Just Three Generations

The following speaks exactly to why I have been spending so much time trying to get everyone in the family to get our family stories written down and verified.

Just Three Generations by Judy G Russell

Connecting past, present and future
It was The Legal Genealogist‘s honor and privilege to be a keynote speaker this morning at the fourth annual RootsTech, that massive gathering of genealogists in Salt Lake City that brings so many people together to share, study and learn about family history.
RT-Speaker-badge-200sqThe theme of this year’s conference was connecting the generations, past, present and future, and I drew inspiration for what I wanted to say from an article by Texas genealogist Judy Everett Ramos, published in Examiner.com in December 2013.
She quoted Aaron Holt, an archivist with the National Archives in Fort Worth, Texas, as saying that “it only takes three generations to lose a piece of oral family history. … It must be purposely and accurately repeated over and over again through the generations to be preserved for a genealogist today.”
Think about that.
Without a real effort to pass down our family stories purposely and accurately, the richness and depth they add to our family history can be lost in just three generations.
From grandparent to child to grandchild. That’s just three generations. Things that were absolutely critical in the lives of our own great grandparents — even our own grandparents — could be utterly unknown to us today.
From us to our own children to our own grandchildren. And even the small trials and treasures of our own daily lives could be lost to our own descendants… in just three generations.

Read more about this at https://www.legalgenealogist.com/2014/02/07/just-three-generations/

MAPPING OF CARTERVILLE CEMETERY COMPLETED

I heard from Carl Scott today.  On Friday (a cold, miserable day by his reckoning) they completed the imaging of the Carterville cemetery with their rented ground penetrating radar machine.  They now know the boundary of the cemetery and have located an additional 60 new burials.  I believe initially they had found burials for 130 people so this means the cemetery probably holds remains of around 200 early pioneers.   We will have more information when we get further reports from the Historical Pioneer Group filter down to us.

Supposed site of Carterville (Kathy Robbins-Wise 2013)

               This is all very significant to us as so little is really known about our family during their time in the Winter Quarters area.  Once the Saints left this area and everything was abandoned the land went back to its primal state.  Our ancestors were not a great journal keeping people and so our knowledge is sketchy.  Both Dominicus and William Furlsbury buried wives in the Carterville cemetery and Dominicus had a child buried there too.  This makes the study of the old burial ground that much more important to us.  

                The post before this describes the work of the Historical Pioneer Research Group and how to do this survey of our family cemetery they had to rent equipment at the cost of about $3000 a day.  This is the second day in the past two or three years that they have worked our cemetery.  They ran out of time the first time they came out and had to return to finish the job.  If you can please consider a donation to their group to help them pay for this service for us.  Donations are tax deductable - see the prior post.

CARTERVILLE CEMETERY MAPPING - FUNDING NEEDED

November 11, 2016

Dear Family Members,

For those of you who were with us at the last reunion in the Omaha area, we were fortunate enough to have at the reunion representatives of the Historical Pioneer Research Group serves as a coordinating and facilitating organization that links, the work of the BYU Winter Quarters Project, The Nauvoo lands and Records database, Mormon Places database and the work of local researchers and historians. Ultimately all of this work feeds the earlylds.com Pioneer website managed by the Historical Pioneer Research Group.

Their effort that pertain to us directly is the mapping of the pioneer Carterville Cemetery in Council Bluffs, IA.  I received a note from him this week that states:

                “Just a note to let you know that the owners of the property where the Carterville Cemetery is located have given permission to complete the ground penetrating radar[GPR] survey. We have scheduled the engineering firm from Kansas City to complete the GPR on Nov 18, 2016. A day of their time and equipment including the follow up reports usually costs about $3,000.00. We plan on trying to fit in at least one other site, if we have time following the work at Carterville. It would be helpful if your organizations could contribute at least $1,000.00 to this project. Thanks for your consideration.”

The Historical Pioneer Research Group is a 501c3 non-profit corporation therefore, any gift you make is tax deductible.  Like us they are all volunteers trying help others to learn more about their heritage.  Learning the number of burials at Carterville is a first necessary step and will go a long way in helping us to determine who might be buried there.  If you, or anyone in your family would be interested in helping fund this worthwhile project please contact:

                                                Carl E Scott at ccscott1919@msn.com for more information

                                                Or

Make your check payable to: The Historical Pioneer Research Group

Mail to HPRG at 5204 Country View Lane

Papillion, NE 68133

Attention: Maury Schooff, Treasurer

I want to thank you on behalf of the officers of the John and Hannah Knight Libby Carter Organization for your support on this matter.

                                                Robert Givens, President

HANNAH KNIGHT LIBBY – Part 19 – THE MOVE TO ILLINOIS

              There is no record of the exact date that John and Hannah, with their son Richard, left Missouri but we know in May, 1841 John bought land in Hancock County, Illinois.  John first obtained land from his son, William.  This land was first purchased by William (of Hancock County) from William C Wilson and his wife Rosana (of Adams County) on 27 October 1840 for $179.37.  The land was described as Part East/2 Northeast Section 31 Township 3 North Range 8 West.  The legal Description was:  Beginning Southeast corner Joshua Vance line on East/2 of the Northeast/4 Section 31; running East 71 ¾ Rods; North 50 Rods; West 71 ¾ Rods; South 50 Rods to beginning, being 22.765 acres.   This exact piece of land was then sold to John Carter on 26 May 1841 for $250. (Hancock County, Illinois, Deeds, Book I, p. 300 – 301 (FHL Film 954598). Transcription in Susan Eaton Black, et. al., Property Transactions in Nauvoo, Hancock County, Illinois and Surrounding Communities (1839 – 1859), Vol. II C-F, p. 749.)

                One would think that this would place John and Hannah in Illinois at the beginning of the growing season.  William had probably prepared the land the prior year so John would be able to plant a crop and harvest it that year.  John most likely had sold his farm in Missouri when they left but the transaction was incomplete as it wasn’t until 15 May 1843 that John actually recorded the deed in Illinois following the receipt of $400 for the land.  Now with the land in Missouri disposed of, John and Hannah were in Illinois for the long haul.

                Hannah had to be thrilled to be living among most of her children.  Besides Dominicus, William, Hannah, John Harrision, Eliza Ann, and Richard Harrison (who still lived at home) who were all LDS, Hannah was joined in Morleyville by Mary Jane and her husband Jacob Dooley.  Almira and her husband Alvin B Tripp, though LDS, did not join the family until after the birth of her ninth child, Sarah, who was born in Newry on Christmas day in 1843.  By then the only missing child was Philip Libby who had left Maine for Massachusetts where he married Martha Eames York in 1845.  He was still there in 1850 as he was enumerated with his family in Lowell, Massachusetts.  He and his family arrived in Walker Township, Hancock County, Illinois about May, 1851. ("Charles Carter (1846 - 1925)" in Biographical Review of Hancock County, Illinois (Chicago, Hobart Publishing Company, 1907), pp. 551 - 552.)

                Surely John felt that Morleyville, or Yelrome as it was known then, was far enough away from Nauvoo that they would be safe there.  Unfortunately that was not to be.

OUR MCKENNEY CONNECTION TO SCOTLAND

               John Carter's mother was Jane or Anne McKenney.  Her line is proven back to John McKenney who was in early Scarborough, Maine.  The McKenneys appear to be from the northern highlands of Scotland and Skye Isle in particular.  Here is a link to an outstanding blog entry about our McKenney origins.

https://ridge-dweller.net/2013/03/17/highlanders-the-mckinneys/

HANNAH KNIGHT LIBBY – Part 18 – ISAAC MORLEY AND THE CARTERS

Isaac Morley

               The story of Hannah Knight Libby Carter can’t be told without a mention of Isaac Morley.  But who is Isaac Morley?  Most of Hannah’s descendants know much about Isaac so it would be valuable to take a step back from her biography and provide a little background about Isaac as it may help us to understand why he will begin to play a big part in the story of Hannah’s life.  Whether Isaac ever met Hannah before she arrived in Illinois is not known but he surely had influenced her children who had joined the Latter-day Saints.

                Information for this short biographical sketch will be drawn from the article on him in Wikipedia and at a site devoted to the Joseph Smith Papers (http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/person/isaac-morley).  I have seen more complete records but these two accounts have enough detail for our purposes.

                Isaac Morley was born on March 11, 1786 in Montague, Massachusetts, one of nine children of Thomas E. Morley and Editha (née Marsh). He served in the War of 1812 from 1812–15, and later held the position of captain in the Ohio militia.  He had already moved to the Kirtland area prior to the War of 1812.  Following the war, he settled down in Kirtland being a farmer and cooper.  He had been raised in the Presbyterian church.  In 1828 Isaac joined the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement (aka the Campbellites), under the ministry of Sidney Rigdon, and was a leader of a utopian group that practiced communal principals, holding goods in common for the benefit of all. Members of this group included Lyman Wight, and Morley's brother-in-law Titus Billings. Eight additional families joined in 1830. The society was sometimes called the "Morley Family," as Rigdon caused a row of log houses to be built on Morley's farm, where many of the society's members could live periodically.

Morley Farm today - Kirtland, Ohio

                In November 1830, Morley was among the first converts to the newly organized Church of Christ, the original name of the Latter-day Saint church founded by Joseph Smith. He was introduced to the teachings of Smith when Oliver Cowdery and several missionary companions passed through Ohio and was baptized 15 Nov 1830. He was ordained an Elder shortly after his baptism.

When Joseph Smith and his family came to Kirtland, Ohio for the first time, they lived with Isaac Morley. He later built a small house for them on his farm, where Joseph's and Emma's twins, Thaddeus and Louisa, were born and died only three hours later on April 30, 1831. Isaac's daughter, Lucy and her elder sister kept house for Emma while she was ill.

Morley was ordained a High Priest on June 3, 1831 by Lyman Wight, and was immediately selected for a leadership position. He was ordained, on 6 June, as First Counselor to Bishop Edward Partridge and served until Partridge's death in 1840. 

When the Carter Children left Maine and settled in Kirtland in 1837 or so, they probably didn’t meet Isaac as he was in Missouri and had been there most of the time since 1831. In June 1831, Morley was asked to sell his farm at Kirtland and act as a missionary while traveling to Independence, Missouri with Ezra Booth.  Once in Missouri Isaac continued serving as a counselor to Bishop Partridge first while living in Independence and later in Clay County were mobs had driven him and his family.  He was appointed a bishop on 25 Jun 1833 and as a member of the Missouri high council by 19 Dec 1833.

(But it was burned in 1845 before photography?)

Due to mob action, he left Missouri and returned to Kirtland in early 1835.  In 1835, with Bishop Partridge, Morley served a mission in the Eastern States. They returned to Kirtland on 5 November 1835.  He then returned to Missouri in early 1836 and settled in Far West, Caldwell County, Missouri where he was ordained a patriarch on 7 Nov 1837 by Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon and Hyrum Smith.  It would be here that he would meet the Carter children and their families as the Kirtland Camp arrived in Far West in October, 1838.  They had to be associated with him as when the Saints were driven from Missouri, the Carters followed Isaac to what would become Yelrome (Morley’s Settlement) some 25 miles south of Nauvoo in Illinois.  Here Isaac would be the Bishop of Morley’s Settlement and later as President of the Lima, Adams Co., Illinois stake.

After Morley’s Settlement was essentially burned down by mobs he, and the Carters and most of the community, removed to Nauvoo in 1845.  On April 11, 1845.he was admitted into the Council of Fifty.  This group of advisors to the leaders of the Church would today be considered similar to the quorums of Seventy that we have a present.

Isaac and his family left Nauvoo in 1846 and settled in Winter Quarters.  In 1848 he migrated with his family to the Salt Lake Valley.  The Carters (including Hannah) would remain in Winter Quarters until the spring of 1851 when they too left for Utah.

Isaac was elected a senator of the provisional state of Deseret in 1849 and was one of the initial settlers of the Sanpete Valley (Manti) that same year.  He was a Utah Territorial legislature from 1851 to 1857.  He died in Fairview, Sanpete Co., Utah on 24 Jun 1865.

June 2017 Reunion

Please click on the 2017 Reunion tab near the top of this page to get information on our upcoming reunion in Provo, Utah in June, 2017.  We really hope to see you all there.

HANNAH KNIGHT LIBBY – Part 17 – LIFE IN MONROE COUNTY, MISSOURI

Monroe and Caldwell Counties Missouri

               So what was life like for Hannah once they got to Monroe County in Missouri.  It might instructive to discuss briefly the place they decided to settle.  Monroe County hadn’t been organized until 1831.  The Carters were back on the American frontier, but this time a different frontier.  This state, and Monroe County in particular, was a part of the South.  A majority of the settlers were from the Upper South, especially Kentucky and Tennessee, and they brought their traditions and slaves with them to Monroe County.  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_County,_Missouri)  Interestingly Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was born in 1835 in Florida, Monroe County, Missouri.  I must have been hard for Hannah to adjust to slavery and the Southern way of life.  This area actually was called Little Dixie because everything, including even the architecture of the homes tended towards the Antebellum South colonial style.  Monroe County, was and still is, a very rural area with only 9,000 or so residents listed on the 1840 census. (Today the population is almost the same.)

                 When Hannah arrived in Jefferson Township in Monroe County, Missouri, in autumn of 1838 she and John had already been married 32 years.  A house would have been one of their first projects after getting their farm started on their 40 acres.  Surely John got a blacksmithing business going and the family could settle in at their third home since their marriage.   The four Carters probably were able to acclimate to the new home fairly quickly as John and Richard, who was now 18, could work the land and build a house.  Hannah and Mary Jane, who was 15, could work the garden and make the house into a home.

                At first glance moving to Monroe County may see to be a little strange if the assumption was that Hannah wanted to live with her children.  Given John’s apparent reluctant to live in locations where the Mormon’s congregated and caused unrest, the decision to settle in Monroe county makes perfect sense.  The distance to Caldwell County was about 125 miles.  John probably felt that this was as close to the family as he dared get.  Ironically they were now only about 70 miles from Lima, Illinois where they would ultimately move.

                John had good reasons not to want to move all the way to where his children resided.  Problems had already begun in Missouri prior to the time that the Carters arrived.  In fact, in the month prior to John’s purchase of land in November, 1838, the situation had reached an intolerable point for the Mormons. It appears that the Carter children arrived in Far West, Missouri on or about October 2, 1848.  They must have felt that they had been thrown literally from the fat into the frying pan as northwestern Missouri was rapidly becoming a war zone.   On October 27, 1838, Governor Lilburn Boggs issued Missouri Executive Order 44, also known as the Extermination Order.  The order was issued in the aftermath of the Battle of Crooked River, a clash between Latter Day Saints and a unit of the Missouri State Guard in northern Ray County, Missouri, during the 1838 Mormon War. Claiming that Latter Day Saints had committed open and avowed defiance of the law and had made war upon the people of Missouri, Governor Boggs directed that "the Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State if necessary for the public peace—their outrages are beyond all description". (Wikipedia – Missouri Exectutive Order 44)

Haun's Mill

                Just three days later, on October 30, 1838, the Haun’s Mill massacre occurred when a mob/militia unit from Livingston County, Missouri, attacked a Mormon settlement in eastern Caldwell County, Missouri, United States, after the Battle of Crooked River. By far the bloodiest event in the 1838 Mormon War in Missouri, it has long been remembered by the members of the Latter Day Saint movement. (Wikipedia – Haun’s Mill massacre)

To the best of my knowledge none of the Carter family was directly associated with either of these events but because of them it was imperative that the Mormons move out of Missouri or die.  John’s children and their families shortly began their journey by January,1839 as the Church “realized they would not be helped by the legislature, and determined to leave as best they could. Most families were destitute, so those who had extra pooled their resources, determining to leave no one behind. Those who had been fortunate enough to retain their property sold it to gain funds with which to leave the state, but they were only able to get a fraction of the properties’ values. The exodus from Missouri took place in the dead of winter, with many Mormons trudging eastward with bare feet and little to keep them warm.” (online source:  http://historyofmormonism.com/mormon-history/two-church-centers/tcc-1838)  For those that are interested the Saints left Caldwell County and the areas around there and headed generally Marion County, Missouri  where they crossed the Mississippi River and first stopped at Quincy, Illinois before moving on to Nauvoo.

Hannah’s heart must have been broken to see her children, destitute and weary being driven from place to place.  John and Hannah must have feared somewhat for their own lives.  It was bad enough that they were Yankees (from Maine) in a Southern slave state, but if word got out that part of their family was Mormon their lives could be in danger.  One must imagine that the Carter’s kept their connection with the Church hidden as much as possible.  It is very telling that John – now that he was in Missouri was in no hurry to leave.  Cautious would probably be the best way to describe his actions at this point in time.  He most likely chose to remain where he was and wait out the events that were transpiring around him before he made any decisions about moving.

By the time of the 1840 census John and Hannah had been in Missouri a little under a year and a half.  The family is found on the 1840 census for Jefferson, Monroe, Missouri:

                Male      age 20 – 29        Richard age 20

                Male      age 50 – 59        John age 58

                Female  age 15 – 19         Mary Jane age 17

                Female  age 20 – 29        ??? (no idea whom this might be)

                Female  age 50 – 59         Hannah age 54

            The year 1840 would be pivotal for one member of the household as Mary Jane had found love and was married to Jacob Dooley in Monroe County, MO on 27 Aug 1840.  The text of the marriage document found in the courthouse reads: 

Dooley to Carter

State of Missouri, County of Monroe: I do certify that I did on the 27th day of August, AD 1840, celebrate the rites of matrimony between Jacob Dooly and Mary Jane Carter daughter of John Carter by consent of parents, both of the county and state aforesaid. Henry Thomas, Preacher of the Gospel

Filed for Record on the 1st day of Augst 1840 - duly Recorded Theo S Miller, Recorder

(Ancestry.com. Missouri Marriage Records, 1805-2002 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2007.  Original data: Missouri Marriage Records. Jefferson City, MO, USA: Missouri State Archives. Microfilm.)

Educational Employees Credit Union - Home

Marriage record of Jacob Dooley and Mary Jane Carter

            The importance of this document goes beyond proving the marriage and Mary Jane and Jacob, it also proves that the John Carter in Monroe County was in fact our John Carter who married Hannah.  His having to sign for the underage Mary Jane has added significance for us.

Land Owners - Monroe Co., MO
Carter land in Yellow, Gideon Dooley in Purple

          It makes perfect sense that Mary Jane would marry a Dooley as a plot map of the part of Monroe County where the Carter’s lived was replete with Dooleys.  John’s farm was literally surrounded by members of the Dooley clan.  Gideon Dooley’s farm (Jacob’s father) was in easy walking distance from the Carter place. 

  So as 1840 came to a close, John and Hannah had their lone child, Richard, still living with them.  Most of the kids were now living in the area of Lima, Illinois some 70 miles to the northeast across the Mississippi River.

HANNAH KNIGHT LIBBY – Part 16 – THE MOVE TO MISSOURI

                Hannah had to have mixed feelings as the family prepared to move to Missouri.  Maine had always been her home.  Newry, though relatively remote, was still just a day or two away from her parent’s home.  In reality, her father had died three years earlier in 1835 and her mother may have been ailing as she passed on 9 Dec 1838 just two months or so after Hannah left.  In any case the decision had been made and between the 10^th of September (the last town meeting John attended) and 25 October 1838 (when John was replaced in his town duties), the family did move.  We will never know the exact date that they left, but it was most likely shortly after the town meeting of September 10^th.

                Her children who had been in Kirtland had been on the road from February (William and Eliza) and July (John Jr. and Dominicus).  Their passage to Missouri was extremely slow.  It wasn’t until October 2^nd that they would reach their goal of Adam-ondi-Ahman – making the trip three months for the last ones that left.  They were poor – traveling by wagons (in William’s case pulled by 1 ox.)  The Kirtland Camp had to stop frequently to rest and to even work to earn food to eat.  For these reasons the trip west was more of an endurance test than an enjoyable trip.

John and Hannah on the other hand made a much more rapid trip to Missouri.  They were in Missouri by 10 Nov 1838 for on that date John signed a deed in Monroe County for 40 acres of land and paid $200 cash.  That date is just eight weeks and five days from the last meeting John attended in Newry.  If we calculate the time from the meeting when he was replaced (October 25) it was just two weeks and two days later.  So how fast could they have traveled the approximate 1500 miles from Newry to Monroe Co., Missouri?

The Atlas of Historical Geography of the United States at http://dsl.richmond.edu/historicalatlas/138/b/ provides us with travel times from New York in 1830.  The location of Newry puts it about a week’s travel to the east from New York so a week would have to be added to the travel times shown on the accompanying map.  Trains were just beginning to become popular in the eastern part of the United States and could probably be used to make a good portion of the trip.  Depending on their route they might have used river travel and or stage coaches for part of the trip.  In any case according to the Atlas the trip counting the week east of New York would probably take between four and five weeks.  So the Carters probably left Newry by the first of October be able to traverse this distance in time to purchase the land on November 10.

From the Atlas of Historical Geography of the United States

There were surely four people in their party – John and Hannah and their two remaining children, Richard 18 and Mary Jane 15.  They probably traveled light – taking a few trunks with everything of value that they wanted to take with them.  Recent discoveries have uncovered probably one thing that they took with them – an old deerskin chest 18 inches wide by 10 inches front to back and 7.5 inches deep.  Joe Conover, a cousin in Illinois owns this prized possession today.  In it were stored many documents from the Nauvoo period of our family.  Writing on the inside of the top of the box seems to read Jerad or Jazeb but more likely is Zebulon – Hannah’s father.  This most likely was her prized possession from their time in Maine and probably at one time contained the family Bible.

In any case, unknown to us are when they left Newry, how they traveled and what exactly they took, but there is no question that by November 10, 1838 they were in Monroe Co., Missouri so 4 counties east of where their LDS children were undergoing terrible persecutions.

The old deerskin chest of Zebulon Libby

HANNAH KNIGHT LIBBY – Part 15 – LEAVING NEWRY 1837-1838

               The story has long been told in the family that when the children of the family who had joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints left Newry in 1836, that John and Hannah had joined them in the move.  That story flies in the face of facts that are known today.

                After Hannah said her good-byes to her kids as they left Newry, she and John continued to live on the family farm for two more years.  John paid taxes in Newry through the year 1838.  In fact, he held elected office in Newry during this time.  It is interesting that between the time of Hannah’s baptism in 1834 and March of 1834 John held no elected or appointed office.  Could it be that there was some level of prejudice against the Mormons and their families in Newry?  Even though John had not joined surely his status in the community was tainted by the several Carters who had joined.  Once they left in 1836, John’s favor in the community must have risen.  On 7 Mar 1836 he, Elijah Powers and Alex Eames were chosen as Fence Viewers in Newry.  I imagine this position required them to tour the community and inspect fences so that poor fences would be repaired.  On 15 Mar 1838 John and 9 others became Highwaymen.  No this doesn’t mean he became a thief as we would use that name today.  In those days a Highwayman helped maintain the highways.  On that same day he was also elected as the Constable and Tax Collector.   The position of Constable and Tax Collector was probably the second most prestigious position in the community only surpassed by the Selectmen who actually ran the community government.  There is a notation in the town records that on 10 Sep 1838 that John called the meeting that month and was paid $1.50 calling meetings that year.  This is the last mention of John while he lived in Newry.

                So what transpired in the Carter home between 1836 and 1838?  No doubt Hannah probably wanted to join the Saints in Ohio and be with their older children, but John was most likely strongly opposed to this.  He had already experienced some anti-Mormon feeling in Newry and had to be aware of the problems the Church members were having in both Kirtland and Missouri where they were congregating for their own safety.  There wasn’t instant news like we have today but newspapers and letters would have kept the family in Maine informed about developments in Ohio and Missouri.

                Exactly what was it that was transpiring where the Saints were congregated?  To explain this the best source that gives a relatively short answer is found in the article “Kirtland, Ohio” in The Encyclopedia of Mormonism found online at http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Kirtland,_Ohio.  The following paragraphs are quotes from this article:

During most of the 1830s there were two gathering places for Latter-day Saints, one in western Missouri and the other in northeastern Ohio. Although more members gathered to the Missouri frontier, Kirtland, Ohio, was the principal administrative headquarters of the Church and the major base for directing missionary work from 1831 until early 1838…. The major growth of the LDS population in Kirtland began in 1833. The number rose from approximately 100 in that year to 2,000 in 1838.

Describing conditions in the Kirtland community in the mid-1830s, one contemporary wrote, "They came, men, women, and children, in every conceivable manner, some with horses, oxen, and vehicles rough and rude, while others had walked all or part of the distance. The future "City of the Saints' appeared like one besieged. Every available house, shop, hut, or barn was filled to its utmost capacity. Even boxes were roughly extemporized and used for shelter until something more permanent could be secured" (History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio, p. 248).

The sudden influx of Latter-day Saints to Kirtland had a major impact on the community. One of the visible changes was the increase of small temporary dwellings. Although log and small frame houses dotted the landscape during the first two decades of colonization, larger and more permanent frame and brick structures were erected before 1830. Squatters or renters, comprising half of the population in 1830, lived in small frame houses. As Mormon immigration increased, however, clusters of small unadorned cabins, a throwback to the dwellings of the earliest settlers, appeared primarily in the northwestern section of the township.

Most Latter-day Saints were poorer than the older settlers, partly because the Mormons were recent immigrants. Prior to joining the Church, most members were not transients, nor were they from the lowest economic classes in the East. Many, however, lost economic ground by migrating to Kirtland. Some sold farms in New York or New England for less than the market value, and many left equipment in the East because of the expense of transporting it. All spent a portion of the money derived from such sales on moving their families and supplies westward.

Kirtland Temple
1846 Lithograph 

After arriving in Kirtland, Latter-day Saints fell further behind economically as a result of contributing labor and scarce resources to Church projects. The Church erected a variety of buildings in Kirtland between the east branch of the Chagrin River and the eastern portion of a plateau that overlooked the river. The principal structure was the Kirtland Temple. For almost three years, between the summer of 1833 and the spring of 1836, nearly all members united in building the three-story "House of the Lord" to be used as a meetinghouse and school.

Some of the non-Mormon residents considered the intrusion of Latter-day Saints into the community a threat to their traditional pattern of living. Some complained that the Mormon practice of living in harmony with revelations recorded by a prophet was hostile to the American spirit of democracy. Residents not only rejected LDS beliefs regarding visions, revelations, and the restoration but also claimed that the Latter-day Saints had increased the poverty of the community and were a political and economic threat. The political competition reached a peak in 1837 when Latter-day Saints were elected to all local township offices except for the office of constable. Prior to that year, only four Latter-day Saints had been elected to a major office, and there had been a tendency for the citizens to reelect the earliest settlers. In addition to gaining control of the local government, Latter-day Saints transformed the township's voting pattern from Whig to Democratic. Since Kirtland was located in a Whig section of Ohio and all townships in Geauga County in the mid-1830s, except Kirtland, supported that party, Whigs in northeastern Ohio united in opposition to the Mormons. Complaints and charges escalated into threats and mob action.

Kirtland Safety Society Bank banknote

Early in 1838, amid intensifying pressures from outside the Church and apostasy within, accentuated by the demise of the Kirtland Safety Society and the Panic of 1837 (see Kirtland Economy), the exodus of Latter-day Saints from Kirtland and vicinity began. Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, and other leaders fled from mobs in January. Other members gradually followed.

                With family living in Kirtland, John and Hannah probably were kept informed of developments in Kirtland on a regular basis.  The difficult living conditions, the rise of apostasy and by 1837 the financial problems caused by the collapse of the Kirtland Safety Society would all be negatives in John’s eye.  For a period he appears to have been able to keep Hannah in Maine.  The situation changed rapidly in early 1838.  Returning to The Encyclopedia of Mormonism we read: “In most instances small groups of less than fifty traveled westward. On July 5, 1838, however, more than 500 members left in a stream of fifty-nine wagons-with twenty-seven tents, ninety-seven horses, twenty-two oxen, sixty-nine cows, and one bull. As this long wagon train, known as Kirtland Camp, moved across the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, spectators gathered to watch the sight. Some gave encouragement, while others jeered and threatened violence. Because of financial problems, many in this group were asked by the leaders to leave the camp, so that only a portion of them reached the Missouri frontier… By mid-July 1838, more than 1,600 Latter-day Saints in the Kirtland area had reluctantly left the temple, vacated their homes, and headed westward.”

Route of the Kirtland Camp

Kirtland Camp in Mansfield, Ohio
(facing persecution by local inhabitants)

Historical Marker for Kirtland Camp

                One can only imagine the gloom Hannah would have felt when she learned that her children had left  (Dominicus, William, John, and Eliza) Kirtland headed for the edge of civilization in western Missouri.  In February 1838 William and Sarah accompanied by his sister Eliza Ann and her new husband James C. Snow left on their own. Later in July 1838 as part of the Kirtland Company, Dominicus and John Jr and families left.  The Kirtland Company eventually caught up with William and Eliza Ann in Indiana and they joined with the Company for the rest of the trip.  At this point it can be imagined that Hannah redoubled her efforts to persuade John to move where she could be closer to her children.  It appears that they eventually came to a compromise in the later part of 1838. 

 

                On 25 October 1838 we read that Andrew N Stowe was chosen in Newry as collector of taxes to fill the vacancy of John Carter.  At the same time Stephen E Frost was chosen to take John’s place as highwayman and surveyor.  Since John was in attendance at the meeting of 10 Sep 1838 we can narrow the date that John and Hannah left Newry to between mid-September to late October 1838.  Since the rest of the family had left Kirtland on July 5 of that year, they had a large head start but were making very slow time.  The Kirtland Camp groups were financially strapped and had trouble obtaining supplies and therefore had to stop to work to earn money to buy supplies.  Their progress was extremely slow and they would not reach their destination at Far West, Missouri until October 2^nd.

(The next episode will detail John and Hannah’s trip to Missouri and where they finally settle.)

HANNAH KNIGHT LIBBY – Part 14 – THE MORMON MOVEMENT IN MAINE 1832 – 1836

               Hannah was not baptized in a vacuum on 4 July 1834.   Putting her baptism into historical context will help to explain the events that transpired after that date and their effect on the Carter family.

                The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was founded on 6 Apr 1830.  Mormon… “missionaries first arrived in Maine in 1832, and in that year they baptized Timothy Smith in Saco, after which a branch of the church was formed.  Missionaries Wilford Woodruff and Jonathan Hale converted approximately one hundred persons from the Fox Islands—now Vinalhaven and North Haven—in 1837-1838.  Forty-six converted in Bethel/Newry, Maine, between 1833 and 1870 (mostly during the 1830s)…” (Carole York, “WESTERN MAINE SAINTS [Part 4]- The York and Carter Families: Conversion to Mormonism and Western Migration, in The Courier, Volume 31, No. 4 (2007))

                The arrival of missionaries and their success in converting people in the local communities was accompanied with much controversy and outright adversity to the new Church.  A chapter in the town history of Saco, ‘The Mormon Invasion,’ describes the reaction to the missionaries by many townspeople: “The Mormon elders were unwearied in their efforts to enlarge the circle of their influence and to drum up recruits for their semi-religious community.  Like flaming heralds, they traveled from town to town, and their evident sincerity and unbounded enthusiasm drew thousands to them.  But there was determined opposition.  The ministers of the gospel stood outside and openly warned their people to keep clear of these missionaries of a strange faith.  The culminating effect proved that the spirit of the Mormons was identical to Cochranism [one of the new sects that grew out of the Second Great Awakening].  Both systems produced the same ruinous upheaval in the domestic circle, and the wreckage of blasted homes was scattered all along the coast where the devastating storm held sway.”  (Ibid.)

                In June of 1832 two Mormon missionaries arrived in Letter B (the present Upton, Maine about 20 miles northeast of Newry on the road to Errol, New Hampshire.)  These men, Horace Cowan and Hazen Aldrich, obtained lodging in the home of Daniel Bean, Sr. Both Daniel Bean, Sr., and his son and namesake had, since coming to Letter B in the 1820s, welcomed clergymen representing various denominations—Baptist, Congregational, Methodist, Unitarian—and offered them a meeting room where they could preach.  In that remote pioneer settlement, visitors “from away” were usually welcomed for the news they brought from the “civilized” world, and for many the preaching provided a change from the daily round of farm work and homemaking chores.  The next day Hazen Aldrich arrived and the two Latter-day Saints (Mormons) began telling their story to anyone who had the time or interest to listen.  One of Daniel Bean’s sons later reported that the preaching of Hazen Aldrich and Horace Cowan was so well received that the Mormons soon organized a church of a large number of members, entirely breaking up the Free Will Baptists and the Congregationalists.  As Peter Smith Bean later recalled, “They took whole families . . . Half the settlers left and were believers in the Mormon doctrine.” (Mary E Valentine, WESTERN MAINE SAINTS, [Part 1] - Mormon Missionaries in the 1830s, in The Courier, Volume 29, No. 1 (2005))

               

John F. Boynton

                Daniel Bean, Jr., was baptized 23 March 1833 into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  He became active as an Elder, missionary and leader of the LDS branch in the western Maine mountains.  It was this same Daniel Bean, Jr., who with John F. Boynton (a member of the quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the LDS Church) arrived at the door of the Carter home on 4 July 1834.  They had been busy converting several of the community previously.  Dominicus Carter apparently had been baptized a few days earlier and just two days earlier they had baptized Patty Bartlett Sessions in the Andover West Surplus (now North Newry.) (Ibid.)  It was mentioned earlier that Hannah’s miraculous healing and baptism led to the growth of the Church in Newry but it appears the group had already begun to grow prior to her baptism. 

                The joy that Hannah experienced surely led her to want her other children to partake of spirit of this new faith of hers.  Along with Dominicus, who appears to already be a member, Hannah was joined in baptism by her children John H (age 18) and Eliza Ann (age 16).  The exact baptism date of another unmarried child, Richard Harrison (age 14), appears to have been about 31 Oct 1834.  Two other married children William F (baptized 17 Nov 1834) and Hannah (who was baptized between the time of her mother's baptism and 1837 when she and Aaron M York moved to Kirtland) shows the effect of the married children having a harder time to convert.  Her oldest daughter Almira, who was already married in 1834 never did join the church.  Her then 21 year old son, Philip Libby, soon left home for Massachusetts and didn’t join the church either, though he and Almira and their families joined the family in Tioga, Illinois years later.  Lastly, the youngest daughter Mary Jane, just 11 in 1834, never joined the church but lived with John and Hannah until her marriage in Missouri in 1840.

William McLellin

                There are no particulars known about how the Church functioned in Newry.  Surely this growth of the LDS Church did cause some commotion within the community.  The Mormon leadership didn’t leave these new members entirely to their own devices.  Daniel Bean, Jr. and an Apostle, William McLellin, were in this area from Newry to Errol, New Hampshire in August of 1835. (Ibid.)

On 15 August 1835, Brigham Young and Lyman Johnson visited Newry.  They held a conference at the home of David and Patty Sessions, and Brigham Young crossed the Androscoggin River to preach at the Middle Intervale Meetinghouse, in Bethel, which at the time was without a settled pastor.  At the meeting in the Sessions home, Young spoke of “establishing Zion” somewhere in the west, a place where Saints could live together and practice their religious beliefs without fear of persecution.  He encouraged the local Saints to sell their farms and travel to Missouri to join others in this endeavor.  On August 21 of the same year, the Sessions were visited by another Mormon elder and missionary, William McLellin, who recorded in his journal that he had preached about two hours at a “bro Cessions… Brigham Young and other members of the Twelve Apostles visited Newry again in August 1836, and once more preached in at Middle Intervale.  He again urged the members of the Newry branch to sell their farms in Maine and travel to Missouri where the Saints were gathering.”    (Mary E. Valentine, WESTERN MAINE SAINTS, [Part 2] - A Newry Family Who Joined the Latter-Day Saints in Seeking a Home in the West, The Courier, Volume 29, No. 2 (2005))

Middle Intervale Church, Bethel, Maine

So as Hannah became familiar with her faith the leaders of the Church were already imploring the members to leave Maine and head out west where the Church was gathering.  Hannah had to be conflicted in this – especially with a husband that didn’t believe in her new faith.  Her married sons Dominicus and William did heed this call and left for Kirtland, Ohio in 1836 (probably in the spring.)  At this point Hannah faced a difficult dilemma. She had two single children, John approaching 20 and Eliza 18, who if they stayed in Newry would find it difficult to find someone of the faith to marry.  Surely it was their mother, Hannah, who was behind the fact that these two unmarried children left with their married siblings that spring and traveled to Ohio.  Hannah would be vindicated for this move as both John and Eliza found mates and married within the Mormon faith during the short time they were in Kirtland.

This left Hannah and her younger son, Richard Harrison as the only Carter family members of the Church left in her home in Newry by the end of the year 1836. (Her married daughter Hannah, who had married Aaron M York, and had joined the Church at some point, was also still in Newry, too.) John apparently saw no reason to be leaving Newry and Hannah, having to make a choice, chose to stay with her husband.  She and John surely loved one another as though the family was being pulled apart, they stayed together.     

There is evidence to support the assertion that John and Hannah remained in Newry.  His wife and some children did affect his standing in the community as he held no office in Newry from 1833 until March of 1836.  At that time, he was elected a Fence Viewer (inspector).  Later in March 1838 he was chosen as a Highwayman (overseer) on the same day he was elected Constable and Tax Collector.  So any assertion that John and Hannah were in Kirtland during this time simply can’t be true.

(Coming up – The Carters finally leave Maine for Missouri.) 

HANNAH KNIGHT LIBBY – Part 14 – THE MORMON MOVEMENT IN MAINE 1832 – 1836

               Hannah was not baptized in a vacuum on 4 July 1834.   Putting her baptism into historical context will help to explain the events that transpired after that date and their effect on the Carter family.

                The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was founded on 6 Apr 1830.  Mormon… “missionaries first arrived in Maine in 1832, and in that year they baptized Timothy Smith in Saco, after which a branch of the church was formed.  Missionaries Wilford Woodruff and Jonathan Hale converted approximately one hundred persons from the Fox Islands—now Vinalhaven and North Haven—in 1837-1838.  Forty-six converted in Bethel/Newry, Maine, between 1833 and 1870 (mostly during the 1830s)…” (Carole York, “WESTERN MAINE SAINTS [Part 4]- The York and Carter Families: Conversion to Mormonism and Western Migration, in The Courier, Volume 31, No. 4 (2007))

                The arrival of missionaries and their success in converting people in the local communities was accompanied with much controversy and outright adversity to the new Church.  A chapter in the town history of Saco, ‘The Mormon Invasion,’ describes the reaction to the missionaries by many townspeople: “The Mormon elders were unwearied in their efforts to enlarge the circle of their influence and to drum up recruits for their semi-religious community.  Like flaming heralds, they traveled from town to town, and their evident sincerity and unbounded enthusiasm drew thousands to them.  But there was determined opposition.  The ministers of the gospel stood outside and openly warned their people to keep clear of these missionaries of a strange faith.  The culminating effect proved that the spirit of the Mormons was identical to Cochranism [one of the new sects that grew out of the Second Great Awakening].  Both systems produced the same ruinous upheaval in the domestic circle, and the wreckage of blasted homes was scattered all along the coast where the devastating storm held sway.”  (Ibid.)

                In June of 1832 two Mormon missionaries arrived in Letter B (the present Upton, Maine about 20 miles northeast of Newry on the road to Errol, New Hampshire.)  These men, Horace Cowan and Hazen Aldrich, obtained lodging in the home of Daniel Bean, Sr. Both Daniel Bean, Sr., and his son and namesake had, since coming to Letter B in the 1820s, welcomed clergymen representing various denominations—Baptist, Congregational, Methodist, Unitarian—and offered them a meeting room where they could preach.  In that remote pioneer settlement, visitors “from away” were usually welcomed for the news they brought from the “civilized” world, and for many the preaching provided a change from the daily round of farm work and homemaking chores.  The next day Hazen Aldrich arrived and the two Latter-day Saints (Mormons) began telling their story to anyone who had the time or interest to listen.  One of Daniel Bean’s sons later reported that the preaching of Hazen Aldrich and Horace Cowan was so well received that the Mormons soon organized a church of a large number of members, entirely breaking up the Free Will Baptists and the Congregationalists.  As Peter Smith Bean later recalled, “They took whole families . . . Half the settlers left and were believers in the Mormon doctrine.” (Mary E Valentine, WESTERN MAINE SAINTS, [Part 1] - Mormon Missionaries in the 1830s, in The Courier, Volume 29, No. 1 (2005))

               

John F. Boynton

                Daniel Bean, Jr., was baptized 23 March 1833 into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  He became active as an Elder, missionary and leader of the LDS branch in the western Maine mountains.  It was this same Daniel Bean, Jr., who with John F. Boynton (a member of the quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the LDS Church) arrived at the door of the Carter home on 4 July 1834.  They had been busy converting several of the community previously.  Dominicus Carter apparently had been baptized a few days earlier and just two days earlier they had baptized Patty Bartlett Sessions in the Andover West Surplus (now North Newry.) (Ibid.)  It was mentioned earlier that Hannah’s miraculous healing and baptism led to the growth of the Church in Newry but it appears the group had already begun to grow prior to her baptism. 

                The joy that Hannah experienced surely led her to want her other children to partake of spirit of this new faith of hers.  Along with Dominicus, who appears to already be a member, Hannah was joined in baptism by her children John H (age 18) and Eliza Ann (age 16).  The exact baptism date of another unmarried child, Richard Harrison (age 14), appears to have been about 31 Oct 1834.  Two other married children William F (baptized 17 Nov 1834) and Hannah (who appears to have waited until 1844 to be baptized) shows the effect of the married children having a harder time to convert.  Her oldest daughter Almira, who was already married in 1834 never did join the church.  Her then 21 year old son, Philip Libby, soon left home for Massachusetts and didn’t join the church either, though he and Almira and their families joined the family in Tioga, Illinois years later.  Lastly, the youngest daughter Mary Jane, just 11 in 1834, never joined the church but lived with John and Hannah until her marriage in Missouri in 1840.

William McLellin

                There are no particulars known about how the Church functioned in Newry.  Surely this growth of the LDS Church did cause some commotion within the community.  The Mormon leadership didn’t leave these new members entirely to their own devices.  Daniel Bean, Jr. and an Apostle, William McLellin, were in this area from Newry to Errol, New Hampshire in August of 1835. (Ibid.)

On 15 August 1835, Brigham Young and Lyman Johnson visited Newry.  They held a conference at the home of David and Patty Sessions, and Brigham Young crossed the Androscoggin River to preach at the Middle Intervale Meetinghouse, in Bethel, which at the time was without a settled pastor.  At the meeting in the Sessions home, Young spoke of “establishing Zion” somewhere in the west, a place where Saints could live together and practice their religious beliefs without fear of persecution.  He encouraged the local Saints to sell their farms and travel to Missouri to join others in this endeavor.  On August 21 of the same year, the Sessions were visited by another Mormon elder and missionary, William McLellin, who recorded in his journal that he had preached about two hours at a “bro Cessions… Brigham Young and other members of the Twelve Apostles visited Newry again in August 1836, and once more preached in at Middle Intervale.  He again urged the members of the Newry branch to sell their farms in Maine and travel to Missouri where the Saints were gathering.”    (Mary E. Valentine, WESTERN MAINE SAINTS, [Part 2] - A Newry Family Who Joined the Latter-Day Saints in Seeking a Home in the West, The Courier, Volume 29, No. 2 (2005))

Middle Intervale Church, Bethel, Maine

So as Hannah became familiar with her faith the leaders of the Church were already imploring the members to leave Maine and head out west where the Church was gathering.  Hannah had to be conflicted in this – especially with a husband that didn’t believe in her new faith.  Her married sons Dominicus and William did heed this call and left for Kirtland, Ohio in 1836 (probably in the spring.)  At this point Hannah faced a difficult dilemma. She had two single children, John approaching 20 and Eliza 18, who if they stayed in Newry would find it difficult to find someone of the faith to marry.  Surely it was their mother, Hannah, who was behind the fact that these two unmarried children left with their married siblings that spring and traveled to Ohio.  Hannah would be vindicated for this move as both John and Eliza found mates and married within the Mormon faith during the short time they were in Kirtland.

This left Hannah and her younger son, Richard Harrison as the only Carter family members of the Church left in Newry by the end of the year 1836.  John apparently saw no reason to be leaving Newry and Hannah, having to make a choice, chose to stay with her husband.  She and John surely loved one another as though the family was being pulled apart, they stayed together.   

There is evidence to support the assertion that John and Hannah remained in Newry.  His wife and some children did affect his standing in the community as he held no office in Newry from 1833 until March of 1836.  At that time, he was elected a Fence Viewer (inspector).  Later in March 1838 he was chosen as a Highwayman (overseer) on the same day he was elected Constable and Tax Collector.  So any assertion that John and Hannah were in Kirtland during this time simply can’t be true.

(Coming up – The Carters finally leave Maine for Missouri.)