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| Merlin Plumb and Elizabeth Cleopatra Bellows Plumb |
This is a personal history of my ancestor Elizabeth Cleopatra Bellows Plumb
It was originally written by Emma McDowell Jacobsen and submitted to the DUP
Elizabeth was born 8 September 1828 in Illinois. Her folks lived in both Wayne and Jefferson counties, children being born in both counties. She was the daughter of Judith Abigail Hopper and James Bellows. Her folks were early converts to the church. They knew the Prophet Joseph Smith very well, having personal interviews with him.
The family went to Nauvoo in the fall of 1843, her brother John had built a home for them in Carthage, also having planted grain, the year before. They joined John in 1844. This year, Elizabeth Cleopatra was baptized a member of the church in 1844. While living in Carthage, her father went back with three other men, to Morley settlement to try and rescue some of their livestock which the mob had driven away or stolen. While there her father was poisoned and died.
While her father, James Bellows was in Morley settlement, the mob came to their home in Carthage, burned their home and all of its contents, robbed her mother of 2 cows, team, oxen and forced the family to flee to Nauvoo. This left the family destitute, having robbed the family of more than $1200. They were persecuted and suffered very much.
The winter, after their father was murdered, their brother supported his mother and sisters. Their food was mostly corn bread and potatoes without even a little salt. Some histories say the four girls left with their mother for Utah in the spring of 1846. Nevertheless, I find John F. Bellows worked for two years before his sister is mentioned again. Here I find John F. Bellows works to get enough money to follow the family to Utah going back from Missouri to Council Bluffs and settling on Kegs Creek where he met the Plumb family and married Marilla Plumb.
The saints were driven and redriven back and forth in these early days. I find Elizabeth Cleoptatra Bellows married Merlin Plumb. Merlin Plumb was the brother to Marilla Plumb who John F. Bellows met and married. Elizabeth and Merlin's first child is born, A.I. Plumb in 1844 in Ohio. If this is correct, Eliabeth Cleopatra would have been married when about 15 years old and staying and not coming with her mother and sisters but with the Plumb family in 1850. Their first child isn't mentioned again but their second child, John Henry Plumb is born in Kegs Creek, 27 November 1848 shortly after her brother, John F. Bellows and Marilla Plumb are married.
They lived here until the spring of 1850. In June of 1850 the family, Sarah (Sally) Plumb, mother-in-law to Elizabeth Cleopatra, her husband Merlin Plumb, their child John Henry, John F. Bellows and his wife, Marilla Plumb Bellows and their baby James Merlin, come to Utah in the Stephen Markham company. They arrived in Salt Lake on 1 October 1850.
In October, this family was going south to Payson, stopping in Provo for the night and during the night the son of John F. and Marilla Bellows, James Merlin Bellows died and was buried on the banks of the Provo river. I do not know how long they stayed in Provo but Elizabeth's third child was born here, Jeremiah Bellows Plumb. He was born 29 November 1850. The mother, Elizabeth Cleopatra, was pregnant when they left their home in the east and made the long trek to Utah.
In the Payson First Ward records, I find that she gives her first baptism date as 1844 by Elder Aaron York. She was again baptized in Payson in 1851 and again in 1854. The Bellows and Plumb families seemed to stay together in Payson until 1860 when Elizabeth Cleopatra and family moved to Pond Town, now Salem, Utah.
Eleven children were born to her. Merlin J. Plumb on 2 May1852; Elizabeth Ellen 17 November 1855; Martha Jane 14 October 1857; Eripharate (Euphrates) 9 February 1860 and all of these children were born in Payson. Also most of them were baptized in Payson and are on the First Ward records. Those born in Salem, Utah are Owen S, 1860; Charles Riley, 23 March 1863; Sarah Judith, 7 July 1866 and Mary Marilla, 5 October 1869.
I have the second child of Elizabeth Cleopatra born at Keg's Creek, Pottawattamie, Iowa. He married first, Eveline Madora Curtis who died 15 May 1930; Jeremiah Bellows Plumb married Sarah Jane Shields 24 January 1870, died December 1870; Merlin J. Plumb died August 1922; Charles Riley married Mary Wilkinson Smith, 8 March 1888.
I have not been able to find more about Elizabeth Cleopatra but Marilla Leetham tells me the family moved to the Dixie country when she was a girl living in Provo, The Plumb children came to Provo to attend school. They lived kitty corner across the street from her in the old home. She said that they were her cousins and they came more than one winter. Many of this family moved to Arizona, but I can't find any death for Merlin or Elizabeth Cleopatra. She gives her birth place as Jacksonville, Green, Illinois. Several have told me Merlin and his wife moved to Arizona where they lived and both died there.
Emma McDowell Jacobson
Sources of Information
Bellows Histories
Payson First Ward Records
Marilla Leetham Jacobson; Minnie Leetham Lapreaze; nieces
Elizabeth and Merlin Bellows Plumb.
