James Pearce - life story

James Pearce - life story

Harrison and Henrietta and their five young children moved from Mississippi north some several hundred miles to Nauvoo, Illinois in March 1846 to join the Mormon community. Within the year, the young family again left behind what meager possessions they had, and were expelled by persecution from Nauvoo to begin their exodus west in 1847. They arrived in Mt. Pisgah, Iowa in late summer and lived there under somewhat temporary conditions for another few years. Here John Mangum baptized 8-year-old James Pearce into the Mormon Church on May 1, 1847 in the Grand River, Iowa. Older brother John had been baptized the year before.

The family and others moved on next to Council Bluffs and was there also for a few years. Interestingly, Mary Jane Meeks (James' future bride-to-be) was born at Council Bluffs in 1851, about the time that young 12-year old James was also there. The family finally started west for the Salt Lake Valley in 1852, James at age 13, and 1 older and 6 younger siblings, mostly walking for the 1,000 mile trek in the James C. Snow Company.

Departure: 5 July 1852 Arrival in Salt Lake Valley: 9-10 October 1852 Company Information: 250 individuals and about 55 wagons were in the company when it began its journey from the outfitting post at Kanesville, Iowa (present day Council Bluffs).

They arrived in Utah and soon settled in Payson. During the three years from 1852 to 1855, Harrison and Henrietta lost three of their children, presumably to sickness and disease.

Young Man - Indian Negotiator

What scenes this young man, James, must have beheld when the Walker War broke out in Utah and the early settlers were compelled to gather for protection in hastily constructed forts. He served in the militia all through that war, and in 1853 (at age 14) was selected as one of three to bring about peace negotiations. In his own words, "I, William Maxwell, and Frank Johnson went to the Ute Indian camp near Salt Creek and got in under a flag of truce. There was an Indian lying nearby named 'Pansook' who had been wounded at the battle of the Canes and was slowly dying. Every time he groaned in pain, the peace negotiations would stop and the warriors would discuss our death, and the best manner of taking us off. Then we would talk for our lives. At any rate, we got the peace treaty through."

In 1856 (age 17) he accompanied his father, mother, brother Thomas and sister Henrietta and moved to Dixie settling in Washington. Hi older brother John was married in April of that year, and he and his new wife did not accompany the rest of the family, but stayed behind in Payson. The family were the first men to take a wagon down there and turned the first sod in what became the town of Washington. The next year James (age 18) was called on a mission by church authorities on what was known as the White Mountain Mission in Nevada for the purpose of exploring a road to the Pacific Coast. The church leaders were determined that if Johnson's army would come in and take their homes, they would move the saints on toward the Pacific coast. Later the same year he was called on a mission to the Mokuis indians, with Jacob Hamblin, and returned in 1858.

From there he was called at age 19 to Echo Canyon to help head off the Johnson army who were occupying that territory.

In 1859, he made his second trip to California, but 1860 found him back in Dixie, and settled at Tonaquint, which was near Santa Clara. Here he was called by Jacob Hamblin to preside over the branch. He did not stay there long, but moved over to the branch at St. George, and fenced off a city lot, and moved his trees and grapevines from Tonaquint. Here he raised the first peaches that were raised in St. George. Also, about this time he did this community a great service by buying the water rights on the Virgin River from the Indians.

In the fall of 1860 (age 21) he was called with a party of about ten men to go on a mission to the Hopi villages. Their experiences on this trip proved to be a perilous adventure. The Navajo nation had become angry over the killing of three of their tribe alleged to have taken the lives of three pale faces. George A. Smith Jr. was killed during this attempted peace mission, and the rest of the party barely escaped with their lives. At this time James Pearce showed his great bravery by carrying his comrade a drink, although, nearly at the cost of his own life. In his own words, "We heard the shots up at camp, and feared that George A. Smith Jr. was killed. When we arrived and the Indians drew back, we could see him try to get up but fall back each time. We knew that he was badly wounded. President Hamblin called for volunteers to take the wounded man water. 'You're not afraid to go, are you, Jim?' he said to me. 'Oh, yes, I am, but I will go!' I said. I took the water out and gave Brother Smith a drink." The whole party would likely have perished but for the old pack mule stampeding just at an opportune time and scattering his precious load of Indian trinkets all over the ground. With their characteristic curiosity, the Indians stopped to gather up the spoils, and the party was able to escape. James Pearce was sent off on detached duty just before they arrived home - the rest of the party leading his horse in. The sight of his empty saddle caused his family the keenest apprehension; but, they were soon happily assured that he was safe.

Over time, he proved himself to be a great friend of the Indians, and won their love and confidence. In 1862 (age 23) he brought from Arizona into St. George what was believed to be the whole band of (Shivwits) Piute Indians. All were duly baptized into the church; the ceremonies being performed by David H. Cannon. On this occasion Erastus Snow distributed to them a large supply of food and clothing. Ten years later when James Pearce went to see these people, they complained they had not heard from the Lord since he left, and also expressed the wish that they be taken back to St. George and be baptized again. And they wanted more shirts.

In the spring of 1864 (age 25), he was called as Captain of a company to go back to the states of Nebraska and Missouri to help an emigrant wagon train come into the Salt Lake valley. The winter of 1865-66 he spent at Ft. Pearce named for his brother J. D. L. Pearce, guarding the settlers and stock from the raiding of the Navajos.

He acted as Indian interpreter on several occasions. At one time he went with William Marshall at Payson to interview the Black Hawk Indians who had been raiding the cattle in that section. It was a perilous occasion. They succeeded in getting the Indians to stack their arms in one place, and while Marshall watched the arms and the Indians for any break they might make, James Pearce went into council with the tribal leaders. In December 1864 he was called to go to Calleville on the big Colorado River and act as an interpreter for the Piute Indians. He spoke and understood several Indian languages very well.

About this same time, a young girl by the name of Mary Jane Meeks lived in St. George. She was the daughter of William Meeks and Mary Elizabeth Rhodes. Mary Jane was born at Winter Quarters, Iowa and came across the plains while still a babe, arriving in 1852. Her family eventually moved south to help settle the St. George community. It is likely that their respective families knew each other through all these years of trial and tribulation. At the town Pioneer Day celebration in 1866, 27-year old James escorted 14-year old Mary Jane to the evening dance. It was the first time he had taken her out. Quoting Mary Jane, " Oh, we had good dances. We waltzed, schottished, and square-danced til nearly morning." This was the beginning of a beautiful life-long relationship between the two.

Eight months later, on March 5th, 1867, and on his 28th birthday, Erastus Snow married James to Mary Jane. Eighteen months later on October 11, 1868, they were sealed by Daniel H. Wells in the Endowment House in SLC. Over time, these two would bear and raise six boys and five girls.

In 1876, after ten years of marriage and growth, they were called by Apostle Erastus Snow (Snow's assignment was the colonization of southern Utah and Arizona) to help settle the Eastern Arizona mission. He placed his hands on their heads, setting them apart to "file claim on all the land that they could, to be later divided with those who would follow." They began at once to make preparations. James moved his family, including an expectant wife and four children under age 8, from St. George to Panguitch in 1876, getting his cattle and other property ready for the move south to Arizona. He traveled to Moencopi alone and planted a crop of corn there, hoping to reap the benefits on his return trip the next year with his family. (from the recorded notes of James G. Bleak: On Sunday, Apr 2, 1876, at Sacrament meeting in St. George, Elders James Pearce, John Alger Jr., and John McConnell were called as missionaries to Arizona.)

Their start for Arizona was made on October 28, 1877. The family wagon, loaded with peach pits and plum pits, and supplies for a new life, crossed at Lee's Ferry, and arrived in Moencopi, where only one sack of corn was all that he gathered from this field. This was disappointing for James and Mary Jane.

Settling Taylor, Arizona

They pushed their way through from Moencopi, through Tucker's Flat and into the Mormon settlements of Sunset and Brigham City, and arrived at Woodruff on December 18, 1877. He remained there with his family for some time, while he explored the land further south. While living in Woodruff, he went with Ammon Tenney Sr. to St. Johns to make peace with some of the Mexican settlers over the accidental burning of some haystacks and farm machinery located up the river. The Mexicans were so enraged that they locked up two men in jail, as it happened on Christmas day, and they were determined to take their arms away from the two young men. Mr. Daggs was a good friend to them at this time. Some of the men came down on the next day. Mrs. Tenney was able to talk their language, and by the women furnishing them a good dinner, they left feeling much better about their unfortunate loss. Later Mr. Tenney got James Pearce to go again, this time to Prescott to court to try to settle the affair.

On the 23rd of January 1878 in the middle of a harsh winter, the Pearce family moved on from Woodruff, trod another 25 miles downstram on the Silver Creek, and arrived at the present site of Taylor. It seems that Mary Jane was lying in the back of the wagon suffering with a headache. Coming over the hill in view of the Stinson Ranch (now the Snowflake area), they remarked to each other how they could share in great farming land just like his. James Pearce and family continued another several miles on to their new site upstream on Silver Creek, and took squatter's claim at what eventually became Taylor. They were actually the first Mormon family to settle on Silver Creek. Quoting James, "This was nearly six months before the Flake party located at Snowflake. This land was not surveyed, and I simply had a squatters claim. The same right to land and water that James N. Stinson offered me all his holdings for $18,000. A few months later William J. Flake paid him $11,000 for the same claim." (The cattle that Flake used to pay Stinson for this claim were subsequently brought down from Utah.)

Several weeks later, John Henry Standifird with his thirteen-year-old daughter, Ann, came to the Pearces' place (an overturned wagon and a dugout cave with extra posts and other makeshift protection). During this stay, the two men developed a friendship and decided to join forces together in the settlement of this site. Pearce and Standifird began immediately to find ways to sustain their existence - a crop that summer was essential to their survival in this land of short temperate summers and often long harsh cold winters. As they looked for the appropriate fields that could be irrigated from the Silver Creek, they found the perfect site a few miles upstream where a man by the name of Felix Scott had prior established a small farm. It is reported that they traded Scott two cows for his interest in the place. Pearce scooped out dirt and built a dugout cabin for his family. In that humble dwelling was born the first local child - Elizabeth Pearce. During the few months that first summer, the men toiled to get water to the few acres that they had tilled and planted.

In the meantime, the Daniel Bagley family arrived to settle at the initial town site that James Pearce had designated upon first arrival (which accounts for the first name of the village being Bagley). Also arriving that summer were William and Jesse Walker. (The town was also referred to as Walker for some months. It wasn't until 1880, that the name Taylor was selected, naming it after the third president of the church.) There may have been another family or two arriving that first year of 1878, although most records are not adequately clear.

Late in the summer other pioneer families, including William J. Flake, arrived at Stinson's Ranch and negotiated the trade that would enable the establishment of the neighboring community of Snowflake. There would grow up between the two towns considerable rivalry, but from the beginning the necessity of mutual cooperation would transcend the pettier tendencies and both communities would forever be linked in numerous social, civic, spiritual and economic matters.

Later in life --

Arizona's earliest governors (Hunt and Campbell) were personal friends of James.

He was invited to be a speaker at a Pioneer Day celebration in Phoenix around 1920. It was quite an affair, They had a lot of old timers giving their life history. When it was time for James' speech he said, "I have only listened to all you old-timers tell how many Indians you killed. The only ones I killed were the ones who ran themselves to death chasing after me. I was always ahead of them."

James was proud to say that he planted fruit trees, especially plum, from Utah to Arizona and New Mexico, and back. He said when he camped overnight near a stream or spring, he planted trees. He would plant either cuttings or the pits he carried with him. Years later he would point to trees he had planted all along Silver Creek from Shumway to Snowflake.