History of William Buckminster Lindsay, Jr.

		History of William Buckminster Lindsay, Jr.
EARLY LIFE MARRIAGE SECTIONS FROM JULIA PARK'S JOURNAL PERSUADES HIS PARENTS TO GO WEST PREPARING TO LEAVE FOR THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS BODYGUARD TO BRIGHAM YOUNG SERVICE WITH THE MORMON BATTALION SECOND MARRIAGE KAYSVILLE THIRD MARRIAGE FAMILY MOVES TO BEAR LAKE VALLEY MINNIE LINDSAY SORENSON DESCRIBES THE HARDSHIPS OF THE VALLEY THE BEAR LAKE BLIZZARD BISHOP'S COUNSELOR HARASSED BY U.S. MARSHALS DEATH MEMORIAL PLACED YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH ORIGINAL POEM BY MARION DAVID LINDSAY COMPOSED IN MEMORIAL AT THE TIME OF HIS DEATH		Compiled by: Rex "B." Lindsay Edited and Expanded By: David J. Wardell (1990) Copyright © 1990 By: David J. Wardell. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction or redistribution of this page in any form is strictly prohibited. Page Revised: October 24, 2000 William Buckminster Lindsay, Jr. was seventeen years old when his parents moved with their family from Canada to Wisconsin. His birth and his childhood and teenage experiences up to this time took place on and around his Father's 77 acre farm near Rideau Lake, Leeds county, Canada. As a young man of twenty, he joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, in 1842. He and his brother Ephraim Myres Lindsay both married Latter-Day Saint girls in Nauvoo, Illinois in 1845. William Buckminster Lindsay, Jr. Married Julia Parks on the 19th of February, 1845. She was born on the 22nd of February, 1824 at Livonia, Livingston, New York, the daughter of William Parks and Fannie Hyde. The following excerpt from Julia's autobiography describes their circumstances in Nauvoo: "Shortly after I arrived in Nauvoo, I found plenty of work, so accordingly I stayed and in time became acquainted with a very respectable young man by the name of William Buckminster Lindsay, Jr., and on February 19, 1845 we were married. In the spring he went back to his Father's place in Wisconsin, as he thought he could do better there and wished me to go with him, but I did not feel willing to go away from the main body of the church. I was willing to do the best I could until he returned as there was not much work to be had in Nauvoo, and we had to prepare to leave. "As there was considerable excitement we expected the saints would have to find a home in some other land, and it would require considerable means to prepare for the journey. Accordingly he left and returned sometime in June, I think. The following winter the mob was continually hunting for some of our brethren and the saints began to prepare to start to the Rocky Mountains. "In February 1846 there was a company fitted up and crossed the Mississippi in the cold bleak winter. My husband was called to go as one of the guards and my sister Fannie and I were left and lived together until there was another company about ready to start. I had the opportunity of going with my brother-in-law. I felt very anxious to go for I had heard that my husband was quite sick with the measles and I knew that he would be exposed to the cold and would not have much to comfort him and although I felt very loath to leave my dear sister, yet I felt it a duty to go. "I started, but it being a very rainy spring, the roads were very bad, and I had traveled a whole week and never got into the wagon to ride, and some days we would only go two miles. I did not overtake my husband until I got to Garden Grove, and he was just getting so that he could work a little. "When we got as far as Pisga, we found quite a number of the saints camped and as our teams needed rest we thought it would be best to stop there. We made ourselves as comfortable as circumstances would permit. The brethren cleared off a small piece of ground and put in quite a garden and in the course of six weeks we had plenty of garden to eat, which was a great blessing for we had been without all summer. "While we were there, there was a call made for five hundred of our brethren to go to the Battalion. My husband went as far as Council Bluffs but when he arrived they had the number that was required and he, with some others, came back and as we did not have sufficient means to come to the Valley, he thought it best to go to Wisconsin to work in the lead mines and perhaps he could get the rest of the family to come. We started about the 6th of August and arrived in Wisconsin after a journey of nearly four weeks." On August 12, 1849, while the family was residing on the banks of the Missouri River waiting to come West, William Buckminster Lindsay, Jr., married a second wife, with the permission of his first wife Julia, Parmelia Charlotte Ann Blackman. Polygamy was an accepted doctrine of the LDS Church at this time and a few of the members, mostly leaders, practiced plural marriage. This practice was abolished by the Church in 1890. William Buckminster Lindsay, Jr., settled with his family in Kaysville, Davis County, Utah in 1853 and lived there about thirteen years. Here he took up land and started farming. Two of Julia's three children, all girls, were stricken with Scarlet Fever and were laid low by the hand of death in the fail of 1853. Until about 1860 the family lived together in one house. At this time, the family was so large that it was mutually decided to main-tain separate households. William Buckminster Lindsay married Sarah Henderson in 1854. There were fifteen members in the household at the time the family established separate living quarters. Julia states in her history that they "separated with the best of feelings for each other". In the fall, of 1864, William Buckminster Lindsay, Jr. moved with his wives and children to the Bear Lake Valley. A number of saints have been called in 1864 under the leadership of Charles C. Rich to settle this valley. William Buckminster Lindsay, Jr. also felt that he needed to move where more land was available to meet the requirements of his large family. Some of the children were getting old enough to be able to help with the farm work by this time. They stopped in whet is now Liberty during the first year and moved down into the valley the next year. In the fall of 1869, twelve of the family came down with typhoid fever. There were no doctors in the Bear Lake Valley at that time. Two boys died at this time. One was a ten year old son of Julia and the other was a six year old son of Parmelia. Both died within twenty four hours of each other. For three months the house was like a hospital and they did not know how ow whether they would be able to survive the ordeal. Minnie Lindsay Sorenson describes the conditions in the Bear Lake Valley in those first years in her history of William Buckminster Lindsay, Jr., as follows: "Many were the hardships of that day in this valley when the snow fell and drifted many feet deep, which was later known as the Bear Lake Blizzard, when my father was away on his mission as late as 1886 and 1888, snow drifted over a six foot fence and remained as late as the last of March. They were obliged to turn their oxen on the open range and would have to walk for miles to find them. They did not have any shoes on their feet, having them wrapped in burlap and old clothing. The temperature in those days fell to forty and fifty degrees below zero. "The first home in this valley was a long one-room log house with a dirt roof and floor, with a fireplace for heat and cooking in which the three families lived. During the residence in this home the family contacted typhoid fever. Later three log houses were built. They were improved year by year as circumstances permitted." William Buckminster Lindsay, Jr, served as a Bishop's Counselor for several years. His wife Julia labored seven years as President of the Relief Society in Paris, Idaho, from February 1, 1872 to 1879, when a Stake was organized and she was chosen to preside over the Stake Relief Society with Elizabeth Collings and Hannah Bible as counselors. William Buckminster Lindsay, Jr. was harassed in later years by the United States Marshals who were seeking out and arresting all those who had plural wives. He used to slip over to his son George Edwin's farm, east of Bennington, to avoid the marshals. Many of the polygamists would sleep out-side with their revolvers by them for protection. He lived to the age of 67 and died January 3, 1889 in Paris, Idaho. He and his three wives are buried in the Paris cemetery. Julia died December 11 1913; Parmelia died August 16, 1899; and Sarah died March 5, 1911. On May 30, 1949, Bishop William Lindsay of the Dingle Ward offered a dedicatory prayer and an appropriate marker was placed at the head of the graves of this faithful Latter-Day Saint and his three wives. In all, twenty-six children were born to William Buckminster Lindsay, Jr. Of these eighteen grew to maturity and are numbered among the branches of the family association.