Thomas and Catherine Foy (1836)

(There are some discrepancy in the records of the Foy family.  The ordinance record shows that they were baptized in 1842, but as I read through their family records, they were actually baptized in 1836. It may be that they were baptized in 1836, but then rebaptized in 1842, which was a common practice in the early church.) 

Thomas Birk Foy and Catherine Rebecca Fink Foy 1936

There are a lot of family legends about Thomas Foy and his family, but not a lot of historical evidence to back it up. Thomas Birk Foy was born in 1802 in Pennsylvania, but some family histories say his father was from France, and others from Germany.  One family story is that one of Thomas’ ancestors was a general to Napoleon, and another was married to King Charles of Spain.  I asked my mother about his line, and she thought they were Huguenots, who fled France and lived for a time in Germany before migrating to America. Family legend suggests that Thomas’ father came to America as an indentured servant, and that he drove a supply wagon in the Revolutionary War. Other accounts say that he was a cooper, and made barrels for a living. One story says Thomas was the last of 12 children born to his parents.

Thomas seems to have had no formal education. His father died when he was 17, but older brothers and sisters looked out for him. In 1820 or 1821 he moved with his brother to Indiana County, PA, which was considered frontier at that time. There Thomas met Catherine Fink, the daughter of German immigrants, and they were married in 1828.  They lived next door to Catherine’s parents and Thomas worked as a wheelwright. 

After the dedication of the Kirtland Temple, the new Mormon church sent out missionaries throughout the United States.  Erastus Snow went to Pennsylvania and there met and baptized the Foys. The church grew in Pennsylvania, and the Foys stayed there until 1840 when they moved to Warsaw Illinois, near Nauvoo. Catherine, by that time, was expecting her 5th child. The census of 1842 required that people list their taxable goods.  From that census we know that the Foy Family were living near poverty.  Warsaw was a portage town, where people would unload their boats, haul everything upstream to avoid rapids, and then re-enter the river. By 1840 it became a meeting place for those who were persecuting the church. The Foy’s must have been victims of some of the harassment because when the church asked members to record their grievances against the mobs, Thomas and Catherine had losses to report. 

In 1841 Thomas was ordained an elder by Willard Richards, and Catherine obtained her patriarchal blessing from Hyrum Smith. Thomas received his patriarchal blessing in 1842, and it states that he would “have an inheritance with the remnants of the seed of Jacob, not of Joseph, but of Issachar.”  

In 1845 mob violence had increased so the Foys, who now had 7 children, moved to Nauvoo for safety. The records show the exact plot they bought and it put them in the same ward as Joseph Smith, Wilford Woodruff, Brigham Young and other well known persons in church history. Maybe for this reason, Thomas and Catherine were part of the first endowment session in the Nauvoo Temple in January 1846. 

There is no record of when they left Nauvoo due to persecution, but by 1848, when their eighth child was born, they were in Council Bluffs. Later that year they were sealed by Heber C. Kimball in Winter Quarters. 

Because Thomas Foy was a wheelwright, family legend states he was asked to stay in Iowa to help build wagons for those crossing the plains. Though there are no records when they themselves crossed, it was probably in 1850 when the church called all remaining saints in Iowa to migrate to Salt Lake. There is one letter that states that Catherine got Cholera on the trip west, and was also four months pregnant, but she survived. (Catherine went on to have 12 children total.) The Foys show up in the 1850 census as living in Salt Lake City. They later moved to Ogden, where Thomas married a second wife, Louisa Potterrill (who was only 20, 11 years younger than Thomas’s oldest daughter. Louisa ended up having eight children with Thomas). They were eventually called as part of the “Cotton Mission” and were sent to Saint George to grow cotton. they stayed there until Thomas’ death in 1873. Catherine died in 1870, but Louisa lived until 1920.

Francis and Esther Bathsheba Fletcher 1842

 Our family has several ancestors who joined the church in 1942.  I plan to blog about one couple a week for the next couple of weeks. This week we get to meet the first members of the church on the Fletcher line. Luckily, Esther kept a journal and it is from her journals that we get this information. (via Family Search)

Francis Fletcher was born Massachusetts in 1818.  He met and married Esther Bathsheba Wright in 1839 (she was born in 1823 so was only 16 when married).  In 1842 they were introduced to the church and were baptized by members in the Lowell branch in Massachusetts. Their parents didn’t join the church and in 1847 they decided to move west with the Saints. When they arrived on the frontier, in August 1847, members of the first Mormon Pioneer group were returning from the Great Basin and gave reports of the Salt Lake Valley.  

Francis and Esther stayed at Winter Quarters over the winter but it wasn't a very nice place, so in spring 1948 moved to Harris Grove, Iowa. Francis made money by building a log cabin and then living in it for a while while he built the next.  By 1851 they had made enough money for the trek west.  They left in June and arrived in Salt Lake in September. A year after settling in Utah, Francis took a polygamous wife, Mary Ann Loring.  

Francis Fletcher was a carpenter and stone mason. He worked with Truman Angell to open up the stone quarry the was used to build the Salt Lake Temple and was present at the laying of the cornerstone.  Unfortunately, In 1854 he contracted pneumonia, probably from breathing in the stone dust, and died, leaving Esther with five children and one on the way. That baby died shortly after childbirth. After Francis' death, Mary Ann Loring left Salt Lake to travel to California to visit family, but died there in 1856 at the age of 27.  She had no children.

The next few years were very difficult for Esther.  She struggled to get enough food for her family. During an especially bad year in 1856 she would go out and dig up sego lilies for her family to eat. Then a neighbor allowed her to glean his field after his harvest and she was able to get enough wheat to last the winter. 

Esther started a school in her home and was able to earn a little money that way.  In 1857 she became the 5th wife of a man she had met in Winter Quarters.  He was not able to support her completely because of having to support his other wives, but she did bear him two children. Esther was among those who left Salt Lake City to hide when Johnston’s army entered the valley in 1858.

Later she recorded a time when she was in a choir that went to sing to the prisoners in the penitentiary.  Many of the prisoners were church leaders arrested for polygamy.  In her journal she wrote about how strange it was to see Lorenzo Snow locked up in a prison. 

She served many years as a ward Relief Society president in Salt Lake and was invited to attend Eliza R. Snow’s 70th birthday party. There was some rumors that Brigham Young, who was trying to evade arrest because of polygamy at the time, would attend the party (as Eliza Snow was one of his wives).  Esther didn’t believe he would chance it, but he did, and spent the day enjoying the party. 

In Spring, 1893, Esther wanted to climb into the tower of the Salt Lake Temple to touch the statue of the Angel Moroni.  She receive permission to climb into the tower, but wasn’t able to touch the statue.  The temple was dedicated on April 6th, 1893, and she wrote an effusive praise of the Lord and his goodness in her journal that day.  Esther died a few months later on September 30.  She was buried in the Salt Lake City Cemetery.

P.S. 

I think Francis was the most handsome of our ancestors that I have found.  I wish I had a picture of Esther when she was younger.  I imagine she was very beautiful and that they made a striking couple.

Electa Caroline Briggs (1841) and Daniel Randall Williams (1842)

Electa Caroline Briggs 1841 and Daniel Randall Williams 1842

Mother of Emily Electa Williams

Mother-in-law to Edward Stevenson

Electa Caroline Briggs had a lot of difficult things happen in her life. She was born in 1805 but in 1807 her mother died.  Her father, not wanting to take care of his three children, left each of them with different relatives and then disappeared for 16 years.  Electa was placed with her grandparents who raised her.  After 16 years, (Electa would have been 18) her father returned with a wife and four children. Came to his parents home and wanted to have Electa come and live with him and his new family.  Of course, he was a total stranger to him, but her grandparents urged her to go with him. 

She only lived with her father and step family for one year before married an older widdower.  He called her his “Child Bride” but the marriage seemed to be a happy one.  She had a baby two years after the marriage, but only 6 years after the marriage, her husband died.  She was pregnant at the time of his death, and delivered her second child two months later.

Someone else was assigned to administer her husband’s estate when he died, and in the end Electa was left with nothing. She and her children jumped around from one family member to another. While staying with her sister, Polly, she came in contact with the church. She went to a few meetings, but didn’t join at that time.

She began working with a doctor, and soon became a nurse.  While nursing typhoid patients, she became sick with the illness and nearly died.  Then her daughter became sick as well.  Electa heard that the prophet Joseph Smith was in the area visiting relatives, so she sent for him to come and administer to her daughter.  He came with his brother and they blessed the child. By the next day the child was well.

Electa met and became engaged to a man called Daniel Williams.  She told him when he proposed that she would only marry him if he agreed to take her to where the Mormons were.  He agreed and but they were not able to go immediately.  Electa’s father had seized her possessions, (he was not a nice man) and they sought legal action to have them restored.  He had hidden them, and it took a while to find out where they were. He then tried to sue her for room and board, but the issue was settled when he died to small pox later that year.  After her father’s death, Electa married Daniel Williams and they moved to Michigan where Electa’s brother had a farm.  They lived there a few years.  While there a Mormon Elder Simeon Dunn visited the neighborhood.  Electa invited him to preach, but soon they heard that a mob planned to do him harm.  Her husband agreed to help him escape. Although they had not been baptized yet, helping the missionary made them a target of persecution. They finally left to travel to Nauvoo in 1841.  When they arrived, they decided to settle on the other side of the Mississippi River in Zarahelmla (the settlement mentioned in this week’s Come Follow Me reading). While there they were finally baptized. 

In her autobiography that can be found on Family Search, she has an account of their experience the night Joseph Smith was killed. They had eventually moved to Nauvoo, where Electa was part of the first Relief Society. They were driven out of Nauvoo with the rest of the saints. They moved to Council Bluffs and stayed there until 1852 when they finally traveled to Salt Lake City in an ox cart. They settled in North Ogden.