Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Highlights in the life of James Monsen ~ His Love for Mary Ann


Being neighbors, we played together as children, and socially grew to maturity. Courtship and marriage are the high spots of my life; and then, too, having her companionship fifty years to me was a boon unequaled.

 Ten years ago she left....






Monday, April 27, 2015

"The Mormon Gold Mine."


  



"The Mormon Gold Mine."  



 

Deseret News Sunday, November 26, 1989


By Lee Davidson
Old-timers say that somewhere in the Uinta Mountains are seven mines lined with rich, unbelievably pure gold that supplied the Aztecs with their treasures and spawned rumors about the seven golden cities of Cibola sought by early Spanish explorers. Legend says that early Utah Indian chiefs who converted to Mormonism allowed Brigham Young to appoint one messenger - Thomas Rhoades - to be shown the mines and take gold for such church purposes as minting early Mormon coins and decorating LDS temples. My grandpa, Amasa Alonzo Davidson, was one of hundreds who caught gold fever while hearing stories of the fabulous "Lost Rhoades Mines" and how Thomas Rhoades and his son, Caleb, rode out of the mountains with saddlebags full of pure gold ore. Against his better judgment, Grandpa was talked into joining a group that searched for the gold in 1920. The trouble was that many in the party were outlaws, remnants of Butch Cassidy's wild bunch. The stories of those who chased the gold are stories of misery. Some gold seekers were killed by Indians, some froze to death, some killed each other. And the few who reportedly saw the gold were prevented from claiming it because of untimely deaths or government red tape. My grandfather's story starts with the story of Thomas Rhoades. Perhaps part legend, it's as real as I can reconstruct from relatives and books. It starts when Ute War Chief Wakara, or Walker as whites called him, was baptized into the LDS Church. In July 1852, Wakara agreed to let Brigham Young choose one white man to travel to a sacred mine and bring back gold if he swore not to reveal the location. Young chose Thomas Rhoades, a stalwart Mormon who spoke fluent Ute. In 1855, when Rhoades became ill, his son, Caleb, took his place. Both Rhoadeses claimed they kept their part of the deal, but they also worked some not-so-sacred-but-also-rich mines that the Spanish had developed for themselves. Thomas Rhoades found a map to the non-sacred Spanish mines when Brigham Young sent a group under his command to investigate an Indian massacre of Mexicans who had been mining gold near Nephi. Neighbors began to suspect the Rhoadeses had their own mine and would try to follow them. When Thomas left his home in Kamas or Caleb left his in Price, curious neighbors would tag along, only to be outsmarted by the Rhoadeses. Some claim they got close. Caleb once left a group in the Uintas for about five minutes and came back with a saddlebag full of gold. One of the most determined seekers of Rhoades gold was Edward Hartzell - one of the men who ended up on my grandpa's expedition. Once Hartzell thought he was finally hot on Caleb's trail without Caleb knowing it. But Hartzell had to dismount his horse and look for signs of the trail ahead in the moonlight. When he came back to the horse, he found someone had stolen his pistol. Caleb gave it back to him weeks later, saying he found it in the canyon. After Caleb died, Hartzell married Caleb's widow. Some say he did that mainly to get information from her about the mines, but she didn't know where they were either. Hartzell joined up with the same band of men as my grandpa, who tried to find the Rhoades gold by traveling into the Uintas from the Wyoming side. In 1920, my grandpa was a 30-year-old rancher and schoolteacher living with his wife and five children near Fort Bridger, Wyo. One of the few in the area who knew how to assay gold, he was talked into joining the group. One day the group rode up to Grandpa's ranch with an extra horse packed for him. When Grandpa saw some of the hard-looking characters, he refused to go. All the men left except one of Grandpa's friends, Harold Mosslander, and the leader of the expedition, a self-proclaimed clairvoyant named Landreth, who had just moved to the area from Pittsburgh. Landreth told Grandpa that he need fear nothing about the trip, and that he could prove it. He pulled out a sealed deck of cards and had Grandpa and Grandma shuffle and cut it. Landreth said spades were bad luck, clubs meant trouble, hearts were love and diamonds were riches. Grandma cut the deck and drew the king of hearts, which Landreth said represented Grandpa. Grandpa did the same, drawing the queen of hearts, which Landreth said represented Grandma. They then shuffled the deck and drew four cards - the ace, king, queen and jack of diamonds. Grandma let Grandpa go on the condition he leave his rifle at home. He rode out the next day with assaying acids, a blow pipe to heat them and a camera. Shortly afterward, Landreth, while blindfolded, drew out a rough map that he said the spirit of an Indian princess named Ravencamp was revealing to him. He described the lake where they were to camp that night and said that above it appeared to be giant castles. The men in the group became excited because Landreth had described a place they knew well, even down to rocks that looked like castles. In subsequent days, Landreth pulled out a compass that he said pointed toward the gold instead of to the north. He said it stopped working if the men didn't believe, and Grandpa supposedly was the biggest non-believer - which caused friction. Landreth also could look at the men in the group and tell them things about their past that no one else knew. He even told one man he had killed and cut up a child. That kept the men in line, except for Grandpa and his friend Mosslander - of whom Landreth never seemed to discern anything. Eventually Landreth led the group to an old cabin, which Grandpa later said was on the shores of what is now called Scout Lake by the Boy Scouts' Camp Steiner. After supper all of the men except Grandpa, Mosslander and a Wyoming neighbor named Ernest Roberts went off by themselves for about an hour. Grandpa told the others he had a sense of danger. The next morning, Landreth told the others at breakfast that the Indian princess had led them to the cabin for a purpose. He said the gold they would soon find should be given to him to start a church. That angered many. Landreth then asked that he be blindfolded so the Indian princess could help him draw a map for the final short distance to the gold. But his pencil did not move. Then he called upon God to direct him, but nothing happened. In anger, Landreth threw off the blindfold and announced he would find the gold himself. One of the outlaws then took command. He placed another "old outlaw from Price" in charge of Grandpa, Mosslander and Roberts and told him not to let them get away from the cabin. He paired others off to go in different directions to look for gold, and he took Landreth with him. During the day, the guard told Grandpa that Landreth and the outlaw leader the night before had told the others that Grandpa, Mosslander and Roberts should be killed as soon as the gold was found. They had even run their horses off. So he told Grandpa that no matter how rich any found gold was, he should tell them it was fool's gold. The outlaw also slipped him a gun. At the Scout Lake camp, all the men - except two - returned before sunset but had found nothing. Just as it was getting dark the last two returned. The outlaw leader asked them what they had found, and one man said nothing. Landreth yelled that he was lying and stepped toward him to search him. The man reached for his gun, but the outlaw leader shot him in the back. They brought the wounded man to the fire where Landreth searched his pockets, which were full of rich, gold-bearing rock - some of it almost pure. The outlaw leader asked him where the mine was. The man said, "We found the mine over in - aw, go to hell." That outraged the outlaw leader, who shot him dead. He then ordered Grandpa to test the rocks with his assaying acids. He did and said they were worthless fool's gold. The outlaw leader looked at the gold, then looked at Grandpa. Slowly he drew his gun. But before he could fire, Mosslander shot him dead. Everyone then started shooting. Grandpa and Mosslander ran out together, firing behind them as they went, and headed north to Wyoming. They said they ran so hard downhill that they even knocked over some trees. My Grandpa later found he had stuck one of the pieces of ore in his pocket when he started running. He donated it later to the University of Wyoming in the 1930s, but officials there said records are not good enough to verify that. Grandpa and Mosslander found one of the horses that had been run off and headed home. Several men in the group had been killed, but many survived - including Landreth. Roberts returned home days later, wounded in the groin. The wound eventually killed him. My father says the outlaws showed up at Grandpa's ranch and started digging around. Grandpa ran them off with the help of his brothers. Later, Grandma and her oldest son were shot at while working in a garden. She talked Grandpa into accepting a teaching job offered far away in northern Wyoming. Grandpa talked little about the trip to family members. He kept the gun he had been given in a box in hopes of returning it to the outlaw who had helped him. He never went back to the Uintas until 1951, and then only for one day. He had told his attorney about the expedition, and they decided to take a drive up and look around. His journal entry says they found the old cabin and an old sulfur mine that was a landmark for him. We found out much later that he made a map of where he thought the two men who found the gold in the group were sent to look - a square area north of Scout Lake and just south of Gold Hill. My father found the map while going through some of my grandpa's old papers. Grandpa in very light red pencil had traced in the route his expedition had taken. It is barely noticeable among the other red and black lines on the map. My father, I and a Deseret News photographer recently went to the area to see if we could see any signs there of the gold or the cabin mentioned by Grandpa. Where my father thought the old cabin stood, we found Camp Steiner's amphitheater for Scouts. It is made of logs laid on the ground. We noticed many of the logs are notched, meaning they were once part of an old cabin. The site matches stories from my grandfather. He had taken pictures across the lake looking at Bald Mountain and Hayden Peak, and the view from the amphitheater matches those old photos described by my father. The site would also have allowed my grandpa to have run away during the shooting toward Wyoming in an almost all-downhill path. We walked around and found the sulfur mine to the north that my grandpa mentioned as a landmark. We found plenty of sulfur, some copper, some fool's gold - but no real gold. If any reader wants to follow my grandfather's map, feel free - but beware. Books detail many failed expeditions, misery and death and not one case of quick and bounteous wealth. Old-timers say for every ounce of gold in the mines, gallons of blood have been spilt. But if you do find the mine, please let me see it some time. You keep the gold. I'm interested in another type of treasure - the treasure of seeing, feeling and even smelling such a rich mine, and knowing for myself it is real.

A picture of the actual Spanish map that lead Caleb Rhoades to the Pine Mine near Moon Lake. Click on map to see larger image
Picture courtesy of Gary Christensen. 



 



An old document apparently giving land, located in the Uintas, to Caleb Rhoades.



Life Story of Annice McArthur Frandsen

Annice <i>McArthur</i> Frandsen

Life Story of Annice McArthur Frandsen  (from Family Search)


Given in person on March 16, 1935, to Lloyd V. Frandsen, grandson Mrs. Annice MacArthur Frandsen Neilson Was born 1 April 1863, at Mt. Pleasant, Sanpete County, Utah; The 10th child of a family of 11 children of Washington Perry McArthur and Urania Gregg. Their first two children were born in Madison, Iowa; the next six born at Pleasant Grove, Utah County, Utah; and the last three were born in Mount Pleasant, Utah. Annice is the only one living at this time. In beginning my story I shall first tell something about my grandparents. My grandfather, Duncan McArthur, was born 22 May 1796, Amy Grafton County, New Hampshire. My grandmother, Susan McKean, was born 10 October 1801, at Corinth, Orange County, Vermont. They were married 1 January 1818. My grandparents later lived at Nauvoo, Illinois, where grandfather was a bodyguard to the Prophet Joseph Smith. He came to Utah for the sake of the Gospel. Grandfather was a polygamist, having two wives. His second wife was Eliza Rebecca Scovil, whom he married after coming to Utah. He was one of the first called to settle in Pleasant Grove, and was the second counselor to the first stake president in Pleasant Grove. He was considered as having a kind disposition; was a good farmer; and served many years on the town board in Pleasant Grove. They later moved to Mount Pleasant.
My father, Washington Perry McArthur, was born 24 December 1824, in Scrubgrass, Orange Co., Pa. He was the fourth child in a family of 14 children. My mother, Urania Gregg, was born 13 February 1826, in Springfield, Sangamon County, Illinois. They were married 'in the states' 25 October 1846. Their first two children, Almeda Jennette and Emma Locretia, were born in Fort Madison, Iowa.
My mother's people, the Greggs, helped William Penn found Pennsylvania. My parents crossed the plains in 1849 in a company going to Oregon. My uncle, Daniel McArthur, was the captain of the handcart company while crossing the plains. When they arrived somewhere near Fort Hall, Idaho, my father decided to go to Pleasant Grove, Utah, and visit with his father, Duncan McArthur. My parents did not come west for the sake of the gospel, but while they were visiting my grandfather at Pleasant Grove, my mother accepted the Gospel, after which my father was converted. As a result of an embracing the gospel, my parents remained in the Pleasant Grove. My brother, Duncan, was the first child born in Pleasant Grove, where the next six children were born to increase the happiness of their home.
Father moved with his family to Mount Pleasant, Utah, in 1860 where he spent the remainder of his days on earth. Father and mother were sealed on 22 November 1861 in the endowment house by Pres. Wilford Woodruff. Witnesses were Brigham Young and S. L. Sprigg.
Father had brown, curly hair, and brown eyes. His height was 5'10" and his weight was 165 pounds. I think he was an unsurpassed, extraordinary man. He was a counselor to the bishop in Mount Pleasant. He was the town physician for several years, and was also a shoemaker. He was a very successful farmer and fruit grower. He had cattle, oxen and sheep, and some of the nicest horses in Mount Pleasant. She was a lover of horses, and sleigh racing was a choice of sports. He owned three orchards and did a lot of grafting of trees. He brought the first bees to Mount Pleasant; he brought them at Springville and pay $20 for the high. He was very charitable. He took in two Indians, and also the family of Gunar Peterson.
My mother was a very handy with the needle and had learned the tailor trade before coming to Utah. Women from all over town came to her to get advice on weaving and dying cloth. She was an expert in weaving, dying, and decorating. Her home was always unusually neat and attractive with paintings and decorations from her own hand. She passed from this sphere on 15 November 1867, when I was 4 1/2 years old.
About six months after the death of my mother, father married Eliza Rebecca Scovil, his father's second wife who was young and widowed. To this union six children were born. He passed from this life on to September 1878. I was then 15 years old.
My parents were the first ones to move out of the old fort at Mount Pleasant. I used to run races with the boys. When we brought the cows home at night we would get hold of the calves tails. We used to go outside the city limits to pick flowers among the unusually high sagebrush. Whenever we saw any Indians we could jump over the highest Sagebrush to get back home. We moved To grandfather's place when I was 13, to Jones's two story house on the north east side of town. I stayed for a while with Mary Ann Winters because they had so much regard for my grandfather. Then I stayed with Aunt Susan and sewed sacks for a load of flour, and also made a wagon cover for my uncle Louis Lund. Then when I was 14 I helped cousin Tom Fuller's wife through a severe seige of typhoid fever and took care of him and the three children at the same time. At 14 I had a strong desire to go back home to help my father in his last days. I have always been thankful for this privilege. I have always had great admiration for father, and he was well-liked by all who knew him.
When I was about nine or ten years old I had the privilege of seeing Pres. Brigham Young. Even though I was barefoot, I pushed my way into the crowd to see him. The next time he came to Mount Pleasant I followed him to the bishop's office. I have always seen his sons, Brigham, John W., and Joseph H. (or A.) and other notables, as Erastus Snow, Franklin D. Richards, George Q. Cannon, John Taylor, and Orson Pratt. When John Taylor came to Mount Pleasant with the other notables, he drove up to me and asked where Mrs. Morrison lived.
I went to District school. My first teacher was Charlotte Hyde, a wife Apostle Hyde. She used to call the children to school by yelling 'To books! To books!...” Whenever any of the children got into fights she would lick them with a pair of stress. Later I attended the Wasatch Presbyterian Academy when it first opened (I was 10 or 11 then) And completed the eighth grade, and then to algebra, Latin, and history as high school subjects. I was recommended to go to Oberlin College in Ohio, but was unable to because of lack of financial support. The next year I went to teach at Milburn. I started to teach school when I was 16 years old, and taught two terms there. I was the first teacher at Milburn.
Before going home to my father I had been drawing the line in my mind between the LDS church and the Presbyterian Church and comparing them and wondering which one I would prefer to join when I prompting came to me which seem to say, 'What authority have they?' I had been leaning toward the Presbyterian Church because they had treated me so nice during my schooling at the Academy. I can say that after receiving this prompting I have thoroughly enjoyed the Gospel. Mr. MacMillan, the man who first establish the Presbyterian Church at Mount Pleasant, said to me while I was in the eighth grade, 'You are one that I will not be able to get in my church.' He later succeeded in getting all the eighth-grade class into his church except me.
After my father's death we stayed on the ranch part of the time. We, my half-aunt Laura, and I, had to milk egg cows. It was during this experience that I became very efficient in the art of lassoing cows. I became very discouraged after his death. I had to shift for myself and was unable to get any support or any kind of help from any of the members of my immediate family. I thought I would leave home and go to George Q. Cannon's home in Salt Lake City and then on out to Aunt Polly's at Portland, Oregon.
Erastus Frandsen and I were married in the endowment house. We lived with my husband's folks the first winter, then moves to the ranch. There 14 of my children were born. We have build three houses. We came to Kimball, Idaho, on 15 April 1903, where we built a large home. Erastus died 20 June 1918. I had six unmarried children at the time of my husband's death.
I was a district Relief Society teacher for 26 years. I have been teacher for all the courses of study and assistant secretary in the Relief Society. I taught the intermediate class in Sunday school for five years. Shortly after coming here I talked to the parents' class. I was also the Literacy teacher in MIA. In 1910 I was put in as principal of religion class for two years. Was also a judge at election for the Democratic Party. Grandma was widowed eight years when she married James Neilson, a widower (Aunt Thera's father-in-law). Complied from Lloyd's notes Viola F.A. Johnson


Erastus Frandsen
~~~~~~~

Annice and Erastus had a significantly large family of (18) children:

1-Urania Aurella (Aug 27 1881/ July 07 1942)
2-Victor Erastus (Oct 28 1882/ Oct 22 1954)
3-Earl Gregg (Oct 25 1884/ Feb 27 1920)
4-Willard Irvin (Sept 12 1886/ Oct 26 1909)
5-Perry Lacartus (Aug 17 1888/ Jan 19 1946)
6-Charles Ralph (June 30 1890/ Oct 29 1909)
7-Royal Raymond (Dec 04 1891/ Sep 04 1923
8-Athol Evan (Sept 04 1893/ March 24 1933)
9-Annice Thera Floy(Jun 13 1895/Nov 27 1971
10-Loomis Lynn (Apr 25 1897/ June 25 1983)
11-Leland Que (Feb 02 1899/ March 02 1899)
12-Sarah Olea (Jan 29 1900/ May 18 1903)
13-Ordella (Jan 29 1900/ Jan 29 1900)
14-Cecil Burke (Feb 20 1902/ March 07 1947)
15-Allen McArthor(April 05 1904/Nov 23 1979)
16-Beulah Fern (Oct 05 1905/ Jan 25 1943)
17-Blenda Roenna(July 05 1907/May 20 1983)
18-Lyle Maeser (Aug 06 1910/ Jan 14 1977)

Found on Find a Grave
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Her Second Husband  Jens James Nielsen
JENS is laid to rest next to his 1ST wife "WILHELMINE".  Basalt Cemetery, in Basalt Idaho. Cemetery is located on west side of highway '91'.

JENS NIELSEN lives to be (79) years + 16 days old. After marring (2) times, raising (10) children with 1ST wife.





Found on Find a Grave