Jenkins, Evan - Biography

EVAN JENKINS

The fourth child born to Anna Evans and David Jenkins was named Evan after his mother's father Evan Evans. He was born in a house called Lletty Shinkin in Cwmbach, Aberdare on 18 May 1849. As an adult he was taller than the average Welshman, being five feet ten inches in height. He had black hair and blue eyes. He was strongly built but slender and maintained an erect carriage to the end of his life.

His father was killed in a mine explosion when he was three years old. Since there were no laws against child labor in Britain at that time and money was scarce, my father was taken to the mines at the age of six years to pick slate out of coal and to act as water boy. His schooling was limited but, in spite of that, he learned the basic things through self effort.

Since his parents were members of the Mormon Church when he was born he always took an interest and, when old enough, sang in the choir. He had a good bass voice and often joined his friends coming home at night in singing church hymns and the folk tunes of Wales. It was not uncommon for the young people to harmonize with other groups whom they could hear singing a short distance away. His sisters, Esther and Anna, were also good singers.

When Evan was nineteen years old his mother and the family left for Utah, sailing from Liverpool 30 June 1868 on the steamship Minnesota. There were cheers from all on board as the ship pulled away from the pier. President Franklin D. Richards addressed them before their departure, and Elder Charles W. Penrose dedicated the ship. They were eleven and a half days crossing to New York where Captain James Price reported it was the most pleasant crossing he ever had. The weather had been perfect, and the officers said the converts had been wonderful passengers, the men quiet, kind and excellent in habits. The group had done much singing and dancing during the trip.

The family went by train to Laramie, Wyoming. They left there 25 July in Captain Chester Loveland's company. There were 40 wagons for the 400 passengers so most of them had to walk the entire distance of 400 miles to Salt Lake City. Father carried his one and a half-year old niece, Catherine Anna Martin, on his back part of the way. At night the wagons were pulled up to form a circle around the bonfire; and when supper was over the nightly program was started with singing and dancing to help them forget the weariness of the day.

On 20 August 1868 this group reached their destination. It was a wonderful feeling to meet again his brother and sister who had come in 1866. Within a few months, the family moved to Logan to be near his father's sister, Ann, who had come out as a widow in 1856. They spent the winter in the Third Ward.

The next move was to Samaria, Idaho in the autumn of 1869. Here there was land to be filed on and friends whom they had known in Wales. Grandmother and her children lived in a dugout on the corner where Uncle Davy Jenkins later built his brick house. Eventually, his mother and her sons filed on homesteads and established a home about three miles south and east of town. The land on these claims was largely meadow, and since livestock needed alfalfa to supplement this, the Jenkins brothers exchanged part of what they called the Malad field for sagebrush land north of Samaria with Uncle Joseph B. Morse.

During the first years in this country my father walked many times to Salt Lake to find work in the mines. He and his brother David would take their bedrolls on their backs, their food under their arms, and start out. They worked in Mercur, Highland Boy, and in Alta. Once coming down Little Cottonwood Canyon, they both missed being smothered in a snowslide by a matter of minutes. At times, Evan came alone. On one such trip he and his friend, Joseph Masters, leased some mining property in Tooele County where they struck a rich vein of ore. My father's share came to about $5,000. The owner, however, would not extend the lease. Returning home, Evan shared this money equally with his mother and brothers to improve the farms. In this way they were able to buy more fencing, livestock, and farm equipment.

In the first years of homesteading, there was a lot of trouble over property lines and by people jumping claims. In the end the government surveys settled things.

While working in Tooele County, Evan met his future wife, Ann Williams, who was living with her sister, Margaret. On 20 September 1875 they were married in the Salt Lake Endowment House. They started a new life in Idaho the year following their marriage.

It is hard to imagine the thoughts of a person who as a child had seldom seen the sun while working. In Wales, his mother used to butter the bread and then scrape most of it off before cutting the slice from the loaf held under her arm. He had partly realized the dream he had as a boy. It had meant a journey of almost 6,000 miles but Father said it was worth every step of the way.

During the early years Evan raised cattle usually around 75 or 100 head. There was plenty of free range in the nearby mountains and in the valley to the west. However, a good cow and calf sold for $13, horses for between $15 and $30, and wheat for a period of years sold for 40 cents per bushel while wool went for 10 to 15 cents a pound.

In 1890 Father, his brother John, Billy Price, and his father purchased the flour mill and store at Gwenford from Billy Thews. David Jenkins, the oldest brother, was hired as the miller and became better than the man who taught him. Power for the machinery came from a water wheel. When rollers came into use, they couldn't afford to modernize so the property was sold to John E. and his brother Dan E. Jones.

The Edmunds Act was passed by Congress in 1882 and later modified to become known as the Edmunds-Tucker Bill. Its aim was to prevent from voting anyone who belonged to an organization which tolerated polygamy. On 27 October 1888 my father was one of twenty-six men who, acting under the guidance of the Stake president, asked to have their names taken off the records of the ward. In other words, they asked for excommunication so they could vote. This bitterness reached a peak all through the valley at the presidential election in 1892. Men deputized with guns at the polls in Samaria were W. R. Thomas, Billy John, and Meyers Cohn, a man from Marsh Valley. The first named had jumped my father's claim while he was away working in Utah. He and his wife lived in a dugout there until after the birth of their first child. He was given twenty acres of land north of town to get him to move off the claim. His appearance as a deputy at the polls upset my father as one of his most highly prized possessions was his citizenship papers obtained 12 March 1873 in the Third District Court of Utah. Finally, the bitterness died down, but the men who served as deputies in the voting districts never fully recovered their trust with the others. On 16 April 1893 the men who withdrew membership in the Church performed the rituals necessary to become members again. (pp 70 and 82 F Idaho S2 Serial #2540 Gen. Lib. SL City)

Some early pioneers had great hopes that valuable veins of ore would be found in and around Malad Valley. Father worked with William Jones, father of Jeremiah Jones, on a claim in Mine Canyon near the Pocatello Valley divide. The Lucky Boy claim east of Malad was worked by him along with W. G. Jenkins and Heber Sparks of Malad, and John Mandry and George L. Jones of St. John. Other claims, such as the one on Birch Creek, one in Wood Canyon, and one at Black Pine were also worked on at times. Uncle Joe Morse and father's old friend, Joseph Masters, of Salt Lake, helped on some of these. With so much glittering ore around I used to wonder, as a child, why there wasn't lots of money as well.

Throughout his life Father kept an interest in singing with the ward choir. You would always find him in the bass section of the male chorus when it competed at the Malad Eisteddfodau (plural). They were really cultural events in the valley and were held on St. David's Day.

As a very small child Father sometimes took me along when a group of them went to a house party in another village. Riding along in a bobsleigh in winter, they sang most of the way with their voices blending in complete harmony. Some of their Welsh songs included: AR HYD Y NOS (All Through the Night), LLWYN ONN (The Ash Grove), and HEN WLAD FY NHADAU (Land of My Fathers).

Reading was another special interest of my father. He was generally up before daylight in his younger years. While the house was getting warm and time came to call the family, he would read, sometimes aloud to himself. He liked history, biography, and books written by the Church authorities.

My mother's death in 1894 was a severe blow to him and the children. She had been a good manager and a great help in financial matters. He remained a widower for almost nine years.

In politics, Evan was a staunch Democrat. He filled many positions in the Samaria Ward and was appointed first counselor to Bishop Daniel E. Price when William E. Hawkins moved to Logan.

Always interested in public events he brought the family to attend the Golden Jubilee in 1897. It was the first time I had seen negroes, and some marched as soldiers from Ft. Douglas. Seeing them I hid behind the skirts of my oldest sister. Father came to Salt Lake also for the parade honoring the soldiers returning from the Philippines and for the Eisteddfodau (plural), held in the Tabernacle during October 1895, 1896, 1898 and in 1908. They attracted Welsh people from all over the intermountain west.

After being in the sheep business for a number of years they were sold in 1916. At that time he also sold the old homestead to his son David W. Jenkins who owned it at his death 31 May 1966.

In March of 1903 my father married Mrs. Sarah J. Evans, a widow, who had come to Samaria from Mountain Ash, Wales a couple of years earlier. She was a capable and efficient homemaker. Her mother was a sister to Catherine Deer Clarkson Evans and to Mary Deer Davis Price. She died 23 June 1911 in Logan. He never remarried.

Perhaps it was the good time he had crossing the Atlantic when nineteen years old that kept alive his fondness for the sea. During the summer of 1922, Father was so happy when he found he could visit the big battleships that were anchored in the Bellingham, Washington harbor while living there. A division of the Pacific fleet came in for several weeks at that time. A naval friend took him often to visit them from top to bottom. The Idaho and the Oklahoma were among his favorites.

Death came suddenly at the age of seventy-five on 1 August 1924 at his home in Samaria where he is buried. Father had a large funeral and the speakers praised him for his integrity and for his deep loyalty to friends and church.

- Esther Jenkins Carpenter, Daughter