Sarah Ann Milner Roberts

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SARAH ANN MILNER ROBERTS
29 May 1862 – 15 Jun 1915
Sarah was born in Provo, Utah, the oldest daughter of John Brewitt Milner and Esther Elizabeth Yardley Milner. Sarah attended school at Dusenbeny’s in the old Lewis Hall, where the famed Doctor Maeser taught. Sarah met Benjamin Morgan Roberts, Jr. and, when she was just eighteen, the two were married in 1880. The young couple bought two city lots from her father on first south and fourth east in the center of Provo for the princely sum of fifty dollars. At the time, it was mostly swamp and willows. They both worked hard to clear and drain the place and then proceeded to build a two-room house on the spot, which is where the couple’s first three children were born. Later, three more rooms were added onto the house to accommodate the needs of their ever-growing family. Sarah had a wonderful artistic talent, which she expressed by making clothes for her family, as well as new carpets and quilts to adorn the floors and beds of their modest home. Sarah also cooked for the city and county prisoners in Provo and Benjamin Jr. would deliver the meals to the prison with his team of horses. Sarah and Benjamin Jr. were the parents of fifteen children, twelve of whom survived infancy, including Charles Milner Roberts, their oldest, my great grandfather on my mother’s mother’s side, who was born on 12 Mar 1885.

Benjamin Morgan Roberts, Jr.

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BENJAMIN MORGAN ROBERTS, JR.
12 Aug 1857 – 1 Feb 1938

Benjamin, my second great grandfather on my mother’s mother’s side, was born in a wagon box in Fort Supply, Wyoming, the first child of parents Benjamin Morgan Roberts and Mary Ann “Polly” Bullock Roberts. It is said that he was the first man of Caucasian descent to be born there.

Benjamin was just six weeks old when Johnston’s army came into sight. The family was forced to retreat back to Utah. Their wagons were loaded with whatever they could hold and everything else was burned so as not to leave any provisions for the army, which Brigham Young considered to be an enemy of the Mormon people.

The family then settled in Provo, Utah, and Benjamin Jr. helped his father farm the land. He had many “old west” adventures, including meeting three hundred migrant Chinese workers who had walked all the way to Utah from San Francisco to find work on the railroad. One worker gave Benjamin a teakwood box, saying he was the first white man he had ever seen, and it became a family heirloom and the subject of much family lore.

Later, Benjamin Jr. himself worked for the Utah Southern Railroad to bring it to Provo from Salt Lake City and then on through Sevier Canyon.

On 5 Oct 1882, when he was twenty-five, Benjamin Jr. married Sarah Ann Milner, the oldest daughter of judge John B. Milner.

To support his family, Benjamin Jr. farmed and raised livestock including cows, chickens, horses and pigs. In his spare time, he hauled wood from the canyon or coal from Coalville. At night, he’d make adobe bricks that he could sell to local builders.

Benjamin was a veteran of the Black Hawk War and had many stories about the Indians. He also enjoyed telling people about the time he got to see the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show.

He passed away in Los Angeles, following a heart attack, and was buried 6 Feb 1938 in the Provo City Cemetery.

The sons of Benjamin Morgan Roberts and Mary Ann Bullock

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The sons of Benjamin Morgan Roberts and Mary Ann Bullock

Accompany annotation states: “Seated, L-R: Samuel K[imball] age 33 yrs?, Benjamin M[organ] age 34?, Isaac Bullock age 31?; Standing: John Riggs age 27?, Joseph [Bullock] age 20. Grandfather Benjamin M. Roberts died Aug 7 1891 so I imagine this picture was taken at this time. Florence R. Wright [Joseph’s daughter]”.

Mary Ann “Polly” Bullock Roberts

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MARY ANN “POLLY” BULLOCK ROBERTS
19 Sep 1829 – 18 Aug 1901

Mary Ann, my third great grandmother on my mother’s mother’s side, was born in Moira, New York, the daughter of Benjamin and Dorothy Kimball Bullock of Grafton, New Hampshire. Mary Ann’s ancestry can be traced back to two different pilgrims who came to America aboard the Mayflower: Thomas Rogers, b. 1571 in Walford, Northampton and James Chilton, b. 1563 in Canterbury, Kent.

It is said that Mary Ann’s father, Benjamin, took Michael Chandler, the purveyor of the Egyptian mummies and papyruses, to meet Joseph Smith Jr., the first Mormon prophet, who was evidently so enamored with them, he had the Mormon church purchase them for $6,000 and later translated one papyrus into the controversial Book of Abraham, part of the Mormon Pearl of Great Price.

Benjamin was so impressed with Joseph Smith Jr. that he returned to New York and sold his farm and home, taking his wife and family to live with the Mormons in Kirtland, Ohio. There, they met with mob violence and, soon afterward, were forced into Far West, Missouri. In the spring of 1839, directed by a cousin, Heber C. Kimball, they left for the state of Illinois where they helped to build the city of Nauvoo. When the family was forced out of Nauvoo by mobs in 1846, they regrouped in Iowa, in a place that later became known as Bullock Grove.

On June 20, 1852, most of the Bullock clan headed for Utah Valley, including Mary Ann’s brother, Isaac, who was in charge of the company, as well as both of her parents. She would never see her parents alive again. Mary Ann moved to Kansas City. Her father, Benjamin, took ill from cholera on the trail and died and was buried without a coffin on the banks of the Platte River. Her mother, Dorothy, died just short of her first year in Utah before Mary Ann finally arrived there.

In Utah, Mary Ann met and married Jesse Thompson Hartley, a “Gentile” attorney from Oregon. Jesse was evidently denounced by Brigham Young in a conference in Salt Lake. Sometime shortly afterward, he was shot in the back of the head while riding horseback across a stream in East Canyon by the notorious Wild Bill Hickman, Brigham’s so-called “Destroying Angel.” Hickman claims to have murdered Hartley at the behest of Apostle Orson Hyde. Several separate accounts of this incident have been published, including one in Hickman’s own autobiography and one in Fifteen Years Among the Mormons by Mary Ettie V. Smith. At the time of her husband’s death, Mary Ann was pregnant with the couple’s first child, whom she named Jesse Jr., in his honor. He died nine months after he was born.

In a state of bereavement, Mary Ann agreed to go to Fort Supply, Wyoming with her brother, Captain Isaac Bullock, who had been called by Brigham Young to establish a Mormon trading post and ferry for the purposes of immigration. While there, she met and married Benjamin Morgan Roberts. The couple had their first child, Benjamin Morgan Roberts, Jr., my second great grandfather, while still in Wyoming.

Benjamin Morgan Roberts

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BENJAMIN MORGAN ROBERTS
15 Jan 1827 – 7 Aug 1891

Benjamin is my third great grandfather on my mother’s mother’s side. He was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, the sixth of seven children of Samuel Roberts, Jr. and Sarah Lamar. His father, Samuel, died when he was just two years old and his mother, Sarah, died when he was only four. The family was then split up and raised by the Society of Friends or Quakers. From them, young Benjamin learned to read the Bible and to write. He also apprenticed as a wheel-right.

In 1840, when he was just thirteen, young Benjamin came across a pamphlet in Philadelphia about the Mormons. He went to the address listed in the brochure to learn more about this nascent religion. Evidently, he couldn’t tell his Quaker family about his interest in Mormonism so legend has it that he would quietly sneak out of the house to attend Mormon services after everyone had gone to bed.

After learning more about the Mormons, Benjamin decided to travel to Nauvoo, to hear directly from their prophet Joseph Smith Jr. Benjamin was baptized in July of 1840 in Nauvoo on the bank of the Mississippi River.

Benjamin and his adopted family, the Yardsleys, were eventually driven out of Nauvoo by anti-Mormon mobs and on June 30, 1846, in Council Bluffs, Iowa, Benjamin joined the U.S. Army and became part of 500 Mormon infantrymen, later known as the Mormon Battalion, who enlisted to help defend America’s southern borders during the U.S.-Mexican War.

Benjamin took sick during the march to Santa Fe and was sent to winter in Pueblo, Colorado. Afterward, he resumed his journey westward and was one of thirteen men who came across Brigham Young and the original pioneers on July 4, 1847, in what is now Green River, Wyoming.

The Battalion men entered Utah Valley on July 29, 1847 and immediately commenced building the Bowery, the first meeting house in Utah, and a fort where Pioneer Park now stands.

In 1855, Benjamin was called on a mission to the Shoshone Indians in Fort Supply, Wyoming. While in Wyoming, he met and married Mary Ann “Polly” Bullock, the sister of Captain Isaac Bullock. Their first son, Benjamin Morgan Roberts Jr., my second great grandfather, was born on 12 Aug 1857.

Esther “Elizabeth” Yardley Thurman Milner

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ESTHER “ELIZABETH” YARDLEY THURMAN MILNER
24 Jan 1825 – 29 Sept 1911

Esther is my third great grandmother on my mother’s mother’s side. She was born in Tanworth-in-Arden, Warwick, England. She was the oldest of thirteen children born to Thomas and Mary Rose Yardley and learned early on how to help her mother with the duties of raising a large family, becoming a good cook and pitching in with the housekeeping. While still a teenager, Esther moved to Birmingham to run her uncle’s household.

In Birmingham, she met Thomas Edward Thurman. The young couple married on 6 Nov 1848. The two had heard of the Mormons through visiting missionaries and agreed to attend their services. Legend has it that when Esther heard the hymn “O My Father”, she immediately formed a testimony for the truthfulness of the Mormon church. Esther and Thomas were both baptized on 7 Mar 1849.

The couple had two children, a boy and a girl, but their daughter died just a few weeks after she was born. Shortly after, Thomas himself died of tuberculosis. Esther, forced to make her own way, opened a pastry shop and ran a boarding house. One of her customers was Charles Dickens, who was said to have later portrayed her as a pleasant and plump matron of an inn in one of his novels.

A few years later, on 5 Feb 1853, Esther and her son left England aboard The Jersey and, six weeks later, they arrived in New Orleans, before making their way north to Keokuk, Iowa, a staging ground for immigrant Mormon pioneers. Here, Esther outfitted herself with a riding horse and a cow for milking. It is said she walked the whole way across the plains so her son and others could ride the horse.

While on the journey toward the Utah Valley, she met John Brewitt Milner. The couple married the following spring and settled in Provo, Utah.

They had seven children, including one daughter who died in infancy. Their fourth daughter, Sarah Ann Milner, my second great grandmother, was born on 29 May 1862 in Provo, Utah.

John Brewitt Milner

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JOHN BREWITT MILNER
27 Jan 1830 – 17 Oct 1912

John is my third great grandfather on my mother’s mother’s side. He was born in Gringley, Nottingham, England. His father died three months before he was born. He was subsequently raised and tutored by his widowed mother, Ann Johnson Milner. John was a good reader and had read the Bible three times by the age of ten. In 1843, when he was just thirteen, he met Mormon missionaries in England and was later baptized.

In 1853, John and his mother left Liverpool, arrived in New Orleans and then took a steamboat up the Mississippi to what is now Iowa; then a staging ground for Mormon emigrants preparing to make the journey to Utah Valley. John and his mother departed with the Cyrus H. Wheelock Company on 1 June 1853 and, along with 400 individuals and 50 wagons, arrived in Utah in early October of that same year.

While on the trail, John met his future wife, Esther Yardley Thurman, also a native of England, and her son. The two were married in March of 1854 in the Salt Lake Endowement House and settled in Provo, Utah.

John first worked as a court reporter for a judge in the first U.S. Court in Utah and later, he became a secretary to Brigham Young. John taught in the first school in Provo and worked as an assessor, tax collector, surveyor, Justice of the Peace, farmer, businessman, state legislator and lawyer.

In 1876, John served as was the personal secretary to George Q. Cannon during congressional hearings on co-habitation. He also practiced law in Arizona, where he was called upon to defend Mormon polygamists. John had four wives.

In later years, John received numerous political appointments, including head of the Utah State Sanitarium in Provo, Utah. When the people of Utah divided on party lines, he joined the Democratic Party and became a leading figure in that organization. He was as firm a believer in democracy as he was in his religion.

He was said to be the oldest member of the Bar Association in Utah. He was teacher of the first public school in Provo, in the Third Ward, and all his life he was interested in educational affairs.

His funeral services were held in the Salt Lake Mormon Tabernacle.

Jesse Ann Eddings Tripp

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JESSE ANN EDDINGS TRIPP
17 Jun 1839 – 9 May 1923

Jesse is my third great grandmother on my mother’s father’s side. She was born in Cradley, Herefordshire, England, the youngest daughter of George Eddings and Ann Smith Eddings. Her mother, Ann, died just two years after she was born following a complicated delivery of an infant son, her sixth child, George Jr., who followed his mother to the grave just three months later.

Her father, George Eddings, was an early British convert to Mormonism, joining the church in 1840 when Wilford Woodruff came to Herefordshire and converted 600 people in a matter of days; all of whom were baptized in Benbow Pond.

George remarried and his second wife and three surviving children came to America on a schooner in 1842, eventually settling in Nauvoo, Illinois.

In 1846, the family was driven out of Nauvoo by the anti-Mormon mobs. George lost his only son from his second marriage crossing the Missouri river: another boy named George, who was buried close by the banks of the river.

George was a carpenter by trade and helped the displaced Mormons make dug-outs from sod and logs in order to survive the harsh winter of 1846 on the Iowa plains. George eventually took ill from exposure and died in Winter Quarters on 26 April 1847. Jesse, just shy of eight years of age, was placed in the care of a Mrs. Margaret Rushton and she remained in Iowa another two years until, in 1850, she emigrated to the Utah Valley as part of the Edward Hunter Company, the first company funded through church donations to the Perpetual Emigration Fund. She was just eleven years of age, part of 261 individuals and 67 wagon trains who made the journey. The company arrived in Utah on 13 Oct 1850.

In 1857, during the height of the Mormon Reformation, she met Enoch Bartlett Tripp, a visiting teacher assigned to the home where she was living and working as a nanny. Enoch wrote and obtained permission from the Mormon prophet Brigham Young to take Jesse as his third wife. The two were married in the Utah Endowement House on 20 March 1857.

Jesse would give Enoch twelve heirs, including Joseph Willard Tripp, my second great grandfather, who was born in a two-room farmhouse in South Cottonwood in Salt Lake on 12 Nov 1894.

Enoch Bartlett Tripp

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ENOCH BARTLETT TRIPP
29 May 1823 – 25 Jan 1909

Enoch is my third great grandfather on my mother’s father’s side. He was born in Bethel, Maine and traces his ancestry on his mother’s side to Josiah Bartlett, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Enoch was a businessman, a boot maker, a shop owner and a school teacher. He came to Nauvoo, Illinois as the Mormons were being driven out, originally intending to profiteer from their evacuation. While in Nauvoo, he stayed with his aunt, Patty Bartlett Sessions and his cousin, David Sessions. After meeting with Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards, he quickly converted to Mormonism. In Nauvoo, he married Roxanna Billings Tripp in one of the last endowement ceremonies performed in the Nauvoo Temple.

Enoch was asked to stay in Nauvoo since he was unknown and could help settle Mormon church affairs. He was close to Lucy Mack Smith and Emma Smith and taught some of Emma and Joseph Smith Jr’s children: Joseph III, Frederick, Alexander, and an adopted daughter named Julia.

With his first wife and children, he finally departed for the Utah Valley after being prompted by a voice one day, which told him “Get ye up into the valley of the mountains”. His family traveled to Utah without incident, arriving on July 27, 1853.

Enoch was a consummate diarist and wrote over 1,700 pages of journal entries detailing his activities from 1845 through 1908, the year before he died. His original journals are now part of the special collections at the Harold B. Lee library at the Brigham Young University.

Enoch was one of the last people to speak with Lucy Mack Smith, the mother of the first Mormon prophet, before she died; a meeting which he detailed in his journal in November 1855. He had stopped by Nauvoo to see her on his way back from serving a mission in Maine:

“I called upon the Prophet’s Mother and found her in a lonely room in the eastern part of the house in her bed and very feeble. Upon approaching her bedside and informing her who I was, she arose in her bed and placing her arms around my neck kissed me exclaiming, ‘I can now die in peace since I have beheld your face from the valleys of the mountains.'”

Road trip!!!

Whoo-hoo, 30 days of travel from Sutter Creek, Ca to New York City.

 

 

1. San Francisco>Sutter Creek

 

131 miles, 2 ½ hours

 

2. Sutter Creek>Reno

 

137 miles, 3 hours

 

3. Reno>Salt Lake

 

518 miles, 8 hours

 

4. Salt Lake>Ogden/Bountiful/Logan/Orem/Provo

 

5. Salt Lake>St. George (Nephi, Manti, Beaver, Mountain Meadows, Enoch, Cedar City)>Salt Lake

 

304 miles, 4 hours 45 mins down

304 miles, 4 hours 45 mins back

 

6. Salt Lake>Fort Bridger, WY

 

116 miles, 2 hours

 

7. Fort Bridger>Alcova, WY

 

266 miles, 4 hours, 20 mins

 

8. Alcova>Chimney Rock

 

230 miles, 4 hours

 

9. Chimney Rock>Omaha

 

432 miles, 7 hours

 

10. Council Bluffs>Independence, Mo

193 miles, 3 hours 18 minutes

 

11. Independence, MO>Keokuk, IA

243 miles, 4 ½ hours.

 

12. Keokuk, IA>Nauvoo, IL

14.9 miles, 24 mins

 

13. Nauvoo, IL>Chicago, IL

272 miles, 4 hours 37 mins

 

14. Chicago>Flint, MI

274 miles, 4 hours 44 mins

15. Flint, MI>Kirtland, OH

248 miles, 4 hours

 

16. Kirtland, OH>Kane, PA

161 miles, 3 hours

 

17. Kane, PA> Oakland, PA

239 miles, 4 hours

 

18. Oakland, PA> S Royalton, VT

274 miles, 5 hours

 

19. S Royalton>Waterloo, NY

292 miles, 6 hours

 

21. Waterloo, NY>Palmyra, NY

27 miles, 34 mins

 

22. Palmyra> New York

294 miles, 5 ½ hours