Virgin City was the first little town site chosen on the Virgin River. The word “City”, was used in connection with the name of the river to make it easier to designate which was which, whenever it was recorded. The town never boasted of more than 500 population at any one time. It was called Pocketville by the Indians because it is situated in a low spot or pocket on the bank of the Virgin River, about 20 miles west of Zion National Park in Washington County, Utah.
In the spring of 1857, Seth Johnson and his brother Nephi, Darius Shirts and his brother, Carl Shirts, Anthony J. Stratton, James Bay, Andrew J. Workman, William Haslam, and Samuel Bradshaw camped on the La Verkin Creek and made a road up the face of the great Hurricane fault so they could explore the upper Virgin River country. One man had to stay at camp all the time to keep the Indians from stealing their food. They were about a month making the road and named it Johnson’s Twist. Seth Johnson was the first man to drive over the road, and he took two yoke of oxen with an empty wagon into the upper Virgin River valley. As soon as the road was passable. Nephi Johnson got several families from Cedar City and New Harmony to come and settle at Virgin City.
In the late fall of 1863, a number of families were “called” at the October Conference in Salt Lake City to the “Pinto” mission to raise cotton. They were John Parker, John N. Hinton, LeRoy W. Beebe, John Wood, George Lovekin, Joseph Hopkins, James Dougherty, George B. Gardner, Thomas Burgess, Robert Reeve, Edwin Ruthven Lamb, Brigham Young Lamb, Philitus Davis, John Dalton, Alexander Wright, Jefferson Wright, Joseph Wright, Daniel Matthews, and James Jepson, Sr. with one son, 8 years old, the author of this history.
John Wood Sr., a convert from England, came to Virgin City in December 1862. His wife drove the oxen and he drove cattle for John Parker. He farmed and helped to build several homes. Later they moved to Grafton.
William, George, and Samuel Isom, all brothers, from England, came to Virgin City about 1863. William was married to Katherine Wolf, who came with him from England. Owen and Elizabeth, his father and mother, came in 1874 and they all moved to Mt. Dell. William and Kate raised a large family. Their sons, Will, John, and Sam, all filled missions, and Will and Sam both were bishops. George Isom married Alice Parker and moved back to Virgin City. He had a good education and was the first ward clerk of the Virgin Ward. He was the business manager of the mercantile organization during the “order”. He was a farmer and builder, and died in 1885, leaving a large family of girls and only one son. His wife was an expert needlewoman and she continued in the mercantile business until about 1900, when she took her family to be educated at the Brigham Young Academy in Provo.
Daniel Matthews was a convert from England. He came in 1862 with his wife and she died (just outside of Salt Lake City), leaving him with two children. He was a farmer and joint owner with John Parker in a “Chaff Piler”. He made a trip with Mary Leah Groves Lee, widow of John D. Lee, to Salt Lake City to be married. She had seven children, and together they had three children and all these children grew up in Virgin.
John Parker was an English convert who came in 1862, with his wives and their families. His first wife had died, leaving him with several children, and he married Ellen Douglas, a widow with several children, and they had one daughter, Alice Parker Isom. Ellen was the first Relief Society president in Virgin, and she had a loom and could weave beautiful white cloth from cotton grown at home.
Maria Jackson Normington, the third wife of John Parker was also a widow with three girls. They crossed the plains with the ill-fated Martin Handcart Company. She had two children with Parker, Richard and Marie. She was a singer, a weaver, and an excellent cook.
Virgin was made a branch of the Toquerville Ward about 1860, with Nephi Johnson as Presiding Elder, with Seth Johnson and George Bryant Gardner as assistants. In 1866, the Virgin Ward was formed with John Parker as Bishop, and Nephi Johnson, and George Isom Sr., as clerk. The following men later served as Bishops and counselors; James Jepson Sr., Anthony Stratton, and LeRoy W. Beebe. On the death of his father James Jepson Jr., was appointed as first counselor. Also serving through the years were; Charles P. Burke, Joseph Hilton, and Samuel Isom. James Jepson was Bishop of the Virgin Ward until he moved to Hurricane in 1910. James Humphries served as Ward clerk for three bishops.
This copy of The First Settlers of Virgin City are the property of Lenny Wilcox Brinkerhoff and is offered for personal use and research only. This may not be reprinted or used for commercial purposes without written permission.
My great grand parents were Richard and Alice Easton Parker. They were parents of six children, Grandfather John Parker, their son married Ellen Eskin [Heskin].
They were parents of ten children, Isabella, Robert, Richard, Roger, Nancy, John, William, (who died) Ellen, Alice, Mary. My father John Parker Jr., was born in the same household his father was, in Lancashire, England, on the 14th day of February, 1812.
The family were religious. I think most if not all of them belonged to the Church of England. They were all taught to pray and were strict observers of the Sabbath. Those principles father carried out through his life. He had no schooling but learned to read and write. In his youth and early manhood he farmed and tended some sheep and cattle. Just what could be kept on a small farm, which they had to rent. All the land in that country was owned by and controlled by landlords.
He also wove and made brooms of small willows, called besoms, such as were used to sweep streets and stables. The had flu-suttle [ shuttle ?] looms in their homes. Lancashire being a cotton manufacturing district, many people who couldn’t leave home to work in the factory, wove in this way in the home. Every child had to help earn a living. I have heard father tell of having to wake his sister Mary at three o’clock in the morning to leave to work in the factory when she was only six years old. They were honest industrious and
thrifty but there was no chance to get ahead in that country. The rich owned the land. Very few of the common people owned a home. It would seem nothing to us but slavery and indeed it was to them until the
gospel set them free.
About 1834-5 father married Alice Widaker of Ribchester, Lancashire, England. In 1837 the first Latter-day Saint elder came to England. When in the little village of Chaigley, they stayed with grandfather Parker.
Father was choir leader and played the violin in church.
A Mr. Richards was the pastor of the church. He had a daughter Amelia, who was very
intimate with my aunts. All were singers. Amelia told her father that there were some American ministers at old John’s [John Parker, Sr.] (that was the way the spoke to designate the difference in that country). Mr. Richards, thinking to give his flock a change, invited them to speak in his chapel. He did not give them another chance. He said that they had deluded all of the best of his congregation and led them astray. Most of the choir were converted. Amelia was one of them. She married Elder Willard Richards before he returned to America.
John Parker, Sr.
Grandfather, grandmother, father, and wife, his brother Roger, sisters: Ellen and Alice and their husbands Edward and William Corbridge and sister Mary received the gospel and were baptized all the same day, for I
have heard father tell of this incident of his baptism:
“It was a cold frosty night. There was going to be some baptisms. Father and others went to look on. He and a young man stood together. They wished they had brought cloths so that they could be baptized. The
young man said, “We can borrow Mag’s dress”. They did so. Father said that getting into that wet dress was worse than the ice water.”
Grandfather and grandmother crossed the sea in the first ship chartered for the Latter-day Saints. And settled in Nauvoo. None of their children came with them. They had never been twenty miles from their birth place before. It took faith, yes, a perfect faith and knowledge to induce people to forsake all and go to a new world for the gospel’s sake. Aunt Mary [Mary Heskin Parker] followed the next year and was married to Samuel W. Richards.
Samuel W. Richards
Father’s wife Alice bore him six children. Three were born dead. She died with the last. It was a great sorrow to him to have her taken that way. I never heard him speak of her death without showing the most tender
emotions. Mary Ann [was] four and one half. Aunt Alice did what she could while he remained in England to help him care for his little ones.
Father was afflicted with asthma more or less from the time he was twelve years old. One time when having a bad spell, brother Heber C. Kimball was there. It was when he was on his second mission. Father asked him to administer to him. Brother Kimball said to him, “Brother John, if you will not drink any more tea or coffee you shall be healed.” He did not touch him or pray for him but he was better. Some time after he was visiting at Aunt Alice’s, she had coffee and he took a cup, not thinking until he started with the Asthma again. This was after the death of his wife. His sorrow must have caused him to forget. He did not use tea or coffee after but suffered with asthma all his life, with the exception when change of climate relieved him.
On January the 17th ,1845, he set sail from England on the ship Palmyra, bound for America. Leaving his native land, brothers, sisters, and friends that had been dearest to him in life and the graves of his beloved dead. Taking his three little ones without any one related to him to assist him in their care, to cast his lot with the saints who were then and had been despised, persecuted and driven, their prophet and patriarch murdered for the religion he was now leaving all for. Could anyone doubt the sincerity, the implicit faith in God people had that would make such sacrifice in the face of such conditions.
It took all he had to emigrate to Nauvoo. He was sea sick all the fore part of the journey. They were weeks crossing the sea in those sailing vessels. It was so long before he was well enough to comb and take care of the children’s hair, Elizabeth’s was in very bad condition. It was so thick. Father could not see any way to manage it so he cut it off. It made her look a sight and feel so badly. The president of the company, Amos
Fielding, rebuked him severely for doing it.
They arrived safely in Nauvoo. He was assisted by his mother in caring for his children. In June of that year [1845], father took the chills and fever. Nauvoo being located in the bend of the river was moist or swampy
and super-induced Malaria. There was much suffering from this disease. Father chilled every day for thirteen months but one and was much reduced in strength. Grandmother took chills and died the following year. She had always said that she knew she couldn’t live if she had the chills. She only had two. This was another great sorrow. Again they were left in a bad condition, father sick, grandfather very feeble and three motherless children.
My mother, Ellen Briggs, was born in Lancashire, England, November seventh 1806. She married George Douglas, by whom she had eight children: Ralph, Richard, William, Ann, Isabelle, Mary, George and Ellen Vilate. William died when he was eleven years old.
The family joined the church [Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints] in March 1838. All that were old enough were baptized by Heber C. Kimball. They emigrated to America in a sailing vessel. No other saints were on board.
Heber C. Kimball
They were nine weeks crossing the sea. Reached Nauvoo April the sixth 1842. On the twlveth of July that year [1842], her husband George Douglas died, leaving her a widow with seven children. The eldest was sixteen. A stranger in a strange land with nothing, it having taken all their earthly possessions to emigrate.
But they were thankful that they were with the saints and had faith that God would take care of the widow and the fatherless. The oldest boys were willing to work and got work. Mother also went out to wash and do anything she could to help support the family.
The second year she was laid up so long with the chills that she could not do her own work. The family got very destitute. The Relief Society gave them assistance. She was a member of the first Relief Society and she saw the prophet both alive and dead. Mother was very intimate with grandfather and grandmother Parker
before father emigrated. In fact, they had known each other before leaving England. They became better acquainted and decided to join their lives and families. They used to tell a joke of father: the only day that he
missed chilling in thirteen months, he was expecting mother to call. They were married in 1864 at Nauvoo, Samuel W. Richards performing the ceremony.
They had three children each under the age of ten years and grandfather who could not dress himself without help. Father was just getting over the chills. He often remarked that he got married to get somebody to take
care of him. They were devoted to each other throughout the remainder of their lives, over forty years. At the time they were married mother had their cow killed so they had beef and suet. Father had fifty cents that he
gave her. She bought currants and they had a plum pudding for their wedding dinner.
My parents and grandparents were endowed in the Nauvoo Temple. My brother Ralph was married before my parents were. Richard was working on a steamboat on the river. The saints were preparing to leave their homes in Nauvoo. Father and mother did not have money enough to take the family down to St. Louis, where they decided to take refuge, so father, mother, and sister Ann went down, leaving Isabelle, a little girl not yet twelve years old to look after grandfather, herself, and six smaller children. They had no stove. She had to bake and do all the cooking by the fireplace. She did wonderfully well.
Father got a job at a root beer factory at seventy-five cents a day. He was too weak to earn more. Mother washed and housecleaned for seventy-five cents a day. Ann went to work for Mr. Debond. There was
himself his wife and a baby. As soon as they earned sufficient mother went back to Nauvoo and brought the family. Then Mary got a job to tend the baby where Ann lived. They were very kind people. Some of the girls
lived with them all the time we stayed in St. Louis. St. Louis was a good place for poor saints. Provisions were very cheep [cheap] and the people were very kind to them. The Debonds were wealthy people. They never had any kind of food set on the table a second time. Roasts of beef, having only a slice or two taken off or cake almost untouched were thrown into the garbage. Ann ask [asked] Mrs. Debond if she would be willing to have one of her little brothers come and get it. She was glad to have them do so. I have heard mother say you could buy a first class cheese so large the boys had to wheel it home in the wheelbarrow for a dollar and a half.
Every child that was large enough to do anything found something to do. The family were soon quite comfortable. Father stayed at the same place a year and one half learning the business by observing in his own quiet way. He was an honest industrious and thrifty man, affectionate and kind, ready to assist the needy and afflicted, where ever he could.
Mother was very capable and systematic as a housewife, could turn her hand to almost any kind of work, expert with the needle and had excellent government. She had the government of the family. Father
didn’t do much at it but she see [saw] to it that none of them did any thing to displease him. His wishes were always held up to us as something we must obey so that peace, love and unity characterized the home.
I [Alice Parker] was born January the eighth 1848. My brother John was born the first of November 1851 in St. Louis Missouri. Father went into the business of soda-water, root beer and summer drinks in partnership with a man by the name of John Carns in 1848. They were very prosperous. They employed over one hundred men in the summer time.
Richard Douglas married Elizabeth Wadsworth, and Ann married Edwin Robbins, February 27th 1848. Isabelle married John Pincock a year later. They all belonged to the church [Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints] and worked in the soda factory for father. Ralph went with the Mormon Battalion. When coming back with sick soldiers they met the pioneers. They turned and went into the valley with them. He with another soldier hoisted the flag on Ensign Peak. They also made the first adobes in Salt Lake Valley,
they having seen the Mexicans making adobes. They were much larger than those used later. Ralph built the first adobe house in Ogden. After he had returned with his wife and baby they settled in Ogden.
In the spring of 1852 father sold out his business and prepared to emigrate. Mother sewed the lining of his and Richards vests full of twenty dollar gold pieces and put a false lining in them when they went to buy
the outfits in which to cross the plains. They bought eleven wagons, two yokes of oxen or cows to each wagon, a threshing machine, and stoves, a complete outfit to take to the valley. They also had one large spring
carriage with projection boards at the sides, so that the bed could be made across. This was drawn by two large horses. Father, mother, and grandfather and we two little children rode in it. Aunt Alice and uncle
Edwin Corbridge came to St. Louis in 1850. They buried two children while there.
Aunt Ellen and uncle William Corbridge came in 1852, just before we left. The night before they reached New Orleans they lost their little daughter Margaret. They never knew what became of her, whether she had been kidnapped or fallen overboard, they could not find her and had to leave the boat without her.
Father brought all my brothers and sisters, his two sisters and families across the plains. It was an independent company. He only hired one teamster. We came without an accident of any kind. The cows furnished
milk and butter for the company, besides taking their places as teams. The milk was strained into a kit in the morning and the jolt of the wagon churned it. The only non-Mormon in the company was the teamster, a
Catholic on his way to California in search of gold. The rest were all relations and a jolly crowd they were. They often spoke of crossing the plains as a pleasure trip. Many emigrants had died of cholera that year
and the year before. We saw where they had been buried by the beds and clothing left by their graves.
August 28th 1852, we arrived in Salt Lake Valley. Father bought a half lot of Samuel W. Richards on second south, between east and west temple and built a two room one story house, forty by twenty feet, with lumber
roof. The sons and sons-in-law rigged up the thresher. It was an eight horse power, that they called a chaff piler, separated the straw from the grain. They threshed and cleaned thirteen thousand bushels of grain before Christmas. This was one if not the first threshers brought to Utah. It did good work but not at the rate that they thresh now. A few years later father had the thresher made into a separator and did away with the fan mill. Some of his decendents [descendents] have owned and run a thresher in Salt Lake Valley ever since.
On October the fourth 1852 my brother John died. He was eleven months old. He was buried in our lot. Several years later the body was exumed and taken to the cemetery.
The pioneers did a lot of dancing. Not having public halls they danced in each others homes. The people would take out the stove, beds or what ever furniture they had outside, to make room for the dancers. Our
rooms were large enough so that we were not put to that trouble. About every week they danced at our house. Everybody danced. While I write I can see father and mother dancing. William playing the violin. All
evening affairs were announced to commence at early candle light. Father arranged for side lights. We had a six inch board, eighteen inches long with a hole in [it] to hold the candle, nailed to the lower end. There would be at least one of these at each side of the house. Candles were scarce. People came on time so that they weren’t wasted.
In those early days there was no fruit, no good molasses, honey or sugar only what was hauled a thousand miles by ox team. People made molasses out of squash, beets, corn husks or anything that would yield a
little sweet juice, that would boil down. It was poor stuff. There was no soda to be had. Father took a team and went back to some alkali beds and gathered a wagon load of salaratas [salaratis (potassium bicarbonate)]. This was used in cooking. He also went to Salt Lake and gathered a load of salt from the shore. For fine salt this was ground in the coffee mill. The ashes were saved to make lye soap. In the fall of the year people would go into the canyon and gather wild berries. Father took us to the foot of the big mountain and the family gathered several bushels of service berries which were dried for use.
In 1853 father built a saw mill in a canyon northeast of Bountiful. He took James. They made wrapping paper and paste board. For some reason they sold out in two years. Father then bought a farm from Orson
Hyde over Jordon [Jordan]. He didn’t pay all down. What was due was to draw interest at ten percent and compound. Father took wagon loads of wheat for interest before he got it paid. That was the only debt he contracted in his life. The farm was under the hill on the west bank of the Jordon. The canal that irrigated it
is still used. No land was cultivated above that canal, from there to the west mountain was the Jordon Range. Father and the boys hauled wood from Bingham Canyon.
Ralph and Richard Douglas, Edmond Robbins and John Pincock with their families settled permanently in Ogden. These were mothers eldest children. Father and those men were like brothers, the closest of friends while they lived. Aunt Ellen and uncle William Corbridge lived in Bountiful until 1859, when they moved to Cache Valley. They were pioneers of Franklin, where they made their permanent home. Aunt Alice and uncle Edwin Corbridge lived and died in Bountiful. They were the best of people, loved by everyone for their kindness. Aunt Mary died when her sixth child was born, June 3, 1859. The baby was buried with her, three children they left.
John Pincock
Father loaned William Jennings, the millionaire, the money to buy the first beef steer that he killed when he started in the butcher business. He also sold him a piece of land across the bottom of our lot, where he built a tannery. Jennings lot ran back from the east side of the block. Ours from the north, he had the slaughter house on the back of his.
Maria Jackson Normington joined the church in Burnley, Lancashire, England and with her husband Thomas Normington, five children, three girls and two boys, left their native land together with the saints. They
started to cross the Plains with handcarts in Edward Martin’s Company. The early snows detained them and caused extreme suffering from cold and starvation. Many of the emigrants died. Among them, Thomas
Normington and two of the boys. One of the little boys had cried for bread. Someone found him a small piece. He died with it between his teeth. Hannah the youngest girl took it from his mouth and ate it. They
were so near starved and frozen and the mother was very sick when relief reached them from the valley.
They arrived in Salt Lake City November the thirtieth 1856. William Parker went with the relief. The poor emigrants were taken into the homes of the saints where they were cared for. Lovina, eleven, was taken to the home of brother Alexanded [Alexander ?] . Mary Ellen came to my sister Mary’s. She was aged nine.
The mother and Hannah (age seven) were taken to the home of brother Empey.
Later sister Normington and Hannah came to live with us and in 1867 [probably 1857] father married the widow. It was a long time before Aunt Maria, as we always called her, fairly recovered. She had two
children by father, Richard, born January the twenty first 1859 and Maria born May the nineteenth 1863.
In 1857 my sister Mary married James Curry and Mary Ann married Samuel W. Richards; Elizabeth married John R. Winder and Vilate Ellen married George Romney.
The eighth of January 1858, grandfather died.
On the twenty-fourth of July 1857 the pioneers of Salt Lake City and near by settlements celebrated the day at the head of Big Cottonwood Canyon at Silver Lake. Most of our family were there. It was a wonderful event. People came with horse teams, ox teams, all kinds of vehicles and on horseback. There was a Company of lancers. William and George belonged to the company. They were dressed in white pants with blue stripes up the sides and white shirts and carried a painted rod with a long steel lance in the end that shone in the sun. They looked fine on their horses. There were several bands, both brass bands and fine dancing music. Bowerys had been erected for the occasion. In the heighth of our celebration word was brought that an army of soldiers under general Harney were coming to annilitate [annilhilate] the Mormons.
Brigham Young
President Young [Brigham Young] called the people together to hear the dispatch read and said;
“When we arrived in Salt Lake Valley ten years ago, I said, If our enemies will let us alone ten years, I will ask no odds of them, and I do not.”
The festivities went on as though nothing had happened. One prophetic song called “ dud dah” was composed and sung by William Polter of Ogden. Some time afterwards the people made a covenant that if our enemies did come, we would burn our homes and leave the country as bare as we found it. The following lines will convey an idea of how the people felt at that time:
“If Uncle Sam’s determined on his very foolish plan,
The Lord will fight our battles and we’ll help Him all we can,
If what they now propose to do should ever come to pass,
We’ll throw down all our houses, every soul shall emigrate,
And we’ll organize ourselves into a roving mountain state.
Every move will make our vigor, like a ball of snow increase,
and we’ll never sue to them, but they to us for peace.”
Preparations were soon made to prevent the army from coming into the valley. Read Whitney’s history of the Echo Canyon War. Father or some of the boys, two or three at a time were out in the mountains all winter.
William was with Lot Smith when he burned the wagons. In May 1858, the citizens living north of Utah County, abandoned their homes and moved south. Our families living in Ogden, with Aunts Ellen and Alice
with their families, stayed at father’s farm until all had to go south of the point of the Mountain. Then they camped on the Jordon west of Lehi. Again most of the company that crossed the plains were journeying and
camping together. As a matter of course, father took charge of the camp. They were only there three weeks when word came that we could go back to our homes.
The army had been allowed to march through the apparently deserted city and were camped about two or three miles from our farm for a while before locating at camp Floyd. Father had made lumber boxes a foot square and four feet long, had filled them with flour and had cashed them before we left. We did not know that we would see our house again but he had the flour and could not take it. In case of a chance it would be there. They had crops growing and when we returned had a ready market for all our surplus at the
soldier camp. We were destitute for clothing. Father often remarked that the army not only bought the goods but the money to buy them with. What our enemies had intended for our destruction proved to be a blessing in disguise.
While a portion of the army camped on the Jordon Range, some of the soldiers came to the farm to buy butter, eggs, chickens and milk. Some of the camp followers bought [brought ?] merchandise and all needful articles. During the time of the move we had to ravel out pieces of factory and twist the ravelings together for mending thread. Father made a lemon syrup and took it to Camp Floyd and sold soda water. He had made a barrel of syrup at a cost of fifty dollars. In going around the point of the Mountain the wagon tipped over, the head of the barrel came out and lost all the syrup. He returned home, made another barrel, took it and made three hundred dollars out of it.
Father also got some sheep, so that the family began to spin and weave their clothes. After we were settled at home again Maria lived on the farm. Father had to spend most of his time there in the summer but always
came to town on Saturday night, so he could attend the morning and afternoon services at the tabernacle on Sunday.
Mother and father made a visit every winter to their children in Ogden. In the winter of 1861 they took their loom with them, had a wagon bed on bob-sleds. They sent word ahead to the girls to have their yarn dyed and ready and they would do their weaving while they visited. All of them lived in log houses, not much room for a loom but they managed somehow. It did not take long to weave a hundred yards of cloth. We could not color them as now, in a few hours. Blue, it took ten days or more. The yarn had to be wrung out every day in the indigo dye and put to air. until the desired shade. Yellow was colored with prach leaves and alum. Blue was put in yellow dye to make green dye. Red was colored in madder dye [made from the madder root] set with copperus [copperas; ferrous sulfate]. We used logwood set with coppras or vitral for black.
Oct. the sixth 1862, father was called to Dixie to raise cotton. He thought best to take part of the family. So it was decided that mother and I should go and get some kind of place before he took Aunt Maria and the
little ones. There was no alfalfa and not much hay of any kind in those days. Our teams were grained and turned out to pick what ever they could find while we camped. We were three weeks on the road.
We arrived at Virgin, Dec. twelvth 1862. The team was turned out and we did not see them for three weeks. There was an abandoned cellar that had been built up with rock and had caved in. Father had our wagon drawn up to it and began to clear it out again and built it up. He had brought two window sashes, six light, eight by ten. He hued out cottonwood poles for frames and with the sash made the best window in town. He made the door frame the same and took some cottonwood stocks fastened them together with pegs, then sewed a linsey blanket over them for a door. The roof was cottonwood poles, covered with dirt. The floor was flat rocks. There was not a foot of lumber in the house. He didn’t get it finished until spring but the winter was so mild we lived comfortably out of doors. He took up five acres of land on North Creek. He dug an
irrigation ditch and put in a crop. He bought a city lot and set out an orchard. Mother and I learned to card and spin cotton.
Bro Thomas Cottom came to Dixie the same year and worked a yoke of cows of fathers in his team, so both he and father benefited thereby. In the spring the people of Virgin were called to fit out five wagons, two yoke of cattle each, a teamster with provisions to go to Florence Nebraska, to emigrate the saints. Father furnished supplies and gave enough to the perpetual [emigration fund, to] emigrate one soul from England.
He had the privilege to say who he would have come. They in turn were to pay back to the immigration company. He sent for Bro. Richard Parkenson, who came and lived neighbor to us until his death.
In August 1863 we went back to Salt Lake City. Father turned wheat in at the general tithing office and took orders on the Parowan and Cedar. The roads were so bad from those towns to Virgin that a good team did not haul more than fifteen hundred. In Oct. he returned, taking Aunt Maria and family. All but Mary Ellen. She preferred to remain in the city until mother and I went. Our house in Salt Lake City had never been finished. That year mother had it raised to a two story house and finished. It was rented as soon as it was finished for one hundred dollars a month in greenbacks or fifty in gold.
Father had a frog [heavy farm implement or tool] felon [fall on] in his hand in the summer of 1864. He was three weeks that he could not sleep or do anything. As soon as he could tend his team he returned to Salt Lake City. He had bought another lot with a dug-out on and took mother and I back to live in it. Mary Ellen went with us but did not stay only about a year. Sometime after her return to Salt Lake City she was married to Thomas Cook. Lovina married William Wright, and Hannah David Otte. They both made homes at Dunkans Retreat. Father was not troubled with Asthma the first few years in Dixie. He was a very good singer and did lots of it both at home and in public. He worked very hard on roads and water ditches and tended his farms. It was hard work to control the water.
The country is so broken up all hills mountains and hollows, so that it did not take more than a good shower to make a flood sufficient to break the ditches. Many of them were dug on the side of a perpendicular hill. The mountains are not like those in Salt Lake and Utah Valleys. There are all kinds of shapes, some tableland mountains, flat on top, almost straight up with a ledge of rock over ten feet. In some places there is level country for miles when you are on top. The Hurricane Canal is built for three or four miles in the Hurricane Mountains. In some places they had to tunnel through places where the mountain projected out and they couldn’t work around them and they had to tunnel through.
A good deal of the canal is two hundred feet above the river. The city ditch at Virgin was built around the hill where a man had to be let down with a rope and held in position while a flume was put in place.
The crops that were grown there for several years were not sufficient to pay the water tax, the people were short of bread stuff, some people piled cottonwoods up and burned them into ashes, which they gathered up and hauled north to exchange for wheat. In those days ashes were used for making lye for soap. Cottonwoods made the best ashes. Father had plenty and shared with many. No one was ever turned from his door empty. He raised cotton and the family carded and spun. Father, mother and Aunt Maria were all good weavers. They brought the loom to Dixie and a small flock of sheep. Wool rolls and spinning wheels. We made all of our clothing.
On stormy days father always found something to do. He would mend a pair of shoes or harness. There was no alfalfa or hay of any kind. When the team was needed two or three days together, father would cut a jag of cottonwood limbs and bring home. The horses would peel all the bark off and eat it. They did very well on it.
The Indians became very troublesome during the winter 1865 and 6, driving off stock and killing some whites. It was necessary to guard the town and send out several expeditions. Father couldn’t go but he always
assisted in fitting them out that did. Father built a two roomed house for mother. The Indians were so bad they had to fort in. Our house and dugout were inside the fort. Aunt Maria moved into the dug-out. As soon as
it became safe to move out of the fort, father bought another lot with a good log house on. He built an adobe room making Aunt Maria a comfortable home.
The third of June 1867 father, mother and I returned to Salt Lake City and stayed five months. Father had the old threshing machine and fanning mill fixed up and took to Dixie. It was the first thresher on the Virgin River. He also brought the first mowing machine to Dixie. He bought a molasses mill but they were making good molasses here before his arrival.
June 1869 father, mother, George Isom and I went to Salt Lake City. We went thru SanPete County to sell molasses and dried fruit. On the twelfth of July George Isom and I [ Alice Parker ] were married in the
endowment house by Joseph F. Smith. Father and Mother were present. After two weeks visit with the family and purchasing goods for a co-op store we returned. Both teams were loaded. This was the first store
brought to the river settlements. Father used to say that he never saw any money in Dixie only what he took with him. But there was no use for any. He couldn’t see where a hundred dollars was coming to buy the one
thousand dollars worth of goods that they had brought. They boarded up the porch at the back of Mother’s house. Put shelves and counter in and opened up the store. They sold one hundred dollars worth of goods the
first day.
Father gave George and I the first lot that he had bought in Virgin to build on so that we could be near them. In July 1870 father and Aunt Maria made a trip to Salt Lake. They brought more goods back. The business had increased in the store and father found it necessary to have more living room. They added three rooms to the east end of the house and enlarged the room at the west for the store. In the fall of 1877 father sent to Salt Lake City and brought my sister Mary Ann and family to Dixie. Her husband had another family. He had lost their home through a mortgage. Father thought that he could help her and she be a comfort to him until her husband could pick up again. Alice [Alice Parker Richards] the eldest daughter, lived with father and mother and helped in the store for a year. Then she went back to be married to John [Edmund] Pincock.
John E. Pincock
Mary Ann buried their baby in the summer of ’78. Wealthy the second daughter, taught school. Annie clerked in the store. Carrie helped to care for father and mother. My cousin Ianthus [Richards] came with Mary
Ann and he assisted Wealthy in the school and worked on the farm in the summer. His mother, Aunt Mary [Mary Heskin Parker] died when he was two years old and Mary Ann raised him. We had built an eight room house and they [Mary Ann Parker Richards and family] lived with us the first three years, then father and Ianthus built them a home.
The whole family brought a refining influence. They were very social and active in all the organizations of the ward. Their influence was felt in Virgin many years after they had gone. Wealthy went back the fourth year and was married to D. H. Ensign of Ogden.
Annie married David Spilsbury, Ianthus, [married] Agnes Hinton, and Nellie [married] Joseph Hilton. They settled in Dixie. After seven years Mary Ann’s husband came and took her home. They did not think that their separation would be so long when she first came down. There was a movement in the church [Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints] to try to co-operate in all businesses.
A co-operative cattle association was organized, Father was president. They took up the Blue Springs Ranch on Kolob. They had a fine herd of cattle known as the Kolob herd. There was a movement in the church to co-operate in all business. They ran a dairy. There was plenty of unclaimed grazing land; cattle brought a low price but it did not cost much to run them. Father sold our home in Salt Lake City for three thousand five hundred dollars. It was sold for one hundred thousand in less than two years. He used a portion of this money to build up on Blue Springs Ranch.
Hugh Hilton and Alexander Wright had built a burr flour mill at Virgin. The race was near the river and it was very expensive to keep up. Every flood would tear it out. They became discouraged and father bought the
mill. It was not a profitable investment but it was a blessing to the community. It was burned down once but father had teams on the road to Salt Lake to get a new one in less than a week. The trip had to be made all the way by team. I don’t know whether the mill ever paid for itself or not, but I know that the only special request he made in his will was that his heirs would keep the mill in the family and keep it in running order. It did not make enough to pay the running expense after his death. The children of the North gave me their share and at last it was all left to me. I couldn’t keep it up. Floods took the entire race and rollermills were being built in the country.
In 1874 Brigham Young came to Virgin City and organized a branch of the United Order. Father was President and George Isom was Vice-President and secretary. Most of the ward joined and worked in it for two years. Then it was decided to give it up. The people did not seem to be prepared for it.
On New Year’s Day in 1876 the temple at St. George was dedicated. Father and his children went and did work for all his progenitors that he could remember or get a record of.
His [John Parker, Jr.] health failed, his breath [breathing] was so bad that he could get around but very little. He could not get out in frosty weather at all. He could study and advise for the good of his ward. His
counselors took charge of the Sabbath meetings for years. In 1879 father gave up the management of the Co-op store. George Isom built a store building and the store was moved. Father was still president with George Isom as secretary and manager.
My brother Richard Parker married Betsey Burk January 28, 1880. Mar 19, 1881 Aunt Maria died. Father was very sick at the time. She was a good faithful wife and mother and a true Latter Day Saint, loved by all who knew her. June 1881 my sister Maria married John H. Hilton. December 6, 1885 George Isom died. He was first counselor to the bishop and had been ward Clerk ever since father had been Bishop. He went daily to see him and looked after any business that father might want done. When the president of the stake came to the funeral [of George Isom] father asked to be released from the bishopric. He felt that his main prop was taken, but his resignation was not accepted.
On March 24th 1886 father died. The list time he was out of the house was to George’s funeral. He was bishop of the Virgin ward eighteen years. And although feeble in health served faithfully. Apostle Erastus Snow told the people that they couldn’t realize how they were blessed in having such a bishop so wise in counsel, and always studying for their welfare. He was a humble, quiet man, full of love and sympathy, a patient sufferer, trying always to lighten the burdens of those who waited on him. He was strictly honest and a consistant Latter Day Saint. Those who knew him best loved him most.
Erastus Snow
My mother [Ellen Briggs Douglas Parker] died February 24, 1888. She had always wanted to live to take care of father until the last. She was granted her desire. I wish to say to their decendents that we have much
to be thankful for that we were born of such parents that taught us both by example and precept, to be honest and industrious and to live according to the principles of the Gospel.
My story is rather rambling but it is as it comes to me. I could not write my father’s life without telling of the family, the country conditions an [and] pioneer life. All were so closely connected. I feel that I have written
the truth and hope to be excused for mistakes in my composition.
Alice Parker Isom
Note: Photos added; comments or additions in brackets added by: D. G. Pincock
The following letters were written by Ellen Douglas to her mother, Isabell Briggs and family. Ellen was born November 7, 1806 at Lancashire, England. As a convert to Mormonism she and her husband, George, had left their home to join the Saints then living in Nauvoo. These letters were presented by Annie W. Connell.
Nauvoo, June 2, 1842.
Dear Fathers and Mothers:—
I now take up my pen for the third time to address you, hoping these lines will find you in good health, as it leaves us at present. I sent one letter from New Orleans, with an Englishman, which I expect you will get soon. He was not setting off for England until the beginning of May. I also sent another with one of our brethren who was coming to England to warn them for another time to prepare for the coming of Jesus Christ, which we believe is drawing nigh, and I expect that you will get this first. I sent the other about a month since and I am going to send this by Amos Fielding. He has come over from England with some of the Saints and is returning to Liverpool, so I sent this letter by him so that you will have less to pay.
Dear Father and Mother:—
I am at a loss what I can say to you. I feel so thankful for what the Lord has done for me and my family, for truly all things has worked together for our good. You will see in our former letters, how all things did work for which I feel to praise my Heavenly Father, but I will now say something about our situation. We rented a house at 5 shillings a month and we have fire wood on at that, and a good garden, about an half an acre. It lies on the side of a hill close before our door. Our house is not such a fine one, but there are many that are much worse, and I prayed that we might have one to ourselves for there is three or four families in one room, and many have to pitch their tents in the woods or anywhere they can for it is impossible for all to get houses when they come in for they are coming in daily. Scores of houses have been built since we have come here and they still continue building and it is eight weeks this night since we came in.
We have got our garden plowed and planted. All our seeds have come up and look very well. We have planted corn, potatoes, beans, peas, onions, punkins, melons, cucumbers and many other things too numerous to mention, and we have also got a pig. A man came one day and wanted one of our boys to go and clear him off a piece of ground before he ploughed it, and he would give him a pig, so he went about one day and got it. In England it would cost fifteen or sixteen shillings at least. It was Ralph that got it. We also have got a flock of chickens. We have thirteen and I have bought eleven besides, so you have account of all our property, and I think we are far better here than in old England.
We wish all our fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters and all our friends were here, for there is plenty of work and plenty of meat and we can afford to play a day or two anytime when we please and not get into debt. Butter is five pence a pound. Sugar the same. We have not had much fresh meat, but we have had plenty of good bacon and ham. I wish the people in England could get as much as we can. As to prices of other goods I need not mention because you have heard before. I sent you word in my last letter what we all were doing but I will mention it again.
George and Ralph are working at the Nauvoo house and Richard has been working at a farm house close by and Isabell at the same place. Richard is now going to work for another man and I expect he will receive for wages five dollars a month beside his board, but we have not exactly agreed till we see how both sides likes. George is walling when he is at the Nauvoo house, but they are now waiting for some good work, so he is ditching until they want him again. They love their work at the Nauvoo house very well. I forgot to tell you what Richard was going to work at; but he is going to plow and break up prairie. It has been his work ever since he came here.
James Smithes and his family are all in good health. Ann got another child on the 31st day of May. I have been over to see her and she is doing well. I also mention Hannah Thornbet and her family. Henry is in good health at present. Jane has been sick, but she is beginning to mend. Ellen and her husband are well. Old John and Ellen Parker are both in good health and spirits and are expecting their daughter Mary every day. Give their kind love to all enquiring friends. Joe Spencer, Joe Elison and Alis Cotam and Ann and Joe Rushton and William and Betty Mors are all in good health and spirits. Wm. Moss is building him a house not far from where we live.
There is now in this city a Female Charity Society of which I am a member. Jos. Smith's wife is the head of our society and we meet on a Thursday at one o'clock where we receive instructions both temporally and spiritually. I must say something about the Prophet the Lord has raised up these last days. I feel to rejoice that I have been permitted to hear his voice, for I know that this is the work of the Lord and all the powers of earth or hell can not gain say it. The time is not far hence when all will know that this is the work of the Lord and not of man. The time is near at hand when all proud and they that do wickedly shall be as stubble and the day that cometh shall burn them saith the Lord of Hosts. I pray that the Lord may remove all darkness from your minds so that you may see clearly the way which you should go, that at last you may enter in at the gates into the city.
Give our kind love to all inquiring friends and to all our brothers and sisters. Tell Jo Thornber that Henry will write soon and we will send some particular word in his letter.
I would like you to send me a letter the first opportunity and let me know how you are going on and how my sister Mary is and all her family.
Tell all the Saints that come here to bring all these necessary things with them such as pots and pans and tubs and all your necessary things. Tell John Thornbet to bring plenty of print and check light prints and a little patren of anything he pleases.
We remain,
Your affectionate son and daughter
George and Ellen Douglas
Nauvoo, June 12, 1842
Dear father and mother, I am at a loss what I can say to you. I feel so thankful for what the Lord has done for me and my family, for truly all things have worked together for our good. …
There is now in this city a female charity society of which I am a member. We are in number eight or nine hundred. Jos. Smith wife is the head of our Society and we meet on a Thursday at ten o’clock, where we receive instructions both temporally and spiritually.
I must say something about the Prophet the Lord has raised up in these last days. I feel to rejoice that I have been permitted to hear his voice, for I know that this is the work of the Lord, and all the powers of earth or hell can not gainsay it. … I pray that the Lord may remove all darkness from your minds so that you may see clearly the way which you should go, so that at last you may enter in through the gate …
Your affectionate daughter,
Ellen Douglas
Commentary on Nauvoo, June 12, 1842: So Ellen Briggs Douglas wrote to her family in England, reporting on her arrival with her husband and seven children at Nauvoo. This was only the first of several major moves Ellen would make in response to her testimony of the gospel.
Ellen was born in 1806, and married George Douglas in 1823. They and their oldest sons were baptized in 1838 by Heber C. Kimball. None of her parents’ family ever joined the Church, despite Ellen’s repeated efforts to share her faith.
George was a hard worker and taught his sons to work, but there is evidence that it was Ellen’s careful management that set the family’s standard of living. Soon after their baptism, Ellen’s goals changed from raising her family’s temporal status to saving money for emigration to Zion. Reaching Nauvoo in March 1842, Ellen set about rebuilding the family fortunes. While her husband went to work building Joseph Smith’s Nauvoo house and her sons and oldest daughter hired out to work for neighbors, Ellen worked at home. She planted her half-acre garden with vegetables; she bought chickens and built a healthy flock. When her teenage son received a young pig as payment for one day’s work clearing land, she gleefully described for her parents how valuable the pig was and how it would contribute to the family’s welfare.
But only three months after the Douglas family arrived in Nauvoo, George Douglas died. Ellen and her children stayed together, pooling their wages for the good of the family and feeding themselves as much as possible from their own garden.
Early in 1846, as the Saints were having to flee from Nauvoo, Ellen married widower John Parker, adding his three small children to her own. As many of the Saints did, the Parkers moved to Saint Louis to earn money for the outfit they would need to take them west. There John’s skills and Ellen’s management eventually led them to open a soda water and rootbeer bottling factory, which proved to be extremely profitable. The Parkers could have stayed in Saint Louis and become very wealthy, but they wanted to join the Church in Utah. In 1852 they sold their business.
The family bought eleven wagons with teams to pull them, and a threshing machine, and filled the wagons with family supplies and goods that were badly needed in Utah. Ellen sewed vests for her husband and sons, with false linings concealing pouches filled with twenty dollar gold pieces. Along with the Douglas and Parker families, John’s extended family were members of the Church. The family was so large that John needed to hire only one teamster besides his own relatives to drive the wagons west. The family traveled as an independent company, and arrived without accident in the Salt Lake Valley on 28 August 1852.
Following ten years in Salt Lake City, the Parkers again pulled up stakes in response to the call for families to settle in Dixie. They began all over again in Virgin, near Saint George; Ellen lived there until her death in 1886.
Ellen’s management skills, added to the willingness of her family to work hard and work together, enabled her to provide well for her family’s temporal needs. Yet she cheerfully – and repeatedly – put a higher value on her family’s membership in the Kingdom than on earthly wealth. “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
Nauvoo, Feb. 1, 1843
My dear Father, Mother, Bros. and Sisters:—
I take the present opportunity of sending a few lines unto you, hoping they will find you in good health as they leave us at present. I know not whether you will have heard or not of the great and un-remedied loss that I have sustained in the death of my husband, my children of the loss of the kindest, most affectionate father, and you, my fathers and mothers, of a son and brother, and sisters of a beloved brother. What shall I say, my heart is too full to dwell on this subject by looking on the melancholy loss, as it were, from him being took from us. I should have informed you by letter before now but Bros. Thos. Cottam sent a letter to his friends and mentioned about George and all about us, but as to whether the man that brought it arrived safe or not we cannot tell. George had been working at the Nauvoo house and they were not so busy at harvest time, so a neighbor was going about twenty five miles to harvest and he was to take a man with him so George thought he would like to go, so he took Richard with him. This was on the 5th of July when he left us. He took sick on the 12th about noon and died in about six hours, the man that he went with took a horse and came to tell us. When I got there he was in the coffin, it being night he got to us, so I started in the morning early and brought him to Nauvoo to inter.
I will tell you that when he left us he was in perfect, good health and quite cheerful, felt to be quite pleased that he was going. A thot struck me as he was going, that if we could never see him again alive what a thing it would be, but if I had known that it would have been so he should not have gone, for I have thought that if he had not gone he would not have died then. You will perhaps want to know what he died on. I think he felt to be unwell, but did not give up working until it was too late, but he did not complain before he did give up. He felt to rejoice that he had got here and was firm in the faith, so I do not mourn as those that have no hope, for I trust that on the morn of the resurrection of the just I shall there behold him amongst the sanctified and have the privilege of enjoying with him in those things that remains for the people of God. Now my dear father, mother, brothers and sisters I would say do not mourn for him neither for me nor the children, but mourn for yourselves for the judgments that are coming upon the inhabitants of the earth unless they repent of their sins and do those things He requires at their hands and by those that have authority from God to execute his laws, for we know that this is the work of God, and unless we be obedient to those things which he requires at their hands the judgment of God will fall upon them as it did in the days of Noah, of Lot and many more I might mention, for I declare unto you and to all that hear this letter that this is the work of God and that Joseph Smith is a Prophet of the Most High God.
As respects a living. We can get our living without troubling anyone if we have our health and we have enjoyed good health as ever we did in England. Ralph can earn as much as will maintain us. I have all my family at home and have had all through the winter. The last work that Richard did he earned fifteen hundred brick toward building us a house and since then I have had him at home. I can have an acre lot of land if I will without paying anything for it if I will, but I do not know whether I shall have it or not (belonging to the Church.) We have had plenty of beef, best kind at 1 1/2 cent and some at a penny per pound and pork at a penny or two cents per pound as good as any in England. We had twenty bushels of potatoes beside wheat we grew ourselves, potatoes is two bits or a shilling a bushel. Ann and Isabella was living off the most of it this summer.
Isabella came home sick. She was sick about three weeks and now is very well. Ralph is a very good boy and does the best he can to get us a living and so is Richard. Henry Thornbet got a letter from John on the 25th of last month. I am very glad to hear they are all well. He sends his best respect to George, but is sorry he is not here to receive it but we are and desire to be remembered to him. Henry and his mother and Jane all well. Ellen got a son on the 30th and is doing well. Abraham and Margaret Shaw is well. James Smithes and family is well. He received a letter from Durham and am sorry to hear of sister Mary's misfortune. Wm. Moss and Betty, Thos. and Ann Cottam, John Rushton, John Ellison and wife, all from Waddingham is well. I would mention that John Rushton has made me a present of seven bushel of wheat. Give my respects to Thos. and Wilkinson of Liverpool and Alice and James at Accrington, Thomas and Nancy Sharp of Burnley, John and Nancy Dusbury of Hatwood, and I want you to let them know that George is dead and I pray that the Lord may inspire their hearts to do his will and be obedient to his commandments that they may have a right to the tree of Life and enter in through the gates into the City. I will now give you a few lines of the feelings of my mind:
To my sister Mary I would say a few words, I am sorry to hear of her daughter Elizabeth being poorly and, likewise, of Henry having his leg cut off but I hope by the time these few lines reaches you they will be got well and as God has appointed means whereby those that had not the privilege of obeying the gospel, not having heard it, it is the privilege of men to be baptized for my friends. I shall then be baptised for her husband, so that she can please herself about preparing to meet him, for as Paul says,
"Why are they then baptised for the dead, if the dead rise not at all." 1st Cor. 15 c and 29 verse. I send my kind love to her and all the family and hope you will either send her this letter or a copy of it, and hope they will be wise and do those things that God commands them to do and as there is but one way, one Lord, one faith, one baptism and one God and Father of all, so I hope she and all of you will seek where the authority is and be obedient so that we may all meet together in the Kingdom of God with those we love as is gone before.
I remain your affectionate daughter and sister
Ellen Douglas.
Nauvoo, April 14, 1844
Dear Fathers and Mothers and Sister and Brothers:—
I now take my pen to write a few lines to you to let you know that we received your kind letter dated Nov. 19th, hoping to find us all well in health. We received your letter on the 9th day of Mar. How it came here we know not. We are all in good state of health and spirits at present, for which I feel thankful. We have had some sickness in our family since we wrote last. Ralph and his uncle went up the river about ten miles to work on a brick yard. They hired each for one month. They came home every week, and Ralph when he had done his time, came home in good health, but the next day was taken very ill. This was about the middle of Aug. He was very ill the first nine days, not able to sit up while I made his bed, after that he began to have the ague and fever which is a common complaint in this land. He was about ten weeks before he could work much and before he got well I was taken very ill with the same complaint but a great deal worse. I was four or five weeks very ill: indeed not to do anything. Ralph gave me some medicine to throw it off and I began to get a little better so that I would try to wash a few clothes and it just brought me down again. I was just thirteen weeks and never washed but that one time. Sometimes I thot I should die and then I thot of my poor children. I prayed for their sakes that I might live. I didn't pray alone, but many of my brothers and sisters prayed likewise and our prayers were answered and I now am living in a good state of health at present for which feel to praise my Heavenly Father.
Richard has been very healthy ever since we came to this land and he looks as well as ever you saw him. Ann and all the rest of the children but Isabella have had good health. Isabella has been ill two or three times, two or three weeks at a time. She looks about the same as she did when we left you. After I begun to get well I went down into the city on a visit to where Ann lived and I staid two nights and I had a horse to ride home on. The woman where Ann lived would have me make application to the female Relief Society for some clothing which I needed for myself and family. I refused to do so, but she said I needed something and that I had been so long sick and if I would not do it myself she would do it for me. I agreed and we went to one of the sisters and she asked me what I needed most. I told her I needed many things. While I was sick my children wore out their clothes because I could not mend them so she said she would do the best she could for me. Ann came over in a few days and they brought a wagon and fetched me such a present as I never received before from no place in the world. I suppose the things they sent me were worth as much as thirty shillings. I wrote before and told you that I would have a house of my own before now by the assistance of the church but I have not got one yet. We was sick so long. Ralph and James got a cow up the river and we have kept her all winter without giving any milk but we expect her to have a calf every day. She has had one calf and is but three years old. She cost nine dollars in work. She is a very pretty cow. We live where we did when we first came here and expect to do till we get a place of our own. We raised about 35 chickens, we keep them for our own use. How long do you think we might have stayed in England before we could have a cow?
Ralph and James is ditching on the prairie and Richard is sawing in a saw pit close by where we live. They have all of them earned a little money this spring. I have told you before that money was scarce. We can buy good strong cotton here now at five pence or six pence a yard, a yard wide, good print at six pence, thread and pots are the dearest of anything here.
You also want us to give you some account of Margaret Wilkinson. I expect you have heard of her death before now. She lived at a place called Happanooci, she had a very good place. She was sick about ten days and died. James was with her when she died. It was at the time that Ralph and James was working up the river and he came down to let us know that she had died. James Spencer and me went and brought her down to Nauvoo and had her buried close by my husband. They were very nice to her and thought a great deal of her. They said she was a good girl. She came to Nauvoo on the 4th of July on a visit and stopped one week. She was a night at my house and we went the next day to old John Parker's and Nancy Smith's and Jane Hall was there also. We had a happy day all together and did not think it was the last time we should meet on earth, but you see in the midst of life we are in death. She died firm in the faith that she professed. There is a letter at James Smithes she wrote herself and wished them to send along with one of their own, but they have never had the opportunity, but they will send it and then her friends will know how she enjoyed herself. You also wanted to know something about James Spencer. He is well and he is married about two months since and I was very glad of it because he is old and needed a home so that he could be comfortable in his old age, and I think he has acted wisely in choosing a companion, I mean near his age. She had a house and a cow, two horses and two mules, and she is a widow. Her husband died about the time Isabella died. She is a American, no children.
Dear parents there are many things which I would like to mention which would do you good, but I have not room. Ralph wants William to come to Nauvoo, and I say that he would do better here than in England. We should be glad to see any of you. I never in my life enjoyed myself better than I do now. We had conference here which began on the sixth day of April and lasted four or five days. I attended it four days and it is supposed that there was from fifteen to twenty thousand present and the teachings which we heard made our hearts to rejoice. I for one feel to rejoice and to praise my God that he ever sent the Elders of Israel to England and that He ever gave me a heart to believe them. I want to know whether you believe my testimony or not concerning the Prophet of the most High God, because the day will come when you will know that I have told you the truth.
I want you to send us some berry trees and a few choice plum stones. You may put them in a firkin (jar made of fur) and send them the first opportunity. I will pay anyone for the trouble of them. I should also be glad of a ball of twist, you may send them with Cottams at Waddington if they come. I hope you will forgive all my mistakes.
I remain your affectionate daughter,
Ellen Douglas
Dear Mother:
My girls wishes you to send them a lock of your hair and they want some of you to send every one of them a doll. There is no dolls to sell here. There is almost everything here now. There is one or two hundred shops in this city now and when we came here there was not more than two or three. William Tomson said he would buy Vilate Ellen another when she had done with her other, so now is the time. George wants his grandfather to come. While I have been writing he has asked more than a half dozen times if I had sent for him. My children all join in sending their kind love to you all. V. Ellen wants Uncle Robert.
I remain yours affectionately,
Ellen Douglas
On March 29th, 1846 Ellen was married to John Parker. They left Nauvoo the middle of May the same year for St. Louis where they remained for six years, coming to Utah in 1862.
Saint Louis July 30, 1851
Dear Mother:
I now sit down to write to you, I hope you will excuse me for not writing sooner. I have wrote part of a letter several weeks since, but never finished it, so now I begin afresh with determination to finish this before I lay down my pen. We received your letter and one from my Brother Richard and was glad to hear that you was all well. We are at present all enjoying tolerable good health.
I must tell you how all my children are getting along, as far as I can. I can see them all every day with the exception of Ralph. He is in the Valley of the GreatLake and is expecting to see us there soon but will be disappointed this season. We are carrying on a very large business, I will put you a small piece which I cut out of the newspaper, which gives a description of our establishment and what hands we employ, but at present we employ more than it states. We have over forty. Our establishments is headed J. Cavins & Co. Soda Manufactures, Spice Street between Second and Third. This is the name of my husband's partner.
We have had two letters from Ralph since he got to the Valley. They was well and doing as well as they could expect for the time they had been there. Richard is driving soda wagon for us. We pay him one pound thirteen shillings a week. We pay all of our men every Saturday night. Richard has one child. It walked when it was ten months old. It is now fifteen months old. The name is Ellen. Ann and her husband lives in a room upstairs that we rented to them and has done ever since she was married which is now over two years. Her husband works for us in the inside and has the same wages that Richard has. You will be surprised when I tell you Isabella has got married. She was married on the 3rd of last February and her husband drives a wagon for us and he has the same wages that Richard has.
We bought another place this spring and give twenty-one hundred dollars cash down and Isabella and her husband lives in it. They have their house free of rent for just stopping at the place. Mary is with me at home and does most of my work. Wm. Parker, that is one of my husband's sons, he goes on one of the wagons with another driver and has two dollars a week. George works in the inside and he gets two dollars a week and more when he works over time. Elizabeth is working with a lady and takes care of a baby and has three dollars a month. Mary Ann and Vilate Ellen goes to school. I have told you something about all of my children but my little Alis and if you could but see her it would do you good, for I am sure that she is one of the most intelligent children I ever saw in my life. I wish you could see her, dear mother, I have reason to be thankful that the Lord has blessed me with good children. I have reasons to thank my God that he ever sent a Latter-day Saint to England while my children was young, that they have received those things into their hearts, for it makes them good children, good men and women. Makes them happy in this life and happy to all eternity. A good example to children when they are young sometimes proves a benefit to them when they are old. I think I have said enough about my children but I know you often wonder how they get along.
I want you to be sure and write to me when you get this and perhaps I may have a little more news to tell you. Dear Mother, I was glad to hear that you enjoyed so good health and that you look so well in your old age. Give my love to mother Douglas at Downham. Tell her the last I heard from James he was in California. I also heard from the James Smithes last summer. They was well in health and spirits. I heard that Margaret Yate got married and had got a good husband and doing well. Tell my brother Wm. I am sorry he likes his spirits too well. I think if he was steady he might do well. He has no family and a good trade and I think it would be well for him to take care of what he owns and not give it away for that which will make him miserable both in time and eternity.
We live close by Joseph Boothman. He is well and his wife. You will have heard that he is married again, to Mary Smith. They seem very comfortable. Tell my brother Richard I was glad to have a line or two from him and would be glad to have wrote to him if I had time, but I will write all I can in this and you will let them all see it. I think my sister Mary might have wrote to me before now. It is nearly ten years since I seen her and I have not had one scratch of a pen from her. I have only written once to her, but if she had answered I should have written again. Give my love to her and family and le them know how we are getting along. Give my love to my sister Susey and her husband and tell them I should like a word or two front them in your next letter. Give my love to Uncle Robert, Aunt Ellen and their familey's and let them know how we are getting along Tell Joseph Douglas I am much obliged to him for his kindness in writing for you. I do not think that I ever behaved bad to him or anyone that belongs to him but I expect it is all right. I should have wrote sooner, but you know that Edward Corbrig and family come this spring and they had a great deal of sickness. Two of their youngest children is dead and Alis has been sick and Edward has had the Cholera and come near dying, but they are able to attend to their work, but feel rather weak. If you know Richard Parker you will please mention it to him. His family work at the low moor. We expect to go to the Valley the next spring without fail and I expect all my children to go along with me. We shall not be less than ten or twelve wagons of our family connections, I shall be glad when we all get to the Valley, for there are many there that I love and respect, and if I live to land safe with my family I expect to spend many happy days there with those I have been acquainted with in days gone by. Richard often says that he would like to see his Uncle Wm. in this country, but I often think that I shall never see any of you in this world, but I don't know what may yet come to pass. I wish you could just come and see me and how I am situated, you would think I was well off. If I was to tell you perhaps you or someone might think I was proud or boasted. I am just as proud as I was when I left England.
Give my love to Sarah—and tell her that Thomas and all the rest are tolerable well for anything I know. Give my love to Susey Lonsdail, Susannah Hanson at Downham and to all enquiring friends. I might mention many names but give my love and respects to all that enquire after me. I will just tell you how many wagons and horses we have. Eleven wagons and thirteen horses, eight that is constantly carrying out soda, as that paper states and three that we use for anything else that we want. I have wrote you quite a long letter and made many mistakes but I hope you will excuse them all. Dear Mother I must bring my letter to a close, with love to yourself and to father. I remain
Your affectionate daughter
Ellen Parker
Give my love to Ann Wiglesworth and tell her if all is well she may expect to have a few lines from me before winter. Be sure and write as soon as you get this.
Direct: John Parker,
Spruce Street No. 72
Saint Louis, December 28th, 1851
Dear Parents: I now take the opportunity of writing a few lines to you to let you know that we received your letter and was glad to hear that you was well. We are all intending to leave Saint Louis about the first of April. We have sold out everything belonging to our business and are making preparations for our journey to the Valley of the great Salt Lake. We are all enjoying good health and spirits at present and hope this will find you all the same. I think I told you in my last that I would tell you some news in my next. I have got another boy. It was born on the 2nd of Nov. We called his name John Samuel and Isabella has got a girl. It was born on the 9th of November. They call it Mary Ellen. I expect this will be news to you. I did not mention it in my last that I was expecting any such a thing for I know it would have made you feel bad, but now I have got him in my arms and he is just as welcome as any of the rest of my family. I have just heard from Ralph. He is well but his wife does not enjoy very good health. They are getting along tolerable well. Tell my mother-in-law that I can give no account of James any further than he is in California but when we get to the Valley I will try to find out and let you know if I can hear anything about him.
I wish many times that you could come and spend a day or two with me and see my family. I have them all so that I can see them every day if anything was not right. They all seem to claim their step-father as much as if he was their own father, and asks his council almost in everything they do. He has been a good father to them all, both those that are married and those that are not. My little Alis talks about her grandmother as if she had seen you and known you all her life. I know you would like to see her dance and hear her sing.
Give my love to Uncle Robert and to my Aunt Ellen, to my cousins and to all enquiring friends, also to my brother William and wife, to Susannah and family, to Richard and wife my kind love to my mother-in-law and to all my old acquaintance. I hope you will write when you get this one so that I can write you again before we leave for the Valley. Give my love to my sister Mary and family. Let her know how we are getting along and what our intentions is, so that if she desires to write to me before we leave here we should be glad to hear from them.
I shall have to make my remarks short for I am going to send it to Liverpool with Samuel W. Richards who is expecting to start for England this afternoon. It is very likely that we shall never see one another in the flesh, but the time will come when I believe we shall see one another, if it shall be thousands of years from now, for the gospel of Jesus Christ will draw all men to himself. The desire of my heart is that you may be able to discern between Truth and error and to choose the truth, that it may be well with you, which may God grant for Christ's sake, Amen.
We remain, Your affectionate son and daughter
John and Ellen Parker.
Father Parker wishes to be remembered with love to his son Richard, as we have been informed you are acquainted with him.
Virgin was made a branch of the Toquerville Ward about 1860, with Nephi Johnson as Presiding Elder, with Seth Johnson and George Bryant Gardner as assistants. In 1866, the Virgin Ward was formed with John Parker as Bishop, and Nephi Johnson, and George Isom Sr., as clerk. The following men later served as Bishops and counselors; James Jepson Sr., Anthony Stratton, and LeRoy W. Beebe. On the death of his father James Jepson Jr., was appointed as first counselor. Also serving through the years were; Charles P. Burke, Joseph Hilton, and Samuel Isom. James Jepson was Bishop of the Virgin Ward until he moved to Hurricane in 1910. James Humphries served as Ward clerk for three bishops.
