Son of David Elder and Martha Louisa Montgomery

Married Nancy Williams Ferguson, 9 Feb 1853, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah

Married Mica Martina Margaretta Katrina Peterson, 31 Jan 1858, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah

Married Mary Caroline Pratt, 31 Jan 1858, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah

Married Elizabeth Frances Pratt, 25 Jul 1863, Manti, Sanpete, Utah

Married Frances Annie Pulsipher, 6 August 1906, Castle Dale, Emery, Utah

History - Claybourn Montgomery Elder was born in Bedford County, Tennessee [some sources indicate Rutherford County], June 2, 1827. He was the son of David Elder and Louise Montgomery [other sources say Martha Louise]. He had one brother, David Elder, who was older and a sister, Martha Elder, who was younger. They both died at the age of four years. His father died when he was young leaving him and his mother to face life alone.

Claybourn was very active all his life as well as a great lover. He was always on the move. He moved 23 times in one year and he said it was not a good time for moving either. He moved from Kolob Co-op cattle business to the sawmill which he bought and operated in Mountain Dell. He left Dixie and went to Parowan and got another sawmill in the canyon. Then he moved to Buckhorn Springs where he stayed on winter, then to a ranch called Greensville below Beaver on the river. This ranch location was sometimes called Pan Cake. He stayed here one summer and then moved to Minersville, then to Shauntie about 1875. His wife Frances didn't move with him this time. She and her five children stayed in Minersville. While in Shauntie, Claybourn worked in a smelter. He then moved to Iron City in Iron County. He stayed here one winter and worked in a foundry. Then he decided to move to Antelope Springs on the Cannon Ranch about 40 miles southeast of St. George. He stayed there one summer and then moved to upper Kanab and started on the McDonald sawmill. Then he decided to change and go to Leaman sawmill 20 miles out of Glendale. Here he purchased a few mild cows, about 50 head. Claybourn worked at the sawmill and the women and children took care of the cows, the milking and the churning. Then they moved to Stanford Ranch in Arizona and stayed there for a while. In the spring of 1885 Claybourn came back to Duncan City, Utah, and rented another sawmill on the Trumble Mountains about 75 miles south of St. George and operated it for four years. They would move into St. George for the winter where the children could go to school. While at the mountain, Claybourn and the older boys would run the mill, and younger boys and women would milk the 50 cows and make cheese and butter. The churn was a large wooden barrel with rockers on it. Two of the children could churn the butter by rocking themselves to sleep--one on each side of the churn. The butter was put into large wooden barrels and buried until someone went to St. George, and they would send it to market.

About 1880 Claybourn went to Arizona where they contracted grading on the Santa Fe Railroad. About this time a team of horses ran away and threw Claybourn out of the wagon and broke his legs between the knee and the thigh. He never had them set so it took about two years for them to heal. He went on crutches for some time and was left with a limp.

About 1873, while living in Dixie, confusion developed somehow and Martina secured a divorce from Claybourn and she took her children and moved to Kingston, Utah, and took up a homestead. Here she and the children worked clearing and breaking up the ground with their ox teams. The older boys went to work to earn money to help run the farm and to buy seed. The first year they raised 1000 bushels of grain. Martina spun wool from the sheep she raised and made clothes for her children. Before going to Kingston she lived a year or two in Parowan, Utah. While in Parowan she married a man named Paul Smith, and had a little girl named Vivian. They got a divorce. Martina lived in Kingston until her family was grown and married. She built a small home in Junction 3 miles from her homestead where she lived until her death in 1910. She was buried in the Junction Cemetery.

Claybourn joined the church when he was 17 years old and always prided his connection with the church and retained a living testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel. He was a very rugged type of man and always wore high top boots and a large hat. He was an excellent carpenter. He could build almost any kind of structure he decided upon. He was an apprentice carpenter in his youth and he helped to build the Prophet's mansion. He made the benches and helped to build the school house in Hinckley in 1875.