I was born in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania September 26, 1832.
My Father and Mother were baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in October 1843. I was baptized Christmas Day 1847. April 3, 1850 we bade farewell to the home of my birth and many dear connections and friends, and with my mother and brother and 133 Saints and the Presidency of Elders, Jacob Gilson and Edson Whipple, all bound for Kanesville on the Missouri River (in route for Salt Lake Valley). We all arrived May 14th in good health and spirits, rejoicing in our deliverance from Babylon.
Circumstance compelled me to stay in Kanesville until the next spring. In that winter, January 1851 I was married to Elder Andrew Hunter Scott of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, who came out in the same company that I came with. Started out for the Valley of the Great Salt Lake in the spring of 1851 in Captain Morris Phelps’ Company, as the Elk Horn River was very high and getting late in the season. The captain concluded to head the horn which was a tedious journey as only one company had started that way. Those that didn’t come the mountains in those days do not know what it is to travel over the plains in wagons drawn by oxen and pass only one house in 1000 miles and sometimes camp where there was no water for men or beast and no wood to make a fire. We traveled on our journey trusting in our Heavenly Father to preserve us to the end of our journey.
We crossed the mountains into the Salt Lake Valley on my nineteenth birthday September 26, 1851. We stopped in Salt Lake City that winter, lived in our wagon till the latter part of November. My first child was born December 1, 1851 in the 9th ward of Salt Lake City. We moved to Provo in March 1852 where my husband purchased 16 acres of land with a log house on it, with no floors; the window was a space in the logs about three feet square with willows nailed across instead of glass. When I think back to the past, take in consideration our house, situated on the outskirts of the city and on the trail of the Indians to their fishing ground, I cannot help but see a preserving power that protected us through the day and the dark hours of night. Many nights I and my two baby boys have stayed alone while my husband was working in canyons getting material for fencing, etc.
January 1853, March 17th my second son was born. We moved into the town as the Indians were on the war path and all living on the outside were counseled to move in. Camped out till we purchased city lots and built up a home again in the 2nd Ward in which I resided till 1865 when I moved out on a farm which we had purchased at which I still reside.
Many interesting incidents occurred in the past; some bringing pleasant recollections, others of hardships and wants of the things needed to make us comfortable in this life. The first year we came to Provo, which was 1852, my husband worked a large farm on shares for half the crop and expected to have one thousand bushels of grain and other kind of crops in abundance, but by the overflowing of the Provo River, we lost all except a few bushels of wheat and potatoes which we had to keep for seed for the next season. Many others were in the same condition. Provisions were not easy to get those days as they are now. We lived poor through that winter not having milk, butter, meat or potatoes. We raised a few bushels of turnips after the water receded from the farm which we boiled in water and sometimes for a change we added a little tallow and pepper and made a kind of stew. How would that do to put in a cook book for a fancy dish? Had to be very careful with our bread-stuff to make it last till spring of ’53 when we had a cow come in and borrowed bushels of wheat on interest, a peck to the bushel, which we had made into graham flour, not nice like we have now; the shives and beards of the wheat scratched our throats as it went down, but it lasted until some grain was ripe. After that year we had plenty and some to spare, except 2 years when the grasshoppers took most of the crops. We would have had plenty for our family but we divided with others till the last. The last sack of flour we had I divided with a poor sister which made us without bread like the rest. We had plenty of fish that suited me, for I like it, but still craved the bread. I had a half dollar for a long time. I bought a half bushel of bran with it for bread which we mixed up with milk and baked them, took the crust off and ate it and put it back in the oven to bake another crust on and so on until it was all ate up. We had quite a bit of fun over our bran cake sometimes, but that is past.
I hope that our posterity may not have to pass through such privations but I expect they will have all that they can endure in some other form for the Word of the Lord is that he will have tried people as gold seven times tried in the fire.
February 27, 1869 was nominated to fill the position of President of the Second Ward Relief Society with sister Mary Whipple as First Counselor and Sister Matilda Loveless as second which being presented by the Bishop was a unanimous vote of the meeting in which position I still remain, being the only President living of the four first presidencies of the four wards in Provo. This position I have tried to fill to the best of my ability.
October 11, 1874 my husband died leaving me with 8 minor children, my three oldest being married, making 11 in all. At the present date they are all married except the two youngest which are of age but still living at home. I have tried to bring them up in the faith of their father, a faithful worker to build up the Church with his means and time. He was the husband of five wives, father of 23 children and at the present date, I am grandmother of four children of my own and 11 step grandchildren by a son of my husband’s first wife which I brought up from small boy. His mother was a Methodist and would not come out to Utah with them. She kept two girls and left the boys (2) which I was mother to. The youngest died June 27, 1852 of Erysipelas, only sick 3 days. I had to wash and lay him out myself as no one could get to the house on account of the water flowing all between the town and where we lived at the time. His name was Hyrum Smith Scott. Twelve of my grandchildren have passed from this world of sorrow and care. What the next fifty years will bring in posterity and how many more who are here in the pleasant happy days of youth. My desire is that all who are of this family to the latest generation may be faithful to their covenants and callings in this life, that we may receive the good words, “Well done good and faithful servants, enter into the joys of your Lord”, is the sincere desire of my heart for all.
Yours truly, Sarah Ann Scott
Provo, Utah March 17, 1892
This history was placed in a box in the old 2nd Ward Relief Society building to be opened 50 years later. The box was opened in 1942. Grandmother Scott died 7 June 1904.
To my great grand child living————-Greetings, I send these papers with an account of the laying of the capstone of the Salt Lake Temple. I was there and witnessed it with Joy, and mingled by voice with the multitude in shouting the Hosannas to the Lord. I am in my 59th year. I do not expect to see another Jubilee Year on this earth in the body. When this box is opened, but I hope that the one that receives this package may be a true Latter-Day Saint. We could not close our box on the 17th of March as we intended to put in the picture of the Relief Society of the 2nd Ward.
May we all meet in a more perfect sphere, when we will al know each other in a grand family connection in the kingdom of our Lord and Savior.
From your Great Grandmother
Sarah Ann Scott
P.S. If not living in Provo City, To be forwarded to them.
(The Great Grand Child living mentioned above is Elva Sabin, Mesa, Arizona)
This history and letter were taken from the August 1967 Andrew Hunter Scott Bulletin, Vol 1, Issue 2.
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