Charles Sreeve Peterson no 5 done Charles Sreeve Peterson, third child and second son of Andrew Perterson and Martha Murdock, was born July 28, 1818, at Mt. Holly, Burlington County, New Jersey. His early life and experiences can be told best in his own interesting manner. “I was born of poor parentage. Father had to work for wages to support his family of ten children, and our opportunities for schooling were very limited. I was compelled to work while very young to help make a living. At the age of ten I hired out to one Joseph Stokes for two summers, to carry off brick and lay them on the yard to dry. This was called “off-bearing”. Two thousand was a day’s work. Besides I had to turn over on edge the 2,000 of the day before and carry that many under a shed shen dry. This was very hard work on my young and growing back, and I think I never have entirely recovered from the strain. My father was a wood chopper, and I worked with him during the winters helping to carry it together and cord it for measurements. At the age of 14 I apprenticed to Aaron Gaskill, a blacksmith, who, with his family, was very kind to me, but the work was no less hard and straining on my back, as I had a great deal of shoeing to do, and a heavy sledge to swing, splitting bars of iron to forge our horseshoes, also forging axles for wagons, of which we made a large number. From the effects of all this hard and heavy work, which I had to perform while so young, I have suffered, more or less, ever since, in my chest and back. I was with Gaskill for about two years, when he went out of the business and took to farming. I then worked for a Joseph Horner, a Quaker of the Hixite profession. Here I worked altogether in making edged tools, which was not such hard work, in about a year Mr. Horner went out of the business. Next I worked on a farm for Joseph K. Rogers. During the summer I received $10.00 per month, and in the winter I worked for my board and went to school three months. This was all the schooling I ever had. In this school I made the acquaintance of Miss Ann Dennis, daughter of Edward and Mary Dennis, who afterward became my wife. While I was at Mr. Gaskill’s the great excitement over the “Falling of the Stars” took place. Mr. Gaskill and family were members of the Methodist Church and the church was within 150 yards of his house. This was in the town of Pembertow, Burlington County, New Jersey. About midnight the stars apparently began to fall thick and fast like flakes of snow, though they resembled flakes of fire. Sometimes they would be like balls of fire and would strike the ground and burst into pieces. The flakes, when near the ground, would disappear like so much fire going out. Soon the church bells began to ring and the people came running together, the Methodists to their church and the Baptists to theirs, for these two sects constituted the professing part of the people. They exclaimed, “The Judgement Day has come, and the earth is about to be burned up!” They carried on such a shouting and howling that they could be heard all over town. Mr. Gaskill came to my door and asked, “Are you not coming to the church to pray? The end has come.” I replied, “No, it is too late to pray now, if the end has come. I will stay here and take it as easy as I can”. After poking my head out of the window to satisfy my cuosity, and listenings to the howling of the Methodists, I went back to bed, went to sleep, and woke in the morning and found the family all there, getting breakfast ready as usual, and the end not come. I have since learned that at this very time and night the Latter-day Saints were being butchered and driven from their homes and lands, which they had made and purchased from the Government in the state of Missouri. After finishing my three months schooling, I went to work for Joseph Wells, in Rancocas, Burlington County, New Jersey, Here I received $12.00 per month for one year. At the end of the year I hired to Mr. Wells for another year, and in the spring of 1837, I married Ann Dennis. We lived in a house on Mr. Wells’ farm, and in May of the following year my son, George Henry, was born. I stayed with Mr. Wells two years after that, and about nineteen months after the birth of George Henry, Mary Anna was born on Christmas Day in the same house. In the spring after leaving Mr. Wells, I went to work for a Mr. Powell, near Sreeveville, three miles above Mr. Holly. My work was farm work in the summer, and in the winter hauling fencing from the Cedar swamps, and wood and coal for fuel, and fertilizer for the land. This occupied my time from 4 o’clock in the morning until after dark at night. I lived in a house on the farm, rent free and cow feed the year around and $13.00 per month. In January 1842, Andrew, another son was born. In the fall of the same year, while hauling coal, I met a man who lived near Burlington, who told me of a strange people, whom he had just visited in Illinois; he had become converted to their church and faith. His name was Matthew Ivory. His rehersal of the faith and principles of their church gave me peculiar feelings that I could not throw off my mind. I did not believe in any of the numerous sects, although my parents were members of the Methodist church, and were, I believe, honest in gheir convinctions; but there was such a difference in the beliefs of the different sects in regard to the meaning of the writings in the Bible that I had become almost an infidel, although I had witnessed some strange manifestations. At two different times, previous to talking with Mr. Ivory, while lying on my bed, reflecting in the midnight hours, a light, brighter than the noon day sun, burst into my room , encircling a personage who looked me in the face, and passed out of the room, apparently down the stairs, and left the room as dark as a dungeon, for so it was before the light entered, as there was a heavy thunderstorm in progress at the time. The rehearsal of the faith of this strange people, and the explanation of scriptural passages by Mr. Ivory brought such a flood of light to my mind that I was led to marvel and wonder if this was not the light, and he the personage. By the light and personage in my room I had strange, through pleasing and happy feelings, and they haunted me day and night, and I could not get rid of them. They brought such a flood of light to my mind. Passages of scripture came to me, one after another, confirming the doctrines of those strange people, as related by Mr. Ivory. In a short time I passed Mr. Ivory’s again, and he came out from the field and commenced talking again, and said he had some pamphlets he wished me to read. I told him I would be pleased to read them. He said he would have them in the field when I returned with my load of coal. They were locked in his chest and he dared not let his wife see them or know where they were. She was so bitter against those people and their doctrines, that she would have burned the pamphlets had she found them. When I returned Mr. Ivory had the pamphlets ready for me. They were headed “The Gospel Reflector”, by Benjamin Winchester, I then learned for the first time that this strange and much hated people were called Mormons, of Latter-day Saints. I took the pamphlets home and in the evening read while my wife sewed. We were so interested that midnight was upon us before we were aware of it, or scarcely a word has passed between us, and I bear witness that the Holy Spirit bor witness unto our spirits at nearly every sentence I read, that the docterines and principles contained therein were true, and from God, and from that day to the present I have never doubted the truth of the Latter-day work. It is at this writing, February 26, 1889, forty-seven years ago, in which time I have passed thorugh many trying scenes and circumstances, and some that have been pleasant, all givbing me an experience that I could not otherwise have received, and the end of the bitter part has not come yet. I think it was in December I told Mr. Ivory to send to my house the first Latter-day Saint elder he saw, and he said there would be an Elder up from Philadelphia in a few days. Accordingly, in a very few days, he sent Elder Joseph H. Newton to my home, and the additional light he brought tu us led me to believe that he was the second light and person represented to me in my room. I engaged the school house in Sreeveville for him to preach in. He preached two discourses and I told him we were ready and wanted to be baptized, and on the first Sunday in February my wife and myself and Thomas Learey, a woung man, were baptiaed into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In a short time there was a branch of the church organized with forty members, called the Sreeveville branch. I was the only one of my father’s family that had joined the church. Up to this time I did not have an enemy that I knew of, and was respected by everyone that knew me, as an honest, respectable man with a reasonable amount of intelligence. As soon as it was known, however, that I had been baptized, all turned against me, and I was ridiculed, called a fool and shunned by nearly everyone. My employer, Mr. Powell, called me into his sitting room to talk to me and to persuade me to give up Mormonism. He said it was a delusion. His brother-in-law, Mr. Gardner, assisted him in his efforts. Their families were also present. They told me I must give up my religion, or else promise that I would never talk about it in the presence of their famililes; otherwise I would have to give up my position. I told them that to comply with their requests would be to act contrary to my hoest convictions, and knowledge of the truth concerning those principl.es which I had received, and I oculd not do it. I knew it would be a great sacrifice to me to give up my employment and the comfortable home which I appreciated so much, but to give up the principles which I had received, and which I knew to be true, would be a far greater sacrifice, and of the two I would choose the lesser. I talked to them in plainness and quoted many passages of scripture to sustain me in my conviction of the truths I had embraced, and bore testimony to them of thses trutshs. I then walked out to the stable, unharnessed the horse, cleaned them, and put everything in good order, returned to the house, told him what I had done and that I was ready for a settlement. From his looks and actions, my determination was a great surprise to him. He did not expect me to act so quickly, and had it not been for his brother-on-law, I think he would have recalled his decision. Gardner thought however, I would yield, rather than lose my position, but no position, wealth or earthly honors could move me from my convictions and purposes at that time, as I knew too well the consequences. I made preparations to move my family to Nauvoo. I worked wherever I could get a chance and sold out what household goods I could not take along. About this time, Brigham Young, George A. Smitlh, Wm. Smith and others came to our branch traveling in the interests of the church, and gathering means for the Temple, then being build in Nauvoo. Brigham Young asked me what I had to give towards the temple. I told him nothing but the labors of my hands, I explained my circumstances to him, that I sold everything I had to get money enough to take me to Nauvoo, and that if I did not go now I should soon not have any, as every means possible was employed by those around me to get my money away from me. He said, “You are a wise man, many have let their opportunities pass, and now not able to go, and perhaps never will be.” The evening before we started, a meeting was called, in which we ahd a joyful time. I was called upon to give my farewell talk. While speakin g, the spirit came upon me and I prophesied that inside a year I would shoulder my gun and stand in defence of the Prophet and the Saints in Nauvoo. (This was fulfilled, just as I had predicted). After I had made the prediction I was afraid and wondered why I had been led to make it. On August 1, 1843 we bade farewell to father and mother, brothers and sisters and to the Saints and took steamboat at Burlington for Phoiladelphia, from which place we were transported in canal boats to Johnstown. We delayed about two weeks through the breaking of the walls in one of the locks. At another time a lady traveling in our company fell into the canal and was about to be pulled under the boat and drowned, whin I jumped in and rescued her. She was a Catholic, and when we arrived in Johnstown, we were invited to her father’s home. He was a catholic priest. He was very grateful to me for having saved his daughter and wanted to do all he could for our comfort. I had the privilege of preaching the Gospel to him. We passed on to Pittsburg and there took steamboat down the Ohio, into the Mississippi and up to St. Louis. The apostate, John C. Bennet, was on board, and when he learned we were Mormons he delivered a tirade against Joseph Smith and the Saints. He said the Prophet would take my wife as soon as we arrived. I told him if he had taken all those who had gone before us, he had enough without taking mine. We left St. Louis, moved on up the river, and over the rapids, at the head of which lay Nauvoo. We landed at the upper stone house, a little above the main part of the city. I left my family and effects on the bank of the river, walked up town, inquired for Hyrum Smith, and was directed to his house. I introducted myself to him and told him I wanted to rent a house, and also get some work, as I had no money to pay house rent, nor get provisions for my family. He assisted me in every way possible, and after a little while we were located in a small room, and had five cents with which to start housekeeping. I found work at William Law’s land breaking hemp at one cent per pound. By hard work I could break from 75 to 100 pounds per day. Every tenth day I worked in the quarry getting out rock for the Temple. I also worked at other jobs, such as splitting oak rails, pulling corn from the stocks, etc. I finally went to work in the lead mines at Galena, 100 miles from Nauvoo. This work continued until the spring of 1844, when I returned to Nauvoo. I worked for my passage both ways by helping to gather wood for the steam boat. Soon after arriving home, trouble commenced. The apostates, higbees and fosters were stirring up trouble, which resulted in the destruction of the printing press at Nauvoo. Shortly after this the prediction 2which I made before leaving Sreeveville was fulfilled, for we were called out to defend the mayor of Nauvoo (the prophey Joseph), the city council and all the citizens, for all were threatened with death and destruction. We were called out under thename of the Nauvoo Legion, which was organized under the state law, and we were under arms until the martyrdom of the Prophet. With this incident all are familiar from History, but I want to say that the people mourned as I have never seen any people mourn, either before or since. It seemed that heaven and all things around us wept and were in mourning. All was silent as dath and reminaed so until Brigham Young and others of the twelve who were absent at the time of the martyrdom, returned, and found Sidney Rigdon putting in his claim to lead the church, but when Brigham Young stood up and commenced to talk, the spirit of Joseph was visible upon him, and the voice of the good shephered was known to all who heard him. Thus joy and peace returned to the hearts of the Saints, and all doubt as to the authority and leadership was removed. The work on the Temple was rushed to completion and we had peace for a short time. During the winter following I made our living by fishing in the Mississippi, giving every tenth day to quarrying rock for the temple. On September 12, 1844 my wife died and left me with four small children. This was a heavy sacrifice to me. She was a faithful wife and mother, and I felt her loss keenly. Our youngest child was one year and five months old, lacking one day, when he died, only three months and 23 days old when his mother died, and our oldest was only six years, three months and 23 days old. It left a great amount of labor and care and responsibility upon me, in addition to my daily, or nightly labor, as the fishing had to be done at night. Had it not been for my faith and knowledge of the Gospel I should have taken the children to their grandmother, but after careful reflection, and seeking council from Brigham yount, I was advised to keep my children by me and go hunt another wife. This I had not thought of. This is as far as he had proceeded with the account of his life. In the year 1845 he married Mary Ann Patten, dauther of Wm. C. Patten and Elizabeth Cooper. This sacred ordinance was performed in the Nauvoo Temple. From this union three children were born. On the same day he had his former wife, Ann B. Dennis, sealed to him. He and his family passed through the mobbing and drivings headed upon the saints, and, after they were driven from their beautiful city, Nauvoom, and began their dreary march across the plains, to a place they knew not, he, in obedience to a call made by president Brigham Young, gave his team and wagon to assist the first company of Saints on their journey, and he remained behind to help make wagons to carry the rest of the Saints to a place of refuge. In 1849 he had Ann Patten, daughter of William C. Patten and Julia Bench, sealed to him, by president Brigham Young. Thirteen children blessed this union. He and his wife Mary Ann and children joined the saints in the Great Salt Lake Valley in the fall of 1849, but his wife Ann patten, remained with her father’s family, coming with them in 1850 to join her husband. On January 10, 1852, with his family, moved to Weber Valley. They were thei first white settlers in that valley, and endured all the hardships incident to pioneering a new country, so far from civilization. He an dthe little colony succeeded in establishing a town in the northwestern part of the valley which was known as Weber City, but the name was later changed to Peterson, in honor of the pioneer settler. Sunday, October 21, 1860, he was set apart as presideing elder over the settlements in the northern part of the valley. On the 8th of December, 1861 he was chosen and set apart as Bishop. For many years his ward comprised the settlements of Mountain Green, Enterprise, Milton and Peterson. The following is from “Tullidge’s History of Utah”: “Mr. Peterson appears to have been well adapted to pioneering in those primitive times, when the necessaries of life had to be supplied at the enormous cost of freighting goods a thousand miles in wagons, or be produced from the elements by home enterprise and industry. He greatly assisted the development of the country.” He manufactured considerable leather, out of which MR. Peter Nielson made covering for the feet of the settlers. He also engaged in farming, and in cattle and sheep raising. There was a carding machine at Ogden, where his wool was made into rolls from which his family manufactured cloth. Himself and sons helped their neighbors by carrying on a blacksmith shop. At an early period a log school house was built in which the youth received such training as circumstances permitted. It was also the place where the magnates of Morgan County held their first court. The first Post office in the valley was at Weber City, with Mr. Peterson as post master. The efforst of the colony to raise food in 1856 were neutralized by vast swarms of grasshoppers. This so reduced their provisions that the family were without bread for three months, and osme of the time subsisted by digging wild roots. Mr. Peterson appeared to have been from the first, the local leader in the locality. By act of the Territorial Legislature, approved January 17, 1862, Morgan County was organized out of a part of Davis County. Mr. Peterson, who had been selected probate judge of Morgan County by the Territorial Legislature, proceeded to organize the county court, on the 13th of Feb . 1862. After being qualified, the court met at the office of the probate judge in Weber City, on the 17th of feb. 1862, at 9 o’clock a.m. for the purposes of completing the organization of the county. Thus Weber City, now Peterson, became the county seat. Later develpments brought a change. March 18, 1865, his term as probate judge expired. He was the people’s representative in the annual session of the territorial legislature of 1864-65-66. At the December term of court, 1868, having been elected to the office of selectman, he succeeded John Robinson. In the fall and winter of 1869070, he made a visit to his native state New jersey, when he for the last time in mortality beheld the face of his dear mother and those of his brother s and sisters, whom he had not seen for so many years. In the spring or summer of 1870, he married Margaret Crispin. Two children resulted from this marriage. January 8, 1872, he married Mary Thompson, who bore him ten children. At the September term of the county court for 1874, he again became a member of the court, succeeding Joseph R. Porter. After serving the people as their Bishop for about eighteen years, he was honorably released in the summer of 1878, and in the fall of the same year he took his family and moved to the northern part of Box Elder County, Utah, now known as Fielding, thinking he could get his boys located on farms for themselves, but they were not satisfied with the country, so he returned to the old farm in the fall of 1880. In the meantime, two of his sons, Charles and Hyrum, had gone to Mesa, Arizona. In August, 1883, he with his wives and all his unmarried children, again left the old home and moved to Mesa, Arizona. In 1884 he, in company with Apostle Pres. Brigham Young, President A.F. McDonald, and a number of others, went down into Mexico, conferred with the Mexican government and negotiated for some land for the Mormon settlers in Mexico, and also visited the Yaqui Indians. They held a conference with their leading men and presented them with a few copies of the Book of Mormon. They were gone probably about two months. After this he labored in the Indian mission, near Mesa, Arizona, with Elders Henry C. Rogers and Charles H. Allen, until the fall of 1885, when he moved to Corelites, in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico. Here he resided for about two years, when he returned to Mesa, Arizona. This was his home until his death, which occurred at ten minutes to one o’clock on the 26th day of September, 1889. He was true to the truth and faithful to the last. When he felt that his time had come, he called those of his children around him that were living in the vicinity, blessed them and bore his testimony to them. He sent his love and blessings to those who were not present, and admonished all of his family to be faithful in the Gospel, an dto use the talents with which the Lord had blessed them for the good of their fellowmen and for the building up of the Church and Kingdom. Thus passed to his reward one of God’s noblemen.