Monday, October 20, 2025
Sunday, October 19, 2025
History of Peter Madsen Peel and wife Christine Folkman Peel



Christine Folkman Peel passed away November 6, 1899. She was a faithful and kindly lady, beloved by everyone. She was a counselor to the President of the Relief Society. Whenever any of the LDS Church authorites visited Mt. Pleasant, they made the home of Sister Peel their stopping place. She and her husband, Peter M. Peel were husband and wife for fifty three years<> We would love to hear from you. Leave a comment or e-mail us at pandk@cut.net.

Saturday, October 18, 2025
HOME OF PETER MADSEN (PIHL) PEEL and CHRISTIANA FOLKMAN PEEL (now torn down)
Their history will be posted tomorrow
Friday, October 17, 2025
HERE COMES A NEPHITE
This story first appeared in a pamphlet entitled, "Fate", published in 1980.
Legendary stories have grown up around Christianity and also the Mormon Religion. One such story centers on the Nephites. Mormons believe that the Nephites were a super race that once lived in America. Three Nephites were set apart by Christ to "never taste death", but to work at saving souls. These three Nephites were reported to be especially active during the pioneering days of the Mormons. Usually, they work alone, often wearing white robes and impressive beards. Their faces have a kind of glow. A Nephite may ask for food and eat but the food miraculously remains unconsumed. He appears most often in isolated areas, offering help.
Nearly 100 years after it happened, Ray J. Hutchenson of Salt Lake City, Utah told Louise Putcomp Jr. of the Associated Press, A Nephite aided his Grandmother, Emma Sanders Tidwell.
Her husband had gone to bring a load of coal, and she was alone on the farm with her children, one being ill. An old man with flowing hair and a long beard appeared at her door.
"Someone is sick here in this house", he announced. "I have been sent to minister to that child." He touched the child's forehead with a finger dipped in consecrated oil and recited a special blessing. Mrs. Tidwell invited him to sleep with the boys in the loft, but in the morning, the stranger was gone. Mrs. Tidwell was convinced that he was a Nephite, sent to her home in time of need.
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To the right, you will see the "Peel Homestead" which is located a short distance from where the "Tidwell Homestead" was once located. Notice Horseshoe in the distance. The Tidwells, Nelsons, Peels, Brintons, Brothersons, Nielsens, Johansen, and many others lived in "the Bottoms" near the banks of the Sanpitch River between Moroni and Mt. Pleasant. They, at one time had their own school in that vicinity. Anyone having any stories about "the bottoms", please let us know.
Thursday, October 16, 2025
Tuesday, October 14, 2025
Sunday, October 12, 2025
Saturday, October 11, 2025
LIFE SKETCH OF CHRISTIAN BROTHERSON (BRODERSEN) and ANNE MORTENSEN
The Life Sketch of Christian Brotherson and His Family
The life sketch of Christen Brothersen (Brodersen) is presented in two parts. The first part focuses on the family’s early life in
Part 1: Focuses on Life in
Christian Brothersen was born, 14 June 1811 at Idrstrup,
A sorrowful event occurred in this family when Bone was an infant of only a few weeks of age. The mother, Anne Mortensen Brothersen. passed away on 26 May 1851. Mainly out of symphony for her sister’s children; Elsie Mortensen went into the Brothersen home, married Christian and cared for the children. It seems that Christian was a wealthy man. When missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints visited his home and brought the message of the restored gospel, the father embraced it with all his heart, as did Elsie. Quick preparations were made and this family planned on going to

Map showing the location of | |
The following year, 1857, this family joined a company of emigrants and sailed to
There were 330 people, 3 wagons, and 68 handcarts with which to make the journey. The journey was hazardous and eventful. The leader also walked and tried to keep up the spirits of his people. On13 September 1857, the company arrived in
Brothersens on the Passenger List of the Westmoreland (1857)

Christian Brothersen settled his family at
Christian went to
After moving to
Martin moved to Indianola to plant and cultivate crops. They also had cattle and sheep. Those were the days that tried their soul, Hans, Martin, and Christian Brotherson and other members of the family stood guard against Indians led by Chief Black Hawk from April 1865 until a treaty of peace was signed in
A close up map of the location of Idestrup, Denmark

by Ila Brotherson Tidwell
My great grandfather, Christian Brotherson, was one of the noble pioneers who entered the
Christian Brotherson was not only a pioneer, he also helped to conquer this western land and make it a frontier civilization. In doing this, he gave us a land of freedom in which to live. He gave us the opportunity to live under the protection of the Stars and Stripes of
He was born 14 June 1811. One record says Idestrup the other says Veggerlose,
Grandfather married Ann Mortensen in
She said we should have it put in a museum so people could see it. It was among the first tithing receipts given in
During the time, or shortly after he married Elsie, while they were still on their honeymoon, missionaries from
Their first, a baby boy, was born 14 May 1853. They named him Martin after his Maternal Grandfather. On January 8, 1856, a little girl came to bless their home. They named her Ann. (Her home was where the Pioneer Relic Hall now stands in

A picture of the Hans Brotherson family circa 1901
Soon after the Death of Hans Brotherson
Background: Hans Brotherson .(In Picture Frame)
Front Row: Floyd [Ferdnand Floyd] on the left,
Friday, October 10, 2025
EARLY MOUNT PLEASANT HISTORY ~~~ by Pat Sagers
Early Mount Pleasant Main Street |
Contributed By
"Sanpete County histories - The Pyramid Newspaper - July 2019
Where in the world did Sanpete County get its name? It all started when the Ute Chief Wakara invited pioneers to settle the San Pitch valley, named after a tribe of hunter-gatherer Indians.
Wakara claimed that the Great Spirit had appeared to him in a dream, telling him to welcome the white men. Later, Wakara engaged his guests in the infamous “Walker War” from 1853-54. The Black Hawk War, named for another Ute leader, also disrupted county settlement from 1865-68.
Eventually, the San Pitch name was corrupted to Sanpete. Some historians now believe that more than the agricultural skills Wakara claimed to want for himself and his tribe, he was interested in the cattle that the pioneers seemed to take with them everywhere they went.
The county wasn’t the only entity to undergo a name change. Most of the cities within the county have gone through changes in identity since their founding.
Sanpete County is the home of several towns. How they originated and came to be can be an interesting story. The following stories are shortened versions of some of Sanpete’s best known towns.
Mt. Pleasant
Mt. Pleasant is known for its 19th-century Main Street buildings, for being home to Wasatch Academy, and for being the largest city in the northern half of the county. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 3,260.
After taking lumber out of Pleasant Creek Canyon in late 1851, a band of Mormon colonists from Manti, led by Madison D. Hambleton, returned in the spring of 1852 to establish the Hambleton Settlement near the present site of Mt. Pleasant.
During the Wakara War, the small group of settlers relocated to Spring Town and later to Manti for protection. The old settlement was burned down by local Native Americans, so when a large colonizing party from Ephraim and Manti returned to the area in 1859, a new, permanent town site was laid out in its present location.
Among the founding settlers were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as Mormon converts, from Scandinavia, United Kingdom, and the eastern U.S.
By 1880, Mt. Pleasant was the county’s largest city, with a population of 2,000, more than 72 percent of its married adults were foreign born.
This ethnic diversity had an important impact on village life during the 19th and early 20th centuries. For decades, five languages were commonly spoken in town, creating confusing and sometimes amusing communication problems.
The settlement and development of Mt. Pleasant followed the typical pattern for Mormon towns of the period. A square-shaped town site was surveyed, eventually containing about 100 city blocks, lots were drawn and the land was distributed among the population.
Under the direction of James Russell Ivie (1802–1866), a fort of adobe walls and log cabins was built. Pleasant Creek ran through the fort and farming was done outside of its walls.
Around the time that Ivie was killed in the Blackhawk War, by Indians who had declined to participate in the settlement of the earlier Wakara War, the town had acquired its present name.
By the time the final peace treaty with the Indians was signed in Bishop Seeley’s house on Mt. Pleasant Main Street in 1872, bringing to an end to this conflict, many settlers had already erected homesteads outside of the fort.
Although the town site is large in scale, the density is relatively low due to the original layout allowing for only four lots per block.
The influence of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was felt in all religious, political, economic, educational and social aspects of life in early Mt. Pleasant. Self-sufficiency was a virtue and home-grown and home-manufactured food, clothing and furnishings were far more available than rarely found imported items.
Some of the first industries included hide tanning, shoemaking, blacksmithing, basket making and freighting. Eventual modernization brought such improvements as the Deseret Telegraph in 1869, The Pyramid newspaper in 1890 and a telephone system in 1891.
Sawmills and flour mills were built, irrigation systems were dug and a municipal government was created to oversee public laws and improvements. The city was incorporated in 1868, a year after the first co-operative store was founded, starting what became a burgeoning commercial district.
Upon the arrival of the Rio Grande Western Railway in 1890, both the local population and the city’s prosperity increased dramatically. By 1900, Mt. Pleasant had grown to nearly 3,000 persons, the largest size reached by any city in Sanpete County to that time and the city had earned one of its nicknames, “Hub City.”
The town’s new-found wealth became immediately apparent in a building boom which saw the replacement of small, wood-frame commercial buildings with much more impressive, architect-designed stone and brick structures such as the 1888 Sanpete County Co-op, the Gentile store which competed with the ZCMI, or Mormon, store.
The resulting Main Street district is so architecturally distinctive that the two-block-long area has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Equally striking are the Victorian churches, schools, and residences which replaced the simpler adobe and log buildings of the pioneer period.
Mt. Pleasant has long been considered the most diverse city in the county, in part because of the liberal Mormons and the Protestant groups which challenged the dominant Mormon population in the late nineteenth century.
Liberal Hall, built on Main Street in 1875, and Wasatch Academy, Utah’s oldest surviving private boarding school, established by Presbyterians in the same year, remain as visible and functional testaments of the city’s historic and ongoing diversity.
The 20th century brought continued changes and improvements to the face of the “Queen City,” its most popular nickname. The commercial and residential districts continued to fill with fine buildings bespeaking the prosperity of the community.
By 1912 the first high school, North Sanpete High School, had been completed. The year 1912 also brought the Armory Hall, while the Elite Theater was constructed as a “fireproof” building in 1913. It burned down seven decades later.
In 1917 a fine Carnegie Library was built in a modern architectural style. The Marie Hotel was erected in 1920 and a large cheese factory came on the scene in 1930, the same year that bus service came to town.
The completion of U. S. Highway 89 in 1936 was a boon needed to soften the impact of the Great Depression. A city hall in 1939 and hospital in 1945, together with new schools and churches, gave Mt. Pleasant a full complement of public buildings."