History of Eliza Jenkins Martell
Eliza Jenkins Martell was born the 9th
of August, 1842, the daughter of Morris Jenkins and Margaret (Reese) Jenkins,
in Llansaint, South Wales.
She came to Utah with her parents in
1856. They crossed the plains by ox team with a company of fifty wagons, 297
oxen, beef, cattle and cows, carrying 200 emigrants. Captain Hunt was the head
of the company. They followed the ill-fated Martin Handcart Company, which
moved slowly on account of the weather, and arrived in Utah at Christmas time.
Eliza was fourteen years of age at this time.
Morris and Margaret Jenkins came to
Spanish Fork to live in 1856. They made their home here until 1860 and then
moved to Sacramento, California.
Soon after they arrived in Spanish
Fork, the Jenkins family went to call on Thomas C. Martell, their friend. The
story is told that after Thomas C. Martell came to Spanish Fork, Utah, and had
settled and become established, he built a lovely home on the Canyon Road near
the Main Street (2nd East). In the kitchen he built a bench near the
stove for visitors to sit on. After he had it finished he made the statement
that the first young lady who came into his home and sat on that bench, he
would ask her to marry him. Eliza Jenkins and her parents, having known Thomas
Martell in the old country, came to pay him a visit. After entering the house
Eliza went straight to the bench and sat on it and promptly received a proposal
of marriage.
She was fifteen and he thirty-four
when they were married, and he always said she was the most beautiful woman he
had ever seen. They were married in Spanish Fork on January 15, 1858 by Bishop
A. K. Thurber. They went to the endowment house a few years later.
Mr. and Mrs. Martell went through
all the trials and hardships incident to settling in a new country, in making
their home and rearing their family. They had a comfortable house for those
days and they were very industrious and thrifty people.
Mrs. Martell was of a gentle and
lovable disposition. She was very productive and neat. Her home was constantly
clean and made cheerful by the industry of her hands. She was always kind and
happy and loved to have the young people come to her home in the evening with
her boys and girls and have a cutting bee, or candy pull.
The Indians were very
troublesome-many raids were carried out, horses and cattle were frequently
stolen and sometimes more serious difficulties arose in which some of the
settlers lost their lives. Many nights Mr. Martell would have to go out to help
guard the city.
The following incident will show the
bravery of Mrs. Martell; it was a common thing for the women and children of
the neighborhood to congregate together when the men were out standing guard at
night. Sometime they would be at one home or another. This particular night,
Mrs. Martell and her children were home alone- for some unknown reason they
hadn’t gone to a neighbors. There was an attic in the Martell home with a
ladder going up from the outside. Mrs. Martell took her children and they went
up into this attic, pulling the ladder up behind them. Sometime during the
night they heard their cows going up the hill just as if they were being driven
away.
Mrs. Martell immediately thought it
was the Indians driving them away, and she realized what a terrible thing this
would be as the loss of their cows would be very hard on her family. She told
her children to remain quiet and to stay where they were and she would go after
the cows. She climbed down the ladder, taking it and hiding it in the corn
patch. She ran after the cows.
When she came to them she found that
they had broken out and were going away themselves. She brought them back and
put them in the corral. Retrieving the ladder from where she had hidden it, she
climbed up to the attic where her children were, pulling the ladder up behind
her again to wait for morning.
Mrs. Martell was very religious and
took part in the various activities of her day. While Thomas was on his mission
to Wales, his wife Eliza was at home, taking care of five children-ages
seventeen to two years. This took great faith, courage, industry and good
management. She was a remarkable woman. At the time of her death she was a
Relief Society teacher. She had an unusual amount of faith and perhaps her
greatest joy in life was to see her children upholding the faith for which she
had given much.
Mrs. Martell died leaving seven
children for Mr. Martell to raise. One of these children was an eight month old
baby girl (Mary Ellen). She was raised by her oldest sister, Elizabeth. Mrs.
Martell died on October 2, 1880, at the age of thirty-eight. She was buried in
the Spanish Fork Cemetery.
