The Life and Times of Levi Hunt, 1833-1921

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.;
Click on captions for links to original photo, illustration sources.]

Gordon B. Hinckley

Brigham Young,
cerca 1850

“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

Thomas S. Monson

 “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

Alex Haley, author of Roots,
based on his own family history.

“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

Levi Hunt, son of
William Hunt

   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.  

All Saints Church,
Rampton, England

   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.

Book Of Mormon read by
Hyrum Smith in Carthage
Jail on June 27, 1844.

   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.

Reed is a small village in north Hertfordshire, England.

   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!

Gainsborough Old Hall tower was
built in the Middle Ages. 
Photo by John Spooner

   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.

The village of Reed is in
Hertfordshire, England.

   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.

Mercia dominated soutthern part of
England from AD 600-900.

   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

Alfred The Great,
AD 871-899

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

St. Augustine preaches to 
King Ethelbert in AD 597.

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.

Chancel of All Saints Church,
Rampton, England.

Chapel inside All Saints Church,
Rampton, Cambrideshire.

   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

Stain Glass Window in Saxon St. Mary's Church,
Reed, Hertfordshire, England.

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.

Saxon Church of St. Mary's in Reed, England.

   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.

Inside St. Mary's Church,
Reed, England

Doorway on the north
side of St. Mary's was
blocked in Middle Ages
to keep the Devil out.

Gainsborough, along River Trent, was at one time
important port -- the most inland of England's ports.

   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

Heber C. Kimball

Orson Hyde

   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.

Families can be forever in God's plan.

   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.

   But opposition to this “foreign cult” had been constant from the time Mormon missionaries, including Apostles Heber C. Kimball and Orson Hyde, first started preaching in England in 1837. 

Wilford Woodruff

By the time Apostle Wilford Woodruff arrived in 1840, there were more than 1,500 members in Britain.

Thomas Kington of the
United Brothern.

   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.

Anti-Mormon flyer from
the 1850s in England.

   Leading the opposition to the church were ministers of all persuasions and even the British press.

Mormon missionaries in Britain.

   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

Anti-Mormon pamphet.

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

Missionary tracts used in 1850s.

who are battening on the ignorance and credulity of  those upon whom they can successfully play off this imposture." He 

Mormon missionary group in
Liverpool, England, 1855. Edward
Martin (middle row far right) later
led 1856 Martin Handcart Company.

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."  

  

Isaac Hunt, brother
of Levi Hunt.

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!

St Andrews Church, Orwell

High Street,Cambridgeshire.

   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!

The Golconda, 1863.

   Once baptized, members of our family began saving money to someday sail to America and join with our fellow Saints.

Isaac Hunt sailed away from
England aboard the Golconda
on Jan. 23, 1853.

   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.

Anne Newling was also
aboard the Golconda
and married Isaac
Hunt after arriving 
in Salt Lake Valley.

   “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

Herefordshire Beacon, where Apostles
Heber C. Kimball and Brigham Young
discussed the future missionary
work in England, including the
publication of missionary tracts.

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

Pond on Benbow Farm was the site of many baptisms
by LDS missionary Wilford Woodruff.

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. 

Gadfield Elm Chapel, now restored,
was built by United Brothern in 1836
and deeded to LDS Church in 1840.

   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.

Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and family.
In 1841, shortly before he returned to America,
Brigham Young arranged for richly bound copies of
the Book of Mormon to be presented to Queen Victoria
and Prince Albert. The volume presented to the queen
was located in the Royal Library at Windsor in 1986.

   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.

Isaac Hunt worked as a mason
on the Manti Temple.

   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.

Isaac Hunt worked as a mason
on the St. George Temple.

   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.

Isaac Hunt worked as a mason
on the Salt Lake Temple.

   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.

Levi Hunt was the
mason on Parowan
Courthouse, 1891.

   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.

Wilford Woodruff preached often in the Benbow Barn.

Inside the Gadfield Elm Chapel, where
many early church leaders, including
Brigham Young spoke.

Wilford Woodruff was greeted
warmly by Benbow family,
who became converts.

   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.

(Old) Iron County Courthouse in 

Parowan, Utah, was completed

in 1875 for $7,342. It suffered fire

damage January 21, 1971. After the

current courthouse was built, this

building was renovated and currently

houses the Southern Utah Mortuary.

   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.

LDS missionary group meets in historic Gadfield Elm
Chapel in Worcestershire, England.

CHAPTER THREE

STRANDED IN FRIGID LIVERPOOL

Hunt Family would have used rail system
in 1855 to go from Royston to the port
city of Liverpool, England.

   We received word to be in Liverpool on the 20th of November to set sail on the 23^rd. 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.

Church headquarters in 1855

was in this building at

36 Islington (corner of

Islington Road and

North Street),Liverpool.

 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."

Franklin D. Richards,
president of LDS Church's
British Europeon Mission.

   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 23^rd, 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

Sailing ships docked in modern
Liverpool, England.

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!

Irish immigrants living above sweat shops
in Long's Covent Garden, London, 1871.

   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.”

For many thousands, perhaps millions, of emigrants,
the deck of Liverpool Landing Stage was last time
they would set foot on English soil, 1872.

   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.

Queen Victoria, born in 1819,
reigned from 1837 to 1901.

   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!

Charles Vickery Golden Age of Clipper Ships
Davy Crockett at Daybreak Plate.

   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.

Elder Richard Ballantyne,
leader of the 403 Saints
on the Charles Buck.

   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!

William, Mary Ann, Emmanuel, Levi and Stephen are
listed as passengers aboard the Charles Buck, 1855.

   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.

Emigrant ship leaving Liverpool port.

   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.

Sleeping and dining in ship's mid-decks.

   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.

Diarama of life aboard emigrant ship bound for America.

   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.

Quarters were crowded between decks on
passenger ships like the Charles Buck.

   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.”

One of the ways to beat the boredom was dancing.

    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.

Ship passengers dancing below deck.

   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:

Author Charles Dickens

 "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.

Passenger ship James Nesmith, similar to the Charles Buck.

“… 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.

Imagine being in such crowded quarters below deck when a
storm hits, tossing the ship about and making everyone sick. 

   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.

Ship battles through storm as its sails suffer the worst.

   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

Painting of the Clipper Ship Cutty Sark caught in a squall,
by Eric Bellis.

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

Painting of Clipper in Heavy Seas by James E. Buttersworth.

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

The eternal persepctive:
Christ's Embrace

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!

Yes, there is life after death. What is our goal:
Exaltation and Eternal Life, or . . .?

   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!

Piracy was still a major concern for passenger ships in 1855.

   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.

Porrage is made by boiling ground,
crushed or chopped cereal
(usually oats) in water and
usually served hot in a
bowl or dish. It may be
sweetened with sugar.

   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.

Plain oatmeal cake was one of the
last remaining food items onboard.

   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!

A treat to enjoy today: 
Oatmeal cake with topping.

   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

Scene on the levee in New Orleans
1855 from Granger Art.

   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.

Sidewheel Steamboat Ben Campbell on the Mississippi.
Restored daguerreotype, 1852-1860. Similar to the Michigan.

   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.

Ice chunks in the Mississippi River.

   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.

The Mississippi Ice Jam of 1868,
courtesy of Augustana College
in Rock Island, Illinois.

   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.

Steamship Mayflower, 1855, a sidewheeler like the Michigan.

   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.

Steamboats in 1852 line up along the St. Louislevee in
this daguerreotype image by Thomas Easterly.

   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.

Kansas, Nebraska, Utah andNew Mexico Territories in 1855.

   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.

Missouri ruffians head to Kansas Territory to secure
its position as a slave state. The Kansas-Nebraska Act
1854 may have been the single most significant
event leading to the Civil War.

   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.

Missouri ruffians head to Kansas
territory to secure its position as
a slave state. The Missouri
Compromise, which had kept
the Union from falling apart for
the last thirty-four years, was
essentially repealed by the
Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.
The Whig Party was split, which
led to the creation of the
Republican Party, the party of
Abraham Lincoln.

Steven A. Douglas, Democratic
senator of Illinois, sponsored
the Kansas-Nebraska Act. He
believed people should decide
for themselves whether or
not to have slavery. Abraham
Lincoln later ran against him.

   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

A Daguerreotype of Atchison, Kansas, 1860.

   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.

Atchison, Kansas, historical marker.

   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. 

Mary Anne Holmes Hunt is buried at Mormon Grove.

   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.

Mormon immigrants helped construct buildings and laid
out roads in Atchison, Kansas. An 1860 Daguerreotype.

   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 7^th, 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

Atchison, Kansas, around 1860, by C. H. Masters.

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!

Missouri mob attacked the Mormon village of Haun’s
Mill and killed at least 17 men, women and children,
and wounded another 13.

   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

Missouri's Governor
Liburn Boggs signed
order to exterminate
Mormons in the state.

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.

A Daguerreotype taken of the original
Nauvoo Temple before the Saints departed.

   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.  

Daguerreotype of Nauvoo at time of Mormon exodus.

   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.

After the Saints fled Nauvoo, the temple was burned by an
arsonist. Several years later, a tornado leveled what was left.

   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

Wagon train heading west to Zion.

   On the 2^nd 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,

Replica of rope Marshall Ferry
in Marysville, Kansas.

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.

Replica of rope Marshall Ferry in Marysville, Kansas.

   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.

The Big Blue River, which in 1855 was traversed via
the rope Marshall Ferry in Marysville, Kansas.

   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.

Campfire

   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.

Fiddler

   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.

William Clayton

   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!

William Clayton’s Roadometer,

first used on May 12, 1847.

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!

A replica of Clayton's "roadometer."

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!

Pioneers dancing round a campfire.

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!

The Latter-day Saints’

Emigrants’ Guide.

  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.

Father Lehi and his dream of
"Tree of Life" by Lehi Sanchez.

   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.

Prophet Nephi by Arnold Friberg

   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.

The Resurrected Jesus Christ visits the descendants
of Lehi on the American Continent.

   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.

Fort Kearney, Nebraska

   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 22^nd, while crossing the Big Blue River, near Fort Kearney, Captain

The Mormon Grove Trail, 1855-56, Kansas

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

The Platte River in Nebraska

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.

Levi Hunt traveled Mormon Trail with two of his brothers.

   Two days later, on July 24^th 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

Windlass Hill leading into Ash Hollow
near what is now Lewellen, Nebraska.

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.

Ash Hollow, located along the
along the Oregon-California Trail.

   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.

Chimney Rock, Nebraska

   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.

Scotts Bluff rises more than 800
feet above the Nebraska plains.

   On August 9^th, we were within sight of Chimney Rock. We arrived at Scotts Bluff [176 miles east of present-day Casper, Wyoming] on August 12^th, and three days later, we arrived at Fort Laramie. Subsequently, feed for the cattle became scares and many succumbed.

LaBonte Canyon, Wyoming

   The company was at Bitterwood Creek on the 17^th, then LaBonte Canyon [east of present-day Casper, Wyoming] on the 20^th. The canyon has steep granite rock formations and groves of aspen and conifer. Beautiful but rugged!

Little Blue River

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."

Chimney Rock, western Nebraska

   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.

Photograph of Reshaw Bridge in what is now Wyoming.

   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.”

Re-creation of Reshaw Bridge
near Casper, Wyoming.

   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 between Sweetwater River and Independence Rock.

   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.

Meandering Sweetwater River

   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.

Crossing the Sweetwater

Chimney Rock, Wyoming

   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

Replica of interior of Fort Bridger

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.

Ash Hallow Historical marker.

Almost imperceptible crest in Rocky

Mountain chain is where emigrants

crossed the Continental Divide.

   

Fort Kearney

Independence Rock, Wyoming

Camp wagon trains below Independence Rock, Wyoming.

Aerial view of little Sandy Creek
area in what is now Wyoming.

Fort Kearney

Climbing the cliffs in LeBonte
Canyon in Wyoming.

Old Fort Bridger entrance gate, photo by John Stanton

CHAPTER 11

FINALLY, THE ARRIVAL IN ZION

Pres. Erastus Snow

   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.  

View heading down Echo Canyon,
finally in Utah territory.

  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,

Did Isaac Hunt greet
brothers in Salt Lake?

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.

Pres. Heber C. Kimball

   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

'Martin Handcart Burial'
on the plains of Wyoming
by Clark Kelley Price

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.

Monument to Utah's State Bird:
the cricket-eating Seagull

   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

Jane Gadd, Levi Hunt's first wife,
was a survivor of the Willie
Handcart Company of 1856.

   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

Eliza Gadd survived trek
in blizzard and then
asked to be baptized.

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.

"Handcart Trials" by Clark Kelly
Price, a descendant of a survivor
of the Martin Handcart Company.

   Still, when the family finally arrived in Salt Lake, the first thing her mother, Eliza, requested was to be baptized.

"Journeys End" Handcart Pioneer
Family Statue by Stan Watts.

   Her husband, Samuel and the children had joined the church in England, but Elisa was reluctant to do so.

"When Angels Come"
by Clark Kelley Price

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.

Ephraim Hanks, one of the first
rescuers to reach dying handcart
Saints in Wyoming blizzard.
Painting by Clark Kelley Price

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. 

Painting of Elizaand Samuel Gadd.

Memorial showing the name of
10-year-old Samuel Gadd.

   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.

Memorial showing the name of
Jane Gadd's brother, Samuel.

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: 

Eliza Gadd became a midwife and
delivered more than 2,000 babies.

"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.' 

Shoe belonging to Daniel Gadd,
who was about 17 months old
when he died on handcart trek.

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." 

The Rescue of the Willie Handcart
Company in 1856.

James G. Willie was
leader of 1856
handcart company.

   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

Emmanuel Hunt and
wife Phoebe Louisa
Fellows Hunt.

   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.

Phoebe Louisa
Fellows Hunt

   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

Albert G. Fellows,
friend of Joseph Smith Jr.

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.

Joseph Smith Jr. visited the
home of Phoebe Fellows
the day he left for Carthage,
Illinois, and his final days.

   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

Calochortus Nuttallii Sego Lily

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

Sego Lily photo by Kim Pierson.

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.

CHAPTER 14

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.

Logging large trees with a whipsaw.

   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

Transporting load with driver sitting on stack of logs, 1910.

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.

Snow-covered mountains just west of Gunnison, Utah.

   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.

Pioneer homes are part of the Gunnison Pioneer Museum.

   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

Brigham Young family members;
courtesy of BYU Special Collections

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

Hollywood's depiction of Brigham
Young and his wives in 1940 movie
with Dean Jagger as Young.

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.

Salt Lake Endowment House on Temple Square
before the completion of the Salt Lake Temple.

   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

Photograph of the Salt Lake Endowment House.
Courtesy of Utah State Historical Society.

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.

Women washing clothes on washboard in creek.

   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.

Jane Gadd tomestone in
Nephi City Cemetery.

   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.

Samuel greeted in Heaven

    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.

A pioneer loom to make all the
clothes for so many children.

      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

Chief Walker (Wakara)

   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.

Chief Black Hawk

   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.

Marker notes location of
Fort Gunnison, which Levi
Hunt undoubtedly helped build.

   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.

Fort Springville in Springville, Utah.

   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.  

Remnants of Fort Deseret near
Delta, Utah.

   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.

An early photo of Cove Fort, which
was originally built in 1867. 

   Many forts were built in Central Utah, including in Gunnison. I joined with hundreds of other Mormon militiamen chasing Black

Inside the restored Cove Fort, north
of Beaver at the Junction of I-15
and I-70. The Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints now owns
the fort and offers daily tours.

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.

CHAPTER 17

THE GOOD LIFE IN PARAGONAH

Morning mist in Paragonah, Utah.
Photo by Gorestravels

   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. 

Pioneer Fort Paragonah was built
at this site in 1855. It was 105
square and had walls 3-feet
thick at the base.

   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.

Iron Mountain, south of Paragonah.

   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.

Red Creek Reservoir, 8 miles east of Paragonah up
Red Creek Canyon. The area was settled mainly
because of the water flowing down the Red Creek. 

   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

Old homestead at 300 West
Center Street in Paragonah.

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

The Paragonah site dates from 700 A.D. to 1300 A.D.
and has been called "One of the most important
Fremont sites in Utah, and it's certainly well up on
the list of the most important sites generally in Utah."

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 Little Colorado River, of eastern Arizona
and western New Mexico drains about
26,500 square miles from the Painted Desert
region. The Colorado River tributary is over
315 miles, but its average discharge is
typically less than 400 cubic feet per second
and can vary greatly throughout the year.

   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.

The Prophet Enoch

   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,

"City of Enoch" is taken up into Heaven, by Joshua Cotton

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.

Wall of settlement fort at Brigham City, Arizona

   Phoebe and I considered the challenges

Gun portal in fort wall
where Levi Hunt and
his family practiced
the United Order.

   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

Walls of the Brigham City Fort are being restored by
descendants of the settlement and by city of Winslow.

property to the settlement, which then in turn deeded back to us an

Marker relates the story of the Mormon settlement
of Brigham City on the Little Colorado in Arizona.

"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.

Brigham City Restoration Project is working with the city of
Winslow, Arizona, to restore these and other site buildings.

  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.

Sign commemorates Brigham City,
established by Mormon settlers in
1876. Levi Hunt and most of his
family arrived in 1877.

   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.

How Brigham City, Apache Territory, may have appeared.

   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.

Volunteers work tirelessly to clean up the property
where Mormon settlement was located. Many of the
volunteers can trace ancestry back to the settlement
along the Little Cororado River in Arizona.

   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

Building being restored at Brigham City, Arizona.

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.

Wall still standing from the Brigham City settlement.

   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

Original mortar in the wall at Brigham City, Arizona.

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.

Restoration work at Mormon settlement along Little Colorado.

   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.

Volunteers work to restore the United Order settlement.

   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   

Forested area in Green Valley (Payson), Arizona.

   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.

Daniel Webster Jones, leader of the Saints
who first settled the Mesa, Arizona, area. 

   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.

The Salt River high above Mesa, Arizona.

   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.

Cornfield in fertile soil of Mesa, Arizona

   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.

Charles Crismon helped settle
Utahville, which later became
a part 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. 

Settlers found system of canals leading from Salt Rivers,

built by the Hokokam Indians hundreds of years ago.

   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

The Hohokam built the largest irrigation system
in the prehistoric New World. Individual canals
measured up to 45 feet across and 15 feet deep
and used advanced engineering principles. 

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.

Mesa Grande Cultural Park in Mesa preserves a group of

Hohokam dwellings occupied between AD 1100 and 1400. 

   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.

Ancient Hohokam ruins in Mesa Grande, Mesa, Arizona.

   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.

Ascending Rocky Ridge by Michael Bedard. 

   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.

Greater Love (Some Needed Carrying)
by Sandra B. Rast

   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.

With the 181st anniversary (2011) of the publication of the
Book  of Mormon in March came another milestone
— the distribution of its 150 millionth copy.

   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

Tonto Basin in Salt River Valley of Arizona.

   We were confident that if we could find the right place, we could conquer the

Tonto Creek on the south slope of Mogollon Rim.

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

Falls in northern
Tonto Basin, Arizona

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.

Four Apache warriors in old photo.

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.

Tonto Apache

   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

Apache tribal members
celebrate at the Ndee La'ade
(Gathering of the People)
at Fort Apache.

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.

Area of Lee's Ferry on the
Colorado River in Arizona.

   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?

Lee's Ferry was the only way to
cross the Colorado in 260 miles.

   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.

Colorado River has
carved out Glen Canyon.

John D. Lee, founder
of Lee's Ferry, was
executed for his part
in the Mountain
Meadows Massacre.

   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.

Mountain Meadows is roughly 35 miles

southwest of Cedar City, Utah.

   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 LDS Church built this memorial
in 1991 to the tragedy in Mountain
Meadows, which it contiues
to maintain.

The Saints feared a repeat of what happened to them in Missouri and Illinois. Some in the Cedar City area who

What's left of homestead at Lee's
Ferry along the Colorado River. 

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

Marble Canyon is up river from

Lee's Ferry on the Colorado.

Photo: Mark Buchanan

southwest of Cedar City.

   A terrible episode in Utah’s history – and that of the church.

Canyon walls along the Colorado River.

   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

Monroe, also known as Little Green Valley,
lies below the majestic Monroe Mountain.

   It was in Monroe on the 4^th 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.

Richfield Cemetery is just north
of Monroe, Utah.

   My companion of nearly two decades, my helpmate, my sweetheart died on the 12^th of March 1882, at the age of 42. I and the children laid her to rest in Richfield.

Log cabin was built in 1867, long
before Levi and family moved
into Monroe, Utah.

   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

Monroe Peak above Monroe, Utah.

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 Hunt Olds

   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.

South of Monroe toward
Monrovian Park.

   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 Hunt

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

Levi Ray Hunt

Ethel Sophia Utley

   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:

Harrison Joseph Burgess

   “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

The Community of Christ

owns the Kirtland Temple.

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

Hyrum Smith, brother
of Joseph Smith Jr.

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.”

Apostle Parley P. Pratt

   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

Joseph and Hyrum Smith's vision in the Kirtland Temple.

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 

Gabriel Marion Utley lost both
parents before the age of
eight before arriving in Utah.

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.”

Members of Zion's Camp
walked more than 900 miles
to northwest Missouri.

   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.

Harriet Temperance
Utley cared for Gabriel.

   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

Winter Quarters, Nebraska
by C.C.A. Christensen

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.

Lucinda Elvira Hyatt and Levi Alderman Hunt and their
children. Levi Ray Hunt is in top row, third from left.

   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 

Mineral hot springs in Monroe.

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.

Mineral hot springs in Monroe.

   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.]

Samuel Isaac Hunt

   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.

Alice Malinda Hunt Nay

   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.

Rosetta Hunt Harmon
was born in Brigham
City, Arizona.

   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

Samuel Isaac Hunt and
sister Sarah Suzannah
Hunt Chidester.

   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

Huntington Roller Mill, built in 1896, would have been a
common site for Levi Hunt when he lived in Hntington,Utah.

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.

Levi Hunt in later years.

   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.

An example of an
ear trumpet.

   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.

Records say Levi's ear trumpet was
about the size of phonograph record.

   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

Levi Hunt's marker in Huntington Cemetery,
Huntington, Utah. Veteran Black Hawk War.

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

The Resurrection of
our Lord Jesus Christ.

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.”