HISTORY OF

Elizabeth Carson (Griffeth)

Born:                          7 July 1822

At:                               Lewiston Tsp., Miflin Co., Pennsylvania

Died:                           7 November 1898 at Star Valley, Wyoming

Buried:                       Hyde Park, Utah

Arrived in Utah:       1851

History was written by Albertie Griffeth Griffiths

Franklin County - Daytona Camp

Elizabeth Carson Griffeth

By Albertie G. Griffiths

            Elizabeth Carson, my grandmother Griffith, was born 7 July 1822 at Lewiston Tsp., Wiflin Co., Pennsylvania.

            Her parents were George Carson and Ann Hough.  She was the third child of a family of eight.

            Her parents joined the Church when she was a young girl, and they suffered many of the persecutions that the Saints passed through.  One night when a mob came upon them, the women took what bedding, they could carry, and their little ones and fled to the woods for safety.  They tied the bushes together, spread the quilts over them and put the children underneath, thus partly protecting them from the heavy storm of rain, thunder and lighting, while the mothers stood guard, with their babies in the their arms.

            The husbands and brothers stayed as near home as they dared, to save all that they could.  Many of the homes were burned, but my grandparents home was spared to which they returned in the morning.

            Another time, grandfather took grandmother and her two small children (father was the younger one) out into a corn patch, where they stayed for several hours, in a drizzling rain, while Grandfather went back to help protect the city from the mob.

Grandmother was married to Patison Delos Griffeth on the 25^th of April 1846 in Nauvoo.  Her family, the Carsons, came to Utah but she remained in Illinois until 1851.  Her husband laced rope back and forth, making the wagon box into a temporary bedstead on which their bed was made.  While crossing the plains, as they were camped on the Green River in Wyoming, she gave birth to a little girl.  One family stayed with them while the company drove on.  The next morning the Griffeths and friends drove fast until they caught the company.

            After they reached the valley, they suffered greatly from the depredations of the Indians.  Two of Grandmother’s brothers, Washington and George, were killed by them the same day, February 1856 at Ceader Valley.  If her husband had stayed at the ranch for a few minutes longer, he too would have been killed.

            They were among the early settlers of Cache Valley, being one of the first families in Hyde Park, Utah.

            Grandmother saw the falling stars spoken of in Church History.  She described them as flakes of fire, falling like flakes of snow in a snowstorm, remaining light until a few feet from the ground.

            Grandmother had a family of eight: Phoebe born 9 Feb. 1847; Andrew born 5 Jan. 1849; Louisa born Sept. 1851; Lovina born 19 Feb. 1854; Marinda born 7 March 1857; Urmina born 12 Jan. 1860; Mary born 17 July 1862; Patison born 2 March 1867, (Delos).

            Patison died when only a few weeks old.

            Grandmother was a tall stately woman with auburn hair a rich brown, eyes that looked like velvet.  She was rather quiet, a real homebody, yet she had time to work in the Church.  She was active in Relief Society work, being counselor to the President at one time.  I never remember seeing Grandmother without her hair combed and without her black lace cap on her head, and black drop earrings.  She often wore checked waist aprons with cross-stitch trimming.  Her house was one large log room which served for bedroom and living room.  She had two double beds in there and they were always made and the white spreads on them before we children were awake.  She had white crocheted throws over the backs of her chairs and over the corners of her pictures on the wall.  Every thing was so white and orderly in that room always.  Well, it was orderly throughout the whole house.

            On the north was a lean-to room with a door in the east and a window in the north.  This was the kitchen.  The stove was at the east east end by the north wall, the cupboard by the west wall with the table between.  South of the cupboard you went out of a door and up a winding stairway to a large bedroom.  You came into that room at the northwest corner.  In the northeast corner, with the head to the east was the bed we children slept in when we were visiting our grandparents.  There was a window in that east wall and a picture of a bird on a limb.  I think it was a blue jay.  The greatest thrill of sleeping there, was being wakened by the lowing of the town cow herd as the cows were being driven to the pasture west of town.  I would always jump out of bed and watch until they were all out of sight and look at the bird for a few minutes before dressing.

            The bed where my parents usually slept was in the south side of that room, but they were always gone and the bed made up before the cows woke me.  As you came into the room, right by the door, there was a chest where Grandmother kept her linen.  When my baby sister was born, I remember Grandmother coming up for something and when she saw that I was awake she said, “did you know that there was a little kitten in bed with your Mother?”  I remember how she stood there and smiled as I peeked over Mother’s shoulder and saw the baby.  It was always a pleasure for me when Grandmother would say, “Bertie would you like to go down to the cellar with me?”  We would go out of the east door, into an open shanty, which Grandmother used, in summer, when she prepared vegetables, peeled apples for drying, etc.

            At the east was the deep, deep well with the proverbial “Old Oaken Bucket”, two of them.  One went down as the other came up full of water.  The well was very deep and rocked all the way up, with a good high curbing so no child could fall into the well.  By the side of the well, was the black walnut tree, where we children cracked nuts with rocks.

            But we were going to the cellar weren’t we?  Well, when we got out of that east door, instead of going west to the well, we would turn north on the path that led to the clothes-line.  After going a few steps north we would turn west then north to a door which led down into the cellar under the granary.  The cellar was only a hole dug in the hard ground with the granary for a covering.  There was a side shelf, just off the ground, all around it.  On that shelf, Grandmother would set milk, butter and food that she wanted kept cool.  I enjoyed helping her carry food up for a meal.  I thought it wonderful because she could carry a full pan of milk in one hand, and I remember how big I felt when I could do the same.

            Grandmother always had honey and cucumber pickles on the table.  She was a bee-woman.  She could handle the bees with her bare hands when putting them into a new box.  She used to go all over Hyde Park taking out honey and boxing swarms of bees.

            Her homemade canker medicine was kept over the door between the front room and the kitchen.  We usually all got a spoonful of it when we were there.

            Grandfather married a second wife, Sarah Gibson Roberts, so they had the experience of living in polygamy.  When the “deps” got so  severe with the polygamists, Grandfather was forced to move his second family to Star Valley, Wyoming, so Grandmother was left alone for days at a time, but she never complained.

            She didn’t play with us children, but she never spoke an unpleasant word.  Grandfather would say, “You children run out and play while I read to you Father.”  But Grandmother never seemed annoyed at anything we did.

            Their apiary, with a goodly number of swams was out northeast of the house by an apple tree that had yellow, sweet apples on it.  I think Grandmother called them “Golden Sweets”.  She would say, “go out by the bee hives and get you a good sweet apple.”  Any many of those sweet apples I have eaten when I really wanted a good juicy, sour one from the tree down in the southeast corner of the lot.

            Grandmother was always a faithful Latter Day Saint.  While on a visit to her daughter’s home in Star Valley, Wyoming, she was taken sick, and died November 7, 1898.  She was brought to Hyde Park for burial.