by Richard H. Bullock Simeon Stivers

The Ship Brooklyn Story - Volume 2 by Richard H. Bullock Simeon Stivers Simeon Stivers parents names are unknown at present but he had been born 23 July 1826 in Camden, Camden, New Jersey. When he reached the age of three, his parents died in an accident and Simeon became the adopted son of Earl and Letitia Dorsey Marshall. Simeon had been raised, educated, and cherished by his adopted aunt and uncle as their own child. When the Marshall s decided to join in the exodus aboard the Brooklyn, Simeon stood by their side and went aboard proudly. He is listed on the Hawaii passenger list as being twenty years of age and a farmer by trade, like his uncle. Simeon had reached teenage years when he met Joseph Smith Jr. and joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with his aunt and uncle. He felt betrayed when he learned of the death of the Prophet at the hands of a mob. His education in Philadelphia came to an end when the Marshall s decided to join in the exodus aboard the Brooklyn. He worked along side his uncle in San Francisco for William A. Leidesdorf and helped to construct the first schoolhouse there. In 1848 he traveled to Alameda county and helped to establish a dairy farm here with his uncle. When gold had been discovered Simeon went to the mines with his uncle and they were very successful in their search for wealth. After being there for nearly a year they both decided that the dairy business would be easier work than mining and they returned to San Jose. They purchased six hundred twelve acres of land in Washington Township (now Fremont s Civic Center and Central Park area) and went into the dairy business in a big way. They imported fruit trees from New Jersey and built up a fine farm and dairy. The Horner family were neighbors and also being from New Jersey they were close friends as well. When Simeon reached the age of thirty-two years he met and married a young lady named Anna Maria Jones. They were married 12 September 1858 at the home of the bride in San Jose. Anna Maria Jones is the daughter of William Jones and Elizabeth Hughes and had been born 5 January 1839 at Cincinnati, Hamilton, Ohio. William and Elizabeth had joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while living in New York and had moved to Missouri with the Saints. Anna Maria had been the eighth child born to this marriage that yielded ten children. Her mother Elizabeth Hughes Jones is one of the Charter Members of the Relief Society that formed in Nauvoo. Many of her brothers and sisters had died or were married by the time Anna reached Salt Lake City in the migration over the plains. Her father had been a stone cutter in Nauvoo and he continued this work in Salt Lake until 1852 when the family removed to San Bernardino. After a few years there they migrated to San Francisco and eventually to San Jose where Anna met and married Simeon Stivers. Simeon and Anna Maria had their first child, a girl they named Letitia Stivers, born to them on 17 July 1859 at Washington, now Fremont, Alameda, California. She had been followed by Simeon Earl Stivers on 12 August 1861; Charlotte Stivers on 27 February 1864; Samuel Stivers, 10 August 1866; Champion Stivers on 6 August 1869; Anna M. Stivers, 4 1

February 1872; Mark Stivers, 31 January 1874 and Edward Stivers on 3 May 1878. All were born on the ranch in today s Fremont, California. Anna Maria s mother Elizabeth Hughes Jones died in 1857 in Sacramento before her daughter had been married, leaving William Jones a widower. William moved into the Simeon Stivers household and appears on the 1870 census records there. In 1865, soon after the birth of their third child, Simeon and Anna Maria joined with Earl and Letitia Marshall in being baptized into the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on 10 April 1865 by E. C. Briggs. They were strongly active in their new Church and participated all the rest of their lives. Their original Church had left them with no guidance in California and John M. Horner, who had been the strongest member nearby had moved to San Francisco. They felt a need for faith and God in their lives and when the RLDS missionaries came through the area they quickly joined. The death in 1881 of Simeon s adopted father Earl Marshall left him saddened by the loss but he vowed to take care of his adopted mother, which he did, until her death in 1891. When William Jones, his father-in-law, died in 1888, Simeon became the head of the family projects in California. He had been made a Deacon in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1867 and supported the Church the rest of his life. Simeon continued building up his farm and getting his children educated and established in homes of their own. His property had been described in 1886 as: Simeon Stivers has 160 acres on the Mission road, which is managed by Earl Marshall, who, when a boy, came out in the ship Brooklyn in 1846. 1 Simeon faced some legal troubles in 1891 when the heirs of Earl Marshall sought to receive what they considered to be legally theirs. Dr. F. Marshall of Marshalltown, Marshall County, Illinois. Is investigating the title to 612 acres of land in Washington Township belonging in early times to Earl Marshall and Simeon Stivers. After Marshall s death in 1881 his heirs at the East received nothing. A suit is now pending on their behalf to recover one-half of the tract. 2 The lawsuit proceeded in court and makes interesting reading. IN BEHALF OF ABSENT HEIRS A suit of the heirs of Earl Marshall, through Louis Gottshall as administrator and against Simeon Stivers, to recover possession of 306 acres of land in th Washington Township, was set yesterday in Judge Ellsworth s department for September 30. The heirs in Marshalltown, Iowa, have sent Marshall out to look after the matter, and he has spent about three weeks making a transcript, in which he has copied every paper and proceeding in connection with the settlement of the estate of his uncle, Earl Marshall, who died in 1881. In 1879 the entire ranch of 600 acres was deeded to a man named Gillan for a named consideration of $6000. Gillan deeded it to Simeon Stivers, who was a nephew of Marshall s. Stivers, in consideration of $3000 deeded back to his uncle and wife a life interest in 306 acres. The land is now valued at $100,000 and it is now asserted by the other heirs of Marshall, fifty-three in number, that undue influence or some other unlawful means was used to obtain the land by Stivers. 3 I appears that the prize land that had once been a joint holding of Earl Marshall, his uncle, 1 2 3 Daily Alta California, Vol. 40, No. 13446, 20 June 1886 San Francisco Call, Vol. 70, Number 63, 2 August 1891 Ibid, 13 August 1891 2

and Simeon Stivers continued to be a sought after as a rich plum of opportunity as the following article implies. A SUIT WITH A STORY James Stanley, as administrator of the estate of Letitia Marshall, deceased, has filed a voluminous complaint against James W. Gillen, Simeon Stivers, Thomas Lial, and Mark Lyons. The complaint alleges that Earl Marshall was the owner, in 1879, of over 600 acres of land in the Mission San Jose of this county. He was then 80 years old and incompetent, mentally, to take care of his valuable property. In 1865 Marshall became a Mormon [RLDS]. He reposed much confidence in Simeon Stivers, a nephew of his wife, whom he raised from a boy of 3 years. In 1865 he conveyed half his property to Stivers and the two continued to run things in conjunction. The complaint alleges that in 1887 Stivers began to convert the balance of the property to himself unlawfully, and took but scant care [of] the old gentleman. Then in 1879, says the complaint, there appeared on the scene from Iowa one James w. Gillen, a Mormon elder, and he, too, began working upon Marshall, and Gillen and Stivers began working together for the old man s property, and finally they purchased from him for $6000 his share, or 300 acres, by using undue influence, and secured from him a fraudulent deed. Mark Lyons and Thomas Lial are brought into the case by having purchased from Gillen and Stivers, knowing that they had got the property from Marshall while he was incapacitated from business. Marshall s wife became insane in 1859 and remained so until her death in 1881. She died intestate. After her death James Stanley, who brings the suit, obtained letters of administration as public administrator. Stivers is a well known citizen of Washington Township. The Marshall property is now very valuable and worth many thousand dollars. 4 Simeon Pond in Fremont had been named after him as a lasting memorial. He received an invitation to attend the Golden Jubilee celebrations to be held in San Francisco in 1898. Being a member of the original Pioneers Society he kindly accepted the offer and traveled to San Francisco. Most people learn how cold San Francisco can be, but Simeon apparently had not prepared for it. He caught a chest cold which quickly turned to pneumonia and caused his death on 7 February 1898. Simeon Stivers died without a will 7 February 1898. His real property of six hundred twelve acres (survey 64, lot 74 on plat map of Mission San Jose township 4 S of Range I West, Mt. Diablo base meridian) was the bulk of his wealth, appraised at $79,000. The appraisal of 28 February 1898 listed farming implements and tools, two gang plows, three single plows, three harrows, a roller, seed sower, corn sheller, cultivator, seed cleaner, three wagons, mower, harness, small tools, eight horses, ten tons of hay, fifty sacks of barley, and twenty-five head of cattle. 5 The estate undoubtedly went into the hands of his surviving wife Anna Maria Jones Stivers. His obituary reads: STIVERS, Simeon 45:160 On February 7, 1898 Simeon Stivers, of Irvington, California, in the seventy-first year of his age. Bro. Stivers was a pioneer and came to San Francisco to take part in the Golden Jubilee procession. He took cold, which developed into pneumonia, and caused his th death. He was laid to rest on the 9 in his plot at Irvington. A procession a quarter of a mile long 21: 4 5 San Francisco Call, 11 May 1893 Hufft, Jane, The Jones Family, unpublished manuscript, 367 Costello Road, Lafayette, Calif. 94549, Pp 3

followed him to his last resting place. Funeral sermon by C. A. Parkin. 6 Another obituary reads: PIONEERS ARE THINNING OUT Death of the Oldest Resident in the County of Alameda Simeon Stivers lived for Fifty Years in the Same Spot Oakland office San Francisco Call, 908 Broadway, Feb. 7 Simeon Stivers, the oldest settler in Irvington, died to-night. No pioneer in Alameda County is more generally known and no one has resided as long on one homestead. For exactly half a century Simeon Stivers has lived on the place he bought in 1848. Simeon Stivers came to the coast with his uncle, Earl Marshall,, who died several years ago. They came around the Horn on the ship Brooklyn, and in the family place near Irvington there is a memento of the old vessel in the shape of a piece of the figurehead. Stivers married Miss Anna M. Jones of Ohio in 1858, and their family consisted of Letitia M., Simeon E., Charlotte J., Samuel, Champion D., Anna M., Mark and Edward. The old pioneer will be buried in the Odd Fellows Cemetery at Irvington on Wednesday afternoon. 7 Another notice appeared on the same day in the same paper: STIVERS Near Irvington, Alameda County, February 7, 1898, Simeon Stivers, a native of New Jersey, aged 71 years, 7 months, and 14 days. Friends and acquaintances are respectfully invited to attend the funeral to-morrow (Wednesday) at 1 o clock, from his late residence, between Niles and Mission San Jose. 8 Internment IOOF Cemetery, Irvington. Simeon Stivers is buried next to his adopted parents in the Irvington Memorial Cemetery, Section B, Row 1, Lot 89, Space 30, Fremont, Alameda county, California. His treasured wife Anna Maria continued living on the farm with her surviving children and she opened up her home to the traveling missionaries in the area, being kind and generous to all of them. She relished the grandchildren and delighted in their frequent visits. She died in Niles, Washington Township, Alameda county on 4 July 1920 at age eighty-one. She is buried by her beloved husband in the Irvington Memorial Cemetery. A final notice appeared later in 1898 that showed the results of the Probate Court findings. William H. Tyson, G. E. Chittenden, and H. A. Mayhew to-day filed an inventory and appraisement in the estate of the late Simeon Stivers, showing a total valuation of $83,325, comprising mostly lands in Washington township, Alameda County. 9 6 Saints Herald Obituaries, 1898, page 160. Furnished to author by Ronald E. Romig of the Church of Christ, April 2006. 7 8 9 San Francisco Call, Vol. 83 Number 70, 8 February 1898 Ibid. Ibid, Vol. 85, Number 11, 11 December 1898 4

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