TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1.........................................................................................................

New England Birthright........................................................................

CHAPTER 2.........................................................................................................

Uprooted By Faith......................................................................................

Mission To Vermont.......................................................................................

Return To Nauvoo..........................................................................................

Tried In The Wilderness.................................................................................

CHAPTER 3.........................................................................................................

Valley Of The Mountains.......................................................................

Home in Lehi....................................................................................................

Grasshopper Year...........................................................................................

Polygamy..........................................................................................................

Utah Territorial Legislature.........................................................................

CHAPTER 4.........................................................................................................

“It Seemed Like A Dream”........................................................................

Mission To England.......................................................................................

Called Home To Zion.....................................................................................

Return To Utah................................................................................................

CHAPTER 5.........................................................................................................

Mountain Common Law.........................................................................

Johnston’s Army In Lehi................................................................................

Jury Duty..........................................................................................................

Another Wife, 1860.........................................................................................

Second Term, Utah Legislature....................................................................

State Of Deseret...............................................................................................

Utah Legislature, Third Term.......................................................................

CHAPTER 6.........................................................................................................

Cares Unceasing..........................................................................................

Bishop of Franklin.........................................................................................

Railroad and School of Prophets................................................................

Franklin Co-op Store and Telegraph.........................................................

Mormon Hotel.................................................................................................

Idaho Legislature...........................................................................................

Railroad Comes to Franklin........................................................................

Arrested For Polygamy..................................................................................

CHAPTER 7.........................................................................................................

To The South...................................................................................................

Zuni Mission....................................................................................................

Visit To Franklin............................................................................................

Called to Arizona...........................................................................................

CHAPTER 8.........................................................................................................

Let Not My House Be Divided.................................................................

Little Colorado Stake....................................................................................

Eastern Arizona Stake...................................................................................

Family Troubles..............................................................................................

A Father’s Pride..............................................................................................

CHAPTER 9.........................................................................................................

He That Will Have A Crown..................................................................

Apache Indian Threat....................................................................................

Hyrum Shot......................................................................................................

Travel To Gila Valley.....................................................................................

Silver City, New Mexico................................................................................

CHAPTER 10.......................................................................................................

Turmoil And Upheaval............................................................................

Apache County Politics.................................................................................

Business As Usual...........................................................................................

The Stover Bill and Polygamy......................................................................

Coveville, Utah...............................................................................................

CHAPTER 11.......................................................................................................

I Must Go, The Bell Is Tolling................................................................

Efforts To Avoid Arrest...................................................................................

Return To Arizona..........................................................................................

Snowflake Stake.............................................................................................

Family Concerns.............................................................................................

CHAPTER 12.......................................................................................................

“Remain In The Field Of Labor”............................................................

One More Woodruff Dam...............................................................................

The Manifesto..................................................................................................

Death of Alice..................................................................................................

Salt Lake Temple............................................................................................

CHAPTER 13.......................................................................................................

Waste And Wear Out Your Life..........................................................

1895..................................................................................................................

More Problems In Arizona............................................................................

Seventy Years Old...........................................................................................

A Grand Celebration.....................................................................................

Grandson, Levi Lorenzo Savage..................................................................

CHAPTER 14.......................................................................................................

“Worn Hands, Weary Hands”...............................................................

A New Prophet, Lorenzo Snow.....................................................................

Visitors, Maeser, Kimball, Grant, and Clawson.......................................

Twenty Four Year Mission Ends..................................................................

Seventy-Fifth Birthday...................................................................................

Last Return To Cache Valley........................................................................

Death of Brother Jeremiah............................................................................

No Time For Repose.......................................................................................

Death of Sylvia................................................................................................

Appendix I.........................................................................................................

Spunky Sylvia..................................................................................................

Loving Catherine............................................................................................

Shy Alice...........................................................................................................

Appendix II.......................................................................................................

Lorenzo Hill Hatch Letters.................................................................

Appendix III......................................................................................................

Photographs and Maps...........................................................................

Bibliography................................................................................................

Index...................................................................................................................

CHAPTER 2

Uprooted By Faith

Prior to the Hatch exodus from Vermont, the Mormons, finding bitter opposition to their church among the inhabitants of Jackson County Missouri, fled from that state in 1839 to Illinois and settled near the village of Commerce on the Mississippi River. Commerce was promoted as the central gathering place for the Saints and renamed Nauvoo. The area was swampy and unhealthy, and malaria was rampant.

The Mormons, under the direction of their prophet Joseph Smith, immediately made plans to drain swamps and control the mosquito infestation. They asked for, and received, a liberal city charter from the State of Illinois in 1840. A police force was established, and a public works program to help unemployed immigrants was begun. The Nauvoo Legion was organized in 1841 as a means of self protection and also a show of patriotism. Plans were made to begin a temple in the bustling city.

Though not apparent to the recently arrived Hatch family, all was not tranquil in Nauvoo. In May of 1842 ex-Governor Lillburn Boggs of Missouri was wounded by a would-be assassin and Joseph Smith’s bodyguard, Porter Rockwell, was accused.

About this same time one of Joseph Smith’s counselors, John C. Bennett, was excommunicated from the church and expelled from Nauvoo on morals charges. He began to write inflammatory articles concerning the practice of polygamy within the church. These articles were eagerly published by the Quincy Whig and the Sangamo Journal at Springfield, causing much anxiety and disturbance among the gentiles (non-members) in Illinois.[29]

Hezekiah Hatch, as he arrived in Nauvoo with his family in September of 1842, was probably not aware of the full extent of the tumult that surrounded the Latter-day Saints. In his great faith that he had found the true word of the Lord and the restored gospel of the ancient church, Hezekiah came prepared to make his permanent home with the Saints in Nauvoo.

Lorenzo Hill Hatch remembered: “At the time of our arrival [in Nauvoo] the Prophet was in hiding from the “writs” that were in circulation against him by accusation...made by the State of Missouri. ...this excitement passed in a few weeks after our arrival, and we had the privilege of seeing and hearing the Prophet speak to the Saints.”[30]

Father Hezekiah did not hesitate to put down roots and make a home for his five motherless children. One month after arriving in Nauvoo, he bought a city lot for $300.00 from Daniel H. and Eliza R. Wells. This land was Lot 3, Block 17 of the Wells Addition to Nauvoo.[31] Two weeks later on October 31, 1842, for $500.00, he bought an 80 acre farm six miles east of Nauvoo from Job V. and Marcia Barnum.[32] Hezekiah immediately began building a home on the city lot. “The house was 30 x 16, two stories of brick...with a front porch [it was] located on Mulholland Street... two or three blocks east of the Temple. He [Hezekiah] put up this house in February. In March he commenced fencing and farming on his prairie farm.”[33]

Grandfather Jeremiah and Grandmother Elizabeth bought a building site at the corner of Fulmer and Ripley Streets in Nauvoo. This was Lot 56, Block 2 of the Kimball Addition. Their deed is dated February, 1843. Grandfather Jeremiah built a home very similar to that of his son Hezekiah.[34]

Building these Nauvoo homes may have been seventeen-year-old Lorenzo’s first experience as a carpenter and builder, skills that would be put to good use in his later life. The clearing, fencing and planting of the farm land was not a new experience for the Hatch brothers, as they had worked on their father’s farm in Vermont since early childhood.

Three months after the family arrived in Illinois, Lorenzo’s older brother, nineteen-year-old Jeremiah (Jerry), married Louisa Pool Alexander on Christmas day, 1842. The Alexander family had come to Nauvoo from New Hampshire. The couple was married by Elder Peletiah Brown, the missionary who first brought the word of Mormonism to the Hatch family in Vermont two years before.[35]

In early March, 1843 Father Hezekiah was given a patriarchal blessing under the hands of the Prophet’s brother Hyrum Smith. Hezekiah was told of “tribulations that await you, yet there are blessings which you shall realize...” He was also assured “that your name shall not be forgotten but be continued and perpetuated from generation to generation....”[36]

On April 9th Grandfather Jeremiah and Grandmother Elizabeth received patriarchal blessings from Hyrum Smith, and Jeremiah was ordained an Elder of the Church of Jesus Christ with the express injunction that “...[he] quit the use of tobacco and keep the Word of Wisdom.”[37] On June 7, 1843, Hezekiah Hatch was issued an elder’s license by the Latter-day Saints Church.[38] This was a license to preach, and perform ordinances in accordance with their teachings.

The new Hatch home was nearly complete and forty-four-year-old Hezekiah was making plans to be married for the second time. The wedding date had been set for June 26th. Life seemed promising, but it was not to be. The ague, or malaria, with its chills and fever took many lives before the swampland was drained and the mosquito controlled. Hezekiah became ill with this dread fever and after only a few days he died on the very day that he was to have been wed.[39] He was buried in the cemetery on the hill with Brigham Young preaching his funeral sermon.[40]

Twelve years later Lorenzo Hill recorded the events following the death of his father: “...and thus we were left in the midst of the Saints without father or mother whilst many sought the advantage of us and took it...not the Saints, but those who professed to be. Let them have their reward.”[41]

Abram, who was thirteen years old at his father’s death recalled, “After the death of my father, my uncle, Jeremiah Hatch, came on to Nauvoo from North Carolina and was appointed administrator of my father’s estate.”[42] Lorenzo continues the saga, “...he [Uncle Jeremiah] sold the personal property, such as wagons, harnesses, stock, cloth, clothing and bedding which ought to have been kept for the heirs.... The estate was never settled. How much he collected, I do not know. This much I do know, the heirs received nothing except a few articles which they bought at the sale. Had Jerry [brother] and I known how things were going we would have bid on everything and let the administrator and scoundrels go to the devil, where they have gone. [after Father’s death] ...Abram lived with grandfather’s folks, I lived with Jeremiah, my brother, and we were poor enough. The little girls, [eight-year-old Adeline and five-year-old Elizabeth], lived from place to place as they could find places to stay.”[43]

Though Uncle Jeremiah Hatch was named guardian for the minor children, Abram, Adeline and Elizabeth,[44] their care fell to the grandparents, Jeremiah and Elizabeth Hatch, who were quite elderly, being seventy-seven and seventy-one.

Another of Lorenzo’s Uncles, Josephus Hatch, arrived in Nauvoo after the death of Hezekiah. Josephus and his wife Melinda, who had joined the Mormon Church in Vermont, came now to look after the aged grandparents, and help take care of Hezekiah’s orphaned children. Josephus bought a lot on the north side of Knight Street in the Kimball Addition to Nauvoo in November 1843 for $250.[45] He also purchased two pieces of farm land, one containing 40 acres and another with 89 acres.[46]

The uncle, Jeremiah Hatch, Jr., who rushed forward to take charge of Hezekiah’s estate was the only member of the family who had not accepted the Mormon faith. He was twenty-one years younger than Hezekiah and a graduate of Middlebury College in Vermont.

Though not professing the Mormon religion, twenty-four-year-old Jeremiah Hatch, Jr. remained in Nauvoo for more than a year, teaching at the Nauvoo Select School. He taught English Literature, Latin and Greek.[47] Intelligent, cultured and possessed of a charming grace, he soon became a close friend of Sidney Rigdon, counselor to Joseph Smith, though he still did not embrace the Mormon faith. At the death of the Prophet Joseph, Jeremiah, Jr. left Nauvoo, first settling in Pittsburgh and afterwards going with the Rigdonite Church to Greencastle, Pennslyvania where he married Lucy Ann Rigdon, a daughter of Sidney.[48] He supported Rigdon in his attempts to wrest the presidency of the LDS church from Brigham Young, and was ordained an apostle to Sidney Rigdon.[49]

Many years later Lorenzo Hill Hatch corresponded with a grandson of his Uncle Jeremiah. The letters, copied into Lorenzo’s journal in the year 1903, are addressed to Judge Edward Hatch, New York City, and begin, “Through my brother Abram of Heber City, I have learned of your recent visit to Utah and California, and at his suggestion I write you briefly of myself and family.”[50] Lorenzo relates to his cousin, Edward Hatch, what he knew of the family history concerning Edward’s father Jeremiah Hatch, Jr. and his grandfather Sidney Rigdon. He also bears testimony of the truthfulness of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and soft-pedals the earlier antagonism against Jeremiah’s performance as administrator of Hezekiah’s estate.

During the summer and winter of 1843, following Father Hezekiah’s death, the Hatch family remained in Nauvoo and Lorenzo remembers this winter as “a very lonesome time.” He was “ordained a priest and traveled through the city as a teacher and was blessed.”

He was drawn to the Prophet Joseph Smith and sought every opportunity to get as close to the Prophet as possible when he spoke in public. The tall, light complected Prophet, with his commanding, yet musical voice seemed to the young Lorenzo to possess inspiration and the gift of prophecy. The young man attended a cottage meeting of twenty or thirty people and heard the words of Joseph and of Apostle Orson Hyde, who had just returned from Jerusalem. Lorenzo later remembered, “The meeting was at the house of a German neighbor. Perhaps I was an intruder, but nevertheless, I was at that meeting. The Prophet talked of the great beauty of the German language [and] also extolled the German Bible. He spoke of the confounding of the languages at the Tower of Babel, and told how it would be restored.[51]

“I heard Joseph say he would soon take a rest, and the responsibility of building up the church and sending the gospel to the nations would be required of the Twelve Apostles.”[52]

In the fall of 1843 The Scroll Petition, a document to be submitted to Congress applying for redress for suffering endured by the Mormons in Missouri, was prepared and signed by 3,419 Nauvoo residents. Not all of the signers, such as the Hatches, had been in Missouri, but many signed in support of those who suffered there. The single petition was fifty feet long and rolled up like a scroll. Jeremiah, Elizabeth, Josephus and Melenda Hatch were among those who attached their signatures. Orson Pratt, John E. Page and Orson Hyde took the memorial to Washington, D.C., but the Congress rejected their plea to present the petition.[53]

Before the year was out the first born child of Brother Jeremiah and Louisa was buried in the cemetery on the hill next to his grandfather and namesake, Hezekiah. On January 11, 1844 Lorenzo received a blessing at the hands of Patriarch Hyrum Smith, brother of the Prophet Joseph.[54] The Patriarch addressed Lorenzo as “a lad” and among other things admonished him to be “steadfast, immovable and you shall abound in Grace and possess your inheritance and the mansion that is prepared with the blessings of years multiplied upon your head.”[55]

During the first month of this new year, the twelve apostles, advisors to the Prophet, agreed to press for Joseph Smith’s candidacy for President of the United States. Negative action, or no action, on the part of former holders of this office concerning problems of Mormon persecution seemed to them just cause for this move. “At the April conference [of the Mormon Church], speakers endorsed and the congregation unanimously affirmed Joseph Smith’s candidacy. More than three hundred people volunteered to preach the restored gospel and campaign for him across the nation.”[56]

On April 14th Lorenzo was ordained a Seventy under the hands of Joseph Young, and called to fill a mission to his native state of Vermont. Though Lorenzo’s mission undoubtedly included campaigning for Joseph Smith’s presidency bid, he never mentions this in his journal, but only tells of preaching gospel sermons.[57]

Mission To Vermont

On April 15th Lorenzo Hill Hatch, accompanied by Thomas E. Fuller, left Nauvoo for Vermont. In bidding his Uncle Jeremiah, Jr. goodby, Lorenzo remembered, “He gave me twelve and a half cents and regretted that he had no more to give me.”[58]

During the next ten days, the two missionaries were not always welcome at the doors they knocked upon in the evenings, and so, spent many nights sleeping on the hard, cold ground, sometimes in the rain. By April 25th, Lorenzo and his companion, Elder Fuller, reached the town of Milford in extreme eastern Illinois, where they found an established branch of the church. Upon reaching Milford Lorenzo “was taken sick in consequence of sleeping out of doors” and says of those who refused them shelter, “May they receive their rewards according to their works.”

On May 6th the two elders took a boat on the Wabash and Erie Canal running through the State of Indiana, then traveled by steamboat for Buffalo, working for their passage. “...[We] were treated worse than dogs. One of the firemen threw a stick of wood at Brother Fuller and just missed his head.”

On the night of May 28th the missionaries arrived at the home of Edward M. Fuller, Elder Thomas Fuller’s father, in Saratoga Springs, New York. Lorenzo was “quite sick when I arrived.” While recovering from his illness at the Fuller home, Lorenzo became acquainted with a daughter, Hannah, who would become his future wife. In a foreshadow of the relationship that would develop between Lorenzo and his future father-in-law, his journal says, “I stayed from the 28^th of May to the 17^th of June and worked for Father Fuller. He gave me nothing when I left for Vermont, a distance of 125 miles.”[59]

Lorenzo arrived in Vermont and preached his first sermon, at age eighteen, in the home of his great uncle, Charles Haight, of Ferisberg. He felt the Lord blessed him and he was able to preach with some success. On June 25th he arrived in Bristol, where he found his Aunt Hannah, his mother’s youngest sister, who “received me kindly.”

On June 27th he started on foot, with Brothers Chase and Harding, for Northfield, a distance of some thirty or forty miles. They were to hold a conference there with Erastus Snow who was in charge of missionary work in Vermont. Brother Snow did not arrive. It was the middle of July before the missionaries learned that the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum had been murdered in the Carthage, Illinois jail.

“At first I could not believe it, but at last was convinced that it was a fact. Then I mourned and wept as the children of Israel did when Moses was taken from them.” Later in his life, Lorenzo would remember, “I was alone, a young man being but eighteen years old, 1500 miles from home. The question in my mind was, who would lead the church now that the Prophet Joseph was gone? About a month later I was at the house of one of my cousins in the town of Bristol, Vermont [when] a letter came from my uncle, Jeremiah Hatch, who had married a daughter of Sidney Rigdon. He claimed that the Lord had called Sidney Rigdon to lead the church. It was about noon [and] I stood in the middle of the sitting room reading the letter to my cousin, when a voice plain and distinct said, ‘Brigham Young is the man God has chosen to fill the vacancy.’ I so declared to my cousin.”[60]

Lorenzo remained in Vermont, working for a cousin of his mother’s, Seneca Sumner. “I worked for $7.00 per month...that was all they would give me although I earned twice that much. During the winter I threshed some grain and chopped wood for different ones, among these a man named Thomas Wilder for whom I fixed up a shop. He didn’t pay me all that he agreed to do. Let him have his reward.”[61] Lorenzo and Brother Harding went to the state of New York to preach several times, and he preached once or twice in Vermont, then in the spring of 1845 began preparing for his return to Nauvoo.

Return To Nauvoo

Lorenzo’s arrival in Illinois found brothers, sisters and grandparents well. He had been gone one year and three months. “I was happy to be home and found Nauvoo flourishing, such crops, I never saw growing on the earth before.” Lorenzo now saw Nauvoo as his home. His family and loyalties were there. The Yankee transplant had taken root.

When Lorenzo returned to Nauvoo in 1845, an uneasy truce had been declared between the Mormon leaders and the public officials of Illinois. Problems between the Latter-day Saint people and their neighbors were caused in part by the Mormon practice of polygamy and partly by jealously as the Illinois people watched Nauvoo becoming a beautiful, prosperous city. The city grew by leaps and bounds and attracted some undesirable characters. Transients could not be distinguished from the immigrant converts, and some who were there only to cause trouble, were protected by this factor. The strong city charter that the state had issued to Nauvoo was now a cause for concern to state officials. The charter gave the city control over Nauvoo University and the Nauvoo Legion. Such power, coupled with the industry and aggressiveness of the Mormons, now gave the politicians second thoughts.[62]

Many believed that with the death of their prophet, the church would die a natural death. In January 1845 the Illinois legislature repealed the Nauvoo City charter in an effort to reduce the strength and unity of the Saints. This act left the city without a court of law or any form of police protection and so, in March of that year the Mormons organized a countywide militia. These men patrolled the city streets and acted as bodyguards for church authorities.

In Lorenzo’s absence his brother Jeremiah had moved onto the farm land six miles east of Nauvoo, which was cleared and fenced by the family before the death of Father Hezekiah. Despite the uneasy atmosphere in the surrounding country, the two brothers now concluded to build a house on the farm, and began cutting prairie hay on shares, using other farmers equipment and animals. By this means they were able to purchase brick, lime and other necessary materials for their home.[63]

In the summer months antagonistic local newspapers again raised their voices against the Mormons. In September 1845, as Lorenzo and Jeremiah Hatch cut prairie hay and gathered materials to build a home on their farm, Lorenzo declared, “The devil commenced raging and mobs commenced burning the houses of the Saints in the surrounding country and the inhabitants had to flee for their lives [into] Nauvoo.”[64]

“In September 1845 the anti-Mormons under Colonel Levi Williams began burning Mormon homes. In all more than two hundred homes and farm buildings were destroyed.”[65]. Church leaders ordered all Saints living in rural areas to sell their property if possible and move into the city of Nauvoo.

Lorenzo and Jeremiah had lumber and lime on the ground where they planned to build their home. The brick were ready to be hauled from the kiln when they received the evacuation order. “Our lime still lies there and our brick is in the kiln to this day for all I know about it,” were the words of Lorenzo as he wrote of this time nearly ten years later.[66]

Of the retreat to Nauvoo, Lorenzo only says, “I went to Nauvoo and stood guard with the rest of my brethren. I went to put down the mob. We went to Warsaw and the town was all vacated, the devils had gone, so there was no fight for us.”[67]. Lorenzo’s brother Abram, who was fifteen-years-old at this time, claims to have joined the Nauvoo Legion as a volunteer and ridden with the posse of men who made a tour of Hancock County under Colonel Markham and Sheriff Backenstos for the purpose of arresting the ring leaders of the houseburners.[68]

As early as the spring of 1845 Brigham Young and other church authorities were looking at the unfinished plan Joseph Smith had begun for moving the Saints west to a place where they would be unmolested. Plans for leaving Illinois were activated in early 1845 and parties sent out to scout likely areas for settlement. However, these plans were not announced to the membership until mid September. At a general conference in October, the anxious Saints were assured the move was necessary “to give the church needed room for growth.”

On September 24, 1845 the church council, headed by Brigham Young, (he had not yet been officially designated as president), made an agreement with Illinois officials to vacate the town of Nauvoo in the spring of 1846, when there would be enough grass to feed their animals on a trek westward and the prairie would be dry enough for the passage of their wagons.

In it’s battered way Nauvoo still prospered. Both before and after the martyrdom, the Saints most important building project was the temple. They had completed nearly half the work on this edifice since the death of Joseph Smith a year earlier and despite the mobs, work on the building continued at a frantic pace. “By October, the church [issued] an official letter urging all Saints in the United States to sell their property, gather to Nauvoo to receive their endowments in the temple, and then join the migration westward. Without the completion of the endowments, the Mormons’ departure from Nauvoo would have been only flight. But with the endowments completed, they could go a saved and covenanted people.”[69]

The three Hatch brothers, Jeremiah, Lorenzo and Abram, having been evicted from their farm and now no doubt living with their Uncle Josephus and grandparents, Jeremiah and Elizabeth, spent the fall and winter days either with the militia which was protecting the city, or working on the temple building.

In the midst of turmoil and uncertainty, new members were still daily arriving at this gathering place for the Saints. One such family who came in the fall of 1845 amid hostilities and plans for yet another exodus, were the Fullers of Saratoga Springs, New York. Edward M. Fuller, his wife, Hannah Elizabeth, and eleven children, came well prepared with wagons, strong teams, milk cows, and sufficient supplies to last their large family for some time. Thomas Fuller, a son, was already in Nauvoo, or had been in 1844, as he accompanied young Lorenzo Hill Hatch eastward on a mission at that time.

The fall and winter months of 1845-46 were not all work and fear in Nauvoo. Though the Saints knew their days in Nauvoo were numbered, there were still cornhusking parties, Christmas celebrations, and quilting bees along with church meetings for instruction and edification of members young and old. The upper rooms of the temple were finished by December 10, 1845, and church members began receiving ordinances.[70] January 21, 1846, Jeremiah and Elizabeth Hatch received their endowments in the partially completed edifice.

Twenty-year-old Lorenzo renewed his acquaintance with Thomas Fuller’s sister Hannah, whom he first met in New York a year earlier, and on February 3, 1846 they were married by Bishop Jonathan H. Hales. They visited the uncompleted Nauvoo temple and received their endowments making solemn vows to cling to one another through time and all eternity. Lorenzo and Hannah were among the last to enter into covenants in this temple, since February was the final month of it’s existence as an endowment house.

Early in the year 1846, while cold and rain still gripped the land, two new threats came to the Mormons causing the possibility of an early and hasty exit from Nauvoo. An indictment was issued against Brigham Young and eight apostles accused of instigating a Nauvoo counterfeiting operation, and also a report was received of federal troops from St. Louis who intended to interfere with the orderly leave taking planned for spring.[71] While the earth was wet with winter storms and the grass had not yet begun to grow, church authorities felt they must cross the river out of Illinois.

Tried In The Wilderness

So it was that on February 4th, fully two months earlier than planned, Charles Shumway, one of the Council of Fifty,[72] crossed the Mississippi and located a campground seven miles into Iowa on Sugar Creek. The exodus had begun. Progress was slow at first, but gained momentum as more families felt they were prepared to follow.

Sixteen-year-old Abram Hatch was one who worked in the raw winter wind at the cold, wet, job of helping families load all they owned onto flatboats to cross the Mississippi.[73] On February 24th the ice closed and thickened on the broad river, allowing team drawn wagons to cross the expanse with more ease for a few days.

Edward Fuller, who had arrived in Nauvoo only months before, still owned the wagons, stock and money brought from New York. Now he asked his three sons-in-law, Lorenzo Hill Hatch, Daniel McArthur and Guy Barnum to accompany him in the trek across the river, in the capacity of wagon drivers and herders.

Lorenzo says, “The property [farm] left of my father’s estate...was worth $3000 before this difficulty...but at this time couldn’t be sold at any price. So of necessity I was obliged to comply with the request [of Father Fuller] as I had no means to take me away. We fitted up the wagons, broke the cattle, got all things ready and on the 27^th of February I bade my friends farewell and we crossed the Mississippi River on the ice.”[74] For the next year Lorenzo would continue to chafe at the circumstances making him dependent upon Father Fuller.

When the Fuller party arrived at Sugar Creek campground in Iowa about three P.M. the afternoon of February 27th, there was deep snow on the ground, but plenty of timber available for fires. They were organized into Benjamin Johnson’s company. The company remained at Sugar Creek several days and during this time Lorenzo made a trip back to Nauvoo to collect some “store goods” for one Samuel Gurley. While he was away, the camp moved a few miles and from then on moved slowly and stopped several times when the men found an opportunity to work for supplies on the farms and in the settlements along their trail. Eliza Snow, who traveled this route about the same time, records in her journal that on March 25th, “Twenty five men of our [group] took a job of making rails for which they got 10 bushels of corn, which was distributed Tues. night. They also got 100 [pounds] of bacon....”[75]

Traveling west across Iowa in winter was slow of necessity. Many Saints were not prepared with the needed food supplies and those who did have sufficient were asked to share with others. There was no grass for the animals who had to subsist on browse, and so, grew weaker day by day. The weather was unpredictable, but one thing the travelers could depend upon was the sticky, clay mud that hampered everything they tried to do. It wound in balls on the hubs and spokes of their wagon wheels and at times sank the heavy wagons to the bed. Every camp site had rivers of clinging clay around the tents and cooking fires. On March 2nd the thermometer stood at 23 degrees with clear skies.[76]

Entries of “rained all day”, “rainy yet”, “mud intolerable”, and “quite windy”, are found throughout the Mormon journals kept during this winter and spring of 1846. Eliza R. Snow mentions in her journal that March 15th was “...so intolerably windy the men failed in their efforts to keep the tent upright.”[77]

Lorenzo Hill Hatch records, “After traveling a few weeks, Father Fuller and Hyrum Bostick were put into George Miller’s company.” This was a stroke of fate that gave Lorenzo’s life a turn he might not have otherwise taken.

Bishop George Miller was an early convert to Mormonism and being a capable and aggressive man, he was given assignments of no small scope. In his book, The Gathering of Zion, Wallace Stegner describes him well as, “Miller will always be out ahead; he is impatient and headstrong, one who does not readily accept counsel, especially the counsel of Brother Brigham.”[78]

With the George Miller company, Lorenzo built bridges, roads, houses, and planted farms for the great mass of people who were now streaming across Iowa. They felled timber for log cabins, built a bridge across a branch of Grand River, plowed, planted and fenced fields, and dug wells. Their first efforts were at a place of grassy rolling hills and timber groves, which had been located and named Garden Grove by Parley P. Pratt. In May the George Miller company moved on to Mt. Pisgah to build another settlement for those who would come. Lorenzo and a few others returned to Missouri for corn to feed the hungry builders. This trip was memorable for the rain and soft ground, causing them to call for more teams and to double team and triple team the wagons while crossing the quagmires.

As spring and summer progressed, the George Miller company built bridges to Council Bluffs, which was for a time called Miller’s Hollow. On arriving at the Bluffs in June they found there weren’t enough provisions to last the builders for any length of time. Lorenzo again was sent with a company for food supplies. This trip, however, was more pleasant without the winter mud and cold.

On returning to Iowa, Lorenzo found his company had moved across the Missouri River to Cold Springs, some two or three miles from the river. His wife Hannah was ill and though she improved, “she never entirely got over it during the time we were camped at Cold Springs.”

On June 26, 1846 the Saints, in their makeshift homes, were remembering that the morrow would bring the second anniversary of the death of their beloved prophet, Joseph Smith. Into their forward camp at Mt. Pisgah on this day, came Captain James Allen of the United States Army, with a request for 500 men to march against the Mexicans in Santa Fe and southern California with General Kearney’s Army of the West. The Saints were incredulous that a government which denied them any protection whatsoever would now ask for their help in the war with Mexico.

However, when Captain Allen presented his request to Brigham Young in Council Bluffs, it was accepted. Brigham Young saw this as an opportunity to get part of his group to California with food and transportation furnished by the army, while supplying the Saints with much needed cash in the form of soldiers wages.

In early July the call went out for volunteers for the Mormon Battalion, but by this time Bishop George Miller had moved his company well out into the Platte Valley and Lorenzo laments the fact he had no opportunity to join the Battalion which left for Leavenworth on July 22nd. “...Bishop Miller left,[at Mt. Pisgah], two or three of his teamsters to make up this [battalion] company because he had no use for them, then left with the balance of us for Pawnee---a distance of 160 miles from Winter Quarters---and we were entirely out of the way of the President so that he did not get any of us to make up the numbers that were wanted for soldiers. This was the fault of the Bishop [Miller] having taken us out of the way. Thus others had the privilege that some of us were deprived of. Some of us were not apprised of the importance of this move until too late.”[79]

On the same day the Mormon Battalion left Winter Quarters for Leavenworth, another group of Saints,150 wagons strong, left to join Bishop Miller’s Company with the idea of traveling on westward with them. They found the Miller company, which included Lorenzo Hill Hatch and his in-laws, camped on the west bank of the Loup Fork near modern Fullerton, Nebraska, at a site occupied by protestant missionaries. The Sioux Indians had frightened the protestants so badly, they bargained with Bishop Miller for an escort back to the Missouri River in exchange for the crops they had planted and the shelters they had erected. Miller readily agreed, as his company was always short on food supplies.

When the men who escorted the missionaries back to the Missouri rejoined the Miller Company, they brought word from Brigham Young that Bishop Miller was to go no further west, but prepare to ride out the winter months where he was.

Looking over the country near them on the Loup Fork, they found no desirable wintering site. Lorenzo’s journal says, “...some Puncaw [Ponca] Chiefs came and wished us to go with them for the winter. The Bishop and Council which consisted of twelve men concluded to go with them.... The distance...to Puncaw [Ponca] was some 160 miles and is located on the Missouri River, on the west side. It is a river of running water and very swift. Here we built a fort which consisted of log houses. It was a beautiful place.”[80]

Soon Bishop Miller and his company were in trouble again. Lorenzo’s journal says, “The fifty [wagons] to which I belonged lived on rations of three fourths of a pound of breadstuff a day to each person, which was quite scanty. We commenced living this way back near Garden Grove and continued for about five months. At this place, [Ponca], the provisions were divided out to each one and we found there was not enough to last us through the winter and accordingly it was concluded it would be best to go back to Missouri for breadstuffs [wheat]. Quite a number of teams were fitted out from different companies among which I was one of the members.

“At Winter Quarters the company was stopped by the President, [Brigham Young], while they tried Bishop Miller for some misconduct. ...It was late in the season when we got back to Puncaw [Ponca]...[we had] traveled a distance of 450 miles and our teams were badly wore out.”[81]

When Lorenzo returned to Ponca, in the month of December, he found his wife, Hannah, sick. Exposure and malnutrition brought a demoralizing wave of sickness to the camp and death was a constant companion. A lack of vegetables caused scurvy for some and others suffered of consumption, chills and fever.

Despite his lengthy absence and the condition of Hannah, Lorenzo was asked by Father Fuller to go at once with a brother-in-law, Sanford Fuller, to take twenty head of cattle to a grazing area some ten miles from the fort. Father Fuller had made arrangements to pasture the cattle with those of Captains Clark and Bartholomew, who had as their herders John Dalton and Alvin Green.

“Traveling on foot...we took our dinner with us. ...We arrived [at the grazing grounds], about one o’clock and after eating our dinner, we conversed with Mr. Green and Mr. Dalton. They swore that old man Fuller should not leave his cattle up there for he had money and could pay for herding. ...We offered to come help herd, but nothing would do but for us to take them away again.”

Lorenzo and Sanford Fuller, taking the twenty head of cattle, left the grazing grounds at about four o’clock for the ten mile journey back to the fort. They became lost and traveled till about midnight when they came to an area with wood for a fire. However, they had no way to start one but a caplock gun. Lorenzo says, “Several times we fired it, but to no purpose. I put the last two that I had in the gun. We must have fire this time or freeze, which I didn’t feel like doing. I believed that I should live many years yet. With these feelings...we gathered together, and putting the gun in some leaves, swung it around till it blasted. And thus, through the mercy of God, we were preserved from freezing to death.”

After traveling cold and hungry for another whole day they arrived at the fort about sundown. Lorenzo found Hannah still sick, but she seemed to be recovering rather well, so he took the cattle of Father Fuller and herded them throughout the rest of the winter. “Notwithstanding my faithfulness, Father Fuller would not let me have leather enough to patch my shoes so I made moccasins of rawhide to keep my feet from the ground and from the snow. Thus passed the winter of 1846-47.”[82]

In the spring of 1847, before the first wagon train to the Salt Lake Valley, the Miller Company was recalled to Council Bluffs (Miller’s Hollow or Kanesville). Brigham Young had determined they were too poorly equipped to continue west as planned.

Bishop Miller could not agree with Brigham Young on the direction the church was taking, and the strong willed Bishop was disfellowshipped by the Church in October of this year.[83] With his usual attitude, he later made the statement, over another matter, that the proceedings of the twelve apostles were dictatorial, high-handed and painful, and that Brigham Young was a blunderbuss.[84] Lorenzo’s only comment on the actions of Bishop Miller came years later when he wrote, “I saw too great intimacy with women as I was traveling with Miller from [Ponca] to Council Bluffs. It was no doubt the cause of his fall.”[85]

Father Fuller and his family, including Lorenzo, now located twenty miles from Winter Quarters on the Missouri River at a place called Brigham’s farm where about forty families had wintered. Lorenzo and his old missionary companion and brother-in-law, Thomas, took Father Fuller’s teams and went to work planting a crop of corn. “...we worked very hard thinking that we should be able to get each of us a team in the spring so we could go to the mountains without being dependent on Father Fuller.... We were to give him half that we raised for the use of the teams and plows.”[86]

The corn crop at Brigham’s farm flourished, but in late July, the exhausted and undernourished Saints who were low in spirit, were hit hard by the cold clammy sweats of scurvy and malaria. A combination of these diseases laid low Father Fuller, his wife and his sons, Thomas and Sanford, along with Lorenzo and Hannah. On August 3rd, Thomas Fuller, who helped Lorenzo sow the crop of corn just two months before was the first to die.

Hannah, who had not been well all winter, was next on August 10th. At her death, Lorenzo was so ill himself he “could not sit up but a few minutes.... Thus this was a day of trouble. I had buried the companion of my youth and was near leaving this world myself.” Father Fuller died on August 17th. Mother Fuller survived, only to be buried the following December in Winter Quarters. Sanford Fuller recovered and realized the family goal of reaching Salt Lake Valley where he lived to the age of ninety-four.

Following the death of his wife, Lorenzo, still very sick and weak, found someone to take him to his sister Adeline who was living at Winter Quarters. Adeline, thirteen-years-old, cared for her brother Lorenzo for three weeks. Knowing he may need care for a long while, Lorenzo found a man to deliver him over the Missouri River to the home of Guy and Miranda Fuller Barnum, Hannah’s sister. It was two more months before he began believing he would survive.

In the fall of the year, Lorenzo’s grandparents and Uncle Josephus arrived in Winter Quarters. They had been living at Sugar Creek, Lee County, Iowa, while trying to sell their homes and land in Nauvoo. Many there were of the Illinois citizens just waiting for the Mormons to leave their well tended homes, gardens and fields, knowing they would have no choice but to sell them for a fraction of their worth. In July of 1847 Grandfather Jeremiah, while living in Iowa, sold his home in Nauvoo to Conrad Garnold.[87] This was the land he purchased four years earlier for $500.00, the land where he planted trees and gardens and built a two story brick home. For $295.00 he was forced to sell the fruits of his last years. He was now eighty-one years old.

Lorenzo’s brothers also arrived at Winter Quarters at this time. Seventeen-year-old Abram was returning from a trip to the eastern states where he had gone after a promise from his Uncle Jeremiah to send him to school. Uncle Jeremiah, now a Rigdonite, could not make good the promise, so Abram returned to be with his family in Iowa.[88] Brother Jeremiah, with his wife and two-month-old daughter, Phebe, and the youngest Hatch sister, nine-year-old Elizabeth, had been living at Sugar Creek in Iowa along with their grandparents. Lorenzo says, “I was glad to see them for I never thought of seeing them all alive again.”

Winter Quarters, considered church headquarters during 1848-49, was a stretch of flatland along the south bank of the Missouri River. Here several thousand inhabitants were living in log cabins, sod houses, and dugouts. They were waiting to travel to the Rocky Mountains.

Just days before the reunion of the Hatch children, President Young returned with some of the pioneers who made the first wagon train into the Salt Lake Valley. Now Jeremiah, Lorenzo and Abram “talked to several of the pioneers and listened with admiration to their description of the great plains and wonderful mountains and lakes of the inter-mountain country.”[89]

Abram went with Lorenzo to Brigham’s farm to harvest the crop of corn that he and Thomas Fuller had planted last May. Having no family at the farm now, Lorenzo and Abram boarded with one of the Mormon families. Young Abram, having spent the past year in Pennsylvania and working on the river boats of the Mississippi, had not shared the privations of the Saints and was quite offended at the fare they were offered at Brigham’s farm. “The lady of the house where we boarded and ate prairie chicken and corn bread had the luxury of butter and milk for her table which was the more provoking to my disgusted appetite from the fact that, however hospitable she might have been, her supply was insufficient to share with us.” Abram also commented that he and Lorenzo had to grind their own corn for the cornbread, which was not something he was used to doing.[90]

However, the crops were harvested and sold. Lorenzo’s first thought was to pay tithing on his gains. This was probably the first money he had received since leaving Nauvoo.

Once again the five orphans and their grandparents, Jeremiah and Elizabeth, were gathered near each other at Winter Quarters. Lorenzo was still weak and received a special blessing from his aged Grandfather Jeremiah on March 7th. The old man blessed his grandson with a long life “that you may bring many things into the church that we have no knowledge of [at this time], and that you may be an honor to it...that you may bring many into the church and continue to improve until the end of your day.”[91]

Grandmother Elizabeth, exhausted and undernourished after spending the past two years on the harsh road across Iowa, was buried at Winter Quarters on December 15th. She was the grandmother Lorenzo remembered as, “well versed in the Holy Bible. She would call on me to read while she worked and she could correct any mistakes I made. The Bible was an open book to her.”[92]

Lorenzo and Abram may not have been at Winter Quarters when their Grandmother Elizabeth died; for shortly after they completed the harvest of Lorenzo’s corn, they went to Missouri in their quest for some means to buy an outfit to take them to the Rocky Mountains. Abram had a yoke of two-year-old steers and they borrowed a wagon from their brother Jeremiah.

As the trip to Missouri began, Lorenzo was “taken sick with chills and fever, but we went on our way. I got very bad and we put up at a tavern until I got better.” The two traveled on to Savannah, Missouri, where their brother Jeremiah had been teaching school, but was now working for Dr. Richards, a tavern keeper. Because of Lorenzo’s weakened condition, Jeremiah gave him the job at the tavern and went on with Abram to Jimtown. Lorenzo worked for nine days at fifty cents a day, then went to Jimtown to join his brothers.

The sickness returned and Lorenzo grew weaker. “Some of my friends advised me to go back to the Bluffs. ...I told them that I was going to work and get means to take me to the Valley or die trying.”[93]

Jeremiah found a teaching position in Weston, Missouri, a small town between St. Joseph and Independence, but the people learned he was a Mormon, and he lost all his students. The brothers then chopped and hauled wood. Abram and Jeremiah did the chopping and Lorenzo hauled and sold. They did quite well, and in a month Lorenzo was able to buy a yoke of steers and hook them to the wagon with those of Abram.

Jeremiah returned to Council Bluffs to be with his wife and family. Lorenzo and Abram continued cutting and hauling wood through the summer of 1848. After fulfilling their wood contract, they went by river to St. Louis, working on the boat for their passage. Lorenzo felt they were “used very rough” so he returned to Weston and continued to cut and sell wood, and work in a “large pork establishment” where his job was receiving wood and rendering lard. Abram continued to work on the river boats.

In the spring of ‘49, Abram returned to Weston and he and Lorenzo made a trip to Council Bluffs where Jeremiah was living. “We came on to Council Bluffs with Truman Leonard and wife with the intention of outfitting for the mountains [Salt Lake] that year, but as my brother Jeremiah could not get ready we all concluded to wait another year.”[94]

Lorenzo and Abram returned to Weston to cut and sell wood again. There they met William List of St. Joseph, Missouri, who had rented a wagon shop. Mr. List, learning Lorenzo had some skill working with wood, asked him to come into his company as a partner. Abram continued hauling wood with their team and also hauled the rock for the foundation of the first brewery in St. Joseph.

After three months of hard labor the two brothers had gathered enough capital to buy the wagon shop from Mr. List. They sent for Jeremiah, and the three brothers labored through the fall and winter, Lorenzo and Jeremiah working in the shop and Abram, with his wagon which now had four yoke of steers, supplied the lumber and did other hauling jobs in the town. “We made some fifty wagons in ten and a half months and sold them for $26.50 each. All that we made was divided among the three of us.”[95]

In the spring of 1850 the brothers “gathered clothes, tools and provisions for [their] outfit; three yoke of steers, fourteen cows, and all necessary things for [the] journey.”[96] With great anticipation they now returned to Council Bluffs where Grandfather Jeremiah, their two young sisters, Adeline and Elizabeth, and Brother Jeremiah’s family awaited them. After three years of hard work and planning, they had gathered the means to travel to the Rocky Mountains and join the Saints who had gone there earlier.

Uncle Josephus Hatch and his family planned to follow the trail west in the spring of 1851, bringing the aged grandfather Jeremiah. However, Lorenzo would never again see the old man, as he died near Pleasant Grove, about ten miles from Council Bluffs on May 23rd, just before the departure of the wagon train with which Josephus and Melinda traveled.[97] The old Revolutionary War soldier, who came so far and suffered so much, was not to see the promised land in the mountains.

Since the exodus from Vermont nearly eight years before, the five orphans had buried their father, Jeremiah’s firstborn, their grandmother Elizabeth, and Lorenzo’s wife, Hannah. The estate they should have inherited from their father had slipped away. They had survived the mobs of Nauvoo, the rain, mud, snow, cold, wind, sickness and harsh living conditions of the trail across Iowa. After this refiner’s fire, they were now ready to fulfill the dream of Father Hezekiah and Grandfather Jeremiah. They held tightly to their Yankee perseverance and the faith of their fathers, and never looked back.

CHAPTER 3

Valley Of The Mountains

David Evans, survivor of the 1838 Haun’s Mill Massacre in Missouri, Bishop of the Eleventh Ward in Nauvoo, and a former member of Zion’s Camp, was captain of the fifty-four wagon train leaving the ferry crossing at Sarpee’s Point on the Missouri River the morning of June 15, 1850. Apostle Orson Hyde was there to give them a “send off.” They forded the Missouri River on flatboats and the 1300 mile westward journey commenced.

By 1850 the immigrant trail west from Winter Quarters in Nebraska had long been beaten into submission by thousands of iron tired wagons and herds of livestock. Not only had the Mormon migration, beginning in 1847, traveled this way with between 500 and 600 wagons in 1849 alone, but gentiles (non-Mormons) on their way to Oregon and California used the trail. The Mormon trail from Winter Quarters to Fort Laramie had been established on the opposite side of the Platte River from the Oregon Trail in an attempt to avoid clashes over grazing rights, water and campsites. This also allowed the Mormon travelers to avoid the immediate area which became so contaminated by the remains of the gold seekers and those going to Oregon.

The year before, the ‘49ers, intent on California gold, left their mark along the way. One Mormon wagon train arriving in the Salt Lake Valley two weeks after Lorenzo Hill Hatch and his family, reported, “In traveling up the Platte river on our way to the mountains, we found the roadside, in places, strewn with human bones. The discovery of gold in California and the excitement it had created had induced many to leave their homes in search of the God of this world.

“The cholera had raged among them to such an extent that the dead were buried without coffins, and with but a slight covering of earth. The wolves had dug up and feasted upon their carcasses, and their bones lay bleaching on the desert. There were days of travel in which human skeletons were usually in sight.”[98]

Cholera that so plagued the hurrying surge of gold seekers was, in a way, a blessing to the later Mormon trains. The Indians were not apt to come near the deadly vicinity of the trails, and so lessened the threat of raids that had haunted earlier pioneers.[99]

The wagon train Lorenzo traveled with suffered little. Not only was the trail well marked and tried, but the Hatch family was well prepared, for unlike some of those who traveled this way before and after them, they knew something of the ordeal of traveling long distances by wagon. This was not a journey taken in haste. They had prepared themselves with wagons of their own making from the St. Joseph wagon shop and stock and supplies were carefully chosen. Three years of preparation assured that the journey would be as pleasant as possible.

The Hatch outfit consisted of three wagons, five yoke of oxen and sixteen cows, all broke to the yoke. The family formed a kind of “co-op,” consisting of Abram, sixteen-year-old Adeline and Lorenzo, who traveled as one family, and Brother Jeremiah, his wife Louisa and two daughters, three-year-old Phebe and one-year- old Aldura, along with thirteen-year-old Elizabeth Hatch traveling as the second family.[100]

The three month journey across prairie and mountain was considered to be an enjoyable one, even though five or six members of the party who contracted cholera were buried along the trail. Abram remembered the wagon train experienced “the usual drives, camps, meetings, buffalo hunts, stops to set wagon tires, [and] talks with Indians, (while trying to keep good-natured).”[101]

On September 17th, a lovely day according to Abram, they beheld the valley and waters of the great basin from the elevated bench near the eastern foothills of the mighty Wasatch Range. Entering the valley by way of Parley’s Canyon, the train soon disbanded and the three Hatch wagons passed on to the banks of the Jordan River. Lorenzo was “greatly delighted with the country.”[102]

Though Brother Jeremiah was very sick when they arrived in the valley, he soon recovered and the Hatch co-op settled in for the winter. Lorenzo said, “We all remained together and rented a house in the Third Ward, [in Salt Lake City], cut some hay in the Big Field, and got a lot in the 10^th Ward. I was rebaptized and commenced anew to keep the commandments of God. We went to work and built a house 32 X 16 feet, one and a half stories high.”[103]

By now there were over 11,000 Saints gathered to the Salt Lake Valley and organization was well under way. Farms, homes and commerce, using a cooperative procedure, were rapidly transforming the wilderness into the promised land. In this year of 1850, Utah had been organized as a U.S. territory and the church leaders entered into a long-term conflict with the federal government over control of Utah. This state of affairs would affect Lorenzo’s life at several points in the next twenty-five years.

Home in Lehi

In a true show of Yankee industry, the three Hatch brothers, after less than three months in this new country, took up land on Dry Creek, (Lehi) about thirty miles south of Salt Lake. They also located a good place on the American Fork River nearby for a grist mill. Lorenzo and Abram agreed with Nathan W. Packer to “put up a mill for flour.”[104] Though it meant leaving their newly established home in Salt Lake, Lorenzo and Abram went to Dry Creek and built a log cabin in the early months of 1851.

There was much in Salt Lake community social life to bring men and women together. Through the 1850s in Salt Lake City, small cultural societies (musical, dramatic, scientific, literary) typically involved both men and women. Brothers and sisters, (in the church), assembled in church meetings and cooperated on special projects such as Sunday School.[105]

Lorenzo, as a young energetic widower newly arrived in the settlement, soon became acquainted with the young women of the valley, and was especially attracted to a family who had their origins in Vermont, not far from his birthplace. The family of Sylvia Eastman had arrived in Salt Lake in 1848, traveling a parallel route with the Hatches from Vermont. It may have been at a social gathering for a Christmas celebration that Lorenzo met Sylvia, for his journal says, “[On] December 25, 1850 I became acquainted with Sylvia Eastman.”[106]

Lorenzo and Sylvia were married on February 27, 1851 and Sylvia joined the Hatch co-op in its move to Dry Creek in March. They began clearing sagebrush and greasewood in preparation for spring planting, and at the same time work began on the proposed grist mill in American Fork Canyon.

During the spring and summer at least thirty other families arrived in the vicinity and sometime during that year Dry Creek became “Evansville,” named for David Evans who was the dominant personality there. The same David Evans was wagon train leader when the Hatches made their trek from Winter Quarters to Salt Lake. Now he was named Bishop of Dry Creek Ward.[107]

Evansville was organized as a typical Mormon community. It was laid off in square blocks of five to ten acres which were divided into lots of about an acre, thus allowing each family land in town for a house, garden, orchard and pens for small animals. The center square of the town was reserved for a meetinghouse and school.

On the outskirts of the village were plots of land several acres in size. This was called the Big Field and was used for raising grain and hay for the use of all in the community. The Big Field was usually fenced since beyond it was a common pasture where men and boys herded the livestock of those in the community.

Construction of cabins by the earliest settlers had used up nearly all native cottonwood along Dry Creek, leaving many newcomers to take shelter in their wagons, dugouts or mud houses. These mud homes were unstable and often collapsed into heaps during wet weather. The settlers soon learned to use adobe, a building material of the early Spaniards of the west. They made adobe brick of a clay mixture so stable there were more than a dozen of the buildings still standing one hundred years later.[108]

When the 1851 Utah Territorial census of Evansville was taken during the summer months, Brother Abram and sister Adeline were living in the household of Lorenzo and Sylvia.[109] Brother Jeremiah and his wife Louisa, along with their two children Phebe and Adam had fourteen-year-old sister Elizabeth in their household.[110]

Another project involving the Hatch brothers was a diversion dam the men began building in May of 1851 at the mouth of American Fork Canyon to bring water to their crops during the dry months of late summer. “[They] began the seven mile ditch to Evansville.... The trench was only two feet wide, but wooden spades, hard soil and stones made digging difficult. ...In late August water in the ditch reached Evansville in time to save a portion of the parched corn and potatoes.”[111]

On Christmas day, 1851, Lorenzo and Sylvia’s first child was born. They named him Lorenzo Lafayette Hatch. “Our hopes were very bright [on that day]. I remember how proud I was...[and] felt [he] would grow to be a good man and accomplish a great work on the earth.”[112] Sylvia’s widowed mother, fifty-seven-year-old Clarissa Eastman, and several of her children were also living in Evansville. Clarissa was surely in attendance at this birth and probably Lucy Cox Dawson who was a midwife in Lehi from the time of her arrival in 1850 to her death in 1891. She usually charged $l.50 per delivery for her services.[113]

After two months in operation the grist mill Lorenzo and his partners built in American Fork canyon burned to the ground on a Saturday night in January, 1852. The mill was a successful operation and was considered a great accommodation to the Saints. Loss was estimated at $1,400 plus the loss of 120 bushels of grain.[114] Lorenzo recorded the event, saying, “Our mill burned down and our labors were gone. Some of our stock [was] gone too and we were owing several hundreds of dollars.”[115] Willard Richards, an apostle of the church, encouraged them to rebuild the mill immediately.

A disagreement in the Hatch family developed at this time resulting in Lorenzo and Abram dissolving their partnership. Just what the problem was is not known, but Abram remained in Lehi for many years and the problem between the brothers did not cause lasting bitterness.

Lorenzo and Nathan Packer rebuilt the mill and put it into operation in September, 1852. The following summer they added a smut machine at their mill. In July of that summer disaster struck again.

A dispute between whites and Indians of the area over a territorial law against slavery caused the Utes to attack various Mormon settlements beginning at Springville, just south of Nephi. “Fort up...against the Indians,” was the advice from Brigham Young given in the October 1853 Conference.

Residents of Evansville, which in 1852 had been renamed Lehi, were reluctant to move their cabins into a central location and build a fort. Their crops, which were abundant that year, were just ready to harvest. Lorenzo says, “we had our harvest and Indian war and at the same time [we had] our houses to move.”[116]

However, most of them began moving their cabins in the cooperative manner of the Mormons. Lorenzo reports that companies were formed to move the houses and herd the cattle for protection from the Indians. “I was appointed captain over a few men to move houses. Worked fourteen days and moved in the widows and ourselves.”[117] By the fall of 1853 approximately sixty cabins had been joined together, forming the hollow square of the fort, with all doors opening inward. The log schoolhouse was dismantled and moved onto the north side of the fort. This building was used for school and church meetings. Also within the enclosure were corrals and haystacks along with pens for pigs and chickens. Then they gathered their grain and prepared for winter.[118]

In the winter of 1852 Lorenzo received a “calling” as second counselor to Bishop David Evans. Shortly thereafter the first counselor, Jehial McConnel, left Lehi and Lorenzo was installed in that position. In 1853 he was elected to the town council in Lehi. With these positions went the responsibility of overseeing a portion of the mud wall six feet thick and twelve feet high, to be built around the town for protection against the Indians.[119] Intermittent fighting lasted until May 1854, when Brigham Young and Chief Walker arranged a peace settlement.

On February 5, 1853, Lorenzo’s sister, Adeline, married George Barber and the couple moved south to the town of Nephi to make their home. In November Lorenzo and Sylvia had their second child, a girl, whom they named Aldura Clarissa for her two grandmothers.

In November, 1853, a cold and icy blizzard from the north caught a band of ten thousand sheep on the bench areas of Lehi and American Fork. The sheep were being trailed from Missouri to California. Following the two day storm, the owners were able to count only 900 sheep still alive. This small band was not worth taking on to California, so was sold to local men. These became the foundation of the local sheep industry. Lorenzo added a few sheep to his other farm animals, giving his sheep count as thirty-four.

1854 was a busy year for Lorenzo. Along with his responsibility as “Captain” in charge of building the north wall of the fort he was assigned to obtain timber for a new meeting house and a tithing house. At the same time he was building a home for his family which was 26 x 16, one and a half stories high. He was proud of this home and modestly said in his journal, “I made a good job of it.”[120]

On July 24th of this year, the Lehi pioneers, perhaps feeling the need of some merrymaking, held a celebration in remembrance of the day the first Mormon wagon had entered Salt Lake Valley. There was a parade, speeches, musical numbers and feasting.

No parade would be complete without an American flag, but there was not one in the community. A local artist, James Harwood, solved the problem by painting red and blue stripes on white cloth. The paint he used was a “red substance from the rock quarries and indigo.”

“The parade formed at nine A.M. at the log schoolhouse. The newly painted flag proudly led out, followed by a three-man band. Next came twenty-four young people, symbolic of the date, dressed in white. Twelve boys wore red sashes and the twelve girls wore blue.” Also marching in the parade were Bishop David Evans and his counselors, Lorenzo H. Hatch and Abel Evans. “Next in line were the fathers and mothers in Israel, followed by the citizens and then the Home Guard. Each group carried a banner with a painted motto. With all the participants, one wonders who was watching the parade. Perhaps that is why everyone marched and counter-marched around the inside of the fort---so the paraders could admire each other.”[121]

Following the grand parade the group gathered under a willow and cottonwood bowery and was entertained by music, speeches of remembrance and a lunch of “roast beef, new potatoes, green peas, turnips, bread and butter, squash pie and custard dessert, with milk to drink.”[122]

At some time during this eventful year Lorenzo built himself a woodshop and took up the profession of woodworker which he had first attempted in the wagon shop he and his brothers owned in St. Joseph, Missouri. This skill provided his families with many necessities in the years to come. He not only built for his own needs, but made items for others in the community in exchange for labor or for cash to buy supplies. Thomas Ashton, who came to Lehi the same year as Lorenzo, was a master carpenter having apprenticed for six years in England as a wheelwright, carriage builder and ship carpenter. Though Lorenzo does not mention Ashton in his journal, he must have learned some of the finer points of carpentering from him as they worked together on the Lehi meeting house, school and tithing office.

One of the first and most urgent necessities of this frontier community was a need for an efficient system of self defense. In March, 1854, Lehi organized an infantry battalion with David Evans as Colonel. Lorenzo was appointed Second Lieutenant in the militia from Lehi and Cedar Valley.[123] They trained in American Fork Canyon with battalions from Salt Lake City, Pleasant Grove and Mountainville. It was difficult for Lehi to outfit its militia. Horses were scarce, shoes for the men even more so.[124]

Grasshopper Year

With the Indians held at bay by the fort and continual lookouts, the Saints at Lehi were attacked from another direction in August of that year. On a sultry afternoon, immense hoards of grasshoppers descended on the town at times darkening the sun when they passed overhead. “All able men, women and children worked from dawn to dusk to destroy the invading insects. The ravenous creatures advanced from field to field, from garden to garden. ...damage was done to oats, corn, garden vegetables, but not much to wheat only because it had already headed.”[125]

Grasshoppers attacked the Lehi area again in 1855. Short crops for two years running plus the need to protect themselves from the Indians and the bone-numbing cold in the winter of ‘55 brought suffering and death among the Saints who had settled along Dry Creek four years before. Their hopes for a good life had not been realized.

Polygamy

However, life did continue. Lorenzo, as a man of position in the church and community, was encouraged and expected by church authorities to enter into “the principle,” or plural marriage. On November 11, 1854 he married Catherine Karren, daughter of one of the early settlers in the Lehi area. Catherine joined Sylvia and her two children in the new home. On March 10, 1855, Lorenzo’s youngest sister, eighteen-year-old Elizabeth, married Thomas Winn, a policeman in Lehi and the son of another early settler.[126]

In May of this year Bishop David Evans was called on a short scouting mission to the White Mountains of Nevada leaving Lorenzo with the responsibility of the Lehi Ward until the end of July.[127] In September, Bishop Evans was off to the Elk Mountains on more church business, leaving the Ward to Lorenzo again.[128] The twenty-nine-year-old bishop’s counselor was sometimes unsure of the proper course to take with his responsibilities, and on September 8th he wrote to President Brigham Young asking for direction as to labor tithing. He told President Young their crops had failed and the brethren had no means for paying their tithing. The town was building a school house 40 x 60 feet, two stories high and Lorenzo asked if it would be proper to let the brethren work out their labor tithing on the building. He also ask how he should “act with persons that have ploughed and sown and raised no crop, and with those that have ploughed and sown twice and watered some and then raised no crop as we have formerly made a deduction from the labor tithing according to the number of acres each person farmed.”[129]

When George A. Smith visited Lehi in the fall of this year he found Lorenzo “very low with the mountain fever” and reported “there has recently been considerable sickness in Lehi...the principal attacks being diarrhea and fever. It is estimated that only 150 bushels of tithing wheat will be received in Lehi this fall; last year between 800 and 900 were forwarded to the general tithing office, the deficiency to be debited to the grasshoppers and drought.”

Utah Territorial Legislature

1855 was filled with hardship and woe, but in the fall of that year Lorenzo was elected to the Territorial Legislature as a representative from Utah County. He was no stranger to legislative service, since his father and grandfather had both served in the Vermont Legislature. However, Lorenzo was not prepared to serve in a material way and his first concern before reporting for the legislative session was that he have suitable clothing. On November 16th he took two beef steers to Salt Lake to sell in order to “get my fit-out for the Legislature. ...sold the steers for fifty dollars. Did our trading. [Returned home and]...worked five days in the [woodworking] shop...to get ready for the legislature.” [130]

About December 3rd, Lorenzo began his trip to Fillmore where the legislature was to meet, traveling with his brother-in-law, George Barber. Apostle E.T. Benson, of Tooele, accompanied them as they traveled to Provo where they took George A. Smith “aboard.” The four then traveled to Payson where they were joined by Governor Brigham Young.

When the party passed through Nephi, Lorenzo visited his brother Jeremiah, who had moved there the previous year. He stayed the night in the home of his sister Adeline Hatch Barber. Two days later the group of representatives arrived in Fillmore.[131]

Lorenzo made arrangements to board at the house of Brother Baset at the rate of $5.50 a week. He shared a room with E. T. Benson, Lorenzo Snow and Jacob G. Bigler, with whom he enjoyed a camaraderie. On Saturday night he reports the four of them “talked over things until eleven P.M.”[132]

On Monday, December 10th the legislature convened and Lorenzo took the oath of office. Several days later Almon W. Babbitt, Territorial Secretary, caused a small furor when he refused to use territorial funds to pay for the one hundred copies of the daily journal the house voted to have printed. Babbitt made an insulting speech abusing the assembly and “showed much of the spirit of Lucifer, his master. The Governor, [Brigham Young], informed the Secretary we could get along without him.”[133] This was not the first time Almon Babbitt had incurred the displeasure of church authorities. In 1841, back in Nauvoo, he was “disfellowshipped” (his membership temporarily rescinded) by Joseph Smith for preaching false doctrine. In 1843 he was restored to full fellowship.[134]

The business of this legislative session included drawing up a constitution for a state government as the Mormons were applying to the United States Government for statehood status. The legislature attended to lesser responsibilities also, such as considering the boundary lines of Carson and Box Elder Counties, and the division of Weber County. They also had a “warm discussion on a herd-ground at Tooele.”

Lorenzo served on the appropriations committee and mentions meeting with other members. The legislature also heard a good many discourses by representatives who were church leaders, on subjects such as obedience, the fulfillment of prophecy, and sealings and adoptions. [135]

Lorenzo wrote letters to Sylvia, Catherine, and Bishop David Evans in Lehi. On December 18th he was pleased to find two letters from his family awaiting him. The news from home was of a “...fine boy” born to Sylvia on December 16th. He comments that Sylvia “...wrote me a letter the third day after, [the birth], and Catherine wrote me a letter.”[136] This second son was named Hezekiah Eastman Hatch, and would be looked upon by Lorenzo as a savior in family affairs in later life.

Lorenzo’s journal expresses no regrets at being away from his family during the Christmas season. He was four days journey from his home in Lehi where Sylvia was recovering from the birth of her baby and Catherine was six months pregnant with her first child. The legislature did not adjourn, allowing no time for the men to be with their families. However, Lorenzo did not spend all his time during this session with the concerns of state and church. On Christmas day he reports that the legislature met, but then, “It being Christmas we adjourned. I attended a party at the State House in the evening. About ninety couples were present. Brothers Brigham, Kimball and Grant were at the party. It went off very agreeable and broke up at 12:00 midnight.”[137]

Lorenzo’s thirtieth birthday, on January 4th, was also passed in Fillmore, away from his family, and in legislative business.

On January 8th, Lorenzo attended the court of Judge W.W. Drummond in Fillmore, probably as an observer. Drummond was a Federal Judge who soon became irritated by his own lack of influence among the Mormons. In the spring of 1856 he returned to Washington and leveled charges against the Saints, claiming they had destroyed federal court records in Salt Lake City.[138] Drummond’s accusations had much to do with the President of the United States, James Buchanan, later sending federal troops to Utah, an act which would touch Lorenzo’s life a few years later.

Other than the regular legislative sessions, Lorenzo also reports attending the Supreme Court on January 15th. He does not say if this court was a continuation of Judge Drummond’s case, or if he made the visit to observe another trial. On January 16th he “entered on business preparatory to our adjournment for this session of the Legislature.”[139]

On the day before the session was to end, January 15th, an oyster supper “was got up” for members of the legislature by Secretary A.W. Babbitt. Perhaps this was an effort to atone for his earlier actions. Lorenzo, at least, was impressed with the refreshments served, “We had a great variety of fruits and knickknacks, champagne and brandy, etc. It passed off well.”[140]

Champagne and brandy being served is not surprising since in 1855 the Word of Wisdom, which forbids such drinks today, had not become a commandment to the Mormon people. Though the Word of Wisdom was announced in 1833, it was followed with very little consistency and by 1840 a very tolerant attitude had been adopted by the church at large. During the great migration across the plains, Mormon pioneers who could afford it included tea, coffee and alcohol among the staples they carried west.[141]

Though church authorities preached from the pulpit encouraging the Saints to abstain especially from the use of tobacco and whiskey, “In the nineteenth century the use of tea or coffee or tobacco or alcohol did not disqualify a member of the church from holding office or entering the temple as is now the case.”[142]

The most significant day in this legislative session, for Lorenzo, came during a joint session on January 7th when, “...Brother Kimball, [counselor to Brigham Young], called Brother Benson to him and wanted to know whether he would recommend me for a mission to England. He said he would with all his heart, and my name was taken for that mission.”[143] Another upheaval in the life of Lorenzo was dictated.

On January 18th, Lorenzo left Fillmore with his brother-in-law to return home to Lehi after being gone for seven weeks. “I met my family with a warm heart...visited, and after prayers went to bed.”[144] The following morning Lorenzo began to prepare for the needs his family would have during the time he would be away in England. He fixed his tools and prepared for work in the woodshop. During the next few days, he hired a man to lathe and plaster his house, wrote letters, paid bills, reported in church meetings on his experience in the legislature, attended a bishop’s court in his capacity as bishop’s counselor, read to his family and sang hymns with them.

As February began, he worked steadily in his woodshop, building a grain cradle[145] for Brother Harris, making 144 window sashes during one week, and then constructing two bedsteads.

On February 22nd a company of men from Springville and Provo passed through Lehi on their way to Cedar Valley in search of Indians who had been causing trouble among the settlers. The men, who were militia, had been given orders by Brigham Young to disband and go home. When they passed through Lehi, Lorenzo visited with some of them and reported that the men had disobeyed President Young’s order because of the pay they received while active in the militia. Lorenzo says, “...so they went and murdered the Indians.” The enraged Indians killed a herder in retaliation and a part of the Lehi militia was called to go to the herd grounds and escort all the settlers and cattle into Lehi. Before this could be accomplished, three of the Lehi militia lost their lives and on the 26^th, Lorenzo reported, “...I received orders from the Colonel to call out the battalion under my command and hold ourselves in readiness to march at a moments warning and to meet at Lake City on the 27^th at 10:00 A.M.”[146] Lorenzo’s battalion met at Lake City and received their orders. Lorenzo does not say what those orders were, but the hostile atmosphere eased, and he returned to work in his woodshop.

Preparations continued for the time Lorenzo would be away on his mission to England. He worked on his house, making and hanging doors, putting down mopboards, and laying flooring. His duties as a counselor to Bishop Evans saw him giving an address to the teachers quorum on “bad language,” and his civic duties as a member of the city council found him preparing a list of names for the city officers to be elected “if the people chose to do so.”

He set out fruit trees and planted early peas in the garden. Lorenzo hunted lost cows to no avail and worried about Catherine’s health, as she was not recovering from the birth of her first child, a daughter, born on March 19th.

Monday, March 24th, Lorenzo confided to his journal that his load was heavy, “...my labors bear down on me.” But he knew the source of his previous strength in times of need and returned there for help again, “...I thank God for his blessings on me and my family and may God protect my family from the Destroyer and help me on for the day of my departure is at hand to leave my family and go to the Nations of the Earth. O’ Lord, strengthen me and turn things into my hands that I may go in peace and meet all debts in the season with the means to pay, is the prayer of Lorenzo Hill Hatch, your unworthy servant.”[147]

It was perhaps with some dismay that Lorenzo contemplated the thought of leaving his home and young family for two uncertain years just when he was beginning to accumulate land and goods to make their life more comfortable. He was also beginning a career in city and state politics and was looked up to by many as a leader of men. However, he felt it a great honor to be deemed worthy to fill a mission for his church and there was never any doubt in his mind about answering the call he knew was to come soon. Sacrifice for the Gospel of Jesus Christ was not new to Lorenzo.

The first week in April was a busy one, “I measured off five acres of land on Brother Karren’s farm which I rented of him. Commenced making a bedstead, and on Wednesday Brother Reed plowed for me while I worked on my wagon. Thursday worked in the garden and sowed wheat. Friday, sowed more wheat and set out fifty peach trees. Saturday I went to the City [Salt Lake] with Thomas Winn [brother-in-law] to attend conference.”[148]

Conference in Salt Lake City under the Big Bowery commenced on Sunday, April 6th. George A. Smith preached on polygamy and then the names of the missionaries were called. Lorenzo’s name was one of them. He was to start within four days for England in company of Orson Pratt and E.T. Benson, among others.

Following conference, Lorenzo started on foot for his home in Lehi, thirty miles to the south. At Willow Creek he traded for an old, thin horse thinking it might do to take him to the States when he left for his mission. On arriving at home in Lehi, his daughter Clarissa was sick with measles. Lorenzo says, “I was glad to see my family knowing how soon I should bid them farewell for a time.”[149]

Lorenzo was given an extra week before he and Brothers Benson and Pratt would leave for the States, and he made good use of this time by working on his wagon, setting out 120 strawberry plants, repairing the hog pen, making a grain cradle and hanging a door, among other things. His family was as well provided for as he could manage in the short time given.

Lorenzo made a deed of consecration of his holdings. “In the mid 1850s President Brigham Young asked Saints to consecrate their possessions to the church, to be used for the good of all. Essentially the Saints transferred title to their properties to the church, but none of the properties were transferred. The movement was designed to help unify the people but mainly served as a test of faith.”[150]

On April 11th Lorenzo passed this test of faith as he recorded a deed of consecration in Book C, page 41 of Utah County deed book. It is interesting that Sylvia joined him in this consecration, but there is no mention of his second wife, Catherine. The contents of the deed give an inventory of the Hatch family possessions in 1856. The full text of the consecration deed reads:

Be it known by these presents that we, Lorenzo Hill Hatch and Sylvia Savona Hatch, his wife of Lehi City in the county of Utah and Territory of Utah, for an in consideration of the good will which we have for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, give and convey unto Brigham Young, Trustee in Trust for said church, his successors in office and assigns, all our claim to and ownership to the following described property to wit: One lot in the City of Lehi with buildings thereon and improvements. Lot no. 2 in block 13 containing 50/160 acre valued at $800. Ten acres in the southeast corner of Lot 3, block 91 (sic) of the American Creek Survey farming land valued at $100. The east half of northeast (quarter) Lot 1 in block 1 containing five acres valued at $800.

Lots 11 and 16 in block 7 of American Creek Survey of Farming land plat containing ten acres valued at $50 (This amount could possibly be $5000. Writing is poor). Lot 5 in block 3 containing one acre of Lehi City Survey of garden lots valued at $10.

One yoke of oxen at $80

Two cows (at) $30 each

Two Two-year-old heifers, $20 each

Four two-year-old steers, $20 each

Two two-year-old colts, $50 each

Two yearling colts, $30 each

Two yearling calves, $10 each

Three beds and bedding and bedsteads, $111

One wagon and plough and chains, $85

Four sheep and one lamb, $22

Together with all the rights privileges and appurtenances thereunto belonging or pertaining. We also covenant and agree that we are the lawful claimants and owners of said property and will forever defend the same unto the said trustee in trust, his successors in office and assigns, against the claims of our heirs and assigns or any person whosoever.

[signed] Lorenzo Hill Hatch

Witnesses:

David Evans

George A. Leslie

Abraham (sic) Hatch

Monday, April 21, 1856, Lorenzo records in his journal: “I bid my family good-bye and departed on my mission to Europe. May the Lord bless my family in my absence, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. L.H. Hatch.”[151]

CHAPTER 4

“It Seemed Like A Dream”

It was into a well organized mission field that Lorenzo Hill Hatch traveled in 1856. The journey to England was made in the company of Orson Pratt and E. T. Benson, both members of the council of the twelve, who were being sent there to preside over the entire British Mission. Lorenzo was destined to be closely associated with the spiritual giants of the LDS Church throughout his life. Many of these men were 15-20 years Lorenzo’s senior and well connected by birth or marriage to one another.

The party Lorenzo was assigned to cross the plains with was an illustrious one. It not only included Orson Pratt and E. T. Benson, there were other prominent Utahans such as A.O. Smoot, who would lead the party, Almon W. Babbitt, and George A. Smith. No lesser a character than Orin Porter Rockwell was assigned as scout and hunter. Rockwell, a close friend and body guard to both the Prophet Joseph Smith and to Brigham Young, was looked upon with fear and awe as a frontiersman and gunfighter by his fellow Mormons.[152]

The group traveling east to the United States assembled at the mouth of Emigration Canyon at eleven A.M.on April 22, 1856. After being organized with Abraham O. Smoot as captain of the company, President Brigham Young, who had come to see them off, offered a blessing upon the group and they began their journey at noon.

The spring weather was not kind to the travelers, and for the next few days they recorded cold and snow with a “violent wind.” With much difficulty they reached Fort Bridger on April 27th. Two days later, they lost some of the horses as they camped at Black’s Fork. Porter Rockwell soon found the missing animals, and as the company was approaching Indian country, Colonel George A. Smith (Utah militia), ordered all firearms be inspected. At six o’clock the next morning all men were to appear in rank and prepare for inspection of arms. A list of names of those in camp and the amount of ammunition they carried included Lorenzo Hill Hatch, who had forty rounds.[153]

Only weeks before, Brigadier General William S. Harney, after a needless slaughter of eighty Indians, had forced the plains tribes into a shaky truce. Tension between the Indians and whites traveling the prairie trails was taut. Extra guards were posted and all were advised to be alert and ready for trouble.

On May 3rd, the weather contrived to take the men’s minds from the danger of Indians to something more immediate. They camped for the night near an alkali pond and during the night a wind storm commenced, with snow starting towards morning. At daybreak the whole camp was aroused by the guard shouting, “Arise, take care of your animals, for they are freezing to death.” The men found this to be true, and seized their blankets and buffalo robes to cover horses and mules.

The snow continued during the day and the camp was without firewood or shelter. Scouts were sent out to locate a more sheltered place and camp was moved to a nearby hollow among some willows. [154]

It was two days before the camp was able to move again, and then they had not gone far when the horses began to sink to their girths and fall in the snow. The men continued on, all of them walking, with the loose animals in front of the train to make a track. In this manner they traveled until four P.M. and made camp on a gravel hill that was nearly clear of snow. Eyes and faces were sore, a result of the brilliant sun on pristine snow. The company suffered greatly from snowblindness. Another day and a half was spent in camp as the men suffered the torturous sensation similar to salt being poured in their eyes.

The next day was mild and the company traveled two miles to a small creek where they found water and grass clear of snow. Camp was pitched, and in the evening Porter Rockwell entertained them with tales of the “treasure in the Hill Cumorah” until late into the night.

Another severe storm caught the travelers at Greasewood Creek and on May 12th, the men arose to find their horses had run away. Porter Rockwell found six of them and in his searching he supplied the group with fresh antelope meat for a much appreciated feast. Next day the party crossed the Platte River over a bridge, paying $3.00 per wagon for crossing. On Sunday, May 18th, camp was made near Fort Laramie where provisions were purchased. Flour was $15.00 per hundred and bacon the same price. Crackers were 15 cents per pound and coffee three pounds for a dollar. The fort had no sugar available.[155]

The weather grew warmer as they crossed the South Platte and all were in excellent spirits. By May 27th they were seventy-five miles from Fort Kearney and found the gnats and mosquitoes thick and bothersome. They began to meet wagon trains going west. Many were on their way to California, and there were government trains with supplies for the forts along the trail.

On May 29th George A. Smith recorded in his journal, “...have passed trains almost hourly...May 30...We have found the road to-day literally filled with emigrant trains...The rumor is that the Mormon emigration is tremendous; 5000 are said to be fitting up at Omaha City, and as many more in other points.”[156]

On June 8th, Lorenzo’s party arrived at the Big Blue River near Atchison, Kansas. After traveling forty-eight days the missionaries arrived at Mormon Grove then traveled from St. Louis on the steamboat “Polar Star.” Finding a great deal of unrest between the pro-slavery and abolitionist factions in this part of the country, E. T. Benson wrote home saying how thankful the Saints ought to feel that God had given them a mountain home safe from this turmoil.[157]

Mission To England

There is a five month gap in the journal entries of Lorenzo, which includes the trip from Utah to England. By the time Lorenzo continues writing in his journal, he seems to be well into his missionary work. His residence was 19 Dock Street, Leeds, England, and he was working with Brother W.G. Young.

During the next few months, Lorenzo reports his movements faithfully and tells of travels to the surrounding towns of Wakefield, Hull, Workley and Sheffield. He was preaching, visiting the Saints, writing letters, baptizing new converts for the first time and rebaptizing others as they renewed their faith.

On October 11th he tells of a trip to Ridgate, walking six miles in the mud and rain. “We found the Saints in a cold condition, for the principle of tithing had scared them.”[158] Tithing was one of the principles missionaries found most difficult for the Saints to accept. A few months later, Lorenzo reports that he “...held a council over Brother Law where he confessed that he had done wrong in speaking against tithing.”[159]

Constant exposure to the elements and traveling from one town to another by foot caused Lorenzo to remark, “My health is quite poor...much fatigued and sick.” However, on October 19th, at a social party held one evening after a conference he “sang a song.” Was this a solo? If so, it is the only time he mentions doing such a thing.

In one quiet sentence, Lorenzo tells us on Friday, November 14th, “On this day I learned that I was appointed to succeed Pastor [William] G. Young in Sheffield Pastorate [district].” A notice in the January 1, 1857 edition of the Millennial Star notes that “Elder Lorenzo H. Hatch is appointed to succeed Elder Young as pastor of the Sheffield, Bradford, Hull and Lincolnshire Conferences [Districts].”[160]

In the following weeks his duties seem much the same as before. “...in the evening I preached to a crowded house of strangers. ...first snow fell on Wednesday, three or four inches. ...visited a sick sister and administered to her. ...wrote letters, visited with the Saints...visited some of the sick and comforted them.”[161]

Not until December did Lorenzo “commence to discharge some of my duties as pastor.”[162] He audited the books of Brother Fox and bought a book to keep the accounts of receiving and disbursing money of the pastorate.

On December 21st an incident occurred that Lorenzo felt would be long remembered. “...the Brethren met at the Hall of Oddfellows...Pastor Young laid the business before the conference and cut Elder Caine off from the Church and disfellowshipped the President of the Duesbery Branch.” Later in the day Elder Benson addressed the meeting on “Adultery.”[163]

On Christmas Eve, Lorenzo had been away from his family for eight months and he confessed to a bit of homesickness. “At seven A.M. we were awakened by the singing of the Saints which caused my mind to run back to the valleys of the mountains. I wrote to my family.”[164] His spirits may well have been at a low ebb for sometime, for on December 28th he and Brother Rudd walked to Hull through the mud. “It was dark and disagreeable, but it was all right.” And a few days later, “My health is good with the exception of a bad cough. This day is my birthday, thirty-two years....Came to Sheffield on Thursday, found no letters.”[165]

On January 24th Lorenzo “Went to the station to meet my old friend, Brother Evans.” And on the 28^th he “went to the station with Brother Evans and saw him off. Bade him good-bye until I should see him in the valleys of the mountains.” This was probably Israel Evans, son of Bishop David Evans of Lehi.[166] When Brother Evans left England, Lorenzo sent a package by him to his family back in Lehi which contained “five handkerchiefs, two ounces of silk, eight hundred needles, two pairs of gloves, some fancy buttons, also two pair of shoes.” For the trouble of taking the items to his family in Utah Lorenzo gave Brother Evans ten shillings and also another pound to buy items the Hatch family might be in need of. He also sent a “likeness” of himself to the family.[167]

In February, W.G. Young left England to return to the United States, and Lorenzo felt “alone in the midst of old Babylon. My American brethren having gone home causes me to feel solemn and to lean on the arm of my God.” However, his labors continued and at Bradford they baptized “some twenty persons.” The following Sunday he preached to a full house, reporting “...some confusion among the rabble, but good was done,” and on Wednesday, “Elder Rudd and I went to Mitham. We rode on foot, a distance of seven miles.”[168]

At the District Conference in April, “One man voted against President Young with his left hand. I asked him if he belonged to the church and he said that he did not.”[169] Lorenzo also had his own detractors and found when visiting in the home of a member, Brother Plant, “His wife said that she would not treat me with respect because I had two wives.” However, after this visit he seemed to win her respect and she “did confess that I was a decent man.” [170]

One of Lorenzo’s responsibilities as pastor was to see that the missionaries who were called locally were properly clothed as they went about their church duties. In March “ Brother Johnson loaned me [the district] five pounds to get clothing for Elder Hobbs.” In April a man named Evans who was called to travel and preach, received a new suit of clothes for his work, but then “denied the work and said that he had played a Yankee trick upon the church. Brother Fox cut him off, thus ended the affair.”[171] Lorenzo does not say if the clothes were retrieved from the fellow or not.

On May 10th Orson Pratt and E.T. Benson, members of the twelve apostles, visited the district. They traveled with Lorenzo throughout the area, many times on foot, visiting and preaching to the Saints. At many of the meetings, Lorenzo reports disruptions by unbelievers. “Went to Rotherham...held meeting there in the barn. A mean, contemptible fellow wished to speak and disturb the meeting, but we closed our meeting.”[172]

On the 17^th the elders experienced a train wreck near Sheffield, hurting Brother Pratt’s head and breaking Brother Benson’s hat and “jarred his breast some, but all were safe.”[173] Lorenzo does not report any injuries to himself. The party continued on to Sheffield and all three addressed meetings there during the next few days.

Apostle Benson stayed in the district with Lorenzo for the next month traveling to various towns, visiting the Saints and preaching to congregations of members and non-members alike. On May 24th they went to Leeds and sent a “bellman” around to announce that one of the Twelve would preach in the hall at eight P.M.. On the 27^th they arrived in Petersboro and found the town “all in an uproar.” There were bills posted inviting the public to a meeting where they could “judge for themselves the principles which they, LDS, teach.” The posters declared that “Elder E. T. Benson, one of the Twelve Apostles of the 19^th century and Elder Lorenzo H. Hatch, (both of Salt Lake City, Utah) will address the meeting.”[174]

“We went to the assembly room at seven thirty P.M. The people came in and filled that large hall nearly full. Brother Benson called on Brother Taylor to sing and pray, then I was called to the stand to speak by Brother Benson. I spoke on the first principles and with much plainness and much power till I came to the Prophet Joseph Smith. [I then] bore my testimony [and] all the devils boiled over in one tremendous rage. A Methodist priest by the name of Brooks headed the mob. [He] came to the stand and would speak. We told the congregation that we had rented this room, but to no purpose.

“Brother Benson tried to speak but they wouldn’t hear. This wicked man tried to incense the mob by calling upon them and telling them some of the most wicked and abominable lies that could be invented by the Devil. Great confusion prevailed...the congregation was divided. We took our hats and started to leave. The door was blocked, but as we came from the stand a woman opened a [side] door and we escaped out of the hands of that mob, though they said they would put us in the river.”[175]

The elders traveled from Petersboro to Risgate and on June 1st Lorenzo says, “Got on shanks horses and went on our journey to Hull. Tuesday we left for Gool, nine miles away. Went on the same horses as before mentioned. It was very warm and Brother Benson became quite tired, also myself.”[176] At Gool, Elders Benson and Hatch took a packet, (small sailing vessel) for Hull and Grims. At Grims they “went into the street...Brother Benson spoke with much power which caused the hearers to tremble.” On the 5^th they took the train for Hull. “Had talk on train with some wolves in sheep’s clothing and they howled perfectly, but did not bite. They wanted to but were afraid.”[177]

After several more days of travel and preaching, the elders parted, with Brother Benson going to Derby and Lorenzo to Chesterfield, where he joined some of the traveling elders of his pastorate.[178]

About June 12th Lorenzo received a letter from his family that had been written on March 29th. He says, “good news.” Several times in his journal he mentions hearing from his family, and nearly always says, “good news”, or more forcefully, “glorious news.” However, he never tells his journal what the news is. This does give us the idea that his wives and children are doing well in his absence and not wanting for the necessities of life. Years later Lorenzo would tell his son Hezekiah that he received a letter every month of his mission from Sylvia and Catherine sent in the same envelope.

During the summer of 1857 Lorenzo continued his duties as pastor by traveling, visiting other missionaries, and preaching to Saints and strangers, wherever he was, sometimes having to use his wits to overcome the unbelievers. “Went to Rothersham with Brother Edwards. He preached outdoors to a rough crowd of people and I listened as a stranger and told them to be still so that I might hear. Some of them did stop as I requested.”[179]

There were also administrative duties to attend to, “...held a council upon the case of Henry Fowler and Sister Atkinson. ...dropped [him] as president of the Sheffield Branch and appointed Isaac Abel in his place. ...paid John Eastham ten pound and ten shillings that I had borrowed to help Pastor Young’s emigration. ...sent twenty pounds [tithing] to Liverpool from the Bradford Conference.”[180]

One of the few families of English Saints mentioned by Lorenzo was a couple known only as “Brother and Sister Drewry.” They are first mentioned in a May 28^th entry when Sister Drewry came to meet the train at Risgate with her cart, and took the elders, Benson, Taylor and Hatch five miles to her home. Upon arriving there the elders held a meeting in the Drewry barn, after which Sister Drewry took them back to the train station in her cart. Elder Hatch was very appreciative of Sister Drewry and her cart, since most of his travel was on foot. On August lst Lorenzo again visited the Drewry family and stayed for a few days in their home. He says, “went and cut some wheat [on the Drewry farm], which astonished the Saints to see Elder Hatch reap. I also milked the cow of Brother Drewry.” It obviously felt good to once again perform some of the familiar chores of home.

On Sunday they held three meetings in the open air at Drewry’s field. On Monday, Sister Drewry took the elders five miles to the train station in her cart. In October, at another outdoor meeting Lorenzo reports, “Brother Drewry said he would sell his watch to sustain the work of God.”[181] Following this meeting, Sister Drewry drove Elder Hatch in her cart to the station. In November she furnished transportation to and from a meeting. The Drewrys were special people to Lorenzo and gave him their wholehearted support both spiritually and physically.

Lorenzo suffered from the long walks and continual rainy, cold weather. Not as a complaint, but as a matter of fact, he wrote in his journal of the miles walked and the consequences suffered. During November, “...spent the night miserable, health very indifferent. ...soaked my feet and tried to sweat. ...was scarcely able to sit up.” He did not linger in his sickbed, as the next day he and Brother Seymour B. Young took the train for Hull.[182]

Few sights distracted Elder Hatch from his duties as a missionary, but occasionally he had the opportunity to enjoy some of the historical and cultural aspects of Old England. With Elder Benson he visited two Cathedrals, though it is not clear just where they were located, “The scenery was most beautiful, as we could see for miles around this building. It is...very large...and full of all kinds of images of carved work in stone. [At another] Brother Benson and I with several more Saints went to the Cathedral and heard them offer prayers according to the forms of the Church of England which was full of hypocrisy. This large building was built in 1117 by the Catholics. It was destroyed considerably by Lord Cromwell, yet is still a large and spacious building.”[183]

In July, while in Chesterfield, Lorenzo saw, “a new balloon go up...There were two men in it. One of them hung by a rope till it went out of sight.”[184] In November, he was impressed enough with the fare at the table of Brother Williams, with whom he “took dinner” that he recorded in his journal, “Had eel pie.”

Another experience was a journey of several hundred miles to London in August, 1857. There were meetings with Brothers Pratt and Benson and Lorenzo took the opportunity with some of the other elders to see Buckingham Palace, the Thames Tunnel, Tower of St. Paul’s Church and the Crystal Palace.

Called Home To Zion

The first week in October, Lorenzo, “Received intelligence of the elders all being called home to Zion.”[185] No doubt Elder Hatch knew something of the events taking place in Utah while he was in England, but he must have been surprised at the call for all elders to return home, for the cause of this recall was also a surprise to those in Utah.

On May 28, 1857, James Buchanan, President of the United States, issued an order for U.S. troops to assemble at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and begin their march to Utah for the purpose of subduing the Mormons, who he believed were disloyal to the government and promoting separatism. His sources for this information were disgruntled Federal appointees who had been sent to preside in Utah Territory as Federal Judges. These appointees felt they did not receive the respect due them from the Mormons, and reported to President Buchanan that the Mormons recognized no authority except that of the church. In view of this information, the President appointed Alfred Cumming of Georgia to replace Brigham Young as Governor and ordered 2500 troops to accompany him to Utah.

President Buchanan failed to notify Brigham Young that he was to be replaced as territorial governor, and so, when on July 24th, four Mormons returning from the east gave President Young the news that 2500 men were on their way to Utah to subdue the Mormons, the reaction was intense. This was seen as more gentile persecution to the Mormons who had fled from Ohio, Missouri and Illinois, before moving to this haven in the Rocky Mountains.

One of the reactions to the Utah situation, was an editorial by Orson Pratt in the Millennial Star, published at Liverpool, “...in view of the difficulties which are now threatening the Saints, we deem it wisdom to stop all emigration to the States and Utah for the present.”[186] Another reaction was to call home all missionaries to help the Saints in Utah with what appeared to be a serious threat to their homes and families.

Lorenzo had mixed emotions about this information, for he had a great love for the people of England. “This caused me some singular feelings. I feel for the Saints in this land.”[187]

Not until October 16th did Lorenzo receive a letter from E.T. Benson containing his release from his mission. The letter had been eight days in reaching him and it was too late. The ship he was to sail on with some of the other missionaries had already departed for America. It was four months later that Lorenzo finally received word to come to Liverpool, as his passage had again been arranged.

During this four months Lorenzo continued his meetings and counseling with the Saints, all the while preparing for the day he would sail for the valley of the mountains.

He was given many gifts by the Saints of his Districts, not the least of which was a gold watch, a present made to him by the members of Sheffield, Bradford and Hull Conferences. This watch was crafted by Mr. Taffender of Rotherham, costing eight pounds, fifteen shillings, or $61.00, and is probably the one worn by Lorenzo when he had his portrait painted during the last years of his life in Utah.

The usual meetings in the various branches and conferences were continued. Lorenzo and his companions walked to and fro through this large area to meet the daily appointments. On Wednesday, November 11th, “I walked to Leeds a distance of ten miles. It is three years this day since I was married to Catherine.”[188] He was thinking towards home.

He purchased cloth for a new suit, which a member had promised to make for him, and bought a chest for the trip, putting into it many gifts from the Saints for his family in Utah including two collars, half dozen pair of stockings, two pair of false sleeves and material for each wife to make herself a dress. Lorenzo also purchased two blankets with which to cross the plains once he was back in the States.[189]

There were letters written and letters received, for he was to turn over the affairs of the district to Brothers Asa Calhen and S.W. Richards. There were farewell parties and blessings given to members which he called “parting blessings.” He also received a blessing from the brethren for his health and a promise that he would return to his family. With his gentle, humble manner, the dedicated elder had endeared himself to the Saints in England.

Finally a letter came telling him to be in Liverpool on February 9^th. “Left 19 Dock Street, Leeds at 10:00 A.M. and many Saints accompanied me to the station. Arrived in Liverpool at noon and went on board the screw steamer, “City of Washington.”[190]

After a very emotional leave taking, Lorenzo’s ship sailed on February 10^th. Joseph W. and Seymour B. Young were with him. These two men had served in England with Lorenzo for many months and they became fast friends.

Passage across the Atlantic Ocean took fifteen days, during which Lorenzo suffered from bad food and sea sickness. The missionaries carried a few items of food on board with them and Elder Hatch felt these few extra items kept them from extreme discomfort.

Return To Utah

They arrived in the Hudson River at nine A.M. on Thursday, February 25^th. On Friday morning they were treated to a “Yankee breakfast with Brother Stenhouse.” What this breakfast consisted of, Lorenzo does not say, but undoubtedly it was not eel pie.

The missionaries took time to prepare themselves for life as they felt it would be in Utah. Sentiments expressed to them on arrival in the States must have been strong, for Lorenzo says, “...The United States are in arms against us and would like to destroy us from off the face of the earth.”[191] With these thoughts in mind, Lorenzo, “Went to town and bought me a Sharpes rifle, primers, cartridges, caps, flash, powder, and a box to put the gun in. Got a Colt pistol and fixtures. All paid out for this riggin’ was $48.89.” He also mentions retrieving “our swords and guns from the captain of the ship and paid duty on them.”[192] The swords may have been keepsakes from England, but why the missionaries had guns they were bringing from England is a wonderment. After arming themselves well, the men went to the Erie Railroad Station and boarded a train for Burlington, Iowa, which was as far as they could go by rail.

Near Dunkirk, New York, the train was involved in a serious accident which caused considerable delay for the elders. Lorenzo felt the Lord was merciful to them and they were not injured. This was the second train wreck for Lorenzo, but it would not be his last.

Arriving in Burlington, Iowa, they “put up” at the Burlington LDS House. This was one of the way stations for the Brigham Young Express and Carrying Company, better known as the Y.X. Company, organized by the church in 1857 to operate between Salt Lake and Independence. Originally organized when Hiram Kimball, acting for the church, obtained a contract for hauling the U.S. mail, the Y.X. Company now was carrying supplies and small numbers of people into Salt Lake Valley, many of them missionaries returning from around the world. The U.S. Government had canceled the mail contract, because of criticism of the church in Washington D.C. by the same men whose complaints had sent Alfred Cumming and 2500 troops to subdue the disdainful Mormons.[193]

The elders were now on the Mississippi River just a few miles north of Nauvoo, where Lorenzo and his family had hoped to make their homes just a few short years ago. Mormons were not welcome in Burlington and the three elders stayed only a day there while making contact with the Express Company men, then Lorenzo says, “...We loaded our trunks in wagons, paid our bills and went to a Sister Casper’s, six miles from Burlington where Brother Snyder, [of Y.X. Company] was keeping the horses. We felt quite comfortable as this place is a farmhouse. ...at night we had the privilege of having prayers...we had been denied for some time because of the wicked who were seeking for us.”[194] Other returning missionaries joined the group gathering for the journey to the mountains. One of these men was John Young Green, who was returning from a Scandinavian mission. He was the man who had driven Brigham Young’s Wagon to the Great Salt Lake Valley in 1847.

On March 20th, after spending a week repairing wagons, tending stock and, “fixing provision boxes in the wagons, Lorenzo and seven others started across the Iowa prairie for the town of Winter Quarters, now known as Florence. This was familiar ground to Lorenzo. At Florence a council was held and it was decided two of the party should remain there until the next Express started. The reason for leaving two of the men is not explained, but it may have been to lighten the load for faster travel in the country ahead, for the Mormons expected trouble on the trail either from the U.S. Army or from Indians. Perhaps both.

Lorenzo expressed regret when Brother Seymour B. Young was one of those who were to stay in Florence. He and Elder Young, of Cache Valley Utah, had been together as missionaries in England for the past year and had traveled from that place together, forming a firm and lasting friendship. As usual, Lorenzo did what was asked with a willing spirit, “...all our feelings have to be subdued.”[195]

On Monday, April 5th, the party arrived at Genoa in Nebraska Territory. Genoa had been colonized as a major supply station on the Mormon Trail, but now Lorenzo reports, “We found about 150 Saints who were poor, but very glad to see us.” Lorenzo’s party at this point, further reduced their load by leaving one wagon in Genoa, (they had driven two wagons from Florence). They decided to pack the animals used to pull the wagon. Lorenzo built four pack saddles, “ran some bullets” (made bullets), and wrote letters.

On Thursday they went to the Loup Fork where there was trouble crossing the river and then the party ran into a snow storm causing them to “tarry” for two days. The storm was hard and they were “greatly exposed.” On Tuesday the company began to move again and covered forty miles a day. On April 24th they arrived in the vicinity of Fort Laramie, where the U.S. Army was headquartered. Camping nine miles from the fort to let their jaded horses and mules rest, they prepared to travel by night through this country which was patrolled by the army. Guns were kept nearby and a night guard posted, but they traveled unmolested.

The animals were failing from the fast pace and scarce grass when the party arrived at Devil’s Gate about May 1st. Another storm overtook them and continued for two days, dropping two feet of snow, covering what little grass there was for the horses and mules.

After the bluster abated, the tired men pressed on, but the poor condition of the animals and the deep snow combined to allow only ten miles of travel that day. The travelers suffered from snow blindness and continual cold. A council was held and it was decided that S.W. Richards, G.G. Snyder and John Young Green would take the best animals and push on as fast as possible. Lorenzo and the rest of the party were left to follow more slowly with the exhausted horses and mules. This decision caused Lorenzo to remark to his journal that “They were anxious to get home and deliver the news.” Just what news he is referring to is not clear, but he seems a little disgruntled that they felt the need to leave the rest of the men behind.

The following day one of the feeble mules belonging to Dr. Jeter Clinton died allowing Lorenzo’s party to travel a little faster. On May 6th they camped at the Sublette Cutoff. The constant pressure of battling snowstorms, cold, worn out animals and the need to avoid contact with Indians or the U.S. Army was taking its toll on the nerves of the men. There was a warm discussion as to which fork of the road to take from this point.[196]

The right hand fork went westward to the Big Sandy and through broken country to the Bear River, forty-three miles distance, where it met a trail between Fort Bridger and Fort Hall. This was known as Sublette’s Cutoff. The left hand fork would take them directly to Ft. Bridger, where contact with the army was almost inevitable.[197]

Dr. Jeter Clinton proved to be the most persuasive and convinced the majority of men to take the left hand fork to Ft. Bridger. Lorenzo was one of the dissenters, feeling it would be wiser to take the Sublette Cutoff. Events of the following days would prove him right.

The men camped near the Big Sandy and crossed the Green River at early light, finding that a horse for their use had been left at a trader’s cabin with a man named Bates. Bates told Lorenzo’s party that the faster half of their company was two days ahead of them. The trader, known only as Bates, was called a traitor by Lorenzo when it was learned he had informed the troops of the earlier men’s passage. The Army had followed, but did not overtake them.

Bates was probably what Wallace Stegner called a “squatter entrepreneur,” one of those who lived along the trail tending stations, selling meals, beds, or livestock and scavenging the trail while sometimes selling whiskey made of alcohol, water, cayenne pepper, and tobacco.[198]

Traveling on from the Bates place their problems were compounded when, in the afternoon, they were surprised by a troop of soldiers who took them prisoner and marched them into Fort Bridger. John M.Wakeley tried to make a deal with the soldiers, asking that they take only him and let the rest of the men go on, but Lorenzo would not agree to this and told Brother Wakeley, “we [will] all go [in] together and Dr. Clinton should drop in for all the harm.”[199] Clinton, who had insisted on taking this trail, was to take the blame for the latest trouble of the group. At least in Lorenzo’s eye.

Arriving at Fort Bridger, Jeter Clinton went to see the commanding officer, Colonel Johnston, trying to obtain passes for the men. While Clinton was doing his negotiating, a man who Lorenzo must have known, for he called him by name, Solomon Gee, approached the newly arrived wagon, and pointed out Wakeley, saying he knew Wakeley and would “... take an oath that John Wakeley was concerned in some scrape which would implicate him.”[200]

Upon this, the flimsiest of excuses, a writ was immediately issued for Wakeley. After much distress and delay, it was decided by Army authorities that Wakeley could be released on bail, but the good Dr. Clinton was to post the $5,000 required. Passes were issued by Colonel Johnston. The brethren lost no time in leaving Fort Bridger. They traveled all night, putting as much distance as possible between themselves and the U.S. Army. By the light of day they met, “...some of our boys who were glad to see us and took us to their camp.”[201]

The “boys” Lorenzo speaks of were a part of the Utah Militia, the Utah Nauvoo Legion, who had been harassing the Army of the West, as it traveled to Salt Lake as an escort to the new Territorial Governor, Alfred Cumming. The exact intentions of the U.S. Government in sending 2500 troops into Utah was not made clear to Brigham Young, and so he had ordered his seasoned militia out to slow the army in its progress westward until the snows of winter came, making it impossible for the troops to move.

The militia was not to start a shooting war, but only harass the army. Mormon scouts hovered in the hills watching the movements of the troops. They stole or burned supply trains left unguarded and burned Forts Bridger and Supply to prevent their being put to use by the enemy. When Lorenzo was taken to Fort Bridger, it was to a makeshift camp that Colonel Johnston had built a little above Bridger, on Black’s Fork. [202]

After a night of visiting and rest in the militia camp, Lorenzo and his companions continued on towards Salt Lake. Passing through Echo Canyon they were impressed with the fortifications built by their brethren to welcome Johnston’s Army, should they actually try to enter the valley. At a narrow point in the canyon eleven hundred men, sent there by Brigham Young, had built stone walls and dug trenches from which they planned to act as snipers. Huge boulders were loosened in readiness to be sent crashing down on the troops. The men dug ditches and built dams to send rivers of water across the army’s path if needed.[203]

On May 13, 1858, Lorenzo arrived in Salt Lake Valley. He rode to Lehi with Brother Joseph W. Young for the long awaited reunion with his family. “They were glad to see me. Two of my children were afraid of me. I had been absent two years and twenty three days, which seemed like a dream.”[204]

CHAPTER 5

Mountain Common Law

Returning to Utah Lorenzo quickly took up the reins of responsibility, resuming his place as head of the household which included two wives, four children and mother-in-law, Clarissa Eastman. He arrived at his Lehi home on Friday, finding the family all in good health. On Saturday, he planted peas brought from England, and on Sunday he and Sylvia rode to Provo with Bishop Evans where Lorenzo reported his mission to Brigham Young and the Saints.

During his first week home, Lorenzo “hunted up my bench, ground some of my rusty tools and plowed some for corn, ...planted corn... repaired wagon.” He was still a counselor to Bishop Evans and a city alderman, so was expected to at once continue those duties. On Saturday he, “spoke to the people of Lehi [and]...visited with brother Jeremiah,” who had come from Sanpete.

Jeremiah made him some tools, but Lorenzo does not give a clue as to what kind of tools. Perhaps for his woodshop. Though he stayed in contact with all his brothers and sisters over the years, one feels he and Jeremiah shared a special relationship. Their personalities appear to be much alike, each being men of gentle courage and unfailing dedication to the cause of Mormonism.

The village of Lehi had changed considerably, growing in population from 167 people in 1850 to near 800 by the time Lorenzo returned from England.[205] Pressing upon them now was the turmoil caused by news of the U.S. Army about to enter Utah.

The Saints were remembering the killing, burning and other atrocities suffered at the hands of citizens and authorities of the United States during the past twenty-five years. Now these same people were about to invade their mountain retreat. Apprehension, uncertainty and hostility were the feelings throughout Utah. The Mormons had their backs to the wall. There would be no more running.

Efforts of the Utah Militia to slow the arrival of the army into the territory had succeeded. When General Johnston joined his command in November of 1857, he realized it was too late to enter the valley and they must winter at Fort Bridger. The winter weather would not allow them to cross the mountains. In the spring the U.S. Army would take care of the Mormon trouble makers.

At this point an influential friend of the Mormons, Thomas Kane, a non-member who had been of help in troubled times before, persuaded President Buchanan to give him a letter authorizing him to mediate the explosive situation in Utah if he could. “He arrived in Salt Lake City on February 25, 1858, having come all the way around the Horn and across the desert from California.”[206] After two weeks of talks with his friend, Brigham Young, Kane convinced him the intentions of the federal government were not as harmful to the Saints as they had been led to believe. Kane successfully argued that a meeting with Governor-elect Alfred Cumming would be useful.

Under the protection of Porter Rockwell, Kane traveled to the makeshift Camp Scott that General Johnston had built to house his soldiers after finding Fort Bridger burned by the Mormons. Kane had no trouble convincing Governor Cumming to accompany him into Salt Lake without the army. The Governor was probably more agreeable because of his four month stay with the army, who were camped in the snow and cold and living on short rations.[207]

Governor Cumming entered Utah territory unmolested and was treated with dignity and respect. He administered his office with tact and diplomacy and won the respect and confidence of the Mormon people. However, the Saints still did not completely trust the army.

With spring coming, Brigham Young realized the army could not be far behind. There was no way his militia could stand against well supplied and trained troops. He made a compromise and entered into an agreement with General Johnston. The Mormons would not contest the army’s entrance into Utah Territory, but would adopt a “scorched earth” policy if the troops attempted to occupy Salt Lake itself. The settlers in the city were to move south into Utah Valley before the advancing army, leaving behind only enough men to care for fields and crops. If it appeared the army intended to occupy their homes in Salt Lake, these men were to set fire to them. All stone cut for the Salt Lake Temple was cached and the foundations of the temple covered to make it resemble a plowed field.[208]

In June word came that the army was on the move and would soon arrive in the valley. Thirty thousand Mormons, carrying twenty thousand bushels of grain, machinery, equipment and all the church records and books moved south. It was an awesome sight and Governor Cumming did his best to persuade them to return to their homes. Few returned.

Thirty miles to the south, where Lorenzo lived, the village of Lehi was in the direct path of the exodus. A continuous stream of Saints passed from daylight till dark. Wagons, people walking, cattle, sheep and pigs. Confusion, suffering and sorrow. “Added to all the rest was the almost incessant rain which fell during that spring.”[209]

Lehi sheltered as many of the refugees as possible. Twenty families camped in the meeting house and others were boarded in private homes. Some lived in makeshift shelters against the fort’s wall.[210]

Johnston’s Army In Lehi

Lorenzo makes no mention of the mass movement of the Saints in his journal. His life seemed to continue unmolested by thoughts of the approaching army. On May 30th, as bishops counselor, he received a letter from Brigham Young calling his brother Abram to “go with another man to Platte Bridge to fetch some goods that had been left there the fall before.” Lorenzo also records making ox-bows in his woodshop, hauling timber for a corral and going to the mountain for a load of maple timber.

June 20th he makes his first mention of the army. On Sunday he preached to the Saints and spoke of “a right policy being adopted in reference to our trade with the soldiers.” On the 22nd of June Lorenzo notes that 110 elders (recalled missionaries), arrived from different parts of the world. Brother Charles Fox, one of his companions in England was among them. Elder Fox brought Lorenzo’s trunk from England, for which he was grateful. On the 23^rd it was business as usual, as he made a door for his cellar, and in the Sunday meeting he called upon the people to assist in building a bowery.

June 26th brought the army, 3000 strong, to the city of Salt Lake. With them was a correspondent from the New York Herald who reported the sights that greeted them. “The streets were deserted, the city was deserted. Though surrounded by houses we were nevertheless in a place of desert loneliness. The quietness of the grave prevailed...everything had been made ready for burning.”[211]

The invading monster did not stop in Salt Lake, but continued southward, as General Johnston honored the agreement with Brigham Young not to occupy the city. As news reached Lehi that the army was moving southward, citizens left their homes and camped near Cold Springs. Still not trusting the army and their intentions, Lehi citizens watched the thousands of soldiers, teamsters, vehicles, and immense animal herds move through their community.[212]

By September the army had settled in at Camp Floyd, which they established ten miles south of Lehi near Fairfield. The Saints had returned to their homes in Salt Lake. Mormon men, though still with distrust, found ways the occupation army could be of use to them. Many were employed as woodcutters, adobe-makers and carpenters building quarters at the new military camp. Others found a ready market for fresh vegetables, milk and butter. These items were exchanged for sugar, soap, beans, rice, bacon, or even money, all items in short supply among the settlers.[213]

Lorenzo was not one of the men who went to the army camp to work. During July he was still trying to set his own affairs in order after his long absence. He succeeded in getting the bowery completed, and the church meeting on Sunday, July 4th was held there. He worked in his woodshop making grain cradles, repairing wagons, and building a coffin for Brother Cox.

That the Saints were rather nervous with the large army so close is evident when on July 18th, Lorenzo says, “Attended Teacher’s [Quorum] meeting...went into an arrangement to save all the grain in our city.” And on July 31st, “After dark, I went with some other brethren into the field and set up five acres of wheat. When I reached my house it was one A.M. I was nearly worn out.” Why were they working in their fields at night? The nearby presence of the army was threatening to them.

Lorenzo’s health was not good, but as a member of the city council he made arrangements for an election of city officials. The next three days he “worked at the bench.” On a hot and sultry day in August he traveled with Bishop Evans and Alfred Bell to Camp Floyd. They talked with General Johnston for two hours and Lorenzo found him quite sociable, saying he treated them with courtesy. Returning the ten miles to Lehi through wind and dust, Lorenzo was still not feeling well and was much fatigued after the interview.

During August, Lorenzo “Did some business in reference to our mail [service].” This was probably business conducted as a city councilman. Bishop David Evans was the postmaster and the post office was in his home. It “consisted of a small green box divided into alphabetically arranged pigeon holes and a manual of instructions from the U.S. Post Office Department. The arrival of the mail wagon from Salt Lake City was greeted with great enthusiasm. On at least one occasion the mail wagon arrived while church services were being held and the meeting was adjourned to distribute the mail.”[214]

Under a strain of continual hard physical work, Lorenzo’s health declined still further. As work crowded in on him, he began laboring into the night in his woodshop, and during the day he harvested oats and irrigated corn. His spare, lean body did not allow him to do the heavy work needed. “It being the first time this [corn] was watered, it took all the energy of my body and at three P.M. I went home used up. Went to bed with a pain in my side which lasted two days.”

The following Sunday Brother Abram came to visit and later Lorenzo felt up to writing letters to friends in England. By Monday he was back in his woodshop and tending crops and animals.

The first three weeks of December, Lorenzo had a contract to haul wood for the army at Camp Floyd. He used two teams and hired several men to help him. The results were, “Received in pay $205.00. Paid $31.00 for help.” He spent his hard earned money by paying $85.00 for cattle and $29.00 for goods for family.[215]

Jury Duty

One project of the new year, 1859, was building a house for those who herded the townspeople’s cattle near Utah Lake, fifteen miles from Lehi. On a Tuesday they broke ground for the cellar, got a load of willows and hauled three loads of rock. It snowed that night, but the next day they laid up forty-four perch[216] of rock in the wet, cold weather. By Friday they had the house up to the square.

Brother Jeremiah, from Sanpete, came for a visit the middle of January. Lorenzo writes, “Brother Nail gave Jeremiah a suit of clothes which he much needed and he rejoiced much.”

On Sunday, February 13th, Lorenzo’s wife, Catherine, gave birth to a “fine girl weighing ten and a half pounds.” They named her Catherine Alvenia. Several days later, Lorenzo says, “Catherine had a poor night and I was up considerable with her.”[217]

A crime committed in Lehi three years earlier now touched Lorenzo’s life. He was called to be a juror in the court of Federal Judge John Cradlebaugh in Provo. The Judge was trying for an indictment in the case of Lehi’s first murder which took place in early April of 1856, just a few days before Lorenzo left for his mission to England. “...a vengeful crime plotted by a conspiracy of citizens.”[218]

“Young plural wife Maria Peterson, searching north of Lehi for a lost cow, was apparently raped by forty-year-old Jacob Lance.... Mrs. Peterson, whose husband Canute was on a mission to Scandinavia, filed charges against Lance, the father of four. He was arrested the following day at his home in American Fork and brought to Lehi.”[219] Lance was put in the custody of Utah County constable James Harwood of Lehi. During the night Jacob Lance was murdered.

There were conflicting stories of the murder, one from Constable Harwood and another from Lehi citizens. Lehi Justice of the Peace Alfred Bell held an inquest and ruled that the death blow was, “presumed to have been inflicted by the female he so grossly outraged, though strict search, up to the latest date, had failed to identify the person who so summarily set aside...justice.”[220]

Federal Judge Cradlebaugh, who came to Provo in 1858, told the jury on which Lorenzo was sitting, “The public have no right to take the law into their own hands; they have no right to take persons and punish them.”[221] Cradlebaugh was determined to see justice done in this case. He was also the Federal Judge trying to resolve the horrid happenings of the Mountain Meadows fiasco in southern Utah at which a wagon train headed for California was massacred on September 7, 1857 while Lorenzo was in England.

The Judge had his jury, but he had no witnesses to testify. Lorenzo says, “Rode to Provo on J. Murdock’s wild colt. Arrived at ten A.M.. Took my seat and court adjourned till two P.M., Monday the 14^th.”[222] On the 14th Lorenzo again reported for jury duty, but reported, “no business.” The Judge dismissed the jury.

The Mormons, in their suspicions of the Federal officials, viewed Cradlebaugh’s efforts in this case as an anti-Mormon witch hunt rather than a valid criminal investigation. Lehi people who were subpoenaed to testify in the Lance case ignored the summons. Bishop Evans fled to the mountains. James Harwood, the constable who was an eye witness to the Lance murder did not testify. He later said members of the vigilante ring approached him and “insisted that I should go with them to the mountains to keep from being subpoenaed.”[223]

Judge Cradlebaugh reported, “A subpoena was issued for the Bishop of Lehi, [David Evans] and I heard that he came into [Provo] to testify, probably, but that is the last that has been seen of him. I will stop and examine the matter as I go through there [Lehi], perhaps we shall find the bishop at home.”[224]

The Judge did indeed stop by Lehi to “examine the matter.” He arrived there on Monday, April 4th with a thousand man military escort. The Bishop was not at home. Lorenzo says, “One thousand troops arrived in Lehi about three P.M. and camped for the night. During the night they stole twenty-three rods of fence from one field. Tuesday, the court and troops left our town for Camp Floyd.” Lorenzo made no comment in his journal concerning his feelings about the case. The above entry was his last comment on the events.

Lance’s murder was the source of much intrigue in Lehi. Harwood so feared members of the vigilante ring that he moved to Ogden until Judge Cradlebaugh eventually gave up on the Lance case. In another similar trial, Apostle George A. Smith argued that “In this territory it is a principle of mountain common law, that no man can seduce the wife of another without endangering his own life.”[225]

There were less serious disagreements among the Saints in the time of harvest, 1859. On a Sunday afternoon, Lorenzo learned that, “...A. Adams had tore away the fence and let many hundred head of cattle into our gardens because of his meanness.” Lorenzo spent the next three days gathering garden stuff to save it after the damage. Two weeks later he found “...about 100 head of cattle in the fields in my beets.”[226]

In addition to farming and working in his woodshop, Lorenzo was involved in city and church affairs during the summer and fall of ‘59. His journal at this point becomes very sketchy, only having an entry two or three times a month. In April the Saints of Lehi were honored by a visit from George A. Smith and E. T. Benson. The men preached, and Lorenzo reports, “...we were much entertained.” The people of Lehi gave Brothers Smith and Benson twenty-six dozen eggs, twenty-three bushels of wheat and some meat (tithing).

Lorenzo was responsible for gathering the offering and seeing it was loaded and sent back to Salt Lake with the brethren. Lehi at this time was still a town of small log, mud, and adobe buildings interspersed with gardens and animal shelters.[227]

Threshing time began in September and Lorenzo had 145 bushels of wheat and 180 bushels of oats. Later in the fall he spent a week hauling straw to Camp Floyd.

In October he bought a span of mules and a wagon, paying $65.00. He attended October General Conference in Salt Lake and on November 9th traveled again to the city taking tithing potatoes to the Bishop’s Storehouse. During this last trip to Salt Lake, Lorenzo attended a party at the home of President John Young and because of a storm did not return to Lehi for two days.

On December 31st, Sylvia delivered a girl child, her first born since Lorenzo’s mission to England. She was named Ruth Amorette, and would live to become a gentle caretaker of her parents in their last years.

Another Wife, 1860

The journal gives no warning when, on the day after the baby’s birth, January l, 1860, Lorenzo announces, “Went to the office and saw Brother Calder, President Young’s clerk about having a sister sealed [married] to me. He told me to come next day at eleven A.M.”

Arrangements were made for the marriage before the bride knew of it. After making the appointment, Lorenzo went to see his intended bride, Alice Hanson, but could not immediately find her. He attended a church meeting where he was asked to speak, and later, he found Alice and “...made arrangements with her to go with me to the President’s [office] the next day.”

January 2nd, “I arose and fixed myself. ...at eleven A.M. got to the President’s office...at noon was called into the President’s room and there the sacred ordinance of sealing was performed by President Young. At twelve thirty P.M. I started home and arrived at fifteen minutes before seven P.M. Found all well.”[228]

There is some doubt that Alice went home to Lehi with Lorenzo immediately after the ceremony when he writes, “I” started home.... Did Sylvia and Catherine know of the new wife before she was included in the Hatch household? It is unlikely they were acquainted with her since, Alice, a recent arrival from England, was living in Salt Lake City and Lorenzo never seems to have taken Sylvia or Catherine with him on his travels to the city.

Whatever the chain of events were after taking a third wife, Alice was probably in the household when Lorenzo recorded on March 19^th, “On this day one of my cows died, leaving us without milk and twelve of us in [the] family.” The twelve persons included the three wives, six children, mother-in-law Clarissa Eastman, hired man Charles Fox and Lorenzo himself. The household consisted of this same group when the territorial census was taken four months later.[229]

In September of 1860 Catherine gave birth to her third girl, Lydia Lenora Hatch. The following month, on October 26th, Alice had her first child, a son, who was named John Hatch.

Lorenzo attended April General Conference the following spring, and makes the first mention of taking some his family with him to these meetings.[230] Summer and fall of 1861 were busy ones filled with farming, carpenter work, hauling corn, hay and wood to sell to the army at Camp Floyd. He worked at church activities, including taking tithing goods to Salt Lake regularly. He was also elected to another term in the Territorial Legislature.

In early December Lorenzo traveled to Salt Lake City where the legislature would be meeting. On December 10th he was sworn in by Secretary Worton and took his seat in the social hall along with the other representatives.

January 4, 1861, his thirty-fifth birthday, Lorenzo was still in Salt Lake with the Legislature. His journal does not tell of any holiday festivities this year.

On January 5th he took Alice to the Endowment House to get her endowments. Did she come with him from Lehi in early December, or had she only recently arrived? She remained in Salt Lake, as on January 17th, Lorenzo writes, “Went and saw Alice in the 16^th Ward.”

Friday, January 18th was the last day of the legislative session, and these representatives were no different from what we see today, as Lorenzo reports, “...this being the last day, much discussion, and we continued all night or until five A.M..”[231]

On January 19th Lorenzo took Sylvia, Catherine and Alice to the Endowment house where they were sealed to him by President Brigham Young. Was the ceremony performed a year earlier by Brigham Young in his office only the marriage of Lorenzo and Alice and not the sealing as he says in his journal?

By February 4th Lorenzo was back in Lehi and involved in elections for city offices. He was a member of the committee to “get up a ticket for the election of officers.” Some of the offices were hotly contested, but the ticket Lorenzo and his committee drew up “prevailed.”

A week later Lorenzo had a talk with his brother Abram who, “felt hard toward me because I did not sanction him for mayor.”[232] However, Abram was elected city treasurer. In this year, 1861, Lorenzo’s name does not appear on the list of city officers for the first time since 1853.[233]

On February 14th Lorenzo attended a meeting in Salt Lake City, hearing Brigham Young outline the plan for wagons from Utah to travel to Nebraska and return with the Saints who were daily arriving there from the missions of the world. Most new converts lacked the means and the knowledge needed to cross the plains. The handcart companies of the past few years were unsatisfactory, being slow and taking a high toll in lives and suffering.

Brother Brigham’s plan was to “call” drivers with stock and wagons from the various Utah communities for a period of six months to perform “down and back”, (Utah to Nebraska and back to Utah), trips, bringing the new converts to the promised land. Drivers were called for this duty as men were called to missions and were paid in labor-tithing credit.[234]

On Sunday, February 24th, Lorenzo spoke in meetings and called five men to go as teamsters on the “Church Trains” mission. The following Sunday he called for funds to “fit-out” the teamsters.

On April 20th Lorenzo, “Worked preparing the boys to start the teams. I got the boys off at about twelve noon.” These were the first wagons with Lehi teamsters to leave for Florence, Nebraska. They took with them five wagons, forty oxen and five thousand pounds of flour.[235] These supplies were left at way stations along the trail for the use of the immigrants as they rode in the returning wagons to Salt Lake.

For the majority of the men involved in the work of bringing immigrants to Salt Lake it was a great sacrifice. They not only gave their time, (the trip “down and back” took between five and six months), each ward was expected to outfit these trains from their own pockets. A letter to Bishop David Evans of Lehi outlined Lehi’s assignment:

“Your ward will be expected to furnish eight ox or mule teams, (six mules or four yoke of oxen to each team), an equal number of goods and trusty teamsters, and one mounted guard, armed and equipped for a four or five months journey, with clothing, provisions, ammunition, ferriage means, ox or mule shoes, spades, axes, picks, ropes, augers, saws, etc.... Each team will be expected to have sufficient boxes to carry at least one thousand pounds of flour.... The flour and grain must be brought to [Salt Lake City] and a full...report made to us of flour for the poor, number of teams, etc., so that a settlement can be made with you after the return in the fall.”[236]

Lorenzo’s brother Abram, who had a small hotel in his home and was one of the early merchants of Lehi, made several “down and back” trips for the Church Train, but he also found a way to make it a profitable trip for himself. “In 1861...I made a trip to the States for the purpose of bringing our emigrants across the plains and buying and freighting merchandise for our store. We also bought and freighted goods for many others, receiving for the goods delivered at Lehi, first cost and [then] twenty cents per pound for transportation. This we found a profitable business.” He made the journey as a part of the Church Train several times.[237] It is interesting that Abram was able to bring freight back to Utah, since each of the returning Church Train wagons were to carry eight to twelve immigrants and their belongings. Abram made his place in Utah history more as an entrepreneur than as a church man.

In May Lorenzo suffered chills and fever reminiscent of the ague endured fourteen years earlier at Winter Quarters, Nebraska. However, he was soon back at work.

One evening he started in search of his band of sheep which had run off to the mountains. He met his son Lafayette herding the thirty-six sheep towards home. “The wolves had killed one and bit another. I was thankful to receive them thus as there was great danger of all of them being killed.” Lafayette was ten years old. This is the first mention Lorenzo makes of his sons helping him on the farm. The sheep were marked and sent to Philander Bills ranch on Dry Creek. Bills took them on shares, agreeing to give Lorenzo two-thirds of the wool and two-thirds of the increase and keep the original stock in good shape.

In July the Saints of Lehi celebrated both the Fourth of July and the Twenty Fourth of July. Lorenzo was the “orator of the day” for the first celebration, and helped make a display in the Lehi Tabernacle for the twenty fourth.

There were visits from Brother Jeremiah and Heber C. Kimball spent the night at the Hatch home on another occasion. In August Lorenzo began to build a rock wall around his yard and was appointed Adjutant to Colonel David Evans, of the Utah Militia. They mustered at the American Fork and passed inspection by General Aaron Johnson.

In October he attended the State Fair in Salt Lake City, perhaps taking some of his family along, as he mentions traveling with six persons. During this month he worked for Orin Porter Rockwell, a resident of Fairfield, ten miles to the south, building a large barn 23 X 100 feet. Lorenzo was also building an addition to his own house during October.

Second Term, Utah Legislature

On Saturday, November 7th, “Posted my books and made arrangements to go to the city as a member of the Legislative Assembly from Utah and Cedar Counties.” The following Tuesday a joint legislative session heard the annual Governor’s message read to them “by himself in person.” The Governor was John W. Dawson, of Indiana. His message called for the people of Utah to assist in the present (Civil) war.[238]

Lorenzo was a member of the committee appointed to plan the Legislative Union Ball held on Christmas night. At seven P.M. on that evening he, “...met with the gentlemen and ladies who were invited to the ball. There were seventy couples. It went off in splendid order. We broke up at two A.M.”

If any of Lorenzo’s wives attended the festivities, we do not know of it. Certainly Sylvia did not, as when Lorenzo arrived home the next day he found Sylvia with a new daughter, born on December 23rd.

A most important item of business for the representatives in 1861-62 was a bill creating a convention to write a state constitution preparatory to the hoped for admission to the United States. If Utah was admitted as a state, they could elect their own officers and not have to deal with the appointees from Washington D.C. that were now being sent to the Utah Territory.

The journey home to Lehi after the Christmas Ball was not solely because of the new born daughter, Elizabeth Ann. Lorenzo and Bishop Evans went to Cedar Fort and called a meeting to appoint delegates from Cedar County to meet in convention on 20 January, 1862 to draw up the new state constitution. Meetings were also held in Alpine City and in Lehi for Utah County. Lorenzo was one of the delegates elected.[239]

On January 2nd, Delegate Hatch returned to Salt Lake to finish the business of the Territorial Legislature and attend the constitutional convention beginning on January 20th.

State Of Deseret

The convention met at the court house in Salt Lake on the day appointed. It included nine men elected by the City of Salt Lake plus delegates such as Lorenzo, elected by other counties in Utah. The convention was organized and a committee of five, George A. Smith, Albert Carrington, Elias Smith, Z. Snow, and John Taylor were appointed to draft a state constitution. Three days later the new constitution was presented, read and reread, and finally signed by each of the delegates. The new state was to be called Deseret.[240]

Lorenzo H. Hatch said of this occasion, “We each one of the delegates signed our name to the constitution. This is an important era in our history.”[241] Wilford Woodruff, also one of the signers, said, “...I consider it the most important document that I ever attached my signature to.”[242]

Lorenzo returned to Lehi, where he was immediately appointed to go to Provo for a meeting of the Saints in his district. They presented their choice of names for the officers of the State of Deseret. The people of Utah and Cedar Counties agreed upon a “ticket for election” of Brigham Young for Governor; Heber C. Kimball for Lt. Governor; John M. Bernhisel as Delegate to Congress; L.E. Harrington and J.W. Cummins as senators; and A.H. Thurber, Lorenzo H. Hatch and Aaron Johnson as representatives.[243]

The citizens of Utah were trying to gain admittance to the United States, while the southern states were trying to secede. A petition to the U.S. Congress in an attempt to gain statehood for their newly organized State of Deseret was denied. However, the full slate of elected Deseret officers, with Brigham Young as governor, continued to meet for several years. Many of the officers, like Lorenzo, were members of the Territorial Legislature and the decisions they made as a “ghost” government of Deseret became law when they met as the official legislature. This unusual political activity added to the suspicions in Washington D.C. that the Mormons did not uphold the laws of the land.

Of Lorenzo’s life during the spring and summer of 1862, we know very little. He made only four entries in his journal between February and December of that year. He was still laboring with the Lehi Ward to obtain what was needed for the church trains that were leaving each spring for Florence, Nebraska to bring in immigrants. On February 10th he says, “At Sunday meeting I called for a fit-out for the boys who were called to go to the States and continued my call till most of the required articles were raised.”

In this year of 1862 President Abraham Lincoln signed into law the anti-bigamy bill known as the Morrill Law. The enforcement of the law was postponed, however, because of the involvement of the United States in the Civil War. Not for many years would a law against polygamy be passed by the Federal government which would cause the Saints great concern.

George A. Smith and some of the brethren from Salt Lake were overnight guests in the Hatch home during the spring of the year, and on April 5th Lorenzo went to Salt Lake City for General Conference. He says, “Saturday ...I started on foot for the city and traveled thirty miles without sitting down or resting over five minutes...I arrived in the city very much fatigued.” Why he chose to travel the distance by shanks mare is a mystery. He had mules and wagons, so it was not a problem of necessity. He seems to take great pride in the accomplishment. However, after conference he rode back to Lehi with a neighbor, Canute Peterson.

On June 10th, Alice presented Lorenzo with another son who was named Willard, and on October 22nd Catherine had her first son after three daughters. They named him Thomas.

Utah Legislature, Third Term

In December Lorenzo left Lehi to begin his third term as a delegate to the Utah Territorial Legislature. On Wednesday, December 10th he met in a joint session to hear the new governor, Stephen S. Harding, read his message. Lorenzo says it took him over an hour and was “...one of the most abusive documents ever delivered to such a body of men. ...Suffice it to say that his one friend was ashamed of him. This body was grossly insulted and none returned to the assembly this day. I spent the rest of the day in the Historian’s office.”[244] Wilford Woodruff recorded that the address was “received in silence.”[245] Thus the Saints learned of a new antagonist in their midst.

On December 23rd, the somewhat less enthusiastic delegate from Lehi learned that there was serious sickness in his family at home. On arriving there Lorenzo found nine members afflicted with whooping cough. He remained in Lehi during Christmas and New Years, “doing the best I could for my family.”

On January 5th Lorenzo returned to the city and his duties as a legislator. He reports conducting an inspection of the State Library as chairman of the Library Committee. Despite the shocking address of Governor Harding, Lorenzo says, “Things are moving harmoniously in the house.”

On the last day of the session, he bought some lumber and sent it home with his team. Returning to Lehi he took up his labors of supporting an ever growing family. Lorenzo was slowly accumulating the worldly goods necessary to make a comfortable life for them all. In February he was elected Mayor of Lehi. One month later, in March 1863, a message came from Brigham Young calling Lorenzo to move his family north to Cache Valley and assume responsibilities as bishop of the LDS ward at Franklin.

CHAPTER 6

Cares Unceasing

In 1855 the Utah Territorial Legislative Assembly granted Cache Valley to President Brigham Young as a herd ground. Indians living there had varied reactions. However, a severe winter in 1855 killed 1500 of 2000 church owned cattle in the valley, and with the invasion of Johnston’s army into Utah Territory in 1858, Cache valley was temporarily vacated by Mormon settlers.[246]

When Civil War threatened the United States in late 1860, President Lincoln called the army east, leaving the Saints with a peace of mind they had not enjoyed for some years. As the menace from the army faded, Cache Valley was occupied with a mighty rush brought about by a steady stream of immigrant converts to the church pressing in on the established towns to the south.

The settlement of Franklin was born in 1860 from this pressure of population growth in the valley. Preston Thomas, a schoolteacher in Lehi, was called in 1860 as the first Bishop of Franklin but in 1863 he was asked to move his family to nearby Bear Lake County and become Bishop at Wardboro.[247]

Peter Maughan, a forceful, capable immigrant from England was stake president over the villages of northern Cache Valley and Apostle E. T. Benson, Lorenzo’s old missionary companion and friend, had been assigned by Brigham Young to live among the Saints of the valley to guide and direct them. It was probably due to this friendship that Lorenzo’s leadership abilities were remembered when a new bishop was needed for the town of Franklin.

In the fall of 1862, Colonel Patrick Edward Conner with his U.S. Army troops from the newly established Camp Douglas overlooking Salt Lake City, were sent to Cache Valley. The Indians had become very demanding of the people who lived there though the Mormon settlers tried to live by the words of Brigham Young, “it is better to feed the Indians than fight them.” This attitude did nothing to soften the actions of the Indians and they continued to attack the emigrant trains and any small party separated from the settlements.[248]

Bishop of Franklin

In January 1863, five months before Lorenzo arrived, Colonel Conner’s troops attacked the Shoshoni in their camp on Bear River twelve miles north of Franklin. Over 300 Indians were killed, men, women and children. This became known as the Battle Creek Massacre and was “one of the apparent barbarisms which history has to record, showing that there was much brutality and poor judgment on each side.”[249]

The battle on Bear River was a meaningful one to the people of Cache Valley, as it marked the beginning of the end of Indian troubles in this area. When Lorenzo Hill Hatch arrived at Franklin he found approximately 40 families living in a fort-like arrangement of mud and log cabins. The village was located on the dangerous north flank of Cache Valley, sheltered on the east by Bear River Mountain Range. Though the area was well watered by the Muddy (Cub) River and Maple Creek, the settlers were unable to occupy farm lands or ranges because of threats from the Shoshoni Indians.

On May 1, 1863 Lorenzo traveled to Cache Valley, taking Alice and her two small sons. They set up housekeeping in a cabin on the east side of the fort. Apostle E. T. Benson visited there a few days after their arrival to ordain Lorenzo Bishop of Franklin.

Bishop Hatch’s assignment was to guide his group spiritually, economically and politically. It would take all the grit and finesse the thirty-seven-year-old Lorenzo could muster. He was to function without the aid of counselors, as did many of the early bishops in small communities. Peter Maughan and E.T. Benson, though living in Logan, many hard miles from Franklin, would give assistance and guidance when needed.

Later in the year Lorenzo brought Catherine and her four children to Franklin. Though the three wives had shared the six room house in Lehi with apparent harmony, they would never again live together under the same roof.[250]

It was the fall of the year, and Lorenzo still did not have the third house finished for Sylvia and her five children. He arranged for a local carpenter to work on the house and make it livable while he traveled once again to Lehi to bring Sylvia and the remainder of the family possessions to Franklin. The family included Grandmother Eastman, Sylvia’s widowed mother.

Lorenzo’s brother, Jeremiah, with his family, and sister Adeline, with her husband, George Barber, had relocated in Smithfield a few miles from Franklin. Jeremiah returned to Lehi to help Lorenzo’s oldest son, twelve-year-old Lafayette, drive the family livestock to Cache Valley. Lorenzo, Sylvia, Grandmother Eastman and the remaining four children traveled north in a light covered wagon pulled by a pair of black mules not much larger than Shetland ponies. They traveled to Murray, Utah, the first day and to Salt Lake City the second day where they visited at the home of Osro Eastman, Sylvia’s brother.

The third night found them in Ogden, where they stayed with Josephus Hatch, Lorenzo’s uncle, and oldest of the Hatch family in Utah. The journey to Logan on the sixth day was difficult. Four-year-old Ruth became sick and the weather was turning nasty. There was snow on the ground and wind whistled through the little covered wagon. Sylvia put her rag carpet over the bows under the wagon cover to make it as comfortable as possible, but “for all that it was anything but comfortable.” In Logan they drove to the home of Apostle E.T. Benson where his “splendid wife, Permelia,...took us in and gave us a most wonderful dinner which I am sure was the best I have ever tasted.”[251]

When Lorenzo arrived at the home of his sister Adeline Barber in Smithfield, he learned that Sylvia’s cabin in Franklin was not finished. He decided Sylvia and the children should stay with the Barbers while he went on to Franklin to finish the house.

Lorenzo drove to Franklin alone, but after a couple of days in the Barber home, Mother Sylvia asked George Barber to take her and the children to Franklin. Young Hezekiah remembers that Father Lorenzo was “worried” when he looked first at his newly arrived family and then at the cabin which had a roof on it, but no windows or doors. The day was unmercifully cold. Sylvia ordered a big fire, various covers were nailed on doors and windows, and the children hovered close to the fireplace. [252]

In February of that year Alice had her third son, who was named Ezra Taft Hatch for Lorenzo’s friend and mentor, E. T. Benson. On May 15, 1864, eight-year-old Hezekiah was baptized by his father and given the responsibility, with a neighbor boy, of taking the family sheep to the east hills each day, guarding them, and then bringing them home at night. The Hatch sheep numbered about twenty-five. The neighbor boy had a like number to watch.

Hezekiah and thirteen-year-old Lafayette were also given other responsibilities on the farm. They milked cows, fed pigs and chickens, and chopped wood. Hezekiah especially remembers the job of getting enough wood to supply the three Hatch families. Through the summer, Lorenzo and his boys made junkets to the nearby canyon for wood. After it was hauled home, it still had to be chopped and carried in every night to feed the hungry old stoves.[253]

By the spring of 1864 the pioneers felt secure enough to move from their mud and log huts in the fort to city lots which had been surveyed off, one and one-fourth acres each. The families were happy to leave their unsightly cabins with dirt floors and roofs, or perhaps a crude, leaky dugout.

The first school in Franklin was taught by Hannah Comish in her home on the east side of the fort.[254] The older Hatch children attended school for three months in the winter. Hezekiah was not impressed. The class included pupils ranging in age from six to twenty, and the teacher, according to Hezekiah, “possessed neither education nor judgment.”

Sylvia and her mother, Clarissa Eastman, were both educated women and taught her children to read and do sums. Eight-year-old Hezekiah could read in the second reader without hesitation, but some of the twenty-year-olds struggled in embarrassment. He remembers they had a different teacher each year for the next six or seven years, and suggests that the “state of learning ...was primitive.”[255]

Lorenzo found his responsibilities as bishop in this outpost village to be demanding and varied. He was not only responsible for the spiritual well being of his “flock,” he was also to instruct them in improved ways of making a living, building homes, and caring for wives and children. He counseled all members of the ward, mediated their disputes, and was their representative in dealing with church or territorial officials.

One of the most time consuming of his obligations was the collecting of tithes and contributions. There was almost no money in the hamlet, so barter was the common arrangement. The most important institution of trade and exchange in Franklin was the tithing house. The tithing house received produce and livestock, labor and cash, offered by each member as the ten per cent of their net increase required by the church. There were 108 tithe-paying members in Franklin when Lorenzo became bishop in 1863.[256]

Some of the tithing goods received were used locally. The hay went to feed tithing cattle, butter to feed tithing house help, etc.. Tithing of lumber, labor or money built meeting houses and schools for the people of Franklin. Receipts not distributed locally were taken to the central tithing house in Logan.[257] As both market and marketplace the tithing house regulated prices, extended credit, and functioned as a kind of bank. Visitors camped in the yard, and the poor came there for relief. The post office was also housed in the tithing house.

This operation was Lorenzo’s responsibility and his lack of education was a handicap. Careful records had to be kept of each person’s contributions. It was difficult to find someone in the small community who could act as clerk, keeping books and writing letters. Perhaps from this experience he gained his great respect for education and was ever after concerned that his children have the best schooling possible. The following year, under the direction of Bishop Hatch, the town began to build a rock schoolhouse.

On May 18, 1864, Lorenzo was appointed postmaster of Franklin, Cache County, Utah by the Federal Government, a post he would hold for the next three years.[258]

In September of 1864 there occurred an episode with the Indians that tested the courage of young Bishop Hatch. About 500 Shoshoni, on their way to Bear Lake, camped just north of Franklin. A few became drunk and began riding through the town, breaking windows in a house owned by George Alder, which was outside the fort. One of the Indians rode his horse over Mrs. Alder when she tried to stop the destruction of her home. Her screams brought some of the men and one of them shot the intruder.

The nearby Indian camp witnessed the incident and when their member was shot they began making war cries, which sent shudders through the settlers. Two Franklin men were at that time riding toward the Indian camp, unaware of the trouble, and were immediately taken prisoner by the Indians. One escaped and carried the word back to Franklin, while the other was dragged to the Indian camp, where bucks and squaws danced around him and prodded him with knives.[259]

Bishop Hatch immediately sent couriers to Logan for help, and ordered the entire community to gather inside the fort at the log school house. John Hatch, four-year-old son of Lorenzo and Alice, remembered, in his later years, huddling in fear with the children and mothers of Franklin throughout that anxious night.[260]

Pioneer William Woodward,[261] who was present at the time, says in his diary that Bishop Hatch went to the Indian camp to plead for the safety of the captive and keep the Indians calm until help could reach Franklin. Woodward says Bishop Hatch spent part of the night in the camp and asked the Indians for a place to sleep, which was an indication to them of bravery, a characteristic they admired. [262]

By nine o’clock that night the Minute Men of Cache Valley began arriving in Franklin. By the light of a full moon the Indians could see the gathering in the distance and ceased the torture of their captive. About eleven o’clock, President Maughan and E. T. Benson arrived. They joined Bishop Hatch in the hostile Indian camp and after much palaver with Chief Washakie, the parties reached a peace agreement. The Indians were promised oxen, flour, cheese and other food.[263] The crisis was over.

A reorganization of the local militia was held in Logan on August 5, 1865. “...the regiment of infantry and battalion of cavalry previously organized in Cache Co., commanded by Colonel E. T. Benson, were previewed by President Brigham Young in company of Heber C. Kimball and several of the twelve.... There were nearly 800 men on the ground.... There being enough men in the district for a brigade, an election was held...which resulted in E.T. Benson for Brigadier General; Wm. Hyde, Adj; Peter Maughan, Quartermaster; D.B. Lamaraux, Surgeon; and James H. Martineau, Assistant Adjutant.”[264]

Lorenzo was a major in the 6^th Battalion Infantry, Cache County District. A list of weapons owned by each man reveals that Lorenzo owned one breech loader, one revolver, two pounds of powder, five pounds of lead, 100 cartridges and one sword. He had sixty-one men in his command, probably the men from Franklin. Together the command had twenty-seven revolvers, two swords, forty rifles, ten muskets or shotguns and 3260 rounds of ammunition.[265]

The bloody Civil War to the east ended during this year, but the Cache Valley people were barely aware of the great contest. They were involved in a little war of their own. The war of survival.

The settlers struggled to find some means of earning cash income with which to buy cattle, draft animals, machinery, equipment and other supplies. There was not much surplus in the crops they grew during those first years, but when Colonel Conner and his troops camped near Franklin, the people rushed with butter, eggs, milk and available produce to exchange these commodities for cash, blankets or clothing.

Another possible source of income was a spinoff from the 1861-62 discovery of gold and other metals in Montana and northern Idaho. “Virtually none of the Cache Valley settlers went to Montana to work in the mines.”[266] However, large numbers of the men engaged in freighting activity, since their valley was situated along the route from Salt Lake City and Ogden to the mines. Freighting and the selling of produce to freighters were both welcome sources of income for these impoverished people.[267]

Four days after Lorenzo’s thirty-ninth birthday, on January 8, 1865, Catherine gave birth to her second son, and Lorenzo’s thirteenth child. They named him Hyrum.

Railroad and School of Prophets

In 1866 Lorenzo, with J. Goslind, Alex Stalker and James Howell began building a grist mill. They cut a ditch from Cub river to bring water in as a means of power. The mill was constructed of “rock work for lower story and a log building on the second floor with one run of stone and good bolt for gearing....”[268]

Bishop Hatch also became one of the owners of a threshing machine, purchased and used cooperatively. As an investment this machine was successful. Lorenzo says, “[it] has enabled me to live and to do more to develop than many of my brethren.”

In November of this year Alice gave birth to her fourth son, George Jeremiah Hatch. Four months later, Catherine’s sixth child and fourth daughter was born. They named her Hannah Adeline, perhaps in remembrance of Lorenzo’s wife who died at Winter Quarters so many years ago.

1867 was a “grasshopper year” in Franklin. They hatched by the “millions” and took every spear of wheat as it came through the ground. The fields were brown with hoppers. Hezekiah, who was twelve years old, remembers how the Hatch family tried to deal with this crisis. “Father got us youngsters out and as many more as he could rustle, and we drove the hoppers into ditches filled with water, with a view that they could be drowned. We soon discovered that this could not be done. We then plowed ditches through the land and shoveled them out as smooth as we could. We filled these ditches with straw to the depth of a foot and drove the pests into these. Fire was set to the straw which effectively destroyed the hoppers. That year we raised a partial crop, sufficient to fill our needs, as well as to partially supply some of the people of the ward who had refused to work as we did.”[269]

The first talk of a railroad in Utah was heard during this year. Brigham Young and the brethren in Salt Lake, realizing the impact a railroad would have on the Mormon people, organized the School of the Prophets in November of 1867 to deal with what they saw as both a threat and a blessing.

The School of the Prophets was a group of the leading men of Mormondom who met to discuss religious doctrines, economic policies, and political problems. “Under the direction of the First Presidency...they [made] plans to combat the potentially undesirable influence a rapid influx of non-Mormons might bring.”[270] In his little spring buggy Lorenzo attended weekly meetings of the School of the Prophets in Logan.[271]

The transcontinental railroad reached the borders of Utah in 1868 giving the citizens ample opportunity for employment. The Union Pacific line from Echo, Utah to Promontory, where the golden spike was driven, was constructed largely by Mormons. This was accomplished under a contract agreement with Brigham Young, who let sub-contracts to bishops from Cache Valley on the north and Utah Valley on the south.[272]

The Central Pacific contracted the line from Ogden westward with the firm of Benson, Farr and West. One of the partners in this firm was Lorenzo’s friend E.T. Benson, who in the fall of 1868, sub-contracted a portion of the railroad to the Bishop of Franklin.

This was a time of high hopes for the Hatch family. Lorenzo was a builder and competent foreman. He was to build what he termed “one mile of the worst rocky grading.” This job required a crew of men to do the work, a cook tent and a cook. Competent, spunky Sylvia volunteered to serve as cook. Most of the hired men were friends from Franklin. The job was done with speed and enthusiasm, and the Hatch family expected to make a good profit from the undertaking. However, the Central Pacific was in financial difficulties because of the manipulations of some insiders and it was not until 1869 that Lorenzo received any money from the job. He was owed $1200.00 for services and $250.00 for supplies.[273] He was never paid this amount in full, but had to settle for sixty cents on the dollar which included a few old scrapers and carts of dubious value.[274]

Lorenzo does not dwell on this disappointment in his journal, but his son Hezekiah, who stayed home with his brother Lafayette to run the farm during the long hot summer, was quite bitter about the outcome.

The boys raised 2000 bushels of wheat that summer with only the help of an occasional hired hand. When the railroad job ended in financial disaster, this wheat was used to pay the men who had worked for Lorenzo. All hopes of a financial lift, all the work of Father and Mother during the summer, and all the pride of the brothers who had labored to improve the family finances had been dashed. Hezekiah said in his journal, “The name of [railroad magnate] Leland Stanford never sounds good to me. He and his associates lived in affluence and died worth millions, while my father found himself ruined.”[275]

Perhaps Lorenzo did not dwell on the disappointment of his railroad venture because the pressing flood of other responsibilities allowed him no time to do so. The Franklin Ward was growing, and in April of this year Bishop Hatch organized the first Relief Society for the women of Franklin, and on the 13^th of this month he received word of the death of his brother Jeremiah’s wife in Smithfield.

He was also serving as selectman for Cache county and in this year he managed to have Franklin incorporated as a city under the laws of Utah Territory. The physical description of Franklin in this act of incorporation was given as, “commencing at a point eighty rods east from the northeast corner of Lorenzo H. Hatch and Co.’s grist mill, thence west four miles, thence south four and one-half miles, thence east four miles, thence north four and one half miles to the place of beginning.”[276]

Under the direction of a five member city council many early settlements in Cache Valley passed laws reminiscent of the New England Puritans. Ordinances enacted included punishment for profanity, playing on Sunday, being cruel to animals, or being rowdy.[277]

Before the year was out, Alice presented Lorenzo with a fifth male child, Heber Albert, and Lorenzo began planning for the telegraph line to be extended to Franklin. He organized the men to bring the needed poles from the mountains, and called for help to buy wire and supplies. This was a cooperative venture of the Mormon people of Utah. They were striving to extend the telegraph to all their communities.

The winter of 1868-69 was a typical Cache Valley winter including snow so deep it obliterated all the fences and made the word “chore” take on new meaning. Lorenzo had two sons who were old enough to help support the three families, and each of them was given a share in the responsibilities. Feeding animals sometimes required shoveling a tunnel to the haystack, scooping off the snow and cutting the tough wild hay with a giant hay knife. Water for the animals meant chopping through several inches of ice each morning, day after day. Supplying wood for heat and cooking in the three Hatch homes was a never ending job shared by all.

At times the winter would hold the town in its icy grip for weeks, but sooner or later would come the slight thaw which allowed a few brave souls to stir with the crunch of snowshoes on snow, or the hiss of a horse drawn sleigh. Hezekiah Hatch remembers he had a homemade sled drawn by a trained dog, so all was not darkness and gloom, there were times when at least the young people enjoyed the snows.[278]

The School of the Prophets put into effect a cooperative plan they felt was necessary to protect their way of life from the “gentiles” flooding into Utah with the coming railroad. This plan stressed cooperative stores and factories rather than individual enterprise, and cooperative stores were soon established in most of the communities in the territory.

Existing businesses were absorbed by the local co-op, with the owners being paid in co-op shares. The stores were owned by the people as they could all purchase stock in them. When the co-op began to make a profit, the company tithed its profits first and then distributed the rest to the stockholders. The most controversial part of the plan was the proposition that Mormons should not trade with outsiders.[279]

Franklin Co-op Store and Telegraph

A co-op mercantile store was established in Franklin in 1869 with Lorenzo Hill Hatch as president. The original capital stock in dollars was $2,400.00.[280] The store was set up in the vestry of the meeting house at first and later moved to a nearby rock building.[281] This added responsibility for Lorenzo brought some hard feelings and problems among the members, since the idea was that the people should not patronize the stores of “outsiders” nor should they open competing establishments.

In 1870, Smart, Chadwick and Hull opened a store the people called the “One-Eyed Co-op” (All church organized co-ops displayed the all-seeing eye of Jehovah). This problem Bishop Hatch dealt with by convincing the men they should sell out to the Franklin Ward Co-op. [282] “I called a directors meeting of the store, [Ward Co-op]. We sent a proposition to the other brethren stating on what terms we would receive their goods, etc.. After awhile we got an answer stating on what terms they would turn over the goods, which proposition was wrong and out of place.” Two days later a meeting was held between the two parties and Lorenzo reports, “At this meeting the opposition gave way and came to terms.”[283]

The fall of 1869 brought the joy of birth and the sorrow of death into Lorenzo’s life. On September 6th Catherine gave birth to her seventh child, Sarah Ella, just three days after Lorenzo learned of the death of his old friend, E.T. Benson.

The death of E.T.Benson, who was only fifty-eight years old, lay heavily upon Lorenzo. It so touched him that he wrote of the event in his journal, which had lain dormant for two years. “This was one of the heaviest strokes that has happened to the people of this valley and to me it was almost unbearable. I have traveled and preached to the people, [in company with him]...in this valley, in England, Bear Lake, and other places. We were on the most intimate terms.”[284]

In 1870 the entire population of Franklin was counted at 588 souls,[285] twenty-two of which were members of the three households sustained by Lorenzo Hill Hatch. The 1870 U.S. Census shows the occupation of Lorenzo as “Bishop of Franklin” and the value of his real estate is $2000.00 and personal property $1400.00. Fourteen of the Hatch children were attending school, including Abram Hatch, the now motherless eight-year-old son of Brother Jeremiah. Abram was living with Lorenzo and Sylvia.

The census of nearby Smithfield includes Lorenzo’s sister, Elizabeth Hatch Winn with her husband Thomas Winn and two daughters. Also living in Smithfield were nineteen-year-old Alva Hatch and his wife Mary. Alva is the son of Brother Jeremiah, who as a widower, was on a mission to Vermont at this time.

By June 1867 telegraph communications opened between Logan and St. George. A push was made to extend the line north from Logan, and on December 19, 1869, the line reached Franklin. The original telegraph operators were told to regard themselves as missionaries, serving their community and church without compensation. Young people in their teens were sent to Salt Lake City to attend telegraphy school. Lorenzo’s son, Hezekiah, later reported being paid $35 a month in tithing produce for his services as an operator.[286]

On October 30th Alice added to the Hatch family with the birth of her first daughter, Marie Annettie.

The following spring Lorenzo began laying the foundation of a large rock house for his family. President Peter Maughan, who had been stake president in northern Cache County since 1860 died, and Lorenzo wrote of the respect shown him by the Saints and Lamanites (Indians) alike. The ranks of those who had known the rigors of Kirkland, Nauvoo, and crossing the plains to settle this wilderness were thinning.

The completion of the transcontinental road offered the possibility of a railroad stretching northward from Ogden, through Brigham City, into Cache Valley and on through southeastern Idaho to Montana. In 1871 plans were made to construct such a road. The Utah Northern Railroad Company was organized on August 23, 1871, with John W. Young, president and superintendent; William B. Preston, vice-president; Moses Thatcher, secretary; and on the Board of Directors were: Joseph Richardson and LeGrand Lockwood of New York City, William B. Preston and Hezekiah Thatcher of Logan, Franklin D. Richards of Ogden, Lorenzo Snow and Samuel Smith of Brigham City, William Maughan of Wellsville, O.N. Liljenquist of Hyrum, William Hyde of Hyde Park, Samuel Roskelley of Smithfield, Marriner W. Merrell of Richmond, and Lorenzo H. Hatch of Franklin. This appointment would consume a good deal of Lorenzo’s time and effort in the next few years.

Hezekiah Hatch was sixteen years old that December and being slight of build, he remembers that his father and brother, Lafayette, relieved him as much as they could of work which required heavy lifting. He had shown a quickness in book learning and Lorenzo felt he should be sent to a select school in Logan, taught by Charles G. Davis, a well educated man from the east.

Hitching his best team to the light spring wagon one morning late in December, 1871, Father Hatch drove his son to Logan and located him in a boarding home. The thought of being alone in a big town brought Hezekiah a moment of anguish, “...I was always very timid in meeting people, and when my Father said good-bye, and left me...tears came to my eyes, and my voice broke when I asked him to take me back home and not send me to school. He kindly told me that it would be best for me to stay and get an education while I had the opportunity; that there was no chance of getting any at Franklin, and he needed someone to keep his personal accounts.... I knew his limited education and the great difficulty he had in getting anyone who was capable of writing a fair hand, let alone do any accounting. Father told me after, that it was very difficult for him to drive away and leave me, but knowing that it was the right thing to do, he gave the horses a crack of the whip and was soon out of sight.”[287]

The Hatch family had prospered through hard work and good management and in 1872, when the income of the average family in Franklin was estimated to be about $400.00, Lorenzo Hill Hatch was listed as one of eight residents of Franklin whose income was in excess of $l000.00.[288] A large number of skilled rock masons immigrated to Cache Valley about this time, and in January of this year Lorenzo reported, “...my house is a fine rock building two and a half stories high with much cut stone. When it is completed [it] will be one of the best buildings in the county. The roof is on and one of the bedroom floors is laid. Also most of the glass and sash are in.”[289]

Mormon Hotel

This new home was much needed by Bishop Hatch, as he had, for the past several years been keeping what had become known as the “Mormon Hotel,” although there was no charge. With the help of Sylvia, an open house was maintained for all who traveled through Franklin. “Especially at conference time did church leaders from Bear Lake make the Hatch home a stopping place on their way to Salt Lake. In April the brethren would cross over to Cache Valley on snow shoes.”[290] One who impressed the Hatch children with his friendliness and vigorous personality was Apostle Charles C. Rich who stood six feet four and weighed 250 pounds.

The “Mormon Hotel” was used not only by Mormons, but travelers going to Montana, or coming from Idaho, also knew and respected the home. The expense of this free room and board was borne by the Hatch family. Despite five years of destruction by grasshoppers, Lorenzo and his boys raised twelve to fifteen hundred bushels of grain in 1872. Bishop Hatch felt that, “No man has received more manifest blessings in this respect [wheat harvested] than I have, for which I thank my God.”[291]

In March, 1872 Catherine had her eighth child, and sixth daughter, Chloe Viola. On November 12th Alice gave birth to a stillborn son. Working long into the cold night, Lorenzo fashioned a small coffin in his woodshop. Next day, with the help of a friend, Brother Biggs, he buried the unnamed child on the west side of the Franklin burying grounds. This was the first time the Hatch family had buried one of their own since moving to Franklin.[292]

In this year a government survey crew visited Cache Valley and drew the Utah state line about half way between the settlements of Lewiston and Franklin, placing Franklin within the Territory of Idaho instead of Utah. This disrupted the political unity of the valley and especially affected Franklin. Lorenzo Hill Hatch resigned his seat as a selectman for the county of Cache and the people turned their attention to the politics of Idaho. The State of Utah was ninety percent Mormon, but in Idaho Mormons made up only between ten and twenty percent of the population. [293]

Idaho Legislature

Idaho usually voted Democratic and when the Mormon settlements of southeastern Idaho came under that jurisdiction, Mormons added their votes to those of the Democrats. With the inclusion of the northern Cache Valley and Bear Lake settlements within the Idaho boundaries, the Idahoans picked up the anti-Mormon crusade that was so strong among the Gentiles in Utah. But Oneida County, which included Franklin, was dominated by Mormon population, and in the fall of 1872 Lorenzo Hill Hatch received a large majority of the votes from that county to be elected as a Representative to the Idaho Legislature, along with Alexander Stalker. They were the first Mormons to sit with that body of law makers.[294]

Representatives Hatch and Stalker left Franklin on November 27th to journey to Boise, Idaho for their legislative duties. The 250 mile trip was one of high adventure. A profane highwayman’s order to halt or be shot was ignored by the coach driver who cracked his whip over the horses and made good their get-away. They jolted along through the night in the rain and wind, and at early morning light crossed the Snake River on a ferry boat.

About seven P.M., after traveling all day, the coach was approaching Rock Creek when the six horse team spooked and bolted, turning the coach over in the mucky road. Lorenzo’s left hip was bruised by the wreck, but he calls it “not serious.” For the next hour and a half the stage driver and passengers struggled in the mud and cold to right the coach. Arriving at Rattle Snake Station, the passengers slept for a short time sitting in the stage, as there were no other accommodations. The battered coach arrived at Boise City on the afternoon of December lst where Lorenzo found lodging at the Stage Hotel of Wells Fargo for “$6.50 in greenbacks,” supper and breakfast included. Later Stalker and Hatch took lodging and board at a Mr. Clayton’s for “$13.50 a week in greenbacks or $12.00 in coin.”[295]

Lorenzo assessed the town of Boise, Idaho, as being, “a city of great wickedness and debauchery of all kinds.” On New Year’s day, 1873, he recorded “a man was beat most to death with a pistol.”[296]

Representative Hatch found his fellow legislators to be friendly and perhaps a little curious about this Mormon. He met a Mr. Higby and Judge Head, who introduced him to many of the other members of the legislature. Lorenzo says, “I was made a special object of attention and respect by all of the legislative body of both the lower and upper houses.”[297]

When the legislature convened, Lorenzo was surprised by a call for him to take the chair as temporary speaker of the house. He felt it was a distinct honor and took the stand with “trembling,” to fill this assignment of organizing the assembly.

By the third day, permanent officers were duly elected and Lorenzo stepped down as speaker pro-temp, with the feeling that he had performed one of the most difficult tasks of his life. “I felt calm and reconciled, believing that such [actions ] will raise our people to necessary elevation in this dark and benighted land of superstition where people look upon Mormons as outcasts.”[298] He was representing not only his district of Onieda County, Idaho, but more importantly to him, he was being judged by the Gentiles as a representative of the Mormon Church in general.

On December 4th he presented the name of Alexander Stalker for legislative chaplain. Stalker was unanimously elected, though the next day, Lorenzo reports that “some of our enemies are trying to make a fuss” about Brother Stalker’s election.

On December 10th Lorenzo introduced a bill to the legislature for the exemption of the Utah-Northern Railroad from taxation in Idaho Territory for six years. Though the railroad would bring benefits to all in the Idaho Territory, this bill soon became known as “a Mormon exemption,” since the construction was a Mormon endeavor. On December 17th, the “bill to exempt the Utah-Northern Railroad was presented by the committee on ways and means who recommended its passage. The minority report however was adverse.” Lorenzo got the vote on his bill postponed and prepared an amendment to help its chances of being passed. On December 20th Representative Hatch made a speech before the house in favor of the exemption and after “a long fight” it passed the second reading.

Other legislation Lorenzo introduced and worked hard to pass were a charter for the town of Franklin, (they had previously been chartered under the territory of Utah), a bill for the division of Oneida and Bear Lake Counties, and a bill for constructing a bridge across Cub River. He also presented two memorials to be sent to Congress, one for a land office at Soda Springs, and the other to remove the Indians from the Fort Hall Reservation.

On Christmas day, Lorenzo and Alexander Stalker were invited to the home of John Hayley, who was a delegate for congress. Lorenzo reports they were treated with “a good degree of respect.” After a fine dinner the men looked at Mr. Hayley’s sheep. Lorenzo was impressed with one sheep that “sheared” 32 pounds of wool and weighed 330 pounds.

On his forty-seventh birthday, January 4, 1873, Lorenzo was invited to Judge Head’s for dinner. He says, “The delegate, Mr. Shafer was at Heads also.”

Representative Hatch must have found the proceedings of the Idaho Legislature quite different from those in the Utah Legislature where he had spent three terms. Brigham Young guided and instructed the representatives in Utah, but here in Idaho Lorenzo had only his own conscience and wisdom as a guide. He was not intimidated by these worldly men. He spoke many times from the floor and presented bills in behalf of the people of his county. He fought for the laws and changes he felt were needed and acknowledged his defeats while giving the Lord credit for his victories.

A few days before the end of this session, Lorenzo says, “I have found treachery in the members of the Democratic party. I warned these men that if they did not see to matters it would destroy their influence in Oneida County.” There was a floor battle as the representatives met to apportion the number of delegates from the various counties. Mr. Garrett tried to have the number of Oneida County delegates reduced to hold the Mormon influence in check. There was also the question of the division of Oneida and Bear Counties, which would affect the Mormon voting power. Lorenzo knew he was defending the rights of the Saints of Idaho to have equal representation. “The people are afraid to talk to us about our Faith. They fear and tremble in consequence of our growing power in this territory and have guarded against favoring us in any respect.”[299]

As the House of Representatives adjourned in January, 1873, Lorenzo noted that “The council defeated all my bills except the railroad exemption, the charter for the town of Franklin and the Memorials.” This strong willed, calm, quiet spoken Mormon had not been totally defeated, and most of all, the men of this session, friends or enemies, would remember he had been there.

In preparation for returning to his home in Franklin, Lorenzo “placed $175 in a package of books addressed to C.C. Rich. The money is in a book of laws of the fifth session, on page 75. [This was done]...to prevent being robbed.”

The return trip to Franklin for Representatives Stalker and Hatch was much less eventful than the journey to Boise had been six weeks earlier. Lorenzo spent the three day ride on the Utah, Idaho and Oregon Stagecoach visiting with Carnell Pardee of Washington Territory, who was very inquisitive about the Mormons. At the end of the marathon visit, Pardee declared that the Mormons were a different people than he expected. He and Lorenzo parted with a hearty handshake and a promise from Mr. Pardee to write.

Lorenzo was at once immersed in his responsibilities as husband, father, and bishop of Franklin. The family was all in good health except Jeremiah, the seven-year-old son of Alice. Lorenzo only says that “he was lame.” Sylvia and her family had moved into the large, newly completed rock house in Lorenzo’s absence. On the night of his arrival home, with his family and friends gathered round, Bishop Hatch dedicated the home to the Lord.

By summer two of Alice’s sons, John and Willard, were old enough to be of some help to Lorenzo along with Lafayette and Hezekiah. The boys were expected to help with the farming, milking, building fence, gathering wood and other work necessary to sustain this large family. Sylvia, Catherine and Alice each had their own vegetable garden, which they tended with the help of their girls and the smaller children. The women made butter and cheese as well as most of the clothes for the numerous children. The large Hatch family was typical of polygamous Mormon families of the time, with perhaps a little more means to support themselves than most, due to the unceasing work and management of Father Lorenzo. Eighteen-year-old Hezekiah, who had finished his second winter at the school in Logan, was now able to help his father with the bookkeeping and letter writing necessary for a man in Lorenzo’s position.

At a directors meeting of the Utah Northern Railroad, Lorenzo was asked to put up snow fences along the tracks and on March 8th he left Hampton Station at five A.M. in a sleigh, (traveling to meet the train). He and his crew shoveled snow all day, breaking blockades of ice and “with much labor succeeded in reaching Brigham City [on the train] at midnight.”[300]

Bishop Hatch had a vivid dream on March 11th, signifying to him that he would be ordained to the office of patriarch in the church. Men holding the office of bishop were seldom given other ecclesiastical responsibilities, but this dream was so vivid Lorenzo felt to record it in his journal.[301]

The spring of 1873 found Lorenzo mostly at home, planting crops and attending to his business as Bishop of Franklin. “My business and cares are unceasing.”

In April he journeyed to Salt Lake for the semi-annual conference of the Church, which he always attended. In June he met with a group of church leaders in Brigham City, and here he was notified by Wilford Woodruff that he was to be ordained a patriarch. This office and responsibility was to be Lorenzo’s in addition to his work as Bishop of Franklin. On June 27th he was set apart for his new calling by the first presidency, Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball and George Albert Smith.

Speaking of this dual responsibility, historian Leonard J. Arrington speculates that Lorenzo “may have been the only man in Mormon history to serve for an extended period as both bishop and patriarch simultaneously.”[302]

The special assignment of Patriarch Hatch was to pronounce blessings upon the heads of worthy church members, and “contemplate an inspired declaration of the lineage of the recipient, and also ...[give] an inspired and prophetic statement of the life mission of the recipient, together with such blessings, cautions and admonitions as the Patriarch might be prompted to give for the accomplishment of such life’s mission. [The Patriarch would always make it] clear that the realization of all promised blessings was conditioned upon faithfulness to the gospel of our Lord.”[303]

December of 1873 brought two happy events into Lorenzo’s life. Lafayette Hatch, the twenty-two-year old son of Lorenzo and Sylvia was married to Annie Scarborough, and on Christmas Eve, Alice gave birth to her seventh son, Joseph Lorin.

Railroad Comes to Franklin

In February of 1874, the Utah Northern Railroad began operating between Logan and Ogden and work commenced to extend the narrow gauge line on to Franklin. Bishop Hatch called for all the help he could get. This was a people’s railroad and for two months, nearly all the men in Franklin were involved in the project. The workers were to be paid in company vouchers which would be redeemed with double their face value in company stock. Later when the railroad company was not able to redeem the vouchers, the church agreed to take them at the tithing office.[304]

By May lst the railroad cars were in sight of Franklin. In anticipation, the people planned a celebration to be held when the train actually entered the town. They were assured that even Brigham Young would be there. Early on the morning of May 4th, President Young, Erastus Snow and others of the twelve apostles left Logan on the first train for Franklin. A short way from Logan, the little narrow gauge train (three feet wide), jumped the track and the anticipated visitors had to return to Logan. The first train to actually arrive in Franklin was a freight train which came in on that same day.[305]

With the completion of the line to Franklin, all freight for Northern Idaho and Montana moved with teams from that point. Several large freighting terminals opened in Franklin with warehouses, hotels and stores erected near the station. One opportunist, Sill Worneth owned and operated a brewery “just under the hill. He had his beer shipped, bearing the trademark, SILL’S BEER.”[306] The golden age of Franklin began, bringing both the blessings and the curse for which the School of Prophets had tried to prepare the people.

In March of 1874, Lorenzo, his brother Jeremiah and sister Adeline traveled to Ogden to attend the funeral of their uncle Josephus Hatch, the last member of their father’s family. The trip to Logan was made in the little spring buggy and then the trio traveled by train on to Ogden. Lorenzo remembers the journey as being a pleasant one, no doubt giving the three siblings a chance to visit at length, remembering times past and renewing their love and concern for one another. Both Lorenzo and Jeremiah were asked to speak at the funeral.

In May Lorenzo traveled to Boise City with three Franklin men to file on some land. A friend from his days as a representative, Judge Head, helped them and treated them “with kindness.” Throughout this summer he also traveled with Brigham Young, Jr., the stake president, to the communities of Sulphur Lake, Swan Lake, Bear River, Mink Creek and Bennett, preaching and teaching the Saints.

President Young organized the town of Franklin into the United Order, with Lorenzo Hill Hatch as president. In this capacity Lorenzo attended meetings in Logan and was appointed a Director on the Central Board of the United Order for Oneida Stake.[307] The United Order was a more intense form of cooperative effort than the co-op stores. A joint stock company was organized to which all who wished to cooperate assigned part or all of their property in return for shares. All land and enterprises to be worked for the common good of all.

The United Order Board of Directors started a lumber business and Lorenzo made several trips to nearby canyons “to examine” for timber. In 1871 Brigham Young bought the machinery for a steam sawmill in the east and had it shipped by boat up the Missouri River to Fort Benton, Montana. From there it was hauled overland and for a short time it worked in Maple Canyon near Franklin. In 1872 there was a boom in Soda Springs to the north and the mill was moved there. Now, in 1874, with the help of Brigham Young, Jr., the mill was returned to Maple Canyon for the benefit of the United Order. Teams were sent to Soda Springs to get the mill. Lorenzo and Charles Shumway, along with Shumway’s sons, of Mendon, went to the canyon to set the mill up and stock it. [308]

Father Lorenzo’s investment in Hezekiah’s education began to pay off. Lorenzo named him ward clerk in the Franklin Ward. In this capacity, Hezekiah kept the tithing books and assisted Lorenzo in letter writing and other clerical duties. This was a practice between father and son that would continue long after they were no longer living in Franklin.

Lorenzo was once again appointed postmaster of Franklin in March of 1873, when their address changed from Utah to Idaho. Early in 1874 Hezekiah took over these duties, under the direction of his father, along with those of telegraph operator for the Deseret Telegraph Company.

Lorenzo had been elected Mayor of the “new” town of Franklin, Idaho, and he continued to be deeply involved in the business of the Utah Northern Railroad. He was also striving to make the United Order concept succeed in Franklin. However, this was never popular with the Mormon people there and failed because of their lack of interest.[309]

Arrested For Polygamy

In June 1874 the United States government passed the Poland Law under which individuals could be brought to trial for breaking the 1862 Morrill Law. In 1875 George Reynolds was charged with polygamy under this law and was convicted and sentenced to two years hard labor in prison and a fine of five hundred dollars. Thus began one of the most difficult times in Latter-day Saint history.[310]

The fall of 1874, Lorenzo’s world began to crumble. In the November election, opponents of the Mormons were swept into the Oneida County offices. An independent anti-Mormon party was organized in Onieda County which succeeded in capturing the offices in southeast Idaho. They remained in office for nearly a decade.[311] Lorenzo says, “our enemies stuffed the ballot boxes and got wicked men into office....” The political winds became tornadoes, which struck at several points in the Mormon settlements.

John Biggs, along with Alfred Hansen and E. Butterworth, all Mormons, were served with writs in connection with land they had filed on in Boise City. Biggs was charged with perjury and remanded to the Grand Jury in Boise City.

The deputy prosecuting attorney of Oneida County sued Mormons for delinquent taxes, and Lorenzo claimed the sheriff, in his efforts to collect the taxes, traveled “round and round” and charged each man fifty cents per mile for travel expense. One man who owed $4.00 in taxes had to pay $45.00 in travel expenses to the sheriff. Frustrated Bishop Hatch recorded the sheriffs name in his journal as “Heeney...a vindictive scoundrel.”

The anti-Mormon campaign was not only in Oneida County, but throughout Idaho. One of the loudest voices of this movement was Joseph Houston, a U.S. prosecuting attorney for Idaho Territory. Houston had run for the U.S. Congress and solicited Lorenzo’s support, without success. When Lorenzo refused to endorse the man, Houston turned the bitterness of his defeat against Lorenzo and vowed to ruin him.[312]

Lorenzo felt Houston was the mastermind behind the Mormon problems in Oneida County. The arrest of the three men in connection with their efforts to file on land, was “...gotten up by one Joseph Houston.... He was...seeking revenge hoping to get me in trouble.”

On December 2, 1874 Lorenzo lost his appointment as postmaster. A bitter Hezekiah recorded in his journal, “Father Hatch was removed from the post office because of his religious convictions, and a transient named Leviberg was given the position.”[313] Jacob Leviberg served as postmaster of Franklin until 1876.[314]

Joseph Houston, as prosecuting attorney for Idaho Territory, was not through with Lorenzo Hill Hatch. On July 22nd the Ogden Junction newspaper carried this notice: “We learn by telegram from Franklin that Lorenzo H. Hatch was arrested this morning at that place by U.S. Marshal Joe Pinkham on the charge of polygamy, and that he was taken to Malad [Idaho] for trial.”

In the August 4th issue of the Ogden Junction a letter to the editor written by Lorenzo under the date of July 30th, gave the following information about his situation:

“There was a grand jury impaneled and instructed by Joe Houston, U.S. Attorney for Idaho, Mr. W. Clemens, foreman.... Indictments were ready to be served upon President Rich, Bishops Budge and Hatch.” Lorenzo continues in his letter to the editor: “Houston presented United States law on bigamy, claiming that he had no other object than to know whether polygamy could be practiced in this territory in defiance to the laws of the United States, and labored hard to show that some secret ceremony was performed in an Endowment House and then the perpetrators would come to this territory and carry these terrible crimes, as he called them, into effect....”

The indictment whereupon Lorenzo was arrested read in part:

“That at the County of Oneida, in said District and Territory on the first day of January, 1875, one L.H. Hatch having then and there a wife living with whom he ...was then and there living and cohabiting as his wife. ...said wife had not been absent for five successive years without being known to the said LHH within that time to be living and the marriage of the said LHH with his said wife never having been dissolved by the decree of a competent court and which said marriage between the said LHH and his said wife had never been annulled or pronounced void by the sentence or decree of a competent court, on the ground of the nullity of the marriage contract, did the day and year aforesaid and at the place aforesaid, marry one Catherine _____,(whose full name is unknown)...and with whom he, the said L.H. Hatch, on the said first day of January, hitherto, and still does, live and cohabit as his wife, against the provisions of the Statutes of the United States in such case made and provided, and against their peace and dignity.

“Wherefore, the Grand Jurors aforesaid, upon their oaths aforesaid, do say that the said L.H. Hatch did at the time and place aforesaid commit the crime of polygamy against the peace and dignity of the United States and the statutes in such case made and provided.”

Lorenzo’s lawyer, Mr. Ensign, presented the defense saying, “That the first wife’s name was not given nor place of marriage where or when, and further, that all crimes must be prosecuted in the district where the offense was committed and that no such crime was known in the law as polygamy, also the Statute of Limitation placed the case out of the hands of the law.”

After the case pleading in Lorenzo’s behalf, Judge Hollister “ruled in favor of the demurrer...but reserved his rulings on the law lest he should establish a precedent.” Judge Hollister ordered the prisoner released and bonds annulled. Lorenzo writes, “I arrived at my home [in Franklin] at seven A.M. this morning, and was greeted in a most friendly manner by all the inhabitants of Franklin, save a few.”[315]

A harassed and unhappy Lorenzo continued his efforts in behalf of his beloved church and reports spending time during this year “looking after the Indians who seem desirous of receiving the truth.” He continued the supervision of the steam mill working in Maple Creek Canyon, and attended his duties on the Board of Directors of the railroad, while fending off the efforts of Mr. Houston to “ruin” him.

Houston must have succeeded in more ways than one, for Lorenzo’s son Hezekiah says of this time, “Lorenzo H. Hatch found little...peace of mind or liberty of action in the close to 100 per cent Mormon town of Franklin. The...men and women who were sincerely practicing plural marriage had fallen on evil days.”[316]

The pressures brought to bear by the anti-Mormon prejudice in Idaho caused Brigham Young to counsel Bishop Hatch to leave Franklin, and go to St. George, in southernmost Utah for a period of time.

The Hatch family held a council, for this move would affect many lives. Twenty-five-year-old Lafayette had just presented Lorenzo and Sylvia with their first grandson on 16 January, 1875. Twenty-year-old Hezekiah was doing well as an employee of the Deseret Telegraph Company and had been appointed agent of the Utah Northern Railroad at the terminal of Franklin.[317]

Catherine’s children were growing up. Seventeen-year-old Catherine Alvenia was married to Thomas Smart in June of 1875 and the following spring, Celia Ann married John Woolf.

Alice’s children were all at home. Her oldest was sixteen-year-old John. He and his four brothers were now the main work force on the Hatch farm.

The family consultation was long and tearful, for family roots ran deep in Franklin. Their living conditions were the most comfortable the wives had known. Most of the children remembered no other home. Father Lorenzo was feeling the weight of having just celebrated his fiftieth birthday, and Grandmother Eastman, who had lived with Sylvia and Lorenzo since their marriage, was in her eighty-fourth year.

After all had their say, Lorenzo made his decision. The thin, haggard man, whose hair and beard were fast turning gray, announced to his family that he would take Catherine with her younger children and go to St. George. Lafayette would run the farm and cattle on shares with the help of Alice’s sons. With tears in his eyes, Lorenzo embraced each member of his beloved clan.

The next morning, two wagons were prepared and the loading began. The 600 mile trek to St. George would take several weeks.[318]

CHAPTER 7

To The South

Lorenzo traveled to St. George where the first temple in Utah was in the final stages of construction. St. George, in southernmost Utah, was almost a second headquarters of the church as President Brigham Young spent most of his winters there. The Saints had been asked not only to build a temple, but President Young insisted they also needed a large tabernacle for meetings in this part of the kingdom.

After settling his family into a rented house, Lorenzo worked at making benches for the tabernacle and gave many patriarchal blessings throughout the area. He never expected this move to be permanent, and continued to think of Franklin, where most of his family was, as home. He was called to travel in the stake with John L. Smith, preaching to the people and collecting means to complete the temple.

In the spring of 1876 Lorenzo accompanied Daniel H. Wells of the First Presidency, Brigham Young, Jr., Erastus Snow, and a number of other leading church men on a journey into the little known and hostile lands of the Arizona Territory. Jacob Hamblin, explorer and missionary to the Indians of the area was their guide. The men were to preach, teach, encourage and assess the new and struggling settlements of Saints along the Little Colorado River.

The travelers arrived at Lee’s Ferry on the great Colorado River May 28, 1876. Warren M. Johnson, called by Brigham Young to act as ferryman in crossing the Saints, had just built a new ferry. Johnson cautioned that the river was high and crossing would be a dangerous undertaking, but the brethren felt they should proceed with all haste.

The new ferry was towed up stream almost a mile to give it plenty of room to reach the landing on the other side of the swift moving water. Men, horses, and three wagons were loaded and they began rowing the flat boat away from shore to enter the current. Great waves of water immediately rolled over the entire boat, sweeping it clean of men, animals and cargo.[319] In the resulting confusion Lorenzo found himself clinging to the top of a wagon that was shooting down the raging river at an alarming rate. He was swept from the wagon and sank deep into the river, but saved himself from drowning and was picked up by a skiff.[320]

The life saving skiff was manned by Jacob Hamblin, who had also been plunged into the cold snow-water, but caught a large oar passing by and swam to shore. Hamblin ran down the river bank to a skiff he had noticed earlier. He pulled to the head of the rapids down stream, and saved a wagon and its contents on an island. The other two wagons and most of the supplies passed over the rapids into the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. After the men had again assembled, they found one of their party, Lorenzo Roundy, missing. His body was never found.[321]

Lorenzo Hill Hatch’s greatest loss was his journal of events since leaving Franklin, Idaho. This has become known as his “drowned journal.” Having lost most supplies to the river, the party was split with only a few continuing on to the Arizona camps. Lorenzo was one of those who continued into the territory.[322]

After several weeks of meetings with the discouraged Saints at “Mowabby” and “Moancoppy”, (Indian villages near present day Tuba City), and Sunset, Ballinger’s Camp and Allen’s Camp on the Little Colorado River, Lorenzo and his group returned to Utah where they met President Brigham Young at Kanab. After receiving their reports on the Arizona settlements he asked Lorenzo H. Hatch to go to Zuni, New Mexico Territory and locate among the Indians.[323] This was June 20th. The trail to Zuni meant again crossing the dread Colorado River, traveling through trackless, hostile Indian land to the new settlements on the Little Colorado in Arizona, then on one hundred miles into New Mexico.

Missionary work among the Zuni of New Mexico had been successful, when, in April, 1876 Robert H. Smith and Ammon M. Tenney lived for a short time at the pueblo of Zuni and after a stay of only a few weeks reported performing 111 baptisms. They returned to Utah and told Brigham Young of their success. Losing no time President Young found Lorenzo, who had proved himself an able and willing missionary, to open the Zuni Mission.

Lorenzo was to take his family with him. With this news he returned to Catherine in St. George after being gone five weeks. Lorenzo says, “I worked from this time till the 25^th of July in fitting up for my trip, [to Zuni]. I settled with all my debtors amongst whom was M.M. Sanders for four months rent. He was very hard to settle with and charged me $12.00 per month. He wanted the remaining wood and use of my stove for nothing.” Then Lorenzo let himself show a rare bit of pique, “In fact he was one of the hardest old hypocrites I ever met, but he is an old man. I settled as he wished and leave it with him and his God.”[324]

Responding to this call beyond the far edges of civilization, Lorenzo and Catherine, with their family of six children, left St. George on July 25, 1876. Thirteen-year-old Thomas drove the stock, five cows and four calves. Eleven-year-old Hyrum drove a wagon, as did fifteen-year-old Nora. Lorenzo drove the third wagon. William McAllister left St. George at the same time to accompany the Hatches to Zuni.

Things did not go smoothly from the first. President Young had telegraphed a month before to Bishop H.C. Spencer of Kanab, instructing him to furnish Lorenzo with wheat from the Kanab mill. Bishop Spencer had not made the necessary arrangements. With some delay the wheat was turned over to Lorenzo who was quite distressed by the actions of Bishop Spencer, saying, “All this was a great hindrance all for the want of interest in the work of God entrusted to him. Still he is a good man.”[325]

John Maughan of Weston, Idaho, and his second wife, Mary, joined the trek to New Mexico at Johnson, a place fourteen miles from Kanab. The caravan left Johnson on August 8th. It rained so hard they only made six miles. The next morning they found Maughan’s horses had run back to Johnson. The journey continued to be difficult and just outside House Springs, Lorenzo says, “...performed the hardest journey of my life. Hyrum driving one team, Nora one and I one. Up and down steep hills and rocky roads, shaking the wagons terribly....”

As they wore away the miles in the red rock country, dust devils tossed tumble weeds hither and yon among the Cholla and Yucca. By the 12^th they had crossed the Big River in safety, but the ascent out of the river was another matter. Lorenzo says it was “...one of the worst hills or mountains that white men ever saw. The wagons, standing almost on end, and with little water to quench our thirst, we spent the night on the mountain side.”

After weeks of repairing wagons, hunting water holes and run away stock, the party arrived at Ballinger’s Camp on the Little Colorado River.

The fledgling Mormon mission in this remote part of Arizona was only a few months old. In the early spring of 1876 Lot Smith led the vanguard of settlement along the muddy, alkali banks of the volatile river. Smith’s group was divided into fifties according to an organization affected earlier in the church. Four settlements were begun in close proximity to one another with William C. Allen, George Lake, Jesse O. Ballinger, and Lot Smith each establishing their own village.

The Saints at Ballinger’s dug a well and started a stone fort. They gave Lorenzo and his party what comforts and help they could. At another of the river settlements, Camp Obed (Lake’s), Lorenzo met F.H. Goodwin, U.S. Marshall of Arizona Territory. Mr. Goodwin gave him a letter of good character reference. Lorenzo copied this letter into his journal and also sent a copy to Brigham Young.[326]

                                    Camp Obed, Little Colorado River
                                                Yavapai County, Territory of Ariz.
                                                August 31, 1876

To Whom It May Concern:

I am happy to state that while traveling through this place I fell in company with the Honorable L.H. Hatch from Idaho. He has represented his county of Oneida in the Legislature for four (sic) years. Mr. Hatch is enroute for New Mexico where I learn he designs with several of his friends to make homes for themselves. We of this territory have found men of Mr. Hatch’s peculiar belief to make a valuable addition to our territory. I am sure you will find Mr. Hatch and his friends a valuable acquisition to your part of the country.

He is an enterprising, law abiding citizen of good reputation both in Utah and Idaho. Any aid rendered him by the influential citizens of New Mexico at Fort Wingate or other places where he may go, assisting him to supplies or such things as he may need or his friends may want, will be duly appreciated by Mr. Hatch. I cheerfully recommend him to your kind consideration and good offices. I have the honor to subscribe myself,

Respectfully yours,

F.H. Goodwin

U.S. Marshall, Arizona Territory

While at Obed, Lorenzo obtained the use of a small log house. He set up the stove and prepared to leave his family there while he traveled on to Zuni. Bishop Lake of Obed aided them by furnishing a span of mules. On September 4th, Lorenzo wrote to Brigham Young, giving his assessment of affairs in the Little Colorado settlements, including the statement that, “A general good spirit prevails here as many of the disaffected have gone home and it is earnestly hoped that [they] will not return.”[327] That same day Lorenzo and John Maughan took one wagon and started for Zuni traveling up the Little Colorado and then up “Dirty Water River,” (Puerco). They stopped at Jacob’s Well, “...a wonderful hole in the earth, 150 yards across and 100 feet deep.”

Zuni Mission

Turning east into New Mexico the two men found lush grass, sagebrush, snake brush and low growing cedar trees. The sandy, rolling hills appeared to be void of permanent water. They entered a wide valley on a well worn trail, which had been used by animals, Indians and Spaniards for 1000 years as a trade route. All around were colorful flat topped hills striated by red, buff and black sandstone. To the northeast the Zuni Mountains soon appeared, but in this far-seeing country Lorenzo knew it might take days to reach the mountain range.

On September 7th, Lorenzo “saw the beautiful valley of the Zuni Indians. Went up on a hill where the view was beautiful and returned thanks to God and dedicated this land to Him for the gathering of the Saints.” In wonder he traveled through the main Zuni village where the Indians lived in five story houses in Pueblo style, each story having for its dooryard the roof of the one below. Lorenzo was sure to have noticed the large, red earth adobe Catholic Church, which had been abandoned since 1821.[328]

Corn was drying in the harvest sunshine and along the walls hung strings of chili peppers ripening into crimson. There were thousands of sheep grazing nearby. These Indians were unlike any Lorenzo had heretofore encountered.

Lorenzo and John Maughan traveled on twelve miles to Fish Springs, called Fiscalah by the Indians and Ojo Pescado by the Mexicans. Here they planned to build homes. The first order was to arrange to bring water from the spring up onto the land for irrigation. They were visited by many Lamanites, (Indians), and the few Saints in the area including Nathan Tenney and Robert Smith.

At a meeting on September 10th Lorenzo was received by the brethren and the Lamanites as President of the Zuni Mission. Nathan Tenney translated the proceedings into Spanish for the benefit of the Indians present.

In the next few weeks the Zuni Indians became upset by plans of the Mormon missionaries...plans to build houses, bring water up and farm the land. They were especially “excited” as the men cut wild hay and stacked it. Lorenzo says, “They had never seen anyone cut hay and were afraid we would get all their feed.”

Nathan Tenney talked with the Zuni chief and other natives in the Spanish language which nearly all the Indians understood. The missionaries rode to the main village and held council with their head men. It lasted six hours, and the decision was made for the Mormons to leave for a season until the Indians could have a council with their whole nation. These Puebleños had resisted Christianization for 300 years, since the arrival of the Spanish Conquistadors with their Catholic teachings.

This mission was unlike any other with which the Mormons had worked. They were dealing with four different cultures. The Zuni were the predominate people, but there was a small band of Navajo who lived to the southeast and then there were the Mexicans. These three cultures, plus the anglo missionaries, made understanding and agreement in the region hard to come by.

Lorenzo continued his reports to Brigham Young and under the date of September 25th President Young wrote to him, addressing the letter to Zuni, New Mexico. President Young assured Lorenzo that, “We shall presently send you fresh strength in the person of other laborers whom we shall call to your aid.” He counseled Lorenzo of “the great necessity of giving no cause of offense to either white or red men.... Be prudent and prayerful, seek the spirit of the Lord at all times that it may constantly guide you and in all your associations with your fellowmen be honest, just and straight forward. ...Let your example be such that all who come in contact with you can follow it with advantage and profit thereby. We are no believers in the theory that to teach the Indians a man must descend to the level of the Indians and partake.”

President Young inquired of Lorenzo as to how far he was from the nearest railroad, and what were the road conditions between Zuni and the railroad. This information was needed as the president intended to send Lorenzo a mower and a reaper and other machinery for farming.[329]

On Saturday, September 30th the missionaries took two loads of supplies to a Mexican town eighteen miles east, where they had made arrangements to live away from the Indians.[330] The town of San Lorenzo was comprised of four Mexican families. Lorenzo, reporting to Brigham Young writes, Mr. [Jesus] Mason, the principal man, sent us word to come, and feeling that the Lord had opened up the way, we took our teams and came to this place. Mr. Mason made us welcome to two rooms in his new house free of rent till we could have time to build. He furnished us with mutton and is giving us a chance to work for him when we get time, offering us land prorato with themselves. We are very thankful to get shelter once more in a house and be secure from the cold storm and rain which is falling.”[331]

On October 1st, Lorenzo made an agreement with Jesus Mason to look after their goods while they returned to Fish Springs. The next day he baptized a Navajo man and then left on the 100 mile trek to the Little Colorado Settlements to bring his family into New Mexico Territory.

At Camp Obed he found his family well, gave two patriarchal blessings and wrote letters to Brigham Young and Erastus Snow. Two of the Saints who had been in New Mexico, Brothers Tenney and Stewart, left Lorenzo here and returned to Utah. He would miss them sorely. Especially would he miss the help Nathan Tenney gave as interpreter with the Indians and Mexicans. Perhaps being cut adrift from these two dependable friends, and knowing the hardships his family was about to face in this new land, Lorenzo wrote, “I felt very lonesome and went to work making sash for Brother Lake. Sunday I went to Brother William Merrills and gave three blessings and then to Brother Allen’s Camp and held meeting. ...returned and had a meeting with Brother Lake’s Camp. In the evening gave three more blessings.”[332] Lorenzo often responded to loneliness and distress with prayer first and then work, work, work.

Lorenzo’s call to this southern mission was not made official until the semi-annual conference held in Salt Lake City on October 8th of this year. At that time, though Lorenzo was already far away to the south, his name was presented and sustained by the conference as a missionary. At this same time his brother Jeremiah Hatch and four sons, Alva, Jeremiah, Jr., Lorenzo and Abraham,(sic) were called to join Lorenzo in his mission to the Zuni country.[333]

With resolute courage Lorenzo and John Maughan left Camp Obed on October 9th with their families. On the 14^th they arrived at their new home, the Mexican town of San Lorenzo, or Tinjas, as the Indians called it.[334]

Lorenzo sent letters to President Brigham Young, to his family in Cache Valley, and one to the Governor of New Mexico. He acknowledges receiving an answer from Governor Axal at Santa Fe on December 3rd, but gives no clue as to the exchange made in their letters.

William McAllister, who was in Lorenzo’s party diligently studied the Spanish language, and Lorenzo wrote to Brigham Young reporting that Brother McAlister had so advanced in the last 15 days that he can “read the Spanish and talk so that we can make out to understand quite well. [He] is now teaching Spanish to us, and our children are learning rapidly. We have school one hour in the morning and two or three in the evening and the rest of the day is spent, when it is not raining, in building corrals for our stock and hauling house logs.” Lorenzo wrote President Young that “It is 460 miles to the railroad from here.” He also advised that his mail should be directed to Fort Wingate, New Mexico and addressed to William McAllister for safety.”[335]

President Young sent Lorenzo a Zuni language vocabulary dictionary for which he was grateful. He felt that if they could get some of them (Zuni) to live nearby they could soon acquire the language. He noted the Spanish language was understood by the Zuni, Navajo and Apache. Lorenzo reported to Brigham Young that, “I find one difficulty with the Spanish people. They have an idea of holding large land claims, for instance six miles, for ten or twelve families. Had our brethren carried out your counsel in locating in this country three years ago, many very valuable locations could be in the possession of our people which is in the possession of our enemies and will cost much time and means to get a hold of.”

Included in his report to President Young, Lorenzo stated, “they cannot understand why the Catholic Church is not correct, but with the best of feeling I presented carefully the sayings of the scriptures without referring to their faith.” As Lorenzo was able to explore the land round about, he reported, “In all directions the ruins of large villages are to be seen. There must at one time have been large amounts of water as thousands have been sustained here.”[336]

Lorenzo and the few Saints in the area continued to work with the Indians through the winter of 1876-77. The other brethren may not have been as dedicated to the work as Lorenzo was, for on Sunday, December 10th, he wrote, “We held meeting and administered the sacrament. Our meeting consisted of my family and Sister Maughan and daughter Jane. We were determined to perform our duties as best we could. Old father Mason was with us and said it was good although he could not understand any of our language.” Lorenzo found some success in baptizing the Navajos, but the Zuni continued to be unreceptive to his efforts.

Lorenzo helped with building cabins for the Maughans and McAllisters. His own family was living in a lean-to on the side of Jesus Mason’s stone house. Trips to Fort Wingate, forty miles through the Zuni Mountains, for lumber, mail and supplies took a good deal of time. Thomas and Hyrum often made the trip to the military post where a sawmill had been established. Of one trek Lorenzo made in March of 1877, he says, “...while at Wingate, I got some bacon and some beans and got trusted for it.”

Early in 1877 Luther C. Burnham and Ernest Albert Tietjen, missionaries to the Indians, arrived at San Lorenzo. They were located at nearby Savoia Valley where they built homes about six miles northeast of present day Ramah, New Mexico. In late January Lorenzo went to Zuni to meet his sister Elizabeth Winn, and her children. He says, “All were well and we had a joyful meeting.” In a report printed in the Deseret News of April 3rd, Lorenzo wrote, “Three of the sons of Brother Jeremiah Hatch and my sister Elizabeth have arrived and are feeling well. Two of the boys have families.”[337] Lorenzo also reported that Elder Boyle had notified him of a company leaving Arkansas in April for New Mexico or Arizona. John Hunt, Manassa Blackburn and Edward Westover, along with their families, joined Lorenzo and John Maughan at San Lorenzo in 1877, but later located at Savoia with Burnham and Tietjen.[338]

On April 6thof this year the first Mormon temple west of the Mississippi was dedicated in St. George, Utah. Lorenzo was not to be there, for he was struggling to hold a portion of the kingdom together on this ragged and stress filled edge of civilization. Other events closer at hand, that Lorenzo was aware of were the Presbyterian mission and school founded in Zuni by Dr. H.K. Palmer in 1877,[339] and the intent of the U.S. Government to set aside the first portion of the Zuni Reservation.[340]

Mary Maughan, wife of John Maughan, died in childbirth on May 10th.[341] She and Catherine had been the only white women in San Lorenzo during the winter until the arrival of Elizabeth Hatch Winn. It was in May also, that an Indian girl of fifteen years, one of the Bear River Tribe, raised by Elizabeth Hatch Winn, died at Lorenzo’s cabin.

Lorenzo Hill Hatch was a hard man to discourage, and in June he reported, “All was peace. Catherine’s health improved. The weather a little warmer and a prospect of summer. Baptized one Indian. ...worked putting in corn and fixing wagons.... On Sunday Brothers Hunt, Burnham and families came to San Lorenzo, and we had a good meeting. On Tuesday we had a good rain and a rainbow rested down on our land, spanning it on either side.”

On June 3rd Lorenzo reported to the Deseret News that a letter had come from Elder John Morgan, “who is laboring in Georgia, in which he states that some 200 Saints will emigrate this fall to this part of New Mexico or vicinity.” He also reported that the Saints in Zuni country are “struggling in poverty, but not in despair. Today...we were made glad by the arrival of 1000 pounds of corn, brought to us by some Zuni in pay for wagon repairs and blacksmithing. This was timely as we were living on borrowed flour.”[342]

Under the date of June 7th, Lorenzo received what may have been his last letter of counsel and encouragement from Brigham Young. President Young assured Lorenzo that “We have much faith and hope with regard to the future of your mission...these hopes will require hard work, great patience, and strong, unflinching faith before they are made realities. The best architecture is that which builds well from the foundation up, builds on the rock, builds against wind, and storm and flood...we must [be] the example of our good works...we must not weary in well doing. We must add to the teachings of the first principles of the Gospel, practical lessons in cleanliness, thrift and economy. It is so much easier to accumulate than preserve....” Lorenzo was grateful for the counsel and declared that , “I shall try and profit by the same.”

In August he moved his family to Savoia after many neighbors in San Lorenzo were found to have smallpox. Lorenzo does not mention any deaths from smallpox at this time. The final entry in Lorenzo’s journal for 1877 was made on September lst. No doubt he had not yet learned of the death in Salt Lake, on August 29th, of the man who had so long guided the Mormon Church, Brigham Young.

The company of southern Saints, led by Elder N.P. Beebe arrived in Savoia Valley on September 8th. There were 188 adults with 26 wagons. Some of the party planned to locate at Savoia and the remainder in the Little Colorado settlements. This group, the so called “Arkansas Company” had traveled 1,400 miles in reaching New Mexico.[343]

During the late summer and early fall months of 1877, Lorenzo made plans for returning to Cache Valley. He and his boys cut hardwood in the mountains, which Lorenzo shaped on his lathe into ax handles and other items needed by the Zuni Indians. He traded these items for corn which he hauled to the Arizona colonies and exchanged for wheat to supply his family with bread during the coming winter.[344]

Visit To Franklin

By September 10th Lorenzo felt he had adequate shelter and food supplies for Catherine and her children at Savoia for the winter months. He and his twelve-year-old son Hyrum began the long wagon trip to Cache Valley, after having been away from his families in the north for over two years.

There is no record of what transpired when Lorenzo arrived in Franklin, but it must have been a joyful reunion. Time was spent inspecting his lands and looking into the affairs left in the hands of his sons and wives for the past two years.

His oldest son, Lafayette, had been named bishop in Franklin, succeeding his father in that position. Lafayette was married and the father of two children. Hezekiah Hatch, Lorenzo’s second son, was a young single man of twenty-two years. He had been appointed agent of the Utah Northern Railroad at Franklin and also worked for the Deseret Telegraph Company. Living at home, it was Hezekiah who looked after his mother Sylvia, his eighty-four-year old grandmother, Clarissa Eastman, and his sisters, Aldura, Ruth and Elizabeth.

Alice’s family was still young, her oldest, John, being but seventeen. Lorenzo made the decision to take Alice and her family back to Indian country with him. Born after Lorenzo left Franklin in 1875, Alice’s youngest child was less than two years old. For some reason, Lorenzo encouraged Alice to leave her four-year-old son, Joseph Lorin, with Sylvia and her daughters. This was to be a temporary arrangement, but Alice never saw this son again.

Lorenzo left Franklin after a two month visit and headed south with Alice and her seven children. There was also Hyrum, who accompanied him from New Mexico, and Catherine’s daughter, Adeline, who had remained in Franklin when Catherine left with Lorenzo two years before.

Thus, there were eleven people in the party, and that may have accounted for Lorenzo’s suggestion that little Lorin stay in Franklin with Sylvia. Even with the three older boys driving stock, Lorenzo had a load with eight people, plus baggage and supplies.

They traveled the familiar road to St.George where Lorenzo and Alice “attended to ordinance work in the St. George Temple.”[345]

Called to Arizona

While Lorenzo was still in Utah, a meeting took place at Sunset, Territory of Arizona, which would affect the lives of the Hatch family. On Sunday, January 27, 1878, Apostle John W. Young visited at Sunset and asked the settlers if they desired to be organized as a stake of Zion. “The congregation was unanimous in desiring this organization. In the afternoon Lot Smith was elected president, Jacob Hamblin and L.H. Hatch as first and second counselors....”[346]

The first Lorenzo knew of this event was after he crossed the Colorado River into Arizona Territory on his return trip from Cache Valley. He met Apostle John W. Young and his company who were returning from Sunset to Utah. Under a weak winter sun with a crisp breeze blowing across the red rock country, Lorenzo bared his graying head and was ordained by Apostle Young as second counselor to Lot Smith in the Little Colorado Stake of Zion.

Lorenzo completed the journey to the Little Colorado and stopped at a new settlement on the river named Tenney’s Camp. While resting there, President Lot Smith asked him to live at Tenney’s Camp and be the presiding elder at that place plus his duties as a stake counselor and church patriarch.

Tenney’s Camp had been settled only two years earlier, and the few Saints had constructed homes in a fort-like manner, each room opening into a large village square. This was an arrangement the Hatch family had seen before. For the third time Lorenzo moved his family into an outpost fort of Zion. After locating Alice and her children at this place, Lorenzo left for New Mexico to bring Catherine’s family to Arizona Territory. The new calling as counselor in the Little Colorado Stake ended his mission to the Zuni lands.