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Show Pioneer Tells of Lincoln Election "Yes sir, in Lincoln's campaign I was a torchbearer in a torchlight campaign parade at Philadelphia. I wasn't old enough to vote just fifteenbut fif-teenbut I was a tall fellow and could take a place by the side of my father in the procession." Thus William McAllister, 90, of American Fork, relates the story of his part in Lincoln's election. Mr. McAllister continues: "My father was county chairman of the Invincibles which was really the Republican party in those days. I drove him all over the county in the buggy to make campaign speeches speech-es and distribute tickets for the election." elec-tion." "After Lincoln's inauguration, I saw hundreds of regiments from the northeastern states march down Washington avenue and Broadway to the Baltimore depot- There were hundreds of regiments. I saw Major Ma-jor Ellsworth and his regiment of Zouaves march into Philadelphia and take the Baltimore depot." The Civil war hastened the McAllister Mc-Allister family's emigration to Utah. "My uncle John McAllister and Orson Or-son Pratt drew the whole family into in-to the church father, mother, the children, my grandmother and my aunt- My uncle came to us after the war started and said, 'this is no short war- It will last years and years, and if you folks stay here, you'll be mixed up in it.' He persuaded per-suaded us to sell rigiht out. We put up a red auction flag at 10 o'clock, and everything was sold by 4 o'clock, except mother's dishes and our clothing and a few other things. Next morning we were put on a train for St. Joseph all the family with a big lot of people all going to Utah." They took the train to "Saint Joe" and the boat to Florence- "Sister Ottinger was at Florence putting out an independent train. She had hired a good driver for his board and passage. All she needed was a chore boy to pack wood and i water. Mother said, "Why couldn't Will do that?' and so Sister Ottinger hired me. "After Florence, came ' a thousand thou-sand miles of desert.' ' The train caught up with the builders of the telegraph line at Fort Laramie, where the teamster hired out to work on the line. Sister Ottinger came to me and said, 'Will, can you drive that team?' I said I could and the teamster helped, me yoke up the two yoke of oxen and a yoke of cows- I drove the rest of .the way into Salt Lake-" In the next two years, Mr. Mo-Allister Mo-Allister drove seven yoke three yoke of steers and four of oxen back to Florence, and drove the four yoke of oxen back. In 1863 he drove to Laramie and return. In the fall of '62 he drove six yoke of oxen to Carson City, Nevada. On the return trip, driving the head wagon, loaded with government tire iron, up Shell Creek Canyon, his foot was crushed. "The wagon cover had come over the nigh side of the wagon," he relates- "I ran to the offside and grabbed the cover with both hands. As I came down, pulling the cover, the wagon ran over my foot and crushed it. "The captain came up and said, 'What's the matter with you!' I told him my foot was mashed up- He put me in the back of the wagon an drove eight miles to camp. The men made a fire, put some water on and cut my boot off. They put a plug of tobacco in the pan of water and washed my foot. They poured the juice in the wound and wrapped the foot in soaked to-bakker- "They cleaned me up and the next evening put me in a stagecoach- It took us two and a half days to make the 250 miles. On my eighteenth birthday, I hobbled up to mother's door." Mr. McAllister helped build the Salt Lake tabernacle, from start to finish, working as a carpenter. But before the first meeting in it, he and his wife were called by Brig-ham Brig-ham Young to go with others to St. George. He was a member of the cast of the first play presented in the old Salt Lake Theatre and for many years took an active part in the theatrircal circles. After an Indian mission and a turn at choir leading at Panaka, he finally settled in 1877, in Kanab. where he was called as Spanish interpreter in-terpreter and choir leader. For forty years he led the choir there-He there-He made his home in Kanab, worked at his carpenter's trade, and reared a family of fifteen. In the second year of the Black Hawk war, he volunteered in the cavalry at Salt Lake. For three and a half months he was in the saddle much of the time, guarding villages and trailing Indians. A social in honor of Mr. McAllister was held Wednesday at the home of his son, A. D. McAllister. Among i the many friends who called to wish j him well were his three sisters and I their husbands from Salt Lake City. Mr. and Mrs. Otto O. O'BIad. Mr. and Mrs. William Gerber and Mrs. H. Ipson. There were also in attendance at-tendance Mr. and Mrs. S. Y. McAllister Mc-Allister and son, Melvin. of Ogden; Mr. and Mrs. D. R. McAllister and: three children of Salt Lake City; Mr. and Mrs. Freeman Royle and Mr. and Mrs. Lorin W. Goates. of j Lehi, and the McAllister family of American Fork. Late in the after-j noon a lunch was served. |
