Short history of George Byers OGILVIE by Jetta Stewart Brunson

Short history of George Byers OGILVIE by Jetta Stewart Brunson

HISTORY OF GEORGE BEYERS OGILVIE 7 SON – GEORGE OGILVIE

By

Jetta Stewart Brunson, GG Granddaughter & G Grand-Dau.

George Beyers Olgilvie married Barbara Elizabeth Mattatahl (widow of ---n [unreadable] Campbell who drowned) 11 Aug. 1827 at Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada; here several children were born to them. In 1855 they moved to Salt Lake City and arrived there Sept 12, 1855 – Came to Utah with Noah T. Guymon Company – pioneers of Sept. 1855 from Quincy, Illinois. Brigham Young, a Mormon missionary to Canada, converted son, George and Father, Mother, etc. The family and wife’s youngest girl by John Campbell moved to Nauvoo, Ill.

Upon arriving in Salt Lake Valley they located in Big Cottonwood Canyon – their children were George, Alexander, William (boys) and Barbara Elizabeth, Esther, Louisa and Ann – also Margaret Campbell. While here they endured many hardships, as the grasshoppers had eaten early all the crops in 1855 and in the spring of 1856 about May they lived for 6 or 8 weeks on sego lily roots, weeds and many other things to save life as other rations were gone. Bishop Ruben Miller, former Bishop in Nauvoo, Illinois, had put in 5 acres of fall wheat and in July 1856 it was harvested by the people. He gave the people a certain portion according to size of family. George B. Ogilvie got 5 bushels to feed 10 in his family.

While living in Big Cottonwood, George married March 2, 1857, Eliza Ann Hales, whom he had previously met in Nauvoo – daughter of Charles Henry Hales and Julia Ann Lockwood, whose entire family joined the Church in Quincy, Illinois, and came West in the Edward Hunter Company of 1849.

George Beyers and his son, George Ogilvie, owned and operated a sawmill in Little Cottonwood Canyon, now known as Alta, Utah, located near the old Flagstaff Mine, approximately 9 miles above the spot where the granite was taken to build the Salt Lake Temple. From this sawmill many homes were built in Salt Lake Valley. After George Beyer’s first wife, Barbary Elizabeth Mattatahl, died 14 April 1857 in Spanish Fork, Utah, he married Jane McAusland.

Via letter from Peter James Ogilvie 12/27/1940: “My mother came from Scotland to Salt Lake Valley with her parents, brothers and sisters, during spring of 1853; her father was named Peter McAusland. They came in a sailing boat to New Orleans, was 2 months crossing the Atlantic. While on boat my mother met and married a Mr. Evans. A year or two later mother married a Mr. Elijah Fordham whom she divorced. (Mr. Evans died by Pneumonia summer of 1854.) A son was born Jan. 5, 1857 named William Elijah Fordham of whom the court decreed that mother should have custody. He was with us until he grew up to manhood and has lived in Nevada ever since – is living in the western part of Nevada.”

In Bingham Canyon in the fall of 1863 George Beyers Ogilvie started a Placer Mine (1863-1871) he was up there teaming at the time; he and a fellow by name of O’Connors made the first claim and started the Placer Mine – which is now known as United States Copper Mine (U.S. Mine & Milling Co.) located in Boston Con Hill between Upper Bingham & Highland Boy, Salt Lake County, Utah. (Later he sold his share for $25.00 – family tradition). G. B. Ogilvie was a freighter, teamster & woodchopper by trade – later a rancher and miner. He drove stage from Missouri to Salt Lake City, Utah, lived in Sugarhouse area at the time the railroad merged at Promontory Point, which put a stop to stage business as future passengers and freight came west by train. He decided to go to California but got as far as Elko County, Nevada, and settled. He had a few cattle that were driven by his stepson William Elijah Fordham who was raised by George Beyers Ogilvie and his second wife, Jane McAusland. G.B. Ogilvie died 31 Aug 1879, Pleasant Valley, Elko County, Nevada.

Biography obtained from the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, Fillmore, Utah, Territorial Statehouse Museum.