HISTORY OF HYRUM
JAMES DENNIS
Hyrum James Dennis was born 27 December 1843 at Lloyd’s
Mill, Hancock County, Illinois. His father’s name was Phillip
Dennis, and his mother’s name Mary Hayes. Phillip was a blacksmith at Lloyd’s
Mill.
When Hyrum was nine months old his father died, and two
weeks later his mother, at Nauvoo, Illinois, leaving his, their first and only
child, an orphan. (The only obtainable record is Ref., 18
September, 1844, Nauvoo Neighbor Newspaper: “Died Mary Dennis, week ending
September 16, 1844, aged 32 years.”) As Hyrum would have been nine
months at that time, we consider that to be Mary Hayes Dennis. She had worked
before marriage for Captain William Horner and Nancy his wife. When Mary knew
she could not live, she gave her young babe to the Horners,
telling them to bring him to Utah
with them, and “not let him die.”
At five years of age, Hyrum came to Utah with his foster parents. (He was never
adopted.) When he was 15 (1858) they moved to Springville.
From there they moved to Provo
where they ran a mill for five years. They were great friends of the John
Hoover family and were identified with them in the milling trade.
In 1866 Hyrum met and married Claudia Jones, daughter of
Captain Dan and Jane Melling Jones. Bishop William
Miller married them. Claudia was seventeen, an orphan with a brother Dan five
years younger. Their first child, Mary Jane, was born June 27, 1867, at Provo, Utah.
The second child, William Albert, was born April 4, 1869.
Hyrum was working with his father Horner in the grist mill
and standing guard around the old fort
Provo, but the Indians
became so troublesome they had to move into the Bowery with five other
families, leaving the mill. At this time families were colonizing Wasatch Valley. This place attracted William E.
Horner, and in 1869 he moved his family there. Hyrum and Claudia and their two
babies went with them. They located at the lower settlement of Midway, where
the two of them ran a grist mill. On account of the Indians the two
settlements, North and South, were put together and called Midway, where it now
stands today.
In July 1871 Horner moved to Heber where he ran the Hatch
Mill. Hyrum continued on in Midway, running the James Ross Grist Mill for years
until Bonner Brothers took it over.
Six more children were born to Hyrum and Claudia as follows:
Hyrum James, 1871; Dan Joseph, 1873; Phillip, 1875; Robert Ernest, 1879; Edward
Ray, 1882; Claudia Merling, 1885.
During the Indian uprising Hyrum went with others to Echo Canyon
as a guard, and he was at Promontory Point working when the Golden Spike was
driven. When he went to be married to Claudia, Mrs. Horner told him of his real
parents, that they, the Horners, were only his foster
parents, which was a great shock. But it was better to be married under his own name of Hyrum James Dennis. But it was not so easy
to establish it; people who speak of them even today lovingly call them Hy and Claudy Horner. It was a
hardship to me when I, their youngest child, used to go for mail to that little
one-room post office, the postmaster would squint his one bad eye, cock his
head and glare at me through the time window with his good eye, then run
through the packet of letters and whine, “Horner and Dennis, Horner and
Dennis.” People would pass by the other mills to come to father’s because he
made the best flour, but mother said it was because he was so generous. He
would feel sorry for them and not take out his portion of the grist. She often
had to borrow a pan of flour from the neighbors to tide them over until he felt
them well enough off to pay. He would give his last dime or the shirt from his
back to others less fortunate. But father would retort they came to get some of
mother’s perfect biscuits, and native black currant preserves or fresh things from
her garden, for they would often bring their families and stay for days if the
mill happened to break down. It was the same at threshing time.
They took up a farm two miles south of Midway, built a home
on it, moving there in the fall of 1885. Hyrum continued to run the mill a year
or two longer, then went to farming. They went to
Helper, Carbon County, to put up ice for the railroad,
and were there when Cox’s Army went through. This was during the great
depression of President Cleveland’s time. Hyrum and Claudia and family lived in
a tent by the side of the road, with none too much worldly goods, and there
were hundreds of men tramping by looking for work. But each hungry man that
stopped by their door received a bit to eat and a cheering word. Going back to
the Valley they stayed on the farm until 1898 when they moved to Provo so Mother could be
under good doctor’s care. She died in Aird hospital,
December 9, 1903, and was buried in Provo
Cemetery. Hyrum continued
to live at 55 East 6th North, Provo,
until 1905 when he went to the Uinta
Basin to pioneer with his
son Dan and family. Returning to my home in Grandview Ward he died there
September 22, 1917, of a cerebral hemorrhage. He was buried beside his wife in Provo cemetery.
