BISHOP JACOB FOUTZ, SR.: A LEGACY OF FAITH
FROM HAUN’S MILL TO SALT LAKE
A Life History
Prepared for Descendants of
Jacob and Margaret Foutz
By Steven Russell Jensen
August 12, 1997
Introduction
As a fourth great-grandson of Jacob Foutz, I have produced this edited version of the History of Bishop Jacob Foutz Sr. and Family, Including a Story of the Haun’s Mill Massacre, written by Grace Foutz Boulter and Mary Foutz Corrigan in 1944. First, I wish to thank these two women who wrote Jacob Foutz’s history over 50 years ago. Surely they spent many hours of research to produce this detailed account. They are the reason I have been able to do what I have done.
My entire text is a revised version of Boulter and Corrigan’s work, a 32-page unpublished document, which can be found in Special Collections of the Harold B. Lee Library (call number: M270.1; F829b) at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. In my account, I use six other sources besides Boulter and Corrigan’s work; these sources are footnoted.
My purpose in preparing this edited history is two-fold:
(1) To celebrate the fascinating lives of these once-prominent but now little-known Mormon pioneersCJacob and Margaret FoutzCduring this Sesquicentennial of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ arrival in the Salt Lake Valley.
(2) To provide the descendants of Jacob and Margaret Foutz (their son, Joseph Lehi, is the great-grandfather of my living grandmother, Margaret Elaine Russell Hoopes) with a written and electronically stored Jacob Foutz history (see Appendix for pedigree charts of both Margaret Elaine Russell and Jacob Foutz).
Whether the reader is a direct descendent of Jacob and Margaret Foutz, my hope is that by pondering the gripping lives of this nineteen-century couple, the reader will resolve to follow the Foutz family’s example of living always by the Sesquicentennial theme of AFaith In Every Footstep.
Early Life
Jacob Foutz was born November 20, 1800 in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, the son of John Foutz and Elizabeth Hinkle, who were both natives of the same area.
Jacob’s grandfather, Conrad Foutz, was born in 1734 in Sweibruchen, Germany, and sailed across the Atlantic with his parents, who died during the trip and were buried at sea. Conrad continued the journey to America, where he and his wife, Elizabeth were the first of three generations of Foutzes in south central Pennsylvania.
Information is scare about the early life of Jacob Foutz. In his youth he probably farmed with his father and also learned the vocation of a brick mason.[1] One source says he was an Aenergetic brick layer.
On July 22, 1822, as a 21-year-old man, young Jacob married Margaret Mann. Margaret was born December 11, 1801 in Thomastown, Franklin County, Pennsylvania, to David Mann and Mary Rock. While still a baby, Margaret was deprived of both parents and was left an orphan; Margaret was raised by strangers.
The lives of these two young peopleCJacob and MargaretCwere destined to be adventuresome and notable. They lived in one of the most progressive periods the world has ever known and in a country rapidly expanding westward. As they began to raise their family among the rolling hills of south central Pennsylvania, Jacob and Margaret had no idea that an event-filled life awaited them out WestCa life full of ups and downs as changing as the lush-green knolls around them.
From Pennsylvania to Ohio
Of Jacob and Margaret’s 12 children, four were born in Pennsylvania (Susan, Polly, Nancy Ann, and Elizabeth); the remaining seven were born in four states: Ohio (Sarah, Catherine, and Alma); Missouri (Joseph Lehi); Illinois (Margaret, Hyrum, and Jacob, Jr.); and the soon-to-be Utah (Maranda).[2] Only eight of the 12, however, lived old enough to be married.
Franklin County, Pennsylvania, where the Jacob Foutz family first lived, was settled mainly by German people. Consequently, Jacob and Margaret’s children actually learned the German language before they learned English. This caused the Foutz children embarrassment when they left Pennsylvania in 1827 and moved west to Ohio among the English-speaking people.
In 1834, while living in Richland County, Ohio, the Foutz family received a visitorCElder David Evans of the four-year-old Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Elder Evans taught Jacob and Margaret’s family the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Convinced of the Church’s truthfulness, the Foutz family was baptizedCa practice becoming increasingly unpopular with the northern Ohio neighbors.
Shortly after the Foutz family joined the Church, they probably felt what the local Church leaders were calling Athe spirit of gathering.Groups of Saints were fleeing Ohio persecution and congregating in Missouri. Consequently, Jacob and Margaret left Ohio and moved their family further west to be with the Latter-day Saints.
Haun’s Mill, Missouri
The Foutzes purchased some land on the Crooked River in Missouri. Here an organized branch of the Church had settled in a spot known as AHaun’s Mill,named for the mill owned by Brother Jacob Haun. The branch was presided over by the man who had taught the Foutz family the Gospel, Elder David Evans. The Foutzes were anxious to finally establish a permanent home here among their new friends of the faith.
On March 16, 1837, Margaret gave birth to Joseph Lehi, who would be the oldest Foutz son to live to maturity. Though by now Margaret had given birth eight times, three children had died; in an entry in her diary dated October 1838 she writes of her Alittle family of five children.
Speaking of the Foutz’s new home in Missouri, Margaret Foutz recalls, AWe enjoyed ourselves exceedingly well and everything seemed to prosper, but the spirit of persecution began to manifest itself. Falsehoods were circulated about the Mormon population that was settling about the region and soon there began to be signs of trouble.
Along with the other members at Haun’s Mill, the Foutz family were not permitted to enjoy their new home for long. Missouri mobs were driving out the Saints in county after county. The small settlement of Saints on the Crooked River in Caldwell County was no exception.
In the fall of 1838, mobs threatened to destroy the mill owned by Brother Haun. The brethren tried many times to settle matters peacefully with the mob, but to no avail. Consequently, the Saints took precautions. On October 28, they organized themselves and stationed 28 armed watchmen to guard the settlement. Two days later, however, the Haun’s Mill Saints felt somewhat safe from any immediate attack by the mob. But that feeling of safety was short lived. To the Foutz family and to all others present on that dreadful Tuesday, October 30, 1838, the event would be forever known as AThe Haun’s Mill Massacre.
Margaret Foutz writes that on October 30, the Saints thought all was adjusted from the meeting the brethren had with the Amobbersthe day before. Brother Evans went to inform the menC Margaret’s husband among themCthat all was well. At about the middle of the afternoon, according to Joseph Young, Athe banks of Shoal Creek, on either side, teemed with children sporting and playing, while their mothers were engaged in domestic employment.
Then suddenly, says Margaret, without any warning, 60 or 70 men with blackened faces came riding on their horses at full speed toward the settlement. The brethren ran for protection into an old log blacksmith’s shop. But without arms, the men were helpless. The mob rode to the shop, and with no explanation or apparent cause they began a full-scale butchery by firing round after round through the cracks in the log wall of the shop.
The following passage is Margaret’s eye-witness description of one of the blackest moments in LDS Church history. Included are Margaret’s feelings about this faith-testing experience that forever changed the lives of the Foutz family.
AI was at home with my little family of five children and could hear the firing of guns. In a moment I knew that the mob was upon us. Soon a runner came telling the women and children to hasten into the woods and secret ourselves. This we did in all haste without taking anything to keep us warm; and had we been fleeing from the scalping knife of the Indian, we would not have made greater haste. As we ran from house to house, gathering as we went, we finally numbered about forty or fifty women and children.
AWe ran about three miles into the woods and there huddled together, spreading what few blankets and shawls we chanced to have upon the ground for the children. There we remained until two o’clock the next morning before we heard anything of the result of the firing at the mill. Who can imagine our feeling during this dreadful suspense? When the news did come, Oh but what terrible news! Fathers, brothers, husbands inhuna. We took up the line of march for home, but alas what a home! Who would we find there?
ANow with our minds full of the most fearful forebodings, we retraced those three long dreary miles. As we were returning I saw Brother Myers, who had been shot through the body. In that dreadful state he had crawled on his hands and knees about two miles to his home.
AAfter I arrived at my house with my children, I hastily made a fire to warm them and then started for the mill, about two miles distant. My children would not remain at home as they said >if father and mother are going to be killed we want to be with them.’
AOn the way to the mill, in the first house I came to there were three dead men. One a Brother McBride, was a terrible sight to hehold, having been cut and chopped and mangled with a corn cutter. I was told that [h]e was a survivor of the Revolutionary War.
AI hurried on looking for my husband and finally found him in an old house covered with some rubbish. He had been shot in the thigh. I there rendered him all the aid that I could but it was evening before I could get him home.
AI saw thirteen more dead bodies at the shop and witnessed the beginning of the burial which consisted in throwing the men that the mob would return and kill the few that were left, they threw the bodies in head first or feet first as the case might be. When they had thrown in three my heart sickened and I could not stand it more. I turned away to keep from fainting.
AMy husband and another Brother had drawn dead bodies over themselves and pretended to be dead [according to another witness, AJacob Fouts and Wm. Champlin feined their selves dead and lay still untill their pockets were robed[3]]. By so doing they saved their own lives and heard what some of the mob said. After the firing was over two little boys that were in the shop begged for their lives, but no one of the mob said >they will make Mormons’ and he put the muzzle of his gun to the boys heads and blew their brains out.
AOh what a change one short day had brought! Here were our friends dead and dying, one in particular asked to take a hammer and give him relief by knocking his brains out, so great was his agony. And in all this we knew not what moment our enemies would be upon us again. All this suffering, not because we had broken any law - on the contrary it was part of our religion to keep the laws of the land - but because the evil spirit was at work among the children of men.
AIn the evening Brother Evans got a team and wagon and conveyed my husband to our home. He carried him in and placed him on the bed. I then had to attend him alone, without a doctor or anyone to tell me what to do for him. Six days later my husband himself, helped me to extract the bullet which was buried deep in the thick part of his thigh and was flattened like a knife. We did this with a kitchen knife.
ADuring the first ten days the mob came every day with blackened faces (more like demons from the internal pit than like human beings) cursing and swearing that they would kill the old Mormon preacher, who was my husband. At times like these when human nature would quail, I have felt the power of God upon me to that degree that I have stood before the fearless and although a woman and alone, those demons in human shape had to succumb to the power which they know not of. During these days of danger I sometimes hid my husband out into the woods behind our home and covered him with leaves. When he was able to sit up he was dressed as a woman and put at the spinning wheel. In this way his life was protected. Thus during my husbands illness was I harassed by mobocratic violence.
On one occasion (as the story is told), when the mob came to Margaret’s house looking for her husband, she felt the power of God upon her to such an extent that she was totally unafraid. She commanded the mobbers, who had murdered and injured the men of the community, to kill and dress a pig for her family to eat. The men trembled before Margaret and did as she instructed. Sister Foutz often told how she surprised herself on such occasions. However, she always gave the credit and thanks to God.
The mobs had taken food, clothing, and bedding from the Saints and had even burned some of their homes. As a result, besides the pain and sorrow they had to bear, many Saints were without even the bare necessities of life. The mob finally said they would leave the Saints alone if the Saints would leave Missouri in the spring. The Saints agreed and headed for Illinois.
On record in LDS Church files is the following document that appears to be a registered complaint. Signed by Jacob Foutz, the document is sworn to against members of the mob that molested the Saints in Missouri:
Quincy, Illinois, March 17, A.D. 1840
This is to certify that I was citizen retime of Caldwell County, Missouri, at the time Governor Bogg’s exterminating order was issued and that I was quartered on by the mob militia without my leave or consent, at different times, and at one time by William Mann, Hiram Cumstock and brother, who professed to be the captain, also Robert While; And that I was wounded and driven from the State to my inconvenience and deprived of my freedom as well as to my loss of at least four hundred dollars.
Signed - - - Jacob Foutz
Sworn to before C.M. Woods, Clerk Circuit.
Many such complaints, sworn to by different men, are on file in Illinois. The Saints took their case to Washington, D.C., but a helping hand was not to be found even in the nation’s capitol. The Saints received no financial aid or redress for the sufferings and material losses caused by the citizens and governor of Missouri.
The Illinois Era
About the middle of February 1839, the Foutz family joined the Haun’s Mill survivors and hundreds of other Missouri Saints in a great exodus to Illinois; the Foutz’s settled in Quincy.
At first the residents of Quincy were hospitable. They understood the unjust treatment the Saints had received in Missouri. It seemed as though the Latter-day Saints finally had found sympathetic neighbors. But as the Saints continued to cross the Illinois border into Quincy, the locals became alarmed. They feared the new citizens would take away their jobs. This fear probably upset the local politicians enough that they repeated what so many other townspeople in New York, Ohio, and Missouri had done: they urged the Mormons to move elsewhere.
The Foutz family left Quincy sometime in 1840. On October 27, 1840, Jacob Foutz was made second councilor to Bishop Matthew Leach in the Freedom Stake of the Church, near Payson, Adams County, Illinois (Payson is about 10 miles east of Quincy). While living in Adams County, Margaret Foutz gave birth to her ninth child, Margaret, Jr.
Sometime between October 1840 and February 1841 the Foutz family moved into Brown County, for the Prophet Joseph Smith records that on February 28, 1841, a branch of the Church or stake of Zion was organized in Brown County, western Illinois with Levi Gifford as president, Lodarick as first councilor, and Jacob Foutz as second councilor.
As with their previous two homes in Illinois, the Foutz family did not stay long in Brown County; soon they were in Nauvoo, Illinois. On October 12, 1842, the high council of the Church in Nauvoo Aresolved that the City of Nauvoo be divided into ten wards according to the division made by the Temple Committee, and that there be a Bishop appointed over such districts immediately out of the City and adjoining there to as shall be considered necessary.This resolution continues by naming those chosen to preside over these districts. Jacob Foutz was appointed bishop of the Nauvoo Fifth Ward.
Between the time Jacob lived in Brown County in 1841 and in Nauvoo in 1842, he served a mission for the Church.[4] A little diary kept by Jacob adds some insight during this time of his life. The humble book, handmade of white paper and sewed to a black cover, records the following: ALeft Nauvoo 12th. Of September and left Quincy 3rd. of October.This is believed to be Jacob’s notation of the dates he left to serve a mission for the ChurchCback to his homeland of Pennsylvania. The year is believed to be 1841.
The exact circumstances under which Jacob Foutz left Nauvoo for the mission field are not known. Serving a mission was undoubtedly a great sacrifice for both Jacob and the Foutz family. The Foutz’s had barely settled in their home in Nauvoo when Jacob received the call. He left his six living children and Margaret, who was expecting another baby soon.
At this time in LDS Church history, many men were sent as missionaries to far-off lands although the men were needed badly at home for many tasks. In Nauvoo, the tasks included a swamp to drain, homes to build, and a temple to construct.
Under these conditions, Jacob Foutz left for Pennsylvania to preach the gospel. He achieved success laboring among his friends and relatives, many of whom he helped to convert and to be baptized into the Church.
Jacob records in his diary that he left APitsburgto go out and search faithfully and to preach in nearby neighborhoods. Jacob labored in the Pennsylvania counties of Indiana, Camberg, Bedford and Franklin. Usually he preached at meetings held in schoolhouses, but occasionally he preached at meetings in private homes. According to Jacob’s record, the investigators at these meetings numbered from 11 to 18; at one meeting he notes 28 were present. On November 16, 1842, Jacob records he baptized Levi Thornton and his wife, Elizabeth.
The following expense account in Jacob’s diary, which Jacob kept together with his other records, sheds light into the purchases of a nineteenth-century Latter-day Saint missionary (the list is unedited):
10 libs. fish .40 Calico 1.60
Sugar .10 Cofy .12
Butter 2 lbs. 120
How long Brother Foutz remained on his mission is not known. Margaret gave birth to a baby boyCHyrum, in December 1842Cin Jacob’s absence. No record of the baby was ever written after this time, so Hyrum probably died in infancy. Nauvoo, in those days, was an extremely unhealthful place to live. Sickness was rampant throughout the settlement, and the old and young died of fever continually. Little Hyrum probably died of such an illness.
But illness and even death did not hinder the faith of Margaret and Jacob. The following (unedited) miraculous experience was written (years after the fact) in Margaret’s autobiography:
AMy jusband was a man of great faith, and many times has sickness yielded and even broken bones been united in oure family, through prayer and the administration of the laying on of hands. I bear testimony that this work commonly called AMormonismis true and I leave this as a testimony to my children and to my children’s children, and to all who may read my autobiography, that this work is the work of the Lord.
AI will now chronicle one miracle that took place in my home. My jusband took very sick, also a young man that lived at out house was very sick and my eldes child had been very sick for about ten days; in fact he was so bad that he had become speechless. I sent for an Elder, Brother J. Carto. He and another Elder came with him, and they administered to each of the sick and then called upon them, in name of the Lord to arise from their beds and be made whole. They did so and I got them somthing to eat, of which they partook and they were instantaneously healed by the power of GodCHis servants officiating in Priesthood which they had received.
After returning from his mission, Jacob stayed very active in the Church. He was made a member of the Nauvoo LegionCan 85-man group placed aboard the AMaid of Iowasteamboat to protect the Prophet Joseph Smith. As a result of threats by mobs to take the Prophet and others out of Nauvoo, the Maid of Iowa was launched from Nauvoo to patrol the Mississippi River; it prevented anyone from taking the Prophet to Missouri by water for trial. Jacob Foutz was among a group that loaded the boat June 25, 1842, and sailed that night. After being gone for about one week, the crew left Quincy on July 1, 1843 at 8 a.m. to return to Nauvoo.
On the morning of Sunday, October 1, 1843, Joseph Smith attended a meeting in Nauvoo that was eventually adjourned due to the cold and rain. The afternoon weather, however, was more pleasant, and the people assembled to resume their meeting. They were addressed by Elder William Marks, president of the Nauvoo Stake; by Charles C. Rich; and by Bishop Jacob Foutz.
Along with the other Saints in Nauvoo, the Foutz family busied themselves at home while living in constant fear of the mobs, which threatened the Saints continually. In June 1844, the Prophet Joseph, his brother, Hyrum, and others gave themselves to the mob to prevent further trouble and bloodshed. Taken to the jail in Carthage, Illinois, Joseph and Hyrum never returned alive.
Following the death of their beloved Prophet and leader, the Saints lived in even greater fear and anxiety. The mob continually threatened to burn Nauvoo and to drive the Mormons from the state. During these troublesome times, Margaret Foutz gave birth to another son, Jacob, Jr., on August 25, 1844.
During this era, several Church leaders broke away from the main body of Saints and took with them many followers. Jacob Foutz and his family, however, remained faithful to the proper authority. When Brigham Young, president of the Quorum of the Twelve, was chosen to lead the Church, the Foutz family rallied around their new prophet and gave him their support.
At General Conference on October 7, 1844, the membership of the Church sustained Jacob Foutz in his calling as a bishop by a unanimous vote.[5] During the next day’s session, President Young selected men from the high priest quorum to go abroad Ain all the congressional district of the United States to preside over the branches of the Church.Jacob Foutz was among those chosen to go. However, no record states that Brother Foutz answered this call. He had recently served a mission to Pennsylvania, and his health was still suffering from being wounded at Haun’s Mill.
Despite persecution and a common feeling that again they would have to abandon their homes, the Nauvoo Saints continued to build the temple. All participated who could donate their time and services. At the commencement of 1845, the Saints put forth special effort to rush the temple to completion. In a record published January 31, 1845, Bishops Newel K. Whitney and George Miller (the new trustees-in-trust for the Church)[6] said Jacob Foutz was one of the brethren appointed as agents by the proper authorities of the Church to Acollect donations and tithings for the Temple and for other purposes, in the City of Nauvoo.
Three months later at the General Conference of the Church on April 7, 1845, William Clayton recorded that among the principal officers of the Church sustained by the membership, Jacob Foutz was sustained as bishop of the Eighth Ward of Nauvoo.
The winters were long and cold for those who were so poorly housed and underfed. Sickness was prevalent and the elders of the Church kept busy administering to the sick and caring for the own families.
On Monday, February 9, 1846, the Nauvoo Temple was set on fire. Men and women frantically carried water and eventually succeeded in putting out the flames. With sorrow the Saints viewed the damage done to the Lord’s houseCthe structure for which many had gone hungry to help build.
With the arrival of spring, life returned to normal, and the Foutz family made preparations for the wedding of their 18-year-old daughter, Elizabeth. On April 10, 1846, Elizabeth was married to Henson Walker in the Nauvoo Temple.
Elizabeth and Henson began their wedded life in troublesome times. Members of the Church were crossing the river to leave Nauvoo as rapidly as possible. Many Saints had moved during the middle of winter; those still in Nauvoo were urged to speed their departure. President Young and many of the Twelve Apostles as far west as Council Bluffs in search of refuge for the Saints.
Crossing the Plains
Exactly when Bishop Jacob Foutz and his family left Nauvoo is not known, but it must have been soon after the April 10 marriage of Elizabeth and Henson. Trouble with the mob was worsening each day.
Surely without fanfare the Foutz family boarded their covered wagon and left their ACity Beautifuland the eastern United States, never to return. Once again the family was homeless. And the uncertainty of this journey, more than any other, required bolstered faith and devotion.
Upon leaving Nauvoo, the Foutz family first traveled to Garden Grove, Iowa. Here they stayed long enough to harvest a crop in the summer and fall of 1846.
The next stop was Winter Quarters, where the Saints had built homes and were preparing to spend the winter. Many travelers, arriving late in the season, were forced to live in their wagons through the long, cold winter.
On June 21, 1847, roughly a year after the left Nauvoo, Jacob and Margaret Foutz and their family left Winter Quarters for the three-month summer journey that would take them to a permanent home in the Rocky Mountains.
The Foutz family did not leave without an organized means of traveling. The departing Saints, in order to know what course to travel and to have a leader for counsel and assistance, were organized into companies with captains over each group of 100, 50, and 10 people. Bishop Jacob Foutz and Joseph Horne were captains of the second fifty of the Abraham O. Smoot Company.[7]
As they began walking in June 1847, the Foutz family most likely consisted of Jacob, age 46; Margaret, 45; Nancy Ann, 21; Elizabeth, 19 (now married to Henson Walker); Catherine, 16; Joseph Lehi, 10; Margaret, 7; and Jacob, 2.
The Foutzes probably had two wagons to store all their household goods and belongings; Catherine and Lehi often told how they drove one of the teams of oxen on their journey. Even though they were better off than many families by having two wagons, the members of the Foutz family still had to walk most of the way.
Jacob and Margaret did not keep a daily record of their journey across the plains. However, in Andrew Jenson’s Pioneer History Journal, the location of the Foutz family is cited in the fall of 1847:
ASept. 7, 1847. It snowed part of the day and the weather was cold. By night the snow had cleared away. They crossed the Dry Sandy Creek at two o’ clock P.M. and the Little Sandy at ten o’clock in the evening where they stopped to camp. The road was good and the cattle traveled very much faster especially after sundown. They made twenty-eight miles that day.
AThe second fifty of Smoot’s hundred with Jacob Foutz and Joseph Horne as Captains spent part of the day with other pioneers from another company at the upper crossing of the Sweetwater.
ASat. Sept. 18, 1847; Smoot’s hundred arrived and camped on Bear River.
Their journey continued until the whole Smoot Company arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on September 25, 1847. The Smoot Company was fortunate to arrive before the heavy snowfalls of early autumn. Some companies who were caught in these storms suffered terribly. When cattle no longer could pull the loads in the heavy snow, companies sent a call for help to the Saints in the Valley. Jacob Foutz was one of those sent to the rescue. According to Jenson’s Pioneer History Journal, AThe second fifty of Smoot’s company responded liberally to the call of sending teams [from] the valley to help the rear company over the mountains. Jacob Foutz sent one yoke of oxen back.
A New Home in the West
The Foutzes had finally finished their journey west, but there was little time to rest. The approaching winter required the family to stay very busy that fall establishing their new home. Along with the other Saints who arrived in 1847, Jacob and Margaret assisted in the original building of Salt Lake City.
Jacob and Margaret also received callings in the first Church organizations to be established in the new area. On November 7, 1847, Bishop Foutz was again placed at the head of a ward. This time he became bishop of the East half of the New Fort Ward, which was one of the five wards in the Great Salt Lake Valley. On January 7, 1848, while living in her new home, Margaret gave birth to her twelfth and final child, daughter Maranda.
Poor of health, Bishop Foutz spent much of his time in bed. The injuries he suffered at Haun’s Mill had never completely healed, and the fever sickness he contracted in Nauvoo lingered as well.
Just over a month after the arrival of his baby daughter, Bishop Foutz passed away at the age of 47. Jacob’s death on February 147, 1848 was a freak happening: while he was away from home excavating in gravel, his fellow workers said he Atook a fitor a stroke and died suddenly.
Jacob Foutz’s final resting place is in Salt Lake City; the exact spot is uncertain. However, one thing is certainCthat Jacob went to the reward for which he had labored all his life. He lived an eventful and exciting life, mingled with joys and sorrows. He was a faithful member and leader of the Church for many years, having moved his family with the Saints from Ohio to Missouri to Illinois to UtahCall in an effort to help build the kingdom of God on earth. Church members joined the Foutz family in February 1848 to mourn the passing of this righteous man.
Life without father Jacob continued for the Foutz family, who eventually settled in Pleasant Grove, Utah. In later years, Margaret often said her husband left her with eight children, seven bushels of wheat, two cows, a city lot, and five acres of brush land.
When Jacob died, Catherine, 16, was the oldest child at home. Joseph Lehi, the oldest son, was then 10 years old. Even at this young age, Joseph assumed much of the financial responsibility for the Foutz family.
Margaret Foutz lived for almost 50 more years. She died August 5, 1896. But the legacy of faith established by Jacob and Margaret Foutz has never died. The Foutz posterity continues to bring hundreds of descendants into this world to reap the blessings as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
WORKS CITED
Bashore, Melvin L. and Linda L. Haslam. Mormon Pioneer Companies Crossing the Plains (1847-1868) Narratives: Guide to Sources in Utah Libraries and Archives. Salt Lake City: Historical Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Revised Edition, 1989.
Black, Susan Easton. Pioneers of 1847: A Sesquicentennial Remembrance. Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University, 1980.
Church Educational System, Church History in the Fulness of Times. Religion 341-43, The History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1989.
Esshom, Frank Elwood. Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah. Salt Lake City: Utah Pioneers Book Publishing Co., 1913.
Johnson, Clark V. Mormon Redress Petitions: Documents of the 1833-1838 Missouri Conflict. Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City, Utah: Distributed by Bookcraft, c1992.
Roberts, B.H., ed. History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Vol. 7. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1980.
[1]Frank Elwood Esshom, Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah (Salt Lake City: Utah Pioneers Book Publishing Co., 1913) 876.
[2]Susan Easton Black, Pioneers of 1847: A Sesquicentennial Remembrance (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University, 1980) 955-957.
[3]Clark V. Johnson, Mormon Redress Petitions: Documents of the 1833-1838 Missouri Conflict (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City, Utah: Distributed by Bookcraft, c1992), 487.
[4]Discrepancies exist regarding exactly when Jacob was in Illinois and when he was in Pennsylvania during the years 1841-1842.
[5]B.H. Roberts, ed., History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, vol. 7 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1980), 298.
[6]Church Educational System, Church History in the Fulness of Times, Religion 341-43, The History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1989), 297.
[7]Boulter and Corrigan say Jacob Foutz was in the Smoot Company, and they quote the Andrew Jenson journal. However, two sources say Jacob Foutz traveled with the Edward Hunter Company: Melvin L. Bashore and Linda L. Haslam, Mormon Pioneer Companies Crossing the Plains (1847-1868) Narratives: Guide to Sources in Utah Libraries and Archives. (Salt Lake City: Historical Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Revised Edition, 1989) 15; and Esshom, p. 876.