James William Huntsman and Hannah Davis
Written by his granddaughter – Laura Lewis
My mother is the second child in a family of eleven children; her older sister dieing in infancy. My grandfather, James William Huntsman, was born 8 October 1806 in Belmont County, Ohio. Grandmother, Hannah Davis, was born 8 February 1816. These two married 28 December 1831 in Michigan. They were living in Indiana at the time but they went over the line to get married, because in Michigan marriage licenses were free. Hanna was born in Wayne County, Ohio. They were baptized into the Church in 1837. They went through the persecutions the saints had to bear and finally moved to Nauvoo where grandfather succeeded in establishing a good home, and made a fine garden; got a milk cow and were so happy in their new home.
She had seen the Prophet Joseph Smith; she said she had been taught to love him and although she was but six years old she remembered him well, and had shaken hands with him and had been to meetings where he was the speaker.
What a sad time they had when the mob told them they must leave their lovely home and take only the things they could load onto the old broken-down cart. Hannah had some lovely quilts and fancy needlework she was fond of but they could only take the necessities. James fixed the broken wheels on the cart the best he could and they packed things onto it with heavy hearts. They couldn’t take much and after all the persecutions they had gone through they had to again go to a strange place and start over, with haste. They stored all the food they could find room for, and when morning came they hitched the old blind mare onto the cart, said farewell to their precious home and were on their way to join the other saints who were all driven from their homes.
That night it snowed, the ground was already white. When they camped they scraped the snow away to spread a quilt on the ground and put Grandmother and uncle Joseph on it, then another over them and that was all she could do. The snow fell all night and mother prayed for them. She was afraid to scrape off the snow in the morning for fear they were frozen to death, but when the cover came off, they were as snug and warm as they needed to be and all were happy.
The family moved from place to place trying to find work. The old mare had to be led as she couldn’t see where she was going, but she was faithful and helped them to escape. The mob soon took over the city of Nauvoo and they were outcasts from their own property they had worked so hard to improve. People from many foreign countries came to the United States to seek religious freedom, but being a Mormon prohibited them from freedom. Why were they so treated? They harmed no one, just tried to mind their own business; but the devil was doing his best to destroy them.
Here is a letter written by one of my cousins – Mrs. Martha Watson:
James William Huntsman and several other men were harvesting grain about twelve miles from Nauvoo, when some wicked men came upon them and made them strip to the waist, lean over logs and take nine lashes (other accounts say twenty lashes) with a hickory limb. It is believed that these whippings and exposure were the causes of great grandfather’s early death. The names of those who were whipped with him were:
John Hill, Archiebald N. Hill, Caleb W. Lyins, Gardiner Curtis, John Richards, Elisha Mallory, and J. W. Phillips. They were severely whipped by these insane, crazy humans called men. But men wouldn’t do such things --- not men.
Martha says she has heard that great grandfather went back to the Nauvoo temple after dark, climbed up into the tower and looked over the city. The next day, some more men did the same thing and were caught and severely beaten by the mob.
James W. Huntsman also worked for Ezra Taft Benson, Sr. James also made two wagons and drove back east to move his family to Utah. Sarah Jane, Joseph, and Mary drove the wagons to Utah.
THE UTAH GROUP
We do not know what year Hannah Davis and James William Huntsman embraced the faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but her life and the lives of her descendants are so bound up with the life and fortunes of that church that a proper historical narrative of her family's life and growth cannot be given without due reverence to the Church. The migrations of this growing religious group brought them to the new City of Far West, Caldwell County, Missouri, where they were persecuted and driven out, after which they established Nauvoo, Illinos. Following the murder of Joseph Smith, 1000 families left Nauvoo, crossing the Mississippi River on ice, and later settled in Utah.
The Huntsman's did not go to Utah with Brigham Young in 1847, but remained behind to experience a lot of persecutions. James William Huntsman was a man weighing over 200 pounds, a wheelwright by trade and a good mechanic. He had come from a family with strong physiques, he was born in Belmont County, Ohio. His grandfather, James Huntsman, had emigrated from England and lived to be 104 years old. He and the eldest daughter Sarah Jane started for Utah in 1851 to prepare a home for Hannah and the family. The remainder of the family started for Utah in 1852, Joseph, then a lad of 14, helped his mother yoke six untamed oxen to a prairie schooner, and facing the alkali, the sand, and the setting sun, started that year with the remainder of the younger children and steered to the great South Pass in the Rockies.
There were forty nine other similar outfits, with a captain over each in the caravan. One can picture the little fellows trudging along on either side, prodding the oxen while the others gathered buffalo chips for fuel. These pioneers traveled in companies of fifty outfits with a captain over each who usually rode a horse in advance. When time came to camp at night, he rode out to one side some fifty yards and waved his hand.
The leading wheel-team turned a little, then the entire company stopped and commenced to form a circle. Each wagon locked its hind wheel in the off (front) wheel of the next wagons thus placing the open front end on the inner side of the circle, this formed a good front to protect the people and the entire company gathered around the fire in the center for roll call and to invoke the protecting care of God, the Father. On these fires, they cooked their food and by its dim light many a friend and loved one, who had died as a sacrifice to this Nineteenth Century exodus was buried. The families and the livestock were thus guarded against the surprises of wolves, buffalo, and Indians. The great herds of buffalo caused much grief at times with their mad stampede and melee; also, the Blackfoot Indians and other tribes stilt infested the region, so that some companies came to grief. The company in which Hannah Davis Huntsman brought her family to Utah came through successfully with no recorded fatalities.
Jim Bridger, one of the trail blazers, had built a fort which bore his name; here the colonizers could repair their wagons in his blacksmith shop and rest awhile in safety. It was at Fort Bridger, that James William Huntsman and his daughter Sarah met the rest of the family and soon viewed for the first time the shimmering waters of the Great Salt Lake, as the well-broken ox teams lumbered down through the canyons of the western slope of the Rockies, Salt Lake City had been started, but there were no paved streets that September for there lay in 1852, only a wide expanse of dry parched earth covered with some purple Sage that was visible. The great valley gaped to receive them,
Accustomed to hardships in I1linois and Missouri, particularly as a guard at the building of the Nauvoo temple and along the plains of Iowa and Nebraska, James William began to make a home just as soon as he arrived in Utah. He first located his ranch at the southern most point of the lake and named it Lake Point, It was about twenty miles southwest of Salt Lake City and a few miles north of Tooele, on the northern route to California, it was familiarly known at "Huntsman’s Ranch". Many immigrants passed that way buying pasture food, dairy products, eggs, meat, and garden produce. Hannah Huntsman's pies became famous. Financially these things became a great help to the family as the territory became populated.
One of the chief industries of the family was the gathering of salt from the Great Salt Lake which was dried by the evaporation process, sacked up and sold. In order to secure sufficient fuel for this salt industry, James William Huntsman moved his salt industry to a timbered island about forty miles into the lake. A Danish ship builder, Jacob Bastian, and another Danishman built Huntsman a boat to ply to and from the island. This was the first boat built on the Salt Like and it largely increased the output of salt, Two of the smallest boys, Oren and David had the sole responsibility of herding cows, they wanted to make the trip on the boat, they were granted the privilege, but it was the last day the boat sailed. They were coming home with a heavy load of salt when a great wind arose causing Bastian to lower the sails and Huntsman and his son-in-law, Dudley Leavitt to unload the salt into the lake. This caused the lightened craft to be dashed to pieces about a mile from the shore and ten miles from the landing place. When they got back to firm ground again, they looked like pillars of salt but they had not turned back. It was an experience they never forgot.
The Huntsmans were obliged to leave their ranch at one time on account of the Indian War, and another time when General Albert Sidney Johnston under the direction of President Buchanan brought his army to Utah to crush the so-called "Mormon Rebellion". They were also called by the church leaders to colonize a place known as Beaver about 200 miles south, but they returned the next year to their beloved home on the lakeshore.
The oldest daughter, Sarah Jane Huntsman had fallen in love with Samuel Lewis, who had been a famous member of the Mormon battalion. After his honorable discharge, he came to Utah on foot to join his people. The young soldier became united again with his father, Tarlton Lewis, at Parowan, Iron County, which had been colonized by the family. Later Sarah Jane Huntsman married Samuel Lewis. Soon after their marriage, they went thirty miles northwest to Minersville on the Beaver, which became a post on the route to California. The long freight and immigrant trains brought merchandise and irregular mail. The Pony Express was established in 1860 and regular mail service was initiated but cost as high as $5.00 a letter. Over 400 horses were used and it took riders over eight days to make the trip from Missouri to California. Thus did Hannah Davis Huntsman, along with 30,000 other pioneers, coming from the centers of population in America and Europe thrust herself into the lonely isolation from the rest of the world.
After this sojourn of the Beaver River, Sarah Jane Huntsman and Samuel Lewis blazed their way across the Colorado River in 1880. The program adopted for colonization by the church prior to 1875 provided for the extension of a wagon road southward from Kanab to Lee's Ferry, famous in the Mountain Meadow Massacre, and on 75 miles into Arizona.
The first colony in 1877 led by Lott Smith was reinforced next year by Keturah Hannah Lewis and her husband, Alfred Baker, and Mary Ellen Lewis and her husband, Don Carlos Judd, who went 100 miles farther across the Gila River and built the town of Smithville..
Samuel Edward Lewis, the oldest of this family, pioneered into New Mexico in company of the famous scout and trail blazer, Jacob Hamblin. After marrying Hamblin's niece, he located At Ramah, New Mexico. A young brother, Oliver:Lewis, settle at Bear.River, Utah, but also did his share of pioneering. The story is told that on one occasion he helped out a fellow traveler whose teams had been stolen by the Indians. He cut some timber and made a new yoke at night with a drawing knife, the next morning he roped some wild cows from the herd, put them with a pair of broken cows in the lead, and over land they flew. At another time he was invited to attend a dance at a neighboring fiddler’s house. He was assigned to dance with the fiddler’s best girl friend while he fiddled, and the girl refused him . About that time a pretty half-breed walked into the dance. They tried to get Oliver to dance with her but she refused too. He stalked out the back door and "hit the hay". These pioneer young men would not quail before a gun or an Indian but they sometimes retreated when the favorite woman was not facing them. Another brother, Adelbert, enlisted in the Spanish-American War and climbed the famous San Juan Hill in Cuba as a Rough Rider with Theodore Roosevelt.
Hannah Davis Huntsman was reported to be a genius in the kitchen preparing palatable, nutritious foods of plants and roots of unknown value, long before Luther Burbank did his work in bringing the prickly pears into the market. Hannah Huntsman made fine pies from them by peeling off the thorns and preparing them in her own way. She was active in church work, being president of the Relief Society of the Hebron community. This organization was composed of women and founded by Joseph Smith in 1842.
She and her son Aaron had an interesting experience with the Navajo Indians during the robbing of the 1870.'s. At the time of his death James William Huntsman left to his family a fine team of horses that could hardly be duplicated in all the country. Instead of putting them in the common herd at night, Hannah would have Aaron back the wagon close to the house and tie the horses to it, the family would take turns guarding it. One night it was Aaron's turn to guard, but being a lad of fourteen he dozed off and was awakened by the horses leaving. His consternation at the thought of losing the horses caused him to forget all about the gun he held in his hand. In a manly voice he commanded the Navajos to stop, they left the horses and fled to safety.
During the year of 1875 Hannah and her son Aaron were making a trip to Minersville to see Sarah Jane Huntsman Lewis, they were followed by Indians along the old California Road which ran along the side of Escalante Valley from Minersville to the Mountain Meadows where it crossed the pass in the rim of the Great Basin. There were no habitations along the road, and when Aaron began unhooking the horses at night, some Indians appeared for a fraction of a second. They quickly changed their minds and instead of camping the horses were watered and grained and they moved on. When darkness overtook them, dim fleeting shadows showed close behind them. A lively conversation between the mother and Aaron made it appear that there were several people in the wagon. Thus they did travel all night until they reached their destination at day break; they had fooled the Indians and possibly saved their lives.
In her declining years Hannah D. Huntsman settled down to take care of her two bachelor sons. She lived in Panaca, Nevada for several years while they were in the mail business. Later they moved to Shoal Creek. Aaron Huntsman became the veteran mailman of the community and had many harrowing and dangerous experiences. Much money was passing through the mails at this time and the country was salted with criminals so there was always danger from that condition.
Aaron Huntsman was a great 1over of horses and always kept his outfit in good condition. He was the minute mam of his community for he was ever ready to go for assistance or to render aid to his neighbors when they were i11 or in distress.
During the 1870's, the southern part of Utah was in a very formative state and the people had to rely upon their own resources when there was no money with which to buy, they were obliged to build their own temple and St. George was chosen as the location. At that time it was a veritable wilderness, where roads are now, cow trails existed and the only means of communication was by pony or team. It was impossible for the people in the north to take any part in the construction of this building, so the work was done by local people and largely with local material. In this work, the sons of Hannah D. Huntsman put in one entire winter with their teams working on the building. Emeline Hunt Huntsman, the wife of Hyrum Ralston, did the cooking for them. The northern settlements donated supplies which were hauled some 300 miles over the hills by Orson, Hyrum, David and Aaron Huntsman.. On these trips they had some thrilling and unpleasant experiences. Aaron David Huntsman was known to tell the story that once in May when they rolled along over the mites of deep red sand and lava plateaus, it was so hot that they rested by day arid traveled by night. The lizards would whip from bush to bush, turn over on their backs and paw the air with their feet to create circulation so that they could breathe. The temple was completed in 1877 and has since served as their central place of worship.
In the ecclesiastical plan of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the larger subdivisions of the territory are called "Stakes" arid the smaller divisions "Wards"s. Joseph Smith Huntsman became the bishop of his ward and held that position for many years, he and his young wife had helped to settle Santa Clara Creek which flows south from the rim of the great basin to the Colorado River. A flood came once and nearly destroyed the place, which caused him to move farther up the creek, where he helped to establish another town named Gunlock. After the death of his wife, he moved about but finally returned to Gunlock where he died and is buried.
The old home at Lake Point, Tooele, Utah had endeared itself to the entire family, but when the church commanded that he go south, James W. Huntsman sold the 200 beautiful acres oh the lake front for $5,000., traded his stocks of grain and hay for cattle, horses and new farming implements, blacksmith and carpenters tools and a saw mill. The family went to Clover Valley, well equipped, and remained until the Indian War broke out, they then moved into the fort built at Shoal Creek 25 miles east of Clover Valley. At the request of the church officials, James W. Huntsman prepared to saw lumber, but while preparing to divide the land among the people at Hebron, he caught a severe cold which developed into pneumonia and caused his death 26 February 1867.
Hyrum Ralston Huntsman in his early manhood made three trips back across the mountains to Missouri to assist Mormon immigrants who had been stranded for want of help to cross the plains. All the rest of his life was spent on the frontier helping to reclaim the desert. He suffered much financial loss through theft of his livestock by the Indians, once his house was burned by them. He came south in advance of his father and family, married Emeline Hunt at Clover Valley, Lincoln County, Nevada and contributed much to the pioneering of this area. Dudley Leavitt, who married two daughters of James W, Huntsman, Mary and Maria, also came south at this time and these three families were well established when the parents came south to the Dixie Mission.
Orson Welcome Huntsman also had an eventful and interesting life. He joined with the other Huntsman's in the settling of the town of Hebron, which later proved to be an indiscreet location. When the Lewes's migrated to Arizona, Orson Welcome attempted to go also, but financial disaster overtook him. When about 100 miles out on the trail, his cattle and horses froze to death in the mountains in early winter. He returned to the community of Hebron in 1892, imbued with idea of redeeming the fertility of the country by impounding the water of Shoal Creek and using it for irrigation purposes. At Hebron he was postmaster for several years and superintendent of the Sunday School. He had a charming personality which made him a welcome visitor wherever he went.
When the mines went down, the town of Hebron declined and it was then that Orson W. Huntsman sensed the necessity of building the town of Enterprise, and having an irrigation dam to supply water for the community. The town was located at the mouth of Shoal Creek. When he proposed to build this water system, many people tried to discourage him, saying that it would fill up with sand in a few years: They also maintained that he was trying to build a dam in a dry wash where there was not snow or rain enough to fill a pond large enough to swim in. The people who worked on the dam were poor and had no farms on which to raise supplies. The men went away and worked in mining camps and on the railroad to get supplies for work on-the dam. Orson Huntsman
also records in his diary that a slight earthquake in 1896 scared some of the people of the town away. The washing away of the reservoir in 1903, which the Hebron people had completed, put an end to the town of Hebron. The town of Hebron is no more and the thriving town of Enterprise has taken its place; the resourcefulness of an interesting Ralston descendant helped to make this possible.
Orson W. Huntsman also mentioned in his writings that all clothing was made by hand. The first road into the place was a mere trail made by the Pulsipher brothers. Gradually the track grew into a permanent road as ox or horse teams traveled over it. It was always rocky until the day of the automobile. On the new road in a "chariot without a horse" one can go from Shoal Creek to St. George in two hours, formerly it took two days by horse team and four to five days by ox team.
Orson Welcome Huntsman died in 1931. He was an active church worker; he was a Ward Teacher and served as President of the 29th Quorum of Elders. He served as a postmaster for twenty years and was the Justice of Peace at Hebron. The Enterprise Reservoir stands as a monument of his genius.
The members of his family can furnish many interesting stories of his rugged frontier life which has made them the strong people that they are. The majority of them are trained to handle horses and cattle on the range and are adept in the saddles. Robert Tait was once sent to St. Louis to ride horses at the World's Fair, in addition to the prizes offered they put him on a horse that no one had ever "stayed to" and placed a $20.00 gold piece in each stirrup and one in the saddle with the stipulation that if he rode the horse and held onto the coins, they were his. Robert conquered the horse and got the $60,00. He was a cowboy of the old school.
Orson Welcome Huntsman married Mary Ann Terry, a daughter of Bishop Terry; she was a school teacher before her marriage. She taught the first school in the valley at the age of 18, and as the people had no money to pay her for her teaching she accepted milk; which she made into cheese and sent to Salt Lake for sale. Cheese was not a simple thing to make then, rennet had to be taken from the beef when it was killed.
Special mention here must be made to the resourcefulness of a son of this couple, Lamond W. Huntsman, who had done such valiant work in assembling the genealogical information as to this family. His father promised to work out the Hannah Huntsman group for us, but his early death so soon after getting to know him has prompted the son to take up the work where the father left off. He had been working on successfully, marshalling the data, hundreds of descendants in a very short time: He has aided greatly in the completion of the history. When the snows were threatening his cattle last winter, he was out on the range from ten to fourteen hours at a time, and he has given the same measure of devotion to this history. His typical expression when he gets enthused in his work is: "I will give the rowls of my spurs to get this history across!"
Our thanks to all who might have helped!