Thayn
Family HistoryWritten by William Alvin Thayn
The Provo River bottom was then a jungle. A person could hardly get through it - - red willows a foot through, cottonwood, elder, kinnikinnick and hop vines and grasses that grew as high as a man’s head. If horses ate very much of it, it made them crazy, so we called it crazy grass. Lots of choke cherries, the bushes were three or four inches thick and 20 feet or more high. Sarves berries grew on bushes as large as the choke cherries. The berries were large, nearly as large as tame ones.
It was a dry fall and my father started a fire in it. It was a terrible tire. The blaze would go as high as the tall cottonwood trees. I never saw the fire but I saw what it did after the fire went out. The willows, dry grass and hop vines had accumulated for years. In places it burned the roots in the ground.
Aunt Sidney made her own lye and soap. She had a letch where she put the ashes in. It was made by hewing a trench in a log, as one would make a trough, a pig trough. Nailed boards about four foot long, the bottom in the trench in the log, and two feet wide at the top and both ends were nailed up. Water was put in the ashes and drained, and run out the ends of the trough into buckets. They would put in fresh ashes and let it go through again until it was strong enough to eat up the fats and grease as well as the lye you buy now. There was so much timer that you could shovel up bushels of ashes in places.
I did not stay long at home. I was only ten years old, but I was sent with a team and wagon back to the saw mill in Thayn’s Canyon. It was about 25 miles. I got to Round Valley about sundown. I was afraid to go up the canyon alone, as it would be dark long before I got to the mill. I stayed at a ranch, Killfarl Ranch. I was just going to ask them if I could stay all night, when one of them, one of the men working at the mill, came along, and wasn’t I glad. I stayed at the mill until they shut down for the winter.
Elisha and Eliza were running the sawmill. They moved to Woodland. We had several cows and yearlings to drive, Albert Peters and I. It was dark going down Rose Hollow, and Albert ran a hawthorne in his foot, (we were both bare foot). Then I had to drive the cows alone. We stopped all night at Cuffs. We reached home the next day.
The folks had houses built then. That was the fall of 1875. The snow came early. We had a pair of horses, a white and bay. They ran away and went back to the old home in Salt Lake. My father had them fed that winter.
My father took me to Salt Lake and I stayed that winter with my Aunt Fanny. I went to school in the Second Ward. Aunt Fanny was sure a good cook. She had what we called a step tower stove. The front lids were about six inches lower than the back lids. She could sure make the finest biscuits I ever sat at. I thought so. The stove was in front of the old fireplace which was boarded up and used as a woodbox. All I had to do was to keep it full of wood, and then she would let me go skating or any place I wanted to go.
Aunt Fanny never had any children. She married a German. He was well educated. His name was William Ammernan. My mother lived in the next lot, (the lot where his mother lived before she passed away), and I saw her almost every day.
As far back as I can remember, William sat in a big chair and never lay down. When it was nice weather, he would walk out of the house with his cane, and Aunt Fanny would put his chair where ever he wanted it. At night he sat by her bed with his cane, should he want anything he could touch her with his cane, and she would get it for him. The winter of 1875 she was a widow .Uncle William had been dead several years.
A man by the name of Ball was our teacher. He had about 120 pupils, all grades, from beginners to boys grown. I did not learn much. The teacher had not time to spend with classes, and when he went home for his dinner, which he always did, he locked the door of the school house. The greater number of the pupils could not go home for dinner. One cold snowy day, some of the large boys, as large as men, kicked the pickets off the fence which was in front of the school house and made a fire for the children to warm by. After that the school was left unlocked. The snow was a foot deep. That was about the last of February 1876.
Shortly after that, there was two boys, Flagstaff and Wilson. They were fully grown. They were wrestling just before recess was called. Flagstaff threw Wilson down and as they were getting up, he pushed Wagstaff and that started a fight. The bell rung just as they were starting to fight. They agreed to have it out after school. After school, they went three blocks from the school. They took off their coats, belted up their pants. It was a stand up and knock down. They went in for it for all that they were worth. When they got tired they would rest and go at it again. Finally they went down in the Brigham Young farm and fought it out. Wagstaff or Flagstaff made Wilson say enough.
The very last of March 1876 my father and I and I think Nephi Thayn was with us, started for home, to Woodland from Salt Lake. We started with wagons and finished with sleighs. The snow at Woodland was two or three feet deep everywhere except on the hills. Hay could not be bought for $100 per ton.
Eliza Jones had her first baby April 16, 1876, Easter Sunday, Elisha Allen Jones. Mrs. Russell was the mid-wife. The roads were then impassible and they needed some medicine and a syringe. Albert Peters and I went to Kamas for them. The snow all over the bench was about a foot and a half deep, but where the sleighs had run, the snow was three feet deep, and hard. We walked over and back about 14 miles.
It was about the 1st of May that we started to plow. We planted some wheat and potatoes. Aunt Sidney had a fine garden. There were so many rabbits she had to fence it so that the rabbits and chickens wouldn’t get in. She cut stakes about three inches through and five and half feet long. We sharpened and drove them into the ground; took willows and wove them around the top. They sure kept out the chickens and rabbits. The sawmill was moved over from Thayn’s Canyon on the Provo River. The logs were hauled from Riley’s Canyon and Bench Creek.
I never saw anything like it, there was fisherman, he would fish with hook and line. He would get 35 and 40 pounds before breakfast. We had a fish trap, we caught all the we could eat the year round. The grouse and prairie chickens, when they were about half grown, could be killed with clubs. We would get half a dozen or more. Once in awhile we saw a gray wolf or lynx. The next winter I did not go to school (1877).
The next Spring we cleared off some more ground. Quaking ash, choke cherry, and other brush. We plowed with two yolk of oxen. In part of this land we plowed up dozens of buffalo heads. Some of them measured 18 inches between the eyes. You could pick up buffalo horns all sizes all over the country. There were lots of buffalo wallers especially up in Pine Valley.
The first Spring we lived there, bears would come within a hundred feet of the house. The front paws of the grizzly bear were so wide, it took both hands to cover one track. The pens for the pigs had to be put in a pen that the bears could not take them out. A couple of years after, Elisha Jones had a big fat pig that slept under a shed. About twelve o’clock a grizzly bear took the pig. He must have carried it in his front paws. Ephraim Green was with Elisha Jones, they said is squealed. When he would set it down, it would grunt. He set it down three times as he carried it over the river, then it gave one big squeal as he killed it. The next morning they found where he killed it and had eaten some of it.
They were satisfied the bear would return for more of the pig so they set a gun, so if the bear came back he would fire the gun and be killed. The bear came back and set the gun off and shot his lower jaw off. The bear escaped. Then Galloway, an old trapper and hunter followed the bear up Bench Creek. He found him lying under a big bunch of willows. The bear was only a rod or so away when Galloway first saw him. The bear made for him once. The hunter killed him before he could do him harm. They said he weighed about 1100 pounds.
There were lots of berries, gooseberries and wild strawberries. We used to go up the south fork of Provo River, stay all night,, pick bushels of raspberries. There seemed to be no end of them. Most of the women and children picked hops. They grew on the river bottom. They picked tons of them and sold them in Salt lake City. I think the brewer bought them. The women used hops in bread making.
My father went to Salt Lake city and asked to be ordained a missionary to United States (Canada) and Great Britain. H started without purse or script like the old missionaries. I know that he must have, and started almost without money.
Aunt Sidney’s sister married a man by the name of Johnathan Hall, as Nephi lived in Nebraska. I think that Aunt Sidney’s sister was alive at the time. He traveled from Salt lake to New York, across the ocean to Liverpool and to Scotland and back to Canada; and there borrowed enough money from his cousin, John haggard.My father and Brigham, myself and Hyrum got out poles to fence his farm and we got the money to pay for his ticket or what he borrowed to get him home. When my father went on his mission he turned the sawmill and teams over to Nephi. Then Nephi became mine and Albert Peter’s boss. The first winter we did not do much . The next spring the sawmill was up on Bench Creek. Albert Peters and I had to go and stay at the mill all the time, night and day. We had no house to live in. We had a kind of shed over the belt to keep it dry. We made a kind of shed of lumber to sleep in and keep the rain off.
Nephi and John M. Reid and others that helped do the logging and run the mill went home every night; and got a good supper and breakfast. All Duch and I had to eat was what they brought up each morning, and they brought us some potatoes and some salt side. If you think that wasn’t a poor living, Elizabeth, Nephi’s wife, was a poor bread maker and all the bread we got was what she sent us. I could not tell you what we endured and went through that summer. I was 13 year old and Albert or Duch was 14.
The first thing that happened to me was that Nephi had to have a letter or message sent across the river which was high as it got that year. John M. Reid was four or five years older than I, but I was sent. I was scared to death but I could not refuse to go. I guess he figured that I could keep my head better than the others. I had to follow the reffle in a circle, if I had got below or above, the horse and I would have gone down the river. I will say the Aunt Sidney, my stepmother, was mad at Nephi for sending me, and she told him never to do a trick like that again, send a boy where he was afraid to go himself.
Albert and I stayed there all summer, (at the mill). There was one electric storm. We weren’t over 40 or 50 feet from where the lightning struck. We two little boys sure got a wetting from the rain storm that evening. We went all summer without shoes, and in October, when we would go home Sunday morning, there would be frost on the ground; and we would go as far as we could until our feet got cold. Then we would sit down and hold them in our hands until we got them warm, then we would go on again. Of course we got shoes before the snow fell.
We left the mill and went home. Aunt Sidney gave Albert a whipping for something. I can’t remember what it was for. I was off doing something and did not see her whip him nor hear what he said, but I suppose he said plenty. I never got to say goodbye. The last time I saw him he was going down the bench toward Kamas. I heard he stayed that night at Silas Peck’s place. That was the last time I saw him for about 5 years.
We stayed home that winter. Ephraim Green went with my half sister, Sidney Florence. She was red headed. He would come to see her nearly every night. He was a good singer. We would have him sing every night. Every night Aunt Sidney would sing, and we did enjoy the singing until our bed time. Some nights Ephraim would stay all night and sleep with some of the boys. Albert was always playing jokes on him, so we could hear when he went to bed. He would tie a robe across the hall, or a bucket or a chair or anything to make a noise.
Aunt Sidney got letters from my father often. I know he wrote to Sidie to put off getting married until he got home. I don’t think he was in favor of the marriage. I don’t know why they did not wait. April 1879, Nephi took Ephraim and Sidi to Salt Lake city. They were married in the Endowment House. There was no temple then. It was about 50 miles from Woodland to Salt Lake, and coming back they foundered one of the horses. He was so stiff that they could not get him home. They borrowed a little mule from H.H. Cluff. The next day or two I had to take the mule back to Cluff’s place, about 15 miles. The mule was sure skittish. He about threw me off a dozen times. If a bird would fly up he would jump sideways and turn around, but I got through with him alright. The horse I brought home was so stiff I walked all the way.
It was a very light winter and the Provo river never got so high that we could not ford it.
My father got home the first of June or the later part of May. He borrowed money from his cousin, John Hagart. They ran a large foundry and machine shop, and were well fixed. I think they lived at Brampton in Canada. Nephi sent him some money and he borrowed the rest from his cousin to pay his fare from Canada to Salt lake city. He brought home presents for us all. He had a nice lot of cards that he brought from Paisley, Scotland, where the great thread factory is located, J.P. coats and Coats O.N.T. They were mostly cards advertising their thread.
He brought each of us a fancy colored handwork made by the Canadian squaws. Mine and Edgars were in the shape of a heart. Some were made in the shape of a purse and in the shape of a box to hold perfume or cards. They were sure beautiful. They were all made by the Indians in Canada.
As soon as my father got home the first thing we did was to get out several hundred poles for Henry Moon, Mary Ames husband, to get the money to send back to John Haggart. The money my father had borrowed. We got the poles and called it the duckman’s Bason. They were fine poles, generally got two poles out of each tree. We could only take a wagon part way up, and take the first part of the wagon to where the poles were cut. We loaded the poles on the front part and let the back drag the same as you would with a cart. When we got down to where we left our hind wheels of our wagons then we coupled the wagons together and loaded them on the wagon. We had one new Bain wagon and as Brigham was turning the hind wheels around to couple them, he started to, and dropped his hands on a rock and tore the nails and flesh loose from the two middle fingers. We pressed them back and washed them. They hurt him so that he could not ride, and he had to walk and hold his hand all the way home. They got well and left only a small scar. Hyrum Thayn was with us and drove one of the teams. I drove the other.
My father moved the mill up Rilies Canyon and we sawed lumber there. That must have been in about 1880. We had built a small frame house to live in. We ha a place for a door and window, but we had not put the door or window in yet. We had a bunk where we slept in the corner away from the door and window.
Brigham and I and a boy about our age, by the name of Dave Jackson, (he was a brother of Sufernia Elllis) were at the mill one night when we were visited by a brown bear, when the dog saw the bear he yelped and ran under the house when the bear stuck his nose into the doorway and sniffed. We were sure a scared bunch, but the bear went on about his business. We had no gun, not even an ax to defend ourselves; but the bear could not have caught us in that fix again.
We sawed lumber there that summer and the fall of 1881. I drove two yoke of oxen and had a new wagon - - nearly a new one. We loaded freight at park city for Fort Thamburge, situated on Green River, afterwards called Oray. We left Heber City, went up Daniels Canyon to the Summit and down in Strawberry Valley, we traveled very slowly. There must have been at least 16 teams. They were all two yoke teams. We crossed Red Creek, (the soil is red something like the park at the head of Coal Creek and Soldier), we crossed Curn Creek, and then down a steep mountain road to the Duchesne River. The hill was line shale, cedar and pinion pine and greasewood on the bottoms. The river was quite wide where we crossed.
We camped there for noon. There were about six horse teams came along. They called them Lankford’s teams. They had been freighting in Montana before hauling freight from Park City. They drove different than I had ever seen before. The driver rode the near wheel horse and drove the leaders with a pair or lines. Of course, he could handle the wheel horses as he rode one of them. The pair in the swing he drove as you would oxen, gee and how. They were fine teams, some of them were all grays, others, black and bays.
This is our Jones Family Album Where you'll find John Johnson Thayn married to Sidney Boyer Catherine Thayn |
I'd like to also thank Diane Wintch, for her help in getting this web page up. I appreciated her advise on how to work with pictures, although I'm still learning of course. She has a beautiful genealogy website, www.dianneelizabeth.com/index.html - Dianne Elizabeth's Family History - and has done much in the field of genealogy and website design.
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