Thursday, May 29, 2008

Memorial Day Greetings

MEMORIAL DAY GREETINGS

Although Memorial Day this year was stormy, the cemetery was bright with beautiful flowers. In the Bott Monument Company Office is a little sign that says "The memorial is created not because someone died, but because someone lived." Every life is important and precious, worthy to be remembered.

No new email messages have been sent to me this week. However, three donations to the Monument Fund were sent in this month. The online June statement will be posted next week.

If you are a member of the America First Credit Union, you can transfer directly from your account to the fund account online or over the phone. To donate by check, make them payable to the Chauncey W. West Monument Fund. The address is: America First Credit Union, P. O. Box 9199, Ogden, UT 84409-0199. Phone: 801-617-0900.

Please email me at http://norma.buchanan@hotmail.com when you make donations giving the amount and date deposited. I would also like to hear from those of you who are interested in West family history. Thank you very much.

Another benefit of this project is to facilitate our finding our kindred, living and dead. The new Family Search, now being tested in some of the smaller temple districts, will be an amazing tool for us. It will be a place where those working on completing accurate family records can compare information and sources. It looks very exciting.

Now to this week's episode about the life of Chauncey Walker West.

Chauncey Walker West not only lived, but he lived fully by giving all of his energy, devotion, and labor to follow the Savior Jesus Christ. His service was remarkable. We go now to the next segment of his life after the harrowing, but very important participation in the Parley P. Pratt exploration to southern Utah.
This week's episode is about the mission to Asia. I have quoted from the book by R. Lanier Britsch, Nothing More Heroic and Joseph A. West's brief Biographical Sketch. Britsch begins with this in the preface to his book "I have chosen to recount this history in the voice of Amos Milton Musser….., who was one of the first missionaries to serve in India and spent a number of years working at the Church historian's office from 1902 to 1909. Thus he was probably familiar with the primary sources I have used…"
Britsch explained that from 1833, Britain a was in control of India. While the British ruled India many native British and other Europeans went to India hoping to find positions and get gain. They became the elite of the country and developed a strong upper class that the native Indian could never attain to. This led eventually to a tragic war in 1856/57. Much of this was going on while Latter-day Saint elders were traveling the roads and rivers of India. For the most part they were above the fray. They were affected by it, however, as noted in Britsch's book, native Indians and Mormon missionaries were excluded from association with the upper class.
I quote directly from his book, page 3. "The story of seventeen set-apart missionaries and their efforts to penetrate the almost unbreakable social and religious shell of the British in India. The elders attempted in every area to teach the Gospel to native Indians, but the main effort of the missionaries was to find Europeans who would listen to their message. At times the missionaries complained that the type or class of people who were so freely accepting the Restored Gospel in England and Scandinavia were simply not in India. This was largely true. The mission proved to be a most trying missionary experience. But it is a wonderful story of adventure, faith, faithfulness, and courage."
In Britsch's book he explained that missionaries had been sent to India as early as 1851 from Britain under the direction of Lorenzo Snow and that by spring of 1852 there had been over two-hundred baptisms. A development after January 1853 that had a great effect on the acceptance of missionaries was that the practice of polygamy became widely known. According to Britsch "Polygamy was the shout heard round the world. Everything any enemy of the Church could conceive in anger and hatred was heaped against the members of the Church because of this practice. Even before we arrived in Calcutta, word of polygamy went before us. There was no escaping its effects even in the most distant villages and camps of India, Burma, Ceylon, Singapore, Siam, and Hong Kong."
In Joseph West's account we read: "In the fall of 1852, Brother West and thirty-six others were called to go upon missions to eastern Asia. They started from Salt Lake City on the 21st of November, taking the southern route to California. On reaching San Francisco, the Elders, who were practically without means, learned that $6,250 would be needed to take them to their several fields of labor. Nothing daunted, they immediately distributed themselves over the city of San Francisco and throughout the mining regions of the state, seeking assistance. Elder West went to the latter section, and in less than two weeks the required amount was raised. On Jan. 25, 1853, Elder West made a contract with Captain Windsor of the ship "Monsoon," for the passage of the Hindustan and Siam missionaries to Calcutta, agreeing to pay $200 per passenger. On the 28th they set sail.
Five days after leaving San Francisco, Elders Richard Ballantyne and Levi Savage broke out with smallpox, to the great consternation of the captain and crew. The Elders promptly called upon the Lord in fervent prayer for the speedy restoration of their brethren and the preservation of themselves and the crew from the dreadful disease. God gave them an immediate witness that their prayers would be answered, and in less than two weeks the stricken Elders left their bunks and the smallpox, at first so threatening, disappeared from among them."

MORE ABOUT THE REMARKABLE MISSION TO ASIA NEXT WEEK -
YOU WON'T WANT TO MISS IT!

JUST A REMINDER - SEND IN YOUR DONATIONS AND EMAIL ME THE DATE & AMOUNT

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Making Progress

Dear West Family and Friends:

Deposits to the Chauncey W. West Monument Fund this past week: 5/14 - $100, 5/19 - $25. I don't know who sent these in but THANK YOU VERY MUCH. Those who made these donations, and those who send in donations in the future please email me and let me know the date and amount. I would greatly appreciate it.

PLEASE, PLEASE, let everyone you know who is a descendant about this blog and if you receive my email please forward it on to others. Thanks very much.

This week I begin the first segment from A Biographical Sketch of Chauncey Walker West, by his son John Alva West, published in 1911.

Chauncey Walker West, presiding Bishop of Weber County from 1855 to 1870, was the son of Alva West and Sally Benedict and was born Feb. 6, 1827, in Erie County, Pennsylvania. His parents removed in his childhood to the State of New York, where, in his sixteenth year, he obeyed the gospel, and soon after started out as a traveling Elder. In the fall of 1844 he gathered with his parents to Nauvoo, Ill., where, early in 8145, he was ordained a member of the 12th Quorum of Seventy--quite a distinguished position in those days for a young man only seventeen years of age.
When the Saints were expelled from Nauvoo in 1846, he assisted in starting the first company for the west. In June, 1846, he left with his and his father's family, to seek a home in the Rocky Mountains. He partook of the hardships incident to that memorable journey, losing many of his kindred on the way, among the number his father and mother and brother Joseph, who died at Winter Quarters. With no available resources but his indomitable will and untiring activity he succeeded in bringing his father's large family to Great Salt Lake Valley, where they arrived in the fall of 1847. He was one of the first settlers of Salt Lake Ctiy and also of Provo, Utah County, from which latter place, in the month of December, 1849, he started with a company of men under the direction of Apostle Parley P. Pratt to explore the sourthern part of Utah. The company was gone two months and suffered many hardships, but returned in safety. It was upon this return trip, and when the company was threatened with starvation, and came near perishing in the snow, that Brother Pratt selected Chauncey W. West and Nathan Tanner from among the members of his party to go to the settlements for relief; they made a most remarkable night and day journey to Provo.

Continued next week - be sure to login.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

C.W. West Monument Fund Progress Report

May 15, 2008

The news is getting around about the project. Two new people contributed this week that are not descendants of Chauncey but believe it is a "worthy cause." They are Dean Rock of Mountain Green who sent in one dollar and Paula Campbell Howell of South Weber contributed five dollars. Paula is my second cousins, descendants of Erastus Bingham whose fort Chauncey first lived in when he came to Ogden.

Descendants Kevin McCurley, Michelle McKnight, Lynnette Richins, and Marilyn Larsen contacted me this week, each glad that there will be a new monument on Chauncey's gravesite and pledging support.

The Chauncey W. West Monument Fund account now has a balance of one-thousand ninety-one dollars and thirty-nine cents ($1,086.39)

A GREAT BIG THANK YOU TO ALL

Expect to include a drawing of the new monument and a firm cost by first post in June. More about Chauncey will be posted next week.

Notify every descendant you know of this blog and encourage them to participate. Thank you

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Transcontinental Railroad Era

THANK YOU TO THOSE WHO PLEDGED FINANCIAL SUPPORT (named in last weeks post)

THANK YOU TO PAT MOSES OF PRESTON, IDAHO WHO CONTRIBUTED $60 TO THE FUND. SHE IS A DESCENDANT OF CHAUNCEY'S OLDER BROTHER AARON.

Most of the planning for the monument project can be done via electronic communication, but a meeting will be necessary to create a family organization. It may be possible to do it via a chat room or something of that sort. I am still learning how. More information on that in next couple of weeks. I will also post an illustration of the new monument and definite cost.

One third of the cost will need to be paid to order the material by September. Another one third must be paid to start making it about December and the final one third at time of completion of the monument by April 2009. The dedication will be near the time the monument is set in place.

Plans for a family gathering and dedication need to be completed by end of summer 2008 so all interested may make arrangements to attend. These plans need to be made by a family organization which means YOU.

Those of you who are in favor of this project and plan to support it financially, please email me what you pledge to donate so we can plan accordingly.

As I continue to learn more about the accomplishments of Chauncey West and the tremendous historical events that took place during his lifetime that he had a part in, I feel totally inadequate to put it into words. I am reading the seven-hundred page book Empire Express - Building The First Transcontinental Railroad, by David Haward Bain which was described by another historian and writer Geoffrey C. Ward in these words: "One of the greatest of all American stories has finally found a chronicler up to the task of telling it. David Haward Bain has managed to encompass it all--genuine heroism and brutal dispossession, utopian vision and rampant corruption, technological wonders and war with the elements--in vivid narrative that no one interested in the American character will want to miss."

It is obvious to me that the "genuine heroism" and utopian vision" spoken of definitely applied to Brigham Young's vision of how a railroad would benefit the growth of the Kingdom of God as well as the benefit to our nation. Brigham Young was the first one to buy Union Pacific stock and the only one who paid in full for it. Chauncey W. West, his partners and all of the men who labored in this state, most of whom were never paid, are the real heroes of this epoch.

For those of you who want to know more about Chauncey's contribution in this very important part of our nations history, I refer you to Bain's book or to Stephan Ambrose, another respected historical writer, who also wrote a book about the building of the railroad. It came with a high price for Chauncey and his family. Chauncey died in San Francisco while on one of several trips made in an attempt to be paid for the work that his company did in building the railroad. They were paid about half of what was owed. Another partner was Ezra T. Benson who also died within about six months of Chauncey. Lorin Farr was left with trying to straighten everything out. It took the rest of his lifetime for him to recover financially. What a great loss it was to everyone in the Ogden and Logan areas to lose such able, righteous, beloved servants of God.