Person:Lemuel Redd (2)

Watchers
m. 2 Mar 1826
  1. Harriet ReddAbt 1826 -
  2. Edward Ward Redd1828 - 1828
  3. Ann Mariah Redd1830 - 1908
  4. Ann Elizabeth Redd1831 - 1897
  5. Mary Catherine Redd1834 - 1851
  6. Lemuel Hardison Redd1836 - 1910
  7. John Holt Redd1838 - 1853
  8. Benjamin Jones Redd1842 - 1887
  • HLemuel Hardison Redd1836 - 1910
m. 2 Jan 1856
  1. Lemuel Hardison REDD, Jr.1856 - 1923
  2. Mary Jane REDD1858 - 1945
  3. John Wilson REDD1859 - 1888
  4. William Alexander Redd1861 - 1911
  5. James Monroe REDD1863 - 1937
  6. Caroline Elizabeth Redd1866 - 1904
  7. Amos Thornton Redd1868 - 1870
  8. Sarah Lancaster REDD1870 - 1933
  9. Farozine Ellen Redd1872 - 1957
  10. Loraine Edward REDD1873 - 1874
  11. Moriah Luella Redd1875 - 1963
  12. Charity Alvira Redd1877 - 1943
  13. Alice REDD1879 - 1968
m. Oct 1866
  1. Moriah Vilate REDD1867 - 1867
  2. Wilford Solomon REDD1869 - 1869
  3. Wayne Hardison REDD1870 - 1936
  4. Benjamin Franklin Redd1872 - 1952
  5. Teressa Artemesia Redd1874 - 1964
  6. Lemuel Burton Redd1876 - 1930
  7. George Edwin Redd1878 - 1914
  8. Susan Elizabeth Redd1880 -
  9. Parley Redd1883 - 1955
  10. John Wiley Redd1886 -
  11. Jennie May REDD1888 -
  12. Effie REDD1890 -
  13. Ancil Rey REDD1892 - 1931
  14. Hazel Lurene REDD1895 -
Facts and Events
Name Lemuel Hardison Redd
Gender Male
Birth[1] 31 Jul 1836 Snead's Ferry, Onslow County, North Carolina
Marriage 2 Jan 1856 Spanish Fork, Utah, Utahto Unknown
Ordination[3] 7 Jun 1857 50th Quorum Seventies
Marriage Oct 1866 Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utahto Sarah Louisa Chamberlain
Other[4] 22 Oct 1879 St. George, Washington, UtahSecond Anointing
Ordination[5] 12 Mar 1882 High Priest
Ordination[6] 8 Mar 1908 Colonia Juarez, Chihuahua, MexicoPatriarch
Death[2] 9 Jun 1910 Colonia Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico
Burial? 10 Jun 1910 Colonia Juarez, Galeana, Chihuahua, Mexico
Ancestral File Number 18NL-7B

Lemuel Hardison Redd, the son of John Hardison Redd and Elizabeth Hancock, was born in Sneads Ferry, Onslow County, North Carolina, on July 31, 1836. The family must have had a good home for that day, although it lacked the comforts we now think are indispensable. His parents were slave owners, and he grew up with colored servants available to do his bidding and to help him do his work..

At a very early age Lemuel was given a servant and bodyguard named Luke, born January 9, 1828, who was the son of Elizabeth Hancock Redd’s own maid which Elizabeth’s father, Zebedee Hancock, had given her. Luke was nearly eight years older than Lemuel and was made responsible for his young master, with a charge to teach him and guard him from all harm. It has been reported that Luke was very apt at all kinds of handwork, and so Lemuel had a good teacher. Consequently, as Lemuel grew up he had all that a young gentleman of his day should have had.

Even after he was given his freedom, Luke stayed with Lemuel or near him for many years. He even went to New Harmony and set up some kind of barbershop there and did odd jobs for the townspeople. Luke’s mother, Venus, came to New Harmony to see her son one time. My own father and mother could remember Venus’ visit to the town.

Lemuel was about two years old when his parents left North Carolina to go to Tennessee. The family at that time consisted of the parents, and their children Ann Mariah, Ann Elizabeth, Mary Catherine, Lemuel Hardison, and John Holt, a tiny baby. They moved late in 1838, between August and early December.

Lemuel grew up with three older sisters and two younger brothers, all of them born in North Carolina except Benjamin Jones, the youngest. He was born in Tennessee. Their home in Tennessee apparently was similar to the regular southern homes, with immense high ceilings and a large upper porch on at least two sides of the house. I saw houses typical of the type when I was in the South, and I can imagine what it was like.

I remember hearing grandpa tell about a time when his pap was away from home and a neighbor’s slave came over and slept in their slave quarters. The neighbor missed his slave and came around to find him with the Redd’s slaves. Grandpa said: “How he begged and pleaded and cried for mercy, but they whipped him. They whipped him with a shovel. If pap had been home no one would have dared to come prowling around our slave quarters like that.” Grandpa said he got up and went out onto the upper porch in his bare feet and long night shirt to listen to them. He may have been about eight years old, for this may have been the time his parents went to Nauvoo in 1844.

We know little else of his life in Tennessee, but he must have been an active, growing, industrious boy (at least when he wanted to be) because of his later accomplishments.

At the age of fourteen Lemuel drove an ox team across the plains to Salt Lake City. Oxen were not driven in the same way as horses. No one sat in the wagon and drove oxen with reins; they walked by the head of the lead ox holding onto a sort of bridle to guide it. The yoke tied the oxen together so they pulled in unison. The driver always carried a whip in his hand in case of a runaway. If that happened, he jumped on the ox’s back and beat it over the head to make it shut its eyes and slow down. We don’t know how many wagons were in the Redd’s party, but they must have had a sizeable caravan. With several wagons and much loose stock to be herded, driven, and rounded up at evening, there was work for all.

On the way west the company had an epidemic of cholera which took the lives of some of their number. The bodies were put in unmarked graves alongside hundreds of other unmarked graves, which had been left by previous companies.

Lemuel told his children of the great herds of buffalo they passed on the way and of the terror they felt when these animals stampeded. At such times they saw a cloud of dust in the distance, which grew larger and larger. Realizing the danger, the company collected all the wagons into a compact group. The animals were tethered on the opposite side from the oncoming herd, and members of the company knelt low behind the animals. They put their heads close to the ground and covered them with anything they had – coats, hats, clothing; some of the women even put their skirts up over their heads. This was to keep the dust out of their nostrils. The sound of hoof beats grew louder and louder until it was a roar. Then hundreds of buffalo charged by. The people were almost hidden under a thick layer of dust, but they were safe.

Also, the travelers were often terrorized by seeing Indians in the distance. They feared an attack from the Indians and were ever ready and on the alert.

When Aunt Luella went to Parowan to live, she met an old timer there, Richard Benson, who told her that he came over the plains in the same company as the Redds. He said, “That boy Lem Redd, was surely a good driver of oxen. I had never driven them before, and didn’t know how, but Lem Redd told me a lot about it and even drove my team across some of the fords to show me how it was done.” I guess Lem told others how, too. I presume he had been around them since he was a tot, and many of the pioneers had never driven oxen before.

Lemuel H. Redd was baptized June 3, 1852, when he was sixteen years old. They let him wait until he himself wanted to be baptized; they didn’t seem to make an issue of being baptized at eight years of age. His brothers, John Holt and Benjamin Jones, were baptized at the same time he was. On that same day he and John Holt were ordained priests. He was baptized by W. W. Willis, and confirmed by Stephen Markham, the presiding elder of Spanish Fork.

Grandfather was set apart as a ward teacher when he was 17 years old; he was to work with an older brother in the ward. One night this companion was unable to attend his duty and asked grandfather to visit their district alone. This he attempted to do. The first door he knocked at was opened by the man of the house, and he was asked his business in a rather curt, sharp manner. His answer was that he had called as a ward teacher. This seemed to enrage the man, who lost no time telling Lemuel his opinion of one so young and inexperienced assuming such a responsibility. He turned from the door his heart broken, with a firm determination to go home and never attempt such a task again, but a still small voice seemed to whisper to him, urging him to make one more trial. After some hesitation, he tried another home, tapping timidly at the door, which was opened by an elderly brother who greeted him cheerily, “Good evening, my son. What can I do for you?

“I have been called as a ward teacher,” Lem said. He was kindly grasped by the hand and led into the home. The brother said, “God bless you, my brave and courageous boy. I have never been more happy in life in accepting my ward teacher.”

The brother then extolled his labors and gave him very fine, wise, fatherly counsel, which filled him with love and encouragement for his work. In all his life after that he never failed to be grateful that he had had courage to follow the spirit’s promptings to knock at one more door.

When grandfather was seventeen and eighteen years old, they had an Indian war. It was led by old Chief Walker, and was called the "Walker War." Grandfather was in the militia against these Indians who were giving them so much trouble. They would swoop down and drive off the cattle and horses; they would destroy the fences, buildings, and crops; and they would kill anyone who was foolish enough to go off alone. It was at this time that the Indians burned the first sawmill that had been built in Utah south of Provo, and Lem’s father, John H. Redd, had helped build and finance. I have been told it was a loss to him of about $6,000. As a member of the militia grandfather had to take his turn as guard, for they had to have someone on guard duty all of the time.

Old Walker died in 1855, and he was followed as chief by his brother, Arapene. The brother was just as bad as Walker at first, but he changed. He said that Walker came to him in a vision saying that the land didn’t belong to the Indians nor to the white men but to the Lord. There was peace in the area for about ten years while Arapene was chief.

After the Indian War the settlers built a fort surrounded by high rock or adobe walls, at least if it were anything like the other forts in the territory. Small rooms were built around the walls to accommodate separate families. The roofs of these rooms sloped a bit to the inside, and the outside wall was higher than the roofs. Above the roofs and in the walls were small holes called loopholes so the guards on the roofs could look out, locate their assailants, and if necessary shoot. Nineteen families lived in the Spanish Fork fort. Nine out of the nineteen were our own relatives and ancestors. They were: Bishop William Pace, John L. Butler, Wilson D. Pace, Lemuel H. Redd, John H. Redd, George W. Sevy, Kenyon Taylor Butler, Harvey A. Pace, and John Holt.

Grandfather’s name was on the list of city voters May 7, 1855. He was not yet 21, so they didn’t seem to stick close to ages in civil affairs either. They apparently took it for granted that he was mature and had a man’s intelligence to vote at nineteen. Lemuel Hardison Redd and Keziah Jane Butler were married January 2, 1856, by Bishop William Pace, and they were sealed later in the endowment house February 16, 1858, by Daniel H. Wells.Lemuel Hardison Redd and Keziah Jane Butler were married January 2, 1856, by Biship William Pace, and they were sealed later in the endowment house February 16, 1858, by Daniel H. Wells.

The next month a call came for Lemuel’s father, John H. Redd, to go to Las Vegas. Lemuel and Keziah went in John’s place and he was to follow in the fall. They had their patriarchal blessings before they went: The next month a call for Lemuel’s father, John H. Redd, to go to Las Vegas. Lemuel and Keziah went in John’s place and he was to follow in the fall. They had their patriarchal blessings before they went:

A patriarchal blessing by Isaac Morley given in Spanish Fork 1 March 1856 to Lemuel Hardison Redd, son of John H. Redd and Elizabeth Hancock, born in Sneads Ferry, North Carolina 31 July 1836. A patriarchal blessingby Isaac Morley given in Spanish Fork 1 Mar. 1856 to Lemuel Hardison Redd, son of John H. Redd and Elizabeth Hancock, born in Sneads Ferry, North Carolina 31 July 1836.

Brother Lemuel, by the authority of the holy priesthood, we lay our hands upon thy head and ratify the seal and blessing of thy sire upon thee. Thou art in the morning of life and in thine heirship thou art numbered with the seed of Abraham. Listen to the counsel of thy father, and there is not seal or key of knowledge but what thou hast a right to attain to. Let no earthly consideration lead thy mind astray from the path of rectitude, and love of virtue. In so doing thou shalt find many attributes accumulating in thy mind. Thou shalt find the love of God increasing in thy bosom, thou shalt find the principle whereby thou shalt extend mercy and favor to others that will cause thy mind to become illuminated with light. With principle and by promise we seal upon thee thy washings and annointings and endowments, whereby thou wilt be prepared to receive the keys of the everlasting gospel which thou wilt have to bear to people who are sitting in darkness, that thy garments may be clean from the blood of this generation. Keep in thy memory the vows and obligations and thou shalt have faith given thee from on high to rebuke diseases. The winds and the waves will be stayed by the prayer of thy faith. Therefore improve upon thy leisure moments as they pass, and thou shalt be an instrument in the hands of the Lord in winning many into Christ’s kingdom who will become stars in thy crown in the day of the Lord Jesus. Live to honor the priesthood and thy crown will be glorious and when that still small voice whispers peace to thy mind thou mayest know that the Lord is near thee. Thou art of Ephraim and the seal of the Priesthood shall rest upon thee and thy seed after thee.kingdom who will become stars in thy crown in the day of the Lord Jesus. Live to honor the priesthood and thy crown will beglorious and when that still small voice whispers peace to thy mind thou mayest know that the Lord is near thee. Thou art of Ephraim and the seal of the Priesthood shall rest upon thee and thy seed after thee.

I now seal thee up to enjoy the blessings of eternal life in the kingdom of God. Even so Amen and Amen. I now seal thee up to enjoy the blessings of eternal life in the kingdom of God. Even so Amen and Amen.


A patriarchal blessing by Isaac Morley on the head of Keziah Jane Butler, daughter of John Lowe Butler and Caroline Farozine Skeen Butler, born Feb. 25, 1836 in Simpson Co. Kentucky. Palmyra, Feb. 26, 1855. A patriarchal blessing by Isaac Morley on the head of Keziah Jane Butler, daughter of John Lowe Butler and Caroline Farozine Skeen Butler, born Feb. 25, 1836 in Simpson Co. Kentucky. Palmyra, Feb. 26, 1855.

Sister Keziah Jane in the name of the Lord and by virtue of the priesthood we lay our hands upon thy head and we ratify the seal of thy father upon thy head. This is a principle of promise pertaining to the holy priesthood. A seal that ever shall be and abide with thee. Thou art blessed with the daughters of Abraham for thou art in the same everlasting covenant with them. Thou art adopted into the family of the faithful. Thou hast become a legal heir to all the blessings that were to be enjoyed by the daughters of Abraham. The Lord has blessed thee with many rights and with intellectual faculties whereby thou wilt become useful in thy day and generation upon the earth. Thou hast the promise of thy Heavenly Father resting upon thee. Thou art brought into heir ship by the waters of baptism. Therefore rejoice in the covenants for in the fulfilling of the promises thy mind will become filled with light. They will be verified upon thee in the holy ordinances of thy God where blessings of the everlasting priesthood will be revealed to thy mind. Sister Keziah Jane in the name of the Lord and by virtue of the priesthood we lay our hands upon thy head and we ratify the seal of thy father upon thy head. This is a principle of promise pertaining to the holy priesthood. A seal that ever shall be and abid with thee. Thou art blessed with the daughters of Abraham for thou art in the same everlasting covenant with them. Thou art adopted into the family of the faithful. Thou hast become a legalheir to all the blessings that were to be enjoyed by the daughters of Abraham. The Lord has blessed thee with many rights and with intellectual faculties wherby thou wilt become useful in thy day and generation upon the earth. Thou has the promise of thy Heavenly Father resting upon thee. Thou art brought into heirship by the waters of baptism. Therefore rejoice in the covenants for in the fulfilling of the promises thy mind will become filled with light. They will be varified upon thee in the holy ordinances of thy God where blessings of the everlasting priesthood will be revealed to thy mind.

Thou wilt appreciate thy heirship as the greatest blessing that ever was or ever will be committed to thy trust where thou wilt learn the straightness of the gate and the narrowness of the way which will produce joy and satisfaction to thy mind for thou wilt be taught the pattern of heavenly things where the spirit of truth will be made manifest to thy mind. Thou wilt appreciate thy heirship as the greatest blessing that ever was or ever will becommitted to thy trust where thou wilt learn the staightness of the gate and the narrowness of the way which will produce joy and satisfaction to thy mind for thou wilt be taught the pattern of heavenly things where the spirit of truth will be made manifest to thy mind.

Thou art of Ephraim and a legal heir to the seals of the holy ordinances. Thou wilt rejoice in bearing thy testimony of the loving kindness of the Creator toward thee. Thou shalt enjoy the society of the faithful before the Lord. Thou wilt be favored of heaven, of raising thy posterity as tender plants by thy side for they will bear the keys of the gospel of salvation and will be exalted in the kingdom of glory. We ratify this seal by virtue of the priesthood in the name of Jesus even so Amen and Amen. Thou art of Ephraim and a legal heir to the seals of the holy ordinances. Thou wilt rejoice in bearing thy testimony of the loving kindness of the Creator toward thee. Thou shalt enjoy the society of the faithful before the Lord. Thou wilt be favored of heaven, of raising thy posterity as tender plants by thy side for they will bear the keys of the gospel of salvation and will be exalted in the kingdom of glory. We ratify this seal by virtue of the priesthood in the name of Jesus even so Amen and Amen.

The two patriarchal blessings above are recorded in Isaac Morley’s book on pages 114 and 516.

We notice that Keziah had her blessing before they were married, and Lemuel had his after. He followed her example in this. Right here I would like to quote President David O. McKay:

It is wonderful what a responsibility each wife and mother carries. A successful wife and mother is responsible, first, for the physical welfare of her family. Second, she must have the qualities of a teacher. She should be, indeed is expected to be, not only a disciplinarian but one who wisely guides her family in their quest for truth and knowledge. In this she becomes a confidant – she warns – she protects. Third, she must be a businesswoman. Fourth, upon her, even more than upon the father, depends the family guidance in spirituality.


It was in these same areas that grandmother began to lead her family, as was her duty and privilege.

They say that man is mighty, He governs land and sea; He wields a mighty scepter O’er lesser powers that be; But a mightier power and stronger Man from his throne has hurled; The hand that rocks the cradle Is the hand that rules the world.

Along this same line we might quote John Adams to his wife, Abigail:

I do not believe the Howes have very great women for their wives. If they had we should suffer more from their exertions than we do. This is our good fortune. A smart wife would have put Howe in possession of Philadelphia a long time ago.


To Las Vegas and Return

On April 27, 1855, George A. Smith wrote to Franklin D. Richards: “A company is organized and will start in a few days to form a settlement on the Las Vegas on the south route to California.”

This call for John H. Redd to join them there came in February 1856, a month after Lemuel and Keziah were married. John Redd fitted them out, and they left for Las Vegas. They went by ox team and led a cow behind the wagon, so you know they didn’t try to make time. Can you imagine going across that hot desert at the rate they must have had to go on that trip? The animals walked all the way, about five or six hundred miles. We say it is closer now, as many of the curves they had to follow then have been straightened out. They walked all day and camped at night wherever night overtook them. They must have had company because it wasn’t at all safe to go that distance alone.

The few months they remained in Las Vegas were during the hot part of the summer, and they felt the brunt of it. They went for the purpose of making a settlement and of opening up some lead mines there. These mines were important. The people in the Salt Lake Valley needed lead for bullets. The prophet Brigham Young knew they’d need them, for Johnson’s army was coming the next year. But when the settlers in Las Vegas opened up the mines, they didn’t find lead; they found only sliver, which wouldn’t make good bullets. The church did not approve of mining for gold and silver, and so the mission was closed, and Lemuel and Keziah were released to return to Spanish Fork.

On the return trip they again traveled by ox team and led that cow behind the wagon. They carried their water in a barrel or barrels tied to the side or back of the wagon. They probably also had a smaller barrel tied somewhere to put milk in. They would put it in the barrel in the morning, and when they camped at night it was churned to butter. That nice, sweet buttermilk surely tasted good to them in the evenings. And I can imagine how they must have thirsted for a cool drink of water, when the only water they had was warm, warm, warm all the time – with the possible exception of early in the morning.

They helped build a fort at Las Vegas, and planted some cottonwood trees behind it. I was shown them once in passing. I suppose that grandfather helped plan and build the fort and plant the trees.

After weeks on the road over the hot desert, they arrived back in Spanish Fork in September, a few weeks before their first child was born. They named him Lemuel Hardison Redd, Jr. Lemuel H. Redd, Sr., by counsel of Brigham Young, was ordained an elder and, soon after, a seventy as a member of the fiftieth quorum.

In Spanish Fork they had no home as yet. At first, they lived (or, rather, slept) in the attic of great grandfather John H. Redd’s log house. They possibly slept on the floor with a straw tick under them. Before her baby was born, grandmother had a gathered breast and was in much misery. She’d go to bed at night and cry with the pain. There was no one near to confide in or to ask advice of. Great grandfather had married a young girl, and she would be of no help. Aunt Chaney, one of great grandmother’s old Negro mammies, sensed that something was wrong and found out what it was. She thought heat would be good, but they knew nothing about hot water bottles. She must have had experience with this before. She put grandmother to bed in that little upstairs room. She went down and mixed up a hotcake with catnip tea, cooked it nice and thick, and while it was hot she climbed up and put it on the sore breast, then covered it to keep it warm. Then she went down and made another hotcake, and by the time the first was cooled she was up with another hot one. She repeated that until the soreness and the swelling were very much reduced, and grandmother was on the way to recovery. She brought grandmother’s meals up to her, too, so that she needn’t be embarrassed at having them all know about it.

Grandmother said she surely learned to love those old black women; they were so good and helpful to her. There were two of them, Venus and Chaney. They were nurses and midwives, and they helped her many times later on with her own sicknesses and the sicknesses of her children. They were good at it, too, as their whole lives had been spent in caring for white people, and they never knew anything else. They had come out west to do that of their own free will and choice, and they finished their lives that way. After all the Redds were gone from Spanish Fork, they earned their way with the sick.

Aunt Luella told me the following story – or, rather, she wrote it down:

My father in his early life, when his little son, Lem, was a little less than two, took the boy with him on a wood-hauling trip. They had dragged the wood down a hill in Spanish Fork Canyon to the wagon, ready for loading and taking home. Father had taken a sheepskin along to sit on. This he had placed over a sagebrush and set his little son on it. When he had a large log in his arms ready to load, he heard a familiar hiss and, looking around, he saw a huge rattlesnake aiming a strike at the baby's face. He dropped the log, breathed a prayer to God for help and guidance, and leaped (he said) at least ten feet, grabbing the boy and throwing him forcefully as far as he could. The snake leaped after the baby, but could go no farther than its length. Father ran to the baby and gathered him in his arms, quieting him. He didn't know that throwing the child was the proper thing to do, but always felt it was through divine guidance that he had done so.

The following is found in the records of Provo City, Utah Co., Utah (page 210). It was recorded when the Redds had been back there a little over a year and had one child.

Schedule of Lemuel H. Redd's property, which he consecrated to the Lord 6th January 1858.

Lot two in block nine containing 72/160 of an acre in the Spanish Fork Survey of building lots $50.00 Also-commencing at John H. Redd's N.E. corner in lot five and block 20 thence south to the Spanish Fork Creek, thence up said Creek to William Pace's line thence north to his N.W. corner, thence west to the place of beginning, containing 20 acres more or less in the Spanish Fork survey of farm lands $200.00

One ox $45.00 Three cows $90.00 Two Heifers $15.00 Two sheep $12.00 One swine $10.00 One rifle $25.00 One house in Spanish Fork $100.00 Household furniture bed and bedding $100.00 40 bushels of wheat @1.50 per bushel $60.00 10 bushels of corn $12.50 8 bushels of potatoes $45.00 Garden vegetables $15.00 250 lbs pork $50.00

Total amount of Lemuel H. Redd’s $829.50 Property -- eight hundred & twenty nine dollars & 50/100

I certify that the foregoing schedule of property was consecrated to the Lord by Lemuel H. Redd January 6th 1858

Lucius N. Scovill, recorder of Utah Co., Utah Territory.

Apparently, the early settlers were really willing to give all.

In Spanish Fork they had started to live the United Order, the same as they did in many other places. Every man who entered into it consecrated or deeded all his property to the Lord, with the bishop as custodian. Then the bishop gave back to the man as much as he needed for his family. It was all done legally. If an individual had too much, he only got part of it back. If he didn’t have enough and needed more, he was given more. Thus, things were evened up a bit. If you earned more than you actually needed, you gave all your surplus to the cause.

Why didn’t it succeed so we could practice it today? I guess most of us are like a certain Indian they tell about. The authorities were talking about the United Order in a meeting, and someone asked the Indian if he were going to join. He grunted a “No,” then added, “Me got 20 horses.And pointing to another Indian, he said, “He join; he got no horses.”

On July 24th, 1858, word came that the United States was sending an army out to Utah to destroy the Mormons. Lemuel served as a soldier against this army, and he was one of the 2000 who were organized as a standing army to meet the United States force and to be ready for future emergencies.



The Call South

The Redds had been back in Spanish Fork six and a half years and had lived in the United Order for a little over three years when they were called to go to southern Utah to settle. They had come to Spanish Fork when the town was just beginning, and for eleven years they had helped build it up into a fair sized town. Now they were being asked to move out of the little home they had built and go to a brand new place, start all over again, and help build another town. There was no question about going, however. They wouldn’t think of refusing a call from their prophet.

(The same thing still goes on. We work hard to build a ward house, and when we feel that we are through with it and can take a rest from chapel building, they cut us off into a new ward, and we have to start all over again. It’s easier now, though; we don’t have to move.)

The Redds took with them all they could haul or drive and went south. They had been over this road before, going to and coming from Las Vegas. It was not so far, though, only about three hundred miles and about four weeks of travel. They knew what to take and how to arrange it. Of course, they took everything with them they had made and collected for twelve years. Probably the only things they didn’t take were the empty house and the land. By that time they had four small children: Lemuel, 6; Jane, 4; John, 2; and William, a tiny baby. Grandmother held William on her lap the entire distance. It is as Aunt Alice said of her mother, “She was twice a pioneer.”

Uncle Ben, as a member of the family now, went along and was a real help. So also was Luke, grandpa’s childhood bodyguard and helper. Luke had tended and guarded him from North Carolina to Tennessee, had been a big help from Tennessee to Spanish Fork, and was helping again on the trek south to New Harmony. He seemed indispensable.

By that time grandfather had two sisters, besides his brother, Benjamin. They also received a call to go south. There they all went and found a place to settle in New Harmony. They all raised their families there, and they all died there except grandfather.

There were many places in the intermountain region that were not yet settled, and President Young wanted all the territory taken up by the saints. He made it a practice to call people to go to everyplace possible for settlement. Just as soon as his scouts found a new creek or spot of ground that was at all suitable, he'd call somebody to go there.

By 1860 the people of Fort Harmony decided it would be best to move closer to the headwaters of Kanarra and Ash creeks. The new settlements were called New Harmony and Kanarra settled in 1860 and 1861. John D. Lee planned to build a nice brick home not far from the large pine tree at the foot of Pine Valley Mountain where he could look down on his fields and the beautiful scenery.

In the fall and winter of 1861-62, the walls of the old Fort Harmony disintegrated with the heavy rain, and the inhabitants sought other places, one west and one east, Aunt Alice says: “When they decided on two places, New Harmony and Kanarra, the settlers here in Fort Harmony cast lots by drawing from a hat the name of the place they would be assigned to go. This proved satisfactory all around, and through the years the two small towns have mingled in a most friendly relationship."

Then came the Redds, Paces, and Sevys the next spring, 1862. The Sevys and Paces got on their way before the Redds and got the choice land along Ash Creek.. John D. Lee's claim was at the head of the creek, and the Paces were below him. The Paces and Sevys were there early enough to help them move. On January 18, 1862, John D. Lee, with the help of William and Harvey A. Pace and George W. Sevy, took three wagons, with eight yoke of cattle to each wagon, and moved all the families from the fort to New Harmony except Caroline, Lee's wife. She wanted to finish weaving some cloth she had in a loom. The walls fell in and killed two of her children, a five-year-old girl and a seven-year-old boy. These children were buried on Lee's farm in New Harmony.

The road was so muddy that winter that the axles dragged on the ground, but they finally all got over to New Harmony.

New Harmony, then in Kane County, was situated about 20 miles northwest of the black ridge on the headwaters of Ash Creek. The record of New Harmony says: "The new settlers were not much inclined to attend meetings. They said they had too much to do. On Sunday the 24 of May 1862 the Paces and Sevys were requested to come to meeting and not work on the Sabbath." I guess there was plenty to do at that. It would take them about four weeks to make the trip through dry, desolate country with little or no roads, and they needed shelter and gardens put in and all such. Further, the record says: "At the usual hour of meeting (came) brothers Sevy, Redd and families. The sequel was the administration of President Lee found place in their hearts. They repented and came to meeting and confessed and talked good."

This was June 15, 1862, and it is the first mention of the Redds in New Harmony. They probably camped along the creek temporarily, but when the town was surveyed and laid out by Israel Evans, grandfather stopped on the north of the Paces and across the street from them. This was on what became known later as the lower street. His home was about the middle of the block. He salvaged bricks from the old fort wall for his home chimney. The house was made of logs at first. Soon he built a bigger house of adobes, a bit more commodious than the log one had been. Maybe they used both. In that house three more children were born: James Monroe, Caroline Elizabeth, and Amos Thornton.

Little Amos Thornton died of whooping cough when he was two years old, the first death in the family. Grandpa was away, and grandmother herself had to wash and dress her own baby for burial without her husband's help and comfort.

For some time in this home they cooked over the fire in the fireplace, but eventually grandmother got her first stove, a wood burning stove with four lids and an oven, a real luxury. I guess she had never seen or cooked on a stove before. Later, grandfather's nephew, Lemuel Alexander Pace, built a home on that same lot. It is one block south of our old home in New Harmony. Grandfather's first deed for this place and is as follows:

Land Certificate

This certifies that Lemual Redd is the lawful claimant of lot 11 Block 3 New Harmony survey containing 5 acres. St. George, Washington Co.

Oct. 22d 1863 A. Ivins Co. surveyor


This was written on a little piece of paper torn out of a notebook, and it was about as big as the item above. The family lived in that home for about eight years.

In 1863 the people of New Harmony were asked to furnish three teams to go east and help some foreign immigrants to come across the plains to Utah. Grandfather helped fit out these teams.

                           Chapter 3
                                           Another Wife


In those days people were called on to make all kinds of sacrifices. I've talked about some of them, but I think a more difficult one was yet to come. Aunt Jane told me many years ago that she heard her father and mother talking one night. She couldn't make out what they were talking about, but she did hear her mother say, "Yes, Lem, you can take another, but not M. A."

Later, Jane knew what it was all about. Grandfather had been asked to take another wife, and I'm sure grandmother helped him pick one out. I don't think one of the family ever thought he could have done better. He married Sariah Louisa Chamberlain in October 1866, in the endowment house, Salt Lake City. They were married by apostle Wilford Woodruff.

Grandmother told one of her daughters that she cried and prayed all night when grandfather rode away with Louisa to get married. But she never cried again. She had prayed for faith and strength and patience and understanding, and she was blessed greatly and comforted. Her Father in Heaven heard and answered her prayers.

For 20 years they lived side by side, under one roof but in different apartments. They shared all the responsibilities of their homes and families, and I'm sure that grandmother herself guided that cooperation. However, during the first four years before that they didn't have separate apartments. They were located still in the little adobe house, and it must have been crowded. The two women were used to one another. Louisa had worked in the home before, helping grandmother during sickness and busy times, and they knew one another pretty well. Also, the children knew her and were used to having her in the home. Grandmother had six children by then: Lem, 10; Jane, 8; John, 7; William, 5; Monroe, 3; and Caroline, a little over six months.

I ’ve already noted how Luke, grandfather ’s former slave, liked to be close to the family. Well, he even wanted to make Louisa feel welcome, I guess. He was living in New Harmony; maybe he had a shack near by. Aunt Mecia told me her mother was making mush, probably corn meal mush, for the family one evening. There were about ten in the family then, so it would be a big kettle full. Louisa was stirring it with a big wooden spoon when Luke came up beside her and put his arm around her. Quick as skat she whammed him in the face with her spoon of hot mush. He didn't bother her any more after that.

In 1866-1867 the southern division of the militia trained east of New Harmony under Brigadier General Erastus Snow and Captain James Andrus. The dry field ditch in New Harmony was made by the men at that time and used for their water. The flat was covered with tents, and many men took part in sham battles.

About that time they had the Black Hawk War, and grandfather, who had trained out on the flat with the others, went with Captain Andrus of St. George out to Green River to ascertain the enemy plans.

From Indian Depredations in Utah, by Peter Gottfredson, p. 221, I take:

A company of sixty-one men from St. George and surrounding settlements were ordered out by General Erastus Snow as a minute company which expected to go as far as Green River. The men from the different places met at Gould's Ranch in Washington county twenty-six miles east of St. George on the sixteenth of August 1866. They were inspected by General Snow and staff. Gen. Snow told the boys that if those who were called would obey their officers all would be well with them; if any of them had been hired to go, they might return home.

Continuing the journey from Gould's ranch, August the 18th the men made their first camp on Short Creek where they saw a herd of wild cattle. Captain James Andrus who was in command detailed six men to go after the cattle and drive them to Pipe Springs or Whitemore's Ranch. The company went on to the same place and that evening the detail brought in the cattle. The horses of those driving the cattle being well nigh exhausted, ten or fifteen men were sent out to help them in and drive the cattle into the Whitemore corral; an old cow that had been tame refused to go into the corral, and made an effort to fight the men and horses; finally they had to push her along, but she was shot several times before reaching the corral. Captain Andrus killed and dressed the cow and three other animals. We stopped there two days and jerked the meat which is done by cutting the meat into strips and hanging it on a platform made of willows and building a fire under it, the fire helping the sun to dry it.

On Tuesday the 21st we mustered in one captain, one first lieutenant, one bugler, four second lieutenants and thirty-five privates equipped with good long range rifles and revolvers and we were later reinforced by Lieutenant Joseph Fish with eighteen men from Parowan in iron county, who left there on the 22nd of August.

Next day brought us to Shootem-Pah where it rained on us all night. The next days journey brought us to Pah-reah. We went up the fork of the Pah-yeah and through Potato Valley (now Escalante). Here we gathered some wild potatoes which we cooked and ate them; they were somewhat like the cultivated potato but smaller.

From there we went through Rabbit Valley, crossed Dirty Devil creek (also called Fremont River) and got within sight of Green River. We then turned back, the country between us and the river being too rough and broken to proceed farther.

Black Hawk told Mr. Adams later (at the time of the treaty) that when the men turned away they were within three miles of his (Black Hawk’s) main camp and the stock; that he and his warriors were in Sanpete, and that there were only old men and squaws left in camp.

When we started back we made a dry camp, we travelled all the next day and made another dry camp.

Some of our horses giving out, six men were sent back after them on foot, expecting to catch the horses and ride them back. The horses however were rested and would not be caught; consequently, the men had to carry their overcoats and guns and walk and drive the horses; it was a rough experience.

The company now went down the east fork of the Sevier River, and passed through Circleville, which had been abandoned in the spring after the crops had been put in; the grain was ripe and looking fine; we turned our horses into a field of oats which was enclosed by a fence, from there we went up the canyon westward and through Bear Valley, where we killed some wild chickens. The following day we continued the journey to Parowan where we were entertained with a dance arranged in our honor. Next day we continued the journey to Cedar City where we were well cared for and from there we went to our respective homes.

We were gone from Home sixty days to the best of my memory.

This was reported by John S. Adams of Annabella, who was on this expedition. They had several skirmishes with the Indians and of course other difficulties. One man was killed and they lost a horse, both killed by the Indians.

On page 225 were listed in the fourth platoon Lemuel H. Redd and Francis Prince of New Harmony.

On the ninth of March, 1905, the legislature passed a bill awarding medals to the Indian War Veterans. Grandfather received one of these. An act to give them pensions passed the legislature and was to take effect on approval March 2, 1917. That was too late for grandfather to benefit by it.

Grandfather took an active part in all the wars in Utah since then. I remember when he put in an application for a pension for his services in these wars. A monument on dry field was dedicated in their honor by the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers on December 10, 1940.

Lemuel H. Redd was marshal of the day during the July 4 celebration in 1867. Donations were asked for the Pioneer Emigration Fund in 1868, and he donated $40 for it. In 1863 the settlers built a log meeting house, which they used for about ten years. In about 1873 they built a white frame meeting house. I presume it was in the same place as was the log house. This frame house was on the only corner in town where four occupied corners met. It served the members of the ward until the present church was built in 1953. Aunt Alice Redd Rich wrote about that first frame meeting house:


In our one room school the pupils ranged from beginners through the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th readers. We were arranged with the boys on one side of the room and the girls on the other, two in a seat in heavy home-made desks. In the center of the room was the big iron wood-burning stove that heated the area nearby, but the corners were cold.

The pipe went up through the ceiling and the roof. At least twice I recall the shingles caught fire. One time Wayne Redd climbed a ladder and put out the blaze with a bucket of water. Another time Jim Naegle was the hero fireman. Sometimes on Friday afternoon for a special treat the whole room of pupils would line up on opposite sides of the room and have a spelling match, going from the youngest to the adults. What a thrill it was to be among the last to be spelled down.

This house served as a schoolhouse, meetinghouse, dance hall, and for all public gatherings for nearly the next century. Through all my years of remembering, it stands as a central pivot of public activity. There we met for school, Sunday school, sacrament meetings, little dances, adult dances, weddings, funerals, rallies and all public gatherings.

The memories that cling around the place are ever sweet and dear to me. All of grandmother’s children and many of Aunt Louisa’s went to the little frame one-roomed schoolhouse. Grandfather and grandmother were believers in giving their children an education. Uncle Lem went one year to the University of Utah. Uncle John went one year to Brigham Young Academy. Father, William A. Redd, went to St. George. Nelle Hatch says Grandfather taught a year. Nine of grandmother’s children taught school. Aunt Alice Redd Rich went back to New Harmony once for a visit after being away for many years and wrote about the school there:


                     The One Room School
        The years rolled back -- I paused to see
        The one room school, and there in reverie
        I rested in the cool remote recess
        Among the locust trees; the quietness
        Around the old school yard, unlocked for me
        A treasure trove of cadent memory.
        The frayed rope of the bell hung from the tower
        Above the door, its ringing tolled the hour
        Of morning, noon, and close of recess time,
        I listened for its sweet familiar chime.
        The shallow stream now choked with mint and sedge
        Allured my thirsty lips to seek its edge
        And again to drink, then with alacrity,
        Return to book with keen intensity,
        To glean from the meager store some wisdom there
        Like sifted wheat is garnered from the tare.
        That one room school is like a shrine to me,
        A lucid trumpeter of prophesy,
        With joy its reminiscent worth endears
        Embroidered childhood stories through the years.
        On hallowed ground it stands, 'A fruitful bough
        Beside the wall,' with laden branches now
        And sanguine verities of priceless worth
        They strew as leaves their strength upon the earth.

Another time, Aunt Alice wrote:

In quiet confidence, you have stood as a symbol of faith and loyalty since first your doors were opened for class work. Your length of days has spanned the time since dauntless pioneers pushed back the wilderness and brought waste places into needed productiveness. Within your plain four walls young dreams have flowered, and boys and girls have grown tall and fair, fired with ambition and desire to move ahead and add their strength and uplift to the onward march of progress, at home and far beyond the narrow boundaries of the little town.

Today you are a far cry from the modern school in architecture, lighting, heating and in general efficiency, but what you lacked in these you made up in a closeness of purpose and a desire to help.

I recall the days when I warmed myself at your old black stove, sat in high wooden desks and recited lessons at the teacher's table and copied from memory on my slate the multiplication tables, a feeling of gratitude comes to me and enfolds me like a warming shawl; again I feel the security and love that was mine in your friendly atmosphere.

Today your doors are closed and the village children are transported to the larger centers of learning. But neither time nor change can dim nor alter the warmth, the trust and neighborliness that holds my deeply planted roots there. Tender and enduring are my memories of you, dear, outmoded, one room school.


I started school there myself, but as a beginner I didn't have the privilege of sitting in one of those desks. They were too big for me or they didn't have enough. We little ones first sat on one long low bench -- no desk -- side by side, and we were not to talk to each other. If we did, we were rapped on the head with the teacher's stick called a pointer.

A monument was erected and dedicated September 26, 1960, by the local Daughters of the Utah Pioneers on the site where the frame church stood. This is just north of the present church, on the same corner. A New Home

Aunt Jane writes: "To see him (John D. Lee) come in the back door one night to be met by Pap, and for the two of them to seat themselves at the table and enter into earnest conversation . . . Though no questions were asked, mother finally whispered to us, 'Pap's buying the John D. Lee farm.'"

On Wednesday, September 17, 1870, grandfather bought the farm of John D. Lee for $4,500, $3,000 to be paid in horned stock, $1,500 in wheat at tithing prices in yearly payments of $500 per year. It was some distance south and west of the town proper, and there were two houses on it, or rather parts of two houses. The house the Redds later moved into was unfinished. I have always been of the impression that the other house, which was frame, was the one that Lee and his families lived in, and that here in this frame house was the hall where they held their meetings. The yard where this frame house stood was always thereafter called the "Frame Yard."

Grandfather tore down the frame house and used the lumber to finish the other which was of brick. He made it into what we would call a duplex. I'll bet it was heaven for those two women to each have a home of her own. The house faced east, and each wife had a front door opening onto the front porch, which was as long as the house. There was an upper porch, and the house was a story and a half high.

Aunt Alice described the rooms of their home to me. They had a great big kitchen, the biggest room in the house. That's where the family lived and worked. The back door came in from the porch on the west. This door was a little north of the center of the room. As you came in from the porch, to your right was a long bench holding the washbasin and two buckets of water, with a dipper under a window. Next to that in the corner, southwest, was the cook stove, the one grandmother had in the other house, and on the south, next to the stove, was the wood box. They attempted to keep the box filled with lengths of wood for the stove and fireplace, which came in the middle of the south wall. Then came the window, and in the corner against the south wall they put the organ, a little, low organ.

I thought we had that organ, but Aunt Luella said that father bought our organ before grandmother died, and we both had organs. Grandfather couldn't read notes, but he could chord for songs by ear. A man named Cragan, as I remember, came and showed him how to chord. They often stood around the organ and sang all the songs they knew. This was the first organ brought to New Harmony. When grandfather died, father sold the organ to Grants.

Along the east wall of the kitchen was a long couch or lounge that would seat half a dozen people. I think it's the one we had in our front room down there. It would pull out for a full sized bed in time of need. Then came the door that led into the front room where special visitors were brought in at the front door. North of this door in the kitchen, grandmother put her sewing machine.

In the north wall was a door that led to the upstairs and the dark room. In the middle of the north wall they put the table when not in use. It was a drop-leaf extension table to accommodate large or small groups. Next to that was the buttery or pantry. North of the outside door from the porch was a window and a mirror with a combcase under it. The roller towel hung on the back of the door. It was some big room, I'd say, and it probably took years to collect all those things. Aunt Alice was the baby and remembered all of the last things there, but she did not remember the early years when they had less.

They lived and worked in the kitchen. It was a hive of activity. There were no evening meetings, no evening activity of the ward or community. After supper they all congregated in the kitchen until bedtime. On a winter evening, grandmother got out her wool and cards for it, while the others got their sewing or knitting and grandfather got out his cobbling work..The wool grandmother used was raised right there in their own yard and orchard on nice, clean sheep.It wasn't dirty like the wool that mother used to get from the herd. Grandmother always carded it into bats before she washed it. Freshly cut, soft, oily wool was easier to card than that which had been washed and snarled up a lot. She would spread it out on the big hearth in front of the fire and get it nice and warm and card great piles of it.

On another evening, maybe the next one, she'd get out her spinning wheel and spin it into yarn. Once again she would warm it nice and warm before she'd spin the bats into yarn. That made it easier, and she could make much smoother and finer yarn that way. Then she wove it on her loom into cloth or rugs or carpets. The loom that grandmother used was a collapsible one that they could set up when needed and take down and put away when she was doing other things. Aunt Luella doesn't remember when her mother wove fabrics.

Very early in the settlement of Dixie they started the woolen mills down in a little town near St. George called Washington. They took their wool to this mill and exchanged it for linsey-woolsey woven there. The warp was cotton, and the woof was wool, making it half cotton and half wool. The linsey-woolsey I remember was gray, but Aunt Lou said they used to get it in white for sheets that were very warm and cozy in the winter when there was no heat in the house except the fireplace.

Father William A. Redd used to haul loads of wool down there for his father. Always a part of their traveling equipment was the "grub box," a permanent, good-sized box with a hinged lid and a fastener to keep it shut. Father went out on the north side of the woolen mill in its shade to eat his lunch. Some of the girls, workers in the factory, saw this handsome young man through the window and began kidding him: "Why eat out there alone? Invite us out. We'd like to taste some of that good-looking food. It smells good, too. Toss us up a piece." On they teased. When he had stood enough, he replied, "When I've had all I want and have fed my dog, I'll give you some." They slammed the window down, and he wasn't bothered any more.

Grandfather had his work in the evening, too. He made all the shoes for the family for many years. He made them from scratch, which indicates that he took the hides of animals, planned and cut out the shoes, and sewed them. John D. Lee also made shoes for his family, so this was a mutual activity, along with all the other work of farming.

Anything they ever had to spare they could take down to sell at Silver Reef, a mining town. There they could sell anything they had. When they took their surplus to Silver Reef, they stopped at the woolen mills in Washington and brought back linsey-woolsey and other bolts of material, which grandmother made into clothing. They also brought back leathers, cowhide for soles and calfskins for the tops. Later, grandmother had a little "Howe" sewing machine with which she could sew the tops together, and the vamp, and up the back. Then grandfather put them on the last and tacked them together.

When father was small he tried to make a baby shoe out of little scraps that grandpa wouldn't use. When he tried to tack the top and sole together, the tacks went into the last, which was only wooden. He pulled it crooked in trying to get it off the last. Disgustedly, he threw it out in the bushes. Aunt Louisa had been watching him, and she went out to retrieve the shoe.

"What are you going to do with that?" he demanded. "I'm going to keep it and give it to your wife," she explained. "No! You're not either!" he yelled.

Many times thereafter he said he had gone all through her part of the house when she wasn't there, but he couldn't find the shoe. Mother prized it when she got it.

As pioneers, Lemuel and Keziah Jane Redd did everything they could for themselves and their family, everything necessary for them and their welfare. On one of his trips to Salt Lake City he bought a shoemakers kit. This kit consisted of a box with a hinged lid. Across the back of it was a row of little compartments filled with little wooden pegs, as they didn't use metal tacks then. They used an awl to poke holes in the leather to put these pegs through. The kit also contained a hammer and four wooden lasts: a small, two middle sized, and a large. That was as near to "fitting" a shoe as they could get.

Father said that when they were small they were the only children in town who had shoes when it snowed. The others came to school with wet, cold feet and had to warm them at the little heater in the middle of the room. They sat barefooted all day. They'd scrape the hot coals out on the hearth to warm them. Of course, none of the other children came as far to school as did the Redd children. These shoes of the Redd children were precious, and when it was wet and sloppy, Aunt Mecia said her mother and Aunt Kizzie would wrap their feet in gunny sacks and tie them on. When they arrived at school they'd take the sacks off and put their shoes on. They would then put the gunnysacks under the stove to dry during the day. Often they weren't dry when school was out, but they tied them on anyway and carried their shoes home. Always when the weather was warm they went barefooted. These shoes were made of hides they brought from Salt Lake City or Washington or tanned at home. They greased them up a lot with tallow to make them wear well.

Father William told of the early days when he was very young. They all danced barefooted and barred those who wore shoes so they couldn't stomp on the bare toes of the others. The floors weren't very smooth, and they sometimes got slivers in their feet. When that happened, some swain who had a pocketknife pulled out his knife, opened it, and the foot with the sliver was held up so he could pull it out and the dance could continue. Why let a little sliver stop the fun? Those early dancers didn't.

With so many children in the family, it was a problem to get shoes made for all of them very often. When a child grew out of a pair they were passed down to the next in size. Mother said their shoes were the same shape on both sides -- no left and no right. To make the shoes last longer the children were told to alternate them on their feet. If they wore one on the left foot one day, they were to wear it on the right foot the next day. If the children "ran the shoes over" on one side, sometimes the alternating would help, but not with mother. She ran hers both the same way to the right.

At first on this new farm from Lee, they cleared the land of rocks, and of these rocks they built their fences. They used no cement, probably they didn't have any. They may have used mud. If they used mud the rains washed it from the rocks and the fences, like the chimney, fell down into heaps. Later a fence of barbed wire was put along the side of the old rock fence. These old rock heaps were ideal habitats for snakes and as younsters we always carried a good substantial stick with which to kill such snakes if we ever saw one. And we often did such.

These rock walls were around the frame yard, the pond, the orchard, and in fact all the separate parts of the farm. The pond was a place of interest to us children. We often hiked up to it. One end was shallow and the bottom slanted towards the south where we used to think it was very deep. I can remember when the pond was used for baptisms but this was discontinued before I was baptized. The spring still feeds it but it is filled with slime and water weeds of all kinds such as bull rushes and cattails.

The house they lived in was started by John D. Lee. It had four brick walls around the main part, and the partitions were of lumber or studdings. There were two main rooms on the lower floor, with a little bedroom between them on grandmother's side of the house. There was a fireplace and chimney in grandmother's end of the house and, I suppose, one in Aunt Louisa's end also. The house was long, with gables on the north and south ends. There were three rooms upstairs, with a stairway up to the middle room they called the dark room because it had no window, just two little panes of glass in the roof. The walls upstairs -- and a few downstairs -- were finished with plaster or fabric on only one side; the studding showed on the other side. This was true of the dark room. Aunt Della went up there once to take a bath. She went to sit on a chair, and there was a big blow snake coiled on it. She screamed for help and her brother, William, came to the rescue. The snake had started to go down between two studdings. William grabbed it by the tail and pulled. The snake blew up and braced itself. William wrapped the snake around his hand, got a better hold, and pulled harder. He pulled the snake in two, and they never did find the head end.

The north room had a door that opened onto a little catwalk over to the long upper porch, as long as the house. Aunt Sussie said that the upper porch was never used, so far as she knew; it was for decoration only. But the kids used to take their bedding out on the lower porch to sleep sometimes in the summer.

The kitchen or kitchens -- surely, there was one at each end of the house -- were in a long, wide lean-to attached to the main part of the house. Out back of the kitchens were the back porches, in another long lean-to attached to the kitchen lean-to.

Grandmother was the disciplinarian of the family. Uncle Lem said he lived in the family home 24 years before he married, and he never heard his pap or his mother speak sharply to each other. Grandpa once asked Louie to bring another stick of wood for the fire.

She didn't hear him properly and asked, "What?" Her mother said, "Is that a way to speak to your father? He is a gentleman, and you must address him as such." "How should I speak to him?" asked Louie. “'Sir!’ is the proper word,” she was told. Grandmother always insisted that they do as their father said on every occasion.

The cellar was under the house at the south end. It was merely a hole in the ground with a dirt floor. I don't know whether the walls, were of dirt or of brick or rocks. There were steps leading down to it from the south at right angles to the south wall. These steps were covered by a big slanting door that had to be lifted up. It was the kind of door kids liked to slide down, too. There was also an upright door at the bottom, opening toward the inside.

Somebody left the door open once, and old Bossy went down to investigate. In her movements about she pushed the door shut. Aunt Vilo was sent down for something but couldn't get in. She could see just a little bit of cow. She dashed upstairs, shouting that she couldn't get in, the cellar was full of cows. She said she actually thought it was, too.

They used a lot of ingenuity in that cellar. They kept their milk down there, for instance, and if they had merely stacked shelves as in other places, mice could get into the milk. Instead, they suspended the shelves with four wires, one from each of the four corners. Several shelves, one above the other, were on these same wires. They figured the milk would be safe. But one day the cream came up missing. Grandmother asked her children who had skimmed the milk. They all denied having done such. Again it was missed. Again they denied it, and again, and again. Then one day grandmother went down for something, and there was a big blow snake with its mouth open going around the pan and lapping off the cream.

Before they got the organ, that corner of the house held the loom. Aunt Lou said that by the time she was old enough to remember, her mother wove only carpets. Then she would put the loom away. By that time, too, she only spun coarse yarn for rugs. The spinning wheel could be moved from room to room as needed. Between meals the table was shortened against the wall, and other activities were carried on in the space.

Each of the children had regular responsibilities. Aunt Lou's job was to fill the chip basket with good, clean chips. The basket was of Indian make and held the chips ready for the early fire making in the morning. She had to fill it at night. One night they had company, and they told such interesting stories that Aunt Lou didn't want to miss them. She delayed until it was dark, but she had to get the chips anyway. Her mother held a candle for her, but the flickering was about as bad as nothing. She could see all kinds of wild animals and other dangers out there in the dark. She got her chips early after that experience.

Aunt Ellen had to shut up the chicken coop very carefully so that no coyote could get in and take a chicken or two.

Aunt Vilo had to carry the water up from the spring down by the creek. She told me she once had to go and get it after they were ready to sit down to a meal. She was so mad that she put her foot in the bucket.

Aunt Alice was assigned to bring up the potatoes from the basement.

Their parents wouldn’t remind the children of their duties; they were to do the chores without being reminded. These were their nightly chores. Everything had to be ready for grandmother to prepare breakfast early in the morning.

I asked Aunt Alice once if they often had cornmeal mush for breakfast, and she said that they never had mush for breakfast. For breakfast they always had potatoes and gravy with eggs, bacon, or sausage, and always with hot bread and butter. Breakfast was the big meal of the day to start out the day’s work on the farm. They had corn meal mush for supper. Each was given a bowl of milk, and the mush was dipped into it, as much as each wanted. Dinner was about the same as breakfast -- potatoes and gravy and meat of some kind, mainly pork. A special dish was a quail pie. When grandmother could get half a dozen quail, she would make a big pie in a milk pan, and it was “super duper.”



                            Chapter 4

Family Activities

I don't know the date, but at one time a man named Sandeen came to New Harmony with a pack on his back. When he opened it there were dress and suit patterns; that is, many pieces of material with enough in a piece for a suit or a dress. He was a professional tailor and had the materials to sell, too. If they bought his material, he would like the job of making it up. He was also looking for a place to do his work. When grandmother saw his materials and the opportunity it afforded, she said he could use her big kitchen and table if he would teach her to do tailoring. I guess that was the best place he could find, so they made a bargain.

After the morning breakfast was over, the table was cleared off and left spread out full length. Out came Sandeen's patterns, and a suit was started. Step by step he explained his processes throughout the day. Then at night, after the rest of the family were in bed, grandmother sat by the table and went carefully over the day's instructions. In this way she soon learned all there was to know about it and was able to ask questions about anything she had forgotten.

Later, when Sandeen was not available, she did the tailoring for the community -- or communities, because people came from other towns for her to do work for them. Aunt Lusette Wood told me that she went to New Harmony and took tailoring lessons from grandmother. Aunt Alice said she had no doubt in her mind but that grandmother made the suit that my father, William, wore when he had his picture taken at sixteen -- maybe also the coat. Of course, she made her own dresses in these pictures as well as grandpa's suit.

"Many well dressed men were indebted to her for their good looking suits. When Independence Taylor was an old man, he used to tell us children that no man ever had a more handsome suit than his (wedding) suit, which was the handiwork of my mother," writes Aunt Alice. "Sandeen had taught her how to baste the stiffening in the coat fronts and collars, how to finish the lapels, pad the shoulders, set in the pockets, and make button holes. She could draft patterns for women's clothing, too, and when she went to Parowan to visit her daughter, Caroline, they had heard of her work and she coached a group of women there. She was an expert tailoress.

It took three weeks to travel to Salt Lake City one-way, so people seldom went. The men of the town took turns, and whoever went did the shopping for the community. When mother was a little girl, for example, she worked hard drying fruit to earn money for a new dress, and she gave her money to a man, Benjamin Bruppocher, whose turn it was to go to Salt Lake. She described and showed him exactly what she wanted. He couldn't find that, so he chose a dress for her. She was disappointed, to say the least.

That was about the only time they needed money for anything in the way of shopping. In the community at home they traded or bartered. They even traded when they went to Salt Lake City. Aunt Alice said that her father went about every other year, and when he went he took dried fruit, buckskin gloves, pine nuts, and anything they could think of and could spare. Aunt Mecia said her father would bring home a bolt of cloth and they all had dresses alike.

Aunt Mecia tells about their summer experiences. As soon as the fruit was ripe and ready to dry, they gathered together all the pans, boxes, old chairs, knives, and benches. They dressed in their old clothes and went to the orchard early in the morning and stayed all day. Only two were left in the house to do all the work there. They sat there all day and pealed and cut apples for drying, or cut and pitted peaches or apricots or plums or whatever fruit was to be done that day. Some of them, probably the boys, climbed the trees and picked the fruit; others spread it out to dry.

They would work until dark, then wash at the little basin beside the door and go to bed. The next day this kind of work was repeated. This went on until all the fruit and vegetables were cached away for the coming winter. It took everybody in the family to get it all in because there were many mouths to feed and many growing bodies to be nourished.

Aunt Lou gave me a version of pine nut hunting. She said her brother, William, used to take them a lot. I remember he was very fond of pine nuts. Aunt Alice said the first money she ever earned was to crack pine nuts for her brother William, at 5 cents a cup. When they found a tree covered with cones he would climb up the tree with a sharp little hatchet and cut off the loaded branches. The kids down below would break off the cones to take them home. The Indians showed them how to roast the nuts. When they got home they would dig a big hole and line it with rocks. Then they would build a big fire on those rocks and get them red hot. They'd rake out the ashes and fill the hole with pinecones and cover them with grass sod from which they had shaken as much dirt as possible. Then they would cover the sod with their blankets. The "oven" was left to cool. When they uncovered it, the heat had popped open the cones and let the nuts fall out.

Grandmother had a big box with a hinged lid to put the pine nuts in. She would put this box under the bed. They couldn't open the box while it was under the bed, and the little kids couldn't pull out the box from under the bed.

When I said blankets, I didn't mean bed blankets they slept in. They always had a supply of blankets they put under their saddles when they rode, which they called saddle blankets. They always had them along when they went on any kind of trip and used them for sitting or lying on the dirt or rocks.

The year-around chores for a boy on a farm of that day were getting kindling and wood ready at night for the cook stove, cleaning the ashes out of the stove in the morning, milking the cows, feeding all the animals or turning them out to pasture, gathering the eggs, filling the lamps with coal oil or kerosene, watching out for and killing snakes, carrying water from the creek for family and household use and from the spring for drinking purposes, loading wheat in sacks into the wagon and hauling it to Cedar City to be ground into flour, bringing back the flour and bran, and hunting in the hills for all kinds of game for meat.

I guess grandfather was a pretty busy man all the time, teaching and training the children how to do these things and seeing that all the chores were done when they should be.

The seasonal chores included shoveling snow, chopping more wood for the fireplace, butchering animals and curing the meat by drying or jerking beef and salting pork, going to the canyons and mountains to haul wood, plowing, planting, watering and weeding crops, picking the fruit and helping store it for winter, gathering and storing vegetables in pits and trenches, cutting grain with a scythe and flailing it, building fences, digging ditches, making and fixing roads, clearing rocks off the land, making fences with these rocks, learning to ride and handle horses, breaking them in for various uses, tanning leather and buckskin, making and fixing shoes, making and fixing harnesses, bridles, plows, sleighs, wagons,and shearing sheep. Aunt Alice writes: Great quantities of dried fruit, along with homemade cheese from some home dairy, great crocks of butter and handmade buckskin gloves, would be hauled to Salt Lake City to be exchanged for store articles. These three hundred mile journeys would be taken in the fall after the busy season was over,and they would take about six weeks. I remember the thrill when father and mother would get home from one of these trips and we opened the parcels of wonder.

By the time Aunt Alice was old enough to remember the trips to Salt Lake, there were no babies for her mother to tend; therefore, grandmother was free to go to Salt Lake City with her sweetheart on some of the trips.

Aunt Alice said that when grandfather bought the farm from John D. Lee, he supposedly bought 160 acres. John D. Lee owned it by squatter's rights only. Others had the same idea and squatted on various parts of it here and there. When Grandfather went for his deeds there were only about 60 acres left that he could call his own. That wasn't enough ground to support his family, so he went into cattle and sheep raising. They ran their sheep in the hills about town in the summer and out on the desert farther north in the winter. The range land was public land then, free to any and all stockmen. They took their sheep wherever they could find forage. Their cattle summered out in the brush along the foothills, and they fenced a large part of the farm in the southwest corner on both sides of the creek and fed the cattle there during the winter. It was a job for the boys to fence it, put up the hay, and herd the cattle and sheep.

Of course, I haven't listed all their chores, but every child had to do his part. In the spring at lambing time everybody had to lend a hand and tend the lambs. If the mother died or refused to care for her lamb, it was brought home, and the children raised it for a pet. Each spring a small flock was cared for at home in this way.

At harvest time they cut the grain with a scythe, a tool with a long, bent handle and a long, curved blade attached to the handle at an angle. The wooden handle had two small handles which stood out at right angles and were placed in the right position for a comfortable hand hold. They gathered the grain by hand and tied it together into bundles with some of the straw. Several of these bundles were then stood up together into a shock. Then they hauled the grain and stacked it in the stack yard. Every farm had a stack yard. They always stacked it with the stems out and the heads inside the stack to keep the crows and other birds from eating it, and to provide for water drainage. At first they used a flail and beat the chaff off the grain by hand. They had done it this way from the beginning. Then they'd lift it high and pour it out of a vessel on a windy day onto a wagon cover and the wind would blow the chaff away.

About 1885 a man in Cedar City got himself a brand new invention and brought it to New Harmony. It was called a "Thrashing Machine." Mr. Walker went with his threshing machine all over the area from town to town. When he came to New Harmony he would start at one end of town and go right through it. The thresher was run by horse power. Four teams they hitched to four tongues and went around in a circle, turning a long rod that went into the machine to set it going. It took many men to run the machine. One handled the horses, some pitched bundles, some fed the machine, some stacked the straw, and some sacked the grain and took it to the granary. Mostly, it was manned by local men who stayed with it throughout the town or towns. The threshing crew followed the machine, and the men were fed by the housewife on whose farm they were threshing.

It was a busy time. Aunt Mecia said the kids had to take the knives and forks and spoons down to the creek and scour them bright and shiny. They didn't want the threshing crew to eat with a tarnished spoon at their home, for fear they would tell about it at some other farmhouse later. The family spent days getting ready for the threshers. The house had to be cleaned from attic to cellar.

After dinner was over and the great stack of dishes was washed and put away, the children could go to the big bins and stand in the wheat. The most fun they ever had was to stand in the wheat when the sacks were emptied and feel the wheat flowing over their bare legs. But father William never got in on this fun; he was 24 and married before he ever saw a threshing machine. After the wheat was threshed, it was stored in the granary in bins. If they wanted flour, they sacked this wheat and hauled it to Cedar City, where there was a flour mill and where it was ground into flour and bran. They had to wait until the milling was done, then bring it home. They called it "going to grist" or "taking a grist to the mill."

I've talked a great deal about wheat, but the Redds were southern, and in the South corn is the staff of life. They liked corn in any form. They ate it off the cob, they dried it for winter, they made hominy out of dried ripe corn, and they ground it into corn meal and ate corn bread and corn meal mush. It took as much work to harvest corn as wheat. They picked the ears off the stocks and carried it over beside the animal pens. There they shucked it. Then they took it to a shady spot and shelled it. This they did by rubbing a cob over the ear and removing the kernels off the cob. They hauled that, too, to Cedar City to be ground into corn meal.

Another big feature of the day was hauling wood. They used wood in the cook stove and in the fireplaces, and they used a great deal of it. It had to be hauled and cut into stove lengths. At least two went into the canyons or mountains for a load of wood. They took with them sharp axes and a log chain. Each tree had to be cut down by hand and the branches trimmed off. The chain was fastened to a log and to the harness of a horse, which dragged it to the wagon. It might take several days to get a load, and it took many loads for a year's supply. The year's wood was usually hauled in the fall after the other harvesting was done. Then they had a big pile of logs, and they would drag down a log at a time and cut it into stove wood lengths with the axe as needed. The pile grew smaller and smaller until the next fall, when they had to start all over again.

Whole gangs went out to haul wood for the meetinghouse and for the aged and for widows. Often at such times those who didn't haul wood and the women would get up a dinner and they would have a ward celebration.

Their home life was different from ours in many ways. They had no bathroom. So when Eliza Westover came over from Pinto to visit her boy friend, Lem Redd, and he wanted to bathe and clean up for her, he went down to the creek for the purpose. While he was there his cousin Wiff Pace came up and inquired of his whereabouts. When he heard it he asked quickly for one of Eliza's dresses. He donned it and a bonnet and went o the creek. When Lem, thinking it was Eliza, called to warn her that he was naked she kept right on coming. He called a second and a third time. She still advanced. Then he said in effect, "I wouldn't have such a brazen hussy for my wife. Not ever."

In December, 1889, they had a big flood in New Harmony. It came from the west of the farm down the canyon from Pine Valley mountain. Some think it was caused by waters being held in the canyon by debris which had accumulated for years until there was a big pond or lake. So much water collected that the debris gave way and let the waters come, making a great roar. People in town saw an immense wall of water, twenty or more feet high, coming down to Redd's farm, headed for the house. Everyone,who saw it was terrified about what the results might be. Certainly, there was no place for the family to go to escape the water's destruction, and no time to go, anyway. It was right on them when they heard it and saw it. Fortunately, the natural terrain divided the waters above the house so that a big portion rushed down the creek and the rest dashed down north of the house through the meadow part of the farm. When the waters divided, their powers were lessened, and they left their burdens -- rocks, timbers, brush, etc. -- scattered all over the area. It took years to remove and dispose of all the rubbish.

The flood left part of a big tree trunk beside the road through the meadow. It was never removed. This log -- some six or eight feet long and about two feet thick -- was used for many years as a resting place when going from and to the farm. Many called it "Lover's Log." I guess every one of the growing children at some time sat there of an evening with a loving friend. The log was still there when we left New Harmony to go to Canada in 1905.

All the children of Lemuel H. Redd who grew up in the old home loved Ash Creek and all its turns and windings, its wide pools, and its narrow, trickling parts. They loved the old pine tree up near the foot of Pine Valley mountain, and with every excuse they hiked up to it, just as did all the children -- and older folk, too -- of New Harmony. They loved to climb around the base of old Pine Valley mountain, especially in the early spring when, through little patches of snow in the shade of the rocks, grew a lovely little thing we called "Snow Flowers," which I have never seen or known to grow elsewhere. The early settlers loved the view across the valley east, especially on some clear evenings when the sunset cast a glorious radiance over these masterpieces of old Mother Nature.

As expressed by Alice Redd Rich:

My Hills of Home

When Nature fashioned my hills of home She spared no color, no tint, no tone, But splashed vermillion and rust and gold On her shaggy peaks both steep and bold. Morning

  				The morning sun sends her radiant beams

Over flaming reds and evergreens, Mellows to softness her vivid hues, Subdues her brilliance with smoky blues. Noon The mid day light casts no darkening shade On rocky peaks or on sheltered glade, Now my hills of home, in monarch’s dress join earth and sky with their loveliness. Evening The sun’s last ray as it sinks to rest Throws burninshed gold on each tall bright crest; Then purple and greys wrap each arch and dome And night shades close on my hills of home


Some of Lemuel H. Redd's Activities

Aunt Ellen writes:

Along various lines was my father's leadership prominent in this small town. For many years it seems that through all the years from my infancy up -- he was chairman of trustees for the school district. He served as justice of the peace, was a member of the Kane County court for six years, and for one term was probate judge. He assisted in establishing the Kanarra and New Harmony cattle and sheep co-op and served as director and treasurer in each for about twenty years.

Though he was never privileged to become a medical student in any university, yet he was a practicing physician and did much. Very few medical doctors and dentists were found in southern Utah towns. My father studied the human body. He filled the place of a needed physician and did much efficient work in the setting of broken bones, replacing dislocated joints, and extracting teeth.

Grandfather had three pair of dental forceps – for different sizes and shapes of teeth. He pulled teeth for all who came for the service, in town and in the neighboring towns, all with no charge. These forceps were turned over to his son, William A., who carried on after grandfather was in Mexico, right up until William went to Canada. Aunt Ellen said she once had a tooth ache bad, and William was going to pull it for her. He kneeled on the floor on his right knee. He lifted his left knee up and supported it on his foot and set her on that knee with his left arm around her. He picked up the forceps with the other hand, and as he did so she let out a blood-curdling scream. It was summer and the door was open. Jim Taylor was passing by on horseback. He slid off his horse, jumped the fence, and dashed in to the rescue. William hadn't even yet touched Aunt Ellen's tooth.

Aunt Alice said that Aunt Louisa, also, was skilled in caring for the sick. She and grandmother one time put back the severed finger of Susie Redd, bandaged it, and applied splints. The finger grew, so the story goes.

Grandfather knew the best kind of wood for splints and how to whittle them just right. George Prince was mail carrier from Kanarra, and one night his horse came home without him. A posse of men went in search of him and found him with a broken leg by the side of the road. No doctor was within call, so grandfather read Dr. Gunn's book and followed directions. He put the bones in place, bound the leg with splints, and Prince's leg healed perfectly. Another time, Jim Pace was thrown from his horse and received a dislocated shoulder. Albert Taylor brought him to grandfather, and with the faithful Dr. Gunn's book grandfather had Albert press his stockinged foot tight under the arm while grandfather worked the arm in a rotary movement until the shoulder joint slipped into place.

In 1874 the United Order was established in New Harmony by Apostle Erastus Snow, with Lemuel H. Redd as vice-president and secretary. On January 1, 1877, in company with his wife, Keziah, he attended the dedication of the lower part of the St. George Temple. In April of the same year they attended the 47th Semiannual Conference of the church, which was held in the temple at St. George when the whole building was dedicated.

At the opening of the temple for baptism and endowment work, we find Lemuel H. Redd and his family among the first to labor for dead relatives. He continued this work of love whenever possible.

He was generous to a fault. His hospitality to traveling friends was unusually marked. He was an extensive and intensive reader, a qualified student of history, biography, and current topics. He was interested in politics and was an enthusiastic republican -- standing for the building up of home industries. He was an untiring student of the gospel and a very pleasing speaker. His nature was genteel and happy. He loved to sing with his family, and he let his tenor voice be heard in church. He had a broad understanding of life and was diligent in searching after knowledge in various fields. He was widely known and blessed with many friends. In earlier life he was known as "Uncle Lem Redd," but later generations called him "Grandpa Redd."

    Chapter 5

Exploring Experiences


In the fall of 1879, eighty families were called by the church from Iron, Garfield, and Washington counties to colonize the valley of the San Juan River in southeastern Utah. Grandfather was chosen as one of the scouts to find a trail or road for them. From a book called "Zealots of Zion," by Hoffman Birney, I take the following excerpts about this trip:

George B. Hobbs, Lemuel H. Redd, George Sevy and George Morrell were sent as an advance party to scout a route from the eastern bank of the Colorado to Montezuma.

Three Georges and a Lemuel composed the quartette which set out from the Hole-in-Rock on December 17, 1879. As they were assembling their outfits for the trip, George Morrell asked George B. Hobbs if it would be possible to take with them a burro to pack the bedding. Hobbs replied to the affirmative. Whereupon Lemuel Redd remarked that he possessed a stout, sure footed mule that was but little larger than a burro. If Morrill's burro could get through the rough country they would traverse, he was confident his mule could make it. It was voted to take the mule, and George Sevy immediately observed that he had a tough pony that wasn't any larger than Redd's mule. Any place that mule could go he asserted his pony could follow.

Ordinary standards of comparison are futile in attempting to describe the western portion of San Juan County through which the three Georges and Lemuel Redd were striving to blaze a trail. It is unlike any other section of the United States.

The Mormon pioneers gave Lemuel Redd's name to one of the big canyons that head in the Clay Hills and wind westward to the Colorado. Some of the maps show the general location and course of that gorge, but cartographers could see no necessity for the final "D" and it appears only as Red Canyon, one of a thousand-odd Red Canyons that are found in the west.

Through such errors does all memory of the pioneers vanish – Redd canyon was the only name in San Juan County that preserved the memory of any of the dauntless men who blazed the first trail through that unknown wilderness of sandstone.

They ran out of provisions and even out of water. It was dry and dusty. Grandfather held a little, round, flat stone in his mouth for days to keep his tongue from swelling. As a last resort they killed the mule and ate that as long as it was fresh enough.


They arose one morning and grandfather said to the others, "Go ahead and cook some of the mule, and I'll go get some water."

They thought he had lost his senses, but he had dreamed in the night where there was water close by. He took their demijohn and left camp. He went to a group of trees and found a small spring. He drank his fill, filled the demijohn, and returned to camp. Needless to say, they all rejoiced. Their rejoicing was not only for themselves but also for their remaining animals, which were just as badly off as they were.

Hoffman Birney said of their experience at that time: "The four must have been men of iron. Ninety-six hours of starvation, to say nothing of other hardships they had undergone, left little mark upon them."

Later they saw a mountain goat which, when they chased it, ran bounding from rock ledge to rock ledge down the only possible route to the bottom of Grand Gulch.

George Hobbs writes: "Christmas found us on the east side of Elk Mountain without food and no way of identifying our location. It was impossible to retrace our steps to the river camp, and we knew not which way to go to reach our destination. Lemuel H. Redd's dream helped us find our way."

Aunt Ellen writes about that:

The following is my father's story as I remember hearing him tell of their perilous experience that Christmas time. Snow had fallen all day until evening. Night began to settle around them. They found a clearing in which to make camp. With branches from Cedar trees they brushed off the snow and kindled several large fires to dry and warm the ground. After hours of work carrying dry cedar trees to feed the fires, their reward was a warm place for their horses and for them to lie down wrapped in their blankets. Their grievous needs of the moment and their days of suffering from cold and lack of food would naturally lead them to the only source from which they could possibly receive help.

Morning came with clear skies and sunshine. As they folded their blankets my father said to his companions, "Come with me to the top of yonder knoll and I will show you the San Juan River."As they stood on the spot where he had stood in his dream of the night before, their hearts thrilled as each in his turn with the field glasses looked upon the waters of the San Juan River shining like a silver ribbon in the sunlight, as my father expressed it. This ended their search for the San Juan River. It was to guide them to their destination.

Kuman Jones, one of those early pioneers to San Juan writes a tribute:

The exploring trip of these four men, George W. Sevy, Lemuel H. Redd, George Morrell and George Hobbs, will always be remembered by all those acquainted with it, and who took part in it, as one of the hardest and most trying in the way of perseverance and persistent endurance of any undertaking connected with the San Juan mission.

It has been a source of wonder to all those who have become acquainted with the country which those explorers traveled since those early days. How they ever found their way through deep snow and blinding snowstorms in such a timbered country, all cut to pieces with deep gorges for such a long distance without compass or trail, remains a puzzle. Much of the time there was no sun, moon or stars to help them in keeping their course. The only answer that helps explain the mystery must be that a kind providence came to their assistance. How those Latter Day Saints scouts made that trip and returned alive, with the weather, food shortages, and other obstacles against them is proof that a kind Father held out His hand. Having gone over that country many times riding after cattle, it seems more impossible as time passes.

While in California later, I found in Heart Throbs of the West, published by the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, a further account of the trip of grandfather from the Hole-in-the-Rock to Montezuma. It seems that when they got to the Hole-in-the-Rock they had to find a way down through it and then farther. These four men were sent to find that farther road and to decide on a route suitable for the wagons to follow. These pathfinders left the Hole-in-the-Rock December 17, 1879, with provisions for an eight-day trip, the distance being estimated at about sixty miles.

They took with them two animals for packing and two for riding. The second day after leaving the Colorado River, the four reached a barrier that was to be commemorated in state history as Slick Rocks, a sweeping expanse of densely compacted sandstone so smooth that at only great distances did even a crevice appear in the slippery surface. It was impossible to go around it. If they were to reach Montezuma, their only course lay down the Slick Rocks.

After much scouting around they discovered the trail of some mountain sheep. From here they could see a deep canyon leading to the northward. Their trail led them toward the range known as Clay Hills. The ground was cut into a tangled network of canyons that coursed north, south, east and west in a bewildering manner.

The scouting party was forced to travel one canyon after another in their search for a path that the wagons might follow. They now realized that their provisions would be exhausted long before they reached Montezuma. Their goal lay almost due east from the 'Hole' but they had been forced many miles to the north by seeking to find a pass through the Clay Hills.

Many disappointments and setbacks were encountered. East of Clay Hills, ranging north from San Juan, lay a many branched gorge, so vast they christened it Grand Gulch. Its steep walls were impassable and the scouts were again to go northward before they succeeded in passing around the main head of the canyon and its many forks. Christmas day they found themselves far up on the slops of another timbered range, The Elk Mountains, the existence of which they had known nothing about, and on that they cooked their last food. Their Christmas dinner consisted of a flapjack of flour and water. Surrounded by the timbered foothills of the unknown mountains they realized that they were lost.

Hobbs, who had been with the party at Montezuma and in a way felt responsible for the success or failure of the party, placed their difficulties before a higher power than man. He knelt among the stones and prayed. Guided by that prayer, he climbed to the summit of a small knoll south of camp. From here he was able to recognize the familiar contour of the blue Mountains, which were northwest of Montezuma. The four men knelt in thanksgiving and the hillock was given the name of Salvation Knoll. For four days they trudged through sand and snow over the roughest country imaginable. Hobbs stated that as they climbed out of Butler Wash he found himself wishing that one of the animals might fall and kill itself; the misfortune would at least furnish food.

Late in the afternoon of that fourth day, they staggered up the bank of cottonwood wash and crossed a treeless flat toward a cabin that a man named Harris (A Mormon from Colorado) had built where Bluff now stands. One of the men afterwards stated that, 'While we waited for sister Becky Warner, one of the Harris household, to fry meat for our supper, I believe no torture in hell could be worse for us.' (Four days without food and we have to smell it cooking.)

After only a single night's rest they moved on up the San Juan to the settlement at the mouth of Montezuma, finding the settlers almost without food. They remained overnight, promising to return, if possible, in sixty days with provisions. The only food they were able to obtain for their return trip was a fifty-pound sack of flour, bought after much persuasion from a wandering trapper for $20.00.

On the return trip these trail-weary scouts faced the necessity of finding a more practical route for the wagons than the one they had followed.They struck far north of the first course. All of their provisions were gone and they were in an almost starving condition when they reached the Hole-In-The-Rock. Their exhausted animals were scarcely able to stagger down the trail that led to the river. One of the packhorses having worn his hooves almost to the hide, leaving a circle of blood on the rocks with every step. They reached camp January 10th 1880, twenty-five days after having been required to make the trip.

I presume they figured that when they returned to the Hole-in-the-Rock they would just relax and rest a couple of days, but the colony had been in touch with home by means of riders who carried messages and mail. So when grandfather returned to the "Hole," a rider had come from home bringing letters. His letter brought the bad news that there was sickness in his home. Two babies were sick -- Alice, nearly eleven months, and George, thirteen months old. He was wanted at home. He packed up his few things, saddled his mount, and went home alone over that long, lonely trail. He found his children down with diphtheria, but the crisis was passed and they were recovering. Grandmother and Aunt Louisa must have been thankful and relieved to have grandfather back home with the priesthood after all they had gone through.

In 1887 Congress passed the Edmonds-Tucker Law, making more stringent rules against polygamy. Grandfather had married Louisa in good faith and vowed he wouldn’t give her up and that they would never catch him and put him in jail. Then began seven years of hide-and-seek between grandfather and the United States marshals. He was away from home dodging the marshals all the time, and during this time Wayne, 17, and Ben, 15, ran the farm and looked after affairs until William Alexander came home from his mission. Then William took over. It was a good thing that grandmother and Aunt Louisa had made their homes practically self-supporting.

Friends and relatives -- and especially grandfather’s own family -- did everything they could to shield him and keep him from being taken. Aunt Alice tells about the time when marshals Dyer and McGarry came to their home. From their front porch they could plainly see the highway leading into town, and when a strange carriage or horseman was sighted, the alarm put men, women, and children on guard to screen their father.

The morning the marshals came in early autumn, Aunt Alice had been sent to town to post a letter. When she was about halfway across the meadow she spied a strange, blacktopped buggy with spirited horses coming through Uncle Wilse’s gate. She had had her instructions, and like a scared deer, her nine-year-old feet covered the space back home in double quick time. She stopped long enough, however, to lock the big gate leading to their yard in order to delay them. Then she dashed into Aunt Louisa’s house shouting, “The marshals are coming!” Aunt Louisa and Mecia were washing in the back yard. Without asking any questions, the two of them caught up their gingham bonnets and with a parting word -- “You take care of Jennie ” -- they disappeared into the thicket of willows and potawattomie plum trees out through the gap.

As was their custom, the representatives of the law searched every room and cranny of the big duplex that housed the two large families. They asked impudent questions of everyone they saw. Aunt Polly, grandfather’s cousin, was there, and in true southern frankness she gave them a piece of her acid mind and let them know that they were anything but gentlemen. When they came to the living room, there stood Alice, hovering over the cradle taking care of Jennie, the three-month-old baby. In his most suave manner, one of the men patted her shoulder and asked, “Where is your mama?”

"I don’t know,” was the only answer she was to give to a stranger.

“How old is the baby?”

“I don’t know,”came again.

“What's its name?”

“I don’t know.”

With an impatient shrug one of the men turned to his companion: “These Mormon kids don’t seem to know anything. Of course, that’s what they’ve been taught to answer always. But we could starve this baby out if we weren’t in a hurry to get to St. George to Conference. There we are sure to find some of them.”

Of course, they couldn’t have starved Jennie out. Alice had been instructed in such a case to take the baby to Eliza Kelsey, who would share her baby’s lunch with Jennie.

Aunt Ellen told me a similar instance once. She was in town for something, as I remember, and saw a strange rig coming, and she, too, ran home as fast as she could all the way, but she tied shut and locked every gate she came to. She found her father sitting on the front porch with his “spy” glasses, and he told her it was Wiff Pace coming from Loa. He knew the outfit. Aunt Ellen didn’t or couldn’t tell, as she had very poor eyesight.

One day grandmother was down town to Relief Society meeting. Aunt Polly Holt from Spanish Fork was there, and she was telling Luella and Wayne some stories in grandmother’s part of the house. Aunt Louisa was ironing and Uncle Ben was lying on the floor rocking the little old baby cradle with his foot when Aunt Louisa looked up. Right there by the big gate was the U.S. marshal’s buggy. She and Uncle Ben ran out the back door into the corn patch to hide as fast as they could. The marshal searched through the house for grandpa and then said she was a funny mother to run off and leave her baby. He served papers on Luella, about 11, and Wayne, about 16, to appear in court in Beaver on a certain date. They drove up to Parowan and stayed at night with their sister, Caroline, and went on to Beaver the next day.

Before they left home Louie cried and said, “What if I say something wrong?” Her father said, “If they ask you where I am, tell them you don’t know, because you won’t know where I will be.”

Grandfather was ever on the move during this time. He went to Bluff for a while with his brother-in-law, Harvey A. Pace. When he felt that place was too “hot” he went to Mesa and stayed with his daughter, Jane. He came back by way of California, and conditions were no better.

He decided to move his second family to San Juan, and in August of 1888 he took a lot of stock and part of his family out there. Three of them stayed with grandmother in New Harmony to help take care of the farm. His daughters, Della and Ellen, went along to help. Della rode a horse and helped to drive and take care of the stock. Ellen drove a team and wagon. It was a long journey to the Colorado River, where they expected a boat to take them across. Lem came from Bluff and met them at the river, but there was only a skiff, not a boat. It was late in the season and the water was low, exposing a sand bar in the middle of the stream. They swam their stock across to the bar all right, but the wagons were too big for the skiff. They took their wagons apart and it took seven trips to get their things to the sand bar. By then it was late so they spent the night there.

During the night a thunderstorm came, with heavy rain, and the water rose and drenched them. When daylight came, water was pouring down over the high cliffs on both sides of the river and into it. The sand bar was nearly covered. They swam their stock and made the seven trips the rest of the way across. There they built fires, dried their clothing and bedding, put their wagons together again and went on, thankful that they were all alive and well.

Before coming to the river they had suffered for want of water for themselves and for their animals, as all the little tributary streams, if there were any, had dried up. I have camped myself along the rim of the Colorado, and there were no streams. Water seems to go down in sinkholes to the river. However, after the storm the party found water in many basin-like depressions in the tops of large flat rocks. They sometimes found several gallons in one rock basin. This was possibly at “Dandy Crossing.” The rains had flooded the country, making the traveling hard for the animals, and the horses gave out. Wayne went to Bluff for help.

While the rest of the party waited, their horses strayed. It took everyone in camp to find them. Even Aunt Louisa left her babies alone in the wagon and joined the search. They found the animals, and after that they tied them. Wayne returned and brought with him a load of watermelons that gave them a good impression of Bluff, their destination.

I don’t know how long grandfather stayed in Bluff, but his presence there soon leaked out, and he had to be on the move again. He decided to come back to New Harmony. He would bring Della and Ellen back with him. At that time Della was about 18 and Ellen about 16. They drove the team, and if anyone passed them or overtook them they reported that they were alone. Grandfather kept out of sight. They had an extra saddle horse that they led — for emergency, they said. One evening as they were preparing their evening meal at the campfire, the U.S. officers passed by. They hadn’t heard that grandfather was in that part of the country, and they didn’t recognize him. If he had tried to dodge or run they would have been suspicious, but he just stood there and looked them in the face and went on eating or whatever he was doing.

Wiff Pace wasn’t a relative, really, but he lived in Loa, which was on the way they came home, and he was the only person in that long trip who knew that grandfather was with the girls — the only person grandfather felt he could trust.

They drove into Paragoonah one night after dark and went to Aunt Farozine’s. She was grandmother’s sister and the girls knew they could stay there. As they neared the place grandfather mounted the saddle horse and went on into the night to New Harmony. That close to home he could leave them to come on alone. They weren’t even to tell their own people that he came with them. They went in unannounced, as people did in those days. Aunt Farozine was glad to see them and gave them a hearty welcome. She asked who was with them. When they said they were alone, she was dumfounded. “No! Not alone!” she cried. They assured her that they were really alone, and she hugged them and really cried. To think that Kizzie’s little girls were left alone to make that long, dangerous trip was more than she could realize. She cried and sobbed a long time, but they didn’t tell their secret, as it might get out that their father was home.

Grandfather was now home, but nobody knew it, nobody should know it. He didn’t dare spend a day or a night in the house. A neighbor child might even speak out of turn. He only dared be in the house when only his own children were there. He took a canvas and a bit of bedding to the hillside gulleys west of the farm and out of sight. He didn’t dare to stay in one place more than a night or two, fearful that somebody had spotted him during the day and might report him. He moved each night after dark. He had to be very careful of that, too. Rattlesnakes loved to curl themselves up in bedding. That seemed to be a common practice for them. And children loved to hike around the hills outside of town. He never felt safe.

Nelle S. Hatch writes:

But New Harmony is an old snake den. I’d go a little way and run onto a big snake. I’d jump and move away as scared as I could be. But I didn’t go far till I ran onto another, for there are so many there. I remember mama telling me how grandfather Redd used to have to sleep up on the old Pine Valley Mountain every night during the polygamy times to make sure the U.S. marshals never got him. He’d have to move his bed every night in the dark, for he never dared to strike a light. He’d shake it to be sure no snakes were in it.

Aunt Ellen writes:

The house of Lemuel Hardison Redd was one whose inmates suffered during these years of intensive persecution for polygamy; watching, hiding to evade the almost ever present spotters and deputies of the law, whose pleasure it was to hunt and to hurt men and women of higher mental and moral capacity than they themselves could boast. My father always felt that he would rather die than serve a prison term. So during this period of darkness, when evil was master, he seldom knew the feeling of safety. He spent some months in Mesa, Arizona, and in Bluff, San Juan County, as a relief from sleeping in the west canyons among rattlesnakes, mountain lions and other dangers. A white flag hoisted on the upper field gate was the sign to assure him that it was safe to come home for his breakfast.


In looking back over the pages of memory I often have been led to feel that his solitary seclusion in the mountains where poisonous reptiles and dangerous animals were many, with shelter and protection from storm so meager that a prison bed could not have been much more dreadful. For many years he was forced to sacrifice the safety of home and its comforts rather than be untrue to a principle he had accepted in full faith and believed to be a revealed truth. Moving

Dodging became harder and more uncertain as time went on, and at last Lemuel Hardison Redd decided to move his second family to Bluff, feeling that the long, difficult miles would help to protect him. It didn’t take long, however, for the U.S. marshals to find their way there, and then things were as bad as before.

At last he heard that some were going to Mexico, taking their plural families there. With only one family in the United States he would be safe, and so that is what he decided to do. It was a long, hard trip to make, to even think of. There was no definite road and probably no maps. They just knew that it was south. As I remember it, some of the leaders of the church had gone or sent someone to scout out the way and to look into conditions there.

There were a lot of them to go — nine children ranging from one year old to nineteen. They were weeks planning it and making all the preparations. They went in three loaded wagons. I guess nobody realized the difficulties who hasn’t been over the road or undertaken such an adventure. They were three weeks getting to Nutrioso, Arizona.

There was Wilson D. Pace, grandfather’s brother-in-law and former bishop of New Harmony. He was also in hiding. One of his families lived in Nutrioso, and it was a chance for a rest. ‘Rest,’ did I say? They bathed, washed and ironed their clothes and bedding. They shod their horses and fixed their wagons. Likely, they repacked them. I can guess that they did some baking, too, for the rest of the journey.

They arrived in Colonia Dublan in January 1892, after riding in those wagons or walking beside them for nine long weeks. There they found one log room. Together with tents and wagons, it filled their needs wonderfully.

Grandfather bought a fruit farm in Colonia Juarez and they moved there. Ancil was born there the next August, and while Aunt Louisa was yet sick they all had whooping cough.

Grandfather stayed with them until they were fairly well settled and at work. Then he returned to New Harmony after he had been away eighteen months. Bishop Wilson D. Pace had long since been released as bishop, and that let grandfather out of the bishopric there, but his son, William Alexander, was now the bishop of New Harmony, so all was well with them.

The year 1893 was a memorable year for them and for the church. Grandfather, grandmother, their daughter, Ellen, and their son, William, went up to Salt Lake City to the dedication of the temple. Their sons, Lem and Monroe, came from Bluff, and daughter Caroline came from Parowan. It was the first of what you would call a family reunion, for now the family was scattering. It has been scattering ever since.

Sometime about 1893 the chimney of the house in New Harmony fell down, and they couldn't live in that house any more. Anyway, it was too big for the few who were left there. It must have been a poorly built chimney in the first place, built by amateurs. Because the chimney fell down they couldn't stay in the house, so grandmother and her five single girls -- Della, Ellen, Luella, Vilo, and Alice -- came to live with us. I guess they had two beds in the parlor and two slept on the couch in the living room. Father and mother had a big bedroom that held two full sized beds and a little one. They didn't stay with us long, though, as the girls began to marry off. I only remember when there were three of the girls, and then only in the summer because they went away to school or to teach in the winter. They weren't a burden at all. Mother had lived with them in their home, and she had been willing to do her part there. They did the same in her home.

About the next summer, 1894, when I was three, father took his mother out to Panguitch to see her sister, Phoebe Sevy. When we got to Parowan, Uncle Jim Adams hitched up his wagon and they went along, too. I remember the hairpin turn in the road up the canyon on the way. I was standing in the wagon box at the back, watching the scenery as we went. We were going south in one place, and I saw Uncle James going north below us. Luella was standing in their wagon facing me. I called, "Ain't you going with us?"

She called back, "We are going to turn right up here," and pointed to the turn.

Then I could see how they could follow us. She sure laughed at my ignorance. She had been up there before and was two years older than I.

At Panguitch we went boat riding on the lake. Grandmother didn't want to go, so mother spread a big quilt on the ground under a cedar tree, and grandmother sat there and watched the baby, Fern, asleep by her side. Father picked me up in his arms and took me into the boat. He sat down and stood me between his knees with his arms around me under my arms. I put a hand on each of his knees. Uncle Jim picked up Ancil to bring him on board, but Ancil was afraid of the boat. He screamed and kicked so rebelliously that they set him on the quilt by grandmother.

I remember seeing grandmother sit by the fireplace with a shawl around her shoulders and her feet propped up, probably the beginning of her last sickness. She was sick for months and, at the last, in bed all the time. She died of cancer of the stomach, which is very painful, and at that time they didn't have the drugs to deaden the pain.

I also remember that Aunt Caroline came from Parowan and brought her baby, Josephine, for grandmother to see. They held her up for grandmother, and they all talked about what a beautiful baby she was. But I didn't think she even compared with our baby, Fern. I wondered why they didn't show off Fern to grandmother.

Also, I remember that they backed a buckboard up to the front porch and put her coffin in it. That's all I remember of grandmother.

After grandfather moved his second family to Mexico, he spent part of each year in each place, usually the winter in Mexico and the summer in New Harmony. That schedule was upset when grandmother was ill. It so happened that Aunt Louisa wanted him in Mexico that May, but he felt more the need of being in New Harmony. Hazel, Aunt Louisa's fourteenth child, was born the thirteenth of May 1895, and grandmother died the fifteenth of May 1895. When Aunt Louisa heard of grandmother's death, she did understand.

From then on, though, grandfather came home to New Harmony every summer anyway. I remember hearing some woman say that she wondered why until she once happened to be in the house when he came home and saw the royal welcome he received from the family.

For 25 years before her death, grandmother had been a counselor in the Relief Society. She was also a midwife. One of her main duties was to lay out the dead. They had no mortuaries, and when someone died in the community a committee had the responsibility of doing that job. They would wash the deceased and dress them for burial. Grandmother had done this for all those 25 years, and when she died there was no one in the ward who knew how to put on temple clothing for burial. She also had made all the temple robes.

Her son, William A. Redd, as bishop had to assume the responsibility. He rode horseback to Cedar City and telegraphed to St. George to President McAllister of the temple for definite instructions so he would be certain to do everything exactly right.

Aunt Alice wrote:

On receiving word of mother's illness and the doctor's report that her sickness was unto death, he (grandfather) came at once to her bedside. It was never safe to send money into Mexico, and dear Uncle George Sevy loaned him sufficient for the train ticket home.

When he reached Milford, the end of the train service, he came as far as Kanarra with an old friend on a load of freight, a slow and tiresome journey. In Kanarra he borrowed a horse and came horseback to New Harmony. I shall never forget the evening he arrived and walked in just at dusk, asking, "Is your mother alright?"

As I recall that tender meeting after a year's separation, tears fill my eyes and a sorrow that must be experienced to be explained fills my heart. They were so close and tender with each other and were really lovers all their lives. Mother lived just one week after his arrival. The evening of her passing father sat beside her, holding her hand, and she requested that her children who were there, six in number, sing "There Is Sweet Rest in Heaven." Vilo played the organ, Ellen sang alto, Luella and I soprano, and dear brother William bass. How she loved it: Her passing was just a few minutes after the hymn was finished. She had gone to that Sweet Rest in Heaven.

Brother Wayne gave a tribute: "Alice, do you know that you had the best mother in the world?" I feel there was never a more understanding woman lived than she. My own mother was a good woman but she didn't have the patience of your mother and I don't know what we children would have done if we hadn't been able to come to your mother for advice. Aunt Kizzie's life was an influence that has helped to make me a better man. It can truthfully be said that no harsh word was ever heard to fall from her lips.

The study of the scriptures was a part of her life -- she loved to read church history.

At grandmother's death there were six of her children present. Three of them were married. She had become so very ill that they knew the end was near, and they wanted to get Vilo and Caroline there from Parowan. It took such a long time. Grandmother wanted to hear Vilo sing. Della wanted very much to keep her alive until the two girls arrived so grandmother could hear Vilo. Della went into the other room and prayed for help. She was impressed to cook vegetables and give her mother enemas with the vegetable water to feed her. It worked. When they all assembled, Vilo stood by the bed and sang sweetly for her mother. At first, she thought she couldn't do it without breaking down, but they told her it was the last thing her mother wanted of her, so she did.

In 1897, fifty years after the year in which the pioneers entered the valley, they had a big pioneer jubilee in Salt Lake City, and grandfather went with his daughters, Vilo and Alice, his son, Lem, and Lem's wife, Eliza. His sons-in-law, James and Thomas Adams, met them there. Again in 1902 they had a real big family reunion of the first family. They were all there but Monroe and Luella. In addition, Aunt Louisa and Uncle Wayne joined them. This reunion lasted a week, and did they enjoy themselves! Especially, they all enjoyed their visit with Jane, who had been living in old Mexico since she left Mesa. She was in Mesa in 1890, and she hadn't been home since.

After the reunion, Jane came down to New Harmony with her baby, Porferio Dias -- 'P.D.' they called him -- and he has officially changed his name to Paul Duane.

The last trip that Brigham Young made to southern Utah the people made a big fuss over him and provided him with an escort. Grandfather was the captain over 22 men who escorted President Young from Bellview to Hamilton's Fort. Maybe there was a threat of Indian troubles and they wanted to make sure that he would be safe. Or possibly it was just an act of respect.

Grandfather was active in the church in Mexico, especially in the seventies quorum and then in the high priests quorum. He was first counselor to the stake president, A. F. McDonald, then to President Miles P. Romney, and then to President A. Thurber. He was ordained a patriarch on the ninth of March 1908, under the hands of Apostle John Henry Smith, George F. Richards, and Anthony W. Ivins. He died June 9, 1910, in Colonia Juarez and was buried there.

Grandmother died in 1895. That could have severed grandfather's connections with New Harmony, but it didn't. He liked to come back to his old home and to the few who remained there. He seemed to be restless all the time.

In 1908 when Aunt Louisa died, he was really restless and unhappy. His mind was not here; it seemed to be with his loved wives over there. He said he didn't want to live longer; he felt too lonely and forsaken. One day he fell down the stairs of his lovely home in Mexico and broke his leg. At the time, Bert was in Mexico City on a mission. They sent for him to come home. He did come, and he helped grandfather and the rest of them to take care of the situation. The doctor put a cast on his leg but he wouldn't have it. He kicked if off and he lay and suffered while it healed as best it could.

They took him to Mecia's, where he stayed until he could walk again, but he always limped thereafter. He rented his own home to his grandson, Lem Spilsbury, and later Burt sold it to Miles Romney. When he could get around okay he rented a little house of Nora Cowley's, near Mecia. There he lived until he died, and Hazel, 13, kept house for him.

He was so discontented and unhappy in Mexico that he made a trip to Utah again. He took Ancil and Hazel with him. He visited his daughter, Luella, in Parowan, but his daughter, Caroline, had by then passed on. While there, he gave patriarchal blessings to all his grandchildren. He didn't go back to New Harmony; he had no one there. William and his family had gone to Canada. He also visited his sons in San Juan, left Ancil there, and went back to Mexico with Hazel.

One day he was taking a bath, and while doing so he took violently ill. Hazel couldn't do anything to help him, so she went for Jane. George also came, and they did all they could. As he was so lonely and unhappy and didn't want to get better, they couldn’t do anything for him. He was sick about a week and died only about two years after Louisa had passed on.

He had built a grand home for Aunt Louisa, and she had been justly proud of it. It was a big, two-story, brick home with a nice wide porch and a white fence around it. She raised a beautiful flower garden, one of the nicest ones in the village. But when I went to Mexico years later, the Mexicans had ruined it. They had stripped all the wood off for making fires. This included all the roof, the floor, the studdings, the doors, the windows, etc. They had taken the pictures from the walls, leaving the framed photos scattered about. The place was a wreck. The following obituary appeared in the Deseret News at the time of grandfather's death:

Lemuel Hardison Redd, who departed this life on June 9, 1910, at Colonia Juarez, Mexico, was born in Onslow County, North Carolina, 31 July 1836 making his age nearly 74 years. His father was John Hardison Redd and his mother Elizabeth Hancock. The family moved to Murfreesborough, Tenn., in 1838 and when he was six years old his parents embraced the gospel as restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith. In 1850 they crossed the plains. Lemuel being then fourteen years old drove an ox team from St. Joe, Mo., all the way to Salt Lake City. The following spring, 1851, the family located at Spanish Fork, Utah, being with a few other pioneers of that place. His father assisted in erecting the first saw mill south of Provo, Utah. What is known as the 'Walker Indian war' broke out in 1853 and the town and sawmill were destroyed, entailing a temporal loss of $6000.00 to this one family. Jan. 2, 1856, Lemuel was married to Keziah Jane Butler and to them 13 children were born, six sons and seven daughters. Shortly after their marriage they filled a mission call to Las Vegas, Nevada. Later he crossed the plains as a teamster to bring in the immigrating saints. In the spring of 1862 he and his wife and four children took part in the founding of New Harmony in response to a call from President Brigham Young to settle Dixie in Utah. He went on several expeditions in pursuit of marauding Indians and had engagements with them. He married Sariah Louisa Chamberlain in 1866, from which union there were fourteen children born.

He served in the bishopric of New Harmony for twenty years from the year 1871 and filled many other positions of trust with ability and fidelity. He took part in the settling of the town of Bluff, San Juan County, Utah, and later made a splendid home in Mexico.

His children received a liberal education in the best institutions of learning in Utah and in Mexico and are among the best teachers and business people where they live. He lived a life consistent with his profession as a Latter Day Saint. He was ordained a patriarch Mar. 18, 1908.

Miscellaneous Impressions

Following are some materials which have been collected from miscellaneous sources and which have some bearing on grandfather's life.


THE FARM HOUSE

        	0ld farmhouse rooted in the earth and trees

Bathed in the sunlight of old memories, Hold yet a part of life in ecstasy, That blends an essence of reality. The eastern cliffs hold high vermilion fingers To strain the tinted flames while twilight lingers. Soft sunlight plays between the pasture bars, In latticed hide-and-seek with milky stars. I see through walls, transparent now as lace, Grownups and children 'round the wide fireplace: With outstretched arms they meet life's problems there, And, unafraid, its joys and ills they share. 01d farmhouse, set in freedom's fertile soil, You are a symbol of requited toil:

	The love and beauty that young hearts fulfilled,

Knew unguessed harmonies that life distilled.


OLD HOME

Like far off lovely melodies, old home, you stand apart, Snug-wrapped in gentle memories that echo in my heart.


To the boys and girls, to the men and women who come after us, who have supped at the quiet fountain of these early and lovely memories of that village, I would entreat you to appreciate the modern advantages and luxuries of today's blessings and make the most of them. At the same time I would entreat you to appreciate your wonderful Mormon heritage, appreciate the constancy and devotion of your parents and grandparents who answered the call of their prophet and leader Brigham Young when this western colonization was new.

Appreciate their willingness to move out and out amid hardships and dangers to subdue the elements and to overcome difficulties, to settle this little garden spot. To a great extent, the benefits we enjoy today from our blessed heritage will be tempered by our own sympathy.

One writer has said: "We cannot think or act but the soul of someone who has passed before points the way, the dead never die."

Longfellow says: "When a great man dies, for years the light he leaves behind him lies on the path of men."

So let the light of your noble forebears light your path for bigger and better deeds as the years come.

John Hardison Redd and family moved several times during the pioneer years of our church. These moves were from North Carolina to Tennessee in 1838, from Tennessee to Spanish Fork, Utah, in 1850, and from Spanish Fork to New Harmony in 1862. Two sons and two daughters who lived to move from Spanish Fork to New Harmony have always been grateful to their Father in Heaven that these moves were made when and where they were made.

The family has really and sincerely thanked their Heavenly Father for so guiding their parents and themselves. They have felt that they were especially blessed thereby.

If their father, John Hardison Redd, had remained either in North Carolina or in Tennessee during the Civil War, his sons, Lemuel Hardison, John Holt, and Benjamin Jones would have been in the thick of the fight. And, if in Tennessee, maybe not all three of them would have been on the same side. They may even have been shooting at one another. Their father and mother didn't live to know of this condition during the Civil War, but the sons and daughters were well aware of it. That is why they appreciated that well-timed move.

This family of Utah in the early days loved and respected John D. Lee. They moved to New Harmony, where he lived, and settled there in 1862. Had their call come from Brigham Young a few years earlier, before the Mountain Meadow Massacre, chances are that they would have been involved in that affair. Here, too, they felt the guiding hand of the Lord had been stretched out to protect them from committing evil. Grandfather often expressed his thanks for these two blessings.

Thus, grandfather -- or "Pap" -- knew the blessings of answering a call from the prophet of the Lord. Once, his son, Lem, had just entered into partnership as a junior member with a very successful young man a few years older than he and worth much more than Lem in worldly goods. At about that time Lem received his call to go to the San Juan.

Lem said to his father, "I'll not go."

Pap asked, "Why not?"

Lem said, "I can't afford to go."

Pap said, "Lem, you can't afford not to go."

Lem described his very successful business partner and said that he, too, had received a call to go, but he wouldn't go because he felt he couldn't afford it. Lem said his partner was much richer than he was and that if the partner couldn't afford to go, then Lem most certainly couldn't afford it.

"Nevertheless," said Pap, "you can't afford not to go."

Lem went.

I was told that the partner, as successful as he had been, ultimately died a very poor man.

References
  1. Lemuel Hardison Redd. Family Record.

    Lemuel Hardison Redd, born 31 July 1836 in Onslow, North Carolina.

    Recorded by Lemuel Hardison Redd.

  2. Colonia Juarez (Chihuahua).Registro Civil. Registros Civiles, 1893-1963.. (Salt Lake City:Genealogical Society of Utah,1963,1994.)
    film 773945, 9 Jun 1910.
  3. Lemuel Hardison Redd. Family Record
    p.38.
  4. Lemuel Hardison Redd. Family Record
    p.38.

    Performed by J.D.T. McAllister.

  5. Lemuel Hardison Redd. Family Record
    p.38.

    By Henry Iring.

  6. Lemuel Hardison Redd. Family Record
    p.38.

    Ordained by apostles: John Henry Smith, Anthony W. Ivins, with "George F. Richards being mouth."

  7.   The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Ancestral File (TM). (June 1998 (c), data as of 5 JAN 1998).