Moses Cluff
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Excerpts taken from the Cluff Family JournalMoses was baptized about the year 1836 (at age 8) ... accompanied his parents from Durham to Ohio, and thence to Nauvoo, Illinois, where they arrived in the year 1840 ... During one of the occasions when the Prophet Joseph Smith was forced into hiding from his persecutors, he found temporary quarters at the home of Father Cluff. It was at this time that Moses was detailed to perform an act that gave him prominence among his brothers. The pleasing task was to carry food and drink to the Prophet.
Later in his youth, Moses found employment to benefit his family in various ways. He worked as a wheat harvester, a blacksmith's blower and striker, an engineer in a sawmill, a gardener, a common laborer, and a teamster. The home of the Cluff's in Nauvoo was in plain view of the Temple and boys saw its growth from the foundation to the tower and when completed, they were permitted to enter and behold its magnificence, which luster added sacredness to its value in their estimation. After the Cluff family left Nauvoo with the rest of the saints, they settled in Pisgah, Iowa, but Moses had the opportunity to return to Nauvoo with a Mr. Phineas Kimball to labor as a gardener while his brother, David labored as a teamster. ... To behold again the Temple of the Lord from which they had so recently been drive [from], was indeed a source of great satisfaction. ... On the night of November 19, 1843, [Moses] beheld from his sleeping apartment that the Temple was enveloped in flames. Hastening to the burning building he beheld a motley crowd jeering and making all kinds of ugly jests and he listened to the profanity of the wicked crowd until his blood ran cold. Together with his brothers, David and Joseph, Moses left for Salt Lake before the remainder of the family as teamsters for Major Seth M. Blair. Upon their arrival in Salt Lake City, the boys, "anxious to find a suitable place for the family to permanently locate, made a visit to Provo, which had been highly spoken of as desireable locality. The boys were much pleased with Provo. Farm land seemed to be plentiful and water abundant. So a few days after the arrival of the family in Salt Lake Valley [1850] it was decided to move at once to Provo. At a special conference of the City on the 28th of August [1852], Moses Cluff in connection with 105 other Elders was called to go on a foreign mission ... Moses [arrived and] remained in England where he was appointed to traveling Elder in the Hull conference. He labored assiduously, and at the close of two years faithful service he was appointed President of the Newcastle Upon-Tyne conference. Moses, it is said, labored with considerable energy and succeeded in performing a very creditable mission, serving as president of this conference for twelve months. He was then released and appointed president of the Cambridgeshire conference, in which capacity he labored until his release to return home [May 1856]. On his trip home, when he reached the frontiers, ... Moses was selected by the emigration agents to take charge of what was generally known as the "Church herd," consisting of [500 head of] loose cattle and young stock to be sent west with the last company of emigrants. The enduring characteristic of this young returning missionary must have been appreciated by the agents, for no one seemed to be so well qualified to pas through and endure the privations he did many times especially during the laster part of the journey. Starting from the frontiers at an unusually late date necessitated traveling through the most mountainous part of the entire route, in the inclement season of the year. After much hardship, it was after the middle of December when Moses ... reached his home in Provo. Moses ... had an attraction to Provo in the person of Miss Rebecca Langman who had preceded him to Utah. ... He having wooed and won Miss Langman they were married [on December 25, 1856]. Like many young married couples, Moses and Rebecca started their life together at the home of his parents, known as the "bedrock". Not a great while elapsed before Moses and his bride were the possessors of their first home. Farming was his chief occupation ... For many years while residing in Provo, he carried the United States mail to and from Heber City. Passing through the Provo canyon his life was often in danger from snow slides which came down from the high points in such quantities as to dam up the turbulent mountain stream requiring days before the water should effect a passage through. Finding that opportunities were not sufficient in Provo to properly locate his large family satisfactorily [he had married other wives and had many children] as they grew up to manhood, he resolved to cast his lot in the wilds of the Arizona. There he labored with all the zeal and energy possible to provide homes [in Pima] for his families. Cluff Family Journal (Rearranged), 1995
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