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Show Morgan Pioneer History Binds Us Together and make fills. Much of this grade was accomplished with wheelbarrows. Richville became a tie center for the railroad. Men went into the canyons nearby and cut loads of ties and brought them back to Richville and as the railroad progressed, the ties were hauled to Echo and further down Weber Canyon. The canyons around Richville and Porterville produced thousands of ties for the railroad. Union Pacific brought provisions into the county in schooner wagons with eight and ten mule teams. The wages were $10.00 a day for a man and team. Had it not been for this extra work, the people of Morgan would have suffered during the winter of 1868-1869. Two children were born in Richville to Isaac and Sara Elizabeth - Eliza and Lucinda. Sarah was expecting her third child when heart-breaking tragedy stuck this family. Isaac became ill and died November 22, 1868 of stomach cancer at forty years of age. He died just three years after the death of his first wife, Elizabeth, and had been married to Sarah Elizabeth not quite four years. The death of Isaac made orphans of the children by his first wife. They ranged in age from seven to fifteen years. One of the children, Isaac, wrote, "My parents died when I was very young, and I made my home with Bishop Elias Morris in Salt Lake City. I secured a job driving a wagon." Lizzie Ann, another child, said she had to live with anyone who would take her. In exchange, she did chores for them. Sarah Elizabeth had a real struggle now to feed and clothe her children. Sarah was an excellent seamstress and would weave cloth and make men's suits. In this way she was able to make a living. The children thought their mother was doing all right financially and did not want her to marry again. About five years after the death of her husband, Sarah Elizabeth married Anthony Heiner who was married to her sister Lucinda. Anthony was married to sisters in polygamy. He moved Sarah Elizabeth from Richville to North Morgan where she lived in what was known at that time as Uncle George's Carpenter Shop. She then moved into one room of Lucinda's home. Anthony Heiner built a log house in Echo Canyon at the mouth of Heiner Canyon where the two wives, Lucinda and Sarah Elizabeth, took turns being there in the summertime. They milked cows and made butter which was taken to Echo and shipped to Salt Lake and sold. AH of the children had to help milk the cows and chum the butter. They made from twenty to thirty pounds of butter every other day. They had a milk house situated over the ditch to help keep the milk cold. The milk was poured into pans to raise the cream. The pans were set on shelves made of slats of wood that would turn around so it would be easy to remove the pans. Sometimes they would set close to fifty pans of milk at one time. That meant washing lots of utensils. The chum was a barrel-shaped with a handle to turn it around like a crank. The two families worked hard on the ranch in the summer and then moved back to Morgan in the fall, so that the children could go to school. My grandmother Lucinda said she remembered very well the hard, back-breaking work on the ranch in the summers up Echo Canyon and was so glad to move back to Morgan in the fall. While at the ranch, when Indians came around, Sarah Elizabeth would hide the children in the big, wooden flour bins. She told them that whenever the Indians were around it was extremely important that the children not act like they were scared. Sarah Elizabeth would give bread to the Indians. Whenever she and the children left the ranch, the Indians would come camp there. One evidence of the Indians having been there was the pretty colored beads found in the gizzards of the chickens. The only means of transportation to and from the ranch was a buggy or wagon. It took a good part of a day to travel to Morgan from the ranch. The roads were quite hazardous and they had to cross the river many times. Sarah Elizabeth worked hard caring for her ten children (three by Isaac Conway Morris). She still wove cloth and made clothes. She made candles for their light; they later bought a coal-oil lamp. The washing was done on a washboard, the water carried from a ditch and heated on a coal stove. Soap was made from leftover grease and lye made from wood ashes. It was very difficult to dry clothes in the winter months. When Anthony Heiner built his home in North Morgan, he hired Conrad Smith and Henry Rock to lay the rock for his home. They were paid in grain and cows. In the late 1880's and early 1890's, the people practicing polygamy were going through a very difficult time. The government had passed a law prohibiting plural marriage. U.S. Marshals were hunting the men, finding them and putting them into prison. In 1889 Anthony Heiner was arrested by federal authorities for practicing polygamy. On April 1, 1889, he was sentenced by Judge Henderson to three months imprisonment in the Sugarhouse Penitentiary and fined $200 for unlawful cohabitation. He was released on June 15, two weeks early. While in prison, he handcrafted several items. One item which still exists is a small breadboard. When the Church banned polygamy in 1890, he chose to live with Sarah Elizabeth, although he still showed much concern for his first wife, Lucinda. 114 |