I thought it would be important to share the story of one of the ships that traveled to America in 1863. Among the millions of family history records preserved of the LDS western migration is an entry for one family among the thousands who sailed for Zion that year.
William Stoker and children: Thomas Alice Janet Alfred Mary A. Sailed on the Amazon.
On 4 June 1863, the Amazon, a packet ship departed London with 895 Latter-day Saint emigrants, the 126 Company. William Edward Stoker, a journeyman saddler born in Crateford, Staffordshire, England, was 36 years old. His wife, Emma Eames Stoker, had died of tuberculosis just five weeks earlier, on 28 April 1863, at their home at 18 Albert Street, St. Mary’s Parish, Reading, Berkshire. Their youngest child, Mary Ann, had been born on 24 February 1863. Emma had lived only two months after her daughter’s birth. William boarded the Amazon as a widower with five children, the youngest not yet four months old.
William Edward Stoker
That infant, Mary Ann Stoker, later raised by an adopted family and known all her life as Lillie, grew up in Utah. She was raised by George and Victorine Musgrave of Plain City, and married Milo Riley Sharp on 11 May 1879 in the Episcopal Church in Plain City, Weber County, Utah. She is my 2nd great grandmother. William Edward Stoker is my 3rd great grandfather.
The Voyage
The Millennial Star, the official publication of the LDS Church’s British Mission, reported the Amazon’s departure as follows:
“The splendid packet ship “Amazon,” Captain H.K. Hevey, sailed from London, England June 4, 1863, with a company of 895 souls of Saints on board, under the presidency of Elder Wm. Bramwell, who acted with Elder Edward L. Sloan and Richard Palmer as counselors.
“On the 3rd the company passed the government emigration officer, who eulogized the order and general appearance of the emigrants. After this President George Q. Cannon, accompanied by other Elders from various parts of the British Mission, held a meeting in which the organization took place the officers of the ship. The cabin passengers and visitors on board listened with marked attention. A brass band from South Wales, the performers being members of the Church on their way to Zion on the “Amazon,” discoursed sweet music on the poop deck before and after the meeting. The Presidency having been appointed and Elder Wm. McLachlin nominated as clerk, President Cannon dedicated the ship.
“It is worth of note that the departure of the ship “Amazon” from London laden with Saints is another instance of the fulfillment, in some years ago, while Elder Eli B. Kelsey was laboring in London, he predicted in a public meeting in that city that the ships should yet leave that port filled with Saints emigrating to Zion. It was with no intention of bringing about the fulfillment of the prophecy that we chartered the “Amazon,” for we were entirely ignorant of the utterance of such a prediction until we heard it stated at a meeting of the Saints held on Sunday the first instructions three days before she sailed. Indeed the chartering of this vessel was not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We could not obtain a vessel in the port of Liverpool suitable to our purpose — vessels of this description being almost unprecedentedly scarce this spring, and we were therefore compelled to go to London. Thus were the circumstances over ruled to bring to pass the word of a servant of God.
“Of the Elders who sailed on the “Amazon” four were Utah Elders, namely Wm. Bramwell, Richard Palmer, Edward P. Edwards and A.W. Van Der Moulde. Among the Elders who emigrated to Zion as passengers were Edward L. Sloan, Thomas Crawley, John Berrett and Joseph Morgan.
“Before sailing from Liverpool the company was fully organized. The emigrants were divided into fifteen wards under the supervision of the following officers: 1— John Wells; 2— James Poulton; 3— Joseph Wilson; 4— A. Cox; 5— J. Kimber; 6— S. Liddiard; 7— S. Evans; 8— D. Williams; 9— A. Sutherland; 10— W. Fowler; 11— W. Van Der Moulde; 12— J.W. Morgan; 13— J. Berrett; 15— E.T. Edwards. E. Larkin was appointed Sergeant of the Guard and George Braithwaite, lamp lighter and trimmer.
The Ship and Its Passengers
George Q. Cannon, who dedicated the Amazon before departure, was at the time president of the British Mission. He would later serve as a counselor in the First Presidency under four Church presidents, one of the most influential figures in nineteenth-century Latter-day Saint history. His presence at the ship’s dedication was a mark of the importance the Church placed on the emigration program.
The Amazon carried some remarkable passengers. George Sutherland, later an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, appointed by President Warren G. Harding in 1922, was among the emigrants. George William Larkin also traveled with the company; after arriving in Utah he was appointed by Brigham Young to oversee the Ogden cemetery, and in 1885 he began the family tradition that grew into Larkin Mortuary. Also aboard was Elijah Larkin, whose journal notes that on 16 and 20 June, Thomas Stoker, William’s eldest son, then thirteen years old, was administered to because of a sickness since leaving Liverpool.
The Amazon’s departure also caught the attention of Charles Dickens, who visited the ship before it sailed and wrote of the Mormon emigrants in his essay collection The Uncommercial Traveller. Dickens had expected to find the kind of misfit and desperate crowds he associated with emigrant ships, instead he found something that surprised him entirely. He described the Mormon emigrants not as misfits and scoundrels but as the “pick and flower” of England, orderly, healthy, purposeful people. William Stoker and his five children, traveling in grief just weeks after Emma’s death, were among those Dickens observed.
Stoker Sisters — l-r: Mary Ann Stoker Sharp, Jeanette Stoker Rogers, Henrietta Stoker Weston. Three of the five children who sailed on the Amazon.
The Journey West
The Amazon landed at Castle Gardens, New York, on 18 July 1863. From there the company traveled by rail to Albany, then through Detroit to Florence, Nebraska — the traditional jumping-off point for the overland journey to Utah. From Florence they traveled by wagon the remaining distance across the plains.
The company arrived in Salt Lake City on 3 and 4 October 1863 — just in time for General Conference. Several members of the company recorded that Brigham Young came out to greet them and offer counsel. The journey from London had taken exactly four months.
William moved almost immediately to Ogden, Weber County, Utah, where he set up his leather and saddlery trade. He remarried Eliza Sinfield in Ogden on 18 May 1864. The five children from his first marriage were distributed among other Plain City families. Mary Ann with George and Victorine Musgrave, who called her Lillian/Lillie and raised her as their own. It is through the Musgraves that she came to know the Sharp family, and through that connection to Plain City’s Episcopal congregation that she met Milo Riley Sharp.
Mary Ann Stoker Sharp
William, Mary Ann, and their overland journey through Devil’s Gate and Independence Rock are part of the larger story I told in Casper Wyoming Temple Open House — where I counted ten of my own ancestors who crossed the Mormon Trail through that same ground. William Edward Stoker and infant Mary Ann were among them.
For the full story of the Stoker family — William and Emma, the five children, and what became of each of them — see Stoker-Eames Wedding. For Lilly’s life in Plain City and her marriage to Milo Riley Sharp, see Sharp-Stoker Wedding. For Emma’s brother Thomas and the Eames family in Alperton, Middlesex, see T. Eames Grocery and Provision Store.
James and Sarah Goodlad Bailey are pleased to announce the marriage of their daughter Mary Ann Bailey to William Sharp, son of Thomas and Elizabeth Cartwright Sharp. William and Mary Ann were married at Loup Fork, Howard, Nebraska on 10 July 1853. (Loup Fork appears to have been a crossing of the Loup River, somewhere between Fullerton and Palmer Nebraska, in order to go turn south to rejoin trail along the Platte River.)
William is mason and farmer. They will make their home wherever they are called to settle once they arrive in the Utah Territory.
Due to the circumstances of this family, it is pretty unlikely an announcement would have ever been written. Everything about these families was in motion. Family members on both sides were strewn all over two continents and their lives were still recovering from a number of personal blows. While this was probably a high point, they knew there was a long road still ahead of them. All four of their parents had passed before their marriage.
William was born the third of eight children born to Thomas and Elizabeth Cartwright Sharp 10 December 1826 in Misson, Nottinghamshire, England. His baptism is recorded on 7 January 1827 at Misson Anglican church, confirmed by the Bishop’s Transcripts at Nottinghamshire Archives. He spent his life as a mason but kept a farm. We do not know where or how he learned how to be a mason. His father, Thomas, is listed as “Ag Lab”, which is probably an agricultural laborer on the 1841 English Census. Thomas died in 1841 after the census was taken.
In 1848, the LDS missionaries came to visit in Misson. William was the first in his family, that we know, to join the church on 20 June 1848. His mother followed 11 August 1849 and his sister Isabella 16 September 1849. The records available do not show that William’s siblings, Elizabeth and James joined the church, but they came with the family to the United States on their way to Zion. The family story tells the family was friendly and open towards the missionaries. One of the missionaries was a George Emery (the only potential George Emery I could find appears to have lived 1792 – 1867).
Elizabeth Sharp was determined to emigrate with her family to Utah. Her family attempted to discourage her by warning her about the dangers of the American Indians. Nevertheless, she departed with William, Isabella, Elizabeth, and James. The other four children had died as infants before leaving England. The family purchased tickets at 25 pounds sterling in Liverpool. The family set sail on the “James Pennell” on 2 October 1850 commanded by Captain James Fullerton. The LDS leaders on board were Christopher Layton (1821–1898) and William Lathrop Cutler (1821–1851) leading the company all the way to Zion. Right before hitting the waters of the Mississippi the ship encountered a storm where the masts were broken and the ship drifted for a couple of days. Luckily, a pilot boat found them and another ship (that left two weeks later from Liverpool) tugged them to New Orleans, Louisiana. The ship arrived at dock on 22 November 1850. The family struggled with sea sickness and chills and fevers that beset them in New Orleans and St. Louis. From there the entire group boarded the “Pontiac” and continued to St. Louis, Missouri where they found work and spent the winter. Despite having crossed the Atlantic, Elizabeth, the mother of the family, died 17 February 1851 in St. Louis and was buried in Bellefontaine Cemetery.
Among the fellow passengers on the James Pennell were the Singleton family of Misson. The Singletons were neighbors in Nottinghamshire. William Singleton (1793–1850) sailed with his children, including Thomas Singleton (1825–1885) and Charles Singleton (1838–1907). Tragically, William Singleton died in St. Louis on 16 December 1850, just three weeks after the ship docked. His son Thomas pressed on, becoming one of Plain City’s 1859 founding pioneers, where he worked as a carpenter and band leader alongside William Sharp. Thomas Singleton is listed among those excommunicated alongside William Sharp on 31 January 1879. Generations later, Thomas’s grandson Bert Elmer Singleton (1918–1995), born and raised in Plain City, became one of Utah’s most celebrated baseball players, pitching in the major leagues over 28 seasons. The Sharps and Singletons, neighbors in Misson, remained neighbors in Plain City across the generations.
Elizabeth’s death left the four siblings to fend for themselves. William and Isabella both still desired to move on with the Saints to Utah. William became fast friends with Mary Ann Bailey Padley, a widow who had lost her husband before leaving England. They were such good friends that Anne Elizabeth Padley (she went by Sharp her whole life though) was born 31 October 1852. Isabella married Joseph Carlisle, who had arrived two years earlier, 18 May 1853, in St. Louis. That same day the Moses Clawson Company, “St. Louis Company,” departed from St. Louis. Joseph and Isabella Carlisle, along with William Sharp and Mary Padley (with her son Lorenzo Padley and new infant Anne), left with the company. Joseph and William were well respected because they were apparently very good athletes and challenged anyone to a wrestling match.
The Sharps and Carlisles drove a wagon for William Jennings, a Salt Lake City merchant and freighter. The outfitting was done in Keokuk, Iowa. The company for traveling over the plains was formally organized in Kanesville, Iowa. On the trail, William and Mary Ann Padley were married 10 July 1853 in Loup Fork, Nebraska. The company arrived in Salt Lake City between the 15th and 20th of September the same year.
Mary Ann was born the first of seven children born to James and Sarah Goodlad Bailey on 28 November 1828 in Mattersey, Nottinghamshire, England. Her baptism is recorded on 8 December 1828 at Mattersey Anglican church, confirmed by the Bishop’s Transcripts at Nottinghamshire Archives. James was a blacksmith. The Bailey family were practicing members of the Church of England. Mary Ann attended school and obtained training in millinery and sewing. Sarah died in 1843 and James remarried to a lady named Harriet. We don’t have a death date for James at this time.
Shortly before her 18th birthday, Mary Ann met missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and converted. She was baptized 20 October 1846. Her father and Harriet dismissed her from the home for becoming a Mormon. She soon met William Padley, another LDS member and a tailor who lived on Allen Street in Sheffield, and married him on 4 February 1847 at the Church of St Peter and St Paul (now a cathedral) in Sheffield.
Padley – Bailey marriage record
William Padley was born 22 September 1826 in Morton, Lincolnshire, just across the River Trent from Mattersey, and they may well have known each other from their home area before both moved to Sheffield. They had a son, Lorenzo Joseph Padley, born in December 1847. William became ill when Lorenzo was born and died 22 February 1850 in Morton, Lincolnshire. Left alone with a new son, Mary Ann went back to her parents, who would have nothing to do with her unless she gave up her religion. She would not, and instead decided to join the Saints in Utah.
Mary Ann and Lorenzo sailed from Liverpool on 8 January 1851 on the “Ellen” with James Willard Cummings (1819–1883) as the leader of the company. The ship had a difficult passage with measles and what others thought was whooping cough. She arrived in New Orleans 14 March 1851. On the 19th they left for St. Louis on the “Alleck Scott” and arrived on the 26th. Mary Ann and Lorenzo stayed in St. Louis while the company moved on, and it was there that she met William Sharp and his family.
William and Mary Ann grew close during their time in St. Louis. A daughter, Anne Elizabeth, was born to them on 31 October 1852. Both were still determined to join the Saints in Utah. They arranged to drive a freight wagon west for William Jennings, a Salt Lake City merchant and freighter, as the means of joining the Moses Clawson Company. On the trail, William and Mary Ann were married on 10 July 1853 at the crossing of Loup Fork in present-day Howard County, Nebraska. The company arrived in Salt Lake City between the 15th and 20th of September that year.
They settled in Lehi, Utah, Utah for a couple of years but had a number of issues with range for the cattle and some other minor squabbles. Water was also not found to be very dependable in the Lehi area. During this time, William and Mary Ann gave birth to two children, William and Isabella in 1854 and 1856, but both died as infants. Milo Riley was born in Lehi 23 July 1857. I have written of Milo and his family previously at this link: Sharp-Stoker Wedding.
William learned of land north near Ogden, Weber, Utah that was going to be opened up from some of the Saints passing through Lehi (abandoning Salt Lake City before the arrival of Johnson’s Army). These Lehi Saints were told of ample land and good water that was available west of Ogden. A scouting expedition went to search out the area in the fall of 1858 and visited with Lorin Farr (1820–1909) who told them of the available plain to the west.
The Sharp family left with other Lehi Saints on 10 March 1859 to travel to this new area. The group of about 100 arrived 17 March 1859 at what is present day Plain City, Weber, Utah. The company arrived at about 5 PM during the middle of a snowstorm. The company lined up the wagons to protect them from the wind and dug a hole in the ground for the campfire. Reports indicate that snow was deep and conditions uncomfortable. Plain City apparently lived up to its name with sagebrush that rose over 4 feet tall from the high water table beneath the soil.
William Sharp put his carpentry and masonry skills to work making adobe brick and helping build the first homes in Plain City. William and Mary Ann lived in one of these homes. William served in the Plain City band, on the Plain City Z.C.M.I. board, acting as a builder, and also serving as a city leader. William and Mary Ann’s daughter, Evelyn, was the first girl born in Plain City in October 1859. Victorine Mary was born 8 April 1862 and was their last child. Mary Ann kept busy sewing and making suits, coats, and other jobs. Each of her daughters learned to become dressmakers.
William and Mary Ann each received their initiatory and endowment on 17 August 1861 at the Endowment House. On the same day, Mary Ann was sealed by proxy to her deceased first husband William Padley. As a woman already sealed to another man, she could not be sealed to William Sharp during their marriage, as the church did not permit women to be sealed to more than one husband at that time. The Sharp children’s sealing situation caused considerable family angst as all children born to Mary Ann after the 1861 sealing were born in the covenant to William Padley rather than William Sharp.
Lorenzo Joseph Padley died 24 July 1866 at Plain City, aged 18 years, 7 months and 11 days, putting his birth approximately 13 December 1847 in Mattersey, Nottinghamshire, England. He had grown up to become a valued member of the Plain City Music and Dramatic Association, which mourned him as a true friend and gifted musician. His remains were followed to their last resting place by a very large number of citizens, preceded by the brass band of the Association. The notice requested the Millennial Star in England to copy — a reminder that Mary Ann’s roots, and Lorenzo’s birthplace, lay in Nottinghamshire. The photo we have of him is pretty scratched, but here is a cleaned up photo, but it is not perfect. It is hard to tell what is his nose and what was deformities in the photo.
Anne Elizabeth married Daniel Claiborne Thomas Jr. on 29 January 1872 in Salt Lake City at the Endowment House, where they also received their initiatory, endowment, and sealing the same day. Daniel had been born 14 July 1850 on the Platte River in Nebraska on the trail to Utah. His father, Daniel Claiborne Thomas Sr., had been converted to the church by his brother Preston while on a mission to the Southern States, and the family had come to Utah in 1850, settling in Sulphur Springs (later named Lehi) among the earliest settlers there, before joining the Plain City founding group in March 1859. They settled in Plain City and had six children: Claiborne William (1872), Francis Milo (1875), LeRoy Bertrand (1878), Estella Inez (1884), Delbert (1888), and Elizabeth La Vieve (1889). Anne Elizabeth died 29 July 1891 in Plain City at thirty-eight, leaving six children ranging in age from two to nineteen. Daniel outlived her by thirty-eight years, dying in Ogden on 2 September 1929, and was buried beside her in Plain City Cemetery.
After several instances of desertion, Mary Ann moved out of their home on Christmas Eve 1875 and utterly refused to go back to William. William sued for divorce and Franklin Dewey Richards (1821–1899) granted the divorce (in probate court) on 19 May 1876.
At this time, it is possible that Bishop Lewis Warren Shurtleff (1835–1922), branch president 1870–1877, bishop 1877–1883, extended himself beyond what the members felt was right — going so far as to dictate how much everyone should pay in tithing — and some families were very vocal in expressing their discontent. William Sharp began construction on St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in 1877, and many disaffected members found a religious haven in this new faith. The building still stands today, owned by the Lions Club in Plain City. A significant group of members were excommunicated on 31 January 1879, including William Sharp, Mary Ann Sharp (listed separately because of the divorce), William Skeen, Edwin Dix, George Musgrave (father of their future daughter-in-law), Thomas Musgrave, Thomas Singleton, Thomas Davis, George W Harris, Jonathan Moyes, John Moyes, Winfield Spiers, James Wadman, Robert Davis, John Davis, and Thomas Robson. These lists also have “and wife” as well as “and family” which seems to indicate that spouses and families were included. Many of these families returned to the church after time away, some individuals never did. Milo Ross’s 1997 oral history interview offers one family perspective on the causes of the split.
This same year, William remarried to the widow of Charles McGary, Charlotte Elizabeth Earl, about 1879. We do not know exactly when or where.
Milo Riley married Mary Ann Stoker (aka Lillian or Lilly Musgrave) 11 May 1879 in Plain City in the little church William built. He died in 1916 in Plain City. Read about them here.
Evelyn Carlisle married James Henry Taylor 16 January 1881 in Plain City. She died in 1941 in Oregon.
Victorine Mary married Robert Edward Maw on 8 April 1883 in Plain City, her twenty-first birthday. Robert had been born in Plain City on 15 October 1859, the son of Robert Maw, one of Plain City’s founding pioneers who had consecrated his Lehi property in January 1857 and arrived in Plain City on 17 March 1859, the same day as the Sharp family. William Sharp had built the elder Robert Maw’s adobe house in those early Plain City years and had played cornet alongside Abraham Maw in Plain City’s first band. The marriage of Victorine Sharp and Robert Edward Maw united two of Plain City’s founding families. They had seven children: Ruby Ada (1884), Alice (1885), Jessie (1886), Florence Eveline (1888), Grace (1890), Edith Louise (1893), and Edward Clyde (1896). On the morning of 23 April 1897, a snow slide struck the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company’s Garfield Mine in Gibbs Canyon, four miles north of Brigham City. Robert was killed. The Brigham City Bugler reported the disaster that week, noting that he was a married man who left a widow and seven children. Victorine was thirty-four years old. Her youngest child, Edward Clyde, was barely a year old. She did not remarry, living in Plain City and later Ogden until her death on 18 March 1945. She is buried in Plain City Cemetery.
Mary Ann Bailey Sharp
Mary Ann continued to work as a dressmaker until she could not do so any more due to age. She lived with her Granddaughter Elizabeth Taylor from before 1900 and even moved with her to Baker City, Baker, Oregon. Mary Ann moved back to Plain City not long after Beth married.
Evelyn & Victorine Sharp
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Evelyn and Victorine Sharp
William died at 950 Washington Ave in Ogden on 22 December 1900 at 74 years and was buried two days later in the Ogden cemetery. Mary Ann died 30 October 1913 in Plain City at 84 years and was buried there three days later.
Mary Ann Bailey Sharp death certificate
William and Mary Ann both died outside the church.
In December 1933, fifty-four years after the excommunication, three of Isabella Sharp Carlisle’s sons — Joseph Carlisle, James Carlisle, and Harvey Carlisle — wrote to LDS Church President Heber J. Grant requesting proxy reinstatement for their Uncle William and his former wife Mary Ann. Their letter described William as “honest, virtuous and kind” and was addressed care of Mrs. James S. Thompson — Annie Thompson, who would later write the 1957 history of Elizabeth Cartwright Sharp, and who was the daughter of James Carlisle. The letter explicitly identified William as “born 10 Dec. 1826, Misson, Notts., England, and later settled in Plain City, Utah.”
President Grant responded on 16 December 1933, consenting to proxy baptism for both William and Mary Ann. He noted that since they had previously received their endowments on 17 August 1861, those ordinances would need to be restored by proxy as well, and authorized Elder George F. Richards, President of the Salt Lake Temple, to officiate. On 3 February 1934, proxy baptism and confirmation were performed for both William and Mary Ann at the Salt Lake Temple, with William’s sealing to parents following on 2 July 1934. The restoration of William Sharp and his wife to the church, by the hands of his sister Isabella’s sons, closed that chapter.
In September 2020, Amanda and I took our family out to Golden Spike National Historic Park at Promontory Summit, Utah. I have written about that visit previously. What drew us there, in part, was the knowledge that Amanda’s 3rd great-grandfather Joseph Wayment had been present on 10 May 1869 when the last spike was driven completing the transcontinental railroad — and that Andrew J. Russell’s famous photograph had captured him standing in the crowd. I promised in that post to tell more of Joseph and Ann Reed Wayment’s story another time. This is that time.
Hiram, Amanda, Aliza, and Paul Ross, Bryan Hemsley, Lillian and James Ross, and Jill Hemsley at Golden Spike National Historic Park, 7 September 2020.East and West Shaking Hands at the Laying of the Last Rail, Promontory Summit, Utah, 10 May 1869. Photograph by Andrew J. Russell. Joseph Wayment stands in the crowd on the left side of the image. Find the man standing below the Union Pacific’s No. 119 locomotive light with his jacket open and white shirt, then find the man whose head is in front of that man’s right thigh, behind the fellow with the partially raised hat. That is Joseph Wayment, age 25.
Andrew J. Russell, the official photographer of the Union Pacific Railroad who took this photograph, wrote of that moment: “The continental iron band now permanently unites the distant portions of the Republic, and opens up to Commerce, Navigation, and Enterprise the vast unpeopled plains and lofty mountain ranges that now divide the East from the West. Standing amid ‘The Antres vast and Desert wild,’ surrounded with the representative men of the nation, an epoch in the march of civilization was recorded, and a new era in human progress was ushered in.”
Joseph Wayment was one of the men in that crowd — a twenty-five-year-old English convert who had crossed the Atlantic seasick on the Amazon, walked the plains behind an ox team, survived Montana winters so cold the dishwater froze before it hit the snow, and was now building a life in a patch of Utah desert he would spend the next six decades transforming into a home, a farm, and a community. Would he have fathomed that 151 years later his great-great-great-granddaughter, and her children, would stand at that same spot.
Origins in Whaddon
Joseph Wayment, circa 1874.
I used AI to colorize and sharpen the images. If you click on them, you should be able to see the original black and white. AI took a bit of liberty on the photos regarding clothes.
Ann Reed, circa 1874.
Joseph Wayment was born 7 February 1844 in Whaddon, Cambridgeshire, England, the second son of William and Martha Brown Wayment. His older brother Aaron had lived only one day, so as far as the family was concerned, Joseph was the eldest. I have written previously about his parents, William and Martha Wayment.
Ann Reed was born 1 January 1852 in the same small village — the fifth child and second daughter of James and Sarah East Reed. Whaddon was a tight community, a small village in the district of Royston, County of Cambridge, gathered around the ancient stone church of St. Mary the Virgin. Whaddon appears to have been somewhere around 400-500 people. The Wayments and the Reeds were neighbors in every sense of the word. Their children attended the same meetings, worked the same fields, and children would be baptized in the same river/brook.
Ann’s early life was marked by tragedy. When she was two years old, she slipped into a deep ditch near their home. No one else was nearby. Her mother, Sarah East Reed, then heavy with child, jumped in after her. Ann was saved, but the ordeal brought on labor. The baby girl was born 13 July 1854 and died the same day. Three days later, Sarah also died from complications, and mother and infant were buried together in the same casket. Ann’s father James Reed did his best to keep the family together, but he too died on 2 February 1858, leaving five orphans — the oldest fourteen, Ann just five years old.
Their mother’s sister, Hannah East, came to Whaddon to keep house for the children. Hannah was herself from Whaddon — born there on 24 August 1828, the sister of Sarah East Reed and of George East Sr., who would later become a familiar figure in Warren, Utah. Hannah was baptized LDS 3 June 1848. She stayed with the Reed orphans for several years before emigrating to Zion, where she eventually settled in Lehi, Utah, married Thomas Karren in 1865, and lived until 2 May 1907. It is a quiet thread of continuity that Hannah — who held Ann’s orphaned family together in Whaddon — ended her days in the same territory where Ann built her life, just a day’s journey away in Lehi.
After Hannah left England, the children were kept by the Parish until they could earn their own living. Ann went out to service at age eleven. She endured difficult conditions in several positions before finally working David and Mary Hide Grieg (the histories state it was Grigg), where she stayed nearly five years and carefully saved her wages toward passage to America. The Grieg family lived in nearby Melbourn, a family that was not LDS.
The Gospel Comes to Whaddon
I wrote how the William and Martha Wayment home had become a gathering place for LDS missionaries since William’s baptism in March 1850, how despite community hostility, meetings were held in different houses and baptisms conducted at night to avoid mobs. The gospel took hold in Whaddon. On the night of 7 May 1860, Joseph Wayment, age sixteen, was baptized in Whaddon Brook along with his brother Samuel and sister Emily. Ann Reed, age eight, was baptized and confirmed the same night.
They shared the same baptismal waters and would eventually share a life.
Joseph worked in the peat bogs with his father from his early teens, fossil digging to earn enough for his passage to Zion. He had one more memorable appearance in Whaddon before he left: shortly before his departure, he sang a solo at a church meeting that deeply impressed those present. His voice was described as a clear and beautiful bass. Ann Reed, then twelve years old, was in that congregation. Decades later she would tell her grandchildren with deep feeling how thrilled she had been sitting in that meeting listening to Joseph sing.
The Voyage of the Amazon, 1863
On 1 June 1863, Joseph left Whaddon for Liverpool. Three days later, on 4 June, he booked passage on the sailing vessel Amazon — listed on the manifest as “Joseph Waymound,” age 19 — and sailed from Liverpool with 881 fellow Saints bound for Zion. As I wrote in my Stoker family post, the Amazon was a famous voyage. It was this crossing that Charles Dickens observed and wrote about, describing the Mormon emigrants not as misfits and scoundrels but as the “pick and flower” of England. Future U.S. Supreme Court Justice George Sutherland was also aboard (whose family was LDS). George Q. Cannon dedicated the ship. My own Stoker ancestors were on this same vessel — an extraordinary coincidence that ties our two family lines together. Since Warren and Plain City were small communities, they likely knew each other.
Joseph was seasick nearly the entire six-week crossing. The Amazon landed in New York around the middle of July 1863. He traveled by train to a point on the Missouri River, then by boat up to Florence, Nebraska. From there he walked and drove an ox team across the plains in Captain Dan McCarty’s company — a new experience for him, as he later told his grandsons, having learned to handle horses in England but never oxen. He arrived in Salt Lake City on 3 October 1863, four months and two days after leaving his father’s home.
The very next day the October General Conference of the Church began, held in the Bowery. Joseph stood near the speakers’ platform. Brigham Young was one of the speakers, and Joseph later said it was one of the most inspiring sermons he ever heard — that Brigham Young seemed to be surrounded by a bright light. Part of that sermon Joseph remembered all his life.
The Freighting Years, 1864–1866
After a winter in Lehi, Joseph went to work in the spring of 1864 for a freighting company, probably the Toponce Freighting Company, hauling goods to Montana. He stayed with the outfit until the fall of 1866. Those were hard and consequential years.
The winter of 1864 was brutal. The freighters were snowbound on a Montana river for several weeks. Joseph served as camp cook. He later told his family that when he threw out the dishwater, it froze to ice before it hit the snow. Some of the cattle froze to death. One day the lot fell to Joseph to fetch wood. His hands were tender from cooking and dishwashing, but he went out and cut an armful. As he was picking up the last piece of wood, he felt his whole body beginning to freeze. He stumbled back toward the cabin, but before he reached it his whole body had gone numb. The men rubbed him with coal oil and did everything they could to revive him. One of them said, “Joe Wayment gets no more wood this winter — I’ll get it for him.”
During the freighting years two confrontations became family legend. In the first, a stranger from another company approached the camp and asked if there were any Mormons present. He was directed to Joseph. The man told him he had helped mob the Saints in Missouri and Illinois, then pulled open his shirt to his chest and said, “Now shoot me.” He had lived such a miserable life since helping the mob, he said, that he wanted a Mormon to shoot him. Joseph replied: “No Mormon will ever stain his hands with your blood.”
In the second, the freighters encountered soldiers who had been in Johnston’s Army making their way north into Washington. Learning that some of the freighters were from Utah, they asked to hear the song that had been made up about Johnston’s Army coming to Utah. Joseph was the best singer in camp. He refused at first, knowing it would anger them. When they promised not to get angry, he relented and sang. One soldier became so furious he drew his pistol and threatened to kill the singer. The captain of the soldiers, quick as a flash, drew his own pistol on the angry man and said he would kill him if he harmed the singer. The other soldiers took the man away.
A third incident, at a freighters’ stop near Oxford, Idaho, demonstrated that Joseph was a man of both faith and action. He and his longtime friend and fellow teamster William Butler had pulled in for the night after a long drive. Other freighters already there greeted them with jeers — “There’s those Mormons” — and tried to force them to move on. Joseph and Butler had weary teams and held their ground. When words grew heated, Joseph walked briskly to his wagon, took the green willow switch he used to urge his team, walked thirty paces to some soft ground, and with one swing left it standing upright. Then he walked back, drew his pistol, turned, and split the willow with one shot. The heckling stopped immediately.
In the fall of 1866 Joseph had a strong feeling come over him that he should return to Utah. The company he was working with was a rough and irreligious crowd. He found a secluded spot in the timber, knelt, and asked the Lord for guidance. The next morning his mind was made up. He saddled his horse, gathered his belongings — three buffalo robes and his working clothes — and started for Utah.
Settling Salt Creek
He came first to Layton or Kaysville, then went to Call’s Fort near present Honeyville where he worked for a man named Barnard and helped build the first schoolhouse there. He bought a piece of land at Call’s Fort but eventually sold it. In 1872 he moved to what was then called Salt Creek, southwest of Plain City, and bought the land he would own until his death — purchasing it from H. H. Wadman, making him the second family to settle on Salt Creek. He kept “Bachelor’s Hall” there for about two years. His brother John B. Wayment, who arrived from England in July 1873, lived with him for part of that time.
The home of Bishop William Thomas Wayment and his wife Maud at 662 N. 5900 W. in Warren. Joseph Wayment appears at far right with a horse.
About 1872, Joseph began writing letters to a young woman of his boyhood acquaintance back in Whaddon — Ann Reed. She had grown up, gone out to service, endured difficult years, and was now working for the Greig family, carefully saving her wages. She accepted his invitation to come to Utah and be his wife.
Ann Comes to America, 1874
Ann left her place of work on 2 June 1874 and sailed from Liverpool on 24 June 1874 aboard the steamship Idaho. The Idaho carried 903 passengers on that voyage, arriving in New York on 6 July 1874. Ann traveled overland by rail and arrived in Ogden about the middle of July.
Joseph met her in Ogden — likely taking her to his brother Samuel’s home. On the way they crossed a stream of clear running water. Joseph stopped the horses to let them drink, cupped his hat, dipped it in, and offered Ann the first drink. She couldn’t bring herself to drink water out of a hat from a river like that. Joseph enjoyed the cool drink regardless.
On 7 August 1874, Joseph Wayment and Ann Reed were married by Louis Warren Shurtliff at Joseph’s home in Salt Creek — ending, as Alma Hansen later wrote, the era of “Bachelor’s Hall.” On 29 June 1876, Joseph and Ann traveled to the Endowment House in Salt Lake City, where they were endowed and sealed to each other for time and all eternity. Joseph had been ordained an Elder by Alonzo Knight ten days earlier, on 19 June 1876, in preparation for that ordinance.
The First Years in Salt Creek
The Joseph and Ann Reed Wayment home in Warren, photographed June 1928. Joseph is likely the seated figure visible on the front porch.
Their first child, Sarah, was born 29 October 1875 — one of the first white children born in the Salt Creek area. In the spring of 1876 the Weber River overflowed its banks and covered much of the country where Warren now stands. The first time it came up, it stayed two weeks. The crops survived. But the river flooded again, higher than before, and stayed six weeks. The crops were completely destroyed. Joseph’s house was just high enough to keep the water from running under it — but it came right to the doorstep. He kept a rowboat in which he and Ann traveled to the sandhill in Plain City to do business. His horses broke loose just before the flood and were later found on meadows west of Brigham City. The other cattle and horses in the area lived on the high knolls until the water subsided.
Joseph planted the first fruit and shade trees in the Warren area. He watered them by hand from a well he dug himself, using a long pole with a hook and a bucket because he didn’t have a rope. Later he had a windmill built over the well and irrigated some of his crops with it. About 1880 the residents of Salt Creek organized together and built a ditch up to Four-Mile in the southern part of Plain City to run water to their crops. Part of that original ditch can still be seen near the north side of the bench in Warren.
In March 1881 Joseph was appointed secretary and assistant superintendent of the Salt Creek Sunday School, offices he held for many years. In 1883 he was chairman of the board of trustees for the first schoolhouse built in Warren — a one-room brick building on the bench. His sister Martha Wayment, now Mrs. David East, was the first teacher.
About 1877 Joseph was appointed the first road supervisor in the Warren district, a position he held for ten years. The road supervisor received no pay for his services other than to apply his labor toward his poll taxes, as did all the other men. About the first work done was to fill up some of the creek crossings. He also hauled salt from the creek banks west of Plain City up to the Hot Springs — a full day’s work per load for which he received fifty cents. The salt was used in the smelting of silver ore in Montana.
Six more children followed Sarah: Martha Ann (2 June 1877), Leonard Joseph (12 September 1878), Mary Jane (8 May 1880), Walter Hyrum (14 November 1881), Hannah Alberta (23 August 1883), and Amelia Brown (29 July 1890).
Back row, left to right: Sarah Wayment, Martha Ann Wayment, Leonard Joseph Wayment, Mary Jane Wayment. Middle row: Hannah Alberta Wayment, Joseph Wayment, Ann Reed Wayment holding Amelia Brown Wayment, Martha Brown Wayment (Joseph’s mother). Seated in front: Walter Hyrum Wayment. Photograph circa 1890–1891.
The family portrait above, taken around 1890–1891 when Amelia was an infant, captures all seven children in a single frame. Four generations are present — including Joseph’s mother Martha Brown Wayment at far right, who had herself made the journey from Whaddon in 1878. I wrote about her in the William and Martha Wayment post.
The Flood of 1884 and Ann’s Heroism
In the spring of 1884 the Weber River flooded again — not as severe as 1876, but severe enough to kill all the crops, many fruit trees, and berry bushes. Joseph moved his family into his brother John’s house on the brow of the hill north of the Arthur Marriott home — a one-room house, not large enough for all the family to sleep in. Some of the children slept in a wagon under the shed.
A day or two after they moved, a heavy rain set in. The children’s bedding became soaked. In trying to provide for his family, Joseph was exposed to the rain, cold, and mosquitoes, and he took down with malaria fever. The house was too small for any comfort, and some of the men of the locality moved the family back into their own house — even though it was surrounded by water.
For six weeks Joseph lay near death. Many did not expect him to recover. During this time Ann would walk — and sometimes wade, in water up to her knees — a quarter to half a mile west on the bench to where their cow was pastured. She milked the cow and carried the milk back to feed her husband. For a while he was so weak he could not feed himself, and Ann would have to feed him by hand. He sent for elders from Plain City to administer to him. While they were visiting, he asked to be propped up in bed and talked with them at length. From that time he continued to improve, though he was not entirely well for several years. That fall he was well enough to work on the threshing machine.
Of all the incidents in the long life of Joseph and Ann Wayment, this one — Ann wading flood water to milk the cow and hand-feed her dying husband — speaks most directly to the character of their partnership. The memorial card at their graves in West Warren says it plainly: “Ann Reed Wayment gave loyal and loving support to her husband. No problem arose that they did not find a place of adjustment and agreement.”
Firsts in Warren
The 1902 Portrait, Genealogical and Biographical Record of the State of Utah described Joseph as “one of nature’s noblemen” and enumerated his contributions to the community. He planted the first fruit and shade trees. He was the first road supervisor, serving ten years. When the first schoolhouse was built he served as school board chairman, assessor, and collector. He was one of the first stockholders and directors of the Slaterville Creamery. He raised one hundred tons of sugar beets annually for the Ogden sugar factory.
By 1888 Joseph had shifted his main occupation from general farming to dairying. He kept as many as fourteen milk cows at once. His children did much of the work — milking the cows, putting the milk in cans under cool water until the cream gathered to the top, then skimming and churning it to butter. They sold as many as 2,000 pounds of their own butter in a single year. Later the milk went to the Slaterville creamery, of which Joseph was a founding director.
Joseph’s brother Samuel Wayment was also a builder of the Plain City and Warren community. According to the Plain City history preserved by the Daughters of Utah Pioneers and now available at plaincityutah.gov, Samuel drilled an artesian well 249 feet deep that produced additional water for the early settlers, and he also oversaw the iron work and the building of the Chief Canning Factory in Plain City. Another Wayment, Owen, served as a representative of the Warren Irrigation Company in the 1961 negotiations to cement the main irrigation canal. The Wayment family’s contributions to the water and agriculture infrastructure of the Plain City and Warren area extended beyond Joseph’s own record.
In November 1910 Joseph was elected Justice of the Peace of the Warren Precinct — a fitting civic capstone for the man who had been among the first to settle Salt Creek and had spent decades building its institutions.
In 1896 Salt Creek was officially named Warren, after Lewis Warren Shurtliff, the stake president who organized the new ward — the same Louis Warren Shurtliff who had married Joseph and Ann in 1874.
Ann in Warren
Ann Reed Wayment.
Ann Reed Wayment at her home in Warren.
Ann Reed Wayment was a woman of quiet and enduring strength. Her daughter Mary Jane wrote of her: “She was an energetic worker in Relief Society, holding and filling many offices in it. She was very useful among the sick, exercising great faith as her best healing art. She was a kind, loving, very thoughtful mother to her family. She lived a useful life, impressing her children and those who mingled with her what a wonderful mother and woman she really was.”
The Warren Ward Relief Society was organized on 30 November 1902. Ann was sustained as its Treasurer, her sister-in-law Castina Wayment, wife of Joseph’s brother Samuel, served as First Counselor. Ann was not present at the organization meeting but was set apart as Treasurer on 5 February 1903. At the first Relief Society meeting held at the home of President Jane Stewart on 18 December 1902, Ann bore her testimony and gave the benediction. She served as Secretary and Treasurer of the Warren Relief Society from 1902 to 1916.
Alma Hansen, who knew both his grandparents personally and compiled their biography from firsthand family accounts, described Ann in a single memorable sentence: “She was short of stature but stood ten feet tall in her loving service.”
In February 1893, Joseph and Ann made an extended trip to the Logan Temple — a journey that had been years in the making. In careful sequence over eight days, they completed ordinance work for ancestors in their lineage and sealed their families together for eternity.
On 16 February 1893, Joseph was sealed to his parents, William and Martha Brown Wayment, in the Logan Utah Temple.
On 21 February, proxy baptism and confirmation were performed for James Reed and Sarah East Reed, Ann’s parents, in the Logan Temple.
On 22 February, the proxy endowment was performed for Sarah East Reed in the Logan Temple. Almost certainly the same was done for James Reed that day, though that record was later lost and the ordinance was repeated at the Manti Temple in 1938.
On 23 February 1893, Ann was sealed to her parents, James and Sarah East Reed, in the Logan Temple.
For a woman who had grown up an orphan at age five — whose mother died saving her life in 1854 and whose father died in 1858 — this February week in the Logan Temple completed a covenant that no earthly circumstance had been able to make. The parents she had barely known were now bound to her forever.
A Mission at Fifty-Six
Joseph Wayment’s handwritten mission acceptance letter to Brother George Reynolds, Warren, 15 January 1900. “It would be agreeable my feelings, and consistent with my circumstances, to take a mission to preach the gospel, if I am considered worthy. I can be ready within 30 days, or less. I remain your Brother, Joseph Wayment.”
On Christmas Day 1899, Joseph was asked to fill a mission for the Church. He was fifty-five years old, a grandfather, and still carrying the kidney effects of a severe malaria attack from fifteen years earlier. His response, written in his own hand on 15 January 1900 to Brother George Reynolds of the First Council of the Seventies, occupies four plain lines: it would be agreeable to his feelings and consistent with his circumstances; he could be ready within thirty days, or less. He remained the reader’s Brother, Joseph Wayment.
On 19 January 1900 he received his formal call from President Lorenzo Snow to labor in the Southwestern States. He was set apart on 14 February 1900 by Apostle George Teasdale in the Temple Annex in Salt Lake City — the same day his Seventy’s License was formally issued, signed by Seymour B. Young, President of the First Seven Presidents of the Seventies.
Joseph Wayment’s Seventy’s License Certificate, issued 14 February 1900, certifying his ordination as a Seventy by Jacob Gates on 7 November 1889. Signed by Seymour B. Young.
His Missionary Certificate bore the signatures of the entire First Presidency: President Lorenzo Snow, First Counselor George Q. Cannon, and Second Counselor Joseph F. Smith. That Joseph’s mission call passed through the hands of George Reynolds, historically notable as the defendant in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Reynolds v. United States (1879), places it in the living history of the Church.
He left the next day for Kansas, laboring first in Elk County under Elder H. E. Harrison, then for nearly four months in Greenwood County, until he was taken very sick with malaria again. In his own words: “I left my field of labor on the 4th of July for St. John and arrived home on the 7th, three days later. I was sick for three or four months.” The malaria affected his kidneys, an effect he felt until his death.
While Joseph was away on his mission and then ill at home, Ann kept the farm, the animals, and the household organized. When he returned, she nursed him back to health.
The Children
Of their seven children, three preceded them in death. Martha Ann, their firstborn daughter, married Louis Alma Hansen on 23 November 1898. She died on 19 October 1908 at age 31 of acute nephritis, leaving four children and her husband. Her loss was a grief Joseph and Ann carried quietly for the rest of their lives. Leonard Joseph married Sarah Naomi Hodson in 1902, was called to the British Mission in November 1915, labored in Belfast, Ireland, took sick, and arrived home 19 July 1916. He passed away the next morning, leaving a wife and three children.
The four who outlived their parents were Sarah (married Joseph Emelius Hansen), Mary Jane (married Samuel Bagley Willis, later Orson Francis Waldram), Walter Hyrum (married Iva Dell Wade), Hannah Alberta (married Thomas LeRoy White), and Amelia Brown (married George James Lythgoe).
The 70th Birthday, 1914
Family portrait honoring Joseph Wayment’s 70th birthday, 7 February 1914, Warren, Weber, Utah. Third row center: Ann Reed Wayment and Joseph Wayment, flanked by siblings John Brown Wayment and William Thomas Wayment and sister Martha East.
On 7 February 1914 the extended Wayment family gathered at the Warren home for Joseph’s 70th birthday. Included were children, grandchildren, siblings, their spouses and children, and young Alma Wayment Hansen himself, visible as a boy in the second row, who would later compile a biography of his grandparents. At the center of the third row sit Joseph and Ann, flanked by his brothers John Brown and William Thomas Wayment and his sister Martha East. By this gathering all the children had married.
The Grasshoppers
One incident from Joseph’s later years became a touchstone story in the family, attested to by his daughter Sarah. A summer or two after his first malaria attack, he had planted wheat in the field north of the house. The crop grew abundantly, had headed out full, and was beginning to turn yellow when the children noticed one evening that a great horde of grasshoppers had descended on the grain. They went in and told their father. He was not well, still weakened from the malaria. He arose, took his cane, and walked out into the field.
The grasshoppers were large and so thick they were bending the stalks almost to the ground. What once looked like a bounteous harvest now seemed doomed. Then right there in the midst of the grain and the grasshoppers, Joseph knelt and made a most fervent appeal to his Heavenly Father for aid. Night came on. The family retired, but not without family prayer. The next morning not a grasshopper could be found on the grain. There were no traces of where they had been.
The Golden Wedding, 1924
Salt Lake Tribune, 12 August 1924. Joseph Wayment and Wife Honored on Their Golden Wedding Day.
Left to right: Walter Hyrum Wayment, Amelia Brown Wayment Lythgoe, Joseph Wayment, Ann Reed Wayment, Sarah Wayment. Photograph taken at the Warren home, circa 1924.
On Thursday, 7 August 1924, Joseph and Ann celebrated their golden wedding anniversary with elaborate festivities at their Warren home. The Salt Lake Tribune reported the occasion. By remarkable coincidence, a great-grandson was born that same day at nearly the identical hour that Joseph and Ann had married fifty years before, a son born to Mr. and Mrs. William Bennington Jr. of Ogden. The event, as the paper noted, cheered the aged couple considerably.
The celebration drew family from across Weber County. Among those present were Joseph’s siblings, his sisters Mrs. Martha East of Warren and Mrs. Emily Mullen of Ogden, and his brother Bishop William T. Wayment of Warren, along with four daughters, one son, and twenty-six grandchildren.
The photograph captures something of what fifty years in Warren had built. Joseph stands center-rear, his great white beard the same beard his doctor had prescribed after the 1884 malaria, protection for his throat and chest from the cold. Ann stands center-front, hands folded, short of stature. Sarah, their eldest, the first white child born in Warren, stands at the right. Walter Hyrum, their only surviving son, is at the far left with his wife Amelia Lythgoe beside him.
Final Years
Ann Reed and Joseph Wayment.
Left to right: Verlan Hansen, Ann Reed Wayment holding Donald Peterson, Eulail Peterson (back), Robert Hansen (front), Joseph Wayment holding Elaine Hansen, Irene Hansen. Joseph and Ann were the great-grandparents of the children in this picture.
Joseph bought his first automobile in 1912, just past his 68th birthday. About 1922 his eyesight became too poor to read. From that time until his death, someone had to read all news to him. He lived at his own home in Warren until the very end, cared for by his daughter Sarah. He delighted in bearing his testimony and seemed never to tire of talking about and explaining the principles of the gospel. His last public appearance was at a fast and testimony meeting on 11 October 1931, where he bore a strong testimony to the truthfulness of the Gospel and to the fact that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God.
Ann did not live to see it. She died on the morning of 14 June 1931, at 8:10 a.m., at their Warren home after a three months’ illness — her cause of death recorded on her death certificate as chronic myocarditis with arteriosclerosis as a contributing factor. She had lived in Warren for 57 years without interruption. Her brother-in-law Bishop William T. Wayment was among the speakers at her funeral. A sextet of nephews and nieces sang. Mrs. Jessie Wayment sang a solo. Grandsons served as pallbearers. Granddaughters took charge of the flowers. She was buried in the Warren Cemetery on 17 June 1931.
Joseph took sick on the afternoon of Thursday, 17 December 1931. He passed away very peacefully on Sunday evening, 20 December 1931, at Dee Hospital in Ogden, of bronchopneumonia, the chronic malaria that had plagued him since 1884 listed as a contributing condition. He was 87 years old.
Obituary of Joseph Wayment, Ogden Standard Examiner, 21 December 1931.
He was buried on 23 December 1931 in the Warren Cemetery, beside Ann, who had preceded him six months and six days. They had been married 56 years, 10 months, and 7 days.
Legacy
Sarah Ann Wayment Hansen and her father Joseph Wayment in his final years. Sarah cared for Joseph at home until his death in December 1931.
When Joseph and Ann Wayment arrived in Salt Creek in the early 1870s, there was almost nothing there. When they died in 1931, Warren was a community with a church, a school, a creamery, roads, canals, orchards, many of the first of each having been planted, built, or organized by Joseph himself. They lived to see 32 grandchildren and 37 great-grandchildren. Two of their children served missions; one granddaughter and five grandsons also served missions, all returning safely.
Amanda and I visited their graves in the West Warren Cemetery on 24 May 2020. The memorial card at their headstones, the laminated display that prompted this research, was photographed that day. Amanda is their 3rd great-granddaughter through the line: Joseph and Ann Wayment → Martha Ann Wayment Hansen → Walter Wayment Hansen → Bryan Hemsley → Amanda Ross.
Bryan Hemsley, Amanda, Aliza, and Hiram Ross with the tombstones of Ann Reed (1852–1931) and Joseph Wayment (1844–1931), West Warren Cemetery, 24 May 2020.
The memorial card displayed at the graves of Joseph and Ann Reed Wayment, West Warren Cemetery.
Source Documents
The following family histories are available for download:
Life Sketch of Joseph Wayment – copied from a record belonging to Ida H. Johnson (granddaughter), transcribed by Hollis R. Johnson, 1956
Emily Wayment and William Negus – compiled by Alma W. and Martha M. Hansen, 1979
John Brown Wayment and Sarah East – compiled by Alma W. Hansen, 1980
We took the opportunity to attend the Casper Wyoming Temple Open House on 31 August 2024. We planned the weekend to do some sightseeing and visit some church and family history sites. I am reposting as this has updates on 3 additional ancestors that also came through the Overland Trail.
We left on the Friday morning with the hope of making it all the way to Casper before nightfall. We took old US Highway 30 through Soda Springs and Montpelier. We made a stop to visit the grave of my Grandmother in Dingle.
Aliza, Lillian, Paul, James, and Hiram Ross at the graves of Bud and Colleen Lloyd
We drove through Cokeville and reminded the kids of the story of the Cokeville miracle. As we drove along the old highway, I pointed out the old railroad Y that used to go to the Stauffer mine that was located in Leefe, Wyoming. I spent the first summer or two of my life at Leefe while my dad was tasked with tearing down and removing the mine with Circle A Construction. We stopped in Kemmerer to refuel and also drive past the first J. C. Penney store. We made a quick stop at the Parting of the Ways along the California, Mormon, and Oregon trails.
James Ross at Independence Rock
With four kids, we often stop at rest areas. As you can see above, we stopped at the one at Independence Rock. The rock is nearby and doubles as the parking location to visit the rock.
We finally made it to Casper about sunset. We ate an amazing Italian meal at Racca’s Pizzeria Napoletana and checked into our hotel.
Casper Wyoming Temple
We got up early, dressed appropriately, and headed out to visit the Casper Wyoming Temple. It was beautiful. Much smaller than I had anticipated. It is definitely one of the smallest temples, but that is because of the population and distance to other temples. It will supposedly have five stakes in its temple district, some of which will still come from a long distance to attend. Don’t let size fool you, it still has all the distinct parts of a temple and related quality. I think I may very much prefer the intimacy of the smaller temples. It actually reminded me of the Helena Montana Temple on size and flow.
Ross family at the Casper Wyoming Temple Open House
The temple does not have an adjoining chapel, but it does have a distribution/visitor center. We watched the video, enjoyed waiting in the line, and got to see the whole temple. If I were asked, there are a couple of design changes I would make for flow, but this temple will not regularly see these types of crowds or have those issues.
Ross family with the Casper Wyoming Temple
We hurried back to our hotel, changed, loaded up the car, checked out, and headed off to our next stop: The National Historic Trails Interpretive Center in Casper. I did not take any pictures there, but it was very well done. I enjoyed the visit, helped the kids with their junior ranger activities, and learned a few things. Part of the museum had its own little room and video dedicated to the Martin and Willie Handcart Companies.
We stopped at Independence Rock again on our way headed west. We walked around the massive rock and looked at a number of the signatures carved into stone from over 160 years ago. It was hot and we needed to get our little doggies along to Devil’s Gate.
I will write about this more in a bit, but Devil’s Gate was a major landmark on the trail going west for all pioneers on the trails. But Devil’s Gate became more than a landmark and became a historical site in the tragic fall of 1856. Fort Seminoe was based there on the west side of Devil’s Gate, but it had been abandoned earlier that same year. It was that fall that the Martin Handcart Company found itself stranded in the snow. Days later the stranded handcart company moved into a nearby cove to get away from the wind, snow, and cold. That cove is now known as Martin’s Cove.
The Sun Ranch from Devil’s Gate, now The Martin’s Cove: Mormon Trail Site
We found the visitor’s center much more hospitable than some of our ancestors. As I worked through my family history, I had some of my own ancestors who passed through this very Devil’s Gate and area. Here are my ancestral lines that came across on the Mormon Trail. I had counted only 3 while in Casper, but hadn’t realized the Williams clan came over in two separate trips.
William and Mary Ann Sharp in 1853. Wagon train. Moses Clawson Company. William and Mary Ann met in the wagon train and married in Nebraska in 1853. William and Mary are my 3rd Great Grandparents.
John Williams in 1860. Wagon train. John Smith Company. John came over with his two sons John Haines (1829) and Richard (1838). I don’t know why his son David went separately in 1864. I am a descendant of John through David. John is my 4th Great Grandfather.
Johanna Benson in 1862. Wagon train. Joseph Horne Company. Johanna came over with some of her children and their families, her daughter Agneta, came over in 1864 with her family. Johanna is my 4th Great Grandmother.
William Edward Stoker in 1863. Wagon train. Unknown Company. William was traveling with his family, including the baby Mary Ann. William is my 3rd Great Grandfather, Mary Ann is my 2nd Great Grandmother.
John and Agneta Nelson in 1864. Wagon train. William Preston Company. Agneta is the daughter of Johanna Benson who came over in 1862. John and Agneta are my 3rd Great Grandparents.
David D and Gwenllian Williams in 1864. David is the son of John mentioned above. Wagon train. William S Warren Company. Gwenllian came with her sister Mary. Both married on the ship in Liverpool before setting sail for Utah. Gwenllian and Mary’s parents, David and Margaret Jordan, came over in 1872 crossing the plains by rail. David and Gwenllian are my 3rd Great Grandparents.
That gives me 10 ancestors that crossed the plains by wagon, none by handcart that I can tell. The unknown companies were all wagon trains as there were not handcarts those years.
Devil’s Gate – 2024
Every single one of these ten ancestors of mine who came west on the trail would have passed through Devil’s Gate. Here I stood on this sacred ground and snapped this photo of my daughter, my descendant and their descendant, at Devil’s Gate.
Aliza Ross at Devil’s Gate
It took me a bit more work, as I am not as familiar, to find those family lines of Amanda’s that also would have passed along the Mormon Trail to the west before the railroad made it much, much faster and safer. It took me several occasions over a couple of weeks to spend the time to research all these lines.
Henry and Ann Jackson in 1852. Wagon train. James C Snow Company. This is Amanda’s 4th Great Grandparents.
Regina Hansen in 1853. Wagon train. John E Forsgren Company. Her son, Hans Hansen, also accompanied her on the trip. Regina’s husband stayed behind. Regina is Amanda’s 4th Great Grandmother, Hans is Amanda’s 3rd Great Grandfather.
Grave of Hans Hansen in Plain City, Utah. Edith Sharp Ross’ stone is the stone at 10 o’clock from the top of this stone, my Great Grandmother.
David Buttar in 1854. Wagon train. William Empey Company. He appears to have traveled alone. Amanda’s 3rd Great Grandfather.
Birthe Jacobson in 1854. Unknown if wagon train or handcart company. Birthe’s daughter, Maria Jacobson, also accompanied her on the trip. Her husband Jorgen died in Missouri as part of the trip. Birthe is Amanda’s 5th Great Grandmother, Maria is Amanda’s 4th Great Grandmother.
Harriet Housley in 1856. Handcart company. Edward Martin Company. Harriet’s son, George Housley, also accompanied her on the trip. Two other children came later. Harriet is Amanda’s 5th Great Grandmother, George is Amanda’s 4th Great Grandfather.
Richard and Christine Hemsley (1836 – 1915) in 1857. Handcart company. Israel Evans Company. This is Amanda’s 4th Great Grandparents.
Ole and Anne Jensen in 1861. Likely wagon train. Unknown company. Amanda’s 5th Great Grandparents.
John Crompton in 1862. Wagon train. Joseph Horne Company. John also had his daughter, Hannah Crompton, with him. John is Amanda’s 4th Great Grandfather, Hannah is Amanda’s 3rd Great Grandmother.
Anna Nielsen in 1862. Wagon train. Christian Madsen Company. She traveled alone. Amanda’s 3rd Great Grandmother.
Joseph and Penelope Thompson in 1862. Wagon train. John Riggs Murdock Company. Their son, Joseph Thompson, also accompanied the family. Amanda’s 4th Great Grandparents, Joseph is Amanda’s 3rd Great Grandfather.
Joseph Wayment in 1863. Wagon train. Unknown Company. Appears to have come alone. Although his parents and most of his siblings would come later by rail. Amanda’s 3rd Great Grandfather.
Axel Boyer in 1866. Wagon train. Abner Lowry Company. Amanda’s 4th Great Grandfather. Also traveled with the Keeps, other ancestors of Amanda.
James and Ann Keep in 1866. Wagon train. Abner Lowry Company. Their daughter, Sarah Keep, also accompanied the family. James and Ann are Amanda’s 4th Great Grandparents, Sarah is Amanda’s third great Grandmother. Also traveled with Axel Boyer, other ancestor of Amanda.
Richard Hemsley (1801 – 1866) and his later wife Sarah in 1866. Wagon train. William Henry Chipman Company. Amanda’s 5th Great Grandfather.
Peter Peterson in 1866. Wagon train. Joseph Sharp Rawlins Company. Peter is Amanda’s 4th Great Grandfather.
That is the Hemsley line alone, Amanda’s Dad. I count 26 ancestors of Amanda’s Dad that came through Devil’s Gate.
James, Lillian, Hiram, and Aliza Ross at Devil’s Gate Mormon Handcart Visitor Center
Amanda’s Mom’s line, the Holden family, has the following:
Edwin and Ruia Holden in 1852. Wagon train. Uriah Curtis Company. Their son, Henry Holden, also accompanied the family. Edwin and Ruia are Amanda’s 4th Great Grandparents, Henry is Amanda’s 3rd Great Grandfather.
Jesse and Temperance McCauslin in 1851. Wagon train. Unknown Company. Temperance passed away in Council Bluffs, Iowa. She did not make the trail in Wyoming or Devil’s Gate. Their daughter, Louisa McCauslin, also accompanied the family. Jesse is Amanda’s 4th Great Grandfather, Louisa is Amanda’s 3rd Great Grandmother.
John and Adelaide Roberts in 1863. Wagon train. Thomas Ricks Company. Their son, Hyrum Roberts, also accompanied the family. John and Adelaide are Amanda’s 3rd Great Grandparents, Hyrum is Amanda’s 2nd Great Grandfather.
Thomas and Mary Ashton in 1851. Wagon train. Morris Phelps Company. Mary also passed away in Iowa. She did not make the trail in Wyoming or Devil’s Gate. Their son, Joseph Ashton, also accompanied the family. Thomas is Amanda’s 4th Great Grandfather, Joseph is Amanda’s 3rd Great Grandfather.
Sarah Jarvis in 1854. Wagon train. Job Smith Company. She came with some of her family, but not with her son, Amanda’s ancestor, George Jarvis. Sarah is Amanda’s 4th Great Grandmother.
George and Ann Jarvis in 1853. Wagon train. Unknown Company. George and Ann are Amanda’s 3rd Great Grandparents. George is the son of Sarah Jarvis mentioned above.
William and Rebecca Finch in 1854. Wagon train. Daniel Garn Company. William and Rebecca are Amanda’s 3rd Great Grandparents.
Joseph Finch in 1853. Wagon train. Joseph Young Company. Joseph is the son of William and Rebecca Finch mentioned above.
John and Hannah Davis in 1851. Wagon train. Eaton Kelsey Company. Their daughter, Mary Jane, also accompanied the family. The family also has Davies listed for their last name sometimes. John and Hannah are Amanda’s 4th great grandparents, Mary Jane is Amanda’s 3rd Great Grandmother.
John Evans in 1866. Wagon train. William Henry Chipman Company (same company as Amanda’s Richard Hemsley above). His wife, Sarah, died on the trip from the United Kingdom in New York. His son, John Evans, also accompanied his father and brother. John is Amanda’s 3rd Great Grandfather, John is Amanda’s 2nd Great Grandfather.
James and Elizabeth Boyack in 1855. Wagon train. Milo Andrus Company. James and Elizabeth are Amanda’s 4th Great Grandparents.
James Boyack in 1853. Wagon train. Appleton Harmon Company. James is Amanda’s 3rd Great Grandfather. James is the son of James and Elizabeth Boyack above that came in 1855 across the plains.
Margary Waterhouse in 1855. Wagon train. Milo Andrus Company. Margary is Amanda’s 3rd Great Grandmother. She came across with the same train as James Boyack’s parents, presumably that is how she met her future husband. The Company arrived 24 October 1855 in Utah, James and Margary married 23 November 1855 in Springville, Utah.
That is the Holden line alone, Amanda’s Mom. I count 26 of ancestors of Amanda’s Mom that came through Devil’s Gate. As an aside, I also looked at her biological line (as she is adopted), and not a single one of her biological ancestors passed through Devil’s Gate.
James riding while Hiram, Lillian, and Aliza Ross pull a handcart at Devil’s Gate Mormon Handcart Visitors Center
We also stopped and visited with the sixth crossing of the Sweetwater River. This was the location where, like the Martin Handcart Company, the Willie Handcart Company also got stuck in wind, snow, and cold in 1856. Their rescue occurred here.
The next day, on our way to Grand Teton National Park, we made a stop at Fort Washakie, Wyoming. This is one of the alleged graves of Sacagawea. We stopped and remembered her, whether her final resting place or not.
All in all, I was surprised by my own connection to the Mormon Trail. I had never considered that I have 10 ancestors who had literally came this way. Or that my children have 59 ancestors that literally come this way. They passed by Independence Rock, through Devil’s gate, and two of those 59 suffered with the Martin Handcart Company. I will write more on the Housleys later as there have been other interesting interactions with that clan since our marriage.
I have two copies of the History of Plain City, Utah. The front indicates it is from March 17th 1859 to present. As far as I can tell, the book was written in 1977. At least that is the latest date I can find in the book.
One copy belonged to my Grandparents Milo and Gladys Ross. My Grandpa has written various notes inside the history which I intend to include in parenthesis whenever they appear. They add to the history and come from his own experience and hearing.
I will only do a number of pages at a time. I will also try to include scanned copies of the photos in the books. These are just scanned copies of these books, I have not tried to seek out originals or better copies.
History of Plain City March 17th 1859 to present, pages 166 through 184. That is the end of the Plain City History!
Can you Remember or Did you know?
By Lyman N Cook
The following articles are a collection of stories and events that have been a part of Plain City. These are in no way a complete list of the stories that could be told. We have older people who can remember the colorful events and stories, the eras of history, and they should be told and recorded. I hope these people will do so while they are here to tell them. I have touched upon a few. Whether the stories are good or bad, it has been my purpose or intent to have all the questions and answers, but merely to help your mind reflect upon the beautiful memories of Plain City.
Please, as readers, do not take any personal offense or injury to any of the stories. They were not written with any unkindness in mind, but hopefully you will enjoy them.
The stories are, in reality, a tribute and a compliment to the early settlers of Plain City. I cannot comprehend the magnitude of courage and strength, and the hardships those early pioneer men and women endured. How unselfishly they worked and planned for the betterment of Plain City to make it a better place for you and I to live today.
I have a deep personal feeling that we owe them everything.
The most interest and pleasure that the book has brought to me has been the fact that I have had an opportunity to visit in the homes of so many wonderful and interesting people. Compiling, reading, and writing the history has so fascinated and compelled me that I have stayed up all night, only to find in the morning that I am just as refreshed as if I had slept all night.
The following people have been so kind and helpful to me in writing the stories. They have told me stories, and refreshed my memory. I feel a deep appreciation for them, and I feel that they should be recognized. They are: Mrs. Lavina Thomas (on tape), Lyle Thomas, Byron Carver, Lee Carver, Laura Musgrave, George Knight, Clyde Hadley, Amy Robson, Harvey and Jennie Cook, Dick and Luella Skeen, Bill and Nonie Freestone, Irene Skeen, Ivy Skeen Marsden, and many others: Kris Ewert, for her printing. A special thanks to all. And also Ina Poulsen.
“TRUE STORIES AND COLORFUL EVENTS OF PLAIN CITY “
SLEIGH BELLS
One of the pleasant memories of a cold, crisp, clear pioneer winter night, was the jingling of sleigh bells as families made their way to church or to visit with friends or neighbors. The rich sound of their ringing through the hollow night air could be heard all over town. First starting out faintly and then increasing in volume as they approached their destination. It would seem that the still, peaceful night was just made for the ringing of the sleigh bells.
Almost all the families had a string of sleigh bells that were a prized possession, and a family treasure. Some of the larger strands would go across the back of the horses and around underneath the stomach, also a strand would fit on the hames. The quality of the workmanship that produced the full, rich tones will continue to enrich our memories of the past. Maybe if we lost our minds be calm and drift back through the years, we can still hear the tinkling of the sleigh bells.
PIONEER HOMES, WASH DAYS, FEATHER TICKS, COLD BEDROOMS, OLD COAL, OR WOOD STOVES
The pioneer home was usually built with two rooms, and as the family income and new family members came along, they would add an addition of bedrooms, and a dining room, parlor, or living room. There was usually a large cook stove for the parlor and dining room. The kitchen was the center of activity in the home, and only on special occasions, or when company came, would they build a fire in the other rooms. They would usually bank the stoves with wood or coal to last as long as possible. But by morning, the fire was always out. They would have two or three coal buckets, and a kindling box, and some member of the family had the chore to see what they were always full. It took a strong constitution to roll out of bed on a cold winter morning and make the fire, and wait for it to get warm.
Monday morning in the home was washday. It would start very early and last all day. They would heat the water in a copper-bottom boiler and would usually boil the clothes to help get them clean. They used a homemade lye soap. The women scrubbed the clothes on a scrub board usually placed in a metal washtub, and after scrubbing, would rinse the clothes two and three times. They would then be hung on the clothesline to dry. There was a special pride taken in the wash and to tell a woman that she hung out a pretty wash was to pay her a special tribute.
The pioneer families would usually wait until cold weather to kill meat. They would cure it, salt brine it, or dry it. For fresh meat, they would put it in a flour sack and hang it high on the north side of the house. When they wanted fresh meat they would go outside, climb the ladder, or use a pulley to bring the flour sack in. They would cut off what meat they wanted and return the flour sack out on the north side. It was not uncommon to see flour sacks hanging from the north side of most homes.
The bedrooms were usually located on the north side on the north side of the house, and were the furtherest from the stoves. It was like going into another world, or the north pole to go to bed. If you slept with a brother or sister, you would try to get them to go to bed first so they could warm the bed. The frost and ice crystals would collect on the window glass usually forming in the fall and never leaving until spring. It would usually be about a half-inch thick on the glass. The frost crystals would form in beautiful designs and patterns on the windows.
The straw tick or mattress was made with a cover and filled with straw. Each year they would empty the straw, wash the cover, and refill it with new straw when they thrashed in the fall. They would place a feather tick on top of the straw tick, and it was filled with feathers from geese and ducks. It was really warm and soft. The sheets, blankets, and quilts were piled on the bed until they were so heavy that it was hard to turn over. It was especially nice when the dog would sleep on your side of the bed, as he made an excellent footwarmer. What a breed of people to survive the cold, hard time of pioneer life.
INDIANS
There seems to be no evidence of any Indian violence or hostilities in Plain City. However, they would visit the homes of the early settlers and ask for food. As a sign of friendship to the Indians, they would always give them food. It was a very frightening experience for the pioneer women to have the Indians call when the men were in the field working and they were home alone. The children were especially scared, and were taught to be very careful when they were around.
There were people alive today in Plain City that can remember when Indians would come into town and camp. Some favorite campgrounds were across from Paul Costley’s garage, and across the street north of George Cook’s home. The white kids always played close to home when Indians were in town, and they never went anywhere at night.
The Indians squaws would go to every home and ask or beg for food. The homes that were generous would be visited several times. The Indians would stay for several days, and they would then load their treasures and leave and go north. The Indians must have liked the people of Plain City because they returned each year for many, many years.
PERRY BOAT
The ferry boat and landing was located near where the river bridge crosses the Weber River on the Plain City, West Weber road on 4700 West. It provided a river crossing for people, cattle, sheep, horses, and wagons. The ferry was made of logs tied together, and a large molasses boiler and pole was used to push the ferry across the river.
In the spring when the flood waters covered all of the low lands, the ferry would run from the hill on the north side near the Warren canal to the hill on the south as you enter West Weber. When the water receeded, the ferry returned to the channel. It has been said that in the spring the Indians would come to the hill and if the ferry was on the West Weber side, they would call across the river until the ferry came to get them. Sarah Richardson Hodson could imitate the Indian’s call for the ferry. She seemed to know more abut the ferry than anyone we knew of.
It might be important to include information about the times before all of the times before all of the reservoirs were built to hold back and store the early run-off water. Almost every spring the river would leave its channel and flood the low lands of Slaterville, Plain City, West Weber, Warren and West Warren. During some years the water would be so deep the road was closed. As a boy I can remember traveling 4700 West when the water would be up to the running boards of the Model A. The last year of excessive water was in 1952.
Not too much is known about the ferry, but it lends itself to another colorful era of interesting Plain City history.
POST OFFICE
The Plain City Post Office was located where Neta Charlton’s home is located, or one block North of the school on the northeast corner. It was run by Charlie Neal and his wife, Pussy Neal. He ran the Post office for 25 years from 1877 or 1878 until 1902 or 1903 when the government closed the Post Office, and the mail was brought into Plain city by Fred Kenley and delivered by horse and buggy.
Merl England has in his possession a letter that was postmarked Plain City, Utah, August 8, 1891.
Pussy Neal had, and kept a start of live yeast and would sell it to the women of the town to use in mixing bread. Annie Skelton would send her daughter, Nonie Skeen Freestone, down to the Neal’s for yeast. It didn’t take many trips before Nonie developed a real taste for live yeast. She would buy a three-pound lard bucket full, but by the time she walked five blocks home, she would have half of the bucket drank. She claims that it was quiet a tasty drink.
EARLY BAPTISMS
A very important date in the lives of young eight-year-old people was their baptism. Nowadays this ordinance is performed in a stake center with a very beautiful font. Before this time, this ordinance was performed in canals, rivers, lakes, and ponds. One of the most popular places to be baptized was the First Rock Crossing, or seck, as it was called. This was located on Center Street next to George West’s home, long before the canal was cemented. There was a row of poplar trees along the street, and the children would dress behind the trees. Some people would take their children up the street in the buggy and dress them, and then return for the baptism.
There were usually just two baptisms a year, one in the late spring and the other in the early fall. As a result, there were usually several children to be baptized at a time. The children would sit on a log and wait for their turn.
Some of the young people went down to the river and were baptized. The location on the river was near where the present bridge is located. They used willow trees to dress behind. Laura Musgrave and Royal Carver were tow that were baptized in the river.
George knight told me that he was baptized in the Warren Canal about where the present pump is located. This was a colorful era of the past and should help to rekindle some pleasant memories for those who participated.
THE PRIVY, CRANNY, ROOSEVELT, OR ALIAS, THE ONE-HOLER, OR THE TWO-HOLER
There was a great deal of social status involved and a real pride taken in building, caring for, and beautifying the outdoor privy. Some of the seats were made of select lumber and sanded and smoothed to the point where they were quite comfortable. And on the other extreme, some seats were rough and slivery. Some families were careful to make the privy weather proof, while others you could look out the cracks in every direction.
You could usually tell the size of the family in the house, whether it be large or small, by the size of the property. Is it a one or a two holer?
Some of the families, to prove to the world that their cranny was something special, and a respected place, would cut beautiful designs in the top of the door. I never quite figured out whether the hole in the door was for ventilation, or simply to study the wonders of the sky at night. Some of the designs were a half moon shape, a diamond shape, star, or just a round circle.
The Skeen girls, Ivy Skeen Marsden, Lenora Skeen Freestone, and Jennie Skeen Cook, still maintain to this day that their little brother, Dick Skeen, learned to throw the baseball so very well by practice throwing at the privy. He would wait until the girls would get inside and lock the door, then he would open up the rocks, clods, green pears, or anything to keep them pinned down. Dick’s favorite was the dirt clod. He would aim for the hole in the door and throw the clod through. The clod would hit the wall, break up and shower the girls with dust and dirt. He would then really laugh when the girls would cry, scream, and holler for their mother to come and rescue them from their brother.
Halloween was a risky time for outdoor privies. One of the favorite Halloween pranks for the kids was to spend the night tipping over crannies. The only thing that I would like to say on the subject now is that I am ashamed and sorry, and I must report that I am one of the parents who feel like the kids of today are going to the dogs.
During the depression and late thirties, and prior to World War II, the government had a P.W.A. and W. P. A. program. Workmen would come to your home and build outside crannies. They had a cement floor and a lid on the seat. They were weatherproof, and most people who owned one felt like that was the next best thing to running water. They were called “Roosevelts.”
Usually an old Sears catalog would act as a years supply of toilet tissue.
Some of the more discreet families would keep a pot, or thunderjug in the house for emergencies during the cold stormy winter nights. This fact was considered the family’s dark, deep secret, and was usually emptied before dawn.
With the exception of two years in the Navy, I used the outdoor privy for 26 years, and first four years after I was married. We sometimes hear it would be nice to go back to the good old days, but certainly not to the days of the outdoor privy.
SCHOOLS
The first school was in George Musgrave’s dugout. He later held school in a one-room adobe.
The first public school was built on the south of the square. It was built out of adobe. It was one room.
There was a school located on the northeast corner of the square. The town and ward used this building for some social functions. It was built of adobe in 1873 or 1874.
The North school was located where Walter Christensen now lives.
The South school is still standing and was remodeled by Harvey Cook into a home. It is located where Gordon Sorensen now lives, and across from Eldon Weston’s home. This home was built of brick.
The Poplar School was located across from Augusta Nash’s home.
I have been led to believe that there was school classes being held in all these four schools at the same time. This world be shortly before and after 1900.
EARLY STORIES
There have been at least ten stores and meat markets in Plain City up the present time. Some of the stores have stayed in the same place, but have had several different owners. I’ll just mention where the old stores were located. There were two Coy Stores. They were owned by Sarah Coy and Eliza Coy. One was across the street about where Mildred Sparks now lives. This is about 2200 North and 4650 West. The old ZCMI store was where B & C foods is now located. Garner’s store was where the pool hall is now. England’s store was where Merlin England’s now lives. McElroy’s store was where Jack’s Garage is now located. Stoker’s was located one block behind the school where Gordon McFarland lives. Maw’s was located just west of the bowery.
John Vause built and operated a meat market just north of Adela Carver’s home. Some of Steve Knight’s family operated a meat market about where White’s Café is today. Peter M. Folkman had a meat market across from the school on the east side.
Most of these early stores would trade merchandize for eggs and butter. This was especially nice for the kids of the town because they could take one egg or more and trade for candy. There wasn’t hen’s nest that was safe in Plain City. Laura Musgrave tells of how she would get Nonie Freestone and they would raid Nonie’s father’s chicken coop for eggs to go to the store for candy. There was real safety for Laura, as she always has been real sharp in having Nonie in her own father’s coop with her.
BLACKSMITH SHOPS
Christopher Folkman was the first one in Plain City. He learned his trade in Denmark. It was located near Leslie Maw’s home and Elmer Carver’s home.
Janus Lund’s Blacksmith shop was located near Dennis Lund’s home. He died in 1908.
Rall J. Taylor started his shop in 1908 and the building still stands just north of Kirt Knight’s garage.
Lew Ericson’s shop was located on the property of Neta Charlton.
George Davis’ shop was near Phil Alsup’s old home and across the street from Thomas.
Lee Gould’s shop was located near where Florence and Carl Hodson now live.
Farley’s shop was located near where Sterling Thompson now lives.
Lyman Skeen’s shop was located just south of his old home. The property is now owned by George Skeen Cook.
THE EARLY DENTIST
Lyman Skeen acted as the early dentist, and his only speciality was pulling teeth. He had a special pair of forceps which are still in the possession of the family.
People came from all of Plain City to have their teeth pulled. In those days they didn’t have any dental check-ups, or fill any decayed teeth. If a person got a cavity, they endured it until the tooth would ache and then Lyman Skeen would pull the tooth.
He was a large man and once he hooked onto the tooth, he had very little trouble getting it out.
Some of his children report that when anyone came to have their teeth pulled, they would run into the house and hide under the bed and hold their ears so they couldn’t hear the person holler or scream.
Lee Carver tells the story about as a boy going down to Lyman Skeen’s and having a tooth pulled. He was told if he would sit still and not holler to scream, and act like a man, that Lyman would pay him .25 cents. It certainly must be one of the rare cases of a dentist paying his patient.
George Knight told me he made a trip to Lyman Skeen’s home to have his tooth pulled. He was told that if he would take it like a man and not holler or yell, that he could drive the mules and wagons. After the tooth was out they went out and harnessed the mules and hooked them to the wagon and George drove the mules to his home. George said that there was nothing that Lyman could have done to make him feel more important and give him a bigger thrill than to sit on the seat with Lyman and drive those large mules home. He was so excited that he forgot what he had gone down there for.
Ina Poulsen tells the story of her toothache when she was a girl. It was a large double tooth, and it had ached for days. She finally decided that having it pulled couldn’t hurt any more than the ache, so she went to see Lyman Skeen. She walked down to his place in the evening and they were eating supper. She said he got right up from the table and didn’t even finish his meal to pull her tooth. Annie got the forceps and sat her in his large grandfather chair. Again, the Skeen kids scattered and hid from the noise. Ina did mention that she did holler and scream, but it was all over in a minute. She said he was really good at pulling teeth. It also gives some insight into the quality, character, and gentleness of Lyman Skeen.
ICE HOUSE
An Interesting part of the history of Plain City was the old ice house. It was located across from the school on the property where Clara Folkman now lives and sat behind the old home. In the winter when the Four Mile reservoir, river and other water would freeze hard enough, they would cut it with ice saws. They would then haul it by team and bobsleigh to the ice house for storage.
Peter M. Folkman owned and operated the ice house, and in the winter he would have as many as twenty men working for him. They would work through the winter and would fill a rather large building with ice. They would cover it with wild hay and sawdust so it wouldn’t melt so fast in the heat and it would last all summer.
They would sell it to the people of Plain City for their use in the old wooden ice chest, for making ice cream, mainly for parties, and for whatever else their need was.
MARTIN SMITH AND THE MEAT WAGON
One of the colorful characters that would come into Plain City was Martin Smith. He owned a team of skinny horses and a closed-in meat wagon, and peddled fresh meat from door to door. He would come into town two or three times a week. He always carried a green willow switch, and would open the meat box, and use the switch to chase the flies out.
The lady of the house would come out to the wagon and look over the variety of cuts, or I would imagine he would cut whatever they wanted. A favorite pass time of the kids of the days was to try and sneak weeneys when he was busy with their mother. He was a sharp enough businessman that he made sure he always got enough money to pay for the weiners.
It sounds rather primitive in todays worlds, but it filled a need and is another colorful chapter out of the past.
GEORGE MOYES AND HIS MILK TRUCK
George Moyes had the first milk truck in Plain City. He delivered the milk to some of the homes in Plain City. It was George that was coming home from the dairy and discovered the fire in the dummy had started and burned Charlie Taylor’s barn. He used his load of milk to help put out the fire. I don’t know of anyone today who wouldn’t like to own that little truck.
THE EARLY THRASHERS
A colorful time on the farm was thrashing time. The first machines were horse powered, and were a great improvement over the hand method. These colorful pictures are some of the early steam-powered thrashers. There were men who owned their own machines and would do custom work for their neighbors. When the thrashers would move onto a farm, it would usually take several days to complete the farmer’s field.
While the thrashers were at the farm, it was the responsibility if the farmer to feed the men three meals a day. This consisted of many of the neighbors who helped each other. They worked hard and they required large meals. The women worked all day long to prepare the meals. The phrase, “I have cooked enough food for the thrashers,” was probably coined during this era. The farmer had to take care of the horses also.
The men usually carried their own bedrolls and slept on the new fresh straw.
Arthur Skeen and Frances Thomas owned and operated thrashing machines that I remember.
THE GYPSY HORSE TRADERS
The horse trader would come into Plain City once or twice a year. They would arrive in large white-top wagons leading a large number of horses. Some of the camping areas where they would stay were; out by the beet dump, by the water tower, on the square, and in the lot across from the Lyman Skeen home where George Cook now lives. They would stay about a week and would camp or live in their wagons.
The kids were frightened at the sight of the traders and the week they were in town they placed close to home and never ventured far from home at night. The traders were famous for taking things that didn’t belong to them.
As a boy I can remember the trader camps and walking through them with my father. Because of the shady characters and the stories I had been told, I can remember of never letting go of my father’s hand. To see the people involved and the many horses there were, made a lasting impression upon my young mind.
If any of the townspeople needed a horse or team, or wanted to sell any horses, they would bring their horses, or come to the traders camp. They would barter, trade, or sell. In order to make a sharp deal they would dicker all day. There were many stories told of how sharp a deal they made or how badly they got stung by the horse traders.
LYMAN DUMP
There were two beet dumps in Plain City. One was located across from the water tower, the other was the Lyman Dump located one-half mile west of the canning factory where the railroad tracks crossed 5100 West. It was named after Lyman Skeen because of his work on the railroad to that plant, and on into Warren. John Vause was the weigh master and was more or less in charge of the dump. They would haul the beets with teams and wagons to the dump, where they would be loaded on to the rail cars and taken to Wilson Lane for processing. At times the cars were not available ad they would pile the beets by hand. The pile had to be six feet high and stacked just right. When cars were available, the factory would pay the farmers thirty cents a ton to load the beets by hand and then into the cars.
A story is told of a certain farmer that would bring beets to the dump. The drivers were supposed to stay on the wagon to weigh their beets over with the wagons loaded, and then back their wagons across empty. This farmer would get off the empty wagon, stay on the scales, but would reach up and take hold of a board on the scale house, and pull most of his weigh off the scales. John Vause used to say, “ Look at that fat old ____. He thinks he is fooling me, but I always take 200 pounds off whether he is on the scale or not,”
Mervin Thompson was there ad tells a story about Lyman Skeen hauling a large beet rack full of beets to the dump with a four-horse hitch. The lead team was fine large horses and the back team was large mules. The dump was elevated with a steep incline up to a platform where the wagon would stop and be unloaded. It was high enough to clear a rail car and the beets ran down into the car. The decline from the platform was steep. He made his approach with the team struggling to pull the heavy wagon up the incline. As the teams lunged forward down over the decline. Lyman sprang to his feet and held the mules back so the wagon rode up against the rumps of the mules, and he moved the lead horses out fast enough to keep out of the way. He never lost a sugar beet. It was truly a great display of fine horsemanship. It was truly his ability with the horses that saved him and his team from death or injury.
He calmly made a circle around to the approach incline and took the teams up the incline. This time he was ready for them and the mules and horses stopped where they were supposed to. As the teams came down off the decline, they knew they had been taught a valuable lesson by a skillful master.
THE SWIMMING HOLES
If anything in this world can turn a man into a boy again, it is the pleasant memories of the old swimming hole. The warm summer days with friends and the happy, carefree times are the most memorable in a life time. There seems to be a special magnetic force that pulls and draws boys to water. It is especially difficult to try and explain to parents that special force, and why it was so necessary to go swimming so much. We lived in the water and the longest part of the day was the one hour we had to wait for our dinner to digest before we could go in swimming again.
Every irrigation canal, pond, river, or creek had their favorite swimming hole. The favorite holes in Plain City were not by the First and Second Rock Crossing, the canal, but Four Mile, Draney headgates, and the Anderson hole in the river. The Anderson hole was located just below the Warren pump by the bend in the river and northeast of the bridges. One could tell by the number of ponies, wagons, and buggies, that there was always a large crowd, and from the laughter and the noise, you could tell they were having a great time. The Anderson hole was secluded enough, and no girls around. For the men and boys it was pure skinny dipping. If any boy had shown up with a swimming suit in those days, they would have laughed him out of town.
The Anderson hole was the place all of the men and boys took their Saturday night bath. George Knight tells the story that he counted 65 men and boys swimming at one time in the river. Sant Madsen was the oldest at 65, and there was a young boy of about 6 years of age.
Wilford, or “Wiff” Skeen was considered the most gifted and powerful swimmers around this country. During World War I he swam on a Navy swim team. Gordon Thompson and George Knight said that Wiff was the most beautiful swimmer they had ever seen. Fred Kenley, I think, was I the Navy and traveled throughout the world. He said in all his travels that Wiff was the best Swimmer he had ever seen. He would put his little brother, Dick Skeen, on his back and swim out into the middle of the river. Dick must have been real little then, but he would dump him off and make him swim to shore while he carefully watched. Someone lost a shovel in Anderson hole and Wiff dove down to the bottom and brought it up, supposedly the only man to ever touch bottom.
Ogden City, Swifts, and the By-Products, began to dump raw sewage into the river and ruined probably the greatest memory maker in all of Plain City. It just seems so strange that man has a habit of always destroying his own best things in life.
DRIVING THE COWS TO THE PASTURE
The people who milked cows for their own use or who later on milked cows to sell the milk to the creamery, would usually drive their own cows to pasture during the summer months. The pasture was located one, two, or three miles from home. It would require taking the cows out in the morning and returning them in the evening. This responsibility usually fell to the younger members of the family and required a cow pony. In those days everyone’s home, yard, and farm area were fenced so the cows traveling to and from the pastures did not create a problem. During the hot, dry summer weather, the roads and trails of the cows were very dusty. It was very difficult to follow the cows very closely as the dust was so heavy.
One of these pastures was called the West Pasture. It was located north and west from Ivan Moyes’ home. This pasture was owned by several different people. The number of cattle they would put in the pasture was based on the amount of the pasture that they owned. In the evening the first person to the gate would open it and let the cows out. The cows, from force of habit, would follow the same trail to the town park where they would feed. It was not uncommon to see twenty-five or thirty milk cows feeding on the square in the early evening. The farmers would go to the square, collect their cows, and take them home.
For those who played baseball, football, or just played on the square, there were some real hazards involved after the cows had been there.
Modern feeding and milking techniques have eliminated the need for the daily move to the pasture and also the need for the fenced-in yards.
CANNING FACTORIES
Another very important industry in Plain City was the growing and canning of tomatoes. The first factory built in Plain city was across the street from Loyd Olsen’s at 1900 North 4700 West. Laura Grieves Musgrave tells of working in this factory filling the cans with tomatoes. She was just a girl at the time, and expressed how happy she was to be able to earn money in those days. At that time there was no child labor laws.
Part of this factory was later moved near the square and used by the maw family for their store and other buildings.
The second canning factory still stands at 1975 North 4650 West, and was used for many years. The sandy loam soil of Plain City seemed to be ideal for the tomatoes to grow and helped to give them the flavor, quality, and yield that rarely can be equaled. Times were very tough to earn money in those days, and many men and women would work at the factory in the fall of the year to help supplement their income. This factory was built in 1925.
The empty cans would be shipped in by railroad and the processed tomatoes would be shipped out to the railroad.
The events that impressed my memories most about the factory, were the lines of loaded wagons and trucks waiting to be unloaded. While the farmers waited for boxes, or to be unloaded, or for their tomatoes to be graded, they would visit by the hour. The stories and the tall tales that would be told during that time will long be remembered. It used to fascinate me to watch the women peel the tomatoes. The full pans would be scalded and go around on a belt. The women would take a full pan, core and peel the tomatoes, and when the pan was full, they would put their number in the pan and return it to the belt. They were paid by the pan, and it amounted to five cents to ten cents a pan. In later years it raised from eight cents to ten cents a pan. The fastest peelers could peel about 60 pans a day.
Some of the fastest peelers were Dorothy Christensen, Thelma Hodson Wayment, Doris Hodson Chugg, and Ruth Arave Taylor, deceased. Whether peeling tomatoes, cutting potatoes, thinning beets, wall papering, or whatever, Ruth Taylor, as I remember her, had to be the hardest working woman I ever know. I always marveled at her ability.
Can your minds eye visualize the smoke coming from the tall stack, and the pleasant tomato odor that drifted along the air currents through the town of Plain City.
PEA VINERS – PEA WAGONS
One of the early industries, or cash crops of Plain City was from the raising of peas. It t must be remembered that in the very early times, the settlers were only interested and concerned about food to keep them through the winter. As they worked and improved their homes, the roads, and the irrigation system, their ability to products more and vary their crops increased. It was then that they branched out into the pea industry.
The main pea viner was located on 2200 north, about a half mile west of 4650 West, on the north side of the street. It provided work for some of the men of the community, to stack the pea vines. In the winter the farmers fed the vines to their cattle.
The farmers would plant the peas in the early spring, and the harvest would begin about the 4th of July. The pea vines would be out with a horse-drawn mower. They would pitch them on a wagon and haul them to the vines by a team of horses.
As young boys we would look forward to the horse-drawn pea wagons on their way to the viner. We would run out into the street and catch the wagon, pull off a big armful of peas, carry them into the shade, and eat peas all day long. I don’t believe that peas gave you as severe a belly ache as green apples, but it ran a close second. More important, we were ready to go after the first wagon the next day. As a young man, I pitched the peas on the wagon in the fields, and off at the viner.
Later, another viner was built out east. It was located about one-half mile east of the water tower.
In 1949, I was building my house and my friend and neighbor, Louis R. Jenkins, would come frequently and visit. He said, “You have a nice location, but when the wind is right you may be able to smell the pea viner, but you know, that’s a good smell.” I never forgot his statement though the pea industry lasted only a very few years after that date. But, who could ever forget the potent odor that came after the vines and the juices fermented. No wonder the people who hauled pea vines had very little, if any, sinus problems.
Epilogue: Included should be the smell and the people who would haul the feed fresh beet pulp.
TRAPPERS
The Plain City area is situated where there was many creeks, drains, sloughs, ponds, and water areas for the muskrats to live. It seemed to me at one time to another, about every young man was involved in trapping. This could have been an inborn spirit in each young boy to be a trapper or a mountain man. The season would usually start in the fall until the water froze, and then again in the spring when the ice left. It came at a time when jobs were hard to find for young men and provided spending money for them. Trapping provided a good source of money for me when I was going to high school. The hide buyers would usually pay from thirty-five cents to a dollar and a quarter, depending on the size of the hide.
A good trapper could usually catch around 100 rats a day. I know one trapper that brought and paid for a new car during one trapping season. Some of the better trappers in Plain City that I can remember were, Elwin Taylor, Everett Taylor, Lyman Thomas, and Joe Wheeler.
NICK NAMES
Practically no one grew up in Plain City without having a nick name tacked on to him or her, because of something they did, said, or the way they acted, or some mannerism. It was not all uncommon for a group of Plain City boys, just to impress a girl friend, to talk and call the individual by their nick name, and the girls never knew who they were talking about. On the other hand, someone may come into the town and ask for Don Singleton, Darrell Christensen, Boyce England, Elwin Taylor, Horace Knight, LaGrand Hadley, George Cook, Clair Folkman, Lynn Folkman, Eldon Weston, or Jay Freestone, only to be told that they didn’t know anyone living here by that name. But had they asked for “Seebo, ““Breezy,” “Buzz,” “Bunny,” “Skinner,” “Gandy Goose or Pety Hadley,” “Joe,” “Ober,” “Homer,” or “Grass,” the townspeople could tell them right away where they lived.
Some of these people whose names will be mentioned have passed away, and it is my purpose to pay tribute, and add to their good names, rather than take anything away from them. Some have also moved away, but they got their name in Plain City.
There are so many names that I simply can’t remember them all, but here are a few: “Buss” Lyman Skeen, “Rip” Ronald Skeen, “Geg” Garry Skeen, “Brig” Orson Knight, “Snide” Elmer Carver, “Suitcase” Blair Simpson, “Huss” Harold Hadley, “Tubby” Frank Hadley, “Duke” “ Frog” Kenneth Christensen, “Fooz” Grant Lund, “Hazel” Kenneth Lund, “Bud” Richard Dallinga, “Cirk” Keith Lund, “Sodie” Elmer Hipwell, “Diff” Jack Etherington, “Tiff” Clyde Skeen, “Taa” Jack Freestone, “Sunny” Lyman Freestone, “Bub” Howard Freestone, “Cork” Carl Hodson, “Tumbleweed” Don Van Sickle, “Red” Lyman Cook, “Chic” Dee Cook, “Heater” Bert Cook, “Beef” Wheat Taylor, “Big Chub” Charles Fulmer, “Little Chub” Robert Fulmer, “Buddles” Rulon Jenkins, “Curley” Quenten Jenkins, “Bun” Ray Hadley, “Weiny” Dwaine Hadley, “Mustard” Bill Hadley, “Napkin” Dennis Hadley.
“Punken” Elmer Ericson, “Eif” Kent Jenkins, “Perk” Ray Coy, “Bear” Ronald Hogge, “Stinne” Wayne Skeen, “Hinke” Verl Rawson, “Toad” Loyd Knight, “Tarzan” Thayne Knight, “Dob” Blaine Knight, “Ikee” Ivan Hodson, “Grit” Dean Moyes, “Bud” Knight, “Lym” Skeen, “Beaver” Gordon Hadley, “Trapper” Durland Hadley, “Deddy” Darrell Thompson, “Pubby” Vernal Moyes, “Sam” Lyle Thomas, “Gonnie” Kenneth Woods, “Jim” Theron Rhead, “Mag” Noel England, “Jim” Elwin Skeen, ‘Bones” Bob Folkman, “Swede” Brent Taylor, “Curly” Davis, “Mayor” Dean Baker. “Wimpy” Loren Facer, “Tooley” Louis Poulsen, “Dick” Elwood Skeen, “Mud” Claude Rhead, “Weeser” Gene Lund, “Fiddler” Elmo Rhead, “Hook” Harold Hobson, “Roan” Harold Ross, “Mike” Milo Ross, “Wheeler” Keith Blanch, “Luke” John Nash, “Tom” Vandel Maw, “Joe” John Maw, “Judge” Thayne Robson, “Bushy” Wayne Cottle, “Pickus” Paul Coy, “George” Cliff Folkman, “Willie” Warren Williams, “Wally” Wallace Knight, “Cruzz” Kent Robson, “Evert” Bill England, “Tom” Merrill Jenkins, “Aus” Bob Wade, “Cougar” Norman Carver, “English” Wayne Carver.
Something more interesting than the names is how each one got their nickname. You should ask some of them sometimes. We should announce from Plain city to the world that we have had for the last 55 years, the original ”Jaws” Paul Knight. It is very distressing and disturbing to read where some outsider has taken the name “Jaws” and capitalized on it, made a film, and grossed more than 25 million dollars, when the original “Jaws” had been in Plain City all along.
When we analize the personality, the good times, and especially the stories, I doubt that anyone in Plain City would take 25 million from our original “Jaws.”
THE PEST HOUSE OR PRIMITIVE HOSPITAL
The constant underlying fears that pioneers and early settlers lived with daily was the threat of disease, illness, or sickness. There just weren’t any doctors or medicine available, and if anyone got sick, they either got well on their own, or they didn’t make it.
If a dreaded disease, or plague, as it was called struck the early settlers, many of them felt like it was God’s way of punishing them for things they had done or for the things they had not done. There were so many mysteries and superstitions concerning that, that people acted and responded in what now might be considered strange ways. The people felt the best thing to do was to isolate the sick people, and as a result of this type of thinking, the pioneers built the Pest House. To make sure it was really isolated, the people went about a mile west of town on the bank of First Creek and built Pest house. The Pest House was located on the bank of the creek. There were some tall poplar trees surrounding the building, but have since been removed. Clyde tells me that information was handed down and told to him about the spot where the Pest House was located. Years ago there was some evidence of a building there.
When a person got sick, they would take him to the Pest house to get better. They were usually left alone to care for themselves. Someone from the town would take food and water, and provide some care, but for the most part, it was just a kill or cure method. In most cases the patients, if they died, expired from exposure or lack of care rather than from the disease because the building was poorly constructed.
During the Smallpox epidemic of 1871, or about then, there weren’t any public meetings held in Plain City from September until the next March. The people lived in total fear of the disease.
The William Skeen family was hit very hard with Smallpox and they lost four children. It has been told that while his family was very sick, he called for the church and they were fearful, they refused to go help. His friends also turned away. This good man was left to bury his four children all alone, and some of them at night. He was so disappointed in the Elders of the church and his friends, that he left the church and he named one of his sons that was born later “Frenz Denial.”
IMPORTANT FACTS
Ivan Skeen Marsden and Lona Ipson Watson were the first lady missionaries to leave from Plain City in 1914. They served in the Eastern States Mission.
The first car reported to be in Plain City was Dr. Rich, who drove out to treat a patient.
It mentions that Richie owned the first car. Some of the other early car owners were Tom England, John Maw, Lyman Skeen, and others. Later, Lyman Skeen owned an eight-passenger Chandler.
Sammy Sampson was one of the early barbers.
There are seven children of original settlers living today in1977 that we know about. There may be others. Four of them live in Plain City. They are:
Ada Skeen William Allred
Victoria Sharp Hunt
Mary Sharp Richardson
Ivy Skeen Marsden
Lenora Skeen Freestone
Jennie Skeen Cook
Elwood “Dick” Skeen
It is remarkable when you think after 118 years that there are still children of the first settlers still living.
Richard Lund was the early fiddle player in the town.
LYMAN SKEEN, OWNER OF GREAT HORSES
Lyman Skeen owned and loved great horses. He had two large barns full of fine Stallions, besides many work teams that he used in his construction business. He worked in Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho, on construction building canals, road beds, and whatever. He knew horses flesh and people would bring their horses from all over the country to have him doctor their horses.
Lyman made three trips to Europe to buy horses. On one occasion, he bought six head of Shire horses in England and brought them by ship to the United States, and by rail to Ogden. He also brought a little Englishman named Tommy ____ to take care of the horses and train them.
When they arrived in Ogden Lyman took Blaine Skeen, Elmer Skeen, Orson Knight, and others to help bring the horses home. Orson Knight tells before they brought them to Plain City, they paraded them down Washington Boulevard. He mentioned that no boy could have been prouder to lead those large horses down Washington. He said the little Englishman walked beside the horses with a whip, and he would crack the whip and the horses would rare up and prance and put on quite a display for the large horses.
Sline was probably the greatest Shire horse to ever come into the State of Utah, or the West. The little Englishman is holding Sline in the picture.
The Skeen kids can remember frequently someone yelling “Sline’s out.” and he would always prance up through the lot. Lyman would send his boys out to catch Sline, but they never could catch him. Lyman would sit back and watch his proud horse run and exercise, and when Lyman felt like he had enough, he would walk out and up to Sline and lead him to the barn. Whenever Sline had been he left hoof prints about a foot square through the garden.
“SLINE” – Importe I Three-year-old Shire Colt
L. SKEEN
LYMAN SKEEN WITH HIS SHIRE HORSE.
One of these big Shire horses died at the age of three days. It was raised on a bottle by Annie Skeen, wife of Lyman Skeen.
SAMMY SAMPSON THE BARBER
Sammy Sampson barbered in his home which was located across the street from Dell Sharp’s home. He was one of the early barbers. Byron Carver tells of getting his hair cut there when he was a boy. He said, “You could ask for any type of a cut you wanted, but you only got one cut, mostly bad,” I can see Byron chuckle ass a twinkle from the past came into his eyes. “Oh it was bad,” he said, “and as long as you had any hair left, Sammy would keep cutting.”
On one occasion he went to get his hair cut when it was hot and Sammy was cooking something that didn’t smell too good. Some of the men who had gathered were smoking El-rope-o cigars, and Byron was getting light headed as he sat in the chair. As Sammy worked him over he became more ill. Sammy soaped his neck and shaved it with a large thick, straight razor, that scraped more than it cut. Sammy kept a pan of hot water on the stove with a wash cloth on it that he used to wash the soap off. As he laid that hot cloth on Byron’s neck, Byron rolled off the chair and fainted dead away. When he came to, big Lafe Skeen was holding him on his lap. That was one hair cut Byron will always remember, and as long as he is alive the memory of Sammy Sampson the barber will live on.
Sammy charged 5 to 10 cents a haircut in those days, and trim and shave on the older men was 15 cents.
THE RACE TRACK, PLAIN CITY’S FIRST
William Skeen owned some very fine racehorses and he built a racetrack to train his horses. The neighbors would meet on occasion and race their horses to test the speed against their neighbors horses. Stories have been told that there were some very exciting races held at the track. It was located near four mile reservoir.
They tell the story of a man from Ogden, who was quite a footracer and he was supposed to have challenged and bragged that he could beat a horse in a certain distance. It was well talked up and word spread around, and the race was held. There was a little money that changed hands quite a crowd. But you know, no one can remember who won the race. It was another colorful time in early Plain City.
THE WEDNESDAY NIGHT SHOW
Growing up as a kid during the late twenties, thirties and into the early forties here in Plain City was quite an eventful time. It seemed that the world moved at a slower more relaxed pace and there was time to enjoy visiting and to crate your own entertainment and fun. Depression times were very hard for most families, with very little one and barely the necessities of life. There was very little money available for entertainment and if you had any entertainment, you created your own. They were carefree happy times. As a kid you were lucky if you got into Ogden once a month or even once during the summer. By comparison with today, all the entertainment seems to be provided for the young people and all they have to do is show up with money and everything is provided for them.
In the summer kids games and ball games were a very big thing and something was going on every day and night. Hide and seek, run sheepy run, kick the can, and whatever else anyone could think up were always popular. Skating and sleigh riding were the fall and winter games. You would skate all day and build fires at night so you could skate even longer.
Sometimes in the thirties the movies began to be very popular. Someone from Ogden would bring a movie out to Plain City every Wednesday night. It was held in the upstairs of the old church house and there would be two to three hundred people or more watching the show. The admission was ten cents and hardly anyone ever missed the Wednesday night movie. There was usually a serial episode before the regular movie and it would last for about weeks. It would lead you up to an exciting climax and then announce, “To be continued next week.” I can remember they would be the longest weeks ever, waiting to get back to the show to see what happened. Tail Spit Tommy always a big feature with the serials.
There were some very spooky shows and I can recall small kids screaming and crying, and they would have to leave the show. The shows were scary, but the spooky part was walking home at night after the show. You were always extra light on your feet, and with any strange sound out of the blackness of the night, you would be at a full gallop and double your stride. Ah, but they were good times.
The automobile and the war, and the latest movie hits in Ogden all led to the down fall of the Wednesday night show in Plain City. It was a colorful era in Plain City and one that everyone seemed to enjoy.
A TRIBUTE TO BETTY
Somehow the roads of Plain City look and seem a little different now days without the familiar figure of Betty. Her shopping bag in hand, her figure that time and age had bent a little, and limp that the years had brought on, headed up the road to Ogden. Time had also slowed her steps, but not her to walk to town.
Probably Betty was born fifty years too late to fit in well with a changing society. He life was the simple life, and her wants and needs were few. She was very string willed, proud, and stubborn in some regards. She was very determined not to be pressured into joining the modern world.
Some people say she was eccentric, old, strange, but she was a rugged individualist who refused to conform to anyones standards but her own. As a result of her ways the young people would sometimes tease and torment Betty. But in her own way she ignored them and went her way. Is it not strange that we from our own little worlds are so willing to unfairly judge other people by out own knowledge and standards. Especially if their standards and personality traits do not measure up or lower down to our own.
I wouldn’t begin to know how many thousands of times Betty walked to Ogden, and back with groceries, even after she was around seventy five years of age. I suppose before we could fairly evaluate Betty we should ask the women of Plain City how many times they have walked to Ogden, and back home. Their were many people who were good to Betty and wanted to help her, but she seemed determined and happy to do things her own way.
Betty was a hard worker and she worked for many people in Plain City. Later she worked in Ogden doing housework. I carried mail in Ogden for thirty years and would see Betty working at some of the finest homes in Ogden. Her family paid me a tribute when they asked me to speak at her funeral.
Betty will be remembered as one of Plain City’s remarkable characters. If we let our memories wander a little, and though our minds eye we might still catch a glimpse of a shadow of Betty walking to town.
I have two copies of the History of Plain City, Utah. The front indicates it is from March 17th 1859 to present. As far as I can tell, the book was written in 1977. At least that is the latest date I can find in the book.
One copy belonged to my Grandparents Milo and Gladys Ross. My Grandpa has written various notes inside the history which I intend to include in parenthesis whenever they appear. They add to the history and come from his own experience and hearing.
I will only do a number of pages at a time. I will also try to include scanned copies of the photos in the books. These are just scanned copies of these books, I have not tried to seek out originals or better copies.
History of Plain City March 17th 1859 to present, pages 150 through 165.
SITE FOR NEW TOWN PARK
SUBMITTED BY FLORENE PARKE
In December, 1975, Mayor Lee Olsen and the Plain City Town Council consisting of William VanHoulten, Wayne Cottle, Darwin Taylor and David Thomas, passed a resolution to purchase 20 acres of land. This land was to be used as a recreational complex and also house the town hall and other municipal buildings.
On December 30, 1975, the City of Plain City purchased 20 acres of land from Bernard and Nora Poulsen. The land is located at the north-west corner of the intersection of 2200 North and 4100 West Streets.
The long-term plans for the park included three regulation ball diamonds, (two softball diamonds, and a little league ball diamond); an equestrian arena and open space exercise area to be used for football and other activities requiring large open spaces. A site identified for future development of municipal structures may include a swimming pool, restrooms and parking areas.
Purchasing and developing the land is an expensive process. It is the intention of the City Council to program the work in six one-year phases. Development of the equestrian arena was part of the first year’s phase.
The area housed an arena known as Paul Knight’s Arena. It has been used in the past for several Junior Possee competitions, calf roping meets, and various horses related events. The arena needed fencing and landfill and water installations.
In December, 1976, the Plain City Lions Club, in cooperation with the parents of Junior Possee members, had the area surveyed and hauled 103 loads of sand necessary for a proper working arena. Approximately 30 volunteers donated their time and equipment for two days to complete this part of the work.
Heavy gauge chain-link fencing has been purchased with money from the town and from money raised by Junior Possee members through various fund raising projects. The fence will be installed as soon as the weather conditions permit.
Plain City’s Junior Possees, Four-H groups, and the many other residents interested in equestrian sports will have a safe place for their activities, and the town will have an arena to be proud of.
Paul’s Arena as it is known today, which will be rebuilt into the Town’s new Park. Used for many years for horse and Jr. Posse events.
*A CHILD’S CHRISTMAS IN UTAH
BY WAYNE CARVER (SON OF ELMER AND JANE CARVER)
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH
CARLETON COLLEGE
It isn’t that way now. The quiet fields are broken into building lots and the farmers build jet engines in the city and garden with a tractor after work. The old canal is lined with concrete and in the center of the town the Saturday and sun-drenched baseball diamond has shrunk to softball under lights, and the county has built a tennis court just off third bade for a game the kids are beginning to learn to play in white shoes.
The frame store with the pot-bellied stove smelling of sizzled tobacco spit and with the mash sacks and rummy dive in back is a supermarket now where wives in stretch-pants by barefoot and frozen chopped broccoli by the ton and aerosol bombs that go “SwwOOOOOOsh” and keep off the bugs or put on your pie a water glob of something threatening to be white and that keeps your arteries open.
It isn’t the way it used to be in that un-fluent time of plowing, planting, watering, hoeing, furrowing, harvesting, and throwing the harvest in the river to be pickled in the Great Salt Lake. It is the affluent society now, of missile sites and loan companies, and the ice cream comes come frozen in glazed wrapping and taste like the strips of brown paper we used to put our upper lip to stop the nosebleed. And I have not been back for Christmas for many and many a year – to the long everyday stocking with a fifty cent piece squashing the toe, the large orange pressing the half dollar down – a thick, loose-skinned orange that peeled clean and dry – to the heaped snow that fell on every Christmas eve – I have not been back, and it isn’t that way now – and all I can do is gather a crystal or two from a vein of quartz- or is it foolsgold? – in Time.
****
In the bed-covering warmth of the high ceiling room in the weather-bent old house between the mountains and the salt lake, nothing was alive at first except the dry flopping of the harness straps against the horse’s matted cost and the cold jangle of the chains against the horse’s matted coat and the cold jungle of the chains against the single-tree of the go-devil that Dad used to clear the paths between the house and the barn, the barn and the chicken coop, the chicken coop and the house, and to gouge a trial down the drifted lane to the country road where the snowplows from the shops in Ogden would come later in the day. Lying in the dark that is beginning to be thin out like spilled ink, we hear coming through the window the flopping and the jangling and the sliding rumble of the triangular runners as they push aside rocks and twigs and skid down the sides of irrigation ditches, and the tongue clicking and “steady, boy, steady,” of Dad as he talks to the horse. Hearing this, and seeing from under the door the orange line of kitchen light and, without listening for it, hearing the first snapping of the kindling in the range and smelling, without sniffing for it, the sulphurousness of coal smoke, we know- all three of us – that we have been trickled ourselves and somehow, we can’t say how, had fallen asleep – sometime, somewhere, – back in that black night and that Christmas had come again and caught us sleeping.
Then the tinny, descending jingle of loose bedsprings, the cold shock beneath the warm flannel pajamas legs, the cold fluttering linoleum slap against the feet; and the orange line beneath the door flashes upward and out: We are across the kitchen, through the heavy coal smoke to where the living room door id barred, sealed against us, as mother, at the side door, calls outside, and Dad comes in.
Daylight comes with the smell of oranges, pine, needles, pine needles, and chocolate, and coal smoke from the heater, and the brittle crack of hazel nuts and the tearing raveling crunch of peanut shells, the shimmering glissando of tissue paper crushing, the sweet sticky slurp of cherry chocolates, and the crack and shatter of peanut brittle. Amidst the smell, above the sounds, comes the “oh, just what I wanted,” of Mother and the “Very nice, very fine,” of Dad and the “One -two-three-four! I got four presents that’s simply more than anybody,” of Mary and the “This Wheel’s just fine cause it’s got a burr on the axle, not a cotter key,” of Nephi, and the “Billy’s got this book, he’ll not swap. I’ll swap with Rex,” of another.
By mid-morning the board valley glisten under the cold sun, and you have gone alone through the fields I the over-the-boots snow and along the row of willows besides the canal and watched the muskrats swimming in the alley of dark water between the frozen banks, have seen the runic tracing of the quail and pheasant trails and shaken the loose snow away from your collar that a magpie knocked down on you as you passed beneath the cottonwood trees to Rex’s place where you ate rock candy, swapped the extra Bomba you had read for the Army Boys in France that you had not. By noon you have been to Bill’s through the glare of the sun and snow and shown him your hi-tops with the long grey woolen socks ad the fold-over edge of red at the top and eaten peanut brittle, been to Grant’s and seen the new skates, shown-off the cream and green cover of your Plunk and Luck and eaten candy, been along the roads, the ditches, the trails until the snow packed into ice inside your boots has sent you home to dry and then, drying, behind the big heater in the living room to sail on the stack of books to all the great green world that never was and will last, therefore, forever.
The crunch and ravel and shimmering tinkle is gone from the room now. The quiet is there like a field rippled with snow until the others return from their rounds, and in from the kitchen come only the first rasps ad scrapes and clicks and hacks of dinner’s getting underway. There is pine tree and warmth and the smell of chocolate syrup. Behind the stove Bomba the Jungle Boy crouches in the grass besides the trail as the enemy patrol with poisoned darts in their quivers and blow guns in their hand file slowly by the disappear into the tangled heat of the jungle. In the gassy, coal smelling clearing Bomba is wiping into glittering brightness the still smouldering and dripping blade when, bursting through the streaming wall of branches and vines, comes Aunt Em’s bellow of tribal greeting, followed by a safari of cousins and a diminutive uncle, each one bearing weapons and supplies clutched in their careful and love-filled hands.
“Good Lord, Louisa, there you are just as I figgered, sweating out in the kitchen while everybody else has a fine faretheewell. We’re late but I been after Ephriam since daybreak to get them cows milked so’s we could get on our way. By Judas Priest, you would thought the man had never milked a cow before. Biggest kid in house for Christmas. I get more work out of the cat than I do him. Lordy! You ought to see that house. You can’t see out the windows for trash, and I’m so flustered I think I sliced an egg on the jello and a banana on the hot potato salad. I’m afraid to look, I tell you. And Moroni? – he was out chasing the girls until je ought to have been home milking, too; and, Lord, Sara and nell, you’d of thought they never been given anything before. And all the time, Eph draggin’ along, them cows moanin’ out in the barn, their bags so full they’d like t’have died, nothing to eat – it’s a good thing for that, I suppose. Why, he didn’t get out of the house until ten O’clock, the milk man had come and gone by two hours and all the time me trying’ to bake a cake in a crooked oven with the coal Wilbur man sold us at a special and, Louisa, I’m tellin ’you it ain’t coal at all. It’s just dirt. It’s better dirt than half that hard scrabble your man’s farming down there in Salt Creek, and if Wilbur can sell that sandy loam he sold me for coal, I’s say Josiah’s got a fortune in fuel under that field of onions he tries to grow ever summer. Glow! I’s by there t’other day lookin’ for the horses before the shruf stray-penned “ em and I say to Eph, “Josiah’s got a nice five acres of picklin’ onions out a that salt flat he’s tryin’ to farm. Ought to get a special price, seein’s how they pickled all summer. Grow! I’s by ther t’other day lookin’ for the horses before the shurf stray -penned “em and I say to Eph, “ Josiah’s got a nice five acres of picklin’ onions out a that salt flat he’s tryin’ to bake this cake, and roast a shoulder of pork and fix the salad and I’m up to my chin in candy and nuts and wrappin’ paper until I finally just booted everybody out the back door and said, “Lordy, go over t’the neighbors and dirty up some fresh territory while I get something done.” So they did. Except Eph. He’s still settin’ there in his new robe and slippers, dozin’ mind you, his head bobbin’ back and forth like a derrick fork. And them poor cows hollerin’ to be milked, and finally I told him, “Lord almighty man, go out there and take out enough milk to relieve their pain anyways, even if you don’t care about no milk check next week.’ So he did. Well, here we are. Where d’you want me to put the roast to keep it warm, Here! Give me that knife, I’ll peel the taters. Don’t you get no help? Where’re your kids? You get started on the rolls, woman. This house is goin’ to be crawlin’ with starving prople before we get turned around and us without a thing to put in their mouths.I thought I told you Big J flour’s better’n this other stuff. Lord! I don’t know what’s goin’ to happen to us. Ten o’clock milkin’; I tell you, I thought I’d never live to the day.”
And then the green jungle explodes into white brightness and come alive with cousins and uncles and aunts as the tribal dance around the tree begins and the hecatombs are offered to the angry powers of hunger and love: roast chicken, roast turkey, hams, and pork shoulders, brown gravies, chicken gravies, sage and giblet stuffing, candied yams and sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, creamed corn, wax beans, lima beans, and string beans, carrots – tossed salads, potato salads, gelatin salads, cream pies, fruit pies, mince pies, pumpkin pies, chocolate cake, and white cakes, jello ad whipped crème and sliced bananas, candy in dishes and boxes, apples, oranges, and bananas – and one cup of coffee brewed just for Uncle Heber, the free-thinker of the tribe who risked the taboo, and for him, too, the cracked saucer for the ashes of his cigar.
And above the crack of celery, the clack of china, the clink oof silverware, the chattering drone and occasional giggle or scream, and through the acrid halo of smoke around Uncle Heber’s head comes Aunt Em’s piercing voice: “It’s a foul habit and an abomination in the sight of God, Heber, and I’d rather see my brother take to drink than terbakker the way you do. And coffee defiles the temple of the spirit in a worse way, and Louisa’s curtain’ll smell of Christmas and sin until the Fourth of July because of you.”
And though the drone and chatter, Uncle Heber’s: Sis, you finish your meal in your way; I’ll finish mine in mine. The Prophet used to smoke, so did Brother Brigham – and chew. They chewed and spit like any man. I sin in good company. Fact, is sis, if the truth was known, smokin’ and good coffee got to be a sin because Joseph had an allergy to caffeine and nicotine. Used to break out in hive after every cup of joe and every satisfying drag, so he made both a sin. Say, get me a stove match will you, sis, while yer up – in the kitchen there. See? A good cigar goes out if it ain’t appreciated.”
And then through the long dying of the day, the world beyond the oppressive clearing behind the stove goes on. Bomba frees the friendly white girl, eats a tapir, while through the nebulous jungle wall from far beyond come the shouts and squeals of cousins and brother and sister play, the falsetto chirping of Aunt talk, and the grumbling bass of Uncle talk. And as the Army boys march aboard the transport in New York to go to France with “Lafayette, we are here,” on their lips, there hovers in the air of the stifling, coal-gas smelling hold of the transport:
“Franklin D. Roosevelt was sent by God to lead his children out of bondage.”
“I like that man’s smile. Then he sticks them cig-roots in his mouth and I tell you I jist don’t know!”
“We should have won that game on the Fourth; Freddie just got a leetle tired. . . .”
“Walkin’ on to my farm and tellin’ me what I can grow and what I can’r. I sicked the dog on that little pipsqueak. . . .”
“Doak, that big elephant, fannin’ twice with men on. . . . Never could hit a round-house out.”
“. . . on relief until his first paycheck . . . blew it all one weekend at Elko. . . “
“Next time Brig Roberts umpire, I say protest the game. . . “ “Two of them Clinton players smoke. I seen ‘em. . . “
“Good for them . . . “
“Heber!”
“Paid in paper script. . . not worth the paper it’s . . . “
“. . . kept track the last three games . . . fanned four times with one on . . . “
“Farmers the last one to get anything from a government . . . “
“We got 3.2 beer what we have to risk damnation to drink. But the price of tater’s about the same as when Hoover. . . “
“ Eat the taters then the shut up. “ S bettern defilin’ Em! We’d live forever, that a-way – the two of us.”
“Ha!”
“Only hit all year as I remember rolled down the gopher hole back of first base in West Warren for a ground rule double. . . some clean up hitter be is. . . “
“don’t care how the man smokes. I’d vote for FDR for God tomorrow if I had the chance..”
“But President Hoover says. . . “
“To Hell with President Hoover!”
“Heber! Heber! Heber!”
And now Bart, the oldest, most handsome, most dependable of all the Army Boys in France, escaped from the hospital in the rear, slogs through the nuts, shells, and package wrapping of rural France, wet, cold, delirious, dropping into shell holes as the rat-a-tat-tat of a match-shooting gun rattles out of the living room from behind the sofa. In the lull that follows, as the darkness comes on, a command rips across the subdue murmur of No-Man’s Land: Ephriam! It’s milkin’ time. Lord! Let’s go on home and see how many cow’s got mastitis from this mornin’. Judas Priest! One thing for sure. Never milk a cow, never have to. They’ll have their bags caked-up like a lick of salt. Come on, Eph!.
And Uncle Heber, rising from the waves of cigar smoke, “Emmie sit down. For the Lord of all the Lamanites. I only see you about once a year, it seems like.”
She, settling back into the sofa, “That’s for sure.” There is a long quiet. Then, “But Heber, when’re you going to come to your senses and make your peace with me and the Church.”
I’m ready, Emmie, always have been. For you or the Church. But I figger the Church’ll be a dang sight easier to settle up with that you.”
From inside the pill-box in the living room comes another burst of fire, and Bart, with his dependent buddies, crawls along a little stream in the gassy gloom of twilight, trying to get a bearing on the mortar that is lobbing rounds into the Company. And Bart whispers, “I’m going over there to see what it looks like, anyways.”
“No, no, bart,” from his friends. But he, “Remember the Luistania.” Ashamed, they say no more. “It may not be what I’m after but just beyond that hill is where I need a pig for winter dressing up, and if Parley P. Brown – Goodie-Two-Shoes Brown, we called him in school – has got what I want –“
‘Heber! That’s talk I won’t hear. He’s a God-fearing man and –“
“And a man practically lacking in the power of speech, Em, that’s what he is. Why, Em whenever I think you’re right, that I’m a sinner temporarily damned to a lower degree of glory, I remember the day I went over there to buy that pig. We’re out in the pen, see – a sloppy pen if you ever saw one – and all these weaner pigs are grunting around in there. I’ve got this gunny sack and a three foot piece of two-by-four, but Parl Brown don’t so things that way. No Sir! ‘You stay here, ‘ he says and he crawls in that stuff. I’ll return presently with a shoat.” Return! Presently! Shoat! The man can’t talk. Well – anyhow – he slops into the pen. He corners one of the wet-snouted little balderdroppers, lunges at it and, by Christmas, kisses by half a foot – skids into the plank wall. Judas Priest, I though he’d killed himself. Picks himself up. Scrapes himself off. Looks over at me. You could hardly see his face. ‘Little rascals,’ he says, and grins; he corners another. Dives again, skids, misses, splatters, hits, stands up,wipes, away at himself a bit. Elusive little tykes,’ he says, turns, gets ready to do it again. I’ve had enough. ‘Parl!’ I beller at him. He looks around. I crawls over the fence. By jaspers, I’m near tears, ‘Parl, for Juniper’s sweet loving sake, man, don’t talk to pigs like that. Now you go on, get out of here!’ He goes, me pushin him. Then I turns to the litter and look them square in the eye. They’re all backed into one side and a corner, still and quiet. They’d sense the change right off. Then I hold my two- by out in front where they can see it. I drops my sack open, the mouth of it facing them. I drops on my haunches and teeters a bit. Then I says, real tight and lowlike: ‘Now – you little thin-snouted, bleary-eyed runty-backed, spiral-trailed sons of this litter, one of you hop into this sack.’ Why, almost immediately, you might say, the one nearest the sack trots over, sniffs a hit, squeals a little, and walks in the sack and curls up. I snap the sack to with a piece of binder twine, hoists it over my shoulder, climbs ion the pick-up and brings it along home. Paid Parl a day later by check. Well, Emmie, you see the point? Sin has its place. A man like Parley P. Brown might not defile the curtains in the parlor, might make it all the way to the Celestial degree of glory, but he’s not worth a good God- damn in a pig pen.”
Then the war draws to its close in the snow of winter and the troops march home from No-Man’s Land, over there, over there – across the rubbles of papers and candy and peanuts and broken toys and needles from the trees, and , suddenly, the lights all over the world come on to Mother’s: You’ll ruin your eyes, son, reading in the dark behind that heater.”
And only the others are there now – the other two and Dad and Mother – and we eat a sandwich of cold chicken and have some milk out of the big pan in the pantry and we have family prayer around a chair in the kitchen. Kneeling there, the linoleum burning its cold into our knees, everything is love and one and whole. The day is blest, and all the days to come.
In the bedroom we shiver against the cold sheets and giggle and fight for warmth against each other.
In enveloping blackness we hear the squeak of the snow under Dad’s boots as he walks for the check-up to the barn and hear the sounds of cleaning up from the kitchen.
Overhead the attic creaks as the old house sways a little in the winter chill that comes down on a black wind from the black mountains to the east an moves through the valley and across the salt lake and into all the years to come – but that cannot touch the bed-covering warmth of a Christmas that is past.
*Reprinted by permission of ‘The Carleton Miscellany”
Copyright, 1965, by Carleton College
Northfield, Minnesota 55057
FIRST PLAIN CITY CANNING FACTORY
This was the first canning factory in Plain City. It was located across the street from Loyd Olsen’s home at about 1900 North 4700 West. The factory was built around or before 1900. The picture was taken in 1906 or 1907. The factory was torn down in 1916 or 1917 and part of it was moved to become part of the john Maw store. Laura Musgrave remembers working there as a girl.
We do not have the names of those in the picture, but were told that the older man on far right is Abraham Maw who run the factory. He is the father of Henry T. Maw and grandfather of Abraham Maw.
PICTURE TAKEN ABOUT 1900
Front row left to right:
Trina Folkman, Wilford Danvers, Lonna Richardson Miller, Thomas Jenkins.
Second row left to right:
Elea England Watson, Dave Geddes, Luci Rawson, Sophie England, Jed Skeen, Melissa Carver.
Third row left to right:
Rose Stoker, Cerilla Richardson, Lorenzo Lund, Sussen Geddes, John Moyes, Riley Skeen, Lyman Skeen, Emily White, Richard Lund.
Peter Green was on the original photo with only part of him showing. You could see his hat and right arm and leg.
EARLY ORCHESTRA
The man with the cap is Robert Hunt. He is Clara Hunt Singleton’s brother. Clara was the mother of Florence Singleton Simpson.
OLD PHOTOS
Above two: Plain City’s 110 year Anniversary.
Picture taken in front of the old dance hall. In 1959 on the Sunday nearest the 17th of March no cars were allowed at the church, just teams and horses and buggies. The people came to church in pioneer dress as a climax to a weeks long celebration.
Above: Rear view of the old Church house. The upstairs was a recreation hall with a stage.
PLAIN CITY CANNING COMPANY
The Plain City Canning Company was built in 1925. They operated the factory for over 30 years. During World War II they used prisoner’s of war for laborers during the canning season. It is owned by George Cook.
EVERETT’S PLUMBING
This building was built by Everett Taylor for his plumbing business.
BUSINESSES OF TODAY
BUILDERS BARGAIN CENTER
Builders Bargain Center, formerly England’s Builders. This business was started and run by Chester England for many years.
The Confectionery, but known to everyone in City has the Pool Hall, or the Grog Hall.
BUSINESSES OF TODAY
BARNES FURNITURE CO.
Barnes Furniture Co. was started by Hebert and Elida Barnes in the winter of 1948-1949. Elida had acquired upholstery skills through Utah State Extension Services with offices in Odgen. Herbert learned wood work, restyling and remodeling from Utah Defense Depot. An elderly German refinishing craftsman taught Hebert the refinishing craft. Later on both had upholstery training through Weber College.
The first shop was one-half of a small railroad box car situated east and south of the present shop at 1600 N. 4700 W.
This makeshift shop was soon out grown. The present shop erected in 1953.
FIRST SHOP
Now owned by George Cook and used as a bath house.
PRESENT SHOP OF BARNES FURNITURE
BUSINESSES OF TODAY
PAUL COSTLEY GARAGE
This garage opened in the fall of 1947, and is located north of the city of Plain City.
C. & B. REPAIR SHOP
The C. & B. Auto Repair Shop owned by Curt Knight and Bruce Hall. The old building at the left is Rall Taylor’s old blacksmith shop.
BUSINESSES OF TODAY
CLIFF FOLKMAN SERVICES
Cliff Folkman operated a gas station in this location for over 30 years. He moved into the new building in the fall of 1964, located in the center of town, on the east side of the Square.
WHITIE’S CAFE AND ICE CREAM PARLOR
Dennis White opened his cafe in the summer of 1976. It is located on the east side of the Square.
BUSINESSES OF TODAY
UTAH TRANSIT AUTHORITY BY RUTH FOWERS
On Tuesday, July 6, 1976, the Utah Transit Authority started regular bus transportation services to Plain City area. The bus arrived in Plain city at 6:55 A.M. and returned to Ogden through Slaterville by way of Pioneer Road. The schedule continued every 40 minutes, the late bus leaving Plain city at 6:55 P.M., Monday through Saturday, with o service Sunday or holidays. It is called Route #20 Plain City.
This service had been in the planning for some three years prior. The U.T.A. is supported by quarter of a cent sales tax. The fare being 15 cents for adults and 10 cents for children and senior citizens, with senior citizens allowed the courtesy ot ride free between the hours of 10 – 3 and after 6 P.M.
Many citizens are enjoying this method of transportation to and from Ogden, some extend its service to Salt Lake City and return.
BANK OF UTAH
Nov. 27, 1972, marked the grand opening date for the Plain City Branch of the Bank of Utah.
The bank has had a steady increase in its patronage since the beginning. Services are available to all the citizens in the surrounding towns. Some clientele come from as far as south Brigham City.
The bank started with three employees and now as four.
I have two copies of the History of Plain City, Utah. The front indicates it is from March 17th 1859 to present. As far as I can tell, the book was written in 1977. At least that is the latest date I can find in the book.
One copy belonged to my Grandparents Milo and Gladys Ross. My Grandpa has written various notes inside the history which I intend to include in parenthesis whenever they appear. They add to the history and come from his own experience and hearing.
I will only do a number of pages at a time. I will also try to include scanned copies of the photos in the books. These are just scanned copies of these books, I have not tried to seek out originals or better copies.
History of Plain City March 17th 1859 to present, pages 107 through 122.
SCHOOLS
Early Plain City School
Poplar School
Submitted by Roxey R. Heslop
Poplar was a branch of the Plain City Ward and it received its name from the long rows of Poplar trees on both sides of the street.
The school district was organized in 1891. First school was held in the home of Peter McCue located about 3475 West 1975 North. James L. Robson was the first teacher followed by Mrs. W. Winslow and Myra Gray.
A room school house was built about 1894 at 3320 West 1975 North. This picture is not the Poplar school which had no windows in the front but on the west side and three was a wood shed at the back but it is very similar in many ways.
The teachers were Bessie Zinn, Blanch Bagley, Freed W. Dalton, Naomi Tracy, Emma Anderson, Sarah Stevenson, Etta Brow, Lottie Henigar, Minnie Rudiger, Melvina Wayment, Esther Steward, Welthy Lake, and Pearl Tracy.
The Poplar School House was the center of church and social activities. Sunday School was organized 3 Sept. 1894. Primary and Religion were held there.
Dances were wonderful. Everyone danced and the young folks were taught to waltz, two-step, quadrills, polkas, schottisches and others that were popular at that times. Richard Lund with his violin accompanied by his daughters, Annie or Alminda on the organ. Often lunch was served. Children’s dances were held.
The Poplar Lane people were like a united family. Everyone went to church and attended all social events. All the children played together.
Nearly all of the folks have gone but those who are left enjoy wonderful memories of the days of activity, associations and inspirations that was bought from the one-room school.
First consolidated public school. Built to replace the North, South, and Poplar Schools. It was built of adobe and located on the northeast corner of the square. It was used as a community and recreational center for many years after the second consolidated school was built.
Second public school after front door was sealed; new entrance was built on the east side when the gymnasium was added. Lunch room facilities were added to the west later.
Second public school after remodeling when front windows were bricked over but before later additions were made.
Interior of the second school, showing old wood and metal desks that were attached to long wooden planks.
CLASS PICTURE TAKEN IN THE POPLAR SCHOOL
Poplar school was a one room building. This picture was taken during the school term of 1901-1902 with Etta Brown as teacher. Later she married LeRoy E. Cowles who became the president of the University of Utah.
Top row: Emma Cottle, Elmer Robson, Ada Skeen, Williams Allred, Walter Cottle, Anzley Miller Luckart, Parley Taylor, Luella Cottle Stanger, Edmund Furnis, Alma Furnis, Laurence Cottle, Leslie Taylor, John Taylor.
Bertha Urry, Kate Urry East, Pearl Taylor Lund, Bertha Robson England, Alice Urry Wayment, Josephine Cottle Monroe, John Jackson, Elmer Taylor.
Roxey Robson Heslop, Manila Taylor Hancock, Emma Taylor Homer, Kate Kensley Nalder, Parley Stoker, Blanch Kenley, Drysdale, Unknown, Jessie Kenley Wayment, Evelyn Taylor Cottle, unknown, Martena Taylor Surrage, Merl Jackson, Zina Urry, Nellie Kenley Draney.
Some were too young to go to school and were brought for the picture.
Submitted by Roxey R. Heslop
This is the graduating class of 1907, Class of 1906-1907
Iris Poulsen, LaVerna Davis, Principal John C. Neal, Florence Singleton, Ruth Poulsen
Front Row:
Clifton Kerr, Marion Sneed, Arvilla Taylor, Ellis Giles, Margaret Hunt, Gilbert Taylor, Harold Carver
PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILT IN 1906
This is located on the site of the present Plain City Elementary School.
It included elementary through tenth grade in later years. The last year the tenth grade was held in the school was 1947. After that, it remained in use as an elementary school.
The front windows were bricked over and later the front doors were bricked when the gymnasium was added to the east.
Still later, a cafeteria was added to the west. The building was demolished in 1955, leaving the later additions and adding a new addition of classrooms to the east that same year.
The students pictured at the bottom of the picture are enlarged on the3 following pages.
Weber County School District was organized in 1906-07. Plain City was dedicated in September of 1906.
The teachers are: John Quincy Blaylock, Laura Lamon, Rosabell O’dell and Elda Cooley.
1909, 8TH Grade Graduation Class.
Back row L to R: John Taylor, Roxey Robson (Heslop), Easter Lund (Stevenson), Elvin Maw, Mildred England (Hart) (Robins).
Front row L to R: Lona Ipsen ( – ), Teacher John Q. Blaylock, Bertha Hodson (Bullock).
Enlargement of the students in the 1907-07 school picture on the preceeding pages, showing the center one-third of the students.
Early school buses were privately owned and used for summer vacations and school trips.
Enlargement of the students in the 1906-07 school picture on the preceeding page, showing the left one-third of the students.
L. Rulon Jenkins, teacher and Principal of the 1906 school during later years in the 30’s and 40’s.
Early classes held in the 1906 school during succeeding years. Dates and identities not known.
Early Plain City Class Picture Date and teacher unknown. We hope you can identify a parent or grandparent to make it more meaningful to you.
View of the 1906 school after the gymnasium had been added and more modern bus transportation used.
CLARA SKEEN THOMAS
SUBMITTED BY BEVERLY B EDDY
The Plain City School Hot Lunch Program was organized by Clara Skeen Thomas, wife of George Sidney Thomas. Clara Thomas was the first to start the Hot Lunch Program at the Plain City School 1923-1924.
She received $1.00 per day. She served vegetable and tomato soups, chip beef gravy on mashed potatoes and chili. These were purchased at the cost of three cents a bowl. With this money she received from the food, she would but the materials needed to prepare the next meal.
For years, she cooked and prepared the food at her home. She would have to take it up to the school each day. This would consist of three blocks each way. Later the school purchased a coal oil stove, which made it possible to prepare the food at the school. Each year the Hot Lunch program started in November and ended in March. Clara Skeen Thomas cooked and prepared the hot lunch at the Plain City School for eleven years and never missed a day.
SCHOOL LUNCH PROGRAM
L to R: Ivy Carver, Elizabeth Lund, Vacona Singleton, Tillie Moyes, Bell Woods.
SCHOOL BUS TRANSPORTATION
SUBMITTED BY ELMER ROSE
Oh what progress in education when in 1926, Weber High School opened its doors for County students. This high school is located on Washington Blvd. and presently occupied by the Adult Education Center.
Elmer Rose, of Warren, drove a bus to accommodate the northwest area of Weber County. Mr. Rose’s route covered several miles each day. He picked up all the high school students from Warren and both elementary and high school students from the south end of Plain City. He dropped the elementary students off at the Plain City elementary school. The student’s near the street car tracks were left to ride it to the high school.
Mr. Rose then continued his route through the North Plain City Road, back along highway 84 to within a reasonable distance from the car line. Then after passing the Harrisville along the route to Ogden limits.
On the route going to the high school, Mr. Rose picked up the Farr West Elementary students and delivered them to the Farr West School. He returned down the North Plain City Road picking up the elementary students for Plain City School.
The bus contracts to maintain and operate these units of transportation were awarded by bids. The lowest bidder getting the job if his outfit met the approval of the school board.
The inside of the bus had a bench on each side facing the center. The girls usually occupied these seats. In the center was a bench called a straddle seat. The boys were crowded together astraddle this bench.
The first bus was small and about 30 students were crowded into it. The students gave this bus the nickname of “Cracker Box”.
He often chartered his privately owned bus to take scouts, F.H.A. and other groups on excursions and other activities.
Mr. Rose removed the bus from its chassis during the summer so that he might use the truck for farm trucking.
This picture is of the second privately owned bus maintained and operated by Elmer Rose. This bus had a large capacity, accommodating about 50 students.
BUSSES LOADED IN FRONT OF WEBER HIGH SCHOOL IN 1926
The first buses to transport students to Weber High School in 1926 were operated and maintained by the individual owners. The contracts were let to the person whose bid was accepted by the Board of Education. Since these first buses were individually owned, the owners often used them for 4-H, temple, and various other excursions and activities.
Owners often used them for hunting trips. Family and friends slept in them overnight lodging away from home. The straddle bench was removed to make room for the bed.
Some owners removed the bus body from the chassis and placed another bed on the truck, so as to utilize it for farm trucking during the summer.
School transportation has evolved from the horse-drawn school wagon to the giant sized yellow school bus.
Today students ride to school fairly comfortable. The buses are warm, the seats padded, the radio plays popular music. These luxuries were undreamed of by the students who rode in the white top covered wagon, or the horse drawn sleigh in the midst of winter.
SUBMITTED BY RUTH FOWERS
SCHOOL LUNCH PROGRAM WORKERS
L to R: Hazel Kennedy, Mabel Moyes, Thelma H. Palmer, VaCona P. Singleton- Head Cook.
L to R: Principal Earl Cragun, Fern Hogge, Mabel Moyes, Norma Jensen, Hazel Kennedy.
Demolition in 1955 of the school building of 1906. This building had been in use continuously since that date. Many changes and additions had been added around it.
View of the new addition added in 1954-55 as seen through the rubble of the 1906 building and the construction equipment of the new building.
View of the Plain City Town Square from the roof of the school gymnasium.
Three view of the Plain City Elementary School as it stands today in 1977 with its many additions.
This note was dropped at my office in Burley, Idaho several years ago. While I normally get Thank You cards in the mail, this is the anomaly. I believe it speaks for itself.
I was appointed to represent Delores Kelsey, Florence Delores Herron Kelsey, (1930-2017), in an eviction litigation. Some of her children were attempting to evict Bret Kelsey (1959-2020), her son, out of her home. It turned into a slog fest among a number of the Kelsey children/siblings. Brent Robinson defended Bret, Matt Darrington represented Paul Kelsey (1956-2018), Curtis Stoker was appointed as Trustee of the Kelsey Trust, and Peter Wells represented Curtis Stoker as Trustee. It took years of work. A Cassia County case, most hearings were held in Minidoka County. I think this case drove Judge Bollar to retirement faster.
Mr. Kelsey also took it upon himself to protest many attorneys over the years. I am fortunate to have also been in that club.
Matt Darrington had the honors of a protest sign
Matthew C Darrington
Attorney at Law
freeloaden off
“We the People”
Bret Kelsey with a Paul Ross protest sign in Burley, Idaho
Amanda was kind enough to stop and get pictures one day in 2016.
A better view of the protest sign of Mr. Kelsey
Paul N. J. Ross
Attorney at Law
taken advantage of the ELDERLY
We the People
Bret Kelsey with a Ross protest sign in Burley Idaho in 2016
Paul N. J. Ross
Attorney at Law
SKUM SUCKEN
Lien two-face
MORMON TRASH
Mr. Kelsey protesting Mr. Larsen as Prosecutor in front of Zions Bank
PROSECUTOR
McCord Larsen
is a TWO-FACE
backstabben
LYEN PUNK
It was years after it was over that the above love note was left at my office.
Mediel Justice Chronicle
*Bullyous Tyrant Mormons*
This short story was created by those whom in my opinoun became Bullyous Tyrants by abuseing their power in representing Dolores Kelsey’s – Trust n Concerns –
Is Brent Robinson – Attorney at Law – Mormon an “Angel of Darkness?”
Is Matt Darrington – Attorney at Law -Mormon a “Freeloader of People?” – Mormon
Is Paul Ross – Attorney at Law -Mormon “One Whom Takes Advantage of Elderly?”
Is Curtis Stoker – Trustee – Mormon A “Lying – Distrespectful – Dishonest?”
Is Peter Wells – Attorney at Law – Mormon A “Pretender of the Truth?”
Unknowingly pierced by BEELZEBUBS dagger of darkness these Bullyous Mormons have become corrupted, there by extorting unjustifiable cruelties!!!! I leave you with a quote. “Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
Sagacity 