Oral History Program Shirley Wayment Barrow Interviewed by Jody Barrow 7 March 1971 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Shirley Wayment Barrow Interviewed by Jody Barrow 07 March 1971 Copyright © 2012 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in University Archives. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Barrow, Shirley Wayment, an oral history by Jody Barrow, 07 March 1971, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Shirley Wayment Barrow. The interview was conducted on March 7, 1971, by Jody Barrow, in Barrow’s home. Shirley Barrow discusses the life of her great great grandfather Thomas Bullock, an influential man in Utah History. JB: Did Thomas Bullock have anything to do in Nauvoo in early Mormon history? SB: He arrived in Nauvoo on May 31, 1843. He suffered the persecution with the Saints. The city was defended by about 150 poor sickly Saints. At one time he had 30 men armed with guns and bayonets and pistols in their belts come and ordered him to leave or they would have to kill him. They took their swords and bayonets and pointed them to his throat and gave him twenty minutes or they'd shoot. And he told them to go ahead and shoot because he couldn't leave in twenty minutes. They told him that if he would renounce the church they wouldn't kill him. But he said he'd follow the twelve and he wouldn't renounce the church. They said he'd be dead in a half hour or be gone. JB: Did he leave Nauvoo then or did he stay awhile longer? SB: They got in the wagons and went across the river awhile. While they were there Quails descended and lighted close to their camp, there were twelve wagons there. They would light so close the children could pick them up; and knock them down with sticks. They killed these to live on for a while. JB: What were Mr. Bullock’s first feelings about the Utah valley as he enters with the first Saints? SB: He told that between Port Bridger and the valley the mountains were very high; and the road winds through the valley, some which are very narrow, about ten yards wide with rocks over hanging the road. The ridge that divided it was about 7,300 feet above sea level. He could see twin peaks covered with snow and those peaks run into the valley. After crossing a small creek twenty-one times in about five miles, and between mountains a mile high, and making a sudden bend in the road he could see the great Salt Lake Valley about 30 miles by twenty. There was little timber to be seen. They arrived on Thursday the 23rd of July about 5 P.M. The next morning they moved to the spot where the city would be built, and consecrated and dedicated the place to the Lord. The same afternoon four ploughs were tearing up the ground and the brethren planted five acres with potatoes, and irrigated at night, and Sunday was there day of rest and rejoicing. JB: Did your great, great grandfather have anything to do with the original planning of the city? SB: On August 7, 1847 President Brigham Young and party went to the block which had been selected as the place where they would build the temple and it was here each selected his inheritance in Zion. Thomas Bullock inheritance is on the second block south of the Temple. He was immediately given the responsibility of platting the city, which land he had divided into five and ten acre farms. It took many days to regulate and distribution land to the Saints. They laid out the city with streets running east and west north and south, in ten acres blocks divided into eight lots of one and a quarter acre each; the streets where eight rods wide having two sidewalks of twenty feet each, to be ornamented with shade trees. All the houses were built twenty feet in the rear of the fence with flower gardens in front. JB: What connection did Thomas Bullock have with the minting of money? SB: In 1848 when population of Salt Lake Valley had risen to nearly 5,000 the scarcity of U.S. money was keenly felt. He received the gold dust coming in from California that was to be coined into money on December on December 22nd. Many brethren came into the office to exchange dust for hard coin but the time came when they didn't have sufficient coin to meet the demand. It was this emergence that caused the President to past notices on the 27th of December calling some brethren to make plans for regulation of currency. President Young said: "I offered the gold dust back to the people but they did not want it. I then told them we would issue paper until gold could be coined. The municipal council agreed to have such currency and appointed Thomas Bullock, Heber C. Kimball and Bishop Newell K. Whitney to issue it. The bills that were made were about four inches long and two inches wide. They were printed with pen and ink on white paper. The last few days of December 1848 were busy ones for those chosen to issue currency. Denominations of $5.00, $3.00, $2.00 and 50 cents were issued. A total of 830 notes with a value of $1,365.00 were issued and bore the date January 2, 1949. As there were no printing presses in the valley. Thomas Bullock and Robert Campbell, clerks in the office of the presidency, spent some time writing the bills by hand and the committee spent many hours signing them. Bullock wrote five dollar bills and Campbell wrote one dollar bills. Every bill carried four signatures Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, N. Whitney and Thomas Bullock, clerk. Added protection was had by stamping each bill with the private seal of the twelve Apostles. The design of the seal consisted of the emblem of the Priesthood encircled by sixteen letters: P-S-T-A-PC-J-C-L-D-S-L-D-A-O-W. An abbreviation for "Private Seal of the Twelve Apostles, Priests of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day-Saints in the last dispensation all over the world. JB: What involvement did Thomas Bullock have in the government of Utah? SB: When the General assembly of the State of Deseret met in the Council House, December 2, 1850, Thomas Bullock was chosen clerk of the House of Representatives, which position he held for a number of sessions. On March 28, 1851, President Young ordered Thomas to take a census as a procedure which created the New Territory. His census told there were 6,026 males and 5,328 females, making a total of 11,354 people living in Utah. JB: What connection did Thomas Bullock have with the organization of the first newspaper in Utah? SB: The Saints hadn't been long in the valley before Brigham Young saw a need for a medium that would carry the news of the new community to the people as well as the words of Liberty and Truth as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. Willard Richards became first editor; Horace Whitmey who had some experience in typesetting in Nauvoo was first printer; Brigham H. Young, the first pressman; and Thomas Bullock first proofreader. The eight page sheet made its appearance on June 15, 1850 and it continued on to be known as the Deseret News. The press pumped by a hand lever, was a little larger than a clothes wringer. The printing shop was situated in a global roofed adobe mint building, that had been named "Bullock's Money Mill" since Thomas Bullock had been in charge of minting gold coin in a portion of the little shack since the fall of 1849. JB: What did Mr. Bullock have to do with the government after Utah became a territory of the United State? SB: On June 11, 1860, Governor Alfred Cunnings chose Thomas Bullock to be inspector of liquors for the territory of Utah. JB: What did Thomas Bullock have to do with education in Utah? SB: On January 13, 1863 by joint vote of the territorial legislature of the territory of Utah, Thomas Bullock was elected as one of the regents of the Deseret University and reelected in 1865. He also was librarian and a director of the Seventies Library and reading room. In June of 1864 he contributed twenty-one volumes to the public Library at the Seventies Council Hall. SB: On April 12, 1852 Mr. Bullock was appointed by General Daniel H. Wells as Military Secretary of the Nauvoo Legion of the Utah Territory. By 1855 he had attained the rank of Lt. Colonel still acting as secretory. In 1854 he gave the principal oration on the Twenty-Fourth of July, at which time he called on the people to honor the flag of the United States. He took the oath which made him a U.S. Citizen on November 30, 1853 before justices Reed, Staffer and Snow. He is mentioned as a member of the Deseret Dramatic Association and Potter's Theatre, Called the academy of Music which was built on his property. JB: Did Thomas Bullock practice plural marriage? SB: He was married in England before he came to Nauvoo to Henrietta Ruston and they had nine children. When the Saints were being persecuted by the practice of plural marriage, the prophecy given to the Prophet, he took his second wife, Lucy Clayton. She went to Brigham Young, and talked to him and he advised her to marry his clerk Thomas Bullock. He later asked her and they had six children. While in the Valley he married Betsey Prudence Howard. His first wife lived on the second block from the temple. His second wife had 160 acres in Millcreek Cottonwood later called Murray. His third wife Betsey moved to Coalville about two miles up from Coalville in Chalk Creek they had eight children. His first wife Henrietta wasn't very happy about the other wives. After he had married the third wife and moved to Coalville, he came back to visit her, and he came around to the back door, and when Henrietta opened the door she said, Thomas Bullock! Don't you ever come in the back door again! When you come to my house you walk in the front door like a gentleman! Don't sneak in back like a tramp! Even though he had three wives his first wife meant a lot to him. When he returned from his mission in England he brought with him a hat fashioned as near like the Queens as possible. As he placed it on Henrietta’s head he said, "I now crown my Queen." JB: Which one of Thomas Bullock's wives are you a descendent from? SB: l am a descendent of Henrietta. She was his first wife. JB: Did your great, great Grandfather ever mention anything about the water of Utah. SB: The Saints manufactured 125 bushels of salt, four barrels of salt water made one barrel of beautiful salt. The water was so strong that he could walk in it without touching the bottom; He could float on it yet in fresh water! He couldn't swim a yard. About a mile and half outside of the city was a warm spring people with arthritis or sick would bathe in it, and they would recover from their illness. And further on there was another spring with a strong sulfur and Salt taste that was about 109 Fahrenheit. About two miles north was another spring about 126 Fahrenheit, in which the water rushed out of a rock and it was so hot he couldn't keep his finger on it while he counted eleven. At the age of 68, Thomas Bullock passed away at Coalville, Utah, on February 10, 1885. On February 12th, the Deseret News announced his funeral: It becomes the sad duty of The Herald to chronicle the departure "that born from which no traveler returns" of another of Utah's pioneers, Thomas Bullock. Deceased was widely known in Salt Lake City, where for a number of years he was engaged in the office of the Church Historian, and was respected for his gentlemanly, unobtrusive and reliable character. A number of years ago he moved to Coalville, where he has been engaged in various business relations. Thomas Bullock died on Tuesday, 10th, instant, at Coalville, Utah. He was born in Leek, Staffordshire, England, on the 23rd. day of December, 1816, and was, consequently, nearly two months over 68 years of age. He came to Utah in 1847, and was identified with the people of Utah during all the hardships and trials of their pioneer life. It was Thomas Bullock this same one whose death we now chronicle-- who first took down in shorthand from the lips of Joseph Smith, the revelation on celestial marriage. The funeral services will be held today, at 12 o'clock, at the residence of Mrs. Henrietta Bullock, Fifteenth Ward, a block and a half west of the Utah Central depot on South Temple Street. Two days later, a friend sent to the Herald the following: It seems to me that a little more might be said of Thomas Bullock, who died and was buried this week. He was a very prominent character in the early history of this city. He worked at clerking most of his time. He was clerk to Willard Richard historian of the Church, until the latter's death; was chief clerk to Brigham Young, and was a sort of general chief clerk to the Church in the early days in this city. He was clerk of the pioneer camp to this valley in 1847, also to Brigham Young's camp in returning to this valley in 1848. He used to take down the minutes of public meetings, and discourses of Brigham Young and others, in an abbreviated long hand, mixed with a little of Pitman's phonography. Certain of our older citizens may yet have some of his primitive deeds or certificates of land, written in his peculiar small upright characters, on bits of paper containing four or five square inches superficies. Paper was scarce in those days. He used to work with John Kay, more or less, in coining California gold dust into five dollar and other pieces. He dug out, or assisted to dig out, the warm spring just north of the city, to make a primitive bathing place, soon after the settlement of the city, and was very fond of bathing there. I believe he was an excise man when in England. He was well known here at one time as inspector of liquors. He was clerk in the local Legislative Assembly several sessions. In September, 1856, he started on a mission to England, returning in the summer of 1858. He commenced clerking in the Historian's office in November 1859, continuing there until January, 1865, which is twenty years ago. Well, how the time flies. He formerly lived on and owned the lot on the northwest corner of the block on which the Jennings Emporium building stands, opposite the present Healed office corner. I believe the tall locust trees, or some of them, now standing on the Clawson lor, corner of South Temple and Third East Streets, once grew on the Bullock lot above specified. He also had a small farm at Cottonwood, during the later years of his life he resided at Coalville, and I saw very little of him. In the very early days of the city and Territory, he was one of the best known characters here, and a close attendant to Brigham Young. In those days everybody knew "Tommy Bullock." Peace to his ashes.