Reminiscences of a first generation Bennion

In the Spring of 1848 Samuel and John Bennion moved from the fort on Pioneer square to Emigration creek & started a home in the vicinity of what is now Forest Dale. I think Bro. Joseph Harker was with them. Food was very scarce & thin short rations were supplimented with roots, greens & berries of the native kinds. The hearts of the parents were sorely pained to ration off the meager allowance for each child. The parents must have sufficient to enable them to work. I have heard my father say they needed no chickens to pick up the waste - that the children would creep under the table & pick up every crumb off the dirt floor. My brother Samuel R. said Father was so weak he could not swing the plow around at the end of the furrow & so had him, S.R. five years old drive the oxen so as to bring the plow right into place in the furrow. And he was so weak that the least obstacle in his way would cause him to stumble & fall. Father said his breakfast was so light & his dinner so scant when he would go to the canyon for wood or fencing that he would keep nibling at his lunch so that it would be all gone by noon.

My cousin, John R. Bennion told me a rather amusing & yet touching incident that happened in Rush Valley near Stockton [?] at Rush Lake where the two brothers were obliged to winter their drystock. There was no chance then for hay in the Salt Lake Valley except a little along the Jordan River & that cut with scythe. It was in the early 50's & they were still on rations. Father had been home & brought back a few supplies. The little boy John R coming into camp found the bisquits but knowing they were all counted he took a bite out of every one, thinking it would not be noticed. "But," he said, "didn't I get a good scolding when Uncle discovered my trick!"

These little incidents show what a hard tying time our parents had in those early days & what they endured for the Gospel & building up of God's Kingdom in the tops of the mountains. And now shall we faulter & render their works & sacrifices vain & of no avail because we fail to carry on the word they so nobly began?

In the Fall of '48 Pres't Young came to these Brothers & asked them to move elsewhere as he desired that location for a church farm. So they moved across the river near 33 So. on the ice as there was no bridges then & no canals out so that fording was difficult & dangerous. They co-operated & built & lived in one cabin while they built the other - the first on the "Other side of Jordan." These brothers allways so co-operated all their lives - a fine example for their descendants. My father's last words was: "Tell my family to walk in my footsteps."

A few years later they moved south from there to sand hills to the salt grass bottoms about where the Butterfields & Mantles are now. Here it was that Rachel came nearly being devoured by a big boar pig. The screams of the child & mother brought Bro. Harker a flying with a club to the rescue.

About this time the brothers saw the notorious Bill Hickman moving around in the river bottoms south, & and suspected something, Sam'l, John, and Bro. Harker went & staked off the land & put up claim notices by moonlight so that when Hickman came out with his numerous tribe [?] he was obliged to go further up the river & located at the "Mound" - later the "Bringhurst Place" & still later "Carter."

At a harvest feast, or Thanksgiving feast Apostle John Taylor was a guest - (an old acquaintance of the Bennion brothers in Liverpool and Nauvoo) when Father Harker arose in the midst of the feast & moved we name this settlement Taylorsville. It was seconded & carried unanimously. Up to then it had been known as "North Jordan."

That moonlight staking corresponds to the present boundaries of the Bennion, Harker, Pixton & Mantle homes.

Prestd Young later acquired title to the Bennion holdings on Emigration Creek & built his county villa near the present site of the Forest Dale Meeting house.

It is noteworthy to say that Aunt Mary Bushel Bennion did not join the Church until some time after her settlement here in the valley. It is also noteworthy that after she did join she was one of the most worthy & faithful saints that ever tabernacled in the flesh. Everybody now old enough to have known can never forget her kindness & love.

I have heard my father tell how in those early starvation days whenever he called on at her home she would so urge him to eat that he was sure to be sick that night or the next day - that his stomach wa so contracted to the small rations allowed that it could not stand for the expantion of her feed without disorder.

I will relate another story though may not be suitable for publication. Joseph Bennion when a child was given to eating dirt. His father Samuel Bennion in trying to cure him of this bad habit would put a lasso around his body and throw him in the river. Finally, when he was draging, or tugging him along by that old slough near the home towards the river, little Joseph beged his father not to "fro me in de riber, but fro me [in] de sue." This plea so touched the heart of his father that he couldn't throw him [in] the river or the slough, & it is said that the kindness of his father cured him of eating dirt. Kindness is often the most influential weapon.

P.S. If our mother were only here how many interesting & instructive things they could relate! What a field of literary exercise & the Bennion family would afford a Washington Irvine, or a George Elliot! Our last reunion was the best yet. Israel came in after milking & back to milk this morning. The world moves.