Whitehead Home in Franklin Idaho

I was doing a search for pictures of Franklin and happened upon a very good website developed by a young man who chose to do an overview of important places past and present of Franklin, Idaho.  You could imagine my surprise when I saw these:

back of the house

foundation

the front

the roof line 

All of these images are of the Whitehead house in Franklin.  Now, I do not know for certain what Whitehead built and lived in this home?  Perhaps these ones?




Or these ones?

I am going to send a little email over to the boy scout (not sure if he still lives in Franklin) to see about more info.
Google searches truly surprise and delight many times!!

Esther Ann Robinson 1865-1951 Wife to William James Whitehead

       A Life Sketch of Esther Ann Robinson as told to her family

(see Whitehead Tab for family line)

Esther Ann Robinson was the wife of William James Whitehead and the daughter of samuel Gregory Robinson and Esther Ann Bourne.  Born September 6, 1865 at American Fork, Utah, married May 8, 1883, died June 28, 1951; buried at Claresholm, Alberta, July 2, 1951 at age 86 years.

Esther Ann related the following:

“The first little incident that I can remember was when I was four years old.  My mother dressed my oldest brother, Samuel, call up and took us across the street and sent us up to her mother’s place one and a half blocks away.  As we walked along the pole fence, I heard my mother scream and as I looked back, I saw a team of horses running away behind us and my mother ringing her hands.  I grabbed my brother’s hand and pulled him under the fence as the team went by, but I had torn a hole in my little blue jacket.  She grabbed us both and said, “Never mind the jacket just as long as you both are alright.”

My mother (Esther Ann Bourne) died when I was ten years old and a year later my father married Martha Lovina Hensen, Biggs, who was a very good stepmother to me and my brothers.

After my mother died, my grandmother, Elizabeth Bourne took my baby sister Harriet Matilda Robinson and kept her until she was 13 years old.  At this time, harriet, my sister came to live with us at Franklin and about the same time my stepmother’s adopted son became part of our family.

Even at Esther’s early age she had to assume many womanly tasks ordinarily belonging to older folks.  One of these was to mix the bread for the family use.  Because of her shortness in height, her father made a box for her to stand upon while doing this particular task.  She did much of the cooking and learned to scrub the wooden floors to a shiny condition by using a brick to polish them.  Hot biscuits for breakfast was another duty.  She used to laugh and declare that when she got married this would be one thing that she would not do.  Her stepmother often said that she could not have managed without Esther’s help.

Esther’s great grandmother, Harriet Matilda Johnson, was set apart as a midwife by the Prophet Joseph Smith in Nauvoo.  He blessed her with a healing touch.  She had her own team of horses and when called upon she travelled over the American Fort valley.  It is quite possible that much of Esther’s skill as a midwife was instilled upon her by this good woman.  Esther regularly went over to her great grandmother;’s place every morning to comb her hair and rend help.  She had wonderful black hair which she kept braided.

One time her great grandmother was called up into the hills to deliver a baby and when she was coming home the horses got frightened at something and became out of control, upsetting the buggy and broke her arm.  It required much time and search before she was found.  Hence Esther’s help and care was graciously given.

Esther told of their moving to Franklin, Idaho.  “My father took three wagons and four teams of horses.  One team belonged to Uncle James Robinson who was helping us to move.  We took three cows and one calf.”  She and her brother Elijah became the cow herders and said, “We sure had some time walking and driving them, especially over the sand ridges.  We managed to keep up with the slow moving wagons even if the cows did get out into the thick sage brush.  Every evening father would examine us closely behind our ears to see if we had any wood ticks still with us.  One afternoon it stormed and it got awful dark before we camped.  Father had to use a torch to find the road to the river but he got us safely down to the river bottom where we camped for the night.  It took us seven days to go from American Fork to Franklin Idaho.

Esther remembered an experience in the early days of pioneer life that included grasshoppers.  She explained how her father had her and her brothers drive the hoppers into the irrigation ditches by flopping long apron they wore thus forcing them into the ditch.  The water would carry them down to the head gate where their father, with a shovel,  would force them under the water and drown them.  Later they were shoveled into containers and burned.  It was a tremendous effort to save their crops. 

Esther met William James Whitehead for the first time at Franklin and it was there that they were married on May 8, 1883.  There were eleven children born to them, seven sons and four daughters.

Esther loved to dance and so did William.  He used to say that when they went together, he would take his bass violin under one arm and Esther under the other.  Laughingly, he would tell that the violin was the larger and more difficult to carry.  He, at times, played the violin or the accordian in the orchestra at these dances.  Her stepmother was a good seamstress and Esther always had lovely clothes.

William was an experienced lumberman and held a foreman’s position.  For a number of years Esther went with him in the winter months to the neighbourhood of Butte, Montana where there was logging activity.  He also did freighting to and from Helena and other places.

Esther told some interesting things about the pack rats that would come in the night and carry things away.  To be safe from their raids, things had to be kept in containers which defied their entry.  If a window or door was open they would come into their house.  Esther liked to watch them as they were very agile and climbed everywhere.

Rhoda Whitehead Hansen, a daughter of William and Esther Whitehead’s relates that she remembered her father returning to their home in Franklin one time and stating that while he was away he met a couple from Alberta, Canada and from what they told him he thought that their future home.  It was decided that William should make further investigation which convinced him of the many opportunities of this new county and in consequence he purchased a half section of land near Claresholm, Alberta.

When it became known that they were going to move from Franklin, their relatives and friends gave many parties in their honour.  The older children were some what loath to part with the many friends and close companions they had in various relationships.  Rhoda states that her father, Sam and Burt went ahead of the rest of them with the care of the horses, cattle and other belongings.  The rest of us remained with relatives and friends for a time and when we finally went to the railway station to depart, there was an immense crowd of these relatives and friends to wish us farewell and prosperity.  Rhoda gives her own feelings as being a growing concern for the future of all them.

Esther had prepared food for the trip of three or four days, and also had a supply of clean clothes.  Then she made sure that the children did not use any other but their own towels.  She watched closely that their contact with other children was not too familiar as she had fears of measles or other like calamities.  The family changed trains in Pocotella, Idaho and at Butte, Montana.  When they arrived at Great Falls, Montana, William was there to meet them.  They were surely thrilled to see him and when he told them that they were to stay in a hotel over night they were very excited.  From Great Falls they took a train to Sweet Grass and then crossed the border line at Coutts, Alberta.  They next boarded a train that had only onr passenger coach and a few freight cars.  They found that their belongings were in the freight cars of this same train.  At Coutts, the immigration officer asked Esther if all these children were hers, she replied, “yes sir, and I am proud of it.”  

At Claresholm they stayed for a time at the Queen’s Hotel until their house on the farm was ready for occupancy.  In spite of all the guarding care Esther gave the children, they caught the measles from two little girls from the train with them.

On the 15th of April, 1908 the family arrived at Claresholm, Alberta, Canada.  they did extensive farming in the area.  They owned a steam land breaking outfit for grain harvesting.

If the images below are not as clear, please go to the archives at the Glenbow Museum site.

This is the CPR (Canadian Pacific Railways) building that they would have
arrived at.

A team of horses in 1902 just a few years before the Whitehead's would
have arrived.

This is a peaceful celebration of the end of WW1 on November 18, 1918
This is on the main street.  The Whiteheads were most likely there.
( I alson expect that the Bowie's were there too!)

The men would have had equipement very similar to this.

This is downtown Claresholm in 1945

Esther was a wonderful woman.  The Gospel came first in her life.  She was a friend to everyone.  Being a mid-wife, she took care of many women, rich or poor, in their homes before there was a hospital in Claresholm.  She worked with the local doctor.  She treated them all alike and helped many a poor family by taking food and lothes to them in the time of their need.  Often she did extra work when they were unable to afford help at the time of their confinement, besides looking after the mother and the baby.

This is a picture of the Clarsholm hospital where she worked and where she was
taken such good care of.

The doctors that she worked with said that they never worried when they found that mother was to be the nurse.  One of the doctors, (Dr.McMullen) paid her a wonderful compliment when she was taken to the hospital in her later life.  He told the matron to “give Mrs. Whitehead the best room and the best care for she is a monument to the community”.  He said further, “If anyone deserves it, she does”.  She was loved by all.  One lady described her to a granddaughter in this manner, “Your Grandma Whitehead was the cutest little lady, so active and very wonderful nurse.  She brought sunshine into every home she entered.  She was known as Grandma Whitehead to everyone,”

William James Whitehead Jr

              William James Whitehead

          April 20, 1912- March 22, 1961

         (as told by Hazel Whitehead Bowie his daughter)

William, better known as Bill, came to Canada about 1906 with his wife Sara, and one child Ross, very young and full of adventure.  This was  at the same time that his father William James Sr. and his family came to Claresolm district.  They all settled on a homestead four miles south and two miles west.  

Bill and Sara weren’t there long at the time, and after a short stay returned to Idaho.  They returned to the Claresholm district in 1916 and settled one and a half miles south of town.  This time, they had two more children, a son Connel and a daughter Hazel.

As the family settled in the new land there was hard work and many hardships to overcome, very little money but they had a great will to make a new home.  Everyone was having the same experience and it was a great promising adventure.

The day’s work started early.  All chores had to be done before going to work in the fields.  In the winter the hour to rise was still early to get the family off to school as they had to drive some distance in a buggy or sleigh.

In those days, people had to make their own entertainment on the farm.  On winter evenings we would sit around the kitchen table, where the lamp was and Mother would read a book aloud to the family, perhaps tow or three chapters at a time.  It was one of our few pleasures and we could hardly wait for the plot of the story to unfold. 

It was really something when the radio was invented.  Dad bought one (Day Fan).  At first it just had ear phones and we took turns in listening.  It was wonderful!  After we got a loud speaker, neighbours would come over to listen to our favourite program, W.W. Grant from Calgary broadcasting Old Time music.

DeLyle was born here on this farm in 1919 and Boyd was born in a little house in town just east of the old Presbyterian Church (Masonic Lodge now) in 1921.  We had moved into town for the winter making it easier to go to school.

My grandfather owned a threshing machine and would go around doing threshing throughout the country.  There weren’t too many outfits at the time and they used a big steam engine.  It was a thrilling sight to watch we though.  Bill ran the stook loader which was operated with the horses.  It was fun to visit the cook car with lots of good food and always as apple or a piece of apple pie to be had.  The men that lived near always went home on Saturday night for Sunday.  Threshing time was very exciting and important.  Often it would rain in the Fall and it prolonged the event.

Even though it took longer to put crops in, summer fallow and harvest neighbours seemed to have more time to visit and become acquainted.  In the winter there were house parties, school dances and sleigh rides.  Everyone attended the dances, kids and all.  Dad would hitch up the team to the democrat or sleigh and away we would go to a neighbours and stay all day.  If a storm blew in we would have to stay all night.  The poor cows would just have to wait to be milked until morning.

In the summer there were picnics and sports days.  We made our own fun.

Saturday night was THE night to go to town!  The stores stayed open until eleven o’clock and shopping for the week was done.  Perhaps we would go to the Saturday night show if we could get the money.  We would try to get in early to get a parking place (we had a car now) on main street.  We could sit in it and watch the people go by, and visit with neighbours and friends, it was exciting!

I can remember our first car.  Dad bought it in 1918 in November.  We went to town to celebrate Armistice Day of World War One.  It was a Ford Touring car.  The top would come down and there were curtains that could be drawn on the sides.

In 1929 Dad sold the farm to Ben Andrews and took Ben’s house in town for a down payment.  Dad took a barbering course and set up business in a little shop just west of the old Wilton Hotel.  However, after a few years farming lured him back to the fields.  He went to the Raymond district where he lived until the time of his death on March 22, 1961.

Mother died in Lethbridge on November 6, 1964.

There were five children, sixteen grandchildren, and twenty-six great children in 1974.

Ross the oldest married Valeria Anderson from Barnwell, Alberta and went down there to farm.  They had three boys: Bernard, Ray and Preston.  Ross passed away in May of 1951.

Connel married Vivian Lucas of Stavely, Alberta.  They had five children: Bryan, Sharan, LeRoy, Larry, and Roseanne.  They lived most of their lives in Stavely and Calgary.  Connel passed away in February 1957.

Hazel went to school at Hoosier, Northern Lights and Claresholm.  She later went to hairdressing school in Lethbridge and spent time working with her father in his shop.  She married Mike Bowie from Claresholm, Alberta.  They had two boys: Gerald (Gary) and Douglas Boyd.  They lived in Claresholm until 1957.  Mike passed away in Lethbridge in 2001 and Hazel in 2007.

DeLyle received most of his schooling in Claresholm and then went to school in Logan, Utah to finish.  He married Shirley Butler from Fort Macleod.  They had four girls: Louise, Kathleen, Diane and Marie.  They made their home in Macleod during the war where he worked at the airport.  Then to Lethbridge to work for the city as paymaster.  DeLyle died in 1966.

Boyd, the youngest, went to school at Hoosier, Claresholm and Logan, Utah.  He was very good in athletics and track and field events.  He married Marguerite Miller and they had two children Lynda and Donald.  They lived in Claresholm most of the time.  He sold Chrysler cars in town.  Boyd passed away in 198 .  

William Whitehead 1839-1881 (or 1882)

WILLIAM WHITEHEAD

"A HANDCART PIONEER"

FATHER OF MARGARET ELIZABETH WHITEHEAD

William Whitehead was born on the 23rd of November 1839, at Calfley, Friarmere, Saddleworth, Yorkshire, England. He was the son of Martha Whitehead and Robert Wright, who was a machine printer at the Denshaw Print Works. According to family history, he grew up in the home of his grandparents, James Whitehead and Hannah Hepworth Whitehead in Oldham.

It is said that he received a fine education in England. He joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but the date of his baptism seems uncertain. According to the Franklin ward records, he was baptized by James Gledhill in November 1852, and was confirmed the same month by William Scofield. This would have made him about thirteen years old at the time. However, according to the temple index bureau record card, he was baptized November 2O, l854. This would have made him just a few days short of fifteen years old.

William immigrated to Utah in 1859. He sailed on the William Tapscott, a ship of 1,750 tons register. The ship had been chartered by the church and sailed from England (probably Liverpool) for New York on April 1, 1859. His age is given in the immigration records as twenty, though he would not have reached the full age of twenty until November of that year. According to the emigration records, he gave his address as Manchester, and his occupation as factory worker. The price of his ticket, steerage class, was 4.60 Pounds. There were 601 adult passengers, 92 children, and 32 infants, making a total of 725 emigrants from England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Switzerland. Also included were some missionaries returning to the United States. One of the returning missionaries, according to family history, was an Elder William Taylor, with whom he later stayed in Lehi, Utah.

The William Tapscott arrived in New York after a pleasant voyage of 31 days. According to the book, Handcarts to Zion, the party of emigrants left New York on May 14,1859, on the steamer " Isaac Newton" for Albany. From Albany, they took the Hannibal and St. Joseph railway to St. Joseph, Missouri. From there, they took riverboats on the Missouri River to Florence, Nebraska. Florence was the staging and departure point for the handcart companies. William Whitehead was a member of the Eighth Handcart Company. According to the book, Handcarts to Zion, the company was made up of 235 persons. There were 60 handcarts, and six ox-drawn wagons to haul provisions and the sick. George Rowley was Captain of the company, and there was a sub-captain for each ten carts. The carts each had a cover made from bed-ticking and stretched over three bows. The company started from Florence on June 9,1859 and traveled four miles. On the tenth, they laid over to get organized. On the eleventh, they started out in earnest and traveled sixteen miles. On the twelfth, the group traveled twenty-two miles and ran into swarms of big mosquitoes. Provisions for ten days for one person included ten pounds of flour, one pound of bacon, a little sugar and some salt.

The company met a large band of Sioux Indians on July 3rd. They were the first Indians most the emigrants had ever seen, and it was a terrifying experience for them. The Indians demanded food, and were given three sacks of flour and some bacon. That night, the Indians staged a dance. Next morning, the company left early hoping to elude the Indians, but some of the Indians followed them and tried to make a deal for a "white squaw." There was another encounter with Indians in the Devil's Gate area, which frightened the emigrants. There had just been a battle between two tribes. The victorious tribe had a number of prisoners, and they invited a number of the men in the handcart company to visit their camp to watch the prisoners be tortured to death. The men respectfully declined the invitation. The main company ran low on food and many were suffering from starvation when a supply wagon train from Salt Lake City reached them after traveling night and day to come to their aid. The company arrived in Salt Lake City on the afternoon of Sunday, September 4, 1859. They were met, on their arrival, by a large crowd, including two or three bands. For a more complete account of the trek of the Eighth Handcart Company, the book Handcarts to Zion is highly recommended.

According to family history, due to the extreme heat and exposure during the trek, and the strain of pulling a cart, William ruptured a blood vessel in his head and was in serious condition for some time. It is said that as a hardship of the handcart journey, he was never a very strong man.

William located at Lehi, Utah, living with Elder William Taylor, until his Aunt Mary brought him to Ogden. Mary had promised to look after William until the Ramsbottom family could immigrate. William's mother, Martha Whitehead, married Henry Ramsbottom in August of 1853. In the early spring of 1862, William along with his two cousins, Ben and James Chadwick, moved to Franklin, Idaho. He helped Ben and James bring logs out of the canyon and helped them build a house for their mother (i.e. Williams' Aunt Mary).

According to family history, in 1862, William went to Salt Lake City to meet his sweetheart whom he had left in England in 1859. He expected to bring her back to Franklin with him. However, when he arrived, he found her already married. On the way back from Salt Lake City, he married Margaret Green whom he had previously known in England. Family records give the marriage date as March 28, 1862. However, there seems reason to believe that the marriage may have actually taken place a year later, in 1863.

William met his mother and family in Ogden and brought them to Franklin in a covered wagon in the fall of 1869. It is likely that the family arrived in Ogden by train, as the transcontinental railway had been completed in May of that year.

In 1872, with his first wife's consent William married Alice Butterworth and they all lived together in the same house. Alice died soon after the birth of her first child, Alice Whitehead.

According to the records of district court of the third judicial district of the territory of Idaho, in and for the county of Oneida, William Whitehead made application for and was granted United States citizenship on July 8, 1873.

According to family history, William was one of the first city councilmen chosen when Franklin was organized a city in 1878. After his day's work, William would read and study by candlelight until very late. He was eager to learn and he attended the night school of William Wright. He also attended the Elders' School. He was a bookkeeper for Merrick and Duffin, also for the first co-op store. He was ward clerk and choir leader, and was active in dramatics. He was a member of the militia, and was a minute-man. He was also a good mason and farmer (according to the 1880 census records, he gave his occupation as stone mason). William was always noted for his cleanliness and neatness of person. It was said of him, "every hair and thread must be laid just right at all times."

William had eleven children by his first wife, Margaret. He loved his family dearly, but they were very poor. He was a small man of medium complexion with blue eyes. He died of a ruptured appendix, but the date of his death does not seem certain. The archives of the Genealogical Society in Salt Lake City gives the date as April l2, 1881. Family records submitted to the Genealogical Society by the Ramsbottom family give the date as April 2, 1882. If 1881 is the correct date, he would have been forty-one years old at the time of his death.

The following experience was told to Sarah Eppich by an unidentified son of William Whitehead on February 21, 1940 at Cornish, Utah. "I left Monday morning to go up Maple Creek to chop logs. When I left, father was not feeling very well. Monday night, a strange woman came into my cabin and woke me. She told me I was needed at home. I woke the other men and asked them if they had seen her, but none of them had. Then I got up and looked for tracks in the snow, but although it was three feet deep, there were no tracks. The next morning I had just felled one tree and started on another when the same woman I had seen came and told me that I was needed at home. Then, in a flash, I saw my brother, Peter G., coming on a horse to meet me. I told my friends, and we locked the cabin and started down the canyon. We met Peter, six years old at the time, at the bottom of Lowe's hill. He was coming on a horse to meet us. When I reached home, my father was sitting in a big chair with a quilt wrapped around him. I talked to him for a little while, and then my mother came into the room and told me the cows had broken through the willow fence and got out. I left to fix the fence, and when I returned, they told me my father had just passed away. He had died of appendicitis while sitting in the chair."

A note about Saddleworth

There seems to be some confusion in the family records about Saddleworth. It is in the County of York, but because of historical circumstances, the Church of England there was a part of the parish of Rochdale, which was in Lancashire. A book published in 1795, written by John Aiken gives the following information about Saddleworth. "Saddleworth is a large valley, about seven miles long, and five across in the broadest part, situated in an angle of Yorkshire between Lancashire and northeastern projection of Cheshire. It is a wild bleak region of which a very small part is under cultivation; but industry has accumulated in it a large number of inhabitants, who gain the comfortable subsistence by the manufactory of woolen cloth for which the place is peculiarly famous. The district is divided into four quarters, called meres, Quick-mere; Lord's mere, Shaw-mere, and Friar-mere. The latter was once an estate belonging to the Black Friars, who had a house or grange there, near Delph. The houses are all built of stone, which is in great plenty; but timber comes high, being brought from Hull or Liverpool, and undergoing an expensive land carriage; hence house-rents are dear. This hinderance to improvement, it is hoped, will be removed in a great measure by the new Huddersfield and Ashton Canal, which will pass through the midst of Saddleworth." Another book, published in 1825, names Calfhey as one of the places in the Saddleworth area. Calfhey could not have been a very prominent place, as we have not been able to locate it on any map. It was probably a very small village or settlement; and was probably somewhere in the area near Delph and Denshaw, as William Whitehead's birth was registered in Delph.

.... Take from the

Whitehead Family Magazine