LIFE OF JOHN CARTER - Part 17 - JOHN AND HANNAH MOVE TO MISSOURI

John has, in the past, been listed as traveling with his Mormon family to Missouri but that isn’t true in fact.  Yes, he traveled to Missouri; but no, he didn’t travel with the family.  His children in Ohio had already begun their journey to Missouri prior to John’s leaving Newry, Maine. Any reference to a John Carter in the travels of the Mormon part of the family have to be references to John Carter, Jr., his son and not the father.

Early in 1838 William and his family along with the newly married Eliza Ann Carter and her husband James Chauncey Snow left Kirtland for Missouri in a wagon with a yoke of oxen to pull it.[1]  A couple of months later, and as part of the Kirtland Company, Dominicus and his brother John (not his Father John) left Kirtland for the same destination.  Theirs would be an arduous trip ending some months later in Caldwell Co., Missouri where mobs were already forming to drive the Mormons out or kill them.[2]  This Kirtland Company in fact organized on July 5, 1838 (178 years ago today – as this is being written July 5, 2016).  “July 5, 1838 - Just over 500 Saints began to gather ‘about one hundred rods south of the House of the Lord’ in Kirtland, Ohio, to organize and prepare themselves for the journey to Missouri. They were the remaining faithful Saints in Kirtland who were the poor and destitute who would join together for the journey west in what was to be called the ‘Kirtland Camp.’ They would arrive in October, 1838, where the Prophet Joseph Smith settled them in Adam-ondi-Ahman just a couple weeks before the mob action against the Saints resulted in the Extermination Order. This journey of the poor, but faithful Saints, from Kirtland to Missouri, would become one of the great stories in Church History.[3]

            One would have to think that the family in Ohio had contacted their parents back in Maine and notified them of the impending move to Zion (Missouri.)  Since the last of the family left Kirtland in July, 1838 and John and Hannah probably received notice of this by mid-July, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to think that given couple of months to prepare that, John could be ready to move from Newry by mid-September.           

How John and his family traveled to Missouri is not known.  All is known is that John was in Newry, Maine on 10 September 1838 and had left some time prior to25 October 1838 when it was reported that he had vacated his office in Newry.  Even if he left Newry on 11 September 1838 he would have had to make great time as he signed a deed of purchase for land in Monroe Co., Missouri on 10 November 1838 – just two months later.

They had to make remarkable time.  Unfortunately, they left no record of how this trip was accomplished.  Whereas his kids the “poor and destitute” of Kirtland, John had adequate money and could have used it to affect a quick passage.  Because of the distance from Newry to Monroe Co., Missouri was about 1500 miles it would have taken a well-provisioned wagon just about two months to make this journey.  Possibly they traveled part of the way by river boat or steam boat.  Maybe they traveled by stage coach, but however they did it they were in Missouri in just two months.  What is interesting is that even giving his children a two-month head start and his having to travel all the way from Maine, John and Hannah almost arrived in Missouri at the same time as their children.

            John did not go to the center of Mormon settlement in Caldwell County but instead settled in the eastern part of Monroe County some 4 counties to the east of his children.  In fact, this location was only two counties south west of Adams County in Illinois on the other side of the Mississippi River.   Here is an abstract of this deed[4]:

            This Deed, made and concluded on this Tenth day of November in the year of our lord eighteen hundred and thirty eight by and between B. Robb & Catherine M B. his wife of the County of Monroe and the state of Missouri of the first part and John Carter of the County of Monroe and State aforesaid of the second part …in consideration of the sum of two hundred dollars current money of the United States… land lying and being included in the said county of Monroe in the state aforesaid vis – The North West one fourth of South East quarter of Section No. 25, Township 55 North of the Base line, range No. 9 of the fifth principal meridian containing forty acres….On this tenth day of November in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and thirty eight.

            One might wonder if this is our John Carter.  The locating of this document began with the discovery online of marriage record of John’s youngest daughter, Mary Jane Carter to Jacob Dooley in Monroe Co., MO on 27 Aug 1840.  The text of this record reads[5]: 

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

Mary Jane Carter Marriage License

            This was an unexpected find and was doubly valuable as John had to give consent as Mary Jane was only 17 at the time.  With this document this is little doubt of the previously mentioned deed being executed by our John Carter.

            The stay would be short-lived in Missouri as our next episode will describe.

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[1] Leora Carter Scharrer; Life of William F. Carter, (self-published, no date), FHL Call # 921.73 A1 #10, p. 2-3.

[2] Barton L Carter; Dominicus Carter, Latter-Day Pioneer, (self-published, no date), p. 16 – 19.

[3] Copyright 2016 LatterdayLight.com – entry for July 5, 2016

[4] Monroe County, Missouri, Deeds, Book E, p. 574(Family History Library Film 975063)

[5] 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.

LIFE OF JOHN CARTER - Part 16 - SO WHERE WAS JOHN CARTER?

            John was one of the leaders of Newry.  He was a major land holder and tax payer.  He had held various offices over the years in the town government.  It is possible that John was not willing to give up his standing in the community and join the Mormon faith.  This is only speculation but the facts as we know them would support this view.  As his family began to emigrate from Newry John continued to stay on.  He paid taxes in 1837 and 1838 as he had since 1811.  It is interesting that on the 1838 tax roll John no longer had any oxen – in fact his total livestock consisted of 1 horse, 2 cows and 1 swine.[1]  Most of his family was now gone and not much livestock was needed or maybe he was making plans for leaving himself.  The following is a list of his elected offices in Newry:

John Carter's Elected Offices While in Newry, Maine

            How long did he stay in Newry?  On 15 Mar 1838 John was elected collector and constable of the town.  He actually called a meeting for 10 Sep 1838 and was present and was paid $1.50 for his expenses in calling the meeting.[2]  At the next meeting on 25 Oct 1838 John was being replaced as collector and constable as he had vacated his office.[3]  Therefore he must have left town sometime after 10 September.  Was Hannah with him?  There is no evidence that she was or wasn’t.  Logic would hold that she was with him and after they heard that the rest of the family in Ohio was leaving for Missouri, it isn’t hard to see that Hannah prevailed on John to move out West to be near them.  If Hannah hadn’t been there, this writer doubts John would have left Maine.  With them were surely Mary Jane and most likely Richard Harrison, as they were the youngest offspring of the family and at this point not married.  

            The fact that they left suddenly can be seen in John's vacating his office and that no record of any land sale has been found.  Records are found for John purchasing in Newry about 262 acres of land by 1809.  In 1816 and 1817 John had previously sold two parcels of land.  Here are the abstracts:

            The first deed is found on Family History Library Film 11617, from the Eastern District of Oxford County, Book 26, p. 136:    Know all men by these presents, that I, John Carter of Newry County of Oxford and State of Massachusetts, Yeoman, in consideration of the sum of one hundred dollars paid by Josiah Smith of said Newry, Yeoman…a certain part of a lot of land lying being and situate on the North end of the lot No. Three in the third range containing fifty acres… this twenty seventh day of August in the Year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixteen.  Received November 19^th, 1825.[4]

            The second deed was recorded on the next page of the deed book:  Know all men by these presents, that I, John Carter of Newry in the County of Oxford and State of Massachusetts, Yeoman in consideration of the sum of two hundred dollars paid me by Josiah Smith of Newry aforesaid Yeoman…a certain parcel of land situated in the town of Newry on the East side of Bair River part of lots No. two and No. three in the third range of lots on the east side of the river….containing sixty eight acres and three fourths of the same more or less…this Eleventh day of March in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and seventeen.  Received November 19^th, 1825.[5]

            It may have been that John entered into these agreements with Josiah Smith to purchase about half of John’s land but John wasn’t really paid right away.  Since John didn’t record them until 1825 it can be guessed that it took that length of time for Josiah to pay the $300 John was owed.  Even with the sale of this land John still owned between 120 and 130 acres.  What happened to this land when John left Newry?  There is no known answer to that question.  Possibly he left it with Almira Carter Tripp as she and Alvin and their family stayed in Newry for several more years.  In any case John never entered into any deeds of sale upon leaving Newry.

            Our next post will discuss where John went when he left Newry in the Autumn of 1838.

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[1] Office of Town Clerk, Newry, Maine, Town Records, 1805 - 1846, op. cit.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Oxford County, Maine, Eastern District, Deeds, 26:136 (Family History Library Film # 11617).

[5] Ibid., p. 137.

LIFE OF JOHN CARTER - Part 15 - THE EXODUS FROM NEWRY PART 1

The exodus from Newry for the Carter is poorly documented.  There are few contemporary records that spell out when specific people left Newry.  The basic story has traditionally been that the family left Newry together for Kirtland but that just isn’t true as the facts will witness. 

Brigham Young

            Brigham Young first came to the Newry area, preaching in Bethel on 15 Aug 1835.  At that time he preached the wisdom of the local Saints moving to Missouri where the main body of the Church was moving.  Most likely the exodus probably began sometime between this 1835 meeting and the time of the August conference in 1836 cited previously.  William and Dominicus both paid taxes in Newry in 1836 but both were missing from the tax rolls the following year.[1]  

            The only independent evidences we have of the departure / arrival times for the individual members come from specific dates we can glean from their family records.  If the records can be believed – Dominicus’ daughter Sarah Emily was born in Kirtland on 11 May 1836 so they must have gone west before the 1836 conference.   William stated he was ordained an Elder in Kirtland in 1836.  After the conference of August 1836 two more of the family left:  “As was usual in those days, the spirit of gathering rested upon the converts, and agreeable to the counsel given, all who would do so gathered to the body of the Church then located in Kirtland, Ohio.  My mother prepared to take the journey with the little company that was going with the returning elders.  These were John Carter with his sister, Eliza, of Newry, Maine; Alphia Woodman and Phoebe Carter from Scarboro, Maine; and others that I do not call to mind at this time.  Eliza Carter became the wife of James C. Snow, and Phoebe Carter was the wife of Apostle Wilford Woodruff.”[2] It is interesting that John 20 and Eliza Ann 18 would be allowed to travel to Kirtland without their immediate family but they were in good hands and had older brothers already there.  As noted Eliza would marry in Kirtland on 10 Feb 1838 to James Chauncey Snow and John Jr. would marry Elizabeth Runnels Sweat near there on 11 Apr 1838.   John Jr. is the only John Carter from our family that went to Kirtland as further facts will show.

            What of the other children of John and Hannah?  Almira Carter Tripp and her husband, Alvin Baron Tripp, remained in Newry past the birth of her last child, Sarah, on Christmas Day, 1843. They were the last of the family to leave Newry.   Hannah Carter York had married Aaron Mareon York back in 1829 in Bethel and remained in the Bethel/Newry area until sometime between the birth of her James Chauncey Snow York on 16 July 1837 in Newry and John William York’s birth on 2 Sep 1841 in Lima, Illinois.  Hannah is stated as joining the Church in 1844 and Aaron’s church membership states he joined on 1 Jan 1846.  In either case this would make them late converts of the Church in our family.  Philip Libby Carter left Newry and was in Lowell, Massachusetts at some point before 17 Jul 1841 (based on a purchase receipt dated that day in Lowell, Mass. that was in possession of his daughter Dora Carter Bolt). He married Martha Eames York on 26 Nov 1845 in Lowell and was still there in 1850 when his family was enumerated on the census there.  He would become the last of the family to arrive in the Nauvoo area.

              In the next installment we will discuss why John Carter Sr. was never in Kirtland.

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[1] Office of Town Clerk, Newry, Maine, Town Records, 1805 - 1846, op. cit.

[2] Kate B Carter; Treasures of Pioneer History, op. cit.

LIFE OF JOHN CARTER – Part 14 – TECHNOLOGY VERIFIES PART OF HANNAH’S BAPTISM STORY

                The baptism of Hannah has always played a huge part in the tradition of the Carter family.  As previously stated there is only one known contemporary account of this event thanks to the then 15 year old Eliza Ann Carter Snow’s short journal.  It seems inexplicable that with 11 living family members (not counting spouses of the children) there would only be one account of this event.   The fact is we have one account to draw on.

                Questions arise – most that will never be answered - surrounding this day and event:

1.       What illness did Hannah suffer that brought her neigh unto death?

2.       How did the missionaries just happen to show up at her door – was it inspiration or had someone else sent them (such as Dominicus?)

3.       Who was present that day?  Were the married children around?  Did the married children even know about their mother being so sick?

4.       Was their house a half mile from the Bear River?

I have my opinions about each of the above questions but really #4 is the only question that can really be addressed with a definitive answer.  The ability to test this came with two “finds.”  The first a plot map of Newry showing where the various properties in Newry were located.  Secondly, I attended a class taught by Lisa Louise Cooke on using Google Earth.

When the decision to first settle Newry, Maine was made the orderly New Englanders divided up the land of this new community into rectangular lots consisting of about 100 acres each.  These lots were laid out in rows that ran from southwest to northeast.  These rows were called ranges.  The reference point for all this subdividing appears to be the point that the Bear Riven flowed into the  Androscoggin River. There was an east and west set of ranges based on which side of the Bear River they were  located.   Lot one of the eastern Range one was found on the north side of the Androscoggin River and east of the Bear River where they met.  The lots were sequentially numbered as they fanned out to the east.  There was a western range of lots that repeated this process starting with Lot one near the Bear River and sequentially increasing as they approached the Sunday River to the west.

Newry Maine 1805-1955 by Carrie Wight

John’s lots were in the eastern ranges.  His first purchase was Lots 2, 3 and part of 14 in Range 3.  Later he bought the south half of Lot 1 in Range 3.  This second purchase assured John of a minor contact with the Bear River on his property.   I was able to visualize all of this thanks to the book Newry Maine 1805 – 1955 by Carrie Wight where she published the Newry plot map.   With this information at my fingertips, it took a fortuitous attendance at a genealogy seminar class to bring this information to life.

 Several years ago I attended a seminar in northern Utah where Lisa Louise Cooke taught a class on “Google Earth for Genealogy.”  In this class she taught us how to take a map (like the Newry map) and overlay it on Google Earth so you could find in the present day where a property would be located.  This requires overlaying the map on Google Earth then manipulating it until to fits the contours of Google Earth.

The result – which is shown below – establishes that the middle of Lot 2 in Range 3 would be exactly a half mile from the Bear River.  Essentially this verifies that part Elia Ann’s account of her mother’s baptism.

In the summer of 2015 my wife and spent two weeks in New England.  As part of this trip we drove to Newry and, using the geo coordinates from Google Earth we were able to locate the approximate location of John Carter’s property.  It felt special to be standing along the side of the highway and knowing that Hannah walked along in this very place as she went to the Bear River to be baptized.

(This is 119 Bear River Road today.  According to the geocode coordinates this would have been where the portion of John's half of Lot 1 Range 3 was located.  The top picture is pointed towards the Bear River which is in the gully but not visible.  The lower picture faces east towards where the Carter home would have been on back in the woods.)

HANNAH KNIGHT LIBBY - Part 13 - HANNAH'S BAPTISM

Again, like in the previous post, I have relied heavily on a post previously published in the life of John Carter.  Changes I have made or information added to the original post will be shown in italics.)

We left John and Hannah coming into the year 1834 with 4 married children and 10 grandchildren and counting.  Life seemed to be going well.  Their continuation of living in Newry attests to the fact that their farm, and John’s blacksmithing, were bringing in the necessities of life.  But, then as now, life can change in a twinkling of an eye.

We know that in the following account of Hannah’s baptism that she was sick in bed and supposedly dying. What ailed her we are never told but it could have been any number of things from a simple flu to any of a number of contagious diseases like typhoid. Whatever the ailment was, the family considered her live to be in danger of being snuffed out.

Newry being really just a scattering of small family farms and communication not being like today, John probably sent out Philip and/or John to tell the married children of their mother’s sickness.  If the traditional baptism date of Dominicus, 30 Jun 1834, this would mean his mother took ill almost immediately after his baptism and the missionaries that miraculously appear at Hannah’s door were probably sent by Dominicus. 

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints practice baptism by immersion.  Candidates for baptism are usually taught by missionaries over several meetings so they can be exposed to the various teachings of the Church and understand the commitment that the convert is making.  The location for a baptism today is usually at a church building that has a specially designed fount, but a candidate for baptism can be baptized in any body of water that is deep enough to immerse them.  My own father was baptized in a horse trough. 

Baptism of Joseph Smith Jr.'s Parents 1830

This picture doesn’t depict Hannah’s baptism but is actually depicting the baptism of the parents of Joseph Smith in New York four years previous to Hannah’s baptism.  Except for the largeness of the water body I would imagine that the event probably looked something like this.  The number of people who gathered may not have been as many but I am sure this event did draw a crowd besides Hannah’s own children.

               So now we finally come to the day of Hannah Knight Libby Carter’s conversion and baptism, 4 July 1834. There is only one first-hand account of this event and we can thank Hannah’s daughter, Eliza Jane Carter Snow, for that.  If it was not for the recollections of a 15-year-old girl, who later in life in 1892 felt inspired to write down her impressions, we would have been left without any hard evidence of what happened that day.

Eliza Ann Carter

               We have to realize this was just four years after the Church was organized and the Carters lived literally in the back woods.   The original document is housed in the LDS Church History Library in Salt Lake City.  It is so fragile that you are not allowed to see or handle the original, so you have to deal with an aged microfilm.  Her entire diary written with pencil in a notebook is all of 6 pages long and the bulk of the story is the conversion story.  Being ever the skeptic I spent an afternoon pouring over the film trying to read each word so I could see if the transcription we have is accurate or not.  Not every word was readable on the original but I am satisfied that the transcription is an accurate record of what Eliza Ann wrote.

Bear River south of baptism site

               Eliza Ann Carter Snow wrote of that day: “I first embraced Mormonism in 1834, in the town of Newry, Oxford County, State of Maine.  The first Mormon elders I ever heard preach were John F. Boynton and Daniel Bean.  They came to my father's house, and my mother lay very sick.  The doctors had given her up.  The elders told her they were preaching a new doctrine and they told her that she could be healed if she could have faith, that they would hold hands on her.  They did lay hands on her and said, 'In the name of the Lord Jesus be thou made whole.'  And she was made whole and arose and called for her clothes and said I must go to the water.  She walked one-half mile and was baptized in the river called Bear River and confirmed.   And there was a large branch raised up in that place."   (Eliza Ann Carter Snow, Autobiographical Sketch, 1892 April 10, LDS Church History Library, MS 9676 – microfilm of the original handwritten record transcribed by the author, 14 Feb 2012.)  The quote of the day was John’s comment on this event, “That beats doctor bills.” (Ibid.) The date of the baptism is not recorded by Eliza Ann, or anyone else in the family for that matter.  It can be inferred by the fact that the consensus date recorded in new 
FamilySearch for the baptism of most of the members of the family is 4 July 1834. 

               The effect of Hannah’s being brought back from near death and subsequent baptism sowed the seeds of division in this family on religious grounds.  It is true that the family seemed to migrate together over the next 20 years but evidence will be presented that they really didn’t make the trek west together.  Those who appear to share the baptism date with Hannah were John Jr., and Eliza Ann.  Richard Harrison probably was baptized at that time as he lived in the home even though his recorded baptism date is 31 Oct 1832 – an obvious error.  Dominicus, as previously mentioned,  was baptized about this time.  In fact, his traditional baptism date is 30 Jun 1834.  William, who was married, joined the church a little later on 17 Nov 1834.  One of the girls who did join the church lacks a baptism date – Hannah is supposed to be baptized in 1844 which would make her the last of the family to join the Church.    Besides their father, John, Almira, Philip and Mary Jane never joined the church.  Almira was already married and pregnant with her 5 child on July 4, 1834, so she may have not witnessed the healing of her mother.  Possibly the need to be loyal to her husband, who may have not been receptive to the gospel, played a part in Almira’s failure to convert.  The whereabouts of Philip who was 21 in 1834 is not known for sure but most likely he was there.  Why he didn’t join is not known.  The surprise in the family would have to be Mary Jane, the baby of the family, and only 12 when this event happened.  Again it is only for us to guess as to why she didn’t join.

One last issue for today – I have long been a champion of John Carter.  I realize he has been a much misunderstood figure in our family history.  It is unfortunate that four words recorded by his then 15-year-old daughter would define his life – “That beats doctor bills.”  It just isn’t right to define a person based on four words.  John was a good man.  As time will show he will keep his wife in contact with her LDS family members, but for him organized religion was not necessary.    It would be so nice if we knew more about him.  Unfortunately, what we have is what we got and that is all.

In any case, the event of 4 July 1834 will begin the physical schism of the family over the following few years.  Regardless, Hannah never appears to look back and have any regrets for what transpired that day.  Surely she was relieved to have been healed and the miraculous way the events transpired left her with an undeniable faith in God and her new-found religion.  This faith would carry her through the remaining 30 plus years of her life, providing her with the needed strength to endure the many challenges – both physical and emotional – that she would experience over the ensuing decades.

LIFE OF JOHN CARTER - Part 13 - THE BAPTISM OF HANNAH KNIGHT LIBBY CARTER

Eliza Ann Carter Snow

So now we finally come to the day of Hannah Knight Libby Carter’s conversion and baptism, 4 July 1834. There is only one first-hand account of this event and we can thank Hannah’s daughter, Eliza Jane Carter Snow, for that.  If it was not for the recollections of a 15 year old girl, who later in life in 1892 felt inspired to write down her impressions, we would have been left without any hard evidence of what happened that day.

We have to realize this was just four years after the Church was organized and the Carters lived literally in the back woods.   The original document is housed in the LDS Church History Library in Salt Lake City.  It is so fragile that you are not allowed to see or handle the original, so you have to deal with an aged microfilm.  Her entire diary written with pencil in a notebook is all of 6 pages long and the bulk of the story is the conversion story.  Being ever the skeptic I spent an afternoon pouring over the film trying to read each word so I could see if the transcription we have is accurate or not.  Not every word was readable on the original but I am satisfied that the transcription is an accurate record of what Eliza Ann wrote.

Hannah Knight Libby Carter

Eliza Ann Carter Snow wrote the following:  “I first embraced Mormonism in 1834, in the town of Newry, Oxford County, State of Maine.  The first Mormon elders I ever heard preach were John F. Boynton and Daniel Bean.  They came to my father's house, and my mother lay very sick.  The doctors had given her up.  The elders told her they were preaching a new doctrine and they told her that she could be healed if she could have faith, that they would hold hands on her.  They did lay hands on her and said, 'In the name of the Lord Jesus be thou made whole.'  And she was made whole and arose and called for her clothes and said I must go to the water.  She walked one-half mile and was baptized in the river called Bear River and confirmed.   And there was a large branch raised up in that place."   (Eliza Ann Carter Snow, Autobiographical Sketch, 1892 April 10, LDS Church History Library, MS 9676 – microfilm of the original handwritten record transcribed by the author, 14 Feb 2012.)  The quote of the day was John’s comment on this event, “That beats doctor bills.” (Ibid.) The date of the baptism is not recorded by Eliza Ann, or anyone else in the family for that matter.  It can be inferred by the fact that the consensus date recorded in new FamilySearch for the baptism of most of the members of the family is 4 July 1834. 

  The effect of Hannah’s being brought back from near death and subsequent baptism sowed the seeds of division in this family on religious grounds.  It is true that the family seemed to migrate together over the next 20 years but evidence will be presented that they really didn’t make the trek west together.  Those who appear to share the baptism date with Hannah were John Jr., and Eliza Ann.  Richard Harrison probably was baptized at that time as he lived in the home even though his recorded baptism date is 31 Oct 1832 – an obvious error.  Dominicus was baptized about this time.  In fact his traditional baptism date is 30 Jun 1834.  Could he have been baptized first and could it have been him that sent the missionaries to his mother’s home?  It is for us to guess as the truth will probably never be known.  William, who was married, joined the church a little later on 17 Nov 1834.  One of the girls who did join the church lacks a baptism date – Hannah is supposed to be baptized in 1844 which would make her the last of the family to join the Church.    Besides their father, John, Almira, Philip and Mary Jane never joined the church.  Almira was already married and pregnant with her 5 child on July 4, 1834, so she may have not witnessed the healing of her mother.  Possibly the need to be loyal to her husband, who may have not been receptive to the gospel, played a part in Almira’s failure to convert.  The whereabouts of Philip who was 21 in 1834 is not known for sure but most likely he was there.  Why he didn’t join is not known.  The surprise in the family would have to be Mary Jane, the baby of the family, and only 12 when this event happened.  Again it is only for us to guess as to why she didn’t join.

One last issue for today – I have long been a champion of John Carter.  I realize he has been a much misunderstood figure in our family history.  It is unfortunate that four words recorded by his then 15 year old daughter would define his life – “That beats doctor bills.”  It just isn’t right to define a person based on four words.  John was a good man.  As time will show he will keep his wife in contact with her LDS family members, but for him organized religion was not necessary.    It would be so nice if we knew more about him.  Unfortunately what we have is what we got and that is all.

In any case, the event of 4 July 1834 will begin the physical schism of the family over the following few years.

LIFE OF JOHN CARTER - Part 12 - THE MISSIONARIES COME TO NEWRY

          One last episode before we explore the day of Hannah Knight Libby’s baptism into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints .   We, who have done any family history know where this story is headed but before going there I would like to take you where most members of the family has never gone – to learn about the climate of religion in Newry and the appearance of missionaries for the Church.  One other topic needs to be addressed – the actual first baptism in the family.  You see, in spite of family lore, it appears that Hannah wasn’t the first member of the Church in the Carter family.

          To tell this story I will need to rely heavily on the research of our cousin Carole York.  Carole wrote her master’s thesis for the University of New Hampshire in 2010 on Western Maine Saints: The First Mormons of Western Maine 1830—1890.  This thesis is about the forty-nine individuals and ten families who converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) in Bethel and Newry, Maine and the missionaries who brought them into the church.  So of all members of the family Carole is the best researched this phase of the family’s history.  Parts of her story were posted online after be published in The Courier (the publication of the Bethel Historical Society – See http://bethelhistorical.org/legacy-site/Western_Maine_Saints.html).

There was no organized religion in Newry in 1834.  In fact the first church was built there in 1865.  Services were sometimes held on the Sunday River and baptisms were administered at Artist Bridge.  There was a Baptist Church in Middle Intervale on the opposite side of the river in Bethel.  This church served the Newry area and parts of Hanover and Bethel.  To reach it, people in Newry would have to row a boat across the river or take a ferry if it was in operation.  It is unknown if the Carter’s worshiped with the local Baptists.  They had been members of the various Congregationalist churches in Scarborough.

Umbagog Lake from Letter B Township (Upton, Maine)

In June of 1832, two years after Joseph Smith published the Book of Mormon, there came a young man to the home of Daniel Bean, Jr., in Letter B (now Upton), an unorganized territory in the western mountains of Maine, just east of Lake Umbagog.  (This was about 15 miles NE of where the Carters lived.)  This man was Horace Cowan and he was joined shortly by Hazen Aldrich.  The two men began preaching the Latter-Day Saint doctrines and were 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.”  It was this Daniel Bean Jr., who with his companion, John F. Boynton would in 1834 bring Mormonism to the Carter family.

Not an awful lot is known about the life of Daniel Bean Jr.  He was the son of Daniel Bean Sr. and Margaret Shaw.  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.  Daniel’s grandparents were Jonathan Bean and Abigail Gordon.  For any of us who are descendants of Aaron M. York (and Hannah Carter) or Sarah York, wife of William Furlsbury Carter, this brings us a pleasant surprise.  Daniel Bean Jr. was actually our cousin as we too are descended from Jonathan and Abigail Gordon Bean.  Sarah York Carter her brother Aaron M. York were actually 1st cousins once removed from Daniel Bean.  This might account for the success he had in preaching to the Carters in Newry.

John F. Boynton

John F. Boynton was born September 20, 1811, in Bradford, Essex County, Mass.; baptized in September, 1832, by Joseph Smith, in Kirtland, Ohio, and ordained an elder by Sidney Rigdon. He performed a mission, together with Zebedee Coltrin, to Pennsylvania in 1832 and another one to Maine in 1833 and 1834. February 15, 1835, he was ordained an apostle in Kirtland, Ohio, under the hands of Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer and Martin Harris, after which he accompanied the Twelve on their mission to the Eastern States and Canada. During his last mission he borrowed all the money he could among the brethren, with which he entered into the mercantile business with Lyman E. Johnson, and followed it until he apostatized and was dis-fellowshipped from the quorum of apostles Sept. 3, 1837, in Kirtland, Ohio. On the following Sunday he made confessions and was forgiven, but as he did not repent of his evils, he was finally excommunicated from the Church. (http://www.gapages.com/boyntjf1.htm)

So who were the first Carter converts of  Daniel Bean Jr. and John F. Boynton?  Though there is some discrepancy in the records it appears that Dominicus Carter was baptized 30 Jun 1834.  One record I have seen showed 30 June 1832 but the 1834 date appears to be the accurate one.  If this is correct it was Dominicus who was baptized five days prior to his mother’s conversion and baptism.  This fact could have a big part to play in the story of his mother’s conversion story.  That story sill be coming next.