James William Huntsman
A friend to the Prophet Joseph Smith, a devoted husband and father, and a dedicated member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
James William Huntsman was born on October 8, 1806, in Belmont, Ohio. His father was Jesse Huntsman, a convert who eventually became a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy, and his mother was Catherine Call. He married Hannah Ralston Davis on 28 December 1831, in St. Joseph, Michigan. They were the parents of at least six sons and five daughters.
James was a good friend to Joseph Smith and, at one point, was one of his body guards. He helped build the Nauvoo Temple, farmed, ranched, and left with the body of Saints to Utah when they were forced to leave Nauvoo. After some time in the Great Salt Lake Valley, James and Hannah were asked to move to southern Utah and organize Hebron, a small community in Washington County. James died on 26 February 1867, in Hebron Utah at the age of 60, and was buried in the Hebron Cemetery, near Enterprise Utah. Hebron is now a ghost town and only the cemetery and a few foundations are left just west of Enterprise. Hannah lived on for many years, raising her family and overcoming many hardships in the Hebron and Enterprise area.
Joseph Smith Leavitt
Was born in 1860 in St George, Utah, after his parents, Jeremiah III and Eliza Harrover Leavitt, had endured the treachery of the Nauvoo exodus and made the long journey west. His parents are shown as living in Pine Valley at the time of his birth, but his early and mid years were spent in Gunlock. He actively served in community and church affairs.
We didn’t have any farm implements to speak of. I cut grain with a cradle, threshed it with a flail, cleaned it up with the wind. I made sorghum every year in a regular boiler.
For many years, most of our bread was made from corn meal. We ground our corn with an old coffee mill we had brought across the plains. Usually there was little to go with our corn bread, just a little sorghum and some milk, but very little meat, butter, or fats.
I have often gone to bed as naked as the day I was born, while my mother washed and mended my clothes, which consisted of a calico shirt and a pair of trousers made of homespun denim. I went barefooted most of the time until I was almost grown, often going barefooted to the ward dances, carrying a squash under my arm to pay my ticket.”
At age 20, Joseph married Lucy Elizabeth Truman and they had two children. Their first child did not survive. The second child, Elizabeth Ann, married George Martin Burgess, and they had 12 children.
In 1883 Joseph Smith Leavitt married Luna Adelia Huntsman. They had 10 children. They lived in Gunlock until about 1898, when they re-established in Mesquite. Their last three children were born in Mesquite. Most of their 10 children remained Nevadans.
Joseph Smith Leavitt died November 14, 1936, in Mesquite. Luna Adelia Huntsman Leavitt died in Las Vegas, Nevada, August 9, 1942.
Joseph Ira Earl
The earliest Earls were Yorkshire men. Edward Earle Sr. was born in Settle in the Yorkshire Dales in 1628. We find him at age 40 married and living in Bergen in British Colonial America. Succeeding generations migrated to New Jersey, New York, and Ohio until the fifth generation reaches Sylvester Henry Earl.
Sylvester was taught and embraced the Restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He became a faithful member of the Nauvoo Legion, served missions, and pioneered the turbulent trek west with the Saints.
In the fall of 1861, he was called to help settle the Utah south country and first settled in Pine Valley. There, where wood was plentiful, he used his woodworking expertise making spinning wheels to aid the Cotton Mission.
His son, Joseph Ira Earl, married half sisters, daughters of Edward Bunker Sr. Joseph and his two wives, Elethra Calista Bunker and Agnes Viola Bunker, became stalwarts in the taming of the desert and the settlement of Bunkerville, Nevada.
A fine cabinet maker, his art enhanced homes and buildings as the society became a community. As a beekeeper for 45 years, his hives harnessed the sweetness of desert flowers to enhance life in the homes of pioneering people. Over the years, he served as bishop in several wards and patriarch to the Moapa Stake members.
Additionally, Young wanted the church and its members to be self-sufficient. Brigham Young and other leaders envisioned building a state of their own where they would provide for their needs and build their own economy. The desire for self-sufficiency led to the establishment of Latter-day Saint missions, in locations that could provide resources, a variety of crops, or access to trade.
Isaiah Cox
William Cox, who was the first recorded immigrant ancestor of Isaiah Cox, was born in Glocestershire, England in 1657. By 1688, he is found married, living in Delaware, Colonial America. His descendants began to move westward after three or four generations and by the time Isaiah was born in 1839, his father, Jehu Cox, had accepted the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and made his way to Missouri, where his family hoped to settle and help build Zion. Then came the notorious edict of the infamous Governor Boggs, “If you once think to plant crops or to occupy your lands any longer than the first of April (1839), the citizens will be upon you, they will kill you every one, men, women and children.”
Thus, the exodus began. From 1846 to 1848, they traversed Nauvoo, Council Bluffs, and Winter Quarters before the arrival of the Jehu and Sarah Cox family in the valley of the Great Salt Lake, September 1848.
Isaiah Cox married young, and in the vernacular of the struggling pioneer settlers, became a rough rider assigned to harass Johnston’s Army. Having proven his fortitude, he was called to join one company of three hundred colonists to settle Washington County. Known for his quiet devotion, he applied his skills to the building of the St. George Temple. He obeyed the commandment to enter plural marriage and is noted to have been successful in his family of five wives.
In 1884, he was called to help colonize the Lower Muddy and served as bishop there. When the Tucker Act was passed, it meant scattering his united family into several communities. Isaiah Cox lived to age 57. When he died, he had 29 children and 145 grandchildren.
Thomas Hardy Sr
Was the first of that name to come to America. He came from England in 1630 in the company of Governor John Winthrop. He settled in Essex County, Massachusetts. Six generations of the family were prominent in the colonization of that area and lived there for the next 200 years. Their emigration was occasioned by acceptance of the newly restored gospel in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They eventually settled in Salt Lake City, Utah, and became early participants in establishing a commonwealth in the west.
Warren Hardy was called to the Dixie Cotton Mission. He had accepted the doctrine of polygamy and one by one had married three wives. Four of his sons pioneered settlements in the south of the territory, becoming stalwarts in the effort to conquer the desert.
The first three of these sons were born to his wife, Caroline Lucy Blake. Her sons were Heber Herbert, Charles Milton, and Brigham Franklin. The fourth Hardy brother who colonized in Virgin Valley was Joseph Hyrum, born to Sarah Hannah Hepastella Smith.
Each of the four married, reared families and became lifelong residents, contributing their cumulative strength to triumph over the hardships of the elements. The desert will reverberate forever with the imprint of the Hardy family. Their descendants will long hear the echo of their songs of faith.
Caroline & John Hancock
Emma & Edson Keyes
Brigham & Mary Hardy
Joseph & Thirza Hardy
Stephen & Clarissa Linge
Stephen Robert Linge was born November 28, 1866, in Woodgreen, Middlesex, England. At age16, he joined the Royal British Navy and sailed the world’s ports for 12 years. His diligent savings enabled his parents and siblings to immigrate to America. When Stephen could follow, he eagerly joined the family. On a visit to two sisters in the southern part of the territory, good fortune attended him; he met Clarissa Evelyn Hancock. After a short courtship, they married in the St. George Temple in December 1896.
Stephen and Clarissa homesteaded 160 acres along the Arizona and Nevada border just east of Mesquite and built a small dugout home along the side of the canal. Stephen’s health had suffered from the years at sea. His limited diet and the work of a sailor had left him with damaged stamina. His energy was too low for hard work. Clarissa, on the other hand, had grown up farming and gardening. She showed him how to garden and plant orchards. Soon, they had beautiful orchards and large gardens. They raised livestock for meat and draft animals for work. They cultivated asparagus and harvested it growing along the ditch banks.
As the road to St. George ran through their land, Stephen made a shady spot for tourists to stop and purchase his produce and eat in the shade of his bowery. When the road changed, they built a house and a gas station along the new road. The gas station was in Arizona and the house in Nevada.
Stephen and Clarissa were a happy couple, noted for their strong mutual bond. Their five children spoke often of the affection that warmed their home.
In later years, Stephen suffered from crippling arthritis and had to sell his gas station, house, and ranch. They moved to Las Vegas to live with their son, Robert. Stephen died from the after-effects of mumps on April 5, 1947. Clarissa died July 25, 1957, in Las Vegas, Nevada. She and her beloved Stephen are both buried in the Mesquite, Nevada Cemetery.
Levi Hancock sr
Leadership of the church also fulfilled civic and governmental roles within these fledgling communities. In 1849, Brigham Young convened a group of leaders to draft a constitution and petition the United States Congress for statehood.
levi ward hancock jr
Leadership of the church also fulfilled civic and governmental roles within these fledgling communities. In 1849, Brigham Young convened a group of leaders to draft a constitution and petition the United States Congress for statehood.