Abigail Cordelia Burr
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Abigail Cordelia Burr came of an aristocratic and well to do family. Her parents were Horace Burr and Concurence Hungerford. One of her brothers was a noted lawyer of Washington D.C. and another was a colonel in the army. She joined the church with her husband close to Kirtland, Ohio in 1831 and was disowned by all her family by so doing. She passed through all of the mobbing and drivings and other persecutions endured by the Saints in Kirtland, Ohio; Jackson County and Far West, Missouri; Quincy and Nauvoo, Illinois; and Council Bluff, Iowa. She crossed the plains in 1852 during the early settlement of Utah.
Abigail was rather small in statue and of a pleasant disposition. She was full of faith and integrity. She endured a good deal in the drivings and persecutions of the Saints. Her oldest daughter, Rebecca Corelia died from exposure during the drivings as a critical period in 1832. Her little son, Levi Benjamin, was about eight yeras old when he fell in front of a sled. Another little boy was killed in 1833 by a kettle of hot wawter tipping over on him from the camp fire. Those were pitiful trials to bear in the home. She must have been a very heroic woman. She nursed her husband, James, during his illness and cured him of the habit of using opium. He had acquired this habit from a previous illness when the doctor fed him opium. Her husband, James Clark Owens, had to hide out nights to keep away from the mob. At one time the mob came for him, but he was not home. She was running to the cradle to protect her baby when the falling door struck her, knocking her senseless to the floor. The mob thought they had killed her, so they fled. It seems that they were in the mist of the mobbings and the drivings of the Saints. Her oldest son, Horace Burr, was the one to take word to the authorities of the destruction of the printing press. When Edward Partridge and Brother Allen were tarred and feathered, it was Abigial's oldest daughter, who with another girl, ran and told their Brother Partridge's and Brother Allen's family who then brought quilts to wrap them in. When they were driven into the state of Iowa, they were in a very destitute condition. Abigail's husband, James, went off to look for work and was lost in a snowstrom or blizard and was nearly frozen to death when he reached the camp of some herders. He was able to tell them his name and where is family lived, but he died during the night. These men told grandmother about it and said they had buried him. She paid them to bring the body to her, but they never did. One of the men came back later, however, and told her that they could not find the place of his burial. Thus she was left a widow in January, 1947 in those hard conditions. Abigail went down into Missouri with her son-in-law, Milo Webb (married to Abigail's daughter, Caroline Amelia) to get an outfit to cross the plains. From there they crossed the plains in 1852 with her son, Horace Burr and James Clark, they went on to Provo, and when the boys were called to Fillmore, they took their mother with them, where she lived with her youngest son, James Clark, until her death, November 27, 1861-62. She died being worn out with the cares an burdens of life. But through all her troubles she was never heard to complain against the Providence of God, cheerfully enduring all for the Gospel's sake. A grandson [Burr] related going with his cousin very frequently to stay at times with Grandmother there in Fillmore. She would have them take turns with her in prayer, some time he would drop to sleep and would have to be aroused in the middle o the prayer to finish. She was always very kind to them and taught them to do right. Grandson, Francis Adelbert, said: "Grandmother was a Latter-Day Saint through and through. When she was convinced that a thing was right, she did it regardless of consequences." She possessed the gift of faith and healing to remarkable extent and her influence of good was felt by all with whom she came in contact. Surely a life of this type brings a testimony to us of her descendants who have not had such trials to bear. Taken from a story written by Medora O. Trueblood, she states, "the incidents are gleaned mostly from memories of my cousins Edward and Adelbert Webb, and some from my brother Milo, and a few bits of records we have so it is very incomplete."
combined by Alice Jo C. Ellsworth: 1997 |