Journal of Elijah Charles Clapp

Reminiscences of Him

HISTORY OF ELIJAH CHARLES CLAPP
and
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF HIM
by Dorothy Clapp Robinson

The story of the life of Elijah Charles Clapp is the account of a frustrated man who failed to reach his full potentialities. He must be viewed through his times and environment. Life was raw and Utah was settled by people of all nationalities and classes. Most people led a hand-to-mouth existence. Work was scarce and done mostly on an exchange basis.

Elijah Charles Clapp was born December 11,1857, in Salt Lake City, Utah. His parents were Benjamin L. Clapp and Ann Christine Mortensen Clapp. He was the first of twin boys, his brother being Elisha D. Clapp.

Benjamin L. Clapp was, at the time of his marriage to Ann Christine Mortensen, a close friend of Brigham Young and was one of the First Presidents of Seventy. Brigham Young married Benjamin L. and Ann Christine. Ann Christine was Benjamin's third wife. When he was excommunicated she stayed in Utah with her sister, Mrs. Lars Nielson, while he and his first families went to California.

Christine married Lars Nielsen and Elijah grew up in a large family. Lars and Christine were married in 1859 when father was about three years old. He never knew his own father but he always had a high reverence for him and his mother must have told him many things about him and the trouble. In 1861 the family moved to San Pete county. They lived for a short time at Spanish Fork, then in various places in San Pete and Sevier county. In 1864 they moved to Richfield. In 1867 the year of the Indian wars they moved back to San Pete, then in 1886 they returned to Richfield and his mother stayed there the rest of her life.

Elijah was a man of strong contrasts. He was small, about five feet seven or eight, and when he was married he weighed 145, exactly the same as his bride. He had the resentment and inferiority feeling that most small men have. He was generous to a fault, yet did not demand generosity in return. He had high aims and great dreams but not the business acumen that brought his dreams to fruition. He realized his short coming with money handling so he turned every cent he made over to mother to handle and she did very well.

Elijah had a wicked temper but was the kindest and most loveable father. He was strict and harsh with Joseph, the oldest, but with Eugene, the youngest, he was loving and indulgent. Gene was the core of his happiness. He was very close to all three of his youngest boys. He was not a public man but honored ability and accomplishment, for one thing he had mellowed with experience and he was very happy to have three boys after so many girls. He always said the younger boys reciprocated his love to a greater extent than the older children.

Father's schooling was very limited but he was a good story teller, and he loved to have us gather around the supper table and be read to. I being the oldest at home, did the reading. He was quick to point out the moral of the story to us, but he was death on novels. He told me if I persisted in reading them they would pervert my morals and destroy my memory. Of good literature he had little knowledge for there was little to be found among the pioneers. While he was a wonderful story teller, his journal is a statement of facts, no opinions, embellishments of results. For instance, he entered, "I didn't go to meeting there was none because of small pox. Mon. 12 Nov. 1891. I stayed home because our little girl was sick and at nine o’clock that night she died of cold. Wed 14 we buried her." Yet he was a strongly emotional man.

As a child at home he and Elisha herded cows, hauled wood, and I remember his telling of taking the wagon and filling it with chunks of coal picked up around Castle Gate. Apparently it did not occur to any of them that the land was potentially valuable, else they might have done something about getting some.

Early in life Father learned the potter's trade, he and Uncle Elisha, I never knew who taught them. This trade supplied his living at various times in his life. They made milk crocks (pans), barrels of churns, bowls of all kinds and sizes, in fact, all household needs.

He also made many beautiful cutwork flower Baskets, salt cups, flower pot s , and even the lowly “thumble jugs". When the railroad reached Utah, iron and tin and later galvanized utensils were brought to a price where most families could afford them. In learning to make these utensils he also learned to bake brick and he made and laid brick for many houses in Manassa, also the Church Academy there. We have a picture taken of this yard. It shows the mill and the drying flats. But does not show the kiln.

On Dec. 14,1882, he married Mary Caroline Nielsen in the Salt Lake Endowment House. Nov., 10, 1883, their first child, Joseph H. was born and in 1885, 7 Sept., their first girl was born, Mary Catherine.

From his journal it is evident that father worked for his father-in-law, Hans Nielsen, part of the time and received his pay in bushels of wheat. He speaks of others too and received payment in produce.

Father and Uncle Elisha had a farm in the "meadows" near Chester. Elisha was called on a mission to the southern states. They sold the place and Uncle Elisha used the money for his mission -- so it could not have been a very large place. I have heard father say that he thought the reason he did not prosper later in life was because he sold to an outsider.

Elijah and Elisha were practically the image of each other. In a time when food was scarce, and especially milk, the one who worked was given all the milk he could drink. One had a black hat and one a white. At times they changed hats and each, that way, got preferential treatment. The boys were always marked, so we never did know whether our father was the one who was named Elijah or Elisha. As babies, grandma kept a different colored ribbon tied on their arms.

All their lives, until I was about seventeen, they had great fun fooling people. They lived in an age when men generally settled their differences with their fists. They were constantly in and out of fights. Elisha, especially. They were small men and psychologically used the bantam rooster routine to settle their differences and show their power.

Once Uncle Lish got in trouble with a big man and this man told around town that he was going to "Bat hell" out of him the next time he met him. But one unfortunate day he met the two of them face to face as they rounded a corner. Knowing they couldn't lick the powerful one, the twins purposed that if he could tell which was Elisha he could beat him without interference from the other. The big man finally grinned and conceded to them.

When Mary was nine months old, which would have been about May 1886, Elijah and Mary moved to San Luis Valley, Colorado. Father went first and mother followed. They lived successively in Ephraim, Treasta, Sanford Eastdale, and Manassa, then briefly in Sanford again and from Sanford to Idaho. Joseph, Mary, and Zelma were born in Chester, Utah. Amanda, Nina, and Alvin Lewis were born in Sanford, besides two who died in infancy, Elijah LaRue (in his journal he names him as Elisha Elijah) and Sylvia Christinia. Dorothy, William Henry, Molinda Grace, and Leslie Charles were born in Eastdale. The thirteenth one, David Eugene, was born in Moore, Idaho, in the Jimmy King house.

During the years in Eastdale most of his time was spent in working in other towns, Taos, New Mexico; Manassa, Sanford, and in surrounding villages. Uncle Lish lived briefly in Colorado. He had two children buried in Sanford, but he soon went back to Utah.

29 Oct. 1892, father went with Bro. Jensen (Christian) to Sanford to a Seventies meeting and was there chosen "To take care of the Seventies class meeting" with Bro. B. Morse to help him. He speaks in his journal of doing what we now call ward teaching and was very proud and appreciative of it. He was a deeply religious man, very devout and 100% tithe payer. I have heard him say that the Gospel was an open book to him, he never had doubted. Once in trying to argue with him about polygamy he said, "If that principle isn't true, none of them are." Then again, when you are in doubt about a principle, don’t say so. Just wait. Time and study will bring the right interpretation." He liked study and good principles. When on the homestead he wanted us all about the kitchen table at night and read aloud.

In 1890 he was working for a Bro. Funk for $1,25 a day and board, (in his journal he said 125 and bord). He went to a new place called Eastdale where several of the brethren had gone to make home. Next day he "scraped ditch" and the next day he worked on the dam they were building slightly up and east of the townsite. The dam was a low earthen one that held the surplus water in a natural hollow between two ridges. When ditches were finished the water was diverted into them, each man receiving his allotted number of acre inches.

The dam lay a mile or so above, the townsite and was often dry. Costilla Creek circled the town on the north and west then going on into box Canyon and thence into the Rio Grande. The creek ran directly back of our place, which was the most western house in town. It had high clay banks at that particular place. The little ditch that watered our garden and pasture had sandy banks and we children played a lot on the sand when the ditch was dry. In time a few willows grew along its banks. The town lay in a hollow between a bench and the creek. A drier, more desolate place could hardly be imagined. The graveyard on the bench was pure gravel. The only natural vegetation was greasewood and rabbit brush, sand lilies and prickly pears grew in abundance. There were some patches of sage brush; and in the early day coyotes and wolves were numerous. One man had a pack of gray wolves attack him while he was in his field irrigating with only his shovel with which to defend himself.

Between Eastdale and the unbridged Rio Grande were seven miles of sand hills. The sand glistened with mica and crunched invitingly under the wagon wheels. West of the Rio Grande was more desolation until near the town of Los Cerritos then it turned to swamp. In recent years oil in abundance has been found underneath the sand and greasewood.

The town had two main streets running North and South and East and West. Where they intersected on the northeast corner was the meeting house which also served as a school. On the southeast corner and back a way was the herd corral. There each morning the milk cows were brought in and taken out to feed in the greasewood. Families provided herders in rotation and according to the number of cows they had in the herd. Dry stock was taken to the hills each summer.

In Marcn of 1905 Elijah followed his brother Elisha to Idaho, Lost River. The family followed him and on the 24 July we left the train at Moore, Idaho. Elisha and his son Andrew, and Joseph, my brother were standing on tne platform to greet us. The boys thought they would play a trick on us so they persuaded father to stay inside the depot and let Uncle Elisha play father. As we left the steps of the train, we ran to him and kissed and hugged him. He put his arms about mother and kissed, but she soon pulled away and looked about. Where is Lige?" she asked. About that time father couldn't stand it any longer. He came out and then we were confused. They never could fool mother. They said they had fooled Aunt Hattie a time or two, but I don't know if they did or not.

We went to live in a half finished squared log house that father was building for young Jimmy King. It had a high shingled roof and was in King Lane.

In this house the youngest child, David Eugene, was born, same day San Francisco started to burn. Old Lady Beaverland, a pipe smoking old Scottish woman, was the midwife. After the baby was born, father came to get me. We had been staying at Dan King's home -- no relation to Jimmy. He held my hand as we walked the 1/4 mile home and told me he had thought when he came for us he would be taking us to a motherless home - she had such a long and hard time. But with her usual reticence Mother never did tell me exactly what the trouble was. Gene was a big baby and grew to be the largest of all the boys and girls. He was tall and large boned.

From Jimmy King's house we moved to the Holtz ranch above Darlington. Father had filed on his homestead a day or two after Gene was born. He got word from the Land Office at Arco that Mr. Singer had relinquished the claim, so he walked to Arco and filed on it. When he came back he told us the earth had opened and San Francisco had been ingulfed. That wasn't exactly the way it happened as we later learned, but it was the most devastating happening we had ever heard of. So in the spring it was time for us to move onto the homestead. We were two years on the Holtz place. Father had gone back and forth hauling logs for and building a log house on the homestead.

His homestead was west of the river on what could have been James Lane if the lane had crossed the river. It was slightly to the west between Arc and Moore. We had five reasonably close neighbors, Suttons on the West, George Smith and Hi Stoddard to the Southwest, I. N.

Sullivan's 1200 acre ranch directly North, and Chris Beck's or his wife's forty directly east.

The fall of 1908 I went to Blackfoot High School and while horne on Christmas vacation we all had small-pox. All except mother and Joseph, they had been vaccinated, and Mary had married and was still in Colorado. Father had a very severe case of the disease and never fully recovered. He lingered not getting well enough to really work. He grew worse during the Spring and Summer and toward Fall when one of the Apostles came up for conference he examined father and said he had diabetes. I thank Dr. Franklin Richards. At least the visitor was a physician. When he reached Salt Lake City he made arrangements to have father go to the L.D.S. hospital in Salt Lake City. The ward gave a benefit dance to raise money for his train fare. He had often played for dances after coming to the valley and was a great favorite with the young crowd. When he returned he was better but on a strict diet. In the course of three or four years with the help of the boys he managed to get forty acres cleared and seeded to alfalfa.

He set out berry bushes and fruit trees. He had dug a good root cellar and always raised a good garden. I can see him yet, knees padded, creeping up the rows with a short handled hoe. He wanted to make sure the cellar was full of food.

Mother had been obliged to go back to nursing the sick and cooking for sheep-shearers, to bring in the cash needed to keep the place going. After my junior year I was offered a position as teacher on Antelope Creek at sixty dollars a month. I was all for taking it but mother insisted I go back and finish school. That summer after high school I worked at the county court house helping to transcribe records, then in the fall I went to Yuma to teach. I had taken private lessons all Summer on teaching methods. Thus, I was able to help pay for the proving up on the water right and also on the homestead.

In 1913 father made a deal with Joe Burke from Iona, Ida’s brother, to trade the homestead for a house and lot in Iona and some dry farmland. Then came the last move. Mother tried to get him to go on the train but he insisted on riding in the wagon with her. She drove one wagon and Joe Burke drove the other, if my memory serves me correctly. On the way the wagon jerked in and out of a rut and a pain struck him in the back from which he never recovered. He lived until 12 Dec., my grandparents' golden wedding day. He was buried 14 Dec. which was his wedding anniversary.

His family was the big thing in his life. And living in a day when he could have had more than one wife, he said, "I don't want any wife but the one I have. She is all I want" His twin brother came to his funeral, but a month later, he too, passed away.

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