Rachel Evans
Taken from Martha’s Story, written by Ethel Shelton Chandler
It is puzzling to know where to begin this story of my grandmother's life,
my mother's life and some of my life.
My grandmother was Rachel Evans, born somewhere in Wales, and I
suppose that must be the beginning.
Rachel was strong, physically and mentally and very independent in all her
ways.
She listened to a Mormon missionary sent out from the Latter-day Saints
church and was persuaded to take up a new religion, a new life, and a new
country. She was barely sixteen years old. The Latter-day Saints church had a
P.E.F. (Perpetual Emigration Fund), taken from the tithing of Church members to
send missionaries all over the world. These missionaries brought new members to
the mother church in Illinois.
To join that church became Rachel's goal (1).
She packed her few possessions in a homemade wooden box, including two
pictures painted on glass and framed in wood. These pictures were all of her
inheritance.
Rachel's route to America
is not definitely known, but many English converts crossed the Atlantic and
then entered the United States
at New Orleans and up the Mississippi River to Nauvoo, Illinois.
The journey was a nightmare to the young girl, six weeks on a small sailing
vessel blown hither and yon. Cholera broke out, many
died and were buried at sea. There was seasickness everywhere in the cramped
quarters, but Rachel managed to come through safe and sound with her trunk
intact. I remember that trunk, dark with age, nearly seventy years later (2).
When Rachel arrived in the Midwest the
Mormon settlement at Nauvoo have been burned and a new
camp established across the river. There she became a part of a colony of Welsh
people, probably because they could speak to and understand each other. Brigham
Young had taken charge of the Latter-day Saints Church and was making plans to
move all the members to Utah.
At present day Council Bluffs,
Iowa, Rachel was married to John
E. Jones a Welshman who was seventeen years older than she was.
From here they set out on their journey to Utah. A covered wagon was their home, and
the little trunk, the two glass pictures, other small treasures came along.
Rachel was still wearing the lovely paisley shawl in which she had departed her
home in the hills of Wales.
There are no family traditions or stories about the covered wagon trip over
the plains. They were sent to live in Weber county
just north of Salt Lake City
and here their children were born. John E., Jr., in 1852,
Louisa in 1853, Sarah in 1855, David in 1857, Evan E. in 1859, Elizabeth in
1860, David Morgan in 1863 and Anna in 1865. Two of these children,
Elizabeth and the first David, died as infants (3).
The Joneses were good farmers and were prospering in their new home when
trouble came into the midst of the Welsh community. Joseph Morris, an immigrant
from Wales
had settled in Weber county in 1853. Six years later
he began to have visions and revelations and finally proclaimed himself the new
prophet and head of the church. These were times in American history when there
was a great restlessness in many religions and waves of new sects and new
prophets came from all over America.
The Shakers and the Latter-day Saints were two of the strongest.
Morris and some of his followers were excommunicated from the Latter-day
Saints Church by Brigham Young. This caused a revolt in Weber county and a new church was established there. This sect
believed in the imminent second coming of Christ and held all their goods in
common against the coming of that time. There were about six hundred people
enrolled in this church.
The complete story of the Morrisites and the
revolt is told in the book Men to Match
My Mountains by Irving Stone. Brigham Young sent two hundred and fifty
troops to Weber County to put down the rebellion. In the
ensuing battle nine people were killed by the troops, including Morris and
several women. Ninety-six Morrisites were indicted
for resisting arrest, ten for murder. What part the Joneses took in this battle
has never been told, but one night they left Weber county and Utah far behind
them, going with a small group of Welsh people led by a man named William
Davies. No one knows the route they took but it had to be a rough trip with six
children in a wagon, all the way on mountain roads little better than trails.
(4)
Somewhere in Montana
they stopped to work in a mine, a gold mine. Rachel had some of the gold made
into a ring for John and a pair of earrings for herself,
lovely thin gold earrings with a flower-like engraving. Her great
grand-daughter, Sharon Shelton Campbell has these earrings now. (5)
At Deer Lodge, Montana,
a son, Joseph William was born.
Traveling on, the group crossed the Mullan Pass
in Idaho on the military road that led to Fort Walla Walla on the Columbia. They found eighty acres on Russell Creek
southeast of Walla Walla.
These people started their new life in a country far from Mormons but fell
into the same trap when their settlement was made a commune with Davies as the
leader. They called it the "Kingdom
of Heaven”. There was a
deep, dark soil, very productive but eighty acres would not support the number
of people living there. A print shop was set up to send missionary tracts and a
number of industries were started. With Davies’s strong leadership and the members’
devotion, the "Kingdom" began to prosper. They were regarded by their
neighbors as an honest, hardworking group of Welsh mystics.
The Walla Walla
Statesman in an article published on August 10, 1878 described the camp:
"The houses are built in a cluster, all neat and tiny.
The women and children are scrupulously clean with the men and boys all wearing
long hair. They have the latest agricultural equipment with ample sheds for
cattle and hay. They grow sugar cane and have a mill to make sugar and molasses.
Hemp is grown to make rope and cordage, and in the winter the young men make
brooms from broom corn."
Here in the "Kingdom
of Heaven" the last
Jones child was born, a girl, Martha Maria on July 9, 1868. Martha was my
mother.
There seems to have been a great deal of dissatisfaction with Davie’s leadership and his proclamations. John Jones, by this
time a bitter and disillusioned man, had already made trips across the Blue
Mountains and had filed on a homestead in the north end of Indian Valley
as early as 1875. John and some of the older sons made many trips back and
forth moving their livestock. Joseph remembered making the trip on horseback
alone when he was thirteen years old and how frightened he was to travel
through the dark forests and deep canyons of the Blue
Mountains on an Indian trail (6).
The colony on Russell Creek was broken up by a law suit in 1880 and this
was the year the Joneses completed their move to Union County.
At last they had their own land and this was the last move for John and Rachel
and the covered wagon.
The story of the "Kingdom
of Heaven" colony
has been told in several magazine articles and in at least one book—And There Were Men by Russell Blankenship.
The eighty acres is now privately owned but is still called the "Mormon Eighty"
after a hundred years have passed. There is an old cemetery covered over with
yellow rose bushes and iris plants. A few broken headstones are still visible.
The two older Jones children stayed in the Russell Creek
area. John E., Jr., married Emily, who had attended the school at the colony.
Sarah married John Miller, a farmer on nearby Mill Creek. Martha was still a
school girl of eleven years when she first came to Oregon in 1880.
There was work for all the three boys and three girls left at home. A house
replaced the log cabin near the creek, and a large barn was built below the big
pine tree east of the house. High on a large limb of that pine tree was a fine
rope swing, and many a child knew the pleasure of swinging there with the wind
softly stirring the branches above. I remember it so well.
Martha helped with the sheep, the spinning of the wool, the
knitting of great numbers of socks, the darning, cooking and also the churning.
She didn't mind wandering with the sheep over the hill--a small extinct volcano
now called "Jones Butte"--but she hated to help with the milking of
the cows. Those cows were important to the farm, as the extra butter was a good
source of cash. Butter was put in barrels, covered with brine, and when enough
accumulated they were taken to the closest town which was Summerville, eight
miles across the valley. Here the necessary things were purchased, a bolt of
fabric, maybe a little salt, sugar, or coffee. All the other things that went
into the living of that family came from the land and the animals on it. Louisa
married a nearby farmer, Charles Down, and they moved on to Wallowa County.
Evan married Eliza Gent and filed on a homestead west of his father's land.
Mrs. McCue, a friend of Rachel’s who lived a short way up the creek and near
the wonderful spring from whence came all their water, became very ill and
died. Two small McCue boys, Peter and Johnny, became a part of the Jones
household until grown.
Gradually life became easier. The house had some small conveniences added.
Water was piped into the kitchen with a small pitcher pump and sink. A large
flour bin was built in a kitchen corner, a bin large enough to hold a barrel of
flour, four sacks.
They still made their own candles and pouring the hot wax in the molds was
another bit of work Martha did not enjoy. She would much rather be outside
hunting wild greens along the creek or tending the chickens or hunting hens’
nests in all the sheds and barns.
Her father liked to work with the horses and raised some fine driving teams.
David and Joseph were large enough to take over most of the farm work.
Since leaving the "Kingdom
of Heaven" none of
the Jones family had taken any part in a religious organization. They did
continue their worship of God and Sunday was strictly observed. The only work
permitted on Sunday was attention to and care of the animals. All cooking was
done on Saturday and only cold food was eaten on Sunday.
This was a time of innocence and happiness for Martha and Anna, two pretty
blonde and blue-eyed girls who were just beginning to approach womanhood.
Notes and commentary by William R. Chandler, son of Ethel Shelton Chandler:
1. This is a cover story. Very likely Martha was told only this story.
2. Rachel Evans told and re-told to her grand-daughter, Ethel, who concluded it
was on the high seas not on a river boat.
3. This is speculation and not correct. Until at 1858 the Jones lived in SLC.
4. The get-away story is untrue. John Jones was convicted of murder &
pardoned by the governor.
5. Escorted out of Utah by U.S. to Nevada.
Then he went to Deer Lodge.
6. Jones was thrown out by court order in 1875. They seem to have let the
________ in place until 1880.
