Sarah Ann Pulsipher 1824 - 1909
(This history was taken from the Family History Book of Zerah and Mary Brown Pulsipher, compiled in 1953, by Terry and Nora Lund. My additions are in regular print, not bold)
Sarah Pulsipher was born November 2, 1824, in Stafford, Onoadage County, New York. She was the fifth child born to Zerah and Mary Brown Pulsipher. The older members of the family, Mary Ann, who died in infancy, Almira, Nelson and Mariah were all born in Pennsylvania where the family lived for quite a few years. It must have been in the latter part of 1825, or the earlier months of 1825 when Sarah’s father moved his family to New York State where he bought a farm and built a mill. His diary states that he built a meeting house there for the Baptist Church which he was then associated with. It was here that little Nelson was killed by a falling tree.
Sarah was just seven years old when her parents heard and accepted the gospel of truths as taught by Jared Carter and other missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Then in 1835 her father moved his family to Kirtland, Ohio. At eleven she would be able to remember many experiences about this journey to Kirtland. When the persecutions became more severe they later moved to Nauvoo, Illinois. Her father’s history gives realistic accounts of the hardships they were forced to endure. (I might add that I have discovered that Sarah was one of the children that accompanied the march of Zion's Camp. Her father, Zera, is not listed as a member of the march, so I'm left with a question as to why he did not go, but Sarah went with them.)
Among the group of Saints was a young man by the name of John Alger who had been born November 5, 1820, in Willaby (Willoughby), Asthabula County, Ohio, to Samuel Alger and Clarrisa Hancock Alger. This young couple became good friends and when Sarah was eighteen and John twenty-two, they were married in the Nauvoo Temple (this is in question, as the Nauvoo Temple was not completed until January 1845), February 13, 1842. It was about 1843 that a little boy, whom they named Nelson, came to gladden their home, but he wasn’t permitted to stay with them. Sarah Ann was born April 13, 1845, at Nauvoo.
Soon after this they were obliged to leave their homes and travel westward away from their enemies. Thus it was that Olivia was born at Winter Quarters, Nebraska, June 23, 1847. Just before they arrived in Salt Lake City, Sarah gave birth to Adeliza, August 9, 1849. As this young couple struggled to establish a home in a new land their little family was added to by the arrival of John Zera, January 15, l852, their first boy to live. Martha Ellen came December 4, 1853, Ann Eliza, December 20, 1855. All these were born in Salt Lake City.
It was the year l857 when Johnson’s Army were determined to enter the peaceful valley of the Saints. Sarah experienced many anxious hours as her husband went with the rest of the men into the mountains to thwart the plans of the approaching army. The inhabitants of the Valley were instructed to move south out of the way of the intruders should they get by the guards. At this time Sarah was in a delicate condition and it was in Payson, Utah, that she cave birth to Samuel Nelson, April 26, 1857. When the troubles were over the people moved back to their homes in Salt Lake City. She next gave birth to Alva Don, January 21, 1860. Willard Edger arrived April 11, 1862.
It was in the fall of 1862 that a call was made to reinforce the new settlements far to the south in Utah’s Dixie. John and Sarah Alger were among the families who accepted this mission. Sarah was happy to know that her dear father and mother and all of her sisters and brothers and their families were to journey south also. They started making preparations right after the October conference and it took them until the first day of January, 1863, to reach their new location in St. George.
Shoal Creek, or Hebron, was soon established by the Pulsiphers and a few other families, so the Algers moved there. It was in Hebron that Sarah gave birth to her eleventh and last child, Mary Edna, December 9, 1865. The family later moved to St. George and established a permanent home.
It might be well to give the names of the persons each of Sarah’s children married.
Sarah Ann chose William Edward Cowley.
Olivia married first, Philip Oakden and second, Hyrum S. Bryson.
Adeliza married, first, Andrew Bird McArthur, and second, George Thomas Price.
John Zera - Anna Mary Barnhurst.
Martha Ellen - Abram Church.
Ann Eliza - Joseph Price. (younger brother to George Thomas Price)
Samuel Nelson - Ruth Elmira Pace.
Alva Don - Dolly Young.
Willard Edgar - Ida Pulsipher.
Mary Edna - first, Frank Ashby, and second George Morris.I, Nora Lund, wife of Terry Lund, a grandnephew, wrote the above facts. I am indebted to Aunt Sarah’s grandchildren for the remaining and most interesting part of this sketch. Those whom I contacted and who were so helpful, are: Olive A. Truman, Eva Paxman, John and his wife Mary - children of John Z. Alger. Erma Sorenson - daughter of Adeliza Price. Nellie Twitchell, Edan Cunningham and Manie Randell - daughters of Willard E. Alger. These people knew and loved their grandmother. May I be pardoned for not giving more of you grandchildren an opportunity to express yourselves in these pages. It is my hope that your own copy will contain your personal impressions and incidents in the life of your grandmother that you remember best. It is important that your children and grandchildren know her as you did, by your stories.
Nellie Twitchell says of her grandmother:
“Grandmother was a very proud, dignified lady. I can’t ever remember seeing her when she didn’t look
like she had just stepped out of a ‘band box’. She did very fine needle work. She made a beautiful silk quilt, a crazy patch, and such beautiful stitches that it took first prize at the fair. I remember helping her feed silk worms. I think she was one of the first to raise them in St. George.
“I remember, on her 80th birthday, they had a party for her. She was dressed all in white and sang, ‘Oh
My Father’, besides joining in the games. She was very witty and always had an answer to everything. She
was a Temple worker for thirty years. She was very kind to everyone, especially to the Indians. She had
doctored them many times, always preparing her own medicines.
“She crossed the plains in 1848, lived in Salt Lake until 1862. My father, Willard Edgar Alger was born
April 11, 1862. They moved to St. George the following October.”
Manie Randell remembers her grandmother telling of watching the construction of the St. George Temple.
How beautiful and smooth the rocks were when they were finished up and ready to go into that sacred
building.“Grandma was an Ordinance Worker for many years. Until the last two years of her life she hardly
missed a week. She had poor health the last year and couldn’t go at all. She used to get us grandchildren to go and do the baptising for the Algers and Pulsiphers. She took me one day and asked me how many I could go for that day. I told her twenty, but I went and was baptized for 125. She said ‘the more you do today, the more people can have their work done, as they are all waiting anxiously on the other side for the people here to do it, as they never had a chance.’ So, I went several times after that.
“She was always telling about something that happened on their trip across the plains. How they prayed
for a safe night’s rest when they camped.
“She told us of a rattlesnake going up grandpa Alger’s leg it touched his garments at the knee and fell
dead at his feet.”
Erma Sorenson says -“I remember the old Temple wagon that came every morning and picked up the temple workers. It had
steps down from the back and seats on both sides of the ‘White top’ wagon. It was driven by Brother George
Worthen. Grandma would send me out to sit on the ditch bank to watch for Brother Worthen. She was always so particular not to have him wait, she did not like to hear the sound of his whip on the top of the white top, if he had to wait long.
“Grandma was a government Doctor to the Indians. She got a check each month for this service until she
died, The Indians had sore eyes so much and she would bathe them in salt water. No matter what was wrong with them she always had a cure.
“She was among the first to raise silk worms in the Dixie Mission. She raised the worms, spun the silk,
wove the cloth and made a good lot of it up into clothing. Grandma was a good hand at teaching youngsters to learn to dress themselves. I guess I was spoiled and pampered being the only girl. I used to bawl around for Ma to come and dress me but one morning Grandma turned on me and said, ‘You are a big girl now and your Ma is not going to dress you any more’ -- and she didn’t.”
John and Mary makes the following comments:“John remembers the ‘snake story’ and said it happened when they lived in Diamond Valley. The snake
crawled up Grandpa’s leg. He ,just stood there a second, said it stopped crawling when it got to his knee. He gently shook his pant’s leg and kicked a little and it fell dead. Something queer about those old timer.’”
Mary says:“We were at Aunt Addie Price’s home in St. George when the first automobile came into St. George.Aunt Addie came calling to us to ‘come quick’ the automobile was coming up the street. We were in the basement part of her house. Grandma passed us all and was out on the sidewalk cheering that new invention. She was always interested in improvements of any kind.
“Grandma seemed to have quite an influence around the Temple. When we went to have our endowments we came from Panquitch and forgot our recommends. Well, we got through the Temple in grandma’s boat.
“I remember after I came into the family, seeing Grandma Alger wear a black silk dress. She said she
raised the silk, spun the thread, wove the cloth and made the dress by hand. She was a wonderful
seamstress. She was also an expert at making buckskin gloves for ladies. She made hundreds of pairs. My
Mother had a pair of her gloves, I can remember they had bit high gauntlets, all silk embroidered. They were lovely.
“There is one thing that I remember John’s mother saying about Grandma’s hair. She had beautiful hair,
even when she died, not very grey. Grandma said every few weeks she rubbed coal oil and salt into her
scalp, then fine combed it. She was a great hand to have the children comb her hair. If she ever caught a
youngster idle, she’d hand them a fine comb and take down her hair and they’d have a job as long as they’d comb. My oldest daughter, Cecil, remembers combing her hair when she was just a little tot.”
Olive Truman entitles her contribution as “Mine and Grandma Alger’s Memories”.“I think Grandma was about five feet and two or three inches tall. She would have weighed about one
hundred and twenty or thirty pounds after she got old. She was very erect and dignified and proud in her
carriage. She had good articulation in her speech. I loved to listen to her talk because I could always hear
what she said.
“About my first memory of her was when Uncle Don Alger died of Delamor dust. He was laid out in Aunt
Addie Price’s parlor. His little boy, Lafeyette, and I were the same age, about three or four years old. We
asked her if we could see Uncle Don. She took us each by the hand and led us to where he was then took the sheet from over him and stood us on a chair so we could look down at him. Then told us to feel his face and hands. She explained that that was always the way people were after they had gone to Heaven so it did not hurt us when we were put in the ground. That same day he would take his little boy in his arms and he would be happy again! I have always been thankful for that experience. I have never had any fear of the dead or dying.
“She came to spend the summer with us in Enterprise when I was about twelve years old. Her stories
made early Utah life very vivid in my mind. She told how grandfather and Uncle Charles Pulsipher were
among that handful of men that circled around the knole in full view of Johnsons’ Army. They would have to hurry so fast on the opposite side of the hill to catch up with the last one in sight that it was hard to keep men in sight all the time. It was a rough part of the country with lots of trees and underbrush. When Grandfather was finally relieved from duty and returned home his clothes were almost entirely torn off of him. As usual he only had one suit of anything to wear so she took part of the home-made rag carpet to make him some trousers so he could return to his duty. She chuckled when she told about his beautiful striped new trousers and what a lot of fun they had had over them.
“Her brother, Charles, was sent into the Johnsons’ Army camp at night as a spy to find out what he could
of their plans. He went at night while Johnson and his men were around their camp fire with their wagons in a circle as the Mormons had done. Uncle Charles crept up in the darkness and crawled under a wagon until he reached the front of it and was huddled close to a small bush under the wagon tongue and double-trees. He was listening intently when he heard foot steps right close to him. He did not dare to move for fear he would be heard. The footsteps kept coming closer until they would have touched him if he had not been protected by the wagon tongue and double-trees. In a few seconds warm water commenced to trickle down over him. He took quite a sprinkling before the soldier had finished his job and went back to the fire. Uncle Charles decided he had heard all he wanted to for one night and was not long getting out of there.
“I do not remember ever being at Aunt Addie’s place while Grandma lived there without there being Indians and usually a yard full of them around. They would bring pine nuts and ‘jerkey’ or buckskin to trade for medicine. She made excellent buckskin gloves and always got a good price for them from the white folks. Sometimes the Indians would just sit on the ditch banks or steps in the shade just because they felt at home around there. The squaws did the laundry for Aunt Addie. Grandma made most of her medicine, usually pills. She had a pension from the U. S. Government when she was old, for doctoring the Indians.
“She was the first wife of John Alger and gave her consent to his having a second wife whom father called ‘Aunt Jane’ (Jane Ann Burnett). Grandma and all her children loved Aunt Jane. She almost raised both families while grandmother made the living.
“Neither Grandma or Aunt Jane lived with Grandfather after he took other wives. I think he married three after them but they all left him when he got old and childish and became interested in Spiritualism. Grandma never quite forgave him for that.
“She was a steady Temple worker for a long time in the St. George Temple.”
Aunt Sarah Alger died January 1, 1909, in St. George, Utah, at the good old age of 85 years.
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