From These Roots: Our Stock, continued

Born in Eskebjerg, Holbaek Amt, Denmark on 23 Feb 1848, Christian Nielsen Garff was nine years old as a Utah pioneer. It has been my presumption that he and Lauritz made the several moves with their mother and Gudmund Gudmundsen. In fact I have no record to show this, as I have is for Decon. At any rate, Christian does appear to have lived in Lehi where the family finally settled, before he makes his ultimate move to Cache Valley. 

Christian Garff was to construction and development it seems, as Peter his brother was to horticulture. I mean to say that he was well suited, a natural. He is listed in various sources as a carpenter, but a history of Logan gives a glimpse of the level of his carpentry when it notes that in 1880 Christian and partner Gustave Lundberg petitioned city council to increase their use of water to generate electric power to supplant their steam driven machinery. This source, A History of Cache County, by F Ross Peterson (1997, Utah Historical Society), states that this electric  plant may have been Utah’s first. As early as 1884 the Deseret News reported that this partnership was completing a kiln with capacity for drying 30,000 feet of lumber. This partnership was Lundberg & Garff, Door and Sashing Factory.

In Lehi, Portraits of a Utah Town, edited by Richard S Van Wagoner and published in 1990 by Lehi City, we find Christian as a promoter 1899 of electricity, the new energy that would replace candles and kerosine for public and private lighting. Christian also promoted electrical power in other towns.  The Cache Valley’s Utah Journal in 1897 reports Christian as investigating establishing a power plant between Preston and Franklin, Idaho. In 1904, listed as Garff & Son, The Deseret News reports he made an application for water from Alpine and American Fork canyon waters to develop power for generating electricity in that section of Utah County.

An article in the Logan paper in the late 1880s reports Christian was arrested for postal crimes after he sent an angry note to a hay dealer he discovered had sold him rotting hay. The hay purchase appears to have been large, for the interior bales to hide the bad product. I have not determined the need for a large amount of hay and wonder if Christian maintained livestock as well as running his mill business. It might also have had a use in his shop. I found this article through Utah Digital Newspapers online. I have not found any follow up to it yet, Christian claims he did not know the letter had been sent while he admitted writing the message in anger. Other articles also reflect his activities in Logan’s business community.

Logan city directories show Carl, Christian’s son as following in the carpentry business. Garffs will be seen to have strong business sense as  we go on with this family’s story. Anyone in the intermountain region will be able to name a few of the successful businesses associated with the Garff name. 

Christian’s family branched out from northern Utah. Widowed twice, he married first Augusta Elisabeth Hanson in 1874. A native of Sweden, she was born 1854. They were parents to four children before she passed away in 1898. Christian married again in 1901 to Caroline Fjeldsted who was born in Norway, and would pass away in 1925, two years before her husband. They were parents to one daughter. 

Christian Nielsen Garff passed away in Logan, Utah, aged 79 years. He and his wives are buried in the Logan City Cemetery.

From These Roots Has Grown a Great Stock

A quick note about my methodology in this blog. While I am a great grandchild of Isaac Gudmundsen, I will go down the birth order of Marie Jacobsen's sons, which means Peter, Christian, Lauritz, Deacon, Abraham and Isaac. I will go by generation, so that when I have given an account of each of these I will go on to their children, and then their grandchildren, etc. With Marie, Niels and Gudmund as the first generation I want to report up to my own generation- the fifth - before I consider my project complete. I hope to maintain an addendum beyond that point as long as I am able. I not only hope that I will learn of corrections I need to make, but I am asking you to let me know when that is in order. I truly want to give my best in this story of this incredible family. kk

THE SONS

Peter Nielsen Garff, born in 1843 at Saerslev in Holbaek Amt on the island of Sjelland, Denmark, was fourteen years old when his parents emmigrated with a company of LDS converts and returning missionaries and authorities. He had grown up in homes where servants and laborers were ever present, but we see no evidence that he was not familiar with labor or responsibility. His father is listed as a gaardmand in the census of 1850.  Perhaps he had been groomed to follow in his father’s work. He would later be known as a masterful horticulturist, as we read in Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah.

Peter certainly rose to expectations during the plains crossing, as has been noted already.  When finally he was settled in Utah, he planted the first orchards in Riverton. After his marriage to Antomina Sorensen in 1869 at the LDS Endowment House the family settled on Draper, across the valley at the base of the Wasatch front. Early on I heard of the Garff brothers taking their produce from Draper to Salt Lake City by wagon. Once a week this would have been an arduous task, could it possibly be completed daily? Whenever I travel between the two places I marvel at it anew. This is also related in People of Draper, Vol. I. Peter ran one of two water mills in Draper.

Peter was a thoughtful and spiritual young man, as well as the high qualities noted in his work ethics and business integrity. He went on to become a devout and reverent mature man, serving his church in many roles. He left his family to care for the farm twice to fulfill missions in Minnesota and Norway and at home he provided means for newer immigrants to come to the Utah settlements. Serving his community he was instrumental  in establishing the first free public school in Draper. 

Peter and Antomina were parents to twelve children. Peter was remembered as stern yet loving, leading an honest, orderly home. Is it any wonder he would be asked to assume leadership in congregation and community? Twelve children would provide a great posterity in numbers alone, yet Peter and Antomina’s legacy is known as much for quality as quantity. We will recount in later articles their descendants who have “lifted up” their community, church and country.

Peter Nielsen Garff passed away on June 5, 1921. His wife followed him twenty years later in 1941.

A Few Notes Before Moving On

To the modern reader, even as a descendant of the subject we may see comparisons in contemporary events, productions or writings. For us who are based in Utah the film industry has given much we can use as examples for understanding our origins and immigration to Utah.

Perhaps you have seen the film Seventeen Miracles,  following loosely the Willie handcart company of LDS immigration history. We are fortunate to not have parts of that story in our own, indeed we may not have our story at all had some of those events occurred in 1857.

I have recounted the advance payment for wagon and team going to advance someone else, and a half share in another being wiped out when the partner turned around half way. Marie stood fast through these, having as her strength her faith and conviction. She meant to see her Zion. When the wagoneer unloaded her family's belongings upon the immigrant trail and departed she declared her commitment.

These stories reflect faith's response to commitment.

The wagon company needed to keep time, on the road westward. There was scant time for variation or personal side trips. One story (from another family line in my own history) has a wagon pulling out while mother was delivered of child and then pulling back in to continue the trek. Just so the Cowley company continued on a ways before the missing wagon was noted. How fortunate that someone was sent back to investigate, that the family Garff was located and places found for their persons and some of their belongings. Marie and the three youngest were offered space in the wagon company, and Peter given a job of helping an elderly woman in the handcart train.

Another time, newly widowed, nursing an infant, losing another child- daughter Trina- Marie went off to seek solace in the prairie. Setting her infant in shade she spent time in prayer and contemplation so deep she lost sense of time and when she became aware that the company had moved on she raced to across the land to catch it. She had gone some distance when she realized her arms were empty! Imagine the thoughts as she turned again to retrieve her child- every bush seemed the same, every sound or shadow may have meant harm. Deacon lay where she had gently placed him and together they meant to catch their company. Darkness over took them and then rushing a river further impaired their movement, Marie must have pictured any number of outcomes. Suddenly at her side a person she did not know was asking how he might help in her need. She indicated the urgency of crossing the river safely with her babe. He told her to get on his back and how she must hold him for safety's sake and then he walked across the river and placed her ashore. As she turned to give him her thanks he had vanished back into the night. Soon lights from the company approached, as searchers came looking for her. No, the rescue party told her, there was no one as she described the man among their number.

The history of Utah has many details of conflict. Our family left Denmark in April of 1857, arriving in Philadelphia thirty-six days later. In July a letter to the president of the United States declared that the Mormons were in rebellion there in the west and the Utah Expidition was ordered to go put it down. This army would later be put under the command of Sidney Johnston. Guerilla tactics would be employed by the Utah militia- still know as the Nauvoo Legion- to slow the advance and other defensive efforts made through the canyons approaching the Great Salt Lake valley. Feelings were running high. One wagon train, the Francher party, passing through the south-central part of the Utah territory was waylaid and set upon only days before the Christensen and Cowley companies came into Sat Lake. That event is now known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

Many of the immigrant Mormons were being sent with the exodus out of Salt Lake valley. It was with or near these that Marie Garff and her children as well as Gudmund Gudmundsen came to Spanish Fork.

In the Valleys of the Mountains

 So many European immigrants had given all they had to come here, to this frontier of plains and mountains still scarcely charted. The Garffs, comfortable enough to employ a nurse for Marie’s impending  delivery, had been duped by an agent who was supposed to have secured the means to travel across the plains. They arrived at prairie’s edge learning he had absconded with their advance payment. They were able to go in with another family to get a wagon and team for their westward trip. We know now that Niels was ill. Marie, who had given birth during the ocean voyage would then lose husband and daughter in the frontier as well as this wagon. We can imagine Marie’s suffering the poverty of many woman in that era and those circumstances: poverty of supportive relations, of marital status, of home security. 

I have not learned anything of Gudmund Gudmundsen’s role in these dual immigrant companies under the supervision of Christen Christensen and Mathias Cowley.  The missionary who had brought the family into this fold seems at least to have been a confidant of Niels. In agreeing to care for Garff’s family as the dying friend asked, did he know what his skills could provide in this new place, among these new people? Gudmund had apprenticed in goldsmithing. My understanding of other skilled craftsmen coming to Utah is that they went without profit, trying to feed families and "build Zion" for some time before gaining a measure of independent success. 

The older Garff sons might have recalled the life of plenty in Denmark. Peter was about 15 years old at that time, already assuming heavy responsibilities when his mother and brothers were put out of the wagon they had managed to share when that partner turned back along the trail. Christian was 10, Lauritz, 5; they were moving further into a dramatic historical period with each step, now as handcart pioneers. 

At the very time that the Christensen hand cart company was finally coming into Great Salt Lake City in August 1857, the city had been preparing for the invasion of Johnston's army. This force had been sent by the president of the United States to put down the Mormon rebellion. Preparations that we have learned included putting defence works up in the canyons feeding immigrants into the valley, evacuating the citizens and filling buildings with straw to burn rather than yield to a mob, even if that mob was in uniform and marching at the government’s behest. 

Marie Garff married Gudmund Gudmundsen in 1858 in Spanish Fork. In their first winter they lived in a dugout shelter, as many immigrants did. Discouraged and perhaps perceiving little support from established Utahans, something came about that effected the commitment they felt toward their neighbors and church leaders. Gudmund took his new family to Cedar Fort and Fairfield where he found income from smithing for the army as it settled in at Camp St George (later to be renamed Camp Floyd).

A new voice in the community had begun to foretell things great and miraculous, stirring the feelings of  hurt, mistrust, isolation and perhaps hope. Joseph Morris seems to have been appealing as well as  persuasive to Marie and Gudmund. They took up with his group, following the Morrisites as they moved about the area. Eventually they assumed roles of importance: Gudmund as one of the apostles of this man proclaiming he was the rightful heir to the Mormon church’s Joseph Smith and Marie as a seamstress for the ornate outfits Joseph Morris required for himself and his mounts as he paraded before his congregation. A communal group, the Morrisites gave all their property to the cause or simply abandoned it; the end was coming, they were heaven bound. The group eventually arrived on the Weber River south of Ogden. They set themselves up at Kingston’s Fort, either by right or by squatting.

The leaders tried to keep their ranks from defecting and at this later point held two members in a livestock hutch turned prison, so that the men’s families called on the authorities to help free them. Morris did not give in, arming his group for defense of Kingston’s Fort and preaching heartily against the deputation outside the walls. A cannon was brought from Farmington to support the law's demands. Citizens from Ogden rode out to watch this spectacle from the Uinta bluffs above the Weber River. The outcome was that in a last flurry of gunfire Morris was killed and the group disbanded after its leaders were arrested, fined and turned out. Gudmund Gudmundsen was among these. Finding themselves without means, distrusted by and distrusting of their neighbors, some Morrisites chose to leave the area, following the army as it deserted Camp Floyd and Utah due to civil war breaking out in the United States. 

Marie and Gudmund moved to Sacramento, California, where reports of possible medical help for their son had come to them and where there might be work in Gudmund's trade. By this time there were two additional sons in the family, though Peter did not join his mother and stepfather in this move. Deacon, the Atlantic-born son had health problems which required medical treatment, even surgery I learn from my grandfather’s notes. He puts this at 1868.

After some time in California their circumstances had not developed for the better. Obviously it had been a time of contemplation on their previous actions and their current beliefs. One day the sons, playing among derelict buildings in the neighborhood discovered a cache of money and gold. Marie and Gudmund sought legal advice on dealing with this trove and were told they had as much right to it as anyone. 

It seems they considered that this may be a response to needs which they could not have resolved themselves, and perhaps of some more etherial hand. Medical debts were settled and they soon after rejoined the church community in Utah and endeavored to meet with Brigham Young to restore standing that had been lost. A home was built in Lehi, Utah, where Gudmund opened a jewelry business, the first in that community.

I know of no journal or diary which will give us exact accounts of feelings or discussions, and I hope my own self contemplation has not taken theirs too far afield. I have wondered about these ancestors and have tried to understand their lives more deeply but I remain a distant (five generations away) grandchild, in a different century. My hope here is to honor more than to analyze them.