Saturday, July 25, 2009

More pioneer legacy

We are so thankful for pioneer ancestry on both sides of our family.

In the 1800's, there was much mob violence against church members, and yet they still stood up for the truth. Wayne's maternal great great grandfather, Bishop Edward Partridge, was seized by a mob and taken to a public square in Independence Missouri and commanded to renounce the Book of Mormon.

Bishop Partridge would not renounce the Book of Mormon, and said that he was willing to suffer for the sake of Christ. He was stripped and his body covered with hot tar and feathers. (p. 42, Our Heritage)

On my dad's side, my great grandparents John McCleve and Nancy Jane McFerrin McCleve were poor converts from County Down, Ireland. With a loan from the Perpetual Immigration Fund of $382.41 they went on a ship from Liverpool England and came to America with their 7 children, and were in the second handcart company, the McArthur company, which went across the plains in 1856. My great great grandfather, Joseph Smith McCleve walked the whole way, 1300 miles from Iowa to Utah, at the age of 8 years old, his father dying at Bear River two days before reaching the valley. Despite their poverty, within 6 years they had paid back the Perpetual Immigration Fund. (By 1861 they only owed $94.)

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