Thomas Richard James

Thomas Richard James

• Born 4 January 1865 in Lake Point, TooeleUtah
• Died 18 August 1939 in Salt Lake City, Utah

THOMAS RICHARD JAMES

Born 4 January 1865, Died 18 August 1939

Written by Dora Dutson Flack, a granddaughter

(Note: As this history progresses, memories of people in the author's world connect surprisingly with the James Family. Therefore, they are woven into the story, proving what a small world we live in. These interruptions are separated from the main text by parentheses.)

Tom's Beginnings

In the early days of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints missionaries proselyted in England, then spread their efforts to Wales. After James James listened to them in the Parish of Pencarreg, Llangybi, he accepted the new church, left Wales and came alone by ship to America, finally reaching the Salt Lake Valley.

Mary Richards and her family heard the missionaries in Merthyr-Tydfil and also emigrated to the Salt Lake Valley, but not all at the same time.

James and Mary met in Salt Lake City where he practiced his trade as a shoemaker. They were married 14 February 1854. Their first five children were born in Salt Lake City within 5 ½ years. James recorded their approximate time of arrival in his journal:

1. Mary Jane, born 11 January 1855 at 6:00P.M.

2. William, born 28 June 1856 at 4:00P.M. Lived only about 50 hours.

3. James Alma, born 19 July 1857 at 5:00A.M. Died 29 September 1858.

4. Harriet Ann, born 7 April 1859 about 4:30 A.M.

5. John Willard, born 24 September 1860 at 2:30A.M. Died 5 March 1874.

However, the first son William died two days following his birth. The second son died at fourteen months. When baby Harriet was born, Mary Jane, who was then four years old, truly enjoyed her new baby sister. Eighteen months later John Willard's birth gave his father hope that he would someday have a masculine helper in the family. However, John Willard lived to be only fourteen years of age, as explained later.

New settlements seemed more promising than living in the city. So in about 1862, the James Family moved to E.T. and established a farm. They also raised sheep. E.T. is a small town on the way to Tooele, and was established by Ezra T. Benson, grandfather of Church President Ezra Taft Benson. The town later became known as Lake Point.

The following year another baby daughter arrived:

6. Margaret Elizabeth, born 22 December 1863 at 10:30 P.M. Died 11 Dec.1916.

Two years later they welcomed another son:

7. Thomas Richard James, born 4 January 1865, between 10:00 and 11:00 P.M.

This baby was blessed 1 0 March 1865 by George Bryan. (His middle name is somewhat in dispute. Existing records have it spelled both Richard and Richards. The E.T. Ward Records were burned in the early days, so we have no early actual proof.  Nor do we have original family records on which to rely. A microfilm of later E.T. Ward records shows one page of members of the James Family. At the top of one page is recorded: "Rebaptized under the United Order. September 22, 1877." The names of James and Mary Richards are listed with sons Thomas Richard and David. At that time it was common to establish ''United Orders" where "all things were had in common." We wonder why the other children were not also listed. Referring to Tom's middle name, since his mother's maiden name was Richards, we assume she wanted to establish it in her offspring. Since most family records have left off the "s" we will refer to him as Thomas Richard James.)

More children were born into the James Family, following Tom:

8. David Elias, born 5 October 1866, between 12':00 and 1:00 A.M.

9. Watkin Moroni, born 12 November 1868, at 1:00 P.M. Died 31 January 1870.

10. Eliezer James, born 23 June 1871 between 1:00 and 2:00A.M.

11. Martha Etta, born 10 March 1873 about 12:00 noon.

12. Walter Lee, born 28 November 1875 about 1:30 A.M.

John Willard, the only brother older than Tom who was still living, died 5 March 1874. Now being the oldest son in the family, at age 13 Tom had four younger brothers who now looked up to him. When Tom reached his fourteenth birthday on 4 January 1879, his mother was delighted to finally have a son that old.

She stated, "Tom, now that you're this old, you can have anything you want for your birthday."

After Tom thought a few moments, he replied, "Well, custard pie is my favorite food. Would

you make that for me?"

''No problem," she assured him. "I'll make you a whole pie to eat all alone."

This treat became Tom's lifelong favorite food.

Life in "E.T."

While attending the "E.T." School, Tom sat on log slabs and used a slate for writing.  Although his schooling was limited, he must have received a good foundation because he was always quick with figures. All his life he studied the newspapers diligently and was surprisingly well informed on government affairs and current events.

Tom herded sheep for his father and worked on the farm. Many times in that arid country,

while herding sheep, his only source of water was occasional puddles of rainwater.

Tragedy struck the James Family on 22 August 1880 when the father, James James, died at

age 56. The youngest son, Walter Lee, was not quite five years old. In 1856 when the eldest son William died, the father had purchased a large cemetery plot in the Salt Lake City Cemetery. Sons James Alma, John Willard and Watkin Moroni died early and were also buried there. This plot is near ''N" Street and about 6th A venue. James James had also permitted friends to be buried on that plot. Of course James James was buried there after his death. That plot is now close to the monuments of at least three presidents of the Church.

Back to the Big City

By this time the oldest daughter, Mary Jane, had married William Armstrong in August of 1876 and they lived in Salt Lake City. Harriet had also married Absalom Yates (known as Ap Yates) on 21 March 1879, a little more than a year before her father died.

With six living offspring still home, Mother Mary sold the house in E.T. and moved back to Salt Lake City to a home on 3rct West. (This home was later demolished for railroad tracks.) The family lived in the old Fifth Ward. Tom helped to paint the big Salt Lake Tabernacle on Temple Square. He later told of helping to blow the bellows for the Tabernacle organ. However, he did not state whether it was a church assignment or he just did it for fun. Since Tom was not very active in the church, it was probably the latter.

We do not know how the family was sustained financially.

Some of the siblings have told their descendants that Mother Mary Richards remarried. We cannot find proof of a second marriage or proof that she remained a widow. Five years after James James died; Mary also died, on 2 July 1885, and was buried beside her husband under the name of Mary Richards James in the James plot described above.

Her death left the family without anyone to hold them together. Brigham Young had urged the saints not to seek wealth in possible mines. However, while living at Lake Point, Tom had caught the prospecting fever and spent much of his time searching for gold. At that time the rich mines were   booming in Mercur. He covered much of the territory in the western part of the state, even into Nevada and was driven by a desire to "strike it rich." But he was much too early for availability of mines in that locale.

(Across the mountain, east of Lake Point, wealth really developed years later when the Utah

Copper Company started their mining operation which has continued through the years and today is

known as Kennecott Utah Copper Mine.)

Mining Led to Park Valley

Very early in the 1890s, while herding sheep in the new Park Valley area in Box Elder County, the northwest part of the state, Chubb Canfield and Johnny Ango began picking up rocks which showed evidence of mineral content. Interest spread. This intrigued the James brothers because of their previous interest in mining in the Mercur area. While living in E.T., as the James boys looked north, they could faintly spot snow-covered mountains near beautiful green fields near Park Valley. Then they learned the Century Mine in Box Elder County began operation there, bringing in big equipment. The James brothers headed north,  worked in the Century Mine and explored their own mining project. The owner of the Century Mine, H. P. Madsen, made millions. His sons Pete, Vigo and Richard W. likewise inherited fortunes.

(This family later moved to Salt Lake City and Vigo lived on South Temple and "T" Street, a couple of blocks from the home of Tom's daughter Iona, when she lived on "R" Street. Vigo lived in the same 271 h Ward, but never went to church.  Small world Richard W. Madsen was a top officer of Z.C.M.I. for many years, and I had contact with him when I worked for Utah State National Bank-now Zions-on First South and Main Street.)

As mentioned above, Tom's sister Harriet married Absalom Yates 21 March 1879. He was one of the first settlers of Park Valley and this introduced the James Family to the early settlement of Park Valley where Canfield and Ango first began looking seriously at the rocks. Through Harriet's marriage, the James brothers became acquainted with the territory and its residents.

In December of 1891 Eliezer James married Louisa Chadwick whose father, Abraham Chadwick, was an early settler in Park Valley. The same month and year, David James married Menah Callahan, a Park Valley resident.

Tom worked at the Century Mine and prospected in "them thar hills" for many years. He even had a claim to a mine of his own. Family tradition states that the Madsens cheated Tom in his mining business.

With two brothers living in Park Valley, Tom soon met Mary Ann Chadwick, daughter of a local farmer, Abraham Chadwick. She was also a sister to Eliezer's wife, Louisa. Tom and Mary Ann were soon married in Salt Lake City on 5 September 1893. Tom was 28 years old and Mary Ann was 26. The first James home was a two-room rock house in the Chadwick field in Park Valley, about half a mile from the home of Mary Ann's parents.

Their first four children were born in that rock house:

1. Florence Mary, born 12 May 1894.

2. Abraham Thomas, born 21 November 1895.

3. Iona, born 22 December 1897.

4. Edith, born 7 May 1900.

Family Moves to Rosette

The two-room house was pretty crowded with six people, so Tom and Mary Ann bought a small farm in Rosette which she operated while Tom worked in the mine. Sometimes Tom worked at the Century Mine for three or four weeks in succession, and continued prospecting, always dreaming of finding a fortune. Ordinarily he left Monday morning to work at the Century Mine and rarely returned until Saturday. Abe suffered severely from hay fever and was unable to work in the fields. Therefore, the girls had to be of great assistance to their mother. Florence was the chief maid inside and Iona assisted her mother with the farm work outside. This was very hard on Abe, but the family adjusted as necessary. The girls were all most helpful.

From Rosette to Ranching in Park Valley

In 1910, by the time they had nine children, Tom decided he could make a better living by owning a ranch. When his brother Eliezer and his wife Louisa moved to Ogden from Park Valley, Tom bought their house and farm. Tom, with his family's help, raised cattle, horses, chickens, turkeys, pigs, milk cows, and all the feed for them. His special horses were Belle and Mickey. After the move he still owned mining claims and continued his yearly assessment work which required about a month in the winter. This he continued for many years.

After leaving his work in the mines he became a full-time farmer. He and Mary Ann, with the

children, ran the whole operation. Mary Ann was delighted to have Tom's full-time help. When baby

chicks and turkeys hatched, he put them in boxes and placed them behind the stove where they would be warm.

As the years piled up, Tom developed a round plump tummy. He always wore a dress shirt and dress pants held up with suspenders. To protect such good clothes, he wore coveralls while doing farm work. Then as soon as he came into the house he removed them and hardly looked like a farmer. When he came into the house from working, he removed his shoes.

Tom was quiet by nature and not very demonstrative, but always pleasant with a twinkle in

his eye.

The kitchen and dining room of the house was one big room on the front. Three bedrooms

spread across the rear. This property was located next to David James' property, Tom's brother. Later two more rooms, a kitchen and bedroom, were built on the west side of the house.  Abe and Frank slept in that new bedroom.

The tenth James child arrived 31 May 1912 and was named Stephen. During this last confinement, since the older siblings were good managers, Mary Ann went to Ogden to stay with her

sister.

As Steve learned to walk well, he carried the wood for heating the house. As soon as he could sit on a three-legged stool he was milking cows. He recalls they had 7 or 8 cows. But when all the family was still at home, they had 12 to 15 cows, which required a lot of milking. Tom didn't milk until he had to, as family members left home.

The girls gathered eggs and fed the chickens. Mary Ann sold eggs, cream and butter to the

store and the hotel in Kelton.

Tom and Mary Ann had about 100 turkeys each year. They sold most of them at the end of the season to United Grocery in Brigham City.  Their farmland was about 120 acres, accommodating between 100 to 125 cattle which they sold in the spring and fall. 

With such a large family, Tom quit prospecting and devoted his entire time to his farm and herds. He carefully constructed all his own out-buildings, some of rock, some of log. The cellar was made of adobe bricks.

Service to Others

Tom was never active in the church, but he always encouraged his family to maintain church principles and he never detained them from their religious assignments. Usually he readied the team and wagon so the family would not be late for Sunday church services, a mile away. Although he did not attend Sunday services, he never worked on the Sabbath unless it was absolutely necessary. He always stated, "I never pushed the horse in the mire on Saturday so I could pull him out on Sunday."  No one lived the Ten Commandments better than Tom. He never cheated a neighbor and always went the second mile to help one.

One day lightning hit the barn of the Seeley Family, burning it to the ground. Tom prepared to take a load of hay over to help them. Steve was loading hay from one field but Tom stopped him and said, "If you want to give something away, give the best." He directed Steve to load up from another field.

(After LeGrand and I--Dora--moved our family to Bountiful in 1956, I was called to work on the Stake Genealogical Board, and we held monthly planning meetings for our many teaching activities. Leah Hatch was secretary of our Board. One evening I was the first member to arrive at Leah's home for a meeting. Her husband, Tru Hatch, reclined in the rocker in their living room. As I entered, he said, "Dora, aren't you a granddaughter of Tom James from Park Valley?"

"Why, yes," I replied, shocked.

"I knew your grandpa in Park Valley when I lived there. Now there was a good man! One night my barn burned down. I didn't have any hay left to feed my livestock. The whole town knew about my tragedy, but Tom was the only one to come to my rescue. He quickly brought a whole load of hay and other necessities. I couldn't have survived without Tom James. Bless him. And now you and Leah work together this many years later.   Amazing."

Small world.

When my Grandfather Jim Dutson and his family moved to Park Valley, they lived in a tent. That first winter they were grateful to Tom James who gave them hay for their livestock. This was prior to the time when their son Lon returned from his mission. Lon later married Iona, Tom's daughter, and I became their second daughter.)

Normally Tom enjoyed good health. But when their youngest daughter, Dora, was a baby, Tom contacted smallpox on his way to the mine on a Monday. He stayed until Wednesday and then knew he must return home for care. Being wintertime, he was drenched on his arrival home and ran a very high fever. He was lucky to survive the disease. All the children caught his bug, but none died of smallpox.

Never did Tom go to a dentist. However, at one point he suffered a severe toothache and

neighbor Dave Hirschi pulled the two painful teeth for him with a pair of pliers. When Tom died, he still had all his teeth except those two.

Family Fun and Work

Tom loved to play with his children, and later his grandchildren. They enjoyed sliding down his extended legs as he sat in his rocker. Although he was jovial and good-natured, he always expected obedience. Frank was probably the only one he ever spanked.

Of course there was little recreation in the small town of Park Valley. The family made their own fun by playing "Blind Man's Bluff," ''Hide and Seek," "Hide the Thimble," "Hopscotch," "Kick the Can," and any other games they could think of. Tom seldom played actual games with the children-and later the grandchildren-but sat in his chair at the table reading the newspaper or magazines while they played around him. However, his ear or bald head, fringed with gray hair, was a frequent hiding place for the thimble. He never gave hints to the hiding place but kept on reading the newspaper, sitting immobile while they searched all around him and finally found the thimble.

Tom engaged in little conversation. All the children and grandchildren remember him as a man of few words, but he was good-natured. If he told a family member to do something, this was an order-to be obeyed. Since he was away much of the time, discipline fell to Mary Ann who was very strict. She often hollered at the kids. The children obeyed her, but they responded even more quickly to their quiet father. He said, "People talk too fast, and not plain enough."

When Abe returned from his mission, he slept in the same bed with Frank and Steve. Not ,,-anting to respond to their mother's shouted morning orders, sometimes they stuck their feet out of bed and pounded on the floor which sounded like walking steps, then they crawled back into bed.  When they heard their father's cough as he walked up the path from the barnyard, they jumped out of bed and dressed quickly. "We moved the first time Father spoke," Steve says.

Chores must always be finished early in the morning, even if it delayed Mary Ann's breakfast.

Tom always shaved before breakfast and was neat and clean.

Much of his adult life Tom carried peppermints in his pocket. He bought candy in little barrels-yellow corn candy, hardtack, and peppermints, all ordered from the catalog. The family popped com on the wood stove and had taffy pulls, the taffy being made from honey.

The color of the James children's hair was somewhat interesting. Florence and Abe both had red hair and Gladys's was auburn. Edith and Emma's was "dishwater blond." Iona's was black, inherited from the senior James family. Tom's was black before it went gray in his mid-years. Two of Tom's sisters had red hair and Walter and Eliezer had black hair. All the James family turned gray early in life.

 Daughter Edith recalled that Tom and Mary Ann were always compatible. After all, Tom wasn't home much of the time in their early years, when he spent so much time at the mine.  However, Edith recalls that one day Tom "booted" Mary Ann with his foot when he saw a snake on the ground right beside her. Shocked, she quickly turned to see the snake slithering away. Mary Ann was very frightened of snakes, and to warn her would have created a crisis. It was much easier to give her a quick kick to move her away.

Gladys recalls that every year on the 24th of July Tom went up to the mountains and brought

down snow so they could make ice cream.

In the cellar in the yard, the family always stored in sawdust the winter's ice from the creek. 

The clean, cool cellar (most of it underground) was the coolest spot available. Milk and meat were always stored there. The fruit room was also located in the cellar. There Mary Ann kept her "p' serves" in crocks. Squash survived until spring, along with potatoes, carrots, turnips and parsnips. From the orchard Mary Ann gathered pears, prunes, green-gage plums, apples, currants, gooseberries, pie plant (rhubarb), but no peaches. They had to go to Brigham City for peaches. Mary Ann always stored hundreds of quarts of her bottled fruit for the winter ahead.

As the family grew up, they ate pretty much off the farm, including meat three times a day.

Bacon and eggs were served for breakfast with warmed-over potatoes or hot cooked cereal. Tom always killed a sheep each fall for mutton, two or three pigs and a beef.   The bacon was put in a barrel of salt water.  Ham was smoked.  They bottled beef.  Mutton was butchered in cold weather, then the carcass hung in the granary, or in a tree, covered with a piece of white sheet, and had to be eaten without much delay.

Tom's niece, Marne, married Frank Carter and they lived on the farm next door, down the

lane from the James home.  While their children were still young, a tumor developed on Frank's brain and he was sick for two or three years before dying.  During that time Tom took care of Frank's chores as well as his own. However, it helped that his own sons were old enough to handle most of the James chores.

Tom attended all the funerals in the area even though he never went to church.

The winter of 1918, when son-in-law Bill Hirschi was in the Army during World War I, Edith brought her baby son Forrest and stayed in Park Valley with her parents.

Automobiles Change Lives

Automobiles were coming into Park Valley before 1920.  When Abe returned from his mission to the Western States Mission, he bought the first car in the family, a 1921 Model T Ford.  This was an open two-seater with a soft top and isinglass curtains to protect passengers from the rain.  When Abe was drafted into the Army of course he left the car with his father.  On his return, he worked in Idaho where he met Rose Hirschi.  Abe was 29 by the time they were married 16 April 1924. Then of course he took the car.

Tom had become used to the convenience of a car, so in 1924 he bought from Albert Crandall a second-hand Dodge touring car, probably with wooden spokes in the wheels.  In 1926 Frank took Tom and Mary Ann to Eagle, Idaho, to visit her father Abraham Chadwick, Jr. Then in 1927 Tom bought a new Model T Ford. Frank became the chauffeur until he left on his mission.  Tom always called his car ''the jitney." It had to be cranked by hand to start the engine.  There were no driving tests in those days and Steve was driving at age 11.  He had driven the old Dodge before his father purchased the new Ford. When we Dutson girls visited in Park Valley, Steve drove us to town to see the "Rin-Tin-Tin" movies.

In July of 1927, Iona's husband Lon Dutson died from a diving accident. This left Iona a widow with three young girls, 6, 8, and 10, to support. After consulting with her parents, logic dictated that she move to Salt Lake City where she could be trained in dressmaking and earn a living. Tom met her in Salt Lake to help find a house. She bought a two-story home at 76 "R" Street. Her sisters Dora and Irene soon moved in with Iona's family. In order to catch their train for Salt Lake City, their brother Frank drove the girls to Kelton. Frank turned the car around, then Tom drove home. He was never comfortable driving.

One day Tom drove Mary Ann over to Kelton to visit the Crandalls. Driving the car home that evening was his last time behind the wheel. From then on, Steve always had to drive. Steve couldn't even go on a mission, or away to school, because his father needed a chauffeur.

During the winter of 1927/28 Emma brought her little son Darrel and stayed some of the time

while Fay was on a mission for the Church.

Salt Lake City-Again

It now seemed logical for Tom and Mary Ann to retire, sell the farm and move to Salt Lake City, which happened at October Conference-time in 1928. They purchased a house at 2758 South 5th East, across from the Nibley Park Golf Course and Park, but stayed there only a year and a half.  Next they moved to the home at 4232 Highland Drive so Tom could have more land and take care of fruit trees.

(Seventy years later, when reviewing friend Rulon Smith's personal history in Bountiful, I noticed a picture of the James home on Highland Drive. The Smith Family lived there when Tom and Mary Ann bought it in 1930. Small world.)

Tom was not wholly satisfied with city life. In the fall of 1930 he bought a 640-acre ranch, located seven miles out of Cambridge, Idaho, northeast of Weiser. The settlement was known as Pine Creek or Advent Gulch, so named because the settlers were all Seventh-Day Adventists. Irene and her husband Melvin moved into the Highland Drive house, but it still belonged to her parents who stayed in Idaho only a month, when Tom contracted Mountain Fever. They returned to Salt Lake for medical assistance. Frank was home from his mission by then, and he and Steve moved to the farm in Idaho in April. The doctor told Tom he had been bitten by a deerfly, but he was certain it was plain old Mountain Fever. (Medical records called it Undulant Fever which is caused by bacterium transmitted to humans from cows and goats causing recurrent fever and aching joints in the caretaker.) Tom and Mary Ann never returned to the Idaho ranch and lost their down payment of several thousand dollars.

Steve said, "Father was still looking for a ranch until the day he died."

Steve continued to chauffeur his father and they looked at property in the Uintah Basin, Lyman, Wyoming, Grantsville, and two or three places in Idaho.

For a number of years Tom was quite hard of hearing. Although everyone had to raise their voices to make him hear, it was amazing how many things he overheard that were not intended for

his ears. Late in life Tom developed an asthmatic condition which grew so bad it made breathing difficult. The family insisted he go to a doctor. He replied, "If I go to a doctor, he'll only put me on a diet and I'll soon die." However, he finally went to a doctor, was put on a very strict diet, and three weeks later, on 18 August 1939, Tom died peacefully at home on Highland Drive at the age of 74. 

Family members, with their children, all came for funeral services 20 August 1939 in the Winder Ward chapel on Highland Drive, in Salt Lake City. Tom was buried in the James Family plot in the Salt  Lake City Cemetery, near his parents.

Quite a while before his death, his daughter Dora asked him why he didn't go to the Temple.

He replied, "I don't think I'm worthy to go. I like to take a drink and a smoke if I want to."

"But that was a long time ago," Dora objected.

He continued, "Yes, and I like the almighty dollar just like everyone else. When I'm gone you

can go and have the temple work done for me. A lot of people think all is well if they go to the temple and they don't need to worry about anything else. Don't judge the church by the people. The church is right, but some of the people aren't."

Because of burned E. T. Ward records, the family had no baptism date, so Tom's baptism was performed vicariously in the temple 27 March 1942. His endowment was given 1 June 1942. That day Mary Ann and seven of his children were sealed to him in the Salt Lake Temple. Later, Gladys was sealed to her parents in the Idaho Falls Temple on 7 April 1949, Florence on 28 May 1951, and Frank on 28 May 1951.