Picture of Arnold Goodliffe

Born–2 April 1837

Married–Esther Arbon

On 17 Jan 1870

Died–9 June 1913

Arnold Goodliffe came quite early because he was in Salt Lake with some of the leading men to meet the Johnson Army who were sent out to see what the Mormons were doing in the West; but the army didn’t fight them but left them in peace. They found them with little homes built and farming even though the crickets visited them. They worked hard and made a living. They built cities and towns so the army had good reports to take back with them about the Mormons. The army may not have meant to  fight them, but if they did they would have found them prepared to defend themselves and their homes.

After Arnold Goodliffe had returned from his mission to England he was called to settle a place in the Curlew Valley which was called Snowville, after President Lorenzo Snow. He was willing to listen to the orders and counsel of the Church President and hastened to make preparations for the move from Malad, Idaho to Snowville, Utah. The day came when he was finally packed and he with his wives and brother-in-law and family and others succeeded in making the journey to the place for new homes north of the Great Salt Lake and back into the level sage covered valley where some had said a Jack rabbit couldn’t even survive. A pretty well traveled road lay across this valley extending from Brigham City in the west. They planned the town site of Snowville along this line. Kelton was their nearest railroad station, lying to the southwest. Here is where they got mail and posted letters and did some trading. More oftimes went to Brigham City where they could do better and as the Church President was from that place it was more like going home. They found timber and got out logs and were soon hard at work. Finally a settlement was taking shape as many came to make homes here. The ground was tilled at last and crops of wheat began to show. Water was taken out from deep creek which slowly wound its way down through the valley, and from this they irrigated their crops and had a good yield even for the first year.

It didn’t take long to see how much better off people were who followed the council of those in authority and worked as if they meant to accomplish something. They were those who made the desert blossom as a rose and finally had beautiful homes and were happy. Arnold Goodliffe soon had a mercantile store set up and a large camp house to accommodate the traveler. Finally they were running a hotel too in their big house. Everyone found plenty to do. A splendid school building was erected by the community which was used also for church, amusement, and other activities. Arnold Goodliffe was the bishop here for many years and the settlement thrived.

ARNOLD GOODLIFFE–From His Own Notes

Arnold Goodliffe, Bishop of Snowville, Box Elder County, Utah, is the younger child of James Goodliffe and Caroline Elizabeth Andreews, and was born April 2, 1837, in Barrowden, Rutlandshire, England. Following is the bishop’s own narrative:

“I came of goodly parentage, my father and mother’s antecedents being staunch Christians, who defended their religion with their lives, many of them being burned at the stake, cast into dungeons, etc. in the days of the awful crusade in England by the Roman Catholics. My mother died when I was quite a small child. My father, however, was blessed in his second marriage with a good woman, who proved a noble mother to his children, and we always bless her memory. My parents were Baptists; in fact, all the Goodliffes descend from the early reformers, and have helped to build and endow seven chapels. My father was a firm believer in religious freedom and would defend the rights of a “Mormon” Elder as quickly as those of the Baptist denomination. I became acquainted with the gospel when but a small boy and believed with my whole soul; but my father thought I was too young to fully realize what I was doing; and so I was not permitted to be baptized. I was sent to live with my Uncle Arnold Goodliffe, a merchant of Nottingham, to divert my attention. I was in Nottingham one year before I learned of any Saints, and I had some difficulty in getting to their meetings; but by attending morning service in my uncle’s church, I was allowed to go to the Saint’s meetings on Sunday and week day evenings. I was baptized June 27, 1853, being over sixteen years old. My first church donation was to the Salt Lake Temple. My great desire and anxiety now, having been baptized, was to go to Zion, and I prayed to God earnestly that my way might be opened. God moved upon my relatives, and my brother proposed that I should go to America, and they would furnish all the money necessary. After a short visit among my relatives, I went to Liverpool, paid my passage, set sail in the ship “Siddons” for Philadelphia, with a company of Saints, bidding farewell to father, kindred, home and friends. President John Taylor met us in Philadelphia, where we landed April 20, 1855, and gave me my first meal in America. I possessed only twenty-four cents when I landed in America. We traveled by rail and steamboat to Atchison, Kansas. Here cholera broke out in our company, and I gained quite an experience with this dreaded disease, as I nursed the sick. I was told that the afflicted ones must not have a drop of water–nothing but liquor and hot pepper teas. But I gave them all the pure water I could and had the pleasure of seeing them recover and removed to Mormon Grove. From here I traveled in Captain Richard Ballantyne’s company, and was appointed clerk to the captain of the guard. On the road I took quite sick, my life being despaired of. Bro. Robert Baxter and family (now of Wellsville) were very kind to me and did all they could for me. God heard my prayers, and my life was spared. We arrived in Salt Lake City, September 25, 1855, and I hired out to Clark Ames, for my board, who said to me: “I see you are not able to work, but you can chore for me, and I will learn you how to get along, but we have only provisions to last about four months.” I told him that I would go, and remarked, that when I was confirmed a member of the Church, I was promised that I should not want for bread; to which he replied, “Come along; you are the man to live with this year.” This was in 1855. Before he reached his home in Kaysville, he was enabled to get breadstuff enough to last for twelve months, the man from whom he obtained it telling him, he could not render any help; but he finally let him have the wheat because of his magnanimity in taking in a poor, lone boy at such a time. We had bread to last us until harvest and some to spare. After harvest I came to Salt Lake with Bro. Ames, and assisted in building a grist mill in the 19th Ward (the old Pugsley mill of today). I lived with Bro. Ira Ames, Sen., from whom I learned to be a miller. While here, I was taken very ill with mountain fever. Bishop Alonzo H. Raleigh came to see me, ordained me  a deacon, and blessed me; this was in 1856. Again I was healed by the power of God. I was ordained into the 9th Quorum of Seventy in 1857, and I also labored as a Ward Teacher. In 1857 I married Miss Mary Robbins, daughter of Edward Robbins and Agnes McAllister, a young Saint, and like myself alone. All we had to begin housekeeping with was our poverty, I was called to go out to Echo Canyon; was made captain of ten and was present when Governor Cummings made his famous speech of Fellow Citizens. I was also one of those appointed to guard Salt Lake City, after the people moved south. After the move I went to Kaysville, where I ran the Waynall Mill. From there I went to help settle Cache Valley and located where Franklin now stands. There were about forty families there at the time. I drove the team hitched to the plow that broke the first furrow in the place. Bro. Samuel Parkinson held the plow. At a meeting presided by Bro. Peter Maughan we named the place Franklin, in honor of Apostle Franklin Richards. I had some valuable experience and trouble with Indians, and my wife Mary and an old gentleman on one occasion fed Indians on bread and buttermilk until men returned to the fort. It took all the bread in the settlement, but it prevented bloodshed and murder and demonstrated the truth of Pres. Brigham Young’s saying that it was cheaper to feed Indians than to fight them. I was called to Logan by Ezra Taft Benson to look after a grist mill there. Mills and millers were both scarce in those days. I stayed in Logan twoo years, after which I was called to Bear Lake Valley where I helped to lay off and settle Bloomington. In july 1864, all my worldly goods were burned up. I was appointed by Apostle Charles C. Rich to preside in Bloomington and I raised the first potatoes produced in that settlement. In the winter of 1865-66 I built a mill to grind and chop wheat; this was the first mill in Bear Lake Valley, except the coffee mill, which had been used for grinding wheat. Bro. D. B. Dille helped me to get the stones from the hills above Bloominton, and we used rawhide for belting, and did bolting by hand. Our mill was considered a grand success and a big improvement of the coffee mill. The next year (1866) Bro. David Taylor, of Salt Lake City, built a mill in St. Charles, and I was called to go and run it. When I got to St. Charles, Bro. Taylor was sick and quite discouraged, as they thought his mill a failure. But I took possession and ran the mill successfully for two years. Finding Bear Lake Valley too cold for me, I next went to Malad City to live. There I labored for co-operation, and was elected and re-elected director of Malad Co-op store. I was also made superintendent of the Sunday School in Malad Valley and finally elected superintendent of Malad Co-op in 1872, which position I held until I was called on a mission to England in 1875. I was released and returned home from that mission on account of extreme ill health in May 1876. On arriving in Brigham City, Apostle Lorenzo Snow requested me to take a trip to Curlew Valley, explore the same, and report. I complied with his request, which resulted in my being called to make my home in Curlew Valley. Soon after locating there with my family, we were visited by Apostle Lorenzo Snow, Judge Samuel Smith, and Bishop Alva Nichols and Johan Evans, when I was sustained as president of the Curlew Branch. This was on August 13, 1876. In 1877 I was called to act as Bishop of Snowville, being ordained a High Priest and Bishop by Apostle Lorenzo Snow, October 21, 1877. I have embraced the principle of plural marriage and have endeavored to obey it, as well as every other law and ordinance of God’s house. I am proud to say that I am numbered among those who were persecuted, hunted, and driven during the recent raid on polygamists. I was arrested in the fall of 1890, on the charge of unlawful cohabitation, taken to Ogden, and tried, but finally acquitted, though one of the indictments charged me with having “seven wives known and numerous others unknown to the jury.”