"Short Sketch of the Life and Labors of James Leithead"
Glendale, Kane County, Utah
January 8, 1902
[Testimony follows]
Edited akrc July 2003 [additions are bracketed]  
[Bolded names are my Lamoreaux ancestor.]

         James Leithead, third son of John and Jeaney Harvey Leithead, was born June 14, 1816, in the town of Musselbourgh, Scotland. When six years old, I was sent to school at Boudon, which I attended until eleven years of age. I was then put at such work as I could do among the farmers of the neighborhood, herding cows, and general chore boy. The first time I went any distance from home, I received twelve English Shillings for six months work, board, clothes washed and mended. I remember being paid twelve shillings in silver when my term of service ended, and started home eight or ten miles. It seemed to me quite a large sum, and that I would run some risk of being robbed, so I left the road whenever I could and crossed the fields whenever practicable, reaching home in safely, in my own estimation a very rich and proud boy. And so I continued to labor in the various places not far from home until I was about sixteen years of age. When the whole currant of my life seemed to change.							[paragraph break added]
My father's brother, Robert Leithead, had emigrated some years previously to Nova Scotia, North America, and had several times written urging him so send one of his sons out to him. I had arrived at an age which was very galling to my feelings, to be always working for some one else at small wages and no apparent signs of betterment. Early in 1832 I volunteered to cross the Atlantic to my uncle Robert. My father and mother gave their consent and furnished the means for the voyage. An emigrant ship was to sail for Canada. Some families of our acquaintances were to sail in the ship. My board was engaged with one of them. My passage money paid to a local agent of the vessel and early in the spring of 1832 we made our way to the shipping port, Maryport, west coast of England. After a boisterous passage of seven weeks we landed safely in Quebec. Not finding any convenient way of getting from Quebec to Nova Scotia, I continued with many of the ships passengers up the river and lakes to the town of Little York in Upper Canada, since called the city of Toronto. [Ontario]  								[paragraph break added]
 	I remember [being] in Little York perhaps a week and then in  company with a young man, a sailor from the ship, we went into the  country some ten miles and found work with a couple of farmers. Next day the farmer I was with after dinner put a yoke of oxen on to a wagon with a hay rack on it and giving me the whip, told me to drive out a certain road, and the first hey field on the right to open the gate and drive, and await his coming, having gone some other way to get a pitchfork. 		[paragraph break added]
       	I found the hay field, but when I opened the gate the cattle made a rush for the hay, the field was full of stumps. I supposed the wagon would be broken all to pieces and not knowing how to stop the cattle, being the first oxen I had ever seen, I became frightened and fled in terror to the woods. When night came on, I was unable to find my way out and remained in the woods all night. The weather being warm I did not suffer cold, but would have been very glad for breakfast next morning. 			[paragraph break added]
Instead of going back to the farmer's, feeling bashful and ashamed I took the road to the city. After a few days sojourn in the city, in company with others we crossed the lake, our destination being to work on Weeland Ship Canal which was then being constructed between Lake Erie and Ontario.	[paragraph break added]
On arriving at the works I concluded the work too heavy and laborious and the society not of the best, so went on to Lake Erie and down the lake shore arriving opposite Buffalo, [NY] I put up for the night, next morning the hotel keeper said he would cross me over to Buffalo in his skiff. Accordingly after breakfast we set out for Buffalo. When about half way across we were met by [the] Magistrate from Buffalo who informed us that we would not be allowed to land, [disembark] and that Canada was quarantined because of Cholera. So we headed again for the Canadian shore, [as if to obey] but instead of landing he rowed up the lake until we were hid from view by some schooners lying on the American shore. He rowed in among the shipping, told me to climb aboard one and make [hop from one ship] from to another until I reached the shore. Then I was seen in the city of Buffalo. From there I concluded I would make another effort to reach my uncle in Nova Scotia, by way of the Erie Canal to Albany and from there to NY, and take a coasting vessel to Nova [Scotia.] in going down the canal, when I came to Rondawanda where the Niagara River makes a bend towards the Falls I had a strong desire to visit the falls so I left the canal and followed the river down to the falls. After viewing them, I had another desire to return again to Canada, which I did the next day by crossing again to Toronto in a small steamer that crossed from Toronto to Lewiston and back daily.
       From Toronto, I made for the country again, and found a farmer that wanted [to hire] a boy. I engaged with him for one year to receive six dollars per month, [including] board, washing and mending. I soon found it was within a few miles of where I had left so unceremoniously, on account of not knowing how to manage oxen. I  learned from them that the young man, my companion on my first trip, had died a  few days after I left, with the Cholera, and also the farmer and wife with  whom I was living had died with the same disease and many others also during  my absence of a few weeks. I have since viewed it as an act of Providence in saving my life.
      This farmer who I was now with, whose name was Jason Brunelle, by birth a Canadian Frenchman, had married a daughter of John Lamoreaux and was living in the township of Scarborough, belonged to the Methodist Church, and were prosperous farmers. I worked for Brunelle two years, attended the Methodist meetings, but did not attach myself to any religious denomination.		[paragraph break added]
      In 1835, I married Deborah, the daughter of Joshua and Ann Cross Lamoreaux, and commenced clearing the timber from about sixty four acres of land built a house and barn and cleared timber from 15 acres the first year.  In 1836 were born twins to us. Both were girls and both died in infancy.	[paragraph break added]
       During the summer of this year Parley P. Pratt came into our country preaching the gospel. [see also "The Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt  pg. 168 – 171] I attended several of his meetings and was soon convinced of its truth [of the doctrine he taught. Mormonism] In May 1837, my wife and I were baptized by Elder John Taylor, who had embraced the gospel in the city of Toronto through the ministrations of the Apostle Pratt. Elder Taylor was appointed to preside over the branches of the Church which had been raised up in that region of the country through the Apostles [and others] instrumentality.
	During the summer of 1837, the Prophet Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon and Thomas B. Marsh, who was at that time president of the Twelve Apostles, visited Canada and held a conference in the township of Scarborough not many miles from my home. At that conference, I was ordained a priest and appointed to preside over the branch of the Church in that place. In the fall of that year, a messenger was sent from Kirtland, Ohio, by the Prophet advising all members of the Church to emigrate to Missouri as early in the spring as practicable. Acting on the advice, I made out for Missouri, arriving in Kirtland.  We tarried there for some time. Brother Jason Brunell had also embraced the Gospel, and sold his possessions in Canada and moved over to Kirtland, Ohio, the year previously. Some debt that he had left and had authorized me to collect enabled me to procur [sic] a team and wagon. The harness I bought, and with that outfit we reached Kirtland.      									 [paragraph break added]
	From Kirtland we went to Cleveland there took passage on a steamer to Chicago. Arriving in Chicago about the first of July. Chicago was then a very small place. The country to the Mississippi River, boarded the first steamer that came down for St. Louis, Missouri. From St. Louis we took steamer for Richard Landing. Leaving my wife there I went out on foot to Far West and procurred [sic] a team and wagon and with that I reached Far West about August 1st. 
	I then applied to the Prophet where to settle. He advised me to go to Adam Ondi Ahman, a town that was being settled in Davis County, 25 miles from Far West. We arrived there on the evening of the sixth of August, a day long to be remembered on account of it’s being election day and the fight that took place between some of the Mormons and Missourians. 				[paragraph break added]
From that day on we were driven out of the state. We were continually harassed by a mob and could do little else but stand guard day and night. However, from about the middle of August until Christmas, the day I finally left the country, I procured a lot and built a very neat log house, put a good shingle roof on it and built a good rock chimney. Brother Lyman Wright and some others had planted fields of corn and when ripe in the fall, we lived on it, but had to guard the men and teams with a file of ten or twenty men for fear of being surprised and killed by the mob. 						[paragraph break added]
	We procured a small corn mill and while some brought corn from the fields others husked it and shelled it and others ground it in to meal and every day we drew our rations according to the number in each family. In this way e lived for several months.					[paragraph break added]
	Finally when Far West was infested with state troopers and the Prophet and others betrayed into the hands of the mob troops and sentenced by marshall to be shot on the public square in Far West the next morning and would in all probability [have] been put into execution had not General Donophan who had command of a division of the troops protested against such cold blooded murder, and threatened if it was attempted he would withdraw his men.						[paragraph break added]
	General Wilson was sent out to Davis County with five hundred mounted men and we were ordered to march our men, consisting of about a hundred men and boys down into a small prairie bottom and form into a hollow square with our guns. The general then formed a square around us with his five hundred. We were then ordered to step two paces in front and ground our arms and then step back again. Then the mob troops opened a space on one side of their square and we marched out leaving our arms laying on the ground, which they picked up and carried away in a wagon. That was the last we ever saw of our arms. [paragraph break added]
We were huddled up against a field fence and a guard placed around us. When the mob troops came up, most of their faces blackened, tied their horses to trees or anything else at hand, broke through the guard, placed around us for our protection and commenced abusing us in a shameful manner. Some would put the muzzle of their guns to our breasts and with the most vulgar and blasphemous language threaten to blow a hole through our hearts. Others would club their guns and swear they would beat out brains out. We were subject to this treatment for several hours, and all this after out arms had been taken from us and we were unable to offer the least resistance.						[paragraph break added]
	When they had abused us to their hearts content, we were allowed to disperse to our home. Then the troops were allowed all the next day to prowl around over the town, and take anything they could carry away. We were obliged to hide many things away in the rocks along the banks of the Grand River and other places in order to save our wearing apparel and anything else of any value to us. There was no restraint put upon the troops. They wandered at will and did as they pleased. I think the third day after their arrival we, that is the men were all ordered to the general’s quarters and each received a pass or permit reading as follows:
“I permit James Leithead to pass from Davis County to Caldwell, there to remain during the winter and from thence to pass out of the state.”
		Signed, Wilson Brigadier General, Commanding.
	We were given ten days to leave the county at the expiration of which we were not given amunity [sic] from the mob. Many were without teams, and had immediately to start for Far West in quest of teams, 25 miles distance, in order to get out of the county within the allotted time. I procurred a horse and started next morning for Far West in company with John D Lee and an old Brother Snow. We rode all day across the prairie of 25 miles in a blinding snow storm. Next day I obtained a team and wagon from one of the Brothers and started back the day after, which proved to be a stormy day raining nearly all day, and getting in late at night cold and wet. We were one day loading up, and the next which was Christmas we started out, Brother McKiney, his family, and mine. Weather had turned very cold, had to camp out one night and reached our destination next day on Log Creek about five miles from Far West. Where we passed the winter. [paragraph break added]
	In order to pass the winter we obtained permission from one of our brethren to put up a log house that had been pulled down on the approach of the troops to be carried into Far West and used as means of defense, but had not been carried out. After getting the house made up and comfortable in which to spend the winter, our brother wanted his house and to save trouble and ill feeling, we agreed to vacate. We went into the woods nearby, put up anther house, made it warm and comfortable, split logs and put what was called a puncheon floor.
	Early in the winter Elder John Taylor came from Far West to ascertain whether any families would need help of if any were in a position to assist others to leave the State in the spring. A meeting was called which I attended. Brother Taylor inquired into the circumstances of those present. When my name was called he looked around and said with a smile and a shrug of his shoulders as was his wont, he said, “Oh, Brother Leithead, we will pass him, he will get away alright, he is from Canada.” I said nothing, but I was absolutely without money, had neither team nor wagon. A journey of three hundred miles through a country of hostile people was a puzzle I could not unravel but had a great confidence in Elder Taylor who baptized me, and who was also from Canada.
	However, in the spring, I had a wagon, yoke of oxen, plenty of provisions and some money. I did not wait for something to turn up. Instead I went energetically to work, and turned something up. Brother Martin Allred and I made the running-gears of three wagons. We had the hubs turned at Far West by this same John Taylor who was a Turner by trade. We made the spokes from fence rails and two of the wagons fell to my share. We had contracted them for cattle from a man who had his wagons burned in a prairie fire in the fall. Bought my cattle with that money. About the same time a Brother in the East sent me a letter with an order in it on a Brother in Missouri for a new wagon, who was living with me in the same house, bought a yoke of cattle and wagon. Both families small, one wagon was sufficient. We had two cows, he got a pony from some one. Brother McKiney drove the cows and I drove the wagon. So Brother Taylor’s prediction was literally fulfilled.
	We came out in company with the Allred family, Hancocks and others. We crossed the Missouri at Louisiana and came out to Pittsfield, Pike County, Illinois, where we rented a farm. I helped Brother McKiney plant corn, traded my cattle for a horse to cultivate the corn. I left the family with Brother McKiney and went to Quincy, and stayed there until the spring of 1841. I worked during the summer, and in the fall moved my wife to Quincy. I moved to Nauvoo, bought a lot and built a small frame house and worked at any thing I could get to do, assisted to build the Nauvoo Temple. Many times I have worked on the stone query on the banks of the Mississippi River, had nothing for dinner but corn bread when dry dipped in the river, worked drilling rocks day after day as cheerful and contented as I ever was in my life.	[paragraph break added]
	During my residence in Nauvoo of some five years I was employed much of the time by Hyrum Smith, brother of the Prophet, and Patriarch of the Church, at other times rafting logs hewed timber and fire wood from the islands in the Mississippi River also assisted in building a frame and brick houses. Brother Humphrey and myself built a large frame barn on the banks of the river opposite the residence of Patriarch Smith for him. That was in the summer of 1843. The Prophet during that summer received the revelation on Celestial Marriage, but was not immediately made public, although rumors were plentiful in regard to it. While at work on the barn the workmen on the barn during the dinner hour would frequently discuss the matter pro and con. But of course not arrive at any definite conclusions. I ate dinner at Brother Hyrum’s every day while at work for him. So I volunteered to inquire of Hyrum the first opportunity when no strangers were at the table as was frequently the case. Not long afterwards I found an opportunity and asked the question, if it was true that Joseph had such a revelation. His answer was yes, it was true, and that he himself had carried that revelation to the High Council for their acceptance of rejection. I think he said two of the number did not accept of it. I then asked another question and that was when could it be put in to practice. His reply was whenever the church was in a position that the laws of the land could not interfere. This information I carried to my fellow workmen, setting at rest all doubt in regard to this matter, at least so far as we were concerned.
	While at Nauvoo I became a member of the Nauvoo Martial Band,, being instructed to beat the brass drum by the celebrated drummer, Edward P. Duzett, and was frequently called to accompany the Prophet in his visits  to Iowa and duly commissioned by   the State of Illinois. I had many  opportunities of hearing and seeing the Prophet in public life and can truly testify that I never saw nor heard anything either in word or deed derogatory to a man of God. I saw him and heard him in life and in death, lying in his mansion after his massacre at Carthage by a ruthless mob. After the death of the Prophet and Patriarch, and the return of the Apostles most of whom were in the Eastern States, work on the Temple was pushed with vigor and in the fall of 1845 and winter of 1846 was so far completed that endowments were given to hundreds of the Saints. Work on the Temple was continued all winter preparatory to leaving in the spring which had been determined upon because of the continued persecutions heaped upon us.
	Myself and others hires a flat boat and when spring opened, commenced ferrying across the river, which we continued until the majority were across. Having no team or wagon for the trip, I hired a man and team to take me and wife to Bentonsport on the Des Moines River in Iowa. I there went to work getting considerable work in a large flour mill. I also joined in with [the] Brother of the Mill owner, a cabinet maker and made large quantities of bedsteads and other furniture and shipped it up and down the river. I worked also making wagons, anything to make an outfit out for the journey across the plains to the valley of the Great Salt Lake which the pioneers had founded and located in the year 1849. I had so far succeeded, I had a yoke of cattle, wagon, cows and I with some others left for Kanesville on the Missouri River, an outfitting post. Arriving, I built a house to winter in. Went to work out on Pigeon Creek. During the winter and the spring I had earned flour, money and other things necessary for the journey, and in the spring of 1850 started across the plains in Captain Mil Andrus’ company of over fifty wagons. Although many deaths occurred in the camps of California emigrants going to gold   mines and also of our people, no cholera appeared in our company, although we sometimes overtook them burying their dead.
	On my arrival in Salt Lake City I was engaged to work on a saw mill that Willard Richards was about to built in Big Cottonwoods Canyon, sixteen miles north of Salt Lake City. I went out there and after putting up a rude house for my wife and child which had been born to us while on the Des Moines at Bentonsport, Iowa. I then went to work on the saw mill, finished it in 1851. Myself and David Lamoreaux built a great mill for Daniel Burch on the Weber River about two and one half miles from Ogden. I think that was the first flour mill on the Weber River. Brother Loren Farr having built one previous to this on the Ogden River at the mouth of the Ogden Canyon. I also put up the first grist mill at Farmington. Previous to that the settlement was called Millers Creek on account of Daniel and H.W. Miller having settled there. I bought a small piece of land and put up a small adobe house. I assisted in laying out the town of Farmington. I obtained a town lot   and built another adobe house and barn and planted an orchard and others began to build. It soon began to assume the appearance of a thriving village. Shortly after my settling of Millers Creek I received the appointment of postmaster. I had the name changed to Farmington. When John W. Hess was chosen and ordained  Bishop of the Farmington Ward I was chosen his Second Councilor and clerk which I held until 1866 when I was called to go, as was then thought, to Southern Utah to assist in the strengthening of the settlement on the Muddy about ninety miles southwest of St. George. I was also County Clerk from 1851 to 1866. 
	On May 7, 1856 I married Lucinda Gardner, daughter of Benjamin Gardner and Electa Gardner of Ogden. In 1857 a son was born from this marriage which we named James Gardner. He died October 1860, and on August 31, 1858 another son was born which we named Ben Lomand. William, another son, born October 10, 1860, died in infancy. In November 15, 1861 Helen Lucinda born, and Effie Sevella born May 15, 1864. These were all born at Farmington, Davis County, Utah.
	While at Farmington I belonged to the Farmington Brass Band as bass drummer, assisted in building another saw mill in Farmington Canyon, and with others run it one season, cutting out some 60,000 feet of lumber in about two months while the melting snows furnished water; participated in the move south when the Johnson Army invaded Utah. Apostle Willard Richards sold me ten acres of his farm on the bottoms west of Farmington, which made me a farm of thirty acres. I had a house and barn and young orchard. I paid James Jarmison $1,000.00 and was beginning to be comfortable located.
	In the spring of 1886 I left my family in Farmington and in company with Brother Henry Steed and Thomas Smith of Farmington who was president of the Mission on the Muddy, who had been up to Farmington and was then returning again to the Mission. The snow had been very deep all over that winter and was then breaking up. The roads were very bad all the way until we reached St. George. From there a great portion of the way along the Virgin Bottoms were sandy and the river which we had to cross many times were exceedingly dangerous on account of quick sand. We arrived at our destination on the 16th of March.
			(Thomas Smith, son-in-law to James Leithead,) LRB)
	A few days after our arrival at St Thomas, named in honor of Thomas Smith, president of the Mission, the  Indians made a raid on the settlement of St Joseph about nine or ten miles above St Thomas on the same stream and carried off some sixty head of cattle, and although pursued were never recovered. About the first work we engaged in was to survey a new town sight about a mille farther down stream and about a mile from the Junction of the Muddy with the Rio Virgin River and about twenty-five miles from where the Virgin entered the Colorado. We moved on to our new town site and commenced making abodes, preparatory to building, breaking up land and putting in grain  and making ditches. Brother Henry Steed, my companion from Farmington, came with two span of horses on one wagon letting President Thomas Smith have my wagon for the trip. Brother Steed and myself put in a few acres of oats and put up a small abode hut, made some ditches and then about the first of May he left for home. I stayed and took care of the crop, roofed our shanty with  willow rafters and willow sheating [sic] tied on the twine and thatched with tulle from the swamp, a tall three cornered grass, which answered very well. The summers were very hot, impossible to sleep in our shanties, slept on the ground or on a scaffold above the ground as high as the material we had would allow. 								[paragraph break added]
	I went home in the fall and back again during the winter, and inn the spring we put in quite a quantity of grain and cotton and garden stuff. Our wheat we had   sown in the fall, and our harvest came from middle of May to middle of June. Some of the land produced large crops of wheat as high as 60 bushels per acre, and of excellent quality. Some of the land was impregnated with alkali and nothing would grow on it. Lucerne grew exceedingly well and could cut six crops a year. Our gardens were a partial failure for a year or two, but became better after being watered and cultivated. That was our experience at St Thomas. Other portions of the valley was better adapted than ours for small seeds, except watermelons, they grew there to perfection. We raised great quantities of them.
	When Major Powel made his first trip down the Colorado River he landed at the mouth of the Rio Virgin twenty-five miles from St. Thomas. He sent an Indian with a note directed to the post master, stating that he had landed and would stay for a few days before proceeding farther and to send any letter or papers for him or his men. He also intimated that they were short of everything at that time.
	I was postmaster at St. Thomas. The Indian arrived in the night. I wrote a note stating that I would be down next morning and would bring his mail with me. IN the morning I got Brother Andrew Gibbons to go with   me, taking one hundred pounds of flour, some tea, coffee, sugar, tobacco and about twenty-five very fine melons. It was after night before reaching his camp, but he was expecting us and met  us a short distance from camp bear headed having lost his hat  during his perilous trip down the river. They had a blazing fire burning when we drove up and when we tumbled out the melons they went into them  with a will, after being for months running the fearful rapids of the river, wet, day after day it was a treat unlooked for. After talking until after midnight we made our bed to take some rest. In a short time the Major came and asked us if we were asleep. When we told him no. He said, “You may as well get up. I want to talk and want to hear the news.”									[paragraph break added]
	We got up and after satisfying him he gave us an account of his trip down the river. He had one of his boats smashed all to pieces and its occupants thrown into the raging rapids, but escaped with their lives. Another boat they left at the head of the last rapids: two of his men refused to run the rapids and he left the boat with the hope that after seeing him thru safe [they] would follow in the boat. He also left them a part of the bedding, food, guns and ammunitions and they attempted to cross the country to St. George, or some of the settlements of Southern Utah, were killed by Indians. When I afterwards learned of their fate I wrote Major Powell and acquainted him of the fact. He was very much concerned about them. [He] feared they might perish, and so they did in that way.
	In the morning before Brother Gibbons and I were ready to start, the Major had concluded to go with us to St Thomas, him and his brother, and let his other men have the boats and everything else left form the ravages of the river and pursue their way to Fort Mohave. He give [sic] them an order on the Commandment there for sixty days rations. And we returned to St Thomas, arriving there before night. We learned that Brother Henry Nebeker had started that morning with four horses and wagon for Payson. I furnished the Major with a hat, his brother a pair of shoes and some other articles which I do not remember now. We prepared food to last them to St George, got some young men to overtake Nebeker during the night and he would give them passage to Payson. All of this I furnished myself as well as what I took to the river and in the Major’s book he gave all the credit to President Brigham Young, so I have been told. He did not even send me a copy of his book.
	Flour at that time was $10.00 per hundred pounds. But to return to the mission, it required much labor to make and keep the ditches open. A company of Salt Lake Merchants built a large store warehouse on the Colorado River about forty miles from St Thomas with a view of some of the emigration to Utah coming that way. I was told that it cost the company $18,000 by one of their members. One summer Brother Gibbons and myself were employed to put the roof covering on and doors and windows in, which wee did by putting on a very flat roof covering it with cloth prepared for the purpose and putting on a coating over the cloth of some kind of pitch. We put in the doors. A cargo of goods, general; merchandise was sent from San Francisco, California by steamer, but failed and fell through, owing to the difficulty of navigating the river and obstacles that then seemed insurmountable. The location was named Callville. Several men came and commenced building. It is now abandoned. 
	About the second year, I succeeded President Thomas Smith as President of the Mission and was ordained Bishop of the St Thomas Ward by Apostle Erastus Snow. President Smith was released on account of ill health. I chose Andrew S Gibbons and Warren Foote as my councilors. We supposed we were in Arizona, had a County organized named Pah Ute, and we sent a number to the Legislature, paid taxes in the County. When the state line was run between Nevada and Utah it was found we were in Nevada and in consequence of the ill feeling against the Latter-Day Saints, or Mormons, Nevada claimed back taxes. That and other causes caused the abandonment of the country on the spring of 1871. 	[paragraph break added]
During our stay on the Muddy President Brigham Young of the Mormon Church [with others] paid us a visit. [They} went down to the mouth of the Rio Virgin twenty-five miles, and camped over night on the banks of the Colorado. Before his visit it was given out that he and his company wished to cross the river and explore a little in Arizona. Word was sent to us, could we furnish a flat boat capable of carrying a wagon and team, or would he have to bring a boat along. I answered we would furnish the boat. There was no timber within sixty miles. Over roads, or rather no roads at all and scarcely any water, we went resolutely to work. Teams were sent to the timber mountains for timber and when arrived, Brother R Broadbent and myself erected a saw pit in a small grove of cottonwoods that I had planted and which had grown large enough to make quite a shade. We smoothed the side of one log and split it with a ship saw for gunnels. We sawed all the timbers for a frame sidling floor inside and put it together, caulked it and pitched and launched it. [We] tied it up to be used in ferrying President Young and party across the Colorado, but it never was used for that purpose. The President was so disappointed with the country that he did not feel like making further move in that direction. All that labor and expense was thrown away so far as we were concerned.
When President Young visited the Muddy Valley he did not seem much elated with the country, and had very little to say. [He] let those accompanying do most of the talking. About this time the line was run between Utah and Nevada and the settlements fell to Nevada. They immediately sent officers to collect back taxes. We had already paid our taxes [to Arizona]. Probate Judge and all other County Officers sent delegates to the legislature. We had four small settlements on the stream, St. Thomas, Overton, St. Joseph and West Point. The grist mill was situated about midway in the Valley about opposite and a little east of Overton, and some eight miles above St Thomas. We made many improvements, many miles of water ditch, planted fruit trees of various kinds, and set out cottonwoods along side walks and in groves, made much shade in a very few years, and raised considerable cotton which we sent to the Washington Cotton and Woolen Factory which we exchanged for cloth, yarn and other goods made a the factory. But Nevada Officials became so urgent and clamorous for back taxes hat we had already paid to the territory of Arizona, and considering that even if we could have  beat them in the courts, time and money spent in fighting the state would have amounted to a large  sum, which we were ill prepared to meet.
In consideration of these, and for other causes, President Young gave us the privilege of abandoning the country if we were unanimous in doing so. He sent by the hands of Joseph Young and Richard Bentley of St George as delegates to carry out and determine the wishes of the people in this regard. Meetings were held in the various settlements and we agreed to vacate the country in the Spring. Those meetings were held in the fall of 1870. A committee was appointed too visit Long Valley, then in the County of Washington, but since has been organized as Kane County. This committee, about Christmas, visited Long Valley and the country about Kanab, finding a few families who had just settled at Kanab. Among the number were Levi Stewart, who afterwards became Bishop of Kanab Ward, and James S Bunting and others. Long Valley had been settled some seven or eight years previously. Indians had driven the first settlers of Long Valley out five years previous to our visits. Very little sign of settlement remained -- a few log huts with dirt roofs, rotten and broken down water ditches filled up, land grown up with brush and weeds. However, when we returned to the Muddy we reported the situation and it was determined to move as a Ward and resettle Long Valley.
We determined to move as Wards without breaking up our Organizations. Of course liberty was given to any or all who wished or desired to do otherwise or to go elsewhere. [They] were at liberty to do so. Most of the St Thomas Ward chose the upper settlement and gave it the name of Glendale. I moved my grist mill I had purchased on the Muddy, and the same summer of 1871 with the assistance of Brother Rueben Broadbent we commenced hewing the timber for basement and storey. We set the stones up and by fall we had it so far completed we ground corn and made graham flour. We also had to saw the lumber to [make] live penstock and scanling [sic] for braces. We floored the basement and storey.
While Brother Broadbent and I were at this labor others, after putting in corn and potatoes, went to work on the ditch and dam and as soon as corn was ripe and dry we had the mill ready to grind. We put no roof on; merely put a covering over the mill stones. Summer of 1872, I put another storey and roof. In the meantime, with the assistance of others, I built a sawmill a few miles above Glendale which  furnished us with lumber, logs and frame houses began to spring up. Glendale began to assume the appearance of a village. A the same time we surveyed the valley and gave, to each family, in proportion to number -- some five acres, some ten, and besides a small portion of hay land. 				[paragraph break added]
We had also, whenever we could, to work on the road. I was also requested to build a grist mill for Kanab. I associated others. Brother Broadbent, who had moved to American Fork, came back and joined me in the enterprise. We hewed the timber in the Kanab Canyon, 18 miles above Kanab, freighted the lumber from the Glendale saw mill and put up a very nice little mill which run [sic] a few years. The floods [later] cut a large deep chanel [sic] for the creek which left the mill high and dry. No effort was made to get the water to the mill again. It was finally pulled down and put up in Kanab and used for a barn.
During this time the mill was in operation I moved my family to Kanab while I lived there. I sold the mill to John Rider for a town lot and thirty acres of land in field. Owing to the difficulty in controlling the water of Kanab Creek, I sold my lot and land in field and returned again to Glendale to my old home I still retained. My grist mill burned down during the night, was a total loss, consuming a large quantity of wheat and flour, as also my chest and all of my carpenter tools. But not being daunted, I associated with Brother Broadbent and put up another frame building much larger than the other. {We] borrowed money, sent east and west for another pair of stones and all other machinery needed and commenced again, continuing with the Burr [burnt?] stones until about 1896, when in March of that year a company was incorporated consisting of the following persons: James Leithead, Ben Lomand Leithead, Rueben Broadbent, Thomas G Smith, Haskell S Jolley, H.B.M. Jolley, Silas Harris, Henry W. Esplin, and Thomas Chamberlain, for the purpose of remodeling the mill to the roller system. [This] was done including [the] value of building flume, penstock, burrs, smelter, land, etc. amounting to $4,000.
During the time of my absence I was relieved of the office of Bishop of Glendale Ward. I was, however, for many years a member of the High Council of the Kanab Stake until September 2, 1900. [I] was ordained a Patriarch in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints by Apostle Francis M Lyman.

	
TESTIMONY OF JAMES LEITHEAD  
REGARDING JOSEPH SMITH THE PROPHET
Follows on the next page

TESTIMONY OF JAMES LEITHEAD  
REGARDING JOSEPH SMITH THE PROPHET
Short sketch of the Life and Labors of James Leithead.
Glendale, Kanab County, Utah
January 8, 1902

	I was born   in Scotland in 1816, parents names, John and Jeany Harvey Leithead. At the age of six, I was sent to school and at eleven I was taken from school and put to work among the farmers, at such light work as I could do. At the age of sixteen I left Scotland and emigrated to Canada, settled 12 miles north of the city of Toronto. There I heard the Gospel first preached by Apostle Parley P Pratt in 1836, was baptized in the spring of 1837 by John Taylor, who had himself been baptized and ordained an Elder, the same who afterwards became an Apostle and succeeded President Brigham Young as President of the Church. In the summer of 1837, I first was the Prophet Joseph Smith at a conference held in Canada, heard him preach for the first time in 1838.
	By the council of the Prophet Joseph Smith, I left Canada foe Missouri, the then gathering place. Arriving there about the first of August, and settled in Adam-oni-Ahman [sic] about 25 miles from Far West. We were from the day of my arrival there until we were driven from the county by orders of the Governor of the State. Surrounded by mobs of four or five hundred men we were obliged to keep a guard day and night for months. During this time the Prophet visited us several times to give us encouragement. I had the privilege of seeing and hearing him many time after being hemmed in so that we suffered for months. We were finally driven from our homes by State Troopers, under General Wilson with the privilege of staying in Coldwell County during the winter. Then were to leave the State which we did, leaving our farms, houses, and everything. [We took] only what we could take in our wagon. Those that had teams and those that had none had to be helped, many making several hundred mile trips helping those who had no way of getting away. We left the Prophet in prison, not knowing [if] we should ever see him again or not.
	I did not see or hear the Prophet again until 1840, when I again gathered with the Saints at Nauvoo formerly called Commerce, where the Prophet after getting away from Missouri, had purchased lands on the Mississippi and commenced building up another town. From 1840 until 1844, when he and his brother were murdered in Carthage jail, I had the privilege of seeing and hearing him almost daily, living in the same town and I was employed by his brother Hyrum building and other work, so I had chances of seeing and hearing   him preach on the Sabbath and at other times and can truthfully say I never heard or saw anything in his conduct but what was in accordance with strict mortality. He was clearly [ ] in his habits, drank no intoxicants, used neither tea, coffee, [or] tobacco, used no bad or vulgar language. [He was] honest and upright, taught his followers correct principles, [such as] to be honest and virtuous and to keep the commandments of God. In fact I never heard anything fall from his lips but what was pure and good. He taught the Gospel of Christ. He was not only a teacher, but was a restorer. He restored the Gospel as in the days of the Savior, Peter, James, and John.
	This is my testimony, and my testimony is true and faithful, and will it be found so when we will be judged by a just God for deeds done in the body. I dare not testify contrary to that because my testimony is true, and because it will be found so when the secrets of hearts shall be revealed. I am now within a few months of 86 years of age. [I] Have been connected with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints since 1837, and this testimony I hope to bear the few remaining years I may remain on the earth.
	[Signed] 		James Leithead