Sophia Burnham Mead Weymont Tippets
Birth: 12 July 1812
Place: Homer, Courtland, New York
Parents: Ezra Mead, Elizabeth Wilcox
Died: 25 June 1898
Married: Daniel Weymouth, about 1827
Children:
Drucilla Weymouth
James Weymouth
Married: William Plummer Tippets
Born: 6 June 1812
Died: 29 Mar 1877
Married Date: 1 Jan 1842
Pioneer: Edward Hunter Company
Arrived in Salt Lake City 13 Oct 1850
Children:
Alice Jeanette Tippets 15 Mar 1844
Emma Ann Tippets 13 Nov 1845
Mary Ellen Tippets 22 Dec 1848
Abigail Eliza Tippets 18 Jan 1850
Rebecca Moon Tippets 2 June 1852
Delia or Fedelia Sophia Tippets 28 Mar 1854
Caroline Matilda Tippets 28 Dec 1855
William Plummer Tippets 23 Apr 1857
Walter Henry Tippets 12 Mar 1859
Sophia Burnham Mead Tippets
On the twelfth of July 1812, in the little town of Homer, Cortland County, New York, a baby girl first opened her very blue eyes on this Vale of Tears. The country was in turmoil, the War of 1812 just one month old. Was her birth prophetic? Did it presage the fact that all her life she would have to face a crisis of one kind or another? Perhaps so.
Sophia was the first born to Ezra and Elizabeth Wilcox Mead, and was named for a lost sweetheart of her father, Sophia Burnham. Her parents were, perhaps, not ideally mated. He was proud, high-strung, impatient, impractical, but artistic and generous to a fault. She was very practical, industrious, and plodding and over-cautious. He came from “quality” folks - was well educated and trained in the making of stringed instruments - not from necessity, but as a hobby. She came from a very large family of sixteen children, and they were very poor. Toil and hardship had been her lot since childhood. At seven she was bound out to a farmer's wife for a few years, and had to work very hard, and did not always have enough food for her growing body, and one day in the absence of her mistress, she found a nest of eggs, hidden away. She cooked and ate them all, then she buried the shells. For once she had all the food she wanted to eat, but she was sick afterwards.
Later she was apprenticed out to a tailoress, and learned to make men's clothing.
(Information from Ruby Tippets)
Sophia Burnham Mead Tippets was born 12 July 1812 to Ezra Mead and Elizabeth Wilcox at Homer, Cortland County, New York.
Sophia inherited an artistic nature from her father, for she loved the beautiful things of life. She seemed to be her father's favorite child, for he taught her the love of good literature. He took her to see the great Lafayette when he visited America in 1824. Her mother was the one who taught her ambition, fortitude and resourcefulness.
As a young girl, she became an apprentice to a tailor and learned to design and construct men's clothing. Her father had promised his friend he could marry Sophia when she was old enough. So at the age of 15, she married Daniel Weymouth (30 years older) and moved to a mill town along the Allegheny River in Pennsylvania. Neighbors were few. She had to row in a boat a mile up the river to visit anyone.
They had a daughter named Drucilla. Sophia developed a bad cough called consumption and felt she had a short time to live and was very homesick to see her family. Her husband arranged for her to sail down the river with a shipment of lumber. Her health improved on the trip. When she reached Cincinnati she had a joyful reunion with her family, although her father was away on a trip. Her mother and family had joined the Mormon Church and they taught Sophia. She accepted the teachings and was baptized. She wrote to tell her husband who was very unhappy about it. He wrote back and told her not to return to him unless she would give up her church. Because she could not do this, she stayed with her mother. In 1834 word was received her father had died.
With the help of friends, they moved to Independence, Missouri, with the membership of the Church. Sophia and her mother worked in the tailoring profession, which supported them well. Here her husband, Daniel Weymouth came to try to persuade her to leave the church and come back with him. She would not. He gave Drucilla a $5 gold piece, which was the only support he gave her. Nine months later, she gave birth to a baby son, James, who died in infancy.
The Saints were driven from Jackson County. Sophia and her mother settled near Liberty. While there, she received word her husband had died in a mill accident.
Here at Liberty, she met and married William Plummer Tippets, 1 January 1842. Their first child, Alice Jeanette was born 15 March 1844 at Liberty. Others born were Emma, 13 January 1845, Mary Ellen, 22 December 1848, and Abigail Eliza, 18 January 1850.
The Tippets family crossed the plains with the Edward Hunter Company, arriving in the Salt Lake Valley 13 October 1850. They traveled with two wagons, one drawn by horses and one by oxen. They also brought a cow, which later took the place of one of the oxen that died. On the journey, they had plenty of butter and buttermilk.
They first settled in the Salt Lake Valley in the 19th Ward. In the spring of 1853 they moved north to Three Mile Creek, later called Perry, Utah. Their first home was a wagon box with a bower of bushes and poles.
A cabin was soon built. The settlement grew. At one time when the men were away to get logs, a group of 30 Indians came to her door asking for biscuits. She gave them what she felt she could spare, and told them to be off. Later the Chief told William that they had gone to the settlement intending to destroy it, but felt that the "brave squaw" deserved to live. She had saved the settlement. In common with other settlers, there were prosperous times, as well as bad times, like when the grasshoppers and crickets destroyed all their crops.
In Sophia's home, she cooked over a fireplace. She made her own soap and candles. She made her own wool, cleaning it, carding it, spinning it to make yarn. She knitted stockings and made the clothing from cloth which she was able to weave. Nine children were born to this couple. The youngest son, Walter, was born when she was 48 years of age.
When gold was discovered in Montana, she helped fill grain bins with salt from salt beds from the lake and sold it for 10 cents a pound to settlers headed for Montana.
Her husband died in 1877 of typhoid fever. For the next 20 years, Sophia kept the farm going, but finally left it in her son's care and traveled to her daughter, Jeanette's home in Georgetown, Idaho.
Sophia was a witty and a pleasant person to be around. She did sewing and knitting for her daughter's children as well as her great-grandchildren. Her life was lived abundantly and nobly to the very last.
She died 25 June 1898, in Georgetown, Idaho. The casket was placed in a white-topped buggy which followed the long line of family and friends with more than a dozen of her grandchildren, all dressed in white, carrying armfuls of lilacs and wild flowers. She was buried in the Georgetown Cemetery. Her husband is buried in Brigham City Utah Cemetery.