William Carroll McClellan
|
William learned to work hard and handled large responsibilities at an early age. In 1840, when Mormon Elders baptized William's parents in Shelby county, Illinois, his father was determined to sell their farm and move to Nauvoo. This was not an easy thing to do. Their farm was one of the best and largest in the country, containing 600 acres of cultivated lands. Early in the spring of 1841, William's father sent him to Nauvoo to look after the new land he had bought there. In Nauvoo, William was baptized on May 12, 1841, on his thirteenth birthday. All summer he chored around their Nauvoo property and returned in the fall to help his father move the family onto it.
All the winter he worked for wages. In fact, that was his lot for as long as they lived in Nauvoo. He worked in the brickyard, did team work, and did much boating and rafting. The last two years in Nauvoo were spent mostly on the river, where, because he could do a man's work on the water, he could command a man's wages. As troubles in Nauvoo became worse, he was counted on during all hours of the day, and often did emergency work at night. In 1846, William enlisted in the Mormon Battalion, marching out with the 5th Company to Santa Fe, New Mexico. While on the Rio Grande in November, he was sent to Pueblo, Colorado with an invalid detachment to care for the sick. He finally arrived in Salt Lake on July 27, 1847, just three days after Brigham Young. William married Almeda Day in 1849 and the couple first settled in Missouri. In 1850, William and Almeda migrated to Utah with their first child, and both of their fathers. William settled in Payson, Utah, marking the first of his pioneering ventures. In 1857, William was ordained President of the 46th Quorum of the Seventy. Then the Utah War came and William volunteered to help guard the pass in the mountains, to fortify and block canyon entrances to keep Johnston's Army from entering and carrying out extermination threats. He spent all of 1858 on duty in Echo Canyon where he also raised fifty men to help. As part of the 500 men who worked under the direction of Lot Smith, they were instrumental in forcing General Sidney Johnston into winter quarters at Fort Bridger. In 1863, William was sent back to Missouri to help other saints come to the Salt Lake Valley. It was a company of about 100 wagons and 400 immigrants. William was to care for the women and children who had to walk. He was to keep them ahead of the wagon instead of straggling behind. William was also the camp physician and kept his medical supplies in his coat pocket. Around 1870, William was the prime instigator in extending the borders of Payson and building a canal from the Spanish Fork river. He kept the work moving, combating the discouragement of those who felt it was too big an undertaking for such a small group of impoverished people. When the work was finally done, "I am prouder of it," he said in his journal, "than of any job I was ever connected with." He was also a prime mover in building the meeting house, creating the funds as they went along, and in the process a feeling of unity and brotherhood was made that had not existed before. He also built a Relief Society store. In 1877, William was called with others to settle Sunset, Arizona and help establish the United Order, a utopian form of living, where there are no rich and no poor, where everyone shared alike. Even though failure had come to the Order in modern times, William retained his hopes that this time it would succeed. He put all his belongings [4 wagons, 6 teams of oxen, a span of horses, and light wagon, all filled with flour, merchandise and household goods] into the Order, hoping only for some of the exaltation that blessings from living the Order righteously could bring. When the Order dissolved three years later, William left with little more than that which his family wore. William was a discouraged man, but in a few years found a fertile valley to pioneer in Pleasanton, New Mexico. In 1885, William moved to Old Mexico, eventually living in Colonia Juarez where he did his part toward making it a thriving settlement and setting an example of frugality and thrift by getting respectable homes for both his families. He built the first rock house in Old Town, helping survey the East Canal, and made ditches to carry water from it to town lots. Before he died in 1916, the years of pioneering Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and finally Old Mexico, had taken their toll. As years piled up, his step slowed, his eyes grew dimmer. He then took time to write the story of his life for his posterity, including this closing paragraph: "I will leave a large Posterity, and my wish is that none of them will ever do worse than I have done, but as much better as possible. It would be a great satisfaction if I could know they would all grow up to be honest, virtuous, upright, and useful members of Society, as these ideas have been my hobby through life. Possibly I rode them too hard, at times for my own good, but yet I think of the poet that said, 'A wit's a feather, a chief's a rod, but an honest man is the work of God!'" compiled by Alice Jo C. Ellsworth: 1997
Born in Tennessee, 1828. He was the son of James McClellan and Cynthia Stewart. His parents were early converts to the Church of Later Day Saints and they moved to Nauvoo in 1841.
He joined the exodus from Nauvoo in 1846 and volunteered to join the Mormon Battalion. He married Almeda Day, July 19, 1849 and together had twelve children. William was an officer in the military organization in Utah and took part in the Walker War. He was called with his family to help settle Arizona in 1877. They were in the United Order in Brigham City, AZ. William married Elsie Jane Richardson in polygamy on April 14, 1873. Almeda went to the Endowment House with them and placed her hand on his. William and Elsie had eight children together. He ran the saw mill near Mormon Lake, south of Flagstaff. After the Order broke up he went to Pleasanton, Williams Valley, New Mexico, where he resided for a few years. He was Bishop there in Pleasanton. About 1885 or 1886 he went to Mexico where he helped colonize that country. He was with the Saints when they were driven out in July of 1912. He later returned and passed away there April 28, 1916 at Colonia Juarez. Find A Grave Memorial #41672002
Created by C. Brad Schoening Record added: September 7, 2009 |