Born at Crawfordsburn, Down, Ireland
Son of James McDonald and Sarah Ferguson
Married Sariah Jane Shirts, 10 Dec 1853, Ceder City, Iron, Utah
Children: Alma McDonald, Margaret Sariah McDonald, Jane McDonald, Mary McDonald, Sarah Ann McDonald, Lenaire McDonald, Olive McDonald, Nancy McDonald, John McDonald, Lucy McDonald, Robert McDonald, Eliza Ann McDonald, Aurmine McDonald, Fannie Lavina McDonald, Allilea McDonald, Joseph McDonald, Rhoda Francis McDonald, George McDonald, William Jr. McDonald, James McDonald
Married Elizabeth Ann Shirts, 3 Nov 1865, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah
Children: Hyrum McDonald, Elva Loretta McDonald, Sariah Jane McDonald, Elizabeth McDonald, Edward McDonald, Clara McDonald, Margaret Ann McDonald, Maudie May McDonald, Susan Sophia McDonald, Joseph William McDonald, Henry Carlos McDonald, Daniel Lewis McDonald
A Portion of the History of My Life
I was born in Crawfordsburn, Down, Ireland in the year 1834, November 16th. My father’s name was James McDonald. Mother’s name Sarah Ferguson McDonald. They joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints in 1841. I was baptized when 8 years of age in Ireland. Elder David Wilken organized a branch in Ireland and meetings were held in our house which was headquarters for the branch, it being about the first introduction of Mormonism in that country.
Persecution at first was very bad. Father sold his home there in 1842 and started with his family together with the Saints sailed from Liverpool England and landed in New Orleans, America. The Prophet Joseph Smith had a steamboat there to take the passengers of the ship up the Mississippi river to Nauvoo and as the boat belonged to the Prophet, the whole ship’s crew wanted to go on it and overloaded the steamer so it broke down very often. So we were six weeks making the trip which other steamers made in one week.
People knew the boat belonged to the Prophet Joseph and that we were Mormons and they came on board when we were getting repairs and abused us with all the mean things they could think of calling us: old Joe’s rats – and set the boat on fire. It was (?) and no damage done. We were met by the Prophet and he blessed the people and spoke words of encouragement to them. My father was entrusted with some money sent to the Prophet by our Branch and in presenting it to him got personally acquainted with him.
We lived in Nauvoo 2 years and was driven out with the rest of the Saints after the Prophet and (?) was martyred. We crossed the Mississippi river on a flat boat among a lot of cattle. Was taken from there by a man by the name of George Hicks to a little town called Bonepart about 30 miles from Nauvoo. We stayed there 3 years and worked hard and made an outfit to come to the Salt Lake valley together with the leaders of the church which had located there for the winter at Council Bluffs near Kanesville, a gathering place before starting across the plains. Got there early in the fall and cut hay to winter our stock.
We lived that winter in an old log cabin and after getting located for the winter, my father and my brother John 2 years older than me and myself fixed up one of our wagons with one yoke of oxen and went down into Missouri among the worst enemies of our church to try to get work and get some provisions for our journey across the plains. We got work with a man that owned many slaves to break hemp among the Negros. He was very bitter against the Mormons but treated us very well. He gave us a log cabin to camp in close to the Negro quarters and as it was our first experience with them people we enjoyed their performance very much better than any (?).
Didn’t matter how hard they worked they always got together in the evening with their women and danced and played the Banjo and the way they handled that banjo was new and entertaining to us. They would sing and dance and jump and play the (gang?) by knocking it on their head and on their knees and kick it with their feet. One night father jumped up and danced and as he was a good step dancer, the Negros had him dance every night. He sang and danced some Irish songs and had the Negros very much interested in him and some of the girls told their Mistress about him singing with them and how they enjoyed it. So the Mistress sent one of the servants to invite us to come and spend the evening with them and bring the boys with him. So father accepted the invitation, so we put on some clean clothing and went over. Was met at the door by a servant which invited us to come into the sitting room and she would inform the Mistress and she came in and invited us into the parlor and treated us so pleasantly that we felt well in her company. She said “Mr. McDonald, our servants are very much interested with your singing and dancing in their quarters. We have good music here and hope you will be pleased to dance and sing a little for us.” Father said “My dear lady, my humble efforts to amuse your servants in their quarters might be entirely out of place in your parlor.” Her husband entered the parlor which stopped further conversation at that time. The Master seemed pleased to meet us and spoke on the same subject his wife had introduced and said “The darkies were delighted with your singing and dancing and we would like to have you treat us with the same performance.” They had a very fine instrument and the lady played and sang and treated us as old friends of long acquaintance. Father was pleased with their good treatment and he danced and sang some of his Irish comic songs which was new to them and we had a very pleasant evening.
We worked for that man about a month and took most of our pay in provisions: flour, backen, corn, meat, dried apples, sugar and after making up our pay in such things, he took us into his smoke house and gave us a lot of fine smoked hams and side meat, in fact finished loading our wagon with good things. “Now”, he says “I want a commendation of you. I want you to leave that boy with me,” pointing to me. Father told him he could not do that. We parted with him as good friends and father thanked him for his kindness to us. That load of provisions lasted us across the plains and the winter after we got into the valleys.
When we got back to camp we found everything all right. Jane and Eliza were young women. My sisters had taken good care of everything. Mother had been sick in Bonepart for 2 years and seemed to improve when camping out. The doctor said it was nervous prostration and said (Madison?) would do her no good but she had to have him and to please her he had to prescribe something for her to take. So he told Jane my sister to get some oak bark and make a weak tea and tell her that was what I told you to give her. Jane waited on mother and tended her like a helpless child for 2 years.
In fact, Jane was a mother to all of us children and we mostly done as she directed us but Robert 2 years younger than me gave her some trouble sometimes. She had to watch him close to see that he went to school. One morning she followed him to see that he went to school and she found that he had not. Hunted him up and when he seen her coming he run. She took after him, catched up with him and just as she was reaching out her hand to catch him, he threw himself down and she stumbled over him with such force that she couldn’t get up for a minute. He jumped up and run the other way. She used to tell him of that after he had grown to be a man and had a family.
The next thing to do was to fit up the wagons and gather with the company to organize for to cross the plains. Camped at the gathering place until we got 50 wagons. Appointed a captain of 50 for the whole company and a captain for each 10 wagons. That was in the Spring of 1850. Us boys enjoyed the wild country and the wild game which were in abundance on the plains. The buffalo were so thick and went in such large herds we had to stop the train and corral the wagons until some of the large herds passed.
In traveling we were strung out on the trail half a mile long. I was 16 years old when we crossed the plains and was numbered with the guard and took my turn with the older men. I remember we had to call the hour and “All is Well” every hour. When it came to that part of it I think there never was a young rooster learning to crow felt prouder than I did. That was my first military service which was continued more or less in settling this country Utah and surrounding country.
We had no trouble with Indians crossing the plains, but we kept ourselves in readiness, corralled the wagons every night and kept our powder dry. Prepared for the worst but all went well until the cholera broke out in camp that proved to be very fatal. Every one that took it died.
My father helped to bury a man one morning and took sick after the train started and died that night. We came to the Platte river that day in the afternoon and part of the train had crossed the river. Father being very bad we asked him if we should cross the river with him. He said “yes” so he died that night on this side of the Platte river.
That was the greatest trial we ever had in our family, so sudden on the dreary plains of America and buried without a coffin. But we had some large boxes along which we broke up and dug a deep grave with a vault at the bottom large enough for the body and covered it securely with the lumber of those boxes which we thought would prevent wolves from digging up the body. For we had passed some graves that had been buried in haste that the wolves had dug up and eat the flesh all off their bones which we buried again.
Sarah’s granddaughter, Mary McDonald Young, recalled that when she was a young girl she had heard her grandmother tell many times of this sad time on the plains. Sarah had spoke of how sad and shocked she had felt at the sudden passing of her husband. It was nighttime when he died. After the family had been settled down, her feet hurt and so she went and sat on the banks of the Platte River and took off her shoes and stockings and put her feet into the cool water. She said that she could feel the strong current of the river and the thought came to her, in her grief, of how easy it would be to slide into the water and be engulfed in this current and be with her beloved husband in death.
But as she sat there she heard one of the younger children call out to her and knew that she must carry on. Her family needed her. She must now be father and mother and lead the family on to Zion and fulfill the dream that she and James had dreamed so long ago in Ireland-to have their children and grandchildren grow up as members of the main body of the Church. She pulled her feet from the water and went back to the wagons that held her grieving children.
The following morning, after James had been buried, the family continued their journey. They little realized that sad morning as they left their father’s grave and turned toward the west that they were to become part of one of the great miracles of history—that their hard work would help to make the barren desert blossom as the rose. They could not have known how numerous their posterity would become and how they would prosper in the new land they would find in the heart of the Rocky Mountains.
(Back to William)
When we had traveled about two thirds of the way to Salt Lake our cattle had lost their shoes some and began to get lame and the captain called a halt to rest the teams and shoe those that were lame and tender footed. Stopped at a place they called Deer Creek. Stayed there 2 weeks. Had plenty of good meat to eat while there. I remember one night one of the hunters didn’t come in until about midnight. His name was Peter Shirts. The people thought he had got lost or was taken by Indians. We built fires all around camp and fired guns and about midnight Peter came in with the hind quarters of a large deer on his shoulders.
We got to Salt Lake about the last of September. Stayed there a month, cut some hay west of Salt Lake close to the lake. But we were advised by some friends that came across the plains with us to come out to Lehi in Utah valley and our cattle would winter out on the range and so well. So we moved and located about 3 miles north of Lehi with 5 or 6 families where now stands the city of Alpine. And we sowed some fall wheat there and our cattle done fine and we had plenty of good wood to burn. Our sister Eliza got married that winter to William Clyde. That was the first marriage in that place. When the Spring of 1851 opened we didn’t like the place.
There was no (orgination?) at that time there and our wheat didn’t look very well so my brother John went to Springville and he liked that place much better and we moved there in the Spring of 1851. That suited mother much better there. Had a good number of families wintered there and had built a small fort and had laid out the city of Springville. We took up a lot and camped there and went to work putting in a crop on 20 acres of land west of Springville. Broke up 10 acres sowed to wheat.
We built a house that summer and raised 300 bushels of wheat and a fine garden. Us boys were beginning to want amusements and go in society so the Winter of 1851 we went to a great many dances and as there was no money then in this country and we had to do the next best thing, to pay for our tickets which was a pack of wheat and a candle.
In the Spring of 1852 we put in another crop of wheat which didn’t do as well as the first. Seemed that the water brought up the (salarates?) and killed the wheat in spots so brother John stayed home and tended the crop and me and Robert went down to Salt Lake to try to get work for we were destitute of clothing.
We were strangers and had no means to get food or lodgings and we were some days before we got work and we got most awful hungry. So I said to Robert we have to go into some of these houses and ask for something to eat. Robert said that I would have to do the talking so we went into the next house we came to and told our story to a nice lady. She told us to sit down and she got us a good meal and I tell you it tasted mighty good to us. She treated us so nice that we felt at home and we told her our history. She said that her husband had a sawmill up in Mill Creek Canyon and she thought that he would hire us to work in the canyon. He came home that night and he hired us to work in the canyon.
His name was Mister Porter. We worked there about a month and would have worked there all summer if it hadn’t been for an accident that happened to Robert. We had 1 yoke of wild steers. We worked on a cart put one end of a log on the cart, the other end on the ground and I had to walk by the steers’ head to keep them in the trail. Robert got on the end of the log just over the wheels. The log was a very large one. He couldn’t straddle it. Cart ran over a stump and threw him off right on to his shoulder. Broke his collar bone. We had to stop work, went down into the valley and found a doctor, can’t remember his name. He worked with the wound for some time.
Said the collar bone was broke and pushed down into the shoulder which he set and raised it up all he could and done it up nice. Gave him a nice silk handkerchief to sling his arm in. I told him a little of our history and told him we would pay him by giving him an order on Mr. Porter the man we had been working for. He said “No boys, I won’t charge you anything. You are welcome to my services.” We thanked him and started home to Springville on foot. Got home that night very late.
We worked around home the rest of that summer making a comfortable home for mother and I made (dolies?) for a nice young horse which I broke to ride that was my first horse and I was very proud of him.
So in the years of 1852 and 3 there was a large emigration to California on account of the great discovery of gold in that country. So myself and my brother Robert caught the gold fever which was very contagious at that time and we started in the Spring of 1853 for California the Southern route. After traveling about 250 miles we came to the outside city of Utah at that time then called Coalvail, now Cedar City, Iron county. I being acquainted with some of the people in that place went to see them and they were so glad to see me that they prevailed on me to stop with them a while. And the Walker Indian War broke out. Marshall law was declared and I was pressed into it. Served as a Minute Man in Cavalry one year until peace was declared. I helped to fence the first big field in that locality. Raised one crop there of wheat.
Got married to Sariah Shirts December 10th, 1853. Daughter of Peter Shirts and Margret Camaron Shirts. After I got married my people in Springville wanted me to come back to that place. They had got me a fine city lot joining George W. Clyde, my brother-in-law and sister Jane. So I moved back to Springville in the Fall of 1854. Worked in Hobble Creek canyon all that winter. Got out logs and built a house and made other improvements on my lot.
In the Spring of 1855 rented a farm of Robert Johnston on my neighbor and put in 20 acres of wheat. It came up nice and was looking fine and the grasshoppers hatched out and swept the ground so clean there wasn’t a green thing left. That stopped my farming that year and it seemed as though there would be a famine, for the whole country was swept clean of vegetation and we were over a thousand miles from where we could get any help. But I was fortunate for once. The crop that I raised in Iron county was still there in charge of a good friend of mine, Brother John Hamilton Senyer. So I wrote to him telling him of my misfortune losing my crop and if he hadn’t disposed of it (my wheat) to hold it and I would come down and get it asking him to write to me as soon as he got my letter which he did telling me it was still there in the bin I made for it.
So I hitched up my team 1 yoke of cattle and wagon. Went and got it and I tell you that was a lonesome trip. 100 miles between Fillmore and Parowan, camping 2 nights alone in that Indian country just after the Walker war. There were still come roving bands of Indians doing mischief and we hadn’t much confidence in them. But I got through all right and my friends were very glad to see me. I stayed there about a week.
While there, there was an accident happened to the wife of James Farr a young man starting to make a home in Cedar City. The wolves were numerous there at that time and they got into Mistress Farr’s chicken coup one night. She ran to see what was the matter and just as she got into the door a wolf jumped by her and bit her on the shoulder causing a slight wound and in a short time she took convulsions and died.
Her father and mother lived in Fillmore so James Farr came to me and wanted to go in company back with me. I told him I would be very glad of his company. So I loaded my wagon with all the wheat that I thought it would carry. My oxen was able to take more than my wagon could bear up and I had to load accordingly. When we got to Fillmore and the father and mother met James Farr their son-in-law there was such heartfelt sorrow expressed and mourning that I felt very sorry for them. We stayed there 2 nights and James Farr came with me to Springville. He had relations in Provo.
I got a chance to swap my wheat at Fillmore for wheat in Springville. Saved me hauling it over 100 miles. That crop of wheat was a great blessing to me. We had plenty of bread through that famine and had some to spare. Sometimes hungry children would come and beg for bread and I felt thankful that we had some to give them. Some of them remembered that time after they had grown to man and womanhood and came to us laughing and told us that when they got right hungry they always came to our house and got something to eat. They said they never could forget them hard times.
I remember at that time we were making a ditch from Hobble Creek around the bench unto what was then called Union Field now Mapleton and there was a man working with me by the name of Peter Bell and when eating our dinner I noticed that Peter had nothing to eat but greens. I said to him “Won’t you give me some of your greens and take some of my bread?” “Why yes”, he said “bread will taste good to me for we haven’t had any bread for some time.”
We met 30 years after that at a Blackhawk Indian War party held at Spanish Fork. In talking over old times he spoke of the dinner we had on the Hobble Creek ditch. He said he never would forget that.
I farmed 10 acres on that bench a number of years. Went off to Provo valley and someone homesteaded it after the government surveyed the land and I never got anything for it. Also 10 acres in what was called the new survey West of Springville. Worked water right to it from Spanish Fork. Lost that also.
In the year 1856 the people wanted a road up Provo Canyon into what was then called Provo valley so the church issued what we called Mormon scrip supposed to be good as cash on the co-op store in Salt Lake and a small camp of us Springville folks went and helped make a kind of a road up to the valley. In 1857 we heard of a large army starting from the States being sent by the government and were supposed to mob and murder us as they had done in Nauvoo and we were preparing for the worst and all the people living in Salt Lake and North of there moved South stopping for the winter at the different settlements in Utah county and South of there. I lived in Springville at that time and my lot was full of wagons camped. One old couple by the name of John Buler and wife wintered in my house. His wife was sick all winter. Died early in the Spring.
These were times of great excitement. All the able bodied men was called to arm themselves and march to Echo Canyon to stop the invading army. I was sent with eleven others and one Indian to scout through the country between Springville and Bridger where the army had made a halt. Was out 2 weeks. Found a very rough country. Was satisfied the army could not come through that (fort?). The army wintered at Bridger and the next Spring peace was declared and the army moved down Echo Canyon into Cedar Valley and built a military camp called Camp Douglas giving us employment at high wages which we needed as we were destitute of clothing and almost everything. I made 50 dollars a week making (dobies?) for them. There was a number of Irish soldiers there and they found out that I was an Irishman and they came down to the doby yard and we had a good time. One of them was born within 8 miles of where I was. They told me all about the army and brought me nice things to eat from camp and helped me some on the yard. I worked there until I made a good start for farming and I began to want to get where I could have a good farm and a good range for cattle and I got my mind set on Provo valley. So in the Summer of 1859 I went up there and took up a fine piece of land. Made my portion of fence for it in the big field and moved my family up there in the Spring of 1860.
Built a house in the fort and put in a crop of wheat and oats in the Summer of 1860 which was damaged with frost early in August. It made very bad black flour which we had to live on for a year but that didn’t discourage us. Our stock were looking fine and we knew we could make a good living raising stock. There was an abundance of hay of the very best quality. But we had to struggle with many hardships and trials common in a new country for we were cut off from other places most of the time by snow in winter and water in Spring and Summer, no roads or bridges, no markets for anything and the worst of it was we had nothing to sell.
Our third crop of grain was pretty good and made pretty good flour. But we got shut in with snow and water and couldn’t get to mill to get any grinding. We used coffee mills and made hominy until finally there was a man by the name of (Wm Ranils?) a good old yankee contrived to fix a small pair of stones to a horse power of an old thrashing machine and I can remember waiting my turn to get a half bushel of wheat chopped.
This is the end of the story I have and it was followed by a list of tithing that he paid – mostly in commodities like eggs, hay, wheat and oats.
1900 he paid $25.07
1901 he paid $45.00
1902 he paid $31.66
Son of James McDonald and Sarah Ferguson
Married Sariah Jane Shirts, 10 Dec 1853, Ceder City, Iron, Utah
Children: Alma McDonald, Margaret Sariah McDonald, Jane McDonald, Mary McDonald, Sarah Ann McDonald, Lenaire McDonald, Olive McDonald, Nancy McDonald, John McDonald, Lucy McDonald, Robert McDonald, Eliza Ann McDonald, Aurmine McDonald, Fannie Lavina McDonald, Allilea McDonald, Joseph McDonald, Rhoda Francis McDonald, George McDonald, William Jr. McDonald, James McDonald
Married Elizabeth Ann Shirts, 3 Nov 1865, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah
Children: Hyrum McDonald, Elva Loretta McDonald, Sariah Jane McDonald, Elizabeth McDonald, Edward McDonald, Clara McDonald, Margaret Ann McDonald, Maudie May McDonald, Susan Sophia McDonald, Joseph William McDonald, Henry Carlos McDonald, Daniel Lewis McDonald
A Portion of the History of My Life
I was born in Crawfordsburn, Down, Ireland in the year 1834, November 16th. My father’s name was James McDonald. Mother’s name Sarah Ferguson McDonald. They joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints in 1841. I was baptized when 8 years of age in Ireland. Elder David Wilken organized a branch in Ireland and meetings were held in our house which was headquarters for the branch, it being about the first introduction of Mormonism in that country.
Persecution at first was very bad. Father sold his home there in 1842 and started with his family together with the Saints sailed from Liverpool England and landed in New Orleans, America. The Prophet Joseph Smith had a steamboat there to take the passengers of the ship up the Mississippi river to Nauvoo and as the boat belonged to the Prophet, the whole ship’s crew wanted to go on it and overloaded the steamer so it broke down very often. So we were six weeks making the trip which other steamers made in one week.
People knew the boat belonged to the Prophet Joseph and that we were Mormons and they came on board when we were getting repairs and abused us with all the mean things they could think of calling us: old Joe’s rats – and set the boat on fire. It was (?) and no damage done. We were met by the Prophet and he blessed the people and spoke words of encouragement to them. My father was entrusted with some money sent to the Prophet by our Branch and in presenting it to him got personally acquainted with him.
We lived in Nauvoo 2 years and was driven out with the rest of the Saints after the Prophet and (?) was martyred. We crossed the Mississippi river on a flat boat among a lot of cattle. Was taken from there by a man by the name of George Hicks to a little town called Bonepart about 30 miles from Nauvoo. We stayed there 3 years and worked hard and made an outfit to come to the Salt Lake valley together with the leaders of the church which had located there for the winter at Council Bluffs near Kanesville, a gathering place before starting across the plains. Got there early in the fall and cut hay to winter our stock.
We lived that winter in an old log cabin and after getting located for the winter, my father and my brother John 2 years older than me and myself fixed up one of our wagons with one yoke of oxen and went down into Missouri among the worst enemies of our church to try to get work and get some provisions for our journey across the plains. We got work with a man that owned many slaves to break hemp among the Negros. He was very bitter against the Mormons but treated us very well. He gave us a log cabin to camp in close to the Negro quarters and as it was our first experience with them people we enjoyed their performance very much better than any (?).
Didn’t matter how hard they worked they always got together in the evening with their women and danced and played the Banjo and the way they handled that banjo was new and entertaining to us. They would sing and dance and jump and play the (gang?) by knocking it on their head and on their knees and kick it with their feet. One night father jumped up and danced and as he was a good step dancer, the Negros had him dance every night. He sang and danced some Irish songs and had the Negros very much interested in him and some of the girls told their Mistress about him singing with them and how they enjoyed it. So the Mistress sent one of the servants to invite us to come and spend the evening with them and bring the boys with him. So father accepted the invitation, so we put on some clean clothing and went over. Was met at the door by a servant which invited us to come into the sitting room and she would inform the Mistress and she came in and invited us into the parlor and treated us so pleasantly that we felt well in her company. She said “Mr. McDonald, our servants are very much interested with your singing and dancing in their quarters. We have good music here and hope you will be pleased to dance and sing a little for us.” Father said “My dear lady, my humble efforts to amuse your servants in their quarters might be entirely out of place in your parlor.” Her husband entered the parlor which stopped further conversation at that time. The Master seemed pleased to meet us and spoke on the same subject his wife had introduced and said “The darkies were delighted with your singing and dancing and we would like to have you treat us with the same performance.” They had a very fine instrument and the lady played and sang and treated us as old friends of long acquaintance. Father was pleased with their good treatment and he danced and sang some of his Irish comic songs which was new to them and we had a very pleasant evening.
We worked for that man about a month and took most of our pay in provisions: flour, backen, corn, meat, dried apples, sugar and after making up our pay in such things, he took us into his smoke house and gave us a lot of fine smoked hams and side meat, in fact finished loading our wagon with good things. “Now”, he says “I want a commendation of you. I want you to leave that boy with me,” pointing to me. Father told him he could not do that. We parted with him as good friends and father thanked him for his kindness to us. That load of provisions lasted us across the plains and the winter after we got into the valleys.
When we got back to camp we found everything all right. Jane and Eliza were young women. My sisters had taken good care of everything. Mother had been sick in Bonepart for 2 years and seemed to improve when camping out. The doctor said it was nervous prostration and said (Madison?) would do her no good but she had to have him and to please her he had to prescribe something for her to take. So he told Jane my sister to get some oak bark and make a weak tea and tell her that was what I told you to give her. Jane waited on mother and tended her like a helpless child for 2 years.
In fact, Jane was a mother to all of us children and we mostly done as she directed us but Robert 2 years younger than me gave her some trouble sometimes. She had to watch him close to see that he went to school. One morning she followed him to see that he went to school and she found that he had not. Hunted him up and when he seen her coming he run. She took after him, catched up with him and just as she was reaching out her hand to catch him, he threw himself down and she stumbled over him with such force that she couldn’t get up for a minute. He jumped up and run the other way. She used to tell him of that after he had grown to be a man and had a family.
The next thing to do was to fit up the wagons and gather with the company to organize for to cross the plains. Camped at the gathering place until we got 50 wagons. Appointed a captain of 50 for the whole company and a captain for each 10 wagons. That was in the Spring of 1850. Us boys enjoyed the wild country and the wild game which were in abundance on the plains. The buffalo were so thick and went in such large herds we had to stop the train and corral the wagons until some of the large herds passed.
In traveling we were strung out on the trail half a mile long. I was 16 years old when we crossed the plains and was numbered with the guard and took my turn with the older men. I remember we had to call the hour and “All is Well” every hour. When it came to that part of it I think there never was a young rooster learning to crow felt prouder than I did. That was my first military service which was continued more or less in settling this country Utah and surrounding country.
We had no trouble with Indians crossing the plains, but we kept ourselves in readiness, corralled the wagons every night and kept our powder dry. Prepared for the worst but all went well until the cholera broke out in camp that proved to be very fatal. Every one that took it died.
My father helped to bury a man one morning and took sick after the train started and died that night. We came to the Platte river that day in the afternoon and part of the train had crossed the river. Father being very bad we asked him if we should cross the river with him. He said “yes” so he died that night on this side of the Platte river.
That was the greatest trial we ever had in our family, so sudden on the dreary plains of America and buried without a coffin. But we had some large boxes along which we broke up and dug a deep grave with a vault at the bottom large enough for the body and covered it securely with the lumber of those boxes which we thought would prevent wolves from digging up the body. For we had passed some graves that had been buried in haste that the wolves had dug up and eat the flesh all off their bones which we buried again.
Sarah’s granddaughter, Mary McDonald Young, recalled that when she was a young girl she had heard her grandmother tell many times of this sad time on the plains. Sarah had spoke of how sad and shocked she had felt at the sudden passing of her husband. It was nighttime when he died. After the family had been settled down, her feet hurt and so she went and sat on the banks of the Platte River and took off her shoes and stockings and put her feet into the cool water. She said that she could feel the strong current of the river and the thought came to her, in her grief, of how easy it would be to slide into the water and be engulfed in this current and be with her beloved husband in death.
But as she sat there she heard one of the younger children call out to her and knew that she must carry on. Her family needed her. She must now be father and mother and lead the family on to Zion and fulfill the dream that she and James had dreamed so long ago in Ireland-to have their children and grandchildren grow up as members of the main body of the Church. She pulled her feet from the water and went back to the wagons that held her grieving children.
The following morning, after James had been buried, the family continued their journey. They little realized that sad morning as they left their father’s grave and turned toward the west that they were to become part of one of the great miracles of history—that their hard work would help to make the barren desert blossom as the rose. They could not have known how numerous their posterity would become and how they would prosper in the new land they would find in the heart of the Rocky Mountains.
(Back to William)
When we had traveled about two thirds of the way to Salt Lake our cattle had lost their shoes some and began to get lame and the captain called a halt to rest the teams and shoe those that were lame and tender footed. Stopped at a place they called Deer Creek. Stayed there 2 weeks. Had plenty of good meat to eat while there. I remember one night one of the hunters didn’t come in until about midnight. His name was Peter Shirts. The people thought he had got lost or was taken by Indians. We built fires all around camp and fired guns and about midnight Peter came in with the hind quarters of a large deer on his shoulders.
We got to Salt Lake about the last of September. Stayed there a month, cut some hay west of Salt Lake close to the lake. But we were advised by some friends that came across the plains with us to come out to Lehi in Utah valley and our cattle would winter out on the range and so well. So we moved and located about 3 miles north of Lehi with 5 or 6 families where now stands the city of Alpine. And we sowed some fall wheat there and our cattle done fine and we had plenty of good wood to burn. Our sister Eliza got married that winter to William Clyde. That was the first marriage in that place. When the Spring of 1851 opened we didn’t like the place.
There was no (orgination?) at that time there and our wheat didn’t look very well so my brother John went to Springville and he liked that place much better and we moved there in the Spring of 1851. That suited mother much better there. Had a good number of families wintered there and had built a small fort and had laid out the city of Springville. We took up a lot and camped there and went to work putting in a crop on 20 acres of land west of Springville. Broke up 10 acres sowed to wheat.
We built a house that summer and raised 300 bushels of wheat and a fine garden. Us boys were beginning to want amusements and go in society so the Winter of 1851 we went to a great many dances and as there was no money then in this country and we had to do the next best thing, to pay for our tickets which was a pack of wheat and a candle.
In the Spring of 1852 we put in another crop of wheat which didn’t do as well as the first. Seemed that the water brought up the (salarates?) and killed the wheat in spots so brother John stayed home and tended the crop and me and Robert went down to Salt Lake to try to get work for we were destitute of clothing.
We were strangers and had no means to get food or lodgings and we were some days before we got work and we got most awful hungry. So I said to Robert we have to go into some of these houses and ask for something to eat. Robert said that I would have to do the talking so we went into the next house we came to and told our story to a nice lady. She told us to sit down and she got us a good meal and I tell you it tasted mighty good to us. She treated us so nice that we felt at home and we told her our history. She said that her husband had a sawmill up in Mill Creek Canyon and she thought that he would hire us to work in the canyon. He came home that night and he hired us to work in the canyon.
His name was Mister Porter. We worked there about a month and would have worked there all summer if it hadn’t been for an accident that happened to Robert. We had 1 yoke of wild steers. We worked on a cart put one end of a log on the cart, the other end on the ground and I had to walk by the steers’ head to keep them in the trail. Robert got on the end of the log just over the wheels. The log was a very large one. He couldn’t straddle it. Cart ran over a stump and threw him off right on to his shoulder. Broke his collar bone. We had to stop work, went down into the valley and found a doctor, can’t remember his name. He worked with the wound for some time.
Said the collar bone was broke and pushed down into the shoulder which he set and raised it up all he could and done it up nice. Gave him a nice silk handkerchief to sling his arm in. I told him a little of our history and told him we would pay him by giving him an order on Mr. Porter the man we had been working for. He said “No boys, I won’t charge you anything. You are welcome to my services.” We thanked him and started home to Springville on foot. Got home that night very late.
We worked around home the rest of that summer making a comfortable home for mother and I made (dolies?) for a nice young horse which I broke to ride that was my first horse and I was very proud of him.
So in the years of 1852 and 3 there was a large emigration to California on account of the great discovery of gold in that country. So myself and my brother Robert caught the gold fever which was very contagious at that time and we started in the Spring of 1853 for California the Southern route. After traveling about 250 miles we came to the outside city of Utah at that time then called Coalvail, now Cedar City, Iron county. I being acquainted with some of the people in that place went to see them and they were so glad to see me that they prevailed on me to stop with them a while. And the Walker Indian War broke out. Marshall law was declared and I was pressed into it. Served as a Minute Man in Cavalry one year until peace was declared. I helped to fence the first big field in that locality. Raised one crop there of wheat.
Got married to Sariah Shirts December 10th, 1853. Daughter of Peter Shirts and Margret Camaron Shirts. After I got married my people in Springville wanted me to come back to that place. They had got me a fine city lot joining George W. Clyde, my brother-in-law and sister Jane. So I moved back to Springville in the Fall of 1854. Worked in Hobble Creek canyon all that winter. Got out logs and built a house and made other improvements on my lot.
In the Spring of 1855 rented a farm of Robert Johnston on my neighbor and put in 20 acres of wheat. It came up nice and was looking fine and the grasshoppers hatched out and swept the ground so clean there wasn’t a green thing left. That stopped my farming that year and it seemed as though there would be a famine, for the whole country was swept clean of vegetation and we were over a thousand miles from where we could get any help. But I was fortunate for once. The crop that I raised in Iron county was still there in charge of a good friend of mine, Brother John Hamilton Senyer. So I wrote to him telling him of my misfortune losing my crop and if he hadn’t disposed of it (my wheat) to hold it and I would come down and get it asking him to write to me as soon as he got my letter which he did telling me it was still there in the bin I made for it.
So I hitched up my team 1 yoke of cattle and wagon. Went and got it and I tell you that was a lonesome trip. 100 miles between Fillmore and Parowan, camping 2 nights alone in that Indian country just after the Walker war. There were still come roving bands of Indians doing mischief and we hadn’t much confidence in them. But I got through all right and my friends were very glad to see me. I stayed there about a week.
While there, there was an accident happened to the wife of James Farr a young man starting to make a home in Cedar City. The wolves were numerous there at that time and they got into Mistress Farr’s chicken coup one night. She ran to see what was the matter and just as she got into the door a wolf jumped by her and bit her on the shoulder causing a slight wound and in a short time she took convulsions and died.
Her father and mother lived in Fillmore so James Farr came to me and wanted to go in company back with me. I told him I would be very glad of his company. So I loaded my wagon with all the wheat that I thought it would carry. My oxen was able to take more than my wagon could bear up and I had to load accordingly. When we got to Fillmore and the father and mother met James Farr their son-in-law there was such heartfelt sorrow expressed and mourning that I felt very sorry for them. We stayed there 2 nights and James Farr came with me to Springville. He had relations in Provo.
I got a chance to swap my wheat at Fillmore for wheat in Springville. Saved me hauling it over 100 miles. That crop of wheat was a great blessing to me. We had plenty of bread through that famine and had some to spare. Sometimes hungry children would come and beg for bread and I felt thankful that we had some to give them. Some of them remembered that time after they had grown to man and womanhood and came to us laughing and told us that when they got right hungry they always came to our house and got something to eat. They said they never could forget them hard times.
I remember at that time we were making a ditch from Hobble Creek around the bench unto what was then called Union Field now Mapleton and there was a man working with me by the name of Peter Bell and when eating our dinner I noticed that Peter had nothing to eat but greens. I said to him “Won’t you give me some of your greens and take some of my bread?” “Why yes”, he said “bread will taste good to me for we haven’t had any bread for some time.”
We met 30 years after that at a Blackhawk Indian War party held at Spanish Fork. In talking over old times he spoke of the dinner we had on the Hobble Creek ditch. He said he never would forget that.
I farmed 10 acres on that bench a number of years. Went off to Provo valley and someone homesteaded it after the government surveyed the land and I never got anything for it. Also 10 acres in what was called the new survey West of Springville. Worked water right to it from Spanish Fork. Lost that also.
In the year 1856 the people wanted a road up Provo Canyon into what was then called Provo valley so the church issued what we called Mormon scrip supposed to be good as cash on the co-op store in Salt Lake and a small camp of us Springville folks went and helped make a kind of a road up to the valley. In 1857 we heard of a large army starting from the States being sent by the government and were supposed to mob and murder us as they had done in Nauvoo and we were preparing for the worst and all the people living in Salt Lake and North of there moved South stopping for the winter at the different settlements in Utah county and South of there. I lived in Springville at that time and my lot was full of wagons camped. One old couple by the name of John Buler and wife wintered in my house. His wife was sick all winter. Died early in the Spring.
These were times of great excitement. All the able bodied men was called to arm themselves and march to Echo Canyon to stop the invading army. I was sent with eleven others and one Indian to scout through the country between Springville and Bridger where the army had made a halt. Was out 2 weeks. Found a very rough country. Was satisfied the army could not come through that (fort?). The army wintered at Bridger and the next Spring peace was declared and the army moved down Echo Canyon into Cedar Valley and built a military camp called Camp Douglas giving us employment at high wages which we needed as we were destitute of clothing and almost everything. I made 50 dollars a week making (dobies?) for them. There was a number of Irish soldiers there and they found out that I was an Irishman and they came down to the doby yard and we had a good time. One of them was born within 8 miles of where I was. They told me all about the army and brought me nice things to eat from camp and helped me some on the yard. I worked there until I made a good start for farming and I began to want to get where I could have a good farm and a good range for cattle and I got my mind set on Provo valley. So in the Summer of 1859 I went up there and took up a fine piece of land. Made my portion of fence for it in the big field and moved my family up there in the Spring of 1860.
Built a house in the fort and put in a crop of wheat and oats in the Summer of 1860 which was damaged with frost early in August. It made very bad black flour which we had to live on for a year but that didn’t discourage us. Our stock were looking fine and we knew we could make a good living raising stock. There was an abundance of hay of the very best quality. But we had to struggle with many hardships and trials common in a new country for we were cut off from other places most of the time by snow in winter and water in Spring and Summer, no roads or bridges, no markets for anything and the worst of it was we had nothing to sell.
Our third crop of grain was pretty good and made pretty good flour. But we got shut in with snow and water and couldn’t get to mill to get any grinding. We used coffee mills and made hominy until finally there was a man by the name of (Wm Ranils?) a good old yankee contrived to fix a small pair of stones to a horse power of an old thrashing machine and I can remember waiting my turn to get a half bushel of wheat chopped.
This is the end of the story I have and it was followed by a list of tithing that he paid – mostly in commodities like eggs, hay, wheat and oats.
1900 he paid $25.07
1901 he paid $45.00
1902 he paid $31.66
Born at Crawfordsburn, Down, Ireland
Son of James McDonald and Sarah Ferguson
Married Sariah Jane Shirts, 10 Dec 1853, Ceder City, Iron, Utah
Children: Alma McDonald, Margaret Sariah McDonald, Jane McDonald, Mary McDonald, Sarah Ann McDonald, Lenaire McDonald, Olive McDonald, Nancy McDonald, John McDonald, Lucy McDonald, Robert McDonald, Eliza Ann McDonald, Aurmine McDonald, Fannie Lavina McDonald, Allilea McDonald, Joseph McDonald, Rhoda Francis McDonald, George McDonald, William Jr. McDonald, James McDonald
Married Elizabeth Ann Shirts, 3 Nov 1865, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah
Children: Hyrum McDonald, Elva Loretta McDonald, Sariah Jane McDonald, Elizabeth McDonald, Edward McDonald, Clara McDonald, Margaret Ann McDonald, Maudie May McDonald, Susan Sophia McDonald, Joseph William McDonald, Henry Carlos McDonald, Daniel Lewis McDonald
A Portion of the History of My Life
I was born in Crawfordsburn, Down, Ireland in the year 1834, November 16th. My father’s name was James McDonald. Mother’s name Sarah Ferguson McDonald. They joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints in 1841. I was baptized when 8 years of age in Ireland. Elder David Wilken organized a branch in Ireland and meetings were held in our house which was headquarters for the branch, it being about the first introduction of Mormonism in that country.
Persecution at first was very bad. Father sold his home there in 1842 and started with his family together with the Saints sailed from Liverpool England and landed in New Orleans, America. The Prophet Joseph Smith had a steamboat there to take the passengers of the ship up the Mississippi river to Nauvoo and as the boat belonged to the Prophet, the whole ship’s crew wanted to go on it and overloaded the steamer so it broke down very often. So we were six weeks making the trip which other steamers made in one week.
People knew the boat belonged to the Prophet Joseph and that we were Mormons and they came on board when we were getting repairs and abused us with all the mean things they could think of calling us: old Joe’s rats – and set the boat on fire. It was (?) and no damage done. We were met by the Prophet and he blessed the people and spoke words of encouragement to them. My father was entrusted with some money sent to the Prophet by our Branch and in presenting it to him got personally acquainted with him.
We lived in Nauvoo 2 years and was driven out with the rest of the Saints after the Prophet and (?) was martyred. We crossed the Mississippi river on a flat boat among a lot of cattle. Was taken from there by a man by the name of George Hicks to a little town called Bonepart about 30 miles from Nauvoo. We stayed there 3 years and worked hard and made an outfit to come to the Salt Lake valley together with the leaders of the church which had located there for the winter at Council Bluffs near Kanesville, a gathering place before starting across the plains. Got there early in the fall and cut hay to winter our stock.
We lived that winter in an old log cabin and after getting located for the winter, my father and my brother John 2 years older than me and myself fixed up one of our wagons with one yoke of oxen and went down into Missouri among the worst enemies of our church to try to get work and get some provisions for our journey across the plains. We got work with a man that owned many slaves to break hemp among the Negros. He was very bitter against the Mormons but treated us very well. He gave us a log cabin to camp in close to the Negro quarters and as it was our first experience with them people we enjoyed their performance very much better than any (?).
Didn’t matter how hard they worked they always got together in the evening with their women and danced and played the Banjo and the way they handled that banjo was new and entertaining to us. They would sing and dance and jump and play the (gang?) by knocking it on their head and on their knees and kick it with their feet. One night father jumped up and danced and as he was a good step dancer, the Negros had him dance every night. He sang and danced some Irish songs and had the Negros very much interested in him and some of the girls told their Mistress about him singing with them and how they enjoyed it. So the Mistress sent one of the servants to invite us to come and spend the evening with them and bring the boys with him. So father accepted the invitation, so we put on some clean clothing and went over. Was met at the door by a servant which invited us to come into the sitting room and she would inform the Mistress and she came in and invited us into the parlor and treated us so pleasantly that we felt well in her company. She said “Mr. McDonald, our servants are very much interested with your singing and dancing in their quarters. We have good music here and hope you will be pleased to dance and sing a little for us.” Father said “My dear lady, my humble efforts to amuse your servants in their quarters might be entirely out of place in your parlor.” Her husband entered the parlor which stopped further conversation at that time. The Master seemed pleased to meet us and spoke on the same subject his wife had introduced and said “The darkies were delighted with your singing and dancing and we would like to have you treat us with the same performance.” They had a very fine instrument and the lady played and sang and treated us as old friends of long acquaintance. Father was pleased with their good treatment and he danced and sang some of his Irish comic songs which was new to them and we had a very pleasant evening.
We worked for that man about a month and took most of our pay in provisions: flour, backen, corn, meat, dried apples, sugar and after making up our pay in such things, he took us into his smoke house and gave us a lot of fine smoked hams and side meat, in fact finished loading our wagon with good things. “Now”, he says “I want a commendation of you. I want you to leave that boy with me,” pointing to me. Father told him he could not do that. We parted with him as good friends and father thanked him for his kindness to us. That load of provisions lasted us across the plains and the winter after we got into the valleys.
When we got back to camp we found everything all right. Jane and Eliza were young women. My sisters had taken good care of everything. Mother had been sick in Bonepart for 2 years and seemed to improve when camping out. The doctor said it was nervous prostration and said (Madison?) would do her no good but she had to have him and to please her he had to prescribe something for her to take. So he told Jane my sister to get some oak bark and make a weak tea and tell her that was what I told you to give her. Jane waited on mother and tended her like a helpless child for 2 years.
In fact, Jane was a mother to all of us children and we mostly done as she directed us but Robert 2 years younger than me gave her some trouble sometimes. She had to watch him close to see that he went to school. One morning she followed him to see that he went to school and she found that he had not. Hunted him up and when he seen her coming he run. She took after him, catched up with him and just as she was reaching out her hand to catch him, he threw himself down and she stumbled over him with such force that she couldn’t get up for a minute. He jumped up and run the other way. She used to tell him of that after he had grown to be a man and had a family.
The next thing to do was to fit up the wagons and gather with the company to organize for to cross the plains. Camped at the gathering place until we got 50 wagons. Appointed a captain of 50 for the whole company and a captain for each 10 wagons. That was in the Spring of 1850. Us boys enjoyed the wild country and the wild game which were in abundance on the plains. The buffalo were so thick and went in such large herds we had to stop the train and corral the wagons until some of the large herds passed.
In traveling we were strung out on the trail half a mile long. I was 16 years old when we crossed the plains and was numbered with the guard and took my turn with the older men. I remember we had to call the hour and “All is Well” every hour. When it came to that part of it I think there never was a young rooster learning to crow felt prouder than I did. That was my first military service which was continued more or less in settling this country Utah and surrounding country.
We had no trouble with Indians crossing the plains, but we kept ourselves in readiness, corralled the wagons every night and kept our powder dry. Prepared for the worst but all went well until the cholera broke out in camp that proved to be very fatal. Every one that took it died.
My father helped to bury a man one morning and took sick after the train started and died that night. We came to the Platte river that day in the afternoon and part of the train had crossed the river. Father being very bad we asked him if we should cross the river with him. He said “yes” so he died that night on this side of the Platte river.
That was the greatest trial we ever had in our family, so sudden on the dreary plains of America and buried without a coffin. But we had some large boxes along which we broke up and dug a deep grave with a vault at the bottom large enough for the body and covered it securely with the lumber of those boxes which we thought would prevent wolves from digging up the body. For we had passed some graves that had been buried in haste that the wolves had dug up and eat the flesh all off their bones which we buried again.
Sarah’s granddaughter, Mary McDonald Young, recalled that when she was a young girl she had heard her grandmother tell many times of this sad time on the plains. Sarah had spoke of how sad and shocked she had felt at the sudden passing of her husband. It was nighttime when he died. After the family had been settled down, her feet hurt and so she went and sat on the banks of the Platte River and took off her shoes and stockings and put her feet into the cool water. She said that she could feel the strong current of the river and the thought came to her, in her grief, of how easy it would be to slide into the water and be engulfed in this current and be with her beloved husband in death.
But as she sat there she heard one of the younger children call out to her and knew that she must carry on. Her family needed her. She must now be father and mother and lead the family on to Zion and fulfill the dream that she and James had dreamed so long ago in Ireland-to have their children and grandchildren grow up as members of the main body of the Church. She pulled her feet from the water and went back to the wagons that held her grieving children.
The following morning, after James had been buried, the family continued their journey. They little realized that sad morning as they left their father’s grave and turned toward the west that they were to become part of one of the great miracles of history—that their hard work would help to make the barren desert blossom as the rose. They could not have known how numerous their posterity would become and how they would prosper in the new land they would find in the heart of the Rocky Mountains.
(Back to William)
When we had traveled about two thirds of the way to Salt Lake our cattle had lost their shoes some and began to get lame and the captain called a halt to rest the teams and shoe those that were lame and tender footed. Stopped at a place they called Deer Creek. Stayed there 2 weeks. Had plenty of good meat to eat while there. I remember one night one of the hunters didn’t come in until about midnight. His name was Peter Shirts. The people thought he had got lost or was taken by Indians. We built fires all around camp and fired guns and about midnight Peter came in with the hind quarters of a large deer on his shoulders.
We got to Salt Lake about the last of September. Stayed there a month, cut some hay west of Salt Lake close to the lake. But we were advised by some friends that came across the plains with us to come out to Lehi in Utah valley and our cattle would winter out on the range and so well. So we moved and located about 3 miles north of Lehi with 5 or 6 families where now stands the city of Alpine. And we sowed some fall wheat there and our cattle done fine and we had plenty of good wood to burn. Our sister Eliza got married that winter to William Clyde. That was the first marriage in that place. When the Spring of 1851 opened we didn’t like the place.
There was no (orgination?) at that time there and our wheat didn’t look very well so my brother John went to Springville and he liked that place much better and we moved there in the Spring of 1851. That suited mother much better there. Had a good number of families wintered there and had built a small fort and had laid out the city of Springville. We took up a lot and camped there and went to work putting in a crop on 20 acres of land west of Springville. Broke up 10 acres sowed to wheat.
We built a house that summer and raised 300 bushels of wheat and a fine garden. Us boys were beginning to want amusements and go in society so the Winter of 1851 we went to a great many dances and as there was no money then in this country and we had to do the next best thing, to pay for our tickets which was a pack of wheat and a candle.
In the Spring of 1852 we put in another crop of wheat which didn’t do as well as the first. Seemed that the water brought up the (salarates?) and killed the wheat in spots so brother John stayed home and tended the crop and me and Robert went down to Salt Lake to try to get work for we were destitute of clothing.
We were strangers and had no means to get food or lodgings and we were some days before we got work and we got most awful hungry. So I said to Robert we have to go into some of these houses and ask for something to eat. Robert said that I would have to do the talking so we went into the next house we came to and told our story to a nice lady. She told us to sit down and she got us a good meal and I tell you it tasted mighty good to us. She treated us so nice that we felt at home and we told her our history. She said that her husband had a sawmill up in Mill Creek Canyon and she thought that he would hire us to work in the canyon. He came home that night and he hired us to work in the canyon.
His name was Mister Porter. We worked there about a month and would have worked there all summer if it hadn’t been for an accident that happened to Robert. We had 1 yoke of wild steers. We worked on a cart put one end of a log on the cart, the other end on the ground and I had to walk by the steers’ head to keep them in the trail. Robert got on the end of the log just over the wheels. The log was a very large one. He couldn’t straddle it. Cart ran over a stump and threw him off right on to his shoulder. Broke his collar bone. We had to stop work, went down into the valley and found a doctor, can’t remember his name. He worked with the wound for some time.
Said the collar bone was broke and pushed down into the shoulder which he set and raised it up all he could and done it up nice. Gave him a nice silk handkerchief to sling his arm in. I told him a little of our history and told him we would pay him by giving him an order on Mr. Porter the man we had been working for. He said “No boys, I won’t charge you anything. You are welcome to my services.” We thanked him and started home to Springville on foot. Got home that night very late.
We worked around home the rest of that summer making a comfortable home for mother and I made (dolies?) for a nice young horse which I broke to ride that was my first horse and I was very proud of him.
So in the years of 1852 and 3 there was a large emigration to California on account of the great discovery of gold in that country. So myself and my brother Robert caught the gold fever which was very contagious at that time and we started in the Spring of 1853 for California the Southern route. After traveling about 250 miles we came to the outside city of Utah at that time then called Coalvail, now Cedar City, Iron county. I being acquainted with some of the people in that place went to see them and they were so glad to see me that they prevailed on me to stop with them a while. And the Walker Indian War broke out. Marshall law was declared and I was pressed into it. Served as a Minute Man in Cavalry one year until peace was declared. I helped to fence the first big field in that locality. Raised one crop there of wheat.
Got married to Sariah Shirts December 10th, 1853. Daughter of Peter Shirts and Margret Camaron Shirts. After I got married my people in Springville wanted me to come back to that place. They had got me a fine city lot joining George W. Clyde, my brother-in-law and sister Jane. So I moved back to Springville in the Fall of 1854. Worked in Hobble Creek canyon all that winter. Got out logs and built a house and made other improvements on my lot.
In the Spring of 1855 rented a farm of Robert Johnston on my neighbor and put in 20 acres of wheat. It came up nice and was looking fine and the grasshoppers hatched out and swept the ground so clean there wasn’t a green thing left. That stopped my farming that year and it seemed as though there would be a famine, for the whole country was swept clean of vegetation and we were over a thousand miles from where we could get any help. But I was fortunate for once. The crop that I raised in Iron county was still there in charge of a good friend of mine, Brother John Hamilton Senyer. So I wrote to him telling him of my misfortune losing my crop and if he hadn’t disposed of it (my wheat) to hold it and I would come down and get it asking him to write to me as soon as he got my letter which he did telling me it was still there in the bin I made for it.
So I hitched up my team 1 yoke of cattle and wagon. Went and got it and I tell you that was a lonesome trip. 100 miles between Fillmore and Parowan, camping 2 nights alone in that Indian country just after the Walker war. There were still come roving bands of Indians doing mischief and we hadn’t much confidence in them. But I got through all right and my friends were very glad to see me. I stayed there about a week.
While there, there was an accident happened to the wife of James Farr a young man starting to make a home in Cedar City. The wolves were numerous there at that time and they got into Mistress Farr’s chicken coup one night. She ran to see what was the matter and just as she got into the door a wolf jumped by her and bit her on the shoulder causing a slight wound and in a short time she took convulsions and died.
Her father and mother lived in Fillmore so James Farr came to me and wanted to go in company back with me. I told him I would be very glad of his company. So I loaded my wagon with all the wheat that I thought it would carry. My oxen was able to take more than my wagon could bear up and I had to load accordingly. When we got to Fillmore and the father and mother met James Farr their son-in-law there was such heartfelt sorrow expressed and mourning that I felt very sorry for them. We stayed there 2 nights and James Farr came with me to Springville. He had relations in Provo.
I got a chance to swap my wheat at Fillmore for wheat in Springville. Saved me hauling it over 100 miles. That crop of wheat was a great blessing to me. We had plenty of bread through that famine and had some to spare. Sometimes hungry children would come and beg for bread and I felt thankful that we had some to give them. Some of them remembered that time after they had grown to man and womanhood and came to us laughing and told us that when they got right hungry they always came to our house and got something to eat. They said they never could forget them hard times.
I remember at that time we were making a ditch from Hobble Creek around the bench unto what was then called Union Field now Mapleton and there was a man working with me by the name of Peter Bell and when eating our dinner I noticed that Peter had nothing to eat but greens. I said to him “Won’t you give me some of your greens and take some of my bread?” “Why yes”, he said “bread will taste good to me for we haven’t had any bread for some time.”
We met 30 years after that at a Blackhawk Indian War party held at Spanish Fork. In talking over old times he spoke of the dinner we had on the Hobble Creek ditch. He said he never would forget that.
I farmed 10 acres on that bench a number of years. Went off to Provo valley and someone homesteaded it after the government surveyed the land and I never got anything for it. Also 10 acres in what was called the new survey West of Springville. Worked water right to it from Spanish Fork. Lost that also.
In the year 1856 the people wanted a road up Provo Canyon into what was then called Provo valley so the church issued what we called Mormon scrip supposed to be good as cash on the co-op store in Salt Lake and a small camp of us Springville folks went and helped make a kind of a road up to the valley. In 1857 we heard of a large army starting from the States being sent by the government and were supposed to mob and murder us as they had done in Nauvoo and we were preparing for the worst and all the people living in Salt Lake and North of there moved South stopping for the winter at the different settlements in Utah county and South of there. I lived in Springville at that time and my lot was full of wagons camped. One old couple by the name of John Buler and wife wintered in my house. His wife was sick all winter. Died early in the Spring.
These were times of great excitement. All the able bodied men was called to arm themselves and march to Echo Canyon to stop the invading army. I was sent with eleven others and one Indian to scout through the country between Springville and Bridger where the army had made a halt. Was out 2 weeks. Found a very rough country. Was satisfied the army could not come through that (fort?). The army wintered at Bridger and the next Spring peace was declared and the army moved down Echo Canyon into Cedar Valley and built a military camp called Camp Douglas giving us employment at high wages which we needed as we were destitute of clothing and almost everything. I made 50 dollars a week making (dobies?) for them. There was a number of Irish soldiers there and they found out that I was an Irishman and they came down to the doby yard and we had a good time. One of them was born within 8 miles of where I was. They told me all about the army and brought me nice things to eat from camp and helped me some on the yard. I worked there until I made a good start for farming and I began to want to get where I could have a good farm and a good range for cattle and I got my mind set on Provo valley. So in the Summer of 1859 I went up there and took up a fine piece of land. Made my portion of fence for it in the big field and moved my family up there in the Spring of 1860.
Built a house in the fort and put in a crop of wheat and oats in the Summer of 1860 which was damaged with frost early in August. It made very bad black flour which we had to live on for a year but that didn’t discourage us. Our stock were looking fine and we knew we could make a good living raising stock. There was an abundance of hay of the very best quality. But we had to struggle with many hardships and trials common in a new country for we were cut off from other places most of the time by snow in winter and water in Spring and Summer, no roads or bridges, no markets for anything and the worst of it was we had nothing to sell.
Our third crop of grain was pretty good and made pretty good flour. But we got shut in with snow and water and couldn’t get to mill to get any grinding. We used coffee mills and made hominy until finally there was a man by the name of (Wm Ranils?) a good old yankee contrived to fix a small pair of stones to a horse power of an old thrashing machine and I can remember waiting my turn to get a half bushel of wheat chopped.
This is the end of the story I have and it was followed by a list of tithing that he paid – mostly in commodities like eggs, hay, wheat and oats.
1900 he paid $25.07
1901 he paid $45.00
1902 he paid $31.66
Son of James McDonald and Sarah Ferguson
Married Sariah Jane Shirts, 10 Dec 1853, Ceder City, Iron, Utah
Children: Alma McDonald, Margaret Sariah McDonald, Jane McDonald, Mary McDonald, Sarah Ann McDonald, Lenaire McDonald, Olive McDonald, Nancy McDonald, John McDonald, Lucy McDonald, Robert McDonald, Eliza Ann McDonald, Aurmine McDonald, Fannie Lavina McDonald, Allilea McDonald, Joseph McDonald, Rhoda Francis McDonald, George McDonald, William Jr. McDonald, James McDonald
Married Elizabeth Ann Shirts, 3 Nov 1865, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah
Children: Hyrum McDonald, Elva Loretta McDonald, Sariah Jane McDonald, Elizabeth McDonald, Edward McDonald, Clara McDonald, Margaret Ann McDonald, Maudie May McDonald, Susan Sophia McDonald, Joseph William McDonald, Henry Carlos McDonald, Daniel Lewis McDonald
A Portion of the History of My Life
I was born in Crawfordsburn, Down, Ireland in the year 1834, November 16th. My father’s name was James McDonald. Mother’s name Sarah Ferguson McDonald. They joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints in 1841. I was baptized when 8 years of age in Ireland. Elder David Wilken organized a branch in Ireland and meetings were held in our house which was headquarters for the branch, it being about the first introduction of Mormonism in that country.
Persecution at first was very bad. Father sold his home there in 1842 and started with his family together with the Saints sailed from Liverpool England and landed in New Orleans, America. The Prophet Joseph Smith had a steamboat there to take the passengers of the ship up the Mississippi river to Nauvoo and as the boat belonged to the Prophet, the whole ship’s crew wanted to go on it and overloaded the steamer so it broke down very often. So we were six weeks making the trip which other steamers made in one week.
People knew the boat belonged to the Prophet Joseph and that we were Mormons and they came on board when we were getting repairs and abused us with all the mean things they could think of calling us: old Joe’s rats – and set the boat on fire. It was (?) and no damage done. We were met by the Prophet and he blessed the people and spoke words of encouragement to them. My father was entrusted with some money sent to the Prophet by our Branch and in presenting it to him got personally acquainted with him.
We lived in Nauvoo 2 years and was driven out with the rest of the Saints after the Prophet and (?) was martyred. We crossed the Mississippi river on a flat boat among a lot of cattle. Was taken from there by a man by the name of George Hicks to a little town called Bonepart about 30 miles from Nauvoo. We stayed there 3 years and worked hard and made an outfit to come to the Salt Lake valley together with the leaders of the church which had located there for the winter at Council Bluffs near Kanesville, a gathering place before starting across the plains. Got there early in the fall and cut hay to winter our stock.
We lived that winter in an old log cabin and after getting located for the winter, my father and my brother John 2 years older than me and myself fixed up one of our wagons with one yoke of oxen and went down into Missouri among the worst enemies of our church to try to get work and get some provisions for our journey across the plains. We got work with a man that owned many slaves to break hemp among the Negros. He was very bitter against the Mormons but treated us very well. He gave us a log cabin to camp in close to the Negro quarters and as it was our first experience with them people we enjoyed their performance very much better than any (?).
Didn’t matter how hard they worked they always got together in the evening with their women and danced and played the Banjo and the way they handled that banjo was new and entertaining to us. They would sing and dance and jump and play the (gang?) by knocking it on their head and on their knees and kick it with their feet. One night father jumped up and danced and as he was a good step dancer, the Negros had him dance every night. He sang and danced some Irish songs and had the Negros very much interested in him and some of the girls told their Mistress about him singing with them and how they enjoyed it. So the Mistress sent one of the servants to invite us to come and spend the evening with them and bring the boys with him. So father accepted the invitation, so we put on some clean clothing and went over. Was met at the door by a servant which invited us to come into the sitting room and she would inform the Mistress and she came in and invited us into the parlor and treated us so pleasantly that we felt well in her company. She said “Mr. McDonald, our servants are very much interested with your singing and dancing in their quarters. We have good music here and hope you will be pleased to dance and sing a little for us.” Father said “My dear lady, my humble efforts to amuse your servants in their quarters might be entirely out of place in your parlor.” Her husband entered the parlor which stopped further conversation at that time. The Master seemed pleased to meet us and spoke on the same subject his wife had introduced and said “The darkies were delighted with your singing and dancing and we would like to have you treat us with the same performance.” They had a very fine instrument and the lady played and sang and treated us as old friends of long acquaintance. Father was pleased with their good treatment and he danced and sang some of his Irish comic songs which was new to them and we had a very pleasant evening.
We worked for that man about a month and took most of our pay in provisions: flour, backen, corn, meat, dried apples, sugar and after making up our pay in such things, he took us into his smoke house and gave us a lot of fine smoked hams and side meat, in fact finished loading our wagon with good things. “Now”, he says “I want a commendation of you. I want you to leave that boy with me,” pointing to me. Father told him he could not do that. We parted with him as good friends and father thanked him for his kindness to us. That load of provisions lasted us across the plains and the winter after we got into the valleys.
When we got back to camp we found everything all right. Jane and Eliza were young women. My sisters had taken good care of everything. Mother had been sick in Bonepart for 2 years and seemed to improve when camping out. The doctor said it was nervous prostration and said (Madison?) would do her no good but she had to have him and to please her he had to prescribe something for her to take. So he told Jane my sister to get some oak bark and make a weak tea and tell her that was what I told you to give her. Jane waited on mother and tended her like a helpless child for 2 years.
In fact, Jane was a mother to all of us children and we mostly done as she directed us but Robert 2 years younger than me gave her some trouble sometimes. She had to watch him close to see that he went to school. One morning she followed him to see that he went to school and she found that he had not. Hunted him up and when he seen her coming he run. She took after him, catched up with him and just as she was reaching out her hand to catch him, he threw himself down and she stumbled over him with such force that she couldn’t get up for a minute. He jumped up and run the other way. She used to tell him of that after he had grown to be a man and had a family.
The next thing to do was to fit up the wagons and gather with the company to organize for to cross the plains. Camped at the gathering place until we got 50 wagons. Appointed a captain of 50 for the whole company and a captain for each 10 wagons. That was in the Spring of 1850. Us boys enjoyed the wild country and the wild game which were in abundance on the plains. The buffalo were so thick and went in such large herds we had to stop the train and corral the wagons until some of the large herds passed.
In traveling we were strung out on the trail half a mile long. I was 16 years old when we crossed the plains and was numbered with the guard and took my turn with the older men. I remember we had to call the hour and “All is Well” every hour. When it came to that part of it I think there never was a young rooster learning to crow felt prouder than I did. That was my first military service which was continued more or less in settling this country Utah and surrounding country.
We had no trouble with Indians crossing the plains, but we kept ourselves in readiness, corralled the wagons every night and kept our powder dry. Prepared for the worst but all went well until the cholera broke out in camp that proved to be very fatal. Every one that took it died.
My father helped to bury a man one morning and took sick after the train started and died that night. We came to the Platte river that day in the afternoon and part of the train had crossed the river. Father being very bad we asked him if we should cross the river with him. He said “yes” so he died that night on this side of the Platte river.
That was the greatest trial we ever had in our family, so sudden on the dreary plains of America and buried without a coffin. But we had some large boxes along which we broke up and dug a deep grave with a vault at the bottom large enough for the body and covered it securely with the lumber of those boxes which we thought would prevent wolves from digging up the body. For we had passed some graves that had been buried in haste that the wolves had dug up and eat the flesh all off their bones which we buried again.
Sarah’s granddaughter, Mary McDonald Young, recalled that when she was a young girl she had heard her grandmother tell many times of this sad time on the plains. Sarah had spoke of how sad and shocked she had felt at the sudden passing of her husband. It was nighttime when he died. After the family had been settled down, her feet hurt and so she went and sat on the banks of the Platte River and took off her shoes and stockings and put her feet into the cool water. She said that she could feel the strong current of the river and the thought came to her, in her grief, of how easy it would be to slide into the water and be engulfed in this current and be with her beloved husband in death.
But as she sat there she heard one of the younger children call out to her and knew that she must carry on. Her family needed her. She must now be father and mother and lead the family on to Zion and fulfill the dream that she and James had dreamed so long ago in Ireland-to have their children and grandchildren grow up as members of the main body of the Church. She pulled her feet from the water and went back to the wagons that held her grieving children.
The following morning, after James had been buried, the family continued their journey. They little realized that sad morning as they left their father’s grave and turned toward the west that they were to become part of one of the great miracles of history—that their hard work would help to make the barren desert blossom as the rose. They could not have known how numerous their posterity would become and how they would prosper in the new land they would find in the heart of the Rocky Mountains.
(Back to William)
When we had traveled about two thirds of the way to Salt Lake our cattle had lost their shoes some and began to get lame and the captain called a halt to rest the teams and shoe those that were lame and tender footed. Stopped at a place they called Deer Creek. Stayed there 2 weeks. Had plenty of good meat to eat while there. I remember one night one of the hunters didn’t come in until about midnight. His name was Peter Shirts. The people thought he had got lost or was taken by Indians. We built fires all around camp and fired guns and about midnight Peter came in with the hind quarters of a large deer on his shoulders.
We got to Salt Lake about the last of September. Stayed there a month, cut some hay west of Salt Lake close to the lake. But we were advised by some friends that came across the plains with us to come out to Lehi in Utah valley and our cattle would winter out on the range and so well. So we moved and located about 3 miles north of Lehi with 5 or 6 families where now stands the city of Alpine. And we sowed some fall wheat there and our cattle done fine and we had plenty of good wood to burn. Our sister Eliza got married that winter to William Clyde. That was the first marriage in that place. When the Spring of 1851 opened we didn’t like the place.
There was no (orgination?) at that time there and our wheat didn’t look very well so my brother John went to Springville and he liked that place much better and we moved there in the Spring of 1851. That suited mother much better there. Had a good number of families wintered there and had built a small fort and had laid out the city of Springville. We took up a lot and camped there and went to work putting in a crop on 20 acres of land west of Springville. Broke up 10 acres sowed to wheat.
We built a house that summer and raised 300 bushels of wheat and a fine garden. Us boys were beginning to want amusements and go in society so the Winter of 1851 we went to a great many dances and as there was no money then in this country and we had to do the next best thing, to pay for our tickets which was a pack of wheat and a candle.
In the Spring of 1852 we put in another crop of wheat which didn’t do as well as the first. Seemed that the water brought up the (salarates?) and killed the wheat in spots so brother John stayed home and tended the crop and me and Robert went down to Salt Lake to try to get work for we were destitute of clothing.
We were strangers and had no means to get food or lodgings and we were some days before we got work and we got most awful hungry. So I said to Robert we have to go into some of these houses and ask for something to eat. Robert said that I would have to do the talking so we went into the next house we came to and told our story to a nice lady. She told us to sit down and she got us a good meal and I tell you it tasted mighty good to us. She treated us so nice that we felt at home and we told her our history. She said that her husband had a sawmill up in Mill Creek Canyon and she thought that he would hire us to work in the canyon. He came home that night and he hired us to work in the canyon.
His name was Mister Porter. We worked there about a month and would have worked there all summer if it hadn’t been for an accident that happened to Robert. We had 1 yoke of wild steers. We worked on a cart put one end of a log on the cart, the other end on the ground and I had to walk by the steers’ head to keep them in the trail. Robert got on the end of the log just over the wheels. The log was a very large one. He couldn’t straddle it. Cart ran over a stump and threw him off right on to his shoulder. Broke his collar bone. We had to stop work, went down into the valley and found a doctor, can’t remember his name. He worked with the wound for some time.
Said the collar bone was broke and pushed down into the shoulder which he set and raised it up all he could and done it up nice. Gave him a nice silk handkerchief to sling his arm in. I told him a little of our history and told him we would pay him by giving him an order on Mr. Porter the man we had been working for. He said “No boys, I won’t charge you anything. You are welcome to my services.” We thanked him and started home to Springville on foot. Got home that night very late.
We worked around home the rest of that summer making a comfortable home for mother and I made (dolies?) for a nice young horse which I broke to ride that was my first horse and I was very proud of him.
So in the years of 1852 and 3 there was a large emigration to California on account of the great discovery of gold in that country. So myself and my brother Robert caught the gold fever which was very contagious at that time and we started in the Spring of 1853 for California the Southern route. After traveling about 250 miles we came to the outside city of Utah at that time then called Coalvail, now Cedar City, Iron county. I being acquainted with some of the people in that place went to see them and they were so glad to see me that they prevailed on me to stop with them a while. And the Walker Indian War broke out. Marshall law was declared and I was pressed into it. Served as a Minute Man in Cavalry one year until peace was declared. I helped to fence the first big field in that locality. Raised one crop there of wheat.
Got married to Sariah Shirts December 10th, 1853. Daughter of Peter Shirts and Margret Camaron Shirts. After I got married my people in Springville wanted me to come back to that place. They had got me a fine city lot joining George W. Clyde, my brother-in-law and sister Jane. So I moved back to Springville in the Fall of 1854. Worked in Hobble Creek canyon all that winter. Got out logs and built a house and made other improvements on my lot.
In the Spring of 1855 rented a farm of Robert Johnston on my neighbor and put in 20 acres of wheat. It came up nice and was looking fine and the grasshoppers hatched out and swept the ground so clean there wasn’t a green thing left. That stopped my farming that year and it seemed as though there would be a famine, for the whole country was swept clean of vegetation and we were over a thousand miles from where we could get any help. But I was fortunate for once. The crop that I raised in Iron county was still there in charge of a good friend of mine, Brother John Hamilton Senyer. So I wrote to him telling him of my misfortune losing my crop and if he hadn’t disposed of it (my wheat) to hold it and I would come down and get it asking him to write to me as soon as he got my letter which he did telling me it was still there in the bin I made for it.
So I hitched up my team 1 yoke of cattle and wagon. Went and got it and I tell you that was a lonesome trip. 100 miles between Fillmore and Parowan, camping 2 nights alone in that Indian country just after the Walker war. There were still come roving bands of Indians doing mischief and we hadn’t much confidence in them. But I got through all right and my friends were very glad to see me. I stayed there about a week.
While there, there was an accident happened to the wife of James Farr a young man starting to make a home in Cedar City. The wolves were numerous there at that time and they got into Mistress Farr’s chicken coup one night. She ran to see what was the matter and just as she got into the door a wolf jumped by her and bit her on the shoulder causing a slight wound and in a short time she took convulsions and died.
Her father and mother lived in Fillmore so James Farr came to me and wanted to go in company back with me. I told him I would be very glad of his company. So I loaded my wagon with all the wheat that I thought it would carry. My oxen was able to take more than my wagon could bear up and I had to load accordingly. When we got to Fillmore and the father and mother met James Farr their son-in-law there was such heartfelt sorrow expressed and mourning that I felt very sorry for them. We stayed there 2 nights and James Farr came with me to Springville. He had relations in Provo.
I got a chance to swap my wheat at Fillmore for wheat in Springville. Saved me hauling it over 100 miles. That crop of wheat was a great blessing to me. We had plenty of bread through that famine and had some to spare. Sometimes hungry children would come and beg for bread and I felt thankful that we had some to give them. Some of them remembered that time after they had grown to man and womanhood and came to us laughing and told us that when they got right hungry they always came to our house and got something to eat. They said they never could forget them hard times.
I remember at that time we were making a ditch from Hobble Creek around the bench unto what was then called Union Field now Mapleton and there was a man working with me by the name of Peter Bell and when eating our dinner I noticed that Peter had nothing to eat but greens. I said to him “Won’t you give me some of your greens and take some of my bread?” “Why yes”, he said “bread will taste good to me for we haven’t had any bread for some time.”
We met 30 years after that at a Blackhawk Indian War party held at Spanish Fork. In talking over old times he spoke of the dinner we had on the Hobble Creek ditch. He said he never would forget that.
I farmed 10 acres on that bench a number of years. Went off to Provo valley and someone homesteaded it after the government surveyed the land and I never got anything for it. Also 10 acres in what was called the new survey West of Springville. Worked water right to it from Spanish Fork. Lost that also.
In the year 1856 the people wanted a road up Provo Canyon into what was then called Provo valley so the church issued what we called Mormon scrip supposed to be good as cash on the co-op store in Salt Lake and a small camp of us Springville folks went and helped make a kind of a road up to the valley. In 1857 we heard of a large army starting from the States being sent by the government and were supposed to mob and murder us as they had done in Nauvoo and we were preparing for the worst and all the people living in Salt Lake and North of there moved South stopping for the winter at the different settlements in Utah county and South of there. I lived in Springville at that time and my lot was full of wagons camped. One old couple by the name of John Buler and wife wintered in my house. His wife was sick all winter. Died early in the Spring.
These were times of great excitement. All the able bodied men was called to arm themselves and march to Echo Canyon to stop the invading army. I was sent with eleven others and one Indian to scout through the country between Springville and Bridger where the army had made a halt. Was out 2 weeks. Found a very rough country. Was satisfied the army could not come through that (fort?). The army wintered at Bridger and the next Spring peace was declared and the army moved down Echo Canyon into Cedar Valley and built a military camp called Camp Douglas giving us employment at high wages which we needed as we were destitute of clothing and almost everything. I made 50 dollars a week making (dobies?) for them. There was a number of Irish soldiers there and they found out that I was an Irishman and they came down to the doby yard and we had a good time. One of them was born within 8 miles of where I was. They told me all about the army and brought me nice things to eat from camp and helped me some on the yard. I worked there until I made a good start for farming and I began to want to get where I could have a good farm and a good range for cattle and I got my mind set on Provo valley. So in the Summer of 1859 I went up there and took up a fine piece of land. Made my portion of fence for it in the big field and moved my family up there in the Spring of 1860.
Built a house in the fort and put in a crop of wheat and oats in the Summer of 1860 which was damaged with frost early in August. It made very bad black flour which we had to live on for a year but that didn’t discourage us. Our stock were looking fine and we knew we could make a good living raising stock. There was an abundance of hay of the very best quality. But we had to struggle with many hardships and trials common in a new country for we were cut off from other places most of the time by snow in winter and water in Spring and Summer, no roads or bridges, no markets for anything and the worst of it was we had nothing to sell.
Our third crop of grain was pretty good and made pretty good flour. But we got shut in with snow and water and couldn’t get to mill to get any grinding. We used coffee mills and made hominy until finally there was a man by the name of (Wm Ranils?) a good old yankee contrived to fix a small pair of stones to a horse power of an old thrashing machine and I can remember waiting my turn to get a half bushel of wheat chopped.
This is the end of the story I have and it was followed by a list of tithing that he paid – mostly in commodities like eggs, hay, wheat and oats.
1900 he paid $25.07
1901 he paid $45.00
1902 he paid $31.66
Family Members
Siblings
Children
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Jane Elizabeth McDonald McNaughtan
1854–1933
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Sarah Ann McDonald Young
1856–1925
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William McDonald Jr
1857–1942
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Margaret Sariah McDonald Erickson
1860–1959
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James McDonald
1861–1933
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Mary McDonald Young
1864–1958
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Eliza Ann McDonald Blackley
1865–1948
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George McDonald
1866–1952
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Hyrum McDonald
1867–1880
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Olive McDonald
1868–1869
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Nancy McDonald
1870–1921
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Rhoda Francis McDonald Jones
1871–1933
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Joseph McDonald
1872–1873
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Margaret Ann McDonald Griffith
1872–1899
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Lucy McDonald
1874–1874
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Robert McDonald
1874–1874
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Henry Carlos McDonald
1874–1929
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Fannie Lavina McDonald Cluff
1875–1958
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Susan Sophia McDonald Giles
1877–1951
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John McDonald
1879–1879
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Elizabeth McDonald Witt
1880–1946
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Lenora "Lenaire" McDonald
1882–1882
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Clara Bell McDonald McAffee
1885–1920
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Edward McDonald
1888–1929
