SKETCH OF THE LIVES OF
DANIEL SPENCER AND HIS WIFE MARY JANE CUTCLIFFE

Utah Pioneers of 1847 & 1856

Prepared by their daughter,

Amelia Spencer, May 11, 1931

For Camp 10, Salt Lake County

Edward T. Tullidge in his history of Salt Lake City, says, "No better man deserves honor and perpetuation than Daniel Spencer, an upright ‘Judge in Israel’ and a man of, exceeding purity of life." It was under his administration as President of the Stake that Salt Lake City grew up previous to its incorporation under the Territorial Government.

The following is a brief sketch of himself and wife.

Daniel Spencer, the son of Daniel Spencer and Chloe Wilson, was born in the town of West Stockbridge, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, July 20, 1794.

The American Branch of the Spencers came from good old English stock and were direct descendants of Puritans who came to this country in the good ship Mayflower. Daniel Spencer, also his father, Daniel Senior, were noted for their love of independence and justice. My grandfather, Daniel Spencer, voluntarily enlisted in the war of the Revolution at the age of 16 and remained through the entire war. He was a member of General Washington’s body guard and was present at the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown. Daniel had six brothers and five sisters.

Daniel, before he reached the age of 21, bought his time out from his father. It was the custom to work and turn the proceeds of your work over to your father in those days, until you were twenty-one, he made a manly and true American push into the great world to establish his character and social position in life. At that period, a new commercial intercourse was opening between New England and the Southern States. The sagacious and enterprising youth, who afterwards so distinguished himself for a quarter of a century as the "Chief Justice" of the Mormons, even then weighed in the balances of his mind the commerical situations of his country, and started into the Southern States. There he opened the way for five of his brothers in the state of Georgia, also in North and South Carolina. For himself he established a flourishing mercantile house at Savannah, which he followed for thirteen years. As an example of his enormous mercantile transactions in the south, his business on some days reached the magnitude of an hundred thousand dollars. Daniel not only opened the way for five of his brothers in the South, but with them, gave to his brother Orson, who was lame, a collegiate training, a classical education for which Orson is so celebrated in our church as a theologian and highly accomplished author. Because of his lameness his elder brother educated him for the pulpit instead of the counting house. While his brothers were pursuing the calling of merchants in the South, Orson was rising to the sphere of an influential clergyman in the Baptist Church in Massachusetts. At the age of about thirty-five Daniel returned to his native place, West Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and established a large mercantile house. He also became the proprietor of a first class hotel and engaged largely in farming operations. His business was very prosperous and all his commercial relationships at that period were most happy. Besides his more personal and extensive business concerns, he also became connected with a mercantile house in partnership with the Messns Boyingtons, celebrated marble dealers. So much trusted by the firm was he that the whole supervision of the firm fell upon his shoulders. Among his townsmen he was universally respected and he enjoyed the unbounded confidence of the people in all the region around, just as he ever did after he became a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, by all who knew him, whether followers of this profession or disbelievers in Mormonism. At least every one who knew Daniel Spencer believed in him.

January 21^st, 1823 he married Sophronia E., daughter of General Grove Pomeroy who was a member of the State Assembly of Massachussets, 1801-2. Of this union was born his son Claudis Victor. His wife died Oct. 5^th, 1832. About two years after her death he married Mary Lester Van Schoonoven who bore him two sons, both of whom died early and two daughters, Amanda, who died in infancy, and Mary Leone who lived to be nearly ninety years of age. This wife died through hardhip and exposure due to the mobbings and drivings at Nauvoo.

We now come to the period when Daniel Spencer became connected with the Mormon Church of which he has been acknowledged by all – and by none more cordially than by President Brigham Young – to be one of the leaders of its representative men.

My father says in his biography, "In my early years I entertained a great reverence for God and had sought Him often in secret prayer, but could not unite with any of the Churches, nevertheless, at one time there came to me the conviction that baptism by immersion was essential, and I journeyed about forty miles to my brother Orson’s, who was a close Communion Baptist minister and he buried me in the water, in the likeness of the burial and resurrection of Christ; but I refused to take membership in the Baptist Church."

Prior to 1840 no elder of the Mormon Church, had preached in his native town. Our late esteemed citizen, John Van Cott, however, lived in the same region as Daniel Spencer and already his relatives, the Pratts, had been laboring to impress Van Cott with the mormon faith, but Daniel Spencer, up to this date had no relationship whatever with the people with whom he and his brother Orson, afterwards, became so prominently indentified. At this time Daniel belonged to no sect of religionists, but sustained in the community the name of a man marked for character and moral worth. It was however his custom to give free quarters to preachers of all denominations. The Mormon elder came. His coming created an epoch in Daniel Spencer’s life.

In the winter of 1840, Daniel Spencer met a Mormon elder on the street of his town who said he had been trying through the day to get a place where he could preach. He was poorly clad and his extremities were frost bitten and he was altogether a peculiar looking minister. Father being chairman of the School Board told him that he could have the school house to preach in and sent Edwin Morgan, a prominent hotel owner to light and warm the room. When Morgan reached the house he found parties inside who had locked him out and refused to admit him. When this was reported to father he told Morgan to take an ax, and if the parties would not open the door to chop it down and warm the room with it. At the close of the service the elder asked the assembly if there were any one present who would give him a "night’s lodging and a meal in the name of Jesus." For several minutes a dead silence reigned in the congregation. None present seemed desirous of imperiling his character or tainting his respectability by taking home a Mormon elder. At length Daniel Spencer, in the old Puritan spirit and the proud independence so characteristic of the true American gentleman rose up, stepped into the aisle, and broke the silence, "I will entertain you, Sir, for humanity’s sake", said Daniel in answer to the appeal of the elder to be taken in for Jesus’ sake.

Daniel took the poor elder, not to his public hotel as was his wont with the preachers generally who needed hospitality, but to his own house, a fine family mansion. The next morning he clothed him from head to foot, with a good suit of broadcloth from his store. But for all this at this time, he stood a firm conscientious unbeliever in the prophet of the new dispensation and his teachings and would not hear anything from the preacher concerning Mormonism. He was prejudiced against his doctrines. He did not believe for a moment that Jesus had anything to do with the matter and took no merit to himself for winning those blessed plaudits from the Lord, promised to such as he; "When I was hungered ye fed me; naked, and ye clothed me; a stranger and ye took me in." He merely felt it his duty to his fellows, and manifested that spirit of kindness and gentleness which so abundantly marked his life. Daniel Spencer loved his fellow man.

The elder continued to preach the new and strange gospel and brought upon himself much persecution. This produced upon the mind of Daniel Spencer an extraordinary effect. Seeing the bitter malevolence from the preachers and the best of professing christians and being naturally a philosopher and a judge, he resolved to investigate the cause of this enmity and unchristianlike manifestation. The result came, it was as strongly marked as his conduct during the investigation. For two weeks he closed his establishment, refused to do business with anyone, and shut himself up to study. There, alone with his God, he weighed in the balances of his clear brain and conscientious heart the divine message and found it not wanting. One day, when his son was with him in his study, he suddenly burst into a flood of tears, and exclaimed, "My God, the thing is true, and, as an honest man, I must embrace it; but it will cost me all I have got on earth" He had weighted the consequences, but his honest mind compelled him to assume the responsibility and take up the cross. He saw that he must in the eyes of friends and townsmen fall from the social pinnacle on which he then stood to the level of a despised people. But he stepped out like a man-like himself. At midday about three months after the poor elder came to West Stockbridge, Daniel Spencer having given public notice to his fellow townsmen that he would be baptized at noon on a certain day, took the elder by the arm and, not ashamed, walked thorough the town taking the route of the main street to the waters of baptism, followed by hundreds of his fellow citizens. It was quite a procession to witness the wonderful event, for wonderful it seemed to those who followed. The most profound respect and quiet were manifested by the vast concourse of witnesses, but also the profoundest astonishment. It was nothing wonderful that a despised Mormon elder should believe in Joseph Smith, but it was a matter of great astonishment that a man of Daniel Spencer’s social standing and character should receive the mission of the prophet and divinity of the Book of Mormon. On the same day of his baptism, which was in April 1840, he was confirmed into the Church by Elder James Burnham, who also baptized him.

After my father’s baptism, his good father and mother and brother Orson told him in an interview that they did not wish any further association with him. In time, however, he had the pleasure of baptizing his brother Orson and also his father and mother and taking them to Nauvoo. When he was going to Nauvoo his friends warned him, "that no good would come to him or his family and that he would lose all his worldly possessions", but they made abundant promsies that if he would write that he wished to return they would raise means for his deliverance." Father said, "Though I have been peeled, robbed and driven by a mob, I have prospered in worldly things far more than those who gave me warnings, and the acquaintence I formed with Joseph Smith confirmed my faith in the work I embraced . ." In the same month he was ordained to the office of Priest.

The conversion and conduct of Daniel Spencer carried such a deep and weighty conviction among many good families in the region around that in a few months it resulted in the establishment of a flourishing branch of the church. This branch, which he was the chief instrument in founding, and over which he presided, has contributed its full quota of high class citizens to Nauvoo and Utah. From this time on he gave much of his time to the ministry and soon brought his brother Orson into the church. He continued in the ministry in this region for two years and then in 1842 he removed to Nauvoo. He had scarcely arrived in the city of the Saints, when he was appointed to a mission to Canada. On his return he was elected a member of the Nauvoo City Council, but soon afterwards was sent on a mission to the Indians. From the hardships of this mission he never fully recovered to the day of his death. The next year he was sent on a mission to Massachusetts. Upon his return he was elected Mayor of Nauvoo. So high was the Prophet Joseph’s estimate of his character and justice that he said of him, "Daniel Spencer is the wisest man in Nauvoo." Daniel was one of the twelve men selected by Joseph Smith to explore the rocky mountains with the view of the saints locating there, but the exploring was interrupted by the Martyrdom of the Prophet.

In 1843 Daniel Spencer was elected a member of the City Council of Nauvoo and in 1844, by vote of the council, was elected mayor of that city and held the office until its charter was repealed.

During these years the threatening of mobs had been violent. Joseph and Hyrum had been cruelly murdered while under the protection of the Governor of the State.

At the time of the great exodus from Nauvoo in 1846 Daniel started among the first of the pioneers to the rocky mountains. He was captain of fifty. Finding that the journey could not be accomplished that year, and receiving word of the extermination of the remnant from Nauvoo, President Brigham Young departed from his first intentions and had the saints go into Winter Quarters. Then the city was organized known as Winter Quarters, but now as the city of Florence. Daniel Spencer was chosen to act as bishop. He spent a large amount of his means in his benevolent ministration to the suffering and dying of the sorely tried and afflicted, "Camp of Israel." It was at the period when the dreadful plague struck the camps of the saints just following their flight from Nauvoo. In the spring of 1847, when the pioneers, under President Young took the lead of the main body of the Church, Daniel was appointed president of two companies of fifties to follow in the pioneer van.

Father says, "We outfitted for this great journey with oxen, cows and a wagon in which we had hardtack, bacon, beans, potato chips, potato starch, dried pumpkins all in small amounts, -crossing the Mississippi river on the ice in the winter of 1846. All that I had from then till landing in Utah, Sept. 1847. I had to haul on wagons, food, bedding, tools, seeds, all kinds of hardware, seed grain, chickens and cats, -everything save our clothing which we carried daily our persons, and were not heavily weighted either. When we come to live six months on a ration of two ounces of flour a day from which to draw physical strength to carry the burden incident to carving out a home in the desert resulted in a loss of weight which was a blessing rather than otherwise.

There was considerable rivalry between most of the captains, of the companies that year, to see who should reach the terminus first. A distinguished captain, one day passing Daniel’s company which was encamped for the day recruiting the strength of both man and beast with good natured jest asked Brother Spencer if he had any message for the pioneers. He answered significantly, "Tell them that I am coming- if you see them first," then turning to camp he said, "Sisters, take plenty of time to wash, bake, rest and go picking berries, and we will get to the terminus first and come bask and help Brother Parley in, for we shall have it to do." This turned out to be the case and Daniel Spencer’s company reached the present site of Salt Lake City Sept. 24^th, 1847 and was the first eastern emigrating company organized in June at the Elkhorn to reach the valley and to move into what has been called "The Old Fort," now Pioneer Park.

To help the organization of the Pioneer company Daniel Spencer had at Winter Quarters outfitted three men, Francis Boggs, Elija Newman and Levi Kendall with two yoke of oxen, wagons, provisions, seed grain, farming tools, etc., who came as pioneers arriving on the site of Salt Lake City, 25^th of July, 1847. Quoting from my father’s diary these oxen drew the plow that turned the first sod in Utah Territory.

Father says, "After the Pioneers left my reorganized Company of one hundred. I started West in June with Ira Eldridge as Captain of fifty, following on the Indian and trapper’s trail which led to the north fork of the Platte River. This journey was a continuous panorama of incidents. Only an arms length, as it were, back of us was our old New England life, our New England relatives and associates, our fine homes and farms, and still nearer, only a short drive back, lay the home and farm which we had just been driven from into exile, - but here morning, noon and night, the seemingly boundless plains, red men by the thousands, buffalo by the tens of thousands. Here to us was a new world, where for weeks no rain fell, and for months no dew cooled or moistened the arid air, - here the very atmosphere seemed to be and deceive all estimates of distance, - objects seemingly ten miles away would prove to be twenty or more. Here an animal could be killed at eventide, jerked, hung by the wagon side and cured without taint as we travelled on. We had read of the Children of Israel in the Wilderness, but here we were the Children of Israel in very fact. Those ancients were scientifically presereved by God, - so were we – their famine was fed by mana – ours with quail, - they subdued enemies with the sword, our the most savage of savages, were softened and made in some respects to minister to our wants, - and I wish it to go on record that the hand of God was as much or more visible with this modern Israel in bringing and planting and successfully sustaining them in this then desert land as it was with ancient Israel and when all the facts come to light it will be the pleasure and justice of the world to acknowledge it and then it will no longer be said, "that the Lord God liveth that brought the Children of Israel out of the land of Egypt" but He liveth who hath brought Israel out of all countries in the latter days."

Father engaged in farming and various industries forming at one time partnership with Jacob Gates, J. C. Little and his father’s son Claudius in opening a ranch in Rush Valley, from which they were unjustly ousted by Johnson’s army, at a loss to them of many thousands of dollars and by members of said army father’s nephew Howard O. Spencer was nearly murdered.

In the organization of the High council of the Salt Lake Stake he was chosen a member. On Feb. 7, 1849, he was appointed president of the Salt Lake Stake of Zion, which position he held for nineteen years, until his death. At the general conference Sept. 6, 1850, he was appointed with Edward Hunter and Willard Snow as a committee to take care of and transact the business of the fund of gathering the poor, later called "The Emigration Fund." In 1852 he went on a mission to Europe arriving there December 20. On the 14^th of May 1853, he was appointed councellor to Franklin D. Richards, President of the British Mission. March 15, 1856 he left Europe to act as agent in the United States to forward the through emigration of the saints to Utah. The outfitting points were Iowa City, Iowa, and Florence, Nebraska, from whence he arrived home in Salt Lake City Oct. 4, 1856 to resume his duties of his calling as president of the stake.

My father says, "In reply to the oft repeated question what were my motives or expectations of coming to Utah, I can only answer they were about the same as those of my pilgrim forefathers, to found a commonwealth where I could worship God unmolested and to aid in the fulfillment of a prophecy made by Joseph Smith before his death. That the saints should become a numerous people in the Rocky Mountains."

Daniel Spencer was a member of the Legislature of Utah in the House 1851-2, 1856-7, and 1858-9, and in the Council 1861-2, 1862-3, and 1864-5, and for some time sat in the Senate of the Provisional Government of the State of Deseret, and acted in connection with those who framed its constitution. He was appointed on a mission to England and during this mission the important publication of the revelation on polygamy was given. By his wisdom he very much sustained the Churchl. It was while on this mission that he became acquainted and fell in love with my mother, Mary Jane Cutcliffe. When walking home from church one day, he lost a very beautiful and expensive handkerchief. It bothered him very much, because he took it as an omen that he would not succeed in winning her for his wife when she should emigrate to the valley. Missionaries did not talk of love and marriage to the converts. Later when she went to the office at Liverpool to pay for her passage, she found that it had already been paid by Daniel Spencer. After his return to Salt Lake City President Spencer resumed his duties as the administrative head of the Salt Lake Stake of Zion. At the organization of the Stake he was under the first Presidency and Twelve made the Spiritual head of the entire colony. Under his administration of Salt Lake grew up several years before its incorporation under the civic government. At that time the President of the Stake occupied something like the position of the Mayor of the inchoate city, and Chief Justice of the Church. All cases were tried under him in the court of the High Council, he sitting with his councellors as presiding judge. Not only did this court adjudicate all the differences arising between members of the Church but the gentile emigrants to California brought their difficulties before this court for equitable settlements.

In 1849 there were no courts of any kind which the gold finders could bring their difficulties, after they left the Missouri River until the reached this Stake of Zion, where a court of Justice of the Mormon Church existed over which Daniel Spencer presided. Strange as it may seem in history many of the gentile emigrants brought their cases before this court for ajudication. Many of these cases involved tens of thousands of dollars. With such equity did Daniel Spencer administer justice that the California emigrants were better satisfied with these settlements than if they had been handled by litigation in the courts. Aunt Zina Young a wife of President Brigham told me that President Young often said "Daniel Spencer was the wisest man in Salt Lake."

Daniel Spencer was one of the first members of the Board of Regents of the University of Deseret, while his brother Orson was the first chancellor of the University of Deseret. The Hon. John C. Spencer of New York, Secretary of the Treasury of the United States in 1843-4 was a relative of Daniel Spencer.

Daniel Spencer died Dec. 8, 1868 at the age of 74.

The Public heart was deeply touched by the splendid sermon which President Brigham Young preached over the mortal remains of Daniel Spencer in honor of his memory.

Mary Jane Cutcliffe, born July 5, 1835, Bristol, Somersetshire England, daughter of George Cutcliffe and his wife Elizabeth Hill Jones, was the eighth child of her parents. The seven older ones having died in infancy under the age of one year, consequently she was a child of great promise to her parents. From her infancy she seemed to have a great liking for holy things and early formed the habit of prayer. Mother, when only five years of age when lying in bed saw three nights in succession, what seemed to her "An Angel with a little book" in his hands. Each morning after seeing this she told her parents and her father remarked to her mother, that there certainly must be something very good about this child and he worried for fear she should die as the seven older children had done.

When nearly fourteen years of age she had a dream or vision, in which she saw a man, at whom an angel pointed as one, "Having the true and everlasting gospel." She told her parents of this also, and described the man very minutely to them. A few months after this she heard a man announcing a gosple meeting to be held that evening and she immediately recognized him as the man of her dream. She immediately went and told her parents that the man had come to preach the everlasting gospel and she must go to hear him. Her mother ridiculed the idea and told her to be careful as it was probably "An old tea man," and if she was not careful he would carry her off. But she went to hear him preach, believed and was baptized. This man was Elder George Halliday, who in his lifetime often spoke of mother’s miraculous vision and faith. When first she saw him she asked him if he had the new and everlasting gospel.

Her father had been sick for four years and at this time was unable to walk. Mother saw in a dream, that if her father would believe and be baptized he would get better, and at that time her parents were very much prejudiced and the father had joined the Baptist Church. The family had been Church of England people. The father got worse instead of better. Finally he investigated Mormonism, believed, and could not walk without crutches, so was carried into the water, but walked out and never used his crutches again. He was baptized by Elder Edward Hanhan, on Whit Sunday, May 1849.

Mother all her life enjoyed the blessing of dreams and visions regarding many important things.

Some of Mother’s relatives were quite wealthy and many times they tried to persuade her to leave the Church by promises of wealth and offering to set her up in a large business, as she was an expert milliner and dressmaker by profession, but every day her faith grew stronger in her religion.

In April 1856 she left Liverpool for the valley of the saints, arriving in Salt Lake Dec. 15, 1856, after having spent nine months on the road. Crossing the ocean in the steamship Escurlin, there were seven deaths and burials at sea on the voyage, coming as far as Iowa by train, then paying to come by team the remainder of the way, but the teams gave out and she, with others of the company walked most of the way. Some of the time the snow was so deep they could only travel a couple of miles a day. One day the snow was so deep and the cold so intense that the snow became frozen to her clothes to above the knees and it was necessary to shovel the snow away in order to get her out. She was so exhausted that she could not move after the snow was moved.

When nearing Utah, the flour gave out and they had only one loaf of bread left, previously the flour had been dealt out in very small portions, Mother had charge of this loaf of bread and she was warned in a dream to just give each person in the company to which she belonged a certain portion of bread each day and the promise was made that if she would do this there would be bread until help arrived. Upon the advice of the president of the company she gave just the portion of bread that she was shown in her dream and the loaf seemed never to diminish for three or four days, then one morning it was finished. Mother said that we shall receive help to day and sure enough, before nightfall some teams arrived bringing flour and other provisions. One team being driven by Gilbert Van Schoonhaven an adopted son of Daniel Spencer. The only fuel they had to cook with for warmth was buffalo chips, which they gathered by the wayside.

After arriving in Salt Lake City, Dec. 15, 1856, she was taken to father’s home on third south and state street. On Dec. 22, 1856 she was married to Daniel Spencer by President Brigham Young in the old endowment house. In the summer of the following year she was very much worried because she had not heard from her people in England as she came here alone. One night she dreamed that some one very dear to her was buried in a small underground room and could not get out and was calling to her for help. This dream worried her a great deal. She told her husband and Brigham Young and they both said the interpretation was that either her father or mother, but they thought her father had embarked for Utah and some accident had happened to him and he was buried alive. Mother had not heard of any of her people leaving, but before many weeks she received a letter from her father saying that he had left and gotten as far as Council Bluffs, Iowa and the company was out of funds, and they must stop over and earn money. In a few more days she received word saying that George Cutcliffe working in the grain fields had received a sun stroke and was buried one half hour after, without any medical care whatsoever. He had plenty to pay his way, but was working to help the company.

On Oct. 6, 1858 mother’s first living child, her daughter Alvira was born. Father was away at the time and mother was alone with total strangers. She had lost her eyesight, not being able to tell night from day, but she nevered murmured. In England she was always waited upon, scarcely soiled her fingers, came here took hold of the rough hard work that was to be done like a veteran. She had four living children by father, three girls and one boy. Alvira Hirst, Lydia E. S. Clawson, Samuel G. Spencer and Amelia Spencer Stewart. She also gave birth to a pair of twin boys who were still born.

A few months before fathers death, she had company and her baby girl a little over a year old went to the spring well for water with a little tin bucket. In trying to fill it she fell in. It was some length of time before she was discovered and she appeared to be dead and mothers friends insisted that she was dead and said mother must have lost her mind because she insisted on working with her and praying over her, but mother’s faith was so great that she continued until the child showed signs of life, then her friends said it was a miracle or she would never have breathed again.

Mother brought considerable merchandise and clothing to this country and during the ensuing hard times, she gave liberally to who ever was in need. If any one was in distress or had sickness mother was always there to wait upon them and give of her stores. Mother brought many babes into the world and cared for the mothers, without any thought of financial pay. Her pay was always what good could she do and when her children grew older she always sent them to the homes of those who had sickness and could not afford to pay for help. No matter whether a contagious disease or not they never contracted any sickness, because of mother’s great faith and belief in prayer. Mother’s people were very long lived people. Her mother was 104 when she died and did everything for herself until two weeks before her death. Mother’s grandparents were 121 and 132 respectively when they died.

Father and mother never seemed to forget the kindness of the redskins when the saints were crossing the plains. They were always welcome at their home and they sometimes came fifty strong, they always spoke of father as the "Big Chief." My father and his brother Orson were always aiding the cause of education, being instrumental in establishing the University of Deseret.

Mother had lost her eyesight a few weeks before the birth of her first baby. Shortly after the birth of her child mother regained her eyesight, but immediately after father’s death mother lost her eyesight entirely and all four of her children were sick and helpless, but she never murmured or complained, just put her faith in God and after a while we were all well again. My father left considerable property and made provision for all of his children to have a good education, but due to poor management of his estate the property was mostly lost, so that mother was forced to work to support her children. Through her great faith and prayer her eyesight was restored for the second time. Mother died in Salt Lake City, June 28, 1909. {73, a few days short of her 74^th birthday}

Another evidence of my mother’s exceeding faith I recall when I was about thirteen years of age, my baby sister was very ill and to all appearances she was dead. She had stopped breathing, and was getting icy cold. Mother cried, "I cannot let her go," so she, with my brother, a lad of only fifteen, but an elder in the Church, prayed over the baby and pleaded if it was Heavenly Father’s will to restore her breathing and cause her to live, and strange as it may seem she was restored to life and those who were present can never forget it as long as they may live.

Mother was quite adept in the art of making soap. She started to make it when she had only been here two or three months. Not only making for herself but all the rest of father’s large family. This soap was a very high grade. She continued to make it until I was quite a large girl, and I never used soap that was better for all laundry and cleaning purposes.

Mother used to make all our candles, the only kind of light they had in those days besides a tallow dip. Mother’s mold would make eight candles at a time, four side by side. She would cut the wick a little more than twice as long as the molds were high then double each piece of wick over a short round stick, two of which were placed across the top of the molds and the wick drawn through each section of the mold and out through the small end of the mold, and part of the end of the wick was tied to part of the wick of the next individual mold until each of the eight were secured, then the mold was stood on a plate and filled with hot tallow. When the tallow was cold and hard the ends of the wick that were tied were all cut loose and the candles were withdrawn from the mold by the sticks at the top of the mold over which the wick had been doubled. I have seen mother have many dozen of these candles made up which she always shared with her neighbors. We had two beautiful square brass candlesticks that we burned the candles in and oh my the scouring and polishing those candlesticks had.

Mother was also a good carpet weaver, sewing the rags and weaving the same into carpet for herself and others. She was also very proficient in dyeing and making cloth. She would wash the wool, card and spin it into yarn and then make it into cloth. We used to have grey and white homespun linsey sheets. My brother had grey homespun suits that mother had made from the dirty, greasy wool from the sheep’s backs into the finished garment ready to wear, mother having done every step in the process herself. My mother’s warm dresses, and all of her children’s dresses and suits were the products of her own hands from the wool to the finish, for many years. I recall very vividly my mother’s best dress for several years after father’s death, was of her own manufacture. It was a plaid of black and white, green, blue and a small thread of red running through, the black and white were natural colors, but the blue and green and red were dyed with dyes made from peach leaves and bark from trees. It was as pretty a plaid as one would wish to see. I remember mother dyeing very shabby old rags different color with dyes she made, with which she made some handsome carpets for those days.

My mother was aunt to everyone that knew her in those days. But with all her household and neighborly duties she always had time to show and explain how to do anything that anyone wanted to know about. There was seldom a day that went by that she did not read a portion of some good book or the scriptures to us children, or told us some bible stories.

When my mother was in her coffin, previous to the funeral services, I think my "Aunt Lizzie" one of father’s wives, paid mother as high a tribute as one woman can possibly pay another. She said, "Children, and you friends, I want you to know that there lies a Queen in every deed, a better woman never lived. We lived in the same house for several years and I loved her better than a sister. She was more to me and did more for me than any sister could have done. She never spoke an unkind or cross word to me in her life. She was as good to my children as to her own. We have never had a quarrel. I repeat, she was a Queen."

Postscript:

In the early fifties father built a large adobe brick house on the corner of Third South and State Street, the present site of the Brooks Arcade which was quite a mansion in those days. At one time he owned from Main Street on Third South to State and north nearly to Second South Street. In those days City Creek had its original course over the northwest corner of father’s lot until it was diverted to its present channel. On one part of this lot father had a large corral in which wild horses were kept preparatory to breaking for use. The remainder of this property was planted with fruit trees, currants and berries and all kinds of vegetables, which father generously shared with his neighbors and friends. All father’s life he helped every one with whom he came in contact, in every possible way.

I have often been told by old timers that all the girls were anxious to dance with him at the dances at the Social Hall and the old bowery, also when they danced up Emigration Canyon, because he was such an excellent dancer and such a perfect gentleman. Some seven years after father’s death, February 18, 1873, mother married to Ulrich Auer by Judge Elias A. Smith, a very close friend of father’s. Ulrich Auer was born in Berne, Switzerland July 22, 1841, and died in Salt Lake City, Oct. 25, 1925. By this union mother had two living children, Mary Jane Cutcliffe Jr., born March 21, 1874, and Louisa born May 25, 1878.

At this date June 21, 1939, mother has the following posterity living, four children, one son and three daughters, twenty six grand children, fifty-one great grandchildren and eleven great great grandchildren. Father lived in the days when Polygamy was preached and lived because of a revelation from God and before our government passed laws making it illegal. In those early days there were many young girls and older women who had no home and no means of sustenance and I have heard my mother say that a girl would work a whole week and gladly take a squash for pay, or any other food stuff. Those were the days when they paid five dollars for a pound of sugar, tea or pepper, and the only xxxx they had besides potatoe yeast was the saleratus from the saleratus xxx along the prairie , so it really was in view of conditions a blessing for some of the women that the men married more than one wife. My father did not marry until about thirty-five when he married January 21, 1823, Sopronia E. Pomeroy, a daughter of General Pomeroy, to whom was born one son, Claudious Victor. She died Oct. 5, 1832, about two years later he married, Sarah Lester Van Schoonoven who had two sons, both of which died in infancy, and two daughters, Amanda and Mary Leane. Due to the persecution and hardships, Uncle Hyrum died and left his wife and family without support and shortly after from the same causes my father’s wife died and president Young counseled father to marry his brother’s widow, Emily Shafter Thompson Spencer, and take care of them, which he did. This wife bore him the following children, Aurelia, Sept. 25, 1849, Sophia, born Oct. 28, 1851, Emma, March 28, 1853, Jared, John Daniel born June 27, 1858, and Josephine born April 30, 1861. After fathers return to Salt Lake in 1856, my father married my mother on December 27, 1856. She arrived here December 22, 1856, by whom he had four living children and still born twin boys, these children were Alvira born Oct. 6, 1858, Lydia Elizabeth born November 13, 1861, in 1863 the twins were born, Samuel George Feb. 14, 1864 and Amelia, March 1, 1866. He also married Elizabeth Funnell who bore the following children: Henry Wilson born May 14, 1858, Georgeana Dec. 14, 1859, Mary Elizabeth, June 12, 1862, Chloe Louisa March 16, 1865, and Cordelia, Aug. 23, 1867. He also married Sarah Jane Gray by whom he had one daughter and three sons, Sophroni Sept.15, 1859, Orson Sept. 26, 1861, Mark May 30, 1864, and Grove born June 25, 1866. He also adopted Gilbert Van Schoonhoven a son of his wife Mary Van Schoonhovan by a former marriage.

My grandfather was Daniel Spencer Sr. born May 14, 1764 in West Stockbridge, was the son of Peter and Ruth Emmons Spencer. His mother was Chloe Wilson. There children were the following.

Name Birthdate Birthplace Place of Death Death Date

Augustine Dec. 22, 1788 West Stockbridge

Sophia Apr. 6, 1791 West Stockbridge Sep. 5, 1815

Theron Oct. 23, 1792 West Stockbridge Nov. 9, 1827

Daniel July 30, 1794 West Stockbridge Salt Lake City Dec. 8, 1868

Electa April 16, 1796 West Stockbridge

Hiram Nov. 30, 1798 West Stockbridge Mt. Pisgah, Iowa Aug. 12, 1846

Clandius May 26, 1800 West Stockbridge Dorwington or Sep. 3, 1822

(Victor Clinton

Alvira Mar. 14, 1802 West Stockbridge cat Stockbridge, Mass Aug. 21, 1802

Twins

Orson Mar. 14, 1802 West Stockbridge St. Louis, Mo. Oct. 15, 1855

Chloe Mar. 9, 1804 West Stockbridge June 6, 1833

Grove Aug. 3, 1806 West Stockbridge Aug. 29, 1854

Quoting from my father’s diary, "I forsee a future when the conditions of these people will be largely changed, when the culture of the world will seek to measure arms with the simplicity and inspiration of the Gospel."