But before this in the month of August there was an old Mormon came from San Bernardino by the name of Wallas, and he went and lived in the City awhile and bought him a house and lot. He sold out and came down to Spanish Fork and stayed at my house, and he asked me for my daughter Charity. He had one wife then. Well, I did not know what to say hardly. I asked him if he had got my daughter's consent, he said that he had. He told me that he was going back to San Bernardino to settle up his business there and he wanted to take Charity with him, that it would be a nice trip for her. He was pretty well to do and I went and asked my daughter Charity if she wanted to be his wife and to go with him. She said, "yes." Now this was the first of my girls that went into plurality, and so I talked to her and told her that I hoped that she was not running into it without knowing what she was doing, but I knew that she understood the principle, and if she got a good man that she would do very well. They were married and there was quite a stir with the boys and they were going to run Wallas' carriage down to the slough and his wife was asleep in it, but when they found out that Wallas was not in with her they let her alone. I had to place a guard over his mules or the boys would have run them off, and they would be nowhere to be found for a week or two.

Father Morley came down and married them. My wife did not much like their getting married for she thought that Wallas was not the man for Charity. [p.49] However, they were married and started on their journey; they had not gone more than five days when they met Lemuel and Keziah; and Keziah turned in and had a good cry. She did not know what to make of it, her going off to California with Wallas.

They got in here in about a week, or ten days. The mission was given up. They had not been in long before Keziah was put to bed with a son. He was born on the sixth of October, they named him Lemuel Harding after his father. Taylor and Olive also had a daughter. She was nearly nine months of age then. She was born on the fifteenth of November and they named her Sarah Olive. George and Phebe had a daughter at the same time. She was born on the fourteenth of November; they named her Hannah Caroline. That was three grandchildren I had.

There is another thing that slipped my memory, that is in the year of the hard times for food. The most of the folks in Spanish Fork had the measles, and my family were nearly all down with it. There were nine confined to their beds at once, and we had a very sick time of it, too. Lemuel and Keziah had it too, across the Fort. There was not many escaped from it that did not have it before. We had a very severe winter this winter and the snow was very deep in the Canyon, but the brethren turned out and made a road up into the wood and built a bridge when the snow was two and three feet deep and so cold it was hard work to keep from freezing to death. They all felt well and happy in doing as they were told.

The reformation was going on first rate. Brother Brigham and counselors made a catechism, or code of laws for the Saints to go by, and all the Bishops had to get the people one by one by themselves and ask them these questions that were on the code of laws, and if the people had broken any of these laws they were sold to do so no more, and they were all forgiven for what they had done. All their former sins were to be remembered against them no more. This made the people feel good, and we held our meetings and they would speak in tongues and prophesy in the name of the Lord. Every family held family meetings, and they spoke or prayed just as they were led. All were rejoicing and happy and everything went on just as it ought to.

Rueben Allred came from Sanpete and lived awhile with us, till he could build him a house. We had quite a sick time with the children. My sister Lucy Ann's little baby and Taylor's little girl were very sick indeed. We did not expect either of them to live, they were so sick, but it pleased the Lord to spare their lives; and they got well.

The United States had put Buchanan in as President of the United States, and he was going to put down Mormons; and he was very embittered against the people of this Territory, and he began to look up soldiers to come out here. He was determined to do some great thing, while he was in the presidential chair.

Now the emigration across the plains was very late. They all got caught in the snow. They were strung from Weber River to Fort Bridger, and there they was starving and freezing to death. It was dreadful the accounts. Brother Brigham gave orders in all the settlements to rig up teams to go back and bring the sufferers in. Now the snow [p.50] was from six to fifteen feet deep and there was no road broke across the mountains at all. Well, the word came down to me to rig up six teams and send two men to every team for teamsters and there were four mules or horses to each wagon, and the wagons were to be loaded with horse feed, provisions, clothing and every comfort of life that could be sent. Now, this all was to be done by donation. So I called the people together and told them the situation of their brethren and sisters; and then we had to rig up teams and send men out for them. This was in December and it was bitter cold. The snow in the Valley here was eighteen inches deep on the level, and it was snowing in the mountains all the time. Well, we got them all rigged up, and I never had less trouble getting up such an expedition for the Saints were willing and on hand to do almost anything.

My son, Taylor [Butler], I sent out with them to superintend the expedition. He drove a wagon as well, and he told me how he found the Saints and how the road was. He said that there were teams reached nearly from the City to Fort Bridger; they had to have men shoveling out snow and breaking the road, and in some places the snow was up above the wagon bows on each side, and they found the Saints in an awful condition, some with their feet froze and some with their fingers froze, and they had no food to eat; and he said that he never saw such a sight before. It was dreadful, and he said that they were so over-joyed they did not know what to do hardly. Well, they were all picked up and fed and clothes given to them. When they camped at night, there were a whole lot of the boys would break a road to a tree and cut it down for firewood and when they were coming back, they never saw the sun for six days, and it snowed all the time, and had to break the road over again, and in coming down the Big Mountain they never locked a wheel but gee'd off and let the hub of the off wheel drag in the snow, and so they came down. They brought some of the folks to Spanish Fork and I never saw such objects in my life as they were. There was a young man that George Sevey brought down with him that looked like a shadow. He would reel to and fro when he walked he was so weak and his toes were froze. George hired him for a year.

I was busy all the time doing ward business. I took the office of my first counselor from him as I was counseled by Brother Brigham and Brother Grant, and I had a vote taken on it. I chose Bro. A. K. Thurber in his place. I had several difficulties to settle in the ward, some with husbands and wives and told them to make it all up, and live their religion.

I divided the ward into four parts and put a Teacher over every part. Levi Harmon was the Teacher for the first part and Charles A. Davis for the second part and Henry Garfield for the third and Stephen R. Wells for the fourth part. I got Mr. C. A. Davis to find out how much wheat there was in the City and brought me a report and it said nine thousand bushels of wheat and two thousand bushels of corn. I thought that was pretty well for Spanish Fork.

I had to marry folks at different times and bless children and one thing and another that it took up the greater part of my time. I set my family in order and told them to attend to their [p.51] secret prayers and ask God to bless them and enable them to do what was right.

I went down to the [Salt Lake] City several times and received instructions how to do and how to be enabled to build up the Kingdom. I started down to the City in March in company with George Wilkins, my second councillor. I took three women down with me to be sealed to me. Their names are as follows; Ann Harrow, Levisa Hamilton and Ester Ogdon. I arrived there on the seventh. On the eighth went to meeting and on the ninth was sealed to my women. Miss. Ann Hughes was married to Lewis Harrow. He died in the West Indies. She embraced the Gospel and came to Salt Lake and was sealed to me on the ninth of March eighteen hundred and fifty seven in the sealing room by Heber C. Kimball in Brigham Young's office. Her mother's name was Alice Edwards before she married Robert Hughes. Her mother's name was Ann Hancock before she married John Edwards. Ann's father's father's name was Lewis Hughes, he married Ann Hughes Harrow. Ann had one child by her first husband, Louis Harrow; it was a girl; they named her Ester. Her brothers and sister were as follows: Lewis, John died when an infant, Robert, Andrew, Ann, Elizabeth and Allis. Lewis married Mary Neck; they had four children. Andrew married Ellen Hackerslay; they had five children. Allis was married to Thomas Johnson; they had six children; Charles, Betwen, Marion, Janet and Isabel. She was the last child. Levisa was a daughter of Andrew and Malissa Hamilton. Ester's folks I know nothing about them.

I came back from the City and attended to the affairs of the ward. Brother Philo Allen asked me for my daughter Sarah Adaline. I told him that if she was willing I was; they were married ; and the same day as I took my three women, she is second wife to Philo. In April George Wilkins asked me if I would give him my daughter, Elizabeth. I told him I had no objections providing she was willing. So they got married; she was his second wife.

The spring was beautiful and the folks were busy putting in their grain and garden seeds and everything looked fresh and beautiful. The grass was springing up fast and the cattle began to pick up and look well. We were all enjoying ourselves and living happy, while in the States they did not know what to do.

They went to work and fitted up an army with everything that an army would want to go anywhere in the world, the best fitted out company or army in the United States or any other country ever turned out. They started for the Great Salt Lake City; there was three thousand men that bore arms, besides teamsters and herders; and there was about ten or a dozen trains loaded with provisions, tobacco and clothing and everything that you could mention. These trains were ox teams and they had baggage wagons with six mules on each wagon, the best mules that the United States afforded and new harness. They had their cannon with them and was going to sweep the Mormons from the face of the earth. Their Commander in Chief was General Johnston, and there was Mr. Cummings was to be Governor of Utah Territory. Well, on they came and we raised our crops and enjoyed ourselves. And the Lord blessed us.

There was no good came in that summer on account of the army coming up here, and that made clothing very dear and hard to get. Uncle Sam had sent an Indian Agent out here; and he came down to Spanish Fork and built a house and fenced in a large tract of land and called it the Indian farm. He raised a large amount of grain and corn and gave some of it to the Indians. He was supplied with money and goods from the government to pay hired hands for their labor. He hired about fifty men and bought cattle and cows till he had a herd of about five or six hundred head. He had a brand made and recorded and the brand was I D. He put a dam in the river about half a mile above the house and dug a canal to the farm to bring out the water to water the farm. He done a great deal of good at that time in giving employment to about fifty hands and in putting a little money in circulation. He paid his hands forty dollars per month, twenty in cash and twenty in store goods. His name was Hurt. He was a professional doctor and went by the name of Doctor Hurt. He had a Indian interpreter by the name of Richard James.

There was several young Indian boys took a fancy to go to work. The Doctor got some clothes and dressed them up and made them wait on him and go on errands, wait at table, and so on, and they got so they could understand English pretty well, and they learned to talk English. The Indians they would come and camp down by the farm and turn their horses into the field, and they would get into our grain and run all through it and destroy it, and we could not raise anything for them hardly. We had a very good harvest that summer, and the folks were getting up their stuff and securing it in for winter when word came down from Brigham to be on hand and have plenty of powder and lead and to clean up our rifles at a moment's call. This made some of the men start about them but they were soon ready for anything that should come along.

In August I divorced my seventh wife, Ester, being that she was not satisfied with her situation and wanted to leave me. I obtained a bill of divorcement for her and she left me and went to the City, and in September on the eighth day I was married to a young woman by the name of Henrietta Blythe. She was my eighth wife, and was married to me by Daniel H. Wells on the eighth of September Eighteen hundred and fifty seven. She was the daughter of Charles and Isabel Blythe. Her mother's name before her marriage to Blythe was Brown. And her mothers was Marion Lindsay before she married Brown. Henrietta's father's mother's name before she married Blythe was Fins. She was born in Chatstown, a small town in Midlothen, Scotland, on the sixth of June, eighteen hundred and thirty one. Her brothers and sisters ran thus: James was the oldest. He married Margery Fairborn; Ann, married a Bruce; Marian, she married a Bruce. They were brothers. Naismith, Janett, Charles, and Thomas, whether the last four were married or not we cannot tell. This is the biography of my wife Henrietta's folks as near as she can give it.