A Short History of John Eagar Copied from the original pen and ink record written by John Eagar

Transcription

1 A Short History of John Eagar Copied from the original pen and ink record written by John Eagar I resided at Auburn (New York) about two years. From thence my parents moved to the village of Sing Sing, where a federal prison was being built, on the east bank of the Hudson River, 34 (or 54) miles above New York City. I went to school until I was thirteen years of age. After that I was deprived of that privilege owing to the ill health of my father and responsibilities that rested on me. My father was keeping a hotel at that time. It was about this time that I had my leg broken which has more or less affected my career since, though unperceived by many, the lameness was so slight. "My father, after a long sickness, died June 9, 1841 of consumption. After that we have, as a family, been buffeted about from place to place and our little property, about $3,000 seemed to vanish. My mother had, previous to the death of my father, joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which she after wards apostatized from upon Brother Parley P. Pratt prophesying to her that if she left the Church she would lose her property and the scattering of some of the family, as she had already apostatized in My sister, Elizabeth, was married to George Birdsell. I will here State that I have four sisters, and three brothers, I being the oldest of the family. Elizabeth was born October 15, 1824; Lucy, November 1826; Mary, July 29th 1827; Thomas, March I, 1830; Arabel, July 1st 1832; and William and Walter July 1st, Previous to fathers' marrying my mother, he was married to a Miss Leonard, sister to Leonard the blind man. She had one child by my father but she died in childbed. The child, a son, also died. My sister Lucy married first a man by the name of Edward Powers who turned out to be a drunkard. She left him and married a man by the name of John D. Kingsley, and has also left him, he turning out to be a poor drunken fellow, and he has since died. She is now living with her third husband, and is very comfortable and has several children. Mary is married to Milton Little and is very well off as to the world, has several interesting children. Elizabeth has quite a family of boys and girls. Thomas was married to Mina Angeline Tupper of California. Arabella married a man named Knapp." In 1845, at the age of 22, John Eagar, living in New York City was apprenticed to a printer named Samuel Brannan. Brannan had joined the Mormon Church in Ohio and was printing a periodical for the Church. He began printing a folio size paper named first The Prophet and later The Messenger. Another young man, Edward Kemble, joined Eagar as apprentice. Brannan was asked by Brigham Young to work on the details of a plan to moved the Eastern saints to the West Coast. John Eagar and Edward Kemble were left to publish the church paper "until the printing office at Number 7 Spruce street had to be cleared of its' publishing material to transact the business of the journey to the west." Genealogy records show that John Eagar was baptized into the Mormon Church in July of He and his mother and four younger siblings desired to accompany Brannan, Edward Kemble and the approximately 234 immigrants that sailed to the Bay of San Francisco. Eagar wrote an account of the voyage and the early days of the Mormon settlement in California. Included on the passenger list were Edward Kemble, John Eagar, his mother Lucy and his four youngest brothers and sisters. The original autobiography has corrections and words John Eagar Story 1

2 are crossed out as though they planned it for publication. John's account of the journey follows this personal history of John Eagar and is also found in the Church Historian's Archives in Salt Lake City. A well-transcribed copy of it is in the Bancroft Library in Berkeley, California. John Eagar was among the first Americans to see the United States flag flying in Yerba Buena Square, later called San Francisco. He arrived in California in 1846, sailing around Cape Horn to the Bay of San Francisco. Under Brannan's direction and with the help of John Eagar and Edward Kemble, the press and type, which had printed the Mormon periodical papers in New York were set up and the first printing was done in the loft of the Brannan grist mill on the north side of Clay Street. To insure themselves of a definite source of revenue, the shop and crew were busy striking off notices, naval proclamations and land municipal deeds as sources of income. The first issue, a threecolumn sheet did not appear until January 9, 1847, named The California Star. After their arrival, Sam Brannan became more of a dictator than a righteous leader and many of the immigrants did not take this easily. He excommunicated many persons from the church, including John's mother, Lucy Eagar. Later he reinstated these people, but Lucy Eagar refused to be readmitted. Lucy and John's brothers and sisters had nothing further to do with the Mormon Church or Brannan. A quote from John's remembrances fills in some of the history of the development of the area: "When Col. Freemont came with his volunteer company, he brought the Bear Flag, and he wanted Brannan and the Company to join and go with him. The most of the Company were willing to go, but I rebelled and told them I would not go. I thought we didn't want anything to do with Missouri mobbers, as there were many in Freemont's company that turned the scale. They all backed out but two. They returned without any pay and almost without clothes. "Col. Stephenson brought seven hundred volunteers (for the Mexican American War) from New York and landed them along the coast in different places, but all was peaceful. They had nothing to do. The city was surveyed and many bought lots and built themselves comfortable houses. There was a continual improvement in the city, almost from the day of our landing. "Our next move was to select part of the Company to go to the San Joaquin Valley to make preparations for the coming of the Church. We bought a launch, oxen and seed wheat to send with this company that cost a good deal of money. They went up there and put in grain, built some houses and did all they could to provide for the wants of the Saints when they would come. There was a few that withdrew from the company, but early all clung together till the Spring of "47" when Brannan was fitted out with mules, provisions for himself and a man by the name of Charles Smith to go and meet the Church and pilot them through. "About this time quite a number of the battalion boys came up from the South. They brought word that some had received a letter from President Young telling the battalion to gather up to the mountains as soon as they could. They with us were very anxious for Brannan's return to know where the Church was going to settle. When Brannan returned and told the company that the Church would stop at Salt Lake, you can imagine our disappointment. The Company was broken up and everyone went to work for themselves to make an outfit to go to the Valley as best we could. The land, the oxen, the crops, the houses, tools, and etc. all went into Brannan's hands, and the Company that did the work never got anything for their labor. While the brethren labored in the Company, they and their families had sometimes nothing to eat but boiled wheat and molasses, until their wives began to take in washing from the sailors and supported themselves and their husbands." Brannan hired toughened Mormon Battalion veterans to carry the John Eagar Story 2

3 mail on horseback from San Francisco to Missouri, John Eagar, Kemble, Elbert Jones and Richard Fourcade (who filled many rolls in San Francisco as a writer) worked day and night to produce a special publication to commemorate the run of the first mail. The lead article of the paper was the California gold story. The discovery of gold soon made San Francisco a deserted place. The last issue of The California Star came out in June of 1848 after which Eagar joined the Mormon Battalion veterans in the gold field. Within a year Brannan sold The California Star press to Kemble for $300. The Mormon Battalion veterans had been on the spot when gold was discovered in January of A chance discovery led two men to find the richest of all gold discoveries, the famous Mormon Island of the American River. But gold was not the prime goal for these men. Early in the spring of 1848 they had decided to continue their journey to Salt Lake Valley and the riches found on Mormon Island did no more that cause a slight delay in their travels. These men were religious followers who preferred to join their families. In John's words: "A good many of us went to what is called the Mormon Island to dig gold. Family and myself were among the first on the ground. In a few days there was a meeting called of all those that had gathered there. I was called upon to give my opinion of how much land each man should have for a claim across the Island. It was decided that each man should have eighteen feet wide. All agreed to protect each other's claims that no strangers could impose upon us. At this time people rushed to the gold mines in such numbers that provisions became scarce. Flour sold for a dollar a pound and everything else in proportion. Clothing was not to be had at any price. These times only lasted a short time. Ships began to pour in from Chile and Oregon and other places loaded with provisions, groceries, clothing and merchandise, till everything was down again quite reasonable. With the influx of population of all grades, nationalities, and color came the increase of wickedness, stealing, robbing, murdering, and all manner of evil. It so often occurred that some one was robbed and their bodies thrown in the river that it became a common phrase of "another man for breakfast". All those interested in going to Salt Lake Valley met a t a rendezvous held in Pleasant Valley on the American River. The trip initially began from the assembling place on July 3, 1848, and ended September 29, 1848, when the last wagon pulled into the Salt Lake Settlement. The party consisted of 45 men and one woman, Melissa Cory, wife of Sergeant Cory who had traveled the distance from Omaha, Nebraska to the far west with the Battalion. The company took with them two small sixpound brass cannons, bought from Sutter, 22 wagons, horses and approximately 250 cows, calves and oxen. In military fashion the party divided into groups of 10 with a captain in charge of each group, and Lieutenant Thompson was selected as military captain of the entire group. The following account of the trip across the Sierras has been taken from the journals of Addison Pratt and Azariah Smith. Since each journalist kept account of his actions and interests and although there is some disagreement in numbers of people and livestock, a fairly detailed account of the entire journey, much of it through unknown country, can be made by combining their writings. The party broke camp early on the third of July with some apprehension because several days earlier, approximately June 25, Daniel Brower, Ezra H. Allen and Henderson Cox, all veterans of the Mormon Battalion, had taken their horses and gone ahead to scout a path to the east. They had not returned. The first day the group covered about twenty miles and camped in a valley with abundant feed and water. This valley was named Sly's Park for the Battalion veteran accompanying them, James Sly. They remained there ten days while other John Eagar Story 3

4 scouting parties went east to find a path over the high Sierra Nevada Mountains and to search for any message left by their three scouts. While they were resting there, Addison Pratt had a fever... "I was lame from the effects of a bruise received falling from a horse that took fright and jumped stiff legged, a trick well known to those who had anything to do with California horses. These trials together with the unfavorable prospect of our journey and the ungovernable disposition of our California teams, made things very unpleasant for John (Eagar) and I, as neither of us were teamsters, he being reared in a printing office and I on the sea, and both unaccustomed to mountain life. (Pratt had been on a five-year mission to the Tahitian Islands for the Mormon Church). All this served to impress my mind with dark clouds of evil foreboding and it was with no little persuasion that the company kept me from turning back. "While yet in camp we found a young man who was a teamster and who agreed to drive our team (Pratt's and Eagar's team). I was then provided with a horse and appointed to assist in driving the loose cattle as soon as I was physically able to do so. In order to get rid of the ague, I took three tablespoons of common salt dissolved in a glass of hot water. This answered both as an emetic and cathartic, and disagreeable as it was, and the desired effect..." This ten-day encampment allowed Pratt and Eagar a little respite during which they adjusted themselves to the arduous life they would have to endure the next three months. John writes: "While at Sacramento buying our outfits we met Amasa Lyman. He wanted me to go to San Bernardino to settle and spend my money. I told him 'No, I had started for Salt Lake and I was going.' He told me 'Then go and you will get the knots knocked off you.'" On the eleventh day the camp moved ten to twelve miles eastward to Leek Valley. Pratt wrote, "It was a beautiful valley thus named because of that vegetable growing there (leek vegetables) containing feed in abundance for our cattle. In fact, nothing can exceed in beauty and fertility many of the fine spacious valleys through which we passed crossing the Sierra Nevada Range. Near the top of the range faces are some of the finest timber seen in America. We saw pines that measure more that ten feet in diameter and from two to three hundred feet in height." Each day a small party of men would go ahead making a road by clearing a path through undergrowth and moving rocks aside so that the wagons weren't constantly breaking down causing delays. On Wednesday, July 19, the party moved through snow banks and arrived at the spot where a scouting party had earlier found what appeared to be a fresh gravesite. The grave was opened and found to contain the bodies of the three missing men. Searching around the immediate area, the party found a campsite where numerous arrows were found, many broken and bloody, and there were blood-stained stones with hair still adhering to them. Evidently the three men had been attacked and slain at this spot, and after the removal of all clothing, the bodies were dumped one atop the other in the gravesite. The Battalion veterans reburied the bodies in a proper fashion and later covered the graves with stones to keep the wild animals from disinterring their fellow soldiers. They erected a headstone and carved an inscription to their memory on a large spruce tree growing nearby. Azariah Smith wrote, "That evening all livestock were put in a makeshift corral, the cannons were unlimbered and loaded, and every man went to sleep with a loaded gun beside him. While the camp was at evening prayer, the cattle and horses began running wild from one side of the corral to the other, and believing that Indians were trying to run off the herd, Captain Thompson ordered a cannon to be fired to scare them away. At that elevation, the shot echoed around the mountaintop for some time and it added impetus to the stampeding animals in their haste to get away. The Battalion men stayed in that John Eagar Story 4

5 camp for several days trying to recollect all the animals. "After naming the place Tragedy Springs we continued our journey and passed some beautiful mountain lakes, which abounded with trout, gray ducks and black tailed deer. We also drove over some banks of snow, which we judged to be forty feet deep. In the valleys where the snow had disappeared, the young and tender grass was found in abundance, and the flowers, of which there was a great variety, were just in blossom. Although it was the latter part of July, it seemed like April." This vegetation looked especially verdant to these men who had recently crossed the arid southwest a few months earlier. "We camped near the snow, and the frost during the night was severe enough to freeze over some of the streams. Two wild Indians came into the camp. We took their bows and arrows from them, gave them some supper and placed them under guard until morning, when we gave them breakfast and returned their weapons and they left us seemingly well pleased." Another time while camping at a lake formed by a beaver dam, "...some fifteen or twenty Indians came into our camp bringing with them some beaver skin, quivers, some venison and a preserved buck's head, with horns which they used in decoying when on the chase. Though we had commenced to descend the mountains we were still on the headwaters of the American River. Descending the east slope of the mountains was as difficult as it had been ascending the West side. In going down the mountain on the other side that was very steep, the men had to hold the wagons to prevent them from tipping over. The next day we descended some of the worst mountains encountered between Sutter's Fort and Salt Lake." Numerous stops were made to repair broken wagons at such places as Red Lake (the source of the Salmon River) Hope Valley and Four-Mile Canyon. On Monday, July 13, the air temperature was so low that ice froze to a two-inch thickness in a water bucket. On August 12, they left the Pilot River and they encountered the 'old emigrant road' used by thousands of people going west, and the Truckee River. Midway across these forty-five miles of barren, dry land they stopped at the hot springs that John C. Fremont was reputed to have said was several degrees hotter than boiling water. Some of the men in the company made coffee by putting good water in a kettle with coffee and placing it in the spring. The spring water was too sulfuric for man and beast to drink. John adds to this: "when we started across the mountains, the first night after we camped a company of men with pack animals, 13 in number, armed to the teeth with some picks and spades passed us professing to be prospectors hunting for gold. We were meeting companies of emigrants every day and sometimes they camped with us to hear about the gold diggings. The emigrants began to warn us to be on our guard and watch those men with pack animals, and said they intended mischief. One company told us they (had been told by a group) we had the cream of the mines, and (this group) wanted them to join with them to destroy us and steal our mine. We took every precaution we could, not to give them any advantage of us. They had murder in their hearts, but the Lord put a hook in their jaws that they had no power to molest us. We went on our way rejoicing and praising God that he had spared our lives and the little means we had for a better purpose." Moving up the Humbolt River on Tuesday, August 15, they met a westbound train of sixteen wagons going to California and on Wednesday, August 16, another train of 25 wagons was encountered. On Saturday, August 26, another westbound train was met, and according to one of the brethren in that train, the Salt Lake settlements were 500 miles to the east. On Tuesday, August 29, they encountered another westbound train of 48 wagons. Finally, on Thursday, September 7, the company left the Humbolt River and cut northeast through the mountains. During John Eagar Story 5

6 the entire month long journey up the Humbolt, Indians shooting their horses and cows with poisoned arrows had constantly pestered them. The company camped on Monday, September 11, in Warm Springs at the Deep Wells. These wells were fed by springs and ranged from one to fifty feet in diameter. The sides of the larger wells were so steep that the cattle, which fell into them, had to be helped out or they would have drowned. Several attempts were made to sound the bottoms but even with the longest lines available no bottom could be found. Around each well was a raised natural lip on which grass and willows grew. Any water that did escape from the well was quickly lost in the nearby soil around it. Again in John's words: "When we got between the Humbolt and Goose Creek (a tributary of the Columbia River), Levi Riter and Harry Green got in a hurry to reach home. They started out alone. The first night they camped, the Indians stole their horses and fired at them. They ran and saved their lives, but got separated in the darkness. The next day Harry green came and met us and told us what had happened. We turned back ten miles to camp and laid over the next day. Levi Riter went the other way and met a company of 18 young men. He traveled back with them to meet us. When they got where they had camped they saw some of their animals and in trying to recover them they had quite a fight with the Indians. Two men were killed and four wounded, one died afterwards from his wounds, the balance turned back with us to Salt Lake and wintered. The Indians burned their light wagons and destroyed most of their provisions. We buried the two dead men when we came to where they were and gathered up what provisions were left, but saw no Indians." On Monday, September 18, they camped on a high slope from which they caught their first view of the West Side of the Great Salt Lake. On Saturday, September 23, they crossed to the east bank of Bear River and here encountered old wagon tracks leading to the Salt Lake settlements. Moving on down the Bear River; Addison Pratt wrote, "The company traveled 29 miles from Salt Lake City. This situation (place) was bought by Captain James Brown on his arrival from California, together with the cattle, goats and hogs, etc. and was now keeping a dairy. When we visited the Fort, Brown was away on a visit to the city; but he had a large family living at the Fort." This James Brown was the James Brown who led a group of the church member from Pueblo, Colorado when, upon arriving at Santa Fe, had been sent by Lt. Col. P. P. St. George Cooke because they were too ill to continue with the Mormon Battalion. Pratt continued, "We remained in camp one day recruiting (resting) our teams. Though I inquired after my family I could learn no tidings of them here. But several of the brethren who received the glad news that their families were in the city left on horseback for the city. They tried to persuade me to go with them, but I flatly refused. I had got so used to disappointments during the past five years that I felt unwilling to take chances at meeting another; for I realized how bad I would feel if I should go ahead with the brethren who would meet their families and not meet my wife and children. So the brethren started without me." John Eagar, Addison Pratt and the others who elected to take a slower pace arrived in the Salt Lake City settlement on September 28, Thus ended the long arduous journey that had taken John Eagar from the East Coast of the North American continent to the West Coast and then back inland to the Great Basin. John did not have a family to greet him in the city - his family had remained in California. He was one of the first Brooklyn passengers to arrive there; for many of them remained in California. In his words; "We arrived in Salt Lake City on the last of September, praising God that he had preserved us through all the varied and trying scenes of a long, tedious and perilous journey, where, thank God, I have never had cause to repent my choice of identifying myself with the Latter-day Saint." John Eagar Story 6

7 This year would have been a lean year for John Eagar, along with the others, for though the Californians brought gold with them, gold is not edible. In spite of careful planning and much hard work, the winter of found the pioneers near starvation. Crickets had largely consumed their first year's crop and though the seagulls flew in to eat the insects in great numbers, much of the crop was destroyed. Many a person could remember how thistles and sego lilies and animal hides tasted for years afterward. John wrote; "I was married July 1, 1849 to Miss Sariah Anna Johnson, daughter of Joel Hills Johnson. Her father married us in Salt Lake." John was twenty-six and Sariah was seventeen and had come to the valley by land with her family. Sariah's sister, who didn't arrive in the settlement until October of 1850, wrote in her diary: "We arrived in Salt Lake City...and my Aunt Sarah went with us to my father's home in Cottonwood. I found my sister Sariah there married to John Eagar. They had a baby girl six months old and seemed very happy together in their one room log house. John wrote; "on 29 May 1850 my oldest daughter was born in Mill Creek Ward G, Salt Lake Count; John Thomas, my first son was born in Salt Lake City, 29 December 1851." John Eagar soon moved his wife and children to Manti, Utah south of Salt Lake City. He, like his Father, had consumption (TB) and hoped Manti would be a better climate for it. "William Walter was born October 21, 1853; Julia Hills was born 20 December 1855; Joel Sixtus was born 9 February 1858; Susan Elizabeth born 11 February 1860; Benjamin Franklin born February 1862 and Mary Elvira born 23 June 1863; all born in Manti, Sanpete County, Utah Territory." In Manti he found many things to do. He was assessor and collector of taxes, clerk of the court, postmaster, tithing clerk for the church and even a lawyer. His eldest daughter told her children of seeing her father wrap bedclothes around him to sit up in bed to give a woman a divorce shortly before he died on March 6, The eldest son of Sariah and John Eagar, John Thomas Eagar, wrote in his short autobiography that previous to his father's death John Eagar tried to sell his home in Manti because he was determined to move farther south in hope of improving his health. On his deathbed he made Sariah promise to take herself and the children to Virgin City in the southwest comer of Utah where her father Joel Hills Johnson and her brothers were living. Sariah kept her promise by moving the entire family to Virgin City, Kane County, Dixie, Utah Territory May 24th Their four eldest children participated in the pattern of Mormon land expansion that became an important policy of church leaders moved to Arizona within the next few years. Sariah remarried Andrew Jackson Workman of Virgin City, March 17, John Eagar Story 7