Monday, November 24, 2014

James' half brother, George

  According to  Selma Hazel Harvey and Myrtle Harvey Service, James Smuin Harvey had a half-brother, names Geroge Wooten Harvey, the son of Daniel and Ellen Wooten Harvey.
  
Ellen Wooten was born July 1st 1850 to William Wooten and Ruth Smuin in Summerless, Buckinghamshire, England.  As a young girl she became converted to Mormonism and had a desire to gather with the Saints in Zion.  She was encouraged by her mother's sister, Hannah Smuin Harvey and her husband Daniel Harvey, who according to the book "Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah" came to Utah Oct. 13th 1863 with the Rosel Hyde Company. They settled Kaysville, Utah.

Ellen went to live with her Aunt Hannah upon immigrating to Utah from England.  When Ellen arrived at her aunts home in Kaysville, polygamy was in full swing.  Daniel Harvey had not yet taken a plural wife. We do not know the circumstances that led to Ellen's marriage to her Uncle Daniel, but they were wed in the Salt Lake Endowment House Dec. 17, 1868. Ellen was 18 and Daniel was 30.
   
Ellen and Daniel had one son, George Wooten Harvey, who was born Jan 8, 1870.

George was 18 and he and his mother left Kaysville and moved to Cedar Fort, UT where George was employed on the new railway being built to Toplift and Mercur. From then on George cared for his mother.  Ellen always worked hard to help sustain them.
 
 They moved to Lehi where George became engaged to a young girl in the community. She died shortly before they were married. After a time he met Mary Rachel Baker, the daughter of James and Permelia Rice Baker. George was 28 and Mary was 18 when they were married in Provo, Utah, Oct. 26, 1896.

More info is available at https://familysearch.org/photos/stories/1043057?returnLabel=Hannah%20Smuin%20(KWNR-XFC)&returnUrl=https%3A%2F%2Ffamilysearch.org%2Ftree%2F%23view%3Dancestor%26person%3DKWNR-XFC%26section%3Dmemories

Friday, February 7, 2014

Marshall pulls gun on Bosworth

James Bunting Bosworth, in the picture above, is an uncle to Mary Ogden Bosworth Harvey. The picture appeared in the Hometown Album, by Newell Hart, which is no longer in print. While Mary's father, William Bosworth settled in Kaysville, Utah, James went north to Preston, Idaho.
Following is an interesting story involving James Bosworth. It was written by me for The Preston Citizen in 2013.


Businessman’s smart remark results in first print of Preston

By NECIA P. SEAMONS
for the Preston Citizen

            About 30 years before Franklin County, Idaho, became its own entity, politics and religion churned as it did in Nauvoo, Illinois, before the exodus West. Local government discovered they could erase the Mormon voting block by making it illegal for anyone believing in plural or celestial marriage to hold public office – that was 87 percent of the populace in the area now know as Franklin County (of which Preston, Idaho is the county seat)!  In the scramble to fill public offices, some interesting characters were roped into service.
            A.J. Simmonds, late Cache Valley historian, wrote about John W. “Black Jack” Nelson, whose long criminal record was no barrier to his election as local justice of the peace. He’d rustled cattle in 1866, robbed a stagecoach in 1873 and stolen a horse in 1885, but with few non-Mormon options in 1892 in Preston, Idaho, he got the vote.
            Simmonds also recorded that rumors of Mormons resigning from the Church on Monday, voting on Tuesday and rejoining the church on Wednesday, floated around. If it is true, there still weren’t enough votes to get sympathetic men into office.
Animosity abounded, and federal marshals hunted practicing polygamist men. They were driven into hiding or caught and jailed, making it difficult for them to provide for their families - something some federal marshals felt they weren’t doing anyway, once said a local descendant of one of those marshals. Dav Frew is the grandson of Marshal James Frew who often worked with U.S. Deputy Marshal Fred Bennett.
Once, Dav retells, his grandfather and Bennett went to Weston to arrest a guy who slipped out a back window leaving another fellow sitting at a table laughing at the marshals. Frew and Bennett asked the fellow what was so funny and who he was. Upon identifying himself, the marshals replied, “You can come with us because we have a warrant for you, too.”
Because of this Bennett’s memoirs, Simmonds records that the first print of a scene in Preston was recorded in a book. Bennett had gained a healthy respect for Nahum Bisbee Porter, a bishop in Preston. Porter proved a wily prey.
But his luck ran out one day and as Bennett and the captured Porter visited on their way back to town Porter asked Bennett what he thought he should do.
“I thought his best plan was to waive the preliminary examination, and give bond for his appearance in the United States Court at Blackfoot,” recorded Bennett.
Porter agreed, saying “As far as having two wives is concerned, I don’t deny it … and I don’t propose to go back on them.”
Bennett then advised Porter to find a couple of bondsmen, and said he would accompany his captive to do so. One of them was a James Bosworth, a postmaster and store-owner in Preston.
The location of Boswoth’s store comes from a hint in the Trail Blazer, written by the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers in 1930, that led to several conversations, and a brother and sister, Quinton and Jody Crockett, of Boise and Preston. They said their grandfather, E. A. Crockett, owned the Blue Light companies in Preston, one of which was a warehouse that sat east of the Franklin County Grain Growers [now called Valley Wide] at 264 S. State, Preston. It was there that Bosworth’s building stood in which Bennett waited outside for Porter, but within earshot of the ensuing conversation:
“Arrested! Why in hell didn’t you shoot the damn marshal? I’d like to see him come around after me. Where is he?” blurted Bosworth on learning the bishop’s errand.
“Right here!” answered Bennett as he entered the door with a pistol aimed at Bosworth. “Throw up your hands if you want to say anything to me.”
According to Simmonds, the illustration of the encounter in Bennett’s memoirs of July 13, 1885, is the first published picture from Preston, Idaho.