B4 Utah Sunday, March 28, 2010 The Salt Lake Tribune
LIVING HISTORY ARDIS E. PARSHALL
Old bones belong to Utah pioneer woman
Descendants have been searching for Phebe Morton Angell’s remains for nearly 50 years.
On July 7, 1908, a laborer digging the foundation for John M. Knight’s wagon factory on Salt Lake City’s Social Hall Avenue bent to take a closer look at the rubble. Then he climbed out of the pit and went to find a policeman.
He had found a human skeleton, one showing signs of European origin, buried where no white cemetery had a right to be. An undertaker carefully gathered all the bones that could be found, together with bits of clothing, and took them to the police station. Investigators determined that the burial was decades old; if foul play was involved, they would be unlikely to solve it.
Without so much as a notice in any of the newspapers, the bones were boxed and put into storage at police headquarters. They lay forgotten there as the months passed…The descendants of the woman buried there had in fact been searching for her for nearly half a century. Although they knew that she had been buried in her own garden, no marker had been placed. When they tried to find her casket in the 1860s, they could not locate it.
The search was renewed in the 1880s by a grandson, John. He knew that his grandmother had lived somewhere northeast of State Street and First South, but construction on that block had obliterated all pioneer landmarks. He spent a small fortune probing wherever property owners would allow him to dig test holes. It was no use, though, and he finally gave up.
Then in 1910, John’s records came into the hands of his cousin, Oscar, and Oscar renewed the search. His questions uncovered the story of the skeleton found in the basement, and Oscar went to the police stations to ask for details. He described the location of his grandmother’s home, and her height and weight. It took some searching to relocate the bones, but in March 1910, they were found. Everything about the bones and where they were found pointed to their identity: Phebe Morton Angell, mother of architects Truman and Solomon Angell, and of Mary Ann Angell, wife of Brigham Young. Phebe had arrived in the Valley in the summer of 1848 and died in the fall of 1854, at age 68.
The family announced plans of bury Phebe – at last – next to members of her family. The lost had been found.
Ardis E. Parshall is a Utah historian. He welcomes feedback from readers and can be reached at AEParshall@aol.com.