Daughter of John Miller Park and Matilda Stewart

Married William Rufus Rogers, 19 Oct 1852, Provo, Utah, Utah

Children - Brigham Stowell, Amanda Stowell Butler, Miranda Sowell Butler, Rufus Stowell, John Heber Stowell, Matilda Stowell Butler, Cynthia Stowell Pingree, James Stowell, Francis Augustus Stowell

Biographical Sketch. Cynthia Jane Park Stowell, the daughter of John Miller Park and Matilda Stewart Park was born in the State of Tennessee, April 20, 1836. Her parents joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in that state. In the spring of 1845 John M. Park took one of his sons, Wm. A. Park, and went to Nauvoo to see the country and decide where to locate his family, he returned home and died about 3 weeks after. As he drew near the end, he earnestly advised his wife to take the children and gather with the Saints. She carried out his counsel by moving to Nauvoo, Illinois in March 1846, and shared in the troubles and trials of the Saints in the Nauvoo Exodus by leaving Nauvoo for Council Bluffs in June, 1846.

When the United States government called on the Mormon camps for five hundred men to serve in the Mexican war, her son, William A. Park, joined that memorable body of men, the Mormon Battalion. To struggle with the difficulties of the situation, the mother was left one son, 15 years old, and her daughters. They were a hard working family. The family were mostly dependent on the mother for clothing. She was a weaver and did much work for her for which she generally received cloth for pay. She had six daughters, the two oldest having married and the youngest about six years old having died. This left the mother of two sons and three daughters to pursue the journey to Salt Lake.

The family had a wagon drawn by two yoke of steers and a pair of cows. They took into their wagon 600 pounds of freight which would pay for one pair of steers when it was delivered at the end of the journey. To make this outfit and also sustain the family while doing so, they worked in the field to raise grain and at other work they could turn to profit. In common with the Saints, they suffered for the common comforts and necessities of life and sickness was often one of the difficulties attending a frontier life. Two of the girls assisted themselves across the plains by laboring for others. The widow and those who traveled with her had to walk much of the way. As they arrived in Nauvoo after the main body of Saints had left Sugar Creek, they were constantly battling with the difficulties of the exodus until their arrival in Salt Lake Valley on the 5th of September 1851. They made the journey without any serious accident or difficulty. They traveled in Captain Stevensen's fifty and Captain Wm. Fawcett's ten.

In Provo, Cynthia Jane Park, the sixth child of Mrs. Park, met Wm. R. R. Stowell. They were married in Provo by Apostle John Taylor the 19 of October 1852. When she was married she was living with her widowed brother, Wm. A. Park, and taking care of his two little children. She only transferred the care of a brother's home and children to her husband's, for in a short time after marriage when Mr. Stowell brought the son of a deceased fifteen months old to his home where he grew to manhood under the motherly care of his wife.

In the Autumn of Mr. Stowell's half brother Dan arrived in Utah with his family of a wife and five children. In January 1854, Dan's wife died and also in the early spring. Dan followed her, leaving to the care of his half brother's
orphaned children. In the Autumn of 1853, Mrs. Stowell accompanied her husband to Fillmore where he had been called to locate, to strengthen the settlement. The 22nd of April 1854, Mr. Stowell arrived at his home in Fillmore bringing with him the orphaned children of his brother. On Monday, the 24th, their oldest son was born. While clasping her first born to her bosom, Mrs. Stowell still had room in her heart for these waifs and she exercised a mother's care for them until they grew up and assumed the responsibilities of life for themselves. In June 1855, still in somewhat poor circumstances from frequent movings and a family of children on their hands, Mrs. Stowell accompanied her husband to Bingham's Fort near Ogden and bore along with him the misfortunes and changes that rapidly succeeded each other in the following three years.

In her own words, she relates the following: "The 2nd of Oct., 1857, my husband was ordered into the mountains with his battalion to meet the U.S. Troops who were marching to Utah in a threatening attitude. We were living on our town lot in Ogden in a house with two rooms for our families. The oldest boy of the orphans, about fifteen, was the best help we had for our outdoor work before the severe cold of winter set in. He, with a yoke of steers and a wagon, hauled a large quantity of sage brush from the sand ridge for fuel as he was too young to battle with the difficulties of hauling wood from the canyons. He was, as well, poorly clad and wore a pair of tattered men's shoes until a kind neighbor furnished him a better pair. The other wife and myself worked together and spun yarn which we hired to wove into cloth to supply the pressing wants of the family. Mr. Stowell had farmed during the summer about one and half miles from home. Sophronia and myself took turns on alternate days to go with ox team and gather the squashes, potatoes,etc. and bring them home for the winter. The second orphan boy of eleven years usually accompanied us with his thin clothing and shoeless feet in the cold raw winds of autumn. Sophronia's father kindly let us have a winter cow, but our supply of milk was very limited for want of food and shelter for the cow. The public duties which Mr. Stowell was called upon to perform during the summer of 1857 so broke into his labors as to very much lessen the results of his farming. Many of our friends, understanding the circumstances, were very kind in assisting us. For instance, Father Burket and old neighbor, living four or five families from us, knowing of Mr. Stowell's absence brought us quite a help in vegetables. Our living, like that of most of the Saints, was on the products of the farm and garden with very few luxuries."

Shoes for the children in those times of general destitution seemed wholly out of reach snd consequently they went without shoes during the winter. The adage "that the back seemed fitted for the burden" proved true, for as a family we enjoyed excellent health. Plain food, fresh air, and a healthy climate all worked in our favor. We had but one serious accident in the family. Wm. Henry Packard, the first orphan adopted into the family, and now about 8 years old, accidentally ran a pitchfork into his leg. He caught cold in it and had a serious time for three weeks during which he required good care and nursing.

When they learned that Mr. Stowell was a prisoner in the hands of our enemies it greatly added to their anxieties. Circumstances did not admit to our keeping up a correspondence with him. He wrote his family one short note during his imprisonment and they wrote one or two whenever informed by the brethren that there would be an opportunity of sending one to him. We had some dreams of his being home with us again and that gave us some hope and a little comfort. At one time I dreamed that he was at home and played with the baby on my lap, that was just getting old enough to take a little notice of its surroundings.

About mid-winter Apostle Orson Hyde called to see us and gave us much encouragement that all things would work around right for Mr. Stowell's deliverance and restoration his family. Thus with lights and shadows the winter passed away. Probably the faster and with less borrowed anxiety from the constant care and exertion required to meet the urgent demands of the family. The other wife, Sophronia, worked faithfully along with me in these difficult times, and our faith and confidence in each other has remained steadfast ever since.

Early in the spring of 1858 the removal of the Saints north of Salt Lake City south commenced, and in our situation the difficulties that must attend it as they loomed up in the distance seemed quite insurmountable. In the spring months both of us expected to add to our family cares. In the meantime, Elder James, afterwards a missionary to the Lamanites, visited us and kindly urged the necessity of prudence. He thought it wise not to be in too much of a hurry to leave our homes as there was nothing to enforce our leaving until the way opened before us. The 14th of April 1858 my child was born. The move was then far advanced. On the 21st of April we left our home with one wagon and two yoke of steers. It was necessary that Sophronia should travel with me as I was not in a condition to go alone and take care of my little one.

In this wagon were myself and four children, Sophronia and her two children, and the six orphan children, in all fourteen souls with no other male assistance than the orphan boys we were raising. We could take nothing more with us than necessary clothing, bedding and food, the latter only enough to last us until we hoped to be able to get more by a return of the team. We went as far as Salt Lake City and found shelter in the house of Mr. Seth M. Blair. There we remained until the oldest boy, Wm. A. Stowell, returned to Ogden and brought down another load. In these two loads were all we took with us in the move; very little for so large a family. We left some things what we could get along without in our house.

Wm A. Park, my brother, with others come to Salt Lake City to assist those who needed. He took me with him but with our own team and all my family with the exception of Sophronia and one of the orphan girls who remained to assist her. She was confined on the third of May. This was before I left and I remained with her until she was able to be around a little. We went into the house of my uncle Thomas C. D. Howell. He afterwards built some stables where he put me with several families that were without shelter. The weather was getting warm, the place was clean and considering the general circumstances of those who moved we were fairly comfortable. Sophronia was brought down by brethren who were sent to assist those who were in difficult circumstances. She stopped in Pond Town now Salem, with her father and mother who had previously arrived there. The orphan boys who were with me soon found employment and assisted the family to live.

On my first arrival in Salt Lake City, I learned that Gov. A. Cummings was there. I went to the house of Wm. C. Staines to get an interview with him, when my babe was about three weeks old. David B. Dillie, my husband's brother in law, escorted me and introduced me to the Governor as their wife of a Mormon prisoner. He received me very kindly. He inquired about the family and as his queries led to it I gave him an account of the family, its numbers, the orphan children, etc. He said it was a bad shape to be in. His sympathetic attitude cheered me. He probably thought my case quite a representative one among our people. He assured me he would do all he could for Mr. Stowell. At the close of our short interview he gave me ten dollars. I had expected he would feel ugly towards us and of course was the more surprised at his kindness and sympathy. At that time there was not much in the way of good to be had in Utah.

I went to a little store and bought a pair of shoes for Sophronia, six yards of domestic, five yards of hickory and I had two dollars of the ten the Gov. gave me left. I found nothing more that I thought I could afford to buy, as clothing was the first necessity. With the two dollars I wished to get a new dress each for my twin daughters, about two years old. The first was in Springville, Utah Co,. A lady had a few remnants of cloth left. I told her I wished
to get enough of one kind for each of my children's dress. She looked around her little stock in vain, but was herself making up some pink calico. She took four yards off of this and gave it to me as a present. With my money I got the two, each off different pieces. I made this ten dollars go as far as possible, and this account of it's expenditure will illustrate the difficulties of obtaining clothing at that time.

As patiently as possible we awaited the arrival of Mr. Stowell. We understood that the general pardon of the President of the U.S. would release him. He arrived in Payson the 10th of June, 1858. The day was remembered from the fact that just ten years before, his sister Juliett Stowell was married to Wm. H. Perry, in Provo by Apostle Geo. A. Smith. When Mr. Stowell returned my dream before
related in which I saw him play with the baby on my lap was fulfilled.

My husband was with his family but a few days when he took his loaded team and in company with Sidney Kelly, his returned to our home in Ogden. He returned and took his family there in August.

On our journey home the weather was very hot and dry. Our food lacked variety, and fatigue of travel brought weakness to our babes and in October. They sickened and died. They were buried in the same grave. Surely it was a time of great and affliction to us. Many others suffered with us. There was the satisfaction that we had done the best we could as a people under the difficulties that were forced upon us by our enemies. There was a comforting spirit with us for it looks darker after thirty five years than it did at the time.

Before the move Sophronia and myself had spun and hired our weaving done. But after our return, as soon as practicable, I commenced weaving with the common hand 1oom. At this time Mr. Stowell had married his third wife, Harriet R. Stowell. All were workers. When I was weaving, the others spun yarn, did the housework, etc. Our home was a workshop all made an effort to produce what we needed. For some time with best exertions it was difficult to keep the family well clad. When the labors of the day had accumulated sufficient cloth in the 1oom it was usually cut out and the evening spent in
making up some much needed garment. In time the way opened up for us to purchase a Mendenhall loom with which I wove much faster than with the old hand loom. On the farm Mr. Stowell and the boys labored as diligently to produce what was needed as we did in the house. In a few years we lived very comfortably and nearly everything we consumed was produced by ourselves.

The making of cloth was kept up in our home for many years and after many of our people had begun to exchange their wool for cloth at the factories which were erected in the country. We led busy lives and the days passes rapidly. The family increased and proportionately the means to provide for them. There was not much to disturb the even tenor of our ways until the anti-polygamy law was passed by the Gov. of the US in March 1863, and persecutions began to threaten the men of plural families. The evils of the law began to be felt at once and of necessity it began to break up the conditions of our previous lives by more fully separating the family. Harriet E. Stowell already had a home to herself, and in the summer of 1883, Mr. Stowell provided a separate home for Sophronia.

Myron W. Butler married my twin daughters, Amanda and Miranda. About this time he married my third daughter, Matilda. On the 13th of Feb., 1885, Matilda gave birth to a son, Earnest L. Such was the state of affairs with regard to polygamy that on the Bro. Butler, Mr. Stowell left home for the south with the design of going to Mexico. They went together in Arizona where many of the Saints had already colonized. There Bro. Stowell turned back, giving the funds he did not need to Bro. Butler who continued his journey to Mexico. I think he returned in May. When he got home he said he would not run away any more but would arrange his financial affairs as best he could and if necessary look through prison bars. Mr. Stowell returned from Arizona sometime in March and kept pretty much hid up. He attended the General Conference of the Church in April, 1884, and when he returned he said he was going to take a trip east to visit friends, etc.

He left home Apr. 12th. Our eldest son, Brigham, was placed in charge of his affairs during his absence. He returned before the fall conference. In the autumn, I went to the Logan Temple with him and we worked for the dead about two weeks. He afterwards went again and took with him another of his family. After this in the autumn of 1884 and the winter of 1885, Mr. Stowell remained in the Temple for some time working and employing others to work for him. He afterwards went to my brother's, James A. Park, in Weberville where he remained hid up more or less until the spring of 1885, when with one of my sons, I went up with a wagon and brought him home. The 5th of July he started to take my mother to her home in Spring City in Sanpete Valley, and remained there for a time to keep out of the way of the deputy marshalls.

My oldest son, married Mary O. Bybee on the 1st of May 1880. He afterwards married Rhoda M. Bybee. She became very uneasy for fear he would be arrested. This trouble in prospect so worked upon her that she felt desirous of hiding up to keep him out of danger. Her brother, George Rybee, lived in the settlement of Pahrea on Pahrea Creek in southeastern Utah. At this is a very retired spot in a precititous mountain canyon, she felt that there she would be entirely out of the way. She took the railroad to Milford where her brother met her and conveyed her to his home in this secluded spot in June, 1889. In the autumn her health became poor and she wrote to her husband and he as about to go and bring her away. He had charge of his father's affairs as well as of his own and the two kept him very busy.

As his absence could not be otherwise than a financial loss and after much consideration of the matter he decided to go after his wife. Mr. Stowell was then at or near Price in Emery County and had a team with him. As he was away from him home and business, his time was of less value to the family than our son, Brigham. I traveled to his locality on the railroad. On reaching him he readily fell in with my plan. 1 left home on the 22nd of December when winter had already set in. He had a wagon with protections which we made still more comfortable by putting blankets under the ordinary canvas cover and by putting in a small stove to keep inside warm.

Our route layover a high divide into Salina Canyon down which we would reach the Sevier Valley. We started on Tues. and on Thurs. night encamped at the foot of the divide. When we arose on Friday morning the days work before us was to get over the divide and down Salina Canyon. We were surrounded with all the elements of a dreary cold winter and our only shelter the wagon. It began to snow and the storm increased in intensity as the day wore on. Two of my nephews, Charles and George Zabriskie, were with us. They are the sons of my sister, Sarah Ann Park Zabriskie. The family lived at Spring City, Sanpete Valley and had been over the mountain with loads of freight and were returning with empty wagons. Even in summer the road was considered a bad one, but at this time with the track entirely obliterated in many places by the drifting snow, it was really dangerous. As it was a very cold tedious day I shut up the wagon to keep myself comfortable and trusted to Mr. Stowell and the young men for safety. The latter went ahead and broke the track. They got into some places where it was difficult to get out and this saved us from grappling. We got over the divide and that night in a herd house belonging to Wm. Jennings. This was the night of Dec. 30th. The 31st we continued down the difficult canyon and encamped for the night at the ranch of Stephen Allred, the son of Bishop James Allred of Spring City, Sanpete.

January l, we passed through Salina and went on to the town of Richfield. The snow continued to grow deeper and traveling more difficult. As we continued our journey up the river to Panguitch, the snow still became deeper and the cold more severe. At Panguitch it was considered impracticable to proceed further with the wagon and we decided that I should remain while Mr. Stowell went on to the relief of our daughter-in-law. We shared the hospitality of Patriarch Joseph L. Haywood, who was very kind to us during our stay in Panquitch. The cold was excessive. Having a fire in our little wagon stove we could go to bed very comfortable, but it was very cold dressing in the morning to get into the house.

We had arrived in Panguitch Jan. 7, 1888. John L. Sceva, son-in-law to Bro. Heyward, had a sheep herd on Pahrea Creek and told Mr. Stowell if he would wait a little he would go with him. They left Pangwitch Janiary 11. Mr. Stowell put his harness, bedding and provisions on one horse and rode the other. He returned about the 24th. We took a day or two to fit up and started for Spring City, where we arrived on the 31st of January. I remained with Mr. Stowell and Rhoda
at my mother's a month, then took the narrow gauge railway at Chester, the Utah Southern at Nephi, and arrived at home in the evening.

The 26th of August 1889, we moved from our farm near Ogden, which we had occupied for many years, and rented a place in the 1st ward in the city until the 26th of October. With my husband, our daughter, Matilda Rutler, her two children, Rhoda Bybee Stowell and her child, and our son, Frances we then started for Mexico. We arrived in the Mormon colony of Juarez on the 10th of the following November.

Mr. Stowell had been there previously and put up a two-room house so that we were fairly comfortable. Our son-in-law, Myron W. Butler, came to Mexico about a year his wife who had previously purchased a place. We improved the place and left Jaurez for Utah the 11th of the following March. Just one year from that date I left Juarez for Utah with Matilda and her children feeling it might be the last time I would see them in this life. On my return I was met in Deming by Mr. Stowell and my son, Brigham. Mr. Stowell and myself arrived in Juarez the 18th of August 1892 with a loaded team, arrived a few days later. On Friday, November 4th 1892, I received a letter from our son-in-law, James Pingree, conveying the sad news of the death of my daughter, Miranda. She left a babe about six weeks old.

So far as I can now the future, I shall end my days in this place still God in his providence may order it otherwise. After Mr. Stowell's death, she returned to Utah to her children and died at the home of her daughter, Matilda S. Butler, on January 2lst, 1907, at Cornish, Utah.