Category: Genealogy

Purbelow

Purbelow

by Justin Durand

The 1850 census of Deseret (really taken in 1851) shows two boys in the household of Stephen Luce. There’s a mystery here.

The Mormons got to Utah in 1847. The Luces arrived in 1848. Everyone was still settling in when Brigham Young decided to conduct a census that would be the official 1850 census of Deseret (Utah) even though it was conducted in 1851.

The census shows two young boys in the household of Stephen and Mary Luce: Joseph Purbelow, age 5, born in Iowa; and Willford [Purbelow], age 2, born in Deseret.

Stephen Luce family (1850 Census, Utah)
Stephen Luce family, continued (1850 Census, Utah)

The context suggests the two Purbelow boys were orphans being raised by Stephen and Mary Luce. Their surname probably was really Pueblo. Back then “pueblo” was often pronounced purbelow .[1] Further, the modern family uses the surname Pueblo. It’s possible the boys’ full names were Joseph Smith Pueblo and Wilford Woodruff Pueblo.

There seems to be no further record of Wilford, but Joseph was living in Payson (Utah) by 1868 and died there in 1898. Both the 1880 census and his death record say he was Indian. And that might provide the clue that solves the question of his parents.

Brigham Young dispatched the Parley Pratt expedition to explore southern Utah in 1849-1850. The expedition encountered a mountain man named Purbelow who stole their horses. There seems to be no record of Purbelow’s fate. I suggest he died or the Mormons hanged him, and his (hypothetical) Indian wife and children were taken to live in Salt Lake City.

Robert Lang Campbell, clerk of the expedition kept a detailed journal, but there are few details about Purbelow. Some passages that mention Purbelow were published by Smart & Smart in Over the Rim. The original journals might contain additional information.

On November 28, 1849 at Peteetneet Creek, later the the site of Payson, Campbell wrote, “Col. C. Scott & party who r after Purbelow the Mountainman who stole horses stay here till we come up, hear that Purbelow camps at the hot springs [near Draper] to night.” (Smart 1999:26, emphasis added)

John Brown, another member of the expedition was a bit clearer. On the same day he wrote: “We reached Piasateatment Creek here Colonel Scott fell in with us again and called on us for some to go with him. And we let him have ten mounted men to be gone a few days and return to us again.” (Smart 1999:26)

On November 30 Campbell wrote, “Bre with Col Scott return, they went to the Sevier, found Purbilow had gone too far ahead“. Brown wrote, “We reached Salt Creek where we camped two miles up the canyon here we discovered plenty of Plaster of Paris also our men returned who went with Col Scott. They went so far as the Sevier River on the California road but to no effect.” (Smart 1999:28, emphasis added)

That’s the last we hear until January 5, when the expedition encountered Purbelow near what is now Newcastle. Parley Pratt wrote, “Passed down a few miles thro a fertile valley, still snowing. Came to running water and the Camp of Purblo and a few wagons, about 12 miles farther we reached Captn Fly’s Camp of perhaps fifty wagons, men, women and children who have lain by on a fine stream to shoe their cattle and recruit. Of them we purchased some Whiskey, drinked tolerably free, some of us lodged in their tents and had the luxury of sitting in a chair.” (Smart 1999:183, emphasis added)

Campbell is briefer. He wrote, “2 miles back from this water, find Purbelow & 4 or 5 wagons encamped near here in the snow“. And Brown says much the same: “We arose and shook off the snow and shoved on we soon came to a small company of gold diggers and 10 miles farther we came to a large company of about 50 wagons we camped near them they had a rodometer by which we learned we were 319 miles G.S.L.” (Smart 1999:101, emphasis added)

And that’s it. We don’t hear what happened to Purbelow. The Smarts say they’ve been unable to identify him (Smart 1999:26). They suggest the reason the encounter with Purbelow in January occasioned no further comment was that nothing could be done short of lynching (Smart 1999:102).

My thought is that something did happen the Purbelow, and whatever it was happened before 1851. He had an accident, or he died in epidemic, or the Mormons strung him up after all.

The first reference to Purbelow calls him a mountain man. The last calls him a gold digger, and puts him in a small company of 4 or 5 wagons. It wouldn’t be a stretch to suppose he had an Indian wife and children. Perhaps he was part Indian himself. If he died it wouldn’t be unusual for his children to be fostered with a Mormon family. That’s what I think happened.

1. There are scattered references in the journals of early explorers and pioneers to the pronunciation of pueblo as purbelow. For example:

  • Harriet Brown wrote a letter to her husband’s stepmother: “The [Mormon] Battalion was separated at Santefee (Santa Fe) and those that was sick and wore out with fatigue was sent back to purbelow (Pueblo) 70 miles above Bents Fort under command of Captain Brown. The number consisting of 85 men and 20 women here to remain until next spring then to take up our line of march for Fort Larime (Laramie) there we are in hopes to meet you all and travail with you all over the mountains.” (Harriet Brown, Letter to Mary Brown, Dec. 25, 1846, quoted in “Daniel Brown“. Latter Day Light <latterdaylight.com>, Aug. 16, 2019.)
  • John Holladay wrote an autobiographical sketch: “On arriveing at Fort Larrimee [1846] we met with one John Rinshaw, a mountaineer. He told us that none of our imergration had passed that place. We imployed Mr. Rishaw as pilot to Purbelow. This place is situated on the Arkansaw River just East of Rockeys, arrived thare in August.” (“‘John Daniel Holladay,’ In Biographical Information Relating to Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel database.” Overland Travel Pioneer Database 1847-1868 <history.churchofjesuschrist.org/overlandtravel>. Retrieved Apr. 5, 2020.
  • Brigham Young wrote a letter in 1847 to Elders Elders Hyde, Pratt, and Taylor in England: “About the 17th October, Captain Brown was detached to Purbelow, on the Arkansas, to winter, accompanied by the laundresses, sick, &c., of the battalion numbering in all about eighty; the remainder of the battalion took up a line of march for Monterey in California, thence expecting to ship for San Francisco.” (“Mormon History, Jan 6, 1847.” Mormon Church History <mormon-church-history.blogspot.com/>. Retrieved Apr. 5, 2020.)

2. “Wilford Purbelow“. FamilySearch <familysearch.org>. Retrieved Apr. 6, 2020. Russell Willis Pubelo, of Lindon, Utah wrote: “In the 1850 Census of Utah, page 202, Joseph A. Purbelow age 5, born in Iowa and Willford Purbelow age 2, born in Deseret were listed with the Stephen Luce family, this information is also found on page 65 of “First Families Of Utah As Taken From The 1850 Census Of Utah”. If Joseph was 5 years old in 1850 (1850 – 5 = 1845) he would have been born in 1845. However, I made a copy from the “Register of Death, Utah County, Utah” at the Utah County Building in Provo, when I was a student at BYU about 1978. It listed: Joseph Pueblo age 55, Sex Male, Race Indian, Color Red, … Date of Death April 6, 1898. If Joseph was 55 years old when he died (1898 – 55= 1843) he would have been born in 1843.”

More Information

Edited June 8, 2021 to clarify the hot springs near what is now Draper.

Defining Family

Defining Family

by Justin Durand

In modern culture wars one side thinks there is something sacred and eternal about our “traditional” family structure, while the other side wants to experiment. Medievalists just laugh.

I think it’s safe to say most people don’t realize how family structures have evolved through history, even in our European diaspora. We don’t live in the same world our ancestors did.

I’m always jazzed when I run into this idea outside the world of historians.

And here it is, in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life (1997). One of my favorites. How did I miss this?

“In the last few decades, we have come to realize that the image of the family we have been cherishing since at least Victorian times is only one of many possible alternatives. According to the historian Le Roy Ladurie, a rural French family in the late Middle Ages was made up by whoever lived under the same roof and shared the same meals. This might have included people actually related by blood, but also farmhands and other persons who strayed in to help with farm work and were given shelter. Apparently no further distinction was made among these individuals; whether related or not they were seen to belong to the same domus, or house made of stone and mortar, which was the unit that mattered, rather than the biological family.” (Csikszentmihalyi, 85-86)

This stuff is old hat to medievalists. This is the same sort of idea that led to naming noble families by the name of their principle estate. The von Habsburg family originated at Habsburg castle in Switzerland. That sort of thing.

Carroll Place

Carroll Place

by Justin Durand ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

My dad would have been 100 today. That seems striking to me but marking a parent’s 100th birthday will happen to many people. I just come to it a bit earlier than most of my generation because Dad was 35 years older than me.

Headstone

I was going to mark his birthday by getting a headstone. He doesn’t have one. And his ashes are lost. Unbelievable. His “companion” was this woman, Donna. I remember when she was just the gal who worked the soda fountain at Mesa Drug. After Dad died she had his ashes. I’ve assumed his ashes were scattered on her cemetery plot after she died. I checked just to be sure. It turns out Dad’s and Donna’s caretakers don’t have any idea what happened to his ashes. So, rule out a headstone.

Sons of the American Revolution

My next thought is to do a Memorial Application for Sons of the American Revolution (SAR). That’s doable. I didn’t think it would be since I’m not a blood relative, but I checked. They tell me it shouldn’t be a problem. It will take much longer than a headstone, but that’s fine. It is what it is.

I think Dad would like this. He would never have joined himself. I don’t think it would have occurred to him. He did Shriners, Freemasons, Mesa County Sheriff’s Posse, and church. Even so, I recognized instantly that he would be gratified by his kind of memorial. His father and grandfather were both named George Washington Place. Growing up, Grandma Place told me, “It’s [your dad’s] heritage; remember that.” He felt the same.

When I was a kid the lamp beside my bed was Washington praying before the Battle of Valley Forge. It had belonged to Grandpa Place then to Dad. I wish I still had the lamp. It was cast bronze, which means it was hollow. It got crushed in one of my moves. I found this picture of it on eBay.

SAR Application

The first step to starting the application process was to check whether Dad’s Revolutionary War ancestor is already in the SAR or DAR databases. Thomas Place (1732-1814), of Hinesburg, Vermont. Nope, not there. This is going to take awhile because it will mean doing the whole line from scratch.

And, while I think I have the right line, I’m not 100% certain.

When I was first getting started in genealogy, Dad was surprised. He said his [some female relative] already did “all that” when she joined [some lineage society]. I thought I remembered the relative was his cousin Laura when she joined the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). But I can’t find that he had a cousin Karen and there is no DAR record of this line. As I look now, maybe it was his aunt Julia (Place) Perrin in Bay City, Michigan or his cousin Julia (Place) Shephard in San Diego, California when she joined Mayflower Descendants.

Dad told me he was a descended from Lt. Gen. Solomon Place (War of 1812), who was supposedly made a Freemason by George Washington himself. That can’t be quite right. Dad seems to have been descended from the General’s cousin. And, if the General was inducted into the Masons by George Washington then Washington must have been at the very end of his life and Solomon Place must have been still relatively young. Washington died in 1799 when Solomon Place was only 29, and hadn’t yet even started his military career. My impression hearing the story was that Dad was struggling to remember and knew he might not be getting it exactly right.

So, I’ve begun. I have these preliminary pieces. A year from now I hope to have a completed SAR Memorial Membership for my dad.

Where to Register?

Where to Register?

by Justin Durand

As we come up on the 2020 Census there’s a bit of a judgment call about where to register. Our old place at The Wellshire or our new place at Yale 25 Station. The official date is April 1st. We’re still straddling the two. I think we’ll say we’re at the new place, although I have a twinge of regret that we won’t go down in census history as living in a landmark Midcentury building. 

The Wellshire
The Wellshire
Fan Fiction

Fan Fiction

by Justin Durand

There was a time when I was deeply concerned about genealogists adopting pseudo-history into their research. Most often I see people believing they are descended from Jesus of Nazareth through the Merovingian dynasty. Oh my. This kind of thing is entertainment, not serious history.

Now I’ve found a simple way to describe the problem to people who don’t have a good grounding in History — stuff like that is Fan Fiction.

Most people I know understand the idea of fan fiction better than they understand historiography. A few months ago, someone, somewhere in my universe referred to the Book of Mormon as “Christian fanfic.” I was maybe a little shocked at first, then enchanted. That has to be the most interesting and engaging perspective I’ve encountered in 50 years of reading and thinking about it.

And not just religion; also history. If I had been smart, I would have made the leap myself. Instead, I had to wait until Ken Mondschein at Medievalists.net used fanfic to describe the Magdalene stories.

“Let’s take the perpetually popular Mary Magdalene for an example. Her latest incarnation, as a Christian symbol of the feminine and fertile, stems from Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln’s 1982 Holy Blood, Holy Grail, a sensationalistic, but extremely popular, pseudohistorical work that alleged the early medieval kings of France were descended from Christ and Mary Magdalene and that the “san graal” or “Holy Grail” was actually the “sang real,” or “Holy Blood” of Christ. This theory (if it can be called such) was picked up by Dan Brown in his unfortunate bestseller The Da Vinci Code, which became a Tom Hanks movie. However, including Brown’s fanfic of Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln’s conspiracy theory, there have been no less than four iterations of the character, each with a different history.“

Mondschein goes on to talk about medieval variations on the Magdalene legend, but I can stop here. The stories are stories. We can enjoy them, but there’s no path to claiming the characters as our actual ancestors.

Related Posts

  • Swanstrom, Justin.”Holy Blood, Holy Fraud.” Swan Knight <swanknight.con>, Oct. 29, 2019. Retrieved Dec. 1, 2019.
  • Swanstrom, Justin. “Holy Grail.” Swan Knight <yellacatranch.com>, Jan. 1, 2000. Retrieved Oct. 29, 2019 .