Louisa Dionita Carter

The following information was found on Family Search.org and includes a life sketch of Louisa Dionita Steele Carter's maternal grandfather, Horace Martin Alexander, and his first wife, Nancy Reeder Walker. It reads as follows:

My Grandfather, Horace Martin Alexander, was born near Canesville on a tobacco plantation, in Orange County, Virginia, February 15, 1812. His parents, James Alexander and Mary Frances Ehart, had eight children, of whom Horace was the youngest. His brothers and sisters were: Willis, Adam, Willis 2nd, Fannie, Marie, James, and Thorton. When Horce was quite young, the family moved to another plantation over in Kentucky, about two and one-half miles from Hillsboro, in Fleming County. In his home of luxury and ease the lad grew to young manhood. He had not been taught to work. A southern gentleman does not do that, only slaves and "white trash" need to work. It is interesting to note here that he was not fitted either by nature or by training, for the life of a pioneer.

When he was about nineteen years old, he left his home and went out to seek his fortune elsewhere, to the chagrin of his parents. It is thought that an unfortunate love affair was when he was about nineteen years old was the reason that he left his home. We next hear of him in Ohio, going with some other boys to torment the Mormons, who were holding a meeting there. Grandfather Horace listened to the words of the Elders. After that he attended more of their services. Here he became acquainted with a devout Mormon girl, Nanny Reader Walker. Through her influence he was converted.

On September 14, 1834, in Clay county, Missouri, he and Nancy were married. They were with the Saints in their migration from Ohio to Missouri. On September 1st, 1836, when their first child Frances Eveline was born, they were living on a farm near Liberty in Clay County, Missouri.

When after a series of persecutions in Clay and Jackson Counties, the Saints realized that they could expect no protection from the State, they petitioned the legislature to assign them a place where they might live. It was on this territory assigned to them that the city of Far West was built.

Here in 1837 and 1838 grandfather kept a store, according to a day book he kept at this time. Some of the charge accounts of this little book are interesting; saleratus (baking soda) 2 lbs. 30 cents, Candles 25 cents, Calico 50 cents, Flour 24 lbs. $1.25 , Molasses $.50. These items were paid for by pork. Grandfather used to tell how friendly he and Joseph Smith were at this time. The Prophet, an imposing figure on his big white horse, would ride right into Grand fathers store, and the horse would paw for what it wanted. Horace was made a Elder October 5, 1938 and went to Indiana and Ohio on mission.1

The Patriarchal Blessing by Joseph Smith Sr. was given October 7, 1838. On July 27, 1843, Horace went on a relief mission to help rescue Joseph Smith. He and many others were instructed by Hyrum Smith to watch for steamboats that may run up the Illinois river, and if any persons were running Brother Joseph down the river, under any pretext whatever, as the Amaranth had carried the news to Missouri, that Joseph Smith was going to be tried in Ottawa, and it had been reported that a company of men were armed in St. Louis and had charted a steamboat to run to Ottawa, there to seize Joseph and kidnap him to Missouri. If we saw such a boat, we were to rescue Joseph at all hazards and bring him to Nauvoo. 2

The Saints soon became so numerous and so prosperous that the people of Missouri and even Governor Boggs feared that they would soon own Missouri. The Mormons were so united and thrifty, there was some cause for alarm. The State militia supposedly called to quell the mobs, actually joined the mobs in driving the Mormons from Missouri. The Saints had to pledge their property to defray the cost of the war. They had to leave the state before spring, 1839. The expulsion began in February and by the middle of April, no Mormons were left in Missouri. Whither should they go? Homeless and almost destitute, they camped in tents and wagons on the banks of the frozen Missouri river. Some had been forced to flee without sufficient clothing and bedding to keep them warm.

Grandfather, who had achieved property in Far West had to leave everything behind, even his big trunk. His wife was in a delicate condition. He must find a home for her and their two and one-half year old daughter. How he ever succeeded in traveling way down the river to Alton in lower Illinois (Madison County) is not known. But here at Alton, in March, 1839, (his day book records) a baby girl, Nancy, was born to them. What an experience for these two young parents. The family lived here about two years.

On March 5, 1841, another daughter was born, Sarah Malinda (our grandmother). Most of the Saints on leaving Far West had gone up the Mississippi River to Quincy, Illinois, where they were treated with sympathy. They purchased a city of about twenty houses, called Commerce. Here they built the city of Nauvoo in a little over a year, a city of 15,00 people, 800 houses of stone, frame and logs. What an achievement for a years work! What an achievement for a years work! What other people could have done such a thing?

Here in 1841 they began to build their temple. Joseph Smith, in a revelation, called all the Saints to bring their gold, etc. and come to Zion to help build the Temple. In answer, to this call grandfather left Alton and joined the Saints in Nauvoo. In April, 1841, we find him and his wife and their three children living at the home of brother Ables. In Alton or earlier he seems to have learned carpentry, for his day book records that he worked on the Temple beginning March, 1842.

Once more he prospered. The little family was very happy on October 15, 1843, their fourth child, Dionitia, was born. Soon after, began the persecution which ended in the killing of the Prophet and in the expulsion of the Mormons from Illinois in the spring of 1846. Bancrofts History gives the idea that President Smith's aspiring to be President of the United States, and his beginning the practice of polygamy were probably the chief reasons for the expulsion. The Mormons were driven almost at the point of the bayonet. They were not given sufficient time to dispose of their homes and lands, but they set forth, destination unknown, to find a place where they might be safe. their first camp was on Sugar Creek in Iowa. Here there was much suffering.

The autumn found practically all of the Saints camped at Winter Quarters and Council Bluffs. In the meantime war had been declared between the United States and Mexico. Brigham Young appealed to the Government for work for his men, offering to help fight the U.S. battles. Accordingly, the Government called for 500 volunteers to be raised among the Saints. The Mormon men hated to leave their families and go off to war, but it meant that their monthly pay would help to buy the necessary outfits for conveying the Saints across the plains.

Grandfather, along with nearly all the able bodied, husky men of the camps, enlisted in Company B. His wife and children (four young girls ages 10, 7, 5, and 2) were left in the care of the Church and her sisters. The Mormon Battalion began the greatest march of infantry ever known, July 19, 1856, from Council Bluffs. The Mormon soldiers did not buy an outfit of shoes and clothing with the $40.00 allotted them by the government for that purpose. Instead they sent it back to their suffering families. As a consequence many of them were almost naked before the 2000 mile march was half over.

Their path lay over an uncharted desert. In some places food was so scare they had to kill worn out horses and mules to eat. At one time they marched a hundred miles without water. On the San Pedro River there was an encounter with a herd of buffalo. Grand father barely escaped with his life. They reached San Diego January 29, 1847, and found the Stars and Stripes floating there.

Back at Winter Quarters on January 1st, 1847, Nancy in the crudest of log huts gave birth to a son, Horce Martin Alexander, Jr. The weather was bitter cold. There was not sufficient bedding to keep the mother and babe warm and dry. The little lady was lonely. She called for her husbands riding boots which was all she had of him and would hug them to her and weep. On the 28th of January she died. Three days later the month old infant died too.

With Nancy during her illness was my grandmother, Catherine Houston, then an orphan girl of fifteen years. After the children went to live with Nancy's sister, Mrs. James Henry Rollins. Catherine was taken along too to take care of the children who loved her. Together they crossed the plains. See biographical sketch of Mrs. Dionitia Walker Lyman (sister of Nancy Reader Walker) for futher details on this hardship.

Grandfather, now a Corporal in the Battalion, received word of his wife's death months later in San Diego. He could not go to his children until his term of enlistment expired on July 16th. When he was mustered out of serviced he did not wait for his company to march, but with a companion or two, set forth at once on horseback. Grandfather, who bartered his shirt off his back to get a pint of beans to keep himself and companions from starving, had to half bury himself in the straw of Brother Hamilton's stable, while his companion went to the house of Hamilton's to explain his plight. That night sister Hamilton made grandfather a shirt out of a old skirt.

Grandfather here received word that his children, with one of the Parly Pratt companies, was well on its way to the Valley. So with a few other brothers he hurried forth again on horseback to meet them. It is thought that he sighted the immigrant train somewhere in Wyoming. It was touching, this meeting of the father and his motherless girls. It is small wonder that Grandfather learned to love this young Catherine when he first met her thus mothering his children. The party reached Utah in early November. On November 6th Grandfather began to work for Madison Hamilton. Grandmother (Catherine) still continued to live with the James Henry Rollins family and take care of the little Alexander's.

On February 15th, 1849, Horace and Catherine were married. At the same time, in obedience to the advice of his friend and leader Brigham young, he married Martha Burwell, who he had met in Salt Lake. According to the 1850 Utah census Horce had $100 of real wealth. While in Salt Lake City, Horce was a member of the police force from 1850 to 1853. In 1853, Horce was called to help settle Parowan, Iron County. Carpenters were sorely needed. It was hard to have to leave their good comfortable home and go again into a new country; but they did it without murmur. They lived here eight years. Here my mother, Helen Alexander was born.

They came back to settle in Springville in November 1861. From 1869 to 1879, Horce Martin Alexander was made Captain of the "Silver Grays", a company of militia organized to guard the town during the Civil War. He was also ordained a High Priest. For a few years both wives lived together in one house. Then Grandfather secured a home for each, as the families were getting so large.

In 1869, when grandfather moved with Catherine and family to Provo to help build the woolen mills, Martha remained in Springville till her death, many years later. Horce was freighter between Salt Lake and Southern Utah. Catherine live in Salt Lake according to Church study but she may have also lived in Provo. Julia Owens lived in Parowan.

In November 1875, Grandfather sold his land to get money to go on a mission to the Southern States. He wished to convert his own people and also wished to see if he might get a share of his father's estate. He found his parents dead, says his diary, and his bothers and sisters either dead or most of them moved to Indiana, Chicago and other places. The estate like many others, had been ravaged by the Civil War and had been sold. He found such misery and poverty there in Virginia and Kentucky among those who had once been wealthy. He was very kindly received by his relatives, both in Virginia and Kentucky. In his birthplace, he found 203 cousins. A nephew in Kentucky took him in his fine barouche with his spanking bays for a ride through Fleming County, Kentucky. The carriage was closed, and the horses trotted so fast that they gone a mile beyond his old home before he recognized the estate. Then he said he would not have know it but for the creek where he used to go fishing as a boy.

He returned from his mission in 1876 when he was 64 years old. In September 1881 he died at his home in Provo. He was buried in the Springville, Utah cemetery. He was a man of honor and truth. He was fair, just and had sense of humor. All who knew him loved and respected him. Of his thirty-five children, eleven were still living in 1927. Several died at birth or a little later.

The living (I assume in 1927) are: Mrs. Max Kless of Springily, Mrs. Flora Bryan, Mrs. Colestine Humphries, Mrs. Mildred Peterson, Mrs. Charlotta Gembel (Martha's children). Mrs Helen Harvey, W. D. Alexander, and F.D Alexander (Catherine's children). Amasa Alexander and Albert Alexander (children of Julia Owen, divorced wife). Those of grandmother's family who have passed are: Mrs. Lucy Collett, Mrs. Leona Clark, Mrs. Maud West, Mrs. Suzie Roberts, Miss Blanch Alexander, and Mrs. Fredonia Richards.

REFERENCES:

1. Far West Record . pages 209-210

2. History of the Church Volume 5, page 482.

3. Far West Record. Page 482

Most of the following information was obtained from a LDS church study of people who were members before 1850. Horce Martin Alexander came to Utah on October 16 1847, with the Mormon Battalion from California. Horace had four wives. His first died 28 January 1847, at Winter Quarters after giving birth to a son who died also. He had three wives in Utah. He was a freighter between Salt Lake and Southern Utah. Catherine Houston lived in Salt Lake. Martha Burwell lived in Springville. Julia Owens lived in Parowan. Horace was a High Priest and a missionary to the southern states in 1875. He was 64 years old at that time. He was Captain of the Silver grays, Springville 1869. Member of the Police department of Salt Lake City 1850-1853. Corporal in the Mormon Battalion.

Horace was sealed to his parents 15 April in the office of the President Brigham Young. The church study on early members of the church lists the following references of Horace Martin Alexander:

Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register 1845-46 Members of the Mormon Battalion.

Easton, Susan W. Roster of the Mormon Battalion.

LDS Missouri Petitions of 1830's Johnson, Clark

Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah. Esshom, Frank. 1913 page 43, page 712.

Utah Federal Census; 1851

History of the Church, Smith, Joseph; Volume 3, page 155 ;Volume 5, page 482

Treasures of Pioneer History, Carter, Kate 1953, Vol 2 page 450

Far West Record page 209-210, 245.

Church Study shows three different places of birth:

1.) Montgomery, Virginia - Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah page 712.

2.) Orange County, Virginia - Nauvoo Temple Endowment register 1845-1846

• Reference: Find A Grave Memorial - SmartCopy: Apr 28 2021, 19:27:36 UTC