Hannah Smuin Harvey

Hannah Smuin was born at Radley Berkshire England Sept 28, 1834, a daughter of Thomas and Esther Hannah Pearce Smuin. She married Daniel Harvey May 21, 1854 when she was 19 years old. Agustus Gurney performed the ceremony in the Parish Church of Paddington County of Middlesex, England.

They went to live at London in an apartment in one of the row houses which were in vogue at the time and which are still lived in with very little change. She has told me how she mixed her bread at home then took her raised loaves to the cook house in the rear of the apartments to be baked.

She also took meat, potatoes, cakes, or any other food there to be cooked. No apartment was equiped with cook stoves with ovens at that time. They had three children born to them while in London, Anne, James, and Daniel.

Her husband worked for the king and was lucky to have a job that was steady and that he enjoyed. He helped care for the kings horses and the ones used in the changing of the guard. This custom still exists at Buckingham palace.

While they were in London, the Mormon missionaries came to them and they joined the church. This was a turning point in their lives as they began saving every penny so they could pay for transportation to America. They took their new religion very seriously and although they, like other Englishmen, had enjoyed their cups of tea, they never drank it again. They kept the word of wisdom absolutely. They also kept the other teachings. Grandma was devout about her church attendance. She never missed a meeting or a general conference.

On June 4, 1863, they left the London docks for America, on the ship Amazon, which was carrying a very large number of Mormon emigrants. And it was this group of emigrants that Charles Dickens made the statement about “The flower of England is on that ship.” He was so impressed with that group of Mormons that he made several observations all in praise of their orderly and excellent behavior.

Six weeks later they arrived at Montreal. Grandma wasn't feeling well on their arrival and had to be carried off the ship. They went to St. Louis by train, and then to Winter Quarters. Sometimes they took detours by boat since the train tracks had been disrupted by Civil War soldiers.

Rasel Hyde had been sent by Brigham Young to meet them at Winter Quarters. He had wagons and oxen to take them to Salt Lake City. On this long journey they walked much of the way. Even the children did considerable walking, except Dan who was too small. It was tiresome to ride so many hours and besides it lightened the load if they walked. It was hot and dusty walking or riding - and camping at the end of the day was always welcome. Here is one story that grandma told me about one night on the trip:

The day had been hot and dusty, and we were glad to see the sun sink beneath the western Nebraskan horizon. The wagons were drawn into the usual circle, the tongue of each resting on the rear axle of the one in front of it. This formed a corral for the oxen and other animals that the company had. Everyone was dog-tired and as soon as the evening meal was over everyone went to bed expecting to get an early start the next morning before the heat of the day. The night was warm and sultry. Many were spreading a couple of blankets under the wagons thinking it would be cooler sleeping there than inside. I didn't know whether to try it or not.

Daniel had guard duty that night and the two children and I would be there alone with all that livestock running around in the enclosure and I'll have to admit the idea made me nervous. Not even the zoo had this many animals in London, and what they had, were behind strong iron fences.

However, ten minutes in the hot wagon persuaded me to try it, so gathering up my pillows and blankets, we crawled under the wagon. Jimmie and Annie were soon asleep, but I was not so lucky. I heard every mouthful of grass as it was torn loose from the roots, and you could even hear the breathing every time they got within ten feet of the wagon.

Finally, exhaustion took over and I fell asleep. Then I was suddenly awakened by a loud snort not to far from my ear. I sprang up raising a goose egg on my forehead where I collided with the wagon running gears. There before me in the dark night was a still blacker great animal which in reality was the company mule. I grabbed the long willow that I had brought with me for just such an emergency, and I slashed that mule down the side with all the energy I could muster.

He squealed and gave a lunge backwards scaring all the animals near him, which started a stampede. Hey all hit the wagon tongue on the opposite side of the enclosure at the same time. The tongue went down and every animal was loose on the prairie and running. Immediately every man in camp was up pulling on his shoes and out after the fleeing herd. One or two of those good saints were even saying a few half naughty words.

Needless to say every animal was not found that night or even the next morning. A day’s layover was necessary to get them back and in shape to travel again. Me--I heard everyone’s version of how it happened and whose fault it was because they had not fastened the tongue securely and what should happen to such careless people. But no one saw me pop that whip or crawl back under that blanket and pretend that I was so sound asleep that even that bellowing herd could scarcely wake me up. That has been my little secret for a quarter of a century.

They stayed at Ebenezer Williams place when they arrived in Kaysville. He had a log room and although the chinking was getting loose in spots it was considered in good enough condition for early fall living. But it snowed and blew that night and sifted snow over the beds and floor. It was grandma's first introduction to snow, but it was nothing compared with all the snow they would see before spring.

Daniel got a job at Wenall's grist mill and made him a dug-out in the side of the hollow near the mill so that he would be close to work. Here they were warm and snug the first winter. The next year they lived in a small house near what is now the intersection of the Green Road and Highway 89.

While there, Daniel built a large log room with a fire place in it about where the Rock Loft now stands. This was a real comfortable place and they lived here until they got a farm farther south down the Mountain Road. This place was later used for a school and the Harvey children and other Mountain Road children went to school there. They needed a larger house now as Hannah had given birth to four more baby girls since they had arrived in Utah, Susannah, Mary, Martha, and Mercy. Mercy died while still a baby.

Hannah helped her husband plant flowering shrubs around the new place and helped with the silk worms as soon as the mulberry trees were old enough to bare leaves to feed the worms. She helped train the honeysuckle and woodfine vines to climb over the house and helped water all these plants to get them started, which was no small job with the water scarcity situation as it was.

She also made rugs, braided, flocked, and curly yarn rugs out of old sweaters and stockings. She even made rugs out of dog hides which she tanned and mounted on felt herself. She was an expert tailor and dress maker and she did sewing for the "best ladies" in all the towns near by and many in Salt Lake City. She could make a man’s Sunday suit and no one would know it hadn't been purchased at a high priced store.

She could cut her own patterns and it took very little snipping by her scissors to make it a perfect fit. When it came to making something she had a trained eye and intelligent hands. What her eye perceived her hands conceived.

When she was 80 years old she got first place on a hem-stitched handkerchief. She always got first place on whatever she entered at the fair. They say her mother used to sew for the queen in England and that she went along to thread needles for her when she was a small girl. She made all the clothing for our family. She even made the suit my father was married in. (They were married in the temple, but the suit he wore on the day that he was married was made by Grandma.)

I remember the day that my father bought all the ground on the north side of the road from Grandma. He paid her $800 for it. Uncle Dan had just moved down from Bear Lake and was going to live here. Grandma had been living with us, but she thought that she would like to live closer to church and so she decided to buy a place in town that was for sale.

She let Uncle Dan and his family live there with her, but she had a life lease on it. I think that she got homesick for the familiar things. She still kept her bed and all her things in the old house after my folks had built the new one; and she was soon back and stayed at our place until after my father died in 1910. After father died, she spent a little more time at Uncle Dans, and then she went to her daughters Suez and Mary in Layton where she died at the age of 82 on the 22 of August 1915. She is buried in the Kaysville Cemetery.

Grandma was an early riser. You could see her out under the mulberry trees walking around in the first pearly gray light of the dawn. She would have a little shawl around her shoulders and she would be enjoying the coolness. Her hair was always brushed down tight to her head with a part in the middle and a knot in the knap of the neck.

I never could see how she could manage a smooth hair style with one arm. She had been hurt in an accident in front of Sheffeld’s store. Father had left her in the sleigh to hold the horses reigns while he went into the store a minute. The horses became frightened and bolted tipping the sleigh over on a pile of sand on the road side. It threw her out of the sleigh and broke her shoulder; so that she could never raise that arm again.