THE LIFE HISTORY
OF
BENJAMIN WILKES AND
CATHERINE MORGAN WILKES
With short biographies
of other family members
By
David Ephraim Thomas
and
Rachel Sian Thomas
December 15, 2009
INTRODUCTION
We decided to write histories of Benjamin Wilkes and
Catherine Morgan after discovering information new to our family about their
lives. The information we had from previous
family records was sparse and open to interpretation. Allegedly Ben was from Missouri
and Catherine from Wales. The young couple met and married in St. Louis, Missouri. After a few years living in St.
Louis, they moved north on the Mississippi River to Muscatine, Iowa. After living peacefully in Muscatine for perhaps eight years, Benjamin suddenly
disappeared from his family at about the time his sixth child was born. Seven years later, Catherine appeared on the Federal
Census of Malad, Idaho,
living as a mother and wife in an entirely different family.
Benjamin and Catherine Wilkes are our ancestors. They are the second great-grandparents of
David Thomas, and the third great-grandparents of Rachel Thomas. Like others who lived in the nineteenth
century, they were greatly impacted by the events of their time. They were participants in some of the most
important happenings of the day. We
found that both of them were part of an emigrant stream leaving the economically
troubled shores of Great
Britain.
They came to America
seeking religious freedom with a dream of being able to own property someday. They found a growing country with economic
troubles of its own, soon to be deeply divided by a brutal Civil War. The harsh reality of living on small wages
while apart from their families must have been overwhelming. Although they were able to eventually realize
part of the American dream, their life stories did not unfold in the exact way
that they had anticipated.
We have made every effort to make this history accurate and
informative. Footnotes are included so
the reader might explore the original sources of the information in the history
when desired. We have made numerous
references to the extended family of Benjamin and Catherine. At the end of the paper, we have included a
short summary of each known family member’s life. Above all, we hope that the reader will enjoy
the paper and that it will enhance the understanding and appreciation of Benjamin
and Catherine Wilkes for all of their descendants.
THE MORGANS OF SOUTH WALES
Our story begins in the fertile valleys of Glamorganshire, South Wales. Welsh
people have lived on the British Isles for thousands
of years. The Welsh, also known as
Britons, were on the beaches to resist the Roman legions which landed near Dover fifty-five years
before Christ. The Romans were impressed
by their fighting prowess, but dismissed them as base savages.
The Welsh are descendants of the Celts, a war-like,
metal-working people thought to have migrated from the Hindus region of what is
now India. After spreading through Central Europe and France, they migrated to the British
Isles. Welsh language is
related to several other groups in Great Britain
and France. Welsh, Gaelic, Breton, Cornish and Manx
languages all have common Celtic roots.
The Welsh language and culture survive today, in spite of
the efforts of the various invaders of the British Isles. The Welsh saw Romans, Danes, Saxons and Normans arrive and claim all or part of the British Islands.
Of the invaders, perhaps the greatest influence was felt from the
Romans. Many modern Welsh words clearly
derive from Latin roots.
The Welsh have long suffered persecution in their native
land. While the Battle of Hastings in
1066 A.D. gave Normans
authority over Saxon England, the Welsh were perceived as an insignificant
irritant. Much like the American
Indians, they watched as invaders took control of lands and culture. The Welsh resisted the English for
centuries. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the Welsh existed in kingdoms led by strongmen. Perhaps the final nail in the coffin for the Welsh
Kingdoms was the English defeat of Welsh forces led by Owain Glyn Dŵr
early in the fifteenth century A.D. By
the sixteenth century A.D., Welsh language was prohibited by law in schools and
courts of law, ironically while a Monarch of Welsh descent sat on the Throne of
England. Land ownership and voting
rights were tied to the English language.
It is no surprise that the Welsh word for the English people, Saesneg, must always be said with a scowl
to be pronounced correctly.
Up until the eighteenth century, Glamorgan or Morganwg had an agricultural
economy. In any farming economy, people are
subject to years of drought and years of plenty. With the industrial revolution, the economy
began to change. The coal found in South Wales was needed to fuel iron smelters. The rivers and canals of South
Wales were needed to transport raw materials from mine to
factory. Finished goods were shipped by
the same canals and rivers to market.
Our Morgan family was a Welsh family. They had lived, for at least two generations,
in the Vale of the Afon Tâf (River
Taff). One of the ten largest rivers in England, the Taff flows south through
Glamorganshire and empties into the Severn River as it flows into Bridgewater Bay.
Many in that area were employed in the coal mines or in steel
manufacture.
Morgan Morgan, the patriarch of our Morgan family, was born about
1775, probably somewhere in Glamorganshire.
I have not been able to find his birth or christening records. He married Catherine David on the 13th of December, 1794
at Saint Fagan’s Anglican Church
near Cardiff, Glamorgan. There were at least four children of John and
Catherine on the Anglican christening records.
The oldest was named John Morgan Morgan.
The use of both of his father’s names
as a middle and last name was perhaps a throwback to the former patronymic system
of Welsh names, in other words John ap (son
of) Morgan Morgan. John Morgan Morgan,
who went by John M. Morgan or John Morgans, was born on the 22nd of January, 1801,
and was probably christened at a small chapel called Eglwys Ilan, located about eight miles north of Cardiff. His sister, Mary was christened at the same
chapel on the 9th
of January, 1802. A brother,
Edmund, was christened there on July
13th, 1805. There may well have been other children born
to the marriage, of whom no record has been found.
Eglwys Ilan is a former Catholic Parish
Church dedicated to Saint
Ilan, who was probably a pre-Norman Bishop of Llandaff. Alternatively, scholars have attributed the
Church’s name to Helen, wife of Constantine, or
to Saint Elian of France. The ancient chapel has a carved sandstone
slab of an eight century warrior. The
church may once have housed the relics of the Saint, since the church was known
as Merthyr Ilan (Martyr Ilan) in the
eleventh century. Eglwys is the Welsh version of the Latin ecclesia, meaning “church”. Today,
the chapel is a stone building set in a very small village with little else
except for a pub and a few houses. The congregation is now a parish of the Anglican
Church. In 1801, the parish had fewer
than two thousand people living within its’ boundaries.
At one time, the Taff
River near Eglwys Ilan was dominated by
the Castell Coch (Red Castle). The Castle was built in the thirteenth
century by the De Clare family as a defense against Welsh forces led by men
like Gruffydd ap Rhys. It was at one
time considered a Royal
Castle, but was destroyed
by fire in the fifteenth century. It was
rebuilt late in the nineteenth century, but locals today consider it a Disney-esque
parody of the original. The Castle would have been rubble at the time
the Morgan family lived nearby.
John M. Morgan’s mother, Catherine David Morgan, probably
died sometime between July of 1805 and October of 1808. On the 15th of October, 1808, Morgan Morgan married
Ann James in the chapel at Eglwys Ilan. They would have at least seven children
together. The children were: Isaac, christened in August of 1809; James,
also christened in August of 1809; Howell, christened in February of 1810;
Jacob, christened in February of 1811; George, christened in June of 1812;
Elizer, christened in June of 1814; and Abraham, christened in October of 1817. There may well have been other children,
perhaps even some that were girls. The
information is from extracted records.
It is impossible to know if the records are complete.
By the early nineteenth century, Welsh families were
becoming more mobile and dependant on production work. Some of the men in the Morgan family were boatmen. John
M. Morgan is listed in the 1841 British Census as a boatman. The boatmen were employed in hauling passengers
and goods on the River Taff. There were
several ferries across the River Taff both above and below Eglwys Ilan. Some of the boatmen worked on the Glamorganshire Canal, where horses were used to pull
barges up the canal. John M. Morgan, his
brother and several nephews listed their occupation as boatmen. Indeed, many of the residents of Eglwys Ilan
were working as boatmen. The number of
Welsh boatmen would decline after the completion of the Glamorgan railway in
the 1830’s.
John M. Morgan married Sarah Mathew at Eglwys Ilan on the 29th of November, 1828. She and John would have at least one child
together: Catherine Morgan was probably
born at Newbridge, Monmouth (Gwent)
on the 13th of
January, 1833. Newbridge is about twenty miles north of Cardiff. I cannot find a record of any other children
born to this marriage.
Sarah Mathew Morgan probably died sometime between January
of 1833 and September of 1836. On the 17th
of September of 1836, John M. Morgan married Mary Meredith, possibly in
Llandaff, Glamorgan. Llandaff is about two and one-half miles east
of St. Fagan’s. The Meredith family had christened
a number of children in the church at Saint Martin’s.
John and Mary would have four children of whom I find
record: They are: Ada, born the 8th of
July, 1838; Morgan Meredith Morgan, born the 21st of January, 1840;
Celia born the 13th of April, 1841; and Amelia, born the 22nd
of March, 1843. All of the children were
christened at St. Martin Eglwys Ilan. Celia’s christening entry was probably
misread during extraction or misspelled on the record. The entry reads “Lilla Morgan”, christened on
the 13th of June,
1841. A personal history of one of the children
claims that at the time, the family was living in Trefforest, a
small village about ten miles north of St. Fagan’s. St. Martin’s
Church boundary included northern Glamorgan and parts of Monmouth.
There are two other children attributed by some to John and
Mary Morgan who were christened at Eglwys Ilan.
One was named Nicholas, and he was christened on the 2nd of June, 1835 at
Eglwys Ilan. The other was Amiel Morgan,
christened in June of 1837. I do
not believe that either of these children was born to our John and Mary Morgan,
since they do not appear on census records of the family. It seems that there was most likely another
set of parents with the same names.
Their domicile was in Maen Mawr, Glamorgan, which is in the Parish of
Eglwys Ilan.
The 1841 British Census for Wales lists the members of our
Morgan family. The Census was enumerated
near the end of March, 1841. They are
living at this time in the Caerphilly hundred, Civil Parish of Eglwys
Ilan. Listed with the family are John
and Mary, both aged thirty-five years.
Catherine follows, age nine, Ada
(spelled Adda), age two, Morgan, age five and last Celia (spelled Siloah) age
seven weeks. John Morgan’s occupation is
listed as boatman. All of the family was
born in Glamorgan.
Mary Meredith Morgan would also die, perhaps in 1844
in Glamorgan. John M. Morgan would marry
one more time, this time to a Mormon woman from Carmarthenshire. He married Hannah Griffiths, who was born the 28th of September, 1811
in Llanglydwen, Carmarthen. Llanglydwen is about ninety miles east of Trefforest. I do not know how they met, unless it was
when they started to gather for the immigration to America. Perhaps John Morgan was called to serve a mission
in Carmarthen.
The marriage date was probably very near 1850, although I find no record
of the marriage.
The Mormon Church had sent missionaries to England and Wales in the early 1840’s; however,
the work there proceeded slowly until 1845.
In that year, a dynamic missionary named Dan Jones came to Wales. Jones had been called in person by the
Prophet Joseph Smith to serve a mission to Wales
only hours before Smith was gunned down at a jail in Southern
Illinois. When Dan Jones
arrived in Wales,
there were perhaps a few hundred Welsh Mormons, including some converts in
Glamorgan. Two early members there were
Abel Evans and Thomas Giles. Both would
become Presiding Elders and missionaries in Glamorgan and abroad. They would serve as local leaders before 1850
in Glamorgan.
Giles would travel into southern Monmouth perhaps as early
as 1845, where he preached the gospel and baptized converts. He started in Blaenavon and moved on to Nant-y-glo. He writes in his journal of the persecutions
that raged after some converts had been baptized. At the Mormon meetings, the anti-Mormon
crowds were an annoyance, in some cases throwing stones and breaking
windows. Giles wrote in his journal of
this time: “…we had great joy, for the spirit was manifested amongst us with
great power in the gift of tongues, interpretations and prophecy.”
The great missionary, Dan Jones, visited Glamorgan in 1845,
and would live in Merthyr Tydfil, some twelve
miles north of Trefforest. I do not know
when or from whom John M. Morgan heard the Mormon gospel, but at some point
before 1850, he heard and accepted the message of the missionaries. His daughter wrote that she had been baptized
in 1849. He is probably the same John Morgan listed as
a member of the Nant-y-glo Branch in southern Monmouth. I do not, however, find membership records
for Hannah Griffiths Morgan or any of the children.
On the Branch records, we find an entry for John Morgan,
collier. His preswylfod (dwelling) was in Nantyglo. Bedyddiwyd
gan bwy (baptized by whom) was Dav. Rees.
Trosglywyddwyd (transferred)
Llanelly. Ymfudodd (emigrated) 1850.
Among the entries, I found a number of members of the branch who had
been baptized by John Morgan, at least eleven individuals. Apparently, John had attained the Aaronic priesthood
in the office of Priest, and had remained active in his missionary
activities. Why his records were
transferred to Llanelly, which is about three miles northeast of Nant-y-glo, I
cannot say. Perhaps he was called to
serve a short mission there. I cannot
say why John was living in Nant-y-glo.
Perhaps he had moved there after the death of Mary or to search for new
employment. Nant-y-glo is in the Ebbw
Vale and is about twenty-five miles northeast of Trefforest.
Soon, the Morgan family would plan to leave Wales and travel to America. The concept of an American Zion was being
preached by missionaries in Wales. The urge to emigrate would overcome the ties
of family, land and culture.
THE WILKES FAMILY OF STAFFORDSHIRE
At about the same time that the Morgan family was being
introduced to Mormonism in Wales,
a young Englishman living north of Eglwys Ilan dreamed of coming to America. His name was Benjamin Wilkes, and he lived in
a village called Bilston in Staffordshire.
Like Glamorgan, Staffordshire had long depended on agriculture for
survival. Bilston in the early
nineteenth century was transforming into an industrialized center. It had coal and iron deposits nearby which
were easy to access. With limestone
nearby, the making of steel and pig-iron was common in the area. Much of the steel and iron went to nearby Wolverhampton, well-known as a manufacturing place for
iron and steel goods.
Bilston lies about one-hundred and thirteen miles northeast
of Cardiff. Staffordshire is located near the center of
the British Isle. A neighboring city, Wolverhampton, has existed since Saxon times, having been
given a charter by King Aethelred in 985 AD.
The local economy long relied on agriculture and more specifically on the
wool trade. Since the town was on a
major east west trade route, it became a market center in medieval times. By 1700, the area still relied heavily on
agriculture, but the industrial revolution was beginning. With the discovery of coal in nearby Sedgley,
people began to migrate to towns like Bilston for employment in mining and
manufacturing. In 1801, the population
of Bilston was still less than seven thousand people. By 1821, the population was over twelve
thousand and by 1841, more than twenty thousand people lived in Bilston.
Benjamin Wilkes was born in the late fall or early winter of
1824. He was christened at St. Leonard’s, an Anglican
Church in Bilston, on the 12th
of December, 1824. His father was also named Benjamin and his
mother was Margaret Beard or Beards.
Ben’s parents were both from Staffordshire. His father, Benjamin Wilkes Senior, was christened
on the 27th of
July, 1789. Benjamin
Senior’s father was Titus Wilkes and his mother Sarah Compson. Ben’s mother, Margaret Beard, was christened
at St. Leonard’s
on the 18th of August,
1782. Her father was Edward
Beard and her mother was Sarah Tonks. Benjamin Wilkes Senior and Margaret Beard(s)
were married on the 13th
of April, 1808 at St. Peter’s in Wolverhampton.
The Wilkes family name is well-known in the region near Wolverhampton.
During the hearth tax assessment of 1666, four Wilkes families are found
living in Willenhall. A
century later, Dr. Richard Wilkes was a well-known, self-taught physician
practicing in Willenhall. The physician
who took over the practice upon the retirement of Dr. Wilkes was none other
than Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of evolutionist Charles Darwin.
There was a Wilkes family home in the small village of Willenhall. Whether the home is a manor home on an estate
or a simple residence, I cannot tell. Almost
certainly, Benjamin Wilkes had no inheritance claim on the estate. Almost as certainly, the Benjamin Wilkes
family was descended from or related to the Wilkes of Willenhall.
In documents that Ben Wilkes filled out during his life, he consistently
claimed that he was born in 1827. Ben
was illiterate, so he would never have read a written record of his birth
date. He may have relied on recollections
of his personal data. It is possible
that there could have been a younger brother also named Benjamin, who was born
in 1824 but died soon after. No record
survives of a Wilkes family christening after 1826.
Ben was the seventh child in a family of eight of whom I can
find record. The family was poor. By the time the 1841 Census was enumerated, fifteen
year-old Ben was listed
as a miner, probably working in the local coal mines. Of his brothers and sisters, only one remained
at home, and his father is not listed, presumed dead. On a future American Federal Census, Ben
would say that he could neither read nor write, and that he had never attended
school.
By the time Ben was in his early twenties, he yearned to immigrate
to America. There had been food shortages in Great Britain, and more acutely in Ireland. There, a potato blight had decimated the
population. The economy was very slow in
Great Britain. There was little hope of a man ever owning
his own home or fields in England. America was viewed as a land of
opportunity, with open space to be claimed and gold nuggets in every stream.
At some point in 1847, he immigrated to America. I cannot find a record of his immigration,
but I assume that he departed from Liverpool and arrived in New Orleans, as did most British emigrants. He would have needed approximately three or
four Pounds Sterling for passage in steerage.
Perhaps he worked on his way over to help pay for the passage. Whether he remained in New
Orleans for a period, or whether he traveled immediately to St. Louis, I cannot
say. I can find no evidence that any of
his brothers or sisters came with him. We
know that he was in St. Louis
before October of 1850.
Ben found work in Gravois, near St. Louis, probably in one of the coal mines
in the area. “Coal Diggins” were common
in and around St. Louis. A very good mine was found on the Gravois Road about
five miles from St. Louis. The coal was easy to access and of a good
quality. By 1848, Germans had begun to immigrate
to St. Louis in
large numbers, providing a cheaper source of laborers. By 1850, the coal was becoming harder to get
to, and the mines were switching from coal to clay, from which building bricks were
fired. The nature of the work and the
demand for labor were changing.
Ben does not appear on any of the Mormon indices for
emigrants. I cannot find any record of
his Mormon baptism. In fact, Catherine
would submit his name for proxy Temple baptism years later in Logan, Utah.
THE MORMON MIGRATION
When we left the Morgan family, they were living in Wales,
being recent converts to the American Mormon Church. By 1850, Mormon converts in Great Britain were being encouraged to immigrate
to ‘Zion’ in North America. Zion
was both a concept and a place. The
concept was that Mormons should gather in a central area, where sheer numbers
would keep them safer from persecution and temptation. The place chosen for the gathering by 1850
was Salt Lake City in Utah
Territory, also known as “California” by the
English and Welsh.
This is not to say that the Welsh were interested in
emigration only because of their religious beliefs. A majority of British subjects lived a subsistence
life which depended on unreliable markets and weather cycles. They had little if any hope of ever owning
land, many having been tenants on their farms for generations. They saw America as a place of opportunity,
a place to better their economic status, own property and improve their children’s
education.
The converts were instructed to sell possessions and
property, save all the money that they could, and purchase passage on ships
sponsored by the Mormon Elders. They
were usually able to get a better price by traveling in a group. Furthermore, they were organized into units
with church leaders over each unit who made sure that the families were
remaining loyal to baptismal covenants.
The average family would spend about twenty English Pounds
on the voyage. The costs were higher for
large families; however, those with small children could transport young children
at a lower rate. The families were then
sent on ships in steerage, accommodations that modern travelers would find
appalling. The families were boarded
below deck in open bunks divided by sheets and blankets from each other. Cooking was done on the deck when the weather
allowed. Thanks to Parliament, the food
was usually adequate for the journey.
Below deck, the smell of unwashed bodies and human waste must have been
overwhelming.
The Morgan family had probably been attending the Nantyglo
Branch in Monmouth. Nant-y-glo is a
small village about twenty-one miles north of St. Fagan’s. In a letter written from New Orleans, Mormon leader Abel Evans made a
reference to “John Morgans of Nantyglo” Perhaps John’s new wife, Hannah Griffith may
have had relatives in the area, or he may have gone there to find work.
In January of 1850, the Welsh Mormon periodical Udgorn Seion
(Zion’s
Trumpet) advertised that a sailing ship, the Josiah Bradlee, had been contracted by the Church to haul Mormon
Converts to the “land of their inheritance”.
The voyage was to cost 3 pounds Sterling
and ten shillings for adults and three pounds Sterling for children under the age of
fourteen. This meant that the voyage would cost the
Morgan family twenty-two pounds Sterling and ten shillings, and this only for
the Josiah Bradlee fare. Put
into modern-day earnings, this equals roughly all that a wage earner could
expect to earn in a year of hard labor. Happily, the food for the voyage was included
in the fare.
The first leg of the journey involved taking a trip via steamboat
from South Wales to Liverpool. They probably traveled in a group on the ship
called Troubadour. A copy of the advertisement for passage on
the iron steamer Troubadour can be
viewed today. Fare for the passage was seventeen shillings
and six pence. John M. Morgan and family
probably boarded at Swansea. The trip would have taken them about thirty
hours. They arrived at Liverpool
only to discover that the departure of their chartered ship, the Josiah Bradlee, had been delayed. Originally scheduled to depart on February 5th,
the departure would be delayed thirteen days.
Such delays were often weather-related and evidently common.
While in Liverpool, the
passengers were advised to avoid pickpockets and thieves. They were housed at the Music Hall on Bold Street in Liverpool. There
were two hundred and sixty-three passengers on the Bradlee, about one-third of whom were Welsh. Eventually, the passengers were allowed to
board the ship “on the River”, meaning that they could stow their belongings
and sleep on board while the ship was still berthed in the River Mersey. The ship finally left port on the 18th of February, 1850
with Captain Mansfield at the helm.
On the passenger list, there are three different Morgan
families. One is our Morgan family, John and Hannah
with five children. The second Morgan
family was John and Elizabeth Morgan and their two children. Listed with John Morgan was a young man named
Thomas Morgan. At first, I assumed that
John and Thomas were also children of John M. Morgan. I have not been able to find any proof of
relationship between the families. Also
on the ship was a William Rees, along with his two children. I had wondered if this could be the same
William Rees who married a Mary Morgan at St. Fagan’s in 1833. If so, and if Mary is John’s sister, the
children could be cousins of Catherine and her siblings. I cannot prove, however, that the two
families were related.
While on the ship, the Saints were organized into seven
groups. Each group had a President
responsible to see that the passengers arose early and said their prayers. There were also men assigned to distribute
food rations. Elder Thomas Day was the
presiding Elder over the group.
As could be expected, most of the Welsh Saints had never
been at sea. They struggled with
seasickness for the first week or so.
Abel Evans and others were engaged in caring for the sick. An entry in his journal says that on the 25th
of February, “Almost all the Saints (are) sick”.
On the 4th of April, the company spotted a
lighthouse, perhaps in Florida,
which marked the first sighting of land in forty-one days. The journey had been relatively uneventful,
lacking the storms and other problems which were commonplace on Atlantic
voyages. On the 17th of
April, the ship was approached by the steamboat Angola Saxon (Anglo Saxon?) to be towed up the
Mississippi River to New Orleans.
At least four children and one youth died on the journey and
were buried at sea. There were several
weddings on board during the trip. The
Captain of the vessel was a kind and sensitive man who expressed deep remorse
for the children who had died. There
were also two recorded miracles that occurred on the journey. One was a young girl, whose name is not
given, who was “terribly afflicted” with evil spirits. She was relieved from her affliction after
Elder Abel Evans healed her with a priesthood blessing. In the second case, a young boy fell through
a hatch and struck a metal bolt. The
force of his fall drove the bolt into his head.
The boy was knocked insensible and his head swelled immediately. Once again, Elder Evans and others placed
their hands on the head of the boy and healed him. Within minutes, the swelling diminished, and
the boy was restored to consciousness.
The Mormon company remained in New Orleans for about eight days. They had arrived in the City on April 18th,
and were to depart on April 25th.
Presumably, the entire company traveled together to St.
Louis, arriving perhaps on May 3rd. While in St. Louis,
John M. Morgan may have decided to delay his departure to Council Bluffs, perhaps working at the “Coal
Diggins” at Gravois. In May, Abel Evans
wrote in a letter that “John Morgans of Nantyglo” was among those who had
remained in St. Louis
to work. The Morgan family had probably exhausted
their money.
One of Catherine’s friends, Ann Rogers, was on the Josiah Bradlee with her. Ann was about the same age as Catherine, and
the two had known each other in Wales. They would later meet again in Salt Lake City, where Ann
would file a sworn affidavit in support of Catherine’s claim for Pension
benefits. Tragically, Ann’s older sister, Elizabeth,
was murdered during the steamboat voyage from St. Louis
to Council Bluffs. Elizabeth
had apparently been approached by an infatuated young man during the trip. The young man proposed marriage, but Elizabeth refused the
offer. The young man became so enraged
that he strangled Elizabeth
on the deck of the steamboat. The Captain
of the boat then allowed the family to bury Elizabeth under the trees of a plantation
near the banks of the river. The fate of the infatuated young man is not
mentioned.
The Morgan family would remain briefly in Gravois then
continue on to Council Bluffs. John and Hannah took the four children, Ada, Morgan, Celia and Amelia by steamboat to Council Bluffs, Iowa. His daughter Celia mentioned that during the
short journey, several passengers contracted cholera and died. Exactly how long they remained in St. Louis is unknown;
however, it was certainly less than one year.
They were in Pottawattamie
County, Iowa before
the 1851 State census was enumerated in September of that year.
It was while they were in Gravois that Catherine apparently
met Ben Wilkes. Catherine would decide
to remain in St. Louis when her family moved on
to Council Bluffs. She was living in a Mormon enclave with some
of the other emigrants, among them, Ann and Thomas Rogers and William and
Elizabeth Reese Thomas. The emigrants
were living in close quarters and knew each other well during their stay in
Gravois.
Perhaps I should insert here a few proofs that the Benjamin
Wilkes, Jr. of Staffordshire is our Benjamin Wilkes, the same who married
Catherine in Missouri. I will confess that the evidence is
scarce. First, the male names of
Benjamin and Catherine’s children are matches for Ben’s brothers in Staffordshire. Second, Ben listed his place of birth as England
on the 1900 Federal Census and the 1885 Nebraska State Census. Third, when Catherine submitted temple proxy
work for Ben, she filled out family history documents showing his birth place
as “Bilsen, Stafford”. She had probably taken the place name from
the family Bible, which is referenced in family documents. When John Wilks Matkin, a grandson of
Benjamin, did proxy work for Ben, he stated the place name as “Bien, Stafford”.
I have considered how Ben may have come to know Catherine. My first impression was that they may have
met on the voyage from England
to New Orleans,
but Ben is clearly not listed as a passenger on the same ship as the Morgan
family. My second thought was that
perhaps they had boarded the same steamboat from New
Orleans to St. Louis. Ultimately, I realized that they probably met
while Ben and John Morgan were working at Gravois in the coal mine. It is also possible that they met at a Mormon
Church meeting.
During the brief stay in Gravois, Catherine got to know
Benjamin Wilkes. At twenty-six, Ben was
nine years older than Catherine, although he would have thought himself only
twenty-three. Ben was about average
height, five feet seven inches. He had
brown hair and blue eyes. He would have spoken with an English accent,
she with a Welsh lilt.
Benjamin and Catherine were married on October 2nd, 1850 by a man
called Squire Blackburn or perhaps Mr. Blackburn, Esquire, in St. Louis. They continued to live in Gravois, near St. Louis, for the births
of their first few children. William Wilkes was born in 1851. Catherine was attended by a friend, Emma
Reese, during the confinement around her delivery. William died sometime before 1853, possibly
from Cholera or Typhus, which were rampant in St. Louis at that time. They were still in St. Louis for the births of their second and
third children. Sarah Ann Wilkes was
born there on November 27th,
1853. Sarah would later
marry and raise a large family. Another
child, Edward Wilkes, was probably born in St. Louis,
according to a statement made by Catherine Wilkes, before Sarah Ann. I think that the child was more likely born
in St. Louis in
1855, and died shortly after his birth.
The young couple lived for a week in the same room as their
friends William and Elizabeth Thomas.
They then moved into an adjacent room in the same house, perhaps a
boarding house, where they lived next door to the Thomas family for about twelve
months.
WAITING IN COUNCIL BLUFFS
John M. Morgan had worked briefly in St. Louis to earn some travel money. There is a short reference made by a Mormon
Elder which probably applies to our John Morgan. It is found in a letter written by a Abel
Evans, and states “Thirty of the Saints are staying to work in St. Louis, that
is…John Morgans of Nantyglo,… together with their families, all alive and
healthy…” John would not have wanted to stay long in St.
Louis. Cholera was at epidemic
levels. Between seven thousand and eight
thousand five hundred people had died of the disease in St. Louis in 1849, many of them recent
emigrants. By the time the 1851 State Census
was enumerated in Pottawattamie County,
Iowa, John Morgan was found
living there with his wife, Hannah and four children. He may have lived on Little Mosquito Creek, a
settlement about five miles south of Council
Bluffs, where he raised corn.
On the 1851 Iowa State census, we find John M. Morgan, age
49, Hannah Morgan, age 47, Ada Morgan, age 13, Morgan Morgan, age 11, Silla
Morgan, age 10 and Melia Morgan, age 8.
The Morgan Family, minus Catherine, found a comfortable home
away from home in Council Bluffs,
with a Branch of the Church consisting of over one hundred Welsh Mormon
emigrants. Many of the Saints there had
been passengers on the ships Buena Vista and Hartley
from 1849. Passengers on those two ships
had suffered an unusually high death rate from Cholera while on the Missouri River.
Some of them were no doubt known to the Welsh Saints from the Josiah Bradlee.
The leader of the Welsh Branch in Iowa was William Morgan. His compatriot, Abel Evans, was soon called
as a member of the High Council in the Bluffs.
The objective of the Church leaders in Kanesville was to encourage the
Mormons to save enough money to outfit a wagon for the long journey across the
plains to Salt Lake City. Perhaps the Welsh were growing too comfortable
in Council Bluffs with their Welsh language
Branch and friends from Wales. By the winter of 1851, the President of the
Mormon Church, Brigham Young, felt strongly that the Welsh Saints should have
been ready to outfit in the past summer.
He, Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards wrote a letter to the Mormons
remaining in Pottawattamie
County and sent it via
two special envoys, Apostles Ezra T. Benson and Jedediah M. Grant. The letter admonishing the Iowa Saints to
outfit and come to Utah
stated that those who remained would be “affected with the Devil…”, and asking
the Saints “What are you waiting for?” In his book, Indefatigable Veteran, History and Biography of Abel Evans…, Dr.
Ronald Dennis makes the point that President Young was worried about the
progress being made by the Reorganized
LDS Church
or Josephites among Welsh Mormon converts.
The Welsh were especially sensitive to the Polygamy issue, which
although it was being practiced openly in Utah, was unknown to many of the converts. The Josephite missionaries, many of them
former LDS missionaries, knew which buttons to push and made many converts
among the Welsh. In Zion, it was perceived that the RLDS were not
able to work among the converts as freely, although they would have success among
the Welsh in the West.
The position of the Prophet having been made crystal clear,
the Morgan family decided to outfit and travel to Utah in 1852. By June 22nd, the wagons were
ready. The stay in Council Bluffs had been good for the
Welsh. They were healthy and able to
outfit and organize a strong company. The
only negative effect of the order to trek was a depression of the real estate
market near Council Bluffs. Several of the families were unable to find
buyers, and had to abandon their homes and lands.
The Captain of the Company, William Morgan, was an incurable
optimist. His letters to the Welsh at
home claimed that in the land of milk and honey, food was often discarded
because of its abundance. His claim that
the Welsh suffered no bad weather or incidents of theft by the Indians along
the trail was exaggerated. Other accounts of the journey acknowledged
that there was a “scarcity of provisions”, and that Indians had stolen livestock
along the trail.
THE MORGAN FAMILY MOVES WEST
On the Company list, we find Ada Morgan, age 14; Amelia
Morgan, age 9; Celia Morgan, age 11; John Morgan, age 51, and Morgan Meredith
Morgan, age 12. Oddly, Hannah Morgan
does not appear on the list of passengers for the Company. I am almost certain that her name was omitted
as a simple oversight. She does appear
on the State Census of 1851 in Iowa. She and John M. Morgan were sealed in the
Council House in March of 1853. She may have traveled with a different wagon
Company, but I can find no record of it.
It is possible that she died in Iowa
between 1851 and 1852, and that John married a different Hannah in Salt Lake City, but I find
this unlikely.
The Wagon Company also included others with the Morgan
surname; however, I find no relationship between them and the John Morgan
family. Another friend from Wales
was on the trek. Abel Evans, the
presiding Elder from the Josiah Bradlee,
was on the list with his family.
There were to be fifty wagons divided into five groups, each
group with a Captain. Apostle Ezra T.
Benson helped to organize the companies.
The wagon company was led by William Morgan, the same who had been
Branch President in Kanesville. Although
William Morgan was from Glamorgan, I do not believe that he was closely related
to our Morgan family. The Morgan Company
crossed the Missouri River on the 24th. By the 28th, the first wagons were
on the trail. The Welsh struggled with
the cattle which were not tame. The
weather was hot, and there were minor accidents during the first few days. Cholera was still a problem, and several men
died during the first week.
As the company proceeded, there were a few minor
incidents. The first group crossing the Platte found the river high, and several of the Saints lost
their belongings. The heat was starting
to take a toll on the livestock by the time the company reached Devil’s Gate,
with some reporting that their oxen had died.
The trip was described as “comfortable’ by William Morgan and the
weather “moderate”. The company had not
had to deal with any snow on the trail. Four members of the company died on the trail
of illness or accident.
During the journey, the Welsh were pleased to see Dan Jones,
who was traveling east for his second mission to Wales. They also met Thomas Jeremy and Daniel
Daniels who had also been called to serve in Wales. On the last leg of the journey, they were met
by several Welsh compatriots bringing fresh produce for the emigrants. The main company reached Salt Lake City on the last day of September,
a smaller group having split off and having arrived earlier. The Welsh were healthy and happy to be in Zion.
LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI
Benjamin and Catherine continued living near St. Louis for about six
years after their wedding. Whether they
were happy in St. Louis
or struggled to survive is hard to say. They
buried one or two of their children in Gravois.
As mentioned before, German emigrants were saturating the labor
market. The coal in Gravois was nearly
gone. Many of Catherine’s friends had already
made the long journey to the Salt
Lake Valley.
The young family of Benjamin and Catherine made their way
north up the Mississippi River to a recently-settled town called Muscatine. Perhaps they went there so that Ben could
find work at the local coal pit. They
would most likely have paid fare to travel by steamboat up river.
Muscatine,
Iowa was founded in 1833 by Colonel
George Davenport as a place for steamboats to pick up fuel and supplies. The name is unique among American towns, and
is possibly derived from the name of a Northwestern Indian tribe. The Mississippi River at Muscatine has the distinction of flowing from
East to West due to a large bend in the River.
By 1850, it boasted a population of two thousand five hundred and a
newspaper. The newspaper was owned in
part by Orion Clemens. He is less
well-known than his little brother, Samuel, who wrote under the penname of Mark
Twain. Orion Clemens contrived to get
his younger brother a job working at the Muscatine
Journal as a correspondent and reporter.
Sam Clemens was employed by the paper from 1853 to 1856. Perhaps he and Benjamin Wilkes bumped into
each other on the street or greeted one another in the store.
Of Muscatine,
Sam Clemens wrote:
And I remember Muscatine--still
more pleasantly--for its summer sunsets.
I have never seen any, on either side of the ocean, that equaled
them. They used the broad smooth river
as a canvas, and painted on it every imaginable dream of color, from the
mottled daintinesses and delicacies of the opal, all the way up, through
cumulative intensities, to blinding purple and crimson conflagrations which
were enchanting to the eye, but sharply tried it at the same time….
Early settlers to Muscatine
lived in log cabins of their own manufacture.
They ate venison, wild turkey, honey and dried corn. The brush and forest was dense, and summer
fires were dangerous. By the time that
the Wilkes moved to Muscatine,
sawmills probably would have provided dimension lumber for homes. Ben and the family probably lived in a rental
house, perhaps one owned by the Coal Mine.
Sarah Ann would probably have studied in school of some sort, although
perhaps not in a public school like we know today.
Using the birth places of Ben and Catherine’s children, the
family moved to Muscatine
between April of 1855 and December of 1856.
Sarah Ann would have been two or three years old, and Edward, if he was still
alive, would have been a newborn.
While in Muscatine,
Ben worked as a coal miner. There was a shallow coal deposit about one
and one/half miles from the River northwest of Muscatine near Papoose Creek. Although the entry for Ben’s occupation on
the Federal Census of 1860 is badly misspelled, it can easily be seen that he
was working as a coal miner. Ben would
have made somewhere between fifty cents and one dollar per day at the coal
mine. The average wage for agricultural
laborers was just less than one dollar per day in 1860. This wage sometimes included room and board.
The 1860 Census shows that Ben and Catherine had three
children living and a boarder from Switzerland. The Census records show that Ben and
Catherine lived in a neighborhood of emigrants.
Most of the emigrants were of German origin, including some from Saxony, Bavaria and Wittenberg. Most of the neighbors were working as
laborers or as craftsmen.
He and Catherine were to have three more children while
living in Muscatine. They were: our ancestor Elizabeth also called
Lizzie, born on the 16th
of December 1856, John, born on the 20th of November 1859, and
Benjamin Morgan, born the 23rd
of December 1861. All three of the children born in Muscatine would later move
west with their mother.
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES
By the mid 1850’s, the issue of slavery had become a hot topic
of debate. The Dred Scott decision in
1857 with the Supreme Court’s implied support of slavery inflamed the public,
and especially people living in Iowa. There were more freed and runaway slaves in Muscatine than in any other city in Iowa at the time. Alexander Clark, Sr. was a vocal black
businessman living in Muscatine who would later
help organize a Colored Infantry for Iowa.
There would have been frequent public debates and speeches in town about the
slavery issue. Clark
did much to promote equality and to negate racism. He and others would have been active in
vocally promoting freedom for black slaves.
Missouri
to the south was divided on the issue. Residents
in the western and southern parts of Missouri
and Iowa were
moving toward a pro-slavery stance. There
were some groups in Iowa
that opposed the Union Governments’ anti-slavery actions. Among others, the Quakers and the “Peace
Democrats” opposed military action to enforce anti-slavery laws. The Quakers were heavily involved in underground
railroads which carried runaway slaves north.
Vocal members of these two groups were rounded up and confined in Davenport, Iowa
during the War. The large majority of
Iowans, however, were anti-slavery and pro-Federal Government.
Both Ben and Catherine Wilkes were illiterate,
so they could not have read the editorials in newspapers of the day. Most Welsh and British emigrants were avidly
anti-slavery. Great Britain had banned the
practice fifty years earlier in 1807.
Perhaps because of their experience with the Saesneg, the Welsh-Americans tended to support anti-slavery political
candidates and policies.
Ben Wilkes was almost certainly against slavery. It was a common custom for the very poor in Staffordshire
to allow their children to serve as indentured servants. This was especially true if the father and
husband had died or was unable to feed the family. The girls in the family might be given as
house servants, while the boys were often contracted as apprentices in some
family business. Once so indentured, the
children were virtual slaves of their master for the length of the contract. In one such case of an indentured boy near Bilston
in the 1830’s, a contract was signed when the boy was twelve years old. For one
Pound Sterling,
he was expected to work twelve hour days six days a week as a coal miner. The contract was to be in effect until his
eighteenth birthday. If Ben Wilkes had also been an indentured
servant, as I expect he very well could have been, he would have abhorred slavery. Even though he hated slavery, he would have
believed that the Blacks were inferior to Whites.
Abraham Lincoln had made political inroads in Iowa before the Civil
War, being involved with Railroad ventures in the Western part of the State. He was a personal friend of Iowa Governor
Kirkwood. Iowans living in Muscatine considered Lincoln
to be their hometown candidate since his home of Springfield, Illinois
was only two-hundred miles away. Iowans
voted strongly for Lincoln
in both 1860 and 1864.
John Brown was another political instigator. Brown was a rabid abolitionist who led an
armed resistance against the so called “border ruffians” who were attempting to
promote slavery in Kansas and Nebraska. He later spent time among the Quakers in Cedar County, Iowa,
who supported Brown in spite of their pacifist stance. Before and after his failed uprising at
Harper’s Ferry, public opinion in Iowa
was with Brown. While Northerners
thought Brown was either misguided or crazy, Iowans admired his pluck and
attempts to encourage slaves to rebel. Unfortunately,
Brown failed. He was captured and hung
in Virginia
in 1859. His death promoted even stronger
feelings against slavery, and the song “John Brown’s Body” became a rally cry
for Union Soldiers in the War. Later,
the tune was adapted into the war anthem Battle
Hymn of the Republic by Julia Ward Howe.
All of these influences converged in the frontier State
of Iowa. By April of 1861, when the first shots of the
Civil War were fired, Iowans were fervent Unionists. Only four days after Fort Sumter
was fired upon, Iowa Governor Kirkwood received an urgent communication from
Secretary of War Cameron. The letter requested
that one regiment of militia be organized “for immediate service”. The Governor was reported to express doubt
that such a number of militia could be organized in so short a time. Within days, however, enough men had
volunteered to form ten Iowa Regiments. Since a Regiment was ideally formed of one
thousand men, there were somewhere near ten thousand Iowans available for
immediate service within days of the call.
Unlike other States, Iowa
would never have to pay men a bounty for enlistment.
Initially, there was little military action as both sides
ramped up training and preparations for war.
Iowa had concerns about attack from Rebel
cavalries and militias in Missouri and Kansas. In addition, they still had Plains Indian
problems on their western border. By
June of 1861, the skirmishes were becoming more frequent and bloody. Although the northern part of the Mississippi
River was controlled by Union forces, five-hundred miles south, the Rebels
controlled Island Number Ten, near a double bend in the Mississippi
River. This prevented the
shipment of men and supplies from the North to fight in the South.
Around Muscatine,
there was great excitement in 1862. The Daily Gazette, a newspaper from Davenport, Iowa, reported
that a Mr. Henry O’Connor, Esquire, had delivered a “rousing speech” in Muscatine about the War on
July 16th, 1862. In the speech, he appealed to the Patriotism
of the residents, stating that there would be no need for the draft if Muscatine residents would demonstrate
their love for Country. The editor then stated
that Muscatine County
was the most patriotic county in Iowa,
and was then enlisting its’ fifteenth company for the War. By August 6th, it was reported
that forty men a day were enlisting in Muscatine. Ultimately, over eleven percent of the
population of Iowa
would fight in the Civil War.
Benjamin Wilkes was caught up in the enlistment excitement. On August 22nd, 1862, he enlisted in the Iowa 35th
Regiment Volunteer Infantry. Private Benjamin Wilkes was assigned to Company
E. At the time of his enlistment, the Company
Captain wrote a physical description of Ben.
He was described as being thirty-five years of age; five feet and seven
inches tall. His eyes were blue and his
hair was brown. His complexion was
described as “sallow”, meaning that it was a sickly, yellowish hue. Perhaps Ben had been sick recently, or had a
chronic kidney or liver condition related to coal mining. Ben signed up for three years in the
Army. On the various Army records that
were filled out for him, his last name is spelled: Wilkes, Wilks, Wells, Wiles,
Weeks and in one case Walker.
Civil War battle groups were organized with roughly
one-hundred men per company, each commanded by a captain. Ten companies commanded by a colonel made up
the Regiment. Three to six Regiments made up a Brigade. Brigades were assigned to a Division, Corps
and ultimately to an Army Group. Although one-hundred men were needed to make
up a company, there was almost never a full compliment of men available. Company E, for example, enlisted only
eighty-six men. At any given time during
the war, this number would have been diminished by sickness, desertion, death
and casualty. In any given battle, and
especially near the end of the war, a company might have fought with forty to
fifty percent of the enlisted men.
Ben was probably eventually issued the standard gear. His weapon most likely would have been the Springfield rifled
musket. The single-shot gun, which had a
thirty-nine inch barrel, fired a .58 caliber bullet accurately for distances of
up to five hundred yards. There were other weapons available to the
infantry, but the Springfield or a Springfield clone was by
far the most popular gun. It relied on a
percussion cap for firing. The addition
of a bayonet gave the gun a total length of nearly six feet. A man hit in the body by a .58 caliber bullet
had little chance of survival. If the
slug hit an extremity, amputation would almost certainly follow.
The Army Regulations Manual, rule no. 52, lists the clothing
allowance for enlisted men. They were
allowed two hats, one a trimmed hat, the other the forage cap. The often-seen, four-button, blue flannel
sack coat covered flannel shirts and trousers.
The government also issued stockings, flannel drawers and bootees. For additional protection from the cold, the list
included a leather stock worn under the chin, a great coat, overalls and a stable
frock. One blanket was issued. The soldier was allowed to withdraw the above
once a year from the quartermaster. The
soldier would be charged for any of the items drawn from the quartermaster
above those listed. In reality, many of the soldiers who made
long marches in the humid South discarded extra clothing at the roadside.
In addition to the clothing, the soldiers would have been
issued a cartridge belt, a knapsack, a haversack, a canteen and a bayonet. Ben’s forage cap would have had a brass
thirty-five insignia and a company letter ‘E’ attached to the front.
In a photo which survives of the 35th Iowa
Regiment color guard, the soldiers seem to prefer the wide-brimmed trimmed hat
over the forage cap. The Regimental colors had a Federal Eagle on
a deep blue background with thirty-four gold stars arranged over the
Eagle. Below the Eagle is a red banner
with “35th Regt. Iowa Vols” in gold letters.
The pay for soldiers was low. Union privates were paid thirteen dollars per
month. If we compare the commodities that thirteen
dollars would have bought then with the price of commodities today, the monthly
pay was equivalent to about $270.00. The paymaster was supposed to pay the armies
every two months, but the reality was that soldiers would go for four months or
more without pay when in the field. Army
pay was not completely out of line with other wages. Ben had probably earned similar wages at the
mine in Muscatine.
We can little imagine the conflict in the Wilkes home when
Ben announced that he had enlisted in the infantry. While Catherine was almost certainly in favor
of the War and the wrongs that it sought to address, she must have wondered how
on earth she would survive alone with three small children. Her oldest, Sarah, was not yet nine years
old. The youngest, John, was less than a
year old. She had no family members
living near, since the Morgan family had moved on to Utah.
Her sister Amelia Morgan Phillips would live in western Iowa eventually, but not
until after 1865.
A SOLDIER AT CAMP STRONG
Benjamin and the rest of Company
E reported to duty at Camp
Strong late in August or
perhaps early in September. Another Iowa
Regiment, the 24th had been training at the Island
for a while. The 24th was
also known as the ‘Temperance Regiment’.
They had been recruited from all over Iowa to form a non-alcoholic Regiment. The 35th Regiment was joined there
by the “Greybeards”, an especially commissioned Regiment of older volunteers,
also known as the 37th Iowa. Many soldiers in the 37th were
veterans of the War of 1812 and the Mexican-American War.
Camp
Strong was little more than a stone’s
throw from Muscatine. It was located at the fairgrounds on an
island in the Mississippi. Luckily, we know a bit about the Camp, since
one of the soldiers in the 35th Regiment kept a journal during his stay
there. Ichabod Frisbie was a private in
Company F of the 35th Regiment.
Between his journal and some letters that he wrote to his wife, we can
get a pretty good idea of conditions on the Island
in the fall and winter of 1862.
Frisbie reported for duty on
the 25th of August. He writes
that when he arrived, the barracks were not yet set up, so Company F was sent
back to Muscatine
to drill.
While on the island, the troops
were disciplined and put through frequent drills. Many days, the soldiers would drill for six
hours or more a day. As one soldier put
it:
The first
thing in the morning is drill. Then
drill, then drill again.
Then
drill, drill, a little more drill. Then
drill and lastly, drill.
Although tedious, the drill was essential to the success and
survival of the army. The outcome of a
battle often hinged on whether a captain could get his company into a flanking
position within minutes of being ordered there by the Regimental Colonel. Any delay or misstep would allow the enemy to
adjust their troops and reinforce weak spots on the line. Since in many of the pitched battles of the
Civil War, Union soldiers were charging at a dug-in rebel line, movements and
maneuvers had to be precise. The
soldiers also studied military tactics, apparently through lectures and
books.
By August 30th, there were eight companies of the
24th Regiment and four companies of the 35th Regiment on
the Island.
Some of the men were religious, and church services were common among
the men. The weather was “favorable” and
the food on the Island was surprisingly
good. Local women brought pies and
cakes. Farmers would bring apples,
potatoes and other produce. Fresh beef
and pork was available to the troops. Local newspapers were delivered to the
troops. One of the first actions for the men would
have been an election of officers. They
were able to choose their Captain, Lieutenants, Sergeants and Corporals.
While camped on the island the soldiers were not exposed to
enemy fire. There may have been a
handful of captured rebels being guarded on the island, but there was little or
no danger of rebel attack. A far greater
danger to the troops was the threat of disease among soldiers confined in close
quarters. The enlisted men all slept in
the same barracks in Camp, hundreds of men in a large room. On the island, an epidemic of measles was
particularly debilitating. The men were
also exposed to malaria, tuberculosis, dysentery and cholera. Death from disease was a constant companion for
the rest of the War. Out of 76,000 men
from Iowa who
served in the Civil War, there were 13,000 deaths. Well over half of those who died, about 8500,
died not from battle wounds, but because of sickness.
Later the Union troops would be supplied with government food
rations. There was little thought to
proper nutrition. Most meals were
comprised of salt pork or beef, coffee, sugar, hardtack and the occasional
tinned fruit or vegetable. During a long
march, the men would pre-cook their food and carry it in a washable haversack.
Hardtack was better known to the troops as “tooth dullers”
or “sheet iron crackers.” The crackers
were often infested with weevils. The
men were given six to eight crackers for a three-day ration.
The soldiers heard frequent news reports of the War. Comments about the news ranged from “No War
news of importance” to “War news discouraging”. The
latter comment was written after the news of Pope’s defeat at the second battle
of Bull Run reached the troops. The comment was recorded on September 7th,
the battle fought on the 29th of August. News of the War traveled quickly across the States,
often reaching the Camp within three days of the battle.
Camp
Strong suffered from what
I would call ‘Boy Scout Syndrome’.
Practical jokes and shenanigans were common place. Private Frisbie makes numerous references to
happenings in the Camp. He calls the
soldiers “boys” and records their frequent late night game playing, noise
making and actions which were not “in keeping with good morals or decency”. He mentions that the entire Regiment, about
800 men, would sometimes swim in the Mississippi
together. At one point, several
soldiers, Frisbie included, stole pies and other food from the sleeping
Regimental Colonel. Frisbie also alludes
to competitions between the different Regiments on the Island
and mentions that the more serious Greybeards were often on the receiving end
of the practical jokes. Frisbie also
makes reference to the numerous incidents when members of his Company were
confined to the Regimental guard house.
The most common offenses were drunkenness and disobeying orders.
Soldiers on the Island were
given frequent passes to go home and see their families. Private Frisbie mentions many instances,
perhaps ten or so, in which he was allowed to go home to see his wife and
family. He also mentions frequent visits
from women and local friends to the Camp.
I can assume from this that Ben was allowed to visit Catherine and the
kids at home. She may have visited Ben
on the Island, although she may have found it
difficult with young children in tow.
On the 6th
of October, the Governor of Iowa visited the Camp and gave a speech to the
men. The Governor exhorted the men to
consider the Negro problem, in other words, what should be done with the Slaves
emancipated by the War. Governor
Kirkwood urged the men to not blame the President for the War, reflecting the
undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the conduct of the War. At the conclusion of the speech, the men gave
the Governor three cheers. Only a few months after the Governor’s
speech, the Regiment would be assigned to guard a ‘Contraband Camp’, Contraband
being a euphemism for freed slaves.
The 35th Regiment would train on the island for about
eight to nine weeks. After having been officially
sworn in on September 18th, they continued to drill at the Camp and
learn military protocol. By the first of
November, the soldiers had finally received their clothing allowance and
guns. Rumors were flying about where the
Regiment would be assigned. All of the
soldiers knew that they would soon be in Dixie
facing the Rebels. Where there had once
been anticipation, there was now growing trepidation.
THE REGIMENT GOES TO WAR
Camp
Strong was cold now. There was snow on the ground and cold winds
and rain were frequent. Towards the end
of November the Regiment was ordered south to Cairo, Illinois. After a rail journey of about four hundred
miles, they arrived there on November 24th. While in Cairo, the Regiment was attached to the 13th
Army Corp of the District of Columbia
at Camp Defiance. The Regiment would perform duties in Cairo for less than a
month. On December 19th, 1862, a detachment
of soldiers from the 35th was sent to Columbus, Kentucky
to reinforce the area against a threatened attack. Columbus
is about thirty miles south of Cairo.
About one year earlier, a young General named Ulysses S.
Grant had led a force into the Columbus
area from the Mississippi
side. While the initial action
accomplished little, he immediately realized the strategic importance of the
area. Columbus was on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River.
By stretching a chain across the River, Confederates could control the
movement of gunboats and troop ships. After
Grant cut supply lines, the Rebels could not hold the fortress. They began to abandon Columbus in February of 1862. By March, Union forces had occupied the area. There were rumbles that the Rebels would try
to occupy Columbus
again in the winter of 1863. By
December, the 35th Iowa
was called on to reinforce the garrison at Columbus.
The Regiment likely saw very little gunfire. There were some rear-action maneuvers, distant
artillery fire and occasional guerilla action.
Private Frisbie reports that the railroad was torn up by Rebels only
forty miles from Columbus. They were close enough to the action that
many in the Regiment were frightened.
There may have been reports of casualties to the families back home,
although illness and accidental injuries were the only issues. By January 3rd, 1863, the Regiment was back in Cairo. At this time, they were attached to the 6th
Division, 16th Army Corp. They
were assigned to perform provost duty, serving again at nearby Fort Defiance. By now there were thousands of Rebel
prisoners in Cairo.
Early in the War, both sides realized that Cairo and nearby Mound City
were strategically important. The city
is located at the confluence of the Ohio
and Mississippi Rivers.
General Fremont established a Union Navy base across the River from Cairo. The Illinois Central Railroad brought troops
and supplies into Cairo. The area became an outfitting post and staging
area for operations planned in the Deep South. Besides the supply depot, prisoner of war
camps, and troop transport functions, Cairo
boasted a huge military hospital. The
hospital was overseen by the Catholic Sisters of the Holy Cross.
Many of the troops hated the bivouac at Cairo.
The weather there was unbearably hot and humid in summer months. Frequent flooding of the rivers turned the
surrounding area into knee-deep mud. Rats
and mosquitoes transmitted disease and poor sanitation multiplied the risk for infectious
diseases. There were nearly twelve
thousand troops in Cairo
in June of 1861. With the troops came
brothels and saloons. Because of the
Railway, there were ample supplies of fresh fruit, meat and vegetables for
purchase.
Fortunately for the 35th Iowa, they had finished their assignment in Illinois and were
ordered to leave for the Deep South on March 14th, 1863. The Regiment was destined to participate in
the Siege at Vicksburg,
battles on the bayous of Louisiana,
and skirmishes on the Red River and Lake Chicot
in Arkansas. Late in the War, they would fight at Nashville and Mobile, Alabama. Many in the Regiment were to be distinguished
for bravery. Benjamin Wilkes, however,
was not one of those soldiers who were destined to fight at Vicksburg, Nashville or Arkansas.
He would never be able to tell his children glorious stories of battle bravery. While the 35th was stationed in Cairo, Illinois,
Ben took sick. He was ordered to
convalesce in the hospital.
His written military record is very minimal. He is marked as ‘present’ on the Regimental muster
roll calls for October, November and December of 1862. There is simply an entry made for him by a company
clerk in February of 1863 that says Benjamin Wilkes is “convalescent”. Later notes have him admitted to the hospital
on January 15th, February 3rd or February 10th
of 1863. It is safe to say that sometime
between January 15th and February 10th of 1863, Benjamin became
ill enough that he could not remain with his company. There is one notation made in August of 1864
that states he was wounded. I do not
believe that this was accurate.
A later entry made by the Office of the Surgeon General said
that Private Wilkes had been admitted to General Hospital
in Mound City with a complaint of catarrh. The Hospital at Mound City
was a commandeered brick warehouse staffed by Roman Catholic nuns of the Order
of the Holy Cross. They came from Notre
Dame in nearby South Bend, Indiana.
There would have been from one thousand to fifteen hundred patients from
both the Union and Confederate sides during
the War. The death rate among wounded
soldiers was so high that President Lincoln authorized the purchase of ground
for a National Cemetery near Mound City
in 1864.
I confess that I had to look up the term and read the
symptoms before I could understand catarrh.
Apparently, with symptoms of nasal congestion, chest pain, coughing and
headache, catarrh was the nineteenth century term for the common cold. No doubt, viral influenza was also lumped
into the same category. That sinus and
ear infections were frequent consequences of catarrh is illustrated by the
common sequelae of deafness and facial pain. So it is likely that Benjamin Wilkes was
admitted to hospital in Illinois
and there developed further complications of the common cold or influenza. At some later date, he was transferred to Post
Hospital No. 1 in Cairo, Illinois.
Benjamin, who even before the War did not appear healthy,
would be fortunate to survive confinement in the hospital. It has been said that the Civil War was the last
war fought in medieval times. The science
of infection control was unknown.
Surgeons moved from patient to patient without washing their hands or sterilizing
their instruments. Serious illnesses were
treated without the benefit of modern medicines. Many patients who entered the hospital were
doomed to die before discharge.
Ben spent almost one full year in hospital. He was discharged from the hospital for
active duty on February 14th or 17th, 1864. He had apparently recovered well enough that
Doctors thought he could return to his regiment. The note on his service record says that he
was “Sent to Barracks” by hospital personnel. This is where the story becomes murky, for
the muster rolls from his Regiment continue to mark him absent. From early in 1863 all the way up to the muster-out
roll in August of 1865, Ben continues to be listed as “absent, sick in northern
hospital”, or the equivalent. That is,
his Regiment thought he was still in the hospital, but the hospital had released
him back to the Regiment.
In February of 1864, the 35th Iowa was in Vicksburg, Mississippi. They had helped Grant lay siege to the city
the year before. They had participated
in a number of campaigns and actions, including those in Vicksburg, Mechanicsburg and Jacksonville.
They would soon move south to the bayous of Louisiana. It was a very difficult assignment. The Army was a target for guerilla action,
and casualties were steep. The men were
often ordered off the train or boat and into the swamps and woods to search out
guerilla bands.
Company E suffered a forty percent casualty rate during the
War. Of the eighty-six enlisted men and
officers, fifty-two survived the war without reported wounds or disabling
illness. Seven men were killed in
battle, eight were disabled or discharged because of wounds or illness, and
nineteen died of battle wounds or illness.
Catherine Wilkes thought that Ben had died in 1863 in Cairo. She maintained in documents filed as late as 1896
that she was the widow of Ben Wilkes. She apparently corresponded through friends
with Felix Moran, the Captain of Company E.
He affirmed that Benjamin had most likely died at the hospital in Cairo, even naming the
physician who attended to Ben at the Hospital.
Ben’s 35th Regiment record declares that he was mustered
out of the service on August
10th, 1865 in Davenport,
Iowa. That there was still confusion as to his
whereabouts is reflected in the note on the muster-out roll; he is listed as
“sent to hospital…Discharge not furnished”. Confusion reigned in the records of the
Army. Even Ben’s lawyer claimed on one
of the Bureau of Pensions documents that Ben “does not appear to know whether
he was discharged or not…”
At first look, with the abbreviated nature of the records
kept and so many obvious discrepancies, it is hard to determine what really
happened to Ben. Did he return to his
unit and simply was never recognized by the company clerk? Was he assigned to duty near Cairo until the end of the War? Or did he use the confusion of war as an
opportunity to slip away from the Regiment?
It seems obvious to me that the most plausible explanation
is that Ben had determined to use his discharge from the hospital to walk away
from his army assignment. Perhaps he
traveled towards western Iowa
or Nebraska,
or north to Canada
like other deserters. Perhaps he fled to
the Appalachian Mountains in Pennsylvania or West Virginia. He could have used his coal mining skills
there. He may have received help from Copperheads
or other Confederate sympathizers to get civilian clothes and money for
travel. Perhaps he tried to locate his family
and could not, although there is no evidence to support this notion.
In fact, there is no evidence that Benjamin ever saw his
wife or children again. I wonder what he
thought about his wife and family; if he ever wondered whether they were alive
and well. He had good reason to fear
capture and imprisonment during and after the War. If he were a deserter, he would have avoided
a return to Muscatine,
where he might be recognized and arrested.
Although few men were actually executed for desertion, he would have
been imprisoned or forced at bayonet point to return to his Company.
It is said that as many as one out of every seven Union
soldiers deserted or straggled during the Civil War. Several battles hinged on the ability of one
side or the other to get the deserters and stragglers on the line in time for
the action. While some deserters were
executed as an example to other would-be deserters, there were simply not
enough men available to execute all deserters.
Most were simply forced to rejoin their units on the battlefront. Late in the War, however, the West
Point-educated Union officers were executing deserters at the rate of nearly
one per day. This would have certainly made it more
difficult for a deserter to voluntarily rejoin his Regiment.
When Ben left the hospital, he would
have encountered provost guards at the rail stations, on bridges and in public
houses. He must have known that there
was a reward for any citizen who revealed a deserter. By 1864, the penalties for desertion included
hard labor and public humiliation. There
were even a few cases of public flogging for deserters. Ben would not have wanted to go south. Although the Confederacy publicly welcomed
Union deserters, they often ended up at Libby or Andersonville
prisons. Towards the end of the War, it
was estimated that there were fifteen to sixteen thousand Union deserters
living in Canada
and Mexico. It is estimated that of all the Iowa volunteers, about
two thousand six hundred or 3.5% were deserters.
The Union took a dim view
of deserters after the War. Limited amnesty
was offered by Lincoln
to deserters who returned to their units during the War. Confederate soldiers were offered amnesty
immediately after the War. Union
deserters were still being prosecuted, at least in theory, for thirty years
after the War. Perhaps this is why
Benjamin Wilkes is not listed on any of the Civil War Veterans rosters for his Nebraska home, Johnson County.
He would have been keeping a low profile to avoid prosecution.
CATHERINE MOVES WEST
After Ben’s enlistment, Catherine was probably receiving all
or most of her husbands’ army pay, about thirteen dollars per month. He would likely have sent her the pay after
receiving it from the company paymaster, less expenses for items that he needed
to buy. The Hospital Muster Roll
indicates that Ben was being paid by Major’s Terrell and Larned during his
convalescence, although Ben might not have sent his pay home to Catherine. He most likely did not receive pay after being
discharged from the hospital in 1864. An
abrupt cessation of money may have led Catherine to assume that Ben was dead
and take drastic measures to preserve her family.
After her income from the Army dried up, Catherine had to
look for a way to support her young family.
She decided to move west to be near her father and his family. As already stated, Catherine left Muscatine sometime after the
Regiment was deployed in November of 1862.
I suspect that she lived in Muscatine
until spring or early summer of 1863.
She probably made her way west to Council
Bluffs, or perhaps she traveled downstream back to St. Louis. Her brother-in-law, William Phillips, was
hauling freight between Utah
and Wyoming
during this time frame. Perhaps she
asked for help from him in making the trek.
According to a document filed with the Civil War Pension Commission, she
came west in 1863 in the company of two friends, William and Elizabeth Hopwood. I could not find Catherine’s name on a list
of known Mormon emigrants; however, William Hopwood does appear as having
traveled in an “unknown company” in 1863.
Catherine was living in Oneida County, Idaho
Territory during enumeration of the 1870 Federal Census. She had married a young emigrant from Wales or England by the
name of David Morgan. They were married
on April 17th,
1866, probably in Malad,
Idaho. She and her children all used the last name
of Morgan on the Census. Sarah Ann was
not living with the David Morgan family, having been married in January of 1869
to Samuel Matkin. Elizabeth
appeared as Elizabeth Morgan, age 14.
John appeared as John Morgan, age 11.
Benjamin was listed as Benjamin Morgan, age 9. They were surrounded by members of her
father’s family. They were living next
door to the Howell and Celia Mifflin family who was next door to the David and
Ada Jones family. Morgan M. Morgan and
family lived a few houses down the road.
Hannah Morgan and Henry Morgan, who is perhaps Henry Evans, the child of
Ada Jones, also lived nearby. Catherine’s father, John M. Morgan, had died
in September of 1869.
Catherine’s marriage to David Morgan did not last long. David had not been honest with Catherine, and
it was discovered that he was still married to a wife living in England. Even worse, David deserted Catherine on June 17th, 1870
to take up with yet another woman. Catherine
filed for divorce, and on October
10th, 1873, the divorce was granted by the Probate Court
of the Territory
of Utah, County of Salt
Lake. The grounds for divorce were bigamy
and infidelity.
The irony of her divorce decree was that she, like David
Morgan, was still married. Benjamin Wilkes was alive and well and living in Nebraska. The difference, of course, is that she was
unaware that her first husband had survived the War. Doubly ironic is that the Morgan’s lived in
an area where polygamy was practiced openly by faithful Mormons. Her son-in-law, Samuel Matkin, would
eventually take three additional wives after first marrying Sarah Ann Wilkes.
Sadly, David and Catherine had two children together. The 1870 Census lists two small children
living with the David Morgan family, Mary, age four, and David, age one. The two children, Mary (or Mary Jane) and
David will live with Catherine for at least a part of their young lives. They are found living with Catherine and
third husband George Hibbard on the 1880 Census, although they are using the last
name Hibbard. Perhaps they lived for a
while with their father, but moved in with the Hibbard family after the
marriage. They were almost certainly not
adopted by George Hibbard. His journal
contains no mention of the children. I
am not really sure what happened to Mary Jane and David Morgan. I cannot find any further vital records for
them in Idaho
or Utah.
THE MORGAN FAMILY MOVES TO NORTHERN
UTAH
We will have to back up a bit to explain how Catherine ends
up in a small Welsh Mormon settlement in Southern Idaho.
John Morgan and family did not remain long in Salt Lake City. They probably stayed the winter of 1852-53 in
the City, and may have moved north to Box Elder as early as summer of
1853. There they built a dugout hut on a
farm north of present-day Brigham City. They probably raised crops like corn, wheat
and hay for food and animal fodder. They
had open commerce with the local Indians, probably Shoshones. Daughter Celia recalled that the Indians
would come to the house to borrow the rifle and ammunition from her
father. They would then go into the
Mountains to hunt for sheep. If they
were successful, they would make a gift of one-quarter of the sheep to John
Morgan. According to Celia, the Morgan family had a
good relationship with the Indians with the exception of a different tribe,
perhaps Bannock, which forced the Morgan family to move into the fort at Box
Elder during the second year.
On the 1860 Federal Census of the Utah Territory,
we find John M. Morgan (abbreviated Jno M), age 60, living with Hannah, age
49. John is said to be a farmer, and he
claimed about $1100 in real estate and personal property. None of John and Mary’s children was living
at home during the Census, which was enumerated in July of 1860. Also with John and Hannah are two children,
Henry Morgan, age 6 and John Morgan age 4. At first glance, these would appear to be John
and Hannah’s children; however, I think that they were more likely children of
Ada Morgan and John Evans, who had married earlier in Salt Lake City.
John Evans died in 1859.
The story becomes a little bit complicated here. John Evans’ sister Elizabeth had married a
man called David R. Jones. When Elizabeth also passed
away late in 1859, David R. Jones and Ada Morgan Evans were married soon
after. Ada shows up on the 1860 Federal Census
living in North Ogden as the wife of David R.
Jones. Her name on the Census has been
misspelled, appearing as Adeline Jones. I am sure that the children listed with John
and Hannah Morgan are Ada’s,
and were enumerated with the surname of Morgan rather than Evans.
Amelia Morgan Phillips is found living with her new husband,
William. They were living fairly close
to John and Hannah. William claimed on
the Census to be a laborer with a total net worth of less than $1000.
Morgan M. Morgan was a little bit harder to find on the Census. He was not living with his father and step-mother,
rather he is found with the Wm. Phillips family. They are the parents of William Phillips who
married Amelia Morgan. They were listed
as Wm Phillips, age 66, farmer, Gwinfrey Phillips, age 50, Mary A., age 15 (actually
17 years old) and Morgan Morgan, age 23 (actually 20 years old), farmer. Perhaps Morgan was doing some farm labor for
the Phillips family, or perhaps he was there just to be close to Mary Ann, whom
he would marry in the next year.
THE MOVE TO IDAHO
TERRITORY
In 1866, Brigham Young would extend callings to several
hundred emigrants, mostly Danish, to move to Box Elder under the direction of Apostle
Lorenzo Snow. President Young wanted to establish
a cooperative settlement, something akin to the United Order movement the
Church had attempted in Kirtland,
Ohio. With the influx of non-Welsh settlers,
perhaps the Morgan family thought it was a good time to sell out and move with
other Welsh Mormons to a new settlement.
During the spring of 1865, John Morgan moved himself and
several of his children’s families to Willow Springs, about four miles south of
Malad City in the Malad Valley
in Idaho. Included in the group was the John M. Morgan
family, the Howell Mifflin family and the David R. Jones family.
The Malad
Valley is located about sixty
miles north of Brigham City. The name apparently derives from the French maladie.
Early in the nineteenth century, French Canadian trappers passed through
the area. The story is that they were
sickened either by drinking the alkaline water of the River, or by eating some
spoiled meat while they were near the Malad River. They called the river la maladie, which means ‘the illness’.
Before the settlers could move to Malad, a few issues had to
be resolved. They had long been aware of
the nice pasture land in the Malad
River Valley,
and had wanted to graze stock in the area.
In 1862, President
Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, which allowed pioneers to claim “unused”
lands as their own if they were willing to make certain improvements. After the Homestead Act, settlers began to
covet the grasslands in the Malad
Valley.
Perhaps the greatest obstacle to Mormon settlement was the
Shoshone Indians. The issue was resolved
by the Connor Massacre in January of 1863.
Although the Indians and the Mormons generally had enjoyed good
relations, the Shoshone Indians had become increasingly worried as they watched
Mormon settlers put hunting grounds into farm production. There had been a few minor incidents between
the Mormons and the Shoshone braves.
Ultimately, the Army sent Colonel Connor with a group of volunteer
militia from California. They found the Indians camped on the Bear River and proceeded to massacre them. The deaths of two hundred and fifty Indian men,
women and children, including two of their Chiefs, effectively ended all Indian
resistance to white settlement in the area.
Within a few years, the remainder of the Shoshone tribe would be
confined to the Fort Hall Reservation near Pocatello, Idaho.
Malad was originally settled by six families in the early
summer of 1864. Even today, the Welsh
names of the original settlers survive.
It has been said that the most common last names in Malad are Jones,
Williams, Thomas and Evans. Early on,
the City minutes were taken in both Welsh and English. For many years, an eisteddfod, a competition of singing and poetry, was held annually
in Malad. Malad was an enclave of
‘Little Wales’ in America.
The story is told of the Bishop who during a Sunday meeting asked
that Brother Jones move to the stand.
Seven men in the congregation stood up.
The Bishop then clarified that he meant Brother John W. Jones, at which
time four of the men sat down. In the
community, it was common to have many with the same first and last names. To alleviate confusion, many in the community
had a nickname by which he or she was known for life. For example, William Evans was called
‘Creamery Bill’ because of his employment in a local dairy. Another William Evans was called ‘Bill Two Mile’
because he lived two miles out of town.
A third William Evans was called ‘Bill Squeak’, since his voice had not
changed after puberty.
Sometimes men were nicknamed for their religious
affiliation. Two men named William
Thomas were called ‘Mormon Bill’ and ‘Josephite Bill’ to distinguish between
them. There were a few cases in which
the patronymic system was used to identify Malad residents. In one case, David Thomas (one of the most
common names in Malad), was referred to as Dave Benjamin throughout his life,
since his father’s name was Benjamin Thomas.
Perhaps the most descriptive name was that given to Rebecca Williams,
who had the ability to eat peanuts even though she had no teeth. What was the nickname? Peanut Beck.
John M. and Hannah Morgan chose an area then known as Willow
Springs, which would later be known as Four-Mile Creek. They established land claims and began to
make the improvements required to retain ownership of the land. The extended Morgan families also established
farms there, probably growing hay for livestock and vegetables for sale.
The first settlers built dugout shelters with walls made of
woven willows and mud. By 1865, there
were a few log houses in Malad, and there were enough people to organize a
branch of the Mormon Church. By 1866,
the Oneida County seat was moved to Malad. Agriculture was difficult in Malad; vegetable
crops had to be hauled to Corrine or points more distant to be sold. Drought, grasshoppers and Mormon Crickets devastated
early crops. Many settlers supplemented
their income by working for or providing services to stage line travelers and
freight haulers.
The Mormons living at Willow Springs and Two-Mile Creek would
have attended the Malad Branch initially.
This meant a trip of about four miles one way to Malad for
services. In 1869, a Branch of the
Church was organized at Cherry Creek. It
included ten families; those from Willow Springs, a few from Cherry Creek, and
some from Henderson and Two-Mile Creeks.
There would have been about sixty members. The foundation and a few walls of the Cherry
Creek Ward building, built in 1885, can still be seen today. Willow Springs did have the original Branch
of the Church, organized in 1869 and meeting in a school building built in
1871. It would seem, however, that the
Branch was dependant on the Malad First Ward.
Before moving the Branch to Cherry Creek, the Willow Springs group probably
held primary and relief society meetings in the schoolhouse. By 1870, a Sunday school would be organized. Eventually, the Willow Springs Branch was
moved to Cherry Creek, since Cherry Creek was more centrally located to other
areas of the Ward.
Jane Ann Ward, in her Reflections, a history of the Cherry
Creek Ward, implies that John Morgan, Howell Mifflin and David R. Jones were
not active Mormons.
Cherry Creek as a settlement dates back to 1865 when
John M.
Morgan, Howell Mifflin, David R. Jones, and others
located
in the Malad
Valley, at Willow Creek
four miles south of Malad
City. The same
year, …(others) located as the first
Latter-day
Saint settlers on Cherry Creek (italics added). Some of them bought claims secured by some of
the Josephites who had settled in the valley
shortly
before that time. Morgan Morgan…settled
on Two-Mile Creek the same season…
I am pretty sure that John M. Morgan, the Mifflin’s and the
Jones were loyal to the Church. The
Mifflin’s were married at the Endowment House only a few years before the move
to Willow Springs. David R. Jones
appears in an early photograph of the Malad Branch Priesthood. Perhaps Mrs. Ward was contrasting the new
settlers with the Josephites that had previously lived on Cherry Creek. Morgan M. Morgan and his wife Mary Ann were
the last of the family to move to the Malad area, probably in 1866.
So when Catherine Morgan Wilkes needed to move out of Iowa for the support of her
children, she naturally sought out her parent and siblings. Since she came west in 1863, she probably
lived on the ranch near Brigham City
with her parents. She probably moved
with her father to Willow Springs near Malad in 1865. In traveling to Utah from Iowa, she may have enlisted help from her
brother-in-law, William Phillips.
William had married Amelia Morgan and lived near his father-in-law in
Box Elder. William apparently had a
falling out with LDS
Church leaders. He stopped working as a cabinet maker in Box
Elder, and started to haul freight from Utah
to Iowa and
into Montana. He may have given Catherine and her children
a ride to Utah
on one of his return trips.
CATHERINE LEAVES MALAD
After her break-up from David Morgan, Catherine did not stay
long in Idaho. Although three of her half-brothers and sisters
as well as her step-mother were living near Malad, Catherine moved to Utah, probably to stay
with friends she had known in St.
Louis. It is
likely that she had her two children from David with her. Her son Benjamin may have stayed in Malad
with his cousins.
She filed for divorce from David Morgan before September of
1873. The divorce was finalized in
October of the same year. Soon after, she applied for pension benefits
from the War Department as a (supposed) widow of a Civil War veteran. She enlisted an attorney from Salt Lake City to file
her pension claim. The attorney
apparently left the City a short time later, failing to inform Catherine
regarding the status of her claim.
Catherine probably traveled to Salt Lake City to file a petition for
divorce. She most likely lived, however,
with her friends. Thomas and Annie Evans
Rogers lived in Hyde Park in Cache County. Thomas had worked in the coal mine at Gravois
while Catherine and Ben lived there. Catherine
knew Thomas from the Josiah Bradlee. The Rogers
went to Salt Lake City
to file affidavits supporting her claim of marriage to Ben. Elizabeth and William Hopwood, who had
crossed the plains with Catherine, also swore that they knew Catherine to be
the widow of Ben Wilkes. Farther south
in Spanish Fork lived William and Elizabeth Thomas, both of whom had known
Catherine and Ben in St. Louis. Her friend Ann Rogers had married William
Snow and lived in Salt Lake City. Catherine may have stayed with any or all of
these families while in the Salt
Lake Valley.
Apparently unknown to Catherine, the Pension Board had
refused her claim based on the military records, which showed that Ben had survived
the hospital and returned to his unit.
They may have requested more information through communication to
Catherine’s lawyer.
It would seem that later, in November of 1873, the Pension
Board dropped her claim simply because they had not received any new
information on it. It is possible that
if her lawyer had not bungled the claim, money could have been paid to
Catherine through the Pension Act of 1862.
The Board had requested verification of Ben’s death and cause of death
at Cairo from a
commanding officer. They also wanted
dates of birth, which I assume refers to the children. It would seem that Catherine never received
the request.
BEN MOVES TO NEBRASKA
Benjamin Wilkes cannot be found on the 1870 Federal
Census. I am not really sure where he
might have spent the first few years after the War. He may have lived in Nebraska or somewhere in Iowa.
Perhaps he had moved to Canada
to escape prosecution as a deserter.
Eventually, he will show up living in a sparsely-populated County in
eastern Nebraska.
Ben probably moved to Nebraska
within five or six years after the War.
He would later file a Civil War Pension claim, and on one of the
affidavits submitted, a witness States that he had known Ben for twenty years. The affidavit was filed in 1891.
He is found on the 1880 Federal Census living in a small
town called Sterling,
about thirty-five miles southeast of the capitol, Lincoln. But there is a problem with the 1880 Census
entries. The problem is that Ben and his
wife Hattie seem to be lying about nearly everything asked on the Census. For example, he lists Pennsylvania as his birthplace. He gives his wife’s name as ‘Anna’, who also
claimed Pennsylvania
as a birthplace. He listed “farmer” as
his occupation, and there are two younger people living in his household.
Sterling
is in Johnson County near the Kansas and Missouri borders. It was surveyed in 1870 after the Atchison and Nebraska
Railroad laid track through the area. The
town has a river, the Nemaha, running through it. At one time, there was a grist mill on the
River.
Johnson
County was sparsely
populated. In 1856, there were only
about 150 people in the entire county.
By 1860, there were 528 people living in the county and by 1870, there
were not quite 3500 people in the county.
In 1880, there were about 700 residents in Sterling.
Sterling
had two competing newspapers and a bank.
There were four Protestant denominations in town and a Mason’s lodge. The majority of the residents were Republican
in sentiment, although one of the newspapers favored the Democratic viewpoint.
Perhaps Ben and Anna (or Hattie) chose Johnson County
because it was so sparsely populated. I
imagine that Ben was afraid of being discovered and convicted as a
deserter. For ten to fifteen years after
the War, there were a number of men employed in hunting and capturing army
deserters. Two famous names that come to
mind are Buffalo Bill Cody and Wild Bill Hickok, both of whom roved the Kansas-Nebraska
frontier bringing army deserters to justice.
From his responses on the Census, Ben clearly did not want to be
discovered.
The only reference to “Anna Wilkes” is on the 1880 Federal Census. She was almost certainly not from Pennsylvania as reported. One of the household members in 1880 was
Jenny Losy, age 12, and she was listed as the granddaughter of Ben and
Anna. She was not a descendant of
Catherine Wilkes, so she most likely was the granddaughter of Anna through a
previous marriage, or perhaps of Ben if he had children with another woman. The other boarder, Miles Harnley, age 23, was
probably not related to Ben or Anna.
Anna, who was listed as the spouse of Benjamin, is most
likely Hattie J. Dolloway, who married Ben in Lancaster County Nebraska on February 8th, 1871. Why they would not use Hattie’s correct name
on the Census is a mystery to me. Was
she someone that Ben had met at the hospital in Cairo?
She may have been an Army nurse that also deserted with Ben. Had she been one of the Sisters of the Holy
Cross? It is possible that she also was
hiding from a spouse or family members.
There were a number of Dolloway and Dollaway men who served in the Civil
War, most of them from New York
and Pennsylvania. She may have been the spouse of one of these
men when she met Ben, perhaps at Cairo,
Illinois.
Benjamin and Hattie (spelled as Hetty) Wilks are found on
the 1885 Nebraska State Census. On this State
Census, Ben claims to be 57 years old, with his birth place as England. His wife Hattie (Hetty) claims to be 37 years
old with a birth place of Missouri. They were living in the Sterling Precinct in Johnson County.
By December of 1891, Ben had begun to suffer from rheumatism
and kidney ailments. On December 19th
of that year, he marked his ‘X’ on a sworn affidavit to allow one J.M. Curtis,
a Washington D.C. attorney, to process a claim for Civil
War Pension benefits under the Act of June 27th, 1890. In the initial claim, Benjamin appears to
have met the minimum requirements for filing.
The benefits were to be paid based on a physical examination of injuries
or illness that were caused by War service and were still causing
debility. By March of 1892, the War
Department had verified Ben’s enlistment and reported muster-out date. He was ordered to report to a medical board
which was meeting in nearby Tecumseh,
Nebraska. He was there examined in March of 1892, and
found to indeed suffer from rheumatism (arthritis), piles (hemorrhoids), an
enlarged prostate gland which troubled his urinary function, and a general
anxiety or restlessness. Perhaps the
anxiety could be put down as worry that he would be discovered a deserter. His height was five feet seven and one/half
inches, and his weight was one hundred and sixty-one pounds. He claimed to be sixty-four years old,
although he was probably sixty-seven. The
Board recommended that only a fraction of the allowable pension be paid to Ben,
approximately four-eighteenths of the potential total payment.
The Pension request was filed as a result of the Congressional
Act of June 27th,
1890. Congress had opened
the treasury to Union veterans of the Civil War and their widows. The qualification of veterans and widows was
greatly simplified by the Act; in fact commentators of the day worried that the
Treasury might be bankrupted by the payouts.
The payments to veterans were not to exceed $12 per month, and not to be
less than $6 per month. Widows could
earn $8 per month with an extra $2 for each child less than sixteen years of
age.
But Ben would never see a dime from the Civil War Pension Fund. By summer of 1892, a flurry of memos were
being sent back and forth from the War Department and Pension Office. It was first discovered that Catherine Wilkes
had filed a pension claim, which had been rejected, almost twenty years
earlier. She had filed as a (supposed) widow. Next, a terse statement from the War
Department dated July 5th,
1892, states: “No record having been found of this
soldier…subsequent to Feb’y 17, 1864, when he was returned to duty from
hospital, he is regarded by this department as a deserter since that date” (italics added). The attorney, Mr. J.M. Curtis, filed a
half-hearted series of appeals. Although there were a few memos sent back and
forth from the various Departments and Agencies, it appears that the Pension
Board considered the matter closed, and rejected Ben’s application for Pension
benefits outright. The final notice of
rejection is dated December
8, 1892.
On the Federal Census of 1900, Hattie and Ben gave a more truthful
accounting of their origins. Still
living in Sterling, Nebraska, 73 year-old Ben
confessed that he did not know his birth month.
He was working as a gardener, although he must have been limited in his
activities by rheumatism. He gave for
his country of origin England,
with the year of emigration 1847. He was
not a naturalized citizen of the United States. He was unable to read or write and had never
attended school. One bright spot was his
acknowledgement that he owned his house free and clear of any mortgage.
His wife, Hattie, was born in February of 1828. She was 72 years old at the time of the Census. She claimed no children, said that she was
born in Missouri,
and that her parents were both born in Tennessee. Although she had not attended school, she claimed
to be able to read and write.
Both Ben and Hattie probably died before the 1910 Federal Census. I cannot find a record of their deaths nor
burials. They may have died intestate
and poor. I do not know if they had many
close friends or acquaintances. Ben did
not join any of the various Civil War Veteran groups in Johnson County. I can find no evidence that he was involved
in any church or fraternal organization.
I can understand Ben’s deserting the Army during the Civil
War. Having never served in the Armed
Forces, I cannot know the stress of battle or even of the stress of anticipated
battle. Ben probably saw some terribly
injured men at the hospital in Cairo. While a part of me condemns Ben Wilkes for
running away from his companions in arms, I can understand his motive to run
from the Infantry.
What I do not understand, however, is Ben’s willingness to
abandon his wife and children after the War.
Surely, even as a deserter, he could have safely found his way to Utah or Idaho where he must have
known that the Morgan family had settled.
Many deserters from both sides of the conflict were able to find peace
and security in the west. It would seem
that Ben never cared to visit his children and grandchildren. They would die never having known their
father and grandfather.
HYDE PARK
After the divorce was final, Catherine established a
residence at Hyde Park, a community near Logan, Utah. The move may have been made as early as the
winter of 1873. Her friends from the old
country, Thomas and Anne Rogers, were living at Hyde Park. Her oldest daughter, Sarah Ann Wilkes Matkin
was living nearby with her husband and at least three children. Sarah Ann may have asked her mom to help with
the small children. Her daughter
Elizabeth was married and living in Malad without children. Her son Ben was probably working with his
cousins in Malad or in Montana. David and Mary, children of David Morgan,
were probably with Catherine.
Catherine eventually met a man from Logan named George Hibbard. George was a widower with nine children,
about five of whom were under the age of eighteen. Catherine was his third wife. They may have been married in 1878 in Malad,
according to one source, although I find it hard to believe since Catherine had
moved to Utah
and George was from Logan. George had children living in the Logan area, and Catherine
had children and grandchildren living in both Logan and Malad.
The 1880 Federal Census finds George and Catherine Hibbard
living as Man and wife in Hyde Park,
Utah. In the same household was one of George’s
children, Flosie (probably Flora), age 13.
Catherine’s two children with David Morgan, Mary Jane Morgan, age 13, listed
as Mary Jane Hibbard, and David Morgan, listed as David Hibbard, age 11, are
also living with the Hibbard family.
Catherine and George were sealed at the Salt Lake City Temple
on 10 October, 1881.
In 1883, Mormons received a glowing report of rich farmland north
of Idaho Falls,
perhaps from someone who had not spent a winter there. Local
Cache Valley
leaders recruited a group of families to leave their farms in Cache Valley
and colonize Rexburg. Rexburg was named
after a former resident of Logan, Thomas E. Ricks. Ricks married Mary Hibbard, the daughter of
George and Hannah Hibbard. They were
part of the first migration north to Idaho.
I would assume that George Hibbard remained at least briefly
in Logan after
his daughter and several of his other children moved to Rexburg. Before long, he would decide to follow them
to Rexburg. His ancestors say that he
was in Rexburg in the early 1880’s, and he was certainly there before 1885.
Whether George went to Rexburg in 1883 or later, Catherine
did not accompany him. I can only assume
that she wanted to remain in Logan
to be near her children and grandchildren.
Was there a fight over whether she should go with her third husband or stay
near her children? I cannot tell. I do know that the ancestors of George
Hibbard cannot find any mention of Catherine Morgan in his journals. There is no reference made to the marriage or
subsequent sealing in the Temple. It is as if Catherine had never crossed paths
with George Hibbard.
George Hibbard would die in October of 1890. He was buried in the Rexburg Cemetery
to be near his daughter Flora, who had died in 1885.
I can only imagine what Catherine might have done with the last
twenty-five years of her life. So far as
I can tell, she had no employment or source of income. She must have been relatively poor, since she
again applied for pension funds in 1896.
I can imagine that she spent some time with the Lizzie Thomas family in
Malad. Her daughter Sarah Ann probably
needed help with her family. Sarah’s husband
Samuel Matkin would be called to colonize near Calgary, Alberta Canada in 1887. Sarah and Samuel’s second wife Permelia declined
to move to Canada,
staying behind in Hyde Park. Sarah Ann would have had eight surviving
children, all of whom, so far as I can tell, stayed in Utah when their father moved to Canada.
By 1910, Catherine had a number of grandchildren and
great-grandchildren. From her daughter
Sarah Ann Matkin, she had nine grandchildren, and a number of
great-grandchildren. Some of the
grandchildren lived in Idaho
and Utah, but
some had moved into Canada. From her daughter Lizzie Thomas, she had nine
grandchildren, most of whom lived in Southern Idaho
or Northern Utah. I can’t help but wonder if she might have
held my father, Eph Thomas, who was born in 1915 in Malad. She probably saw and held most of her great
grandchildren, at least seven of whom were born while she was still alive. From Benjamin Morgan Wilkes, she had two
grandchildren, and perhaps four great grandchildren who lived in Southern Idaho.
One of Catherine’s grandchildren, Sarah Matkin’s daughter,
wrote a very brief history of Catherine during this time. She wrote:
All that
I can remember about Grandma Hibbard is that she liked to give parties. It seemed to be her custom to have a party
once each month. The parties were held
on the thirteenth of each month and were (like?) birthday parties. I have heard different people say that they
always liked to attend these parties.
Grandma seemed to be a wonderful hostess.
Grandma
liked to be right in style. She loved
company and told fortunes, which I don’t think ever came true…
Catherine, like many Welsh, may have had a passing interest
in the occult. It sounds like she
entertained her guests with palm readings or perhaps by reading tea
leaves. She and her guests no doubt felt
that it was harmless fun.
I can’t help but feeling that Catherine may have spent her
life never feeling comfortable in a family unit. After her mother died, she becomes a step-child
with not one but two step-mothers. Next,
she marries and is deserted by her husband in an Iowa town where she has few friends and no
family. When she comes to Utah, she must feel
awkward living near her step-brother and sisters after her father died. When she marries for the second time, she
soon realizes that her spouse is only taking advantage of her. Her third marriage was to a more stable man,
but he also abandons her in Logan
when he moves to Idaho,
only to die a short time later.
In her children’s families, many of the grandchildren and
great-grandchildren are named for either Ben or Catherine. In my family line, my grandfather was named
Benjamin, and his sister Catherine. I
have an Aunt Katherine (Benjamin’s daughter) who was always my favorite
Aunt. My father’s cousin was given the
middle name of Wilkes. I think that this
bears record to the tenderness that existed between Catherine and her children,
and also testifies to the fact that she did not tear down Ben in front of his
children. Perhaps she remembered fondly
the Muscatine
sunrises and sunsets. Perhaps she made
Ben a hero in his children’s eyes for his willingness to fight on the side of
the Union.
Perhaps she never knew that Ben survived the War, or maybe deep down she
did know and just forgave him.
Catherine probably spent her last years at home in Logan, Utah. She was living in the Logan Fourth Ward in
1910. I assume that the home was near her daughter’s
home in Hyde Park. Perhaps she was living in the Hibbard’s
home. Sarah Ann had remarried after her
husband passed away in Canada
to a man called Reuben Perkes. Sarah’s oldest
son had married into the Perkes family.
Several of the married Matkin children lived near Logan.
Catherine died there on the 31st of August, 1916. She is buried in the Logan City Cemetery. At
least three of her children and three of her grand children preceded her in
death. Of her husbands, Benjamin is
presumed to have died in the same decade as Catherine. I find no record of David Morgan’s death. George Hibbard died sixteen years before
Catherine.
BIOGRAPHICAL ENTIRES FOR OTHER FAMILY MEMBERS
Benjamin Wilkes
Senior, father of Benjamin Wilkes, was christened in the Bilston Church of
England Chapel, St. Leonard’s
on the 27th of
July, 1789. His parents were Titus Wilkes, who was christened in
1753, and Sarah Compson, who was christened in 1759. Benjamin Sr. was the fourth child in a family
of six children of whom I can find record.
Benjamin probably died before the 1841 British Census. Benjamin and his wife probably had eight
children, five girls and three boys. The
family was poor, which meant that the children were working at a very early
age, the boys at mining and the girls in indentured service until they were
married. The children were probably
unable to attend any school. The Wilkes
family name is found in Staffordshire as early as the seventeenth century. A Wilkes family estate is in nearby Willenhall,
Stafford.
Margaret Beard Wilkes,
mother of Benjamin Wilkes, was christened at St. Leonard’s Church in Bilston on the 18th of August, 1782. Her parents were Edward Beard (also spelled
Beards) and Sarah Tonks (also spelled Tonk or Tongue). She was the fifth child in a family of six,
of whom I can find record. She was living in Sedgley Township
during the British Census of 1841 with her sons Benjamin and William. Her husband had apparently passed away prior
to the taking of the 1841 British Census. Her
name is not found in a cursory search of the 1851 British Census.
Carey or Carew Wilkes
Yates, Ben’s oldest sister, was christened at St. Leonard’s Church in Bilston on the 22nd of November, 1808. She married James Yates on the 23rd of July, 1825
at the Saint Peter’s Collegiate in Wolverhampton,
Staffordshire. They would have at least eight children. They lived initially at Bilston, but later
moved to Wednesbury, St James Parish. In 1871, she still lived in the Wednesbury at
St. James Parish in West Bromwich. Her husband had apparently died prior to the
taking of the 1871 Census
Edward Wilkes,
Ben’s oldest brother, was christened at St.
Leonard’s in Bilston on the 30th of December, 1810. He would marry Phebe Rhoden on the 29th of September, 1833
at Saint Peter’s Collegiate in Wolverhampton. They were to have at least four
children. Obviously fond of his older sister,
he named his first daughter Carey. Benjamin
Wilkes, Jr. would name his second son Edward.
Phebe Wilkes Smith,
Ben’s sister, was christened at St.
Leonard’s Church in Bilston on the 26th of March, 1815. She was married to John Smith on 18 September, 1831 in Darlastan
near Wolverhampton. The Phebe Smith found living in Sedgley on
the 1881 British Census may be our Phebe.
Her husband has died prior to the Census, and she is living with a
daughter, Mary, and a grandson, Thomas.
Eliza Wilkes,
Ben’s sister, was christened on the
11th of April, 1819 at St. Leonard’s in Bilston. I could not find any thing further about her
life.
Elizabeth Wilkes,
Ben’s sister, was christened on the 12th of November, 1820 at St. Leonard’s in Bilston. I could not find any thing further about her
life.
William Wilkes,
Ben’s brother, was christened on the 5th of December, 1822 at St. Leonard’s Church in Bilston. He was still living with his mother and Ben
at the time of the British Census in 1841.
Since his father had probably died, he and Ben were the providers for
Margaret. His occupation listed on the Census
was miner, probably coal miner. Ben was
obviously fond of William, as he named his first-born son William Wilkes.
Sabina Wilkes,
Ben’s youngest sister, was christened on the 20th of August, 1826 at St. Leonard’s in Bilston. She is not found listed on the 1841 British Census
living with her mother. She may have
died young before the Census was taken, but more likely, she was employed in indentured
service and living at another location. She
may be the same Sabina Wilkes who declared her intention to marry in the first
quarter of 1842 in Wolverhampton. She may have married George Perry, as a
couple is found by that name as late as the 1881 British Census.
Morgan Morgan, paternal
grandfather of Catherine, was born in Glamorgan, Wales about 1776. He was married first to Catherine David on the13th
of December, 1794 at Saint Fagan’s Church near Cardiff. He and Catherine would have at least four
children: John, Mary, Edmund and Isaac, all christened at the Eglwys Ilan
Parish Church. The records show another possible child,
Johanna, christened in 1807 to Morgan Morgan. His wife Catherine probably died during or
shortly after the birth of Isaac, for Morgan would remarry in October of 1808
to Ann James at Eglwys Ilan. He and Ann
would have at least six children: James, Howell, Jacob, George, Elizer and
Abraham. All of those children were also
christened at Eglwys Ilan. Morgan may have worked as a boatman, since
several of his children were employed in the same trade. Morgan would have passed away some time after
1817, although I have not found any death or burial dates.
Catherine David,
paternal grandmother of Catherine, was probably born near Cardiff about 1770 to 1778. She married Morgan Morgan at Saint Fagan’s Church
in 1794. They would have at least four
children together. She probably died
about 1808, possibly from complications of childbirth. Catherine Morgan was named for her
grandmother.
John Morgan Morgan,
father of Catherine, was born on the 22nd of January, 1801 or 1802 near Caerphilly,
Glamorganshire, South Wales. He was christened on the 7th of November, 1803
at the Eglwys Ilan chapel in Glamorgan. He was probably the oldest child of Morgan
Morgan and Catherine David. There may
well have been other older children; however, the records may be incomplete or
some of the children may not have been christened. He had at least two brothers and one sister,
and perhaps seven half-brothers after his father remarried. He probably worked as both a boatman on the
River Taff and a coal miner.
He married as his first wife Sarah Mathew, with whom he had
at least one child, Catherine. If they
had other children, I have not been able to find record of them. Sarah and John were married in November of 1828
at Eglwys Ilan. I assume that Sarah died, for he married a
second wife, Mary Meredith in 1836 at Llandaff, Glamorgan. He and Mary would have at least four
children: Ada,
Morgan, Celia and Amelia. After Mary
died in 1847, John married Hannah Griffiths, probably in Wales sometime
before leaving Glamorganshire in February of 1850.
John and Hannah would hear and accept the message preached
by Mormon missionaries. They were
probably baptized in Wales
before 1850. John Morgan may have lived
in the Nantyglo Branch in Monmouth. There
was a John Morgan in that Branch who was active and baptized several new
converts.
In 1850, they emigrated from Wales to St. Louis, Missouri via Liverpool
and New Orleans. In St.
Louis, John probably worked as a miner at Gravois, a
small “Coal Diggins” about five miles away from St. Louis.
He remained there for a year or less, and then removed his family to the
Mosquito Creek area south of Council
Bluffs, Iowa. He farmed here for another year, until he was
advised by Church leaders to make the trek to Utah.
He crossed the plains in the summer of 1852 with the William Morgan
Company, arriving in Salt Lake City
in September of 1852. He stayed in Salt Lake City for at least
a year. While living in Salt Lake City, he had a patriarchal blessing
given him by John Smith on March
2nd, 1853. The John Smith who was Presiding Patriarch
during this period was the Uncle of the Prophet Joseph Smith, known to members
as “Uncle John Smith”.
The Patriarchal Blessing had many important promises for
John. He was to be strong in the Priesthood
and a Patriarch and Prophet over his family.
His posterity would be great and strong in the Church. He had come out of Babylon and now would dwell with “His people”
John and Hannah
Morgan and children may have moved north to Box Elder County as early as
1853. The County was not organized and
named until 1856. There was a small
Mormon settlement on North
Willard Creek
as early as 1851. John built a dugout
cabin for his family and they ranched and farmed there for more than ten years. His family would have included daughters
Celia and Amelia, son Morgan and eventually Catherine and her children. Ada
lived not too far away in North Ogden, but her
two boys lived for at least a while with John and Hannah in Brigham City.
In 1865, he moved again to an area about four miles south of
Malad, Idaho
called Willow Springs in the Cherry Creek Ward.
Most of his family would eventually follow him to the same area. He did not remain long in Cherry Creek. By September of 1869, he was either living in
or staying temporarily in Brigham City,
Utah. While there, he became sick and died on the 1st of September, 1869. He is buried in the Brigham City Cemetery.
John M. Morgan was a true pioneer. He seems to have remained faithful to his
beliefs in the Mormon gospel. He claimed
farmland out of wild lands bordering the Indian Nations. He lost two wives and suffered many
hardships. He was obviously loved and
respected by his family.
Sarah Mathew Morgan, mother
of Catherine, was born about 1807, probably in Glamorgan. Her mother and father are unknown to me. She married John Morgan Morgan on the 29th of November, 1828
at Eglwys Ilan. She and John had only one child of which I
can find record, Catherine Morgan. Sarah
probably died sometime between the birth of Catherine on the 13th of
January, 1833 and the 17th of September, 1836, when her husband
married his second wife.
Mary Meredith Morgan,
step-mother of Catherine, was born about 1820, probably in the Eglwys Ilan
Parish in Glamorgan. Her parents were
probably Daniel and Celia Meredith. She
had at least seven siblings, James, Phillip, William, Hannah, John, Cecilia, and
Thomas. Most of the siblings were
baptized at Saint Martin, Eglwys Ilan. Some of the siblings probably came to the United States
in the Mormon migration. She married
John Morgan Morgan on the 17th
of September, 1836 in Llandaff, Glamorgan. They would have at least four children, all
of whom survived and came to America
with their father. Mary died in Wales on the 15th of November, 1847.
Hannah Griffiths
Morgan, third wife of John Morgan Morgan, was born on the 28th of September, 1811
in Llanglydwen, Carmarthenshire. Llanglydwen is about ninety-five miles northwest
of Trefforest. Her parents were Thomas
and Elizabeth Griffiths. She probably heard and accepted the message
of the Mormon Missionaries in Carmarthenshire.
She married John Morgan Morgan sometime before February of 1850,
although it is possible that they met and married either while preparing for
the trip to America
or en route. I cannot say whether the
marriage was the first for Hannah.
Hannah is found on the Iowa State Census of 1851, but is not
listed as a passenger in the 1852 William Morgan Wagon Company. Her omission is probably a clerical
error. Hannah had a patriarchal blessing
given her in Salt Lake City
by John Smith on March 2nd,
1853. John Smith was the Uncle of the Prophet
Joseph Smith.
Hannah is found living in Brigham City in 1860 with her husband John
and two step-grandchildren, Henry and John Evans. Hannah became a surrogate mother to the two
Evans boys after their father passed away and their mother remarried. They are to be found living with her or near
her during her life.
By 1870, she is living in the Malad Valley
with another young helper named Edward Jenkins.
He is listed as a farm worker. Henry Evans Morgan is sixteen years old and
living with Hannah.
Hannah is found on the 1880 Federal Census living in the Malad Valley. She is seventy years old, and has a sixteen
year old helper living with her. The girl is named Ann Jones. So far as I can tell, Ann is not a relative,
and there is a girl by that name who later marries a man from the Cherry Creek
Ward.
Oddly, I cannot find
a death or burial date for Hannah. She
probably died surrounded by her step-children in Oneida County
between 1880 and 1890. It does not
appear that she was buried in Brigham
City near her husband, in Malad or at Cherry Creek. Perhaps she was buried on a family plot on
private property in Oneida
County.
Hannah, so far as I can tell, never had children of her
own. She obviously loved to have
children around her, since she always seemed to have young people living with
her. She was undoubtedly loved like a
mother by Ada Jones’ boys, Henry and John.
Ada Morgan Evans
Jones, half-sister of Catherine, was born on the 8th of July 1838 in Trefforest,
Glamorgan. She was christened at St. Martin’s, Eglwys Ilan on the 30th of August
in the same year. Her father was John M.
Morgan and her mother was Mary Meredith.
She lived with her family in Glamorgan in her childhood. When she was nine years old her mother passed
away. Soon, she would have a step-mother,
Hannah Griffiths Morgan. At the age of eleven,
she sailed to America
with her family on the ship Josiah
Bradlee. She moved with her family
from New Orleans
to St. Louis
and then on to Council Bluffs. She remained with her family in Missouri and Iowa until 1852, when
she crossed the plains in the William Morgan Wagon Company at the age of
fourteen. She lived for about two years
in Salt Lake City,
probably working as a servant. While
there, she met or met again a man named Henry Jones Evans. She and Henry were married, perhaps as early as
1854. Ada would have been about sixteen years
old. They were sealed at the Endowment House
in October of 1855. She and Henry would
have two children together. After 1855,
they lived in North Ogden. Henry died there in 1859.
Ada’s
two surviving children are found living with John M. and Hannah Morgan on the 1860
Census in Box Elder County. Henry
Evans, going by Henry Morgan, is found on the 1870 federal Census living near
Hannah Morgan in Oneida
County. On the 1880
Federal Census, John Evans is found living with his newlywed wife, Isabella
Burnett, in Malad
City. Henry is found living in Oxford, a short distance from Malad City,
with his wife Sarah Ann Baker. Henry and
Sarah had two boys named John and Henry in 1880. They would eventually have eight
children. John and Isabella would have
thirteen children. Both men were employed
in the cattle business. Henry would live
until 1923, when he died in Darlington,
Idaho. John would live until 1903, when he died in Arimo, Idaho.
Ada
is found on the 1860 Federal Census living in North Ogden
as the wife of David R. Jones. Her name
has been misspelled, and is found as Adeline Jones. All of David and Elizabeth’s children are living with David
and Ada, but Ada and Henry’s children
are living with their grandfather, John M. Morgan in Brigham City.
Ada
married her former brother-in-law, David R. Jones in November of 1859. David R. Jones had married the sister of Ada’s first husband,
Elizabeth Evans, in Wales. Elizabeth Evans Jones died in November of 1859
while the couple lived in North Ogden.
The 1870 Federal Census finds the family living in Oneida County, Idaho
near Malad City.
There were six children by 1870, Mary (daughter of David and Elizabeth),
David, Herbert, Edwin, Morgan and Alfred.
David and Ada
would have one more child in 1875, Franklin.
None of David and Elizabeth’s
children except Mary and none of Ada
and Henry’s children lives with Ada
and David.
David R. Jones was twice a member of the Idaho Territorial
Legislature. He served in 1879-1880 and
1884-1885. He ran for office in 1882 and
in 1886 but was not elected. David was from Carmarthen,
and had immigrated to Salt Lake City
in 1853 with his wife Elizabeth and two children. They came aboard the ship Jersey. After
living in North Ogden for more than ten years,
David moved to Malad in 1866. David is said by some to have married a third
wife named Mary Jones. Since I cannot
find any evidence of the marriage, I do not believe the marriage happened.
David is listed as a juror in the notorious Mary Hill murder
trial. Although Mary Hill was accused
and apparently did murder her husband by poisoning him, she was acquitted by
her peers, and lived happily for the rest of her life in Malad, much to the
chagrin of her neighbors.
David and Ada
are living at Four Mile Creek near Malad on the 1880 Federal Census. David, listed as D. R. Jones, claims “ex
member Legislature” as his employment and is 49 years old. Ada
is 41 and is “keeping house”. The
children are: Mary Jane, age 21 (Mary
Jane is actually 24 and is the daughter of David and Elizabeth), David, age 19,
Herbert, age 17, Edwin, age 15, Morgan, age 13, Albert, age 10, and Franklin,
age 6.
By 1910, David and Ada
are still living in the Malad
Valley. They live with Herbert and Franklin still at
home.
Ada
died on the 24th
of April, 1904 in Malad
City. She is buried in the Malad City Cemetery. David would live six years longer. He died on the 10th of April, 1910, in
Malad. He is buried in the Malad City
Cemetery.
Morgan Meredith
Morgan, half brother of Catherine, was born in Trefforest, Glamorganshire, Wales on the 21st of January, 1840. He was christened at St.
Martin, Eglwys Ilan on the 4th of March, 1840. His father was John M. Morgan and his mother
was Mary Meredith. When he was about
seven years old, his mother died. He and
his family immigrated to America
when Morgan was about ten years old, traveling in a Mormon group on the ship Josiah Bradlee. Morgan lived with his family in St. Louis and then in Council Bluffs, Iowa. When Morgan was twelve years old, he crossed
the plains with his family in the William Morgan Company. He probably walked most of the way. He lived with his family in Salt Lake City and then in Box Elder County, Utah. By 1860, he was no longer living with his
family. He is found on the Federal Census
living with the William Phillips family, probably working as a farm hand. He is listed as twenty-three years old (he
was actually twenty), and living in the same family we find a young girl, fifteen
years old (probably seventeen), named Mary Ann Phillips. Mary Ann and Morgan would be married in
1861. Mary Ann’s older brother, William,
had already married Morgan’s younger sister, Amelia.
Morgan and Mary Ann probably lived near the Phillips family
in Box Elder County for a few years. By
1865, they had moved to the Malad
Valley along with John M.
Morgan and his other children’s families.
I believe that the Morgan Morgan mentioned in Jane Ward’s Reflections as having moved to Two-mile Creek
in 1865 is probably our Morgan M. Morgan. If they were active members of the LDS Church,
they would probably have attended the Willow Springs Branch and Cherry Creek
Ward with the rest of the extended families.
Morgan and Mary Ann would have six children together, although
there were perhaps only two who survived into their adult years. The children’s names were: Evan, born about 1862, John Morgan, born
about 1862, Morgan Phillips, born in 1866, Margaret, born about 1866, Gwenfred,
born about 1870 and Mary Ann, born in 1877. Mary
Ann and Morgan P. are both buried at the Malad Cemetery
near their parents. Evan Morgan died
while the family lived in Brigham City
at the age of three.
Morgan was involved from the beginning in the local politics
of Malad. Before the Railroad from Utah to Montana was built, Malad
was a crucial stage stop on the road from Northern Utah
to Montana
and Idaho. The miners in Montana consumed food and materials from Utah and exported gold
and silver. The existing roads were toll
roads, and many interests sought to control the various routes and alternate
routes. One of the large companies with
an interest in the freight routes was the Wells Fargo Company.
In 1866, a man named William Murphy maneuvered into a
position where he controlled the toll road in the Portneuf Canyon. Murphy had envisioned a short-cut through Marsh Valley
that would decrease travel distance and time from the route. The move was lucrative for Murphy. It would give him a virtual monopoly over the
freight lines north into Montana. Murphy made some enemies, among them Benjamin
Franklin White, who had a salt extraction business near Pocatello, and paid thousands of dollars to
transport his product. Another man, a ‘gentile’
lawyer named Carter, tricked Murphy in to signing over half of the proceeds
from the toll road to Carter. Local Mormon residents disliked both Carter
and Murphy, and few were fond of B. F. White, who would later form the Independent
Anti-Mormon political party in an attempt to disenfranchise Mormon voters.
By 1868, the local Mormons had gained partial control over the
county commission. With Henry Peck
serving as one of the County
Commissioners, Morgan M.
Morgan was appointed as the new Sheriff of Oneida County. B.F. White was the County Clerk,
and attorney Carter was the Auditor and Recorder.
A few years later, Morgan M. Morgan was elected
sheriff. There were ongoing maneuverings
behind the scenes for control of the stage routes. During a Road Commission meeting held in
April of 1870, a statement was read that accused Bill Murphy of fraud. He was charged
with misstating his profits on the road by some $50,000. The County Commissioners
had the authority to control the fees charged for tolls on the road, and relied
on business statements from Murphy to set the fees. They immediately suggested that the toll road
fees should be cut by one-half.
Murphy was livid, and stated in the meeting about the statement
that it was false, and that the writer was a “thief and a liar…” The author of the statement was none other
than B.F. White, who stood to profit from lower toll fees should Murphy be
exposed as dishonest. White was incensed
by Murphy’s denial and accusation, and he arose and advanced on Murphy, who
pulled a revolver from his pocket and threatened White. Sheriff Morgan, standing near Murphy, grabbed
the hand holding the gun and was shot through the thigh. Murphy then escaped outside the building,
where Sheriff Morgan followed and succeeded in disarming him.
What happened next depends on which account is considered most
believable. One official story,
published in the Morning Oregonian, obviously
from a wire service, stated that Sheriff Morgan then ordered Murphy to be still
while he was taken into custody. The
news account states that Murphy made a motion to extract another weapon from
his clothing, at which time Sheriff Morgan shot Murphy with Murphy’s own gun and
killed him. An eye-witness account, given by Hattie
Morgan, daughter of a local Physician and not related to Sheriff Morgan, tells
a different story. She claimed that
Murphy had been disarmed inside of the meeting hall, and that Sheriff Morgan
followed him outside. As Murphy pleaded
with Morgan not to shoot, Morgan then shot and killed Bill Murphy, perhaps in
the back as he turned to run.
There are oral traditions to this day which persist in Malad
about the Morgan/Murphy shooting. One
version actually stated that it was Murphy, not Morgan, who was Sheriff. Regardless of which version of the story you
might believe, the County
Commissioners were
anxious to put the matter to rest. They
held an inquest over the body of Bill Murphy later the same day, and found that
Sheriff Morgan had acted appropriately and in self-defense. The real winner of the battle was one H. O.
Harkness, a McCammon politician who married the widow of Bill Murphy and
inherited the toll road venture.
Harkness would later serve on the County Commission.
Mary Ann Morgan died suddenly on the 21st of May, 1877. She was thirty-four years old. She is buried in the Malad City Cemetery.
Sheriff Morgan would have a dangerous career as a lawma5n. In 1877, by now a US Marshall, Morgan would
track down the accused attempted murderer Tambiago, a Bannock Indian who had
shot two white men. Tambiago was angered
by rumors that the Army was moving troops toward Fort Hall in preparation for
war. The starving Indians had been wary
of the Army because of their action against the Nez Perce. Tambiago armed himself and shot the first two
white men that he encountered.
Morgan succeeded in bringing the Indian back to Oneida County. He was tried in Malad and sentenced to
hang. The trial of Tambiago was one of
the events that led to the Bannock War of 1878, which would result in much
death and suffering for the Indians. The
story was published in the Idaho Weekly Statesman,
and Sheriff Morgan became famous as a western lawman after the account.
Tragedy would strike one of the children of Morgan M. Morgan
in 1894. His son, Morgan Phillips
Morgan, was a prominent rancher from Cherry Creek near Malad. He was also said to be a graduate of Princeton College.
He had, for some time, carried on an affair with the wife of his
neighbor, John J. Hurst. Hurst was a saloon keeper
and rancher, and until recently had been a close friend of Morgan. He had become suspicious through gossip that
his wife, Fannie, was carrying on with his friend. He accused his wife, who became agitated and
left the house for a week, presumably staying with Morgan. Fannie would later testify that she had
become tired of the deception and shame.
She testified that John Hurst was a devoted and loving husband and
father.
After several confrontations, Hurst had grown tired of the affair. He felt that Fannie and Morgan were flaunting
their infidelity. He sent a message to
Morgan, asking him to visit the Hurst
home on Sunday Evening. Morgan did not
wish to go, fearing trouble from Hurst. Ultimately, he decided to honor his friend’s request. As Morgan rode into the yard of the Hurst home, Hurst emerged from the
house holding a shotgun. He shot Morgan
point blank, who died a few hours later.
The trial was arguably one of the most lurid and sensational
events ever in Malad. The courtroom was
packed for each day of testimony. Hurst
and Fannie both testified, admitting the affair and attempting to justify the
shooting. In the end, Hurst was found guilty of second degree
murder and was sentenced to twenty-one years of hard labor. Public opinion was somewhat in favor of Hurst,
who had clearly suffered from the actions of his friend. Hurst
served seven years in prison. When he
came out, he had lost everything he owned.
His wife Fannie had divorced him and ran off with a rancher from a
nearby county.
Local oral tradition maintains that the infamous outlaw
Jessie James lived briefly in the Malad area during the tenure of Sheriff
Morgan. The legend states that James
rode in and built a small cabin to live in south of Malad City. He married a young local girl in the late
1860’s or early 1870’s. After a few
months of marital tranquility, James is said to have received a visit from his
brother Frank. The two men left the
country shortly after, leaving a note for the now-pregnant former Mrs.
James.
The problem with this story is that during the time frame
mentioned, Jessie and Frank were busy men.
They were involved in a number of bank robberies from Kansas to West Virginia and Iowa to Texas.
They were hounded day and night by the tenacious Pinkerton
Detectives. What’s more, Jessie was a
native of Clay County, Missouri. He would
not have been welcomed openly in a Mormon Community less than thirty years
after the Missouri
expulsion.
There is virtually no chance that the man described in the
oral legends of Malad was Jessie James, although it does make a great story. You could not convince some of the residents
of Malad today that Jessie James was not once a neighbor of their ancestors.
John M. Morgan, son of Mary Ann and Morgan Morgan, may be
the John M. Morgan nominated for membership in the First Presbyterian Church in
Malad. Morgan, along with several
others, was examined by the Presbytery Committee, confessed his faith and was
baptized Presbyterian in 1884. When we searched the LDS Church
records for the Cherry Creek Branch and Ward, there was no mention of any of
the Morgan’s family names.
Morgan M. Morgan died on the 22nd of February, 1879 at the age
of thirty-nine. He was buried in the Malad City
Cemetery next to his wife,
who had died less than two years earlier.
At least two of their children are also buried nearby.
Celia Morgan Mifflin,
half sister of Catherine, was born on April 13th, 1841 in Trefforest, Glamorgan. Her father was John M. Morgan and her mother
was Mary Meredith. She was baptized a
member of the Mormon Church while still in Wales. She traveled with her father and siblings to America in
1850. When they reached St. Louis, money
was scarce, and her father had to work briefly in St. Louis to earn travel
money. The family soon relocated to western
Iowa,
claiming a small farm near Mosquito Creek, in Pottawattamie County. They were able to raise corn on the
farm. After two years in Missouri and Iowa, the family decided
to heed the call of Mormon leaders to move west. In 1852, they crossed the plains, traveling
with the William Morgan Company. Celia
was eleven years old during the trek. After
arriving in Salt Lake City,
they remained in the City briefly, but soon were removed to Box Elder
County. Here the family built a dugout home
and established a ranch on the sagebrush prairie. When they first settled there, they had only
Indians to their north. Celia recalled
that her father retained good relations with the Indians, even loaning them a
rifle and ammunition so that they could hunt sheep.
In 1855, Celia went to the home of C.B. Robbins in the Seventeenth
Ward of Salt Lake City to work. This was
probably the home of Charles Burtis Robbins, a wealthy businessman related by
marriage to the Joseph Young family. While living in the Seventeenth Ward, she met
a young Mormon convert from Philadelphia
named Howell Mifflin. Howell was living
in Salt Lake City
with his brother. Howell was related to the great Revolutionary
War General Thomas Mifflin. She and
Howell married on the 19th
of March, 1864 in the Endowment House.
They apparently re-crossed the plains later in 1864 to meet
an Aunt of Howell Mifflin’s who needed assistance. They lived in Salt Lake City for a year or two and then
moved to Idaho
to live at Willow Springs near Malad.
They would have ten children together.
They founded a ranch near Malad that was still in operation in the
mid-twentieth century. The Mifflin
family became well-known in the Malad area.
Many of the family members are buried at the Cherry Creek and Malad
cemeteries.
The 1880 Federal Census finds the family living in the Malad Valley. Howell is listed first, age 42. His wife Celia follows, at age 39. The children are: Mary, 15, John, 13, Howell, 12, Hannah, 10,
Margret, 8, Adda, 6, Gladice, 4, Edward, 2 and William, 1.
The Mifflin family probably remained active in the LDS
faith. There was a Mifflin called to
serve a mission in 1912 from the Malad Stake.
There are few other references found to any of the family serving in other
Church or Community positions.
By the end of the nineteenth century, Howell Mifflin’s
health was failing. He and his wife
moved to Salt Lake City,
where Howell died in 1902. Celia would
live over thirty years after her husband died.
She passed away on the
16th of September 1934 at the age of ninety-two, and was
buried in the Salt Lake City
Cemetery, next to her husband.
Amelia Morgan
Phillips, half-sister of Catherine, was born in Trefforest, Glamorganshire
on the 22nd of
March 1843. She was christened
at St. Martin, Eglwys Ilan in Caerphilly,
Glamorgan on the 8th
of June, 1843. Her father
was John Morgan Morgan and her mother was Mary Meredith. Her mother died when she was still an
infant. She lived with her family in South Wales until the entire family immigrated to America on the
Ship Josiah Bradlee on the 18th of February, 1850. Amelia was six years old when she boarded
the Bradlee. Although her father was probably baptized in
the Latter-day Saint Church in Wales,
Amelia was not baptized until she reached the age of eight. She may have been baptized in Council Bluffs, Iowa
or Salt Lake City, Utah.
I cannot find record of her Mormon baptism.
She continued to live with her family for at least a few
more years. She shows up on the 1851 State
Census in western Iowa
listed as Melia Morgan, age eight. In Iowa,
the family raised corn on a small plot of ground south of Council Bluffs.
In 1852, she traveled west with her family on the William
Morgan Wagon Company. The Company left Council Bluffs late in
June of 1852. There were about fifty
wagons and less than one-hundred total travelers. They arrived in Salt Lake City in late September. Amelia was about nine years old when she
arrived in Salt Lake City. Amelia probably lived in Salt Lake City until about 1853, when she
would have moved with her family to Box Elder County. She lived there on the family ranch, perhaps
until she was almost sixteen years old.
She was married to William Phillips, a cabinet maker who lived in the
Box Elder area a few days before her sixteenth birthday. It was probably through Amelia that Morgan
Meredith Morgan met and married Mary Ann Phillips. Mary Ann and William Phillips were siblings.
Amelia was married to William Phillips on the 19th of March, 1859,
probably in Box Elder County,
Utah. Phillips was the son of Welsh Mormon emigrants
from Carmarthen and Glamorgan. This could be the same William S. Phillips
who was reported “cut off” in the LDS records from the Brigham City Ward on December 17th, 1860. Phillips was a cabinet maker in Utah, although he
apparently could not earn a living at the craft. He later began to freight materials between Corrine, Utah
and the mines in Montana. He raised cattle and grains for feed. In 1863, he and Amelia moved to the Yellowstone
Mines in Montana. He then removed to Virginia
City near the Gallatin River. At the time, the Gallatin Valley
had only five known white women, so Amelia would have been in the extreme
minority.
William and Amelia may have returned briefly to Utah, where they
continued in the freighting and livestock business. The family eventually decided to leave Utah. They moved in September of 1865 east to Pottawattamie County, Iowa.
They bought property in the Norwalk
Township near Neola. He and the family lived on four hundred
acres, where he raised corn. He served
in a number of City offices and was a member of the Agate Lodge Masons and the
IOOF.
On the 1880 Federal Census, Amelia and William are living in
Norwalk, Iowa
with six children. The children listed
are: Thomas, John, Mary, Evan, Celia,
Morgan and Howell. William is listed as
a farmer.
He and Amelia had seven or eight children, all of whom
except one lived until adult age.
Several of the children were successful in business in the Neola area
near Council Bluffs. They were Republicans, and served in local
politics.
Amelia died in 1885 and was buried in the Council Bluffs area. It would be a good research project to find
her burial place, which may have been in the Neola Township
Cemetery. Her husband would remarry in about 1889
to a local woman named Virginia Weirich. They lived in the Neola Township
when the 1900 Federal Census was enumerated, not having any family members that
I could identify living in the immediate neighborhood.
William Phillips was not found on the 1910 Federal Census,
and his wife Victoria (spelled Retoria) was listed as a widow. Since he was said to be alive in 1907, it is
safe to assume that he died sometime between 1907 and the enumeration of the Census
in 1910. He is probably buried in either the Neola or Norwalk Cemetery.
William Wilkes, oldest son of Benjamin and Catherine, was
born in 1851 while the family was living in Gravois, Missouri. He was named for his father’s older
brother. He had a short life, dying
before November of 1853. Life was hard for the poor in St. Louis. He may have succumbed to cholera or typhus,
or perhaps was malnourished. His parents
were inexperienced in child rearing, and the Morgan family had moved on to Utah. He is probably buried near Gravois, although
I can find no record of his burial. The
dates may have been recorded in the family Bible referenced by his mother,
Catherine.
Sarah Ann Wilkes,
daughter of Benjamin and Catherine, was born on the 27th of November, 1853 while
the family lived in Gravois near St. Louis, Missouri. She was probably named for her maternal
grandmother, who was called Sarah. It is
unlikely that Sarah Ann remembered St. Louis much, as the family moved from
there in 1855 or 1856. She would have had memories of Muscatine Iowa,
where she lived until 1863. At age nine,
she would have remembered her father coming home to tell the family that he had
enlisted in the Union Army to fight in the Civil War. Perhaps she saw her father in his blue army
uniform before his Regiment left Camp Strong. She would also have remembered the word that
came that her father had died in the hospital in Cairo, Illinois
early in 1864.
Sarah Ann came west with her mother and siblings in 1865,
traveling across the plains in an unknown company. After living briefly on a ranch near Brigham City, she moved
with her mother to Malad in Idaho.
By July of 1877, she was living in the Hyde Park Ward in Cache County, Utah. She was re-baptized there in the Hyde Park
Branch in 1877. Perhaps she had gone to Hyde
Park to work as a servant in the home of one of the well-off
settlers. She may also have gone there
to help Anne Rogers care for young children.
She would have been thirteen years old.
While in Hyde Park, she met a young
English emigrant named Samuel Matkin
Sarah Ann was married to Samuel Matkin in Salt Lake City on the 25th of January 1869 in the
Endowment House. She was fifteen years old, he was
eighteen. I cannot find an entry for the
family on the 1870 Federal Census.
Perhaps it was enumerated while they were traveling or living in another
household. After the wedding, they
returned to establish a home in Hyde Park. Their first child, Thomas, was born in Hyde Park in December of 1869.
On the 1880 Federal Census, Samuel and Sarah are living at Hyde Park in Cache
County, Utah. They have six children at that time. Samuel is working as a sharecropper. They would eventually have nine children,
eight of whom lived into adult years.
The children’s names were: Thomas William, Benjamin, Samuel, Henry, Simpson,
Mary, Sarah Elizabeth, John Wilkes and Wilford Laurence.
Samuel had been called by Mormon leaders to practice
polygamy. After gaining consent from
Sarah Ann, he married Permelia Drury as his second wife in December of 1882. She and Samuel had three children: Orson,
Blanche and George Q. In 1886, Samuel
married Mary Ann Edwards as his third wife.
In the spring of 1887, Samuel married yet another woman, Sena Andersen
as his fourth wife.
Later that year, in the early summer of 1887, Samuel was given
another Church assignment. He was one of
forty men asked to move to Cardston in the Alberta Territories
of Canada
to colonize a new Mormon settlement. He
went in the company of Thomas E. Ricks and Charles Ora Card. Ricks had married Mary Hibbard, daughter of
Catherine’s third husband George. The
families called to go to Cardston sacrificed much, leaving behind their homes
and established farms.
At this point, Sarah Ann and second wife Permelia decided
that they would not go to Canada
with Samuel. They remained behind at the
property in Hyde Park in Cache Valley. It would seem that the first two wives had a
good relationship with each other. The
children of Permelia called Sarah Ann “Aunt Sarah”. Unfortunately, Samuel left his first two
wives and their children in poverty. The
children were forced to hire out to local farmers to earn enough to eat. Although Samuel is reported to have come back
to Utah to
visit his first two wives and their children once a year, there
was a fair amount of animosity between Permelia’s children and their father.
The 1901 Canadian Census finds Samuel and Sena living with
five of their children in Cardston,
Alberta Territories. Also with them is Simpson, a child of Sarah
Ann and Samuel. Third wife Mary Ann does not seem to still be
part of the family. She may have died
soon after the marriage or perhaps polygamy was not to her liking.
Samuel and Sena would have at least six children
together. They both lived in Cardston
until they died, Samuel in 1905, and Sena in 1914. Their descendants still live in Alberta today.
Permelia Matkin and her children lived in Hyde
Park for at least a few years.
After her sister’s family had homesteaded a place in Swan Lake, Idaho,
she may have lived there for an extended time. She apparently remained bitter
about being abandoned by her husband.
She returned to Utah
to live with her daughter, where she died at the age of 82. Permelia, or Melia as Samuel called her, is
buried in the Hyde Park
Cemetery.
After Samuel died in Canada, Sarah Ann married Reuben
Perkes in 1909. Perkes was the widowed
father of Kate Perkes Matkin, daughter-in-law of Sarah Ann.
Sarah and Reuben are found living in Hyde
Park on the 1910 Federal Census.
They are living alone, and none of their family is living in the
immediate neighborhood. She is 55 years
old, he is 64.
By 1920, Sarah and Reuben were still living in Hyde Park, but not alone.
Sarah Ann’s son Samuel was living with the couple. Samuel was apparently unmarried and would die
in 1922.
Reuben Perkes would pass away in August of 1925. I cannot find where he was buried, but I
assume that it was near Hyde Park, perhaps
near his first wife.
Sarah Ann lived near Hyde Park
until she died on the 25th
of February, 1930. She is buried in Hyde
Park. There is a grainy photo of her with Permelia
taken at Sarah’s home in Utah
on the Rawlins family website.
Edward Wilkes,
son of Benjamin and Catherine, was born on the 4th of April, 1855 in Gravois, Missouri. He was the third child and the second boy
born in the family. He was named after
Ben’s oldest brother. Probably not long
after he was born, the family moved on to Muscatine,
Iowa. By the time the 1860 Census was enumerated,
Edward had died. He probably died before
the age of five, possibly of cholera or typhus.
I have been unable to find his death date, but it was probably recorded
in the family Bible spoken of by his mother, Catherine.
Elizabeth or Lizzie
Wilkes, daughter of Benjamin and Catherine, was born on the 16th of December, 1856
in Gravois, Missouri.
She was the fourth child and second daughter in the family. When she was very young, the family moved
from Gravois to Muscatine, Iowa.
She would live there until she was about seven years old. She may have had limited memories of her
father, who enlisted in the Union Army in 1862.
After he went to war, she would never see him again.
She traveled with her mother and siblings to Council Bluffs, and from
there to Utah
across the Plains. When they crossed the
plains in 1863 she would have been about 8 years old. She probably lived near her grandfather and
his wife in Box Elder County for a year or two, but by 1865, the family had
settled at Four-Mile Creek near Malad,
Idaho. While there, her mother met and married a
recent emigrant named David Morgan. Lizzie
probably helped her mother care for her two half-siblings, David and Mary. The marriage was troubled, and shortly after
1870 David and Catherine split up.
Elizabeth
probably did not move to Utah
with her mother after the marriage broke up.
She seems to have stayed in the Malad Valley,
perhaps with her cousins or with Hannah Morgan.
She married a local Malad boy named Rees Evans Thomas, probably in 1876. Although family records indicate that she was
married in January of 1870, I find this hard to believe. She would have been barely fourteen years
old. She and Rees did not have a child
until 1876, and the Federal Census of 1870 shows Rees living at home with his
parents and Elizabeth with David and Catherine.
The Federal Census entry for 1900
shows 1876 as the marriage year.
Rees Evans’ father, Rees Powell Thomas, was an early settler
in Malad and had lived in Box Elder County also. They may have homesteaded near Henderson Creek. He was probably known to the Morgan
family. While in Malad, the Thomas
family would be baptized in the Reorganized
Latter Day
Saint Church.
Since the majority in Malad was
so-called Brighamites, the Josephites found themselves ostracized.
On the 1880 Federal Census, Rees and Lizzie are found living
in Malad City with two children and a boarder.
In about 1884, the Rees P. Thomas family would move north to
Montana. Rees E. and his young bride would stay in Idaho. Although some of Rees and Lizzie’s children
were baptized in the RLDS faith,
it does not appear that Rees was overly interested in any religion. He was said by a working companion to be “not
a Josephite”.
The 1900 Federal Census finds the Thomas family still living
in Malad City. They have eight children living at home,
including Reese, 21, Vivian, 20, John, 18, Raymond, 16, Benjamin, 14, Mary, 13,
Sarah, 11, and Ethel, 9.
Rees worked as a freighter and laborer. Later in life, he worked as a carpenter with
Joshua Evans. He helped frame and build
many of the homes still standing near Malad.
He and Lizzie would eventually homestead a place north of Malad near
highway 191. They built a small home
there.
Rees and Lizzie would have ten children, eight of whom would
survive into adult years. Many of their
children worked in agriculture or mining.
Rees died in September of 1913 and was buried in Malad City. His funeral was held at an LDS Chapel. Lizzie lived another fifteen years and died
in November of 1928. She is also buried
in Malad.
John Wilkes, son
of Benjamin and Catherine, was born the 20th of November, 1859 in Muscatine, Iowa. He would not have remembered his father, who
went to War before John turned three years old.
When John was five years old, he traveled west with his mother to Utah. Since he was young, he probably rode most of
the way across the plains. He lived with
his mother at his grandfather Morgan’s house in Box Elder County until the
family moved to Four Mile creek near Malad,
Idaho. There, his mother married David Morgan, a
recent immigrant. John would have played
with his step-brothers and his younger siblings who were born later. He would have been expected to help with
chores on the farm and to help take care of the livestock. When John was ten years old, his mother and step-father
were separated.
By 1873, the Utah
Territorial Court had granted Catherine and David
a divorce, but it would appear that John either had already died or would die
shortly after. By the time Catherine
filed for Civil War Pension benefits in November of 1873, she stated that John
had already died.
I cannot find a burial record for John in Idaho or in Utah.
He probably died before his thirteenth birthday.
Benjamin Morgan
Wilkes, son of Benjamin and Catherine, was born on the 23rd of
December of 1861. Some family histories
have listed his birth year as 1862, but his mother’s statement established the
year as 1861. He may have been held by his father only a
few times, who left the family to serve in the Civil War in August of
1862. Since the Regiment that Ben served
in was stationed early near Muscatine,
it is possible that Ben was granted leave to visit his wife and family. Benjamin Morgan would not have any memory of
Ben Wilkes, since he would never see him again after his father went to War. When Ben was still an infant, he moved with
his mother to Utah. He spent his early years living on his
grandfather’s ranch, and later with his step-father David Morgan. When Ben was about eight years old, his mother
and step-father were separated. They
would divorce three years later.
Ben would grow up working on the ranches owned and operated
by his Uncles, Aunts and Cousins. In
1880, he is found living in Montana
working as a teamster. He is living with
a group of young men from the Malad area. Perhaps he went to Montana with his sisters’ relatives, the
Thomas family.
He would return to Malad to marry Margaret Anna Davis in
1883. The couple would have two children together,
Blanche and Margaret. They lived in
Malad for the rest of their lives, so far as I can tell.
Benjamin and his wife Margaret are living in Malad City
on the 1920 Federal Census. Also living
with them is their daughter, Margaret, who was 31 years old and apparently
unmarried.
Ben’s wife, Margaret died in Box Elder County, Utah
in 1922. She was buried in Malad. Ben may have married a second time, according
to family records, to someone named Martha Shone. I cannot find an official record of this
marriage in LDS Church records.
Ben would pass away on the 4th of May, 1941. He was buried near his wife, Margaret in Malad City. A few years later, his daughter Margaret Catherine
also passed away, and was buried near her father and mother. It would not seem that Ben or Margaret were
active members of the LDS faith. Their
daughter Blanche did marry into a family that were, to appearances, active Mormons.
David Morgan,
second husband of Catherine, probably came to Idaho in 1865 or 1866. He may be the David Morgan listed as having
received assistance from the PEF in 1864. He was probably from Wales or
perhaps Monmouth.
He married Catherine on the 17th of April, 1866. I have no information as to how they met or
courted. They lived in the Malad Valley
near Four-Mile Creek. They would have
two children together; Mary, born about 1866 and David, born about 1869. They were living next door to the Catherine’s
sister’s family, the Mifflin’s and near Hannah Morgan.
According to Catherine’s affidavit filed for divorce, David
deserted Catherine on the 17th
of June, 1870. He had apparently become involved with
another woman. Catherine left Idaho soon after, probably going to Logan where her daughter
Sarah Ann and friends, Thomas and Anne Rogers lived. She would file for divorce in the Utah Territorial Court
in 1873.
Divorce from Catherine was final on the 10th of October, 1873. It is hard to say if David stayed around
Malad. There is a possible entry for him
on the 1880 Census. A David Morgan
appears to be living in a boarding house or perhaps a work house in Oneida County. It does not appear that David took much interest
in his children with Catherine. I could
not find any further information on David, so do not know where he lived or
when or where he died.
Mary or Mary Jane Morgan,
daughter of David and Catherine, was born near Malad City,
Oneida County, Idaho about 1866. She must have felt great turbulence in her
life. When she was about four years old
her father and mother separated. They
would be divorced three years later. She
may not have ever known a stable home in her youth. I am not sure whether Mary lived most of the
time with her mother or father. She is
found living with Catherine in 1880.
Catherine had married George Hibbard and was living near Logan, Utah. On the 1880 Census, Mary is using Hibbard as
her last name. I cannot find any evidence of Mary after the
1880 Census. She may have married and
moved away. Some of her Aunt Sarah’s
family moved to Canada. I cannot find any record of her marriage or
of any children. Her death date is not
to be found in Idaho
or Utah
records.
David Morgan, son
of David and Catherine, was born near Malad City,
Oneida County, Idaho about 1869. Like his sister, he may never have known a stable
home after his mother and father divorced when he was about four years
old. He lived with his mother in 1880
and his step-father George Hibbard. He
is identified as David Hibbard on the Census. After the 1880 Census, I cannot find any
further record of David. I could not
identify a marriage or death record for him in Idaho or Utah.
George Hibbard,
third husband of Catherine, was probably born in Hounslow, a borough of London on its western
boundary. His birth date is given as the 2nd of August, 1832,
although several different possible dates for his birth are recorded. He was probably converted to Mormonism in England and immigrated
to Utah in
1854. George may have been married to a girl named
Elizabeth Smith. It would appear that he
married her prior to the trek to Utah. Either the marriage failed or Elizabeth died, for he
would meet and marry a woman in Salt
Lake City named Hannah Williams White. Hannah had been abandoned by her husband in the
City. They were married there in 1855,
where George worked as a shoemaker.
George and Hannah would have seven children together.
After twenty years in Salt
Lake City, Hannah and George moved to Logan in the Cache Valley. While living in Cache County,
they became acquainted with some of the more influential residents there. One of their children would marry Thomas E.
Ricks, one of the original settlers in the eponymous City of Rexburg.
George and Hannah were later sealed in the Endowment House. The family
may have lived, at one time, on the Temple
Block, near the location
where the Logan Temple would eventually be built.
Hannah, who went by
Annie, died in November of 1878 while the family was living in Logan.
She was buried in the Logan
City Cemetery.
George may have married Catherine Morgan as his third wife
as early as 1879. They may have married in Malad, although it
seems more likely to me that they met and married in Logan.
George and Catherine were sealed at the Salt Lake Temple on the 10th of October, 1881 in the
Endowment House. They were living together in Logan on the 1880 Census with one of George’s
children and two of Catherine’s children from her marriage to David Morgan.
At least one ancestor of George Hibbard believes that George
was only married to Hannah Williams. His life history and obituary have no
reference to either his first or third wives.
Perhaps his relationship with Catherine ended badly. There are no other people named George
Hibbard in Utah
or Idaho
during the 1880 Federal Census. Only
George and his son, George A. Hibbard are found. I believe that he and Catherine married and
then separated when each wished to be near their children’s families. It seems unlikely that there could have been
a different George Hibbard.
In 1883, some Cache
Valley settlers were
called on move north into Idaho
to colonize what would become Rexburg.
Some of the Hibbard boys were included in the group. Sometime between 1883 and 1885, George probably
moved to Rexburg to be near his children and grandchildren. His ancestors say that he homesteaded there
but died before he could prove up the land. He died in October of 1890 and is buried in
the Rexburg Cemetery.
Anna or Hattie
Dolloway Wilkes, second wife of Benjamin Wilkes, was born about February of
1828, most likely in Missouri. I do not know if her maiden name was Dolloway
or if this was a married name. There
were a number of Dolloway families living in New York and Pennsylvania during the Civil War.
There were a number of soldiers serving in the Civil War with
the last name of Dolloway, or a variation of the name. On the Union side, there were four Dolloway
soldiers from Pennsylvania,
four from New York,
one from Kansas
and one from California. Variations of the name include Dallaway,
Dollaway, etc.
I do not know whether Ben met Hattie in Cairo while he was in hospital or if he met
her after he had deserted. They were
married in Lancaster County,
Nebraska in February of 1871. For Ben, at least, it was a bigamous
marriage. They apparently moved to Sterling in Johnson County soon after they were married. Hattie may have had children from another
marriage. There was a young person
living with the family whom she claimed was a granddaughter reported on the
1880 Federal Census.
Ben and Hattie lived in Sterling until at least 1900. On the 1900 Federal Census, they were living
in a house that they owned. They would
have had little income, since by that time, Ben suffered from arthritis and was
working as a gardener. Ben’s request for Civil War Pension benefits
had been denied on the basis that he was a deserter.
Since I cannot find Ben or Hattie on the 1910 Federal Census, I assume that they passed away in the first
decade of the Twentieth Century. I could
find no death or burial records for either Ben or Hattie.
Appendix
Image I: Pedigree Chart for Ephraim Moon Thomas
(Father of David Thomas)
Image II: Notice of desertion for Benjamin Wilkes
Transcription of Image II:
Western Division
Department of the
Interior,
Bureau of Pensions,
Washington,
D.C., July 1st, 1892.
Respectfully returned to the Officer in charge of the Record
and Pension Division War Department, with the request that he state whether
this man was discharged from the service, or is he a deserter?
Benjamin Wilks
Co. E, 35, Ia Vols
Inv #1080005
(stamp) Rec’d Back War Dept R and P Div
Jul 5,
1892
322934
(signature) Green B
Raum
Commissioner
(second page)
Record and Pension
Office
War Department,
Washington, July 5th, 1892.
Respectfully returned to the
(stamp) US Pension Office
Commissioner of Pensions, Jul 6, 1892
No record having been found of this soldier (Benjamin Wilks,
Co. E, 35th Iowa Vols.) subsequent to Feby. 17, 1864, when he was
returned to duty from hospital, he is regarded by this department as a deserter
since that date.
By authority of the Secretary of War:
(signature) T.C.
Ainsworth
Colonel,
U.S. Army,
Chief of Office
Image III: Sample Muster Roll
for Benjamin Wilkes
Image IV: Initial Muster Roll with description of
Benjamin Wilkes
Image V: Application
from Benjamin Wilkes for pension
Image VI: Documents of divorce for David and
Catherine Morgan
Transcription of Image VI:
“a”
Territory
of Utah
County of Salt
Lake
Probate Court
September Term 1873
Catherine Morgan
Plaintiff
vs.
Bill for Divorce
David Morgan
Defendant
This case came in for hearing in the Probate Court for the
County of Salt Lake Territory of Utah at the September Term to wit in the eight
day of October 1873 upon the petition of the Plaintiff the said Catherine
Morgan herein filed and the evidence adduced the said defendant not being a
resident of the said Territory the hearing was ex parte and it appearing to the
satisfaction of the Court that the defendant had a wife living in England at
the time of his marriage with the Plaintiff on the seventeenth day of April
1866 and that on the seventeenth day of June 1870 the defendant deserted the
Plaintiff and has since been living with another woman in adultery. That the said Plaintiff and Defendant have
not lived and cohabitated together since the said seventeenth day of June 1870
but have been separated since said day that they cannot live together as
husband and wife in peace and union and that their welfare and happiness
require a dissolution of marital relations existing between them.
It is therefore ordered adjudged and decreed that the bonds
of matrimony to wit the said marriage contract entered into on the seventeenth
day of April 1866 between the said Catherine Morgan and the said David Morgan
be and the same are hereby forever dissolved annulled and made void, and that
the Plaintiff be restored her name of Catherine Wilkes.
E. Smith
Judge of Said Court
Territory
of Utah
County of Salt
Lake
I, D. Bockholt, Clerk of the Probate Court, in and for the
County of Salt Lake, in the Territory
of Utah, do hereby
certify that the foregoing is a full, true and correct copy of Decree of said
Court, in the case of Catherine Morgan vs. David Morgan in divorce as appears
in Record in my Office.
(SEAL) In witness
whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and affixed the Seal of said Court, this
tenth day of October, A.D. 1873
(signature) D. Bockholt
Probate Clerk
