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LIFE & TIMES OF ERASTUS SNOW 

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  HEBER J. GRANT TRIBUTE TO ERASTUS SNOW  

 SOME EXCERPTS FROM THE ANCESTRAL TREE

Julia Josephine Spencer. Click photo for full image

Quoting from his Journal: "When the inhabitants of the surrounding counties saw that the Saints under the sheriff were clearing the county of the rioters, nine of the surrounding counties assembled their delegates in convention, pledged the aid of the counties represented to assist in expelling us from the country, giving us until the following spring to remain voluntarily and avoid the shedding of blood. The Governor also sent Gen. John J. Harding with a company of militia to the seat of war and instead of restoring the rights of the oppressed, insisted upon an entire removal from the county as the only means of restoring peace."

Reading of these things in the paper, Erastus commented to his family: "The way is being shown us that the prophecy made by Joseph Smith in which he said that the Saints would be continually persecuted and eventually would be driven to the Rocky Mountains and there become a mighty people, is being fulfilled—not exactly by our own volition either."
    "Well, who would willingly leave a beautiful home with all its comforts and march off into the howling wilderness unless they were driven to it," answered his wife Metia.
    Yes, we know it was with deep sorrow that this family, as thousands of their fellow religionists petitioned the Father of All for strength to do as Lehi and his family of old had done to follow His directing hand toward a promised land.

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HEBER J. GRANT TRIBUTE TO ERASTUS SNOW

By Heber J. Grant, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

(Elder Heber J. Grant, being unable personally to attend the homecoming exercises at St. George last fall, sent a letter of regret under date of Sept. 14,1911, to Pres. Edward H. Snow of the St. George stake, which contains a well deserved tribute to Erastus Snow, the colonizer and pioneer, and founder of St. George. We are permitted to make the following extracts—Editors)

Dear Brother Snow: I cannot tell you how much I regret not being in St. George yesterday morning when your "homecoming" exercises commenced. I have been looking forward for months to the pleasure of meeting you. I am with you in spirit, if absent in person. You are going to have a glorious time, and one long to be remembered with pleasure. I hope and pray that nothing may happen to mar the pleasure of the occasion. As a pioneer and colonizer, I look upon your father as having been second only to Brigham Young among the wonderful body of men who were the early members of the Church, in the settlement of Utah.
    When I was made one of the leaders of the Church, no words of mine could express the weight of responsibility which came to me. I was grateful to be so honored of the Lord. My cousin, Anthony W. Ivins, was in the City of Mexico at the time, and I sent him the copy of the revelation given to President John Taylor, calling Bro. George Teasdale and me to the Council of the Twelve, and a copy of the blessing given me in my ordination, and wrote him that I looked upon your father as the ideal apostle in the Council at the time. He was in very deed the servant of the people, and labored unselfishly for their advancement. During the years of my association with him, from Oct. 1882, until his death, I saw nothing in his public or private life to change, in the least degree, the splendid opinion I had formed of him prior to being called to the quorum. No men on earth are more intimately associated than the members of the quorum and nowhere are men better able to judge their fellowmen than in our council.
    Your father was true, loyal, patriotic and devoted. There are no words of mine too strong to do full justice to his memory and pay him the full measure of praise to which he is entitled. In thought, word and deed, he was true to God, the Church and his fellowmen. Like Delphi of old, my dear brother, you have been born of goodly parents. From the bottom of my heart I earnestly pray that you and all of the sons and daughters of Erastus Snow may so live that your lives will be worthy of the example set by your most splendid father. I could go on writing you of your father’s life and labors which were an inspiration to me for an hour or two, but I will only pay him one more tribute. I want you to get (if you do not have it) the little pamphlet giving the talks at the funeral of Brigham Young. To my mind your father’s was the finest tribute to that great man which was paid to him on the occasion of his funeral. Your father was one of the greatest of the men who sat in Utah’s Legislature from time to time.
    It is a real pleasure to sit here and pay tribute of love and respect to your father. I said I would mention one item and then close, but I cannot do justice to my feelings and fail to mention one more of the things which made me love your father. "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this—to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world." James 1:27 Your father’s life was an example of pure religion undefiled before God.
    He came to conference from St. George twice a year and there were some ten or fifteen widows whose homes he never failed to visit, and if he should arrange to take a meal with these widows, he did so. My dear mother’s home was one of those honored by his visits; and I thank the Lord for this as, but for mother being so honored, I should never in my youth and young manhood, have learned to know and love him as I did. I saw more, by far, of your father, and had more counsel, love and advice given to me by him, notwithstanding he lived three hundred and fifty miles from Salt Lake, and had a ten day’s journey to get to conference, than from any other of the leading brethren in the Church. I have never known a father’s love, but many men have given me, as far as this was possible, the love of a father and your father was one of the chief among the number. Not only did I have your father’s love and counsel, in the home of my beloved mother, but I had it often in the home of another of the widows where his love and blessings were extended and where the young lady, who afterwards became my wife, called him "Uncle Erastus," a title which I, with much pleasure, appropriated after he had married to me my dear departed Lucy. I have always been thankful that I went clear to St. George to have your father seal Lucy to me.

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SOME EXCERPTS FROM THE ANCESTRAL TREE OF ERASTUS SNOW

Willam the Conqueror md Matilda of Flanders were the 20th great-grandparents of Erastus: l066-1087 reign

Henry I md Matilda of Scotland were 21st gg parents of Erastus Snow 1100 to 1135 Henry II md Eleonor of Aquitaine were 20th gg parents; 1154-1189

John md Isabella of Angouleme were 19th gg parents; 1216-1272

Edward I and Eleonor of Castile were 17 gg parents

Edward II ad Isabella of France were 16 gg parents

Edward III and Phillppa of Hainaut were 15th gg parents; 1327-1377

Thomas of Woodstock and Elonor Bohun were 14th gg parents; 1354-1376

Ann of Woodstock and Eleonor Bohun were 14th gg parents; 1354-1376

Ann of Woodstock md William Bourchier were 13th gg parents 13b5-1438

William Bourchier and Thomazine Henford were 12th gg parents

Fulco Bourchier and Elizabeth Dinham were 11th gg parents

John Bourchier md Cecily Daubeney were 10th gg parents; b 1490

Elizabeth Bourchier md Edward Chichester were 9th gg parents

John Chichester md. John Trevelian were 7th gg parents

Sussana Trevelian md Richard Carpenter were bth gg parents

Fridgwith Carpenter md. Thomas Vincent were 5th gg parents

Beginning of American Lines

Joanne Vincent and John Sheldon were 4th gg parents

John Sheldon md ( Unknown. Award offered for any one who can prove who his wife was and her parentage) 3rd gg parents

William Sheldon md. Rebecca Rhodes were 2nd gg parents Both traces back to emigrant.

Deliverance Sheldon md Amos Streeter—great grandparents William Streeter and Hannah Mason—grandparents of Erastus Lucina Streeter ad Levi Snow—parents of Erastus Snow

The following ancestral lines have been traced back to the emigrant ancestors coming from England here in early 1600’s: Richard Snow, William Greene wife Hannah Carter, James Cutler wife Phoebe Page, John Page wife Phoebe Payne, Thomas Brigham wife Mercy Hard, Edmund Rice wife Thomazone Frost, John Moore, Elizabeth Whale, Arthur Warren wife Mary, Ralph Wheelock and Rebecca Wilkinson, Thomas Trowbridge wife Elizabeth Marshal, John Jackson wife Margaret Taft, William Ward wife Elizabeth, Edward Jackson wife Frances, John Spring wife Eleonor, William Barsham wife Annabel Bland, John Bland wife Isabella, Thomas Park, wife Abigale Dix, Edward Dix wife Jane Wilkinson, Thomas King wife Ann, John Fuller wife Elizabeth, Stephen Streeter wife Ursula Adams, Henry Adams wife Edith Squire, Daniel Smith wife Elizabeth Rogers, ohn Whitcomb wife Frances Cogan, Samuel Staples wife Hannah Lincoln, Thomas Lincon wife Mary Austin, John Sheldon wife Joanna Vincent, Thomas Vincent wife Frigwith Carpenter, Zachariah Rhodes wife Joanna Arnold, Wm. Arnold wife Christiana Peake, Richard Waterman wife Bethia, Roger Williams wife Mary Bernard, Wm. Randall wife Elizabeth Barstow, Henry Fowler wife Rebecca Newell, Abraham Newell wife Susanna Rand, Sampson Mason wife Mary Butterworth, Henry Brooks, John Russel wife Elizabeth, Richard Haile wife Mary bullock, Richard Bullock wife Elizabeth Ingraham, Pardon Tillinghast wife Lydia Tabor, Phillip Tabor wife Lyida Masters, John Rounds wife Elizabeth, Robert Millard wife Elizabeth Sabin, William Sabin wife Elizabeth Wright, John Thurber wife Prescilla, Thomas Horton wife Mary Eddy, Henry Garnsey wife Hanna Munnings, making more than 100 lines back to his (Erastus Snow’s) fifth, sixth, or seventh great grandparents, depending on when they emigrated.

Of these lines, 10 have been traced from 2 to 22 generations back in England, making connections proved through wills, deeds, inquisitions, Bishop transcripts and notes. The author of these stories is the genealogist from whom this data may be obtained.

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