For three years, from July 1860 to September 1863, the Williams family lived in Smithfield, Cache Valley, in northern Utah. It was a difficult time for the nation, caught up as it was in the grip of the Civil War, and a difficult time for Utahns, especially Indians and Mormons, who were subjected to martial law by wartime-deployed federal troops. The settlers in Smithfield lived in a fort and faced bitterly cold weather and deadly whooping cough. When the pioneers left the fort’s protection to work their farms, they faced hostile raids by angry Shoshone warriors, who were locked in a bloody battle with the U.S. cavalry under the command of Major McGarry and Utah’s Irish-born commanding officer, Colonel Patrick Connor.
Dr. Ezra G. Williams, age thirty-six, together with the members of his family numbered eleven individuals when they moved to Smithfield: four adults and seven children. They included Ezra’s mother, Rebecca (age 61), his two wives, Henrietta (age 33) and Electa (age 20); and their children: Lucy Ellen (age 12), Mary Elizabeth (age 8), Frederick Granger (age 6), Ezra Henry Granger (age 4), Joseph Swain (age 2), Hyrum Royal (age 2), and John Albert (4 months).
The Lonely Birth of John Albert
The circumstances surrounding the birth of Henrietta’s sixth child were not happy. The family was still living in Salt Lake City, but her husband was away and her mother-in-law, Rebecca, was sick in bed. In addition, Henrietta had no change of clothing and no help for ten days, except from her own children. She remonstrates, from the vantage point of her writing in 1899, against the expectant mothers of today who have it easy by comparison.
Another incident in my experience. April 13th 1860, a son John Albert was born. . . . I laid in bed ten days without a change. no help, the neighbors being an Aristocratic Element did not concern themselves about the sick. My Husband was in Cache Valley, selecting a home for his family to move [to]. Left me & Baby when he was a week old. We hired a young girl to wash. she missed my suit, consequently I had no change, nor help to get out of bed. Oh, ye Mothers of the present day, must have a doctor, nurse, laundress, cook, and dainties. What would you think to pass through those scenes[?] small children trying to take care of themselves. A sick Mother in Law unable to wait on herself, and having to lie in bed and watch the proceedings. Dainties far out of reach.1
Move to Smithfield
Soon after Henrietta’s sixth child was born, the Williamses sold their farm on Mill Creek, five miles from Salt Lake City, and moved to Smithfield, Cache Valley. Henrietta wrote: “April 13th [1860] John Albert was born, his father left us when baby was 10 days old to seek a home in Cache Valley. In August we started soon after the Indian fight. When we found 2 brethren, Samuel Cozzens & Ira Merrills wounded, they were placed under his father’s care, both survived, are living at this date.”2 In the biographical sketch of Ezra G. Williams by his daughter Lucy Godfrey, the month for the family’s arrival in Cache Valley is given as July, not August, and the men he treated were Samuel Cousins and Schlyman Merrill. “In 1860 he moved to Smithfield Cache Co Utah he arrived a day or two after the fight with Indians July 23, 1860 and dressed and took care of the wounded, Samuel Cousins, and Schlyman Merrill. him and Edwin R. Bronson built the first saw mill on Summit Creek, Cache Co Utah.”3
Ezra had gone to Smithfield in April soon after the birth of John Albert to construct the sawmill on Summit Creek. His partner was his cousin-in-law Edwin Bronson. Henrietta wrote: “Dr Williams put a saw mill in Summit Creek Kanyon with Edwin Ruthvon Bronson his partner. . . . The Indians killed four settlers before we arrived, wounded Samuel Cozzens & Austin Merrill. Dr Williams took the care of the wounded, and they recovered.”4 In her 1893 account, Henrietta adds the name of the individual who bought the Williams farm: “1860 sold Mill Creek Farm to Bro John Long and moved to Smithfield Cache Valley.”5
All the above bits of information are brought together and confirmed in the account by their daughter, Lucy Ellen Williams Godfrey. Ezra did precede the family to Smithfield in order to construct a sawmill, and he took the cattle with him that he had obtained from the sale of their Mill Creek farm. Both Henrietta and Rebecca were bedridden while Ezra was away, but unlike sick Henrietta’s perspective, young Lucy Ellen thought the family “managed nicely.”
In 1860 my father, with others, was called to colonize Cache Valley and went with the first settlers to Smithfield. He and Edwin Bronson went to put up a sawmill in the spring, leaving my mother when my brother John Albert was two weeks old. Father had sold his place and taken mostly cattle for pay. He sold his Mill Creek farm to Mr. Long. They started April 29th with all but one cow, which was too poor to travel. On May 1st the snow fell a foot deep. My little brother and I had to feed the cow and get in the wood. The fun we had wading around in that deep snow! But the sun soon came out and the snow was soon gone. The cow got strong and we soon had all the milk that we wanted, and although Mother and Grandmother were both sick, we managed nicely.6
Lucy Ellen also described the journey from Salt Lake City to Smithfield, including an unfortunate accident.
In July father came to prepare for moving the family to Smithfield. Grandmother, as usual, drove the horse team. Two hired men drove the sheep, cows, and one ox team. My brother Fred, and I took turns driving the other one. Mother drove the gig. All went well until we reached Box-Elder Canyon. At a sharp turn of the river was a bridge. Fred was driving the wagon and was too close to the edge. The wheels ran off and over went the wagon, furniture and all the chairs were broken to bits; the cupboard was gathered in pieces, the stove was smashed, and all the things on the wagon got a good soaking. When all that could be was retrieved, we traveled on to Wellsville where we stopped that night. Next day we arrived at Smithfield.7
Chief Bear Hunter and the Mormon Settlers
As Mormon towns and farms spread out in Cache and Box Elder valleys, the settlers occupied the spring and summer gathering grounds of the Northwestern Shoshone, particularly those of Bear Hunter’s band, which generally forced the Shoshone into begging and thieving from the settlers in order to survive and created tension and fear of violence.
Henrietta recorded an incident with Chief Bear Hunter that occurred just before the Williamses arrived in Cache Valley and that showed the chief’s friendly relations with the Mormons.
Some of the Brethren went into the cedar to burn charcoal to sell at Richmond to the blacksmiths, in exchange for provisions while they were working. Bear Hunter shot an elk, the men caught a glimpse of [the] gun. They bestrode their horses and run them foaming into camp, scaring the eight families out of their wits. it rained all day. Dark and dismal. gave everyone the blues, as they sat watching all day and night for the Indians, not known how many, a dozen, or a thousand [would come]. Brother Thompson, with an old musket, his wife behind him with an old dull axe, to kill all that should attempt to come inside the door of their hut, with a dirt roof and a dirt floor. Next day came Bear Hunter to Thompson saying White man heaped scared[;] he went through all the maneouvres of the men flying homeward, then said Me kill elk, me want give white man some. My Father owned this ground, you are all welcome here[.] after giving them some meat, retired making the white men looking sheepish after their Indian scare.8
Dr. Williams Treats Chief Madigan and Forges a Friendship
Lucy Ellen recounts that in addition to serving the needs of the white settlers, her father offered medical help to the Indians as well, including one Chief Madigan, whose grandson played with the doctor’s son, Ezra Henry Granger Williams.
During the troubles with the Indians, the Dr. was often called to look after the sick Indians as well as the white people. One old chief, Madigan, a friendly old man, came to him for treatment. He had a white swelling on his hips. He was always trying to get his Indians to lay down their arms and forbade his own band to participate in any warfare with the settlers. Dr. Williams cleaned out the wounded thigh and made him a pair of crutches which he used. The chief’s wickiup was pitched near the Doctor’s home. His grandson played with Dr. Williams’ son, Ezra [Henry], which lasted throughout their lives. Years afterwards at a celebration at Lorin Farr Park at Ogden, some Indians were taking part. When the Indian recognized him, saying, “You know me, your papa made my wooden legs and made them better”. Ezra then recalled their boyhood days and they enjoyed a happy reunion, which attracted much attention.9
Indian Attack
Unfortunately, relations between Indians and settlers grew progressively hostile during the Williamses’ stay in Smithfield, due principally to the brutal raids against the Shoshone carried out by U.S. troops under orders from Colonel Patrick Edward Connor.10 Lucy, in recounting their arrival, described the layout of the camp and noted the settlers’ need to post guards due to what she called the Indian war.
We found the people in their wagons. They were drawn up in two lines facing east and west. Posts had been set and a brush shade was made over them. Stoves were set up between the wagons and all work was done inside the camp. A corral was built a short distance away where all the cows of the community were yarded when the herder brought them in and milked them and then stood guard there at night. The reason for all this caution was an Indian war. We arrived in Smithfield on the 22nd of July.11
In her 1899 “Incidents,” Henrietta adds more details regarding the Indian troubles they encountered when they first arrived, as well as their housing arrangements in the fort. “Cache Valley 1860. Husband preparing to move into an Indian country, and live in wagons, corralled into a fort. men cutting down brush on the creek, to prevent the Indians to ambush and take a shot at the settlers unawares. then building a Log House. Dirt roof. Dirt floor. Small window near the door. Guard out at night and living on pot luck, having the dish right side up should it rain porridge we might be able to catch some.”12
Lucy wrote that an Indian attack came as the settlers were preparing to celebrate the 24th of July.
The settlers were preparing for a celebration on the 23rd and 24th of July. They were building a bowery. Ira Merrill and Seliman, his brother, had gone into the canyon for brush. The women were cooking, not thinking of any danger when, at about three o’clock a cry, “The Indians are coming!” was heard. A few of the settlers had made dugouts in which to live until they could build houses, so into these the women and children ran for protection. They ran bullets out of their pewter mugs and spoons while the men fought. Two men coming from Franklin and going to their homes in Tooele rode into the fight. One of the men was killed. Samuel Cozzens [Cousins] was wounded and an Indian Chief was killed; the chief’s name was “One Eye.” Also two young bucks were captured and taken to Logan where they were held all winter. In the spring they were turned loose. The Indians were overcome and ran up the canyon. There they met the Merrill boys, killed Ira and wounded Seliman. Instead of a celebration in the bowery we all moved under it as a fort. The wagons were kept in two lines facing inward, where the settlers stayed until a fort was laid off, being one mile in length, running east and west, and one-half mile in width, running north and south, with Summit Creek running through it. The men took turns standing guard every night and when it came John Earl’s turn he would take his violin and play it while he walked his beat. Whenever the men went to the canyon or the fields they would go in groups. One man would stand guard with the guns while the others worked.13
The Indians Demand Ten White Girls as Retribution
The death of Chief “One Eye” added to the settlers’ problems, for the Indians now sought retribution by demanding ten white girls, one of them Lucy Ellen, who narrowly escaped capture. Of this Lucy wrote:
After the fight in which Chief One-eye was killed and the two young Bucks were captured the Indians demanded ten white girls in payment for their chief. I was one of them, and we girls were pretty careful that they did not get one of us.
My father was building a log house a few rods away from where we were camping. I was alone in the house with my grandmother one day ironing, when the two Indians who had been taken prisoners came and stood on each side of the door talking and motioning for something. I knew enough of their language to tell that they were talking about me. Grandmother said that as long as father was at the house nearby they would not hurt me. My fuel gave out and as I had to go to the other house for more I brushed past them and ran to the house with them running after me. Father was inside hewing out logs and he met them with the broadax in his hands. When the Indians saw that they left and bothered me no more.14
The Fort at Smithfield
The Smithfield Historical Society has prepared a sheet entitled “Smithfield of Fort Days 1860–1863,” with a diagram of the fort and its location in relation to the present city. It reads: “The north line of the fort extended westward from about four rods north of the creek: and the east just west of the west sidewalk on Main street; the south line about two rods south of the south side of Center street; the west line was on the east side of Third West street.”15
As we’ve seen, the fort was still very much a work in progress when the Williamses arrived. It was built in a large rectangle running east and west that allowed Summit Creek to flow through it diagonally from the southwest to the northeast corner. Each side of the fort consisted of a double row of buildings. The outside row on each side contained corrals; the inside row consisted of log houses; the two rows were separated by a road. There were thirty-two log houses on the north side, with one larger house divided among four families, who also shared a larger corral. The south side had thirty log houses (each with its own corral), the east side had nine, and the west side had five. The sheet also includes the names of the seventy-nine heads of household and shows where their quarters were located. Besides Dr. Ezra G. Williams (whose home was near the middle of the north side) and Martin Harris (whose home was on the east end), Ezra’s cousin Mary Clark Bronson and her family lived in the fort, four houses from the east end of the north side. Mary’s daughter Eliza Bronson Bonner wrote that after the Indian attack her family left Smithfield.
They first settled in Cache Valley where mother had a cousin, Dr. Ezra Williams. They only stayed there a short time, then moved to Provo. . . .
In 1858 Johnsons [sic] Army came to do away with the Mormons. Father was one of those who were called to go to Echo Canyon to guard the pass. In 1859 they went back to Cache Valley thru the persuasion of Dr. Williams. My mother was not strong and the sickness and hardships had weakened her. At about the time they went back they were having trouble with the Indians there. They had a battle shortly after we moved and it frightened and disheartened mother so much that we went back again to Provo.16
Diagram of the Smithfield fort, showing the families who lived there and the locations of their log houses and corrals. Courtesy Smithfield Historical Society.
School at the Fort
Others living at the fort, whose names also appear on the “Smithfield of Fort Days 1860–1863” sheet, were John and Mary Ann Boyce and Samuel D. and Lilly Cousins; the two women taught school to both Lucy Ellen and Mary Elizabeth Williams. Mary wrote: “In July 1860, I went with my parents to Smithfield, Cache County, Utah. We arrived soon after a fight with the Indians on July 22. My father, being a physician and surgeon, dressed the wound and cared for the wounded until they recovered. Here I went to school to Mrs. Mary Ann Boyce and Mrs. Cousins in there home, a one roomed log house. That was all the school there was.”17 Lucy Ellen added more details on the fort school in her account, disclosing that she helped do the teaching, which of course helped her to learn. “There were few schools and fewer teachers. One, Mrs. Boyce, taught a school and as she was not much of a scholar she told me that if I would help her she would teach me free. It was a bargain. I had the reading and spelling classes and geography, which was about all of the subjects (except arithmetic) and I had about all of the teaching to do. But I learned more than I would otherwise have done. I had very little chance for an education.”18
A White Boy Taken Hostage by the Indians
“On successive raids into Cache and Box Elder [valleys, Major] McGarry’s cavalry killed [Indian] hostages, recovered stolen stock, and freed a boy who may have been a Euro-American captive.”19 Henrietta saw the boy with a group of Indians, but dared not speak to him for fear they would punish him. She wrote of that night:
A company of emmigrants crossing the plains were killed, three children taken by the Indians. The baby cried so much they killed it. The next older was with the Indians. One named George was with these same indians at Smithfield the Little Indians abused him. The uncle came from California to get him, we dare[d] not speak to him, fearing the indians would mistreat him. The uncle secured the services of the Camp Douglas Troops. They came upon them unawares in a Kanyon near providence the indians were not in favor of giving him up. they resented the offi[c]ers of the soldiers, and hooted at them. the scale turned when a canon was fired in their midst. they hooted another way. their interpreter said they were calling for them to stop. their chief was then taken. Locked up in a blacksmith shop. A strong guard placed over him. they were told he would be kept there till the boy was returned to his uncle. they held a council. a runner was sent to Battle Creek to inform the rest of the tribe. next morning 40 Indians, 2 abreast, dressed in all their paraphenolia, rode into the camp. they came [past] Smithfield charging their horses till they made that little boy bounce up and down as he rode behind a big Indian, on a big charger. they gave the boy to the soldiers in exchange for their chief. then the soldiers turned toward Camp Douglas, taking uncle and boy with them.20
Sickness at the Fort
Besides the turmoil with the Indians, the settlers faced severe weather conditions, a lack of provisions, and reoccurring deadly bouts of whooping cough. In the retelling of those events, Henrietta uses some of her sarcastic humor. She begins by speaking of Rebecca Williams’s weakened condition.
We were blessed in keeping a little tea on hand for Mother Williams, as that was her main stay. She was too feeble to do without it. No other luxuries could be gotten for her at that time, too far away from commerce. seven children had whooping cough and made the house ring with music all those long winter nights. When one began to cough, the others started out of bed, shreiking to get their breath. We had to light a lamp till were all back in bed. Then lie down a while to be aroused again when another fit of coughing started them out of bed again in the bitter cold. We had to be thankful for a little sleep.21
A resentful Henrietta continues her narrative with an explanation of how the whooping cough was brought to her six children, a gift from “our wife” Electa’s son, Hyrum. She also resents the impossibility of getting supplies into that remote valley, because they were snowed in between November and May.
Our wife Electa Jane Barney Williams, spent the summer in Salt lake City with her parents, returning Late in the Fall with her only child. Hyrum Royal Williams starting out with the whooping cough. Loaned it to my young family, which was a great favor to me, though I was not very thankful for the loan of it at that time of the year, in that snowy country, and no travel out of that valley to get anything to relieve them of their distressing situation, from November to May till the weather commenced to get warmer so the teams could get over the mountain to Box Elder Valley. from thence to Salt Lake City to buy what was needed, with a load of wheat they were obliged to haul to trade to the merchants for calico, 65 cents a yard, very tender & glossy, and fading out the colors. Tea, four dollars a pound. Linen thread, 1.25 cts. a pound. spool cotton, 25 cents a spool. Factory 1.25 a yard.22
The first casualty of the whooping cough episode was Henrietta’s two-and-a half-year-old. “My son Joseph Swain Williams died October 24th 1860,” she wrote.23 He was the first white child buried in the Smithfield cemetery.
Amusements at the Fort
One April 1st, Ezra’s young wife Electa played a good joke on her husband that everyone at the fort enjoyed, which involved a nonlighting candlewick. Henrietta recounts that the joke was repeated throughout the fort by his daughters Lucy Ellen and Mary Elizabeth.
In the early days, amusements were rarely known. One April Fool day, Electa made a candle out of a turnip blacked its nose, handed it to Dr Williams to light. he could not think what was the matter with the candle, gave it to the Hired Man to light. he had no better luck with it. then they examined it & saw the joke played on them. Lucy and Mary took that candle up one side of the Fort and down the other, asking people to light it for her, as she had dropped a paper of needles outside. many of them tried to light it, before they thought of April 1st. I knew not of it till next day, when the neighbors told me how much merriment it caused.24
The boys had some of their own fun with a jack-o’-lantern. “Boys brought a lantern, made out of a pumpkin by carving faces on the rinds, peeling off the outside skin. they sat it on the window sill. I had seen them in my childhood. I did not scare nor wonder, as some neighbors did, when they caught a glimpse of it.”25
Letter from St. Louis
On June 12, 1861, Henrietta received a letter from her brother William B. Crombie, who had not come west with the Saints but remained in St. Louis. He gave her an account of his life since they had last “beheld each other,” against the backdrop of the ongoing Civil War, and mentions a letter he had received from their brother John sent from California. When the letter was copied into Dr. Williams’s medical ledger on June 24, 1919, by Mary Elizabeth Williams Gardner, Henrietta was still alive.
A letter received by Henrietta E. (Crombie) Williams in Smithfield, Cache Co.
St. Louis Mo, June 12th 1861
Dear Henrietta,
I take this opportunity afforded by the departure of my friend Harry Cafall for Utah, to send you this assurance that I am still alive and in good health, and upon the whole considerably better off than the poor man Lazarus.
During the interval of the many years that have elapsed since we last beheld each other my life has presented a strange mixture of prosperity and adversity, a continual alternating between partial success and downright poverty. Sufficient to eat to drink and to wear is the acme of the brightest hopes of the vast majority. At present I am employed at S. M. Kershaws engraving and printing establishment, corner of 5th & Pine St., doing little or nothing. I do not know where I may be when this reaches you but if you write you may as well address as above. I came here to print the maps and views of the Missouri State Geological Survey the continuance of which work is dependant upon government appropriation. Missouri having determined to supply herself with men and munitions of war needs all her funds for that purpose. Therefore surveying engraving and painting are laid on the shelf for a while.
I received the only letter from John, from San Francisco or Sacramento about three years ago, and addressed to the Planters house—eight months after date. He did not know how long he should remain there or where he should go afterwards. He said he left you and family in good health, enjoying the belief in the Church but said nothing in regard to his own views of the doctrine.
The war is the all pervading topic here at present and the multitude are scattering in all directions for safety. as a general consequence many are taken a straight chute for danger. but those bound for Utah will be more fortunate and are no doubt taking Isaiah 2nd – 2nd for a guide. I have not time to write more. I have not heard from the East for 6 years. Give my respects to Doctor E. G. W., his Mother and all inquiring friends. Your affectionate Brother Wm B. Crombie.
Copied by Mary E. Gardner 24 June 1919. Grant Idaho.26
Lucy Ellen’s Close Call with a Knife-Wielding Indian
One frightening experience recounted by Lucy Ellen involved an angry Indian woman who chased her with a knife for several minutes. Lucy managed to hide, but the woman waited a long time for her to reappear. The harrowing episode ended well, however, and in a few days they became friends.
One day an old squaw came to the door. I wanted to trade some bread for some beads that she had. She wanted more than I wanted to give her. I foolishly punched her with my finger. She whipped out a knife quick as lightening, the biggest knife that I had ever seen. I darted under a high four-poster bed, she after me. I scrambled out and ran into the next house and under the bed there—she still following me. But as I was quicker than she I ran around the house and into a new granery Father had just built. As there was no fastener to the door I took a two by four that was there and propped it aginst the door and sat down on it. She followed but was not sure I was inside. She stayed around for a long time. I could see Mother’s white face at the window through a crack. She did not see me and I dared not make a sound. Presently the squaw went away mumbling. A few days later she came back. I gave her some bread and we were good friends again. It taught me a lesson!27
Rebecca Williams Recalls Her Girlhood Encounter with Indians in New York
There are two stories in Henrietta’s history that involve her mother-in-law, Rebecca, but without a date. Since one involves Rebecca’s childhood experience with Indians in New York, it may well be that Mother Williams shared the story with Henrietta while they were living at the Smithfield fort and the family was facing its own Indian troubles.
Incident in Mother Rebecca Williams Girlhood. The Indians were very hostile. Her folks started with their wagon & horses for the next settlement. The Indians overtook them, cutting the harnesses from the horses run them off leaving them sitting in the wagon. Isaac Swain [and] her brother went home brought a frozen mush from the pot, under his arm, they never tasted any[thing] so good seemingly. next day they wandered home. the Old British General at the Fort having a spite at her Father for resigning his commission under King George, helloed at them[:] I thought they let you come home by daylight. They lived in Canada near the Falls of Niagara.28
Rebecca Recalls a Conversation about the High Priest in Solomon’s Temple
Although we don’t know when this experience was related to Henrietta, the setting for the event was the Kirtland Temple, most probably sometime in 1835 or 1836. Rebecca mentions that the conversation that took place was conducted in tongues. Henrietta recorded: “Mother Williams related to me one incident. One Sunday morning in Kirtland, her Husband Dr. F. G. Williams and someone, whose name I have forgotten, was conversing in Tongues, concerning Solomons Temple. How the High Priest could see the people, and the people not see him, it was with the Aid of Four Large Mirrors placed so the High Priest saw all the congregation.”29
Death of Rebecca Swain Williams
The next casualty to fall from the ranks of the Williams family was its sixty-two-year-old matriarch, Rebecca Swain Williams, widow of Dr. Frederick G. Williams. Henrietta recorded the date in all three of her autobiographical writings, simply and without any explanations: “[Also buried] my husband’s Mother, Sept 25th 1861 in Smithfield, Cache County.”30 “Rebecca Williams died in September 1861, age 62 years & 6 weeks.”31 “Mother Williams died September 25th 1861.”32 She was the first white woman buried in the Smithfield cemetery.33 Consumption, or tuberculosis of the lungs, was given as the cause of death in the obituary that appeared in the Deseret News among the weekly marriage and death notices.
In Smithfield, of consumption, Sept. 25, 1861. REBECCA, relict of the late Frederick G. Williams, aged 62 years and 22 days.
Deceased was born in Loyalsock, Northcumberlain co., Penn. She embraced the gospel in Kitland, Oh., in 1830. In 1837 she emigrated to Far West, Caldwell county, Mo., and was expelled with the Saints in 1839, passing through many trials and perplexities, and emigrated to G. S. L. City in 1849, where she resided ten years, and then moved to Smithfield, Cache co. She was always found faithful and true to the kingdom of God on the earth, for which she looked forward with fond anticipation. Com[municated].34
Rebecca outlived her husband by nineteen years. They had joined the Church in 1830, the first year of its infancy, and she and her husband had consecrated all of their property in Kirtland. She had withstood the persecutions by the mob (Missouri militia) and the sorrow of the death of her son in Missouri. She had overcome the trials of losing her husband in Quincy and the tumultuous times following the Prophet’s death at Carthage. She had survived the heartbreak of losing her two daughters in Quincy and was sealed to her husband in the Nauvoo Temple prior to leaving Illinois. She had overcome the harsh living conditions at Winter Quarters and Kanesville and the rigors of driving her own wagon across the plains to Utah. And she had passed through a dozen years of bleak frontier living as she and her family established new homes in the desert valleys of the Great Basin. Through all her physical challenges and emotional tribulations, one constant was her faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and in the restored gospel, which she consistently demonstrated by her faithful obedience to the calls and injunctions made to her by his representatives on earth. The few records that have survived, written in her own hand, stand as a witness of her testimony of those truths and as a noble legacy to her posterity.
The Morrisite War
Henrietta wrote a paragraph in her biography about what she called the Morrisite War. In the late 1850s, a Welsh convert to Mormonism named Joseph Morris, living in the Ogden area, claimed to have received revelations from God. He said he accepted Brigham Young as the temporal leader of the Church, but his own revelations were meant for the spiritual governance of the Latter-day Saints. Morris established “a community of people who shared their property on the pattern of Joseph Smith’s law of consecration and stewardship.”35 When three members tried to leave his group, Morris imprisoned them. The ensuing attempt to release the three men by U.S. troops led to a deadly confrontation. Historian Thomas Alexander wrote: “The Morrisites got along quite well until early 1862, when three dissenters tried to leave the community and take their property with them. Morris arrested the three and imprisoned them at the fort. Learning of the imprisonment of the three dissidents, Utah Chief Justice John Kinney issued an order to the U.S. marshal for their release. After Morris burned the order in front of the deputy who tried to serve it, acting governor Frank Fuller sent Col. Robert Burton with a militia unit to free the prisoners.”36
Henrietta included the name of one of the principal men and related some of the details that led up to the clash, which was witnessed by several people who came to watch atop a ridge overlooking the Morris settlement. Henrietta incorrectly calls Chief Justice Kinney the governor.
The Morrisite War in 1862 at the Riverdale Bottom was a scene. Camp Douglass soldiers took them [the prisoners] from there to Soda Springs. Built a fort to protect them as they declared they [were] afraid of the Mormons. John Banks, one of their Leaders, was a smart man. he left the Church on account of having a private quarrel with Brigham young. their belief was everything was in common. they were to help themselves to what they saw, for the Lord was on their side. he was to destroy the Brighamites and they were to take their possessions and live without working for a living[.] the settlers could not put up with it no longer. Governor Kinney telegraphed to Washington. received orders from there to exterminate them. several were killed the rest taken to Fort Douglass till they could be removed. Dr Williams was returning from Cache Valley as he met the settlers going to the ridge to watch the proceedings.37
Thomas Alexander continues: “Accounts of the confrontation between the Morrisite community and [Col. Robert] Burton’s [militia] differ. All agree, however, that Morris refused to honor Burton’s order to release the prisoners; and in the battle that followed, the undermanned and outgunned Morris, another man, and four women died—some of them from cannon fire.” Colonel Patrick Connor used the surviving Morrisite community members and their pardoned leaders “to strike a blow against the Mormons and the Indians.”38 According to Alexander,
Burton arrested a number of the Morrisite leaders, and territorial courts convicted seven of them of second-degree murder. Believing the convictions had resulted from a miscarriage of justice, Governor Stephen Harding pardoned the convicted Morrisites. Hoping to strike a blow against the Mormons and the Indians, Connor escorted the pardoned Morrisites and others of their community—fifty-three families in all—to Soda Springs, Idaho, where he established Fort Connor near the Morrisite community to support his campaign against the Shoshoni on the overland trail.39
Henrietta Gives Birth to Twins
In the midst of the tumult, Henrietta gave birth to twin boys early one spring morning in 1862, whom she named after the President of the Church and his First Counselor. She wrote: “May 18th 1862 twins were born, Brigham Young & Heber C. Kimball, [B 5 fif]ty HC six, 4½ & 4½ pounds each. Brigham, sandy complexion. Heber dark, both looking like those they were named for. B had blue eyes & H black ones.”40 Unfortunately, the twins succumbed to whooping cough the next year. “They died in Cache Valley, the oldest 8 months, youngest 16 months, whooping cough.”41 Brigham Young Williams died January 22, 1863, a week before the fiercest battle between the U.S. cavalry and the Shoshone Indians. His brother Heber Chase Williams died on September 16, 1863.42
U.S. Anti-Indian Campaign One of the Worst: The Battle of the Bear River
Brigham Young’s conciliatory policy toward the Indians kept the Indian-Mormon relationships a “cold war.” But Col. Connor “fanned the embers of the cold war into one of the hottest and bloodiest anti-Indian campaigns” of the U.S. government.43 Thomas Alexander wrote:
Cold war with the Mormons contrasted with the hot war on the overland trail in Idaho, Wyoming, and Nevada as immigrant trains and stagecoaches suffered the wrath of the dispossessed [Indians]. . . .
Shortly after Connor established Fort Douglas in October 1862, the cold war in Utah heated up as well. McGarry mounted a campaign against the Northwestern Shoshoni in Box Elder and Cache Valleys as he continued the hot war in southern Idaho and western Wyoming. . . .
Within three months of establishing Fort Douglas, Connor had fanned the embers of the cold war into one of the hottest and bloodiest anti-Indian campaigns in the Civil War West. In January 1863, in an attempt to release the overland travelers and Cache Valley settlers from the threat of the Northwestern Shoshoni, Connor mounted a combined infantry-cavalry attack on Bear Hunter’s and Sagwitch’s fortified camp of perhaps 450 people.44
The January 29, 1863, attack left 250 Indians dead on the battlefield, and after the slaughter, Connor’s troops turned on the villagers raping and killing the Shoshone women in a “bloodbath of undisciplined brutality.”45
Eleven year-old Mary Elizabeth Williams, who saw the troops leave Smithfield for the battle, recalled that the night was bitterly cold.
I remember at one time Col. P. E. Connor, with about 200 soldiers, came to Smithfield after the Indians who were troublesome in that part of the country. The Indians sent word that they were ready. The bugle sounded and the soldiers started from Smithfield about nine o’clock at night. It was a still, cold, frosty night, and the snow squeaked under their feet. They met the Indians twelve miles south of Franklin on Beaver Creek, Bear River, where the battle was fought January 29, 1863. Many of the soldiers had their feet frozen.46
Henrietta also describes Col. Connor and his troops when they camped at Smithfield and commented on the bloody attack they made against the Shoshone. She notes that Martin Harris drove the wounded U.S. soldiers back to Salt Lake City.
The Connor War. Soldiers camped at Smithfield. at midnight the bugle sounded. . . . A clear moonlight. [Col.] Patrick O Connor rode in a carriage, the soldiers on horse back, singing snatches of song. they took the Indians by surprise. made quick work of some of them. the Indians shot a few, one died on the road to the city of Salt Lake. Martin Harris hauled the wounded to Camp Douglas. Angered some [of] the Indians. they sought revenge by pulling the staple out of the stable door, and stealing the horses that hauled the men “Carry no soldiers. No good soldiers.”47
A Close Call with the Indians
Individual bands of Indians retaliated against the white community, not distinguishing between soldiers and settlers. According to Thomas Alexander:
Some of the settlers in Cache and Box Elder Valleys thought the Battle of the Bear River would free them from the annoyance of begging and the losses from theft. Instead, the Northwestern Shoshoni tried to avenge the deaths of their relatives and friends by raiding the Mormon settlements.
Unmindful of the cost, Conner sent out troops to destroy the fighting power of the Shoshoni, Bannock, Paiute, and Gosiute.48
After an attack that killed a white man at his camp, a marauding band of Indians with their stolen booty swept past the camp of fifteen-year-old Lucy Ellen Williams and Martin Harris’s sister, but without molesting them. Henrietta wrote:
A few weeks after, Martin Harris sister was on her return to the city of Salt Lake with a neighbor she wished my eldest daughter to travel with her for company. they camped in Box Elder Kanyon for the night. During the night, a band of Indians rushed past them. concluded not to molest them, as they had killed a camper and robbed him and were making off up the kanyon with their booty. A company of Merchants camped in Smithfield next night and related the circumstances to me. Many people considered it a very close call.49
The Williamses Depart Smithfield
Ezra left Smithfield in the spring of 1863 with Electa and their five-year-old son, Hyrum, to seek a new home in the Hot Springs District of Pleasant View, near Ogden. Henrietta and her children, however, did not move there until a few days after the death of the surviving twin, Heber C. Kimball Williams, on September 16, 1863. “Moved to Hot Spring District April 1863. Remainder of the family moving in Sept 19 or 20 1863. Sold Cache Valley Farm in Smithfield to Brother Peterson of Plain City, Weber County.”50
The colonizing mission in Smithfield had taken a heavy toll on the Williams family. In the space of three years Henrietta had buried her mother-in-law and three children. She recorded these losses in one short paragraph without elaborating. “My son Joseph Swain Williams died October 24th 1860. Mother Williams died September 25th 1861. Twins died. Brigham Young, January 22nd 1863. Heber Chase, September 16th 1863. Buried east of Smithfield, Cache Valley. Four graves side by side on that mound. Twins born & died in Smithfield.”51
Notes
1. “Incidents in the Life of H. E. Crombie Williams, 11th April 1899,” in Frederick G. Williams, Medical ledger, 234–35, Church History Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City.
2. “Henrietta Elizabeth Crombie Williams,” October 3, 1884, a short autobiographical sketch written in the journal of her son Ezra Henry Granger Williams, 46. The original was given to me by my aunt Elizabeth Rogers in Salt Lake City, June 20, 1968.
3. Ezra G. Williams, untitled biographical sketch, in Frederick G. Williams, Medical ledger, 316.
4. “Incidents in the Life of H. E. Crombie Williams,” 235. Lucy E. Godfrey, “Biographical Sketch of the Life of Dr. Ezra Granger Williams,” 5, indicates that the doctor’s practice kept him busy, so he sold the saw mill: “He found his medical practice was so intense that he sold his share to Alonzo and Wallace Ramond.”
5. Henrietta Elizabeth Crombie Williams, untitled autobiography, April 10, 1893, in Frederick G. Williams, Medical ledger, 210.
6. From the writings of Lucy Ellen Williams Godfrey (1848–1942), quoted in Nancy Clement Williams After 100 Years (Independence, Mo.: Zion’s Printing and Publishing, 1951), 181. This autobiography was not recorded in Dr. Williams’s medical ledger, nor do I have a copy of the original, except for the first two typewritten pages, entitled “A Life Sketch of Lucy Ellen Williams Godfrey,” obtained from my Aunt Elizabeth Williams Rogers in 1968.
7. Godfrey, quoted in Williams, After 100 Years, 181. Also found in Godfrey, “Biographical Sketch of the Life of Dr. Ezra Granger Williams,” 5.
8. “Incidents in the Life of H. E. Crombie Williams,” 242.
9. Godfrey, “Biographical Sketch of the Life of Dr. Ezra Granger Williams,” 5.
10. Thomas G. Alexander, Utah, the Right Place: The Official Centennial History (Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith, 1995), 142–43.
11. Godfrey, quoted in Williams, After 100 Years, 181–82.
12. “Incidents in the Life of H. E. Crombie Williams,” 235.
13. Godfrey, quoted in Williams, After 100 Years, 182.
14. Godfrey, quoted in Williams, After 100 Years, 182.
15. The sheet was distributed to those attending the Williams Family Reunion of 1988 in Smithfield, Utah. Notes on the proceedings are found in my journal, vol. 9, 138–40.
16. Eliza Bronson Bonner, “Bronson History,” [circa June 10, 1939], 3. A copy of this history was given to Nancy C. Williams and used in compiling After 100 Years. Her daughter Elizabeth Williams Rogers gave it to me along with other documents in 1968.
17. “Autobiography of Mary E. Gardner,” written in her own hand in Frederick G. Williams, Medical ledger, on what would be page 342–43. Mary Elizabeth Williams Gardner (1851–1934) is the daughter of Ezra and Henrietta Williams.
18. Godfrey, quoted in Williams, After 100 Years, 183.
20. “Incidents in the Life of H. E. Crombie Williams,” 242–43.
21. “Indidents in the Life of H. E. Crombie Williams,” 235.
22. “Incidents in the Life of H. E. Crombie Williams,” 235.
23. “Incidents in the Life of H. E. Crombie Williams,” 235.
24. “Incidents in the Life of H. E. Crombie Williams,” 243.
25. “Incidents in the Life of H. E. Crombie Williams,” 243.
26. Frederick G. Williams, Medical ledger, 142–43. In Ezra Henry Granger Williams’s journal, page 106, he notes the following regarding William Barnett Crombie: “Best information. Died August 1866 at St. Louis Mo, he was not married.”
27. Godfrey, quoted in Williams, After 100 Years, 183.
28. “Incidents in the Life of H. E. Crombie Williams,” 246 (but it should have been p. 248). Rebecca was born in 1798, so this event would have happened sometime in the early years of the new century.
29. “Incidents in the Life of H. E. Crombie Williams,” unnumbered page, which should have been 246.
30. “Henrietta Elizabeth Crombie Williams,” short autobiographical sketch, 47.
31. Henrietta Elizabeth Crombie Williams, untitled autobiographical sketch, 210.
32. “Incidents in the Life of H. E. Crombie Williams,” 235.
33. In After 100 Years, 188–89, Nancy C. Williams referenced a special meeting that took place on September 30, 1930. Friends and relatives gathered at the home of Anna Rebecca Williams at 2985 Van Buren Ave., Ogden, Utah—a house that had belonged to her father, Ezra H. G. Williams, and to her grandmother, Henrietta E. C. Williams. The purpose of the gathering was to honor Henrietta’s first child, Lucy Ellen Williams Godfrey (1848–1942), on her eighty-second birthday and to make plans to place a more fitting marker on Rebecca’s grave. Lucy wrote a poem for the occasion, one of whose couplets reads, “Now she lies in a wild and lonely lot / Not a stick or stone to mark the spot.” The funds were raised and a small marker was put in place. Fifty-eight years later, on July 8, 1988, a Williams family reunion was held in Smithfield, where a larger, more permanent marker was placed on Rebecca’s grave and rededicated. A tree was also planted a hundred yards away. A report on the 1988 reunion is found in my journal, vol. 9, 138–40.
34. Due, no doubt, to the social turmoil and difficulties of travel during the winter, the notice of her death appeared four months after she died, on February 12, 1862. “Died,” Deseret News, February 12, 1862, 264.
40. “Henrietta Elizabeth Crombie Williams,” short autobiographical sketch, 46–47.
41. “Henrietta Elizabeth Crombie Williams,” short autobiographical sketch, 47.
42. Henrietta Elizabeth Crombie Williams, untitled autobiographical sketch, 210.
It is interesting to note that these babies were ordained elders on the day they died, not by their father but by another priesthood holder. Ordinations to offices in the priesthood for the other deceased Williams boys were likewise recorded (including one as a seventy) on the same page in Frederick G. Williams, Medical ledger, 174.
49. “Incidents in the Life of H. E. Crombie Williams,” 242.
50. Henrietta Elizabeth Crombie Williams, untitled autobiographical sketch, 210–11. Henrietta’s daughter Lucy adds, “In the spring of 1863 he moved his wife Electa and only son, to Pleasant View, then a part of North Ogden, on a farm which he had purchased. In September, 1863, he moved his wife Henrietta and family to Pleasant View.” Godfrey, “Biographical Sketch of the Life of Dr. Ezra Granger Williams,” 5.
51. “Incidents in the Life of H. E. Crombie Williams,” 235.
