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Manasseh Blackburn

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Manasseh Blackburn

Birth
Provo, Utah County, Utah, USA
Death
4 Jan 1878 (aged 25)
McKinley County, New Mexico, USA
Burial
McKinley County, New Mexico, USA Add to Map
Memorial ID
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Son of John Jehu Blackburn Sr. and Susannah Jameson. Came to Arizona/New Mexico with the John Hunt family. Died of smallpox during epidemic at Savoia.

Manasseh Blackburn left Beaver Co., Utah with the John Hunt family on February 6, 1877 in company with the Henry Tanner, John Bushman, and Lycurgus Westover families. He bought his own freight wagon but essentially served as a teamster for John Hunt. The group successfully crossed the Colorado River at Pierce's Ferry on March 21, 1877. When they arrived at St. Joseph on the Little Colorado River, the Tanner, Bushman, and Westover families stayed, but the Hunt family traveled on to Savoia, New Mexico. Manasseh Blackburn then freighted with John Hunt from Albuquerque to Fort Wingate.

In December 1877, a group of Latter-day Saints from Alabama, Georgia, and Arkansas arrived at Savoia (near Ramah) and many were sick with smallpox. John Hunt and his older family members had been vaccinated years earlier when they were living in San Bernardino, California, but his younger children and some others in the community had not been vaccinated and also contracted smallpox. In all, there were 12 or 13 deaths from smallpox in the next few months. Nettie Hunt Rencher wrote, "Father and one of the girls would care for the sick one night, Manasseh and one girl the next night. This went on for some time before Manasseh came down with a violent case. On January 4, 1878, after eight days of intense suffering, he passed away. It was like losing one of our own family."
Son of John Jehu Blackburn Sr. and Susannah Jameson. Came to Arizona/New Mexico with the John Hunt family. Died of smallpox during epidemic at Savoia.

Manasseh Blackburn left Beaver Co., Utah with the John Hunt family on February 6, 1877 in company with the Henry Tanner, John Bushman, and Lycurgus Westover families. He bought his own freight wagon but essentially served as a teamster for John Hunt. The group successfully crossed the Colorado River at Pierce's Ferry on March 21, 1877. When they arrived at St. Joseph on the Little Colorado River, the Tanner, Bushman, and Westover families stayed, but the Hunt family traveled on to Savoia, New Mexico. Manasseh Blackburn then freighted with John Hunt from Albuquerque to Fort Wingate.

In December 1877, a group of Latter-day Saints from Alabama, Georgia, and Arkansas arrived at Savoia (near Ramah) and many were sick with smallpox. John Hunt and his older family members had been vaccinated years earlier when they were living in San Bernardino, California, but his younger children and some others in the community had not been vaccinated and also contracted smallpox. In all, there were 12 or 13 deaths from smallpox in the next few months. Nettie Hunt Rencher wrote, "Father and one of the girls would care for the sick one night, Manasseh and one girl the next night. This went on for some time before Manasseh came down with a violent case. On January 4, 1878, after eight days of intense suffering, he passed away. It was like losing one of our own family."

Inscription

Sacred to the Memory
of
Manasseh Blackburn
born Feb. the 1, 1852
died Jan. the 4, 1878

Gravesite Details

headstone is still readable but may not be much longer. The last line is now below ground; dirt was carefully removed for the photograph but then replaced.

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