John McCormick Wiser

John McCormick Wiser was born June 22, 1826 in Truxton, New York to Samuel and Elizabeth Babock Wiser. John is a Pioneer of Richmond. John was a veteran of the Indian Wars.

History

Very little is known about John's early life other than that when he was eight, his father died, and his mother remarried. Soon after the marriage, the family moved to Illinois. On Feb 22, 1849, John married Sarah Ann Silsbee in Jackson County, Iowa. Sarah died the same year due to complications in childbirth. Their child also died.

After the death, John joined a group of miners going to California to find gold. In Autumn 1850, the company arrived in Salt Lake City, Utah to gather supplies. John was introduced to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and was baptized Dec 6, 1850. The following year, John married Martha McKenney Frost in Big Cottonwood Canyon, Utah. After their marriage, they moved to Draper and later Alpine, Utah.

"While living at Alpine during the summer or 1856, they had no bread for a period of six weeks. Many other families were much longer without flour. It was the summer after the grasshoppers took their crops, so they did not have flour enough to last them until the next crop. They lived on greens and the men became so weak that they reeled when they walked. The oak brush and all trees were covered with sugar lumps. Grandma gathered the sugar and cooked it with whey and made vinegar, which she served with the greens. They had to live mostly on pigweed and nettles. There were few sego bulbs and they were so tired of nettles and pigweed, and they were getting scarce, that the children were sent into the canyon to find some greens but there were none. Then three days later they went again and found the hillsides lined with tender green wild onions, which the children picked and ate raw. Then they gathered and filled their pans and aprons with the onions and took them home and all enjoyed the change. Another time when they were so badly in need of food, fish came down the Provo River in such quantities that the people could scarcely cross the river. Grandpa got a barrel of fish. There was plenty for everyone. They boiled their fish and ate them with their greens and enjoyed them very much."

In 1860, the Wiser family moved to Richmond. In 1872, the Wiser family moved to Lewiston, Utah.

Indian Wars Services

After the construction of the Richmond Fort in 1860 and other forts in Cache Valley, the Territory of Utah created the Cache Military District on Oct 15, 1861 with Church Apostle Ezra T. Benson as Colonel. On June 16, 1863, Richmond was organized into two companies of Infantry and two squads of Cavalry. John was appointed as a Private in both instances.

Epilogue