Memoirs of John R. Young, Utah Pioneer, 1847Young, John R.
History
Memoirs of John R. Young, Utah Pioneer, 1847
Young, John R.
Latter Day Saint pioneers -- Utah -- Biography; Young, John R., 1837-
On January 1, 1859, I married Albina Terry, eldest daughter of William
Reynolds and Mary Phillips Terry. During the summer following, I worked
as a farm hand for my brother-in-law, Joseph G. Brown. On November 12,
1859, I moved to Payson and bought a home of David Crockett, paying for
it during the winter by hauling tithing wheat from Sanpete valley to
Salt Lake City.
November 16, 1859, my eldest son, John Terry, was born. The mother came
near dying with hemorrhage at the nose, but Elders Levi W. Hancock and
William McBride laid hands on her, and she was instantly healed.
In the spring of 1861, I was called, with ten other families of
Payson, to help settle the Uinta country. I sold my home, bought two
good teams, and loaded up my things; then going to Salt Lake City, I
reported to President Young for specific instructions. After a long
talk, in which he seemed pleased with my labors, he told me the Indians
had become hostile, and he should release those who had been called. He
advised that I return to Payson and buy another home. I did so, trading
my teams for a house and lot and ten acres of farm land.
I also rented a ranch, with twenty cows and a flock of sheep, for three
years, of James McClellan. During the summer I picked up sixty calves,
to be kept on halves. I also married as second wife. Miss Lydia Knight,
daughter of Newell Knight, a life long trusted friend of the Prophet
Joseph Smith.
Everything that I touched seemed to prosper, and I was happy--but the
"best-laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley." In the fall, I was
called, in connection with my Brother Franklin W., who at that time was
bishop of Payson, to go to Dixie.
I purchased two yoke of oxen and a big wagon. My Brother Franklin W.
accompanied me as far as Toquer, where we parted. I going to the Santa
Clara, I bought an Indian farm situated on the creek just below the Old
Mission fort. I worked hard during days, fencing with timber that grew
on the place. The long evenings I spent in grubbing the heavy sage and
squaw brush that covered a great portion of the farm. My wives, Albina,
and Lydia, would pile the brush, and keep up fires so that I could see
to work. We were ambitious to make a good home; and the only capital we
had was health, strong-arms, and resolute will.
Just as I had completed the fence, and had several acres ready for
plowing, the Big Flood came like a thief in the night. The wall of
water, which was ten to fifteen feet high, struck the west side of
the fort, a rock structure two hundred feet square, in which several
families were living. The solid wall stood as a dam, causing the stream
to divide the greater part following the creek channel to the south,
but a sheet of water four or five feet deep spewing over the creek
bank, and running along the fort wall until it came to the north side,
where it swept through the gate like a mill race, flooding the inside
of the fort to a man's armpits.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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