BOOK OF MT. PLEASANT ~~~ AUNTY HYDE SCHOOL ~~~HILDA MADSEN LONGSDORF

 

CO-OPS FOR ALL

 

DAVID SEELEY AND THE SETTLING OF SAN BERNADINO COUNTY, CALIFORNIA (From our archives)

David Seeley 

 

''Birth: Oct. 12, 1819
Whitby
Ontario, Canada
Death: May 24, 1892
San Bernardino

San Bernardino CountyCalifornia, USA

San Bernardino County Second District Supervisor 1869-1873 Chairman 1871-1873

Son of Jestus Azel and Mehitable(Bennet)Seeley.

He was born in Canada, farming till he became 18, making occaisional trips with his father, the owner of three sailing vessels. Leaving arrived in Iowa on the Mississippi River, he built two 100-ton barges. These were used in transfering frieght across the rapids for river steamers. He was the pilot for 3 years.
In July of 1846 he started for California and wintered at Council Bluffs. Joining a large party of Mormons he he started for Salt Lake City the next spring arriving in September.
He remained till November 1849, when he joined Pomercy's train via the southern route to the gold fields of California. On the way their company picked up nine survivors from an ill-fated Death Valley party who were bare footed and near starvation. Mr.Seely rached San Bernardino in 1850,mining for a while, he then went to San Francisco. He was appointed Captain of 50 wagons of mormon pioneers coming to San Bernardino.
After going to Los Angeles and then San Francisco he returned to Salt Lake City, after wintering there he led a train of fifty wagons to Southern California, another 50 wagons were led by Charles rich, Amasa Lyman and Andrew Lytle under the direction of Jefferson Hunt.

He and his brother James Wellington Seely established a mill in the San Bernardino mountains.He was the first Stake president of the Mormon Church in the colony. Served on a state-appointed commission with Brown to establish San Bernardino County.
He had married Mary Pettit and they had 10 children;
Abrilla Seely Satterwhite
Emma E.Seely Baker
Maria Isabelle Seely Corbet(1858-1911)
Caroline Seely Barton
David Randolph Seely
Walter Edwin Seely


(Photographs provided by the San Bernardino Historical and Pioneer Society)

Family links:
Parents:
Justus Azel Seeley (1779 - 1859)
Mehittabil Bennett Seely (1780 - 1861)

Spouse:
Mary Pettit Seely (1822 - 1911)

Children:
Mary Abrelia Seely Satterwhite (1847 - 1923)*
David Randolph Seely (1850 - 1942)*
Emily E Seely Baker (1852 - 1902)*
Caroline Ann Seely Barton (1856 - 1956)*
Celestia Seely (1860 - 1860)*
Walter Edwin Seely (1862 - 1908)*
Joseph Rodman Seely (1864 - 1865)*

Siblings:
Mary Seeley Hemingway (____ - 1881)*
Elizabeth Jane Seeley Young (1807 - 1900)*
William Stewart Seely (1812 - 1895)*
Justus Wellington Seely (1815 - 1894)*
Sarah Ann Seeley McGahen (1817 - 1885)*
David Seely (1819 - 1892)

*Calculated relationship

Inscription:
San Bernardino Pioneer plaque

Burial:
Pioneer Memorial Cemetery
San Bernardino
San Bernardino County
California, USA
Plot: block 2-7-2-space 6

Created by: Barbara LeClaire
Record added: Sep 16, 2007
Find A Grave Memorial# 21578218



Photos may be scaled.
C- Brenda Tyree Holder
Added: Jun. 3, 20Added by: Barbara Le Claire

Mormon San Bernardino (Wikipedia)

See also: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in California
In 1847, after hostilities of the Mexican-American War had ended, the Mormon Battalion of the U.S. Army occupied San Diego and Los Angeles. A detachment of the Los Angeles troops, led by Captain Jefferson Hunt was stationed at the southern end of the Cajon Pass to protect Mexican ranchos from Indian raids. The story of the Battalion started in Council Bluffs, Iowa on July 10, 1846 and arrived in San Diego on January 29, 1847. Company C was dispatched to guard the Cajon Pass. On furloughs, Captain Hunt and others worked for Rancho Santa Ana del Chino owner Isaac Williams. After the War, the Battalion mainly went back to Utah. Many Battalion troops returned to families in Utah via San Francisco and the Sacramento area. A group led by Hunt traveled to Salt Lake City by way of the Old Spanish Trail through the Cajon Pass with which they were so familiar.
After rejoining his family in Utah, Hunt got the contract for mail delivery between Salt Lake and Los Angeles. He also organized several cattle drives, buying stock from ranchos owners to deliver to hungry Mormons in Utah. It was during this time that Hunt started preliminary negotiations with Williams with the idea of buying Rancho del Chino.
Mormon leader Brigham Young saw Southern California as a supply source for Utah, and as an immigration and mail stop between Salt Lake City and San Pedro, California. A group of almost 500 Mormons left Utah for California in 1851. They found abundant water in the valley, along with willows, sycamores, cottonwood and mustard, as well as the Yucca plant. The Mormon contingent was led by Captain David Seely (later firstStake President), Captain Jefferson Hunt and Captain Andrew Lytle, and included Apostles Amasa M. Lyman and Charles C. Rich. They first made camp at the Sycamore Grove, about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) southeast of the present Glen Helen Regional Park. They stayed until the sale of Rancho San Bernardino could be arranged.
In September 1851, Lugo sold the Rancho to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints(Mormons). The Rancho included most of modern San Bernardino among other areas, though part of the northern areas of the City were part of Rancho Muscupiabe. The price for 40,000 acres (160 km2) was $77,000 with $7,000 down.
The Mormons built Fort San Bernardino at the site of the present county courthouse. Inside the fort, they had small stores, and outside, they grew wheat and other crops. They later moved outside the walls of the fort when feared-attacks did not materialize. The Mormon Council House was built in 1852. It was used as the post office, school, church, and was the county courthouse from 1854 to 1858.
April 1865 sketch of the ruins of the Mormon Elders' residence, occupied from 1848 until 1857, when theUtah War forced an exodus from the Mormon colony.
On November 7, 1852, Colonel Henry Washington, deputy surveyor (by contract with the United States Surveyor General for California) surveyed the San Bernardino Base Line and Meridian from a point just west of Mount San Bernardino, at an elevation of 10,300 feet (3,100 m), east of present-day Highland. The Base and Meridian lines serve as the initial surveying point (known as the point of beginning) for all of Southern California.
San Bernardino County was formed from Los Angeles County in 1853 based on Assemblyman Jefferson Hunt's bill. Captain Hunt was a leader of the Mormon expedition.
In 1853, the Mormons laid out the current street grid system, one mile (1.6 km) square, which is based upon the grid layout of Salt Lake City. Each block was 8 acres (32,000 m2). The plan was laid out by Henry G. Sherwood, and assisted by Fred T. Perris. The east west streets were numbered, from First Street to Ninth Street. The north-south streets were named Kirtland Street (later "A" street, then Sierra Way); Camel Street(later "B" Street, then Mountain View Avenue; Crafton Street(later "C" Street, then Arrowhead Avenue; Utah Street (later "D" Street); Salt Lake Street (later "E" Street); California Street (later "F" Street); Independence Street (later "G" Street"); Nauvoo Street (later "H" Street); and Far West Street; (later "I" Street). The Mormons also built a road in 1853 to Los Angeles The Mormons were also responsible for the school system, creating Warm Springs, a school still in use today, as well as a school at the present site of Pioneer Park.
The City of San Bernardino was first incorporated on April 1, 1854. Mormon Apostle Amasa M. Lyman (who was later excommunicated, then posthumously reinstated) was the City's first Mayor. Apostle Charles Coulson Rich became the second Mayor. At incorporation, there were approximately 1,200 residents, 900 of them Mormons. They dominated local politics and forbade drinking and gambling.
Mormons created the first timber road to the mountains, and a flour mill (on Mill Street). In 1855, they diverted water from Waterman Canyon to Town Creek by means of a flume.
The Mormons created a temple block (but never a temple) in the center of the newly-laid out town between present-day 5th, 6th, E, and F Streets. They created a "Public Square," in which they celebrated the 4th of July. Later, after the Mormons returned to Utah, part of the land went to the Catholic Church, and part went to Dr. and Mrs. Quinn. In 1873, Bishop Amat, the Bishop of the Los Angeles and Monterrey Diocese, granted the northern part of the block to the City. It was later called "City Park," then "Lugo Park" until 1915, when it was renamed Pioneer Park, which it is still called today. A Pavilion, a log cabin, and the Municipal Auditorium (erected in 1921 to honor the dead of World War I were all built in the park, though the Pavilion and log cabin burnt down, and the Auditorium was torn down in 1979. The Norman F. Feldheym Library was built on the site in 1985. The park also contains two Civil War cannons.
The Mormons named the Arrowhead, California, a natural rock formation above Arrowhead Springs, the "Ace of Spades." On a clear day, the Arrowhead can be seen from downtown San Bernardino.
A small Jewish community formed in Mormon San Bernardino, including Lewis Jacobs and Marcus Katz in 1852. Lewis Jacobs was a miner and a peddler. He co-owned a mountain sawmill, started the original Bank of San Bernardino, and helped establish the Home of Eternity Cemetery. Services began in the 1850s, but Congregation Emanuel, still active today, was not officially chartered until 1891, and its first structure was built in 1921. The Home of Eternity Cemetery was given by the Mormons to the Jews. It is the oldest Jewish cemetery in continuous use in Southern California. Marcus Katz was a merchant and civic leader and the name-sake of the four story Katz Building (built in the 1890s) at Third and "E" Streets. He died in 1899.
x

HISTORY OF MT. PLEASANT ~~~ WRITTEN BY HILDA MADSEN LONGSDORF 1939

 

HOME OF JOSEPH JENSEN and wife ROSELIA ANN FARNSWORTH (from our archives)

 

 

 

EARLY MOUNT PLEASANT HISTORY ~~~ by Pat Sagers

 

Early Mount Pleasant Main Street 

 

Contributed By

Mount Pleasant, Sanpete, Utah, United States

"Sanpete County histories - The Pyramid Newspaper - July 2019

Where in the world did Sanpete County get its name? It all started when the Ute Chief Wakara invited pioneers to settle the San Pitch valley, named after a tribe of hunter-gatherer Indians.

Wakara claimed that the Great Spirit had appeared to him in a dream, telling him to welcome the white men. Later, Wakara engaged his guests in the infamous “Walker War” from 1853-54. The Black Hawk War, named for another Ute leader, also disrupted county settlement from 1865-68.

Eventually, the San Pitch name was corrupted to Sanpete. Some historians now believe that more than the agricultural skills Wakara claimed to want for himself and his tribe, he was interested in the cattle that the pioneers seemed to take with them everywhere they went.

The county wasn’t the only entity to undergo a name change. Most of the cities within the county have gone through changes in identity since their founding.

Sanpete County is the home of several towns. How they originated and came to be can be an interesting story. The following stories are shortened versions of some of Sanpete’s best known towns.

Mt. Pleasant

Mt. Pleasant is known for its 19th-century Main Street buildings, for being home to Wasatch Academy, and for being the largest city in the northern half of the county. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 3,260.

After taking lumber out of Pleasant Creek Canyon in late 1851, a band of Mormon colonists from Manti, led by Madison D. Hambleton, returned in the spring of 1852 to establish the Hambleton Settlement near the present site of Mt. Pleasant.

During the Wakara War, the small group of settlers relocated to Spring Town and later to Manti for protection. The old settlement was burned down by local Native Americans, so when a large colonizing party from Ephraim and Manti returned to the area in 1859, a new, permanent town site was laid out in its present location.

Among the founding settlers were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as Mormon converts, from Scandinavia, United Kingdom, and the eastern U.S.

By 1880, Mt. Pleasant was the county’s largest city, with a population of 2,000, more than 72 percent of its married adults were foreign born.

This ethnic diversity had an important impact on village life during the 19th and early 20th centuries. For decades, five languages were commonly spoken in town, creating confusing and sometimes amusing communication problems.

The settlement and development of Mt. Pleasant followed the typical pattern for Mormon towns of the period. A square-shaped town site was surveyed, eventually containing about 100 city blocks, lots were drawn and the land was distributed among the population.

Under the direction of James Russell Ivie (1802–1866), a fort of adobe walls and log cabins was built. Pleasant Creek ran through the fort and farming was done outside of its walls.

Around the time that Ivie was killed in the Blackhawk War, by Indians who had declined to participate in the settlement of the earlier Wakara War, the town had acquired its present name.

By the time the final peace treaty with the Indians was signed in Bishop Seeley’s house on Mt. Pleasant Main Street in 1872, bringing to an end to this conflict, many settlers had already erected homesteads outside of the fort.

Although the town site is large in scale, the density is relatively low due to the original layout allowing for only four lots per block.

The influence of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was felt in all religious, political, economic, educational and social aspects of life in early Mt. Pleasant. Self-sufficiency was a virtue and home-grown and home-manufactured food, clothing and furnishings were far more available than rarely found imported items.

Some of the first industries included hide tanning, shoemaking, blacksmithing, basket making and freighting. Eventual modernization brought such improvements as the Deseret Telegraph in 1869, The Pyramid newspaper in 1890 and a telephone system in 1891.

Sawmills and flour mills were built, irrigation systems were dug and a municipal government was created to oversee public laws and improvements. The city was incorporated in 1868, a year after the first co-operative store was founded, starting what became a burgeoning commercial district.

Upon the arrival of the Rio Grande Western Railway in 1890, both the local population and the city’s prosperity increased dramatically. By 1900, Mt. Pleasant had grown to nearly 3,000 persons, the largest size reached by any city in Sanpete County to that time and the city had earned one of its nicknames, “Hub City.”

The town’s new-found wealth became immediately apparent in a building boom which saw the replacement of small, wood-frame commercial buildings with much more impressive, architect-designed stone and brick structures such as the 1888 Sanpete County Co-op, the Gentile store which competed with the ZCMI, or Mormon, store.

The resulting Main Street district is so architecturally distinctive that the two-block-long area has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Equally striking are the Victorian churches, schools, and residences which replaced the simpler adobe and log buildings of the pioneer period.

Mt. Pleasant has long been considered the most diverse city in the county, in part because of the liberal Mormons and the Protestant groups which challenged the dominant Mormon population in the late nineteenth century.

Liberal Hall, built on Main Street in 1875, and Wasatch Academy, Utah’s oldest surviving private boarding school, established by Presbyterians in the same year, remain as visible and functional testaments of the city’s historic and ongoing diversity.

The 20th century brought continued changes and improvements to the face of the “Queen City,” its most popular nickname. The commercial and residential districts continued to fill with fine buildings bespeaking the prosperity of the community.

By 1912 the first high school, North Sanpete High School, had been completed. The year 1912 also brought the Armory Hall, while the Elite Theater was constructed as a “fireproof” building in 1913. It burned down seven decades later.

In 1917 a fine Carnegie Library was built in a modern architectural style. The Marie Hotel was erected in 1920 and a large cheese factory came on the scene in 1930, the same year that bus service came to town.

The completion of U. S. Highway 89 in 1936 was a boon needed to soften the impact of the Great Depression. A city hall in 1939 and hospital in 1945, together with new schools and churches, gave Mt. Pleasant a full complement of public buildings."

HOME OF ISAAC THOMAS IVIE AND WIFE ELIZABETH EVANS ~~~ Researched and Compiled by Tudy Barentsen Standlee

 

CHRISTIAN FREDERICK AND MARY MIRANDA SEELEY PEEL ~~~ From our Archives

Christian F. Peel and Mary Miranda Seely Peel  Family

After Christian's death, the farm wasn’t the happy place it once was, so the farm was leased out and Miranda and the children moved to town and lived with Miranda’s mother in the big house on 5^th West and Main Street.

Peter Azel Peel and Mary Margaret Ericksen were married March 18, 1908.  They moved down to the log house, but they only lived there a little over a year and then moved back to town.

On November 27, 1912, John Peel and Esther Matson were married and moved to the Peel log house.  They lived there and raised twelve children.  

It was always hard to get to school in the winter.  They moved to town in 1934, where they rented and later bought the Brown Home.  John Peel’s sons worked the farm but the farmhouse almost fell apart. 

In 1996, Dan and Esther Peel Randall bought 39 acres around the farm house from the Peel boys.  They restored the old log house and made a fish pond, a play ground, and built a beautiful new home west and south of the log house.  But sorrow came again when Dan had a sudden heart attack and died May 31, 2003.  Esther still lives alone and is always happy when family comes to visit.

 Peel Homestead

Land patent - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_patent



Wikipedia
A land patent is an exclusive land grant made by a sovereign entity with respect to a particular tract of land. To make such a grant “patent”, a sovereign ...

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Taken from "Scandinavia to Sanpete"

edited by Christian Peel

Mary Miranda Seeley was born before the Civil War (1857)

MT. PLEASANT BOOK ~~~ SURROUNDING COMMUNTITIES

MOUNT PLEASANT HISTORY (pages 54 - 58)

 

SANPETE COUNTY CORRESPONDENCE DESERET NEWS ~ Manti, July 17, 1859 ~ From "History of Mt. Pleasant" Hilda Madsen Longsdorf

 

CAMP HAMBLETON TO MT. PLEASANT