HISTORY OF MARGARET MORSE JONES
The Second Family

By Ruth Jones Clark

Margaret Morse Jones was born in Merthyr Tydfil, Glamorganshire, South Wales.  Her official birth certificate recorded by the Superintendent Registrar shows: “Twelfth March 1853, Tramroad Side, Merthyr Tydfil Lower, Margaret, Girl, Father John MOSS, Collier, Mother Ann Moss, formerly Bennet.”  (No house number is given.)  Her birthplace is about a half-mile from the present LDS Church.  The spelling Moss is typical of Welsh name variations.
We have two photos of Tramroad Side, one taken by Margaret’s son John M. in 1912 while on a mission, the other by her grandson Owen Olsen in 1966.  Completely unaware of the first photo, the second photo, taken 54 years later, appears to be taken from about the same spot.  Owen feels that in his quest for Margaret’s birthplace he must have been guided by inspiration to this spot.  The type of houses there are very similar to those about a mile away, where President McKay’s mother was born.
Although Margaret celebrated her birthday on 11 February, and her obituary indicates 11 February 1852, this and other date discrepancies can be attributed to Margaret’s early marriage.  She was the daughter of John Morse and Ann Bennet.  Her father was born in Llanelly, Carmarthenshire, Wales, 9 Jauary 1822, her mother was born in 1822 in South Wales.  The 1851 census lists Ann’s birthplace as Langathen Parish, which is about 32 miles west-northwest from Merthyr Tydfil and 14 miles north from Llanelly.  However, Ann’s birth record has not been confirmed, but is being researched further.  Margaret’s parents were married 22 February 1845, at Parish Church, Merthyr Tydfil, Gamorganshire, Wales.
Her parents had four children:  Mary, the oldest was born 17 May 1845 in Merthyr Tydfil; she was the only member of the family who did not come to America.  She was married at that time and stayed in Wales with her husband Watkin Morgan.  She died 5 March 1903, age 57.  They had three children:  Mary Morgan Davis, Ruth Morgan Gover, and John Morgan.
William was born 4 March 1848 in Merthyr Tydfil; married Jane Morgan, and they had seven sons and five daughters.  Their home was in Samaria, Idaho; he died 20 March 1913 at age 65.
Joseph was born 22 October 1850 in Merthyr Tydfil; married Esther Jenkins and they had five sons and five daughters.  Their home was in Samaria, Idaho.  He died 13 July 1916 at age 65.
Margaret was almost two years old when her mother died 29 January 1855 at age 33 of phthsis (definition: to waste away, a wasting away of the body or any of its parts; especially, tuberculosis of the lungs; consumption).  Ann was buried at Horeb Churchyard, just one mile from her last residence on Tramroad Side.
Margaret’s father married Alice Lewis on 21 May 1855, just four months later.  The marriage took place at the Vaynor Church.  To this marriage ten children were born:  Sarah Ann, Martha, Richard, Hyrum, Jane, John L., Brigham L. Alice Elizabeth, James Edward, and Berkley Hugh.  Her mother and father joined the LDS Church before Margaret was born.  They lived in a mining district in Merthyr Tydfil where most of the population was miners.  Her father John, and her brothers Joe and Will worked in the coal mines while they lived in Wales.  Her brothers started in the mines at age 14.  With her mother’s death it lessened Margaret’s chance of a youthful, carefree childhood.  She stayed home and helped her step-mother Alice with the other children and scrubbed on the board much of the time.  Because of her childhood circumstances, her scholastic education was limited.  She stated that she prayed every morning when her father and brothers left for the mines that they would return safely to them again.  Margaret was baptized when she became of age.
In 1865 the family decided to emigrate to America from where they were then living, in the main mining district of Mountain Ash, five miles south of Merthyr Tydfil.  Her brother Joseph’s biography indicates their last home was in Cwmbach, a village about a mile from Mountain Ash.  On Saturday, 29 April at 2:30 p.m. they left Liverpool on the sailing vessel “Bell Wood.”  A meeting was held on deck and the ship was dedicated and consecrated to the Lord for the purpose of conveying the 636 Saints on board.  The Manuscript (MSS) History of British Mission (CR md 1140 vol. 21-22) under date of 29 April 1865, gives the roster of Bell Wood passengers which includes this family:  “John Moss 42 Collier, Alice 29, William 17 Collier, Joseph 14 Collier, Margaret 12, Ann 9, Hyrum 3, and Jane infant.”  (Note Moss spelling again.)
They were five weeks from Liverpool to New York.  There was one death and one birth on board while crossing.  A baby girl born enroute was named “Belle Wood.”  Margaret was seasick most of the time and could eat nothing but oranges.  The Captain and the First Mate joined the LDS Church when they arrived in New York.  The Belle Wood sank on its return trip.
They were detained at Castle Garden, New York (later called the Battery) and stayed for one week, making application for citizenship while there.  They left by train for St. Louis, Missouri stopping enroute one day to build a bridge.  It was at this time that Captain Cody rode into their camp and reported that the Civil War was over.  They took steamboats up the Missouri River to Nebraska and landed 15 June 1865 seven miles from Nebraska City at the Bluffs where they lived in a dugout on the Missouri.  After two months they moved into Nebraska City for the winter.  Her father, John, was very ill with malaria fever; his hair turned while during that sickness, and he was only 42 years old at the time.  They had no funds to continue their journey, thus they were compelled to stay there for about a year.
Margaret found employment as a nursemaid for the Payne family, a banker, who was very good to the whole family.  They helped find work for the two boys and also helped with John’s illness.  Margaret said that her father never forgot their kindness to them.  It was while they were in Nebraska that their baby Jane died and was buried in Florence.
The family left Nebraska for Utah in July 1866 with the Lott Smith Co., Captain Tom Ricks in charge of 167 wagons.  John and his two oldest sons, Will and Joe, walked and drove four cows across the plains; the driver of their wagon would walk some afternoons and let Ann, Margaret and Hyrum ride in the wagon.  Alice was expecting her sixth child, John L., at this time.  Twenty miles a day was the most they could make in a day when everything was fine.  When their shoes wore out, their feet were wrapped in burlap, or they went barefoot.
They arrived in Salt Lake City 4 September 1866.  The Salt Lake band met them in Immigration Canyon and after a short rest they were sent on to Cache Valley.  The Logan band and relatives met them in New Canyon (Sardine) entering Cache Valley.  Her father John’s two brothers, William and Richard Morse, both younger than John, had preceded him to Utah.  They eventually settled in Samaria, Idaho, along with Margaret’s two brothers, William and Joseph.  These two uncles had mostly daughters and Margaret traveled to Samaria occasionally to visit her brothers and uncles and their families.  Her Uncle Richard married Maria Jones, and had six girls and twin boys.  Her Uncle William married Margaret Evans, and they had seven girls and one son.  This made it possible for Margaret to enjoy several cousins in this country.  Five of these girls (cousins) married husbands with the surname of Williams in the Samaria-Malad area.
These two uncles, William and Richard, met them in New Canyon, a great reunion!  The family proceeded to Logan where they acquired land west of Logan and built a dugout where the Railroad Depot now stands.  John L. was born 7 December 1866 while they lived there.  The following year, 1867, Margaret’s father and family took a quarter section of land five miles north of Logan and they moved to Hyde Park where they made their home permanently.  Margaret, now 14, stayed in Logan and lived with a lady whom they called Aunt Sarah Davis.  It was through her that Margaret met her husband-to-be, Ricy Davis Jones, who she married 18 October 1868, in the Salt Lake Endowment House.  He lived in Wellsville.
Margaret married as a polygamist wife.  She stated that her father and brothers tried to talk her out of marrying so young, and in polygamy, but she said that Ricy had the nicest home in Wellsville, two farms and was a very handsome man.  He had led the choir in his church (Baptist) in Wales and taught dancing and she was never sorry she married him.  His first wife, Ann Howell, moved with him to his home in Wellsville, which was one of four homes he built as a pioneer in Utah.  The home was on the southeast corner of First East and Main and faced west.  This property was later sold to Ann Howell’s brother, Joseph, where he later built the Co-Op, a large general store.  A service station stands there now.  They lived in that home until 1888.  It was very well built and comfortable.  There were three large rooms with a long porch across the front, and it was painted green.  It had two nice fireplaces, one on the north and one on the south of the house.  There was a large cellar by the back door and an old-fashioned well.  There was an orchard with a variety of fruit.  Behind the orchard was a granary and stable and then a long shed and corral.  To the east of that was a patch of alfalfa.  To the south was a garden and a nice path to Howell’s (Ann’s family) rock house, which still stands.  Ricy helped build the rock house and it was designed after the home he had built north of Brigham City.  There was a willow fence that was mashed down so that one could walk over it.
Seven of the children were born there.  Mary Ann (Molly), 5 January 1870; Celestia May, 25 February 1872; Emma, 26 December 1874; Sarah Jane (Saidee), 15 November 1877; Hettie, 23 April 1880; John, 16 November 1882; and William LeRoy, 17 November 1885.  She had five girls, then five boys.  The older girls went to school in Wellsville before the family moved to the farm.  Some of them went to a Presbyterian school just two blocks south.  There were a number of other church denominations which brought schools into the valley in that era, and they were good schools; because they were, some LDS parents allowed their children to attend these classes.
Ricy farmed in the summer, and freighted in the winter to as far away as Panaca, Nevada, and Butte, Montana, until they moved to the farm in 1888.  He brought cloth back from his freighting trips to be used for the family clothing.  Margaret sewed for herself and family, and also helped Ann with her sewing.  The sewing at that time was all done by hand.
Railroad land had become available, and it was every other section for ten miles on each side of this land, which was southeast of Wellsville, in Mt. Sterling.  One could move onto it just as if homesteading it, they had to hang onto it themselves.  At one time a squatter moved onto fifteen acres which Ricy claimed, but couldn’t see it because of the hill between it and their home.  When he found out about it he had to oust the fellow himself.
In the meantime, Ann Howell Jones, with her eight children, moved to Brigham City, and was granted a divorce 2 October 1874.  Margaret had two children, Molly and May, and Ann had her youngest two, Alice and Zina, while they were living in polygamy.  Ricy had received a farm of 30 acres, east of Wellsville in Greenville, for work he had done on the Salt Lake Temple.  He gave this to Ann when she left and she sold it to her brother, Joseph Howell.  Ricy had another small farm north of Wellsville, called the North Field, which he sold after moving to the farm.  Saidee recalled how relieved they were when he sold that, because it was so far away.
The home in town, probably the stable or barn, and most likely the granary, were moved to the farm by Ricy.  He numbered each log as he tore them down, then reassembled them in correct order.  The markings which he put on the barn longs were still visible when it was torn down in the early 1970’s.  The home of the farm, which burned down in the 1930’s, was located at about the center of the farm because of the spring there.  The spring, about 3-1/2 rods from the back door, was built up with rocks with steps leading down to the water.  Later a canal from the Hyrum Dam went right between the spring and the home.  The home faced south from the living room, with two bedrooms on the west (these three rooms were the original home with the long porch on the south), and later a kitchen, pantry and summer kitchen were added on the north with porches on the north and east.  Lumber siding covered the north.  Their son, Hugh, put the floor in the kitchen at night after school, while his mother held a lantern for light.  Margaret and some of her girls cut a door from the kitchen to the living room for convenience.  It was quite a task cutting through those logs.
The task of moving these buildings and rebuilding them involved many months of time and hard work.  The family at first lived in the rock house of the Howell family in the winter, and in the granary made into a home at the farm, in the summer.  Sons Hugh and Pearl were born in town in the rock home 24 May 1888 and 16 January 1892, respectively.  Sterling was born 8 March 1895 on the farm.  Their adopted daughter, Bertha, was born 2 November 1888.  Sterling was the first baby boy born in Mt. Sterling after it was organized into a ward, thus he was given the same name.  They had been part of the Wellsville Ward prior to this time.
Saidee relates that her father would make a trip to Hyde Park every so often so their mother and the children could visit their Morse grandparents.  They always enjoyed these visits.  Grandpa Morse would take the children into the orchard and treat them to fruit.  The children, Saidee and Hettie, were about the same age as Jim and Bert Morse.  Saidee relates that her mother’s half-brother, John L., lived with them in the summers and helped with the farming in Mt. Sterling.  During their visits to the Morse’s, Ricy and Margaret and Margaret’s parents would do much of their talking in Welsh. 
On 1 January 1901, Margaret’s father died at age 79 in Hyde Park, Cache, Utah.  The only mother she knew, Alice Lewis Morse, died 7 May 1912 in Hyde Park, Cache Utah.  They are both buried there.
The Jones’ went through all the hardships and rewarding experiences of pioneering.  At one time, three of the children had diphtheria.  Emma was at death’s door, and Ricy had given her up.  But Margaret hadn’t.  Emma had been weaned, but Margaret began nursing her again, and with a great deal of faith and prayers, saved her life.
The farm consisted of 160 acres when they first settled it, but before Ricy died, he sold forty acres in the southeast corner.  Margaret told Ricy at one time, that if he would get some cows, she would be responsible for them.  She was naturally industrious and took to business and farming readily.  They gradually built up a herd of ten to twelve cows at the farm.  She milked the cows, had a churn for making butter, and also made cottage cheese.
Ricy was called to Provo for jury duty at one time, and while down there, he bought the first lucern seed he ever had.  There was hardly any of this seed in Cache valley at that time.
Margaret was a great gardener, so there was a large orchard and garden.  There were blue and red plums, apples of various kinds, about everything but cherries, as Sterling remembers:  currants, gooseberries, strawberries, and raspberries.  The trees were about twenty feet apart, and cultivated in between for the garden.  They grew potatoes which they put in a pit and covered with straw and dirt.  In the spring, they would get their potato seed back from the pit.
It was a large family to care for and keep clothed.  Margaret knitted stockings for them, usually with bright colored stripes running around them.  She sewed the clothes for all of them.  In the winter she tore up all the rags for rug making.  She would sew the strips together and take them to someone who had a loom and have them woven into carpets.  She filled straw ticks with oat straw and every fall it would be replaced, along with fresh straw under the carpets.  The straw would be ground or mashed to a powder after a year’s use.  No wonder Sterling had hay fever!  The washing was always done on a wash-board with homemade soap.
There was always much canning to do in the summer.  They had a lovely cellar with a lumber and shingle roof, sawdust in the attic, cement floor, and cupboards lined with fruits – peaches, pears, apples, dry corn, and sugar cane, which they raised and took to a mill in Hyrum to be made into molasses.  In addition to the family living at home, some of Margaret’s daughters with families, came from the city and did canning to take back to their homes.  When fall came, jars of pickles, preserves, and all sorts of vegetables and fruits lined the cellar shelves.  Margaret loved green beans; one summer she told Melba she wanted fifty pints for herself, then she could have the rest from the garden.  A niece, Allie Davies, came to visit one summer and said, “Maggie [Margaret’s nickname], I’d rather not have so much work and less food.”
A daughter-in-law, Hazel Jones, remembers Margaret telling her that one time while she was ill, perhaps having a baby, one of her friends was helping her.  A cow which Margaret always milked wouldn’t stand still for her friend, until she thought of putting on Margaret’s bonnet.  Ricy held the cow’s tail, while her friend was allowed to milk the cow.
She always raised chickens and sold eggs.  She would trade eggs for groceries.  At one time she had saved enough, in addition to the grocery money, to buy a little two-tiered round table which is still in the family.  One year she had two hundred baby chicks hatched out by Decoration Day.
When the railroad decided to sell, the occupants with cash had first chance to buy.  Ricy had greatly improved his ground, so he went to Salt Lake City with the gold and bought the one hundred sixty acres.
The family always had eight or ten horses, pigs, cows, chickens, and a few geese.  One spring a severe storm of hail and rain hit the farm.  It caused a great deal of excitement and destruction.  Four of the horses were in the corral, but they broke loose and ran north until they were stopped by a fence.  The fence was struck by lightning, and the four horses were killed.  A team of horses which was harnessed to a plow in the potato field was unharmed.  The pigs were in a west field huddled by a fence.  John went to try and gather them in, but they were too frightened.  The huddled so closely together that many of the little piglets were trampled to death.
At Christmas time on the farm, it was the custom to hang up their stockings on Christmas Eve for a gift to be left by Old St. Nick. 
The church which they attended in Mt. Sterling had a very high ceiling and one pot-bellied stove to heat it.  Parties and dances were held there for the 25 families that attended the ward.  In good weather they would all go to a home, taking turns once a month, and have a picnic and play games.
At one time there were schools located at what they called the Bulrush, and also one on McBride’s corner.  These were later combined into one building next door to the meeting house in Mt. Sterling, which was due south of the farm.  Bertha prepared lunches in a large basket for four or five of the children and they would walk through the fields to school.
Margaret and Ricy both had their Patriarchal Blessings given by Charles W. Hyde.  They were both given at the same time, 19 September 1871.  She was promised, “Thy children’s children shall rise up to bless thee.  Thou are a daughter of Joseph.”  Ricy was promised, “No weapon that is formed against you shall prosper and thou will be like unto Nephi of old.  Thou are of Ephraim.”