PROLOGUE
A NOTE TO READERS: In compiling this fact-based story about Levi Hunt's life, I have attempted to pull together as many facts and details as I could uncover about him. I then embellished his story with what he might have said if he had kept a journal. If you find any facts in this story that you feel are incorrect, please first check the sources I have included at the end of Levi's story and then, if you feel you have a stronger source, please email me a copy of that source and the pertinent information and I will welcome the opportunity to update Levi's story.
[Click on dark script words for links to musical videos, etc.;
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“The pioneers regarded their coming west as a blessing divinely given," Gordon B. Hinckley
“I do not wish men to understand I had anything to do with our being moved here, that was the providence of the Almighty; it was the power of God that wrought out salvation for this people, I never could have devised such a plan," Brigham Young
“We each can learn much from our early pioneer
ancestors, whose struggles and heartaches were met with resolute courage and an
abiding faith in a living God. Youth and children were among the thousands who
pulled and pushed handcarts or walked along that pioneer trail, just as they
are among the Saints today who are pioneering in their own areas throughout the
world. I think that there is not a member of this Church today who has not been touched by the accounts of the early pioneers. Those who did so much for the good of all surely had as their objective to inspire faith. They met the goal in a magnificent manner,” Thomas S. Monson
“In
all of us, there is a hunger, marrow-deep, to know our heritage — to know who
we are and where we have come from,” Alex Haley
LIFE AND TIMES OF LEVI HUNT,
A MORMON PIONEER
CHAPTER ONE
MY BELOVED ENGLAND
My name is Levi Hunt. I was born in England but came to America when I was 19 years old. I've lived a long and adventurous life.
I've raced my brothers around and over the green hills of Hertfordshire, England; been surrounded by giant wild beasts with horns in the grasslands of America; and have chased savage Indians in the desolate deserts and soaring mountains of the Utah Territory.
I have been married three times and was a polygamist for a short while. I've helped erect a fort, and I've built several homes in different locales.
I've fought off marauding Apaches, and yet I've tried for a time to live a life like that of the ancient prophet Enoch.
I come from a family of 12 children, and I've experienced the thrill of the birth of eleven of my own.
As a boy, my family belonged to the Church of England, but I have lived all my adult life as a Mormon. At the age of 15, I became a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I have been ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood, and I currently hold the office of a Seventy, which has special missionary responsibilities in the church.
Despite all my adventures over the years, I doubt you’ll ever read about me in any history
books, but my family has been a part of many of the great adventures
that will some day end up in various historical records related to the settling
of much of the West by the Mormon pioneers.
Before I proceed with my story, written especially for my posterity -- those who will claim me, let me pose a few questions often
asked of me and other Mormon converts: Why would you listen to
those absurd stories about a new bible? We already have a Bible. Why would
you even consider joining such a radical church? Why in the world would you leave
your beloved homeland and many of your family members and risk your life on the
high seas for this crazy new religion? How would you dare travel across hostile
territory in America’s
Wild West where the Indians and buffalo roam? How could you live in such a desolate place as the Utah territory?
I pray that as I recount my story you will come to know and understand the answers to these questions!
I was born Aug. 21, 1833, in Reed – a small
village on a chalk ridge with a commanding view of Hertfordshire, England.
I was the tenth child of William Hunt and Mary Ann Holmes Hunt, who were strong, wise and religiously stout. They truly built a strong foundation of faith upon which
I could build my life!
To adequately tell my story, I must first
provide some background.
My father was born July 27, 1783, in the village
of Reed, Hertfordshire,
England, 40 miles north of London. My mother was born
in 1789 in the village of Gainsborough, Lincolnshire,
England, about 125 miles
east of Liverpool and 120 miles north of where
my father was born.
Gainsborough was one of the Anglo-Saxon capital
cities of Mercia, which dominated south central England for 300 years from AD 600 to 900. The city was a stronghold of King Alfred the Great (born AD 849 and died AD 899) during the
warfare with the Danish Vikings. The name comes from the Gaini or Ganni, which were
an Anglo-Saxon tribe that occupied the area on the River Trent. Anglo-Saxons
were settlers from the German regions of Angeln and Saxony, who
made their way
over to Britain after the
fall of the Roman Empire around AD 410. The
Roman armies withdrew from England
early in the fifth century because they were needed back home to defend the
crumbling center of the Empire. Britain
was considered a far-flung outpost of little value. The Anglo-Saxons brought
their own religious beliefs, but over the years the indigenous
people adopted
the Anglo-Saxon culture and language. Then, St. Augustine was sent
by Pope Gregory I to
convert Anglo-Saxons to Christianity in AD 597. He converted King Ethelbert,
the Anglo-Saxon king of Kent,
and thousands of his court. Augustine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury,
and quickly Christianity spread throughout the land. The Anglo-Saxon period
lasted for 600 years, from AD 410 to AD 1066. The Danish Vikings conquered the
area of Gainsborough in AD 1013.
My parents' path finally crossed, and William Hunt and Mary Ann Holmes’ celebrated a Valentine’s Wedding, though a day
before the holiday, on Feb. 13, 1816, at the All Saints Church of the Church of England in the small village of Rampton Parish, Cambridgeshire.
The newlyweds established a home in Rampton,
which is situated on a branch of the river Ouse. Rampton sits on very heavy
blue clay that normally can produce good crops of wheat, barley, beans and
peas. But 1816 was the year without a summer. Spring came as usual, but then
everything seemed to go
backward as cold temperatures returned. The sky
seemed permanently overcast. The lack of sunlight became so severe that
farmers
lost their crops, and food shortages were reported in Ireland,
France, England, and even in the United States. It
was a very scary time to start a family. The village, 34 miles north of my
father’s birthplace, had a population of about 200 when my father and mother
married. But they quickly added to that number. Their first five children were
born in Rampton: William, Sarah, James, John and Mary Ann.
Sometime after the birth of Mary Ann, between
1823 and 1827, the family moved to my father's home village of Reed, Hertfordshire,
England, about 16 miles
south of Rampton and 35 miles north of London.
All the rest of us children were born there and blessed in the ancient Saxon
Church of St. Mary’s, including Abraham, Isaac, Emanuel, Levi (myself), Stephen and James.
Reed has been inhabited for nearly 2,000
years – even before the Roman conquest -- and was mentioned in the Domesday Book
of 1086. A number of houses in the village still have remnants of ancient
moats, and the village includes a number of ancient woods on its outskirts.
Father was a cutler by trade, sharpening scissors,
knives, axes – anything that had a blade. But his earnings were not enough to provide for
such a large brood, so everyone in the family had to help out.
My parents raised us to believe in God and
to pay heed to His commandments. Just call out the names of us children, and
you’ll recite the monikers of a gaggle of Bible heroes.
Their faith in God had helped them through
many trials in their lives, including the death in 1840 of their youngest, James,
at the age of three. But still there were questions: Will we ever see James
again? Will he be saved or be lost for eternity? What does Christ’s
resurrection mean for children like James and, for that matter, for us? Will
all men be lifted up from the grave or just those who are just? What does the resurrection mean?
Will we – if we’re righteous – resurrect and then become spirits forever? What
is God’s plan for man?
There were also doubts and questions and
heartache about my oldest sibling, William, who was mentally incapacitated and never
married. He died in 1851. Will he have a place at the table with our Father in
Heaven? And what of our family – will we associate
as a family in God’s Kingdom?
CHAPTER TWO
WE ARE REBORN
Then something peculiar, happened in 1851,
something strange and yet marvelous.
Fellow countrymen representing what they called
“the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ” came to our area with words that rang
true to our ears. They brought with them a book that they said was a companion
to the Bible and another witness of the Divinity
of Jesus Christ. They taught us
about God’s plan for man and that we are all His spiritual children. They taught that
as his children, we will be given all that He has if we will just follow the example
of Christ.
They taught about Eternal Life and Eternal Families
– that both James and William will be resurrected into perfect bodies and that
we will be reunited with them in God’s Kingdom – if we will endure to the end.
The work took a huge step forward when Apostle
Woodruff preached to a group called the United Brothern, members of which had broken away
from the Methodist
Church and were seeking
further light and knowledge about the gospel of Jesus Christ. The group emphasized
deep personal piety, daily prayer and a stress on family. Within a couple of
months, more than 320 people in the Herefordshire area had joined, the first
being the chairman of the United Brothern, Thomas Kington.
Leading the opposition to the church were
ministers of all persuasions and even the British press.
One such attack was representative of most:
One pamphlet described Joseph Smith as a "blockhead," a
"juggling, money-digging, fortune-telling impostor" and, along with
the Book of Mormon witnesses, as "perhaps the most infamous liars and impostors
that ever breathed. ... By their deception and lies, they swindle them out of
their property, disturb social order and the public peace, excite a spirit of
ferocity
and murder, and lead multitudes astray on the subject in which, of all
others, they have the deepest interest." The pamphlet’s author voiced
outrage at "the miscreants
who are battening on the ignorance and
credulity of those upon whom they can successfully play off this imposture." He
described the Book
of Mormon as "the most gross, the most ridiculous, the most imbecile, the most contemptible concern that was ever
attempted to be palmed off upon society as a revelation." He believed the
religion "can be viewed in no other light than that of monstrous public
nuisances that ought forthwith to be abated" and that the Mormons were
"the most vile, the most impudent, the most impious, knot of charlatans
and cheat with which any community was ever disgraced and cursed."
Despite all the negative rhetoric, my
parents and many of us children were baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints. By the end of 1851, there were more than 33,000 members
of the church in the United Kingdom
and Ireland and only 12,000
members in Utah.
The harvest was great!
I was baptized on 12 May 1852 by our branch president, who had been serving as the congregation's leader since he was ordained an elder in 1841, the same year he was baptized. At the time, our family lived in Reed, Hertfordshire, and our branch president lived in Orwell, Cambridgeshire, a distance of about 12 miles. I was 18 years old when I was baptized by Samuel Gadd, the branch president, who at the time had a 13-year-old daughter named Jane Gadd, my future wife. Of course, at the time I never expected that both of our families would emigrate to America and that Jane and I would end up husband and wife in Zion. But we'll talk more about that later!
Once baptized, members of our family began saving money to
someday sail to America
and join with our fellow Saints.
My older brother, Isaac, was earning good
money as a mason, and he saved enough to immigrate to America. But Mother had a terrible
time letting him go, thus making it that much harder for him to leave. He finally
bid goodbye to the rest of the family, but mother was not in the room, so he
went in search of her, finding her weeping.
“Mother don't you want me to go?" he
asked.
"Yes, Isaac,” she said, “Go to Zion, but I just don't
seem able to get along without you."
"Mother,” he told her, “I have worked
long and hard to
get this money, and I feel it is my duty to go."
She threw her arms around his neck and wept
bitterly.
"Mother,” he consoled her, “If you will
let me go, I promise in the name of Israel's
God that you shall go to America."
He unclasped her arms and turned to leave.
She gave a terrible scream and fell prostrate to the floor. Isaac knew that if
he stopped to console her, he would hate to leave her, and the parting would be
harder to bear. He
then
rushed out of the house and headed for Liverpool where
he boarded the passenger ship Golconda
on 23 January 1853. His statement that his mother would come to America came
true. But Isaac never again saw his mother nor his father.
Isaac met his future bride aboard the
Golconda, Anne
Newling, who brought him bread and coffee while Isaac was so desperately
seasick. Isaac and Anne married soon after they arrived in the Salt Lake Valley.
Sorry, but I’m getting ahead of myself in my
story!
Isaac
worked hard and from his meager earnings sent his parents money for their
passage to America
and letters encouraging them to join him.
Mother, Father and us children had been
saving as much as we could and now with the money received from Isaac, my
parents
decided the time had finally arrived. After thirty-nine years together
and despite their advanced age, 66-year-old Mary Ann Holmes Hunt and 71-year-old
William Hunt put their faith and their lives in God’s Hands and made final
preparations to leave Queen Victoria’s realm and
sail to America.
Their decision created many problems, the
greatest of which was leaving behind many members of the family. Those who had already
married and moved away from home had not accepted the Gospel and thus were not
inclined to leave their homeland.
Those who remained in England were Sarah,
born 1818, married Thomas Webb on Nov. 20, 1841; James, born 1820, married Mary
Martin on Jan. 17, 1848; John, born 1822, married Mary Ann Brown in about 1842;
and Mary Ann, born 1823, married George Dellow, Feb. 27, 1842.
We also had two family members buried in England: William,
born 1817 and died 1851; and James, born 1837 and died at the tender age of
three in 1840.
My older sister Sarah didn’t come with us
but later set sail for America
on June 11, 1874, with her husband and children aboard the ship Nevada. On Sept. 2,
1874, after arriving in St. George,
Utah, Sarah was baptized. Later,
she and Thomas Webb were sealed for Time and All
Eternity in the St. George
Temple on Feb. 8, 1877, the same temple on which Isaac had worked as a mason.
Incidentally, Isaac also worked as a mason on the Manti
Temple, Salt Lake Temple and was the mason on the Parowan
Courthouse.
But I have gone on a tangent about my
relatives as to who did or did not come to Zion. Let me backtrack slightly to whence my
parents and three of their sons, including myself, joined a company of Saints in
Liverpool, England,
to await our departure for America.
CHAPTER THREE
STRANDED IN FRIGID LIVERPOOL
We received word to be in Liverpool
on the 20th of November to set sail on the 23rd. My older brother
Emanuel, age 23; myself, age 21; and younger brother Stephen, age 19; left our
village home and traveled first to Royston, four miles north, and boarded a
train that eventually took us – after a few transfers – to the western port
city of Liverpool, which was also the headquarters of the church’s England
and European Mission. The office building, located at the corner of Islington Road and North Street, was a
four-storied, ten-room brick edifice located about two miles from Liverpool’s harbor and not far from the commercial heart
of the city. The church’s property also had an outdoor yard that almost as large as
the building itself.
There we met Franklin D. Richards, president
of the British European Mission. From the headquarters at 36 Islington,
President Richards directed both the church’s publishing operations and the mission's emigration efforts.
His office had booked the passenger ship
Helios for 400 of us Saints as part of the church’s inspired Perpetual
Immigration Fund, which required each who received financial assistance to pay
back that allotted amount once we arrived in Zion
– thus helping other Saints coming to Zion
after us.
Pres. Richards also stocked the Helios with
provisions for the Saints that one would describe as "excellent and of a
liberal amount."
On the 22nd of November, after all the
provisions were stowed away and all the passengers had boarded, we all went to bed -- expecting our departure in the morning.
But during the
night, a terrible gale came from the Irish Channel and took our ship, anchor
and all, over to the New Brighten side of the River Mersey, where our ship
collided with a tug boat, damaging the Helios very much. On the morning of the
23rd, we found her to be listing on her side as the tide had gone
out. When the tide came back in, a heavy gale once again came from the Irish
Channel and took a small ship called a brig loaded with wheat and sent her
direct into our ship, breaking our bulwarks. Then, while the two ships were in
this condition, another craft slammed into the Helios, trapping her between the
two ships. More than
two hours passed before they could clear them away so we
could start our voyage. But the ship sprang a leak, and some government
inspectors came on board to see the damage sustained in the collisions. The word
was given that our ship was not fit or prepared to stand the voyage. So the ship
was brought back into port, and we all had to disembark!
Church administrators quickly went to work
trying to find other passage for the nearly 400 Saints thus stranded in Liverpool in the dead of winter!
Everyone frantically scoured the soot-covered
city for proper lodging – nothing fancy – just a room with maybe a couple of
beds and a warming stove. But the city was already bulging at the seams. By
1851, Liverpool had become the leading emigration port in Europe with nearly
160,000 passengers sailing to North America, as opposed to the second busiest port, Le Havre, France,
with just over 30,000.
Also, Liverpool
of 1855 was in throes of social upheaval – caught up in what was later called the
Industrial Revolution. Plus, from 1849 to 1852 more than one-and-a-quarter
million Irish immigrants arrived in the city because of famine in their own
country, and most then dispersed to locations around the world. However, many
died despite the help they received within the city. Some 7,000 perished in the
city within one year.
No wonder Liverpool
was not able or willing to find lodging for all those 400 “strange misguided
Mormons.”
We would have gladly taken a berth in a
manger.
Normally emigrants like us were not allowed aboard our ship until the
day before or the actual day of sailing, so most passengers usually spent
between one and ten days waiting to board in a Liverpool lodging. In addition, we
naive rural emigrants were liable to suffer harassment and fraud by local confidence
tricksters, known locally as 'runners,' who frequently snatched one’s luggage
and then would only return it if a large fee were paid.
At first we felt we could handle a few cold
nights in our temporary shelter and find some food here and there, but then the
few days turned into a week and then two weeks and then a month – and then two
months. Finally, we received word that our passage had been secured on the clipper
ship Charles Buck, and we were to depart in the middle of February.
But the conditions we were required to
endure during the delay were extremely unhealthy, and we suffered from scanty
rations, poor diet and freezing winter weather.
The truth be said, we at times considered
taking the train back home to Reed, but we would not have had enough money to go
there and then make the return trip back and still have enough for our trip to Zion. Besides, what did we
have back home? We no longer had any food there, and we sold or gave away
everything we could not bring with us – which is what we could personally carry. And what
if we did go back and then missed our appointed time for sailing.
A large part of our worries were the advanced
age of both father and mother, he being 71 and her 66. We were constantly praying
for their well-being and strength to endure a little while, and then a little
while longer, and then longer – much longer. But my parents were from solid
stock, and we had faith the Lord would help them endure this trial of cold and
hunger.
By the time we boarded the Charles Buck,
many of the 400 Saints were suffering in both spirit and general health. But at
least we had a relatively warm place to sleep and more food to eat than we had
had in two months!
So, fair thee well, Queen Victoria!
CHAPTER FOUR
LIFE AND PAINS ABOARD A CLIPPER SHIP
We set sail on Jan. 17, 1855, and many of us
lined the ship railings and cheered as we departed that dank, cold Liverpool port!
We later learned that rioting over the
shortage of food, particularly bread, was reported to have enveloped Liverpool less than a month after our departure.
When we had chance to read a newspaper
account of the rioting that occurred specifically on Feb. 19, 1855, we were not
surprised. The account said the rioting was the result of unemployment among
the corn porters and dock laborers in the city, whose usual work and wages had
been affected by the bad weather – especially frost.
A good thing we were able to get on our way
when we did!
However, as soon as the Charles Buck
unfurled her sails, the Saints faced another challenge! Seasickness prostrated
many.
The vast majority of the Saints had never
been far from home, let alone on an ocean voyage. We soon found ourselves in
awe of the ocean’s mighty power as the waves slammed into the haul of the
wooden ship, which then would roll with the punches and creak in seeming agony.
All that endless swaying back and forth and back and forth was a curse to bare!
But through the blessings of the Lord and
the ordinance of the laying on of hands and anointing with oil – together with
the administration of such medicines as the spirit of wisdom dictated the
brethren to administer – the sick were raised to health.
Leading the way in the care of the Saints
was the man set apart by Pres. Richards to oversee the group of 403 Saints aboard
the Charles Buck, Elder Richard Ballantyne, who was returning home from a
mission in India.
All
aboard had chance to read of his appointment from Elder Richards: “This
certifies that Elder Richard Ballantyne is appointed to preside over the
company of Saints sailing on board the ship Charles Buck hence to New Orleans,
and they are hereby exhorted to receive his counsels and abide in the same,
that the blessings of life and salvation may attend them on their journey.
Elder Mark Fletcher and Eric G.M. Hogan are appointed to aid Elder Ballantyne
as his counselors in conducting the affairs of the company while crossing the
sea; and inasmuch as the company continue united, remember their prayers in the
season thereof, and are obedient to the instructions of their presidency, they
will be blessed with a safe and prosperous voyage,” signed by Franklin D.
Richards, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in
Britain.”
First thing, Elder Ballantyne divided the
passenger Saints into four wards. Two were made up of Saints from Scandinavia,
and two were made up of Saints from England.
On the second day of sailing, Jan. 18, 1855,
Elder Ballantyne called us all together and gave us instructions concerning the
cleanliness of the ship and the routines that we were to follow each day. In
fact, British law required proper hygiene and ventilation aboard the ship for
the safety of the emigrant passengers.
Ballantyne appointed the male members of
each ward to take their turn in cleaning out all the filth promptly at 6 in the
morning before any of the families were up. Also, he ordered the wards to
rotate in cleaning and sweeping out the ship each morning, thus requiring each
of us able-bodied men to do an equal share of the work.
Once the ship was cleaned and everyone
dressed for the day, the Saints were to quickly unite under the direction of
the president of each ward for a morning
devotional in which we offered up prayer,
praise and thanksgiving to the Lord. Following the devotional, breakfast was
prepared and consumed. Then, we were ready – with more of a glad heart toward
God – for the duties of the day.
In like manner, in the evening, we gathered
separately as wards at 7 o'clock for an evening devotional in which we could
also receive such instructions as might be necessary from time to time, but
always striving to have the Holy Spirit present.
From time to time, Elder Ballantyne gave
detailed instructions on sanitation and cleanliness, moral conduct, and even
group activities. He was at the forefront in blessing the sick and also
prescribing his remedies for dysentery, fevers, and other illnesses.
On one occasion, he and Captain William W.
Smalley, the ship’s captain, sutured and dressed an eight-inch gash in the leg
of a young girl who survived the ordeal quite nicely.
Cleaning the ship, we found, was a
monumental task – yet one that was essential to our physical and even spiritual
well-being. The Saints religiously kept to established patterns of shipboard
living, including frequent fumigation and sprinkling of lime, which we used as
a bleaching powder, in the living quarters.
The captain of the very first ship chartered by
the church's Perpetual Emigration Fund wrote about his experience with the Saints on
that inaugural voyage: “If such rules and regulations could be followed by all
emigrant ships, we should have less, far less sickness and distress at sea.
Cleanliness is part of your religion, and nobly you have carried it out.”
To
promote good health and to avoid boredom and discouragement, Elder Ballantyne
and his leaders insisted that when the weather was warm and calm, everyone—sick
and well — should spend time on deck in the air and sunshine. Religious
services, prayer meetings, entertainment events, games, instruction classes,
reading, and needlework were helpful distractions.
Often, you could find groups assembled on
the deck, sitting in the sunshine for hours and telling stories, singing songs,
and cracking jokes – and generally with a propriety most exceptional.
When the weather allowed us to be out on the
ship’s deck, the sisters made tents and wagon covers, completing during the voyage enough for 20
wagons and 21 tents, which were eventually used when our company crossed the
Plains.
I read an account, many years after arriving
in Utah, that
the English author, Charles Dickens, once ventured to see with his own
eyes what a shipload of Mormon emigrants would look like. He wrote of his visit
June 4, 1863, aboard the passenger ship Amazon:
"I … had come aboard this Emigrant Ship
to see what eight hundred Latter-day Saints were like…. Nobody is in an
ill-temper, nobody is the worse for drink, nobody swears an oath or uses a
coarse word, nobody appears depressed, nobody is weeping, and down upon the
deck in every corner where it is possible to find a few square feet to kneel,
crouch or lie in, people, in every suitable attitude for writing, are writing
letters. Now, I have seen emigrant ships before this day in June. And these people
are strikingly different from all other people in like circumstances whom I
have ever seen, and I wonder aloud, "What would a stranger suppose these
emigrants to be!'…I should have said they were in their degree, the pick and
flower of England.
“… I [Dickens] afterwards
learned that a dispatch was sent home by the captain before he struck out into
the wide Atlantic, highly extolling the
behaviour of these emigrants, and the perfect order and propriety of all their
social arrangements…. I went on board their ship to bear testimony against them
if they deserved it, as I fully believed they would; to my great astonishment
they did not deserve it; and my predispositions and tendencies must not affect
me as an honest witness. I went over the Amazon's side, feeling it impossible
to deny that, so far, some remarkable influence had produced a remarkable
result, which better known influences have often missed.”
CHAPTER FIVE
SAINTS, SINNERS AND MOTHER NATURE
Dickens’ words are nice on the ears, but
the truth is, we did have our challenges aboard ship – not the least of which
was the ship’s uncouth crew members, who were constantly goading the men and soliciting
and pestering our women folk.
Fortunately, Elder Ballantyne, who witnessed
their brazenness from day one, ordered that guards be posted each night to protect
property and virtue, which probably saved some from the evil power and
influence of ungodly men.
The Second Mate was an exception despite our
best efforts. He used the brethren in a rude and tyrannical manner, and used
improper familiarities with the sisters. In various ways he acted in an abusive
manner. Sometimes, when calling the people up, he would put his hands into bed,
around the heads and necks of the sisters. Elder Ballantyne, when he was made
aware of this audacity, counseled the sisters to leave a good mark upon him.
But when the Second Mate got wind of Elder Ballantyne’s counsel, he became
indignant. Subsequently, he left the women folk alone and became less abusive
even toward the men folk.
Was it a coincidence, I wonder, if his
kinder disposition didn’t come at about the same time of the excommunication of
one of the sisters who thus was able to more freely mingle with him. But thanks to
Elder Ballantyne’s decision to post guards to restrict the crew’s access to the
middle decks, or there might have been more unsavory problems.
About three weeks into the sailing during a
Sunday morning service, Captain Smalley came out on deck and called
aloud ‘all
hands on deck!’ Only minutes later a black squall hit us with
pounding wind and rain. The First Mate told some of the passengers that it was
as bad a storm as he had ever seen. The storm lasted six days – sea rolling
mountains high and our little craft rolling about like a piece of cork. The
ship’s crew was afraid we were doomed, but the Lord as ever watched over his
people.
Lying in my berth at night – in the dark belly
of the whale – I was inundated with the sounds of the clipper cutting through
the waves, the frantic flapping of the canvas on the masts, the officers
shouting commands and the crew scrambling across the deck. Below deck, all around
me, there was constant crying of babes and young ones, and the vomiting and
coughing of the seasick and sickly. All I could do was pray that the ship would
hold together and that the storm would subside and that my aging parents would
survive these unnatural conditions and not regret their decision to leave their
homeland.
When the storm broke, we were back to
cleaning the ship – and all the messes below deck.
Looking back at the voyage, undoubtedly the
most tragic event was the loss of a seven-year-old boy who was playing near the
rigging
when a strong breeze sprang up and tightened the ropes. Caught in the
lines, the child was thrown overboard. As the horrified parents and many other passengers
rushed to the rail, sailors lowered a boat and rowed desperately to the rescue.
The boy surfaced for only a few seconds and then disappeared – forever. Also, two
infants were lost to dysentery and malnutrition and had to be buried at sea.
The church leaders, including Elder Ballantyne, comforted the parents as best
they could with words of reassurance and eternal perspective!
Much of our determination in taking this
arduous journey across the perilous ocean and then the great plains of America
lies in our firm
belief that we as a family will always be together with our
Father in Heaven in His Kingdom. We strengthened each other often with our
vision of reaching Zion
and being sealed for all time and eternity in the Endowment House and that we
might receive all that He has promised – Exaltation and Eternal Life.
I suppose I should mention, at least in
passing, that we all survived a piracy scare on the Charles Buck!
One afternoon, Captain Smalley sighted a
strange craft stalking our clipper. He grew suspicious and immediately ordered
all passengers on deck — hundreds of them. This display of numerical strength
apparently induced the captain of the other vessel to turn away.
As the voyage progressed, Elder Ballantyne
found himself doing just about everything, including conducting two weddings
and also overseeing the excommunication of two sisters, one who desired to be
cut off so that she might have full liberty to keep company with the First Mate,
the other sister was cut off for general inconsistency of conduct and keeping
company, during untimely hours, with the Second Mate.
CHAPTER SIX
HUNGER ABOARD THE CHARLES BUCK
But the most serious problem with which he
had to contend and which affected us all was a conspicuous food shortage.
Despite all the best efforts of Elder
Richards back in Liverpool, we found ourselves
extremely short of many of the basics needed for a long sea voyage. After
sailing for about six weeks, the Second Mate noticed that some of the supplies
were running low.
The best that we could surmise was that when
we had to disembark from the Helios and wait for another ship, our “more than
ample” food supplies aboard the Helios were not all transferred to the Charles
Buck.
Many suspect the captain of the Helios
retained much of the “excellent” provisions and instead provided raw oatmeal,
course biscuit and a little rice and flour.
The shortage was discovered on Feb. 20,
1855, and immediately Second Mate Lewis, and subsequently Captain Smalley,
blamed the Saints for the shortage.
The question naturally arose as to whether
the passengers had more than their just allowance of provisions weekly, or was
there too little put on board at Liverpool?
Most fortunately, Elder Ballantyne was able
to convince Captain Smalley that the Saints were not to blame. Once the
provisions were all measured and the amounts calculated that were distributed
weekly, under the direct supervision of Second Mate Lewis, it was evident that
not enough provisions were brought aboard. As for the distribution of the
provisions, Elder Ballantyne had decided before setting sail that the Saints
would not have any charge over the provisions for this very reason – to avoid any
appearance of evil!
Another point that was duly noted by Elder
Ballantyne: The laws of England
require that a weekly or daily allowance be furnished for a seventy-day period,
and yet provisions had only been served out for 35 days and shortages were already
being observed. One could rightly say that Captain Smalley should shoulder the
blame himself for setting sail with insufficient provisions.
Yet, he and his mates required that all the
passengers be brought up on deck for a general questioning, which only proved what
Elder Ballantyne had already surmised.
Nonetheless, we were required to go on short
rations – and we were still at least three weeks from New Orleans.
For several days, we had nothing to eat but
oatmeal cakes or porridge. Poor Papa and Mama Hunt suffered greatly in their
advanced age. Then, on top of that, we had to go for three days with our water
rations cut to two quarts per day per passenger.
CHAPTER SEVEN
AMERICA AND THE
MIGHTY MISSISSIPPI
We finally arrived in New Orleans on March 16, 1855, making the
crossing in 59 days. Too bad we didn’t have the required 70 days of food
provisions that the British maritime law requires! I’m sure my parents and we
all would have been much stronger for the next portion of our journey to Zion. Still, we praised
God for preserving our lives on the open seas and for our safe arrival in America.
Passage was quickly secured on the steamer
Michigan for our trip up the Mississippi to St. Louis, Missouri, but many of
the Saints, especially among the Danish Saints, did not have money sufficient
for the required steamer fare, which was three dollars and a half for each
adult, half price for children one-year-old and under fourteen. Those who did
not have the fare would have to stay in New
Orleans and find work to eventually pay the fare. However,
through the help of the church’s agent in New
Orleans and the contributions of those Saints who had
a few shillings to spare, the whole Ballantyne Company was able to board the
steamer together.
Unfortunately, the captain of the Michigan allowed twice
as many passengers on board as was appropriate, leading to all the ills related
to extreme overcrowding and unsanitary conditions.
But these were not the only life-threatening
issues we faced on the river! Traveling up the Mississippi in March was far from an easy proposition.
Due to the time of year, the huge river was swollen
with snowmelt from all the rivers feeding into the Mississippi. In addition, large chunks of ice
and dislodged trees barreled down the river toward our wooden ship. The crew
had
to be especially vigilante to avoid all the obstacles – not to mention all
the other boats and ships trying to do the same. Several times, the ship’s
paddlewheels were damaged or clogged with debris, forcing the crew to stop for
repairs.
All the delays made the trip three days
longer than normal, and the extended stay in such overcrowded and unsanitary
conditions caused additional heartache and illness among the Saints.
Many were not in very good condition after
having to spend those weeks in the bitter winter months in Liverpool,
and then enduring insufficient nutrition on the ocean voyage. Their weakened
physical state likely left them vulnerable to all types of illnesses –
including cholera.
Our trip might have been somewhat better but
for the captain of the Michigan,
who behaved very badly toward the Saints. In fact, as the boat left the wharf
in New Orleans,
John Eccleson fell overboard and drowned before any help was extended. Then a Danish
brother by the name of Nordberg fell overboard the morning before arriving at St. Louis and perished.
Also, four children died on the way to St.
Louis.
We arrived at St. Louis on the 27th March in the dark of
the evening. We immediately disembarked, gathered our belongings on the wharf
and found a spot to sleep the night.
Our stay in St. Louis was short. I, my parents and two
brothers were among the 250 of the Ballantyne Company who took passage on the
riverboat Golden State
and headed up the Missouri River to our land destination, Atchison, Kansas Territory. Passenger boats available to travel up the Missouri River were
scarce, and subsequently the fares very high, partly due to the unprecedented
rush of people involved in the land rush in Kansas
and Nebraska. We heard that the U.S. Congress had passed a law just the year before (1854), the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which established the Nebraska Territory
and Kansas Territory
and allowed the territories to decide themselves whether to be a free state or slave state.
And yet we had come from our beloved England, which had abolished slavery back in 1833.
During our eight-day trip aboard the
sidewheel riverboat Golden
State, many Saints came
down with cholera – and death took its toll.
CHAPTER EIGHT
LAID TO REST IN MORMON GROVE
The Saints quickly disembarked when the
riverboat arrived on April 5th at the foot of Atchison Street, Atchison,
Kansas. At the time, there were
only about six houses in the town, and no landing for the boat, but we were
able to unload the passengers and the freight that the church agent in St. Louis had sent with
us.
We proceeded west from Atchison a distance of four miles to an excellent
camping place that had abundant water, wood and range for the stock which had been acquired.
The area selected was at the head of Deer Creek and was
originally called Hickery Grove, but we soon started calling it Mormon Grove. And
though our camp was close enough to Atchison,
where the Saints could easily purchase supplies, it was far enough away to
allow space for our tent city and grazing of the livestock – and still avoid the assorted evils
of river ports.
Within a few days, we set up an orderly tent
city, and Elder Ballantyne assigned the Saints to various tasks, whether it be
plowing the rich farm soil, planting corn, putting up a log fence or digging a
ditch around the farm.
Some found work in Atchison
building a boat landing, clearing and setting up new city streets, and constructing
various
buildings. Others worked at a saw mill and other assorted work among the
Gentiles, thus earning money for their overland trek.
By July 7th, the Saints at Mormon
Grove had fenced the whole 160-acre Perpetual Emigration Fund farm and had
ploughed and planted 40 acres of crops.
Our vanguard party was quickly joined by
other boatloads of Saints till we numbered more than 2,000 strong. And as soon
as the new immigrants arrived, they
were given work to do. Mormon Grove quickly
became a beehive of activity as the newest outfitting post for Saints crossing
the plains.
Cattle had to be broken, and teamsters had
to be trained. Many of the men had to learn how to yoke the oxen and practice leading them around camp with logs dragging behind.
And because of Indian hostilities, church
officials decided that the men should have weapons to defend the wagon train.
At this point, my brothers and I knew we had arrived in the Wild West!
While at Mormon Grove, we didn't face the
persecution or animosity experienced by church members just 20 years earlier and
just 60 miles southeast of us in northwestern Missouri
where the Saints had to flee their homes and property under threat of
extermination ordered by that scoundrel Gov. Liburn
Boggs. Nor did we suffer
what the Saints did in Nauvoo,
Illinois, just a decade earlier when
they were forced to leave their homes and even their beloved temple, which was
later consumed by fire and a tornado.
Those months in Mormon Grove could have been
a time of peace for our family, but it was not to be.
Cholera found its way into the camp, and the
makeshift cemetery outside the tent city became the resting place for a number
of Saints, including our beloved mother, Mary Ann Holmes Hunt.
We truly mourned our loss, but we celebrated
her life!
She was Father’s loving, inseparable
companion for more than 39 years. She had born 11 (12) children
and had raised them to be
upright and good. She had worked tirelessly to
provide a pleasant and inviting home. Then, when the Gospel of Jesus Christ was
presented to Mother and Father, they were already in tune with the Holy Spirit,
which testified of its veracity. They then led us children in the Light of the
Gospel, ultimately joining the great migration to Zion.
Father was firm in his faith that Mother and
he would be united in the hereafter, and all the tribulations that they had
gone through would be forgotten as they embraced each other and their children who
had gone ahead. Then, in turn, they would embrace their Father in Heaven.
Father was confident that Mother’s
steadfastness in the
faith would be rewarded with a crown of glory in the Kingdom of our Father in Heaven.
And I was at peace in Father’s words.
In the next few days as we prepared to
depart Mormon Grove and embark on the trek west, my brothers and I wondered how
soon Father might again be by his sweetheart’s side. We feared that he could
not make this arduous journey
across the Plains.
CHAPTER NINE
THOUGH HARD TO YOU THIS JOURNEY MAY
APPEAR
On the 2nd of July, the command to
move out was given to our wagon train made up of 402 souls, 45 wagons, 220
oxen, 24 cows, 3 horses, and one mule. Each wagon carried 700 pounds of flour,
200 pounds of corn meal, and 1,100 pounds of baggage, plus spokes and axel
trees, hinges, and cooking utensils.
The new trail that we were to blaze was
actually part of the Fort
Leavenworth Military Road. At Marysville,
Kansas, the trail crossed the Big Blue River via the Marshall Ferry that was built
earlier in the year. It then joined the Oregon Trail proper, which then followed
the Little Blue toward Fort Kearney,
Nebraska.
But before the day’s travel was completed,
our worst fears came true. Father was already ailing when we pulled out of
Mormon Grove, and it soon became apparent that our Father was in the clutches
of cholera, the same malady that had claimed Mother. And before the day was
over, father passed away.
We only had time for a short sad goodbye
before we wrapped him in a blanket and took him back to Mormon Grove and buried
him next to his sweetheart.
After such a heroic journey by two faithful
Saints, their journey had ended – leaving Emmanuel, me and Stephen orphans on
the trail to Zion.
While Emmanuel and I were taking care of
Father’s burial, Stephen stayed with the wagon train. When we returned, we had
a difficult time locating our brother.
Finally, we found
him recovering in a wagon from an injury. Because of the injury, he was unable
to communicate who he was and who might be looking for him. The report was that
he (fell under the wheel of a wagon, with one wheel
passing over his head) was kicked in the head by a guide's horse, causing
a deep wound. The Saints, using what skills they had and what little medicine
they had on hand, closed the wound with black sewing thread stitches. The severe
wound left a deep lifelong scar and also caused internal injury to his brain,
which hampered him all the rest of his life.
Emmanuel and I, with the help of others on
the wagon train, cared for Stephen as he slowly recovered – as much as he was
going to improve. Otherwise, Emmanuel and I joined in the wagon train routine.
And like on the Charles Buck, Elder
Ballantyne had all the Saints on rations. Each week each in the company was to
receive 7 lbs. of flour or meal, 1 lb. of bacon, 1/2 lb. of sugar, and a small
allowance of tea, rice, coffee, and dried apples. Don’t get me talking about
the milk – because we had not much at all! The 24 cows that were brought with the
wagon train were really poor and scrubby things. Not more than a dozen gave any milk. And all the milk in camp was not sufficient to color one’s tea, but you
won’t hear me complain.
We traveled every day, Sundays excepted, and
we averaged about fifteen miles per day. And for the most part, we all enjoyed
good health. However, there were eight people who were run over by wagons -- including Stephen -- three
accidentally shot, and a total of three who died – our Father on the first day, and two
infants later in the journey.
On Sundays, we held meetings, partook of the
Sacrament, sang our praises to God and heard great lectures on faith and
perseverance. My favorite hymn became “Come, Come, Ye Saints” by William Clayton, who was a fellow Englishman from Penwortham, Lancashire.
During our wagon trek and ever since, I
think of my mother and father and our determination to reach Zion. The final stanza brings tears to my
eyes, and I can scarcely sing the words:
1. Come, come, ye Saints, no toil nor labor fear;
But with joy wend your way.
Though hard to you this journey may appear,
Grace shall be as your day.
'Tis better far for us to strive
Our useless cares from us to drive;
Do this, and joy your hearts will swell--
All is well! All is well!
2. Why should we mourn or think our lot is hard?
'Tis not so; all is right.
Why should we think to earn a great reward
If we now shun the fight?
Gird up your loins; fresh courage take.
Our God will never us forsake;
And soon we'll have this tale to tell--
All is well! All is well!
3. We'll find the place which God for us prepared,
Far away in the West,
Where none shall come to hurt or make afraid;
There the Saints will be blessed.
We'll make the air with music ring,
Shout praises to our God and King;
Above the rest these words we'll tell--
All is well! All is well!
4. And should we die before our journey's through,
Happy day! All is well!
We then are free from toil and sorrow, too;
With the just we shall dwell!
But if our lives are spared again
To see the Saints their rest obtain,
Oh, how we'll make this chorus swell --
All is well! All is well!
Brother Clayton also provided The Latter-day
Saints’ Emigrants’ Guide, which was compiled during the initial Mormon wagon train to Utah and was used by each company crossing the plains thereafter. The
guide described the entire trek from Winter Quarters to Salt Lake City with mileages, camping
locations, potential obstacles, and the availability of water, grass, and wood.
The guide was made possible thanks to the ‘roadometer’ that he also invented.
It accurately calculated mileage based on the revolutions of a wagon wheel.
The journey across the plains and through
the mountains was laborious and wearying – and a true test of faith. When we
met each Sabbath and sang our hymns, I was instantly buoyed and could feel His
Spirit bearing witness that we were on the right road – we were doing what He wanted us to do. The trek through this untamed land truly was an adventure
that none of us would ever forget.
We will never forget, but what about our children unborn, and their children,
and their children? How can we keep those memories alive and thus have them serve as witnesses
of faith in God and His prophets today?
Look to our words and our actions as
reminders – as a testimony – as a witness!
Even the prophets in Ancient America were
diligent in reminding the generations down from Lehi and Nephi about what great
things their forebears had done in obeying their God and our God. And then at
the meridian, the Nephites and Lamanites witnessed for themselves the
resurrection of their Lord Jesus Christ, and they became one in unity and
faith. But not many years passed before the grandchildren and
great-grandchildren of those who had witnessed these great things began to walk
in their own paths and reject the words of their ancestors.
We are not much different from the Nephites
in the Book of Mormon in that a great host of people from another land have
been brought to the Promised Land to build God’s Kingdom here. Many have given their
all because of their faith – and many have witnessed the majesty and glory of Jesus
Christ and the hosts of Heaven in Kirkland,
Nauvoo and elsewhere. Others like my brothers and I have been partakers of the
mighty miracles of God in our quest for Zion. But now, in my later years, l wonder how
many generations will pass away before elements of my descendants find
divergent paths on which to walk.
CHAPTER 10
INTO THE WILD WEST
What strange, fearsome-looking beasts!
 |
Buffalo on Antelope Island,
west of Layton, Utah.
Photo by Nancy L. Hunt |
That’s what I thought when, on our second
day on the trail, we saw our first herd of buffalo. Subsequently, we saw herds of
buffalo and deer almost every day until we until we arrived at the Platte
River. Then, the whole
country seemed alive with them. We killed what we wanted for use but never
wantonly destroyed any.
 |
| A pair of buffalo on Antelope Island. Photo by Nancy L. Hunt |
One of
the primary worries among us foreigners was the fear we might encounter a band
of those wild American Indians. Yet we traveled virtually unmolested, perhaps
because of the four companies of dragoons patrolling between Fort Leavenworth
and Fort Kearney.
When we arrived near Fort Kearney, Nebraska
Territory, trappers and others urged Captain Ballantyne not to proceed until
our company could merge with others to form a large company, which would then
be escorted by the U.S. Calvary. But no escort was available at the time, and Captain
Ballantyne felt the company would be protected, so on we went without any
difficulty.
On July 22nd, while crossing the
Big Blue River, near Fort Kearney, Captain
Ballantyne learned that grasshoppers
had again attacked Utah's crops and that most everything
was eaten up in the Great Salt
Lake Valley.
He promptly wrote President Young that our company intended to kill some of the
buffalo, if the Lord will, so
that our company may need to draw but lightly on
the valley for supplies, seeing that the grasshoppers had greatly diminished
the valley’s crops. On that very day, our wagon train, camped by the Platte River
just below Fort Kearney, was surrounded by great
multitudes of buffalo peacefully grazing on the plains.
Little time was spent at Fort Kearney.
Instead, we forded the Platte
River and picked up the
1847 Mormon Trail north of the river.
Two days later, on July 24th and
20 miles beyond Fort Kearney, our company enjoyed a great feast (including
buffalo) in commemoration of Brigham Young's 1847 arrival in Utah. The festivities included our own parade
and dancing to the music of the violin and dulcimer
When Brigham Young and the first wagon
trains arrived in the Salt Lake Valley,
they were actually homesteading in Mexico
Territory. But with the U.S. victory in the Mexican-American War in
1848, Mexico succeeded
almost a third of its territory to the United
States, including
what is now known as California,
Utah, Nevada,
Arizona and New Mexico.
But make no mistake about whose land we were
traveling through at this point in our trek – we were rolling through Indian Territory. From July 28 on, the men carried loaded
guns while on guard duty. Later, Captain Ballantyne ordered all men not
otherwise employed to walk ahead of the company with their weapons at the ready,
and all were admonished to be minutemen. There were a total of 80 armed men
available.
By August 3rd the train was north of the South Platte River and made its descent into Ash Hollow.
Wagons had to be eased down Windlass Hill’s steep slope by ropes.
Ash Hollow, with its high white cliffs, was
named for a large growth of ash trees and was about four miles in length. The
Hollow abounds with beautiful patches of wildflowers and shrubbery, shade,
plenty of firewood and the most copious supply of pure water this side of the Missouri River. While camped there, many gathered
currants and cherries; the trees were bent down with the weight of the fruit.
We found Ash Hollow a much-needed respite
from the dust and grim of the previous month on the trail and a renewal of our
strength and spirits for the struggles ahead.
On August 9th, we were within
sight of Chimney Rock. We arrived at Scotts Bluff [176 miles east of
present-day Casper, Wyoming]
on August 12th, and three days later, we arrived at Fort Laramie.
Subsequently, feed for the cattle became scares and many succumbed.
The company was at Bitterwood Creek on the
17th, then LaBonte Canyon [east of present-day Casper, Wyoming]
on the 20th. The canyon has steep granite rock formations and groves
of aspen and conifer. Beautiful but rugged!
 |
Fort Laramie painting by Alfred Jacob Miller, 1851.
|
A passing traveler later wrote of his time
with our
camp: "The Saints in this company seemed to enjoy the journey
very much, though most of them walked almost the entire distance. It was not a
little wonderful to me to see ladies with whom I was acquainted in the east,
and knew as sickly and delicate and unable to walk three or four squares to
market or shopping without experiencing much fatigue, [now] walk fifteen or twenty
miles a
 |
| Ft. Laramie as it is today in Wyoming. |
day and come into camp at night with light hearts, singing the songs of
Zion, and praising their God. . . . Capt. Ballantyne is indefatigable in his
exertions to promote the well being of the Saints under his charge and enjoys
the unbounded confidence and esteem of his entire company. We journeyed with
this company until the morning of the 24th [Aug.], when we left them two miles
above Deer Creek."
Major Howe of the U.S. Army, with a small
command of Dragoons, passed us at Sandy
Creek, the day before we
got to the Little Blue River.
Captain Ballantyne later wrote that the
major visited the camp “... on Saturday night and Sabbath several times, and his
deportment towards us was exceedingly courteous. On Sabbath he attended our
forenoon service. The soldiers did not attend as we had hinted somewhat plainly
to the major that the United
States soldiers had heretofore through their
seductive immorality been a curse when they should have been a blessing to our
people. Out of
regard to our feelings, he therefore gave orders to the soldiers
to remain in Camp. Before leaving, he offered the services of his Command as a
protective escort to our Company. I thanked him for his exceeding great
kindness, but declined his offer on the grounds that we wished to travel slow
and did not feel disposed to tax the time and patience of the United States soldiers when we are
surrounded with no apparent danger.”
Our wagon train reached the Platte River
Bridge in what is now eastern Wyoming [just
east of Casper in Evansville] on Aug. 25. A detachment of
soldiers were stationed at the bridge to protect it from Indian attacks. A
French mountain man and Indian trader by the name of John Baptiste Richard had
built the bridge earlier in the year and charged a toll to cross the river. He
spoke with a thick accent and when he introduced himself, we
thought he said
his name was Reshaw, thus his bridge became known as Reshaw’s Bridge.
Traveling southwest, we reached Independence
Rock on August 29. As we approached the huge granite outcropping, it was as if
we were closing in on a giant whale. We set up camp next the giant mammal.
Near one of the Sweetwater River
crossings, 16 wagons were involved in a stampede, and it took half a day to
repair broken wheels and tongues.
The Sweetwater River presented gentle,
steady flows and was a welcome change from the previous muddy broad Platte
River and the dusty, alkaline plains. But the Sweetwater soon became a thorn in
our sides because its
meandering ways forced numerous crossings. How many times
did we cross? Maybe six, seven or eight times. But it might have been nine
times! Too many crossings, but we couldn’t waste time following all the bends
in the river. Once we left the Sweetwater, we faced a long dry stretch over the
Continental Divide via South Pass, and on south to the Green
River.
About the time we traveled through the South Pass, we started running very low on provisions and
truly felt we faced starvation. Fortunately, a few days later at Little Sandy
Creek, we met up with supply wagons from the Salt Lake Valley. That night, we celebrated until
late in the evening. We
arrived at Fort Bridger on Sept. 16. At this point, our company left the Oregon Trail and took the Mormon Trail southwest. Now we only had Needles and Echo Canyon to maneuver.
CHAPTER 11
FINALLY, THE ARRIVAL IN ZION
On Sept. 24, the Nauvoo brass band,
accompanied by many citizens of Salt
Lake, came to meet our
company. What a great sight! What a great welcome! Accompanying the band were President
Erastus Snow and one of his several wives, and Captain Ballantyne’s wife. They
joined us in feasting, dancing, singing, and praying. Women and even some of
the men wept for joy. Oh, how I wished my parents could have witnessed the
great welcome we received – but they probably were there – in spirit.
The
next day, Sept. 25, as the train headed down Echo Canyon,
a horseman from the valley rode up to our wagon train, asking for William and
Mary Ann Hunt. When he reached our wagon, we told him that they had passed away
in the journey. I questioned him and found that he was inquiring on behalf of
my brother, Isaac, who had helped finance our trip. So I handed the horseman my
mother’s cloak and asked him to give it to Isaac – and the horseman rode off.
After the exchange with the horseman, I, of
course,
expected to see Isaac down in Salt Lake.
The wagon train paraded into town, but Isaac was no where to be seen. The band,
on horseback, rode at the head of the company while playing their instruments,
and then followed a large flag borne by two young horsemen. Small flags floated
from the tops of wagons. What a great joy to finally arrive in Zion – but where was
Isaac?
We found out later that once Isaac had received
the news of our parents’ demise and was given mother’s cloak, he broke down in
grief and straightway returned to his home in Sugar House to break the news to
his wife and family – leaving us on our own in a strange new land.
Later that day and after we had set up camp
on Union Square, Presidents Young and Kimball visited, bidding us all welcome.
When we did finally
meet up with Isaac, we greeted each other with bear hugs and with much
weeping. As we talked about mother and father, he recalled his promise to
mother that she would come to America.
He said it was almost too much for him to bear to realize he would never see
them again. But we consoled him as we had been consoled earlier – that they
were together in heaven even now and that if we stayed faithful and true, we
would be reunited with them and our Father in Heaven.
We told him how they were strong and
faithful to the end but that the delay in Liverpool
and the malnutrition there and on board the Charles Buck
had taken their toll on
them. Thus they had not the strength to fight off the cholera when it struck.
I heard many years later that as many as
6,000 Saints perished crossing the plains before the advancing railroad service
eased the burdens.
My parents had given their lives in the
guest to build Zion
here on earth. And I was determined to continue in their footsteps.
Eventually the conversation turned to life
in the valley and the reoccurring plague of grasshoppers. He confirmed the
worst and said it was going to be another rough winter. We supposed that after
all we had experienced with food shortages, we should be prepared for more. But
there was no laughing about it.
CHAPTER 12
COMING TO KNOW MY BONNY LASS
A little over a year later, I met a
beautiful young woman who had survived the terrible ordeals of the Willie and
Martin Handcart Companies. As part of the Willie company, Jane Gadd finally
arrived in the Salt
Lake Valley
on Nov. 9, 1856, a little more than a year after I arrived in the Ballantyne company.
She was the oldest daughter of Samuel and Eliza Gadd and second of nine
children. Her father and two of her younger brothers perished in Wyoming before rescuers arrived from Salt Lake
with food, blankets and assistance.
Still, when the family finally arrived in Salt Lake,
the first thing her mother, Eliza, requested was to be baptized.
Her husband, Samuel and the children had
joined the church in England,
but Elisa was reluctant to do so.
However, when Samuel insisted they should go
to Zion, Elisa
was determined to keep her family together and agreed to go with them. The family left their
homeland a year after our family had done the same.
However, they started their
journey across the plains from Iowa
in July of 1856. But instead
of a being part of a wagon train, Jane and her family traveled in a handcart
company – each family pushing and pulling a handcart across the void. All might
have gone relatively smoothly, as it had for other handcart companies, but for the
early onset of winter.
Just west of the Reshaw
Bridge in Wyoming
territory, the
handcart companies encountered severe winter weather and
continued to cope with deep snows, bad weather, dwindling supplies and
eventually starvation as they struggled along the trial toward Utah.
When President Young learned of their
plight, he stood in General Conference and asked for volunteers. Quickly, a rescue party was put together and sent into the storm. One of the rescuers to come to the aid of the handcart companies was Ephraim Hanks. He later told of his unusual summons to help:
"Being somewhat fatigued after the day's journey, I retired to rest quite early, and while I still lay wide awake in my bed I heard a voice calling me by name, and then saying: `The handcart people are in trouble and you are wanted; will you go and help them? I turned instinctively in the direction from whence the voice came and beheld an ordinary sized man in the room. Without hesitation I answered `Yes, I will go if I am called.'
I then turned around to go to sleep, but had laid only a few minutes when the voice called a second time, repeating almost the same words as on the first occasion. My answer was the same as before. This was repeated a third time.
When I got up the next morning I said to Brother Brown, `The handcart people are in trouble, and I have promised to go out and help them."
Of the 980 Saints who left Iowa City in the two handcart companies, less
than 770 survived. Seventeen-year-old Jane Gadd was one of those survivors!
I was
26 years old when 19-year-old Jane and I married in Nephi on 28 June, 1858. A
year later on 26 June, 1859, our first child was born in Deseret,
Millard, Utah. Joseph William Hunt was named after the two greatest men of whom I
could recollect: Joseph Smith the Prophet and William Hunt, my father.
Our next son, Levi Alderman Hunt, was born
Dec. 3, 1861, in Fairview,
Sanpete, Utah.
CHAPTER 13
REUNITED WITH FAMILY
When I moved our family from Fairview to Gunnison, I
was reunited with my brother Emmanuel and his wife, Phoebe Louisa Fellows Hunt. Our families became also as one.
Allow me to provide some background on Phoebe,
because she soon became a major part of my family’s circle.
Phoebe was born in 1840 in Detroit, Michigan,
the youngest in the family. Her parents, Albert G. Fellows and Sally Marie
Hanford, had converted to the church in 1839.
Albert Fellows purchased a farm about
halfway
between Nauvoo and Carthage, Illinois,
in 1844, and he became closely associated with the Saints in Nauvoo, many of
them stopping to
 |
Nauvoo Temple, 2013
Photo by Nancy L. Hunt |
rest on the way to and from Carthage. A frequent and very special visitor
to the farm, and close friend, was the Prophet Joseph Smith.
The day before the prophet’s final ride to Carthage, he
stopped at the Fellows farm, at which time Joseph Smith uttered the fateful words: “I
am going like a lamb to the slaughter, but I am calm as a summer’s morning. I
have a conscience void of offense
 |
Hunt family on steps of
Nauvoo Temple, 2013. |
toward God and toward all men. If they take
my life I will die an innocent man, and my blood shall cry from the ground for
vengeance, and it will be said of me “He was murdered in cold blood.”
 |
Nancy Hunt and daughter Lena Baron
with Jacob and Caleb Baron,
all descendants of Joseph Noble,
the original owner of the restored
Lucy Mack Smith home in
Nauvoo, Illinois, 2013. |
The next day, June 24, 1844, the prophet and
his party left under escort for Carthage.
Three days later, he and his brother Hyrum were slain by a mob in the Carthage
Jail.
In 1847, Albert Fellows and his family began
their journey to Utah
with the John Taylor Company.
Phoebe enjoyed telling all the children
about being a 7-year-old girl traveling in the wagon train across the plains.
She said her only toy was a rag doll, and she loved it dearly. If there was
time after all the other clothes were laundered, she would wash her doll
clothes and bathe Dolly. She said many of the other girls had no toys, so they
helped take care of hers.
 |
The burial plots for Joseph Smith Jr.,
Hyrum Smith and several other
Smith family members overlook the
Mississippi River in Nauvoo, Ill.
Photo by W. Lee Hunt |
On 29 of Sept. 1847, the Fellows family
arrived in the Salt
Lake Valley
as part of the third company of Saints. But their first sight of the
valley was one of some disappointment – it looked quite hopeless. The food
supply in the valley
 |
Prophet Joseph Smith Jr.
was slain June 27, 1844.
Photo by W. Lee Hunt |
was even more precarious than what little was had on Taylor’s wagon train.
Fortunately, a few vegetables had been grown in the short time the other two
companies had been in the valley.
 |
Crane on log just below Nauvoo
on edge of the Mississippi River.
Photo by Nancy L. Hunt |
Phoebe said that even as a seven-year-old
she was aware of how bad that first winter was – suffering was intense. Finally
the people decided that all the food supplies would be gathered and then
rationed to
everyone. Also, the Indians told the early settlers about the edible
bulbs of the Sego Lily. So men, women and children spent hours on the hillside
digging them. Watercress and weed roots helped to fill the stomach. Cattle had
to be killed for precious food. Thistle filled the stomach but did not satisfy
the craving for food. Phoebe said shoe leather and ox hides were boiled into a
most delicious soup and was a rich treat for the family.
Phoebe said that one of her greatest experiences in those early years
in Salt Lake was the Christmas of
1849 when President Young invited the Fellows family and about 150 other guests
to his home for a Christmas feast and celebration. All the food we could eat
and then dancing until late into the evening!
 |
Kansas City Temple, dedicated in
2013, is just 6 miles from Liberty
Jail, where Joseph Smith and others
spent five months awaiting trial.
Photo by W. Lee Hunt |
A couple years later, Phoebe’s father was
sent 100 miles south to help colonize the area now known as Nephi.
Phoebe became very active in church plays,
musicals and other fun activities in Nephi. She was very musically inclined As a teen, she loved flirting with the
boys in her hometown of Nephi. My brother Emmanuel, who at one point was
traveling through Nephi on a wagon freight trip, was invited to dine with her
family. That’s when he experienced first hand Phoebe’s flirting ways. Not long
after, the 17-year-old and my 26-year-old brother were married. The two made
their home in Gunnison.
TRAGEDY IN GUNNISON CANYON
For a time, our new life in Gunnison was centered round family – Emmanuel’s and mine.
Then a tragedy struck that devastated both our families.
As was the custom, the men folk often
journeyed up the canyons near Gunnison to
gather logs for fuel and cooking. We would often load extra for the widows and
elderly.
On this particular day, March 2, 1863, I had
left Jane with our two children at home and joined my brother Emmanuel and
several others on one such trip. During the winter months, we took extra care
in loading the wood to keep it from slipping off on our descent down the canyon
on the bumpy trail, which was that much more unsafe because of all the snow and
partially thawed slippery ice. Ropes
were used to tie down the loads, but they
offered very little support if the heavy logs started shifting. Once the wagons
were loaded, we headed down. Emanuel rode on top of his load of logs in his wagon.
Suddenly, his wagon began to slide. He
frantically tried to maneuver it to safety, but the trail was narrow at that
point and the wagon slid to the edge. I was in shock as I watched the wagon,
wood, team and Emanuel spill over the edge and tumble down into the deep ravine
next to the trail.
I was on the wagon coming next. Halting my team,
I raced down into the gulley and wildly began throwing the heavy logs until I
found Emanuel's lifeless body. I carried my brother’s body to my wagon and secured
it in place. Then, in an overwhelming surge of grief, I grabbed a shovel and chopped
and dug at the murderess stretch of road until my emotions had calmed sufficiently
to carry on. My rampage had made the road safer for future travelers. I then crossed
safely in my own wagon and began the long heartbreaking trip back down into Gunnison.
As the wagons approached the settlement, our
wives and children ran out to welcome us home. When Emmanuel’s pregnant wife, Phoebe,
and her children came to me, I tried to chock back the tears and, amid my sobbing, told my sister-in-law that
my best friend and her beloved husband was dead and she was now a widow. My
heart ached over her loss and for their two confused youngsters, soon to be
three, who would need comfort and guidance through this life-changing ordeal.
I knew Phoebe was a strong woman, but it
still took all of her strength – and mine – to bury our beloved Emanuel. I felt
a responsibility for the welfare of this little family, and felt I must do everything
possible to see that they had what they needed.
CHAPTER 15
MY PLURAL WIFE
In the midst of this tragedy, my sweet Jane
was expecting our third child and was struggling somewhat. Perhaps Jane had a
premonition, but none the less, she expressed her strong feelings that I should
take a second wife.
Now, I must admit that this was
not anything I had
considered or even contemplated, though many of the elders in the church were
asked to do so for the sake of building up Zion and to help
provide and care for the
many unmarried sisters and widows. But considering the circumstances, I
shouldn’t have been surprised when she said I should take Phoebe as my second
wife.
My Jane was very close to the Lord, perhaps
because of the blessings and experiences she received with her mother and
siblings during that fateful trek in the Wyoming
blizzards. So when she insisted, I pursued the matter with my superiors and
received the church’s
permission. I then asked my widowed sister-in-law to be
my plural wife. Phoebe said that though she had always admired and respected
me, the idea of being a plural wife was not appealing.
She did admit that my brother and I were
very much alike and had many of the same qualities. Desperate for a livelihood
for her three children, she agreed. So, like
the Israelites in the Bible, I took
my brother’s widow for wife. Jane, Phoebe and I traveled to Salt Lake and on
April 4, 1863, each of us completed our own endowments in the Endowment House
and then first Jane and I were sealed together for time and eternity, and then
Phoebe was sealed to Emmanuel and then sealed to me. Whether Phoebe will be my
wife in the eternities or Emmanuel’s, the Lord or we will work those things
out. Besides, who will be eternally sealed together really will depend on how
well we keep our covenants in this earth life.
Sealings to our parents were not solemnized
because, as Brigham Young said, the Endowment House was not a Temple. We would need to wait for a temple to
be completed to complete those sealings.
Once our marriages were solemnized in the
Endowment House and we returned to our home and children in Gunnison,
Jane and Phoebe had no difficulty adjusting to their new lives together.
Being
that Jane was quite ill with her pregnancy, Phoebe took over the home and five
children despite being pregnant herself.
Two months later on 7 June, 1863, Samuel
Sylvester Hunt was born, but my sweet young wife Jane left this frail life just
a week later, 15 June, 1863.
In less than four months, I had lost my
lifelong best friend and my wife of just five years. I mourned Jane mightily,
as did Phoebe for Emmanuel. Phoebe knew how difficult it is to lay your
sweetheart away, and she did everything possible to ease my sorrow. We shared
our grief, shared our lives and looked forward to better times.
My little
Samuel Sylvester struggled from birth to remain with us and required a great
deal of care. For three months, Phoebe tenderly attended to his needs, and
watching her do so brought tears to my eyes as I realized Jane knew exactly
what she was doing and what her children would need – someone who would love
them and care for them as she would.
Phoebe gave birth on Sept. 4, 1863, to her and
Emmanuel’s third child, who she named Phebe Ann Hunt.
 |
Jane and her son reunited in Heaven.
Photo by Nancy L. Hunt |
Now we had two newborns in the home. But
just seven days later, on 11 Sept. 1863, my little Samuel passed on. He had
completed his mission of receiving an earthly body and no longer needed to tarry
in this probationary estate. His spirit returned to Heaven to await
resurrection, and his tiny body was laid to rest next to that of his mother.
During
these heart-breaking losses, Phoebe became my rock and my strength. And coming
to love her was far from difficult. Whether nurturing our combined brood of
children, keeping our home clean and neat, washing those endless piles ofclothes on the scrub board, or sewing
all the family’s clothes by hand – she was exceptional in all. In addition, she
was still quite outgoing and even vivacious.
My and Phoebe’s first child, Samuel Isaac
Hunt, was born 29 July, 1864.
CHAPTER 16
WAR WITH BLACK HAWK
Our time in Gunnison was marked by hostility
and outright warfare with the Indians in the area in what turned out to be the longest
and most destructive conflict between Mormon settlers and Indians in Utah’s history.
The traditional date of the war's
commencement is 9 April 1865, when a dispute between the two parties resulted
in bloodshed. But tension had been mounting for years, clear back to 1849 when Chief
Walker offered the ground in Sanpete area to the settlers, and the settlers
assumed the land then belonged to them. It was the culture of the Indians not
to own land or cattle but to share them with everyone. So when the Indians
realized the settlers were denying them access to the land and access to much
of their best hunting grounds, trouble started brewing.
In an effort to stem the conflicts and
violence, Brigham Young and other church leaders instituted the policy of “feed
them, don't fight them.”
But the continuous begging by the Indians
strained our resources. The Indians couldn’t understand our unwillingness to
share, and we viewed them as a threat because so many settlers in the area had
been killed previously. Actually, we had a terrible time figuring out which were
friendly Indians and which were hostile.
After that fateful conflict on April 9,
1865, Chief Black Hawk was able to unite factions of the Ute, Paiute, and
Navajo tribes into an alliance bent on plundering Mormons throughout the
territory. Cattle were the main objectives of Black Hawk's offensives, but
travelers, herdsmen, and settlers were massacred when it was convenient.
The years 1865 to 1867 were by far the most
intense, and we considered ourselves in a state of open warfare. Chief Black
Hawk and his warriors stole thousands of heads of livestock, transported them
out of the area and sold or traded them for goods and money. He likely believed
that the loss of livestock was the quickest way to interfere with the growth of
Mormon settlements.
Many forts were built in Central Utah,
including in Gunnison. I joined with hundreds
of other Mormon militiamen chasing Black
Hawk and his warriors through the
wilderness, but we had little success.
During the war, 27 settlements were
evacuated, two entire counties and portions of seven others were temporarily
abandoned, and seventy Saints were slain and many wounded.
Finally, in the fall of 1867, Black Hawk
made peace.
We were among those who had fled the
conflict, leaving Gunnison before the peace agreement
came.
THE GOOD LIFE IN PARAGONAH
While living in Deseret,
Millard, Phoebe bore our second child, Eliza Jane, on Christmas Eve (24 Dec.)
1866. We next moved to Paragonah, Iron
County, were we lived for
11 years.
During that time, we added four more
children: Mary Ellen, 29 July 1869; Sarah Susannah, 13 Jan. 1870; Amelia
Emeline, 10 Nov. 1874; and Alice Malinda, 30 Apr 1877.
We also celebrated several marriages while residing
in Paragonah. Phoebe’s oldest child, Salley Maria Hunt, married Orson Talbot on
March 12, 1872. They made their home in Panquitch and then Cannonville.
William Albert, Phoebe’s oldest son and
Emmanuel’s son, married Emily Jane Hopkins in 1886; then later that year, on
Oct. 29, he added a second wife, Letty Ann Dunton. The next year, on Feb. 18,
1887, he wed his third wife, Emma Evaline Knight. Emma’s two children were born
in Paragonah.
Life in Paragonah was good. The land was
producing well, we had a comfortable living, and 11 lively youngsters still filled
our abode.
During those 11 years, Phoebe and I involved
ourselves in civic and church work. The years together
had developed a deep and everlasting love between Phoebe and I, and the
children from our three combined families were as close as one.
Then a few weeks after Alice
was born, Brigham Young, just before his death in August of 1877, called our
family on a mission to join other Saints and create a
settlement on the Little
Colorado in Arizona.
President Young said his purpose for this venture was fourfold: to take
possession of the land for the State of Deseret;
to establish and develop the United Order; to proselytize among the Hopis,
Navajos, and Apaches; and to create settlements that would serve as havens for
polygamous families who were being persecuted by the United
States government in Utah.
Without hesitating, we answered the call.
Phoebe once again made her home in a covered
wagon. And once again, she took a little doll with her, our little Alice
Malinda, who was only a few weeks old. But unlike Phoebe’s childhood rag doll,
which she could
chuck in a corner when she tired of playing with it, Alice
Malinda required constant loving care. But Phoebe truly loved and
enjoyed all our children, and she was always very proud of them.
The trip to Arizona, an Indian name meaning few springs,
offered the usual problems of rough, almost impassable roads, and rain which
was followed by sticky endless mud. After a rainstorm, it would be necessary to
put all the clothes and bedding on bushes to dry them out.
CHAPTER 18
HARDSHIPS IN THE UNITED ORDER
The first Mormon settlers arrived at the Little Colorado in the spring of
1876, and they named the settlement where we were headed Ballanger Camp after the settlement’s
first leader, Jesse O. Ballanger. Later it was renamed Brigham
City. When we arrived in the fall of 1877, Phoebe said
her first impressions were much like those she had when she first saw the Salt Lake
Valley as a little girl in
the fall of 1847 – desolation, scarcity of food, danger from Indians, endless
wind and sand. Now at this forlorn outpost, we had to add the threat from
countless outlaws who used the area as a refuge.
Our time at Brigham City, was our first real experience living under the
United Order.
As we were taught, the United Order was our
attempt to live the Law of Consecration, modeled after the New Testament church,
which had "all things in common." The Order's full name invoked the city
of Enoch,
described as having such a virtuous and undefiled people that God had taken it
to heaven. The Order, as such,
established our egalitarian community in such a
way as to achieve income equality, eliminate poverty, and increase group
self-sufficiency. Our experience with the system was run more like a cooperative
and was more family and property oriented.
Phoebe and I considered the challenges
of the United Order, which truly focused on the Higher Law that Christ had taught, and decided we were up to the task.
As part of the United Order, we deeded or consecrated all our
property to the settlement, which then in turn deeded back to us an
"inheritance" or "stewardship," which allowed us to
control our property. At the end of each year, any excess that each family
produced was voluntarily given back to the Order.
The problem with our implementation of the
system was that our community could not seem to produce any excess. The settlement was always coming up short – not for lack of back-breaking work, but because of the
fickle nature in which we were assigned.
At times, our community seemed to be making
headway, like in September 1878, when Erastus Snow visited and examined our
fort, which was 200 feet square with rock walls seven feet high. Inside were 36
dwelling houses, each 15 by 13 feet. On the north side was a dining hall, 80 by
20 feet. Adjoining was a kitchen, 25 by 20 feet, with an annexed bake house.
Twelve other dwelling houses were in use, as well as a cellar and storehouse.
Water was secured within the enclosure from two good wells. South of the fort
were corrals and stock yards.
We had 274 acres of land cultivated, and 142
cows furnished milk. We were busy trying to raise wheat, corn, cane and
vegetables, along with building and running a saw mill and making pottery from
the heavy clay so prevalent in the area. Elder Snow thus reported back to Salt Lake headquarters that we were "flourishing."
Brother Behrman was in charge of the pottery shop in the fort, and he said his shop could surpass the quality of any shop in Utah because of the clay in our area will make superior stoneware.
 |
Map of the Brigham City fort with names of most of the
residents in 1880. Levi Hunt and his family obviously
had departed by the time this map was drawn.
Courtesy of LDS Church Archieves,
Plan of Brigham City, S.C. Richardson, Document X-7. |
Also, church leaders in Salt Lake had sent to the Little Colorado settlements the machinery for a saw mill,
which was up and running before we arrived on the scene.
In 1878, there were in our settlement 43
men, 46 women, 61 boys and 60 girls, plus two men residing in the blacksmith
shop, 7 men and 8 women at the dairy, one man in the wagon shop, and one family
at the saw mill.
We had a food supervisor over meal
preparations along with four sisters who worked two days and then rotated with
others. At times there were as many as 300 eating together in the dining hall –
men, women, children – all the families united as one.
However, the Little
Colorado River soon proved to be treacherous and unpredictable. We
were continually building dams only to have them washed out week after week and
year after year. Crop losses were common. So variable were local conditions
that the different settlements established along the Little Colorado frequently
lost crops to both drought and floods during the same agricultural season. Plus
we had to contend with insects, hailstorms, high winds and early frosts.
Too often we would prepare the soil, plant
and water the crops and gratefully watch their growth. Then more quickly than
we could plant, a windstorm would come up and completely cover the cultivated
fields with several inches of drifting sand. Frantically we would try to
uncover the crops, but usually to no avail.
The settlement already had experienced crop
failure in the fall of 1876, before we arrived. Then the year we arrived in
1877, the settlement had a good harvest. In 1878, we suffered through a flood
that washed most but not all of the grain crops down the river but left a fine
crop of melons clinging to their vines that had their roots firmly anchored in
the clay soil. It made for a surreal picture of multicolored, differing
watermelons, musk melons, and citron melons bobbing up and down in the one-,
two- or three-feet of reddish floodwater, waiting for anyone who dared wade
down to the patches.
One of the crops to do well was the sugar
cane, which when it was used to make molasses and then mixed with citron melons
and watermelon rinds, made surprisingly
delicious preserves – a greatly
appreciated addition to the those “big table” meals that were already tasty what
with the excellent butter and milk from our own Mormon dairy and potatoes and
other root crops grown in the nearby mountains. Of course our appetites had
been stretched beyond limits with hard work, struggle and hardships. But those
were the good times.
Then we had a poor harvest in 1879 and
almost total crop failures in 1880.
We just could not tame the river or save the
crops. We were constantly needing more food supplies from the other settlements
than we were able to produce ourselves.
But we
struggled on in doing our duty for our family and our church.
Amidst all the drudgery, we found time for our
favorite form of recreation – dancing. And I guarantee that Phoebe and I were
in the middle of all that twirling. We danced so often and had so much fun that
I still remember those times with pleasure all these years later. At one
settlement meeting, someone said that some of the elders of the quorum who did
not care to attend meetings were the first to come to a dance.
All of the children living under the United
Order, and that includes our contingent, were required to do their share of
work. The girls would help their mother with the
house work, caring for the
smaller children, and working in the gardens. The boys had their chores
outdoors, and they learned at a very tender age to be strong and not shirk hard
work.
The experience also taught the children to
share what we have with others less fortunate – a lesson I believe they have
never forgotten.
In the middle of our adventures and trials,
we added another girl to our family: little Rosetta, born 9 March 1880. At the time of her birth, our settlement was in the Apache County of the Arizona Territory. Later however, after Arizona became a state, the area became a part of Navajo County.
In addition to Rosetta's birth, we had received word that Phoebe and
Emmanuel’s daughter Phoebe Ann Hunt had married Joseph Hadden in Parowan.
They lived first in Panguitch and then in Joseph, Sevier. They were married in 1878.
Our family in Brigham City faced a time of growing discouragement
– not just us but the whole settlement.
But taming the Little Colorado and successfully
harvesting crops were not the only problems faced.
Though the United Order generally gave
satisfaction, there were some of the Elders who taught extreme doctrines that criminalized
intercourse and caused some bad feelings among the settlers.
Families
gradually started moving away. We joined the exodus soon after Rosetta's birth. By the fall of 1880, the majority of the settlers had packed up and moved on. In 1881, we were all formally released
from our missions.
The only Little Colorado settlement to
continue on was Joseph
City.
The surplus in the Brigham City United Order
when the settlement was disbanded amounted to about $8,000. Each family drew out
their original capital stock – what livestock and property we originally
put into the United Order when we arrived. After all that was settled, there
was still about $2,200, which was turned over to the church.
The Brigham City settlers headed in all directions – but all with general good feelings toward
each other. Some headed down to the Gila River and Salt River area, about 170 miles southwest;
some to the south slope of the Mogollon Rim, about 50 miles south; others went to
St. Johns, about 90 miles southeast; and still others to the San Luis Valley in
Colorado, about 450 miles northeast.
The land upon which our little settlement of Brigham
City was built next to the Little Colorado later became a part of the city of Winslow, Arizona.
CHAPTER 19
HUMBLED BY ANCIENT ENGINEERS
When we departed Brigham City, we headed southwest to another church settlement called Utahville in Maricopa, Arizona. We made our way up past the Mogollon Rim and into Green Valley, now known as Payson, in the upper reaches of the Tonto Basin. The area of pines trees and cool mountain breezes was a dramatic welcome relief from the blistering desert we had left behind.
We then made our way down a steep grade down to Cottonwood Basin, then over the saddle of Mount Ord. But as we came down out of the mountains and drew nearer our destination, the scenery became much like what we had left behind in Brigham City, but the heat was even more oppressive.
Can we really survive and flourish in this desert?
Back in 1847, members of the Mormon Battalion, which had built a road through central Arizona on their way to California, had reported back to Brigham Young that there was land suitable for agriculture and that the Indians in the area were friendly.
Thirty years later, in 1877, Brigham Young sent a group of 85 settlers from Utah to establish "stations on the road" in Arizona supporting the church's planned expansion into Mexico. When they asked Brigham where they should settle, he told them that when they arrived at the right place, they would recognize it.
When the advance party of the settlers reached an area next to the Salt River at McDowell Crossing, Henry C. Rogers recognized the area as the place he had seen in his vision before starting out from Utah.
Then when the settlers examined the soil near the Salt River, they found it was near perfect for growing crops, so they pitched their tents, started clearing the land and working on an irrigation system.
The settlement was first named Utahville but was renamed Jonesville after their leader, Daniel Webster Jones. Later, it was renamed Fort Utah and then Lehi, which grew to become part of the city of Mesa, Arizona.
The Utahville residents lived the United Order, but not as we had experienced it in Brigham City. Still, the colony did share the supplies and food raised. Even before we arrived, they had built a brush shed that was used as a school, church, and meeting place. Then, in July of 1877, they built Fort Utah with adobe bricks.
 |
1880 U.S. Census, taken
June 1 and 2 in Utahville,
includes Levi Hunt family. |
One of the families living in Utahville had previously lived in Brigham City. In fact, Charles Crismon’s fifth wife, Louise Bischoff Crismon, had a daughter, Louise Alexandra Crismon, who was born 24 December 1877 at Brigham City, during the time my family was residing at the same colony. Then after Crismons moved down to Utahville, Louise and Charles had a son, Charles B. Crismon, born 24 February 1880. Crismon and one of his sons later built a mill near Phoenix and one in the Salt River Valley.
Coincidentally, our daughter Rosetta Hunt, was born 9 March 1880, in Brigham City. Then by June 1 and 2 we were residing in Utahville when U.S. government employees conducted the 1880 U.S. Census.
All was going well in the colony until Jones, the leader of the Utahville Saints, met with success in befriending and baptizing the Indians in the area. Many of his fellow Saints became upset with his desire to make the convert Indians part of the settlement. The disagreements became so escalated that a large part of the group left the settlement, taking their cattle and other resources with them and heading
further south where they established their own settlement called St. David, which was near the border of Mexico.
The truth is, the Pima and Maricopa Indians living in the area of Utahville actually helped the pioneers carve out a life in the desert, and Tempe founder Charles Hayden loaned money and other resources to help the colony survive.
When the second group of Mormon settlers arrived in 1878 and settled on the mesa top, they discovered ancient Native American canals that diverted the Salt River water to the higher ground.
I was amazed and humbled by the incredible irrigation engineering and the amount of work that those Indians long ago exhibited in cultivating such a vast amount Salt River land. I heard tell those ancient Indians traded cotton cloth for seashells from as far away as the Gulf of California and for exotic birds from the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. But then they disappeared -- more than 400 years ago. We all wondered if maybe they were Nephites and were forced to flee.
I found our leader there at Utahville, to be a fascinating man! Jones was a convert to the church, but his life story and conversion were more than unusual.
Orphaned at the age of 12, he joined a group of volunteers five years later to fight in the Mexican-American War in 1847. Following the war, he remained in Mexico for a number of years, learning Spanish and taking part in many ways in -- what he called -- "the wild, reckless life that was common in that land."
Then in 1850, he was seriously wounded by his own pistol while it was in its holster. His companions, who were on their way to California, left him, lame but alive, at a Mormon settlement in Provo. There, he studied Mormon doctrine and was baptized by Isaac Morley on January 27, 1851.
What really caught my ear was when he was telling one of his stories about the time he went on a rescue mission to save two companies of handcart Saints and two wagon trains stranded by a blizzard in the fall of 1856. He said he was in the group that found the Willie Handcart Company near South Pass.
I couldn’t believe it! Here was one of the men who saved the life of my first wife, Jane Gadd, and her mother, Eliza, and several of Jane’s brothers and sisters.
Jones said that after rescuing the Saints, he and two other rescuers were required to remain behind with the goods cached at Fort Seminoe. During that winter, they endured terrific privations, which Jones said he vowed he would later detail in his own autobiography.
Another time in Utahville, he reminisced about the miracles he experienced when he was commissioned by Brigham Young in 1874 to head the translation of the Book of Mormon into Spanish. He also talked fondly about the time he served a mission in Mexico in 1875 and 1876.
But, in Utahville, when things got too exasperating between Jones and many of the other settlers – a few months after we had arrived – he decided it would be best to head out. He took his family and what else was his and headed to higher cooler country – Tonto Basin.
We were more than weary of the desert life and longed for the cool that we had known back in my homeland, so my family packed up again and also headed for the milder climes of Tonto Basin.
CHAPTER 20
ON OUR OWN IN WILD FRONTIER
We were confident that if we could find the right place, we could conquer the
elements and make for
ourselves a good life. Tonto Basin seemed to have what we were yearning for -- green forested lands with plenty of clean
clear water -- a verdant oasis in the upper reaches of the Salt River Valley on the south slope of the Mogollon Rim.
So, ignoring the prospects of the outlaws
who were known to hide out in the area and also the threat of Indians, we
traveled north and built a cabin and planted crops. Though the
cabin protected us from the wind, rain, sun and snow, it was not a fort -- and really could not
be sufficient protection against hostile Indians and roving outlaws,
so we required members of the family to stand watch continually for such
dangers.
By this point, all of central Arizona’s Indians, including the Tonto Apache Indians, had
been confined on the White Mountain and San
Carlos Reservations.
At times small parties were given “passes” to leave the
reservation to hunt wild game. At other times, renegade bands broke from the
reservation and conducted raids on ranches in the Tonto Basin
area, their prime hunting grounds. We actually were attacked several times, but
we were prepared and were able to scare them away.
One night, however, after we had been
gathering black walnuts all day and had put them on the cabin roof to dry, our family
went to bed especially tired -- and no one stood watch over our little cabin. This was the very night, Tonto Apache attacked. What they couldn't
burn, they were
determined to destroy. I and the older boys fought with guns and hand to hand
to drive them off, while Phoebe and the girls hurried to load the wagons with
whatever they could salvage from the cabin. At one point, Phoebe dashed into
the cabin for another load but was surprised by two savage-looking Indians who
had somehow gained entry. One grabbed her by the hair and raised his tomahawk
to kill her. But our oldest son, 22-year-old Joseph William, came running into the cabin. Raising his gun, he shot the Indian
just as his mother had collapsed to the floor in a dead faint. Her one fainting
episode saved her life. With the one Indian mortally wounded, the other made a
hasty exit.
This was enough of pioneering in Arizona! We had endured
hunger, storms, drifting sand, floods, crop loss, cattle rustlers, and
ill-treatment from rough hoodlums and fugitives from the law, and near scalping
from Indians. What else would we be expected to endure?
Without wasting another moment, we quickly
finished loading the wagons and – with a great sense of relief and happiness –
headed for Utah
and home.
We
crossed over the great Colorado by way of Lee's
Ferry, which was established by John D. Lee and is located in northern Arizona at the point where the Paria
River joins the Colorado from the north.
Lying in an open valley directly downstream
of Glen Canyon
and shortly above Marble Canyon (the uppermost section of the Grand Canyon),
it is the only place in more than 260 miles where the Colorado is not hemmed in by sheer canyon
walls.
When we took advantage of Lee’s Ferry, his widow
was running the business, he being executed in 1877 for his role in the tragic
Mountain Meadows massacre on September 11, 1857, in which a group of Mormons and
Paiute Indians attacked a wagon train of emigrants from Arkansas, killing about 120 men and women.
Only 17 children under the age of six were spared.
A little background about those times: Emotions were running high in the Utah Territory because
of the ongoing standoff between the federal government and the territorial
leaders and the church because of the 1,500 U.S. troops that were on the march toward Utah Territory,
with more expected to follow, to put down what the government perceived as treason
in Utah. The
Saints, however, believed the army was coming to oppress, drive, or even
destroy them.
Brigham Young ordered all the settlements to be
on heightened readiness because of the treat from the government and all the
Gentile emigrant trains coming through the territory.
The Saints feared a repeat
of what happened to them in Missouri and Illinois. Some in the Cedar City
area who
had deplored vigilante violence against their own people in Missouri and Illinois
followed virtually the same pattern of violence against the wagon train from Arkansas, but on a much deadlier scale.
The confrontation between the church led by
President Young with Johnston’s Army was resolved through a peace conference
and negotiation in 1858, but that was months after the massacre of the Gentiles
on the wagon train roughly 35 miles
southwest of Cedar City.
A terrible episode in Utah’s history – and that of the church.
Once our
family was back in Utah, we settled in Monroe just south of Richfield,
Sevier County. The town, named after U.S.
President James Monroe, was first settled 1864 but was abandoned in 1867 due to
the Black Hawk War. Settlers returned in 1871, and our family arrived ten years
later.
The area has fertile soil, good water –
including hot springs
– and plenty of timber in the nearby mountains.
CHAPTER 21
TOO MUCH PAIN, TOO MUCH HEARTACHE
It was
in Monroe on
the 4th of March 1882 that our eleventh child, Wilford, was born. The
childbirth along with all the trials and tribulations in Arizona had taken its toll on Phoebe. In the wake of Wilford’s birth, Phoebe became desperately ill with milk leg, which caused painful
swelling of her leg due to clotting and inflammation of the leg veins. Despite
the love and care we gave her, she had no rest and relief from the agony.
My companion of nearly two decades, my
helpmate, my sweetheart died on the 12th of March 1882, at the age
of 42. I and the children laid her to rest in Richfield.
I was grief
stricken. First Jane – and now Phoebe! How could I go on without Phoebe's companionship, her counsel, and her emotional
strength? For more than 20 years, I had been a witness of her courage and her faith,
which helped her make the best of what she had and provide food and clothing
for all of our children. She was my helpmate and was devoted in
supplying the
spiritual training for our children. Material things were not always available,
but our family was never short on spirituality.
I was left with seven children still at home,
including tiny baby Wilford.
Eliza Jane, who at 16 was the oldest
daughter still at home, took over the care of the family and lovingly mothered the
other six for nearly two years until she married Thomas Emanuel Olds on 28 Jul
1884. They first lived in Joseph, then Monroe and then Pintura.
Mary Ellen, who had not been living at home
for some time, had married Thomas Sheppard a month earlier, on 16 June 1884, in
Pleasant Valley, Utah. They made their home in Payson.
The first of mine and Jane’s children
to wed was
Levi Alderman, who wed Lucinda Elvira Hyatt on 26 June 1885 in Salt Lake City. They made
their home in nearby Joseph.
Lucinda’s first husband, Hyrum “D” Paramore,
deserted Lucinda and his two surviving children when he boarded a train and
never returned. Levi Alderman Hunt was good to Lucinda and loved her three
children. The first of their 11 children together was born Dec. 20, 1886, and they
named my grandson Levi Ray Hunt.
CHAPTER 22
NEW BRANCHES ON A LARGE FAMILY TREE
Even before the last of my children were
married off, my grandson Levi Ray Hunt married Ethel Sophia Utley on 5 January
1906 in Richfield.
Ethel’s grandmother was of the Burgess pioneer family. Ethel’s grandfather, Harrison Burgess, was witness to many great events in the church even as far
back as Kirtland in 1835. He later wrote of a vision he witnessed in the Kirtland Temple:
“It was near the close of the endowments – I
was in a meeting for instruction in the upper part of the temple with about a
hundred of the high priests, seventies, and elders. The Saints
fell to shout
"Hosannah," and the spirit of God rested upon me in mighty power and
I beheld the room lighted up, with a peculiar light such as I had never seen
before; [soft and clear and] the room looked to me as though it had neither
roof nor floor to the building and I beheld Joseph [Smith the Prophet] and Hyrum
Smith [the Prophet's brother], and Roger Orton
enveloped in the light. Joseph exclaimed
aloud, "I behold the Saviour, the Son of God." Hyrum exclaimed
"I behold the angels of heaven." Brother Orton exclaimed, "I
behold the chariots of Israel."
All who were in the room felt the power of God to that degree that many
prophesied, and the power of God was made manifest, [to all these in the
assembly] the remembrance of which I shall never forget while I live upon the
earth.”
He also was a faithful participant of Zion’s Camp, a 1,000-mile militia march from Kirtland, Ohio,
to Clay County, Missouri, led by the Prophet Joseph Smith. More than 200 men
left their homes and families in a campaign to regain homes and property lost
when Missouri mobs
forced the Saints out of Clay County.
Though the stated goal was not achieved, the march was like a refiner’s fire: Those
who stayed faithful became many of the great leaders of the church, including
Brigham Young, Wilford Woodruff and Parley P. Pratt. This rugged journey served as a test to
determine who was worthy to serve in positions of leadership and trust and to
receive an endowment in the Kirtland
Temple. The Prophet later
explained: “God did not want you to fight. He could not organize his kingdom
with twelve men to open the gospel door to the nations of the earth, and with seventy men
under their direction to follow in their tracks, unless he took
them from a body of men who had offered their lives, and who had made as great
a sacrifice as did Abraham.”
In February 1835 the Quorum of the Twelve
Apostles and the First Quorum of the Seventy were organized. Nine of the
original Apostles, all seven presidents of the Seventy’s quorum, and all
sixty-three other members of that quorum had served in the army of Israel that marched to western Missouri in 1834.
Burgess was one of those faithful leaders.
His great-granddaughter Ethel Sophia Utley added her great heritage to our Hunt
line.
Then there is the Utley line, which lineage
of faithfulness runs back through the trials and miracles of Nauvoo and then all
the way back to the founding of America.
Ethel’s Utley
grandmother, Mariah Berry, died at Winter Quarters in Nebraska, and Mariah’s husband, Samuel Walton Utley, died
crossing the plains near the Platte
River. That left Ethel’s father,
Gabriel Marion Utley, motherless at age 3 and fatherless at age 8. He arrived
in Salt Lake Valley
in 1852 as an orphan and lived with his sister, Harriet Temperance Utley
Carter, and her husband, William Carter, until he was a young man.
I mention these things about Levi and Ethel
to show the pioneer heritage you, my grandchildren and great-grandchildren and
so forth have through my line and many other lines that combined with ours
through
marriage. These are people of faith who helped build Zion here on earth. Some day, I believe there
will be hundreds of thousands of Mormons and maybe even millions! I pray that
you can carry the burdens that we are all called to bear.
After Elizabeth Jane married and moved away, I still had
six children at home to care for – and the youngest, Wilford, was just 2 years
old. My oldest daughters still at home were twelve-year-old Sarah Susannah and
ten-year-old Amelia Emeline.
I carried on with my farming, minding the
homestead, and even enjoyed a soaking now and then in the local hot mineral springs.
CHAPTER 23
A NEW COMPANION FOR AN OLD MAN
Four
years after Phoebe’s death, I found a woman who would marry a 52-year-old
set-in-his-ways farmer. Elizabeth McDonald and I tied the knot on 15 March 1886,
in the home of my daughter Eliza Jane Olds in Joseph, Sevier County. [Elizabeth was reportedly born in 1837. Can't find record of her birth in Reed, Hertfordshire, England. In the 1910 U.S. Census, Levi Hunt reported he was widowed
(not married) and living in Joseph, Sevier, with his son Samuel Isaac Hunt. No mention of Elizabeth. In the 1920 U.S. Census, again Levi Hunt
reported he was widowed (not married) and living in Huntington with his daughter, Sarah Susannah Hunt Childester. Have not found a death record for Elizabeth McDonald or Elizabeth McDonald Hunt in Utah. Obviously she had left Levi or died between 1886 and the 1910 U.S. Census.]
About two years after I remarried, my son
Samuel Isaac Hunt wed Laura Loraine Lott on 7 July 1887 in Richfield,
Sevier County. They made their home in Joseph.
The next to wed was Sarah Susannah, who married
Alfred Gideon Chidester, 31 January 1890, in Richfield. They lived in Wayne County
until about 1896, at which time they moved to Huntington, near her oldest brother, Joseph
William.
Less than a year later, on 26 Sept. 1891,
Amelia Emeline wed Charles King Grundy in Richfield.
They made their home in Maryville,
just south of Joseph.
Three years later on 18 March 1894, Alice
Malinda married William Dolphin Nay in Monroe.
They made their home in Circleville and then Tropic.
 |
1930 U.S. Census shows the family
of Joseph William Hunt, living in
Huntington, Emery County, Utah. |
Rosetta, who was born while at Brigham City, Arizona,
married Orson Talbot in Richfield
Aug. 7, 1900. They made their home in Panguitch, Garfield County.
But Orson died in 1905. Rosetta then married Arthur Harmon Sr. on 20 Dec. 1906
in Richfield. They
made their home in Joseph.
My youngest, Wilford, married Annie Pryor Seat on 1
May 1901. They settled in Payson.
My oldest son, Joseph William Hunt, never married until 1911, when he was 51 or 52 years old. He married Marie Katherine Brownmiller, who was 29 years old and was originally from Iowa. They made their home in Huntington. Their first son, Lavon J., was born in 1915.
CHAPTER 24
WINDING DOWN IN HUNTINGTON
Once all my children were married and being widowed once again, I moved to Huntington, where my
oldest son, Joseph William, and daughter Sarah Suzannah Hunt Chidester, reside.
I moved in with my daughter,
Sarah, in the
agricultural and stock-raising community. Huntington, however, is drawing more and more
of its main income from coal mining.
As you no doubt have noticed, I talk about
family constantly, and I have always enjoyed family time. And when the
grandchildren started coming along, I found a new joy – being a kind fun
grandfather and great-grandfather. There’s nothing better than spending time with
my grandchildren.
One of my favorite amusements is to hide
candy in my ever-present long beard and let the grandchildren sit on my lap and
go treasure hunting. But I was firm about one thing – no putting the candy back
in my beard once it is licked.
Too messy – too sticky!
One of my grandsons, Levi Emanuel Olds, was born
in Joseph while I was living in Monroe,
He was the first child of Thomas and Elizabeth Jane Hunt Olds, and was a plump
happy baby. He was given a name in honor of his two grandfathers, me and
Emanuel Olds.
When Elizabeth Jane’s family moved into Monroe in 1898, Levi – my
grandson – spent a year with me helping on my farm. I even got him to attend a
little bit of school while with me.
But when Jane's family moved to Toquerville,
about 25 miles northeast of St. George, our visits became two few and two far between.
In my later years, I broke down and acquired
a trumpet. Not one of those musical instruments, but rather an ear trumpet. I had
become very hard of hearing. The ear trumpet was like a large funnel-shaped
horn about the size of a phonograph
record. If I wanted to hear what someone
wanted me to hear, I was required to hold that thing up to my ear, and the one
trying to communicate with me had to speak directly into it.
In
1921 and at the ripe old age of 88, my posterity has grown considerably – well over 175.
I have plowed enough fields,
fixed enough fences, dug enough ditches, built enough houses, and even had to
bury five of my grown children: Samuel
Sylvester Hunt, Sept. 11, 1863; Amelia
Emeline Hunt Gundy, Feb. 3, 1911; Wilford Hunt (my youngest), Feb. 12, 1912; Elizabeth Jane Hunt Olds, May 21, 1917; and Levi Alderman Hunt, June 15, 1920.
I am ready to go home.
On Aug. 2, Levi Hunt returned to his Father
in Heaven and was greeted by so many of his family that he scarcely knew he was
on the other side. His soul was in Heaven, but his worn-out old body was laid
to rest in the Huntington
City Cemetery,
awaiting the resurrection.
A witness of Jesus Christ by Apostle Boyd K. Packer, April 2014:
“… After all the years that I have lived and taught and
served, after the
 |
| President Boyd K. Packer of the Quorum of the Twelve. |
millions of miles I have traveled around the world, with all
that I have experienced, there is one great truth that I would share. That is
my witness of the Savior Jesus Christ.
Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon recorded the following after
a sacred experience:
‘And now, after the many testimonies which have been given
of him, this is the testimony, last of all, which we give of him: That he
lives! For we saw him’ (D&C 76:22–23).
“Their words are my
words.
“I believe and I am
sure that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that He lives. He is the
Only Begotten of the Father, and ‘by him, and through him, and of him, the
worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and
daughters unto God’ (D&C 76:24).
“I bear my
witness that the Savior lives. I know the Lord. I am His witness. I know of His
great sacrifice and eternal love for all of Heavenly Father’s children. I bear
my special witness in all humility but with absolute certainty, in the name of
Jesus Christ, amen.”
say: Eat, drink, and be merry; nevertheless, fear God — He will
justify in committing a little sin; yea, lie a little, take the advantage of
one because of his words, dig a pit for thy neighbor; there is no harm in this;
and do all these things, for tomorrow we die; and if it so be that we are
guilty, God will beat us with a few
stripes, and at last we shall be saved in the kingdom of God."
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