Chapter Twelve: Helping to
found South Jordan, Utah
“1859 March 1 Alexander Beckstead and Isaac J. Wardle,
First Settlers of South Jordan.”
A Word To Saints Who are Gathering
by Eliza
R. Snow
Think
not, when you gather to Zion,
Your
troubles and trials are through--
That
nothing but comfort and pleasure
Are
waiting in Zion for you.
No, no;
'tis design'd as a furnace;
All
substance, all textures to try--
To
consume all the "wood, hay and stubble,"
And the
gold from the dross purify.
Think
not, when you gather to Zion
That all
will be holy and pure--
That
deception, and falsehood are banish'd
And
confidence wholly secure.
No, no,
for the Lord our Redeemer
Has said
that the tares from the wheat
Must
grow; until the great day of burning
Shall
render the harvest complete.
Think
not, when you gather to Zion
The
Saints here have nothing to do
But
attend to your personal welfare,
And
always be comforting you.
No, the
Saints who are faithful are doing
What
their hands find to do, with their might
To
accomplish the gath'ring of Israel
They are
toiling by day and by night.
Think
not, when you gather to Zion,
The
prize and the victory won--
Think
not that the warfare is endend,
Or the
work of salvation is done.
No, no;
for the great Prince of Darkness
A
tenfold exertion will make
When He
sees you approaching the fountain
Where
the truth you may freely partake. (LDS
Women)
We Plow, We Sow
We plow,
we sow and irrigate,
To raise
the golden grain;
And
diligently labor
To
independence gain;
Some
haul the wood from canyons wile,
Some
tend the flocks and herd,
And all
our moments are beguiled
By
industry’s reward.
My Valley Home, my Mountain Home,
The dear
and peaceful Valley.
(Arrington
and Bitton p 142)
After the hostilities of the Utah War settled
down, Isaac returned to work with the Beckstead family on their farm in West
Jordan. Salt Lake City had been
abandoned in 1858 as part of the Church’s response to the invading army. This likely included West Jordan. “The valley was abandoned
and the troops set up Camp Floyd to the south in Utah
County.” (Wikipedia Salt Lake
County) Isaac and the Becksteads would
have returned to their homes after the army marched through.
As early as 1855, the possibilities for the
South West of Salt Lake Valley had been noted.
Piercy referred to a report from Lieutenant Gunnison:
On the
south of the lake, and above the alkaline barrens lie the more fertile valleys
of the Jordan and Tuilla, separated by the Oquirrh Mountain. …Here is fine grazing during the entire year,
and the east of the Jordan Valley is watered by bold streams that traverse a
trip of alluvial 20 m long, by 8 in width, to the banks of the Jordan. …The chalky waters of the Jordan can be used
for irrigating 80 additional square miles of the valley, and furnish water
power very accessible, and to any required extent, for milling, machinery or
manufactures. (Piercy p 95)
Johnston’s Army had marched through the area
in 1858. “The
earliest road in South Jordan followed the hill west of the Jordan River,
according to one pioneer. In the Utah
War of 1857 [58], Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston marched four thousand troops
and three thousand suppliers through the city of Salt Lake, across the Jordan
River, and south to Camp Floyd.”
(Bateman p 39)
Isaac did not return to coal mining after
arriving in Utah. Instead he turned to
agriculture. The opportunities for Isaac
to continue in his career of mining were very limited if he had wanted to do
so. Between 1850 and 1869 at least 1200
miners sailed from Britain headed to Utah.
As of 1870 there were only 170 miners in all of Utah. The Utah economy was based on agriculture
rather than industry.
Isaac helped found South Jordan, Utah. “1859 March 1. Alexander
Becksted and Isaac J. Wardle, first settlers of South Jordan. They hollowed dugouts in a bluff west of the
Jordan River called “Signal Hill” (used for sending smoke signals) at 1050 West
11100 South.” (Bateman p 241) “In 1859, he went with Alexander Beckstead to
homestead land, and he and Mr. Beckstead were the first to build homes
there.” (ibid p 6) “In 1858 [1859] he and Alex Beckstead, Jr. took up
homesteads in South Jordan where they together built a house for each
other. These were the first homes built
in South Jordan.” (Wardle, Orrin) “The rural community of South Jordan began in
1859 as part of a sparse string of settlements along the Jordan River plain
from West Jordan on the north to the Point of the Mountain on the south. (Bateman p vii)
South Jordan is an area with vistas on all sides:
South Jordan City is located to the
southwest corner of the Salt Lake Valley.
The average elevation of South Jordan is about forty-five hundred feet. The Wasatch Mountain Range rises majestically
to heights of more the eleven thousand feet only fifteen miles east. The mineral-rich Oquirrh Mountains flank the
community on the west.
Utah Lake lies to the south, through the
point of the Mountain pass. This
freshwater lake empties into the Jordan River which flows northward until it
reaches the shores of the Great Salt Lake, a dead sea. The combination of lakes, river, and
mountains embraces South Jordan vistas.
(ibid p 216)
Alexander Beckstead and some of his family, including
adult children, and Isaac came to South Jordan in March of 1859. Other families joined them in the fall. The land showed promise:
South Jordan was
originally covered with foliage typical of arid desert land. Native vegetation abounded in an earlier
era. Sagebrush, greasewood, and rabbit
brush grew abundantly in the flat plain overlooking the Jordan River and
extended to the foothills of the Oquirrhs.
Along the river bottom wiregrasses and sedges flourished in combination
with willows, cattail, and bulrush.
Bluegrasses and dropseeds dominated the meadowlands. Tamaracks, box elder, and scrub oak are
indigenous in gulleys and other scattered locations in the region.
The Jordan River
marshlands provide a refuge for amphibians, reptiles, waterfowl, mammals, and
fish.
A variety of fish
lives in the waters of the Jordan River near South Jordan. …Carp, suckers, sunfish, bass, mountain
sucker, dace, and redside skinner live in the water…
Seasonal waterfowl commonly use the
river. Ducks, geese, blue heron, and
coots can be found there. Game birds of
the field, like quail and pheasant, are also found. Hawks, owls, and more rarely, eagles may be
sighted in the area.
The waters of the river and nearby canals
are attractive homes for garter and gopher snakes, frogs, toads, lizards, and
horned toads. Mice, shrews, gophers,
rock squirrels, bats and skunks are some of the native mammal species. Larger mammals such as bobcat, red fox, elk,
and deer may be observed occasionally.
(ibid p 217)
South
Jordan is an area with four seasons. The
summers are hot, and the winters cold, with plenty of snow:
South Jordan experiences four distinct
seasons yearly. The climate is semi-arid
continental. Summers are hot and dry
with little humidity. The nights are
generally cool. July is the hottest
month with temperature averages exceeding 90 degrees Fahrenheit. …Average winter temperatures are 30 degrees in
daytime and 19 degrees for nighttime lows. …Snow continually covers the ground for an
average of twenty-nine days per year.
Spring and fall are usually moderate with less severe temperatures.
The nearby mountains affect the weather and
climate of South Jordan. The Oquirrh
Mountains protect the area from the force of southwesterly storms. Nevertheless, because much of South Jordan is
located on a flat plain overlooking the Jordan River narrows, no natural
features past the Oquirrhs protect against southwest prevailing winds. In fact, at one time, the interurban train
stop at South Jordan and the community itself was officially called
“Gale.” The winds are generally light,
but high winds have been recorded during every month of the year.
…Snowfalls throughout the Salt Lake Valley,
including South Jordan, tend to be greater than elsewhere in the intermountain
area because of the Wasatch Mountains to the east and the Great Salt Lake to
the northwest. Weather forecasters refer
to the phenomenon as “the lake effect.”
The average yearly snowfall is sixty inches… (ibid
p 217)
In South Jordan Isaac raised an orchard. He had a few animals and eventually a flock
of sheep. He helped to build the first
saw mill in South Jordan as well as the Beckstead Ditch. He also helped build the road to Bingham
Canyon.
Irrigation was vital to farming in the arid
Utah desert country. Gustav Larson
pointed out this could only be done in a cooperative fashion. The Utah economy, similar to that in England,
was centered upon agriculture. However
different than England, was the dependence of agriculture on irrigation:
One of the first tasks, when the Mormons
arrived in Salt Lake in 1847, was developing irrigation. Plowing and planting commenced at once. Oxen strained at plows eager to break ground
for seeds of the Kingdom. The ancient
art of irrigation, all but lost in the Basin region, was reborn when mountain
streams were lifted from their beds to flood the thirst lands with life and reproductive
power. (Larson p 74)
The first lesson in cooperative action in
the Basin involved utilization of land and water. It was an arid, forbidding
region which the Mormons chose for their home... Nothing else so confirms their faith in
supernatural guidance as the fact that they dared plant their families in the
midst of such a barren wasteland… Small
wonder that predictions of Mormon failure in the Basin were popular. Yet a decade of successful irrigation and
hard work transformed the scene into fields of waving grain, flowering orchards
and extensive gardens. (ibid p 282)
The Mormon people eventually won their
battle against the desert. The barren
soil yielded to their perseverance and industrious labors. Soon a network of canals carried life-giving
water to the fields, and lands once covered with dry sage and June grass became
green under the supervision of man.
It was largely through the pioneers’
development of irrigation that the pioneer crops prospered in the desert
soil. When the first wagons arrived in
Salt Lake Valley, men damned City Creek and diverted its flow onto the parched
soil so that it would be easy to till.
This was the birth of modern irrigation in America. As the late John A. Widstoe, an expert on
irrigation in the West, put it:
“The ‘Mormon’ pioneers possess the honor of
having founded modern irrigation in America, not because of the initial
irrigation on July 24, 1847, but because the Mormon people continued the work,
dug extensive canals, brought thousands of acres under irrigation, devised
methods of irrigation, established laws, rules and usages for the government of
populous settlements living ‘under the ditch,’-in short, because they developed
permanent irrigation agriculture on a community scale… Irrigation knowledge and inspiration have
been drawn by the whole world from the work of the first American irrigation
pioneers” (Widstoe, pp 455-56)
Quoting John Widstoe, Gustive Larson
continues, “The Mormon pioneers possess the honor of having founded modern
irrigation in America, not because of the initial irrigation on July 24, 1847,
but because the Mormon people continued the work, dug extensive canals, brought
thousands of acres under irrigation, devised methods of irrigation, established
laws, and rules for the government of populous settlements living ‘under the
ditch’,--in short, because they developed permanent irrigation on a community
scale. (Larson, p 282)
A peculiar part of Mormon farming was
ownership of the land. Gustav Larson
quotes Brigham Young, “No man should buy any land who came here—that he had
none to sell; but every man should have his land measured out to him for city
and farming purposes. He might till it as he pleased but he must be industrious
and take care of it.” (Larson p 75)
I don’t know if it was a formality, but
Ronald Bateman documented the purchase of the land in South Jordan. Alexander Beckstead, purchased the land where
South Jordan was founded through a Spanish land grant:
In 1859, he moved his
family to South Jordan. He settled on a
tract of land that extended southward along the west side of the river bottoms
from what is now 9400 South to 12500 South and west to about 1300 West. He purchased land form George A. Smith, who
had obtained the land through a Mexican land grant. The land was sub-divided and sold to other
settlers. Seven of Alexander’s sons helped
begin the settlement of South Jordan: Henry, Thomas Wesley, Samuel Alexander,
George Washington, John Alma, Joseph Alonzo, and Robert. The first homes were nothing more that holes
dug into hillsides west of the river.
Such available materials as willows, cane, and dirt were piled on top to
form a roof. These were called
dugouts. (Bateman p 8)
Isaac Wardle was the only person who also
helped found South Jordan that was not a member of the Beckstead family. The pioneers in South Jordan, knowing the
importance of water, took care of this need before focusing on housing. “The still-used Beckstead
Ditch can be seen west of the Jordan River as it winds its way northward. It was once the lifeblood of the agricultural
community. In fact, the pioneers dug the
ditch before they built permanent homes.”
(ibid p viii)
Isaac took a wife from the relatives of the
Beckstead family the month following homesteading South Jordan. Martha Egbert was a cousin of Alex Beckstead
Jr. He likely met her while he was
living with, and working for the Beckstead family in West Jordan. “He [Isaac] married a young relative of the
Becksteads, Martha A. Egbert, on 17 [18] April 1859. The brides’s father had to loan the groom a
white shirt for the wedding ceremony. He
took his new bride to the home he had built on his homestead in South
Jordan. She was just fifteen years old
and Isaac was only twenty-two or twenty-three years old.” (Wardle, Orrin) However, he more likely took her to his
temporary home of a dug-out, which was not located on his homestead, until he
could build a more permanent home.
The original dugouts were located below the
hill, just south of the current cemetery:
When pioneer families first settled South Jordan, they were obliged to dig
shelters into the hillsides near the Jordan River bottoms, hence the term
“under the hill.” Wood was scarce and
had to be dragged long distances. The
men spent much of the first year digging the Beckstead Ditch and probably
grubbing the fields of brush so they could farm. Consequently, they built dugouts because they
could be done relatively quickly with available material. Only later did people begin building higher
up on the flatlands.
…William M. Hold gave a brief description of
his family’s first home. He was only two
years old at the time they lived in the dugout in the hillside. He gave the dimensions as fourteen feet
square. The roof and floor were covered
with dirt. Cooking and heating were
furnished by a fireplace at one end of the room. (Bateman p 11)
Another description, of a more elaborate
dugout home was provided by Oliver Stone:
The dugout was a good size room, the walls
were of large sun-dried adobes. The back
part went into the hill and the front faced the east. Adobes made the front wall. Large logs were laid across the top to form
the roof. On these were laid cane taken
from the marshes to make a thatch, then covered with mud and dry dirt. If the roof leaked, dirt was put on. This made a good protection when a huge log
was burning in the spacious chimney.
Quite often cattle and other animals would walk down the slopes of the
hill and stop on the roof until driven off.
Cattle driven by the storms would take shelter in front of the Dugout
and their horns would knock upon the door as they chewed their cuds until
driven away.
Often wolves would come and howl on the roof
and sing their chorus to the sleepers underneath. The floor of this mansion was made of mud
pounded down smooth and hard. The
bedstead was made of adobes, covered with slabs and straw tick for a
mattress. In the fall of the year and
[with] the threshing done, the granary was open space under the bed. The windows were made of cloth or greased
paper; the boxes or stools made of slabs with holes bored in to hold the legs. The table for a long time was one of their
trunks that clothes were kept in. (ibid,
pp11-12)
The general dugout was described in this
manner:
Allen G. Noble states
that the typical Mormon dugout was “a ‘nearly square room measuring somewhere
between 12 and 18 feet and dug to about 3 or 4 feet below the surface.’ Sometimes the earth walls were lined with
logs, and sometimes the upper walls were merely logs laid on top of the
ground. The roof, composed of layers of
light poled, willow branches and dirt, was not unlike that used in the Southwest. Roofs were mostly gable form, but shed roofs
also have been reported for early dugouts.
The entrance to the structure was in the gable wall. These dugouts had all the disadvantages
common to sod dugouts elsewhere and were usually abandoned within a year or
two.” (ibid p 262)
Isaac’s permanent homestead would be at about
10000 South; about at the end of the Beckstead Ditch. It would have been with some pride that the
pioneers watched water flow through the ditch as a result of their efforts:
In 1859, Alexander Beckstead, Isaac Wardle,
and others began work on another ditch to divert water from the Jordan River,
two and a half miles south of the settlement.
It began at the Draper Bridge (at 12600 South in modern-day Riverton)
and traveled northwest to the community.
The settlers used picks and spades to painstakingly etch out the
ditch. A spirit level was used to survey
and grade the entire ditch.
The man-made water channel became known as
the Beckstead Ditch and was essential to the permanency of the population. With a sense of satisfaction, the ditch diggers
allowed water to flow through the winding excavation about the first day of
June 1859. They irrigated and raised a
small grain crop and vegetable garden the first year of using the water
course. The ditch still passes through
the city today. Alexander, his family,
and friends also dug wells by hand for drinking water. (ibid p 8)
Another early task was to prepare land for
farming. “The
silver sage that flourished along the flats above the Jordan River marshlands
was tall enough for a man on horseback to ride through without being seen. When land was taken for cultivation, the
sagebrush had to be laboriously grubbed away by hand.” (ibid p 12)
In addition to the Beckstead ditch of 1859,
the South Jordan Canal, finished in 1876 (Bateman p 36) would provide water to
the upper part of Isaac’s homestead property.
“
Water
was not the only challenge to farming:
…Early colonizers had
to contend with grasshoppers or mountain crickets. At times the insects appeared as a thick
carpet, completely covering the ground.
The pioneers would plant tree seedlings, small potatoes, or grain only to
see hordes of crickets descend from the mountains. The insects would eat every green leaf and
stem in sight. Tens of thousands of
tender fruit tree seedlings were eaten down to the ground. Attempts to kill, cut, or drive away the
crickets with brush failed. Potato
seedlings were covered with sheets and tablecloths, only to have the crickets
eat holes in the cloth, leaving the “short, naked stem” of the potatoes
remaining. The hope of raising a
sufficient supply of grain to make bread expired as the families fought in vain
to keep the crickets from climbing the stalks of wheat. The crickets would “cut it just below the
head.” (ibid p 8)
Bishop Bills, in a letter to Isaac while
Isaac was serving his mission, mentioned a couple more hazards:
We have
had a very dry time in Jordan and in fact through the whole country. But
it was so early that it did not injure crops to that extent that it would have
done if it had been later. Lately we have had sufficient rain and more to
answer very well for the present. But we have had a severe frost so much
so that it has killed most all, if not quite all the fruit except
currents. Even goose berries are killed,
that is in this neighborhood. How extensive it is I am not prepared to
say at present. (Bills)
This dry spell of 1879 is also mentioned in a
letter from Henry Beckstead:
The weather
is very warm and dry. We hant had no storms to amount to anything sense
the last of February. The grass is all dry very near in
valley. The hills are very poor. If it don’t rain soon there won’t
be a half crop where there is small streams. We can go up to the big
timber without any trouble so you can judge for the balance. Draper won’t
have enough to water the old farms. Our garden looks very fair at
present. (Beckstead, Henry)
Isaac improved himself, establishing a
homestead with a small farm, animals and orchard. “He worked hard to improve and enlarge his
farm and home. He prospered. He planted two large orchards. He built a larger home. He added various farm buildings.” (Wardle, Orrin) He was like many who came with the help of
the PEF:
Morally
and spiritually, as well as physically, the protégés of the Perpetual
Emigrating Fund gain by being transferred to the Far West. Mormonism is emphatically the faith of the
poor, and those acquainted with the wretched condition of the English mechanic,
collier, and agricultural laborer, …must be of the same opinion. Physically speaking there is no comparison
between the condition of the Saints and the class from which they are mostly
taken. In point of mere morality the
Mormon community is perhaps purer than any other of equal numbers. (Larson p
246 quoting R.F. Burton)
Leo Tolstoi told The U.S. ambassador “The
Mormons teach people not only of heaven…but how to live so that their social
and economic relations with each other are placed on a sound basis.” (Larson p
309) Larson further wrote, and I think
this helps us understand the philosophy, and the ideals that Isaac had as he
set out to establish himself:
So to survive and continue their assigned
task [Build the Kingdom of God] they learned to work together. Through cooperation they overcame obstacles. They found individual salvation through group
solidarity. They endured because they
had something to endure for. The Kingdom
depended upon their building. People
with a purpose will not down…
So “the Kingdom found social and economic
expression in the wilderness. The result
was a widespread pattern of towns and villages representing a thriving
cooperative brotherhood. (Larson p 310)
Thousands
of converts from many lands converged upon the Great Basin to engage in a
literal building of God’s Kingdom. The
conviction that they were participating in the realization of this ideal was
the source of their power and the key to their success. It gave impetus to thousands of missionaries
who shared with the Church a deep sense of mission in the world. It gave hope to tens of thousands who
“gathered to Zion.” It gave purpose to
the labor of those who felt responsibility for the progress of the
Kingdom. Their daily labors in factory
and field assumed the nature of co-partnership with God. It was upon this religious basis that the
Mormons built—and built successfully.
(Larson p 318)
An obstacle to the life in the valleys of
Utah was the lack of a plentiful wood supply in the valley. “There was virtually no timber in the
valleys, although an occasional clump of cottonwood and box elder grew along
the streams. Nearby canyons and
mountains, however, provided supplies of softwoods, primarily pine and fir,
adequate for initial development. Church
leaders early recognized that timber, as well as water, had to be carefully
husbanded to ensure a supply for future needs.”
(Arrington and Bitton p 112)
Isaac helped to establish the road up Bingham Canyon, where they went to
obtain wood for their homes. (Wardle,
Orrin)
The wind could also damage crops. The train station in South Jordan was called
“Gale.” Bateman provides this
description “The wind caused considerable trouble for the first
farmers in South Jordan. Freshly cut hay
was sometimes whisked away by powerful gusts of wind. In some areas ‘the sandy soil would blow,
cutting off the new seedlings and leaving vast stretches of barren
ground.’ (He quotes Theodore Hutchings,
the history of Joseph Nephi Hutchings.)
The sand drifted like snow, and newly planted areas had to be covered
with manure or straw to hold them in place.
(Bateman p 19)
Plentiful
amount of coyotes could threaten the smaller farm animals:
Coyotes roamed the
prairie in packs. In the evenings they
would often serenade the settlers in South Jordan. If the coyotes got near homes and barnyards,
the farmers would shoot into the air to scare them away. Sometimes the farmers shot the hungry coyotes
outright, especially if they got near the chicken coops. (Bateman p 16)
Some of these issues, along with trouble with the Native
population, would plague the settlers for several years. “Henry Byram Beckstead born 1850, came to S.
Jordan with family 1861: He witnessed
grasshopper invasions as thick as a carpet, completely obscuring the
ground. He experienced the menace of
horse thieves and invading Indians.”
(Bateman p 56) “Gordan Silas
Beckstead born July 13, 1854 came to S. Jordan 1861: After moving to South
Jordan with his parents, he helped dig the Beckstead Ditch, fought the
grasshopper invasions, and contended with roving bands of Indians.” (Bateman p 62)
Early in South Jordan’s history, the predominant crops
were alfalfa hay and grain. At first
haymen used hand scythes to harvest hay.
Scythes were cutting tools with a bent wooden handle and a long, curving
blade. The men swung the tool from side
to side in a curving motion. (Bateman p
17)
Isaac's career, that of farming, corresponded
with about seventy percent of the other settlers. (Embry p 90)
Isaac primarily settled on sheep farming. In the South Salt Lake Valley, during this
time there was plenty of rangeland on which to raise sheep. At the reunion in 2010, one of the speakers
mentioned that the family ran sheep in the area where there are now three
temples, South Jordan, Oquirrh Hills and Draper. Some of the tasks involved in raising sheep,
included shearing, required a group effort.
“Sheep shearing required strong backs and willing hands
during the spring.” (Bateman p 17) Cooperation was important for sheep farming. Often sheepherders
formed cooperatives and ran their sheep together. The Territorial Government came to the aid of
the sheep industry by exempting all sheep from taxation: (See Larson p 254.)
The sheep industry was dependent on range land,
which did not always accommodate the sheep in winter. The sheep industry received a big boost from
alfalfa. “In 1857 a shipload of converts
arrived from Australia and settled in the Mormon Colony of San Bernadino. At least one of the party brought with him a
supply of alfalfa seed. After proving
itself in southern California the seed appeared in various parts of Utah.” (Larson p 254)
The poem cited at the beginning of this
chapter gives us some idea of Isaac’s struggles to find his place. It lists some of his activities, plowing,
sowing, irrigating, raising grain, hauling wood, tending flocks. I see Isaac
in several lines of this poem. He helped establish the road up Bingham
Canyon to get wood. He also grazed sheep over a large expanse of the South
Salt Lake Valley.
1867 proved to be a hard year for South Jordan farmers, particularly those
closer to the river, “June 10: Much of the land and grain under water from
Jordan River flooding.” (Bateman p 242) Isaac’s homestead was along the river, and
likely his lower fields were flooded.
Parent’s arrival
After being in Utah only a few short years,
Isaac had the opportunity to bring his parents from England. His parents, as well as his younger brother
James came in the Robinson Handcart Company of 1860. This was the second to the last of the
handcart companies. The last handcart
company also came in 1860. The church
afterwards abandoned the handcart plan for the down and back plan in which
wagon trains were sent from Utah to pick up the emigrants and then bring them
back.
I do not know if Isaac met the handcart
company in Salt Lake when his parent arrived.
It was often that family members in Utah were alerted of the arrival of
relatives, and meet them at the mouth of the canyon or in Salt Lake City. Had Isaac been given warning, he would have
been there. Sir Richard Burton witnessed
the arrival of this train and provided this description in “The City of the
Saints” as quoted by P.A.M. Taylor:
[He saw]
the snake-lie column which announced that the emigrants were crossing the
bench-land; and people were hurrying from all sides to greet and to get news of
friends. Presently the carts came. All the new arrivals were in clean clothes,
the men washed and shaved, and the girls, who were singing hymns, habited in
Sunday dresses. The company was
sunburned, but looked well and thoroughly happy, and few, except the very young
and very old, who suffer much on such journeys, troubled the wains. They marched through clouds of dust over the
sandy road leading up the eastern of the town, accompanied by crowds, some on
foot, others on horse-back, and a few in traps… When the train reached the
public square…of the 8th ward, the wagons were ranged in line for
the final ceremony…. On this occasion the place of President Young was taken by
Presiding Bishop Hunter…. Preceded by a brass band; and companies, shook hand
with them and proceeded forthwith to business.
(Taylor, P.A.M. p 241-242)
Family Life
Isaac
married Martha Egbert, a cousin of the Becksteads, April 7. 1859. This was before any of his family had joined
him in Utah. For this ceremony, Isaac’s
father-in-law loaned him a white shirt, as he did not have one of his own. (Rupp)
Martha was 15 when she married:
Twenty-four-year-old
Isaac married fifteen-year-old Martha Ann Egbert on April 18, 1859, and took
her to his new homestead in South Jordan.
They were endowed in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City on April 12,
1862. They were the parents of ten
children, Isaac John (married Alice Robinson), Samuel (died as infant), Crilla
M. (married Zachariah Butterfield), Araminta (married Daniel Densley), Joseph
S. (married Abina Ann Beckstead), Hyrum S. (died as infant), Silas D. (married
Emeline Orgill), Junius F. (married Edna Vawdrey), and twins Edgar Ray (died as
infant) and Ema May (married John Willie Palmer). (Bateman p 69)
Homesteading
in South Jordan would not have been easy.
There would always have been more work to do. Isaac would have been busy with the farm,
clearing land, providing for shelter, putting in crops, keeping crops safe from
grasshoppers, etc. Martha would also
have been busy maintaining a home. It is
not known when Isaac moved from the dugout home “under the hill” to a home on
the bench farther north. Most of these
homes were also made of adobe. Sometimes
they were wood homes. “…Winters in South Jordan were cold, and it was necessary to stockpile
fuel. If coal was unavailable due to
lack of supply or money, people gathered wood from nearby canyons. Sage brush was another substitute fuel.” (Bateman p 13) For this reason Isaac had established the
road up Bingham Canyon.
Bateman
further gives this description of early pioneer life:
Many pioneer homes had bare wooden floors
that were immaculately scrubbed. Some
later home had linoleum over the wooden floors; others had carpets. The rugs were woven, braided, crocheted, or
hooked. In some cases, people made their
own. They used homegrown straw under the
rugs for padding. Once a year, they took
up the carpets, shook them outside, and pulled them over a nearby Lucerne patch
to help remove the dust. They removed
the old straw and put down new. Then
they relayed and retacked the carpet in place.
Settlers fashioned homemade ticks (bed-sized
bags made to hold straw) from flour sacks for use as mattresses. They filled the ticks with straw, which had
to be replaced several times each year.
They pulled fresh straw from the center of their stacks. Feathers of various fowl were another source
of material for bedding. There were no
bedsprings for support, just woven ropes in a crisscross pattern and knotted. …
Two or three persons commonly slept on each bed.
Furniture was simple and frequently secondhand. A “Home Comfort” range was a necessity for
cooking and warmth. … For the kitchen, a table, chairs and a cupboard for
dishes were nice additions. In the
bedroom, a dresser, mirror and steamer trunk were common furnishings. Curtains gave comfort and privacy to many
homes.
The earliest homes in South Jordan were
dugouts; later, log or adobe structures were built. Families often started with two rooms used as
bedrooms. A lean-to would be added later
and used as a kitchen, dining room and living room combined. As time went on and the family grew, more
rooms were added or a larger home was built.
Occasionally a porch was attached to the front of a home for shaded
coolness.
Outdoor privies were the only sanitary
facilities. Old catalogs served a dual
purpose. They were scanned to find
wished-for items, and then the least interesting pages were torn out and used
as toilet paper.
Household water was obtained from hand-dug
wells. …When it was time to wash
clothes, water was heated in a boiler on the stove. …The women scrubbed clothes on a washboard in
a round tub. First they boiled white
clothes in the boiler and added handmade soap to get out the dirt. Subsequent batches were of progressively
darker and dirtier clothing. The clean
clothes were hung out to dry. In the
winter, the clothes sometimes froze on the line and were brought into the
kitchen to thaw. People wore their
clothes longer between launderings because of the great effort involved in
cleaning them.
Women heated sadirons (flatirons) on top of
the wood-burning cookstove. They picked
up a flatiron with a wooden handle and used it to press clothing until is
cooled, put it back onto the stove to heat, and picked up another in its place.
Most families had large gardens and orchards
from which they obtained most of their food.
Such vegetables as corn were dried and later reconstituted with
water. In season, water cress, sego lily
bulbs, rhubarb, and pig weed supplemented fresh garden vegetables. Fowl in the garden kept insects under control
and supplied eggs and meat.
Canning in glass jars was a necessity. Families typically canned upwards of three
hundred quarts of peaches in addition to raspberries, strawberries, pears, and
apricots. Currants, chokecherries, and
elderberries were preserved as jellies.
The bottles had glass or metal lids with a rubber seal to preserve the
fruit. The fruit could be stored for
several years by means of the bottling process.
…Farm families in South Jordan raised their
own animals for meat, baked bread daily, churned their own butter, and curdled
home-made cottage cheese. There was
generally some sort of fragrance emanating from the kitchen, whether it was ham
hocks and beans, simmering chili sauce, golden brown biscuits, and so on. Folks ate lots of handmade ice cream. They used hand-turned ice cream freezers with
ice cut from the canal during the winter and preserved in sawdust.
Refrigeration was not available, but cool
cellars housed potatoes, cabbage, carrots, squash, and apples. Cellars were generally holes in the ground
with an entrance to walk through and a roof covered with timber, straw, and
dirt.
When people butchered pigs, they cut up the
meat and stored it in a barrel of salt brine.
Sometimes a liquid smoke solution was basted onto the meat, after which
it was wrapped in brown paper and stored underneath the wheat in a wheat bin. …
Wild rabbits were slaughtered during winter community hunts undertaken on bob
sleighs. The rabbits were hung on the
side of the house or coal shed with the pelt left on until the meat was needed
for eating. The rabbit meat was soaked
in salt water with a little vinegar to take out the wild taste. Fried or baked, it was “as good as any
chicken you ever ate.” Home-grown beef,
sheep, and lamb were also sources of meat.
If a large animal was slaughtered during the warm season, the meat was
shared with neighbors to prevent spoiling.
The neighbors often reciprocated.
(Bateman pp 11-16)
As noted, Isaac planted a large orchard. He also had a large garden. Large gardens were common at this time, even
for those who lived in more urban areas.
"Even in these communities [urban areas], many of the residents
were involved in agriculture in some way."
(Embry p 39)
Isaac's choice of profession would have taken
him away from home during extended periods while watching his sheep. However, as his children grew older they
would have tgaken over much of this responsibility. Isaac ran sheep throughout the south part of
Salt Lake Valley. There are now three
temples which cover the expanse of his sheep running, Jordan River, Oquirh
Mountain and Draper. (Isaac Wardle
Reunion)
Isaac’s children would have been an important
part of the daily operations, the boys helping their father with chores, and
the young women helping their mothers.
"Children were assigned specific tasks in both monogamous and
polygamous homes. Daughters usually
worked with their mothers and sons worked with their father, learning the roles
that they would have as adults."
(Embry p 99) "Men worked in
the fields with their sons. . .and their sons helped with caring for the
animals and crops; women and girls worked at home or around the
house" (ibid p 103)
In early South Jordan shopping involved
travel. “During
the early years of South Jordan, stores were rare. Pioneers traveled to the ZCMI in Salt Lake or
to West Jordan. (Bateman p 31)
Isaac became a father October 31, 1861 and
gave his first son his own name; Isaac John Wardle Jr. (called John.) (Family History) “Isaac and Martha received their endowments
at the endowment house in Salt Lake City 12 April 1862. They were the Parents of ten children.” (Wardle, Orrin) John would have to have been sealed to them. Isaac’s first daughter, Crilla Marie followed
John four years later. She was born
October 15, 1865.
Up until after 1864, all the homes in South
Jordan were “below the hill.” It wasn’t
until after this, that homes began to expand onto the bench and beyond. (See Bateman p 152.)
Mormon women had an important, although
different role from that of others of the day, and women of today:
“The cult of true womanhood”—the standard
nineteenth-century American assumption that woman’s essential role was to be
pious, pure, submissive, and domestic—was understood in a different theological
context by the Mormons. It belonged to a
larger set of tacit assumptions about the nature of family life and the ideal
goals that included marriage for romantic love, idealization of the wife and
mother, warmth and affection in the family circle, games and conversation
around the hearth, helpful participation of the children in family chores, and
visits to relatives “over the river and through the woods.” This was the nineteenth-century family, not
necessarily in actual experience but in the ideal… (Arrington and Bitton p 194)
A weekly
family ritual would have been preparing for Sunday meetings:
Saturday night was
set aside for bathes in preparation for Sunday.
The water was drawn in a bucket from the canal or well and carried to
the kitchen. The large copper boiled was
filled and heated to the boiling point.
A #3 tub was placed on the floor and everyone took turns bathing,
starting with the youngest. The nearby
oven door was opened to provide warmth.
Hair was brushed until dry and then it was time to go to bed. In the meantime the father’s shoes were
polished and Sunday clothes were laid out, ready to don for church the next
morning. (Bateman p 160)
Isaac proved to be a good provider. He had always been a hard worker. He farmed, and planted a couple orchards.
(Rupp)
Medical
care was seriously lacking in this period of history. People more likely relied on home remedies
and blessings rather than professional doctors.
At times the cure was worse than the disease:
As in most pioneer
settlements in the early days, there were few doctors in the area around South
Jordan. Even when there were, people
preferred such home remedies as herbs, hot baths, and cold packs to stimulate
the body to rid itself of disease.
Doctors were often poorly trained, and medical science was very new and
untested. Some corrective measures
worked surprisingly well; others were questionable. Doctors generally used bleeding to rid a
person of impure blood. Doses of
calomel, a combination of mercury and chlorine, were administered for many
ailments. Both remedies of bleeding and
calomel could be fatal. Consequently,
many local pioneers relied on blessings by the laying on of hands in
conjunction with home remedies and felt better served than if they had asked
for a doctor. (Bateman p42)
A very serious situation in terms of medical
services occurred in 1881. “1881: Diptheria epidemic in South Jordan.”
(Bateman p 243) Diptheria was a
very nasty disease.
Schools
Although Isaac would not have attended formal school, his
children as they grew would have been involved.
The school year was much shorter, as children were often needed on the
farm:
Education was very important to the early
pioneers and ward schools were set up almost immediately. The ward meetinghouse was usually also the
community school. School was free to all
and religion was a main subject taught along with reading, writing on slates,
spelling, and arithmetic. In time,
territorial common schools were created by law.
They were the “officially recognized public school of the time.” They oftentimes were one and the same with
the ward school, however. South Jordan
was no different.
The progress of schools followed that of the churches, as the buildings
were used for both. James Oliver was an
early school teacher.
The first school in South Jordan was held in
a small adobe building one-fourth mile south of the cemetery. It served a dual purpose for religious
meetings as well. It was only fourteen
by eighteen feet with two or three small windows. Candles were used to supplement the light
form the windows. There was a small
stove to furnish heat. The floor was
wood and the roof consisted of sticks closely laid together and covered with
dirt. The walls were adobe brick. A few years later, a granite and adobe
building, more than double the size of the first school, was built on top of
the hill at the northeast corner of the cemetery.
The first teachers were men. They were John Winward and James Oliver. …The teachers were sometimes paid with farm
products such as butter, eggs, and meat in the early years.
John Winward brought a freshly cut bundle of
3-4 foot tall willows each morning for disciplining purposes. Sometimes a student was sent out to the ditch
bank to get his own switch. A minor rule
infraction such as whispering became grounds for a whipping. The willow bundle was always worn out by the
end of the day. An alternative form of
punishment consisted of standing on the “Dunce Stool” on one foot balancing a
pile of books with outstretched hands.
(Bateman p 113)
The
students all met in the same room. When
the new church building was finished in 1877, the school moved to this
building:
Every Friday a program was presented.
They enjoyed songs, recitation, dialogues and always ended with a
spelling match…
The next school house was also used as a
social hall and church meetinghouse. It
was larger than the first school, measuring thirty by forty-six feet with two
stories. It was erected in 1873-77 on
the northeast corner of the cemetery…
To begin with, all the grades were housed
and taught at the same time in the same room. … There were 125 students from
ages six to sixteen years in one room.
As the number of students increased, more rooms were needed. In one of the schools, four rooms were made
out of one by hanging curtains across wire cable stretched crossway. Heat for each room was furnished by pot
bellied stoves. The students took turns
carrying in buckets of coal to use in the stoves. Light was furnished by candles at first. Kerosene lamps were later purchased and
utilized.
School was held three or four months out of
the year. The rest of the time, the
students were needed on the farm to help with planting and harvesting…
Mothers made school clothing by hand. Most pupils had only one set of school
clothes. Consequently, the clothes were
washed at night while the children were sleeping. The boys wore their “Sunday best” pants
called Knickerbockers that came up to their knees. Bib overalls were another common style for
the boys. Long dresses made of gingham
were the style for the girls. Shoes were
hard to come by, so students often attended school barefoot. (Bateman pp169-70)
The
school was outgrown again, and another school was made closer to the Isaac
Wardle residence. “1892
Red brick school built 10390 South 1300 West.”
(Bateman p 243)
Nauvoo Legion, Indian Relations
Bateman
described some of the early interactions between the settlers of South Jordan
and the Native American population:
Bands of Indians roamed the Salt Lake Valley
long before white settlers came and were an integral part of the history of the
early settlement of the area. The
culture of the Indian was completely different from that of the pioneers, so
both newcomers and natives had to learn to exist side by side. … By the time
South Jordan was settled in the 1860s, the Indians were often stealing food to
stay alive.
In the early days of white settlement and
before, the Shoshone and Ute Indians wore breech clothes, moccasins, and
feathers. Chiefs were more ornately
attired, wearing feather headdresses and beautiful multicolored beads. Their clothing was fashioned from buffalo
skins. Buffalo provided them with meat,
which they said was very delicious.
Teepees were designed from buffalo skins. The hides were tough and provided warm
protection from the cold.
The Goshute Indians frequented the South
Jordan area, also. They ate fish,
plants, and insects. Few, if any,
possessed horses with which to hunt deer or buffalo. The sole taste of meat for them might be an
occasional ground squirrel, dug from its burrow with sticks. … The Indian
tribes of Utah Valley traveled north to hunt buffalo or gather salt and
followed the Jordan River when they were in its vicinity. They often camped in Beckstead’s lower
fields, where the Midas creek empties into the Jordan River because they could
obtain fresh water there. The Indians
usually camped there for several days.
A large group of Indians lived near the
future site of South Jordan. They were
friendly to the white settlers of the area.
When one of the Indian men became very sick, Mrs. Alexander Beckstead
and others prepared chicken soup and other food to help the man regain his
health. Several days later, the band of
Indians approached the white settlement, the lifeless body of the man thrown
over a horse.
They dug a shallow grave only three feet
long. “The Indian then removed the body
from the horse, folded his legs and arms to his body, bound it tight with rope,
and placed it in the grave. They placed
the food, which the settlers had earlier offered, around the body. When asked why they had not given it to the
sick Indian they said they knew that he was going to die, anyway. They did not cover his grave but mounted
their horses and rode away. A few days
later they all came back with more food and looked at the grave. They said the Indian had gone to the ‘Happy
Hunting Ground,’ so they covered the grave and rode away.”
That spot became
the site of the West Jordan cemetery.
(Bateman, pp49-51)
“Many Indians,….regarded the Mormons as
natural kinsmen, for both Saints and Indians sought to manage certain property
interests collectively, practiced cooperative herding, and shared with the
poor. (Arrington and Bitton p 156)
The Mormons had to cohabitate with the Native
Americans who were already on the land.
The Salt Lake Valley, for the most part, was between the territories of
the Shoshone and the Ute. However this
does not mean that there was no interaction.
In 1865, the Uintah reservation in eastern Utah was established, and
“Utah chieftans conveyed to the United States title to the land in the settled
areas of the territory… The treaty
settlement, in which the Mormons were active participants, was a necessity for
both Indians and Saints. The actual
removal of most of the Indians from Mormon neighborhoods roughly coincided with
the 1869 adoption of President Ulysses S. Grant’s “Quaker” policy of making the
Indians wards of the nation.” (Arrington
and Bitton p 156)
The Saints faced the most serious Indian
uprising in 1865, when a minority of Indian militants rejected the reservation
solution and began guerrilla warfare. A
young Indian outlaw by the name of Black Hawk, with a hard core of perhaps
thirty leaders and two or three hundred warriors, conducted a four-year
campaign against the Mormons that resulted in the death of seventy white men,
the loss of two thousand head of horses and cattle, and the abandonment of
twenty-five settlements. Despite
requests by Mormon officials and Indian agents, the federal army units in Utah
refused to intervene or to provide protection for the white settlers, the
entire responsibility for defense was placed on the Nauvoo Legion. Four years after the war began, the Saints of
Fillmore, Utah, were assembled for their regular Sunday services when Black
Hawk and his militants walked in.
Surprisingly contrite, Black [Hawk[ said they came to prove to the whites
“that their hearts were good, and that they desired a lasting peace.” The following September Black Hawk became ill
and died. He was buried in a special
religious ceremonies near Spring Lake where he was born. In a funeral sermon Brigham Young said, he
was the most formidable foe… that the Saints have had to encounter for many
years. (Arrington and Bitton p 156-7)
It is unlikely Isaac had an active role in
fighting the Indians, but he was a member of the local militia of West
Jordan. He served until he was 35. “Steel sword and scabbard: Owned by Isaac
John Wardle… Used in Utah militia as
member of the John T. Hill Company D Battalion 2nd Regiment, West
Jordan Military District, mustered out in 1870.” (DUP Museum case, 4791)
Recreation
Community
celebrations were frequent in South Jordan, and provided a break from regular
activities. Some took place annually:
One of the first
recorded celebrations in South Jordan was reported in the Deseret News on 24
July 1867. A salute to the Stars and
Stripes was held at sunrise. At ten
o’clock that morning a meeting commenced under “a comfortable bowery provided
for the occasion.” A choir provided
music. “Chaplain WM. A. Bills” offered a
prayer. Isaac Harrison delivered an
oration on the exodus of the Saints from Nauvoo and the new wilderness home
“where we can dwell in peace.” Thomas
Allsop and Henry “Bexsted” also gave speeches, which were interspersed with
salutes and singing. “A social dance was
held in the after part of the day, when all went off very pleasantly.” Thomas W. “Bexsted” was the marshal of the
day. (Bateman p28)
Activities
were often sponsored by the church:
People had to create
their own amusement in the early days and much of it was associated with the
local ward. Priesthood meeting was held
on Monday night, Mutual on Tuesday, and Choir on Thursday. The children had Primary one day each week
and the ladies had Relief Society another day during the week. Mutual focused on various activities for the
youth. Sometimes during Mutual, plays
were written, directed, and produced.
(Bateman p 161)
Dances were a source of entertainment. “Another entertainment was
dancing. At first, homes or the basement
of the ‘old Mud Temple’ were used for dances.
The community held dances in the top of the Jordan Merc.” (Bateman pp 29-30) “Admittance to dances was whatever the
settlers had on hand such as a squash, a bag of potatoes, or a basket of
corn. …Besides dancing, the people of
South Jordan Ward enjoyed public speaking, one-act plays, and operettas. The ward had a lot of musical talent.” (ibid p 163)
“South Jordan settlers particularly enjoyed participating in
melodramas. Complete costumes were
generally part of each production.
“Bluebeard” was a favorite wintertime melodrama.” (ibid p 153)
No community is complete
without a brass band, as mentioned by Bishop Bills in a letter to Isaac:
I have
succeeded in organizing a brass band of thirteen. We have got their
instruments and they had sufficient practice so that the Tunes they play, one
would think they were old hands. It begins to seem like a town when the
Band plays. The rapid progress they have made is wonderful. Joseph
Orgal is principle. It is our intention to have a music box made for the
twenty fourth of July and if possible uniform them and the Relief Society will
present them a nice flag as we are called on to go to the City for a grand
Jubilee. We have been spoken of very highly in the Priesthood meeting in
the City that there was one band at least that would play without whiskey and
respect the Priesthood and President Taylor wants more of the same kind and has
made arrangement to that effect. (Bills)
Henry Beckstead also played a part in putting the band
together. He named the band members:
I have taken lead and got a brass band started here since
you left. I sent back east and got the instruments. We can play 2
tunes. We are going to play next Saturday night—down to the
Bishop’s. There is 12 in the Band. Our teacher for the Band and
their names H.B. Beckstead, Nephi Orgal, Wm. A Beckstead, Gordon G. Beckstead,
Samuel H. Beckstead, Edward Orgal, Brigham Sellers, Gordon G. Bills, John
Winward, John Hold, William Goff, Lemus Peterson. Teacher for the band Joseph
Orgal. We will give you a cheer when you come home again if nothing
happens. (Beckstead, Henry)
The brass band was organized while Isaac was on his
mission. Sophia made this comment about
the band. “Well it is a beautiful
improving to the Ward. (Wardle, Sophia,
letter August 6, 1879)
The ward also sponsored bazaars:
Ward Bazaars in South
Jordan were significant events. Members
of all ages participated in the three-day events. Individuals placed bids on goods, livestock,
and local produce which were to be auctioned.
Dances were held the first evening and local talent produced a play or program
for the second night of entertainment.
South Jordan residents were excellent musicians and had a knack for
performing as actors, singers, and orators.
(Bateman p 163)
Annually there was a great celebration for Pioneer Day:
July 24, 1847, was the date Mormon pioneers
first entered the Salt Lake Valley.
Thereafter, it became traditional to celebrate the anniversary date as a
holiday. In South Jordan, work began on
the local celebration at least a month ahead of time. A parade, games, and a program were usually
planned. The festivities were designed
to take up the whole day.
There were no stores to buy lots of fancy
items to decorate for the parade. Floats
were wagons draped with red, white, and blue bunting and adorned with small
flags. Music for the parade and
subsequent activities was furnished by a band made up of Moroni Oliver and his
sons.
The raising of the United States flag was
the first event. The flag was put into
place by a young man of the ward who climbed the flag pole and tied the flag to
the top. He also retired the flag in the
evening. H. Byram Beckstead
traditionally blew the bugle early in the morning, presumably at the flag
raising.
The parade would start at 9:00 a.m. and
follow a route from the meeting house “around the block.” …The parade participants included the
decorated wagons pulled by work horses, the playing band, followed by buggies
and surreys. They would end at the ball
diamond where the formed a circle and began a short program.
Following the program were games: Baseball, pony rides, races, and a tug-of-war
for the men. …A show was held on the
stage in the afternoon for the children in the west end of the meetinghouse. In the evening, all the benches were moved
outside so a dance could be held. After
the dance, everyone stayed to help carry the benches back inside. (ibid p 164)
I am not sure when
baseball games were introduced to South Jordan.
Bishop Bills wrote to Isaac in 1879, “Our school seems all right. There was
a short time it stopped on account of Walter’s ankle being sprained in playing
ball in the City.” (Bills) South Jordan had a regular
baseball team by 1886, The Red Gales.
Baseball competitions would take place between communities, and
sometimes for special holidays. (ibid p
27)
Wintertime afforded its
own particular type of entertainment. In
addition to dances, hay rides on a big Bob sled were common occurrences. Sometimes these rides would involve visiting
and singing or caroling. Ice skating on
the canals was also a favorite activity.
(See ibid pp 29-30)
Church Service
Those who became members of the Church put
themselves under obligation to participate in the building of the Kingdom. “Mormons were under an obligation to fit
themselves to take part in building the Kingdom. Not only were the requited to be loyal in
obedience to the “counsel” of the priesthood: they were to impose on themselves
training and discipline. They were to
seek all forms of knowledge. They were
to enjoy wholesome recreation.” (Taylor, P.A.M. p 6)
Isaac took this message to heart, and worked
to better himself. He was always trying
to improve himself as he had the opportunity, and when older he taught himself
to read and write. (Rupp) “Isaac would study at night reading all the
books he could get and he would practice writing using a shovel for his slate
and charcoal for his pencil, lying in from of the fire place of his small home
for light. He is reported always to have
had a very strong desire to gain knowledge...”
(Wardle, Orrin)
Isaac worked at self-improvement. “Isaac Wardle studied books at night by the
light of the fire and practiced writing on a shovel with a piece of
charcoal. He was eager to gain knowledge
and to improve his home and farm. His
farm prospered with two large orchards, two homes, and many outbuildings on his
land. It was located at approximately
10015 South, West of the Beckstead Ditch and east of 1000 West. His orchards were east of the irrigation
ditch. (Bateman p 70)
Isaac, as well as his neighbors, were church going people,
from as early as they had settled in South Jordan and before:
The Becksteads, Wardles, Soffes, Olivers,
Winwards, Shields, and Holts were some of the first families in South Jordan, …
Each of these families were of the Mormon faith and actively gathered together
on Sundays to worship. The population
growth in the vicinity necessitated the need to organize a South Jordan Branch
of the West Jordan Ward. This organization
occurred in 1863.
Minutes of the South Jordan Ward indicate
that meetings of the branch commenced in private houses in 1861. The meetings were held under the direction of
G. Nimrod Soffe, and teacher in the West Jordan Ward. Later, Gordon S. Beckstead took charge of the
meetings. A number of meetings were
held in the home of Isaac J. Wardle.
Those who had the best accommodations took turns hosting. (Bateman, p 151)
Isaac and Martha must have had one of the
nicer homes in town to have been selected on multiple occasions to host the
Sunday school. The branch of the church
was formally organized in South Jordan in 1863. “South Jordan was
differentiated as a distinct settlement in 1863 when a branch of The Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was established there.” (ibid p vii)
James Wood was the first branch president. (ibid p 82)
The first chapel was built in 1864:
“In 1864, a tiny adobe chapel was built in South Jordan. It measured fourteen feet by eighteen
feet. The chapel was also used as the
local school. It stood one-fourth mile
south and east of the cemetery and was located at the south end of a mall
hollow under the hill. It was the first
public building in South Jordan.
…The Branch was known as the “Upper Branch”
and covered the territory from South Jordan southward to the point of the
mountain. … There were a total of nine families living in South Jordan when the
building was constructed.
…The official organization of the branch
took place in 1863 and James Wood was the first ranch president. He served for four years, at which time William
A. Bills was made branch president. (ibid
pp 151-152)
The branch would have had a shock, and perhaps a struggle
because their branch president chose to leave the church. “James Wood:
He was called as the first branch president of the South Jordan Branch
of the LDS church in 1863 and served until 1866. He left the church at that time and moved to
Missouri. James’s son, John, and his
family, who lived next door to his father, followed him to Missouri. (ibid p 82)
“As early as 1849 some wards experimented
with Sunday Schools for children. Like
those in nineteenth-century England, they gave practical and moral training as
well as classes on church history and theology.
In 1867 the General Sunday School Union was founded to coordinate the
work in the wards. In 1877 Brigham Young
directed the bishops to include the sacrament in the Sunday school exercises,
since few children attended the afternoon sacrament meeting with their parents. (Arrington and Bitton p 214)
The South Jordan Sunday School was organized in 1866, and
Sunday school meetings began to be held in 1968. (See Bateman p 152)
At this time, Sunday meetings had two separate
sessions. On the Sabbath, Sunday school
lasted two hours as did sacrament meeting, so most of Sunday was spent in church. Alma Holt remembered hearing the old timers
speak in church of spiritual experiences and of hard times witnessed while
crossing the plains as well as during the early years of settlement.” (Bateman p 159) Sunday school was held in the morning. It would have included the administration of
the sacrament. Sacrament meeting was
held in the evenings, and in addition to the sacrament, would have included
speakers from the congregation. Isaac
likely had more than his share of turns at speaking, as the bishop called
people to talk about pioneers episodes.
“Notes: Sunday in Lonnie Holt and Annette Holt “South Jordan Heritage,”
typescript stated that the bishop called the speakers who related stories about
the handcart companies crossing the plains and Indian troubles. People also gave individual ideas and views
of religion, he said.” (bid, p 273)
Isaac was not the
only handcart pioneer living in South Jordan.
James Oliver had been in the Willie Company. (ibid p 71)
Frederic Cooper came in the Martin Company with Isaac. (ibid. p 73) Additionally William O. Newbold had worked in
the Whitwick mines, where Isaac had worked as a young child. He like Isaac was self-educated. (ibid p 130)
The Relief Society in South Jordan was organized in
1969. “1869 Ann Hold called as first
Relief Society President.” (Bateman p
242)
1874 saw the organization of the Young Men’s program. “1874 November 29. Young Men’s Institute and
Benevolent Society was organized.
(Bateman p 243) The Young Woman’s
program followed a few years later.
“1878 Young women’s organized.”
(ibid)
With growth in the area, the branch outgrew the small
building:
…A larger building measuring thirty feet by forty-six feet was constructed
on top of the hill at the northeast corner of the cemetery. …
Granite rocks and adobe bricks were used in
the construction. Adobe bricks were
fired in a kiln owned by John W. Winward at his nearby farm. Split log benches were situated on three
sides of the one-room building. The new
building later became known as the “Old Mud Temple.” …
This two-story structure was built out of
rocks and adobe in 1873. On November 25,
1877, the “Upper Room” of the South Jordan meetinghouse was dedicated and
opened for use. The meetinghouse was
built at a cost of $3,000. It was
located at the northeast corner of the cemetery. Both school and church functions were carried
on in the building.
The main doors of the church faced south.
Inside, rounding stairs on each side led up to the chapel. The relief
Society “mad rag carpets to cover the steps, pulpit and choir stand.” Dances, melodramas, and socials were staged
in the basement recreation room. (ibid p
153)
The Branch was formally organized as a ward in 1877 with
William Bills continuing as bishop.
“Brother Bills became the bishop of South Jordan when the branch became
a ward on June 17, 1877.” (Bateman p
130) “1877 June 17. South Jordan Ward organized: Wm A. Bills as
bishop and Ensign I. Stocking and Henry Beckstead as counselors.” (ibid p 243)
Church duties included visiting the members as is done
now. “There were also ward teaching and
visiting teaching in the homes of all members.
This was done on a monthly basis by the priesthood holders and sisters,
respectively. Such visits were for the
purpose of teaching the gospel to each family and to check on their welfare on
a regular basis. (Bateman p 160)
A ward choir was organized shortly after the ward was
organized. “…James Oliver organized the
first choir in the ward. He was set
apart as ward “singing master” and music teacher on September 16, 1877. He led the choir by playing the melody on his
violin. After an organ was purchased
later on, he played musical parts on it, using one finger of each hand. (Bateman p 153)
Tithing was another obligation of church members:
A system of tithing storehouses was established
by the LDS church in the 1850s to handle cooperative savings, investments, and
surpluses. Laborers on church and public
projects were compensated from the tithing offices in the form of food,
clothing, and tools. The poor were also
cared for using the same resources. The
General Tithing Office and Bishop’s Central Storehouse behave operation in Salt
Lake City in 1850 to serve the church as a whole. Regional and local community facilities
followed, including church farms.
Tithing was paid in the form of livestock, labor on church and public
projects, yields from farms or mines or households, coin & currency, and
levies on profits from stores and factories.
Tithing was not compulsory, but a very high percentage of church members
paid a full tithing, which amounted to a tenth of their income.
The tithing yard in South Jordan was located
“a little west of the flour mill and below the (Oscar) Johnson Place.” The farmers of South Jordan brought a tenth
of their alfalfa, horses, eggs, pigs, cattle, or other produce to the tithing
yard. There was a large haystack to
deposit the hay. There were holding pens
for the farm animals until the Bishop could market them for the best price. North of Leo Palmer’s was “a red brick
building they called the church granary and wheat was stored there.” (ibid pp 161-162)
Isaac was called on a
mission in 1879. While he was away,
Bishop Bills described a sacrament meeting.
“We have peace
and good meetings. The Choir sang your hymn and Joseph read the
circumstances of the Ordinance of Baptism you attended.” (Bills)
So even while away, Isaac’s words were part of sacrament meetings. When Bishop Bills says “your hymn” I assume
he means a hymn that was particular to Isaac.
The primary was officially
organized while Isaac was away on his mission.
Sophia, his third wife was a counselor.
“…The organizing of the Primary, an organization for children, followed
on October 10, 1879. Melissa Jenkins
served as first president of the South Jordan primary. Norma V. Oliver and Sophia M. Wardle were
counselors and Lucy A. Winward was secretary. (ibid p 153)
After returning from his mission Isaac served in the
Sunday school. “Isaac was superintendent
of the LDS South Jordan Sunday School for nineteen years. He served as president of the seventies
quorum and went on a nine-month mission to England in 1879.” (ibid p 70)
“Isaac was an active church member and
citizen. He was superintendent of his
ward Sunday school for some nineteen years.
He was president of his Seventy’s Quorum. He served as a home missionary for a number
of years and was ordained a High Priest.”
(Wardle, Orrin) As he returned
from England the end of 1879, and moved to Idaho in 1900, her served in this
capacity most of the time he lived in the South Jordan Ward after returning
home.
I am not sure of the occasion, perhaps some
ward party, but Isaac purchased candy and nuts for the Sunday school. “Jordan Mercantile Ledger:
Sold I.J. Wardle fr Sunday School Candy .25 lbs 2.12 20 lbs mixed nuts
3.00.” (Bateman p 249)
The ward saw an influx of members in 1881 as
another boom to South Jordan with the completion of the upper canal. “1881: Utah and Salt Lake Canal used for first
time.” (Bateman p 243) This canal made it so the bench area could be
farmed.
The South County area was formed into a stake, at about
the same time Isaac was leaving the area.
“1900 LDS Jordan Stake of Zion organized.” (ibid p 243)
Until this time South Jordan had been part of the Salt lake Stake.
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