Return to Table of Contents
1. John McCormick WISER
(photo) was born on 22 Jun 1826 in Truxton,
Cortland, New York, USA. He emigrated about Oct 1850 to Salt Lake City, Salt
Lake, Utah, USA. He died on 25 Jul 1897 in Lewiston, Cache, Utah, USA. He was
buried on 27 Jul 1897 in Lewiston, Cache, Utah, USA. He has Ancestral File number
18KL-XM. He History is as follows .... JOHN MCCORMICK WISER
John McCormick Wiser, son of Samuel Wiser and Elizabeth Babcock (Crandall?)
Wiser, was born in the state of New York on the 22nd of June 1826. His father
died in 1834 the state of New York where the family lived when he, John , was
a child. There were five boys and three girls in the family: Amanda, Temperance,
Ezra, John, Samuel, Matilda Ann, William Henry and Albert Henry. (The youngest
child, Albert Henry, may have been the son of Mother's second marriage.) After
his fathers death, his Mother married again to another Wiser. (May have been
Theodore). They moved to JoDavies County, Illinois, where the Mother died 1839,
while the children were still yong. John went to Iowa and lived with Charles
Morgan and Family. The children were separated and he lost all trace of them.
While living at the Morgan home, he helped clear the land of rock, driving a
four horse car as did the others. He helped to get out logs and hauled them
to the sawmill also with the same equipment. In spite of work, he had time for
a few pranks the most outstanding one was on Halloween when he took a buggy apart
and carried it piece by piece to the top of the barn and put it together on the
ridge pole.
He married Sarah Ann Silsbee, born in 1828 in Jackson County, Iowa, on the 22nd
of February, 1849. Sarah died December 27, 1849 at childbirth. The baby died
also. John then joined a company of miners and came west on horse-back, arriving
in Salt Lake City in the autumn on 1850, intending to spend the winter there
and continue on to California gold fields in the spring. Calif Sheriman, a Mr.
Lindsay and Charles Morgan, a son of the man in Iowa with whom he lived were
in the company. They boarded in Salt Lake that winter with Mrs. William Empy.
John became concerted to "Mormonism" and joined the Church December
6th 1850 and remained in Utah. In the spring of 1851, he married Martha McKinney
Frost (widow of the late George Langley) at Cottonwood Canyon, at the home of
her sister Margaret Rawlins. They lived in Cottonwood a short time, then in
Draper and from there to Apline (Mountainville) where their first baby, Sarah
Ann was born February 26, 1852. A branch of the Church was organized here on
February 10, 1852. They moved back to Draper for the winter where the baby died
in Mrch 1852 of whooping cough. Then they returned to Alpine where they lived
until they moved to Richmond in June 1860. They lived at the old Fort in Richmond
and his name is written on the log of the Fort.
While living at Alpine during the summer of 1856, they had no bread for a period
of six weeks. Many other families were much longer without flour. It was the
summer after the grasshoppers took their crops, so they did not have flour enough
to last them until the next crop. They lived on greens and the men became so
weak that they reeled when they walked. The oak-brush and all trees were covered
with sugar lumps Grandma served with the greens. They had to live mostly on
pigweed and nettles. There were few sego bulbs and they were so tired of nettles
and pigweed, and they were getting scarce, that the children were sent into the
canyon to find some greens but there were none. Then three days later they went
again and found the hillsides lined with tender green wild onions, which the
children picked and ate raw. Then they gathered and filled their pans and aprons
with the onions and took them home and all enjoyed the change. Another time
when they were so badly in need of food, fish came down the Prove River in such
quantities that the people could scarcely cross the river. Grandpa go a barrel
of fish. There was plenty for every one. They boiled their fish and ate them
with their greens and enjoyed them very much.
At this period, his little daughter Amanda, two and a half years old, would ask
at every meal "Is there no bread"?" On being told that there
was none, she would say :Then pleas pass the greens." Never a world of
complaint from either of the three children. (Olive was a nursing baby).
The grain ripened sooner in Draper than it did in Alpine, so Aunt Margaret Rawlins
wrote for grandfather to go over to Draper and get some of their wheat. The
wheat ripened that year in patches as fast as they could cut it with a sickle.
Grandfather walked to Draper across the mountain trail about five miles, cut
some grain, took it to mill, had it ground into flour, and then carried the four
home on his back to save the horses, along with a batch of biscuits that Aunt
Margaret had made for the children, so that hey would no have to wait for bread
while their Mother baked. When the bread was placed upon the table, the eager
children counted the biscuits and finding there was enough for themselves and
their two neighbors to have on e biscuit each, they took some over to the neighbors
who lived a mile away, before eating any themselves as the neighbors had been
longer than the Wiser's without flour.
Grandfather was among others who went to meet the Handcart companies in 1856,
and helped bring them into Salt Lake.
He worked at building adobe houses for the soldiers of Johnstons's army who came
into Utah in June 1858 and founded Camp Floyd on the 26th of June, about thirty-six
miles south of Salt Lake City. With the first wages he received for this work,
he bought among other things, a pink calico dress for his little daughter Matt,
as she wanted one so much just like her sister Nina's that a neighbor had giver
her.
While living in Richmond, he helped to pioneer that place. He helped to build
the school house which was built est of organ Anderson's. In Richmond he owned
his home and a city lot in town, a small farm, a small orchard consisting of
cherry trees, pears, green gages, and apples, which he kept for several years
(for the fruit), after he moved to Lewiston.
He moved to Lewiston in the spring of 1872 and took up a 160 acre homestead there.
He worked during the summon on the farm and partly constructed his house and
also had time to help others. They returned to Richmond for the winter, but
came back the next spring, 1873, and remained permanently. Lewiston First Ward
at this time took in all the territory between the Bear and Cub Rivers, from
Riverdale on the North to the Southern boundary line of Lewiston. The Ward was
organized Oct. 20th, 1872. William H. Lewis was presiding Bishop.
The Wiser house was finished in the winter of 1873. The family lived there all
summer, then in the winter grandfather went to High Creek Sawmill and got siding
board and split it for lath. He lathed and plastered the house and grandma cleaned
up and got ready for meeting on Sunday Meetings were held there one winter.
John helped to build the Logan Temple, the Union Pacific Railroad, the first
public building in Lewiston, which was used as Church and school house; the First
Ward Church, later also the Opera House. He helped to build the Cub River canal
and also later on helped to widen it. He worked with "Ike" Bright
and Isaac Smith. The weather was so cold at this time that they built a dugout
in the side of the canal for their camp while they were working. He also did
some freighting into Montana.
He went on a Mission to England, August 24, 1880, but due to illness he came
home in September on 1881. He sent Frank Coley, a boy of ten years, home with
Elder Goddard in October 1881. While in England, he paid for the boys schooling,
gave him a home with him in Utah and kept him. When Frank was old enough to
work out he worked and sent the money for his people to come to Utah . He was
later leaded in the mines and died July 10th 1893.
Grandfather and Grandmother spent several summers on a ranch in Riverdale, probably
about 1887 - 1890. He died after several years illness of dropsy, at his home
in Lewiston on the 25th of July 1897 and was interred in the Lewiston Cemetery.
He was the father of ten children and raised as his own Martha and Peninna Langley,
daughter of his wife by a former marriage. From Ancestral File (TM), data as
of 2 January 1996.