This is the history of my grandfather, John S. Haslem as I have been told it by my older relatives, that I have reason to believe should know and would have no reason to tell me anything but the truth as they knew it.

First, I will start with my Aunt Lizzie Bennett, who was his daughter. She said her father ran away from home in England at twelve years old and got a job on a ship. After making several voyages between England and the U.S., he met this ship load of mostly Mormon converts with the Hamers, Openshaws, and others. He became very good friends with them, so he left the ship and joined them at New Orleans. They all stayed together almost as one family, 35 or 40 of them, and got along so well they tried to stay together until they landed in Utah, and all settled in the 16th Ward in Salt Lake City. Mr. Hamer was a blacksmith (I take it a very handy man to have when they needed so many handcarts and wagons to travel in), so Grandfather learned his blacksmith trade from him. As we all know he did blacksmithing for years before died. Before that he worked for Brigham Young around the Lion and Beehive House, and had charge of their private stores, as Brigham's first daughter that was born in Utah mentions him as giving her candy in her history of their family. John S. married Mr. Hamer's daughter Martha.

In crossing the plains they all started with Brigham Young and the first company in 1847, but when they got to where they built the wagons and handcarts, Brigham asked John S. Haslem and Mr. Hamer to stay there and make wagons and handcarts for the immigrants for a year or more. He told them to let the rest of their families go on. Had they taken Brigham Young's advice they wouldn't have had trouble, as they had plenty of food there to get them through in good shape. But they didn't like to be separated, so decided to all stay (twenty or more men), and they would hurry and get all the carts and wagons made, and then go the next summer, as they thought they would have food to last that long. But next spring they had no surplus wagons as the immigrants took them as fast as they could make them. By the way, if they did get any pay for their work, they didn't get enough to replace their food they ate while they were making these wagons. If the immigrants didn't have anything to trade for wagons, Brigham said to let them have them anyway, as their labor was classed as a mission for the Church. So they didn't want to be pikers after Brigham had asked them to stay, so the years went by until they were getting so short of food they decided if they were going to get to Utah as all, they had to start.

The rest of this story was told to me by Aunt Jane Ellen Spencer, my father's oldest sister from Escalante, who was blind twelve years of her life, but raised a large family and all good citizens. She and Uncle Joe would drive their wagon to American Fork each fall when the peaches were ripe and then take a load back home to Escalante. Aunt Jane would stay to our home while Uncle Joe went to Salt Lake on the train for a week to LDS General Conferences. While there, Dad would get Aunt Jane Dallen, John S. Haslem's wife's sister, from Springville to stay with us a couple of nights also, and the stories they would tell of their trip across the plains were wonderful to us kids. We would listen to them for hours and never get tired, as they both walked all that distance and nearly all in either mud on the first part and snow after they came to Wyoming. The only time they rode at all was after Brigham Young's wagon came to rescue them, and many women and children and mostly ill, so there wasn't much room for those that were able to walk. If I remember their ages correct, Aunt Jane Ellen was twelve years old, and Aunt Jane Dallen in her early twenties and married to Sam Dallen with one or two children. I well remember they both said their biggest problem was to walk in those long skirts the people of those days insisted they wear. They were always frozen with either snow or mud, as they couldn't get them dry at night around a campfire. Many nights they were forced to sleep in their wet clothes as they were short of bedding, and all through Wyoming it was snow sixteen inches deep at times and the men pulling handcarts through it. Yes, I can see why their journey was so slow.

I will now tell the story that I thought the best. I was fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen years old the last times Jane Dallen was there, and Aunt Jane Ellen Spencer had been totally blind for more than twelve years. But both her and Aunt Jane Dallen's memory were as sharp and good as when they were younger. I am not sure how old they were but I think Aunt Jane Ellen would be in her late sixties and Jane Dallen twelve or fifteen years older. They told us many stories, all very interesting and all faith-promoting. They always said nothing but the help of the Lord could have saved their lives and helped them so they were able to get through their hard trip, even though Aunt Jane Dallen (the mother of Cyrus E. Dallen, the sculptor that made the Angel Moroni on the Salt Lake Temple, Massasoate, the big Indian at the State Capitol in Salt Lake City, and Brigham Young Monument at South Temple and Main, SLC) was an apostate from the LDS Church. I will tell you why if I have room. She would bear the most wonderful testimonies, yet her family was too proud to ask forgiveness to come back into the church, so they died out of the church. By the way, Sam Dallen was a miner and worked the same mountain out at Tintic as Jesse Knight, who mined so much rich ore there. But Dallen spent his whole life there and never got a mine that paid him much money. I sometimes wonder if the Lord didn't have something to do with that, as Jesse Knight was the Church's biggest tithe payer at this time, so I am told. The Church sure needed the honest tithe Jesse Knight paid. He also contributed many thousands of dollars to B.Y.U. College.

Now back to my story. As John S. Haslem was making wagons for the immigrants, there came a party of trappers that could go no farther with their full wagon as they went off the main roads in their trapping business. So John S. Haslem made a tongue to go in the rear axle of their wagon and a box to put their stuff in so they could ride on top, or in other words, a two-wheeled cart that was high so it would go over the stumps and high roads. These trappers were so pleased they gave him twenty dollars, and about the only money he had seen for a long time, and twenty dollars was a lot in those times. They were starting on their trip at 3 p.m., so John S. told them they had better wait until next morning and sleep in the shop where it was dry, as it was storming. So when the trappers went for their horses at daybreak next morning one had died, and they didn't have enough money, if it was available, so John S. felt so bad for them he asked them how long they expected to be gone. They thought one year at the most, and maybe six months if they got a load of furs that soon. So John S. told them to take one of his horses, as he thought he wouldn't need his team which, by the way, was a good team. So they did and left John S. with one horse. But when he decided to start to Utah, he had only one horse and no money to buya good one, and horses were very scarce. People used mostly oxen these days at this place, so John S. bought a little Indian pony for three dollars and put it with his big horse, and made the big horse pull most of the wagon, which was OK until they hit muddy roads. Then they had to discard most of the load, as the horses could not pull it. If my memory serves me right, Grandad's (John S.) wagon was the only one in the company. All the rest were handcarts. So the wagon was mostly full of ill people and small children too small to walk. So they plodded on as best they could, until their horses gave out, and they could only make a few miles a day. So the rest of the company could go faster, they went on and said they would send someone back to rescue them. They expected to find help at Ft. Bridger, Wyoming, but no one was there to send back.

But back to the story again. Because of such slow travel they were getting short of food, and lived on nothing but the wild game they would shoot. But about now they ran out of ammunition so they couldn't get what few rabbits and deer were there. So for many days all they had to eat was the old bones the coyotes had left. They would mash them and crush them with the back of an ax, and boil the marrow out of the center in a big thirty gallon iron pot. As long as they could see one bead of grease on the soup they ate it, and it saved them from starving for many days (and that was a testimony to them that the Lord put something in the soup to keep them well). But with that diet they soon got so weak they could go no farther. They came to an old trapper's cabin built of just logs with nothing in the cracks. But it had a fireplace in the end, so they filled the cracks as best they could with cedar bark, and moved their bedding and grub boxes in- which was all they had room for, by the time twenty or more people got in. They all had to sleep in one bed on the floor, while one sat up all night to keep a big fire to help keep warm, as it was one of those Wyoming blizzards that are so common at that time of year. By now they had lost their hope of being rescued, as they had prayed for so many days, and the hunger pains were so bad. They decided this was the end. But they would be in the cabin with a little protection from the weather and their corpses would be found. But this night they prayed extra long, then all went to bed, except the oldest woman was to sit up and keep the fire going. As she was watching the fire she heard something behind her, and there was a big white rabbit she said was nearly as big as a sheep, standing on its hind legs, on the foot of the bed where the boys were sleeping. He stood there while she woke the boy to grab him, and she was so sure he would get away. As she woke the boy, he grabbed it, and it didn't get away, so they cleaned it and put it in their thirty gallon pot that was already hot on the fire. They started to eat the soup almost before it boiled. They said that was the best meal either of them had ever tasted, even though it was only rabbit. He lasted them two days. The storm quit and here came the trappers with John S.'s horse and quite a little surplus corn they had traded for from the Indians. That lasted until one of Brigham Young's rescue wagons came with food to last the remainder of their journey.

This story Aunt Lizzie told me doesn't go along with the story we got from Mrs. Morris, our genealogist in England. She says John S. Haslem served as an English sailor, and Aunt Lizzie says he told her he was a runaway after twelve years old. Mrs. Morris says the King endowed all of his illegitimate children except John S., and it is my thought that the reason was because the King didn't know where he was. I have read a letter from the caretaker of those children that said, "We have finally found John S. Haslem. He is in America and has joined the Brighamites." I know my Aunt Lizzie Bennett wouldn't tell me the story her father told her wrong, so just take your choice which story you think is correct.

John H. Haslem (December 1969)

Editor's note: John H. Haslem, in this biography, also tells about himself, and the Dallen family. It does not specifically relate to the life of John S. Haslam, but may be of interest to family members:

"I have details of how I went to Mesa and met my third wife in my genealogy book, if anyone is interested in such baloney. But to me that was by inspiration and a wonderful blessing to me. When I would read my Patriarchal Blessing it said my last days would be my best. I couldn't see how that was possible as Rebecca was seven years younger than I, and in perfect health before she took the Multiple Sclerosis. But now I know it is true, as Pearl and I live very happy together, and don't have to worry about our living expenses. We spend most of our time doing temple work for the dead, and our activities with the senior citizens once or more each week makes it quite pleasant for us. We go and come as we please to visit all of our families and get along with them well, I am happy to say. Our health is good for our age so what more would we ask for? I was 81 years old last August 11, 1969, and healthy and happy. Pearl was 69 February 28, 1969, both happy and contented."

"Now the story of why the Dallen family left the Church after they got here in Salt Lake at November LDS Conference. When the Latter Day Saints turned in their belongings to try and live the United Order, as they did for some years, Aunt Jane Dallen gave them her silk wedding dress and thought no more of it. But when they arrived here, almost naked for clothes (as they had traded all they could spare, and more to the Indians for corn to eat as they traveled when they got hungry), they went to Brigham Young for clothes, and he was sorry but all he had left was blue denims. So she took enough of that to make enough so they could go to church. And when she got to church, there sat a lady on the stand wearing Aunt Jane's silk dress. As soon as church was out she tried to trade dresses with this woman, but the woman had got it honestly and refused to give the dress up. They fussed so much the Dallen family left the Church and moved to Springville, and never were active in the Church again. Yet when Mrs. Dallen would tell the story she would cry and usually say how foolish she was to let a silk dress deprive her of her salvation in the highest degree of glory. But she said the Bishop insisted they ask forgiveness in Fast Meeting for the trouble they made, and she and family were too proud to do it, when they thought they were in the right. So, as far as I know, none of them ever came back in the Church.

Now I am going to speak of Cyrus E. Dallen, the sculptor, and what he said when he spoke at my Uncle George Bennett's funeral, at the Joseph W. Taylor Mortuary (at about 141 N. Main in Salt Lake City). He had come from Boston, where he had lived for quite some time, just to attend this funeral. So Aunt Lizzie asked him to speak, as he was a well-known sculptor all over the United States by then. I think he was about sixty years old. He spoke of the hardships he and his family endured after they went to Springville. He said he wouldn't have gotten but a very little schooling, as his father needed him to help in his mine, but as he would sit down to rest he would take the soft talc (most mines have), and mold horses and other things, until one day an old man came and saw them and was impressed. He asked Cyrus's father to let him put him in a sculpture school as he knew he was a born genius and would make a mark in that work. Mr. Dallen had no money so the old man loaned it to him, so after Cyrus graduated he came back to Springville and paid the money back for his schooling, and about this time the LDS Church needed an angel to put on the temple in Salt Lake, President Wilford Woodruff knew Cyrus could do the best job of making one, so sent for him to come to Salt Lake. When he left Springville his mother was quite sure what the Church wanted, so cautioned him to be sure and get the job, as they needed the money so bad. But Cyrus told the President he couldn't do it as he had to have a pattern to work with, and he had never made anything without a live pattern. Furthermore, he didn't believe in angels, and he knew there was no such thing. So when the President couldn't change his thinking, he told him to go back home and they would all pray about it, and the President was sure Cyrus would come back and do the job. But Cyrus said he didn't believe in prayer then, or when he was speaking, either. His mother was at the train to meet him as he was still quite young yet and she was anxious to hear he took the job. When he told her he had to have a pattern to work with, and he didn't even believe there were such things as angels, she said, "I don't believe it. You called me your angel mother many times." Cyrus said, "That gave me an idea. Why not pattern the Angel Moroni after my mother?" So he wrote the President that he would take the job. He apologized for the angel looking so feminine after he made it, but said he tried to make it more like a man, but his mother was the only pattern he could find. Cyrus Dallen also said that Massasoate, at the Capitol in Salt Lake City, was the actual size of the Indian he use as a pattern, over nine feet tall. He had looked all over the United States for the largest Indian, and found this tribe of extra large Indians in the Northwest. So he picked the largest one to pattern after. His name wasn't Massasoate, but he gave the finished work that name as it was such a popular Indian name. Dallen also made the Brigham Young Monument at South Temple and Main, and the Indian on the horse at the Capitol."