By His daughter Eva Arbon

Phillip is the son of William and Elizabeth Hardwick Arbon who immigrated from Graveley, England on the ship “Constitution” leaving Liverpool with 457 British, Swiss, and German converts, June 24, 1868, and arrived in New York, August 5. Harvey H. Cluff was in charge of the company. The immigrants continued by rail to Benton. On August 24, Captain John Gillespie’s ox team train, with 54 wagons and about 500 immigrants left Benton. The company arrived in Salt Lake City late that fall (1868). “My father helped push a handcart and only one person died on the journey. My father went to the Skull Valley area where he engaged in farming. He was influenced to consider this area because of the elders’ influence on him who had come from the Grantsville-Skull Valley country to England as missionaries.” At this time the Skull Valley area was much occupied by L. D. S. Hawaiian converts who had immigrated from the Islands of Hawaii and were trying to make a success of farming and a small community called “Iosepa.” Life in such an arid region and the pressure of relatives in Hawaii finally brought about the abandonment of the colony. The Hawaiian saints returned to their native islands.

The family was to begin a series of moves. After four years in Skull Valley the family moved to Richmond, Utah. Then some years later they moved back to Skull Valley and then to Grantsville where they built a fine permanent home.

Phillip and his brother William Joseph, when young men, went to Snowville, Utah, where they were employed to herd sheep. After some weeks with the sheep the boys decided on a holiday, leaving the herd in the care of another man they took their day off. When they returned the man supposed to be tending their sheep had committed the unpardonable in this kind of business. He had let several herds get mixed up so that now it simply was “whose sheep is whose.” The disaster was so acute to the two young men that Joseph William simply vanished and was never heard from for 40 years. Quite by accident he was located living alone in the mountains some 20 miles from Durango, Colorado, where he had developed a herd of beautiful horses. When he died at the age of 75 the family brought him to the old home in Grantsville, held a funeral for him and buried him in the Grantsville Cemetery.

Phillip continued to work in Snowville where he met and married Margaret Cottam. The marriage was performed by Daniel H. Wells in the old Endowment House in Salt Lake City, December 22, 1881. Phillip and Margaret lived in Snowville and there their first son William Philip was born, September 17, 1883. The family now moved to Oakley, Idaho and there their first daughter Delaphine Elizabeth was born, September 14, 1885.

In speaking of her mother’s family Eva says: “My mother Margaret Cottam was a daughter of Bridget Ellen Gallagher Cottam. She was one of 16 children. Her father William Cottam had preceded them and had come to Pennsylvania. When the family arrived from England he had a home ready for them. They came on to Utah and were on one of the first steam trains to enter the territory of Utah. The family moved to Snowville where grandfather Cottam ran a store and operated a salt factory on the north shores of the Great Salt Lake, some 22 miles south of Snowville. In the summer of 1887 Phillip moved the family back again to Snowville where LeRoy John was born, October 8, 1887. My father built a log home in Stone, Idaho. I remember how it was lined with beautiful calico cloth. One day my baby brother set the calico on fire but we were able to beat the fire out. Our house was in Stone and our correll [corral] was in Snowville. On May 8, 1893 our brother Raymond Francis was born. I, Eva was next to come to the log cabin home, then James Leland was born August 5, 1898. When I was about five years old we left Stone and Snowville and many experiences followed: We moved first to Plain City, Utah, about 16 miles northwest of Ogden. Our home was a nine room brick home. A mansion compared to our farmer homes. It was surrounded by 48 acres of land. In a short time father had it into plots of alfalfa, grain, orchard and a garden. Just prior to this move Rachel Ellen was born in Snowville, August 7, 1890. Seven years was now to pass without a baby in the home. Then Vernon Lawrence arrived and was joyfully received by all the family, March 26, 1905. Times were hard and mother would work to supplement the family income. While in Snowville she went to Salt Lake City and learned to “practice medicine.” She studied under Dr. Shipp. She followed my grandmother Cottam’s example and became a competent midwife. She practiced while living in Snowville, Stone and in Plain City and in Ogden. She became the head matron or nurse for the famous Hot Springs resort in north Salt Lake. At this time people came to Salt Lake City from all over the nation to seek relief by the hot baths of the Hot Springs.”

“Father left the family and went to live in his parents’ old home in Grantsville. Just shortly after his leaving our beautiful brick home caught on fire and was destroyed. Mother established a successful ice cream parlor in Plain City and later on moved to Ogden for greater opportunities for her large family. I enrolled in a business school and then at the urging of my mother and largely on my own, completed my high school work. Through mother’s encouragement I attended Weber Academy and went on to the USAC at Logan, where I certified and entered the teaching profession and the classroom. I taught in Richfield and in Ogden and then fulfilled a mission for the LDS Church in California. In the meantime my father had remarried but in 1925 he was alone again. I secured a teaching position in Grantsville where I could look after him. Father had built up a beautiful orchard and raised hay for sale. He had built rooms onto his parents home. He was like the industrious ant and always had to have the granary filled and his coal and woodshed well supplied. On one occasion he went to the mill and got more flour than others thought he should. They laughed at him for this but before winter was over the store ran out of flour and father supplied flour for those who had laughed at him. He always gave a good measure. My father was a good accordionist. He played and sang often. He was also good in mathematics, never resorting to the use of a pencil and always coming up with accurate results. Father was not a man who sought or was given public positions. When in Stone, Idaho he was a member of the town board. In Grantsville he was the water master and was much liked in this position because he showed no favoritism. 

Tragedy was to strike again and this time the old Arbon home was almost destroyed by fire. This was a great tragedy to my father to see all his efforts destroyed. I can still see my father kneeling on the ground, his gray bearded chin moving up and down and tears streaming from his eyes. Father would not leave the place so we fitted out a room for him in the granary. I took a room up town. Some time later the house was given a new roof and an extra room was built for him. His health began to fail and he became confined to his bed for several weeks. We had a nurse with him while I taught but he did not recover, passing away the first day of May 1934. Now just a brief look back at the family. My brother William Phillip had married Alice Anderson. They had three children: Louisa, Carl and Lawrence. Delaphine had married Jess Preece; they had two children, Dorothy and Rolland. LeRoy died of diabetes when he was sixteen. Rachel Ellen married Ernest VanSickle, they had four children, Ernest Wayne, Margaret, Jean and Jack. Raymond Francis married Lucille Nelson of Bear River City, Utah. They met in the California Mission. Their children are Robert, Nathel and Donald. I, Eva, married Arthur F. Sandberg. We have no children. James Leland fought in World War I. He never married. He was killed by a hit-and-run driver near Layton, Utah in May 1930.”

(A snapshot photo of a man standing in front of trees. Description below the pictures says: Phillip Arbon in his later years at the old Arbon home in Grantsville, Utah.)

(Behind the first page of this history is pictures of the family. First one is of a wedding picture of Philip and Margaret Cottam Arbon. The rest are individual headshots of their children with description consisting their name, birth date, married to whom, and death date. The heading on top of the page says: Philip Arbon and Margaret Cottam Arbon Family)