I l I L E P J.. G E PIONEER NAME Perry Fitzgerald • BIR TH DA TE AND PL A~ E. ·_ ___2:::.=2:.--:.De.::..c.::..e=.m::::b.::...e.::..r::c.1.=;.8;:..1::;~5--=F:....a.:~y-=e:..t...: t_ e:._C..:.....o::....unt~y~,:_p_e_nn~sy~l-v_a_n_i_a:_._ ____ • • DEATH DATE AND PLACE 4 October, 1889_ ___________ ________ FATHER John Fitzgerald MOTHER Leah Phillips WHO MARRIED AND DATE YEAR ARRIVED IN UTAH NAME OF COMPANY l ary Ann Cosa.t July 24, 1847 Brigham Young 10 January 1839 WHO WROTE HISTORY AND DATE AndreTv Jensen WHO SUBMITTED HISTORY AND DATE Dorene Ronser "'ay 1989 ADDRESS 235 S State __-l= -'-o--=r..=l"....,.; a,-'n=:..,z .----U-"'-'=tLa--h-.. ....10:!('l.-l=iO._u~S_Ol..L ______T ELEPHONE NO • - 8?--=9--6-6_8-=5:.. __ ___ CAMP NAME South Morgan COUNTY NAME CAMP HISTORIAN ADDRESS COUNTY HISTORIAN ADDRESS er n Lucille Willi.ams 47 N 200 West Barbara C. Porter SOURCE OF INFORMAT~ON AND PAGE NUMBERS: I hereby give this history to the National Society Daughters of Utah Pioneers with the understanding that: 1. The Daughters of Utah Pioneers has the right to edit and publish i t . 2 . If publication is not indicated, it s~all become a part of the archives to perfect the record of the Utah pioneers. 3 . The Daughters of Utah Pioneers has the right to reproduce this history for the benefit of its members, and descendants of the pioneer • Signature of author or owner of this history Revised 1986 JPEG-Bk13 • • e Perry Fitzgerald was born in Redstone, Fayette County, Pennsylvania 22 Dec. 1815. Just what his father and mother, John Fitzgerald and Leah Phillips were doing in Redstone in 1815 is not known. His two older sisters, Barbary and Lovina were born in Monongahela, Washington County, Pa., which was only 15 miles to the northwest of Redstone. After Perry's birth and by 1819, Perry's father and mother had returned to Monogahela where Perry's sister Lurena was born 25 April 1819. Perry's younger brother Benjamin was born in Butler, Co., Ohio, 1 August 1820. For those who had the pioneering spirit the area of the Northwest Territories beckoned them on with the promise of land, forest and freedom . When this move was made Perry was a child of five years of age. So it was here that Perry grew to manhood. His opportunities for obtaining an education were very limited. But the home training that he received from his parents impressed him, the importance of being strictly honest. They taught him to have consideration for others. He always showed great consideration for the unfortunate and the aged. Sometime in the 1830 ' s Perry's father John had bought some land in Vermillion County, Illinois from the land speculators, who were selling land in Blount Twp. Vermillion County. It is doubtful if John had ever seen the land he bought. When Perry became of age he had the desire to start out on his own and in September of 1837 he induced his father to sell him some of the land that he owned in Blount Twp .. His father sold Perry two sections of property. He apparently built a cabin and began to farm on the north west quarter of section 22, (which is identified on the map of Vermillion County, in Blount Township. Blount Township was a large tract of land between the Middle Fork and the North Fork of the Vermillion River. Its surface is higher in the middle of the Township and to the North . In the southern half and along its eastern and western boundaries it was covered with a stalwart growth of forest trees, oak, walnut, maples, and here and there a beec h. In 1837 there were still some Indians in the area, along the banks of the Middle Fork. They came irregularly, remaining part of the year near the famous spring which attracted their attention. This spring was on section 8, about three miles from Perry Fitzgerald's farm. There were several occasions where some of the settlers were killed by the Indians. The land near the rivers was malarial and snake infested. The History of Blount Township states on page 881 the following: "Sickness was terrible, whole families would be down with sickness at the same time. The ague, the milk sickness, and other diseases that were consequent upon early settlement, were so common that people were broken in spirit, and their energy was sapped." And further, "Snakes were the chief cause of fear. One time when Mrs . Fairchild had just finished getting breakfast by her fire place, she picked up JPEG- Bk13 • • her baby off the floor and dropped down into her chair, when she saw a snake crawling out of the hollow fire log. She called her husband and to kill it, and by the time that was done, another came out of the same cavity. At another time she saw one hanging down from the unlathed floor timber over her head before she had got out of bed in the morning, swinging back and forth apparently hunting a good place to fall. The expedition with which she gathered up her baby and disappeared from that vicinity is said to have been somewhat marvelous." In the History of Vermillion County, Illinois we read the following account of the Cosat Family: "Peter Cosat came here in 1830 and commenced a farm on section 11, just west of Samuel Copeland, and lived there about thirty years. He died, and his family is scattered, one son living in Ross.His brother David came in 1834, and took up lands near Peter Cosat in the timber, and lived there until 1849, when he sold to Mr. Gunn and went to Wisconsin, where his father in law had gone. David Cosat came back from Wisconsin a year later, and bought one hundred and twenty acres of B. M. Kirk, at five dollars per acre. He engaged in farming and raising cattle and horses. He still resides on the farm, but thinks he has nearly passed his working days. Several of his children live near him. His son John J., is a Justice of the Peace, and is an ordained elder of the Christian Church." From the map of Vermillion County we can see that Perry Fitzgerald's farm was only about a mile and a half from the farm of Peter Cosat. In those days that would be called close neighbors. Perry met and fell in love with Peter Cosat's daughter Mary Ann. So two years after Perry went to Blount he married Mary Ann Cosat 10 Jan. 1839. They were married by Freeman Smalley, Elder of the Baptist Church. He lived near or in Higginsville where Benjamin Fitzgerald, Perry's brother lived. Perry and Mary Ann's first child was a boy, born 25 Mar. 1840 and they named him John after his grandfather Fitzgerald. The census of Vermillion County for 1840 lists Perry and Mary Ann Perry's sister Lurena Nebeker and her husband John Nebeker and their family was living in the same abode. About this time the Mormon missionaries were active in the area and in 1842 Perry Fitzgerald and Mary Ann and the Nebekers were converted to Mormonism. Benjamin did not join them. A small branch, the Middle Fork, was organized but must not have functioned for long because the families soon left for Nauvoo. But before they left Perry and Mary Ann lost their second child, Daniel from the "ague". He was only one year old. Just when Perry Fitzgerald and his brother-inn-law John Nebeker moved with their families to Nauvoo is not known, but Perry received a patriarchal blessing in Nauvoo in 1846 by John Smith, and Mary Ann received hers in 1848 in Salt Lake. Their third child Alvah born 28 May 1845 may have been born ~ in Nauvoo. He died in 1847 after the Saints had been forced to flee Nauvoo. The mob heaped such persecution upon the JPEG-Bk13 2. 5J • • e Saints that they were forced to take what meager belongings they could and flee for their lives. To get a feeling of this great tragedy one has only to read of the report of Thomas L. Kane as he came upon Nauvoo just a few days after the Mor mons were driven out by the mob . He first saw Nauvoo from across the river on the west bank and here is his description of what he saw, given in a discourse before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania March 26, 1850 . "On the west bank where the deep water of the river returns my eye wearied to see everywhere sordid, vagabond and idle settlers; and a country marred without being improved by their idle hands. I was descending the last hillside upon my journey when a landscape in delightful contrast broke upon my view . Half encircled by a bend of the river, a beautiful city lay glittering in the fresh morning sun; its bright new dwellings set in cool green gardens ranging up around a stately dome- shaped hill, which was crowned by a noble edifice whose high tapering spire was radiant with white and gold. The city appeared to cover several miles and, beyond it in the background, there rolled off a fair country chequered by careful lines of beautiful husbandry . The unmistakable marks of industry, enterprise, and educated wealth everywhere made the scene one of singular and most striking beauty. It was a natural impulse to visit this inviting place . I procured a skiff and rowing across the river landed a the chief wharf of the city. No one was there to meet me. I looked and saw no one. I could hear no one move. I walked through the solitary streets. The town lay as in a dream under some spell of loneliness from which I almost feared to wake it for plainly it had not slept long . I went about unchecked . I went into empty work shops, rope walks and smithies. The spinner's wheel was idle, the carpenter had gone from his work bench and shavings, his unfinished sash wood stood piled against the baker's over . They blacksmith shop was cold but his coal and ladling pool and crooked water-horn were all there as if he had just gone off on a holiday. I could have supposed the people were hiding in the houses, but doors were open . On the outskirts of the town was the city graveyard but there was no record of plague there. There were fields upon fields of heavy yellow grain lay rotting upon the ground. No one at hand to take in the harvest. Only two portions of the city seemed to suggest the import of this mysterious solitude. On the eastern suburb, the houses looking out upon one country showed by their splintered woodwork the marks of destructive cannonade. And in and around the splendid temple, which had been the chief object of my admiration, armed men were barracked, surrounded by their stacks of musketstry and pieces of heavy ordinance. They told the story of the dead city that had been a notable manufacturing and commercial mart of some 20,000 persons; that they had waged war with its inhabitants for several years and had finally been successful only a few days before my visit, in an action fought in front of the ruined suburb, JPEG - Bk13 52 • • • they had given way on the third day . " Where had the people gone who had built the beautiful city, the beautiful white marble temple crowned with gold which had just been completed? Where had the people gone who had left their homes, their shops. their mills and unharvested crops . They had disappeared over the western horizon at the mercy of God and Nature . Perry Fitzgerald and Mary Ann, their young son John went with them . It was early in 1846 when Perry Fitzgerald with the other Mormons were forced to leave Nauvoo and t h ey traveled about two hundred and sixty miles to the West . They set up an encampment on the banks of the Missouri River. They called it Winter Quarters where they hastily built make shift log cabins, Perry had been ordained an Elder before he left Nauvoo . Perry was chosen by Brigham Young to be one of the advance group and to be one of a group of ten men assigned to be foo d hunters. So when the group of 143 explorers and path finders headed west in April 1847 Perry went with them, leaving his wife Mary Ann and his son, John in the care of the Nebekers. The company arrived i n the Salt Lake Valley 24 July 1847. After about a month in the Valley Brigham Young returned to Winter Quarters with others who were returning for their families and Perry returned also . On their way back they passed a number of companies on their way to the Salt Lake Valley . And who should Perry meet? None other than his wife Mary Ann and his son John with the Nebekers and his sister Barbary. They were in Captain Abraham Smoot's Company . The following is the record of their arrival in the Salt Lake Valley: John Nebeker Wife Lurena Fitzgerald William Perry Aaron Bro. Mary Wife Ira Ashton Rozella George Nebeker Ann Fitzgerald of Perry Fitzgerald John Barbary Fitzgerald Perry's Sister age age 34 28 11 7 8 4 2 22 26 7 43 born 1 Aug 1813 25 Aug 1819 5 Sept 1836 28 Dec 1840 23 June 1839 23 Sept 1843 3 Oct 1846 22 Jan 1827 30 Sept 1821 25 Mar 1840 12 Feb 1812 Perry continued back to Winter Quarters to help other companies get ready for the next spring. So Perry was away from his wife and son, except for the brief visit on the trail, for over a year . The next we hear of Perry and his family they are among the first settlers of Millcreek living on the "north bank". of the pm the Greater Salt Lake City Census in company with the family names which show up again as early settlers of South Willow Creek i.e. Zemina Draper, Gurnsey Brown and JPEG- Bk13 53 • Robert Shipley . At this point he and John Nebeker go separate ways. Millcreek originally included the land from the mountains west to the Jordan River and from Twenty-first South on the North to Thirty-third South on the South. The Millcreek Ward was organized in 1849. The members first met in the "Old Fort" in Salt Lake and during the winter of 1848-49 they met in a private home on Big Cottonwood Creek. In the manuscript history of the Mill Creek Ward it states, "In the spring of 1848 Perry Fitzgerald and family settled in Millcreek along the north bank. While in Mi l l c reek Mary Ann gave birt h t o a son 11 Feb. 1849. They named him Manasseh . A year later on 22 Jan . 1851 she gave birth to another son, and they name d him after his father Perry. This was her fifth and last c hild. Mary Ann died in April 1851 of Erysipal is, a contagious disease of the mucous membrane. Several people died of this during the same time . When Mary Ann died her oldest son, John was 11 years old, her son Mannasseh was 2 years old and the youngest, Perry was only 3 months old . Needless to say Perry Fitzgerald needed help. Mary Ann Cosat was a true frontier ' s woman, having known nothing else all her life. Her father was Peter Cosat and her mother Nancy Tewmy. She had the following brothers and • - sisters: William, Samuel, Perry, Margaret who married Thompson Lanham, Elizabeth who married, Squire Cunningham, and Nancy who married William Soperry . Her grandfather, Jacob Cosat changed the family name of his father Peter Cossart to Cosat. Peter Cossart, Mary Ann's great grandfather was the one that moved the family from Hunterstown, Conewago Valley, York Co. Pa. to White Oak Station on the Kentucky River, a mile from Boonesborough. It was here that Peter Cossart was killed the Indians in 1781, leaving a wife and seven sons. In the fall of 1851 Zemira Draper and Perry Fitzgerald and others from Millcreek, settled along the banks of South Willow Creek . Apparently after Perry and his motherless boys arrived in South Willow Creek he met and married Ann Wilson. She was born 1 Nov . 1812 in Old Coales, Nottinghamshire, England. She was three years older than Perry. It was Ann Wilson who took over the task of raising Perry ' s young sons. Perry Fitzgerald went into polygamy when he married Agnes Wadsworth 23 March 1853. She was born 29 July 1836 in Manchester, England and was 16 years old, when she married Perry. They had thirteen children, a large family indeed. When Perry arrived in South Willow Creek there were only five families living there. Perry built a three room log cabin which is still standing along the road going east toward the mountains where the railroad tracks cross the • road. This is where the old pioneer road from Salt Lake came into South Willow Creek. By the end of 1852 there were twenty families living in South Willow Creek . The settlers JPEG-Bk13 s • • e had to go into the canyons of Big and Little Willow to get their logs for their cabins and barns . The old log slide can still be seen on the mountain between Little and Big Willow . This was not an easy task. Much is written about the families living in the Old Fort. When Indian troubles broke out in 1854 . There was on old Indian trail which ran along the foothills east of Draper south to Utah County. The Indians woul dn't go up Little Cottonwood Canyon, it was ' 'bad medicine' they said. The Indians were stealing some of the stock and on one occasion they stole 100 head of horses from Brother Nail ' s herd near Warm Springs south of Draper . The fort was built on the present old meeting house block . Nearly all of the settlers in South Willow or Draperville, as it was now being called, moved into the Fort and stayed during the winters of 1854-56. Perry was one of those who moved into it and had his cabin in the southeast corner, where his wife Ann Wilson Fitzger ald had a store . A branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was established in Sept. 1852. William Draper was sustained as the presiding Elder . The first religious services had been held in the homes. Later a small adobe building was built in the Fort. It was used for all public meetings, scholastic, religious and social . In 1856 Perry was ordained a High Priest . After the Indian troubles were over Perry moved back to his cabin east of the Fort . He later built a brick home east of the old log cabin which he then used as a barn . This old barn and other sheds t h at Perry built are being torn down to make way for a road to some homes being built to the south. Perry is mentioned now a n d then in the historical accounts of Draper. In the 1862 precinct election Perry and Absalom Smith were elected "fence-viewers". He and his wife Ann started the second Sunday School in Utah in the Draper Ward. He was the second Counselor to Bishop Isaac Stewart when Absalom Smith had to resign as First Counselor and go to Hanksville, Utah for "extended absence" due to pol ygamous living (1884-1886) . Ruth Smith Morris in her history of Perry Fitzgerald states that Perry was ordained a High Priest in Feb. 1869 by Isaac Stewart. It would see that this is the correct account of his ordination to a High Priest rather than the previous account of 1856 . Perry was obviously anxious about endowments and baptisms of his deceased friends and relatives. It is through the numerous temple recor ds that so many names and family relationships are found. He personally kept no record of himself or family. Ruth Smith Morris writes, "He did not think it worthwhile, I guess, to write down in a journal that he had worked hard all day trying to drive the grasshoppers out of the crops; or about digging the canal along the east bench of the mountains so that the farmers in Draper could get sufficient water for their fields; or about the many children who died in Draper during the measles epidemic of 1865 or the diphtheria epidemic of 1878." JPEG-Bk13 b • • • In 1880 Perry received another patriarchal blessing, t his time in Draper . He appears to be in ill health and c oncerned about his salvation and his remaining days on earth. The blessing must have been a comfort to him during the last years of his life, a source of strength. From the extensive research and study of records Perry emerges as a humble, righteous man, a follower, rather than a leader. But he has a posterity that is rather proud that he was one of the original 1847 Pioneers. Perry Fitzgerald died in Draper 4 Oct 1889, he was 74 years of age . He died after a lingering illness of three and a half years. During the last eighteen months of his life he was confined to his bed, with Bright ' s disease of the kidneys. At the time of his death he had fifty grand children (forty-two of whom were living) and eight daughters. It was said of him, that he showed conspicuous courage in the fight with the Indians at Battle Creek . During the Walker War he was active in every measure which was undertaken for the welfare of the people . His neat orderly habits, his manly and dignified manner made pillar of strength in the community where he lived. believed in and practiced economy, buying only what pay for. He was a farmer, sheep and cattle raiser, fine horses and always drove a good team. He was a unassuming man. He had the moral courage to oppose defend the right. In the early Draper Ward records wrote by Perry's name, "A worthy man gone to rest." and him a He he could he loved modest wrong and a clerk Hl..5 THREE FAMILIES Ha.me Birth Date Dea.th Date Married ferry .a.rui Ma,ry Ann Cosa.t John 25 Mar . 1840 16 Feb. 1892 Sarah Ann Williams Daniel 16 Feb . 1843 184 4 Alvah 28 May 1845 1847 Manasseh 11 Feb . 1849 2 Dec . 1928 Melissa Ann Smith Perry 22 Jan. 1851 13 Feb . 1865 ferry .a.rui Ann Wilson Mary Ann 16 Sept . 1852 James v. Allen Alfreda Ann 1 Oct. 1854 J.D. McAllister ferry .and Agnes Wa.dmzorth Julia Ann 24 Mar . 1854 21 Oct. 1933 James Z. Stewart Lorena Elizabeth 10 Aug. 1855 6 Nov. 1914 John E . Dalley James Walter 19 Jun . 1857 17 Aug. 1936 Leah Jane Day Benjamin Franklin 2 Feb. 1859 22 Mar . 1931 Saphrona Rawlins Pamela Agnes 30 Nov . 1860 9 Jan. 1943 Dick Hancock Wetzel Mary Jane 29 Sep . 1862 19 Oct . 1926 Joshua B. Stewart Aurelius 29 Oct . 1864 18 Oct. 1937 Mary Ellen Brown Fedora Margaret 23 Jun . 1867 13 Dec . 1953 Joseph S . Mousley Issac May 20 May 1869 20 May 1940 Annie Pearson Richard Riley 14 Mar. 1871 14 May 1946 Minnie Butters Effie Isabella 28 Aug. 1873 21 Apr. 1947 Coy Wells Dunyon Melvin Fayette 25 Apr. 1876 Royal Truth 28 Oct. 1879 JPEG-Bk13 7 ~~ ~~ -~ • • • Prepared by Edson S. Packer and we owe a debt of gratitude to Ruth Smith Morris and Alta Fitzgerald A. Aylett for their outstanding research and contributions . JPEG- Bk13