Charles Richard Hartley was born at Wakefield, Yorkshire, England, 22 November 1851, a son of Charles Hartley and Eliza Horne.
When about five years of age, he came to America with his parents, brothers and one sister. There were nine children in the family.
| Born | Died |
| William 3 Sept 1841 Liverpool, Eng. | 8 Dec 1847 Liverpool, Eng. |
| Joseph 25 Mar 1844 Liverpool, Eng. | 1847 Liverpool, Eng. |
| Hyrum 16 Mar 1846 Liverpool, Eng | 27 Sept 1923 Cardston, Alberta, Canada |
| Eliza 20 Jan 1849 Liverpool, Eng. | 17 Nov 1855 Ogden, Utah |
| Richard 22 Nov 1851 Wakefield, Eng | 4 Feb 1939 Rockland, Idaho |
| Samuel Joshua 2 Oct 1853 Wakefield, Eng | 11 Feb 1855 Buried at sea |
| John 3 Oct 1856 Ogden, Utah | 7 Jan 1943 Rockland, Idaho |
| Henry James 28 Sept 1859 Spanish Fork, Utah | 10 Mar 1938 American Falls, Idaho |
| Brigham 14 Mar 1863 Bountiful, Utah | 11 Dec 1946 ? |
Father’s parents joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in their native land and always had a home for the Elders. When crossing on the ship, one brother died and of course had to be buried at sea. They crossed the plains with an ox team. They settled at what was then North Ogden, Utah, where they buried his only sister.
Later they moved to Spanish Fork, Utah, where they stayed for a short while, then moved to Bountiful, Utah (about 1862). His father was a stone cutter for many years on the Salt Lake temple, dying from “inflammation of the lungs” from the dust from cutting the stones.
Father has told me many times of his walking from Bountiful into Salt Lake, taking clean clothes or any message about his mother or brothers to his father, when he was just a young boy. Many times his father didn’t get home when the week was up. Therefore he would make the trip to see his father and at that time wild cattle roamed through the high oak brush and grease wood as it was not settled at that time. So of course it was a frightening trip for a young boy.
Father’s schooling was very scant. He went to a one-room log schoolhouse with crude
Benches and of course no desks nor places for books. School books were very scarce. Father had a great desire for an education. I remember even when I was growing up, he was reading and studying books and papers written on many different subjects. So, besides what his parents taught him, he had to learn by himself, which made him very observant and very attentive when listening to others talk or to a good speaker. His memory was astounding. He probably developed a good memory from trying to gain knowledge, and he still had a very good memory even until the time of his death. I have heard him say many times after he was quite old that he had been greatly blessed and he was thankful for it, as he could see that many of his friends who were not as old as he was, could not remember or think clearly at times.
Father worked at many different jobs as a boy, and as a young man to help the family income. He worked in the sugar cane and many times received no pay except for the syrup from the sugar cane.
Father must have been a very ambitious young man (as I know that he was a very hard worker and so very methodical with his work in later years.) He worked and saved his money and bought a good violin. Soon his other brothers bought musical instruments and were asked to play for dances and entertainments and earned money that way. John played a violin also, Hyrum the concertina, James played a flute and Brigham played a concertina. Father earned enough money to buy a wagon and team of horses so that he could do freighting. For a long time he hauled bullion from the mines around Bingham, Utah, and other places, also hauling other freight.
They must have had a good time in their crowd when he was a young man. I remember his telling of some of his friends; a few of the names I remember–Anson Call, Amos Cook, Joseph Mabey, Perry Green Sessions, the Brysons, Orson Cooper, and Bill Cooper, the last two being my mother’s brothers.
I don’t remember him talking much about girls. It appears that Sariah Cooper (who he later married), my mother, was the only one as far as he was concerned. Not too long after he had his wagon and team, they got married in the old Endowment House in Salt Lake. He was considered well off because not many young men had that much in those days.
I shall now write a little of my mother’s early life. Sariah Cooper was born 1 January 1856 at Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, England, a daughter of William Cooper and Millizer Robinson Cooper.
To begin with, her mother intended to name her Serene, but the one who blessed her got mixed-up and called her Sariah instead of Serene, so that is the name she received.
When about five or six years of age, she left England with her parents and came to Utah (about 1862). All that she could remember of England was the dense fog and of watching some of her brothers and sisters or other people skating. They seemed to do a lot of ice skating.
The whole family joined the Latter-day Saint church. They had been members of the Methodist Church.
Her father was in poor health when leaving England for Utah, but with their eight children they left anyway. The following is a list of the children:
| Born | Died |
| John 5 Jul 1843 Eastwood, Nottingham, Eng | 4 Feb 1912 Bountiful, Utah |
| William 1 Dec 1844 Eastwood, Nottingham, Eng | Very young Eastwood, Eng |
| William Jr. 20 Sep 1847 Eastwood, Nottingham, Eng | 2 Mar 1923 |
| Annie 28 Aug 1848 Eastwood, Nottingham, Eng | 16 Sep 1903 |
| Orson 20 Aug 1850 Eastwood, Nottingham, Eng | 8 Sep 1943 Bountiful, Utah |
| Eliza Snow 20 Aug 1852 Eastwood, Nottingham, E ng | 29 Sep 1925 |
| Heber Kimball 2 Feb 1854 Eastwood, Nottingham, Eng | 23 Oct 1897 |
| Sariah 1 Jan 1856 Eastwood, Nottingham, Eng | 24 Oct 1929 Rockland, Idaho |
| Joseph Samuel 22 Feb 1858 Eastwood, Nottingham, Eng | Very young |
| Catherine 6 Jan 1859 Eastwood, Nottingham, Eng | 15 May 1922 |
| Ruth 1862 On the plains, USA | 1862 On the plains |
| Mary Rebecca 29 Mar 1867 Bountiful, Utah | 1 Jul 1950 Coalville, Utah |
The following part is taken from the history of her sister. Her father became very ill on the boat. The boat struck a sand bar and could go no further. The only way of getting the boat free was to lighten the load, so most of the baggage was thrown into the ocean. All the family records, books, and papers, some of which were valuable went overboard.
On the sailboat, Tapscot, they spent six weeks on the ocean. On the boat there were two or three decks. On the top floor there was a large stove. Each family did much of its own cooking. Sea biscuits and salt bacon were the principal food. Split pea soup and potatoes were occasional luxuries. Each person was allowed a certain number of soda crackers and sweet crackers.
On landing in New York, they went by train to the Mississippi River. As it was wartime, the train was fired upon by Union soldiers who thought that the train contained Confederate soldiers and supplies. They rode up the Mississippi River on a flat boat.
When they were crossing the plains, her mother, while walking by the side of the wagon, slipped and fell. She was run over by the wagon wheel. Shortly afterwards she gave birth to a baby girl who was named Ruth. The baby lived about a month and passed away.
In Florence, Nebraska, they had to wait six weeks for ox teams to come from Utah to help them over the rest of their journey. They arrived in Bountiful, Utah, in October 1862. They spent the first winter in the back rooms of the cabin of Robert and Rebecca Telford. In the spring they moved to their own cabin, which they purchased. John Crosby had built it.
The following is a brief history of this cabin obtained from the Relic Hall of Kimball Camp, Daughters of the Utah Pioneers:
This Pioneer cabin dates back to 1852 when John Knowles Crosby and his wife came to Bountiful. He built this cabin as his first home.
In the spring of 1863, William Cooper, a pioneer of 1862, bought the cabin from Mr. Crosby. For nearly twenty-five years this cabin was the home of the Cooper family. Eight of the Cooper’s nine children called it home until they married and made homes of their own. Orson did not marry. He took care of his widowed mother and a niece who was brought to their home when seven days old, at the death of her mother, Emma Jane Hatch Cooper. This baby girl, named Emma May Cooper, became the wife of James E. Burns, a former Vice-President and Chaplain of the National Society of the Sons of the Utah Pioneers.
This cabin stands as a typical, one-room, early pioneer home. The small cabin has been preserved on the lawn of the Bountiful Second Ward as the first log cabin in the community.
Her father and mother had a long, hard struggle, as other pioneers did, clearing land and getting it under cultivation. Her father taught school in south Bountiful in exchange for produce, which helped his family live. Later, the oldest son, John, helped put the railroad through this part of the country.
My grandmother must have been quite a wonderful woman to take a young baby to raise after caring for a large family of her own without a husband to help. After she was left a widow, she had the responsibility of a large family and endured many hardships. She washed, did housework, or nursed to get provisions for her family.
On the 5 May 1900, she died suddenly, as she had always wished. She was nearly 81 years old and she died firm in the faith for which she sacrificed so much and to which she had devoted her life.
I remember my mother telling me that she didn’t get to be home much in the new brick home, as she went to Bountiful to work for a lady named Mrs. Pitt. I think Mother worked there until she was married. I think this lady was quite well-to-do as they went to the state of Maine to visit once a year, or almost that often. She was very good to my mother.
Mother mentioned some girlfriends–Jane Mason and Ann Simmons. Ann was her best pal until Mother started going with my father. Ann liked him also, but my father chose to go with my mother. Ann didn’t speak to my mother for a number of years after that.
Mother’s education was just about as much public schooling as my mother had. Her father was a school teacher, among his many other trades. He was a teacher and a coaler (one who works in the coal). Of course her father died when she was quite young. Mother and her brothers and sisters grew up doing little pranks that aggravated her mother, as all boys and girls do. One time her mother had been dyeing some rags to make rugs, when she was called to nurse or to work out for a few hours. She just left the dye in the tub. So Mother and one of her brothers caught a white chicken and gave it a red dye bath. It came out a bright pink color. When her mother came home, the poor chicken was still running around the yard. It was so frightened of itself.
Mother’s close friends called her Pat when she was young.
Mother, like Father, studied every chance she got, and if she heard of anything she didn’t know about, she wanted to find out all she could about it.
I forgot to say that Ann Simmons also went with Mother’s brother, Orson, and he liked her very much. But she jilted him and Mother said he never would go with another girl, so that is the reason he never married.
Their home is a mile south of Bountiful–I mean the brick one that was built, and still stands, with a few remodeling jobs, and is being used by Mrs. Burns (Emma May Cooper Burns).
I think this may be important so I’ll put this in here. William Tapscott’s boat left Liverpool May 13, 1862. J.B. Bell was the captain. There were 807 saints on board. They arrived in Salt Lake, Sunday Oct 19, 1862. William Gipson was President of the company.
Francis M. Lyman’s ship sailed May 14, 1862. They divided the people into Wards, with 19 in a Ward. William Cooper was over one of these Wards. When they came over the ages of the parents and children were as follows:
William Cooper (father) 41 years
Millizer Cooper (mother) 42 years
John 18 years Eliza 9 years
William 15 years Heber 7 years
Ann 14 years Sariah (my mother) 5 years
Orson 11 years Catherine 2 years
Mother and Father were married on 4 January 1874, in the Old Endowment House in Salt Lake City, Utah. The next fall on 13 October 1875, Mother gave birth to a baby girl (my sister Mary). After they had four or five children, Father and his four brothers, who were all married and had little families, decided to move up into the Rockland Valley where they could go into the cattle business and where they could get plenty of land for farming. They settled at Landing where they homesteaded 160 acres. It was wonderful to go into the cattle business there, as a creek that never froze over in the winter ran through the valley, and plenty of wild hay waist-high and canyons for summer range surrounded them. The five brothers and their families settled as close together as they could. The only other inhabitants were a couple of Indian families. One family of Indians was friendly but the other family was not. The Indian man called John, I think, would get drunk and come to Mother’s place. She would be so frightened when Father wasn’t home that she would hide the children, as she feared for their safety. He would just grunt and point to some bacon, flour, or bread and Mother said she would gladly give him the food that they needed so badly, as long as he didn’t harm her or the children. They had to haul the flour from Corinne, Utah, by wagon, so it was pretty valuable.
They had to live in the wagon box as Father set the box on a makeshift foundation, and it already had a canvas top. This was called a prairie schooner. It didn’t take too long to get a log house or cabin built, and they were fairly comfortable and soon had the land cleared and under cultivation. The dry land was completely covered with sagebrush.
The nearest doctor was located in Malad, about 60 miles away, so they had many difficulties to contend with. Mother nearly died when my brother Richard was born at Landing. Complications arose, and no doctor or nurse was available.
Gradually more settlers moved into the valley and in the course of their lives, Mother and Father saw the desolate waste land develop into a prosperous, agricultural community.
After living in Landing for about five years, Father and Mother decided to sell the 160 acres and move on down the valley to Rockland. They sold to a Mr. Barnheart and bought 80 acres in Rockland from a Mr. Naville, paying $750 for it. They paid $500 in cash and the rest in cattle. I think that about this time one of Father’s brothers, Brigham, moved to Roy, Utah, and made a good home there. Another brother, Hyrum, moved to Cardston, Canada, and got a lot of land. Now this place 20 miles from Cardston is named Hartleyville after my uncle, Hyrum Hartley, and his family.
Father and his brothers were still playing for dances at Rockland and surrounding communities, also for the wedding dances. By this time, Jane Hartley, who was Hyrum Hartley’s oldest daughter, had become old enough to chord on an organ for their orchestra, but now she had gone with her family to Canada. They really had good times at these dances. They would take the children and put them asleep on the benches, if the young ones got too sleepy. They would usually have a supper at the dance, oyster suppers and other foods. Mother and Father loved to dance, mostly quadrills, waltzes, and two-step.
Some time after Mother and Father moved to Rockland, they sold their cattle. Father
said that dry farmers took up the rangeland. He sold cows and calves for $16. Some of the cattle went for my oldest brother’s mission to Tennessee.
Mother and Father were really acquiring a large family, but Mother has said many times that they always had plenty of milk and butter for their children, beef and pork that they raised, also chickens, ducks, and turkeys. They also had honey bees for a while so they had their own honey. They had a pretty good-sized orchard at Rockland, with berries, currants, and fruits of all kinds to can and preserve. Mother would put them in four or five gallon crocks, which seemed immense next to my jelly glasses. Father would put the winter pears and apples, potatoes, carrots, onions, cabbages, and turnips into a pit where they kept perfect all winter. A pit is a large place dug in the ground or into the side of a hill and then plenty of clean straw is put over and under the vegetables, or perhaps a canvas went over first, then the straw, then the dirt piled on that. When the vegetables were needed, a corner was dug into and the canvas lifted up until the vegetables could be reached. After taking out what was needed, it was covered again.
Father and Mother would pay their tithing with produce, mostly in potatoes and hay.
They had a nice bunch of milk cows and Mother made lovely butter to sell. She had more customers than she could make butter for. She would churn the butter in the evening after she had done a hard day’s work. They had such a good, cool cellar, right by the house in Rockland. It was dug back into the side of the hill as large as a small room. (The point of the hill had been cut off to build the house). The floor of the cellar was damp, hard-packed ground. Mother could sweep it without making any dust and was a nice place for milk and cream to be kept cool and sweet, hence the good butter.
They also had cucumbers in a big wooden barrel, in a brine made of coarse salt to preserve them. They could be eaten that way or she could soak them in water to get some of the salt out and then put them in vinegar or in a mustard sauce or many other ways. I mention these things because we can’t see in this day and age how such a large family as Mother and Father had could be provided for.
I think Mother, at times, got a little homesick for her people in Bountiful, Utah, because she talked so much about them. However, she was singing at her work. She had quite a nice singing voice, and was always singing hymns, and a song called “Mother’s Old Grey Shawl.” When I was little we would go to church and the long talks the speakers gave were boring. I was supposed to sit so still. But I did enjoy the singing. I would stand and watch Mother’s face as she would sing with the others. She had a different look on her face when singing the hymns which I liked–probably it was more of a spiritual look.
Mother was a Relief Society teacher, and Father would take her and Mrs. Howard, and sometimes other ladies in the buggy so that they wouldn’t have to walk so far. Sometimes Mrs. Howard would drive her team and buggy, but since our horses were too foxy, Mother was not so brave.
Dad and his brother raised draft horses after he sold the cattle. They had to be matched up as identically as possible to make a good looking team. If they were broken or trained to pull a wagon and were well-matched, they would get $150 to $350 for a team, which was good for those days. They also had to be fat and shiny and have plenty of life to be sold.
When I was about four years old, Father’s uncle, Joshua Horne, and his daughter, who lived in England, made a trip around the world, and came to Rockland to visit us. I remember that they seemed to be a little different or perhaps it was their accent that made them different.
Father and his brothers, James and John, went to Canada to see their brother Hyrum and his family. I don’t remember for sure if Brigham went. It was their first excursion to Canada. They left on the 4th of August, 1908 and the weather was good for 30 days. I don’t remember if they stayed that long or not.
In August of 1915, Father got word from England that his Uncle Joshua Horne had died on August 27th at age 85. He was buried in the Castleford Cemetery on August 31. He had kept in touch with Father and Mother at Christmas time each year with a card.
In 1918, Mother and Father decided to sell the ranch at Rockland and take life a little easier. They moved to Malad, Idaho, but after two years they moved back to Rockland. Their roots were too deeply formed there and it was closer to more of their children. They bought a small place where they lived the rest of their days. Mother must have been an extra strong and healthy woman to be able to care for such a large family and do the many things they had to do in those days–sewing and cooking for the family, and helping anyone who was in need. Added to this was the fact that we had a lot of company.
A Mr. Philbrick, who lived in American Falls, and was in the sheep and mercantile business, had no family or home of his own. Each summer he came to our home and spent some time there. He liked to walk along the creek bank, which ran through our ranch. He would drink the cold, spring water and rest in the shade of the willows and wild rose bushes on the bank or he would wander in the orchard, eating raspberries and the nice apples. We also had others who came to visit for a few days or more. People couldn’t travel so fast in those days.
Our home, in the living room, had long curtains made of lace, which had to be starched and ironed with irons which were heated on a hot, coal range. The carpeting on the floor had to be taken out once a year and put on the clothes line and beaten until all the dust was gone. Then we had to have clean, fresh oat straw to put under the carpet to make it soft. It had to be changed each time the carpet was taken up. Mother did her big washings on a washboard. She didn’t like a washing machine, which she did have in later years, and then the clothes had to be boiled on the hot range in a boiler made for that purpose. No wonder they were ready to retire!
Mother had little sickness other than child-bearing and some trouble pertaining to women. She was quite short in stature and a little heavier than she thought she sought to be. She had lots of dark brown hair, like all of her sisters and a clear, fair complexion. It seemed to me that she was always reading one of the church books. I think the Doctrine and Covenants was her favorite. If she had a few minutes of spare time, she also read the Pearl of Great Price, the Book of Mormon, and the Bible. She also took the Liahona, a church magazine. Mother began having gall stone attacks and finally died on October 24, 1929, in Rockland. She was buried there at the age of 74.
I was too young to get in on much of the hard work in those days.
Father was a slender, wiry man with a ruddy complexion, and a head of hair that was the envy of many. He still had thick, wavy hair when he died. He never liked the waves. He would have his hair cut short to get rid of them, but they were still there.