THE ANN
WILLIAMS DAVIS FAMILY,
WESLH
EMIGRANTS AND
MALAD
PIONEERS
A history
of the Ann Williams Davis
Family
and her children
By
David E.
Thomas
and
Jennifer L.Thomas
20
December, 2010
INTRODUCTION
We decided to write a history of the Ann
Williams Davis family after having completed several other histories of our
Welsh and Scottish ancestors, all of whom lived at least briefly in the Cherry
Creek Ward near Malad , Idaho . When my father was young, he
lived at times with his grandmother, Mary Ann Davis Moon at Henderson
Creek. He recalled that the Welsh-speaking Aunts would sit in the living
room, drinking tea and speaking in their strange language. He recalled
several customs and words which came from the Welsh Mormon emigrants. He
recalled warmly the love of his grandparents, Mary Ann and Ephraim Moon.
We have attempted to track the lives of the Davis family through the
various phases of their lives. The Davis
family was from South Wales , coming to America
with the Mormon migration. They settled near Malad
as farmers, where they were able to experience limited prosperity and raise
their children.
We hope that everyone who reads the history will
enjoy it and learn much about the family. We have included study notes
and references so that others may search out the primary sources of information
when desired.
We are descendants of Evan and Ann Williams
Davis. David Thomas is the second great-grandson and Jennifer Thomas is
the third great-granddaughter of Evan and Ann Davis.
THE GOWER PENINSULA
On the extreme west coast of Glamorgan
a peninsula juts out into the Bristol Channel of Carmarthen Bay. Although
the diminutive strip of land is barely twelve by five miles, it has a rich and
troubled history. Dotting the countryside are various ruins giving
evidence of former civilization. Near the center of the peninsula lies a
glacial boulder supported by nine columns called Arthur’s Stone (Maen Ceti). The
site is a Cromlech, a prehistoric, perhaps druidic burial ground. Nearby
are the remnants of Roman walls and earthen fortresses. Catholic Abbeys
once dotted the Gower, making it a favored target for Irish and Viking
raiders.
At least five castles overlook the peninsula,
all built during the Norman occupation. One of them, Weobley
Castle , was last attacked by would-be Prince of Wales Owain Glyn Dŵr in 1406. It was during
skirmishes with Glyn Dŵr
in Wales that young Henry V,
future king of England
, learned the value of using the Welsh longbow as an artillery
weapon. The longbow would prove to be the decisive weapon in the great
battle at Agincourt a decade later.
The lesson young Henry learned was
personal. He and his father had massed an army against Welsh and English
rebels near Shrewsbury
in 1403. The rebels had higher ground, which gave them a decided
advantage in the archery exchange that ensued. As the King’s men charged
up the hill, Welsh and English longbow archers unleashed a deadly torrent of
arrows, an onslaught later to be known as an ‘arrow storm’. Prince Henry
watched as wave after wave of his best men were mown down by the heavy
arrows. A short time later, Henry approached the front line and was
struck in the face by an arrow with a broadhead point. The blade
penetrated six inches and required a surgeon to invent a specialized forceps to
extract the point. The wound required months to heal.
Today, Gower is known for clear skies, golf
courses and white-sand beaches. It is often the site for wind surfing
competitions and family camping trips. Although quiet now, the area has
not historically been known as peaceful. Even as late as World War II,
Nazi warplanes were known to dump excess bombs on the Gower after overshooting
the factories at Swansea .
The peninsula became a part of the kingdom
called Glywyssing
in AD 437. In that year, Owain Finddu (Owen Black-lips), son of Magnus Maximus, formed Glywissing
from three mid-South Welsh Kingdoms. Maximus
had ruled as Emperor of Britain and Gaul
briefly. The Kingdom was probably formed to defend against Irish thieves,
who found monasteries and churches on the Gower peninsula easy pickings after
the fall of the Roman Empire . Owain is said to have
died following a battle with the evil giant Cidwrn,
who exchanged arrows and iron balls with Owain near Snowdonia. Both
Owain and the Giant were killed in the fight.
Later historical investigation would reveal that the more likely assassin was Owain’s own brother,
ruler of North Wales .
The Kingdom
of Glywissing
was passed from father to son for about one hundred and twenty years until the
death of Cadwg,
who had no male heirs. At that time, the Kingdom was taken by Meurig, King of
Gwent. His heirs would control the area for another five hundred years.
During that time, the Welsh battled the Irish, the hated Saxons, and finally
the Normans. One notable battle was fought on the peninsula near Llangyfelach. In about 990 AD, Ithel
Ddu, Prince of Glamorgan,
met Howel,
Prince of South Wales, who had raided the Gower with an army of Saxon
mercenaries. Ithel’s
brother raised an army of peasants and met Howel at Cors Eineon, where he was able to
slaughter the invaders and recover many plundered goods.
Ithel Ddu (Ithel the black or
black beard) was a descendant of the Morgan whose name replaced Glywissing. The area was renamed Morganwg ( land of Morgan
) in honor of Morgan ap Owain. The Kingdom
of Morganwg
would be short-lived. Within two hundred years, Normans would conquer most of the British
Isle.
Under English rule, the residents of the Gower Peninsula
made every attempt to retain their Welsh identity and language. A
commentary written in 1804 speaks of two distinct populations on the Gower Peninsula .
One population had “…thin faces with narrow foreheads, flat cheek bones…with
hair for the most part light, or brown, with blue or grey eyes. On the
other hand, the Welsh have dark eyes, high foreheads, with prominent
cheekbones.” The author goes on to describe the distinctive dress of the
two groups, with the Welsh wearing “a long gown, a long blue cloth cloak, and a
beaver hat…” The language of the lighter-skinned race was English with a
few Norman French words in a dialect that was “broad and coarse”. On the
other hand, the author writes, “…if you enter into a Welsh village, though not
three miles (from the English village), they will, if able, even refuse to
speak to you in English. They seldom intermarry, and have an utter
aversion for each other. When a man from Gower is asked the residence of
one in Llangevelach
(Llangyfelach), a village on the Welsh side of the
line, it is a common reply, ‘I danna knaw, a lives somewhere in the Welshery.’ ”
The Welsh residents of the Gower Peninsula
were mostly dependant on agriculture and the sea for their living. Since
the soil on the Gower tends to be sandy with many rocks, most of the
agriculture was pastoral, with sheep the dominant farm animal. This all
changed in the eighteenth century when coal was needed to fire iron and steel
refineries. Much of Glamorgan had high-quality
coal deposits. Many Welsh went to work at coal mines, which were
generally owned by wealthy English Lords.
One prominent Church Parish on the Gower is Llangyfelach. The Parish includes almost 10,000 acres
of land. In 1833, Lewis states that there were fewer than 7800 residents
in the Parish.
In the nineteenth century, there were at least four hamlets in the Parish, all
of them being divided into higher and lower sections. The chief
employment opportunities in the mid-nineteenth century were the colliery and
the copper works, both of which employed over a thousand men.
The parish church was named for Saint Cyfelach, and the
origin of the Saint is a mystery. He may have been a Catholic Bishop who
was killed by pagans or perhaps a local leader killed in a battle with
Saxons. Today, the chapel is named for both Saint David and Cyfelach. It is
supposed that the original church built on the site was replaced by the present
one named for Saint David. It is thought that David, Patron Saint of
Wales, may have founded a monastery on the Gower near Llangyfelach
during the sixth century AD. The church is fortified with a rock wall and
tower, probably as protection against Irish raiders and pirates.
Our Williams family lived in the parish of Llangyfelach. David Williams married Rachel Thomas
there on the 19th of October, 1816 .
David was probably born in Llangyfelach parish in the
mid-1790’s.
Rachel Thomas was probably born in 1800 or 1801 in a nearby parish called Llanguicke.
It is very difficult to extend the pedigree of
the Williams family beyond this generation. Some researchers have said
that David Williams may have been the son of John Williams and Ann Bowen.
Rachel Thomas may have been the daughter of Samuel Thomas and Ann Bowen.
The lack of census data and Parish records make these suppositions difficult to
confirm. Prior to this generation, the customary surname could have been
patronymic, making further progress extremely difficult.
David and Rachel Williams lived for at least
part of their married lives in a hamlet in the Llangyfelach
Parish. The hamlet is known as lower Rhyndwyclydach.
The name of the place means “between two Clydachs”, or between two forks of the Clydach River . Some sources say that the Williams family comes
from Twynyrodyn,
a town south of Merthyr Tydfil . This assumption may come from
the LDS Swansea Branch records, which make reference to Merthyr Tydfil in
the records for a man called John Davies.
The birth date for this John Davies is some five years later than our John
Davis. When Ann Williams went to the Logan Temple
for her own endowments, she listed “Clandarallach” as her birth place, which
is likely what a non-Welsh speaking temple recorder would write when he or she
heard the Welsh pronunciation of Llangyfelach.
When Ann took out her endowment at the Logan Temple ,
she gave her birth date as Christmas Eve of 1828.
The day is almost certainly correct; the birth year, however, was more likely 1826
or 1827. On each of the Wales Census records from 1841, 1851 and 1861,
her age indicated a birth year of 1826 or 1827.
She was the second or third child that we find record of born to David and
Rachel Thomas Williams.
Some family records have her name as Ann Lydia Williams, however, we cannot
find any records indicating that she had or used a middle name.
Ann’s oldest sibling, Rachel Williams may have
been christened on the 8th of May, 1820, in a small Parish called Llansamlet.
The village of Llansamlet
is about three miles south of modern-day Clydach. It is tempting to believe
Ann and Rachel may have been twins, both born about 1826. On the 1841
Wales Census, a possible entry is found for the girls in the Llangyfelach home of the John Thomas family. Both
girls were working as servants and both listed their ages as fifteen.
The age of the girls is most likely inaccurate. Misinformation may have
indicated either ignorance of the dates or distrust of English Census
takers.
The IGI lists another sibling, David, born about
1820. We cannot find any Census or birth records for David. He may
have died at a young age or perhaps was never a member of the Williams family
at all.
There was at least one more child born to David
and Rachel. His name was John, and he was probably born about 1828.
David, Rachel and John Williams are found living together on the 1841 Wales
Census for Rhyndwyclydach lower. David was
working at that time as a collier while John, age thirteen, was listed as a
laborer.
By the time the 1851 Wales Census was
enumerated, David Williams (last name appears as William), age 54 was found
living in the Lower Hamlet of Rhyndwyclydach.
He and Rachel, his wife, were living at part or port of Trebanos . His occupation was listed as rail
laborer. His son, John, age 23, living at home. John is working as
a collier. The 1851 Census often listed the parish where the citizens were
born. In the case of David and John, both were listed as having been born
in the Llangavelach
(Llangyfelach) Parish. Rachel, who was
fifty-two at the time of the census, had been born in Llanguicke
Parish (also Llangiwg),
a large Parish south and east of Llangyfelach.
At the time of the Census, Rhyndwyclydach was in the
Ecclesiastical Parish of St. Johns, Clydach.
During the time that the Williams family lived
and worked in Rhyndwyclydach, there was a militant
movement afoot to destroy toll booths for public highways. Between 1839
and 1843 there were a series of attacks on the King’s collection houses in
Carmarthen and other parts of South Wales . The toll booths were unpopular since they increased
the cost of transporting goods from market to consumer and most impacted the
poorest Welsh. Welsh men, often inebriated, would borrow clothing from
their wives. So disguised, they would gather on the street near the toll
booth until there were enough men to rush the booth and destroy it. The
media of the day called the actions ‘Rebecca Riots’ or Beca for short, since the men were
disguised as women. Welsh ministers found a scripture to justify the
actions of their parishioners.
The verse from Genesis reads:
And they blessed Rebekah, and said unto her…let thy seed
possess the gate of those which hate them.
Predictably, the riots were intensely popular
with working Welsh, and aggressively prosecuted by Parliament and local
constabulary. In 1843, the toll house at Bolgoed near Llangyfelach
was destroyed. Some of the local Beca leaders were arrested, but
convictions were hard to obtain, since Welsh witnesses quickly forgot their
testimonies.
In a place where each hamlet might have only a few hundred inhabitants, it is
likely that David Williams either participated in or knew the men involved in
the Rebecca Riots.
BRIDGEND
About 22 miles from Llangyfelach,
east and south along the coast is an area known as Bridgend. The area has
a scenic river running through it, the Ogmore (Ogwr), which
is still known for salmon fishing and a sea trout called sewin. A ruined Norman castle
looks over the River near Bridgend. The district borders the Swansea Bay on its western border.
Bridgend is less than two hundred miles southwest of London .
Bridgend district is between two large Welsh
cities, Swansea in the east and Cardiff to the south. Most of the local
citizens were employed in farming until coal was needed to fire the industrial
revolution during the seventeenth century. By the 1841 British Census,
about forty percent of the local population was employed in mining.
Tythegston Parish is
located in the area a few miles west of Bridgend (Pen-y-bont ar Ogwr) and just southeast of
Pyle. The name of the Parish is derived from the Welsh Llan-Dudwg.
It is situated about two miles from the Swansea Bay . There are two hamlets in the Parish: Tythegston higher which is sometimes included in the Kenfig (Cynffig) Hill
district and Tythegston lower. In the
mid-nineteenth century, there were about one hundred and sixty people living in
the upper hamlet, although Lewis states that there were almost eight hundred in
both Hamlets by 1849.
The 1841 Wales Census shows ninety-six people living in Lower
Tythegston .
Llan Dudwg Chapel still stands today.
It is a moss-covered stone building with a wall and a bell tower. It does
not appear to be in use for worship.
In the Kenfig Hill
area was a fine coal mine, which produced high-quality coal suitable for
smelting iron. About a quarter mile away was an ironworks producing
galvanized iron for building. The proximity of good iron deposits, coal
of high quality and clay suitable for brick provided ample work opportunities
around Pyle. This encouraged workers from other areas in Wales
to move to Pyle in the mid-1850’s. In 1833,
Lewis writes that there was a railroad running from Tythegston
to Porthcawl
harbor, which was used to transport ore and brick to distant sites.
Our Davis family,
who was known by the surname David or David’s in Wales , lived at Tranch, a stone quarry
located between Tythegston and Pyle. Jenkin David was a
laborer, probably working in a mine or iron works. He had married Mary,
probably Mary Lewis sometime before 1805. The marriage does not appear to
have taken place in Tythegston. Family records
claim that they were married in Llangyfelach in1799,
but we could not find the marriage record. They had at least five
children together.
They were: David, christened 16 February, 1805, and who probably died
before 1811; Mary, christened 23 April 1806; Ann, christened 18 December 1808;
David, christened 25 October, 1811; and Evan, christened 29 August, 1814 or 25
March, 1823.
Other children have been attributed to the family.
The IGI lists five more children born between 1817 and 1825; however,
the christenings for the children were all done at different Parish churches in
Glamorganshire. We think that it is unlikely that all of the attributed
children were born to our David family. British Census records in 1841
show Evan living alone with his mother, perhaps in the household of an older brother
or cousin named Thomas.
Some sources have Evan being born in Twynyrodyn, but we cannot find any evidence to support this
claim. Perhaps he or others in the family spent time working there before
he died. In the LDS Swansea Branch records, an entry for a John Williams,
not our John Williams, has a reference to Twynyrodyn.
When Evan’s wife, Ann Williams, had temple work done for Evan, the recorder
wrote “Teddington”
as his birth place. One Welsh language expert conceded that this could
possibly be a poorly spelled, anglicized version of the Welsh place-name Tythegston.
A christening record exists for an Evan David,
son of Jenkin
and Mary Lewis David, which states that Evan was christened in a Bethel
Calvinistic Methodist Church. The odd part is that the Christening took
place at Llangyfelach, birth Parish of Ann
Williams. The record was extracted from original records, so there is a
high level of confidence in its accuracy. The same record states that
Evan’s birth date was 25 March, 1823 .
The two possible conclusions that can be drawn are first, that this record is
for a completely different David family, or second, that Evan was born in Tythegston and that his family moved within a few months of
his birth to Llangyfelach Parish. 1851 Census
records for Evan support a birth year of 1823. We are reasonably
confident from the Census records that Evan believed his birth place was Tythegston. We like the idea that Evan’s family moved
to Llangyfelach after he was born and that they
became acquainted with the Williams family there. They had some type of
connection to Llangyfelach, perhaps extended family
members or work ties that we have not found.
Although none of Evan’s other siblings were
christened at the Methodist
Church , one brother, Edward, was christened there in 1817.
On the 1841 British Census, Evan David is found
living with his mother, Mary David in Tythegston.
He is fifteen years old, born in Glamorgan. His
father, Jenkin
David has most likely died prior to the taking of the Census.
They are apparently living with the Thomas and Martha David’s family, being
listed at the end of the family group. They are living in Tranch. Evan was working as a collier and his
mother’s occupation was illegible. Tranch was a site with a
large stone quarry, parts of which remained in operation until the twentieth
century. Presumably there were residential areas near the quarry with an
assortment of farmers and miners living in cottages. Tranch
is located about midway between Bridgend and Kenfig
Hill.
THE HAPPY COUPLE
Evan David registered for marriage in early
summer of 1846.
He had proposed marriage to Ann Williams, and the couple was married on the 16th
of May, 1846 at the Tythegston Parish
Church .
Some sources have the couple married in 1846 at Merthyr Tydfil , for which date and place we find no evidence.
The couple may have met when one or the other
family moved to find work. It is possible that Evan went to work in Llangyfelach at either the coal mine or the copper
works. The couple was married, however, in Tythegston.
So the reverse is more likely true, that is, Ann’s family went to Bridgend
district to work. The move meant traveling a distance of less than
twenty-five miles. There were increasingly better work opportunities at
the mines and mills in the Bridgend district.
Evan would continue to work as a coal miner near
Kenfig Hill, also known as Tythegston
higher. The couple would have four children of whom we find record; John
Williams, born in Tythegeston on19 February, 1847,
Rachel, born in Tythegeston on 21 March, 1849, Mary,
born in 1852 probably in Tythegston and who died
there the same year and Mary Ann, born in Margam
about six miles north of Kenfig Hill on 7 September,
1854.
By 1851, Evan and Ann were still living in Tythegston higher at Kenfig
down. They had two children at the time: John, who was four years
old and Rachel, who was two years old on the Census. Evan was working as
a collier, probably at nearby Kenfig Down.
There are two boarders living with the family with the surname of Thomas.
These could be cousins of Ann, whose mother’s surname was Thomas.
At first glance, we thought that their next-door
neighbor was John Williams, brother of Ann. Ann’s brother John, however,
was living at the time of the Census with his parents in Rhyndwyclydach.
There are several other David families living in Tythegston
Higher who could be siblings of Evan, namely David and Jane David of Kenfig Down and Thomas and Martha David of Stormy Place .
In 1854, the family was living at Margam, a Parish and town near the coast in the Bridgend
district. Margam the village is about six miles
north of Kenfig Hill. Margam
Parish would be the birthplace of Mary Ann Davis.
The parish is large enough that is impossible to know which of the small towns
or villages she was born in. It is possible that the birth happened while
Ann was visiting friends or relatives; however, it is more likely that the
family had moved there following employment opportunities. It is also
possible that the family had moved less than a mile from their previous home,
but enough to reside in the Margam Parish.
By the time the 1861 Wales Census was
enumerated, Evan David had died. Family records and the IGI show that he
died on 3 February, 1856 in Tythegston. We could not,
however, find an official record of his death or burial. The 1861 Census
shows Ann David, age thirty-four as the head of house, and her marital status
as Widow. She is still living in Kenfig Hill,
and all three of her living children were at home. John, who was
fourteen, was employed at the coal pit. Rachel, ten years old and Mary
Ann, six years old, were at home.
The family did not appear to be living at the same address as in the 1851
Census. They were living at Kenfig Hill,
possibly because John was working at the mine there. Ann was working as a
grocer.
MORMON MISSIONARIES IN GLAMORGAN
Mormon Missionaries had arrived in Wales by 1840, with a small Welsh branch being
established in Monmouth on the border of Wales
and England . The work proceeded slowly until the arrival in 1846
to Merthyr of the great missionary, Dan Jones.
Jones organized the Welsh missions and flooded the area with Welsh-language
pamphlets. By 1848, Mormons in South Wales
numbered nearly two thousand. Within the next few years, missionaries
would baptize almost one hundred and fifty Welsh converts a month. Nearly
everyone in Wales
had heard of the Mormons; many had family and friends who had joined the Church.
New convert-missionaries were called and sent out to visit most of the towns
and villages in Glamorgan.
According to IGI records, Ann Williams was
baptized a member of the Mormon Church on her birthday, Christmas Eve, 1849.
Her husband, Evan, had been baptized earlier in June of the same year.
Unfortunately, we have not been able to find a record of their early Church
activity. They would have been living in the Bridgend district at the
time. The records for the Church Branches in the area where she lived are
either lost or incomplete. Surviving records of the Conferences held in
the near vicinity do not mention either of their names.
Evan died in Wales in February of 1856 at the
age of forty-two. He was probably buried at or near Tythegston,
although we were not able to find a record of interment. It is possible
that the family was living in the Margam Parish when
Evan and his daughter, Mary, died. The two Parishes are contiguous and
both are in the Bridgend District.
It is hard to know for sure where Ann and the
children went after Evan died. We know that they were living at Kenfig Hill during the 1861 Census. It is reasonable
to assume that they had remained in the Bridgend District after Evan
died. John had employment working as a coal miner, so he would have been
the provider for the family, perhaps working at the same mine as his father
had. At some point in time, Ann moved to Swansea , some fifteen miles northwest from Tythegeston
and six miles south of Llangyfelach. When the
emigration information was recorded in the Emigration Records for the European
Mission, the family was living with a missionary named Philip Dell in Swansea .
In an attempt to find membership records for Ann
and the children, we searched the LDS Branch records for Swansea in the period mentioned above.
There were possible entries for Mary Ann and John, but the data was
inconclusive.
EMIGRANTS TO AMERICA
By early in 1866, Ann Davis had decided to take
her family to Zion . Her desire to emigrate was undoubtedly fueled
primarily by a deep faith in the teachings of the missionaries. They
stressed that converts should go to Zion , which included Utah
and a few surrounding States. In Zion ,
families could live with other Mormons in peace and with less persecution.
In addition, she believed that economic conditions for her family would improve
dramatically in America
. There, she could hope to own property and earn enough to live
comfortably.
In April of 1866, Ann made application to
Brigham Young, Jr., who was then President of the European Mission, for
permission to immigrate to America
with the Saints.
A formal notification was sent back out to the family, who was living in the
same household as a missionary named Philip Dell.
The emigration book says that the family had acknowledged the notification of
their travel plans by April 20th. The last name of the family
is recorded in the book as Davis .
Shortly after acknowledging the notification,
Ann probably sold all of her belongings that she could not take to America . She probably had some furniture, house items and
linens that could be sold. Rachel and John had been saving their wages
from working as a servant and coal miner. Emigration records indicate that Ann
was able to pay three Pounds Sterling in cash
for her ticket to America
. John paid one pound towards his fare; Rachel was able to pay a
bit more, two Pounds, six Shillings. The rest of the money seems to have
been paid by the Swansea Mission Conference. After Mary Ann’s name, an
entry for twelve Pounds two Shillings is made, with the annotation that the
money had been paid by the Swansea Conference.
The total amount paid as deposit was eighteen Pounds and six Shillings.
Since the average minimum cost for the trip was over twenty Pounds Sterling , the total amount paid seems to be short by several
Pounds. The shortfall is compounded by the fact that there would have
also been a fee for railway tickets from Swansea
to Liverpool . At the end of the entry for Ann’s family is written
10” 18” 0”. Perhaps this was the amount the family borrowed from the
British Mission and from donations from members. Although Ann did not
have much in the way of possessions, she sold everything she had to come to Zion .
They traveled to Liverpool
by Rail. The rail tickets had been purchased either by Ann or John or
perhaps with help from the Swansea Conference. They probably traveled
with other Mormon emigrants and perhaps a few missionaries returning to Utah . They would have arrived in Liverpool
late in April.
It is unlikely that they had ever traveled far
beyond their homes; perhaps only to Merthyr Tydfil or Swansea .
It is hard to imagine what they thought of the bustling busy city of Liverpool . The streets were noisy, filled with shoppers,
emigrants and English beggars. They were advised to be cautious of
thieves and pickpockets. They may have boarded in accommodations provided
by the Church. In past years, the Missionaries had rented a music hall
for the emigrants to stay in.
At last the day arrived, and the group moved
their belongings on to the ship John Bright. One account states
that the ship was flying a flag indicating that it would depart on time or
perhaps a bit early.
The ship was tethered in the River Mersey, and most likely, the passengers were
allowed to move their belongings on board a day or two before departure.
The passengers were ferried from dock to ship by smaller boats. The
weather was cold and there was snow falling on the day of the departure.
The passengers received accommodations according
to their “nationality, price of passage, etc“.
The passengers were assigned to the upper, middle or lower decks, all of which
apparently could accommodate steerage passengers. For at least one
emigrant, the passage was more expensive than anticipated. William Grant
wrote that he had to give his last several pounds for the cost of his fare,
which left him with inadequate funds for supplies. After he had made the
payment for the passage, his faith is manifest by the statement that he made
“(the ticket fees)…left me without a penny to sustain me and family on such a
perilous journey to the Far West but I must go
at any risk.”
Of the more than seven hundred Mormon emigrants,
all but two traveled in steerage. Only the two returning missionaries, Collins
Gillet and Stephen Alley, traveled in cabin class.
The name steerage may be derived from the fact that the cables used to steer
the ship often ran through the compartment. It could also be that the
name comes from the fact that cattle had previously been transported on the
same deck. Regardless of the origin of the name, conditions were
austere. The height of the deck was from six to eight feet. The
double-decker bunks were usually oriented parallel to the long axis of the ship
to allow less rolling in heavy seas. Each bunk was designed to sleep
three or four persons. The bunks were stuffed with straw, and each
passenger was expected to bring their own quilts and blankets. Lice and
flees were frequent bed companions on the voyage. In an effort to control
vermin, the ship’s crew would walk through the hold with a smoker every few
days. There was little space between bunks; perhaps a foot or two to
allow passage. The fore and aft sections of the ship may have had tables
fixed to the floor where the passengers could eat in shifts. Men and
women were not separated, and families were expected to sleep together.
Ventilation and daylight were limited to the deck hatches, which had to be
closed in rough weather. Some ships were heated, but most were not.
The passengers would have worn their heavy clothes day and night. There
may have been a “saloon”, an area where tea and coffee could be served, but
most of the cooking was done on deck. First-class ticket-holders were
unlikely to mix much with steerage passengers.
There were about 750 Mormons on board the ship.
One hundred and seventy six were Scandinavian, the rest were from the British Isles
. The John Bright was an American ship, about twelve years
old. She was a large vessel, displacing 1444 tons and measuring 192 feet
in length. There were three decks.
It would appear that all of the decks were used for passenger transport,
unusual in that earlier ships had used the lower deck to transport cargo.
Perhaps the ship had been designed to be a three-tiered passenger
carrier. The ship had already brought one group of Mormon immigrants to
the United States
before. The Captain was W. L. Dawson, by all descriptions a fair-minded
and honest man.
The Mormons on the ship were presided over by
Collins Moore Gillet, an Elder of the Church who was
returning to Utah from a mission to Yorkshire
. Sadly, Gillet would never again see Utah . He died suddenly after a one-day fever on the
Pioneer Trail near Fort Kearney , Nebraska .
Gillet would organize the Mormons into two wards.
Each ward would alternate responsibility for the two meals prepared each
day. Since there were over seven hundred passengers, the two meals took
nearly the whole day to prepare and serve. As soon as the clean-up from
breakfast was done, dinner was cooked and served. Water was rationed, and
was distributed by the ward in charge for the day. Water rations were
dealt out beginning at 5:30 am .
Among the passengers on the John Bright
was a nine year-old English orphan. His father had been an alcoholic and
his mother had traveled to Utah
a few years earlier. His name was Brigham H. Roberts, and he would
eventually rise to prominence in the Mormon Church as an author, General
Authority and Mission President. His works included The Comprehensive
History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the
more controversial Studies of the Book of Mormon, published
posthumously. He wrote a detailed account of the John Bright
voyage, some of which we will quote later.
The ship was towed down the River by the steamer
called Constitution on April 30th, 1866
. After reaching a point called the Black Rock, the ship’s sails
were unfurled and they moved into the Irish Sea .
For a few days, the ship sailed with favorable
winds toward and around Ireland
. Since the ship was sailing for New York City , they most likely
would have sailed north past the Isle of Man and into the narrow channel
between Ireland and Scotland
. After passing the channel, they were in the North Atlantic . Just
off the coast of Ireland
the ship was seized by a terrible storm. For three days, the waves
pitched the ship while rain and snow fell on the deck. The ship made very
little progress, and was perhaps blown back towards Ireland . The Captain ordered all of the hatches closed, and
passengers were forced to stay below deck. Many were terribly
seasick. The stench of vomit, spilled chamber pots and stale air was
pungent. The passengers were unable to cook, so lived on stale biscuits
provided by the crew. The pitching and rolling of the ship made sleep
difficult.
B. H. Roberts wrote of the storm:
The roughness of the seas compelled the shutting
down of the hatches.
and as all the people were compelled to be mewed up
below deck,
life at sea was gloomy, and the tossing of the vessel
made nearly all
of the
passenger(s) heartily seasick. Food could not be served and
there was
much
pounding of dry hard sea biscuits, washed down with
water
already becoming putrid…
The ship survived the storm well, and soon the
voyage was resumed. The weather gradually improved over the next few
weeks, and soon the passengers were looking forward to seeing terra firma.
There were several events of interest that occurred on board. First, a
young couple was married during the voyage. There were three births
during the trip, and only one death, that of a yellow canary who was buried at
sea without ceremony.
There was a brass band aboard the ship.
One emigrant, William Grant, had his cornet, which was used to call the Saints
to morning prayers. Grant also organized a choir on board, which
performed regularly in the evenings and during church services. There
were three or four dances on board during the journey. The music was
especially appreciated during the storm.
By the end of May, the passengers were looking
forward to arriving at Castle Garden in New
York. Castle
Garden was the point of entry into the
United States
for immigrants from 1849 until 1890. Ellis Island
would resume the processing of immigrants in 1892. Castle
Garden , also known as Castle Clinton, was built during the War of
1812 to protect New York
harbor from British Warships. After the War, the fort was decommissioned
and used as a theater and public center. Some of the most famous and controversial
performers of the day appeared at the Castle. By 1849, the fort was being
used as an immigration center. In forty years of operation, the center
processed more than eight million immigrants. It is said that of all
native-born Americans in the United States
today, one in six has an ancestor who passed through Castle Garden . Sadly, some of the records of the emigrants were
destroyed in a dock fire.
Many Eastern European Jews passed through the Center. There is a word in
Yiddish which means “confused, chaotic or noisy.” The word is kesselgarden.
The Mormon group was taken into Castle Garden
at about noon on June 7th. A pilot boat would have towed the John
Bright into the mouth of the Hudson River and up to Castle Garden . They remained at Castle Garden
until almost midnight . The immigrants would
have been waiting in the great hall until their names were called. They
would have been examined and questioned about their skills and ability to
survive in America
. They probably exchanged their meager foreign currency for
American dollars.
There is a good description of the scene at Castle Garden
from the New York Times in December of 1866. The article describes
the newly-arrived emigrants, walking with their boxes and trunks from the
docks. After storing their items in a luggage warehouse, they filed into
a huge room lit by a glass dome. They were seated to await the calling of
their names. One by one, each man, woman and child gave the registrar his
name, place of birth, age and occupation. A director would later address
the crowd, offering the Castle as a place of temporary refuge. They were
instructed on how to buy tickets for railway and steamer. They were
advised to avoid ‘scalpers’ or ‘runners’ who promised much and delivered
little. Those who were ill were referred to the State Hospital
for treatment. By early December of 1866, over 222,000 emigrants had
passed through Castle
Garden that year.
Ann and the children were listed by a registrar
in the passenger lists for the John Bright. Sandwiched between two
other Welsh families, we find entries for the Davies family; Ann, age
thirty-eight, a widow; John age nineteen, a male laborer; Mary A., age eleven,
a female and Rachel, age fifteen, a female spinster.
It would appear that our family was not particular about which of the various
versions of the last name ‘David’ other people applied to them.
After leaving Castle
Garden , the Mormons went by steamer into New York City at about 11 o’clock pm .
After being dropped off at the docks, they were left to make their way to
another dock two miles away on the Hudson
where a second steamer awaited them. They were able to buy food and
clothing items the next morning. One of the party, Caroline Hopkins
Clark, wrote that she bought some cheese and bread, which she thought very
‘precious’ at the rate of one pence. By ten o’clock AM. , the emigrants
had to arrive at the steamboat in the Hudson River .
To walk two miles over ten hours might not seem overly difficult, but the
emigrants were carrying boxes and trunks with all of their earthly
possessions. Elderly emigrants and young children had to be
assisted. The June weather was hot and humid in the City.
One emigrant, William Grant, wrote about his
walk across New York City :
We have all our children asleep and they must be
packed, besides
we have 8
or 10 parcels to go and I am loaded down like a horse…
Our load is far too heavy. Louisa has to walk and cries.
Mother packs
Lizzy… We cannot keep up and so we are lost in the
streets in New
York (City) at 11 p.m.
The emigrants all eventually arrived at the dock
where a steamer lay on the Hudson River and were
allowed to board. There was very little space on deck, so they were
allowed to sit or lie down wherever they could find space. William Grant,
who arrived late at the steamer, was forced to lie in the engine room, where
his family slept fitfully until 4 am the next day when the ship arrived.in New Haven , Connecticut
.
CROSSING THE UNITED STATES TO ZION
After five weeks on the ocean, the emigrants
from the John Bright had first glimpsed New York harbor on June 6th.
After passing through customs they traveled by steamer to New Haven ,
Connecticut , arriving there
early in the morning of June 9th. As they left the steamer,
they were immediately loaded on to a train, which headed north towards Canada . The company had pre-arranged transportation that
took them on a long and circuitous route to the American west. After the
first leg of the trip took them to New Haven , a distance of about 80 miles, they went on to Montreal , some 370 miles
to the north. From Montreal , they went south to Detroit
and then on to Chicago
, a distance of 800 miles. From Chicago , they went to Quincy
, Illinois , not far from Nauvoo
and a distance of over 300 miles. From Quincy , the group went
on to St. Joseph , Missouri , another 250 miles. In
total, the emigrants had covered over 1800 miles since they landed in New York . From St. Joseph , they traveled on to Wyoming
, Nebraska , which is about forty miles south
of Omaha
. They arrived in Wyoming
on June 19th. The group had averaged about one hundred and
sixty miles per day traveling by rail and steamboat.
Perhaps the reader is wondering how the Davis family, obviously
poor, could afford to travel such distances over sea and land. They had
likely expended their meager savings on passage to Liverpool
and for the fare on the John Bright. Most of the British travelers
had only a few Pounds or less left when they arrived in America . The answer is that the Davis family members were beneficiaries of
the Perpetual Emigration Fund.
The fund was established by the LDS
Church in the 1850’s to
aid emigrants in crossing the ocean and the plains. It helped thousands
of families travel to Zion .
The money was loaned with the expectation that the funds would be repaid with a
low rate of interest.
When the Mormons approached the Canadian border,
they learned that a war of sorts was being fought. Although it is little
known, there were a series of skirmishes after the Civil War on the Canadian
border. It seems that Irish-American soldiers, recently retired from both
the Union and Confederacy, had decided to
liberate their homeland from the rule of British soldiers. At first, this
so-called Fenian Brotherhood was intent on attacking
the British on Irish soil. They sought and received secret promises of
assistance from United
States president Andrew Johnson.
Probably thinking little would come of the movement, he originally agreed to
provide ship transport for the Fenian army to Ireland . Why would the President of the United States
support such a cause? The British were hated in the United States
for many abuses by the British Navy before and during the War of 1812.
Although officially neutral during the Civil War, the British had occasionally
attempted to aid the South with weapons. One incident in particular
inflamed both American and British sentiments.
Although the United States
had requested reparation for naval losses, the British had steadfastly
refused.
Eventually, the President realized that
supporting the Fenian Army could have dire
consequences for the United States
, still recovering from the bloody Civil War. He refused to
provide ships to transport the army to Ireland . Since the Fenians would
not be able to attack the British on Irish soil, they chose the next best
option. They decided to attack British Canada and establish military
bases from which they could move across the ocean to Ireland . They expected that once the shooting began, allies
would pour in from Mohawk tribes, French separatists and Irish Canadians.
To this end, the Fenians,
also called the Irish Republican Brotherhood, began to mass in northern New York State , Cleveland and Detroit . At one
time, they thought that they would have from fifteen to twenty thousand
soldiers. They purchased arms and a few cannon from surplus left after
the Civil War.
The United States
government was shocked to realize that this ragtag band of Irish troublemakers
might actually provoke an armed response from Great Britain . The President sent Union Generals Grant and Meade
with soldiers to the border, where they seized two arms shipments intended for
the Fenians. Undeterred, the Irish army moved
across the border and attacked a Canadian town on June 1st, 1866 . Grant then decided to seal the border, and soon
the bulk of the Irish army still on the U.S. side began to disperse back to
their homes. There were several other small battles on the border.
At one time, the Irish Republican Army flag flew over several Canadian
towns. Although they were out-maneuvered several times, ultimately, the
Canadians and British were able to beat back the invaders. Some of the
results for the Fenians, however, were
positive. Their effort brought attention to the cause of Irish liberation
and encouraged the formation, in Ireland , of the Irish Republican Army. As late as 1870 there
was still talk of an Irish invasion into Canada .
Independence for Ireland would not be realized until
late in the twentieth century.
When the Davis
family arrived at the border with Canada on June 9th, they saw
Redcoats patrolling the town.
At one point, the company was stopped and searched by soldiers looking for
firearms. As the group neared Montreal ,
the train that the emigrants were supposed to ride on was seized by the British
for transport of soldiers. Other than a few delays and inconveniences,
the group traveled safely through Canada
and re-entered the United States
near Niagara Falls
on June 11th.
Caroline Clark comments that some of the
emigrants were able to buy clothing in Canada, which they found to be very
cheap. Food, however, was expensive because of the border issues with the
Fenian War.
As the train crossed the US border near Niagara Falls , B.H. Roberts recalled that one of the travelers, whom he
describes as “insane”, escaped her guards and went running “wild in the
car”. Apparently the group was traveling in converted cattle cars, with
wooden benches to sit or lie on. The woman ran among the passengers,
eventually being recaptured by her minders.
While near the border, some of the passengers contracted measles. They
had been infected; perhaps while passing through customs at Castle Garden . There were a few deaths, one an older man who died
in Michigan , the other a baby who died near Chicago .
When the group arrived in Chicago , they slept one night in a freight warehouse. After
traveling in freight cars on the railway and staying in less than ideal
accommodations, they must have become tired of travel.
By June 14th, the group was in Quincy , Illinois
. Here, their thoughts, no doubt being led by the returning missionaries,
turned to Joseph Smith and Nauvoo. By June 15th, the group was
in St. Joseph , Missouri
. From here, they took a steamboat up the Missouri
towards Omaha . They were on the Missouri for about three days.
The destination of the group was a frontier town
south of Omaha called Wyoming . For the previous twenty-five years, the Mormons had
gathered at Florence or Kanesville
near Council Bluffs . From there, wagon companies had driven due west
until crossing the Platte River ,
which they then followed to Fort
Kearney .
The leaders of the Church decided to avoid the Council Bluffs area, instead embarking from Wyoming ,
Nebraska
. There were a number of reasons that the Church decided to avoid Omaha as a starting
place. First, Indian attacks had increased on the trail west of Omaha . The Sioux Indians had risen up against the Federal
Government in 1862, and hostilities continued through 1865, when the Arapaho
and Cheyenne
joined the war after the Sand Creek Massacre. The Nebraska
City route cut about forty miles of
dangerous Indian Territory from the
trip. Second, the outfitters in Omaha and Council Bluffs had begun
to charge unreasonably high prices for the goods needed by the emigrants.
In addition, Church leaders also wanted emigrants to avoid the increasing
numbers of apostate Mormons and Josephites that had
gathered near Council Bluffs .
Under
Brigham Young, the Utah Mormons had sought to become self-sufficient.
They
produced as many of the goods and services needed in Utah and the surrounding
States
as possible. There were still, however, certain items
they needed to buy from suppliers
on the east coast and in the south. Since the railroad
ended in Nebraska
City , they
decided to organize a gathering place near the
railhead.
Wanting
to avoid raucous Nebraska City ,
they chose a flat spot above the Missouri
River
about six miles north of Nebraska
City . There were probably never more than a
few permanent buildings in Wyoming , perhaps a home for the emigration
agent,
Joseph W. Young and a few corrals for livestock. In
1855, there may have been a few
tent businesses including a saloon, sawmill and blacksmith.
Today, nothing remains
of the site except for a historical marker and a cemetery
with about a hundred graves.
While
studying in Omaha , we drove between Omaha and
Nebraska City several times
without seeing any sign of Wyoming
.
We have a photograph of the emigrant Mormons as
they gathered in Wyoming , Nebraska
. Charles Savage
published a Carte-de-visite
(post card size) photo of the Mormon camp. It shows a number of makeshift
tents, some clearly improvised with available materials. There were
covered wagons circled in the background.
The photograph could very possibly show the tent of the Davis family.
In early spring starting in 1861, Brigham Young
would call for volunteers to drive wagons east along the Mormon Trail. He
would load the wagons with flour and preserved goods which were dropped off at
stations along the trail. These supplies would be used by emigrants on
the return trip. When the wagons reached Wyoming , Nebraska, they were loaded with the goods shipped from
other parts of the United States
to Utah and
personal items from the emigrants. The wagons were loaded with as much as
one thousand pounds of merchandise each. In return for their service, the
teamsters were paid by the Church or received tithing credits. These
wagon trains were called “down and back” or “out and back” companies.
There may have been as many as twelve thousand Mormon emigrants who arrived in Utah through this method
in the six or seven years that the Church used the “down and back” Companies.
The Davis family
arrived in Wyoming , Nebraska
on June 19th.
The wagon train was not yet organized, so the group had to make camp by
whatever means possible. They were unimpressed by Wyoming , a frontier town with few amenities. Some of the
families lived in makeshift tents made from sheets and willow poles.
The daytime heat varied from oppressive to chilly, as frequent thunderstorms
soaked the unprotected travelers. They had not before seen thunderstorms
like those in Nebraska , and remarked on the violence of the storms. They
were uneasy about the Indians they saw camped on the Missouri
River .
One emigrant was fascinated by the flying insects which made “sparks of fire”.
The emigrants were probably approached in Wyoming by Joseph W.
Young. Young, a nephew of President Brigham Young, had been appointed
emigration agent for the Church in eastern Nebraska . He would have interviewed each family, informing
them that the cost of safe transport to Utah
would be about sixty dollars per person. If the emigrant did not have the
cash available, he would have asked them to sign a contract in which he agreed
to repay the money to the Church with interest.
Since Ann Davis was illiterate and probably had limited business experience,
she may have been unaware of the significance of the terms of the
contract.
Once they had arrived in Nebraska , the
emigrants were eager to move on to the Salt Lake Valley . They would have to wait
just over two weeks before the wagon train would be ready to depart. The
teamsters were either Utah
boys or returning missionaries from the various missions of the Church.
The Captain of the Wagon Train was to be Thomas E. Ricks.
Ricks had crossed the plains many times
before. Born in Kentucky ,
he and his family were followers of Alexander Campbell. (Sidney Rigdon
was also a Campbellite) When the Ricks family heard Mormon missionaries
preach, they were converted and soon after moved to Nauvoo. While in
Nauvoo, teen-aged Thomas E. Ricks helped build the Nauvoo Temple.
After Nauvoo fell, his family crossed Iowa
to live at Winter Quarters. They were assigned to trek to the Salt Lake
Valley with a pioneer
company led by Heber C. Kimball in 1848. Just a few days after the party
had moved west, Indians stole some stock from the Mormon company. Ricks
and a few other young men from the company pursued the Indians on
horseback. Unfortunately, the Indians gained the advantage, and in the
gunfight that ensued, Ricks was wounded by a bullet and two shotgun
pellets.
Ricks would eventually make five more treks back
to the Salt Lake Valley , most of them to aid emigrant pioneers. He was one
of the men called on in 1856 to rescue the frozen Martin Handcart Company in Wyoming . By 1866, Ricks was uniquely qualified to lead the
green pioneers to Zion .
The wagons gathered on the trail near Wyoming ,
Nebraska
. There were forty-six wagons in the group and two hundred and fifty-one
passengers. By 1866, the Mormons had over twenty-five years of experience
on the trail. The wagon trains were well supplied with food, and were
manned with experienced teamsters and stock handlers, many of whom were young
ranchers from Utah . One of the passengers from the Ricks Company wrote
in her autobiography “we had quite a plenty of food and clothing and did not
suffer as many companies did coming to Utah .”
The company did accept a few non-emigrant
travelers who wished to accompany them. According to historical accounts
of the trip, Ricks allowed a man named Charles R. Savage to ride with
them. Savage was a photographer-journalist who was compiling a book about
the overland trails. Savage was also an English Mormon convert who had
been to Utah
several times. He had acquired a reputation in the new art of
photography. He would later open a studio in Salt Lake City , from which he would photograph many leaders of the Mormon
Church, Ute Indians and prominent citizens. His description of the camp
and activities is very interesting, and we will share more of it later.
A second group of travelers later requested the
privilege of traveling with the Ricks Company. They wanted to join the
wagon train near Fort
Kearney . Captain Ricks arrived to question the leader of the
small group in person. When Ricks asked the name of the man, he replied,
not truthfully, that his name was Alex Hale. Because of the Indian
troubles, the soldiers stationed at the fort would not allow the Hale party to
travel west unless they went with a larger group. Since the Mormon
companies were large and well-armed, smaller groups liked to tag along when
possible. Ricks told Hale that he could join the Mormon group if he would
pay ten dollars for supplies and herding fees. Hale refused, and
apparently complained to the soldiers at the fort. The Captain of the
Fort threatened to send a company of soldiers with the Mormon company, which would
have required Ricks to feed and care for the soldiers. Ultimately, Ricks
agreed to allow the Hale party to follow the Mormon Company.
After a number of days on the trail, word had
circulated that members of the Hale group were either apostate Mormons or Josephites because of their prayer habits. A short
time later, Hale was approached by Thomas Ricks. Ricks asked him a few
questions, and Hale reluctantly revealed that he was, in fact, Alexander Hale
Smith, son of Joseph Smith, Jr. Alexander Smith would later serve several
missions for the Reorganized
LDS Church ,
be called as an apostle, and serve as their Presiding Patriarch. Ricks
allowed the Hale group to remain with the company. Alexander went all the
way to Salt Lake City , where he was greeted by his cousin, John Smith, who was
Patriarch of the Utah
Church . Like
Savage, Smith gave a number of commentaries on the trip and the members of the
company. Some of his remarks seem overly biased against the “Brighamites” in favor of the Reorganized Church
. He also seems to expect that the Mormons would pay him natural
reverence because of his last name, and seemed taken aback when they did not.
Part of the company moved out from the trailhead
on July fourth.
Their wagon train was the first Mormon group to leave that year from Wyoming , and nine more trains would follow. They moved
slowly at first to give the emigrants time to become accustomed to the
journey. After a few days, the party fell into a strict routine.
The goal was to cover about twenty to twenty-five miles each day. We will
quote from Charles Savage, who recorded the following in 1867:
About five o’clock the bugle…is sounded to call
up the passengers to
prepare their breakfast. About six o’clock all
hands are called for
prayers; that duty over, preparations are then made to
roll out; the caravan
then travels until about half past eleven or twelve
o’clock, then dinner is
prepared, and at two o’clock the journey is resumed,
and another camp
is made about six o’clock. The night-herders
then take charge of the herd,
and drive them to a good feeding-ground for the night;
supper is then pre-
pared, then prayers by the night campfires, and the
orders for the next day’s
travel are given by the captain, which winds up the
day’s journey; guards
are then
placed around the camp, who are expected to keep a sharp lookout
for any
sneaking red-skins.
As the time for departure became closer, the
emigrants found the blazing sun nearly unbearable. The thunderstorms
continued frequently, soaking the travelers and blowing unsecured property
away. A few of the emigrants were left behind in Nebraska because they were ill.
Everyone was nervous about Indians.
It would appear that the emigrants were
organized on the trail over a five-mile distance during the first four
days. On Sunday, July 8th, the Company moved almost eighteen
miles, the first time that they had covered such a distance. The next Monday,
they covered twenty-four miles. The heat made some ill, but they were
given strong tea and told to keep walking. On July 14th, they
came across a wagon left by the side of the trail. The occupants of the
wagon had been attacked by Indians. Four men were dead and two women had
been carried off. The Company continued to move at a regular pace of
between ten and twenty-five miles per day.
The first few times that the Company forded the Platte River
were the most dangerous for the emigrants. It was not unusual that the
River would claim some items from the wagons, and occasionally, an entire wagon
and contents were lost in the high, swift water. Emigrants were not
always allowed time to dry off after the crossings, pressing ahead in wet
clothing. The emigrants were not used to this type of hardship, and they
complained that the “ Utah
boys” driving the wagons were coarse and uncaring. They would soon
learn the wisdom in keeping the wagons moving together to avoid Indian
attack. During this time, the emigrants were fully aware that each cloud
of dust or spiral of smoke on the horizon could mean enemy Indians. They
were comforted by the hymn Come, Come Ye Saints, and
frequently sang this and other hymns in the evenings. Fevers among
travelers were common, and often beset the company. Some died within days
of the onset of the fever.
On the 21st of July, they came upon a
wagon company that had small pox. There were a few wagons at the side of
the road which had been detained. The Mormon Company was ordered to avoid
all contact with the sick, and to pass by without helping those along the
trail.
Some of the teamsters, the “ Utah boys” would hunt at
the end of the day, providing the Company with antelope and buffalo meat.
Frequent encounters with Indians were for the most part friendly.
Evenings often ended with music and dancing,
according to the Smith party. Vida Smith, biographer of Alexander Smith,
wrote that after evening prayers, old and young gathered to the violins and
indulged in dancing. The leaders were strict about ending the dance at
ten o’clock , with lights out twenty minutes later.
There would be eight deaths as the party moved
along the trail. All were buried at the side of the trail. There
were also two marriages and three baptisms during the journey.
Although there were wagons to carry the household
goods of the emigrant, most of the wagons were too heavily loaded to carry
passengers. Most of the emigrants were asked to walk during the
nine-hundred miles to Salt Lake City .
One of the travelers, Ann Marriott, kept a daily journal during the trip.
The journal description is remarkable for the lack of perceived crisis.
Day after day, she comments about the weather, the number of miles walked and
the condition of herself and the other passengers. Although there were
Indians along the trail, they apparently caused few problems. She does
comment about the deaths of the young children and older emigrants, but seems
to accept the deaths as a normal part of the journey.
By the end of July, the Company was at Chimney
Rock in western Nebraska . Although they were footsore and tired, the Company
had ample food and shelter. They dreaded the inevitable river
crossings. What a strange world this must have seemed to the Welsh and
English. Their world had changed from wooded hills and green pastures to
empty acres so dry that sagebrush hardly grew. They had moved from
densely packed cities to prairies devoid of civilized populations. Ann
Marriot marveled at the snow-covered mountains, clearly higher and steeper than
anything seen in Great Britain
.
On August 3rd, the men were lined up
and their firearms checked. The soldiers told the men that they should
have the firearms ready in case of trouble. This may have been while they
were passing Fort Laramie in eastern Wyoming . Parties of soldiers and Indians were seen
frequently on the trail at this point.
The Davis
family had been assigned to a wagon and a teamster. The rolls of the
wagon company identify Ann Williams Davis, age thirty-seven and John Davis, age
twenty-one. The girls, however, are identified as Mary Ann and Rachael
Davis or Griffiths.
As to why there would be confusion over their last
name, we cannot say. There were some other children named Griffiths , and the girls may have been with that family when the
roll was taken. There is no family record of a marriage that might have
changed the children’s last names. The girls were twelve and seventeen
years old respectively. The confusion persists when the names of the
members of the company are published in the Deseret News. The
children are identified as Mary A., Rachael and John Griffiths. They are
listed immediately after Ann Davis.
Late in August, the company reached the Salt Lake
Valley . As they entered the Valley, the emigrants were
encouraged to walk in front of the wagons until they reached the Tithing Office
in downtown Salt Lake City .
The company was halted until all the wagons were together. They emerged
from Emigration Canyon and walked west down 300
South. As a light rain fell, residents of the City stood along the route
watching and cheering the emigrants.
The Tithing Office was located east of Temple Square . Some Temple walls
and the foundation may have been visible, although the Temple would not be completed for another
thirty years. Walls of the Tabernacle, on which building began in 1864,
would have been visible, and the bowery would have still been standing south of
the Tabernacle. Near the Tithing Office, there was a patch of bare ground
used as a corral for livestock donations, approximately where the Hotel Utah
now stands. The emigrants were told to make camp here. While in
camp, they were visited by Bishop Edward Hunter, Presiding Bishop of the
Church, and his counselors. The Bishop attended to the needs of the
emigrants, probably giving them food and materials from the Bishop’s
Storehouse. The emigrants arrived at the Tithing Office on August 29th,
1866 . Many met friends and relatives, and all
enjoyed the “creature comforts”, which we assume included bathing, resting and
eating fresh fruits and vegetables.
While in Salt
Lake City ,
the emigrants may have been re-baptized. There is a cynical reference to
the practice made by Alexander Smith’s biographer. Emigrants were
encouraged to be re-baptized, perhaps as a sign that they accepted Brigham
Young as the prophet and spiritual leader of the Church. The practice was
also likely an attempt to formalize Church records, many of which were still in
the mission field.
SETTLING IN ZION
The group was encouraged to travel north to the Cache Valley
by Church leaders. Many of the passengers, especially the Welsh, probably
had friends and family members who lived in Brigham City , Logan
or the new settlements in southern Idaho
.
The company moved north within a short time of
arriving in the Valley, perhaps within a few weeks. They may have used
the same wagons and may even have been led by Captain Ricks, who would settle
in the Cache Valley
before moving on to Canada
and eastern Idaho . At least one of the families arrived in the Cache Valley
by September 15th, 1866 .
I believe, but cannot prove, that Ann took the
children to Brigham City
in Box Elder County. There would have been a Welsh-speaking Mormon
community there, and undoubtedly friends or relatives from the old
country. The Federal Census records from 1870 fail to locate anyone named
Ann Davis in either Box Elder County or Oneida
County in Idaho Territory . We have a few ideas, however, as to what happened to the
family after they had arrived in northern Utah Territory .
The first clue comes on a search of the Census
records for Box Elder County of the Utah
Territory . We found an entry for a Rachel Davis, age twenty,
who is living in Corrine and working as a domestic servant. She is found
listed with the Francis and Adaline Smith family, and
there are several other servants living with the family. The census for
this area of Box Elder County was enumerated on the 18th of June, 1870 .
The second clue comes from the same Census record,
where a John Davis is found, age twenty-three, living in Corinne with the
Samuel and Ellen Howe family. His occupation is listed as “driving
team”. As with the Smith family, there are a number of other individuals
working for the family as servants. The census for this area was
enumerated on June 21st of 1870.
Samuel Howe was a member of the original Corrine
City Council. He was also the Captain of the Steamship
City of Corrine, a boat
built by investors to make short trips to Salt
Lake City to haul passengers and freight.
The entries for both John and Rachel are correct
for age, but list England as
the birth place for Rachel and Pennsylvania
for the birth place of John. We feel, however, that the entries are
probably for our Rachel and John. We do not have great confidence in the
data entered on the census for the two Davis
siblings. Both entries follow entries for others born in England and Pennsylvania . They were probably working in Corinne for people
who were relatively well-off and non-Mormon.
If this is our Rachel and John Davis, they would
have been exposed to rabid anti-Mormon sentiment. Corrine was founded by
non-Mormon business owners and former Union Army officers in 1868, who promoted
Corrine as the “Gentile Capitol of Utah”. The town was located on the
intersection of the Union Pacific Railroad tracks with the Bear
River .
The intent was to establish a commercial shipping center which would monopolize
loading of freight produced by Mormon businesses in Utah and shipped via rail and water.
From the start, Corrine was a painful bur under
the broad saddle of Brigham Young. The town council passed ordinances
prohibiting polygamy and regulating saloons and gaming houses. Perhaps
the worst offender was the Corrine newspaper, The Utah Reporter.
Simply having a newspaper that was not under the control of Church leaders
brought back memories of the Nauvoo Expositor and the disastrous results
of the press in that City.
It is fairly safe to say that nearly all
residents of Corrine were non-Mormon in 1870. Within less than ten years,
Brigham Young would sponsor a new rail spur from Ogden
to Franklin , Idaho
. The new route cut off Corrine as a freight center for goods shipped to
and from Montana . Most of the Corrine non-Mormons sold their property
to local Mormon residents when it became obvious that the non-Mormon business
enterprise would not prosper.
After locating Rachel and John in Corrine, we
began to search for Ann Williams Davis. The names Ann Williams or Ann
Davis did not appear on any census records for Northern Utah or Southern Idaho
. Mary Ann Davis was equally hard to locate.
The next clue came as we continued to search the
1870 Census records for Oneida County in the Idaho Territory . We began with the assumption that family records
were correct for Mary Ann Davis; that is, that she had married about 1873 to a
man named William Aldridge. Instead, we found that Mary Ann was listed as
a member of the Aldridge household on the 1870 Census. The census shows a
sixteen year-old Mary Ann listed immediately after William Aldridge, who was
twenty-seven years old at the time. Her last name is not listed.
Most of the last names of family members were indicated by a slash to show that
their name was the same as the person above. For Mary Ann, she is not
indicated as being named either Davis or Aldridge. It is possible that
she was merely working as a domestic servant for William, but her employment
was listed as ‘keeping house’, a common notation for housewives.
This seemed to answer the question of where Mary
Ann was living in1870; however, census entries can be deceiving. As we
studied the entry mentioned above for Mary Ann Davis, we noticed that
immediately above the William Aldridge household, there is an entry for an Ann
Aldridge, wife of David Aldridge. Her birth date and location roughly
match those of Ann Davis.
At first glance, it seemed that Ann Williams Davis had also married into the
Aldridge household. The Census enumeration for the Malad Valley was done on August 16th,
1870 . Judging from the names of neighbors, the
Aldridge families were living in what would become Cherry Creek Ward about four
miles south of Malad City .
The final clue came with a third perusal of the
1870 Federal Census for Idaho
Territory . Family records indicated that Ann Williams had
married Lewis Jones, a widowed Welsh emigrant from Llangyfelach
Parish. As we searched the records, we found the Jones family living in Malad
City . Our Ann is listed as the spouse of Lewis
Jones. There can be no doubt that this is the correct entry for Ann
Williams Davis Jones. She is listed with the correct age and
birthplace. Even more convincing is the listing of two of her three
children, John and Mary Ann, along with their correct ages and birthplaces,
although they used Jones as their last names. The third child, Rachel,
may have also been listed, although the name “Richard Jones” is given for her
and she is designated as a male. His (her) age and birthplace are correct
for Rachel. Also listed are the children of Lewis and his first wife
Margaret Jones, including Lucy, who would marry John Davis a few years
later. This part of the census was enumerated on August 11th, 1870 .
There can be no doubt that the entry for the
Jones family is the most correct for our Davis
family. So how do we explain the apparent contradictions with the other
census records? How could members of the Williams family be listed in
three different places and times on the same Census record? Let’s start
with the Aldridge family.
An adequate Aldridge family history has been
hard to find.
In fact, David Aldridge seems only to exist on the 1870 Census.
For some reason, the name of Joseph Aldridge was
apparently entered incorrectly on the census as David Aldridge. There is
a record for Joseph Aldridge marrying an Ann Williams; however, this is clearly
not our
Ann Williams Davis.
We believe that Joseph Aldridge, father of William
Aldridge, married a woman who happened to be named Ann Williams, but who was
unrelated to our Ann Williams.
We propose that Rachel and John were working in
Corrine in June of 1870. Sometime between mid-June and August 11th
of that year, the children moved back with their mother in Malad.
Ann had married Lewis Jones in what was the second marriage for both of
them. We could speculate that the wedding occurred between June and
August of 1870, and that the marriage (and the financial support of a working
husband) was the event that prompted the Davis
family to be reunited. They were clearly living with their mother and
step-father in August of 1870. By late August of 1870, Mary Ann had
acquired employment with the Aldridge family. For some reason, the census
enumerator inaccurately counted her as a spouse rather than a servant. One
good possibility is that the Aldridge family was hostile to census workers,
deliberately giving false information. There would be a number of
inaccuracies for this family on the 1880 census as well.
At any rate, Ann Davis did marry Lewis Jones,
probably in Malad
City , sometime between 1868 and 1870. Ann and Lewis did
not have any children together, but Ann helped raise the Jones children after
Lewis died. Mary Ann Davis did marry William Aldridge sometime during the
early 1870’s. They would have three children and the marriage would end
in divorce. Rachel and John would soon marry and have children of their
own.
THE MALAD VALLEY
By the time the 1880 Federal Census was
enumerated, two Aldridge families were still living in Cherry Creek Ward in the
Malad
Valley . Unfortunately, the Aldridge family data were not
recorded accurately by the enumerator. On the 1880 Census, the formerly
named David Aldridge was called William Aldridge, and the birth year for his
wife Ann Aldridge, (not our Ann) has changed by more than a decade. Mary
Ann’s husband, William Aldridge, is referenced as “Junior”, even though his
father’s name was really Joseph. Mary Ann was mistakenly listed as
‘Lizzie’, which is actually the name of her first child. William and Mary
Ann had three children, Lizzie, age eight; Joseph, age five; and William, age
three. Ann Aldridge, listed immediately above William and ‘Lizzie’, was
sixty-eight years old, clearly not the correct age for our Ann, who would have
been closer to fifty-two. The older Aldridge family had no listed
children.
We cannot explain the apparent mistakes made on
the Census. Many emigrants were illiterate and we would assume that Mary
Ann had little formal education. Without access to written records, they
may not have known their correct birth years. Perhaps the Aldridge
families and even the enumerator were distrustful of the Federal Government,
and deliberately gave false information. Anti-government sentiment was
increasing as the Federal Government sought to outlaw polygamy. Soon,
congress would pass the Edmunds-Tucker Act, threatening to seize Church assets
if polygamy continued.
Johnson’s Army had invaded Utah
only years earlier.
In Idaho , the legislature would soon take the vote away from
Mormons in Oneida
County .
We could assume that many Mormons were frightened of
the Federal government, and some no doubt sought to hide personal information
from Census takers.
Since the 1880 Census information was obviously
inaccurate, it was hard to accept any of the data contained for the two
Aldridge families. When we accepted that Ann Aldridge was not our Ann
Davis, we had to assume that there was another entry for our Ann Davis.
As mentioned earlier, family records indicate that Ann Williams had married
Lewis Jones, the father of her daughter-in law Lucy Jones Davis. To
support this idea, we found an entry in the 1880 Federal Census for Ann Jones,
age fifty-one, who was born in Wales
. She was listed as a widow, which agrees with the known death
date for Lewis Jones of 1877. Furthermore, she was living with a daughter
named Hannah Jones, age fourteen. Although the Census data has Hannah
born in Utah , this could very well be Hannah Jones, daughter of Lewis
Jones and his first wife, who was born in 1865 in Wales . While we believe that
this information is plausible, there is not much proof outside of the single
Census entry.
Mary Ann’s husband, William Aldridge, was listed
on the Census as employed in “Gen’l Laborer”. It would seem that
he had worked as a teamster, perhaps hauling supplies from Idaho
to the Montana
mines. The first child of William and Mary Ann, Elizabeth , was born in
the Montana mining town of Argenta . The
second child, Joseph, was born in Cottonwood
Canyon near Salt Lake City . The third son, William, was born in Malad.
Mary Ann and William Aldridge would divorce either in 1880 or 1881.
Farming in the Malad Valley was difficult in early
years. Grasshoppers and locusts destroyed vegetable and feed crops.
The lack of reliable irrigation made farming a challenge. Most of the
residents sought income from employment other than farming, and some worked as
freighters on the Corrine to Montana routes,
hauling supplies from Utah and ore from Montana mines.
Others provided food and shelter for passengers on the stage.
John Davis had married a Welsh girl, Lucy Jones,
whose family had come from the same Parish in Glamorgan
as Ann Davis. They moved to the Malad Valley , where John filed a homestead claim prior to 1880.
When the 1880 Census was enumerated, they had two
small living children, both named after their grandfathers, Evan and
Lewis.
Rachel Davis is not found on the 1880
Census. According to family records, she had married Sam Prothero in Utah
in 1874. We could not find primary records to support the marriage; we
did, however, find a Census record for Samuel Prothero.
Samuel was living in 1880 in Little Cottonwood near Salt Lake City . He claims to be married, but neither Rachel nor
Dora his daughter is living with him. He was working as a miner, and appeared
to be living with other miners, perhaps in a boarding house.
Sam was killed in Little Cottonwood Canyon in 1884. From anecdotal
evidence, it would seem that Sam and William Aldridge may have worked together
as teamsters or miners. Sam Prothero was buried
in the Salt Lake City
Cemetery on the 7th
of March, 1884 .
After her divorce, Mary Ann would marry again
not long after, this time to Malad farmer Ephraim
Thomas Moon. They were married, probably in Brigham City , on the 6th of March, 1880 .
They would eventually live in a wood frame house on
Henderson Creek. The home may have been a gift to them from Ephraim’s
mother, Jannett Nicol
Moon. Ephraim was a successful farmer who was known locally for his
honesty. It does not appear that Ephraim and Mary Ann were especially
active in the Cherry Creek Branch and Ward, although some of his nephews were
Ward leaders. There is no record that the couple ever went to the LDS Temple
during their life.
Ephraim and Mary Ann would have five children
together. All of the children lived near Malad City for much of their lives. It
would seem that Mary Ann and Eph lived relatively happy lives. Four of
the children were married, and three of their children had children of their
own.
As for Ann Williams Davis Jones, she is said by
family records to have died in November of 1889, and to have been buried in the
Malad
City Cemetery
. Unfortunately, no record survives of her burial. She may
have been buried in an unmarked grave or somewhere on private property.
We are not even sure whether her married name was still Jones when she
died.
Rachel Prothero would
live in southern Idaho
until her death in 1921. The death certificate states that she was buried
in Malad, but we found no cemetery record of her
burial.
John Davis lived on his farm in the Malad
Valley until his death in
1930. He is buried in the Malad City
Cemetery near his wife
Lucy.
Mary Ann moved into Malad City in about 1922. She probably
lived in the house later occupied by her daughters, Annie and Daisy, which
could have been the small house once occupied by Ann Davis Jones. When I
was a young child, we went to visit some Aunts there when we were in Malad. She lived in the city home for about thirteen
years and died at home in 1934. She was buried near her husband Eph Moon
in the Cherry Creek Cemetery .
INDIVIDUAL HISTORIES
David Williams, father of Ann Williams,
was born probably in the 1790’s, most likely in the Parish of Llangyfelach in Glamorgan.
There is little doubt that his family lived in poor
circumstances, working as coal miners and laborers. We have not been able
to find the name of his parents nor whether he had siblings. David met
and married Rachel Thomas in Llangyfelach on 19
October, 1816 .
They lived for at least part of their married lives in
Rhyndwyclydach Lower in the Llangyfelach
Parish. They would have three or perhaps four children of whom we find
record. The children were: Rachel, christened on 8 May, 1820 at Llansamlet,
David, for whom we cannot find a christening date; Ann, born 24 December 1828
somewhere in the Llangyfelach Parish and John, born
about 1827/8 somewhere in the Llangyfelach Parish.
By 1841, all of the children had left home
except for John, who was thirteen and employed as a laborer. Rachel and
Ann were probably working as servants in the homes of local wealthy
families. Son David, if he existed, may have died prior to this date or
could have been employed as a servant in another household. The house
where the older Williams family lived was called on the Census Craig Trebanos, craig
meaning rock in Welsh.
On the 1851 Wales Census, David, wife Rachel and
son John are still living in Rhyndwyclydach Lower in
housing called “part of Trebanos”.
David was employed as a rail laborer and John was working as a collier.
David claimed to be sixty-four, although in truth he was probably closer to
sixty.
David died sometime between 1851 and 1861, when
the next Wales Census was taken. His widow Rachel is found living in the
Swans Inn near Pontardawe, Llanguicke
Parish on the 1861 Census. We assume that David was buried in either Llangyfelach or Llanguicke
Parish.
Rachel Thomas Williams, mother of Ann
Williams, was born between 1799 and 1801, probably in the Parish of Llanguicke.
We have not discovered who her parents were. We
believe that she had at least one brother possibly named David. She met
and married David Williams on 19 October, 1816 in the Llangyfelach
Parish.
By 1841 she was living at Craig Trebanos (also
spelled Trebonws)
with her husband and child, John in Rhyndwyclydach
Lower Hamlet, Llangyfelach Parish. As the wife
of a coal miner, she lived with the inherent dangers associated with mining and
probably struggled to keep enough food on the table for her family. Her
teen-aged children had been sent to service, that is to work as servants for
wealthy families in the area.
Little had changed by the time the 1851 Census
was taken. Rachel still lived with David and John in a house called “part
of Trebanos” in
Rhyndwyclydach Lower. By now, her husband had
taken work as a rail laborer, which was perhaps safer than mining.
Her husband was at least five years older than
Rachel, and he died sometime between 1851 and 1861. On the 1861 Wales
Census, Rachel is found living as a widow in the Swans Inn in Porthcawl. A
Swan Inn still exists near Porthcawl,
but we cannot say if it the same building that Rachel lived in. She lived
at the Inn , most likely a public house with a few rooms for rent, and
as her occupation stated that she was the landlady. This would imply that
she owned or more likely managed the Inn . With her were living her son John, a lodger named
David Thomas, and a servant lady.
Rachel probably died in the decade between 1861
and 1871, since her name is not found on the Wales Census for 1871. If
she was still alive in 1866, she would have witnessed her daughter Ann and
grandchildren leaving for America
. She was obviously loved by her family. Rachel named one of
her children Rachel, who was the Sister of Ann Williams Davis. Ann
Williams Davis also named one of her children after Rachel Thomas
Williams. Mary Ann Davis, youngest child of Ann Davis, named her youngest
daughter Rachel after her grandmother, sister and aunt. That we know of,
there are at least five descendants named Rachel in the family.
We could find neither a burial record nor burial
site for Rachel Thomas Williams.
If Rachel owned the Inn , she may not have
passed it on to her son, John. John could not be found on the 1871 Wales
Census. Perhaps he left the Country or passed away after his mother
died.
Jenkin David or Davids, father of
Evan David, was born on 13 September, 1783 in Tythegeston,
Glamorgan. His father may have been Thomas
David and his mother Catherine.
He married Mary Lewis on 21 February, 1799 . He
and Mary would live for much of their married lives in Tythegston
Parish in the Bridgend district. They may have moved for a while to the Llangyfelach Parish. Some of their children were
christened in the Bethel Calvinistic Methodist Church in Llangyfelach.
Jenkin probably
died before the taking of the 1841 Wales Census, so there are very few records
of his life that survive.
Mary Lewis David or Davids, mother of Evan David, was
born about 1781 somewhere in Glamorgan.
She was probably from the Bridgend District or Llangyfelach Parish. We have not been able to locate
her parents or siblings. She married Jenkin David on 21 February, 1799 at the
Llangyfelach Parish.
She and Jenkin would have from between five and
ten children. Some of the children were christened in Llangyfelach;
others in Tythegston. Her husband apparently
died between 1840 and 1841. On that Census, she and Evan are found living
in Tythegeston with another David family.
There is a record in the Pyle Church
records of the death and burial of a Mary David, age seventy-one who was buried
on April 6th, 1854 .
John Williams Davis, son of Evan and Ann
Davis, was born 19 February, 1847 in Tythegston near
Pyle, Glamorganshire.
He was named for his mother’s brother, John Williams. His family lived in
or near Tythegston when John was young. Evan,
his father, worked as a coal miner. When John was almost nine years old
his father died. At the tender age of nine, John probably became the sole
provider for his mother and sisters. John continued to work as a coal
miner until the time that his family was ready to leave Wales .
When John was about eighteen years old, his
mother moved the family to Swansea .
There, they attended Mormon services and lived with or near an American
missionary named Phillip Dell. There is an entry for a John Davies in the
Swansea LDS Branch records; however, this is almost certainly not our John
Davies. The John listed in the records was born in 1852 in Merthyr.
Later in 1866, Ann Williams made application to
Brigham Young Jr. for permission to immigrate to America . John would have been expected to pay for some of
the expenses from his savings, which were meager. When John was nineteen
years old, he left Swansea with his mother and
sisters by rail for Liverpool . In Liverpool , the family
had passage paid to America
on the ship John Bright. After a trip of about six thousand miles
over four months, John arrived in Utah
with the Thomas Ricks Company.
John probably went with his mother to Brigham City ,
where they may have had friends or relatives from Wales . They probably arrived
in Box Elder County in 1866 or 1867.
On the 1870 Federal Census, he is probably the
John Davis found living with the Samuel Howe family of Corinne ,
Utah . He was working there
as a teamster.
Later in 1870, he was enumerated as “John Jones” on the same census living with
the Lewis Jones family. Lewis Jones was his step-father.
John married his step-sister, Lucy Jones on the
6th of December, 1873 , probably in Malad
City .
John was nine years older than Lucy. In 1880, he is living in the Malad
Valley with his wife and
two children: Evan, age three and Lewis, age one.
He and his wife had lost their first child, named Elizabeth, who was born in
1874 and died in 1880.
Evan and Lewis were named for their maternal and paternal grandfathers.
His wife Lucy Jones Davis was from the
same Parish in Wales
that Ann Williams was from.
She was born on the 21st of November, 1856
or 1858.
Lucy was nine years old when she came to the United
States in 1868 with her family on the ship Minnesota .
The family crossed the plains later the same year with
the Chester Loveland Company.
Sadly, her mother and baby brother died somewhere on
the trail west while they were in transit. Her father, Lewis Jones,
settled in Malad
City. He was the
second husband of Ann Williams Davis. Lewis died in 1877, so his marriage
to Ann would have been a brief seven years.
Lucy and John would have at least five other
children. They were: Annie Jones, born 1880; John Morgan, born 1883;
Thomas Jones born 1885; Mary born 1887 and Lucy Verena born 1895.
Lucy Davis died on the 9th of
November, 1928. She is buried at the Malad Cemetery. Her husband would
survive another eighteen months. John died on May 10th, 1930
in Malad
City. He is buried
in the Malad
Cemetery.
They seemed to have a happy and relatively prosperous
family. John and Lucy had eight children. It would appear that the
family was at least partly active in the Cherry Creek Ward. One of the
children was married in the Logan
Temple, and temple work
for the dead was accomplished shortly after the deaths of family members.
Rachel Davis Prothero
Myers, daughter of Evan and Ann Davis, was born the 21st of
March, 1849 in Tythegston, Glamorgan,
in Wales.
Her birth place in the IGI is said to be Pyle, which
is some three miles northwest from Tythegston, and
may have been, at one time, the registration district for the
hamlet. Today the hamlet is in the Bridgend registration
district. During the 1851 British Census, two-year old Rachel is found
living in Tythegston Higher with her father, mother
and older brother John. The family surname was listed on the Census at
that time as Davies. Her father was employed as a coal miner at Kenfig Down.
Before Rachel reached her seventh birthday her
father Evan died. Rachel was probably sent into service within a few
years after her father died. She would probably have been indentured, or
contracted to serve as a maid or housekeeper for a period of eight to ten
years. In return, the employer would have provided food, shelter, some
education and clothing for Rachel and given Ann Davis a small stipend.
Rachel probably moved with her family to Swansea in about 1865 or
1866. They probably attended Mormon services there and lived with an American
missionary called Phillip Dell.
Soon, her mother would make application to immigrate
to the United States.
Rachel came to America on board the ship John
Bright. She left Wales
with her mother, sister and brother at the age of seventeen. The family
traveled in a Mormon-sponsored voyage leaving on the 30th of April,
1866. The ship arrived at New
York harbor on June 6th. The group
traveled through New Haven, Connecticut
to Montreal.
From there, they passed through Detroit, Chicago and Quincy,
Illinois. They probably
traveled by steamboat on the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers.
The party landed at St. Joseph,
Missouri on June 15th. .
They had traveled more than 1800 miles overland and by steamboat. By late
June, the company was in Wyoming, Nebraska, which is fifty miles south of Omaha. The family joined the Thomas E.
Ricks Company, which left Wyoming
during the first week of July.
The party would arrive in Salt Lake City on August 29th.
Most of the families were assigned to travel to Cache County,
and some arrived there by mid-September of 1866. Seventeen year-old
Rachel probably walked for most of the trek across the plains and to Cache County.
It would appear that the Davis
family was not living together for a while after they had arrived in Utah. We are
fairly certain that Rachel had taken a position working as a domestic servant
for the Francis Smith family in Corrine,
Utah, although not all of the
personal data is correct.
Her brother John is living with a different family in
Corrine, and her mother and sister are living in Malad, Idaho.
A few months later, the family was reunited in Malad City after her mother married Lewis
Jones. Rachel was probably with the Jones family in August of 1870;
however, the Census taker mistakenly recorded her name as “Richard Jones”.
I would assume that Rachel lived in Malad from 1870 until after her little sister; Mary Ann was
married in the early 1870’s. At that time, we can assume that Rachel may
have traveled with the young Aldridge family to the various places where
William found work. It was probably on one of these trips to a mining
town in Salt Lake County
that Rachel first met Samuel Prothero. The
family records indicate that Sam was born about 1852 in Alta, Utah.
He was actually born in Wisconsin, and
traveled to Utah
sometime before 1870. He is said to have married Rachel in 1874.
The couple had only one child that we know
of. They named their daughter Dora, and she was born 18 November, 1878.
When Dora was still very young, perhaps six years old,
Sam died. Family records say that Dora was adopted by someone else after
her father died, but it is not clear who adopted her. It would seem that
Dora was living in the Cherry Creek Ward, since she would marry Levi Moon,
brother of Ephraim Thomas Moon on January 1st 1895.
Perhaps she lived with Ephraim and Mary Ann, or
perhaps with John and Lucy Davis. Her mother Rachel was still living in Preston, Idaho
in 1900, so it seems unlikely that Dora had been living with her mother.
Sam would die in 1884 in Little Cottonwood
Canyon, according to family records. Unfortunately, we could not find any
account of the death in the Deseret News from that year. Rachel
may not have been living with her husband at the time, but she almost certainly
moved soon after the death to the Malad Valley
to be near her mother, sister and brother. She does not seem to have been
enumerated on the Federal Census in 1880. We could not find Rachel or
Dora in Idaho or Utah on the 1880 Federal Census
records.
Later, perhaps in 1889, Rachel married a German
emigrant named Henry A. Myers. Myers came to the United States
in 1865. They probably lived in Preston,
Idaho. They had one child
together, Arthur John Myers (also spelled Meyers) born in June of 1891.
The Federal Census of 1900 finds the Myers family living in Preston, Idaho, and
gives approximate birth dates for all the members of the family.
By 1920, Rachel is found living in the Cherry
Creek Ward. She is using her first married name, Prothero,
although it is misspelled as “Prethers” on the Census. She is
seventy-two years old, and lists herself as a widow, although she was divorced
from Henry Myers. Her son Arthur is still living with her.
Rachel died on the 12th of May, 1921.
She was said to be buried at the Malad City
Cemetery on her death
certificate, but we cannot find a record of her grave. Perhaps it is
unmarked or she may have been buried in one of the smaller town cemeteries near
Malad. There was a brief announcement of her
death in the local newspaper.
Arthur John Myers was born on the 21st
of June, 1891 in Preston, Idaho to Henry and Rachel Myers.
Arthur lived in Malad City.
He listed his occupation as “actor” on the 1930 Federal Census. He
married a girl of Danish/Welsh origin named Ophelia Illum in 1889 who had had, briefly, two
other spouses. The marriage ended in divorce, and as far as we know,
there were no children. Although they had been long divorced, Ophelia was
still using the last name of Meyers when she died in 1976.
Arthur died on the 23rd of February, 1950, and was buried in the Malad
Cemetery.
He was a veteran of World War I.
Samuel Prothero,
first husband of Rachel Davis, was possibly a Mormon convert of Welsh-American
descent. Family records indicate that he was born in Utah in 1852. This does not appear to
be true.
Samuel Prothero was
born in Wisconsin or Indiana to John Prothero
and Nancy Canfield Prothero. John may have been
the son of William Prothero, who on the 1860 Indiana census is living
very near John’s family, as are several other Prothero
families. Since, however, William has another child named John and a wife
who would have been ten years old when John was born; it seems more likely that
William is a relative, perhaps an uncle. William was born in Virginia in
about 1800, the son of an emigrant. John was born in Indiana
about 1826,
possibly in Jennings
County. Nancy
Canfield was born in Ohio
in about 1830.
Samuel was probably the oldest child of John and Nancy.
There are two possible dates for Sam’s birth
given in the IGI, May of 1846 and July of 1847. We prefer the date in
1846, since the same record includes his correct burial date. Early census
records also support a birth year of 1846. His birthplace was given as
Baraboo, Sauk County, Wisconsin. The more accurate place
name for the town would have been Adams, since the original town name Adams was changed to Baraboo in 1852.
We could not find a census record for the John Prothero family in Wisconsin
in 1850. We searched for a record of possible Civil War service, but did
not find anything for Sam. Some of William Prothero’s sons did serve in the
Wisconsin Regiments.
The 1860 Census shows fourteen-year old Sam
living with his parents in Greenfield, Sauk County, Wisconsin
(name spelled Saml
Prothero). He had three younger siblings in
1860, John, Rhoda and Henry.
By 1870, Sam had moved out West. He is
found living in Bullion
City in Piute County Utah
(last name spelled Prethers).
Bullion City was also called Marysvale.
Samuel claimed to own about one-hundred dollars worth of real estate. At
that time, Piute County,
which is situated in central Utah,
had some of the potentially richest silver and gold mines in the country.
Sam was working as a miner, apparently single, and living with other
miners. It does not appear that any of his family was living near him.
Why did Sam leave his family and move to Utah? It could be,
as stated earlier, that Sam had converted to Mormonism and wanted to be near
other Mormons in Utah.
More likely, however, he was a victim of the romantic notion that mining in the
West was a ticket to easy riches.
In 1865, newspaper editor Horace Greeley printed
the words “Go West, young man…” It would appear that Greeley had borrowed the words from an
earlier editorial; that being said, many Midwestern and Eastern young men armed
with picks and shovels accepted the notion that their fortunes were to be made
in the Western States. Lust for gold and silver drove many to California. When
that land became saturated, mines in Utah, Colorado and Nevada
were popular alternate destinations.
Placer gold was found in Piute County
in 1856 by an exploring party led by Mormon Apostle George A. Smith. He
was counseled by Brigham Young to avoid publicizing the find. Young
feared that a gold strike would bring undesirable characters to Utah and would distract
the Mormons from farming. The rumor that there was gold in the area
persisted, and in 1868, placer gold was re-discovered in the canyons. By
1872, there were about two hundred miners working several mines in the district.
Most of the profitable gold was found in hard
rock. Miners worked in teams of two. One man would hold a steel
drill about one and three/fourths inches in diameter and twenty-four inches
long. The other man would swing a ten-pound sledge hammer to strike the
drill. After each blow, the man holding the drill would turn the drill
one/fourth of a turn. It was said that a good team could drill about two
feet per hour. As the hole deepened, longer drills were used. After
several holes had been drilled to six feet deep, dynamite charges were set and
the rock blasted. After blasting, another team would shovel the rock into
ore cars, and the drilling team would repeat the procedure.
From the start, the ore was not quite rich
enough to cover the cost of mining and transporting. Indians were still a
threat to white settlements in the area. By 1873, most Eastern investors
had lost interest in the area.
Other gold strikes and the cost issues made
investors withdraw their support. By 1880, Bullion City
was a virtual ghost town. Although investors would show interest from
time to time, the area would not recover until 1900, when a railroad spur came
into the canyon.
One of the mine supervisors in the area was a Wisconsin native who had fought in the Civil War.
Perhaps Sam came West with this group. Bullion City
was not an easy place to live. In the 1870’s, the mining district was
known as one of the wildest, woolliest places on earth. Miners consumed
large quantities of whiskey and most carried firearms at all times. Law
enforcement was nearly non-existent. Sam would have lived in a log cabin
in Marysvale with several other miners and an
assortment of wild animals.
Sam moved to Cottonwood
Canyon near Salt Lake City sometime between 1870 and
1874, probably after 1873. He probably moved to continue working as new
mines opened up in Salt
Lake County.
Sam and Rachel apparently married before
1878. We cannot find any record of the marriage other than the family
records, which indicate 1874. The couple may have met when Rachel’s
brother-in-law, William Aldridge, worked in Cottonwood Canyon
in the early 1870’s. We find no evidence that Sam was ever baptized into
the LDS Church. As said before, it would
not appear that Sam had siblings or other family members living in Utah.
Sam continued working as a miner in Cottonwood Canyon
near Salt Lake City.
His name is found (spelled Saml
Prethero) on
the 1880 Census, when he was working as a miner and living with other
miners. Where his wife Rachel was living, or why she was not with Sam, we
cannot say.
Sam and Rachel had one child that we find record
of. Her name was Dora Prothero, born in
1878. Although they were not living together in 1880, it seems that
Rachel was fond of Sam. She would continue using his name after her
second marriage ended in divorce. Probably she did not live in the mining
town because it was just not a good place for women and children.
Sam died on March 7th, 1884, and was
buried at the Salt Lake City
Cemetery.
Sam was about thirty-eight when he died or perhaps younger,
so we assume that he died in a mining accident or perhaps of an acute
illness.
Dora Prothero Moon,
daughter of Sam and Rachel Davis Prothero, was born
on the 18th of November, 1878.
She was said by family records to have been born in Alta, Utah, which is now a
resort town above Salt Lake City; but would have been a mining town in
1878. Before her sixth birthday, her father died, perhaps in a work
accident or of an illness. What happened to Dora after her father’s death
is unknown; however, we are reasonably sure that she lived for at least part of
the time with her Aunt Mary Ann and Eph Moon on the ranch at Henderson Creek
near Malad. She and her mother do not appear on
Census records in 1880. By the 1900 Federal Census, Dora had married and
was living near Egin , Idaho .
Dora married Levi Moon, the brother of Ephraim
Thomas Moon, on the 1st of January, 1895 .
Levi was seventeen years older than Dora. Dora listed her residence as
Henderson Creek, about five miles south of Malad City. Levi listed his residence as
Egin, a town in Fremont
County in northeastern Idaho.
The couple set up house shortly after their
marriage in Egin, a farming community in Fremont County near the Menan Buttes. They would have
seven children of whom we find record, Myrtle, Josie, Frank, Arch, Arthur,
Robert and Amy. Many of the children lived for much of their lives in
eastern Idaho.
On the 1900 Federal Census, Dora reported that she could read, but not write.
Levi Moon died in May of 1948 at age
eighty-six. Dora lived for another twelve years and died at the age of
seventy-five. Both are buried in the Parker, Idaho Cemetery.
Henry A. Myers, second husband of Rachel
Davis, was born in Germany
in June of 1849. He immigrated to America in 1865. He married
Rachel in 1889 or 1890. It was probably his second
marriage, as he had two older children from a previous marriage.
One of the children was named Linnie, and she may be the same who
married Acil W.
Taylor in Utah
in 1903.
The couple would have only one child of whom we find
record. Arthur John Myers (Meyer) was born in June of 1891, probably in Preston, Idaho.
The couple would divorce when Arthur was young,
between 1900 and 1910. Henry married as his third wife Amelia J.
Dixon in Cache County, Utah in 1912.
Henry and Amelia moved soon after their marriage to California,
where they lived in Los Angeles.
Henry died in 1925.
Mary Davis, daughter of Evan Davis and
Ann Williams, was born in 1852 in Pyle, Glamorgan,
and was the third known child in the family. She died later that same
year. The only reference that we find to Mary is a record submitted for
ordinance work in the IGI.
Mary Ann Davis Aldridge Moon, daughter of
Evan Davis and Ann Williams, was probably born in Margam
Parish near Pyle, Glamorganshire, Wales .
She was the fourth and last known child of Evan Davis
and Ann Williams. She was born on the 7th of September, 1853
or 1854.
She would not have remembered her father, who died
when she was less than two years old. Her father was a coal miner.
He and his wife lived in 1851 in Tythegston Higher,
at Kenfig Downs.
Mary Ann may have been baptized into the Mormon
Church in Wales.
She lived with her family near Tythegston for perhaps
eight to ten years, and moved with them to Swansea, probably in 1865 or 1866.
At the age of eleven she traveled by rail with
her mother, brother and sister to Liverpool.
They would sail on the ship John Bright from Liverpool to New York City a few days
later. From New York, they traveled
overland to New Haven Connecticut,
Montreal, Detroit
and Chicago.
On the Mississippi River, they continued on to St. Joseph,
Missouri and finally up the Missouri River to Wyoming, Nebraska.
Sometime 1870 and 1873, Mary Ann married William
Aldridge. Aldridge was the child of parents who were early converts to
the Mormon Church from New York State, His parents, Joseph and Mary
Aldridge, moved to Nauvoo during the 1840’s. William Aldridge and a
sister, Elathine, were born in there in 1843 and
1844. The family left Nauvoo during the persecutions there. Mary
Aldridge died in Nauvoo. We have not been able to find record of the
Aldridge family crossing the plains in the Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel
Index, but they probably crossed the plains in 1850 with Mary Earl Aldridge’s
parents.
William was about eleven years older than Mary
Ann. She would have been sixteen years old in 1873. If they were
not married before 1873, Mary Ann was staying at the Aldridge house, perhaps
working as a servant. They claimed to be married in 1873. She and
William, living on a property in the Cherry Creek Ward, would have three
children. It would appear that early on, they were traveling
frequently. Perhaps William was working as a teamster and Mary Ann was
accompanying him on trips. The first child born to William and Mary Ann,
Elizabeth Argenta Aldridge, was said to be born on
the 6th of December, 1873 in a mining camp in Montana.
William may have taken a job there, or could have been involved in freighting
between Utah and Montana. The second child was Joseph
W. Aldridge, born on the 9th of April, 1875 in Cottonwood
Canyon near Salt Lake City.
Mary Ann’s sister, Rachel and her husband were also probably living in Cottonwood Canyon at the time. The third
child was William Aldridge, born on the 13th of April, 1877 in Malad
City.
Mary Ann is found living in the same household
as William Aldridge on the 1870 Federal Census. They are living next door
to someone who could be William’s father and Step-mother. William is
employed as a farmer, and claims $100 in assets.
William Aldridge and Mary Ann would divorce
about 1880. William moved south to a small town called Garden City in
Rich County, Utah. There he married Anna Rolph in 1881.
She was an eighteen-year old whose parents were also
from New York State. His second marriage
was more successful. He and Anna would live in Garden City for at least
five years. They moved north into Cardston, Alberta,
Canada before
1888.
William and Anna are found on the 1891 Canada
Census for Lethbridge, Alberta. They had five children at
this time. Their religion is listed as “Mormon”.
It would appear that from 1891 forward, William
Aldridge did not have contact with his two boys, William and Joseph.
William and Anna would eventually have fifteen
children. William died in Cardston in
1916. His wife Anna lived another twenty-three years. She died in Cardston in 1939.
Mary Ann married Ephraim Thomas Moon on the 6th
of March, 1880.
They lived in a ranch house near Henderson Creek about
five miles south of Malad. The home is now old
and unoccupied, but still stands today. They would have five children
together. They were: Mary Ann (Annie), born 25 February, 1882; Mary
Ellen (Nellie), born 11 October, 1884; Archie Ephraim, born 8 March, 1887;
Daisy, born 23 August, 1892 and Rachel Orilla, born 11 January, 1897.
Most of the children lived in Southern Idaho
for the rest of their lives. Aunt Annie and Aunt Daisy lived together in
a small house in Malad. We recall visiting them
as a young child. Rachel married Benjamin Thomas, and lived in Lava and Pocatello. Archie
married Esther Morse and had a large family. Aunt Nellie married William
Hoskins, a member of a local family.
Ephraim Thomas Moon, our ancestor, was born in Salt Lake City in 1856.
His father was English and his mother Scottish. He lived in Salt Lake City and St.
George. After failing at farming in St. George, his father’s family moved
back to Farmington,
where the Moon family owned some property. The family may have been
invited to leave Utah over a dispute with
Brigham Young; for after a short stay in Farmington,
they purchased property in the Malad Valley,
Idaho.
The property was near Henderson Creek about five
miles from Malad
City. Hugh Moon,
Ephraim’s father, had three wives who all lived on the property, at least
initially. Ephraim Moon probably bought his farm or ranch from the widow
of his brother, Manassah Moon, who had died in an
accident. Ephraim also filed a land claim under the Homestead Act for
which the title was transferred on May 9, 1888 by the Government. The
patent transfer was for forty acres.
He probably met Mary Ann at an activity for the Cherry Creek Ward, although
neither of the two seemed overly committed to religious activity.
The 1900 Federal Census finds the Moon family
living in the Cherry Creek Precinct. Ephraim and Mary Ann stated that
their birth years were 1856 (Mary Ann was really born in 1854, but what woman
likes to reveal that she is older than her husband), having been married for
nineteen years. Living with them were their five children and William and
Joseph Aldridge. Ephraim owned his farm free and clear of debt.
By the time the 1910 Federal Census was
enumerated, Eph and Mary Ann were still living in the Cherry Creek Ward.
Eph claimed to be fifty-three years old while Mary Ann had become four years
younger than her spouse. Daisy and Rachel were still living at home.
In 1920, the Federal Census has Eph Moon as
sixty-three years old. Mary Ann has almost caught up with him at
sixty-two. Two daughters, Annie and Daisy were living at home on
Henderson Creek in the Cherry Creek Ward. Another daughter, Rachel,
probably was a frequent visitor with her small children. By now, Rachel
had begun to have marriage issues with her husband, Ben Thomas.
When my father was very young, he and his mother
Rachel lived with the Moon family at Henderson Creek. He remembered
fondly his grandmother and her home. He recalled when the aunts would
come to the house for tea, speaking Welsh in the parlor.
Ephraim Thomas Moon died on the 17th
of April, 1920.
He was buried in the Cherry
Creek Cemetery
only a few miles from their home.
Mary Ann died on the 15th of October,
1934. She was buried next to her husband, Ephraim Moon, in Cherry Creek
Cemetery. She had
been a widow for fourteen years.
The death notice in the local Malad Newspaper reveals that Mary Ann had lived in a house
in Malad for about twelve years. This is
probably the same house that we came to for a visit with Aunt Annie and Aunt
Daisy. She was survived by seven children, although only six were
acknowledged in the death notice. Mary Ann had become estranged from her
daughter Lizzie Aldridge Gallaher.
William Aldridge, first husband of Mary
Ann Davis, was born 13 March, 1843 in Nauvoo,
Illinois.
He was the only son of Joseph Aldridge and Mary Earl. Joseph and Mary had
been converted early to Mormonism and moved to Nauvoo, where they were married
in 1841. William had one sibling, Elethine or Elathine
born in 1844 in Nauvoo.
William’s mother, Mary, would die in Nauvoo in February of 1846. The
family was forced to move from Nauvoo a short time later by the persecution of
anti-Mormon mobs.
They lived for about four years at Winter Quarters, Iowa and then moved
west, probably in the Milo Andrus Company.
Joseph may have taken the children to California
for a while, perhaps looking for work in mining or working as a freighter.
By 1860 they were living in Cache
County, Utah near Logan. The 1860 Federal Census for Utah
Territory finds Joseph, William and Elethine Aldridge (spelled Aldrich)
living together in Cache County. Joseph was 48 years old, William 19 and Elathine 15. They were living with their elderly
in-laws, the William Earl family.
Joseph is not found on the 1870 Federal
Census. There is, however, a David Aldridge living in the Malad
Valley, which we believe
to be the same Joseph. He had married a Welsh woman named Ann Williams,
who was unrelated to our Ann Williams Davis.
William apparently employed Mary Ann Davis as a
young girl to work at his house. They would later marry while Mary Ann
was quite young. Although family sources have William Aldridge and Mary
Ann married in 1873, it would appear that she was living at the Aldridge house
during the 1870 Census. They would not have children until December of
1873.
I could not find Elathine
on the 1870 Census. She had married a man named William R. Vaughn in
about 1861.
The Vaughn family moved to Cassia County in Southern Idaho.
They homesteaded a place on Cassia Creek in the Marsh Basin.
One source has them living on Cassia Creek as early as 1873,
although the Government did not issue a title transfer for the property until
1879.
When the 1880 Federal Census was taken, the Vaughn
family was still living at Cassia Creek. They had four children.
Within less than a year after the Census was taken,
the Vaughn family would sell their property to developers, who would divide and
plot the site for city lots. By late in 1880, town lots were being sold
for the new town, Albion, Idaho.
William and Mary Ann were still living in the Malad
Valley in 1880. The
family had three children, Lizzie, Joseph and William. They were living
next door to a “William Aldridge” family. We could not find another entry
for Joseph Aldridge in Idaho, Utah or Oregon.
It is my belief that the older William Aldridge is Joseph Aldridge. It
almost seems as if the Census enumerator filled out the form by memory rather
than by interview. William Senior’s wife is named Ann, although the dates
for her birth indicate that this is not our Ann Williams Davis. Whether
William Senior is actually Joseph Aldridge, we cannot be sure.
Sometime between the 1880 Census and March of
1881, Mary Ann and William divorced. We have no idea what the cause of
the break-up was. Mary Ann would continue to live near Malad. It appears that two of her three children
lived with her after the divorce. Ex-husband William moved to Garden City
in Northern Utah , where he married a younger girl named Anna Rolph. He and
Anna lived in Garden City until about 1887, when he moved his family to Cardston, Alberta, Canada.
He and Anna would have fifteen children, many of whom continued to live in Canada.
William died there in 1916. His second wife survived him by more than
twenty years. Both are buried in Cardston.
Joseph Aldridge moved away from the Malad
Valley, perhaps after his
wife Ann died in 1887.
He may have moved to Blaine County to be near the Vaughn family, who had filed a
homestead claim on 160 acres in Blaine
County. Family
records say that he died in Shoshone, Idaho
in 1888.
Another possibility is that he moved to Holbrook, Idaho,
where he passed away.
One of his grandchildren, Joseph, had a homestead in Holbrook. Elathine and her husband would eventually move to Baker City, Oregon.
They died there and are both buried in the Mount Hope Cemetery.
Their oldest son, William Brady Vaughn is also buried
at Mount Hope.
Elathine died in 1931, her husband William in 1917.
Elizabeth Argenta
Aldridge, daughter of Mary Ann and William, was probably born in Montana, perhaps in the mining boom town called Argenta in Beaverhead
County. Her birth
date, which cannot be confirmed by vital records, was 6 December, 1873.
We could speculate that Mary Ann was traveling with
William, and that he had work there, perhaps in mining but more likely in the
freighting business. The family probably lived mostly in the Malad Valley ; however,
they probably also lived in Cottonwood
Canyon above Salt Lake City briefly.
When Elizabeth, who went by ‘Lizzie’, was about
eight years old, her father and mother divorced and were quickly remarried to
others. It would appear (at least from her mother’s point of view) that
Lizzie was supposed to remain with her mother, Mary Ann. Family records,
however, suggests that her father kidnapped her and gave her to his sister, Elathine Aldridge Vaughn to rear. Elathine
had two daughters a few years older than Lizzie and was living in Cassia County , Idaho at
the time. My mother wrote that Lizzie was “kidnapped” and was not allowed
to write a letter to her mother until she was over eighteen years old.
There is some evidence to support the kidnap
story, since Lizzie would marry a man from Cassia County
named John Galliher. The couple was married on
10 November, 1891 in Sublett,
Cassia County .
Galliher was one of the potential heirs of the
Browning Firearms Company of Ogden , Utah . His mother was Sarah Ann
Browning, the oldest daughter of Jonathon Browning. Sarah’s brother, John
Moses, would become world-famous as the holder of more than one-hundred gun
patents, including the BAR machine guns used during both World Wars.
Lizzie and her husband John would live for at
least ten years at Clear Creek in Cassia
County , Idaho . They are found there on the
1900 Federal Census living with their two children and two children from an
earlier marriage of John.
There were two other boys born to John and Lizzie who
died within a year of birth. Their names are Andrew and Freddie, and they
are both buried in Cassia County , Idaho .
By the time the 1910 Federal Census was
enumerated, the family had moved to Inyo County California, probably before
1903.
Inyo County is known for having within its boundaries one of the highest points
( Mount Whitney ) and the lowest points ( Death Valley ) in the lower United
States . In 1910, agriculture was dominant around the Owens
River .
Shortly after, the City of Los Angeles coveted
water from the Owens River , and after having bought property and water rights for the
River, diverted the River into pipelines for the City in 1913.
In 1910, the Galliher
family consisted of John, Lizzie and six children. The children
are: Earnest or Ernest, born in 1892; Clarence, born in 1898; Lizzie,
born about 1901; Arthur, born about 1904; Charles, born in 1905; and Sarah or
Sadie, born about 1909.
Both of John Galliher’s
children from the earlier marriage were living apart from the family.
By 1920, the family had moved to Washington State
and was living in Prosser, Benton
County . All of the children of John and Lizzie were there,
and another child, Pearl, born about 1912, was with the family. John was
59 years old, Lizzie 47. John and his sons were working in Prosser as
general laborers, perhaps in agriculture and fruit harvest. Lizzie was
working at a laundry, washing and pressing clothes.
On 1930 Federal Census the family had become
smaller. John, who was then seventy years old, and Lizzie, then
fifty-seven years old, were living in Riverbank, Stanislaus County , California
. With them are two children, Clarence and Sadie.
Some of the other children are married and living in
the same county. One was single and living in the same county. All
worked as laborers.
According to IGI records, John Galliher died in 1934 and was buried in Modesto ,
California . His wife,
Lizzie, would survive almost another twenty-five years. She died in Modesto in January of
1958.
Sadly, when Lizzie’s mother Mary Ann Moon passed away
in 1934, Lizzie was not listed among the surviving children. Mother and
daughter had become completely estranged.
Joseph William Aldridge, son of Mary Ann
and William, was born on the 9th of April, 1875 in Cottonwood Canyon , Utah .
During his young life, he probably knew the Malad
Valley as his home.
When he was about six years old his parents divorced. He stayed with his
mother, Mary Ann, and her second husband Ephraim Moon. Eph Moon was a
good step-father, even listing Joseph as his son on the 1900 Federal Census and
Joseph’s last name as Moon.
In October of 1900, Joseph married a local girl
named Harriet (Hattie) Lucinda Landon.
She was the daughter of pioneer Mormons from Portage ,
Utah . The couple lived
near Malad, probably at Henderson Creek, for at least
ten years. On the 1910 Federal Census, Joseph, his wife, and five
children were living in the Cherry Creek Ward.
In 1902, Joseph filed a homestead claim on 160 acres of land in Oneida County .
The claim may not have been in Malad; as in 1913, the
family was living in Holbrook , Idaho , near Snowville on the Utah
border. Their sixth child was born there, and a Joseph Aldridge,
unidentified in sexton records except by name, was buried there.
By the time the 1920 Federal Census was
enumerated, the family was living in Lorenzo in Jefferson County , Idaho
. They had seven children. Joseph, whose occupation had previously
been listed as “farmer”, was working as a railroad section hand.
By 1930, the Federal Census shows the family
living in Arco in Butte County , Idaho . There were five children
living at home, the youngest being ten years old. Joseph and some of his
boys were listed as “farmers”.
Joseph and Hattie had eight children of whom we
find record. They were: Emma May, born in 1901; Joseph Elmer, born
in 1903; Mary, born in 1906 and Howard born in 1906, but who were not twins;
Della born in 1910; Parcilla
born in 1913; Fern born about 1916 or 1917; and Faye born in 1920.
Although the children listed above were first
cousins of my father, I do not remember that he ever mentioned nor visited
them. He probably knew them from living in Malad
as a young man; however, to my knowledge, he never acknowledged them.
Joseph and Hattie would eventually move to Fremont County
in Idaho near
Rexburg. They lived there, possibly near their married children, until
Joseph died in 1961. He was buried in the Teton-Newdale
Cemetery . His wife survived him for about three years,
passing away in 1964. She was also buried in the Teton-Newdale
Cemetery . At least two of their children, Emma and Elmer are
buried near their parents.
William Aldridge, son of Mary Ann and
William, was born in Malad , Idaho on 13
April, 1877 .
The family lived in the Cherry Creek Ward. His
mother and father divorced when William was about four years old. He
stayed with his mother, who re-married a short time later. William
apparently got along well with his step-father, Ephraim Moon. On the 1900
Federal Census, William is listed as “William Moon” and as the son of Eph Moon
rather than step-son. William stayed at the ranch in the Malad
Valley , probably living with the Moon family at Henderson
Creek. He would have attended school at the small schoolhouse near
Henderson Creek and perhaps at Malad. He
probably worked as a farm laborer for his step-father and other local
farmers.
I cannot find any evidence that any of the Eph
Moon’s family was active Mormons. Some of the Moon relatives were leaders
in the Cherry Creek Ward, so they likely received visits from local
leaders. No record survives of William being baptized LDS prior to his
death; however, many records at the Cherry Creek Ward were destroyed in a
flood.
William married a local Mormon girl from Plymouth , Utah .
He married Martha Malinda Whitaker on the 1st of February, 1904 in Malad
City .
Martha was probably pregnant when they were married. It appears to have
been the first marriage for both. The marriage did not last long.
William and Martha were divorced on November 14th, 1906 .
Martha would marry Marida
B. Maxwell in Brigham City
in 1907.
William and Martha had a daughter, Mary Naomi, born in Idaho on the 12th of October 1904 .
She probably went by Naomi or Naoma for most of her life.
She is found on Census records in 1910 and 1920 as Naoma Maxwell living with her mother and
step-father in Utah and Idaho .
Naomi married David Leo Thomas in Brigham
City in 1927.
William would not get to know his
daughter. He died on the 8th of August, 1908
.
There is no record of his burial, so he may have been
buried in a private cemetery or in an unmarked grave. His ex-wife, Martha
would die in Malad
City in 1944. She
is buried in the Malad Cemetery .
There is something peculiar about this
history. Although William was my father’s uncle and Naomi was his cousin,
I do not recall that he ever spoke of them. I do not recall that my
parents ever visited Naomi. Surely, Mary Ann knew her granddaughter when
they both lived in Malad, and perhaps even knew some
of her great-grandchildren. It seems odd that they seemed to refuse to
acknowledge a kinship from the Aldridge side of the family. In
researching this story, I spoke to the son of Mary Naomi about his
ancestors. He claims the Maxwell family as his grandparents, even though
Mary Naomi was never adopted legally by Maxwell. Although he did not show
personal hostility towards the Aldridge and Davis families, he had no interest
in knowing anything about them. He spoke of one incident in which his
mother attempted to contact the family of Joseph Aldridge and was
rebuffed. Even after more than one hundred years have passed, there
persist ill-feelings between the two families.
By 1930, Naomi is found living outside of Malad with her husband, Leo Thomas and two children.
Leo was working as a farm laborer. The family later moved to the Idaho Falls area.
She and Leo had at least four and possibly more children. She died after
complications of surgery in 1973 and was buried in Ammon , Idaho .
Leo lived another eleven years. He passed away in Idaho Falls in 1984.
Ephraim Thomas Moon, second husband of
Mary Ann Davis, was born in Salt Lake
City in 1856. His father, Hugh Moon was an
English emigrant and an early convert of Heber C. Kimball to the Mormon
Church. His mother, Jennett Nicol
was a Scottish emigrant and third plural wife to Hugh Moon. He lived in
various places while growing up, among them Salt Lake City , St. George and Farmington , Utah
. He moved with his father and mother to Malad
in 1869. He married Mary Ann Davis in 1881 in Malad
or perhaps Brigham City . It was her second marriage and his first.
They probably lived on or near the Moon Ranch in the Cherry Creek Ward.
We cannot find evidence that he or Mary Ann were active in LDS Church
activities.
He took in the two boys from Mary Ann’s previous
marriage after the family moved to Henderson Creek. He would take over
the farm previously owned by his brother, who had been killed in a farm
accident. His mother, Jennett Nicol, probably helped him financially with the purchase of
the home, which still stands unoccupied on Henderson Creek.
Personal accounts by those who knew Ephraim Moon
describe him as honest and hard-working. When my Grandmother Rachel’s
marriage was failing, she moved back to the Moon home with several
children.
Ephraim and Mary Ann would have five children,
four of them girls. They were: Mary Ann (Annie) Moon, 1882-1975 who
married Frank Jones and lived in Malad; Mary Ellen
(Nellie) Moon, 1884-1966, who married William Hoskins and lived in Portage,
Utah; Archie Ephraim Moon, 1887-1954, who married Esther Morse and lived at
Henderson Creek; Daisy Moon, 1892-1978, who was unmarried and lived in Malad with her sister Annie; and Rachel Orilla Moon, 1879-1966, who married
Benjamin Franklin Thomas and lived at Henderson Creek, Lava Hot Springs, and
Pocatello.
My father was fond of telling a story about Eph
Moon. Whether my father was a participant or simply heard the story from
other family members, I cannot say. It seems that sometime in the early
part of the twentieth century, the automobile arrived in Oneida County . The least expensive of the available cars was the
Ford Model T. Henry Ford had begun to produce the light-weight,
inexpensive cars in 1908. In a stroke of genius, Ford entered two of the
cars in a1909 cross-country race from New York
to Seattle . Eph Moon would likely have read newspaper accounts
of the race, which crossed through northern Idaho , and which was won after twenty-three days by the Model
T. By 1917, Ford had produced more than two million of the black
automobiles.
Eph Moon decided that he wanted to own a
car. He traveled by buggy into Malad, where a
fledgling Ford dealer had set up shop. After a few minutes of
instruction, Eph agreed to buy the car and drive it home that day.
Unfortunately, he had not mastered the skills necessary to control the
automobile. As Eph left Malad, he approached a
band of sheep grazing on the roadway. It seemed only natural to Eph to
pull back on the steering wheel and shout “whoa” to slow the automobile.
This method did not slow the car at all, and several sheep met their maker that
day under his black tires. Later, the car approached a stream which
crossed the road, and once again, voice commands failed to slow the car as it
bumped and slid through the creek. Having covered the miles between Malad
City and Henderson Creek
quickly but with growing anxiety, Eph steered the car into an outbuilding on
the ranch. Happily, the car crash-landed into the back of the shed,
stalled and for the first time since leaving Malad
was still. Eph vowed that he would never again drive the cursed
automobile, which did in fact, remain for several years parked in the shed
until one of the girls learned to drive.
Another story told demonstrates the honesty of
Eph Moon. One winter day, he and my father, Eph Thomas, prepared a sleigh
to make the trip to Tremonton , Utah
. As they were traveling through the Malad Valley , they were hailed by a neighbor. The man stopped Eph
to ask him to purchase a piece of land that bordered the Moon farm. The
man’s wife was ill and needed an expensive treatment. At first, Eph
replied that he did not need or want the property, but after hearing of the
sick wife, Eph agreed to the purchase. The sale was completed with a
handshake. To my father’s knowledge, no papers were ever signed.
The money was paid and the sale completed after the two returned from Utah .
Ephraim Moon died in 1920, probably from
congestive heart failure or kidney disease.
He is buried in the Cherry
Creek Cemetery
about four miles south of Malad. Next to
him are buried Mary Ann and Rachel Moon Thomas. Their resting place,
although an unkempt desert plot, overlooks the valley where they lived and
farmed and certainly loved.
Lewis Jones, second husband of Ann
Williams Davis, was born on the 13th of July, 1830 in Llangyfelach Parish in Glamorganshire.
He may have been named Benjamin Lewis Jones, but did not use Benjamin on census
records. He married Margaret Harris or Harries in 1857 in St. Johns chapel at Rhyndwyclydach.
He and Margaret would have five children while they were living in Wales , one of whom was Lucy who would later marry John
Davis. The family members were converts to the Mormon faith. They
were baptized in Wales , and later applied for permission to immigrate to Zion . They came to America in 1868 on the ship Minnesota and crossed the plains with
the Chester Loveland Company.
Margaret became sick and died on the Mormon trail, probably in Nebraska or Wyoming .
Her youngest son Rees died shortly after his mother.
Both are buried somewhere on the Mormon Trail.
Lewis and the children moved to Malad probably in 1868 not long after he arrived in Salt Lake City in August
of that year. He married Ann Williams Davis at some point between his
arrival in Idaho
and August of 1870. He had probably become acquainted with Ann while the
two families lived in Wales
. The 1870 Census shows Lewis and Ann living in Malad City with three of Ann’s children and
four of Lewis’s children. There is also a boarder at the home.
Lewis lists his occupation as “ Taylor ” (sic) and states that his age is
forty. He lists personal assets of one hundred dollars.
Lewis would die in Malad
in August of 1877, leaving Ann and his youngest daughter Hannah alone.
Ann and Hannah are found living together in Malad City on the 1880 Census.
Lewis was probably buried in the Malad City
Cemetery , although no record could be found of his burial.
