David Penrod

David Penrod
Birth: Jan. 9, 1815 Illinois, USA

Death: Feb. 26, 1872 Provo Utah County Utah, USA (Buried in Provo, Utah, Cemetery)
Son to Lewis and Polly Penrod. David and Temperance had 13 children, 7 boys and 6 girls.

HISTORY OF DAVID PENROD
1815-1872
Written by Mary P. Young

David was born 9 January 1815, in Jonesboro, Union County, Illinois, son of Lewis and Polly Beggs Penrod. He married Temperance Hinkle Keller. She was born in Rowan County, North Carolina, 17 November 1817.
A study of the Federal Census records shows us that David's grandfather, Samuel Penrod Sr., came to Illinois sometime before 1817. The family is not listed in the 1812 Census, so it was between those dates when they came.
David's father, Lewis, was married to Polly Beggs and his mother's name was Polly, but we do not know her maiden name. This Polly was the wife of Samuel Penrod Sr.; there are eight Penrod heads of families listed in the 1818 Census for Union County, Illinois. According to the group sheet we have for Samuel's father, John Penrod Sr., they seem to be brothers of Samuel Penrod Sr. David joined the Mormon Church and was a very intelligent and religious man; he accepted the Gospel in all its fullness, lived it, and taught it to his family.

William Jasper Boren Sr.

William Jasper Boren Sr.

William Jasper Boren was the oldest living child of Colman and Mlinda Keller Boren.  He was born November 30, 1837, at Peoria Illinois.  His father had come from Tennessee.  They moved to Nauvoo when he was a small boy, as they had joined the Church and wanted to be with the Saints.  He remembered the Prophet Joseph Smith and remembered when the Prophet and his brother were killed.  His father was a wealthy man at this time but it wasn’t long until they were going through the trials with the rest of the Saints.

When he was a lad of ten years, they were driven from their home and they started for Utah from Nauvoo.  They stopped for a while.  He walked all the way across the plains and drove his fathers oxen, three cows and the sheep.  They started with plenty of food and clothes.  His father was bringing them food, were not molested.  At one time they were delayed two days as their oxen had strayed, but they found them all. 

Through sharing their food with others, they didn’t have much left by the time they reached the valley.  They reached Utah in 1851 and settled in Salt Lake, Later settling in Provo.  Their home was between first and second south on third west.  He being the oldest child, he had many tasks to perform, among them was herding the sheep and cattle.  He also went to the canyon with his father for wood.  One time while heading the flock, a fellow came and started to ask about the people of Provo, later on he found out the was a man who had left the Church in Nauvoo and had come with Johnstons Army.  He went to Echo Canyon and was in the Echo Canyon War.  He saw and talked with chief Blackhawk.

When he grew to young manhood, he worked at the carpenter trade, also was a cabinet maker.  He made bedsteads, cupboards, tables, wash-stands and chairs.  He also made wooden dolls and sheds and he sold all he could make, especially at Christmas time.

After his father died, he looked after his mother and her interests.  When he was twenty-one years old, he met Lucina Mecham and after keeping company with her one year they were married July 3, 1859 in Provo, by Johnathan O. Duke, a very dear friend of the family.  He was very ambitious, he wanted always to get the best for his family.  He helped build the road in Provo Canyon.  He was one of the first settlers of Wallsburg.  William Wall and George Brown were the first.

While working one day, the Indians came and they had to leave their home in Wallsburg where they went to Heber and stayed in a granary.  His wifes sister, Emily and family stayed with them. The Allred family also stayed in the granary, but they had a carpet hung as a partition between them.  After staying in Heber a while, they went back to Provo.  But when there was no more danger of Indians, they moved back to Wallsburg.

One time he was in Provo Canyon five days without food, but they finally worked their way out, but they had a narrow escape.  He sent his mother her winter potatoes with his brother but that brother took the credit for the potatoes.  His mother died very suddenly with a heart attack.  He was always ready to help the poor and needy.  One Spring a lady said, “We would have starved to death in the winter if it hadn’t been for William J. Boren giving us food”. At one time there was a poor family near the Borens.  The Boren children said they felt sorry for them.  Their father said “How sorry are you?  Are you willing to divide what you have with them?”  The children thought for some time, the one of them said, “I guess I can give a dress.”  It was a few minutes until another spoke up and after another, when all had offered to give something that belonged to them their father said, “We will make it in a bundle and take it to them.”  It made the Boren children happy.  He learned to use tobacco before they knew it was wrong, and it was hard for him to overcome the habit.  But he succeeded in doing it.  He always felt like he would gain a blessing by doing it.

One morning his wife was going to do the family wash, she had her clothes piled in different piles.  Just after she started she missed one of the boys.  She looked for him and then her husband looked, but they could not find him.  They got the neighbors out looking too.  They thought he had been stolen by an Indian.  The men decided to take their gun and if one found him, he was to shoot the gun.  The hunt went on for two hours, when he thought he ought to go back and see how his wife was.  He had just been back a few minutes, then the little boy woke up and crawled from under a pile of clothes.  It didn’t take the father long to shoot his gun and call the men back again.

When William Wall was chosen as Bishop of the Wallsburg, grandfather was chosen as his first counselor.  He also worked in the Sunday School and in the Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Association.  He was a High Priest.

When he took his wife and family to Wallsburg, he had built a one room cabin, but he wasn’t long in building a farm house.  He bought stock in a cannery and lost what he put in. Then he bought stock in a co-op store, but one man got all the benefits of that.  He freighted from For Laramie to Salt Lake.  One time while in Parleys Canyon, one of his oxen got its leg broken and they had to kill it.  He had to borrow an ox to finish his trip.  He bought a Shingle Mill and made shingles for a few years.  He was successful ar farming and cattle raising.  He and some friends bought a threshing machine, it was run by hoursepower.  His two brothers lived with him after their mother died, until they had homes of their own.  His father had two wives, his second wife married Robert Broadhead.  When she married, his mother divided everything with her and she looked after his second wifes children.  She felt it was her duty.  He often said his mother was the best looking woman he ever saw and he also thought she was one the best.  Although his mother left a great deal of property, he never received any of it.  His three sisters got it.  His brother Alma died a young man, he was not married.  At one time he was selling grain and as he was scooping the measure up the men said, “You sure believe in giving a good measure.” He agreed, “Well, I don’t want to have to go back and give somebody a few pounds of grain when I get on the other side.”  It was a lesson that some of his children never forgot.  He was honest in all his dealings and his word was as good as his bond.

On March 7, 1870, he took his wife and went to the Endowment House in Salt Lake City.  After a few years, his brother Bryant came from Arizona and his brothers and sisters went to Salt Lake and were sealed to their parents.  He also had a half-sister and for half-brothers.

One time his wife said she would like some cucumbers.  His team was out on the range.  She thought he had gone for his team, but the next day he came home with a sack of cucumbers.  He had walked the twenty-five miles to Provo and back for the cucumbers.

At one time his neighbor needed a doctor, he got his cart and rode forty-eight miles and got the doctor.  Then he took him home again.  He bought the first Surrey in Wallsburg, They sure were a proud family that could ride in a surrey in place of a cart on White Top.

His wife was President of the Primary and as there was no place for the children to meet, he made benches and moved them in and out on Primary day, so his wife could hold Primary in her own home.  He built a large room on the North of his house, they held meetings, parties and even dances there.

One Christmas he surprised his family with a hanging lamp.  He fixed it up Christmas eve after the family had retired.  Christmas morning all were thrilled to see the Lamp, to see those glass pendants hanging on it.  It was something to own one in those days.  He was always giving the family something nice.  They were the second in Wallsburg to have an organ.  He built many houses, at one time he built a house at Deer Creek, where the cannery is now.

When his oldest boys got married, he gave them each ten arces of ground, a team, 3 cows, sheep and a pig and told them if they wanted to, they could get rich.  He also made cupboards and wash-stands for his daughter-in-laws.  The youngest boy had to make his own without a fathers help for in 1892 he trusted a friend which took everything he had in land, but the home and two lots.  He had to sell his cattle at a sacrifice as he had no wasy to deed them that fall.  The next summer, he was ill and he never was well after that.  He had diabetes.  After being ill for seven years, he died May 16, 1900.  He was a firm believer in the Latter Day Saint Church until the day he died.

William Jasper Boren Jr.

William Jasper Boren Jr.

Written by Nola Boren(wife of Leo Boren – Grandson of William Jasper Jr.)

William Jasper Boren Jr. was born 11 April 1860 in Provo, Utah.  He was the son of William Jasper Boren Sr. and Lucina Mecham.  They lived in Provo for four years where William Jasper Sr. worked as a carpenter and cabinet maker.  They sold their home in Provo and came to Wallsburg, Wasatch, Utah by way of ox team to make their home.  William Jasper Jr. helped his father on the farm until he was 23 years old.  The then married Temperance Wall, the daughter of William and Elizabeth Penrod Wall, the 6^th of Sept, 1883 in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City.  They were blessed with a family of ten children.  He had a nice farm and raised hay, grain, and summer beets.  He also had dairy and range cattle.  He was Sunday School Superintendent for some time.  He was released and taught the Adult Class in Sunday School for years.  From 1901 to 1903 he was on a mission to the southern states.  His headquarters were in North Carolina.  On 11 May 1903, he was called as Second Counselor to Bishop George Peter Graff.  On 26 May 1908 he was called as first counselor to Bishop Graff.  He was released as Bishops counselor 28 June 1912.  He was then called as second counselor in the YMMIA.  He took part in the theater and plays for which he enjoyed very much.  He was on the Wallsburg ball team.  In 1892 he played the base horn in the Wallsburg band.  He was a school trustee for fifteen years.  When the school house was being built, he hauled flag rock from lake creek with a team of horses and helped with the building.  He was Justice of the Peace from 1917 to 1919.  He was a road supervisor for a time then Deputy Road Commissioner.  He died in the LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City on the 4^th of April, 1926.  He was laid to rest in the Wallsburg Cemetery.

Sara Elizabeth Ross

Sara Elizabeth Ross

Sara Elizabeth Ross was born 23 April 1843, in Newark, Essex county, New Jersey, a daughter of Stephen Weeks Ross and Jane Stephensen.  Her family was converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and later crossed the plains to join the saints in Utah.  She met and married James Jackson Lamb on 21 March 1863.  They made their first home in Lehi, Utah, where James was involved multiple times in protecting the settlers during the Indian Wars.  They lived in Lehi until they had six children.  Then about 1874, they bought a farm in Wallsburg, Wasatch Co.  Here four more children were born, making 10 in all, five boys and five girls.  One died as a child, and one never married, but the remaining eight had families of their own, so that now they have a numberous posterity scattered over much of the west.  Sara passed away on the 5^th of October 1927 and was buried in Wallsburg beside her husband.

James Jackson Lamb

The Life History of James Jackson Lamb

By Elva May Lamb Boren (Granddaughter)

My grandfather , James Jackson Lamb, was a man of good character, a trusted citizen, a good husband and father and had many friends where ever he was known.  His life was an interesting one, of hard, experiences.  I only knew my grandfather a few short years, but in remembering back through the years, I loved my grandfather very much and respected in very way.  So in writing this history, I hope that whoever reads this, will learn to love him as we did who knew him.

James Jackson Lamb, was born at Huron, Wayne County, New York, April 29, 1835, son of Erastus and Abigail Mindwell Jackson Lamb.  His father was a native of Connecticut and his mother was born in Seneca county, New York.

The family joined the Mormon Church and in 1852 began the journey across the plains.  His father died on the plains, it must have been hard for this little family to leave him there and go on their way.  Great Grandmother bravely gathered up her little family, three sons and a daughter and fought the trials and hardships and journeyed to Utah, where she immediately went to Lehi, where she made her home.  Here my grandfather, James grew to manhood, met and married Sarah Elizabeth Ross.  They lived in Lehi until they had six children.  Then about 1874, he bought a farm in Wallsburg, Wasatch Co.  Here four more children were born, making 10 in all, five boys and five girls.  One died as a child, and one never married, but the remaining eight had families of their own, so that  now Grandfather Lamb has a numberous posterity scattered over much of the west.

On March 21, 1866 he enlisted in the Black Hawk War and was mustered out of service July 18, 1866.  He also fought all through the Walker War.

When James Jackson Lamb volunteered for  duty in the Black Hawk Indian War, he was an old hand in Indian struggles.  He had gone in 1856, just before he was 21 years old, to what was called the Tintic War, had been at the age of 25 to the relief of the settlers at fort Lemhi, Idaho, and when the call came for volunteers for the Black Hawk War, he was among the first men to leave Lehi.

Grandfather was married and the father of two children, when the first company from Utah county was organized into a preliminary expedition, under the command of Washburn Chipman of American Fork.  The company was made up of men from the neighboring towns of north Utah county.  They left the third of March, 1866, traveling by way of Cedar Valley, Tintic valley, and on south to Cherry Creek.  Although they heard of skirmishes between other troops and bands of Indians, this company did not encounter one Indian before they were disbanded in Lehi, March 27, having been gone just three weeks.  May 1^st of the same year grandfather, who had enlisted for the “duration of the Indian troubles” was given the rank of sergeant and was organized into a company under Abraham G. Conover of Provo.  The company went first to Sanpete county where the Indians had caused the most trouble.  The next two and one half months were spent guarding the towns of Sanpete and Sevier counties and going with scouting parties as far south as Circle Valley.  The men were disbanded July 18^th.

Perhaps the most exciting encounter grandfather had with the Indians was the so called “Tintic War”, a disturbance confined to North Utah county in the late winter of 1856.  An Indian was reported to have stolen an ox from a herd at Goshen, the men in charge of the herd of cattle sent word to Utah county sheriff who then gathered a posse and started for Cedar Valley.  Fifteen men from Lehi Militia, among whom was grandfather Lamb, then a young man of 21 years, were called to assist but they arrived at the scene too late.  Two of the herders Henry Morgan and Washington Carson had already been killed by the red men.  Grandfather and John Glynes were sent to take the sad news to Cedar Valley and by doing so missed the wanton killing and scalping of the third man.  A larger force was sent out and in a few days the trouble had ended for a time.

Grandfather’s most hazardous experience took place when he went with a group of men to the Salmon river country in Idaho to rescue the settlers from Fort Lemhi who were being harried severely by the Indian tribes of that area.  At the call of President Brigham Young, men from several communities gathered at fort Ogden from where they left 11 March 1858.  Many of them were wearing moccasins, most of them had no overcoats, and much of the underwear men were wearing had been made from worn out wagon covers which had crossed the plains.  Deep snow and high mountain passes made the journey slow and difficult, they reached the fort after going to Malad, Blackfoot, up the Snake river to the head of the Salmon and then downstream to the fort which they reached March 28, The Fort Lehmi settlers were brought back to safety and it was many years before Mormons again moved into the Salmon river area.

He drove one of the first teams back to Florence, Nebraska, in Joseph Young’s company after Mormon immigrants who were too poor to furnish ways for themselves to come to Utah.  While at Florence, he was chosen to drive to Utah with George Q. Cannon, who was just returning from England.

Because of his generous and helpful nature he was beloved by friends and neighbors wherever he lived. His services in the Indian Wars were recognized by the United States Ware Department and he was pronounced eligible for bounty lands but as far as we know he did not take advantage of the bounty law.

This great man whom everyone loved, was thrown from a load of lumber and instantly killed, October 21, 1896, at the age of 61 years, leaving a wife, five boys and four girls.  He was buried in Wallsburg, Utah.

Temperance Wall

TEMPERANCE WALL BOREN

Temperance Wall was born October 8, 1865 at Wallsburg in the Old Fort near Spring Creek. She was the youngest daughter of William Madison and Elizabeth Penrod Wall. Her father died when she was four years old. She helped her mother glean wheat and helped tend the sheep. Then she picked wool for her mother to spin yarn for their stockings.

When she was older she worked at a place near Charleston for fifty cents a week. She worked until she got enough to buy calico material for a new dress.

When she was eighteen years old she was married to William Jasper Boren Jr. in Salt Lake City Endowment House, September 6, 1883. They lived on a farm in Wallsburg all their lives. They milked cows, and Mother made butter and cheese, for which she couldn't beat. She had two different butter molds to print the butter with. She sold her cheese and butter and eggs to John Greer. He took them to Park City and sold them there.

She was a good nurse, also a good cook. She liked to sew and make quilts. She was a good Latter-day Saint; she was a Relief Society Teacher for years.

They were blessed with a family of ten children; Malinda, William, Archie, Maude who died Jan 17, 1913, Ray who died Nov. 2, 1939, Ellis, Polly, Ethel died July 18, 1952. Eldwin died Jan 6, 1949, and Areva.  Temperance died December 6, 1949, she was laid to rest in the Wallsburg Cemetery.

Written by Melinda Boren Ford.

Elva Mae Lamb

Elva Mae Lamb

I was born October 18, 1889, in Lehi, Utah.  I was born in a two room dobby home, with two rooms upstairs and I lived there until I was six years old.  We rented after that in many homes in Lehi.  I was baptized in the LDS church when I was 8 years old in the old Mill Pond, by the Lehi Sugar Factory.

When I was about 5 years old on the 4^th of July, I spilled something on my dress.  We took it off and washed.  It was very pretty and covered with lace.  It was made of pink sateen.  So while it dried I decided to go to town with a nickel.  I took my mother’s parasol.  When mother discovered I had gone, my oldest cousins started to hunt for me.  They found me in my petticoat prancing around town.

 I remember going with the folks to fields and swamps after cat tails for our beds.  We put the fuzz in the ticking to make the mattresses.  The cat tails were thickest by the Mill Pond.

I remember one year we heard the world was coming to an end, so I took all my play things and put them in the grainery. I had a cupboard and a table, dishes and a doll.

I went to a little school house behind the old 1^st Ward Chapel .  It had two rooms.  I went  to the first grade under Miss Baker and then I went to the second grade in the second room.

I remember we used to roll in the snow and have such a good time.  We used to  make snowmen too.

We never had very much for Christmas of anything.  But one Christmas I got some little dishes. They were painted.  I put them on the stove and the paint burned.  I’ll never forget the smell of that paint.  I usually got a little doll.  We didn’t always have a tree, when we did it was a cedar, and we decorated it with popcorn and apples.

I mixed my first batch of bread when I was seven years old.  My mother was sick. Later my dad had to put water with it and mix it over.  From then on I mixed the bread.  My mother was sick from then on and I had to learn to do a lot of things.

My father was a cripple, he fell on the ice when he was 14 years old, and bruised his hip.  The bone decayed and every year his hip would gather and break after that.  He could only work part of the time.

For three years my mother could not stand on her feet and had to stay in the house all the time to help.  She had sinking spells.  I remember standing by the window watching the other kids playing outside.  But I was always well and healthy.

One year my father bought us a little pig and said we could have it if we would feed it.  So one day we would treat it awfully well and the next day we would forget it until it got black tooth and my dad had to kill it.

My father died when he was forty-one.  The leg injury turned to T.B. of the bone.  I was thirteen years old.  He was sick one month.  When he died, mother had a baby one month old.  The night the baby was born he was so sick he couldn’t sit up.

I never had a colorful or happy life.  My father was poor and we had to get by the best we could.  I used to walk 1½ miles to school each day after I was in third grade.  I finished my sixth grade.  After that I had to go to work for a living.  There was no welfare in those days.  We used to make hollyhock dolls and put a current on top for its head.  We never had much to play with.  We had to make our own fun.

In the winter I went to school more than once with holes in the bottom of my shoes.  I would put a piece of cardboard in the bottom of my shoe in the morning and when I got to school, I would have to put another piece of cardboard in my shoe.  I even went to dances with a cardboard in the bottom of my shoes.

I was always scared and quiet in school.  I had so many freckles.  They and my red hair were the plague of my life.  The kids used to say, ‘Red head – wet the bed’. And, “Do you know why you have freckles?  Your mother washed you and forgot to dry you and you rusted.”

My mother said if she send me on an errand and I didn’t come back soon, I would be helping someone.  If anyone was in trouble or sick or a funeral, I was always there helping someone.  Once my mother sent me somewhere and I ended up in another part of town in a home where there was a funeral.  A boy had been shot and the mother asked me if I would stay at her home and fix dinner.

I started to school in the 7^th grade, but I had to stop because I didn’t have any clothes.  I started to work out for people and house cleaned for three weeks first for one person and then for another.  I worked for women who had new babies, most of the other girls wouldn’t work like that but I did it.  There  used to be a midwife,  Mrs. Long, to take care of new babies and the mothers.  And more than once she would ask me to wash a new baby and dress it so she could hurry on.

The Relief Society wanted me to go take a course in nursing and I thought I would but I got married instead.

Allen’s built a big barn and paid for it by holding dances in it before they turned it into a barn.  When we didn’t have a date Dad Mecham – Ephriam Mecham, would take us in a bobsleigh.  He would take all of the young girls, and we would have a lot of fun.

We used to go to the Hot Pots in Heber often in the summer.  We would go into the water for a little while, then we would have a picnic.  Neither Will or I liked to swim very much.

We, a big group of girls, would go to the corner block in Wallsburg and sing.  My aunt said, “My, I surely missed you young girls singing on the corner after you were married.”

I went to the Hot Pots on my first date with Will. We went in a white top buggy.  It belonged to his dad and we thought we mighty special, to use it.

I worked at the Sugar Factory Boarding house.  I would get up at 4:00 AM and then I wouldn’t get to bed until 10 or 11 PM.  The trainmen would come in for supper late.  I had to walk about two miles to the boarding house from my house.  I worked so hard there that I got blisters all over the bottoms of my feet.  I had to lay off work for a week until the blisters healed.

I used to do a lot of roller skating. I was able to skate really good. I won a prize roller skating at the old Garff building in Lehi.  The prize was one dollar. We used to go to Saratoga Springs.  It used to be called Beck’s Hot Springs.  The name was later changed to Saratoga.

I was never home longer than a week at a time between jobs.  I used to go out and wash for people too.

My last Christmas, I got a glass basket with a little bottle of perfume on each side.  Will usually sent me some money.  I bought me an old trunk once, then I started buying things to put in it.  Once I bought a pretty platter, sheets, tablecloths, etc.

Mother  had to take in washings after my father died.  She had a little baby that was sickly and she had to feed him on Horrlicks Malted Milk.  Whenever my brother or I any extra money we would give it to her for some milk for the baby.

Will came and got me, and we went over to Provo and were married by a Justice of the Peace.  Will hired the hall and we had a wedding dance.  We had to furnish a wedding dance for everyone to enjoy.  I had a beautiful white dress, it had tiny tucks all around the full skirt – four tiers of flounces.  The top had a high collar and insertions.  There were tucks and narrow lace insertions in each flounce.  My cousin made it for me.

The wedding presents I got were, a pair of pillows from Will’s mother, a quilt from my mother, a platter, a set of dessert dishes.  An uncle gave me a hen and a rooster.  My great grandfather, William Clark, gave me a set of towels.  We called him grandfather even though he was my father’s step father.  He was one of the original pioneers of Lehi.  He helped start the bank and the coop.

We lived in Wallsburg after we were married.  I spent the first summer in Lehi and Wallsburg while Will was at the  herd.  In the Fall, we got a big one-roomed house.  I had 3 strips of carpet sewed together.  It filled half the room and that part was the bedroom.  The other part was my kitchen.  I had to scrub the kitchen floor.

The year Leo was born Will played on the basketball team in M.I.A.  We used to bundle Leo up and go in a bob sleigh to the games in Center Creek, Charleston, Midway, an Heber.  Everyone took their babies in those days.  We used to have married peoples parties in those days and take pot luck about once a week.  We used to go to dances.  Will didn’t dance, but I liked to dance.  We would go to the Meeting House in Wallsburg.

I worked in the Primary and was a Relief society Teacher.  I’ve been a Relief society Teacher for 55 years.

The first home we bougth was a big doby room with a shanty on the back.  We were so proud of it.  After we paid for it, we bought a better one.  Then we bought a farm in Charleston.  It was a brick home, with six rooms and a shanty.  I worked in the Primary for 15 years in Charleston.  I used to sing in the ladies chorus.  I used to be in most of the pageants there.  We used to have parties in Charleston too.  A big bunch of us, Ray & Hazel Boren, Lillian & Ferris Hoover,  Hi & Mae Carlson, and Ralph & Zella Thacker.  We used to play rook a lot there as well in Wallsburg.

Will used to ski in Wallsburg.  He used to coax me to go but I wouldn’t.  One day he came in all white.  I had dinner already.  He was so sick he couldn’t eat.  He had hurt his leg.  He had to go to the Doctor with it.