The following letter was written by George Washington Sevey (1832-1902), the son of George Sevey and Hannah Libby of LeRoy, Genesee county, New York. As mentioned in the letter, George joined a caravan of gold seekers on their way to California in 1849, signing on as a teamster. The caravan did not pass through Salt Lake City but George became deathly ill on the way west and he had to be taken there for medical treatment. As he regained his health he again hired himself out as a teamster locally in Utah where he began to convert to Mormanism and accepted the doctrine of plural marriage which he knew to be “a disgrace to the family” back East.

He married Phoebe Butler, daughter of John Lowe and Caroline Farozine Skeen Butler, on December 5, 1854, and they spend the next several years living on the Spanish Fork River. In 1861, George was called to help settle southern Utah, at Harmony, Washington County, being among the first to locate there. It was then called Ash Fort, and was near old Fort Harmony. They made the trip from Spanish Fork in a covered wagon drawn by oxen, with one extra ox and two cows. They spent the night with John D. Lee had built the fort. George and Phoebe were among the first settlers, and made camp near the Jim Payson family, also relatives by marriage. Their tent was soon replaced with a log cabin.

Though he does not mention her in this letter, George had already taken his second wife, Margaret Nebraska Imlay, daughter of James Haven and Hannah Eliza Coward Imlay. They were married in August 1868 when George was 36 and Margaret had just turned 15. In December 1877, George married his third wife Martha Ann Thomas of Pine Valley, Utah, a daughter of John Pledger and Mahala Matthews Thomas. Ancestry.com records indicate that George fathered as many as thirty children by his three wives. He died in 1902 in Colonia Juarez, Mexico, where George took his family in 1885 to avoid persecution for his polygamous marriages.

[Note: This letter is from the personal collection of Richard Weiner and was transcribed and published on Spared & Shared by express consent.]

Transcription

Harmony [Utah Territory]
February 17, 1871

Dear Sister,

I take my pen in hand to answer your welcome letter—the first that I have heard from you for several years. Hannah wrote to me about ten years ago. I wrote to Livoy [Livona] several times. She did not want me to write anymore of my Mormanism for it was a disgrace to the family so I told Hannah to write to her and tell her if my religion disagreed [with] her, she shouldn’t hear from me any more. So I have not held no correspondence with her since.

It is some 21 years since I saw you. Twenty-one years ago I started for California [and] I stopped in Salt Lake. Here I found gold to my heart’s content—not that filthy lucre but the riches of eternity. It brings peace and joy to my heart here. The Lord revealed His will to me. The testimony that I received of the Earth [ ] of men could not be condemned although the world was arid again. It brought the Lord has set up His Kingdom on earth again in the last days, never to be thrown down. This is the Kingdom that Daniel saw that the gates of Hell should not prevail against. If you find the gospel that Jesus preaches by the sects of the day, I would like to know it. I have never heard the gospel preached only by a Mormon. I know you was once a Morman and probably understand the principle of the same to some extent but that light does not shine so clear to you as it once did. But if there is truth in your heart, you will be brought to the light. The Lord has set His hand again to gather the honest in from the four quarters of earth. I thank God I am here with the Saints where the Lord can reveal His will unto us from time to time. At present, the world judges the Saints but the day will come when the Saints are to judge the world.

Oh sister Emily, [ ] be a Saint. Come and try it for yourself. Call on the Lord in fervent prayer. We believe that God has ears and can hear and has and will speak unto men in the last days.

I have been married 16 years. My wife has had 10 children. We have lost three. We have four boys and three girls. The oldest is a girl 16 years old. Her name is Hannah. The next four are boys. Their names are George, John, James, Warren, Thomas. The next two girls is Georgiana, and Melinda. We believe in observing the First Commandment of God to multiply and replenish the earth.

Mother is still living with me. She is well and smart. Father died crossing the plains [Nebraska, August 1864]. John lives close to me. His folks is well. He has two children only living. He works at his trade carpentering. He is a finishing off a house for which he gets $500 dollars. I am a farmer myself. I have a sawmill [ ]….of mineral wealth in this country being developed. There is gold and silver being discovered every day. This territory will be far ahead of California in mineral wealth but it don’t excite Saints much for the earth and the fullness thereof is to be given to the Saints.

I have so far of my life had a plenty to eat, drink, and wear. Very few people come to this country rich but very poor and have got rich. We have but a very few poor. I don’t know of a beggar in the Territory. It is a good country to make a living. We don’t have much winter here. We are commencing to plow. York State is the poorest country I have seen since I left there. Iowa or Nebraska is a good country. Nebraska is the best for a poor man but Utah is the place for Saints.

I will have to draw my letter to a close. Write to me again and I will give you any information you wish as far as lies in my power. Direct your letters to Kane county, New Harmony, Harmony.

Yours truly, — George W. Sevey