Thursday, April 19, 2012


Jeremiah LEAVITT 2ND.
This story is taken from the first two chapters of the book entitled “Dudley Leavitt”, Pioneer to Southern Utah”by Juanita Brooks, Published in 1942.


The arrival of a new baby at the Jeremiah Leavitt home was nothing to be surprised at, for every two years or less a new one was added to the little flock, until they were accepted as part of the natural scheme of things. This boy, born August 31, 1830, was the fourth son and the eighth child. His mother, then thirty-two years of age, was to have four others. At this time the family consisted of Louisa, 10; Jeremiah 8; Lydia 7; Weir 5; and Lemuel 3. Two of the children had died.

They called the new baby, Dudley, a family name which could be traced back to Dorothy Dudley, a grandmother several times removed. Though the family lived in a humble home, they were proud of their lineage. Both the father and the mother could trace their names back to the early Puritan stock, some of the ancestors of both having come over on the Mayflower.

The Leavitt family came from a line of note in England, their family coat of arms representing a ramping lion and the motto meaning, “The Quick” or “The Active”, denoting that they were physically superior. The Dorothy Dudley from whom this boy derived his name was a daughter of Samuel Dudley of the Massachusetts Bay colony. Her father could boast that four of his family had been governors there: His father, Thomas Dudley; his father-in-law, John Winthrop; his brother, Joseph Dudley; and his brother-in-law, Simon Bradstreet. Thomas Dudley came to America in 1630 in the Mayflower, along with Mr. John Winthrop and others.

Through the Dudley line it is possible to trace from Thomas through the Purefoys, back through the mazes of English royalty and near-royalty to Alfred the Great of England, who ruled from 871 to 901. The mother also boasted a good family tree. She was Sarah Sturdevant, and her family can be traced back through John Thompson to William Brewster, also of the Mayflower.

At the time of Dudley̓s birth, the family were living in Hatley, Canada, just fifteen miles from the Vermont line. Jeremiah had brought his young bride here immediately after their marriage, for the soil was deep and rich and the timber plentiful. They would establish their home and rear their family here.

The change was a sore test for the eighteen-year-old wife. She had been brought up in a strict Puritan home, a home where Bible reading and family prayers were established daily institutions, and where the Sabbath was observed to the letter. Hatley was still little more than a boisterous camp, and the swearing, the drinking, and the general disregard for things religious and for all the customs she had considered essential to civilized life, tried her bitterly. She had adjusted and developed until she was now well matured, resourceful, and still devoutly religious. Always of a serious nature, she read the Scriptures, meditate much, and prayed often, for the conditions she saw around troubled her.

Several years passed. Two other children, Mary Amelia and Thomas Rowell, were added to the family. In the meantime, Sarah, the mother, had joined the Baptist church because she believed in baptism by immersion almost unanimous in saying that they would be led and directed by the Twelve Apostles, with Brigham Young at the head.

United again under a competent leader, the people went on with their work, finishing the Temple, and carrying on their church duties. The persecutions, temporarily stopped, now began again. Again marauding bands scoured the country-side at night; again burnings and mobbing became common. At the Mound, the Leavitt family kept a constant watch, for two roads went directly past their home, one from Warsaw and one from Carthage, and they must be alert for enemies from either. Dudley took his turn at standing guard with the older boys.

It soon became evident that they must either leave the state or renounce their religion. This last they would not do. The body of the church had promised to leave, and asked only time to gather their crops and make preparations. The Leavitt family could stay on their prosperous farm and finish their new home, or they could go with their friends. Dudley̓s mother, writing in her journal, said: We soon found that we had to leave the place if we meant to save our lives, and we with the rest of the brethren got what little we could from our beautiful farm. We had forty thousand bricks that my husband and sons had made for to build a house, and part of the rock to lay the foundation. For this we got an old bed quilt and for the farm a yoke of wild steers, and for two high post bed-steads we got some weaving done. Our nice cherry light stand we left for the mob, with every other thing we could not take along with us.”

The family was again on the road in search of a new home where they could live their religion in peace. By this time two other members had been added, Betsy and Priscilla.


From  Nauvoo  Through Iowa

IT WAS A year and a half after the martyrdom of Joseph Smith before the Mormons left Nauvoo. Early in1846 they had their orders to leave the state. Brigham Young tried to get permission to stay until spring, and until they could get their outfits ready, but the mob was determined that they should go at once.

Sometime in February the Leavitt family left their farm and gathered with neighbors and friends at an old school house. The first night out the mother, Sarah, had a premonition that if they did not get out of there, they would all be killed. They did not have the cover on their wagon or their things packed, but her husband listened to her. It was the first time in all their troubles that she had shown any fear. During the difficulties in Nauvoo, she had been cheerful, confident that God would take care of them. Now, when she suddenly became so afraid, her family listened to her. Hurriedly piling things into the wagon, they set out for the Mississippi river, eight miles away.

They arrived on the bank to find a crowd collected and getting across as fast as they could. Not until Sarah reached the opposite bank did she feel safe. The group arranged their wagons in a circle as close together as they could crowd them, with the fire in the center. The first night there was a snow storm and a strong wind which made it almost impossible to keep covers on the wagons or on the beds. The thawing weather which followed after was nearly as disagreeable as the cold. They stayed there about two weeks, until they could get the rest of their cattie across the river and prepare to move on.

They had a trying time because they were not fitted for a long journey, either from the standpoint of supplies or outfit. They had let the church use one of their teams to haul out the church property. This meant that they had only one wagon left and one team of oxen to pull it. Loaded as it was with household goods, the wagon could not carry the family too, nor could the oxen pull them. That meant that the mother and children must walk, wading the sloughs and climbing the hills. It was April in 1846 before they reached Mt. Pisgah, one hundred and fifty miles west of Nauvoo.

This was to be one of the camps of the saints, so the father and boys set about to build a shelter  and plant crops. Since they did not have provisions to last until harvest, the father went back to Bonaparte to secure some. Their son, Jeremiah, was married and living at that place, so the father would live with him while he earned flour, and when they came back to Mt. Pisgah, they would bring Jeremiah with them. Weir and Lemuel had gone on with another group to Council Bluffs; they were strapping young fellows and well able to make their way. The father decided to take the sixteen-year-old Dudley with him back to Bonaparte to help work for provisions, leaving the mother with only Thomas and the three girls during the summer.

Soon after her husband left, Sarah came down with the chills and fever. Then the children all got it, until there was not one to wait upon the others. Though they were strangers, they were among their own people, and their neighbors were very kind, coming in to prepare meals, and do the washings. “I was the first one to take sick there and three hundred took sick and died after I was, and I was spared alive,” she wrote in her journal.

In the meantime, the husband was also sick back at his son̓s home in Bonaparte. Although they nursed him the best they could, it soon became evident that he could not get well. He, too, knew that he would go, a premonition that he had before he left his wife, and that she had felt also.

In his last hours as Dudley sat beside him holding his hand, he began to sing the hymn, “Come, Let Us Anew!” On the last verse, “Oh, that each in the day of His coming may say, ‘I have fought my way through; I have finished the work Thou didst give me to do̓ “his voice faltered. He asked Dudley to go on with the song, but the boy̓s heart was too full. He could not. Jeremiah̓s wife bravely took up the strain, “And that each from his Lord shall receive the glad word ‘Well and faithfully done. Enter into my joy and sit down on my throne̓ “. Without a struggle or groan, he passed quietly away. That song has ever after been a family favorite.

The mother, who had patiently waited her husband̓s return, was almost prostrate at word of his death. Her children rallied around her, Jeremiah coming with Dudley to bring the outfit and load of provisions, and Weir and Lemuel coming back from Council Bluffs with medicine and food. Now for a short time she had all her sons together, five of them. It was the last time they were ever together, for Weir died the next summer. The father had passed away August 20, 1846, and Weir, the strongest of the group m August, 1847. The daughter, Lydia, who had been married to William Snow, died in November of 1846, making three out of the family to succumb to the life of exposure and hardship.

As soon as the boys had all gathered, they decided to move on to Council Bluffs, where Weir and Lemuel had some crops planted. They arrived in November, and since they had no house in which to live and had to camp out, the mother took chills and fever again. The boys fixed her a shelter of hay in which she lived until they built a house at Trade Point on the Missouri River. This was the place where the steamboats landed.

As soon as she was able to work, she took in washings, she did fine sewing, she baked bread and pies to sell to the emigrants to California. She took in boarders. The boys found work, too, and all bent all their energies toward getting an outfit to cross the plains to Utah. Weir had died, Jeremiah was married and had brought his family to Utah, and Lemuel came ahead with an earlier company. This left Dudley the oldest boy at home, with his three sisters and his younger brother, Thomas.

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