Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia
Volume 2

Tolman, Judson, a Patriarch in the Davis Stake of Zion, is a son of Nathan Tolman and was born July 14, 1826, in Kennebec, Maine. He comes from old Puritan stock, his ancestors having arrived in America in 1630. Judson Tolman writes; in a brief article, prepared for this volume, as follows: "In 1837 I moved with my parents to Iowa, where I was baptised Jan. 12, 1845. I gathered with the Saints at Nauvoo in the following March and was ordained a Seventy June 5, 1845. I received my endowments in the Nauvoo Temple Jan. 27, 1846, and left Nauvoo with the Saints under Brigham Young in Hosea Stout's company as guard and continued with the company to the Missouri river, helping to build all the bridges, and make roads, and raft wagons over all the streams that could not be fortied. I remained with the company until the Mormon Battalion was organized and left for Mexico. We were then organized into a company of 200 wagons under the leadership of George Miller and eleven other men and started for the Mountains, but were stopped by President Brigham Young and wintered on the Puncah river, near the Missouri river, about 150 miles above the present Omaha. We then went to Winter Quarters in the spring, whence we continued the journey to the Valley, where we arrived in September, 1848, in Brigham Young's company, and Daniel Garn's fifty. I helped to fight the crickets in 1849, and in that year, together with two other families, I settled in Tooele valley, where Tooele city now stands. We were the first three families to settle in that valley. In 1850 I was one of a company of thirty-one called by Gov. Brigham Young to serve as a guard on the southwestern frontiers of Utah, under Captain Phineas R. White. I served three and one-half years in that capacity and was in three battles with the Indians, wherein sixteen Indians and one white man were killed. In 1852 the Indians took the last yoke of oxen and the last cow I had. In the fall of 1854 I moved to Bountiful, Davis county, where I have lived ever since. I might add that I helped to herd Uncle Sam's army in the "Echo Canyon war." In September, 1877, I was sent on a mission to the State of Maine. In 1885 I was ordained a High Priest, and in 1897 a Patriarch. I have had three families. My first wife was Sarah Holbrook, who has 301 descendants, namely, fourteen children, 131 grandchildren and 155 great grandchildren. There is also one great great grandchild. My second wife, Saptia Merrill, had four children, ten grandchildren and five great grandchildren. My wife, Jane Stoker, who now lives, has eleven children, and twenty grandchildren. My total posterity is 351 at the present time.