No Place to Call Home: the 1807-1857 Life Writings of Caroline Barnes Crosby, Chronicler of Outlying Mormon Communities
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Utah State University DigitalCommons@USU All USU Press Publications USU Press 2005 No Place to Call Home: The 1807-1857 Life Writings of Caroline Barnes Crosby, Chronicler of Outlying Mormon Communities Edward Leo Lyman Susan Ward Payne S. George Ellsworth Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/usupress_pubs Part of the American Literature Commons Recommended Citation Crosby, C. B., Lyman, E. L., Payne, S. W., & Ellsworth, S. G. (2005). No place to call home: The 1807-1857 life writings of Caroline Barnes Crosby, chronicler of outlying Mormon communities. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press. This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the USU Press at DigitalCommons@USU. It has been accepted for inclusion in All USU Press Publications by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@USU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. NoPlacetoCallHomeNo Place to Call Home The 1807–1857 Life Writings of CAROLINE BARNES CROSBY Chronicler of Outlying Mormon Communities Edited by Edward Leo Lyman, Susan Ward Payne, and S. George Ellsworth No Place to Call Home The 1807–1857 Life Writings of Caroline Barnes Crosby Chronicler of Outlying Mormon Communities Volume 7 Life Writings of Frontier Women A Series Edited by Maureen Ursenbach Beecher Volume 1 Winter Quarters The 1846–1848 Life Writings of Mary Haskin Parker Richards Edited by Maurine Carr Ward Volume 2 Mormon Midwife The 1846–1888 Diaries of Patty Bartlett Sessions Edited by Donna Toland Smart Volume 3 The History of Louisa Barnes Pratt Being the Autobiography of a Mormon Missionary Widow and Pioneer Edited by S. George Ellsworth Volume 4 Out of the Black Patch The Autobiography of Effi e Marquess Carmack Folk Musician, Artist, and Writer Edited by Noel A. Carmack and Karen Lynn Davidson Volume 5 The Personal Writings of Eliza Roxcy Snow Edited by Maureen Ursenbach Beecher Volume 6 A Widow’s Tale The 1884–1896 Diary of Helen Mar Kimball Whitney Transcribed and Edited by Charles M. Hatch and Todd M. Compton Caroline Barnes Crosby, 1855, from print of daguerreotype with shattered glass cover. Courtesy of Special Collections and Archives, Utah State University Libraries. No Place to Call Home The 1807–1857 Life Writings of Caroline Barnes Crosby Chronicler of Outlying Mormon Communities Edited by Edward Leo Lyman, Susan Ward Payne, and S. George Ellsworth Utah State University Press Logan, Utah 2005 Copyright © 2005 Utah State University Press All rights reserved Utah State University Press Logan, Utah 84322-7800 Publication of this book was supported by a subvention from descendants of Lois Hunt West. Manufactured in the United States of America Printed on acid-free paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Crosby, Caroline Barnes, 1807–1884. No place to call home : the 1807–1857 life writings of Caroline Barnes Crosby, chronicler of outlying Mormon communities / edited by Edward Leo Lyman, Susan Ward Payne, and S. George Ellsworth. p. cm. -- (Life writings of frontier women ; v. 7) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-87421-601-X (alk. paper) 1. Crosby, Caroline Barnes, 1807-1884. 2. Crosby, Caroline Barnes, 1807– 1884--Diaries. 3. Mormon pioneers--West (U.S.)--Biography. 4. Mormon women--West (U.S.)--Biography. 5. Frontier and pioneer life--West (U.S.) 6. Mormons--West (U.S.)--History--19th century. 7. Salt Lake Valley (Utah)- -Biography. 8. Middle West--Biography. 9. San Francisco (Calif.)--Biography. 10. San Bernardino (Calif.)--Biography. I. Lyman, Edward Leo, 1942– II. Payne, Susan Ward, 1942– III. Ellsworth, S. George (Samuel George), 1916– IV. Title. V. Series. F593.C897 2005 917.8’042--dc22 2004026228 Contents Maps and Illustrations vii Foreword viii Maureen Ursenbach Beecher Acknowledgments xi Editors’ Notes xiii Introduction 1 Part One Beginning Life’s Journey Youth to Arrival in Salt Lake Valley January 1807 to October 1848 15 01 Youth to Marriage Memoirs, 1807 to October 1834 17 02 Conversion, Baptism to Arrival in Kirtland, Ohio Memoirs, November 1834 to January 1836 31 03 Kirtland to Pleasant Garden, Indiana Memoirs, January 1836 to June 1842 40 04 Nauvoo, Illinois Memoirs, June 1842 to September 1846 58 05 Across the Plains to Salt Lake Valley Journal, 10 May to October 1848 69 06 Salt Lake Valley Memoirs, October 1848 to May 1850 87 Part Two Mission To The Society Islands To French Polynesia, Return to San Francisco May 1850 to September 1852 93 07 Overland Journey to San Francisco, California Journal, 7 May to August 1850 95 08 San Francisco to French Polynesia and Return Journal and Memoirs, 16 August 1850 to 5 September 1852 117 Part Three Upper California Mission San Jose and San Francisco September 1852 to November 1855 165 09 Mission San Jose, California Journal, 6 September 1852 to 20 January 1854 167 10 San Francisco, Horner’s Addition Journal, 21 January 1854 to 21 June 1855 236 11 San Francisco, the City Journal, 22 June to 16 November 1855 333 Part Four Southern California The San Bernardino Years November 1855 to December 1857 367 12 San Bernardino, A New Home Journal, November 1855 to December 1856 369 13 San Bernardino—The Final Year Journal, January to December 1857 444 Notes 509 Bibliography 547 Index 551 Maps and Illustrations Maps Dunham, Quebec, Canada to Nauvoo, Illinois 18 Nauvoo, Illinois to Salt Lake Valley 70 Salt Lake City to San Francisco 96 French Polynesia 118 Washington Township, Alameda County, California 168 San Francisco City and County 237 Coastal California 370 San Bernardino Valley 445 Illustrations Maria and George Ellsworth ix Page of holograph (memoir) 27 June 1844 xvi Page of holograph (diary) 22 July 1854 xvii Jonathan, Alma and Caroline Crosby 1855 8 Genealogies 11–13 Kirtland Temple, Ohio 39 Mission San Jose, California 179 Mission Dolores, San Francisco 238 Amelia Althea Stevens 286 Frances Stevens Pratt 364 Ann Louise Pratt 372 Lois Barnes Pratt Hunt 380 San Bernardino Council House 383 Addison Pratt and Louisa Barnes Pratt 458 Foreword Maureen Ursenbach Beecher Two events in the young life of S. George Ellsworth were turning points leading to the great legacy left behind with his death in 1997. The fi rst, while he was a student preparing to become an architect, was his com- ing upon his grandfather’s handwritten autobiography. That moment persuaded him to spend his life researching and writing the history of his people, the Latter-day Saints, and their antecedents. The second sig- nifi cant event was his meeting and marrying Maria Smith, an Arizona school teacher. Together they created the exemplary teamwork in home, family, church, community service, and professional productivity with- out which he might never have become, as he did, a historian of note and mentor to the subsequent generation of writers of Utah history. Being forerunners and nurturers was part of the Ellsworths’ contri- bution to Utah history. If, as George once observed, Juanita Brooks was “the queen of Utah historians,” then he and Maria were their nurturing parents, George in the professional limelight, Maria unpretentiously by his side, usually offstage. Stories are told of the study groups they fostered during their early years in Logan. George and his colleagues would read to each other papers of shared interest, often having to do with Mormon studies. From that group, as from George’s classes at Utah State University, came many of the luminaries who began in the 1950s to fi ll the gap in scholarly exploration of the history of the Latter-day Saints. There was hardly a writer of Utah and Mormon history of the years of George’s tenure at USU but came under their infl uence. The story is also told of George’s generous coaching of such colleagues as Leonard J. Arrington, who once stayed so late in the Ellsworth house that the gracious Maria was forced to remind him that it was well past supper time and he should go home so George could eat. The photo opposite best illustrates the modus operandi by which George and Maria worked: side by side, he the researcher-writer, she the confi dante, assistant, editor, critic, source and inspiration. The eight viii Foreword ix Maria and George Ellsworth, 1994. books and uncounted articles, lectures, and reviews bearing the Ellsworth name can be to a greater or lesser degree attributed to them both. George’s early bibliographic research in Mormon collections had made him aware of the rich vein of gold among the records: the diaries and autobiographies the early Saints had written. Like Davis Bitton, under whose direction the landmark Guide to Mormon Diaries and Autobiographies was compiled, and Juanita Brooks, who earlier had found, transcribed, and published some of the early gems of the genre, George recognized in his grandfather’s memoir and in the letters and diaries of Maria’s ancestral family, the literary and historical worth of these life writings. His 1974 volume, Dear Ellen: Two Mormon Women and Their Letters, from documents in Maria’s family collection, was an early inspiration for the creation of the present Life Writings of Frontier Women series. Such texts, the letters demonstrated, are much, much more than mere sources of historical evidence; they are a literature of their own. From that same collection of the Pratt/Hunt/Smith/Udall papers came George’s 1990 publication, The Journals of Addison Pratt; Maria’s 1992 Mormon Odyssey: The Story of Ida Hunt Udall; the 1998 History of Louisa Barnes Pratt: The Autobiography of a Mormon Missionary Widow and Pioneer; and the present text, the writings of Louisa’s sister Caroline. Maria and George had collaborated in George’s editing of Louisa’s x The History of Caroline Barnes Crosby writings, in the production of which George acknowledged Maria’s “help- ing me much, and saving me from errors.” Both texts were, after all, those of Maria’s family members, and George depended on her to “master .