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.