TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1.........................................................................................................

New England Birthright........................................................................

CHAPTER 2.........................................................................................................

Uprooted By Faith......................................................................................

Mission To Vermont.......................................................................................

Return To Nauvoo..........................................................................................

Tried In The Wilderness.................................................................................

CHAPTER 3.........................................................................................................

Valley Of The Mountains.......................................................................

Home in Lehi....................................................................................................

Grasshopper Year...........................................................................................

Polygamy..........................................................................................................

Utah Territorial Legislature.........................................................................

CHAPTER 4.........................................................................................................

“It Seemed Like A Dream”........................................................................

Mission To England.......................................................................................

Called Home To Zion.....................................................................................

Return To Utah................................................................................................

CHAPTER 5.........................................................................................................

Mountain Common Law.........................................................................

Johnston’s Army In Lehi................................................................................

Jury Duty..........................................................................................................

Another Wife, 1860.........................................................................................

Second Term, Utah Legislature....................................................................

State Of Deseret...............................................................................................

Utah Legislature, Third Term.......................................................................

CHAPTER 6.........................................................................................................

Cares Unceasing..........................................................................................

Bishop of Franklin.........................................................................................

Railroad and School of Prophets................................................................

Franklin Co-op Store and Telegraph.........................................................

Mormon Hotel.................................................................................................

Idaho Legislature...........................................................................................

Railroad Comes to Franklin........................................................................

Arrested For Polygamy..................................................................................

CHAPTER 7.........................................................................................................

To The South...................................................................................................

Zuni Mission....................................................................................................

Visit To Franklin............................................................................................

Called to Arizona...........................................................................................

CHAPTER 8.........................................................................................................

Let Not My House Be Divided.................................................................

Little Colorado Stake....................................................................................

Eastern Arizona Stake...................................................................................

Family Troubles..............................................................................................

A Father’s Pride..............................................................................................

CHAPTER 9.........................................................................................................

He That Will Have A Crown..................................................................

Apache Indian Threat....................................................................................

Hyrum Shot......................................................................................................

Travel To Gila Valley.....................................................................................

Silver City, New Mexico................................................................................

CHAPTER 10.......................................................................................................

Turmoil And Upheaval............................................................................

Apache County Politics.................................................................................

Business As Usual...........................................................................................

The Stover Bill and Polygamy......................................................................

Coveville, Utah...............................................................................................

CHAPTER 11.......................................................................................................

I Must Go, The Bell Is Tolling................................................................

Efforts To Avoid Arrest...................................................................................

Return To Arizona..........................................................................................

Snowflake Stake.............................................................................................

Family Concerns.............................................................................................

CHAPTER 12.......................................................................................................

“Remain In The Field Of Labor”............................................................

One More Woodruff Dam...............................................................................

The Manifesto..................................................................................................

Death of Alice..................................................................................................

Salt Lake Temple............................................................................................

CHAPTER 13.......................................................................................................

Waste And Wear Out Your Life..........................................................

1895..................................................................................................................

More Problems In Arizona............................................................................

Seventy Years Old...........................................................................................

A Grand Celebration.....................................................................................

Grandson, Levi Lorenzo Savage..................................................................

CHAPTER 14.......................................................................................................

“Worn Hands, Weary Hands”...............................................................

A New Prophet, Lorenzo Snow.....................................................................

Visitors, Maeser, Kimball, Grant, and Clawson.......................................

Twenty Four Year Mission Ends..................................................................

Seventy-Fifth Birthday...................................................................................

Last Return To Cache Valley........................................................................

Death of Brother Jeremiah............................................................................

No Time For Repose.......................................................................................

Death of Sylvia................................................................................................

Appendix I.........................................................................................................

Spunky Sylvia..................................................................................................

Loving Catherine............................................................................................

Shy Alice...........................................................................................................

Appendix II.......................................................................................................

Lorenzo Hill Hatch Letters.................................................................

Appendix III......................................................................................................

Photographs and Maps...........................................................................

Bibliography................................................................................................

Index...................................................................................................................

CHAPTER 2

Uprooted By Faith

Prior to the Hatch exodus from Vermont, the Mormons, finding bitter opposition to their church among the inhabitants of Jackson County Missouri, fled from that state in 1839 to Illinois and settled near the village of Commerce on the Mississippi River. Commerce was promoted as the central gathering place for the Saints and renamed Nauvoo. The area was swampy and unhealthy, and malaria was rampant.

The Mormons, under the direction of their prophet Joseph Smith, immediately made plans to drain swamps and control the mosquito infestation. They asked for, and received, a liberal city charter from the State of Illinois in 1840. A police force was established, and a public works program to help unemployed immigrants was begun. The Nauvoo Legion was organized in 1841 as a means of self protection and also a show of patriotism. Plans were made to begin a temple in the bustling city.

Though not apparent to the recently arrived Hatch family, all was not tranquil in Nauvoo. In May of 1842 ex-Governor Lillburn Boggs of Missouri was wounded by a would-be assassin and Joseph Smith’s bodyguard, Porter Rockwell, was accused.

About this same time one of Joseph Smith’s counselors, John C. Bennett, was excommunicated from the church and expelled from Nauvoo on morals charges. He began to write inflammatory articles concerning the practice of polygamy within the church. These articles were eagerly published by the Quincy Whig and the Sangamo Journal at Springfield, causing much anxiety and disturbance among the gentiles (non-members) in Illinois.[29]

Hezekiah Hatch, as he arrived in Nauvoo with his family in September of 1842, was probably not aware of the full extent of the tumult that surrounded the Latter-day Saints. In his great faith that he had found the true word of the Lord and the restored gospel of the ancient church, Hezekiah came prepared to make his permanent home with the Saints in Nauvoo.

Lorenzo Hill Hatch remembered: “At the time of our arrival [in Nauvoo] the Prophet was in hiding from the “writs” that were in circulation against him by accusation...made by the State of Missouri. ...this excitement passed in a few weeks after our arrival, and we had the privilege of seeing and hearing the Prophet speak to the Saints.”[30]

Father Hezekiah did not hesitate to put down roots and make a home for his five motherless children. One month after arriving in Nauvoo, he bought a city lot for $300.00 from Daniel H. and Eliza R. Wells. This land was Lot 3, Block 17 of the Wells Addition to Nauvoo.[31] Two weeks later on October 31, 1842, for $500.00, he bought an 80 acre farm six miles east of Nauvoo from Job V. and Marcia Barnum.[32] Hezekiah immediately began building a home on the city lot. “The house was 30 x 16, two stories of brick...with a front porch [it was] located on Mulholland Street... two or three blocks east of the Temple. He [Hezekiah] put up this house in February. In March he commenced fencing and farming on his prairie farm.”[33]

Grandfather Jeremiah and Grandmother Elizabeth bought a building site at the corner of Fulmer and Ripley Streets in Nauvoo. This was Lot 56, Block 2 of the Kimball Addition. Their deed is dated February, 1843. Grandfather Jeremiah built a home very similar to that of his son Hezekiah.[34]

Building these Nauvoo homes may have been seventeen-year-old Lorenzo’s first experience as a carpenter and builder, skills that would be put to good use in his later life. The clearing, fencing and planting of the farm land was not a new experience for the Hatch brothers, as they had worked on their father’s farm in Vermont since early childhood.

Three months after the family arrived in Illinois, Lorenzo’s older brother, nineteen-year-old Jeremiah (Jerry), married Louisa Pool Alexander on Christmas day, 1842. The Alexander family had come to Nauvoo from New Hampshire. The couple was married by Elder Peletiah Brown, the missionary who first brought the word of Mormonism to the Hatch family in Vermont two years before.[35]

In early March, 1843 Father Hezekiah was given a patriarchal blessing under the hands of the Prophet’s brother Hyrum Smith. Hezekiah was told of “tribulations that await you, yet there are blessings which you shall realize...” He was also assured “that your name shall not be forgotten but be continued and perpetuated from generation to generation....”[36]

On April 9th Grandfather Jeremiah and Grandmother Elizabeth received patriarchal blessings from Hyrum Smith, and Jeremiah was ordained an Elder of the Church of Jesus Christ with the express injunction that “...[he] quit the use of tobacco and keep the Word of Wisdom.”[37] On June 7, 1843, Hezekiah Hatch was issued an elder’s license by the Latter-day Saints Church.[38] This was a license to preach, and perform ordinances in accordance with their teachings.

The new Hatch home was nearly complete and forty-four-year-old Hezekiah was making plans to be married for the second time. The wedding date had been set for June 26th. Life seemed promising, but it was not to be. The ague, or malaria, with its chills and fever took many lives before the swampland was drained and the mosquito controlled. Hezekiah became ill with this dread fever and after only a few days he died on the very day that he was to have been wed.[39] He was buried in the cemetery on the hill with Brigham Young preaching his funeral sermon.[40]

Twelve years later Lorenzo Hill recorded the events following the death of his father: “...and thus we were left in the midst of the Saints without father or mother whilst many sought the advantage of us and took it...not the Saints, but those who professed to be. Let them have their reward.”[41]

Abram, who was thirteen years old at his father’s death recalled, “After the death of my father, my uncle, Jeremiah Hatch, came on to Nauvoo from North Carolina and was appointed administrator of my father’s estate.”[42] Lorenzo continues the saga, “...he [Uncle Jeremiah] sold the personal property, such as wagons, harnesses, stock, cloth, clothing and bedding which ought to have been kept for the heirs.... The estate was never settled. How much he collected, I do not know. This much I do know, the heirs received nothing except a few articles which they bought at the sale. Had Jerry [brother] and I known how things were going we would have bid on everything and let the administrator and scoundrels go to the devil, where they have gone. [after Father’s death] ...Abram lived with grandfather’s folks, I lived with Jeremiah, my brother, and we were poor enough. The little girls, [eight-year-old Adeline and five-year-old Elizabeth], lived from place to place as they could find places to stay.”[43]

Though Uncle Jeremiah Hatch was named guardian for the minor children, Abram, Adeline and Elizabeth,[44] their care fell to the grandparents, Jeremiah and Elizabeth Hatch, who were quite elderly, being seventy-seven and seventy-one.

Another of Lorenzo’s Uncles, Josephus Hatch, arrived in Nauvoo after the death of Hezekiah. Josephus and his wife Melinda, who had joined the Mormon Church in Vermont, came now to look after the aged grandparents, and help take care of Hezekiah’s orphaned children. Josephus bought a lot on the north side of Knight Street in the Kimball Addition to Nauvoo in November 1843 for $250.[45] He also purchased two pieces of farm land, one containing 40 acres and another with 89 acres.[46]

The uncle, Jeremiah Hatch, Jr., who rushed forward to take charge of Hezekiah’s estate was the only member of the family who had not accepted the Mormon faith. He was twenty-one years younger than Hezekiah and a graduate of Middlebury College in Vermont.

Though not professing the Mormon religion, twenty-four-year-old Jeremiah Hatch, Jr. remained in Nauvoo for more than a year, teaching at the Nauvoo Select School. He taught English Literature, Latin and Greek.[47] Intelligent, cultured and possessed of a charming grace, he soon became a close friend of Sidney Rigdon, counselor to Joseph Smith, though he still did not embrace the Mormon faith. At the death of the Prophet Joseph, Jeremiah, Jr. left Nauvoo, first settling in Pittsburgh and afterwards going with the Rigdonite Church to Greencastle, Pennslyvania where he married Lucy Ann Rigdon, a daughter of Sidney.[48] He supported Rigdon in his attempts to wrest the presidency of the LDS church from Brigham Young, and was ordained an apostle to Sidney Rigdon.[49]

Many years later Lorenzo Hill Hatch corresponded with a grandson of his Uncle Jeremiah. The letters, copied into Lorenzo’s journal in the year 1903, are addressed to Judge Edward Hatch, New York City, and begin, “Through my brother Abram of Heber City, I have learned of your recent visit to Utah and California, and at his suggestion I write you briefly of myself and family.”[50] Lorenzo relates to his cousin, Edward Hatch, what he knew of the family history concerning Edward’s father Jeremiah Hatch, Jr. and his grandfather Sidney Rigdon. He also bears testimony of the truthfulness of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and soft-pedals the earlier antagonism against Jeremiah’s performance as administrator of Hezekiah’s estate.

During the summer and winter of 1843, following Father Hezekiah’s death, the Hatch family remained in Nauvoo and Lorenzo remembers this winter as “a very lonesome time.” He was “ordained a priest and traveled through the city as a teacher and was blessed.”

He was drawn to the Prophet Joseph Smith and sought every opportunity to get as close to the Prophet as possible when he spoke in public. The tall, light complected Prophet, with his commanding, yet musical voice seemed to the young Lorenzo to possess inspiration and the gift of prophecy. The young man attended a cottage meeting of twenty or thirty people and heard the words of Joseph and of Apostle Orson Hyde, who had just returned from Jerusalem. Lorenzo later remembered, “The meeting was at the house of a German neighbor. Perhaps I was an intruder, but nevertheless, I was at that meeting. The Prophet talked of the great beauty of the German language [and] also extolled the German Bible. He spoke of the confounding of the languages at the Tower of Babel, and told how it would be restored.[51]

“I heard Joseph say he would soon take a rest, and the responsibility of building up the church and sending the gospel to the nations would be required of the Twelve Apostles.”[52]

In the fall of 1843 The Scroll Petition, a document to be submitted to Congress applying for redress for suffering endured by the Mormons in Missouri, was prepared and signed by 3,419 Nauvoo residents. Not all of the signers, such as the Hatches, had been in Missouri, but many signed in support of those who suffered there. The single petition was fifty feet long and rolled up like a scroll. Jeremiah, Elizabeth, Josephus and Melenda Hatch were among those who attached their signatures. Orson Pratt, John E. Page and Orson Hyde took the memorial to Washington, D.C., but the Congress rejected their plea to present the petition.[53]

Before the year was out the first born child of Brother Jeremiah and Louisa was buried in the cemetery on the hill next to his grandfather and namesake, Hezekiah. On January 11, 1844 Lorenzo received a blessing at the hands of Patriarch Hyrum Smith, brother of the Prophet Joseph.[54] The Patriarch addressed Lorenzo as “a lad” and among other things admonished him to be “steadfast, immovable and you shall abound in Grace and possess your inheritance and the mansion that is prepared with the blessings of years multiplied upon your head.”[55]

During the first month of this new year, the twelve apostles, advisors to the Prophet, agreed to press for Joseph Smith’s candidacy for President of the United States. Negative action, or no action, on the part of former holders of this office concerning problems of Mormon persecution seemed to them just cause for this move. “At the April conference [of the Mormon Church], speakers endorsed and the congregation unanimously affirmed Joseph Smith’s candidacy. More than three hundred people volunteered to preach the restored gospel and campaign for him across the nation.”[56]

On April 14th Lorenzo was ordained a Seventy under the hands of Joseph Young, and called to fill a mission to his native state of Vermont. Though Lorenzo’s mission undoubtedly included campaigning for Joseph Smith’s presidency bid, he never mentions this in his journal, but only tells of preaching gospel sermons.[57]

Mission To Vermont

On April 15th Lorenzo Hill Hatch, accompanied by Thomas E. Fuller, left Nauvoo for Vermont. In bidding his Uncle Jeremiah, Jr. goodby, Lorenzo remembered, “He gave me twelve and a half cents and regretted that he had no more to give me.”[58]

During the next ten days, the two missionaries were not always welcome at the doors they knocked upon in the evenings, and so, spent many nights sleeping on the hard, cold ground, sometimes in the rain. By April 25th, Lorenzo and his companion, Elder Fuller, reached the town of Milford in extreme eastern Illinois, where they found an established branch of the church. Upon reaching Milford Lorenzo “was taken sick in consequence of sleeping out of doors” and says of those who refused them shelter, “May they receive their rewards according to their works.”

On May 6th the two elders took a boat on the Wabash and Erie Canal running through the State of Indiana, then traveled by steamboat for Buffalo, working for their passage. “...[We] were treated worse than dogs. One of the firemen threw a stick of wood at Brother Fuller and just missed his head.”

On the night of May 28th the missionaries arrived at the home of Edward M. Fuller, Elder Thomas Fuller’s father, in Saratoga Springs, New York. Lorenzo was “quite sick when I arrived.” While recovering from his illness at the Fuller home, Lorenzo became acquainted with a daughter, Hannah, who would become his future wife. In a foreshadow of the relationship that would develop between Lorenzo and his future father-in-law, his journal says, “I stayed from the 28^th of May to the 17^th of June and worked for Father Fuller. He gave me nothing when I left for Vermont, a distance of 125 miles.”[59]

Lorenzo arrived in Vermont and preached his first sermon, at age eighteen, in the home of his great uncle, Charles Haight, of Ferisberg. He felt the Lord blessed him and he was able to preach with some success. On June 25th he arrived in Bristol, where he found his Aunt Hannah, his mother’s youngest sister, who “received me kindly.”

On June 27th he started on foot, with Brothers Chase and Harding, for Northfield, a distance of some thirty or forty miles. They were to hold a conference there with Erastus Snow who was in charge of missionary work in Vermont. Brother Snow did not arrive. It was the middle of July before the missionaries learned that the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum had been murdered in the Carthage, Illinois jail.

“At first I could not believe it, but at last was convinced that it was a fact. Then I mourned and wept as the children of Israel did when Moses was taken from them.” Later in his life, Lorenzo would remember, “I was alone, a young man being but eighteen years old, 1500 miles from home. The question in my mind was, who would lead the church now that the Prophet Joseph was gone? About a month later I was at the house of one of my cousins in the town of Bristol, Vermont [when] a letter came from my uncle, Jeremiah Hatch, who had married a daughter of Sidney Rigdon. He claimed that the Lord had called Sidney Rigdon to lead the church. It was about noon [and] I stood in the middle of the sitting room reading the letter to my cousin, when a voice plain and distinct said, ‘Brigham Young is the man God has chosen to fill the vacancy.’ I so declared to my cousin.”[60]

Lorenzo remained in Vermont, working for a cousin of his mother’s, Seneca Sumner. “I worked for $7.00 per month...that was all they would give me although I earned twice that much. During the winter I threshed some grain and chopped wood for different ones, among these a man named Thomas Wilder for whom I fixed up a shop. He didn’t pay me all that he agreed to do. Let him have his reward.”[61] Lorenzo and Brother Harding went to the state of New York to preach several times, and he preached once or twice in Vermont, then in the spring of 1845 began preparing for his return to Nauvoo.

Return To Nauvoo

Lorenzo’s arrival in Illinois found brothers, sisters and grandparents well. He had been gone one year and three months. “I was happy to be home and found Nauvoo flourishing, such crops, I never saw growing on the earth before.” Lorenzo now saw Nauvoo as his home. His family and loyalties were there. The Yankee transplant had taken root.

When Lorenzo returned to Nauvoo in 1845, an uneasy truce had been declared between the Mormon leaders and the public officials of Illinois. Problems between the Latter-day Saint people and their neighbors were caused in part by the Mormon practice of polygamy and partly by jealously as the Illinois people watched Nauvoo becoming a beautiful, prosperous city. The city grew by leaps and bounds and attracted some undesirable characters. Transients could not be distinguished from the immigrant converts, and some who were there only to cause trouble, were protected by this factor. The strong city charter that the state had issued to Nauvoo was now a cause for concern to state officials. The charter gave the city control over Nauvoo University and the Nauvoo Legion. Such power, coupled with the industry and aggressiveness of the Mormons, now gave the politicians second thoughts.[62]

Many believed that with the death of their prophet, the church would die a natural death. In January 1845 the Illinois legislature repealed the Nauvoo City charter in an effort to reduce the strength and unity of the Saints. This act left the city without a court of law or any form of police protection and so, in March of that year the Mormons organized a countywide militia. These men patrolled the city streets and acted as bodyguards for church authorities.

In Lorenzo’s absence his brother Jeremiah had moved onto the farm land six miles east of Nauvoo, which was cleared and fenced by the family before the death of Father Hezekiah. Despite the uneasy atmosphere in the surrounding country, the two brothers now concluded to build a house on the farm, and began cutting prairie hay on shares, using other farmers equipment and animals. By this means they were able to purchase brick, lime and other necessary materials for their home.[63]

In the summer months antagonistic local newspapers again raised their voices against the Mormons. In September 1845, as Lorenzo and Jeremiah Hatch cut prairie hay and gathered materials to build a home on their farm, Lorenzo declared, “The devil commenced raging and mobs commenced burning the houses of the Saints in the surrounding country and the inhabitants had to flee for their lives [into] Nauvoo.”[64]

“In September 1845 the anti-Mormons under Colonel Levi Williams began burning Mormon homes. In all more than two hundred homes and farm buildings were destroyed.”[65]. Church leaders ordered all Saints living in rural areas to sell their property if possible and move into the city of Nauvoo.

Lorenzo and Jeremiah had lumber and lime on the ground where they planned to build their home. The brick were ready to be hauled from the kiln when they received the evacuation order. “Our lime still lies there and our brick is in the kiln to this day for all I know about it,” were the words of Lorenzo as he wrote of this time nearly ten years later.[66]

Of the retreat to Nauvoo, Lorenzo only says, “I went to Nauvoo and stood guard with the rest of my brethren. I went to put down the mob. We went to Warsaw and the town was all vacated, the devils had gone, so there was no fight for us.”[67]. Lorenzo’s brother Abram, who was fifteen-years-old at this time, claims to have joined the Nauvoo Legion as a volunteer and ridden with the posse of men who made a tour of Hancock County under Colonel Markham and Sheriff Backenstos for the purpose of arresting the ring leaders of the houseburners.[68]

As early as the spring of 1845 Brigham Young and other church authorities were looking at the unfinished plan Joseph Smith had begun for moving the Saints west to a place where they would be unmolested. Plans for leaving Illinois were activated in early 1845 and parties sent out to scout likely areas for settlement. However, these plans were not announced to the membership until mid September. At a general conference in October, the anxious Saints were assured the move was necessary “to give the church needed room for growth.”

On September 24, 1845 the church council, headed by Brigham Young, (he had not yet been officially designated as president), made an agreement with Illinois officials to vacate the town of Nauvoo in the spring of 1846, when there would be enough grass to feed their animals on a trek westward and the prairie would be dry enough for the passage of their wagons.

In it’s battered way Nauvoo still prospered. Both before and after the martyrdom, the Saints most important building project was the temple. They had completed nearly half the work on this edifice since the death of Joseph Smith a year earlier and despite the mobs, work on the building continued at a frantic pace. “By October, the church [issued] an official letter urging all Saints in the United States to sell their property, gather to Nauvoo to receive their endowments in the temple, and then join the migration westward. Without the completion of the endowments, the Mormons’ departure from Nauvoo would have been only flight. But with the endowments completed, they could go a saved and covenanted people.”[69]

The three Hatch brothers, Jeremiah, Lorenzo and Abram, having been evicted from their farm and now no doubt living with their Uncle Josephus and grandparents, Jeremiah and Elizabeth, spent the fall and winter days either with the militia which was protecting the city, or working on the temple building.

In the midst of turmoil and uncertainty, new members were still daily arriving at this gathering place for the Saints. One such family who came in the fall of 1845 amid hostilities and plans for yet another exodus, were the Fullers of Saratoga Springs, New York. Edward M. Fuller, his wife, Hannah Elizabeth, and eleven children, came well prepared with wagons, strong teams, milk cows, and sufficient supplies to last their large family for some time. Thomas Fuller, a son, was already in Nauvoo, or had been in 1844, as he accompanied young Lorenzo Hill Hatch eastward on a mission at that time.

The fall and winter months of 1845-46 were not all work and fear in Nauvoo. Though the Saints knew their days in Nauvoo were numbered, there were still cornhusking parties, Christmas celebrations, and quilting bees along with church meetings for instruction and edification of members young and old. The upper rooms of the temple were finished by December 10, 1845, and church members began receiving ordinances.[70] January 21, 1846, Jeremiah and Elizabeth Hatch received their endowments in the partially completed edifice.

Twenty-year-old Lorenzo renewed his acquaintance with Thomas Fuller’s sister Hannah, whom he first met in New York a year earlier, and on February 3, 1846 they were married by Bishop Jonathan H. Hales. They visited the uncompleted Nauvoo temple and received their endowments making solemn vows to cling to one another through time and all eternity. Lorenzo and Hannah were among the last to enter into covenants in this temple, since February was the final month of it’s existence as an endowment house.

Early in the year 1846, while cold and rain still gripped the land, two new threats came to the Mormons causing the possibility of an early and hasty exit from Nauvoo. An indictment was issued against Brigham Young and eight apostles accused of instigating a Nauvoo counterfeiting operation, and also a report was received of federal troops from St. Louis who intended to interfere with the orderly leave taking planned for spring.[71] While the earth was wet with winter storms and the grass had not yet begun to grow, church authorities felt they must cross the river out of Illinois.

Tried In The Wilderness

So it was that on February 4th, fully two months earlier than planned, Charles Shumway, one of the Council of Fifty,[72] crossed the Mississippi and located a campground seven miles into Iowa on Sugar Creek. The exodus had begun. Progress was slow at first, but gained momentum as more families felt they were prepared to follow.

Sixteen-year-old Abram Hatch was one who worked in the raw winter wind at the cold, wet, job of helping families load all they owned onto flatboats to cross the Mississippi.[73] On February 24th the ice closed and thickened on the broad river, allowing team drawn wagons to cross the expanse with more ease for a few days.

Edward Fuller, who had arrived in Nauvoo only months before, still owned the wagons, stock and money brought from New York. Now he asked his three sons-in-law, Lorenzo Hill Hatch, Daniel McArthur and Guy Barnum to accompany him in the trek across the river, in the capacity of wagon drivers and herders.

Lorenzo says, “The property [farm] left of my father’s estate...was worth $3000 before this difficulty...but at this time couldn’t be sold at any price. So of necessity I was obliged to comply with the request [of Father Fuller] as I had no means to take me away. We fitted up the wagons, broke the cattle, got all things ready and on the 27^th of February I bade my friends farewell and we crossed the Mississippi River on the ice.”[74] For the next year Lorenzo would continue to chafe at the circumstances making him dependent upon Father Fuller.

When the Fuller party arrived at Sugar Creek campground in Iowa about three P.M. the afternoon of February 27th, there was deep snow on the ground, but plenty of timber available for fires. They were organized into Benjamin Johnson’s company. The company remained at Sugar Creek several days and during this time Lorenzo made a trip back to Nauvoo to collect some “store goods” for one Samuel Gurley. While he was away, the camp moved a few miles and from then on moved slowly and stopped several times when the men found an opportunity to work for supplies on the farms and in the settlements along their trail. Eliza Snow, who traveled this route about the same time, records in her journal that on March 25th, “Twenty five men of our [group] took a job of making rails for which they got 10 bushels of corn, which was distributed Tues. night. They also got 100 [pounds] of bacon....”[75]

Traveling west across Iowa in winter was slow of necessity. Many Saints were not prepared with the needed food supplies and those who did have sufficient were asked to share with others. There was no grass for the animals who had to subsist on browse, and so, grew weaker day by day. The weather was unpredictable, but one thing the travelers could depend upon was the sticky, clay mud that hampered everything they tried to do. It wound in balls on the hubs and spokes of their wagon wheels and at times sank the heavy wagons to the bed. Every camp site had rivers of clinging clay around the tents and cooking fires. On March 2nd the thermometer stood at 23 degrees with clear skies.[76]

Entries of “rained all day”, “rainy yet”, “mud intolerable”, and “quite windy”, are found throughout the Mormon journals kept during this winter and spring of 1846. Eliza R. Snow mentions in her journal that March 15th was “...so intolerably windy the men failed in their efforts to keep the tent upright.”[77]

Lorenzo Hill Hatch records, “After traveling a few weeks, Father Fuller and Hyrum Bostick were put into George Miller’s company.” This was a stroke of fate that gave Lorenzo’s life a turn he might not have otherwise taken.

Bishop George Miller was an early convert to Mormonism and being a capable and aggressive man, he was given assignments of no small scope. In his book, The Gathering of Zion, Wallace Stegner describes him well as, “Miller will always be out ahead; he is impatient and headstrong, one who does not readily accept counsel, especially the counsel of Brother Brigham.”[78]

With the George Miller company, Lorenzo built bridges, roads, houses, and planted farms for the great mass of people who were now streaming across Iowa. They felled timber for log cabins, built a bridge across a branch of Grand River, plowed, planted and fenced fields, and dug wells. Their first efforts were at a place of grassy rolling hills and timber groves, which had been located and named Garden Grove by Parley P. Pratt. In May the George Miller company moved on to Mt. Pisgah to build another settlement for those who would come. Lorenzo and a few others returned to Missouri for corn to feed the hungry builders. This trip was memorable for the rain and soft ground, causing them to call for more teams and to double team and triple team the wagons while crossing the quagmires.

As spring and summer progressed, the George Miller company built bridges to Council Bluffs, which was for a time called Miller’s Hollow. On arriving at the Bluffs in June they found there weren’t enough provisions to last the builders for any length of time. Lorenzo again was sent with a company for food supplies. This trip, however, was more pleasant without the winter mud and cold.

On returning to Iowa, Lorenzo found his company had moved across the Missouri River to Cold Springs, some two or three miles from the river. His wife Hannah was ill and though she improved, “she never entirely got over it during the time we were camped at Cold Springs.”

On June 26, 1846 the Saints, in their makeshift homes, were remembering that the morrow would bring the second anniversary of the death of their beloved prophet, Joseph Smith. Into their forward camp at Mt. Pisgah on this day, came Captain James Allen of the United States Army, with a request for 500 men to march against the Mexicans in Santa Fe and southern California with General Kearney’s Army of the West. The Saints were incredulous that a government which denied them any protection whatsoever would now ask for their help in the war with Mexico.

However, when Captain Allen presented his request to Brigham Young in Council Bluffs, it was accepted. Brigham Young saw this as an opportunity to get part of his group to California with food and transportation furnished by the army, while supplying the Saints with much needed cash in the form of soldiers wages.

In early July the call went out for volunteers for the Mormon Battalion, but by this time Bishop George Miller had moved his company well out into the Platte Valley and Lorenzo laments the fact he had no opportunity to join the Battalion which left for Leavenworth on July 22nd. “...Bishop Miller left,[at Mt. Pisgah], two or three of his teamsters to make up this [battalion] company because he had no use for them, then left with the balance of us for Pawnee---a distance of 160 miles from Winter Quarters---and we were entirely out of the way of the President so that he did not get any of us to make up the numbers that were wanted for soldiers. This was the fault of the Bishop [Miller] having taken us out of the way. Thus others had the privilege that some of us were deprived of. Some of us were not apprised of the importance of this move until too late.”[79]

On the same day the Mormon Battalion left Winter Quarters for Leavenworth, another group of Saints,150 wagons strong, left to join Bishop Miller’s Company with the idea of traveling on westward with them. They found the Miller company, which included Lorenzo Hill Hatch and his in-laws, camped on the west bank of the Loup Fork near modern Fullerton, Nebraska, at a site occupied by protestant missionaries. The Sioux Indians had frightened the protestants so badly, they bargained with Bishop Miller for an escort back to the Missouri River in exchange for the crops they had planted and the shelters they had erected. Miller readily agreed, as his company was always short on food supplies.

When the men who escorted the missionaries back to the Missouri rejoined the Miller Company, they brought word from Brigham Young that Bishop Miller was to go no further west, but prepare to ride out the winter months where he was.

Looking over the country near them on the Loup Fork, they found no desirable wintering site. Lorenzo’s journal says, “...some Puncaw [Ponca] Chiefs came and wished us to go with them for the winter. The Bishop and Council which consisted of twelve men concluded to go with them.... The distance...to Puncaw [Ponca] was some 160 miles and is located on the Missouri River, on the west side. It is a river of running water and very swift. Here we built a fort which consisted of log houses. It was a beautiful place.”[80]

Soon Bishop Miller and his company were in trouble again. Lorenzo’s journal says, “The fifty [wagons] to which I belonged lived on rations of three fourths of a pound of breadstuff a day to each person, which was quite scanty. We commenced living this way back near Garden Grove and continued for about five months. At this place, [Ponca], the provisions were divided out to each one and we found there was not enough to last us through the winter and accordingly it was concluded it would be best to go back to Missouri for breadstuffs [wheat]. Quite a number of teams were fitted out from different companies among which I was one of the members.

“At Winter Quarters the company was stopped by the President, [Brigham Young], while they tried Bishop Miller for some misconduct. ...It was late in the season when we got back to Puncaw [Ponca]...[we had] traveled a distance of 450 miles and our teams were badly wore out.”[81]

When Lorenzo returned to Ponca, in the month of December, he found his wife, Hannah, sick. Exposure and malnutrition brought a demoralizing wave of sickness to the camp and death was a constant companion. A lack of vegetables caused scurvy for some and others suffered of consumption, chills and fever.

Despite his lengthy absence and the condition of Hannah, Lorenzo was asked by Father Fuller to go at once with a brother-in-law, Sanford Fuller, to take twenty head of cattle to a grazing area some ten miles from the fort. Father Fuller had made arrangements to pasture the cattle with those of Captains Clark and Bartholomew, who had as their herders John Dalton and Alvin Green.

“Traveling on foot...we took our dinner with us. ...We arrived [at the grazing grounds], about one o’clock and after eating our dinner, we conversed with Mr. Green and Mr. Dalton. They swore that old man Fuller should not leave his cattle up there for he had money and could pay for herding. ...We offered to come help herd, but nothing would do but for us to take them away again.”

Lorenzo and Sanford Fuller, taking the twenty head of cattle, left the grazing grounds at about four o’clock for the ten mile journey back to the fort. They became lost and traveled till about midnight when they came to an area with wood for a fire. However, they had no way to start one but a caplock gun. Lorenzo says, “Several times we fired it, but to no purpose. I put the last two that I had in the gun. We must have fire this time or freeze, which I didn’t feel like doing. I believed that I should live many years yet. With these feelings...we gathered together, and putting the gun in some leaves, swung it around till it blasted. And thus, through the mercy of God, we were preserved from freezing to death.”

After traveling cold and hungry for another whole day they arrived at the fort about sundown. Lorenzo found Hannah still sick, but she seemed to be recovering rather well, so he took the cattle of Father Fuller and herded them throughout the rest of the winter. “Notwithstanding my faithfulness, Father Fuller would not let me have leather enough to patch my shoes so I made moccasins of rawhide to keep my feet from the ground and from the snow. Thus passed the winter of 1846-47.”[82]

In the spring of 1847, before the first wagon train to the Salt Lake Valley, the Miller Company was recalled to Council Bluffs (Miller’s Hollow or Kanesville). Brigham Young had determined they were too poorly equipped to continue west as planned.

Bishop Miller could not agree with Brigham Young on the direction the church was taking, and the strong willed Bishop was disfellowshipped by the Church in October of this year.[83] With his usual attitude, he later made the statement, over another matter, that the proceedings of the twelve apostles were dictatorial, high-handed and painful, and that Brigham Young was a blunderbuss.[84] Lorenzo’s only comment on the actions of Bishop Miller came years later when he wrote, “I saw too great intimacy with women as I was traveling with Miller from [Ponca] to Council Bluffs. It was no doubt the cause of his fall.”[85]

Father Fuller and his family, including Lorenzo, now located twenty miles from Winter Quarters on the Missouri River at a place called Brigham’s farm where about forty families had wintered. Lorenzo and his old missionary companion and brother-in-law, Thomas, took Father Fuller’s teams and went to work planting a crop of corn. “...we worked very hard thinking that we should be able to get each of us a team in the spring so we could go to the mountains without being dependent on Father Fuller.... We were to give him half that we raised for the use of the teams and plows.”[86]

The corn crop at Brigham’s farm flourished, but in late July, the exhausted and undernourished Saints who were low in spirit, were hit hard by the cold clammy sweats of scurvy and malaria. A combination of these diseases laid low Father Fuller, his wife and his sons, Thomas and Sanford, along with Lorenzo and Hannah. On August 3rd, Thomas Fuller, who helped Lorenzo sow the crop of corn just two months before was the first to die.

Hannah, who had not been well all winter, was next on August 10th. At her death, Lorenzo was so ill himself he “could not sit up but a few minutes.... Thus this was a day of trouble. I had buried the companion of my youth and was near leaving this world myself.” Father Fuller died on August 17th. Mother Fuller survived, only to be buried the following December in Winter Quarters. Sanford Fuller recovered and realized the family goal of reaching Salt Lake Valley where he lived to the age of ninety-four.

Following the death of his wife, Lorenzo, still very sick and weak, found someone to take him to his sister Adeline who was living at Winter Quarters. Adeline, thirteen-years-old, cared for her brother Lorenzo for three weeks. Knowing he may need care for a long while, Lorenzo found a man to deliver him over the Missouri River to the home of Guy and Miranda Fuller Barnum, Hannah’s sister. It was two more months before he began believing he would survive.

In the fall of the year, Lorenzo’s grandparents and Uncle Josephus arrived in Winter Quarters. They had been living at Sugar Creek, Lee County, Iowa, while trying to sell their homes and land in Nauvoo. Many there were of the Illinois citizens just waiting for the Mormons to leave their well tended homes, gardens and fields, knowing they would have no choice but to sell them for a fraction of their worth. In July of 1847 Grandfather Jeremiah, while living in Iowa, sold his home in Nauvoo to Conrad Garnold.[87] This was the land he purchased four years earlier for $500.00, the land where he planted trees and gardens and built a two story brick home. For $295.00 he was forced to sell the fruits of his last years. He was now eighty-one years old.

Lorenzo’s brothers also arrived at Winter Quarters at this time. Seventeen-year-old Abram was returning from a trip to the eastern states where he had gone after a promise from his Uncle Jeremiah to send him to school. Uncle Jeremiah, now a Rigdonite, could not make good the promise, so Abram returned to be with his family in Iowa.[88] Brother Jeremiah, with his wife and two-month-old daughter, Phebe, and the youngest Hatch sister, nine-year-old Elizabeth, had been living at Sugar Creek in Iowa along with their grandparents. Lorenzo says, “I was glad to see them for I never thought of seeing them all alive again.”

Winter Quarters, considered church headquarters during 1848-49, was a stretch of flatland along the south bank of the Missouri River. Here several thousand inhabitants were living in log cabins, sod houses, and dugouts. They were waiting to travel to the Rocky Mountains.

Just days before the reunion of the Hatch children, President Young returned with some of the pioneers who made the first wagon train into the Salt Lake Valley. Now Jeremiah, Lorenzo and Abram “talked to several of the pioneers and listened with admiration to their description of the great plains and wonderful mountains and lakes of the inter-mountain country.”[89]

Abram went with Lorenzo to Brigham’s farm to harvest the crop of corn that he and Thomas Fuller had planted last May. Having no family at the farm now, Lorenzo and Abram boarded with one of the Mormon families. Young Abram, having spent the past year in Pennsylvania and working on the river boats of the Mississippi, had not shared the privations of the Saints and was quite offended at the fare they were offered at Brigham’s farm. “The lady of the house where we boarded and ate prairie chicken and corn bread had the luxury of butter and milk for her table which was the more provoking to my disgusted appetite from the fact that, however hospitable she might have been, her supply was insufficient to share with us.” Abram also commented that he and Lorenzo had to grind their own corn for the cornbread, which was not something he was used to doing.[90]

However, the crops were harvested and sold. Lorenzo’s first thought was to pay tithing on his gains. This was probably the first money he had received since leaving Nauvoo.

Once again the five orphans and their grandparents, Jeremiah and Elizabeth, were gathered near each other at Winter Quarters. Lorenzo was still weak and received a special blessing from his aged Grandfather Jeremiah on March 7th. The old man blessed his grandson with a long life “that you may bring many things into the church that we have no knowledge of [at this time], and that you may be an honor to it...that you may bring many into the church and continue to improve until the end of your day.”[91]

Grandmother Elizabeth, exhausted and undernourished after spending the past two years on the harsh road across Iowa, was buried at Winter Quarters on December 15th. She was the grandmother Lorenzo remembered as, “well versed in the Holy Bible. She would call on me to read while she worked and she could correct any mistakes I made. The Bible was an open book to her.”[92]

Lorenzo and Abram may not have been at Winter Quarters when their Grandmother Elizabeth died; for shortly after they completed the harvest of Lorenzo’s corn, they went to Missouri in their quest for some means to buy an outfit to take them to the Rocky Mountains. Abram had a yoke of two-year-old steers and they borrowed a wagon from their brother Jeremiah.

As the trip to Missouri began, Lorenzo was “taken sick with chills and fever, but we went on our way. I got very bad and we put up at a tavern until I got better.” The two traveled on to Savannah, Missouri, where their brother Jeremiah had been teaching school, but was now working for Dr. Richards, a tavern keeper. Because of Lorenzo’s weakened condition, Jeremiah gave him the job at the tavern and went on with Abram to Jimtown. Lorenzo worked for nine days at fifty cents a day, then went to Jimtown to join his brothers.

The sickness returned and Lorenzo grew weaker. “Some of my friends advised me to go back to the Bluffs. ...I told them that I was going to work and get means to take me to the Valley or die trying.”[93]

Jeremiah found a teaching position in Weston, Missouri, a small town between St. Joseph and Independence, but the people learned he was a Mormon, and he lost all his students. The brothers then chopped and hauled wood. Abram and Jeremiah did the chopping and Lorenzo hauled and sold. They did quite well, and in a month Lorenzo was able to buy a yoke of steers and hook them to the wagon with those of Abram.

Jeremiah returned to Council Bluffs to be with his wife and family. Lorenzo and Abram continued cutting and hauling wood through the summer of 1848. After fulfilling their wood contract, they went by river to St. Louis, working on the boat for their passage. Lorenzo felt they were “used very rough” so he returned to Weston and continued to cut and sell wood, and work in a “large pork establishment” where his job was receiving wood and rendering lard. Abram continued to work on the river boats.

In the spring of ‘49, Abram returned to Weston and he and Lorenzo made a trip to Council Bluffs where Jeremiah was living. “We came on to Council Bluffs with Truman Leonard and wife with the intention of outfitting for the mountains [Salt Lake] that year, but as my brother Jeremiah could not get ready we all concluded to wait another year.”[94]

Lorenzo and Abram returned to Weston to cut and sell wood again. There they met William List of St. Joseph, Missouri, who had rented a wagon shop. Mr. List, learning Lorenzo had some skill working with wood, asked him to come into his company as a partner. Abram continued hauling wood with their team and also hauled the rock for the foundation of the first brewery in St. Joseph.

After three months of hard labor the two brothers had gathered enough capital to buy the wagon shop from Mr. List. They sent for Jeremiah, and the three brothers labored through the fall and winter, Lorenzo and Jeremiah working in the shop and Abram, with his wagon which now had four yoke of steers, supplied the lumber and did other hauling jobs in the town. “We made some fifty wagons in ten and a half months and sold them for $26.50 each. All that we made was divided among the three of us.”[95]

In the spring of 1850 the brothers “gathered clothes, tools and provisions for [their] outfit; three yoke of steers, fourteen cows, and all necessary things for [the] journey.”[96] With great anticipation they now returned to Council Bluffs where Grandfather Jeremiah, their two young sisters, Adeline and Elizabeth, and Brother Jeremiah’s family awaited them. After three years of hard work and planning, they had gathered the means to travel to the Rocky Mountains and join the Saints who had gone there earlier.

Uncle Josephus Hatch and his family planned to follow the trail west in the spring of 1851, bringing the aged grandfather Jeremiah. However, Lorenzo would never again see the old man, as he died near Pleasant Grove, about ten miles from Council Bluffs on May 23rd, just before the departure of the wagon train with which Josephus and Melinda traveled.[97] The old Revolutionary War soldier, who came so far and suffered so much, was not to see the promised land in the mountains.

Since the exodus from Vermont nearly eight years before, the five orphans had buried their father, Jeremiah’s firstborn, their grandmother Elizabeth, and Lorenzo’s wife, Hannah. The estate they should have inherited from their father had slipped away. They had survived the mobs of Nauvoo, the rain, mud, snow, cold, wind, sickness and harsh living conditions of the trail across Iowa. After this refiner’s fire, they were now ready to fulfill the dream of Father Hezekiah and Grandfather Jeremiah. They held tightly to their Yankee perseverance and the faith of their fathers, and never looked back.

CHAPTER 3

Valley Of The Mountains

David Evans, survivor of the 1838 Haun’s Mill Massacre in Missouri, Bishop of the Eleventh Ward in Nauvoo, and a former member of Zion’s Camp, was captain of the fifty-four wagon train leaving the ferry crossing at Sarpee’s Point on the Missouri River the morning of June 15, 1850. Apostle Orson Hyde was there to give them a “send off.” They forded the Missouri River on flatboats and the 1300 mile westward journey commenced.

By 1850 the immigrant trail west from Winter Quarters in Nebraska had long been beaten into submission by thousands of iron tired wagons and herds of livestock. Not only had the Mormon migration, beginning in 1847, traveled this way with between 500 and 600 wagons in 1849 alone, but gentiles (non-Mormons) on their way to Oregon and California used the trail. The Mormon trail from Winter Quarters to Fort Laramie had been established on the opposite side of the Platte River from the Oregon Trail in an attempt to avoid clashes over grazing rights, water and campsites. This also allowed the Mormon travelers to avoid the immediate area which became so contaminated by the remains of the gold seekers and those going to Oregon.

The year before, the ‘49ers, intent on California gold, left their mark along the way. One Mormon wagon train arriving in the Salt Lake Valley two weeks after Lorenzo Hill Hatch and his family, reported, “In traveling up the Platte river on our way to the mountains, we found the roadside, in places, strewn with human bones. The discovery of gold in California and the excitement it had created had induced many to leave their homes in search of the God of this world.

“The cholera had raged among them to such an extent that the dead were buried without coffins, and with but a slight covering of earth. The wolves had dug up and feasted upon their carcasses, and their bones lay bleaching on the desert. There were days of travel in which human skeletons were usually in sight.”[98]

Cholera that so plagued the hurrying surge of gold seekers was, in a way, a blessing to the later Mormon trains. The Indians were not apt to come near the deadly vicinity of the trails, and so lessened the threat of raids that had haunted earlier pioneers.[99]

The wagon train Lorenzo traveled with suffered little. Not only was the trail well marked and tried, but the Hatch family was well prepared, for unlike some of those who traveled this way before and after them, they knew something of the ordeal of traveling long distances by wagon. This was not a journey taken in haste. They had prepared themselves with wagons of their own making from the St. Joseph wagon shop and stock and supplies were carefully chosen. Three years of preparation assured that the journey would be as pleasant as possible.

The Hatch outfit consisted of three wagons, five yoke of oxen and sixteen cows, all broke to the yoke. The family formed a kind of “co-op,” consisting of Abram, sixteen-year-old Adeline and Lorenzo, who traveled as one family, and Brother Jeremiah, his wife Louisa and two daughters, three-year-old Phebe and one-year- old Aldura, along with thirteen-year-old Elizabeth Hatch traveling as the second family.[100]

The three month journey across prairie and mountain was considered to be an enjoyable one, even though five or six members of the party who contracted cholera were buried along the trail. Abram remembered the wagon train experienced “the usual drives, camps, meetings, buffalo hunts, stops to set wagon tires, [and] talks with Indians, (while trying to keep good-natured).”[101]

On September 17th, a lovely day according to Abram, they beheld the valley and waters of the great basin from the elevated bench near the eastern foothills of the mighty Wasatch Range. Entering the valley by way of Parley’s Canyon, the train soon disbanded and the three Hatch wagons passed on to the banks of the Jordan River. Lorenzo was “greatly delighted with the country.”[102]

Though Brother Jeremiah was very sick when they arrived in the valley, he soon recovered and the Hatch co-op settled in for the winter. Lorenzo said, “We all remained together and rented a house in the Third Ward, [in Salt Lake City], cut some hay in the Big Field, and got a lot in the 10^th Ward. I was rebaptized and commenced anew to keep the commandments of God. We went to work and built a house 32 X 16 feet, one and a half stories high.”[103]

By now there were over 11,000 Saints gathered to the Salt Lake Valley and organization was well under way. Farms, homes and commerce, using a cooperative procedure, were rapidly transforming the wilderness into the promised land. In this year of 1850, Utah had been organized as a U.S. territory and the church leaders entered into a long-term conflict with the federal government over control of Utah. This state of affairs would affect Lorenzo’s life at several points in the next twenty-five years.

Home in Lehi

In a true show of Yankee industry, the three Hatch brothers, after less than three months in this new country, took up land on Dry Creek, (Lehi) about thirty miles south of Salt Lake. They also located a good place on the American Fork River nearby for a grist mill. Lorenzo and Abram agreed with Nathan W. Packer to “put up a mill for flour.”[104] Though it meant leaving their newly established home in Salt Lake, Lorenzo and Abram went to Dry Creek and built a log cabin in the early months of 1851.

There was much in Salt Lake community social life to bring men and women together. Through the 1850s in Salt Lake City, small cultural societies (musical, dramatic, scientific, literary) typically involved both men and women. Brothers and sisters, (in the church), assembled in church meetings and cooperated on special projects such as Sunday School.[105]

Lorenzo, as a young energetic widower newly arrived in the settlement, soon became acquainted with the young women of the valley, and was especially attracted to a family who had their origins in Vermont, not far from his birthplace. The family of Sylvia Eastman had arrived in Salt Lake in 1848, traveling a parallel route with the Hatches from Vermont. It may have been at a social gathering for a Christmas celebration that Lorenzo met Sylvia, for his journal says, “[On] December 25, 1850 I became acquainted with Sylvia Eastman.”[106]

Lorenzo and Sylvia were married on February 27, 1851 and Sylvia joined the Hatch co-op in its move to Dry Creek in March. They began clearing sagebrush and greasewood in preparation for spring planting, and at the same time work began on the proposed grist mill in American Fork Canyon.

During the spring and summer at least thirty other families arrived in the vicinity and sometime during that year Dry Creek became “Evansville,” named for David Evans who was the dominant personality there. The same David Evans was wagon train leader when the Hatches made their trek from Winter Quarters to Salt Lake. Now he was named Bishop of Dry Creek Ward.[107]

Evansville was organized as a typical Mormon community. It was laid off in square blocks of five to ten acres which were divided into lots of about an acre, thus allowing each family land in town for a house, garden, orchard and pens for small animals. The center square of the town was reserved for a meetinghouse and school.

On the outskirts of the village were plots of land several acres in size. This was called the Big Field and was used for raising grain and hay for the use of all in the community. The Big Field was usually fenced since beyond it was a common pasture where men and boys herded the livestock of those in the community.

Construction of cabins by the earliest settlers had used up nearly all native cottonwood along Dry Creek, leaving many newcomers to take shelter in their wagons, dugouts or mud houses. These mud homes were unstable and often collapsed into heaps during wet weather. The settlers soon learned to use adobe, a building material of the early Spaniards of the west. They made adobe brick of a clay mixture so stable there were more than a dozen of the buildings still standing one hundred years later.[108]

When the 1851 Utah Territorial census of Evansville was taken during the summer months, Brother Abram and sister Adeline were living in the household of Lorenzo and Sylvia.[109] Brother Jeremiah and his wife Louisa, along with their two children Phebe and Adam had fourteen-year-old sister Elizabeth in their household.[110]

Another project involving the Hatch brothers was a diversion dam the men began building in May of 1851 at the mouth of American Fork Canyon to bring water to their crops during the dry months of late summer. “[They] began the seven mile ditch to Evansville.... The trench was only two feet wide, but wooden spades, hard soil and stones made digging difficult. ...In late August water in the ditch reached Evansville in time to save a portion of the parched corn and potatoes.”[111]

On Christmas day, 1851, Lorenzo and Sylvia’s first child was born. They named him Lorenzo Lafayette Hatch. “Our hopes were very bright [on that day]. I remember how proud I was...[and] felt [he] would grow to be a good man and accomplish a great work on the earth.”[112] Sylvia’s widowed mother, fifty-seven-year-old Clarissa Eastman, and several of her children were also living in Evansville. Clarissa was surely in attendance at this birth and probably Lucy Cox Dawson who was a midwife in Lehi from the time of her arrival in 1850 to her death in 1891. She usually charged $l.50 per delivery for her services.[113]

After two months in operation the grist mill Lorenzo and his partners built in American Fork canyon burned to the ground on a Saturday night in January, 1852. The mill was a successful operation and was considered a great accommodation to the Saints. Loss was estimated at $1,400 plus the loss of 120 bushels of grain.[114] Lorenzo recorded the event, saying, “Our mill burned down and our labors were gone. Some of our stock [was] gone too and we were owing several hundreds of dollars.”[115] Willard Richards, an apostle of the church, encouraged them to rebuild the mill immediately.

A disagreement in the Hatch family developed at this time resulting in Lorenzo and Abram dissolving their partnership. Just what the problem was is not known, but Abram remained in Lehi for many years and the problem between the brothers did not cause lasting bitterness.

Lorenzo and Nathan Packer rebuilt the mill and put it into operation in September, 1852. The following summer they added a smut machine at their mill. In July of that summer disaster struck again.

A dispute between whites and Indians of the area over a territorial law against slavery caused the Utes to attack various Mormon settlements beginning at Springville, just south of Nephi. “Fort up...against the Indians,” was the advice from Brigham Young given in the October 1853 Conference.

Residents of Evansville, which in 1852 had been renamed Lehi, were reluctant to move their cabins into a central location and build a fort. Their crops, which were abundant that year, were just ready to harvest. Lorenzo says, “we had our harvest and Indian war and at the same time [we had] our houses to move.”[116]

However, most of them began moving their cabins in the cooperative manner of the Mormons. Lorenzo reports that companies were formed to move the houses and herd the cattle for protection from the Indians. “I was appointed captain over a few men to move houses. Worked fourteen days and moved in the widows and ourselves.”[117] By the fall of 1853 approximately sixty cabins had been joined together, forming the hollow square of the fort, with all doors opening inward. The log schoolhouse was dismantled and moved onto the north side of the fort. This building was used for school and church meetings. Also within the enclosure were corrals and haystacks along with pens for pigs and chickens. Then they gathered their grain and prepared for winter.[118]

In the winter of 1852 Lorenzo received a “calling” as second counselor to Bishop David Evans. Shortly thereafter the first counselor, Jehial McConnel, left Lehi and Lorenzo was installed in that position. In 1853 he was elected to the town council in Lehi. With these positions went the responsibility of overseeing a portion of the mud wall six feet thick and twelve feet high, to be built around the town for protection against the Indians.[119] Intermittent fighting lasted until May 1854, when Brigham Young and Chief Walker arranged a peace settlement.

On February 5, 1853, Lorenzo’s sister, Adeline, married George Barber and the couple moved south to the town of Nephi to make their home. In November Lorenzo and Sylvia had their second child, a girl, whom they named Aldura Clarissa for her two grandmothers.

In November, 1853, a cold and icy blizzard from the north caught a band of ten thousand sheep on the bench areas of Lehi and American Fork. The sheep were being trailed from Missouri to California. Following the two day storm, the owners were able to count only 900 sheep still alive. This small band was not worth taking on to California, so was sold to local men. These became the foundation of the local sheep industry. Lorenzo added a few sheep to his other farm animals, giving his sheep count as thirty-four.

1854 was a busy year for Lorenzo. Along with his responsibility as “Captain” in charge of building the north wall of the fort he was assigned to obtain timber for a new meeting house and a tithing house. At the same time he was building a home for his family which was 26 x 16, one and a half stories high. He was proud of this home and modestly said in his journal, “I made a good job of it.”[120]

On July 24th of this year, the Lehi pioneers, perhaps feeling the need of some merrymaking, held a celebration in remembrance of the day the first Mormon wagon had entered Salt Lake Valley. There was a parade, speeches, musical numbers and feasting.

No parade would be complete without an American flag, but there was not one in the community. A local artist, James Harwood, solved the problem by painting red and blue stripes on white cloth. The paint he used was a “red substance from the rock quarries and indigo.”

“The parade formed at nine A.M. at the log schoolhouse. The newly painted flag proudly led out, followed by a three-man band. Next came twenty-four young people, symbolic of the date, dressed in white. Twelve boys wore red sashes and the twelve girls wore blue.” Also marching in the parade were Bishop David Evans and his counselors, Lorenzo H. Hatch and Abel Evans. “Next in line were the fathers and mothers in Israel, followed by the citizens and then the Home Guard. Each group carried a banner with a painted motto. With all the participants, one wonders who was watching the parade. Perhaps that is why everyone marched and counter-marched around the inside of the fort---so the paraders could admire each other.”[121]

Following the grand parade the group gathered under a willow and cottonwood bowery and was entertained by music, speeches of remembrance and a lunch of “roast beef, new potatoes, green peas, turnips, bread and butter, squash pie and custard dessert, with milk to drink.”[122]

At some time during this eventful year Lorenzo built himself a woodshop and took up the profession of woodworker which he had first attempted in the wagon shop he and his brothers owned in St. Joseph, Missouri. This skill provided his families with many necessities in the years to come. He not only built for his own needs, but made items for others in the community in exchange for labor or for cash to buy supplies. Thomas Ashton, who came to Lehi the same year as Lorenzo, was a master carpenter having apprenticed for six years in England as a wheelwright, carriage builder and ship carpenter. Though Lorenzo does not mention Ashton in his journal, he must have learned some of the finer points of carpentering from him as they worked together on the Lehi meeting house, school and tithing office.

One of the first and most urgent necessities of this frontier community was a need for an efficient system of self defense. In March, 1854, Lehi organized an infantry battalion with David Evans as Colonel. Lorenzo was appointed Second Lieutenant in the militia from Lehi and Cedar Valley.[123] They trained in American Fork Canyon with battalions from Salt Lake City, Pleasant Grove and Mountainville. It was difficult for Lehi to outfit its militia. Horses were scarce, shoes for the men even more so.[124]

Grasshopper Year

With the Indians held at bay by the fort and continual lookouts, the Saints at Lehi were attacked from another direction in August of that year. On a sultry afternoon, immense hoards of grasshoppers descended on the town at times darkening the sun when they passed overhead. “All able men, women and children worked from dawn to dusk to destroy the invading insects. The ravenous creatures advanced from field to field, from garden to garden. ...damage was done to oats, corn, garden vegetables, but not much to wheat only because it had already headed.”[125]

Grasshoppers attacked the Lehi area again in 1855. Short crops for two years running plus the need to protect themselves from the Indians and the bone-numbing cold in the winter of ‘55 brought suffering and death among the Saints who had settled along Dry Creek four years before. Their hopes for a good life had not been realized.

Polygamy

However, life did continue. Lorenzo, as a man of position in the church and community, was encouraged and expected by church authorities to enter into “the principle,” or plural marriage. On November 11, 1854 he married Catherine Karren, daughter of one of the early settlers in the Lehi area. Catherine joined Sylvia and her two children in the new home. On March 10, 1855, Lorenzo’s youngest sister, eighteen-year-old Elizabeth, married Thomas Winn, a policeman in Lehi and the son of another early settler.[126]

In May of this year Bishop David Evans was called on a short scouting mission to the White Mountains of Nevada leaving Lorenzo with the responsibility of the Lehi Ward until the end of July.[127] In September, Bishop Evans was off to the Elk Mountains on more church business, leaving the Ward to Lorenzo again.[128] The twenty-nine-year-old bishop’s counselor was sometimes unsure of the proper course to take with his responsibilities, and on September 8th he wrote to President Brigham Young asking for direction as to labor tithing. He told President Young their crops had failed and the brethren had no means for paying their tithing. The town was building a school house 40 x 60 feet, two stories high and Lorenzo asked if it would be proper to let the brethren work out their labor tithing on the building. He also ask how he should “act with persons that have ploughed and sown and raised no crop, and with those that have ploughed and sown twice and watered some and then raised no crop as we have formerly made a deduction from the labor tithing according to the number of acres each person farmed.”[129]

When George A. Smith visited Lehi in the fall of this year he found Lorenzo “very low with the mountain fever” and reported “there has recently been considerable sickness in Lehi...the principal attacks being diarrhea and fever. It is estimated that only 150 bushels of tithing wheat will be received in Lehi this fall; last year between 800 and 900 were forwarded to the general tithing office, the deficiency to be debited to the grasshoppers and drought.”

Utah Territorial Legislature

1855 was filled with hardship and woe, but in the fall of that year Lorenzo was elected to the Territorial Legislature as a representative from Utah County. He was no stranger to legislative service, since his father and grandfather had both served in the Vermont Legislature. However, Lorenzo was not prepared to serve in a material way and his first concern before reporting for the legislative session was that he have suitable clothing. On November 16th he took two beef steers to Salt Lake to sell in order to “get my fit-out for the Legislature. ...sold the steers for fifty dollars. Did our trading. [Returned home and]...worked five days in the [woodworking] shop...to get ready for the legislature.” [130]

About December 3rd, Lorenzo began his trip to Fillmore where the legislature was to meet, traveling with his brother-in-law, George Barber. Apostle E.T. Benson, of Tooele, accompanied them as they traveled to Provo where they took George A. Smith “aboard.” The four then traveled to Payson where they were joined by Governor Brigham Young.

When the party passed through Nephi, Lorenzo visited his brother Jeremiah, who had moved there the previous year. He stayed the night in the home of his sister Adeline Hatch Barber. Two days later the group of representatives arrived in Fillmore.[131]

Lorenzo made arrangements to board at the house of Brother Baset at the rate of $5.50 a week. He shared a room with E. T. Benson, Lorenzo Snow and Jacob G. Bigler, with whom he enjoyed a camaraderie. On Saturday night he reports the four of them “talked over things until eleven P.M.”[132]

On Monday, December 10th the legislature convened and Lorenzo took the oath of office. Several days later Almon W. Babbitt, Territorial Secretary, caused a small furor when he refused to use territorial funds to pay for the one hundred copies of the daily journal the house voted to have printed. Babbitt made an insulting speech abusing the assembly and “showed much of the spirit of Lucifer, his master. The Governor, [Brigham Young], informed the Secretary we could get along without him.”[133] This was not the first time Almon Babbitt had incurred the displeasure of church authorities. In 1841, back in Nauvoo, he was “disfellowshipped” (his membership temporarily rescinded) by Joseph Smith for preaching false doctrine. In 1843 he was restored to full fellowship.[134]

The business of this legislative session included drawing up a constitution for a state government as the Mormons were applying to the United States Government for statehood status. The legislature attended to lesser responsibilities also, such as considering the boundary lines of Carson and Box Elder Counties, and the division of Weber County. They also had a “warm discussion on a herd-ground at Tooele.”

Lorenzo served on the appropriations committee and mentions meeting with other members. The legislature also heard a good many discourses by representatives who were church leaders, on subjects such as obedience, the fulfillment of prophecy, and sealings and adoptions. [135]

Lorenzo wrote letters to Sylvia, Catherine, and Bishop David Evans in Lehi. On December 18th he was pleased to find two letters from his family awaiting him. The news from home was of a “...fine boy” born to Sylvia on December 16th. He comments that Sylvia “...wrote me a letter the third day after, [the birth], and Catherine wrote me a letter.”[136] This second son was named Hezekiah Eastman Hatch, and would be looked upon by Lorenzo as a savior in family affairs in later life.

Lorenzo’s journal expresses no regrets at being away from his family during the Christmas season. He was four days journey from his home in Lehi where Sylvia was recovering from the birth of her baby and Catherine was six months pregnant with her first child. The legislature did not adjourn, allowing no time for the men to be with their families. However, Lorenzo did not spend all his time during this session with the concerns of state and church. On Christmas day he reports that the legislature met, but then, “It being Christmas we adjourned. I attended a party at the State House in the evening. About ninety couples were present. Brothers Brigham, Kimball and Grant were at the party. It went off very agreeable and broke up at 12:00 midnight.”[137]

Lorenzo’s thirtieth birthday, on January 4th, was also passed in Fillmore, away from his family, and in legislative business.

On January 8th, Lorenzo attended the court of Judge W.W. Drummond in Fillmore, probably as an observer. Drummond was a Federal Judge who soon became irritated by his own lack of influence among the Mormons. In the spring of 1856 he returned to Washington and leveled charges against the Saints, claiming they had destroyed federal court records in Salt Lake City.[138] Drummond’s accusations had much to do with the President of the United States, James Buchanan, later sending federal troops to Utah, an act which would touch Lorenzo’s life a few years later.

Other than the regular legislative sessions, Lorenzo also reports attending the Supreme Court on January 15th. He does not say if this court was a continuation of Judge Drummond’s case, or if he made the visit to observe another trial. On January 16th he “entered on business preparatory to our adjournment for this session of the Legislature.”[139]

On the day before the session was to end, January 15th, an oyster supper “was got up” for members of the legislature by Secretary A.W. Babbitt. Perhaps this was an effort to atone for his earlier actions. Lorenzo, at least, was impressed with the refreshments served, “We had a great variety of fruits and knickknacks, champagne and brandy, etc. It passed off well.”[140]

Champagne and brandy being served is not surprising since in 1855 the Word of Wisdom, which forbids such drinks today, had not become a commandment to the Mormon people. Though the Word of Wisdom was announced in 1833, it was followed with very little consistency and by 1840 a very tolerant attitude had been adopted by the church at large. During the great migration across the plains, Mormon pioneers who could afford it included tea, coffee and alcohol among the staples they carried west.[141]

Though church authorities preached from the pulpit encouraging the Saints to abstain especially from the use of tobacco and whiskey, “In the nineteenth century the use of tea or coffee or tobacco or alcohol did not disqualify a member of the church from holding office or entering the temple as is now the case.”[142]

The most significant day in this legislative session, for Lorenzo, came during a joint session on January 7th when, “...Brother Kimball, [counselor to Brigham Young], called Brother Benson to him and wanted to know whether he would recommend me for a mission to England. He said he would with all his heart, and my name was taken for that mission.”[143] Another upheaval in the life of Lorenzo was dictated.

On January 18th, Lorenzo left Fillmore with his brother-in-law to return home to Lehi after being gone for seven weeks. “I met my family with a warm heart...visited, and after prayers went to bed.”[144] The following morning Lorenzo began to prepare for the needs his family would have during the time he would be away in England. He fixed his tools and prepared for work in the woodshop. During the next few days, he hired a man to lathe and plaster his house, wrote letters, paid bills, reported in church meetings on his experience in the legislature, attended a bishop’s court in his capacity as bishop’s counselor, read to his family and sang hymns with them.

As February began, he worked steadily in his woodshop, building a grain cradle[145] for Brother Harris, making 144 window sashes during one week, and then constructing two bedsteads.

On February 22nd a company of men from Springville and Provo passed through Lehi on their way to Cedar Valley in search of Indians who had been causing trouble among the settlers. The men, who were militia, had been given orders by Brigham Young to disband and go home. When they passed through Lehi, Lorenzo visited with some of them and reported that the men had disobeyed President Young’s order because of the pay they received while active in the militia. Lorenzo says, “...so they went and murdered the Indians.” The enraged Indians killed a herder in retaliation and a part of the Lehi militia was called to go to the herd grounds and escort all the settlers and cattle into Lehi. Before this could be accomplished, three of the Lehi militia lost their lives and on the 26^th, Lorenzo reported, “...I received orders from the Colonel to call out the battalion under my command and hold ourselves in readiness to march at a moments warning and to meet at Lake City on the 27^th at 10:00 A.M.”[146] Lorenzo’s battalion met at Lake City and received their orders. Lorenzo does not say what those orders were, but the hostile atmosphere eased, and he returned to work in his woodshop.

Preparations continued for the time Lorenzo would be away on his mission to England. He worked on his house, making and hanging doors, putting down mopboards, and laying flooring. His duties as a counselor to Bishop Evans saw him giving an address to the teachers quorum on “bad language,” and his civic duties as a member of the city council found him preparing a list of names for the city officers to be elected “if the people chose to do so.”

He set out fruit trees and planted early peas in the garden. Lorenzo hunted lost cows to no avail and worried about Catherine’s health, as she was not recovering from the birth of her first child, a daughter, born on March 19th.

Monday, March 24th, Lorenzo confided to his journal that his load was heavy, “...my labors bear down on me.” But he knew the source of his previous strength in times of need and returned there for help again, “...I thank God for his blessings on me and my family and may God protect my family from the Destroyer and help me on for the day of my departure is at hand to leave my family and go to the Nations of the Earth. O’ Lord, strengthen me and turn things into my hands that I may go in peace and meet all debts in the season with the means to pay, is the prayer of Lorenzo Hill Hatch, your unworthy servant.”[147]

It was perhaps with some dismay that Lorenzo contemplated the thought of leaving his home and young family for two uncertain years just when he was beginning to accumulate land and goods to make their life more comfortable. He was also beginning a career in city and state politics and was looked up to by many as a leader of men. However, he felt it a great honor to be deemed worthy to fill a mission for his church and there was never any doubt in his mind about answering the call he knew was to come soon. Sacrifice for the Gospel of Jesus Christ was not new to Lorenzo.

The first week in April was a busy one, “I measured off five acres of land on Brother Karren’s farm which I rented of him. Commenced making a bedstead, and on Wednesday Brother Reed plowed for me while I worked on my wagon. Thursday worked in the garden and sowed wheat. Friday, sowed more wheat and set out fifty peach trees. Saturday I went to the City [Salt Lake] with Thomas Winn [brother-in-law] to attend conference.”[148]

Conference in Salt Lake City under the Big Bowery commenced on Sunday, April 6th. George A. Smith preached on polygamy and then the names of the missionaries were called. Lorenzo’s name was one of them. He was to start within four days for England in company of Orson Pratt and E.T. Benson, among others.

Following conference, Lorenzo started on foot for his home in Lehi, thirty miles to the south. At Willow Creek he traded for an old, thin horse thinking it might do to take him to the States when he left for his mission. On arriving at home in Lehi, his daughter Clarissa was sick with measles. Lorenzo says, “I was glad to see my family knowing how soon I should bid them farewell for a time.”[149]

Lorenzo was given an extra week before he and Brothers Benson and Pratt would leave for the States, and he made good use of this time by working on his wagon, setting out 120 strawberry plants, repairing the hog pen, making a grain cradle and hanging a door, among other things. His family was as well provided for as he could manage in the short time given.

Lorenzo made a deed of consecration of his holdings. “In the mid 1850s President Brigham Young asked Saints to consecrate their possessions to the church, to be used for the good of all. Essentially the Saints transferred title to their properties to the church, but none of the properties were transferred. The movement was designed to help unify the people but mainly served as a test of faith.”[150]

On April 11th Lorenzo passed this test of faith as he recorded a deed of consecration in Book C, page 41 of Utah County deed book. It is interesting that Sylvia joined him in this consecration, but there is no mention of his second wife, Catherine. The contents of the deed give an inventory of the Hatch family possessions in 1856. The full text of the consecration deed reads:

Be it known by these presents that we, Lorenzo Hill Hatch and Sylvia Savona Hatch, his wife of Lehi City in the county of Utah and Territory of Utah, for an in consideration of the good will which we have for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, give and convey unto Brigham Young, Trustee in Trust for said church, his successors in office and assigns, all our claim to and ownership to the following described property to wit: One lot in the City of Lehi with buildings thereon and improvements. Lot no. 2 in block 13 containing 50/160 acre valued at $800. Ten acres in the southeast corner of Lot 3, block 91 (sic) of the American Creek Survey farming land valued at $100. The east half of northeast (quarter) Lot 1 in block 1 containing five acres valued at $800.

Lots 11 and 16 in block 7 of American Creek Survey of Farming land plat containing ten acres valued at $50 (This amount could possibly be $5000. Writing is poor). Lot 5 in block 3 containing one acre of Lehi City Survey of garden lots valued at $10.

One yoke of oxen at $80

Two cows (at) $30 each

Two Two-year-old heifers, $20 each

Four two-year-old steers, $20 each

Two two-year-old colts, $50 each

Two yearling colts, $30 each

Two yearling calves, $10 each

Three beds and bedding and bedsteads, $111

One wagon and plough and chains, $85

Four sheep and one lamb, $22

Together with all the rights privileges and appurtenances thereunto belonging or pertaining. We also covenant and agree that we are the lawful claimants and owners of said property and will forever defend the same unto the said trustee in trust, his successors in office and assigns, against the claims of our heirs and assigns or any person whosoever.

[signed] Lorenzo Hill Hatch

Witnesses:

David Evans

George A. Leslie

Abraham (sic) Hatch

Monday, April 21, 1856, Lorenzo records in his journal: “I bid my family good-bye and departed on my mission to Europe. May the Lord bless my family in my absence, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. L.H. Hatch.”[151]

CHAPTER 4

“It Seemed Like A Dream”

It was into a well organized mission field that Lorenzo Hill Hatch traveled in 1856. The journey to England was made in the company of Orson Pratt and E. T. Benson, both members of the council of the twelve, who were being sent there to preside over the entire British Mission. Lorenzo was destined to be closely associated with the spiritual giants of the LDS Church throughout his life. Many of these men were 15-20 years Lorenzo’s senior and well connected by birth or marriage to one another.

The party Lorenzo was assigned to cross the plains with was an illustrious one. It not only included Orson Pratt and E. T. Benson, there were other prominent Utahans such as A.O. Smoot, who would lead the party, Almon W. Babbitt, and George A. Smith. No lesser a character than Orin Porter Rockwell was assigned as scout and hunter. Rockwell, a close friend and body guard to both the Prophet Joseph Smith and to Brigham Young, was looked upon with fear and awe as a frontiersman and gunfighter by his fellow Mormons.[152]

The group traveling east to the United States assembled at the mouth of Emigration Canyon at eleven A.M.on April 22, 1856. After being organized with Abraham O. Smoot as captain of the company, President Brigham Young, who had come to see them off, offered a blessing upon the group and they began their journey at noon.

The spring weather was not kind to the travelers, and for the next few days they recorded cold and snow with a “violent wind.” With much difficulty they reached Fort Bridger on April 27th. Two days later, they lost some of the horses as they camped at Black’s Fork. Porter Rockwell soon found the missing animals, and as the company was approaching Indian country, Colonel George A. Smith (Utah militia), ordered all firearms be inspected. At six o’clock the next morning all men were to appear in rank and prepare for inspection of arms. A list of names of those in camp and the amount of ammunition they carried included Lorenzo Hill Hatch, who had forty rounds.[153]

Only weeks before, Brigadier General William S. Harney, after a needless slaughter of eighty Indians, had forced the plains tribes into a shaky truce. Tension between the Indians and whites traveling the prairie trails was taut. Extra guards were posted and all were advised to be alert and ready for trouble.

On May 3rd, the weather contrived to take the men’s minds from the danger of Indians to something more immediate. They camped for the night near an alkali pond and during the night a wind storm commenced, with snow starting towards morning. At daybreak the whole camp was aroused by the guard shouting, “Arise, take care of your animals, for they are freezing to death.” The men found this to be true, and seized their blankets and buffalo robes to cover horses and mules.

The snow continued during the day and the camp was without firewood or shelter. Scouts were sent out to locate a more sheltered place and camp was moved to a nearby hollow among some willows. [154]

It was two days before the camp was able to move again, and then they had not gone far when the horses began to sink to their girths and fall in the snow. The men continued on, all of them walking, with the loose animals in front of the train to make a track. In this manner they traveled until four P.M. and made camp on a gravel hill that was nearly clear of snow. Eyes and faces were sore, a result of the brilliant sun on pristine snow. The company suffered greatly from snowblindness. Another day and a half was spent in camp as the men suffered the torturous sensation similar to salt being poured in their eyes.

The next day was mild and the company traveled two miles to a small creek where they found water and grass clear of snow. Camp was pitched, and in the evening Porter Rockwell entertained them with tales of the “treasure in the Hill Cumorah” until late into the night.

Another severe storm caught the travelers at Greasewood Creek and on May 12th, the men arose to find their horses had run away. Porter Rockwell found six of them and in his searching he supplied the group with fresh antelope meat for a much appreciated feast. Next day the party crossed the Platte River over a bridge, paying $3.00 per wagon for crossing. On Sunday, May 18th, camp was made near Fort Laramie where provisions were purchased. Flour was $15.00 per hundred and bacon the same price. Crackers were 15 cents per pound and coffee three pounds for a dollar. The fort had no sugar available.[155]

The weather grew warmer as they crossed the South Platte and all were in excellent spirits. By May 27th they were seventy-five miles from Fort Kearney and found the gnats and mosquitoes thick and bothersome. They began to meet wagon trains going west. Many were on their way to California, and there were government trains with supplies for the forts along the trail.

On May 29th George A. Smith recorded in his journal, “...have passed trains almost hourly...May 30...We have found the road to-day literally filled with emigrant trains...The rumor is that the Mormon emigration is tremendous; 5000 are said to be fitting up at Omaha City, and as many more in other points.”[156]

On June 8th, Lorenzo’s party arrived at the Big Blue River near Atchison, Kansas. After traveling forty-eight days the missionaries arrived at Mormon Grove then traveled from St. Louis on the steamboat “Polar Star.” Finding a great deal of unrest between the pro-slavery and abolitionist factions in this part of the country, E. T. Benson wrote home saying how thankful the Saints ought to feel that God had given them a mountain home safe from this turmoil.[157]

Mission To England

There is a five month gap in the journal entries of Lorenzo, which includes the trip from Utah to England. By the time Lorenzo continues writing in his journal, he seems to be well into his missionary work. His residence was 19 Dock Street, Leeds, England, and he was working with Brother W.G. Young.

During the next few months, Lorenzo reports his movements faithfully and tells of travels to the surrounding towns of Wakefield, Hull, Workley and Sheffield. He was preaching, visiting the Saints, writing letters, baptizing new converts for the first time and rebaptizing others as they renewed their faith.

On October 11th he tells of a trip to Ridgate, walking six miles in the mud and rain. “We found the Saints in a cold condition, for the principle of tithing had scared them.”[158] Tithing was one of the principles missionaries found most difficult for the Saints to accept. A few months later, Lorenzo reports that he “...held a council over Brother Law where he confessed that he had done wrong in speaking against tithing.”[159]

Constant exposure to the elements and traveling from one town to another by foot caused Lorenzo to remark, “My health is quite poor...much fatigued and sick.” However, on October 19th, at a social party held one evening after a conference he “sang a song.” Was this a solo? If so, it is the only time he mentions doing such a thing.

In one quiet sentence, Lorenzo tells us on Friday, November 14th, “On this day I learned that I was appointed to succeed Pastor [William] G. Young in Sheffield Pastorate [district].” A notice in the January 1, 1857 edition of the Millennial Star notes that “Elder Lorenzo H. Hatch is appointed to succeed Elder Young as pastor of the Sheffield, Bradford, Hull and Lincolnshire Conferences [Districts].”[160]

In the following weeks his duties seem much the same as before. “...in the evening I preached to a crowded house of strangers. ...first snow fell on Wednesday, three or four inches. ...visited a sick sister and administered to her. ...wrote letters, visited with the Saints...visited some of the sick and comforted them.”[161]

Not until December did Lorenzo “commence to discharge some of my duties as pastor.”[162] He audited the books of Brother Fox and bought a book to keep the accounts of receiving and disbursing money of the pastorate.

On December 21st an incident occurred that Lorenzo felt would be long remembered. “...the Brethren met at the Hall of Oddfellows...Pastor Young laid the business before the conference and cut Elder Caine off from the Church and disfellowshipped the President of the Duesbery Branch.” Later in the day Elder Benson addressed the meeting on “Adultery.”[163]

On Christmas Eve, Lorenzo had been away from his family for eight months and he confessed to a bit of homesickness. “At seven A.M. we were awakened by the singing of the Saints which caused my mind to run back to the valleys of the mountains. I wrote to my family.”[164] His spirits may well have been at a low ebb for sometime, for on December 28th he and Brother Rudd walked to Hull through the mud. “It was dark and disagreeable, but it was all right.” And a few days later, “My health is good with the exception of a bad cough. This day is my birthday, thirty-two years....Came to Sheffield on Thursday, found no letters.”[165]

On January 24th Lorenzo “Went to the station to meet my old friend, Brother Evans.” And on the 28^th he “went to the station with Brother Evans and saw him off. Bade him good-bye until I should see him in the valleys of the mountains.” This was probably Israel Evans, son of Bishop David Evans of Lehi.[166] When Brother Evans left England, Lorenzo sent a package by him to his family back in Lehi which contained “five handkerchiefs, two ounces of silk, eight hundred needles, two pairs of gloves, some fancy buttons, also two pair of shoes.” For the trouble of taking the items to his family in Utah Lorenzo gave Brother Evans ten shillings and also another pound to buy items the Hatch family might be in need of. He also sent a “likeness” of himself to the family.[167]

In February, W.G. Young left England to return to the United States, and Lorenzo felt “alone in the midst of old Babylon. My American brethren having gone home causes me to feel solemn and to lean on the arm of my God.” However, his labors continued and at Bradford they baptized “some twenty persons.” The following Sunday he preached to a full house, reporting “...some confusion among the rabble, but good was done,” and on Wednesday, “Elder Rudd and I went to Mitham. We rode on foot, a distance of seven miles.”[168]

At the District Conference in April, “One man voted against President Young with his left hand. I asked him if he belonged to the church and he said that he did not.”[169] Lorenzo also had his own detractors and found when visiting in the home of a member, Brother Plant, “His wife said that she would not treat me with respect because I had two wives.” However, after this visit he seemed to win her respect and she “did confess that I was a decent man.” [170]

One of Lorenzo’s responsibilities as pastor was to see that the missionaries who were called locally were properly clothed as they went about their church duties. In March “ Brother Johnson loaned me [the district] five pounds to get clothing for Elder Hobbs.” In April a man named Evans who was called to travel and preach, received a new suit of clothes for his work, but then “denied the work and said that he had played a Yankee trick upon the church. Brother Fox cut him off, thus ended the affair.”[171] Lorenzo does not say if the clothes were retrieved from the fellow or not.

On May 10th Orson Pratt and E.T. Benson, members of the twelve apostles, visited the district. They traveled with Lorenzo throughout the area, many times on foot, visiting and preaching to the Saints. At many of the meetings, Lorenzo reports disruptions by unbelievers. “Went to Rotherham...held meeting there in the barn. A mean, contemptible fellow wished to speak and disturb the meeting, but we closed our meeting.”[172]

On the 17^th the elders experienced a train wreck near Sheffield, hurting Brother Pratt’s head and breaking Brother Benson’s hat and “jarred his breast some, but all were safe.”[173] Lorenzo does not report any injuries to himself. The party continued on to Sheffield and all three addressed meetings there during the next few days.

Apostle Benson stayed in the district with Lorenzo for the next month traveling to various towns, visiting the Saints and preaching to congregations of members and non-members alike. On May 24th they went to Leeds and sent a “bellman” around to announce that one of the Twelve would preach in the hall at eight P.M.. On the 27^th they arrived in Petersboro and found the town “all in an uproar.” There were bills posted inviting the public to a meeting where they could “judge for themselves the principles which they, LDS, teach.” The posters declared that “Elder E. T. Benson, one of the Twelve Apostles of the 19^th century and Elder Lorenzo H. Hatch, (both of Salt Lake City, Utah) will address the meeting.”[174]

“We went to the assembly room at seven thirty P.M. The people came in and filled that large hall nearly full. Brother Benson called on Brother Taylor to sing and pray, then I was called to the stand to speak by Brother Benson. I spoke on the first principles and with much plainness and much power till I came to the Prophet Joseph Smith. [I then] bore my testimony [and] all the devils boiled over in one tremendous rage. A Methodist priest by the name of Brooks headed the mob. [He] came to the stand and would speak. We told the congregation that we had rented this room, but to no purpose.

“Brother Benson tried to speak but they wouldn’t hear. This wicked man tried to incense the mob by calling upon them and telling them some of the most wicked and abominable lies that could be invented by the Devil. Great confusion prevailed...the congregation was divided. We took our hats and started to leave. The door was blocked, but as we came from the stand a woman opened a [side] door and we escaped out of the hands of that mob, though they said they would put us in the river.”[175]

The elders traveled from Petersboro to Risgate and on June 1st Lorenzo says, “Got on shanks horses and went on our journey to Hull. Tuesday we left for Gool, nine miles away. Went on the same horses as before mentioned. It was very warm and Brother Benson became quite tired, also myself.”[176] At Gool, Elders Benson and Hatch took a packet, (small sailing vessel) for Hull and Grims. At Grims they “went into the street...Brother Benson spoke with much power which caused the hearers to tremble.” On the 5^th they took the train for Hull. “Had talk on train with some wolves in sheep’s clothing and they howled perfectly, but did not bite. They wanted to but were afraid.”[177]

After several more days of travel and preaching, the elders parted, with Brother Benson going to Derby and Lorenzo to Chesterfield, where he joined some of the traveling elders of his pastorate.[178]

About June 12th Lorenzo received a letter from his family that had been written on March 29th. He says, “good news.” Several times in his journal he mentions hearing from his family, and nearly always says, “good news”, or more forcefully, “glorious news.” However, he never tells his journal what the news is. This does give us the idea that his wives and children are doing well in his absence and not wanting for the necessities of life. Years later Lorenzo would tell his son Hezekiah that he received a letter every month of his mission from Sylvia and Catherine sent in the same envelope.

During the summer of 1857 Lorenzo continued his duties as pastor by traveling, visiting other missionaries, and preaching to Saints and strangers, wherever he was, sometimes having to use his wits to overcome the unbelievers. “Went to Rothersham with Brother Edwards. He preached outdoors to a rough crowd of people and I listened as a stranger and told them to be still so that I might hear. Some of them did stop as I requested.”[179]

There were also administrative duties to attend to, “...held a council upon the case of Henry Fowler and Sister Atkinson. ...dropped [him] as president of the Sheffield Branch and appointed Isaac Abel in his place. ...paid John Eastham ten pound and ten shillings that I had borrowed to help Pastor Young’s emigration. ...sent twenty pounds [tithing] to Liverpool from the Bradford Conference.”[180]

One of the few families of English Saints mentioned by Lorenzo was a couple known only as “Brother and Sister Drewry.” They are first mentioned in a May 28^th entry when Sister Drewry came to meet the train at Risgate with her cart, and took the elders, Benson, Taylor and Hatch five miles to her home. Upon arriving there the elders held a meeting in the Drewry barn, after which Sister Drewry took them back to the train station in her cart. Elder Hatch was very appreciative of Sister Drewry and her cart, since most of his travel was on foot. On August lst Lorenzo again visited the Drewry family and stayed for a few days in their home. He says, “went and cut some wheat [on the Drewry farm], which astonished the Saints to see Elder Hatch reap. I also milked the cow of Brother Drewry.” It obviously felt good to once again perform some of the familiar chores of home.

On Sunday they held three meetings in the open air at Drewry’s field. On Monday, Sister Drewry took the elders five miles to the train station in her cart. In October, at another outdoor meeting Lorenzo reports, “Brother Drewry said he would sell his watch to sustain the work of God.”[181] Following this meeting, Sister Drewry drove Elder Hatch in her cart to the station. In November she furnished transportation to and from a meeting. The Drewrys were special people to Lorenzo and gave him their wholehearted support both spiritually and physically.

Lorenzo suffered from the long walks and continual rainy, cold weather. Not as a complaint, but as a matter of fact, he wrote in his journal of the miles walked and the consequences suffered. During November, “...spent the night miserable, health very indifferent. ...soaked my feet and tried to sweat. ...was scarcely able to sit up.” He did not linger in his sickbed, as the next day he and Brother Seymour B. Young took the train for Hull.[182]

Few sights distracted Elder Hatch from his duties as a missionary, but occasionally he had the opportunity to enjoy some of the historical and cultural aspects of Old England. With Elder Benson he visited two Cathedrals, though it is not clear just where they were located, “The scenery was most beautiful, as we could see for miles around this building. It is...very large...and full of all kinds of images of carved work in stone. [At another] Brother Benson and I with several more Saints went to the Cathedral and heard them offer prayers according to the forms of the Church of England which was full of hypocrisy. This large building was built in 1117 by the Catholics. It was destroyed considerably by Lord Cromwell, yet is still a large and spacious building.”[183]

In July, while in Chesterfield, Lorenzo saw, “a new balloon go up...There were two men in it. One of them hung by a rope till it went out of sight.”[184] In November, he was impressed enough with the fare at the table of Brother Williams, with whom he “took dinner” that he recorded in his journal, “Had eel pie.”

Another experience was a journey of several hundred miles to London in August, 1857. There were meetings with Brothers Pratt and Benson and Lorenzo took the opportunity with some of the other elders to see Buckingham Palace, the Thames Tunnel, Tower of St. Paul’s Church and the Crystal Palace.

Called Home To Zion

The first week in October, Lorenzo, “Received intelligence of the elders all being called home to Zion.”[185] No doubt Elder Hatch knew something of the events taking place in Utah while he was in England, but he must have been surprised at the call for all elders to return home, for the cause of this recall was also a surprise to those in Utah.

On May 28, 1857, James Buchanan, President of the United States, issued an order for U.S. troops to assemble at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and begin their march to Utah for the purpose of subduing the Mormons, who he believed were disloyal to the government and promoting separatism. His sources for this information were disgruntled Federal appointees who had been sent to preside in Utah Territory as Federal Judges. These appointees felt they did not receive the respect due them from the Mormons, and reported to President Buchanan that the Mormons recognized no authority except that of the church. In view of this information, the President appointed Alfred Cumming of Georgia to replace Brigham Young as Governor and ordered 2500 troops to accompany him to Utah.

President Buchanan failed to notify Brigham Young that he was to be replaced as territorial governor, and so, when on July 24th, four Mormons returning from the east gave President Young the news that 2500 men were on their way to Utah to subdue the Mormons, the reaction was intense. This was seen as more gentile persecution to the Mormons who had fled from Ohio, Missouri and Illinois, before moving to this haven in the Rocky Mountains.

One of the reactions to the Utah situation, was an editorial by Orson Pratt in the Millennial Star, published at Liverpool, “...in view of the difficulties which are now threatening the Saints, we deem it wisdom to stop all emigration to the States and Utah for the present.”[186] Another reaction was to call home all missionaries to help the Saints in Utah with what appeared to be a serious threat to their homes and families.

Lorenzo had mixed emotions about this information, for he had a great love for the people of England. “This caused me some singular feelings. I feel for the Saints in this land.”[187]

Not until October 16th did Lorenzo receive a letter from E.T. Benson containing his release from his mission. The letter had been eight days in reaching him and it was too late. The ship he was to sail on with some of the other missionaries had already departed for America. It was four months later that Lorenzo finally received word to come to Liverpool, as his passage had again been arranged.

During this four months Lorenzo continued his meetings and counseling with the Saints, all the while preparing for the day he would sail for the valley of the mountains.

He was given many gifts by the Saints of his Districts, not the least of which was a gold watch, a present made to him by the members of Sheffield, Bradford and Hull Conferences. This watch was crafted by Mr. Taffender of Rotherham, costing eight pounds, fifteen shillings, or $61.00, and is probably the one worn by Lorenzo when he had his portrait painted during the last years of his life in Utah.

The usual meetings in the various branches and conferences were continued. Lorenzo and his companions walked to and fro through this large area to meet the daily appointments. On Wednesday, November 11th, “I walked to Leeds a distance of ten miles. It is three years this day since I was married to Catherine.”[188] He was thinking towards home.

He purchased cloth for a new suit, which a member had promised to make for him, and bought a chest for the trip, putting into it many gifts from the Saints for his family in Utah including two collars, half dozen pair of stockings, two pair of false sleeves and material for each wife to make herself a dress. Lorenzo also purchased two blankets with which to cross the plains once he was back in the States.[189]

There were letters written and letters received, for he was to turn over the affairs of the district to Brothers Asa Calhen and S.W. Richards. There were farewell parties and blessings given to members which he called “parting blessings.” He also received a blessing from the brethren for his health and a promise that he would return to his family. With his gentle, humble manner, the dedicated elder had endeared himself to the Saints in England.

Finally a letter came telling him to be in Liverpool on February 9^th. “Left 19 Dock Street, Leeds at 10:00 A.M. and many Saints accompanied me to the station. Arrived in Liverpool at noon and went on board the screw steamer, “City of Washington.”[190]

After a very emotional leave taking, Lorenzo’s ship sailed on February 10^th. Joseph W. and Seymour B. Young were with him. These two men had served in England with Lorenzo for many months and they became fast friends.

Passage across the Atlantic Ocean took fifteen days, during which Lorenzo suffered from bad food and sea sickness. The missionaries carried a few items of food on board with them and Elder Hatch felt these few extra items kept them from extreme discomfort.

Return To Utah

They arrived in the Hudson River at nine A.M. on Thursday, February 25^th. On Friday morning they were treated to a “Yankee breakfast with Brother Stenhouse.” What this breakfast consisted of, Lorenzo does not say, but undoubtedly it was not eel pie.

The missionaries took time to prepare themselves for life as they felt it would be in Utah. Sentiments expressed to them on arrival in the States must have been strong, for Lorenzo says, “...The United States are in arms against us and would like to destroy us from off the face of the earth.”[191] With these thoughts in mind, Lorenzo, “Went to town and bought me a Sharpes rifle, primers, cartridges, caps, flash, powder, and a box to put the gun in. Got a Colt pistol and fixtures. All paid out for this riggin’ was $48.89.” He also mentions retrieving “our swords and guns from the captain of the ship and paid duty on them.”[192] The swords may have been keepsakes from England, but why the missionaries had guns they were bringing from England is a wonderment. After arming themselves well, the men went to the Erie Railroad Station and boarded a train for Burlington, Iowa, which was as far as they could go by rail.

Near Dunkirk, New York, the train was involved in a serious accident which caused considerable delay for the elders. Lorenzo felt the Lord was merciful to them and they were not injured. This was the second train wreck for Lorenzo, but it would not be his last.

Arriving in Burlington, Iowa, they “put up” at the Burlington LDS House. This was one of the way stations for the Brigham Young Express and Carrying Company, better known as the Y.X. Company, organized by the church in 1857 to operate between Salt Lake and Independence. Originally organized when Hiram Kimball, acting for the church, obtained a contract for hauling the U.S. mail, the Y.X. Company now was carrying supplies and small numbers of people into Salt Lake Valley, many of them missionaries returning from around the world. The U.S. Government had canceled the mail contract, because of criticism of the church in Washington D.C. by the same men whose complaints had sent Alfred Cumming and 2500 troops to subdue the disdainful Mormons.[193]

The elders were now on the Mississippi River just a few miles north of Nauvoo, where Lorenzo and his family had hoped to make their homes just a few short years ago. Mormons were not welcome in Burlington and the three elders stayed only a day there while making contact with the Express Company men, then Lorenzo says, “...We loaded our trunks in wagons, paid our bills and went to a Sister Casper’s, six miles from Burlington where Brother Snyder, [of Y.X. Company] was keeping the horses. We felt quite comfortable as this place is a farmhouse. ...at night we had the privilege of having prayers...we had been denied for some time because of the wicked who were seeking for us.”[194] Other returning missionaries joined the group gathering for the journey to the mountains. One of these men was John Young Green, who was returning from a Scandinavian mission. He was the man who had driven Brigham Young’s Wagon to the Great Salt Lake Valley in 1847.

On March 20th, after spending a week repairing wagons, tending stock and, “fixing provision boxes in the wagons, Lorenzo and seven others started across the Iowa prairie for the town of Winter Quarters, now known as Florence. This was familiar ground to Lorenzo. At Florence a council was held and it was decided two of the party should remain there until the next Express started. The reason for leaving two of the men is not explained, but it may have been to lighten the load for faster travel in the country ahead, for the Mormons expected trouble on the trail either from the U.S. Army or from Indians. Perhaps both.

Lorenzo expressed regret when Brother Seymour B. Young was one of those who were to stay in Florence. He and Elder Young, of Cache Valley Utah, had been together as missionaries in England for the past year and had traveled from that place together, forming a firm and lasting friendship. As usual, Lorenzo did what was asked with a willing spirit, “...all our feelings have to be subdued.”[195]

On Monday, April 5th, the party arrived at Genoa in Nebraska Territory. Genoa had been colonized as a major supply station on the Mormon Trail, but now Lorenzo reports, “We found about 150 Saints who were poor, but very glad to see us.” Lorenzo’s party at this point, further reduced their load by leaving one wagon in Genoa, (they had driven two wagons from Florence). They decided to pack the animals used to pull the wagon. Lorenzo built four pack saddles, “ran some bullets” (made bullets), and wrote letters.

On Thursday they went to the Loup Fork where there was trouble crossing the river and then the party ran into a snow storm causing them to “tarry” for two days. The storm was hard and they were “greatly exposed.” On Tuesday the company began to move again and covered forty miles a day. On April 24th they arrived in the vicinity of Fort Laramie, where the U.S. Army was headquartered. Camping nine miles from the fort to let their jaded horses and mules rest, they prepared to travel by night through this country which was patrolled by the army. Guns were kept nearby and a night guard posted, but they traveled unmolested.

The animals were failing from the fast pace and scarce grass when the party arrived at Devil’s Gate about May 1st. Another storm overtook them and continued for two days, dropping two feet of snow, covering what little grass there was for the horses and mules.

After the bluster abated, the tired men pressed on, but the poor condition of the animals and the deep snow combined to allow only ten miles of travel that day. The travelers suffered from snow blindness and continual cold. A council was held and it was decided that S.W. Richards, G.G. Snyder and John Young Green would take the best animals and push on as fast as possible. Lorenzo and the rest of the party were left to follow more slowly with the exhausted horses and mules. This decision caused Lorenzo to remark to his journal that “They were anxious to get home and deliver the news.” Just what news he is referring to is not clear, but he seems a little disgruntled that they felt the need to leave the rest of the men behind.

The following day one of the feeble mules belonging to Dr. Jeter Clinton died allowing Lorenzo’s party to travel a little faster. On May 6th they camped at the Sublette Cutoff. The constant pressure of battling snowstorms, cold, worn out animals and the need to avoid contact with Indians or the U.S. Army was taking its toll on the nerves of the men. There was a warm discussion as to which fork of the road to take from this point.[196]

The right hand fork went westward to the Big Sandy and through broken country to the Bear River, forty-three miles distance, where it met a trail between Fort Bridger and Fort Hall. This was known as Sublette’s Cutoff. The left hand fork would take them directly to Ft. Bridger, where contact with the army was almost inevitable.[197]

Dr. Jeter Clinton proved to be the most persuasive and convinced the majority of men to take the left hand fork to Ft. Bridger. Lorenzo was one of the dissenters, feeling it would be wiser to take the Sublette Cutoff. Events of the following days would prove him right.

The men camped near the Big Sandy and crossed the Green River at early light, finding that a horse for their use had been left at a trader’s cabin with a man named Bates. Bates told Lorenzo’s party that the faster half of their company was two days ahead of them. The trader, known only as Bates, was called a traitor by Lorenzo when it was learned he had informed the troops of the earlier men’s passage. The Army had followed, but did not overtake them.

Bates was probably what Wallace Stegner called a “squatter entrepreneur,” one of those who lived along the trail tending stations, selling meals, beds, or livestock and scavenging the trail while sometimes selling whiskey made of alcohol, water, cayenne pepper, and tobacco.[198]

Traveling on from the Bates place their problems were compounded when, in the afternoon, they were surprised by a troop of soldiers who took them prisoner and marched them into Fort Bridger. John M.Wakeley tried to make a deal with the soldiers, asking that they take only him and let the rest of the men go on, but Lorenzo would not agree to this and told Brother Wakeley, “we [will] all go [in] together and Dr. Clinton should drop in for all the harm.”[199] Clinton, who had insisted on taking this trail, was to take the blame for the latest trouble of the group. At least in Lorenzo’s eye.

Arriving at Fort Bridger, Jeter Clinton went to see the commanding officer, Colonel Johnston, trying to obtain passes for the men. While Clinton was doing his negotiating, a man who Lorenzo must have known, for he called him by name, Solomon Gee, approached the newly arrived wagon, and pointed out Wakeley, saying he knew Wakeley and would “... take an oath that John Wakeley was concerned in some scrape which would implicate him.”[200]

Upon this, the flimsiest of excuses, a writ was immediately issued for Wakeley. After much distress and delay, it was decided by Army authorities that Wakeley could be released on bail, but the good Dr. Clinton was to post the $5,000 required. Passes were issued by Colonel Johnston. The brethren lost no time in leaving Fort Bridger. They traveled all night, putting as much distance as possible between themselves and the U.S. Army. By the light of day they met, “...some of our boys who were glad to see us and took us to their camp.”[201]

The “boys” Lorenzo speaks of were a part of the Utah Militia, the Utah Nauvoo Legion, who had been harassing the Army of the West, as it traveled to Salt Lake as an escort to the new Territorial Governor, Alfred Cumming. The exact intentions of the U.S. Government in sending 2500 troops into Utah was not made clear to Brigham Young, and so he had ordered his seasoned militia out to slow the army in its progress westward until the snows of winter came, making it impossible for the troops to move.

The militia was not to start a shooting war, but only harass the army. Mormon scouts hovered in the hills watching the movements of the troops. They stole or burned supply trains left unguarded and burned Forts Bridger and Supply to prevent their being put to use by the enemy. When Lorenzo was taken to Fort Bridger, it was to a makeshift camp that Colonel Johnston had built a little above Bridger, on Black’s Fork. [202]

After a night of visiting and rest in the militia camp, Lorenzo and his companions continued on towards Salt Lake. Passing through Echo Canyon they were impressed with the fortifications built by their brethren to welcome Johnston’s Army, should they actually try to enter the valley. At a narrow point in the canyon eleven hundred men, sent there by Brigham Young, had built stone walls and dug trenches from which they planned to act as snipers. Huge boulders were loosened in readiness to be sent crashing down on the troops. The men dug ditches and built dams to send rivers of water across the army’s path if needed.[203]

On May 13, 1858, Lorenzo arrived in Salt Lake Valley. He rode to Lehi with Brother Joseph W. Young for the long awaited reunion with his family. “They were glad to see me. Two of my children were afraid of me. I had been absent two years and twenty three days, which seemed like a dream.”[204]

CHAPTER 5

Mountain Common Law

Returning to Utah Lorenzo quickly took up the reins of responsibility, resuming his place as head of the household which included two wives, four children and mother-in-law, Clarissa Eastman. He arrived at his Lehi home on Friday, finding the family all in good health. On Saturday, he planted peas brought from England, and on Sunday he and Sylvia rode to Provo with Bishop Evans where Lorenzo reported his mission to Brigham Young and the Saints.

During his first week home, Lorenzo “hunted up my bench, ground some of my rusty tools and plowed some for corn, ...planted corn... repaired wagon.” He was still a counselor to Bishop Evans and a city alderman, so was expected to at once continue those duties. On Saturday he, “spoke to the people of Lehi [and]...visited with brother Jeremiah,” who had come from Sanpete.

Jeremiah made him some tools, but Lorenzo does not give a clue as to what kind of tools. Perhaps for his woodshop. Though he stayed in contact with all his brothers and sisters over the years, one feels he and Jeremiah shared a special relationship. Their personalities appear to be much alike, each being men of gentle courage and unfailing dedication to the cause of Mormonism.

The village of Lehi had changed considerably, growing in population from 167 people in 1850 to near 800 by the time Lorenzo returned from England.[205] Pressing upon them now was the turmoil caused by news of the U.S. Army about to enter Utah.

The Saints were remembering the killing, burning and other atrocities suffered at the hands of citizens and authorities of the United States during the past twenty-five years. Now these same people were about to invade their mountain retreat. Apprehension, uncertainty and hostility were the feelings throughout Utah. The Mormons had their backs to the wall. There would be no more running.

Efforts of the Utah Militia to slow the arrival of the army into the territory had succeeded. When General Johnston joined his command in November of 1857, he realized it was too late to enter the valley and they must winter at Fort Bridger. The winter weather would not allow them to cross the mountains. In the spring the U.S. Army would take care of the Mormon trouble makers.

At this point an influential friend of the Mormons, Thomas Kane, a non-member who had been of help in troubled times before, persuaded President Buchanan to give him a letter authorizing him to mediate the explosive situation in Utah if he could. “He arrived in Salt Lake City on February 25, 1858, having come all the way around the Horn and across the desert from California.”[206] After two weeks of talks with his friend, Brigham Young, Kane convinced him the intentions of the federal government were not as harmful to the Saints as they had been led to believe. Kane successfully argued that a meeting with Governor-elect Alfred Cumming would be useful.

Under the protection of Porter Rockwell, Kane traveled to the makeshift Camp Scott that General Johnston had built to house his soldiers after finding Fort Bridger burned by the Mormons. Kane had no trouble convincing Governor Cumming to accompany him into Salt Lake without the army. The Governor was probably more agreeable because of his four month stay with the army, who were camped in the snow and cold and living on short rations.[207]

Governor Cumming entered Utah territory unmolested and was treated with dignity and respect. He administered his office with tact and diplomacy and won the respect and confidence of the Mormon people. However, the Saints still did not completely trust the army.

With spring coming, Brigham Young realized the army could not be far behind. There was no way his militia could stand against well supplied and trained troops. He made a compromise and entered into an agreement with General Johnston. The Mormons would not contest the army’s entrance into Utah Territory, but would adopt a “scorched earth” policy if the troops attempted to occupy Salt Lake itself. The settlers in the city were to move south into Utah Valley before the advancing army, leaving behind only enough men to care for fields and crops. If it appeared the army intended to occupy their homes in Salt Lake, these men were to set fire to them. All stone cut for the Salt Lake Temple was cached and the foundations of the temple covered to make it resemble a plowed field.[208]

In June word came that the army was on the move and would soon arrive in the valley. Thirty thousand Mormons, carrying twenty thousand bushels of grain, machinery, equipment and all the church records and books moved south. It was an awesome sight and Governor Cumming did his best to persuade them to return to their homes. Few returned.

Thirty miles to the south, where Lorenzo lived, the village of Lehi was in the direct path of the exodus. A continuous stream of Saints passed from daylight till dark. Wagons, people walking, cattle, sheep and pigs. Confusion, suffering and sorrow. “Added to all the rest was the almost incessant rain which fell during that spring.”[209]

Lehi sheltered as many of the refugees as possible. Twenty families camped in the meeting house and others were boarded in private homes. Some lived in makeshift shelters against the fort’s wall.[210]

Johnston’s Army In Lehi

Lorenzo makes no mention of the mass movement of the Saints in his journal. His life seemed to continue unmolested by thoughts of the approaching army. On May 30th, as bishops counselor, he received a letter from Brigham Young calling his brother Abram to “go with another man to Platte Bridge to fetch some goods that had been left there the fall before.” Lorenzo also records making ox-bows in his woodshop, hauling timber for a corral and going to the mountain for a load of maple timber.

June 20th he makes his first mention of the army. On Sunday he preached to the Saints and spoke of “a right policy being adopted in reference to our trade with the soldiers.” On the 22nd of June Lorenzo notes that 110 elders (recalled missionaries), arrived from different parts of the world. Brother Charles Fox, one of his companions in England was among them. Elder Fox brought Lorenzo’s trunk from England, for which he was grateful. On the 23^rd it was business as usual, as he made a door for his cellar, and in the Sunday meeting he called upon the people to assist in building a bowery.

June 26th brought the army, 3000 strong, to the city of Salt Lake. With them was a correspondent from the New York Herald who reported the sights that greeted them. “The streets were deserted, the city was deserted. Though surrounded by houses we were nevertheless in a place of desert loneliness. The quietness of the grave prevailed...everything had been made ready for burning.”[211]

The invading monster did not stop in Salt Lake, but continued southward, as General Johnston honored the agreement with Brigham Young not to occupy the city. As news reached Lehi that the army was moving southward, citizens left their homes and camped near Cold Springs. Still not trusting the army and their intentions, Lehi citizens watched the thousands of soldiers, teamsters, vehicles, and immense animal herds move through their community.[212]

By September the army had settled in at Camp Floyd, which they established ten miles south of Lehi near Fairfield. The Saints had returned to their homes in Salt Lake. Mormon men, though still with distrust, found ways the occupation army could be of use to them. Many were employed as woodcutters, adobe-makers and carpenters building quarters at the new military camp. Others found a ready market for fresh vegetables, milk and butter. These items were exchanged for sugar, soap, beans, rice, bacon, or even money, all items in short supply among the settlers.[213]

Lorenzo was not one of the men who went to the army camp to work. During July he was still trying to set his own affairs in order after his long absence. He succeeded in getting the bowery completed, and the church meeting on Sunday, July 4th was held there. He worked in his woodshop making grain cradles, repairing wagons, and building a coffin for Brother Cox.

That the Saints were rather nervous with the large army so close is evident when on July 18th, Lorenzo says, “Attended Teacher’s [Quorum] meeting...went into an arrangement to save all the grain in our city.” And on July 31st, “After dark, I went with some other brethren into the field and set up five acres of wheat. When I reached my house it was one A.M. I was nearly worn out.” Why were they working in their fields at night? The nearby presence of the army was threatening to them.

Lorenzo’s health was not good, but as a member of the city council he made arrangements for an election of city officials. The next three days he “worked at the bench.” On a hot and sultry day in August he traveled with Bishop Evans and Alfred Bell to Camp Floyd. They talked with General Johnston for two hours and Lorenzo found him quite sociable, saying he treated them with courtesy. Returning the ten miles to Lehi through wind and dust, Lorenzo was still not feeling well and was much fatigued after the interview.

During August, Lorenzo “Did some business in reference to our mail [service].” This was probably business conducted as a city councilman. Bishop David Evans was the postmaster and the post office was in his home. It “consisted of a small green box divided into alphabetically arranged pigeon holes and a manual of instructions from the U.S. Post Office Department. The arrival of the mail wagon from Salt Lake City was greeted with great enthusiasm. On at least one occasion the mail wagon arrived while church services were being held and the meeting was adjourned to distribute the mail.”[214]

Under a strain of continual hard physical work, Lorenzo’s health declined still further. As work crowded in on him, he began laboring into the night in his woodshop, and during the day he harvested oats and irrigated corn. His spare, lean body did not allow him to do the heavy work needed. “It being the first time this [corn] was watered, it took all the energy of my body and at three P.M. I went home used up. Went to bed with a pain in my side which lasted two days.”

The following Sunday Brother Abram came to visit and later Lorenzo felt up to writing letters to friends in England. By Monday he was back in his woodshop and tending crops and animals.

The first three weeks of December, Lorenzo had a contract to haul wood for the army at Camp Floyd. He used two teams and hired several men to help him. The results were, “Received in pay $205.00. Paid $31.00 for help.” He spent his hard earned money by paying $85.00 for cattle and $29.00 for goods for family.[215]

Jury Duty

One project of the new year, 1859, was building a house for those who herded the townspeople’s cattle near Utah Lake, fifteen miles from Lehi. On a Tuesday they broke ground for the cellar, got a load of willows and hauled three loads of rock. It snowed that night, but the next day they laid up forty-four perch[216] of rock in the wet, cold weather. By Friday they had the house up to the square.

Brother Jeremiah, from Sanpete, came for a visit the middle of January. Lorenzo writes, “Brother Nail gave Jeremiah a suit of clothes which he much needed and he rejoiced much.”

On Sunday, February 13th, Lorenzo’s wife, Catherine, gave birth to a “fine girl weighing ten and a half pounds.” They named her Catherine Alvenia. Several days later, Lorenzo says, “Catherine had a poor night and I was up considerable with her.”[217]

A crime committed in Lehi three years earlier now touched Lorenzo’s life. He was called to be a juror in the court of Federal Judge John Cradlebaugh in Provo. The Judge was trying for an indictment in the case of Lehi’s first murder which took place in early April of 1856, just a few days before Lorenzo left for his mission to England. “...a vengeful crime plotted by a conspiracy of citizens.”[218]

“Young plural wife Maria Peterson, searching north of Lehi for a lost cow, was apparently raped by forty-year-old Jacob Lance.... Mrs. Peterson, whose husband Canute was on a mission to Scandinavia, filed charges against Lance, the father of four. He was arrested the following day at his home in American Fork and brought to Lehi.”[219] Lance was put in the custody of Utah County constable James Harwood of Lehi. During the night Jacob Lance was murdered.

There were conflicting stories of the murder, one from Constable Harwood and another from Lehi citizens. Lehi Justice of the Peace Alfred Bell held an inquest and ruled that the death blow was, “presumed to have been inflicted by the female he so grossly outraged, though strict search, up to the latest date, had failed to identify the person who so summarily set aside...justice.”[220]

Federal Judge Cradlebaugh, who came to Provo in 1858, told the jury on which Lorenzo was sitting, “The public have no right to take the law into their own hands; they have no right to take persons and punish them.”[221] Cradlebaugh was determined to see justice done in this case. He was also the Federal Judge trying to resolve the horrid happenings of the Mountain Meadows fiasco in southern Utah at which a wagon train headed for California was massacred on September 7, 1857 while Lorenzo was in England.

The Judge had his jury, but he had no witnesses to testify. Lorenzo says, “Rode to Provo on J. Murdock’s wild colt. Arrived at ten A.M.. Took my seat and court adjourned till two P.M., Monday the 14^th.”[222] On the 14th Lorenzo again reported for jury duty, but reported, “no business.” The Judge dismissed the jury.

The Mormons, in their suspicions of the Federal officials, viewed Cradlebaugh’s efforts in this case as an anti-Mormon witch hunt rather than a valid criminal investigation. Lehi people who were subpoenaed to testify in the Lance case ignored the summons. Bishop Evans fled to the mountains. James Harwood, the constable who was an eye witness to the Lance murder did not testify. He later said members of the vigilante ring approached him and “insisted that I should go with them to the mountains to keep from being subpoenaed.”[223]

Judge Cradlebaugh reported, “A subpoena was issued for the Bishop of Lehi, [David Evans] and I heard that he came into [Provo] to testify, probably, but that is the last that has been seen of him. I will stop and examine the matter as I go through there [Lehi], perhaps we shall find the bishop at home.”[224]

The Judge did indeed stop by Lehi to “examine the matter.” He arrived there on Monday, April 4th with a thousand man military escort. The Bishop was not at home. Lorenzo says, “One thousand troops arrived in Lehi about three P.M. and camped for the night. During the night they stole twenty-three rods of fence from one field. Tuesday, the court and troops left our town for Camp Floyd.” Lorenzo made no comment in his journal concerning his feelings about the case. The above entry was his last comment on the events.

Lance’s murder was the source of much intrigue in Lehi. Harwood so feared members of the vigilante ring that he moved to Ogden until Judge Cradlebaugh eventually gave up on the Lance case. In another similar trial, Apostle George A. Smith argued that “In this territory it is a principle of mountain common law, that no man can seduce the wife of another without endangering his own life.”[225]

There were less serious disagreements among the Saints in the time of harvest, 1859. On a Sunday afternoon, Lorenzo learned that, “...A. Adams had tore away the fence and let many hundred head of cattle into our gardens because of his meanness.” Lorenzo spent the next three days gathering garden stuff to save it after the damage. Two weeks later he found “...about 100 head of cattle in the fields in my beets.”[226]

In addition to farming and working in his woodshop, Lorenzo was involved in city and church affairs during the summer and fall of ‘59. His journal at this point becomes very sketchy, only having an entry two or three times a month. In April the Saints of Lehi were honored by a visit from George A. Smith and E. T. Benson. The men preached, and Lorenzo reports, “...we were much entertained.” The people of Lehi gave Brothers Smith and Benson twenty-six dozen eggs, twenty-three bushels of wheat and some meat (tithing).

Lorenzo was responsible for gathering the offering and seeing it was loaded and sent back to Salt Lake with the brethren. Lehi at this time was still a town of small log, mud, and adobe buildings interspersed with gardens and animal shelters.[227]

Threshing time began in September and Lorenzo had 145 bushels of wheat and 180 bushels of oats. Later in the fall he spent a week hauling straw to Camp Floyd.

In October he bought a span of mules and a wagon, paying $65.00. He attended October General Conference in Salt Lake and on November 9th traveled again to the city taking tithing potatoes to the Bishop’s Storehouse. During this last trip to Salt Lake, Lorenzo attended a party at the home of President John Young and because of a storm did not return to Lehi for two days.

On December 31st, Sylvia delivered a girl child, her first born since Lorenzo’s mission to England. She was named Ruth Amorette, and would live to become a gentle caretaker of her parents in their last years.

Another Wife, 1860

The journal gives no warning when, on the day after the baby’s birth, January l, 1860, Lorenzo announces, “Went to the office and saw Brother Calder, President Young’s clerk about having a sister sealed [married] to me. He told me to come next day at eleven A.M.”

Arrangements were made for the marriage before the bride knew of it. After making the appointment, Lorenzo went to see his intended bride, Alice Hanson, but could not immediately find her. He attended a church meeting where he was asked to speak, and later, he found Alice and “...made arrangements with her to go with me to the President’s [office] the next day.”

January 2nd, “I arose and fixed myself. ...at eleven A.M. got to the President’s office...at noon was called into the President’s room and there the sacred ordinance of sealing was performed by President Young. At twelve thirty P.M. I started home and arrived at fifteen minutes before seven P.M. Found all well.”[228]

There is some doubt that Alice went home to Lehi with Lorenzo immediately after the ceremony when he writes, “I” started home.... Did Sylvia and Catherine know of the new wife before she was included in the Hatch household? It is unlikely they were acquainted with her since, Alice, a recent arrival from England, was living in Salt Lake City and Lorenzo never seems to have taken Sylvia or Catherine with him on his travels to the city.

Whatever the chain of events were after taking a third wife, Alice was probably in the household when Lorenzo recorded on March 19^th, “On this day one of my cows died, leaving us without milk and twelve of us in [the] family.” The twelve persons included the three wives, six children, mother-in-law Clarissa Eastman, hired man Charles Fox and Lorenzo himself. The household consisted of this same group when the territorial census was taken four months later.[229]

In September of 1860 Catherine gave birth to her third girl, Lydia Lenora Hatch. The following month, on October 26th, Alice had her first child, a son, who was named John Hatch.

Lorenzo attended April General Conference the following spring, and makes the first mention of taking some his family with him to these meetings.[230] Summer and fall of 1861 were busy ones filled with farming, carpenter work, hauling corn, hay and wood to sell to the army at Camp Floyd. He worked at church activities, including taking tithing goods to Salt Lake regularly. He was also elected to another term in the Territorial Legislature.

In early December Lorenzo traveled to Salt Lake City where the legislature would be meeting. On December 10th he was sworn in by Secretary Worton and took his seat in the social hall along with the other representatives.

January 4, 1861, his thirty-fifth birthday, Lorenzo was still in Salt Lake with the Legislature. His journal does not tell of any holiday festivities this year.

On January 5th he took Alice to the Endowment House to get her endowments. Did she come with him from Lehi in early December, or had she only recently arrived? She remained in Salt Lake, as on January 17th, Lorenzo writes, “Went and saw Alice in the 16^th Ward.”

Friday, January 18th was the last day of the legislative session, and these representatives were no different from what we see today, as Lorenzo reports, “...this being the last day, much discussion, and we continued all night or until five A.M..”[231]

On January 19th Lorenzo took Sylvia, Catherine and Alice to the Endowment house where they were sealed to him by President Brigham Young. Was the ceremony performed a year earlier by Brigham Young in his office only the marriage of Lorenzo and Alice and not the sealing as he says in his journal?

By February 4th Lorenzo was back in Lehi and involved in elections for city offices. He was a member of the committee to “get up a ticket for the election of officers.” Some of the offices were hotly contested, but the ticket Lorenzo and his committee drew up “prevailed.”

A week later Lorenzo had a talk with his brother Abram who, “felt hard toward me because I did not sanction him for mayor.”[232] However, Abram was elected city treasurer. In this year, 1861, Lorenzo’s name does not appear on the list of city officers for the first time since 1853.[233]

On February 14th Lorenzo attended a meeting in Salt Lake City, hearing Brigham Young outline the plan for wagons from Utah to travel to Nebraska and return with the Saints who were daily arriving there from the missions of the world. Most new converts lacked the means and the knowledge needed to cross the plains. The handcart companies of the past few years were unsatisfactory, being slow and taking a high toll in lives and suffering.

Brother Brigham’s plan was to “call” drivers with stock and wagons from the various Utah communities for a period of six months to perform “down and back”, (Utah to Nebraska and back to Utah), trips, bringing the new converts to the promised land. Drivers were called for this duty as men were called to missions and were paid in labor-tithing credit.[234]

On Sunday, February 24th, Lorenzo spoke in meetings and called five men to go as teamsters on the “Church Trains” mission. The following Sunday he called for funds to “fit-out” the teamsters.

On April 20th Lorenzo, “Worked preparing the boys to start the teams. I got the boys off at about twelve noon.” These were the first wagons with Lehi teamsters to leave for Florence, Nebraska. They took with them five wagons, forty oxen and five thousand pounds of flour.[235] These supplies were left at way stations along the trail for the use of the immigrants as they rode in the returning wagons to Salt Lake.

For the majority of the men involved in the work of bringing immigrants to Salt Lake it was a great sacrifice. They not only gave their time, (the trip “down and back” took between five and six months), each ward was expected to outfit these trains from their own pockets. A letter to Bishop David Evans of Lehi outlined Lehi’s assignment:

“Your ward will be expected to furnish eight ox or mule teams, (six mules or four yoke of oxen to each team), an equal number of goods and trusty teamsters, and one mounted guard, armed and equipped for a four or five months journey, with clothing, provisions, ammunition, ferriage means, ox or mule shoes, spades, axes, picks, ropes, augers, saws, etc.... Each team will be expected to have sufficient boxes to carry at least one thousand pounds of flour.... The flour and grain must be brought to [Salt Lake City] and a full...report made to us of flour for the poor, number of teams, etc., so that a settlement can be made with you after the return in the fall.”[236]

Lorenzo’s brother Abram, who had a small hotel in his home and was one of the early merchants of Lehi, made several “down and back” trips for the Church Train, but he also found a way to make it a profitable trip for himself. “In 1861...I made a trip to the States for the purpose of bringing our emigrants across the plains and buying and freighting merchandise for our store. We also bought and freighted goods for many others, receiving for the goods delivered at Lehi, first cost and [then] twenty cents per pound for transportation. This we found a profitable business.” He made the journey as a part of the Church Train several times.[237] It is interesting that Abram was able to bring freight back to Utah, since each of the returning Church Train wagons were to carry eight to twelve immigrants and their belongings. Abram made his place in Utah history more as an entrepreneur than as a church man.

In May Lorenzo suffered chills and fever reminiscent of the ague endured fourteen years earlier at Winter Quarters, Nebraska. However, he was soon back at work.

One evening he started in search of his band of sheep which had run off to the mountains. He met his son Lafayette herding the thirty-six sheep towards home. “The wolves had killed one and bit another. I was thankful to receive them thus as there was great danger of all of them being killed.” Lafayette was ten years old. This is the first mention Lorenzo makes of his sons helping him on the farm. The sheep were marked and sent to Philander Bills ranch on Dry Creek. Bills took them on shares, agreeing to give Lorenzo two-thirds of the wool and two-thirds of the increase and keep the original stock in good shape.

In July the Saints of Lehi celebrated both the Fourth of July and the Twenty Fourth of July. Lorenzo was the “orator of the day” for the first celebration, and helped make a display in the Lehi Tabernacle for the twenty fourth.

There were visits from Brother Jeremiah and Heber C. Kimball spent the night at the Hatch home on another occasion. In August Lorenzo began to build a rock wall around his yard and was appointed Adjutant to Colonel David Evans, of the Utah Militia. They mustered at the American Fork and passed inspection by General Aaron Johnson.

In October he attended the State Fair in Salt Lake City, perhaps taking some of his family along, as he mentions traveling with six persons. During this month he worked for Orin Porter Rockwell, a resident of Fairfield, ten miles to the south, building a large barn 23 X 100 feet. Lorenzo was also building an addition to his own house during October.

Second Term, Utah Legislature

On Saturday, November 7th, “Posted my books and made arrangements to go to the city as a member of the Legislative Assembly from Utah and Cedar Counties.” The following Tuesday a joint legislative session heard the annual Governor’s message read to them “by himself in person.” The Governor was John W. Dawson, of Indiana. His message called for the people of Utah to assist in the present (Civil) war.[238]

Lorenzo was a member of the committee appointed to plan the Legislative Union Ball held on Christmas night. At seven P.M. on that evening he, “...met with the gentlemen and ladies who were invited to the ball. There were seventy couples. It went off in splendid order. We broke up at two A.M.”

If any of Lorenzo’s wives attended the festivities, we do not know of it. Certainly Sylvia did not, as when Lorenzo arrived home the next day he found Sylvia with a new daughter, born on December 23rd.

A most important item of business for the representatives in 1861-62 was a bill creating a convention to write a state constitution preparatory to the hoped for admission to the United States. If Utah was admitted as a state, they could elect their own officers and not have to deal with the appointees from Washington D.C. that were now being sent to the Utah Territory.

The journey home to Lehi after the Christmas Ball was not solely because of the new born daughter, Elizabeth Ann. Lorenzo and Bishop Evans went to Cedar Fort and called a meeting to appoint delegates from Cedar County to meet in convention on 20 January, 1862 to draw up the new state constitution. Meetings were also held in Alpine City and in Lehi for Utah County. Lorenzo was one of the delegates elected.[239]

On January 2nd, Delegate Hatch returned to Salt Lake to finish the business of the Territorial Legislature and attend the constitutional convention beginning on January 20th.

State Of Deseret

The convention met at the court house in Salt Lake on the day appointed. It included nine men elected by the City of Salt Lake plus delegates such as Lorenzo, elected by other counties in Utah. The convention was organized and a committee of five, George A. Smith, Albert Carrington, Elias Smith, Z. Snow, and John Taylor were appointed to draft a state constitution. Three days later the new constitution was presented, read and reread, and finally signed by each of the delegates. The new state was to be called Deseret.[240]

Lorenzo H. Hatch said of this occasion, “We each one of the delegates signed our name to the constitution. This is an important era in our history.”[241] Wilford Woodruff, also one of the signers, said, “...I consider it the most important document that I ever attached my signature to.”[242]

Lorenzo returned to Lehi, where he was immediately appointed to go to Provo for a meeting of the Saints in his district. They presented their choice of names for the officers of the State of Deseret. The people of Utah and Cedar Counties agreed upon a “ticket for election” of Brigham Young for Governor; Heber C. Kimball for Lt. Governor; John M. Bernhisel as Delegate to Congress; L.E. Harrington and J.W. Cummins as senators; and A.H. Thurber, Lorenzo H. Hatch and Aaron Johnson as representatives.[243]

The citizens of Utah were trying to gain admittance to the United States, while the southern states were trying to secede. A petition to the U.S. Congress in an attempt to gain statehood for their newly organized State of Deseret was denied. However, the full slate of elected Deseret officers, with Brigham Young as governor, continued to meet for several years. Many of the officers, like Lorenzo, were members of the Territorial Legislature and the decisions they made as a “ghost” government of Deseret became law when they met as the official legislature. This unusual political activity added to the suspicions in Washington D.C. that the Mormons did not uphold the laws of the land.

Of Lorenzo’s life during the spring and summer of 1862, we know very little. He made only four entries in his journal between February and December of that year. He was still laboring with the Lehi Ward to obtain what was needed for the church trains that were leaving each spring for Florence, Nebraska to bring in immigrants. On February 10th he says, “At Sunday meeting I called for a fit-out for the boys who were called to go to the States and continued my call till most of the required articles were raised.”

In this year of 1862 President Abraham Lincoln signed into law the anti-bigamy bill known as the Morrill Law. The enforcement of the law was postponed, however, because of the involvement of the United States in the Civil War. Not for many years would a law against polygamy be passed by the Federal government which would cause the Saints great concern.

George A. Smith and some of the brethren from Salt Lake were overnight guests in the Hatch home during the spring of the year, and on April 5th Lorenzo went to Salt Lake City for General Conference. He says, “Saturday ...I started on foot for the city and traveled thirty miles without sitting down or resting over five minutes...I arrived in the city very much fatigued.” Why he chose to travel the distance by shanks mare is a mystery. He had mules and wagons, so it was not a problem of necessity. He seems to take great pride in the accomplishment. However, after conference he rode back to Lehi with a neighbor, Canute Peterson.

On June 10th, Alice presented Lorenzo with another son who was named Willard, and on October 22nd Catherine had her first son after three daughters. They named him Thomas.

Utah Legislature, Third Term

In December Lorenzo left Lehi to begin his third term as a delegate to the Utah Territorial Legislature. On Wednesday, December 10th he met in a joint session to hear the new governor, Stephen S. Harding, read his message. Lorenzo says it took him over an hour and was “...one of the most abusive documents ever delivered to such a body of men. ...Suffice it to say that his one friend was ashamed of him. This body was grossly insulted and none returned to the assembly this day. I spent the rest of the day in the Historian’s office.”[244] Wilford Woodruff recorded that the address was “received in silence.”[245] Thus the Saints learned of a new antagonist in their midst.

On December 23rd, the somewhat less enthusiastic delegate from Lehi learned that there was serious sickness in his family at home. On arriving there Lorenzo found nine members afflicted with whooping cough. He remained in Lehi during Christmas and New Years, “doing the best I could for my family.”

On January 5th Lorenzo returned to the city and his duties as a legislator. He reports conducting an inspection of the State Library as chairman of the Library Committee. Despite the shocking address of Governor Harding, Lorenzo says, “Things are moving harmoniously in the house.”

On the last day of the session, he bought some lumber and sent it home with his team. Returning to Lehi he took up his labors of supporting an ever growing family. Lorenzo was slowly accumulating the worldly goods necessary to make a comfortable life for them all. In February he was elected Mayor of Lehi. One month later, in March 1863, a message came from Brigham Young calling Lorenzo to move his family north to Cache Valley and assume responsibilities as bishop of the LDS ward at Franklin.

CHAPTER 6

Cares Unceasing

In 1855 the Utah Territorial Legislative Assembly granted Cache Valley to President Brigham Young as a herd ground. Indians living there had varied reactions. However, a severe winter in 1855 killed 1500 of 2000 church owned cattle in the valley, and with the invasion of Johnston’s army into Utah Territory in 1858, Cache valley was temporarily vacated by Mormon settlers.[246]

When Civil War threatened the United States in late 1860, President Lincoln called the army east, leaving the Saints with a peace of mind they had not enjoyed for some years. As the menace from the army faded, Cache Valley was occupied with a mighty rush brought about by a steady stream of immigrant converts to the church pressing in on the established towns to the south.

The settlement of Franklin was born in 1860 from this pressure of population growth in the valley. Preston Thomas, a schoolteacher in Lehi, was called in 1860 as the first Bishop of Franklin but in 1863 he was asked to move his family to nearby Bear Lake County and become Bishop at Wardboro.[247]

Peter Maughan, a forceful, capable immigrant from England was stake president over the villages of northern Cache Valley and Apostle E. T. Benson, Lorenzo’s old missionary companion and friend, had been assigned by Brigham Young to live among the Saints of the valley to guide and direct them. It was probably due to this friendship that Lorenzo’s leadership abilities were remembered when a new bishop was needed for the town of Franklin.

In the fall of 1862, Colonel Patrick Edward Conner with his U.S. Army troops from the newly established Camp Douglas overlooking Salt Lake City, were sent to Cache Valley. The Indians had become very demanding of the people who lived there though the Mormon settlers tried to live by the words of Brigham Young, “it is better to feed the Indians than fight them.” This attitude did nothing to soften the actions of the Indians and they continued to attack the emigrant trains and any small party separated from the settlements.[248]

Bishop of Franklin

In January 1863, five months before Lorenzo arrived, Colonel Conner’s troops attacked the Shoshoni in their camp on Bear River twelve miles north of Franklin. Over 300 Indians were killed, men, women and children. This became known as the Battle Creek Massacre and was “one of the apparent barbarisms which history has to record, showing that there was much brutality and poor judgment on each side.”[249]

The battle on Bear River was a meaningful one to the people of Cache Valley, as it marked the beginning of the end of Indian troubles in this area. When Lorenzo Hill Hatch arrived at Franklin he found approximately 40 families living in a fort-like arrangement of mud and log cabins. The village was located on the dangerous north flank of Cache Valley, sheltered on the east by Bear River Mountain Range. Though the area was well watered by the Muddy (Cub) River and Maple Creek, the settlers were unable to occupy farm lands or ranges because of threats from the Shoshoni Indians.

On May 1, 1863 Lorenzo traveled to Cache Valley, taking Alice and her two small sons. They set up housekeeping in a cabin on the east side of the fort. Apostle E. T. Benson visited there a few days after their arrival to ordain Lorenzo Bishop of Franklin.

Bishop Hatch’s assignment was to guide his group spiritually, economically and politically. It would take all the grit and finesse the thirty-seven-year-old Lorenzo could muster. He was to function without the aid of counselors, as did many of the early bishops in small communities. Peter Maughan and E.T. Benson, though living in Logan, many hard miles from Franklin, would give assistance and guidance when needed.

Later in the year Lorenzo brought Catherine and her four children to Franklin. Though the three wives had shared the six room house in Lehi with apparent harmony, they would never again live together under the same roof.[250]

It was the fall of the year, and Lorenzo still did not have the third house finished for Sylvia and her five children. He arranged for a local carpenter to work on the house and make it livable while he traveled once again to Lehi to bring Sylvia and the remainder of the family possessions to Franklin. The family included Grandmother Eastman, Sylvia’s widowed mother.

Lorenzo’s brother, Jeremiah, with his family, and sister Adeline, with her husband, George Barber, had relocated in Smithfield a few miles from Franklin. Jeremiah returned to Lehi to help Lorenzo’s oldest son, twelve-year-old Lafayette, drive the family livestock to Cache Valley. Lorenzo, Sylvia, Grandmother Eastman and the remaining four children traveled north in a light covered wagon pulled by a pair of black mules not much larger than Shetland ponies. They traveled to Murray, Utah, the first day and to Salt Lake City the second day where they visited at the home of Osro Eastman, Sylvia’s brother.

The third night found them in Ogden, where they stayed with Josephus Hatch, Lorenzo’s uncle, and oldest of the Hatch family in Utah. The journey to Logan on the sixth day was difficult. Four-year-old Ruth became sick and the weather was turning nasty. There was snow on the ground and wind whistled through the little covered wagon. Sylvia put her rag carpet over the bows under the wagon cover to make it as comfortable as possible, but “for all that it was anything but comfortable.” In Logan they drove to the home of Apostle E.T. Benson where his “splendid wife, Permelia,...took us in and gave us a most wonderful dinner which I am sure was the best I have ever tasted.”[251]

When Lorenzo arrived at the home of his sister Adeline Barber in Smithfield, he learned that Sylvia’s cabin in Franklin was not finished. He decided Sylvia and the children should stay with the Barbers while he went on to Franklin to finish the house.

Lorenzo drove to Franklin alone, but after a couple of days in the Barber home, Mother Sylvia asked George Barber to take her and the children to Franklin. Young Hezekiah remembers that Father Lorenzo was “worried” when he looked first at his newly arrived family and then at the cabin which had a roof on it, but no windows or doors. The day was unmercifully cold. Sylvia ordered a big fire, various covers were nailed on doors and windows, and the children hovered close to the fireplace. [252]

In February of that year Alice had her third son, who was named Ezra Taft Hatch for Lorenzo’s friend and mentor, E. T. Benson. On May 15, 1864, eight-year-old Hezekiah was baptized by his father and given the responsibility, with a neighbor boy, of taking the family sheep to the east hills each day, guarding them, and then bringing them home at night. The Hatch sheep numbered about twenty-five. The neighbor boy had a like number to watch.

Hezekiah and thirteen-year-old Lafayette were also given other responsibilities on the farm. They milked cows, fed pigs and chickens, and chopped wood. Hezekiah especially remembers the job of getting enough wood to supply the three Hatch families. Through the summer, Lorenzo and his boys made junkets to the nearby canyon for wood. After it was hauled home, it still had to be chopped and carried in every night to feed the hungry old stoves.[253]

By the spring of 1864 the pioneers felt secure enough to move from their mud and log huts in the fort to city lots which had been surveyed off, one and one-fourth acres each. The families were happy to leave their unsightly cabins with dirt floors and roofs, or perhaps a crude, leaky dugout.

The first school in Franklin was taught by Hannah Comish in her home on the east side of the fort.[254] The older Hatch children attended school for three months in the winter. Hezekiah was not impressed. The class included pupils ranging in age from six to twenty, and the teacher, according to Hezekiah, “possessed neither education nor judgment.”

Sylvia and her mother, Clarissa Eastman, were both educated women and taught her children to read and do sums. Eight-year-old Hezekiah could read in the second reader without hesitation, but some of the twenty-year-olds struggled in embarrassment. He remembers they had a different teacher each year for the next six or seven years, and suggests that the “state of learning ...was primitive.”[255]

Lorenzo found his responsibilities as bishop in this outpost village to be demanding and varied. He was not only responsible for the spiritual well being of his “flock,” he was also to instruct them in improved ways of making a living, building homes, and caring for wives and children. He counseled all members of the ward, mediated their disputes, and was their representative in dealing with church or territorial officials.

One of the most time consuming of his obligations was the collecting of tithes and contributions. There was almost no money in the hamlet, so barter was the common arrangement. The most important institution of trade and exchange in Franklin was the tithing house. The tithing house received produce and livestock, labor and cash, offered by each member as the ten per cent of their net increase required by the church. There were 108 tithe-paying members in Franklin when Lorenzo became bishop in 1863.[256]

Some of the tithing goods received were used locally. The hay went to feed tithing cattle, butter to feed tithing house help, etc.. Tithing of lumber, labor or money built meeting houses and schools for the people of Franklin. Receipts not distributed locally were taken to the central tithing house in Logan.[257] As both market and marketplace the tithing house regulated prices, extended credit, and functioned as a kind of bank. Visitors camped in the yard, and the poor came there for relief. The post office was also housed in the tithing house.

This operation was Lorenzo’s responsibility and his lack of education was a handicap. Careful records had to be kept of each person’s contributions. It was difficult to find someone in the small community who could act as clerk, keeping books and writing letters. Perhaps from this experience he gained his great respect for education and was ever after concerned that his children have the best schooling possible. The following year, under the direction of Bishop Hatch, the town began to build a rock schoolhouse.

On May 18, 1864, Lorenzo was appointed postmaster of Franklin, Cache County, Utah by the Federal Government, a post he would hold for the next three years.[258]

In September of 1864 there occurred an episode with the Indians that tested the courage of young Bishop Hatch. About 500 Shoshoni, on their way to Bear Lake, camped just north of Franklin. A few became drunk and began riding through the town, breaking windows in a house owned by George Alder, which was outside the fort. One of the Indians rode his horse over Mrs. Alder when she tried to stop the destruction of her home. Her screams brought some of the men and one of them shot the intruder.

The nearby Indian camp witnessed the incident and when their member was shot they began making war cries, which sent shudders through the settlers. Two Franklin men were at that time riding toward the Indian camp, unaware of the trouble, and were immediately taken prisoner by the Indians. One escaped and carried the word back to Franklin, while the other was dragged to the Indian camp, where bucks and squaws danced around him and prodded him with knives.[259]

Bishop Hatch immediately sent couriers to Logan for help, and ordered the entire community to gather inside the fort at the log school house. John Hatch, four-year-old son of Lorenzo and Alice, remembered, in his later years, huddling in fear with the children and mothers of Franklin throughout that anxious night.[260]

Pioneer William Woodward,[261] who was present at the time, says in his diary that Bishop Hatch went to the Indian camp to plead for the safety of the captive and keep the Indians calm until help could reach Franklin. Woodward says Bishop Hatch spent part of the night in the camp and asked the Indians for a place to sleep, which was an indication to them of bravery, a characteristic they admired. [262]

By nine o’clock that night the Minute Men of Cache Valley began arriving in Franklin. By the light of a full moon the Indians could see the gathering in the distance and ceased the torture of their captive. About eleven o’clock, President Maughan and E. T. Benson arrived. They joined Bishop Hatch in the hostile Indian camp and after much palaver with Chief Washakie, the parties reached a peace agreement. The Indians were promised oxen, flour, cheese and other food.[263] The crisis was over.

A reorganization of the local militia was held in Logan on August 5, 1865. “...the regiment of infantry and battalion of cavalry previously organized in Cache Co., commanded by Colonel E. T. Benson, were previewed by President Brigham Young in company of Heber C. Kimball and several of the twelve.... There were nearly 800 men on the ground.... There being enough men in the district for a brigade, an election was held...which resulted in E.T. Benson for Brigadier General; Wm. Hyde, Adj; Peter Maughan, Quartermaster; D.B. Lamaraux, Surgeon; and James H. Martineau, Assistant Adjutant.”[264]

Lorenzo was a major in the 6^th Battalion Infantry, Cache County District. A list of weapons owned by each man reveals that Lorenzo owned one breech loader, one revolver, two pounds of powder, five pounds of lead, 100 cartridges and one sword. He had sixty-one men in his command, probably the men from Franklin. Together the command had twenty-seven revolvers, two swords, forty rifles, ten muskets or shotguns and 3260 rounds of ammunition.[265]

The bloody Civil War to the east ended during this year, but the Cache Valley people were barely aware of the great contest. They were involved in a little war of their own. The war of survival.

The settlers struggled to find some means of earning cash income with which to buy cattle, draft animals, machinery, equipment and other supplies. There was not much surplus in the crops they grew during those first years, but when Colonel Conner and his troops camped near Franklin, the people rushed with butter, eggs, milk and available produce to exchange these commodities for cash, blankets or clothing.

Another possible source of income was a spinoff from the 1861-62 discovery of gold and other metals in Montana and northern Idaho. “Virtually none of the Cache Valley settlers went to Montana to work in the mines.”[266] However, large numbers of the men engaged in freighting activity, since their valley was situated along the route from Salt Lake City and Ogden to the mines. Freighting and the selling of produce to freighters were both welcome sources of income for these impoverished people.[267]

Four days after Lorenzo’s thirty-ninth birthday, on January 8, 1865, Catherine gave birth to her second son, and Lorenzo’s thirteenth child. They named him Hyrum.

Railroad and School of Prophets

In 1866 Lorenzo, with J. Goslind, Alex Stalker and James Howell began building a grist mill. They cut a ditch from Cub river to bring water in as a means of power. The mill was constructed of “rock work for lower story and a log building on the second floor with one run of stone and good bolt for gearing....”[268]

Bishop Hatch also became one of the owners of a threshing machine, purchased and used cooperatively. As an investment this machine was successful. Lorenzo says, “[it] has enabled me to live and to do more to develop than many of my brethren.”

In November of this year Alice gave birth to her fourth son, George Jeremiah Hatch. Four months later, Catherine’s sixth child and fourth daughter was born. They named her Hannah Adeline, perhaps in remembrance of Lorenzo’s wife who died at Winter Quarters so many years ago.

1867 was a “grasshopper year” in Franklin. They hatched by the “millions” and took every spear of wheat as it came through the ground. The fields were brown with hoppers. Hezekiah, who was twelve years old, remembers how the Hatch family tried to deal with this crisis. “Father got us youngsters out and as many more as he could rustle, and we drove the hoppers into ditches filled with water, with a view that they could be drowned. We soon discovered that this could not be done. We then plowed ditches through the land and shoveled them out as smooth as we could. We filled these ditches with straw to the depth of a foot and drove the pests into these. Fire was set to the straw which effectively destroyed the hoppers. That year we raised a partial crop, sufficient to fill our needs, as well as to partially supply some of the people of the ward who had refused to work as we did.”[269]

The first talk of a railroad in Utah was heard during this year. Brigham Young and the brethren in Salt Lake, realizing the impact a railroad would have on the Mormon people, organized the School of the Prophets in November of 1867 to deal with what they saw as both a threat and a blessing.

The School of the Prophets was a group of the leading men of Mormondom who met to discuss religious doctrines, economic policies, and political problems. “Under the direction of the First Presidency...they [made] plans to combat the potentially undesirable influence a rapid influx of non-Mormons might bring.”[270] In his little spring buggy Lorenzo attended weekly meetings of the School of the Prophets in Logan.[271]

The transcontinental railroad reached the borders of Utah in 1868 giving the citizens ample opportunity for employment. The Union Pacific line from Echo, Utah to Promontory, where the golden spike was driven, was constructed largely by Mormons. This was accomplished under a contract agreement with Brigham Young, who let sub-contracts to bishops from Cache Valley on the north and Utah Valley on the south.[272]

The Central Pacific contracted the line from Ogden westward with the firm of Benson, Farr and West. One of the partners in this firm was Lorenzo’s friend E.T. Benson, who in the fall of 1868, sub-contracted a portion of the railroad to the Bishop of Franklin.

This was a time of high hopes for the Hatch family. Lorenzo was a builder and competent foreman. He was to build what he termed “one mile of the worst rocky grading.” This job required a crew of men to do the work, a cook tent and a cook. Competent, spunky Sylvia volunteered to serve as cook. Most of the hired men were friends from Franklin. The job was done with speed and enthusiasm, and the Hatch family expected to make a good profit from the undertaking. However, the Central Pacific was in financial difficulties because of the manipulations of some insiders and it was not until 1869 that Lorenzo received any money from the job. He was owed $1200.00 for services and $250.00 for supplies.[273] He was never paid this amount in full, but had to settle for sixty cents on the dollar which included a few old scrapers and carts of dubious value.[274]

Lorenzo does not dwell on this disappointment in his journal, but his son Hezekiah, who stayed home with his brother Lafayette to run the farm during the long hot summer, was quite bitter about the outcome.

The boys raised 2000 bushels of wheat that summer with only the help of an occasional hired hand. When the railroad job ended in financial disaster, this wheat was used to pay the men who had worked for Lorenzo. All hopes of a financial lift, all the work of Father and Mother during the summer, and all the pride of the brothers who had labored to improve the family finances had been dashed. Hezekiah said in his journal, “The name of [railroad magnate] Leland Stanford never sounds good to me. He and his associates lived in affluence and died worth millions, while my father found himself ruined.”[275]

Perhaps Lorenzo did not dwell on the disappointment of his railroad venture because the pressing flood of other responsibilities allowed him no time to do so. The Franklin Ward was growing, and in April of this year Bishop Hatch organized the first Relief Society for the women of Franklin, and on the 13^th of this month he received word of the death of his brother Jeremiah’s wife in Smithfield.

He was also serving as selectman for Cache county and in this year he managed to have Franklin incorporated as a city under the laws of Utah Territory. The physical description of Franklin in this act of incorporation was given as, “commencing at a point eighty rods east from the northeast corner of Lorenzo H. Hatch and Co.’s grist mill, thence west four miles, thence south four and one-half miles, thence east four miles, thence north four and one half miles to the place of beginning.”[276]

Under the direction of a five member city council many early settlements in Cache Valley passed laws reminiscent of the New England Puritans. Ordinances enacted included punishment for profanity, playing on Sunday, being cruel to animals, or being rowdy.[277]

Before the year was out, Alice presented Lorenzo with a fifth male child, Heber Albert, and Lorenzo began planning for the telegraph line to be extended to Franklin. He organized the men to bring the needed poles from the mountains, and called for help to buy wire and supplies. This was a cooperative venture of the Mormon people of Utah. They were striving to extend the telegraph to all their communities.

The winter of 1868-69 was a typical Cache Valley winter including snow so deep it obliterated all the fences and made the word “chore” take on new meaning. Lorenzo had two sons who were old enough to help support the three families, and each of them was given a share in the responsibilities. Feeding animals sometimes required shoveling a tunnel to the haystack, scooping off the snow and cutting the tough wild hay with a giant hay knife. Water for the animals meant chopping through several inches of ice each morning, day after day. Supplying wood for heat and cooking in the three Hatch homes was a never ending job shared by all.

At times the winter would hold the town in its icy grip for weeks, but sooner or later would come the slight thaw which allowed a few brave souls to stir with the crunch of snowshoes on snow, or the hiss of a horse drawn sleigh. Hezekiah Hatch remembers he had a homemade sled drawn by a trained dog, so all was not darkness and gloom, there were times when at least the young people enjoyed the snows.[278]

The School of the Prophets put into effect a cooperative plan they felt was necessary to protect their way of life from the “gentiles” flooding into Utah with the coming railroad. This plan stressed cooperative stores and factories rather than individual enterprise, and cooperative stores were soon established in most of the communities in the territory.

Existing businesses were absorbed by the local co-op, with the owners being paid in co-op shares. The stores were owned by the people as they could all purchase stock in them. When the co-op began to make a profit, the company tithed its profits first and then distributed the rest to the stockholders. The most controversial part of the plan was the proposition that Mormons should not trade with outsiders.[279]

Franklin Co-op Store and Telegraph

A co-op mercantile store was established in Franklin in 1869 with Lorenzo Hill Hatch as president. The original capital stock in dollars was $2,400.00.[280] The store was set up in the vestry of the meeting house at first and later moved to a nearby rock building.[281] This added responsibility for Lorenzo brought some hard feelings and problems among the members, since the idea was that the people should not patronize the stores of “outsiders” nor should they open competing establishments.

In 1870, Smart, Chadwick and Hull opened a store the people called the “One-Eyed Co-op” (All church organized co-ops displayed the all-seeing eye of Jehovah). This problem Bishop Hatch dealt with by convincing the men they should sell out to the Franklin Ward Co-op. [282] “I called a directors meeting of the store, [Ward Co-op]. We sent a proposition to the other brethren stating on what terms we would receive their goods, etc.. After awhile we got an answer stating on what terms they would turn over the goods, which proposition was wrong and out of place.” Two days later a meeting was held between the two parties and Lorenzo reports, “At this meeting the opposition gave way and came to terms.”[283]

The fall of 1869 brought the joy of birth and the sorrow of death into Lorenzo’s life. On September 6th Catherine gave birth to her seventh child, Sarah Ella, just three days after Lorenzo learned of the death of his old friend, E.T. Benson.

The death of E.T.Benson, who was only fifty-eight years old, lay heavily upon Lorenzo. It so touched him that he wrote of the event in his journal, which had lain dormant for two years. “This was one of the heaviest strokes that has happened to the people of this valley and to me it was almost unbearable. I have traveled and preached to the people, [in company with him]...in this valley, in England, Bear Lake, and other places. We were on the most intimate terms.”[284]

In 1870 the entire population of Franklin was counted at 588 souls,[285] twenty-two of which were members of the three households sustained by Lorenzo Hill Hatch. The 1870 U.S. Census shows the occupation of Lorenzo as “Bishop of Franklin” and the value of his real estate is $2000.00 and personal property $1400.00. Fourteen of the Hatch children were attending school, including Abram Hatch, the now motherless eight-year-old son of Brother Jeremiah. Abram was living with Lorenzo and Sylvia.

The census of nearby Smithfield includes Lorenzo’s sister, Elizabeth Hatch Winn with her husband Thomas Winn and two daughters. Also living in Smithfield were nineteen-year-old Alva Hatch and his wife Mary. Alva is the son of Brother Jeremiah, who as a widower, was on a mission to Vermont at this time.

By June 1867 telegraph communications opened between Logan and St. George. A push was made to extend the line north from Logan, and on December 19, 1869, the line reached Franklin. The original telegraph operators were told to regard themselves as missionaries, serving their community and church without compensation. Young people in their teens were sent to Salt Lake City to attend telegraphy school. Lorenzo’s son, Hezekiah, later reported being paid $35 a month in tithing produce for his services as an operator.[286]

On October 30th Alice added to the Hatch family with the birth of her first daughter, Marie Annettie.

The following spring Lorenzo began laying the foundation of a large rock house for his family. President Peter Maughan, who had been stake president in northern Cache County since 1860 died, and Lorenzo wrote of the respect shown him by the Saints and Lamanites (Indians) alike. The ranks of those who had known the rigors of Kirkland, Nauvoo, and crossing the plains to settle this wilderness were thinning.

The completion of the transcontinental road offered the possibility of a railroad stretching northward from Ogden, through Brigham City, into Cache Valley and on through southeastern Idaho to Montana. In 1871 plans were made to construct such a road. The Utah Northern Railroad Company was organized on August 23, 1871, with John W. Young, president and superintendent; William B. Preston, vice-president; Moses Thatcher, secretary; and on the Board of Directors were: Joseph Richardson and LeGrand Lockwood of New York City, William B. Preston and Hezekiah Thatcher of Logan, Franklin D. Richards of Ogden, Lorenzo Snow and Samuel Smith of Brigham City, William Maughan of Wellsville, O.N. Liljenquist of Hyrum, William Hyde of Hyde Park, Samuel Roskelley of Smithfield, Marriner W. Merrell of Richmond, and Lorenzo H. Hatch of Franklin. This appointment would consume a good deal of Lorenzo’s time and effort in the next few years.

Hezekiah Hatch was sixteen years old that December and being slight of build, he remembers that his father and brother, Lafayette, relieved him as much as they could of work which required heavy lifting. He had shown a quickness in book learning and Lorenzo felt he should be sent to a select school in Logan, taught by Charles G. Davis, a well educated man from the east.

Hitching his best team to the light spring wagon one morning late in December, 1871, Father Hatch drove his son to Logan and located him in a boarding home. The thought of being alone in a big town brought Hezekiah a moment of anguish, “...I was always very timid in meeting people, and when my Father said good-bye, and left me...tears came to my eyes, and my voice broke when I asked him to take me back home and not send me to school. He kindly told me that it would be best for me to stay and get an education while I had the opportunity; that there was no chance of getting any at Franklin, and he needed someone to keep his personal accounts.... I knew his limited education and the great difficulty he had in getting anyone who was capable of writing a fair hand, let alone do any accounting. Father told me after, that it was very difficult for him to drive away and leave me, but knowing that it was the right thing to do, he gave the horses a crack of the whip and was soon out of sight.”[287]

The Hatch family had prospered through hard work and good management and in 1872, when the income of the average family in Franklin was estimated to be about $400.00, Lorenzo Hill Hatch was listed as one of eight residents of Franklin whose income was in excess of $l000.00.[288] A large number of skilled rock masons immigrated to Cache Valley about this time, and in January of this year Lorenzo reported, “...my house is a fine rock building two and a half stories high with much cut stone. When it is completed [it] will be one of the best buildings in the county. The roof is on and one of the bedroom floors is laid. Also most of the glass and sash are in.”[289]

Mormon Hotel

This new home was much needed by Bishop Hatch, as he had, for the past several years been keeping what had become known as the “Mormon Hotel,” although there was no charge. With the help of Sylvia, an open house was maintained for all who traveled through Franklin. “Especially at conference time did church leaders from Bear Lake make the Hatch home a stopping place on their way to Salt Lake. In April the brethren would cross over to Cache Valley on snow shoes.”[290] One who impressed the Hatch children with his friendliness and vigorous personality was Apostle Charles C. Rich who stood six feet four and weighed 250 pounds.

The “Mormon Hotel” was used not only by Mormons, but travelers going to Montana, or coming from Idaho, also knew and respected the home. The expense of this free room and board was borne by the Hatch family. Despite five years of destruction by grasshoppers, Lorenzo and his boys raised twelve to fifteen hundred bushels of grain in 1872. Bishop Hatch felt that, “No man has received more manifest blessings in this respect [wheat harvested] than I have, for which I thank my God.”[291]

In March, 1872 Catherine had her eighth child, and sixth daughter, Chloe Viola. On November 12th Alice gave birth to a stillborn son. Working long into the cold night, Lorenzo fashioned a small coffin in his woodshop. Next day, with the help of a friend, Brother Biggs, he buried the unnamed child on the west side of the Franklin burying grounds. This was the first time the Hatch family had buried one of their own since moving to Franklin.[292]

In this year a government survey crew visited Cache Valley and drew the Utah state line about half way between the settlements of Lewiston and Franklin, placing Franklin within the Territory of Idaho instead of Utah. This disrupted the political unity of the valley and especially affected Franklin. Lorenzo Hill Hatch resigned his seat as a selectman for the county of Cache and the people turned their attention to the politics of Idaho. The State of Utah was ninety percent Mormon, but in Idaho Mormons made up only between ten and twenty percent of the population. [293]

Idaho Legislature

Idaho usually voted Democratic and when the Mormon settlements of southeastern Idaho came under that jurisdiction, Mormons added their votes to those of the Democrats. With the inclusion of the northern Cache Valley and Bear Lake settlements within the Idaho boundaries, the Idahoans picked up the anti-Mormon crusade that was so strong among the Gentiles in Utah. But Oneida County, which included Franklin, was dominated by Mormon population, and in the fall of 1872 Lorenzo Hill Hatch received a large majority of the votes from that county to be elected as a Representative to the Idaho Legislature, along with Alexander Stalker. They were the first Mormons to sit with that body of law makers.[294]

Representatives Hatch and Stalker left Franklin on November 27th to journey to Boise, Idaho for their legislative duties. The 250 mile trip was one of high adventure. A profane highwayman’s order to halt or be shot was ignored by the coach driver who cracked his whip over the horses and made good their get-away. They jolted along through the night in the rain and wind, and at early morning light crossed the Snake River on a ferry boat.

About seven P.M., after traveling all day, the coach was approaching Rock Creek when the six horse team spooked and bolted, turning the coach over in the mucky road. Lorenzo’s left hip was bruised by the wreck, but he calls it “not serious.” For the next hour and a half the stage driver and passengers struggled in the mud and cold to right the coach. Arriving at Rattle Snake Station, the passengers slept for a short time sitting in the stage, as there were no other accommodations. The battered coach arrived at Boise City on the afternoon of December lst where Lorenzo found lodging at the Stage Hotel of Wells Fargo for “$6.50 in greenbacks,” supper and breakfast included. Later Stalker and Hatch took lodging and board at a Mr. Clayton’s for “$13.50 a week in greenbacks or $12.00 in coin.”[295]

Lorenzo assessed the town of Boise, Idaho, as being, “a city of great wickedness and debauchery of all kinds.” On New Year’s day, 1873, he recorded “a man was beat most to death with a pistol.”[296]

Representative Hatch found his fellow legislators to be friendly and perhaps a little curious about this Mormon. He met a Mr. Higby and Judge Head, who introduced him to many of the other members of the legislature. Lorenzo says, “I was made a special object of attention and respect by all of the legislative body of both the lower and upper houses.”[297]

When the legislature convened, Lorenzo was surprised by a call for him to take the chair as temporary speaker of the house. He felt it was a distinct honor and took the stand with “trembling,” to fill this assignment of organizing the assembly.

By the third day, permanent officers were duly elected and Lorenzo stepped down as speaker pro-temp, with the feeling that he had performed one of the most difficult tasks of his life. “I felt calm and reconciled, believing that such [actions ] will raise our people to necessary elevation in this dark and benighted land of superstition where people look upon Mormons as outcasts.”[298] He was representing not only his district of Onieda County, Idaho, but more importantly to him, he was being judged by the Gentiles as a representative of the Mormon Church in general.

On December 4th he presented the name of Alexander Stalker for legislative chaplain. Stalker was unanimously elected, though the next day, Lorenzo reports that “some of our enemies are trying to make a fuss” about Brother Stalker’s election.

On December 10th Lorenzo introduced a bill to the legislature for the exemption of the Utah-Northern Railroad from taxation in Idaho Territory for six years. Though the railroad would bring benefits to all in the Idaho Territory, this bill soon became known as “a Mormon exemption,” since the construction was a Mormon endeavor. On December 17th, the “bill to exempt the Utah-Northern Railroad was presented by the committee on ways and means who recommended its passage. The minority report however was adverse.” Lorenzo got the vote on his bill postponed and prepared an amendment to help its chances of being passed. On December 20th Representative Hatch made a speech before the house in favor of the exemption and after “a long fight” it passed the second reading.

Other legislation Lorenzo introduced and worked hard to pass were a charter for the town of Franklin, (they had previously been chartered under the territory of Utah), a bill for the division of Oneida and Bear Lake Counties, and a bill for constructing a bridge across Cub River. He also presented two memorials to be sent to Congress, one for a land office at Soda Springs, and the other to remove the Indians from the Fort Hall Reservation.

On Christmas day, Lorenzo and Alexander Stalker were invited to the home of John Hayley, who was a delegate for congress. Lorenzo reports they were treated with “a good degree of respect.” After a fine dinner the men looked at Mr. Hayley’s sheep. Lorenzo was impressed with one sheep that “sheared” 32 pounds of wool and weighed 330 pounds.

On his forty-seventh birthday, January 4, 1873, Lorenzo was invited to Judge Head’s for dinner. He says, “The delegate, Mr. Shafer was at Heads also.”

Representative Hatch must have found the proceedings of the Idaho Legislature quite different from those in the Utah Legislature where he had spent three terms. Brigham Young guided and instructed the representatives in Utah, but here in Idaho Lorenzo had only his own conscience and wisdom as a guide. He was not intimidated by these worldly men. He spoke many times from the floor and presented bills in behalf of the people of his county. He fought for the laws and changes he felt were needed and acknowledged his defeats while giving the Lord credit for his victories.

A few days before the end of this session, Lorenzo says, “I have found treachery in the members of the Democratic party. I warned these men that if they did not see to matters it would destroy their influence in Oneida County.” There was a floor battle as the representatives met to apportion the number of delegates from the various counties. Mr. Garrett tried to have the number of Oneida County delegates reduced to hold the Mormon influence in check. There was also the question of the division of Oneida and Bear Counties, which would affect the Mormon voting power. Lorenzo knew he was defending the rights of the Saints of Idaho to have equal representation. “The people are afraid to talk to us about our Faith. They fear and tremble in consequence of our growing power in this territory and have guarded against favoring us in any respect.”[299]

As the House of Representatives adjourned in January, 1873, Lorenzo noted that “The council defeated all my bills except the railroad exemption, the charter for the town of Franklin and the Memorials.” This strong willed, calm, quiet spoken Mormon had not been totally defeated, and most of all, the men of this session, friends or enemies, would remember he had been there.

In preparation for returning to his home in Franklin, Lorenzo “placed $175 in a package of books addressed to C.C. Rich. The money is in a book of laws of the fifth session, on page 75. [This was done]...to prevent being robbed.”

The return trip to Franklin for Representatives Stalker and Hatch was much less eventful than the journey to Boise had been six weeks earlier. Lorenzo spent the three day ride on the Utah, Idaho and Oregon Stagecoach visiting with Carnell Pardee of Washington Territory, who was very inquisitive about the Mormons. At the end of the marathon visit, Pardee declared that the Mormons were a different people than he expected. He and Lorenzo parted with a hearty handshake and a promise from Mr. Pardee to write.

Lorenzo was at once immersed in his responsibilities as husband, father, and bishop of Franklin. The family was all in good health except Jeremiah, the seven-year-old son of Alice. Lorenzo only says that “he was lame.” Sylvia and her family had moved into the large, newly completed rock house in Lorenzo’s absence. On the night of his arrival home, with his family and friends gathered round, Bishop Hatch dedicated the home to the Lord.

By summer two of Alice’s sons, John and Willard, were old enough to be of some help to Lorenzo along with Lafayette and Hezekiah. The boys were expected to help with the farming, milking, building fence, gathering wood and other work necessary to sustain this large family. Sylvia, Catherine and Alice each had their own vegetable garden, which they tended with the help of their girls and the smaller children. The women made butter and cheese as well as most of the clothes for the numerous children. The large Hatch family was typical of polygamous Mormon families of the time, with perhaps a little more means to support themselves than most, due to the unceasing work and management of Father Lorenzo. Eighteen-year-old Hezekiah, who had finished his second winter at the school in Logan, was now able to help his father with the bookkeeping and letter writing necessary for a man in Lorenzo’s position.

At a directors meeting of the Utah Northern Railroad, Lorenzo was asked to put up snow fences along the tracks and on March 8th he left Hampton Station at five A.M. in a sleigh, (traveling to meet the train). He and his crew shoveled snow all day, breaking blockades of ice and “with much labor succeeded in reaching Brigham City [on the train] at midnight.”[300]

Bishop Hatch had a vivid dream on March 11th, signifying to him that he would be ordained to the office of patriarch in the church. Men holding the office of bishop were seldom given other ecclesiastical responsibilities, but this dream was so vivid Lorenzo felt to record it in his journal.[301]

The spring of 1873 found Lorenzo mostly at home, planting crops and attending to his business as Bishop of Franklin. “My business and cares are unceasing.”

In April he journeyed to Salt Lake for the semi-annual conference of the Church, which he always attended. In June he met with a group of church leaders in Brigham City, and here he was notified by Wilford Woodruff that he was to be ordained a patriarch. This office and responsibility was to be Lorenzo’s in addition to his work as Bishop of Franklin. On June 27th he was set apart for his new calling by the first presidency, Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball and George Albert Smith.

Speaking of this dual responsibility, historian Leonard J. Arrington speculates that Lorenzo “may have been the only man in Mormon history to serve for an extended period as both bishop and patriarch simultaneously.”[302]

The special assignment of Patriarch Hatch was to pronounce blessings upon the heads of worthy church members, and “contemplate an inspired declaration of the lineage of the recipient, and also ...[give] an inspired and prophetic statement of the life mission of the recipient, together with such blessings, cautions and admonitions as the Patriarch might be prompted to give for the accomplishment of such life’s mission. [The Patriarch would always make it] clear that the realization of all promised blessings was conditioned upon faithfulness to the gospel of our Lord.”[303]

December of 1873 brought two happy events into Lorenzo’s life. Lafayette Hatch, the twenty-two-year old son of Lorenzo and Sylvia was married to Annie Scarborough, and on Christmas Eve, Alice gave birth to her seventh son, Joseph Lorin.

Railroad Comes to Franklin

In February of 1874, the Utah Northern Railroad began operating between Logan and Ogden and work commenced to extend the narrow gauge line on to Franklin. Bishop Hatch called for all the help he could get. This was a people’s railroad and for two months, nearly all the men in Franklin were involved in the project. The workers were to be paid in company vouchers which would be redeemed with double their face value in company stock. Later when the railroad company was not able to redeem the vouchers, the church agreed to take them at the tithing office.[304]

By May lst the railroad cars were in sight of Franklin. In anticipation, the people planned a celebration to be held when the train actually entered the town. They were assured that even Brigham Young would be there. Early on the morning of May 4th, President Young, Erastus Snow and others of the twelve apostles left Logan on the first train for Franklin. A short way from Logan, the little narrow gauge train (three feet wide), jumped the track and the anticipated visitors had to return to Logan. The first train to actually arrive in Franklin was a freight train which came in on that same day.[305]

With the completion of the line to Franklin, all freight for Northern Idaho and Montana moved with teams from that point. Several large freighting terminals opened in Franklin with warehouses, hotels and stores erected near the station. One opportunist, Sill Worneth owned and operated a brewery “just under the hill. He had his beer shipped, bearing the trademark, SILL’S BEER.”[306] The golden age of Franklin began, bringing both the blessings and the curse for which the School of Prophets had tried to prepare the people.

In March of 1874, Lorenzo, his brother Jeremiah and sister Adeline traveled to Ogden to attend the funeral of their uncle Josephus Hatch, the last member of their father’s family. The trip to Logan was made in the little spring buggy and then the trio traveled by train on to Ogden. Lorenzo remembers the journey as being a pleasant one, no doubt giving the three siblings a chance to visit at length, remembering times past and renewing their love and concern for one another. Both Lorenzo and Jeremiah were asked to speak at the funeral.

In May Lorenzo traveled to Boise City with three Franklin men to file on some land. A friend from his days as a representative, Judge Head, helped them and treated them “with kindness.” Throughout this summer he also traveled with Brigham Young, Jr., the stake president, to the communities of Sulphur Lake, Swan Lake, Bear River, Mink Creek and Bennett, preaching and teaching the Saints.

President Young organized the town of Franklin into the United Order, with Lorenzo Hill Hatch as president. In this capacity Lorenzo attended meetings in Logan and was appointed a Director on the Central Board of the United Order for Oneida Stake.[307] The United Order was a more intense form of cooperative effort than the co-op stores. A joint stock company was organized to which all who wished to cooperate assigned part or all of their property in return for shares. All land and enterprises to be worked for the common good of all.

The United Order Board of Directors started a lumber business and Lorenzo made several trips to nearby canyons “to examine” for timber. In 1871 Brigham Young bought the machinery for a steam sawmill in the east and had it shipped by boat up the Missouri River to Fort Benton, Montana. From there it was hauled overland and for a short time it worked in Maple Canyon near Franklin. In 1872 there was a boom in Soda Springs to the north and the mill was moved there. Now, in 1874, with the help of Brigham Young, Jr., the mill was returned to Maple Canyon for the benefit of the United Order. Teams were sent to Soda Springs to get the mill. Lorenzo and Charles Shumway, along with Shumway’s sons, of Mendon, went to the canyon to set the mill up and stock it. [308]

Father Lorenzo’s investment in Hezekiah’s education began to pay off. Lorenzo named him ward clerk in the Franklin Ward. In this capacity, Hezekiah kept the tithing books and assisted Lorenzo in letter writing and other clerical duties. This was a practice between father and son that would continue long after they were no longer living in Franklin.

Lorenzo was once again appointed postmaster of Franklin in March of 1873, when their address changed from Utah to Idaho. Early in 1874 Hezekiah took over these duties, under the direction of his father, along with those of telegraph operator for the Deseret Telegraph Company.

Lorenzo had been elected Mayor of the “new” town of Franklin, Idaho, and he continued to be deeply involved in the business of the Utah Northern Railroad. He was also striving to make the United Order concept succeed in Franklin. However, this was never popular with the Mormon people there and failed because of their lack of interest.[309]

Arrested For Polygamy

In June 1874 the United States government passed the Poland Law under which individuals could be brought to trial for breaking the 1862 Morrill Law. In 1875 George Reynolds was charged with polygamy under this law and was convicted and sentenced to two years hard labor in prison and a fine of five hundred dollars. Thus began one of the most difficult times in Latter-day Saint history.[310]

The fall of 1874, Lorenzo’s world began to crumble. In the November election, opponents of the Mormons were swept into the Oneida County offices. An independent anti-Mormon party was organized in Onieda County which succeeded in capturing the offices in southeast Idaho. They remained in office for nearly a decade.[311] Lorenzo says, “our enemies stuffed the ballot boxes and got wicked men into office....” The political winds became tornadoes, which struck at several points in the Mormon settlements.

John Biggs, along with Alfred Hansen and E. Butterworth, all Mormons, were served with writs in connection with land they had filed on in Boise City. Biggs was charged with perjury and remanded to the Grand Jury in Boise City.

The deputy prosecuting attorney of Oneida County sued Mormons for delinquent taxes, and Lorenzo claimed the sheriff, in his efforts to collect the taxes, traveled “round and round” and charged each man fifty cents per mile for travel expense. One man who owed $4.00 in taxes had to pay $45.00 in travel expenses to the sheriff. Frustrated Bishop Hatch recorded the sheriffs name in his journal as “Heeney...a vindictive scoundrel.”

The anti-Mormon campaign was not only in Oneida County, but throughout Idaho. One of the loudest voices of this movement was Joseph Houston, a U.S. prosecuting attorney for Idaho Territory. Houston had run for the U.S. Congress and solicited Lorenzo’s support, without success. When Lorenzo refused to endorse the man, Houston turned the bitterness of his defeat against Lorenzo and vowed to ruin him.[312]

Lorenzo felt Houston was the mastermind behind the Mormon problems in Oneida County. The arrest of the three men in connection with their efforts to file on land, was “...gotten up by one Joseph Houston.... He was...seeking revenge hoping to get me in trouble.”

On December 2, 1874 Lorenzo lost his appointment as postmaster. A bitter Hezekiah recorded in his journal, “Father Hatch was removed from the post office because of his religious convictions, and a transient named Leviberg was given the position.”[313] Jacob Leviberg served as postmaster of Franklin until 1876.[314]

Joseph Houston, as prosecuting attorney for Idaho Territory, was not through with Lorenzo Hill Hatch. On July 22nd the Ogden Junction newspaper carried this notice: “We learn by telegram from Franklin that Lorenzo H. Hatch was arrested this morning at that place by U.S. Marshal Joe Pinkham on the charge of polygamy, and that he was taken to Malad [Idaho] for trial.”

In the August 4th issue of the Ogden Junction a letter to the editor written by Lorenzo under the date of July 30th, gave the following information about his situation:

“There was a grand jury impaneled and instructed by Joe Houston, U.S. Attorney for Idaho, Mr. W. Clemens, foreman.... Indictments were ready to be served upon President Rich, Bishops Budge and Hatch.” Lorenzo continues in his letter to the editor: “Houston presented United States law on bigamy, claiming that he had no other object than to know whether polygamy could be practiced in this territory in defiance to the laws of the United States, and labored hard to show that some secret ceremony was performed in an Endowment House and then the perpetrators would come to this territory and carry these terrible crimes, as he called them, into effect....”

The indictment whereupon Lorenzo was arrested read in part:

“That at the County of Oneida, in said District and Territory on the first day of January, 1875, one L.H. Hatch having then and there a wife living with whom he ...was then and there living and cohabiting as his wife. ...said wife had not been absent for five successive years without being known to the said LHH within that time to be living and the marriage of the said LHH with his said wife never having been dissolved by the decree of a competent court and which said marriage between the said LHH and his said wife had never been annulled or pronounced void by the sentence or decree of a competent court, on the ground of the nullity of the marriage contract, did the day and year aforesaid and at the place aforesaid, marry one Catherine _____,(whose full name is unknown)...and with whom he, the said L.H. Hatch, on the said first day of January, hitherto, and still does, live and cohabit as his wife, against the provisions of the Statutes of the United States in such case made and provided, and against their peace and dignity.

“Wherefore, the Grand Jurors aforesaid, upon their oaths aforesaid, do say that the said L.H. Hatch did at the time and place aforesaid commit the crime of polygamy against the peace and dignity of the United States and the statutes in such case made and provided.”

Lorenzo’s lawyer, Mr. Ensign, presented the defense saying, “That the first wife’s name was not given nor place of marriage where or when, and further, that all crimes must be prosecuted in the district where the offense was committed and that no such crime was known in the law as polygamy, also the Statute of Limitation placed the case out of the hands of the law.”

After the case pleading in Lorenzo’s behalf, Judge Hollister “ruled in favor of the demurrer...but reserved his rulings on the law lest he should establish a precedent.” Judge Hollister ordered the prisoner released and bonds annulled. Lorenzo writes, “I arrived at my home [in Franklin] at seven A.M. this morning, and was greeted in a most friendly manner by all the inhabitants of Franklin, save a few.”[315]

A harassed and unhappy Lorenzo continued his efforts in behalf of his beloved church and reports spending time during this year “looking after the Indians who seem desirous of receiving the truth.” He continued the supervision of the steam mill working in Maple Creek Canyon, and attended his duties on the Board of Directors of the railroad, while fending off the efforts of Mr. Houston to “ruin” him.

Houston must have succeeded in more ways than one, for Lorenzo’s son Hezekiah says of this time, “Lorenzo H. Hatch found little...peace of mind or liberty of action in the close to 100 per cent Mormon town of Franklin. The...men and women who were sincerely practicing plural marriage had fallen on evil days.”[316]

The pressures brought to bear by the anti-Mormon prejudice in Idaho caused Brigham Young to counsel Bishop Hatch to leave Franklin, and go to St. George, in southernmost Utah for a period of time.

The Hatch family held a council, for this move would affect many lives. Twenty-five-year-old Lafayette had just presented Lorenzo and Sylvia with their first grandson on 16 January, 1875. Twenty-year-old Hezekiah was doing well as an employee of the Deseret Telegraph Company and had been appointed agent of the Utah Northern Railroad at the terminal of Franklin.[317]

Catherine’s children were growing up. Seventeen-year-old Catherine Alvenia was married to Thomas Smart in June of 1875 and the following spring, Celia Ann married John Woolf.

Alice’s children were all at home. Her oldest was sixteen-year-old John. He and his four brothers were now the main work force on the Hatch farm.

The family consultation was long and tearful, for family roots ran deep in Franklin. Their living conditions were the most comfortable the wives had known. Most of the children remembered no other home. Father Lorenzo was feeling the weight of having just celebrated his fiftieth birthday, and Grandmother Eastman, who had lived with Sylvia and Lorenzo since their marriage, was in her eighty-fourth year.

After all had their say, Lorenzo made his decision. The thin, haggard man, whose hair and beard were fast turning gray, announced to his family that he would take Catherine with her younger children and go to St. George. Lafayette would run the farm and cattle on shares with the help of Alice’s sons. With tears in his eyes, Lorenzo embraced each member of his beloved clan.

The next morning, two wagons were prepared and the loading began. The 600 mile trek to St. George would take several weeks.[318]

CHAPTER 7

To The South

Lorenzo traveled to St. George where the first temple in Utah was in the final stages of construction. St. George, in southernmost Utah, was almost a second headquarters of the church as President Brigham Young spent most of his winters there. The Saints had been asked not only to build a temple, but President Young insisted they also needed a large tabernacle for meetings in this part of the kingdom.

After settling his family into a rented house, Lorenzo worked at making benches for the tabernacle and gave many patriarchal blessings throughout the area. He never expected this move to be permanent, and continued to think of Franklin, where most of his family was, as home. He was called to travel in the stake with John L. Smith, preaching to the people and collecting means to complete the temple.

In the spring of 1876 Lorenzo accompanied Daniel H. Wells of the First Presidency, Brigham Young, Jr., Erastus Snow, and a number of other leading church men on a journey into the little known and hostile lands of the Arizona Territory. Jacob Hamblin, explorer and missionary to the Indians of the area was their guide. The men were to preach, teach, encourage and assess the new and struggling settlements of Saints along the Little Colorado River.

The travelers arrived at Lee’s Ferry on the great Colorado River May 28, 1876. Warren M. Johnson, called by Brigham Young to act as ferryman in crossing the Saints, had just built a new ferry. Johnson cautioned that the river was high and crossing would be a dangerous undertaking, but the brethren felt they should proceed with all haste.

The new ferry was towed up stream almost a mile to give it plenty of room to reach the landing on the other side of the swift moving water. Men, horses, and three wagons were loaded and they began rowing the flat boat away from shore to enter the current. Great waves of water immediately rolled over the entire boat, sweeping it clean of men, animals and cargo.[319] In the resulting confusion Lorenzo found himself clinging to the top of a wagon that was shooting down the raging river at an alarming rate. He was swept from the wagon and sank deep into the river, but saved himself from drowning and was picked up by a skiff.[320]

The life saving skiff was manned by Jacob Hamblin, who had also been plunged into the cold snow-water, but caught a large oar passing by and swam to shore. Hamblin ran down the river bank to a skiff he had noticed earlier. He pulled to the head of the rapids down stream, and saved a wagon and its contents on an island. The other two wagons and most of the supplies passed over the rapids into the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. After the men had again assembled, they found one of their party, Lorenzo Roundy, missing. His body was never found.[321]

Lorenzo Hill Hatch’s greatest loss was his journal of events since leaving Franklin, Idaho. This has become known as his “drowned journal.” Having lost most supplies to the river, the party was split with only a few continuing on to the Arizona camps. Lorenzo was one of those who continued into the territory.[322]

After several weeks of meetings with the discouraged Saints at “Mowabby” and “Moancoppy”, (Indian villages near present day Tuba City), and Sunset, Ballinger’s Camp and Allen’s Camp on the Little Colorado River, Lorenzo and his group returned to Utah where they met President Brigham Young at Kanab. After receiving their reports on the Arizona settlements he asked Lorenzo H. Hatch to go to Zuni, New Mexico Territory and locate among the Indians.[323] This was June 20th. The trail to Zuni meant again crossing the dread Colorado River, traveling through trackless, hostile Indian land to the new settlements on the Little Colorado in Arizona, then on one hundred miles into New Mexico.

Missionary work among the Zuni of New Mexico had been successful, when, in April, 1876 Robert H. Smith and Ammon M. Tenney lived for a short time at the pueblo of Zuni and after a stay of only a few weeks reported performing 111 baptisms. They returned to Utah and told Brigham Young of their success. Losing no time President Young found Lorenzo, who had proved himself an able and willing missionary, to open the Zuni Mission.

Lorenzo was to take his family with him. With this news he returned to Catherine in St. George after being gone five weeks. Lorenzo says, “I worked from this time till the 25^th of July in fitting up for my trip, [to Zuni]. I settled with all my debtors amongst whom was M.M. Sanders for four months rent. He was very hard to settle with and charged me $12.00 per month. He wanted the remaining wood and use of my stove for nothing.” Then Lorenzo let himself show a rare bit of pique, “In fact he was one of the hardest old hypocrites I ever met, but he is an old man. I settled as he wished and leave it with him and his God.”[324]

Responding to this call beyond the far edges of civilization, Lorenzo and Catherine, with their family of six children, left St. George on July 25, 1876. Thirteen-year-old Thomas drove the stock, five cows and four calves. Eleven-year-old Hyrum drove a wagon, as did fifteen-year-old Nora. Lorenzo drove the third wagon. William McAllister left St. George at the same time to accompany the Hatches to Zuni.

Things did not go smoothly from the first. President Young had telegraphed a month before to Bishop H.C. Spencer of Kanab, instructing him to furnish Lorenzo with wheat from the Kanab mill. Bishop Spencer had not made the necessary arrangements. With some delay the wheat was turned over to Lorenzo who was quite distressed by the actions of Bishop Spencer, saying, “All this was a great hindrance all for the want of interest in the work of God entrusted to him. Still he is a good man.”[325]

John Maughan of Weston, Idaho, and his second wife, Mary, joined the trek to New Mexico at Johnson, a place fourteen miles from Kanab. The caravan left Johnson on August 8th. It rained so hard they only made six miles. The next morning they found Maughan’s horses had run back to Johnson. The journey continued to be difficult and just outside House Springs, Lorenzo says, “...performed the hardest journey of my life. Hyrum driving one team, Nora one and I one. Up and down steep hills and rocky roads, shaking the wagons terribly....”

As they wore away the miles in the red rock country, dust devils tossed tumble weeds hither and yon among the Cholla and Yucca. By the 12^th they had crossed the Big River in safety, but the ascent out of the river was another matter. Lorenzo says it was “...one of the worst hills or mountains that white men ever saw. The wagons, standing almost on end, and with little water to quench our thirst, we spent the night on the mountain side.”

After weeks of repairing wagons, hunting water holes and run away stock, the party arrived at Ballinger’s Camp on the Little Colorado River.

The fledgling Mormon mission in this remote part of Arizona was only a few months old. In the early spring of 1876 Lot Smith led the vanguard of settlement along the muddy, alkali banks of the volatile river. Smith’s group was divided into fifties according to an organization affected earlier in the church. Four settlements were begun in close proximity to one another with William C. Allen, George Lake, Jesse O. Ballinger, and Lot Smith each establishing their own village.

The Saints at Ballinger’s dug a well and started a stone fort. They gave Lorenzo and his party what comforts and help they could. At another of the river settlements, Camp Obed (Lake’s), Lorenzo met F.H. Goodwin, U.S. Marshall of Arizona Territory. Mr. Goodwin gave him a letter of good character reference. Lorenzo copied this letter into his journal and also sent a copy to Brigham Young.[326]

                                    Camp Obed, Little Colorado River
                                                Yavapai County, Territory of Ariz.
                                                August 31, 1876

To Whom It May Concern:

I am happy to state that while traveling through this place I fell in company with the Honorable L.H. Hatch from Idaho. He has represented his county of Oneida in the Legislature for four (sic) years. Mr. Hatch is enroute for New Mexico where I learn he designs with several of his friends to make homes for themselves. We of this territory have found men of Mr. Hatch’s peculiar belief to make a valuable addition to our territory. I am sure you will find Mr. Hatch and his friends a valuable acquisition to your part of the country.

He is an enterprising, law abiding citizen of good reputation both in Utah and Idaho. Any aid rendered him by the influential citizens of New Mexico at Fort Wingate or other places where he may go, assisting him to supplies or such things as he may need or his friends may want, will be duly appreciated by Mr. Hatch. I cheerfully recommend him to your kind consideration and good offices. I have the honor to subscribe myself,

Respectfully yours,

F.H. Goodwin

U.S. Marshall, Arizona Territory

While at Obed, Lorenzo obtained the use of a small log house. He set up the stove and prepared to leave his family there while he traveled on to Zuni. Bishop Lake of Obed aided them by furnishing a span of mules. On September 4th, Lorenzo wrote to Brigham Young, giving his assessment of affairs in the Little Colorado settlements, including the statement that, “A general good spirit prevails here as many of the disaffected have gone home and it is earnestly hoped that [they] will not return.”[327] That same day Lorenzo and John Maughan took one wagon and started for Zuni traveling up the Little Colorado and then up “Dirty Water River,” (Puerco). They stopped at Jacob’s Well, “...a wonderful hole in the earth, 150 yards across and 100 feet deep.”

Zuni Mission

Turning east into New Mexico the two men found lush grass, sagebrush, snake brush and low growing cedar trees. The sandy, rolling hills appeared to be void of permanent water. They entered a wide valley on a well worn trail, which had been used by animals, Indians and Spaniards for 1000 years as a trade route. All around were colorful flat topped hills striated by red, buff and black sandstone. To the northeast the Zuni Mountains soon appeared, but in this far-seeing country Lorenzo knew it might take days to reach the mountain range.

On September 7th, Lorenzo “saw the beautiful valley of the Zuni Indians. Went up on a hill where the view was beautiful and returned thanks to God and dedicated this land to Him for the gathering of the Saints.” In wonder he traveled through the main Zuni village where the Indians lived in five story houses in Pueblo style, each story having for its dooryard the roof of the one below. Lorenzo was sure to have noticed the large, red earth adobe Catholic Church, which had been abandoned since 1821.[328]

Corn was drying in the harvest sunshine and along the walls hung strings of chili peppers ripening into crimson. There were thousands of sheep grazing nearby. These Indians were unlike any Lorenzo had heretofore encountered.

Lorenzo and John Maughan traveled on twelve miles to Fish Springs, called Fiscalah by the Indians and Ojo Pescado by the Mexicans. Here they planned to build homes. The first order was to arrange to bring water from the spring up onto the land for irrigation. They were visited by many Lamanites, (Indians), and the few Saints in the area including Nathan Tenney and Robert Smith.

At a meeting on September 10th Lorenzo was received by the brethren and the Lamanites as President of the Zuni Mission. Nathan Tenney translated the proceedings into Spanish for the benefit of the Indians present.

In the next few weeks the Zuni Indians became upset by plans of the Mormon missionaries...plans to build houses, bring water up and farm the land. They were especially “excited” as the men cut wild hay and stacked it. Lorenzo says, “They had never seen anyone cut hay and were afraid we would get all their feed.”

Nathan Tenney talked with the Zuni chief and other natives in the Spanish language which nearly all the Indians understood. The missionaries rode to the main village and held council with their head men. It lasted six hours, and the decision was made for the Mormons to leave for a season until the Indians could have a council with their whole nation. These Puebleños had resisted Christianization for 300 years, since the arrival of the Spanish Conquistadors with their Catholic teachings.

This mission was unlike any other with which the Mormons had worked. They were dealing with four different cultures. The Zuni were the predominate people, but there was a small band of Navajo who lived to the southeast and then there were the Mexicans. These three cultures, plus the anglo missionaries, made understanding and agreement in the region hard to come by.

Lorenzo continued his reports to Brigham Young and under the date of September 25th President Young wrote to him, addressing the letter to Zuni, New Mexico. President Young assured Lorenzo that, “We shall presently send you fresh strength in the person of other laborers whom we shall call to your aid.” He counseled Lorenzo of “the great necessity of giving no cause of offense to either white or red men.... Be prudent and prayerful, seek the spirit of the Lord at all times that it may constantly guide you and in all your associations with your fellowmen be honest, just and straight forward. ...Let your example be such that all who come in contact with you can follow it with advantage and profit thereby. We are no believers in the theory that to teach the Indians a man must descend to the level of the Indians and partake.”

President Young inquired of Lorenzo as to how far he was from the nearest railroad, and what were the road conditions between Zuni and the railroad. This information was needed as the president intended to send Lorenzo a mower and a reaper and other machinery for farming.[329]

On Saturday, September 30th the missionaries took two loads of supplies to a Mexican town eighteen miles east, where they had made arrangements to live away from the Indians.[330] The town of San Lorenzo was comprised of four Mexican families. Lorenzo, reporting to Brigham Young writes, Mr. [Jesus] Mason, the principal man, sent us word to come, and feeling that the Lord had opened up the way, we took our teams and came to this place. Mr. Mason made us welcome to two rooms in his new house free of rent till we could have time to build. He furnished us with mutton and is giving us a chance to work for him when we get time, offering us land prorato with themselves. We are very thankful to get shelter once more in a house and be secure from the cold storm and rain which is falling.”[331]

On October 1st, Lorenzo made an agreement with Jesus Mason to look after their goods while they returned to Fish Springs. The next day he baptized a Navajo man and then left on the 100 mile trek to the Little Colorado Settlements to bring his family into New Mexico Territory.

At Camp Obed he found his family well, gave two patriarchal blessings and wrote letters to Brigham Young and Erastus Snow. Two of the Saints who had been in New Mexico, Brothers Tenney and Stewart, left Lorenzo here and returned to Utah. He would miss them sorely. Especially would he miss the help Nathan Tenney gave as interpreter with the Indians and Mexicans. Perhaps being cut adrift from these two dependable friends, and knowing the hardships his family was about to face in this new land, Lorenzo wrote, “I felt very lonesome and went to work making sash for Brother Lake. Sunday I went to Brother William Merrills and gave three blessings and then to Brother Allen’s Camp and held meeting. ...returned and had a meeting with Brother Lake’s Camp. In the evening gave three more blessings.”[332] Lorenzo often responded to loneliness and distress with prayer first and then work, work, work.

Lorenzo’s call to this southern mission was not made official until the semi-annual conference held in Salt Lake City on October 8th of this year. At that time, though Lorenzo was already far away to the south, his name was presented and sustained by the conference as a missionary. At this same time his brother Jeremiah Hatch and four sons, Alva, Jeremiah, Jr., Lorenzo and Abraham,(sic) were called to join Lorenzo in his mission to the Zuni country.[333]

With resolute courage Lorenzo and John Maughan left Camp Obed on October 9th with their families. On the 14^th they arrived at their new home, the Mexican town of San Lorenzo, or Tinjas, as the Indians called it.[334]

Lorenzo sent letters to President Brigham Young, to his family in Cache Valley, and one to the Governor of New Mexico. He acknowledges receiving an answer from Governor Axal at Santa Fe on December 3rd, but gives no clue as to the exchange made in their letters.

William McAllister, who was in Lorenzo’s party diligently studied the Spanish language, and Lorenzo wrote to Brigham Young reporting that Brother McAlister had so advanced in the last 15 days that he can “read the Spanish and talk so that we can make out to understand quite well. [He] is now teaching Spanish to us, and our children are learning rapidly. We have school one hour in the morning and two or three in the evening and the rest of the day is spent, when it is not raining, in building corrals for our stock and hauling house logs.” Lorenzo wrote President Young that “It is 460 miles to the railroad from here.” He also advised that his mail should be directed to Fort Wingate, New Mexico and addressed to William McAllister for safety.”[335]

President Young sent Lorenzo a Zuni language vocabulary dictionary for which he was grateful. He felt that if they could get some of them (Zuni) to live nearby they could soon acquire the language. He noted the Spanish language was understood by the Zuni, Navajo and Apache. Lorenzo reported to Brigham Young that, “I find one difficulty with the Spanish people. They have an idea of holding large land claims, for instance six miles, for ten or twelve families. Had our brethren carried out your counsel in locating in this country three years ago, many very valuable locations could be in the possession of our people which is in the possession of our enemies and will cost much time and means to get a hold of.”

Included in his report to President Young, Lorenzo stated, “they cannot understand why the Catholic Church is not correct, but with the best of feeling I presented carefully the sayings of the scriptures without referring to their faith.” As Lorenzo was able to explore the land round about, he reported, “In all directions the ruins of large villages are to be seen. There must at one time have been large amounts of water as thousands have been sustained here.”[336]

Lorenzo and the few Saints in the area continued to work with the Indians through the winter of 1876-77. The other brethren may not have been as dedicated to the work as Lorenzo was, for on Sunday, December 10th, he wrote, “We held meeting and administered the sacrament. Our meeting consisted of my family and Sister Maughan and daughter Jane. We were determined to perform our duties as best we could. Old father Mason was with us and said it was good although he could not understand any of our language.” Lorenzo found some success in baptizing the Navajos, but the Zuni continued to be unreceptive to his efforts.

Lorenzo helped with building cabins for the Maughans and McAllisters. His own family was living in a lean-to on the side of Jesus Mason’s stone house. Trips to Fort Wingate, forty miles through the Zuni Mountains, for lumber, mail and supplies took a good deal of time. Thomas and Hyrum often made the trip to the military post where a sawmill had been established. Of one trek Lorenzo made in March of 1877, he says, “...while at Wingate, I got some bacon and some beans and got trusted for it.”

Early in 1877 Luther C. Burnham and Ernest Albert Tietjen, missionaries to the Indians, arrived at San Lorenzo. They were located at nearby Savoia Valley where they built homes about six miles northeast of present day Ramah, New Mexico. In late January Lorenzo went to Zuni to meet his sister Elizabeth Winn, and her children. He says, “All were well and we had a joyful meeting.” In a report printed in the Deseret News of April 3rd, Lorenzo wrote, “Three of the sons of Brother Jeremiah Hatch and my sister Elizabeth have arrived and are feeling well. Two of the boys have families.”[337] Lorenzo also reported that Elder Boyle had notified him of a company leaving Arkansas in April for New Mexico or Arizona. John Hunt, Manassa Blackburn and Edward Westover, along with their families, joined Lorenzo and John Maughan at San Lorenzo in 1877, but later located at Savoia with Burnham and Tietjen.[338]

On April 6thof this year the first Mormon temple west of the Mississippi was dedicated in St. George, Utah. Lorenzo was not to be there, for he was struggling to hold a portion of the kingdom together on this ragged and stress filled edge of civilization. Other events closer at hand, that Lorenzo was aware of were the Presbyterian mission and school founded in Zuni by Dr. H.K. Palmer in 1877,[339] and the intent of the U.S. Government to set aside the first portion of the Zuni Reservation.[340]

Mary Maughan, wife of John Maughan, died in childbirth on May 10th.[341] She and Catherine had been the only white women in San Lorenzo during the winter until the arrival of Elizabeth Hatch Winn. It was in May also, that an Indian girl of fifteen years, one of the Bear River Tribe, raised by Elizabeth Hatch Winn, died at Lorenzo’s cabin.

Lorenzo Hill Hatch was a hard man to discourage, and in June he reported, “All was peace. Catherine’s health improved. The weather a little warmer and a prospect of summer. Baptized one Indian. ...worked putting in corn and fixing wagons.... On Sunday Brothers Hunt, Burnham and families came to San Lorenzo, and we had a good meeting. On Tuesday we had a good rain and a rainbow rested down on our land, spanning it on either side.”

On June 3rd Lorenzo reported to the Deseret News that a letter had come from Elder John Morgan, “who is laboring in Georgia, in which he states that some 200 Saints will emigrate this fall to this part of New Mexico or vicinity.” He also reported that the Saints in Zuni country are “struggling in poverty, but not in despair. Today...we were made glad by the arrival of 1000 pounds of corn, brought to us by some Zuni in pay for wagon repairs and blacksmithing. This was timely as we were living on borrowed flour.”[342]

Under the date of June 7th, Lorenzo received what may have been his last letter of counsel and encouragement from Brigham Young. President Young assured Lorenzo that “We have much faith and hope with regard to the future of your mission...these hopes will require hard work, great patience, and strong, unflinching faith before they are made realities. The best architecture is that which builds well from the foundation up, builds on the rock, builds against wind, and storm and flood...we must [be] the example of our good works...we must not weary in well doing. We must add to the teachings of the first principles of the Gospel, practical lessons in cleanliness, thrift and economy. It is so much easier to accumulate than preserve....” Lorenzo was grateful for the counsel and declared that , “I shall try and profit by the same.”

In August he moved his family to Savoia after many neighbors in San Lorenzo were found to have smallpox. Lorenzo does not mention any deaths from smallpox at this time. The final entry in Lorenzo’s journal for 1877 was made on September lst. No doubt he had not yet learned of the death in Salt Lake, on August 29th, of the man who had so long guided the Mormon Church, Brigham Young.

The company of southern Saints, led by Elder N.P. Beebe arrived in Savoia Valley on September 8th. There were 188 adults with 26 wagons. Some of the party planned to locate at Savoia and the remainder in the Little Colorado settlements. This group, the so called “Arkansas Company” had traveled 1,400 miles in reaching New Mexico.[343]

During the late summer and early fall months of 1877, Lorenzo made plans for returning to Cache Valley. He and his boys cut hardwood in the mountains, which Lorenzo shaped on his lathe into ax handles and other items needed by the Zuni Indians. He traded these items for corn which he hauled to the Arizona colonies and exchanged for wheat to supply his family with bread during the coming winter.[344]

Visit To Franklin

By September 10th Lorenzo felt he had adequate shelter and food supplies for Catherine and her children at Savoia for the winter months. He and his twelve-year-old son Hyrum began the long wagon trip to Cache Valley, after having been away from his families in the north for over two years.

There is no record of what transpired when Lorenzo arrived in Franklin, but it must have been a joyful reunion. Time was spent inspecting his lands and looking into the affairs left in the hands of his sons and wives for the past two years.

His oldest son, Lafayette, had been named bishop in Franklin, succeeding his father in that position. Lafayette was married and the father of two children. Hezekiah Hatch, Lorenzo’s second son, was a young single man of twenty-two years. He had been appointed agent of the Utah Northern Railroad at Franklin and also worked for the Deseret Telegraph Company. Living at home, it was Hezekiah who looked after his mother Sylvia, his eighty-four-year old grandmother, Clarissa Eastman, and his sisters, Aldura, Ruth and Elizabeth.

Alice’s family was still young, her oldest, John, being but seventeen. Lorenzo made the decision to take Alice and her family back to Indian country with him. Born after Lorenzo left Franklin in 1875, Alice’s youngest child was less than two years old. For some reason, Lorenzo encouraged Alice to leave her four-year-old son, Joseph Lorin, with Sylvia and her daughters. This was to be a temporary arrangement, but Alice never saw this son again.

Lorenzo left Franklin after a two month visit and headed south with Alice and her seven children. There was also Hyrum, who accompanied him from New Mexico, and Catherine’s daughter, Adeline, who had remained in Franklin when Catherine left with Lorenzo two years before.

Thus, there were eleven people in the party, and that may have accounted for Lorenzo’s suggestion that little Lorin stay in Franklin with Sylvia. Even with the three older boys driving stock, Lorenzo had a load with eight people, plus baggage and supplies.

They traveled the familiar road to St.George where Lorenzo and Alice “attended to ordinance work in the St. George Temple.”[345]

Called to Arizona

While Lorenzo was still in Utah, a meeting took place at Sunset, Territory of Arizona, which would affect the lives of the Hatch family. On Sunday, January 27, 1878, Apostle John W. Young visited at Sunset and asked the settlers if they desired to be organized as a stake of Zion. “The congregation was unanimous in desiring this organization. In the afternoon Lot Smith was elected president, Jacob Hamblin and L.H. Hatch as first and second counselors....”[346]

The first Lorenzo knew of this event was after he crossed the Colorado River into Arizona Territory on his return trip from Cache Valley. He met Apostle John W. Young and his company who were returning from Sunset to Utah. Under a weak winter sun with a crisp breeze blowing across the red rock country, Lorenzo bared his graying head and was ordained by Apostle Young as second counselor to Lot Smith in the Little Colorado Stake of Zion.

Lorenzo completed the journey to the Little Colorado and stopped at a new settlement on the river named Tenney’s Camp. While resting there, President Lot Smith asked him to live at Tenney’s Camp and be the presiding elder at that place plus his duties as a stake counselor and church patriarch.

Tenney’s Camp had been settled only two years earlier, and the few Saints had constructed homes in a fort-like manner, each room opening into a large village square. This was an arrangement the Hatch family had seen before. For the third time Lorenzo moved his family into an outpost fort of Zion. After locating Alice and her children at this place, Lorenzo left for New Mexico to bring Catherine’s family to Arizona Territory. The new calling as counselor in the Little Colorado Stake ended his mission to the Zuni lands.

CHAPTER 8

Let Not My House Be Divided

On March 1, 1878 Lorenzo wrote to the new President of the Latter-day Saint Church, John Taylor, with news of his doings in New Mexico and Arizona. He reported arriving in New Mexico on February 24th only to find his three nephews, Jeremiah, Lorenzo and Abram, had departed from Savoia Valley for the San Juan country north of Fort Wingate. He and Ammon Tenney traveled after them through a deep snow, finding them at Fort Wingate. The boys had fallen into an unnamed difficulty at Savoia and Lorenzo persuaded them to come back with him to face their accusers and make things right. Elders Erastus Snow and Anthony Ivins were present to decide the case. When the problems were settled, the nephews “went on their way.” Lorenzo expressed to President Taylor his disappointment at their being in “such a hurry to leave where our labors had been blessed.”[347]

There were many items of business needing Lorenzo’s attention in New Mexico before moving permanently to Arizona Territory. The Zuni mission was reorganized with L.C. Burnham as presiding elder. Elders Snow and Ivins “tarried” at the Marcus Peterson home and studied the Spanish language while Lorenzo and Ammon Tenney returned to Camp Tenney in Arizona. Ammon Tenney traveled with Lorenzo into New Mexico with the idea he might like to settle his family in that area. On their return to Tenney’s Camp, both Nathan and Samuel Tenney determined to move with Ammon to New Mexico. Lorenzo exchanged his property in Savoia for the Tenney property in Arizona. After their departure, Tenney’s Camp was renamed Woodruff in honor of Apostle Wilford Woodruff.

Lorenzo’s new home at Woodruff, Arizona Territory, was located in a small picturesque valley between a long, sloping hill of sandstone on the south and a lone mountain of volcanic origin to the north. The Little Colorado River, at that point, pushed out of a rock bound canyon into banks of red clay.

Two years before, in 1876, Ammon Tenney, a Mormon scout, came riding into the village of Sunset on the Little Colorado to tell with enthusiasm of the wonderful location for a settlement which he found while on a trip up river. “We have discovered a site with most marvelous possibilities, a real little Eden,” declared Tenney.[348] Soon Ammon and Nathan Tenney, Joseph H. Richards, Lewis P. Cardon, James Thurman and Peter O. Peterson came from Allen’s Camp, (Joseph City), to negotiate for squatters rights to the desired valley, which was claimed by sheepman Felix Scott.[349] Nathan Tenney was called to act as presiding elder over the settlement of Saints, hence the name Tenney’s Camp. This was the situation when early in the year of 1878 Lorenzo Hill Hatch was called as a counselor in the newly formed Little Colorado Stake, which included Tenney’s Camp.

There can be little doubt that Catherine was more than happy when Lorenzo returned to their home in the Zuni Mission. It had been an extremely difficult winter for her with Nora, Tom and the three little girls in that land of loneliness. Catherine was destitute after surviving five winter months among the Mexicans and Indians, with their closest Mormon neighbor two miles away. The supply of foodstuff was sorely depleted and there had been a severe outbreak of smallpox, with at least 150 deaths among the Indians, and several among the anglos.

Lorenzo not only brought Catherine the joyous news that their Indian Mission was over and they were now to help colonize Arizona, he also brought her daughter, Adeline, who had remained in Utah for the past two years. Tears of joy were shed.

The eight families [350] in Woodruff were organized into the United Order. Cooperation was the “Lord’s way.” Disciplined selflessness in economic matters was still a moral responsibility in Lorenzo’s eyes. He had tried mightily to follow counsel and establish the United Order in Franklin, but the enterprise had failed. However, on this frontier the Saints could readily see they must all work together, or all would starve.

Soon after the arrival of the Hatch family in Woodruff Lorenzo says, “...our little company was organized into the United Order and began making a dam and did much labor until April 25th when the water rose till it ran over our works and cut around our dam.” The Little Colorado River, a mere stream at times, could become a raging torrent. The settlers at Woodruff had just lost the first of many battles they would wage with these turbulent waters.

“We [The United Order], had made a garden and put in an acre of potatoes and some wheat. We also had put in some forty acres of grain at the lower camps.” After loosing the dam Lorenzo says, “We abandoned our work at the dam and began to look after our bread. Took a contract to make some ox yokes for which we got forty-five dollars. This was the first money we made.”[351]

The rest of the summer and into the fall of 1878 Lorenzo struggled to support his large family at Woodruff. His sixteen-year-old son, Thomas, took a load of government freight to Call’s Landing on the Colorado River, a distance of 600 miles. He was gone five weeks and made $180.00. In the meantime, Lorenzo himself was helping build a mill for Moses Cluff, fifty miles to the south near Show Low.[352]

Little Colorado Stake

The duties of a stake counselor took Lorenzo to conferences which required several days traveling time. He also made a run for the Arizona Territorial Legislature, but “was defeated because I am a Mormon.” He continued to give blessings in his capacity as a church patriarch.

Lorenzo’s journal tells almost nothing of Little Colorado Stake affairs during the year he served as counselor to the controversial man, Lot Smith. Smith has been remembered as a forceful character, colorful and interesting. These are some of the kinder things said of him. Others call him overbearing, intolerant, and a hot-head. Historian Charles Peterson says, “Assuming that his call...of stake president gave him total command, he badgered, threatened, and fumed to make his domination a reality....”[353]

Lorenzo was not known to be critical of church leaders, and never speaks of being out of sorts with President Lot Smith. Many years later Lorenzo’s journal records his opinion of Lot Smith as, “A mighty man was Brother Lot, a brave daring pioneer and soldier. History cannot say too much of this great man.”[354]

On December 7,1878, Lorenzo met sons Willard and Hyrum, who had just returned from Cache Valley and noted that “This makes the number of my family eighteen in this land [Arizona] including myself.” On the morning of the December 31, 1878, “at twelve minutes before one A.M., Catherine gave birth to a fine boy, weight ten pounds [Wilford]. This day finished up the old year.”[355] Four days later, Lorenzo celebrated his fifty-third birthday.

Eastern Arizona Stake

Unbeknownst to Lorenzo forces in Utah were moving again to affect him. On December 3, 1878, Jesse N. Smith, a cousin of the Prophet Joseph Smith, who was residing in Parowan, Utah was “called” as president of a new stake in Arizona. J.N. Smith tells of this call in his journal, “[President Taylor] said he wished all who should settle in the south to work in the United Order.... President Taylor appointed me to take charge of the Eastern Arizona Stake of Zion to comprise all the settlements of the Saints east of a north and south line running through Barado’s Ranch [Holbrook] on the Little Colorado River in the territories of Arizona and New Mexico.”[356]

This new stake included the village of Woodruff, and Lorenzo Hill Hatch and Oscar Mann were sustained as counselors to Jesse N. Smith in the newly organized Eastern Arizona Stake. Despite the wishes of President John Taylor, the United Order was not successful for long in Woodruff. Lorenzo says, “We [are] reduced to three families who still work in the Order up to this date, December 29, 1878.”[357] The remaining faithful souls belonged to the families of James Deans, Hans Gulbranson and Lorenzo.[358]

The first quarterly conference of the new stake was held at Snowflake on June 28, 1879. It was reported there were 664 souls in the stake. The December 1879 statistical report found 748 members.[359]

In the fall, President Erastus Snow visited Eastern Arizona Stake to encourage the Saints in living the United Order. Lorenzo tried, but nearly a year earlier had noted that a number of the Woodruff settlers wished to settle up and move to Walter’s Valley or Bagley (Taylor).

In October, 1879 Wilford Woodruff stopped at Woodruff for a two day conference with the Saints. He recorded in his journal, “...there was discussion about constructing an impounding dam on the Little Colorado River to replace an earlier one that had been washed away. The soft banks of this river and the flatness of the terrain through which it meanders make dam construction a precarious and uncertain enterprise. Nevertheless the pioneers at Woodruff decided to try again. Planning and construction committees were appointed, the compensation for laborers agreed upon and the allocations of water shares from the reservoir were made according to need based upon the size of the families.”[360]

Being unable to grow the necessary crops to support his large family on the Woodruff land, Lorenzo, sometime in early 1879, took up a farm near Bagley,(Taylor). In February 1879 he attended a meeting at Bagley and organized a Water Ditch Company. This may have been in his own interest, or as one of his duties as a stake leader.

On March 24th Lorenzo moved Alice and her family to the farm in Bagley (renamed Taylor), while Catherine remained in Woodruff. This move may have been precipitated by the fact that federal authorities were beginning to look into the affairs of the polygamous Mormon families moving into Arizona. When the 1880 U.S. census was taken, Alice and her children were enumerated on their Taylor farm and all used the last name of Hanson.

Lorenzo and Alice did not find an immediate welcome in the village of Taylor. After a few weeks there, Lorenzo recorded, “...the community had done some hard talking about me because I was not on the ground myself or not on the water ditch.” Evidently dividing his time between Woodruff and Taylor, along with the time spent in his church calling was causing trouble. Only days later, on a Sunday, Lorenzo attended meetings in Taylor and “spoke for one hour.” “All treated me with respect to my face although much underhanded work has been going on. All this feeling was because we are working in the United Order. How weak is man who fights against our God. We have much prejudice to contend with in making our homes on this farm.”

Folks in Taylor were determined to prevent him having water on his farm, which was about two miles upstream of the village along Silver Creek, thus allowing Lorenzo first use of the water. Hard feelings continued through the summer months and finally on September 4th, while at his Woodruff home, Lorenzo received word to come to Snowflake to see visiting church authority, Wilford Woodruff. “Brother Woodruff took me aside and related, in the good spirit of the gospel, many complaints that had been lodged against me. [He] called them molehills made into mountains. We met [with my accusers] where my actions were scanned for six hours. ...when the light was reflected [the complaints] vanished showing a bitter and bad undercurrent of envy threshed up to destroy me. ...all parties forgave...that we might have good fellowship in the future.”[361]

On the day following this stressful meeting, in what may have been a show of solidarity and support for Lorenzo, Wilford Woodruff and Lorenzo helped President Jesse N. Smith build a granary. The three leaders, sawing, measuring and pounding nails as they visited together, would have been a strong message to Lorenzo’s detractors.

On Sunday, January 4th, Lorenzo celebrated his fifty-fourth birthday, and at a family gathering, “had a chance to talk to my children.”

A harsh year was in store for the settlers, both in Taylor and at Woodruff. Lorenzo declared they “came near perishing.” On January 28th he and his sixteen-year-old son Ezra started for the farm at Taylor from their home in Woodruff. “It was snowing fast and continued to snow. We traveled fifteen miles and could follow the road no farther. Camped, but failed to get a fire [so] laid down on our blankets in the snow. Spent one of the roughest nights in my life. [In the morning] we found one match left. Cold and trembling we got a fire and were filled with joy as we warmed our wet and chilled bodies, dried our clothes, found the horses and after prayers and partaking of a breakfast of fresh beef thrown on the coals, we proceeded on through fourteen inches of snow.”

During this winter, and into spring Lorenzo traveled between Woodruff and Taylor and to far parts of the stake on church business, including a journey to Concho, where he found “mostly a careless spirit, much smoking, chewing and some drinking.” In a letter to his son Hezekiah, Lorenzo stated, “I have been absent for one month in looking after the affairs of the stake.”

Time was also given to providing the necessities of life for his two families; hauling wood, building furniture in his woodshop, working at the new dam in Woodruff and making more secure and comfortable the home in Taylor. By March he was trying to secure seed wheat, oats and beans, while working on the irrigation ditch in Taylor and hauling posts to fence his land.

Lafayette Hatch, bishop in Franklin, deposited 100 bushels of wheat from the Hatch farm in the tithing house at Franklin, with the request that his father, Lorenzo, be allowed to draw the same amount (of wheat) on any of the tithing offices on the Little Colorado in Arizona.[362]

Much of the physical labor of providing for the two Hatch families in Arizona was done by the older sons of Alice and Catherine. At least five of them were old enough to assist Lorenzo, allowing him to travel on church affairs with assurance his families were cared for in his absence. The labor of these boys, (some of them now young men), was assuredly carried on under close supervision. Lorenzo was not a man to readily relinquish his responsibilities.

His family in Franklin, Idaho was not forgotten. Under the family agreement when Lorenzo left Franklin, his eldest son, Lafayette, was to work the Idaho land to the benefit of all the family. Young Hezekiah, who had served as bishop’s clerk for his father, was to help in managing these affairs. Over the next thirty years, it would be Hezekiah who patiently, and with love, managed his father’s estate in Idaho provided for his mother and sisters, and sent reports of transactions made in regard to Lorenzo’s affairs in the north country.

On April 4, 1880 Lorenzo wrote to his “Dear Son Hezy” [Hezekiah], with thanks for a report on the “settlement of the mill account.” This probably in regards to the grist mill Lorenzo owned part interest in at Franklin. The letter continues, “I received a parcel consisting of a pair of pants, hat and vest...I was very proud to get these articles, for I assure you I was quite destitute. I can appear in a decent suit once more.” A request to Hezekiah is made for “some forceps that I can use to draw teeth.”[363]

Lorenzo was a prolific letter writer. He kept up a correspondence with his brothers Jeremiah and Abram, as well as his children and wife Sylvia. His penmanship was passable, but the letters are totally absent of any punctuation. His spelling is phonetic and sometimes difficult to decipher. Each letter is one long paragraph with capital letters thrown in indiscriminately. However, he never seemed to hesitate penning a letter to the church president or other authorities he felt should hear from his part of the kingdom.

He was well acquainted with most of the men who directed the Mormon Church from Salt Lake, having shared the fortunes of the church with them since Nauvoo. He used this acquaintance to his benefit on many occasions. In 1880 he wrote “a long letter” to President Taylor regarding land purchases (in St. Johns), “and the wants of the poor.”

In writing to church authorities concerning the “wants of the poor,” Lorenzo may have included himself. On April 18th he commented to his journal, “I have seen scarce times for food but never witnessed so scarce a time [as this]. All my neighbors are out of milk and bread is scarce. We have lived for four weeks on corn meal and graham.”

Family Troubles

A letter from Lorenzo to his “Dear Son [Hezekiah]” is perhaps the most personal and telling document of the troubles and worries that beset the Hatch family during these early Arizona years. Bearing the heading of Woodruff, Apache County, A.T., February, 1881, Lorenzo wrote:

“...I have done for Lafey [son, Lafayette] all in my power to start him with the choice pieces of land in Franklin [and] also in building his house, and would have done much more if I had not been sent away. I have confidence in him as a worthy and faithful son. On what grounds do you, as my agent, predicate claims for him? My only wagon of any worth he claimed. I am aware that the land had to be paid for. I left grain, teams, [and] interests in store [and] gristmill, all of which, save the amounts of one worn out carriage and one old wagon and three horses, with the hay land and 100 acres of broke land, plows, harrows to help take care of my dear Sylvia and my little girls, as I used to call them.

“I am aware that the farm could not be used to much advantage without help or a good renter. I have received to order to the value of 225 bushels of grain, fifty-five dollars you paid to Z.C.M.I. after I left [and] several dollars in parcels that I presume [came] from your salary. I appreciate all of this.

“Look on both sides of my being called to this land. [It] has prevented you of being called to travel on foreign missions and [allowed Lafayette] to remain at home to aid me on this mission. Is this too much? I have been viewed as being in my dotage, be assured I am not impaired in intellect, if in bodily strength.

“I received a letter at one time from [Lafayette] asking if I stood in want of anything. [He] said tell us and we will get it for you. I have asked and received no answer to purchase a molasses mill. My request was treated as a foolish speculation. One thousand gallons [of] molasses lost to myself and neighbors. ...[I have] four young men just arrived at manhood [who] cannot go to school [but] must labor for strangers for clothing and food. The lesser ones, [children], are an expense [and] are not fools but say, ‘Father have you no means to help us?’

“I have in the main kept down all family jealousies and the boys often talk of coming back [to Utah] and going to school, but the lack of means does not permit. I also talk of making a visit, but the cost is so much and would burden you, I have almost forgotten the thought and at times my spirit is bowed in sorrow, fearing that my life will pass away and leave a helpless, lovely family to be laughed at because of poverty....

“[Lafayette] has a family and hard times to get along, but he never has nor never will, labor as I have done, neither should he, or anyone else. I have laid the foundation for you all. Build thereon and let not my house be divided.”

From your father, L.H. Hatch

written at 2 A.M.[364]

Despite hardship and defeats, leaving the Arizona country he had been ask by his church leaders to help settle, never was an option for this wiry, determined, humble man of fifty-five years.

In July, 1881 a letter to son Hezekiah from Lorenzo gives further insight into the Hatch family affairs. Lorenzo asks that Hezekiah forward bills for all cash paid on his orders including “John’s clothes.” Earlier in the year twenty-one-year-old John Hatch, oldest son of Lorenzo and Alice, wrote to his brother Hezekiah, saying that in the three years in Arizona he had been unable to find a suit of clothes to his liking. He ask Hezekiah to send a “suit...brown or something like father’s, and a nice pair of fine boots”. John assured his brother he would send the money for these clothes as soon as possible.[365]

Hezekiah evidently granted John’s request, because Lorenzo asks the bill for the clothes be sent to him, as John works for him on the farm and asks no pay.

A Father’s Pride

In a July, 1881 letter to Hezekiah, Lorenzo, not without some fatherly pride and pique, tells of his Arizona children:

“...Thomas [twenty-year-old son of Catherine] has disposed of eight acres of his land and will sell the rest for $100. I should purchase it, but cannot. He puts no value on it because of former disappointments [of] loss by stock, fence and further expenses. I believe he intends to operate by trade. He has three fine mares and one colt, two good horse wagons and harnesses.... He leads out on all matters independent of council.... I believe he is honest and prayerful.

“The three oldest [John, Willard and Ezra, sons of Alice] and Jeremiah [Alice] were with me at our last conference and were interested in religious matters. [Heber Albert, fourteen-year-old son of Alice] has more of a tack for oversight of all matters than either of the [other] boys and perhaps will be the leading power of this department of the family.

“[Fifteen-year-old] Jeremiah [Alice] will be about my size in two years. He can ...talk loud, but he has to exert himself to do so. He has suffered from cold on his lungs till he cannot talk. Speaks in a very low style, or whisper.

“[Eleven-year-old] Nettie [Alice], looks much like Clarey [Sylvia’s daughter]. [Fourteen-year-old] Adeline [Catherine], is growing tall but very spare. I fear consumption.

“[Eighteen-year-old] Ezey, [Alice], looks much like myself and [ten-year-old] Chloe, [Catherine] like Celia. Little [seven-year-old] May has every mark of a lady. Truly a lovely child, rather nervous and fretful and requires and gets much attention. Hard to put off.

“[Three-year-old], Little Wilford [Catherine], of course the pride of all.

In concluding his letter to Hezekiah in Logan, Lorenzo speaks of his wife Alice, commending her for her fine cooking and housekeeping, and then says,

“I believe she could do much more with the boys if she chose, but she is the mother of a hardy race of careless boys and if any of them make a mark in society, it will be self made, as they take no store in others [words]. This is a dark picture, but may yet be bright.”[366]

In 1880 the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad began laying track into Arizona Territory from Albuquerque and many Mormon men found the work to be a way of making much needed cash. Several of Lorenzo’s older sons worked at grading and laying track. Others worked hauling freight for the Army at Ft. Apache, eighty miles from the railhead. In November, Lorenzo mentions that “Thomas came home from [Fort] Apache where he had been freighting,” and “John came down from Taylor and went to Holbrook to work [on the railroad] after losing six weeks hunting oxen and horses,” and “took Hyrum to Holbrook to work on the railroad.”[367]

Father Hatch fretted about his boys who were coming to manhood in the wilds of Arizona. Though not yet “broke to the saddle,” these young men with strong backs and keen minds, were a blessing to Lorenzo as he juggled his responsibilities of providing for two large families while traveling and giving his best to build the Kingdom of God in this frontier country. Though at times exasperated with the ‘boys’, Lorenzo hoped for the best. “Sometimes I am pleased, and at other times would gladly dispense with the whole crowd, but the boys are called by the people as the best kind and I think I will bear with them and trust in God....”[368]

Lorenzo labored in many directions during the year of 1881. His concerns were irrigation for crops at both Woodruff and Taylor, building the dam at Woodruff, planting his farms to beans, corn, cane and barley, repairing wagons, building necessary items in his woodshop, and going “to the forest” for fencing.

On April 23rd Lorenzo filed homestead intentions on his Taylor farm.[369] John declared, “Father thinks it [the farm] is the best in the world, but I can’t say that I think the same.”[370]

The predominate threads in the tapestry of Lorenzo’s life, were the unending duties as a church leader. He attended meetings at Taylor, Snowflake or Woodruff and traveled more hard miles for stake meetings. He mentions meeting in council with Erastus Snow and tells of entertaining in his Woodruff home, saying, “We had as our guests for dinner, President E. Snow, B. Young [Jr.], and J.N. Smith, with their ladies.”

Early in August of this year a letter from C.E. Cooley, U.S. Marshall at Fort Apache,[371] came to the Eastern Arizona Presidency informing them of a serious outbreak of the Apache Indians. Marshall Cooley reported the troops at the Fort would not move beyond their present lines, thus leaving the nearby settlements without troop protection.

President Jesse N. Smith was in Brigham City, on the Little Colorado, where he and his wife, Emma, had opened a boarding house for the railroad builders. Summer rains were plentiful and flooding on the Little Colorado made his return to Snowflake impossible. The responsibility of advising the Saints on this Indian matter fell to Lorenzo. Remembering his past experiences with the Indians in Idaho, Lorenzo counseled the scattered Saints to come in and secure themselves from any attack that might occur.[372] On October 2nd he traveled the twenty-five miles to Whipple (Adair) and gave direction for building a fort two miles below the Adair place at Reidhead (Lone Pine).

In this uneasy atmosphere, the stake presidency traveled, in December, through the villages to the south towards Fort Apache. Meetings were held at Brother Staley’s in Show Low and at Brother Follett’s on Corduroy Creek. The men then concluded to go on to Camp (Fort) Apache and visit with the officers there to better ascertain what the dangers of the Indian outbreak were to the Saints. General Carr, the commandant at Fort Apache greeted them warmly and “after a lively debate on the subject of plural marriage, he promised to send warning of any [further] threatened outbreak of the Indians.”[373] The men were well pleased with their visit. The return trip home was by way of Forestdale, where the settlers were counseled to fully satisfy the Indians for their land, treat them kindly and deal honestly with them.

On a more positive note, Lorenzo records that on December 26th he received from Brother B. Young [Jr.], $100.00 sent from Utah by Hezekiah Hatch. On this day he also wrote a letter to his son Lafayette and paid $35.00 to Bishop John H. Standifird which he had borrowed and $25.00 to William J. Flake for wheat. He “settled with E. Whipple and William Solomon, wrote a letter to President Cannon and worked at sash and bedsteads.” So ended 1881.

CHAPTER 9

He That Will Have A Crown

The year 1882 in the Little Colorado country of Arizona Territory began with a deceptive calmness for Lorenzo Hill Hatch. The usual comings and goings of a busy pioneer were recorded in his journal along with a few upsets such as losing an ox wagon by theft and the drowning of a good team when son Ezra drove a load of rock onto the Taylor dam during construction. “Old Nance fell down and pulled King into the water with her. Both were drowned [and] thus I found myself out a good team worth $300.00.”[374]

His concerns for the growing sons continued. Thomas, now twenty-years-old, was “in the southern part of this territory or in California freighting...fear he will be a rough man. He is good to his Mother and Hyrum and the children [but] I am very anxious about him. My nephews ruined Thomas while I was in Utah.[375] I greatly fear to leave for any length of time.”[376] Lorenzo’s exact concern for Thomas is unknown.

Not one to let an opportunity for economic gain slip by, Lorenzo, with his usual Yankee ingenuity, made “a broom machine to work up my broom corn.” He was training his son Jeremiah to work in the woodshop with him and in January reported preparations to “Put up a blacksmith shop in town [Taylor].”[377]

With words that come as near to complaint about his mission call to Arizona as Lorenzo was known to utter, he wrote,

“...this is a very hard mission for me as I came here on the borrow and have not yet got paid up. Interests divided between Woodruff and Taylor keeps me on the move. I work more hours than any man in Arizona and travel more miles after dark than any four men in Arizona Territory. Loafers, loungers and spongers are great friends to my boys and my table feeds many a sponge whilst the small ones are ragged or barefoot. I never could turn men out doors as I ought, or collect outstanding debts. ...[but] I like the country and the people. He that will have a crown must labor diligently and be full of self denial.”[378]

The following month Lorenzo wrote to his son Hezekiah with instructions and concerns for the sale of his share in the grist mill in Franklin. He was anxious that this sale be settled. His opinion of his unruly wild Arizona sons at that time was, “As far as faith in God is concerned, I don’t think there is one of the boys that care a fig.”[379]

At the semi-annual conference of the church in Salt Lake, which Lorenzo was unable to attend, President John Taylor warned the Saints that “a storm” was coming that would soon break in fury over them. The brethren in Salt Lake were feeling pressure from the U.S. Marshalls and other anti-polygamists. They struggled to obey the command from God, as they saw it, to live “The Principle” of polygamy, which was in contradiction to the laws of the land.

Apache Indian Threat

By the end of May, Indian problems beset the Saints along the Little Colorado settlements. A group of five Indians “fired some fourteen shots at Merlin Plumb as he was hunting oxen on Silver Creek two or three miles above Shumway’s Mill.” Plum escaped and sent word to Taylor to Lorenzo, who notified President Jesse N. Smith at Snowflake.

Nathan B. Robinson, one of the settlers at Reidhead on Show Low Creek was shot and killed that same day when he came upon the Indians butchering one of his cows. His body was sunk in a pool in the creek. The band of Indians then visited a lumber mill at Snowflake Camp, (Pinedale), with hostile intent, but all who were there ran to the Mortensen’s home and forted up. The Indians cut up some harness and destroyed other property, but none of the Saints were harmed.

Under directions of the Stake Presidency and Bishop J.H. Standifird of Taylor Ward, arrangements to herd the animals and keep a night guard against surprise attack were organized. No further lives were lost, but the Saints did not rest easy, as some had settled at Forestdale, eight miles west of Show Low, on unsurveyed land the Indians claimed as their reservation. On May 25th, a meeting was held by the Stake Presidency and instructions given that the “brethren’s hearts should be softened towards them [the Indians] or the peace we had looked for would vanish away.”[380]

Hyrum Shot

Indian problems were forgotten by Lorenzo when on Saturday, June 25th, he recorded in his journal, “One of the most exciting times in our history.” This in reference to the shooting of his own son, Hyrum, who was a sometime-cowboy and good friend of the Greer family who owned a ranch near Hunt, Arizona, on the road to St. Johns.

“The Mexican people of St. Johns, after building a bull ring and importing a matador from Mexico, were set to stage a bullfight as part of their annual San Juan Day celebration. The Greer cowboys from Hunt Valley were interested in this unusual event and rode in for the celebration.” Recent problems between the Mexicans and the Greers made for a tense situation, and the cowboys were not too welcome in old St. Johns.

“A Mexican deputy demanded the cowboys leave their guns with him for the duration of the festivities. Noting this request had not been made of others in town, the Greers considered it an insult and ignored the demand. A large group of well armed citizens, who had not been required to check their guns, went after the Greers. In the shooting that followed, eight cowboys escaped in a running gun battle. The remaining four were trapped in a partially completed building.” Amid a blaze of gunfire Jim Vaughn, one of the Greer men, was killed while Harris Greer and Hyrum Hatch were wounded.[381] Lorenzo’s friend, Nathan Tenney, was gunned down while trying to negotiate peace between the two factions.

Lorenzo recorded, “Tuesday I arrived at St. Johns. Found Hyrum at Gilbert Greer’s. He was quite feeble. I gave bond for $500.00. The three Greer boys were bailed out at $2000.00, all to appear for trial at St. Johns.” There was concern for the lives of the cowboys and they all went back to the Greer Ranch, taking Hyrum with them. Lorenzo said, “I stayed and held meeting and comforted the Saints.”

“Monday I left for Woodruff.[382] Met Thomas coming with others to guard the Greer Ranch. He returned with me [to Woodruff]. I took Catherine, [Hyrum’s Mother], little May and little Wilford and started for Greers [ranch]. Camped Tuesday night.”[383]

Little May told, years later, of the fervent prayers offered by Lorenzo and Catherine during that long, dusty, rough ride from Woodruff to the Greer Ranch. The words she heard over and over were “Hyrum shot, Hyrum shot, Dear Lord, please spare his life.” Upon arriving at the ranch “Catherine met her son Hyrum and a scene that cannot well be described was witnessed. That of deep sympathy and wailing of the heart of a fond mother for her wounded son cannot be described.” Of his own emotions, Lorenzo only says, “I suffered much in my feelings.” [384]

Adeline, a daughter of Lorenzo and Catherine, was also attending the festivities in St. Johns as the date of one of the Greer boys. Hyrum’s date was one of the Greer girls, Oasis. After the shooting these two girls tended the wounded, keeping cold water from the spring running through the wound in Hyrum’s shoulder all the long night. The water acted as an ice pack and cleansed the wound while stopping any excessive bleeding.[385]

Catherine stayed at the Greer Ranch with Hyrum for at least two weeks, and on July 10th Lorenzo visited them and found Hyrum “doing well as could be expected.” By July 13th Hyrum was able to appear in court with the Greer boys where they all plead not guilty. The case was continued until next term.

This did not end the problems between the Greer family and the Mexicans of St. Johns. In December, 1883 Lorenzo wrote to his son Hezekiah in Logan, saying “The Mexicans are after the Greers. I fear that they will yet kill them all off. I may send Hyrum to Utah....”[386] Not until October 1885, was the case settled. Lorenzo recorded at that time, “...Hyrum delivered from his enemies.”

The remainder of the summer, 1882, found Lorenzo dealing with church and farm matters, in that order. He gave patriarchal blessings, and with Joseph W. Smith, a son of President Jesse N. Smith, visited the Saints at Forestdale with admonitions for them to “leave the place for the Indians whether it is on the reservation or not.” He called a vote to see who would obey counsel and only a few hands were raised. The brethren did not receive the counsel as a unit, quite a number feeling to demur against it.[387] Though a few of the Forestdale settlers were reluctant and slow to give up their homes and fields, all did move, some to Show Low or Snowflake, and others to the Gila Valley in southern Arizona.

Lorenzo received the molasses mill from his sons in Idaho, for he says “I brought my molasses mill up [to Taylor] from Snowflake. Made a boiler for the molasses...[on September 5], We made molasses for the boys to take haying.” On September 17th Lorenzo reports having worked all week making molasses.

News of the death of a three-month-old grandson in Idaho, the son of Lafayette, was received in a letter from Lorenzo and Sylvia’s oldest daughter Clarissa, “Clarey”, as her father called her. With sadness Lorenzo noted the child had been sick nine days. A grandson Lorenzo never saw.

By the end of September, the harvest began and the Hatch boys were busy. Willard cut hay while John and Thomas loaded wagons with fruit to sell to the troops at Camp Apache.

Lorenzo went to stake conference at Snowflake where he spoke and listened to “some excellent instruction” from Lot Smith, (still President of the Little Colorado Stake). After conference he gave patriarchal blessings to the widow of Nathan Robinson and to Joseph Millett.

Meetings lasted through Monday and upon returning to his Taylor farm, an exasperated Lorenzo found “a number of horses and cattle in my corn. I have worked early and late all year bringing my crops up and yet each morning loose stock gets in. I have been greatly injured by this class of destroyers. I was four days at conference and am to start on October 9th for the Gila Valley. This destruction has made me much hard labor and extra care.”[388]

Travel To Gila Valley

Despite problems at the farm, Lorenzo prepared for his journey to the far reaches of Eastern Arizona Stake. Boundaries of this stake extended from Moenkopi near present day Tuba City to Smithville, (later called Pima), on the Gila River, a rectangle over 250 miles long and 150 miles wide.[389]

On Monday, October 9th, “S.D. Rogers, Jacob Hamblin and I loaded in our outfit at my house and Martin Mills hitched in his horse and we [started for the Gila Valley]”[390] Others in this party of travelers included President Jesse N. Smith, John Hunt and two women, Annie Hunt and Mary Rogers. These folks were officers in the various auxiliaries of the stake organization and made the trip to encourage and instruct the fledgling wards on the outer fringes of the stake.

In horse-powered, iron-tired wagons and buggies, the journey was slow and at times the road was treacherous. However, nothing appeared that these travel-wise Saints could not handle. Note is made of an encounter with a drunken soldier and assisting another group whose baggage wagon had lost a tire. Travel was by way of Forestdale, Fort Apache, Black River, descending the Mogollon Rim to Camp Hentig on Ash Creek. Arriving in the Gila Valley, the group encouraged the church members at Fort Thomas and nearby settlements of Maxey, Curtis, and Smithville. After visiting Moses Cluff [391] on his ranch on the “south side of the valley in the shadow of the Graham Mountains, where he raises sorghum cane of superior quality,” the stake officers moved on to Safford and Solomonville.

Crossing the Gila River on their return trip, they met heavy ox trains hauling coke from the Southern Pacific Railroad to the mining town of Clifton. In “the middle Gila Valley” they found many ranches and came upon a stone by the roadside marking the boundary line between Arizona and New Mexico Territories. “Met some fourteen-mule teams loaded with timbers.... Every traveler we saw carried a rifle to defend himself against Indians and cowboys, the latter rather the worst.”[392] This border country between New Mexico and Arizona was a favorite place for some of the “hard cases” who found it convenient to shuffle between the two states, depending upon which sheriff held a warrant for their arrest.

Traveling north the company visited at Pleasanton, New Mexico where they organized a Ward and it was “deemed advisable that Elder Jacob Hamblin remove to this place and...preach the gospel in the regions roundabout.” After holding meetings at Bush Valley (Luna), Nutrioso, Round Valley, St. Johns and Erastus (Concho), the travelers arrived back at their homes having traveled 510 bone jarring miles.[393]

By January 1, 1883 Lorenzo was preparing to leave his Taylor farm for Woodruff and then to travel north to Cache Valley. This would be the first visit to his family in Idaho and Utah since the winter of 1877. He did not travel by railroad, which was a new mode of travel in this part of the country, but took the old, familiar wagon road.[394]

On March 25th, he was in Franklin, Idaho where he wrote to son, Hezekiah, in Logan. This letter is further discussion of selling his share in the grist mill at Franklin. On May 12th he wrote again to Hezekiah from Franklin asking that a letter of encouragement be sent to (son) Ezra, and a twenty dollar check to Alice in Taylor. Lorenzo says, “I will return it when [son] Lafayette collects the money of Cardon.”

From a June 2nd letter to Hezekiah we get a better idea of how Lorenzo was spending his time in Franklin.

“I paid $15.00 to the painter, [he was having Sylvia’s house painted], and am to pay $10.00 more this fall. I let [Lafayette] have $80.00 on your account to enter land. I am owing $20.00 to Buckley’s boy for work [and] paid Lowe $25.00 for work. I got 1500 shingles of Lowe to cover the pig pen. Will get till fall to pay for them. Have not yet settled with the Co-op.[395]

“...the crops look well. If you can furnish the wire I will fence in the cane lots and the Hanson land...I am hauling manure on to both places...I am satisfied if things are looked after there could be a little income from one of the best places in Franklin.

“I shall do all I can whilst I stay to forward the interest of the place and then you must do the best you can to preserve the property. I would like your mother [Sylvia] to have a good living and feel independent under proper restrictions. Whilst Grandmother lives things will go hard for me and you.[396] [Lafayette] talks of renting the farm land and grass land.”

Lorenzo’s eldest son, Lafayette, who was the caretaker of the Hatch holdings in Franklin, evidently did not feel as Lorenzo did, that the farm was “one of the best places in Franklin.”

As June drew to a close, Lorenzo began preparing a will. How could he divide his holdings fairly among his many sons and daughters? His wishes were that all claims by Hezekiah and the other sons be allowed before the girls received the amounts specified in his memorandum of June 16th, (which we do not have). He felt the girls would be cared for by their husbands.

Hezekiah and Lafayette were to be administrators for the Idaho estate and in Arizona, John and Willard Hatch of Taylor and Levi Savage (son-in-law) and Thomas Hatch of Woodruff were to administer those holdings. Rather as an afterthought, Lorenzo tells Hezekiah to add Jesse N. Smith’s name as an administrator for the two Arizona places. The faithfulness, patience and steadfastness of Hezekiah are acknowledged when Lorenzo says, “I want in this matter to do better by you than any other person, and when I come again I want to do as I have done [before], have a house, with you cooperating for the good of all of us. I am much exercised in my mind on these matters.”

Other worries needing Lorenzo’s attention were the fact that Sylvia, after the death of her mother, Clarissa Eastman, on June 22nd, declared she wanted the big house in Franklin sold and a smaller place built for her. Lorenzo put forth the idea that, “if all things are favorable, she will return with me [to Arizona], when I come again [to Idaho]”[397]

Not many of Lorenzo’s affairs were settled when he returned to Arizona in July. However, he did sell some of his Franklin land, for he told Hezekiah to “ask [Lafayette] if he has received the pay for the land where the grave yard is situated. He will have to be paymaster,” meaning his oldest son would do the collecting of payments. Sale of the grist mill was still in limbo, with Lorenzo and Mr. Horwath not able to agree on terms.[398]

By July 7th, Lorenzo was in Hyde Park, Utah and asked Hezekiah to “get me two straps for [the] trunk the length of the string I enclose, and two straps for buckling up quilts. I shall start on the 11:30 train.” This was his first trip to Arizona by any means excepting the ox or mule drawn wagon. On this journey by train, we have what may be one of the first incidents of “lost luggage” by public carrier. Lorenzo’s clothes and blankets were lost enroute to Arizona, and finally in November he had to “get new clothing to stand the cold, as I have not heard from my clothing nor got the pay.”

A bit of good news from the railroad though, “I have been employed by Brother Spence to give half fare rates from here to Ogden. I can help the people and it will help me some.” His job was to encourage folks to travel by train by offering them half fare rates. What his compensation was for this service is not known, but during the next few years he often uses stationery with letterhead reading:

Office of L.H. Hatch

Agent for Rail Roads (sic) In behalf of Latter Day Saints

Requiring Transportation

By July 30th Lorenzo was back in Arizona after being in the “north country” for six months. He reported another washout of the Woodruff Dam from summer rains, but not to be discouraged, he ordered “quite a quantity of fruit trees to be delivered in November.” He asked son Hezekiah to see if Brother Robinson, of Franklin, could raise the amount due on his note to Lorenzo a few days earlier than it called for. Lack of cash was always a problem, and at this time Gilbert Greer made a demand for $114.00 for lawyers fees in behalf of Hyrum. Lorenzo says, “If T. Smart [son-in-law] can sell the horse he gave me I will devote it to Hyrum.”

Despite setbacks and struggles, life in Arizona Territory continued and on Friday the 14^th, Lorenzo baptized his eight-year-old daughter, Asche May, in the red, muddy waters of Little Colorado River. Other family events were taking shape as son Thomas and Viola Pearce were planning to travel to St. George, Utah to be married. Lorenzo reports, “He [Thomas] is in good shape for the trip. The young lady is as good as he, I trust.”

Also on this journey to St. George was Levi Mather Savage who had, in 1879, married Lorenzo and Catherine’s daughter Lydia Lenora. Now Savage was taking another of their daughters, Adeline, to St. George to become his second wife. Lorenzo thought highly of Brother Savage and said he would rather see his daughters marry into polygamy with one good man, than to marry someone who did not live gospel standards.

Lorenzo still did not have his will drawn to his satisfaction, and though he does not indicate any illness, may have been feeling the weight of his fifty-eight years. He wrote to Hezekiah saying, “I feel very grateful for your many kindnesses in days past and should anything happen to me I want you secured in some way. In the absence of a will I authorize you to act as my executor. I believe all parties will be pleased with your moves as I confide in you as an honest man.”[399]

The fall of 1883 brought an abundant harvest to the Little Colorado Valley, and Lorenzo reports having raised his first crop of wheat since settling at Woodruff in 1878. He also reported the first cane raised in Woodruff. He made twenty gallons of molasses. This must have been only from his Woodruff cane, as he later took one hundred gallons of molasses to St. Johns from his Taylor farm.

In November Heber J. Grant and Brigham Young, Jr. visited in Eastern Arizona Stake. Lorenzo traveled with them to Forestdale, Amity, Nutrioso, Alpine and Luna Valley. Their travels in behalf of the Church took Lorenzo away from home for three weeks.[400]

December may have been an interesting month in Taylor, as Lorenzo says, “On Tuesday the 25^th the boys went on a spree.” Just what this consisted of is left to the imagination, but it seems his wild unruly Arizona sons were not yet tamed.

Silver City, New Mexico

By December 20th Lorenzo was involved in plans for a trip to Silver City, New Mexico to be taken after the first of the year. “A hall has been opened in Silver City and [we have received] letters from that infidel city for Mormon missionaries.”

The journey to Silver City was taken by way of Omer and Amity (Round Valley), then to Pleasanton, New Mexico where Jacob Hamblin joined them. Their arrival in Silver City on January 16th caused considerable negative comment from the town inhabitants. In observing the town, the missionaries noted the “noble court house, some churches and several school houses all of brick,” which they felt attested to the wealth and public spirit of the people. President Smith noted that a massive jail was the prominent feature. Feeling the hostility of the city, President Smith and Brother Hatch withdrew to the mountains for prayer, “notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather.”

Several meetings were held and Brother Hatch spoke on the divinity of the Savior’s mission and on the origin of Mormonism. A full house was in attendance when President Smith spoke on the subject of plural marriage as believed in and practiced by the Latter-day Saints. Jacob Hamblin spoke on the Mountain Meadows Massacre at the request of the people. President Smith declared that Brother Hamblin handled the subject in a “...masterly manner, showing that the leaders of our church had no connection with it whatever.”[401]

The editor of the daily paper in Silver City recommended “hooting” the missionaries out of town and the next evening recommended “extermination.” The speakers also learned that eggs had been prepared to throw at them while speaking, but Lorenzo says, “all things were overruled for our safety and we thanked the Lord. We bore our testimonies of the latter day work and felt that we had done some good.”[402] So began the year 1884. For the Mormon settlers of the Little Colorado, events would worsen.

Sunday, February 10,1884,“I got a letter from [Hezekiah] Hatch of nine pages, pertaining to family affairs.”

Saturday, February 16th, “I labored as best I could to keep my head above. It is real cold. I am laboring in the ministry much of the time and drawing money from the north to keep soul and body together and to keep my little ones feet from the ground. Hezekiah E. Hatch has been the “Joseph” thus far to all of us and may he be crowned with blessings from above as I cannot aid him temporally.

“I have blessed the sons and daughters of my loins and plead with many tears for their preservation in order that they might become lively branches in the great latter day work.”

Lorenzo’s concern for his family was sincere and deep, though he was beginning to realize each generation had their own desert to cross.

Weariness lay upon Lorenzo like a blight. He was feeling the weight of his burdens as he struggled to support three households and fulfill obligations as a missionary and church authority. This tough country took more energy to survive in than many could muster.

Religious beliefs had a daily impact on the thoughts and actions of this sensitive, caring and sometimes sentimental man. Though small of stature and gray with years, Lorenzo still possessed the courage and grit that made him a successful colonizer.

CHAPTER 10

Turmoil And Upheaval

Discord and division between Mormons and Gentiles, (non-Mormons), came to the Little Colorado settlements during a time of general lawlessness in the area.

Apache County, Arizona Territory, which included the Mormon settlements along the Little Colorado and Silver Creek, was created in 1879 with Snowflake as the county seat for the first year. A special election held in June, 1879 found the seat location hotly contested between Springerville and St. Johns. The Mormons backed Springerville, but St. Johns won the title of county seat, and also became known as the home of a political “ring” which, it was said, used the practice of ballot box stuffing and fraudulent counting to gain their advantage.

Men in the new county seat of St. Johns were antagonistic towards the Mormons, fearing they might vote as a block in future elections, and thus cause the “ring” to lose power in county government. Attempts were made to discourage further Mormon settlement along the Little Colorado, and schemes were suggested to rid the country of Mormons who were already living there. Mormons themselves fanned the fires of this controversy with predictions of total Mormon domination of Apache County. Sermons were preached in which church leaders looked for the downfall of the United States and the rise of the Mormon kingdom. This attitude did nothing to bring peace to the country.[403]

Apache County Politics

In 1884 the Apache Chief, an anti-Mormon press, was established in St. Johns. Readers were warned of “The danger of a treasonable, lecherous, bigoted priesthood headquartered in a distant place, [Salt Lake], taking over and quashing all vestiges of home rule.”[404]

“Issues that divided Mormons and Gentiles in Apache County were almost entirely local, and they became tense in the years prior to 1884. ...the polygamy question became increasingly important until by late 1884 it dominated the scene.”[405]

In 1882 the Edmunds Law was approved by congress. It provided punishment for both polygamy and unlawful cohabitation and made it impossible for anyone practicing polygamy to perform jury duty. However, children born of polygamist parents before January 1, 1883 were legitimate. A renewal of the national attack upon polygamy added to the boldness of the anti-Mormons of Apache County.

In the 1884 elections Mormons and Holbrook politicians united to wrest the county seat from St. Johns and locate it in Holbrook. In retaliation the St. Johns “ring” instigated what was known as the Apache County Polygamy Raid in the fall of that year.

George McCarter, a U.S. Court Commissioner and editor of the Apache Chief newspaper, was the factor who took Miles Romney, David Udall and Joseph Crosby, Mormon leaders from St. Johns, to court not on charges of polygamy, but on charges of perjury in a land case. Other prominent church men, including Ammon M. Tenney and William J. Flake of Snowflake were indicted on charges of polygamy and unlawful cohabitation. Flake, Romney, Udall and Tenney were all convicted and served time in prison.

The trials, held in Federal Court in Prescott were harrowing experiences for most Mormons. The Little Colorado communities were thrown into complete disarray. Lorenzo reports from Woodruff, “Three of the brethren from St. Johns who were returning to their families in Utah worked a few days on the dam whilst waiting to get passes on the railroad. ...also Brother White [and his family] who had backed out of his mission to St. Johns.”

Lorenzo’s first mention of the political situation came in May, 1884. “At four P.M. we met at the bishops and named the rioters of St. Johns and presented them to the Lord, hoping and feeling that we would be heard and that these wicked men would be brought to naught.”[406]

Pressure was on polygamous church authorities in Utah also. Some who took refuge among the Saints of Arizona were John W. and Brigham Young, Jr., Heber J. Grant, Francis M. Lyman, Moses Thatcher, Erastus Snow and Wilford Woodruff.

On June 8, 1884 a meeting at Woodruff included President Lot Smith, Apostles Brigham Young, Jr. and Francis Lyman, President Jesse N. Smith and Lorenzo H. Hatch. “We had five of the Holbrook politicians at our meeting. We held a political caucus about the affairs of the county and laid some plans for breaking up the St. Johns Ring.”[407]

Lorenzo’s journal gives no indication he felt threatened by this purge. He continued efforts to support his family and encourage the Saints in Eastern Arizona Stake. In January, soon after his return from Silver City, he wrote to his son Hezekiah, asking him to “press the matter of a settlement for the land [grave yard tract] at Franklin.” He also wanted to know, “what does Horwath want to do about the mill?” In April he wrote to Hezekiah with more instructions and suggestions about matters in Franklin and then said, “You will see that if one scheme fails that the other may prove successful.”

In May and June Lorenzo spent three weeks traveling throughout the stake with apostles Brigham Young, Jr. and Francis Lyman, among others. During this time his boys put in a good crop at the Taylor farm. On July 7th he reported “working fourteen hours a day for four weeks at Woodruff [dam].” He wrote to his son, Lafayette, at Franklin asking if he had sold the oats and had he received the pay for the grave yard land. Lafayette, still bishop of Franklin, had problems of his own, for he had entered into polygamy in 1883, and was feeling the wrath of Idaho anti-Mormons.

The remains of the summer and fall of 1884 found Lorenzo doing what the day brought, offering the dedicatory prayer for the new brick Arizona Cooperative Mercantile Institute store, writing letters to his Utah family, and to the land office in Prescott, working on the Woodruff and Taylor dams, repairing the roof of his house, hoeing and watering his garden, making a wagon tongue, and above all, attending to church responsibilities.

A chapter in the continuing saga of the Saints struggle with the Little Colorado river is recorded in some detail under the date of July 24, 1884. Lorenzo left Taylor for Woodruff with a wagon load of posts pulled by oxen:

“The road was muddy. I continued my march in the dark for twelve miles when I arrived at the [Little Colorado] River. It was 2 A.M. and I found the stream swollen to a wonderful height. [I was] cold and sleepy. The river was twelve feet deep and I had to unload my posts and turn back to the six mile crossing [on Silver Creek]. One of my oxen laid down, being sick, and I had to stop awhile. Got breakfast at the crossing. Left my wagon there, put my garden stuff on the yoke and crossed the Silver Creek [on the oxen]. With great difficulty I got up the bluff by unyoking the oxen. Again yoked the oxen and adjusted my pack, got onto the near ox and started down to Woodruff on the west side of the river. [Still on the wrong side of the Little Colorado from Woodruff].

“It was a dreary, hot day...I arrived at the dam about noon and found the flood had done its terrible work. The middle of the dam had given way and the falling of the water had undermined the work and again the water found the bottom of the stream bed.

“Willard, Hyrum and Clarence Owens came over with the boat and took me...safely over. Great sorrow prevailed in the town, yet dancing, songs, etc., was kept up till a late hour, [it was the 24^th of July celebration]. Visited the dam. Much fault is being found with the work. We are all the sufferers.”

On July 30th Lorenzo wrote of the dam disaster to Hezekiah and remarked that a “large brick store” (ACMI) was to be built in Woodruff. Having received no word from his son, the Bishop of Franklin, Lorenzo says, “Tell Lafayette to remit some money for the oats and if he has sold or collected from Robinson on the land at the depot in which Brother Thatcher was interested, I should have it to aid me.”

At this time Lorenzo makes one of his few mentions of poor health. “I am worked nearly down at the present...have been confined to the house for two days. I fear that I am of but little use. I have used the shovel too much which has brought on the piles.”

Business As Usual

On September 13th a stake conference was held in Snowflake where bishops from each ward gave reports. Bishop Hunt of Snowflake: (four used tobacco in his ward), Meadow Ward: (oats and barley good, wheat and corn poor, money on hand for offerings), Brother Udall of St. Johns: (the mill is up to the square), Bishop Johnson of Erastus Ward: (fruit can be grown... have five men and nine families), Taylor Ward: (quite a number who use tobacco and rye on hand for sale to sow). President Smith gave counsel for parties to mind their own business. Number of Saints in stake, 2,625.[408]

In a letter from Hezekiah, Lorenzo learned there were rumors in Utah that he had been released from his mission in Arizona. On September 7th, he told his son, “I was surprised to hear that I was released. This is the first I have heard about the matter and conclude it is rumor. I have never sought a release and never shall. If the authorities wish me elsewhere they will have to so notify me. If persecution continues in this county I may be glad to come to my old home. [However], I have no prospects for these young men [Arizona sons] in Franklin. Still I believe most of them would like to return.”

It had become a requirement of the church leaders for at least one member of each stake presidency to attend semi-annual conferences held each year at Salt Lake. On September 25th Lorenzo traveled by train from Holbrook in the company of President J.N. Smith, Erastus Snow, John Morgan, Joseph James and two sisters, for the October conference of 1884. He wrote ahead to his son Hezekiah asking that his (Lorenzo’s) certificates of stock in the store (ZCMI) be ready for him, as he felt he would have to “draw it out.”

He not only attended conference, but visited his family in Franklin and attended the newly dedicated Logan Temple. On October 16th, Lorenzo took Sylvia and her children, Lafayette, Clara, Ruth and Hezekiah to the temple where they were sealed together as a family for time and eternity. On this same day, Hezekiah was married to Georgia Thatcher.[409]

While in Franklin Lorenzo made an agreement with Horwath to sell the grist mill to him (Horwath) for either stock in the store (ZCMI) or $160.00 by the first of July, 1885 and another $160.00 in one year. Hatch, the Yankee Trader said, “I hope he will give the stock as I will then get the dividend and $30.00 besides if he has more than 320 [shares].”[410]

On the return trip to Arizona, his daughter Ruth, (Sylvia’s daughter), accompanied Lorenzo. Ruth had entered into plural marriage with Joel Ricks on 18 January, 1883 as his second wife. This union was apparently unhappy, and short lived.[411]

The Stover Bill and Polygamy

Upon their return to Arizona, the Eastern Arizona Stake Presidency found the attack of anti-polygamists heating up, and U.S. Marshals were expected in the area. Rumors were that a list, naming many who were open to the charge of polygamy, had been “paraded” in law offices throughout the territory.

Arizona Territorial Governor F.A. Trittle had moved to disfranchise not only the polygamists, but anyone believing in the doctrine. Legislator E.S. Stover from Apache County introduced the bill to the Arizona legislature and it easily passed both houses. The Stover Bill seemed to insure defeat for the Mormons. Earlier in this same year the Idaho legislature had enacted a similar law which was challenged, but was ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court.

On December 5th, President Smith was “visited on the ditch, [where he was working], by Brother L.H. Hatch and Bishop John Henry Standifird urging me to take steps to avoid arrest. I received a letter from Lot Smith the same day urging the necessity of a hasty departure. I called the brethren together...and laid the matter before them. They expressed the unanimous opinion that I had better go.”[412]

Bishop John Henry Standifird, of Taylor, recorded that on December 4th he received a letter from William Ellsworth of Show Low to the effect that Bishop Standifird had been indicted for polygamy and unlawful cohabitation by the Federal Grand Jury at Prescott. William Ellsworth also reported that his father, Edmund Ellsworth of Show Low, had been arrested by the U.S. Marshall and taken to Prescott. Three local sheep and cattlemen, Robert and James Scott and a man named Kinder had given testimony against those in the area who they believed were practicing polygamy. Bishop Standifird declared, “I do not propose to go there [Prescott] if I can help myself.”[413]

President Smith sent word on December 6th, to L.H. Hatch at Taylor saying it was “prudent” for Lorenzo to leave the country with him. Plans were for Lorenzo, along with the president, and Bishop Standifird, to leave at once by wagon for Utah. They dare not go by rail, so great was the danger. Lorenzo felt he “would not have performed [the journey] in the cold winter, had not the cruel mob of Apache County commenced a terrible crusade against our people which resulted in the imprisonment of five of our brethren.... Where the end will be I cannot say.”

Once again Lorenzo was fleeing from his established home for the sake of “the principle.”

At three P.M. on December 6, 1884 he left his family at Taylor. Alice and her children were “much affected to part with their head, I being...very indulgent to wife and children. I called [together] the members of [this] family that were present and...committed [them] to the care of the Living God.”[414]

Lorenzo traveled to his Woodruff home where Catherine and her family received the news. Some of the brethren were leaving the country by rail, as Lorenzo took time to “write out passes for fleeing brethren on the railroad.” He also gave instructions to his son Hyrum regarding business matters. The party left Woodruff at ten P.M., arriving in St. Joseph at six A.M. suffering from cold and fatigue. Regardless of the discomfort, it was Sunday, and the men were “carried” to nearby Sunset where they met President Lot Smith. They participated in the meetings as speakers, and witnessed as President Lot arranged matters in the Little Colorado Stake, for he would be joining the fleeing refugees.

Before leaving Sunset at dawn the next morning, Sister Foster gave Lorenzo a pair of mittens and a pair of socks, which he surely needed, as the next weeks brought much misery to the party. Journal entries tell the story, “...dreadful day, snowed all day...many drifts of snow...very difficult to pass through...animals gone [in the night], found them four miles away. At House Rock...found much wet snow, fifteen inches deep...walked most of the day...drove all day in heavy storm and fog...plodded along without any beaten track... extremely cold.”

These hardy, stalwart Mormons may have had their faith shaken a bit for Lorenzo says, “Some serious thoughts passed through our minds as to our persecutions and the cause thereof. But the voice of the Good Spirit said, “Fear not, the kingdom is yours.”[415]

On December 14th, the company arrived at the lower ferry on the Colorado River and were ferried over by Brother D. Brinkerhoff. After a days rest, they again traveled through snow, mud and cold, until on December 21st, reaching the home of Richard A. Robinson at Upper Kanab they paused to repair wagons and rest animals. On December 24th they reached Panguitch, and finally on December 31st, at the railroad station in Juab, Presidents J.N. and Lot Smith, along with Lorenzo found an easier mode of travel.

Lorenzo left the train at Springville and visited with the family of the wife of his youth, Hannah Fuller. “Saw San Fuller...visited with Marthey, his wife, and Mary who were pleased to see me. Sanford came to the station with me and I took the train for Provo.”

While in Provo Lorenzo received a telegram from J. N. Smith requesting him to come to Salt Lake “on the first train.” Arriving in Salt Lake, Lorenzo, along with both Presidents Smith and Brother Fish of Arizona, was invited to dine with church President John Taylor. They discussed the fact that “a party would soon go to Mexico to buy land upon which to build a city of refuge.”

The next week Lorenzo spent visiting his brother Abram who was a prosperous businessman in Nephi, and President of the Wasatch Stake of Zion. Hearing of Lorenzo’s troubles brought on by living “The Principle,” it may have been at this time that Abram made the statement that “it took Wilford Woodruff forty years to obey the Word of Wisdom and it may take me that long to live polygamy.”[416]

Lorenzo also visited old friends in Lehi City, among whom were Charles Karren, brother of his wife, Catherine. Returning to Salt Lake he met with President Cannon “concerning the affairs of the Eastern Arizona Stake and the brethren who had been sent to prison.” Leaving Salt Lake for Logan and Franklin, S.B. Young sent his boy to take Lorenzo to the station, and gave Lorenzo $5.00. His brother Abram and son-in-law Thomas Cutler also each gave him $5.00.[417]

On January 3rd, both Presidents Smith, along with church president John Taylor and several apostles boarded the train to begin their journey to Old Mexico. Why Lorenzo did not join this party, we do not know. During the following months of persecution, he makes no mention of uprooting any of his families to flee to Mexico, as so many of the brethren were doing. It would certainly not have been in character for Lorenzo to abandon any one of his families who had endured so many hardships for the sake of “the principle.” His family was based on mutual love and respect, as well as religious obligations.

On January 7th he arrived in Cache Valley and found Sylvia, “much changed in her appearance and health.” He had seen her less than two months before, so she may have been ill, though he does not say so. He does say that he “was received with joy by my companion, Sylvia.” His oldest son, Lafayette, was in Durham County England on a mission and son-in-law William Daines was in West Virginia. These men had both entered into polygamous relationships. William Daines was married to two of Lorenzo’s daughters, Elizabeth Ann and Chloe Viola.

Lorenzo noted his fifty-ninth birthday, saying, “I feel that my age is telling on me. My sympathies are wrought up to a wonderful degree, so many ties of kindred, sons and daughters, grandchildren and affectionate wives clinging to me for counsel and consolation, I am led to exclaim, “O, God of Jacob, have mercy on thy servants and people.”

Lorenzo busied himself in the next few weeks with repairs around the homes of his various married children and in Sylvia’s home. Joseph Lorin, Alice’s twelve-year-old son who had lived with Sylvia for the past nine years, was a challenge to Lorenzo’s patience as he tried to teach Lorin to use a saw and plane.

Lorenzo was called to speak in various church meetings, and gave thirty-six patriarchal blessings during one week. With his sister Adeline he attended the Logan Temple, doing vicarious work for many of his deceased family.

At General Conference in Salt Lake on April 4th, Lorenzo noted that an epistle was read from President John Taylor and George Q. Cannon who were in hiding to escape arrest at that time. During this conference United States Marshal’s were on the grounds with papers to arrest some of the church authorities, but no arrests were made.

On May 31stLorenzo wrote to his son Hezekiah from Provo, saying, “Tell your mother to have no fear about Catherine. LeGrand Young says that I will be safe in moving either of the women, [Catherine or Alice], to another state or territory. I may be compelled to do this before I can go back to Apache County.”[418] In the next few weeks Lorenzo traveled by train to Albuquerque, where he met Catherine and “my little Wilford,” along with grown sons, Hyrum and Ezra. They traveled by train to Utah.

In late July Lorenzo and Catherine returned to Arizona, but on August 4th Lorenzo received a letter from President Taylor advising him to move one family to Utah. “[it] seems clear that if I wish to keep out of trouble in the least, the family must be divided.”[419]

Lorenzo’s absence from Apache County had not relieved the anti-polygamy pressure. On September 4th he wrote, “I was away from home five days as some of my friends were fearful for my safety. [While away] I done good service by cutting some hay with a scythe [and] put up a wide stack.”[420]

In July a notice was received from Apache County that “all improvements owned or being in possession of Lorenzo Hill Hatch were to be sold for taxes on July 25th. Amount due was $6.90. The results of this notice are not known, but Lorenzo must have met the obligation.

Stake President Jesse N. Smith was in Mexico at this time and Lorenzo notes, “The stake matters are all left to me at the present time. I have been much taxed with public calls.”[421] With apparent turmoil and stress, Lorenzo continued his duties as a missionary and stake officer, even while making plans to safeguard his family and himself. “I find so much to do in leaving the home that is so dear to me. I cannot sell out and will have to leave the place with Thomas.”

Coveville, Utah

As President John Taylor had counseled, one wife would have to be moved out of the Arizona Territory. Lorenzo told Hezekiah, “Alice fears that the boys [her sons] will all forsake her if she goes from her home. She will stay where she is. Catherine and Hyrum will come, or start [for Utah] about the 20^th [of September] with teams. Ruth [Sylvia’s daughter] and I will try and come on the RR so as to reach [there] by October 6th.”

On September 26th Lorenzo wrote, “On the evening of the 24^th I went with Hyrum and his Mother [Catherine] a short distance from Woodruff, with John[422] and five other wagons enroute for Utah.... When I returned to Woodruff and found the houses destitute of the loved ones and myself alone, I was almost overcome.”[423]

By the end of October, Lorenzo was in Utah. He found Catherine staying in Lehi with some of her Karren relatives. Lorenzo, with Catherine and her children, Hyrum, Sarah Ella, Chloe, May and little six-year-old Wilford arranged for a place to live in Coveville, just four miles south of Franklin, but across the Utah state line. He felt that, “Having my family in three territories, I hope to be able to escape the Edmunds Bill and continue my ministry.”[424] Lorenzo was anxious for his children to go to school and to “fit them out with books and shoes.”

He did not hesitate to call on the brethren in Salt Lake in his time of need. In a letter to Bishop William B. Preston, Presiding Bishop of the Church, he wrote,

“Bishop [of Coveville] is very kind to me and will aid as much as he can. ...Brother Monson of Richmond will let me have some lumber for bedsteads, tables, etc.. Bishop Larson [Coveville] will let me have some lumber to fix up chicken coop shades and some hay and grain for the poor team. Please send orders to Richmond [Ward Storehouse] for [Bishop] Monson and Bishop Larson [of Coveville] for hay, grain, lumber and to Bishop Durant of Franklin for merchandise. I have two span of horses to winter and want to get a cow. Bishop Larson will send a grist to mill for me of 25 bushels and I want to get some seed. If weather will permit will put in some winter wheat.” [signed], “From your Brother in tribulation.”[425]

Presiding Bishop Preston granted help from the church storehouses, telling Lorenzo to let him know what was wanted and he would assist him.[426] With this help, and some assistance from various family members, Lorenzo established a household in Coveville for Catherine and her children. Son Hyrum was left at Coveville to look after his mother and take care of the crops Lorenzo had planted there.

By December 12th Lorenzo was in Franklin and wrote to Hezekiah in Logan, “I hope to be on my way to A.T. [Arizona Territory] by the 22^nd of this month. ...I hope I can get your Dear Mother [Sylvia] to go down to see you and go to the temple with me, but I don’t know.” Sylvia, in spite of her evident affection for Lorenzo, did not always do his bidding as readily as Catherine and Alice.

On December 28th, Lorenzo arrived back in Arizona Territory, leaving Catherine in Utah and Sylvia in Idaho.[427]

CHAPTER 11

I Must Go, The Bell Is Tolling

January, February and March, 1886 found Lorenzo in Arizona with Alice. Though he failed to resume journal keeping, we know he resumed his duties as counselor to Stake President Jesse N. Smith. On January 28th he sent a letter to his son Hezekiah on behalf of President Smith and Brother Hulett, Superintendent of the Woodruff ACMI Store, “to learn whether Thatcher Brothers Bank would accommodate this institution [ACMI] with a loan till June 15th, of sixteen hundred dollars.”[428]

In 1884 Lorenzo’s son, Hezekiah, had become a partner in the first formally organized bank in Cache Valley. The primary function of this pioneer enterprise, known as Thatcher Brothers Banking Company, was to lend money to mercantile institutions, milling companies and other small industries. The bank was successful from the start.[429] However, we have no record of the response Lorenzo received upon his request for a loan to the far away ACMI in Arizona.

Lamenting that A & P Railroad declined to give him passes for the year, he told Hezekiah, “I want to come home in April, if I can.” After ten years in Arizona, Lorenzo still considered his home to be in the north country.

Ten of Lorenzo’s twenty-two children were married by this time. Though that left him the responsibility of twelve offspring and three wives, many of the children had reached adulthood and were contributing to the support of the three households. From Arizona, Lorenzo wrote, “Burty [Heber Albert] is going to school; Jeremiah has been laid up all winter with boils, and Willard is of age and does as he pleases...works about the place and I guess he will help put in a crop. Thomas is doing my work on the Woodruff dam, but I shall have to go and help him some I expect. He wants to rent the place [Woodruff].”[430]

On March 3rd Lorenzo wrote a letter to the first presidency of the church: “To my dear Brethren Presidents Taylor and Cannon, including Joseph F. Smith in exile and under bonds. Whilst I feel my littleness to write to you why should I excuse myself whilst I ever supplicate my Heavenly Father and why should I not feel to endeavor to try and comfort my brethren.” Lorenzo related his trials and blessings at having accepted the “plural system” and spoke of President Jesse N. Smith as one of “God’s Noblemen” then continued, “My heart is moved with sympathy for and in behalf of thee and of President Cannon.” After a few words as to the prospects for crops and the condition of the Woodruff Dam, he says, “We all feel for Brother Flake who has been imprisoned and has been forced to pay the bonds of Brother M.P. Romney. I hope he may receive help from some source in Zion as he is unable to carry this financial load.”[431]

In this same letter Lorenzo commented that in efforts to avoid arrest he had “been with team and by rail to and from Utah five times in the past year, and if the Lord will, I hope to start in a few days by rail or team to represent our stake at the April Conference.”

Efforts To Avoid Arrest

Leaving his son, Heber Albert of Woodruff, to transact the business of obtaining passes for the Saints on the A & P Railway, Lorenzo left Woodruff on April 2nd for Utah.[432] By May 14th he was in Coveville with Catherine and her family. He wrote from there saying, “...much excitement prevails over court matters. Indictments for forty-two more of the rebellious Mormons and bench warrants issued. We look for a warm time in Idaho.[433]

In April Lorenzo wrote again to President Taylor from Coveville. This was a report concerning Eastern Arizona Stake of Zion. He stated that the Apache County Ring had been very quiet the past winter and spoke of the good feeling of being able to travel from settlement to settlement speaking to the people without fear of being arrested. Many of the brethren had returned from Mexico to Arizona. He reported that “An English company who claim the railroad land have brought in a vast quantity of stock and the country is overstocked and will perish with poverty.”[434]

In his letter to President Taylor, Lorenzo does not hesitate to speak in behalf of his brethren in Arizona, “I feel a great desire to bring liberty to our brethren who are imprisoned in Detroit. I have talked with Brother Dusenbery and with Apostle Richards. [Dusenbery] feels that by getting a transcript of the trial from Prescott along with a petition sent to the President of the U.S. that he would pardon them. ...it would require some three or four hundred dollars to bear expenses if you feel to instruct Brother Dusenbery in this matter and if there is wisdom in making such a move....”[435]

Lorenzo, in Cache Valley, was busy during the summer months building a barn in Logan for his son Hezekiah, a granary for brother-in-law George Barber and a tithing granary at Franklin and a secretary (desk) for the Young Women of Franklin. He also worked on a tithing office house at Coveville while dickering with several parties over the sale of land in Franklin. Ezra, son of Alice, and Hyrum, son of Catherine, were in the north country with Lorenzo and he mentions they cut hay and “are hauling the little grain that is left from the ravages of stock and grasshoppers.”

In July Lorenzo again wrote to President John Taylor concerning his son Lafayette who had entered into polygamy by taking a second wife in 1883. Lorenzo wrote:

“My son, Bishop [Lafayette] Hatch of Franklin, has requested me to give him counsel as to his return from his mission in England. He has been on that mission two years in October. His family feels unable to provide for his wants. He is a good carpenter and acquainted with the lumber business and can turn his hand to almost any occupation. As he would be hunted in Idaho, he is willing to take a part of his family to Arizona or work on the Manti Temple so he can provide for his family. He will have to be very cautious in the event of his return....”

Lorenzo always felt comfortable writing to the Church President for counsel on family matters, or personal problems of brethren in his stake, and did not hesitate to do so.

On September 19th, Lorenzo wrote: “A great political meeting was held at Franklin Saturday night. Gentiles, Josephites and apostates.... They have full control of the schoolhouse and abuse the builders and the preservers of good order. D.R. Crook Shankis [sic] presiding. A. Stalker howled a fearful howl. Deputy Marshals was introduced as speakers. Ezra and Hyrum [sons] were present.”

At Franklin, on October 23rd, Mormons organized an Independent party, but no member of the new party could vote. The anti-Mormon test oath of 1885 prohibited any member of the Mormon church in Idaho from voting, holding an office or serving on a jury.[436]

News came to Lorenzo and Catherine of the death of a granddaughter in Chihuahua, Mexico. The six-year-old daughter of Nora Hatch Savage was a victim of diphtheria. The grandparents were deeply affected by the news, remembering the little girl as she had been before Levi Savage fled to Mexico with his wives and children.

A letter from Lorenzo to Hezekiah dated November 4, 1886 tells of the arrival at Coveville of Willard Hatch, son of Alice. Willard was preparing to receive his endowments before going on a mission to Kentucky. Willard’s bishop in Taylor, Arizona was a polygamist and at that time had removed himself to Manti, Utah to avoid persecution. This caused some problems for Willard as he tried to obtain a recommend for temple attendance. Lorenzo explained the situation to Hezekiah, saying, “[Willard] asked Bishop Standifird of Manti to forward his recommend to you. He should have sent it to President Taylor for his signature ...and if he had done so it would be at the temple.”

Perhaps Lorenzo was a little testy with Willard’s arrangements, because he was unwell. His hip hurt and he had been bedfast for three days. However, he was up to the challenge of seeing that Willard received his recommend. Lorenzo himself wrote a recommend for Willard and sent it to President Taylor for his signature, so if the one from Arizona Territory did not arrive, there would be no delay in Willard receiving his endowments.[437]

The press of family cares and pressure from U.S. Marshals, plus an ailing, overworked body were telling on Lorenzo. On November 11th, in a note from Franklin, Idaho to Hezekiah in Logan, Utah, Lorenzo wrote, “Can you telegraph each morning whether I am safe to operate at Coveville [so] I can do a little to aid the family. I think I can do a little at the [carpenter’s] bench.... I find a catch, or pain in my side.” He shared his thoughts and plans again with Hezekiah on November 23rd, “I have thought...I would go to Heber [Utah]. I fear that it might be hard on me to go with team this time a year, and I have got a years rent to pay to the Ealkens on the meeting house, but if the Goodwin outfit want me, I better go there or to A.T. [Arizona Territory].”

U.S. Marshal Fred T. Dubois and his deputies hunted through the Idaho communities in the north end of Cache Valley for polygamists, and Marshals Whetstone and Corey plagued southern Cache Valley settlements. There was no rest for those practicing polygamy in this area.[438]

Son Hyrum kept the family supplied with firewood, and in late December Presiding Bishop Preston sent Lorenzo an order for thirty-six dollars on the Bishop’s Storehouse for hay. Some of the hay, Lorenzo planned to sell “to keep the wolf from the door.” He was working on the meetinghouse to pay his house rent in Coveville.

Lorenzo received a letter from President Jesse N. Smith requesting his return to Eastern Arizona Stake. He appealed to Bishop Preston for help with rail fare to Arizona. Bishop Preston evidently suggested that Lorenzo write directly to Church President John Taylor and explain his situation. On December 24th Lorenzo sketched the following letter to President Taylor and sent it to Hezekiah in Logan, asking him to correct and copy it before sending it on to President Taylor.

President Taylor

Dear Brother,

I forward to you a letter from President W.B. Preston. President Jesse N. Smith writes from Snowflake, Apache County Arizona, in which he desires me to return and help him in the ministry. I am short of cash to defray my passage on the railroad, [though] I have passes part of the way, the rest of the journey I shall have to pay half fare. Thirty-five dollars would enable me to reach Holbrook [Arizona].

My son Willard from Arizona Territory is now in Kentucky on a mission and my family in Taylor depended mostly on his aid. Therefore it seems quite important for me to return and spend the winter in that part of the vineyard.

President Smith writes that the Democrat party has been very fair to our people and has elected several of our leading men to important offices in the county. The Governor sent a commission to President Smith as Notary Public and the leading man at Prescott says the anti-Mormon law will be repealed in the next legislature. I trust that A.T. may be a place of refuge.

My efforts the past season in farming have been a failure. I am working at my trade on the new meetinghouse at Coveville and paying up the rent of the house that my family is living in.

Shall try and start to Arizona Territory by the 29^th of January, 1887. If I can receive from you the aid desired I shall be extremely grateful and should you feel that it was right to do so, I would solicit a produce order in favor of President J.N. Smith and myself on the Eastern Arizona Stake of Zion to assist our families in that part of the Kingdom. Ever praying for your safety and preservation, with love to your associates in the Holy Priesthood, your Brother in the Gospel, L.H. Hatch.[439]

This was Lorenzo’s letter which was forwarded to the President by Hezekiah with few changes. What President Taylor’s reply was is not known, but, on December 26, 1886, two days later, Lorenzo wrote to Hezekiah from Pueblo, Colorado, as he traveled by train, saying all was well and he would write again when he reached Arizona. He mentioned that Pueblo, Colorado was a “city of about 1700 souls and a very fine place.”

Return To Arizona

Lorenzo’s journal continues to be silent during this time, but President Jesse N. Smith records that, “Brother Hatch arrived from Utah about the last of the month.” President Smith continues, “Governor Zulick sent his message to the territorial legislature on January 12th in which he asked for the repeal of the anti-Mormon legislation [the Stover Bill] by which the Mormons were disfranchised for their belief. The legislature took immediate action and the odious measure was expunged from the statute book of the territory, and Governor Zulick went on record as a champion of human rights and religious liberty.”[440]

On January 19th Lorenzo returned to his farm in Taylor where Alice and her family were living. Facing a stiff winter wind he rode horseback the last twenty-four miles from Woodruff and reported he was “a little hoarse for several days.” His son Thomas, who had been living in Woodruff, departed for Alpine, Arizona and Lorenzo rented out his Woodruff house for three dollars a month.

His appeal for help to President John Taylor and Presiding Bishop Preston was evidently successful, for he says, “The 150 produce from the church has been all that kept me a-going. I am not in the best of humor on business matters, but this don’t help matters much.”[441]

Lorenzo made a decision at this time to sell his land in Taylor and told Hezekiah that if a buyer was found, he would help get a home “for your mother.” Sylvia wanted to sell the big place in Franklin and move to Logan near Hezekiah. Lorenzo expressed his wish that a “small place could be got where [Sylvia] could have a home that would be of some benefit to [Hezekiah] after she gets through with [it].” Lorenzo, perhaps feeling nostalgic and overwhelmed, wrote a six page letter to Hezekiah concerning his business affairs and the welfare of his family.[442]

With the easing of active persecution against Mormon polygamist in the Little Colorado settlements, another overwhelming problem presented itself for the settlers. In 1872, before Mormon expansion into Arizona, land was granted by the U.S. Government to the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad Company including all odd-numbered sections of a hundred-mile checkerboard which now cut through the heart of the Mormon settlements.

“Aware of the Atlantic and Pacific grant, Brigham Young had directed colonists to the Little Colorado River knowing that their claims would be subject to challenge.”[443]

Oblivious to the railroad claims, settlers at St. Joseph, (Joseph City), Woodruff, Snowflake, Taylor, Heber and St. Johns made their homes. Many of them, including Lorenzo Hill Hatch, attempted to enter homestead claims at various land offices, but “no land agent proved unwary enough to file claims for them.”

In 1884 the Aztec Land and Cattle Company bought over 100,000 acres of the Atlantic and Pacific land grant giving them control south of the track for ninety miles between Silver Creek and Flagstaff.[444]

Now the Mormons were forced to deal with Aztec in their efforts to obtain legal title to their farms and towns. Lorenzo was well aware of this problem, as he told his son Hezekiah in February of 1887, “I have got to raise $2.50 per acre for land at Woodruff provided we get the land from [the] government, which we are trying to do.”

On March 30th Lorenzo and President Smith boarded the train in Holbrook for Salt Lake to attend April Conference. A visit with Presiding Bishop Preston during conference time gained permission for President Smith to “get, with tithing means, a strong two-seated buggy and harness to use in traveling around our stake. Ordered a two-seated Mitchell & Lewis carriage of Grant Odell & Co. to be shipped to...Holbrook care of ACMI. He, [Bishop Preston], also gave permission to help Brother Hatch home with tithing means.”[445]

Back in Arizona Territory, the problems for fleeing polygamists were not entirely over, for on June 10, 1887, President Jesse N. Smith made the following entry in his journal, “Went to Woodruff where I met Brother L.H. Hatch and Sister Josephine Groesbeck Smith, wife of [Apostle] John Henry Smith, with her three children. They were seeking to avoid being summoned as witnesses against him, [Apostle Smith], in an unlawful cohabitation case that was being brought by the government.”

On July 4th there were three Apostles of the Church seeking refuge in Arizona. Brigham Young, Jr, Francis M. Lyman and John Henry Smith. They had instructions from Salt Lake to organize two new stakes from the Little Colorado and Eastern Arizona Stakes. For this purpose they called two special conferences, one in St. Johns and one in Snowflake.

Snowflake Stake

At the St. Johns conference, on July 24th, St. Johns Stake was formed and the next day an urgent message to the three apostles was received requesting them to return to Salt Lake at once. Though the reason was not stated in the urgent message, it was later learned that President John Taylor was gravely ill and died on July 25th.

Not until the following December 18th was Snowflake Stake created with Jesse N. Smith as president and Lorenzo Hill Hatch and Joseph H. Richards as counselors.

Family Concerns

In December, Lorenzo wrote another long letter to Hezekiah expressing some of his deepest feelings concerning the family. Sylvia may have been displeased with Lorenzo’s actions, as he wrote:

“I should be much pleased to get a letter from your mother once more. When I think of my dear home and children in the north, I can hardly be reconciled. I shall soon be sixty-two. I feel quite old and nearly heart broken.

“I don’t know how all my sons will do. I have not done much for any of them. Your dear mother has done all she could to make her children happy and I am assured you will not let her want if you can help it. The Lord has given you good judgment and you have a good business because of your honest business qualities. A dishonest man is to be pitied as he must steal, for no one will trust him. What can I do for your poor mother to comfort her? Financially I can’t do anything at present.”

Lorenzo tells Hezekiah of hearing from (son) Willard in Kentucky. He mourns for his daughter Adeline Savage who has been bedfast for two months, and tells of his brother-in-law, George Barber, making a home for himself in Mexico and wishes that George would be good to his wife, Lorenzo’s sister Adeline.[446] Lorenzo’s daughter Annettie “Nettie” is to be married to James J. Shumway and he laments the fact he can do nothing for her except give her a cow. He mentions that Alice is “dividing up the bedding and will do the best she can for the girl.” Throughout 1888 Lorenzo’s letters to Hezekiah are filled with concerns for his many children and their welfare.

His two daughters, Nora and Adeline, plural wives of Levi Savage were in Mexico. Adeline, who had always been frail was quite ill. Her husband wrote that Adeline was past all human aid and she wanted her mother (Catherine) to come and comfort her. Savage was willing to pay the expenses for Catherine’s journey, but Lorenzo was doubtful it would be possible because of her age and wondered how she could leave those in her care in Utah. Also she would need an escort to Mexico.

Hyrum, of the St. John’s gunfight, was now living in Franklin, Idaho. He asked Lorenzo to let him have “the piece of land by the graveyard and the lot by Broadbents and some hay land.” Lorenzo expressed to Hezekiah his desire to sell his holdings in Franklin, but said Hyrum felt the home there was worth more than the places in Arizona. “One misfortune after another has caused him [Hyrum] to be disgusted with Arizona Territory.” During this year Lorenzo gave him some of the land at Franklin, and Hyrum married Esther Gregory of that place.

Of his twenty-two-year-old son Jeremiah, in Arizona, Lorenzo said, “I can’t complain of Jeremiah, he don’t rustle around as I should like, [but] he is good natured as long as he can have his own way. His health is not very good, [and] he never will work very hard I don’t think.”[447]

Of his twenty-year-old son Heber Albert, Lorenzo says, “I control in part Burt’s labor as he is at home a part of the time. ...he is rather a social character and like many other boys, knows more than his father. I have not always been pleased with the fancies of my children, but let them use their agency.”[448]

There were troubles with Sylvia in Franklin. Lorenzo told Hezekiah,

“It seems to me that your mother [Sylvia] could take any part of the house [in Franklin] she desires and let Catherine have a part with her till such time as I could build a house on one of the other lots, or bring her back to this country. ...if I was permitted [by the law] to live on my farm in the north, I believe I could make a living for those two poor old ladies and the smaller children...”[449]

By August of this year, Hezekiah bought a place in Logan for his mother Sylvia. Lorenzo wrote:

“I trust that my life may be spared till I can reimburse you for the home you have furnished your mother and my son Lorin, [Alice’s son who was raised by Sylvia], but when I see how many lean on my weak effort, I almost despair.”

Lorenzo does not hesitate to praise and acknowledge all that Hezekiah has done for him over the years:

“...I feel inclined to say a few words to you who have been so devoted and solicitous for my welfare from your youth. God reward you for every good you have rendered to your wandering father and your staid and devout mother. Should I get old and feeble and cross don’t feel bad, but give me as much liberty as you would desire for yourself. I have to lay down and rest every day, or feel that I require it, [but] it is an indulgence that I cannot well afford, so I plod around.”[450]

The typewriter had reached Utah by 1888 and Lorenzo makes mention of receiving a printed letter from Hezekiah on February 1st. On May 15th President Jesse N. Smith received a printed letter from President Woodruff. This letter brought news of a quarterly stipend to be paid in tithing produce to members of the stake presidency, President Smith to receive $100.00 quarterly and each of his counselors $50.00. For favors rendered, Lorenzo had received a $22.00 suit of clothes from Apostle John Henry Smith during his recent visit. Lorenzo felt he could now, “appear respectable in the community.”

On June 6th, Lorenzo, along with President Jesse N. Smith and Smith D. Rogers, loaded their “tithing buggy” and headed for Tonto Basin in the far reaches of Snowflake Stake. Following a cattle trail through the little town of Heber and the abandoned community of Wilford, the group descended the Mogollon rim over a trail washed by recent heavy rains leaving only a ragged, rough, rocky bed.

First a carriage bow broke, then their front wheel cracked. They wrapped the wheel with wire and proceeded. They visited various isolated ranches and small farms, and at Pine Creek, a community of thirteen families, were made welcome by Bishop Rial Allen. The notorious Jim Tewksbury, participant in the recent Pleasant Valley Range War, was also passing the night there. Meetings were held and encouragement given to the members at Pine Creek.

After seeing the wonders of this wild and rugged country, including a natural bridge 169 feet high stretching across Pine Creek, the group arrived at Wild Rye post office on June 12th, and the next day at Tonto Creek, where they found a branch of the Tonto Basin Ward presided over by Elder David W. Sanders, Jr.. The branch members met in a bowery and the visitors addressed them.

A five mile climb over rocky ridges, each one steeper than the other along the almost non-existent road, brought the men back to Pine Creek. Bishop Allen made much needed repairs on the buggy, and after more meetings of instruction they traveled toward home. On June 16th they arrived at the Little Colorado River town of St. Joseph where they rested before going to Holbrook and turning south to Woodruff.[451]

Just days after these men passed through the railroad town of Holbrook, the place was in ruins. On the afternoon of June 23rd every business and many residences in Holbrook were destroyed by fire which started in a warehouse room where about 10,000 pounds of wool was stored awaiting shipment. Newspapers of the time reported that “Holbrook is now a smoking mass of ruins, a sorrowful sight to contemplate. Loss to the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad was estimated at $50,000. The loss to our citizens is estimated at not less than $100,000.” In terms of the 1888 dollar, this loss, where only a few businesses had any insurance, was devastating.[452]

One result of the fire was that the Mormons were able to relocate the Woodruff ACMI to that town near the railroad. Earlier they had been unable to buy land in Holbrook for this enterprise. Holbrook citizens, as a whole, were hostile to the Mormons, and very few Saints lived there. However, the railroad town was important to the Mormons as the shipping and receiving point for goods in northeast Arizona.

Lorenzo probably did not see the remains of the fire in Holbrook until August 30th when he and President Smith traveled to St. Joseph to conduct a church conference.

When the large brick ACMI building in Woodruff was vacated by the move to Holbrook, the Woodruff people put it to good use as a church, school and social hall. They purchased an old train bell, and mounted it on the roof. For many years this bell called folks for all occasions. It rang out fast and gaily for dances and weddings, and tolled slowly for funerals. One half hour before any church meeting, the bell warned of the approaching hour. This was the call Lorenzo heard one Sunday morning as he wrote to Hezekiah. The letter ended abruptly with, “I must go, the bell is tolling.”

Lorenzo’s son Willard wrote that it would cost him $100.00 to return to Arizona after his Kentucky mission ended in November. Lorenzo borrowed $50.00 and sent it. Willard asked Hezekiah for the other fifty, saying he declined receiving aid from the church. Lorenzo says, “[Willard] wants all the blessings to come to the Hatch race. The Lord knows we are in great need of blessings.”

Levi Savage, in Mexico, decided if Adeline’s Mother could not come to her in Mexico, he would send Adeline to Catherine. He wrote to Hezekiah and to Lorenzo’s brother Abram, of Heber, Utah, who had become quite a wealthy man, for help in sending Adeline to Logan. When Lorenzo heard this news, he wrote to Hezekiah saying, “Dear Boy, in this life we have our hands full.”

Early in 1888 Lorenzo told of setting out 60 two year old peach trees and preparing his garden. He had 55 apple trees that Heber Albert raised from seed brought from Franklin, and was planning to plant grapes, which he felt would do well. On May 19th he wrote of “a good prospect for crops this season.”

President Jesse N. Smith was a visitor to Utah in September and Lorenzo wrote to Hezekiah, “President Smith arrived home in safety and was much pleased with his visit to Cache [Valley]. I was glad you had the privilege of entertaining the cousin of the great Prophet Joseph.”

Lorenzo was quite hopeful in his letter to Hezekiah on November 11th, “I made forty gallons of molasses and will have a little corn to sell and some oats. I hope Horwath [of Franklin] will pay up the notes, as I am in want of some cash. Ere long I will have a good home with fruit and the comforts of life. I cannot see why this should not be the case.” However, he ended his letter by saying he had not heard from Lafayette, his oldest son, in eight months.

CHAPTER 12

“Remain In The Field Of Labor”

Lorenzo wrote the First Presidency of the Church, Wilford Woodruff, George Q. Cannon and Joseph F. Smith a detailed letter of conditions and circumstances in his part of the kingdom. He began by reminding them:

“Thirteen years ago we settled here [Woodruff] on land that was unsurveyed. When the survey was run it was found that we were on railroad land. We wrote at once to the company agent. He gave us every encouragement to remain, assuring us that no advantage would by taken by the company on account of any improvements that we might make. The result is well known. ...It may not be out of place to give you an idea of the values at stake here. There are 25 dwelling houses worth about $5000.00. About eight acres of orchard, [and] from 50 to 60 acres of lucern. The field is enclosed with a pretty good fence worth from $1000 to $1,500....”[453]

Lorenzo also expounded on the dam problems and possibilities. Help was needed in Arizona if the Saints in Snowflake Stake were to obtain legal title to their lands. In February, church authorities made an appropriation of $500 to pay expenses for a trip to Washington, D.C. and New York for Brigham Young, Jr. and Snowflake Stake President Jesse N. Smith, who were to act as agents in settling the land claims of the Mormons in Snowflake, Taylor and Woodruff.

Aztec Land and Cattle Company owned the sections of land upon which Snowflake and Taylor were situated, while the A & P Railroad still claimed grant rights to the Woodruff land. This situation made for complicated and extended negotiations.

When President Smith left Snowflake to travel east in February, he turned the business of the approaching quarterly conference to his counselor, L.H. Hatch.

Six weeks later, President Smith returned to Snowflake Stake with the news that agreements to purchase the land had been reached. Aztec asked $4.50 an acre for seven sections of Snowflake-Taylor land, but railroad executives demanded $8 per acre for the one section necessary at Woodruff. President Wilford Woodruff and the Council of Twelve Apostles wired money to the negotiators for the first payment on the two parcels of land.[454]

The property was surveyed, platted and classified and each land holder in the stake was expected to pay the church for his portion. Many were unable to pay the full amount, and others were reluctant to do so because they could not acquire title until the church made the final payment to Aztec and A & P. That the settlers were slow to pay their debt to the church is noted by Lorenzo in his journal, when on August 28, 1891 he wrote, “At High Council it was decided that all should pay up their assessments on the land purchases and that all were accountable to church law and should be cut off, [excommunicated], if they did not live up to the decisions.”[455]

Lorenzo does not mention how he paid for his land, or if he did. Many were unable, or unwilling, to pay, and “at last the church wrote the debt off, allowing the individual burdens to be applied on irrigation company and school assessments which delinquent settlers could work out.”[456]

Early in February the U.S. Supreme Court rendered a decision sustaining the Test Oath law of the Territory of Idaho, by which all Mormons in Idaho were disfranchised and deprived of the benefits of the land laws. This decision further complicated Lorenzo’s land holdings. He now could not legally hold title to his land in Idaho, nor his land in Arizona.

In August of 1889 Lorenzo was in Franklin, where he wrote to Hezekiah concerning his wish to fit-out a wagon and send it to Arizona Territory. To do this he would sell five acres of land in Franklin. G. Parkeson was willing to buy the “first five north of Scarborows” and Scarborow also wanted it. However, his son Lafayette wanted the land, but was unable to pay for it. Lorenzo wrote Hezekiah asking if he could “purchase the same and hold it.”

In this letter Lorenzo discussed the horses and colts, saying, “The colt can be sold for ninety dollars but [Lafayette] thinks, as I do, that he will double that price in a short time. The big horses are earning considerable on the thresher...Hy [Hyrum] has had to leave the thresher as he was sick...for five days.” As always, Lorenzo values the opinions of Hezekiah and says, “weigh these matters and let me hear from you.”

Lorenzo was still in Franklin three months later when he wrote George Barber concerning a plow he (Lorenzo) had purchased and agreed to pay for the first of April, 1890. This note was evidently sent to Hezekiah to pass along, as Hezekiah wrote, “Dear George, Father wishes me to hand you the enclosed. If you can do as he wishes, of course, it will be appreciated, but [I] have had nothing whatever [to] do with this arrangement. You know how father is, he seems almost unfit for doing any business. Today he has one idea and tomorrow an opposite scheme altogether. Do what you feel you can justifiably do and it will be all right. Yours truly, H.E. Hatch.”

Returning to Arizona, Lorenzo moved Alice and their youngest child, thirteen-year-old Lula, to Woodruff. His daughter Nettie and her husband, Jim Shumway, moved into the Taylor house and twenty-six-year-old Ezra, who was unmarried, boarded with them. Lorenzo made plans to improve the Woodruff property. “I am preparing to fence my land here to itself as the stock damages me so much [and] build a more comfortable place for Alice.”

Lorenzo asked Hezekiah to write to Fordham at Franklin and call for his (Lorenzo’s) “coupon money as it is due with principal. I think the 20 years is up. I want the money sent to me as I am owing some that I borrowed here and I can get wire and nails.” A power of attorney to Hezekiah is included in this letter, “...to draw my interest in the coupon purchased of President Brigham Young in 1870 by Samuel R. Parkinson, L.H. Hatch and others.”[457] This message likely concerned stock Lorenzo acquired when the Utah Northern Railroad was organized.

After celebrating his sixty-fourth birthday in January, Lorenzo continued to improve his Woodruff farm, and travel throughout Snowflake Stake with President Smith, presiding over conferences and conducting other business. On one extended journey to Tuba City where they held meetings by moonlight, the two men were asked by Lorenzo’s crusty old friend, Lot Smith, to hear a grievance between himself and two others. Lorenzo and Jesse N. were able to settle the differences to the satisfaction of all, and Jesse N. Smith recorded that, “Lot Smith came and offered his hand for the first time since returning from Mexico. Emotion checked his utterance.”[458] Lot Smith, President of Little Colorado Stake, and Jesse N. Smith had never been amiable and often Lorenzo was the peace maker between the two powerful, aggressive men.

In May of this year Lorenzo told Hezekiah, “I work most of the time at [repairing] wagons and turn it on the dam, as I can do better than to work at rock lifting.” Alice was not well all winter and in May she was bedfast for a time.

One More Woodruff Dam

Water, the life blood of the Little Colorado settlements, was continually a concern for Lorenzo. The Woodruff Saints had constructed six dams of brush, rock and dirt, using a horse team and scrapper, in an effort to bring water to their gardens in the little valley. There was never enough water, or there was too much water. Continually there were hard feelings and disputes among the brethren caused by the use or misuse of this life giving moisture.

In July, 1890, Lorenzo “battled” with the brethren concerning work on the dam. In the spring there had been a loss of over 500 yards of “filling.” On August 3rd they finally got water into the ditches and onto their gardens and fields. Lorenzo says, “Our water master on ditch #4 was a very covetous man and determined each man should water but two acres at a time. I plead for him to let my neighbors finish their patches so they could make a good job and I would wait till all were finished. Then one man threatened to burn me for using the waste water. May heaven pardon such unkindness or lack of manhood.”[459]

On a bitter cold winter day in November, a weary, discouraged Lorenzo stood on the banks of the Little Colorado to survey the remains of the sixth dam built in Woodruff. The treacherous, turbulent Little Colorado had once again carried away the dam of rock and dirt. “...more rain than ever was known in this country since we have been here for this time of year.” A letter went to President Wilford Woodruff reporting the loss of the dam, and asking for help to construct anew.

President Wilford Woodruff was no doubt feeling that more than the Woodruff Dam was in jeopardy. In May of this year the United States Supreme Court upheld the Edmunds-Tucker Act which officially dissolved the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a corporation, and required the church to forfeit to the government all property in excess of $50,000. In spite of an 1888 agreement promising that temples would not be disturbed, word was received that now the government was going to confiscate temples.[460]

The Manifesto

Events were bearing hard upon the prophet. To this time over 1300 Mormon men had gone to prison as a result of their obedience to the principle of polygamy. In September, 1890, President Woodruff acted to save the church through issuing the Manifesto, which relieved church members of further obligation to sustain “the principle,” and declared his intention to abide by the law of the land and publicly advised all Latter-day Saints to do likewise. At the October 6th semi-annual conference the Manifesto was approved as the official position of the church.[461]

Lorenzo’s life continued much the same as before the Manifesto. He carried on his duties as missionary, stake counselor, church patriarch, husband, father and provider.

Alice was in poor health, but accompanied Lorenzo on several trips to Taylor and Snowflake as well as to a conference at Tuba City on the Navajo Reservation, where all of the wives of the presidency spoke to the congregation except shy Alice. In December Lorenzo declared, “I am struggling to keep things level in this place. May heaven inspire me in my high calling and heal my sick grandchildren and Alice.”

On Christmas Day, “...we had a good supper, having killed a chicken. I wrote to my son, [Lafayette] Hatch, as it was his birthday. Trip [his dog] was very sick. I was sorry for the poor dog because of his faithfulness. We placed the likeness of Joseph and Hyrum Smith in frames I have made and passed a quiet Christmas day. One year since I was last in Utah.”

Lorenzo was one of a committee appointed to receive bids and raise money for a new dam. Not one to put things off, he was exasperated when Bishop Webb, (Bishop of Woodruff), would not let the contract and wanted to delay a decision on the matter. On January 11th the impatient old man declared, “if they [are] going to defer longer on building a dam, I [will] move and advise people of Woodruff to scatter out where they [can] make a living.” After meetings and a talk from President Smith, the committee agreed to a plan of action for rebuilding their life-giving dam.

In January, during a cold and heavy snow, Lorenzo and Alice traveled to St. Johns and Erastus (Concho) where Lorenzo gave nine patriarchal blessings and attended to other business. They returned to Woodruff and the following day took the road to St Joseph for a ward conference. On their return home the two, who were traveling alone, ran into a deep wash breaking a wheel. The old couple had not much choice, so unhitching the team, each mounted a horse and rode on into Woodruff. Lorenzo was sixty-five and Alice fifty-four.

In March Lorenzo attempted a trip to Tuba City for conference, but was stopped at St. Joseph by mud and cold. On his return to Woodruff, he found, “the flood water, [of the Little Colorado], was cutting into the edge of the town of Holbrook. One thousand sacks of sand piled in with cottonwood trees were placed in the river to stop the cutting. ...leaving Holbrook my horse got frightened and ran away and I narrowly escaped an oncoming train. I praise the Lord for his care.”

During the week of March 22nd, word was received in Woodruff of a $1,500 appropriation from the Arizona State Legislature for a new dam. The church also appropriated $2,000 in stock tithing to be applied to the project.[462] President Smith warned the people of Woodruff to make a “good and permanent job of it as it would be impossible to get any more help from anybody if we made a failure this time.”[463]

In April Lorenzo reported, “many deaths have occurred all around us. Grown people and children, [but], we have been spared.” He described this illness as “la grippe.” He also spoke of getting a family group “likeness” of his family in Arizona, if he could get them together. If this was ever accomplished, the photo is lost to us.

A long letter was received from his daughters, Elizabeth and Chloe, plural wives of William Daines. They were living in Mexico and Lorenzo laments, “They have no house yet and the fearful winds are cruel as the sand blows into their tent so fiercely that Chloe is quite impatient.”[464]

Alice, despite poor health, continued to accompany Lorenzo as he went about his business. They experienced another misadventure on July 3rd as they left Taylor to return to Woodruff. “As I started out the trail the wagon came apart, bed and hind wheels staying in the Taylor ditch. Sister Hatch, [Alice], and I unloaded the wagon which was loaded with shingles.”

Despite this mishap and the despair of the Woodruff people at not having water during this summer for their crops, on July 4th there was a celebration of music, speeches, and renewed devotion to the country. In the spirit of the celebration, Lorenzo ran a foot race for a picture of the Woodruff Dam against Father Guldbranson. Lorenzo declared, “I said we came out even, but he got the prize. All were jubilant to see me beaten.”

Several days later, on July 11th, the entire stake presidency was visiting in Woodruff for a ward conference when fifteen-year-old Lula, youngest child of Alice, suffered a severe toothache. Joseph H. Richards, counselor in the presidency, attempted to pull the tooth for Lula and knocked out another of her teeth when the instrument slipped. Then President Smith tried his hand at relieving poor Lula of her pain. He pulled the wrong tooth. In sympathy, Lorenzo says, “Lula lost three teeth because one was aching. We all sympathized with her in this great loss and the bitter pain she endured.”

Lorenzo was concerned the rest of the summer with lack of water for the fields and gardens in Woodruff. On August 13th Alice “was taken sick, cramping and vomiting. Fasting and prayers were held in her behalf and after a week she began to recover.”

Lorenzo attended ward conference in Pinedale and on August 28th Alice accompanied him to Taylor for stake conference. In early September, he and Alice traveled the long, rough road to Tuba City in a group of stake officers that included five wagons, ten men, nine women and five children. Five days later the weary travelers reached Tuba City at twilight.

In October, Alice traveled with Lorenzo for ten days while taking a load of freight to Fort Apache, some sixty miles away. Returning home they stopped at the sawmill in Pinetop for a load of lumber and to make a new wheel for their wagon. Lorenzo, not one to miss an opportunity to encourage and strengthen the Saints, held a meeting there on Sunday, giving counsel “to reform and keep the commandments of the Lord.” He told them Pinetop would become a very important place.

A problem in the new Snowflake Stake at this time was the question of dancing. Church authorities had discouraged dancing in their houses of worship, and now the younger generation wanted to adopt the “new” round dancing (waltz) that had become popular. Within the stake a petition was circulated and signed by many of the brethren to allow the round dance. Lorenzo reports that, “A counter petition got up by Janet Smith with the help of Sister West, signed by nearly all the women, killed the first one.... Shame on those that signed the first.”

With county and territory taxes of $26.21 due, Lorenzo and his son, Heber Albert, hauled wood for $3.00 a load and raised the needed cash. In the waning days of 1891 he felt their prospects were “brighter than at any other time in our history,” though he did say, “seems I have been the servant of all servants since this place was settled by myself, James Deans and Hans Guldbranson, in February 1878.”

On December 21st, Lorenzo and his son Heber Albert hauled cedar to start the apron of the dam. In the afternoon of this day it began to snow, but Lorenzo went alone for one more load. It was getting dark and still snowing when he started for home. With a grateful heart, he wrote, “...as it was late and the storm severe, [Heber Albert] came to see what had become of me. I was glad to meet him and feel that he cared for his parent who loved him so deeply. Dear Alice was waiting my arrival and had a good supper and fire waiting for me.”

Death of Alice

The next day they killed a pig, cut up and salted 234 pounds of meat and at seven P.M. they were “filling sausages.” It was ten o’clock before the old couple ate their supper and went to bed. Five days later, Alice was dead.

Lorenzo and Alice were alone in their home their last few months together, as Lula was living in Snowflake with her married sister. Lorenzo declared, “The last four and a half months have been the most cheerful and pleasurable time of her [Alice’s] life.” His continual work on their house in Woodruff made it the most comfortable home Alice had known. They were together during many travels and Lorenzo mentions that he read the Juvenile Instructor to Alice “as usual.”

That he was solicitous and loving to Alice, there is no doubt. At her last sickness he attended her, not only with prayer and fasting, but also “had two warm flat irons at her feet,” and at the end, he “wished to send for Nora [daughter living near by], but did not dare to leave. I held her until morning.” Alice died in the night on December 27,1891. For the next ten years, Lorenzo would remember to his journal on December 27th that this was the anniversary of the day his “Dear Alice” passed away.

His one regret regarding Alice may have been the remembrance of her then small four-year-old son, Lorin, he persuaded her to leave in Franklin with Sylvia when they left in 1878. Though the intent was to later bring Lorin to Arizona to be with his mother, this was never done. Uncomplaining, quiet Alice died without seeing Lorin again.

The old families of Woodruff, as well as Lorenzo’s many children living in the area, mourned with him and comforted him. He received letters and telegrams from his family in the north country. Sylvia wrote addressing him as “My Dear Companion.” Her message read, “I do not know what to write to comfort you. I have had such poor health for years and Alice was so strong that I thought she would outlive us all, but it seems that she was ready to go.... May He that over rules us all bring comfort to you, is my prayer for you, From you Companion, S.S. Hatch.”

Lorenzo busied himself with church work, hauling wood for his children, and building a cupboard for a daughter. He worked in his woodshop and on the Woodruff dam. He was a lonely old man when he celebrated his sixty-sixth birthday on January 4th. A letter from Catherine arrived, wanting him to come to the north, as she did not feel like coming to Arizona. Lorenzo says her letter, “made me feel very much unsettled.”

He dreamed of Alice, and “her youth and beauty was wonderfully grand.” He attended ward conferences with the stake presidency and gave several patriarchal blessings, but could not shake his feeling of loneliness. He planted 200 poplar trees, plowed by moonlight and sowed two acres of oats. He wrote to the first presidency in Salt Lake concerning his circumstances, and on March 13th received the following reply:

Dear Brother: I am directed, by the First Presidency, to say that they are of the opinion, after reading Brother Hatch’s letter, that it would be better for him to remain in the field of labor to which he has been appointed, in Arizona, than to return to Cache Valley. They also think it would be well for him to have the wife join him who could be the most comfort and help to him in his advancing years.

George Reynolds, Sec.[465]

By the first of April, arrangements had been made for Catherine to return to Arizona, and Lorenzo was working to further improve his Woodruff home by putting another room and porch on the north of the house. Father Guldbranson, who had been in Woodruff with him since 1878, helped with the new addition. On April 11th, he received a telegram from Hezekiah that Catherine and children, seventeen-year-old May and thirteen-year-old Wilford, were on their way to Arizona and all was well. Lorenzo met them at Holbrook and was “filled with joy to meet her [Catherine] and my darling girl May and Wilford. I had not seen them for two and a half years.”

Lorenzo was considerably more cheerful with the arrival of these loved ones, despite the fact that Catherine’s health was not good. She suffered periodic bouts of severe sinus pain that had plagued her for years.

In July Lorenzo and Jesse N. Smith bought a binder for $210.00 and he nailed new shingles on his house and put a bed in May’s new bedroom. At the 24^th of July celebration, he was “orator of the day.” The binder worked well and with son Heber Albert as the operator, they cut wheat for farmers throughout the country.

In early October William Daines, who had married Lorenzo and Catherine’s daughter Chloe and also Lorenzo and Sylvia’s daughter, Elizabeth, arrived in Holbrook from Mexico with Chloe and her two children. Lorenzo says, “We had never seen little Willie before. This was a happy meeting. I had not seen Chloe for three years.” Daines made application to teach and obtained a position at St. Joseph.

In November Lorenzo traded a portion of his farm in Taylor to Dely Webb for some land Webb had in Woodruff. Of this transaction, he says, “I sold $70.00 worth of water stock to John [son] and $50.00 worth to Ezra. John was to pay $70.00 in one year and Ezra $150.00 because he got the house and lot. I turned these accounts to Brother Webb and got twenty-six acres and two city lots of him [in Woodruff].” Two years later Lorenzo mentions bringing a “load of logs from my old house on the farm [at Taylor]” to Woodruff. This was his last mention of having any claim to the farm in Taylor.

The entire stake was shocked at the violent death in Snowflake of Charles L. Flake at the hands of an outlaw who was passing through. On December 8th Lorenzo received word of the killing. On December 10th he attended the funeral of Flake, who had been serving as a high councilor. Lorenzo was a speaker at the services, and then “walked with the high council behind the mourners and we laid away our brother. It was a sorrowful occasion.”[466]

Work on the Woodruff home continued and in late December, he began to haul adobe to line his house, put down the skirting boards of the bedroom and nailed on some lathe. Daughter Lula, who was living in Snowflake and attending the academy, visited at Woodruff during the holidays, and on January 1st the people of Woodruff “concluded to start anew on the dam.”

The next few months saw the durable old fellow suffer as his health failed. He ordered a truss for $5.00, indicating he may have strained himself, and after attending a conference in St. Joseph and working on the water ditch for three days in windy and cold conditions, he contracted the “grippe.” “Our conference [at Snowflake] had to be prepared for and I was driven to the extreme.”

After this conference he “took my bed and was sick three or four days.” In the midst of this troubled time, word was received from his daughter Alvenia, wife of Thomas Smart, of the death of her babe, Edna.

Salt Lake Temple

President Wilford Woodruff sent word to the stakes throughout the church that the Salt Lake Temple, begun under the direction of Brigham Young nearly forty years before, was nearing completion. President Woodruff assessed Snowflake Stake $700.00 as their share for the finishing touches. In November, 1892 the Snowflake Stake Presidency met to make the apportionment of this amount among the various wards.[467] The temple was to be dedicated at the April, 1893 conference and all stake presidencies and ward bishops were invited to attend the historic occasion.

On the last day of March, thirty-eight people from Snowflake Stake boarded the train in Holbrook bound for Salt Lake City. Many in the family of President Jesse N. Smith were in the party, but Lorenzo apparently was not able to take members of his family. Perhaps the $45.00 round trip ticket restricted the number going.

The train route at this time was from Holbrook to Albuquerque, to Springer, New Mexico, thence to La Junta, Colorado and Colorado Springs. Near Springer, the train was held up for nine and a half hours, due to a wreck on the track. Much to the delight of the Arizona travelers, they discovered the passengers on another of the stalled trains included old friends and family from Mexico, including one of Jesse N. Smith’s sons. This delay also brought another unique experience for the travelers when they “had the privilege of hearing a song, ‘O’ Ye Mountains High’ reproduced on an instrument [called] a phonograph.”[468]

The Arizona Saints arrived in Salt Lake City on April 4th, where Lorenzo met his brother Jeremiah and they attended a priesthood meeting that night.

A great spiritual feast was enjoyed by Lorenzo in the next days. He attended the temple ceremony thirteen times and declared that “Wednesday was the greatest of all the days. The Spirit of God was poured out with great power.” On this day two “very long” meetings of general authorities and stake officers, “to the number of 110 men” were held. All were privileged to speak for five minutes and great testimonies were borne.”[469] A point of pride for Lorenzo was his son, Lorin, who was selected to sing with a group from Logan at the dedication ceremonies. Lorin’s singing voice may have been a legacy from his mother, Alice, whom he so dimly remembered. She was known to have an exceptional singing voice.

Thursday, April 20th was fast day. Again the church leaders met in the temple in the room of the presidency. A prayer circle was held and the sacrament passed leaving all “filled with the spirit of brotherhood and good fellowship.”

After the days of dedication were over, Lorenzo visited his brother Abram, and then took the train for Logan, where he “found all well after an absence of three and a half years.”

On April 27th Lorenzo left Logan for Arizona Territory accompanied by his daughters, Ruth and Elizabeth. The old problems of the past fifteen years were there to meet him in Arizona. He and his daughters arrived on May 1st and on the 11^th, a two day torrential rain came, followed by floods. Lorenzo was “on my knees for a long time praying for our safety from loss of dam. But we found after the flood had passed that our work was good.”

Daughter Elizabeth, the plural wife of William Daines, had come to Arizona to join her husband. Ruth Hatch, a well educated and refined woman, immediately became a force in the Snowflake Stake. Raised in Idaho and Utah, where many of the rigors of pioneering were behind the women, she taught school in Woodruff and served on the Stake Relief Society Board, giving lectures on “Hygiene and Reform in Dress.” Women in Utah had been given the vote in 1870 and the expanding sphere of the Mormon women’s world included public speaking and public service. The fact that Ruth was known as Ruth Hatch instead of Ruth Ricks in Arizona may give some idea of the bitterness of her divorce. She had no doubt inherited some of her mother Sylvia’s spunk to have endured a divorce and retained her maiden name, legal or not. Her father was proud of her and she accompanied him on many of his travels.

In early September Lorenzo was again making plans to travel to Utah for October conference. Arrangements were made for him to take Alice’s youngest, seventeen-year-old Lula with him. Lula was to live with Sylvia and attend the Brigham Young College in Logan. Her ever dependable half brother, Hezekiah, had offered to pay for her education.[470]

The Snowflake Stake Presidency planned to hold a conference in Tuba City, and leave from there for Utah. Accordingly Lorenzo “prepared [for the trip] and made four new wheels.” Ten miles from Woodruff, he was “much disheartened because the new timber in one wheel broke at the pin and fell to the ground.”

The party followed the familiar trail, making camps at Jacob’s Pool, House Rock and then traveled over the Buckskin Mountains to Navajo Wells. On September 21st they arrived at Richfield where Lorenzo and Lula left their wagon and boarded the train to complete their journey.

Lorenzo visited family and friends and “bargained to sell house and lots in Franklin to Hyrum for $1000.00. He [Hyrum] paid for a new wagon and harness...which was to apply for first payment of 1894. Conditions were of no interest, and if I or Catherine ever came back to Idaho, we are to have use of house and barn whilst we live.”[471]

As Lorenzo prepared to return to Arizona in early October, Lafayette, his oldest son, brought the new wagon to Logan for him. It was loaded with flour, grain, dried fruit and other necessities for the trip. He was also taking several young colts to Arizona and Lafayette felt the need to go with his father at least as far as Brigham City, Utah. In teaching the colts to lead, they broke several ropes. The road to Brigham City was a dug-way, along which they traveled after dark in the rain. The old man was no doubt happy to have Lafayette along, as he declared the journey was “very hard on my nerves.”

Feeling a little sorry for himself after Lafayette turned back to Franklin, Lorenzo wrote, “Left for Arizona, a distance of 950 miles to be traveled by an old man of sixty-eight years on the fond old route known as the Lee’s Ferry by way of Upper Kanab. I felt that I might never meet my son [Lafayette] again in this unfriendly world.”

However, after a nights rest in the tithing office yard at Brigham City, Lorenzo arose at five A.M. “greatly refreshed,” and was “a long way on my road by sunrise.” The dauntless, determined spirit was in place again. Entering Salt Lake City, he stabled his team of horses at the tithing office corral while he attended conference.

At the conclusion of the meetings, Lorenzo traveled south to Richfield, where he joined President Smith and company and proceeded southward. It was a long journey, and as always, there were troubles along the route. The party left Richfield on October 18th. President Smith noted that Brother Hatch, having an extra team, “my children took charge of it for him, which was an accommodation to both parties.” Over the next few days President Smith would grumble to his journal that “Brother Hatch’s old wagon broke down,” and on another day, “Brother Hatch’s horses went back some five or six miles [in the night],” and again, “Brother Hatch’s colts, which were loose, hindered our crossing at Wolfe’s by getting into the quicksand...,” and finally, “Reached Woodruff after once more repairing the old wagon of Brother Hatch.”

CHAPTER 13

Waste And Wear Out Your Life

Typical of January weather along the Little Colorado, the wind was cold and fierce, making a “perfect hurricane of sand and gravel” on Lorenzo’s birthday, January 4th. However, there were ward conferences to attend throughout the stake during the next few weeks and Lorenzo was there, even though complaining, “I never suffered so much with cold....”

In February, church historian Andrew Jenson visited the Little Colorado villages to gather history of the various settlements and biographies of early pioneers. Lorenzo gave him information on the history of the Zuni Mission and especially of San Lorenzo, New Mexico. As Brother Jenson prepared to leave Snowflake Stake Lorenzo gave him a patriarchal blessing, remembered in Jenson’s autobiography years later as “an inspired patriarchal blessing.”[472]

Dramatics played an important part in the entertainment of Latter-day Saint people in this isolated country. Dramatic associations and theater groups of home talent plays were popular. Lorenzo’s daughters, Ruth, Chloe, Adeline, Elizabeth, Ella, and Nora were all involved and took part in various productions. Lorenzo was extremely proud of his daughters abilities and intelligence as they worked in the Relief Society and Primary associations as well as the entertainments.

Despite being surrounded by his married children and many grandchildren, Lorenzo did not have a pleasant summer. In June he noted that, “Our watermaster has put me on Sunday turn to water every two weeks. This is unjust as I am away several Sundays in attending ward conferences.” Also his old friend, Father Guldbranson, was killed when his horse rolled onto him and another of the old pioneers, Edson Whipple, passed away. Lorenzo’s daughter Ella, wife of C.E. Owens of Woodruff, lost a premature son that lived only six hours.[473]

In early July Lorenzo “was awake at four A.M. Thursday and then knew nothing until nine A.M..” The family was concerned over his condition and called the elders to administer to him. It was several weeks before he returned to his duties as missionary and farmer. On July 22nd, Lorenzo, exercising his great faith, fasted and prayed with Catherine and daughter May. His prayers asked, “that we might be more abundantly blessed and have means to pay our debts and improve our homes and have our health restored.” For the first time in his life Lorenzo had to hire a “hand” to help him with the farming during this summer.[474]

In September Lorenzo made preparations for another journey to Utah by wagon. With great concern, Georgia, wife of Hezekiah, having seen the old missionary make the trip to Utah by wagon last year, “forbid” him to come that way again. However, President Smith planned for the travelers to go to Tuba, in northern Arizona for a ward conference and then continue on to Utah for the semi-annual October conference. Lorenzo tells Hezekiah, “I hate this hard journey, but as I will be expected to go to Tuby [Tuba] conference, it will be nearly half way [to Utah].” Lorenzo thought he might drive his team to Salina, Utah and from there take the train the rest of the way to Logan. It was too late in the year for him to visit in Logan and Franklin for any length of time and return to Arizona before bad weather set in. Catherine encouraged him to stay in Logan and work in the temple for the winter months. She did not think she could travel by team to Utah, and if her Utah children wanted to see her they would have to send the money for a train ticket.[475]

Daughter Ruth was ready to return to her mother’s home in Logan and agreed to travel with her father, helping along the way. On September 3rd Lorenzo and Ruth left Woodruff by wagon. Sixty-eight-year-old Lorenzo says, “My heart was full as I again began so long a journey.”

After a conference in St. Joseph, the travelers arrived in Tuba on the evening of September 14th. They found an abundance of fruit growing and the Saints welcomed them with every comfort available. Levi M. Savage and his wife Nora were traveling with the group and when meetings were held, Lorenzo declared that his daughters, Ruth and Nora, were inspired speakers.

Lorenzo made a nostalgic side trip to visit the grave of Lot Smith, who had been killed by a Navajo Indian in 1892. “We traveled about four miles [from Tuba] when we came to a very wretched lonely cabin made of cottonwood logs. Here Sister Mary Smith [widow of Lot] lived with her large family of small children, eight in number. The oldest boy was fifteen years. Her nearest neighbor was a mile away. A few rods from the cabin a level grave is marked with small pieces of boards. This grave is near some plum trees. The water is near the surface [and] I believe the coffin must be under water part of the year. My mind has been troubled over this lonely place. High mountain cliffs stand perpendicularly by. It is a very narrow canyon [and] the land is swampy and rich.”[476]

For two days the brethren held meetings of encouragement and organization in Tuba. On the last day, as Lorenzo left for yet another meeting, Ruth remained at their camp to gather melons, grapes and peaches and bake bread for her and her father on their journey to Utah.

The old trail to Cache Valley had not softened over the years. The travelers found little water at Cottonwood Tanks and the water at Bitter Seeps was so poor not even the horses could drink. The wagons traveled into the darkness, seeking water. While passing over some rough road one of the wheels of Lorenzo’s wagon ran off and was not missed for some time. By lantern light he and Ruth walked a mile back on the trail before finding it. They marveled that the wagon could have passed over such large rocks after losing the wheel and not be broken in many pieces. Lorenzo did not “murmur or complain, for a kind angel had preserved us.”

When the party arrived in Kanab, Ruth was invited to deliver a lecture to the sisters. She also washed clothes and bought grapes as they prepared for the last push of the journey. Arriving in Salina, Utah after more than twenty days on the trail, Lorenzo and Ruth boarded out their team and took the train to Salt Lake City.

Ruth attended Relief Society meetings with her Aunt Adeline, Lorenzo’s sister, who was a member of the Relief Society General Board. At conference, during the priesthood meeting, all were encouraged to make arrangements for land on which to settle their children as the public lands were being taken up.

Following conference Lorenzo went to Heber City for a short stay with his brother Abram’s family. As he left for Salt Lake City, Abram gave Lorenzo fifty cents to buy his dinner at the hotel, but the frugal old Yankee “carried a lunch and saved my money to help in another way.”

On the train for Logan, Lorenzo found President Joseph F. Smith who sat with him and visited the miles away. Lorenzo delivered to him a letter he was carrying addressed to President Wilford Woodruff from George B. Gardner, an eighty-one-year-old Woodruff pioneer, asking for some favors.

Arriving in Logan, Lorenzo had a happy meeting with Sylvia, Lorin, Lula and his oldest grandson, Fayette. He visited daughters Celia and Alvenia, and saw Alvenia’s four-week-old-son. He was invited to speak at a session in the Logan Tabernacle which had been dedicated in 1891. He gave a report of his 1844 mission and his New Mexico mission and the drowning of Lorenzo Roundy. Lorenzo Hatch had lived through what was now history to the younger generation.[477]

At the April Conference, President Wilford Woodruff emphasized the importance for the Saints to trace their genealogies and perform the appropriate sealings of the families in a temple. With this message there began a dedication to genealogical research and temple work among the people. Lorenzo, who had felt the importance of this work earlier, now made this one of the priorities in his life, and with the help of his sister Adeline, attended the Logan Temple many times for this purpose in the next few years.

Hezekiah arranged for Lorenzo to have impressions taken for a set of teeth which took two visits to the dentist. On October 15th the teeth were ready and Lorenzo said, “got my teeth put in. Truly, I have had a time to stand them.”

Lorenzo enjoyed the next few months as he became reacquainted with children and grandchildren. He attended conference in Franklin and was asked to be a speaker with Heber J, Grant and Joseph F. Smith. He gave patriarchal blessings and visited the temple. He attended political rallies and was there for Sylvia’s sixty-eighth birthday, a surprise dinner prepared by Georgia, wife of Hezekiah.

Not one to be idle, Lorenzo hung a door on Hezekiah’s carriage house and worked repairing and cleaning the yard. He made a flour box for Georgia.

Just after Thanksgiving Catherine arrived in Utah, having received the means for train fare from her son in-law, Thomas Smart. Lorenzo and Catherine went to Hyde Park to visit their daughter Celia, wife of John A. Woolfe. While there Lorenzo put new weather boards on the Woolfe house. Christmas day was spent at Sylvia’s with Ruth, Lorin and Lula. The next day Lorenzo paid seventy-five cents to the shoemaker for fixing his shoes.

1895

On New Year’s Day the Hatch family gathered at Sylvia’s for dinner; Hezekiah and Georgia, Alvenia and Thomas Smart, Lorenzo’s sister Adeline Barber and Lorenzo and Catherine. Ruth and Lula cooked the dinner and Lorin was the cashier.

On January 4th, his sixty-ninth birthday, Lorenzo attended the temple and as he left he was met by his children, Lafayette and Hyrum, Clarey, Annie (Lafayette’s wife) and Celia who came to help him celebrate this special day. Hezekiah and Georgia prepared a dinner for the family and they presented Lorenzo with a record book in which Ruth had written the names of his own family including children and grandchildren. Lorenzo had ninety living descendants.

While in Logan Lorenzo wrote to the First Presidency saying, “I thought I would report myself as I have not had the pleasure of a personal interview for some time.” He told of working in the temple and visiting his children. He also reported that, “My two old ladies are both feeble in health.”

He and Catherine attended a Karren family reunion at the home of their daughter Alvenia Smart and after a visit to his cousin Sophronia Hatch Tidwell in Smithfield, they took their boxes to the depot and, “once more I said farewell to my dear wife Sylvia whom I left in bed sick.”

Lorenzo, Catherine and Lula went to Salt Lake where Catherine visited with her sister while Lorenzo attended conference. Lorenzo enjoyed several sessions in the Salt Lake Temple. One session he especially mentioned was on April 10th. They were in the temple twelve hours, “This was the largest company [session] of the season, 270 in number.”

After telling Ruth and Lula good-bye, he and Catherine prepared to return to Arizona. Lorenzo felt “much depressed in spirit.” Though he does not say why he felt this depression, it may have been the thought of returning to Arizona and the problems he knew would be waiting. The winter in Utah was a pleasant interlude from the cares of planting, fussing over water rights, repairing the Woodruff dam, or traveling long distances to the wards of Snowflake Stake in the wind driven sand or snow of Arizona. The Little Colorado settlements were still primitive country compared to the conveniences of Logan, Utah.

Returning to Woodruff, Lorenzo and Catherine found May “down with the grippe,” and daughter Adeline Savage at their home with her children. She was bedfast and Lorenzo’s “heart was filled with trouble.”

Seventy Years Old

Lorenzo spent his seventieth birthday building fence. In the evening Clark Owens, in his buckboard, called for Lorenzo and Catherine, taking them to their daughter Ella’s home where the adult Hatch children had prepared a surprise feast for him. President Smith and President Richards attended. The evening was spent in “songs, speeches and recitations. All seemed happy.”

In early March Lorenzo received word from his brother Abram that he and his wife would arrive on the train for a visit and asked that Lorenzo meet him. This was Abram’s first journey to the wilds of Arizona where his older brother had been struggling for twenty years. It was a pleasant visit, with a look at the dam and Abram meeting Lorenzo’s children and grandchildren. The Wasatch Stake President confided to his older brother that he was sorrowful over his (own) wayward sons and requested that Lorenzo give he and his wife each a patriarchal blessing before their brief visit was over. Abram told Lorenzo that he, (Lorenzo), was held in high esteem “with the leaders of Zion.”[480]

On March 13th, the seventy-year-old patriarch took his team of horses several miles from Woodruff to pull down cedar trees for firewood. As one of the trees crashed down it scared the horses and they ran away, dragging Lorenzo between them. He got them stopped and unhitched one before they started their runaway race again. One got away with the double tree, single tree and all. Lorenzo caught the other one, mounted him and started for home. He met his son Heber Albert coming to hunt him, as the runaway horse had arrived at Woodruff in a sweat and the son feared for his father. Lorenzo says, “I was quite sore [next day], but able to do the chores.”

The ever faithful Hezekiah in Logan continued to keep in close contact with his father, and in May Lorenzo received a “new suit of clothes and a letter” from him. Hezekiah may have been depressed, as Lorenzo told him, “Don’t be cast down, my dear son, you have done well in looking after my welfare and the Lord will remember you.”

On July 27th Lorenzo wrote President George Q. Cannon a letter of condolence upon the loss of his son, thirty-seven-year-old Apostle A.H. Cannon. “My heart went out in sympathy for you and the great loss of the Church. ...be comforted...he was one of the chosen who has made his calling and election sure.”[481] Lorenzo then bore his testimony as to the prophets of the church and notes that, “These men have been fathers to me. I have letters of great worth written to me by each of them.”

As Lorenzo worked during the summer irrigating and cleaning out ditches in his “gum boots” he was afflicted with leg cramps, forcing him to get up several times in the night and walk the floor to loosen his muscles. He felt tired and weary.

Perhaps being unable to care for all his fields now, Lorenzo sold the land in Woodruff that he had acquired from Dely Webb. Joseph Fish was the buyer and the price was $350.00, with $100.00 down, another $100.00 in three months time and the balance to draw interest. In August Lorenzo and Catherine made the bone-jarring journey to Tuba in the company of ten others for a church conference. On the return trip they found trouble at the river crossing. The horses pulling Lorenzo’s buggy went down in the boggy quicksand of the Little Colorado. He jumped into the water to cut his team loose while Brother Rogers carried Catherine to shore. After a “trying effort of two hours,” the men were able to get the team to dry land and pry the buggy out.

In September Lorenzo started the addition of a new kitchen to the Woodruff house and since Wilford would soon be leaving to attend school, they agreed to board the new Woodruff schoolteacher, Mr. Anderson. Anderson gave $20.00 on board, and the cash money was welcome, as the tax assessor visited Woodruff and Lorenzo said, “my taxes are very oppressive.”

In an interesting, but uncharacteristic move, Lorenzo invested six dollars cash in the John Day Gold Mine. One dollar for Catherine, one for May and one for Wilford and three for himself. The outcome of this investment or even the location of the mine has eluded modern day queries.

On October 13th Wilford left Woodruff to begin his winter term of school. Lorenzo watched his youngest son leave with a prayer in his heart, “May heaven bless the boy and keep him in the narrow way.”

Son Lafayette sent an accounting of the harvest at Franklin to Hezekiah as business manager of the Hatch farm. Lafayette felt they had done well on the wheat crop and reported they had 500 head of sheep. He told Hezekiah that Sylvia’s share of the wheat harvested was 136 bushels. Lafayette mentions he will be casting his first ballot in a presidential election this year, (1896).[482]

Hyrum and Lafayette were living in Franklin and farming Lorenzo’s land. Hyrum sold Lorenzo’s share of the wheat and wrote to Woodruff asking to borrow Lorenzo’s share of the proceeds for awhile. Lorenzo was willing to loan Hyrum the money, but was concerned that Hyrum would not pay Hezekiah what was due him as his share of the wheat.

Lorenzo wrote to Hezekiah on December 26th and again on December 27th. He was greatly concerned about affairs among his boys in the north. “...I told him [Hyrum] in a letter to pay you, [but] fearing he would fail to do so, I sent you the order for the wheat. ...I don’t want you to feel hard towards him. ...Lafayette don’t write me [but] he drives close bargains with me, as you are aware.”

Before this letter was posted Lorenzo added a postscript saying he had received a long letter from Hyrum. Hyrum “felt rather bad” because Lorenzo had asked Hezekiah, who lived in Logan, to look after his business in Idaho. Lorenzo told Hezekiah he would “try and accept of the explanation he [Hyrum] makes and trust that there will be good feelings with all my dear children.”

The measles ran rampant in Woodruff during the holiday season, and when Lorenzo visited the home of Sister Medora Gardner he found her “floor covered with beds, eleven of her children were down with the measles.” Apostle Brigham Young, Jr. was a visitor, and on December 26th Lorenzo took him to Holbrook to catch the train. Gifts were received from Hezekiah and Georgia in Logan and also Abram Hatch sent Lorenzo $5.00 and his wife sent Christmas gifts.

As 1896 came to a close, Lorenzo told Hezekiah, “I get quite blue at times, [but], if my prayers are answered you [my sons] will all be good and wise.”[483]

A Grand Celebration

On Lorenzo’s seventy-first birthday, his children and grandchildren from Taylor joined those living in Woodruff to celebrate the occasion. The old patriarch’s birthday gatherings had become “the grandest celebration of all” each year for the Hatch family. Daughter Lydia Lenora wrote, “Father...looks ten or fifteen years younger than most men his age and I believe it is because he has been a temperint [sic] man keeping the commandments of God.”[484]

The various families arrived for the celebration in wagons bearing quantities of cooked foods, relishes, cakes, and many babies. They entered by double barn gates behind the house, passing Lorenzo’s woodshop and the woodpile of cedar logs and pulled up at the kitchen door to unload the children and the birthday feast.

Lorenzo’s home in Woodruff was a low-roofed frame house with a long front porch. Doors off the porch led directly to Catherine’s bedroom and May’s bedroom. There were paths of flat sandstone all around the house, but the path from the front gate to porch was especially grand. It consisted of flat stones quarried from the town hill laid tightly together, end to end, each stone about five feet wide and eight feet long. This path led past two great locust trees and in the summer, beds of hollyhock and zinnias.[485]

President Jesse N. Smith and some of his family along with many other old friends always attended these birthday celebrations. After the party in 1897, President Smith turned the affairs of the stake to his counselor L.H. Hatch, as he was leaving for Phoenix to attend to his duties as a member of the state legislature.

Apostles John Henry Smith and Heber J. Grant stayed at the Hatch home in March, both coming and going, as they held conferences in Snowflake and St. Johns. Lorenzo mentions that Brother Grant wrote a letter for him on his (Grant’s) typewriter.[486]

Lorenzo accompanied the apostles as they traveled throughout the two stakes, and was pleased when St. Johns Stake President Udall “spoke in high terms of [son] Thomas Hatch who had been sustained as bishop of the Alpine Ward.”

In July, Lula, Alice’s young daughter, returned to Woodruff from Logan where she had been living with Sylvia and attending school for three years. During a visit to Woodruff from the great educator, Karl G. Maeser, Lula was encouraged to get her teaching diploma, and so, in August, when Clarence Owens took Brother Maeser to Holbrook to catch the train, Lula went along and “got her papers to teach school for two years on her diploma from the BYC at Logan.”

The Woodruff people built a large bowery, and a stake conference was held there which was well attended. Among others were Brother and Sister Hunt from far away Tonto Basin, and Louis Decker and Samuel Smith, young men from Snowflake who would later become Lorenzo’s sons-in-law. Louis Decker and May Hatch were married in October of this year.

Grandson, Levi Lorenzo Savage

A tragedy befell Lorenzo’s eleven-year-old grandson, Levi Lorenzo Savage, in September and was all the more tragic for Lorenzo because of the circumstances.

Lorenzo traveled to Taylor to take care of some business, and on September 20th, he, along with his daughter Adeline Savage and her children Vena and Joseph, started for Woodruff. They were joined on the trail by Lucy Ellsworth and her three girls in their buggy. The roads were muddy and slow, and it was seven P.M. before they came to the river which was in full flood stage. Not being able to cross, the group tried to rest and keep dry in their wagons. At nine P.M. Horace Gardner came in great haste, bearing the sad news of the death of eleven-year-old Levi Lorenzo Savage, who was kicked by a young mare. He died at eight P.M. He was Nora’s son, and the same age as little Vena, Adeline’s daughter, who was with Lorenzo.

“I was wet and cold. Vena laid and cried all night by my side. Sister Ellsworth and Addie lay very uncomfortable. We did the best we could. Next morning was pleasant but our horses were tired and hungry [so] I took them six miles to clear water and got some beef that had been killed by cowboys.”

Still unable to cross the raging river, provisions were sent to the party by a cable that had been stretched from bank to bank. Levi Savage, father of the dead boy, came bringing blankets, but they were still unable to get the horses and wagons across.

Lorenzo and those with him spent a second night camped on the banks of the Little Colorado, and next morning the men in Woodruff managed to get the group over the river by means of “putting a horse collar on the [cable] and pulling [each one] over the water. Brother Wimmer was there with his buckboard to take them quickly into Woodruff, as the funeral for the little boy was to be held that day. Lorenzo “came in [to the services] after the opening prayer. This dear boy was snatched away in a moment and I deeply sympathize with my dear daughter Nora.”

The remainder of 1897 was relatively quiet as Lorenzo worked at his carpenter’s bench making improvements on the old co-op building in Woodruff, fashioning furniture for his newly married daughter, May, and settling accounts on his considerable sheep herd. He “rented 252 head of sheep to James Pearce [on shares] for two years.” Lorenzo was to get two pounds of wool for each head and every eighth lamb. He sold thirty head of sheep for fifty-seven dollars.

Lula Jane and Wilford were home for Christmas. Lula Jane was teaching school in Snowflake and Wilford had “an important part in the local Christmas celebrations.” In a hopeful spirit, Lorenzo wrote, “The close of the year found me in good health and I worked hard all day at the bench and went to the theater at night.”

CHAPTER 14

“Worn Hands, Weary Hands”

At fourteen degrees below zero, 1898 arrived with extreme cold, snow and fog.[487] Lorenzo’s usual birthday celebration was postponed until January 15th, but he was pleased when all his family and President Smith came “in compliment of my seventy-second birthday.”

This was a year of routine events in Lorenzo’s life. The durable old man continued to attend ward conferences throughout the stake as well as look after his personal interests in Woodruff. His oldest grandson, Lafayette Hatch, was on a mission in the Samoan Islands, and Lorenzo prayed and fasted, asking that the young man might be able to communicate with the natives.

On March 22nd and 23rd, “About forty persons fasted for Sister Adeline Savage [daughter] and Sister Wimmer, also for Brother Reidhead and several others. Our meetings were at ten A.M. and two P.M. We all prayed round twice and the house was so full that the last day, people had to stand. The power of God was manifested. The sick were healed. The gift of tongues and of prophecy were manifested and all praised God. This day will always be remembered.”[488]

In April Lorenzo began building a barn for himself in Woodruff. At the Stratton mill in Pinedale he traded two old horses for 2000 feet of lumber, and son Wilford returned from a freighting trip to Fort Apache with another load of lumber.

John, Lorenzo and Alice’s oldest son, who was married and living in Taylor, left for a mission to Nebraska in May. Patriarch Hatch gave John a blessing and together they read the blessing John received when he was eight years old. “We bade him good-bye and [Heber Albert] took him to Holbrook. May God bless my boy John.” Lorin, John’s youngest brother was also on a mission in Omaha at this time. Lorin, who had never been to Arizona, since he was raised by Sylvia in Idaho and Utah, wrote to his father, saying John was the “most humble elder in his conference and he is the hardest worker....” When John wrote to Lorenzo from the mission field he reported that Lorin was “beloved by all the elders.” These two brothers, raised in quite different circumstances, found immediate love and respect for each other.[489]

In July Wilford left to join his brother Thomas in New Mexico where Thomas had a contract for log hauling. Lorenzo and Catherine were “...left alone, it was quite a trial to both of us.” Father Charles Shumway, the first to cross the river out of Nauvoo during the exodus, passed away during this summer and Lorenzo spoke at his funeral. Lorenzo also helped bury another grandchild, an infant daughter of Willard.

In the fall, “the wind blew fearful, and ...President Jesse N. Smith was defeated for the legislature by Mr. Woolf who said he was young and that President Smith was an old man.” On the second day of September, President Wilford Woodruff died in San Francisco and the Snowflake Stake Presidency was notified by telegraph.

Twice during the fall, son Thomas sent fifty dollar checks to his father, and in October J.W. Pearce, who had Lorenzo’s sheep on shares, sent a check for wool.

On January 12th Lorenzo received word that Viola Pearce Hatch, wife of his son, Thomas, had died in Alpine leaving seven children. Word came from Safford, Arizona that son Jeremiah was gravely ill with pneumonia. On January 19th, the two old folks in Woodruff fasted and prayed for their boys, Thomas and Jeremiah.[490]

In June a letter was received from the first presidency at church headquarters asking the stake presidency and all ward bishops to attend a Solemn Assembly in Salt Lake City. Lorenzo made the trip with ease this time, taking the train all the way. Son-in-law, Bishop Levi Savage and daughter Lula accompanied him. In Salt Lake he met his oldest son Lafayette and brother Abram.

A New Prophet, Lorenzo Snow

At the special assembly on July 2nd, with about 700 priesthood holders present in the Salt Lake Temple, the First Presidency, the Presiding Bishop and the council of twelve all spoke. They “received the word of God” and “partook of the sacrament... covenanted to pay [their] tithing and do better in the future.” Eighty-five-year-old Lorenzo Snow was sustained as the Prophet, Seer, and Revelator of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[491]

Brother Abram took Lorenzo and Lafayette to a restaurant following the meeting and gave Lorenzo $10.00. Lorenzo went to Logan where he visited with Sylvia, Ruth and Hezekiah. He went on to Franklin, visiting with children and grandchildren, speaking in meetings, giving blessings to grandchildren and taking time to fix daughter Clarissa Cutlers’s pump. His buggy was driven on these visits by grandsons, Moroni Daines and Fayette Hatch.

Hezekiah gave his father “a new hat, a pair of shoes, some collars, a pair of spectacles and a flowing pen.” His grandson, Sumner Hatch, gave him some writing paper. Leaving for Arizona Territory, Lorenzo was driven to the station, leaving Sylvia and Georgia (wife of Hezekiah) “at home on the porch.”

On July 19th Lorenzo was still in Salt Lake and wrote Hezekiah asking him to tell Hyrum and Alvenia, “if they feel like it” to send Catherine some money to “get her some teeth.”

Returning to Arizona, Lorenzo found all well, although “work had gone behind and we had lost our best calf.” Andrew Kimball and Professor Maeser arrived for meetings. Brother Maeser urged students to attend the LDS Academy at Thatcher, Arizona and Brother Kimball lectured on the Indians. The two visitors were given patriarchal blessings by Lorenzo during their stay.

In August son Wilford and granddaughter Addie Savage, daughter of Nora, along with other young people left to attend school in the Gila Valley. Lorenzo outfitted them with a team and wagon “to take them over one of the roughest roads in America...200 miles.” Wilford would live with the family of his brother Jeremiah, in Safford.

Lorenzo wrote to Hezekiah, saying he had “run clear ashore” with his money. He asked for the balance due him on the hay raised in Franklin. He said, “my teeth are so useless that I was obliged to get a new set [for] eighteen dollars [and] Catherine’s teeth were ten dollars.” He also hired some Indians to help with the irrigating and other chores, and they had to be paid “every night.”

Thomas Hatch and his seven motherless children visited in Woodruff. “My sympathies were touched very much. All of them are bright and as good as could be expected. He [Thomas] was a-going to leave two of them with us, but the oldest girl of thirteen said she could not sleep if she did not have them where she could care for them.”[492]

In September Lorenzo added a window, and a roof of fourteen thousand shingles on his new barn and nine thousand shingles on the shed to the barn. A derrick to unload hay was installed. “It is a fine barn and protects a good deal of my hay.”

Affairs in the north country were much on his mind. He was still striving to provide for Sylvia and told Hezekiah, “I told Clarey [daughter] to turn the rent of the pasture to her mother. I would be glad to let her have all that the place produces, but I am so situated that I must have some aid either from the place or call on my sons in the north to help me. I had to go in debt to make the last visit to Utah.”

Lorenzo then gave Hezekiah a lecture in economics, “...when a man of small means gets behind at the store or bank and pays compound interest he is a slave. It is true we raise our bread and make our butter, but groceries, clothing and taxes we have to meet.” His taxes for the year 1899 were $75.00.

An appeal is made to Hyrum in Franklin to help his brother Wilford while he attends school, and for what is owed Lorenzo. Lorenzo asks Hezekiah to “look after Ruth and your Mother and take the same out of the estate.... I hope there will be enough to help us old people to shelter, food and clothing while we live.”[493]

The frost held off and Lorenzo was still hauling hay in October. He had no help, what with all the “little boys going to school,” and so he took a ladder to climb onto the load and tromp it down as he hauled.

His woodshop, where he made furniture, repaired wagons and built what was needed for his household or that of neighbors, was a vital part of Lorenzo’s “setup.” One grandchild remembers the shop as a place with many curious tools, which no one was allowed to touch. There was a wood lathe used to fashion legs for chairs and posts for bedsteads. The grandchildren loved to make the smooth, white shavings on the floor crinkle and crunch under their bare toes. Across from the workbench was the blacksmith quarters with an anvil, hammer, tongs, furnace and the “mysterious bellows, or blast bag.”[494]

Lorenzo summed up the year of 1899 by saying, “I have paid a little over $186.00 [in tithing] this year. I have been greatly blessed and have had good health. Have done much work on the farm and a good deal in the shop. I have depended on the Lord. Have sold a little hay and in one way or another have gotten along.”

Visitors, Maeser, Kimball, Grant, and Clawson

Karl G. Maeser and J. Golden Kimball arrived as visitors “in the interest of Sunday Schools for the stake,” and Apostles Heber J. Grant and Rudger Clawson arrived at Woodruff on January 28th, as visitors for the stake quarterly conference. Lorenzo says, “Brother Kimball and Brother Grant arrived here at nine A.M.feeling well and learning to sing the songs of Zion.

At the February 4th conference Apostle Grant sang several hymns. Following conference Lorenzo and Catherine again had the two apostles as guests as they returned to Holbrook to board the train. “Brother Grant, his wife and Brother Clawson stopped with us. We had two hymns before [nightly] prayers and two more before prayers in the morning before breakfast. [Heber Albert] took the brethren to Holbrook.”

On March 1st, a telegram came from son Hyrum. He and his wife and children were coming to Woodruff for a visit. Though finding Hyrum in poor health, Lorenzo and Catherine were happy to see him and held a special fast for his health. On March 17th, Lula, Alice’s youngest, went to Holbrook to get a “fit-out” for her wedding. She was accompanied by Esther, Hyrum’s wife. Lula was to marry Samuel F. Smith, son of Stake President Jesse N. Smith, in Salt Lake during the April conference.

On April 1st, Lula and Samuel left. Lorenzo bid them good-bye. “God speed them and bless my dear daughter Lula.” President Jesse N. and several others from the stake accompanied them to Salt Lake and attended the wedding as well as conference.

Lorenzo attended stake meetings during the next few months accompanied by different grandchildren. He received a letter from Thomas asking if the grandparents could take his children. With Catherine’s poor health and Lorenzo’s age this arrangement did not seem possible, so during the next winter, Nora Savage, Thomas’ sister, took four of the children into her home and they attended school at Woodruff. Thomas paid Nora $24.00 a month to care for the children, fifteen-year-old Chloe, eight-year-old Lorenzo, six-year-old Victor, and little four-year-old Nora.[495]

Catherine’s health was so poor that her daughter, Alvenia Smart, came from Logan for several weeks to assist her mother. At the end of September, Lorenzo fell from a load of hay when the wagon went into a ditch and he and a small grandson were thrown to the ground. “It took four men to hold my leg, two to hold and two to pull the ankle into place.” The wiry old fellow wrote that his son Heber Albert set his ankle which was dislocated and the bottom of his heel was displaced. Even at seventy-four Lorenzo was not content to be idle. He read the Book of Mormon and wrote many letters while he was laid up. He also fretted about missing two ward conferences.

Twenty Four Year Mission Ends

Without warning, Lorenzo received a letter from President Snow releasing him from his Arizona mission call made by Brigham Young in 1876.[496] The call to help settle this country south of the Utah border had been his for twenty-four years. He had mixed emotions as he read the letter, perhaps sad, happy, confused feelings. What did the future hold for him? This mission had consumed the better part of his strength and his life.

What Lorenzo did not know, was that on October 29th, after learning of their father’s accident, four of his sons, representing all three families, wrote a respectful letter to the First Presidency of the church requesting their father be released from the mission where he had served so long and diligently.

The sons, Lafayette, Hezekiah, Hyrum, and Lorin, cited their father’s age, (75), his recent accident and other infirmities, plus his inability to support himself in Arizona without assistance from Utah, as the reason for their request. They were careful to say the letter was written without Lorenzo’s wish or knowledge. They knew their father would never approve such a request, and may have felt a fear and trembling should he find out.

The four “boys” were quite plain in telling the First Presidency that,

“We do not know how father will feel regarding a release, but if it comes from you we are sure he will accept it as being all right; while if he felt that it came through any intervention on our part, he might not accept it with good feelings. For this reason we would prefer that you investigate the matter fully, when and if, it meets your [approval] to grant him an honorable release, we shall be grateful.”[497]

President Snow must have handled the matter with the utmost diplomacy, as there is no indication that Lorenzo was ever aware of the intervention of his sons.

On December 6th Lorenzo put a spring mattress in the wagon and loaded an ailing Catherine on it for the twenty mile trip to Taylor. “The team was poor and [I] walked nearly all the way.” He visited his married children, May Decker, John and Willard Hatch and Nettie Shumway, showing them his mission release.

A stake conference held in Snowflake with visitors President Joseph F. Smith, Owen Woodruff, and Seymour B. Young convened that week. Lorenzo notes that at this conference several Taylor couples were sealed by the visiting authorities. At the Sunday afternoon meeting Lorenzo was released as first counselor to President J.N. Smith. “Many tears were shed at my release. I had labored twenty-two years with President Jesse N. Smith in perfect union.”

It appears that Lorenzo was not long in making up his mind to return to Utah. Catherine’s health was very poor and she remained with her daughter, May, in Snowflake for most of December and was not well enough to attend the birthday celebration held on January 4, 1901 in honor for Lorenzo’s seventy-fifth birthday.

Seventy-Fifth Birthday

Knowing this may be the last time they would be with their father and grandfather on his birthday, the Arizona children made a grand affair for him. Daughter Nora Savage took charge, and John, who had recently returned from his mission, gave some of Lorenzo’s history “in a feeling manner.” Wilford (who was preparing to go on a mission) and all the brothers spoke. Some of the grandchildren sang, and Lorenzo says, “I had the spirit of blessing and blessed my children. We were at a late hour when we came to my home.” At this time Lorenzo had 111 grandchildren and two great grandchildren. Twenty-three of his own children were living and nine of them attended this birthday celebration. On this occasion, Lorenzo made the comment that, “If I never have the opportunity to come to Arizona again in this life, [I will] certainly be [here] on resurrection morning to greet Alice.”[498]

The weather during the next week must have been fair, for twenty-five members of the Hatch family went to nearby Petrified Forest for a picnic. Eighteen grandchildren were the more part of the party. Though the Petrified Forest was within twenty miles of Woodruff, Lorenzo had apparently never visited there before, since he remarked, “It was a grand sight to see this petrifiction.”

With his usual Yankee practicality, Lorenzo immediately went about disposing of his Arizona holdings. He sold the house and lot and twenty-two acres of land to Lula and Samuel Smith for $1520.00, to be paid in five notes, $304 per year at six percent. Heber Albert took the eighteen acres of land, barn, and nine hundred dollars of water rights, to be paid in five payments. John took five colts to Taylor to do the best he could at selling them.

On February 1st, another old pioneer, James C. Owens, first bishop of Woodruff, fell dead in his shop. Heber Albert helped make the coffin, and on Sunday, February 3rd, Lorenzo “spoke in behalf of brother Owens.”

The next few weeks were a whirlwind as Lorenzo had Jesse N. Smith make a will for him and gave many blessings, not only to his own grandchildren, but to a multitude of others, who knew they would not see him again. On February 11th, Lula gave birth to her first born, a girl, that she named for her mother, Alice. Lorenzo was there to bless the child.

Catherine’s health was not improving, and on March 17th Lorenzo, “Arrived in Woodruff and found Catherine had been very sick. My heart was filled with sorrow.”

John, Ezra, Heber Albert and Lorenzo took a wood frame to the Woodruff cemetery and placed it over Alice’s grave. They later went to a meeting where Lorenzo was speaker, and he noted that “it was perhaps the last testimony that I should ever bear in Woodruff.”

On March 31st, just four months after receiving his mission release, Lorenzo had settled his affairs in Arizona and was prepared to return to Utah. On a cold and windy day family and friends gathered to say good bye and help make them comfortable in the wagon with their many trunks and boxes. For Catherine, a rocking chair was installed and a cover put over the carriage. Hot rocks were placed at her feet. Son-in-law Clarence Owens drove a wagon with part of their luggage and Wilford drove their carriage the ten miles to Holbrook, where they would board the train. In Lorenzo’s unemotional words, “We...gave the parting hand to dear children and friends.” However, a grandchild remembers the tears and feeling of desolation their parting left with her.[499]

Katy, Thomas’s daughter, traveled with them and was a great help to her grandmother Catherine. Arriving in Holbrook Lorenzo visited Julius Wetzler’s store, where he must have had an account, for he “settled up” and bought a suit of clothes for ten dollars and a Navajo blanket.

Last Return To Cache Valley

It was snowing hard when they arrived in Salt Lake City on April 4th. Catherine went to stay with her sister, Mary Karren Bennion in Murray, and Lorenzo attended April Conference where he heard Apostle Smoot speak and noted, “that was the first time that I had seen him.” It is likely that Lorenzo was acquainted with all of the apostles and church authorities up until this time. During the conference Brother Brigham Young, Jr. invited Lorenzo to visit with he and President Snow “to talk over an appropriation for the Snowflake Academy.”

Six days later Lorenzo was in Logan where he declared himself, “glad to get back to Cache Stake.” Hyrum and Hezekiah made plans to get a house in Logan for Lorenzo and Catherine. After a visit to Franklin, Lorenzo returned to Logan where he and Catherine lived with Sylvia until a nearby home was prepared for them.

Lorenzo attended the Logan Conference on April 28th and was “sustained a patriarch in the Cache Stake where I had been ordained twenty-eight years ago come next June 27th.” Lorenzo was a favorite speaker at conference meetings and also in the Logan Temple. He was among the thinning ranks of early pioneers, and attended funerals of several men who had been his acquaintances since Nauvoo. He and his sister, Adeline Barber, worked regularly in the Logan Temple attending to ordinances for their deceased relatives.

There was always something to be repaired or built either at his own house or that of one of the many children and grandchildren. Lorenzo kept busy at these projects, and planted a garden. On a visit to Preston, Idaho to the home of his daughter Chloe Daines, Lorenzo says, “I laid down and rested for awhile, then I ground the axe and hatchets, two of them, which were very dull.” Dull axes, broken screens, broken gates, unpainted doors and weeds in the garden were among the things Lorenzo Hatch could not abide so he did his best to take care of them wherever he found them.

Lorenzo, who had always been a prodigious letter writer despite his spelling handicap, wrote to President Snow on June 3rd, and on June 9th he wrote to his son George Jeremiah Hatch in Thatcher, Arizona saying, “My health is pretty good for a man of my age. [Lafayette], [Hezekiah], Thomas, Hyrum, Alvenia and Lorin have fixed up a place in this city of five thousand for me to live in. The house and lot belongs to [Hezekiah] Hatch. He is bringing the water into the house so that it will be very convenient for us.”[500] Rent from the land at Woodruff and at Franklin would pay his expenses and help Wilford on his mission.

A plan to finance temple work was set forth by Lorenzo, asking each of his children to furnish one dollar a year and each grandchild twenty-five cents. Lorin was appointed to look after the fund. Regarding this plan, Lorenzo noted the following year that, “Nora and Lula sent five dollars to assist in the temple work, donated by the grandchildren in Woodruff and Taylor. Last year they sent ten dollars. The children here have not done much to support the temple work yet. [Hezekiah] Hatch furnishes horse and buggy to take me and my sister Adeline to the temple and he will be blessed. Dear Ruth has also done a very good work. Her reward will be great.”

In June Hezekiah gave Lorenzo a silver headed cane with L.H.H. engraved on the head. He may have still been suffering from the ankle injury, but whatever the reason for the cane, Lorenzo was very proud of it and carried it with him to meetings, lectures, or to the temple.

Lorenzo and Catherine both had health problems. Lorenzo suffered with boils for several weeks and Catherine was almost continually in pain and could not sleep. In August Lorenzo asked visiting Apostle Mathias F. Cowley to administer to her.

Lorenzo heard President Snow speak at October conference and three days later learned of the death of the eighty-eight-year-old prophet. President Snow was the last of the general authorities to have been personally acquainted with the Prophet Joseph Smith. Lorenzo attended a funeral service for President Snow held in Logan Second Ward where Melvin Ballard spoke.

The busy seventy-five-year-old Lorenzo shingled Sylvia’s coal house, hauled wood for Sylvia and at daughter Clara’s home, he “cut down a boxelder tree and cut it up....”

He attended a special conference in Salt Lake where Joseph F. Smith was sustained president of the church. Old folks parties were an enjoyable visiting time. These parties were held church-wide with each ward being responsible for providing entertainment, food and transportation for those members over seventy years of age. On December 25th, Ruth went with her father to one of these parties, as neither her mother Sylvia, nor Catherine were well enough to accompany him.

Lorenzo’s seventy-sixth birthday “passed without special reference, except Hezekiah presented [him] with a fine shirt, necktie and collar.” The old pioneer was much in demand as a speaker, telling of his experiences in Nauvoo, Idaho, Arizona, and his mission in England forty-five years ago.

At April conference his brother Abram gave him fifteen dollars for temple offering. Lorenzo says Abram “is deeply involved and very anxious to get more money. He proposes to establish a bank [with] William Smart as president.”

Abram had been released as Wasatch Stake president in 1901 after serving in that position for twenty-four years. Despite his long years of service to the church, Abram was best known for his role in politics as a state legislator and for his business acumen. As a promoter of business and industry he established a thriving cattle business in Ashley Valley and a mercantile institution in Heber City. He also served as probate judge of Wasatch County. A biographer wrote in 1909 that, “...it is in the character [of statesman] rather than as a church man that he is specially and distinctly a personage of interest to the people of Utah. He is called bold, outspoken and thoroughly American.”[501]

Lorenzo’s sister, Elizabeth Winn, whom he had not seen for twenty-six years visited him. She attended the Logan Temple with Lorenzo and Adeline, where she was sealed to her father and mother.[502]

Catherine and Sylvia were in failing health though Catherine was able occasionally to visit the temple. Lorenzo continued to work and accomplish chores that seem remarkable for one of his age. He hauled several loads of willows, made an ironing board for a granddaughter, tended garden and orchard, and on June 28th he says, “I commenced at four A.M. and got the old horse shod.”

He gave many patriarchal blessings, wrote letters, attended “Old Folks Parties,” and occasionally went to the theater and even enjoyed a concert in Salt Lake by the Salt Lake Choir. His comments on that were, “Paid fifty cents. California scenery was shown.”

Lorenzo, never one to shy away from asking what he felt was his due, wrote to Mr. Bancroft, Vice President of the Oregon and Short Line Railroad asking for free passage on that railway, since he had done so much to help build the road. While living at Franklin Lorenzo had been one of the Board of Directors and arranged an exemption from taxes for seven years, while the railway got its start. Moses Thatcher signed Lorenzo’s request and it was granted by the railway giving the old pioneer free passage whenever and wherever he chose to travel.[503]

If old age was a handicap, Lorenzo learned there were also advantages. At the 1902 October conference in Salt Lake City, he met his son Wilford and they attended meetings before attempting to find a place to lodge. Lorenzo says, “Over 150 people walked the street for want of a room to stop. But as I was an old man, one landlady concluded to find a bed for us. We were at the Herald Hotel.”

At one of the conference sessions President Joseph F. Smith invited Lorenzo to the stand to give the benediction on the meeting.

Throughout his fifty years of journal keeping, Lorenzo often mentions animals in a feeling way. This side of his caring personality is shown again in a November 28th entry: “I found old Prince dead. He was about twenty-one years old. He has been owned by [Hezekiah] Hatch from the time he was three years old. He had done me good service for the last year and a half. I drove him to the temple three times a week.... I hauled wood with him and went to the orchard two or three times a week. When I returned from conference I found him too weak to hitch up. We fed him oats and tried to revive him, but it was too late. Peace be to his ashes.”

On December 19th, at an Old Folks Party, Lorenzo was “complimented as being the brother of my son Hezekiah Hatch.” On Christmas day one of the activities the old man recorded was, “shoveled snow roads.”

Death of Brother Jeremiah

February 27th was the fifty-second anniversary of the wedding of Sylvia and L.H. Hatch. Sylvia had been very ill and a few days before her children were notified. Lorenzo mentions getting her an invalid chair.

On May 2nd Lorenzo attended a birthday social at Brother Linnerows and commented, “The old gent was over eighty years old. I made a speech and blessed the company. Got home at nine P.M. and Catherine was quite excited because I was out so late.”

Lorenzo received word of the death of his brother Jeremiah in Vernal, Utah. In two months Jeremiah would have been eighty years old, and he was the first to die of the five Hatch orphans who crossed the plains together fifty-three years before.[504]

Money was received on the Arizona property and occasionally Lorenzo was paid a few dollars for giving patriarchal blessings.[505] He sold potatoes from his garden and apples from his well tended orchard. On June 21st he “Put water on the orchard. Got up at four A.M. and hoed potatoes. Worked in the potatoes [each day] until Friday, then went to the temple.” In August Lorenzo sold three hundred pounds of potatoes at sixty cents a bushel and eight dozen ears of corn at ten cents a dozen.

A trip to the temple on a very wet day brought an accident when the near front wheel ran off and threw both Lorenzo and his sister Adeline out of the buggy. Adeline’s left wrist was broken, but the wiry old fellow was not hurt.

Another near disaster came when Lorenzo got David Finn to help him haul hay. Finn drove the load under a large tree while Lorenzo was on top of it. A limb struck him in the chest and “came near to dragging me off the load.”

Lorenzo continued his life long habit of letter writing. Correspondence with his cousin, Judge Edward Hatch of New York, grandson of Sidney Rigdon, brought remembrances of the early days in Nauvoo. Lorenzo bore his strong testimony of the truthfulness of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to Judge Hatch and told him of the early ancestors the two shared.

Christmas Day was spent at Sylvia’s home, where she lived with daughter Ruth. Lorenzo remembers it was just fifty-two years since his first child was born. “I am at this date the grandfather of 159 grandchildren and great grandchildren.”

During the next several weeks reunions were held in Franklin with the Lafayette Hatch and Hyrum Hatch families, and then another with the Daines portion of the family. In Logan a reunion with the Smart children and grandchildren was held. Lorenzo was enjoying this chance to be with his extensive family of the north. He had not become well acquainted with the grandchildren on his short visits from Arizona, but now they were a big part of his life.

On Christmas Day he and Catherine received a package from their grandson, Carl Smart, a missionary to the Samoan Islands. Carl sent them each a ring inlaid with silver letters. Earlier he had mentioned grandchildren Moroni Daines, Annie Hatch and Oral Hatch coming to Logan to attend the circus. Lorenzo also declared that eight-year-old grandson, Newell Daines, who helped him get wood, was a “fine little worker.”

No Time For Repose

While he enjoyed the Utah grandchildren, Lorenzo had cause to mourn for some of those in Arizona. Word came from Taylor that two of Willard’s young sons had died of diphtheria just five days apart. Others were very sick. Lorenzo wrote, “O Lord, bless my dear children in Arizona and heal them up from their afflictions....”

Catherine was able to attend meetings with Lorenzo and did some work in the temple, but her health was not good. Sylvia did not leave her home at all now. Ruth was the main caregiver, and several times, girls who were attending B.Y. College in Logan stayed with the old folks, helping them in return for room and board.

Lorenzo and his sister Adeline went to Salt Lake for April conference, and Lorenzo was especially pleased to see President Jesse N. Smith from Snowflake. The two had a meeting with Church President Joseph F. Smith. Several times during 1904 and 1905 Lorenzo wrote to the First Presidency, giving his opinion of the temporal affairs of the Saints in Woodruff. He still had several children living in that town and was certainly an authority on the problems they continued to have with attempts to build a dam in the Little Colorado River. He told President Joseph F. Smith, “Eight times during the last twenty-five years I have taken part with all the influence and means at my command to hold the place and reconstruct the dam after it had washed out.”[506] The ideas and suggestions Lorenzo put forth in these letters as to how a permanent dam could be accomplished, is the plan that was used many years later in what has proved to finally be a successful method of bringing water to the fields and gardens of Woodruff.

Lorenzo’s son, Ezra T., arrived from Arizona and they “went to the great temple.” Ezra visited in Logan after conference, as he was preparing to leave for a mission to Mississippi. Lorenzo says, “I gave him [Ezra] a blessing.... He felt quite lonely, but I felt he would do a good work.... I took him to the train and bade him God speed.”

In June Lorenzo put in writing some of his wishes concerning the time of his death. After naming several who should be notified he wrote, “Be very careful not to incur any great expense at my funeral. A plain coffin is good enough for me. I wish to leave at least fifty dollars for the redemption of Zion.” He wanted his family to continue to do the temple work in which he and Adeline were so active.

Death of Sylvia

On June 26th, “Dear Sylvia was mostly unconscious through the day.” However, this long-time companion of Lorenzo’s rallied and it was not until November 9th that Lorenzo recorded in his journal, “I commence this page ...by recording the sad fact that my dear wife, Sylvia Savona Eastman Hatch, departed this life at twenty minutes to six A.M. at her residence in Logan at the age of seventy-eight years and five days.” With praise for Sylvia and much emotion, Lorenzo wrote, “My heart is full and I can write but little.”

On November 30th the old man attended a fiftieth wedding anniversary in Hyde Park for Snel Lamb and his wife. This was a nostalgic occasion for Lorenzo, as he had married the couple fifty years before in Lehi. His comment was, “Seems but a few years have elapsed since their wedding day.”

On January 15th, Patriarch Hatch went to Franklin to speak at the funeral of a great granddaughter. With feeling he wrote, “She was a beautiful child.” A sad letter from Arizona told of two more grandchildren dying. Ella Owens lost a girl and a boy. Lorenzo says of Ella, “She has been full of trouble. O, Lord, comfort our dear girl.”

In March Lorenzo and Catherine moved into the brick house that had been Sylvia’s. Their daughter, Celia Woolf, bought the other house from Hezekiah Hatch. Catherine’s health did not improve, but she was able to occasionally visit with her married children and their families.

Attending April conference in Salt Lake, Lorenzo met John Rigdon, son of Sidney Rigdon, and spent several hours with him. John Rigdon “felt well to be a member of the church in his declining years.”

In July Grandfather Lorenzo received word that a granddaughter in Arizona was lost in the forest wilderness of that place. The seven-year-old daughter of his son John was lost on a camping trip and her fate unknown. Lorenzo says, “I was so filled with grief that I was nearly overcome. I was impressed that she had perished.” Grandfather Lorenzo’s impression was correct. The remains of little Katy Hatch were found after a traumatic fifteen day search.

New Year’s Day, 1906 was a “cold and beautiful morning.” At the breakfast table in the Lorenzo Hill Hatch household were Catherine, Ruth, Wilford, Lorenzo and a small granddaughter that Ruth was looking after. This babe belonged to Chloe Daines who was ill.

Ruth Hatch was very like her brother Hezekiah. She did not make any discrimination among the children and grandchildren of the three Hatch families. When someone needed help, Ruth was there, just as Hezekiah had always been. The acts of these two children alone are a testimony to the love, harmony and loyalty that Sylvia, Catherine, Alice and Lorenzo nurtured in their family.

On June 24th, eighty-year-old Lorenzo was shocked to receive news of the death of President Jesse N. Smith in Snowflake. President Smith was eight years younger than Lorenzo.

At the request of Elder Preston Nibley of Chicago, Illinois, Lorenzo wrote giving what account he could of Joseph Smith as he remembered him. He tells of listening to the prophet speak, giving details as to his physical description and remembering some of the things Joseph said. He ended the letter by saying,

“After an experience of sixty-six years in trying to live a good and upright life...I bear my testimony that Joseph Smith was raised up to establish this work, and that the Book of Mormon and revelations received by him are from our Heavenly Father. I bear testimony that Brigham Young and all the men who have presided from Brigham Young to our beloved President Joseph F. Smith are prophets of the Most High God.”

Lenora “Nora” Savage, daughter from Woodruff, visited with her parents for three months during this summer, knowing she may never see them again. The aging father so enjoyed her visit that he felt “quite heart broken when Nora left.” Lorenzo’s health was failing, and his journal entries tend to be reminiscences after Nora’s visit. His last entries were made in December 1906.

Though we have no record of it, one might be sure Lorenzo Hill Hatch did not spend his last years sitting in a rocking chair. His mind was alert and active to the end, and there is no doubt he did what he could to repair, plant, and fulfill what he saw as his “life’s work of expounding the scriptures.”

He and Catherine continued to live surrounded by loving family, especially Ruth, who lived with them for more than three years. Catherine died at the Logan home on February 24, 1910, and less than two months later, eighty-four-year-old Lorenzo followed her.

In his last hours Lorenzo was cared for by children and grandchildren. Almost with his last breath he testified and exhorted his posterity as to the truthfulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He seemed to be knotting the ends of his life together, getting ready to leave, with a feeling he had finished his work.

With awe the family watched as this ordinary old man stared so calmly into the abyss of death. He may well have heard the words, “Of my name thou hast not been ashamed, enter in.”

Appendix I

Ladies Of “The Principle”:

Spunky Sylvia

Sylvia Savona Eastman was a well educated woman for her time. After school in the small town of New Fane, Vermont, she was sent for further education to school in Townsend, ten miles from her home. Her parents, James and Clarissa Eastman, joined the Mormon church in Vermont when Sylvia was sixteen years old,[507] but Sylvia did not consent to baptism until the family reached Utah. One brother, Ozro French Eastman never joined the Mormons though he accompanied the family to the Rocky Mountains and lived near them for the remainder of his life. Father, James Eastman, outfitted the young man with a fine wagon and team and made arrangements for Ozro to be a member of President Brigham Young’s pioneer company which traveled to the Great Salt Lake in 1847.[508]

While Ozro accompanied the 1847 caravan to the Rocky Mountains, Father James, Mother Clarissa, brother Benjamin Franklin, and sister Sylvia, waited at Winter Quarters in Nebraska. During the long winter sixty-one-year old Father James Eastman, suffering from poor food and intense cold, contracted scurvy and while Ozro was absent, his father was buried at Winter Quarters.

When Ozro returned to Nebraska in the spring of 1848, he and his brother Benjamin Franklin took their widowed mother, Clarissa, and sister, Sylvia Savona, to Salt Lake. The Eastmans arrived in September of 1848 and at once began to build a home. Sylvia helped turn the adobe and in December the family moved into the unfinished home, using boxes for bedsteads and a buffalo robe for the door.[509]

A need for cash was felt immediately by the Eastmans and Sylvia worked as a housekeeper for other families and later began sewing shirts for some of the first merchants of Salt Lake City.[510]

Two years later, in December of 1850, Sylvia met a young widower at a Christmas gathering. She had much in common with Lorenzo Hill Hatch, both having deep roots in Vermont and having suffered the trials of Nauvoo, Winter Quarters and the trail to Great Salt Lake Valley. Each had given up a more comfortable life for the love of family members who led them, as young people, into what they felt was the true Church of Jesus Christ.

Lorenzo and Sylvia were wholly committed to this faith when they married on February 27, 1851. On Christmas day of that same year their first child, Lorenzo Lafayette, was born in Lehi, Utah where they had claimed land. Almost from the first year of the marriage, Sylvia’s widowed mother, Clarissa Goss Eastman, was a member of their household. She lived with Sylvia and Lorenzo until her death at age ninety in 1883.

These two strong, well educated women, Sylvia and her mother Clarissa, encouraged and taught the Hatch children the value of education and social graces. They stood between the children and the rough, uncouth ways of this raw frontier country.

Sylvia was devoted to Lorenzo and there is no evidence from extant writings that she was resentful when he entered into plural marriage.

During the 1840s only a few close associates of Joseph Smith, the Latter-day Saint prophet, knew of the doctrine of plural marriage. However, rumors circulated and many Mormons, as well as non-Mormons protested sharply.

With the death of Joseph Smith and the move to Salt Lake by the Saints, Brigham Young felt it was no longer necessary to conceal the practice of plural marriage. In a general conference held at Salt Lake in August, 1852, Orson Pratt, an apostle of the Mormon Church, made a public speech defending polygamy as a tenet of the Mormon faith. In the afternoon session of this conference the revelation on the subject, as it was given to Joseph Smith, was read for the first time in public. From that day forward leaders preached and encouraged members, especially those in leadership positions, to marry additional wives.[511]

Lorenzo and Sylvia had been married but a year when this doctrine, which came to be called “The Principle,” was announced publicly. The following year, 1853, Lorenzo was called as bishop’s counselor in Lehi. In November 1854 he took Catherine Karren, a young Lehi woman, as his second wife.

Sylvia undoubtedly was acquainted with Catherine, as they both lived in the small community of Lehi. Though there was no set procedure for couples entering into plural marriage, it was the understanding of many that a husband had to obtain the consent of the first wife.

Sylvia was ten years older than Catherine Karren, Lorenzo’s new wife, and though there must have been problems, they lived in the same house in Lehi for eight years.

Lorenzo left them together for two years while serving a mission in England. When he departed in 1856, Sylvia had a new son four months old and Catherine’s first child was but one month. The wives joined forces and managed quite well. There is no doubt that Sylvia, with her spunky personality and superior education, was the guiding hand of the family. The two women fought grasshoppers and famine together, and formed a bond that would last throughout their lives. When Lorenzo returned from his mission in the spring of 1858, he found Sylvia behind the plow preparing a field for planting.[512]

Sylvia’s fourth child, Ruth Amorette, was born in 1859 the year following Lorenzo’s return from England. In January of 1860 Lorenzo married Alice Hanson as his third plural wife.

The compelling argument by Church authorities was that plural marriage had been commanded by God through Joseph Smith, and obedience to the principle of plural marriage was necessary for couples to attain exaltation and be counted worthy in the hereafter.[513]

Lorenzo, as a counselor to Bishop Evans of Lehi, was surely encouraged and given to understand that it was his duty to enter into this principle if he cared to rise in the hierarchy of the church. Lorenzo would not falter in anything he saw as his duty to his church.

Sylvia must have shared these feelings, for she exhibited loyalty and love for Lorenzo through the trials not only of polygamy, but years of economic tribulation and separation.

There are two incidents that may possibly indicate some resentment by Sylvia toward the other wives. One is the fact that Sylvia’s last child was born the year after Lorenzo took his third plural wife. Sylvia was thirty-five years old and five children were considered a small family at that time. This abrupt end to the growing family may have been a reflection on Sylvia’s relationship with Lorenzo, or it may have been a physical problem.

Another incident that gives one pause are the actions of Sylvia when the Hatches moved to Franklin in 1863. This was a difficult transition for all the family as Lorenzo had been building and accumulating in Lehi for eleven years. Now they were to move to a frontier town and start over again.

Lorenzo initially took Alice and her two young children with him to Franklin. The people were living in fort-like conditions in small log and adobe cabins. When Alice was settled he returned to Lehi for Catherine and her four children. Another small cabin was built for them.

Before returning to Lehi for Sylvia, her five children and Mother Clarissa, Lorenzo contracted to have a cabin finished that he had begun for them. As the group neared Franklin on the return trip, he received word that the cabin was not completed. It was winter and dreadfully cold, so he left Sylvia and her family in nearby Smithfield at the home of his sister, Adeline Hatch Barber, while he traveled on to Franklin to complete the cabin.

Two days later, as he worked on the cabin, Lorenzo looked up to see Sylvia and her family arrive huddled under blankets and robes. Sylvia, undaunted, had arranged with George Barber, Adeline’s husband, to take her on to Franklin despite the unfinished cabin. Lorenzo just shook his head, not knowing quite what to do. Sylvia never hesitated, but ordered a big fire and various covers nailed on doors and windows.[514]

Did Sylvia feel her place as first wife was threatened by not being in Franklin with Lorenzo? Why was she so hasty to leave the Barber home, and why was her family not sheltered with Alice or Catherine for a few days?

However, Sylvia demonstrated many times in the next years not only her loyalty and support for Lorenzo, but her love and concern for the other wives and their children.

In 1868, when Lorenzo contracted to build a mile of railroad for the Central Pacific line, it was Sylvia who willingly set up a cook tent and prepared food for men on the crew.

Sylvia tutored her children, and young Hezekiah could read before he started school. She was no doubt a great influence in the decision in later years to send Hezekiah to a special school in Logan for advanced learning. Another daughter, Ruth, was church organist and gave music lessons. Her daughters Elizabeth and Ruth, both had the advantage of attending Brigham Young College at Logan for one term.

Sylvia was the wife who readily accepted the role of hostess to the many travelers and guests that visited their home both in Lehi and later in Franklin. In the early 1870s Lorenzo built the large stone house in Franklin which is still referred to as the Hatch House. In this home Sylvia made welcome travelers and visitors from all walks of life. She was an excellent hostess and helpmate for the Bishop of Franklin and later the legislator from Idaho.[515]

Sylvia welcomed several children into her home and mothered them along with her own. In 1870 the eight-year-old motherless son of Lorenzo’s brother Jeremiah was living in Sylvia’s household.

In 1876 when Lorenzo was forced by anti-polygamists to leave Idaho and go south, he took Catherine and her family with him. Adeline, the nine-year-old daughter of Catherine, stayed in Idaho under the care of Sylvia for some time.

By 1877 it was necessary for Alice and her family to move to Arizona with Lorenzo. Alice had nine children by this time, the youngest just one year old. Sylvia suggested that Alice leave one small son, Joseph Lorin, in Franklin with her. Sylvia raised this child to manhood, seeing that he was educated and cared for.

With the exodus of Lorenzo and his two younger families, Sylvia was left with the responsibility for her eighty-three-year old mother, three grown daughters, and Alice’s four-year-old son. The oldest son of Lorenzo and Sylvia, Lafayette, was married. He was to run his father’s farm on shares. Hezekiah used his education to good advantage and was able to contribute to the care of Sylvia’s household with his earnings as bookkeeper and telegraph operator.

Grandmother Clarissa and Mother Sylvia sold butter and eggs while managing a large garden. Soon daughter Ruth was teaching in the district school and Elizabeth became a dressmaker.

Sylvia’s family was comfortable in the large stone house. The farm, livestock and other interests accumulated over the past fifteen years made Sylvia’s family self sufficient, and under the direction of her two sons, would more than once be the saving factor for Lorenzo as he struggled in the frontier civilization of Arizona.

In 1883 Sylvia’s ninety-year-old mother died and her daughters were grown women, though not all were married. Sylvia made known to Lorenzo that she wanted the big rock house in Franklin sold and a small place built for her. Lorenzo wrote to his son, Hezekiah, who was handling the Hatch family affairs and ask his ideas on the sale of the house. At this time Lorenzo made mention of Sylvia going to Arizona. He wrote to Hezekiah, “...perhaps if all things are favorable she [Sylvia] will return with me [to Arizona] when I come again. I should like you to keep the place for yourself provided you wanted it. Think this matter over.”[516]

Lorenzo, upon returning to Franklin from Arizona in December 1885 wrote in his journal of the reception by fifty-nine-year-old Sylvia. “...received with joy by my companion, Sylvia. I found [her] much changed in appearance and health.”[517] Lorenzo wrote from Franklin to his son in Logan, Utah, “I hope I can get your Dear Mother to go down to see you and go to the temple with me, but I don’t know.”[518]

After being threatened by federal officers who were actively prosecuting polygamists in 1885-1886, Lorenzo wrote a revealing letter to his son Hezekiah:

“Your dear Mother has done all she could to make her children happy and I am assured you will not let her want if you can help it. What can I do for your poor Mother to comfort her? Financially I can’t do anything at present.

“I should be much pleased to get a letter from your mother once more. When I think of my dear home and children in the north, I can hardly be reconciled. I shall soon be sixty-two and I feel quite old and nearly heart broken.”[519]

Lorenzo assessed Sylvia during this time as a “staid and devout” person, which bears out the image presented by a photo of her looking directly into the camera with a rather grim, no nonsense look. The dark hair, with a middle part, is drawn severely back into a bun and an elegant crocheted collar relieves the starkness of her dark dress.

By 1888 Sylvia still did not have the new, smaller house she wanted. Catherine and her family had moved back to Utah (Coveville) from Arizona because of the persecution and Lorenzo, in an effort to protect and keep intact his three families, wrote to Hezekiah, “Sorry that matters are coming so hard on you to prepare a new home for your Mother. I always felt that Franklin was her home and if she could feel content to live in her house, and [Lafayette] could aid her some it might be better for both her and you. ...it seems to me that your Mother could take any part of the house she desires and let Catherine have a part with her till such time as I could build a house on one of the other lots, or bring her back to this country.”[520]

Sylvia was not sympathetic with Lorenzo’s problems. He spoke of the relationship in another letter to their son Hezekiah one month later, “I have not written but one letter to your Mother since last July. I don’t suppose she desires to hear from me. I am truly sorry that matters are in the shape they are. It has been many years since any counsel has been sought at my hands by her. She may have good reasons, but I don’t think so. This has been a great trial to me to be neglected by those one thinks the most of. It seems very hard.”[521] Shortly after this letter, Hezekiah, who lived in Logan, bought a house in that city for his Mother and moved her there.

Her relationship with Lorenzo must have warmed a bit, for in 1891 at the death in Arizona of Alice, Lorenzo’s third wife, he received a letter from Sylvia saying, “I do not know what to write to comfort you. ...Alice was so strong that I thought she would outlive us all, but it seems that she was ready to go and the Lord saw fit to take her from us. May He that over rules us all bring comfort to you is my prayer...From your Companion, S.S. Hatch.”[522]

Lorenzo also expressed to Hezekiah his pleasure at receiving a “likeness” of Sylvia in April of this year.

When Lorenzo and Catherine returned to Utah in 1901, they lived at Logan in a home near Sylvia. Lorenzo did chores at Sylvia’s house and helped look after her as her health worsened. Their daughter, Ruth, lived with Sylvia. Joseph Lorin Hatch, the son of Alice who had remained in Idaho, was in her home much of the time. In May, 1901, Lorenzo recorded, “I went to Sylvia’s because this day was lonely for her as Lorin was gone to Franklin.”

On February 27,1903, Lorenzo wrote in his journal: “[This] was the fifty-second anniversary of the wedding of Sylvia and L.H. Hatch. On Saturday I got an invalid chair for Sylvia. She was quite weak.”

November 9, 1904, Lorenzo recorded: “I commence this page of my journal by recording the sad fact that my dear wife, Sylvia Savona Eastman Hatch, departed this life at twenty minutes to six A.M. at her residence in Logan at the age of seventy-eight years and five days. She has been a good wife and devoted mother. My heart is full and I can write but little.”[523]

Loving Catherine

Petite, brown eyed Catherine Karren, eighteen-year-old daughter of Thomas and Anne Ratcliffe Karren of Lehi, Utah, became the plural wife of Lorenzo Hill Hatch on 11 November,1854.

The Karren family, of Liverpool, England, joined the Mormon Church in 1840, and on February 6, 1844 arrived at New Orleans on a journey to join the Saints in Nauvoo, Illinois. After two weeks on the river boats of the Mississippi they arrived at Nauvoo where Thomas Karren bought a farm. The family settled down with the thought of staying there always.[524]

Thomas and Ann Karren found their stay in Illinois brief. After less than a year they were forced to leave the new farm and flee across the Mississippi River into Iowa with others of their faith.

In July, 1846, the Karren family was camped near Council Bluffs, Iowa with the main body of Saints when Mormon Battalion members were recruited by the U.S. Army for the war with Mexico. Brigham Young asked for 500 volunteers willing to make the march west with the army. Thomas Karren volunteered and marched away leaving his young wife with five children and pregnant with another.[525]

The two oldest Karren children were John, who was twelve, and Catherine, ten. The family was camped in a place called “The Bottoms” with over six-hundred other Saints. “There were a few old wagons with covers; tents were constructed by stretching quilts and blankets over frames made of small poles; other shelters were made by weaving brush between stakes driven into the ground; here were huddled women and children destitute of both food and adequate clothing.”[526]

Ann Karren was ill with malaria when her new baby was born. On that day a drenching rain swept the camp, flooding the wagon box where Mother Ann lay. John and Catherine dipped rain water out of their make-shift home with a wash basin. Many others in the camp were sick and when the newborn, a girl, died after a few weeks, twelve-year-old John made the crude wooden coffin and the children went alone to bury her.[527]

Living at The Bottoms, young Catherine had an experience she would relate to her children and grandchildren in years to come. It happened in October, 1846. “In the midst of our greatest hunger something wonderful happened. ...the Lord sent great flocks of quail [into our camp]. They would walk right into some of the tents and everyone could get them. I was the only one in our family well enough to go out, and I caught them in my apron. This coming of the quail brought us good food. We all had plenty and were sincerely thankful to the Lord for sending those birds to us in our sore need.”[528]

Just one year later, Thomas Karren returned to his family. The war was over. He had marched to California and back to Iowa. Catherine was still a child of eleven years, but she was well schooled in the hardships of pioneering.

In the spring of 1850 the Karren family arrived in Salt Lake Valley and Thomas plowed the first furrows and built the first house on the new town site which became Lehi.

Catherine had almost no formal schooling, but learned to read and write with her parents help. As a young woman she attended the night spelling school held at the log meeting house in Lehi. Dancing lessons were also offered the young folks, and she learned all the steps.

When Lorenzo Hill Hatch, bishops counselor in Lehi, was urged by Church authorities to take a second wife, he remembered Catherine Karren, who passed his fields each morning as she drove her father’s cows to pasture. She accepted the proposal to become a plural wife and on her wedding day went to live in the same house with Lorenzo’s first wife, Sylvia.

During the next eight years they shared the same home, the same purse, the same joys and sorrows, as well as the companionship of their husband, Lorenzo. To Catherine, her husband was always, “Lorenzo the beloved.” She was loyal to him to the highest degree, and would hear no words against him.

In the first years of her marriage to Lorenzo, Catherine and Sylvia did their laundry on washboards, with Sylvia scrubbing at one tub and Catherine by her side at another. One day Lorenzo came in carrying a piece of dirty cloth, saying he had found it and thought it might have some value. His words were, “Here girls, give it a wash and see.” That was just too much for Sylvia. Work she would, and gladly, but she would not wash common rags from the road. She flung it aside, but Catherine retrieved it. If Lorenzo wanted it washed, then washed it would be.[529]

Catherine bore eleven children, losing one son in 1874 when he was two months old. She moved with Lorenzo from Lehi to Franklin, Idaho, to Savoia, New Mexico to Arizona, to Coveville, Utah and again to Arizona before spending her final years with him in Logan, Utah.

Catherine was the only wife who made all these moves. It seems that when the necessity for one of the Hatch families to relocate came, it was always Catherine, with her spirit of loyalty, who was willing to go with Lorenzo.

“Gentle she was, but not too gentle to stand alone when the occasion demanded.”[530] In 1876 Lorenzo was forced to leave his comfortable homes and farms in Idaho to seek refuge from the pressures of anti-polygamists. He chose to take Catherine and her young family with him into the south country, where Brigham Young had suggested he spend some time.

Catherine’s two oldest daughters, Celia and Alvenia had married men from the Franklin area and made their homes there. As the time to depart grew near, Lorenzo urged Catherine to leave her nine-year-old daughter, Adeline, with Sylvia, saying, “Addie is frail, it might be best to leave her in the ease of an established home.”

With six children, Catherine and Lorenzo followed the well traveled road to St. George, Utah, and later, the less traveled trail on to the newly established Mormon colonies along the Little Colorado River in Arizona. Catherine and the children remained at Obed while Lorenzo went to Savoia, New Mexico as President of the Zuni Mission. He would return for his family after preparing a place for them to live.

The winter of 1876-77 found the family living at San Lorenzo, New Mexico in a large one room lean-to that Lorenzo built on the side of a Mexican’s house.

When spring came they moved a short distance out of town and began a new house. By fall the home was ready. They had two rooms downstairs and two attic rooms upstairs, with a small lean-to on the north side. Catherine hung the one pair of new curtains she had brought in anticipation of establishing a new home. Lorenzo made her a poster bedstead of aromatic red cedar.

Lorenzo and his fifteen-year-old son, Thomas, took a load of axe handles to the Zuni village and traded them for corn. They then proceeded to the Mormon town of Sunset in Arizona and traded the corn for wheat. Wheat for the coming winter’s bread.[531]

When Catherine and her family were established in the new home and supplied for the coming months, Lorenzo took their son, twelve-year-old Hyrum, and returned to Cache Valley to get Alice and her family.

The next few months brought Catherine an experience that would test her faith and strength.

A company of Latter-day Saints from the Southern States passed through on their way to Arizona and, as was the custom, many stayed in the established homes of fellow Saints along the way. Thus it happened that one of the men came to be sleeping in the upstairs bedroom with fifteen-year-old Thomas when he became very ill. Catherine recognized the smallpox as soon as she saw him. She was thoroughly frightened, since the Mexicans died of it as with a plague.

The sick man was moved to the home of a family who had already survived the disease and so were immune. Catherine knew of no fumigation and dared not stay in the house with her children. It was mid-winter and extremely cold. She sent word to a friend, Brother Peterson, who lived three miles away and he immediately moved them to his home at Savoia, where they lived for the next six weeks in one room of the Peterson house.

The man who carried the smallpox into New Mexico died and the family of another Mormon, John Hunt, contracted the disease and death came to their home. Catherine and her children were preserved in health, and in the spring Lorenzo and Hyrum returned from Cache Valley bringing little Addie, who had originally remained with Sylvia. It was a happy, tearful reunion for the family of Lorenzo and Catherine. Their daughter, Nora, later remembered, “When [Addie] joined us in that land of loneliness, tears of joy were shed. This had been a sad separation for us.”[532]

Lorenzo brought news that was welcomed by Catherine. They were to proceed to the Little Colorado settlements in Arizona. The Zuni Mission was over for them.

The family traveled into Arizona and settled at Woodruff, on the Little Colorado River, where a fort had been constructed of rock. They had two rooms builded against the fort wall. The Hatches joined other Saints at Woodruff in living the “United Order” during their first two years in Arizona.[533]

Here in the rock fort at Woodruff, Catherine’s last child, Lorenzo Wilford, was born December 31, 1879. Her older boys learned not only to build dams and farm new land, but to be hard riding cowboys on the open range.

Lorenzo had established Alice and her family at Woodruff before bringing Catherine from New Mexico. Now, he moved Alice’s family to a farm twenty-four miles to the south, at Bagley (Taylor), Arizona. Soon he built a house away from the fort at Woodruff for Catherine.

Lorenzo’s mission in the southern part of the Mormon kingdom found him serving as patriarch and as counselor to President Lot Smith of the Little Colorado Stake. In November, 1882, the Relief Society was organized in Woodruff and Catherine was called to be the first president. During the time of her presidency members raised $135.00 and bought stock in the Arizona Cooperative Mercantile Institution. The store prospered and paid dividends for a period of about forty years. This dividend paid the Society’s bills for thread, quilt linings, and other needful items for their work.[534]

Catherine and Lorenzo met with many sorrows as their children grew to adulthood. Their daughter Adeline was frail from childhood. She became the plural wife, along with her sister Nora, of Levi M. Savage. Adeline was never well throughout her life, though she lived to raise her children, dying at age forty-nine.

Catherine and Lorenzo saw several grandchildren die. Catherine’s children were scattered through Idaho, Utah and Arizona, and at times into Mexico. Her son Thomas spent his last years in Canada.

One child who gave them sleepless nights was Hyrum. Just before leaving Idaho and Utah for their home in New Mexico, the parents allowed a would-be doctor to remove an ordinary mole from eleven-year-old Hyrum’s face. The procedure left an unsightly scar on the boy. Twice more they had operations on his face trying to undo the damage, but without success.[535]

When son Hyrum was eighteen, he became friends with the Greer boys whose father owned a ranch near St. Johns, Arizona. In the summer of 1882 Hyrum was working as a cowboy on the Greer Ranch and became involved in a shooting between the Greers and the Mexican authorities in St. Johns. Hyrum was shot through the shoulder and a friend, Jim Vaughn was killed. Hyrum was indicted, along with the Greers, and it was three years before the case was settled in court. Not only did Catherine and Lorenzo have the worry of Hyrum’s health, it cost them $500.00 bail money and considerable in attorneys fees. When this case was finally settled, Hyrum went, or was sent, to Idaho to live.[536]

In his capacity as counselor in the Little Colorado Arizona Stake, and later the Eastern Arizona Stake, Lorenzo was required to travel for weeks at a time. When church authorities came to visit the Arizona Saints, Catherine entertained them in her home. Wilford Woodruff, Lorenzo Snow, Brigham Young, Jr. and Church President John Taylor were all guests at one time or another in the Hatch home.

Catherine’s oldest son, Thomas, bought one of the first sewing machines in the country for his mother. Catherine and her grown daughters kept the machine running almost constantly among the four of them. They made trousers, shirts, bedding and dresses, which had all been done by hand before this wonderful gift from nineteen-year-old Thomas.[537]

The first part of December, 1884, Lorenzo was once again pressed hard by anti-polygamists. He was advised by church authorities to leave Arizona at once. He went by wagon to Utah, leaving Catherine and Alice with their families in Arizona.

Plans were made for Catherine and her young sons, Wilford and Hyrum, to leave Arizona. They traveled by train to Albuquerque, New Mexico where Lorenzo met them on the third of June. The group journeyed to Pueblo, Colorado and made a stop in Denver before traveling on to Cache Valley.

After six weeks visiting in Cache Valley with their married daughters and in Lehi with the Karren family, Lorenzo and Catherine returned to Arizona. The family had only just arrived in Woodruff when Lorenzo received a letter from Church President John Taylor counseling him to divide the families and bring them to Utah. Alice refused to leave Arizona, so once again, it was Catherine who was willing to go with her beloved Lorenzo. A letter to Hezekiah written on Sept. 4th told of plans for Catherine and Hyrum to start for Utah by wagon and team on the 20^th of that month. Lorenzo would follow by train. By October 29th Lorenzo found Catherine visiting with the Karren family in Lehi and expected her to soon leave for Franklin.[538]

Catherine and her five children, Hyrum, Sarah Ella, Chloe Viola, Achsa May and Wilford were settled in nearby Coveville, Utah where Lorenzo rented a home for them. How long they remained in Coveville is not clear, but after the winter months Lorenzo boarded the train for Arizona to once again take up his mission.[539]

Catherine remained in Utah until the death of Alice in 1891. At that time a letter from the First Presidency of the church advised Lorenzo to have the wife join him who could be the most comfort and help to him in his advancing years. In April, 1892, Catherine again moved to Arizona, bringing her two youngest children, May and Wilford. Lorenzo expressed joy at seeing them for the first time in two and a half years, “Catherine has been wonderfully blessed and preserved on her journey. I praise the Lord for His mercies to me in bringing my dear wife to me.”[540]

A month later Lorenzo noted in his journal that “Sister Hatch was quite poorly with her old complaint. Pain in head.” This illness would be with Catherine the rest of her life. In December Lorenzo made note that, “I stayed home to be with Catherine. She was quite poorly and had a very bad night. ...Sent a card to Snowflake asking the sisters to pray for dear Catherine.”

The exact nature of this illness, other than “pain in head,” is not made clear. Catherine recovered enough to attend several ward and stake conferences with Lorenzo as he attended his duties as counselor in the new Snowflake Stake. In November, 1894, she traveled to Utah for a visit with her married children. On New Year’s day, 1895 Catherine and Lorenzo went to Sylvia’s house in Logan for dinner.

On January 20th of this year Lorenzo recorded that “Catherine received a great blessing from administration of the elders. I fasted for my dear wife on this day and some of the grandchildren did also.”

Catherine and Lorenzo remained in Utah until April of that year and attended a family reunion with the Karrens and a conference in Salt Lake City before returning to Arizona.

Lorenzo was sixty-nine-years old and had been in Arizona for twenty years. By the labor of his own hands the home in Woodruff was improved and made more comfortable each year. Fifty-nine-year old Catherine contributed the fruits of her talents in making a restful home. With a wooden hook, of Lorenzo’s fashioning, she crocheted rugs of sufficient size to cover the entire floor. This rug was laid over a bed of straw. Catherine knitted “tidies” to brighten the back of Lorenzo’s chair and the corner table where a family album, hymn book and Bible were kept. On the wall she hung pictures of her mother, Ann Ratcliffe Karren, one of George A. Smith, who had long ago married Catherine and Lorenzo, and two others of the Prophet Joseph Smith.[541]

A grandchild, Ruth Savage Hilton, remembered the home of Catherine and Lorenzo: “They lived in a low-roofed, frame house with a shaded front porch. [The porch]...was furnished with a bench, a chest and an arm chair all of grandfather’s making. At the rear of the house there was a small orchard of peach, apple, plum and cherry trees.”

These may have been the happiest years of Catherine’s married life as she compared her present home with the two rooms built against the wall of a rock fort she and Lorenzo first lived in twenty years before. In this comfortable home she was not required to share her “Lorenzo the Beloved” with another wife, and even after all that had gone before, this may have been a pleasant situation.

They were surrounded by children and grandchildren. Their youngest son, Wilford, was able to attend school at the Thatcher Academy of higher learning. This especially pleased Lorenzo who often fretted over the lack of education available to his children.

Lorenzo and Catherine were busy with their ever expanding family, and Lorenzo continued his duties in the stake presidency and as patriarch. He noted in his journal on April 6, 1900, “Mother and I fasted and earnestly prayed for our boys, Wilford, Thomas and Hyrum, also for our fruit as the weather is quite cold.”

In November, 1900, Lorenzo was released from his mission to Arizona and he and Catherine made plans to return to Utah. Catherine was not well. Lorenzo noted on December 6th, “Started for Taylor. Catherine, who has been sick for six months, went with me...I put a spring mattress in for Catherine to ride on. The team was poor and [I] walked nearly all the way. Took Catherine to May Decker’s [daughter] at Taylor.” Because of ill health Catherine stayed in Taylor with her daughter for some time. She was not in Woodruff to help the family celebrate Lorenzo’s seventy-fifth birthday on January 4th.

In March, Lorenzo went to Snowflake leaving Catherine at their home in Woodruff. He returned after a week of meetings, giving blessings to grandchildren and other church duties. “Arrived in Woodruff and found that Catherine has been very sick. My heart was filled with sorrow.”[542]

On March 31st, Lorenzo and Catherine took their leave of family and friends. With Lorenzo’s release from his church responsibilities he was moving back to Utah. Granddaughter Ruth Savage, who was but a child, remembers, “We were all there, friends and relatives, to see them as they were made comfortable in the wagon with their many trunks...[we] watched as Uncle Bert [Heber Albert] climbed into the driver’s seat and they were off to the railroad station at Holbrook twelve miles away. I wept that evening. It had been a cold, windy day. ...I [felt as if] Grandma and Grandpa were dead. We children in Arizona never saw them again.”[543]

Arriving in Utah, Catherine went to stay with her sister, Mary Karren Bennion at Murray. She was there for nine days and then traveled to Logan where she stayed with Sylvia while Lorenzo prepared a house for her. A granddaughter, Katy, daughter of Thomas, accompanied Catherine and Lorenzo from Arizona and was a great help to her grandmother.

By the end of April, Catherine and Lorenzo were moved into their home just a block from Sylvia in Logan. Catherine’s health continued to be poor, but she was able to visit with her married children and often accompanied Lorenzo to the temple or other meetings. They visited with Sylvia and the family all gathered at Sylvia’s for Thanksgiving dinner in November.

Throughout the next years Lorenzo often mentions Catherine’s poor health. In August of 1901 he comments that “for four days and nights poor Catherine has failed to sleep. Dr. Budge came.... Apostle Mathias F. Cowley came to Logan and I got him to come administer to dear Catherine.”[544]

Catherine’s problems may have been sinus or neuralgia, for it seemed to come and go, causing her intense pain at times. By 1903 she had another concern, “Her new teeth were hurting her considerable.” Still she managed to keep their small home, go for rides, buggy and sleigh, with Lorenzo and occasionally attend the temple with him, where at one time she worked for three days to complete ordinances for the ancestors of Sylvia. In March of 1903 Lorenzo wrote, “Dear Catherine feeling better. May she continue to improve is the earnest prayer of my heart.”

On May 2, 1903, seventy-seven-year-old Lorenzo made the following entry in his journal: “Attended a social at Brother Linnerows. The old gent was over eighty years old. Got home at nine P.M. and Catherine was quite excited because I was out so late.”

In November, 1904, Sylvia, who had been ill for some time, passed away at age seventy-eight. Soon Lorenzo and Catherine moved into Sylvia’s house with Ruth, the unmarried daughter of Lorenzo and Sylvia. New Year’s day of 1906 found Catherine, Ruth, Wilford, Lorenzo and granddaughter Lydia at the home in Logan.[545] Various of the grandchildren who were attending school at Brigham Young College in Logan helped care for Catherine and Lorenzo in these years.

The home was more comfortable than any Catherine had ever known, and once again she and Lorenzo were alone. Catherine continued to suffer with poor health and passed away on February 24, 1910, less than two months before her “Lorenzo the beloved.”

Shy Alice

Lorenzo Hill Hatch met Alice Hanson while on his mission to England in 1856. He describes her as a “poor, bashful girl.”[546] Lorenzo mentions taking meals at the home of a Sister Hanson several times in the course of his missionary journal, but it is not known if he speaks of Alice’s mother.

Alice was born at Little Horton Green near Bradford, Yorkshire, England in 1837. Little Horton Green was in a manufacturing district and child labor was still an accepted way of life in England. At the tender age of six she was set to work in the factory. Alice grew up with little knowledge of the world outside the great manufacturing plant. She was never privileged to attend school and only learned to read in her later life, through self effort. She never learned to write. This was her lot until the journey to America with the Saints when she was twenty-one.[547]

Alice was the second child born to Caroline Barker and her second husband, Thomas Hanson, who were both natives of Yorkshire. Baptism dates into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for the mother and father are given as 1850, and for Alice as 1854.[548] As a young woman in Yorkshire, Alice and her sister Jane enjoyed helping the missionaries with the singing during meetings. The sisters, though shy, had lovely singing voices.

By 1859 the Hanson family made preparations to sail to America with other Saints from England. Lorenzo says in his journal that Alice came to Utah with her mother, two sisters and brother John Hanson.[549] The father, Thomas Hanson, preceded his family to America, with the idea of preparing a place for them. However, the vessel on which he sailed traveled around South America and docked on the west coast of the United States. He failed to make contact with his family until years after his wife and children had made their own way to Utah and his wife, Caroline, was dead. Records in the Ancestral File at Salt Lake indicate the father, Thomas Hanson, died on June 18, 1879 in Burntfork, Sweetwater, Wyoming.[550]

The Hanson family, Mother Caroline, her three daughters,[551] Alice, Jane and Maria and her son John, (who never joined the church), sailed for America on April 11, 1859 on the vessel “William Tapscott.” The company of 725 Saints was organized into ten wards, five English and five Scandinavian. Nine different languages were spoken by the passengers.

They arrived at the port of New York after a thirty-one day sea voyage, and on May 14th took the steamer “Isaac Newton” to Albany. Boarding a train, the group traveled to St. Joseph Missouri. From that railhead they traveled to Florence, (Winter Quarters) Nebraska.[552]

From Florence, the Saints were advised by church leaders to walk to Utah, pushing and pulling their possessions across the 1000 miles of plains in handcarts. Each group arriving at the railway terminus was outfitted with handcarts and supplies, along with a few wagons to carry heavier baggage. The church also supplied a knowledgeable guide.

This method of travel had first been tried in 1856 and met with success, as well as tragedy. Some of the handcart trains did not leave Nebraska early enough in the spring to make the three month trek to Utah before the severe snow storms in the Rocky Mountains began. However, those trains with an early start were successful in making the journey with minimal problems.

It was nearly three weeks after the arrival of the Hanson family in Florence before their handcarts were available and everything was arranged for the journey. Each one received a water-can, some bedding, a tent for each ten persons and a few other utensils. The company included 235 persons with sixty handcarts, and six ox-drawn wagons to haul provisions and the sick. Each cart had a cover of bed ticking stretched over three bows.[553]

The company was under the direction of Captain George Rowley as they began their trek on June 11th. Alice’s brother, John Hanson, drove one of the supply wagons in which his mother rode. The sturdy Hanson sisters did their share in helping push and pull handcarts through streams, and over dreary stretches of flat plains, sometimes suffering lack of food and weary bodies.

The handcart, a small two-wheeled vehicle with two shafts and a cover on top, was made of wood without an iron rim on the wheels. Most emigrants found they had more belongings than they were able to pull in these small carts. Many families, like the Hansons, had no idea of the items most necessary on this heroic trek. They didn’t think of it as a heroic trek. They were going to Zion.

It was difficult for the carts to keep up with the provision wagons drawn by mule teams. Often those pulling carts would take shortcuts through the brush and sand. Many of the emigrants, unused to walking distances, suffered swollen feet and sore muscles, while the pale faced factory workers from rainy England were victims of sun and wind. At their Elkhorn River camp on June 12th they met swarms of mosquitoes that made the night miserable.

The company did not stop traveling when rains came. There was no shelter, and most found it more comfortable moving than standing still in the drizzle. “In fording streams the men often carried children and weaker women across on their backs. The company stopped over on Sundays for rest, and meetings were held for spiritual comfort and guidance. At night, when the handcarts were drawn up in a circle and the fires lighted, the camp looked quite happy. Singing, music and speeches by the leaders cheered everyone.” [554]

On July 3rd, the company met a large band of Sioux Indians, the first Indians that most of the people had ever seen. The Indians followed the handcart train for several days, staging dances at night and one of them tried to bargain for a wife among the girls, making everyone uneasy.

As the company arrived at Laramie, on July 27th, they realized their rations of food would not see them into the Salt Lake Valley. Rations were reduced to one pint of flour for each person, then finally to one pint for each two people. Indians again appeared in the Devil’s Gate area and frightened and annoyed the emigrants.

With the company in this condition, an incident occurred that matches an oral story told among Alice’s descendants, making us believe it may have been at least one of the Hanson sisters who was involved.

Mrs. Ebenezer B. Beesley wrote that the incident happened just before the company reached the Green River. “...we were all literally on the verge of dying of starvation. Some of the people could go no farther, and we were in the heights of despair when we met some rough mountaineers....” William Atkin also recorded this incident, though he says it happened when the handcart people arrived at Big Sandy. Atkin continues the story, “...At this place was a mail station. There were three or four mountaineers and traders, a stage driver and mail agent at the station, being six or eight men in all, with more whiskey in them than good sound sense, and when [we] stopped to get water, two of [them] ...yelled, ‘we want to get a wife; who wants to marry?’ To our great surprise two of our young women stepped out and said they would marry them.”[555]

It is told by some of Alice’s descendants that at least one of her sisters never made it to the Salt Lake Valley, but married a mountaineer along the way. This may account for not being able to find information of the other Hanson sister, or sisters, in the LDS Church records.

When the George Rowley handcart company rolled down Emigration Canyon on September 4, 1859, everyone turned out to welcome them. They were escorted to Emigration Square where the Utah farmers placed baskets of tomatoes for the emigrants to eat their fill. Mrs. Ebenezer Beesley recorded the arrival in her journal, remembering that it was a Sunday afternoon, “...I never shall forget how clean [everyone] looked. Oh, they all looked so fresh and clean and nice. The women were all dressed in calico dresses and wore sunbonnets. Oh, it was so good!” The newly arrived Saints were placed with families or in campgrounds until they could be permanently located.

Very little is known concerning Alice’s family, where they settled or what became of them after arriving in Utah.[556] The Ezra Taft Hatch Family book says that Alice went to Lehi to work in the household of Lorenzo Hill Hatch, however, that is doubted after reading Lorenzo’s journal. On January 2, 1860, four months following their arrival, Alice was sealed to Lorenzo by President Brigham Young as his third plural wife. Soon she joined Sylvia and Catherine in their Lehi home.

Shy, bashful Alice may have had a very difficult time during her first years of marriage. She had no background in pioneering methods as needed in this new rugged land, and probably very few homemaking skills. Sylvia and Catherine were her examples and teachers.

The three wives lived under the same roof until a call for the Hatch family to move to Idaho came in 1863. By this time Alice had two sons, John and Willard. This young family was first to go to Franklin, Idaho with Lorenzo. Here the Saints lived in fort like conditions and Lorenzo settled Alice in a small cabin on the east side of the fort. She would never again live with her sister-wives for any length of time.

In 1864 Alice had her third son, Ezra Taft, who was named for Apostle Ezra Taft Benson, a missionary companion of Lorenzo’s and a neighbor in the frontier country of Idaho. In October, 1865, Alice’s mother, Caroline Hanson, died at Coalville, just north of Salt Lake City.

By the time the 1870 census was taken, thirty-two-year-old Alice had five sons. Lorenzo is listed in the household of Sylvia, with Catherine and Alice each being shown as separate households. All children who were of age were attending school.[557] In October of this year Alice had her sixth child and first daughter, Marie Annettie.

From Lorenzo’s journal: “November 12, 1872. Alice bore a son. It was born dead. On the 13^th I made a coffin and got a lot in the burying ground on the west side of the plot. About four P.M. Brother Biggs went and helped bury the remains of my son. Alice is doing well as can be expected.”

Under the date of June 27, 1873 Lorenzo writes: “On the night of the 24^th I had a son born to me, [Joseph Lorin, the 7^th son of Alice]. I have been greatly blessed in my family. I would that they would grow up to be great and good men. ...I have to date twenty living children, ten sons and ten daughters.”

In late 1875 the pressure of persecution forced Lorenzo to leave Franklin and travel south to refuge in St. George. Alice and her family remained at Franklin and on May 22, 1876 Alice bore her ninth child and second daughter, Lula Jane. Her older sons were the main work force on the Hatch farm at Franklin under the direction of their half brother, Lafayette, who was now a married man of twenty-five.

In the autumn months of 1878 Lorenzo returned to Franklin and made arrangements to move Alice and her family into Arizona Territory where the Saints were struggling to establish homes in the desolate land along the Little Colorado. Lorenzo encouraged Alice to leave her four-year-old son, Joseph Lorin, with Sylvia, since the way would be long and hard and Alice had Lula, less than two years old to look after. Alice never returned to Utah or Idaho, and never saw her little son, Joseph Lorin again. After the hard trip to Arizona Territory, Alice and her family lived for a time at the settlement of Sunset on the Little Colorado River before moving to the small village of Woodruff, where the Saints were organized under the United Order. Lorenzo also moved Catherine and her family into the fort at Woodruff.

In March, 1879 Alice and her family moved to a farm twenty-four miles south of Woodruff near Bagley (Taylor). On March 24^th Lorenzo records, “Took Alice and family and started to the farm [at Taylor]. Arrived about dark. Wednesday I fitted up the house and prepared to leave for St. Johns. Lorenzo was a counselor in the Little Colorado Stake and later in the Eastern Arizona Stake, so spent much time traveling to the various wards and branches.

On June 18^th of this year Thomas Hanson, Alice’s father, died in Burntfork, Wyoming. She very likely did not know of this incident.

Though Lorenzo encountered problems with the United Order Brethren concerning the farm at Taylor, he continued to build a place for Alice and her family. On October 6^th he recorded the first heavy frost of the year and says, “Willard [son] made adobes and on the 23^rd I made adobes and commenced my chimney... On Monday as I was topping out my chimney it fell...the foundation. ...I cleared out the dobies and dirt...got some rock and laid up a good foundation. On Friday finished the chimney and laid the hearth.”

Lorenzo maintained the two households at Woodruff and Taylor with difficulty. On January 28^th he says, “...started for the Farm [Taylor] from Woodruff at two P.M.. It was snowing fast and continued to snow. We traveled fifteen miles and could follow the road no farther. Camped, but failed to get a fire and laid down on blankets in the snow. ...with light of morning proceeded on through fourteen inches of snow...arriving a little after dark at my home [in Taylor]. Found the family well and a good fire. I felt we had been wonderfully preserved and to God be the praise. The family had just run out of supplies. I brought some graham flour, corn meal, and twenty three pounds of flour.”[558]

In the 1880 U.S. Census forty-two-year-old Alice is listed as the head of household at Taylor, Arizona Territory, under the name of Alice Hanson. Lorenzo was enumerated in the Woodruff census with Catherine and her family. Alice’s children were nineteen-year-old John, whose occupation was given as “herding,” Willard, 17; Ezra, 16; Jeremiah 14; and Albert, 12, were listed as “on the farm.” Nine-year-old Annettie and four-year-old Lula J. were “at home.”

This was the first time in her married life Alice had been given the responsibility of making a home beyond the shadow of either Sylvia or Catherine, or both. She did well, for Lorenzo said, “Alice is one of the best cooks when provided, and begins to be noticed in society. Receives company with good grace. Keeps house in good style. I am glad to say this in her favor. She reads considerable.”[559]

Lorenzo was not as encouraged about the future of Alice’s boys. After three years in the Territory of Arizona he felt they had gone a little wild on the frontier. “I believe [Alice] could do much more with the boys if she chose, but she is the mother of a hardy race of careless boys and if any of them make a mark in society it will be self made as they take no stock in [what others say].”[560]

Alice’s boys were shaving shakes, chinking walls, plowing fields, hauling wood and wild hay, and freighting. Lorenzo was teaching them to work, but had fears they were not humble enough. Before the year was out they were working away from home, some of them on the coming railroad and John in the Gila Valley. They returned in August and Lorenzo was grateful, “I was truly glad to get my boys home once more as I had had much anxiety about them. I do not want my boys to labor among the wicked.”[561]

Alice traveled with Lorenzo to ward conferences and he took her the four miles into Taylor or Snowflake with him often. In April of 1880 Lorenzo made note, “Took the mules and Alice and went to Reidhead. Held meeting.”

Alice visited in the home of Catherine at Woodruff, as in May, 1881 Lorenzo notes, “...loaded up some pigs, took Alice and started for Woodruff. One of the tires ran off and we lost one of the pigs. Fixed wagon at Woodruff. Friday I took Alice and Adeline [Catherine’s daughter] and went to St. Joseph to attend conference.”

In 1882 Lorenzo notes the harvesting at Taylor by Alice’s boys and also that Willard dug a well at that place. On November 9^th he dedicated Alice’s house in Taylor.[562] Forty-five-year old Alice was now quite gray, with a sad and melancholy countenance. She still struggled with her shyness, but was a dedicated mother and had learned the skills of a pioneer homemaker. Lorenzo says in one letter, “Alice is out smoking some hams, so I am alone this evening.”[563] Her children ranged in age from twenty-two-year-old John to six-year-old Lula.

In December, 1884 Lorenzo was at home with Alice and her family in Taylor when he received word from President Jesse N. Smith to leave at once since the federal officers were diligently seeking and arresting polygamists in the area. At this leave taking, Lorenzo called the family together and in an emotional prayer committed his family to the care of the Living God before he left.[564]

Lorenzo and Catherine traveled to Utah where they stayed until July, 1885 and had only just returned to Arizona when Lorenzo was advised by Church President John Taylor to divide his families and bring them to Utah. Alice declared she would stay in Arizona with her grown boys: “Alice feers [sic] that the boys will all forsake her if she goes from her home. She will stay where she is.”[565]

During much of 1886 until Lorenzo returned to Arizona in January, 1887, Alice and her family were alone in Arizona.[566] Catherine remained in Utah and by August, 1888, Alice was moved into the more comfortable Woodruff home.

Many times in his journal Lorenzo refers to writing letters to Sylvia or Catherine, but never does he mention writing to Alice, even in his long absences. She did not read or write well enough to exchange letters.

In an 1888 letter to Hezekiah E. Hatch, Lorenzo thanks him for sending presents and says, “Alice is very proud of her handkerchief. She has had two quite severe sick spells of late.”[567]

This may be the same handkerchief referred to by President Jesse N. Smith when on February 10, 1890 Lorenzo and Alice went to St. Joseph with him to attend a celebration of Brother and Sister John Bushman’s twenty-fifth wedding day, “The morning was fine but a high wind arose increasing to a hurricane. We stopped at the Co-op store in Holbrook hoping the wind would go down; our hopes were in vain. Started on about four P.M., the hurricane still raging. Sister Hatch lost a fine silk handkerchief.”

Having so few fine things, this was a great loss for Alice. Two days later as the party returned to Woodruff, President Smith notes, “On the return we found Sister Hatch’s handkerchief near the road, which seemed remarkable considering the strength of the wind when it was lost out of the carriage.”[568]

In September, 1890, Alice and Lorenzo gathered over one hundred pounds of wild grapes in a canyon near Woodruff. Alice either dried them or made them into jelly over the next days.

On the 14th of September Alice accompanied Lorenzo and the rest of the stake presidency, along with their wives, to Tuba on the Navajo reservation for conference. After much rain, bad roads and a broken spring on the Hatch buggy, they finally arrived at Tuba. Meetings were held Sunday and Monday. At the Monday meeting the women were expected to speak to the crowd. Alice became ill and was unable to fulfill this obligation, perhaps from fright, or she may have experienced a recurrence of her earlier sickness.

In 1890, Lula Jane, Alice’s youngest child who was fourteen years old, went to Taylor in November to help her married half sisters who lived there. Her full sister, Annettie, also was in Taylor, having married James J. Shumway in 1887. On November 1st Lorenzo returned from a conference in St. Joseph and found Alice alone, which must have been an unusual occurrence for him to make note of it.

Alice was not well over the next months, but traveled with Lorenzo to Taylor and Snowflake, usually staying with her daughter, Annettie Shumway, while Lorenzo attended stake business. On December 7th Lorenzo made a plea, “May heaven inspire me in my high calling and heal my sick grandchildren and Alice.”[569]

The weather was cold and snowing much of the time during January, 1891 when Lorenzo took Alice with him to St. Johns and Erastus. He stopped at several homesteads along the way and gave nine patriarchal blessings on the five day trip.

On January 31st Lorenzo and Alice went to St. Joseph for conference. Returning home they ran into a deep wash and broke a wheel. Sixty-five-year-old Lorenzo and fifty-five-year-old Alice unhooked the horses and rode them on into Woodruff. Lorenzo says, “Got home much disheartened....”[570]

On March 6th Lorenzo records five inches of snow at Taylor and ten at Woodruff. The storm caught he and Alice in Taylor where they had gone for stake conference and to attend Water Board meetings and make a visit to the grist mill. After a week they started for home in Woodruff and were on the road by eight A.M.. It was beautiful overhead but the melting snow and sticky mud made the road almost impossible. Lorenzo got an extra horse to help them along and to lighten the load, he walked most of the way. Alice and Lula walked at least five miles, and after twelve hours the weary travelers arrived in Woodruff.[571]

On July 24th Alice and Lorenzo went to Wild Cat Canyon for the Pioneer Day celebration. On August 13th Lorenzo records, “My dear companion, Alice, was taken sick, cramping and vomiting. Friday, still very sick. Lula was in Taylor. She came home Saturday. Alice still no better. We have administered to her. At six P.M. I called the Bishop and three others to administer to dear Alice. She suffered much during the night. Lula and I fasted and prayed for dear Alice as she has been terrible sick. The Lord heard our prayers and Alice recovered.” These events must have taken place over a period of several days, though they are all under the date of August 13th.

On Sunday, August 23rd Lorenzo went to a conference in Pinedale and when he returned, found Alice “much improved in health.” She accompanied Lorenzo to Taylor for stake conference, and on October 26th went with him to Fort Apache with a load of freight. They stopped at the sawmill for lumber on their return trip and Lorenzo held meetings in Pinetop with church members. On Monday the two old folks, with their wagon load of lumber, started home. Five miles out of Pinetop a wheel broke. Orin Kartchner came along and happened to have what was needed to fix the wheel. They drove into Woodruff on November 4th after a nine day trip. Lorenzo pronounced it a “good and glorious time.” Alice, in her sickness, may have not enjoyed it as much, for when he went again to Fort Apache late in November, she stayed home.

In early December Lorenzo says, “...our prospects are brighter than at any other time in our history. ...Sunday, December 20th, I read the Juvenile to Alice as usual and we went to meeting.”[572]

The next day Lorenzo hauled wood for the dam. Before he returned home with the last load, it began to snow and darkness fell. His son [Heber Albert] came looking for him since it was late and the storm severe, and Lorenzo says, “Dear Alice was waiting my arrival and had a good supper and fire waiting for me.”[573]

After a cold and bitter night, Lorenzo and a Mr. Hanson killed one of his hogs, cut it up and salted the 234 pounds of meat. He recorded, “Alice desired to make her sausage and Hanson prepared the meat while she made the other arrangements. At seven P.M. we were busy filling the sausages. At half past ten we ate our supper and retired to our bed.”

Two days later Alice was on her death bed. Lorenzo tells of their struggles during the next few days. “Dec. 24th...Dear Alice was quite poorly. I greatly feared she might leave us soon. I prayed earnestly for her. At six P.M. she told me she felt too bad to prepare the apples and oranges for the Christmas tree. She got them and requested me to take them to Nora, my daughter, to be prepared for the grandchildren. Christmas, Friday, 25th...Alice was no better, but got up and tried to stay up, but had to go back to bed. Heber [Albert] and Addie came to see her. She said she was no worse and would soon be better and they left for Snowflake.

“I felt greatly distressed and sorrowful being alone with a dear mother and companion who was failing fast. Christmas was indeed a solemn and lonely day. Nora [Catherine’s daughter], came on Saturday and worked diligently to sweat her and bring some relief. At half past eleven P.M. she was in a most critical condition. Brother Dexter and I administered to her but her hands and feet were cold. I had two warm flat irons at her feet. Again I prayed earnestly for her, hoping that Lula would come before death should take her away. President Smith spent the evening with me and prayed earnestly for us.

“I wished to send for Nora but did not dare to leave her. O, what was my feelings! I held her until morning... plead for her life, but at eleven P.M. she left us. I dedicated her to God. [When she died] Brother Dexter was with me, Sister Lillywhite and my daughter Lula. ...Lula, heart-broken, went to Dexter’s for the rest of the night.”[574] Lula was fifteen years old.

Lorenzo felt the last few months had been “the most cheerful and pleasurable time of [Alice’s] life,” perhaps because their home was as comfortable as any Alice had enjoyed, and the children, excepting Lula, were all making their own way. Alice had been able to travel with Lorenzo often and he seemed more solicitous of her than in earlier years when he must scramble from morning till evening to carve out a home for the large family in this hostile Arizona Territory. At her death Lorenzo told his journal, “Her love for me was unbounded.”

—A—

Abel,

Isaac, 65

Alder,

George, 103

Alexander,

Louisa Pool, 10

Allen,

Captain James, 25

Allen, Rial, 206

Allen, William C., 134

American Fork River, 39

Anderson, Mr., 238

Arrington, Leonard J., 121

Ashton,

Thomas, 45

Atkins, William, 287

Atkinson,

Sister, 65

Axal, Governor, 139

—B—

Babbitt,

Almon W., 48, 57

Backenstos,

Sheriff, 19

Ballard, Melvin, 254

Ballinger, Jesse O., 134

Bancroft, Mr., 256

Barber,

Adeline, 100, 204

Adeline Hatch, 99, 122, 231, 232, 253, 254, 257

George, 43, 99, 100, 204, 212

Barber, Adeline, 233

Barker, Caroline, 284

Barnum,

Guy, 22, 30

Job V., 9

Miranda Fuller, 30

Bartholomew,

Captain, 27

Baset, Brother, 48

Bates, Mr., 74

Battle Creek Massacre, 98

Bear River, 98

Beesley, Mrs.Ebenezer B., 287

Bell,

Alfred, 82, 84

Bennion, Mary Karren, 252

Benson,

E.T., 48, 51, 54, 57, 60, 63, 86, 97, 99, 104, 111

Permelia, 100

Bernhisel,

John M., 94

Biggs,

Brother, 114

Biggs, John, 125

Bigler,

Jacob G., 48

Bills,

Philander, 91

Blackburn, Manassa, 141

Boggs,

Lillburn, 8

Bostick,

Hyrum, 24

Boyle, Elder, 141

Bradford Conference

England, 66

Bradford District, 61

Bradshaw, Edward, 235

Brigham's Farm, 29

Brinkerhoff, D., 186

Brown,

Peletiah, 3

Buchanan,

James, 50, 67

Budge, Bishop, 126

Burnham,

Luther C., 141

Burnham, L.C., 147

Bushman, John, 293

Butterworth, E., 125

—C—

Cache Valley, 97

Caine,

Elder, 61

Calhen,

Asa, 69

Camp Douglas, 98

Camp Floyd, 81, 83, 86

Cannon, A.H., 237

Cannon, George Q., 210, 237

Cannon, President, 194

Cardon, Lewis P., 148

Carrington,

Albert, 93

Chase,

John & Priscilla, 6

Chesterfield,

England, 67

cholera, 37

Christopheron, P., 235

Church Train, 90

Clark,

Captain, 27

Clawson, Rudger, 248

Clinton,

Dr. Jeter, 73

Cluff, Moses, 150

Cold Springs, 25

Comish,

Hannah, 101

Conner,

Patrick Edward, 98

Cooley,

C.E., 161

Corey, Marshall, 198

Cowley, Mathias F., 254

Cox,

Brother, 81

Cradlebaugh,

Judge, 83, 84

Cromwell,

Lord, 67

Crosby, Joseph, 179

Cumming,

Alfred, 68, 71, 78

Cummins,

J.W., 94

Cutler,

Thomas, 187

Cutler, Clarissa, 245, 246

—D—

Daines Family, 258

Daines,

Chloe, 217, 228, 253, 261

Elizabeth, 217, 225, 228

William, 188

Daines, Moroni, 245, 258

Daines, Newell, 258

Daines, William, 222, 225

Dalton,

John, 27

Davis,

Charles G., 113

Dawson,

John W., 92

Lucy Cox, 41

Deans, James, 151, 219

Decker,

May, 250

Decker, Louis, 241

Deed of Consecration, 54

Deseret, State of, 93

Devil's Gate, 73

Dexter, Brother, 296

Drewry,

Brother and Sister, 66

Drummond,

W.W. (Judge), 50

Dubois, Fred T., 198

Duesbery Branch,

England, 61

Dusenbery, Brother, 195

—E—

Eastham,

John, 65

Eastman,

Benjamin Franklin, 263

Clarissa, 77, 87, 101, 129, 144, 172, 263

Clarissa Goss, 41

James, 263

Osro, 100

Ozro French, 263

Sylvia, 39, 101

Sylvia Savona, 263

Edmunds Law, 179

Edwards,

Brother, 65

Ellsworth, Edmund, 185

Ellsworth, Lucy, 241

Ellsworth, William, 185

Emigration Canyon, 57

Ensign, Mr., 127

Erie Canal, 16

Evans,

Abel, 44

Brother, 62

David, 36, 40, 43, 45, 49, 56, 82, 85

Israel, 62

—F—

Finn, David, 258

Fish, Joseph, 237

Flake, Charles L., 222

Flake, William J., 162, 179, 194

Follett, Brother, 162

Fordham, Mr., 213

Fort Bridger, 58, 74

Fort Kearney, 59

Fort Laramie, 59

Foster, Sister, 186

Fowler,

Henry, 65

Fox,

Brother, 61

Charles, 80, 87

Franklin, Utah (Idaho), 97

Fuller Family, 29

Fuller,

Edward M., 16, 20, 22, 28

Hannah, 16, 21

Sanford, 27, 29, 187

Thomas, 29

Thomas E., 15

—G—

Gardner,

George B., 231

Gardner, Horace, 241

Gardner, Medora, 239

Garnold,

Conrad, 30

Garrett, Mr., 118

Gee,

Solomon, 75

Genoa,

Nebraska, 72

Goodwin, F.H., 134

Goslind,

J., 105

Grant, Heber J., 175, 180, 232, 248

Grant,Heber J., 240

Grasshoppers, 45, 106

Green,

Alvin, 27

John Young, 72

Greer, Gilbert, 166, 174

Greer, Harris, 166

Greer, Oasis, 167

Gregory, Esther, 204

Gulbranson, Hans, 151

Guldbranson, Hans, 218, 219, 229

Gunnersall, Mr., 235

Gurley,

Samuel, 23

—H—

Haight,

Charles, 16

Elizabeth, 2

Hales,

Bishop Jonathan, 21

Hamblin, Jacob, 130, 131, 145, 169, 170, 176

Hansen, Alfred, 125

Hanson,

Alice, 87, 265, 284, 291

Caroline, 289

Jane, 284

John, 284

Maria, 285

Thomas, 284, 290

Harding,

Stephen S., 95

Harney,

Gen. William S., 58

Harrington,

L.E., 94

Harris, Brother, 52

Harwood,

James, 44, 84, 85

Hatch,

Abraham, 56, 139

Abram, 6, 11, 22, 30, 31, 33, 37, 38, 40, 42, 82, 89, 90, 187, 208, 225, 231, 236, 245, 255

Abram (Nephew), 111, 147

Adam, 41

Adeline, 12, 29, 37, 40, 144, 149, 159, 167

Aldura, 37, 144

Aldura Clarissa, 43

Aldura Sumner, 5

Alice, 88, 95, 106, 109, 112, 114, 121, 144, 152, 159, 171, 185, 190, 213, 215, 217, 219, 220, 289, 291, 296, 297

Alva, 111, 139

Alvenia, 129, 232, 245, 253

Annettie, 291

Annettie (Nettie), 204

Annie, 258

Catherine, 49, 53, 83, 88, 95, 99, 105, 106, 111, 114, 129, 132, 142, 144, 148, 150, 152, 167, 186, 189, 190, 191, 204, 221, 229, 233, 234, 237, 245, 246, 250, 252, 253, 262, 280

Catherine Alvenia, 83

Celia, 129, 159, 232

Chloe, 159, 190

Chloe (Granddaughter), 249

Chloe Viola, 114, 279

Clara, 183

Clarey, 159

Clarissa, 54

Clarissa (Clarey), 168

Edward, 13, 258

Elizabeth, 12, 30, 37, 41, 46, 144, 267

Elizabeth Ann, 92

Elizabeth Haight, 32

Esther, 248

Ezey (Ezra), 159

Ezra, 154, 159, 163, 171, 189, 196, 213, 222, 252, 259, 291

Ezra Taft, 289

Fayette, 232, 245

George Jeremiah, 106, 119

Georgia, 229, 232, 233

Hannah Adeline, 106

Hannah Fuller, 25, 27, 29

Heber Albert, 109, 159, 194, 195, 205, 208, 219, 222, 235, 237, 244, 249, 251, 291

Hezekiah, 112, 232, 247

Hezekiah (father), 2, 4, 9, 10, 11

Hezekiah (Son), 100, 101, 106, 108, 109, 113, 120, 124, 125, 128, 144, 155, 162, 164, 171, 172, 174, 176, 183, 189, 193, 196, 198, 201, 205, 209, 212, 213, 225, 233, 237, 238, 245, 249, 253, 254, 293

Hezekiah Eastman, 49

Hyrum, 105, 132, 141, 144, 150, 160, 163, 166, 174, 182, 189, 190, 196, 198, 204, 212, 226, 233, 238, 245, 248, 249, 253, 258, 279

Jeremiah, 83

Jeremiah (Brother), 10, 14, 18, 32, 33, 37, 41, 77, 99, 108, 111, 122, 139, 141, 224, 257

Jeremiah (grandfather), 1, 2, 4, 10, 20, 30, 31, 34

Jeremiah (Son), 159, 163, 194, 204, 244, 246, 253, 291

Jeremiah (Uncle), 11, 12, 17, 30

Jeremiah, Jr. (Nephew), 139, 147

John, 103, 119, 129, 144, 158, 159, 160, 161, 168, 172, 222, 244, 250, 251, 260, 291

John Sumner, 5

Joseph Lorin, 121, 144, 188

Josephus, 4, 12, 20, 30, 34, 100, 122

Katie, 261

Katy, 252

Lafayette, 91, 99, 101, 108, 113, 121, 128, 129, 144, 154, 156, 158, 168, 171, 172, 181, 182, 183, 188, 196, 209, 212, 216, 226, 233, 238, 245, 249, 253, 258

Lafayette (Grandson), 243

Lorenzo (Grandson), 249

Lorenzo (Nephew), 139, 147

Lorenzo Lafayette, 41, 264

Lorin, 205, 220, 224, 232, 233, 244, 249, 253

Louisa, 37

Lula, 213, 218, 223, 225, 232, 233, 240, 242, 245, 248, 291, 294

Marie Annettie, 112

Mary (g aunt), 6

May, 159, 167, 174, 190, 221, 222, 241, 279

Melinda, 12

Nathaniel (ggfather), 1

Nettie, 159

Nora, 132, 148

Nora (Granddaughter), 249

Oral, 258

Phebe, 30, 37, 41

Ruth, 100, 144, 183, 184, 190, 225, 228, 230, 233, 247, 254, 255, 259, 261, 267

Ruth Amorette, 86, 265

Sarah Ella, 111, 190, 228, 279

Sumner, 245

Sylvia, 49, 77, 86, 88, 92, 99, 100, 119, 144, 157, 183, 188, 192, 201, 203, 205, 220, 232, 246, 254, 257, 260, 269, 270, 282

Sylvia Savona, 55

Thomas, 95, 132, 141, 148, 149, 158, 160, 163, 166, 168, 172, 174, 190, 194, 200, 240, 244, 246, 248, 253, 278

Thomas (immigrant), 1

Victor, 249

Viola Pearce, 244

Wilford, 150, 159, 167, 189, 190, 221, 238, 242, 244, 246, 251, 254, 256, 279

Willard, 95, 119, 150, 159, 168, 172, 182, 194, 197, 208, 244, 250, 258, 291

Hayley, John, 118

Head, Judge, 116

Higby, Mr., 116

Hilton, Ruth Savage, 280

Hollister, Judge, 127

Horwath, Mr., 173, 180, 183

Houston,

Joseph, 126

Houston, Joseph, 125

Howell,

James, 105

Hulett, Brother, 193

Hull District (conference), 61

Hunt, Annie, 169

Hunt, John, 141, 169

Hyde,

Orson, 13, 36

William, 104, 112

—I—

Idaho, Franklin, 115

Iowa,

Burlington, 71

Council Bluffs, 24

Garden Grove, 24

Mt. Pisgah, 24

Sugar Creek, 22, 30

Ivins, Anthony, 147

—J—

James, Joseph, 183

Jenson, Andrew, 228

Jimtown, 32

Johnson,

Aaron, 91, 94

Benjamin, 23

Johnson, Warren M., 130

Johnston,

Colonel, 75

General, 81

—K—

Kane,

Thomas, 78

Karren,

Anne Ratcliffe, 272

Catherine, 46, 265, 272, 273

Charles, 187

John, 272

Thomas, 272, 273

Kartchner, Orin, 295

Kimball,

Andrew, 246

Heber C., 51, 91, 93, 104, 121

Hiram, 71

Kimball, J. Golden, 248

—L—

Lake, George, 134

Lamaraux,

D.B., 104

Lamb, Snel, 260

Lance,

Jacob, 84

Larson, Bishop, 191

Law, Brother, 60

Leeds, England, 60

Lehi, Utah, 84

Leonard,

Truman, 33

Leslie,

George A., 56

Leviberg, Jacob, 126

Liljenquist,

O.N., 112

Lillywhite, Sister, 296

Lincolnshire District (conference), 61

Linnerow, Brother, 257

List,

William, 33

Lockwood,

LeGrand, 112

Loup Fork, 26

Lyman, Francis M., 180, 202

—M—

Maeser, Karl G., 241, 248

Mann, Oscar, 151

Markham,

Colonel, 19

Martineau,

James H., 104

Mason, Jesus, 138, 141

Maughan,

Jane, 140

John, 133, 135, 139

Mary, 142

Peter, 97, 99, 104, 112

William, 112

McAlister, William, 139

McAllister, William, 133

McArthur,

Daniel, 22

McCarter, George, 179

McConnel,

Jehial, 43

Merrell,

Marriner W., 112

Merrill, William, 138

Miller,

George, 24, 26, 28

Millett, Joseph, 168

Mills, Martin, 169

Minute Men, 104

Mississippi River, 22

Missouri River, 26

Missouri, St.Joseph, 33

Missouri, Weston, 33

Monson, Brother, 191

Morgan,

John, 183

Mormon Battal ion, 25

Mormon Trail, 36

Morrill Law, 94

Murdock,

J., 84

—N—

Nail,

Brother, 83

Nauvoo, 4, 8, 18

Nauvoo Legion, 75

New Mexico, Zuni, 135

New York,

Dunkirk, 71

Nibley, Preston, 261

—O—

Owens, C.E., 229

Owens, Clarence, 182, 235, 252

Owens, Clark, 236

Owens, Ella, 235, 260

Owens, Ella Hatch, 229

Owens, James C., 251

—P—

Packer,

Nathan, 42

Page,

John E., 14

Palmer, Dr. H.K., 141

Pardee, Carnell, 119

Parkeson, G., 212

Parkinson, Samuel R., 213

Parley's Canyon, 38

Pawnee, 25

Pearce, James, 242

Pearce, Viola, 174

Petersboro, England, 64

Peterson,

Canute, 84, 95

Marcus, 147

Maria, 84

Peter O., 148

Peterson, Charles, 150

Pinkham, Joe, 126

Plant,

Brother, 63

Platte River, 36, 59

Pleasant Grove, 34

Plumb, Merlin, 165

Poland Law, 124

Polygamy, 8, 46, 179, 185

Ponca Indians, 26

Pratt,

Orson, 14, 54, 57, 63, 68, 264

Parley P., 24

Preston, William B., 112, 191, 198, 202

—R—

Reynolds, George, 124, 221

Rich,

Charles C., 114, 126

Rich, C.C., 119

Richards,

Franklin D., 112

Joseph H., 203

S.W., 73

Willard, 42

Richards, Apostle, 195

Richards, Dr., 32

Richards, Joseph H., 148, 218

Richardson,

Joseph, 112

Ricks, Joel, 184

Ridgate, England, 60

Rigdon,

John, 260

Lucy Ann, 13

Sidney, 12, 17, 258, 260

Robinson, Nathan, 168

Robinson, Nathan B., 165

Robinson, Richard A., 186

Rockwell,

Orin Porter, 57, 59, 92

Rogers, Mary, 169

Rogers, S.D., 169

Rogers, Smith D., 206

Romney, M.P., 194

Romney, Miles, 179

Roskelley,

Samuel, 112

Roundy, Lorenzo, 131, 232

Rowley, George, 286

Rudd,

Brother, 62

—S—

Sanders, David W. Jr., 207

Sanders, M.M., 132

Sarpee's Point, 36

Savage,

Addie (Granddaughter), 246

Adeline, 203, 204, 208, 228

Lydia (Granddaughter), 283

Nora, 197, 204, 220, 228, 230, 239, 241, 248, 251, 261, 296

Vena, 241

Savage, Adeline, 174, 234, 235, 243

Savage, Levi, 172, 197, 204, 208, 230, 242, 245

Savage, Levi Lorenzo, 241

Savage, Levi Mather, 174

Savage, Lydia Lenora, 174

Scarborough,

Annie, 121

School of Prophets, 106

Scott, Felix, 148

Scott, Robert, 185

Scroll Petition, 14

Scurvy, 27

Shafer, Mr., 118

Sheffield Branch,

England, 65

Sheffield Pastorate,(District), 61

Shoshoni Indians, 98

Shumway,

Charles, 22, 123

James J., 204

Shumway, Annettie, 294

Shumway, Charles, 244

Shumway, Nettie, 250

Sioux Indians, 26

Smart Family, 258

Smart,

Alvenia, 223, 233, 249

Carl, 258

Edna, 223

Thomas, 129, 174, 223, 233

William, 255

Smart, Thomas, 233

Smith,

Alice H. (Granddaughter), 252

Elias, 93

George A., 47, 53, 57, 58, 59, 85, 93, 121

Hyrum, 10, 14

Janet, 219

Jesse N., 151, 161, 165, 168, 169, 172, 175, 180, 183, 184, 187, 190, 193, 194, 198, 199, 202, 206, 209, 210, 213, 222, 223, 227, 240, 244, 248, 250, 261

John Henry, 202, 206, 240

John L., 130

Joseph (Prophet), 8, 12, 13, 15, 16, 209, 261

Joseph F., 210, 231, 232, 250, 254, 256, 259

Joseph W., 168

Josephine Groesback, 202

Lot, 133, 145, 150, 168, 180, 184, 186, 213, 230

Lula Hatch, 252

Mary, 230

Robert H., 132

Samuel, 112, 241

Samuel F., 248, 251

Smoot,

A.O., 57

Smoot, Apostle, 252

Snow,

Eliza, 23

Erastus, 16, 122, 130, 147, 152, 161, 180, 183

Lorenzo, 48, 112, 245, 249, 254

Snyder,

Brother, 71

G.G., 73

Solomon, William, 162

Spence, Brother, 173

Spencer, H.C., 133

Staley, Brother, 162

Stalker,

A., 196

Alex, 105, 115, 117

Standifird, J.H., 165

Standifird, John H., 162

Standifird, John Henry, 184, 197

Stanford,

Leland, 108

Stegner,

Wallace, 74

Stenhouse,

Brother, 70

Stover Bill, 184, 200

Stover, E.S., 184

Sublette Cutoff, 73

Sumner,

Hannah (Aunt), 16

—T—

Taffender,

Mr., 69

Taylor, John, 93, 147, 151, 164, 187, 189, 194, 195, 200, 203

Tenney,

Ammon, 132, 147, 148, 179

Nathan, 136, 138, 166

Tewksbury, Jim, 206

Thatcher,

Georgia, 183

Hezekiah, 112

Moses, 112

Thatcher, Moses, 180, 256

Thomas,

Preston, 97

Thurber,

A.H., 94

Thurman, James, 148

Tidwell, Sophronia Hatch, 233

Tietjen, Ernest Albert, 141

Tithing, 60, 86, 102

Trittle, F.A., 184

—U—

Udall, David, 179

Universalism, 3

Utah Militia, 91

Utah,

Dry Creek, 39

Evansville, 40

Fillmore, 47

Lehi, 39, 43, 77

Salt Lake City, 39

Ute Indians, 42

—V—

Vermont, 2

—W—

Wakeley,

John M., 74

Walker,

(Chief), 43

Warsaw, 19

Washakie, Chief, 104

Webb, Bishop, 216

Webb, Dely, 222, 237

Wells,

Daniel H., 9, 130

West, Sister, 219

Westover,

Edward, 141

Wetzler, Julius, 252

Whetstone, Marshall, 198

Whipple, E., 162

Whipple, Edson, 229

White, Brother, 180

Wilder,

Thomas, 17

Williams,

Levi, 19

Wimmer, Brother, 242

Winn,

Elizabeth, 141, 142, 255

Elizabeth Hatch, 111

Thomas, 46, 111

Winter Quarters, 25, 27, 30

Woodruff,

Owen, 250

Wilford, 93, 95, 120, 152, 153, 180, 187, 206, 210, 215, 223, 232, 244

Woodruff, Arizona, 148, 210

Woodward,

William, 103

Woolf,

John, 129

Woolf, Celia, 260

Word of Wisdom, 50

Worneth, Sill, 122

—Y—

Young,

Brigham, 17, 19, 21, 25, 26, 28, 46, 54, 57, 68, 75, 89, 93, 97, 104, 106, 121, 122, 130, 137, 142, 213, 249, 261

Brigham, Jr., 123, 130, 162, 175, 180, 202, 210, 253

John, 86

John W., 112, 145, 180

Joseph, 15

Joseph W., 70, 76

LeGrand, 189

Seymour B., 66, 70, 72, 250

W.G., 60, 62

—Z—

Zulick, Governor, 200

[1]This painting, by an unknown artist, hangs in the Franklin, Idaho Museum.

[2]Hilton, Ruth Savage, Ed., Lorenzo Hill Hatch Journal, 1855-1906,, p.83, Brigham Young University. (1962)

[3]Hale, Ruth A. Hatch, Comp. Genealogy And History Of The Hatch Family, PT.2, P.181-2....and Rev. War Pension of Jeremiah Hatch in National Archives, Washington, D.C.

[4]Hansen, Robert Foss, Our Family In The American Revolution, (1976) Typecopy in L.D.S. Family History Center, Salt Lake City

[5]Hale, p.181

[6]Letter from Vermont Historical Society, 1991.

[7]Hale, Pt 4, p. 357-58

[8]U.S. Census, 1790, Addison County Vermont and Hatch Family Genealogy.

[9]LHH Journal, p. x and Salt Lake Tribune, 1909, Sketches of the Inter-Mountain States, p. 187, Film 1000614, BYU Library

[10]Vermont Historical Magazine, Information received from Vermont Historical Society, 1991.

[11]Hilton, Ruth Savage, Jeremiah, Grandfather Of Lorenzo Hill Hatch unpublished, n.d.

[12]MacDonald, Edith Fox, Rebellion In The Mountains, The Story Of Universalism And Unitarianism In Vermont, 1833-1865. n.d. Typecopy filmed 1975 at Unitarian Universalist Association, Concord, N.H. by LDS Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah, F # 03301

[13]Hale, Pt.4, p.358

[14]LHHJ, p.7

[15]Ibid p.1

[16]Journal History , 7 November 1840. LDS Archives, Salt Lake City

[17]LHHJ, p. 280

[18]Ibid, p.195

[19]Ibid, p. 2

[20]Death Certificate of Aldura Hatch, certified copy from Vermont Public Records Division, 21 Aug 1991. Aldura’s death certificate does not state a cause of death, but Lorenzo gives the cause of her death as “Black Tongue”, which is a nutritional deficiency akin to pellagra. The cause of this disease was not known until in the late 1800s and the first report of a cure was published in 1937. (Encyclopedia Americana, Vol 21, p. 612)

[21]LHHJ, p.2

[22]Hale, Pt. 4, p. 359

[23]LHHJ, p. 2

[24]Salt Lake Tribune, Sketches of the Inner-Mountain States, (1909) p.188

[25]LHHJ, p. 268

[26]Jenson, Andrew, LDS Biographical Encyclopedia, Vol 4, p. 738, The Andrew Jenson History Company, Salt Lake City, 1914

[27]Salt Lake Tribune, Sketches of the Inner-Mountain States , p. 188

[28]Ibid

[29]Allen, James B. and Leonard, Glen M. The Story Of The Latter-day Saints, p. 175, Deseret Book Co., Salt Lake City, 1976

[30]LHHJ, p.2

3 Hancock County, Illinois Deed Book A, 1840-43, p.60

[32]Ibid, Vol.L, p.94-95

[33]LHHJ, p.2

[34]Hancock County, Illinois Deed Book A, 1840-43, p.74. (The Daughters of the American Revolution have placed a plaque on a Nauvoo home naming it the Jeremiah Hatch House. County records indicate this was the home of Jeremiah’s son Josephus Hatch, though Jeremiah may have lived there with him for a time.)

[35]Cook, Lyndon W., Civil Marriages In Nauvoo, 1839-45, p.14, Provo, Utah, July 1980. In the Joseph Smith History Of The Church, Vol. 5, p.340-41, Elder Brown, who served several missions for the church was called, by Joseph, “one of the wisest old heads we have among us.”

[36]Copy of blessing in possession of author

[37]Smith, Joseph, History Of The Church, Vol.5,p.349. Pub. Deseret Book Co., Salt Lake City, 1978

[38]Elders License and Record of Ordinations 1836-46, F581,219, LDS Family History Library, Salt Lake City

[39]Hale, Pt.4, p.358

[40]Sketches of the Inter-Mountain States, p.188

[41]LHHJ, p.2

[42]Sketches of the Inter-Mountain States, p.188

[43]LHHJ, p.2

[44]Hancock County Illinois Guardian Index, Box l, File 947,482, Family History Library, Show Low, Arizona

[45]Hancock County, Illinois Deed Book, Vol p, p.120

[46]Ibid, Vol M, p.14 and Vol N, p.59

[47]History of Hancock County, Illinois, pub by Hancock County Board of Supervisors, np (1968)

[48]Hale, Pt.4, p.363

[49]Sketches of the Inter-Mountain States, p. 189

[50]LHHJ, p.264

[51]Ibid, p.281

[52]Ibid, p.282

[53]Johnson, Clark V., Editor, Mormon Redress Petitions and Documents of the 1833-1838 Conflict, p.565 (Brigham Young University, Provo) 1992

[54]LHHJ, p.3

[55]Copy of blessing in authors possession

[56]Allen, James B. & Leonard, Glen M., The Story Of The Latter-day Saints.,p.189, Deseret Book Co., Salt Lake City, 1976

[57]Smith, Joseph, History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, Vol.6, p. 336. (Deseret Book Company, Salt Lake City, 1978) (Jeremiah Hatch is listed in this source as a missionary to Vermont, not Lorenzo Hill Hatch. Erastus Snow was President of the Vermont Mission)

[58]LHHJ, p.266

[59]Ibid, p.5-6

[60]Ibid, p.7

[61]Ibid

[62]History of Hancock Co., Illinois, p.396

[63]LHHJ, p.8

[64]Ibid

[65]Allen & Leonard, p.211

[66]LHHJ, p.8

[67]Ibid

[68]Sketches of The Inter-Mountain States, p.189

[69]Stegner, Wallace, The Gatherin^{g Of Zion}, p.36-37, Salt Lake City, 1981

[70]LHHJ, p.8

[71]Allen & Leonard, p.220

[72]The Council of Fifty was a special council convened by Joseph Smith on March 11, 1844 to study the plan for a new gathering place for the Saints. This council remained intact through the early years of the Church, concerned with political and economic planning.

[73]Sketches of the Intermountain States, p.189

[74]LHHJ, p.8

[75] As quoted in Women’s Voices, An Untold History Of the Latter-day Saints, p.163, by Godfrey, Godfrey and Derr

[76] Bryson, Conrey, Winter Quarters, p. 28. Deseret Book Co., Salt Lake City, 1986

[77] Godfrey, Godfrey & Derr, p.158

[78] Stegner, p.45

[79] LHHJ, p.9

[80] Ibid, p.9-10

[81] Ibid, p.10

[82]Ibid

[83]Smith, Joseph, History of the Church, Vol 7, p.618

[84]As quoted in, Barrett, Ivan J., Joseph Smith and the Restoration, p.23, BYU Press, Provo, Utah 1973

[85]Letter from LHH to President George Q. Cannon, July 27, 1896, LDS Archives, Salt Lake

[86] LHHJ, p.11

[87] Hancock County, Illinois Deeds, Vol.5, p.433

[88]Sketches of the Inter-Mountain States, p.187

[89] Ibid

[90] Ibid, p.192

[91] Copy of blessing in possession of author

[92] LHHJ, p.268 (Elizabeth Hatch’s name is inscribed on the Winter Quarters memorial at Florence, Nebraska, along with over 300 others who died there. Though it is estimated that over 600 died at this camp, only 300 names are known.)

[93] Ibid, p.11

[94] Sketches of the Inter-Mountain States, p. 192

[95]LHHJ, p.12

[96]Ibid

[97] Hilton, p.9 (Family sources give the year of death as 1850, but Robert Foss Hansen has discovered an obituary notice for Jeremiah Hatch in the newspaper, Frontier Guardian, Vol.3, Issue 12, pub. ll July 1851.)

[98] Little, James A., Jacob Hamblin Among the Indians, p.20. Pub General Board of the Young Men’s MIA of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1945-46

[99] Stegner, p. 206

[100] LHHJ, p. 13 and Sketches of the Inter-Mountain States 1909, p. 192

[101]Sketches of the Inter-Mountain States, 1909, p.192

[102]Ibid, p. 193 and LHHJ, p.13

[103]LHHJ, p 13

[104]Ibid

[105]Godfrey, Women's Voices, P. 246

[106]LHHJ, p. 13

[107]Van Wagoner, Richard S., Lehi, p. 3, Lehi City Corporation, Lehi, Utah, 1990

[108]Ibid, p. 253

[109]1851 Utah Territory census, p. 138, family 274

[110]1850 Utah Territory Census, p. 74, family 6

[111]Van Wagoner, p. 4

[112]LHHJ, p. 275, 288

[113]Van Wagoner, p. 315

[114]Journal History, 31, Jan 1852, Deseret News, Feb 7, 1852, Church Archives, SLC

[115]LHHJ, p. 13

[116]Ibid

[117]Ibid

[118]Van Wagoner, p. 4

[119]Ibid, p.41-42

[120]LHHJ, p.14

[121]Van Wagoner, p. 267

[122]Ibid

[123]Lehi Battalion Infantry Executive Record Book A, p. 102-104, Utah State Library, film, TE-O, 00.1, 1850. Logan, Utah

[124]Van Wagoner, p. 7

[125]Ibid, p. 6

[126]Ancestral File, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah

[127]Jenson, Andrew, Encyclopedic History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, p. 947, Deseret News Publishing, Salt Lake City, 1941

[128]LHHJ, p. 17

[129]Letter from LHH to Brigham Young, Church Archives, MS1234, reel 47

[130]LHHJ, p.19

[131]Only this one legislative session was held in Fillmore. The capital building there was started in December, 1851, with only the south wing being completed. Money was not appropriated by the U.S. Government for the completion of the building, and subsequent sessions were moved to Salt Lake City.

[132]LHHJ, p.19

[133]Ibid

[134]Smith, Joseph, Church History, Vol. 4, p. 424 and Vol.5, p. 350

[135]LHHJ, p. 20-21

[136]Ibid, p. 20

[137]Ibid

[138]Allen and Leonard, p. 262

[139]LHHJ, p. 21

[140]Ibid

[141]Bush, Lester E., Jr., "The Word of Wisdom in Early Nineteenth-Century Perspective," Dialogue, A Journal Of Mormon Thought, VOL 14, NO 3, Autumn 1981, p. 49

[142]McCue, Robert J. ,"Did the Word of Wisdom Become a Commandment in 1851?", Dialogue, A Journal Of Mormon Thought, VOL 14, NO 3, AUTUMN 1981., P. 74

[143]LHHJ, p 21

[144]Ibid, p.22

[145]A grain cradle is a frame attachment for a scythe which holds the grain in a bundle as it is cut.

[146]LHHJ, p. 23

[147]Ibid, p.24

[148]Ibid

[149]Ibid, p. 25

[150]Hartley, William G., My Best For The Kingdom: Salt Lake City, 1993, Aspen Books, p. 276

[151]LHHJ, p.25

[152]Dewey, Richard Lloyd, Porter Rockwell, p. 187-88, Paramount Books, Wantagh, New York, 1986

[153]Journal History, 8 June, 1856

[154]Ibid

[155]Ibid

[156]As Quoted in, Porter Rockwell, p. 188

[157]Alder, D.B. and E.L., The Benson Family, p. 23 , Salt Lake City, 1979: The E.T. Benson Genealogical Society

[158]LHHJ p.28

[159]Ibid, p. 32

[160]Ibid, p. 287 and Journal History, 1 January, 1857

[161]LHHJ, p. 31

[162]Ibid, p. 32

[163]Ibid

[164]Ibid

[165]Ibid p.33

[166]Ibid, p. 34

[167]Ibid, p.38

[168]Ibid, p.36

[169]Ibid, p. 40

[170]Ibid, p 41

[171]Ibid, p.42

[172]Ibid

[173]Ibid

[174]Ibid, p.44

[175]Ibid, p.45

[176]Ibid, p 46. (When Lorenzo refers to "shanks horses", he means they are traveling on foot.)

[177]Ibid,p. 46

[178]Ibid

[179]Ibid, p.47

[180]Ibid

[181]Ibid, p.53

[182]Ibid, p 55

[183]Ibid, p.44

[184]Ibid, p. 49

[185]Ibid, p.53

[186]As quoted in, Stegner, p. 279-80

[187]LHHJ, p. 53

[188]Ibid, p. 55

[189]Ibid, p. 57

[190]Ibid, p. 58

[191]Ibid, p. 59

[192]Ibid, p.58

[193]Allen & Leonard, p. 275

[194]LHHJ, p. 59

[195]Ibid, p. 60

[196]Ibid

[197]Stegner, p. 154

[198]Ibid, p. 287

[199]LHHJ, p. 61

[200]Ibid

[201]Ibid

[202]Stegner, p. 280

[203]Allen & Leonard, p. 306

[204]LHHJ, p. 61

[205] Van Wagoner, p.400

[206] Stegner, p.283

[207]Ibid

[208]Allen & Leonard, p.308

[209]Hamilton Gardner as quoted in Van Wagner, p. 7,8

[210]Ibid

[211]As quoted in Stegner, p.285

[212]Van Wagner, p.8

[213]Ibid

[214]Ibid, p.366

[215] LHHJ, p.65

[216] In measuring masonry a perch is usually 24 3/4 cu. feet

[217] LHHJ, p.66

[218] Van Wagoner, p.53

[219] Ibid

[220] Ibid, p.54

[221] Ibid

[222] LHHJ, p.66

[223] As quoted in Van Wagoner, p.54

[224] Ibid

[225] Ibid

[226] LHHJ, p.68

[227] Van Wagoner, p.11

[228] LHHJ, p.69

[229] 1860 Utah Territory Census, Lehi. Family #294

[230] LHHJ, p.71

[231] Ibid, p.72

[232] Ibid, p.73

[233] Van Wagoner, p.400

[234] Stegner, p.290

[235] Van Wagoner, p.10

[236] As quoted in Van Wagoner, p.10

[237] “Sketches of the Inner-Mountain States”, p.193

[238] LHHJ, p.75

[239] Ibid

[240] Gibbons, Francis M.,Wilford Woodruff,Wondrous Worker, Prophet of God, p.231 Deseret Book Company, Salt Lake City, 1988

[241] LHHJ, p.75

[242] As quoted in Gibbons, p.232

[243] LHHJ, p.76-77

[244] Ibid, p.78

[245] Gibbons, p.225

[246]Ricks, Joel E., ed. The History of A Valley, Cache Valley, Utah-Idaho,p.30, pub. Cache Valley Centennial Commission, Logan,Utah, 1956

[247]Church News, Week ending 15 Dec. 1990, p. 14

[248] Daughters of Utah Pioneers, The Trail Blazer, History of The Development of Southeastern Idaho,p.10, Revised, 1976, Preston, Idaho

[249] Ibid, p. 15

[250] Hilton, Ruth Savage, Catherine,, p.19,(1948) unpublished, copy in authors possession

[251] Sorensen, A.M., Biography of Hezekiah Eastman Hatch,p.24, pub.by Hatch Family, (1952)

[252] Ibid, p. 25

[253] Ibid, p. 28

[254] Ricks, p. 345

[255] Sorensen, p. 27

[256] Arrington, Leonard J., Idaho Yesteryears, Summer 1973, p. 5

[257] Ricks,p. 157

[258] Record of Appointment of Postmasters, Microfilm roll 128, p. 353, National Archives, Washington D.C.

[259] Sorensen, p. 26

[260] John Hatch, Taylor, Arizona, np, nd copy in authors possession

[261] Papers and journals of William Woodward, who moved to Franklin, Idaho in 1860, may be found in the Merrill Library at Utah State University, Logan, Utah

[262] Sorensen, p.26

[263] Daughters of Utah Pioneers, p. 45

[264] Cache Valley Brigade, Nauvoo Legion Brigade Muster rolls, returns, Journal 1865-1876, on microfilm at Utah State University, Special Collections.

[265] Ibid

[266] Ricks, p.171

[267] Ibid

[268] LHHJ, p. 79

[269] Sorensen, p. 29

[270] Allen & Leonard,p. 329

[271] LHHJ, p. 78

[272] Ricks, p. 172

[273] LHHJ, p. 79

[274] Sorensen, p. 30-31

[275] Ibid p. 31

[276] Daughters of Utah Pioneers, p. 47

[277] Ricks, p.103

[278] Sorensen, p.29

[279] Allen & Leonard, p.331-32

[280] Ricks, p. 450

[281] This building is still standing and is known as the Relic Hall, housing a museum for the town of Franklin.

[282] Daughters of Utah Pioneers, p. 36

[283] LHHJ, p. 83H

[284] Ibid, p. 79

[285] Ricks, p. 446

[286] Ibid, p.168

[287] Sorensen, p. 33-34

[288] Arrington, p. 5

[289] LHHJ, p.80. Over 100 years later Dr. Arthur Hart, of the Idaho State Historical Society would pronounce this home "one of the finest examples of Greek Revival architecture in the State of Idaho." (From an undated newspaper clipping in possession of author)

[290] Sorensen, p. 30

[291] LHHJ, p. 79

[292] Ibid, p.81

[293] Ricks, p. 112

[294] Ibid and LHHJ, p.81

[295] LHHJ, p. 83B

[296] Ibid, p. 83D, 83E

[297] Ibid, p. 83B

[298] Ibid 83C

[299] Ibid, p. 83C-83F

[300] Ibid, p. 83I

[301] Ibid, 83J

[302] Arrington, p.3

[303] Letter from the First Presidency of the LDS Church as quoted by McConkie, Bruce R., Mormon Doctrine, p. 558, Bookcraft, Salt Lake City, 1966

[304] Ricks, p. 179

[305] Daughters of Utah Pioneers, p. 34

[306] Ibid, p. 36-37

[307] Ricks, p.451 and LHHJ, p.83L

[308] LHHJ, p. 83L and Daughters of Utah Pioneers, p. 28

[309] Ricks, p. 451

[310] Church History In The Fulness Of Times, prepared by the Church Educational System, (Salt Lake City, 1989), p. 425-6

[311].Ricks, p.112

[312] Sorensen, p.36

[313] Ibid

[314] Record Of Appointment Of Postmasters For Franklin, Oneida Co, Idaho, Roll 26, p. 604. National Archives, Washington, D.C.

[315] Journal History, 3 August, 1875, Church Archives, SLC

[316] Sorensen, p. 36

[317] Ibid, p. 41 (As telegrapher for the Deseret Telegraph Co., Hezekiah E. Hatch had the dubious distinction of sending the telegram to the world of the massacre of General Custer and 259 cavalry men by the Sioux Indians on the Little Big Horn river in southern Montana on June 25, 1876. Hezekiah had sent many brief telegrams, but this report took five and a half hours of tapping the key to send the word out to Salt Lake. Downed telegraph lines at Pleasant Valley Montana, and two stations between there and Franklin caused the message to be hand carried by a stage driver to Franklin for transmission.)

[318] Ibid, p. 40

[319] Carter, Kate B., Heart Throbs Of The West, Vol.12, p.137

[320] Little, James A., Jacob Hamblin Among The Indians ,p.159-61,

[321] Ibid

[322] LHHJ, p.287

[323] Carter, Kate B., Treasures Of Pioneer History , vol.4, p.113

[324] LHHJ, p.85

[325] Ibid

[326] Ibid, p. 88

[327] LHH to Brigham Young, 4 Sept 1876. MS 1234, Reel 67, Church Archives, SLC

[328] “The Zunis; Experiences And Descriptions”, pub. by The Pueblo of Zuni, (Zuni, N.M.) 1973

[329] Brigham Young to LHH, 25 Sept. 1876, Church Archives MS 1234, Reel 67

[330] LHHJ, pp 90-91

[331] LHH to Brigham Young, 22 Oct. 1876. Church Archives, MS 1234, Reel 67

[332] LHHJ, p.91

[333] Journal History, 8 October, 1876

[334] Pearce, T.M.,ed., New Mexico Place Names , University of New Mexico, (1965). (This town is no longer found on New Mexico maps. It has been abandoned and is on private land. The rock and adobe walls of many buildings are still standing, plus what appears to be the remains of a small Catholic Church. 1991 visit by author.)

[335] LHH to Brigham Young, 23 October 1876, Church Archives, MS 1234

[336] Ibid

[337] Two of Jeremiah Hatch’s sons married their cousins, daughters of Elizabeth Hatch Winn.

[338] Carter, Kate B., Treasures Of Pioneer History, Vo^{l.4, p.114}

[339] “The Zunis; Experiences And Descriptions”, pub The Pueblo of Zuni, Zuni, N.M., 1973, p.6

[340] “Zuni History Victories In The 1990s”, pub Institute of the North American West, (Seattle, Wash.) Sec 1, p.17

[341] Fredrickson, Lars; History Of Weston, Idaho, ed. A.J. Simmonds; Utah State University Press, 1972, p.27

[342] Journal History, 3 June, 1877

[343] Ibid, 2 October, 1877

[344] LHHJ, p.101 and Catherine, p.25

[345] Jenson, Andrew, Biographical Encyclopedia, p.324 Reprint, Western Epics, Salt Lake City, 1971

[346] Nielson, Frihoff Godfrey, Journal, 1851-1893, Vol.1, Sunday, Jan 27, 1878. (Read at Harold B. Lee Library, BYU)

[347] LHHJ, and letter dated 1 March, 1878 from LHH to President John Taylor, Church Archives, SLC

[348] Hilton, Ruth Savage, “Damming The Little Colorado”, Improvement Era, p.94, February, 1955

[349] Jenson, Andrew, Encyclopedic History, p. 963

[350] LHHJ, p.103

[351] Ibid, p.102

[352] Ibid,p.103

[353] Peterson, Charles S., Take Up Your Mission, p.114 ,University of Arizona, Tucson, 1973

[354] LHHJ, p.187

[355] Ibid

[356] Smith, Jesse N.Six Decades in the Early West;The Journal of Jesse N.Smith,1834-1906, p.230. Publishers Press, Salt Lake City,1970

[357] LHHJ, p.187

[358] Lupher, Marjorie, History Of Woodruff, p.14, np.nd.

[359] Smith, Jesse N., p.233,237

[360] Gibbons, p.301

[361] LHHJ, p.109

[362] Lorenzo Lafayette Hatch files, MS1974, Church Archives, Salt Lake City

[363] Letter from LHH to Hezekiah E. Hatch, 4 April, 1880. All letters from LHH to HEH are in the Merrill Library Special Collections, Utah State University, Logan, Utah.

[364] LHH to HEH, February, 1881

[365] John Hatch to Hezekiah Hatch, letter contained in LHH collection at USU, Logan, Utah

[366] LHH to HEH, July 1, 1881

[367] John W. Young, a son of Brigham Young, organized a partnership with Ammon Tenney to contract building roadbed and bridges for the railroad as it topped the continental divide in western New Mexico...into northern Arizona. The Mormons built around 200 miles of roadbed.

[368] ^{LHH to HEH, July 3, 1881}

[369] LHHJ, p.120. A portion of this land is, 115 years later, owned by Hatch descendants. The grandsons of Willard Hatch own a very successful dairy and farm on the land (1994).

[370] John Hatch to Hezekiah Hatch, Feb.28,1881

[371] Fort Apache, some fifty miles south of the Mormon settlements of Snowflake and Taylor on the White Mountain Apache Reservation, was established in 1870 to control the Coyotero Apaches. U.S. Military troops were kept there continuously until 1924.

[372] LHHJ, p.121-22

[373] J.N. Smith Journal, p.258

1 LHHJ, p. 124

[375] Lorenzo must have been referring to the winter the family was living in Savoia (1877-78). Tom remained with his mother while Lorenzo went to Utah for Alice and her family. The nephews were the sons of Lorenzo's brother, Jeremiah Hatch

[376] Letter from LHH to his son Lorenzo Lafayette Hatch, January 22, 1882. Original at USU, Logan, Utah, Special Collections.

[377] Ibid

[378] Ibid

[379] LHH to HEH, February 19, 1882

[380]LHHJ, p.127

[381]Wilhelm, C.L. and M.R., A History of the St. Johns Arizona Stake. Historical Publications, Orem, Utah, 1982

[382] There must be a mixup in the days of the week here. Surely Lorenzo did not arrive in St. Johns on a Tuesday and wait until the following Monday to go for Hyrum's Mother, Catherine, at Woodruff.

[383] LHHJ, p. 128

[384]Ibid

[385]Hilton, Ruth Savage, Catherine, np, 1948. (copy in possession of author)

[386]Letter from LHH to HEH, December 20, 1883. Hyrum did return to Idaho and lived at the Hatch homestead

[387]Smith, J.N. Journal, p. 265

[388]LHHJ, p. 131

[389]Peterson, p. 246

[390]LHHJ, p. 131

[391]The same Moses Cluff who earlier settled at Forestdale and then at Ellsworth, near Show Low, before moving on to the Gila Valley.

[392]J.N. Smith Journal, p. 265

[393]Ibid, p. 266

[394]In 1969 another small journal belonging to Lorenzo Hill Hatch was found by his grandson, Elmer W. Hatch of Springville, Utah. This journal is a detailed account of his day by day journey from Arizona to Utah. It may be found in the LDS Church Historical Department in Salt Lake.

[395]Lorenzo owned shares in the Franklin Co-op, but had as much trouble getting his money from them as he did in selling his grist mill.

[396]Grandmother Eastman lived with her daughter Sylvia from the time Syliva was married until her death, just a few weeks after Lorenzo wrote of her. Clarissa died on June 22, 1883, in Franklin, Idaho, at age 90 years.

[397]LHH to HEH, 2 July, 1883,

[398]LHH to HEH,July 7, 1883

[399]LHH to HEH, Sept 9, 1883,

[400]Ibid,, November 17,1883,

[401]J.N.Smith Journal, p. 283

[402]LHHJ, p. 137

[403]Peterson, p.229,230

[404]Ibid

[405]Ibid, p.224

[406]LHHJ, p.141

[407]Ibid

[408]Ibid, p.143

[409]Ibid, p.144

[410]LHH to HEH, November 1884

[411]IGI records at the LDS Family History Library give this marriage as taking place in the Endowment House. Ruth did not marry again until 1920

[412]J.N. Smith Journal, p.296

[413]Life and Journals of John Henry Standifird, p.244, Brigham Young University Press, Provo, Utah,1979

[414]LHHJ, p.145

[415]Ibid, p.146

[416]As quoted in Embry, Jessie L., Mormon Polygamous Families, Life In The Principle, p.63, University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, 1987

[417]LHHJ, p.147

[418]LHH to HEH, May 31, 1885

[419]LHH to HEH, Aug.4,1885

[420]Ibid

[421]Ibid

[422]This was probably his son John who was traveling to St. George with Jane Standifird, where they were married on October 21

[423]LHH to HEH, Sept.26,1885

[424]Letter from LHH to President John Taylor, Dec 10, 1885, Church Archives, SLC

[425]LHH to Bishop Preston, November, 1885, Church Archives, SLC

[426]LHH to HEH, November 6, 1885

[427]LHH to President John Taylor, 3 Mar, 1886, Church Archives

[428]LHH to HEH, Jan.28, 1886

[429]Ricks, p.113

[430]LHH to HEH, 29 Jan.1886

[431]LHH to First Presidency, 3 March,1886, Church Archives, SLC

[432]LHH to D.B. Robinson, Gen. Manager of A & P Railway, Original in Special Collections, Utah State University, Logan

[433]LHH to HEH, May 14, 1886

[434]Lorenzo refers to the Aztec Cattle Company with the famous Hashknife brand which had their headquarters near Obed, (Joseph City) on the Little Colorado River.

[435]LHH to President John Taylor, 14 April,1886, Church Archives, SLC

[436]Ricks, p.113

[437]LHH to HEH, Nov 4,1886

[438]Ricks, P.114

[439]LHH to President John Taylor, 24 Dec,1886

[440]J.N.Smith Journal, p.335

[441]LHH to HEH, Feb.1887

[442]Ibid

[443]Peterson, p.168

[444]Ibid, p.169

[445]J.N.Smith Journal, p.336-37

[446]Adeline Hatch had no children.Her husband,George Barber, entered into plural marriage with Louisa Raymond, who subsequently had eight children. Adeline was a member of the Relief Society General Board of the church from 1893-1898. She also served as president of the Retrenchment Society of Smithfield, Utah for eight years and in the Cache Stake Primary association for seventeen years. For the last twenty-two years of her life she was a worker in the Logan Temple.(Jenson, Biographical Encyclopedia and Hale, Genealogy and History of the Hatch Family, pt.4)

[447]LHH to HEH, April 30,1888

[448]LHH to HEH, 5 Aug,1888

[449]Ibid

[450]LHH to HEH, 30 April,1888

[451]J.N. Smith Journal, pp.350-51-52. President Smith gives a detailed account of this trip.

[452]Carlock, Robert, The Hashknife, pp. 189-90, Westernlore Press, Tucson, 1994

[453]LHH to President Wilford Woodruff, et al, 7 Dec, 1890, Church Archives

[454]Peterson, pp. 172-73-74

[455]LHH Journal, p.163

[456]Peterson, p.175

[457]LHH to HEH, 19 Jan 1890

[458]J.N. Smith Journal, p.380

[459]LHH Journal, p.151

[460]Church Educational System, Church History In The Fulness Of Times, p.440, Salt Lake City; 1989, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

[461]Ricks,.p.117

[462]J.N. Smith Journal, p.384

[463]LHH Journal, p.160

[464]LHH to HEH, 19 Apr.1891

[465]LHH Journal, p.171

[466]Ibid ,p.176

[467]J.N. Smith Journal, p.391

[468]LHH Journal, p.177 and J.N. Smith Journal, p.392

[469]Ibid, p.179 , 393

[470]Biography of Lula Hatch Smith in unpublished DUP records of Family History Library, Snowflake, Arizona

[471]LHH Journal, p.180

[472]Jenson, Andrew Autobiography p.217, pub Deseret News Press, 1938

[473]LHH to HEH, 5 Aug,1894

[474]Ibid

[475]Ibid

[476]This troubled Lorenzo’s mind so much that he contacted church authorities in Salt Lake about the condition of Lot’s grave and his destitute family. In 1902 the body was interred and moved to Farmington,Utah. Lorenzo attended the burial of his friend at Farmington.

[477]LHHJ, pp.188-89-90

[478]Ibid

[479]LHH to HEH, 11 October,1895

[480]LHH to HEH, 7 June 1896

[481]LHH to President George Q. Cannon, 27 July,1896, LDS Archives,, Salt Lake City

[482]Lafayette Hatch to HEH, Oct 31,1896

[483]LHH to HEH, 26 and 27 Dec,1896

[484]Savage, Lydia Lenora Hatch, MS9632, Item 1. LDS Historical Department, Salt Lake

[485]Hilton, Ruth Savage, Catherine, np. 1948. Copy of manuscript in possession of author.

[486]LHHJ, p.214

[487]J.N. Smith Journal, p.426

[488]LHHJ p.219

[489]Savage, Lydia Lenora, notebook in Church Archives, MS 9632, Item 1

[490]A short biography of Thomas Hatch may be found in the LDS Church Historical Department, Salt Lake City, MS 14124

[491]LHHJ, p.225

[492]LHH to HEH, 27 Aug.,1899

[493]LHH to HEH, 10 Sept.,1899

[494]Hilton, Ruth Savage, Catherine, np, 1948

[495]Savage, Lydia Lenora, notebook in Church Archives, MS 9632, Item 1. (Thomas Hatch later married the sister of his first wife and located in Canada where he lived to an old age among his many children and grandchildren.)

[496]LHHJ p.232

[497]Hatch, L.L., H.E., Hyrum, J. Lorin, to President Lorenzo Snow, 29 October,1900, Church Archives, SLC

[498]LHHJ, p.289

[499]Ibid p.236 and Hilton, p.8

[500]LHHJ, p.241

[501]“Sketches of the Inner-Mountain States”, 1909 , pp.202-203

[502]Elizabeth Hatch Winn died on January 10, 1920 in Green River, Utah

[503]LHHJ, p.255

[504]In 1995, Dale Hatch of Vernal, Utah published Jeremiah Hatch and Family History, which gives a detailed account of Jeremiah’s life.

[505]LHHJ,p.260

[506]LHH to President Joseph F. Smith, 21 Sept.1904, Church Archives

[507]Sorensen, A.N., Biography of Hezekiah Eastman Hatch, p.15-16, pub. by The Family of Hezekiah Eastman Hatch, 1952, np

[508] Jenson, LDS Biographical Encyclopedia, Vol.4, p.699

[509] Sorensen, p.18

[510] Ibid

[511] Embry, p.7-8

[512] LHHJ, p.275

[513] Embry, p.42

[514] Sorensen, p.25

[515] Ibid, p.30

[516]LHH to HEH, 2 July,1883

[517] LHHJ, p.147

[518] LHH to HEH, 12 December, 1885

[519] LHH to HEH, 5 December, 1887

[520] LHH to HEH, April 30,1888

[521] LHH letter to HEH, May 18, 1888

[522] LHHJ, p.168

[523] Ibid, p.275

[524] Hilton, p.12

[525] Thomas Karren’s name is enscribed on the Mormon Battalion Monument in San Diego, California

[526] Hilton, p.12

[527] Ibid

[528] Ibid, p.8

[529] Ibid, p.19

[530] Ibid, p.22

[531] Ibid, p.24-25

[532] Savage, Lydia Lenora Hatch, MS9632, Item 1. LDS Historical Dept., Salt Lake.

[533] Hilton, p.27

[534] Ibid, p.29

[535] Ibid, p.23

[536] LHHJ, p.128

[537] Hilton, p.29

[538] LHH to HEH, 29 October, 1885

[539] LHHJ,p.150

[540] Ibid, p.172

[541] Hilton, p.18

[542] LHHJ, p.237

[543] Hilton, p.8

[544] LHHJ, p.243

[545] Ibid, p.279, 284

[546] LHHJ,, p.167

[547] Unpublished D.U.P. biography of Lula Jane Hatch Smith on file at Snowflake Family History Library, Snowflake, Arizona and Ezra Taft Hatch Family, compiled and published by the Hatch Family, Show Low, Arizona, 1978

[548] Ancestral File Family Group Records, searched at Snowflake Family History Library, Snowflake, Arizona

[549] LHHJ, p.167

[550] Hatch Family, Ezra Taft Hatch Family, Compiled and published by the Hatch Family, Show Low, Arizona 1978

[551] There is confusion between Lorenzo’s journal entry and the Ancestral File in Salt Lake City, in that, one says Jane and Maria were the same person, yet Lorenzo notes that Alice had two sisters who came to America.

[552]Hafen, Leroy and Ann W., Handcarts To Zion, p.166-7, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska,1992

[553] Ibid, p.168

[554]Hafen, Mary Ann, Recollections Of A Handcart Pioneer Of 1860 (University of Nebraska Press. 1983) Lincoln, Nebraska

[555] As quoted in, Hafen, Leroy R. and Ann W., Handcarts to Zion

[556] Letter from LHH in Coveville, Utah to HEH, 14 May 1886, Lorenzo says, “I found a nephew and two nieces of Alice’s who is much respected living in gentile valley.”

[557] 1870 U.S. Census, Cache County, Utah (Franklin was thought at this time to be in Utah)

[558] LHHJ, p.111

[559] LHH to HEH, July, 1881

[560] Ibid (All of Lorenzo and Alice’s Arizona sons remained faithful to the church. John, their oldest, became a much beloved patriarch in Snowflake Stake. A grandson served as counselor to Spencer W. Kimball in the Mt. Graham Stake, Safford, Arizona. Another grandson became the sixth bishop of Woodruff, Arizona Ward. Willard, Ezra, George Jeremiah and Heber Albert all held responsible positions throughout their lives.)

[561] LHHJ, p.117

[562] Ibid, p.133

[563] LHH to HEH, Mar.24, 1888

[564] LHHJ, p.145

[565] LHH to HEH, 4 Sept.1885

[566] Jesse N. Smith Journal, p.335

[567] LHH to HEH, (nd) 1888

[568] Jesse N. Smith Journal, p.376

[569] LHHJ, p.156

[570] Ibid, p.158

[571] Ibid, p.159

[572] Ibid, p.166

[573] Ibid

[574] Ibid, p.166-67