Nancy Maria Bigelow Love 1814-1852
Pioneer
1847
Written
by Estelle Neff Caldwell
Ralph
Otis Bradley’s Great Great Grandmother
Nancy
Maria Bigelow, wife of Andrew Love, is the maternal grandmother of the
writer. She was born in the Empire
State; the birth having occurred near Junius, Seneca Co., New York, the second
day of February, 1814. She is the
daughter of Isaac Bigelow and Angeline Prentice, both of whom are of English
descent.
The Bigelow coat of arms is a
very ancient one in England. It was granted to Sir Richard de Baggerly
hundreds of years ago. The motto of this
family is, “Finis Coronat Opus.” It may
be translated from the Latin to read, “The End Crowns the Work,”
The Bigelow Family
tree has John Biglo spelled B I G L O, resident of Watertown, Mass.,
as the immigrant ancestor to the new world.
Observe changes in spelling of the name during the centuries.
Gilman
Bigelow Howe is the author of the Bigelow Family History. His book is accepted as factual by
professional genealogists.
It was Mr. Howe, who
arranged one of the first family reunions in America. It was held in Washington,
D.C., and lasted three days; Lucy Bigelow,
wife of Brigham Young, and her daughter Susa Young Gates, traveled from Utah to be present.
Lucy Bigelow Young
and Nancy are cousins more than a half dozen times removed. Their names are listed with others from the Utah branches of a
widespread American family. The book
presents pictures and histories of many intellectuals, eminent in the field of
education and other professions.
However, the higher
education was far removed from the life of Nancy.
Her’s was a short existence as measured in years, less than thirty-nine
of them, full to the brim of pioneering.
Her parents first and then her husband were forever traveling westward
on the frontiers of America. The covered wagon, more often than not, was
her home as she wended a weary way from cabin to cabin.
Angeline Prentice
Bigelow, her mother died when Nancy
was nineteen, Isaac Bigelow, her father, in a short while followed her mother
to the grave, leaving two younger children for Nancy to raise, a brother of ten
years, a sister of eight.
Alone, she managed to
care for them until she was nearly twenty-one.
On 8 Dec. 1834, near the town of Decatur,
in central Illinois,
she became the bride of Andrew Love.
Some years later,
this couple acquired a farm in the neighboring county of Moultrie, some twenty miles away. The farm consisted of three hundred acres,
parts of which were heavily wooded, among the trees were nut-bearing
varieties.
Here the young people
settled; astonishing as it is, there were four children in the home from the
first day of their marriage. Andrew and
a younger sister had been bereft of the father of their family since he was ten
years of age. His mother, Elizabeth
Ewing Love, gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, three months after the death
of John Love, her husband, leaving Andrew, young as he was, his mother’s sole
help in rearing the twins.
Andrew’s mother
passed away when the twins were between twelve and thirteen, entrusting to
Andrew the duties of father and mother.
When Andrew married, the twins were barely sixteen. Consequently, the young couple commenced
married life with them and with Nancy’s
sister and brother.
The family of six
made a success of their group life in Illinois. They won the esteem and confidence of their
neighbors, during the ensuing years; for, when a post office was established in
the community, Andrew Love was appointed the postmaster; and the town which
grew up around his farm was given the name of Lovington in his honor. To this day it exists having a population of
more than a thousand.
They
prospered materially, but suffered misfortune with their children. Twin boys and twin girls and later another
daughter died at birth or in early infancy.
During the decade, only one child, a daughter Elizabeth Angeline,
lived. She grew to maturity in Utah, married George Bradley, settled in Moroni and reared seven sons and three
daughters, all lived except one, to survive their mother and grew to splendid
manhood and womanhood.
One spring two elders
of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came into the Love
neighborhood, preaching that the heavens had again opened, that the pure Gospel
of Jesus Christ was re-established with its priesthood and primitive power,
through the American Prophet, Joseph Smith.
Andrew and Nancy Love believed their testimony, accepted the Truth, and
were baptized into Church at Lovington,
Ill., 1 June 1844.
They were grief
stricken, but unshaken in faith, when news came of the martyrdom of Joseph and
Hyrum Smith at Carthage Jail, Hancock Co., Ill.
This tragedy occurred less than a month after they were baptized and not
more than two hundred miles away.
In the spring of
1846, they were feverishly preparing to follow the leadership of the
illustrious colonizer, Brigham Young, into the wilderness. This exodus of the Love family was hastened
by mob-violence. They were notified by
an armed band to quit Moultrie
County at once.
Some of their
erstwhile neighbors and friends, led by wicked men had determined to
exterminate the Mormons. On this
frontier and others, there were hardened criminals who had fled from eastern
states to escape just punishment by law.
This element became leaders in the atrocities against peace-loving
Mormons, at the martyrdom and, also, in the driving the Saints from their homes
in this and in other states.
When Andrew Love was
assailed by mob hysteria, he would have lost his life, if it had not been for
the prompt action of courageous friends, who among whom were Charles Bryan and
John Cazier. The latter, who was known
to be a dead shot, stationed himself at the door with a gun leveled at the
leaders of the on-coming mob. Fortunately,
prompt action stayed the assassins’ bullets.
Mr. Bryan, though not
a Mormon at that time, was a close friend.
He shouted at the mobocrats, “If you drive Andy Love out of this county,
I go too.” Mr. Bryan had at hand a
horse, saddled and bridled on which Andrew escaped into nearby cornfields.
Thus it was, with
their little daughter, Andrew and Nancy
journeyed forth with the body of the Church to secure religious freedom. It was an age-old experience, but not one to
be expected in the new world under a government specifically guaranteeing the
right to worship God, according to the dictates of conscience.
Andrew did not
receive as much as a penny for his three hundred rich acres and the
improvements he had made in more then a decade of hard work.
The four children
that reared were grown up and it is assumed that they were married when Andrew
and Nancy became Mormons. Only one,
James Otis Bigelow, united with the church.
He and his wife, Elizabeth Cazier, traveled west later, making their
home along side the Loves.
John Love remained at
Lovington. In Andrew’s diary, spring of
1854, is this statement, “Received a letter from my brother John. They are well. He is merchandising in Lovington and doing
well.”
When Andrew and Nancy
were expelled from Illinois, they crossed the
Mississippi River at Fort Madison, arriving at Highland Grove on Keg Creek, Iowa
in August where they passed the winter of 1846.
Early the next spring, Andrew went to St. Louis, Missouri
to procure an outfit for the journey across the plains. He returned with three good stout wagons,
teams, provisions, clothing, and necessary supplies.
On 9 June, 1847 they
left Highland Grove for the West. After
they ferried the Missouri river at Winter Quarters, and also the Elk Horn
River, they camped where
the companies were being assembled in semi-military manner, preparatory to the
grand exodus.
“The organization
into Hundreds and Fifties and Tens needs explanation to be correctly
understood. It was a count neither of
the number of wagons, nor of families, nor of the total number of individuals,
but rather of the able-bodied men; those who were able to carry arms, handle
teams and cattle, act as guards and perform other services in protecting and
providing for the aged and infirm, and the women and children.”
The Love family
traveled in the third company organized, Captain Jedediah M. Grant’s Hundred,
Joseph B. Noble’s Fifty, and Josiah Miller’s Ten. One of Andrew’s teams was driven by himself,
the second team was driven by Nancy
and the third by a hired boy.
In this trek, they
relied upon their God for protection when beset by accidents, attacked by
marauding savages, or molested by wild animals.
They endured the hardships of the journey with fortitude, accepting its
pleasures with thanksgiving.
Nancy Love had the
misfortune to fall out of her wagon one day when the road was unusually
rough. The wheels passed over her
body. Elders were called to administer
to her. Because of her great faith in
God, the broken ribs were knit, the wounds were healed at once and she
continued her journey in comfort. The
family has known of this all along, but of late the miracle has had unexpected
verification.
Eliza R. Snow, a
gifted poet and writer, in her book, “From Kirtland to Salt Lake City, “ on
page 40 states; “A Sister Love was run over by a wagon loaded with 1600
pounds. Wheel ran over her breast. She was administered to and was around again
in a day or two.” The Improvement Era,
December 1943 issue, under the caption, “Pioneer Diary of Eliza R. Snow,”
prints, “Sister Love is run over with a heavy loaded wagon.” This was dated Thursday, 19 August 1847; two
days later, Saturday, 21 August, “This morning I heard that Sister Love sat up
and combed her hair. This is truly a
manifestation of the power of God.”
Andrew and Nancy
arrived in Salt Lake Valley 4 Oct. 1847, ahead of the winter. They were among the twelve or sixteen hundred
Saints then in the valley. They located
in what is now Pioneer
Park in the 6th
ward. It was a walled-in space called
the Fort, built for protection against Indians.
The first home in the
west was a house made after the style used by the Spanish with adobe, sixteen
inches long, eight inches wide and four thick.
For flooring, Andrew used a wagon bed.
The roof was made of poles, grass and dirt! When winter came with its heavy winds, snows
and rains, the roof collapsed; again they were homeless, but undaunted.
In early spring,
1848, the next home was made of logs as well as adobe, located on a city lot in
the 7th Ward outside of the Fort.
The log cabin measured 16 by 19 feet and the adobe room was 32 by 16
feet, built on the corner of 6th South and West
Temple.
Nancy’s
second daughter, Mary Ellen Love Neff, whose life was a poem of good works,
lived into her ninety-third year. She
was born in this house 18 April 1850.
Here, Andrew and
Nancy took part in the unique experience known as the War on Crickets. Food stores, that the pioneers brought with
them, were almost exhausted, spring of 1848.
Life itself depended on crops.
Suddenly, clouds of huge crickets blackened the sky; wherever they
lighted to feed, the promising fields were stripped of leaves. Colonists battled with every weapon known to
them; man, women, and children made heroic efforts to kill the insects, but
nothing they did, stayed the on-coming scourge.
Fighting ceased, they knelt in fervent pleas to God to banish the
invaders. Immediately, myriads of white
winged sea gulls flew in from the west.
The gulls ate their fill of black crickets, disgorged all they had
eaten, ate again ravenously, repeating the process until the pests were
destroyed. Enough life-sustaining crops
were harvested to furnish winter subsistence.
A Miracle of God had saved the sincere religionists from starvation.
A few years after the
pioneers arrived, the need for iron became acute. It was necessary in their manufacturing
projects, building, irrigation, farming.
Scouts reported mountains of iron in Southern Utah. Brigham Young visualized a great iron
industry. He took steps to colonize what
was called Little Salt Lake Valley in Iron
County, several hundred miles south of
Salt Lake City. It was a hazardous venture in the dead of
winter. The first company consisted of a
few intrepid souls under the able leadership of George A. Smith, later
counselor to Brigham Young. Andrew and
Nancy Love were among those who were called to this mission. When the baby, Mary Ellen, was eight months
old, they set forth in icy winter. It
was the fifteenth day of December 1850; this caravan took to the covered
wagons.
Andrew built a log
cabin near what is now Parowan, planted and reaped a crop of essential
foods. Conditions were disappointing;
they lacked equipment and machinery for mining and smelting iron ore. Also, the industry needed men who knew the
business of iron making. They were
released from that mission fall of 1851.
In many respects,
this journey for the Loves, entailed more suffering than did the crossing of
the plains; because of zero weather, heavy snows and rains, dangerous passes,
deep ravines and sliding hills.
At this time these
southern valleys, Indian tribes would steal children from an enemy tribe to
sell them to the whites. Caleb was the
name given an Indian boy about nine, sold to Andrew. As savages were cruel to such children, it
was kindness to purchase them and provide them with homes. Andrew and family traveled northward and
stopped at Provo
where they bought a cabin and spent the winter.
In Feb. 1852, they
took to the road north, settling in Juab Co., near Nephi, now Mona, then called
Clover or Willow Creek. As usual a cabin
was built and crops planted. Corn was
growing tall, along came heavy winds.
Next morning the stalks were lying flat.
Andrew was discouraged, but Nancy
did not despair; instead, she suggested that they try to make the corn stand
up. He replied hopelessly, “It will not
grow.” She went out and began to stand
the stalks upright, tamping the soil close to the roots. Seeing her success, he went to her aid until
all stalks were upstanding. The result
was they harvested a good crop.
Mona, then a four
family farming community, was surrounded by friendly Indians who later became
hostile. It was wild country; for that
September Andrew, with the aid of neighbors, killed a grizzly bear in the
vicinity. Later in the autumn, a white
man who chanced to be hunting in the neighborhood was killed by savages.
In November, Nancy became ill. It was said to be erysipelas. She grew steadily worse and in mid-life died,
27 November 1852. Under strange skies in
this desolate spot, she was buried the next day, it being Sunday. Officiating at the funeral, was her Captain
of Ten, Josiah Miller, and she was honored by the presence of friends from
Nephi. The husband and children had lost
their comforter, their best friend!
A press notice of the
day lauds her ready sympathy and wide spread friendships. It said that her natural skill as a nurse had
taken her into the homes of neighbors and friends to minister unto them
whenever sickness prevailed. Also, it was
said of Nancy
that she was a good housekeeper, that she was lovable, a sunny soul who
delighted in company and entertained graciously.
Brigham Young advised
the families of Mona to abandon their homes and flee to nearby Nephi which they
did 18 July 1853. Would it not please Nancy to know that her
husband and children, with the Indian child, now a baptized member of the
group, were safe within the Nephi Fort?
The building of this wall was supervised by Andrew, being completed 30
Nov. 1854. It was to provide safety from
attack by, internationally known, Chief Walker and his braves.
Is Nancy happy knowing that a granddaughter has
served with distinction for two decades in a deanship at the institution of
learning founded by her beloved friend and leader, Brigham Young? Does she rejoice that a grandson lived to
pen, “History of Utah,” a monumental work, a history of her people, the origin
of her church, the early day settlement of Utah which will live as long as history is
read?
Without doubt, Nancy wishes that each
who follows in her line shall leave a mark for good. Thus, shall the splendor of her loyalty,
courage, faith in God, live on, glowingly!
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