Hans Jacob Arnoldus & Inger Sophia Frederikka Sorensen

1810-1889   1842-1920

Hans Jacob Arnoldus was born 8 May 1810 in Bornholm, Denmark to Jockumsen Arnoldus and Johanna Christensen.   He first married Marie Larsen on the 24th of February 1830. They were later divorced.   He later married Hedevig Clausen on the 12 Feb 1857, they were later divorced. Hans joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on 24 June 1867.

Inger Sophia Frederikka Sorensen was born 10 May 1842 in Copenhagen, Denmark to Carl August Renaldo Sorensen and Frederikka Wilhelmine Bugge.   
Inger was a convert to the Latter-day Saint Church and was baptized 10 April 1867.

Later that summer in the far-off land of Copenhagen, Denmark, Hans Jacob Arnoldus and Inger Sophia Fredrikka Sorensen joined hands in matrimony on the 1st of July 1867.   In 1868, along with their six month old daughter, Eliza Josephine, they sailed to America.   They chose to make their home in Moroni, Utah. In Moroni they had seven more children:   Margaret Christina, Hans Jacob, Sophia Johannah, Carl Issac, Anna Maria, Abraham, Andrew Hansen.   

When the children were young they learned all the chores and duties of farm life.   They worked in the fields with their father, putting in many long, hard hours.   The girls also learned the arts of cooking, milking cows, and tending a garden.   The children attended the Moroni schools and received a fair education.

They built one of the nicest brick homes in Moroni.   Hans Jacob later followed the Prophet’s revelation and married a second wife, Dorthea Majane Daniels, also from Denmark, on 24 November 1874 in the Endowment House, in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Hans Jacob died the 7th of December 1889 in Moroni, Utah.   Inger Sophia lived for many more years.   Inger Sophia moved to Cody, Wyoming to be near her son Hans Jacob, who had a hide and fur business there. She died the 10th of March 1920 in Lovell, Big Horn County, Wyoming.   She was buried in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Sophia Johannah Arnoldus Bradley

Sophia Johannah Arnoldus Bradley 1874-1922 Many years ago in the far-off land of Copenhagen, Denmark, Hans Jacob Arnoldus and Inger Sophia Fredricka Sorensen joined hands in matrimony on the 1st of July 1867.   Both Hans Jacob and Inger Sophia were born in Denmark.   They had joined the church in the spring of 1867.   In 1868, along with their six month old daughter, Eliza Josephine, they sailed to America.   They chose to make their home in Moroni, Utah. In Moroni they had seven more children. Sophia Johannah was born 14 September 1874 in Moroni, Utah. Some of the records list her as Sophia Johannah and others refer to her as Johannah Sophia, it is not known which is correct.   The Moroni cemetery records list her as Sophia Johannah.    Sophia Johannah, as a young girl, learned all the chores and duties of farm life.   She with her siblings worked in the fields with their father, putting in many long, hard hours.   The girls also learned the arts of cooking, milking cows, and tending a garden.   The children attended the Moroni schools and received a fair education. Sophia Johannah was a beautiful woman.   As a young woman she earned the title of “Miss Moroni” She married James Otis Bradley on the 5th of December 1895, and they settled in Moroni.   They were sealed in the Manti Temple on 3 April 1918. They had seven children: James (who only lived a few months), William Otis, Mark, Ora Sophia, Clifford Henry, Anna Elizabeth and Helen. They had a large farm and grew mostly sugar beets, but also grain and alfalfa. Sophia did not have good health.   She had heart problems and died from a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 47 on 27 March 1922.   She left James Otis with six children to raise on his own. The youngest, Helen, was just two years old. The older sisters cared for the younger ones in their nice, five room, brick home in Moroni.   They lived kitty corner from the chapel, the tithing office, the post office and the town marshal.

James Otis Bradley Obituary and Gravestone

James Otis Bradley

James Otis Bradley
1870-1943


James Otis Bradley was a great-grandson of George Washington Bradley, an early ancestral pioneer born in New York who came west with the Saints after he found the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Soon after his family’s arrival in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake, Brigham Young “called” him to go and help settle the Sanpete Valley, where he became the first bishop in Moroni and also served as that city’s “president” for the next 18 years. 

With the Bradleys having established such a strong presence in the Sanpete area—where more and more Bradleys lived and died over the next several generations—it should not be surprising that James Otis’s parents, George Henry and Elizabeth Angeline Love Bradley, were also living there 135 years ago when he made his journey to earth from the spirit world, landing in Moroni on Wednesday, 9 February 1870. 

So James Otis grew up in Moroni in Sanpete County, where he met and married his sweetheart, Johannah Sophia Arnoldus. Her family had put down their roots in the same place after having joined the Church and migrated westward to be with the Saints in Zion.

Today James Otis and Johannah Sophia Arnoldus Bradley have a large posterity of faithful children, grandchildren, and so on. Many of those still living today who knew him in life have fond memories of him.


One of these was reported by Verdeen and Ronald Bradley. Ronald recalls that when he was about three years old and Verdeen eight they often rode sitting on the floor of a wagon pulled by two horses with their father, Clifford, and grandfather, James Otis, sitting on the wagon seat. Ronald remembers how excited he was about being able to go with them because he thought he would be allowed to stay and help his father work on the farm—probably thinning beets.

Ron, who still lives in Moroni today, remembers vividly that they traveled south on Turkey Plant Road from Grandfather’s home and then went west to get to the farm. But as soon as they arrived, Grandfather said he had better take them home, so he left the wagon for Clifford and started up the road with the children. This upset Ronald terribly because he had thought both he and Verdeen would be able to stay at Grandfather’s for the night. Several blocks from the farm as they traveled along the road they passed Russ Bailey’s farm, which had an abundance of peas growing. Grandfather took them in and helped them get some handfuls of peas and then continued home. It was several miles to his house.

Arriving at Grandfather’s home, they were given thick slices of homemade bread with molasses and sugar sprinkled on top. Ronald remembers it was very good. Then Grandfather said they were to go straight home because their mother would probably need them. So Verdeen took Ronald and walked nearly a mile further to get to their own house.

Verdeen recalls that Grandfather was called “Ottie” by his friends and that he whistled and hummed a lot. Many remember him for that. In fact, he was known for his whistling and singing, whether at home or in the business section of town. One speaker at his funeral stated that “he was truly great because it is only a great man who can whistle his troubles away.”

His son Clifford carried on his tradition of whistling and people would know he was coming before they saw him because they could hear him whistling. 


James Otis had a large farm on which he grew mostly sugar beets but also grain and alfalfa. He had two horses named Rock and Rye, and they were the best horses in all of Moroni, Ralph recalls. He also had a cow, some chickens, and a pig or two. The chickens were not cooped up but were left to wander all over the farm at will. But they laid their eggs in the barn and Ralph remembers having collected them there. Then Grandfather let him trade one for an all-day sucker. Grandfather’s farm also had a great garden with an abundance of turnips and peas, which the children loved to eat raw.

Grandma Bradley, James Otis’s wife, Johannah Sophia Arnoldus, passed away in 1922 when Ralph was scarcely two years old, leaving James with six children (three boys and three girls) to raise on his own. After “Sophie” died, James’s daughter Beth cared for him and the rest of the children in his nice, five-room, brick home in Moroni, which was located kitty corner from the chapel, the tithing office, the post office, and the town marshal. Ralph remembers that Grandfather’s house had a large swing in the tree, which the children loved to swing on.   Mealtime at Grandfather’s always featured meat, potatoes, and milk gravy. Sometimes they had liver and onions, which the kids didn’t like. 

The house was surrounded by a nice, white, picket fence, through which they watered their lawn with irrigation water by flooding the whole lawn whenever it was their turn to take water. Inside the house they had an old Edison record player, which operated by cranking it up before playing it. The sound came out through a large horn that sat atop the apparatus.

The grandchildren loved to climb up on Grandfather’s big mahogany bed and lie on his thick and comfy straw tick. They’ll never forget the marble slab that adorned the top of the chest of drawers. 

Ralph remembers that during the beet harvest Grandfather would take him for a ride on his horse, complete with what it felt like to sit atop the horse pushing in with his right or left knee to turn the horse in either direction. Because he was so small, there wasn’t really much else he could do to help with the work.


Even the children remember how very happy Grandfather always was. He was constantly whistling and when people heard him coming they would holler out, “Here comes Oat!”

In later years James Otis had a job in Fountain Green maintaining road shoulders. His grandson Ralph used to ride with him on his maintenance runs and thought it pretty neat to be able to work with Grandfather.

Grandpa Bradley was always generous to his children and their families. It must have been hard for him to see his daughter-in-law Nida struggle financially when his son William Otis, who had all but deserted her and her children, failed to send his monthly allowance of $20.00 for their support. He was working and living in Oregon and did not appear to intend to come back to Moroni to be with his family. It was that year, 1928, that Grandpa Bradley loaned Nida $5.00 so she would not have to disappoint her children, Ralph and Betsy, for Christmas.

It was on a Sunday, 3 October 1943, that James Otis Bradley quietly passed away at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Don Nielson, in Provo, Utah. Funeral services were held in the West Ward chapel in Moroni. An unusually large number of relatives and friends came to pay their respects to the man whom they held in the highest esteem. He was interred in the Moroni City Cemetery, as was the custom with the Bradley family who had come there 95 years earlier after being called by Brigham Young to settle the Sanpete Valley

William Otis Bradley

William Otis Bradley 1897-1986 William Otis Bradley was born in Moroni, Utah, on 2 February 1897 to James Otis and Johanna Sophia Arnoldus Bradley, the second son in a family of seven children. Otis, as he was called, came from good pioneer stock, his great-grandfather George Washington Bradley having served as the first Bishop in Moroni and also as the town president for eighteen years.  Otis worked at a local firm known as the Moroni Co-op. It was there he met and began to date Nida Hales, who, after only two years of high school had also gone to work there to help her family’s financial situation. Nida had dated many young men previous to that time, but in Otis she felt she had finally found the one the Lord intended for her. By the fall of 1918 they were dating steadily and planned to be married the next spring. But early that same fall a serious flu epidemic broke out that plagued the entire nation. It was so severe that all public gatherings such as school, church meetings, picture shows, and dances were closed down. Otis and Nida had often attended the Wednesday and Saturday night dances so were now forced to cultivate their relationship in other ways while they waited for the flu epidemic to subside—and for the ban on the temple to be lifted. The Manti Temple reopened the first week of March, and it was in that first week after the closure, on 12 March 1919, that Nida and Otis went there to be married. Their first home was in the front part of the James M. Christensen home.  Unfortunately for Nida, her marriage got off to a much different start than she had dreamed of since she was a girl. Despite Otis’s having qualified to go to the temple, he was not truly converted to the gospel. His mother died shortly after he was married, so the responsibility fell to his widowed father and his sisters to give him spiritual support in his new patriarchal calling. He floundered because of his lack of leadership sense and this deficiency   was immediately apparent to Nida when he did not “preside” over her in his new home. Each night, for example, Nida prayed alone then had to persuade Otis to pray with her—but she always had to be mouth. When Otis and Nida’s first child, a son, Ralph Otis Bradley, was born to them on 24 Feb 1920, Nida’s first concern was how she could successfully teach him to “return home” to Father in Heaven. His had been a rough delivery, which led to her prolonged sickness, requiring that she receive continuous care from her family. Ralph was a big baby and was hard to feed. Then Nida nearly died giving birth on 5 May 1921 to her second child, a girl whom they named Betsy, after Nida’s mother. Both children were born in Moroni. Otis left the Moroni Co-op and went to work for People’s Sugar Company, where he boiled sugar all day. He liked that kind of work but it was seasonal, which meant moving around from job to job in the off months. Otis and Nida bought a building lot from his Aunt Eliza Bradley just one block west of the Moroni Co-op, between her home and Otis’s father’s home. The moved from their first house in the Christensen home into a two-room lumber house they had purchased from Nida’s Uncle Alma Blackham and moved onto their new lot. They dug a basement and a foundation with a floor and were happy when they moved into their very own home. The following spring Otis was laid off at the sugar company, so he went to Salt Lake and found a position as a meat cutter, a trade he had learned from Lawrence Larson at the Moroni Co-op. Once settled, Nida also moved to Salt Lake with the children. There they rented a furnished house at 245 Hampton Avenue, across the street from Nellie Morley’s family, another of Nida’s relatives. Late that summer the sugar factory in Moroni contacted Otis asking him to return in the fall to Moroni to boil sugar for them again, so he accepted the offer and they moved back home.  They were happy to be around family again in Moroni, but shortly after Thanksgiving Otis was laid off once more, and they were out of work—again. Otis wasted no time trying to find employment back in Salt Lake but nothing was available, so he went to McGill, near Ely, Nevada, where he was able to get another job as a meat cutter. The family followed by train the following January, but they only stayed about a year in McGill because the copper ore fumes from the nearby smelter were harmful to Betsy. She could not breathe and in the nighttime it became even worse. So Nida and the children returned to their little house in Moroni, leaving Otis to fend for himself in McGill.  The first part of October 1925 the family was reunited when they all moved to Sparks, Nevada, three miles north of Reno, where Otis had secured a position with Safeway Stores. In Sparks Nida began immediately to serve in the Church, being called as a counselor in Primary the very first month. When her father died suddenly on 7 May 1927, she and the children went home for the funeral and when they returned, they found that Otis had been transferred to Safeway’s large store in Reno as manager over the entire store. It was a good career move for him.  To facilitate Otis’s new position, the family moved to Reno. But they did not like it there because the school was too far away for Ralph to walk. So they moved back to Sparks, where Ralph could walk to school. They did not have a car at the time and the small town was much more convenient. It was not difficult for Otis to get to work from Sparks because a street car went every 30 minutes to Reno and returned about as often. It stopped just a half block from their home in Sparks and one block from the Safeway store in Reno, and the fare was very reasonable. Over the next several years the Bradley family moved again and again, during which time Otis mysteriously began to distance himself from Nida and the children, even living apart from them for long periods of time. In July 1928, he asked for a transfer to Santa Barbara so moved there on his own, leaving his family in Sparks to facilitate their own move back to Moroni, where it was agreed they would go. He left for California on July 5 without even saying goodbye to his children.  In the ensuing months Nida suffered in private because of the outcome of her marriage, but she constantly prayed for Otis’s return.   California did not prove to be a good venture for him, though, so he moved on and found an opportunity to cut meat in Portland, Oregon, where he ultimately opened his own butcher shop. For a while Otis sent $20 a month to Nida, from which she always paid $2 in tithing the very first thing. When her Christmas check didn’t arrive that year, however, Nida borrowed $5 from Grandpa Bradley so her family would have a Christmas. Then in May 1929 she suffered another heartbreak when a parcel post package arrived with Otis’s garments and the church books the local missionaries had given to him when they tried to reactivate him in the Church. Nida and her children were invited to go and live with Aunt Nellie Blackham Morley in Salt Lake City. During that time she visited Otis once in Portland to try to get him to come back to her, but it was no use, so she had to face the ugly reality that she was totally on her own.  After making a few modifications to Nellie’s basement, Nida set up housekeeping on a shoestring, and her cousin Doris got her a job at Auerbach’s, which enabled her to now carry some of the financial responsibility for her family. All this while Doris, despite her rheumatoid arthritis,   maintained her usual cheerful spirit, which proved to be a real boon to Nida. Life was bearable, and ultimately even enjoyable, at Nellie’s, but Nida so longed to have her family back together again. Though her husband was gone she was at least able to help pay the rent now that she had her job at Auerbach’s. But shortly after Thanksgiving Otis wrote asking for a divorce—which broke Nida’s heart. After the divorce, Otis married Ofa Anna Marts and he ended up having lived much of his adult life with her in Oregon. In Portland Otis owned his own meat market and was a great success. His son, Ralph, recalls that he had real people skills, which was partially why he did so well in his own business. Otis saw very little of his family after his divorce from Nida. Ralph was 35 years old before he had any kind of a relationship with him. Once when he was in Boise, Idaho, on a business trip he felt impressed to drive over to Portland, Oregon, to see his dad. They had a good visit and were able to get re-acquainted with each other. Years later, after his wife died, Otis called Ralph and said he would like to move back to Moroni, Utah, to live with his brother Cliff and his wife, Rhea. So Ralph sent his sons Craig and Jim up to Oregon to help with the move. There they rented a U-Haul truck and brought their grandfather down to Moroni with all his things.  Otis had bought Cliff and Rhea a home in Moroni, which he had given them as a gift, but things didn’t work out for him to live with them for very long so Otis built a small addition on his nephew Ron’s house and lived there for several years. Ralph often took two of his daughters, Barbara and Lisa, down to Moroni to see Otis and to take him to lunch. He particularly liked the food at a favorite restaurant in Ephraim. They enjoyed those trips because it gave them a chance to nurture him and show love and concern for him. And their efforts proved successful because Otis was really trying hard to become active in the Church again. He was obeying the commandments, including paying his tithing, but he needed to qualify for a temple recommend, which didn’t seem to be forthcoming.  Ralph learned that his father had been struggling with some past things he wanted to “clean up” in his life and didn’t quite know how to go about doing it. He talked to his bishop and asked for his help, but the bishop wasn’t very responsive, so nothing happened. Finally, Ralph intervened and talked to the bishop’s wife and she encouraged the bishop to move things along, which he did, and Otis finally got his temple recommend. After he moved to Salt Lake Ralph had the privilege of performing the sealing of his deceased second wife, Ann, to him in the Salt Lake Temple. (Nida, Ralph’s natural mother and Otis’s first wife, who was sealed to him initially in the Manti Temple, had that sealing canceled when she was married and sealed to her second husband, John A. Donaldson.) In Salt Lake, Ralph bought a trailer home for Otis to live in and they parked it near the Bradleys’ store so he could easily go back and forth to where Ralph’s family members worked. They all enjoyed having him around. He was, in fact, a great help to them all the while he lived there, partially because of his own past experience in business.  About the time Ralph and Mildred were called on their mission to North Carolina Otis’s health was beginning to fail so they assigned their daughter Barbara to care for him regularly during their absence. She took him “out and about” each day to run errands and tend to personal needs. Later, when she was no longer able to keep up with his physical demands, the family moved him to the Salt Lake Home on 200 North, and he lived there until he died on 24 June 1986 at age 89. After having been away from Utah and the majority of his family and friends for so many years, Otis felt blessed to spend the last six years of his mortal life “back home” again in Utah. It was only fitting that, even though he was living in Salt Lake at the time of his passing, he should be buried “back home” in the Moroni City Cemetery.  Having reconciled himself again with his Father in Heaven, his children have every reason to one day see him “back home” again in the Bradley Family Mansion, filling his own chair among the others whose hearts have been—and are still being—turned to him.

Martha Robinson Blackham

Martha Robinson Blackham

1807-1888

  Martha Robinson was born 22 March 1807 in Heaton Norris, Lancashire, England.   She was the fourth of ten children born to James and Elizabeth Perry Robinson.   Martha had six sisters and three brothers.

        Heaton Norris was a very tiny area near the town of Stockport, which is now a suburb of Manchester.   Stockport, even today, is a very beautiful area with cobblestone streets and many flowers growing everywhere.   It is very green and has rolling countryside.   Open-air shops line the cobblestone streets where people sell their wares.

      Oliver Cromwell, a man who ruled England during a time when the English people had no monarchy, owned a big estate in Stockport, which was later developed into a park for the English people to enjoy.   In all probability, Martha and her family enjoyed going to that park and seeing all the relics of long ago that are on display there.

        Manchester was also an industrial area of England.   Many worked in the cotton factories, which spun cloth.   Some worked in the iron foundries and sawmills.

        Martha married Samuel Blackham when they were both 22 years old.   Samuel was born in January 1807 in Sedgley, Staffordshire, England, to Samuel and Lucy Evans Blackham.   They settled in Heaton Norris and to this couple were born seven children; John, James, William, Samuel, Elizabeth, Sarah, and Thomas.  

        Samuel Blackham was a Whitesmith, which according to a dictionary is a tinsmith, a finisher, a polisher or galvanizer of iron and a blacksmith.   On his oldest son's wedding certificate he said he was a nail maker.

        When Martha was 40, Mormon missionaries including Brother John Taylor and C. H. Wheelock contacted the Blackham family and taught them the fulness of Jesus Christ’s Gospel.   Martha was baptized 23 May 1847 by John Lees and confirmed 26 May 1847 by John Albiston, Jr.   When she was baptized in England, the first company of Mormon pioneers in America were wending their way across the plains to the valleys of the Rocky Mountains.

        It is reported by the family, but documentation is scant, that Samuel Blackham, Sr. elected to avoid Church membership.   Family tradition says he wanted "The Pub" more than Mormonism and parted with his family.   Samuel was not with his family on the 1851 census.   Samuel Blackham died in a work house on 3 March 1854 of smallpox, he was only 47 years old.

        By 1848, Martha and her children moved 5 miles northeast to the Ashton-Under-Lyne district and lived on Hertford Street, Walkmill, Audensaw.   It was here that some more of the family were baptized into the LDS Church.  

        Martha lost two of their children while living in Ashton-Under-Lyne.   In 1850, William died of hematemesis at age 17, vomiting blood for a duration of two days.   He had married just the year before and was a factory hand.   Two and a half years later Elizabeth at the age of 17 and a weaver in the cotton mills, died of meningitis.   Life must have been very difficult for the Blackham family.   Neither William or Elizabeth had joined the church yet.

(From Sarah's history)   When Sarah Blackham was a very young girl about seven or eight, a stranger came to the back door asking for some bread. Martha explained to him that there was none left as it had all been eaten at their previous meal, but Sarah spoke up and said there was a crust or two left, to which Martha replied; “Well, if there is a crumb, give it to the man!”

At this particular moment, a young friend of Martha’s boys, Bob Mallinson was visiting at Martha’s home. Hearing the stranger’s request for bread, he invited the stranger to go to his house, where his mother had just baked that day, and she, he knew would give him a whole loaf. With these words, the stranger thanked them all and departed. Bob realized immediately that he had failed to give directions or address of his home to the stranger, so he quickly cut through the house to the front door expecting to encounter the man a he came around the house from the back door having a further distance to travel, but this was not the case. The man was nowhere in the immediate vicinity, but was clear up the street, knocking on the very door that Bob had meant he should.

As the stranger knocked on her door, Ophelia Mallinson, Bob’s mother, was just combing her hair preparatory to going to the shop to purchase the necessities that was needed to sustain her family. She sat at the dressing table pondering as to how she could stretch this last bit of money she had in the world, which was a sovereign. Shocked out of her reverie by the knock, Ophelia answered the door, brush in hand, and the clean neatly dressed stranger, instead of asking for bread as it had been suggested he would, asked for the exact amount of which she had, “a sovereign”. Mrs. Mallinson said, “God Love Ye, but ‘tis the last cent I have in this world and I was only just now trying to think of how I could make it go the furtherest.” Whereupon the neat young man thanked her and as she shut the door, the most disappointed feeling came over her that a must unusual reaction enveloped. She suddenly exclaimed; “My God, what have I done? I’ll gee it ‘the man,” and quickly thrust open the door to extend it to him, ere he got down the steps, but he was nowhere to be seen. She went to every house, on each side of the street, her hair down and brush still in hand, weeping and asking each and every resident if they had seen such a person, until she at last came to Martha Blackham’s door, telling her story once more. When her son Bob heard this, he told her that he had sent the stranger to her for some bread, as he knew she had just baked and would give him some. To this she quickly agreed she would have been only too glad to have given him a loaf of bread if he would have just asked.

Martha later firmly believed this stranger to be one of the “three Nephites” told about in the Book of Mormon, because it was not too long after this incident had occurred, that Sarah became very ill. She had contracted three dread diseases, any one of which were killers in those days, and the doctors had given up all hope, saying that only a miracle could save her now, and it would have to be a king sized one at that.

One sad morning, Ophelia Mallinsen was over comforting Martha, through her trying ordeal. The two women sat smoking their pipes, weeping in desolation at being unable to help a loved one in such a time of need, a most dreadful feeling of helplessness and sorrow. They wept in silence and bitterness as Sarah was in her room upstairs, just over the kitchen and she was not to be disturbed, because they knew how every little sound grated on the nerves of their loved one. As Sarah lay quietly, she heard the outside kitchen door open and close. Footsteps tracked across the kitchen floor till they reached the stair door, (the only entrance to the upstairs rooms.) The stair door opened and closed and Sarah counted the footsteps as they ascended the stairs one by one, till they reached the top, then they came nearer and nearer until they reached her door. As the door opened it revealed the stranger who had come to her house just a few months previous. It did not occur to Sarah to be afraid as he entered the room, because there came with him such a wonderful feeling of well-being. He walked over to her bed, laid his hand upon her head and said;”you’re a very sick girl, aren’t you?” to which Sarah answered; “Yes!” He then told her that in his church of which he was a member, they administered to the sick and afflicted by the laying on of hands, and if the person receiving the blessing had faith enough, he or she would get well. Did she have enough faith? Sarah being full of the wonderful feeling that this man seemed to have brought with him, said; “I know I’ll get well, if only you will pray for me.” At her reply, the man brought forth a small horn, which was filled with consecrated oil described by him as a part of the administration. He rubbed some on her forehead and both arms, blessing her with a most wonderful blessing all the while stroking the oil on her arms for a short while longer and then told her she was going to be alright now. He then turned opened, closed the door behind him, and left. Sarah arose, got dressed and descended the stairs herself. As soon as she opened the downstairs door to enter the kitchen her mother thought she was delirious, but Sarah told them she was better, the nice man had made her so.

        Martha and her remaining children had a strong desire to gather to Zion and with the Perpetual Emigration Fund they were all able to.   

 

        In the territory of Utah, the Perpetual Emigration Company was organized to help the Latter-Day Saints in Europe emigrate to America.   The funds were loaned to each applicant who was then responsible to repay the loan after arriving in Utah.   Emigrants were to give their name, age, occupation, birthplace, and a deposit of one pound sterling.   They were expected to provide their own bedding and cooking utensils.   Food was arranged for them.  

        Martha's two oldest sons came to America first.   James Blackham sailed in 1853 on the ship "Elvira Owen".   John Blackham with his wife, Susannah, and two children sailed in 1855 on the ship "Samuel Curling."

        Martha had been a member of the Church for nine years when she left home and friends for the sake of the Gospel on 25 May 1856.   Martha 49 with her three remaining children, Samuel 21, Sarah 16, and Thomas 14, along with 800 saints set sail on the ship “Horizon” at Liverpool.

        The "Horizon" was a large ship for the time, having three masts, three decks, and a square stern and figurehead.   The Saints were well organized for the voyage.   They were divided into nine wards, with nine cooks and ten men at watch.   Cold and foggy weather prevailed for most of the journey, but the "Horizon” made good speed.   They were on the ocean five weeks and four days, landing in Boston 3 July 1856.

        They took the train for Iowa, arriving there on July 8th. The distance from the train to camp was about four miles.   They were tired of riding, so they gladly walked the distance.   They had not gone far before a thunderstorm drenched them and everything they were carrying.   Night came on them, and their clothes were wet, so they stood up all night.   This was their first experience in traveling to Zion on foot.

        When they reached the outfitting camp in Iowa City, they found no handcarts were ready and all the seasoned lumber with which to make them had been used.   This was because the camp had already outfitted three other handcart companies that year, and now, late in the season, a large group needed outfitting.   Counting the Thornton Saints, 1,620 persons needed handcarts or ox trains.   Martha with the rest of the company had to remain in Iowa about a month waiting until more carts could be made, and they had to be made from green wood.   Finally 260 carts were ready and it was on July 15th that 500 left with Captain James G. Willie’s Fourth Company and on July 26th the remaining 576, under the leadership of Captain Edward Martin’s 5th Company.

        Martha and family left Iowa City, July 26, 1856, in the Edward Martin’s Company.   There were 146 carts, 7 wagons, 30 oxen, 50 cows and beef cattle for their group.   Behind them were two ox trains with Captain W. B. Hodgett in command.   Each person was allowed 17 pounds of clothing and bedding.   The Martin Handcart Company was the last of five handcart companies to leave Iowa City that year.

(From Sarah Blackham's history)

The road across Iowa was good and the journey, though made through heat and dust, was accomplished without unusual difficulties.   A few dropped out en route, to wait more propitious traveling, or to forsake the project entirely.   The journey to Florence Neb, 277 miles was made in a little less than four weeks. Willie’s Company reaching there August 11th, and Martin’s on the 22nd of Aug.   Here each company was delayed for repairs.   We held a mass meeting there to decide whether or not to take the chance of starting across so late in the season, but because of our anxiety to get to Zion we gambled on the weather and decided to take the risk. Levi Savage, who knew the journey and its hardships tried to talk us out of continuing.   When seeing that they intended to go on said: “What I have said I know to be true. But seeing you are to go forward, I will go with you; will help all I can, will work with you, will rest with you, will suffer with you, and if necessary, will die with you.   May God in his mercy bless and preserve us.”   On each cart we put an extra hundred pounds of flour and our human draft animals pulled the extra load without a complaint.

We pushed and pulled the handcarts, which bore up well until we crossed that invisible line that divides the humid mid west from the arid west.   Then our green carts began to warp and disintegrate and collapse.   The shrieking wooden axles were worn down under the grinding of the sand.   We had to spend each night patching, greasing the axles with soap or bacon rind, but still we hurried on, knowing that we were dangerously late.

Then something more serious happened at Wood River, a few miles above Grand Island, Nebraska.   A stampeding herd of buffalo came right through our camp, and when we finally crawled out from under the confusion, we found thirty heads of our cattle missing.   This was disaster, because this was our beef insurance for the rest of the journey, as well as draft animals to pull our heavy loads of flour.   Now the flour had to be put on the already weakened handcarts.

By now it was September and the nights were cold.   There were deaths. Our seventeen pounds of clothing and bedding was insufficient for our comfort.   The older and weaker members dropped and failed under the grind, stumbled into camp with faces drawn and set with exhaustion, and sometimes would lie down for a moment's rest and die without ever knowing how completely worn out they were. Life went out as smoothly as a lamp ceases to burn when the oil is gone.   At first the deaths occurred slowly and irregularly, but in a few days they happened at more frequent intervals, and we soon thought it unusual to leave a camp ground without burying one or more persons.   Many a father pulled his cart with his little children on it until the day preceding his death.

We arrived at Fort Laramie and were able to buy a hundred buffalo robes.   These proved to be a blessing and a curse, for while they might keep us warm at night, we could not carry them in the daytime and many threw theirs away.   When we reached Red Buttes we had to once more cross the Platte River.   It was now slushy with ice.   Dismay filled our hearts for there was no ferry and no way to get across except to walk through.   Grimly the fathers picked up their children and waded out into the river; the women picked up their skirts and waded through, like the heroines that they were, and as they had gone through many other rivers and creeks.   By the time we got to the other side we were blue, shivering and starving.   We camped for the night and when we woke up the next morning there was a foot of snow on the ground and we had to stay there.   For three days we waited, we could do nothing else.   So many died that a burial squad was appointed.   I sat looking at another young girl by the fire one evening and saw her die in the act of raising a cracker to her mouth.   A day or two later I watched while eighteen of the company were buried in one snow grave.   It was impossible to dig graves in the frozen ground.

When the storm blew out we plodded on; foot after tired foot we trudged.   We could not stop but had to keep on our patient plodding, but before we reached the Sweetwater, another three-day storm came and there we stayed.   Nobody in the group had strength enough left even to pitch a tent.   We were waiting for the end.   Five more corpses to be buried, and we could only put them in the snowdrift.   Sister Elizabeth Kingsford, alarmed because her husband did not eat his supper, wrapped him in their blankets and lay down beside him with all her clothes on.   About midnight, terribly cold, she rolled closer to him and when she put her hand on him, she knew he was dead.   She cried out but her cries brought none.   The rest of the night she lay grim and dry-eyed beside her husband's corpse; left to struggle on with her three children, without hope, almost without thought, nothing left except the indomitable spark that would not quite flicker out.   Since we had crossed the Platte River only nine days before, 56 of our company had died.

While at prayer meeting during a bitter cold night Brother Rodwell spoke in tongues.   An interpretation was given, telling that rescuers would arrive in 3 days.   On the 3rd day, Joseph A. Young and another man rode into our camp.   What a shout went up.   They brought word that there was food a few miles distant.   During the night, 19 people died.   Wolves dug up bodies of the dead from the frozen earth and devoured them.

Few oxen were left to pull the wagons.   A sick oxen was killed and the meat rationed. (from June Hoauk writings)

It was almost too late when the rescue party came. The rescue party--what a wonderful blessing, and if it had come one day later there probably would have been none of us left.   How did it happen that a rescue party found us?   Missionaries bearing news of our plight had arrived in Salt Lake City during the October Conference. They had accompanied F. D. Richards on a westward express. They went right in while Conference was in session and reported to President Young of the terrible condition of the Willie and Martin companies.   President Young promptly adjourned conference and called for wagons, supplies and volunteers. John Blackham, the brother of Sarah, who had come to the valley in 1855, was among the first that volunteered. There was no hesitancy as to what should be done. Twenty-seven young men took off with wagonloads of food, warm clothing and bedding. John Blackham and Cyrus Wheelwright’s wagon was among them. (Cyrus Wheelwright was the man that had baptized some of the Blackham family in England.) This was not an easy task for them, for they had a forced drive across three or four hundred miles of wintry mountains.   They crowded their teams recklessly day after day, looking ahead for the vanguard of walkers.   By the time they reached Fort Bridger they were seriously alarmed and would have pushed on faster but a new storm stopped them.   That was the night of October 20th.   That same night Captain Willie and one companion, frostbitten and exhausted and riding two worn-out animals, appeared out of the blizzard to tell them that if they didn't come at once there was no use to come at all.   They broke camp and started again and did not stop until they reached the Willie Company, and the night before they had reached them, nine more had died and the rest had nothing to eat for 48 hours.

The rescuers built up great fires, distributed clothing and bedding and handed out food.   They had come in time to save the lives of most of the Willie Company.   The rescuers divided, half staying with the Willie Company the others under Captain Grant continuing on to find the Martin party.   They found us on the last day of October at Greasewood Creek, sixteen miles east of Devil’s Gate. We were camped and waiting for the end, too exhausted to do more.   We had no food except a little stringy beef from draft animals that had worn themselves out in the harness and that food had made us all sick. Our clothes were almost worn out. Most of our bedding had been left behind, as it was too heavy to carry. Martha was caring for a small orphan boy, Billy Wareworth with frozen feet.   Unfortunately, he died later. It is hard to imagine the emotions of rescue, the dazed joy of being found by your own son, and snatched from the brink of the grave. It is hard to imagine that hope that has been crushed little by little until it is apparently dead can come back like life itself returning.  

Now at least things looked better.   The deaths continued, however, because of the weakened condition of our people. The rescuers helped bury the dead.   Then more rescue wagons came along with more supplies and as quickly as possible they loaded up the weakest and started them for Salt Lake City.   The survivors were so thin they almost looked like skeletons.   Only one third of us came along on our own power but it was easier because there now was a broken trail to follow and someone there to help when help was needed.   We were camped at the Devil’s Gate Fort, where we were to remain for several days.   It was decided we should move on to find a sheltered place where wood was procurable.   Loaded with the sick and dying, the wagons were to move along the Sweetwater and cross to a depression, later to be known as Martin’s Cove, about two and one-half miles from Devil’s Gate.   On November 3, the handcarts reached the river, filled with floating ice. Some pushed through, but others were unequal to the ordeal.   Three 18 year old boys (C. Allen Huntington, George W. Grant, and David P. Kimball) belonging to the relief party, came to the rescue; and to the astonishment of all who saw, carried nearly every member of that ill-fated handcart company across the snowbound stream.   The strain was so terrible, and the exposure so great, that in later years, all the boys died from the effects of it.   “That act alone said Brigham Young, will bring to those boys everlasting salvation in the Celestial Kingdom of God, worlds without end.”   The fatigued Saints finally reached the wagons encamped in the cove against the granite mountain, where they found some shelter through several freezing days. On November 6th, it was eleven degrees below zero.   It was decided to store the goods at the Fort and use the empty wagons to haul the sick and incapacitated members on to Salt Lake.   Seventeen men were assigned to stay and protect the goods till spring.   Dan W. Jones, Thomas Alexander and Ben Hampton were three of the men that stayed.   The ordeal they endured during the long winter was terrible.   Their cattle died; they ate the lean meat, and got hungry eating it.   Finally they were reduced to eating rawhide.   At first it made them sick, but Jones, a professional cook devised a plan and evolved this recipe; “Scorch and scrape the hair off; this had a tendency to kill and purify the bad taste that scalding gave it.   After scraping, boil one hour in plenty of water, throwing the water away which had extracted all the glue, then wash and let it get cold, and then eat with a little sugar sprinkled on it.   This was considerable trouble, but we had little else to do and it was better than starving.   We asked the Lord to bless our stomachs and adapt them to this food…We enjoyed this sumptuous fare for about six weeks, and never got the gout. (Improvement Era, XVII, p. 288)

When we got to Echo Canyon a child was born in one of the wagons.   One wonders how the mother survived long enough to bring him to life but she lived to arrive in Salt Lake City.   They wrapped him in the garments of one of the young rescuers and named him Echo.

The party moved forward on November 9th.   Ahead of the company, there still stretched 325 miles of high, mountain desolation, mantled in snow.   The severe cold continued and some persons had their fingers, toes, or feet frozen; others died.

Our supplies became dangerously low.   No more help had yet come.   And there was uncertainty as to when, or if, it would come.   Redick N. Allred and others refused to turn back because of the snow.   Ephraim Hanks, one of the greatest of Mormon scouts, continued to push on.   Though compelled to leave his wagonload of supplies, he pushed on alone through the storms, with a saddle horse and a pack animal, hoping to meet the westbound handcart.   On the way, he providentially encountered buffalo and killed one.   “I skinned and dressed the cow;” he writes, “then cut up part of its meat in long strips and loaded my horses with it.   Thereupon I resumed my journey, and traveled on till towards evening.   I think the sun was about an hour high in the west when I spied something in the distance that looked like a black streak in the snow.   As I got near to it, I perceived it moved; then I was satisfied that this was the long looked for handcart company, led by Captain Edward Martin.   I reached the train just as the immigrants were camping for the night.   That sight that met my gaze as I entered their camp can never be erased from my memory.   The starved forms and haggard countenances of the poor suffers, as they moved about slowly, shivering with cold, to prepare their scanty meal was enough to touch the stoutest heart.   When they saw me coming, they hailed me with joy inexpressible, and when they further beheld the supply of fresh meat I brought into camp, their gratitude knew no bounds.   Flocking around me, one would say, ‘Oh, please, give me a small piece of meat; another would exclaim, ‘My poor children are starving, do give me a little; and children with tears in their eyes would call out, “Give me some, give me some.’   At first I tried to wait on them and handed out the meat as they called for it; but finally I told them to help themselves.   Five minutes later both my horses had been released of their extra burden-the meat was all gone, and the next few hours found the people in camp busily engaged in cooking and eating it, with thankful hearts.”

Hanks went about   the camp administering to the sick.   He washed their frozen limbs with water and castile soap, until the frozen parts would fall off, after which I would sever the shreds of flesh from the remaining portions of the limbs with my scissors.   Some lost toes, others fingers, and again other whole hands and feet; one woman who now resided in Koosharen, Piute, Utah lost both her legs below the knees, and quite a number who survived became cripples for life.

(From John Blackham’s history)

The snow was 18 inches deep.   Brother Wheelock rode a horse and John was driving the wagon.   When they reached the summit of “Big Little Mountain”, they say smoke issuing from a distant grove of trees.   At first sight they thought it was Indians, but upon going nearer they saw it was the ill-fated Martin Handcart Company.   Brother Wheelock on his horse reached there first and heard Thomas cry out, “Here comes our Jack.”   Never had there been a more happy reunion.   Tears would flow from his eyes, as he would relate the story.   He said, “Never have I received a more welcome greeting.   When this help came they had no food except four pounds of flour for each person left in camp.   They had cooked rawhide to obtain some nourishment.   At one time they had buried 17 persons in a snow bank.   The survivors were so thin they almost looked like skeletons.   Little Billy Wareworth lost his father and mother.   But John’s mother, Martha, took him to her heart.   He rode with his little feet hanging over the side of the wagon and they froze, causing his death after they reached Salt Lake City.   All rode in the wagons, as they were too weak to walk.  

 

                    The Martin handcart company arrived in Salt Lake City on Sunday noon November 30, 1856 in relief wagons that now numbered 104.   President Brigham Young along with many others met them outside the city and tears of joy rolled down his face when he saw they were rescued.   The saints were taken to the Sugarhouse ward the meetings had been dismissed early.   President Brigham Young had asked the Church members to take the new converts into their homes and care for them until they could find places of their own.   The loss of life for the Martin Company was between 150 and 160.  

        Somehow Martha, Samuel, Sarah and Thomas all survived with no lasting physical problems that we know of.   They were probably taken to John's house and cared for by his wife, Susannah.   But John and Susannh were very poor and would not have had enough food to feed them all through the winter.

(From Samuel Blackham’s history)

That very winter, Martha and her family were called to help settle Nephi, in Juab County.   When she reached this place, a fort had been built for protection against the Indians and their raids.   The wall around the fort covered an area of four blocks, and inside were small homes, in one of which the family lived during the winter.   With no means of support for the winter, they lived on charity, which was meager at times.

While living in Nephi in 1857, Martha was given her patriarchal blessing by John Murdock.   She was blessed that the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, would rest upon her and be a light to guide her....She would rejoice in Christ.   Her blessing stated that she and her kindred in the flesh would become Savior on Mount Zion.  

In December of 1857, Sarah, age 18 married Charles Kemp.   Her first baby was born and died there in 1858.   Also, James’ wife, Harriet Tucker, had her third child, a son, Cyrus William Blackham, born in Nephi in 1858.   (James was living in Fillmore in 1856 so had not known about the rescue.)

In the spring of 1859, the Blackham family, along with several other families, were called to settle on the banks of the Sanpitch River in present-day Sanpete County.   When Martha first saw the green pastures in the Valley she was reminded of her beloved home in England.

The settlement, first named ‘Sanpitch,’ was renamed Moroni.   On their first day there, they met Chief San pitch, who would be both a friend and an enemy.   Along the river bottom, they built dugouts where they endured the cold winter, little food, and problems with the Indians.   In August 1859, John’s wife, Susannah, delivered a son, John Blackham, Jr., the first child born in the new settlement.   And Sarah Blackham Kemp delivered a son, Charles Kemp, Jr., in Sep 1859.

About this time, Samuel left Moroni on a special trip east to visit with the Lamb family in St. Joseph, Missouri.   He had known this family in England, for they were all members of the Manchester Conference of the Mormon Church.   The Lambs had left England in 1853, three years before the Blackham family had left, and Samuel especially wanted to visit with their daughter Mary Ann Lamb, who was now 18 years old. They courted and were married on 4 March 1860.  

Shortly thereafter, Samuel and Mary Ann moved west to Moroni, Utah.   In the spring of 1862 a disastrous flood made it necessary for the Moroni pioneers to move their settlement from the banks of the Sanpitch river up into the hills, where it would remain.

The Blackham men in Moroni, once cotton mill workers, had to learn the occupation of farming.   The land had been divided into 5-acre lots.   Ditches and canals had to be dug along the low hillsides, and the ground prepared for planting.   Finally, the harvests were hand-picked if they had not been devoured by hordes of grasshoppers.

The Moroni settlers, in the middle of this 1866 Indian War, celebrated the 24th of July.   A large willow bowery was made in front of the meetinghouse.   At sunrise, guns were fired with a beating of a snare drum.   A parade was formed at 10 a.m. of road makers, pioneers, ban, queen and 24 attendants, horsemen, guards, marching men, women and children. In all, the parade was four blocks long.   In the afternoon there were songs and speeches.   At the conclusion of the day, there was another big volley of guns.

Another entertainment the people participated in was the home dramatics, a group of talented citizens who spent the long winter months rehearsing and presenting drama productions to the townspeople.   Church services on Sundays and during the week were attended, as well as school programs, especially spelling bees.

By now Martha, had a good number of grandchildren, and it would have been pleasing to her to attend these church and community functions with family members.   A Garden Club was organized in 1869 so that citizens could exhibit their fruits and vegetables at the Pioneer Celebration on July 24th.

In the spring of 1870, Samuel and his family left the Church because of plural marriage.   They also left Moroni and finally settled in Evanston, Wyoming.   The decision of Samuel to leave the Church brought much sorrow to Martha and the rest of her family in Moroni.

A home was built for Martha through the lot from her daughter Sarah’s house.   She was very particular about her home.   The wood floors were scrubbed every week, the hearth stove in front of the fireplace was polished with sand, the copper bucket was polished until a person could see their reflection in it.   Her meals were regular and on time.  

        Martha also devoted much of her time to her Church duties, and was true to her faith all her life.

        When her daughter had a new brick home built across the street from the City Hall, a room was made for Martha.   So when Martha's eyesight became so weakened that she could not live alone, she moved in with Sarah.

        Martha died on 11 December 1888 after living in Utah for 32 years and was buried in the family plot in Moroni.

Betsey Blackham Hales & Hial Bradford Hales Marriage Certificate