BIOGRAPHY OF MARY REED
Wife of William Twigg
Mary
Reed, daughter of Thomas and Hannah (Lloyd) Reed, was baptized May 7, 1814 in
Little Newcastle, Pembroke, Wales. Her sister Martha
married John Twigg, and Mary married John’s brother William Twigg, son of
Thomas and Martha (Wade) Twigg. William was baptized
January 22, 1804 Roch Parish, Pembroke, Wales. A sad
day in their household occurred on June 15, 1847, when their daughter, Martha,
died at the age of six days. A day of happiness was with them when they were
converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and baptized by
Elder William Vaughn in the winter of 1849; in fact it was so cold that they
had to break the ice atop the water before the baptism could be performed.
Mary’s
husband played an active role in the church, being an elder and holding an
office of responsibility with the council. Mary and William also opened their
home to church meetings as evidenced by the journal of David Williams, states
under the date of July 24, 1852: “Rickeston
Mill Council Meeting held at the house of Wm Twigg Rickeston Mill. Elder David Williams, traveling Elder, came
in to council and Pres. William Thomas asked him to give some instructions.
Elder D. Williams then stood up and said, ‘The time is but short, the time is
not far hence, that the judgments of God will be poured out without mixture;
then it is our duty to be up and doing and preach the gospel that our fellow
man may be truly warned of the approaching calamity. And in so doing, we shall
have the spirit of God to showeth
us that we may have faith to travel to Zion.
For the time will come that the Saints will have to travel to Zion
amidst plagues and pestilence; and inasmuch as we will obey counsel and keep
the commandments of God, we are the people that will be enabled to go through
all to the land
of Zion.’”
William
and Mary decided that they would immigrate to Zion, and William worked long
hours in the flourmills to raise money for the voyage, but due to his continual
inhaling of the fine flour dust he died from congestion of the lungs on January
15, 1854 in Rickeston Mill, Pembrokeshire.
Mary, with her six children, and her sister and brother-in-law John and Martha
(Reed) Twigg, finally were able to make the journey and left Wales for Liverpool,
England, where they set sail
for America
on November 24, 1854 on the Clara Wheeler. These two families were among
the 422 passengers heading for their eventual Utah destination.
An
account of their sea voyage was written, and it reads, “Cleared port at
Liverpool Nov 27, 1854 bound for New
Orleans. After a rough experience in the Irish
Channel, being unable to proceed against incessant head winds and rough
weather, the Clara Wheeler was obligated to return to port on the 30th
of November. During this extraordinary experience the Saints suffered
considerable with seasickness. After receiving further supplies of water and
provisions, the ship again put out to sea on the 7th of December with a
favorable wind, and on the 10th she cleared the Irish Channel after which she
had a very quick trip to New Orleans,
where she arrived on the 11th of January, 1855.”
From
several letters and journals we are given a more detailed account of the
voyage. The Clara Wheeler,
was a merchant ship chartered (or owned) by the Latter-day Saints, with Captain
Nelson in charge. Nelson and the crew were non-members of the church but all
422 passengers were members on their way to America
with the hopes of reaching the Valley of the Great Salt
Lake. The ship was divided into four wards, and the passengers
into messes of ten persons each, to expedite the cooking business, and Henry
Phelps was chosen to be President of the company. On the 24th of
November, 1855, all the passengers were aboard and the vessel was taken out of
the dock and lay out in the Mersey River until on November 27th at
three o’clock p.m. the gallant ship was on its way, being pulled by a steam
packet down the Mersey river and out to open sea. During the night there was
heavy winds (one passenger calling it a tornado) and rough seas, and the ship
got lost. One of the men wrote, “We were driven on the lee shore, and nothing
but the power of God could have prevented our vessel, which was drifting on to
the reefs, from being dashed to pieces.” The ship did hit a rock, but
fortunately was not damaged. During the night the ship dropped anchor to wait
out the storm, and the crew burned blue lights and fired off signal rockets for
help. The captain, officers, and crew had all given up hopes of the ship being
saved, but the Lord was looking after them and an English pilot vessel came and
the captain was informed that it was not safe to stop where we were as the sea
was heaving very high and the wind was blowing very strong and nearly all of
the passengers on board suffered more or less from seasickness. The pilot
vessel towed the ship back to safety to Liverpool.
Here, the passengers heard that a vessel that left the port the same day as
they had was not so fortunate. It suffered shipwreck and all the passengers and
crew lost not far from the place where the Clara Wheeler turned back. It
made the Saints feel that the hand of the Lord was over them for good and it
was their faith that they would have a good passage
The
Clara Wheeler had to stay in Liverpool until fair weather, and no one could leave the
ship. From November 30 thru December 4 the Saints waited for a fair wind. Then
on the evening of December 5th, they held a meeting when Franklin D.
Richards, President of the Mission, came to the ship and told the members there
that if they would fast and pray, and keep the commandments of God they should
have favorable winds and a prosperous journey across the ocean. One person
penned in their diary, “It was our privilege to rebuke the elements, we held a
day of fasting and prayer, many prophesied that the wind would change that
night and that we should have a good breeze. It did change.” The following
morning, December 7th, the wind became calm. A man wrote, “We all
looked for the captain coming every minute. When about 1 o’clock a tug steamer
came for us and pulled us away. After we was drawn
down past all the docks, the captain came in with a small boat and on we went.”
Elder
Henry Phelps wrote on Sunday, December 10: “As we have cleared the Irish
Channel, and the pilot is about to return to Liverpool, are prospects at
present are good, very little sickness, fair weather, with a good spirit
universally throughout the ship.” But also on this day, a child died and was
buried at sea. Another child died December 12, another on December 14, and
still another on December 15th. By the time the ship reached New Orleans the total of
deaths were twenty children and two women.
Even
though the passengers on the Clara Wheeler were examined by a doctor
before they embarked aboard the ship and were passed as being in good
condition, it is believed that one of the children must have carried aboard the
measles, as soon after leaving Liverpool the
second time measles broke out in the company. The dead were sewn up in a bag
and buried at sea. One of the children that died during the voyage was the
youngest child of Mary and William Twigg. Many of the
Saints were also afflicted with much seasickness and this was all made more
complicated by the lack of food. As William Brighton, depressed over the death
of a child, wrote in his diary, “I may say we have had a speedy passage but one
of suffering and sorrow over sickness. My wife was very bad at the time (the
death of one of their daughters had just occurred) and continued very bad and
weak for the want of food. I went to the captain and asked if he should sell a
little food for a sick person and he said why the devil, sir, I have no food
for anyone. So I came away from him (with) a little sorrow on account of the
weakness of my wife. We had no meetings wherein we received instructions to
cheer us up from neither the president nor his counselors which I thought
strange – and more so Brother Franklin D. Richards said that every passenger
would have three pounds of butter and two of cheese, and when it was given out
the butter was 160 pounds short and the cheese was a quarter a pound short to
each adult.” In contrast to some of Brother Brighton’s comments, another
passenger, John Parson, wrote, “Too much cannot be said in praise of the
provisions – they were all first-rate quality, and we had, I believe, near
fifteen barrels left when we landed in St.
Louis. We had preaching and prayer meetings on deck
and below, and we enjoyed much of the Spirit of God, but deeply regretted the
continued sickness of our beloved President Henry Phelps”
Several
other accounts of the voyage stated that beside the twenty-two deaths aboard
ship, that there was one birth and eight marriages. George Thomas wrote that on
the evening of December 13, “there came a ship right a fore the wind and was
thought to run us down. Every minute the cry was gone through the ship, but the
Lord stretched out his hand and saved his people. We was first to give God the
glory and prayed. Then we had fine wind and hot days. Christmas day we did
enjoy ourselves on deck and finished the day with music.” The account of George
Thatcher stated, “December 21: Up to this time there has been eight deaths, 6
of them are small children. The weather has been very mild and fine this last
few days. We also had a fast day, yesterday, and in meeting outdoors the
weather is very warm. We begin to put on our summer clothes. The passengers do
lie about on the deck as the children do in the month of May in England. We see
fish sometimes the size of pigs jump out of the water. They call them
porpoises. Monday, being Christmas day, it was very fine, the warmest that I
ever knew. We had a pork pie and some dumpling for our dinner and I felt to
enjoy it much.” One passenger named John Eden wrote, “The boys my age had a
good time playing games & running from the top to bottom of the deck. It
was so warm that some men slept on deck although it was winter time.”
Finally,
on Thursday morning of January 4, 1855, the passengers aboard the Clara
Wheeler were full of joy and excitement as land was spotted for the first
time. The land that was spotted were part of the Bahamas or West Indies.
There was one night that the Clara Wheeler was forced to lay in one spot
because it was not safe to go on due to the fact that there were many rocks in
that place. At another point they wee stalled for two days due to there being
no wind. But they finally sailed on into the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico,
and on Wednesday morning January 10, At 10 o’clock
they came in sight of the mouth of the Mississippi River.
Here a steam packet came and took hold of the ship to tow it into the river,
but it was not strong enough to pull the vessel and they became stuck in the
mud, but was off directly by the assistance of an extra steamer, which happened
to be close by.
The
Clara Wheeler was then towed up the
Mississippi River and arrived at New
Orleans on January 11, 1855, at three o’clock in the
afternoon. John Eden wrote, “The ship went about two hundred miles up the river
and landed at New Orleans.
By this time we were nearly out of provisions, we had no bread and had to eat
hard tack or hard biscuits. About the first thing we done after landing was to get some bread and molasses. It was the best bread I
had ever eaten. We stayed there for about two days then chartered a river boat
to St. Louis.”
Another writer penned, “Concerning this voyage to America, the captain of the Clara
Wheeler stated that he never had as good a voyage as this trip, and During
the whole passage we were favored by our Heavenly Father in having fair winds,
and in making, I presume, the quickest passage ever known at this season of the
year. We arrived in New Orleans
on the 11th January, making the voyage in thirty-six days.”
So
Mary and her family finished the first part of their journey to Utah on the 11th of
January, 1855. The Saints were met by James McGaw,
the Church Emigration Agent at New Orleans, who contracted with the Captain on
the steamboat Oceana to take the passengers to St. Louis at the rate of
$3.50 for each adult, and half that for children 3 to 12 years old; and 24
hours after their arrival in New Orleans, the emigrants were on their way up
the river. Nearly one half of the Company had not the means wherewith to pay
their passage to St. Louis, but the more well-to-do Saints loaned money to all
who desired to continue the journey to St. Louis. We have an account of their
journey from New Orleans to St. Louis. Henry Phelps, the President of
this company of Saints from Liverpool, wrote,
“We took our passage on board the Oceana eighteen hours after our
arrival. On arriving at the quarantine ground, where steamers with emigrants
are compelled to stop and undergo medical inspection, causing a detention of
one or more hours, we only stopped a short time, and succeeded in reaching this
city (St. Louis) on the afternoon of January 22, just in time, for had we been
detained a few hours longer, we should not got up, as the river was soon after
blocked up with ice, showing that the Lord was with his people. He also
constrained the captain and officers of both ship and steamboat to show acts of
kindness to us on our journey.”
We
have several accounts written about the eight-day trip up the Mississippi River
to St. Louis, Missouri. William Brighton wrote, “I and
family got to New Orleans
where we stayed overnight. In the morning we got on board a steamer called Oceana
bound for St. Louis
where we landed on the 22nd of January 1855 with hard work to get
through the ice. When we landed we found friends who took us by the hand and
assisted us until I got work.” John Eden wrote in his writings that “The
steamboats burned wood instead of coal so they had to stop & load at
intervals. At one stop I went with some other boys to a plantation house. The
whites lived in a large house and the negroes in a small one.” George Thomas
wrote of the journey, “We had a fine passage till the 21st. We had
snow and frost on the 22nd. We was brought
in by the power of God for if the boat had stop 2 or 3 hours we should been
force up, but the Lord was with us so we came safe to St. Louis. But 6 died and 1 fell over.” He
closed his writing by stating on the 23rd “we landed and went to the
chapel,” and on the 24th “I went to seek for work.” George Thatcher
gave the best details of the Mississippi River
portion of the journey. He wrote that they went on shore to New Orleans on the morning of January 12th.
“We went to the market with some of the Saints to get some things. Took breakfast in the market. At 2 o’clock the steamboat
came alongside and after having our boxes inspected we put them on board of the
steamboat. Started at 6 o’clock on our way up the Mississippi
River & stopped at fifty miles up on account of the fog. Many
of us went on shore and had some talk with the Negroes and they gave us some
things. Saturday 13th: Went on shore when the boat stopped and
bought some butter and milk of the natives. Tuesday 14: Past the city Natchez. There was a
brother that was likely to be left ashore. They took in a number of mules and
one of them got loose and knocked a man overboard and they stopped to pick him
up. The poor man was most exhausted by the time the mate reached him. Monday
15: There was a man missing and it was supposed that he had fallen overboard.
Sunday 21: Stopped at shore in the wood. A number of us went on shore and made
a large fire in the wood. It was very cold. Monday 22: We arrived at St. Louis at 5 o’clock in
the evening but had to break through a great deal of ice. Brother Snow and
Andros came on board the same evening. Tuesday 23: We removed to the basement
of the church.”
Upon
reaching St. Louis,
they were met by Apostle Erastus Snow, and others, who gave the new arrivals a
hearty welcome, and conducted them to comfortable quarters, which had been
secured for their accommodation. Here Mary, her children, and her sister Martha
and brother-in-law John Twiggs, would live until they
would be able to continue their journey west. To appreciate their arrival and
life in St. Louis,
we can read several accounts in the diaries of the fellow passengers. John Parson
wrote, “Our reception at St. Louis far exceeded
all I could have expected, and we all realized the blessings of being within
the organization of a stake of Zion.
About two days before our arrival, a severe frost set in and the river was
nearly blocked with ice. Brothers Erastus Snow, Milo Andros, the bishop and his
counselors were early on the levee, the majority of the company were taken into
the basement story of our large place of worship, the sick were the first
objects of attention, and they, as well as the whole company, were located in
hired houses as soon as possible. Work, as a general thing, is scarce at this
present moment, and provisions very dear, but we expect the river to open in a
week or two, and then work will be abundant.”
George
Thatcher wrote in his diary, “Wednesday 24: Went in search of employment but
got none. Friday February 9: Met in the basement of the church to have my name
put down to go up the country.” The reference of having his name put down to go
up the country referred to being placed on a list to begin their journey west
to Utah.
Thatcher had found work and secured the funds to provide him the necessary
means to do such. The Twiggs also eventually found work and secured their means
to make their next portion of the journey to their dream of reaching Zion.
Mary
and her children traveled with a group of Saints aboard a steamer up the
Missouri River in the spring of 1855 to Mormon Grove, Kansas (near present day
Atchison) and camped here as they waited their turn to be piloted across the
plains to Salt Lake City, Utah. William Coffin, who was a non-Mormon aboard the
steamer Golden State in the spring of 1855, wrote a sketch of his voyage
in his journal. If the Twiggs were aboard or not is not known, but as they came
to Mormon Grove about this time their trip up river may be similar if on a
different steamer. Coffin writes, “At St. Louis we took passage on the steamer Golden State. She was very heavily laden
with freight and passengers, with several hundred Mormons bound for Salt Lake
via Fort Leavenworth on the steerage deck. We
were eight days on the river to Westport Landing and the Fort, the river being
at low stage, and much detention by sandbars. After being out a few days the
cholera broke out in the steerage, and there were several deaths and much
sickness among the Mormons. No inland quarantine regulations then existed in
the United States,
and it looked to us that we were in close quarters, cooped up as we were, with
a deadly disease aboard and no opportunity to help ourselves. It was very sad
to run to the shore of woodyards at night and bury
the dead away off among strangers.”
A
description of Mormon Grove stated that it “stands on high ground in the
prairie, and is of young hickory trees, which can be seen at a great distance,
their feathery outlines giving the scene a picturesque effect. There was a
large farm, some 160 acres, neatly fenced with sod and seemed to be constructed
in a more scientific plan, and is worthy of imitation in a prairie country. On
the outside there is a ditch some three feet deep by four feet wide, sloping to
a point at the bottom; from this the materials of the dyke have been taken. The
sods from the surface form the face of the wall, which is only two and a half
feet high. The earth from the trench is thrown behind these and slopes away
very gradually. The hogs and cattle are preventing from knocking it down by the
trench, and cannot jump the trench for the wall.” Another account states, “A
small stream, a branch of Deer Creek, flowed through their lands and good
springs afforded a supply of fresh water. Their settlement, it seems, was at
the grove, west of the pasturelands above described. Here is an old spring
which appears to contain mineral, if not medicinal, properties. It is now in a
neglected condition and almost obscured by a swampy growth. It was, no doubt,
the Mormons main resort for water. It seems that the Mormons had no regularly
constructed houses on this site, with the possible exception of one, but merely
improvised shelters or abodes hastily thrown together out of their wagon boxes
and what other scant material they had at their command. Their burial ground
was on a ridge between their village and pasture. Many of the Mormons died of
cholera.” And one more description reads, “It is true the buildings were mostly
tents, and the citizens seldom remained long in their temporary homes. But the
activity was so constant and the trade of the emigrants so continuous that Atchison derived as much
benefit from them as it did from her own corporation.”
Such
was life at Mormon Grove during the time Mary and her five children lived
there. Cholera broke out amongst the saints there and many died. Among the
victims of this disease was Mary and three of her
children: Emily, aged 14; John, aged about 10; and George, aged six. The date
of Mary’s death is given as March 12, 1855 in the journal of her son-in-law,
John Gabbott, and as June 1855 in the records of her
son Thomas’ family. She and her children were buried there in Mormon Grove. Her
remaining two children, Thomas, aged twelve, and Emma, aged five, were taken in
by Mary’s sister Martha and her husband’s brother John, and they soon left by
an oxen-pulled wagon over the plains with one of the companies that made their
way to Zion in the great Salt Lake Valley of Utah, reaching their destination
in the fall of 1855.
[Written
by Tom and Jim Goldrup, great great
grandsons of Mary (Reed) Twigg through her son Thomas
Twiggs, his daughter Margaret Stevenson Twiggs (married Henry Charles Goldrup), their son Eugene Thomas Goldrup
and his wife Fernita Helen McKillop.]
