The above photos are taken with permission from
"Our Family Legacy "
- © 2010, Derek & Christina Hullinger
Written by Eli A. Day
Commenced July 22, 1936
In Mt. Pleasant, Utah
Eli Azariah Day
I was born in Springville, Utah, September 23, 1856. My parents were Abraham Day and Charlotte Katherine Melland. Abraham Day was born in Green Mountain, Vermont, 24 Sep 1817 and died 30 Apr 1900 at Lawrence, Emery, Utah. Charlotte was born atKillamarsh, Derbyshire, England 25 Dec 1832 and died 26 Sep 1872 at Mt. Pleasant, Utah.
When I was 2 or 3 years old, I fell down a ladder in the house of my parents, striking my right eyebrow on a peg at the bottom of the steps. I was stunned and did not come out of it for over two hours.
Father had two wives, my mother being his plural wife. The family all lived in one house, each woman having her own bedroom, but otherwise living as one family.
I remember but one thing about Springville before we left there. I, with my three brothers Ira, Herbert, and Edwin, tried to follow Father to the field, but we wandered off onto the south bench and became lost in the sagebrush and cedars. Frightened nearly to death, we wandered around, crying lustily, until we were found and taken home. The fright made such an impression on me that I never forgot it, though all other memories of Springville faded away. I was then three years old.
In the early spring of 1860, Father moved my mother's family consisting of Dora, Herbert, myself, Flavilla, Ephraim, Harriet, and Benjamin Franklin to Mt. Pleasant, Utah. His oldest son, Joseph, then a man grown, came along with the family.
We moved into an adobe house built against the 12 foot fort wall which formed the back of the house. It had a dirt roof but lumber floor with a fireplace in the south end of the house, also a window and one door in the east side of the south and larger room, and a door passing into the north room which contained one small window. The roof had a ridge pole, or small log, with a log half way down on each side to support the roof. Small poles were then placed crossing these and extending out in front to form eves. Willows then crisscrossed these poles and then a layer of straw atop the willows, all nailed quite solidly with more than a foot of dirt. This was a splendid roof. Only when an extended rain storm prevailed or the spring snow was melting did it sweat with the labor of carrying the roof, until great drops of sweat fell down from the underside of the roof or even came down in trickles. Oh! how pleasant! Not! Pans, buckets, cups, anything that would hold water, were then placed upon the beds to keep them dry. Then again, how very pleasant when mice would get working in the straw and dirt of the roof, peppering everything below them with dirt.
This wonderful house, twelve feet to the square, stood on the north side of Pleasant Creek, on the brink of the bank. But it contained for a few years, a very merry and happy bunch of children, though we lived in destitution.
Father had bought this house of Nathan Staker, but as he had not yet finished his log house two blocks north, the two families lived together for sometime. Beds! Beds! Bedstead beds and trundle beds! Trundle beds were something like bedsteads, but low enough that when the children were ensconced in them they could be pushed under their parents' beds, thus making room for beds on the floor. Move carefully around or you will step on the sleepers! But not long had we to wait, and we then had the house to ourselves. Oh, those childhood memories! Nothing can equal them but the memories of the inspiration that living the life bring to the mature mind of a Latter-Day Saint, but more of that in the future.
One Sunday while I yet wore my sissy clothes, (we got our first pants at five years), I was sitting in the house with my mother, the baby was in the cradle--when Mother sighed and said, "Oh, I wish I had a fish for my dinner." "Mother, make me a fish hook and line and I will catch one for you." "All right, hand me my work basket."
With my help she doubled and twisted spool thread and soon had me a fishing line. She put some little pieces of lead on it for sinkers, and bent a pin for a fish hook. I got a dry willow for a rod. Mother took a cork from a bottle for a float, which she fastened about a foot and a half from the hook. With this tied to the rod and a piece of fat pork for a bait, I was ready to catch my first fish. I was told to go to a fishing hole, let the hook into the water at the head of the hole, and allow it to float on the cork to the end of the hole. When the cork bobbed under three times, to jerk. The hole I went to was where the sidewalk crossed Pleasant Creek on the west side of State Street.
I had to go a little way north of the house through a small gate in the wall of the rock fort to get to the fishing hole. I stood on the sloping bank and held the cork on the surface of the water as directed. The second or third time it floated down the hole, it began bobbing under and I jerked as directed, when out came a finny wiggler, hanging on the pin hook. Did I touch it? Fear forbid! But quickly climbing the gently sloping bank, holding it out at full length, skirts swishing about in the breeze, and shouting at every jump, I made my way back. "I've got one Mother! I've got one Mother!" Yes, I had a little trout, ten or eleven inches long and Mother had a "fish for her dinner." I wonder if I ever did anything that gave me a greater thrill? I think not!
I loved my mother dearly and took joy in filling her dear wish. She was a beautiful woman, short and heavy without being fat, very strong or she could never have done the heavy labor of those pioneer days. Bringing a child into the world a little short of every two years and caring for her flock as well as working for others, mostly making straw hats in which, as a child, I took a small and willing part, helping to prepare the straw and even, after much practice, letting me do a little of the braiding.
In those days I cared much for the young children and helped some little with the house work, washing dishes, sweeping the floor, bringing wood, making fires, etc. She sometimes said I was the only boy-girl she had, but if any boys picked on me, they soon found I was not a sissy.
I do not remember my first days in school. I am told that when Herbert started to school to "Auntie Hyde" (Charlotte Hyde). I wanted to go and cried all the forenoon so Mother let me go in the afternoon. My first memory of school, Auntie Hyde gave me a book and set me to teaching Herbert his abc's. The privilege of teaching another was so great that I remembered it.
My next memory of school: in this same good old lady's school, I spelled above some in the spelling class, among them two large girls, Emeline Seely and Alice Barton. As I passed above them they whispered, "We'll kiss you for this." Did they? Well, I guess not! When school was out I scooted for home, and for months after that I was careful to avoid them at every turn. Bashful? Yes, but I have overcome that many years ago.
My mother or sister Dora taught me long recitations which I recited in school and in assemblies in the meeting house. "God Made the Old Man Poor," and "The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck" were two of them. I loved to recite and sing in school and other places, but still I was very bashful, "blushing like a girl" for many years. In my first reader was this little poem:
I have a little doll,
I take care of her clothes;
She has soft flaxen hair
And her name is Rose."
She has pretty blue eyes
And a very small nose,
And a sweet little mouth,
And her name is Rose.
I learned and loved it and always have loved the simple little poem.
[I learned] another about a little dog. But I have forgotten every line of it. Another about a lovely little girl feeding a little lamb. All I remember of it is she said, "Drink, pretty creature, drink." How I loved my school, my teachers (very wonderful people to me), my playmates! Playing truant never had any charm for me. I would rather go to school than go playing, or fishing which was always a delight to me. And if I could win a word of praise from my teachers, it always gave me joyt Nevertheless, I sometimes got my "jacket tanned" with a willow which was the discipliner used by the teachers of my boyhood days.
We first learned our ABC's by rote, forward and backward; then our ab ab' s, a long list of syllables with no particular meaning. Ab, ba, ac, ca, ad, da, eb, be, ec, ce, etc. Then we learned short sentences in one syllable words. When we got into the Third Reader, we were permitted to learn to write and "cipher" in "Ray's Part Arithmetic," which contained instructions and "sums" examples from the first to eighth grade.
In my 36 years of teaching, I never found a better or more complete arithmetic, nor did I ever find a better reading book than those of my youth. Some may say that is because they were my first books, but I think not; but rather because they contained such splendid stories, beneficial studies of nature, lovely and instructional poems, and all together carrying such moral, patriotic, religious sentiments that no system of readers ever appealed to me like the McGuffies, Nation, and Pacific Coast readers did. And the comic was not left out. Here is one that I always loved:
"I'll never use tobacco, no!
It is a filthy weed.
I'll never put it in my mouth,"
Said little Robert Reed.
"Why, there was idle Jerry Jones,
As dirty as a pig,
Who smoked when only ten years old,
And thought it made him big.
"He'd puff along the open street
As if he had no shame,
He'd sit beside the tavern door,
And there he'd do the same.
"He spent his time and money too
It made his mother sad.
She feared a worthless man would come
From such a worthless lad."
Another:
Alas little Kitty, do give her your pity,
Had lived 7 years, and was never called pretty.
Her cousins around her they pouted and fretted;
But they were all pretty, and they were all petted.
While poor little Kitty, though striving her best
To do her child's duty, not sharing their beauty,
Was always neglected and never caressed.
But one day, alone amid clover blooms sitting,
She heard a strange sound, as of wings round her flitting,
And she heard a sweet voice whisper low in the air:
"See that beautiful, beautiful child sitting there!"
Thrice blessed, little Kitty! she almost looked pretty,
Beloved by the angels she needed no pity.
O, Juvenile charmers, with shoulders of snow,
Ruby lips, sunny tresses, forms made for caresses!
There's one thing my beauties, 'tis well you should know!
Though the world is in love with bright eyes and soft hair,
It is only good children the angels call fair.
We had very few books to use. We borrowed and loaned books to get our lessons in. With me it was more borrowing than lending. Blackboards were almost unknown in these old log school houses. In arithmetic every fellow was a class by himself and also in writing. Our writing was entirely copy work. When a pupil got stalled in arithmetic, he went to the teacher, who did the example for him, then he went plodding on by himself unless he had a chum who "ciphered" with him. We read and spelled in classes and once in a while we studied a little geography in classes. Reading? Well, we were taught to pronounce the words correctly (?) and assigned the next lesson or take the same one over again, which happened quite often. Very much the same in spelling. The teachers could not teach us what they did not know themselves. One qualification in those early days for a man to become a teacher, was to become physically unfit to do hard manual labor. I heard it remarked many times, "Why is that husky fellow teaching school?" "He is too damn lazy to work." The physically fit were needed on the farm, in the canyons, the mills, threshing, making plows, chains, shoes, tanning leather, building flour mills, sawmills, threshing machines, carding mills, molasses mills, spinning wheels, looms, guarding or herding cattle and horses from the Indians, fencing the fields, building canals and water ditches, making roads, houses and churches, building bridges, putting up telegraph lines, building corrals, houses, granaries, sheds, barns, killing grasshoppers and crickets, in fact doing all the difficult tasks that accompany the pioneering of an arid waste to make it "blossom as the rose." All right, let the huskies do the heavy work, and the weaklings can teach the schools. In the '70's though, these conditions began to change. But more of that hereafter.
My first school room was a large house built of massive logs about 25 x 40 feet, with 5 large logs sustaining the roof; one center log at the peak of the roof, resting at the end of the building on the peak of the gable, and at the center of the building on a similar gable built across the center of the room as a gable, but the logs of the middle gable were not laid close upon each other. This had to be, for the forty foot building was much too long a reach for the heavy roof's support. Then two logs on each side dividing the space on each side of the roof, reaching from the center gable to the end gables. These logs were then crossed with small poles reaching from the peak log to the eaves or side walls of the house. Willows then crossed these poles, straw on top of the willows, and a heavy layer of dirt atop the straw.
An 8- or 10- foot- wide fireplace was in the east end of the building, the stand in the west end, the full width of the house and occupying 10 or 12 feet of the length. I imagine on cold winter days the dignitaries of the ward on this stand had a cold time of it, while those close to the fire were uncomfortably warm. A large door was in the south side, with a window on each side. There may have been other windows. This meeting house was my first school house and I remember standing on the banister beside the pulpit and reciting the poem, "God Made the Old Man Poor." This poem has a historical significance. Robert Morris, of Revolutionary fame, who spent a large fortune for the cause of freedom in his old age, was imprisoned for debt in the City of Brotherly Love under an old English statute. One of our early poets wrote "God Made the Old Man Poor, and it so thrilled the people that the old statute was repealed and one passed that no one could be imprisoned for debt, and under it the aged patriot gained his freedom. I forget the poem, but in it the question was asked why he was in prison and the answer was, "God made the old man poor," and it ended thus:
"Go and ring the bells and fire the guns
And fling the starry banner out;
Shout freedom 'till your lisping ones,
Give back their cradle shout."
It was beautiful and patriotic and I think I caught some of the spirit of it, though [I was] but four or five years old.
Those were happy days for me! Going to school, learning my lessons, going herding barefooted on stormy days, carrying fire in a torch made of cedar bark, for we had no matches in the sixties to speak of, playing on the hard ground, gathering the cows at night, and trudging along behind, barefooted and weary, sore feet, cracked and bleeding, washing those poor sore feet at night in warm bran water, greasing them with a healing salve made of equal parts of rosin, beeswax and mutton tallow. And when the stone bruised our feet, curing them with fresh barnyard poultices. Not very pleasing to the nose, but the most efficacious remedy for taking out inflammation and blood poisoning that I have yet discovered, even in these days of learned doctors. When herding in the fields in spring or fall we often caught the big green frog, took the hind legs only and skinned, roasted, and ate them. It was said that frogs hind legs in those days were a great delicacy in France. I know they are tender, juicy and tasty when rightly prepared.
We also played two kinds of jacks, using smooth rounded pebbles for jack stones. Right jacks and hundreds, we called the games. Hundreds was the simplest, tossing the five jacks gently, we caught what we could on the back of our hand, tossed again and caught them in the palm of the hand. If we missed catching all in the palm we were out, then using one of the caught stones for a taw, tossing it up, picking up the missed jacks one at a time without a miss until all were regained. One hundred, or five hundred thus gained was the game. Slaps and pinches were the penalty for losing the game. The hand of the looser was placed upon the ground, the winner tossed up his taw, slapped the other's hand as many times as agreed upon, but if he missed his taw, the other returned as many slaps as were made misses. Pinches were similar, pinching the hand instead of slapping it. Though a good player, I did not like the penalty game. Right Jack is rather too long to describe here.
What did we do on the hard ground? In the early spring we dug segoes and Indian carrots and other roots to eat. We played Indian, sometimes scaring some of the uninitiated by a pretended Indian raid. We picked gum from the pitch pines, and in the fall gathered pine cones from those pines from which we got the pine nuts. We went swimming in Sanpitch, we fished, we got mud throwers, small willows some three feet long on the small end of which we put a piece of sticky clay about the size of a common marble which we could throw after much practice with a great speed and considerable accuracy. When going home we would often carry a good lump of clay along to throw from our mud throwers at the cows that might get off to the side of the herd to wander away. A scorching mud dob or two would generally bring her back. In the fall of the year we often gleaned potatoes and roasted them to eat. Sometimes, the larger boys got the smaller ones to fight, which I never liked, and they went home with scratched and bruised faces, minus some hair also. Mischief and fun were the main diversions.
Father often sent two of us boys to herd on his grassy willow land along Sanpitch. At such times we spent much of our time moulding cattle, horses, and sheep from clay. We found a layer of clay at the edge of the water in one of the banks of Sanpitch. It was splendid for clay moulding, and we made from it whole herds of animals, which we kept in corrals we made out of willows. From this clay we made horns, tails, legs, for it was pliable and tenacious, and I thought we made many beautiful horns, and tails and limbs of it for our numerous herds. Other times we fenced in farms and gardens and decorated our gardens with flowers and shrubs. My brother Edwin seemed best at this. But I was proud of the horns I made for my cattle and sheep. I wish I could make you feel the pleasure I had in this pleasant pastime. Sometimes wrestling, racing and gymnastics were our pastime. Also, when weary from these strenuous efforts, we would sit around and tell stories, and I was one of the best at this pastime.
In spring and fall, we herded mostly in the fields, which were then joint inclosures. That is, when a tract of land was taken up for cultivation, it was divided by lot generally to the men who were to get the land, in five, ten, fifteen, and twenty acre pieces, as the case might be; then the whole tract was fenced in one large public field; thus each man had to put up but two or possibly four or five rods of fence for each acre of land he got. The larger the field the fewer rods of fence per acre. In early spring these fields were open to the stock of the public; also, when the crops were gathered in the fall, they were again thrown open, and remained so all through the winter and until the cattle began to do damage to the spring crops. You did not have to be an owner of land to get your stock into the field. All were welcome. When we herded neighbors' cows we got 2 or 3 cents each per day.
During the worst of the Indian times, the minute men herded the cows, and the boys were kept in the towns, but even then, in the early spring or late fall the boys were sent out herding because the Indians wintered over the mountain east in Castle Valley and did not come over in the spring until the snow was gone over the mountain passes, and traveling back and forth was safe. In the fall they went over the mountains before there was danger of the trails being blocked with snow.
Swimming was a very popular pastime, and when we couldn't go to Sanpitch where there was plenty of water, we dammed up a large hole in Pleasant Creek, just inside of the field below the west street of the town. The bed of Pleasant Creek was deeper there than almost any other place of its whole length. The banks were sloping, especially on the north side of the creek, and there was a clear place close down to the water on the north side, backed and surrounded by heavy tall brush, so it was well isolated. The pool of water was large and deep, considering other parts of the stream, and by making a dam a couple of feet high we had the best swimming hole in Pleasant Creek. It was monopolized by the boys, who always stripped naked for swimming. Hundreds of boys, now old men, still have pleasant memories of the old town swimming hole.
In my early home life, [my sister] Dora went out working for other families a great deal. Herbert was no house worker, so I spent considerable time helping Mother. I would go and get rabbit brush limbs and Mother would tie them securely together with a string, drive a pointed broom handle into the center and thus make a very good broom. I swept the floor many times with such a one. On Saturday Mother mopped the floor, and I would get a soft sand rock, pound it up fine, and scatter it over the clean floor so that the boards were nearly hidden. Sunday morning, this sand was swept off and a nicely scoured floor showed its face. This sand wore [down] the floor and every knot in it became a bump.
Our house, like all others, was illuminated by candles and fires. Hundreds of nights we sat up till late reading by these flickering lights. Spoil our eyes! There were fewer people with poor eyes then than now. In the sixties we got the kerosene or coal oil lamp. Mother bought us a child's history of the U.S.A. of Wm. Zabriski. O! how I devoured it! I read and reread it, until it got lost. She also got the History of Joseph Smith written by his mother which I eagerly read and reread until it was also lost. I read the scraps of an old U.S. history in much the same way, but it was not all there. Smoking cigarettes was hard on books, paper was scarce and some would snoudge [scrounge?] a leaf from a book to be used for cigarettes. Yes, I did some Bible reading, as also other religious books and newspapers, magazines, dime novels, almost every book we could buy or borrow, which were not very numerous, but in great demand, especially the novels, which were generally read until they were worn out. Because of my reading, my crowd nicknamed me "the student".
As the years advanced, reading matter increased. The Juvenile Instructor, now the Instructor, was very fascinating to me; also the Youth's Companion. I was also able to get the Roling Ancient History, a large book that my father bought, a very complete ancient history, and I read it through. Rainy days on the farm and evenings I would be reading this book while my brothers sat and listened. Generally they would tire of it and go to playing or talking, and I would read to myself. They would ask me to read a novel to them, not that dry stuff, but I generally refused as long as the history lasted.
But my love of history nearly got me into trouble. All the boys older than I had gone to the mining camps, leaving the farm. My brother Edwin S. was wanting to go also, and expressed himself so. I asked him why he wanted to go to such places. Well, he wanted to learn something of the world and see it. I told him that was the worst part of the world, and that I could get more and better knowledge of the world in one hour from reading history than he could in all summer in one of these rough places. They were surely rotten holes in those days.
Next winter Ira came into the house with a few of his friends, and found me reading my beloved history. He soon started to abuse me, in words, about it and referring to what I had said about mining camps to Edwin, told me that if I did not stop saying such things he would maul hell out of me. I was so frightened by that [that] I invited him to come outside and do it. He was older and larger than I, but still he let it pass with a few more threatening remarks, but I would have fought for my belief in the reading of history being the better.
Living in the little adobe house in the "Old Fort" was inexpensive. We generally had plenty of flour and potatoes, some fruits in the fall and late summer, sorghum in the fall and winter, and sorghum fruit preserves. Sugar preserves was out of the question, as also bottled or canned fruits. But one year I remember, about '63 or '64, the grasshoppers had taken so much of the grains in Utah that wheat was $5.00 per bushel. That summer we lived on potatoes for six weeks, with a little milk, butter and pork. For me it did not matter, but Herbert was very delicate and it was hard on him, and although Mother did not complain, I think it was hard on her, but I was happy as a lark. But those were certainly hard times. Tea $3.00 a pound, calico 50 cents a yard, or more, other merchandise as costly. Very little money in the country. Most of the trade in the store was with butter, eggs, grain, and sometimes paper rags.
We boys would make fishhooks out of pins, wire, or needles. A fishhook and line cost 25 cents, sometimes more in the store. One day, Neal Christofferson teased me to kick Will Morrison. He finally gave me a "store hook and line" if I would do it. Well, it brought on a fight the only boyhood fight I was ever ashamed of. Not that I got licked, no, but it was because I had let a boy persuade me to pick a fight. I afterwards asked Will's forgiveness. I have always held that it was low down to pick on anyone, entirely wrong to fight with your brother, and a cowardly act to strike a girl or woman. When the girls got angry and struck me, I took revenge by kissing them, especially if they were pretty. Some time after this, Neal gave me another "store hook and line" if I would go with him up into the canyon to get a yoke of oxen. He knew just where they could be found. We went to the mouth of Pleasant Creek Canyon and found one of them. Then we left him in a beautiful grassy spot and went over into North Creek Canyon where we found the other one. We brought him back to where we left the first ox, but Mr. Ox was gone. So we left No.2 and started out to find No.1, which we could not do, then came back for No.2, but he had also vanished, and after hunting a little longer, we went home, quite tired
and feeling rather down-hearted at our failure.
In 1864, Father and Joseph took up squatters claims on land laying on both sides of Sanpitch, where the State Road crosses Sanpitch west of Mt. Pleasant. They built three log cabins between Sanpitch and the low hills where the three families lived until the next summer. One evening, the families were all together in Mother's cabin, and we four boys, Ira, Herbert, Edwin & I were put to bed in one bed to get us out of the way We were sociable, of course, and started to play and raised a friendly racket. Father told us to keep quiet, which we did for more than a minute. Soon we were told again, with the same result. But the third time, Father turned down the quilt and worked on us. Well, as soon as the sobbing was over, quiet reigned throughout that bed for the whole of the evening.
A large band of Indians camped that winter up Sanpitch a mile or more, and they sometimes came down in large numbers in the evening and got Father and Joseph to make music for them. Joseph beat the snare and Father the bass drum. They also came singly and in pairs begging for food, mostly bread. We sometimes played with the nanzits and ipis (Indian words for boys and girls). It was a jolly life for us boys. One day the family went fishing that is from Joseph down to us four boys. We had about one third as many fishing tackles as persons. Juliette, then a young woman, begged to do some fishing. She was given a tackle and started to fish. Soon she screamed, "I"ve got a bite, I've got a bite". "Jerk, jerk", shouted Joseph. She did, and threw a four pound trout upon the sloping bank some six or eight feet from the water. Then with flopping by the trout, shouts from the boys, and screaming and jumping up and down by the girls, the larger boys scrambled and tumbled over one another grabbing at that trout, slipping till at the very edge of the water Joseph got a strangle hold and the commotion was subsided. The most exciting and dramatic fishing scene I ever looked at thus came to a happy end, with Juliette the heroine and Joseph the hero.
The spring of 1865 saw a quarrel with some Indians in Manti in which an Indian threatened to shoot a white man with an arrow. John Lowry jerked the Indian from his horse and gave him a trouncing. In April, a white man was killed in southern Sanpete. Chief Black Hawk, whose wives and children had died from evil diseases from mingling with wicked white men, was burning for revenge, and incited the Indians to war upon the whites. Bishop William S. Seeley, of Mt. Pleasant told Father he had better move to town, but Father said, no. The Bishop said he might get his family massacred if he did not. Father said the Indians would not attack until they had sent their wives and papooses away.
Some time in May (26th), Conderset Rowe, a boy of some sixteen summers, had been hunting horses in the hills north of our homes and coming by he told Father that the Indians had left their camp up Sanpitch from us and gone off. He saw the trail up in the hills where they had gone north. Then Father said it was time to move to town, which he did that day. That evening the Indians killed a sheep herder at the "herd house" in Herd House Hollow, now called the Milburn Meadows, five miles north of Northbend, now Fairview. The next morning, very early, they massacred the Givens family at the head of Thistle Canyon, just below Thistle Valley. Thus the Black Hawk war was thoroughly launched and we were back in the little adobe house in the old fort.
The minute companies were organized, home guard companies also. Joseph was made captain of a home guard company and Father was urged to become an officer of a fighting unit, but because of his age and his service in the Mormon Battalion and a large and destitute family, Brigham Young had him excused.
The Indians made many raids, stealing cattle and horses, killing people, burning houses, etc. making scary times for us kids, who were forbidden by parents and military authority to go away from the town. I was terribly afraid of the dark, and there were no street lights in those days, so it was torture to me to go away from home on an errand or any place alone of a dark night. This fear was intensified by Indian raids and I never conquered it until I was a man grown, but I forced myself to go alone in the dark, though very frightened, when asked by my parents, for I was ashamed of that weakness.
In 1866, the Indians got so bad that the people of Northbend were ordered to move to Mt. Pleasant for the summer and the people of Sevier County abandoned their homes, many of them coming to Mt. Pleasant, where they made permanent homes. Other small towns were abandoned temporarily.
The same year, the people built the North Fort, the block on which the North Sanpete High School stands was enclosed with a twelve foot wall like the wall south of it. But the north wall of the South Fort became the south wall of the North Fort, the rock wall ran across the streets thus joining the two forts. There was a twelve foot gate in the street both east and west, also a twelve foot gate in the north side, and small gates or doors in the east and west sides of the
new fort.
The Day family took part in the building of the fort. Father, Andrew Madsen, and Father Rice had a portion assigned to them a little east of the northwest corner, possibly four or five rods long. I remember well that we small boys mixed most of the mud, and carried the smaller rocks and mud up on the scaffold. Andrew Madsen carried the larger rock up, while Father Rice and my father laid them into the wall.
The afternoon we finished, Andrew Madsen invited us to his home one block north and treated us to home made beer. Somehow he gave the beer to the boys first, and Father Rice jumped up in a huff and walked off home. I asked Father what was wrong and he said the old gentleman was offended because he was not served first. This fort was built to put cattle in of nights and have them guarded from the Indians.
In 1866, Northbend and Mt. Pleasant boys, a large bunch of us, went out south of the graveyard to swim in adobe holes we had filled with water. We were naked, our clothes lying on the banks around. Suddenly the old bass drum boomed from the public square, the flag ran up to the top of the library pole! An Indian raid somewhere! Did we stop to dress? No! No! We grabbed our clothes and scampered for town as fast as our legs would carry us! Yes, we dressed at the edge of town and went on, thankful that the hair and hide were safe on our heads.
In 1867, a wall was started to enclose the town. I worked on it also. I was then working for Andrew Peterson, a near neighbor. But Father with a crew had a portion assigned to him. On this fort I quarried rock, hauled rock and mixed mud, though but eleven years old. This wall had bastions in it as well as gates and port holes like the other walls, but it was built only about one fourth the way around the town, that was across the east end.
One day I went with my brother Abraham, then a young man, to watch some men work on one of the bastions. We had Old Bull, a large old dog with us. Though old, he was a great fighter when aroused; but very good natured when let alone. One of the laborers had a young dog there, which was considerably larger than Bull. We went into the bastion and the man began setting his dog on ours. Abraham told him he would get his dog licked. He only laughed and said that small dog could not whip his, which was so much larger. He then urged his dog on, and the dog was eager for a fight; but Bull soon had him down and whining.
The owner of the young dog grabbed up a club but Abraham stepped before him and said, "Don't you hit my dog, damn you, I told you your dog would get licked, now let them go!" So he stepped back, but Abraham soon called his dog off. Though not overly large, I never knew of but one dog that could whip Old Bull. We children spent many hours playing with him and he was very useful as a cattle dog. He was very peaceful, but no Indian could come to the house when he was around unless some one of us was there to quiet him down. I never did find out why he hated Indians so.
Late in 1867, Chief Black Hawk came into Mt Pleasant with a number of other Indians. I remember seeing them riding in a lumber wagon drawn by ponies. They, most of them, sat in the bottom of the box. They went to the social hall and there signed a treaty of peace. Black Hawk, I was told by one who knew him, died of tuberculosis not many months after that. But other chiefs with their warriors went on fighting, so the war continued but hardly as bad as under Black
Hawk.
Thus pioneer life went forward. I helped on Father's farm, and on neighbors' farms, and the summer of 1867 I worked for Andrew Peterson. He first hired Herbert for the summer, but Herbert got sick and Mother sent me to take his place for a week. When the week was up, Peterson requested Mother to let me stay on the job. So I remained on the job for the summer, and Mother got the pay to help her family.
Peterson loved to go fishing. He had a mule--Mary--and a horse--Nancy--that he worked together. Mary would nearly always go to bucking when she was ridden fast. One day Peterson took me with him fishing in Sanpitch west of Mt. Pleasant. He rode Nancy and put me on Mary, bareback. We became so absorbed in fishing, catching a goodly number, that we did not start home until after the sun was down. It was getting dark before we got half way home.
Peterson had a good saddle on Nancy and rode on leaving me coming on a trot on the tricky mule. I was being left in the dark which I feared more than I did the mule, so I let Mary out to try to catch up. Of course she tried her old trick and gave me a nasty fall, right over her head. I tried to hold her with the bridle, but it slipped off, and it took her but a few minutes to catch up with her mate. Peterson rode back, with the mule following, head and tail up. He found me limping along the road. My left ankle was badly hurt. He had to promise to ride slowly before I would get on Mary again.
I was nearly eleven years old. Peterson took me crying to Mother. She tied up my ankle, but I was suffering terribly with it. Mother, after a short time, dug some of the burnt adobe off the back of the fireplace, pulverized it, making a poultice of it for my ankle. The pain soon eased, and I was asleep in fifteen or twenty minutes. Can you beat that! You great doctors? I challenge you to try. Remember this! Some of those old remedies are unbeatable. There must have been a bone cracked, for it left a lump on my shin bone about half the size of a dove's egg. In a few days I was back on the job.
While we still lived in the fort, and for several years afterward, the county had a round-up of cattle and horses every spring and fall. We called them drives. Every town sent riders out over their particular ranges, and all the cattle and horses were brought in and corralled in the Old Fort until after the North Fort in our town was built. A few experts on marks and brands were sent to neighboring towns to gather horses and cattle that had strayed from their own range. Then all unclaimed strays were sent to Manti where men went to find the few they had lost.
We kids at these drives had great sport driving the bulls together to see them fight, also the wild stallions together to see them fight. We also would catch calves and yearlings and ride them. I thought this was great sport, until I got thrown from a big calf and badly sprained my left thumb. I was then quite willing to quit that sport.
At one of these drives, Will McArthur and I had climbed up the south gate of the old fort and were watching the cattle pass in and out. Perched up there twelve feet high, we were enjoying ourselves, until a Moroni boy, some larger than we came along. He had an ox whip with a buckskin lash some five or six feet long, and a stock about the same length. He was very important, showing off with his big whip which seemed to have gone to his head. When he saw us upon the gate, he walked over and ordered us down, threatening us with his whip. We refused to come down and he began lashing us. I ordered him to stop or I would get down and lick him. But he did not scare worth a cent, but continued using his ox whip on us. Well, down I came. But, O my! he looked big to me, and to try to get out of it, I walked over near him and said, "If you lash me again I will lick you." He did, and at him I went. He did not run, but luck was with me and I soon had him down and crying. George Cantland pulled me off, and that boy gave me the "worst cussing" I have ever had, and notified me that if I ever came to Moroni he would beat me to death. I was actually afraid to go Moroni for years without a good escort.
In 1866 at a Fourth of July celebration I ran in a sack race and won first prize. I received it of Anthon R. Lund, then a young man and telegraph operator in Mt. Pleasant, also photographer, using the old tin type. It was what they called a chrome picture. A beautiful bunch of roses. I took it home and Mother hung it on the wall.
Among the Northbend exiles was the Anderson family, three stalwart sons and the old father and mother. Scotch, they were. The old lady had made a great friend of Mother and when they were moving back in the fall she came to bid her good bye, and asked for a little token to remember her by. Mother asked what it should be. After looking around the old lady asked for my picture of roses. Mother gave it to her and my heart was nearly broken, but I said not a word against it.
At another celebration, a tall pole had been erected on the public square with a nice felt hat on the top of it. The one who could climb up and get it down could have it. Many tried it and failed, and some of the larger boys coaxed me to try it, so up I started amid the cheers and encouragement of the big boys. When I was about three fourths of the way up, Mother was attracted from the celebration going on under the bowery by the noise of the crowd and seeing me so high up on the pole frightened her and she came running and ordered me down. With reluctance amid the expostulations of the crowd I descended without the hat; but with a lump of disappointment in my throat.
That same day, three young ladies who were taking part in the celebration were looking around for someone to go to get something they had forgotten at home. They spied me and said, "There is Rye Day, he will go for it." They started for me on the run, and I managed to hold my ground. Yes, I did their errand, and was much relieved when it was over with. Well, I have gotten bravely over being frightened by young ladies. I could actually kiss one now and not die from the shock.
Another celebration day, after the meeting was over, a crowd of us boys were playing a mean game under the old bowery. "Patty Moses" we called it. One boy would slip up behind an other, grab him by the ears and call out "Patty Moses". As soon as he would say "Patty Moses" the ear-puller let go. I saw a boy with his back against a bowery post, slipped up behind him, grabbed his ears and told him to say "Patty Moses". Oh! how he swore! he would maul me nearly to death! I let go and at me he came, and I did not try to get away. It happened so quickly that I had no time to measure my opponent. Luck was with me and I soon had him down and he was crying for quarter. I let him up, and such a tongue lashing as I got. He gave me plainly to under stand that his lips were so sore he could not fight, but as soon as they got well he would get his revenge. I saw, too, that he was larger than I, considerably larger, and sincerely I was afraid for some years after, that his lips would get well. I now had two "fraids".
Father's first wife and family lived in a house in the old fort just west of the big south gate. Father bought it of William Morrison. We used to make a swing in the twelve-foot-high gate. One day Ezra and I were swinging very high in the gate swing when the rope broke and, in the fall, I was under [him]. I knew nothing for some hours after the fall, but came to in Aunt Elmira's home.
Nearly everybody had moved out of the fort and Father bought the row of houses left standing, backed by the rock wall. We used these houses for stables and granaries, and stacked grain and hay near them, using the land in the south west corner of the fort for corrals. These houses were inside of the corrals and stockyards. We children had much sport climbing through, over, and around these houses. The cattle and horses gathered in the fall and spring drives were corralled in the fort, also the big cow herd gathered every morning from all over the town and brought from the range every evening were in the fort. This herd was taken to the range for feed every day by members of the minute companies. Sometimes, during the very worst of the Indian troubles, twenty or thirty men were sent to herd and guard these cattle every day and bring them home at night.
This must have been a great annoyance to our parents, though we boys rather enjoyed it. A thin covering of manure all over the ground in the fort was the result of these arrangements. When the cattle were not kept in the fort during wet times, we used to gather mushrooms that grew quite prolifically at times in the fort. Many luscious meals of mushrooms have I enjoyed in those days.
Old Pleasant Creek in those days was the best trout stream I ever knew. We boys caught many small trout in it with pin hooks and lines made of spool cotton thread. As we got a little older we made hooks out of small wire, or needles We sharpened the wire, bent an eye in it, bent the hook, then heated it in the fire and stuck it into water to put a little temper in it. The needles, of course, we had to heat to bend eye and hook, then tempered again. Sometimes we could get "homemade" linen thread for our lines. Regularly manufactured fishhooks were scarce and costly in early pioneer days, also regular "store hooks and lines", the two, that is hook and line, cost 25 cents or more. For years most of my fishing was done with home-made hooks and lines.
In 1866 I started out up Pleasant Creek, in the town, of course, fishing with a needle hook and spool thread line. One block from the east street of town, I came upon several boys, fishing in quite a large hole. They were Mt. Pleasanters and Northbenders. Most of them had store hooks and lines, some of them were older than I. There was a large trout in the hole, and that was what had gathered such a crowd at the one place. Of course the same magnet held me with the crowd.
I fished a short time and as luck would have it, I caught the big fish, near one and a half feet long. Some of the store hook fellows were angry at me and jealous because I had caught the big fish with a needle hook. We went on up, keeping together as far as we dared to go, because of Indian fears, then we returned to town. A big envious Mt.. Pleasant boy took my big fish from me, mutilated and soiled it until it was worth but little, and grudgingly let me get it back. One of the Northbenders traded me the bodies of his fish for the heads of mine. I suppose he wanted to show off, for he said he liked to eat the heads better than the bodies of the fish.
As fall came on, the Indian troubles were less and we boys were sometimes permitted to go to Sanpitch to fish. Although we could catch only about one fourth so many trout, they were much larger than those we caught in Pleasant Creek.
One morning in the fall of 1866, Ira said to me, "Rye, let's go fishing in Sanpitch today."
"I haven't got a fish hook and line."
"Well, I've got two store hooks and lines and you may take one of them and fish on shares. You may have half the fish you catch. You have the first, me the second, you the third, me the fourth, etc."
"All right, I will go with you."
We went up to Sanpitch by Bridge Hollow. The first trout was quite large, second a little smaller, third a trifle larger fourth some smaller, and so on to the eighth. So luck had favored me. It was then nearly sundown and we concluded to go home. We were out in a large bend of the river, where it ran north, or nearly so, for some distance, and we started south along it but up the stream, Ira looked at my string of fish which happened to be bigger than his, for luck had been with me in two ways that day, and he said, "Rye, I will give you that fish hook and line for your four trout."
"All right, sir!" O, my. What a lucky day for me! I had earned a 25-cent store hook and line. But stop, neither the day nor the luck is ended! When we got to the bend where we would leave the river, there Kudge & Krip Brady and two or three others from Northbend, were fishing
and very much excited.
"Where are you going?" said one of them.
"We are going home."
"O, don 't go home yet! There is a trout in this hole as long as a man's leg."
"How do you know he is as long as a man's leg?"
"We have pulled him to the top of the water two or three times," said one.
There was no question about it. We could not go off and leave such a fish as that loose in Sanpitch, so we baited our hooks and joined the Northbenders. These boys were so excited that when they felt the fish take hold of their bait they jerked at once.
It was not long until he took hold of my bait, and I managed to restrain myself until he got it well into his mouth, then I jerked with all of my strength. Yes, all of my strength, for it took all of my power to move him even slowly through the water, but when I got him to the top he came over my head very easily. "As long as a man's leg?" Not quite, but the largest trout I ever saw caught with a hook. He made a nice breakfast with the bread, etc. added, for nine of us the next morning. Well, he belonged to me for I owned the hook and line. We went trudging barefooted for home. Was I proud? Yes, proud as a peacock with his beautiful tail feathers! Had I not earned a store hook and line, and caught the biggest fish of my life! Don't talk of your lucky days unless you can equal that one.
Games at School
The mean ones first. We played pins for keeps in two ways. Pick or Poll was played by two kids. One held out a pin hidden between thumb and finger, point or head forward, "Pick or poll?" he asked, and if the other guessed correctly it was his, if not he paid a pin. Then it was the other's turn to hold out a pin to be guessed at, taking turns.
Unseen by his opponent, one laid a pin in the palm of his hand, covering it with his finger, the other laid a pin beside the finger and guessed whether the two pins lay heads to heads or heads to tails. If he guessed rightly the two pins were his, if not he lost the pins. Then the other hid the pin, thus taking turns. Another pin game, in which several took part, was to take a wool hat, lay it flat on the table, desk or floor, sink the crown part way down, and thus prepared, those playing the game each laid a pin on the inner slope of the hat, which had been laid crown up, then one tapped the side of the crown, thus rolling the pins together, and all that crossed were
his. So they tapped in turns until all were thus won.
Now, the button game. Any kind of a button that could be called a button could be used in this horrid game. We chose or made a smooth place against a wall of some kind, and stuck up a small peg against the wall. Two or more could play this game. The players generally agreed each should use so many buttons, sometimes each could use as many or few as he chose. When all agreements were made, they pitched their buttons, one at a time, at the little peg sticking against the wall. The one whose button lay the nearest the stake, or peg, as they called it, had the first shake. The buttons were all collected and the shaker, holding them loosely in the palms of his hands cast them on the ground. All buttons that fell with the right side up belonged to him. Then the next closest to the peg had his turn, and so on, sometimes going the rounds several times. I have seen boys cut the buttons off from their clothes to play with until they went home with their clothes gaping, and holding up their pants with their hands, and heard of some getting
into their mother's button boxes at home.
With marbles we played Boston for Keeps. Making a ring some six or eight feet across, we placed so many marbles each in the center, then took turns knocking them out, owning all we could knock out, and if your opponent's taw stopped in the ring, or he rolled it in, he had to pay you a marble to get it back.
I soon learned to despise these games, and utterly refused to play pins or buttons, and only played Boston on condition that at the end of the game all marbles were to be returned to the original owner.
Ball games? Yes, yes, ball games galore. One old cat. All right. Three to play one old cat. One had the ball club, anything we could make into a club with which to knock a ball. Pattern, size or style had little to do in selecting our bats. We had to take what we could get or go without. Round, flat, square, triangular, or no shape at all. Take it or go without! The one who had his in's stood on the home base, another behind to catch the ball, the third to throw it. When the ball was struck or even ticked, no matter what direction it went, the batter must run and touch another base with his bat before he was crossed out, that is before the ball was thrown between him and the base, or over the base. If he struck, hit, or missed the ball and it was caught on the fly or on the first bounce he was out. In two old cat there were four players with two bases and two clubs, and when the ball was hit or only touched, wherever it went they should change bases and could be put out in the same way as in one old cat. Three old cat, four or five old cat were played the same only with more players, clubs and bases. If a batter struck at a ball and missed, he was put out by it being caught either on the fly or the first bounce. By agreements the batters ran every two hits, or every three hits.
We played "pigs" for the bumps. A level place was selected, a hole dug for each player, being all dug in a straight line. Then the owner of an end hole rolled the ball along or over the holes. If it stopped in some player's hole all the others ran and the owner of the hole grabbed up the ball and tried to hit one of the runners. If he missed, he got a pig, which was tallied by putting a small rock in his hole. If he hit the runner, the runner must hit him back with the same ball, failing which, the runner was tallied a "pig" in his hole. So the rolling the ball into the holes and attempting to hit a runner with it went on until one player possessed three pigs, in which case he should take the bumps. He stood with his face against a wall, eyes covered, and each of the other players, standing off the required distance, threw a ball at him three times. If he hit him three times, all right; but as many times as he missed, the loser of the game had that many throws with the ball at him. I have seen poor throwers throw many times at each other before the three bumps (hits) were made.
In town ball, the players chose up sides, an indefinite number on each side, being generally according to the number desiring to play. There was a pitcher or thrower, a catcher, a back stop behind the catcher, and the rest were fielders. Sometimes they had bases like in baseball, in which case the runner had to be crossed out in running, or struck with the ball. When bases were used runs, were tallied; otherwise, every tick, bunt, or hit was tallied and each man stood at the base and struck until he was caught out, either on a missed ball or a struck, ticked, or bunted, (grannied, then termed) ball. The ball in all cases might be caught on the fly or first
bounce. Every man on a side had to be put out.
In the game of old sow, holes were dug in a circle, some twelve feet in diameter, with a hole in the center. Each man had a club and a hole and must keep the end of his club in the hole. The one who had the center hole was to bring the ball from outside the circle, and drive it into the center hole. The other players endeavored to keep the ball away from the center hole by knocking the ball away. Stealing holes was the sport of the game, for you could take any hole when a player had his club out to hit the ball. If the ball driver got the ball into the center hole, he chose some other player to drive the old sow to the center hole.
We played jacks and mumble peg.
Tip-cat, was a popular game. The tip-cat was made of a short solid stick about an inch in diameter and three to six inches long, each end tapered off so that when it lay on a level place, either end could be struck with a small club and it would fly up into the air and while in the air the player was to hit it with his club and knock it as far away as possible. If the cat or club touched the ground when he made his drive lick it was a grounder and that cat was placed back where the cat or club touched the ground. But first a ring fifteen or twenty inches across was marked on the ground, and a goal ten or twelve feet away from it, size and distance agreed upon by the players. The one who had the "outs" stood on the goal mark and tried to pitch tip-cat into the ring. If it went entirely in the ring, the other was out. If the cat touched or lay entirely outside the ring, he had three tries at it. When the" inns" man had taken his tries or strikes and the other could jump from the edge of the ring to the cats, he was out. If he managed to get the cat further away, he gave the out man one or more jumps to reach from the ring edge to the cat. If he jumped it, always having a running start, the man was out; if not, the jumps given were so many tallies. Each had his turn at striking the cat. The game was any number of tallies they agreed upon. One hundred, more or less, even up to a thousand. Many times I have seen players make twenty-five tallies at one set of three hits, and many times I have seen players get out on three licks. Also they sometimes gave too many jumps and got jumped out.
We played sister perute, walking up the green grass, ring around a rosie, crack the whip, sling the basket, and several others, some of which are kissing games. Pomp-pull-away, steel sticks, prison base, were our main running games.
About 1867 or 1868, the Deseret Telegraph Co. began putting lines throughout Utah. In Mt. Pleasant, thousands of poles ten or twelve inches in diameter and some twenty feet long were hauled from the mountains and piled up on the public square, now the block where the Public School, library, etc, are built. They were mostly red pine or Douglas fir. These were used in building the lines, which had double wires, insulated onto cross bars atop the poles. We boys played on and around these heaps of poles a great deal before they were hauled away and put up.
People used to speak of our lessons as the three "R's" Reading, Riting, and Rithmetic. But I never went to a school where Spelling was not emphasized. We began writing in the third grade, and Arithmetic in about the third or fourth.
Geography was taught sometimes in the seventh and eighth grades. Grammer? No! All the larger pupils studied what they pleased. Reading and Spelling and Geography were taught in classes, the other lessons were given in individual instructions. We were graded asprimmers, first reader, second, third, fourth, and fifth readers instead of from the beginners to the eighth grade.
Very few of the teachers ever gave examinations. Graduation certificates or diplomas were not issued. All books, which were very few, were furnished by the parents who also paid tuition fees for their children's attendance at school. McGuffie's readers were the first I remember in school. National readers had been used some time before that. Pacific Coast readers were also used. Ray's Third Part Arithmetic was used for all grades. Webster's Elementary Spelling Book. I don't remember the name of the Geography we used. In all my thirty-six years of teaching and a few years afterward as substitute teacher, I never found any readers or arithmetics superior to those of my school days. They were in use for some years after I began teaching.
In my boyhood days, discipline was maintained by the use of the willow in the schoolroom. Some very severe whippings were given at times. I usually got about one licking a year. I was extra good in my lessons and in most of the games at school. I nearly always learned a recitation or a song for Friday afternoon entertainments and exhibitions at the end of the year, etc. Recesses always found me on the playground taking part in the games, but when the bell rang, I was among the first to enter the old building.
I loved my teachers, playmates, lessons, and all school activities. When I completed school I was reputed to be the best in town. I do not say this boastfully but because it is the truth. I had finished the courses given in the district school while many others who had as good a chance as I, left school very poor readers, hardly able to write a letter or compute the simplest of problems in arithmetic. Therefore, when in 1875 arrangements had been made to establish a Normal department in the University of Deseret, now the U of U, I was chosen to go to Salt Lake City and take that course, which was one of the greatest joys of my life. More of that later.
My first teacher was Auntie Hyde in the old fort and afterward in the old fourth ward log schoolhouse. The next one was a Mr. Miller, a Scandinavian, in the third ward log schoolhouse, and I believe in his own language he was an educated man. One day he told Fred Christensen to behave or he would whip him severely.
"But you can not make me cry", said the Sassbox.
Miller wore out more than one willow on him, but only got a laugh. That was the severest whipping I ever saw with a willow.
A Mr. Strickland also in the third ward was my next teacher, then came Joseph Page assisted by my brother, in the old second ward schoolhouse. These houses were warmed by a wood fire in one end of the house, in a very large fireplace. That end of the house was overly warm but the other end was generally uncomfortably cold. Most of the heat went up the chimney. In the second ward school is where I remember the school games from. That year I did much wrestling and was champion of my age, and also at scuffling. I remember doing considerable snowballing that year also.
When spring came, Joseph Page heard my class read to see who should be promoted, and he advanced me from the third reader to the fourth reader. I believe I was the only one promoted. Then Joseph Day began teaching in the third ward log school and I went to his school until I was sixteen. Because of his poor health, Joseph had-to stop teaching.
The winter I was seventeen, I told Herbert and Edwin if they would go to school I would do the chores on the farm three miles from town, and with their help on Saturday haul the wood which was then our only fuel. They went to school part of each week, but sported more than they went to school. The next year I told them they could do as they pleased, but I was going to school which was taught by David Candland in the fourth ward. When I went to him to get help with my arithmetic he said he had not intended to teach arithmetic and if he did so he would have to brush up a little in it. He then asked me if I would teach the higher grades in school in arithmetic for him which I willingly did and for nothing, but a reputation. That winter, young men going to other schools tested me out in arithmetic by sending me difficult problems to solve, but I was able to give the correct solution of each and everyone of them.
I was taught the gospel at home and was ready and anxious to be baptized when eight years of age. John Harvey Tidwell baptized me and Edward Cliff confirmed me. When in 1865 a Sunday School was organized in Mt. Pleasant I attended. The school was held in a bowery just northeast of the North Ward meeting house, which was then only a foundation surrounding a big hole in the ground. The bowery seats were made of heavy slabs, the flat side being planed, two large holes at each end and one in the middle of the bark side with wooden pins some fifteen or eighteen inches long driven into them for legs. I see now in my mind's eye the rows of barefoot boys sitting on these slab benches, being taught by inexperienced teachers. It was a new thing, and there was very little system in it, but much good was accomplished. Most of us boys were dressed in white ducking overalls with hickory shirts and homemade straw hats.
The first book I remember in the Sunday School was Jacques' Catechism. The questions and answers were given in the book which the teacher read and taught to us. I remember these:
Q. How do we learn there is a God?
A. We learn in three ways that there is a God.
Q. What is the first way we learn there is a God?
A. The first way is by tradition.
Q. How do we learn by tradition that there is a God?
A. Our parents teach us there is a God, and they were taught by their parents, etc. back through
the ages, that there is a God. And we also read in the Bible and other books.
Q. What is the second way that we learn there is a God?
A. The second way we learn by reason that there is a God.
Q. How do we learn by reason that there is a God?
A. We see the sun rise and set in regular order, we see winter, spring, summer, and autumn come in their regular order. We see the trees leaf out, blossom and bear fruit in their regular order, flowers, also grains and vegetables each bearing fruit after its kind. Birds, beasts and all animals all coming and going in their regular order, each bringing forth after its own kind in regular routine. All this regularly day after day, year after: year. Also the stars and the moon in perfect order. All these teach us by reason that there is a God.
Q. What is the third way we may learn there is a God?
A. Holy men see visions from God, He talks to them also, and the Holy Ghost whispers to them in a still small voice. In these ways holy men learn of God, and by these revelations we may learn there is a God.
So mostly by questions and answers were my early teachings in Sunday School.
The singing was from the L.D.S. Hymn Book. No organ or piano, no chorister, but someone, generally an elderly person who knew the song would start a hymn and those who could and would took part in the singing. No regular program was to be followed, but each school had a program of its own. No sacrament was administered in Sunday School for many years. I did not attend very regularly, partly because of poor clothing, until I was nineteen years of age and my own boss.
Brigham Young was president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for some eight years before I was born and until his death in 1877. When I was a very small boy I well remember the visits he made to Mt. Pleasant, or Nephi. [People would go out] to meet and protect his company, which sometimes numbered near twenty persons, some of whom were sometimes women. At times the Sunday School children met him and he would shake hands with them. Thus I met and shook his hand possibly two or three times.
As I grew older I never missed an opportunity of attending meetings when he was present and listened to his inspired teachings. I heard his instructions, I think in 1873, when he introduced the United Order in Mt Pleasant and heard many of the comments of many of the people pro and can about it. I heard him scare David Candland, Elisha Wilcox and Orson Hyde (who had recently been dropped from the President of the Twelve Apostles and lived in Spring City) to the position of a member of the quorum of the twelve. I heard him say this, "Orson Hyde is no more fit to be an apostle than Dave Candland, and Dave Candland is no more fit to be an apostle than one of my old mules." David Candland started for the stand to retaliate, but afterward told it that when he got to the stand steps he was stopped by some unseen power, that he could not raise his foot to put it upon the first step, and that he would never again try to withstand a prophet of God.
I heard Brigham Young say that Orson Hyde's oldest son came to him in Salt Lake City and demanded to know why his father had been demoted in the apostleship. ""What right," said Brigham, "has he to criticize my actions?" Orson Hyde got up and blessed his son for taking an interest in his father's affairs in the name of Jesus Christ, and said he would be blessed of God for it. "Amen" said Brigham Young.
The company, Orson Hyde with them, went on down the County, holding meetings in the wards, and while they were in Ephraim, they and many others were re-baptized. Then Brigham Young and Orson Hyde fell upon one another's necks and wept and were reconciled, and Brigham said, "Orson, you are too old a man to ride in a lumber wagon, and shall have something better." When he got back to Salt Lake City, he bought a large, beautiful two-seat, white topped buggy and sent it out to Orson Hyde at Spring City, and he used it in all his travels after that. I believe it was the best buggy that had ever been owned in Sanpete County up to that time. It was in Orson Hyde's family many years after his death.
Father bought the north half of the block East of North Sanpete High School. There was a one-room white adobe house about the middle of the west side of the west lot. This was about 1866, and he moved Aunt Elmira into it and Mother moved into the adobe house just below the big south gate in the old fort. One winter, Mother lived in one room of a two-room log house two blocks east and one north of where the railroad depot now is. Three or four rough young men batched it in the other room. How Mother ever stood it I do not know, for they gambled, got drunk and even fought in their room.
Mother gave birth to a baby boy, which she named Harry Hazleton Day, that winter and it died at about ten days old. We children often stood by and saw the gambling and drinking. It was indeed a sad environment, but it seemed to have no bad effects on me. Possibly it was the next summer that we lived in a dugout, dirt floor and dirt roof, two blocks east and one north of the public school. For about one year we lived in a two-room adobe house that stood about where the roller mill now stands, then possibly for about a year in two rooms of an adobe house which stood just north of Pleasant Creek, one block east of the public school, on the west side of the road. The two last named houses were the best we ever had in Mt. Pleasant, but they were rented.
Father then built a log house of two rooms on the east end of the half block he had bought, close to the fence and about the middle of the lot, with the old style dirt roof and a lumber floor. This east lot he deeded to Mother. Like most of the lots in that vicinity, it was veryrocky but the soil was good, a sandy loam. We dug enough rocks from this half block to build an eight foot fence one and half foot thick about eighty feet long on the east, north and part of the west sides of a corral. The north one third of this partly enclosed corral was covered with a straw shed. This was Father's only corral for many years. The hay was stacked west of this corral.
A nice stream of water crossed through Mother's lot and crossed a corner of the lot south of it, which belonged to Amasa Scoville. It crossed the street north through Samuel Allen's lot into a larger stream coming from far up Pleasant Creek and carrying water to the fields west and northwest of Mt. Pleasant. Father, possibly with the help of Allen and Scoville, channeled this stream and made it run along the sidewalk east of the block, across the road to empty into the larger stream east of the block.
When the roller mills was built, this section was enlarged by the mill company and the water of the larger stream brought through their mill race to increase their water power and the same water conveyed to the land for irrigating it through the one canal.
All these years Mother cooked over the fire in a fireplace, baking her bread in a bake skillet before the fire. It was while living in the last adobe house, 1877, that I worked for Andrew Peterson. The winter we lived in the house east of the log house on Mother's lot, Mother boarded Ole Hansen for some three winters. Hansen was away to work in the summer season.
Cane Mill: Father built a molasses mill on Mother's lot north of the house. The corral was south of the house. For some four or five years, Mother made molasses of the juice of sorghum cane (it was called sugar cane). The mill was made of two upright iron rollers about a foot in diameter and a foot and a half long. A shaft ran from one of the rollers a few feet above the ground. A pole some twelve feet long was attached to this shaft. which sloped to about two and a half feet above the ground. This was all held solid by a strong frame work of square hewed timbers. We did custom work. The people raised the cane, prepared it to be ground and hauled it to the mill where it was worked up into molasses in turns. The people also hauled and chopped the wood for boiling the juice down into molasses. We had two large vats over furnaces in which Mother boiled down the juice which was caught in barrels placed under the rollers which squeezed out the juice that was squeezed out of the cane as it went through the rollers which were turned by a pony hitched to the sweep and going round the framework.
Feeding the mill was putting the cane endwise into these rollers, butt first. The juice was carried to the vats where it was carefully strained and boiled down into molasses. While boiling, it had to be watched carefully, a proper fire kept going, in the furnace and the scum which arose, carefully skimmed off. The first skimmings were rather filthy and thrown away, but the last were nearly as good as molasses and were used for making vinegar or molasses candy.
Making this candy was a great and tasty sport for us kids and the young folks, who often gathered at our house of evenings and enjoyed themselves in this way. Pulling the candy after it was boiled sufficiently was the best of the sport, and in doing this they often played tricks on one another: such as dobbing [daubing] one another, stealing or snatching others' candy, getting someone to pull a lump before it was well cooled and any old thing that would cause a laugh at his expense.
Mother boiled down the juice or oversaw the work, and took care of the skimmings, selling or giving it away to those who got them. Of course the cane raisers got their share of the molasses and of the skimmings.
I did my part, though but a small boy, in this work and fun. I packed wood, made fires, and sometimes was trusted to do the first skimmings. I did a great deal of the feeding of the cane into the mill. One day I fed the mill all day and lay down on the lounge after supper, tired and head aching. A crowd came in after I fell asleep and had a great time making candy and laughing at me as I lay on the lounge talking and scolding in my sleep. But my talk won for me a sweetheart, but alas! alas! Well, she seemed to be easily won. O, boy, it is nice to have a sweetheart! If you don't believe it, just try it!
The pummace from the cane was piled up in large heaps around where it was never used but for crowds of youngsters to play on. 'Twas on these pummace piles that we boys practiced gymnastics a great deal and I learned to turn head springs, hand springs, somersaults, and other acrobatic stunts. I was the best in my crowd at the somersault but some of the others could beat me turning hand springs. We boys also made rude trapezes and practiced on them, chinning a rod or beam, hanging by our toes, etc. But I was only best at the somersault and wrestling.
From the time I was about six or seven years old Herbert and I cut most of the wood for Mother to burn and carried it into the house, and took turns making fires in the morning. We were careful to bury a large firebrand at night in the ashes and in the morning we uncovered it, putting fine bark or whittlings on it, then blowing it into a flame. If the brand went out before morning, we had to go to the neighbor's and borrow a shovel full of coals to start the fire.
I was somewhat of a sleep walker when small, but one night I ran into a bed of hot ashes and coals in the fireplace, and that cured me of sleep walking.
When about eight years old, I began helping with the milking and soon we boys were doing all the milking, feeding, and other outdoor chores. Also we began working in the fields, planting and picking up potatoes, raking and pitching hay with homemade hand rakes and three-tined pitchforks. From Mt. Pleasant, we went to the meadow lands below Chester, twelve miles away, cut the meadow grass with scythe, raked it with these hand rakes made of wood only, and
hauled it home twelve miles over dusty and rocky roads. That was a great task, but one the boys enjoyed until they got large enough to swing a scythe and then it was not so much fun.
When the first cut hay was ready to haul, we went down in time to load up that evening, then gather in crowds at some popular camp and have a sporty time. Two or three O' clock in the morning we were rustled out, maybe after sleeping three or four hours, hunted up our teams which were staked, hobbled, or even turned loose in the meadows, and started for home, many of the earliest getting to town before sunrise. Then breakfast, unloading and travel back to the field in time to load up that evening.
I well remember my first trip. I enjoyed it, though the outstanding thing was mosquito and horse-fly bites. I was almost unrecognizable when I got home, my face was swollen until I could hardly see out of either eye.
Dear me, it was fun! The deepest swimming hole I ever was in was in a big slough in these meadows. Only two or three of the town boys were able to dive to the bottom. I never could stand it to dive. It made me sick to get my head under water, even two or three times. James Jensen, afterwards known as Jim Fisk, was the only one I ever saw dive down and bring up mud in this hole. I believe that I have been in it and swam around for an hour in different ways and treading water without touching bottom.
One year a bunch of large wild ducks nested in these meadows. Possibly other years, also. I ran onto a brood of these just before they could fly, and caught two of them. Another boy was with me and jerked one of them away after I had him fast, then claimed it. He had to give it up or fight, so I brought the two home. I afterward wished I had let him have it, for the old cat dragged it off and we got no good of it, but the other [one] we thoroughly enjoyed eating.
About 1868 or 69, lucerne was introduced into the territory and soon took the place of this meadow hay. In 1866 or 67 Father worked on the railroad in or near Echo Canyon putting up hay for some man. He bought a mowing machine and horse rake which he used there for two years. He had Ezra and Abraham with him. He brought home the first fall a pair of the largest horses that had ever been in Sanpete to date. The second year he brought home with him two more span of these large horses and the mower and rake. These were the first ever brought into Mt. Pleasant, possibly the first mowing machine and horse rake ever brought into Sanpete. He sold the mower to Perry McArthur. I don't remember what became of the rake. It was a Woods mower.
Other farmers bought mowing machines and rakes the next year or two and also reapers. The first reaper I ever saw had a very large platform behind the cutter bar and two men stood on the platform and raked the grain off in bundles as it was cut, and other men came along behind and bound it with grain bands. These reapers were replaced by the dropper, a reaper that had a framework of wooden fingers behind the cutter bar that stood at an angle of about forty degrees while the grain dropped behind, but these bundles had to be bound and thrown out of the way before the machine could cut another swath, which took about five men to do it and keep it out of the way of the reaper. When I was about thirteen years old Herbert and I bound behind these droppers, doing the work of one man. The next year I did the binding of a man, but I suppose it was not very tightly bound either year.
The self binder was introduced about 1874. The heading reaper about 1893 or 94, after dryland farming was introduced into the county. I was part-owner in the first header that was used in Fairview. Six of us dryland farmers bought it and I operated it first. But the table-rake reaper came into use before the self-binder. Then last, but not least, the combined reaper and thresher which has not yet proven very satisfactory.
I worked in the fields as a boy, planting and picking up potatoes for Father and other farmers, weeding grain by pulling the weeds and helping irrigate. I also helped haul wood for Father's families. First four or five of us boys went after wood, then it came down to two of us as we got a little older, then Herbert and I hauled the wood for Mother's family.
One winter, he and I hauled wood from the foothills east of the Round Hills with old Fan. [She was] a mare and the largest one of the horses Father brought home from Echo Canyon. Father had made a sled with shafts or shelves on it and she was big enough to pull a good load alone. One afternoon as we were coming home with our load in the deep snow, no other teams around, we heard coyotes howling, others answering, and we hurried the old lady along quite fast, being somewhat afraid of a pack attacking us.
About 1868, Herbert and I took six traps Ole Hansen had left at our place and went nearly up to the Round Hills in the fall of the year and caught six coyotes around the carcass of a cow that had been snaked [staked? Or does he mean stolen?] there from town. The last one we brought home alive and let Old Bull fight her. He dashed at her two or three times before he tried to grab her, but she got him by the upper lip and held on while Old Bull whined and the watching crowd laughed. He soon got loose though and the next dash he made at her he knocked her over, got her by the neck and she was soon dead. We sold these skins to the Co-op Store for 50 cents each.
Herbert bought ammunition with his money and I asked Father to buy me an ax with mine. We went to the store where Father picked out two axes, $1.50 each, and said I might have the best one as I was paying for it myself. He bought a handle and put into it for me. I had it for many years and the other boys were somewhat envious of me for it was a splendid ax and I always used it when in the woods.
One fall Herbert and I were going for a load of wood, and seemed to be the only team traveling that road that day. When we got nearly to our destination, I discovered my ax was missing. I knew where we were going to get our load and told him to go on and I would go back and find my ax. I was then fourteen years old. As I went along looking for my ax I promised the Lord if he would help me find the ax I would thank him in vocal prayer. Well, I found it, and then! Well, I had a problem on my hands that made me tremble. I had never prayed vocally before and to kneel down in secret seemed to me a very, very difficult task. After walking slowly along for some time, I at last plucked up courage to kneel down in the dust of the road and pray to my heavenly Father and thank Him that I had found my ax. But O, my! what a voice! I could not recognize it as mine, yet I knew it was! Well, that was the beginning of my secret prayers, and from then till now, eighty years of age in a few days, very seldom have I missed praying secretly of an evening, besides other times, and oftener as I grew older. But, O, that first time! It was nearly as bad as the first talk I gave in a meeting a few years later on a cold winter night. But I was sweating allover before I got through with that wonderful sermon.
Another time Herbert and I were going after wood and a couple of our chums were traveling the same road just ahead of us, also going after wood. The elder of them came back and rode with us to be sociable. But the story he told us! He and his brother-in-law, who was a noted petty thief, had gone into the cedar hills and found several hundred cedar posts that had been cut and piled by John Hasler, then a poor cripple, and they hewed off the old ax marks from the butts of the posts and the limbs, and the top ends so as to make them appear like new posts, and hauled them home. When they were going home with the last load they met Brother John Hasler going over after his posts. I felt awfully indignant, though I said nothing to him. But when he left us I told Herbert I was going to report the fellows. We had a heated argument about it, but alas! I at last gave in to my older brother. And sorry I have been for it. I believe it was that same fall, possibly the next that Father called me to him and said he had to go into the canyon for a few weeks and cut poles, and needed one of us boys to help him. There were four of us boys to choose from in order of our ages: Ira, Herbert, myself, and Edwin who was about two years younger than Ira, the oldest. If I was willing, he would take me, as I was much farther advanced in my lessons than the others, and he would send them to school to give them a chance to gain up in their lessons.
He did not have to say it a second time for I was perfectly willing and did go with him to the canyon. We camped in a cabin at a sawmill about one mile below the mouth of Pleasant Creek canyon, belonging to Amasa Scoville. This same John Hasler and his brother-in-law, Mr. Winkler were camping in the same cabin and also cutting poles. Father and I walked to and from our work, taking dinner with us, and Father did the cooking at the cabin.
As I now remember we cut poles for about six weeks and piled them, up the straight fork of North Creek Canyon, about two miles from camp. And would you believe it, this same brother-in-law, of the post story, (I don't know who helped him) hauled [off] our poles, nearly all of them, disguising them in the same way he had the posts. But he was so cunning about it, Father would not try to prosecute him, though he took me to Kellars' place and we were sure we could identify our poles. Some of our ax marks at butt, top, and also limbs, had not been chopped off.
So my brothers, who fell far behind in their lessons in school, could not say truthfully that I was the favored one in schooling, while they were kept out to do the work. I'm thankful for it.
One day Abraham and we four boys were after wood. Abraham pulled over the dry cedars and trimmed them, mostly, and we four dragged or carried them to the wagon. He had got a larger stick ready and told Ira to take it to the wagon, but he refused saying it was too big for him. So he told Herbert to get it to the loading place. He said he couldn't do it. "Rye, go and get that tree to the wagon," said Abraham. "I'll try," said I, and by dint of dragging and lugging I managed it. "You two were too damned lazy to try, or you could have done it too," said Abraham.
Another time the five of us were after wood and it had to be dragged some distance by the oxen. Abraham prepared the wood as usual and we four put it into drags and snaked it to the wagon. We four had made up a drag, put a chain around it and Ira had got the oxen in place. Edwin then went between the oxen to the drag chain. When he was trying to get from between the oxen, the off ox, who was a natural kicker, lammed away and then started down the drag-way. Result: Edwin was knocked down and as the drag was going over him, rolling him over and over, I ran screaming, "Ed's killed! Ed's killed!"
It looked horrible to me to see him tumbled and dragged along under those knotty cedars, over rocks and bumps. But strange as it may seem, he came out with only a few scratches and bruises and the loss of a little blood and tears. The latter of which I suppose I lost as much as he. But he was able in a short time to continue to help with the work, and the others had a laugh at my expense. The other three boys often refused to do what Abraham told them. Not Edwin so much as the others. Result: a flogging from Abraham, but he never raised his hand a single time to punish me. Wasn't I lucky?
When I was fourteen Abraham, in the spring, got a contract of putting up eighty rods of bull fence, out of cedar posts and riders, and he hired me to assist. He chopped down the large cedars and I trimmed them with my beloved ax. We had to haul them not over a mile and put up the fence. It started by putting a crotched [forked] stick or post into the ground, lay a large cedar post in the crotch with the butt on the ground, laying at an angle of about forty degrees, then a hole about one foot deep was dug each side of this large post near the middle of it, and two smaller posts placed butt down in these holes, laying across the large post at an angle of about sixty or seventy degrees, the butt protruding beyond the first post along the fence line three or four feet, at an angle that would make the top of the post. standin the air the desired height of the fence. This process was repeated until the fence was completed.
I got two dollars for this labor and bought me a pair of store shoes with them. Another time we got a contract to get out, as I remember it, five hundred poles for Perry McArthur, and again he got me to assist him. We went into the North Fork of North Creek Canyon for these poles, into the "Burnt Grove." Quaking Aspen the poles were. Black? well somewhat! We piled the poles when we hauled them in the street in front of McArthur's place. Large piles? well, yes!
Abraham chopped them down and I snaked them down the mountain to the loading place by the road. One day we had hauled an unusually black load to town and were ourselves, I suppose, as black as any of the poles. While we were unloading, Celestia McArthur, a very nice young lady of my crowd passed by. She and Abraham began laughing. I laughed too, supposing they were laughing about our color, but I afterwards learned they were laughing at my shirt tail that protruded from a hole in the seat of my overalls.
"What the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve," was certainly true in this case, for I would have been plagued nearly to death if I had known the true cause of their mirth.
Later I went into this same burnt grove with Herbert to get poles. We found a very large black balsam tree near the grove and chopped it down just to see it fall. We were expecting to go home the next day after getting our load of poles, but broke a hame of the mule's harness, and Herbert said, "We will now have to go home without our load." "Not much will we," I told him. "We will fix it and take our load home with us." We disputed a little over it. and as it was nearly night I started to work on the broken hame. I suppose I spent four or five hours burning holes through it with a wire, but at last I had it ready to use and next day we took our load home all right.
Some year or two later, Edwin and I went up to get a load of poles from those Father and I had cut. (Keller had not yet made his steal.) We had two yoke of oxen, one yoke being steers that were not very well broken in to work. We loaded up and started for home. butsplit the front end of the coupling pole. "Now we can' t take our load home," said Edwin. "Yes we can," said I. "How?" "We will make carts of the wagon." "But there is no tongue for the hind wheels." "We will use the reach for a tongue. The front hole being split out will not make any difference."
So we threw the poles off from the wagon, loaded a little more than half of them on the front part of the wagon gears for the better-broken and older oxen's load and the balance of them on the hind part for the steers' load. There was a short but very steep hill a little ways from where we loaded and I let Edwin start on ahead with the oxen on their load and I came after with the steers on the lighter load. I told Edwin to go ahead. and not stop for me at the foot of the hill, but to go ahead ten or twelve rods after he came to the level road, for I was sure I could not make the steers hold back as to go down the hill slowly, and they might run into his load and do some damage. Of course the back ends of the poles were dragging and that would help some in going down the hill.
Well, I waited until he had gotten a safe distance from the hill. As I expected, I could not make the steers hold the load, so I grabbed the near steer by the horn and end of the bow above the yoke and down the hill we fairly flew. I did manage to keep them in the road and shouted for Edwin to hurry out of the way. He hurried on, but [with] the best we could both do, my steers almost ran into his load before I could get them stopped. Well we dragged the poles to town on the carts, and I tell you our teams were tired when we got there. We then unloaded, got an auger and managed to mend our reach, loaded the poles up on the wagon, and went on to the farm where we arrived a little after sundown. The journey [was] about six miles, three from farm to town, the same to the canyon.
Willis Robinson came from down in Millard County about 1870 with a band of horses to sell. The best horses, I think, that had come to Mt. Pleasant for sale. Some of them would weigh about one thousand pounds. He took a notion to Father' s big mare, Fan, and offered him his pick of four animals from his herd for her, assuring Father the mares in his herd were all with foal. The trade was made, Father choosing four mares. We boys put a claim on each of the four mares.
The fields were open in the fall when Father got the horses, and they were turned into it, but we did not see them again until next spring when we found them over in Juab County. The best mare had lost her colt, but the other three raised fine colts, two of them making nice large horses. Two of the mares had been broken but we did not know it, and Father would do nothing with them. He was no horseman, neither were either of us boys. Abraham got R. Anderson to ride the best one, and a big crowd gathered to see the fun. O, what a disappointment! Not one little jump did she make, and Abraham rode her home with only a rope looped around her nose. Two of the others I never saw ridden or worked. Father disposed of them some way. The other one, which I claimed, had been broken but turned out to be both balky and bucky. One day Edwin and I were alone on the farm and agreed to catch her and saddle and bridle her and he would do the riding, but when she was ready his heart failed him and although I had never done such a thing, I told him that as we had got her saddled and ready, she was going to be ridden, So he held her until I got on her back and a good hold on the saddle, then he let her go and I hung onto the saddle for dear life and proved to be a good clinger. Well, she was broken in to the saddle, but was always tricky and threw me off once when I got on her bareback, but I caught her again, put on a saddle and again proved to be a sticker. But we never got much good out of the balky brute, and I do not know what became of her.
In associating with the Days and girls of the town I became an expert in most of the games. I was one of the best at wrestling, jumping and running. I was very quick to start in running, also at stopping and dodging, a good pitcher, catcher or striker in ball games, and when we chose up for a game I was among the first ones chosen.
One day in playing prison base I caught Olof Rosenlof in a long chase and he was one of the best [runners] in the town. That made me feel considerably elated. I learned how to call or prompt for square dances, or cotillions, by simply hearing others call and that made me popular and got me invitations I do not think I would otherwise have gotten, for I called free of charge as I did not think my calling was worth paying for. But later in life I did considerable calling for pay. I was a young man before baseball was introduced and loved the game and became an expert player, especially as shortstop.
Though I did not go to Sunday School much in those days, I attended many meetings, especially Sunday evenings, which were the most popular for the young people. But I have many times attended Sacrament meeting when as I left the "crowd" to go, generally alone, I was pointed at and sneered at for going. In those pioneer days the men sat on one side of the house and the women on the other in meeting. The men kept their hats on until the presiding officer called the assembly to order and often chewed tobacco in the meeting house.
Once when I was about twelve years old, Mother sent me to William Reynold's place to buy a gallon of molasses. I had a bucket to get it in which I carried in my right hand as I went through the gate to the house. O dear! there came toward me from the house a big yellow dog, the biggest in the town with a very bad reputation. His tail was stiff over his back, head low, growl savage. I was terribly frightened, but faced him, spoke kindly to him as I moved on, and put out my left hand to pat him on the head. When my hand was nearly on his head he jerked back with a savage growl and grabbed my hand in his mouth. Automatically I shut my hand, the palm being down, and gripped his lower jaw, catching his lower lip over his teeth. Talk about being frightened! I tell you I was! and I tell you I squeezed and Mr. Dog whined loudly! When I let go my hold he sneaked off, both tail and head down and I went trembling into the house. Gosh! What a fright! and what a relief!
Two or three other small boys and I were one day snow-balling with Dunkin McArthur. We rather bested him though he was a young man. This made him angry and he jumped on a horse with a club in his hand and began chasing us. I did not run, though left alone as he came at us, but continued to pelt him with snow balls. As he passed by me he hit my right elbow with his club. I took the snowball into my left hand to throw at him for my right arm was powerless, but he had gone on after the other boys. He laughed but I didn't! nor did I cry, but the sport was at an end.
Another time, three or four boys of a crowd I was in stepped aside a little way and said, "Let's make them all come into 'our crowd' ." We were standing and sitting on the sunny side of the old rock fort and the crowd began to trickle over to 'our crowd'. Soon I was sitting alone. I covered up as best I could and with my back against the old wall, they pelted me until they were tired and gave it up, saying "Well, he's pretty (blank) tough."It was all sport and I enjoyed it as well as any of them.
Near the same place one day Jimmy Larson, some smaller than I, got angry at me and told me how he would lick me. "No, you can't do that Jimmy." "Yes, I can and will!" "Now, give it up, or I will have to cool you off." Well he started in with a good will and I ducked him in a small ditch of water and cooled his ardor. I was ashamed to strike a smaller boy than I.
Later, near the same spot, a large crowd was gathered one Sunday afternoon. "Well," said I as the people were entering the meeting house, "let's go to meeting." "No, no, let's stay and play," others said. As I walked off to meeting alone, fingers were pointed at me and slighting remarks made about me, but I cared not for that, but went sturdily on to church. Such scenes were many times enacted, but I always went cheerfully on to meeting no matter what the crowd said. Not that I was particularly head strong and unwilling to join with my fellows in sports or games, but when it was a question of right or wrong, very seldom did I allow a crowd to sway me from doing what I conceived to be right. This has given me much joy through life, and is now a pleasure to look back upon. I was very fond of games [and] I loved to associate with the boys and girls of or near my own age. I was also very fond of listening to the old people tell of their experiences in the early days of the church, of the drivings and persecutions they went through, marvelous escapes from their enemies, wonderful displays of the power of God in caring for his people, healings, guiding, the gift of tongues, interpretations, even the raising of
the dead, etc, travels across the plains, Mormon Battalion experiences, escapades with the Indians, difficulties met and overcome in the mountains. In all these things as a boy I saw the hand of God and the power of faith made manifest.
I am loath to leave my boyhood experiences. Now comes to mind my first pants. As was the custom, at five years of age I was to put off my sissy skirts. Mother borrowed a pair of pants from a neighbor and using them for a pattern fashioned a pair for me. I remember how anxiously I sat and stood watching her as she cut, measured on me, and stitched, of course by hand, my new garments. No, no, not broadcloth! but good substantial home carded, spun, wool and woven on a hand loom, but no less precious to me. Coat? yes, and cap of the same material. How thankful and proud I was when they were finished and I was robed in them! Solomon in all his glorious apparel was not prouder or more thankful than I.
I once wanted to go to a school dance, but had no coat good enough to wear, so Mother had me borrow Allen Row's best coat. About the middle of the dance I asked Abby Candland who was sitting with my sister Dora to dance with me. With a grimace she said no, and I walked away, not much surprised.
Dora: "Why did you refuse to dance with him?"
Abby: "Huh! do you think I would dance with Allen Row? That smart aleck?"
Dora: "Why, that was my brother, Azariah! "
Abby: "Oh, my! I'm sorry! I thought it was Allen Row."
A borrowed coat. Ha! ha!
Another time I was invited to a children's play in the evening. Mother had just washed my only shirt that evening before the invite came and I was up against it, but she wrapped me in a small cloak and put on my coat over it, and thus clothed I went to the play and had a glorious time. As happy as a lark. But because of the lack of clothes I did not attend Sunday School very much as a boy, but went to meetings, especially of evenings, more than most of the boys of the town did, but poor clothes could not keep me from day school where I went to learn, not to show off.
One winter day at noon (I was about thirteen), a boy about fifteen was carrying on, making considerable disturbance picking on the smaller children. As in most such cases, I interfered for the smaller ones. Of course he turned on me with threats of what he would do to me. Still, though in fear, I faced him but watched him more closely. Suddenly he kicked at me savagely. I caught his foot and with a sudden twist threw him on his back and was on top of him. He struggled, called names and threatened, but having the advantage of him I kept him on his back until he cooled down and promised to behave himself, which he did after I let him up.
At the same school I got to teasing a girl who was playing nip-cat. She ran me away two or three times with her nip-cat club, but could not catch me, but she threw the club at me and it caught me in the butt of the ear and a jagged point of the club pierced the lower lobe of my ear entirely through it and I was then content to leave her alone. But it served me right for persisting in teasing her. Another time some girls stayed to clean up the schoolhouse after school and some of us boys stayed playing on the playground. When the girls had finished their work, some of them began teasing us boys at our game. It was slushy weather, muddy puddles of water on the ground, and the girls dipped the cloths they had been using in these dirty holes and threw them on us. I told one little lady to stop it or I would wash her face with a rag. She persisted and I did as I had said. But her face looked so bad and she felt so bad that I was both sorry and ashamed of what I had done. Generally when the girls teased or struck me, I took a kiss for revenge.
In choring at home, Herbert and I did Mother's chores for a number of years. It was hard to please Herbert for he hated choring, and I did not love it very much. He was wanting to change chores quite often, and tried to let me do more than half of them. So I soon got so I would divide the chores into two bunches and tell him he could choose which he would do.
One night I was lying on the lounge, tired from herding and in pain from a large boil on my shin bone. Mother said, "Herbert, go and get a bucket of water," It was nearly two rods to the ditch. "O, let Rye get it." "For pity sake, Azariah go and get a bucket of water." I got up and went to the ditch for the water. It was in the dark and as I stepped on the plank that spanned the ditch my foot, of course as generally happens, the one with the boil on it, slipped off and scraped my shin, boil and all, down the edge of the plank. O, how delightful! andhow I blubbered! And how Mother scolded Herbert! All because of one bad boil!
With a crowd of boys I was playing along Pleasant Creek two blocks above State Street. I saw a beautiful limb high up on a thorn bush on the bank of the creek in Old Lady Johnson's lot. I climbed up and cut it off for a mud thrower, and was nearly on the ground again when she came running and scolding me. And with good cause, for I had taken an apple bud that had been grafted into the hawthorn bush. I was very sorry, but could not replace it, neither was I able to make proper apologies for the mischief. I thought it was a thorn limb. I, some years later, hauled the old lady a lot of wood from an old bowery that was torn down on the public square a block away with a wheelbarrow. But with no reference to the apple bud or the hawthorn bush.
In 1870 Father started opening up a farm on land he had homesteaded lying between Sanpitch and the three big cedar hills west of Mt. Pleasant and up the stream from his squatters claim of five years before, that the Black Hawk War caused him to abandon. I worked with the other boys and Father, grubbing, plowing, fencing, and ditching. It being an early spring with late spring rains which were quite copious, we were able to clear and plant about 30 acres of ground to wheat, oats, barley and potatoes. The flush late spring rains made a good season for water, although very little snow had fallen in the mountains until in March. Early irrigation in Utah had not yet begun, so nearly all of the high waters from the melting snows ran directly into Sanpitch following the natural beds of the mountain streams, makingSanpitch a large stream, and quite a river before it emptied into the Sevier River. Many springs it was dangerous to cross, only on bridges. In 1870 the water was highest in Sanpitch that I ever saw it. It flooded over some of our barley and oats, even breaking through some dikes that we threw up to protect the crops. But even with this handicap we raised a splendid crop of grain and potatoes and hay.
We cut our hay with a scythe and grain with a cradle, by hand of course. We raked and bound the grain, the bands being made of grain. There were plenty of patented threshing machines in the country run by horse power to do all the threshing of the grain. Abraham, Ira, Herbert, Edwin, and I were on the farm all the time and Ezra part of the time. Abraham about 19, Ira 16, Herbert 15, and Edwin and I in our 14th year. Abraham did the cradling and we boys raked and bound after him. I was so fond of cradling that when the others went toSanpitch to get a drink, I generally picked up the cradle and swung it through the grain, cutting it down the best I could. At first I made quite a mess of it, but I soon learned to do a tolerably fair job and eventually became a pretty good cradler. Before the harvesting was done we had to get hired help. We camped on the farm in a two-room log house. It was a pretty good house, with good roof and floors. We dug a well in a low place not far from the house, but the water was poor so we carried water from Sanpitch nearly a quarter mile for house use until we got the ditch finished. Then we had water near enough, for the ditch ran just behind the house. We built corrals in a low place a little north and east of the house and just under the ditch.
Father had hired a small pair of mules of Walter Christoffersen to work on the farm. The ponies he bought for the big mare had wondered off and got lost. But Beck and Puss, though small, were a splendid team and did a wonderful lot of work on the farm. They were tough bitted, and very hard to handle with a rope around the neck. One day I tried to lead one with a rope, but she turned and led me until I fell over, but neither of us stopped at that trifle. On she went, but I hung on until I struck a brush with my breast. Still I hung tight and so did the brush, and together we stopped the mule. She was shipped and led peacefully to the corral.
Father raised lots of pigs and we tried to pasture them along Sanpitch among willow patches. We made willow fences around the pig pastures by driving stakes into the ground and weaving willows in them. A bird could hardly get through these woven fences, but O, the pigs! It seemed almost fun for them to make holes through these fences and give us a hunt and chase and fence mending. Not a pig for me, and the mule came next for my not's. I never did own a mule and never desired one, though they were good workers. The good crops of 1870 helped us very much financially.
I had a good training in irrigating that year. It seems to me that Herbert and I did most of the irrigating that first year. How he hated it! and I loved it but little, but got a good training for the years of irrigating to follow.
One Sunday, Ira and I were to go to the farm for some purpose and he had invited his best girl and two or three others to go with us for a ride. A very enjoyable ride, in a lumber wagon with a rattle trap of a box. We had to go to the upper Sanpitch bridge to cross that stream. It was too high water to be safe to cross, which made the distance to the farm five instead of three miles. Our company met us at the edge of town and we had a gay time on the farm that Sunday. In the evening, we brought them back to the edge of town and went back to the farm ourselves. I think we were afraid of being censured if it was known that we had taken company with us. Anyway, Ira had it all nicely figured out to keep from censure.
Although we had to hire help in harvesting, [on] days when we were not busy we hired out to others on their farms. Six of us helped Joseph a few days pulling weeds out of his wheat. Arlington and Ephraim took part in the weeding. While the crops were growing, I mixed mud and carried adobes for John Wallis who was building an adobe barn. I did a little handling of the trowel.
When winter was at hand, Mother set me at plastering the log house we were living in, as much of the plaster had fallen from between the logs. So I got called "the mason". That fall, Dora's first babe, Imagene, had a large swelling on her neck from which she suffered greatly. It got very bad and Dora brought her to our house, crying, and asked me to lance it for her. I hesitated but she urged So I took an old jack knife from my pocket and sharpened the end the best I could. Dora let Mother hold the babe and ran around behind the house. I struck the swelling once with my improvised lancer, the baby screamed and Dora fairly flew back to look at my cruel work. She saw a drop or two of blood on the swelling, grabbed Imogene, jawed me for my failure, and went off home in a fury. About two hours after that she came back, very pleased, and thanked me for what I had done. I had cut through the outer skin and in just a little while the swelling opened and ran a lot of pus, the pain was relieved and baby was sleeping. Now a doctor! What next will I be.
Ezra and I went up into North Fork of Pleasant Creek Canyon to get a load of small quaking aspen poles, green. When we got there, Martin Aldrich was at the grove ahead of us. I never saw a prettier grove of small quaking aspen I think. Ezra felled a lot of them before trimming any. I was to drag them by hand to the wagon. One of the poles lodged on a standing tree and as I had nothing else to do I climbed up the leaning pole. Just as I put out my hand to grasp the standing tree, crash, down we went! I was thrown against the standing pole and started to scrub down it, but a protruding knot caught me under the left arm, it being stretched out and my hickory shirt being new did not tear, but the knot, shirt and all, ran into my arm near half an inch and there I hung. O, delightful! Maybe I screamed, I don't know. But this I know, I reached up with my right hand, took hold of the pole and freed myself. Down I climbed, but dear me, I was sick. Ezra told me to go and lie down under the wagon which I gladly did. I do not remember helping any with the load of poles.
Two or three days after that I went down into the North Fort where I saw a crowd of boys. They were wrestling and Charles Jensen was the Champ. "Here comes Rye Day! Wrestle with him, Charles." "My arm is sore, 'I said I, "but if he will give me the right hand hold, I will wrestle with him." We went at it then in earnest. He was larger, though younger, than I. Just big boys. After considerable hard work I came out champion. But he was heavier and stronger than I.
Imitating the Indians, we used to make bows and arrows like them, using sinew that we got from next to the backbone of dead cattle for making bow strings and feathering arrows. Serviceberry was the best wood for a bow, and Kinnikinc or rose bush made the best arrows. Tail feathers from fowls made the best feathers for arrows. One evening I went down into the same old North Fort hunting all alone. I was hunting for mourning doves. I was very intent on getting a shot at one when wh-s-s-s-h. Startled, I looked, when slanting out of the sky came a black thunderbolt. With a sudden jerk of my bow, I let fly my best arrow which was already in the bow, for the dove I didn't get. That night-hawk flew on, but the arrow I could not find that night nor the next day.
I chummed considerable in my boyhood with Olof Rosenlof. He was one year and a half older than I, but still we were quite chummy. He was a very reckless fellow. I have seen him run along on the 1 «-foot wide top of the 12- foot high rock wall around our forts which no other boy to my knowledge would try. I followed him, slower though. When about fourteen, I was in a game where we ran after and caught each other. I got after him and after a chase of over a block, I caught him and began to think maybe I could run. He had the reputation of being champion fisher, but I could hold him a close one at that also. Though I was good at ball games, I always thought he was better [at ball games when I was] a boy.
Allen Rowe and I studied together a great deal in school from the same books, side by side. He was over a year younger than I, but too fond of being "Smart Alec" or he might have made a mark in scholarship. My love for persevering in study took me ahead of him.
About this time, W. W. Brandon brought the small pox into town unknowingly, and people were terribly excited over it. One day I went swimming in the old town swimming hole just below town in Pleasant Creek. I thought to myself "What is the use of being such a coward about diving." Without letting others know, I made quite a long dive, and came up with a bursting headache, so it seemed to me. I told one or two of my brothers how sick I was and would they go home with me? No, was the answer. They could not believe I was very sick so suddenly. I dressed myself and started for home. I soon had to lie down and rest. Then went on again. About the third time I lay down to rest, Joseph's wife, Mary saw me and asked me what was the matter. I told her how my head ached. She took me into their house, made me a bed on a lounge, and rushed off for Mother. They were soon back and dosing me. I vomited and was better in a little while and went home with Mother. They were afraid I was coming down with
Smallpox, but it was only my peculiar weakness of always getting sick when my head gets under water. When Mother used to bathe me in the Saturday night tub, I always made an awful fuss when she bathed my bead. Just the profusion of water poured over my head, it seemed, would smother me. More than once the blood flew from my nose when being bathed in the tub. It is a tantalizing weakness, and quite peculiar.
In the winters, people kept water running down their irrigation ditches for culinary purposes, being [that there were] no water works and [you had to dig] very deep to [find] water for wells. These ditches would freeze up and run over the streets, freezing and making plenty of skating and sliding places nearly allover town every winter. One night I was taking Melissa Allen to a dance along one of these icy streets. I was trying to hold her from slipping on the ice when bump, down I went myself. She laughed, but I was plagued. We went on to the dance and had a jolly time.
About this time John Wallis got up the play "Joseph and His Brethren." Allen Rowe took the part of Joseph as a boy. Peter H. Jensen took the part of Joseph in Egypt, as a man, he being larger than Allen. I had only a short part that of the fellow who was hung up and his flesh eaten by the fowls of the air. It was staged in the old Social Hall. My first part, it was, in a theater.
In those days we had many forest fires in and over the Wasatch Mountains. When herding along the river on Father's land we boys often would watch the smoke roll up from these fires, sometimes like billows, other times like mounting clouds, and we would name the shapes they assumed, sometimes like castles, then like cliffs, again they would be lions ready to spring, camels carrying their loads, eagles mounting into the sky, sheep, or other domestic animals, but always changing both form and color. Beautifully white, then darker to blackness. Many were the beautiful scenes we conjured up in our imaginations. Then, when the sun got low at setting in the smoke from fires west of us, how red it would get! and how it seemed to whirl like a great circle saw. One could almost imagine he could hear it buzz.
Edwin and I especially took delight in watching and naming the various forms these smoke clouds assumed. Very much the same as we saw at times in the storm clouds in the heavens. Many pleasing hours we spent in this happy mood.
We also took delight in the animals and plants around us. Picking flowers! yes, happy hours with crowds wandering through the sage brush, picking flowers and hunting birds nests. But never did I have a desire to rob the nests when found. How carefully did I handle the delicate eggs! When I found a humming bird's nest, which was a rare thing, I would never show it to a boy I thought would rob it. One day Ephraim and I were working getting brush from the torn-down bowery to haul to Auntie Johnson's, when two beautiful humming birds suddenly appeared, one chasing the other. They flew around and round Ephraim's legs, then one lit on a limb a few feet away and the other buzzed in the air in front of it. What a beautiful sight it was! Ephraim stood awed at the sight, raised his hands above his head and gazed in awed delight at them. After they had gone I laughed at him and explained what they were. I suppose I stood as still as he did, but with a little different feeling from his.
One evening, barefooted and very tired, I was following our herd home when we came to a large patch of salt or salaratus grass. It seems like it is springing up all summer and the spears of grass are sharp-pointed and quite stiff. About the only way a barefoot can get through such grass is to put the foot down carefully, pushing with sort of a scuff of the foot so as to bend these needle-like points over as one steps on them. I was walking in a cow path where the grass was trodden out, just behind an old cow, when she suddenly kicked out behind, her hoof catching me on the shin. O, how lovely! Out came an oath with a name of God in it. But the oath frightened me more than the kick hurt me. I looked around to see if a bear or a lion were there to devour
me! My first and last profaning of Deity!
Joseph Page and Joseph Day taught one winter in the second ward schoolhouse. I went to their school. We called that part of the town Copenhagen because so many Danes lived there. There was some rivalry between the Danish boys and the English or Americans, so we had to wrestle and scuffle to see who was champions. Sometimes it was fights. I managed to throw down a very tough match, the champion of Copenhagen, a boy my own age and size, but got through the winter without any fights. In fact, I do not remember having a real fight at any school. When the end of the school was near, Joseph Page examined our class, (I was then in the third reader) and said I was the best in the class. He promoted several of the class to the fourth readers. We were not classed in grades, but in readers. Our books were primmer, first, second, third, fourth, and fifth readers. We had about three spelling classes. No other lessons [were] taught in classes.
Elisha Brand, John Wilcox, Ephraim Larson, John Wallis, Edwin Day and I and others went herding one fall in the Little North field between North Creek and Birch Creek and below the State road. All riding "shanks horses" [i.e., walking]. We turned our cows loose in the field, gleaned and roasted potatoes for a while. John Wilcox began to pick upon John Wallis whose parents had always whipped him severely, especially for fighting, until his spirit was much crushed. He was a good peaceable boy and only tried to keep away from Wilcox who only pestered him the more for showing the white feather. I hinted a time or two for Wilcox to let him be, but he continued worse and worse until he kicked Wallis who began to cry.
"Now, I said, "You let him alone, you know he won't fight." Wilcox laughed, but let Wallis alone.
The Johns [and] Edwin and I were about the same size. Elisha was considerably older, Larsen was smaller. Elisha and John Wilcox were no relation to each other. We roasted and ate our potatoes and ate dinner in peace. After noon, we went up on a large hill overSanpitch and picked gum from a large pitch-pine tree upon the top of the hill. The best gum tree I ever saw. Some of us got chunks of gum after it was chewed and worked together, nearly the size of a hen's egg. While picking gum, John Wilcox began abusing Ephraim Larson, but he soon had a fight on his hands for Ephraim would not stand for it. Though smaller, he gave John a good hard fight, but at last John got him down, grabbed him by the hair of the head and chugged his head on the rocks on which they were lying. Ephraim then "squawked", as we used to call it and I pulled John off.
Soon after that, John began to pick at Edwin Day, who, surprising to me, took it from him. O, wasn't I angry, and I put myself in John's way but would not be abusive, but he was very good natured to me.
Well we got through the afternoon, gathered up our cows, and started for home. John continued to abuse Edwin. At last he kicked Edwin who retaliated and I tell you for a couple of minutes there was a lively fight, but all at once Edwin seemed to weaken, and went to the ground with John on top. The fight was soon ended.
"I'd like to see him serve me that way," said I. Unknown to me, Elisha gave John a large chunk of gum if he would kick me. Well John did, and we had a sharp fight, I am telling you. But it was John's turn to squawk, which he did quite lustily. He never picked on anybody in my presence after that. I always hated to see one boy bullying another.
Some of our cows were lost and one of my brothers and I were sent out to hunt for them. We had an early start, went up on the round hills, following them along the top from south to north. We looked down from the summit on both sides as we went along. Hunted some above the hills, then crossed over the valley and hunted over a large part of the west hills before we went home, late at night, very tired and with no cows. This was my most strenuous day of hunting as a boy on foot. We kept up our walking all day except when we stopped to eat our dinner.
I did very little hunting for game, but one day on the old farm, after our day's plowing was done, Edwin and I took the horses to the pasture along the river for the night. I saw a bunch of ducks swimming on a pond in a slough. I showed them to Edwin and said, "I am going to get the old musket (one Father used coming across the plains to Utah) and come back and get some of them." We hurried back to the house, got the musket, powder horn, caps, and shot and hurried back to the pond. I had the musket loaded. The ducks were there waiting for us. I sneaked up until I was close enough for a good shot. Edwin close behind. The ducks seemed to be swimming slowly, two abreast, right from me whom they could see. Taking very careful aim, from a kneeling posture, I fired. Oh! Oh! what a fluttering and swimming! Not one flew! I jumped up, took three or four jumps towards them, threw down the gun, ran a little further, threw down the powder horn and bullet pouch, ran a little again, then shouted to Edwin, "You get what you can from this side and I will run around on the other side and get them.
I ran about one hundred feet to where a pole crossed the slough that made the pond, ran across, turned and picked up the small pole I had crossed on and ran back to where the birds were still fluttering on and around the pond. With the help of the pole we managed to get all the ducks that were in the water, seven in all. Not one flew away. If any got away they managed to reach the bank and hide in the grass and willows. That one shot netted me more than twice as much game as all the balance of my boyhood hunting.
My stories hop about, back and forth in my life.
One summer I herded some time with Bill Seeley (William) in the bottoms, three miles west of Mt. Pleasant. They were then public range. A cow of Bill's took sick when we were about one mile from town. The first we noticed of the cow's sickness, she began to stagger and her front feet gave way so that they doubled back and she stepped on the ankles. Soon, over she went. The cow was Bill's personal property. She has the blind staggers," said Bill. We ran to her as she lay helpless. Taking all the fat pork we had in our dinner sacks we stuffed it down her throat. We both had mostly fried pork and bread for our dinner. "That may help her. It's all we can do anyhow," said Bill. We went on with the balance of our herd, but. had a dry dinner. When we came back at night, the cow was up and feeding in the sagebrush only a couple of hundred yards from where we left her in the morning, seemingly all right.
Shortly after we moved into our house in the home east of the old north fort, Mother gave me a couple of square rods of ground or so and told me if I would spade it up I might have what I raised for my own. That pleased me and I went to work with a will. It was new ground, but I manured it well and planted it to watermelons. I kept it clean of weeds, watered it well and raised some beautiful melons. A few days before they ripened, I was coming home from playing in town in the evening along with Ira and he coaxed me to go into a near neighbor's lot and steal gooseberries. We were small boys, but knew better than that. Still we did it. Shortly afterward, I went into my melon patch, thumped them and decided they were ready to eat, that is some of them were, and next Sunday I would give the family a melon treat. But alas, when Sunday morning came I took a look at my melons. No, no, at the wreck where they had grown, for only stomped vines and melons were to be seen. My heart was completely broken and as in sorrow I gazed upon this wreckage, I thought, "What did you do a short time ago in your neighbor's lot. Now you know how it feels to have your garden robbed. Yes, now I know, and if it makes others feel as I do, I will never do so again." A resolve I have well kept. A good lesson well learned, and well remembered.
When I was out with crowds after that and they made plans to go into people's gardens or orchards, I would stay alone where we happened to be while they went on their forays and when they returned with their spoils I would not eat a bite of what they offered me, for I considered it as bad to eat of the stolen stuff as to steal it. I thank God this lesson came to me early in life.
One night, while playing in the streets of the old town, my crowd heard a racket down in "Copenhagen," so we went down to see and enjoy the fun, but it came near not being fun, for we found a crowd of boys abusing a few girls that were with them. We promptly demanded that they stop their abusive talk and actions. They wanted to know who we were, and we told them we would soon show them who we were if they did not let those girls alone. We nearly had a battle royal on our hands, but they concluded to behave themselves. This does not mean that the boys of that part of the town were any worse than those in other parts, for there were hoodlums in every quarter of Mt. Pleasant.
Another time the crowd I was with heard an awful racket nearly in the same part of "Copenhagen." So down we went to enjoy the fun. We found a large gang of boys around a wagon with a hayrack on it in the street. There were boys there, I guess, from nearly all parts of the town and such a shouting as they were making. They had been in to Foutin's melon patch, but had found it bare. "Bring out your melons! Where have you hid your melons? Don't be so stingy." And even worse things were being shouted by the disappointed crowd of would-be pilferers.
I had been there only a few minutes when the house door opened and out came Mr. Foutin. Hoop! Skat! How that crowd scattered and ran. I soon found myself standing alone by the wagon and rack. Thomas Foutin came very quietly up to me and spoke very nicely to me. I told him I had heard the noise from up in town and had come down to see what was going on. He said the crowd had been there for about an hour, running through the garden and corrals and stables, shouting for melons, but he could not give them any for his melons were all gone. He made no threats, but wished the crowd would go away or keep quiet so that he could sleep.
When the crowd saw that I was not devoured, they began to trickle back and I guess felt pretty cheap. The old gentleman soon went back into the house and the boys began to say, "What did he do?" "What did he say?" "Gosh! how did you dare to stay here?" etc. Faster than I could answer the questions they were flung at me. "Why? what had I done to run for." He said so and so. But the crowd was ashamed and made no more disturbance, soon leaving the scene of their awful scare, for most of them had run away in fear.
While we were still small boys, Ira, two years older and larger for his age, thought he could boss or whip both me and Edwin, and two or three times he tried to do it. I would not strike one of my brothers. I thought it was disgraceful. But when Ira tried to whip the two of us. we took him down and held him until he got over his anger. But one day [we were] in such a fracas he did not get over it but swore (not very wickedly though) that when we did let him up he would use a club on us or knock us down with rocks. We got the other boys of the crowd to remove all the rocks and clubs nearby, then we let him up and ran away. Another time, about the same thing happened and Edwin and I had let him up and run away. We were behind a low rock wall to keep away from the rocks he was throwing. Some others were with us and as Edwin looked up over the wall a rock struck the wall and on the rebound struck Edwin in the forehead. cutting a small hole. This frightened us and Ira also, and he stopped throwing and ran off.
When I was about fourteen, the mules Father hired of Walter Christofferson were in the corral in town. One was lame. Herbert had asked Father if he could take the other mule to hitch in with an animal of his chum to go out riding with their girls. Father gave his consent, but when Herbert got to the corral to get the mule, Ira was there with his chum to get both the mules for the same purpose, though one of them was lame. Edwin and I happened along while the quarrel was on and we tried to make peace but nothing doing. "Well", said I, "you can't either of you take the mules until Father comes to settle the dispute." Edwin agreed with me and so the war waged. But Edwin and I took the bridles and I ran off with them, Ira and Herbert after us. I had the bridles and tried to hide with them, but Ira found them and tried to take them away from me, which he failed to do. He told me to let go of them but I hung on. In his anger he struck me in the forehead with his fist. "Did that do you any good?" said I. "If it did you may strike again." He let go the bridles and went back about two blocks to the corral where the others were. Father came soon and told Ira he had promised the one mule to Herbert and the lame mule should not be used. Ira sassed Father the first time I had ever seen one of the family do such a thing and declared it was partiality and Herbert should not have the mule. Father said, "Azariah go and get me the horsewhip. "O, horror! I turned and walked away as though I had not heard. If it were to use on me, yes, but to get the horsewhip to use on my brother! No. I think Father understood my feeling and let it pass. Ira soon went away from the corral and he was not seen again for three or four years. Herbert took the sound mule and went away into town with his chum, but soon brought the mule back as the chum failed to get an animal to hitch in with the mule. Thus ended the worst quarrel I had ever seen in the family. But Ira hated Herbert for many years and Herbert returned it, though not so strong. They even fought over it after they were grown and married, but at last dropped it, and I verily believe they grew to love one another a little later in life. Herbert traveled a long distance at nearly 80 years of age to be at Ira's funeral.
There was a practice among the boys, when in crowds, to try to get up fights by putting a chip on one's shoulder and daring another boy to knock it off, or make a line on the ground between two boys and dare one of them to step over it. I have seen many fights started in that way, but the fellows soon learned that I would not fight over such nonsense.
Father, like other farmers of early days, kept a small bunch of sheep to produce wool for family clothing. Many are the times when I helped wash, pick, and even do the first rough carding of it for Mother. She even humored me a few times by letting me spin a few rolls on her big spinning wheel.
All the farmers of the town put their small flocks into one large herd and hired a man to herd them through spring, summer and fall. A few years we herded Father's flock in the spring and fall down on his land across Sanpitch. When we drove them across the river we would often catch some of the larger sheep and ride them across instead of wading. I do not remember what became of Father's flock, about twenty-five head I believe, for we never had them after he started opening up the farm.
Ira and I went up on the hill behind the house on the farm with our axes to get some wood for the camp houses. Old dog Kaiser followed us. He was of common size, ringed neck and spotted yellow and white, a great fighter and very tenacious. We went to work on a big spider tree, I called it. The clay of the hill around it was soft and the soil washed away so that the tree stood up on its roots like the legs of a great spider. We began cutting the roots close to the ground, for they were good wood, but soon Ira said, "Did you hear that noise under the tree?" "No." "Well, listen." We listened and sure enough there was a scratching sound came from under the tree. We soon felled the tree and found an animal hole under where it had stood. "Here, Kaiser. Dig it out." He did not need telling the second time, but went to work with a will. Soon he poked his nose into the hole and brought it out with a snort. He decided there was something there and went to digging again with a will. Soon he took another snuff at the hole, then dug again. And so he kept on for some time. At last when smelling the hole he suddenly began to whine and pushed his nose hard into the hole keeping up a sorry whine. With a roar of laughter Ira said, "It has got him by the end of the nose." How we did laugh at the poor dog, as he pushed and whined.
At last the thing let go and how Kaiser did scratch and dig at that hole! But no more smelling! Instead he would grab at the varmint, jerking back So quickly that it could not get a fresh hold on his nose. Then dig, then grab, until he reached the animal and as he jerked back, the thing flew down the hill about two rods. We rushed to it, but when we got there the poor thing was dead. Kaiser's last grab had got it by the nose far enough back to break its head across the eyes. Death was sudden. It did not even struggle after it lit on the ground. It was a large and beautiful mountain squirrel. We skinned it and stuffed the hide and kept it in the house as an ornament for a long time.
Father had acquired the water power right on the stream one block above State Street and concluded to utilize it for power to drive a cane mill, so he started to plow and scrape to dig the tail race and bank up the head race with the dirt from the tail race. I have learned just lately (1936) that this same water power had been used to run a saw mill about 1860. I was plowing and scraping there one day when Cyrus H. Wheelock came along and began talking to Father who was there to direct the work when I heard Cyrus say, "Joseph tells me that this is your best boy." "Yes," said Father, "he is a very good boy."
I do not know why, but the work was never completed and the water power from there down Pleasant Creek is not utilized and much power from the flour mill head race to the canyon is also left to languish. This is, with many other utilities of the country, one that is not being developed. If I were a monomillionaire I would develop them to give labor to those out of work and provide sustenance for many more immigrants, both home-born and foreign.
What shall I tell next? It is impossible for me to tell happenings in chronological order.
One day we went to Father's Sanpitch meadow for a load of grass to feed the horses in the summer. Ezra was using the scythe and some of us smaller boys were gathering and loading the grass as he cut it. Edwin got too anxious and ran up to grab some grass almost off from the
scythe, the point of which struck him on the thigh, cutting a hole about one inch deep but only the length of the width of the scythe. We were all worse frightened than Edwin was hurt, but it taught us a lesson to keep a better distance from the scythe. But, one time I picked up a stick when Abraham was whetting his scythe and gave it a throw, striking the back of my hand on the scythe cutting a short hole to the bone running from my index finger to wrist. The scar, though small, has never disappeared. Another time I was helping Arnold Johnson cut some lucerne in their lot and showing him how to use a scythe. He made an awful lunge with it and swinging it very high at the end of the stroke, brought the point up and struck me in the breast cutting a small hole. Say, he and his mother were frightened and I had to smile at their antics.
Abraham and I went to mow hay when I was about fourteen. We each had a good scythe in good condition and how I did swing and sweat to keep up with him all day, but I did it and went home at night as proud as a young cock with his new spurs! Several springs Father took us boys with grub-hoes, and axes to the lowland along Sanpitch to grub willows and clear the land for meadow. It was hard work and also dirty, for we burned them wherever we could and grubbing and piling those burnt willows left us nearly as black as they. We laughed at one another's pretty faces and passed it off as a joke. But the lovely Timothy and Red-top we mowed from those lowlands were certainly good returns for our black faces and aching backs. We also dug channels across some of the oxbow bends to straighten the river, which was a good
improvement also.
We dug ditches and made dams in the river to irrigate the grass. But the ditch and dam for irrigating the grassland was the one that took time and elbow grease. The dam was about one mile above the farm in rather a poor place for a dam. The ditch had to be cut for some ten rods five or six feet deep to where it came out in a low place that had once been the bed of the stream. When it left this low place, it struck into a very steep bank that had once been a high bank of the river. With his Jacob staff and compass, Father leveled the ditch, giving it about one fourth inch of fall to the rod. Along this steep bank, which was gumbo, we had our worst time, and it seemed to me it never would end. We had to dig into the bank far enough to have a solid floor for the ditch and have the bank also on solid ground or it would not hold water. Before Father would call it finished, he surveyed over it three or four times, and not a foot of the floor must be one inch above the level of the survey. O, how glad we were when we got past that gumbo bank and could make ditch in decent soil without having that old compass tell us, "Take it down two inches here, one inch there, six inches deeper here, etc. Goodby, gumbo!
We four boys were now becoming farmers, and the smaller boys had to do the herding that summer. Ephraim went with the cows up past the Round Hills into the cedars along the foot of the mountains. Old dog Bull went with him. He one day found a very curious animal and had
to show the other boys how quickly Bull could kill it. I guess Bull got the worst of that fight, for he came home full of quills, which were very thick in his mouth, and even in his throat. Abraham got some pinchers and tried to pull them out. Bull had to be tied and held by the other boys. It was awful, and I tell you, Bull was not the only one who suffered. We all sorrowed for him. Before the job was finished he became savage . He who had always been so mild and even loving before tried to bite and fought us desperately. At last he went to foaming at the mouth and we feared he was rabid. We dared not work over him any longer, but took him out into the sagebrush north of town where Abraham shot him. All of the two families were very sorry for it. Most of them cried and Ephraim was broken hearted.
In the spring of 1871 Father concluded to work Pat and Fan, two of the ponies he bought for [in place of] the old big mare. He had no harnesses, so [he] bought leather to make one. He had moved onto the farm with us boys. He cut out the harness and started Abraham to sewing. I watched Abraham as he was sewing with homemade waxed ends, using needles instead of hog bristles. I soon asked him to let me try it, which he did, and I had such good success with the sewing that it was turned over to me. Neither of the other boys seemed to care for the job, so I
had it all to myself. I liked the work immensely, all except cutting off the waxed ends as I drew them through the leather. I wrapped the cut fingers up in rags and went on with the sewing, finished nearly every bit of the harnesses myself. Most of this was done on stormy or wet days and the other boys had as good a time playing as I had with my sewing.
Jumping back into the home in the old Fort, I must tell of a smoking spree. Mother and Father and Dora were away one evening and some children of another old fort dweller came and stayed with us. And O, what a time! Jolly? I did not think so, though I was only eight or ten
years old. The visitors brought tobacco with them and made some cigarettes. I do not know how many tried the cigarets, but I did not, and how disgusted I was to see Jane Candland smoking them, then drinking water, groaning, laughing, vomiting! It was horrible! but she thought it was
smart although she was awfully sick. I have never forgotten that disgusting scene and could never look at Jane but with disgust.
The spring of 1871 we increased the cultivated area of the farm to about double in acreage. The main ditch being made the year before, the farm also fenced, we had more time to clear and break new land without hiring help. But Father still kept Puss and Deck [Dick?] ,the
mules he had hired of Walter Christofferson. We also worked Pet and Fan and Father bought a yoke of large steers of Bishop Seeley which we also worked on the farm. Abraham also bought a yoke of steers from the Bishop, but they were only two years old and too young to work.
The fence we built around the farm or rather along the west side of it (for the east side was fenced by Sanpitch most all the way) was built of Cedar brush. The hills next to the farm were covered with cedars (really junipers) and we cut them down, snaked them with horses or
mules to where we wanted the fence and piled them together in a long line, thus making a fence though a poor one. We had to watch this fence, for the wind sometimes blew parts of it over and parts settled down and had to be reinforced with new brush, and altogether it was a very poor and aggravating fence, but we kept it for several years. It was only a makeshift, at best, but we were hardly able to do better those first hard years on the farm.
Herbert and I were working on this fence one day and got into an argument over something. He got angry and called me a damned liar. I flew at him and grabbed him by the throat with my left hand and drew back my right fist to strike him, but something seemed to say,
"He is your brother." I dropped both hands, stepped back saying, "If you were not my brother I would make you take that back or take a licking." He just stared at me in wonder, but I was saved the disgrace of striking my brother.
Again we had to hire help in harvesting, but I believe we did our haying without help. Those days we started out to our work at 7 o'clock and worked until 12. Then again at 1 o'clock and worked until six. But Father never asked us to work on Sundays unless something very
extraordinary came along.
The town used to celebrate May Day on our farm. We built swings on the farm and the young folks came down in all ways, walking, on horse back, in lumber wagons, some few in buggies, any way to get to the Day Farm where they spent the time swinging, fishing, riding
broncos, racing, climbing over the hills, digging segoes, picking wild flowers, picking pitch pine gum, picnicking, and any old thing for sport. I have often wondered how Father could stand it to let them run over his crops as he did and never make a word of complaint. But these celebrations were stopped soon after Father sold out.
All these winters I was attending school from ten to fifteen weeks each winter and was for two or three winters in the highest class in school. Joseph Day was my teacher.
I sat with Allen Row two or three of these years in school, and we studied together using each others books. We had little programs Friday afternoons, or spelling matches. I generally recited, or read a piece, or sang a song. In the spelling matches I was generally one of the last to be spelled down. In discipline I generally got one licking each year. Joseph afterwards told me he need not have whipped me, but he had to keep folks from saying he showed partiality because I was his brother. I never had such a thought, for I certainly thought I always deserved every lick he ever gave me. One day I kissed a sweet girl in school and he made me step out into the middle of the floor, then told the girls if any of them wanted a kiss to step out and get one. O, my, my! Awful! Awful!
The summer of 1871 on the farm, we boys got to talking about Mormonism. I was very surprised to hear Herbert condemn it, especially the payment of tithing. The discussion got quite warm, Herbert and I doing most of the talking in which I told him that I knew that the payment
of tithing was right and should be obeyed.
The spring of 1872, Mother moved onto the farm. Father bought her a fine new cook-stove, the first she ever owned. She had cooked over a fireplace until then. All the farm hands boarded and lodged with her in the two-room log house. They were both large rooms. Ira had left
home, Abraham went away to work about June 1, so that left Herbert, Edwin and I to do most of the farming. Ephraim and Arlington were quite a help, George took care of the cows with good old dog Coley to help drive them back and forth to the range which joined the farm on the west.
We larger boys did the milking and Mother and Flavilla took care of the milk. Father did only light work and directed us boys in our labors. Harriet lived with Dora in town. The farm work went on as usual, we boys cutting and putting up the hay by hand. Herbert, as had always been his custom, never wanted to work long at one job but wanted to keep changing. He argued that a change was a rest. This sometimes made trouble, but Edwin and I got along with him quite well.
We arranged in hauling the hay to take turns in getting on the wagon to load the hay and pitching it on the wagon. . One day when it was Herbert's turn to load the hay, Edwin and I told him we were going to bury him with hay. So at it we went, pitching the hay on with all of our might. Herbert soon began to complain that it was coming too fast for him, but we only laughed and worked the harder, but he soon balked and sat down on the load, so we had to pitch slower to get him to work at all. As a boy he had more than his share of laziness, but the older he grew the more energy he seemed to have, until he was a good worker at thirty or forty. But he was really a delicate boy because of ill health.
Well, we finished our haying and harvesting and got the threshing done, then Abraham was to haul a load of grain to Nephi where it could be sold for cash. His chum, Dunk McArthur, was also taking a load over to sell for his father. Bill Seeley went along but not with a team, just to have a "time." Abraham took me along to drive the team so he could ride with Dunk and Bill. I had never been to Nephi since I was a very small boy, so I was very pleased to go.
Late [in the ] afternoon, we passed through Fountain Green where they stopped the teams and Bill gave me, "the kid of the bunch", some money and sent me to a saloon for a bottle of whiskey. He then drove on a little north of the town where they stopped and each had a drink out of the bottle, then Bill came back to me and told me to take a good drink. I took a very small swallow, which nearly strangled me, and gave him the bottle. He urged me to until I took another very small swallow. I was not ready to die of strangulation. So we drove on until about sundown, when they stopped and Will repeated his visit with the bottle. Ugh! I would just as soon drink Cayenne pepper tea! I made pretense of taking a drink and we drove on. The three of them often looking back at me. Bill soon came back with that old bottle and I thought I would have to do something to get rid of him, so I tipped the bottle straight up and blubbered in it, hardly taking a drop of the burning stuff, but holding it tipped up long enough to have drunk about half a pint. As I handed it back to him, he jumped down off from the wheel hub with a big horse laugh saying in a shout, "I have fired him this time." We drove about half way down Salt Creek Canyon where we camped for the night, and those scamps watched to see me tip over drunk. Well, I had fooled them, for I had not taken more than two or three swallows altogether. This happened the fall of 1871.
Next day we drove down to Nephi, sold our wheat, bought some whiskey and started back for home. As before, I drove the hind team and the others rode together having a jolly time. Quite late that night we passed through Fountain Green and made camp after dark about one
mile south of the town. By that time, Bill was dead to the world. After we made a fire, we got him out of the wagon and laid him on a blanket near the fire, where he lay, now and then moaning and making a few spasmodic actions with hands or feet. Disgusting it was to me. Next
morning, Sunday it was, Dunk had charge of the bottle and he tried to get me drunk with no better success than Bill had had the two previous days, but he delighted in offering it to Bill, who would gag, swear, and beg, and even threaten Dunk, while Abraham and Dunk laughed at him.
Well, I got home without getting either drunk or sick, and very thankful that I had been able to frustrate the scheme of Dunk and Bill.
That fall and winter we killed a number of fat hogs and had about twenty large shoats which we tried to keep on the farm. They would run off to the neighbors all through the fields, even as far as two miles away and we had a sweet time hunting and driving them back to the
farm. Around the stacks of straw they played great games, rooting and digging into them. One winter's day when we got to the farm, a big calf was nowhere to be seen but we could hear him bawling pitifully. We ran to the straw-stack and began hunting for that bawl. We found the hole
it came from, but before we could get him out he was dead, smothered in the hog-hole. How I did learn to love those pigs before the winter was over!
1872 . Neither Father nor Mother had very good health this summer, but we boys did the work until harvesting came on. Flavilla was then about fourteen, but a large strong girl for her age and a great help to Mother. Father hired Ezra to help with the harvesting and one day when he was cutting grain with a cradle quite close to the house, Herbert, Edwin and I doing the raking and binding. We went out to work after dinner and I being the first one on the ground picked up the best rake and had used it a few minutes when Herbert came and demanded the rake I had and tried to take it away from me. We had a tussle over the rake and I took it away from him and went to work with it, but he grabbed it again and I got it the second time, and again he came after it.
Ezra by this time was angry and ordered Herbert to let the rake alone, but he would not. And Ezra came over to us, slapped Herbert and kicked him a time or two. Mother saw it and came running, screaming at Ezra to let Herbert alone. She was very much worked up and a little hysterical. Ezra saw her and without a word left the work and started for town, where he stayed the rest of the harvest time. I felt sorry and ashamed for the part I had taken, especially when I saw how it made Mother. feel. I cared but little for Ezra going away, though Father had to get other help for the harvesting. But it was the custom when we went to work for the first one on the job to take his choice of the tools, for they belonged to one as much as the other.
Mother and Father both had poor health that summer. Mother had for years been subject to terrible spells of cramp colic or inflamation of the bowels. As there were no real doctors to get we really did not know what was the trouble, but I now believe it was appendicitis. Well, about the twentieth of September she had one of these spells come upon her. It did not seem to be more severe than the other spells had been, but it lingered longer. Sister Dora came to the farm to nurse her. On the morning of the twenty-sixth, Father told us boys not to go into the field to work. I did not realize why. About ten o'clock I went into the sick room and Mother called me over to her and asked me to kiss her, which I did. It was the first and only time I remember kissing her in life. I loved her very dearly always and know that she returned my love with interest, but was not much given to kissing anyone.
That afternoon she passed away, being thirty-nine years, nine months and one day old, her birthday being December 25, 1832. Her remains were taken to town that day and she was interred in the Mt. Pleasant cemetery.
While she lay in her coffin I went up to her when no one was around and kissed those cold pale lips. Oh! the shock of it! Icy cold they seemed to me and seemed to send a chill through my whole being. How terrible it seemed to me! The worst and most sorrowful shock I
had ever felt in life!
Her spirit is in the paradise of God where she is caring for her four babes and is associating with Father, Aunt Elmira, and others of the family who have passed away, waiting for the morning of the first resurrection when she will be united with her body to go to dwell in the Celestial Kingdom of God, all in the due time of the Lord. She was pure and good, chaste and virtuous, honest and truthful, a noble woman who loved God and her fellow man, and reared a large family, some of whom failed to came up to the standard of their father and mother, and I fear will never get into the Celestial Kingdom of our God.
We moved to town after the funeral, but camped a few days on the farm to finish harvesting. About a month after that on a Sunday morning Father said to me: "The threshers promised to come to do our threshing next Tuesday, but have notified me they will be there Monday morning. There is some work to be done before we are prepared for them and if you will go with me today to do that work, I will give you $1.50 for your work."
He had never offered to pay me anything for labor up to that time and I had just turned sixteen. It came as a surprise to me but I instantly answered. "No, I will not go and work on Sunday for $1.50. The work has to be done, and I will go and help you do it, but not for money." I felt that if I went for pay, I would be breaking the Sabbath, but that if I went free I would be only helping to pull an "ox out of the mud."
Monday morning the threshing started and I pitched bundles to the machine two days and a half, though I was sick most of the time. Then I had to quit and go home to town where we lived with Aunt Elmira. She looked at me and said, "Why you are all broken out with the measles. No wonder you had to quit work, and should have quit before you did."
She had me get into the best bed in the home, where she doctored me, she being a very good nurse. I had a terrible headache and that evening Cyrus H. Wheelock came in, as he often did on a visit. Aunt Elmira asked him to administer to me, which he did. While his hands were on my head, I went to sleep and when I awoke I was well, but my Aunt kept me in bed for a day or two to be sure I should not catch cold and have a relapse.
That winter we all lived together in town with Aunt Elmira, but we called her Mother. Joseph Abraham was about nine or ten months, old and losing his mother's milk made him very delicate. Auntie was very good to him, but he pined away, and catching a heavy cold, it took him off about three months after Mother died. Aunt Elmira felt very bad about it. I heard her say as she wept over him, "I have learned to love him so dearly, and it seems so very hard to have him taken from me, as hard as I have tried to keep him."
The next spring we moved onto the farm again. Aunt Elmira also. Father fixed a cart out of half of a running gear of a wagon and hitched a large plow behind it and pulled it with two yoke of oxen in breaking up some heavy grass sod. Abraham held the plow mostly. I did considerable of the ox driving. I considered myself a good hand with oxen. Herbert went from home that spring and Abraham too, after the plowing was done, so Edwin and I were the big boys at home being seventeen years old.
The United Order was established in l872 and 73, and Father partially joined it, putting in a little of his property, but still retaining the use of it. We worked our own farm. That summer a girl, Maria Johnson, was hired to help with the housework. Edwin and I cut the hay with hand scythes. Ellen generally brought some buttermilk to us in the afternoon, in a coffeepot. One day when Edwin went to take a drink he discovered some dried buttermilk in the spout of the coffeepot. Now he was very particular as to cleanliness about his eating and drinking and this made him angry. "O, pshaw," said I, "that little thing isn't going to hurt us any." He said, "The damned. dirty (blankety), I wouldn't marry her, if she were the last woman living." "Ha-ha-ha-" said I, "Why, Edwin some day you will take her for a wife." He was aggravated and disgusted, and rather resentful at my chafing, but it came true. He married her and she made him a splendid wife, and was a good housekeeper.
We raised good crops again that year and had to hire considerable help in harvesting. Arlington and Ephraim were quite a help, but too young to do heavy work. George was a good help with the cows.
One noon time as we were eating dinner, one of the children came in with the news that there was a monster trout in the water ditch behind the house. That stirred us up. Running to the ditch, we saw the big fellow and began grabbing and clawing for him. Yes, we succeeded in making the water so riley that the trout was completely invisible. The riley water seemed to move in a body down the ditch, not mixing with the clearer water. I noticed this, and getting the ax, I stood on the bank with the ax up-raised and cautioned the others all to stand still and I would get him. The riley water moved, O, so slowly! Down the ditch, until I caught sight of his nose, then I struck hard enough to kill a beef ox! Not a flutter or ripple! I stepped into the ditch, reached down and pulled the fellow out of the mud. What abeauty Between three and four pounds, but he had got into bad company.
That year, as usual, we had a big time on the farm on May Day. There must have been over one hundred persons, young people present. I spent most of that day swinging the pretty girls, though I had very little to say to them. I was rather shy and did not even have a sweetheart. I thought they had no use for me only to swing them, which I willingly did, and adored them at a distance.
After harvesting we moved to town. Edwin and I were hauling wood for winter's fuel. One day Father told us to bring home from the farm a large grindstone that he had made some years before. We put it on top of the load of wood as we came through the farm from the Cedar Hills. The frame in one place and the stone in another. We stopped the wagon with the front wheels lower than the hind ones. That evening I went out to get some wood for evening and morning. Night's wood we called it. I climbed up on the tongue and on up to the top of the load, when I slipped and started falling backward on to the tongue. I made a grab for something to stop the fall, and got hold of the big grind stone. It was laying on the rounded surface and when I gave it a pull, it started rolling toward me, the load sloping toward the front gave it a good chance to roll. When I saw what I had done, I let go of the stone and dropped backward down the front end of the load. My feet went through the wagon hounds and I sprawled on my back on the wagon tongue. O, my! I was helpless and fast and that stone rolling right toward me! I sent up a quick and sincere appeal to God for help and to my immense relief that stone stopped on the very brink of the load.
Even then, I had difficulty in getting myself out of the trap I had fallen into. But I tell you I thanked my Heavenly Father for the stopping of that stone! I have always given Him credit for it, and it has always been a testimony to me of His protecting care. Some may say that it just happened so, but I give God the credit for causing it to happen so, and He accepted my thanks for it.
A few days after that, Edwin and I came home with another load of wood from the same hills. When we stopped on the old chip pile, he went into the house and I took the team to the corral, unharnessed and fed them. When I went into the house, no one was there but him and Flavilla. She was just finishing a washing and had a batch of bread in the oven. Edwin was scolding her for not having any bread in the house for us to eat when we came home tired and hungry. Flavilla was crying about the things he had said to her and telling him she had been working hard too, that she put out a big washing and had put the bread to bake as soon as it had raised sufficiently and that it would soon be done so he could have some thing to eat.
Flavilla was my full sister and I felt very tenderly for my brothers and sisters who had lost their own mother. I took my sister's part and told him that she had done her work as well as we and that he had no right to scold and boss her about. He retorted and we had quite a little row over it, the first, I believe, that he and I had ever had, at least to amount to anything. We almost came to blows which would not have been the case with a difficulty concerning myself, but I would have fought him for my sister's sake. He threatened to separate the families again, his mother was not going to be a drudge for us. I told him that would suit me all right. If Father would give us our share of land, a home, etc. I could and would take care of my brothers and sisters. I was eighteen, strong, and able to do most any kind of work, and Flavilla was large and able.
Sometime during the past summer Edwin expressed to me the wish that he could go to the mines to work. In those days, mining and logging camps were awful places, especially the mining camps. I asked him why he wanted to go to the camps. He said that he wanted to get out and learn something about the world and I told him the camps were the worst places in the world, and that I could take a good history and learn more about the world in one hour than he could learn in the camps in all summer. When our fall work was done and our winter's wood mostly hauled, I told Edwin that he could do, as he pleased but I was going to school. So I started to David Candland 's school and he went too.
A few days after I started to school, I went to the teacher and asked him to help me with a difficult example in arithmetic. But he rubbed his hands together and said that he had not intended to teach arithmetic that winter, and if he did so he would have to brush up a little in it. He then asked me if I would teach the advanced arithmetic in his school. Of course, I readily consented. I went to see Joseph about it and he said, "Go ahead and show the boys what a young fellow can do if he tries. Here is my key to the arithmetic, you may take it and I know you can finish the arithmetic this winter." Well I went at it in earnest and dug through the arithmetic that winter. There were young men going to McMillan's school, the Wasatch Academy, which had just started that winter and they sent me difficult problems to solve, trying to down me, but I was lucky enough to be able to solve them all, which gave me quite a reputation. These young men were older than I. In the spring, Candland gave me a little dictionary as a token of respect and appreciation for doing about one fourth of his teaching for him.
Early that winter Ira came home after being gone for about three years. He lived with us just the same as if nothing had ever happened. As I remember it, Edwin and I had to do all the chores and farm work of the winter and he had a jolly good time spending his money with the
sports of the town, smoking, drinking, dancing, etc.
One evening he came home with four or five chums and found me there studying. Edwin had told him what I had said about mining camps and he jumped me up about it. I told him that I had said it all right and would still say so, for it was true. I knew he was angry, but none of the others had anything to say about it. He told me among other things, that he would take me out and give me a good licking if I did not stop saying such things about the camps. I. told him that was all right, we could go out right then and settle it if he wished, for I would never say anything but that about the camps. Well, there was considerably more bluster about it. Father and Aunt Elmira were there and heard it all, but said not a word about it. But it was nothing but bluster.
That winter I took a small part in a drama on the stage but did not like it a little bit. When spring came we moved onto the farm again and Ira went to work for wages. After the crops were all in, Ira was going away to work. As it happened, Flavilla went to town on Sunday and stayed over night with Dora. The next morning Ira had a lot to say about it and said he would go and get her. So he got on a horse and went after her. When I came to the house with Edwin for dinner, Flavilla was in the kitchen getting it ready and she was crying. Ira was there jawing her for staying in town over night. His language was anything but gentlemanly. My anger flared up at once and I sat down on the edge of a bed that was in the kitchen. His anger and abuse grew worse and my anger also increased. I lay back on the bed with my feet dangling. Soon Ira said with an oath, that if she did not do better he would drive her from home. I jumped up at that and said, "Look here, Ira Day, when it comes to that, two can play at that game. I give you to understand that this is our home and that you are working here as a hired hand and you can not drive us away."
"Oh," said he, "you think you are so smart, don't you. You have a little brother (referring to Herbert) who thinks he is smart too. I would like it for a breakfast spell to lick both of you every morning." I went to the door and said, "If you want to lick me just step outside here and do it now. I'll soon show you that you can not do it, right now. You can't come around here abusing my sister and get away with it so easy." Oh, how I wanted to get my hands on him! But with some more blustering he took my place on the bed, while I stood in the door and Flavilla told me that he had talked abusively to her all the way from town. I think I was never quite so angry before in my life! More than angry, I think I was mad! but he would give me not a chance to relieve myself, so I just had to let it pass, for I could not jump up on him as he lay on the bed. As I remember no one else took my part, though Father and Aunt Elmira were both in the adjoining room and could not help but hear it all for the door was open between. Flavilla, of course, should have come home Sunday night.
The next morning Ira went to the mines again. The work on the farm went on as usual and I had some talks with Flavilla and she said she would leave home. She would not stay and take any more abuse from any of them. She even complained of Auntie. I tried to reason with her and get her to stay on but it was of no use, she would go. I then went to Father. [This was] the first time I had talked with him of the family troubles and tried to persuade him to interfere, but got no satisfaction from him.
He asked me to try to bring Flavilla home with me from town the next Sunday night. I promised him I would if I could persuade her to come peaceably. But Sunday night she refused utterly all of my persuasions, and at last I gave it up and told her I could not entirely blame her. Monday morning I had another talk with Father with not a harsh word on either side.
Thank God I never said a harsh word to my father or mother and got but very few from Father in life. I asked him to see Flavilla and try to persuade her to come back. He said he would, but I doubt if he ever did. I told him if she left, I would go too for I would not stay where my brothers and sisters could not stay. He said if we all left they [meaning Elmira's children] would turn on him and he would have to take their abuse.
The next day, while at work, Edwin and I got to talking about the family trouble and had some slight disagreement about it whereupon I told him, unwisely too, what Father had said of the trouble he would have if we left home. Naturally, Edwin was very angry about it and left the job we were at and went to the house where he told his mother all about it. Of course, that made trouble for Father and he justly censured me and I of course acknowledged my fault and apologized to him for telling Edwin.
This was on Monday, and the next Friday evening some young folks got up a dance in a private house and asked me to come and call or prompt for the contra-dances at the party which I did gratis. We had the spring cropping on the farm all done and so I did not go back to the farm, as I had told Father I would quit the farm if he did not get Flavilla to come back. I made my home with Dora where Flavilla was also staying. I went to Bishop William Seeley and joined the "United Order", and was sent to work on the "Order Mill" in CedarCreek Canyon.
There was a large crew working at the mill, both young and married men. The logging was done with oxen. After work was done for the day and supper over, the evenings were spent in the bunk houses. I had my bunk in with the young men who passed much of the time of evenings in card playing for pastime. I took part in the games as long as they were only for pastime, but sometimes some of the young men wanted to gamble for "scads." "Scads" were small pieces of tobacco about large enough to make a chew of tobacco. When they would change to this petty gambling I would draw out of the game. They would often try to persuade me to play for "scads," even offering to furnish me with scads for the game. But no. I said if I stayed in the game I could pay my own losses, but I would have nothing to do with a gambling game. I was the youngest man at the mill, but stood for my own principles and would not be turned by those older than me and they never tried coercion with me.
I was sent into the timber to chop logs along with my brother Ezra, who was some ten years older than I. Each of us chopped his own trees. Saws were not then used in our timbers. We were supposed to report on the number of logs we chopped each day. In the forenoon he generally got one or two logs more than I did, but in the afternoon I generally caught up with him and with one or two logs to my credit for the day.
One stormy day, I was sent into the timber to hunt some oxen. The storm was not bad when I started out but some time after I started (I was hunting on foot), a sudden severe wind started up. The ground was wet and soft from the melting snow which was not yet all melted in some parts of the timber and the trees began crashing to the ground in all directions. It was a new experience to me and I was frightened! What should I do? I did not lose my head but stood still facing the wind and watching the trees in front of me. I thought I was in no danger from any trees that fell to right or left, or behind me, but only from those directly in front of me. There I stood until the trees quit falling, when I went on my way as before.
Going through the timber one day with Neils Lund, an elderly man, we came upon a patch of hard crusted snow in a level clearing and as we walked along on it I said, "This is a fine place to turn a somersault," So I took a run and jump to turn a somersault, but the crust of snow gave way under my feet as I made the spring and I landed on my head instead of my feet. The crust of snow broke under my head so I was not much hurt, but Neils Lund had a good laugh at my expense which I joined in, but not so lustily as he did. One on me.
There was a nice little cove a little south of the mill that was a nice little meadow and as they had several cows at the mill they concluded to fence in this little meadow for a calf pasture. Ezra Day, Neils Lund, and I were given the job of fencing it in, so we began cutting poles for a stake and rider fence. The timber, mostly quaking aspen, grew thick on nearly all sides and on two sides the ground rose up sharp and steep. So steep much of the way that you had to help yourself up it by taking hold of the brush. I had felled a tree and gone down the hill to trim it, and just as I started back up Ezra said, "Trim this tree for me before you come back up."
"Alright", I said and stepped back out of the way of the falling tree. It soon fell and I started toward it. The first step I took I felt something brush the back of my hat and my head, then heard the crash of a tree that Neils Lund had fallen. I was frightened but not hurt, but felt very serious. Neils laughed and seemed to enjoy the fright he had given me. But I didn't. Had it fallen on me, I would not now be writing this. Neils was near-sighted and may not have known I was in danger, but Ezra and I shouted at him to "look out," every tree we felled for a short time and had him quite nervous.
We made short work of the calf pasture with a calf pen in one corner where we kept the calves at night when the cows were in the pasture. I, being the youngest of the crew, had to do most of the milking.
They attached another sawing outfit to the 40- horse-power engine to saw up the slabs into pickets and lath. It was poorly attached, for one saw could not be stopped without stopping the engine and all. The crosscut saw, used for sawing the slabs into the proper length for pickets and lath, was attached to the same mandril or journal as the small rip saw that sawed them into pickets and lath. Alma Staker ran this attachment and I was assigned to help him.
On June 18, a little while after dinner, we finished cutting all the slab bolts into pickets and Alma said, "We will take off the rip saw and put on the cross cut saw to make some more bolts of the slabs." So he started to take out the bolts that held the top of the table that held the saws. One of the bolts turned when he tried to take off the burr. Alma asked me to get under the table and hold the bolt so that he could take off the nut. I did so and seeing that the sawdust was clogged up in the little stream of water that ran under the table to carry it off, I picked up a stick and leaned over under the saw to poke away the trash and let the stream run free.
When I had done this and went to get back out, I raised my head a little too high and the little rip saw grabbed my old hat brim and wham--by the saw- -yell--by the boy. The saw had scalped the left side of my head just above my ear. The scalp dropped down over my left eye and the blood spurted about six feet.
Wellington (Wink) Seeley, the sawyer in the mill, was the first one to me. He said the rakes of the saw teeth could be seen along the skull and the blood oozed out of them. Sister Dye, wife of the engineer and head cook at the camp held my head on her trembling knee as Orange Seeley dressed and sewed up the wound.
They gathered balsam from blisters on balsam trees and put a plaster of it on the wound, on a bandage that they pinned on and pinned another bandage over that one. The wound dressed, I was ready to be taken to town. The conveyance would be an ox team on a lumber wagon. They had to go into the timber where the oxen were being worked to get them.
I wanted to pray in secret. There was a long, rough, steep, rocky, dusty hill just a little way below the mill, one of the worst pieces of mountain road I ever saw. I said I would walk down "The Big Hill," and wait for the wagon at the bottom. When I got a short distance from the mill I went out into some thick timber and there I prayed sincerely to my Heavenly Father for a blessing at his hands. I then walked down the hill. While waiting with some men at the foot of the hill, my head again started bleeding. I went to a cold spring and bathed my head which only made it bleed worse.
Soon Christian (Chris) Peel arrived from town with a pair of mules on a little wagon. He had been sent for Orange Seeley. He said he would leave the team there and go a-foot after Orange. Which he did, and I marveled to see him run up that dusty road. Orange soon came and we started for town, but my head kept bleeding a little worse and worse.
We stopped two or three times and I got out and soaked it with cold water which made it bleed worse. I do not remember what kind of seats we had but I sat behind Orange in the box. I asked him if he could not do something to stop the bleeding but he said no. I began to feel weak and perhaps a little faint. I knew nothing to do, but that something must be done if I were to live. At length I unpinned the outer bandage and took it off. I then asked Orange to stop and put it on again, which he did. I told him to draw it as tight as he could, that I would tell him when it was as tight as I could bear it. As he tightened the outer bandage, great clots of blood dropped from the wound. As we went on the bleeding soon slowed up and soon it ceased entirely.
When we got to town, I got out of the wagon alone and walked into Dora's house. Father and Aunt Elmira soon came. Perry McArthur, a quack doctor, but the only one in town, came. Many others also until the house seemed filled, among them an old Danish lady called the Danish Doctor Woman. Many opinions were expressed. The Danish woman told them that it should be opened cleaned and broken bones taken out. But they did not listen to her and it was left wrapped up.
As the wound later suppurated, sawdust, bones, the piece of old black hat, and one bone, diamond-shaped, about the size of my thumb nail, came out. Well, every night someone sat up with me and put wet rags squeezed out of disinfectant water on my head, Dora dressed it once a day and I never suffered one hour of pain with it. In August I went to Salt Lake City to school with my head bound up. It healed up about November 15 but broke out again in January and six more pieces of sawdust bone came out. Then it healed again for good. Why no pain? Because of "one little prayer" in the woods.
One day, while Dora was dressing it, she suddenly stopped and sighed. "What is the matter?" I asked. "Why it is turning black. She was frightened. It made me feel funny. Dora worked with it a little more and out came a piece of. the old black hat that I had on when the saw hit me. A few days later she touched a piece of bone that was bare, and again she stopped with a sigh, "That bone has been bare for some time, it has broken plum through the skull," she said. "Well, what could be done?" was the question. I went to see Perry McArthur and he told me it would have to be taken out and be trephined. But the next day or two the bone came out and new flesh had grown under it. Looking at the bone showed that it was only splintered off and had not gone plum through the skull unless it was a very small spot in the center of it. It was diamond shaped and covered a space about the size of my thumbnail.
I loafed the summer away while the wound slowly healed. In about a month I could begin to study a little and about that time Bishop Seeley, David Candland and Father were talking near the old co-op store. As I was passing by, the Bishop stopped me and asked me how I would like to go to the University of Deseret (now the U of U) and take a course to be a schoolteacher (Normal Course). I told him nothing would please me better. He then asked Father if he could support me while at school for a year. Father thought he could.Candland said I would be a good teacher. but might be a little weak in discipline.
I did not see Father again until I came back from school the next June. My brother-in-law Gustavus Johnson, promised to help me while at school. I belonged to the United Order and Bishop Seeley promised help from that, so I thought I would get through all right.
In a magazine Dora was taking that summer appeared some articles telling of experiments some Frenchmen were making trying to navigate the air with loaded balloons and guide them as we do ships on the ocean. (John) Gustavus Johnson read them and when he read the last one telling of all their failures, he wound up with the statement, "It cannot be done." I was impelled to say, "Well it can be done and I believe the time will come when we will navigate the air like we now navigate the ocean." "O, that is all damned foolishness. God himself couldn't do that," said he. No arguments given.
In 1912, after John had lived in Murray for some time and the Wright Brothers had successfully navigated the air, I visited John at Murray when on my way for a short mission in the North Western States and asked him what he thought about navigating the air now. "Well, Eli, I don't care what a man says he can do, any more, I dare not contradict it."
About August 20, Bishop Seeley hitched up a team and took his wife, his son Joseph, Celia Winters, Joseph's sweetheart, and me to Salt Lake City. Just as we were about to start, Ephraim came to see me off. Calling me out to one side he told me that Father sent word that I need not expect any help from Father. I told him to thank Father for me and tell him that I had not expected him to help me any. We both felt quite bad about it. I think Ephraim cried.
We made the trip to Salt Lake City in three days, where Bishop Seeley made arrangements for me and his son to board with the family of Amos Milton Musser. We bought most of our books and went to school August 23. That night Joseph Seeley told me he could not make the course in school and he would take the morning train and catch his father and go on home with him. His father had asked me, some five years younger than his son, to try to lead him away from saloons, etc. Which I promised I would try to do. He loaned me some money, only a few dollars before he left the next morning.
There were seven young men from Sanpete County who started in to take the Normal Course, the first of the kind in Utah. William Christensen, James H. Sanderson, and L.A. Wilson of Fairview; Eli A. Day, Mt. Pleasant; John R Baxter, Spring City, Lars M. Olson, Ephraim; and Jens Peter Madsen of Manti. William. Christensen and L. A. Wilson went only until Christmas. I believe L. M. Olson also stopped at Christmas as did several others of the class. A few others started in with the class at the beginning of the New Year. We had a very heavy course, part of the time I carried eight branches.
I was the poorest dressed student in school. My coat, hat, and pants were [the poorest] and my hat second [poorest]. No vest, poor shoes. Big white rag around my head. Quite a bit of fun was poked at me, but I noticed it not. One day a visitor said, "Got the headache?" "No, Sir," I answered and held my head as high as his. My percents for the first quarter were low, but high after that.
At the holidays, I told Brother Musser that I thought I would have to quit school for my promised help had failed. I had paid him nothing on my board bill, but would go to work for him if he would hire me. He said he would hire me at $40 per month, and board. "But," said he, "so far as your board bill is concerned, you need not worry about that." I told him I had come to take the Normal Course and would stay and work to pay my bill and keep on working until I was able to go to school again. He said that was all right, but I need not stop because of the board bill. He would trust me for all the year's bill.
I then went to Dr. John R. Park, President of the school, and notified him that I would have to stop school, because of lack of means for clothes and books. He put up a big remonstrance. He said I was one of the best scholars in the class and he did not want me to leave. I told him of my poor cloth, but that I was there to finish the course. I had promise of a job and would stay and finish the course next year, but if I could get work during holidays & Saturdays to buy books, I would continue on. He got Brother Dwyer who had the leading book store in the city, to give me work to pay for books, so I continued on to school.
Brother Dwyer had a nice residence a couple of blocks northwest of the temple block and I went there to work for him chopping wood and cleaning up various places for him. When spring came, I worked a lot in the garden for him. The first day I worked for Brother Dwyer, I was chopping wood under the clothes line. I caught the ax on the line over my head and struck the back of the ax in nearly the middle of my forehead. I frightened his wives badly when they saw the small hole I scraped with the back of the ax in my forehead. They insisted on sending for Brother Dwyer and when he came he took me to his store where I had to wait about two hours for him (a doctor) to come, during which time I suffered more pain than I had with the saw wound which was lately healed but broke out again. The doctor washed it with disinfectants, put some sticking plasters on it, and a rag around my head again. He told me to come to his office to get it dressed, but I did the dressing myself after that.
I had gone to see Dr. Benedict a few weeks after I arrived in Salt Lake City about my head. It was healing very fast and then, I was a little afraid of proud flesh. He asked me what kind of salve I was using on it. I told him it was made of equal parts of Rosin, Beeswax, and Mutton Tallow. (A salve we had used in the family for many years) boiled together. He laughed and said I did not need to fear, there was no proud flesh in it and never would be if I continued to use that salve on it. And so it proved in practice.
The doctor charged Brother Dwyer $5.00 for making me wait in pain for over two hours. He told me he would pay the bill if I would have the doctor, in fact insisted on it, though I told him I could care for it myself. I tried to get a settlement with Brother Dwyer before I left for home but could not. Sometime after I got home from school I got a statement from him. He had told me though, in his store, that he would call it square with me if I would. This statement showed in his favor about $2.00. And taken all in all, I thought I really owed him nothing, for he had forced the doctor on me and otherwise was in debt to me.
Before 1875, Superintendent Riggs of the Utah Schools, Dr John R. Park and Professor Carl G. Maeser, and probably a few others planned to get a Normal Class in the University of Deseret, to give a one year course of Normal instruction to prepare young men and women in the art of teaching. They had canvassed the Territory the previous year and persuaded the counties to send each a certain number to the University of Deseret to take the Normal Course, with the promise that each one who got the course was to teach school two years in his own county to pay for his scholarship, but he was also to be paid for his time spent in teaching.
Thirty-two received diplomas the 9th of June 1876. Of these I, Eli Azariah Day, am supposedly the only one now living, and my Normal Diploma the only one still in existence.
While the legislature was in session that winter, the members of the Normal Class were requested to each write an essay to that law-making body portraying the benefits of such a class and setting out the great need for trained teachers that then existed in Utah and asking them to establish such a class at the University of Utah to be supported by taxation. Well, the essays were written, read, acted upon, and the law was passed as requested.
Fifty years later we and the Alumni association of the U of U tried to have a reunion of our class on the date of the meeting of the regular time for the June meeting of the Alumni, 1926. We got only Clarissa S. Williams, of Salt Lake City; ______ Wilson, of Idaho; John R. Baxter, of Spring City, Utah; and Eli A. Day of Fairview Utah; and one of our teachers of 50 years before, Francis Marion, Bishop of Salt Lake City, Utah. We felt a little bad that there were so few there, but as far as I ever found out they were all that were then living. The school honored us. Furnished us entertainment and picnic, had us make a little speech each to the graduates, the graduates of 1926. Brother Williams took us in his beautiful car to his beautiful home where we were royally entertained. We had our pictures taken together, with F. M. Bishop in the middle and sister Williams' husband standing at one end. We were photographed in front of the John R. Park memorial building.
One afternoon at school or rather after school hours, the scholars stayed at school and had a spelling match, in which I was lucky enough to go down on the first word given me. When we came to the extracting of the square root, one young man told Dr. Park, our arithmetic teacher, that he could perform the process and get the right answers, but could not understand why that process brought the right answer. He asked if it were an arbitrary rule or if there really was a reason for it bringing the right answer. Dr. Park asked the class, a very large one, for the Normal Class was only about one third cf it, if any of them could understand and explain the rule. Three hands went up, of which mine was one and Dr. Park had me get up and explain the rule. He then said Mr. Day was right and went himself and drew a diagram on the board and made a better explanation of the rule. A few days later the same question was asked about extracting the cube root, but my hand was the only one held up in the class. However, the Doctor did not ask me to, but explained it himself.
In the study of Political Economy we divided the class into four sections, calling them States, held elections, elected state officers, passed laws, etc. (The Normal Class was but about one third of the class in Political Economy.)
Some of the members of the class, for fun, went and cast illegal votes. After the election was over the President and congress had taken their seats and the president was selecting members of his cabinet. One of these casters of illegal votes was selected for a cabinet officer. Someone objected to him because of his illegal voting. I moved to have an investigation. A committee was appointed to investigate and I was appointed chairman. It was good sport as well as instructive, until the principal character in the investigation got angry, which was poor sportsmanship. But I saw that he wished to dominate everything he engaged in, at the same time being a young man of ability and likeable. He was a republican, the same as I, and the Republican Party had won the election, but he was proven guilty and I voted against his acceptance as a cabinet officer and my vote lost him the appointment. Oh, but he was mad! Out in the street he caught up with me and insulted me about it. I answered him back as good as he sent and he quieted down. That was the only time I had a word of difference with any one of my school mates that year. But I imagine that he has always treated me cool because of that.
I had never studied Grammar for the simple reason that it was not taught in the district schools at home, but I had read two or three different histories of the U.S. and feeling deficient in Grammar, I got permission to drop U.S. History the latter part of the year and repeat my course in Grammar, which proved a very great benefit to me I afterwards found out. In our course in Rhetoric, which is now called English Language and Literature, the class was to write an essay on the Origin of Language, which the Rhetoric text treated according to the Darwin Theory. Well, I studied the text quite well and tried to write the essay according to that theory. But I could not do it. I destroyed two or three that I tried to write in imitation of the Darwin Theory, then I wrote according to the theory of the Bible. I portrayed what a master of language Adam must have been to give all animals and beasts a name without giving the same name to different animals, then what a memory he must have had to have remembered them.
Rhetoric was the first class after noon. I ate my lunch and started for school in good time, but my nose started to bleed and 1 got to school about 15 minutes tardy. The class was in full blast when I got there. A young man was reading his essay, but as soon as he sat down, no criticism being offered, Dr. Park called, "Mr. Day." I got up to read my essay and the class sat up to listen. When I sat down I had never seen so many hands in criticism. What had I done! Was it a crime! Say! Say! What a scorching I got! When he sat down, I raised my hand to make a defense. But the next fellow defended me. So it seesawed until the time for class was gone. When Dr. Park went to dismiss the class someone called, "Well, Dr. what do you think about Mr. Day's essay?" "Well, I think he is right," said the Dr. Then I was besieged by such remarks as these by my classmates: "How did you dare to do it?. "1 believed as you did, but did not dare to write contrary to the text book" etc. I told them that I had to do it, for I did not believe the Darwin Theory, and could not write contrary to my convictions.
In one of our classes the subject of the United Order came up for discussion, it then being in full vogue in Utah, and Professor F. M. Bishop, who did not at that time belong to the church, criticized it severely and a young man, very red-headed by the name of Howell got up and told the professor that he was out of place, here in a Mormon community that was practicing that principle and paying him for teaching their children for him to criticize one of their principles to the young did not look very well. The Professor saw the point and was honorable enough to make a very gentlemanly apology. That's what I call honor. He later joined the church and is the teacher photographed with the remains of the class in 1926, F. M. Bishop.
Joseph Bentley of St. George was attending school and part of the time he boarded at Brother Mussers. We were very friendly. I have always esteemed him as a very fine man. One Saturday we were walking up the street together and saw some oranges on display in front of a grocery. "O, let's have an orange," said Bentley. "Fifteen cents," said the vendor. Out came Bentley's purse. Empty. My purse came out, only a dime in it. We laughed and started on. "Wait," said the vendor. "I will let you have one for a dime." Well, we got the scrub of the bunch
and went on our way rejoicing, and eating "my first lemon."
September 23,1875. I awoke in Brother Musser's house and found myself to be 19 years old and studying to become a teacher. We were living in the shadow of the Catholic Church. I peaked in at the window from Brother Musser's garden one Sunday afternoon. I was up in a tree, I believe. I saw the priest come in onto the stand and a little boy was walking around on the stand with a small bell in his hand. The priest started to kneel down. He was talking in Latin, I think. The little boy rang the bell, then the priest jumped up. This was repeated several times, but at last the little boy did not ring the bell and the priest kneeled and prayed. The priest was garbed in priestly robes, but I, of course knew nothing of what they were doing.
On Christmas I heard an awful racket at the stables behind the Catholic church, swearing, cursing and screaming. I looked over there and saw one Irishman beating another with a club. Celebrating. I ran to the police station. Too many clubs for me to interfere. The police soon had them and a pretty pair they were. Mussed with blood and manure. They had had a jolly time of it.
About Christmas time, Brother Musser had a wild young cow brought in from the ranch to be milked for the family. I was asked if I could milk her. I answered in the affirmative . She was tied up in a stall and I milked her twice a day. She was very wild but I soon had her so that I had no trouble in milking her, which I did the balance of the school year, gratis.
June, I believe it was the 15,1875, Brigham Young called a company of young men together of the 13th Ward of Salt Lake City, Utah and organized the first Mutual Improvement Association in the Church. As I remember, E. T. Wooley was president, Heber JeddieGrant first councilor, and B. Maurice Young second councilor, and a brother of E. T. Wooley as secretary. The Wooley boys were sons of the bishop of the 13th Ward. Brother Musser told me of the association, that they held but one meeting at its first organization, but would again begin
holding meetings after the October Conference. He advised me to join. I did gladly and I do not think I missed a meeting during the winter until they adjourned in April, nor do I believe I ever went to a meeting with my lesson unprepared.
The next spring an elderly man, a Catholic by religion, was in Salt Lake on business and boarded at Brother Musser's for a few days. Saturday morning I went into the library and he was there reading the news. I got a book and sat down to read, only saying good morning to him. In a little while he quit reading, still holding the paper in one hand, and looked at me as I sat reading. Then he spoke and introduced himself. I was not loathe to talk to him. He soon introduced the subject of religion and, of course, criticized Mormonism. I answered that our religion was scriptural and made the bold assertion that I could prove everyone of our principles from the Bible "Of course you can, from your Bible. but if you took our Bible you would find it quite a different thing," said he. "We don't print a Bible," said I, "but use one that is printed by the Catholics." There were two or three Bibles in the library and I picked up one and showed him on the title page, that it was the King James Translation. "I will take my quotations from this," said I. We argued and quoted for hours. At last he said, "When the Savior came, the Old Testament was done away with." "We don't understand it so," said I. "But we don't need the Old Testament." said I, "we have plenty of proof from the teachings of the Savior and His apostles to prove every point of our doctrines." Thus we argued until he quit the Bible and went to arguing from the viewpoint of the world and I told him I was but 19, and had never been out of Utah and would not undertake to argue from the beliefs of the world. The Bible was my refuge and to it I would hold. To the Bible we would go again, until he denied the Bible almost in total. That's what my first six months work in the Y.M.M.I.A. did for me.
One evening in February or March 1876, Joseph F. Smith, then an apostle, visited the 13th Ward Y.M.M.I.A. He gave us a very good talk and answered this question, "Is the Word of Wisdom a Commandment of the Church?" "It has been a commandment for fifteen years, to my certain knowledge and Brigham Young is so particular about keeping it that for that long I know that he would not eat a piece of pork. When he is traveling among the saints and is offered a piece of pie or cake he will not eat it if it is seasoned with lard."
Apostle John Henry Smith also visited us. Brother Musser took me with him to some of the mass meetings of the Seventies quorum presided over by Brother Joseph Young, Senior President of the First Quorum of Seventy. Among the young folks who visited at Brother Musser's were Heber J. Grant, Jacob Gates, Joseph Bentley, who also boarded there a short time, Moroni Snow, and others.
In March, my brother Abraham and a young man, Andrew Smith, came to Salt Lake City to enter homesteads on land in the Bottoms a mile or two east of Moroni. I went with them to the land office as a witness. After the business was done we were sauntering around the city. The large building of Z.C. M. I. was just being finished. We helped hoist some paints up on a swinging platform to paint signs under the south eves of the building. We then went on seeing the sights.
Perhaps it was three o'clock p.m. when, as we were going up the sidewalk opposite the big Z. C. M. I., there was a deafening report, the whole earth seemed to shake and the glass from the windows began falling almost on our heads. "Good heavens! What is that?" I said, as I leaped into the street. Then came another explosion like the first, and Main Street was completely filled with people, up and down it. I never saw anything like it before or since. I was separated from the others and saw them not again. This was on a Saturday. Then came two explosions, almost like one, they were so close together. Looking north of the city, rising from Capitol Hill was a huge volume of black smoke rising rapidly in to the sky. I at once thought of the terrible volcano that buried the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum and turned to run down the street to safety. But I heard some one shout, "'The Arsenals have exploded." "The Arsenals" were four log buildings on Capitol Hill, in which powder and explosives belonging to the merchants of Salt Lake City were stored. I began to look and listen. The painters on the hanging platform were being lowered to the ground and were shouting, "Let us down! for God sake let us down," and they were very nearly dropped by those lowering them with ropes and pulleys.
A horse tied to a post nearby pulled back until it was on its haunches and was shaking its head as if it was being beaten over the head with a club. A city officer came along and shouted, "Whose horse is that?" No one knew. "It makes no difference, you get on that horse and ride up and see what has happened." said he to a nearby policeman. This was quickly done and everybody seemingly started in the same direction. When I was about half way up there, we met this same policeman, an excitable fellow coming back and shouting, "Stop that crowd! "Stop that crowd! For God sake stop that crowd! One of the arsenals is not yet exploded and they will all be killed!" But he was mistaken.
That morning, two boys in their teens went out above Salt Lake City hunting. They were never seen again. But pieces of flesh and clothes were found scattered far around the exploded arsenals. All the pieces that could be found were put into a coffin and buried. Hunters had been in the habit of shooting at cotton tail rabbits that ran under the arsenals and probably nested there. Also of making bulls eyes on the doors and shooting at them. But we can only guess what exploded the first of the four, but that one exploded the second, and that exploded the other two that went off so close together they sounded like one.
Brigham Young was holding a council meeting in his office with a number of the brethren when the explosion came, and rocks thrown into the air began pelting the house. Some of the brethren were very much excited, but Brother Brigham calmly said, "If you will keep your seats, brethren, none of you will be hurt. It is the Arsenals blowing up." How did he know? They sat down and none were hurt.
A crowd of boys were playing baseball not so far away. At the first explosion they were knocked flat and a very hail of rocks passed over them. So the second and the third time, but miraculously they all escaped unhurt. A lady was drawing water out of a well and a rock struck her in the back and killed her. One little boy had the lobe of an ear cut off with a rock. Nearly every door on the side of the houses toward the explosion, locked or not, were burst open and very few lights of glass in doors or windows on the same side were not shattered.
The sound was heard on tops of some mountains fifty miles away. One of the many funny scenes enacted: Abinadi Pratt was sleeping on a cot upstairs. With the first explosion, he leaped into the middle of the room. The second brought the plaster of the ceiling down over him in a shower. He rushed out, then onto a little porch and at the third or double explosion, "I knew the judgment day had come, and I dropped on my knees and petitioned God to have mercy on me." Similar scenes were many.
In February or March, Professor Karl G. Maeser was taken away from teaching the Normal Class by Brigham Young and sent to Provo to begin the B. Y. Academy (now and for many years past, the B. Y. University.) Dr. John R. Park took his place, and proved just as efficient in giving Normal instructions as Professor Maeser had been. June 9,1876, thirty-two Normal students received diplomas. That same year the class in English Language and Literature received diplomas and two or three other classes in Political and Natural Sciences also received diplomas. [These were] the first that were ever issued by the school, which is now known as the University of Utah.
When I was ready to go home, I was lucky enough to get a ride with someone to Springville, where I had quite a lot of relatives on Aunt Elmira's side. I stayed there visiting with them for about a week. I had a very nice time visiting with them. Then Uncle Newman Bulkleyfixed up a horse team, loaded in a barrel of molasses and sent Lovina Bulkley and two or three others, young ladies all, to Mt. Pleasant to peddle the molasses. I was teamster and when we got to Mt. Pleasant I did the peddling and had very good success in getting rid of it. Then the young ladies stayed visiting about a week before they went home and I was with them quite a bit.
I then hired out to Gustavus (John) Johnson, my brother-in-law, to work for him for the summer on his farm. I did his irrigating, worked with him in the canyons and helped him mow his hay with a cradle, and all the rest of his general farm work. He would cut the grain with the
cradle and I would rake and bind it by hand, then we would trade off, he raking and binding while I did the cradling, except where the grain was heavy.
John had some land nearly a mile north of Mt Pleasant in the east part of the Big Field. This land had good water rights from "Mule Creek", North creek water. Mule Creek came out of North Creek at the mouth of the canyon about straight east of John's land. When it got nearly to the Big Field a branch was taken out to the north, another to the south while another went on straight down into the field. The water was divided into two streams only, after high water time.
John had taken up and fenced some land east of the Big Field and north of Mule Creek. This he was farming and irrigating with water he transferred from his land south of Mule Creek in the Big Field which had become, part of it, swampy, and the balance so damp that it needed little or no water. John took me out to the field Sunday evening to show me the land and ditches and to help me turn on the water. John had made a new ditch for his own use on the north side of Mule Creek and the farmers in the field below, seeing it was better than their own had gone to using it. We turned off the south stream and took it out on the north side, and turned it on John's new land. When I came out the next morning the water had been taken off from John's land on down into the big field. I turned it back onto John's land and went on blissfully with my work. I noticed a man plowing a little way down in the old field and at noon he stopped, got his shovel and was soon making sparks fly around me, and slinging mud and sod in nearly all directions from my dam in the ditch. O, my! wasn't he telling me how many kinds of thieves John and I were! When he got partly through raving, I told him that this was the stream of water for the south side of the big ditch and his stream was still going down the middle big ditch. But he knew better. I asked him to go with me and I would show him the stream still going down the straight ditch and the south ditch dry. He knew better and would do nothing of the kind.
"All right," said I, "I am not going to have any trouble with you, but if you do not go and find out the truth, as soon as you go away I will take this water back."
He saw that I had the advantage of him and at last agreed. When he found the water as I had said it was, he felt quite chagrined at himself. He turned all the water down the north ditch and went down to divide it, when he said, "You have had my water for three or four hours and I should have more than half of the stream." "I beg your pardon," said I, "but it was you who had my stream for a time, but I will divide even with you." I t was now my turn to dictate. So we divided the water as equally as we could guess and he shouldered his shovel and started off. "Hold on a minute Brother B_____," said I, "there is one thing more. " "What is it?" said he. "You have said some quite hard things about me and John, especially John. I think you owe us an apology." He dropped his head, but soon raised it, came forward, and gave me his hand and said very frankly, "Brother Day, I ask forgiveness. " He always seemed to be my friend and brother after that.
John and I did quite a bit of work in the canyon that summer. Mostly hauling down poles. We stopped several days in the Canyon chopping, skidding and piling poles. I had quit eating pork for I felt sure it did not agree with me and also Brigham Young had received a revelation, as yet unpublished, to stop the eating of pork, given I think in 1860 and preached through the territory of Utah for some years. John and I ran out of butter and had a little pork left, but I ate dry bread in preference to bread and pork, though honestly I like pork better than beef.
For eighteen years I did not furnish any pork for the family but my wives insisted on buying and using lard, and at last I told them if we must have it we would raise it ourselves. I believe it is very handy to have for cooking purposes, but that it is very unhealthy for food.
After I had been at home some time that summer, I spoke to Taylor Henniger, who had been teaching in Mt. Pleasant several years, and proposed to go into school as his assistant. He rejected my offer, I thought with scorn. I went on working for John in the harvesting, but at last he got sick and had to hire help for me to finish. Elisha Wilcox, some older than I, went with me one day to harvest grain. He could not use the cradle, but told me as we were driving out to the field what a wonder he was at raking and binding and how easily he would bind all I could cut and I believed him.
When we got to the field, I adjusted my cradle and began cradling the grain. He went to work with a will, both sweating and swearing, but I left him far behind, then stopped and helped him catch up. He swore that I could cut more grain in a day than any other man he had ever seen handle a cradle. The fact was that I was but little better than the average, an extra good cradler could cut five acres to my three. There was a great difference in men's ability to handle a cradle. About two acres a day was the average for cradlers. I blistered the palm of my left hand while cradling and before it was entirely well I blistered and bruised it again. It swelled up like a boil and I had to quit cradling and most everything else.
![[Hamilton+-+Trena+Olsen.jpg]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLdORHAk1E0l_q-_pntgebmMwBrvPYeOwxYkZTV1UGvPxWzm8QleoXNHbZiDtM8t2sWEjmOvsSfywLvjePRQiaksyBfK8mm1SN5xSoXG7-5uu4EDO9fcs4Qpn1W3An74emjrGIW17xG30/s640/Hamilton+-+Trena+Olsen.jpg)
Eli Day is standing on the far left.
In early September, the trustees called on me and asked me to teach in the best schoolhouse in town for those days a large schoolhouse in the first ward that stood then where the South Ward Chapel of Mt. Pleasant now stands. (1940) Hilda Dehlin, then about my age, but who had taught one or two years before, was to teach with me, as co-workers dividing the pay, $3.00 per pupil per quarter, equally. We had to collect our own pay, if we could. I was to start the school with the few small pupils that would start about October 1. I got a horse and rode to Manti and got William T. Reed, County Superintendent to endorse it, which gave me teaching privileges for several years. It so happened that my diploma was signed on my 20th birthday, September 23,1876.
When I came from school my clothes were very poor and I was $325 in debt for my board and lodging. Father had sent me $5.00, the school trustees had sent me $7.00. John had given me $36.00 and I had worked to pay for books, but had not been able to buy any or very little clothing.
I got a tailor to make me a new suit, got a new hat, and wanted a clock in the schoolhouse, which I had to pay for myself. The trustees got the Co-op store to trust me for that. After I paid for that, I had no difficulty getting trust.
There were an organ and music books in the schoolroom. I never found out where they came from but they had been used by the Sunday School which had been held in the schoolhouse. I arranged with Hilda Dehlin for her sister, about fifteen years old, to come and play the organ and we sang two songs every morning and one every evening, at opening and closing of school and we also had prayer at opening and closing.
- Eli built this home of cobblestone when he was first married, then it was later plastered.
- The home was located in Mt. Pleasant, Utah - on the east side of 1st East between 1st and 2nd North.
- There is a high school stadium there now.
I had joined the Sunday School when I came home in June and had been invited into the meeting choir, which I also joined and so was beginning to learn a little about music, for I paid strict attention to all instructions given by the leader who was very efficient in music. I became very good friends with him. This friendship lasted until his death at a ripe old age.
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His Home in Fairview
- The above is taken by permission from "Our Family Legacy "
- © 2010, Derek & Christina Hullinger
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Well I went on teaching according to the new school system of which some called me the pioneer. The pupils were surprised to see no willows in the school for corporal punishment. After a few weeks a little girl timidly asked me if I was not going to use the willow in the school room. I told her, No. That No spread through the town and I got laughed at a lot for thinking I could teach school without using corporal punishment.
(Eli Azariah Day did not complete his story. This is as he wrote from 1936 to 1940 – His daughter Martha Geneva Day Larsen took it from here and wrote the following.)
Eli Azariah Day Spent time in prison as a polygamist.
- The above is taken by permission from "Our Family Legacy "
- © 2010, Derek & Christina Hullinger
After Eli Azariah Day had attended school in Salt Lake City, he came home to Mt. Pleasant and started a school to teach History, Geography, and Grammar. This was the first [time] some of these subjects had ever been taught in most of the settlements. His students were young men his own age.
Eliza Jane Staker taught the younger children. Eli and Eliza fell in love and although she was only seventeen, Eli who had no home and whose mother was dead said, if she didn't love him enough to marry him now, he would get some one else. They were married in the St.George Temple June 19,1878.
Eli built a house of cobble rocks, the walls were very thick and the window sills over 1 foot wide. This house stood on the block east of the present high school in Mt. Pleasant on the south side. There were two large rooms, one upstairs and one downstairs. They had a cook stove but didn't use it to heat the house, a fireplace did that. It would have been wasteful to build a fire in the stove except to cook.
We lived in the house one year while Father was in Colorado hiding from the deputy marshals. I was six years old and can remember the house. Father was called to Indianola to teach the Indians. The Indians would not go to school, so in a month or so Father was out of a job. The teacher at Fairview had been called on a mission. So he secured a job at Fairview and that is why we moved to Fairview.
Their second child, Charlotte Jane, took membranous croup or diphtheria and suddenly died. Estella was their oldest child, then Charlotte, and then Ellis. The loss of a two year old child can only be imagined, but it must be an awful blow.
While teaching at Fairview, Father met a fellow teacher, Elvira Euphrasia Cox, a brilliant girl, and as polygamy was encouraged by the better members of the church, they fell in love and were married in the Logan Temple July 2, 1884.
Father had bought a two room house, but now he built onto it. One large room in front and two bedrooms at the back. Our family had prospered very well for the times. Father had also obtained two pieces of farm land east of town (one piece 20 acres and one 40 acres). Everyone had to grow their own food or they had none. This meant horses, cows, chickens, sheep. etc. Also hay, grain, potatoes, corn and other garden produce and fruit.
But a law was passed against polygamy and the men could be arrested and jailed. The 1880's and early 1890's saw persecution by jailing of all [those] caught having children by more than their first wife.
By the fuss that is made over polygamy now, one would think that a lot of men and women went into it. But there weren't over five or six in Fairview among the younger men. The older polygamists were not persecuted because it wasn't necessarily against the law to practice polygamy just those having children by more than one wife were persecuted.
The Church was compelled to abandon it. The government had most of the apostles either in jail or in hiding and they had seized most of the church property. So in 1890 the Manifesto was signed.
Father had lost his good jobs and had gotten into debt. In 1887 he was caught and sent to prison for six months. He moved to Castle Valley and taught school there most of a year. Here Eli and Euphrasia's daughter Elva, about two years old, died.
Eli barely avoided being caught again. He came home, hitched up his team and took Aunt Euphrasia and moved to Colorado. He left in the middle of the night. Erael was born to Aunt Euphrasia in Colorado. Eli came back to Castle Valley, left her and her children with his father and rushed home, as Mother was expecting a child.
Uncle Jim Wilcox had moved Mother and children back to Mt Pleasant where her folks were. We moved back to our home in Fairview. Mother's child was born and lived fifteen minutes. They named her Harriet Josephine.
They thought it best for Euphrasia to live by herself. Her mother was in need of some one to care for her and the family gave the Cox home to Aunt Euphrasia if she would care for the old lady. I remember the old Cox house, two rooms, dirt roof of logs, facing the north. Father built a lumber house and Grandma Cox died in it. I remember seeing the old lady in bed.
Father built a good corral, got two teams and cows, chickens, etc., for Aunt Euphrasia. Part of the hay and part of the grain was stacked at each place.
Father would stay at our place a week and at the other place the next week. Each morning he got up made the fire and fed the stock, and called the family to get up. Then he went to the other place, made the fire, called the family to get up, and fed the stock. The wives were to milk the cows and feed the chickens.
How would you like to do that?
Younger men like Guy C. Wilson had the Fairview school jobs so Father had to take one-teacher schools. He taught at Milburn, Oak Creek, Birch Creek, and Round Hills, then at one of the coal camps, at Westland and Blanding.
Fina11y he sold the east land and bought land on the west hills and stopped teaching, but he had never gotten out of debt, money was something hard to get. He had to mortgage his west farm to pay his debts and get enough land to live on. Finally his son George decided to pay off the mortgage and take the land. Father and the boys raised chickens and turkeys.
After I got married I don't know much more about him, only that his last years were spent in Manti working in the temple.
He filled a six months mission for the church.
He taught piano lessons all his life and led the choir. He was a good singer. He also taught the choir class in Sunday School.
Eli Azariah Day died November 23, 1943 at the age of 87 years. He was buried in the Fairview Cemetery.
Page 139: History of Mt. Pleasant by Hilda Madsen Longsdorf
Different stories concerning where the signing of the last treaty took place have been told. Concerning this gathering, Eli A. Day writes, "I was only a boy but I saw the Indians come in wagons to the church block; they may have come up Main Street. They .went to the Social Hall and stayed there for hours. Bishop Seeley and other leading men were with them. That was the day the treaty was signed." Thus the noted Black Hawk War ended. Quoting R. N. Bennett: "Records show that during the war 72 white people and about 122 Indians were killed in Utah." |
Page 268: History of Mt. Pleasant by Hilda Madsen Longsdorf It will perhaps be proper to here give the names of those, who, in addition to those heretofore mentioned, assisted in instructing the youth up to about the year 1880. Joseph S. Day, Joseph Page, John Carter, Jeramiah D. Page, Christina Bertelsen, Lucy Wheelock, Hans Jorgen Shultz, Mrs. H. J. Hutchinson, John T. Henniger, Eli A. Day, and Hilda Dehlin were those who now come to the memory of the writer.
Page 269: History of Mt. Pleasant by Hilda Madsen Longsdorf In passing, it is proper to note that in the development of the school system and in the preparation of school teachers, Eli A. Day was the first of the young people reared in the community to qualify as a school teacher. After completing the courses taught in the local schools, he, at an early age entered the Normal department of the University of Deseret (now University of Utah), and after graduating, took up the profession of teaching. This was in the middle of the seventies. About this time, Hilda Dehlin, who had been brought up in Mt. Pleasant, returned from Salt Lake City, where she had been privileged to attend better schools, including the U. of D. These two young people, who had thus prepared themselves for the teaching profession, were the first to introduce modern methods and to undertake the teaching of studies other than reading, writing, spelling and arithmetic.
This obituary was probably published in the Provo, Utah newspaper. Deaths Eliza J. Day Mrs. Eliza J. Day, 87, mother of Mrs. B. F. (Geneva) Larsen of Provo, died Saturday at her home in Fairview. She was born Nov. 17, 1860, in Mt. Pleasant, daughter of Nathan and Eliza Cusworth Burton Staker. She married Eli A. Day June 19, 1978, in the St. George LDS temple. He preceded her in death in November, 1943. Mrs. Day was active in the LDS church throughout her life, and was a Relief Society block teacher more than 40 years. Mrs. Day was the mother of 13 children, 10 of whom survive. Sons and daughters who survive are: Eli A. Day, Salt Lake City; Joseph S. Day and Nola D. Southworth, Ogden; Mrs. J. C. Anderson, McKinnon, Wyo.; Alvin D. Day, Eureka, Cal.; Mrs. B. F. Larsen, Provo, and Mrs. Elis D. Coombs, George N. Day and Arthur M. Day, Fairveiw. Also surviving are 45 grandchildren and 58 great-grandchildren, making a total of 113 living descendants. Funeral services will be Wednesday at 1 p. m. in the Fairview North ward chapel. Friends may call at the family home Wednesday morning prior to time of services. Burial will be in the Fairview city cemetery.   - Obituaries
First Wife: Eliza J. Staker Day |
This obituary was probably published in the Provo, Utah newspaper. Deaths Eliza J. Day Mrs. Eliza J. Day, 87, mother of Mrs. B. F. (Geneva) Larsen of Provo, died Saturday at her home in Fairview. She was born Nov. 17, 1860, in Mt. Pleasant, daughter of Nathan and Eliza Cusworth Burton Staker. She married Eli A. Day June 19, 1978, in the St. George LDS temple. He preceded her in death in November, 1943. Mrs. Day was active in the LDS church throughout her life, and was a Relief Society block teacher more than 40 years. Mrs. Day was the mother of 13 children, 10 of whom survive. Sons and daughters who survive are: Eli A. Day, Salt Lake City; Joseph S. Day and Nola D. Southworth, Ogden; Mrs. J. C. Anderson, McKinnon, Wyo.; Alvin D. Day, Eureka, Cal.; Mrs. B. F. Larsen, Provo, and Mrs. Elis D. Coombs, George N. Day and Arthur M. Day, Fairveiw. Also surviving are 45 grandchildren and 58 great-grandchildren, making a total of 113 living descendants. Funeral services will be Wednesday at 1 p. m. in the Fairview North ward chapel. Friends may call at the family home Wednesday morning prior to time of services. Burial will be in the Fairview city cemetery. - The above is taken by permission from "Our Family Legacy "
- © 2010, Derek & Christina Hullinger
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Second Wife: Elvira Euphrasia Cox Day |
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