. Later, when the men in town received pointed instructions from President Romney that they should go to the Stairs, Bishop Bentley and others complied.

After a preliminary meeting of the Church leaders at the Stairs, a mass meeting of all the men was held on August 5. At that time, those who had most recently arrived from Colonia Juarez urged the men to return to their homes. A majority of those there, including President Junius Romney, favored going to the United States. Junius had several reasons for his decision. He had witnessed the strong anti-American feeling among the Mexicans. He recognized the danger of international repercussions if American citizens were killed in Mexico. He wanted the smuggled guns they were carrying to reach the U.S. A vote to leave was made unanimous. The movement was made under the military leadership of Albert D. Thurber and the men crossed into New Mexico on August 9, 1912.

The fact that the colonists were out of Mexico did not release Junius as Stake President. He continued such functions as issuing recommends, counseling Ward leaders, and gathering information to help him decide what future action he would suggest. He interviewed the colonists themselves, talked with generals of the federal army, and took a three week trip back into Mexico.

The overall supervision of the refugees came under the control of a committee which included various colonists, Junius Romney, Anthony W. Ivins, and other Church representatives. This committee first concerned itself with the evacuation of the colonists in Sonora. Quite independently of the Chihuahua colonists, they evacuated their homes and were in the U.S. by the end of August.

The committee also considered whether the colonies should be reoccupied. Some returned soon after they left, mostly to recover cattle and other property. It was eventually decided that the colonists should be released from any Church obligation to live in Mexico, so that each family could make its own decision. Junius and his family decided not to return.

Gertrude and their four children had initially stayed in a Lumberyard in EI Paso with many others, but they soon moved to a single-room apartment. In the winter of 1912, they moved to Los Angeles with one of Junius’s brothers.

Junius traveled to Salt Lake City where he reported his stewardship to a meeting of the First Presidency and Quorum of Twelve. He reports that he “assured President Smith that I had lived up to the best light that I had been able to receive and consequently if the move was not right I disavowed any responsibility inasmuch as I had lived up to the best inspiration I could get and had fearlessly discharged my duty as I saw it in every trying situation which had arisen.” After hearing this report as well as those of other men and assessing other information they possessed, the General Authorities decided to release Junius as Stake President and to dissolve the Juarez Stake.

While in Salt Lake City, Junius was convinced by Lorenzo Stohl of the Beneficial Life Insurance Company that he ought to try selling life insurance. Junius was dubious about this proposal, but while he traveled on the train back to Mexico, he diligently studied the material he was furnished. Shortly after arriving in El Paso, he was confronted by his brother, Orin, and D. B. Farnsworth, who were looking for a particular Beneficial agent. Junius Romney identified himself as an agent and immediately embarked on a career in which he would be a marked success. During his first year of this work he saw his family only twice, a condition he deplored, but he was determined to succeed. He learned of a contest with a $300 prize for which he would have to sell $60,000 in insurance before the end of 1912. When he won, Junius endorsed the check directly to a creditor to whom he owed money for the purchase of land in Mexico. In the next year, he won prizes totaling $550, which he likewise applied on his debts. Not only did his work help him support his family, but it also resulted in his being given the job of superintendent of agents for Beneficial Life, a position he held for ten years.

By the end of 1913, Junius was able to move his family from Los Angeles to a rented home in Salt Lake City, and six years later, to a home they purchased on Douglas Street on the east side of Salt Lake City. To the four children they brought with them out of Mexico were later added two sons, Eldon and Paul.

While most of Junius’s time during these years after the Exodus was spent in selling insurance, he continued to be concerned with those he knew in Mexico. One project in which he took considerable pride was a resettlement project along the Gila River in Arizona. With Ed Lunt, he borrowed money from Beneficial Life to buy land which was divided into twenty and forty acre parcels and sold with little or no down payment to families from the colonies.

In order to spend more time with his family, Junius left Beneficial Life. Following work in several sales ventures and a few years handling real estate for Zion’s Savings Bank, he became manager of State Building and Loan Association in 1927. He continued in that position until 1957 when his age and ill health compelled retirement. Under his management, the company had expanded to Hawaii and became a leading financial institution in Utah. As part of this work, he sold sufficient insurance to be a member of the Kansas City Life Million Dollar Roundtable three times. He was also involved in various other business enterprises, often in real estate in partnership with others.

He continued to be a faithful Church member throughout his life. He served in various Ward and Stake positions, including the Stake High Council, and as a temple worker in his later years. In later years he suffered from a variety of ailments, perhaps the most serious of which was the loss of his sight. Because he was a man of action, this was especially difficult for him. He was also much troubled by the loss of his wife who served as his companion for sixty-five years in mortality.

He was always very thoughtful of friends and neighbors, as well as his family. As he grew older he expanded his philanthropy. Probably his most noted gift was a rather expensive machine to be used in open heart surgery at the Primary Children’s Hospital.

He kept his sense of humor. For his ninetieth birthday celebration, he appeared in a rather nice hair piece. His family cautiously complimented him on his youthful appearance until the joke became apparent. At that time no one laughed more heartily than Junius.

As his health failed, he began in the late 1950s to talk and write more about the colonies. He dictated and wrote several separate reminiscences about people and events and he gave some talks centering on the Exodus from Mexico to Church groups in the Salt Lake City area. Finally, in 1957, he returned to the colonies. He was interested in reliving that part of his life, but more important to him was explaining it to others, which he did by distributing copies of one of his talks.

When he died in 1971 at ninety-three years of age, he left a significant heritage. His impact on the Mormon colonies was monumental. In business he was a personal success and a builder. In the Church he was a faithful member and significant leader. Among many he was a friend and benefactor.

To his six children, thirty grandchildren, and forty-four great-grandchildren alive at his death, he was a living symbol of much that is good about life.

Joseph Romney, grandson

Stalwarts South of the Border, Nelle Spilsbury Hatch

Page 579

Robert Chestnut Beecroft

Leave a reply

 

ROBERT CHESTNUT BEECROFT

(1873-1958)

Robert Chestnut Beecroft was born in Holden, Millard County, Utah, July 15, 1873. He was the son of John Hurst and Ellen Chestnut Beecroft.

December 24, 1889 he arrived with his parents in Colonia Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. There he remained with his uncle, Henry Chestnut, who was night-watchman at the Henry Eyring store, until March 1890, when he moved on to Colonia Pacheco.

In Pacheco, he went to work at a sawmill, first for Al Farnsworth and later for John Campbell. He dearly loved the people of Pacheco. The memory of friendships with such men as John E. and Walter H. Steiner and William and David P. Black were cherished memories all of his life.

There in Pacheco Robert Chestnut Beecroft met Lilly Marinda Rowley. They were married April 14, 1894. To them were born a boy, Nello Robert, August 11, 1896 and a girl, Emma, January 4, 1898.

Besides working at sawmills, “Rob” did freighting.

In March 1898 he moved his family to Colonia Oaxaca, Sonora, Mexico. There, two girls were born to them, Lilly Mae, September 30, 1899, and Ellen, July 27, 1902.

Rob carried on as a freighter, hauling ore from the El Tigre mine, near Colonia Oaxaca to Nuevo Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, Mexico. The road he traveled over was truly a pioneer road. The treacherous Bavispe River had to be crossed. The Pulpit Canyon road was next to impassable. It was solid rock for miles and in places it was like a staircase.

At one point called “The Squeeze” it was so narrow that a wagon could barely pass through.  There were drops from ledge to ledge to ledge; the wagon tongue would knock the horses from side to side, even knocking them down at times. His own words tell it thus:

I made my living freighting, driving six to eight horses on one line and three wagons. The mountain roads were so rough that could only take one wagon at a time, taking it to the top of the mountain, leaving it, and going back after the next. After getting the last wagon to the top, I would put the ore all in one wagon. The trip was then made the rest of the way to Nuevo Casas Grandes. The ore was then loaded on the train and taken to El Paso, Texas to the smelters.

In Colonia Oaxaca, Rob built a brick house for his family. Later a flood came down the Bavispe River, washed sixteen houses away and took the roof of his new brick home.

His wife Lilly died in 1904, so he moved back to Pacheco with his young children. His brother John took Nello and Emma to Colonia Garcia. Mae went to live with Lilly’s sister, Ozella Rowley. Ellen went to another sister of Lilly’s, Orissa Rowley, while Rob continued freighting.

There in Pacheco he met and married Nancy Erina Buchanan, October 18, 1905. At this time, Robert had acquired some farm land and farmed in season. He also worked on adjoining sawmills, being fireman and engineer. 

December 3, 1906 they had a son born, William Elvin.

Rob said:

In 1908 I was called to go on a two year mission in Mexico. I took my wife and baby with me to Salt Lake City. There we were sealed. Then we took the train back to El Paso. We had to walk across the bridge crossing the Rio Grande River which separates the USA and Mexico. Edna and the baby took a train for the colonies which was the way back home for them, while I took another train for Mexico City and my mission, where I labored for a little over two years. I arrived back home Christmas Eve 1910. While on my mission in Mexico State I was living at Ozumba. I presided over eight different branches. Rey L. Pratt was President over the Mexican Mission, with Will Jones as first counselor and myself as second counselor.

While laboring there I was fined for not paying taxes on my wages. We were in court two days. The judge said either my church paid me or the people over whom I presided paid me. I told him that neither of them did, but that I paid my own way. I appealed to Chalco, and the officers at Chalco appealed to the state capitol. But I never did hear from them again.

His mission being ended, he took a train for home, arriving at the nearest railroad station in Pearson, Chihuahua, near Colonia Juarez where his wife Edna awaited him. His son Nello met him at Pearson with horses. “Horseback” they returned to Pacheco arriving Christmas Eve, 1910. For the first time he saw his daughter Marva, who was born four months after he left for his mission. She was born February 17, 1909.

Again in Rob’s own words:

Back to work again, sawmilling. We moved to Cumbre sawmill working for Lester Farnsworth and John Whetten. They had acontract to build a bridge which was the highest bridge in America,being 800 feet high, and took one million feet of timber. At Cumbre was a tunnel that was three-quarters of a mile long which the train went through.

October 5, 1911 a baby boy was born to us, Carl J.

In 1912, because of the Mexican Revolution, we were told to leave Mexico. In August of that year we put our women and children on the train and sent them to El Paso. All men over fifty years of age, and boys under sixteen years had to go with the women. All boys over sixteen had to stay with the men. So my son Nello stayed with me, as he had just turned sixteen August 11.

Early the next morning, the train left Pearson for El Paso, Texas, USA, while we men and boys headed back to the mountains and our homes and our crops.

I had to stay to a meeting in Colonia Juarez, at President Bentley’s place, and before I got back to my home at Pacheco, which was thirty-five miles from Colonia Juarez, our Bishop met me and sent me through the hills, away from the road to Colonia Garcia as a runner, to tell the Garcia men to meet with the Pacheco men at a certain place in the mountains. Then the valley men were to meet us and all head for the USA together. In our travel overland, Bishop A.D. Thurber was chosen captain. He chose Lester B. Farnsworth as first assistant and Robert C. Beecroft as second assistant of the company, which consisted of 240 men.

The night we left our homes at Pacheco the Mexicans set fire to the town, burning all the lumber houses.

Our daughter Valoise was born August 6, 1915 at St. Johns, Arizona.

I went back to Mexico because our land and everything we owned was there. In our company going back was myself and family, brother John and family, Frank 0’Donnal and family, John and Bert Whetten and their families.

We landed at Colonia Dublan.  I was the night watchman at the Farnsworth and Romney store for about one year.  I then hired a 200 acre farm.  Our crops were alfalfa, wheat, and beans.  I farmed there for a number of years.

We had another daughter Ethel born January 22, 1922 in Colonia Garcia.

While working with Lester B. Farnsworth in 1922 at Garcia he acquired 140 head of cattle. The men of the town of Garcia together purchased the Jacobson cattle, with the UT brand. These cattle were located on the ranch near the Dublan Lakes. They were paid for with lumber from the Garcia mill. Later he moved these cattle to the North Valley Ranch near Chuhuichupa, where he also moved his family. There he also farmed, raising corn, oats and potatoes.

February 18, 1925 a daughter, Maurene, was born in Chuhuichupa.

In the autumn of 1926, because of illness of his daugher Ethel, he and Edna with their family moved to Douglas, Arizona to give medical care to
Ethel.

Douglas was born while there, February 18, 1927.

In 1928, Rob sold his cattle that he had on the North Valley Ranch. He invested the money with the Farnsworth and Romney Mercantile Company. They owned a store in Sabinal, a rich silver mine on the Corralitos Ranch. They sent Robert there to run the store. His family was in Colonia Juarez where Elvin, Marva and Carl were enrolled in the Juarez Stake Academy.

Later Rob was transferred to the store in Juarez, owned by the same Mercantile Company.

In 1931 he sold his equity in the Mercantile business for cattle. He moved his cattle and his family back to Chuhuichupa.

In 1932 he rented his cattle out and moved to Mesa, Arizona. Later he sold his cattle and bought a home near the Arizona Temple in Mesa.

Robert passed away October 2, 1958 at his home, 240 Wood Lane, Mesa, Arizona.

Ellen Beecroft Farnsworth, daughter

Stalwarts South of the Border,

Nelle Spilsbury Hatch pg 27

Samuel John Robinson

Leave a reply

Samuel John Robinson

1863-1948

Samuel John Robinson was born in Payson, Utah, County, Utah, on December 10, 1863.  His parents, Joseph Robinson and Jemima Parkes Robinson had been converted to the Gospel and joined the Church in England.  They were married in England just before the sailing to America.  They found ways of crossing the plains and going to Zion.  Joseph drove cattle and sheep for one of the brethren, and Jemima found a way with another company by assisting in the care of children.  They worked for about three years in Utah before establishing a home.  When Johnston’s Army was coming to Utah they moved south and made their home in Payson.

Being a convert to the Church, his mother was very strict in observance of the Sabbath.  They were not allowed to play on that day and required not only to attend church with the family but to listen to what was said, and when they returned home to be able to tell who spoke and what they said, as nearly as they could remember.  The children were raised strictly according to Mormon standards.            

When Samuel John Robinson was 15 years of age, he father was called on a mission, and being the eldest son, his responsibility was to assist his mother in managing the farm and supporting the family.

At an early age, he was given a part in one of the Ward dramas which he took home to study.  His mother objected and said it might lead him into bad company.  She had not forgotten the traditions of Old World, i.e., that the theater might lead a person astray.  After explaining to her the conditions and naming the people of the cast, she consented.  After that, he was often given a part on the stage, both in the drama and in concerts.

In July of 1886 he and Minnie Amelia Stark were married in the Logan Temple. In 1891, he was called on a mission to England.  But before leaving, he made a trip to Mexico and married Annie Elizabeth Walser who had moved to Mexico with her father and his family.  He filled a two-year mission to England, having enjoyed some success and a great deal of satisfaction. 

In the fall of 1894, Samuel John Robinson left Payson, Utah and began a journey by team to the Mormon colonies in Chihuahua, Mexico.  He was in the company of Timothy Jones and family.  It was a long journey.  But at length he reached Colonia Juarez and was rejoined with his family, including his wife Minnie and their four children, and Annie Elizabeth Walser, whom he had not seen since their marriage before he left for England.

He sought advice from Apostle George Teasdale as to where he should settle.  Brother Teasdale told him to go to Colonia Dublan and look around, then if he didn’t find anything there to come back and he would go with him to Pacheco.  This advice was followed and he decided to remain in Colonia Dublan.  All the land that was being used by the colonists in Dublan at the time was along the river.  The Robinsons were able to secure land from George W. Patten.

Soon after moving to Dublan, Anson B. Call, Sunday School Superintendent, was called to fill a mission in England.  Samuel John Robinson was called to fill the vacancy. This was the beginning of a busy life of service in the community.

In December of 1899, at the age of 44, he was called to be Bishop of the Dublan Ward, with Joseph S. Cardon and Anson B. Call as Counselors.

From the terrenos in Dublan along the river to the hills on the east was prairie land, the development of which held the secret of the future colony.  Each year when the summer rains came the prairie would become beautiful with tall green grass and wild flowers.  Some way had to be found to irrigate the prairie land.

East of the colony, in the foothills, were two dry lakes.  Water from the hills collected in them during the rainy season, but by spring they would be almost dry.  It was thought that if, during the high water season, water from the river could be used to fill the lakes, they could be made into reservoirs and provide a source of needed irrigation.

In order to realize this, a canal would have to be built to carry the water a distance of six miles from the river to the lakes.  This could only be accomplished by a cooperative effort on the part of the people.  Many had no faith in the project, and it was a difficult talk to convince them of the feasibility of such and undertaking.  There was much opposition to the proposed plan but, with the help and advice of President Anthony W. Ivins, a sufficient number were converted and the work commenced.

Samuel John Robinson and Joseph S. Cardon staked off the route which seemed best.  This was checked by Louis Paul Cardon who had knowledge of surveying.  Later, trained surveyors were brought in.  They pronounced the original route good, and no changes were made.  About this time, Henry E. Bowman moved to Dublan to open up a mercantile business.  He was able to procure the much needed railroading equipment from Colonel Green, which he sold to the colonists, and the building of the canal was begun.

In April of 1903, a great sorrow came into the family life of the Robinsons.  Annie Elizabeth, the beloved wife and dear companion to all the family, passed away.  She gave her life that little twin girls might be born.  One twin died at birth and went with her mother.  The other stayed with the family for only a few months.  The three other children—Irwin, Louise, and Martha—were taken by Minnie and raised as her own.

In about 1906, Samuel John Robinson purchased the Dublan tract from President Ivins and assumed responsibility for plotting the land and distributing it.  In 1911, the canal was completed sufficiently to use.  The water was turned in and the project dedicated.

All through his life, Samuel John Robinson took great interest in young people and their activities and entertainment.  He promoted the drama for which he had a great love.  Many memorable plays were produced under his direction.  He often took part himself.  Plays such as The Two Orphans, Rag Pickers of Paris, May Blossom, Silver King, and East Lynn, he directed as well as taking part.  He continued this work until he was well along in years, never considering it a burden to go at night to attend rehearsals.

In 1928, he went on a short-term mission to California where he made many friends and did a good work for the Church.

The Robinson family left the colonies at the time of the Exodus, but they returned in 1914.  In December of that year, the town of Dublan was filled with Pancho Villa’s men.  On the evening of December 24, armed men went to the Robinson home to enter and search the place.  When their demands were refused, they left saying they would return and burn the house.  When the family realized that they intended to carry out their threat, the womenfolk and some of the boys found refuge with a neighboring Mexican family.  As the home became enveloped in flames, the mother and children went down through the corn field to the big ditch.  They followed through the fields to the home of Bishop Call.  There they were made welcome and spent the remainder of the night.  The next morning they were joined by Samuel and the boys who had remained with him hidden during the night.  It was a joyful reunion.  All were thankful that no lives had been lost but the family was left destitute, as nothing was salvaged from the fire.

Again, they left the colonies and went to work on the El Gato ranch above El Paso, in Canutillo, Texas.  There they remained until they were able to rebuild their home in Colonia Dublan.

After Minnie passed away, in 1934 Samuel stayed at home for a time, overseeing all three families living in the single home.  He filled the role of both father and mother and kept things going.

In his later years, he devoted his time to genealogical work.   He worked in the Salt Lake Temple and later in the Mesa Temple.

During his last illness, he was in Phoenix at the home of his son, Elmo.  He passed away on April 16, 1948, in his 85th year. During his lifetime, the hymn, School Thy Feelings was often a great comfort, and he expressed his liking for it.  The music for his funeral was furnished by a group of 11 grandsons under the direction of J. Ben Taylor.  His favorite hymns were sung at this time, School Thy Feelings being one of them. He was buried in the Colonia Dublan cemetery.  Today his remains rest on the prairie that he loved so much and that is now beginning to blossom as he dreamed it would.

Lucille R. Taylor, daughter

Stalwarts South of the Border,

by Nelle Spilsbury Hatch pg. 575

Joseph Charles Bentley

Leave a reply

 

Joseph Charles Bentley

1859-1942

Joseph Charles Bentley, son of Richard Bentley and Elizabeth Price, was born August 31, 1859 in Salt Lake City.  He was the youngest child in a family of six.  His parents were English converts who had emigrated to Utah in 1852.

The fall after Joseph’s birth, his father was called on a mission to England where he labored for four years.  During his absence his wife struggled bravely to support her family, the oldest a girl of twelve.  They lived in a little adobe house on North Temple Street.

Shortly after Richard Bentley’s return from England he was again called by President Brigham Young to take his family and move to St. George, in the extreme southwestern part of the territory of Utah.  This move was a great trial to Elizabeth Bentley, but she was willing to go with her husband wherever the Church might call.  Apostle Orson Pratt had been called home from St. George, so it was arranged that he and Richard Bentley would exchange homes.

Thus it was within the red sandstone hills of St. George, with the Virgin River flowing by, that Joseph grew to manhood.  He began his meager schooling under Richard Horne.  At the age of 15 he accepted a position of office boy for Robert C. Lund, who was the St. George operator of the Desert Telegraph.  Young Joseph learned telegraphy and eventually took over the managership of the office.  Later he was transferred to Silver Reef, a mining camp northeast of St. George, where he worked until he received his call for a mission. 

 At the age of 20, Joseph was called on a mission to England, where he labored as mission secretary in London.  Upon his return home two years later he secured a position with the firm of Wooley, Lund and Judd, who operated a general store, Wells-Fargo Express Agency, and a telegraph office in St. George.

One day Sister Julia Jill Ivins asked Joseph if he would teacher daughter Margaret (or Maggie) telegraphy.  An agreement was made to do this for the sum of $30 dollars a month.  The young man found Maggie an apt student and a charming young lady, and he often walked her home after the lesson.  That fall Maggie took a position as teacher Pine Valley, about 35 miles north of St. George.  She frequently visited the telegraph office after school and was allowed to send messages to the young operator at St. George.  This romance culminated the following summer in their marriage in the St. George Temple, June 30, 1886.

In 1892, Joseph Charles Bentley moved his wife and three small children to Mexico.  The Mexican Mission had been founded by the Church some six years earlier, and the Chihuahua colonies were developing into thriving little communities.  Settling the picturesque little town of Colonia Juarez, he purchased a quarter of a block near the center of town, on which were two small frame houses, some grapes, and a few fruit trees.  In four of five years he constructed a fine, two-story home of red brick.

Joseph went into business with Anson B. Call and Dennison E. Harris.  The firm of Call, Harris and Bentley engaged in cattle raising, farming and merchandising.  He also started a co-op cannery for canning local fruits and vegetables.  He was assisted in this plant by the Harris brothers, Franklin S. and J. Emer.  Another co-op in which he was interested was the Juarez Tanning and Manufacturing Company, which engaged in the making of harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods.

In church affairs he was equally active.  Soon after his arrival in Mexico he had been asked to assist Bishop George W. Sevey with his tithing records and was soon appointed Ward Clerk.  In 1895, when the Juarez Stake was organized with Anthony W. Ivins as President, Joseph C. Bentley became the Stake Clerk.  Then three years later he was made Bishop of the Colonia Juarez Ward, serving in that capacity some 18 years. 

In the fall of 1894, Gladys Woodmansee, a cousin of Maggie Ivins Bentley, came down to the colonies on a visit.  Years before, at the time of her marriage, Maggie had told her husband she believed in the principle of plural marriage and that if ever he decided to take another wife she would like it to be her cousin Gladys.  As Joseph C. Bentley had long admired this young lady and she was agreeable to the union, the time seemed opportune.  Accordingly to ceremony was performed by one of the Apostles who was visiting in the colonies at the time.  As the Manifesto of 1890 applied only to the United States, there were no legal barriers to the marriage.

In 1897 Joseph Charles Bentley became a naturalized Mexican citizen, intending to make the land of his adoption his permanent home.

For years Bishop Joseph Charles Bentley had watched his interest the development of a certain red-haired lass, who was the daughter of one of his Counselors, Ernest L. Taylor.  As the girl blossomed into young womanhood, Bishop Bentley, being a firm believer in the doctrine of plural marriage, sought her hand.  At first she was rather unappreciative of his attentions, but after a rather persistent courtship he was successful.  On September 23, 1901, Mary Maud Taylor, then but a girl of 16, became the third wife of Joseph C. Bentley.

Of course separate homes were maintained for each of the three wives.  The family relationships of the Bentley’s were very harmonious.  However, Bishop Bentley’s church duties took him away from home so much that the burden of raising and training the children fell largely upon the wives.  On several occasions on or the other had the heart-rending experience of witnessing her child’s last breath and laying it out for burial while her husband was in Salt Lake City for conference or off on some missionary journey. 

There were pleasant times, too.  Each summer for many years Joseph Bentley made it a practice to take his families into the mountains for an outing, usually at North Creek above Chuhuichupa.  In the midst of tall pines and with an abundance of fish and game, a good time was enjoyed by all.

Gladys had poor heath and died in March 1906.  Her five children came to live with Maggie, and it was a very busy home for the next few years.

In 1910 Joseph C. Bentley organized a Board of Trade for the purpose of securing a better market for colony products.  The colonies were producing fruit of unusual quality as well as canned goods and leather products.  It was thought that by combing the produce of the various members it would be possible to ship in carload lots to more distant markets.  An invitation was received from President Diaz to bring an exhibit to Mexico City.  After arriving there Bishop Bentley was cordially received by the fair officials, allotted space for his exhibit, supplied with flags and bunting for decoration, and given the services of several men to unload and handle the produce.  He then proceeded to erect a pyramid of colony cheeses as high as the ceiling, a huge stack of canned goods, and extensive displays of apples, peaches, flour, candy, saddles, and harnesses.

At the close of the exposition, a banquet was served to President Diaz and his cabinet, using colony produce.  Afterward each minister was given a few samples to take home.  The remaining produce was sold at a good price.  This exposition opened up a thriving market for colony produce in Mexico City.

Before his return home, Bishop Bentley was granted a personal interview with President Porfirio Diaz, who state that he greatly admired the Mormon people because they set an example of a higher standard of living and morality which would benefit his people.

The decade of 1911-1920 was a troubled one in Mexican history.  The 30-year dictatorship of President Porfirio Diaz, which had given Mexico peach and financial stability and encouraged foreign colonization and investment of foreign capital, was rough to an end by a popular revolt led by the crusading Francisco I. Madero, who in turn was succeeded by half a dozen other presidents in kaleidoscopic succession.  The most colorful figure during this period was Francisco “Pancho” Villa, rebel, patriot, and bandit, but a man of his word and one who had great regard for the Mormon people.

Reported assurances were given to the Mormon colonists that their lives and property would be respected, and, owning to their neutral position, their firearms would be left in their possession. This promise was kept by both sides for about six months, but the Revolutionists, being short of arms and suffering one defeat after another, finally demanded the arms of the colonists.

On Saturday, July 26, 1912, the men of Colonia Juarez brought their guns and ammunition to the bandstand, where they were listed and counted by Bishop Bentley before turning them over to the rebel commander.  Being left with no means of defending their families, the brethren placed their wives and children on the train and sent them out to El Paso, Texas. Numbered among the exiles were Maggie and Maud Bentley and their families.

Believing that his life was in danger from the rebel leader, Cavada, who had been making threats, President Junius Romney of the Juarez Stake fled into the mountains, leaving word for the rest of the brethren to join him there. It was sometime before theywere able to do this, however, as the rebels forbade anyone to leave town.  Finally scouts came in with the news that a federal army was approaching, whereupon the rebels left.  Although there was now apparently no further reason for leaving, Bishop Bentley said that in obedience to the Stake President he was going inot the mountains to join him and advised other the other brethren to do likewise. 

On the following day a vote was taken and it was decided that the men of the colonies would proceed overland to the United States and join their families in El Paso.  Before leaving, reliable Mexicans were placed in charge of their homes and property.  The refugees were all mounted and had a couple of provision wagons and a considerable number of pack animals.  Four days’ travel brought them to the border, and two more were required to reach El Paso.

On the very day of their arrival, the Stake Presidency, High Council, and Bishoprics met with Anthony W. Ivins to discuss their action in leaving their homes in Mexico and what future course they should take.  There was heated discussion among the brethren as to the wisdom and necessity of the Exodus.  President Romney stoutly defended his action and stated that he would never return to Mexico unless called to do so by the General Authorities.  Bishop Joseph Charles Bentley said that in his opinion there had been no need either for their families or the men to leave and that as far as he and his families were concerned they had left solely in obedience to the counsel of the Stake President.

After a series of meetings, it was decided that all Stake and Ward authorities who did not desire to return to the Mexican colonies would be honorably released, and more than 500 free railroad passes were given to refugees who desired transportation to other parts of the United States.  Within about two weeks after the Exodus, some 60 men, including Bishop Joseph C. Bentley, Ernest and Alonzo Taylor, John W. Wilson, Daniel Skousen, and John Hatch, were ready to return to their homes in Colonia Juarez.  Upon reaching there, Bishop Bentley found everything just as he had left it, his faithful hired man, Cornelio Reyes, having remained true to his trust.  As conditions remained quiet for several weeks, a number of families returned to Colonia Juarez. Among them were those of Maggie and Maud Bentley.

The colonists were not molested for more than a year.  Then in April 1914 came the startling news that American troops had stormed and captured Veracruz.  Feelings ran high on both sides of the border and it appeared that war between the United States and Mexico was imminent. 

Some irresponsible parties sent an exaggerated report to President Joseph F. Smith in Salt Lake City, telling him that all the Mormon colonists in Mexico were in grave danger.  Acting on this advice, President Smith promptly called the settlers out; however, by September the war scare had subsided, and the Bentley families returned to their homes, where they remained during the balance of the Revolutionary period.

As Bishop Bentley was the only presiding officer of the Juarez Stake to return to the colonies, he was directed by the General Authorities at Salt Lake City to take over and close the tithing records of the various Wards which had been disorganized and to exercise general supervision over all the Saints who had returned to Mexico.  In 1915 he went to Salt Lake City to attend April Conference.  On April 10, after sessions had concluded, he called at the office of the First Presidency.  President Josph F. Smith and his two Counselors, Anthon H. Lund and Charles W. Penrose, placed their hands on his head while President Lund pronounced a blessing.  Then President Smith proposed that they set Bishop Joseph Charles Bentley apart as President of the Juarez Stake.  President Penrose acted as mouth.

Upon returning to Mexico, Bishop Bentley had the unusual distinction of serving both as Bishop and as Sake President for a little over a year until Apostle Ivins came down in May 1916 and released him from the Bishopric, at the same time setting apart John T. Whetten and Arwell L. Pierce as Counselors to assist him in the Stake Presidency.

Taking the lead in community as well as church affairs, President Bentley made two trips to Mexico City to obtain government confirmation of the land titles of the colonist.  He also continued to operate a general store in Colonia Juarez, for a time in partnership with John W. and Guy C. Wilson and, after the Exodus, alone.  However, the store was looted so many times by rebel bands that the venture was finally abandoned.

One day during the Revolution, Bishop Joseph Charles Bentley and several others paid a visit to General Villa, who was camped at Casas Grandes.  They requested a written order which would protect their work horses from seizure by rebel foragers.  Villa obligingly wrote out the order and gave copies to Bishop Bentley and Bishop Anson B. Call of Colonia Dublan.  Villa then remarked that his men were badly in need of bedding and he would like to buy some.  Bishop Bentley replied that his store in Colonia Juarez was only a grocery, but that he would see what he could do.  After returning to Colonia Juarez, Bishop Joesph C. Bentley gathered up a collection of surplus bedding from the townspeople and presented it to Villa as a gift.

During General Pershing’s campaign in Mexico (March 1916 – February 1917) he made his headquarters in Colonia Dublan and was very friendly toward the Mormon colonists.  After receiving orders to abandon the search for Villa, Pershing tried to persuade President Bentley to leave Mexico with the army and even offered the use of his own private car.  However, President Bentley felt that the colonists were in no danger and there was no reason to leave the country.

In March, 1919, President Joseph Charles Bentley, in company with Burt Whetten and Albert Tietjen, set out to visit some of the missionaries who were laboring in the villages to the south.  They were traveling in a light buggy drawn by a team of mules.  Between El Valle and Namiquipa they encountered some of Villa’s men and were taken into custody.  They were transferred from place to place and held prisoner for three days before they finally gained an audience with Villa.  In talking with the general, they learned that he had once lived with a Mormon family in Sonora and knew considerable about the Mormon people.

Villa said, “Many times I might have entirely cleaned up on all of you Mormons and destroyed the colonies, but I have never had any desire at all to do you any harm.  I would like to help ou, and I will help ou all that I can, but during times of trouble there is no guarantee of safety.  You gentlemen better return to your homes and stay there until we bet these things settled.  That will be the time for you to do the thing that you are doing now.

Villa then gave the brethren a written pass in case they were stopped again by any of his men.  However, their troubles were not yet over.  As they approached the nearly deserted town of Namiquipa, they were seized by a group of Rurales, who mistook them for American spies.  Here they were held prisoner for nine days before they succeeded in convincing their captors of trhe peacefulness of their mission.  Finally they were released and allowed to return home, taking with them two missionaries who had been laboring in Namiquipa.

As Stake President, Joseph C. Bentley was also Chairman of the Stake Board of Education, which supervised the Juarez Stake Academy.  On his trips to Salt Lake City to April Conference he would hire teachers for the coming school year.  After being released from the Stake Presidency, he continued to serve as bookkeeper for the school, paying the teachers’ salaries and managing the bookstore for several years.

Joseph Charles Bentley served as Stake President of the Juarez Stake until September 8, 1929, when he was succeeded by Ralph B. Keeler.  However, as the incoming Stake Presidency were all new at their jobs and unfamiliar with the keeping of Stake records, Bishop Bentley was once more sustained as Stake Clerk, which position he held until 1930 when he was made a Patriarch.

During his residence of nearly a half century in Mexico, Joseph Charles Bentley suffered many bereavements, losing nine children and two wives.  Gladys Woodmansee Bentley died February 21, 1906 and thus escaped the trials of the Revolutionary period.  Margaret Ivins Bentley passed away January 11, 1928.

Though small of stature, Joseph Charles Bentley had a distinguished appearance and a charming personality.  He was dark complexioned and habitually wore a small goatee, which he kept well-trimmed.  His resemblance to President Madero sometimes caused him to be mistaken for the Mexican President. On one occasion, as Brother Bentley got off a train, he was greeted by the martial strains of a brass band, and he had considerable difficulty convincing the assemblage that he was not the President of the Republic.

On Saturday, March 7, 1942, Joseph Charles Bentley seemed about as well as usual.  He asked his wife, Maud, to make him some oatmeal cookies, and he nibbled on them with pleasure throughout the day.  In the afternoon he had his hair cut and beard trimmed.  He retired about 10:00 p.m., after listening to the news broadcast on the radio.  About 11:40 p.m., Maud Bentley awakened to find him in a violent attack of nausea and unconscious.  He died within in a few minutes and was buried in the Colonia Juarez cemetery among the loved ones who had preceded him.

Funeral services were held for him Sunday afternoon, March 9, 1942.  There wasn’t time to notify his absent family members.  Prominent leaders in the colonies, including Orson P. Brown, Wilford M. Farnsworth, Bishop Anson B. Call, Moroni L. Abegg, President Claudius Bowman and Bishop Ernest I. Hatch all paid tribute to his integrity and faithfulness and his unfailing and great leadership to the people in the colonies.

Many letters and expressions of love, sympathy and admiration for him were received by his wife Maud from such Church leaders as Elder Marion G. Romney, President Franklin S. Harris, President Ralph B. and Gertude Keeler, Aunt Mamie Chamberlain, Taylor and Louise Abegg, as well as other family members and friends.  Truly he was a great and faithful leader gone to a great reward.

During his 50-year stay in Mexico he had many opportunities to move across the border to the United States but felt he had been advised to go to Mexico by Church Authorities in the first place, so felt that was where his duty lay.  So he remained true and faithful to his responsibilities.

Isaura Bentley Abegg, daughter

Stalwarts South of the Border,

by Nelle Spilsbury Hatch,  page 31

William Rufus Rogers Stowell

Leave a reply

William Rufus Rogers Stowell

1822 – 1901

William Rufus Rogers Stowell was born in Solon, Oneida County, New York on September 23, 1822.  He in his early life experienced the stirring events that centered around the vision and subsequent activities of Joseph Smith.

His father, Augustus Stowell, became fairly wealthy.  He was a practicing lawyer, owned 260 acres of farmland and many head of blooded horses, all of which brought him a good income.

Young William did not become a member of the Church of Jesus Christ when the rest of the family embraced that faith in 1831, but waited until 1834.  By that time the Saints had built the temple in Kirtland, had partially abandoned the town and were gathering to Missouri.  In fact, that year saw “Zions Camp” make its historic march to Missouri for the relief of the Saints there.  Rumors of calamities and persecutions following the Saints reached the ears of the Stowell family and had a peculiar effect upon William’s father.  It caused him to wonder if the Saints were not doing something to bring the persecutions upon themselves, and if perhaps they didn’t merit some of it.  When ambassadors were sent to this vicinity to collect means to help the Missouri Saints, he became bitter and refused to give them aid.  He was convinced the Saints were planning a rebellion against the government, as they were being accused, and, as a patriot, he wanted nothing to do with a people that was disloyal.  So belligerent was he on this issue that he finally withdrew from the Church and became intolerant and finally forbade his wife and children to have further contract with the Saints.

William’s mother endured his pressure for eight years, at the end of which time she sued him for divorce and moved into a home prepared for her by William.  In the ensuing proceedings, where the mother contested her rights for justice in the courts, young William was forced to testify against his father, a task that was a trial indeed.  But he knew that she was taking the right stand and, painful or not, he had to defend her against his father. The delicacy of what he had to do drove him every day to his knees where he sought guidance from his Heavenly Father.  He gained half his father’s property for his mother, and the children were allowed to stay with whichever parent they chose.  They all stayed with the mother.

This brought a distinct change in William’s life. He stayed with his mother until September, when with but ten dollars in his pocket, he started out on foot and alone for Nauvoo, Illinois, where the Saints were then settling.  Fortunately, he fell in with an outfit which, for his help in exchange for a ride with them, carried him to Chicago.  From there he took a bout to Pewaukee, Wisconsin where his sister lived.  Here he stayed for two weeks working as a carpenter and joiner in a gristmill and could have stayed in on indefinitely.  But Nauvoo was his destination and he was very anxious to see the temple and meet the Prophet.  He recognized both when he arrived.

He received a Patriarchal Blessing from Hyrum Smith and was closely enough associated with the Prophet to hear many of him famous utterances.  He was at the meeting when Joseph Smith declared himself a candidate for the Presidency of the United States and became well-acquainted with his platform.  When missionaries were chosen to go in all directions to campaign for him, he was chosen as one of them.  The powerful document written by Joseph Smith setting forth his views was looked upon by William as a masterpiece of vision and understanding of the needs of a free people.  With it in his possession, and being set apart along with the Twelve Apostles and a large corps of Elders at the April conference in 1844, he set out to proselyte for the Prophet Joseph.  He left in May with Elder William Parshall after having been ordained a Seventy.  New York was their destination.  They walked, except for a short distance along the Ohio River, approximately 1,000 miles.

By the first of June they reached his old home town.  Only eight months had passed since he had left.  He was glad to find his mother and family were ready for baptism and gladly performed the ordinance for them.  So much had happened in those eight months.  His old home had lots its charm, and when he found that his mother and sisters were ready to migrated, he was anxious to Nauvoo.

The martyrdom of the Prophet occurred before he had been in New York three days.  This released him from his mission, and with a heart filled with sorrow he turned to the task of helping his family move.  There was much to do in a short time:  the gathering of crops; trading and selling property; and getting outfits ready to leave while the season was favorable for traveling.  They made no secret of their destination when they finally set out, for “Nauvoo” was printed on their wagon cover.

After arriving he married Hannah Topham, a girl with whom he had become enamored before he left, on Christmas day, 1844.  Lorenzo Snow performed the ceremony.  William continued to care for his mother and sisters even after he moved into a home of his own.  He did all he could to push the work on the temple, now nearing completion, as well as carry on his farm work.  He succeeded in gathering most of his crops even though many lost theirs through burnings by mobs.  All could see that the time was fast approaching when they would have to leave their beautiful city in the hands of their enemies.  And soon, preparations for an exodus began.

William Rufus Rogers Stowell was one of the first 100 men chosen to be scouts for the evacuation.  They built roads and bridges and mapped out ways to travel.  They also took work wherever they found it, in order to obtain supplies for the Saints.  He cut timber and fitted wagons for others while doing what he could to prepare his own outfit.

By February the exodus began, and for the first two weeks he worked continuously, ferrying Saints across the Mississippi River.  In a fall of snow three inches deep, he and his company of Saints moved nine miles to the bend in Sugar Creek and made camp.  There Brigham Young caught up with them and began organizing for the westward trip. William proved a savior to the weak and infirm, for the suffering was intense.  Women walked all the way, caring for families at night with no protection other than their wagons.  This group of 400 wagons took until April to reach Garden Grove.  There they made camp, put in crops, dug wells, and built houses.  So industrious were they in preparing a way station for those who should come later that it was not but a few days until the place looked like it had been settled for years.  Some of the Saints remained here to keep the crops growing and to help those who were yet to come.  In the spring of 1847 William moved on to Council Bluffs.  There he stayed until the summer of 1850, raising crops and preparing for their final trek to Salt Lake Valley where they arrived in September, 1850.

William spent the winter in Salt Lake City, then moved to Provo and took up a 25 acre farm.  His wife then became dissatisfied and sued for divorce.  He granted it and married Cynthia Park the following autumn.

During the next few years he was kept busy settling Indian difficulties and doing military duty of one nature or another.  His burdens were increased when he adopted the six orphaned children of his brother and sister.  When he finally settled in Ogden, he made his growing family and their care his first concern.

During the Utah War, William Rufus Rogers Stowell was made an adjutant in Major Taylor’s battalion of infantry.  He was ordered to the front in October 1857, and not until spring was he to see his home or any of his family.  His first reconnoiter up Echo Canyon was a fateful one for, in proceeding up Ham’s Fork for the purpose of getting as close to enemy headquarters as possible, they ran into a detachment of U.S. soldiers who took him and his major prisoners. He remained in custody all winter, part of the time in irons, and was twice the victim of an intended poisoning.  Once he tried to escape, but found the hazards of getting through the snow and over the mountain to safety were too much, so he gave himself up and submitted to solitary confinement as punishment. 

The suffering William Rufus Rogers Stowell endured was harsh, but in a way his capture proved a blessing for it kept the army from entering the valley before the Saints had time to defend themselves.  As soon as he was captured, he made three attempts to destroy a little book he carried containing important instructions from General Wells.  On his first attempt to drop it, a voice spoke to him, saying plainly telling him not to drop the book because it would do more good than harm.  Unable to understand why he should be advised to do anything so foolish, he determined to disregard the warning and dropped it anyway.  But the voice spoke more distinctly the second time telling him not to destroy it and repeating that it would do him more good than harm.  Still thinking it was foolishness to listen to such advice, he made a third attempt, thinking he would drop it quickly before the voice could stop him.  But the voice was quicker than he, and again he was told not to destroy the book.

When he was searched, the book was among the first things discovered.  After reading the instructions it contained, the officers sent for him.  He was so discouraged that his feet dragged as he went to their tent.  But again a voice whispered to him, telling him to take no thought of what he would say “for it would be given him in that hour what eh should speak.”  This brought peace and comfort to his mind and he entered the officer’s tent calm and unafraid.

Words poured from his mouth telling them how impossible it was to enter the valley without great loss of life; the Echo Canyon was not only fortified but that great stones were piled in strategic points ready to be dropped on them; that other valleys were equally well-guarded; that there must be 30,000 Mormons in the hills determined that they would never again surrender to a hostile force.  All of this greatly astonished the colonel.  William followed his remarks with this statement: “You have the major and myself in your power.  You can kill us if you are so disposed, but we are only two, and there are plenty left.”

This interview added indecision to the deliberations of the troops’ officers.  Some were sure they could never make it through.  Others were for pushing boldly on.  They finally decided to go into winter quarters and wait to see what developments the spring brought.  That hesitation, followed by the arrival of General Johnston who saw their desperate plight and seconded the decision, was the act that saved the Saints from being forced to use violence to protect themselves.  All winter the U.S. soldiers endured half-rations, bitter cold and untold discomforts while waiting for spring and something to ease the situation. 

When peace was finally established through the medium of Colonel Thomas Kane, William was released and allowed to go to Salt Lake City ahead of the army and find his family.  For eight months he had had no word of them, though they had been kept more or less aware of his condition.  He found they had moved south with the great body of Saints, when they determined to abandon their city, and they were now in Payson and Salem living with friends.  Both his wives had had babies while he was gone and had suffered many hardships.  With only the help of the children, they had loaded their belongings into a wagon drawn by a team of steers, and had made the move south with the body of the Saints.  William himself was looking emaciated and half-crippled from carrying irons on his foot.  But looking over his winter’s experience, he felt he had been an instrument in the hand of the Lord in preserving the Saints.

William Rufus Rogers Stowell bought land, stocked it with sheep and horses, and broke land with his plow and planted lucerne and corn.  Everything he did prospered. His property increased in value when the railroad was completed in 1869, and he raised more farm crops since everything was so in demand for workers on the railroad.  By 1884, he was considered by himself and those around him as a thrifty well-to-do farmer. 

Then the polygamy raids began.  Laws were passed making all who had more than one wife subject to arrest, fine and imprisonment.  William went into hiding to escape arrest.  First he hid in the Logan Temple where he did temple ordinance work for his family.  When he ran out of names and data he had himself called on a mission in the East where he again visited all his relatives in the state of New York.  While there he gathered genealogy, hoping that by the time he returned the trouble would be over.  But it continued to rage, so he went on a second mission, this time to California.  Then he resorted to hideouts in the mountains, dodging in at favorable times to help with the farm work, or give courage to his family.  Gradually he came under suspicion as his home and his approach was watched, and he could see the game he was playing could go on no longer.  Anyway he was weary of hiding and, in company with his son Brigham, also on the dodge, he went to Mexico.  They arrived in Colonia Juarez in February 1889. There they found a critical situation for want of bread and butter.  They expense of shipping it from the United States made it prohibitive.  The availability of hand-ground corn was unpredictable.  The little flour mill operating in Galeana was entirely inadequate.  It took from four days to a week standing in line for their turn.  The grade of flour was little better than the cornmeal they could make.  Naturally every newcomer was hopefully received as they searched for a potential miller.

Whether or not William Rufus Rogers Stowell looked like a “flour” man is not known.  But before he was in town an hour, he was approached by his wife’s cousin, William C. McClellan, with a proposition.  “Come with me,” he said without further preliminaries.  “I’ll show you a natural mill site, a place where the right man can establish an industry that not only will make him a substantial living, but will make him a savior to a bread-hungry community.”  They went to a point on the Piedras Verdes River but a few rods distant from the first rock house built in Old Town.

In a few terse sentences McClellan demonstrated how a mill placed at this point of the river could be operated by making use of the canal that had but recently carried water to their farms on the old townsite.  All it needed was a rock runway down which the water could run to turn the water will of the mill at its base.

William Rufus Rogers Stowell decided it was a practical idea and felt his search for a home was over.

Making a start was as simple as that.  A little time spent in looking the country over, talking with Bishop Sevey and other leading men, enjoying the hospitality of friends and relatives, and his fast-formed plan was ready for action.  He bought his machinery when he returned to Utah and hired Peter N. Skousen to haul it in.  By the first of June he was back in Colonia Juarez with his family.  He disposed of his property in Ogden, had made trips necessary to complete negotiations at the border for emigration, had his plans all made to begin operations on his mill and a home underway for his family.

In late November the machinery was installed.  Before Christmas, they were grinding corn and flour.  It took only ten months for this 76 year-old human dynamo to complete a project done in the hardest way. Most importantly, the people now enjoyed flour from the first gristmill in the country.  What greater sense of power than to watch those large grinders set in motion by the cascade of water as it catapulted down the runway and hurled the great wheel into action. What music could lull and soothe as the hum of those huge grinders as they munched the golden kernels, crushing and passing the on to ever finer rollers, sifting and separating till the velvety whiteness was emitted from yawning hoppers into gaping sacks.  What greater feeling of security than to see the sacks piled for home consumption, and to know that at last they had annihilated the proverbial wolf and now had breadstuff in plenteous quantities for their families?

That two-story adobe building became the vortex of a thriving business center, the symbol of a new agricultural life.  Farmers raised more and better wheat to exchange for flour.  Contented customers returning for service year after year soon made the mill’s storage capacity inadequate, and an adobe annex fronting the western entrance was added.  William’s keen insight into business management and his meticulous attention to detail was characteristic of his everyday habits. He was an archenemy of waste, and careful attention to detail was his weapon for fighting that evil.  “Shake it over the bran pile,” was a reproof some unthinking customer would hear while shaking his emptied flour sack in the open air.  Turning his chickens loose to clean up the waste grain when horses scattered their rations in his yard or keeping pigs fattened on over-full sack leakages all were means to eliminate waste and keep his premises clean.  His daily trips back and forth from home to his mill always included a careful check on the dam, headgate, water supply, canal cleaning or possible repairs on his way.  And his inspection of the running gears in his mill was a daily task.

When past the three-quarter century mark, wisdom forbade his continuing the strenuous life.  He first employed a miller, to whm he later sold the mill and the business.  In December 1895, he was ordained a Patriarch, and served in that capacity for the rest of his life.  His last days were spent in Colonia Juarez, where he passed away May 30, 1901. 

Nelle Spilsbury Hatch

Stalwarts South of the Border, page 651

A biographical sketch written by James Little is found here.   This biography includes William Rufus Rogers Stowell’s Patriarchal Blessing given to him by Hyrum Smith.

Hyrum Jerome Judd

2 Replies

Hyrum Jerome Judd

1847-1898

Hyrum Jerome Judd was born February 7, 1847, at Kanesville, Hancock County, Iowa, a few months before his father was released from military duty with the Mormon Battalion.

His father, Hyrum Judd orphaned at the age of 16, went to work for Lucious H. Fuller in Warsaw, Illinois, where he met and married Lisania Fuller, in 1844.  Hyrum Jerome was two years old when he crossed the plains with his parents and baby sister, arriving in Salt Lake city in the fall of 1849.  They settled in Farmington, Utah, until 1857, when his father was called to help settle southern Utah at Santa Clara, Washington County.

Here he lived his boyhood days in a nice little home his father built and he helped get the young orchard planted and growing nicely, except for the need of more water. A new dam was built on the Virgin River with a canal carrying water to the new townsite. This project was finished on Christmas Eve, of 1861.  The day the ditch was finished the rain began to fall and continued for more than a month; clothing and bedding couldn’t get dried.  The dugouts and other shelter gave poor protection, even with all the pots and pans employed to catch the dripping water.  Food molded, fires were hard to keep burning and harder to start if they went out.  It was a month of misery and suffering for all.  Then came the big flood, in the dark of night in January, 1862.  They were forced to flee to higher ground with what belongings they could take with them, while their home and land were washed away.

The family then moved to Meadow Valley and were busily engaged in the dairy business, when his father received another call to help settle the community of Eagle Valley, Nevada, in 1865. Hyrum Jerome Judd married Sharon Boyce, daughter of Benjamin and Susanna Content Boyce, April 28, 1866 in the Salt Lake Temple (Note Salt Lake temple wasn’t finished until 1893).  While living there, five, children were born to them: John Jerome in 1866; Susan Content in 1871; Lisania in 1872, Hyrum 1870; and Arza Hugh who died in infancy, in 1874. During this time Jerome worked on the Salt Lake Temple.  They moved to Panguitch, Utah where his father had settled.  Here Benjamin Boyce was born in 1876.  Jerome helped his father fence land near Lake Panguitch, where fishing was good.  Ira Leroy was born in 1877 in Salt Lake City. 

Hyrum Jerome Judd followed his father into northern Arizona in 1877 in company with his sister Jane and her husband Joe Knight, with all of their household goods and livestock, traveling slowly in order to find the best route for water and grass.  His father left a letter for him in a split stick at Black Falls.  They made a fine crossing of the Colorado River and up over Lee’s Backbone, the worst piece of road a wagon was ever taken over.  They arrived at Sunset, Arizona, in early 1878, the most desolate place he had ever seen.  He and his father joined the United Order and helped establish Sunset, Brigham City and Joseph City, all three camps practicing the United Order.

Joe Knight decided against joining and went across the river with the Kartchner’s and other families to a little community called Obed.  Joe became ill and Jerome brought him into Sunset for better care, but he died where she joined the Order and later married Israel Call.  The Judd’s, along with the families of William C. McClellan, Levi Savage, James McNeil, Joe James, Israel Call, Hubert Burkle, Freehoff Neilson and Samuel Garnes stayed with the Order, while others came and went.  Jerome and Hubert Burkle had charge of the range cattle and horses of the Order, and the Judd family made all the cheese at Mormon Lake near Flagstaff.  His father was Presiding Elder there.  Wilford Woodruff Judd was born to them at Sunset 1880.   

There Hyrum Jerome Judd took a second wife, who was Sarah Garn.  They were married in the St. George Temple on October 18, 1880.  Their first child, Paralee America was born October 6, 1881 at Sunset.  The United Order disbanded in 1882 and he moved to several different places in Arizona and New Mexico, taking some land in Smithsville (Pima) where Elizabeth was born to Susan in 1883. Lois Dianna and Ann were also born to Susan at Ramah, New Mexico in 1884 and 1886. Lois Dianna lived only a few months.  Mary Aliza (Mae) was born in 1886 to Sarah at Ramah.

Jerome moved his families to Mexico in 1887, settling in Colonia Juarez.  There he lived with his families for several years, making a living for their support by freighting and serving as cook on long cattle drives.  They made several drives to Fort Apache, Arizona.  Susan’s last child, Heleman, was born in Colonia Juarez in 1890.  To Sarah were born Don Carlos on October 7, 1887, Samuel Garn on October 8, 1890 in Colonia Juarez, and Lucinda Jane (Jenny) October 26, 1892.

Colonia Chuhuichupa was settled in 1894 and Jerome moved his families there where he engaged in farming and cattle raising.  Edgar Riley was born to Sarah in Chuhuichupa on January 13, 1898.  Jerome’s health was not good, so he went back to Colonia Juarez where he could get better medical care.  Sarah spent part of her time taking care of him there.  He received his Patriarchal Blessing from William R.R. Stowell on August 12, 1898 and died of cancer of the throat August 30, at the age of 51 years.  He was laid to rest in the east cemetery at Colonia Juarez beside his father who had preceded him in death by two years.  He was survived by two wives and 15 children.

Compiled by Earnestine Hatch from material furnished by Elva Judd Stevens, and a family history written from memory by Daniel Judd, son of Hyrum Judd and brother of Hyrum Jerome Judd.

Stalwarts South of the Border, Nelle Spilsbury Hatch, page 380

Amanda Whetten Burraston

1 Reply

Amanda Whetten Burraston

September 9, 1938 – July 13, 2017 

Amanda Jean Whetten Burraston – Loving sister, mother and grandmother passed away July 13, 2017 in Sacramento, California surrounded by her loving family.

She was born in Colonia Chuichupa, Chihuahua, Mexico to Glen Whetten and Ada Judd Whetten. She loved growing up in the Mormon Colonies in Mexico and moved from Chuichupa to Col. Juarez when she was 8 years old. After graduating from High School she went to Brigham Young University, graduating with a degree in Elementary Education. She began her teaching career at Wasatch Elementary in Provo, Utah teaching 1st grade. She would later continue her teaching career working with special needs children in the Headstart preschool program in Del Paso Heights, California.

She met her husband Neil Burraston in Provo, Utah and married in Mesa, Arizona, June 5, 1963. Together they raised 5 children. Kenneth, Bert and Deborah were born while they were living in Utah, Tamora was born while they were living in Albany, New York, and Paul was born in Sacramento, California.

She taught and touched the lives of so many as she served in her many church callings. Her last calling was as the music coordinator in the Del Norte Ward. She was a Temple worker for many years in the Oakland and Sacramento Temples.

She served 3 full time missions for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. First in Concepcion, Chile with her husband where they worked helping to establish the Employment Center; second in Monterrey, Mexico serving a Welfare Services mission. While serving this mission, her husband passed away on February 27, 2004. Her third mission was a Church and Family History mission which she served with her sister, Velma Taylor in Salt Lake City, Utah.
She was an accomplished pianist and gave piano lessons to many even while she was serving as a missionary.

Amanda believed in humbly assisting to make where ever and whomever she met, better than when she found them. That is exactly how she lived her life.

She is survived by her 5 children, 17 grandchildren, 1 great grandson, 4 brothers; John, Robert, Edward, Don, and two sisters; Velma and Earline. Preceded in death by her husband, her parents, and 3 brothers; Bert, Glen, and Clifford.

– California Services at LDS Eastern Avenue Chapel, 2475 Eastern Avenue, Sacramento, CA – Tuesday, July 25, 2017 at 11:00am; Viewing at 9:00am
– Utah Services at LDS Goshen Chapel, 75 South Center, Goshen, Utah 84633 – Friday, July 28, 2017 at 1:00pm; Viewing at 11:00am; Interment to follow in Goshen Cemetery

In lieu of flowers, donation may be made to the Perpetual Education Fund at ldsp.org or call 800-525-8074