Erastus BINGHAM

                   NAME:
    Erastus BINGHAM, Jr.


Historical information included in notes.






Erastus Bingham, born in Concord, Essex, Vermont, 12 March 1798, son of Elisha Warner  and Sarah  (Perry) Bingham; died in Ogden, Weber, Utah, 2 May 1882; buried in Ogden. He married in St. Johnsbury, Caledonia, Vermont, 20 March 1818, Lucinda Gates , born in Ackworth, Cheshire, New Hampshire, 19 September 1797; died in Ogden, 3 January 1874, daughter of Thomas  and Patty (Plumly) Gates. Additionally, as a polygamist, Erastus married (2) Patience Perkins (1783-1862) in Salt Lake, 4 April 1852, (3) Sally Maria Barber (1811- ) in Salt Lake, 7 April 1853, (4) Mehitable Sawyer (1806-1886) in Salt Lake, 11 September 1857, and (5) Emma Nye (1837- ) in Salt Lake, 13 December 1862. 
When he married Lucinda Gates, Erastus had a farm in Concord, where he and his bride resided and where the first four of his children were born. About 1825, the family removed to Littleton, Grafton County, New Hampshire. Lucinda and Louisa Maria were born there in 1826 and 1828, after which the family returned to the farm in Concord. 
Erastus had no formal affiliation with any religion until spring 1833, when Elder John F. Boynton brought him word of the "restored gospel." He read the Book of Mormon, was converted, and was baptized 11 November 1833, in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, together with his wife and three of his children. A fourth child, Sanford, was baptised there on 18 November. Erastus was the only one of his father's family to join the Church, but his wife's father and her brother, Jacob, also joined. In spring 1836 Erastus sold his farm, and in the following June he traveled with his family (accompanied by Willard Snow and others) to Kirtland, Ohio. The family stayed there until September, 1836, then continued the journey to Far West, Missouri, arriving on 4 November 1836. Erastus rented a farm on Shoal Creek, about two and a half miles from Far West, and built a log house, into which he moved his family. The following spring he fenced his farm, which he cultivated until Fall 1838, when Governor Lilburn W. Boggs issued the exterminating order that forced him and the rest of the Saints to leave Missouri. At Far West, in January 1839, Church leaders named Erastus a member of the committee to orchestrate the exodus. Other members of this committee were John Taylor, Alanson Ripley, Brigham Young, Theodore Turley, Heber C. Kimball, John Smith, Don Carlos Smith, Elias Smith, Stephen Markham, and James Newberry. "On motion of President Brigham Young," says the record, "it was resolved that we this day enter into a covenant to stand by and assist each other to the utmost of our abilities in removing from this State, and that we will never desert the poor, who are worthy, till they shall be out of the reach of the exterminating order of General Clark, acting for and in the name of the State." 
Leaving Far West toward the end of March, Erastus and his family arrived in Hancock County, Illinois, in April, 1839. He rented farms in the neighborhood of LaHarpe until Spring 1845, when he bought a 160-acre farm a few miles from Nauvoo. The following year, when the resumption of mob violence compelled the Saints to leave Illinois, as they had Missouri, Erastus exchanged his farm for a team of horses with which he could take his family into the wilderness. He left Nauvoo on 6 May 1846. He and his family suffered greatly from exposure and lack of proper food during the trip to Winter Quarters in Iowa (now Council Bluffs), but when they finally arrived they found that food and provisions were very scarce in that place as well, and as there were so many others there who were less fortunate than they, they decided to move on to a place where the necessities of life could be found. They ended up 150 miles north of Winter Quarters, at Swift River [Running Water], where they wintered with the Ponca Indians, living in their wagons and a wickiup the friendly Indians provided for them. The family returned to Winter Quarters the following spring. In June 1847, Erastus purchased additional provisions, equipment, and supplies and joined the second company to leave for the west (the Daniel Spencer Company). This company arrived in Salt Lake Valley on 19 September 1847, and Erastus made a home for his wife and children in Salt Lake City. In Spring 1848, he was alotted a farm in the Holiday district and acquired a grazing permit for an area about twenty miles southwest of Salt Lake, now known as Bingham Canyon. There he erected a herd house. 
In 1850, Brigham Young called upon Erastus to help build new settlements in the North (Weber County). Thus, in early April, Erastus went with his son Sanford and son-in-law Isaac Newton Goodale to the Weber river, where he staked out a farm and built a house. This farm was located on property now occupied by city and county offices. In September, when Brigham Young chose this location as site for a city to be named "Ogden," Erastus sold his claim and moved to the vicinity of Farr's Fort, north of the Ogden river. There, he laid out another farm and built another house for his family. When the Weber Stake was organized, Sunday, 25 January 1851, Ogden was divided into two wards, with Erastus Bingham serving as Bishop of Ogden North Ward (Farr's Fort). The following Spring, Erastus relocated with his family to a parcel of land northwest of Farr's Fort. There, sometime between 1851 and 1853, Bishop Bingham began construction of a fort (Bingham's Fort) to protect his family and other settlers from the depredations of hostile Indians. This fort was located in what is now known as the Lynn district, north of Second Street and west of Wall Avenue in Ogden. 
Meanwhile, on 28 January 1850, the General Assembly of the territory created Weber County encompassing "all that portion of country known as Weber Valley, extending as far south as Stony Creek, and west to the Great Salt Lake." However, the organization of a civil government there awaited the appointment of Isaac Clark as Probate Judge on 7 February 1852. On 1 April that year, Clark named Erastus Bingham one of three selectmen for the County. In its first session, on 24 April, the County Court named "supervisors" for the various settlements, designating Erastus Bingham supervisor for "Ogden Settlement North of Ogden River." In the first municipal election, October 1852, Lorin Farr emerged as mayor of Ogden; Erastus Bingham, as one of the four aldermen. In June 1856, when the County was divided into four Wards, Erastus Bingham was named Bishop of the First Ward. He served in that capacity until released, in 1868, on account of age and ill-health. Erastus also served a term as representative of Weber County in the first Territorial legislature, which convened in December 1854. 
Bingham's Fort, with walls built of rock and mud to a height of about twelve feet, enclosed an area 120 by 60 rods. By the end of 1854, Bingham's Fort had a population of 732. But the following year, when Brigham Young visited the stronghold, he advised the residents to abandon it to build a "real city" south of the Fort, on the site he had previously chosen for the City of Ogden. Though he continued to operate his farm in the Lynn district (Bingham's Fort), Erastus acquired property in Ogden (at what is now 23rd and Madison), where he build another home for his family. In 1858, with the approach of Johnston's Army, Erastus moved his family to Payson, Utah, but left his son Thomas and son-in-law Isaac Goodale behind with orders to "burn everything" if it looked as if Johnston's Army would try to bivouac in the city. When the threat passed, Erastus and his family returned to Ogden. 
In 1859, Erastus applied to the U. S. Department of the Interior for a pension due to him as guardian of his grandson, Elijah Norman Freeman, Jr. Elijah's father died 28 November 1847 while in service in the Mexican war as a member of the Mormon Battalion. 
Children of Erastus BINGHAM and Lucinda GATES: 
Mary Bingham, born in Saint Johnsbury, 1 April 1820; died in Ogden at the home of her daughter, Mary (Snow) Boyle, 25 September 1893. Married (1) Elijah Norman Freeman, 1843 or 1844, in Nauvoo, (2) Willard Snow, and (3) Lorin Farr. Elijah Norman Freeman was born 17 April 1822 in Vermont, son of Isaac F. and Lydia Freeman. He married Mary in Hancock, Illinois, and shortly after they removed to Nauvoo, where Elijah spent much of his time laboring on the Temple. Elijah and Mary left Nauvoo in 1846 with eighteen-month-old Elijah, Jr. (born in LaHarpe, 20 May 1845; married Anna Maria Poulson in Salt Lake, 11 March 1872, and Mary Ellen Farley in Salt Lake, 24 April 1876; died in Salt Lake, 14 March 1936). They had traveled in Daniel Spencer's company as far as Council Bluffs, Iowa, where Elijah joined the Mormon Battalion as a member of Company "B." Placed to work among the sick, he soon became ill himself and passed away in New Mexico, 28 November 1846. He was buried four miles south of Secoro, on the Rio Grande. 
Mary married her second husband, Willard Snow, in 1849. On 9 February 1850, she gave birth to a daughter, Mary (married John Adam Boyle in Salt Lake, 9 April 1867; died in Ogden, 1 August 1920). In 1852, church authorities called upon Willard to preside over the Scandinavian mission. Shortly after his departure, Mary gave birth to a son, Alma, who died soon after his birth. Willard, having become ill during his mission, died 21 August 1853, while in transit from Denmark to England. He was buried at sea. 
Mary's third husband, Lorin Farr, son of Winslow Farr and Olive Hovey Freeman, was born in Waterford, Vermont, 27 July 1820. He was also a member of Daniel Spencer's Company. He took Mary as his fourth (polygamous) wife in Salt Lake City, 2 December 1854 (or 1853). By this union, Mary had three sons, all born in Ogden: (1) Willard, born 5 July 1856, married Mary Ballantyne and Mary Ann Ronney; died in Pheonix, Maricopa, Arizona, 18 November 1951; (2) Erastus, born 14 May 1859, died 28 June 1859; (3) Isaac Farwell, born in Ogden, 23 May 1860; married Isabel Poulter in Salt Lake, 23 February 1882; died in Ogden, 8 March 1935. Lorin Farr was first president of Weber stake and president of the high priests' quorum in 1850-51. He erected the first grist and saw mills in Weber county; was a member first territorial legislature from Weber county, and represented Box Elder county from the time of the organization of the territory until 1887. He was the first mayor of Ogden 1851-70 (re-elected in 1877) and served on a mission to Europe in 1870. Prominent in the building of railroads, he supervised the grading of the Central Pacific line for two hundred miles west of Ogden and also the construction of the Utah Northern from Ogden to Brigham City. Lorin had five wives in all: Nancy B. Chase (1 January 1845) by whom he had eleven children; Sarah Giles (26 July 1851), nine children; Olive Ann Jones (28 February 1852), seven children; Mary; and Nicheline Erickson (29 January 1857), six children. He died in Ogden, 12 January 1909. 
Sanford Bingham , born in Concord, 3 May 1821, married (1) Martha Ann Lewis  and (2) Agnes Ann Fife , daughter of Adam  and Helen (Sharp) Fife. 


Erastus Bingham, born in Concord, 30 September 1822; died in Tucson, Pima, Arizona, 5 April 1906; buried in Mesa, Maricopa, Arizona. Married, first, 29 October 1843, Olive Hovey Freeman, daughter of Isaac F. and Lydia Freeman. Olive was born in Waterford, Vermont, 8 January 1820; she died 22 July 1905. Children: (1) Olive Louise, born in La Harpe, 3 October 1844, married William Holmes Walker in Salt Lake, 30 August 1858; died in Lewisville, Jefferson, Idaho, 12 September 1921; (2) Erastus Perry, born in LaHarpe, 20 March 1846, married Emeline Clarissa Allen in Salt Lake, 21 February 1870; died in Ogden, 28 March 1912. (3) Lucinda Marie, born in Salt Lake, 1 June 1848, married William Foy in Ogden, 24 December 1862; died in Grand Junction, Mesa, Colorado, 27 February 1924. (4) Lydia Roxina, born in Salt Lake, 6 January 1850, married George Tye Lish in Ogden, 3 March 1865; died in Pocatello, Bannock, Idaho, April 1936; (5) Isaac Farwell, born 20 September 1852, died November 1853; (6) Mary Ann, born in Bingham's Fort, 9 February 1854, married Peter C. Geertsen in Salt Lake, 21 August 1871; died in Ogden, 15 June 1941; (7) Lorenzo Freeman, born in Bingham's Fort, 7 December 1855, married Rebecca Guthrie, 15 April 1884; died in Ogden, 1 November 1938; (8) Diana, born in Ogden, 19 July 1857, married William G. Smith, 7 August 1876; died in Ogden, 11 December 1935; (9) Ophalia Cedenia, born in Ogden, 19 August 1859, married William Foy in Saint George, Washington, Utah, 22 October 1882; died in Moab, Grand, Utah, 29 May 1936. 
On 15 November 1855, Erastus, Jr., took for his second wife Susan Green, born 5 August 1837 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, died 22 March 1922, daughter of Benjamin P. and Lucy (Wisdom) Green. Children: (1) Susan Melvina, born in Ogden, 23 November 1856, married Winslow Farr in Salt Lake, 5 May 1873; died in El Paso, El Paso, Texas, 6 November 1903; (2) Nephi, born 9 April 1858; married Elizabeth Dolkin in Silver City, New Mexico, 31 July 1887; died in Bingham, Pima, Arizona, 2 August 1916; (3) Lucy Ann, born in Huntsville, 5 March 1860, married Joseph Wheeler in Salt Lake, 14 March 1878; died in Hurricane, Washington, Utah, 15 July 1930; (4) Marintha Eltharia, born in Slaterville, Weber, Utah, 26 May 1861; married Stewart Eccles in Salt Lake, 14 March 1878; died in Salt Lake, 12 May 1948. (5) Edda, born in Bingham's Fort (Lynn), 21 January 1863; died 26 January; (6) Enoch, born in Ogden, 7 March 1864, married Maria Slater in Ogden, 7 June 1883; (7) Daniel, born in Ogden, 7 March 1864, married Eliza Adeline Hoover in Silver City, New Mexico, 8 April 1886; died in Tucson, 17 June 1940. (8) Harriet Adeltha, born in Huntsville, 2 November 1865; married Joseph Edward Wheeler in Salt Lake, 10 October 1881; died at Waterflow Jewett, San Juan, New Mexico, 6 June 1920; (9) Mary Jane, born and died 28 April 1867 in Huntsville; (10) Erastus Alma, born in Huntsville, 28 September 1868, married Susan Annie Lords, 2 January 1888; died in Provo, Utah, Utah, 11 October 1955; (11) Violetta May, born in Huntsville, 30 May 1870, married John Jesse Holt in Teasdale, Wayne, Utah, 22 May 1890; died in Richfield, Sevier, Utah, 16 November 1946; (12) Benjamin Wisdom, born in Huntsville, 11 January 1872; died 11 March 1879; (13) Myrtle Adell, born in Huntsville, 2 September 1873; died 30 April 1877; (14) Clara Isabella, born in Huntsville, 29 August 1876; married Joseph Woods, 9 March 1909; (15) Rozina [Zina] Diantha, born in Huntsville, 21 July 1878, married James R. McGee; (16) Jacob Moroni, born in Huntsville, 4 November 1881; married Frances Levina Harris in Tucson, 3 January 1901. 
When the exodus from Nauvoo began in 1846, leaders of the church called upon Erastus, Jr., to make the roads, build the bridges, and plant the crops the Saints would need in their trek across Iowa. His wife, Olive and his two small children joined him in Council Bluffs, with the main body of the Church, just in time to hear the call for the "Mormon Battalion." Erastus Jr., his brother Thomas, and Elijah Freeman (his sister's husband/ wife's brother) all enlisted, leaving their families in the care of Erastus, Sr., and Lucinda. In Santa Fe, Erastus joined Captain James Brown's detachment, which wintered in Pueblo, Colorado, caring for the sick. The following spring, the detachment cut across the mountains to find the pioneer trail (near Fort Laramie), which they followed into Salt Lake Valley, arriving a few days after Brigham Young and his company. In 1848 Erastus and his brothers discovered the mineral wealth of Bingham Canyon but, on the advice of Brigham Young, did not attempt mining it. In 1849, Erastus and his brother Willard traveled to