Supply Reed and His Four Mormon Children

1 PREFACE After writing the family story of my mother’s grandparents, Alvin and Mary Sophia Crockett, with whom Delia spent her last years,1 I have felt a little guilty for slighting my 3rd great grandmother who has the wonderful name of Delia Deliverance Byam Reed Curtis. I was nearing the end of that project when Delia entered the story, and I was simply too tired to sort out her complicated life, which contains a pandora’s box of husbands and stepchildren, so she only got a paragraph beginning with this: “Another book like this one could be written on Sophia’s family, so it is with regret that I can only give this brief sketch.” I can do better. Warming up to the idea of writing another book, I realized that my slight to her husband, Tillison Reed, was even greater—he did not even get a paragraph. I turned to his personal page in Family Search to learn more and found that 66 of the 73 memories attached to him had been mis-filed, belonging instead to Delia’s second (or possibly third, as I’ll discuss in this book) husband, Nahum Curtis, another injustice to Tillison, and one I could possibly rectify. I can do much better. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find many additional primary sources for either of them, but much can be learned from the context of American and Latter-day Saint history and the stories of their family and contemporaries, spiced with a little theorizing and some logical deductions. I was surprised to learn that three of Tillison’s siblings had associated with Mormons, evidently discovering the Church independently and at different times, and I believe that combining their stories adds another dimension to Tillison and Delia’s lives. To unify the various stories, it made sense to me to center them around their father, Supply Reed, whose own story is interesting, and that led to my discovery of two amazing books on the entire Reed family.2 This led me to add the following introduction, which ties Tillison and his father, Supply, to their impressive line of ancestors. If you are only interested in Supply Reed and his four Mormon children, you have my permission to skip the introductory chapter—it contains no original research on my part but is an interesting Reed-oriented romp through the past millennium. My Reed cousins, though I am acquainted with few of them, are many. To date there have been 60 contributors to Tillison’s page in Family Search and he has 33 current followers, who monitor any changes. I will make few changes to Family Search myself except to post this book among his memories, hoping that others who are interested in the Reed family will read this little book with charity, for there are many gaps and some challenges to family stories and a few theories of my own, which I will try to clearly identify as speculation. Hopefully, some are on target. 1 Kim Bateman, Letters of Books and Slates (if you are reading the electronic version of this book, apply control + click to follow hyperlinks, otherwise go to https://dinglereams.org/ for this reference.) 2 Jacob Whittemore Reed, History of the Reed family in Europe and America, Oxford University, 1861 and W. H. Reed, M.D., History and Genealogy of the Reed Family, The Norristown Press, Norristown, PA, 1929. 2 CONTENTS Preface ........................................................................................................................................................................... 1 Introduction—The Redes, Reades, and Reeds in Scotland and England ....................................................................... 3 Chapter I -- Supply Reed, Woburn and Acworth ......................................................................................................... 12 Chapter 2 - John Reed, Kirtland ................................................................................................................................... 25 Chapter 3 – Tillison and Judith, Missouri ..................................................................................................................... 38 Chapter 4 – All Four Reed Siblings – Nauvoo and Exodus ........................................................................................... 63 Epilogue ..................................................................................................................................................................... 103 Family Trees ............................................................................................................................................................... 104 Supply’s Children and Place of Death .................................................................................................................... 104 Delia’s Husbands and their Families ...................................................................................................................... 105 Index of Persons ........................................................................................................................................................ 106 3 INTRODUCTION—THE REDES, READES, AND REEDS IN SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND Around AD 650 the chieftain Cairbre Reada, an invader from ancient Erin, now Ireland, founded the clan of Rede and established the kingdom of Dalriada on the western coast of Scotland. There reigned a succession of chieftains until the ninth sovereign Reada was defeated by Kenneth, King of Scotland. Crossing the River Tweed, the traditional border between England and Scotland, and the Roman emperor Hadrian’s wall, Reada founded the settlement of Redesdale in Northumberland on the branch of the River Tyne now named Rede, later called the Reed Waters by Sir Walter Scott in his novels. Spreading their clan toward the ancient port city, the Reeds owned Morpeth Castle and achieved matrimonial alliances with the semi-royal house of Ross.3 The first of that clan to which Supply Reed’s pedigree can be plausibly attached is Ælfred Shrew de Rede, Supply’s 23rd great grandfather, who was born around AD 935 at Morpeth, Northumberland well over a century before the arrival of William the Conqueror from Normandy in 1066.4 According to the above cited historian, In 1068 William gave Earl Robert the earldom over Northumberland, but the landsmen attacked him in the town of Durham and slew him and nine hundred men with him. Soon afterwards Edgar Etheling came with all the Northumbrians to York; and the townsmen made a treaty with him, but King William came from the South unawares on them with a large army, and put them to flight, and slew on the spot those who could not escape; which were many hundred men; and plundered the town. Castles were built throughout Northumbria by the Normans for defense, but from this time until the union with Scotland in 1603 Northumberland was a battleground between the Normans and the Scots, forcing the Reeds in Redesdale to deal with both powers. 3 Jacob Whittemore Reed, History of the Reed Family in Europe and America, John Wilson and Son Publishers, Boston, 1861. 4 Personal disclosure: although I lack the Y chromosome of the Reeds, being related on my mother’s side, Ælfred is my 29th great grandfather. 4 The first stone castle of the Normans was built in Wales in 1070 and the Canterbury Cathedral was commenced in the same year. The Doomsday Book, intended to be a complete inventory of Britain, although it omitted still hostile Northumbria, was compiled in 1085, two years before the death of William I. Scots controlled Northumberland by marriage until 1157, and again from 1215 to 1217, taking it back in the year that King John signed the Magna Carta. Thomas Rede I, Supply’s 13th great grandfather was born in Morpeth in 1261. When he was 17 years old his wife gave birth to Thomas Rede II in Redesdale, who would be the first of the line to permanently leave Northumbria in eleven generations. In 1296 King Edward I invaded Scotland, confiscating the oblong block of red sandstone that had been used for centuries in the coronation of the monarchs of Scotland, the Stone of Scone or Stone of Destiny often referred to in England as the Coronation Stone, and hauling it off to Westminster, where it has resided until modern times, consecrating the coronations of all subsequent English monarchs, the last to use it being Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.5 In retaliation, William Wallace defeated the English at the Battle of Stirling Bridge, but Edward defeated Wallace in July 1298 and later executed him. Although the Normans had initially entered Wales in 1066, they had never been able to subdue all the Welsh principalities until Edward overran the country in 1282, permanently ending Welsh independence. Wales remained the King’s personal fief until 1301, when it was bestowed upon his son, who assumed the title Prince of Wales, which has belonged ever since to the British monarchy. Whether seeking love, fleeing the conflict between Scotland and England, or taking advantage of Edward’s conquest of Wales, around 1298 Thomas Rede II moved 292 miles southwest to 5 In 1996, in a symbolic response to dissatisfaction among Scots, the British Government decided that the stone should be kept in Scotland when not in use at coronations. On July 3, 1996, Prime Minister John Major announced to the House of Commons that seven hundred years after it had been taken, the stone would return to Scotland, where it currently resides alongside the crown jewels of Scotland in Edinburgh Castle. Wikipedia. 5 Carmarthen, Wales, where he married Elizabeth de la Roche in 1299. A year later Thomas and Elizabeth had a

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