Amy Jane King

Amy Jane King Smith, 1836 - 1913, age 77, daughter of Thomas Jefferson King and Rebecca Englesby Olin. She married Elias Smith, 15 Apr 1856, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah. Her children are Hiram Bennett Smith, Sarah Susannah Smith, Silas Thomas Smith, Mary Alzina Smith, Martha Priscilla Smith, Angeline Adelia Smith, Albert William Smith, Thomas King Smith, Edward Hunter Smith, Amy Esther Smith, Rebecca Jane Smith, Jesse Moroni Smith, Franklin Elias Smith. Amy Jane King was born in Mantua, Portage County, Ohio, Oct. 3rd 1836. Her parents were Thomas Jefferson King and Rebecca Englesby Olin King. They were among the first believers and were ready to be baptized when the Church was organized, but were not baptized until Sept. 1830. Amy Jane passed through all the persecutions that were experienced by the early Church members. She had never seen the Prophet Joseph Smith, but has told her children many times about her parents attending a meeting that was held and that the Prophet Joseph and his brother Hyrum were among the speakers. She was then about six years old. She said her parents always felt sorry they did not take her with them to the meeting so she could see the two great leaders. Amy Jane said she remembered the hardships and persecutions the Saints went through, of how the mobs threatened them, destroyed their crops and property, burned homes, etc. She related the story similar to the one written by her brother Thomas F. King. In 1845, her parents moved from Ohio to Illinois where they bought a farm at Morley's Settlement a short distance from Nauvoo and raised one crops, when they were told by some neighbors that the mob intended to drive them out. Her father was sick at the time and unable to work. Previous to this time the mob had driven out all the able bodied men among the Saints. Her brother George E. was among them. He was then about seventeen (17) years old. When the mob arrived they commanded her mother to leave at once. Their only means of travel was one horse and a one horse wagon. Her mother moved some of their furniture into the cornfield. She put their beds and some light things in the wagon, and the family got on top of the load. The mob set fire to their house as soon as they left it. They went to Nauvoo where they found shelter in a large frame house that was alread occupied by three families. After they were located in the house, her mother took her brother Alma, who was twelve years old, and returned to the farm for the rest of their furniture. There was a good crop of corn on the farm ready to be harvested. They family was without food, so her mother and Alma went again to the farm and got a load of corn. They were threatened by the mob at that time. Her mother told the mob she had no bread for her children and had to have the corn. They threatened to shoot her if she did not leave. She told them to shoot as she would just as soon die as starve to death. She returned to the farm the third time when one of the mob pointed a gun at her and said, "If you return again I will shoot you." As she felt she had secured enough corn to last them through the winter, she did not return. The corn and milk from two cows they owned fed them while on their journey westward. Amy Jane's father purchased a wagon, but had no team. They used a team owned by her father's father. He and his wife, not her grandmother, were traveling with them. Her grandfather was quite aged, and his wife had not much faith in the Gospel, so concluded they would go no farther. They took their team off the wagon when within about forty miles of M[t]. Pisgah in Iowa. Her brother George E. then walked to Mt. Pisgah and secured a team so the family went to Mt. Pisgah. They moved into a log cabin which had no floor. It had a bark roof which leaked when it rained. Her father was a carpenter and builder and soon obtained work some distance east of M[t]. Pisgah. Soon after this he hired a man to move the family to a place called Stringtown where quite a number of the members of the Church had settled for the winter. The next year the family moved to Black Hawk and later to Iowaville both on the Des Moines River about fifty miles from Nauvoo. In Iowaville there were quite a number of Church members among whom were Elias Smith and his aged parents. They died soon after and were buried in the Iowaville cemetery during her parents stay there which was about seven years. While in Iowaville Bro. King and family made some very warm friends, among whom was a man named John Baker. He was the village store keeper and told the Saints to come to the store and get what they wanted and pay for it when they could. Mr. Baker also furnished employment for many of the Saints. Others also gave them employment. Amy Jane's father and Elias Smith became intimate friends. They secured some ox teams and did a great deal of freighting between Iowaville and some other towns and Keokuk. Mr. A. J. Davis owned a large distillery where he converted a large amount of corn into whiskey. Bro. King and Bro. Smith hauled the whiskey for Mr. Davis to Keokuk and would then haul a load of merchandise on the return trip for Mr. Baker. At one time Amy Jane's father and brother Alma were hauling salt to Keokuk on a pair of bob sleds. The weather was very cold so they took turns in going into houses to get warm. On one of these turns her father was running to catch up with the team and came across a lifeless body of her brother Alma. It was supposed by her father that on trying to jump into the sled, his foot slipped and he fell under the sled when he was run over and killed. Her father left his team there and hired a man to take the body home. There was a sorrowful scene when they reached home with the body of the dead boy. In the winter of 1850-51 Elias Smith taught the village school in Iowaville, which Amy Jane and other children of Bro. King attended. In the summer of 1851 Elias Smith left them and came to the valley in Utah where the pioneers of 1847 had settled. In the spring of 1850 A[m]y Jane's father, Thomas Jefferson King, thought he would go to California to make a raise as he felt they were too poor to undertake to move out; so he built a double log house and left his family quite comfortable. In the spring of 1851 there came a great freshet which wiped out nearly the whole town including the log house. The Des Moines River overflowed its banks so that all the people had to move to higher grounds. The King family was taken into the home of Isaac Nelson, who treated them as members of his family. They stayed at Mr. Nelson's home about six weeks, when the water had gone down. The family then built another house that summer. Amy Jane's father went to California by way of Salt Lake and reached California in the fall of 1850. He soon secured work and sent money home to his family. On exploring the Feather River he found there were nuggets of gold in the river bed, so he thought out a scheme to turn the river out of its channel and get the gold. He was partly successful when a freshet came and washed out the dam he had made. In further adventures he lost a great deal of the money he had made. In the fall on 1853 he started for his home in Iowa sailing around Cape Horn and reached home the next spring. He went to work at once preparing for the journey across the plains, which was begun May 2, 1854. The journey was a hard one because of bad roads, rivers hard to cross, Indians who made things very unpleasant, etc. They finally reached Salt Lake City Aug. 6, 1854 and went immediately to the home of Elias Smith. They were now looking for a place to locate and went across the Jordan River to a place now called Taylorsville. About three weeks later they went north to west Bountiful where they thought they would locate. Brother King went to the mountains and got out a set of house logs, but before he started to build the house, he walked up to Kays Creek, now East Layton, and finally decided to build a house and locate there. He engaged in farming the rest of his life. The family passed through many hardships, but were always ready and willing to help any unfortunate person. The stranger and friend were always made welcome in their home. No one was ever turned away hungry. They also fed many Indians who came to the door for food. Amy Jane Smith's parents both died in 1876 and were buried near a stream which ran through an orchard on their farm. Later their bodies were moved and are now buried in the Kaysville cemetery. At the time of their death they were the oldest living couple in the Church. Amy Jane was baptized in the Church in 1844. She was always an ardent believer in the principles of the Gospel and a worker in the Church. She lived with her parents in Kaysville, now East Layton until her marriage to Elias Smith with whom her parents became acquainted in Iowaville. She attended a school taught by him. Elias Smith came to Utah in 1851, but her parents did not come until 1854. She was married to Elias Smith April 15, 1856 in the Endowment House at Salt Lake City, Utah, and came to S. L. City to make her home. Elias Smith with his two wives, Lucy Brown and Amy Jane king lived in a small log cabin on North Temple Street a short distance of West Temple Street. Her first child was born in a wagon box near the log cabin May 4, 1857. Later her husband, Elias Smith, build a large adobe house just west of the log cabin. Both of his wives with their families made their homes there. Lucy occupied the east half and A[m]y Jane the west half. As Amy Jane's family was getting larger her husband built several rooms on to the rear of the west side of the house in 1877, which was occupied by her family. After her husband's death in 1888 she was given the west half of the home and her children, Jesse M., Martha P., and Amy E. were given the east half. The other children were given other property. Amy Jane lived in the old home until 1918. -cont in memories section by Martha P. Smith