TIMOTHY BRADLEY FOOTE (Maternal First Great-grandfather of Robert Perry)

Timothy was born December 29, 1799 (just at the end of the 18th Century and the beginning of the 19th, as the United States was exiting the Revolutionary period) in Oswegatchie, St. Lawrence, New York. His parents were Stephen Foote of Waterbury, Connecticut and Rhoda Hand of Litchfield, Connecticut (what a family joke, a Foote marrying a Hand); they joined the Church and moved to Nauvoo where they died. Timothy was strictly a Yankee. Those who remember him cannot forget how he used to dance Yankee Doodle whenever the band struck up that tune. He learned to dance it on the battle field in 1812. At the age of fourteen in 1813, hand in hand with his father, he enlisted in the second war with England, in which he served until the war ended when he returned to his father’s home and family in New York. Reportedly, he was the only person in Utah that received a U.S. pension for services in that war. His first marriage was to Jane Ann Russell, born in July 1800 in the same town as Timothy. Being just a year apart in age, they probably grew up together. They were married in their home town in February 1823, both in their early twenties. They had seven children born to their union, two girls and five boys; at least five of the children lived to be adults. We don’t know the circumstances of their contact with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but Timothy and Jane Ann were baptized members thereof in September 1833, place unknown (it is interesting to speculate where they joined the Church-by 1831 it was centered in Kirtland, Ohio with settlements in Missouri as well. Inasmuch as one of their children was born in New York three years after their baptism, it is most likely they were still in New York). It appears as though his parents joined the Church as well, but we don’t know at what time or place. Reportedly, at the time when the Prophet Joseph Smith and several other leading men of the Church had been sentenced to death in Missouri, accused outside of Far West, Timothy, hearing of the verdict of death for his leader, shouldered his rifle and started for the town, determined to offer his life to save the Prophet, if need be. He reached Far West in time to witness the successful work of General Doniphan in saving the prisoners and confounding their accusers. (This would seem to place Timothy in Missouri in late 1838). His father died in 1844 and his mother in 1845, in Nauvoo; thus they were spared the agony of the long trek across Iowa and then on to Utah while in their seventies. We can place Timothy and family in Nauvoo, Illinois with the body of the Saints no later than November 1841 since their daughter Victoria was born there; another daughter, Eliza, was born there two years later in 1843. Her mother Jane died one month after giving birth to Eliza, and we can only speculate that it may have been as a result of childbirth, especially since it was winter. The family lived at Nauvoo block 71 on lots 3 & 4l, on Young St. between Main and Hyde Sts., and was a member of the Nauvoo 3rd ward. Holding the office of a Seventy, Timothy received his Endowments in the Nauvoo Temple on January 20, 1846, just before the exodus began. In July 1847 Timothy was remarried to Nancy Jane Riley (my ancestor) of Canada, thirty one years his junior, in Quincy, Illinois or Oswegatchie, New York. This suggests that Timothy and his family had not left the area with the main body of Saints in 1846 bound for western Iowa. This union produced seven children, five of whom reached adulthood, including my grand father, John Foote.

Between July 1847 and June 1848 the family made its way to Winter Quarters, Nebraska, because on June 5 the family departed with the 1848 Brigham Young Company of 1220 Saints and arrived in Salt Lake valley on September 20-24 of that year. Timothy served as a captain of ten during the journey. It is possible that one of Timothy’s sisters, and two of his children by Jane Ann went with them since they died in Utah. Nancy’s first baby, a boy named Cyrus, was born in Emigration Canyon, Utah, just four days before the Company entered the valley. We can only imagine the difficulty Nancy endured as she crossed the plains during the last trimester of her pregnancy. Timothy was ordained a High Priest in 1849. Timothy’s family was the first to permanently settle Nephi, Utah, along the Salt Creek, arriving in September 1851. He built the first log cabin house in Nephi; the site is now within the confines of Juab Count Fairgrounds with a monument marking the spot. He became the first postmaster of Nephi, serving for 25 years. He also operated a salt works, extracting salt from a spring in the canyon; he constructed a toll rode thereto. He served as a town alderman, and was appointed by Brigham Young to supervise the construction of the Juab Stake Tabernacle. Timothy and Nancy were sealed in Salt Lake City in November 1851. He took another wife, Elizabeth Bissac in April 1857; no children apparently born to that union. In 1869 Timothy was sealed to four women and to one more in 1875, all in the Salt Lake Endowment House. Timothy died in Nephi in April 1886, and is buried in the Vine Bluff cemetery in Nephi along with his wife Nancy Jane.