History of William Burgess Jr. & Mariah Pulsipher Burgess

History of William Burgess Jr. & Mariah Pulsipher Burgess, Willie's 3rd great parents:

History of William Burgess Jr.

Born: 1 March 1822 Putnam, Washington, New York

Died: 14 March 1904 Huntington, Emery, Utah

Father: William Burgess Sr.

Mother: Violet Stockwell

1^st married: Mariah Pulsipher 1 September 1840

2^nd married: Charlotte Ann Elizabeth Liggett

Year arrived in Utah: 20 September 1848

The name of company: Brigham Young’s 2^nd  tri if p

Who wrote and submitted history: Fontella B.  Hogg, 1 April 1994

Camp name: Cardston, Alberta, Canada Centennial

Sources: family records, personal research, “Windows”

The Burgess’s first came to America at the time of the revolutionary war.  The first was John Christian.  He was the royal heir to the throne of Hessian, before when Germany was a group of principality’s rather than a country.

He left for a live of opportunity as he didn’t desire to be loyalty.  After he arrived in New England, like so many others, he decided the Americans cause was the best, so he deserted and joined forces with the Americans. 

When his uncle died and he inherited the throne of Hessian, he changed his name from Friedrich Burnges to John Christian Burgess for two purposes: first so we couldn’t be found in New York State and second so his banns for marriage to Hana Newland would be accepted.

They had a large family of 10 children, one being William known as Sr. or grandad.  This William had a son named William Jr.  This is the history of this William Jr.

William Jr.  was the chief sixth child and fifth son of William Sr. and Violet Stockwell.  He was born 1 March 1822 at Putnam, Washington, New York.

When William Jr. was 10 years old, his father and most of his family joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints.  They were l fluff iving in late George, Argyle, New York at the time.  He was baptized 2 January 1832 by his oldest brother Harrison.  If

In William Jr.’s journal he tells of his confirmation. May I quote: “there had been about 30 baptized during the week and all went to meeting Sunday to be confirmed.  We sat on three rows of benches.  I sat on the third one.  Jared Carter and Elder Cahoon were doing the confirming.  As they finished all on the first bench, the Prophet Joseph held up his hand for them to stop.  He then came directly to me, laid his hands on my head and confirmed me.  Then he told the brethren to continue and he went back to the stand.  I lived in the Smith home for about two years and learn much by hearing the Prophet talk.”

He goes on to say that the profit told him he felt he, William Jr., was a special soul and was a specially  drawn to him.  Thus he kept him close to his side.

The profit called the newly baptized members to gather and the Burgess family and Clements traveled to Missouri in two wagons and very little clothes or supplies and joined the saints there.

At Kirtland he worked on building the temple, working as a foreman, and went through the persecution of the saints at the hands of the mob.  He describes what they did to the saints by saying that one had to go through it to understand the great trial and suffering they endured.

He was at the dedication and witnessed the glorious event.  He felt that attendance at the dedication was so wonderful that it made the persecution they endured worth the great experience he had.

When they were driven out of Kirtland, they went to Caldwell County, Missouri.  This was in August of 1838.  The mobs were so persistent that for three months he never undressed except to change into clean clothes.  He explains it: ”But it was for the gospels sake and we endured cheerfully.”

While in Kirtland, the Priesthood quorums were organized and William was called to be president of the Deacons Quorum. The Prophet Joseph Smith said this was to preserve order in the whole assembly of the church.

At this time, he was taken prisoner with other saints and was abused and beaten by the mobs.

They were compelled to leave Davis County and were driven to Caldwell County in December in the bitter cold. Then in the spring of 1839, they were again driven out of the state. In March of 1839, they were again driven out of the state.  In March of 1839, the Prophet Joseph and others were imprisoned and the church was again driven out of the state.  They had to leave all are goods and homes without a penny of payment but we’re thankful to escape of their lives.

On 17 September 1840, William Jr.  married Mariah Pulsipher.  They had nine children.  Her family had been baptized at the time the Burgess’ had and the two families were close friends. 

In the spring of 1840, they removed two Nauvoo, Illinois.  He was elected captain of the third company of the Nauvoo legion.

He was there during the great sadness the saints suffered.  He was again a foreman on building the temple while in Nauvoo.  When it was finished enough, William and Mariah received their endowments in the holy temple on 7 January 1846.

On 10 February 1846, they left Nauvoo with this saints and started for Council Bluffs.  They stopped in Iowa and he worked to get supplies and on 16 September 1846, they arrived at Winter Quarters.  They were there when the sick most took so many lives any help to nurse them.

In June of 1847, Left for the Salt Lake Valley.  They were in the Brigham Young Company.  This was President Young’s second trip across the plains.  It took them four months to cross the plains.  On 20 September 1848, They arrived in the Salt Lake Valley.  There were no houses except the Fort.  It was a very hard winter with snow covering the ground all winter until April.

On 3 June 1852, he married Charlotte Elizabeth Liggett in polygamy.  This was my great grandmother.  She was just a young girl of not quite 16 and he was 30 years old.  Her father had been killed by the mobs in Nauvoo and her mother had died giving birth when the saints were driven out of Nauvoo.

Her grandparents took her to the valley with them and now were they were old and worried about dying and leaving her alone.  They asked William to marry her and care for her.  This he did.  They had one son, Horace Liggett Burgess, my grandfather.

When the manifesto came in, the women were told they could choose between an annulment of their marriages are to just live separate from their husbands.  Charlotte chose an annulment and later married a young man, William Whitehead Taylor, to whom she has been sealed.

In the spring, the militia was organized and William Jr. was named captain of the fifth company of the first regiment.  Then in 1853 he was made a colonel of the second regiment.  In 1854, he was ordained a president although the ninth quorum of seventy.

In May of 1855 he was called ago on a mission to the Salem River to teach the Indians there.  He arrived about the first of July.  He was the counselor to President Thomas S.  Smith.  It was a long way from civilization and they had a rough, hard time.  He was there over a year.

When the Pilgrims first arrived in the new world, their first need was for lumber to build homes and other buildings.  Thus there most important need was for saw mills.  As there were so many trees in the area, the first thing built was a saw mill.

The Burgess’ were saw mill owners from the very first, after they arrived in Massachusetts.  Each place they lived, they owned saw mills.  When they joined the church in New York, they owned a saw mill. These mills have a real vital part of each community.

When William  Jr. arrived home from his mission, he built they saw mill in Parley’s Canyon.  This was this trade all of his life.  In his mill he made shingles and lumber for some of the first houses in the valley.  His father and his brothers ran the mill with him.

William Jr. was allotted 10 acres in the valley for a home.  The Denver and Rio Grande depot stands on this spot now.

In the fall of 1862, William Jr. was called with his father and brothers to go to Southern Utah and settle there.  They were asked by President Young to set up a saw mill there, which they did.

They moved to Pine Valley and built a saw mill and started to produce lumber for homes.  The timber in this valley was very good.  William and his family lived in Pine Valley for 20 years.

President Young visited the valley and he picked out choice trees from there and the Burgess’ cut these timbers down and sawed them for use.  It took William six months to haul the logs by ox team to Salt Lake City.  Here they were used to build the Tabernacle and the great organ that stands in it.

William and his family moved to Huntington, Emery, Utah.  He owned and operated a gristmill there. This was the first gristmill in Southern Utah.  He also owned a mercantile co-op store.  Here he also went into the bee business.

William Jr. was a very good carpenter, a successful agriculturist, a large land owner, and a talented mechanic.  He was a leader, a wise counselor and a friend to many.  He was an honorable and upright man of the community.  He loved the Lord and was a faithful father and member of the Kingdom of his God.

He died in Huntington, Emery, Utah at the age of 82 years and 16 days at his daughter, Annetta Robbins home.  He was buried at Huntington.

Submitted to the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers by daughter, Fontella Burgess Hogg, Cardston Centennial Camp, Alberta Company, Cardston, Alberta, Canada.  Great granddaughter, 18 October 1993

From a family group sheet in the Joseph Smith Building in Salt Lake City,

Utah: Sources of information:

Archive record submitted by Mary E. King, 550 Lincoln St., Gridley, California.

Pulsipher family history book compiled by Terry and Nora Lund, 1953: (Pariah

Pulsipher Burgess personal diary page 38-41.)

Submitted by Kenneth Glyn Hales, 4113 LaMirada Drive, Bakersfield, California,

93309.

Another family group sheet: sources of information:

for Burgess geneology: Sarah Krivanec, 918 First St., Ruppert, Idaho.

Mrs. Odean (Roberta) Barnum, 4522 W Charleston Blvd, Las Vegas, Nevada.

copied from Archive record by Luella Pratt, Selena Leavitt, 2767 So 2nd E, Salt

Lake City, Utah. "All ordinances checked by TIB"

Mariah (Pulsipher) Burgess:

From a family group sheet in the Joseph Smith Building in Salt Lake City,

Utah: Sources of information:

Archive record submitted by Mary E. King, 550 Lincoln St., Gridley, California.

Pulsipher family history book compiled by Terry and Nora Lund, 1953: (Pariah

Pulsipher Burgess personal diary page 38-41.)

Submitted by Kenneth Glyn Hales, 4113 LaMirada Drive, Bakersfield, California,

93309.

Another family group sheet: sources of information:

for Burgess geneology: Sarah Krivanec, 918 First St., Ruppert, Idaho.

Mrs. Odean (Roberta) Barnum, 4522 W Charleston Blvd, Las Vegas, Nevada.

copied from Archive record by Luella Pratt, Selena Leavitt, 2767 So 2nd E, Salt

Lake City, Utah. "All ordinances checked by TIB"

Mariah Pulsipher, 1822-1893 Autobiography (c. 1822-1850)

               Selection from the autobiography of Mariah Pulsipher in

           Kenneth Glyn Hales, comp. and ed., Windows: A Mormon Family

                     (Tucson, Arizona: Skyline Printing, 1985).

                 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARIAH PULSIPHER

. . [Mariah Pulsipher was the third daughter and fourth child of the Zerah Pulsipher and Mary

Ann Brown Pulsipher family. An older brother and sister died young. She was born in New

York on the 17th of March in 1822 at Susquehannah in Broome County. She left a personal

diary from which the following story was taken.]

I moved with my parents, Zerah and Mary Brown Pulsipher to Onondaga County, New York,

when I was a small girl. Jared Carter came to New York preaching the gospel. Father, Mother

and sisters, Almira and Sarah and I were baptized in January of 1832. My father disposed of his

property and we made our way Westward. In 1835 there was a stake organized in Kirtland.

We moved there and helped build the temple. Soon after it was dedicated, the mob started

persecuting the Saints. My father, being one of the first Seven Presidents over the Seventies, had to leave. They bound themselves under a covenant to put their means together and not leave one saint behind. They left Kirtland with 500 saints.

We [Kirtland Camp] traveled to Dayton, Ohio. There we had to stop and each work to get

means to go on. The camp was divided into nine divisions. We lived all alike, and had a

commissary to give out provisions. We held evening and Sunday meetings. We enjoyed a stay

of nine weeks and obtained the necessities and moved on. We had not gone far before we were

met by mobocrats, telling us we had better stop because we would be driven out. Joseph and

Hyrum Smith met us at Far West, Missouri. They greatly rejoiced to see us. They preached to

us that night and told us to settle in Diahman [Adam-ondi-Ahman], Daviess County.

The next day we started on our journey of about thirty miles. As we arrived a mob was riding

around threatening to kill us. Father was taken prisoner with about thirty others, but later

released. I have been on the spot, a large pile of rocks, where Joseph Smith says it was Adam's

Alter in Diahman [Adam-ondi-Ahman], about one-half mile from our place.

We lived there about six weeks before being compelled to leave. My grandmother, now

eighty-six years old, said she had come to Zion to lay her bones down and now had to be driven on. She went to Far West with us and spent the winter. About a month before we had to leave, she died.

In the spring we moved again, crossed the Mississippi River and went up the river to a little

town called Lima. We went three miles from any settlement in the woods, east of Lima. There

we camped and got some ground cleared off to build a log house and plant a garden. About a

mile away the saints made the Morley Settlement. We much rejoiced to find a place where we

could live without being molested. There I formed an acquaintance with William Burgess and

about a year later, September, 1840, I married him. Soon after my marriage, we settled in

Nauvoo, Illinois, and helped build a city in spite of much sickness.

The mobocrats were continually seeking Joseph Smith's life. He and Hyrum were finally slain.

What a time of trouble. That fall I was so low I told my husband to pray for me. Before he

returned to bed he prayed for me. I prayed too, asking the Lord to show me whether I should

live. I lay free from pain for about an hour thinking of the situation of the Church, having to leave in the spring. I was not asleep. The room shone bright. All of a sudden I saw evil spirits. I was scared and was just going to call my husband when a voice spoke, "I am your ministering spirit." It immediately came into my mind that I had heard the prophet Joseph say while preaching that angels had appeared to him. He said the third time they always answered. I spoke the third time. The spirit then spoke, "If you were to see me it would scare you. You would not know the things I am going to tell you. You shall be well in the morning. From this time you are going to have more faith. You shall have a dream that shall comfort you. When you have a dream that troubles you, you may know it is from the evil spirit. Be careful of your health, and do not do too much hard work. Obtain your patriarchal blessing, this shall be a blessing to you."

I asked if Joseph Smith died a true prophet. He spoke, "He died a true prophet, Brigham Young

is now the man to lead the Church. If you will covenant with me not to reveal it to the world

there shall be things revealed to you that shall be greatly to your benefit." I then saw in a vision

the beauty and glory of plurality of wives. It said, "Your mother and your sister, Sarah, do not

believe in plurality. Almira knows it is right. Tell them what you know and they will all believe

you."

I got up well. I had been three weeks confined to my bed with chills and fever. We received our

endowments in the Nauvoo temple. There was the spirit of the Lord present until we felt we had been paid for building it, even though we were driven out and had no further use of it.

We started west in the spring with an old wagon, one yoke of oxen, one cow and all the things

we could load in the wagon. We felt to rejoice that we escaped with our lives. We traveled on

with a small company through mud and storm, stopping along the way as the men could find

work. We stayed at Winter Quarters. The men all worked in companies to cut hay and erect

houses for the winter. I was living in a leaky log cabin without a floor in November when a

daughter, Juliett, was born. I was never able to leave my bed. The baby had to be weaned at

three months. I was very sick, but my father and husband would not give me up because I had

two other little children, Mary Harriet and Carnelia, to look after and care for. They said I

should live, so I gradually got better, but was very weak. Hundreds of the saints laid their bodies down there. President Young started with some more of the brethren in the spring to find a place for the Saints to settle. Some of the companies stayed and put in some corn and garden. I was sick all the first winter we lived at Winter Quarters. One of our oxen and the cow died. In the spring my health was very poor, but my husband had to leave me and go to work to buy another ox and get provisions to take us over the plains to the valley.

He had not been gone long until my baby took very sick. No one thought she could live. I

prayed to the Lord to spare her life and she commenced to get better. I did not write to my

husband to tell him how low she was. I did not worry him. When he came and saw her, he

asked, "Do you think she can live?" I said, "Yes, she is better and will live." There was only

about one in six of the children who lived from these illnesses. Hundreds died.

In the spring we got ready and left Winter Quarters. Almost all the Saints left that spring.

President Young and the Twelve all started. They organized in companies of hundreds. My

father, Zerah Pulsipher, was captain of our hundred.

We enjoyed ourselves, although I was not able to leave my wagon much. We camped one night

on a sand hill without feed and water. As soon as daylight came we went about six miles, found

water and feed and stopped. There my first son was born. After dinner we traveled on. I kept in

bed about two weeks, then was able to get around. I felt able and willing to go through suffering

to find a resting place where the Saints could worship the Lord with none to molest.

When we got to Salt Lake we camped out. My babe lived out of doors until he was three

months old. We got a house and put up a little mill to grind corn. The next summer we lived in a

dugout. My baby took whooping cough and was very sick. We called President Young to

administer to him. He looked at him and said, "He is a noble spirit." He blessed him and said,

"He shall have the priesthood whether he lives or dies." But we had to part with him, John

William.

That was a great trial to have my only son taken from me. I was sitting alone a few days after my

baby's death, reflecting on his death, the Spirit returned and said to me, "You shall have a son

and he shall live." In about nine or ten months I had another son, Wilmer. He did live and is over

thirty years old and is a good man.

My baby, John William, died in the spring up Canyon Creek. He was taken down to the city to

be buried, the third to be buried there. We soon moved to the city. It was laid out in lots, a few

houses were built. We lived in the 16th Ward. We built a house with three rooms.

[Mariah Pulsipher Burgess died on the 17th of March in 1893 at Huntington, Utah. She raised a

family of nine children. One died young.]