Sarah Ann Wright

• Birth: November 12, 1794 in Rous Lench, Worcestershire, England, United Kingdom
• Christening: Nov 10 1792 Rouselench, Worcestershire, England
• Death: March 13, 1873 (78) in Springville, Utah County, Utah, United States

Married

• Married: William Mason on Dec 17 1822 in Rouse Lench, Worcester, England

History of her son George Mason

George Mason Contributed By: deannaperez1 · 14 December 2013 · George Mason Son of William Mason & Sarah Wright Mason 1826—1906

George Mason's Personal History was written by himself.

I, George Mason, was born 21 May 1826, a son of William Mason and Sarah Wright, at Newland Common, Salwarpe, Worcestershire, England. I went to school when a small boy until 10 years old. Then I had to quit and go to work for my father, which made my chance for learning very limited. When 12 years old, I had to take care of myself.

As a boy who did not care much about any kind of religion, I did not join any Church. I went to Sunday School and we were taken to the Church of England twice on Sunday, one and one half hours at the school morning and afternoon. Then we were marched to the Church by the teacher. I used to go to Baptist, Methodist, and Banter Methodist, both to their schools and meetings, but never had any desire to join any of them. I went only for fun and to hear and see what they did.

In 1839, my family moved from the place they were living to a place called Earl's Common. In the fall of 1840, David Moss came to that part of the country looking for a place to hold meetings and one, James Hunting saw him as he was coming home and they got into a conversation about religion. He told Mr. Hunting he was preaching the same gospel as the Savior and his apostles taught. Mr. Hunting invited him home that evening for a meeting. He and his children went around and invited the people to come and hear this strange doctrine. We all went and heard the stranger speak. When he got through, my father asked him home with us. We sat up most all night talking about the new doctrine, as we thought it was, and I slept with him that night. He was a young man about 23 or 24 years of age and I was between 14 and 15. He stayed around all winter and found other places to preach, but ours was the chief place to stop at.

In December 1840, my father, mother, and 10 or 12 others were baptized by David Moss and confirmed and a branch was organized. On 11 April 1841, myself and Brother George Hunting were baptized by the same Elder and confirmed. Soon they set me to work as a deacon, then teacher and so I continued for a while. Then I was ordained a priest and sent out to preach. We were sent, two of us together, as home missionaries and so I continued until 1849.

On 20 January 1849, myself, my brother William and the lady who later became my wife and her sister, left our fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and friends and started for Utah. On 3 February 1849 the ship Henry Ware moved out of the Liverpool docks with between 225 and 250 passengers. As we started out of the docks, we all joined in singing, "Yes my Native Land I Love Thee, All thy Scenes I Love them well." We moved into the river and cast anchor and ate a good dinner and about 2 P.M. the tug boat took us up the river into the Irish Sea and left us about 4 O'clock and then a two cent loaf of bread would have served us all for supper. For a week they were all sick but two of us, myself and Thomas Harward. As soon as our president got around, he organized the company and put me in as head teacher, also to tend the commissary, to deal out flour, tea and sugar. Berry Bucket and Walter James Bond were my helpers.

On 18 February 1849, I was married to Mary Ann Beard. Robert Martin the President married us. After a rough voyage we landed at New Orleans on 8 April 1849, having one death, one birth and one marriage on the voyage. The child was named Henry Ware Combs. Of all places to act as a teacher, is on board ship. Next day I and my brother William went to work on a steam boat, the Grand Turk, and I worked our passage up to St. Louis, where I stayed until 1850. As soon as I got there I began acting as a teacher. N. H. Felt was President of the St. Louis branch. On the 19th of May 1850 there was the most destructive fire I had ever seen. Millions of dollars of property was destroyed. As soon as I got settled down, which was 3 days, I went to work at the Gas Lights Works. I worked with 5 other men. I worked here for a year.

In March 1850, I sent money to my father, mother, and brother John and they came that spring. In June we went to Council Bluffs. Then we went to farming like all other Englishmen. We got along some way, raised some corn. In the fall I and Brother William went over the Missouri River to work for Mr. McKimrey who kept prospecting school for Indians. We worked there all fall, chopped cord wood and split rails all winter. In the winter of 51 or 52, Brother Taft T. Benson, one of the 12 apostles counseled all to get together to move to Salt Lake the next spring. So father and I went to work to get out-fitted, but it looked rather gloomy as we had nothing to start with. We went to work and ask the Lord to help us and by the last of June we were ready to start. There were some 10 or 12 families around where we lived.

We all started together, crossed the Missouri River 4 July 1852. On the 8 of July we organized into a company of 64 wagons with Henry Miller as our Captain and apostle Orson Hyde as President of the company in all things. When we reached the Big Horn River, we had to ferry all the wagons across and swam our horses and cattle. We all got over alright and started out again next morning. When we got to Fork we had to ferry and swim our animals again. After we got across to Fork and to camp we unhitched our horses and turned the cattle out, they all stampeded. We had quite a time getting them rounded up again but we finally got them together again. Next morning we again started on our journey and traveled right along until the last of July when we stopped on Sunday to rest our Cattle. That day my brother William took the cholera and died, a young man 22 years of age. We buried him by the road side. Oh, how we did hate to go and leave him there alone. He had been driving a team for Brother Price who was captain of our 10 and from then on I had to assist Brother Price until we got to Salt Lake City, which we reached 25 September 1852, but let me say that to cross the plains, a trip of 1,000 miles, through Indian Country, drive team, stand guard at night, whether rain or snow or cold, all was the same, it is no play. We had to do it for ourselves and stock for our stock was our salvation in crossing the plains. There was no white man's house in the 1,000 miles. Nothing but the wild buffalo and Indians, and there were thousands of them both. We would see most of them every few days, so it was quite a task to come to Utah.

When we arrived in Salt Lake City, I went to see if I could find David Moss, the man who baptized me. While hunting for him I came across Brother Derrick Huntington who showed me his house and ask if I had just come in. I told him I had. He asked what my trade was and I told him I was a jack of all trades. He told me I was the right kind of a man to come to Utah and said I would do better to go south and said Hobble Creek in Springville was a good place, some 50 miles south. I soon found the man I was looking for and got some potatoes, cabbage, and squash as that was a substitute for butter and meat. We had squash and bread for breakfast, bread and potatoes for dinner and supper.

On the 29 September 1852, we started our journey south, reached Provo on the night of October 5th. It was raining very hard but the people were kind and soon made us welcome. The next morning after seeing our cattle were all right, I walked over to Hobble Creek to find Thomas Harward who lived there. I soon found where he lived as we came from the same conference in England and crossed the sea together and he lived with us in St. Louis. We were like brothers. I stayed with him all day and looked around. I saw it was a good place for water and a nice place for a town. Next day I moved my wife and child, that was all the family I had at that time, and soon got settled. The first thing I did was to go to the Bishop and give in what property I had. He valued it at $100.00; that was $10.00 tithing. I then went to working around for something to live on. After 3 weeks it began to get cold so I went to work with Bro. Harward. I hauled logs out of the canyon to build a log room on the end of his and lived in it all winter. Though the winter I helped him thresh his wheat and get wood out of the south bench. The snow was 2 or 3 feet deep. We had lots of dancing and we were like one big family and all joined in the dances together.

As soon as spring came I went to work ditching for Matthew Cadwell. I had rented 10 acres of land and Cadwell said he would do my plowing if I would do his ditching. He would plow my land and put in my wheat for $3.00 per acre and give me $.50 a rod to do the ditch. My team was so weak I could not do it. Bro. Cadwell came to me in a few days and said I was making more in a day than he and his two yoke of oxen and boy that drove them, but said I could do more ditch in 2 days than he could in a week. So I finished his 100 rods of ditch in 11 days and he was 15 days putting in my wheat and when we settled up I had $15.00 coming to me.

Along in May, I bought 2 acres of land from William Stewart and went in the mountains and got a set of house logs and put up a house. I got it finished and lived in it in two or three weeks.

On Sunday July 19, 1853, about 10 o'clock at night two men came to my house and ask if I had a gun and if my powder was dry. I ask what was the matter and they said Indian Walker and his band were coming onto us and that we had better be ready for them. The next afternoon as I was coming through some willows I met three bucks (Indians). They said to me "Are you a Mormon son of a B.?" At that they all cocked their guns and pointed at me. I said, "You poor cowards." They grinned and put back their guns and when these men came at night I knew what that meant. That night I took my wife and gun and the baby and a little boy 3 years old and went to Bro. Simmons. There was quite a crowd there so some of us stood guard and got the women and children in the house. We all spent the night there and the next day too. Then we all moved into town in the Bowery. All those that had not gone after the Indians, organized into companies of 10, took our guns, cradles, and rakes and went to work cutting the grain. As soon as one man’s piece was done we went to another, until it was all cut and put into the shocks. We cut grain all day and then took our guns and a quilt and stood guard all night. So it went on until late in the fall. Then orders came for all that was outside a four block square to pull down their houses and put them in the center of the street so as to make a fort and then build a mud wall all around with logs in between the houses. We lived in that kind of a fort for 3 or 4 years and then we had to tear them down and move them onto our city lots. We had to be taxed to build a wall all around the city plot which was three quarters of a mile square. The wall was to be 12 feet high, 6 feet thick at the bottom and 2 full feet at the top. We built it part way around but never finished it.

In the year 1854, I was advanced to an Elder and joined the Elders Quorum in Springville. Gardner Curtis was President. In 1855 or l856, we had a grasshopper war. They destroyed our crops and we had to live mostly on pig weeds for grains and other kinds of roots. There was considerable suffering for want of bread. This lasted 2 years.

In the year 1857, on the 31st day of May I was ordained a Seventy by A.F. McDonal in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and joined the 51st Quorum of Seventies. In that year Uncle Sam's Army came to Utah and they brought lots of money and made lots of work for our good and we had better times as far as money was concerned, so that we went and built us a meeting house and Uncle Sam, as we called the government, went to work and built roads in our canyons, opening them up so we could get wood and timber and we improved our farms.

In 1868, President Young took a contract on the Union Pacific Railroad from the head of Echo Canyon to Ogden. Myself and J. Cook and S. Grange helped. It was called "Cook and Company." We went up into Echo Canyon and was one of the first companies to take a contract on the U.P.R.R. We continued to work on Brigham Young's contract until it was done to Ogden. We also worked on the point near Morristown after the track was laid to take off a point, to make the curve better. We were the last company to finish Brigham Young's jog which was on the 3rd of April 1869. We got home on the 10th of that same month.

In May 1869, President Young and some of the 12 Apostles came to Springville and dedicated our meeting house. Bishop Johnson asked me for a donation to buy an organ for the meeting house. I have him $10.00. I got home in time to go to farming. In Dec.1870 President Young came to Springville when Bishop Johnson tendered his resignation as Bishop and it was accepted. William Bringhurst was put in as Bishop and then we had a reorganization of priests and teachers. I was called to act as teacher with Alex Southerland as head teacher. (This probably is what we call Ward Teaching today).

In the spring of 1878, I was called to go and take a contract for all who took stock in Utah Southern Railroad as there was some $3,000.00 worth of stock taken in Springville. So on the 1st of August, I went and took a piece of grading between Pleasant Grove and Prove. Pleasant Grove as Geo. Habled had left because it was too hard a piece of grading. I went and done those two pieces then another piece in Provo and kept on until the track came to Prove.

That fall Bishop Bringhurst wanted me to take care of the tithing office. The building was finished and I took care of it and helped to finish the front of the house. Myself and Brother T. Child had the nice job to go around collecting means to pay for the material that was used in the house and in the baptizing font. We kept after it day by day until we had it all paid for.

In the spring of 1874, myself with quite a number of others were called to go to St. George and work on the Temple. In the fall when the time came for me to go, Brother Fox, an engineer of Southern Utah R.R. came and wanted me to take a contract of grading. I told Bishop Bringhurst I was willing to go or stay just as he said. Brother Fox and he talked it over and finally told me to stay and help furnish supplies for those that went to work on the Temple. I told him alright and went to work the next day. In a few days the Bishop and one of his councilors came to me and said they were going to send two loads of supplies to the men working on the Temple and wanted to know how much I would do. I ask him if $50.00 would do. He smiled and said yes. I paid him the cash. In a few days he came again. He has not enough to load both teams and ask if I could help out with some flour. I ask if 500 lbs. would be enough. He said it would make up the 2 loads so I gave him an order on the mill and he got the flour.

In 1877, I was chosen to take charge of the United Order Butcher Shop. I held that position until 1880. United Order Shoe Shop had got in debt and had to quit business. The board of trustees of United Order called on me to go to work and fix it up, out of the proceeds of the butcher shop. In two years I had it all fixed up.

In 1877, I was chosen by the Seventies to hire a man and set him to work on the rock quarry in Little Cottonwood Canyon, collect and pay him as part of his time check came to me and Brother John Maycock, as we were the committee. We sent a man for 4 summers. His time check would amount to about $50.00 a month. We got the means and paid him all up, but it was quite a job.

January 1877, I was called at a Priesthood meeting to be head teacher in the Springville Ward. I served until July when the Ward was divided into 2 Districts.

George Mason:

Born: 21 May 1826 in Salwarpe, Worcestershire, England Married: 18 Feb 1849 to Mary Ann Beard aboard Henry Ware, Atlantic Ocean Death: 11 Feb 1906 in Springville, Utah, Utah, United States Burial:14 Feb 1906 in Evergreen Cemetery, Springville, Utah, Utah, United States

His Father was William Mason and his mother was Sarah Wright. George and Mary Ann had 8 children.

Sarah Wright- https://familysearch.org/tree/person/KWVL-X8C/memories