Sealed 6 Feb. 1846 to Pettingill. NV. 5. Re-baptized 14 July 1967 to establish
record.
Rhoda was the first one in the family to hear about the gospel. It was in Mendon, New York that she had been given a Book of Mormon by Samuel Smith, brother of the Prophet Joseph Smith. The family all read it. They had always been a religious family. A neighbor, Heber C. Kimball said that the family of John Young "Had teh same principles in their breast which I had in mine; truth was what we wanted and would have, and truth we did receive, for the Lord granted us a testimony upon testimony of the truth of the gospel. (Heber C. Kimball Journal, Millennial Star 27 (1864), Pg. 503) Susannah's father John and his wife, Hannah; Fanny, Rhoda, Joseph, Phinehus, Brigham and Lroenzo and their spouses were all baptized on April 14, 1832, Susannah was baptized in June of the same year, and Louisa and her husband followed later that year, and Nancy and her husband were baptized in 1833 in Tyronne. All the family remained loyal and valiant members of the Church throughout their lives.(This information was obtained by Burt Oliphant from the Land and Records Office in Nauvoo, Ill in August 2000 on his way home from Palmyra, N.Y on a mini mission. He and his wife Peggy had served a mission there from July 1995 - Aug 1997) This information was gathered by Sandra L. Chatterley, May 3, 1999 who was serving a mission in Nauvoo. We appreciate her efforts so much in gleaning this 8 page history of this family, in particular Susannah Young. Sandra Chatterly says: "While serving as a missionary in Nauvoo from November, 1997, 1999, I was determined to find where Susannah lived while in Nauvoo. My assignment at the Land and Records Office gave me an opportunity to examine many records to try to find the answer to this question. Susannah was one of the very poor saints, I have found no evidence that she owned land in Nauvoo. Some of her family came from the Missouri persecutions through Quincy and to Nauvoo. I do not know when Susannah came. She was here in the winter of 1842 because she and her daughter were enumerated in the LDS Priesthood Census taken then. In the original census records just above her name the enumerator wrote "Edwin S. Litt..." then crosssed out those words. It is possible that Susannah lived with her son, Edwin at least part of the time she was in Nauvoo. Edwin was called on missions and was gone a good deal of the time. (The information above is on Rhoda Young's notes)
Continued from above: There is a card in Rowena Miller's file for Edwin Little that says that he 'he took Kimball's house. This was found in Brigham Young's Daybook. The property is described as Commerce BlK 10, lot 8. There is also a card indicating that Edwin paid taxes on the Munson Lands. This was a large field, unplatted, where about 22 families lived, mostly on the edges, they were mainly squatters on the land. Part of this would have been close to, if not in Commerce. My feeling is that Susannah may have lived in this house with Edwin before his marriage in 1844. There is a mention in Willard Richard's journal of "\'an old house belonging to Hiram Kimbal.' Hiram Kimball lived on Commerce BLK 11, lot 2. James described Susannah's circumstances as 'very poor' when he came about 1844. The part of town where these lots are, except for Hiram Kimball's home, barn and store, were occupied by very poor saints, many of whom had been driven out of Missouri and were destitute.
On the same page in the Cencus, just before Susannah's name is that of Edwin D. Webbv and his family and above his name is Chancy Webb and his family. The Webb brothers built their blacksmith shop and probably their homes farther south in Nauvoo in 1843. Were they, too living in Commerce, in temporary log cabins in 1842? Possibly Susannah lived with them or perhaps just nearby, since her son, James tells about going 'to Mother's for dinner when he came to Nauvoo.
Another confusing bit of information is that Susannah's children went to school in the 4th Ward School taught by Pamela W. McMichael. Also on the same census block as Susannah is Sidney Rigdon, who is said to hae lived in the 'lower stone house' when he first came to Nauvoo, and the house he built later is in the 4th Ward not far from teh Webb brothrs blacksmith shop. Was there a mistake in where these families were enumerated in the census-- were they actually in Ward 4 when the records say they were Ward 1, census block 3? Or did they just move farther south after the census was taken?
If Susannah lived on Commerce 10, lot 8, that would be just above Young street about even with Locust street, which today, does not go all the way through from Parley to Young. It is in a diagonal line southeast from the home which still stands of Hiram and Sarah Granger Kimball. This is also close to the upper edge of the Munson Lands. We may never know for certain just where Susannah lived"
(Sandra L. Chatterley, May 3, 1999--Nauvoo, Illinois)
The rest of this history of Sandra L. Chatterly is very good and much the same as what I have so I will not include it here but will say that I have put it into my Family History Book under the "Histories"
tab.The following is a compilation I have found through the years taken from my Judd Book. - Jeanne Oliphant Guymon
“She lived for many years, a Mormon in every sense of the word.”
James A. Little,-----SonINTRODUCING SUSANNAH YOUNG
My great, grandmother, Susannah Young, Brigham Young’s sister joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1832 the same year that most of her sisters and brothers were baptized. “It was in Mendon that she first heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Her sister, Rhoda Greene had been given a Book of Mormon by Samuel Smith, brother of the Prophet Joseph Smith. The family all read it. They had always been a religious family. A neighbor, Heber C. Kimball said that the family of John Young “had the same principles in their breasts which I had in mine; truth was what we wanted and would have, and truth we did receive, for the Lord granted us testimony upon testimony of the truth of the gospel.
Susannah’s father, John and his wife Hannah, Fanny, Rhoda, Joseph, Phinehas, Brigham and Lorenzo and their spouses were all baptized on April 14, 1832. Susannah was baptized in June of the same year, and Louisa and her husband followed later that year, and Nancy and her husband were baptized in 1833 in Tyrone. All of the family remained loyal and valiant members of the Church throughout their lives.
She followed her family and the Saints to the Kirtland, Ohio region and later to Nauvoo. In Nauvoo she may have stayed with her son, Edwin, who was there periodically. He was called on missions and was gone some of the time. She may have stayed with other people. Her two children, Lacy and Cornelia Stilson were enrolled in school from January 3 to1 July 1842. The school was held by Pamela W. McMichael in Nauvoo. (Nauvoo Journal Vol 1#1 Jan. 1989) Susannah and Cornelia listed as Susannah C. are in the 1842 Priesthood Census taken in Nauvoo in the winter and spring of that year. (Census lists, NRI Records, Nauvoo: Census Block 3 in Ward 1; also Early Mormon Records by Lyman D Platte) Susannah is listed as belonging to the Relief Society in Nauvoo. She joined sometime after the first meeting in March of 1842.
Susannah Young was born the 7 June 1795 in Hopkinton, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. She was the sixth child of eleven children born to John Young and Abigail (Nabby) Howe.
Susannah’s father, John, was born 6 March 1763 at Hopkinton, Massachusetts. John’s mother was Elizabeth Hayden Treadway, a widow and his father was Joseph Young. Joseph died when John was six years old. John had no idea what become of his brothers and sisters, except the one that died as a child.
John Young married Abigail Nabby Howe, at Hopkinton, 31 October 1785. Nabby had a doll like face, blue eyes, yellow hair, was lovable with a gentle disposition, and was very pious. Abigail was born 3 May 1766 in Hopkinton, Massachusetts.
The family moved many places and many times. Their young daughter Nabby, born two years before Susannah, died at the age of fourteen years, in 1807. It was a sad time for the family. The family moved to Whitingham, Windham, Vermont about 1800.
The family moved then in 1813 to Aurilius, Cayuga County, New York, near Auburn. The older children were getting married. The mother was worn out by the constant hardships and fighting tuberculosis. She died 11 June 1815 at the age of forty-nine years.
Susannah met James Little, son of William Little and Letitia Smith, in 1813. He was born about 1790 in Terordan, County Monaghan, Ireland. He came to America with his parents when he was a boy of 10 or 12 years of age. Family and friends who knew him, that he was a short well-knit man with great powers of endurance have said it. He was never known to complain of being weary. He slept about four hours out of 24 and read or worked the remainder of the time. It is also said he was well read and an intelligent man who possessed quite a collection of books.
Susannah and James were married in 1815, Cayuga County, New York, the same year her mother died. The first child Edwin Sobieski Little was born, 22 January 1816. Their second child, Eliza, was born in 1818; she died before 1822. The family succeeding the Littles found her tombstone with the inscription partly finished in the home. The third child, Feramorz, was born 14 June 1820. James Amasa was born 14 September 1822.
Land records in Auburn, Cayuga County, New York show that on the 4 March 1816, James Little bought 50 acres of land, from Mathius Huffman. Here he carried on farming and gardening. His sons at one time had in their possession a printed handbill, dated 1819 advertising his vegetable business. It has been related that he was the first man in New York to sell seeds in packages, also to introduce tomatoes for table use. In order to do this it was necessary to get a permit from Governor Clinton. “Love Apples”, as tomatoes were then called, were thought to be poisonous and grown in gardens for decoration only.
James and Susannah worked hard on their farm. James frequently visited Auburn, the county seat, four miles distant, to dispose of his produce and bring home supplies. Near the road was a deep hole from which sand had been taken out for building purposes which James noticed as he went to Auburn. It is supposed that the bank caved in after he had gone over the road. Returning home in the darkness of night, the wheels on one side of his wagon slipped into the pit turning over and pinning him under the loaded wagon. It was thus he was found dead the next morning. The horse had worked loose and was feeding near by. This was the last week in November 1822.
The time of this incident is set in a letter from John Wildridge Little to Feramorz in which he says, “My father (Moses Little) and family arrived at the Little home in Junius, Seneca County, N. Y., November 5, 1822, and I should say the accident occurred not more than three weeks after our arrival, making the time the last week of November.”
At his death she had the three small boys, the youngest, James, was about two and a half months old. A daughter, Eliza, had died earlier; the family succeeding the Littles found her tombstone with the inscription partly finished in the home. A few years later Susannah bound (hired} out her youngest son James, and then moved to Mendon, New York where her father and other family members were living.
Susannah was now a widow when she was only 28 years old. Susannah gave up the farm. In February 1825 she married Richard Oliphant, in Canandaigua, Ontario, New York. They had one son, Charles Henry, born 15 November 1825. Susannah later divorced Richard Oliphant.
Family tradition says that Susannah took up the catering business to earn a living and it was while working at this that she met Richard Oliphant; a printer from England [coming to this country in 1810] Susannah took her little family to live in Mendon, New York about 1829. Her father and others of her family had moved there earlier.
In 1829, Susannah married William B. Stilson, in Menden, Monroe, New York. They had three children. Emiline was born 1830 and she died as a child. William Lacy was born 20 September 1833, Wellsville, Columbia, Ohio. Cornelia Ann was born 22 May 1836, Little Beaver, Beaver County Pennsylvania. Mr. Stilson left Susannah and she didn’t hear from him for several years.
Susannah’s sons by James Little; Edwin, Feramorz and James were bound out to families, and worked for their own living.
While here in Mendon, she learned of the new church organized by the Prophet Joseph Smith. Susannah’s father John Young was baptized 5 April 1832. Her brother Brigham Young was baptized the 14 April 1832. Other members of her family also joined. Susannah was baptized in June 1832, and suffered many of the persecutions of the church as she moved with the Saints to Kirtland, Ohio, and then to Nauvoo in 1840. Here her son James found her in poor circumstances.
The following year she went to St. Louis, Missouri, where her husband William Stilson was located in the Jefferson Barracks, Camp A-3rd Regiment of Infantry, of the U.S. Army. He had left home earlier and had not been heard from for some years. He re-enlisted and was given family quarters in the Barracks. Some time in the spring 1844, he died there in St. Louis, of “lung fever.”
In about 1843 Susannah’s son, Feramorz, also decided to find his family. He traveled on horseback to St. Louis, Missouri, where he found Susannah and his brother, James, who he had not seen for about 10 years. He went into the grocery business and also engaged in farming and school teaching both there and back in Nauvoo some time later. Susannah returned to Nauvoo. This was in about 1844. The family seemed to be back and forth between Nauvoo and St. Louis for the next few years.
In Nauvoo Susannah met Alonzo Pettingill and they were married and sealed in the Nauvoo Temple by Brigham Young on 6 February 1846. Susannah received her endowments in the Nauvoo Temple on January 23, 1846. The Saints had worked hard to complete their beloved Temple and were anxious to receive the sacred ordinances. Also in 1846 Feramorz married Fannie M. Decker, a sister to Harriet Decker who had married Edwin Little.
Marriage to Brother Pettingill must have provided Susannah a happier interim, as he seemed to be a good man and a faithful member of the Church. But times in Nauvoo were drawing to a close as trouble and turmoil again forced the Saints to pull up stakes and head for a new home. Edwin, Susannah’s oldest son, left with Brigham Young’s company in the great Exodus of 4 February, 1846. But this was an ill-fated journey for Edwin. He fell into the river helping Uncle Brigham’s wagon get across and developed pneumonia, which made him very ill. He continued on with his wife, one-year-old son, and the rest of the company. In spite of the best doctoring his friends and family could do and blessings given, Edwin worsened and while encamped at Richardson Point in Lee County, Iowa, he passed away on the morning of March 18th, just a little more than a month out of Nauvoo. Susannah probably learned of the death and must have grieved at this latest tragedy.Susannah and Alonzo Pettingill left Nauvoo, probably with the poor Saints in the Fall of 1846, but not having enough money to make the trip West, they instead headed for St. Louis, as did many others, to work and save until they could leave. Alonzo Pettingill was a shoemaker and felt he could do better in St. Louis. They were in St. Louis for about two years. Feramorz had come and had a store there and Father Pettingill, as he was called, worked for him. James returned from the Army and stayed again with his mother and family. Father Pettingill was patient with James’ animosity toward the Church, and answered questions and taught his stepson whenever he could. James was impressed with his quiet testimony.
The family must have been planning on going West in 1848, as there is a letter from Brigham Young, evidently to answer to their letter inquiring as to whether they might use one of Brigham’s cabins at Winter Quarters. His reply was: “I would be glad to let you have one of my houses but they are all situated on the West bank of the Missouri River on the Indian lands and we cannot be allowed to stay there (Winter Quarters) longer than this Spring, so that about 800 houses built by the brethren are useless save for fire wood or to be left for the Indians to burn or lay waste. This was probably a setback for Susannah and her family.
Susannah’s son, William Lacy Stilson drove a wagon across the Plains for his Uncle Brigham Young in 1848. He was 15 years old. She had a great desire to gather with the Saints in the Salt Lake Valley. Finally, in the early spring of 1849 James was able to get the supplies and outfit a wagon and he left St. Louis with his Mother and stepsister Cornelia. We left St. Louis quite as soon as the grass began to grow and arrived at Kanesville (Winter Quarters) about the 1st of June. In February 1849, Alonzo died of “lung fever”. He was buried in St. Louis, Missouri, without anything to mark his grave.
Sadly, Alanso Pettingill did not survive the winter of 1849. He came down with “lung fever” in February. They had the best physicians they could find and did all they could for him. During this last illness he seemed to know that his death was approaching and was calm and resigned. He testified to his stepson, James that he had implicit faith in the principles of the Gospel. This made a strong impression on James. Father Pettingill passed away and “was buried in a graveyard in St. Louis, without anything to mark the spot where lies the remains of a faithful, good man, my father in the Gospel.” (James A. Little autobiography)In Kanesville they met Susannah’s brothers, Phineas and Joseph Young with their families. They crossed the Missouri River and encamped with the others who were gathering to organize for crossing the plains. They were assigned to Lorenzo Clark’s ten, Enoch Reese’s fifty, and Captain Perkin’s hundred. They had a pair of steers and two cows. Their biggest problem was the stampeding of the cattle. They found that things were quieter if the group of ten camped alone.
The most serious difficulties they encountered on their way were stampedes of cattle. These occurred sometimes while traveling, but more often while encamped in a corral formed by their wagons for safety. They were sudden, unexpected and dangerous. They found the best remedy for night stampedes was to tie up the cattle separately outside their wagons. The stampedes were so dangerous and frequent that “they over balanced our fear of Indians, and the tens were directed to travel and camp by themselves. In the hundred, one or two persons were killed and some injured. Sometimes cattle were seriously damaged. After a journey of about three and one half months, the company arrived in the Salt Lake Valley. They encamped on a bench near the mouth of Emigration Canyon on October 16, not realizing how close they were to their journey’s end. They drove on into the valley October 17, 1849. Salt Lake City at that time had enough houses for a respectable village, had they been closer together. They were scattered over a large area of ground.James Little took a middle name of “Amasy”. He took two more wives in plural marriage. He died in Kanab, Kane, Utah, 10 September 1908 at the age of 86 years.
Susannah’s son, Edwin Sobieski Little, married Harriet Amelia Decker, 22 March 1842, Winchester, Scott, Illinois. Edwin’s Uncle Joseph Young married them. They were sealed and endowed in the Nauvoo Temple, 28 January 1846. No children were sealed at that time. Their son George Edwin was not sealed to them until 10 October 1938, Salt Lake Temple, when Teton Jackman found this record was not complete. George Edwin was born 6 August 1844, in Nauvoo, Hancock, Illinois.
Edwin and Harriet left with the Saints to go to Winter Quarters, and in crossing the Mississippi River, the ice broke with the wagon Edwin was helping with and he was thrown into the icy water. It was bitter cold weather and he contracted pneumonia and died three weeks later, 18 March 1846. It was fifty-five miles out of Nauvoo, near Richard’s Point, now Keosaugua, Lee County, Iowa. It was a sad day for Harriet to bury her husband by the side of the road. Their son George Edwin is my mother’s father. She, Mattie Taylor Little Hanks, was the fourteenth child of George and Martha Taylor Little. They had 103 grandchildren, making great grandchildren for Susannah.
Susannah and James Little’s son Feramorz married Harriet Decker, sister of Fannie Marie Decker. Feramorz took three wives in plural marriage. He was the mayor in Salt Lake City, for three terms, 1876 to 1882. In 1872 and 1873 he and his daughter Susan Clare were chosen to go with George A. Smith and others on a tour of the Holy Land, through Europe and into Egypt. He died 14 August 1887 in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Two of Harriet Decker’s sisters, Lucy Ann and Clara were plural wives of Brigham Young. Their mother was married to Lorenzo Dow Young. Her name was Harriet Page Wheeler, ex-wife of Isaac Decker. Harriet Wheeler and her daughter Clare and Ellen Sunders were the three first pioneer women, who came in July 1847.
Susannah and Richard Oliphant had one son, Charles Henry, born 15 November 1825 who married first, Agnes Briton, 11 June 1846, in Rochester, Monroe, New York. Charles stayed in Rochester until the spring of 1853.
Charles wrote his mother, Susannah from Rochester, New York in 1852, saying that he would like to come to Utah in the spring of 1853. His letter arrived just four days before she died. This made her very happy that he was gathering with the Church. He made this journey by mule team. They lost their two oldest children from scarlet fever on the way, while at St. Louis, Missouri. They arrived in Salt Lake City, 25 September 1853. In May 1855 he and his wife Agnes were baptized members of the Church. Charles and Agnes had seven children. They were divorced 14 November 1862. He married second, Sabina Agusta Dallinger, 1 December 1861. He married the third time, 11 April 1870, to Lucinda Abigail Judd. His second wife, Sabina had one daughter Susan Agusta. His third wife Lucinda Judd had thirteen children. He died 16 October 1902, in Orangeville, Emery County, Utah at age 78 years and was buried there.
Susannah’s son William Lacy Stilson was only fifteen years old when he drove a wagon with two yoke of oxen across the plains in 1848, for his Uncle Brigham Young. In Salt Lake City he married Cyrena Martha Lytle, 8 May 1859. The next day he left with his half brother Feramorz Little for Omaha, to help bring back supplies. He and Cyrena were the parents of twelve children. He died 29 August 1913, and she died 3 October 1913 in Orangeville, Emery County, Utah. Both were buried there.
Cornelia Ann Stilson, born 22 May 1836 in Little Beaver, Beaver, Pennsylvania, was 13 years old when she came with her mother Susannah and half brother James Little in 1849. At the early age of sixteen years she was left an orphan without the love of a mother to guide her. She married James McKnight, in Salt Lake City, 17 March 1854. He was from Ireland. Records show he married three other wives. She had four children by James. From Stilson records we quote, “Cornelia grew to womanhood, was a spirited lady, fair to look upon and capable, but unhappily married. In order to free herself from a smooth tongued, tyrannical husband she went away to California, where she died 28 June 1865, Kingston, San Bernadino, California at the age of 29 years. Her husband James died 6 April 1906, Port Townsend, Jefferson, Washington. An Aunt Rebecca McKnight Moses of Washington D.C raised their son James Arthur. He was educated in France. He became a political leader in the United States. With his two marriages he was the father of ten children.
Susannah did not have children by Alonzo Pettingill, but her posterity is numerous. She died 5 May 1852, Salt Lake City, Utah. Buried in the City Cemetery, 8 May 1852. She was nearly 67 years old. Her trials had been many during her short life on this earth. I admired her for teaching her children the Gospel of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and living true and faithful to the end.
Susannah was the mother of eight children and grandmother to 82 grandchildren.James found a small adobe house of one room in which he located his mother and Cornelia and called it home. They had to learn, as did others, how to live in this new, strange land. The food they had brought across the plains was gone and food was in short supply in the valley. That first winter they lived mainly on shorts, bread and a little tea. On December 16, 1849, Susannah got up a little dinner party to which Brigham Young was invited and James married Mary Jane Lytle. After a little while, James found another house with two rooms and he and Mary Jane lived in one, Susannah and Cornelia in the other.
Susannah only had two and a half years in the Salt Lake Valley. Tuesday, May 4th was a dull morning in Salt Lake City, at noon it commenced storming-rain and a high wind. Worn out from the trials and hardships of a pioneer life, she passed away in Salt Lake City on that day in 1852.
The Deseret News of May 4th printed the following. “Died, Susan Pettinguil or Pettingill) (sic) widow of Alanson Pettingill, sister of Governor Young, age 56 years 11 months 4 days.
May her ashes rest in the silent tomb
Till Christ the mighty Prince shall come
And bid the dust arise,
Then every saint from every clime
In robes of righteousness shall shine
In their celestial home.
There may we all our sister meet
And all our friends and kindred greet
In our celestial home.
There kings and priests and prophets come,
To honor and adore Andaum
And worship at his feet.
(Deseret New dated May 4, 1852 From the Journal History of the Church, Church Historian’s Office)Many details for this history was taken from, Descendants of William Little Jr., and Allied Families, compiled by Harriet Fredricksen Little, in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1958. She was born 31 May 1884, Castle Dale, Emery County, Utah. She married David Baldwin Little, 2 Jan 1909, youngest son of James Amasa and Anne Matilda Baldwin Little. David died 9 June 1911, El Paso, Texas. Harriet retired from school Teaching in Salt Lake County in 1944. Since 1935 she collected records of the Little Family. The past few years her eye sight has been bad, but she is able to catch a bus and go to the Salt Lake Temple from her home at 510 East 300 South Salt Lake City, Utah. We appreciate the research she has compiled on the families of Susannah Young and James Little. I have altered certain parts of this history where it is duplicated by the following history of James A. Little.
JAMES AMASY LITTLE, BROTHER OF CHARLES HENRY OLIPHANT
The following story of James A. Little, son of Susannah, written by him, fills in the picture of Susannah Young just a little bit more. It is taken from the book Our Pioneer Heritage. It is as follows:
William Little Junior had three sons, Moses, Malcolm, and James. The latter is the father of James A., the subject of this sketch. William Little Jr., with his sons, emigrated from Ireland April 11, 1807 and arrived in New York City May 18, 1807. About the year 1815 James, the father of James A., married Susan Young, the daughter of John Young Senior and Nabby Howe Young. She is also the sister of John, Joseph, Phineas H., Brigham, and Lorenzo Dow Young, five brothers who have played a conspicuous part in the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. On their farm, about four miles from Aurelius, Cayuga County, New York, were born to James and Susan Young Little, Edwin Sabriska, Eliza, Feramorz, and James. The latter was named James after his father, but when about twenty years old he worked in a shop where there were so many by the name of James that to distinguish himself from the others he added Amasy to his name and has since been known on the records as James A. Little. James was born September 14, 1822. The father was killed by his wagon’s overturning in 1822 leaving Susan a young widow with three little boys, James A., being a babe in arms. Eliza, the only daughter, had died before the father. After the death of her husband Mrs. Little moved to Menden, Monroe County, New York where, in time, she married Richard Oliphant in February 1825, and were divorced shortly after. She married William B. Stilson in 1829. The James A. Little story follows:
I was bound out at an early age to a Mr. Bouton and his wife, who married late in life and who had no children to soften and tone down their characters. They were Presbyterians and very strict. Mr. Bouton was a kind-hearted man, but quick-tempered, and naturally, under the influence of his wife, who was of a melancholy mind and apt to find much fault about trifles. Her reports of my boyish delinquencies resulted in my getting many serious beatings. There was no love manifested by either of them for me, and as I grew up I longed more intensely for someone to love. There was a void in my young heart, which there was nothing to fill, and faultfinding and beating caused increasing discontent, in my bosom. When about sixteen years old I declared my independence, in the barn, when Mr. Bouton picked up the end of an ox gad to hit me. The first move I made was in self-defense. He seemed amazed and desisted. This created a change in our relative positions and relived me of much abuse. I remained with him another winter and got four more months of schooling. Considering the stringent code of discipline under which they were raised I think they did very well with me. They trained me in strict principles of morality; and through diligence and perseverance I acquired a good education.
In the spring of my seventeenth year I took my belongings on my back and went on foot to see my uncle, Malcolm Little, in Seneca County and my brother, Feramorz, in Genesee County. I hired out to a widow lady, Mrs. Smith. She had two children, Chauncey, and Emeline. I had been acquainted with them for some years. A strong attachment grew between Emeline, and myself, and she favored my suit. Although I was industrious, moral, and fairly well educated, the mother objected to our union as her daughter would inherit a few hundred from her father’s estate, and I was penniless. That winter I taught school. I worked for Mrs. Smith the next summer, then again engaged to teach school in the Pine Wood District. The boys had turned the teacher out the previous winter, and I had learned some lessons in my school the previous year also. So when I discovered mutiny among the larger boys I quelled it with a strong hand, and succeeded in gaining the respect of both parents and children.
I went up to visit my brother, Charles Oliphant, at Rochester and saw my first railroad. The cars were then running between that city and Buffalo. I next got a job from Mr. Carter, a long-faced praying Methodist who cheated me out of my season’s wages amounting to twelve dollars per month. Always after that if I had anything to do with him I thought he would bear watching. The winter of 1842 was a very severe one. I went out into the country where I met a couple of Mormon elders, the first I had seen. They claimed to know President Young, and were on their way to Nauvoo. I took a notion to visit my relatives in Nauvoo, so a friend and I started and made our way to Chicago, with some unusual experiences. From Chicago we traveled on foot to the head of Steamboat Navigation, on the Illinois River. A canal was being constructed between these points. We found a steamer going to St. Louis without cargo, so we went free. I was young and thought I knew more than I do now, after fifty years of study, and experience. Like most people of that time who knew little or nothing of the Mormons, I was much prejudiced against them. There were some on the steamer, and as I remember, I fairly ventilated my prejudices. When I arrived in Nauvoo I was poorly clad, but as the Saints had colonized the place when driven from Missouri I was about on a level with them. My mother, Uncles Brigham, Phineas H., Joseph, and Lorenzo D., were there, and many more of my relatives, but all alike were strangers to me, and it was some time before I could sense the relationship. My mother’s sister, Aunt Fanny, was the last one excepting my mother, whom I had parted with when I was thrown a waif on public charity.
So far as poverty and sickness were concerned we could not have been worse off, and live. I found my mother in very poor circumstances. Her husband, William B. Stilson, had left home several years before, and had not been heard from. My first effort was to find labor and get something to live on. I applied to the Messers. Laws who were men of considerable business. They set me at very heavy work, breaking hemp. They were to pay me fifty cents per day in cornmeal, and I was to board myself. The weather was very warm, and besides, cornmeal of itself would not sustain a man under such labor. It was about ten o’clock A.M. when I concluded to do the work. I labored until noon, went to mother’s for some dinner, and decided not to go back again as such labor would not supply the necessities of life, to say nothing of its comforts. I recollect seeing my oldest brother, Edwin, but once in Nauvoo. My uncle Lorenzo D. Young, who lived out east of Nauvoo about sixteen miles, came into Nauvoo about this time, and I went home with him. He had been driven out of Missouri, and, like most of the Mormon people, was in indigent circumstances. A part of his family was then sick. It wasn’t long before I moved Mother out there, and put up a log cabin near Uncle Lorenzo’s. I sought something to do that would better our circumstances, and made a contract with a Mr. Maynard to do a job of work for a good cow, at twelve dollars. I did part of the work, but as it was not pressing; I did not finish at once.
I remember assisting William G., and Joseph W., about this time to hoe a piece of corn. It was not long before Uncle Lorenzo and all of his family were sick, except William. We deeply felt the need of trying to provide food for both families, and were particularly anxious to get bread for the coming winter. With the hope of accomplishing this we took a piece of wheat of several acres to harvest, thresh, etc., as we thought, on quite fair terms. We had worked a day or two at this when William was taken down with chills, and fever. Thus we were bitterly disappointed, and William felt so bad that he shed tears. He was the last one of Uncle Lorenzo’s family who could do anything. For a while I had to wait on all of the sick. Our chance to make our bread was gone, and as I mentioned before, so far as poverty and sickness were concerned, we could not have been worse off.
After a little while I met cousin Evan M. Green, who lived several miles from Uncle Lorenzo’s. He thought I could get the school to teach, where he lived, so I went home with him. I obtained the situation, and I think before I had taught school a week, I was taken down with chills and fever. I recollect nothing distinctly until I found myself in the home of Aunt Fanny Murray in Nauvoo, with my mother. I was pretty sick, and I recollect nearly bleeding to death at the nose. One day Uncle Joseph Young administered to me. I was healed. He afterward reminded me that I promised if I was healed through the administration that I would be baptized. No doubt I did so, but I was too sick for the covenant to make much impression on my mind. About this time Mother got a letter from William B. Stilson. I think it was the first news she had had of him for five years. He was a soldier in the United States Army, and was stationed at Jefferson Barracks, a few miles below St. Louis, Missouri. This was in the autumn, probably in October. Mother concluded to go to him.
I had seen but little that was cheering during my stay in Nauvoo and vicinity. I was bitterly disappointed in the dearest object of my young life; obtaining a home of my own. I think the expression that I cared but little where I went or what I did, and but little whether I lived or died, will about express my condition. In some way Mother raised the money to pay our passage, and she took me with her little daughter Cornelia, and her niece Mary Sanford, the latter being perhaps seventeen, and the daughter of Joel Sanford. On the river steamer to St. Louis the chills and fever took hold of me again, and the turns came on alternate days. A gentleman passenger on the steamer gave me a prescription of Peruvian bark and brandy. I had but one more attack, and have never been troubled with it since.
We found Mr. Stilson at Jefferson Barracks. He belonged to the Third Regiment of Infantry, and family quarters were assigned to him in the barracks. It was not long before his term of enlistment expired. He re-enlisted in company A. Third Infantry and I enlisted in the same company, November 23, 1843. After a little while Mary Sanford married a dashing young sergeant of Company “C” of the same regiment. In the early winter it began to be the gossip in the barracks that there was a chance for a war with Mexico over the admission of Texas into the Union, and especially over the claim of the United States to a piece of territory lying between the River Nuances, and the Rio Grande. The rumor of war increased and in the latter part of the winter there was a rumor that our regiment would soon be ordered to Ft. Jessup in Louisiana, near the Texas Frontier.
During the winter my brother, Edwin, visited us and I understood that he was quite annoyed that I had enlisted in the army. My brother Feramorz, had found his way from the east, and also visited us. I think it was after we had received orders to move to Ft. Jessup that Mr. Stilson took a severe cold and went to the hospital with lung fever. While he was sick in the hospital my regiment was paraded and marched on board a river steamer from New Orleans. My mother, my half-sister, Cornelia, and my brothers, Feramorz and Edwin stood under the porch of the barracks and saw me march off. It could not be otherwise than a lonesome day for me; but my young life had realized few joys and pleasures.
Mr. Stilson died a few days after my departure, and Feramorz took mother and Cornelia to St. Louis, in order to do what he could to sustain them and make a home for Mother. Again I was separated from my loved ones after enjoying their association a few months, all alike suffering in sickness and sorrow. My regiment was sent from New Orleans up Red River, on an old rickety steamer. The water was high, which made navigation much safer that on low water. When we arrived in Ft. Jessup we encamped in the pine timber, about one mile from the fort, with the Fourth Infantry for neighbors, and the Second Dragoons in the fort. I soon became proficient in drill, was careful to do whatever duty was expected of me, and have no complaints to make of my treatment. I have no dates of our moves except the one to Ft. Jessup, the spring of 1844, which was noted for high water in the western rivers. We celebrated the Fourth of July at Ft. Jessup where there was a theater in which to congregate. The Third and fourth Infantry joined with the Second Dragoons in the day’s performances. Each corps selected an orator of the day. Of course commissioned officers took no active part in the day’s services. I was selected to represent the infantry. I wrote an oration, but when I came forward on the stage of the theater I entirely forgot it and delivered an impromptu one. Officers and men listened with much attention, and I believe, were satisfied with the effort. I cannot recall that since that occasion I have ever risen before an audience with a written address or with even notes to assist me. I have been blessed with a good memory and have cultivated it by expecting it to perform its office.
The infantry built temporary quarters in the pinewoods, and remained near Ft. Jessup until the following season. The regiments also united in building a reading room, which was very well furnished with papers and magazines. A debating club was organized, in which I took an active part. I spent much of my leisure in reading. I found the officers very obliging, loaning me books, and particularly Lt. Jordan of my own company. I had no sympathy with gambling, and other vices, which so commonly characterize military life.
I cannot now recall the date of what I am about to relate, which caused a considerable change in my soldier life. One day I was ordered to report for duty to the quartermaster’s office, which was a large tent at Gen. Taylor’s headquarters. On reporting to Mr. Garnier, the chief clerk, I found him very courteous in explaining how I came to be detailed for duty there, and what was expected of me. Gen. Taylor had sent to Col. E. A Hitchcock, the commanding officer of my regiment, inquiring if there was not a man in his command sufficiently competent and trusty to take charge of the army mail at headquarters, and I was selected. Mr. Garnier explained to me that, as the U.S. postage laws were not yet extended over Texas, there was no regular mail service. The only way the army had of getting its mail was through the courtesy of the quartermaster general at New Orleans, who became personally responsible for the postage on it and forwarded it, per government vessels, to the “Army of Occupation,” as it was then called. As postage in those days was generally not prepaid, the responsibilities of the quartermaster general would soon amount to a considerable sum. As everybody handled the letters and papers at headquarters without being responsible for the collection of the postage, he and written to Gen. Taylor requesting that something be done to relieve him of these losses. It didn’t take me long to comprehend the situation. The officers were ready to grant me any facilities I asked for, that could be furnished under the circumstances. I soon had a tent, with a part partitioned off for handling the mails, and paid the money over to Gen. Taylor who, I understood, was my surety to the postmaster at New Orleans. I was known as “Army Postmaster,” and the mails were labeled “Army Post Office.” Night or day I attended diligently to business.
It was some time before the U.S. Postal laws were extended over Texas, and the Texas mail for Corpus Christi came to the army office. I collected postage, which amounted to one hundred dollars, and didn’t know what to do with it. I took his advice, loaned it to a friend, and never saw more of it. This was the second hundred dollars I had accumulated and was cheated out of. Texas was admitted to the union, and perhaps that of itself would not have brought on a war; but there was a direct bone of contention in a strip of territory. The army of Occupation as on the border of this, and prepared to take possession. Preparations were made in the early spring to march across this tract to the Rio Grande, with the chance of the move opening the war.
I had charge of whatever pertained to business, and it was carried in one of the wagons. I was expected night and day, to attend to the mails received, and prepare for the carrier, those that were sent away. A tent was usually pitched at night for the convenience of this business. As the General usually rode on horseback, I was often invited to ride in the wagon that carried the post office fixtures, so I fared very well. The march was over a wild country abounding in species of hog, rattlesnakes several feet long, tarantulas, and centipedes. Water was sometimes scarce and poor. On very warm days the men suffered considerably. I understood that many gave out and had to be brought to water. As we approached the Rio Grande there were some slight demonstrations of hostility on the part of the Mexicans, but there was no bloodshed. As we approached Point Isabel, a little hamlet a short distance north of the mouth of the Rio Grande, some of the buildings were burning, having been set on fire by a detachment of Mexicans. The place was taken possession of as a base of supplies. About twenty-miles from there, on the bank of the Rio Grande opposite the City of Matamoros, the army encamped to await the development of events. I occupied a small hut that stood within the lines of the encampment for a temporary post office.
Matamoros was a somewhat sickly place. There was some yellow fever in the autumn after our arrival. The following year it was quite bad, and quite a number of my friends died. In the yellow fever season of 1847 I was suddenly taken with the disease, but the attack was light. I took, among other medicine, calomel, which salivated me, and I thought the remedy worse than the disease.
In May or June of this year my brother, Feramorz, who lived in St. Louis and was carrying on a small grocery business, paid me a visit. I went into partnership with him; let him have some money to take home with him, and several times afterward sent him money until I had accumulated several hundred dollars in the business. When he arrived home, the man he left in charge of the business had sold out, and absconded with the money.
I kept the military post office in Matamoros until the close of the War in the summer of 1848. Soon after the occupation of Matamoras, my regiment had advanced up the Rio Grande, and I saw it no more. I was at first detailed for detached service and afterward obtained a furlough from Col. Davenport, the military governor of Matamoros. When the city was evacuated, sometime in August, 1848, I attended to seeing the fixtures belonging to the post office moved across the Rio Grande, and was given a furlough to go to my friends, although my term of service did not expire until the following November. I had no opportunity for settlement with the War Department until several years later.
I had endeavored to be faithful in every duty assigned me in the army. This with the knowledge of my steady, temperate habits no doubt obtained for me the situation of army postmaster. After I took possession of the Matadors office, the citizens™ letters came with the army mail from New Orleans. For doing their business I charged five cents extra on their letters. This was so moderate, under the circumstances, that I heard no complaint about it, and it was a source of some revenue to me.
I think it was the first day of September 1848 that I arrived at my brother’s in St. Louis. He was still in the grocery business and still keeping a boarding house. I do not think I was very well fitted for the business, but I worked into it the best I could. Soon after, the Saints were driven from Nauvoo. I heard of their going into the wilderness the winter we lay on Aransas Bay. It appeared, before leaving Nauvoo, Mother married Alonzo Pettingill, and as near as I can learn, left the camp of the Saints when on the march west, and came down to St. Louis to find means of subsistence. There I found them on my arrival from the south. Feramorz and I were prejudiced against the Mormons, and as a consequence, more or less against our relatives who belonged to them. I was a confirmed skeptic so far as the Bible and sectarian religion were concerned. After awhile, as opportunity offered, Father Pettingill and I had some conversations on the doctrines. He found it a little difficult to get along with me.
Often during my infidelity, and more especially this fall and winter, I thought often and long on some questions such as the following; How is it that I am a thinking, acting, dual being of mind and body? What am I here for? I must pass away as others do, and what is my future destiny? I often waked in the night and pondered over these things, but no answer came. All my ideas of God had been derived from sectarianism, and in my infidelity I had not improved on them. I believed there was a great overruling power, but of His attributes, appearance, or dwelling I had no conception, as I have since learned them. One night, as I lay in deep meditation, I was impressed to pray. The following petition was about the result. “Oh, God, if there is a God, how can I obtain some knowledge of myself?” A voice said distinctly, “Mormonism, Mormonism.” It did not startle me in the least, but made an impression on my mind that remained. About the same time, Father Pettingill was taken into the grocery to help. This brought us daily into each other’s society. He was a very quiet, unobtrusive man, but I could see that he greatly desired to convince me of the doctrine in which he believed. With frequent conversations he soon learned the drift of my mind. I often asked him questions similar to those I had pondered. Instead of quoting scripture to prove his ideas he would simply tell me his views. These seemed to me natural and practical, and began to form satisfactory answers to my questions. After he had made some progress in this way, in giving me correct ideas, he would occasionally quote a passage of scripture, which would be a simple embodiment of ideas, he had advanced, and which had almost unconsciously fit into my mind. My conception of the character of the Bible rapidly underwent a change, for I saw and understood it, as I had never done before. As a result I became more interested and earnest in my pursuit of knowledge in this new channel.
In February 1849, Father Pettingill took cold and came down with lung fever. We had the best physicians, and did all we could for him, but in a few days it was evident that his end was approaching. He seemed fully aware of this and I felt a strong desire to know if the principles he had taught me sustained him in his last hours. I sat down by his bed and talked over matters plainly with him. Calm and resigned, he testified that he had the most implicit faith in the principles he had advocated, and his appearance indicated that his words were in accord with the sentiments of his heart. After I had received a testimony of the Gospel, I would have expected that any dying, faithful Latter-day Saint would bear the same testimony as Father Pettingill, but at the time his testimony made a strong impression on me. He passed away, and was buried in a graveyard in St. Louis, without anything to mark the spot where lies the remains of a faithful, good man, my father in the Gospel.
After studying over the subject a little longer, I concluded to be baptized. I fully sensed that the Saints were a slandered, persecuted people, and if I joined them their destiny must be mine. A feeling lurked within me to wish that my baptism be a little quiet. Elder Farnham was at the time the president of the St. Louis Branch. He made arrangements to meet me at Chauteau’s Pond, in the outskirts of the city, about nine o’clock a.m. on a Sunday morning. I quietly got a change of clothing from my room and with it under my arm started for the pond. But I was to go through a curious, and to me, novel experience. I had walked but a little distance when some intelligence began to reason against my being baptized, bringing forcibly to my mind the unpopularity of the Mormons, the great sacrifice I was making, and especially forced on me the idea that there would be no one at the pond to baptize me. This influence so wrought on me that in a short time I turned ‘round to go home. I went back but a short distance, when another power began to advance reasons why I should go on to the pond to be baptized. So strong was this influence also that in a little time I turned ‘round to go to the pond. Again the opposite influence seemed to increase its efforts to induce me to return. It was so powerful that I again turned back. After going a short distance a voice appeared to come from above me, clear and distinct, “Go though down to the pond and thou shalt find someone there to baptize thee.” With firmest resolutions to obey I again started for the pond. The opposing influence seemed to re-double its efforts, and again I turned about to go home. There was no further opposition, and I returned my clothing to my room, and went to the Saint’s meeting in the old Baptist Church. There I found Elder Farnham who informed me that he had been to the pond, and had waited for me. I was afterward baptized, without any unusual occurrence, and confirmed at the water’s edge. I regret that I have no record of this important event of my life.
Not long after my baptism, the spirit of gathering began to work on me. My mother was anxious to gather to the mountains, and certainly the way was opening up for her to do so. I had several hundred dollars in our trading concern, and proposed to Feramorz to draw out what was necessary to take Mother and our half-sister, Cornelia, and go into the mountains. There had been in the few months’ previous, frequent cases of cholera in the city, and I had an attack that was checked by a timely dose of medicine. As if to drive me out, there was a marked impression on my mind that if I remained I would die of the cholera. I fitted out with a wagon and two yoke of oxen, necessary provisions, and a reasonable amount of money for future expenses. I started for Council Bluffs, in company with John Gray and family, his single brother, Benjamin, and their mother, and John Russell, her son-in-law. Being inexperienced, we all overloaded our teams, and soon had to begin to lighten up by trading things to the people of the country for supplies, or cows that could supply us with milk, and carry themselves. For some money and articles we could part with, I purchased a pair of steers, and two cows. Not being acquainted with the country, instead of taking the usual route up the Missouri River, we struck up the country by Salt River for the Mormon road across Iowa. We encountered much bad road, and experienced great difficulty and fatigue that we would have avoided had we traveled the usual route.
We left St. Louis quite as soon as the grass began to grow, and we probably arrived at Kanesville about the first of June. There I recollect seeing Uncles Phineas H., and Joseph Young, and their families. I did not visit long but soon crossed the Missouri River and encamped with the others who were gathering to organize for crossing the plains. I think we remained in that camp two or three weeks before we were instructed to move on across the Elk Horn River. Then I was organized in Lorenzo Clark’s ten, Enoch Reese’s fifty, and Capt. Perkin’s hundred.
The first serious difficulties encountered after starting were stampedes of our cattle. These sometimes occurred when traveling, but more generally while encamped with our cattle in a corral formed by our wagons for safety; they were sudden, unexpected and dangerous. We found the best remedy for night stampedes was to tie up our cattle separately outside our wagons. These stampedes were so dangerous and frequent that they overbalanced our fear of Indians, and the tens were directed to travel and camp by themselves.
Our “ten” traveled very quietly together. In it were John Lytle and family, whose eldest daughter I afterward married; the Gray and Rumel families; Thomas Judd and family; a man by the name of Porter and family, and others whose names I do not recall. We encamped on the bench near the mouth of emigration Canyon the evening of October 16, 1849. We had the first intimation that we were near civilization in the morning when we looked for our cattle and found them in a stray pound. They had wandered for feed and found it in a field of grain. We knew nothing of the probabilities of this. When we camped our cattle were returned to us without expense. We drove into Salt Lake City, which comprised houses enough for a respectable village had they been closer together, but they were scattered over a large area of ground. I had but little recollection of my relatives, as it was several years since I had met them, and my acquaintance with them in Nauvoo was quite limited. There were no familiar faces except those who had crossed the plains with me. Several of Uncle Brigham’s families occupied a row of log rooms on one end of which was a large kitchen. I think the adobe house, afterwards known as the “White house on the hill, was enclosed so as to afford some shelter.
I soon found an adobe house of one room in which I located Mother and Cornelia, and called it home. My cattle, necessarily in poor condition, were turned out for the winter on the range about ten miles from the city, north. Like others, I had yet to learn how to live in a country so strange and peculiar. I had been in only a few days when Uncle Brigham sent for me and expressed a wish that I come and work for him, and attend to the business connected with daily wants of his families. At that time gold was more abundant in the country than the necessaries of life. Consequently food and clothing were high. I forgot the wages he offered me, but I told him I considered it too low to live in that country, and sustain my mother. I think I went without wages being agreed upon.
On December 16, 1849, Mother got up a little dinner to which Uncle Brigham was invited, and I was united in marriage to Mary Jane Lytle. Our little supply of food and comforts, which we had brought across the plains, were soon exhausted. Food was scarce and much of the time that winter we lived on shorts, bread and a little tea. I worked early and late for Uncle Brigham, and I sometimes ate at his table, which helped to keep up my strength. After a little I obtained a house with two rooms, and I lived in one, and mother in the other. Our housekeeping outfit consisted principally of the following articles a camp-bake-oven, a teakettle, a pan or two, two earthen plates, two knives and forks, and two cups and saucers. The crockery I paid a high price for. We lived in a log house, and I created a pole bedstead in one of the corners. My father-in-law had been in the drivings of Missouri and Illinois, and had made the exhaustive journey across the plains, and had but little with which to dower his daughter, but I think she brought with her a feather bed. Such marriages were common in those times and probably quite as happy as those in which wealth has formed an important factor.
FERAMORZ LITTLE, SON OF SUSANNAH YOUNG
In 1843 he left his native state, New York, and traveled on horseback to St. Louis, Mo., where he met his brother after a separation of ten years. There and in Illinois he engaged in farming, school teaching and grocery business. In 1850 Feramorz, desiring to see his mother and relatives who had immigrated to Utah, contracted with non-Mormon merchants of Salt Lake City, to freight goods to this point from Ft. Kearney, on the Missouri river. At that time he was in business at St. Louis and not yet connected with the “Mormons”.
He arrived in Salt Lake City in 1850. His objective point was California, but in finding ample scope for his ambition in Utah, he became a Latter-day Saint and subsequently one of the Bishopric of the Thirteenth ward, in which part of the city he resided. In 1858 he married Annie E. Little and Julia A. Hampton.
Soon after his arrival in Utah he showed his industrial activity by building a dam, the first across the Jordan River, at a cost of $12,000, and constructing the first canal that took water from that stream for purposes of irrigation.
In 1851 he contracted to carry the United States mail between Salt Lake City and Fort Laramie, a distance of more than five hundred miles, with no settlement but one trading post - Ft. Bridger- between. The carriers now traveled with mules and a light wagon; formerly pack animals had been used. They encountered the usual obstacles, making at times but eight miles a day, and subsisting on parched corn and raw buffalo meat.
The trip to Independence consumed three months. Arriving here early in 1857, Bro. Little with Bro. Hanks, found the inhabitants in a state of excitement over the sensational anti-Mormon reports set in circulation by Judge Drummond, who with other slanderers of the people of Utah and made the nation believe that the “Mormons’ were in a state of rebellion against the government. These reports Mr. Little denounced as false. Having occasion to go to Washington, D. C, to collect his money for carrying the mails, he went on to New York where he wrote to the “Herald” of that city, refuting the foul calumnies. Continuing his industrial career, Mr. Little conducted a flouring mill at the mouth of Parley’s Canyon, engaged in tanning at where he had as his partners his uncle, Pres. Young, and John R. Winder. He carried on blacksmithing and shoemaking and established a school for his children and those of his workmen. He built five sawmills in the canyons of the Wasatch Range, and for years carried on a prosperous lumbering business. He was the builder of the “Utah penitentiary on its present site.
In 1859 he brought large quantities of merchandise from Omaha to Salt Lake City and in 1863 was appointed emigration agent for the Church. Under his supervision five hundred teams were fitted out, carrying three thousand emigrants, and involving an outlay of one hundred thousand dollars. When the railroad came, he engaged as a contractor in building the Union Pacific Railroad, and subsequently was superintendent until 1872, when he went abroad with Pres. Geo. A. Smith and party on their tour of Europe and the Orient. The object of this visit to that land was to bless it, that the curse of barrenness and desolation might be removed, and let it again become fruitful and fitted for the return of the scattered tribes of Israel. Accordingly on March 2, 1873, Pres. Smith and party ascended the Mount of Olives, where the sacred ceremony was performed. The Little’s returned home in May 1873. Two years later Feramorz Little and his brother James filled a mission to the Eastern States, calling upon numerous relatives in New York, and obtaining a genealogical record of their father™s ancestors. They succeeded in removing from the minds of the people many false impressions concerning “Mormonism”.
During the last few years of his life Bro. Little occupied various positions of public trust. He was one of the Board of Regents of the University of Deseret and a member of the Salt Lake City council. In 1876 he was elected mayor of Salt Lake City, serving in that capacity for three consecutive terms. He was the director of the Deseret National Bank and virtually one of its founders. At the time of his death, he was its vice-president. He was also a director of the Ogden National Bank, and was likewise interested in Z.C.M.I. In June 1881, Bro. Little sustained a severe loss in the death of his wife, Fannie. As already stated, he had married two other wives; but he was again a single man when he married Rebecca E. Mantle. While visiting the Blackfoot Ranch, of which he was president, he was stricken with a severe illness, and it was aggravated by the journey home, which required three days. Typhoid fever set in, terminating his earthly existence 14 August 1887. His death was universally regretted. He was recognized as one of Utah’s ablest businessmen and foremost citizens.
As a man of honesty and integrity, he manifested eminent administrative ability, and marked devotion to the public welfare. He was loved by both rich and poor for his keen sense of justice and great kindness of heart. Disliking ostentation, he distributed large sums in benevolence and charity of which only his family and most intimate friends were aware. Among the evidences of his philanthropic spirit is a row of comfortable cottages, built by him for the poor of the Thirteenth Ward and still serving the purpose for which they were erected.
Feramorz Little was essentially a self-made man, indebted for his success to a kind Providence and the sterling qualities of his nature. (Principally culled from Whitney’s History of Utah).LETTERS FROM JAMES A. LITTLE TO CHARLES HENRY OLIPHANT
Addressed to Charles H. Fox in Wyoming, New York. It is dated April 31, 1852 at Great Salt Lake City.
Dear Brother - I received your letter of February 18 by the mail that arrived today from the East. It leaves again tomorrow hence I have only tonight to answer your letter and a few business letters. I regret to say while writing I am sitting with a sick mother but hope that she is not dangerous. She was taken with a chill yesterday and has considerable fever but think that she will be better soon. In answer to your inquires, I will give you all the information I can in this letter and hereafter should you wish any information concerning country, people or climate. Ask with freedom and I will answer promptly. My mail contract commenced August 1st, 1851 and ends July 31st 1854 at $8000.00 per year. I am bound to make 12 trips in a year from this place to Fort Laramie and perform one trip inside of every month if possible or if not the carriers make oath to cause of his detention which [i ----- ded] to working [--n] excuse for the same.
The distance is 510 miles; then it is taken on to the States by another contractor in the same time giving in here a monthly mail. You ask if I go. I have been two trips only. Tomorrow I am going to start my carriage for the first time this spring. I shall run a waggon now for about seven trips, then will have to pack on account of -- snow. I send 21 mules on a carriage; they go to Green River in 4 days, distance 165 miles; there, change and drive to Laramie in ten days, distance 347 miles. From Green River to the Fort settlements, there are 5 tribes of Indians but as yet they have not troubled me. The country through which we travel is mostly plains and mountains with not much timber for the whole distance. Though you can find -- acres of timbered land in your country. In regard to those officers that returned, I have no doubt but that there was a song on both sides, but had they attended to there judicial business and let Mormonism alone, there would have been no trouble. June 12, 1852 - Dear Brother, Our Dear mother is no more. She departed this life May 4th after a short illness. She would of been fifty-seven years old, the 7th of this month. She died as she had lived (for many years) a Mormon in every sense of the word. She died without a struggle and her last words were that she was going to see Edwin and all of her Friends that had gone before her. “Yes”, she said “I see them now” and would smile and reach forward to embrace them. Such a death is hardly to be mourned. Lacy had left for California before her sickness. Cornelia is with us.
The part of this letter bearing date April 30, I wrote at that time being much engaged with mother and other ways. I requested Aunt Fanny to write to you what she did. The May mail arrived on the 28th after a very hard trip. Left on the 1st of June but had to return on account of high water. I am going to start it again tomorrow. I will send you a paper that is printed here from which you can get some ideas of matters and things here.Another letter from James to Charles Henry dated Aug. 10, 1852 from Parowan Iron Co. U. T. [Utah Territory] Dear Charles, I have just received your communication of May 2 and it gratifies me much to hear from you again. You make many inquires and it is natural but I can answer many of them by saying that when you get here you will see a country in many respects unlike any other you have ever seen and were I to write you a volume about it, you would get but a poor idea of it until you see [it]. The land is free to any one that will fence and till it. We have but little rain and water our crops with the streams, which run down from the mountains. I am satisfied that a poor man can do more in these mountains in a year towards living comfortable than he can where your are there. When you get here, you will find these Mormons, which you hear, so much about, a healthy, enterprising and industrious people. Many of our customs are different from those in the States. You will find Uncle Brigham a plain, familiar, kind and a wise man.
Ferry [Feramorz] lives 250 miles from me; we have always clung together like brothers and when you are with us you will feel that you have found friends. Ferry wishes me that he intends to assist you to get here next season. I would say to you commence immediately to make preparations for moving. I think it would be well to come to the Missouri River this fall for I believe you would make more towards fitting out than where you are and be on hand to start early in the season. Sell off your furniture where you are and your tools and every thing else you can do without before starting on the plains. `
Make your load as light as possible for your team; have a good strong waggon, one that has been used and tried will be better than a new one. You can get what you will need in these vallies [valleys] but if you can bring a reasonable supply of clothing, it will be well; you will wear out 2 or 3 pair of good boots in crossing the plains. Start with not less than 700 lbs. of flour and a moderate supply of other food for yourself and family. You will need some good whiskey, tea, coffee, sugar, dried fruit, rice, dried meat or and a few pounds of fat bacon to feed your cattle and if you have any means left lay it out for stock that will travel through or help draw your load in case you should lose any cattle. Train your team all you can, be patient and persevering and you will arrive safely in the vallies of the mountains where you will find every production which grows in any other country in the latitude. You will find when get here that any knowledge which you have will be useful. Archicural [agricultural] knowledge is much wanted. These valleys are very healthy and I believe that the best system of schools in the world is being perfected here; improvements in machinery are being made as fast as circumstances will permit.
Labor of every description is high because that in a short time men find means to work for themselves. As for myself I have been nearly two years helping to build a new settlement and have not lived quite as well as I might in other places. At the same time I am not very poor. I have a couple of houses and city lots, plenty of land (some to spare [for] you if you were here) a good horse team, wagons and 2 cows, some young stock and a plenty to eat. We expect to put up another this fall. I am Sheriff and Assistant collector for the county, U.S. Deputy Marshall and Colonel of Cavalry and have lately been admitted to the Bar in the U.S. District Court.
My wife Mary Jane and myself send our love to you, Agnes and the little ones and hope for a better acquaintance. Your affectionate Brother J. A. Little [James A. Little to C. Fox]LETTER FROM AUNT FANNY YOUNG MURRAY TO CHARLES HENRY AND AGNES
Letter to Charles and Agnes Oliphant from Aunt Fanny (Young) Murray - dated 31 August 1852 - Great Salt Lake City. Addressed to Charles H. Fox - Wyoming, New York
To my dear friends, (or rather children) Charles and Agnes, I received your kind letter last night; was glad indeed to hear form you but sorry for Charleys painful companion; I expect he had many a sleepless night, with such distress as would take the flesh from the bones, and vigor, and courage from the heart; I have seen much of them, but never had one; hope I never may -- poor Charley seems destined to see and feel his share of sorrow and pain in this world; and all that comforts me about it is, that no one will ever enter celestial glory without being tried in the furnace of affliction; so I flatter myself that he is a chosen vessel, and after being tried will indeed come forth as gold. I am aware, that before this, you have received the melancholy news of your Mother’s death; I felt more for you than all the rest, at the time of her death; but do not lay it to heart, we shall all travel the same path before long; and no one can tell how soon. She is at rest, that is my consolation. I now come to speak a little of my own concerns, but do not wish to have you misunderstand me, I am not going to complain; I am greatly blest, and I know it.
After Mr. Murray’s death, (which took place 12 years ago) I got along just as I could, did not want for hard times; sometimes rented a little room and paid for it with my needle, although my own work was more than I was able to do. Sometimes I made out to be comfortable; sometimes I barely subsisted. But I made no complaint to any one. Sometimes I was near my relatives, sometimes far from them. When all my friends left Nauvoo, and came west, I was left behind, not because they did not care for me, but because every one had families of children, and just as much on their hands as they could live through. So I wended my way, as best I could, until they sent back for me, and I started on a load of boxes; I was sick when I started; we traveled two days and a half, when I begged them in mercy, to lay me on the ground, and let me die in peace - the waggons stopped a few days until I was a little better when they carried me back to the first Tavern, and left me. That sickness, I never got over, nor have I ever been able to do much since; but when I did reach my friends, the Lord provided a comforter for me, the youngest daughter of my brother and Sister Greene; they were both dead; and the dear girl seemed to cleave so to me, that she never left me. The greatest comfort of my life since then; I never have broken up, have always kept house-- on the tenth of last month she departed this life, age 22. She was a dear child - these words often roll through my mind, “I am bereaved, O I am bereaved”; however, all is right, although I feel myself alone in the world - She told me she was sure the Lord would raise up some one to be my comfort and stay as she had been.
Cornelia is well - not here, don’t know about the letters yet. Now I want to talk a little about your coming. O that you were already here. I know you are inexperienced about such expeditions - I would that some of our boys could go down there, and help you along; it will not be a miracle if you see Feramorz there, but do not depend on it. He has written, and I suppose had said every thing necessary to be said. Yet I know you must depend on your own judgment. It is impossible to lay down any infallible rule about traveling. You can certainly wash a little on the road; when you get on to the plains, the company always stops once in a while to wash and bake, but the less washing you have to do on the road the better. Do not burden yourselves with any unnecessary thing. Nevertheless, if your dishes are very nice, I would try and fetch enough to set a table handsomely, unless your load is too heavy. About lodging; I had a sort of bedstead fixed into my waggon after the projection was on; they bored holes through and then by pining on something like the end rails of a bedstead, we corded up our bed a cross-ways of the waggon, and made our lodging very comfortable; only our bed was rather short. This is a great comfort when we are sick on the road and then your children will sleep in the daytime, just as though they were rocked in a cradle; I must now say farewell my dear children, may heaven protect and preserve and prosper, and bring you safely to our arms. Your uncles are rejoiced that you are coming. Signed Fanny Murray
Sealed 6 Feb. 1846 to Pettingill. NV. 5. Re-baptized 14 July 1967 to establish
record.
Rhoda was the first one in the family to hear about the gospel. It was in Mendon, New York that she had been given a Book of Mormon by Samuel Smith, brother of the Prophet Joseph Smith. The family all read it. They had always been a religious family. A neighbor, Heber C. Kimball said that the family of John Young "Had teh same principles in their breast which I had in mine; truth was what we wanted and would have, and truth we did receive, for the Lord granted us a testimony upon testimony of the truth of the gospel. (Heber C. Kimball Journal, Millennial Star 27 (1864), Pg. 503) Susannah's father John and his wife, Hannah; Fanny, Rhoda, Joseph, Phinehus, Brigham and Lroenzo and their spouses were all baptized on April 14, 1832, Susannah was baptized in June of the same year, and Louisa and her husband followed later that year, and Nancy and her husband were baptized in 1833 in Tyronne. All the family remained loyal and valiant members of the Church throughout their lives.(This information was obtained by Burt Oliphant from the Land and Records Office in Nauvoo, Ill in August 2000 on his way home from Palmyra, N.Y on a mini mission. He and his wife Peggy had served a mission there from July 1995 - Aug 1997) This information was gathered by Sandra L. Chatterley, May 3, 1999 who was serving a mission in Nauvoo. We appreciate her efforts so much in gleaning this 8 page history of this family, in particular Susannah Young. Sandra Chatterly says: "While serving as a missionary in Nauvoo from November, 1997, 1999, I was determined to find where Susannah lived while in Nauvoo. My assignment at the Land and Records Office gave me an opportunity to examine many records to try to find the answer to this question. Susannah was one of the very poor saints, I have found no evidence that she owned land in Nauvoo. Some of her family came from the Missouri persecutions through Quincy and to Nauvoo. I do not know when Susannah came. She was here in the winter of 1842 because she and her daughter were enumerated in the LDS Priesthood Census taken then. In the original census records just above her name the enumerator wrote "Edwin S. Litt..." then crosssed out those words. It is possible that Susannah lived with her son, Edwin at least part of the time she was in Nauvoo. Edwin was called on missions and was gone a good deal of the time. (The information above is on Rhoda Young's notes)
Continued from above: There is a card in Rowena Miller's file for Edwin Little that says that he 'he took Kimball's house. This was found in Brigham Young's Daybook. The property is described as Commerce BlK 10, lot 8. There is also a card indicating that Edwin paid taxes on the Munson Lands. This was a large field, unplatted, where about 22 families lived, mostly on the edges, they were mainly squatters on the land. Part of this would have been close to, if not in Commerce. My feeling is that Susannah may have lived in this house with Edwin before his marriage in 1844. There is a mention in Willard Richard's journal of "\'an old house belonging to Hiram Kimbal.' Hiram Kimball lived on Commerce BLK 11, lot 2. James described Susannah's circumstances as 'very poor' when he came about 1844. The part of town where these lots are, except for Hiram Kimball's home, barn and store, were occupied by very poor saints, many of whom had been driven out of Missouri and were destitute.
On the same page in the Cencus, just before Susannah's name is that of Edwin D. Webbv and his family and above his name is Chancy Webb and his family. The Webb brothers built their blacksmith shop and probably their homes farther south in Nauvoo in 1843. Were they, too living in Commerce, in temporary log cabins in 1842? Possibly Susannah lived with them or perhaps just nearby, since her son, James tells about going 'to Mother's for dinner when he came to Nauvoo.
Another confusing bit of information is that Susannah's children went to school in the 4th Ward School taught by Pamela W. McMichael. Also on the same census block as Susannah is Sidney Rigdon, who is said to hae lived in the 'lower stone house' when he first came to Nauvoo, and the house he built later is in the 4th Ward not far from teh Webb brothrs blacksmith shop. Was there a mistake in where these families were enumerated in the census-- were they actually in Ward 4 when the records say they were Ward 1, census block 3? Or did they just move farther south after the census was taken?
If Susannah lived on Commerce 10, lot 8, that would be just above Young street about even with Locust street, which today, does not go all the way through from Parley to Young. It is in a diagonal line southeast from the home which still stands of Hiram and Sarah Granger Kimball. This is also close to the upper edge of the Munson Lands. We may never know for certain just where Susannah lived"
(Sandra L. Chatterley, May 3, 1999--Nauvoo, Illinois)
The rest of this history of Sandra L. Chatterly is very good and much the same as what I have so I will not include it here but will say that I have put it into my Family History Book under the "Histories"
tab.The following is a compilation I have found through the years taken from my Judd Book. - Jeanne Oliphant Guymon
“She lived for many years, a Mormon in every sense of the word.”
James A. Little,-----SonINTRODUCING SUSANNAH YOUNG
My great, grandmother, Susannah Young, Brigham Young’s sister joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1832 the same year that most of her sisters and brothers were baptized. “It was in Mendon that she first heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Her sister, Rhoda Greene had been given a Book of Mormon by Samuel Smith, brother of the Prophet Joseph Smith. The family all read it. They had always been a religious family. A neighbor, Heber C. Kimball said that the family of John Young “had the same principles in their breasts which I had in mine; truth was what we wanted and would have, and truth we did receive, for the Lord granted us testimony upon testimony of the truth of the gospel.
Susannah’s father, John and his wife Hannah, Fanny, Rhoda, Joseph, Phinehas, Brigham and Lorenzo and their spouses were all baptized on April 14, 1832. Susannah was baptized in June of the same year, and Louisa and her husband followed later that year, and Nancy and her husband were baptized in 1833 in Tyrone. All of the family remained loyal and valiant members of the Church throughout their lives.
She followed her family and the Saints to the Kirtland, Ohio region and later to Nauvoo. In Nauvoo she may have stayed with her son, Edwin, who was there periodically. He was called on missions and was gone some of the time. She may have stayed with other people. Her two children, Lacy and Cornelia Stilson were enrolled in school from January 3 to1 July 1842. The school was held by Pamela W. McMichael in Nauvoo. (Nauvoo Journal Vol 1#1 Jan. 1989) Susannah and Cornelia listed as Susannah C. are in the 1842 Priesthood Census taken in Nauvoo in the winter and spring of that year. (Census lists, NRI Records, Nauvoo: Census Block 3 in Ward 1; also Early Mormon Records by Lyman D Platte) Susannah is listed as belonging to the Relief Society in Nauvoo. She joined sometime after the first meeting in March of 1842.
Susannah Young was born the 7 June 1795 in Hopkinton, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. She was the sixth child of eleven children born to John Young and Abigail (Nabby) Howe.
Susannah’s father, John, was born 6 March 1763 at Hopkinton, Massachusetts. John’s mother was Elizabeth Hayden Treadway, a widow and his father was Joseph Young. Joseph died when John was six years old. John had no idea what become of his brothers and sisters, except the one that died as a child.
John Young married Abigail Nabby Howe, at Hopkinton, 31 October 1785. Nabby had a doll like face, blue eyes, yellow hair, was lovable with a gentle disposition, and was very pious. Abigail was born 3 May 1766 in Hopkinton, Massachusetts.
The family moved many places and many times. Their young daughter Nabby, born two years before Susannah, died at the age of fourteen years, in 1807. It was a sad time for the family. The family moved to Whitingham, Windham, Vermont about 1800.
The family moved then in 1813 to Aurilius, Cayuga County, New York, near Auburn. The older children were getting married. The mother was worn out by the constant hardships and fighting tuberculosis. She died 11 June 1815 at the age of forty-nine years.
Susannah met James Little, son of William Little and Letitia Smith, in 1813. He was born about 1790 in Terordan, County Monaghan, Ireland. He came to America with his parents when he was a boy of 10 or 12 years of age. Family and friends who knew him, that he was a short well-knit man with great powers of endurance have said it. He was never known to complain of being weary. He slept about four hours out of 24 and read or worked the remainder of the time. It is also said he was well read and an intelligent man who possessed quite a collection of books.
Susannah and James were married in 1815, Cayuga County, New York, the same year her mother died. The first child Edwin Sobieski Little was born, 22 January 1816. Their second child, Eliza, was born in 1818; she died before 1822. The family succeeding the Littles found her tombstone with the inscription partly finished in the home. The third child, Feramorz, was born 14 June 1820. James Amasa was born 14 September 1822.
Land records in Auburn, Cayuga County, New York show that on the 4 March 1816, James Little bought 50 acres of land, from Mathius Huffman. Here he carried on farming and gardening. His sons at one time had in their possession a printed handbill, dated 1819 advertising his vegetable business. It has been related that he was the first man in New York to sell seeds in packages, also to introduce tomatoes for table use. In order to do this it was necessary to get a permit from Governor Clinton. “Love Apples”, as tomatoes were then called, were thought to be poisonous and grown in gardens for decoration only.
James and Susannah worked hard on their farm. James frequently visited Auburn, the county seat, four miles distant, to dispose of his produce and bring home supplies. Near the road was a deep hole from which sand had been taken out for building purposes which James noticed as he went to Auburn. It is supposed that the bank caved in after he had gone over the road. Returning home in the darkness of night, the wheels on one side of his wagon slipped into the pit turning over and pinning him under the loaded wagon. It was thus he was found dead the next morning. The horse had worked loose and was feeding near by. This was the last week in November 1822.
The time of this incident is set in a letter from John Wildridge Little to Feramorz in which he says, “My father (Moses Little) and family arrived at the Little home in Junius, Seneca County, N. Y., November 5, 1822, and I should say the accident occurred not more than three weeks after our arrival, making the time the last week of November.”
At his death she had the three small boys, the youngest, James, was about two and a half months old. A daughter, Eliza, had died earlier; the family succeeding the Littles found her tombstone with the inscription partly finished in the home. A few years later Susannah bound (hired} out her youngest son James, and then moved to Mendon, New York where her father and other family members were living.
Susannah was now a widow when she was only 28 years old. Susannah gave up the farm. In February 1825 she married Richard Oliphant, in Canandaigua, Ontario, New York. They had one son, Charles Henry, born 15 November 1825. Susannah later divorced Richard Oliphant.
Family tradition says that Susannah took up the catering business to earn a living and it was while working at this that she met Richard Oliphant; a printer from England [coming to this country in 1810] Susannah took her little family to live in Mendon, New York about 1829. Her father and others of her family had moved there earlier.
In 1829, Susannah married William B. Stilson, in Menden, Monroe, New York. They had three children. Emiline was born 1830 and she died as a child. William Lacy was born 20 September 1833, Wellsville, Columbia, Ohio. Cornelia Ann was born 22 May 1836, Little Beaver, Beaver County Pennsylvania. Mr. Stilson left Susannah and she didn’t hear from him for several years.
Susannah’s sons by James Little; Edwin, Feramorz and James were bound out to families, and worked for their own living.
While here in Mendon, she learned of the new church organized by the Prophet Joseph Smith. Susannah’s father John Young was baptized 5 April 1832. Her brother Brigham Young was baptized the 14 April 1832. Other members of her family also joined. Susannah was baptized in June 1832, and suffered many of the persecutions of the church as she moved with the Saints to Kirtland, Ohio, and then to Nauvoo in 1840. Here her son James found her in poor circumstances.
The following year she went to St. Louis, Missouri, where her husband William Stilson was located in the Jefferson Barracks, Camp A-3rd Regiment of Infantry, of the U.S. Army. He had left home earlier and had not been heard from for some years. He re-enlisted and was given family quarters in the Barracks. Some time in the spring 1844, he died there in St. Louis, of “lung fever.”
In about 1843 Susannah’s son, Feramorz, also decided to find his family. He traveled on horseback to St. Louis, Missouri, where he found Susannah and his brother, James, who he had not seen for about 10 years. He went into the grocery business and also engaged in farming and school teaching both there and back in Nauvoo some time later. Susannah returned to Nauvoo. This was in about 1844. The family seemed to be back and forth between Nauvoo and St. Louis for the next few years.
In Nauvoo Susannah met Alonzo Pettingill and they were married and sealed in the Nauvoo Temple by Brigham Young on 6 February 1846. Susannah received her endowments in the Nauvoo Temple on January 23, 1846. The Saints had worked hard to complete their beloved Temple and were anxious to receive the sacred ordinances. Also in 1846 Feramorz married Fannie M. Decker, a sister to Harriet Decker who had married Edwin Little.
Marriage to Brother Pettingill must have provided Susannah a happier interim, as he seemed to be a good man and a faithful member of the Church. But times in Nauvoo were drawing to a close as trouble and turmoil again forced the Saints to pull up stakes and head for a new home. Edwin, Susannah’s oldest son, left with Brigham Young’s company in the great Exodus of 4 February, 1846. But this was an ill-fated journey for Edwin. He fell into the river helping Uncle Brigham’s wagon get across and developed pneumonia, which made him very ill. He continued on with his wife, one-year-old son, and the rest of the company. In spite of the best doctoring his friends and family could do and blessings given, Edwin worsened and while encamped at Richardson Point in Lee County, Iowa, he passed away on the morning of March 18th, just a little more than a month out of Nauvoo. Susannah probably learned of the death and must have grieved at this latest tragedy.Susannah and Alonzo Pettingill left Nauvoo, probably with the poor Saints in the Fall of 1846, but not having enough money to make the trip West, they instead headed for St. Louis, as did many others, to work and save until they could leave. Alonzo Pettingill was a shoemaker and felt he could do better in St. Louis. They were in St. Louis for about two years. Feramorz had come and had a store there and Father Pettingill, as he was called, worked for him. James returned from the Army and stayed again with his mother and family. Father Pettingill was patient with James’ animosity toward the Church, and answered questions and taught his stepson whenever he could. James was impressed with his quiet testimony.
The family must have been planning on going West in 1848, as there is a letter from Brigham Young, evidently to answer to their letter inquiring as to whether they might use one of Brigham’s cabins at Winter Quarters. His reply was: “I would be glad to let you have one of my houses but they are all situated on the West bank of the Missouri River on the Indian lands and we cannot be allowed to stay there (Winter Quarters) longer than this Spring, so that about 800 houses built by the brethren are useless save for fire wood or to be left for the Indians to burn or lay waste. This was probably a setback for Susannah and her family.
Susannah’s son, William Lacy Stilson drove a wagon across the Plains for his Uncle Brigham Young in 1848. He was 15 years old. She had a great desire to gather with the Saints in the Salt Lake Valley. Finally, in the early spring of 1849 James was able to get the supplies and outfit a wagon and he left St. Louis with his Mother and stepsister Cornelia. We left St. Louis quite as soon as the grass began to grow and arrived at Kanesville (Winter Quarters) about the 1st of June. In February 1849, Alonzo died of “lung fever”. He was buried in St. Louis, Missouri, without anything to mark his grave.
Sadly, Alanso Pettingill did not survive the winter of 1849. He came down with “lung fever” in February. They had the best physicians they could find and did all they could for him. During this last illness he seemed to know that his death was approaching and was calm and resigned. He testified to his stepson, James that he had implicit faith in the principles of the Gospel. This made a strong impression on James. Father Pettingill passed away and “was buried in a graveyard in St. Louis, without anything to mark the spot where lies the remains of a faithful, good man, my father in the Gospel.” (James A. Little autobiography)In Kanesville they met Susannah’s brothers, Phineas and Joseph Young with their families. They crossed the Missouri River and encamped with the others who were gathering to organize for crossing the plains. They were assigned to Lorenzo Clark’s ten, Enoch Reese’s fifty, and Captain Perkin’s hundred. They had a pair of steers and two cows. Their biggest problem was the stampeding of the cattle. They found that things were quieter if the group of ten camped alone.
The most serious difficulties they encountered on their way were stampedes of cattle. These occurred sometimes while traveling, but more often while encamped in a corral formed by their wagons for safety. They were sudden, unexpected and dangerous. They found the best remedy for night stampedes was to tie up the cattle separately outside their wagons. The stampedes were so dangerous and frequent that “they over balanced our fear of Indians, and the tens were directed to travel and camp by themselves. In the hundred, one or two persons were killed and some injured. Sometimes cattle were seriously damaged. After a journey of about three and one half months, the company arrived in the Salt Lake Valley. They encamped on a bench near the mouth of Emigration Canyon on October 16, not realizing how close they were to their journey’s end. They drove on into the valley October 17, 1849. Salt Lake City at that time had enough houses for a respectable village, had they been closer together. They were scattered over a large area of ground.James Little took a middle name of “Amasy”. He took two more wives in plural marriage. He died in Kanab, Kane, Utah, 10 September 1908 at the age of 86 years.
Susannah’s son, Edwin Sobieski Little, married Harriet Amelia Decker, 22 March 1842, Winchester, Scott, Illinois. Edwin’s Uncle Joseph Young married them. They were sealed and endowed in the Nauvoo Temple, 28 January 1846. No children were sealed at that time. Their son George Edwin was not sealed to them until 10 October 1938, Salt Lake Temple, when Teton Jackman found this record was not complete. George Edwin was born 6 August 1844, in Nauvoo, Hancock, Illinois.
Edwin and Harriet left with the Saints to go to Winter Quarters, and in crossing the Mississippi River, the ice broke with the wagon Edwin was helping with and he was thrown into the icy water. It was bitter cold weather and he contracted pneumonia and died three weeks later, 18 March 1846. It was fifty-five miles out of Nauvoo, near Richard’s Point, now Keosaugua, Lee County, Iowa. It was a sad day for Harriet to bury her husband by the side of the road. Their son George Edwin is my mother’s father. She, Mattie Taylor Little Hanks, was the fourteenth child of George and Martha Taylor Little. They had 103 grandchildren, making great grandchildren for Susannah.
Susannah and James Little’s son Feramorz married Harriet Decker, sister of Fannie Marie Decker. Feramorz took three wives in plural marriage. He was the mayor in Salt Lake City, for three terms, 1876 to 1882. In 1872 and 1873 he and his daughter Susan Clare were chosen to go with George A. Smith and others on a tour of the Holy Land, through Europe and into Egypt. He died 14 August 1887 in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Two of Harriet Decker’s sisters, Lucy Ann and Clara were plural wives of Brigham Young. Their mother was married to Lorenzo Dow Young. Her name was Harriet Page Wheeler, ex-wife of Isaac Decker. Harriet Wheeler and her daughter Clare and Ellen Sunders were the three first pioneer women, who came in July 1847.
Susannah and Richard Oliphant had one son, Charles Henry, born 15 November 1825 who married first, Agnes Briton, 11 June 1846, in Rochester, Monroe, New York. Charles stayed in Rochester until the spring of 1853.
Charles wrote his mother, Susannah from Rochester, New York in 1852, saying that he would like to come to Utah in the spring of 1853. His letter arrived just four days before she died. This made her very happy that he was gathering with the Church. He made this journey by mule team. They lost their two oldest children from scarlet fever on the way, while at St. Louis, Missouri. They arrived in Salt Lake City, 25 September 1853. In May 1855 he and his wife Agnes were baptized members of the Church. Charles and Agnes had seven children. They were divorced 14 November 1862. He married second, Sabina Agusta Dallinger, 1 December 1861. He married the third time, 11 April 1870, to Lucinda Abigail Judd. His second wife, Sabina had one daughter Susan Agusta. His third wife Lucinda Judd had thirteen children. He died 16 October 1902, in Orangeville, Emery County, Utah at age 78 years and was buried there.
Susannah’s son William Lacy Stilson was only fifteen years old when he drove a wagon with two yoke of oxen across the plains in 1848, for his Uncle Brigham Young. In Salt Lake City he married Cyrena Martha Lytle, 8 May 1859. The next day he left with his half brother Feramorz Little for Omaha, to help bring back supplies. He and Cyrena were the parents of twelve children. He died 29 August 1913, and she died 3 October 1913 in Orangeville, Emery County, Utah. Both were buried there.
Cornelia Ann Stilson, born 22 May 1836 in Little Beaver, Beaver, Pennsylvania, was 13 years old when she came with her mother Susannah and half brother James Little in 1849. At the early age of sixteen years she was left an orphan without the love of a mother to guide her. She married James McKnight, in Salt Lake City, 17 March 1854. He was from Ireland. Records show he married three other wives. She had four children by James. From Stilson records we quote, “Cornelia grew to womanhood, was a spirited lady, fair to look upon and capable, but unhappily married. In order to free herself from a smooth tongued, tyrannical husband she went away to California, where she died 28 June 1865, Kingston, San Bernadino, California at the age of 29 years. Her husband James died 6 April 1906, Port Townsend, Jefferson, Washington. An Aunt Rebecca McKnight Moses of Washington D.C raised their son James Arthur. He was educated in France. He became a political leader in the United States. With his two marriages he was the father of ten children.
Susannah did not have children by Alonzo Pettingill, but her posterity is numerous. She died 5 May 1852, Salt Lake City, Utah. Buried in the City Cemetery, 8 May 1852. She was nearly 67 years old. Her trials had been many during her short life on this earth. I admired her for teaching her children the Gospel of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and living true and faithful to the end.
Susannah was the mother of eight children and grandmother to 82 grandchildren.James found a small adobe house of one room in which he located his mother and Cornelia and called it home. They had to learn, as did others, how to live in this new, strange land. The food they had brought across the plains was gone and food was in short supply in the valley. That first winter they lived mainly on shorts, bread and a little tea. On December 16, 1849, Susannah got up a little dinner party to which Brigham Young was invited and James married Mary Jane Lytle. After a little while, James found another house with two rooms and he and Mary Jane lived in one, Susannah and Cornelia in the other.
Susannah only had two and a half years in the Salt Lake Valley. Tuesday, May 4th was a dull morning in Salt Lake City, at noon it commenced storming-rain and a high wind. Worn out from the trials and hardships of a pioneer life, she passed away in Salt Lake City on that day in 1852.
The Deseret News of May 4th printed the following. “Died, Susan Pettinguil or Pettingill) (sic) widow of Alanson Pettingill, sister of Governor Young, age 56 years 11 months 4 days.
May her ashes rest in the silent tomb
Till Christ the mighty Prince shall come
And bid the dust arise,
Then every saint from every clime
In robes of righteousness shall shine
In their celestial home.
There may we all our sister meet
And all our friends and kindred greet
In our celestial home.
There kings and priests and prophets come,
To honor and adore Andaum
And worship at his feet.
(Deseret New dated May 4, 1852 From the Journal History of the Church, Church Historian’s Office)Many details for this history was taken from, Descendants of William Little Jr., and Allied Families, compiled by Harriet Fredricksen Little, in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1958. She was born 31 May 1884, Castle Dale, Emery County, Utah. She married David Baldwin Little, 2 Jan 1909, youngest son of James Amasa and Anne Matilda Baldwin Little. David died 9 June 1911, El Paso, Texas. Harriet retired from school Teaching in Salt Lake County in 1944. Since 1935 she collected records of the Little Family. The past few years her eye sight has been bad, but she is able to catch a bus and go to the Salt Lake Temple from her home at 510 East 300 South Salt Lake City, Utah. We appreciate the research she has compiled on the families of Susannah Young and James Little. I have altered certain parts of this history where it is duplicated by the following history of James A. Little.
JAMES AMASY LITTLE, BROTHER OF CHARLES HENRY OLIPHANT
The following story of James A. Little, son of Susannah, written by him, fills in the picture of Susannah Young just a little bit more. It is taken from the book Our Pioneer Heritage. It is as follows:
William Little Junior had three sons, Moses, Malcolm, and James. The latter is the father of James A., the subject of this sketch. William Little Jr., with his sons, emigrated from Ireland April 11, 1807 and arrived in New York City May 18, 1807. About the year 1815 James, the father of James A., married Susan Young, the daughter of John Young Senior and Nabby Howe Young. She is also the sister of John, Joseph, Phineas H., Brigham, and Lorenzo Dow Young, five brothers who have played a conspicuous part in the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. On their farm, about four miles from Aurelius, Cayuga County, New York, were born to James and Susan Young Little, Edwin Sabriska, Eliza, Feramorz, and James. The latter was named James after his father, but when about twenty years old he worked in a shop where there were so many by the name of James that to distinguish himself from the others he added Amasy to his name and has since been known on the records as James A. Little. James was born September 14, 1822. The father was killed by his wagon’s overturning in 1822 leaving Susan a young widow with three little boys, James A., being a babe in arms. Eliza, the only daughter, had died before the father. After the death of her husband Mrs. Little moved to Menden, Monroe County, New York where, in time, she married Richard Oliphant in February 1825, and were divorced shortly after. She married William B. Stilson in 1829. The James A. Little story follows:
I was bound out at an early age to a Mr. Bouton and his wife, who married late in life and who had no children to soften and tone down their characters. They were Presbyterians and very strict. Mr. Bouton was a kind-hearted man, but quick-tempered, and naturally, under the influence of his wife, who was of a melancholy mind and apt to find much fault about trifles. Her reports of my boyish delinquencies resulted in my getting many serious beatings. There was no love manifested by either of them for me, and as I grew up I longed more intensely for someone to love. There was a void in my young heart, which there was nothing to fill, and faultfinding and beating caused increasing discontent, in my bosom. When about sixteen years old I declared my independence, in the barn, when Mr. Bouton picked up the end of an ox gad to hit me. The first move I made was in self-defense. He seemed amazed and desisted. This created a change in our relative positions and relived me of much abuse. I remained with him another winter and got four more months of schooling. Considering the stringent code of discipline under which they were raised I think they did very well with me. They trained me in strict principles of morality; and through diligence and perseverance I acquired a good education.
In the spring of my seventeenth year I took my belongings on my back and went on foot to see my uncle, Malcolm Little, in Seneca County and my brother, Feramorz, in Genesee County. I hired out to a widow lady, Mrs. Smith. She had two children, Chauncey, and Emeline. I had been acquainted with them for some years. A strong attachment grew between Emeline, and myself, and she favored my suit. Although I was industrious, moral, and fairly well educated, the mother objected to our union as her daughter would inherit a few hundred from her father’s estate, and I was penniless. That winter I taught school. I worked for Mrs. Smith the next summer, then again engaged to teach school in the Pine Wood District. The boys had turned the teacher out the previous winter, and I had learned some lessons in my school the previous year also. So when I discovered mutiny among the larger boys I quelled it with a strong hand, and succeeded in gaining the respect of both parents and children.
I went up to visit my brother, Charles Oliphant, at Rochester and saw my first railroad. The cars were then running between that city and Buffalo. I next got a job from Mr. Carter, a long-faced praying Methodist who cheated me out of my season’s wages amounting to twelve dollars per month. Always after that if I had anything to do with him I thought he would bear watching. The winter of 1842 was a very severe one. I went out into the country where I met a couple of Mormon elders, the first I had seen. They claimed to know President Young, and were on their way to Nauvoo. I took a notion to visit my relatives in Nauvoo, so a friend and I started and made our way to Chicago, with some unusual experiences. From Chicago we traveled on foot to the head of Steamboat Navigation, on the Illinois River. A canal was being constructed between these points. We found a steamer going to St. Louis without cargo, so we went free. I was young and thought I knew more than I do now, after fifty years of study, and experience. Like most people of that time who knew little or nothing of the Mormons, I was much prejudiced against them. There were some on the steamer, and as I remember, I fairly ventilated my prejudices. When I arrived in Nauvoo I was poorly clad, but as the Saints had colonized the place when driven from Missouri I was about on a level with them. My mother, Uncles Brigham, Phineas H., Joseph, and Lorenzo D., were there, and many more of my relatives, but all alike were strangers to me, and it was some time before I could sense the relationship. My mother’s sister, Aunt Fanny, was the last one excepting my mother, whom I had parted with when I was thrown a waif on public charity.
So far as poverty and sickness were concerned we could not have been worse off, and live. I found my mother in very poor circumstances. Her husband, William B. Stilson, had left home several years before, and had not been heard from. My first effort was to find labor and get something to live on. I applied to the Messers. Laws who were men of considerable business. They set me at very heavy work, breaking hemp. They were to pay me fifty cents per day in cornmeal, and I was to board myself. The weather was very warm, and besides, cornmeal of itself would not sustain a man under such labor. It was about ten o’clock A.M. when I concluded to do the work. I labored until noon, went to mother’s for some dinner, and decided not to go back again as such labor would not supply the necessities of life, to say nothing of its comforts. I recollect seeing my oldest brother, Edwin, but once in Nauvoo. My uncle Lorenzo D. Young, who lived out east of Nauvoo about sixteen miles, came into Nauvoo about this time, and I went home with him. He had been driven out of Missouri, and, like most of the Mormon people, was in indigent circumstances. A part of his family was then sick. It wasn’t long before I moved Mother out there, and put up a log cabin near Uncle Lorenzo’s. I sought something to do that would better our circumstances, and made a contract with a Mr. Maynard to do a job of work for a good cow, at twelve dollars. I did part of the work, but as it was not pressing; I did not finish at once.
I remember assisting William G., and Joseph W., about this time to hoe a piece of corn. It was not long before Uncle Lorenzo and all of his family were sick, except William. We deeply felt the need of trying to provide food for both families, and were particularly anxious to get bread for the coming winter. With the hope of accomplishing this we took a piece of wheat of several acres to harvest, thresh, etc., as we thought, on quite fair terms. We had worked a day or two at this when William was taken down with chills, and fever. Thus we were bitterly disappointed, and William felt so bad that he shed tears. He was the last one of Uncle Lorenzo’s family who could do anything. For a while I had to wait on all of the sick. Our chance to make our bread was gone, and as I mentioned before, so far as poverty and sickness were concerned, we could not have been worse off.
After a little while I met cousin Evan M. Green, who lived several miles from Uncle Lorenzo’s. He thought I could get the school to teach, where he lived, so I went home with him. I obtained the situation, and I think before I had taught school a week, I was taken down with chills and fever. I recollect nothing distinctly until I found myself in the home of Aunt Fanny Murray in Nauvoo, with my mother. I was pretty sick, and I recollect nearly bleeding to death at the nose. One day Uncle Joseph Young administered to me. I was healed. He afterward reminded me that I promised if I was healed through the administration that I would be baptized. No doubt I did so, but I was too sick for the covenant to make much impression on my mind. About this time Mother got a letter from William B. Stilson. I think it was the first news she had had of him for five years. He was a soldier in the United States Army, and was stationed at Jefferson Barracks, a few miles below St. Louis, Missouri. This was in the autumn, probably in October. Mother concluded to go to him.
I had seen but little that was cheering during my stay in Nauvoo and vicinity. I was bitterly disappointed in the dearest object of my young life; obtaining a home of my own. I think the expression that I cared but little where I went or what I did, and but little whether I lived or died, will about express my condition. In some way Mother raised the money to pay our passage, and she took me with her little daughter Cornelia, and her niece Mary Sanford, the latter being perhaps seventeen, and the daughter of Joel Sanford. On the river steamer to St. Louis the chills and fever took hold of me again, and the turns came on alternate days. A gentleman passenger on the steamer gave me a prescription of Peruvian bark and brandy. I had but one more attack, and have never been troubled with it since.
We found Mr. Stilson at Jefferson Barracks. He belonged to the Third Regiment of Infantry, and family quarters were assigned to him in the barracks. It was not long before his term of enlistment expired. He re-enlisted in company A. Third Infantry and I enlisted in the same company, November 23, 1843. After a little while Mary Sanford married a dashing young sergeant of Company “C” of the same regiment. In the early winter it began to be the gossip in the barracks that there was a chance for a war with Mexico over the admission of Texas into the Union, and especially over the claim of the United States to a piece of territory lying between the River Nuances, and the Rio Grande. The rumor of war increased and in the latter part of the winter there was a rumor that our regiment would soon be ordered to Ft. Jessup in Louisiana, near the Texas Frontier.
During the winter my brother, Edwin, visited us and I understood that he was quite annoyed that I had enlisted in the army. My brother Feramorz, had found his way from the east, and also visited us. I think it was after we had received orders to move to Ft. Jessup that Mr. Stilson took a severe cold and went to the hospital with lung fever. While he was sick in the hospital my regiment was paraded and marched on board a river steamer from New Orleans. My mother, my half-sister, Cornelia, and my brothers, Feramorz and Edwin stood under the porch of the barracks and saw me march off. It could not be otherwise than a lonesome day for me; but my young life had realized few joys and pleasures.
Mr. Stilson died a few days after my departure, and Feramorz took mother and Cornelia to St. Louis, in order to do what he could to sustain them and make a home for Mother. Again I was separated from my loved ones after enjoying their association a few months, all alike suffering in sickness and sorrow. My regiment was sent from New Orleans up Red River, on an old rickety steamer. The water was high, which made navigation much safer that on low water. When we arrived in Ft. Jessup we encamped in the pine timber, about one mile from the fort, with the Fourth Infantry for neighbors, and the Second Dragoons in the fort. I soon became proficient in drill, was careful to do whatever duty was expected of me, and have no complaints to make of my treatment. I have no dates of our moves except the one to Ft. Jessup, the spring of 1844, which was noted for high water in the western rivers. We celebrated the Fourth of July at Ft. Jessup where there was a theater in which to congregate. The Third and fourth Infantry joined with the Second Dragoons in the day’s performances. Each corps selected an orator of the day. Of course commissioned officers took no active part in the day’s services. I was selected to represent the infantry. I wrote an oration, but when I came forward on the stage of the theater I entirely forgot it and delivered an impromptu one. Officers and men listened with much attention, and I believe, were satisfied with the effort. I cannot recall that since that occasion I have ever risen before an audience with a written address or with even notes to assist me. I have been blessed with a good memory and have cultivated it by expecting it to perform its office.
The infantry built temporary quarters in the pinewoods, and remained near Ft. Jessup until the following season. The regiments also united in building a reading room, which was very well furnished with papers and magazines. A debating club was organized, in which I took an active part. I spent much of my leisure in reading. I found the officers very obliging, loaning me books, and particularly Lt. Jordan of my own company. I had no sympathy with gambling, and other vices, which so commonly characterize military life.
I cannot now recall the date of what I am about to relate, which caused a considerable change in my soldier life. One day I was ordered to report for duty to the quartermaster’s office, which was a large tent at Gen. Taylor’s headquarters. On reporting to Mr. Garnier, the chief clerk, I found him very courteous in explaining how I came to be detailed for duty there, and what was expected of me. Gen. Taylor had sent to Col. E. A Hitchcock, the commanding officer of my regiment, inquiring if there was not a man in his command sufficiently competent and trusty to take charge of the army mail at headquarters, and I was selected. Mr. Garnier explained to me that, as the U.S. postage laws were not yet extended over Texas, there was no regular mail service. The only way the army had of getting its mail was through the courtesy of the quartermaster general at New Orleans, who became personally responsible for the postage on it and forwarded it, per government vessels, to the “Army of Occupation,” as it was then called. As postage in those days was generally not prepaid, the responsibilities of the quartermaster general would soon amount to a considerable sum. As everybody handled the letters and papers at headquarters without being responsible for the collection of the postage, he and written to Gen. Taylor requesting that something be done to relieve him of these losses. It didn’t take me long to comprehend the situation. The officers were ready to grant me any facilities I asked for, that could be furnished under the circumstances. I soon had a tent, with a part partitioned off for handling the mails, and paid the money over to Gen. Taylor who, I understood, was my surety to the postmaster at New Orleans. I was known as “Army Postmaster,” and the mails were labeled “Army Post Office.” Night or day I attended diligently to business.
It was some time before the U.S. Postal laws were extended over Texas, and the Texas mail for Corpus Christi came to the army office. I collected postage, which amounted to one hundred dollars, and didn’t know what to do with it. I took his advice, loaned it to a friend, and never saw more of it. This was the second hundred dollars I had accumulated and was cheated out of. Texas was admitted to the union, and perhaps that of itself would not have brought on a war; but there was a direct bone of contention in a strip of territory. The army of Occupation as on the border of this, and prepared to take possession. Preparations were made in the early spring to march across this tract to the Rio Grande, with the chance of the move opening the war.
I had charge of whatever pertained to business, and it was carried in one of the wagons. I was expected night and day, to attend to the mails received, and prepare for the carrier, those that were sent away. A tent was usually pitched at night for the convenience of this business. As the General usually rode on horseback, I was often invited to ride in the wagon that carried the post office fixtures, so I fared very well. The march was over a wild country abounding in species of hog, rattlesnakes several feet long, tarantulas, and centipedes. Water was sometimes scarce and poor. On very warm days the men suffered considerably. I understood that many gave out and had to be brought to water. As we approached the Rio Grande there were some slight demonstrations of hostility on the part of the Mexicans, but there was no bloodshed. As we approached Point Isabel, a little hamlet a short distance north of the mouth of the Rio Grande, some of the buildings were burning, having been set on fire by a detachment of Mexicans. The place was taken possession of as a base of supplies. About twenty-miles from there, on the bank of the Rio Grande opposite the City of Matamoros, the army encamped to await the development of events. I occupied a small hut that stood within the lines of the encampment for a temporary post office.
Matamoros was a somewhat sickly place. There was some yellow fever in the autumn after our arrival. The following year it was quite bad, and quite a number of my friends died. In the yellow fever season of 1847 I was suddenly taken with the disease, but the attack was light. I took, among other medicine, calomel, which salivated me, and I thought the remedy worse than the disease.
In May or June of this year my brother, Feramorz, who lived in St. Louis and was carrying on a small grocery business, paid me a visit. I went into partnership with him; let him have some money to take home with him, and several times afterward sent him money until I had accumulated several hundred dollars in the business. When he arrived home, the man he left in charge of the business had sold out, and absconded with the money.
I kept the military post office in Matamoros until the close of the War in the summer of 1848. Soon after the occupation of Matamoras, my regiment had advanced up the Rio Grande, and I saw it no more. I was at first detailed for detached service and afterward obtained a furlough from Col. Davenport, the military governor of Matamoros. When the city was evacuated, sometime in August, 1848, I attended to seeing the fixtures belonging to the post office moved across the Rio Grande, and was given a furlough to go to my friends, although my term of service did not expire until the following November. I had no opportunity for settlement with the War Department until several years later.
I had endeavored to be faithful in every duty assigned me in the army. This with the knowledge of my steady, temperate habits no doubt obtained for me the situation of army postmaster. After I took possession of the Matadors office, the citizens™ letters came with the army mail from New Orleans. For doing their business I charged five cents extra on their letters. This was so moderate, under the circumstances, that I heard no complaint about it, and it was a source of some revenue to me.
I think it was the first day of September 1848 that I arrived at my brother’s in St. Louis. He was still in the grocery business and still keeping a boarding house. I do not think I was very well fitted for the business, but I worked into it the best I could. Soon after, the Saints were driven from Nauvoo. I heard of their going into the wilderness the winter we lay on Aransas Bay. It appeared, before leaving Nauvoo, Mother married Alonzo Pettingill, and as near as I can learn, left the camp of the Saints when on the march west, and came down to St. Louis to find means of subsistence. There I found them on my arrival from the south. Feramorz and I were prejudiced against the Mormons, and as a consequence, more or less against our relatives who belonged to them. I was a confirmed skeptic so far as the Bible and sectarian religion were concerned. After awhile, as opportunity offered, Father Pettingill and I had some conversations on the doctrines. He found it a little difficult to get along with me.
Often during my infidelity, and more especially this fall and winter, I thought often and long on some questions such as the following; How is it that I am a thinking, acting, dual being of mind and body? What am I here for? I must pass away as others do, and what is my future destiny? I often waked in the night and pondered over these things, but no answer came. All my ideas of God had been derived from sectarianism, and in my infidelity I had not improved on them. I believed there was a great overruling power, but of His attributes, appearance, or dwelling I had no conception, as I have since learned them. One night, as I lay in deep meditation, I was impressed to pray. The following petition was about the result. “Oh, God, if there is a God, how can I obtain some knowledge of myself?” A voice said distinctly, “Mormonism, Mormonism.” It did not startle me in the least, but made an impression on my mind that remained. About the same time, Father Pettingill was taken into the grocery to help. This brought us daily into each other’s society. He was a very quiet, unobtrusive man, but I could see that he greatly desired to convince me of the doctrine in which he believed. With frequent conversations he soon learned the drift of my mind. I often asked him questions similar to those I had pondered. Instead of quoting scripture to prove his ideas he would simply tell me his views. These seemed to me natural and practical, and began to form satisfactory answers to my questions. After he had made some progress in this way, in giving me correct ideas, he would occasionally quote a passage of scripture, which would be a simple embodiment of ideas, he had advanced, and which had almost unconsciously fit into my mind. My conception of the character of the Bible rapidly underwent a change, for I saw and understood it, as I had never done before. As a result I became more interested and earnest in my pursuit of knowledge in this new channel.
In February 1849, Father Pettingill took cold and came down with lung fever. We had the best physicians, and did all we could for him, but in a few days it was evident that his end was approaching. He seemed fully aware of this and I felt a strong desire to know if the principles he had taught me sustained him in his last hours. I sat down by his bed and talked over matters plainly with him. Calm and resigned, he testified that he had the most implicit faith in the principles he had advocated, and his appearance indicated that his words were in accord with the sentiments of his heart. After I had received a testimony of the Gospel, I would have expected that any dying, faithful Latter-day Saint would bear the same testimony as Father Pettingill, but at the time his testimony made a strong impression on me. He passed away, and was buried in a graveyard in St. Louis, without anything to mark the spot where lies the remains of a faithful, good man, my father in the Gospel.
After studying over the subject a little longer, I concluded to be baptized. I fully sensed that the Saints were a slandered, persecuted people, and if I joined them their destiny must be mine. A feeling lurked within me to wish that my baptism be a little quiet. Elder Farnham was at the time the president of the St. Louis Branch. He made arrangements to meet me at Chauteau’s Pond, in the outskirts of the city, about nine o’clock a.m. on a Sunday morning. I quietly got a change of clothing from my room and with it under my arm started for the pond. But I was to go through a curious, and to me, novel experience. I had walked but a little distance when some intelligence began to reason against my being baptized, bringing forcibly to my mind the unpopularity of the Mormons, the great sacrifice I was making, and especially forced on me the idea that there would be no one at the pond to baptize me. This influence so wrought on me that in a short time I turned ‘round to go home. I went back but a short distance, when another power began to advance reasons why I should go on to the pond to be baptized. So strong was this influence also that in a little time I turned ‘round to go to the pond. Again the opposite influence seemed to increase its efforts to induce me to return. It was so powerful that I again turned back. After going a short distance a voice appeared to come from above me, clear and distinct, “Go though down to the pond and thou shalt find someone there to baptize thee.” With firmest resolutions to obey I again started for the pond. The opposing influence seemed to re-double its efforts, and again I turned about to go home. There was no further opposition, and I returned my clothing to my room, and went to the Saint’s meeting in the old Baptist Church. There I found Elder Farnham who informed me that he had been to the pond, and had waited for me. I was afterward baptized, without any unusual occurrence, and confirmed at the water’s edge. I regret that I have no record of this important event of my life.
Not long after my baptism, the spirit of gathering began to work on me. My mother was anxious to gather to the mountains, and certainly the way was opening up for her to do so. I had several hundred dollars in our trading concern, and proposed to Feramorz to draw out what was necessary to take Mother and our half-sister, Cornelia, and go into the mountains. There had been in the few months’ previous, frequent cases of cholera in the city, and I had an attack that was checked by a timely dose of medicine. As if to drive me out, there was a marked impression on my mind that if I remained I would die of the cholera. I fitted out with a wagon and two yoke of oxen, necessary provisions, and a reasonable amount of money for future expenses. I started for Council Bluffs, in company with John Gray and family, his single brother, Benjamin, and their mother, and John Russell, her son-in-law. Being inexperienced, we all overloaded our teams, and soon had to begin to lighten up by trading things to the people of the country for supplies, or cows that could supply us with milk, and carry themselves. For some money and articles we could part with, I purchased a pair of steers, and two cows. Not being acquainted with the country, instead of taking the usual route up the Missouri River, we struck up the country by Salt River for the Mormon road across Iowa. We encountered much bad road, and experienced great difficulty and fatigue that we would have avoided had we traveled the usual route.
We left St. Louis quite as soon as the grass began to grow, and we probably arrived at Kanesville about the first of June. There I recollect seeing Uncles Phineas H., and Joseph Young, and their families. I did not visit long but soon crossed the Missouri River and encamped with the others who were gathering to organize for crossing the plains. I think we remained in that camp two or three weeks before we were instructed to move on across the Elk Horn River. Then I was organized in Lorenzo Clark’s ten, Enoch Reese’s fifty, and Capt. Perkin’s hundred.
The first serious difficulties encountered after starting were stampedes of our cattle. These sometimes occurred when traveling, but more generally while encamped with our cattle in a corral formed by our wagons for safety; they were sudden, unexpected and dangerous. We found the best remedy for night stampedes was to tie up our cattle separately outside our wagons. These stampedes were so dangerous and frequent that they overbalanced our fear of Indians, and the tens were directed to travel and camp by themselves.
Our “ten” traveled very quietly together. In it were John Lytle and family, whose eldest daughter I afterward married; the Gray and Rumel families; Thomas Judd and family; a man by the name of Porter and family, and others whose names I do not recall. We encamped on the bench near the mouth of emigration Canyon the evening of October 16, 1849. We had the first intimation that we were near civilization in the morning when we looked for our cattle and found them in a stray pound. They had wandered for feed and found it in a field of grain. We knew nothing of the probabilities of this. When we camped our cattle were returned to us without expense. We drove into Salt Lake City, which comprised houses enough for a respectable village had they been closer together, but they were scattered over a large area of ground. I had but little recollection of my relatives, as it was several years since I had met them, and my acquaintance with them in Nauvoo was quite limited. There were no familiar faces except those who had crossed the plains with me. Several of Uncle Brigham’s families occupied a row of log rooms on one end of which was a large kitchen. I think the adobe house, afterwards known as the “White house on the hill, was enclosed so as to afford some shelter.
I soon found an adobe house of one room in which I located Mother and Cornelia, and called it home. My cattle, necessarily in poor condition, were turned out for the winter on the range about ten miles from the city, north. Like others, I had yet to learn how to live in a country so strange and peculiar. I had been in only a few days when Uncle Brigham sent for me and expressed a wish that I come and work for him, and attend to the business connected with daily wants of his families. At that time gold was more abundant in the country than the necessaries of life. Consequently food and clothing were high. I forgot the wages he offered me, but I told him I considered it too low to live in that country, and sustain my mother. I think I went without wages being agreed upon.
On December 16, 1849, Mother got up a little dinner to which Uncle Brigham was invited, and I was united in marriage to Mary Jane Lytle. Our little supply of food and comforts, which we had brought across the plains, were soon exhausted. Food was scarce and much of the time that winter we lived on shorts, bread and a little tea. I worked early and late for Uncle Brigham, and I sometimes ate at his table, which helped to keep up my strength. After a little I obtained a house with two rooms, and I lived in one, and mother in the other. Our housekeeping outfit consisted principally of the following articles a camp-bake-oven, a teakettle, a pan or two, two earthen plates, two knives and forks, and two cups and saucers. The crockery I paid a high price for. We lived in a log house, and I created a pole bedstead in one of the corners. My father-in-law had been in the drivings of Missouri and Illinois, and had made the exhaustive journey across the plains, and had but little with which to dower his daughter, but I think she brought with her a feather bed. Such marriages were common in those times and probably quite as happy as those in which wealth has formed an important factor.
FERAMORZ LITTLE, SON OF SUSANNAH YOUNG
In 1843 he left his native state, New York, and traveled on horseback to St. Louis, Mo., where he met his brother after a separation of ten years. There and in Illinois he engaged in farming, school teaching and grocery business. In 1850 Feramorz, desiring to see his mother and relatives who had immigrated to Utah, contracted with non-Mormon merchants of Salt Lake City, to freight goods to this point from Ft. Kearney, on the Missouri river. At that time he was in business at St. Louis and not yet connected with the “Mormons”.
He arrived in Salt Lake City in 1850. His objective point was California, but in finding ample scope for his ambition in Utah, he became a Latter-day Saint and subsequently one of the Bishopric of the Thirteenth ward, in which part of the city he resided. In 1858 he married Annie E. Little and Julia A. Hampton.
Soon after his arrival in Utah he showed his industrial activity by building a dam, the first across the Jordan River, at a cost of $12,000, and constructing the first canal that took water from that stream for purposes of irrigation.
In 1851 he contracted to carry the United States mail between Salt Lake City and Fort Laramie, a distance of more than five hundred miles, with no settlement but one trading post - Ft. Bridger- between. The carriers now traveled with mules and a light wagon; formerly pack animals had been used. They encountered the usual obstacles, making at times but eight miles a day, and subsisting on parched corn and raw buffalo meat.
The trip to Independence consumed three months. Arriving here early in 1857, Bro. Little with Bro. Hanks, found the inhabitants in a state of excitement over the sensational anti-Mormon reports set in circulation by Judge Drummond, who with other slanderers of the people of Utah and made the nation believe that the “Mormons’ were in a state of rebellion against the government. These reports Mr. Little denounced as false. Having occasion to go to Washington, D. C, to collect his money for carrying the mails, he went on to New York where he wrote to the “Herald” of that city, refuting the foul calumnies. Continuing his industrial career, Mr. Little conducted a flouring mill at the mouth of Parley’s Canyon, engaged in tanning at where he had as his partners his uncle, Pres. Young, and John R. Winder. He carried on blacksmithing and shoemaking and established a school for his children and those of his workmen. He built five sawmills in the canyons of the Wasatch Range, and for years carried on a prosperous lumbering business. He was the builder of the “Utah penitentiary on its present site.
In 1859 he brought large quantities of merchandise from Omaha to Salt Lake City and in 1863 was appointed emigration agent for the Church. Under his supervision five hundred teams were fitted out, carrying three thousand emigrants, and involving an outlay of one hundred thousand dollars. When the railroad came, he engaged as a contractor in building the Union Pacific Railroad, and subsequently was superintendent until 1872, when he went abroad with Pres. Geo. A. Smith and party on their tour of Europe and the Orient. The object of this visit to that land was to bless it, that the curse of barrenness and desolation might be removed, and let it again become fruitful and fitted for the return of the scattered tribes of Israel. Accordingly on March 2, 1873, Pres. Smith and party ascended the Mount of Olives, where the sacred ceremony was performed. The Little’s returned home in May 1873. Two years later Feramorz Little and his brother James filled a mission to the Eastern States, calling upon numerous relatives in New York, and obtaining a genealogical record of their father™s ancestors. They succeeded in removing from the minds of the people many false impressions concerning “Mormonism”.
During the last few years of his life Bro. Little occupied various positions of public trust. He was one of the Board of Regents of the University of Deseret and a member of the Salt Lake City council. In 1876 he was elected mayor of Salt Lake City, serving in that capacity for three consecutive terms. He was the director of the Deseret National Bank and virtually one of its founders. At the time of his death, he was its vice-president. He was also a director of the Ogden National Bank, and was likewise interested in Z.C.M.I. In June 1881, Bro. Little sustained a severe loss in the death of his wife, Fannie. As already stated, he had married two other wives; but he was again a single man when he married Rebecca E. Mantle. While visiting the Blackfoot Ranch, of which he was president, he was stricken with a severe illness, and it was aggravated by the journey home, which required three days. Typhoid fever set in, terminating his earthly existence 14 August 1887. His death was universally regretted. He was recognized as one of Utah’s ablest businessmen and foremost citizens.
As a man of honesty and integrity, he manifested eminent administrative ability, and marked devotion to the public welfare. He was loved by both rich and poor for his keen sense of justice and great kindness of heart. Disliking ostentation, he distributed large sums in benevolence and charity of which only his family and most intimate friends were aware. Among the evidences of his philanthropic spirit is a row of comfortable cottages, built by him for the poor of the Thirteenth Ward and still serving the purpose for which they were erected.
Feramorz Little was essentially a self-made man, indebted for his success to a kind Providence and the sterling qualities of his nature. (Principally culled from Whitney’s History of Utah).LETTERS FROM JAMES A. LITTLE TO CHARLES HENRY OLIPHANT
Addressed to Charles H. Fox in Wyoming, New York. It is dated April 31, 1852 at Great Salt Lake City.
Dear Brother - I received your letter of February 18 by the mail that arrived today from the East. It leaves again tomorrow hence I have only tonight to answer your letter and a few business letters. I regret to say while writing I am sitting with a sick mother but hope that she is not dangerous. She was taken with a chill yesterday and has considerable fever but think that she will be better soon. In answer to your inquires, I will give you all the information I can in this letter and hereafter should you wish any information concerning country, people or climate. Ask with freedom and I will answer promptly. My mail contract commenced August 1st, 1851 and ends July 31st 1854 at $8000.00 per year. I am bound to make 12 trips in a year from this place to Fort Laramie and perform one trip inside of every month if possible or if not the carriers make oath to cause of his detention which [i ----- ded] to working [--n] excuse for the same.
The distance is 510 miles; then it is taken on to the States by another contractor in the same time giving in here a monthly mail. You ask if I go. I have been two trips only. Tomorrow I am going to start my carriage for the first time this spring. I shall run a waggon now for about seven trips, then will have to pack on account of -- snow. I send 21 mules on a carriage; they go to Green River in 4 days, distance 165 miles; there, change and drive to Laramie in ten days, distance 347 miles. From Green River to the Fort settlements, there are 5 tribes of Indians but as yet they have not troubled me. The country through which we travel is mostly plains and mountains with not much timber for the whole distance. Though you can find -- acres of timbered land in your country. In regard to those officers that returned, I have no doubt but that there was a song on both sides, but had they attended to there judicial business and let Mormonism alone, there would have been no trouble. June 12, 1852 - Dear Brother, Our Dear mother is no more. She departed this life May 4th after a short illness. She would of been fifty-seven years old, the 7th of this month. She died as she had lived (for many years) a Mormon in every sense of the word. She died without a struggle and her last words were that she was going to see Edwin and all of her Friends that had gone before her. “Yes”, she said “I see them now” and would smile and reach forward to embrace them. Such a death is hardly to be mourned. Lacy had left for California before her sickness. Cornelia is with us.
The part of this letter bearing date April 30, I wrote at that time being much engaged with mother and other ways. I requested Aunt Fanny to write to you what she did. The May mail arrived on the 28th after a very hard trip. Left on the 1st of June but had to return on account of high water. I am going to start it again tomorrow. I will send you a paper that is printed here from which you can get some ideas of matters and things here.Another letter from James to Charles Henry dated Aug. 10, 1852 from Parowan Iron Co. U. T. [Utah Territory] Dear Charles, I have just received your communication of May 2 and it gratifies me much to hear from you again. You make many inquires and it is natural but I can answer many of them by saying that when you get here you will see a country in many respects unlike any other you have ever seen and were I to write you a volume about it, you would get but a poor idea of it until you see [it]. The land is free to any one that will fence and till it. We have but little rain and water our crops with the streams, which run down from the mountains. I am satisfied that a poor man can do more in these mountains in a year towards living comfortable than he can where your are there. When you get here, you will find these Mormons, which you hear, so much about, a healthy, enterprising and industrious people. Many of our customs are different from those in the States. You will find Uncle Brigham a plain, familiar, kind and a wise man.
Ferry [Feramorz] lives 250 miles from me; we have always clung together like brothers and when you are with us you will feel that you have found friends. Ferry wishes me that he intends to assist you to get here next season. I would say to you commence immediately to make preparations for moving. I think it would be well to come to the Missouri River this fall for I believe you would make more towards fitting out than where you are and be on hand to start early in the season. Sell off your furniture where you are and your tools and every thing else you can do without before starting on the plains. `
Make your load as light as possible for your team; have a good strong waggon, one that has been used and tried will be better than a new one. You can get what you will need in these vallies [valleys] but if you can bring a reasonable supply of clothing, it will be well; you will wear out 2 or 3 pair of good boots in crossing the plains. Start with not less than 700 lbs. of flour and a moderate supply of other food for yourself and family. You will need some good whiskey, tea, coffee, sugar, dried fruit, rice, dried meat or and a few pounds of fat bacon to feed your cattle and if you have any means left lay it out for stock that will travel through or help draw your load in case you should lose any cattle. Train your team all you can, be patient and persevering and you will arrive safely in the vallies of the mountains where you will find every production which grows in any other country in the latitude. You will find when get here that any knowledge which you have will be useful. Archicural [agricultural] knowledge is much wanted. These valleys are very healthy and I believe that the best system of schools in the world is being perfected here; improvements in machinery are being made as fast as circumstances will permit.
Labor of every description is high because that in a short time men find means to work for themselves. As for myself I have been nearly two years helping to build a new settlement and have not lived quite as well as I might in other places. At the same time I am not very poor. I have a couple of houses and city lots, plenty of land (some to spare [for] you if you were here) a good horse team, wagons and 2 cows, some young stock and a plenty to eat. We expect to put up another this fall. I am Sheriff and Assistant collector for the county, U.S. Deputy Marshall and Colonel of Cavalry and have lately been admitted to the Bar in the U.S. District Court.
My wife Mary Jane and myself send our love to you, Agnes and the little ones and hope for a better acquaintance. Your affectionate Brother J. A. Little [James A. Little to C. Fox]LETTER FROM AUNT FANNY YOUNG MURRAY TO CHARLES HENRY AND AGNES
Letter to Charles and Agnes Oliphant from Aunt Fanny (Young) Murray - dated 31 August 1852 - Great Salt Lake City. Addressed to Charles H. Fox - Wyoming, New York
To my dear friends, (or rather children) Charles and Agnes, I received your kind letter last night; was glad indeed to hear form you but sorry for Charleys painful companion; I expect he had many a sleepless night, with such distress as would take the flesh from the bones, and vigor, and courage from the heart; I have seen much of them, but never had one; hope I never may -- poor Charley seems destined to see and feel his share of sorrow and pain in this world; and all that comforts me about it is, that no one will ever enter celestial glory without being tried in the furnace of affliction; so I flatter myself that he is a chosen vessel, and after being tried will indeed come forth as gold. I am aware, that before this, you have received the melancholy news of your Mother’s death; I felt more for you than all the rest, at the time of her death; but do not lay it to heart, we shall all travel the same path before long; and no one can tell how soon. She is at rest, that is my consolation. I now come to speak a little of my own concerns, but do not wish to have you misunderstand me, I am not going to complain; I am greatly blest, and I know it.
After Mr. Murray’s death, (which took place 12 years ago) I got along just as I could, did not want for hard times; sometimes rented a little room and paid for it with my needle, although my own work was more than I was able to do. Sometimes I made out to be comfortable; sometimes I barely subsisted. But I made no complaint to any one. Sometimes I was near my relatives, sometimes far from them. When all my friends left Nauvoo, and came west, I was left behind, not because they did not care for me, but because every one had families of children, and just as much on their hands as they could live through. So I wended my way, as best I could, until they sent back for me, and I started on a load of boxes; I was sick when I started; we traveled two days and a half, when I begged them in mercy, to lay me on the ground, and let me die in peace - the waggons stopped a few days until I was a little better when they carried me back to the first Tavern, and left me. That sickness, I never got over, nor have I ever been able to do much since; but when I did reach my friends, the Lord provided a comforter for me, the youngest daughter of my brother and Sister Greene; they were both dead; and the dear girl seemed to cleave so to me, that she never left me. The greatest comfort of my life since then; I never have broken up, have always kept house-- on the tenth of last month she departed this life, age 22. She was a dear child - these words often roll through my mind, “I am bereaved, O I am bereaved”; however, all is right, although I feel myself alone in the world - She told me she was sure the Lord would raise up some one to be my comfort and stay as she had been.
Cornelia is well - not here, don’t know about the letters yet. Now I want to talk a little about your coming. O that you were already here. I know you are inexperienced about such expeditions - I would that some of our boys could go down there, and help you along; it will not be a miracle if you see Feramorz there, but do not depend on it. He has written, and I suppose had said every thing necessary to be said. Yet I know you must depend on your own judgment. It is impossible to lay down any infallible rule about traveling. You can certainly wash a little on the road; when you get on to the plains, the company always stops once in a while to wash and bake, but the less washing you have to do on the road the better. Do not burden yourselves with any unnecessary thing. Nevertheless, if your dishes are very nice, I would try and fetch enough to set a table handsomely, unless your load is too heavy. About lodging; I had a sort of bedstead fixed into my waggon after the projection was on; they bored holes through and then by pining on something like the end rails of a bedstead, we corded up our bed a cross-ways of the waggon, and made our lodging very comfortable; only our bed was rather short. This is a great comfort when we are sick on the road and then your children will sleep in the daytime, just as though they were rocked in a cradle; I must now say farewell my dear children, may heaven protect and preserve and prosper, and bring you safely to our arms. Your uncles are rejoiced that you are coming. Signed Fanny Murray
Sealed 6 Feb. 1846 to Pettingill. NV. 5. Re-baptized 14 July 1967 to establish
record.
Rhoda was the first one in the family to hear about the gospel. It was in Mendon, New York that she had been given a Book of Mormon by Samuel Smith, brother of the Prophet Joseph Smith. The family all read it. They had always been a religious family. A neighbor, Heber C. Kimball said that the family of John Young "Had teh same principles in their breast which I had in mine; truth was what we wanted and would have, and truth we did receive, for the Lord granted us a testimony upon testimony of the truth of the gospel. (Heber C. Kimball Journal, Millennial Star 27 (1864), Pg. 503) Susannah's father John and his wife, Hannah; Fanny, Rhoda, Joseph, Phinehus, Brigham and Lroenzo and their spouses were all baptized on April 14, 1832, Susannah was baptized in June of the same year, and Louisa and her husband followed later that year, and Nancy and her husband were baptized in 1833 in Tyronne. All the family remained loyal and valiant members of the Church throughout their lives.(This information was obtained by Burt Oliphant from the Land and Records Office in Nauvoo, Ill in August 2000 on his way home from Palmyra, N.Y on a mini mission. He and his wife Peggy had served a mission there from July 1995 - Aug 1997) This information was gathered by Sandra L. Chatterley, May 3, 1999 who was serving a mission in Nauvoo. We appreciate her efforts so much in gleaning this 8 page history of this family, in particular Susannah Young. Sandra Chatterly says: "While serving as a missionary in Nauvoo from November, 1997, 1999, I was determined to find where Susannah lived while in Nauvoo. My assignment at the Land and Records Office gave me an opportunity to examine many records to try to find the answer to this question. Susannah was one of the very poor saints, I have found no evidence that she owned land in Nauvoo. Some of her family came from the Missouri persecutions through Quincy and to Nauvoo. I do not know when Susannah came. She was here in the winter of 1842 because she and her daughter were enumerated in the LDS Priesthood Census taken then. In the original census records just above her name the enumerator wrote "Edwin S. Litt..." then crosssed out those words. It is possible that Susannah lived with her son, Edwin at least part of the time she was in Nauvoo. Edwin was called on missions and was gone a good deal of the time. (The information above is on Rhoda Young's notes)
Continued from above: There is a card in Rowena Miller's file for Edwin Little that says that he 'he took Kimball's house. This was found in Brigham Young's Daybook. The property is described as Commerce BlK 10, lot 8. There is also a card indicating that Edwin paid taxes on the Munson Lands. This was a large field, unplatted, where about 22 families lived, mostly on the edges, they were mainly squatters on the land. Part of this would have been close to, if not in Commerce. My feeling is that Susannah may have lived in this house with Edwin before his marriage in 1844. There is a mention in Willard Richard's journal of "\'an old house belonging to Hiram Kimbal.' Hiram Kimball lived on Commerce BLK 11, lot 2. James described Susannah's circumstances as 'very poor' when he came about 1844. The part of town where these lots are, except for Hiram Kimball's home, barn and store, were occupied by very poor saints, many of whom had been driven out of Missouri and were destitute.
On the same page in the Cencus, just before Susannah's name is that of Edwin D. Webbv and his family and above his name is Chancy Webb and his family. The Webb brothers built their blacksmith shop and probably their homes farther south in Nauvoo in 1843. Were they, too living in Commerce, in temporary log cabins in 1842? Possibly Susannah lived with them or perhaps just nearby, since her son, James tells about going 'to Mother's for dinner when he came to Nauvoo.
Another confusing bit of information is that Susannah's children went to school in the 4th Ward School taught by Pamela W. McMichael. Also on the same census block as Susannah is Sidney Rigdon, who is said to hae lived in the 'lower stone house' when he first came to Nauvoo, and the house he built later is in the 4th Ward not far from teh Webb brothrs blacksmith shop. Was there a mistake in where these families were enumerated in the census-- were they actually in Ward 4 when the records say they were Ward 1, census block 3? Or did they just move farther south after the census was taken?
If Susannah lived on Commerce 10, lot 8, that would be just above Young street about even with Locust street, which today, does not go all the way through from Parley to Young. It is in a diagonal line southeast from the home which still stands of Hiram and Sarah Granger Kimball. This is also close to the upper edge of the Munson Lands. We may never know for certain just where Susannah lived"
(Sandra L. Chatterley, May 3, 1999--Nauvoo, Illinois)
The rest of this history of Sandra L. Chatterly is very good and much the same as what I have so I will not include it here but will say that I have put it into my Family History Book under the "Histories"
tab.The following is a compilation I have found through the years taken from my Judd Book. - Jeanne Oliphant Guymon
“She lived for many years, a Mormon in every sense of the word.”
James A. Little,-----SonINTRODUCING SUSANNAH YOUNG
My great, grandmother, Susannah Young, Brigham Young’s sister joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1832 the same year that most of her sisters and brothers were baptized. “It was in Mendon that she first heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Her sister, Rhoda Greene had been given a Book of Mormon by Samuel Smith, brother of the Prophet Joseph Smith. The family all read it. They had always been a religious family. A neighbor, Heber C. Kimball said that the family of John Young “had the same principles in their breasts which I had in mine; truth was what we wanted and would have, and truth we did receive, for the Lord granted us testimony upon testimony of the truth of the gospel.
Susannah’s father, John and his wife Hannah, Fanny, Rhoda, Joseph, Phinehas, Brigham and Lorenzo and their spouses were all baptized on April 14, 1832. Susannah was baptized in June of the same year, and Louisa and her husband followed later that year, and Nancy and her husband were baptized in 1833 in Tyrone. All of the family remained loyal and valiant members of the Church throughout their lives.
She followed her family and the Saints to the Kirtland, Ohio region and later to Nauvoo. In Nauvoo she may have stayed with her son, Edwin, who was there periodically. He was called on missions and was gone some of the time. She may have stayed with other people. Her two children, Lacy and Cornelia Stilson were enrolled in school from January 3 to1 July 1842. The school was held by Pamela W. McMichael in Nauvoo. (Nauvoo Journal Vol 1#1 Jan. 1989) Susannah and Cornelia listed as Susannah C. are in the 1842 Priesthood Census taken in Nauvoo in the winter and spring of that year. (Census lists, NRI Records, Nauvoo: Census Block 3 in Ward 1; also Early Mormon Records by Lyman D Platte) Susannah is listed as belonging to the Relief Society in Nauvoo. She joined sometime after the first meeting in March of 1842.
Susannah Young was born the 7 June 1795 in Hopkinton, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. She was the sixth child of eleven children born to John Young and Abigail (Nabby) Howe.
Susannah’s father, John, was born 6 March 1763 at Hopkinton, Massachusetts. John’s mother was Elizabeth Hayden Treadway, a widow and his father was Joseph Young. Joseph died when John was six years old. John had no idea what become of his brothers and sisters, except the one that died as a child.
John Young married Abigail Nabby Howe, at Hopkinton, 31 October 1785. Nabby had a doll like face, blue eyes, yellow hair, was lovable with a gentle disposition, and was very pious. Abigail was born 3 May 1766 in Hopkinton, Massachusetts.
The family moved many places and many times. Their young daughter Nabby, born two years before Susannah, died at the age of fourteen years, in 1807. It was a sad time for the family. The family moved to Whitingham, Windham, Vermont about 1800.
The family moved then in 1813 to Aurilius, Cayuga County, New York, near Auburn. The older children were getting married. The mother was worn out by the constant hardships and fighting tuberculosis. She died 11 June 1815 at the age of forty-nine years.
Susannah met James Little, son of William Little and Letitia Smith, in 1813. He was born about 1790 in Terordan, County Monaghan, Ireland. He came to America with his parents when he was a boy of 10 or 12 years of age. Family and friends who knew him, that he was a short well-knit man with great powers of endurance have said it. He was never known to complain of being weary. He slept about four hours out of 24 and read or worked the remainder of the time. It is also said he was well read and an intelligent man who possessed quite a collection of books.
Susannah and James were married in 1815, Cayuga County, New York, the same year her mother died. The first child Edwin Sobieski Little was born, 22 January 1816. Their second child, Eliza, was born in 1818; she died before 1822. The family succeeding the Littles found her tombstone with the inscription partly finished in the home. The third child, Feramorz, was born 14 June 1820. James Amasa was born 14 September 1822.
Land records in Auburn, Cayuga County, New York show that on the 4 March 1816, James Little bought 50 acres of land, from Mathius Huffman. Here he carried on farming and gardening. His sons at one time had in their possession a printed handbill, dated 1819 advertising his vegetable business. It has been related that he was the first man in New York to sell seeds in packages, also to introduce tomatoes for table use. In order to do this it was necessary to get a permit from Governor Clinton. “Love Apples”, as tomatoes were then called, were thought to be poisonous and grown in gardens for decoration only.
James and Susannah worked hard on their farm. James frequently visited Auburn, the county seat, four miles distant, to dispose of his produce and bring home supplies. Near the road was a deep hole from which sand had been taken out for building purposes which James noticed as he went to Auburn. It is supposed that the bank caved in after he had gone over the road. Returning home in the darkness of night, the wheels on one side of his wagon slipped into the pit turning over and pinning him under the loaded wagon. It was thus he was found dead the next morning. The horse had worked loose and was feeding near by. This was the last week in November 1822.
The time of this incident is set in a letter from John Wildridge Little to Feramorz in which he says, “My father (Moses Little) and family arrived at the Little home in Junius, Seneca County, N. Y., November 5, 1822, and I should say the accident occurred not more than three weeks after our arrival, making the time the last week of November.”
At his death she had the three small boys, the youngest, James, was about two and a half months old. A daughter, Eliza, had died earlier; the family succeeding the Littles found her tombstone with the inscription partly finished in the home. A few years later Susannah bound (hired} out her youngest son James, and then moved to Mendon, New York where her father and other family members were living.
Susannah was now a widow when she was only 28 years old. Susannah gave up the farm. In February 1825 she married Richard Oliphant, in Canandaigua, Ontario, New York. They had one son, Charles Henry, born 15 November 1825. Susannah later divorced Richard Oliphant.
Family tradition says that Susannah took up the catering business to earn a living and it was while working at this that she met Richard Oliphant; a printer from England [coming to this country in 1810] Susannah took her little family to live in Mendon, New York about 1829. Her father and others of her family had moved there earlier.
In 1829, Susannah married William B. Stilson, in Menden, Monroe, New York. They had three children. Emiline was born 1830 and she died as a child. William Lacy was born 20 September 1833, Wellsville, Columbia, Ohio. Cornelia Ann was born 22 May 1836, Little Beaver, Beaver County Pennsylvania. Mr. Stilson left Susannah and she didn’t hear from him for several years.
Susannah’s sons by James Little; Edwin, Feramorz and James were bound out to families, and worked for their own living.
While here in Mendon, she learned of the new church organized by the Prophet Joseph Smith. Susannah’s father John Young was baptized 5 April 1832. Her brother Brigham Young was baptized the 14 April 1832. Other members of her family also joined. Susannah was baptized in June 1832, and suffered many of the persecutions of the church as she moved with the Saints to Kirtland, Ohio, and then to Nauvoo in 1840. Here her son James found her in poor circumstances.
The following year she went to St. Louis, Missouri, where her husband William Stilson was located in the Jefferson Barracks, Camp A-3rd Regiment of Infantry, of the U.S. Army. He had left home earlier and had not been heard from for some years. He re-enlisted and was given family quarters in the Barracks. Some time in the spring 1844, he died there in St. Louis, of “lung fever.”
In about 1843 Susannah’s son, Feramorz, also decided to find his family. He traveled on horseback to St. Louis, Missouri, where he found Susannah and his brother, James, who he had not seen for about 10 years. He went into the grocery business and also engaged in farming and school teaching both there and back in Nauvoo some time later. Susannah returned to Nauvoo. This was in about 1844. The family seemed to be back and forth between Nauvoo and St. Louis for the next few years.
In Nauvoo Susannah met Alonzo Pettingill and they were married and sealed in the Nauvoo Temple by Brigham Young on 6 February 1846. Susannah received her endowments in the Nauvoo Temple on January 23, 1846. The Saints had worked hard to complete their beloved Temple and were anxious to receive the sacred ordinances. Also in 1846 Feramorz married Fannie M. Decker, a sister to Harriet Decker who had married Edwin Little.
Marriage to Brother Pettingill must have provided Susannah a happier interim, as he seemed to be a good man and a faithful member of the Church. But times in Nauvoo were drawing to a close as trouble and turmoil again forced the Saints to pull up stakes and head for a new home. Edwin, Susannah’s oldest son, left with Brigham Young’s company in the great Exodus of 4 February, 1846. But this was an ill-fated journey for Edwin. He fell into the river helping Uncle Brigham’s wagon get across and developed pneumonia, which made him very ill. He continued on with his wife, one-year-old son, and the rest of the company. In spite of the best doctoring his friends and family could do and blessings given, Edwin worsened and while encamped at Richardson Point in Lee County, Iowa, he passed away on the morning of March 18th, just a little more than a month out of Nauvoo. Susannah probably learned of the death and must have grieved at this latest tragedy.Susannah and Alonzo Pettingill left Nauvoo, probably with the poor Saints in the Fall of 1846, but not having enough money to make the trip West, they instead headed for St. Louis, as did many others, to work and save until they could leave. Alonzo Pettingill was a shoemaker and felt he could do better in St. Louis. They were in St. Louis for about two years. Feramorz had come and had a store there and Father Pettingill, as he was called, worked for him. James returned from the Army and stayed again with his mother and family. Father Pettingill was patient with James’ animosity toward the Church, and answered questions and taught his stepson whenever he could. James was impressed with his quiet testimony.
The family must have been planning on going West in 1848, as there is a letter from Brigham Young, evidently to answer to their letter inquiring as to whether they might use one of Brigham’s cabins at Winter Quarters. His reply was: “I would be glad to let you have one of my houses but they are all situated on the West bank of the Missouri River on the Indian lands and we cannot be allowed to stay there (Winter Quarters) longer than this Spring, so that about 800 houses built by the brethren are useless save for fire wood or to be left for the Indians to burn or lay waste. This was probably a setback for Susannah and her family.
Susannah’s son, William Lacy Stilson drove a wagon across the Plains for his Uncle Brigham Young in 1848. He was 15 years old. She had a great desire to gather with the Saints in the Salt Lake Valley. Finally, in the early spring of 1849 James was able to get the supplies and outfit a wagon and he left St. Louis with his Mother and stepsister Cornelia. We left St. Louis quite as soon as the grass began to grow and arrived at Kanesville (Winter Quarters) about the 1st of June. In February 1849, Alonzo died of “lung fever”. He was buried in St. Louis, Missouri, without anything to mark his grave.
Sadly, Alanso Pettingill did not survive the winter of 1849. He came down with “lung fever” in February. They had the best physicians they could find and did all they could for him. During this last illness he seemed to know that his death was approaching and was calm and resigned. He testified to his stepson, James that he had implicit faith in the principles of the Gospel. This made a strong impression on James. Father Pettingill passed away and “was buried in a graveyard in St. Louis, without anything to mark the spot where lies the remains of a faithful, good man, my father in the Gospel.” (James A. Little autobiography)In Kanesville they met Susannah’s brothers, Phineas and Joseph Young with their families. They crossed the Missouri River and encamped with the others who were gathering to organize for crossing the plains. They were assigned to Lorenzo Clark’s ten, Enoch Reese’s fifty, and Captain Perkin’s hundred. They had a pair of steers and two cows. Their biggest problem was the stampeding of the cattle. They found that things were quieter if the group of ten camped alone.
The most serious difficulties they encountered on their way were stampedes of cattle. These occurred sometimes while traveling, but more often while encamped in a corral formed by their wagons for safety. They were sudden, unexpected and dangerous. They found the best remedy for night stampedes was to tie up the cattle separately outside their wagons. The stampedes were so dangerous and frequent that “they over balanced our fear of Indians, and the tens were directed to travel and camp by themselves. In the hundred, one or two persons were killed and some injured. Sometimes cattle were seriously damaged. After a journey of about three and one half months, the company arrived in the Salt Lake Valley. They encamped on a bench near the mouth of Emigration Canyon on October 16, not realizing how close they were to their journey’s end. They drove on into the valley October 17, 1849. Salt Lake City at that time had enough houses for a respectable village, had they been closer together. They were scattered over a large area of ground.James Little took a middle name of “Amasy”. He took two more wives in plural marriage. He died in Kanab, Kane, Utah, 10 September 1908 at the age of 86 years.
Susannah’s son, Edwin Sobieski Little, married Harriet Amelia Decker, 22 March 1842, Winchester, Scott, Illinois. Edwin’s Uncle Joseph Young married them. They were sealed and endowed in the Nauvoo Temple, 28 January 1846. No children were sealed at that time. Their son George Edwin was not sealed to them until 10 October 1938, Salt Lake Temple, when Teton Jackman found this record was not complete. George Edwin was born 6 August 1844, in Nauvoo, Hancock, Illinois.
Edwin and Harriet left with the Saints to go to Winter Quarters, and in crossing the Mississippi River, the ice broke with the wagon Edwin was helping with and he was thrown into the icy water. It was bitter cold weather and he contracted pneumonia and died three weeks later, 18 March 1846. It was fifty-five miles out of Nauvoo, near Richard’s Point, now Keosaugua, Lee County, Iowa. It was a sad day for Harriet to bury her husband by the side of the road. Their son George Edwin is my mother’s father. She, Mattie Taylor Little Hanks, was the fourteenth child of George and Martha Taylor Little. They had 103 grandchildren, making great grandchildren for Susannah.
Susannah and James Little’s son Feramorz married Harriet Decker, sister of Fannie Marie Decker. Feramorz took three wives in plural marriage. He was the mayor in Salt Lake City, for three terms, 1876 to 1882. In 1872 and 1873 he and his daughter Susan Clare were chosen to go with George A. Smith and others on a tour of the Holy Land, through Europe and into Egypt. He died 14 August 1887 in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Two of Harriet Decker’s sisters, Lucy Ann and Clara were plural wives of Brigham Young. Their mother was married to Lorenzo Dow Young. Her name was Harriet Page Wheeler, ex-wife of Isaac Decker. Harriet Wheeler and her daughter Clare and Ellen Sunders were the three first pioneer women, who came in July 1847.
Susannah and Richard Oliphant had one son, Charles Henry, born 15 November 1825 who married first, Agnes Briton, 11 June 1846, in Rochester, Monroe, New York. Charles stayed in Rochester until the spring of 1853.
Charles wrote his mother, Susannah from Rochester, New York in 1852, saying that he would like to come to Utah in the spring of 1853. His letter arrived just four days before she died. This made her very happy that he was gathering with the Church. He made this journey by mule team. They lost their two oldest children from scarlet fever on the way, while at St. Louis, Missouri. They arrived in Salt Lake City, 25 September 1853. In May 1855 he and his wife Agnes were baptized members of the Church. Charles and Agnes had seven children. They were divorced 14 November 1862. He married second, Sabina Agusta Dallinger, 1 December 1861. He married the third time, 11 April 1870, to Lucinda Abigail Judd. His second wife, Sabina had one daughter Susan Agusta. His third wife Lucinda Judd had thirteen children. He died 16 October 1902, in Orangeville, Emery County, Utah at age 78 years and was buried there.
Susannah’s son William Lacy Stilson was only fifteen years old when he drove a wagon with two yoke of oxen across the plains in 1848, for his Uncle Brigham Young. In Salt Lake City he married Cyrena Martha Lytle, 8 May 1859. The next day he left with his half brother Feramorz Little for Omaha, to help bring back supplies. He and Cyrena were the parents of twelve children. He died 29 August 1913, and she died 3 October 1913 in Orangeville, Emery County, Utah. Both were buried there.
Cornelia Ann Stilson, born 22 May 1836 in Little Beaver, Beaver, Pennsylvania, was 13 years old when she came with her mother Susannah and half brother James Little in 1849. At the early age of sixteen years she was left an orphan without the love of a mother to guide her. She married James McKnight, in Salt Lake City, 17 March 1854. He was from Ireland. Records show he married three other wives. She had four children by James. From Stilson records we quote, “Cornelia grew to womanhood, was a spirited lady, fair to look upon and capable, but unhappily married. In order to free herself from a smooth tongued, tyrannical husband she went away to California, where she died 28 June 1865, Kingston, San Bernadino, California at the age of 29 years. Her husband James died 6 April 1906, Port Townsend, Jefferson, Washington. An Aunt Rebecca McKnight Moses of Washington D.C raised their son James Arthur. He was educated in France. He became a political leader in the United States. With his two marriages he was the father of ten children.
Susannah did not have children by Alonzo Pettingill, but her posterity is numerous. She died 5 May 1852, Salt Lake City, Utah. Buried in the City Cemetery, 8 May 1852. She was nearly 67 years old. Her trials had been many during her short life on this earth. I admired her for teaching her children the Gospel of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and living true and faithful to the end.
Susannah was the mother of eight children and grandmother to 82 grandchildren.James found a small adobe house of one room in which he located his mother and Cornelia and called it home. They had to learn, as did others, how to live in this new, strange land. The food they had brought across the plains was gone and food was in short supply in the valley. That first winter they lived mainly on shorts, bread and a little tea. On December 16, 1849, Susannah got up a little dinner party to which Brigham Young was invited and James married Mary Jane Lytle. After a little while, James found another house with two rooms and he and Mary Jane lived in one, Susannah and Cornelia in the other.
Susannah only had two and a half years in the Salt Lake Valley. Tuesday, May 4th was a dull morning in Salt Lake City, at noon it commenced storming-rain and a high wind. Worn out from the trials and hardships of a pioneer life, she passed away in Salt Lake City on that day in 1852.
The Deseret News of May 4th printed the following. “Died, Susan Pettinguil or Pettingill) (sic) widow of Alanson Pettingill, sister of Governor Young, age 56 years 11 months 4 days.
May her ashes rest in the silent tomb
Till Christ the mighty Prince shall come
And bid the dust arise,
Then every saint from every clime
In robes of righteousness shall shine
In their celestial home.
There may we all our sister meet
And all our friends and kindred greet
In our celestial home.
There kings and priests and prophets come,
To honor and adore Andaum
And worship at his feet.
(Deseret New dated May 4, 1852 From the Journal History of the Church, Church Historian’s Office)Many details for this history was taken from, Descendants of William Little Jr., and Allied Families, compiled by Harriet Fredricksen Little, in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1958. She was born 31 May 1884, Castle Dale, Emery County, Utah. She married David Baldwin Little, 2 Jan 1909, youngest son of James Amasa and Anne Matilda Baldwin Little. David died 9 June 1911, El Paso, Texas. Harriet retired from school Teaching in Salt Lake County in 1944. Since 1935 she collected records of the Little Family. The past few years her eye sight has been bad, but she is able to catch a bus and go to the Salt Lake Temple from her home at 510 East 300 South Salt Lake City, Utah. We appreciate the research she has compiled on the families of Susannah Young and James Little. I have altered certain parts of this history where it is duplicated by the following history of James A. Little.
JAMES AMASY LITTLE, BROTHER OF CHARLES HENRY OLIPHANT
The following story of James A. Little, son of Susannah, written by him, fills in the picture of Susannah Young just a little bit more. It is taken from the book Our Pioneer Heritage. It is as follows:
William Little Junior had three sons, Moses, Malcolm, and James. The latter is the father of James A., the subject of this sketch. William Little Jr., with his sons, emigrated from Ireland April 11, 1807 and arrived in New York City May 18, 1807. About the year 1815 James, the father of James A., married Susan Young, the daughter of John Young Senior and Nabby Howe Young. She is also the sister of John, Joseph, Phineas H., Brigham, and Lorenzo Dow Young, five brothers who have played a conspicuous part in the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. On their farm, about four miles from Aurelius, Cayuga County, New York, were born to James and Susan Young Little, Edwin Sabriska, Eliza, Feramorz, and James. The latter was named James after his father, but when about twenty years old he worked in a shop where there were so many by the name of James that to distinguish himself from the others he added Amasy to his name and has since been known on the records as James A. Little. James was born September 14, 1822. The father was killed by his wagon’s overturning in 1822 leaving Susan a young widow with three little boys, James A., being a babe in arms. Eliza, the only daughter, had died before the father. After the death of her husband Mrs. Little moved to Menden, Monroe County, New York where, in time, she married Richard Oliphant in February 1825, and were divorced shortly after. She married William B. Stilson in 1829. The James A. Little story follows:
I was bound out at an early age to a Mr. Bouton and his wife, who married late in life and who had no children to soften and tone down their characters. They were Presbyterians and very strict. Mr. Bouton was a kind-hearted man, but quick-tempered, and naturally, under the influence of his wife, who was of a melancholy mind and apt to find much fault about trifles. Her reports of my boyish delinquencies resulted in my getting many serious beatings. There was no love manifested by either of them for me, and as I grew up I longed more intensely for someone to love. There was a void in my young heart, which there was nothing to fill, and faultfinding and beating caused increasing discontent, in my bosom. When about sixteen years old I declared my independence, in the barn, when Mr. Bouton picked up the end of an ox gad to hit me. The first move I made was in self-defense. He seemed amazed and desisted. This created a change in our relative positions and relived me of much abuse. I remained with him another winter and got four more months of schooling. Considering the stringent code of discipline under which they were raised I think they did very well with me. They trained me in strict principles of morality; and through diligence and perseverance I acquired a good education.
In the spring of my seventeenth year I took my belongings on my back and went on foot to see my uncle, Malcolm Little, in Seneca County and my brother, Feramorz, in Genesee County. I hired out to a widow lady, Mrs. Smith. She had two children, Chauncey, and Emeline. I had been acquainted with them for some years. A strong attachment grew between Emeline, and myself, and she favored my suit. Although I was industrious, moral, and fairly well educated, the mother objected to our union as her daughter would inherit a few hundred from her father’s estate, and I was penniless. That winter I taught school. I worked for Mrs. Smith the next summer, then again engaged to teach school in the Pine Wood District. The boys had turned the teacher out the previous winter, and I had learned some lessons in my school the previous year also. So when I discovered mutiny among the larger boys I quelled it with a strong hand, and succeeded in gaining the respect of both parents and children.
I went up to visit my brother, Charles Oliphant, at Rochester and saw my first railroad. The cars were then running between that city and Buffalo. I next got a job from Mr. Carter, a long-faced praying Methodist who cheated me out of my season’s wages amounting to twelve dollars per month. Always after that if I had anything to do with him I thought he would bear watching. The winter of 1842 was a very severe one. I went out into the country where I met a couple of Mormon elders, the first I had seen. They claimed to know President Young, and were on their way to Nauvoo. I took a notion to visit my relatives in Nauvoo, so a friend and I started and made our way to Chicago, with some unusual experiences. From Chicago we traveled on foot to the head of Steamboat Navigation, on the Illinois River. A canal was being constructed between these points. We found a steamer going to St. Louis without cargo, so we went free. I was young and thought I knew more than I do now, after fifty years of study, and experience. Like most people of that time who knew little or nothing of the Mormons, I was much prejudiced against them. There were some on the steamer, and as I remember, I fairly ventilated my prejudices. When I arrived in Nauvoo I was poorly clad, but as the Saints had colonized the place when driven from Missouri I was about on a level with them. My mother, Uncles Brigham, Phineas H., Joseph, and Lorenzo D., were there, and many more of my relatives, but all alike were strangers to me, and it was some time before I could sense the relationship. My mother’s sister, Aunt Fanny, was the last one excepting my mother, whom I had parted with when I was thrown a waif on public charity.
So far as poverty and sickness were concerned we could not have been worse off, and live. I found my mother in very poor circumstances. Her husband, William B. Stilson, had left home several years before, and had not been heard from. My first effort was to find labor and get something to live on. I applied to the Messers. Laws who were men of considerable business. They set me at very heavy work, breaking hemp. They were to pay me fifty cents per day in cornmeal, and I was to board myself. The weather was very warm, and besides, cornmeal of itself would not sustain a man under such labor. It was about ten o’clock A.M. when I concluded to do the work. I labored until noon, went to mother’s for some dinner, and decided not to go back again as such labor would not supply the necessities of life, to say nothing of its comforts. I recollect seeing my oldest brother, Edwin, but once in Nauvoo. My uncle Lorenzo D. Young, who lived out east of Nauvoo about sixteen miles, came into Nauvoo about this time, and I went home with him. He had been driven out of Missouri, and, like most of the Mormon people, was in indigent circumstances. A part of his family was then sick. It wasn’t long before I moved Mother out there, and put up a log cabin near Uncle Lorenzo’s. I sought something to do that would better our circumstances, and made a contract with a Mr. Maynard to do a job of work for a good cow, at twelve dollars. I did part of the work, but as it was not pressing; I did not finish at once.
I remember assisting William G., and Joseph W., about this time to hoe a piece of corn. It was not long before Uncle Lorenzo and all of his family were sick, except William. We deeply felt the need of trying to provide food for both families, and were particularly anxious to get bread for the coming winter. With the hope of accomplishing this we took a piece of wheat of several acres to harvest, thresh, etc., as we thought, on quite fair terms. We had worked a day or two at this when William was taken down with chills, and fever. Thus we were bitterly disappointed, and William felt so bad that he shed tears. He was the last one of Uncle Lorenzo’s family who could do anything. For a while I had to wait on all of the sick. Our chance to make our bread was gone, and as I mentioned before, so far as poverty and sickness were concerned, we could not have been worse off.
After a little while I met cousin Evan M. Green, who lived several miles from Uncle Lorenzo’s. He thought I could get the school to teach, where he lived, so I went home with him. I obtained the situation, and I think before I had taught school a week, I was taken down with chills and fever. I recollect nothing distinctly until I found myself in the home of Aunt Fanny Murray in Nauvoo, with my mother. I was pretty sick, and I recollect nearly bleeding to death at the nose. One day Uncle Joseph Young administered to me. I was healed. He afterward reminded me that I promised if I was healed through the administration that I would be baptized. No doubt I did so, but I was too sick for the covenant to make much impression on my mind. About this time Mother got a letter from William B. Stilson. I think it was the first news she had had of him for five years. He was a soldier in the United States Army, and was stationed at Jefferson Barracks, a few miles below St. Louis, Missouri. This was in the autumn, probably in October. Mother concluded to go to him.
I had seen but little that was cheering during my stay in Nauvoo and vicinity. I was bitterly disappointed in the dearest object of my young life; obtaining a home of my own. I think the expression that I cared but little where I went or what I did, and but little whether I lived or died, will about express my condition. In some way Mother raised the money to pay our passage, and she took me with her little daughter Cornelia, and her niece Mary Sanford, the latter being perhaps seventeen, and the daughter of Joel Sanford. On the river steamer to St. Louis the chills and fever took hold of me again, and the turns came on alternate days. A gentleman passenger on the steamer gave me a prescription of Peruvian bark and brandy. I had but one more attack, and have never been troubled with it since.
We found Mr. Stilson at Jefferson Barracks. He belonged to the Third Regiment of Infantry, and family quarters were assigned to him in the barracks. It was not long before his term of enlistment expired. He re-enlisted in company A. Third Infantry and I enlisted in the same company, November 23, 1843. After a little while Mary Sanford married a dashing young sergeant of Company “C” of the same regiment. In the early winter it began to be the gossip in the barracks that there was a chance for a war with Mexico over the admission of Texas into the Union, and especially over the claim of the United States to a piece of territory lying between the River Nuances, and the Rio Grande. The rumor of war increased and in the latter part of the winter there was a rumor that our regiment would soon be ordered to Ft. Jessup in Louisiana, near the Texas Frontier.
During the winter my brother, Edwin, visited us and I understood that he was quite annoyed that I had enlisted in the army. My brother Feramorz, had found his way from the east, and also visited us. I think it was after we had received orders to move to Ft. Jessup that Mr. Stilson took a severe cold and went to the hospital with lung fever. While he was sick in the hospital my regiment was paraded and marched on board a river steamer from New Orleans. My mother, my half-sister, Cornelia, and my brothers, Feramorz and Edwin stood under the porch of the barracks and saw me march off. It could not be otherwise than a lonesome day for me; but my young life had realized few joys and pleasures.
Mr. Stilson died a few days after my departure, and Feramorz took mother and Cornelia to St. Louis, in order to do what he could to sustain them and make a home for Mother. Again I was separated from my loved ones after enjoying their association a few months, all alike suffering in sickness and sorrow. My regiment was sent from New Orleans up Red River, on an old rickety steamer. The water was high, which made navigation much safer that on low water. When we arrived in Ft. Jessup we encamped in the pine timber, about one mile from the fort, with the Fourth Infantry for neighbors, and the Second Dragoons in the fort. I soon became proficient in drill, was careful to do whatever duty was expected of me, and have no complaints to make of my treatment. I have no dates of our moves except the one to Ft. Jessup, the spring of 1844, which was noted for high water in the western rivers. We celebrated the Fourth of July at Ft. Jessup where there was a theater in which to congregate. The Third and fourth Infantry joined with the Second Dragoons in the day’s performances. Each corps selected an orator of the day. Of course commissioned officers took no active part in the day’s services. I was selected to represent the infantry. I wrote an oration, but when I came forward on the stage of the theater I entirely forgot it and delivered an impromptu one. Officers and men listened with much attention, and I believe, were satisfied with the effort. I cannot recall that since that occasion I have ever risen before an audience with a written address or with even notes to assist me. I have been blessed with a good memory and have cultivated it by expecting it to perform its office.
The infantry built temporary quarters in the pinewoods, and remained near Ft. Jessup until the following season. The regiments also united in building a reading room, which was very well furnished with papers and magazines. A debating club was organized, in which I took an active part. I spent much of my leisure in reading. I found the officers very obliging, loaning me books, and particularly Lt. Jordan of my own company. I had no sympathy with gambling, and other vices, which so commonly characterize military life.
I cannot now recall the date of what I am about to relate, which caused a considerable change in my soldier life. One day I was ordered to report for duty to the quartermaster’s office, which was a large tent at Gen. Taylor’s headquarters. On reporting to Mr. Garnier, the chief clerk, I found him very courteous in explaining how I came to be detailed for duty there, and what was expected of me. Gen. Taylor had sent to Col. E. A Hitchcock, the commanding officer of my regiment, inquiring if there was not a man in his command sufficiently competent and trusty to take charge of the army mail at headquarters, and I was selected. Mr. Garnier explained to me that, as the U.S. postage laws were not yet extended over Texas, there was no regular mail service. The only way the army had of getting its mail was through the courtesy of the quartermaster general at New Orleans, who became personally responsible for the postage on it and forwarded it, per government vessels, to the “Army of Occupation,” as it was then called. As postage in those days was generally not prepaid, the responsibilities of the quartermaster general would soon amount to a considerable sum. As everybody handled the letters and papers at headquarters without being responsible for the collection of the postage, he and written to Gen. Taylor requesting that something be done to relieve him of these losses. It didn’t take me long to comprehend the situation. The officers were ready to grant me any facilities I asked for, that could be furnished under the circumstances. I soon had a tent, with a part partitioned off for handling the mails, and paid the money over to Gen. Taylor who, I understood, was my surety to the postmaster at New Orleans. I was known as “Army Postmaster,” and the mails were labeled “Army Post Office.” Night or day I attended diligently to business.
It was some time before the U.S. Postal laws were extended over Texas, and the Texas mail for Corpus Christi came to the army office. I collected postage, which amounted to one hundred dollars, and didn’t know what to do with it. I took his advice, loaned it to a friend, and never saw more of it. This was the second hundred dollars I had accumulated and was cheated out of. Texas was admitted to the union, and perhaps that of itself would not have brought on a war; but there was a direct bone of contention in a strip of territory. The army of Occupation as on the border of this, and prepared to take possession. Preparations were made in the early spring to march across this tract to the Rio Grande, with the chance of the move opening the war.
I had charge of whatever pertained to business, and it was carried in one of the wagons. I was expected night and day, to attend to the mails received, and prepare for the carrier, those that were sent away. A tent was usually pitched at night for the convenience of this business. As the General usually rode on horseback, I was often invited to ride in the wagon that carried the post office fixtures, so I fared very well. The march was over a wild country abounding in species of hog, rattlesnakes several feet long, tarantulas, and centipedes. Water was sometimes scarce and poor. On very warm days the men suffered considerably. I understood that many gave out and had to be brought to water. As we approached the Rio Grande there were some slight demonstrations of hostility on the part of the Mexicans, but there was no bloodshed. As we approached Point Isabel, a little hamlet a short distance north of the mouth of the Rio Grande, some of the buildings were burning, having been set on fire by a detachment of Mexicans. The place was taken possession of as a base of supplies. About twenty-miles from there, on the bank of the Rio Grande opposite the City of Matamoros, the army encamped to await the development of events. I occupied a small hut that stood within the lines of the encampment for a temporary post office.
Matamoros was a somewhat sickly place. There was some yellow fever in the autumn after our arrival. The following year it was quite bad, and quite a number of my friends died. In the yellow fever season of 1847 I was suddenly taken with the disease, but the attack was light. I took, among other medicine, calomel, which salivated me, and I thought the remedy worse than the disease.
In May or June of this year my brother, Feramorz, who lived in St. Louis and was carrying on a small grocery business, paid me a visit. I went into partnership with him; let him have some money to take home with him, and several times afterward sent him money until I had accumulated several hundred dollars in the business. When he arrived home, the man he left in charge of the business had sold out, and absconded with the money.
I kept the military post office in Matamoros until the close of the War in the summer of 1848. Soon after the occupation of Matamoras, my regiment had advanced up the Rio Grande, and I saw it no more. I was at first detailed for detached service and afterward obtained a furlough from Col. Davenport, the military governor of Matamoros. When the city was evacuated, sometime in August, 1848, I attended to seeing the fixtures belonging to the post office moved across the Rio Grande, and was given a furlough to go to my friends, although my term of service did not expire until the following November. I had no opportunity for settlement with the War Department until several years later.
I had endeavored to be faithful in every duty assigned me in the army. This with the knowledge of my steady, temperate habits no doubt obtained for me the situation of army postmaster. After I took possession of the Matadors office, the citizens™ letters came with the army mail from New Orleans. For doing their business I charged five cents extra on their letters. This was so moderate, under the circumstances, that I heard no complaint about it, and it was a source of some revenue to me.
I think it was the first day of September 1848 that I arrived at my brother’s in St. Louis. He was still in the grocery business and still keeping a boarding house. I do not think I was very well fitted for the business, but I worked into it the best I could. Soon after, the Saints were driven from Nauvoo. I heard of their going into the wilderness the winter we lay on Aransas Bay. It appeared, before leaving Nauvoo, Mother married Alonzo Pettingill, and as near as I can learn, left the camp of the Saints when on the march west, and came down to St. Louis to find means of subsistence. There I found them on my arrival from the south. Feramorz and I were prejudiced against the Mormons, and as a consequence, more or less against our relatives who belonged to them. I was a confirmed skeptic so far as the Bible and sectarian religion were concerned. After awhile, as opportunity offered, Father Pettingill and I had some conversations on the doctrines. He found it a little difficult to get along with me.
Often during my infidelity, and more especially this fall and winter, I thought often and long on some questions such as the following; How is it that I am a thinking, acting, dual being of mind and body? What am I here for? I must pass away as others do, and what is my future destiny? I often waked in the night and pondered over these things, but no answer came. All my ideas of God had been derived from sectarianism, and in my infidelity I had not improved on them. I believed there was a great overruling power, but of His attributes, appearance, or dwelling I had no conception, as I have since learned them. One night, as I lay in deep meditation, I was impressed to pray. The following petition was about the result. “Oh, God, if there is a God, how can I obtain some knowledge of myself?” A voice said distinctly, “Mormonism, Mormonism.” It did not startle me in the least, but made an impression on my mind that remained. About the same time, Father Pettingill was taken into the grocery to help. This brought us daily into each other’s society. He was a very quiet, unobtrusive man, but I could see that he greatly desired to convince me of the doctrine in which he believed. With frequent conversations he soon learned the drift of my mind. I often asked him questions similar to those I had pondered. Instead of quoting scripture to prove his ideas he would simply tell me his views. These seemed to me natural and practical, and began to form satisfactory answers to my questions. After he had made some progress in this way, in giving me correct ideas, he would occasionally quote a passage of scripture, which would be a simple embodiment of ideas, he had advanced, and which had almost unconsciously fit into my mind. My conception of the character of the Bible rapidly underwent a change, for I saw and understood it, as I had never done before. As a result I became more interested and earnest in my pursuit of knowledge in this new channel.
In February 1849, Father Pettingill took cold and came down with lung fever. We had the best physicians, and did all we could for him, but in a few days it was evident that his end was approaching. He seemed fully aware of this and I felt a strong desire to know if the principles he had taught me sustained him in his last hours. I sat down by his bed and talked over matters plainly with him. Calm and resigned, he testified that he had the most implicit faith in the principles he had advocated, and his appearance indicated that his words were in accord with the sentiments of his heart. After I had received a testimony of the Gospel, I would have expected that any dying, faithful Latter-day Saint would bear the same testimony as Father Pettingill, but at the time his testimony made a strong impression on me. He passed away, and was buried in a graveyard in St. Louis, without anything to mark the spot where lies the remains of a faithful, good man, my father in the Gospel.
After studying over the subject a little longer, I concluded to be baptized. I fully sensed that the Saints were a slandered, persecuted people, and if I joined them their destiny must be mine. A feeling lurked within me to wish that my baptism be a little quiet. Elder Farnham was at the time the president of the St. Louis Branch. He made arrangements to meet me at Chauteau’s Pond, in the outskirts of the city, about nine o’clock a.m. on a Sunday morning. I quietly got a change of clothing from my room and with it under my arm started for the pond. But I was to go through a curious, and to me, novel experience. I had walked but a little distance when some intelligence began to reason against my being baptized, bringing forcibly to my mind the unpopularity of the Mormons, the great sacrifice I was making, and especially forced on me the idea that there would be no one at the pond to baptize me. This influence so wrought on me that in a short time I turned ‘round to go home. I went back but a short distance, when another power began to advance reasons why I should go on to the pond to be baptized. So strong was this influence also that in a little time I turned ‘round to go to the pond. Again the opposite influence seemed to increase its efforts to induce me to return. It was so powerful that I again turned back. After going a short distance a voice appeared to come from above me, clear and distinct, “Go though down to the pond and thou shalt find someone there to baptize thee.” With firmest resolutions to obey I again started for the pond. The opposing influence seemed to re-double its efforts, and again I turned about to go home. There was no further opposition, and I returned my clothing to my room, and went to the Saint’s meeting in the old Baptist Church. There I found Elder Farnham who informed me that he had been to the pond, and had waited for me. I was afterward baptized, without any unusual occurrence, and confirmed at the water’s edge. I regret that I have no record of this important event of my life.
Not long after my baptism, the spirit of gathering began to work on me. My mother was anxious to gather to the mountains, and certainly the way was opening up for her to do so. I had several hundred dollars in our trading concern, and proposed to Feramorz to draw out what was necessary to take Mother and our half-sister, Cornelia, and go into the mountains. There had been in the few months’ previous, frequent cases of cholera in the city, and I had an attack that was checked by a timely dose of medicine. As if to drive me out, there was a marked impression on my mind that if I remained I would die of the cholera. I fitted out with a wagon and two yoke of oxen, necessary provisions, and a reasonable amount of money for future expenses. I started for Council Bluffs, in company with John Gray and family, his single brother, Benjamin, and their mother, and John Russell, her son-in-law. Being inexperienced, we all overloaded our teams, and soon had to begin to lighten up by trading things to the people of the country for supplies, or cows that could supply us with milk, and carry themselves. For some money and articles we could part with, I purchased a pair of steers, and two cows. Not being acquainted with the country, instead of taking the usual route up the Missouri River, we struck up the country by Salt River for the Mormon road across Iowa. We encountered much bad road, and experienced great difficulty and fatigue that we would have avoided had we traveled the usual route.
We left St. Louis quite as soon as the grass began to grow, and we probably arrived at Kanesville about the first of June. There I recollect seeing Uncles Phineas H., and Joseph Young, and their families. I did not visit long but soon crossed the Missouri River and encamped with the others who were gathering to organize for crossing the plains. I think we remained in that camp two or three weeks before we were instructed to move on across the Elk Horn River. Then I was organized in Lorenzo Clark’s ten, Enoch Reese’s fifty, and Capt. Perkin’s hundred.
The first serious difficulties encountered after starting were stampedes of our cattle. These sometimes occurred when traveling, but more generally while encamped with our cattle in a corral formed by our wagons for safety; they were sudden, unexpected and dangerous. We found the best remedy for night stampedes was to tie up our cattle separately outside our wagons. These stampedes were so dangerous and frequent that they overbalanced our fear of Indians, and the tens were directed to travel and camp by themselves.
Our “ten” traveled very quietly together. In it were John Lytle and family, whose eldest daughter I afterward married; the Gray and Rumel families; Thomas Judd and family; a man by the name of Porter and family, and others whose names I do not recall. We encamped on the bench near the mouth of emigration Canyon the evening of October 16, 1849. We had the first intimation that we were near civilization in the morning when we looked for our cattle and found them in a stray pound. They had wandered for feed and found it in a field of grain. We knew nothing of the probabilities of this. When we camped our cattle were returned to us without expense. We drove into Salt Lake City, which comprised houses enough for a respectable village had they been closer together, but they were scattered over a large area of ground. I had but little recollection of my relatives, as it was several years since I had met them, and my acquaintance with them in Nauvoo was quite limited. There were no familiar faces except those who had crossed the plains with me. Several of Uncle Brigham’s families occupied a row of log rooms on one end of which was a large kitchen. I think the adobe house, afterwards known as the “White house on the hill, was enclosed so as to afford some shelter.
I soon found an adobe house of one room in which I located Mother and Cornelia, and called it home. My cattle, necessarily in poor condition, were turned out for the winter on the range about ten miles from the city, north. Like others, I had yet to learn how to live in a country so strange and peculiar. I had been in only a few days when Uncle Brigham sent for me and expressed a wish that I come and work for him, and attend to the business connected with daily wants of his families. At that time gold was more abundant in the country than the necessaries of life. Consequently food and clothing were high. I forgot the wages he offered me, but I told him I considered it too low to live in that country, and sustain my mother. I think I went without wages being agreed upon.
On December 16, 1849, Mother got up a little dinner to which Uncle Brigham was invited, and I was united in marriage to Mary Jane Lytle. Our little supply of food and comforts, which we had brought across the plains, were soon exhausted. Food was scarce and much of the time that winter we lived on shorts, bread and a little tea. I worked early and late for Uncle Brigham, and I sometimes ate at his table, which helped to keep up my strength. After a little I obtained a house with two rooms, and I lived in one, and mother in the other. Our housekeeping outfit consisted principally of the following articles a camp-bake-oven, a teakettle, a pan or two, two earthen plates, two knives and forks, and two cups and saucers. The crockery I paid a high price for. We lived in a log house, and I created a pole bedstead in one of the corners. My father-in-law had been in the drivings of Missouri and Illinois, and had made the exhaustive journey across the plains, and had but little with which to dower his daughter, but I think she brought with her a feather bed. Such marriages were common in those times and probably quite as happy as those in which wealth has formed an important factor.
FERAMORZ LITTLE, SON OF SUSANNAH YOUNG
In 1843 he left his native state, New York, and traveled on horseback to St. Louis, Mo., where he met his brother after a separation of ten years. There and in Illinois he engaged in farming, school teaching and grocery business. In 1850 Feramorz, desiring to see his mother and relatives who had immigrated to Utah, contracted with non-Mormon merchants of Salt Lake City, to freight goods to this point from Ft. Kearney, on the Missouri river. At that time he was in business at St. Louis and not yet connected with the “Mormons”.
He arrived in Salt Lake City in 1850. His objective point was California, but in finding ample scope for his ambition in Utah, he became a Latter-day Saint and subsequently one of the Bishopric of the Thirteenth ward, in which part of the city he resided. In 1858 he married Annie E. Little and Julia A. Hampton.
Soon after his arrival in Utah he showed his industrial activity by building a dam, the first across the Jordan River, at a cost of $12,000, and constructing the first canal that took water from that stream for purposes of irrigation.
In 1851 he contracted to carry the United States mail between Salt Lake City and Fort Laramie, a distance of more than five hundred miles, with no settlement but one trading post - Ft. Bridger- between. The carriers now traveled with mules and a light wagon; formerly pack animals had been used. They encountered the usual obstacles, making at times but eight miles a day, and subsisting on parched corn and raw buffalo meat.
The trip to Independence consumed three months. Arriving here early in 1857, Bro. Little with Bro. Hanks, found the inhabitants in a state of excitement over the sensational anti-Mormon reports set in circulation by Judge Drummond, who with other slanderers of the people of Utah and made the nation believe that the “Mormons’ were in a state of rebellion against the government. These reports Mr. Little denounced as false. Having occasion to go to Washington, D. C, to collect his money for carrying the mails, he went on to New York where he wrote to the “Herald” of that city, refuting the foul calumnies. Continuing his industrial career, Mr. Little conducted a flouring mill at the mouth of Parley’s Canyon, engaged in tanning at where he had as his partners his uncle, Pres. Young, and John R. Winder. He carried on blacksmithing and shoemaking and established a school for his children and those of his workmen. He built five sawmills in the canyons of the Wasatch Range, and for years carried on a prosperous lumbering business. He was the builder of the “Utah penitentiary on its present site.
In 1859 he brought large quantities of merchandise from Omaha to Salt Lake City and in 1863 was appointed emigration agent for the Church. Under his supervision five hundred teams were fitted out, carrying three thousand emigrants, and involving an outlay of one hundred thousand dollars. When the railroad came, he engaged as a contractor in building the Union Pacific Railroad, and subsequently was superintendent until 1872, when he went abroad with Pres. Geo. A. Smith and party on their tour of Europe and the Orient. The object of this visit to that land was to bless it, that the curse of barrenness and desolation might be removed, and let it again become fruitful and fitted for the return of the scattered tribes of Israel. Accordingly on March 2, 1873, Pres. Smith and party ascended the Mount of Olives, where the sacred ceremony was performed. The Little’s returned home in May 1873. Two years later Feramorz Little and his brother James filled a mission to the Eastern States, calling upon numerous relatives in New York, and obtaining a genealogical record of their father™s ancestors. They succeeded in removing from the minds of the people many false impressions concerning “Mormonism”.
During the last few years of his life Bro. Little occupied various positions of public trust. He was one of the Board of Regents of the University of Deseret and a member of the Salt Lake City council. In 1876 he was elected mayor of Salt Lake City, serving in that capacity for three consecutive terms. He was the director of the Deseret National Bank and virtually one of its founders. At the time of his death, he was its vice-president. He was also a director of the Ogden National Bank, and was likewise interested in Z.C.M.I. In June 1881, Bro. Little sustained a severe loss in the death of his wife, Fannie. As already stated, he had married two other wives; but he was again a single man when he married Rebecca E. Mantle. While visiting the Blackfoot Ranch, of which he was president, he was stricken with a severe illness, and it was aggravated by the journey home, which required three days. Typhoid fever set in, terminating his earthly existence 14 August 1887. His death was universally regretted. He was recognized as one of Utah’s ablest businessmen and foremost citizens.
As a man of honesty and integrity, he manifested eminent administrative ability, and marked devotion to the public welfare. He was loved by both rich and poor for his keen sense of justice and great kindness of heart. Disliking ostentation, he distributed large sums in benevolence and charity of which only his family and most intimate friends were aware. Among the evidences of his philanthropic spirit is a row of comfortable cottages, built by him for the poor of the Thirteenth Ward and still serving the purpose for which they were erected.
Feramorz Little was essentially a self-made man, indebted for his success to a kind Providence and the sterling qualities of his nature. (Principally culled from Whitney’s History of Utah).LETTERS FROM JAMES A. LITTLE TO CHARLES HENRY OLIPHANT
Addressed to Charles H. Fox in Wyoming, New York. It is dated April 31, 1852 at Great Salt Lake City.
Dear Brother - I received your letter of February 18 by the mail that arrived today from the East. It leaves again tomorrow hence I have only tonight to answer your letter and a few business letters. I regret to say while writing I am sitting with a sick mother but hope that she is not dangerous. She was taken with a chill yesterday and has considerable fever but think that she will be better soon. In answer to your inquires, I will give you all the information I can in this letter and hereafter should you wish any information concerning country, people or climate. Ask with freedom and I will answer promptly. My mail contract commenced August 1st, 1851 and ends July 31st 1854 at $8000.00 per year. I am bound to make 12 trips in a year from this place to Fort Laramie and perform one trip inside of every month if possible or if not the carriers make oath to cause of his detention which [i ----- ded] to working [--n] excuse for the same.
The distance is 510 miles; then it is taken on to the States by another contractor in the same time giving in here a monthly mail. You ask if I go. I have been two trips only. Tomorrow I am going to start my carriage for the first time this spring. I shall run a waggon now for about seven trips, then will have to pack on account of -- snow. I send 21 mules on a carriage; they go to Green River in 4 days, distance 165 miles; there, change and drive to Laramie in ten days, distance 347 miles. From Green River to the Fort settlements, there are 5 tribes of Indians but as yet they have not troubled me. The country through which we travel is mostly plains and mountains with not much timber for the whole distance. Though you can find -- acres of timbered land in your country. In regard to those officers that returned, I have no doubt but that there was a song on both sides, but had they attended to there judicial business and let Mormonism alone, there would have been no trouble. June 12, 1852 - Dear Brother, Our Dear mother is no more. She departed this life May 4th after a short illness. She would of been fifty-seven years old, the 7th of this month. She died as she had lived (for many years) a Mormon in every sense of the word. She died without a struggle and her last words were that she was going to see Edwin and all of her Friends that had gone before her. “Yes”, she said “I see them now” and would smile and reach forward to embrace them. Such a death is hardly to be mourned. Lacy had left for California before her sickness. Cornelia is with us.
The part of this letter bearing date April 30, I wrote at that time being much engaged with mother and other ways. I requested Aunt Fanny to write to you what she did. The May mail arrived on the 28th after a very hard trip. Left on the 1st of June but had to return on account of high water. I am going to start it again tomorrow. I will send you a paper that is printed here from which you can get some ideas of matters and things here.Another letter from James to Charles Henry dated Aug. 10, 1852 from Parowan Iron Co. U. T. [Utah Territory] Dear Charles, I have just received your communication of May 2 and it gratifies me much to hear from you again. You make many inquires and it is natural but I can answer many of them by saying that when you get here you will see a country in many respects unlike any other you have ever seen and were I to write you a volume about it, you would get but a poor idea of it until you see [it]. The land is free to any one that will fence and till it. We have but little rain and water our crops with the streams, which run down from the mountains. I am satisfied that a poor man can do more in these mountains in a year towards living comfortable than he can where your are there. When you get here, you will find these Mormons, which you hear, so much about, a healthy, enterprising and industrious people. Many of our customs are different from those in the States. You will find Uncle Brigham a plain, familiar, kind and a wise man.
Ferry [Feramorz] lives 250 miles from me; we have always clung together like brothers and when you are with us you will feel that you have found friends. Ferry wishes me that he intends to assist you to get here next season. I would say to you commence immediately to make preparations for moving. I think it would be well to come to the Missouri River this fall for I believe you would make more towards fitting out than where you are and be on hand to start early in the season. Sell off your furniture where you are and your tools and every thing else you can do without before starting on the plains. `
Make your load as light as possible for your team; have a good strong waggon, one that has been used and tried will be better than a new one. You can get what you will need in these vallies [valleys] but if you can bring a reasonable supply of clothing, it will be well; you will wear out 2 or 3 pair of good boots in crossing the plains. Start with not less than 700 lbs. of flour and a moderate supply of other food for yourself and family. You will need some good whiskey, tea, coffee, sugar, dried fruit, rice, dried meat or and a few pounds of fat bacon to feed your cattle and if you have any means left lay it out for stock that will travel through or help draw your load in case you should lose any cattle. Train your team all you can, be patient and persevering and you will arrive safely in the vallies of the mountains where you will find every production which grows in any other country in the latitude. You will find when get here that any knowledge which you have will be useful. Archicural [agricultural] knowledge is much wanted. These valleys are very healthy and I believe that the best system of schools in the world is being perfected here; improvements in machinery are being made as fast as circumstances will permit.
Labor of every description is high because that in a short time men find means to work for themselves. As for myself I have been nearly two years helping to build a new settlement and have not lived quite as well as I might in other places. At the same time I am not very poor. I have a couple of houses and city lots, plenty of land (some to spare [for] you if you were here) a good horse team, wagons and 2 cows, some young stock and a plenty to eat. We expect to put up another this fall. I am Sheriff and Assistant collector for the county, U.S. Deputy Marshall and Colonel of Cavalry and have lately been admitted to the Bar in the U.S. District Court.
My wife Mary Jane and myself send our love to you, Agnes and the little ones and hope for a better acquaintance. Your affectionate Brother J. A. Little [James A. Little to C. Fox]LETTER FROM AUNT FANNY YOUNG MURRAY TO CHARLES HENRY AND AGNES
Letter to Charles and Agnes Oliphant from Aunt Fanny (Young) Murray - dated 31 August 1852 - Great Salt Lake City. Addressed to Charles H. Fox - Wyoming, New York
To my dear friends, (or rather children) Charles and Agnes, I received your kind letter last night; was glad indeed to hear form you but sorry for Charleys painful companion; I expect he had many a sleepless night, with such distress as would take the flesh from the bones, and vigor, and courage from the heart; I have seen much of them, but never had one; hope I never may -- poor Charley seems destined to see and feel his share of sorrow and pain in this world; and all that comforts me about it is, that no one will ever enter celestial glory without being tried in the furnace of affliction; so I flatter myself that he is a chosen vessel, and after being tried will indeed come forth as gold. I am aware, that before this, you have received the melancholy news of your Mother’s death; I felt more for you than all the rest, at the time of her death; but do not lay it to heart, we shall all travel the same path before long; and no one can tell how soon. She is at rest, that is my consolation. I now come to speak a little of my own concerns, but do not wish to have you misunderstand me, I am not going to complain; I am greatly blest, and I know it.
After Mr. Murray’s death, (which took place 12 years ago) I got along just as I could, did not want for hard times; sometimes rented a little room and paid for it with my needle, although my own work was more than I was able to do. Sometimes I made out to be comfortable; sometimes I barely subsisted. But I made no complaint to any one. Sometimes I was near my relatives, sometimes far from them. When all my friends left Nauvoo, and came west, I was left behind, not because they did not care for me, but because every one had families of children, and just as much on their hands as they could live through. So I wended my way, as best I could, until they sent back for me, and I started on a load of boxes; I was sick when I started; we traveled two days and a half, when I begged them in mercy, to lay me on the ground, and let me die in peace - the waggons stopped a few days until I was a little better when they carried me back to the first Tavern, and left me. That sickness, I never got over, nor have I ever been able to do much since; but when I did reach my friends, the Lord provided a comforter for me, the youngest daughter of my brother and Sister Greene; they were both dead; and the dear girl seemed to cleave so to me, that she never left me. The greatest comfort of my life since then; I never have broken up, have always kept house-- on the tenth of last month she departed this life, age 22. She was a dear child - these words often roll through my mind, “I am bereaved, O I am bereaved”; however, all is right, although I feel myself alone in the world - She told me she was sure the Lord would raise up some one to be my comfort and stay as she had been.
Cornelia is well - not here, don’t know about the letters yet. Now I want to talk a little about your coming. O that you were already here. I know you are inexperienced about such expeditions - I would that some of our boys could go down there, and help you along; it will not be a miracle if you see Feramorz there, but do not depend on it. He has written, and I suppose had said every thing necessary to be said. Yet I know you must depend on your own judgment. It is impossible to lay down any infallible rule about traveling. You can certainly wash a little on the road; when you get on to the plains, the company always stops once in a while to wash and bake, but the less washing you have to do on the road the better. Do not burden yourselves with any unnecessary thing. Nevertheless, if your dishes are very nice, I would try and fetch enough to set a table handsomely, unless your load is too heavy. About lodging; I had a sort of bedstead fixed into my waggon after the projection was on; they bored holes through and then by pining on something like the end rails of a bedstead, we corded up our bed a cross-ways of the waggon, and made our lodging very comfortable; only our bed was rather short. This is a great comfort when we are sick on the road and then your children will sleep in the daytime, just as though they were rocked in a cradle; I must now say farewell my dear children, may heaven protect and preserve and prosper, and bring you safely to our arms. Your uncles are rejoiced that you are coming. Signed Fanny Murray
According to his brother John's daughter Fanny's letter (GS)F281261 he,
Joseph went to England after the Revolutionary War and was not heard from
again.
In the writings of Wilford Woodruff on page 195 it tells that Fanny Murray was given her endowments on December 23, 1843 along with others which I will quote: "December 2nd on the Sabbath morning P.P.Pratt, Orson Hyde, Wilford Woodruff, and Orson Spencer received their anointings; and on December 23rd they met in Joseph Smith's home, where endowments were given to Elder Marley and wife, Orson Pratt, Mrs. Lot, Fanny Murray, Phoebe Woodruff, Bathsheba Smith, Sister Orson Spencer, and Sister Phelps.
Rhoda was the first one in the family to hear about the gospel. It was in Mendon, New York that she had been tgiven a Book of Mormon by Samuel Smith, brother of the Prophet Joseph Smith. The family all read it. They had always been a religious family. A neighbor, Heber C. Kimball said that the family of John Young "Had teh same principles in their breast which I had in mine; truth was what we wanted and would have, and truth we did receive, for the Lord granted us a testimony upon testimony of the truth of the gospel. (Heber C. Kimball Journal, Millennial Star 27 (1864), Pg. 503) Susannah's father John and his wife, Hannah; Fanny, Rhoda, Joseph, Phinehus, Brigham and Lroenzo and their spouses were all baptized on April 14, 1832, Susannah was baptized in June of the same year, and Louisa and her husband followed later that year, and Nancy and her husband were baptized in 1833 in Tyronne. All the family remained loyal and valiant members of the Church throughout their lives.
(This information was obtained by Burt Oliphant from the Land and Records Office in Nauvoo, Ill in August 2000 on his way home from Palmyra, N.Y on a mini mission. He and his wife Peggy had served a mission there from July 1995 - Aug 1997) This information was gathered by Sandra L. Chatterley, May 3, 1999 who was serving a mission in Nauvoo. We appreciate her efforts so much in gleaning this 8 page history of this family, in particular Susannah Young. Sandra Chatterly says: "While serving as a missionary in Nauvoo from November, 1997, 1999, I was determined to find where Susannah lived while in Nauvoo. My assignment at the Land and Records Office gave me an opportunity to examine many records to try to find the answer to this question. Susannah was one of the very poor saints, I have found no evidence that she owned land in Nauvoo. Some of her family came from the Missouri persecutions through Quincy and to Nauvoo. I do not know when Susannah came. She was here in the winter of 1842 because she and her daughter were enumerated in the LDS Priesthood Census taken then. In the original census records just above her name the enumerator wrote "Edwin S. Litt..." then crosssed out those words. It is possible that Susannah lived with her son, Edwin at least part of the time she was in Nauvoo. Edwin was called on missions and was gone a good deal of the time.I'll continue this on Susannah's record notes.