Autobiographical Sketch of Franklin Alonzo Robison
Written 1915
I was born July 29, 1851 at Crete, Will Co., Illinois and was the son of Joseph Robison and Lucretia Hancock Robison. I was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in 1859 by Lorenzo D. Rudd.
Nov. 15, 1876 I was ordained a Seventy by Joseph Young, who was then presiding President of the Seventies of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. At the October conference of 1876 I was called on a mission to the United States and labored in the Northwest States Mission, mostly in Michigan. Later I was ordained a High Priest by Orson Pratt, Apostle, and chosen as a counselor to Bishop Joseph D. Smith in Fillmore Ward.
In 1881 I was chosen Stake President of the Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Association of Millard Stake. At that time I was also first counselor to Joseph Lyman Robison in the Stake Presidency of the Sunday Schools of the Millard Stake and also a home missionary. In the fall of 1882 I labored in the St. George Temple in company with my mother, Lucretia Hancock Robison, my brother Joseph V. Robison, and my two sisters Lucretia P. Robison Owens and Adelia Robison Lyman. I was first counselor to Bp. Christian Anderson, Fillmore Ward, Millard Stake from Jan 1901 to Dec 1906.
By my three wives, Isabella Eleanor Pratt (married by Daniel H. Wells Apr. 10, 1872 in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City, Utah) and Harriet Elizabeth Thorpe (married by Daniel H Wells, Nov. 30, 1882 in the Endowment house in Salt Lake City, Utah) and Lois Thorpe (married by Daniel H. Wells 25 Feb. 1888 in the Manti Temple, Manti, Utah), I have had 29 children – 17 sons and 12 daughters and at this time, 1915, I have 44 grandchildren.
Of civil offices I have acted as Sheriff or Millard Co., Utah, as city councilman of Fillmore, and Trustee of Fillmore School District, and am at present, and have been for several years, president of the Fillmore Irrigation Company. My occupation has been chiefly farming and stock raising.
I am at present nearly 64 years of age, and I hope to live to be of much service in gathering genealogy and will say to all of my descendents to keep a record of themselves and families to hand down from generation to generation.
F. A. Robison
My father was a man firm and steadfast and immovable in keeping the commandments of the Lord. He held to his standards no matter how those with whom he associated behaved or what they thought of him. He stood for the right in spite of the opinions of men.
He never tasted tobacco or alcoholic liquors. He did not drink tea or coffee, although he said he inherited a liking for tea as his mother threw her away before he was born and never tasted it again in spite of her cravings. He ate very little meat; did not like mutton, chicken, fish, or any wild animal’s meat; I think he also left pork alone – just a little beef occasionally. When we had chicken he would eat a very small piece of the white meat. His mother was that way too. When he died at the age of 85 the doctor said that every organ of his body was in perfect health. He just lost his appetite and lived for awhile on fruit juices.
He never profaned the name of Deity, used very little swearing or slang of any kin, nor impure speech. My mother said that Father would not listen to smutty stories. He left the room or changed the subject if he got in bad company and they indulged in it.
He was very prayerful. Had the gift of Faith, and the gift of healing, – was called much to administered to the sick and many were improved and healed under his hands. He never neglected having family prayers in his family. He always administered alone in his own household. On one occasion I was very ill. My leg from my hip down was in terrible pain, I could not stand on it or lie on it. My father came up to my bed and administered it me. While his hands were still on my head I felt the pain lift and pass off, and I had no more pain, being healed instantly.
I wish I could remember more of the stories father told of his experiences through faith in the Lord. Here is one he told: “Our sheep herders lost a bunch of sheep and we hunted all over the canyons for them and could not find them. I went to the Lord before retiring and asked him to show me those sheep. I went to sleep and dreamed that I saw them bedded in a ravine in the canyon. I got up early in the morning and called the herders, saying, ‘Let’s go and get those sheep.’ I led them to the place I saw in my dream, and there they were still bedded just as I had seen them in my dream.”
Father suffered extremely with the toothache, and the dentists in his day could not extract his teeth, as they were hard to pull. When he lived in Arizona (he went by the
Frank Dexter as he went to Arizona for 5 years to flee from the persecution they suffered in Utah. He took Aunt Lois, his third wife. (Addie Florence and Archie were born there in Snowflake, Apache Co., Ariz.) No one there knew that he name was Lonnie except his immediate family and his sister, Lucretia Robison Owens. One night he was suffering so he was up walking the floor. Some one spoke to him saying, "Lonnie, steep some tobacco in vinegar and put it on your face." He woke Aunt Lois and she went to a neighbor who used tobacco and borrowed some. They made a little bag about the size of his cheek and sewed the tobacco in it and steeped it in vinegar. They took it out of the hot vinegar and put upon his cheek. He got immediate relief. We used that remedy in our family for years.
Many polygamists were taken to the penitentiary and served terms there. Father was determined not to be caught. He gave the U. S. marshals a merry chase all over the country around Fillmore. It was extremely interesting to hear him relate how he evaded the marshals. He generally knew when they were in town. He knew it by the gift of discernment. He had his saddle horse always ready. The hose was trained to leap fences, go over sagebrush and into all kinds of rough places. He generally escaped from home down through the block to the creek bridge, over on to the hills, circling around to the north out to the old fields. He had a friend out there, Brother Milgate, who was always ready to help him.
He tells of how he lay in a big drain ditch all night, and the marshals were riding around him, near him, over and over, and never did discover him. It was between Fillmore and the Sink. Another time they got on his train and he went off through heavy sagebrush where their tender racehorses could not make any headway. Another time he ran to the farm gate with them following him. When he got there James Anderson took down the bars and let him in. His horse ran into a herd of horses out in the field where there was a cloud of dust so they could not see him. The marshals finally came to the farm bars. They asked James Anderson whose farm this was. James said, "I don’t know, I only work here."
One night he lay all night on the north side of the high board fence which was on the north side of our home. The marshals went up and down the lane all night and did not discover him. They had gone up and down the street and knew he was in the house several times, at different times, and would come in after dark and search the house but never could find him. They never could understand how he could get away without their seeing him. They did not know his horse could go out through the back. When he discerned that the marshals were in town he would send word to others of his friends who had a plurality of wives. Sometimes they would send word to him.
Father always kept the Sabbath Day holy. He attended all of his meetings. He never said to the children "go", but "come". Then he would start out, generally being one of the first ones there and we would all follow. He counted all of his interest annually and paid a full tithing.
I have great respect for my father. In this selfish world he was brave enough to have 29 children and to have the faith that he could support them. His trials and his tribulations were many. The "school of hard knocks" through which he went over the years didn’t make him waiver or lose hope and faith. His testimony of the gospel, as the years rolled by, became knowledge. He knew that these things were true. And he recognized his blessings.
I was away so that I did not see my father very much in his last years He was a faithful member of the High Council some of these years. He was very anxious about his forefathers. The last words he said he said to me were for me to get their records.
Carrie R. Despain
Incidents related by Franklin Alonzo Robison to his daughter, Ella Adelia Robison Jacobson, as she wrote them down:
Father, Joseph Robison and family arrived in Utah in the late summer of 1854. Father drove a horse team across the plains. Our teams were driven by father, Joseph, Benjamin Alvin and Henry. The boys drove ox teams. Buck and Charlie were the names of two our oxen. We had seven wagons in all. The wagons were fitted out like the sheep wagons of today. Father’s wagon had every convenience that could be had in those days. It was said by the early pioneers that Robisons had the best outfit that had crossed the plains up to that time.
When we reached Salt Lake Father paid tithing on all he had. Brigham Young asked him to go down and settle in Fillmore, Millard Co., Utah. Fillmore was wild and unsettled except by a few who came as early as 1851, including his brother Peter and other of the Robison who had preceded him, and by the Indians. The people had to live in a fort to protect themselves from the Indians. Father and the boys helped build the fort.
Father bought a log house of three rooms that one of the first settlers had built. It joined on to the fort, the south side forming a part of the fort wall. Father, Joseph Robison, made peace with the Indians, hired them to help with the farm work, taught them how to cut grain and hay and do other kinds of farm work. Old Chief Marear worked for us.
Father and Mother were very ambitious and thrifty. We had more than most people. Father never forgot to share with those in need and would send me to see what the immigrants were in need of as they came into Fillmore. I can remember carrying provisions in sacks on my back to them.
We raised sugar cane and used molasses to preserve the fruit for winter. We dried fruit and vegetables, salted and smoked meat. Father was a good provider and we always had plenty of food. Mother did her own spinning, weaving, and dying, having learned to do all when she was a girl in New York. She used a plant called madder to dye red and copperous for blue.
Mother and Father were anxious to build a house as soon as possible, so Father hired Horace Owens to put up a brick kiln below town. The rain destroyed the brick kiln, so they hauled rock, as mother wanted something more substantial. Benjamin had rock hauled for his house at the same time. (Uncle Benjamin brought his wife and baby Willis E. Robison with them from the East. Her name was Lillis Andre. (He later married Aunt Susanna.) The two rock houses still stand. Father built his house outside the fort, the first to be built outside. Edwards and Peary were hired to put up the walls. They were two years building the house. We lived in the fort 8 to 10 years.
During that time Father was farming at the old field. The Sink land was covered with a heavy growth of brush and willow. We milked cows, made butter and cheese. We raised corn, and the blackbirds and crows were so thick, Albert and I had to put up scarecrows and herd the corn. (Albert was Aunt Lizzie’s husband, father of Delia.)
In the southeast corner of the fort, the first fruit trees were raised from seeds in boxes and then transplanted. When Uncle Joseph went back east to Michigan to get Aunt Martha to get married, he made arrangements with a man to send seeds, from which seeds nurseries were started, and the country ‘round got its first start of fruit trees. Uncle Joseph hired Byron Warner as agent to sell trees. He sold through Sanpete, Sevier, and Millard Counties, also Juab and Iron Counties, making thousands of dollars in the nursery business. The winters were very severe and many of the fruit trees froze down at first.
At that time I was herding calves, sheep, and cows and looking after the things at home. In the spring Father sent a team and Benjamin and Henry went back to the Missouri River for immigrants. (Henry was Alonzo’s brother, still home, unmarried. He skinned an animal that had been poisoned by drinking water that was poisoned by Missouri and Arkansas immigrants, who had gone through poisoning water and other depredations, and who were finally stopped by the Mt. Meadow Massacre. Henry was infected by the poison animal from a scratch on his hand, and died, about 1857. On our cellar door, there at the rock house, his initials, W.H.R. was stamped. Could still be seen to this day, 1959.) It was about 1856. Henry hired Bill Probert to drive the team back with the immigrants, and Henry and Benjamin went to the old home in Illinois joined Uncle Alvin who was already there. They stayed for the summer and winter, bought, cut, and stacked hay and bought and fed cattle with some of the money Mother had from her father’s estate. The next spring they hired George Greenway, an Irishman, to help drive cattle brought 150 head to Fillmore, Utah.
We went into the cattle business and owned more cattle than anyone in that country. They also brought blooded horses. When Father first came he brought a blooded stallion with him that afterward sold for $2000.00 at public auction sale in California.
Uncle Alvin didn’t make permanent home in Fillmore, Utah. He went back and forth. He was on the police force in Chicago for nine years. He was a policeman during the time of the Chicago fire. He later came to Fillmore. He never joined the Church. Uncle Alfred Robison, my brother, lived and died in Chicago, never joined the Church. His occupation was receiver or cashier for the Streetcar Company. He was exceptionally gifted and talented in accounting work, could count money with both hands and talk at the same time. His figures were always accepted.
Mother’s father, Benjamin Hancock, didn’t want her to come out to Utah. He said he would provide her with a home and everything to make her comfortable if she would stay. He was well to do.
Before Father and Mother, Joseph and Lucretia Hancock Robison, were converted to the church, Father went out to hear some Mormon missionaries. He was interested and told mother he would like her to hear them but for one thing, and that was you could not refute anything they said, so mother was anxious to hear them. Father asked Mother if she realized they would lose their prestige and influence if they had their names taken off the Methodist rolls. Father was a class leader at the time. Mother said she didn’t care anything about that as long as she knew Mormonism was true. Father and Mother were thorough Latter-Day Saints to the end.
My early schooling: I started in school when I was 7 years old, being in 1858. Sister Bennett was the teacher. School was held in a little log house in the fort. Next teacher was Annis Rudd, next Sister Hoyt. I was 10 or 12 years old then. She taught school in the old adobe meeting house. I used to get a few whippings every day. She had a bundle of willows hanging on the wall she used to thrash the children with and I got my share. I asked mother to make me a long denim jumper so I could bend in when she thrashed me and the jumper would get the thrashing. (Grandma Robison told me when I was a child at her knee, as she told us many stories, that she used to go to the school house nights after school and get the willows and burn them, and that the teacher would keep getting a fresh supple. C.R. Despain) We were made to stand on one foot for punishment and asked to call those up to do likewise when we saw them disturbing, so I always called by best friends up to keep me company.
Mother made me a nice ball with a buckskin cover. One day while I was playing with it in school, the teacher took it and put it in the stove. So I got Mother to help me make another one. This time I put gunpowder in the center. This ball went into the stove, too, causing considerable more excitement then the first.
When Mrs. Hoyt got ready to change the school from the old meeting house to her home, she promised the boys who carried the desks and benches their choice of seats. Burr Owens and I carried a bench and desk, so Burr selected one end of the long bench and I the other. Joe Stonebreaker attempted to push me down the bench a fight followed. Mrs. Hoyt attempted to send me to the creek to wash the blood off my face. I refused so she sent Luke, an Indian boy, for willows to thrash me, but Luke had so much regard for me he did not return until after dismissal.
Then I attended private school in the rock house. Mother sent to Beaver for a man schoolteacher by the name of M.J. Shelton to come and teach school. Mother paid him for his services, and besides our own family, many other children attended school, among them Lafe Holbrook, Orange Warner, etc. School was held in the south room upstairs.
From then on I was kept busy most of the time driving teams, helping with the farm work, and herding cattle and sheep. In the winter we hauled wood on sleighs from Cedar Mountain north of Fillmore. The older boys loaded and I drove the team to town. Father took up lots and we hauled posts for fencing, cleared the brush all off and raised sugar cane. To encourage the boys, Father divided the block (where Aunt Lizzie lives now) as follows: Father gave Tresket a lot to come to Fillmore and help the boys tan leather. Henry was given a lot down in the block where Aunt Susanna lived then. (Aunt Lizzies’s heir, I think hold her home there to this day C.R.D.) I think after Aunt Susanna moved away her daughter Birdie Black lived in her home. (Aunt Susanna was Uncle Benjamin’s second wife. CRD)
After Henry died Mother gave his lot to Benjamin.
Joseph and Benjamin were called by the bishop to build the tannery because we had more means than anyone else.
When all the other boys were given lots and I was left out I felt somewhat slighted, so I was going to take up and have surveyed the lot west of Starleys, and fence it and spend two or three days in the hills chopping fence posts for the lot. Father inquired what I was doing. When I told him he gave me the lot that Ed Day now owns. It had a pole fence on two sides. I set my lot out to trees. I drove stakes where I wanted the trees and Sam Indian dug the holes. The seed came from Illinois originally. I also raised sugar cane.
Later I took a beef steer and went up Injun Creek in the mountain six miles north of Beaver. There a man by the name of Coplin had a lumber mill. I traded the steer for lumber to fence my lot and build the fence. (It was a picket fence, still there when I was young. CRD.) I dug a foundation for a house, saying I was building a granary. I hired Tom Turner to dig the cellar and Jim Owens to put in the foundation, hauling sand for him in payment. I bought lumber from Old Brother Davis. Ted Davis hauled and delivered some of the lumber out of the mountains and I hired Lee Pratt (my mother’s brother CRD) to put up the house. He put up the house and Si Gibbs did some of the finishing. Old Brother John Ashman did the plastering and Brother Beeston and I painted it.
I was engaged to marry a young lady by the name of Sarah Prisby. She died. Later I started to keep company with a girl by the name of Isabella Eleanor Pratt, daughter of Parley P. Pratt, who came to Fillmore to teach school. We were married 10 April 1872.
I was not 21 years old till the next July. I was married in Salt Lake in the endowment House. We drove to Salt Lake with a four-horse team. We were accompanied by Bird’s mother. (Her nickname was Bird) we brought our furniture back with us.
My house was not quite finished at this time so I rented Layfe Holbrook’s house, repaired it and lived there for nearly a year. Frank was born there in16 Jan. 1873. Then we moved down in my house. We lived there till Almon’s wife, Eva Olmstead Robison died, leaving a 9-day-old baby. Then we moved to the rock house so Bird could take care of the baby. (All of mother’s children were born in the rock house but Frank, so this must have been about 1874 or 5, before Parley was born. CRD)
At the same time Emmeline Little Olson, wife of Ed Olson, died, leaving a baby, and Delilah Olson, grandmother of the baby, asked us to take the baby and care for it, so Bird took care of that baby too and nursed it. The baby’s mother’s sister, Violate Little, came and helped with the work.
I was called on a mission in the October conference of 1876. Alfred was born 1 Nov. 1876. Then I left for Michigan. I labored principally in Michigan. When I was in the mission field I was bless with the gift of healing.
I was Stake President of Mutual for ten years after returning.
After returning from my mission I spent the summer crossing the plains. I was in charge of 1000 head of big steers. I was in company with Joe Ray, Ketchum, and hired hands. We sold the cattle at Cheyenne, Wyoming.
At the time the Ute Indians raided Scipio during the Back Hawk War, I, in company with Tom Callister and others, patrolled the mountain from Mr. Boldy to the Sevier River and down across Southern Millard through the Black Rock Springs. I was in a posse with Pres. Brigham Young and Company. I stood guard over Cove Fort prior to the time the Fort was built. I did lots of trading with the Indians. I speak the Indian and Mexican languages. I served under Owen’s company in the Black Hawk War. I was many times out with Brigham Young, stood guard in the mountains, and went with Col. McBride after Indians who stole horses. We surrounded the camps at night, captured the Indians, tied their hands behind them, and delivered them.
Another Indian experience: At the time the Indians drove cattle away from Scipio, Utah, Old Black Hawk came into Kanosh, and told the Indians to go to the head of Dag Valley (in the mountains south of Kanosh) and get our horses. Old Sam Indian was living with us at the time but usually went home to the Indians in Kanosh on Saturday night. He told us of Old Black Hawk’s plan. So Albert and Lee Taylor and Roan Indian Boy and I went for the horses. We corralled the horses and were to sleep in a cabin by the corral. There had been a sprinkle of rain during the day and we could see Indian tracks around. We hobbled the saddle horses and turned them loose and went in the cabin to camp. I said if we camp in here tonight the Indians will get us, but Albert said it would be better to stay there until just before daylight so we wouldn’t lost our horses. Just before daylight the Indians stampeded the saddle horses. They ran for the corral where we caught them hurriedly, turned the other horses loose, and drove them in an opposite direction to Fillmore.
I had horses on the mountain, up the head of Meadow Creek and Chalk Creek. One day while driving horses up there, I saw some horses at the head of White Pine. My stallion ran over to join them so I followed after him and found a band of Indians. They had a sheep they had just killed. I took Old Saberquint to task for killing what I thought was my sheep. He said it wasn’t mine, that he wouldn’t kill one belonging to me. He said it belonged to someone over on the river. I reprimanded him for killing it and he argued that the grass and timber belonged to the Indians and the Whites were using it and taking it away from the Indians. I explained to his satisfaction that everything belonged to the Lord, and the white people were settling where they had been commanded to. From then on Saberquint was a friend to me. At one time later he found a bunch of lost sheep in the mountains. He killed one and brought the ears to me to show me if it was my earmark, because he thought these belonged to me. The earmark was mine so I sent him back for the sheep and paid him for returning them, but I found they were not mine. So I advertised for the owner and the sheep were returned to the owner. Saberquint and others of his tribe always came to me when in need of money, sometimes bringing buckskin gloves, etc., to sell. (They did the most beautiful beadwork. Mother sent off for beads for the squaws. They brought back beaded purses, moccasins, etc. CRD.)
One time in December when I was crossing the desert the other side of the Colorado River. I stopped at a place known as the Bitter Seeps to water and feed the horses. I took the horses down to the seeps to drink. The water was dirty so the horses would not drink. I took them back to the wagon and got a bucket. I thought if I carried the water to them they would drink it. I looked up and saw three big Indians with their blankets pulled up to their eyes because of the cold. I said, “How are you gentlemen?” The seeps were a half-mile from the wagon over rough, uneven gulches. I grained the horses. The Indians watched every movement I made. When the horses had eaten the grain, one Indian threw his blanket on the ground, picked up the bucket and ran as fast as he could go for water. When the horses had emptied that bucket, the next Indian did likewise, then the third Indian. They thus took turns, losing no time until all the horses had drunk to their satisfaction. I then put out my grub box, spread the food out and invited them to eat with me. They gladly accepted. After dinner they left and I don’t know where they came from or where they went to, nor why they carried the water.
At the time the stairs were built in father’s rock house, nails were so scarce father could not get them. James Starley said he could put in the stairs anyway without nails, so father hired him and the stairway was built without nails.
Benjamin was called to Deseret to be a bishop. Father went back and forth doing all he could to help settle Deseret, Millard Co., Utah. In the winter he was hauling logs from Fillmore Mountain to put a draw in the Sevier River to turn the water out of its main channel on to the land they were farming. As he was traveling in the night by Mud Lake with a load of logs he was over taken by a fierce blizzard. It was impossible to see a few feet ahead of him. He lost the road and got off the wagon to hunt for it, got turned around and couldn’t locate the wagon team. He was out in the cold blizzard all night and from the exposure he contracted a severe cold which developed into asthma. His health was greatly impaired and he later died from the effect of it.
I was set apart by Apostle Melvin J Ballard as president of the High Priest Quorum, 30 Aug. 1925, and served until 29 Jul. 1928. I served in the High Council from 1906 to the end of my life.
Olea Robison Davies also had a sketch dictated by Father, from which was gleaned the following not already told:
Father said the Indians were camped around the Fort, mostly to the east. He said the hill I (Olea) lived on was covered with oak brush and the Indians had wickiups there. Father played with the Indian children and learned their language, customs, superstitions, etc. They were always friendly to him and his family.
Fillmore was covered with oak brush and sagebrush at that time.
The people didn’t have much variety of food her in those days. They raised lots of squash and Father got so sick of it he could never eat it after he grew up. They didn’t have any sugar and very little sweets of any kind. Father said the thick syrup similar to honey grew on the willows along the streams. They used to wash their hands clean and then strip it off with their fingers and catch it in little buckets. They paid their tithing on it. It was tedious to gather and took a long time. After they started to make molasses it quit forming on the willows, but it was there as long as they needed it.
They used to eat lots of sego lily roots and Father thought they were very good. They had no fruit jars or sugar, but every year Grandma made a forty gallon barrel of preserves out of peaches and molasses. Father said it was nice. They dried lots of fruit and vegetables too. They had hooks in the ceilings of their houses to dry things on.
Heber C. Kimball prophesied that they would soon be able to buy cloth, bedding furniture, horses, cows, etc., in Salt Lake City as cheaply or cheaper than they could be bought in New York City. The people did not see how that could be possible, but Brother Kimball was noted for being a true prophet, and they believed him. Very shortly after that Johnson’s Army came and did not want to take back with them the tings they had brought out, so they sold them very cheap. The California Gold Rush started then too, and people by the hundreds came through. By the time they reached Utah they were in a hurry and did not want to be burdened with any more than they absolutely had to have. They sold their supplies to the Saints for a very reasonable price.
The men and boys were badly in need of clothes, especially trousers. The women made them pants out of the tents they had brought. They were very stiff and hard and uncomfortable. When it rained and they got wet they were like boards. They’d take them off at night and stand them up and they would stand up all night. They were awful to climb into on cold mornings. Father didn’t have any underwear. He felt fortunate to have trousers.
The first suit of clothes Father had was made by a Sister Clarence Merrill from cloth that was brought across the plains. He thought they were beautiful and took great joy and pride in having a real suit of clothes.
He had a kind and cheerful disposition and was very sympathetic. He never complained.
He died on Oct. 17, 1936, at the age of 85 years having been father of 29 children, 100 grandchildren, and 62 great grandchildren, a total of 191 descendants at that time.
[History & Genealogy of the Franklin Alonzo Robison Family, written and compiled by Carrie Robison Despain and Melba Despain Garner, 1960]
[transcribed by Maurine Colgrove, Feb 2007]