Luther Reed married Elizabeth Sophia Bailey the daughter of Joseph Bailey and Ann Smith Bailey and the sister of George Brown Bailey and Ellen Jane Bailey Lamborn.
Note: Although we have done some research work we have not, as yet, been able to establish any direct connection or obtain any definite or special information beyond that which we already had because we have such meager clues on where to work. We hope to find more information before long. I will let you know. I am beginning this record with your grandfather, Nathaniel Reed. (This document was not signed)
Nathaniel Reed (Senior) was born June 24th 1749 in Jefferson, Jaffery County New Hampshire. He married a lady named Hepzibah (no last name given nor date or place of death) about 1771. . She was born February 27, 1752 and died August 24th 1820.
They were blessed with thirteen children, namely 1. Nathaniel (Jr.) 2. Hepzibah, 3. John, 4. Beulah, 5. Jonas, 6. Abigail, 7. Asa, 8. Polly, 9. Josiah, 10. Anna, 11. Esther, 12. Amasa, 13. Luther.
At the time of the birth of the youngest son, Luther, the Reed family resided at Jefferson, Jaffery County, New Hampshire. This Luther Reed is your father’s father, and your grandfather.
Little is known of the family history up to this time. By research we found that Nathaniel Reed was a tax payer, a laborer and small farmer of East Jaffery, New Hampshire from 1794 to 1800. In 1798, he was taxed for two cows, two acres of mowing land, three acres of pasture and twenty-five acres of woodland. He left there in 1801 (don’t know his destination)
Mother told me that her father, Luther Reed, had a relative (An uncle, she thought) named Horatio Reed (brother to Nathaniel) living in Chicago. This man was a contractor or a dealer in stones and was very wealthy. He some times sent money to his brother, (or relative), Nathaniel Reed, to help him with his large family. Mother said she remembered that her mother received a letter containing money, after her father’s death. This Horatio Reed had a son, Horatio Jr. and also a daughter. But later when grandma Reed wrote for assistance she received a letter from Horatio Jr. stating that his father was dead and she must not write to him or his sister for any more assistance, because they refused to help a Mormon. (By research we have not been able to trace relationship to this man, although his name is given as a member of the Chamber of Commerce.
Luther Reed was born August 11, 1779 at Jefferson, Jaffery County, New Hampshire. The next information we have, is that Luther Reed lived at Nauvoo – or near Nauvoo, where about the year 1825 he married Charity Buell, who was born in Newport, Cheshire Ct. New Hampshire, March 9, 1801; the daughter of Aaron and Mabel Buell; To them were born three children all girls; Charity, Elizabeth and Lucy, but all died in infancy.
Charity Buell Reed was an expert needlewoman. At the home in Nauvoo she had one room upstairs fitted up as a sewing room where she spent much of her time. She took in sewing to help with the family finances. She bought cloth having figures and floral designs and made into fancy quilts, lining them with a plain color to harmonize and quilting around the designs on the cloth. There was a good sale for these articles. But she neglected her health in so doing – sitting day after day without fresh air and sunshine, exercise, proper food or even a fire in the room. She died December 3, 1849. (Mother said her death occurred at Nauvoo, but I do not think this was possible as the saints were driven from Nauvoo in 1846. They probably went westward with the other saints and stopped at Winter Quarters or some other camp. I do not think grandpa Reed came to Utah until several years later.
Luther Reed’s second wife was Clarissa Caulkins, a Spinster, who was born July 16, 1806 at Lempster, Cheshire Co., New Hampshire. She was the daughter of William and Katherine Caulkins. There were no children. (No date of this marriage was given but mother said her mother said both marriages of Luther Reed – that of Luther Reed to Chairity Buell and also to Clarissa Caulkins – were performed in the Nauvoo Temple. She said she also obtained this information from the Patriarchal Blessings of Charity Buell Reed and Clarissa L. Caulkins Reed. These blessings were both recorded as they both lived at Nauvoo and had their blessings there. As there is no date of this marriage, it would lead us to believe that they practiced the principle of Polygamy, although mother felt this was not the case. Mother said Clarissa Caulkins Reed also was an excellent sewer and used the upstairs sewing room and helped to swell the family budget by the use of her trade; but she though it was consequently, not jointly. Clarissa died February 4, 1857. No place of death is given. She perhaps came to Utah with her husband and the early pioneers and died here, as according to the dates given or left by mother. Luther Reed married his third wife, my grandmother Elizabeth Sophia Bailey in the same year, about two months after the death of Clarissa. This marriage occurred April 14, 1857, (I do not know what town in Utah) they settled in Tooele, Tooele County, Utah where their son, Luther Bailey Reed was born February 10, 1858.
Elizabeth Sophia Bailey Reed was born July 22, 1823 at Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. She was the third child of Joseph Bailey and Ann Smith Bailey, who had a family of nine children. Joseph Bailey was born in 1790 at Avery, Wiltshire, England. Ann Smith Bailey was born in 1800 at Lindy Lane, Canada and died Dec., 1870 at Laketown, Rich County, Utah, where she was also buried. They were married in England about 1817 (Joseph Bailey’s father’s name was also, but he took his mother’s maiden name which was Brown. I don’t know whether it should be written, Joseph Brown Bailey or just Joseph Brown, or maybe Brown Bailey. This is as far back as we have a record) Mother obtained this information from her cousin Ellen Bailey Humphries at Salt Lake City or Salina, Utah).
The children of Joseph Bailey and Ann Smith Bailey are:
Ann Smith Bailey lived to be an old lady – 70 years old . It seems that this family crossed the ocean several times from England to Halifax, Canada and back.
Mother told me she remembered hearing her mother tell of the many hardships they endured. In those days it took several (3) weeks to cross the Atlantic in a slow sailing vessel. Upon one of their journeys Elizabeth Sophia Bailey came down with the measles, she was a small child – three or four years old. There was a severe storm at sea, the vessel almost sank. Elizabeth took cold in her face – some pieces of bone dropped from her jawbone leaving her mouth crooked.
Joseph Bailey was a habitual user of Alcoholic beverages. He died very suddenly in the night after one of these excessive drinking bouts. His wife found his lifeless body the next morning. When she reported it to the authorities she was accused of giving him poison, and a Post Mortem examination was made to ascertain the cause of his death.
It seems their methods were very crude, for she told mother that she sat in the room below under the watchful care of a policeman while from the room above she could hear them sawing his bones as they opened his body to examine his heart and other organs. They found he had died of an” alcoholic poisoning”.
She sent her son George Brown Bailey to America to try to earn money to help her and the other children to come also.
In 1856, Ann Smith Bailey crossed the ocean to America. Arriving in --------- ----------- ------- 1856 bringing with her two of her children, Elizabeth Sophia and Reuben Josiah, also her grandson William Lamborn.
At this time, Elizabeth Sophia was thirty-one years old. She was married three years later in Utah, so they must have come with the saints in Oct. 1856. They settled at Tooele Utah, because grandpa Reed was a millwright by trade and this was an excellent place to establish a mill. Soon after getting the mill running however, he was called to go to Spanish Fork to put up a mill, as the people in that part of the state had to travel so far to get flour.
I believe they lived thee about five or six years- perhaps seven years. Their daughter Ann Maria Reed (Price) was born there March 28, 1860.
From there they went to the Bear Lake Country, being called by Pres. Charles C. Rich to build a flourmill there. I think mother said she was about six years old when they moved there.
They settled at round Valley, at what was known as “Big Spring” – The place where Alfred Kearl now lives – and prepared to build a mill there, but before the material could be obtained the Indians became unfriendly and all the people in that locality had to move into Laketown, which was then called “Last Chance”, in order to be together in case of an Indian attack. There was safety in numbers.
The Indians claimed Round Valley as their “Big Stomping Ground” and disputed the right of the white people to settle there.
Some time later the Reeds moved to Bloomington, Idaho, where Grandpa brought shares in the Bloomington Co-Op Store and made other enterprising investments.
But he was getting along in years and found it harder to do his work at the mill. One day as he was crossing the scaffold above the millrace, he slipped from the icy plank and fell into the water, which was very cold. It was with great difficulty and only after much exertion that he managed to climb to safety, after which he was obliged to walk all the way home in his wet clothing, facing an extremely cold north wind.
From this excessive exertion and extreme exposure, he contracted a violent cold, which developed into pneumonia causing his death April 23, 1871, at the age of 74 years. He was buried at Bloomington Idaho.
This left grandma with her two children, Luther, thirteen and Ann, eleven, to make their own living. The children brought wood from the canyon and cut it for fuel, picked wild berries, milked the cows and drove them to pasture, helped in the garden and in the house. Ann had to learn to keep the house as her mother was obliged to go out sewing to earn the money for flour, groceries, clothing, etc. She worked constantly at this until her eyesight almost failed and she had to abandon it.
But as the children grew older, they helped more, and a few years later, the family moved back to Laketown as grandma wished to be near her mother (Ann Smith Bailey) who was quite old now and had not much longer to stay in this world, and to be near her sister Ellen Bailey Lamborn.
Here Ann went out to work, washing and doing housework. She went to school part of two winters. Here, too, she met and married Isaac Thomas Price in the Endowment House, Sept. 26, 1878. The equipment for their wedding journey consisted of a team of horses and a covered wagon, which was considered quite affluent in those days. Mother’s cousin Joseph Lamborn and Emily Sprague who were also married the same day accompanied them. Father had five dollars in cash to finance the trip.
Father took up a homestead at Round Valley near his father’s farm and here they made their home and lived together nearly thirty-five years – until father’s death May 5, 1912, of pneumonia. They belonged to the Round Valley Ward of which father was Bishop about 20 years.
They were the parents of twelve children: Alice Annie, 2 Elizabeth Ellen, 3, Mary Ann, 4, Isaac Elvin, 5, Ezra Luther, 6, Franklin Jesse, 7, Wilford Marion, 8, Myrtle Henrietta, (twins) Melverne Wingrove, 10, Laverne Reed, 11, Leslie Lyman, 12, Asael Woodruff, of which eight are still living.
Isaac Thomas Price was born Oct. 26, 1855, at Cincinnatti, Ohio. He was the son of John Isaac Price and Mary Ann Wingrove Price. Ann Maria Reed Price died Mar. 5, 1933 at Stockton, Utah at the home of her daughter Myrtle Price Nebeker, at the age of 73 years.
Notes: - When Luther Bailey Reed was about 14 years old his mother took him with her to the Endowment House where they each had their own endowments and then did the work for his father, Luther Reed and his two wives Charity Buell Reed and Clarissa Caulkins Reed, as the Nauvoo Temple had been destroyed and it was thought that the records had been destroyed, too, and she was advised to have the work done again. I think this was Oct. 1872.
As children, mother and uncle Luther played about as other children of that period. In the winter, they went costing and bob sleigh riding and I think Uncle Luther learned to use his snowshoes to advantage. He also became an excellent gunman, for he dearly loved hunting and sometimes brought home venison – at other times wild birds to help the food supply which was scarce. In the summer they bother went fishing most every day as this helped out the food supply. They lived near the Bloomington Creek, which abounded with Mountain Trout.
At Laketown, father and Uncle Luther also took active part in athletic sports, (baseball, etc.) and dramatics. I remember as a little girl going to plays both dramas and comedy farces in which they took part.
After mother was married, her mother’s health being very frail, the took her to live with them, and Uncle Luther lived there also after her death which occurred when I was six months old. He continued to live there for about ten years after which he built him a house on his land about a half a mile north of his sister’s home at Round Valley. Here he lived a few years, then he went out to the Big Horn Country where he entered land at Byron or Lovell, Wyo. But after a few years he returned and lived again at his home at Round Valley. He married Priscilla Kearl Sept. 16, 1903, about ten days before the 25th Wedding Anniversary of his sister Ann. Mother took an active part in the ward organization and spent many, many days and nights in caring for the sick. She was President of the Relief Society for about 20 years. She was also President of the Primary Association for several years. She did much to assist her husband in his religious work and to teach her children concerning the principles of the Gospel.