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Show • • • WILIAM OWLER Writen by bis grand daqghter Ethel Tippets William was a gifted musician and played the violin and piccolo. He is well known for his composition oftlie hymn, "We Thank Thee Oh God For a Prophet". It was writen while-he was serving a mission in England The original hymn bad only two verses. He tok it to a brother and asked his opinioo upon it and the kind br-0ther said; «that's -fme brother Fowler as far as it goes but it doesn't sound finished." So the last verse was added as we now know it. The hymn was first sung at a meeting in England atended by Joseph F. Smith sometime between 1860 and 163. He wrote many other hymns and poetry, but this is the one that is known the best 1/tJ • • • Due to his great faith and zeal in his missionary labors, he had many wonderful experiences. Prejudice was very keen against the early missionaries and they had to hazard their health and lives as they went forth to preach day by day. One day, William put a notice in the paper of a street meeting he intended to hold, then he went to a hotel and got a room for the night. In the evenfag, be heard footsteps along the hall and then the key was turned in his door and it was locked. Thinking they meant to do him violence, he put his bed and chairs against the door and waited. No one came to ham him, but they left the door locked. In the morning he wa freed. The proprietor had been bribed to lock his door till past the time for his meeting. He made another appointment for a meeting the following day, but stayed outdoors all day. When he met the crowd that night at the street comer, he told them why he didn' t keep his appointment. They told him that a Mr. Hepburn came to them and said, "You see how the Mormons keep their word; they are not to be relied on. They are untruthful and undependable.,, Mr. Hepburn hounded William day by day, pelting him with rotten eggs and decayed vegetables, jerking his coat off from him and abusing him every way he could think of Finally the man was rebuked by William who said to him, "If you don' t stop your vile efforts against the work of the Lord~ I promis you in the name of Jesus Christ that your right arm will hang limp by your side and you won't be able to use it." When William and his wife were on a ship, docked at the wharf, ready to sail for America, there was a large group of.people assembled to see the ship sail William called attention to a man in the crowd whose arm was shrunken and useless, hanging limp by his side. The man was Mr. Hepburn. THOMAS GROVER Written by himself and recorded by his daughter Minnie Grover Farnsworth In the fall of 1854 we plowed our ground. Our plows were made at home by Telemacey Rogers. He took a piece of bar iron for the land slide and a piece of steel for a shear. Then he welded a piece to the mold board and another piece of iron and then bolted one end to the shear. Then they took pieces of wagon tire and hammered them thin and riveted them to pieces he had fastened to the bed piece. Then he ben them in he shape of a mold boar~ took native timber and made a beam and handles and bolted them on to the plow. It made a very good plow . CD • • • In the winter there came a warm spell and the snow melted so Father sowed the wheat and I harrowed it in with a yoke of oxen. My legs would ache from carrying mud on my shoes until I could not rest at night. The next spring the grass hoppers came in clouds. Some days we couldn't see the sun for hours at a time. They seemed to know the tender grain and would light on that first and fill themselves up. Then they would raise up and go into the air. But more would come and by the time they had eaten all the young and tender grain, our grain was ripe and we thrashed seven hundred bushels of wheat. Now I will tell you how we cut the grain. We cut it with a grain cradle and bound it with our hands. The cradle was home made, but the sythe came from the east. The sythe was a crooked stick with a hole in the big end and a post about one inch in diameter and one end put into the sythe. The post was two and one-half feet long with four holes, six or seven inches apart. It had four fingers the same shape as the sythe, with one end in the hole of the post cradle to hold the grain together. Then it was thrown back and laid in the swath behind. The thrasher was a concave cylinder in a frome. This frame was bolted to two bed pieces of timber tat was long enough to sit on the running gears of a wagon. So when traveling, it would set on the wagonand when placed beside a grain stack, it could be let down on the ground behind the cylinder. Men separated the straw from the wheat and after the thrashing was done, three men came with a fanning machine and separated the wheat from the chaff. We had more wheat that year than all the rest of the Salt Lake Valley together. The social part of the early days was real good. The dancing would start at one o'clock in the afternoon and we would dance until five o'clock. Then we would go home and fe~ the cattle and get our suppers, then we would go back to the hall and dance until eleven o'clock. Our dances were opened and closed by prayer. Everybody attended the parties, young and old. And they all did their part in making it pleasant. We had singing school on Sunday mornings and sacrament meeting the the afternoon. Prayer meeting was Sunday night. Our fast meeting was held Thursday morning which would be the first Thursday in each month In the spring of 8162 I was sent with five yoke of oxen from Farmington to Big Cottonwood Canyon to haul rock for the temple. We hauled one rock that weighed eleven thousand pounds. In Jun of 62, a posse was called by acting Governor Kinney to go to South Weber and arrest Morris and Banks for firing at an officer. I was in the bunch that went to make the arrest. In the fall of the same year I drove team for J.L. Stoddard hauling grain east for the stage line. We hauled the first grain that was taken to the Point of Rocks on Bitter Creek. The stage station consisted of hulk and a dozen cedar stakes set in the ground. It rained on us two weeks. All that time we didn't have a dry thread on us. We had to wade the creeks and ford the streams of water with our wagons. The water would sometimes come ,, 2. • • • up to my neck. When we got to the Point of Rocks, we had to cut the grain sacks open, as the grain had sprouted and was growing through the sacks. The second trip that fall was to Church Butte on Black Fork. There were sixteen wagons, four with oxen. The .others were mules and horses. The ox teams had to pull the·mule and horse teams out of every ditch or muddy place on the road. Going up Echo Canyon we had to pull them out of every creek crossing and when we got nearly to the head of the canyon, one of our wagons tipped over in the creek. The water was waist deep and had ice on the edges. Three of us got in the water up te our waists to get the grain out. The other teams passed us and went on over to Cash Cave where there was another deep creek. When we got there, there were three wagons in nearly tipped over. I drove up to the creek between two of the wagons on which mules were hitched. They said "What are you going to do?" I said "I am going to cross." Said he, "You can' t make it across." I said "I can." Then he said "Throw me your whip and I said "No, get out of the way and let me go.,, I drove in and then jumped on to the tongue of the wagon and from there to the ground on the other side of the creek. From there I began playing the braid, but I did not hit a steer. I made an awful noise with my whip and scared them a bit and I got through all right. Then two of the other ox teams followed and they got through all right, but the fourth ox team couldn't make it. I took two yoke of my team and two yoke of the other teams and put on the big wagon which already had five teams on it, or rather five yoke of oxen, and we pulled him through. Then we put four yoke of oxen on each of the mule teams wagons and pulled them through. When we got our teams unhooked, it was nine o' clock and three ofus fellows hunted all over the place and couldn' t find a stick of wood any place or anything that would burn. We even went a mile from camp and it was awfully dark, so we came back and went to bed in our wet clothes and no supper. Well, these are some of the things we had to pass through in those days. In the fall of 1863 I drove team for Thomas Roads of Roads Valley to Pipe Springs where Kanab is now. There were seven of us boys in the bunch, moving the family south. On the way there, before we knew what was the matter with us, we were alive with graybacks. I had never seen any before and I didn't know what to do and I didn' t get rid of them until I got home. Since then I have learned what to do. When I would go away, I would take a cake of .camphor gtlll')in my pocket and when I would g-0 to bed I would rub it in my bed clothes and and under my pillow and graybacks would leave at once of there happened to be any there . 113 |