Joseph Smith McDonald A Heber Fort Family

Written by Jane Montgomery Kinsel

Joseph Smith McDonald KWZZ-YT8 was born to James MacDonald and Sarah Ferguson McDonald on October 16, 1842, in Crawfordsburn, County Down, Ireland. His mother, Sarah, was born October 3rd, at Lisburn, Ireland, the daughter of Samuel and Nancy Alderice Ferguson. Both of his father’s parents, Moses and Mary Glass McDonald, were born in Belfast about 1775 and died there.

Sarah married James in 1827 and to this union were born 10 children: Jane, John, Eliza, John, William, Mary, Robert, David, Joseph S, and Hyrum. All the children were born in Crawfordsburn with the exception of Joseph who was born in Belfast and Hyrum who was born in Nauvoo.

Mormon elders came to their village in 1842 and James was so interested in their message that he let them hold meetings in his home. The McDonalds, along with four other families, were the first to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Crawfordsburn. They met in their house every Sunday morning until the McDonalds left for America.

James was a flax dresser by trade and the family members were honest and hardworking. Sarah wanted to help her family come to America, so she bought a little pig. She cared for the pig until it was grown and sold it for pork. With the money, she bought numerous articles and started a small store. Proceeds from this store helped raise money to take them to Zion. They sold their home for 40 Guineas and it is reported that their friends and relatives in the community were incredibly sad when they left.

Joseph was the 9th child and 6th son in the family of ten children. His name held great meaning for his parents who only the previous year had joined the LDS Church. Joseph was a little more than a year old when his family left Ireland to sail for Liverpool and then on to America. At the time, their eight children ranged in age from Jane, 16, to Joseph, then 15 months old.

The McDonalds weathered the ocean voyage well and sailed up the Mississippi River to Nauvoo. Joseph was too young to understand much about the persecutions going on at the time, especially to his family. He recounts seeing Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith after the mob murdered them. He was almost four when a mob drove them from their home. They were ferried across the Mississippi River and lived without any of their belongings. They huddled together to sleep on the ground, and little Joseph was old enough to understand that this was not the way things should be.

Joseph wrote that his father and brothers worked for seven years to get wagon teams, and supplies to cross the plains and he was eight years old when they started to cross the plains in 1850. They had three yoke of oxen, two yoke of cows and a pony and brought adequate provisions and other things necessary to live in the new country. Joseph recalled seeing numerous Indians and buffalo. In later years he wrote about a buffalo stampede. ”One day the captain rode about halfway up the train of wagons and directed the first section to drive on. The other half were held back to allow room for a herd of buffalo to pass. There were hundreds of them all on the run. It took nearly half the day for them to pass.”

Cholera was rampant among the pioneer wagon trains and Joseph’s father helped take care and bury many of those who succumbed to the disease. At about 4:30 one afternoon he felt sick and died that evening. The next morning, some members of the train took some boxes and made a coffin and buried him on the north side of the Platte River in an unmarked grave. Joseph records that he was worried about his mother. But he also recounts that he knew she would be alright because she was with Saints going to Zion, and that helped her go forward in peace. He says she was very religious and stayed true to her beliefs as they traveled on to Zion.

When they arrived in Salt Lake City there was nothing but a fort built of log houses with dirt roofs and no floors. They wintered there that first year. In 1851 they were advised by the authorities to move further out into the country and make homes and they moved to Mountainville, now called Alpine, Utah. There were about 12 families living there at that time. However, they did not like it there because it was so close to the mountain, very cold and snow and with unfriendly Indians.

In 1852 the family moved to Springville. They sold their teams and bought a farm. Joseph said his mother expected him to herd the cows, which he did for about four or five years in the summer. In the winter he went to school. Being the youngest son at home, he had many responsibilities for helping his mother.

When he was about 14 or 15 years old he wrote in his journal: “The government sent an army of soldiers to kill us all. Everybody moved from their homes and went south of Provo. Brigham Young sent word for everybody to “make their wheat into flour and barrel it up and bury it so when the army got into Utah we would have it “. He personally made about 100 barrels that held almost100 pounds of flour each.

Before Johnston’s army got closer, Brigham Young sent word to the army if they would not make their camp closer than 30 miles from any Mormon settlement, he would let them travel into the valley. The army agreed to these terms, and they marched through Salt Lake City and on to Cedar Valley where they and made a camp they called “Camp Floyd.”

The settlers found that instead of doing harm to the citizens, the army was a great blessing to them. When the Civil War broke out and his troops were needed back East General Johnston ordered all government property to be sold to the Mormons at less than 50% of the value at auctions. The army sold thousands of mules and hundreds of wagons. It was reported that you could buy three spans of mules, harnesses and a wagon for $250.

A few years later the McDonald family moved to Heber City, Wasatch County, Utah. Joseph was still living with his mother, though at age 19 he thought he was grown up enough to go north to the gold mines and get rich quickly. The family coaxed him to help them get to Heber. They had a special meeting and made every reasonable offer if he stayed one year and as a result he stayed and never left.

While living in the Heber fort, Joseph became acquainted with the John Cummings’ family who lived on the other side of the fort from them. He became good friends with their daughter, Nancy Elizabeth, and after about two years they were married in 1863 and had 7 children, four boys and three girls. The McDonald brothers helped him build a cabin for his bride on the corner of what is now 3rd North and 1st West Street in Heber. That was just through the block from her parents’ home and only three blocks from the log home the McDonald boys had built for their mother, Sarah. The original cabin was enlarged as their family increased. After 15 months of a lingering illness, Nancy died on October 18, 1881. Friends and relatives helped Joseph with the children, especially Nancy’s sister, Sarah Cummings Jones and her daughter Mary Melinda, whom he later married.

Military Service

Joseph’s military service in the Black Hawk War, which started in 1865, was clearly one of the highlights of his life. He enlisted in the Utah Territorial Militia when he was 24 and served with distinction as a scout, guard and patrol leader, eventually rising to the rank of first lieutenant. The Black Hawk War against the Ute Indians led by Chief Tabby was much bloodier than the Walker war a decade earlier, with a number of men, women and children killed. Settlers who were captured were tortured to death.

Joseph was assigned as a “Minuteman.” These were men who had to have a strong riding horse, a saddle in good condition and plenty of ammunition on hand and had to be ready for action on minutes notice.

In territorial days, Wasatch County extended much further to the east than does the modern county and included much of the area in which the hostile Indians were active. This meant that the settlers in the county were more often the victims of Indian attacks and also that the militia members in the county were more active in actions against them than settlers in other parts of the territory. In fact, Joseph writes that stealing by the Indians became so bad that the livestock of all the settlers had to be herded together and guarded by ten men day and night. Despite these precautions, he writes, the Indians were frequently able to steal cattle out of the corrals and wheat out of the storage bins.

Joseph’s first military assignment was as part of a two-man scouting party to go out and try to locate the Indians who were stealing the livestock and, as he relates, anything else they wanted from the settlers. That mission lasted for seven or eight days.

At one point, about ten “good” Indians came to the settlement and said they wanted peace. Bishop Joseph S. Murdock prepared a big feast for them under the bowery and many came to eat with them. He gave them beef and all the bedding they wanted because they were so cooperative. However, the next night they stole 30 head of pack horses and fled with them. Joseph and other Minutemen were called out to try to recover the stolen animals. He reports that they followed them as far as the Green River and although they never saw the Indians they were able to recover some of the stolen horses.

During much of his service, Joseph was kept busy as a picket guard on the ridge between the head of Daniel’s CreeK and Lake Creek east of Heber Valley. He and his men had to pack their guns, food and bedding and ride a distance of twelve miles back and forth each day. They spent eight days patrolling, then returned to the settlement to guard the livestock for eight days and then went back out on picket duty for eight days.

In an effort to make peace, Brigham Young ordered Captain William Wall to take ten to fifteen men to talk with Chief Tabby. He sent along a herd of 100 head of cattle as a peace offering and ordered Captain Wall not to return until he had made peace and delivered the cattle. Joseph was chosen to go along as part of the group to help herd the cattle.

The peace negotiations took place in the agent’s home and Joseph reports that they were often heated, with each side yelling at the other at various points. One of his duties during the negotiations, he relates, was to stand guard at the door and not allow any white man out or any Indian in.

At one point in the negotiations, Captain Wall told the Indians that they could have the cattle. Joseph records in his journal what an interesting sight it was to see 300 Indians go after the 100 head of cattle, lasoing some of them and shooting others.

Eventually the peace agreement was reached and the men started home. Joseph records that when they arrived everyone was surprised to see them alive. They found that about 500 men were camped in the town square, prepared to leave at daylight the next day to rescue them. These emergency preparations were being undertaken because one of the party’s saddle horse had shown up at the settlement riderless and with a gunshot wound. As it turned out, the gunshot wound was the result of an accident and the party themselves had turned the wounded horse loose.

The settlers were so happy and relieved that the men had returned alive that the next night they threw a big party for them. They were also happy and relieved that a peace agreement had been reached.

Life after military service

Joseph and his first wife, Nancy, had the following seven children: Sarah Jane, Joseph C, Rachel, James X, MaryAnn ,John Donald, Isaac David. Nancy was a helpful companion and a cheerful loving mother for their children. She died after an illness of 15 months, on October 18,1881.

In 1883, Joseph married Mary Melinda Jones, who was Nancy’s niece and was born on March 23, 1863. They lived in Heber for a few years. In 1892, Joseph moved his family to a homestead in Buysville (Daniel). He became a farmer and also went into the sheep business.

Joseph and Mary also had ten children of their own. Their children are William Cummings, Nancy Elizabeth, Sarah Ann, Edna, Ina, Otto, Stella, Jennie, Hyrum Ray, Gladys Cummorah. Joseph and Mary also took into their home and cared for three orphan boys, Chester Davis, Nels Peterson and Arthur Bartel. Mary was a devoted companion to Joseph and the loving mother to all their children.

The McDonald family was always active in their community and church affairs. Joseph inherited many fine qualities from his parents, Scotch thrift and a bit of Irish wit as well. The southeast corner of their Buysville homestead was donated to the Daniel Ward for a chapel and recreation hall. He loved to entertain his family with stories of his early life, especially about his experience as a soldier in the Black Hawk Indian War.

Mary was a patient, kind, and humble woman who was loved by all. She was a hard worker and very devoted to the gospel and had a burning testimony as evidence of her faith. Joseph was blind for several years before he died March 15,1930, at the age of 88. Mary, although deaf, was able to care for him until his death. She suffered with cancer for three years before her death on December 7, 1936.

Joseph was buried in the Heber Cemetery and his wives were buried beside him.

Heber Valley Heritage Foundation