Willden Family History

After the Willdens arrived in Salt Lake City, Charles Willden was making
a deal with Lorenzo D. Young to be his farmer, but as soon as Lorenzo heard
the name Willden he wanted to know if he was Charles Willden, the steel
refiner by trade. Being answered in the affirmative, Lorenzo said he could
not make any other arrangements as he had heard his brother Brigham speak
of him and that he rather expected that his brother's intentions were to
send him to Cedar City, then known as Coal Creek, to work in the iron industry
there.

Charles went to Brigham Young, who called him to go to Cedar City, and
gtet his family settled and provided for, preparatory to his commencing
work in the steel refinery. They arrived in Salt Lake 13 September, 1852.

After staying on the willows and cane break bottoms four weeks they
started for Coal Creek, arriving there Friday, October 29, 1852. They left
Salt Lake for Cedar City 11 October, 1852.

While enroute to Cedar City they camped one night at Cove Creek and
as Charles looked over the valley he remarked what a lovely place it would
be to settle. However, he proceeded to Cedar City in obedience to his call
there.

This was the second trip they had made in the late fall with no home,
not much food, again straingers in a new place and winter at their door.
Upon arriving in Cedar City, or Coal Creek as it was known then, the Willdens
lived in the wagon box and camped under the stars until they could build
a dugout where their large family slept, ate and cooked in that one room.
The beds were piled in one corner during the day and spread out on the
floor at night. This did not last very long, for Charles was an enterprising
man; he soon built a house, the kitchen first, then adding other rooms
later.

While living in the cellar, an old Piute Indian came to trade. Mother
had to step out a few minutes and told me to watch to see that the Indian
did not try to steal anything, --thought there was not much to steal. When
mother left, the Indian took hold of me. I was dreadfully frightened and
thought I was to be killed then and there. I pulled away and ran to mother
and left the Indian to steal what he would.

"After the second harvest the company built a grist mill. Everybody
had to have his wheat ground before the cold weather came on and froze
the mill stream. Father had all his geround. He took care of the bran and
shorts, which were to be fed to the stock in the spring, if the family
did not need it. It was a blessed good thing that we kept it that year,
because the cold weather came on early and lasted late, and no one else
had all their wheat ground.

Everybody was out of flour and some did not have even bran to eat. Father
would not let anyone have his flour, as there was only enough to carry
his family thorugh the winter, but mother was free-hearted and tender,
and she could not eat nice bread and see her neighbors, and those who were
sick, suffer, so she kept giving away flour, a little at a time, praying
and hoping all the time that a thaw would come before he family would be
in need; but a thaw did not come and our family was at the starvation point.

First we ate the bran, then began on the shorts, but we did not have
to eat them very long, for the prayed for thaw came and the mill was kept
running day and night.

I thought is was a hard old winter, and that the salt rising bread,
made of bran, the poorest food anyone could possibly eat.

Shortley after the birth of mother's last child, Louisa, Mother was
taken very ill. We could not get anyone to help us, so I had to do the
family washing when I was but eight year old. I had to wash with soft soap
and it was made so strong with lye that when I would dip it out with my
fingers to put it on the clothers it would eat my fingers, and they would
not have time to heal before another wash day, so I had raw and bleeding
fingers, continually. The blood would stream from my fingers while I worked.
I would cry, and my poor mother in her weakness, had to see me suffer.
End of quote from Ann's Autobiography

Louisa was born December 15, 1853, in Cedar City.

According to any history attainable, the Willden's took the first sheep
(10 in number) into Iron County. It wasn't long until every family in the
county had from 1 to 10 sheep in their backyards. These sheep not only
provided meat for them, but also wool which was spun and woven into cloth
and knit into socks.\

Soon after the Willden's arrived in Cedar City (on December 4) Charles
contracted to take the town herd of 200 or 300 cows to pasture for one
cent a head per day. The people would take their cows to a common corral,
and John and Feargus would take them to the surrounding country and foothills
to grave for the day. They kept the herd all the rest of that winter of
1852 and 1853. The boys had nothing but bran bread to eat for one month,
and not enough of that. In the spring they dug sego roots and gathered
berries and handfuls of grass to subsist on. The people, it seemed, had
nothing to pay with, and bread material was very scarce. The herding had
to be done rain or shine, wind or show, over rocks, hills, and prickly
pears, every day. The boys were barefooted most of the time.

When the Willden's first went to Cedar City the settlers were building
their log houses in the form of a 100 yard square fort, with a stockade,
an assembly court, and a liberty pole in the center.

However, they soon found with the increasing number of iron workers
arriving in Cedar City that the little fort was not adequate in size to
take care of so many. In the spring of 1853 when Brigham Young sent an
additional 100 families to Cedar City the people decided to build another
much larger and better fort.

This fort was to be 100 rods square. A town plot was surveyed inside
its proposed walls and the men drew for lots. The little fort was abandoned
and the houses were moved from it and rebuilt on the new site.

The walls of the new fort were to be of adobe, 10 feet high, three feet
thick on the stone foundation and taper to one foot thick on the top. The
Willdens, along with the other settlers, put all the time they could on
the construction of the walls, but the iron works and their farms demanded
attention also, so the fort walls grew slowly.

The streets inside the fort were 6 rods wide and the avenues 3 rods
wide. There were 120 lots 4 x 10 rods. The Southeast quarter was fenced
into a public square. The liberty pole stood in the center of this square.
There was also a public meeting house. This fort was the largest in the
territory being 6 times as large as the Temple block in Salt Lake City.
It housed 455 inhabitants, including women and children.

When the Walker Indian War broke out, work on the fort was pushed vigorously.
In the Spring of 1854, everyone moved into the new Fort Cedar which was
a mile Northwest of Cedar City.

The Willden's lived in Cedar City during the time when the first irrigation
laws of the United States were made. Prior to this time the people of the
United States had abided by an old English law of irrigation, whereby all
water on a man's land belonged to him, and it was his right, even to the
point of contaminating the water to keep anyone else from using it. Brigham
Young, as head of the Church formulated the first irrigation laws of the
United States, whereby a man was entitled to no more water than he could
use.

As it was considered unchristian like to use civil law, all difficulties,
irrigation and otherwise were taken to the Church Courts.

At one time Charles Willden was censured severely for suing a Church
brother in the courts of the land. Everyone's horses ran together. It was
the law that if a man could not separate his own horse from the herd and
catch him he could ride the one he could catch. Someone caught one of Willden's horses and lamed it. Charles Willden took the man before the courts
of the land, and was asked by the Church ward authorities if he did not
know how injurious such a course was to the character of the Saint. As
a rule at that time a man would have been excommunicated from the Church
for such procedure, but Charles must have been a member of very good standing
to escape such a penalty.

Charles Willden Sr., was ordained a seventy in Cedar City, Iron County,
Utah Territory, North America, under the hands of Brother Joseph Young,
President of the Seventies

The ironworks had the first general store South of Salt Lake City. Tithing
was paid through the store. As currency was very scarce most of the trading
was done on a produce exchange. An account of Charles Willden was found
in the store books for August, September, and October 1853. There's a monument
in the Park in Cedar one black south of where the iron works stood.

The following is the inscription:

"The Old Iron Foundry"

Erected by direction of Brigham Young and associates in 1851-52 one
block north of this monument, produced the first iron manufactured West
of the Mississippi River, 35 men, the founders of Cedar City, constructed
and operated the blast furnace, they established the first mining camp
in Utah a few miles west of here, from which they procured the iron ore.
The foundry was operated for eight years at a cost of one million dollars.
Ore used in this monument was hauled here from the mines by pioneer workers
and the pig iron bars in this structure were made by them."

The Willden's had two oxen, Spink and Lion. Feargus and a Danish neighbor
made a trip with them to Salt Lake City with these oxen about September
20 or 21, 1855. His father and mother, Charles and Eleanor went ahead with
the horses and wagon. William R. Palmers father came back with Feargus.
(William R. Palmer of Cedar City, used to collect history of Southern Utah
and worked for the welfare of the Indians. He had the above mentioned books.)

Feargus and John went to Salt Lake City again September 18, 1856 and
arrived back home October 11. It was customary to go to Salt lake in the
fall of the year for supplies for the winter ahead.

In 1856, the town of Cedar City was laid out in blocks and lots, and
the men drew lots. Charles Willden, Sr. drew lot 7, block 39. Charles,
Jr,. And Ellott drew lots 2 and 4 in block 22. The lots were 8 x 12 rods.
The field survey showed Charles Jr, and Ellot receiving 9 3/4 acres in
lot 2 and lot 3 block 4.

To find Charles Sr.'s lot, go East 2 blocks from El Escalante Hotel
to where the road turn diagonally southeast, go South of the turn about
four houses and the lot is on the East side of the street. It was vacant
in the summer of 1951,

Charles built a four room house facing west on his lot. Each room had
a fireplace. There was a hall between the two front rooms that opened into
them and the kitchen. Between the kitchen and the other room was a small
service room. There was a porch across the East with a dirt floor. In the
back yard was an adobe granary, with a cellar underneath.

Ann learned to spin and made their thread with a "toe wheel".
Later she learned to run the big spinning wheel and helped make the yarn
for their clothes. She learned to knit when eight years old and thereafter
knit her own stockings.

An old lady came to room with the Willden's in their new house. She
knew all about making cloth as well as looms. As Charles wished to make
a loom, she stayed right by while he worked under her direction until a
fine loom was built. They were then quite independent as they could make
all their homespun wearing apparel.

Charles planted some apple seeds. There were two apple trees south of
the house in 1860 when Peter McElprang bought the place from Charles. The
apples were small but very good for pioneer times. The house was torn down
in 1910 or 1911. The people in picture of his house of McElprangs.

Ellott evidently sold his lot to Charles Jr. His (Charles Jr.) Lots
were where the house 106 South 300 East stands, and the lot south for it.
His house was where the driveway is to the south lot and house. Ellot bought
a lot a block east through the block from Charles Jr. and on the east side
of the street. People still living in the neighborhood say that his home
still stands this summer of 1951.

In September 1853, a cloudburst washed out roads and buildings at the
iron works. The men were forced to spend their time completing the big
fort, protecting their families, stock and crops from the Indians of the
Walker Indian War of 1853.

In 1856 the Indians took so many of the Saints cattle that the losses
were very heavy. After these losses the authorities in Salt Lake sent men
down to gather up the cattle left by the Indians. They were taken to Antelope
Island in Great Salt Lake for safe keeping. Sending the cattle to this
island was supposed to be voluntary on the part of the owners, but some
of men sent from Salt Lake became over-zealous and forced the men to send
their cattle which caused some of the owners to apostatize. Charles Willden's
losses from these depredations were $190 worth of cattle.

The year 1856 marked for scarcity of bread.