OCR Text |
Show Volume XV Issue XIV The Ogden Valley news Page 13 July 1, 2008 Autobiography and Teachings of Moroni Daniel Ferrin Note: This is the first in a series regarding the life of Moroni Daniel Ferrin. History courtesy of Mark Ferrin of Eden. Chapter 1 I am the fifth child and the fourth son of a family of eleven—eight boys and three girls. My father, Josiah Marsh Ferrin, born Jan. 22, 1834 at Cheery Creek, Chataque Co., N.Y., was the son of Samuel Ferrin, born Nov. 12, 1804 at Hebron, Grafton Co., New Hampshire and Sally Powell Marsh of Penn. My grandparents joined, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day-Saints and with their family emigrated to Salt Lake Valley with other members of the Church where they arrived in the year 1852. My mother, Martha Ann Bronson (or Brunson as some spell it) born June 13, 1834 in Brownstown, Michigan, was the daughter of Lemon Bronson and Lucy Brass, both of the State of Michigan. They also joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day-Saints, and my mother with some others of the family emigrated to Salt Lake Valley in the year 1847. My father and mother married and settled in Ogden, Weber Co., Utah where their first five children were born. They are, named in order of birth, Martha Jane and Josiah Lemon (Twins), James Clinton, Thaddeus Marsh, and Moroni Daniel (myself). My parents told me that I was born on the 6th day of July, 1862 in a little one-room log cabin on a hill in the northern part of Ogden City near where the Industrial School Building (Weber Applied Technology Center) was erected later. My father, being a millright and lumber manufacturer by occupation, sought the timber sides of the mountains for his business. He built a saw mill and a residence in the northern part of Ogden Valley at the mouth of Pine Canyon, close to a brook called Spring Creek which he diverted from its channel and used for water power with which to run his upright saw. On July 24, 1862, when I was 18 days old, my father moved his family to this residence in Ogden Valley, where this world comes first into my memory. We lived in this place I think about three or four years when we moved into another house which father had built on a piece of land he had taken up about two miles farther down the valley, south east, in the[townsight] of Eden. In this place, a few families had settled, and others came shortly afterward, so we had some neighbors, among them being the families of Richard Ballantyne, Edmund Burke Fuller, Jacob Teeples, John Farrell, Armsted Moffet, F.G. Froerer, Jacob Bachman, Andrew Larson, Enoch Burns, Robert Wilson, Wm. Eccles and others. Soon more people came and settled until a nice little settlement was formed, and a branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day-Saints was established with Richard Ballantyne as presiding elder. My father’s saw mill at the mouth of Pine Creek burned down and my father built another mill in a canyon called Wolf Creek on the other side of the valley. Edmund Burke Fuller also built a saw mill in this same canyon. Fuller’s mill was situated about three miles north of Eden [townsight] at the forks of the canyon and my father’s mill was about two miles further up in the right hand fork. These mills served to give employment to the settlers and so the occupation of the people was divided into farming, stock raising and lumbering. Here is where David Eccles, one of the sons of Wm. Eccles, got his first lessons in lumbering. This is the David Eccles who afterward became the great financier, multimillionaire and lumber king of the western United States. So the little settlement of Eden was formed and its society and church established. A piece of land forty rods square— ten acres—in the center of town was reserved for public use and was called the public square, or just “The Square.” North of the public square across the street was built a one room log house with two windows in each side and a door in the east end for public use. This house with the lot upon which it stood was made public property and by the voice of the people was placed under the control and management of the ecclesiastic or church authorities to be used for public or general purposes. In this building we held our church services, and our social and other public gatherings. Here, too, our school was held during the winter season. This building was called the meeting-house or the school-house. Its furniture consisted of a stove in which we burned wood, a rough lumber pulpit, a blackboard across the west end of the room, and benches for people to sit on. These benches were slabs with the rounded side down, held up by four wooden pegs stuck in holes bored in the slabs—two at each end. The people were poor, but sociable and happy as such circumstances would permit—all sharing practically the same financial conditions. The country was new and there was much work to be done in clearing and cultivating the land, building fences, roads, bridges, houses, barns, etc., but the people went at their tasks with light hearts and high hopes of having comfortable homes some day. While the men and boys worked in the fields and mountains, the women and girls were faithful assistants, spinning the yarn, weaving the cloth, making clothes, making candles out of tallow, cooking, washing, making butter and cheese, taking care of children, nursing the sick, etc. About four miles southeast of Eden in the same valley, another little town called HISTORICAL cont. on page 14 Historical Photo Used by permission of the Utah State Historical Society. All rights reserved. Efforts to pave a road through Ogden Canyon began in 1921. In July of 1921, a dedicatory ceremony was held to celebrate the completion and opening of the road. This temporary structure made of tin or other like metal was constructed especially for the event near today’s Alaskan Inn. Photo from the H. J. Whitney Collection by Ruth Whitney Peterson. Celeste C. Canning PLLC Attorney at Law 2590 Washington Boulevard, Suite 200 Ogden, Utah 84401 Local: (801) 791-1092 Office: (801) 612-9299 Email: ccanninglaw@aol.com Meeting the Legal Needs of Small Business and Their Owners FREE Initial Thirty Minute Consultation. Appointments in Ogden Valley upon request. www.iversondental.com |