Henry Field
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Henry Field was born July 24, 1817, at Weeford, Staffordshire, England. He married Sarah Baker, and their first five children were born in England: Louisa, William, Carolina (who died at one year), Hyrum, and Orson. When the Fields arrived on the Hooper Flats just before winter set in 1872, there children were the following ages: Louisa (age not mentioned) was the eldest daughter and was married and had a son, Samuel, who was 2; Frederick William was 14; Hyrum was 6; and Orson was 4 years old.
They left on the ship Minnesota October 14, 1872. On board the ship all were exposed to the dreaded disease of small pox. When they arrived in Ogden, William and other relatives met them and took them to Hooper. William had built a new log house for his wife and children, which was complete except for windows and flooring, and he moved his family into it so the Fields could live in his former home. They were most grateful and happy to be reunited with their loved ones; then tragedy struck. First, William Field, age fourteen, died of small pox, then six-year-old Hyrum. There were no doctors available. The family struggled desperately to keep alive. Food, clean clothing, and bedding were brought and left outside their door. Everyone was afraid of this severe and contagious disease, but the Field family was near death and in great need of help. William Baker, because of his great concern, knowing full well the risk to his own life and the jeopardy to his family, started to the home with a prayer in his heart. Much to his surprise, when he came near the house, Elisha Millard, the only person for miles around, and from another town, who had had small pox, had just arrived. He insisted he could care for their needs and prevailed upon William to return to his family. Mr. Millard moved the expectant mother, Sarah, to a vacant cattle shelter commonly called the “herd house” hoping she would be spared. (She was in her fifth month of pregnancy.) It was distressingly cold. He stretched a blanket across the open door, left a white rag for the day signal and a lantern if she needed help during the night. The next morning he took food to her and went through the trying experience of telling her the sad news that her only daughter, Louisa, had died during the night. Elisha went back and forth between the cabin and the herd house for weeks administering to their needs. Three times he thought Henry, the father, was dead; he was so sure at one time when he had turned black, that Elisha built another coffin of six pieces of crude lumber, as he had for the other three, and was preparing to go to the cemetery in the night to bury the body. In cases of small pox, it was necessary to bury the bodies at night. So three members of the Field family, one by one, were carried to the cemetery at night by Elisha Millard for burial. Yet, Henry did not die. He lost his hair, his fingernails and toenails, and the flesh peeled off the bottom of his feet. His face was deeply scarred with pock marks which he carried throughout his life. His eyesight was impaired, but he lived to be almost one hundred years old. As soon as spring came and the weather permitted, Henry Sr. helped his brothers-in-law measure land east of Hooper which was to become Roy. They had no surveyor’s instruments; but with the use of the long reins of the harness, they measured eight acres each for their future farms. When the boundaries were re-measured in later years, there was an error of less than ten rods in the whole perimeter. Each settler was allowed 80 acres by the United States Homestead Act. Such land had to be cleared and worked, residence established, and certain other improvements to qualify for ownership. They grubbed the land so they could build their houses. William’s house of rough lumber was the first to be finished. Henry’s was second. It was a strong, well-built log cabin. The logs had to be hauled by wagon and team from Weber Canyon, which was about nine miles to the mouth. The logs for the Field house were hauled from the Stoddard sawmill up Weber Canyon. Henry and Sarah tilled the hard, dry land with a single hand plow furrow by furrow, and planted dry-land wheat. Nothing would grow but grain, and that not very well. Trees were planted but died from lack of water. The only fuel the settlers had to burn were not logs as some would suppose, but sagebrush, rabbit brush, biscuit roots, and greasewood. The land was plowed with hand plows. The women and children followed behind the plows and gathered the brush and put it in piles. The piles were tamped down and stored for winter beside the homes. Snakes, lizards, and toads lived beneath the scrub brushes and often slithered across the feet of those who were gathering the brush. The children of the settlers gathered willows from Weber River to make fences. The grain was thrashed with two of the willows joined together and used as a flail to beat out the grain from the straw onto a blanket. The grain was then ground into flour. The sand made it difficult for the animals to walk, and even worse in the winter when the sand turned to mud. Life was hard - little water, no shade, little food, a great shortage of material things, small living quarters, lots of hard work, insect infestation. Yet these first settlers had something indefinable; they never gave up. Sarah made cheese and butter. She washed and carded the wool found along the fences and sagebrush from passing herds of sheep. From this wool she knitted stockings and mittens. Earning a living became a little easier when Henry took advantage of a railroad spur and opened a coal yard adjacent to the Denver & Rio Grande track (2783 West 6000 South). Coal was shipped to him from mines in Castlegate, Utah. For many years, as long as he was able, he served the communities of Roy, Hooper, and Clinton with coal. He served his church as presiding Elder of Kanesville-Roy branch until the Roy Ward was organized in 1889. He was also a trustee of the Roy School District. He was loved and highly respected in the community. Hadley Heritage compiled by Ralph Hadley, a grandson
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