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Show Volume IX Issue II THE OGDEN VALLEY NEWS Page 9 November 1, 2003 Abigail Starbuck Coffin as Told to Lovisa Thornton Coffin By Ann Eliza Coffin Garner, daughter of Abigail Abigail Starbuck Coffin was born June 1, 1813, in Richmond, Wayne County, Indiana. She was married in Indiana. She and her husband William Barney Coffin joined the LDS church in early days and immigrated to Utah with the saints. She was born and raised a Quaker, and always maintained many of their ways of talking—thee and thou, etc. The Coffin family came as far as Winter Quarters with the Saints. Grandpa Coffin bought a wagon, which they afterwards found had belonged to a family who had died of the smallpox. He slept in the wagon, and contracted the disease and died, leaving Grandma with six children—three boys and three girls. They were: Nathan 12, William (Wid) 10, Esther, Eliza, Sarah and Silas. I have the account of these times as written by her daughter Eliza when she was an old lady. “I Ann Eliza Coffin Garner, was born of goodly parents, in the state of Indiana, at Richmond, Wayne County, on January 24, 1839. My parents William Barney Coffin and Abagail Starbuck joined [t]he [c]hurch of Jesus Christ of LDS in about 1845, and was with the saints all through the trials, mobbings, and persecutions. They came from North Carolina and Indiana and on to Nauvoo, Illinois in the spring of 1845. I was but a small girl but well do I remember the suffering and deprivation and sorrows of the saints. I well remember the army coming into the town of Nauvoo, and hearing them shoot their guns when two miles away from town, and saw the cannon ball roll past our door. Then the drive from Nauvoo and the suffering that followed. I well remember seeing the mob take possession of the temple, and how they climbed the outside of the railing that was built around the top about one foot from the edge, and marched around the temple. I remember the remark of my dear mother when she saw them. She said, ‘I wish the old devils would fall off there and break their necks.’ “My father was sick in bed for two weeks, but he got right up and dressed, shouldered his gun and went right out into battle and fought the mob. During the skirmish the mob was driven across a slough. While father was gone a mob came in disguise and told my mother she would have to leave or get killed. Before father left, the Prophet Joseph said, ‘G, and not one hair on your head will be lost.’ So he went, and while out a cannon ball passed over his head and knocked his hat off, but the prophesy of the Lord was fulfilled, and not one hair of his head was lost. He returned home to his family and shared with the rest of the saints until driven out of Nauvoo, to Montrose, Iowa or Council Bluffs in 1847 or 8. He died June 4, 1850 at Council Bluffs, Iowa, and his last words to my mother were, ‘Go on to the valley, this is the true church.’ “Oh what sorrow to be left alone without a father, and have to lay him down alone and go on. We were too poor to go on with the saints, and so we had to stay over for two years until we could get a little better prepared for the long hard journey [which] lay before us. It was during this time that my father died. The trial was hard. My mother with the assistance of us children, my brother Nathan and my self were all that were there to bury our dear father. We took rough boards and made a coffin as best we could, and Horace Rawson dressed him in his temple robes all but the cap, and dug his grave and carried him and laid him in it. Then to cover him up was worst of all. Who could do it? My mother threw one shovel of dirt on the coffin, then my small brother William and my brother had to turn away. The sound of the dirt on the coffin seemed to tear her heartstrings loose, but she had to return to finish the task that seemed more than she could stand. There was no one to preach a funeral sermon or to offer a word of consolation or comfort to us, but the Lord knew best. “When the time came for us to leave Council Bluffs we did so, and journeyed on, walking most of the way. In crossing the Platt River my brother Nathan was washed down stream. My mother stood out on the wagon tongue and threw the whip to him to catch, he missed it the first time, she threw it again and he caught it. She succeeded in pulling him to her by guiding the oxen down stream, and reaching out and getting hold of his hand and brought him to safety. She put him on the upper side of the oxen again, and by holding to them, and with her assistance he succeeded in driving them across the stream. “We came to Utah Oct 1, 1852, in the Harris 10 Company, Cuttler Company of 50 and settled in Ogden in 1852.” Abagail and her children came to Utah in the same company as Captain Jefferson Hunt. They must have separated when the Hunts went with the Mormon Battalion, but they lived as neighbors and dear friends in Idaho. Captain Hunt’s daughter Sophronia married Wid Coffin. Shortly after the Hunts arrived from California they settled in Huntsville, and being the first settlers, gave it its name. Abagail Coffin and her children went there with them. She worked at anything she could do to support her family. She knew how to weave and spin, make soap, knit and sew. She had a few cows and horses. She had the first side saddle in Utah, and used it to look after her livestock. Her boys also worked at anything they could get to do. She was very handy as a nurse and became a good midwife. People paid her in food or whatever they had, and if they had nothing she helped them anyway. Often her living was very slim. Her son Nathan worked with other men and ploughed a little piece of land. The younger boys looked after the town herd of milk cows, driving them out to pasture in the morning and back at night. One morning there was not a bit of bread to give Wid for his lunch, so his mother gave him a tin cup and told him to milk one half cup from each of the best cows. That was to be his dinner. She then went and told the neighbors about it so they would know he wasn’t stealing the milk. They all owed her, and him, so immediately they divided their meager supply of food with her, and she used to tell that they were never without food again. They used to find a light colored clay, and used it to whitewash the inside of their houses. Jefferson Hunt moved his family to Oxford, Idaho where there was more room for his family to build homes around him. The Coffins went along with them. Jefferson Hunt was the first bishop in Oxford. They later moved a few miles north to March Valley where both families made their permanent homes. Jefferson Hunt was buried at Red Rock and Abagail Coffin at Cambridge, near Downey, Idaho. She had a little log house at Cambridge. Her sons bought farms there. She was the doctor and midwife, and doctored all the sick people in her vicinity. She used Lobelia for everything, it being an emetic, she said it cleansed them all out ready for something else. Because germs weren’t too plentiful, most people lived through the treatment. She used herbs as well. Sometimes people came for her with ox teams or horseback, and often she rode through storms and snowdrifts in the night, but always got there in time to save the baby. She always managed to have a few cattle and horses. Her son Wid looked after them for her. She gave my father his first colt. She started a little store at Marsh Valley. She took butter and eggs from the people and drove to Ogden and exchanged them for goods. She brought a few things back for her store— soda, salt, sugar, raisins, etc. But mostly she exchanged them for things people sent for with little profit for herself. She was the official shopper for the community, and a great help to the pioneer settlers. She was so pleasant, and had been helpful to so many, folks were glad to feed her horses and give her a bed or a meal coming and going. She stopped overnight in Ogden with her married children. Mother tells of her first meeting with Great Grandmother Coffin. She drove her team—a curly haired white horse and a sorrel, light covered wagon with springs, up to the Thornton farm and asked if they could spare any feed for her horses. Grandpa Thornton assured her he had, and said she just wanted to get acquainted with them. She’d said she just wanted to stop and rest her horses. Grandma Thornton fixed dinner for her, and had her lie down and rest. They all felt honored to have her call. other grandchildren to Ogden to see their first circus. She was known and loved by everyone from Ogden to Marsh Valley. She was short, rather stout, had a round face, and was a dignified little old lady. Her best dress was black silk, a black straw bonnet and veil, trimmed with flowers, broad ribbon strings that tied under her chin, and black gloves. Father often spent the night with her and when she was called to attend a sick person she just told him to stay in bed until morning and then go home and tell his mother she was gone. As she grew older she took turns living with her two sons, Nate and Wid. She died in Downey, Idaho December 11, 1891. Historical Photo Photo of Abigail Starbuck Coffin. Her name is on the rock monument in front of the Aldous cabin in Huntsville. Photo courtesy of Pat Poulter of Huntsville. She usually took one or more grandchildren with her on these trips, the ones who were too young to work at home. My father got to go very often, also Amanda, Uncle Nate’s girl. If any of the grandchildren felt a little ill she would send Frankie, my father, out to get “me horses” and take the sick one and a load of well ones over to Soda Springs for a week’s camping trip. The mothers put up lunch, but Grandma always saw there was plenty so they could stay a week. All came home in excellent health after drinking mineral water, living in the open, picking berries, fishing, etc. One time she took my father and a load of There are descendants of Abigail living in Ogden Valley: Kaitlin Poulter, James Poulter, Clay Poulter, William Poulter. Esther Effie Grow Poulter, was born in Huntsville but never lived here, her mother came to the Valley to have her baby delivered by Granny Smith. When the baby was ten days old, they returned to Ammon, Idaho where she grew up. She was the daughter of Esther Hunt Coffin and William Grow; Esther was the daughter of Abigail Starbuck Coffin. Bill Poulter moved here in 1947, where he raised his family. He still lives here today. 801-745-4000 2555 WOLF CREEK DR. EDEN STORE HOURS: MON. - SAT. 7 AM - 10 PM SUNDAY 7 AM - 9 PM Western Family Apple Juice or Cider gallon 2 for $3.00 with coupon Limit 2 per coupon Expires 11/15/03 Dreyers Grand Ice 1/2Cream Gallon 2 for $5.00 with coupon Limit 2 per coupon Expires 11/15/03 Orange Juice 12 oz. cans Western Family Frozen 2 for $1.00 Limit 4 per coupon Western Family with coupon Expires 11/15/03 Potato Chips 11 oz. bag 88 c with coupon Limit 2 per coupon Expires 11/15/03 |