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

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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.)

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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.)