Job Pitcher Hall was born on 16 Aug 1820 in Belmont, Waldo County,
Maine to Ebenezer and Eleanor (Burgess) Hall, who had been married on 20
Apr 1807 either in Vinalhaven or on Matinicus Isle, Hancock (now Knox)
County, Maine (there is some confusion as to the correct year of
marriage, but the bonds were published on 5 Apr 1807 per Vinalhaven
Vital Records, Page 414). Job was the 7th child of the 8 children
born to this marriage. His father had been married previously to (1)
Sarah Calderwood and (2) Mary (Polly) Ames or Eames, so he also had four
half-siblings. The family had moved from Matinicus Isle, Maine
sometime after the 1810 U.S. census was taken and resided at Hall’s
Corner in Belmont. Belmont had been created out of the lands held in
the Plantation of Greene. Ebenezer Hall purchased or confirmed
purchase of land in Belmont described as Lot 42 from Benjamin Joy, owner
of the Plantation of Greene, on 10 Sep 1823. Job’s father, Ebenezer
Hall, probably had died by 1836 when Job would have been 15 or 16 years
old, as in the Waldo County, Maine records there is a deed dated 6 Feb
1836 from some of the older children granting to William Hall their
interest in property of "Ebenezer Hall late of said Belmont yeoman
deceased as heirs at law of the said Ebenezer Hall, deceased." A
Petition for Administration of his estate was filed in Waldo County on 2
Apr 1838.
Note: When Glen and I went to Maine about 10 years ago we stayed at a B & B on Deer Isle. As we made our way there we came to an intersection in the road called Belmont Corners. The main building was a small LDS chapel. Somehow that seemed most appropriate.
The occupation of Job Pitcher Hall was being a cooper (barrel maker)
and later as a farmer. Job Pitcher Hall and/or other members of his
family may or may not have heard a speech given in Belmont in 1838 by
Elder Wilford Woodruff of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints, while he was traveling through that part of Maine.
. The three youngest sons of Ebenezer and Eleanor (Burgess) Hall -
Andrew, Job Pitcher and Charles - traveled from their home in Belmont,
Maine to Illinois, probably to find better economic opportunities than
those that were available to them in Maine. Of the three, only Andrew
was already married (he had wed Sarah Jane Moody on 19 Jan 1839).
The
younger two, Job Pitcher and Charles, became converts to the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Nauvoo, Illinois, being baptized in
the Mississippi River on Sunday, 7 Apr 1844, immediately following a
church conference morning session at which Joseph Smith delivered his
King Follett sermon. Both baptisms were performed by Henry Jacobs, as
part of a total of 35 persons baptized between conference sessions.
Both Job Pitcher Hall and Charles Hall had been ordained as Seventies by
the time they were endowed in the Nauvoo Temple on 30 Jan 1846.
They
seem to have been associated with Hosea Stout in their traveling
through Iowa after the Church members were expelled from Nauvoo, as on
31 Oct 1852 Hosea Stout recorded in his journal at Red Creek
(Paragonah), Utah: "Here I found Job and Charles Hall, who came with
me in the guard when we left Nauvoo in the Spring of 1846. They were
then only mere boys, but now are married and doing well." Journal
entries of Hosea Stout written in Iowa in April and May, 1846, tell of
Job Hall returning with his cattle and being thoroughly wet, having come
all of the way in the rain, and going to the Grand River to work for
Rockwood.
While staying in the Winter Quarters area, near present-day Omaha,
Nebraska, Job Pitcher Hall was married on 25 or 26 Feb 1848 to Mary
Elizabeth Jones, who had been born in New York City, New York on 17 Mar
1828 to William and Elizabeth (Hughes) Jones. Twelve children were born
to this marriage. Shortly before his marriage, he wrote a letter to
LDS Church President, Brigham Young, beginning: “As we are about to
leave the place according to your council we will leave a record of our
family in case we should not return so that you can do for our friends
what we should do if we were alive.” The list included names of the
members of the William and Elizabeth Jones family.
Job Pitcher Hall and his new wife, Mary Elizabeth Jones, were in St.
Joseph, Missouri, when their first child, Job, was born on 15 Dec
1848. Job Pitcher Hall and his little family made the trek from the
Missouri River, Nebraska to Utah with the William Snow/Joseph Young
Company, which started on Friday, 21 June 1850 and arrived in Utah on 4
Oct 1850. A second child, Mary Eleanor, was born at Strawberry Creek on
the Mormon Trail in Wyoming on 8 Sep 1850. They had a team of oxen and a
yoke of cows that furnished them with milk and butter, which they
shared with others and occasionally used for trading for other food.
Job Pitcher Hall and his brother, Charles Hall, were in the group
called to settle Little Salt Lake Valley under the direction of George
A. Smith, founding a town eventually called Parowan, the first LDS
settlement in Southern Utah, in January, 1851. Parowan became a part of
Iron County, Utah. According to Mary Roe Porter in the biographical
sketch that she compiled: “Job Pitcher Hall, with his brother, Charles,
built the first log cabin in Iron County. They moved into it on 17 Feb
1851. It consisted of two rooms with a fire place in each room. Charles
Hall was elected with three others as constables on 17 Jan 1851. First
officers of the law in Iron County.”
In the following May his wife and children came from Salt Lake
City with the Anson Call company. In the next few years, Job Pitcher
Hall moved to Paragonah, north of Parowan; to Toquerville; to a
settlement on the Santa Clara Creek; to Clover Valley (later found to be
on the Nevada side of a disputed border); to Pine Valley; to Gunlock;
to Glendale; to Panguitch; and finally to Potato Valley (later called
Escalante). It is difficult to understand why he moved so often;
perhaps he was a restless soul who believed that opportunities would be
better at the next place.
Job Pitcher Hall married his second wife, Lydia Jane Tryon, on 14
May 1852 in Paragonah, Utah. She was born on 19 Apr 1839 in Quincy,
Adams, Illinois to Truman and Rebecca Emma (Conley) Tryon, apparently
soon after they arrived in Quincy where they were part of the group of
LDS members expelled from Missouri. There were five children born to
this marriage of Job Pitcher Hall and Lydia Jane Tryon. Reportedly
Lydia Jane went to visit her parents after the death of her youngest child and Job Pitcher Hall never went to get them. She raised her remaining three children alone and working as a midwife in Salem, Utah. After her children were grown and married she remarried. Two of her children went to live in Escalante near Job Pitcher with their spouses. Lydia Jane died in Salem, Utah on
21 Aug 1897.
In 1861 he accepted a call to take a wagon and team of horses
across the plains to help bring immigrants from Nebraska to Utah. One
of these immigrants traveling with Job Pitcher Hall, in the Ira Eldredge
Company, was Jane Walton. She reports in an autobiographical sketch
that she was assigned to the wagon of Job Hall, and it is believed that
she walked across the plains but that her belongings were carried in his
wagon. She became his third wife on 20 Sep 1861 in the Endowment
House, after they arrived in Salt Lake City. Jane was born in Rugby,
Warwickshire, England on 8 Oct 1839 to Henry and Mary Ann (Harwood)
Walton. Three children were born to this marriage, but only their son
lived beyond infancy.
Henry Walton Hall claimed that he was born in a wagon under a buffalo
robe in Toquerville, Utah. Later, while residing in Pine Valley, Utah,
Jane was given permission by President Brigham Young to divorce Job.
She then was married to William Green Bickley on 21 Mar 1867 in Pine
Valley. There are unverified traditions either that Job Pitcher Hall
performed this ceremony or was given a bag of potatoes by William
Bickley. Her children by her marriage to William Bickley believed that
she felt resented by the first two wives for Job having taken a third
wife with whom he was sealed to in the Endowment House before the first two wives were sealed to him. She also felt they resented her joining the family when they were so poor. Jane also felt that he neglected
her. Jane and William moved to Beaver where Jane successfully ran her own store and was a leader in the community. Jane died on 21 Jun 1919 in Beaver, Utah.
While living in Pine Valley, Job Pitcher Hall may have been making
kegs and barrels for the storing of Dixie molasses. In addition to farming
at various locations where he lived, he is reported also to have been a
charcoal burner. According to a Note submitted originally to
new.FamilySearch.org by Michael A. Carter: “Some time after 1872, Job,
with his three [I think there was only one] wives and children, moved from Gunlock,
Utah to Glendale, Utah. While there, he contracted severe rheumatism and
as a result was left a cripple for life, never walking again. From
Glendale, with his first wife and family (his second and third wives
having left him), he moved to Panguitch, Utah. Because of the
cold, they moved to Escalante in the fall of 1875, where they lived in a
dugout during the winter, later settling on a ranch in the Escalante
Valley.”
The book, “Excerpts from the Escalante Story….1875 - 1964,” by
Nethella G. Woolsey mentions Job Pitcher Hall several times. At page
46: "Known to come that year, 1876, was Job Pitcher Hall, his first
wife, Elizabeth; a married son, William and his wife, Malinda; other
sons, Ebenezer, Joseph, Charles, Morris, and Robert, and daughters
Annie and Eliza. A brother, Charles Thaddeus [actually had no middle
name] Hall, the explorer and boat builder, came with his wife, Elizabeth
Caroline, and children, Charles, Margaret Ann, John W., Elinor, Nancy,
Reed, George, Susan, and Eben." At page 91: "Probably the first
year-around farm home was that of Job Pitcher Hall in the river basin
about three miles northwest of town. He and his family settled there in
1877. Job was a cripple who made and sold shoes, wove baskets, and
made barrels. His wife and young sons broke the ground, built fences,
and raised crops. The walls of their first house were made by placing
cedar posts upright in stockade fashion.“
Note: It is most likely that Lydia Jane Tyron had gone north with her children before the move to Glendale.
Mary Roe Porter also reports that during the years in Escalante it
was necessary for Mary Elizabeth to work with her children in the
fields, while Job was able to take care of their youngest daughter,
Eliza Ann.
Eliza Ann would assist her father by bringing him the items he needed
for making shoes and weaving baskets.
Job Pitcher Hall died on 1 June 1888 in Escalante, Utah and was
buried in the Escalante Cemetery. His wife Mary Elizabeth died there on
16 Sep 1901 and also is buried in the Escalante Cemetery.
SOURCES include, but are not limited to "History of Job Pitcher
Hall; His Hall Ancestors 1764-1600, His Descendants 1848-1958," compiled
by James Varley Roe and Mary Roe Porter (Privately published, circa
1959) and "George Hall and His Descendants (1603-1669," compiled by
Robert Leo Hall. Pages 150, 246. (Privately published, Grand Rapids, MN,
1998),
Mary Elizabeth Jones was born the 17th of March 1828, at New York City,
New York. Birth records show that she was the second child of ten. There were two boys and eight girls. Mary Elizabeth’s father, William Jones, was born at
Bristol, Pennsylvania (near Philadelphia). His birth is given as the
12th of February 1799. Her mother, Elizabeth Hughes, was born in New
York City, New York, on the 22nd of March 1803. Going by birth records,
this Jones family lived in New York City until after the 18th of June
1834, as on this date their fifth child, Charlotte Jones, was born. Three daughters were born in Cincinnati, Ohio from the 25th of June 1836 and 5th
of June 1839. The last two children were born in
Nauvoo, Illinois.
Mary Elizabeth was baptized in Nauvoo,
Illinois in 1841. Her parents received their
endowments on the 31st of January 1846, in the
Nauvoo Temple. Hyrum Smith gave a Patriartical
Blessing to Elizabeth Hughes on the 18th of October 1841. William Jones
later received his on the 14th of March 1842 also by Hyrum Smith.
Mary Elizabeth’s father, William Jones, was a stone carver and cutter. While the Jones
family lived in Nauvoo, most of his time was put in on the stonework of
the temple. In William Clayton's journal we find:
The following is a list of the stone cutters who cut the stone for the
Temple, to-wit:
Alvin Winegar, James Standing, Harvey Stanley, Daniel S. Cahoon, Andrew
Cahoon, Stephen Hales, Jr., William Jones (he cut the first plinth),
John Keown, Rufus Allen, Samuel Hodge, Bun Anderson and George Ritchey.
These persons were among the first who commenced cutting stone for the
Temple and have continued to the close. Pulaski S. Cahoon, John Dresdale
and Aaron Johnson also commenced to cut stone at the beginning, but did
not continue long.
And from Chronology of Construction of Nauvoo Temple:
11 Jun 1842 -- James Whitehead added as a clerk to the Temple Recorders
staff. Later John P. McEwan was appointed assistant clerk. (Clayton,
"Nauvoo Temple History Journal," p. 19; William Clayton Journal, Journal
History, 31 Dec 1844, CA.) On this date William Player also set the
first plinth, or moonstone, on the southeast corner. (Journal History,
11 Oct 1842, CA.) The moonstones were deeply carved relief of a crescent
moon, facing downward, with a man's face in profile. Each stone was cut
from solid stone. (New York Messenger, 20 Sept 1845.) The first plinth
was cut by William Jones. (William's Clayton's Journal, Journal History,
31 Dec 1844, CA.)
Family tradition also holds that William Jones cut stone for the baptismal font which is supported by the following.
From Footnote - Susan Easton Black “A Voice of Gladness for the Living and
the Dead”, BYU Family History Fireside - Joseph Smith Building, February
21, 2003:
The men selected to cut the stone for the font were William W. Player,
Benjamin
T. Mitchell, Charles Lambert, William Cottier, Andrew Cahoon, Daniel S.
Cahoon, Jerome Kimpton, Augustus Stafford, Ben Anderson, Alvin Winegar,
William Jones, and Stephen Hales Jr. Stone artisan Francis Clark, who
arrived in Nauvoo in April 1841, did much of the fine carving on the
oxen.
William Jones
William also served in the Nauvoo Legion. William Jones was listed as a second lieutenant (commissioned 19 Sep
1842) in the Nauvoo Legion, company 2C. Joseph Smith's Journal for
January 10 and 11, 1844 mentions the detainment of William Jones:
"William Jones staid all night at Wilson tavern in Carthage. Very cold.
Thursday, January 11, 1844... This morning Wm Jones was arrested by Col
Levi William and his company and kept him in custody without rations
until noon."
Mary Elizabeth’s mother, Elizabeth Hughes Jones, was a close friend of
Emma Smith, the prophet’s wife. During those times in Nauvoo, it was
necessary for the Saints to live close to each other and give each other
a helping hand. Borrowing from each other seems to be a Mormon custom.
On one occasion, Mary Elizabeth’s mother was loaning some furniture to
Emma as the Prophet was expecting a visit from a governor. She said
how shocked her mother was when the prophet drove up on a Sunday morning
with a wagon to pick up the furniture. She rushed out to meet him and
exclaimed, “Oh Brother Joseph, not on Sunday!” His reply was, “Why
Sister Jones, the better the day the better the deed.” She loaned him
her big rug, a library table and chairs and other odds and ends, telling
him to keep the library table as a present.
Mary Elizabeth’s mother was one of the charter members of the first
Relief Society held on the 17th of March 1842, and organized by
the prophet. At the time, it was called the “Female Relief Society”.
1. Emma H. Smith, President
2. Sarah M. Cleveland, 1st Councilor
3. Elizabeth Ann Whitney, 2nd Councilor
4. Eliza R. Snow, Secretary
5. Elvira A. Coles (Cowels) Treasurer
6. Phoebe Ann Hawkes
7. Elizabeth Jones
8. Sophia Packard
9. Philinda Merrick
10. Martha Knight
11. Desdemona Fulmer
12. Bathsheba W. Smith
13. Phoebe W. Wheeler
14. Margaret A. Cook
15. Sarah Ann Kimball
16. Sophia Robinson
17. Leonara Taylor
18. Sophia R. Marks
Mary Elizabeth was a small person and she often ran errands for the
Prophet. She told how her mother and Emma often dressed her up as a
little girl and gave her a rag doll to carry in her arms, even up to the
time she was a young lady. When the prophet was in hiding or being
watched, she could pass the guards unnoticed. Sometimes she appeared to
be driving the milk cows to pasture or out to graze. When all was
clear, she went on looking for the person the message was for. Other
times, she went skipping off with her rag doll through the streets of
Nauvoo until she was near the person the information was for. Her password
was “Brother I am ambushed.” The person knew she had a message from the
Prophet.
During this time, the big effort was to finish the Nauvoo Temple. The
saints from the rural areas were gathering into the city of Nauvoo. The
Prophet was considering fleeing into the Rocky Mountains for his life.
Times grew worse till that day in June 1844, when Joseph and Hyrum were
murdered. Mary Elizabeth would have been 16 years old.
She told how the people were too stunned to think of anything else.
On the 4th of February 1846, a number of wagons drawn by horses and oxen
drove out of Nauvoo and onto flat boats and were ferried across the
mighty Mississippi. On reaching the Iowa side, the wagons struck out
into the western prairie and disappeared from the sight of Mary
Elizabeth and those that were left to follow later. Work was carried on
as usual for the next group and so on. Records show that on the 11th
of September 1846, President Brigham Young called another group to come
to Winter Quarters (Six miles from Omaha, Nebraska). In this group is
William Jones’ name. Other records show this family reached Winter
Quarters on or before the 7th of December 1846; as on this date Mary
Elizabeth’s younger sister, Mary, died of chills and was buried in grave
No. 31, Northwest corner.
This Jones family came on to Salt Lake City sometime before 1850 and
1851 because in going over the Salt Lake City census of those years,
Elizabeth and William Jones’ names are listed. Mary Elizabeth would
have been past her 18th birthday when they left Nauvoo. Now just where
she met Job Pitcher Hall is unknown. They were in Nauvoo at the same
time. They could have met on the same wagon train from Nauvoo to Winter
Quarters, or met on their arrival there.
Taken from a page from Job
Pitcher’s diary, on the 18th of February 1848, Brigham Young called him
and some others to go on some mission of danger. Records show
that Job Pitcher Hall and Mary Elizabeth Jones were married on the 26th
of February 1848, but no place is given. Birth records show that this union was
blessed with twelve children, five girls and seven boys. Their first child, Job, was born on the 5th of December 1848, at or near
St. Joseph, Missouri. They left for the Salt Lake Valley in 1850. Mary Elizabeth told of being in with oxen
teams, hauling grain on into the valley. Their covered wagon was drawn
by a yoke of oxen and a yoke of cows. They milked the cows on the way.
The night’s milk was left sitting till morning when the cream could be
skimmed off and put into a tight container, and by evening, the constant
bouncing and swaying of the wagon churned it into butter. The morning
milk was carried along for children during the day. If there was any
excess, it was customary to share with others. Mary Elizabeth told how
she patched grain sacks all along the way, as the constant pounding and
jarring of the wagons on the rough roads kept bursting the grain sacks.
They gave her grain for the mending. She said they were more fortunate
than others in making this historical trip.
Before reaching Salt Lake City, their second child, Mary Eleanor, was
born at Strawberry Creek on the 8th of September 1850. The wagon train
was held up for two days. Then the wagons moved on. During the
afternoon, the baby began to bleed at the navel. Job Pitcher’s wagon
was pulled out to one side of the road and the midwife took over. In a
short time all was in order and they soon caught up with other wagons
and stayed in the rear. They spent their last night together around the
campfires as tomorrow would see them in the Salt Lake Valley and they would
be separating for different parts of the valley.
Mary Elizabeth, husband, and two babies
entered Salt Lake, ready for a new life away from mobs where she could
worship and raise her family as she saw fit.
Mary Elizabeth was happy
to see her father and mother and family and to be united with them
again but their stay in Utah was relatively brief. Records show that William Jones,
Sr. was baptized 5 January 1851 in Salt Lake, but the family was in
southern California by 1854. The last time that Mary Elizabeth saw her family was as they passed through Parowan on their way to California. Family tradition states that the Jones
family "came West with the Mormons after spending a few years in Salt
Lake City." The family was in San Bernardino briefly.
The Mormon settlement
of southern California, begun about 1852, ended suddenly, in 1857, when
church members sent on the original mission to California were recalled
to Utah. The Jones family stayed in California, however, moving north
to reside briefly in San Francisco where William helped to build the
custom house and also worked as a stone cutter in the building of the
forts in the old state house. Elizabeth Jones died in 1859. The move to Alameda County may have taken
place just after 1860. The 1867 Alameda County voter record shows
William Jones, age sixty-eight, in Mission San Jose. Family tradition states,
"the family moved up to Mission San Jose and were there many years.
There are Jones buried there." In 1870 William, age seventy-two and
listing his birthplace as Pennsylvania, appears in the census records in
Washington Township in Alameda County in the household of his daughter
Anna Maria Stiver. William died in 1879.
Grave marker of William and Elizabeth Jones
Sometime after their arrival in Salt
Lake City, Brigham Young made a call for one hundred volunteers to go
south to Little Salt Lake, Iron County.
The date Job Pitcher left Mary Elizabeth and their children in Salt
Lake is not given, but following the history of George A. Smith, their
leader, he would have been in Fort Utah (Provo), Sunday the 15th of
December 1850. Job Pitcher and his brother, Charles, are given credit
for building the first log cabin in Iron County. It consisted of two
rooms with a fireplace in each room. This was built in January and
February of 1851 and it was used for a meetinghouse. Records show that
the following spring, Mary Elizabeth and her two small children arrived
from Salt Lake City, and met up with her husband. They settled in what
is now Parowan for a few years. Here we find the following children
born: Anna Elizabeth on the 13th of December 1852, William Wesley on
the 3rd of October 1854, Ebenezer on the 27th of November 1856, and
David on the 23rd of October 1858.
Mary Elizabeth’s whole life was spent in moving from one valley to the
other, spending a few years in each place. Sometimes a bowery was made from
framework of posts and poles about ten feet high then covered with
willow cedar boughs, sage brush, or any shrubs available, to break the
summer heat. If winter caught them without a log cabin, a dugout was
built.
Edward W. Hall of New Harmony, Utah, Mary Elizabeth’s grandson, tells of
seeing a few good dugouts and of living for three months in one they
made while cutting wood. They were usually made in the side of a hill
and small, 6’x 8’ or 8’x 8’, but it depended on the size of the family
that was to live in it. They had a fireplace in one end or side, made
from rocks and mud. The other three sides above the ground were logs.
There were posts or poles over the top. There was straw over the poles
and dirt over the straw, and the opening or door on the lower side. The
door sometimes was a hide or blanket dropped down over the opening.
In the spring of 1858,
Mary Elizabeth's husband and others went to what is now called
Toquervllle, and he built a log cabin. Then came their families. Here Mary
Elizabeth's seventh child, Sarah Rebecca (my greatgrandmother) was born on the 24th of
September 1860. They had a fairly nice place here with
better accommodations to put up people. Brigham Young and other
church leaders stopped with Mary Elizabeth and her husband, Job Pitcher.
While living here in the fall of 1860, Job Pitcher brought a sugar mill
into this area. In the spring of 1861, Mary Elizabeth was left in
Southern Utah while her husband and others answered the call from
Brigham Young to come to Salt Lake City with their best horses and go
back across the plains to help bring others and their belongings into Salt
Lake City. He arrived back in Southern Utah in the fall of the same
year.
This trip he brought back his third wife.
At Santa Clara, Mary
Elizabeth's eighth child, Charley, was born on the14th of January 1863
and, also, here her ninth child, Lovina Alzina, was born on the 25th of
July 1865 so once again she had moved to a new place. Her tenth child, Robert Franklin,
was born in St. George on the 22nd of October 1867.
The fall of the year 1869, Mary Elizabeth met with one of life's big
tragedies. While at Santa Clara, the first death in her family occurred.
Her four-year old daughter, Lovina Alzina, passed away on the l6th of
September.
Her oldest son, Job, previously, had gone to California and liked
the life better there and never returned.
Mary Elizabeth's two older daughters were both married at Salt Lake City
on the 5th of October 1869, Mary Eleanor to Alfred Hale Riding and Anna
Elizabeth to Levi Hamilton Callaway.
Next we find Mary Elizabeth In Pine Valley where her eleventh
child, Maurice Ensign, was born on the 22nd of April, 1870. They then moved to Gunlock. Here her twelfth and last child, Eliza Ann, was
born on the l6th of November, 1872. Just why and when they left Gunlock,
we do not know but they made their home at Heberon for a few years before moving to Glendale, Utah. By this time Job Pitcher's other two
wives had left him.
Job Pitcher was rheumatically inclined and at
this time he was 54 years old. His best years had passed. He had worked
hard, and many days and nights were spent in the cold wet weather
without the proper clothing. Here at Glendale,
inflammatory rheumatism struck Job Pitcher in the knees and hips while
making adobes. He was bed fast for three months and was left a cripple
for life, not to walk again.
Mary Elizabeth with her crippled husband
and family moved then to Panguitch in the spring of 1875. They found it to be too cold and moved to the more mild Escalante. They lived in another dugout for the winter, and
then in the spring, a log home was constructed. To hold the family together and keep them all working fell mostly on
Mary Elizabeth. Job Pitcher was a helpless cripple from the waist down.
He spent his days sitting in a rocking chair making and fixing shoes.
The friendly Indians taught him to make moccasins from buckskin and
also baskets from willows among the creek banks.
Mary Elizabeth took all the children, except Eliza Ann, and went into
the fields to work. Eliza Ann was left with Job Pitcher.
She said her father had a big cowbell sitting at his side and she was
not to get out of his sight and when he rang
that bell she was to return to him at once. A few rings would bring the
family from out of the fields to look for her.
The passing away of Job Pitcher on the 1st of June 1888, was unexpected
and sudden. In the spring of 1889, Mary Elizabeth took Maurice Ensign and Eliza Ann
to a valley near the foothills of the mountain and ran a dairy ranch for
Joseph Lay. Everything went well and they did very well. The change
and being away from the Hall farm seemed to
agree with Mary Elizabeth as her health was greatly improved.
Mary Elizabeth's youngest child, Eliza Ann, was married to Charles John
Roe on the 27th November 1889 In the Manti Temple. They returned to Escalante
and made their home there.
As Mary Elizabeth grew older, the boy's interest changed. The boys sold the Hall farm for $1600.00 to William
Spencer. After the Hall farm was sold, Mary
Elizabeth made her home with her children. At Panguitch, Mary Elizabeth
stayed one year with her daughter, Mary Eleanor, who was sick. Anna
Williams, one of the children, tells of making bread with her
grandmother and that Mary Elizabeth planted the first cucumbers that
they knew of growing in Panguitch.
Mary Elizabeth made her home the last year of her life with her
daughter, Eliza Ann In Escalante, Utah. Her children were all married
except Maurice Ensign, who was a small man and not likely to get
married. He was making his home with Joseph Tryon Hall.
Joseph Tryon, son of Lydia Jane, had come to Escalante, Utah where his father was to make
his home. Mary Elizabeth wondered about the welfare of Maurice
Ensign and what would happen to him when she passed on. Mary Elizabeth's
health failed fast during the summer of 1901. She was given a room to
herself and the children were not allowed in
unless she let them. Each thought it a great privilege to go in.
On the 16th of September 1901, Maurice Ensign died with pneumonia. Mary
Elizabeth's health was falling fast and she was not told of his death.
The last few days, her mind ran back to the days in Nauvoo, which she
talked a great deal about and the Prophet
Joseph Smith. Mary Elizabeth passed away in her sleep on the 18th of
September 1901. The same day Maurice Ensign was buried.
Job Pitcher Hall in later life
Mary Elizabeth Jones in later life
Grave marker for Job and Mary Elizabeth in Escalante
