In 1846 most of the Saints began leaving Nauvoo
to start the first part of the long journey west to the Salt Lake Valley in
Utah. George and Fanny Spilsbury did not have enough money to buy a wagon,
oxen, food and the other things needed for the trip west. So instead they went
to St Louis. While rural Missouri generally and western Missouri in particular,
had proved to be no friend of the Mormons, St. Louis was then a large cosmopolitan,
relatively tolerant, sophisticated city that was a refuge for many Mormons.
There George was able to find work as a bricklayer.
While they were living in St. Louis, a daughter,
Clarinda, was born on September 10, 1847. In the late 1840s a cholera epidemic
struck St. Louis. George was fine, but Fanny became sick and nearly died. Fanny
survived, but Clarinda, their little and nearly two year old daughter, did not
She died of cholera on August 9, 1849. Another daughter, Sarah died at birth
(still born) on August 3, 1849. By this time Fanny had given birth to four
children, and they all had died.
By 1850 George had made enough money to buy a
wagon, oxen and other supplies needed for the journey for the west. They joined
other saints in Bishop Edward Hunter’s Company and left St. Joseph, Missouri, a
town just west of St. Louis, for the Salt Lake Valley on July 3, 1850. While
out on the prairie, Fanny gave birth on August 5, 1850 to a healthy baby boy. After
the baby’s birth the company traveled for several days away from the Platte
River and away from water. The trail then took a turn back to the
river. Fanny was riding in the wagon holding the baby with George walking
along side. The oxen pulling the wagon, being very thirsty and smelling the
water, suddenly took off running down the riverbank to the river. The oxen
stopped at the river to drink, but the wagon did not, tumbling into the river
with Fanny and the eight-day-old baby boy. George and the other men jumped
in and pulled Fanny from underneath the overturned wagon, but the baby was not
in her arms. With Fanny crying “Save my baby, save my baby!” the men
jumped back in the river searching for the baby but couldn’t find
him. Edward Hunter, who was the leader of the wagon train, walked up and
down the bank looking for the baby when he saw something red caught against a
log in the river. It was the baby wrapped in a red blanket. Hunter waded
out and grabbed the baby. As he carried the baby out of the river, he
quietly announced to those waiting on the bank “His heart is still
beating.” They held him up by his feet and water drained out of his lungs;
he was alive. They decided to give the baby a priesthood blessing. Since the
infant had not yet been given a name and blessing by that priesthood ordinance,
the brethren took the opportunity to bless the baby with a name, along with a
blessing for health. The brethren pronounced upon him the name “Alma,” after
George’s favorite Book of Mormon prophet, “Platte,” after the river that nearly
did him in, and of course “Spilsbury,” and that is how Alma Platte Spilsbury got
his name.
George and Fanny and baby Alma arrived with
their company in the Salt Lake valley on October 3, 1850. They settled in Salt
Lake, but in 1859 moved to Draper. In 1862 the Spilsburys were called to settle
in the southern part of Utah known as “Dixie.”
They temporarily settled at several locations before finally settling in
Toquerville, Utah. While living there Alma married Sarah Ann Higbee. The couple
had five children, only three of whom survived childhood. In 1879 Sarah died of
typhoid fever, leaving Alma with three young children. Leaving the children in
the care of his parents, Alma accepted a mission call to the Northern States
Mission. However, in the cold damp climate Alma became ill and was given an
honorable release and returned home after three months. On return from his
mission Alma and his father stayed at the Redd home in New Harmony. There he
met Mary Jane Redd. After a courtship Alma and Mary Jane were married in the
St. George Temple on October 6, 1880.
On the advise of church leaders, Alma married a second,
plural wife, Margaret Jane Klingensmith, in the St. George temple in 1883.[1]
However, this was also the time when, with polygamy having been outlawed by
federal laws directed at the Mormons, federal agents were actively hunting for
and jailing Mormon polygamists in Utah. To avoid this growing threat, Spilsbury
took his two wives and families and settled in the Salt River Valley in Mesa,
Arizona in 1883. This is where Ruby Vilate Spilsbury was born on November 10,
1890, as a child of Mary Jane.
The farm in Mesa was good, productive and the foundation for
a future prosperous life. However, as a strategy to avoid federal agents, the
move to Arizona was not successful. Federal agents tracked Alma down and
arrested him for polygamy in April 1885. He was sentenced to six months in
prison in the Yuma Territorial Prison. That prison and its cells were infamous
as a miserably and unbearably hot hellhole. In the oppressive heat and confined
in wool uniforms some would go mad. Alma, however, was not confined to a cell
long, as he was able to persuade the warden that a sloping area between the
prison and the river could be turned into a productive garden to the benefit of
the warden, the warden’s family, as well as the other prisoners. Alma spent his
days sleeping and his nights tending what turned out to be a very productive
garden. At the end of his sentence, he in effect had the choice of leaving one
of his families or leaving the country. Not willing to abandon a family, Alma
took both wives and families and moved to Mexico in 1891 to settle with other
Saints in the colonies in northern Chihuahua, Mexico.
[1]
Margaret Jane Klingensmith has a family
connection to an unfortunate piece of Mormon History. Her father, Philip
Klingensmith, was one of the first settlers in Iron County and the bishop of
Cedar City. He was, however, also one of the leaders and participants in the
1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre. He was later excommunicated from the church and
in the early 1860’s left Utah for Nevada, where he worked at various mines and
ranches. He was the first of the participants to provide evidence on the names
of those involved in the massacres. In the 1875 murder trial of John D. Lee
arising out of this incident, Kingensmith, having negotiated plea agreement
with the prosecutors where charges against him were dropped in exchange for his
testimony, was the prosecution’s principal witness. The trial resulted in a
hung jury. Lee was re-tried in 1876 and convicted by Mormon jury and executed.
After the Lee trials, Kingensmith’s wandering life continued. He died in
Sonora, Mexico in 1881. “Philip Kingensmith,” personal history available at
familysearch.org under the stories page for Philip KIngensmith(MBNC-SBJ).
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