The men of the early 19th century were afflicted with
inflated ego-in other words, most of them thought that the male of the species
were super-intelligent-the lord and master of his wife and family and vastly
superior to women (who had few rights or privileges not sanctioned by her
father, husband or other males). If, in this history man is rather condemned
for his attitude and women is elevated above the level she should really
occupy, then it is because I am looking at the situations with 20th century eyes,
that have raised women to a new high level in life- socially, mentally and in
the business world.
Although Welcome Chapman, born July 24, 1805 in
Reedsborough, Vermont was more humble birth and early training than the woman
he married first, he always lorded it over her-his will had to be her will and
his word was always laws in their home.
The first we know of him, he was a fisherman on the
rugged coast of Maine also on Lake Ontario which was not far from his home. He
had also been apprenticed to a stone mason in his early years and learned that
trade.
About 1831 or 1832 Welcome Chapman met Susan Amelia
Risley, daughter of Eleazer and Amelia Risley, sturdy New Englands, highly
respected by their neighbors and fairly well to do. Amelia, as she was called,
was born in Madison, Madison County, New York, August 24, 1807. We know that
she had two or more sisters but do not know if there were any boys in the
Risley family. (Susan Amelia Risley had 6 sisters and 5 brothers.)
These girls were taught all the things it was thought
necessary for young ladies of that period to know. They learned to sew, knit,
tat and embroider, also to read, write and cipher. (do mathematics.) In fact
Amelia, after her marriage, found that she had a better education then her
husband, and was able to teach him a great deal. The Risley girls also learned
to card, spin, and weave wool, yarn and linen thread and cloth, to braid straw
to made hats and cut out, fit and sew all kinds of clothing for men, women, and
children.
Flax was raised on the Risley farm, from which the family
obtained through carding and spinning their own supply of linen thread which
was woven into sheets, pillow cases, chemise, petticoats, etc. Each girl had
one dozen sheets, two dozen pillowslips, a feather bed, a pair of pillows
besides a good supply of clothes in her hope chest. This not only necessitated
the girls carding and spinning but also sewing each article with fine
stitching, with needle and thread, (there were no sewing machines of that
time,) and the bleaching of linen articles in the sunshine.
These articles were made of such excellent material and fine
workmanship that they were hard to wear out. Amelia's linen lasted throughout
her married life, in fact, when she died at the age of 75, she was laid out in
two of the sheets she had made when she was a little girl.
Mr. and Mrs. Risley were very strict with their children,
giving their daughters very little chance to meet eligible young men. As an
unmarried girl past twenty in those days were considered an old maid. Amelia
was very concerned when she was twenty and was unmarried.
When she was about 24, she met with Welcome Chapman, who
wandered into their village after a fishing trip. She fell in love with him and
he with her-almost immediately. The Risleys opposed marriage between the two
young people as they felt that fishing was a poorly paid, uncertain occupation.
However, Welcome began working at his trade of stone mason and made enough
success of it that he was given permission to marry Amelia about early 1832 of
late 1831. Welcome was age 26 and Amelia at the age of 24.
The young couple moved to Hubbardsville nearby and
established a home. Their first children (twin girls) were born in 1833. They
died at birth or when very young.
On September 4, 1834, a little girl, whom they named
Rosetta Ani Chapman was born in Hubbardsville. She had dark eyes and hair.
While she was still a small baby, the Chapmans heard about the strange new sect
called "Mormons", that had sprung up near their home. They
investigated and accepted the Latter Day Saints together.
The Risleys bitterly opposed their daughters joining the
Mormon Church, but they didn't turn against her, but helped her financially, as
long as she was near them. Their next child, also a daughter, was born 20 March
1837. She was named Amelia but was very much like Rosetta.
As soon as the Chapmans joined the new church,
persecutions against them began, and their friends and neighbors shunned them
and looked down on them. This hurt Amelia very much, as her family had always
been one of the most prominent and highly respected families in Madison County.
However, she remained true to the faith she had embraced, and to her husband,
in spite of the persecutions.
When little Amelia was about a year old the Chapmans left
Hubbardsville and joined the main body of the Latter Day Saints farther west.
The Risleys tried to persuade them to remain in the New York state. The two
little girls, Rosetta and Amelia were their only grandchildren and it was a
very sad parting when time came to say goodbye, for they couldn't persuade them
to stay. However, they provided their daughter and husband with a complete
outfit for the westward journey-two wagons, two yoke of oxen, bedding, utensils
and even food and clothes. Mrs. Chapman felt that she was leaving her dear ones
forever-and so it proved to be.
A few months later, after the Chapmans had established a
comfortable little home among the "Saints", mob violence broke out
against the Mormons. They were all given just a hours to vacate their homes
which were to be burned by the mob as soon as they were vacated. This was no doubt
in August 1838. The mob Crusade against Saints in Missouri began in 1838. Hawns
Mill Massacre was October 30,1838.
No one knows, at the time of this writing, what had
become of the outfit so generously given to the Chapmans by the Risleys, for it
appears they had only horse and no vehicle to move their belongings to the home
of friends several miles distant, out of the reach of the mob.
Mother Amelia was expecting another baby in a few months
and her health was very poor. Welcome took a chest of clothing and some bedding
each trip and the third one he took the baby in his arms, put little Rosetta
now 3 1/2 years old, behind him and was able to take two pillows besides.
"I'll come back and get you next time, Amelia."
he promised. "And in the meantime you can pack the rest of the things and
I'll see if I can get someway to take them away before dark. The mob won't
start anything before dusk."
The road led through dense woods part of the way, and as
he was returning from the third trip the late afternoon sunshine was almost
shut out by the thick grove of trees, making it almost like twilight. When
about mile from home, he saw a strange object coming toward him down the
winding narrow road. Because of its ***** shape he couldn't make out what it
was. Bears were not unknown to those woods at that time but it seemed too
top-heavy for a bear. Besides a bear would scarcely be so bold as to remain in
the open road in plain sight of the horseman that long and still approached
him.
As he drew nearer, he could see that it was a woman with
a heavy on burden on her back. He urged his tired horse forward to investigate
and help if needed, and was shockingly surprised to find that it was his own
wife carrying her own feather bed.
Sliding quickly from his horse he exclaimed, "Oh
Mother Amelia, why have you done this? Are you trying to kill yourself?"
"Why Welcome", she protested, "you surely
didn't think I was going to let them old mobocrats have my best feather bed,
did you, and I am going to be sick in three months? It seemed like you were
gone so long this time, I was afraid they'd come back before you could get all
the things away and I knew we couldn't ride Old Rally and take the feather
bed."
"I'm afraid you'll be sick in less time than
that", he told her, sadly. But she wasn't - in spite of the hardships and
privations that followed in the next few weeks. (This all happened somewhere in
Ohio, or Missouri, no doubt.
Their first son whom they named Joseph Smith, was born.
Here Welcome worked at his trade of stone-mason, cutting stone for the Nauvoo
Temple. Two more sons were born to them in Illinois - Hyrum and Levi. They
established another comfortable home and enjoyed the association of their
friends and neighbors in the beautiful little city of Nauvoo.
But the Saints, spite of their industry and faith in
their leaders, were not to enjoy the fruits of their labors very long, for
again mobs of violent men descended upon Nauvoo in 1846, and again the people
left their little homes, taking as much as possible of their movable belongings
and crossed the Mississippi River.
The Chapmans and others settled in Garden Grove, Iowa,
where they remained for about two years. By the time they were ready to begin
their final journey across the plains in 1848, they had six children in the
family. Their outfit was as nearly complete as most of their garden seeds,
bedding, and a loom for weaving clothe which Mrs. Chapman could use with skill.
They had managed, somehow, to hold onto a few precious
articles through all the mobbings and movings they had encountered. Welcome
still possessed a black broadcloth suit and high silk hat which were the pride
of his heart and reserved to be worn on very special occasions. Amelia still
had her precious linen, her white wedding gown, her black taffeta dress with
the tiny black bonnet to wear on the same occasions when Welcome donned his
high silk hat.
When they arrived in Salt Lake Valley in the fall of
1848, they found that some of the supplies - food especially - which they had
brought with them, were in great demand among the pioneers that had already
settled in the Valley. They shared what they could spare keeping only enough
for their own needs and seed for then next spring.
Mrs. Chapman
turned most of the housework over to the two girls - Rosetta now 14 and Amelia
12 years of age and turned her attention to the weaving of linsey-woolsey cloth
which was needed badly by the whole community. This cloth, of a coarse wool
woof and linen warp, was a dull gray - sometimes dyed by the pioneer housewives
with rude dyes obtained from nature - berries, bark and roots - but more often
used as it came from the loom, for the making of clothes for men, women, and
children. It would withstand the hardest wear for years.
Clothes for the entire family had to be made in the home
with needle and thread, even the boy's trousers, jackets, caps, and even hats
and women's bonnets. Winter caps and jackets were often made of fur and animal
skins, while summer hats were made of hand-braided straw.
The Chapman girls learned to card and spin wool and to
sew, cook, and clean with the inadequate supplies of the household. Most of the
women and girls owned calico sunbonnets fitted with stiff slats to hold them in
shape and long caped in the back to guard the necks of the fair wearers from
the hot desert sun. A few of them had bright calico dressed which they wore for
best, and still fewer had black silk dresses which they had brought across the
plains, and tiny "boughten" bonnets which were only brought out for
special occasions.
Mrs. Chapman was glad that she kept her white wedding
gown when she learned that there was going to be a grand celebration on July
24, 1849, and girls with white dressed would be in great demand to walk in the
parade. She made the dress over for Rosetta, who with Brigham
Young's oldest girl, was chosen to lead the parade and
carry the American Flag. (These two girls no doubt lead the 24 girls, who
marched and sang in the parade.)
Jerome Kempton, whose history appears in later pages of
this book, married Rosetta Chapman when she was sixteen and a year later
married Amelia also as a plural wife when she was not quite fifteen. This was
after the Chapmans had moved in Manti where they had been called by leaders of
the Church to help settle.
In spite of her family and household duties, Mother
Amelia Chapman found time to work in the Church and observe social customs of
the day. She was president of the Relief Society for several years there in
Manti and fulfilled the duties of that office with honor and ability.
During their entire sojourn in Manti, and Chapmans' home
was chief headquarters for Church authorities and official visitors from Salt
Lake City. Their home was better furnished than many of their neighbors and
Mrs. Chapman was an excellent cook and housekeeper.
President Brigham Young always made the Chapman home his
headquarters while he was visiting in Manti and nearby towns. An incident
relating to Pres. Young's carriage, while it stood in front of the Chapman
residence will be told later in the history of Harriet Kempton Potter.
It is hard for housewives of today to realize how many
things that we consider absolute necessities, our pioneer women never knew
about or if they did, they were unable to get them. For example, the rough
wooden floors must be scrubbed with sand (not soap) and also tables, chairs,
stools and benches had to be cleaned the same way. What little soap they had
for washing clothes and bathing was made from wood ashes and tallow, by a long
tedious process. A form of alkali called "saleratus", the pioneers
gathered from the soil dissolved in water, so that any soil adhering to it
might settle to the bottom of the vessel, and then the liquid was then
carefully poured off, used with sour milk or sour dough as we would use soda as
a leavener in making bread.
All ebidle plants or weeds that could be used for food,
were gathered and cooked for "greens". Mrs. Chapman was an authority
on the medicinal properties of many roots, herbs, berries and plants. She was a
midwife, and practical doctor and nurse and was often called, by her neighbors
for many miles around to assist at births, and treating cut, burn, bruises and
even contagious diseases.
Welcome had not had as many educational advantages as his
wife, but she willingly taught him all she knew and helped him in many ways in
his later public life. He was chosen as presiding elder of Manti soon after
arriving there and also was one of the first selectmen or city councilmen as we
now call them, belonged to the first militia 1850- 1853 and also helped build
the Manti Temple as eh had helped with the Nauvoo and Kirtland Temples, before
crossing the plains. As has been stated before, he was an excellent stone
mason, and after so journing in Manti a few years was called to go back to Salt
Lake Temple.
Welcome married four other women as plural wives at
intervals of a few years apart-the last two were just young girls whom he
married at the same time, but who didn't live with him as wives.
The Chapmans were community builders wherever they lived
and raised a good honorable family. Amelia was always kind, generous and
self-sacrificing. She would often give to her grandchildren, neighbors and
friends food, clothing and toys that she made and no one knew of her generosity
except herself and the ones who received the gifts. She acted as midwife for
some of her grandchildren and even assisted at the birth of some
great-grandchildren.
The children of Welcome and Amelia Risley Chapman were
Rosetta Anis Chapman Kempton, Amelia C. Kempton, Joseph Smith Chapman, Hyrum
Chapman, Welcome Jr., Levi Chapman and Fidelia Chapman Babbitt, Almina
Chestina, Benjamin.
Amelia Chapman died at Fountain Green, 18 Feb. 1888 and
Welcome Chapman died at Fountain Green, 9 Dec.1893. They are both buried in the
Manti cemetery.
This article could do
without the editorializing. Stick to the facts, and they'll speak for
themselves. JACOB FINDLAY • 2013-05-06
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