Daughter of Joseph Clisbee and Merriam Howe
Married Edward Partridge, 22 Aug 1819, Painesville, Lake, Ohio. Died 27 May 1840, Nauvoo, Hancock, Illinois
Children - Harriet Permelia Partridge, Caroline Ely Partridge, Emily Dow Partridge, Eliza Maria Partridge, Lydia Partridge, Edward Partridge, Clisbee Partridge
Married William Huntington, 14 Jan 1846, Nauvoo, Hancock, Illinois. Died 19 Aug 1846, Mount Pisgah, Iowa
History - Lydia Clisbee (Partridge) is a daughter of Joseph Clisbee and Miriam Howe; who is a son of Ezekiel Clisbee and Hannah Lewis; who is a son of Ezekiel Clisbee and Abigail Frothingham; who is the son of Ezekiel Clisbee and Sarah __.
Lydia was born in Marlboro, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, on September 20, 1793. They lived in eastern Massachusetts among the great sugar maples and orchards in Pittsfield, Berkshire, Massachusetts. It was a rural hamlet with sheep and cows. Each man had his own tobacco patch and Negroes to do the drudgery. While she was very young, the family moved to New Hampshire, her mother dying when Lydia was about twenty-two years of age.
She and her sister Eliza went to Ohio where she became acquainted with Edward Partridge, to whom she was married in the year 1819.
They lived in Painesville, Ohio for several years and became identified with a religious organization effected by Sidney Rigdon, professing the doctrines taught by Alexander Campbell. Both she and her husband were baptized at Mentor by Sidney Rigdon, one of the leaders of that religious sect.
Her husband was a hatter by trade and carried on quite a business in that line, and was in prosperous circumstances when the gospel found them. The first Mormon Elders who visited them were Parley P. Pratt, Oliver Cowdery, Peter Whitmer and Ziba Peterson. She was baptized by Parley P. Pratt in 1830, her husband joining the church soon after.
On February 4, 1831, her husband was called by revelation to be a Bishop in the church and to go to Missouri and locate. The following June, in company with others, he started for Missouri, and located in Independence, Jackson County, Missouri. Lydia was left in Ohio with the care of a sick family, and afterwards performed the journey with her children to Missouri, which in those days, without the protecting care of her husband, was no small undertaking. She had $500 in money when starting from Painesville, Ohio, but it was thought unsafe for a woman to carry so much money. Therefore she gave it into the care of another person for safe keeping. She never received one dollar of it back again.
Her husband was required to devote his time to the duties of his office, and his property being used up or sold for little or nothing, they were brought into straightened circumstances and suffered in common with the rest of the saints, the hardships and persecutions endured by them, which have become a matter of history.
To them were born the following children: Eliza Maria, Emily Dow, Harriet Pamela, Caroline Ely, Clisbee (who died in infancy), and Edward.
When the baby Edward was born, as Lydia was beginning to sit up and move cautiously from her bed to the chair, one night her husband was ruthlessly taken from the room by a mob and taken to the public square nearby, where he was stripped of his clothing and tarred and feathered. The rest of that night Lydia and her daughters, with the help of the brethren was spent in taking off the tar and feathers and binding his wounds and bleeding limbs. (In later years this baby Edward, served in the Presidency of Millard Stake and later became President of Utah Stake.)
When the saints were expelled from Far West and Independence and fled to Clay County, Lydia and her family resided there until the fall of 1836. During the years 1833 and 1836 her husband filled a mission to the Eastern States, leaving her with their children.
Lydia was again compelled to make a journey without her husband, for during the winter of 1838-39, in conformity with Governor Boggs exterminating order, having the care of six children, she arrived in Quincy, Illinois, where they were well received by the citizens of that place. Here she was later joined by her husband after his release from prison in Ray County. They continued to dwell here until the ensuing summer or fall.
After the purchase of lands and the settlement of the Saints at Commerce (afterwards Nauvoo), her husband was appointed a Bishop of one of the three Wards (the Upper Ward). The family moved to Nauvoo. The Saints were nearly all sick with fever and ague and Lydia and Edward’s daughters, Lydia and Harriet, had the ague about a year. Harriet died with it on May 16, 1840, and her father was taken with pleurisy in his side and suffering from the persecutions through which he had passed which weakened his body, he passed away about ten days after the death of his daughter Harriet, on May 27, 1840.
Lydia was married to Father William Huntington, whose wife had likewise died. To escape mob violence, they left Nauvoo with the first companies in February 1846, crossing the river on the ice with their teams and wagons. At Mount Pisgah, Father Huntington was appointed to preside over those who were left there to raise a crop, and come on the next season, but he was taken sick and died on August 19, 1846.
In the spring of 1847, Lydia and family were moved to Winter Quarters on the Mississippi River by teams sent by President Brigham Young, and arrived in Salt Lake Valley with the Saints in 1848. She lived in Salt Lake City for awhile with her daughter Emily Dow (who was married to Brigham Young), but later moved to Oak City and Fillmore with her other children. Eliza Maria, Caroline and Lydia were married to Amasa Mason Lyman.
Although their property was sacrificed in becoming identified with the “Mormons” and her husband had labored for the people and worn himself out in the cause, yet Lydia was always loathe to ask for assistance, and labored diligently to support herself and family, and was always found earning something.
She was exemplary in her daily life, and never was known to be anything other than a true and faithful Latter-day Saint, and it was known she never had a personal enemy. In disposition she was quiet and unassuming, and her good works were performed without boasting, but from an innate love of the right, and the natural kindness of her heart.
She lived until she was nearly eighty-five years of age and up to within a few days of her death was busy constantly making quilt blocks, sewing carpet rags, braiding straw and making hats. She was especially skilled in making buckskin gloves and when they were taking up donations for the Manti Temple, she donated seven pairs of home-made gloves, equivalent to about fourteen dollars.
[From the journal of Lydia’s eldest child, Eliza Maria Partridge Lyman, the following is copied]
“Sunday June 9, 1878--My dear Mother breathed her last at ten minutes to seven in the evening. She slept the last four hours of her life and passed away without a struggle. We commenced immediately to prepare to take her to Fillmore as she requested us to lay her beside her daughter Lydia who has been buried there over three years. We succeeded in getting ready and starting about two o’clock in the morning. My son Platte and his brothers, Fred and Edward, and brother-in-law Alvin Roper, doing what was to be done, our neighbors showing us no kindness at all with the exception of brother John Lovell, who offered us the use of a horse and wagon which we did not need . . . Sister Rebecca Dutson Jacobson was the only woman who offered to assist us and she stayed with us till we started, and then stayed with those who were left as they were very lonesome. Mother has suffered much pain during her sickness which she has borne with patience. She was never known to murmur in her afflictions, which have been many, but her sufferings are over and I hope ere long to meet her where pain and sorrow have no power over us and parting from our friends in unknown.
We arrived in Fillmore at about twelve o’clock noon and stopped at the house that I occupied. Found my brother Edward who had made the necessary preparations for the funeral. The brethren and sisters were very kind and seemed ready on every hand to assist us, which was very different to the treatment we received at Oak Creek. There they left us almost entirely alone, never so much as offering to help us for one hour. We not only took care of our dear Mother night and day for six weeks, but when she died we had to wash and dress her ourselves as not a person offered their assistance. It was not a very agreeable task for us, her children, but I thank the Lord for the strength he gave us to help us through so that our dear Mother never suffered for the want of care.
June 10th--We arrived in Fillmore about noon, and took dinner at Brother Callister’s. After an examination of the corpse, the brethren and sisters concluded that the funeral might be put off till the next day. We found very soon after dark that we had made a mistake in putting it off, and had to go very early the next morning to the grave, and there we left our Mother to sleep in peace to await the morning of the first resurrection, when I have no doubt, she will come forth in glory to reap the reward which she has earned in this life.”
Married Edward Partridge, 22 Aug 1819, Painesville, Lake, Ohio. Died 27 May 1840, Nauvoo, Hancock, Illinois
Children - Harriet Permelia Partridge, Caroline Ely Partridge, Emily Dow Partridge, Eliza Maria Partridge, Lydia Partridge, Edward Partridge, Clisbee Partridge
Married William Huntington, 14 Jan 1846, Nauvoo, Hancock, Illinois. Died 19 Aug 1846, Mount Pisgah, Iowa
History - Lydia Clisbee (Partridge) is a daughter of Joseph Clisbee and Miriam Howe; who is a son of Ezekiel Clisbee and Hannah Lewis; who is a son of Ezekiel Clisbee and Abigail Frothingham; who is the son of Ezekiel Clisbee and Sarah __.
Lydia was born in Marlboro, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, on September 20, 1793. They lived in eastern Massachusetts among the great sugar maples and orchards in Pittsfield, Berkshire, Massachusetts. It was a rural hamlet with sheep and cows. Each man had his own tobacco patch and Negroes to do the drudgery. While she was very young, the family moved to New Hampshire, her mother dying when Lydia was about twenty-two years of age.
She and her sister Eliza went to Ohio where she became acquainted with Edward Partridge, to whom she was married in the year 1819.
They lived in Painesville, Ohio for several years and became identified with a religious organization effected by Sidney Rigdon, professing the doctrines taught by Alexander Campbell. Both she and her husband were baptized at Mentor by Sidney Rigdon, one of the leaders of that religious sect.
Her husband was a hatter by trade and carried on quite a business in that line, and was in prosperous circumstances when the gospel found them. The first Mormon Elders who visited them were Parley P. Pratt, Oliver Cowdery, Peter Whitmer and Ziba Peterson. She was baptized by Parley P. Pratt in 1830, her husband joining the church soon after.
On February 4, 1831, her husband was called by revelation to be a Bishop in the church and to go to Missouri and locate. The following June, in company with others, he started for Missouri, and located in Independence, Jackson County, Missouri. Lydia was left in Ohio with the care of a sick family, and afterwards performed the journey with her children to Missouri, which in those days, without the protecting care of her husband, was no small undertaking. She had $500 in money when starting from Painesville, Ohio, but it was thought unsafe for a woman to carry so much money. Therefore she gave it into the care of another person for safe keeping. She never received one dollar of it back again.
Her husband was required to devote his time to the duties of his office, and his property being used up or sold for little or nothing, they were brought into straightened circumstances and suffered in common with the rest of the saints, the hardships and persecutions endured by them, which have become a matter of history.
To them were born the following children: Eliza Maria, Emily Dow, Harriet Pamela, Caroline Ely, Clisbee (who died in infancy), and Edward.
When the baby Edward was born, as Lydia was beginning to sit up and move cautiously from her bed to the chair, one night her husband was ruthlessly taken from the room by a mob and taken to the public square nearby, where he was stripped of his clothing and tarred and feathered. The rest of that night Lydia and her daughters, with the help of the brethren was spent in taking off the tar and feathers and binding his wounds and bleeding limbs. (In later years this baby Edward, served in the Presidency of Millard Stake and later became President of Utah Stake.)
When the saints were expelled from Far West and Independence and fled to Clay County, Lydia and her family resided there until the fall of 1836. During the years 1833 and 1836 her husband filled a mission to the Eastern States, leaving her with their children.
Lydia was again compelled to make a journey without her husband, for during the winter of 1838-39, in conformity with Governor Boggs exterminating order, having the care of six children, she arrived in Quincy, Illinois, where they were well received by the citizens of that place. Here she was later joined by her husband after his release from prison in Ray County. They continued to dwell here until the ensuing summer or fall.
After the purchase of lands and the settlement of the Saints at Commerce (afterwards Nauvoo), her husband was appointed a Bishop of one of the three Wards (the Upper Ward). The family moved to Nauvoo. The Saints were nearly all sick with fever and ague and Lydia and Edward’s daughters, Lydia and Harriet, had the ague about a year. Harriet died with it on May 16, 1840, and her father was taken with pleurisy in his side and suffering from the persecutions through which he had passed which weakened his body, he passed away about ten days after the death of his daughter Harriet, on May 27, 1840.
Lydia was married to Father William Huntington, whose wife had likewise died. To escape mob violence, they left Nauvoo with the first companies in February 1846, crossing the river on the ice with their teams and wagons. At Mount Pisgah, Father Huntington was appointed to preside over those who were left there to raise a crop, and come on the next season, but he was taken sick and died on August 19, 1846.
In the spring of 1847, Lydia and family were moved to Winter Quarters on the Mississippi River by teams sent by President Brigham Young, and arrived in Salt Lake Valley with the Saints in 1848. She lived in Salt Lake City for awhile with her daughter Emily Dow (who was married to Brigham Young), but later moved to Oak City and Fillmore with her other children. Eliza Maria, Caroline and Lydia were married to Amasa Mason Lyman.
Although their property was sacrificed in becoming identified with the “Mormons” and her husband had labored for the people and worn himself out in the cause, yet Lydia was always loathe to ask for assistance, and labored diligently to support herself and family, and was always found earning something.
She was exemplary in her daily life, and never was known to be anything other than a true and faithful Latter-day Saint, and it was known she never had a personal enemy. In disposition she was quiet and unassuming, and her good works were performed without boasting, but from an innate love of the right, and the natural kindness of her heart.
She lived until she was nearly eighty-five years of age and up to within a few days of her death was busy constantly making quilt blocks, sewing carpet rags, braiding straw and making hats. She was especially skilled in making buckskin gloves and when they were taking up donations for the Manti Temple, she donated seven pairs of home-made gloves, equivalent to about fourteen dollars.
[From the journal of Lydia’s eldest child, Eliza Maria Partridge Lyman, the following is copied]
“Sunday June 9, 1878--My dear Mother breathed her last at ten minutes to seven in the evening. She slept the last four hours of her life and passed away without a struggle. We commenced immediately to prepare to take her to Fillmore as she requested us to lay her beside her daughter Lydia who has been buried there over three years. We succeeded in getting ready and starting about two o’clock in the morning. My son Platte and his brothers, Fred and Edward, and brother-in-law Alvin Roper, doing what was to be done, our neighbors showing us no kindness at all with the exception of brother John Lovell, who offered us the use of a horse and wagon which we did not need . . . Sister Rebecca Dutson Jacobson was the only woman who offered to assist us and she stayed with us till we started, and then stayed with those who were left as they were very lonesome. Mother has suffered much pain during her sickness which she has borne with patience. She was never known to murmur in her afflictions, which have been many, but her sufferings are over and I hope ere long to meet her where pain and sorrow have no power over us and parting from our friends in unknown.
We arrived in Fillmore at about twelve o’clock noon and stopped at the house that I occupied. Found my brother Edward who had made the necessary preparations for the funeral. The brethren and sisters were very kind and seemed ready on every hand to assist us, which was very different to the treatment we received at Oak Creek. There they left us almost entirely alone, never so much as offering to help us for one hour. We not only took care of our dear Mother night and day for six weeks, but when she died we had to wash and dress her ourselves as not a person offered their assistance. It was not a very agreeable task for us, her children, but I thank the Lord for the strength he gave us to help us through so that our dear Mother never suffered for the want of care.
June 10th--We arrived in Fillmore about noon, and took dinner at Brother Callister’s. After an examination of the corpse, the brethren and sisters concluded that the funeral might be put off till the next day. We found very soon after dark that we had made a mistake in putting it off, and had to go very early the next morning to the grave, and there we left our Mother to sleep in peace to await the morning of the first resurrection, when I have no doubt, she will come forth in glory to reap the reward which she has earned in this life.”
Daughter of Joseph Clisbee and Merriam Howe
Married Edward Partridge, 22 Aug 1819, Painesville, Lake, Ohio. Died 27 May 1840, Nauvoo, Hancock, Illinois
Children - Harriet Permelia Partridge, Caroline Ely Partridge, Emily Dow Partridge, Eliza Maria Partridge, Lydia Partridge, Edward Partridge, Clisbee Partridge
Married William Huntington, 14 Jan 1846, Nauvoo, Hancock, Illinois. Died 19 Aug 1846, Mount Pisgah, Iowa
History - Lydia Clisbee (Partridge) is a daughter of Joseph Clisbee and Miriam Howe; who is a son of Ezekiel Clisbee and Hannah Lewis; who is a son of Ezekiel Clisbee and Abigail Frothingham; who is the son of Ezekiel Clisbee and Sarah __.
Lydia was born in Marlboro, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, on September 20, 1793. They lived in eastern Massachusetts among the great sugar maples and orchards in Pittsfield, Berkshire, Massachusetts. It was a rural hamlet with sheep and cows. Each man had his own tobacco patch and Negroes to do the drudgery. While she was very young, the family moved to New Hampshire, her mother dying when Lydia was about twenty-two years of age.
She and her sister Eliza went to Ohio where she became acquainted with Edward Partridge, to whom she was married in the year 1819.
They lived in Painesville, Ohio for several years and became identified with a religious organization effected by Sidney Rigdon, professing the doctrines taught by Alexander Campbell. Both she and her husband were baptized at Mentor by Sidney Rigdon, one of the leaders of that religious sect.
Her husband was a hatter by trade and carried on quite a business in that line, and was in prosperous circumstances when the gospel found them. The first Mormon Elders who visited them were Parley P. Pratt, Oliver Cowdery, Peter Whitmer and Ziba Peterson. She was baptized by Parley P. Pratt in 1830, her husband joining the church soon after.
On February 4, 1831, her husband was called by revelation to be a Bishop in the church and to go to Missouri and locate. The following June, in company with others, he started for Missouri, and located in Independence, Jackson County, Missouri. Lydia was left in Ohio with the care of a sick family, and afterwards performed the journey with her children to Missouri, which in those days, without the protecting care of her husband, was no small undertaking. She had $500 in money when starting from Painesville, Ohio, but it was thought unsafe for a woman to carry so much money. Therefore she gave it into the care of another person for safe keeping. She never received one dollar of it back again.
Her husband was required to devote his time to the duties of his office, and his property being used up or sold for little or nothing, they were brought into straightened circumstances and suffered in common with the rest of the saints, the hardships and persecutions endured by them, which have become a matter of history.
To them were born the following children: Eliza Maria, Emily Dow, Harriet Pamela, Caroline Ely, Clisbee (who died in infancy), and Edward.
When the baby Edward was born, as Lydia was beginning to sit up and move cautiously from her bed to the chair, one night her husband was ruthlessly taken from the room by a mob and taken to the public square nearby, where he was stripped of his clothing and tarred and feathered. The rest of that night Lydia and her daughters, with the help of the brethren was spent in taking off the tar and feathers and binding his wounds and bleeding limbs. (In later years this baby Edward, served in the Presidency of Millard Stake and later became President of Utah Stake.)
When the saints were expelled from Far West and Independence and fled to Clay County, Lydia and her family resided there until the fall of 1836. During the years 1833 and 1836 her husband filled a mission to the Eastern States, leaving her with their children.
Lydia was again compelled to make a journey without her husband, for during the winter of 1838-39, in conformity with Governor Boggs exterminating order, having the care of six children, she arrived in Quincy, Illinois, where they were well received by the citizens of that place. Here she was later joined by her husband after his release from prison in Ray County. They continued to dwell here until the ensuing summer or fall.
After the purchase of lands and the settlement of the Saints at Commerce (afterwards Nauvoo), her husband was appointed a Bishop of one of the three Wards (the Upper Ward). The family moved to Nauvoo. The Saints were nearly all sick with fever and ague and Lydia and Edward’s daughters, Lydia and Harriet, had the ague about a year. Harriet died with it on May 16, 1840, and her father was taken with pleurisy in his side and suffering from the persecutions through which he had passed which weakened his body, he passed away about ten days after the death of his daughter Harriet, on May 27, 1840.
Lydia was married to Father William Huntington, whose wife had likewise died. To escape mob violence, they left Nauvoo with the first companies in February 1846, crossing the river on the ice with their teams and wagons. At Mount Pisgah, Father Huntington was appointed to preside over those who were left there to raise a crop, and come on the next season, but he was taken sick and died on August 19, 1846.
In the spring of 1847, Lydia and family were moved to Winter Quarters on the Mississippi River by teams sent by President Brigham Young, and arrived in Salt Lake Valley with the Saints in 1848. She lived in Salt Lake City for awhile with her daughter Emily Dow (who was married to Brigham Young), but later moved to Oak City and Fillmore with her other children. Eliza Maria, Caroline and Lydia were married to Amasa Mason Lyman.
Although their property was sacrificed in becoming identified with the “Mormons” and her husband had labored for the people and worn himself out in the cause, yet Lydia was always loathe to ask for assistance, and labored diligently to support herself and family, and was always found earning something.
She was exemplary in her daily life, and never was known to be anything other than a true and faithful Latter-day Saint, and it was known she never had a personal enemy. In disposition she was quiet and unassuming, and her good works were performed without boasting, but from an innate love of the right, and the natural kindness of her heart.
She lived until she was nearly eighty-five years of age and up to within a few days of her death was busy constantly making quilt blocks, sewing carpet rags, braiding straw and making hats. She was especially skilled in making buckskin gloves and when they were taking up donations for the Manti Temple, she donated seven pairs of home-made gloves, equivalent to about fourteen dollars.
[From the journal of Lydia’s eldest child, Eliza Maria Partridge Lyman, the following is copied]
“Sunday June 9, 1878--My dear Mother breathed her last at ten minutes to seven in the evening. She slept the last four hours of her life and passed away without a struggle. We commenced immediately to prepare to take her to Fillmore as she requested us to lay her beside her daughter Lydia who has been buried there over three years. We succeeded in getting ready and starting about two o’clock in the morning. My son Platte and his brothers, Fred and Edward, and brother-in-law Alvin Roper, doing what was to be done, our neighbors showing us no kindness at all with the exception of brother John Lovell, who offered us the use of a horse and wagon which we did not need . . . Sister Rebecca Dutson Jacobson was the only woman who offered to assist us and she stayed with us till we started, and then stayed with those who were left as they were very lonesome. Mother has suffered much pain during her sickness which she has borne with patience. She was never known to murmur in her afflictions, which have been many, but her sufferings are over and I hope ere long to meet her where pain and sorrow have no power over us and parting from our friends in unknown.
We arrived in Fillmore at about twelve o’clock noon and stopped at the house that I occupied. Found my brother Edward who had made the necessary preparations for the funeral. The brethren and sisters were very kind and seemed ready on every hand to assist us, which was very different to the treatment we received at Oak Creek. There they left us almost entirely alone, never so much as offering to help us for one hour. We not only took care of our dear Mother night and day for six weeks, but when she died we had to wash and dress her ourselves as not a person offered their assistance. It was not a very agreeable task for us, her children, but I thank the Lord for the strength he gave us to help us through so that our dear Mother never suffered for the want of care.
June 10th--We arrived in Fillmore about noon, and took dinner at Brother Callister’s. After an examination of the corpse, the brethren and sisters concluded that the funeral might be put off till the next day. We found very soon after dark that we had made a mistake in putting it off, and had to go very early the next morning to the grave, and there we left our Mother to sleep in peace to await the morning of the first resurrection, when I have no doubt, she will come forth in glory to reap the reward which she has earned in this life.”
Married Edward Partridge, 22 Aug 1819, Painesville, Lake, Ohio. Died 27 May 1840, Nauvoo, Hancock, Illinois
Children - Harriet Permelia Partridge, Caroline Ely Partridge, Emily Dow Partridge, Eliza Maria Partridge, Lydia Partridge, Edward Partridge, Clisbee Partridge
Married William Huntington, 14 Jan 1846, Nauvoo, Hancock, Illinois. Died 19 Aug 1846, Mount Pisgah, Iowa
History - Lydia Clisbee (Partridge) is a daughter of Joseph Clisbee and Miriam Howe; who is a son of Ezekiel Clisbee and Hannah Lewis; who is a son of Ezekiel Clisbee and Abigail Frothingham; who is the son of Ezekiel Clisbee and Sarah __.
Lydia was born in Marlboro, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, on September 20, 1793. They lived in eastern Massachusetts among the great sugar maples and orchards in Pittsfield, Berkshire, Massachusetts. It was a rural hamlet with sheep and cows. Each man had his own tobacco patch and Negroes to do the drudgery. While she was very young, the family moved to New Hampshire, her mother dying when Lydia was about twenty-two years of age.
She and her sister Eliza went to Ohio where she became acquainted with Edward Partridge, to whom she was married in the year 1819.
They lived in Painesville, Ohio for several years and became identified with a religious organization effected by Sidney Rigdon, professing the doctrines taught by Alexander Campbell. Both she and her husband were baptized at Mentor by Sidney Rigdon, one of the leaders of that religious sect.
Her husband was a hatter by trade and carried on quite a business in that line, and was in prosperous circumstances when the gospel found them. The first Mormon Elders who visited them were Parley P. Pratt, Oliver Cowdery, Peter Whitmer and Ziba Peterson. She was baptized by Parley P. Pratt in 1830, her husband joining the church soon after.
On February 4, 1831, her husband was called by revelation to be a Bishop in the church and to go to Missouri and locate. The following June, in company with others, he started for Missouri, and located in Independence, Jackson County, Missouri. Lydia was left in Ohio with the care of a sick family, and afterwards performed the journey with her children to Missouri, which in those days, without the protecting care of her husband, was no small undertaking. She had $500 in money when starting from Painesville, Ohio, but it was thought unsafe for a woman to carry so much money. Therefore she gave it into the care of another person for safe keeping. She never received one dollar of it back again.
Her husband was required to devote his time to the duties of his office, and his property being used up or sold for little or nothing, they were brought into straightened circumstances and suffered in common with the rest of the saints, the hardships and persecutions endured by them, which have become a matter of history.
To them were born the following children: Eliza Maria, Emily Dow, Harriet Pamela, Caroline Ely, Clisbee (who died in infancy), and Edward.
When the baby Edward was born, as Lydia was beginning to sit up and move cautiously from her bed to the chair, one night her husband was ruthlessly taken from the room by a mob and taken to the public square nearby, where he was stripped of his clothing and tarred and feathered. The rest of that night Lydia and her daughters, with the help of the brethren was spent in taking off the tar and feathers and binding his wounds and bleeding limbs. (In later years this baby Edward, served in the Presidency of Millard Stake and later became President of Utah Stake.)
When the saints were expelled from Far West and Independence and fled to Clay County, Lydia and her family resided there until the fall of 1836. During the years 1833 and 1836 her husband filled a mission to the Eastern States, leaving her with their children.
Lydia was again compelled to make a journey without her husband, for during the winter of 1838-39, in conformity with Governor Boggs exterminating order, having the care of six children, she arrived in Quincy, Illinois, where they were well received by the citizens of that place. Here she was later joined by her husband after his release from prison in Ray County. They continued to dwell here until the ensuing summer or fall.
After the purchase of lands and the settlement of the Saints at Commerce (afterwards Nauvoo), her husband was appointed a Bishop of one of the three Wards (the Upper Ward). The family moved to Nauvoo. The Saints were nearly all sick with fever and ague and Lydia and Edward’s daughters, Lydia and Harriet, had the ague about a year. Harriet died with it on May 16, 1840, and her father was taken with pleurisy in his side and suffering from the persecutions through which he had passed which weakened his body, he passed away about ten days after the death of his daughter Harriet, on May 27, 1840.
Lydia was married to Father William Huntington, whose wife had likewise died. To escape mob violence, they left Nauvoo with the first companies in February 1846, crossing the river on the ice with their teams and wagons. At Mount Pisgah, Father Huntington was appointed to preside over those who were left there to raise a crop, and come on the next season, but he was taken sick and died on August 19, 1846.
In the spring of 1847, Lydia and family were moved to Winter Quarters on the Mississippi River by teams sent by President Brigham Young, and arrived in Salt Lake Valley with the Saints in 1848. She lived in Salt Lake City for awhile with her daughter Emily Dow (who was married to Brigham Young), but later moved to Oak City and Fillmore with her other children. Eliza Maria, Caroline and Lydia were married to Amasa Mason Lyman.
Although their property was sacrificed in becoming identified with the “Mormons” and her husband had labored for the people and worn himself out in the cause, yet Lydia was always loathe to ask for assistance, and labored diligently to support herself and family, and was always found earning something.
She was exemplary in her daily life, and never was known to be anything other than a true and faithful Latter-day Saint, and it was known she never had a personal enemy. In disposition she was quiet and unassuming, and her good works were performed without boasting, but from an innate love of the right, and the natural kindness of her heart.
She lived until she was nearly eighty-five years of age and up to within a few days of her death was busy constantly making quilt blocks, sewing carpet rags, braiding straw and making hats. She was especially skilled in making buckskin gloves and when they were taking up donations for the Manti Temple, she donated seven pairs of home-made gloves, equivalent to about fourteen dollars.
[From the journal of Lydia’s eldest child, Eliza Maria Partridge Lyman, the following is copied]
“Sunday June 9, 1878--My dear Mother breathed her last at ten minutes to seven in the evening. She slept the last four hours of her life and passed away without a struggle. We commenced immediately to prepare to take her to Fillmore as she requested us to lay her beside her daughter Lydia who has been buried there over three years. We succeeded in getting ready and starting about two o’clock in the morning. My son Platte and his brothers, Fred and Edward, and brother-in-law Alvin Roper, doing what was to be done, our neighbors showing us no kindness at all with the exception of brother John Lovell, who offered us the use of a horse and wagon which we did not need . . . Sister Rebecca Dutson Jacobson was the only woman who offered to assist us and she stayed with us till we started, and then stayed with those who were left as they were very lonesome. Mother has suffered much pain during her sickness which she has borne with patience. She was never known to murmur in her afflictions, which have been many, but her sufferings are over and I hope ere long to meet her where pain and sorrow have no power over us and parting from our friends in unknown.
We arrived in Fillmore at about twelve o’clock noon and stopped at the house that I occupied. Found my brother Edward who had made the necessary preparations for the funeral. The brethren and sisters were very kind and seemed ready on every hand to assist us, which was very different to the treatment we received at Oak Creek. There they left us almost entirely alone, never so much as offering to help us for one hour. We not only took care of our dear Mother night and day for six weeks, but when she died we had to wash and dress her ourselves as not a person offered their assistance. It was not a very agreeable task for us, her children, but I thank the Lord for the strength he gave us to help us through so that our dear Mother never suffered for the want of care.
June 10th--We arrived in Fillmore about noon, and took dinner at Brother Callister’s. After an examination of the corpse, the brethren and sisters concluded that the funeral might be put off till the next day. We found very soon after dark that we had made a mistake in putting it off, and had to go very early the next morning to the grave, and there we left our Mother to sleep in peace to await the morning of the first resurrection, when I have no doubt, she will come forth in glory to reap the reward which she has earned in this life.”
