Scott Anderson is the son of Elizabeth Lyn Hampson, who is the daughter of Alred Spencer Hampson,
who is the son of James Alfred Hamson, who is the son of
George Frederick Hamson
The History of George Frederick Hamson Retyped by Anjanette Lofgren, a 4th
great granddaughter
(This copy obtained through the efforts of James Alfred Hamson
of Ogden , Utah ,
son of George Fredrick Hamson of Brigham
City
1820-1893
Hamson, George Fredrick, a High Priest in the 4th Ward of
Brigham City, Utah, was born April 19th, 1820, at Birmingham , England America
with his parents in 1826 and was baptized in Philadelphia Nauvoo
Temple Iowa side of the Mississippi River ,
where they spent the winter of 1846-1847, in an old clap-board house, open and
leaky, where they subsisted for four months on bread and water among a hostile
people. One brother named Moorhead Benton
put a barrel of flour on the ice of the Des Moines River ,
thinking that some of the starving Mormons would make an attempt to steal it
and so might be shot down. In the
spring of 1847, Bro. Hamson and his wife proceeded to Council
Bluffs where they remained until 1851 and started for the Rocky Mountains as part of Capt. Allred’s Company. The Elkhorn River Platte River ,
near Grand Island and then continued their
journey to the mountains, arriving in Box Elder (Brigham City
While crossing the plains and mountains in 1851, Sister Hamson,
although expecting to become a mother, walked all the way from Fort Laramie
to Box Elder and her child was the first white child born in Brigham City
In the spring of 1846, Mr. Hamson, while camped on the side of
the Ohio River , learned of a job further up
the river. He had to go through several
miles of timber. On his journey he saw
two little children, a boy and a girl.
When they saw him they said, “There comes papa now” and came running
over to him. He picked up the little
one and took the other on by the hand and walked them down the road until they
came to a ranch, there he left them, as he was afraid to take them home for
fear their parents would say he had stolen them. He went into the ranch house, found the lady
was in bed and the man was out behind the house plowing. When he told the lady he had found the
children in the woods and wanted to leave them there she didn’t give him time
to tell her what he wanted before she jumped up out of bed and called to her
husband and told him there was a “Mormon S of a B” who wanted to leave his
‘bast---‘ children with her. He left
his team and came in a hurry. She said,
“Get the gun and kill the Mormon S of a B”.
He got the gun and came to the door. Mr. Hamson left the children and
walked away. He never heard any more
about them.
He located the job, it being to haul cord wood for two
millers. He and his family lived in the
old clap-board house (spoken of before) that belonged to these two
millers. It had no doors or windows in
it, but he made a door and nailed something up to the windows. When it rained they had only one corner where
they could put the bed, the roof leaked so badly.
He worked for flour. One
day he heard flour was going down, so he thought he would take all the flour he
didn’t need and sell it. There was some
running down into the water in the mill race.
He asked the manager if he could have some of the stuff that was coming
out of the mill, going into the water, and they told him he could have all he
wanted. He borrowed their fanning mill
to get it out, and fanned out twenty bushel of wheat. This he took to the mill to get flour
for. The miller said, “Where the hell
did you get this wheat?” Mr. Hamson
told him that he had got it out of the stuff that he had given him, and the
miller replied, “You **** Mormons would get something out of nothing” and Mr.
Hamson said, “That’s worth a lot to you to know what you are losing.” “Oh, I
guess you’re right” said the miller.
When he went to get his flour the miller was putting his garden in and
told Hamson he couldn’t have time to bother with him that day, and said, “It
looks like rain and I want to get my garden in.” Hamson said, “It won’t rain today but it
will tomorrow.” The miller said, “Oh,
revelation. Oh yes, you can have your flour right now.” He went and got it and Mr. Hamson took it
home and put it in the corner of the house where it didn’t leak and went after
a load of wood. That word of revelation
went all over the valley. Some of the
brethren that were there said we would all be driven out of the valley if it
didn’t rain, but brother Hamson said, “If I said it’s going to rain, it’s going
to rain.” He then went out after more
wood. The next day was nice and clear
until three o’clock in the afternoon.
Then a little cloud was seen in the west and before long it was raining. It not only rained, but it poured down. Such a rain they hadn’t seen in a long time
and brother Hamson was out in all of it getting his wood. While on his way home it started to rain
pretty hard, so he stepped on to the porch of a nearby house and was waiting
for the rain to cease when a lady came out of the house and said, “I should
think a prophet would know better than to come out in a rain storm like
this.” The next morning he went over to
the mill and the miller said, “If I hadn’t listened to you I would have had my
garden planted.” Hamson said, “I you
hadn’t you would have had it all washed out.”
So the miller said he supposed it had all happened for the best.
It took Hamson three of four days to sell all his flour. When he got back to the mill the miller
said, “Where have you been, Hamson? I haven’t seen you around for a few days.” Hamson said, “I had more flour than I could
use and I sold some of it.” The miller
said, “**** you. Did you sell that flour?” “Why sure” said Hamson. “Didn’t I
work for it? Wasn’t it mine?” The miller walked up and down the mill swearing
and cursing, for he had to take a team and go twenty miles and find this flour
for it was marked first class and it was third class flour. He had to find the flour and pay the
difference. If he hadn’t done this he
would have lost his trade.
One day the miller’s folks were all sick and couldn’t find
anyone to wash for them. They came and
asked Sarah Ann Hamson to do it for them.
She promised to come if they would pay her in meat, as they hadn’t had
any meat all winter. He said for her to
come and he’d give her a nice piece of meat.
When he sent the meat they found it was no good. Sarah said it looked like an old sow that
had died with some disease. She told
the man to take it back and give it to the miller and tell him it was worth it
to find out what kind of man he was. It
wasn’t long after until his partner wanted her to wash for him, and she told
him also that she wouldn’t wash unless he’d give her a piece of meat, but she
said, “I don’t want the kind of meat your partner sent me. It was terrible and wasn’t fit for a dog to
eat.” He said, “Oh, did he give you
meat?” She said, “Yes, if you call it that.”
He told her to come and wash for him and he’d give her good meat and he
did. He sent lots of it and the other
man became ashamed and sent more meat.
This time it was better. The man
that sent the good meat first was a fine man, but the other fellow was no good,
but he got beat at his own game.
All the non-Mormons held a meeting and voted that they wouldn’t
sell Mormons any meat. And the good
miller said to the other one, “If I was dirty enough to break my agreement I
would sure give them something that was good.” He called his partner some
pretty hard names.
Joseph Smith said that anyone who would help build one of the
temples would never want for bread.
None of them had much money then, but Brother Hamson hauled logs for the
building of the Nauvoo
Temple
Brother Hamson had a net with which he used to catch fish for
himself and temple hands. When he was
driven from place to place he had to sell it.
Now that he didn’t have a net, his trouble was to get materiel
with which to make another. And he was
trying to get means to get an out-fit to come to Utah
Brother Hamson made his net and went fishing taking his
father-in-law (this must have been Bartholomew Mahoney, Sarah Ann Smith’s
step-father.-Anjanette Lofgren) and another man with him. They went down a river and caught a boat
full of fish, going on down the river to sell them. Here brother Hamson was taken down with
chills and fever. When they reached the
town he told the two men to take the fish and sell them for anything they could
get, so just to advertise the fish, they sold them and received in return,
plenty of things to eat and some whisky, and when the two returned to where
they had left Hamson, they had plenty of whisky in them. Brother Hamson was a man that never drank
whisky of any kind. He was standing by
a Temperance Hotel, and it was raining hard and he was shivering with the
chills and fever. These fellows,
telling him it would do him good, offered him a drink of liquor. He said, “No,
I don’t want any.” Two ladies looking
out of an upstairs window saw him refuse the liquor. They
went down to the landlord and told him there was a man outside, and they knew
he was a temperance man because they had seen him refuse the liquor. We want you to go out and tell him to come
in. If you don’t we will leave your
hotel and turn everybody from you that we can.
The landlord went out and asked brother Hamson in and gave him something
warm to eat and drink. His
father-in-law and the other man went back up town to look for a place to stay
that night as the landlord wouldn’t give them any place there. They couldn’t find any place to stay so they
returned to the Temperance Hotel and asked if they might be permitted to stay
out in one of the out-buildings or outside.
The landlord said “No, I wouldn’t have you on the place”, but brother Hamson
was offered one of their best rooms in the house. So, as the two men couldn’t get any place to
stay in town they made up their minds to cross the river. Brother Hamson said he would have to go with
them. The hotel people said, “Oh, don’t
go, they will drown you.” But he said,
“Well, if they drown, I will drown with them.”
Still they followed him down to the river begging him not to go, but he
was determined and he crossed the river.
Brother Hamson became so ill with chills and fever he couldn’t move, and
they had to carry him out of the boat.
When they reached the top of the bank they found an old ferry house
there. It had cleared up and the moon was shining but it was very cold. They carried brother Hamson into the house
and built a fire and laid him on a board beside the fire. When one side got warm he asked them to turn
him over as he could not turn himself.
They cooked supper and made coffee in this house. One said “I like molasses in my coffee.” and
the other said. “I like pepper in my coffee.”
So they put lots of both in it and said to Hamson, “Have a cup of this
coffee.” Hamson said, “No, I can’t
drink it.” They said, “If you don’t
drink it we will pour it down you.”
They caught hold of him and were going to pour it down him, so Hamson
said, “Let me have my cup, I will try and drink it.” Which he did. The next morning he was ready to do his
share of the work. The pepper coffee cured him.
They went down this same river again with another load of
fish. As they were going down, a man
stepped up to the side of the river with a riffle in his hand and told them to
pull to shore. Hamson said, “What do you want?”
He replied, “I want some fish.” Brother Hamson threw him one and the man
said, “Give me another.” They threw him
another, then they told him to go on.
They landed at the same side as before and when the hotel people saw him
they came up to him and shook his hands and made a fuss over him as if he had
been one of their own folks. “We never
expected to see you alive again” they
said, and asked how he got along. The
hotel man wanted to buy Hamson’s net and pay him for all the fish he got and
still the net would be Hamson’s. He
wanted the first pick of the fish for himself.
He offered Hamson two of his best rooms in the house free of
charge. But Hamson said, no, he didn’t
want it, for he was afraid if he took his wife there she wouldn’t go away.
He made money enough to buy his outfit to come to Utah Utah Utah
Brother Hamson landed in Utah Valley
One night there was a bunch of Indians coming into their camp,
whooping and yelling. Somebody
hollered, “Get your guns.” They got
their guns out, then one man pulled his gun out and the hammer hit the gate and
it went off through the wagon. That stopped
the Indians. One Indian came in and
told them they were there for peace and not for war, but the white people could
hardly believe this.
Brother Hamson married Boletta Mortensen in 1857, as a second
wife. There were ten children born to
them.
One time when they were called to Salt Lake
George Hamson was a man that had a lot of faith. I will tell of some occasions that will show
his faith. When Eliza was born, the
midwife pronounced her dead and two other women said the same, but Hamson said,
“No, she is not dead.” He took her in
his arms and anointed and administered to her, and she started to breath. She lived and is a mother of three or four
girls and is still alive at this date, April 5, 1938, and working in the Arizona Temple Logan Temple
He was a man that never sat down to eat a meal without thanking
the Lord for it. Whether it was in the
field or mountains it was just the same.
It didn’t make any difference who was there, they had to take their hats
off or move away. He always set a good
example for his children to follow.
On one occasion George Fredrick Hamson Jr. was going down town
when he met brother Wrighton who said if he had a few minutes to spare he had
something to tell him of his father, and related the following:
When wheat was very scarce and selling for $4.00 per bushel,
George Hamson had a little wheat, and William Wrighton and Ferdenand Hanson
came to him and tried to buy some at this price. He shared his wheat with them.
They progressed and Hamson had fifty head of cattle. Sometime after a hard winter came. There was four feet of snow on the level and
they couldn’t get feed to the cattle.
They lost most of the stock at that time.
Brother Hamson dug a foundation for a new house and had his
adobies on the ground, when part of the courthouse fell in. It was too early to make adobies and as
brother Hamson’s adobies were the only ones in town, brother Snow asked him if
they might have these and said as soon as they made adobies again they would
replace them. Brother Snow went away
and left the things to be settled by another man. They were not replaced, but later on brother
Snow came and offered to pay for them, but Hamson said, “No. never mind now.” He wouldn’t take anything for them. Hamson was honest and upright in every
way. He lived to be seventy-three years
old, raised an honorable family of twenty-two, and none of them were arrested
for anything and all are workers.
One time when he was going to Sale Lake
One trip that he made to the canyon, with two yoke of oxen and
two boys, he didn’t get his load on until ten o’clock at night. As he was getting ready to go home a man
came up the road with a six-shooter in his hand. He said, “Where am I?” and brother Hamson
said, “Where do you think you are?” The man said, “I think I am on the road to Cache Valley
We can little realize what our parents and grandparents went
through in earlier times. They suffered
from the cold, starvation, Indian attacks, and attacks from the non-Mormons in
the east. They did all this so that we
may enjoy life today here in the heart
of the Rocky Mountains of Zion.
They had faith and endurance and were determined to accomplish their
purpose.
George Hamson’s parents and brothers and sisters were as
follows:
Father- Joseph Hamson, Mother- Elizabeth Hines, Children-
Edward, Joseph, George Frederick, Charles, Emma Jane, and Elizabeth.
Family of George Hamson by his first wife, Sarah Ann Smith, were
the following: Sarah Ann, Joseph Smith,
Hyrum Smith, George Frederick, Heber C. Kimball, Brigham Young, Jedediah Grant,
Mary Elizabeth, Eliza Jane, Samuel, Franklin D. Richards, and a baby who died
as an infant.
Family of George Hamson by his second wife, Boletta Mortenson,
were as follows: Mary Jeny, Emma Mariah, Albert, David, James Alfred, Arthur,
Diderick, Sara Boletta Melvina, Georgianna, Olive Luciann, and Ella
Susann.
************************************************************************
Bro. Hamson was a member of the Echo Canyon Expedition which was
called out in 1857 to protect the settlements from the invasion of Johnston
Bro. Hamson filled many positions of trust in Box Elder County , one of which was that of city councilman of Brigham City
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