Ezra and his mother, Rebecca, had experienced persecution at the hands of the mobs in Far West and therefore took the Quincy citizens’ published resolution, filled with warnings and threats of violence, very seriously.1 Although there is no record of the Williamses having been harassed by their neighbors in Illinois—perhaps because of Frederick’s service as a doctor—they chose to leave their home and cast their lot with their fellow Mormons. When they said their goodbyes, Rebecca, no doubt, was concerned about leaving Lovina, an active Mormon, and Lovina’s daughters behind in that potentially hostile environment.2
St. Louis, a Refuge for the Mormons
Rather than cross Iowa by wagon to the Missouri River and hope to find employment near the new settlements of Kanesville and Winter Quarters, many Saints traveled downriver to St. Louis, where they found refuge and jobs. From St. Louis (near the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers), the Saints could then travel west on the Missouri River to Council Bluffs. It was faster, safer, and less strenuous than crossing by wagon. Stanley B. Kimball estimates that more than fifteen hundred Latter-day Saints were in St. Louis during that first winter of 1846–47.3 Sheri E. Slaughter has compiled an extensive index of early Latter-day Saints in St. Louis, among them Rebecca and Ezra, and gives examples of families who traveled there before proceeding to the temporary settlements in Iowa and Nebraska. Slaughter writes: “Ralph and Ann Partington were among the poor Saints forced from their Nauvoo homes during the summer of 1846. They crossed the river to Montrose, Iowa, knowing they lacked the provisions to continue. Like many Nauvoo Saints, instead of crossing Iowa, they ventured 190 miles down the river to St. Louis in search of jobs.”4
The Williamses were acquainted with St. Louis, having traveled there before. It was also the nearest city that could provide Dr. Ezra G. Williams with the specialized medicines and medical equipment he needed.5 We are not told how the Williamses traveled to St. Louis, but we can surmise they took one of the many packet boats that made the trip downriver to St. Louis from Quincy.6 In 1842, it was reported that between 1,000 and 1,200 steamboats arrived at the Quincy wharf in 1841.7
Church Attendance in St. Louis
A conference of the Church was held in St. Louis, Missouri, on January 31, 1847, at which time the names of some six hundred members were recorded in a book. That total does not include the unnamed children whose numbers were also noted. Listed among those attending the conference were Rebecca Williams and Ezra G. Williams. The record indicates that Ezra’s standing was as a member of the “3 quo” of seventy, and his occupation was that of “Physician,” while Rebecca’s standing was listed as “Widow.”8
The First Biography
It is unfortunate, but to this point we have but little to rely on in the way of personal writing by Dr. Frederick G. Williams or by his wife Rebecca Swain Williams: merely two statements and a short letter by him9 and one incomplete letter by her, plus the substance of another contained in an incomplete letter from her brother.10 If either one of them kept a journal or wrote an autobiography, these have not come to light as of this writing. Equally disconcerting is the fact that no journals or extant biographies written by the second generation have been found, and therefore we must conclude that none of the four Williams children—Lovina, Joseph, Lucy, and Ezra—kept a journal or wrote a history. This dearth of personal writing has been offset, to a degree, by the record keeping of the Prophet Joseph Smith and his scribes (especially during the period when Frederick was a member of the First Presidency) and by the record keeping of friends and associates, even some antagonists, who would at times mention the Williamses in their narratives.
A light shone on the lives of Ezra and Rebecca and some of the grandchildren (after the death of Dr. Frederick G. Williams) when his daughter-in-law, Henrietta Elizabeth Crombie Williams, Ezra’s wife, decided, on April 11, 1899, at age seventy-one, to take pen in hand and record “Incidents” of her life in the unused portion of Dr. Frederick G. Williams’s medical ledger, pages 229–47.11 She had made some earlier autobiographical sketches: the first on October 3, 1884, recorded in her son Ezra Henry Granger Williams’s journal;12 the second on April 10, 1893, also recorded in the unused portion of the medical ledger, pages 209–11. These three records and the genealogical information she kept on individual family members, also recorded in the medical ledger, provide the basis for the rest of the family’s personal story.
Henrietta Elizabeth Crombie Arrives in St. Louis
The year before the Williamses left Illinois, seventeen-year-old Henrietta Elizabeth Crombie13 and her mother, Elizabeth Pope Phillips Crombie, joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Boston. Her father, John Crombie Sr., did not join the Church, nor did he come west; he died on March 13, 1841, in Boston.14 Her brothers, William Barnett Crombie and John Henry Crombie, did travel with their mother and sister to St. Louis, but they joined the Church later.15 Henrietta wrote in her autobiography about her baptism. “[I was] excommunicated by that Ecclesiastical Body [Mount Vernon Congregational Church] for heresy. Offense given by uniting myself in baptism in Boston Harbor by Apostle Ezra Taft Benson & confirmed by the same in Suffolk Hall Washington Street opposite Boylston Market, making me a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the first day of May 1845 at 4 oclock after noon. Confirmed in the evening of the same day.”16 The message of the restored gospel preached by Elder Ezra T. Benson’s companion, Apostle Parley P. Pratt, was not so favorably received by Henrietta’s grandmother, Betsy Pope Phillips, a wealthy lady who “owned” the city of Charleston, next to Boston. It is said she chased him from her doorstep with a broom, exclaiming, “I shall sit on the top of the topless throne while the devil pitches you into the bottomless pit!”17
The Crombies desired to gather with their fellow members in Zion, so on May 1, 1847, they started west to St. Louis with a company of Saints led by Alvin Farnham, arriving there on May 12, 1847. Nineteen-year-old Henrietta, who had taken sick on the journey, was treated by Dr. Ezra G. Williams, and three months later she became his wife.18
When we arrived in St. Louis, we met Dr. E. G. Williams at Mr. Husband, he had a patient in that family. Mother engaged him to doctor me. he said I had the Dumb Ague. We thought it a singular ailment, as we had not heard of any such affliction. We knew not know what to think. was he ridiculing us because we were new arrivals[?] he prescribed for me. in three weeks I was myself again. . . . During that time acquaintance ripened with the family doctor. Brother John and Mother was under treatment, and it was successful, which gave us implicit confidence in him, and it terminated in marriage on the 15th of August 1847, on Sunday, the ceremony performed by Apostle Orson Hyde. . . . it was a very quite wedding at the Home of his Mother, who presided over the affair with her Assistant Miss Wicket, at the corner of Seventh and Myrtle Street, St. Louis, Missouri.19
Elder Hyde certified the wedding, which was duly recorded (with Henrietta’s last name misspelled) by S. D. Barlow, on November 15, 1847, at the county courthouse.
I, Orson Hyde, Minister of the Gospel, do hereby certify that on Sunday evening August the 15th I joined in Wedlock Doct Ezra G Williams with Miss Henrietta Cromby [sic] both of the City of St Louis St Louis Mo August 15th 1847
Photograph of Ezra Granger Williams, taken in St. Louis, Missouri, at the time of his marriage to Henrietta Elizabeth Crombie on August 15, 1847.
Photograph of Henrietta Elizabeth Crombie Williams, age 16, taken in Boston, Massachusetts, some four years before she married Ezra Granger Williams.
Family Activities in St. Louis
In order to make ends meet and save for the trip west, Ezra continued his medical practice and Rebecca took in boarders, while Henrietta became a seamstress, beginning a few weeks before her marriage. She had never worked for others before and the change was difficult. “[I] went to sew at the Planters House. the first time in my life to work for other people, but we were going to Zion, for that reason the Burden was lighter.”21
Henrietta wrote of their sacrifices to obtain funds for the journey to Zion, of her personal trials living in her mother-in-law’s home (the threesome moved to Franklin Street, probably to accommodate more boarders), and of the challenges of housekeeping chores. Being young and inexperienced, especially regarding western customs, and having been educated in upper-class Boston “to the manner born,”22 she felt that she didn’t get much help or sympathy from her husband or mother-in-law. Henrietta wrote:
After the wedding every effort was made to gain means to Emigrate to the Valley of the Great Salt Lake, depriving ourselves of many comforts to buy Necessities for Emigrating to the Rocky Mountains, the home of the saints. The ways of the western people, their way of trading, was new to me, not knowing about housekeeping especially the western way, no one could teach me, only to laugh in derision at my ignorance, it was a very sore trial. I was obliged to keep to myself, as friends were very scarce at that time. . . . We moved to Myrtle Street. thence to Franklin Street. Mother Williams taking boarders to help on the way to Zion, she having returned from Quincy Illinois, having nursed her daughter Mrs Lovina Williams Riggs, the wife of Burr Riggs.23
Rebecca Returns to Quincy, Death of Lovina Williams Riggs
When word came that Lovina was ill, Rebecca traveled back to Quincy to nurse her daughter.24 Lovina Susan Williams Riggs died on November 29, 1847,25 leaving her husband, Burr Riggs, with the responsibility for their two young daughters, Adeline, age five, and Lucy, age two. Rebecca probably tried to bring her granddaughters back to St. Louis to be raised in the Church by Ezra and Henrietta.26 When that didn’t work, she helped arrange for Betsey Pinkham, a Mormon friend, to care for them. Betsey was the girls’ grand-aunt, the mother of Nathan Pinkham, Rebecca’s widowed son-in-law. Betsey Pinkham did take them under her wing and part of the time provided for them in her home.27
Although the record is silent on this point, Rebecca probably did bring eight-year-old James Goddard back with her to St. Louis; James is identified in Henrietta’s autobiography as an adopted son of Lovina Riggs, who later accompanied the family on their journey to Utah in 1849.28
Lovina had earlier taken in a seven-year-old boy while living in Jackson County, Missouri. Brithiah Lordham’s mother had died, and his father, Elijah Lordham, was on a mission in the East. His thirteen-year-old brother, George, was living with the Newman family. Brithiah recalls the 1833 mob-driven winter exodus of the Riggs family from Jackson County.
More Survivors Willard, Utah, October 3rd 1904
When the Saints were driven out from Jackson County, I was seven years old. I lived with Mrs Lovina Riggs, daughter of Frederick G. Williams, Counsellor to the Prophet Joseph Smith. I heard the mob say they would burn the house down if we were not out before sundown. Burr Riggs and family and Harvey Stanley and wife traveled in the same wagon through snow & cold. I was driven from Nauvoo with the rest of the saints; crossed the plains in 1850 and have resided in Willard since the spring of 1851.
My brother George L Lordham, who lives near Franklin Oneida Idaho, was also one that was driven out of Jackson County Missouri. He was 13 years old and lived with Elijah Newman at the time, our mother being dead and our father (Elijah Lordham) being on a mission to the East.
There is a brief mention by Henrietta of a letter received in St. Louis by Ezra and Rebecca from Heber C. Kimball in connection with their move upriver to Nebraska and then Iowa. “In the spring of 1848, we left for Winter Quarters, having previously received a letter from President Heber Chase Kimball, to emigrate to the Valley.”30
In the short space of five years Rebecca had lost her husband and her two daughters. In spite of her sorrow, she continued to work and save for their trip west so they could gather with the Saints in Utah. She undoubtedly found comfort and joy in her son and new daughter-in-law. In the midst of the family’s preparations, a letter was received from Apostle Heber C. Kimball, Rebecca’s polygamist husband, dated February 22, 1848, from Winter Quarters. It is evident that Elder Kimball was concerned for the welfare of “his” Williams family and wanted to ensure that they stayed close to the Church.
Winter Quarters 22 Feb 1848
Dear Brother Ezra Williams & your dear Mother
of St Louis Mo
I take the liberty of writing a few lines as I feel interested for your welfare both present and future as I have taken a very prominent position for your welfare & the welfare of the dead. I hope you will not let these things sleep but awake awake [sic] to the sense of your duty and make all possible exertion as soon as circumstances will admit to gather with the body of the Church in order that I may give unto you council where you can be built up in the most holy faith of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I have not forgotten you but my thoughts have been reaching after you. There is no pleasure nor happiness in anything here on earth except in Christ & to lay a sure foundation for our future prospects. Ezra I understand that you have taken a wife[;] if so may the Lord bless her & fill her with light & with knowledge that you may all be one in the Lord. There is one more word of Council I will give unto you & that is come to this place or to the Bluffs as I think you can do much better in your practise here than you can there & I think you will be more able to get a fit out at this point for your family & mother here than you would to remain there. Bro Luke Johnson is going to remain here & would be glad to enter into practise with you as there would be plenty practise here for both of you. You will have power to supercede all others and gain the ascendency. I think if you now feel to lay hold of this council it will be effectual & be beneficial to you & family. I was sorry to hear of the death of Burr Riggs wife but she is out of trouble. I expect to leave here with my family this spring if the Lord will, & I would be happy to have you go with me. I am going to a healthy country & a paradise in regards to health & it will become so in regard to all other things if we all do right and keep the commandments of god.
I suppose that you have a large quantity of medicines on hand; if so & it would be agreeable to your feelings to put me up a small box of different articles which you believe would be beneficial to me & my family it would be most cheerfuly received by your friend & I may see the day when I shall be able to reward you for the same.
Inasmuch as you send to me you can do it by Brother E. D. Wooley, or any one coming to this point previous to my departure. My family are all enjoying tolerable good health as also the family of Brother Whitney. Vilate, Sister Whitney & others often speak about you & ask where is Sister Williams, our old Kirtland associate. They all send their good wishes to you Ezra. I exhort you in the name of the God of Abraham Isaac & Jacob to arise & show yourself approved as a man of God. Come to the church & where I am or will be & prove me & see me whether I will not be a father to thee & thy Fathers house. Gather up the remnants of thy fathers house quickly & not tarry till you are all fallen. Your Father was my friend, I feel for him & for his. Delay not, put thy best foot forward, call on thy God & thou shall be delivered. When you receive this please write; tell me how you feel & what your intentions are. Shall I reserve you an inheritance? If so tell me. Give my love and best wishes to all inquiring friends. Ezra pick up your duds if you conclude to come here & come before I leave that I may see you & your mother before I leave & speak with you face to face.
I must now come to a close by saying may the Lord thy God bless thee with life that thou mayest live long & do a good work. I remain your true & affectionate friend & servant in the new & everlasting covenant. Amen.
Heber C. Kimball
Copied by Mary E. Gardner 23 June 1919, Grant, Idaho.31
Since Rebecca had married Heber C. Kimball five minutes after she had been sealed by proxy to her deceased husband on February 7, 1846, Heber was technically Ezra’s stepfather. But Ezra had already been like a brother to Heber’s son William for many years. They were close to the same age and had been companions as young boys in Kirtland, where they were baptized the same day by Joseph Smith. They had also lived together as teenagers in Nauvoo. When Heber C. Kimball left for his second mission to England in May 1841, William stayed with Ezra at the Williams home in Upper Commerce. When the Williamses were back in Quincy in 1843, William Kimball came down on the riverboat steamer with his sister Helen and others who had been invited by Joseph Smith and took dinner with Ezra and his mother.
The Move to Winter Quarters and Council Bluffs
In spring 1848, little more than a month after receipt of the letter from Elder Kimball, the Williams family began their journey to Winter Quarters. Elder Ezra T. Benson and other leaders were in the company. They took passage from St. Louis on April 1, 1848, aboard the steamboat Mandan on the Missouri River, but suffered an accident that forced them to camp out on the shore for two weeks while the boat returned to St. Louis for repairs. Elder Benson and three other leaders boarded with the Williamses, but ultimately Elders Benson and Erastus Snow could wait no longer and continued on to Winter Quarters in a hired buggy. Henrietta wrote:
Left St Louis April 1st 1848. Arrived in Winter Quarters in April on the Mandan Steamboat. When half way up the Missouri River, the boat Struck a Rock & Broke 26 Ribbs or joyce or something else. Letting the water into the hull of the Boat, which was taken back to saint Louis for Repairs, while the cargo was unloaded on the Banks of the River at Fishers Landing where we camped for two weeks in the sand, making our tents of any thing we could get hold of at that time in that wilderness country. Delaying us on our journey. Apostle E. T. Benson, Erastus Snow, Captain John Scott & Elder James Flanigan boarded with us. Brother Benson & Snow hired a Buggy & went on to Winter Quarters by Land. W. H. Adams was Captain of the Company of Latter Day Saints on the boat. Staid in Winter Quarters two weeks then crossed the Missouri to Council Bluffs named Kanesville in honor of Thomas Lathrop Kane. Staid one year.32
Kanesville, Where the Williamses First Lived in a Log Hut
Ezra built his family “a log house and moved into it (the same as the rest of the people did at that time).”33 Henrietta described their first home in Kanesville as a hut. “Removed to (Iowa) Kanesville April 1848. Lived in a log hut. Dirt floor. Shake door. Mud roof. Sod chimney. Back window 3 small panes of glass length ways. (Plastered in among the chinking & then painted, so styled in those days).”34
The original Mormon settlement on the east side of the Missouri River was established in 1846 by two brothers, Henry W. and Daniel A. Miller. Henry was called to be the first bishop of the community, first known as Miller’s Hollow, and later served as a delegate to the Iowa legislature. In 1848, the settlement was renamed Kanesville and, with the abandonment of Winter Quarters, became one of the Church’s principal outfitting and transportation centers for the journey to Utah.35 “In 1848, keeping their prior commitment to Native Americans, the Saints abandoned Winter Quarters on the west side of the Missouri River. They made Miller’s Hollow, soon renamed Kanesville, the new hub of activity in that area and one of the Church’s main stopping places for Saints to outfit themselves before heading west.”36
A Pottawattamie County history published in 1907 gave a positive description of the Kanesville period of Council Bluffs, citing Mormon honesty (no jail), frugality, and industry, with a population that included a wide variety of tradesmen and farmers, who built a city, engaged in politics, and published a newspaper. The history records:
No more industrious, frugal and temperate community was ever known. Among them were mechanics of almost every kind, and they proceeded to build a city here, which they called Kanesville. . . . Not only did they build the city, but the rich valleys became hives of industry; good crops were raised, which enabled them to assist their fellow pilgrims who were passing through. . . . At this time everything was controlled by the church. Idleness and dissipation were not tolerated. There was no jail nor need for one. A newspaper was published by Orson Hyde called the Frontier Guardian, and although the buildings were mostly of logs, good stocks of goods were kept by as honorable merchants as you will find anywhere. . . . At this time the whole of Pottawattamie county, which was much larger than at present, as well as considerable adjoining territory, was under exclusive control of the Mormons. They made public sentiment, controlled election of all public officers, and representatives of their faith sat in two sessions of the state legislature.37
New Home, Birth of Lucy Ellen Williams
In September, Rebecca, Ezra, and Henrietta Williams built and moved into a more spacious log house with more amenities, where, on September 30, 1848, Henrietta gave birth to her first child. Henrietta wrote:
In September moved into a log house with shingled roof. 2 windows 12 panes of glass in each, lumber doors. Brick chimney in the north end. A cook stove in south end & locks on the doors. I was considered stylish people & helped to chink with chips between the logs while my husband painted or plastered, his style of workmanship being superior to that of the natives & more preferable. Before it was finished however, our daughter came to see what we was doing. I had finished a large ironing, ate a large watermelon when my Mother in law called to quit or I would have the “pamtod” before morning (a new ailment I had not heard of). Subsequently, Miss Lucy Ellen made her appearance at 3 o’clock A. M. Sept 30th 1848 Saturday.38
In another account of the birth of Lucy Ellen, Henrietta indicates that her mother-in-law, Rebecca, had been up caring for Sister McCoslin until midnight the night before. Henrietta, with a bit of sarcastic humor, explains that she delivered her baby fast on a day of fasting, in order to let Mother Williams and Ezra eat breakfast and get back to sleep. Henrietta continues:
30th September 1848, my Eldest Daughter, First Born, arrived at 3. oclock Saturday mornin. That day set apart for fasting and prayer, I think for the safe return of those Brethren who was to bring return mail. Mother Williams had been till twelve Friday Night with Jesse McCoslin’s wife. She did not care to stay up any Longer, went to Bed, to get up again sooner than she liked to. When all was over they ate Breakfast. I told them I knew how to get them a fast day Breakfast. So I hurried through before daylight, so they could eat and go to Bed again.39
Oliver Cowdery’s Return to the Church, His Stay with the Williamses
That same autumn of 1848, six years after Dr. Frederick G. Williams’s death, Oliver Cowdery came back into the fellowship of the Church at a conference held on October 21, 1848, in Kanesville, Iowa, where he was rebaptized. After the conference, where he made his confession and bore his testimony,40 Oliver and his wife, Elizabeth Ann Whitmer Cowdery, made it a point to visit Rebecca Swain Williams, their Ohio and Missouri neighbor and the widow of Frederick G. Williams, Oliver’s Lamanite missionary companion and fellow early Church leader. Rebecca and her son Dr. Ezra G. Williams had attended the conference, but Henrietta, who had recently given birth to their first child, stayed home. The Cowderys and their thirteen-year-old daughter, Maria,41 traveled the twelve miles upriver to stay at the Williams home that night. Henrietta recorded the Cowdery visit three times in her journal. One entry reads:
When Lucy Ellen was eight days old Dr and his Mother left me in bed in the care of a 10 year old boy to keep fire and attend to me and the Baby, while they went to Hyde Park 12 miles down the River to attend conference, as Oliver Cowdrey was to make confession and return to the Church. . . . After that meeting the Cowdrys staid at our house. Oliver his wife and daughter Maria, only child living. they journeyed to Missouri. Oliver Cowdry died soon after their arrival at that place.42
In a later section of Henrietta’s autobiography, she records what Ezra had said about Oliver’s return, at a special meeting honoring pioneers held on May 1, 1899, in Dr. E. G. Williams’s Ogden home, presided over by Apostle Franklin D. Richards: “[Dr. Ezra Williams and William Kimball] also related the return of Oliver Cowdrey to the Church at Kanesville, stopping with the Williams family; the humble spirit. The realization of what he had lost by leaving the Church.”43
In still another recounting of Oliver’s return, Henrietta mentions that the congregation saw and heard “Oliver Cowdery preach & bear testimony to the Book of Mormon & his rebaptism into this Church.44
Winter Sickness
During winter 1848–49, Dr. Ezra Williams became ill, which was the lot of many Kanesville residents. Once he recovered his health, he built a small horse-drawn sleigh called a cutter and went about the snow-covered community nursing the sick. Henrietta recorded: “After recovering from a sever sickness he went to the woods got timber and made a cutter. As soon as it was done he got into it and rode among the Saints visiting the sick and never miss[ed] a day the whole winter for there was much sickness among the people. (He was a physician and surgeon).”45
Dr. Ezra G. Williams’s Medical Practice Announced in the Frontier Guardian
Elder Orson Hyde, who was the religious and, in many ways, the political leader of Kanesville, thought it would be useful to publish a newspaper that could be used to defend the tenets of the restored gospel and its followers, encourage and assist Mormon emigration to Utah (as well as non-Mormon emigration to California and the gold fields), and provide political news and commentary to the citizenry. As with all newspapers, it depended on sales and on advertising revenue to pay the bills. In the very first number of the semimonthly Frontier Guardian—published by Orson Hyde in Kanesville, Iowa, on Wednesday Morning, February 7, 1849—Dr. Ezra G. Williams announced his medical practice on page 2, column 6.
MEDICAL NOTICE
DR. E. G. WILLIAMS, tenders his professional services to the citizens of Kanesville and its vicinity in the practice of MEDICINE, OBSTETRICE and SURGERY, and avails himself of the present opportunity of tendering his sincere thanks for the most liberal patronage heretofore received, and hopes to merit the same by a close application to his profession. OFFICE—a few doors West of the Printing Office.
The seventy-word announcement would be printed eleven times, appearing in each of the first eleven issues, and run for four and a half months from February 7 to June 27, 1849 (the original three months were extended). The printed price for advertising in the Guardian was $1 for one insertion of sixteen lines or less, with each additional insertion 50 cents, but with “a reasonable discount made to such as advertise by the quarter or year.”47
Notes
1. “Anti-Mormon Meeting in Quincy,” Quincy (Illinois) Whig, April 29, 1846, 2.
2. After Lovina died in 1847, Rebecca wanted her two granddaughters to join her in the West, a desire that remained with her throughout her life, even after the girls married and had families of their own. “This was her [Rebecca’s] great desire, and last request made of her son Ezra, to bring to the church in Zion, Lovina’s two daughters and their descendants who were left in Quincy, Ill.” Nancy Clement Williams, After 100 Years (Independence, Mo.: Zion’s Printing and Publishing, 1951), 188.
3. Stanley B. Kimball, “The Saints and St. Louis, 1831–1857: An Oasis of Tolerance and Security,” BYU Studies 13, no. 4 (1973): 507.
4. Sheri Eardley Slaughter, “‘Meet Me in St. Louie’: An Index of Early Latter-day Saints Associated with St. Louis, Missouri,” Nauvoo Journal 10, no. 2 (1998): 50. See also William G. Hartley, “St. Louis and the Nauvoo Exodus: The Experience of the John Ellison Family,” Nauvoo Journal 10, no. 2 (1998): 39–47.
5. Medical suppliers in St. Louis would often advertise in the Quincy Whig. See, for example, the ad for “Benjamin Phelps, No. 76, Chestnut Street, St. Louis, Mo., Western General Agent for all the Best Family Medicines,” March 12, 1845, 4. The St. Louis “Best Family Medicines” announcement had been running since November 13, 1844.
On page 4 of the March 5, 1845, edition appeared the announcement dissolving the firm of Riggs & Williams, which had been running consistently since October 2, 1844.
6. Packet boats were small boats designed for domestic mail, passenger, and freight transportation on rivers and canals. Announcements for the “Regular Semi-Weekly Packet from Quincy to St. Louis” appeared often in the Quincy Whig. See, for example, September 25, 1844, 3.
8. “Names of Members in the Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints taken at Conference Jany. 31, 1847 St. Louis Missouri,” 2. Family History Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City.
9. The statements are found in the Frederick G. Williams file at the Church History Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City. Frederick’s letter was written to Rebecca on June 4, 1834, while he was in Zion’s Camp. It was copied by James Mulholland into Joseph Smith Letterbook 2:58–59, found in Selected Collections from the Archives of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ed. Richard E. Turley Jr., 2 vols. (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 2002), vol. 1, DVD 20, microfilm copy in Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.
10. The incomplete letter, missing the first page or pages, was written to her father, Isaac Swain, on June 4, 1834, and is found in the Church History Library. The second letter was written on August 1, 1838, also to her father. The letter has been lost, but the substance of her testimony was recorded in a letter from her brother George Swain on March 17, 1839. I obtained a copy of the letter from George Swain from my uncle Orlando C. Clement; it remains in my possession. It was referenced but not printed in Williams, After 100 Years, 197–98.
11. “Incidents in the Life of H. E. Crombie Williams, 11th April 1899,” in Frederick G. Williams, Medical ledger, 229–47, Church History Library.
There is a Brigham Young University Library transcript of this autobiography, typed in 1953. The preface says that “the manuscript used to make this copy may have been a copy of the original” and that the original was “a ledger book, which was approximately 36 x 20 cm. in size.” The preface also states that the transcript belonged to Elizabeth Williams Farr of Provo and that permission to make a copy was obtained from Owen Blair Williams of Springville. The transcript begins with the information that appears on page 209 of the ledger, then proceeds to “Incidents,” which begins on page 229. The BYU version adds some words and sentences, and omits some passages. At times it blends the two autobiographical accounts found in the medical ledger and changes the order of the events. At one point in the narrative, the BYU copyist wrote, “Something has been left out here perhaps by typst.” The BYU version indicates page breaks in the manuscript that was copied, which reached to page 54.
The citations taken from Henrietta’s autobiography that appear in Williams, After 100 Years, conform to the BYU Library version typed in 1953, which suggests that Nancy may have made the original transcription and shared a copy of it with Elizabeth Williams Farr and perhaps with other members of the family.
12. This short autobiographical sketch by Henrietta (dated October 3, 1884, on pages 45–47 in Ezra H. G. Williams’s journal) was probably written at her son’s request not long after the journal was presented to him by his father, dated November 26, 1883, from Ogden. The original is in my possession, which I obtained from my aunt Elizabeth Williams Rogers of Salt Lake City on June 20, 1968.
13. She begins her narrative with these words: “Henrietta Elizabeth Crombie. Born in Boston Massachusetts, September 27, 1827, 5 days after the Prophet Joseph Smith Junior received the plates on which were engraved the writings of Mormon concerning his people.” See Henrietta Elizabeth Crombie Williams, untitled autobiography, April 10, 1893, Ogden, Utah, in Frederick G. Williams, Medical ledger, 209.
14. Crombie genealogy found in Frederick G. Williams, Medical ledger, 178 and 183.
15. William Barnett Crombie was baptized in Kanesville, Iowa. John Henry Crombie was baptized in Salt Lake City. See Crombie genealogy in Frederick G. Williams, Medical ledger, 178.
16. Henrietta Elizabeth Crombie Williams, untitled autobiography, 209.
17. Williams, After 100 Years, 137. Elder Pratt does not record the incident in his autobiography, but does reference his mission to the Atlantic States, including Boston, with Elder Benson, during the first six months of 1845. Scot Facer Proctor and Maurine Jensen Proctor, eds., Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2000), 421–23.
18.Plan of the City of St. Louis, Survey Ordered July 10th 1823, Completed:—December 1823, Adopted in March 1824. Revised & Corrected in June 1835, reproduced in 1968 by Historic Urban Plans, Ithaca, New York from the original in the Library of Congress, shows that the corner of Myrtle Street and Seventh (where Rebecca had her home and where Ezra and Henrietta were married) was a block below Chouteau’s Pond and seven blocks up from the Mississippi River. The baseball stadium for the St. Louis Cardinals now occupies the area.
19. “Incidents in the Life of H. E. Crombie Williams,” 231.
20. Marriage Records, Book 3, p. 446, Archives Department, Office of the Recorder of Deeds, City Hall, St. Louis, Missouri. I made the Xerox copy on August 7, 2002.
21. “Incidents in the Life of H. E. Crombie Williams,” 231.
22. Henrietta studied at Saint Ursulla’s, “an exclusive finishing school for girls. Here she was taught sewing, music ‘and the arts of culture and refinement,’” Williams, After 100 Years, 136.
23. “Incidents in the Life of H. E. Crombie Williams,” 231.
24. “Incidents in the Life of H. E. Crombie Williams,” 231.
25. Genealogy of Lovina and Burr Riggs, in Frederick G. Williams, Medical ledger, 269.
27. See 1860 U.S. Census for Adams County, Illinois, Quincy 5th Ward, p. 290. The census taker was required to record the “name of every person whose usual place of abode on the first of June, 1860, was in this family.” The enumeration for the Pinkham family was done on July 17, 1860, and shows family #2257 was headed by Nathan Pinkham, age forty-five, proprietor of the Omnibus line. The household listed a total of thirteen individuals, ten of whom worked for Omnibus; the others included his mother, Betsey Pinkham, age seventy-two, and his niece Lucy Riggs, age fourteen, who was listed as a “domestic.” The older sister, Adeline Riggs, was married and out of the home by this time.
28. Henrietta Elizabeth Crombie Williams, untitled autobiography, 210.
29. The signed statement appears to be a newspaper account (but with no attribution); it was copied by Henrietta into Frederick G. Williams, Medical ledger, 203.
30. “Incidents in the Life of H. E. Crombie Williams,” 231.
31. The letter from Heber C. Kimball was copied into Frederick G. Williams, Medical ledger, 139–40, by Mary Ellen Williams Gardner, a daughter of Ezra G. and Henrietta E. C. Williams and a granddaughter of Rebecca Swain and Frederick G. Williams.
32. Henrietta Elizabeth Crombie Williams, untitled autobiography, 209–10.
33. Untitled biographical sketch on the life of Ezra Granger Williams in the handwriting of his wife Henrietta, found in Frederick G. Williams, Medical ledger, 315.
34. “Henrietta Elizabeth Crombie Williams,” October 3, 1884, a short autobiographical sketch that appears in the journal of her second son, Ezra Henry Granger Williams, 45. The original was given to me by my aunt Elizabeth Rogers in Salt Lake City, June 20, 1968.
35. William G. Hartley and A. Gary Anderson, Sacred Places: A Comprehensive Guide to Early LDS Historical Sites, vol. 5, Iowa and Nebraska, ed. LaMar C. Berrett (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2005), 121.
36. Hartley and Anderson, Sacred Places: Iowa and Nebraska, 121.
39. “Incidents in the Life of H. E. Crombie Williams,” 234.
40. Richard Lloyd Anderson, “Reuben Miller, Recorder of Oliver Cowdery’s Reaffirmations,” BYU Studies 8, no. 3 (1968): 277–78.
41. Maria Louise Cowdery was born on August 11, 1835. She was the first of six children born to Oliver and Elizabeth and the only one of the Cowdery children who grew to maturity. See Leonard J. Arrington, “Oliver Cowdery’s Kirtland, Ohio, ‘Sketch Book,’” BYU Studies 12, no. 4 (1972): 415 n. 11.
42. “Incidents in the Life of H. E. Crombie Williams,” 234.
43. “Incidents in the Life of H. E. Crombie Williams,” 246. I will give more information about this meeting presently.
