Elizabeth Harris Powell
Elizabeth Harris was born Oct. 12, 1821 in Radnashire, Wales—the daughter of John and Sara Harris. She
lived with her grandparents as a child; her father and mother going into
England to work. Her grandparents being lonely persuaded her parents to let
Elizabeth stay with them. Her grandfather was a farmer so her childhood was
spent on a farm in South Wales. The children in that country learned to work
when very young, so when her grandmother passed away, Elizabeth kept house for
her grandfather. He was a very religious man adhering strictly to the rules of
the Methodist Church, which was very strict with its members. They were not
allowed to dance.
She married John Powell of Sheffield, England,
who had come to the neighborhood as foreman for Sir Benjamin Hall the great man
in that neighborhood, who represented that part of the country in the British
Parliament.
Her husband was a stone-cutter and as most
everything in that section was built of stone, houses, fences, even the floors
in houses were of stone, a great many men were employed on the estate.
Later on, thinking to better themselves, they
moved to the Iron Works where the wages were higher; but in a short time her
husband and son William became ill with Typhus Fever, during this time they
became acquainted with James Huish and family who
were members of the Church of Latter Day Saints. Elizabeth was then the baby
and as the mother was so worn out with caring for her sick husband and son,
Mrs. Huish nursed the baby as she had a baby of her
own about the same age.
This acquaintanceship ripened into a very dear
and lasting friendship. Through this association, John Powell, her husband was
converted to the principles of the L.D.S. Church. He was baptized and became an
active member. Later she also became a member. Afterward they moved back to
their old home at Abagavernie and the same work for
Sir Benjamin Hall.
Their home was always open to the elders of
the church. James Reese and Chas.[Charles] Long were
traveling elders that stayed at their home, later emigrated, making their homes
in Payson , Utah.
The family left their home to emigrate to Utah with the Saints in April 1856. At that time
there were six children—William, Mary, Margaret, Anna, Elizabeth, and David,
the baby only six weeks old.
They sailed from Liverpool on the ship “Enoch
Train.” It was a sailing vessel, a freighter converted into an Emigrant ship.
The Captain was Daniel McCarty.
After two weeks at sea a terrible storm came
on and drove them back until they could see the spires of buildings in
Liverpool. It took five weeks for them to cross the Atlantic from Liverpool to
Boston. They traveled by Emigrant train from Boston to the Missouri River, at
Council Bluffs they built their hand carts.
They had paid their emigration fee before
leaving their homes in Wales and expected to find teams and wagons at Council
Bluffs to take them the rest of the way to Utah, but here was
only a few teams with loads of merchandise for the stores in Salt Lake City. So
the men made the carts on which they could haul the few things necessary to
make the journey across the plains one thousand miles to Utah.
As this brave and valiant mother had not fully
regained her strength after the arrival of little David, most of the camp work
such as cooking and washing was done by Mary who was twelve years old.
Everything was so different from the life they had known in Wales, it was hard
to conform to such changed conditions.
At the Iowa camp grounds they saw the first
stove with an oven. They did their cooking over a camp fire, baking their bread
in a Bake skillet or oven. They had never seen a wash-board until they came to
America.
When the handcarts were completed this company
of about two hundred souls with fifty-seven handcarts set out across the plains
under the command of Edmund Ellsworth as Captain, theirs was the first company
of handcart pioneers to cross the plains. It was a long hard road to travel
with teams and wagons. They walked all the way unless too ill to walk, when the
others pulled the extra weight, helping each other in every way they could to
ease the burden.
There was only a few
wagons with this company which were supposed to carry the food, but some were
hauling other goods for the stores in Salt Lake City.
There were some game
along the way that helped out their meager supply of food—this was used to the
best advantage for the entire company.
Robert Sheen and family, his father and some
of his relatives were in this company. He was one who did more than his share
of furnishing game for the Company.
They never seemed to think of the hardships
they had to endure, they had one thought in mind, and one only—to reach Zion;
where they would find friends and a chance to begin a new life and live their
religion.
One day an elderly man of company strayed from
camp. They were delayed for several hours while a search was made for him. He
had found a shelter built of willows on the river bank, hid in it as he was
tired of walking. They found him and persuaded him to carry on as they couldn’t
leave him there alone.
It was very hard on the old, sick and young
children as they traveled as far as possible each day. Robert Sheen lost his
little daughter, Emma, on the plains. They prepared her little body for burial,
performed the last rites and tearfully resumed their journey, after marking the
spot with stones but leaving as little trace of the ground being disturbed as
possible.
The men dared not go far from the train in
search of game for fear of an attack by Indians. At night when they made camp
they placed the wagons and handcarts close together so as to form a hollow
square or circle pitching their tents on the inside for a greater security.
Some days they had to travel long distances
without water and at night the men would dig holes in the Buffalo wallows to
get water. As soon as the dirt was damp, they would hold it on their wrists to
absorb some moisture in order to go on digging. The little children often would
grab the wet mud and suck the water out of it to quench their thirst; not being
able to wait for the water to seep in and clear. In spite of these hardships at
night after they had had their supper, they would sing hymns and express their
gratitude to God that He had led them so far on their way.
I never remember my grandmother complaining or
thinking it was too hard or the road too long, rather they seemed to be very
grateful that they had the health and strength to carry on. My grandfather and
his son, William, pulled the handcart all the way.
When they came to a stream where the water was
good, they would stay long enough to wash their clothes and bake some bread to
carry with them as there was long distances where the
only fuel they could find was dry buffalo chips, which they used to cook their
food with.
After they had crossed the Great River and
were climbing the lone slope they met a group of missionaries from Salt Lake
City on their way East. They stopped their teams, alighted, and shouted “Hosannas
and praise to God and the Lamb.” As the sight of this valiant Company so
sunburned and weary, but with smiles on their faces and their eyes shining with
joy was one that they could never forget. Bernard Snow stood on the tongue of one
of the wagons and made a rousing speech bidding them
welcome to the Valleys of the Mountains after which they went on their separate
ways.
This valiant band filled with joy and
thanksgiving as their journey was nearly completed, forgetting the weary miles
behind them, facing the rest with courage renewed and hearts light and gay.
Whey they reached the mouth of Emigration Canyon,
President Young and a few Saints met them bidding them welcome and escorting
them into town where they were served refreshments. President Young arose to
make a speech, but when he saw how hungry the little ones looked, he said: “Come,
let’s serve the food; the speeches can wait.” As the people had been on limited
rations for a long time the sight of regular food brought tears to their eyes
and a lump into their throats. In true gratefulness, they gave thanks and felt
that their troubles were indeed over.
It was the latter part of September [1856],
they had been six months in their journey since leaving their home in Wales. As
the Elders had told grandfather, he should work on the temple,
he rented a one-room house from Orson Hyde and went to work cutting stone. But
after working two days, he took very sick with Black Canker and died just two
weeks after reaching Salt Lake. Leaving his wife alone in this strange new land
with six children, the oldest fifteen years and the youngest seven months, with
very little money and a very few things with which to make a home.
Their money had been deposited with the
Emigration Fund when they started on their journey, all their extra clothing,
bedding and everything they could not load on their handcarts had been left at
Council Bluffs to be brought by teams later. They faced the coming winter with
a very scanty supply of clothing, bedding and other necessities to make them
comfortable.
They sold their handcart to buy food. The
crops that year had been very poor and as the population was increasing so
fast, with so many Emigrants arriving that year, food was really scarce, with
very little variety.
For Christmas dinner that year, they had
boiled cabbage, bran bread and toasted bran coffee. William worked on the temple, Mary worked for a woman who promised to teach her to
make gloves, but never kept her promise. The mother being a good seamstress, did the tailoring for some of the prominent
people, among them Heber C. Kimble, who was then the presiding Bishop of the
Church. He wanted her to accept help from the Tithing Office, but she refused,
saying that if they could get work they would rather earn their living. He then
asked her if she would accept a piece of beef of his own that he had just
killed. She told him yes and that she would be very grateful for it; so he sent
over a nice big piece of beef and said, “I admire your independence, and I know
you are having a hard time to support your family, but you are keeping your self respect, for which I admire you very much.”
Two boys were boarding with her while working
on the Temple, they were paid with provisions from the
Tithing Office. They would have to go and take whatever there was, if anything,
in the way of food in exchange for their work.
The next summer they raised a garden with
potatoes and cabbage for the next winter. In the fall of 1857, Charles Long
came to see them, as he had learned they were in Salt Lake City, and persuaded
them to move to Payson. Their vegetables were stored or deposited in the
Tithing Office in Salt Lake City. They were given receipts for them so they
could draw on the Tithing Office at Payson.
Sometime after this, she married James Butter,
by whom she had two children, John and Emma. Her life with him was very unhappy
as she divorced him, but had two more to be supported by her and her older
children.
They bought an adobe house on the west side of
Payson, one room with no door or windows, just the spaces. But it meant to them
a home of their own. They soon had it furnished. Mary got some white clay from
the hill and with a piece of sheep skin she white-washed the walls making them
look nice and clean. Then she fixed up some curtains for the windows out of
some mosquito bar. Placed a bowl filled with wild flowers on the table. When
the mother came home from her days work and saw their little home in such a
festive array, the tears came to her eyes and she said this is the first home
we have owned in Utah and to me it is the grandest one in all
the world.
There was a man by the name of Batch who had a
store in Payson. He had my grandmother work and pack
in barrels all the butter he bought. She packed in a layer of butter, then a
layer of salt and sugar; in that way they could cut it and take out the size
piece they wanted and handle it without messing up the rest.
He also had them dip the bacon sacks in lye
water made from the ashes of greaswood form this they
made soap. The soap and butter were shipped to Ft. Bannock.
She was paid for taking care of the butter and
for making the soap and also had a share of the sacks. As she was a seamstress,
she made very good use of them.
She made a good many clothes, especially for
men, sewing in the evening by the light from the fireplace. Mary would work all
day and then help her mother with the sewing at night. William was in the
Militia that went to Sanpete to protect the settlers from the Indians. He met
and married Christiana Peterson of Fort Ephraim.
Years went by in about the same way. Later she
bought a home in the first ward where she lived the rest of her life.
In March of 1878 her son, David and her
son-in-law, James Betts were killed in a snow slide in Payson Canyon. James
Betts’ body was found that day, but not until a week later was the body of
David recovered. Something rather strange happened during the search. Men from
the surrounding settlements spent nearly a week on the slide digging, trying to
find the body; as the slide covered a large area they had about decided they
would have to wait till the snow melted. They told his mother this, but that
they would search again the next day. This was very hard for her to bear as the
thought of wild animals finding the body seemed likely.
That Sunday night Soren
P. Christensen of Salem dreamed he was on the slide and saw a man pointing to a
place he recognized on the slide. The next morning as they were going to the
Canyon to try as they thought for the last time, he told Robert Sheen of his
dream and described the man he had seen in the dream. Brother Sheen recognized
this man as the boy’s father, John Powell, they had
crossed the plains together. They told David Sabin about it and these three
agreed not to tell the others, but to explore the place shown in the dream.
They sent David’s brother, William to another part of the slide with other
searchers. So strong was their faith that they dug a big hole several feet deep
at that spot and did find the body, just a week after slide had buried the two
men.
This catastrophe left her daughter, Margaret,
with a family of five small children, the baby only two weeks old. At this time
she was taking boarders so did not go out to work for people as before—so she
looked after Margaret’s children while she worked. Andrew Tustrup,
a shoemaker and step-son of Soren P. Christensen, and
Johnny Pearson, a tailor, made their home with her. Her son, John and daughter,
Emma, also lived at home. He was a painter and Emma was a dressmaker.
Back in Wales when they joined the Church and
decided to emigrate to Utah, her relatives were very
bitter, telling her they would never write her a letter.
Mary asked her Aunt Margaret if she would please
write and she said no—never. But many years later she did write telling of the
death of seven of their near relatives in a coal mine explosion.
Having left her native land, her relatives
(not one of them ever joined the L.D.S. Church) and the graves of two small
children, I never knew her to express regret at the choice she had made.
After her children all married and she lived
alone, cataracts developed in her eyes so her last days were spent in
semi-darkness, but she was cheerful, with a host of friends, loved and
respected by all who knew her. She came to the end of a wonderful life in about
1890.
[This history was written by a daughter of
Mary Powell Sabin. According to my genealogy records, Elizabeth Harris Powell
died 6 April 1890 at Payson, Utah. She married James Butler, had two children,
Emma and John, then left Mr. Butler. I don’t know if they were divorced or just
separated. The two children added the Powell name to their own.]
