Sariah Pratt and DeWitt Clinton Tyler, Sr.
DeWitt Clinton Tyler was 17 and his wife, Sariah Pratt Tyler, was only 15 when they hitched a cow and a mule to a covered wagon and walked all the way from St. Joseph, Missouri to Fillmore, Utah. Sariah’s father, Anson Pratt, had just passed away so she and DeWitt brought her brother, Joseph and 3 sisters, Mary Ann, Caroline, and Jane Elizabeth with them. They said if they had not had the cow they would not have survived the trip.
They arrived in the Rockland Valley on July 3, 1883. They moved here from Fillmore, Utah. It took them 16 days to make the trip. They drove their cattle and brought all their belongings. Four of their sons, Joseph Anson, Cyrus, Delroy and DeWitt, Jr. came into the valley September 22, 1882.
Joseph Anson went to Blue Creek to meet his parents and help them along the way. They settled on some ground now owned by Melvin McLean. It was just east of Melvin’s house and across the gulch. They pitched their tents and live din them till they could build a log house which consisted of one large room 18 x 20 with a lean-to added on. They used to hold dances in this room as this was about the only recreation they had.
DeWitt and Sariah had 11 children: Rhoda Ann, Sariah Abigail, DeWitt Clinton Jr., Joseph Anson, Albert Delroy, Clara Aurelia, Lura Belle, Cyrus Edgar, Leslie, Violet and Marvin.
DeWitt, Sr. farmed, raised cattle and worked for cattlemen for a living. He was the first dentist in the valley as he owned the only pair of forceps in the valley. He was active in civic affairs. He was registrar and justice of the peace in 1888.
The county at that time was Oneida and Malad, Idaho was the county seat. DeWitt Tyler and Cyrus A. Warner were county commissioners and Justices of the Peace. They helped build roads and the cemeteries in both Rockland and American Falls.
Sariah was a great lover of flowers and had many beautiful flowers planted around her home. She contracted pneumonia and passed away 1 January 1898 at the age of 64 years and 6 months.
DeWitt Clinton Tyler passed away July 19, 1909 at the age of 81 at his home where he homesteaded.
[Rockland Valley 1879-1979: The First One Hundred Years, comp. Rockland Centenial Book Committee, 1980, p. 350, 492]
[transcribed by Dixie Kay Walton, Mar. 2006]
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