ST. GEORGE — From wherever they called home, the desire for a better life — free from religious persecution and political tyranny — witnessed thousands of members of The Church of Latter-day Saints immigrating to America during the 1800s.
Filled with an unwavering faith in God they embarked upon a perilous journey, far from their homes in Europe, Asia, the Pacific Islands, and other regions, to the inhospitable lands of the American West.
Sailing across the turbulent Atlantic Ocean — a journey lasting nearly six weeks — and joining other immigrant groups in Illinois. The jumping-off point for the Mormon Traill, a 1,300-mile slower-than-molasses wagon train that took another two months or more to complete, would test the pioneer’s spirit, but would not dim their faith.
“What trials we had endured and no doubt we shall have many more but we know that all will be well in the end. We thank God for that assurance,” wrote St. George pioneer Thomas Judd prior to his death in 1922.
The citation is a reference to the death of Judd’s youngest sister Affra shortly after arriving in America. Life in the 1800s United States was very different than today.
The United States had its eye on economic prosperity by developing a diverse transportation system including the transcontinental railroad and the nation’s first highway. By 1818, the National Road had crossed the Appalachian Mountains, opening up the expansion of the west.
What began as a trickle of immigrants — more than 84,000 in 1840 — soon turned into a mass exodus of nearly 17 million in total by 1900. Of that number, as many as 90,000 identified themselves as Mormon with more than 60,000 settling in Utah.
“St. George in the mid-to-late 1800s was very small and somewhat challenging from the lack of businesses that all had to start from scratch,” said former St. George Mayor Daniel D. McArthur. “Brigham Young meant this to be a community similar to Salt Lake with people from different professions building a good economy.”
Church leaders knew it would be a “hard scrabble life,” so they handpicked settlers who were hearty and who would stay, McArthur added.
Despite the challenges people were happy, self-reliant, hardworking and resourceful.
“They adapted, but it wasn’t easy,” McArthur said. “They had to struggle. Sometimes they went without food, but they made it through and made this community what it is today.”
Samuel and Thomas Judd
The Judd family, including their eldest son Thomas, were among the hosts of Latter-day Saints to come to America.
Thomas Judd was born Sept. 1, 1845, in Birkenhead, Cheshire, England to Samuel Sr. (1820-1869) and Catherine Hines (1821-1897).
“Father’s people belonged to the Church of England, Mother’s people were Catholic,” Judd said. “The (Mormon) Gospel was brought into Warwickshire, along in 1836. My father joined the church in about 1850, and mother soon after, in 1854.”
Church records indicate the exact date Samuel D. Judd joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Oct. 29, 1847, and Catherine in March 1851.
After being baptized by the Mormons, Thomas’ father answered the call to join other members in the Utah Territory, yet fate had other plans.
Without much luck on his side, Samuel Judd boarded an ocean-going ship during the Spring of 1862. Later shipwrecked, Judd was forced to work his way back to England and attempt the journey again.
This time, a second ship disembarked and was soon quarantined because of an outbreak of yellow fever. Again, Samuel worked his way back to England, but suffered a severe illness upon arriving home that required time to recoup.
On his third attempt, neither fate nor foolishness hampered the journey west.
Judd took passage on a ship named John J. Boyd, which left Liverpool, England on April 23, 1862, under Capt. J.H. Thomas. The ship arrived in New York Harbor on June 1.
Overland, Samuel traveled in Capt. Joseph Horne’s Company, leaving July 27, and arriving in the Salt Lake Valley on Oct. 2. More than 560 individuals and 52 wagons were in the company when it began its journey from the outfitting post at Florence, Nebraska, near Omaha.
After arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, Samuel immediately left for St. George where he went to work to buy passage for his family to immigrate.
Samuel Judd had been a brick-and-lime burner in England. Soon after his arrival in Southern Utah, Judd erected a lime kiln in Middleton — now within the city limits of St. George — supplying bricks for many buildings in the city, including the Tabernacle, temple and courthouse.
Judd also found employment making bricks for Brother Miller in Parowan. The money he earned was transferred to England and applied to the immigration costs of Catherine and their children.
Life in England
Prior to landing in America, Thomas lived with his paternal grandmother Mary Dowler Judd (1793-1874) during his early years in England. At the age of 6, Thomas went to live with his parents until moving in at the age of 10 with his mother’s sister, Affra Hines (1816-1879) and her husband, Thomas Harvey (1821-1880).
“About this time – 1855 – (the Harvey’s) conceived the idea that they would like to adopt me as their own son,” Judd said. “The proposition was made … and after a few months of consideration by my parents was accepted with the understanding that the Harvey’s treat me as their own son and that at their demise, I was to be the rightful heir to all their property. This was thought by my parents to be a great chance for me.”
Up until this time, Thomas Judd had not received any formal education. The arrangement between the Harveys and the Judds was a win-win for everyone.
The Harvey’s adopted a son to carry on the family business, the Judds knew their son would benefit from the opportunity to improve his station in life. Thomas Judd knew life in the Harvey’s home would provide possibilities for grow both professionally and spiritually.
According to all accounts, Thomas Harvey was a “successful” businessman, and “carried on” the family business of brass founders and harness furniture manufacturing.” He employed 160 and was considered “quite wealthy and very proud,” Judd said.
Life in the Harvey home was “entirely” new.
“My uncle was a business man of fine capacity and the training I got was very valuable and has been all through my life,” Judd said. “It was some time before I got reconciled to the change in my life. I had everything by way of food, clothing and good books. I loved to read, and one of the first books I read through was the Bible.”
Although Judd had most anything he could want, he was missing the little things in life.
“I had no boyfriends, for at least two years, no such thing as a swimming hole, ball games or games that a boy of 11 years of age loves so well,” Judd said. “I was for years not allowed on the street unless the servant was along. In 1859 (age 14) … I was becoming very useful in the business, filled places of trust, collecting accounts in nearby towns, depositing the money in the banks, and drawing money for the paying of wages, etc.”
The life of a businessman suited Judd quite nicely, but his relationship with God was about to undergo a significant change. The year was 1864.
“Up to this time I had not taken any part in the Mormon church,” he said. “I was between four and five years old when my mother and father were baptized into the church. While I had been with the Harvey’s, I had attended St. Paul’s Church, where we had a pew. It was the Church of England.”
Although it is unclear what persuaded Judd to become baptized as a Mormon before he left for America, on April 22, Judd was christened in the Walsall Bath House.
The journey
The next morning, the Judd family took the train to Liverpool and began the first leg of their journey west.
“I decided to go to Utah (age 18) with (my family) and return to England as soon as they got located in fairly good shape,” Judd said. “The Harvey’s were very much opposed to my going but I thought I would be back. There was too much at stake in England, for me not to return.”
Judd would return to England only once (1876-1878) during a proselytizing mission sanctioned by Brigham Young. Although life in Utah could be grueling, it was a journey that proved a monumental test of will and demanded reliance on one’s faith to survive.
In late April 1864, Catherine, with family in tow, boarded the Monarch of the Sea.
Monarch of the Sea — a three-deck clipper ship — built in 1854, displaced 1,979 tons and spanned 223 feet in length. It was the largest sailing ship to transport Mormon settlers to America. According to one passenger, she was “an excellent vessel, large, roomy, new and clean.”
On the Monarch, the Mormon pioneers totaled 974 souls with some reports of 1,000 or more.
“In our family there was my mother (43), myself, Thomas (18), Joseph (15), Elizabeth (12), Catherine (10), Samuel (8), Affria (3), and David (2), all in the pink of health,” Judd said.
There is no mention that Thomas’ sister Mary Ann Judd (13) boarded the Monarch of the Sea, yet there is some evidence that she had joined the family for this leg of the journey. For the second leg (overland), Mary traveled separately with her great-uncle Fredrick Judd (1837-1911) and his family.
“We had a lot of baggage; most of our truck was in large heavy bags. We also had a lot of tin ware for ship use,” Judd said. “Our stuff was all loaded in a delivery wagon and our family was all loaded on the top of the wagon and away we went. Making a rattle that could be heard for several blocks, our experience had certainly commenced.”
The cacophony of noise signaled the arrival of the Judd family at the Brambly Moore Docks.
“We then went to sleep, hoping to get a good night’s sleep so as to be ready for the morrow when we would have to face the stern realities of the ocean,” Thomas Judd said.
After months of anticipation, the Judd family sailed from Liverpool on April 28, 1864. Although the voyage of approximately 36 days was reported pleasant, the death toll was unusually high, 45, according to one report, and 41, according to the passenger list.
Most of the fatalities were children. All were buried at sea. Sickness was not the only burden the pioneers had to face. On May 10, 1864, off the Irish Coast, the immigrants aboard the Monarch of the Sea faced the stern realities of the sea.
“A terrible storm arose and my father tied me to a timber with a rope to keep me from being hurled about by the pitching of the ship,” said ship’s passenger Martha Olson Sprague. “An old uncle of mine had a big kettle of peas which he had cooked. He sat down to enjoy the dish. The next thing I saw was the old man sliding back and forth under his berth in these peas.”
Other passengers aboard the Monarch of the Sea were copious journalists as well.
“We embarked in the large sailing ship Monarch of the Sea, bound for New York, having on board 1,000 passengers – Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, Germans, Scotch, Welsh, English and Americans. We were over 40 out at sea, with headwinds a good deal of the time,” said John Smith, president of the ship’s company.
Other accounts of the ocean voyage were slightly more colorful.
“There was 973 emigrants on board and had plenty of rum,” said passenger Ove Christian Oveson. “We was pulled out of the harbor by a steamer into the open sea. There was two man that jumped overboard and was drown. (It was) said they was robbers. There was search for (more) outlaws on the ship.”
Along with the hunt for criminals, 14 couples were married, and three fires were reported aboard the ship.
According to a compilation of general voyage notes, “We had the pleasure of clearing the ship Monarch of the Sea (with Capt. Robert Kirkaldy at the helm). Though they have had some inconveniences to endure, through the ship not being completely prepared to receive (us) … good feelings and good order were noticeable in (our) midst.”
On Tuesday, April 26, 1864, the Monarch of the Sea was cleared for sailing, and two days later it set off for America. After leaving Liverpool, the pioneers settled down to the chores of daily life.
Some days were pleasant, some days were not. Some days the company was filled with optimism and some days the optimism made way for abject sorrow, said passenger Nils C. Flygare.
“We were now for waves and wind to be wafted across the mighty Atlantic to the new world,” Flygare said. “We had much sickness on board, especially among the children of whom about 35 died, and were buried in the sea. I put foot on this continent at 11 a.m. The great vessel there … had brought us over the great deep ocean, but was lost (in 1880) with one thousand (some reports 728) Irish emigrants on board.”
This season, the Monarch docked in Castle Garden, N.Y., on June 3, 1864 (some accounts put the date as June 4), but the happiness of arrival was dampened with its reality.
“For the last three days our baby (David) had been sick and was getting worse,” Thomas Judd said. “Our uncle, David Hindes, met us. He went with the baby and mother to see if the Doctor could do anything for the baby. We were transferred to the Steamer St. Johns, laying on the Hudson River, which was to carry us to Albany. That night the baby died in mother’s arms. This was a great trial for mother and all of us.”
“It was unknown at the time what malady took David and so many others, but it was some form of throat trouble. Later (Catherine) thought it was diphtheria.
John Smith and Parley P. Pratt attended to the child and promised Catherine that if she would keep faith with them, David should not have a watery grave. She kept the faith and David was not burred at sea.
While leaving the ship, Catherine covered her son with a shawl. As they walked along the gang plank she felt David’s death struggle, but dared not utter a sound for fear of being detained in quarantine. According to Thomas, his mother had little time to grieve.
The day the Judd’s left Albany, N.Y., Thomas’ youngest sister Affra (Afara) took sick. She lingered in the world of the living for several days and then died.
“Word was sent on ahead to have a coffin ready, in due time we reached the place where the coffin was,” Thomas Judd said.
The coffin was handed through the train car window to receive the bodies. Catherine never had the chance of seeing the burials or where they were buried.
“The child was put in, the lid was fastened down and we went on, feeling very sorrowful indeed,” Judd added.
From St. Joseph, Mo., Judd traveled by steamer up the Missouri River, landing at Wyoming, Neb., approximately seven miles north of Nebraska City to prepare the company to cross the plains.
While in Wyoming City, Thomas and his brother, Joseph, were hired by Kimball and Lawrence of Salt Lake to drive four-yoke of oxen to the Salt Lake Territory. They arrived on Sept. 4, 1864, and a few days later Thomas was hired to work on a sawmill, in Lamb’s Canyon.
“It was very nice weather; the trees on the river banks were beautiful,” Judd said. “The grass on the plains from the river was about ten or twelve inches high and nice and green. I noticed that on the Mulberry trees on the river bank the berries had turned red. We gathered some of them and they tasted very nice.”
Other pioneers had a much different experience along the Missouri River.
“(In Nebraska) we outfitted, meanwhile camping in the brush for three weeks in hot weather waiting for the church teams to come and meet us,” said pioneer Martha Olson Sprague. “The ground was so hot it burned our feet. About 170 (oxen) teams were sent from Utah that year to the Missouri River for the immigrants.”
The company waited three or four weeks before the wagon teams from the Salt Lake Valley arrived to freight the pioneers across the plains.
Although the weather held for the first part of their bivouac, Mother Nature had different ideas.
“We were unloaded from the steamer on the banks of the river without any shelter except what can be made from brush and grass,” Judd said. “It was not long until the summer rains would come and they sometimes are frightful.”
It was about this time that Judd separated from his family.
The William S. Warren Company
The rest of the Judds started their trip across the plains on July 22, 1864 (with several conflicting dates: July 1, 19 and 27), in the William S. Warren Company.
Word soon spread that there were opportunities for the young men in the train to get jobs as teamsters.
“This looked good to many of us,” Judd said. “After some consideration, my brother Joseph and I, with the consent of our mother, hired out to drive teams. One wagon and four yoke of oxen (paid) twenty dollars per month and board.”
Thirty-six men and boys were hired. It took about 10 days to load up the wagons and make a start.
“I was selected for cook and continued so for the entire trip,” Judd said. “When we were out about a week the storms started and what storms they were. Thunder, lightning, often heavy wind, sometimes we had to Corral and Camp. There was very little wood. Most of our fires were made with buffalo chips or in other words dry hard manure.”
Mother Nature was not the only enemy of the wagon train.
The Indians were “very wicked at this time,” killing all the stock tenders enroute to Salt Lake City.
Sioux Indians had become “troublesome, and at one time, a company of six wagons were destroyed; all the men killed; one woman taken prisoner; and teams killed.”
On the trip to Utah, it was reported that ranchers, traders, and officers at U.S. Army forts would use “all arguments possible” to induce the pioneers to stop for safety. The answer given was, “We have only provisions enough to take us home if we keep moving, and we would rather run our risk fighting Indians than stave on the plains.”
The Judds arrived in the Great Salt Lake Valley on Sept. 4, 1864.
“In reality they were coming to the middle of nowhere,” said Randy Judd, Thomas’ great grandson. “They actually left the United States and went west into a desert that wasn’t part of the government. They truly had faith in God. That’s the only reason I’d be coming.”
Almost As soon as they arrived, the Judds moved on and reached their final destination St. George on Nov. 10, 1864 (some dates, including Judd’s obituary place the family’s arrival in St. George in October).
In the last full year of the Civil War, six church wagon trains left Salt Lake City bound for the Nebraska Territory to ferry Mormon pioneers across the desert and mountains of the West. Combined, the six companies put to work 1,717 oxen, 58 horses, 170 wagons and 28 mules.
Hostility toward the settlers from the Cheyenne and Sioux Indians escalated throughout the 1860s. However, contrary to long-standing beliefs the attacks by the Plains Indians were not the greatest danger facing the westbound settlers.
While pioneer trains circled their wagons at night – mostly to keep their draft animals from wandering off – Indians were more likely to be allies and trading partners than adversaries.
A close examination of the statistics indicates around 400 settlers were killed by natives between 1840 and 1860. The more pressing threats were cholera, bloody flux (diarrhea) and other diseases, poor sanitation, accidental gunshots and weather-related events.
In 2014, a team of scientists at Brigham Young University analyzed 56,000 Mormon records from 1847-1868.
Based on the data, an estimated 1,900 people died either on the Plains or within the calendar year of their arrival in Utah. That is about a 3.5% mortality rate. A national comparison group in 1850 experienced a mortality rate of between 2.5% and 2.9%.
Although statistically the mortality rate from Indian attack was low there were still troubles with some indigenous tribes.
“In the winter of 1865-66 we had considerable Indian troubles,” Thomas Judd said. “The last of January, word came that Dr. J.M. Wittmore and Robert McIntire had been killed near Pipe Springs and were brought into St. George. In April, Robert Berry and wife, also Jas Berry were killed south of Short Creek. Many of the men belonging to (the) Washington Co. We were called upon to trail the Indians and stand guard. I was called upon several times for various kinds of duty and was enlisted as a minute man.”
In Native American country, Brigham Young cautioned each pioneer to carry a loaded gun. He ordered the wagons to travel two abreast and drivers walk beside their wagons. Members of the party were directed to wake at 5 a.m., hit the trail by 8 a.m. and retire for the evening by 9 p.m.
Thomas Judd arrived in Salt Lake City on Sept. 4, 1864.
“I soon got a job as “Off Bearer” at a steam Saw Mill in Lambs Canyon at fifty dollars per month and board,” Judd said. “I spent a little over one month working there. We had heard but very little from mother and the family since we left the Missouri River. They had many ups and downs but finally got through to Utah. About Oct. 3, 1864. About half the family was still sick when they reached Salt Lake City, but no more deaths. Our folks stopped with George Jimes for a few days and rested. Then they all moved on and reached St. George in due time.”
Although this part of the journey to Utah was over, there was still the matter of building a life in Southern Utah.
This is the first in a three-part history on Thomas Judd’s life. Continue reading: Faith, perseverance and hope: A Mormon’s journey Part 2 on Wednesday, only at St. George News.
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