James Allred

EARLY PIONEER HISTORY

Related by

Eliza M.A. Munson

“My Grandfather, James Allred, son of William and Elizabeth Thrasher Allred, was born in North Carolina, Randolph County, January 22, 1784.  My Grandmother, Elizabeth Warren was born in South Carolina on May 6, in the year 1787.

They were married November 14, 1803 and moved to the Ohio River near Yellow Banks.  In 1811 they moved to Bedford County, Tennessee.  In the year 1825, on March 28, while they were still in Bedford County, my father, James Tillman Sanford Allred, was born.

In 1830 they moved to Missouri, Monroe County, which was a distance of five hundred miles.  Here they settled down and on the 10th day of September, 1832, they were baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints by Elder George M. Hinkle, at which place a large branch of the Church was built up and called “Salt River Branch”.

In the fall of 1833 Grandfather, two sons and two son-in-laws joined the company of the Prophet Joseph.  In June, 1834, they with the Prophet’s company of two hundred brethren journeyed to the upper part of Missouri in order to redeem “Zion” as they thought, and to reinstate a portion of the Saints who had been driven from their homes in Jackson County, Missouri.

In the year 1835, they moved to Clay County, Missouri and in the Spring of 1837 to Caldwell County where the saints commenced to gather to build up a stake of Zion.  My Grand-father was elected County Judge and also President of the Southern Firm.  In the autumn of 1838 times began to be very troublesome and the citizens of the adjoining county raised all manner of false accusations against the Latter-Day Saints and more especially the leaders of the church, so that the Governor of the State ordered out several thousand men to either exterminate or expel them from the state of Missouri and it was only as a result of laying down their arms and giving up the Prophet Joseph and his brother Hyrum and several other heads of the church, together with their agreement to leave the State the following spring, that their lives were spared.  Accordingly in the spring of 1839, the Church in mass left the state of Missouri and moved to Illinois where they settled in different parts of the state.

My grandfather settled in Pittsfield, Pike County, Illinois, and in the fall of the same year they moved to Commerce, which was later called Nauvoo, where he was ordained a High Priest and a member of the High Council and was chosen as one of the Prophet’s body guards in the Nauvoo Legion.  He also held several other responsible positions, and helped to build the Nauvoo Temple and assisted in giving endowments.

It was while they were living in Nauvoo that the Prophet came to my grandmother, who was a seamstress by trade, and told her that he had seen the angel Moroni with the garments on,

and asked her to assist him in cutting out the garments.  They spread unbleached muslin out on the table and he told her how to cut it out.  She had to cut the third pair, however, before he said it was satisfactory.  She told the Prophet that there would be sufficient cloth from the knee to the ankle to make a pair of sleeves, but he told her he wanted as few seams as possible and that there would be sufficient whole cloth to cut the sleeve without piecing.  The first garments were made of unbleached muslin and bound with turkey red and were without collars.  Later on, the Prophet decided he would rather have them bound with white.  Sister Emma Smith, the Prophet’s wife, proposed that they have a collar on as she thought they would look more finished, but at first the prophet did not have the collars on them.  After Emma Smith had made the little collars, which were not visible from the outside, then Eliza R. Snow introduced a wider collar of finer material to be worn on the outside of the dress.  The garment was to reach to the ankle and the sleeves to the wrist.  The marks were always the same.

In the year 1842, my father was ordained a seventy and a member of the 4th quorum of seventies.  About this time the saints began to be persecuted very hard and more especially the heads of the Church.  The Prophet and his brother Hyrum were continuously being hunted and persecuted by the mobs.  Grandmother often used to put potatoes in the coals in the fireplace at night and leave bread and butter and fresh buttermilk (of which the Prophet was very fond) out on the table so that they could come in during the night and eat.

In the year 1844 in June the Prophet Joseph Smith, his brother Hyrum, President John Taylor and Willard Richards were taken to Carthage Jail, Hancock County, Ill.  At the jail the Prophet Joseph handed his sword to my grandfather and said, “Take this - you may need it to defend yourself”.  (Grandfather carried this sword with him to Utah and it is now on display at the Utah State Capitol.

On the 27th of June the Prophet and Hyrum were murdered in Carthage Jail.  The prophet had previously prophesied that Willard Richards would not be harmed, and true to the prophecy he escaped without a scratch, but President Taylor was badly wounded by four bullets.

Grandfather took President Taylor from the prison to take him to his home.  He only had his wagon to carry him and the trip was long by road, so they decided that a sleigh could be pulled behind the wagon by going through the fields which were mostly swamps, and this would be only eighteen miles distance from Nauvoo by cutting through the fields.  Accordingly, they secured a sleigh, fastened it behind the wagon and placed President Taylor in it.  He was bleeding badly, and so weak from the loss of blood that he could scarcely speak.  His wife sat beside him bathing the blood from his wounds and trying to make the journey as easy as possible.  The sleigh was much easier riding than the wagon, and by the time they reached home, President Taylor was able to talk enough that my grandfather could hear him from where he sat in the wagon.

After the murder of the Prophet, President Brigham Young with the help of the apostles then took up the work for which the Prophet had laid the foundation.  Persecution began to rage again with awful fury and in the fall of 1845 the mob commenced burning houses.

On November 23, 1845, my father was married to my mother, Eliza B. Manwaring.  She was an English girl and was born in Herafordshire, England, on November 23rd, 1823 and crossed the ocean in the first Mormon vessel that ever sailed the ocean.  She joined the Church in the year 1835, and for some time lived with my grandfather and grandmother Allred.  For three years prior to the Prophet’s death, she was employed as a cook in the Nauvoo Mansion.

In the spring of 1846, my grandparents, my father and mother, and two brothers and families started westward into the wilderness with the heads of the church and others.  On the 20th day of May they started west through the Iowa territory and on to Council Bluffs.  On July 16th, my father enlisted in the Mormon Battalion and he and mother started to Mexico by the way of Fort Leavenworth and from there to Santa Fe and then to Pueblo on the head of the Arkansas River where they wintered.  In the spring they resumed their journey and suffered many hardships.

While they were traveling across the plains the men were grouped in to groups of ten each and there was one woman allotted to each group to wash and cook for them.  My father was head of ten men and my mother washed and cooked for them.

My mother was ill a good deal of the time and inasmuch as they did not have a wagon, another old couple shared their wagon with my mother.  She gave birth to a baby boy which died, but the company could not wait while it was buried, so my father stayed behind to bury the baby.

He was so weak and tired from exposure and exhaustion that he could scarcely catch up with the rest of the company after this delay.

On the 24th day of July, 1847, Orson Pratt and George Q. Cannon who were pilots for the company, came down Parley’s canyon but there was so much underbrush that it was very difficult to get through so they had to go back and come down Emigration.  A few of the saints entered the valley on that date.  On the 27th another portion of them entered the valley, but on account of my mother’s poor health, they were obliged to stay behind until four days later and they entered Salt Lake Valley on the 29th of July, after much suffering and many hardships.

On February 29th, the following spring the second baby girl was born in Salt Lake City and that was me.

In the spring of 1849 father went back to the Platt River to establish a ferry and help the saints to Salt Lake City.  Later in the same year Brigham Young called he and some other men to move their families south to Sanpete County.  They started a settlement which was called Manti.  That winter and the following one, so much snow fell that many head of their cattle were killed.

In the year 1851, Grandfather and Grandmother crossed the plains and settled in Manti, Utah.  In the spring of 1852, Brigham Young and the council of Twelve called my Grandfather and Father to move sixteen miles north and commence a new settlement.  They remained there until 1853 when the Indians drove off all their cattle and horses.  They vacated the settlement and moved back to Manti.

Brigham Young and the Council of Twelve then called Father and fifty other men to go seven miles north and commence a settlement which was called Ephraim.

At the spring conference in 1856 father was called to go on a mission to Las Vegas to preach to the Piute Indians, as Brigham Young knew he was a good Indian interpreter.  He was also a peace maker among the Indians and always had many Indian friends.

On the twentieth of April, 1866, my mother died, Grandfather died in 1876, at the age of 92.  Grandmother was blind the last six years she lived but enjoyed good health up until her death.  She lived to be within a few hours of the age of Grandfather when she died, which was in the year 1879.

My father always said that he would live to be eighty years old and this privilege was granted him.  He was eighty years old on the twenty-eighth of March, 1905, and he died early the following morning.

Eliza Mariah A. Munson

Note:    Practically all of this information was taken from a diary which was kept by James T.S. Allred, father of Mrs. Munson.

JAMES ALLRED

 History

James Allred, son of William and Elizabeth Thrasher Allred was born in North Carolina, Jan. 22, 1784.  My grandmother Elizabeth Warren was born in South Carolina on May 6, 1787.  They were married November 14, 1803 and moved to the Ohio River near Yellow Banks.  In 1811 they moved to Bedford County, Tennessee.

In 1830, they moved to Missouri, Monroe County, a distance of 500 miles.  Here they settled down and on the 10th of September 1832 they were baptized into the church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints by Elder George M. Hinkle at which place a large branch of the church was built up and called “Salt River Branch”.

In the fall of 1833 James Allred, two sons and two sons-in-law joined the company of the Prophet Joseph.  In June, 1834, they, with the Prophet’s company of two hundred brethren journeyed to the upper part of Missouri in order to redeem Zion as they thought, and to reinstate a portion of the Saints who had been driven from their homes in Jackson County, Missouri.

In the year 1835, they moved to Clay County, Missouri and in the Spring of 1837 to Caldwell County where the saints commenced to gather to build up a stake of Zion.  My Grandfather James was elected Judge and also President of the Southern Firm.  When the Church left Missouri in the spring of 1839, he moved to Pittsfield, Pike County, Illinois.  In the fall of the same year he moved to Commerce, afterwards called Nauvoo, where he was ordained a High Priest and a member of the High Council.  He was one of the Prophet’s body guards in the Nauvoo Legion and held several other responsible positions.  He helped to build the Nauvoo Temple and assisted in giving endowments therein.

It was while they were living in Nauvoo that the Prophet came to my grandmother Elizabeth Warren, who was a seamstress by trade, and told her that he had seen the angel Moroni with the garments on, and asked her to assist him in cutting out the garments.  They spread unbleached muslin out on the table and he told her how to cut it out.  She had to cut the third pair, however, before he said it was satisfactory.  She told the Prophet that there would be sufficient cloth from the knee to the ankle to make a pair of sleeves without piecing.  The first garments were made of unbleached muslin and bound with turkey red and were without collars.  Later on, the Prophet decided he would rather have them bound with white.  Sister Emma Smith, the Prophet’s wife, proposed that they have a collar on as she thought they would look more finished, but at first the prophet did not have the collars on them.  After Emma Smith had made the little collars, which were not visible from the outside, then Sister Eliza R. Snow introduced a wider collar of finer material to be worn on the outside of the dress.  The garment was to reach to the ankle and the sleeves to the wrist.  The marks were always the same.

In the year 1842, James Allred was ordained a seventy and a member of the 4th quorum of seventies. 

About this time the saints began to be persecuted very hard and more especially the heads of the Church.  The Prophet and his brother Hyrum were continuously being hunted and persecuted by the mobs.  Grandmother Elizabeth Warren often used to put potatoes in the coals in the fireplace at night and leave bread and butter and fresh buttermilk (of which the Prophet was very fond) out on the table so that they could come in during the night and eat.

In the year 1844 in June the Prophet Joseph Smith, his brother Hyrum, President John Taylor and Willard Richards were taken to the Carthage Jail, Hancock County, Ill.  At the jail the Prophet Joseph handed his sword to my grandfather James and said, “Take this, you may need it to defend yourself.”  (Grandfather carried this sword with him to Utah and it is now on display at the Utah State Capitol.)

On the 27th of June the Prophet and Hyrum were murdered in the Carthage Jail.  The prophet had previously prophesied that Willard Richards would not be harmed, and true to the prophecy, he escaped without a scratch, but President John Taylor was badly wounded by four bullets.

Grandfather James took President Taylor from the prison to take him to his home.  He only had his wagon to carry him and the trip was long by road, so they decided that a sleigh could be pulled behind the wagon by going through the fields which were mostly swamps.  And this would be only eighteen miles distance from Nauvoo by cutting through the fields.  Accordingly they secured a sleigh, fastened it behind the wagon and placed President John Taylor in it.  He was bleeding badly, and so weak from the loss of blood that he could scarcely speak.  His wife sat beside him, bathing the blood from his wounds and trying to make the journey as easy as possible.  The sleigh was much easier riding than the wagon, and by the time they reached home, President Taylor was able to talk enough that my grandfather could hear him from where he sat in the wagon.

After the murder of the Prophet, President Brigham Young, with the help of the apostles then took up the work for which the Prophet had laid down the foundation.  Persecution began to rage again with awful fury and in the fall of 1845 the mob commenced burning houses.

On the 9th of February 1846, James Allred crossed the Mississippi river to go west with the heads of the church.  He arrived at the Missouri River to go West July 15, of the same year.  Here he was made President of the High Council and acting Bishop of Council Bluffs.

In the Spring of 1851 he started west to the Rocky Mountains.  He arrived at Salt Lake in October of the same year.  He went to Manti, Sanpete County in March 1852, and was called to Preside over this branch of the church.  At the Spring conference of 1853 he was ordained a Patriarch in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints.  In July of the same year the Indians drove most of the cattle, horses of the settlement off and on the last day of the month they moved back to Manti.                         

In October he moved back to Canal again with a company of 40 Danish families and 10 families of his own relatives.  On the 17th of December of the same year he was called to vacate and again moved back to Manti.  In February 1854 in company with 50 families he commenced to build a fort at Cottonwood (now called Ephraim).  It was built of stone, the walls being 10 feet high.  This was finished and Grandfather James presided over it until 1860.  Then he moved back to Canal, where he presided until his death.                                       He was a faithful member of the church and strict in relations to the word of wisdom.  He fully endorsed all of the principles of the Gospel as far as he knew them.  An early riser, always on hand to obey the counsels of the servants of the Lord.

For many years he was a regular attendant of the Quorum and Public meetings and always ready to donate to the poor.  A friend of the widow and orphans.  Exemplary to his family, he taught them to be honest and industrious, trustworthy and confidential.  He told the Bishop of the ward he was ready to join the United Order and all that he had was for the building up of the Kingdom of God.

He reared 12 children of his own and 8 orphan grandchildren (all lived to have children of their own).  He left the wife of his youth after living together for nearly 73 years and a posterity of 447 souls, vis; 12 children, 104 grandchildren, 302 great-grandchildren and 29 great great grand-children.  Five of his sons were present at his funeral, the rest were dead.

He laid his hands on his oldest son William Hackleys head the day before he died and blessed him.  All of his children lived to embrace the new and everlasting covenant and those that are dead, died strong in the faith.  The most of his posterity live in Utah and are members of the church.

He lacked 12 days of being 92 years old.  His wife was 90 years old, but had been blind six years.

His funeral took place on the 11th and was the largest that had been held in this place.  Thirty-nine  wagons and sleighs loaded with people followed him to his last resting place.

President Orson Hyde preached his funeral sermon and made some sincere remarks concerning his life labors and faithfulness as a patriarch which was satisfactory to the family and friends.

He died at Spring City, Utah, January 10, 1876, 92 years of age.  The location of his home in Spring City was where Edward F. Allred lived (later Bert Christensen).  He lived on main street in the center of town in Ephraim now occupied by a Service Station close to where the mill is located in Ephraim.

Grandmother Elizabeth Warren died April 23, 1879 at Rabbit Valley, Utah.  Her body was later brought to Spring City and she was placed by her husband by grandsons Samuel Allred and Reuben Warren Allred, Jr.  Her parents were Thomas Warren and Hannah Cothen Warren.

The children of James Allred and Elizabeth Warren Allred are - William Hackley, Martin Carrel, Hannah, Sally, Isaac, Reuben Warren, Wily Payne, Nancy Chummy, Eliza Maria, James Tillman Sanford, John Franklin Lafayette, Andrew Jackson.