AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF FREDRICK WILLIAM WHITE 1862 CONTRIBUTED BY HIS GRANDDAUGHTER Nellie Spencer done FREDERICK WILLIAM WHITE done read 41 I was born November 17, in the year 1852, at Southhampton, England. A Seaport town on the South coast of England. My parents (who were of the middle class in society, known as Trades-people) were honest, upright, concientious, and just in their dealings with all men, and full of integrity, with regards to their religion. They early sought to instill good principles in their off-spring, taught them to respect and reverence the name of Deity, and spared no pains to educate and rear them in a truly Christian manner. I am the eldest of a family of nine children -- five boys and four girls of whom five were born in Utah, to which place my parents emi¬grated when I was but ten years of age, and where they have every since resided and are likely to end their days. Of my early childhood and precious to leaving my "Native Country", I can remember but little, owing perhaps to the fact that up to that period very little of an eventful character had transpired to impress itself upon my youthful mind. My parents ever sought to imbue my mind with useful knowledge, and give me the best opportunities for education that their limited means afforded, for although my father, (who was a Marine engineer of no mean ability, a thorough machanic and one whose services were much in demand) was well able to provide for his family in a manner becoming to his situation in life prior to his emigration to America. Yet when the good man found himself thrown upon his resources in a new country surrounded by nature in her rudest and wildest aspect, with no opportunity to follow his natural vocation he was soon re¬duced to the necessity of adopting other and less congenial pursuits in order to obtain a subsistance; pursuits more arduous, and much less remunerative; thus reduced in circumstances it was impossible 42 for my parents to give me more than the rudiments of an education; indeed I may say with perfect truth, that had it not been for the indefatigable efforts of a noble and self-sacrificing mother, whose whole life has been devoted to the care and training of her children, I should no doubt have fallen short of acquiring even the degree of knowledge that I now possess. My Mother, God bless her, is still alive and in her sixtieth year with energies but slightly impared, although time and the multitudeous cares of a family have left their inevitable traces upon her brow and in the silver of her hair. She is a woman of indomitable courage and tireless energy. A faithful wife and devoted mother. My early childhood was passed not unlike that of may others; cherished and protected by the love of devoted parents surrounded by loving brothers and sisters enjoying the society of cousins, uncles and aunts. My earliest recollections date back to the birth of my eldest sister, Bessie Amelia, which occured in the month of February of the year 1856 when I was about four years of age. Of course the recollection of this event is rather vague and indefinite but nevertheless certain, the bustle and preparation incident to such an occasion, the presence of the Doctor and Nurse, the visiting of friends and relatives, all conspired to fix upon my infantile mind the memory of the event. A few years subsequent, and my school days commenced. My memory carries me back to the time when I was considered too large a boy to be kept longer in peticoats and knickerbockers, (the then style of costume for boys peculiar to the time and country), and I was then and there initiated into the full dignity of "pants", corresponding to this change or inovation in my attire, came a change of precepts. I was taken from under the gentle guidance of the Lady 43 ''Pedagogue" who had taught me my letters and placed under the sterner rule of a "Master". I well remember the personal appearance of this individual. He was tall rather slim, and angular built, with dark complection and a pleasant countenance. One whom I should judge could enjoy a good joke of a practical sort, if not carried to an extreme, but as is ever the case where there is a number of boys collected together, there are to be found those among them who will go to the extreme in this respect, the boys in Mr. Jabson's school was no ex¬ception to the rule, and the consequences was when a boy was dis¬covered in the perpetration of some outrageous practical joke he was to suffer pretty severely for his titanism especially if it occured during school hours, for Mr. Jobson although a very good natured and genial sort of man, was a pretty strict disciplinarian and allowed no infraction or violation of the rules of his school to go unpunished whenever the culprit was detected. This school master also inaugurated a series of amusments among his students, or scholars, one of which was a game of "scramble" as it was called. This consisted of throwing broadcast over the floor a mixture of nuts candies, and coin of small denominations, such as pennies and half-pence, with an occasional sixpence thrown in, of course the seats and desks had previously been removed and the floor cleared for the purpose, the scholars would rush and tumble over one another in their endeavor to obtain some of the coins thus scattered, as all would engage in "the scramble" it sometimes happened that severe bruses would result from it and bloody noses were quite frequent. When I had reached the age of about eight or nine years, my parents or more properly speaking, my mother (for my father was then away from home) had occasion to change her place of residence from 44 near the heart of metropolis to a place in the suburbs called Islington. Of course this resulted in a change of schools for me and I was placed under the tuition of one Mr. Fairmanner. There is no period in life so susceptible of influence either for good or bad as early childhood, My former teacher had been a man of not over scrupulous habits, and his moral tendencies were not of the most examplary character. I have often heard him call up the Land Lord of a neighboring inn and order a quart of ale, which he would drink in the presence of the whole school and while it was still in session. At other times I have heard him jest in a manner far to coarse to be gentlemanly. Altogether different in deportment was the person under whose tuition I was now placed. Mr. Fairmanner was a gentleman in every sense of the word. He was kind to his pupils, but was a strict disciplinarian and would not allow the least infract¬ion of the rules laid down, for our observance. Even the smallest pupils had to be provided with a suitable excuse written by the parents or person with whom they lived in case they came in late, and those who played truant received punishment so severe that very few of them cared to repeat the offense. The gentleman was a church member but of what religious denom¬ination I do not now remember, if I ever knew, but I think it was Presbyterian, however he seemed to share in general contempt in which the people called Mormons were held. He found out one day by questioning me that my parents belonged to the so called Mormon Church and on the next occasion of some of his gentlemen acquaint¬ances, visiting the school pointed me out as a young "Mormon" this was over heard by almost the entire school and as a consequence I was thereafter very much annoyed by their taunts and insults. I complained of these things to my mother and she, God bless her, 45 took occasion one day to visit him in the school room and remonstrate with him on the folly and unwisdom of his course in relation to the affair. He replied in a very gentlemanly and courteous manner that he was very sorry indeed that I had suffered so much in consequence of an unguarded expression of his, that his remarks had been quite inadvertant, that in the course of conversation with the gentlemen some allusion was made to the differents in religious training among children, and he had undertaken to point out to them among the child¬ren, who were then present those who were of different religious de¬nominations, mentioning at the same time to what denomination they belonged. He assured my mother that he was very far from having any desire to redicule or deride anyone because of their religious belief, and would not countenance anything of the kind in his school. After this explanation and apology by the teacher I was not so much persecuted and rediculed by my schoolmates, although some were mean enough to still continue for sometime afterwards, their slurs and insults, though with not so much frequency. I suppose the influence of the teacher had something to do with surpressing it. Mr. Fairmanners school was divided into some six or eight classes each presided over by an assistant,. These assistants were chosen from the higher classes or young men graduates from a higher school. However this may be, I can very well remember the young man who had charge of our particular class. He was very genteel in appearance of slight build and engaging manners, he was much beloved by all of his students on account of his kind and considerate treat¬ment of those who were placed under his tuition or guidance. But alas! we were not permitted to enjoy his society very long, for within a few months after my entering the school he was suddenly taken ill and died. Of course his death occuring so unexpectedly 46 caused general depression and sadness to over-spread the entire school, for several days after his burial, Mr. Fairmanner himself seemed strangely affected and acted in a very abstracted and unsettled manner as one who had lost a near and dear friend. After this occured we were provided with a new teacher one selected from the highest class, who was very well known to us, and who was well competent to supply the place of his predecessor in all things perhaps, dave it was the love and affection we had born toward the latter. I have mentioned so much in connection with my early school days to show the effect that strict discipline has upon the young and susceptible mind. The impressions received in those early days will remain with me through life. I had now arrived at the age of 10 years or nearly so and my parents who had been saving for several years to this end, concluded to imigrate to Utah, but just prior to the time of starting for this country my father ascertained that owing to the detention of the vessel in which he then sailed in a foreign port, and the terms of the contract under which he sailed, it would be utterly impractable for himself to immigrate at that time. But my mother, who then re¬sided at Islington, a suberb of London, had made every preparation for the journey and was not a women to be easily deterred from the accomplishment of any worthy object upon which she had set her mind, and furthermore being counceled by the President of the British mission, then resident at her house, decided to make the journey without my father who it was understood was to follow the ensuing year. This was indeed a great undertaking for a woman with four young children the eldest (myself) not yet ten years of age, no husband at her side to council with or protect her, to undertake a journey of 47 over 5,000 miles to a new country, even to the then Western wilds of America, (The above was written when I was about 25 or 26 - Signed; F. W. White) is someting the magnitude of which is beyond the conception of most people. But so it was and truly it can be said of her that now woman ever encountered difficulties or met the trials and tribulations of a long and tiresome journey with more fortitude, neither was she heard to complain of the hardships by the way nor waver in her deter¬mination to press forward to the end of her journey. It was in the month of June, I cannot be certain which, in the year 1862, we shipped on board the Wm. Tasscot bound from Liverpool to New York. She had on board some two or three hundred passengers, mostly mormon emigrants to Utah. She was an old vessel of probably three thousand tons burden, and had crossed the Atlantic many times,. Her Captain was a very agreeable sort of a man and was proud of his record as a sailor. He had on several occasions carried Mormons across the Atlantic. I recall circumstances crossing the plains but it would be repeating that which has been said in my mothers life. I was young and there was many hardships for me. The most outstanding incident in my memory was the experience my mother and we children had while crossing the plains. My Father not being able to accompany us on account of his Sea Voyages mother had hired a man to drive our oxen team across to Utah. She was obliged to accept the help of a very profaning and rough talking man, this annoyed mother very much, so one day when he was swearing and using bad language, my mother told him he would have to stop using such profanity or she would not have him drive her oxen. At this the man stopped the oxen and told Mother she would be left on the Deseret as he would not drive for her longer. 48 Mother told him we would get along very well without him. So being the oldest child and 10 years old the driving of the oxen was turned over to me, and mother being blessed with much fortitude sh was det¬ermined to reach Utah. After much difficulty and some dangerous experiences we were able to keep along with our company and arrived here with the Saints. Father came later and when he came we went to Tooele County. Father got work hauling wood out of the Canyon. We lived there in the tithing office. In those days they used to have store houses for the grain, but there was no grain in this office. The follow¬ing spring we came back to Salt Lake City again. In the meantime father had arranged to buy a house in the 6th Ward. The house stands today almost as it was. From there we went to Cache Valley that is where I got my first lacing and I was a much better boy afterwards. Father was roofing our house and he came down from work to tend to me. It was not so severe but it was more than I had been used to. About that time my mother had a very impressive dream that disturbed her a very great deal while we were living in that log house she woke up in great distress and said to my father call Fred in, when I came in she was sitting up in bed crying and she felt my face and arms. She said she dreamed that I had met with an accident and nothing would satisfy her till she felt me to see if I was all right. She had dreamed about the accident at the snow slide. She said at the time "Oh, that is my dream" When I came too, I found myself in the house and got upon my feet and went to her bedside and I appeared just as she had seen me in the dream. I went up the mountain to cut a tree down. The man who saw me and went back for help saw me before I started up the mountain, he had some oxen and I said I was going to cut that dry tree down 49 and asked him if he would haul it down and he said he would. He was out of sight and I started up and got nearly half way to the tree when this slide started and I heard the cracking of the snow I looked up and down and knew I would be covered so I turned around and I started back into the road. I threw my ax as far as I could for fear of getting cut. I can remember the snow striking me. It took my hat off and pinned me there. When the slide struck me I was carried over the bank on the lower dise of the dugway road that had been shoveled out by men after the heavy snowfall of the night before. I was thrown about 20 feet below the road and toward the creek bed after which the snow pled over me, and I was pinned down on my face with my left arm by my side and the right thrust forward and down as I made an effort to scramble out but it was no use. I was there and it was not long before I lost consciousness, perhaps 10 or 15 minutes. You know a person can do a lot of thinking in a little time under such circumstances and my memory raced back over my past life very fast for I did not know whether I would be rescued in time to save my life, I knew my body would be found but when? According to Arcie Buchanan I was buried two hours and thirty minutes by his clock and he was a very reliable man and was never known to exagerate. If I survived that length of time under 8 feet of snow I must have obtained some air from some source, from channel of creek bed perhaps, however I was found at last and carried to the house. After a time I returned to consciousness and found myself surrounded by family and friends, but how shall I describe the feel¬ings of my dear mother, as she watched them labor over me, not know¬ing whether they would be successful or not, for she had forseen in a very impressive dream this same calamity that had overtaken me, 50 and this dream had come to her about 4 years before it occured. Who can estimate the value of a devoted and faithful mother, who has watched over their infancy in sickness and health and brought them up to manhood and womanhood? None but a mother can know how she suffered. I was none the worse for the experience I had gone through in being buried under the snow slide and went to work as usual the next day. I was not disabled only stiff and sore. I was running an engine and went on and tended it that night after I had come too. This experience set me thinking how near a man may come to death and yet survive and live on and perhaps it made me a little better moraly and it certainly made me more cautious in my work in the canyon as to where I went and how far up. To that time I had been utterly careless as to the danger of slides (and the canyons were full of them). After this occurance we always went three of us together in passing a dangerous place and each of us carried a shovel, passing one at a time over so that there were always two of us safe, and ready to use our shovels if one of us should be caught. After the snowslide in the spring of 1873 we moved the mill about 3 miles farther up the canyon and finished sawing what timber was to be found suitable for lumber. Then my father and Wm. Eddington desolved partnership and went out of business. After this father found employment on the railraod and run a locomotive on the narrow gauge from Park City, also in the meantime, I had hauled lumber from the canyon and we built a fram house of two rooms on a piece of land at the mouth of Hardscrabbie canyon. Here the family lived for two or three years, then moved to Coalville in Summit Co. In the meantime Father had secured the management and sup- 51 erintendant of the Crisman Coal Mines in Spring Hollow, about two miles above Coalville. During this time I had found work in several different places at a distance from home and the family. In the summer and fall of 1874 I did some work for the United Order that was then being tried out in Porterville at that time. In the fall I was working on the thrashing machine and was called home to mother's bedside as she was very ill and was at the point of death from pneu¬monia, I think it was. Mother and the girls and myself hat taken a trip up the canyon a short time before and camped out over night for the purpose of gathering wild currents to make preserves with and the trip cost us dearly for mother was taken down with a heavy cold on the lungs from the exposure and for a time we thought she was going to leave us, but by the blessings of God she recovered and was with us for some years afterward. As I have said I was working for the United Order that fall, after thrashing was over I took my oxen and worked in the canyon hauling wood for winter and some lumber and slabs from the old mill site to build a shed and stable for the stock, hauled some hay from Richville father had bought. Father continued working in Coalville. In the summer and fall of 1875 I obtained employment at a saw mill in Parley's Park for Hawley and Mumpford. They had just purchased a new saw mill and engine, as I was used to that work I got the job of running the engine. Late in the fall I returned to Caolville and fell in with James Welch who had a saw mill run by water. His mill was located on the Weber river and he engaged me to go with him and do some logging for his mill in the timber well up towards the head of Weber. So that winter found me snow¬bound in the Tie camp on the head of Weber river and when James Welch discontinued his logging and went to his home in Coalville 52 I was left without employment and winter came on I took a chance in the tie-camps went in with four other fellows all outsiders, (but very good men) and established camp for the winter. Winter it was, for I never experienced a worse one in my life. All that winter it snowed continuously night and day covered us up in our cabin until we had to tunnel our way out in order to work. As it was our custom and necessity to get provisions we had to make the trip to the company store about every week or ten days. We had to wallow through the deep snow both ways, a distance of about six miles; and by the time we were ready to return our trail would be filled and we would have the same labor to get back as we had in coming out. On these occasions we always left one of our boys in camp to keep fire and prepare supper for the rest of us upon our return, so that four of us always made the trip for provisions leaving one in camp. On one of these trips we got so tired and wet from wallowing in the snow that we had to leave our packs hanging them up in trees over night and at that had all we could do to get back to camp with¬out them and didn't reach camp until midnight. It was 20 minutes after 12 when we got in and stripped off our wet clothes and ate our suppers. Of course next day we went back on the road to gather in our pack and bring them to camp. Soon after this we found that our timber was getting scarce, that is timber of proper size suitable for ties. So we had to move camp into another canyon. After sending two of our camp on show shoes we found a nice grove of timber in another canyon near by and decided to move. This distance to the new camp was about two and a half or three miles. Now this was no easy job, the first thing to do was to break out a trail the snow was then about waist deep and drifting a little all the time, but by constant tramping 53 and wallowing we managed to keep a trail open while we went back and forth to our work. Our first job was to shovel out a spot large enough to build our cabin and clear to the ground, which was about six feet. After digging out this hole in the snow to the ground we built a big fire on the ground to dry it out before building our cabin. After this was done and the ground ready we all turned out and chopped logs on the hill side just above the place we had pre¬pared, as there was a nice grove of timber handy, and we soon had logs enough ready and the next day we slid them down to the building spot and commenced putting up our cabin. After this was done we cut small saplings and trimmed them down to smooth poles laid them close together and nailed them down to the ridge poles, on top of these we laid the boughs and trimmings of the poles shingle fashion to help turn the storm, but this would not be sufficient so we dug up a lot of dirt from the floor of the cabin and spread it on top of the roof to keep the storm out. We had no real hope of keeping dry but done the best we could as there was no chance to obtain Lumber at that time and in that place. The main difficulty commenced when we had to move to the new camp. There was our bedding and cooking utensils, some trunks and valises, axes, for each man had to have three axes in his work chopping ties. One axe to chop down the trees with, another to trim the trees with, as it was too hard on our chopping axes to trim trees as pine knots are very hard on an axe, especially in frosty weather. Then we each had to carry a broad axe to hew the face of the tie with, and this axe weighed 9 pounds, so that in all we had quite a big load of axes alone. But the worst job was to get the stove over the trail from the old camp, as we could not get along without it. This stove was an old fashioned Charter Oak No. 7, 54 and weighed about 350 or 400 pounds and was very awkward to carry over snow trail a distance of 3 miles. After considering a while we trimmed a nice pole about 8 or 10 feet long removed the oven doors and dismantled all loose parts to make it as light as possible then ran the pole through the oven and two of us in front and two behind we hoisted it to our shoulders and started out along the traill with one of us ahead to tramp and streighten the road. This was slow work but the best we could do for we could not do without our stove, if it had taken a week to get it to our new camp, but we got it over in two days and the next article was our grindstone for we had to grind our axes every evening to be ready for the next days work. Each of us carried three axes so there was 15 of them in all and we had to keep them in good shape. Sometimes we would be up until twelve or one o'clock at night grinding our axes or at other times some would play cards. One night soon after being settled in our new camp, we were just going to turn in for the night, one of the boys stepped outside for a bucket of water and came back in great haste saying that some¬one was calling for help down the canyon. Two of the boys had gone to bed but got right up again, and we all went outside and listened. We soon heard it again, someone was calling as though in distress. One of the boys said. "There is surely someone down there that has given out trying to come to camp through the deep snow and some of us, will have to go to his help or he will freeze to death before he can get here." So three of us was preparing to go to his assis¬tance, when we heard the cry again, this time it sounded like the shrill wailing cry of a woman in distress, "that is the cry of a Panther" says Mr. Bell, who was the oldest man in our party. I have heard it many times in the woods of Western Canada. You needn't go boys let’s go to bed. Signed Fred W. White, Age 82 years. 55 (Foot note) Nellie wrote on the back of the envelope) Grandpa White died before he completed his writings for my book. This is part of the envelope in which the last writings were sent to me. I wrote it in my book and took it with me for him to sign before I moved to Los Angeles. This was in July 1935 and he had passed away, within one week. I am thankful to have so much signed information from him concerning his life. Signed Nellie Spencer