Meanwhile at St. Louis, Elder
William Y. Empey was busy arranging to receive them
there, and attending to all the details for the journey across the plains. The Church's plan for administration of the
Perpetual Emigration Fund included more than just collecting donations to the
fund to help gather the Saints to Salt Lake Valley. It meant that someone be responsible for
purchasing at lowest possible prices all the oxen, cows, yokes, wagons, and
other supplies that hundreds of immigrants would need, and try to have it all
at the right place at the right time. It
meant that someone had to arrange for river steamers to get the Saints up the Mississippi from New
Orleans.
In 1854, the year Joseph and Ruth immigrated, Elder William Empey
had been given all that responsibility and the route he had chosen required
that he also find river steamers to carry them from St. Louis to the outfitting
location on the convergence of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers at a place called Westport, just
fourteen miles northwest of Independence, Mo.
He also had to be ready with housing for them in St. Louis between
river trips. In late February at Independence, he had contracted
for four hundred head of good working oxen, two hundred cows, and one hundred
yokes. These were to be delivered at Westport, Jackson County by the
first of May.
Arriving in St. Louis at the end
of a five-day trip down the Missouri, he found
three hundred Danish Saints already there waiting for housing, many sick, and
three dead of cholera. Brother Empey and an assistant, Brother Buckland set about looking
for housing. There were plenty of
houses, but when landlords found out what he wanted the houses for, they would
not rent to him for less than a year with a substantial deposit. He had to interrupt his search for housing to
find a way to bury the dead. He went to
the city hall and laid the case of the Saints before the mayor of the city, pleading
in their behalf and pointing out that they had no means to bury so many. He was given three caskets and arranged to
have them buried free, which cost would have been $33.00. He noted in his journal, "Brother Fields
took his team and hawled (sic) them to the church
yard." The next day three more of
the Danish Saints had died.
Brother Empey and his assistants worked to
total fatigue looking for housing and burying the dead. They finally concluded that they would not
say why they wanted the houses, just pay a month's rent, and take the
receipt. With that approach, Empey paid $10.00 for the first house he rented, then was
able to rent the Mound Hotel for $40.00; he then bought two cook stoves and
sent them to the houses, and bought a license for water for $9.00. The Danish group had by now spent one night
on the levee because the captain of the boat had turned them out. Empey wrote that he
was "almost worn out with fatigue."
But there were more dead to bury -- twelve
deaths between March 13th and 19th --and many more sick. On the 19th the weather turned cool, and the
number of new cases of cholera dropped.
He wrote on March 21st:
It is awful to
behold to see them taken and are dead in a few hours,
turning black blue and to see the sufferings that they undergo and to see the
patience that they manifest and say all is well and pass off.
The rent prices kept rising and the
elders counseled together and concluded it would be better to pay the higher
price than to go on up the Missouri a few miles
and camp. They were aware that there
would be bad weather for camping, and thought the men could earn enough to pay
their expenses while they stopped in St. Louis. The day the Welsh Saints arrived with
President Dorr Curtis, Empey was able to rent a large
cottage for $10.00 a month. At about 5:00 p.m. on March 31st, "Golconda Emigrating Conference" arrived in St. Louis. It had been a miserable rainy day, and it
continued to rain all night, but the Welsh group seemed to be in good spirits
in spite of having lost ten of their number to cholera since leaving New
Orleans.
Brother Empey went out and bought $11.50 worth
of "pitot" bread and a barrel of
crackers. Then he rented several teams
and proceeded to unload passengers and luggage and get them to the places they
had rented. They succeeded in getting
them all under shelter that evening and Empey writes,
"I was that tired that I was scarcely able to move".
The wagons for crossing the plains
had to be purchased in St. Louis and shipped
by river along with the passengers to Westport. It took several more days for Elder Empey to bargain with steamer captains for prices for
passengers and freight to the Kansas River. He paid on the average $3.00 for adults, half price for children four to fourteen, under four
would go free as would all beds, bedding, and cooking utensils. It was $10 per space for a wagon and
$1.00/cwt for all other freight. On
April 9th he hired teams and wagons and loaded the steamer "El Paso" with
mostly Welsh passengers, and put Brother Carter in charge. President Curtis had gone ahead in the first
of five steamers.
By the end of summer, the First
Presidency issued a directive to those in charge of emigration in the British
Isles. This read in part:
You are aware of
the sickness liable to assail our unacclimated
brethren on the Mississippi River, hence I wish you to ship no more to New Orleans, but ship
to Philadelphia, Boston, and New York, giving preference in the order named. . . . In case any should still choose to ship
by New Orleans, ship them from England no later than about the first of
December, that they may be able to get off the rivers before the sickly season
sets in, for many have died off with the cholera and other diseases incident to
the sickly season on the rivers, and I do not wish the brethren to be so
exposed as they have been. And counsel
them to hurry up the rivers, and get off from them into Missouri and Iowa to work, or on to
the Plains, as the case may be, before the warm weather sets in
Elder Empey
gave up on keeping his journal within a few days after he had dispatched that
group of immigrants. Of the Companies
that crossed to the Valley that season, no official roster has survived, so
there is no available record at the present time of which Company Joseph and
Ruth traveled with. Regardless, there were certain aspects of the
travel which were common to all the groups that made the trek that year. They all had to spend from four to six weeks
at the end of the river trip, getting their outfits
together ready to cross the plains. And
these Europeans were not cowboys! They
had to spend some time learning how to handle their teams and the other cattle
that were necessary to their survival.
John J. Davies writes his version of that experience:
Now I will tell you about the Sircuse
that we had the first few days on the plains.
Our captain tould us to get
up erly in the morning for to get redy
to start in good time. After
breakfast was over we got the cattle together and tryed
to yok them up.
I can assure you that this was quite a task for us and after we got them
itched to the wagons we started out. Now
comes the Sircuse and it was a good one. The captain was a watching us and telling us
what to do. He tould
us to tak the whip an use it
and say whoah, duke, gee, brandy, and so on. Now the fun commenced. Then we went after them prety
lively and when the cattle went gee too much, we would run to the off side and
yelling at them and bunting them with the stock of the whip. Then they would go ha too much and we was a
puffing and sweating and if you was there to look on you would say that it was
a great Sircuse.
This was a great experience and a tuff one and by the time we got half
way across the plains we could drive an ox team as well as you can enney day.
These Companies were strung out
along the trail, within just a few miles of each other, often within sight of
each other. One day a Company might be delayed for wagon
repair or stray cattle, or burial of the dead, and it would be passed by another Company, which might later be passed again by
the first one. Or parts of a Company
might stay over a day in a camp for childbirth, or for burial, and would then
travel a ways with an overtaking Company.
For the most part, they helped one another as best they could. Most of the Companies arrived in Salt Lake around the first of October, 1854. The last wagon trains, including the supply
trains were expected to be in by the last week in October. Fortunately for the late trains, the weather
was extremely mild and pleasant that year until after the last of the wagons
arrived safely.
NEW ROOTS IN
A NEW WORLD
Upon the arrival of the wagon
company in Salt Lake Valley, Joseph and
Ruth were anxious to get their little family settled before winter set in. Joseph went to work in the LDS Church blacksmith
shop which was located on the grounds adjacent to where the LaFayette School was later
built, on North Temple near State
Street.
It is not known where they might have lived before they moved into their
little adobe house, deep in the lot in the 800 block of North
Temple St.
This was in the old Sixteenth Ward on the west side of Salt Lake
City.
The following summer, on August 24, 1855, Joseph and Ruth went to the
Endowment House in Salt Lake City, and there
at 5:00 p.m., in the
presence of Heber C. Kimball and J. M. Grand, Brigham Young sealed their
marriage for time and eternity. For the
next fifteen years, they welcomed a new addition to their family every two
years, for a total of twelve children, nine sons and three daughters. Of the twelve, only six grew to maturity, but
they had as many as seven children at one time in that little house. They lost Henry and Ether before they were a
year and a half. Ruth May was not quite
six when she passed away in 1872.
Charlotte Jane was approaching her sixteenth birthday when she died of
brain fever on February
14, 1874. The Deseret News carried her obituary which portrayed her as
diligent and punctual in attending meetings, loved and respected by her friends
and acquaintances. Elder Joseph F. Smith
spoke at her funeral service.
Their story as a family is tied to
the community in which they lived. They
were a part of the LDS culture, progress, and pain.. Joseph's skills as a blacksmith were applied
to the building of the temple and other building and maintenance in Salt Lake. They were not involved directly in the Civil
War when it was going on in the States, but they lived through times of great
political controversy in Salt Lake City, the
struggle between the Mormons and the non-Mormons for local political power and
the right to direct their own lives. In
1857, Joseph and Ruth had to be among those who took their children and fled
the city when President Buchanan sent Johnston's army to
put down a non-existent rebellion among the Mormons in Utah. The people prepared their homes to be burned
if necessary to keep the army from taking them over, and everyone went south to
Provo, leaving a
deserted city to the invaders.
Fortunately, the incident ended peacefully.
Non-Mormons were settling in the
area, especially Salt Lake City and Ogden, attracted
by the mining and railroad interests.
Some came as missionaries to convert the heathen Mormon to Christianity and
rescue the women and children who were living in the slavery of polygamy-- at
least as they viewed it. United States
Congress passed laws prohibiting plural marriage, and Brigham Young was tried
unsuccessfully on charges of bigamy before he died in 1877. President John Taylor who succeeded Brigham
Young was dedicated to the principle of polygamy, and the more the Federal
Government tried to stamp it out, the more determined he was that worthy
priesthood bearers would have the opportunity to obey the commandment. As a result there was an increase in the
number of men taking plural wives in the years around 1880. Among them was Joseph Howell Evans.
On May 6, 1880, at age fifty-three, he married
twenty-seven-year-old Harriett Parry at the Endowment House. By then, because of the laws and the pressure
by the officers of the government, plural marriages were performed in the
strictest secrecy, although the first wife was usually consulted on the matter
in the beginning so she could give her consent. They were married by Joseph F. Smith, and
after the ceremony they left the building separately, not meeting again for
three weeks. A son was born to them on Nov. 18, 1881, and they named him Sterling
Castle Evans. Not too long after that,
Harriet and Joseph separated. The
details of their short marriage were made very public at the trial that was
held two years later.
In 1882, Congress tried again and
passed the Edmunds Bill, which made it easier to get a conviction for plural
marriage. Some of the men who seemed
likely to get arrested availed themselves of the opportunity to serve a
mission, and Joseph Evans went to Great
Britain, arriving in Liverpool by the
steamship "Arizona" on Nov. 10, 1882. On Monday, Nov. 13, he was appointed
traveling elder in the Newcastle
conference. MS 44:732.
The following information about his
mission was gleaned from the Millenial Star, volumes
44 - 46:
Sunday, January 28 (1883).
A conference of Newcastle and Durham Conference held in the Nile Street Assembly Rooms, Sunderland. Elder Joseph H. Evans, traveling elder, was
among those present. "Elder J.
Evans showed that we are all brethren and sisters, all born of water and the
spirit, and bore his testimony to the work of God. He touched a little on the gathering, and
concluded by asking God to bless the Saints." MS 45:139.
Monday, July 9 (1883).
Elder Joseph H. Evans is released from the Newcastle Conference, and
appointed to travel in North Wales, under the direction of President Lewis. MS 45:439
Sunday, September 2 (1883).
A conference was held at Merthyr Tydfil, Wales. Elder Joseph H. Evans
testified to Joseph Smith having been a Prophet of God, to the Gospel having
been restored and the Church of Christ established, and reasoned to prove that obedience to the
principles of the gospel was essential to salvation. MS 45:615.
Wednesday, September 5 (1883). President Charles Weatherston
wrote from Sunderland. "There has been a
case or two of miraculous healing in this conference which may be worthy of
mention, and of publication if you think fit:
Sister Margaret Anderson, wife of William Anderson, 44 Leonard Street, Portrick Lane, North Stockton, has been an invalid and
confined to her bed for eighteen months with rheumatism, and was unable to walk
at all. Her husband heard of and obeyed
the Gospel, and she also heard the elders preach in their house, and was told
if she obeyed the requirement of the Gospel she should be healed. She complied, and was carried to the water by
Brothers Thomas Bennett and James Williams, and was baptized on the 25th of
April last by Elder Joseph H. Evans. She
came out of the water without assistance, and walked to her home, a distance of
nearly one-fourth of a mile, without the aid of anyone, and since that time has
been able to attend to her household duties, and is entirely recovered. There are a number of persons who can testify
of these facts at any time." MS
45:605.
Thursday, October 11, 1883. President David Lewis of
the Welsh Conference wrote from Merthyr Tydfil as follows: "While I
have been president, the Elders who have labored in the Welsh Conference are as
follows: . . . Joseph H. Evans.. . . " MS 45:683.
Saturday, January 19, 1884. President David Lewis
wrote from Merthyr Tydfil: "I have not heard
from Brothers Evans and Ellis for some time..." MS 46:45.
Tuesday, February 5, 1884. President David Lewis
wrote from Merthyr Tydfil: "Elder J. H. Evans
is still down in Carmarthenshire; he has recently baptized five persons. His health is not good; he suffers with pain
in his side..." MS 46:111.
Sunday, March 2, 1884. A conference of the Welsh
Conference was held in the Railway Inn Assembly Rooms, Merthyr
Tydfil:
"Elders William G. Reese, William D. Williams, Llewellyn J. Mantle,
Joseph F. Ellis and John H. Evans, each reported himself as
feeling well; they
had met with some success, had realized the blessings of the Lord in their
labors, and desired to to forth in the discharge of
their duty." Joseph
H. Evans traveling elder in the Welsh Conference. MS 46:158.
Joseph
Evans performed many baptisms during his mission, and was diligent in teaching
the Gospel. He sent a tract to the Prime
Minister of England, William Gladstone, and later received a letter from Mr.
Gladstone in recognition of his message.
He, like so many other missionaries of the time, had little money, so
traveled without purse, depending upon the Lord and good people for most of
their sustenance. He resorted to such
creative practices as putting boot-black or berry juice on the worn edges of
the cuffs of his suit to keep the white threads from being conspicuous. He returned on the "S.S. Alaska,"
sailing for home on June 21,
1884. On July 19, 1884, the Deseret
News reported:
We had calls today
from Elders Joseph H. Evans and William Hess, the former of this city and the
latter of Farmington, both of whom have lately returned from missions. Brother Evans left home in the fall of 1882
and labored in the British Mission. He
returns feeling well in mind and body, much pleased with his experience abroad.
It so happened
that he arrived back in Salt Lake City at about
the same time as a new Territorial Chief Justice, Charles S. Zane,
arrived. He had been chosen because he
was seen as a judge well determined to help stamp out the abominable Mormon
polygamy. He pronounced the first prison
sentence for polygamy under the recently passed Edmunds Act when he sentenced Rudger Clawson to three years and six months in prison,
with a fine of $500.00. He had changed a
not guilty plea to guilty in response to pressure felt because his plural wife
had been imprisoned on contempt charges for refusing to answer questions that
would supply the necessary evidence of their marriage. He was admitted to the prison at Sugar House
on November 3, 1884.
Joseph H. Evans was the next
target. The prosecution was sure it
would get a conviction because evidence against him was to be furnished by
"willing witnesses" -- his long estranged plural wife and her mother. Jury selection took place on
Wednesday morning, November 5,
1884. The Edmunds Act
excluded from jury duty anyone who was a polygamist or who believed the
practice of plural marriage to be right.
On later appeal, the Supreme Court deemed it permissible to select a
jury of men who were not members of the Mormon Church if normal lists had been
exhausted. The trial began immediately
with a jury of twelve hostile non-Mormons.
The first witness called was
Joseph's son Oscar. He testified that
Joseph and Ruth were his parents, living in the 16th Ward, having been married
in Wales. His son Jonathan was then called, and he
testified to the same effect. Then
Elizabeth Parry, Harriet's mother was called and sworn. She testified that her daughter Harriet had
told her she was married to Joseph and that she thought she had heard him call
her his wife. A convincing story emerged
as she answered question after question:
Elizabeth Parry had lived in Salt Lake for about
sixteen years, and had a husband and six children. Her husband had not lived with her for two
years. Her sons lived with him and two
of her four daughters lived with her.
She had known Joseph Evans for about ten years, but didn't remember
where she had first seen him. She had
been to his house, about a block and a half away, to a birthday party for his
first wife before Harriet married him, and again at the time of the
wedding. Harriet
who was now twenty-nine or thirty years old, had married Joseph about May 6, 1880, but Elizabeth was not a
witness to the marriage. Harriet had
told her they were married.
After they were married, Joseph had
visited Harriet frequently at her mother's house at night after Elizabeth had gone to
bed. Elizabeth did not
take any notice of how often he came or how late he stayed -- he sometimes came
night after night, and then again he would only come two or three nights a
week, but he had no bedroom in her home.
In June, 1881, Harriet left her mother's home and lived with Joseph,
part of the time in the Nineteenth Ward, and part of the time with him in the
little house next to his. There was a
fence between this little house and the house that Joseph lived in regularly
with his family. About September, three
months later, Harriet moved back into her mother's house. She was expecting a child.
When Harriet was confined, Joseph
went for the doctor. He brought Doctors Duncanson and Mrs. Shipp.
Joseph was there at the time the baby was born. This was Evans, Joseph Howell
Evans, Ruth
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