"To the Welsh"

I finished reading Llyfr Mormon, The Book of Mormon in Welsh. My system was not to translate every word or understand every grammatical structure. I simply read it along with the original English translation of Joseph Smith which was done by the gift and power of God. Mine was more for the general sense of it and I cannot deny that I felt the Spirit of God witness in the language of my ancient fathers and mothers.

My Handcart Ancestor and Her Traveling Companion

 he evidence is pretty solid that our Elinor* (1789-1861) was the traveling companion of Mary Taylor Mayo (1791-1856) in their travels to America and on the Pioneer Trail. Mary is the one who died just short of South Pass on the Overland Trail. She died September 13, 1856, in Nebraska Territory and was buried in Oregon Territory when the Ellsworth Handcart Company stopped for the night at Pacific Springs.

There are two contemporaneous lists of the members of Ellsworth's Company that departed Iowa City on June 2, 1856. Neither one is in alphabetical order. The people are generally grouped by families. Interestingly, Elinor is not grouped with her daughter, Jane Vaughan Lewis (1827-1890) and her family. They travelled from Britain to the United States in different ships within weeks of each other. However, Elinor and Mary Mayo are listed together on both lists.

Conspiracy Theory Is Not the Way to Go

There are a couple of books out by Matthew L. Harris of Colorado State University - Pueblo. One was noted in a link I shared in a Facebook posting that I will copy here because it led me to state my political interpretation rather succinctly.

[linking to an article "How did Mormons become so Republican?]:

Hopefully, we're finally getting out of this philosophy of one man....

Ya know it's interesting that no one of that stature has ever taken the extreme positions and conspiracies theories he did. Sure, there was that guy in the dorm and more than one crazed Utah politician, but nobody of the same stature in the church. What's that thing about paying attention to living leaders and not dead ones?

I'm going to be very blunt here. As blunt as Steve Schmidt has been with trump.

The Conservative Mormon fallacy has been:

Mission Update - Baptists at the Roundabout

Non-conformist Chapel in Aberaman, Wales briefly used by the LDS Church in 1851.

Last week, I arrived. They gave me administrator access to our Early Missionaries Database and I flew my wings.

Well, there's one more missionary added. So don't get too excited.

It is a challenge keeping up with the Joneses. I mean, sorting out all the Joneses which is the most common surname in Wales if don't you know already. It also helps explain why David Bevan Jones (1807-1863) preferred to use his bardic name - the Welsh version of a nom de plume - of Dewi Elfed. I knew his story and wondered why he was missing from our database and didn't seem to show up on any Church record in Utah.

Missionary Update, All Saints Day, The Grail Quest Fulfilled

Yes, I couldn't be happier with my senior service missionary experience. The Church History Library is amazing! I was trained on document delivery which I won't go into as we're all behind security barriers. I can assure you that everything is very well protected to the max. I agree there should be more and easier access to all, but I'm not in charge and I will attempt my long-suffering persuasion to the extent that I can.

It is the greatest joy that two themes in my life have merged and I find myself viewing the Grail after traversing the wasteland of my legal career. I'm finishing up Joseph Campbell's Romance of the Grail and all things become interrelated in his mythic synergy. Outside of his book, I still make connections as I near the Nirvana of the Ten Steps of the Bull. Here, I am at step 7. The Bull Transcended (Bull Forgotten, Self Alone).

Emigrant Departure from Waterloo Docks, Liverpool, 1850

The bad news is that the Waterloo Dock in Liverpool was significantly modified in 1868 and is now blocked off by apartments and offices. But we know where it was at the lower end of Waterloo Road just north of Prince's Dock.

The good news is that I found an 1850 article from the Illustrated London News about emigration from Waterloo Docks. Grandma Elinor embarked on the Enoch Train from Waterloo Dock in 1856 for Zion. It couldn't have changed that much in six years.

The article is mostly about Irish emigration because of the potato famines and general conditions of abject poverty. There are important confirmations in the article that ships sailing to and from the United States used Waterloo Docks and that steerage passengers were boarded 24 hours ahead of sailing to be organized below decks and likely to clear space before the saloon (first-class) passengers boarded.

More on Historical Mormon Emigration from Liverpool Docks

Anonymous D and I continue on our project to link up the Mormon Emigration departures to the specific docks at Merseyside in Liverpool, England. D has linked up some old maps with new, public digital maps. We plan to have the docks linked and listed with the ships that departed from them.

Recently while Googling around the Liverpool waterfront, I found four dock markers that are visible to passers-by, possibly in a tourist coach along the Mersey. The route swings by new condos on Prince's Dock where Heber C. Kimball leaped ashore in 1837 then on to Waterloo Road.

We are happy to share with all. I think it would be most fun to take people there, perhaps a coach passenger would be seated high enough to see over the walls into the dock areas. Here's the map:

South to North from the wonderful Liverpool Waterfront public places, we could circle 'round Prince's Dock. Then on Waterloo Road, we could see the old stone markers for Victoria and Trafalgar Docks (across from Costco):

Ghosts of Missionaries Past

In Dickensian fashion, the missionaries of the Restored Gospel to the British Isles noted the great calamities resulting from the rich oppressing the poor. Their work began in 1837. I will quote them using as my source Truth Will Prevail: The Rise of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the British Isles 1837-1987, Editors: Bloxham, V. Ben; Moss, James R.; Porter, Larry C. (LDS, University Press, Cambridge, England 1987) (TWP). I will attempt to transcribe the quotes as the missionaries wrote them leaving out the [sic]s and original sources:

Heber C. Kimball:

Wealth and luxury abounded, side by side with penury and want. I there met the rich attired in the most courtly dresses, and the next minute was saluted with the cries of the poor with scarce covering to screen them from the weather. Such a wide distinction I never saw before. TWP, 52.

Oh! When will distress and poverty and pain cease, and peace and plenty abound? When the Lord Jesus shall descend in the clouds of heaven - when the rod of the oppressor shall be broken. 'Hasten the time, O Lord!' was frequently the language of my heart, when I contemplated the scenes of wretchedness and woe, which I daily witnessed, and my prayer to Heavenly Father was, that if I had to witness a succession of such scenes of wretchedness and woe, that He would harden my heart, for those things were too much for me to bear. This is no exaggerated account: I have used no coloring here. They are facts which will meet the Elders of Israel when they shall go forth into that land [Britain], and then I can assure them that they will not be surprised at my feelings. TWP, 53.

Christmas Eve 1841, Llanfoist, Wales

It isn't much, but another missionary journal from my 4th Great-Grandmother, Elinor Vaughan's era in Llanfoist tells us:

“My next appointment was at Llanfoist where I found a steady and attentive congregation. This is a dark and sootey place owing to the vast amount of coal and iron works here.” 

James Palmer Reminiscences, circa 1884-1898 LDS CHL MS 1752_f0001_00071. 

This source must be based on a contemporaneous journal as there are dates that would not be remembered unless recorded somehow. James Palmer occasionally traveled with Elder John Needham who baptized Elinor Jenkins Vaughan on 17 December 1841, just one week before the Christmas Eve meeting in Llanfoist. Elder Palmer also helped establish the Branch at Llanthony in the Black Mountains and was the first missionary to preach in Abersychan in June 1841, apparently without much success.

Elder Palmer is credited with the first recorded baptism in South Wales. His Reminiscences records that on either the 23rd or 30th of November, 1840, he baptized John Preece and William Williams in the River Monnow at Skenfrith, Monmouthshire. It just so happens that I took pics there on my visit last Good Friday, not knowing about this history (even though it's recorded in Truth Will Prevail: the Rise of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the British Isles 1837-1987 (University Press, Cambridge, UK 1987), p. 240, as well as the Reminiscences at p. 13.)

The River Monnow at Skenfrith, Monmouthshire, Wales. First baptisms in South Wales near here.

The SS Nevada of the Guion Line, Liverpool to New York, 1886 and 1887

The SS Nevada of the Guion Line or the Liverpool and Great Western Steamship Co.
Oil painting presumed to be by James Douglas, in the Mariners' Museum, Newport News, Virginia

Sometimes, playing around on Google pays off. I found this image of an oil painting from the Mariners' Museum in Newport News, VA. It is the ship that brought my Great Grandfather George Robert Vaughan and his family to America in 1887. His father, Thomas, arrived a year earlier on the same ship.

The color and detail are so helpful. Note the two rows of portholes along the line of the hull just above the water line. One of those might have been opened during calm seas to get some fresh air to my infant Great Grandfather. The black smokestacks with the red stripe were distinctive of the Guion Line.

The ship had only one propeller which necessitated the sails in case the engine failed. Steamships were soon outfitted with two engines and screws for additional speed and if one system failed, there was another for backup rather than having to rely on the sails. This artistic representation is a bit fanciful as the sails were rarely used especially if the ship was at full steam as appears here.

The Nevada was built at Palmer's Shipbuilding & Iron Co., Jarrow-on-Tyne outside of Newcastle, England in 1868. That was the same year that Mormon emigrants began using steamships rather than the slower, less-expensive and soon outdated sailing ships. Steamships were coming into their own just as the transcontinental railroad was close to completion across the United States. Steamships and railroads greatly facilitated and expedited the journey from England to Utah. The Guion line became the preferred company for organized Mormon emigrant passage because of the favorable treatment and reduced fairs arranged between the Guion agents in Liverpool and the Church leaders of the British Mission. The Mormons were organized and orderly passengers generally respected by the captains.

Meet Me at Alexandra Dock No. 3 on Saturday!

This just might work. If only it were Saturday, May 22, 1886, in Liverpool!

Ever the one to want to stand in exactly the same place where my ancestors have stood and to lead others to their ancestral spots, I had to know where the actual dock was where my Great-Great-Grandfather boarded the S.S. Nevada to come to America.

The Mormon Migration database is a great resource to find immigrant ancestors who came from Europe from the 1840s through the early 1900s. The Mormon immigrants were well organized by the British Mission with transport arranged at the lowest fares. The ships are documented with passenger lists and departure dates from Liverpool, England which saw no less than 1,695 Mormon emigrant ship sailings!

On my recent trip with Mormon Heritage Association, I found the Liverpool docks fascinating. Liverpool is on the Mersey Estuary with tides from the Irish Sea. The docks are not what I was used to in US harbors with piers sticking out into Elliott Bay (Seattle), San Francisco Bay, or the New York Harbor. Liverpool docks are more like rectangular pools of water separated from the Mersey by locks and short canals. As a tidal river, the Mersey mud is exposed at low tide. At high tide, the locks can be open and the ships enter and depart through the canals in or out of the various rectangular docks. "Sailing with the tide" now makes a lot more sense.

Canning Dock in the very nice public space of the Liverpool Waterfront.

The Mersey at low tide with mud exposed outside the docks.

An Apostle's Family Forged in Welsh Iron

Albert Ernest Bowen (1875-1953). LDS Apostle 1937.

Albert E. Bowen is not one of the big names in LDS Church leadership. He was a serious-minded, hard-working man. He appears to be best remembered and quoted in LDS General Conference for his teachings on Self-Reliance and the Church Welfare Program. He wrote a booklet entitled "Constancy Amid Change" that was updated in the 1980s as well as authoring a Sunday School course of study, "The Church Welfare Plan."

One of the more recent General Conference quotes attributed to Elder Bowen was in an address by Elder J. Thomas Fyans in 1982:

The only way the Church can stand independent is for its members to stand independent, for the Church IS its members. It is not possible to conceive of an independent Church made up of dependent members—members who are under the inescapable obligation of dependency. The Lord must want and intend that His people shall be free of constraint whether enforceable or only arising out of the bindings of conscience. It is not believed that any person or people can live from gratuities—rely upon them for means of subsistence and remain wholly free in thought, motive and action. History seems to record no such instance. That is why the Church is concerned that its members, who have physical and mental capacity to do so, shall render service commensurate with their capacities for aid extended. That is why the Church is not satisfied with any system which leaves able people permanently dependent, and insists, on the contrary, that the true function and office of giving is to help people into a position where they can help themselves and thus be free.

Elder Bowen knew a lot about self-reliance. Born on a farm near Samaria, Idaho, he worked hard in his youth. He spent a harsh winter with a brother homesteading a parcel of land in Star Valley, Wyoming. His mother, Annie Shackelton Bowen (1840-1929) shared her love of books and learning and Albert did well in school, served a mission in Switzerland and Germany, and studied law at the University of Chicago. He excelled in the practice of law and business in Cache Valley and Salt Lake City, Utah. He was called to be an Apostle by President Heber J. Grant in 1937.

What interests me is that his father was David Bowen (1837-1910), born in Blaenavon, Monmouthshire, Wales. He traveled to Utah in the Ellsworth Handcart Company in 1856 along with my 4th Great Grandmother, Eleanor Jenkins Vaughan (1789-1861). The Bowens and Vaughans must have known each other.

Mountain Men: Ya Can't Live with 'em; Ya Can't Live without 'em

The Wyoming State Historical Preservation Office (WSHPO, pronounced "Wyoming Shipo") and historians with the LDS Church interpreting the Devil's Gate/Martin's Cove area on the Overland Trail in Wyoming, have established that it was Charles (1812-1865), not his brother Basil LeJeunesse (1814-1846), who was known as "Seminoe" and established the fort at Devil's Gate.

These brothers were amazing as most Mountain Men were. They all knew each other; Basil traveling with Kit Carson and John C. Fremont's mapping expeditions. Basil was killed by Modocs at Klamath Lake. Charles abandoned his post at Devil's Gate in 1855 due to troubles with the Cheyennes. Cheyennes killed Charles in 1865 at Clark's Fork, Yellowstone. His half-Shoshone sons took their vengence by killing Cheyenne Chief, High Backed Wolf.

Generally aware of the Handcart stories, I knew there was a ramshackle trading post at Devil's Gate that served as a shelter in the miserable winter of 1856-57 for those guarding the freight emptied from the wagons to carry some of the handcart pioneers of the Willie and Martin companies to Salt Lake City. In the past couple of years, I also became aware that the earlier and more successful handcart companies of that year took the Seminoe Cutoff. It was only two weeks ago that I managed to put the two together to understand it was this "Seminoe" guy who explored the cutoff that saved some trouble for my handcart ancestors and had established the fort/trading post at Devil's Gate.

A portion of the archeological site with the reconstructed fort right next to it. And Devil's Gate behind.

Looking up the Sweetwater Valley from the original site of Seminoe's Fort. Martin's Cove is to the right.
Split Rock can be seen in the far distance.

Welsh Heritage in Idaho

Last Friday, I had the opportunity to participate in the dedication of the Welsh Heritage Square in Samaria, Malad Valley Idaho.

I scored an excellent Welsh cake at the refreshment table.

Let me get my political diatribe out of the way. There is nothing wrong with celebrating any culture as it can be done without denigrating others. This was a community event and Welshness was not a requirement. There was a gentleman who appeared to be an African-American cowboy who was talking to a lot of people and must have been a local. For all I know, he has Welsh ancestry but it is entirely beside the point. All are welcome to celebrate and there is no false superiority of putting down other heritages.

It did seem like a blessing that it did not rain more than a few, sporadic drops. The rain was torrential coming through Odgen that morning. My old Potuguese, now Welsh mentor, Dr. Dennis, was present in his Welsh costume along with his wife.

Cymru, March 2018 XI, Merthyr's Satanic Mills and Talgarth's Witch's Pool

It really was a blessed day. Imagine what at week of Spring does to the Merthyr Tydfil Stake Center.

Merthyr's Daffodils were just a little beaten down by the blizzard.

Church was great. They were on a theme of Palm Sunday. The Bishop announced the annual sing-fest with the Dowlais Men's Choir on Good Friday. Whoa! My plans changed so I could be there.

After church, I had a sandwich and some snacks with me. I wanted to find the remnants of the old iron forges that were supposed to be just below the chapel. I found them right behind the chapel!

The evil Cafarthfa Ironworks remain a black slash across the landscape.

A Knight of the Table Round

How often do dreams you didn't even know you had come true? That's the nature of Quests for the Grail. It is always just out of reach until it comes to you.

We've been on these themes before: here, here, and here, as a few examples.

Mormon Heritage Association Tours has asked me to accompany the group to Britain this August!

A Glimpse of my 2nd-Great Grandmother Vaughn

They must have liked the hymn "How Firm a Foundation" in the Ogden Third Ward Relief Society. They appear to have sung it at least every other meeting.

My 2nd-Great Grandmother, "Sr. Isabella Baun was sustained into [their] society" on 1 August 1888, a year after her arrival from England. In those days, it wasn't automatic that LDS ladies would be members of the Relief Society. You had to join and apparently be "sustained" regardless of whether the secretary could spell your name.

The Ogden Third Ward had a meeting house on the Tabernacle square, but the Relief Society often met in the "vestry of the tabernacle." That was a grand building indeed!

Ogden Tabernacle, on the block where the Temple is today.

Our Cause Is Just - Now What Are We Going To Do?

We marched, my daughter and I, last February to protest trump's anti-immigration policies. We are now vindicated by the recent, official news release of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from the Mormon Newsroom which I cut and past in full here:

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals

OFFICIAL STATEMENT

26 JANUARY 2018 - SALT LAKE CITY

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has issued the following statement regarding Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA):

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is established in 188 nations around the globe. Issues of immigration and legal status are of concern for many of our members. Most of our early Church members emigrated from foreign lands to live, work and worship, blessed by the freedoms and opportunities offered in this great nation.

How to Write a Bad Family History

Just another day to rant on annoyances. This is how not to write a family history, not how to write a history of a bad family. That's a different subject for another day.

It's just that I came across this opening of an ancestral biography from Wales and it just drove me crazy.

 Just 8 days before the Royal Astronomical Society was formed in England (1),

OK, not a bad start. It actually ties to an historical event (footnoted!) even if somewhat disconnected except by what follows, maybe:

 heaven sent a choice spirit to earth to experience mortality under the tutelage of ____________, his parents.

I don't have a problem with a little religious sentiment in a family history, particularly if as genuine as possible to the subject of the history, but this is just crass sentimentalism directed towards a modern Mormon audience. To continue:

More Pioneer Research, Winter Edition

Centerville Ward Chapel, Davis County, Utah (1879). Centerville Canyon behind.
Only the center part is original. There have been several additions over the years.

Strolling the streets of Centerville, Utah today, it was nagging me that I still haven't solved the problem of where in town the Thompson Family lived for a few years in the 1860s when my 2nd Great Grandmother, Annie Thompson, was born April 3, 1863. She died as a young mother in 1890, leaving my Great Grandfather at age seven. He died in 1963 and I knew him well, so there is some responsibility here.

Hitting the internet when I got home, I checked out the listing of historical sites for Centerville to see if there is a record of a pioneer home built by a Thompson Family. I'm suspicious there was not. They were hard-working but not with much financial means in life and they likely boarded or shared space with another family in their brief time here. Or because they were here for a few short years, any home would not have been long remembered as belonging to them.