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Frederic Isaac Jones
Mary Mackelprang Jones
Frederic Isaac Jones
Born: 6 February 1851 at St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, USAMary Mackelprang
Born: 3 Sep 1857 at Cedar City, Iron County, Utah, USALIFE SKETCH FREDERIC ISAAC JONES AND MARY MACKELPRANG
Fredrick I. and Mary M. Jones were living in Cedar City, Utah when they heard about a mission which the church proposed to establish in the faraway and unknown San Juan corner of the territory.
The church was looking for young people of integrity, people who could adapt to adverse conditions, and who could be depended on to act wisely and courageously among Indians. It was proposed to build and maintain a Latter-Day Saint town right in the midst of the war-loving Navajos and Paiutes, and win by kindness and fair dealings the good will and confidence which military operations do not inspire.
Dread anxiety became a reality, and a meeting was announced to be held in Cedar, where the names would be read of men called to the San Juan Mission. The meeting house had been crowded to overflowing; almost breathless as they waited to hear the fatal list - "we were among those who were called". Both said "We will go."
The time set for their departure was 18 October 1882, three years from the starting date of the first company that left in the fall of 1879, to fight their way through by way of the notorious Hole-In-The-Rock crossing of Colorado. "We moved slowly away from our beloved Cedar with aching hearts after saying goodbye to our loved ones, and our homes and the land of our birth, not knowing when, if ever, we would see them again, and not knowing where we were going," wrote Aunt Jody Wood in her journal.
What they saw and what they suffered, while they toiled through about 300 miles of raw, roadless wilderness, defied all their powers of description, the reality of their weariness, frustration, and anguish could never be fully described to anyone who had never experienced it. Their children suffered with them, and one little boy, John was ill. Day by day they hunter desperately for water. "Water is one of the greatest blessings we can have while traveling. It is so priceless we pour a cup of it on one man's hands, and other hold his hands under that, and four or five wash with one or two cups of water."
[By the time the 1882 band traveled to Bluff, the ferry at Hole-in-the-Rock had been moved by Charles Hall about 30 miles upstream to 'Hall's Crossing.' The roadless wilderness mentioned above was a new road from Escalante to the Colorado at the new ferry. Hyrum Perkins acted as guide for this company which also included the Samuel and Jody Wood family.]
It is not known just when they arrived at Bluff, and how much more than a month, if any, they spent on the road. From Aunt Jody's journal again we have the quote, "We are happy to get to Bluff. Our horses are tired out, so are we, but we got here alive; the Lord surely was with us." (Later research reveals date - 18 November 1882)
They were glad to be alive after the strenuous journey, and thankful to the Lord for their arrival in Bluff, on the San Juan River, but what did it have to offer them? For the present, nothing but the cramped quarters in the little log fort with it's mud roofs that they built for protection. When the people of Bluff began moving out of the fort in 1884, Fred Jones built a log cabin or room thatched with mud. A spirit of love and good cheer prevailed with these builders of the remote mission; they had all made great sacrifice to come and begin this difficult work for the sake of friendly relations with the Indians, and they drew together for mutual purpose and mutual defense.
In the winter of 1886, Fred I.Jones was called, with several other men, to establish the first town near Blue Mountains, and t be the first bishop of the new town. The problem of beginning and maintaining a Mormon town, with Mormon ideals and the kind of substantial claim to land and water, and the foundation of vital industries, in the face of the unscrupulous out-law element prevailing at that time--that was a fearsome problem calling for real courage and faith to make a beginning. Besides the outlaws there was a bill pending in Congress proposing to give San Juan County to the Utes, and the way that bill hung fire for years would have disheartened the majority of men. Not so with Fred I. Jones, he went right on as if he intended to stay, and he did stay, regardless.
Carlisle's Ranch was five miles north of the new little town, and he challenged the right of settlers to begin a town in the heart of his cattle range. He challenged their right to the water. He employed, or at least sheltered, a formidable gang of gun-men and outlaws who tried to frighten the bishop and his people with their appropriating loose horses and other stock on the range. They rode through the streets of the town, firing their guns, and howling like Comanches or the warpath.
Bishop Jones was not gun-man. His courage was something which relies on defenses more potent than guns. Yet there was an occasion when he was about to use a gun, and no doubt would have use it if providence had not intervened. The desperadoes of that time delighted to boast of how they made men dance, while they fired bullets into the ground near their feet. Of all the men in Monticello, there was not one who would dance them into more boasted glory than the Mormon Bishop. To tell of making the bishop dance would be a big story to tell.
Among the drunken gang that came riding into town one day from the ranch to the north, was a loud bully, call Bill Johnson, who boasted he was going to make the bishop dance. He talked of it so loud and so long as the liquor in him made him more desperate and daring that the word was relayed to the bishop, as he was watched by the bedside of his sick wife. He could see the noisy rabble a little more than a block away to the west, and he kept an eye on them, hoping their boasted intentions would evaporate in bluster.
He saw Bill Johnson come swaggering down in his direction, and he calculated coolly what would have to be done. He looked at his gun on the wall, and prayed, "O Lord, if you don't want me to kill that man, then stop him, for he cannot come here to enter my home, and terrify my sick wife." Now, "the Lord moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform," and he had a mysterious, but an effective way of saving Johnson from the bishop's gun. In that crowd had been a notorious hoodlum, call Kid Jackson, and he had staggered down from the crowd and fallen into the ditch, from which he was too drunk to get out. He could raise up enough to see Bill Johnson, and he took a friendly shot at him. At this, Johnson went to him, and the two drunks scuffled and wallowed there in the mud, forgetting the bishop while he put up his gun and thanked the Lord. Bishop Jones was given providential warnings many times of serious danger into which he would have fallen but for the warning.
The bishop's little log home, and later a large brick house, was a hospitable refuge for both friends and strangers. The meals bounteous, well-prepared, and served with a welcome in full keeping with everything that was brought to the table. A perfect example of the kind of rugged frugality, fearless industry, and the kind of manhood and womanhood which, with the favor of the Lord, provides for its own wants, and is always able to help others.
Bishop Jones was a well educated man. Not that he had attended school; school was not the place for him to get the kind of training which fitted him so perfectly for his task of starting a town and establishing order in a den of thieves. He deserved a degree as farmer, builder, diplomat, pioneer. What he lacked in what the conventional school could give, was more than compensated for by his good common, reliable horse sense.
As a farmer he set for the pioneers of what community about the best possible example that they could understand and follow, about the best that was known at the time. Before dry farming was discovered and introduced into the country, he had thought it out and was testing it in little experiment farms. He fenced a little piece of ground for the purpose and raised wheat successfully there util her knew it could be done before the experimental farm was begun north of Verdure. He had not only the understanding of it, but he had the implicit faith that it could be done.
In one of the Stake Conferences held in Bluff in the nineties, I heard him make an impressive talk on the text, "Keep your platter right side up," meaning plow and plant and have your ground ready to yield when the rain comes. If you haven't faith to do that, how will you benefit by the rain when the Lord sends it?
He had the know-how to meet unprecedented situations, to make turns and apply means and remedies he had never had occasion to use before. He was strong to endure under difficulties; no weakling could have held the fort and laid the foundation for the prosperous town on the east slope of Blue Mountain. What the bishop does for a town reaches a long time into the future, and Fredrick I. Jones has immortalized his name by the town built on the foundation which he laid
---From the writing of Albert R. Lyman in the History of F.I. and Mary M. Jones
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Frederic Isaac Jones
Mary Mackelprang Jones