Elizabeth Story Depuy

History of Elizabeth Story Depuy

Elizabeth Story Depuy Canfield was born 10 Jul 1825, at Lysander, Onondago County, New York. Her parents were John Depuy and Lucy Lonsberre Roberts. Little is known of her early life, except she came at an early age with her parents to Chicago, Illinois. Land records show that they were probably still residing in Lysander, or close by, in 1836 for John and Lucy sold Lot 80 in Lysander at this time. By March, 1838 the family bought property in West Buffalo, Williams County, Ohio. She was from a wealthy raidroad family. When she joined the “Mormon Church”, soon after her marriage, her family became unfriendly with her.

Elizabeth married David Canfield 1 Oct 1843 in Bryan, Ohio. In 1846, they moved to Nauvoo, Illinois. They shared in the suffering incident of the exodus of the Saints from Nauvoo and moved back to Chicago, where President Brigham Young advised them to go and earn money and procure a team and wagon and make preparations to move to Winter Quarters. The fall of 1849 found them at Winter Quarters.

The summer of 1850, they crossed the plains with an ox team and reached Utah the same year with Jacob Hamblin. They were sent by President Brigham Young to help settle Provo, Utah. They lived in Provo for eleven years then were called to go to St. George, UT. They started the trip south to St. George in Oct 1861 with six children, Clara being two days old. Rough roads and a heavy load made the oxen give out, between Conn Creek and Cove Fort, so they stayed at Beaver, Utah a week, at the home of Father Corry. Only through the kindess and help of others in the party, were they able to make the last of the journey to Dixie. Coming through Washington, Utah they stopped at the home of John Price a day or two, then on into St. George where they located at the point where the spring is above the Pace farm east of St. George. They lived two years in St. George, a short while in Santa Clara, Utah where they built the old Jacob Hamblin home there. Then another move took them to Pine Valley, Utah where they lived eight years. They they moved to the Mountain Medows, afterward named Hamblin, Utah, where Elizabeth lived 33 years. Here he husband died 8 May 1897.

Elizabeth acted as post mistress for the little town of Hamblin for twenty eight years. Hamblin was located on the old Spanish Trail and many travelers passed through on their way from the railroad at Milford, UT to St. George, UT. Elizabeth had spare bedrooms and almost every night found them occupied. She was a good cook and could fix delicious meals. She made her own butter and cheese. She also made lots of beautiful cashmere quilts by hand, including the binding which was so even and pretty. She had a loom and wove yards and yards of carpet and rugs. Probably every home in Pinto, Hamblin and the other surrounding areas were carpeted with her woven carpet.

Elizabeth was one who shared with and cared for the needy and poor. She was real slender and tall in stature. She was a devoted and hard worker.

Indians would often come to the home and ask for Canfield, then for meat, biscuts, or anything to eat. They couldn't get over seeing little girls with long blond hair. One day while Elizabeth was making soap and the kids were gathering fire wood to keep the fire going under the tub of soap, Elizabeth was, as usual, sweeping the front yard with her homemade broom. James was stirring the soap when he looked up and six or so Indian braves on horses were coming toward him. Elizabeth went over and stood by him and asked what they wanted. They demanded "food, food". So she gave them bread and cheese. Then they demanded flour and she shared her flour with them. They must have been watching the family for some time, as they knew David was gone. One of the bucks got off his horse and started walking toward them. Mother said, "I'll handle this". Still carrying her big broom, she moved fast toward him and around and around they went, she hit him with the broom on every jump. The rest of the Indians sat on their horses and laughed and laughed, poking fun at him. They called her a "Heap Brave Squaw" and rode off on their horses. The lone Indian made a leap for his horse and tried to catch up with the others, but they wouldn't have anything to do with him and made him trail along behind like the squaws did. They never came again when David was not at home and they would tell him how he had a "Heap Brave Squaw".

After her husband died, and Elizabeth now 73 years old, continued on and the travelers still stopped for meals and butter and cheese. She finally became quite blind and finished her life living with her children. She loved to knit and quilt and tried, as long as she could, to keep it up.

When people began to move from Hamblin, Elizabeth decided she would move to Enterprise, Utah (in 1905) and lived with her son Parley P. Pratt Canfield. She and her son, who had lost his wife, lived in the home where Chester Jones now lives. She resided here until the time of her death. She died in Cedar City, Iron Co., Utah on 5 Jun 1908, at the home of a daughter, Alice Lillian Knell. Her body was brought to Hamblin, where she was buried in the old family plot on June 1908.

Elizabeth was a tall slendar woman with large blue eyes, grey hair, and was as spunky as can be with plenty of grit and amtition. She sometimes would put needles and pins in the fence post to keep the indians out. They thought they were evil spirits. She would watch them come to the fence and check, if the needles and pins were there, they would not come any closer. Elizabeth was a kind person, always wanting to help others.

There was a time after moving to Hamblin, when Elizabeth became very home sick to see her family once more. So David took her by team and wagon up into Idaho to catch a stage coach to go to Chicago. This did not turn out to be a happy trip for her. Her father had died, her brother was gone and she didn't know where, and her mother had remarried a man named Robert and had two children by him, a boy and a girl. She wasn't received very well and they made fun of her, her clothes and her being a Mormon. When she came back it was winter and David had to go with his team and covered wagon into Wyoming to get her. There was too much snow for the stage coach and he not only got his wife but brought another woman who need to get to her home in Idaho.

(Parts of this were written by Ollie Hunt Jones a great granddaughter, and others are history as told by James Canfield, a son, and written by Tessie Hunt and Clara Canfield Farnsworth. It was re-written and compiled by Preston Hunt, a great-grandson.)

Deseret News June 11, 1903 page 3

Mrs. Elizabeth Story Depew Canfield Closes Remarkable Career

Special Correspondence: Enterprise, Washington County, Utah, June 8

She was born July 10, 1825 at Lysander, Onondaga, New York, moved at early age with her parents to Chicago, Ill., where she married David Canfield Oct, 1843. Received the gospel soon after and moved to Nauvoo, Ill. They shared in the suffering incident to the exodus of the Saints from Nauvoo, and moved back to Chicago, coming to Utah in 1850. They made their home in Provo, Utah for 11 years. When they were called to the Dixie Misison in 1861. They lived two years in St. George, Utah and eight years in Pine Valley Ward. Then they moved to the Mountain Meadlows, afterwards named Hamblin, Utah where she remained 33 years. Here her husband died, May 8, 1897. Mrs. Canfield acted as post mistress there for 28 years. She then moved to Enterprise, Utah in 1905 where she resided until the time of her death. She died at the home of a daughter Mrs. Alicve Lillian Knell, Cedar City, Utah June 5, 1908. Her burying remains were brought to the Meadows where they were intered in the family burying ground June 8. Mrs. Canfield leaves five children, 37 granchildren to revere her memory. Besides her family connections at the funeral were many friends from Cedar City, Pinto, Enterprise, and Gunlock.

Elder Joseph E. Robinson, President of the California Mission delivered a most eloquent discourse. Patriarch John S. Smith of Filmore offered the dedicatory prayer at the grave.

David Canfield

History of David Canfield

David Canfield, the 6th child of James Canfield and Susannah Blake Canfield, was born 9 May 1812, in Gorham, Ontario, New York, which is twelve miles from the Hill Cumorah.

David left home when he was twelve years old and went to Canada and lived with his uncle who was an ax maker and ships carpenter. He worked on the Great Lake District much of his early life, following his trade of ships, carpenter and blacksmith. He also worked on the Erie Canal as a bridge builder.

While in Canada, he fell in love and married a young Irish girl named Sally Mathison. They had two girls, Jane born about 1834 and Susannah about 1836.

It was at this time that he met the Mormon Missionaries and learned of the restored Gospel and he was baptized by Parley P. Pratt in Jun 1836.

In 1837, the United States and the English in Canada were having problems and a war broke out. The English found out that David was born in the States and was there working. They called him a rebel and his Canadian friends warned him they were after him. From this time on, he had no peace or rest and was always running and hiding from the English. He enlisted with a group of "Rebels" as they were known, and was Prescribed, which possibly means he was a leader of the group and gave orders or directions, fighting with the States against the English. Things got pretty hot for him and he decided he had better leave Canada. His wife was pregnant so he made arrangements to leave his family with his wifes grandmother Mathison. With the help of his Canadian friends, they put him in a large barrel that was used to haul molasses and put him on a wagon and surrounded him with barrels full of molasses and took him across the border into the States. For years, the Queens soldiers were looking for him and all other men of his company. He had received from the States a Commission as an Officer of an Insurgent Corporal.

After the war was over, he went back to Canada to get his wife and children. His friends there told him what had happened... his wife had died shortly after giving birth to a baby boy and the baby died also. They took him to the grave where they had buried them both together. The grandmother Mathison had then taken the two little girls and gone back to Ireland without leaving any means of contacting her. (The girls remained in Canada with their Uncle?)

After losing everything, he had only his church and his work to begin again.

He went to work as a carpenter around the Great Lakes and finally drifted into Chicago and then into Ohio. During this time, he met and married Elizabeth Story Depew, age 19 on 1 Oct 1843 in Bryan, Williams Co., Ohio. She was a daughter of John Horace Depew and Lucy Lonsberre. (I have found Depew spelled more times Depuy). Needless to say, the Depew family being French Huegenots, were most unhappy about this marriage of Elizabeth to David Canfield, a Mormon.

Sometime after their marriage, David and Elizabeth moved to Defiance, Ohio where their first child, David Jr. was born. They then moved to Chicago for work. They eventually moved to Nauvoo, Illinois to join the saints and David worked on the Nauvoo Temple. They were very destitute of material things and, with the persecution the saints were receiving, it was hard for the family. Just prior to the saints being driven out of Nauvoo, Brigham Young told David to return to Chicago and earn enough means with which to get a team and wagon. This, David and his family did, and it was there in Chicago.

The fall of 1849 found them at Winter Quarters. During the summer of 1850, they crossed the plains with an ox team and wagon in the Aaron Johnson Company. Also in the company was Jacob Hamblin, Dan Tyler, Edison Barney and William Cameron. After reaching Salt Lake, Presdient Young sent David and his family to help settle Provo. They arrived in Provo just in time for James, their fourth child, to be born in a wagon box on 9 Oct 1850. He was the first white baby born in Provo. At this time a great loss came to them when their twelve year old boy, David Jr., died on 14 Jun 1856. Just seven months later on 17 Jan 1857, their second child Ellen Elizabeth, eleven years old, died and she was buring where Brigham Young University is now.

While living in Provo, David worked as City Alderman during 1851-1852 and as Councilor in 1853-1854. While living here in Provo, their next five children were born. Harriet Elma born 5 Apr 1859 died 12 Dec 1859 and is buring in the Provo City Cemetery.

During the October General Conference in 1861, Brigham Young called 360 families to go and settle the Dixie Mission. David and Elizabeth and their family received the call and they made ready for the trip. Clara was just two days old when they started the trip on the 14 Nov 1861. It was necessary for them to go at that time so they would have company to travel with. They had a fairly good team of oxen and figured they could make the trip. Rough roads and a heavy load...gave the oxen out between Conn Creek and Cove Fort. They made it as far as Beaver and stayed a week at the home of Daniel Tyler, who had crossed the plains with them. They then stopped a day or two at Parowan and again at the home of Father Corry at Cedar City.

Moroni, who was thirteen years old, was driving an outfit for James Holliday who settled in Grafton, Utah and as soon as they could unload he sent Moroni back with an outfit to help his father. Only through the kindness of Mr. Holliday were they able to make the last of the journey to Dixie. Coming into Washington, they stopped at the home of John Price for a day or two and then went onto St. George. They located at the spring above the Pace farm east of St. George. They were there for the first Christmas held in St. George.

It rained very heavy that first winter and was very difficult to keep things dry and keep fires going. The ground was so boggy where the city now stands, that it was hard to get around. They had to keep on the beaten trails and they often had to lift the animals out of the mud. The grass grew tall on the black hills around St. George and at times you couldn't see the black rocks for the grass. Oxen and cattle were wintered there. When the grass was gone on the east black ridge, the livestock was moved over to the west side of St. George on the black hill where the "D" is.

David was a good friend of Jacob Hamblin and he knew of Davids ability as a carpenter, so he asked David to build him a home on the Santa Clara Creek.

The Canfield family moved over there and settled around what was called "Hunts Place" and the "Foster Ranch". While living on the Santa Clara creek, they experienced a great flood. It rained and rained. Elizabeth became so uneasy about it that as the family were having their prayer before going to bed, she asked for protection from the Lord. After going to sleep, Elizabeth awoke suddenly and shook David saying, "Wake up, Wake up David, I have been warned to take the family to higher ground. Hurry wake the children and warn the neighbors, then you and the boys climb the mountain. I will go ahead with the rest of the family." David and the boys alerted the neighbors, some laughed and went back to sleep while others took the warning and went to safe ground. After it was all over with, they helped gather up the bodies. Some they could never find. James never forgot the experience of trying to unwrap the arms of a youngster from around a tree, or the look on his mother Elizabeth's face as she cleaned and cared for the bodies of young and the old as they were brought in.

While living in Santa Clara, David Canfield and his boys build the old Jacob Hamblin home. They cut and hauled timber from Pine Valley Mountain and it was difficult work. The boys gathered and lifted rock, but laughed and had a good time. David became a little angry when Jacob could not pay them as promised for their labors and so David, in disgust, moved his family into the home and lived there for two or three years.

They then moved to Pine Vally. From there they moved a few more miles to the north, to the Meadows or Hamblin as it was called. They lived in a wagon box and what shelter they could fix up around it to keep the hot sun and weather out. They longed for a home of their own and so they worked and saved to get enough to build a home but it was hard in such a wilderness area. It was here the Jacob Hamblin finally paid David for building his home in Santa Clara. David and his boys now built a nice home of their own in Hamblin. Things seemed a little easier for awhile. Their little cow and sheep herd grew and they made cheese and butter to sell or trade. Travelers going and coming from Pioche, Nevada to St. George and other places would stop at the Canfield home for meals or to pick up supplies of cheese, butter, vegetables and etc.

David did carpenter work and blacksmith work for a living. One day as he was working on a roof, a sudden, heavy rain storm came up and he was caught in it. He developed a bad cold and never recovered. He died on 8 May 1897, at age 85, and was buried next to his son Moroni who had died the 28 Jun 1893 at age 45 and was buried in the Hamblin cemetery.

 

Copied from the Deseret News May 29, 1897

David Canfield

David Canfield - Died at Hamblin May 8, 1897. He was born May 9, 1812 in Gorham, Ontario County, New York. He joined the church in Toronto, Canada, and was baptized in 1843 by Parley P. Pratt. Went to Nauvoo in 1845 and helped to finish up the temple as far as it was completed. Came to Utah in 1850. Settled in Provo. Was in the Indian War there. Then was called to the Dixie Mission in 1861 and first settled at St. George, Utah. He was a willing worker and a true Latter-day Saint. He was the father of ten children. Had forty-two grandchildren and one great-grandchild. His last illness of four weeks was severe, but he bore his suffering patiently and has gone to rest leaving a record of a man who never failed to respond to the call of God, and who was ever to the trust reposed in him. May his children do as well.

!Ollie Jones shows sources as: Index Bureau SLC, UT, St. George Temple Records, Cemetary Records

Sealings in Jordan River Temple 3-19-93

Proxy Individual

Preston Hunt------------------- David Canfield, husband

Darlene Hunt------------------- Sally Mathewson, wife

Candace Fackrell--------------- Jane Canfield, child

Allyson Wood------------------- Susanna Canfield, child

Dean Wood---------------------- baby Canfield, child

Farnsworth History of Canfields #1697672-7

(Raymond B. Farnsworth)

David Canfield, father of Clara Canfield, was a Utah pioneer of 1850. He was born at Gorham, Ontario County, New York, 9 May 1812. He died at Hamblin (Mountain Meadows) Washington County, Utah 8 May 1897.

His first wife, Sarah Mattison, died while he was in the Patriotic Service in Canada. He married Elizabeth Storey Depuy 1 October 1843 in Bryan, William County, Ohio. They were the parents of 10 children. Elizabeth died 5 June 1908 in Cedar City, Iron County, Utah.

In 1850 they crossed the plains with wagon and ox team. Soon after their arrival in Salt Lake City, they were sent to help lay out the City of Provo, east of Fort Utah on the Provo River.

Their fourth child, James, was born at Provo 9 Oct. 1850. Clara, the ninth child, born 12 November 1861 was only two days old when they started on their wagon journey to help settle St. George in answer to a call from Briham Young.

During the October conference of the Church, 6 October 1861, President Brigham Young issued a call for 309 families to go southward immediately to settle what is now called "Utah's Dixie". "These 309 families were joined with 30 Swiss families, just newly arrived in the valley." All of these families arrived at the site of St. George uring November and December of 1861. This was to be th city that had been named by President Brigham Young in honor of George A. Smith. These families had been called to this area for that express purpose and to participate in "the Cotton and Tobacco Mission".

The 30 Swiss families were given the area of "the Big Bend", which is now Santa Clara.

The last child (10th) of David and Elizabeth was Alice Lillian, the only child born to them in St. George. She was born 28 October 1864.

The next spring he and his family moved northward about 30 miles from Dixie to Hamblin -- The Mountain Meadows, to become a part of that settlement.

In 1856 Jacob Hamblin had established a ranch at the Mountian Meadows and had built a house.

The Mountain Meadows are situated on a plateau about 30 miles north of St. George and about 10 miles southeast of Enterprise (which was settled in 1896). The eadows form a segment of the rim of the Great Basin, the watershed on which some streams form and flow southward to the Colorado River. Other streams flow northward down the canyon (Holt's Canyon) to the semi-arid Escalante desert. It was in the lower part of this canyon where James Holt settled and utilized this stream to water his farm lands established on the edge of the Escalante valley.

The Meadows are a narrow valley or mountain plateau surrounded by mountains. The area is about 5 or 6 miles long and one to three miles in width. The valley narrows to only a few rods in width at the southern end. It was through this valley that the Old Spanish Trail led emigrants to California.

In was at the southern end of the valley in this narrow gap where the Mountain Meadow Massacre occured 9-12 September 1857.