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  • Children Frightened on the Hay Rack

    < Back Children Frightened on the Hay Rack Return to Native Americans At the time of this story, the Hutchens house was located in The Meadows close to Perry’s Lane. Mary said her father, William Hutchens, had placed his hayrack quite away from the house, but it was inside their place; the rack had a sort of box bed on it that was used to hold the grain. One day in 1865 her parents went to town, taking Dave the baby with them. It always took almost the whole day by the ox team, and Charles, Mary, Mel, and John were left home. The children decided to go down to the rack and play on it. So, with a great deal of difficulty, Mary and Charles finally succeeded in boosting and pulling young John up onto the rack. They had only played there a short time when they saw a cloud of dust coming towards them up the road. Charles got down from the rack and ran to the road to see what caused it. They couldn’t see well from where they were because the roadway was lined with willows. Charles came running back, all excited, saying it was a band of Indians on horseback. When they came nearer, they evidently saw the children and decided to have some fun, as they came running and shouting over to the hayrack, surrounding it and trying to touch the children who crouched down in the center. The horses stood side-by-side all around the rack, as close as possible, and the Indians urged them forward, trying to make the horses touch the children. But of course, the animals would drawback their heads when they came too close, but the Indians would again urge them forward. The children were much frightened, and they cried, but Charles didn’t cry. He tried to comfort them, telling them that the Indians didn’t dare hurt them. Finally, the young Indians were tired of teasing the children, and the one who apparently was the leader gave a whoop and backed away and headed for the road, 2nd Street, with all the others following him. That night when her parents came home, they saw that all the children's little dusty faces were streaked with dried tears, and they ask them what had happened. Charles told them, and his father said he would see the Chiefs as he wasn’t going to have his little children frightened. He evidently did this, for after that incident the children were never frightened in that manner again. [1] [1] - Autobiography of Mary Elizabeth Hutchens Sherner, Mary Elizabeth – Her Stories, dictated to her daughter Dorothy A. Sherner, manuscript, 1933, p. 85. Return to Native Americans Previous [object Object] Next

  • Goodale Drive, Isaac Newton Court

    < Back Return to Roads Goodale Drive, Isaac Newton Court Isaac Newton Goodale (1815-1890) Toll Gate monument located at the mouth of Ogden Canyon in the Rainbow Gardens north parking lot. Ogden Canyon Toll Gate monument plaque. Isaac Newton Goodale was born 1815 in Berkshire, New York, and was named after Sir Isaac Newton, an English mathematician and philosopher who formulated the binomial theorem, the laws of gravity and motion, and the elements of differential calculus. Such an honor was not lost on Newton or “Newt” as his friends affectionately called him. He attended school from ages 9 to 15 but was a self-taught, life-long learner gifted in principles of civil engineering. He used his gifts in callings to survey and build roads and canals in Weber County that are still used in 2022. At age 15 his family moved from New York to the Michigan wilderness, and at age 24 he had a remarkable vision the day before the Mormon missionaries arrived at his parents’ home. He was the only member of his family that studied the Book of Mormon and learned that it was true. In 1841 he left Michigan and moved to Nauvoo. [1] He worked on the Nauvoo temple, served a mission and suffered the mobs and burnings of homes and expulsion from Nauvoo. On May 12, 1846, he recorded in his journal that he “started for the Rockey Mountain to find a Asalum (asylum) for the opressed”. After living in Winter Quarters he arrived in the valley of the Great Salt Lake on 19 September 1847. Brigham Young married Isaac Newton Goodale and Louisa Maria Bingham, daughter of Erastus and Lucinda Bingham, on January 17, 1849 in Salt Lake City. Goodale wrote in his journal that he would “long remember this day”. [2] Seeing that Isaac Newton Goodale had skills as a surveyor Brigham Young sent him to “Little Salt Lake” (Parawon) in Iron County from January to September 1851 to survey roads and engineer the Parawan Canal. During this time his wife stayed in Weber County with her parents and delivered a baby in Farr’s Fort in February 1851. [3] After finishing the work in Parawon he came to Weber County on 1 Oct 1851 finding his wife and family well. They returned briefly to Salt Lake City, and in February 1852 Goodale moved his family again to Ogden joining the Bingham family on 2nd Street. [4] While establishing his farm and meadow on 2nd Street, he also recorded going to military training and learning sword exercises. [5] In September he was asked to make the plans and write out the bill for the building of the first school on 2nd Street. Goodale worked hard on the log school which was completed on Dec. 31, 1852, just in time for a New Year’s dance the next day. [6] It was known as the Bingham School (located at intersection of 2nd St. and Lynne School Lane ). There were Indian wars in central and southern Utah. Bloody violence was avoided in Weber County, but fear that the Indians would attack settlers in Weber County induced cautionary measures. Brigham Young ordered Weber County to “fort up”. Goodale was chosen on the committee to locate and lay out the fort in his district and then was chosen to be a military commander. But a military unit was never organized as it was not needed. [7] In September of 1853 while building the fort walls, one of the Goodale’s young sons died. Another son was born in October, lived 11 days and also died. Goodale buried the babies next to each other and wrote in his journal on 14 Oct. 1853: “..These days are deep affliction to me; why it is so I cannot tell. The rest of the day I stayed round about home. I feel that all is right. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. He shall be praised for all His goodness to me.” [8] In the spring of 1854 the course of Isaac Newton Goodale’s work changed from building a fort, roadways and small irrigation canals. President Brigham Young urged settlers to move into Ogden and build up the city. Homes on the bench would need water for the necessary livestock and gardens, and Young appointed Goodale to survey a canal from the Ogden River upward to the bench above Ogden and then to supervise its construction. It was essential for Ogden’s development to bring water to the bench land. Until this time, the waters of the Ogden River had been diverted at at the mouth of the canyon only to the north side of the river. All diversions to the north followed gravity and the natural downward slope of the land. On the south side of the river was a steep embankment. Goodale started at the diversion point a little above the mouth of the canyon near the first bridge and conveyed the water to the mouth of the canyon in an elevated wooden flume. From this point above the floor of the canyon, he took the water slowly up another five feet from the gorge, along the high south bank to a point near today’s Jackson and Van Buren Avenues where the canal turned south and entered the bench. The Ogden Bench Canal was considered a wonderful job of engineering, an amazing feat that turned the arid bench area above Ogden City into a watered garden. Today one can stand in the El Monte golf course and gaze at the high bank to the south and envision the construction of the canal along the hill with picks and shovels and crude instruments. Until Isaac could obtain a transit or surveyors level, this work was done with a carpenters level modified for horizontal sighting. The canal was over two miles long and is reported to have cost $20,000. The costly portion was in the area from the mouth of the canyon upwards to about Harrison Ave. When the Ogden Bench Canal was completed, it was considered a miracle in its day. [9] Ogden Bench Canal in 1934. Notice that Harrison Ave. ends at intersection with Valley Dr. In 1857 Mayor Lorin Farr appointed Goodale superintendent of building the road through Ogden Canyon to Huntsville. The mouth of Ogden Canyon was a very narrow gorge through which people did not travel during the first 12 years of settlement. They entered the canyon higher up and on the north side in order to go around the wild, narrow gorge that was its mouth. Building in that formidable gorge was a difficult and expensive undertaking in those days. The cost of constructing the road from Ogden to Huntsville was $19,000 in one report and $50,000 in another. The new road went up the north side of the gorge. No explosives were used on the original road. Instead log cribs [a frame of beams] were made and then filled with rocks and gravel and brush upon which the roadbed was built. Portions of the road would wash out during high water and have to be rebuilt. After the initial opening in 1860 Goodale built three bridges that helped the road very much. When that was completed he began the task of continuing the Ogden Canyon Road to Bear Lake. [10] Ruggedness of Ogden Canyon visible in post card c. 1925; road surveyed by Isaac Newton Goodale. In 1857 he took a second wife, Emma Foy, and six children were born from this marriage. [11] Isaac Newton Goodale served as a school trustee for 22 years and as an Ogden City councilor for 15 years. In the early history of the city, there was no pay for such offices. The assignments that Brother Goodale received, whether it be in building walls, canal, roads, or surveying, were missions in the sense that they did not normally bring wages and must be accomplished with complete dedication. Sometimes he or the workers might receive produce or reciprocal services, but only sometimes. His wife Maria had much of the responsibility of home and family, and the children had to help make the land provide nourishment and clothing. He and Maria had 13 children. Emma Foy died in 1869 and Maria reared two of Emma’s daughters with the same motherly care and attention as her own children. [12] Isaac Newton Goodale was respected and beloved by his family and hundreds of friends. He was a modest man who never sought for his own aggrandizement but worked for the welfare of his people. He was a public servant all of his life surveying roads and canals in Weber, Salt Lake and Iron Counties, leaving an indelible pioneer fingerprint on the development of Utah that still remains. He always expressed his conviction of the truthfulness of the Mormon doctrines in a most positive manner. All his immediate relatives in Michigan, including his parents, considered he had disgraced the family by joining the Mormons. It did not cause any humiliation to him, and up to the day of his death he showed great joy and interest in talking with others about the Prophet Joseph Smith and the doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. [13] He died April 26, 1890. Isaac Newton Ct. Goodale Dr. [1] - Joyce B. Maw, Isaac Newton Goodale Life History, manuscript, 1996, p. 2-4. [2] - Ibid, p. 5-9. [3] - Ibid, p. 11. [4] - T he Isaac Newton Goodale Journal, 1850-1857 , transcribed by Elden J. and Anne S. Watson, manuscript, 1981, p. 8, 20, 25. [5] - Ibid, p. 29. [6] - Ibid, p. 31-45. [7] - Ibid, p. 53-54. [8] - Joyce B. Maw, Isaac Newton Goodale Life History , p. 13. [9] - Ibid, p. 16, 17. [10] - Obituary of Isaac Newton Goodale, Death of A Pioneer, Ogden Standard, April 27, 1890; Joyce Maw, Isaac Newton Goodale Life History , p. 20. [11] - Joyce B. Maw, Isaac Newton Goodale Life History, p. 26. [12] - Ibid, p. 23. [13] - Electa Goodale and Martha Goodale Buswell (daughters), Isaac Newton Goodale , manuscript, p. 2. Previous Return to Roads Next

  • 140 West 2nd Street

    < Back 140 West 2nd Street Return to Homes Nancy Romrell (1838- 1909) and George Pierce (1829-1898). 140 W 2nd ST; built by Geo. and Jane Pierce beginning in 1877; they may have moved into the left portion while completing the right wing. The Pierce orange brick house is a landmark visible from 2nd Street since 1877; it is located on Old Pioneer Road. George and Jane Romrell Pierce built this house starting about 1877. They first lived in a board house located next door at 142 W 2nd ST; read there for a sketch of the Pierce family. The orange bricks of this house were handmade, probably at the Gates Adobe-Brick Mill. The adobe, hand-made bricks were formed in molds, dried in the sun and then fired in a kiln; the bricks closest to the fire in the kiln turned out harder than the bricks located farther from the fire. After firing the adobe brick in the kiln, the color of the brick changed to orange; these orange bricks were sometimes called “burnt bricks”; they were much more durable than adobe bricks, but the hardness and the size of the orange brick was irregular. They were still “soft” compared to the bricks that would be made in the future. To protect these orange bricks from rain dripping off the roof, a three-foot rock foundation was built around the house from the ground up. [1] In the 1880s this six-room orange brick house was a step-up for the large Pierce family. It had no modern heating or plumbing but it was solidly built and had six rooms with plaster walls. Compared to mansions in Ogden, it may be a frugal, relatively simple farmhouse; yet it had an intrinsic charm that kept subsequent generations repairing and updating it and loving it. In 1939 Lyman and Violet Anderson were fascinated by this old, well-used farmhouse. They bought and began restoring the old pioneer home. In the 1940s, as an engineer for Ogden Union Railroad & Depot Co., Mr. Anderson drove the train on the Five Points spur on the south side of 2nd Street. When driving the train eastward up 2nd Street and approaching his own home, Mr. Anderson would blow the whistle, and his young son would run down the lane and ride with his father to Five Points and back again. This was a delight to all the neighborhood. The train on this spur was very slow moving. Workers on the train would sometimes throw candy to the children on 2nd Street, and the children would throw back apples or pears in season. In the 1950s Mr. Anderson and his son dug a cellar under the east section of the house, one shovel full at a time; the stairway to the cellar is in the rear lean-to. Next to the lean-to they made a sixteen-foot extension of the cellar with a sloping 4-foot-high roof for the purpose of dumping coal. The Andersons also hand painted some of the exterior bricks dark red and the mortar black to enhance the appearance of the old orange brick. [2] The Pierce/Anderson house still belongs to Anderson family descendants in 2022. Hand painted bricks & mortar under porch roof. In time the sun faded the painted mortar and diminished the paint on some of the bricks. Rear view shows lean-to and extension for dumping coal. [1] - Observations by Gordon Q. Jones in 2001 during on site visit, author of Pioneer Forts in Ogden Utah, 1996, Ogden Chapter SUP. [2] - Deborah Blake, Family Jewel , Standard Examiner- Historic Homes, 2003; interview 2nd Street resident Genevieve Sherner. Return to Homes Previous Next

  • Potatoes and Buffalo Meat

    < Back Potatoes and Buffalo Meat Return to Native Americans Garden Potatoes Mary remembered hearing her father tell Jack Indian that it was wrong for the Indians to go through his potato patch and take out the young plants before the potatoes had matured because it spoiled his rows made for irrigation and flooded his potatoes and ruined the whole crop. Her father took him into the field and showed him the results. He also showed him where the Indians had worked on the plants. Jack Indian said he would see that his Indians didn’t do that anymore, and after that, her father’s crops were not spoiled by the Indians as they waited until he was ready to harvest them, and then Jack Indian came and took his portion. Her father had given the Indians every third row. [1] Sharing his garden crops with Jack Indian was important since the Mormon pioneers had upset the delicate balance of life for the Indians. The land that the Shoshone had lived on for centuries was only able to sustain life for so many people. As more and more saints arrived in Shoshone lands, gathering native plants and hunting became an impossible situation for the Shoshone. [2] Corn When Jack Indian asked her father for corn, her father told Jack he could have every third row, but for his women not to walk between the two rows which were left as that had to be watered, so Jack had his women come with long baskets and pull off the corn. Then it was placed at the foot of each row and afterward gathered and taken to their camp. Mary asked her father what the Indians did with all the corn as they couldn’t possibly eat it all at once, so he said he would take her along the road beside the Indian encampment. He did that later and there she saw the corn which had been cut off the cobs drying in the sun. The Indians had placed it in the corn husks, laying each piece side-by-side on the ground filled with corn. She thought that showed they were very industrious to save the husks for that purpose which enabled them to keep the corn from coming in contact with the dirty ground. [3] Buffalo Meat​ One day in the fall of the year, Mary saw Jack Indian come into the yard followed by another Indian who carried a piece of meat on his shoulder. They walked up to the house and opened the door and walked in. He asked Eliza Hutchens, the “Fighting Squaw”, where his “Brother” was. Eliza said that her husband was working in the field. Jack turned and motioned for the other Indian to come in. The other one came in and laid the piece of meat on the table. Jack Indian said it was buffalo meat, and Eliza thanked them for it. Jack just grunted, and then they turned and left. [4] The meat was a central item in the Northwest Shoshone diet. In the fall, the men traveled into Western Wyoming and harvested buffalo and antelope, sun drying the meat for winter use. Deer, elk, moose, and bighorn sheep were hunted in what is now Idaho and Utah. In Western Utah and Eastern Nevada, remnants of Shoshone sage-brush corrals could be seen as late as the 1930s. Hunters would drive deer or antelope in these corrals to facilitate their slaughter for food and clothing. Larger animals like moose and elk were much harder to kill and were sometimes driven over cliffs or chased into large pits near watering holes to facilitate their taking. Rabbit hunting was done in the summer and winter months, and squirrels, woodchucks, and other small animals were also harvested when found. [5] [1] - Autobiography of Mary Elizabeth Hutchens Sherner, Mary Elizabeth – Her Stories, dictated to her daughter Dorothy A. Sherner, manuscript, 1933, p 84. [2] - Darren Parry, The Bear River Massacre, Common Consent Press, 2019, p. 22. [3] - Sherner, Mary Elizabeth- Her Stories, p 84. [4] - Ibid. [5] - Parry, The Bear River Massacre, p. 18. Return to Native Americans Previous [object Object] Next

  • Medicine Man Helped Eliza Hutchens

    < Back Medicine Man Helped Eliza Hutchens Return to Native Americans What does it take to find a cure... After Joe was born in 1867, Eliza Hutchens had a hard time getting well, and soon William was very much worried. The local doctor came, but her remedies were of no help. The Indian women came and talked to Eliza and brought her choice bits of food, such as dried venison and serviceberries. Then one day the medicine man came bringing a beaver he had killed. He told William that he could cure the sick squaw if his directions were followed. From the dead beaver, he took the castor glands. He put the castoreum, a brown molasses-like substance, in a bottle of whiskey and instructed William to give his wife a teaspoon at intervals; the castoreum had a distinct taste and smell and Eliza was reluctant to take it. She finally consented, and it worked! It wasn’t long before Eliza had fully recovered. [1] NOTE: Castoreum is still used in 2021 for medicinal purposes. It can be purchased in some pharmacies for use as a sleep aid. Salicin-rich castoreum is converted by human bodies into salicylic acid, which behaves much in the same way that aspirin does, to provide relief from pain. [2] Eliza Helps the Widower Indian Chief ​ A widower Indian Chief had three children, and he brought the baby to Eliza to the doctor because the baby had sore eyes. He never brought the baby up to the door; he just came into their yard and sat on a log or a chopping block with his children until Eliza came out and spoke to him. One day after Eliza had washed the baby and cared for his eyes, the Widower Chief asked if his baby could be given a little milk as he was too young to eat what the Chief provided for his other children. After that Eliza always gave the baby a cup of milk to drink after she had taken care of his eyes. The Chief never asked for food for himself or for the other children. When the weather got cold, the baby had nothing to wear. Eliza told the Chief that the baby should be dressed in such cold weather, so after she had doctored his eyes, she put a little shirt on him. The baby fought like a wild animal and pulled the shirt and finally tore it off. All the while the Indian Chief laughed and laughed, and when he took the baby away, he had nothing on again; he was just wrapped in his blanket. [3] [1] - Autobiography of Mary Elizabeth Hutchens Sherner, Mary Elizabeth – Her Stories, dictated to her daughter Dorothy A. Sherner, manuscript, 1933, p. 55. [2] - https://www.10best.com/interests/food-culture/beaver-sac-excretions-have-flavored-more-food-than-you-realize/ , Feb. 2021 . [3] - Sherner, Mary Elizabeth- Her Stories, p. 88. Return to Native Americans Previous [object Object] Next

  • 214 West 2nd Street

    < Back 214 West 2nd Street Return to Homes Mary Maxham house built c. 1871; photo Weber County Assessor, c. 1930. Photo 2022. Mary Holmes Maxham (1807-1877) Widow Mary Maxham came from Vermont and built this yellow brick (burnt brick) house as an affluent elderly lady. At the time of its building the projecting bay windows gave the house an urban charm that was more stylish than the surrounding farm houses. It was considered a “high class house for those early times” and was a popular cross-wing architectural style of the early United States. [1] Like other structures of “burnt” bricks, the house has a three-foot rock foundation to protect the bricks from effects of rain and moist soil. Presently the exterior bricks are covered with siding, but the rock foundation is still visible. In 1871 the house and property totaled three- and one-half acres. Mary Maxham had the house built in the center of the rural Lynne village, about 300 feet from the school house which was the center of community activities. On her first Sunday at church (in the school house) she walked down the aisle with the aid of a cane; Mary Hutchens, about age 14, noticed the chairs were filled, so she jumped up and offered the stranger, Sister Maxham, her seat. That evening Mary Maxham requested that Mary Hutches live with her and earn one dollar a week. The Maxham house was on the west side of the school and the Hutchens house was on the east side of the school. Mary Hutchen’s mother permitted Mary to live at the Maxham house if she would come home one day a week and help with the Hutchens washing and then take the ironing back and do that. This Mary did. In fact, she did her grandmother’s washing and ironing and Mrs. Maxham’s too. Before long, Mrs. Maxham was known as “Aunt Mary” to all the Hutchens family. [2] Mary Maxham had one son, Isaiah T. Maxham, who died in the Civil War in 1864. When Mary Maxham died in 1877, she left her house and property to the William Hutchens family. [3] [1] - Carter and Goss, Utah’s Historic Architecture, 1847-1940, 1988, Utah State Historical Society, p.37-43. [2] - Autobiography of Mary Elizabeth Hutchens Sherner, Mary Elizabeth- Her Stories, transcribed by Dorothy A Sherner and Laura Sherner Welker, manuscript, 1933, p. 48, 55, 56, 79. [3] - Utah U S Wills and Probate Records, 1800-1985. Return to Homes Previous Next

  • 105 West 2nd Street

    < Back 105 West 2nd Street Return to Homes Barn at 105 W 2nd Street Home at 105 W 2nd Street Home at 105 W 2nd Street, 2018 Carl Stone was born in 1891 and raised at 386 W 2nd Street, the adopted son of Mary Melling Stone. As a child, he was doted on by Mary and her married children, some of whom had children Carl’s age. Carl Stone and his niece Violet Brown, c. 1896. Carl grew up farming and loved farming all his life. In 1909, at age 18, Carl left home and looked over land prospects in Wyoming but decided not to seek his fortune there. [1] At age 25 in 1916, he married Ettnie Butler in Ogden, Utah. In about 1920 Carl and Ettnie bought a farm on W 2nd Street and lived in a humble cabin on their property for nine years. Carl loved the farming community on 2nd Street where he grew up. During these nine years, they built the house at 105 W 2nd with the help of neighbor and carpenter Joe Anderson. Carl farmed on the north side of 2nd Street and finished a large dairy barn before the house was completed. They moved into the spacious new house in 1929. [2] In the 1920s there was a spur of the Oregon Short Line on the south side of 2nd Street that passed in front of all the houses on its way to Five Points. The slow-moving train was not a problem to Carl, but when he learned that future Wall Ave would be extended just east of his property, destroying his dairy barn, he traded his property to Mr. Jenkins for the old Chadwick farm in Slaterville in 1931. Carl and Ettnie left their brand-new beautiful house and barn and moved to an old house on the Slaterville farm. “My father was the hardest working man I ever knew” his son Lorin Stone said. “He didn’t waste time on amusements. He raised cows, beans, tomatoes, and hay and worked for the irrigation company.” Ettnie served for a while as the president of Farm Bureau. In 1945 they retired, left the Slaterville farm to family, and moved back to 2nd Street, living in at 404 W 2nd Street, next door to the house where Carl grew up. [3] Carl and Ettnie Butler Stone The Jenkins family lived in the community for many years and sold the house at 105 W 2 in the mid-1940s to Clarence Hoopes and his wife, LaVerna Osmond. In 1947 the Standard Examiner featured LaVerna in the newspaper with a picture of record-breaking corn up to 14 feet high. In 1978 she was featured again as the grandmother of the singing Osmond family who lived nearby at Five Points. 1947 1978 [1] - Letter Chauncey Stone to Carl Stone, 1909. [2] - US Census records 1921-1931; Interview with Lorin Stone by Anna Keogh, June 21, 1998. [3] - Interview Lorin Stone. Return to Homes Previous Next

  • 189 West 2nd Street

    < Back 189 West 2nd Street Return to Homes Civil War Vet House, built c. 1905 by Kate and William Smethers; photo c. 1921. Civil War Vet House, 189 W 2nd St, is part of the Oldest Neighborhood in Ogden; photo 2021. Perhaps the original house looked like the sketch on the right, and the porch was added later. Kate Barritt (1851-1935) and William (1845-1936) Smethers The house at 189 W 2nd Street is nick-named “The Civil War Vet House” as both original owners were members of Weber’s Grand Army of the Republic. William was a Civil War veteran who fought with General Sherman in decisive battles on his march to the sea, and Kate’s father was an army surgeon in the Civil War. Both Kate and William came from Indiana and were school teachers. They moved to Ogden later in their lives and built this house in about 1905 with a field stone foundation and relieving arched window heads of the Victorian Eclectic style on five acres of land. William served as principal one year at the Five Points School and one year at the Pingree School. Kate specialized in kindergarten work and wrote papers concerning this subject. Kate was proud to be the niece to Sarah T. Bolton, poet-laureate of Indiana, who wrote “Paddle Your Own Canoe”, and many other popular poems of that day. William also served as commander of the Utah department of the Grand Army of the Republic and commander of Dix Logan post No. 2, Ogden. He was made a master Mason nearly 50 years ago and held membership in George Washington lodge No. 24 F. & A. M. Kate was a member and matron of Queen Esther chapter, Order of the Eastern Star, and a past president of Dix-Logan post, auxiliary to the G. A. R. The Grand Army of the Republic was a fraternal organization composed of veterans of the Union Army who served in the American Civil War. Until their deaths Mr. and Mrs. Smethers were the last living G. A. R. couple in Weber County. They lived at 189 West 2nd Street for 30 years. Kate died in December 1935 and William died April 1936 at the United States Veterans Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. They had one daughter, Gertrude Mae Smethers Hutton, who continued living in the house at 189 W 2nd Street and passed it on in 1957 to her son, Harold Hutton. [1] The Smethers’ great granddaughter, Lorraine Mae Hutton (rear), in front of house at 189 W 2nd St. in 1942. [1] - Standard Examiner obituary Dec. 1935; Standard Examiner obituary April 1936; Abstract of Title 4014. Return to Homes Previous Next

  • Indian Women Washing Their Babies

    < Back Indian Women Washing Their Babies Return to Native Americans Comanche Indian woman and papoose. When the Hutchens family were living in the Meadows in the 1860s, there was a small stream that passed close to their house where the Indian women washed their babies every morning. Sometimes there would be twenty or thirty women washing their babies at one time. They would take the babies out of their papoose packs, unwind the rags from their little bodies, then take the babies and put them in the cold water and rub them until they were clean. The babies would cry loud and long, and the mothers would laugh and shout to each other. They had another dry cloth to wrap the child in when he was clean and dry, and then the babies would be put in the papoose pack and laced up again. Next, the women would wash out the soiled cloth and hang the rag on a bush to dry for use the next morning. When that lot of women got through washing their babies, another lot of women would come and take their place, and sometimes it was near noon before all of the Indian babies were washed. Young Mary Hutchens liked to sit on the opposite side of the stream and watch the baths. Sometimes after her baby was washed and cleaned, an Indian woman would let Mary take her baby and play with him. The Indian babies were never cross, but laughed and rolled and played so nicely that Mary thought they were more playful than white babies. [1] [1] - Autobiography of Mary Elizabeth Hutchens Sherner, Mary Elizabeth – Her Stories, dictated to her daughter Dorothy A. Sherner, manuscript, 1933, p.89, 86. Return to Native Americans Previous [object Object] Next

  • Forked Stick and Riddles

    < Back Forked Stick and Riddles Return to Native Americans Shoshone Indian Village Mary said that none of the pioneers locked their doors. To keep the doors so they wouldn’t come open there was a wooden latch on the inside and a string was fastened to it and put through a hole to the outside so that anyone who wanted to get in had to pull this latch string and raise the latch inside the door. One could press a knee against the door and break the wooden latch easily. At night when one retired, one pulled in the string to the inside of the door. In the early 1860s, when Mary and her family were leaving the house for a while, she noticed her father pick up a stick and set it on and against the door. She said, “Why do you do that father?” And he replied, “That is to let the settlers and the Indians know that I have gone away.” When an Indian leaves his tepee, he puts a forked stick against the flap or opening of his tent. Then other Indians will not go in because they know no one is there. Mary’s father adopted the custom from the Indians and did likewise. Once the school teacher took a basket of food to the sick Indian women during the noon hour and allowed some of the little girls to go with her. Mary noticed that a number of tepees that they passed had sticks crossed against the flaps or openings, and the teachers told them that the Indians who occupied those tepees weren’t at home and for them not to go near. [1] An Indian Riddle ​ When the little Indian girls came over to play, Mary and her sister used to tell riddles and the Indian girls tried to guess them. Little Rose Leaf one day said, “Guess this riddle: There is something that has two legs and a body but no head that guards the door.” Of course, they couldn’t guess, and Rose Leaf was delighted. Finally, they asked her what it was, and she said, “It is the crooked stick we put outside to hold the flap of the wickiup together and to let everyone know we are not at home, and then no one comes in.” [2] [1] - Autobiography of Mary Elizabeth Hutchens Sherner, Mary Elizabeth – Her Stories, dictated to her daughter Dorothy A. Sherner, manuscript, 1933, p. 87. [2] - Ibid, p. 78. Return to Native Americans Previous [object Object] Next

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