Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Esaias Edwards

[This is one of a selection of stort snippets about Nauvoo residents we are using for our ward party.]

Esaias Edwards served a mission in Tennessee with Elder Alexander Williams.

After I returned home I found my family enjoying tolerable health. I then in a short time went to Nauvoo and contracted for a lot on the bank of the Mississippi River and began to improve it by getting out timber and fencing it on the 5th of April. When I arrived there with my family on the 6th day, conference commenced and lasted two or three days in which time we received a great deal of good instruction. I soon began to make preparations for building by digging a cellar and collecting materials for building myself a house. And so I fenced my garden and planted it and then I commenced digging and walling my cellar, which was 52 feet long and 18 feet wide. I also put me up a frame building which was designed for a stable, 20 feet in length and 17 in width. As soon as this building was covered I moved my family into it until I could get my house up, for houses was very scarce in Nauvoo at that time and could not be hired at any price. And so we lived all that summer without a house and suffered considerable with the chills and fever.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ah, my fifth great grandfather on my mom's side. He also wrote a very interesting (though hardly scientific) take on astronomy that is included in his journals.

Bruce said...

Then you are a distant relative of my wife who is a descendent of Esaias' mother by her first husband. I haven't read the rest of his journal, but now that you mention it, I think it might be entertaining.

Anonymous said...

He is my great great great great grandfather ... yeah, his journal is pretty interesting ... but it's sad as well... he died a lonely man...

I have a picture of him when he was younger if you want it.