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Nathan Cram Tenney
1817-1882
Convert,
Colonizer,
Missionary,
Peacemaker
By
Janice W . Tenney
and
Paul A. Tenney
|^M
V
r
A'4
r
v—"•
Nathan Cram Tenney (1817-1882)
Contents
Illustrations
iv
Preface
v
The Early Years
1
Conversion
5
Nauvoo and Westward
7
Winter Quarters
9
Plains Trek and Utah
11
Journey to California
13
San Bernardino
15
Return to Utah
21
In and About Utah's Dixie
23
Participating in the Principal
27
Settling Grafton
30
Short Creek
37
Toquerville
38
Kanab
42
Woodruff
45
New Mexico
47
Minnesota
51
St. Johns
53
Appendix A-"Courage 1860"
59
Appendix B - Patriarchal Blessing
62
Sources
71
Index
77
[[[
Illustrations
Nathan Cram Tenney
vi
Meshach Tenney and Phebe Cram
1
Townships of Wayne County, New York
2
Counties of Illinois
3
Jo Daviess County Townships
4
Nathan Cram Tenney
5
Typical log cabin
9
Winter Quarters Memorial
10
Sketch of 1850s Mormon San Bernardino Settlement
14
Map of San Bernardino Valley
15
Layout of Fort San Bernardino
16
Map Showing Places Nathan Lived
25
Nathan C. Tenney and His Two Wives
28
Southern Utah Cotton Mission
31
Nathan's Brand
34
The Tenney Home in Toquerville
38
Tombstone of Nathan C. Tenney
57
j
v
Preface
The story of Nathan Cram Tenney was written for our children and grandchildren.
They are descendants of the only child of Nathan and his young plural wife, Grace
Tippett Jose Tenney. We hope this account of his life will answer questions they may
have about him. Nathan lived during the "western frontier period" and frequently was on
the leading edge in new communities. He was one of many who were early members of
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and lived in the Nauvoo area. He was
nearby when Joseph Smith was martyred and then participated in the 1848 wagon train
exodus to Salt Lake Valley. He went on to settle a new San Bernardino community in
California and several areas in southern Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. Unfortunately,
Nathan died in a most dramatic way, attempting to bring peace to people of differing
backgrounds.
We are grateful to Marsha Stratton for her assistance with this project. She has
done a great deal of research about Nathan and gave us permission to draw on the
material she and her husband, Cliff Stratton, wrote, which they titled A Tribute to Nathan
Cram Tenney and Olive Strong. Their work was privately published in 1981 for a reunion
of the descendants of Samuel Benjamin Tenney, their Tenney line. Because of the
development of the computer and the Internet, we were able to include additional
information as more records became available. Marsha answered many questions and
also provided some of the pictures used in this story.
Historian Leo Lyman was also most helpful. His great-great-grandfather, Amasa
M. Lyman, was a leader in the San Bernardino colony, and Nathan's name is found
among the entries in Amasa's journal. Additional information has been drawn from Leo's
book, San Bernardino: the rise and fall of a California community. He shared with us
pages from his new book, which is being prepared for publication, Amasa Mason Lyman,
Apostle and Apostate: a study in dedication.
We are grateful to family members M. Arthur and Terrie Tenney for their help
with research in Utah libraries. We give further thanks to our granddaughter, Andrea
Lewis, who suggested solutions for questions about grammar and formatting while she
was in a demanding master's program at the University of Indiana.
We are indebted to Elder Donald P. Tenney, our brother, who undertook to be our
editor. He made suggestions to improve the clarity of the story and corrected other items
which further helped, and for which we are most grateful.
Lastly, we stand in awe of Nathan's innate abilities to colonize, visualize, and
extend peace to all who came within his influence. The generations that followed Nathan
have been blessed by his example of goodness, industry, and love.
Janice W. Tenney
Paul A. Tenney
Apple Valley, California
2007
v
Nathan Cram Tenney
VI
Nathan Cram Tenney
(1817-1882)
The Early Years
Throughout his life Nathan Cram Tenney exhibited a unique pioneer
determination as he continually left one area and moved to another. Building on what he
learned in one community helped him survive in other western locales, as he frequently
moved into undeveloped areas. As life's uncertainties came, he apparently met them
boldly and with confidence. His innate ability to conquer and tame harsh lands became "a
dominant factor" during his life.1 He also showed control in recognizing and managing
personal conflicts that arose. In most situations, however, challenges were forced upon
him through events not of his choice. He rose to each occasion to meet his seemingly
unending struggles in a positive way. In facing his many difficult experiences, he
developed significant character traits such as patience and forgiveness, with a strong
desire to live in peace with his neighbors on the frontier.
This pattern of moving and being unsettled began in his early childhood when the
marriage of his father and
mother ended in divorce.
Nathan's father, Meshach
Tenney, at age twenty-three
had married Phebe Cram
when she was nineteen.2
Finding farming a difficult
prospect in Ontario County,
New
York,
speculating
Nathan Cram Tenney's parents—Meshach Tenney and Phebe Cram.
Photos courtesy of M.R. Stratton.
he
began
on the iron
mines in that area.3 Those
investment ventures were
drastically unsuccessful. He reverted to farming but found that provided limited income
and the inability to repay his debts. This put financial and physical strain on their
marriage. As a result, not long after the birth of their son, Nathan Cram Tenney, in the
summer of 1817 in what was then Ontario County, Phebe sought a divorce.
During the first decade of Nathan's childhood he lived in considerable emotional
turmoil caused by his parents' divorce, as he shuffled back and forth between his parents'
homes. In 1821 a few years after her divorce from Meshach, Phebe married John Gates,
a man nineteen years her senior. They had one son, Samuel, born in 1822. Various
records and family stories recounted about Phebe indicate that she had several
marriages.8
Townships o f Wayne County, New York
Lake Ontario
Ontario
Williamson
Walworth
Marion
Rose
Marion
County
Macedon
• • -
Arcadia
Palmyra
- • — -v
Lyons
v~
j
Salen
N
s
Hill Cumorah
4
Ontario County
Erie Canal
Ontario Township is approximately 13 miles NNW of Palmyra.
Meshach, Nathan's father, waited nearly a decade before taking a second wife,
Eliza R. Bush, whom he married when Nathan was nine. Although Nathan was much
older than the children of his father's second marriage, he considered them his brothers
and sisters not just half-siblings. Because Eliza, his stepmother, was involved in rearing
Nathan during his teenage years, he also considered her as his mother. Nathan felt close
to his stepmother and the many children born to his father's second wife, maintaining that
i •
sentiment into his mature years.
9
Nathan's unsettled environment during his early years left an indelible print upon
him. As he came to the end of his teen years, he realized he needed to make a decision
about where he would live. He found living with his mother and stepfather was less than
desirable; yet living with his father and stepmother in a small house with several younger
siblings did not seem much better. Therefore he made the decision to break from his
family and start out on his own.10
A few of his Tyrrell kin—cousins on his mother's side—were then living on the
frontier in northwestern Illinois, almost 800 miles to the west, and he decided to move
11
17
near them. Nathan purchased his first claim in Illinois in October 1836, using "the few
1 *3
resources he had saved during the last few years of his teenage life."
Land was still
considered cheap in that northern Illinois area; before the California gold rush years, it
sold for $1.25 an acre.14 Nathan began farming in Pleasant Valley in an area later called
Berreman, which was divided from the Pleasant Valley Township, in Jo Daviess County,
Illinois. He became one of the first permanent
Counties of Illinois
settlers in that area. His cousins' farms were only
a few miles away in Ward's Grove, an adjoining
township in the same county.15
Nathan spent his first winter on his land
on the western frontier, "living primarily on the
game he was able to secure from the wild and
what other commodities his cousins could share
with him."16 The next spring he planted and in
the fall harvested a good crop. That fall, just a
year after he moved to Illinois, his mother and
stepfather,
John Gates, joined him there.17
Nathan helped his stepfather and younger halfbrother, Samuel, build a cabin for their family.18
Nathan continued living in Berreman for six
years, and each year was successful in reaping a
sizable harvest. The soil there was said to be
Hancock County
J o Daviess Co.
superior to any other in all the state of Illinois.19 In addition to farming, some winters
Nathan would leave his farm to work in the mines in order to supplement his income.
It was during these years in Berreman that Nathan took a wife, but the marriage
lasted only a short time. Later neither the marriage, the name of the wife, nor the divorce
was discussed openly in the family according to a son, Samuel Benjamin Tenney, in his
91
life story.
J o Daviess County Townships
Vinegar Hill
Scales Mound
Council Hill
Apple River
Warren
Rush
Guilford
Nora
Thompson
Wards
Elizabeth
A
Hanover
Woodbine
Derinda
Stockton
Grove
Pleasant Valley
Berreman
Miles
Nathan's farmland was located in Berreman in the lower right hand corner of Jo Daviess County.
Conversion
Around 1840 Nathan became acquainted with Olive Strong, the daughter of Ezra
Strong, a Methodist minister "of no small reputation,"22 who had converted to The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in 1833 while living in upstate New York.
The Strong family had moved from New York to Illinois to be closer to the headquarters
of their new religion. Up to that time Nathan had little to do with organized religion and
considered himself a non-sectarian,
but having been born less than fifteen miles from
Palmyra, the birthplace of Mormonism, and then currently living in the state of Illinois, at
that time the location of the LDS church headquarters, he undoubtedly had met Mormons
and Mormon missionaries. In addition, he was exposed to traveling preachers of other
denominations who made the rounds in the areas where he lived on the frontier.24
When Olive announced her decision to marry Nathan, who was tall at 6' 3" with
red hair and blue eyes,
her parents vigorously protested the marriage. Even though
Nathan was considered to be an honorable man in the community, he was not a member
9 f\
of their new-found faith.
However, Olive persisted in her love for Nathan, and they
were married on March 18, 1841, in Jo Daviess County, Illinois.27
Nathan and Olive began their marriage
with compromises. "[H]e was willing for [Olive]
to worship as she may."
He agreed to kneel in
prayer if he didn't have to say a prayer. He also
felt that he would be "so nice to his wife, she
90
would soon forget her [religious] enthusiasm."
In the spring of 1841 Nathan began his
plowing "with three yoke of cattle with a large
breaking plow attached to the hind wheels of a
wagon, and a pole for a tongue to guide the cart.
[He] attached a spring seat on which he and
[Olive] would sit."
Enjoying each other's
company, Olive went with Nathan for a time as he
plowed and planted his fields. After a few weeks
they decided that she needed to stay home, but she
Nathan Cram Tenney From "Early Settlers of
Jo Daviess County," Illinois.
promised to tell him what she thought during the day when he returned home. Of that
day their son, Samuel Tenney, writes:
Mother took advantage of her opportunity and yearned for the Lord to
touch the heart of her worthy husband, that very day, to the end that it might be
an unimpeachable testimony to him that the Lord did hear and answer prayer.
Night came and Father returned home and immediately asked Mother her
thoughts during the day.
Mother told him it was unfair unless he would tell her first. He declined
and she observed emotion in him. "Well," she said, "this day has been a day of
prayer, supplicating the Lord to touch your heart and cause you to think of the
gospel plan and of the necessity of baptism." He could constrain himself no
longer and confessed that he was ready for baptism, because her prayers were
answered. The whole day was spent in faithfulness, for he knew that if prompted
by man, she would have faltered by now.31
After informing Olive that he was ready for baptism, Nathan studied and attended
meetings for five months in order to understand the controversial religion he was about to
39
accept.
Before twenty-four-year-old Nathan was baptized, he had heard several
members talk in strange tongues at some meetings. His conventional nature made him
feel uncomfortable at this. He "request[ed]...of [Olive]...not to ever talk in tongues
because it would mortify him." She agreed that she felt the same way. Shortly after that
conversation, William O. Clark baptized Nathan Cram Tenney on August 11, 1841, in
Illinois, and Nathan was confirmed a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter
Day Saints.34
When Nathan and Olive attended the next cottage meeting, the presiding officer
encouraged those present to bear their testimonies and "not to quench the spirit."35 Olive
was the first one to stand, and surprisingly she spoke in tongues. As soon as she sat down,
Nathan, interestingly enough, "sprang to his feet...and interpreted what she had said. She
had prophesied that she and her husband would preach the gospel to the Lamanites on the
Pacific Coast.... [D]umbfounded over their experience, they never [discussed] it [with]
each other for near[ly] fifteen years."
Nauvoo and Westward
Another important event occurred in Nathan's life in 1841 when his first son,
George Alma Tenney, was born in Illinois.
The following year Nathan sold his
property in Berreman, Illinois, and moved his family almost 200 miles south to Nauvoo,
Illinois.38 The record of where they stayed in Nauvoo is unclear, but it is probable they
may have rented a house, spent some time with Olive's brother, Ezra, or perhaps even
built a small cabin on his property. Nathan had money from the sale of his land and his
crop from the previous year and was able thus to help Ezra and his new wife. Ezra had
recently returned from serving a three-year mission in Wisconsin and Indiana.
During
this time in Nauvoo Samuel Smith, the younger brother of the Prophet Joseph Smith,
ordained Nathan to the office of a Seventy in the priesthood of the LDS Church on
August 4, 1843.40
By the spring of 1844 Nathan had moved his family across the Mississippi River
from Nauvoo and acquired a farm at Rand in Lee County, Iowa Territory. Thankfully the
farm produced well that year, and family members later reported that while Nathan lived
on his farm in Rand, his hard work and the resulting good harvests made him financially
41
secure.
Surely Nathan and Olive experienced some of the persecution that was raging in
Nauvoo during that difficult time and were also saddened, as were others, by the
martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph Smith in June of 1844. In contrast to those negative
experiences, in the fall of that year they were blessed with the birth of their second son,
Ammon Meshach Tenney.42 Nathan continued working his farm in the Iowa Territory
during 1845. In September of that year Nathan received his patriarchal blessing under the
hands of John Smith, which—among other promised blessings—indicated he had "a
mission to gather with the remnants of Jacob."43
In early February of 1846 Nathan and Olive were in Nauvoo to receive their
temple blessings. On that cold winter day, the third of February, both he and Olive were
endowed in the Nauvoo Temple.44 The next day Brigham Young and the first wagons
headed west from Nauvoo.45
The account of the Tenney family during the expulsion from Nauvoo, as given by
Nathan's granddaughter, is somewhat confusing. It appears she wove together several
7
traditional family tales about the dreadful events surrounding Nathan and Olive's
departure from Nauvoo, including the violent mobs with blackened faces who forced the
Mormons to flee from their homes and then set fire to their houses.46 Apparently several
days after they had been to the temple in Nauvoo, Nathan and his family crossed the
Mississippi and returned to his farm in Rand. There on a corner of the property he "got
his wagon and a cow, also a steer that he had raised [which he yoked together...] for their
trip west."47
Olive was seven months pregnant at the time of the expulsion.
It is not certain
the exact time Nathan and his family left for the West or how far along the Iowa trail they
were, but on the fourth of April in 1846 she bore her third son, Nathan Cram Tenney,
Junior, who died that same day.4 Adding to their problems was the equally sad event
almost three weeks later of the death Nathan's mother-in-law from an illness she
contracted due to "exposure from being driven from Nauvoo."5 Many of "the Saints
suffered much from cold and exposure [because] the weather... [was] very windy and
stormy."51 Nathan's father-in-law decided to withdraw his wagon from the wagon train
he had joined due to his wife's death. He remained temporarily in Iowa with other family
members but came west a few years later. However, Nathan, his wife, and two sons
pushed forward with the wagons that continued westward.
During the trip across Iowa, U.S. Army officers contacted the leadership of the
Church wanting to enlist some of their men into what would be known as the Mormon
Battalion to participate in the Mexican War. Brigham Young negotiated with the
government representatives to allow the people in the wagon trains to settle temporarily
on Indian lands west of the Missouri River.
Agreement was reached, and the area, later
known as Winter Quarters, Nebraska, became a natural stop, sometimes for several
months, for thousands of pioneer travelers during the next two years.
Winter Quarters
In the latter part of September 1846, the Mormon wagons began moving onto the
land which had been designated for their stay during the winter. Many of their empty
wagons were driven back to the Mississippi River for the use of those dispossessed
Mormons who had remained across the river from Nauvoo for lack of transportation.54
Numerous families were without the support of their husbands, fathers, and
brothers in Winter Quarters due to those men having enlisted in the Mormon Battalion.
Other men came to the assistance of the families lacking any adult males and under the
4 .^/^.V'„,
*
*9WB»s"-_.
%w* | i | 'in i ,inm >
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This picture shows a 1997 replica of a Mormon Pioneer log cabin, similar to the f i r s t cabins
built at Winter Quarters. I t is located in a park at Mt. Pisgah, Iowa. Picture from the
Internet, 29 Sep 2005. <http://lserver.aeal4.kl2.ia.us/SWP/bbrown/cabin.gif>
direction of the church leaders built cabins for them. Nathan was one of the men who
worked to build the needed housing. It was a tradition in the Tenney family that Nathan
"was an expert [with] an axe, and he worked night and day...on the houses" being built
in Winter Quarters.55 Building began in October and by December those pioneer men had
constructed "538 log houses and 83 sod houses" for approximately 3500 of their people
who would live there for the winter and, for some, even months longer.56 By the next
spring, the population had doubled, and the men built only sod houses in 1847 57
The stay in Winter Quarters can be noted for the cooperative effort that existed
among the refugees those first few months in preparation for their winter stay. While
some men built the living quarters, other men used scythes to cut prairie hay which they
stacked for forage for their animals during the coming winter. Still other men hunted wild
game and then salted and dried the meat to be used later. The women and children went
into the river bottoms and picked many bushels of wild berries which they dried to add to
their provisions for the upcoming cold months.
During the Mormons' stay in Winter Quarters, the church leaders divided the
settlement into wards, or geographical areas, with bishops assigned to each ward. Stake
high councils were also created and schools organized for the children. In addition to
weekly church services socials and dances provided much needed recreation and unity.
Nevertheless, all was not well in Winter Quarters. Health issues, lack of
provisions, and inadequate living quarters weakened the travelers. Their lack of sufficient
food and their poor shelters that
provided
limited
protection
from the cold winter weather
contributed to diseases in the
form of malaria, cholera, ague,
scurvy, and other unknown
problems which caused many
deaths. "Between October 1846
and May 1848, as many as one
Descendants of Nathan C. Tenney point to the
Winter Quarters Memorial showing the name of
Nathan's son, George, who died there.
thousand people perished on
both sides of the river."60 The
oldest son of Nathan and Olive, six-year-old George Alma, was one of those who died
from disease and weather conditions. He became ill "with a high fever which attacked his
nervous system and caused him to go into spastic convulsions."61 He died the first of May
1848 despite all that his parents did to save him.62 Soon after the burial of young George,
Nathan, Olive, and Ammon, age three-and-a-half, left Winter Quarters. About two years
after taking flight from Nauvoo, they joined with others in a large wagon train headed for
the Rocky Mountains.
10
Plains Trek and Utah
In the late spring and early summer of 1848 the three companies of pioneers for
that year, composed of almost 800 wagons and over 2400 people, left Winter Quarters to
join those who had traveled to and remained in the Salt Lake Valley the year before. The
first company left Winter Quarters on May 9 and traveled twenty-seven miles to the
Elkhorn River where President Brigham Young organized them into companies of
hundreds, fifties, and tens, an organizational practice of nearly all the Mormon wagon
trains.
On June first they broke camp and started for the Salt Lake Valley almost 1000
miles to the west, arriving in Utah the latter part of September.
The next wagon train was divided into two sections headed by Apostles Amasa
M. Lyman and Willard Richards. Lyman's section left Winter Quarters the last day of
June.64 The wagon train headed by Willard Richards, which included Nathan, Olive, and
their son, Ammon, left on the third of July.65 Their group, consisting of 526 people and
169 wagons, arrived in Salt Lake Valley on October IO,66 which resulted in 100 days of
travel or an average often miles a day. Of course, on Sundays they rested, and there were
days when illness slowed them considerably, but they kept moving and on many days
exceeded the average number of daily miles calculated for the entire trip.
"The Mormon pioneers shared similar experiences with others traveling west: the
drudgery of walking hundreds of miles, suffocating dust, violent thunderstorms, mud,
temperature extremes, bad water, poor forage, sickness, and death."
In a letter written
by Willard Richards to Brigham Young, Elder Richards mentions that many wagons
broke down and had to be "patched" and many of their animals had died. He was ill for
much of the trip, but despite that he encouraged the train to move on even if they were
only progressing a mile a day.
Some pioneers recorded their adventures and hardships
while crossing the plains, but apparently neither Nathan nor Olive left a written record in
the form of a journal.69 Only the stories passed down orally through their descendants or
the letters, journals, or writings of others have told of their experiences during their lives.
When the Tenneys arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1848,70 they joined others
from the Richards and Lyman wagon trains in the first pioneer settlement outside of the
planned Salt Lake City area. The Big Cottonwood settlement was approximately ten
71
miles southeast of Salt Lake City."
As more settlers moved into Salt Lake Valley,
\\
additional water sources became more important. This smaller pioneer settlement was
located on the Big Cottonwood Stream and included a spring within the community's
boundaries. The settlers wisely diverted the waters of the stream for their use. While
living in Big Cottonwood Nathan's wife, Olive, gave birth to their first daughter and
79
fourth child, Olive Eliza, on April 27, 1849.
In that settlement Nathan and Olive
became acquainted with Elder Amasa Lyman's family, and Elder Lyman recorded in his
journal that when he had to leave his families to travel for the Church, Nathan and several
immigrants from the South who had been in Lyman's wagon train "from the plains trek"
7^
helped his wives and their families.
In 1849 in Utah's virgin soil Nathan again became a farmer, plowing, planting,
and harvesting a fine crop. Nathan's cousin, Arthur Tyrrell, who had been a neighbor in
Joe Daviess County in Illinois, passed through the Salt Lake Valley on his way to the
gold fields in California in October 1849. Arthur was able to locate Nathan, and in a letter
he updated friends in Illinois with news about Nathan and his family and other LDS
cousins. Arthur was a non-Mormon, and he found frontier Salt Lake City to be expensive
and unimpressive. His letters show that he took pleasure in writing about the multiple
wives of some Mormon men. He did, however, inform his friends about the wives of
Nathan and another cousin—they had only "one a peas (sic)."
12
Journey to California
Nathan's stay in Utah was short, for in late 1850 he was called by the Church to
join others for a colonizing mission to southern California.
By early 1851 he and his
family were with the wagon train traveling under the leadership of Apostles Amasa M.
Lyman and Charles C. Rich headed toward California.77 There were several purposes for
this church settlement, one of which was a possible rest stop and entry way for LDS
members immigrating to Utah from the Pacific.78 Eventually more than 400 colonists in
70
•
150 wagons comprised the group headed for southern California.
The 1850 "United
States Census.. .was actually taken in Utah County in March of 1851," and the count of
the members of the pioneer party headed for California, which had made its way from
Salt Lake Valley to Utah County by that date, was taken there. At age 33 Nathan would
find this to be another difficult trek for him and his family, but this time even more so, as
they had to make their way through the arid Mojave Desert. Olive was again pregnant.
Interestingly, over three-fourths of the group were related to each other or were
close associates of the apostle leaders. One group of settlers was composed of families
Q1
who had joined the Church while living in the southern states.
former Mormon Battalion members with their families.
Also in the group were
From Salt Lake City to San
Bernardino, these pioneer colonists traversed the desert trail that later became known as
the "Mormon Corridor."83
Apostle Parley P. Pratt and several missionaries whose destinations were Latin
America or the Pacific Islands joined this group of pioneers, which included Nathan and
his family, for the trip to southern California. In his journal Elder Pratt wrote of the trek
from Great Salt Lake City to the Mojave River, describing the scenery he observed
during his six weeks of travel with the wagon party. Most of his descriptions of Utah are
favorable telling about the fertile, grassy meadows; the timbered, snowcapped mountains;
and the sparkling streams meandering through the valleys with many places suitable for
future Mormon settlements along the way. However, after leaving what is now southern
Utah his descriptive words were modified to depict what he saw as "a most horrible
QA
desert, consisting of mountain ridges and plains of naked rock"
few small streams with enough feed for their cattle.
13
with the exception of a
In mid May the pioneers camped at the "Vegas" where they found ample water
and grass for their animals, but the trail from that point westward proved to be
troublesome, mainly because of the lack of water and grass for their animals. Indians
often provoked them by shooting arrows into their evening camps and sometimes
stealthily capturing and butchering some of their stock. The trek through the desert
proved to be the slowest part of the journey for the California-bound pioneers. Elder Pratt
describes this part of the trek before reaching the Mojave River in California as "the
hardest time I ever saw; but we [prayed to be strengthened]...and we were saved from the
horrors of the desert."85 The four-hundred mile trek from southern Utah through Nevada
and the southern California desert was a relentless challenge for the pioneer wagon trains.
It was probably the most difficult trail these seasoned wagon train participants had faced.
Hy
**
- -»
A sketch of the 1850s' Mormon settlement in San Bernardino Valley by N. Orr.
"Church News." 4 August 2007. 8.
14
San Bernardino
By June of 1851 this pioneer group had reached the base of Cajon Pass and
camped just west of present-day Devore. The various families spread out so all would
have adequate water and grass for their animals. This camp stay proved to be lengthy—
almost three months—before the leaders of the group were able to negotiate and obtain a
down payment for, and then purchase, lands for permanent settlement. Originally
intending to purchase the large Chino Rancho, the Mormon leaders were frustrated in
their attempt to do so by a series of events surrounding that property. Eventually they
chose the San Bernardino Rancho owned by the Lugo family. The purchase price was
$77,500 with $7,000 down for 35,000 acres,86 a tremendous debt for the colonists, but
they all felt they had "good prospects to recoup far more than the purchase price." The
individuals in the group agreed to repay the debt. Six years later in 1857 Nathan
contributed $5000 toward the payment of the loan.
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Valley 1*50-57
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1^
A—
' ' Santa Ana Riverv''
* '-— " * € - ^
' *- ^
r
/
, /
" " ^ v , Mill Creek
l_
I Key
i Colony Bonder-——
The Zanja
I
| Church +
! Farmland -aE*
Mission District
y
Asistencia
Map adapted from Edward Leo Lyman's book,
San Bernardino: the rise and fall o f a California community, pages 254 b & E.
15
The Mormon pioneers' goal of settlement on their own lands was accomplished
by the third week in September, and by early October of 1851 Nathan and some of the
other men in the company began constructing their first homes in the San Bernardino
Valley, a process Nathan had gone through several times from Illinois, to Iowa,
Nebraska, Utah, and now California. In November of that year Nathan's wife gave birth
to their second daughter, Nancy Ann, in the new pioneer community. Unfortunately for
OQ
the family, the baby died the same day.
In the last week of November, due to rumors of Indian uprisings, the Mormon
leaders decided to build a large fort to surround the group for protection.90 Three of the
(Fmiaintllij
four walls were built of
cottonwood and willow
Stowert
trunks
and
stood
an
estimated twelve feet high.
The fourth wall consisted
of the backside of the
pioneers'
had
houses
which
already
constructed.
been
Those
first
cabins were raised on logs
and then rolled from their
original site to the fort-like
arrangement
and
positioned with the back
walls
of
the
houses
forming the west wall of
the fort. One of those first
FORT
&AN BERNARDINO
ERECTED • 1651
houses
belonged
Nathan.
Most
of
to
the
settlers lived in the close
and crowded quarters for
two years.
Layout of f o r t from Luther Ingersoll's "Annals of San Bernardino."
*See Payne, Craig.
16
The next challenge the pioneers faced was to clear, plow, and plant their fields.
Families had been assigned individual plots in the 1800 to 2000 acres of common fields.
In watering this huge field they relied on the seasonal but sometimes limited rains. Forty
acres of grapes were also planted in the "old mission" area where Apostles "Lyman and
Rich had personal interest in the land."91 These two leaders "engaged Nathan C. Tenney
[to move into] one of the old buildings, known as the Asistencia92 and oversee their
interests... [in] the summer field." In addition to the common grain fields, there was a
"bishop's garden" of several hundred acres of vegetables near the fort. Nathan had a
reputation for being a..."successful farmer, [and] his...farming abilities [were] used to
teach others."94 He eventually was assigned to oversee the agricultural operations of the
settlement.95 Newspapers of at least two major United States cities reported in January of
1853 that San Bernardino had become "a significant agricultural center in southern
California, outstripping the field production of Los Angeles, San Diego, and Santa
Barbara counties combined."
Contributing to the success of these endeavors of the
Mormon settlers were the excellent environmental conditions of soil, water, and weather.
However, it was noted that "the most essential component was the industry and
determination of the people... ."97
Because rain in the San Bernardino area could be inconsistent, the settlers decided
they needed a more reliable source of water for their crops. In addition to concern for
their crops, they needed a source of water within their fort community. As a result, some
of the men worked that first year digging a ditch to bring water into the fort from streams
that flowed from the nearby mountains. Other men dug ditches and canals to divert water
from other streams and creeks to irrigate their crop land. One irrigation canal in the
southern part of the rancho, the zanja, was already in place, having been dug thirty years
before the Mormons arrived by the Indians who worked under the supervision of the
Franciscan missionaries.98
In addition to overseeing the agricultural operations of the settlement, Nathan
helped to survey what was to become the city of San Bernardino. He was called to be an
LDS bishop in the Asistencia area with Orlando H. Carter and John Harris as
counselors.99 This was the smaller of the two congregations in the San Bernardino Stake
with approximately twelve families living in the area. At that time the calling of a bishop
17
mostly involved concern for the members' temporal welfare. This was also true
throughout the Church. There was usually only one worship service each Sunday for the
whole area conducted by the stake presidency, and in San Bernardino Apostles Lyman
and Rich, as senior ecclesiastical leaders, spoke almost every Sunday along with other
stake leaders.1
In addition to the bishopric in the wards, block teachers were also
considered officers of each ward.101 Bishops had the responsibility of managing "in kind"
tithing by operating corrals and tithing storehouses.
Nathan's residency in San Bernardino prevented him from attending the monthly
meeting in Salt Lake City of the Fifth Quorum of Seventies of which he was a member.
However, he did his duty, as did another Seventy from San Bernardino, when they
reported by mail their activities to the officers of their quorum. The officers had
requested that the quorum members send in their genealogies.103
While living in the large Asistencia building, Nathan used some the fourteen
rooms for the tithing storehouse, others for the polling place during elections, and still
others for a school.
His wife, Olive, organized and taught school for children living in
the settlement, including some Native American and local Mexican children from the
surrounding area. At the time the Mormons were in charge of education in San
Bernardino County, the schools were considered the best in the state on several counts.
Near their home at the Asistencia Nathan fenced in 100 acres by planting short
lengths of green cottonwoods about a foot apart so that when they were irrigated, they
took root, grew, and eventually became so close together that even "the rabbits could not
i
get through."
A/:
Nathan also invited some of his non-LDS Cram relatives to move to
California and develop their trade of manufacturing furniture.107 The Cram furniture was
simple and functional, and had a ready market among the San Bernardino settlers as well
1 OS
as people living in the surrounding areas.
During the time Nathan spent in San Bernardino, he participated in many public
works projects one of which was building a road into the nearby San Bernardino
Mountains in order that lumber from proposed sawmills could be more easily procured.
The volunteers for this project gave not only their time, but brought their teams and tools
to complete the job, which took ten days, and eventually amounted to one thousand man
days of "arduous unpaid work."109 Although most settlers had originally intended to use
the lumber from the sawmills to construct their homes and other settlement buildings, it
soon became apparent it was more profitable for them to sell it to others. As a result, they
peddled wagon loads of lumber in the surrounding communities, including Los
Angeles.110 The profit received from these sales was used to help pay the debt for the San
Bernardino Rancho. Nathan could well have been an observant participant at some point
in helping to set up the sawmills because both the road-building project and the
information he gained about lumbering added to his store of knowledge that benefited
him in future communities.
In 1856 Nathan was given charge of diverting water from the Santa Ana River in
a large canal around the old mission area, which was south of the river. He hired many
local Mexicans to dig the canal.111 Although the Mormons and their Mexican laborers
made a good attempt to dig a canal to divert the water from the river onto their land,
others who had settled to the east of the Rancho eventually won the rights to the river
water. At that point the Mormon leaders decided to increase the size of the zanja, rather
than cause problems with their neighbors.
Nathan learned to speak Spanish in his interactions with the Mexicans whom he
employed during his stay in California. According to his son, Samuel, the prophecy made
by his mother, Olive, when she spoke in tongues in Illinois that she and her husband
would preach the gospel on the Pacific coast to the Lamanites, was fulfilled while living
in San Bernardino. Toward the end of his stay there the Mexicans told Nathan that the
sermon he had preached in Spanish was better Spanish than they could speak.
Another event which also almost fulfilled Olive's prophecy about teaching the
gospel to the Lamanites began at the 1856 April General Conference. There were
occasions when Nathan accompanied Apostle Lyman to Salt Lake City. At that April
conference Nathan and his counselor, John Harris, were called during a conference
session by church authorities "to work among the Native Americans between San
Bernardino and the Colorado River."114 Upon his return to California, Nathan, who was
recognized as "one of the most respected Mormons in the San Bernardino colony,"
began his missionary work in this huge geographical area when he made his first trip to
visit several tribes in the foothill areas of San Bernardino.
19
His visits with the tribes antagonized some of his apostate and non-Mormon
neighbors who felt Nathan and the colony leaders might arouse the Native Americans to
cause trouble in the area. The problem escalated to accusations and created news for
reporters. People from both sides of the situation wrote letters to the editors of several
California newspapers. After being accused of being "a dispenser of traitorous
preaching"116 by those who were members of the anti-Mormon Independents, Nathan
wrote a letter to the San Diego Herald, denying the charges made against him.
I was not instructed to, nor did I preach to the Indians in any other manner
than to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, to repent and be
baptized for the remission of sins; to leave all drunkenness, thievery, and gambling
alone; to be honest and industrious; to live in peace with each other and with all their
white neighbors; to make fields, raise grain, and endeavor to live in comfort and
happiness. I did not preach to the Indians that the Americans are a bad people and
were not Christians, and were the enemies of neither the Mormons nor that the
Mormons were the rulers of the country, and not the Americans. I live near the
Indians, as do many others. My friend and we are all Americans, whether Mormons,
Methodists, Baptists, Spiritualists, Catholics or Presbyterians.
Juan Antonio had been tampered with, as well as the boy Van Leuven.
Words were put into their mouths by base men, in order to accomplish their own vile
purposes. The very next day after Juan Antonio's affidavit had been taken, he stated
in the presence of Hon. Benjamin Hayes, Judge of the first judicial district, Gen.
Jefferson Hunt, Gen. Rich, Sheriff Cliff, Colonel Jackson, Judge Thomas R. Hopkins
and myself and others that I had never preached to him or his people, as he Juan
Antonio, had been represented to have stated to Duff G. Weaver and others, which
denial was made in the presence of Duff G. Weaver himself.117
It has been suggested that "perhaps the poor Indian fellow, [Juan Antonio], was in
the habit of saying what he felt his listeners wanted to hear."
Following through with
the problem, Mormon leader Charles C. Rich wrote the affidavit which appeared in the
Los Angeles paper strongly denying that the visits made by Nathan Tenney to the Indian
villages were for the purpose of arousing the Native Americans.119 As a result of the
political turmoil Nathan's visits to the tribes caused, Nathan ceased his Lamanite mission,
bringing about its end almost before it began.
While in San Bernardino Nathan's wife Olive bore four children. The first was
their daughter Nancy Ann who was born and died the same day in November 1851. Two
additional children were daughters, Phoebe Relief and Abby Celestia, born in 1853 and
1855 respectively, but who did not live past their infancy.120 The Tenneys' last child born
in San Bernardino was a son, John Lowell, born in the summer of 1856.
20
Return to Utah
Early in 1857 several events occurred which caused the collapse of the Mormon
settlement of San Bernardino. First President Brigham Young called both the apostle
leaders to other assignments. Mid year the community received notice that special U.S.
Army troops were on their way to Utah to put down alleged unrest there. As a result of
that information, President Young notified the San Bernardino members to return to
Utah. Also during this time persecution of the Mormons in the settlement increased in the
form of negative newspaper articles, threats, and in some cases bodily harm.
By November the church leaders of the community advised the members to return
to Utah as soon as they had paid their debts. At that point many San Bernardino settlers
tried to sell their homes and farms to raise funds for the trip back to Utah. However, they
found they had to sacrifice their hard earned properties, receiving roughly only half their
value or even less.
Not all saw fit to make such a deep sacrifice. For one reason or
another nearly one-third chose to stay in or return to San Bernardino even though they
were aware they would be without church leadership or guidance.
The element of
apostolic leadership had been important to the community and its success. Without the
replacement of the reassigned apostles many in the San Bernardino LDS community were
adversely affected.
Nathan and Olive chose to follow the prophet—leaving their farm of over 100
acres with a full crop in the field—and trail behind approximately 2,000 other Saints
headed for Utah.125 Nathan sold what cattle he could, packed his wagons with his
belongings, and he and Olive and their three children began their journey. Nathan
brought along some of his horses and a herd of four hundred "Mexican" goats belonging
to Apostles Lyman and Rich.
Having learned from the trials of their journey to San
Bernardino almost seven years earlier, the wagon train was divided into smaller groups,
which departed every other day from their camps along the Mojave River in order to
1 97
maximize the use of the scarce water and grass supplies in the desert.
In a letter written in early January of 1858, Ebenezer Hanks informed Apostle
Rich about the final departure of the Saints from San Bernardino. He also mentioned that
the goats belonging to Rich and Lyman were "in charge of NC Tenney [and would]
remain...at the lower crossing (Oro Grande) for a short time until they get their kidding
21
19J2
and then he will go on with them as fast as circumstances will admit."
Because of
herding the goats, Nathan and his family were "literally the last to evacuate from San
Bernardino."
Most assuredly they were the last of the San Bernardino residents to
arrive in Utah. Crossing the Mojave Desert from San Bernardino to southern Utah can be
a challenging trip even in a modern vehicle on well-defined roads, but shepherding a
large herd of goats and kids through the desert must have required an exceptional amount
of patience. Once more Nathan suffered financial loss as he followed the prophet's
request to return to Utah.13 Olive was again pregnant as they moved out, just as she had
been for three other such treks in her life.
22
In and About Utah's Dixie
The returning San Bernardino pioneers settled throughout the state of Utah, but,
following a suggestion from President Brigham Young, many made their homes in
southern Utah. Nathan and Olive first stopped in southern Utah at Quechpaw
(Quich'up'Pah), a small Indian village near Harmony, where they pastured the herd of
goats Nathan had brought with them from California.
Staying only a short time in
Harmony, they made their way twenty miles north to Cedar City. It was there that Olive
i o^
gave birth to their fifth son, Samuel Benjamin Tenney, on March 5, 1858.
Almost
immediately the family again returned to Harmony where many of their former friends
from San Bernardino had settled. At that time Harmony was the largest settlement in
southern Utah, and its foremost leader was John D. Lee.
Later in that same month
Nathan entered into an agreement with Lee to "take charge of [his] farming interest."1
Two or three months before most of the San Bernardino Latter-Day Saints left for
Utah the disastrous incident of the Mountain Meadows Massacre occurred in southern
Utah. At first only Indians were blamed for the deaths of the members of the Fancher
Train from Arkansas, but later Mormon settlers in the area were also implicated. John D.
Lee eventually was the only one accused in the murders. As a result, years later he was
excommunicated from the Church, lived isolated in northern Arizona at Lonely Dell
(Lees Ferry), and almost twenty years after the actual event was the only person found
guilty and executed for the tragic episode. How much Nathan knew or learned about the
Mountain Meadows occurrence after he moved to southern Utah is unknown. But after
Lee's downfall, historian Juanita Brooks stated that amid all the disparaging remarks
made about Lee, Nathan stood by his former employer, church associate, and friend and
"listed [Lee] as one of the few who would enter the celestial kingdom."
For Nathan, as well as for the others who arrived in southern Utah from San
Bernardino at that time, life moved on while they settled in to the various communities,
strove to provide for their families, and helped each other survive. John D. Lee records in
his diary that on the sixth of May 1858, he butchered a beef ox for the breakfast of his
guests which numbered seventy-four people including his family, Elder Lyman's visiting
entourage, and Brother Tenney, who was probably invited because of his relationship
with Lyman in San Bernardino.
23
It appears from various records throughout the years that Nathan enjoyed the
fellowship of the church members by attending meetings and interacting with his friends
on a social level. One example was given in Lee's diary when he recorded in June 1858
that four of the men from the Harmony area began a ride to Cedar before daybreak to
attend a High Priest's Quorum meeting, where "all but Tenney addressed the Saints."
At that quorum meeting the sacrament was administered. The men stayed for a mid-day
meal at one member's house and for supper in the evening at another member's home
before returning home after sunset, making for a full day of fellowship. Although not
asked to speak at that particular quorum meeting, Nathan did frequently speak at other
church and public meetings, often in the company of Lee and other leaders from the
southern Utah communities.
Another example of Nathan's sociality occurred about a week before the Fourth of
July in 1858 when the Saints in the Harmony area made plans to celebrate the nation's
holiday. John D. Lee was chosen chairman and marshal of the day with Nathan and
1 TO
another man serving on the committee to plan a public dinner and a party.
Time and
again Nathan extended his hospitality to visiting authorities, often inviting them to stay at
1 ^Q
his place or to have meals with his family.
Through the years Nathan also made
frequent trips to Salt Lake City to attend General Conference and other church meetings
as well as to visit with friends and acquaintances, conduct business, and be helpful to
others, for example, by providing rides and carrying mail.140
While in Harmony Nathan pastured the animals in his care in the surrounding
area, which included the goats he had watchfully shepherded from southern California.141
In March of 1859 Nathan approached John D. Lee and told him about the opposition
some settlers in the area had about Nathan keeping the goats belonging to Elders Lyman
and Rich for another season in what the men of the village felt were their pastures. It
appears Lyman had made a point to ask Nathan to refer the problem to Lee whose
decision on the matter would be readily accepted by the local members. Lee then
expressed his opinion that the grass and water were provided by the Lord and were free to
anyone "as far as he was concerned."142
Nathan's stay in Harmony lasted approximately a year, as he wanted to secure
land sufficient for his stock and where he wouldn't bother his neighbors. He needed a
24
fairly large spread because in addition to the goats, he had his horses and cattle which he
either brought with him or had acquired after his arrival in Utah. Nathan discussed with
Lee his desire for a ranch that would be secluded yet offer him enough room. Upon Lee's
recommendation Nathan then decided to scout the area about fifty miles southeasterly of
Harmony called Canaan Ranch at a place that later became known as Short Creek and
was often referred to by the locals as Tenney's herd grounds.143 After examining the area
with others, Nathan was satisfied it would do.1 By mutual agreement a teenager who
had been working with Lee's herds began working for Nathan.145 After the holidays
Nathan, with some hired help, drove his stock to the ranch at Short Creek 146
NEW
Map showing places Nathan lived and interacted in
Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico.
Although Nathan's teenage son, Ammon, helped in tending the animals during the
summer of 1858, he was unavailable to help drive the herds from New Harmony to Short
Creek at the end of that year. Something unexpected had developed in his life, for in the
fall Ammon, then fourteen, was ordained an elder by President Brigham Young and
25
immediately sent on a Church mission with Jacob Hamblin, the legendary Indian
missionary, and ten other men.147 They left Santa Clara in late October, heading
southeasterly toward northern Arizona. Their guide was Chief Naraguts, a Kaibab
Paiute.148
Several reasons were given for the mission. Brigham Young asked Jacob Hamblin
to gain knowledge about the Hopi Indians and to preach to them and learn if it was
feasible to establish a mission among them. He also wanted Hamblin's group to explore
the area to determine if it would be satisfactory as a retreat for Latter-day Saints due to
the threat of the U.S. Army approaching Utah. Young was also interested in finding if
there was any truth to the puzzling report that the language of the Hopis of northern
Arizona contained any words of the Welsh language.149
Ammon spoke Spanish fluently, as he had grown up playing among the children
of the local Mexicans who worked for his father in San Bernardino.15 On this first
mission Ammon served as an interpreter for the others, as he was to do many more times
in his life. Welshman Durias Davis accompanied the group. Even though careful effort
was made, Davis could find no Welsh words in the Hopi language.151
The main group of this missionary expedition returned to Utah on horseback
about two months later, a trip made more difficult by cold and snowy winter weather.
Nathan and Olive obviously had great faith in allowing their fourteen-year-old son—who
turned fifteen while he was gone—to go into wild Indian country. Upon Amnion's return
Nathan undoubtedly sensed that this mission had immeasurably matured his young son.
Shortly after Ammon's return, Nathan moved once again. He considered Short
Creek a fine area for his stock, but he felt it was too remote for his family. He joined
several families who had begun a new settlement on the Upper Virgin River called
Pocketville, a site "enclosed by red sandstone cliffs."
These settlers built a twisting
road up to the bench area where they laid out their town by the spring of 1859.153 That
first year the men dug ditches, built log cabins from the cottonwood trees growing along
the Virgin River, planted 70 acres of land,154 and eventually changed the name of their
town to Virgin.155
26
Participating in the Principle
Their first summer in southern Utah Nathan and Olive arranged to meet the
church leaders, who supervised that area, at the meeting house in Harmony to seal their
marriage in a special church ordinance. Although Nathan and Olive had received their
endowments in the Nauvoo Temple in 1846, their marriage had not been sealed with a
church ordinance. On August 5, 1858, Apostle Amasa M. Lyman performed this
ceremony, and Apostle George A. Smith served as a witness.156
It was during 1859 that Nathan and his wife began to practice the doctrine of
plural marriage. Many of Nathan's associates and leaders lived "the principle." Several
reasons were given for the practice of plural marriage. First, it was believed that under
certain conditions God required his faithful children to practice plural marriage. Other
reasons were to take part in the promises made to Abraham and to provide good homes
for God's spirit children. Many believed that by living the principle they would ensure
their exaltation in the life hereafter.
The percentage of the church membership that
participated in plural marriage varied, depending upon where they lived, from 5% in
ICQ
some communities in Utah to over 60% in Orderville.
Most of those men who
participated in plural marriage also served in leadership capacities.159 Those entering into
plural marriage usually did so at the invitation of the First Presidency of the Church or
asked for their permission to do so.160
In mid March of that same year Nathan rode to Toquerville where he witnessed
the sealing of Sarah Bryant to Charles Stapley as one of his plural wives. Four days later
on March 19, 1859, John D. Lee records in his journal that Elder Amasa Lyman sealed
Lee to another wife, and that rite was followed by the sealing of Grace Tepets (sic) Jose
(Grace Tippett Jose) to Nathan as a plural wife in Lee's home.161 Grace was a young
teenager, sixteen at the time of her marriage, and only two years older than Nathan's son,
Ammon. Nathan was her senior by twenty-five years.162 Olive, age 41, Nathan's wife for
eighteen years, was in the room and observed the ceremony.
It is possible that Grace's family met the Tenneys in San Bernardino where the
Jose family had stopped to rest from their long and arduous ocean voyage from Australia
1 fiA
before proceeding on to Utah.
Her father, William Jose, who was a widower with four
children, settled in Parowan, another Mormon settlement almost sixty miles north of
27
Virgin where Nathan was then living. After the marriage young Grace came to live with
Nathan and Olive. A few years later Amasa Lyman's diary hints that she may have
managed the cabin at Nathan's Short Creek ranch as her Tenney residence during some
of the remainder of the ten years she was married to Nathan. Their only child, William
Arthur Tenney, born in 1862 after the family moved to Grafton, was given the first name
of Grace's father
165
Nathan C. Tenney and his two wives by whom he had children.
Left to right:
Olive Strong Tenney, Nathan Cram Tenney, Grace Tippett Jose Tenney.
Grace asked for a release from her marriage vows a decade after marrying
Nathan, and he consented. Nathan told her he knew they had been living a hard life and
she was still young.
However, his condition for her release was that their son would
remain with him to be raised in his home. Grace agreed to this stipulation, and the sealing
was canceled in 1869 by Church authorities.167 Young William, seven at the time his
mother departed, was especially attached to his older half brothers, Ammon, John, and
Sam
168
Strangely enough, a second plural sealing was performed when Nathan and Mary
Ann Settleton, who was deceased, were sealed by President Brigham Young in the
Endowment House in Salt Lake City on October 15, 1861.169 Nathan and Olive became
acquainted with Mary Ann while living at Winter Quarters, and Olive had become
especially fond of this young woman.170 Regrettably Mary Ann died in April 1847 from
the hardships of life in Winter Quarters. The sealing of Mary Ann to Nathan occurred
fourteen years after her death.
28
Four-and-a-half years after Nathan was sealed to his wife, Grace, the LDS
Ordinance Record indicates that Apostle Wilford Woodruff sealed Nathan and a fourth
woman, Nancy Beauford Morris, on October 10, 1863, in the Endowment House. Nancy
171
received her endowment that same day.
Historically, discrepancies exist in the facts of
her life, but two pertinent points from the stories written by her descendants and those
written by Nathan's descendants are in agreement. The first is that Nathan and Nancy
were sealed; the second is a phrase attributed to Nathan that he used when she also asked
1 79
to be released from the sealing: "Go and raise me up a fine family."
the time she was sealed to Nathan. No children were born to this union.
29
Nancy was 35 at
Settling Grafton
After only a few months of living in his newly finished log home in Virgin City,
Nathan accompanied Elder Amasa Lyman on an exploratory trip up the Virgin River to
scout for suitable sites for new settlements. One site selected was just five to eight miles
east of Virgin City, two miles west of Rockville, and a quarter of a mile south of the
Virgin River. Elder Lyman described the area in his journal, mentioning the rich soil, the
water available from the nearby river, together with the many cottonwood trees that grew
along the banks of the river which could provide material for fences and homes.173
Though originally called Wheeler, the name was later changed to Grafton, after an
area in New Hampshire that was Amasa Lyman's birthplace.1
It was probably at
Lyman's suggestion that Nathan relocate to Grafton and establish his family residence
there. As a result, Nathan's name is attached to the town as one of its founding fathers.175
Apostle Lyman never moved to Grafton; he returned to his home in central Utah after
making his regular inspection of the towns in southern Utah under his church direction.
Four other families joined Nathan's family on a brisk December day in 1859 in
1 Hf\
settling Grafton.
They began by building an irrigation dam across the Virgin River and
1 nn
then planting their crops.
By 1861 Grafton had nine houses, and Nathan had been
called to serve as the president of the Grafton Branch, which along with Toquerville and
Pocketville formed a part of the Harmony Ward.178
By the following year significantly more settlers had arrived in Grafton after
receiving calls to join the "Cotton Mission" of the Church, which was centered along the
Virgin River. It was during the Civil War years that Utah had its supply of fabric for
clothing cut off from the southern states. Brigham Young determined the Saints in
southern Utah could grow cotton for the people of the state of Deseret. The cotton
mission continued through the end of the Civil War and the completion of the
transcontinental railroad in 1869. Indeed, raising cotton became just another reason the
•
southern Utah area was referred to as "Dixie."
was the so-called "wine mission."
170
In conjunction with the cotton mission
Acres of grapes were planted and found to grow
well in the Virgin River area. Nathan's previous experience caring for the vineyards in
San Bernardino proved to be of help to him in this new environment.
30
UTAH
Ash Creek
>
•
/
J
La Verkin Creek
M 4
[
Pine Valley
\
Mountains Area • Tdquerville
Washington
\ j f l a Verkin
P i n ^ l ^ i ^Virgin City
|
Kane
East Fork Virgin River
•
Washington
St George •
4
^
0
/
^nS
Duncan's
•"* ' • '
Retreat
Grafton R o c k v j || e
" ^
S f Virg n River
Canaan
Ranch Area
Short Creek
0
\
10
ARIZONA
Scale of miles
Pipe Springs
Southern Utah "Cotton Mission" Area, - Circa 1861-1871
In March of 1859 the settlers organized for their public works projects. At this
1 Q 1
time Nathan was appointed road supervisor for Fort Harmony.
Undoubtedly Nathan's
experience in San Bernardino with road building and surveying contributed to his being
chosen. A year later following the settlement of Grafton, Nathan was appointed road
supervisor there.182 In December of 1860 Nathan along with Andrew Stratton and
Christopher Jacobs were selected to be road supervisors for the construction of a road
from Toquerville to Grafton, a distance of some twenty miles. Their contract authorized
them to locate the road and hire "able bodied labor" who would be paid $2.00 a day from
the $220 that was allotted by the Utah legislature for the work. The laborers furnished
their own transportation and tools.
Life in Dixie was full of hard work and heart-breaking challenges as these early
pioneer settlers carved out communities, strove to survive in a harsh environment, tried to
live the Christian teachings of their religion, and endeavored to establish compatible
relationships with their neighbors. Nathan, as a community and church leader, labored in
all these situations, but an incident occurred in his life which shows how he calmly dealt
with the duplicity of some community members.
31
John D. Lee's diary entry for April 15,1861, recorded that he had received a letter
from the bishop over the nearby Grafton Branch, requesting him to come to Grafton to
help investigate a case involving Nathan who had been accused of inappropriate behavior
with a woman from that community. This was a severe accusation for a man who was
serving as a branch president of the Church. Upon arriving in Grafton, Lee and Bishop
Davies began their questioning of those involved with the help of local church officers.
Lee and one of the other leaders initially spoke privately with the woman and later with
Nathan. The outcome of these interviews was that she accused Nathan of seducing her,
but he steadfastly insisted he had not. A bishop's court was held, and both parties
1 Q4
testified again with Nathan "stoutly denying all accusations." ' As a result of the court,
both the accused and the accuser were disfellowshiped from the Church. Another brother
was subsequently called that day to preside in the place of Nathan as branch leader.
Lee naturally felt bad for Nathan because he had known him since he moved to
southern Utah from California and considered him a friend. Nathan had helped to run
Lee's Harmony ranch a few years before this unfortunate event. Interestingly enough as
Lee was preparing to return home, he later wrote in his journal that "the Spirit forbade
me, telling me that our work was not done," and he felt the bishop's court "had not
1 Of
reached the root of the matter."
Lee and another member of the court went a third time
to question the woman in the case privately. Lee noted in his diary that he gave her a
strong sermon against false statements that might destroy an innocent man because it was
like "assenting to the shedding of innocent blood."186 This was something for which she
could not be forgiven. At that point the woman burst into tears and confessed that what
she had said against President Tenney was false. She indicated she wanted to apologize
and ask his pardon. Nathan was called, and in tears she asked his forgiveness, which he,
true to his nature, kindly granted.
When Lee and the others reported this change of events, the bishop called a
candlelight meeting for that evening and restored President Tenney to his standing and
fellowship. Following the bishop's remarks, Lee preached to the group.187 Although he
did not record the subject of his sermon, it undoubtedly contained counsel to always tell
the truth and be kind to others.
32
Because it was only the second summer in their settlement, Nathan and the other
settlers worked hard to establish their farms. Nathan certainly did not have time to ponder
about that degrading accusation of the previous spring. He had a constructive outlook
about how his life was going, for in late 1861 the Deseret News published an article
based on letters from James W. Bay of Virgin City and Nathan C. Tenney of Grafton who
reported that their two communities in Washington County in southern Utah were "in a
very prosperous condition." Their wheat crops were doing well, and they planned to plant
more cane and cotton in the coming year. They wrote that their fruit trees, only two years
old, had bloomed that year. They gave a favorable report on the weather and of the Indian
situation, writing that the Indians were "very peaceable." Improvements in housing,
188
fencing, and beautifying properties were also in evidence.
*
Obviously their letters
outlining their success with their communities were written to encourage others to join
with them in southern Utah and share in their good fortune.
Unhappily, the success of these communities did not last long as the weather
began to hamper their progress. Beginning on Christmas day 1861, it rained hard for forty
days, and what became the "flood of 1862" eventually wiped out the entire town of
1 8Q
Grafton situated as it was only a quarter of a mile from the Virgin River.
The settlers in
Virgin, the next town down river from Grafton, witnessed houses, furniture, and clothing
from Grafton floating by in the river.
As the flood waters rose, Nathan became concerned for his wife, Olive, who had
gone into labor with their ninth child. Neighbors came to his assistance and lifted her into
a wagon box which they carried on their shoulders above the rising waters to higher
ground. The son born to them on that 18th day of January was named Marvelous Flood
Tenney.190 Little 'Marv' and his mother remained out of doors for two days but both did
well.191 Sadly, Marv died while still a young child of three, but his name and the events
surrounding his birth have made him a legend in the settlement of southern Utah.
The flooding that winter, which destroyed the town of Grafton, resulted in the
settlers moving a mile upstream and starting all over again. They called their new
settlement New Grafton, but eventually it became known just as Grafton.192 Here they yet
again planted crops and built new homes, and made do without their material possessions
that had been lost in the flood. In the spring months following the flood, while the
33
Tenneys were living in New Grafton, another baby was born into their household, as
previously noted, when Nathan's plural wife, young Grace, bore a son, William Arthur,
in May.
In the late spring of 1863 Apostle Lyman paid another visit to southern Utah as
part of his apostolic duties. This trip became an inspection of sorts of the areas that had
been flooded the year before. He "clearly took pride in the towns he had played a
particular role in nurturing."
During this visit to several of the little towns in Dixie, he
made it a point to visit his former San Bernardino friends and co-workers, either having
dinner with them or staying overnight. He also preached in each town he visited. After
Elder Lyman preached to the people in Virgin City, Nathan met him there and took him
to his home in New Grafton. Even though the site Elder Lyman had chosen for the
original Grafton had been destroyed by the flood, he "probably maintained some affinity
for New Grafton" because of its name.194 After preaching in New Grafton, Elder Lyman
had dinner at the home of Bishop Tenney. In his journal he noted how the Tenney family
had "been rendered quite destitute of household conveniences... [when the] flood [swept]
directly through their house."195
While at the Tenneys, Nathan invited Elder Lyman to join him and others at his
herd grounds for their spring roundup. These herd grounds had been established in the
Canaan Ranch area and included Nathan's spread at Short Creek. It was about twentyfive miles or a good part of a day's ride to the southeast from Grafton. The herd grounds
included "a canyon area twelve miles long and half as wide, with grass and some timber
and more than a half dozen watering places."196
While Elder Lyman did not participate as a cowhand in the roundup due to ill
health, he
was a
careful
observer and
estimator as
evidenced by the entries he
made in his journal.
calculated there were at least
700 horses and cattle and 600
sheep and goats involved in
the roundup. The goats, of
course,
were
the
Nathan had herded to
Bernardino.
Of
the
Nathan's brand registered in 1850 when he
lived in Cottonwood. The brand's placement
was on the left hip. (Utah Legislature. Book
o f Recorded Marks and Brands. 145.)
offspring
He
of
those
Utah
from
San
goats
and
sheep
Lyman counted 150 goats and 30 sheep that he believed to be his, with an equal number
34
belonging to Charles C. Rich. Nathan had earned a third interest in the herd of goats for
shepherding them to Utah, according to terms of the agreement made when the men left
i c\n
San Bernardino.
While Nathan kept busy with his ranch, farm, and church activities during the
years of living in Grafton, his wife, Olive, added to her daily household routine by
conducting a home school in the winter months. The students were her children and a few
of the neighbors' children. Her school curriculum was basic—reading, writing, and
arithmetic. For many children in that time and place that was the extent of their formal
education. One of Olive's students was the teenager who had been hired when they first
arrived in Utah, Joseph Smith McFate. Nathan had employed Joe periodically during the
ensuing years to help break horses, care for livestock at his Short Creek ranch, and assist
with building the Tenney's home in New Grafton. During the winter of 1862-63, Joe
attended Olive's school. He and Olive Eliza, the Tenney daughter, became infatuated
with each other. At the time Olive Eliza was thirteen; Joe was seventeen. Tradition of one
line of descendants claims that while at school he wrote his proposal to her on a slate, and
108
she replied by writing "Yes" on her slate.
This marriage proposal was definitely not appealing to her parents, because of
their daughter's age, and they insisted that she wait to be married. However, Olive Eliza
was as persistent in her desire to marry as her mother had been when she wanted to
marry. Eventually a compromise was reached between her parents and Olive Eliza and
Joe. Nathan and Olive would allow the marriage if she did not live with her husband for
another year. This plan worked well for Joe because he had been called to drive a "downand-back wagon" for the LDS Church to bring new converts from Nebraska, an activity
that would take several months.199
In Rockville, a village upriver from New Grafton, on March 1, 1863, eight weeks
shy of turning fourteen, Nathan's daughter, Olive Eliza, was married to Joseph Smith
McFate, who had turned eighteen.200 Joe then left southern Utah to fulfill his obligation to
be a teamster in a church wagon train, and Olive Eliza remained with her parents. It could
be said of Nathan's children—they matured early. His son Ammon served his first LDS
mission when he was fourteen while his daughter Olive Eliza married when she was
almost fourteen.
35
In addition to working through problems with his family, Nathan's talent for
taming the land was sorely tested while he lived on the Virgin River. The rebuilding and
recovery from the flooding in Old Grafton resulted in 28 families living in New Grafton
by 1864. Many houses had been built in addition to a post office, church, school, and
community hall.
However, the settlers were frustrated in their plans for revitalization in
New Grafton. The Virgin River continued to overflow, often more times in a year than
just the spring run-off. The settlers learned their fertile soil was quickly washed away,
their irrigation ditches filled with sand, and their dams built to control the river
continually destroyed. As a consequence of these disasters, settlers began to move to
other areas.202 It became far too difficult for men to support their plural families on what
turned out to be about ten acres of arable land per family.
36
Short Creek
Two years later President Brigham Young released Nathan from his
responsibilities at Grafton and sent him to establish Short Creek as an LDS community.
Nathan moved his family to his ranch at Short Creek but found they lived in almost
constant fear of the Indians in the surrounding area.204 After a few months, following a
major Indian uprising, the hope of establishing a peaceable community in the Short Creek
area was abandoned.
The LDS Church authorities advised all ranchers living out of
town to return to the established towns until the Indian unrest ceased.
Surely Nathan
was happy to remove his family from the Indian danger at Short Creek.
Throughout his life Nathan had many experiences with the Indians—some good,
while others were better forgotten. One such incident that was particularly terrifying for
Nathan, his son Ammon, and a neighbor was reported by Ammon Tenney and published
years later. This experience occurred in 1865 in an area eighteen miles west of Pipe
Springs and six miles southwest of Canaan, Utah.
There were three Americans from Toquerville, the elder Tenney [his son,
Ammon], and Enoch Dodge....The three were surrounded by sixteen Navajos,
and with their backs to the wall, fought for an hour or more, finally abandoning
their thirteen horses and running for better shelter. Dodge was shot through the
knee cap, a wound that incapacitated him from the fight thereafter. The elder
Tenney fell and broke his shoulder blade and was stunned, though he was not
shot. This left the fight upon the younger Tenney, who managed to climb a
twelve-foot rocky escarpment. He reached down with his rifle and dragged up his
father and Dodge. The three opportunely found a little cave in which they
secreted themselves until reasonably rested, hearing the Indians searching for
them on the plateau above. Then in the darkness they made their way fifteen
miles to Duncan's Retreat on the Virgin River in Utah.2 7
A more dramatic version was told years later at a Mutual Improvement
Association General Boards' party in the first part of the 20th century by President
Anthony W. Ivins. (See Appendix A.) He was later a counselor to President Heber J.
Grant in the First Presidency and had previously served as a general president of the
YMMIA as one of his assignments as an apostle. As a friend of the Tenneys, he had done
70S
missionary work with them among the Lamanites. Having experience as an actor
and
being a good story teller, President Ivins obviously embellished the facts. This experience
with the Indians appears in more than one source, but all are similar.209
37
Toquerville
Realizing the time was not right in establishing a community at Short Creek due
to the Indian problems, Nathan and the others who had been sent to Short Creek
responded to the church leaders' call to return to other communities in the Virgin River
area. Nathan and Olive decided to move to Toquerville, a town just a short distance west
of their former home in Grafton, because many of their acquaintances from San
710
Bernardino were then living there.
Toquerville had been settled in 1858, just a year
before Grafton. The local Indians who lived in the area had called it "Toquer," which in
their language meant "black," for their village was at the base of a mountain capped with
711
black lava rock.
Situated in a typical high desert climate, Toquerville is an oasis in a
wide valley bordering Ash Creek with a spring a mile above the town that furnished
717
good, cold water for the settlers' needs.
Nathan and Olive had kept their home in Grafton and lived there while
213
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The Tenney home in Toquerville, Utah, was built circa 1866.
This photo was taken years later. The home has been remodeled.
Photo courtesy of Marsha R. Stratton
In approximately 1866, they moved into their two-story, brick home in Toquerville, and
while living there shared it with others many times and in many ways. For several years
38
Nathan's father-in-law, Ezra Strong, lived with them during the winters.214 Nathan's
home became the center of many community and church activities.
[Nathan's] home was used as the polling place, church meetings were
held there, and...the Young Ladies' [Mutual] Improvement Association was
established [in Toquerville,]...in that building...in the large downstairs.
[The]...home was...the place of the annual dinner given by the Horticultural
Society....Also, the annual wood haulers' party was held at Nathan's home,
which consisted of a dinner and a dance at which all who hauled wood were
guests. The wood was hauled for the widows, the old people, the wives of the
men who were off on missions, and [for] the church house. Old Folks Day was
also [commemorated by] a dinner at the house, followed by a program consisting
of reading, singing, and step dancing. Prizes for the best numbers were always
given.215
In Toquerville, Nathan did well in providing for his family and was considered a
successful rancher and businessman.
In addition to his skill at farming, he established a
shingle and sawmill on the east slopes of the Pine Valley Mountains ten miles northwest
of Toquerville, utilizing the knowledge and skills he acquired in San Bernardino. The
products from his lumber mill and the mills of two others in the same area supplied the
materials for much of the building that occurred during that time in southern Utah.217
Nathan had his young sons, John and Sam, work with him in the summers to help "saw
018
down trees and log them up in various lengths to make lumber."
At times the sale of
the sawmill products was their main source of income because of a number of calamities
that befell the farmers.
A significant example of one of those farming disasters occurred in 1868 when a
good crop was almost ready to be harvested. Grasshoppers came in great abundance,
severely damaging the crops. One settler thankfully reported that "the Lord turned [the
910
grasshoppers] aside."
They were grateful that after their harvest of what remained of
the crops, they were able to survive during the next winter. The following year the
settlers were alarmed again as grasshoppers destroyed large portions of the crops in
Washington, Kane, and Iron Counties.220 An early settler described this "terrible scare,"
telling how the "millions of grasshoppers" darkened the sun, "settled down in [the]
fields,...swarmed around the windows of the houses," and entered their homes, getting
into everything and making cooking impossible. Families went "into the fields with clubs
39
and brooms..." to fight the grasshoppers. "Some.. .even took their chickens into the fields
[hoping they would] either.. .eat.. .or drive [the grasshoppers] away."
The calamities continued for the communities in southern Utah as another year
brought illness. Many had severe colds, and measles were easily transmitted among many
in the community which often proved fatal especially for the youngsters. Summer
weather was also extremely hot, and a drought resulted in feed being scarce for the
animals.222
Another critical health problem faced the Tenney family in 1871. In early August
Nathan and Olive took their fifteen-year-old son, John, to Salt Lake City where they had
made arrangements with two doctors "to secure surgical treatment for him" to correct a
birth defect of a cleft palate.
The next day Doctors Anderson and Richards operated on
John. Elder Lyman recorded in his journal that he observed the operation and then two
99J.
weeks later observed the second operation that the doctors performed.
Undoubtedly,
Nathan gave his son a priesthood blessing of healing before the operation. Throughout his
life Nathan's actions showed he had a strong testimony of the power of the gift of
healing.
Years earlier Nathan had asked John D. Lee to use the gift of healing for his
benefit. Two such instances are recorded in Lee's diary. Nathan felt Lee was one
individual who had been blessed with a special gift of healing. The first incident occurred
in February of 1859 while Nathan and his family were living in Harmony. Nathan, who
was very ill, sent word to Lee who was at his home in Washington at that time to come
"and lay hands on him and pray for his recovery..., [adding that if Lee] "would
come...he would be restored...."225 That message arrived late at night, and Lee was
unable to leave until the following day. A few days after giving the blessing Lee wrote,
"Bro Tenney fast recovering [and Nathan had told him] "if...[you] could have [come
earlier, I] would not have suffered so much...."
The second recorded instance of Lee administering to Nathan occurred in August
of the same year when Nathan asked him to lay hands on him at the close of a meeting in
Pocketville where Lee had just preached. Nathan was suffering from an attack of pleurisy
in his side, and Lee records that after they anointed and prayed for Nathan, he recovered
instantly.227
40
Even though the people in these southern Utah settlements had challenges caused
by illness, disease, accidents, weather, and pests, they also had some heartening
experiences. One year while they lived in Toquerville, Brigham Young sent silk worm
eggs to Nathan and Olive. She and some of her friends undertook to follow the
instructions regarding their care. Nathan planted mulberry trees in their back yard to feed
the silk worms. A German convert, Armond Hoff, taught Olive how to weave silk. She
998
was pleased that she was able to weave enough silk to make a dress and a shawl.
Another endeavor of the settlers in the Virgin River area was the establishment of
cattle cooperatives. Because of the limited farmland along Ash and La Verkin Creeks, the
people realized they would be better able to care for their families if they grazed their
cattle in the surrounding mountains and valleys. Nathan had actually done this when he
first returned from California when he established his ranch at Short Creek. The LDS
Church recommended cooperative ownership of the settlers' livestock, and as a result,
companies were formed to do just that with their herds of cattle, horses, and sheep.
Although Nathan's name has not yet been found among those who were stockholders in
any of those cattle cooperatives, his ranch was in the area where the cooperative
companies owned land and ran stock, and he may well have been a participant.
41
Kanab
In 1873 Nathan, 56, moved his wife and three younger sons—ages 17, 15, and
11—to Kanab in Kane County. Actually the Tenneys had previously lived in Kane
County while living in Toquerville, which at one time was the Kane County seat. The
border between Washington and Kane Counties continued to shift and was not
permanently drawn until 1892. Nathan may have made his move to Kanab,
approximately sixty-five miles southeast of Toquerville, in conjunction with one of the
many cattle cooperatives that had been formed. Nathan's son, Ammon, had moved his
wife and two children to Kanab about two years earlier in order to be nearer to his Indian
990
missionary work as interpreter for Jacob Hamblin.
The desire for family to be together
may have been another reason for Nathan's move to Kanab. The town of Kanab was not
far from Nathan's herding grounds that he had used almost from the time of his return to
Utah from California. During the time the Tenneys were in Kanab, they "built up a
substantial ranching and cattle business."230
Kanab, noted for its scenery and mild climate, has been described as "a sort of
9^ 1
oasis in [a] surrounding desert environment."
The name Kanab comes from the Paiute
language meaning "place of the willow" indicating, of course, the presence of water, a
9^9
needed commodity in the desert environment.
In the latter part of the 1850s Jacob
Hamblin made several exploratory trips there and in the surrounding areas. One was
when Ammon, as a teenager, initially accompanied Hamblin. Although several
settlements at that area were started in the years following their first explorations, these
isolated communities were not successful because of ongoing conflicts with the Indians.
The Natives had used the area for years and naturally resented what they felt was the
trespassing of settlers on their land. However, by 1870 a small group of settlers arrived,
built a fort, and laid out their village in "Mormon style, with wide streets and regular
lots.... [and] irrigation ditches... down each side of every street."
This time the Kanab
settlement was successful.
While the Tenney families lived in Kanab, two of Nathan's younger sons, John
and Sam, were married. John, 20, married Mary Ann Oakley, and Sam, 19, married Lora
Isabelle Brown. Both marriages took place in the St. George Temple on the same day,
January 28, 1877. The finished portions of the temple in St. George had been dedicated
42
on the first of January, and the young couples made their way from Kanab to St. George,
eighty-five miles to the west, to be married. Ten years earlier Nathan's oldest living son,
Ammon, at age 22, had married Anna Sariah Eager while the family was living in
Toquerville. However, Ammon and Sariah went to Salt Lake City where they received
their endowments and were sealed in the Endowment House in 1867.234
Ammon filled many missions for the LDS Church in part due to his ability to
speak Spanish and the fluency he gained with various Indian dialects over the years
working with the native tribes of the Southwest. Nathan, who was acknowledged as "a
noted Indian missionary,"
also served missions in part due to his ability to speak
Spanish. From having lived, worked, played, or gone to school with Mexicans in San
Bernardino, "all the Tenney family spoke Spanish."
It has been said by a descendant
that evenings were often spent "around the fireplace" with family members teaching each
9^7
other the language.
At least twice, as Nathan sat in a church conference, he heard his
name called from the pulpit to serve a mission to the Lamanites. The first, as previously
mentioned, occurred at the April 1856 General Conference while he was living in San
Bernardino; the second was at a meeting in the St. George Bowery in October 1862 when
Nathan and another Grafton resident were among the twenty-one men called to be Indian
Missionaries.238 He served this latter mission until October 1863.239
From 1874 to 1876 Brigham Young sent out several companies of missionaries,
explorers and colonizers into Arizona, New Mexico, and northern Mexico.240 These
missions were not for a given amount of time, but only until the assignment was
accomplished or a letter of release was granted to the participants. Ammon participated in
many of these missions, and Nathan accompanied him on some of them. On one such
assignment into New Mexico the missionaries met up with the tribe of the Isleta Indians.
This tribe, considered more honest and upright than some of the surrounding tribes, was
found to be more protective of their wives and daughters and did not want white men in
contact with their women. Apostle Woodruff noted in his journal, "Brothers Tenney and
the other missionaries ... nearly starv[ed] to death before they got thoroughly acquainted
with them."241
During this three-year period President Brigham Young called Ammon on another
9J.9
mission, giving him instructions to "select places for colonization."
43
As a result he
visited many sites in northeastern Arizona and western New Mexico, but recommended
only four areas in Arizona which were eventually named St. Johns, Concho, The
Meadows, and Woodruff. Nathan was a companion to Ammon on this exploratory
•
•
243
mission.
In July of 1876 Ammon, whose influence and willingness to serve would bring
him, as one author declared, second only to Jacob Hamblin as a "scout of
Mormondom,"244 was called on a short term mission into Zuni territory along the border
of Arizona and New Mexico. Brigham Young extended a call to Ammon's young
neighbor in Kanab, William T. Stewart, to be his missionary companion. They left Kanab
in July and returned from this Lamanite mission in the fall.
In the intense heat of
summer they traveled through magnificent canyons and colorful cliffs as they fulfilled
their multipurpose mission.246 They drove a herd of cows the first part and then drove
wagons—probably containing supplies—for several days before again riding their horses.
They also visited small pioneer settlements along the way. This mission prepared
Ammon to lead his family into Arizona later along the same route.
A few weeks after returning to Kanab from this mission, Ammon received a letter
of release from President Young. Actually the letter was twofold: It released him from
the exploratory mission and, in turn, called him and his father, Nathan, and their families
to a colonizing mission into Arizona. Some sadness surrounded this mission call because
it was the end of Nathan's stay in Kanab. While his wife, son Sam and his wife, and
947
youngest son, Arthur,
accompanied him and Ammon into Arizona, his other son, John,
chose to stay in Kanab at the home of his father-in-law.248
44
Woodruff
In early spring of 1877 the Tenney families again loaded wagons, took some of
their stock, and leaving picturesque Kanab, made their way into eastern Arizona on yet
another colonizing mission, just one of many to which they had been called. In early May
they stopped at Brigham City Fort, which had been settled just the previous year,249 and
9S0
rested before continuing their trek.
On his previous exploratory mission, Ammon had
determined that a community of pioneers could successfully settle on the Little Colorado
River, forty-five miles southeast of Brigham City Fort. It was one of the four areas he had
selected for settlement.
Ammon was not the first to realize that the area where they eventually settled
could support a community; two men had consecutively used the land prior to the
Mormons' arrival. One, a cattleman, lived two miles south of where the town now stands;
the other, a sheep man, bought the land from the first. Even some men from the Mormon
settlement of Allen's Camp had come through and had begun to dig a ditch for irrigation,
but then left the area.251
In April Joseph S. Cardon and his group arrived at the spot, the first group of
9S9
families to do so.
In his short biography Cardon tells of Elder Nathan Tenney's arrival
three weeks later in May along with some of his family and a few other settlers to join
9S^
them.
The sheep man sold the land to Nathan, and as a result, the little colony was
called Tenney's Camp, and Nathan became known as the "Founding Father" of the
settlement.254 Another source indicates that the settlement was called Tenney's Camp
because Nathan had been called by Church authorities to be the presiding leader over
9SS
these settlers.
Nathan had a strong influence on the group, establishing the United
Order there, including the building of a common dining room.
Food was scarce that
first year, but by pooling their provisions through the United Order they were able to
257
survive.
Although it was spring and a time to plow and plant, they realized they would
have to control the water before they could use the land. However, in order to do so, they
needed a dam. The settlers began at once to construct a rock and brush dam, a difficult
and often risky project due to rapid spring runoff and the quicksand along the Little
9^8
Colorado River.
They also constructed a two-sided rock and adobe fort for their
45
9^0
protection.
During the first spring and summer, in order to provide provisions for their
families, Nathan farmed land which had been rented from Jim Stinson, who had settled
four years earlier in what was to become Snowflake, a distance of twenty-five miles
960
south of Tenney's Camp.
Stinson had managed to direct the waters of Silver Creek, a
961
smaller waterway closer to his ranch, to irrigate 300 acres.
The settlement of Tenney's Camp was an extremely difficult undertaking, but the
settlers were determined to make it a success. In August word came of Brigham Young's
death. "After consultation [Nathan and Ammon]...felt that they needed to proceed as
directed by the prophet, Brigham Young, and not give up due to his death but stay with
969
the new settlement."
About three months after having arrived in Arizona, Nathan
assigned his son, Sam, to return to Kanab to retrieve their remaining stock. The round trip
was over 600 miles with a difficult crossing of the Colorado River with a herd of cattle. It
96^
took Sam almost six months to ride to Kanab and drive their herd to Arizona.
Other LDS members continued to arrive during the settlement's first year. "On
January 27, 1878, the Latter-day Saints who had settled on the Little Colorado, in
Navajo...County, were organized into a Stake of Zion, with Lot Smith as president and
Jacob Hamblin and Lorenzo H. Hatch as counselors. Three of the settlements were
organized into wards, a bishop being appointed in each; the fourth was made a 'branch'
with a presiding elder. This was the first stake organization effected in Arizona."
stake was called the Little Colorado Stake.
The
In February the name of the community,
Tenney's Camp, was changed to Woodruff in honor of Apostle Wilford Woodruff.
President Hatch also visited the Woodruff settlement in February in his capacity as a
stake leader. He had been living in one of the Mormon settlements in western New
Mexico, and felt it would be better for him to be closer to the majority of those over
whom he was to preside. He and Nathan therefore agreed upon an exchange of property,
and soon thereafter Nathan had again moved, this time from Woodruff to New Mexico
967
with his family.
46
New Mexico
Journeying across the isolated border between Arizona and New Mexico,
Nathan's family traveled slowly with their wagons, possessions, and herds northeasterly
150 miles to what was to be their new home. That was the area where two years earlier,
Ammon and others called as Mormon missionaries had made some converts among the
Navajo and Zuni Tribes. Church leaders had then called Lorenzo Hatch and a few others
with their families to provide support for the newly baptized Indians. By the fall of 1877
the settlers experienced success from their efforts, not only in their missionary labors, but
968
also with their skills of blacksmithing and farming.
However, the winter months brought a different challenge. An LDS immigrant
wagon train from Arkansas consisting of over a hundred people stopped in their
community, nearly causing a famine before Hatch could send them on to the eastern
Arizona settlements. Further causing alarm was an outbreak of smallpox which prompted
960
the original settlers to move several miles west to the Savoia Valley.
A number of
deaths occurred among Hatch's group that winter, and unfortunately, the epidemic of
smallpox easily spread to the Indians as well. In January of 1878 Llewellyn Harris, a
Mormon settler who worked many years with the Indians, went into the Indian villages
970
and administered to "over four hundred of them with great success."
Needless to say
this spiritual success incensed the Presbyterian missionary doctors serving as government
teachers for the tribes in the area, and conflicts arose between the LDS settlers and the
971
government personnel.
It was into this tense situation that Nathan and his sons brought
their families by mid 1878. Nathan moved into the former home of Lorenzo Hatch in
Savoietta.272
After settling in, the Tenneys considered they were part of the Savoietta
community in 1878, and Nathan and his sons set about sectioning off their land for crops
and herds. At first these little Mormon communities in the Savoia Valley were
agricultural with their men controlling the irrigation water supply. Naturally the Navajos
and Zunis were attracted to the Mormons because of their knowledge of irrigation in their
arid country. In addition they favorably noted the positive aspect of cooperative living
that the Mormons represented. As a result, some of the Indians were baptized because of
97^
the example of those early Mormon settlers.
47
Nonetheless, agriculture became an undependable way to provide for one's family
in the arid climate and lands of western New Mexico. Eventually the settlers' economic
base moved to freighting and livestock. The number of sheep far exceeded the number of
cattle, and grazing rights became a serious problem, not only for the Mormon settlers but
also for resident Indians and Mexicans. The Tenneys were not immune to the situation.
Samuel, Nathan's son, who also lived at Savoietta, told of the tension.
Soon after we moved to Savoietta we found our ranch was surrounded by
sheep.... My brother Ammon and father thought it wise to visit the owners and
have somewhat of an understanding with them as they had just moved in. The
main water was at our head ranch that we had purchased from L. H. Hatch. The
sheep had drifted here for the purpose of lambing, which would take about 6
weeks before they would be able to move on. We could not change their program
as the lambs were being dropped. The little conference was productive of good.
The snow on the north side of the hills would last them for water for about that
time. The compromise was that they would honor us with the bluegrass flat a
mile square that was in plain view of our home ranch—that no herder would
point his flock in that direction, for it would be a tight squeeze for that to
maintain our cattle and ponies. Well, we felt fair over it, but one of their
herders,...a big...[man], concluded that he would show these Mormons that the
land in that valley was U.S. domain, and first come first served.274
The uproar which followed represented the lawlessness on the open range. The
herdsman who decided to "show the Mormons" made his way back to the Tenney ranch
with his herd of sheep in tow. Ammon, whose temper could be quickly roused, ran out to
confront him. Ammon told him to leave in peace or he would get his brothers with their
guns to see that he did so. The man reluctantly left.
However, the following day he returned with some other herders. When the
Tenney men spotted them, the trespassers were driving a flock of sheep "toward the heart
of [the Tenney] ranch" about a mile from their house.275 Ammon and his brothers, who
had saddled their horses earlier in the day, not knowing what to expect, rode off with
their rifles in hand. Ammon, when he realized the herder was the same fellow from the
day before, dismounted, and a fist fight ensued with Ammon prevailing. Shortly after the
fight ended, the herders, including the one who fought Ammon and was then bleeding
and in pain from the fight, took their flocks and departed the Tenney ranch.
That afternoon a second man who was obviously the person in charge of the
herdsmen approached the Tenney ranch house where the Tenney men were sitting on the
4g
porch. As he approached the group, they could see he was upset and there was revenge in
his voice. During the man's frenzied dialogue, his coat came unbuttoned, and the Tenney
men saw the handle of his revolver hidden under the coat. That provoked Ammon, who
yelled at the top of his voice, calling for his brother to get his gun. At that point Nathan,
ever the peacemaker, stepped into the altercation, and said, "My sons, beware. It's an
976
easy matter to [get].. .into serious trouble."
At this pause the Mexican herders ran, and Ammon calmed down. Nevertheless,
Ammon and his brothers chased after the running men and were able to bring them to a
standstill and have them return to the house where Ammon demanded they bring all the
herders back for a council. At that meeting it was agreed all the herders should honor the
initial contract that had been made with the Tenneys regarding the grazing land. The men
all consented.
One other negative incident occurred following the meeting at which the herders
had agreed to the Tenneys' requests. Three drunken herders later came to the Tenney
home seeking revenge, but Ammon with his gun in hand ordered them to come into the
house, and he kept them there until their liquor wore off. Samuel reported the Tenneys
were highly honored by all the Mexicans thenceforth, and Ammon was addressed as Don
277
Senor Tenney.
After having seemingly established their place in the community, Nathan then
began missionary work among the Indians. As was mentioned, the Protestant doctors who
taught at the Indian agency resented Mormon missionaries working among the local
tribes and considered the Mormons rivals. Following the successful spiritual healing of so
many Indians by Harris during the smallpox outbreak, one of the Indian agency doctors
started a rumor that Harris had used "the power of the devil" to achieve the healings.278
As Nathan began teaching the Indians, he found the successor to the previous
Pueblo Indian Agent had received hostile instructions from him "not to allow any
unauthorized person to sojourn...on the Zuni Reservation. [He further wrote that] Mr.
97Q
Tenney and son have not been, and will not be, so authorized...."
The agents' logic for
denying the Mormon missionaries was that the teachings of the government doctors, who
were Presbyterians, and those of the Mormons were so divergent that the Indians would
be harmed more than helped. This second agency doctor "enforced his authority with a
49
980
mob of Zunis and Mexican-Americans."
Despite persecution Nathan and Ammon,
ignoring the threats, continued their missionary efforts and baptized 120 Native
981
Americans before the end of the year.
Nathan had moved, built, and struggled in so many arid and challenging outposts
that he had probably lost count of them all. His limited time in New Mexico had not
always been enjoyable. In fact, considering all the places where he had moved and built,
New Mexico must count as one of the most difficult. He found it necessary while living
in New Mexico to embrace livestock production as his main means of livelihood; the land
and climate were simply too inadequate to sustain his family by agriculture.
Within the year after Nathan's arrival in New Mexico, he had received and
accepted yet another Church assignment and calling, which included another major
relocation—this time without his family. Nathan was unexpectedly called on a Church
proselytizing mission to Minnesota where many of his half-siblings lived. Over the years
Nathan's missionary fervor never lessened. His total commitment to his church leaders
was paramount throughout his life after he joined the Church; their counsel and
assignments were never questioned. As a result, it could be said Nathan was a true
989
disciple of his Savior's teachings in every sense of the word.
50
Minnesota
98"i
Nathan dutifully departed for his Minnesota mission on March 16, 1879.
It
appears he followed the church custom of traveling and living "without purse or scrip"
which was particularly true among LDS missionaries serving in rural America at this
time. 284 He was fortunate, however, to have several half-brothers and -sisters living in
Minnesota. The United States Census of 1880 taken in Lura, Faribault, Minnesota, shows
Nathan, age 63, living with one of his half-brothers, Ambrose Tenney, and his family.
The census also lists Nathan's occupation as "Mormon Elder." 285
After being on his mission nearly a year, he wrote to the "Deseret News" about
986
his missionary activities. The letter is now in the Journal History of the Church.
Grapeland, Faribault Co., Minn.
January 3, 1880.
Editors Deseret News:
I left my home in New Mexico on the 16th of last March, on a mission to
Minnesota; had a safe and pleasant journey of about 15 days. As soon as I arrived
here I commenced preaching. In a few days I heard that my mother was still
living in Illinois. I went to see her and a brother she lives with, making them a
short visit.2871 returned through Wisconsin, visiting a brother and sister living in
different localities. I held 15 meetings while I was gone—about four weeks.
Since my return I have made my home with my brothers and sisters,
bearing a faithful testimony, holding meetings as often as possible and visiting
families, telling of our union, co-operation, etc. Many tell me they believe my
testimony. Surely there are honest people here but few ever heard a "Mormon"
preach before. They tell me they had no idea of what we believe or practice. I
find the people hard working as they have large farms....It is astonishing to me to
see the soil here then compare it with our light soil that raises the plump wheat in
the mountains.
I am doing the most of my preaching in Faribault and Blue Earth
Counties. I have seen only one man and woman that was ever in Utah, namely
Mark Gilmore and wife....They have treated me with great kindness, helping me
to get a place to preach to and offering me a home as long as I wanted to stay.
Only one of our Elders have preached in this part of the country that I
have heard of, he preached in the counties north of here, all say he was a smart
man and preached good doctrine....It looks to me that though a work might be
done here as I have no trouble in getting a place to preach in. I have generally
had a good congregation. They have showed no disposition to disturb our
meetings. My hopes are good. I can truly say I am not tired of my mission; the
light is before me and I feel to press on, trusting in the help of Him who dwells in
the heavens.
Nathan C. Tenney
51
As Nathan entered his seventh decade, with most of his adult years involved in
colonization, he had aged and mellowed so that the mantle of peacemaker had come
naturally. He had been a peacemaker more than once in violent encounters with vengeful
Natives, troublesome sheep men, rebellious cowboys, and dishonest community
members. He had endured floods, pestilence, distrustful neighbors, and religious
persecution. Even then, by the time he returned from Minnesota his family had moved to
Arizona again because of the unending turmoil in the area of New Mexico where they
resided. In Arizona he would face his final endeavor as a peacemaker.
52
St. Johns, Arizona
While Nathan was serving his mission in Minnesota, his family's circumstances
were altered by events out of their control. Continuing Indian problems in New Mexico,
including the constant threat of death, and Church colonization and growth in Arizona
necessitated their move from New Mexico to Arizona. The chain of events causing this
shift in their situation began a few weeks prior to Nathan's departure for his Minnesota
mission.
Just after the first of the year in 1879 Jesse N. Smith, the newly appointed
president of the Little Colorado Stake came to what was then called San Juan, Arizona, to
negotiate with Solomon Barth for the purchase of his holdings in the area. Barth, a former
itinerant trader was then owner of the property desired by the Church for settlement.
988
However, Smith was unsuccessful in coming to terms with Barth.
•
Several years earlier
Barth had won several thousand sheep and several thousand dollars from some herders in
980
what proved to be for him a lucky card game.
As a result, he decided to settle right
there on that crossing of the Little Colorado River.290 He hired Mexican-Americans to
help him improve his holdings by digging some ditches, building a dam, and constructing
his house. They in turn built their own houses, creating a community, which Barth named
901
San Juan, as a compliment for the first female resident.
In the fall of 1879 Ammon Tenney, under direction of the church leadership, tried
again to bargain with Barth and this time was successful in reaching terms agreeable to
909
Barth for the purchase of his 12,000 acres of land, including the water rights.
Ammon
immediately wrote to Apostle Woodruff about the results of this meeting with Barth. The
letter was delivered to Elder Woodruff, who was in the San Francisco Mountains of
90^
Arizona, by a messenger from the Sunset settlement.
The following day, November 25, Elder Woodruff arose early and wrote a letter
in reply to Ammon, telling him to buy the property for the agreed price of "770 head of
American cows" at an estimated value of $19,000.294 Then Woodruff wrote immediately
to President John Taylor, telling him of the decision he had made to buy the land. Not
wasting any time, Woodruff called a few families to leave the next day to settle on the
land that had been purchased. By December 1879 settlers began arriving, including
53
Ammon and his family. Ammon served as the colony's first leader, acting as bishop for
i
295
almost a year.
However, the initial town site for the Mormon settlement was abandoned in less
than a year and moved to higher ground north and west of the Mexican village of San
Juan. Before long the Mormons anglicized the town name to St. Johns. The newly
appointed bishop of St. Johns, David K. Udall, arrived in October of 1880, and the town
was officially laid out following the general pattern for Mormon settlements.296 Tension
arose almost immediately between the Mexican-Americans and the Mormons in St.
Johns.297 The Mexicans became hostile because of the many Mormons who continued to
arrive and build houses. Unfortunately, St. Johns was not like other LDS settlements,
peaceful, calm, and industrious, but it became a proverbial "wild west" town with ethnic,
908
cultural, religious, and moral differences.
Meanwhile in the New Mexico settlements in 1880 the Indians became more
troublesome. Stake President Jesse N. Smith called for the settlers in that area to return to
Arizona.
In response to that request, Sam Tenney, Nathan's son still residing in
Savoietta, New Mexico, departed the Tenney ranch with his family, his mother, Olive,
and his younger brother, Arthur, and moved to St. Johns where Ammon was living. Their
horses and cattle, which represented the family income and savings account, also had to
be moved to Arizona, no easy task. The move to St. Johns by the Tenneys was completed
in November 1880.300 As would be expected, the family wrote to Nathan who was still on
his mission informing him of their move.
After moving to St. Johns, the Tenney families were able to find places to live "in
^09
a row of Mexican houses on the west bank of the Little Colorado River."
At this time
Nathan's son, Samuel, and his wife brought Olive to live with them, while eighteen-yearold Arthur lived with Ammon and his family.
Living near them were Bishop Udall and
his young family and the McFates, Sherwoods, and Richeys, the latter three families
becoming related to the Tenneys over time through marriage.
A few weeks after their move, Olive Tenney, who had become "Mother" Tenney
as her daughters-in-law became the "Sister" Tenneys, died unexpectedly on January 12,
1881. Family members claimed she "passed away suddenly from the best of health to
eternity."304 She was buried in the St. Johns Cemetery. The family was then, of course,
54
concerned with Nathan's response to his wife's death when he would return from his
mission. According to his son, Samuel, Nathan arrived home from his mission a short
time after Olive's death, not quite two years after his departure. Although we have no
record of Nathan's adjustment to his wife's death, it can be surmised that he survived this
additional challenge placed before him. At age 63, more than ever before, he became
"Father" Tenney, not only to his family, but also in the community.
Nathan had held several other titles ranging from "Bishop" in San Bernardino, to
"President" when he served as leader of the branch in Grafton, to "Elder" when serving
on any of his missions. He was called "Brother" when his peers and leaders conversed
with or referred to him in their journals. He was also called "Mr. Tenney" by the nonLDS people in New Mexico. Living as close as the family did to the Mexican part of the
St. Johns village, Nathan was able to interact favorably with those Spanish-speaking
citizens simply because of his knowledge of their language. In his considerate way he
was able to make friends with many of them "and was perhaps the most liked Mormon in
the Mexican village."
They, too, referred to him as "Father" Tenney. Nathan had lived
his life in such a way that the term "peacemaker" was attached often to his name as
others talked or wrote about him.
Nathan's last role as peacemaker occurred in the "wild west" town of St. Johns on
a warm summer's day, June 24, 1882. The Mexicans in St. Johns were celebrating one of
their feast days according to one report, and another report indicated there was
^06
excitement in town over the Mexican's fighting bulls.
There had always been animosity
between the sheep men and cattle ranchers. There was a real loathing between the
Mexicans and a group of troublemaking cowboys referred to as the Greer Boys. The
^07
Greers were also Mormons adding to the local Mexicans' dislike of them.
Not long
before this fateful day the Greers had caught a local Mexican accused of stealing a horse
and had "branded" him by giving him an ear "underslope" such as was given to cattle.
However, this day the Greer cowboys had come into town by invitation. In addition to the
entertainment provided, the Mexicans had scheduled the sale of small lots of cattle and
horses. The Greer brothers had money with them to make some purchases for their ranch
holdings.309
55
The Greers always carried guns, but as soon as they entered the Mexican part of
St. Johns, the Mexican police asked them to take off their revolvers or leave town within
an hour. The cowboys went into the co-op store while the police and other Mexicans
stood outside. Upon looking outside, the Greers saw an angry mob of Mexicans
approaching the co-op with their guns. At that point the cowboys decided to split up.
Some went out the back door to get their horses, while the others decided to seek refuge
in a vacant adobe house nearby. When the cowboys came out of the store, the Mexicans
11A
began firing upon them; the Greers fired back.
The exchange of bullets continued for
fifteen or twenty minutes, or at least the cowboys judged it to be that long.
The
cowboys' shots were not as effective because they only had "six shooters" while some of
i n
the Mexicans had rifles.
In the nearby Mormon homes the residents heard what seemed
to them a thousand shots. Word spread quickly that one of the cowboys had been killed
and another wounded. Eight had escaped, and four had taken shelter in an unfinished
adobe house.313
In a lull of the firing, Nathan came up the street toward the skirmish bearing a
white flag.314 He went to Sol Barth, the original settler of St. Johns, and asked him to tell
the Mexicans to stop shooting so that Nathan could go to the house to persuade the
cowboys to come out and accept arrest. Barth shouted this request from his home which
was directly across the road from the conflict. The shooting stopped, and a leery quiet
prevailed. Nathan walked over to the adobe house and urged the cowboys to lay aside
their guns. They agreed to do this only if the sheriff would guarantee them protection.
Nathan then went to the sheriffs house and persuaded him to walk with him back to the
T I C
unfinished adobe house.
It was there that Nathan convinced the cowboys that it would
be best to accept arrest. They agreed with him that their odds of survival were not good
and allowed Sheriff E. S. Stover to take them into custody.
After the sheriff took their guns and handcuffed the cowboys, he and Nathan
walked with them down the main street toward the jail. In the quiet another shot rang out,
and Nathan fell to the ground. It was presumed that an "overly excited Mexican holed up
in the loft of the Barth House took one more shot.. .at the prisoners."
The bullet missed
the intended prisoners but hit Nathan's right cheek bone, ranged down, and came out the
318
back of his neck, [probably] "killing him instantly."
The death of their Mormon friend,
56
Nathan Tenney, seemed to provoke the Mexicans to a fanatical rage, which then made it
more difficult for the sheriff to get the cowboys safely into the jail. Sheriff Stover turned
the problem over to his deputy, Tom Perez with Alejandro Peralta, who took the Greers
into custody.
Later the cowboys' "case was taken to Prescott [where] they were
released with light punishment."320 The Greers later also expressed remorse for the death
of their friend, Nathan, saying his "unnecessary killing...was not right."321 No one was
ever tried for killing Nathan.322
At the time of the shooting it was claimed the Mormons ran out to recover
Nathan's body. They took his body to Sam's home where Nathan had been living. Sam's
wife, who was at home with her two young children, received the body into her house to
be cared for by the church elders until Nathan's burial. Nathan's sons, Sam and Ammon,
had been away on the San Francisco Peaks during this time and only learned of their
father's death two weeks later at which time they returned to St. Johns as quickly as they
393
could.
Nathan died a month shy of his sixty-fifth birthday and was buried in St. Johns
beside his wife, Olive, whose death had occurred just eighteen months earlier.
The chiseled words on the Tenney
tombstone in the St. John's Westside
Cemetery begin: "In Honor of Nathan C.
Tenney," and end with the sentence "Elder
Tenney died while saving life and making
39 A
peace."
•
Nathan was honored for his
favorable traits not only by his family and
Mormon peers but also by others from
different walks of life. He was a tireless
worker,
dependable,
capable,
honest,
sociable, and more than willing to do his
share. One author stated that Nathan
"respect [ed] the rights of all men.
Quickly
Tombstone f o r Nathan and Olive Tenney,
Westside Cemetery, St. Johns, Arizona.
Photo courtesy of Tom Irwin, Apple Valley, CA.
mastering
frontier
skills, he
applied them in his life. Nathan was
genuinely obedient to his church leaders,
57
fulfilling callings to the best of his ability, finding ways to overcome negative
experiences and detractors, and working for the success of the budding communities
where he lived. Being an acknowledged and kind peacemaker ultimately led to his death.
One historian commented that if Nathan Tenney had not moved around so much,
396
he may well have become a wealthy man.
That may be true, but it appears that Nathan
took seriously the covenant he had made in the Nauvoo Temple years before to further
397
the Lord's work on the earth.
He did this by serving missions, teaching the restored
gospel, literally starting many new settlements in western America, being kind to others,
and by raising a good family. Countless times he gave his all in time, talents, and worldly
goods to further the work and then moving on, he began all over again.
58
Appendix A
The following is an edited version of a talk given by Apostle Anthony W. Ivins at a party
for the General Boards of the YLMIA and YMMIA.
The original was printed in the November 1913 "Improvement Era. "
Courage 1860
Trouble with the Indians intensified in the 1860s when they killed two white men
in the vicinity of Pipe Springs in northern Arizona not far from the Utah border. The
church authorities advised the settlers to return to the towns closer to St. George until the
Indian problems had calmed down. Nathan Tenney obeyed and moved from his ranch at
Short Creek to his home on the Virgin River, a distance of approximately 25 miles.
Checking his corral one morning Nathan saw the corral bars were down and his
horses were gone. Upon inquiry he learned that a neighbor's horses had also disappeared,
which suggested renegade Indians. Nathan and his son, Ammon, decided to ride, and, if
possible, find their horses.
Nathan, Ammon, and Enoch Dodge rode out together. Each was armed. Nathan
carried an old fashioned cap and ball pistol, Enoch had a light muzzle loading rifle, and
Ammon, Nathan's son, who was a teenager, packed an old style six-shooter.
They hadn't ridden far when they came upon their horses with some Indian ponies
feeding in the pasture near his range corral. They hurriedly separated them, drove them
into the corral, necked them together, and started them down the road toward their
homes. On their way they felt, rather than saw, Indians, and one remarked to the others,
"Indians!" They had mounted and were ready to ride when suddenly eight mounted
Indians appeared with bows and arrows and a gun pr two, forming a half circle around
them.
In that country are many faults in the earth and Nathan's corral had been built
with one side against a fault. The Indians had circled the other three sides. The three men
were contemplating what to do when the Indians began to mutter about their intention to
kill them, which the men clearly understood. Ammon spoke to the Indians in Spanish.
One Indian answered and, leaving his bow on his horse, dismounted and came to the
center of the circle, inviting the boy to do likewise where they would arrange terms.
Ammon was about to dismount when his father prudently cautioned, "No, my boy, they
would carry you off." This made the Indians angry. Just then the three men heard the
most horrible, blood curdling war whoops and saw eight more Navajos riding swiftly
toward them, their black hair streaming behind. At that point Nathan said, "If there was
any chance before, there is none now."
Each Indian in the second group took a place between every other one of the first
group, forming a veritable wall of sixteen angry, grumbling Natives mounted and armed
with guns, bows and arrows, and not about to be put off. Ammon spoke first, "Let's shoot
59
our horses and get behind them and shoot it out." But his father wisely said, "No, we
haven't enough ammunition."
At this point young Ammon's leadership asserted itself. Drawing his pistol and
using his spurs, he rode so suddenly and swiftly through the Native human wall, calling
to his father and Dodge to follow him down the trail toward home. He had the strongest
horse and was a superb horseman. Nathan yelled for him to ride on home, believing it
useless to try to get away, but when Ammon was beyond the circled Indians, he slowed
and called to Nathan and Dodge to come on. They did so and found themselves racing
toward Ammon with Navajos racing by their sides. They had gone some distance when
Nathan's horse abruptly stepped in a hole and threw him over its head landing him hard
on the ground. The impact dislocated his shoulder. At the same time, Dodge was shot in
the knee.
Ammon circled, coming back to the wounded men, gun in hand in time to frighten
two Indians who were bearing down on his father with arrows ready. Ammon hurriedly
slid to the ground, letting his horse go. According to Indian law, the one that first controls
a loose horse owns it, and as a consequence, there was a scramble among the Indians to
catch the three men's horses. After they caught the horses, the Indians moved back. To
keep them at bay Ammon moved behind a large boulder and fired his pistol. While the
Navajos had been rounding up the horses, Ammon hurriedly moved his father who had
by then fainted. Seeing his father's dislocated shoulder, he sat down, took his father's
hand, and placing one foot on his neck and the other in the pit of his arm, pulled and
twisted until the shoulder was back in place. Naturally the pain was intense for Nathan.
Ammon placed his hands on Nathan's head, and blessed him in the power of the
priesthood.
Returning to the boulder, Ammon fired again and then went to help Dodge who
was also in deep pain. Nathan was now conscious, and both men begged Ammon to go
while he could. In answer he said, "I'll shoot once more then help you both up and we
will go." The area of southern Utah where they were is filled with scrub trees, low
bushes, and large rocks and boulders, and by moving carefully the men were not seen as
they made their escape from the Indians. The Navajos, uncertain which way they went,
did not attack.
The cliff of the fault the men reached was too high to climb so they turned south
until it had tapered sufficiently. Holding his pistol, Ammon went up first. He took
Dodge's gun and held it in such a way to help pull his father, with Dodge pushing, to the
top of the escarpment. Then the gun was lowered for Dodge. As he neared the top, the
Navajos spied them and let out loud war whoops. Ammon quickly looked on the other
side of the fault and saw not even a bush to conceal them. He checked among the rocks
where they were for any kind of a hiding place. At his feet he noted a wide crack. He
dropped to his knees and examined the crack and determined it was large enough for all
three of them to enter. He told the wounded men to climb in while he brought a rock to
cover the entrance. The rock was no more than in place when the Navajos were all
around them. The Indians knew these white men couldn't be far and were loath to give up
60
their hunt. The soft pat-pat of moccasins was heard for several hours during the night as
the Indians searched for them on the plateau. Daylight brought relief; Ammon went to the
nearest ranch in Duncan's Retreat for help. From there they were taken home by friends.
Later in life, as Ammon concluded telling this story, he said: "If they had looked
in that opening in the rock, they could have seen us." President Ivins added his own
comment to the end of the story, "Let us say that in this, as in all of [their] experiences,
the higher power protected them so they could do His work."
61
Appendix B
Patriarchal Blessing of Nathan C. Tenney
Recorded in the 1845 Register
The spelling, wording, and punctuation are as they appear in the handwritten copy.
No 1146 = Septr 10th A Blessing by John Smith, Patriarch, upon the head of Nathan C.
Tenney son of Meshach and Phoebe C, born July 28 1817, Ontario, Co. New York.
Br. Nathan I lay my hands upon thy head by the authority given me of Jesus Christ, and
place upon you a father's blessing; because thou hath obeyed the gospel with a willing
heart and separated thyself from the Gentile practices, and thy former friends, the Lord is
well pleased, and he hath appointed unto thee a mission to gather with the remnant of
Jacob, no weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper and every tongue that shall
side against thee in judgement shall be condemned, the Lord hath given his Angels
charge to defend you to clear your way in the midst of your enemies, and you need not
fear for the hand of the Lord is over you for good; thou shalt gather in thy thousands and
establish them in a land of safety, while the destroyer is sweeping the earth from
wickedness; thou shall have a family to keep thy name in remembrance in the church,
they shall be honorable among the saints through all generations; thou shalt leave an
inheritance in Zion with the children of Ephraim thy fellows, and partake of all the
glories of the eternal priesthood to all eternity; inasmuch as you abide in the truth these
words shall not fail, for I seal them upon you by the authority of the holy priesthood.
Amen.328
62
1
Stratton and Stratton. 3.
Tenney, Martha Jane. 216. Alternate spellings for Phebe: Phoebe, Phoeby.
3
"Ontario, New York."
4
Tenney, Martha Jane. 216, 401.
5
"Brief History of Wayne County, New York." Wayne County was formed in 1823 from lands that were
part of Ontario and Seneca Counties. Nathan often listed his birthplace just as Ontario County, New York.
The township of Ontario, now in the northwest corner of Wayne County, was first organized in 1807 as
part of Ontario County and for a year was known as Freeman until the name was changed to Ontario.
Ontario Township is about ten miles long and six miles wide.
6
"Nathan Cram Tenney extended family."
7
Stratton and Stratton. 3
8
Stratton and Stratton. 2; "Nathan Family Genealogy Forum." In addition to Meshach Tenney, Phebe Cram
married 2) John Gates 9 Jun 1821 NY; 3) William or George Baker 18 Jan 1848 Carroll Co., Ill; 4) William
Blair, Sr. 4 Oct 1860 Stephenson Co., 111. There may have been others, but these names, dates, and places
make this list the most logical.
9
10
11
Ancestral File; "Cram Family Genealogy Forum." Two of Nathan's mother's sisters married men with
the surname Tyrrell or Tyrell.
12
Kett. 605.
13
14
Hassan; Kett. 273.
15
Kett. 605.
16
17
Kett. 605; "Samuel B. Gates."
18
Stratton and Stratton. 3; "Samuel B. Gates."
19
Kett.
20
Tenney, Ben W. 62. Nathan's son Sam indicates the mines were in Minnesota, but Nathan may well have
worked in the lead mine in Galena, a township in northwest Jo Daviess County and much closer to his farm
than the iron mines in Minnesota.
21
Tenney, Ben W. 62.
22
23
Tenney, Ben W. 2.
24
25
Stratton and Stratton. 9; Tenney, Ben. W. 60. In this latter book his height is listed as 6' 1".
26
Tenney, Ben W. 2.
27
" Jo Daviess County Marriages." In this record Nathan's surname is spelled "Tinney."
28
Tenney, Ben W. 2.
29
Tenney, Ben W. 2.
30
Tenney, Ben W. 2.
31
Tenney, Ben W. 2.
32
33
34
35
36
Tenney, Ben W. 2.
37
Church Archives. In this source the place of George Alma Tenney's birth is listed as Davis City,
Stephenson County, Illinois. However, the Tenney Family Bible in possession of the John Lowell Tenney
family in New Mexico lists Jo Daviess County, an adjoining township in Illinois, for the birth of this child.
38
Lowell. 88.
Church Archives.
2
63
43
Smith, John. Patriarchal Blessing Index. 1830-1971. CR 500-1 #128. (See Appendix B.)
"International Genealogical Index and Ordinance Record."
45
Garr, Cannon, and Cowan. 829.
46
47
Tenney, Ben W. 3.
48
Pioneer Women of Faith and Fortitude. 4:3058.
49
The Tenney Family Bible; Our Heritage: a brief history... 70-71. The family Bible and some other
records indicate that Nathan Cram Tenney, Jr. was born in Winter Quarters, Douglas, Nebraska. However,
the Latter-Day Saints did not arrive in western Iowa until mid June of 1846, and the baby's birthday is
listed as 4 Apr 1846. He must have been bom while they were traveling across Iowa, but research has not
yet verified that place.
50
51
Jenson. 29.
52
Bennett. In Garr 1349.
53
Brooks, Melvin R. 520.
54
Jenson. 31.
55
56
Jenson. 32.
57
58
59
60
61
62
Kirby. Microfilm #928352, Item 14, p. 20: Burials in Burial Ground at Winter Quarters. Northwest
corner: George A. Tenney, 6 yr 10 mo 10 days, relationship-son-Nathan and Olive Tenney. Grave #304.
63
Jenson. 35.
64
"Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel, 1847-1868."
65
"Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel, 1847-1868."
66
Jenson. 36.
67
"Mormon Pioneer Trail."
68
"Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel, 1847-1868." Letter. Willard Richards to Brigham Young and Heber
C.Kimball, 10 Sep 1848.
69
Nathan and Olive may have kept journals but in their frequent moves they may have been discarded
because of a lack of room to transport them. It is also possible that if there were journals, they may have
been lost in the destructive flood of 1862.
70
Romney. 237.
71
Carvalho. Ch. 26; Tyrrell. In Justus 9.
72
Pioneer Women ofFaith and Fortitude. 4:3058.
73
Lyman, Edward Leo. San Bernardino: the rise andfall... 23. Hereafter Lyman.
74
Tyrrell. In Justus 8.
75
Tyrrell. In Justus 8.
76
Romney. 237.
77
Lyman. 35.
78
Lyman. 38.
79
Lyman. "San Bernardino, California." In Garr 1064-65.
80
Lyman. 36. See Footnote.
81
Lyman. 36.
82
Lyman. 18.
83
Landon. In Garr 786.
Pratt. 377.
Pratt. 380.
86
Wood. 100. The leaders of the San Bernardino colonists thought they had purchased 80,000 acres, but
found out later they were only allowed 35,000 acres, the size of the Mexican land grant of 1842. To
appease the Mormon's disappointment, the United States Land Commission allowed the colonists to
determine the boundaries of their purchase. This accounts for the peculiar perimeter of their settlement.
44
64
87
Lyman. 58.
Tenney, Ben W. 2.
89
Lyman. 51.
90
Brown and Boyd. 40-41. Quoted in Wood 103. The fort was shaped like a parallelogram, 760' by 320'.
91
Lyman. 65.
92
City of Redlands. F-10; Lyman, vii. The buildings were referred to as the Asistancia or Asistencia
because they were originally a branch of the San Gabriel Mission. Sometimes the area was called the
Estancia, which is the name for a South American cattle ranch. The land around the San Bernardino
mission buildings, which is now part of the City of Redlands, was a ranch outpost used for cattle grazing.
93
Lyman. 65..
94
95
"Asistencia."
96
Millennial Star. 22 Jan 1853. Quoted in Lyman 215. See footnote.
97
Lyman. 215.
98
Lyman. 220.
99
Tenney, Ben W. 5; Stratton and Stratton. 9; Deseret News 5:101.
100
Lyman. 257-258.
101
The name for these officers has changed through the years. "Block" teachers became "ward" teachers,
and now (2007) are called "home" teachers.
102
Hartley. In Garr 104-105.
103
Journal History. 22 August 1855.
104
Hill. The LDS Redlands California Temple was built and dedicated in 2003 on land belonging to the
original pioneer San Bernardino colony, not far from the Asistencia building.
105
Lyman. 269.
106
Payne, Rosalia Tenney. Quoted in Stratton and Stratton 9; Larson. 69. This idea of building a "living
fence" was brought to southern Utah by pioneer horticulturist, Walter E. Dodge, after he saw it when he
went to California to acquire fruit trees for his community.
07
08
Lyman. 205.
09
Lyman. 74.
10
Lyman. 74, 116-117. The lumber became known as "Mormon bank notes" or "Mormon currency."
11
Tenney, Ben W. 2.
12
Lyman. 226-227.
13
Tenney, Ben W. 2.
14
Lyman. 322.
15
Wood. 229.
16
Wood. 230.
17
Wood, 231.
18
Wood. 232.
19
Lyman. 323.
20
Lyman. 97; Stratton and Stratton. 9.
21
Dwight; Church Archives. Two dates are given for John's birth in various sources: July 28 or July 29.
22
Wood. 232; McClintock. 46. Another reason for the swift departure from San Bernardino by the
Mormons was connected with their desire to avoid any persecution or riots similar to those they had
experienced in Nauvoo. On September 11, 1857, the Mountain Meadows massacre occurred in the
southwest comer of Utah. The outrage, felt throughout the Union, about the slaying of all the adults in a
wagon train of Arkansas emigrants was laid at the feet of the Mormon settlers in that area. A San
Bernardino colony member who was in Sacramento "rode southward...with the news that 200 mountain
vigilantes were on their way to run the Mormons out of California." Not wanting to confront violent mobs
again, most of the settlers left for Utah within a few weeks. When the news of the Mormons' departure
from California reached the vigilantes, they dispersed without doing any harm to those who remained in
San Bernardino.
123
Lyman. 371.
124
Lyman. "The Demise of the San Bernardino Mormon Community, 1851-1857." 321.
125
Stratton and Stratton. 10; San Francisco Alta California, 26 Nov 1857. Quoted in Lyman 395.
88
65
126
Tenney, Ben W. 2; Lee, John D. 1:162.
Lyman. 307.
128
Hanks, Ebenezer. Quoted in Kellogg D2.
129
Lyman. Amasa Mason Lyman, Apostle and Apostate: a study in dedication. 48.
130
Tenney, Ben W. 2.
131
Tenney, Ben W. 2; Lyman, Edward Leo. Conversation with authors about name of Indian Village. 29
Dec 2005.
132
Tenney, Ben W. Samuel Benjamin Tenney, Sr. Quoted in Stratton, Marsha R. Letter to authors. 4 Dec
2000. 2. The trip to Cedar City was probably made to bring some of the goats to Lyman's family members
who were living in that area.
133
134
Lee, John D. 1:202.
135
Brooks, Juanita. 369.
136
Lee, John D. 1:168.
137
Lee, John D. passim.
138
Lee, John D. 1:171.
139
Lee, John D. 1:178-179.
140
Lee, John D. 1:183-184.
141
Lee, John D. 1:162.
142
Lee, John D. 1:202.
143
"The Southern Utah Mission."
144
McFate. Virginia Griffith, author of the family history of James McFate, her great-great-grandfather,
suggests that Roy McFate's history about Joseph S. McFate is more fiction than fact and the reader should
remember that.
145
McFate.
146
McFate.
147
Romney. 237.
148
Bailey. 195.
149
McClintock. 63.
150
Payne, Craig.
151
McClintock. 63.
152
Van Cott. "History of Virgin, Utah."
153
"History of Virgin, Utah."
154
"History of Virgin, Utah."
155
Anderson. "Bonanza of Southwest History and Folklore."
156
Stratton and Stratton. 10. The LDS Ordinance records show the same date for the sealing, but instead of
naming the Endowment House or a temple the record indicates "OTHER" as the place.
157
Godfrey. "Plural Marriage." In Garr 928.
158
James.
159
Godfrey. In Garr 928.
160
Embry, Jessie L. Quoted in James.
161
Lee, John D. 1:202.
162
Craig and Barnum.
163
164
Adams. 13.
165
"International Genealogical Index."
166
Stratton, Marsha R., Letter to authors. 25 Sep 2000.
167
Adams, 13; Marsha R. Stratton, Letter to authors. 25 Sep 2000.
168
Stratton, Marsha R. Letter to authors. 25 Sep 2000.
169
"International Genealogical Index."
170
171
Stratton and Stratton. 14; "International Genealogical Index and Ordinance Record."
172
Lamoreaux. 2. Confusion about the major dates and places in Nancy Beauford Morris' life, her other
husbands, and particularly her life with Nathan exist. Until research uncovers more information about her,
127
66
there will be puzzlement regarding some of the events in her life; Stratton, Marsha R., Letter to authors. 22
Oct 2000. Alternate spellings of Nancy's middle name: Beaufort, Buford.
73
Lyman. Amasa Mason Lyman, .... Manuscript in Progress. 57.
174
Van Cott. "Grafton." There is disagreement among historical writers as to whether the town was named
for a town in New England or England.
175
Van Cott. "Grafton."
176
Carter. 8:174.
177
Johnson, S. E. Letter dated April 14, 1860. "Correspondence." From Washington County. Deseret
News. 9 May 1860. 10:X. 8.
178
Journal History. 12 Feb 1861; Deseret News. 12 Feb 1861.
179
Anderson. "St. George."
180
Larson, Andrew Karl. 347-350; From the prolific production of grapes in the good soil and climate
conditions of the Virgin River Valley, the settlers found it profitable to make wine. Brigham Young called
German convert John C. Naegle, a master vintner, to move to southern Utah where he established a winery
in his large basement. Wine of their own make was used for the sacrament at that time, as was counseled by
Joseph Smith. The extra wine was sold to the miners in the area. Many settlers made their own wine from
their grapes and used it to pay their tithing. By 1906 the practice of using wine for the sacrament was
discontinued by the Church.
181
Lee, John D. 24 Mar 1859.
182
Lee, John D. March 1860.
183
Journal History. 1 Apr 1861. 1. Notation above article: "The following is copied from 'Bleak's
Manuscript':"
184
Brooks, Juanita. John Doyle Lee. 190. This paragraph refers to Bishop William R. Davies.
185
Lee, John D. 1:309.
186
Lee, John D. 1:309.
187
Lee, John D. 1:309.
188
Stratton and Stratton. 12; Deseret News. May 1, 1861. 11:72.
189
Reeve.
190
Ancestral File; Van Cott, "Grafton;" Reeve.
191
Lyman. Amasa Mason Lyman, ... Manuscript in progress. Unnumbered page.
192
Carter. 8:174.
193
Lyman. Amasa Mason Lyman,.... Manuscript in progress. 395.
194
Lyman. Amasa Mason Lyman, .... Manuscript in progress. Unnumbered page.
195
Lyman. Amasa Mason Lyman, .... Manuscript in progress. Unnumbered page. Elder Lyman
undoubtedly referred to Nathan as Bishop Tenney in his diary because of their relationship while in San
Bernardino.
196
Lyman. Amasa Mason Lyman, .... Manuscript in progress. Unnumbered page.
197
Lyman, Amasa Mason Lyman, .... Manuscript in progress. Unnumbered page.
198
McFate.
199
McFate.
200
Ancestral File.
201
Bessant.
202
Carter. 8:174.
203
Halley. E 2.
204
Tenney, Ben W. 4.
205
206
"Utah and the Arizona Strip."
207
McClintock. 71.
208
Walker. 121; Larson, Andrew Karl. 412.
209
Stratton and Stratton. 12-13; Johnson, Annie R. 407-408; Romney. 342-344; Payne, Craig.
210
211
Larsen, Wesley P.
212
"It's the People."
213
67
214
Dwight. 867-868.
216
Larsen, Wesley P.
217
Larsen, Wesley P.
18
Tenney, Ben W. 26.
219
Madsen, J. V. In Stratton and Stratton 15; Jenson. 77.
220
Jenson, 81.
221
Dennett, John. In Stratton and Stratton 15-16.
222
223
Lyman, Amasa M. Diary. August 4, 1871.
224
Lyman, Amasa M. Diary. August 5, 21, 1871.
225
Brooks, Juanita. 258; John D. Lee Diary. 1:193-94.
226
Brooks, Juanita. 258; John D. Lee Diary. 1:194.
227
Brooks, Juanita. 258. Pleurisy is an inflammation of the membrane lining of the chest. Whether this was
the actual diagnosis of the ailment or whether it was pulled muscles or some other kind of chest pain is
unknown.
228
229
Whiting and Payne. In Craig Payne.
230
Smiley. In Craig Payne.
231
Bradley. This author indicates that the word "Kanab" "comes from a Native American word for a
willow basket used to carry an infant on its mother's back."
232
"Kanab, Kane County, Utah."
233
Dellanbaugh, Frederick. Canyon Voyage. Quoted in Bradley.
234
"International Genealogical Index and Ordinance Record."
235
Larson, Andrew Karl. 95.
236
Udall and Nelson. 93. Probably not "all" of the members of the Tenney family spoke Spanish.
237
Stratton, Marsha. Letter to authors. 26 Sep 2000.
238
Journal History. 26 October 1862. 2-3.
239
240
Tullis,441.
241
Cowley. 525.
242
McClintock. 178.
243
244
McClintock. 178.
245
Lee and Peterson.
246
Lee and Peterson.
247
Nathan's youngest son's name was William Arthur Tenney, but the family called him 'Arthur.'
248
United States Census 1880.
249
Fox.
250
"Brigham City." Unfortunately, the settlement of Brigham City Fort in Arizona only lasted four more
years before it was abandoned due to recurrent flooding and crop failures.
251
McClintock. 161.
252
Cardon. 2
253
Cardon. 2.
254
Lupher. Section 2. The previous owners were first Luther Martin and then Felix Scott from whom
Nathan purchased the land.
255
Hatch. 148.
256
McClintock. 162.
257
Lupher. 12.
258
Cowley. 520.
259
McClintock. 162.
260
Tenney, Ben W. 5. In various sources the name of the Snowflake rancher appears as Jim Stinson, James
Stinson, Mr. Stimson (sic).
261
McClintock. 162.
262
215
68
263
Tenney, Ben W. 5. This trip by Sam may be evidence that Nathan was a member of a cattle cooperative.
Roberts, B. H. Quoted in McClintock. 195. On Dec. 27, 1878, another stake composed of the
settlements further up the Little Colorado in Apache County was organized and called the Eastern Arizona
Stake. In July 1887 Eastern Arizona Stake became the St. Johns Stake with David K. Udall as president,
and in December of that same year the Little Colorado Stake was reorganized to become the Snowflake
Stake with Jesse N. Smith as president.
265
Gibbons. 198.
266
Lupher. 12.
267
268
Telling. 117-36.
269
Telling.
270
Mangum.
271
Telling.
72
McClintock. 188. McClintock noted "that these names, [Savoia and Savoietta,] pronounced as they
stand, are rough-hewn renditions of the Spanish words cebolla, 'onion,' and cebolleta, 'little onion.'" There
are several phonetic variations in the spelling of these English versions of the Spanish words.
273
Mangum.
274
Tenney, Ben W. 35.
275
Tenney, Ben W. 35.
276
Tenney, Ben W. 35.
277
Tenney, Ben W. 35-36.
278
Mangum.
264
279
Mangum.
Mangum.
281
Mangum.
282
283
Tenney, Nathan C. In Journal History. 3 January 1880.
284
Madsen, Truman G.. 106.
285
United States Census 1880. On the family records this half-brother's name is listed as Ambrose Fox
Tenney.
286
Tenney, Nathan C. In Journal History of the Church, 3 January 1880.
287
United States Census 1880. This document indicates Nathan's mother, Phebe G. Blair, was 85 years old
at the time of his visit and was living with his half-brother, Samuel B. Gates, in Berreman, Joe Daviess
County, Illinois.
288
McClintock. 179.
289 McClintock. 178.
290
Gibbons. 216.
291
McClintock. 178. The woman's name was Sefiora Maria San Juan Baca de Padilla.
92
McClintock. 178. It was later proven that Barth had only a squatter's title to the land.
293
Woodruff, Wilford. Journal, 22 November 1879. In Udall and Nelson. 217.
294
McClintock. 179. A source from the Greer Family indicates that Erastus Snow was extremely critical of
Ammon's proposal of such a large amount that was offered Barth for the area when the settlers were so
poor.
295
McClintock. 179.
296
McClintock. 180.
297
Gibbons. 217,219,221.
298
Gibbons. 225.
99
McClintock. 188. In 1882 the settlements were reactivated after the Indian problems died down, and
settlers from abandoned colonies in Arizona moved to the Savoia Valley. They began a new community
near the previous ones and named it Navajo which name was eventually changed to Ramah, a name that
appears in both The Book of Mormon and the Old Testament. See also Mangum.
300
301
302
Udall and Nelson. 71.
303
United States Census 1880.
280
69
304
Tenney, Ben W. 6.
Gibbons, 229.
306
Tenney, Ammon M. Quoted in Stratton and Stratton. 18; Tenney, Ben W. Quoted in Stratton, Marsha R.
Letter to authors. 4 Dec 2000. 3.
307
Smith, Dean. 32.
308
Gibbons. 227.
309
Brown, Errol G. 40.
310
Tenney, Ammon M. Quoted in Stratton and Stratton. 18.
311
Brown, Errol G. 42.
312
Brown, Errol G. 41.
313
Gibbons. 227.
314
Brown, Errol G. 42. This Greer account of the incident is the only one I've read that mentions Nathan
carried a white flag. Under the circumstances of the reported intense gunfire, it seems probable that he
would do so.
315
316
Gibbons. 229.
317
Gibbons. 229
318
McClintock. 181.
319
Brown, Errol G. 42.
320
McClintock. 181.
321
Brown, Errol G. 42.
322
Smith, Dean. 35.
23
Tenney, Ben W. 6.
324
Smith, Dean. 35.
325
Lupher, 38.
326
Lyman, Edward Leo. Conversation with authors. 24 October 2004.
327
328
Smith, John. Patriarchal Blessing Index. 1830-1971. CR 500-1 #128.
305
70
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76
Index
Abraham, 27
Allen's Camp, Arizona, 45
Americans, 20
Anderson & Richards, 40
Antonio, Juan, 20
Arizona, 23, 26, 43-47, 5254
Arkansas, 23, 47
Ash Creek, 38, 41
Asistencia, 17, 18, 64
Australia, 27
Baptists, 20
Barth, Solomon, 53, 56, 69
Bay, James W., 33
Berreman, Illinois 3, 4, 7
Big Cottonwood Stream, 12
Big Cottonwood, Utah, 11
Blue Earth County,
Minnesota, 51
Brigham City Fort, Arizona,
45,68
Brooks, Juanita, 23
Brown, Lora Isabelle, 42
Bryant, Sarah, 27
Bush, Eliza R, 2
CajonPass, 15
California, 3, 12-14, 16-20,
23,24,32,41,42
Canaan Ranch, 25, 34, 37
Cardon, Joseph S. 45
Carter, Orlando H., 17
Catholics, 20
Cattle cooperatives, 41, 42
Cedar City, Utah, 23, 24, 66
Chief Naraguts, 26
Chino Rancho, 15
Church of Jesus Christ-LDS,
5-7, 13, 18,23,26,28,30,
32,35,37,41,43,45,47,
50,53
Civil War, 30
Clark, William O., 6
Cliff (Clift), Robert, Jr., 20
Colorado River, 19, 46
Concho, Arizona, 44
Cotton Mission, 30
Cram relatives, 18
Cram, Phebe, 1,62,69
Davies, William R., 32, 67
Davis, Durias, 26
Deseret, 30
Deseret News, 33, 51
Devore, California, 15
Dixie, 23, 30, 31,34, 38
Dodge, Enoch, 37, 59, 60
Dodge, Walter E., 65
Duncan's Retreat, Utah, 37,
61
Eager, Anna Sariah, 43
Elkhorn River, 11
Endowment House, 28, 29,
43,
Fancher Train, 23
Faribault County, Minnesota,
51
Fifth Quorum of 70, 18
First Presidency, 27, 37
Franciscan Missionaries, 17
Gates, John, 2-4, 63
Gates, Samuel, 2, 3
General Conference, 19, 24,
43
Gilmore, Mark, 51
Grafton Branch, 30-32
Grafton, Utah, 28, 30-38, 55
Grant, Heber J., 37
Grapeland, Minnesota, 51
Greer Boys, 56, 57
Hamblin, Jacob, 26,42, 44,
46
Hanks, Ebenezer, 21
Harmony Ward, 30
Harmony, Utah, 23-25, 27,
30,32,40
Harris, John, 17, 19
Harris, Llewellyn, 47, 49
Hatch, Lorenzo H., 46-48
Hayes, Benjamin, 20
Hoff, Armond, 41
Hopi Indians, 26
Hopkins, Thomas R., 20
Horticultural Society, 39
Hunt, Jefferson, 20
Illinois, 3-7, 9, 12, 16, 19,51
Independents, 20
Indiana, 7
Indians, 14, 16, 17, 19, 20,
23, 26, 33, 37, 38, 42, 43,
47-49,54,59-61
Iowa, 7-10, 16, 64
Iron County, Utah, 39
Isleta Indians, 43
Ivins, Anthony W., 37, 59, 61
Jackson, Colonel Alden A.
M.,20
Jacob,7
Jacobs, Christopher, 31
Jesus Christ, 20, 61
Jo Daviess County, Illinois,
3-5, 12
77
Jose, Grace Tippett, 27
Jose, William, 27
Journal History of the
Church, 51
Kanab, Utah, 42-46, 68
Kane County, Utah, 39, 42
La Verkin Creek, 41
Lamanites, 6, 19, 20, 37, 43,
44
Latin America, 13
Lee, John D. 23-25, 27, 32,
40
Lee's Ferry, Arizona, 23
Little Colorado River, 45, 46,
53,54
Little Colorado Stake, 46, 53,
69
Lonely Dell, Arizona, 23
Los Angeles, California, 17,
19,20
Lugo Family, 15
Lura, Faribault, Minnesota,
51
Lyman, Amasa M., 11-13,
17-19,21,23,24,27,30,
34,40
MIA General Board, 37, 59
McFate, Joseph Smith, 35,
54
Methodist, 5, 20
Mexican-Americans, 50, 54
Mexican War, 8
Mexicans, 18, 19,26,43,48,
49, 54-57
Mexico, 43
Minnesota, 50-53, 62
Mississippi River, 7-9
Missouri River, 8
Mojave Desert, 13,22
Mojave River, 14, 21
Mormon Battalion, 8, 9, 13
Mormon Corridor, 13
Mormon missionaries, 5, 47,
49
Mormonism, 5
Morris, Nancy Beauford, 29,
66,67
Mountain Meadows
Massacre, 23, 65
Naegle, John C , 67
Native Americans, 18-20, 50
Nauvoo Temple, 7, 27, 57
Nauvoo, Illinois, 7, 9, 10
Navajo County, Arizona, 46
Navajo Tribe, 37,47, 58, 59
Nebraska, 8, 16, 35, 63
Nevada, 14, 25
New Hampshire, 30
New Mexico, 43, 44, 46-48,
50-55
New York, 5
Oakley, Mary Ann, 42
Ontario County, New York,
1,62
Ontario, Wayne, New York,
1,2,62
Orderville, Utah, 27
Oro Grande, California, 21
Pacific Coast, 6, 19
Pacific Islands, 13
Paiute, 26, 42
Palmyra, New York, 5
Parowan, Utah, 27
Peralta, Alejandro, 57
Perez, Tom, 57
Pine Valley Mountains, 39
Pipe Springs, 37, 59
Pleasant Valley Township,
Illinois, 3
Pocketville, Utah, 26, 30, 40
Pratt, Parley P., 13, 14
Presbyterians, 20, 47, 48
Prescott, Arizona, 57
Protestant, 49
Pueblo Indian Agent, 49
Quich'up'Pah (Quechpaw),
23
Rand, Iowa Territory, 7, 8
Redlands Temple, 65
Rich, Charles C , 13, 17, 18,
20,21,24,35
Rich, General, 20
Richeys, 54
Richards, Willard, 11
Rockville, Utah, 30, 35
Rocky Mountains, 10
Salt Lake City, Utah, 11-13,
18,19,24,28,40,43
Salt Lake Valley, 11-13
San Bernardino, California,
13, 15-23,27,30,31,34,
38,39,43,55,64
San Bernardino County, 18
San Bernardino Mountains,
18
San Bernardino Rancho, 15,
19
San Bernardino Stake, 17
San Bernardino Valley, 16
San Diego, California, 17
San Diego Herald, 20
San Francisco Mountains,
Arizona, 53, 57
San Juan, Arizona, 53, 54, 68
Santa Ana River, 19
Santa Barbara, California, 17
Santa Clara, Utah, 26
Savoia Valley, 47, 69
Savoietta, New Mexico, 47,
48, 54, 69
Seneca County, New York,
63
Settleton, Mary Ann, 28
Sherwoods, 54
Short Creek, 25, 26, 28, 34,
35,37,38,41,59
Silver Creek, 46
Smith, George A., 27
Smith, Jesse N. 53,54, 69
Smith, John, 7, 62
Smith, Joseph, 7
Smith, Lot, 46
Smith, Samuel, 7
Snowflake, Arizona, 46, 69
Spanish language, 19, 26, 43,
59,68
Spiritualists, 20
St. George Temple, 42
St. George, Utah, 42, 43, 59
St. Johns Westside Cemetery,
54,57
St. Johns, Arizona, 44, 53-56,
69
Stapley, Charles, 27
Stewart, William T., 44
Stinson, Jim, 46, 68
Stover, E. S., 56
Stratton, Andrew, 31
Strong, Ezra, (Father) 5, 38
Strong, Ezra, (Brother), 7
Strong, Olive, 5
Sunset, Arizona, 53
Taylor, John, 53
Tenney, Abby Celestia, 20
Tenney, Ambrose, 51, 69
Tenney, Ammon Meshach, 7,
10, 11,25-28,35,37,42-50,
53,54,57,59-61,
Tenney, George Alma, 7, 10,
63,64
Tenney, Grace Tippett Jose,
28, 29, 34
Tenney, John Lowell, 20, 28,
39, 40, 42, 44, 65
Tenney, Marvelous Flood, 33
Tenney, Meshach, 1, 2, 63
78
Tenney, Nancy Ann, 16, 20
Tenney, Nathan Cram, Jr., 8,
63
Tenney, Olive Eliza, 12, 35
Tenney, Olive Strong, 5-8,
10-13,18-23,26-28,33-35,
38,40,41,54,57
Tenney, Phebe, 2, 63
Tenney, Phoebe Relief, 20
Tenney, Samuel Benjamin, 4,
6, 19, 23, 28, 39, 42, 44, 46,
48,49,54,55,57
Tenney, William Arthur, 28,
34, 44, 54, 68
Tenney's Camp, Arizona, 45,
46
The Meadows, Arizona, 44
Toquerville, Utah, 27, 30, 31,
37-39,41-43
Tyrrell, Arthur, 12, 63
Udall, David K., 54, 69
United Order, 45
United States, 13. 17, 51,64
United States Army, 8, 21, 26
Utah, 11-14, 16,21-23,2527,30-35,37-42,51,59,60,
65,67
Utah County, 13
Van Leuven, Mack, 20
Vegas, 14
Virgin River, 26, 30, 33,
36-38,41,59
Virgin, Utah, 26, 28, 30-33
Ward's Grove, Illinois, 3
Washington County, Utah,
33,39,42
Washington, Utah, 33, 40
Wayne County, New York, 2,
62
Weaver, Duff G., 20
Welsh language, 26
Wheeler, 30
Wine Mission, 30, 67
Winter Quarters, Nebraska,
8-11,28,64
Wisconsin, 7
Woodruff, Arizona, 44-46
Woodruff, Wilford, 29,43,
46,53
Young Ladies M. I. A., 39
Young, Brigham, 7, 8, 11, 21,
23,25,26,28,30,37,41,
43, 44, 46
Zanja, 17, 19
Zuni Tribe, 44,47, 49, 50

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