John Tanner's Mission: Sources

In the ongoing effort to move the content from this blog over to FamilySearch Family Tree, I compiled the information here and added some new information to a document called John Tanner's Mission: Sources. You can view and download it here:

John Tanner's Mission: Sources

John Tanner Documents at The Joseph Smith Papers

The Joseph Smith Papers continues to identify and catalogue papers about the life of Joseph Smith. Their biographical entry for John Tanner has quite a few new entries. I've added links or images of the important items to John Tanner's FamilySearch page. Here's a promissory note that shows John Tanner's signature:

Here's a screen shot of the listed documents:

JS and 30 others, Promissory Note, Kirtland Township, Geauga Co., OH, to Holbrook & Ferme, [New York City, New York Co., NY], 1 Sept. 1837; handwriting of William Perkins; signatures of authors; two pages; Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, OH. The Joseph Smith Papers, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/promissory-note-to-holbrook-ferme-1-september-1837-a/2.

Fighting the Good Fight, or How Do You Explain to People That They Don't Know What They Think They Know

Lehi and the Brass Plates.

John Tanner knew the name of his great-grandfather, so his son, Sidney Tanner, served as proxy for his great-great grandfather William Tanner in the early 1840s in some of the earliest baptisms for the dead in Nauvoo. 

Unlike the dramatic story of Lehi's family in the Book of Mormon, John Tanner and his family did not leave their original home with a record of their forefathers. John's memory stretched back to the third generation, which is as far as human memory normally goes without a written record. Although our memory may go that far, and sometimes further back based on the sharing of written records, we may know a few things about our great-grandparents from hearing stories from our grandparents, but we're unlikely to know detailed information or be able to reconstruct their families without supplementary documentation, or know much personal information about their ancestors. As would be expected, although he could remember the name of his great-grandfather, William Tanner, John Tanner did not remember the name of William's wife or parents.

Mapping History: Sidney Tanner Homes

When I pulled up the map of Sidney Tanner's homes that I embedded in a previous post, I noticed that it had been viewed 180 times. It's a great way of representing data, and worth explaining. There may be other ways to create maps like this, but Google provides a nice platform, and will probably be around for some time, so that's the method I've chosen to do several recent maps.

I first used this kind of map for my book project. I was constantly pulling out a copy of the Nicholas Morgan/J. B. Ireland Pioneer Map of Great Salt Lake City to see where someone lived, and figured it would be useful to plot my data in one central location. I now have seventy data points on a map about Early Black Utah/Mormon History and may make it available to the public at some point. It has been very useful to me to see where people lived in relation to one another, and to historical events.

Here's the Sidney Tanner map.

As noted, it is "in progress." A couple of the locations are exact, to the very foot, such as Fort San Bernardino, but some are more general and could stand some additional research. In the process of making the map, I discovered that I cannot see Sidney Tanner's home at 195 E. 200 North in Beaver although it was on the National Register of Historic Places and noted to be in excellent condition.

Does anyone know about the home? Is it this one, significantly altered?

John Tanner's Family Bible

Ron Tanner somehow found and added pictures of John Tanner's family Bible to FamilySearch Family Tree. Since I work with nineteenth century documents almost daily, I can attest that this is an original record, and made by someone with intimate knowledge of the Tanner family. (Either that or it was made by someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of the Tanner family and nineteenth-century spelling variations, and the counterfeiting skills of Mark Hoffman, and such a dark horse should undoubtedly be counterfeiting something of higher value than this, museum piece as it is.)

There are about half a dozen different handwritings in this record, but most of the first inscriptions are the same handwriting, probably John Tanner's.

[678]

FAMILY RECORD.

BIRTHS.

John Tanner was born August 15th 1778

Taberthy Bently was born August the 23 1780

Lydia Stewart was born November th 18 1783

Elisha Bently Tanner was born March th 23 1801

William Stewart Tanner was born October the 27 1802

Mathilda Tanner was born September the 14 1804

Willard Tanner was born October the 29 1806

Sidney Tanner was born April the 1 1809

John Joshua Tanner was born December the 19 1811

Romela Tanner was born April the 1 1814

BIRTHS.

Nathan Tanner was borne May the 14 1815

Edward and Edwin Tanner was born October th 3 1817

Mariah Loisa Tanner was born November th 28 1818

Martin Henery Tanner was born March the 21 1822

Albert M. Tanner was born April the 4 1825

[Elizabeth's children carried over from the other page]

Sarah Tanner was Born July the 19 — 1840

Francis Tanner was born mach the 10 — 1843

[the last looks like the same hand as the Sidney Tanner letter from San Bernardino]

[679]

FAMILY RECORD.

BIRTHS.

Elise Beswick was born November 28 — 1803

Myron Tanner was Born June th 4 in the year of our Lord 1826

Seth Benjamin Tanner was born March th 6 — 1828

Fremon Everton Tanner was born Jen [January] th 3 1830

Joseph Tanner was born June th 11 — 1833

Philomely Tanner was Born March th 10 1835

David Dan Tanner was born feb th 8 1838

DEATHS.

Taberthy Tanner died Aprial the 9 1801


Willard Tanner died August the 12 1807


Romela Tanner died April the 16 1814

Edwin Tanner died October the 8 1817

Edward Tanner died October the 21 1817



Philomely Tanner Died May th 28 1838.

[680]

FAMILY RECORD.

DEATHS.

Lydia Tanner died may the 31 1825

Francis Tanner died June the 5th 1844

John Tanner died april the 13th 1850

Sariah Tanner Died March the 12 1853

Elisha Bently Tanner Died March 11. 1858.

William Stewart Tanner Died [1875]

DEATHS.

Matilda Tanner Randall died April 17. 1888. in Kirtland Ohio.

Albert Miles Tanner Died. [1879]

The Mysterious Pardon

...Pardon Tanner, that is.

Every so often, someone compares his or her personal family records to John Tanner's FamilySearch Family Tree entry and discovers that their copy of the family records has a child of John and Lydia Tanner named Pardon Tanner, born 1820. Pardon is not in Family Tree, so they go ahead and add him.

The problem is that as far as anyone has been able to discover, he does not exist. My dad removed him from the family tree today. I've removed him from the family before, as has Karen Bray Keeley.

Here is my explanation for removing him from the family, as added to John Tanner and Pardon Tanner's discussion section:

John and Lydia Stewart Tanner did not have a son named Pardon. There are no known trustworthy records for the existence of this child. RonT provided a copy of the family bible in the Memories section above. The family bible lists Lydia's children as: William, Mathilda, Willard, Sidney, John Joshua, Romela, Nathan, Edward, Edwin, Maria Loisa, Martan Henery, and Albert. (All spellings from the record.) Lists of the family from the 19th and early 20th centuries do not mention a child named Pardon, and sources within the family state that John and Lydia had twelve children.

John Tanner had a brother named Pardon Tanner (L6G9-6S3), born 1791. William Tefft Tanner (LZY8-STR) and Lydia Foster (LHRF-CWS) had a child named Pardon Tanner (MBPD-GH5), born 1820, died 1824. Elizabeth Tanner and Newman Perkins had a child Pardon Perkins (K236-P41), born 1824.

William and Lydia Tanner's son is probably the Pardon mistakenly placed into the John and Lydia Tanner family.

I don't know who first speculated that John and Lydia had a son named Pardon. A Pardon Tanner was sealed as a child to John Tanner and Lydia Stewart on September 2, 1975 in the Logan Utah LDS Temple. I have never seen a valid reason for anyone doing that. No one has ever provided documentation.

Until someone can provide an actual document from the nineteenth century (burial or church record) showing his existence that proves that he is the son of John and Lydia and not of Joshua and Thankful or William and Lydia or Elizabeth and Newman, please do not add him to the family.

A reliable and contemporaneous source would be one created at the time this purported child was born or died. Lacking an actual record of his birth or death, a family record created in the 1800s would work, something like a family Bible. The family Bible record provided by Ron Tanner does not show a child named Pardon.

I will add the images of the family Bible in a subsequent post.

This "Pardon" was most likely created by someone thinking William and Lydia Foster Tanner's child belonged to John and Lydia Stewart Tanner, or perhaps someone speculating the existence of a child in the 3-1/2 year gap between Louisa Maria and Martin Henry. There may have been a child at this time, but without any record to prove his existence, we can't create historical reality by speculation.

• • •

Although no temple work needs to be done for this family, here are some things that do need to be done.

(1) Source and correct all entries for all children and grandchildren and their families. Please do not make changes unless you have documentation to back up your changes. Documentation does not include personal genealogical records, unless you have family records created at the time of the events, but documentation does include vital and government and church records and certain histories. 

(2) Collect and write biographies for all family members, including the women, and place them in the "Stories" section of each entry. Collect and add photographs from family members and historical societies such as Daughters of Utah Pioneers. Remember to include a note about where you got the story or picture and get permission if anything is still in copyright. 

(3) Research and source related families such as the Bentlys and Stewarts and Beswicks and Teffts. 

(4) There are plenty more sources available on John Tanner and his family including tax and government and land and military and church and legal records. Many of these require more work to find than a quick search on FamilySearch, but they are available and should be added as sources to Family Tree.

This was originally posted on February 15, 2015. Since I wrote it, Pardon has been added again to the family (perhaps more than once?) so I expanded the explanation to reflect the family Bible that Ron Tanner somehow located and added to John Tanner's entry.

"Washington County Farm" by UpstateNYer - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons—http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Washington_County_Farm.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Washington_County_Farm.jpg

Rejoice, and Be Exceeding Glad: Traveling through the Ancestral Lands

My parents have been on a long road trip through Ontario, New York, Vermont, Maine, and I forget where else. They've enjoyed the scenery, including a stop at Bolton Landing to see the site of the former John Tanner home. My dad has been blogging some thoughts about the trip at Rejoice, and Be Exceeding Glad.

Following the Journey
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4: Ancestral Homeland
Part 5: Cemeteries and Dates
Part 6: Byways and Genealogy

Roll of Company No. 1: John Tanner

As the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints began evacuating Nauvoo for points west, Elias Smith recorded a roll of the original emigration company. Here are John Tanner, Sidney Tanner, John Joshua Tanner, and Nathan Tanner on page 10. Myron was listed on page 8.

I believe the "(10)" next to John Tanner's name indicates a Captain of Ten (see Doctrine and Covenants 136), although I'm not sure how early they began using that designation.

Church History Library, MS 14290, Box 1, Folder 1, Roll of company number 1, 1845, 6.

John Tanner's Funeral

From Hosea Stout's diary:

Sunday 14th Apl 1850. Went to meeting in the fore-noon. Heber [C. Kimball], Geo A. [Smith] & B. Y. [Brigham Young] spoke. In the after noon P[arley] P. Pratt preached G. W. Langley & Father Tanner's funerals

Here are a few more miscellaneous mentions or notes of interest in Stout's diaries.

Saturday August 1st 1846....Before we got breakfast over Father John Tanner came from the camp with a team to assist those who needed it to get up the hill and he turned in and helped me up and learning that I had the public arms he assisted me on to camp   He manifested a great interest in heping [sic] me when he found that I had public property. We had no no [sic] difficulty in going to the camp. 

Thursday Nov 3 1853. To day we made out to start and went up the Cajon Cannon to the narrows some 15 miles from San Bernardino. Bro Albert Tanner and Montgomery E. Button accompanied us to assist us up the Cajon Pass... 

Monday 29 Oct 1855.... In the after noon court met Grand Jury presented two indictments. one against Joe a Spaniard for the murder of Elisha P. Ryan and one against Moroni Green for an assault with intent to kill Nathan Tanner... [The verdict was guilty of assault with intent to inflict bodily injury, sentence six months in prison.]

Early Mormon Missionaries: John Tanner (2)

A follow-up to the last post about John Tanner's mission.

David Pettigrew wrote a letter to Times and Seasons about the mission. Here it is.

Early Mormon Missionaries: John Tanner

The Church just announced the Early Mormon Missionaries database. I will highlight some of the people mentioned in the database. 

First, here is some new information about John Tanner's mission. 

In April 1844 the Prophet Joseph Smith called John Tanner and many others to preach the gospel and assist in his presidential campaign.

Although George S. Tanner searched for any account of John Tanner’s mission, he could not conclude anything in his book John Tanner and His Family (1974) but the following, “Nor is it known what John accomplished on his mission in New York that spring and summer” (107).

New digitization allows the discovery and sharing of information that was close to impossible to find just a generation or two ago, and a short account of John Tanner’s mission is among that information. 

The Journal History of the Church was a scrapbook compiled by Assistant Church Historian Andrew Jenson from newspapers and histories, and organized by date. Even in these computer days, it is still one of the valuable resources for the history of the Church. Here are two documents from the Journal History.

First, a list of the general conferences (more like our stake conferences) in 1844, and the elders called to preach the gospel and assist in the presidential campaign. Most of the states had two presidents appointed to head the missionary work. For the state of New York, it was Charles W. Wandell and Marcellus Bates. A few names of interest on this list are:

(New York) John Tanner, Martin H. Tanner 

(Ohio) Simeon Carter

(Indiana) Amasa Lyman (1st President), Nathan Tanner

Second, an account of a conference in New Trenton, Indiana on November 6, 1844, in which John Tanner’s missionary companion, David Pettegrew (1791–1863), gives a brief account of their mission. It leaves us wanting more, but this is the first account of what happened between the time John Tanner left his teenage sons Albert and Myron in charge of a large farm in Iowa, and when he returned in the fall, dismayed to see how the farm had run down in his absence.

This is what David Pettegrew said at the conference. Note that John Tanner was not with him at the time; he would have returned to Iowa.

Elder Pettegrew then arose and stated that he left Nauvoo the 28th of April 1844, in company with Elder John Tanner for the State of New York, proclaiming the everlasting gospel and bearing testimony of the truth of the Book of Mormon and the Prophet; much good has been done in the name of the Lord, numbers have been baptized, and many renewed their covenant under our administration, etc.

Although there may have been a political component to the mission, especially at first, they understood their mission to be to preach the restored gospel and testify to the truths of the Book of Mormon and prophet, and that is what they did.

David Pettegrew, from FindAGrave, courtesy Schott Family.

Now that we know that John Tanner served with David Pettegrew, we can look at whether he wrote anything about the mission. His journal is in the collections of the Church History Library, and is digitized. It turns out that it is more an autobiography than a journal, and this is what he had to say about the mission:

[Elder Wilard Snow and I] returned to Nauvoo in the month of May, 1843. This Season I Suffered much with Sickness, and also my son, James Phinas. We did not recover our health until the fall of 1844. When in the Spring of that year the conference met, I received my appointment for the State of New York, where I was much blessed in bearing testimony of the truth to Thousands of people. They will long remember my white head. I visited my relations in Vermont and New Hampshire, and the graves of my Father and Mother. I had grave stones put over their graves on the 8th day of July, 1844. It was while in that country that the Sad news of the death of Brothers Joseph and Hiram came to us. It was with deep, humiliating sorrow that we learnt of the assassination of our two brothers, but we Saw many that rejoiced to hear of their death, especially the ministers of different Sects. 

And that’s all. There are a few hints in there that could be worth pursuing, since some of the local newspapers may have mentioned the missionaries, and we know now that David Pettegrew, and perhaps also John Tanner, were in Weathersfield, Vermont (the place of his parents' graves) in July 1844.

What an exciting new collection of information. Next up: William John Glade.

(See an additional Pettegrew account at Early Mormon Missionaries: John Tanner (2).)

Missionaries Wearing Fezzes

Several weeks ago a grandson of Joseph Marion Tanner added a picture to FamilySearch showing his grandfather on his mission in Constantinople. I saw the picture when I got my weekly change list from FamilySearch and clicked over to see the changes made to Myron Tanner's entry. (He was one of John Tanner's sons, and Joseph Marion Tanner was his son, and the father of O.C. Tanner and many others.)

F. F. Hintze, Jacob Spori, J. M. Tanner

I spent a few minutes identifying the two other men in the picture, Jacob Spori and Ferdinand Friis Hintze. After I checked that the picture wasn't in other collections, including the Church History Library, I contacted Ted Jones, the Tanner grandson who owns the picture, to request permission to post the picture at Keepapitchinin: The Mormon History Blog. A number of enjoyable discussions ensued at Keepa, on Facebook, and by email between historians and Tanner and Hintze descendants. Here is a link to the post at Keepapitchinin:

Missionaries Wearing Fezzes

Maria Tanner Lyman, Plural Marriage, and the Godbeites

I am slowly starting to build a case that the Tanner family disliked plural marriage and, with the possible exception of Nathan, only practiced it later and with great reluctance, and then largely as a social safety net for needy women. Here is one more data point.

In 1872 more than 400 Utah women sent a petition to Congress requesting that the Territory not be admitted as a state as long as the Church was still practicing plural marriage. The petition was created and circulated by the spiritualist Godbeites, who were seeking to wrest political and economic power from Brigham Young. 

In the case of a similar petition the Church claimed that its signers did not know the exact contents of the petition, but it is probably impossible to tell if it was the case with the women listed in this petition. There were a number of acute stresses in the Territory in the early 1870s, and many families would have been struggling.

Here are three excerpts from the petition; the first from the cover letter, the second from the actual petition; the third from the list of names.

The language is very strong, but Louisa Maria Tanner Lyman had suffered greatly as the first of many wives of the polygamist and probably mentally ill Amasa M. Lyman. By this point he had been ousted from the Quorum of the Twelve and excommunicated. Is it possible that he put her name on the petition without her consent? It's probably impossible to say.

(In case anyone questions the identification, although she went by the name "Maria," she usually went by the name Louisa M Lyman in government documents, and there were no other women of the same name in the Territory.)

Additional Reading

Edward Leo Lyman, Amasa Mason Lyman: Mormon Apostle and Apostate, A Study in Dedication, 2009.

Ronald Walker, Wayward Saints: The Godbeites and Brigham Young, 1998.

Finding John Tanner among the Country Roads and Farms of Greenwich, New York

From Flickr, used as is.

Sometime in 1810, perhaps in the later half of the year after the harvest was over, a census taker followed the winding country roads of Greenwich, New York, to provide an accurate list of all the inhabitants of the town, black or white, free or slave.

The census taker recorded two John Tanners in Greenwich, both men with families of about the same age.

Unfortunately neither entry matches our Tanner family genealogy. The most likely scenario is that the second John Tanner is ours, since he is listed close to his mother Thankful, but neither entry is a perfect match.

Here are the numbers. The first group is how the Tanner family should have looked in the census, based on the genealogy. The next group is a John Tanner family living with two free blacks. The third group is the John Tanner family living close to the widowed Thankful Tanner. Neither family has slaves; by 1810 there were only eight left in Greenwich.

Note that extra individuals in the family do not matter one way or the other since families were often more fluid than today due to early deaths. The more concerning data points would be the lack of small children who should have been at home with their mother.

FAMILY HISTORY

Males

Under 10  2-3 William (age 7-8), Sidney (age 1), possibly Elisha (age 9-10) unless he was living with the Bentlys

Under 16  0-1 possibly Elisha (age 9-10)

Under 26  0

Under 45  1   John Tanner (age 31-32)

Females

Under 10  1  Matilda (age 5-6)

Under 16  0

Under 26 0

Under 45  1  Lydia Tanner (age 26-27)

OPTION 1 (Page 4, bottom half, line 6)

Males

Under 10  2

Under 16  1

Under 26 0

Under 45  1

Females

Under 10  0

Under 16   0

Under 26   1

Under 45   1

Free blacks 2

Slaves  0

OPTION 2 (Page 5, top half, line 14)

Males

Under 10  1

Under 16  1

Under 26 0

Under 45  1

Females

Under 10  2

Under 16  0

Under 26 0

Under 45  1

Free blacks 0

Slaves  0

MUSINGS

The first entry works if Elisha was counted as 10, Matilda was put in the wrong age group, and the Tanners had two free blacks living with them. The second entry works if Elisha was counted as 10 years old and the census taker accidentally recorded one of the little boys as a girl.

Note that Thankful's entry is strange: she is listed in the under-45 category, but she was actually in her 50s. She also has four boys ages 10-26 living with her (Pardon, Francis, Joshua, and William) and one girl under 10 (perhaps a granddaughter; could this be Matilda?).

Another option is that John Tanner was living elsewhere, but this is not supported by the family history or by any online indexed copy of the US Census. If anyone wanted to read through the entire Washington County Census to check for a wrongly-indexed entry, the easiest way would be to read the copy at archive.org:

Washington County Census

Washington County starts on page 291 and goes through 379. Greenwich is at the very end, and the concluding page of the census (381) notes that it was filed on February 7, 1811.

Another avenue of investigation would be to figure out the identity of the other John Tanner and decide out if he is an obvious match for one of the census records.

CONCLUSION

This is a case where we do not have enough data to make a final decision, but since John was shown farming his father's land in the tax records, it's likely that he was located close to his mother, if we can assume that the census was geographical in nature.

.

.

“...men before whose sturdy strokes the forest fell...”

A little church history for a Sunday morning.

While in the history of that church there may be incidents which will cause a smile from their quaintness, or a sigh and a tear from their illiberality, there is one feature of its past that stands out prominent and bold, and entitles it to unqualified respect: [the] church has never shrunk from the performance of disagreeable duties. Mistaken, unjust, cruel, it may sometimes have been; weak and vacillating it has never been. People respect and admire strength of principle and purpose, and this church grew strong in numbers from strong adherence to the rigid morality of the Bible. The men who formed the church, were men before whose sturdy strokes the forest fell; who braved the dangers of pioneer life with steady persistence, and who put into their church relationship the same earnestness that characterized them in their secular affairs...

The Tanner family came from this strong religious heritage and has kept many elements of the culture through many generations.

This passage is from a history of Bottskill Baptist Church in Greenwich, New York, where the Tanner and Stewart families worshipped before the Tanners moved to Warren County and joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and moved west.


The picture of Greenwich in eastern New York is from Flickr, used as is under a Creative Commons license.

“We have been driven from our homes and so have you”

The handwritten list of the John Tanner family from the 1848 Camp of Zion Schedules contained the names of two young women not members of the immediate family, Jane Grover and Augusta Hawkins.

The name of the first, Jane, sounded very familiar. A look at her FamilySearch Family Tree entry revealed the reason.

Jane was born in 1830 in Washington County, New York. The Tanners lived there for years, but by the time Jane was born the Tanners lived in Warren County, on the other side of Lake George, and shortly thereafter the Grovers moved to western New York. 

The Grover and Tanner families may have known each other before they joined the Church, but as fellow New Yorkers they certainly got to know each other as they moved west with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

This is not Jane Grover Stewart. I cannot find a picture of her.
This is her sister, Emeline Grover Rich, a wife of Charles C. Rich.
The other Stewart sisters all resembled each other,
so Jane probably would have resembled all of them, including Emeline.  

Jane's mother, Caroline Whiting, died in childbirth in 1840, and her father Thomas Grover remarried Caroline Nickerson. Thomas headed to the Salt Lake Valley in Brigham Young's 1847 pioneer company. Jane followed the next year with the Tanner family, perhaps as a household helper, along with Augusta Hawkins (Twitchell Stone, 1836-1879).

Augusta Hawkins Twitchell Stone.

After the pioneers reached the Salt Lake Valley, Jane married Southerner James Stewart in Northern California in 1850. They moved later to San Bernardino, then settled permanently in Farmington, Utah. Jane died in 1873 shortly after the birth of her eleventh child.

Many Tanner descendants will be familiar with a story Jane told. [1] Unfortunately it doesn't specify the location, but the mention of the house locates it toward the beginning of their journey, and the use of the Indian term “gooseberry” for currants, also suggests it was in eastern Nebraska. [2]

Note that although John Tanner was able to handle his team, the women he was with were protective of his health and well-being. He was 69 years old and may have never fully recovered from his serious injury at the hand of a Missouri mob.

 

Here's Jane's story.

One morning we thought we would go and gather goose-berries. Father Tanner (as we familiarly called the good, patriarchal John Tanner) harnessed a span of horses to a light wagon, and, with two sisters by the name of Lyman, his little grand-daughter and I, started out. When we reached the woods we told the old gentleman to go to a house which was in sight, and rest, while we picked the berries.  

It was not long before the little girl and I strayed some distance from the others, when, suddenly we heard shouts. The little girl thought it was her grandfather, and she was going to answer, but I prevented her, thinking it might be Indians. We walked forward until within sight of Father Tanner, when we saw he was running his team around. We thought it nothing strange at first, but as we approached, we saw Indians gathering around the wagon, whooping and yelling as others came and joined them. We got into the wagon to start, when four of the Indians took hold of the wagon, and two others held the horses by the bits, and another came to take me out of the wagon. I then began to be afraid as well as vexed, and asked Father Tanner to let me get out of the wagon and run for assistance. He said, “No, poor child, it is too late!” I told him they should not take me alive. 

Father Tanner's face was as white as a sheet! The Indians had commenced to strip him. They had taken his watch and handkerchief, and while stripping him, were trying to pull me out of the wagon. I began silently to appeal to my Heavenly Father. While praying and struggling, the Spirit of the Almighty fell upon me, and I arose with great power, and no tongue can describe my feelings. I was as happy as I could be. A few moments before, I saw worse than death staring me in the face, and now my hand was raised by the power of God, and I talked to those Indians in their own language. They let go the horses and wagon, and stood in front of me while I talked to them by the power of God. They bowed their heads and answered “yes” in a way that made me know what they meant. Father Tanner and the little girl looked on in speechless amazement. I realized our situation. They calculation was to kill Father Tanner, burn the wagon, and take us women prisoners. This was plainly shown to me. When I stopped talking, they shook hands with all of us and returned all they had taken from Father Tanner, who gave them back the handkerchief, and I gave them berries and crackers. By this time the other two women came up and we hastened home. 

The Lord gave me a portion of the interpretation of what I had said, which is as follows: “I suppose you Indian warriors think you are going to kill us. Don't you know that the Great Spirit is watching you, and knows everything in your hearts? We have come out here to gather some of our Father's fruit. We have not come to injure you: and if you harm us, or injure one hair of our heads, the Great Spirit will smite you to the earth, and you shall not have power to breath [sic] another breath. We have been driven from our homes and so have you. We have come out here to do you good and not to injure you. We are the Lord's people, and so are you; but you must cease your murders and wickedness. The Lord is displeased with it and will not prosper you if you continue in it. You think you own all this land, this timber, this water and all these horses. You do not own one thing on earth, not even the air you breathe. It all belongs to the Great Spirit.”

Notes

[1] I have seen several different versions of Jane Grover's story online. The earliest known version, given here, is from Scraps of Biography, based on materials from Francis M. Lyman, but it reads like it has been edited for publication. Perhaps the original still exists somewhere. Sometimes John Tanner's name is given as “Nathan,” but that was his son, too young to be given the societal honorific “Father.” 

[2] By gooseberry, Jane didn't mean the European gooseberry, a bitter green fruit native to Europe; she meant Grossulariaceae Ribes, a currant, commonly known as gooseberry, in literal translation from the Kiowa, Omaha, or Ponca word for the fruit. The use of the term “gooseberry” may locate this story to Omaha or Ponca territory, in modern eastern Nebraska.

Sources 

Anonymous. “Sketch of An Elder's Life.” [Biography of John Tanner.] In Juvenile Instructor Office. Scraps of Biography: Tenth Book of the Faith-Promoting Series: Designed for the Instruction and Encouragement of Young Latter-Day Saints. Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1883, 18-19. 

Benfer, Adam, Foods Indigenous to the Western Hemisphere: Currants and Gooseberries, Grossulariaceae Ribes, Spp. American Indian Health and Diet Project. 

First 50, reports, [page 2] circa 1848 June, Camp of Israel schedules and reports. Church History Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah. 

The picture of Emeline Grover Rich is from Family Tree, courtesy of "sharoncarterseamons1." The picture of Augusta Hawkins is from FamilyTree, courtesy of "JensenMyrtleAlice1." The German-language picture of the local tribes is from Wikipedia, courtesy of "Nikater." The picture of the currants is from Wikipedia, courtesy of "Luke1ace."

Crossing the Plains, 1848

Yesterday I was thinking about John Tanner's sources on FamilySearch and realized no one had added original pioneer overland travel documents, so I pulled up the Church History Library Catalog and pulled up the Camp of Israel Schedules and Reports and pulled up Willard Richard's 1848 emigration division.

The only revelation given to Brigham Young which is included in our scriptural canon is Doctrine and Covenants 136. He was told:

 2 Let all the people of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and those who journey with them, be organized into companies, with a covenant and promise to keep all the commandments and statutes of the Lord our God. 

 3 Let the companies be organized with captains of hundreds, captains of fifties, and captains of tens, with a president and his two counselors at their head, under the direction of the Twelve Apostles. 

 4 And this shall be our covenant—that we will walk in all the ordinances of the Lord. 

 5 Let each company provide themselves with all the teams, wagons, provisions, clothing, and other necessaries for the journey, that they can....

 7 Let each company, with their captains and presidents, decide how many can go next spring; then choose out a sufficient number of able-bodied and expert men, to take teams, seeds, and farming utensils, to go as pioneers to prepare for putting in spring crops. 

 8 Let each company bear an equal proportion, according to the dividend of their property, in taking the poor, the widows, the fatherless, and the families of those who have gone into the army, that the cries of the widow and the fatherless come not up into the ears of the Lord against this people....

As you look at the records of the first pioneer companies, you can see how the pioneers put revelation into practice. Here is the record of the Amasa Lyman group in the Willard Richards company.

On the first page note Amasa Lyman and his first wife Louisa Maria Tanner and her children along with his plural wives and a few other family members. On the second page note the Duncan, Clark, Hakes, Tanner, and Adams families. My youngest was fascinated to see the children listed with their ages, and was sad to learn that 6-year-old Sidney Tanner did not survive the journey. 

Poor John Tanner

This picture has been kicking around Ancestry for several years and someone just added it to John Tanner's entry on FamilySearch Family Tree. 

I have never seen any explanation as to why anyone thinks it is John Tanner, or any explanation as to where it came from.

As explained in the following article it is unlikely that there are any pictures of John Tanner:

The Tanner Family Daguerreotype (see included links as well)

In order for a picture to be attached to John Tanner's Family Tree entry it should have a clear chain of ownership with the identification of the picture made at the time it was taken and not rely on a guess several generations later, which could very well be the case with this picture, since no one has indicated anything to the contrary.

The picture may have been originally labeled "John Tanner," but there were two other John Tanners in Utah in the 19th century. One was a Swiss immigrant. One was John Tanner's son John Joshua Tanner, often called "John Tanner" in vital records. From time to time I've seen Tanner descendants confuse John Joshua with his father.

Now that I'm looking at a picture of John Joshua, this does look a very little like him. 

It also looks a very little like Nathan. 

So this could be one of John and Lydia's sons. But it is unlikely to be John Tanner, the father, and should not be attached to his entry unless someone has definite and convincing proof that it is him.

As stated before, proof would include information about who owns the original, when it was taken, and when and by whom the identification was made.

Update, September 7, 2014. I put my kids on this case, and they immediately concluded that the man in the first picture was not related to John Joshua and Nathan. For reasons they suggested shape of ears, shape of eyes, shape of nose, shape of creases from nose to mouth, shape of beard at mouth. These conclusions are being made from a low-resolution picture, but these are all the type of markers that help identify pictures.

As noted in my analysis of the possible photograph of John Tanner's relative-by-marriage Samuel Shepherd, a picture needs to meet several tests:

• What is the provenance of the picture? (Who owns it and why? What is the chain of ownership?)
• Is there an identification included with the picture? Who made it?
• Is the technology appropriate to the time it was supposed to have been taken?
• Were there daguerreotypists or photographers operating in the area at the time?
• Any family resemblances? 
• Do the ages of the people in the photograph seem to be accurate?
• What can the clothing tell us about when the picture was taken?
• What other details in the picture help locate the picture and identify the subjects?

I would be happy to find that some member of the family had a picture of John Tanner, but because of the history of the Family Associations and genealogy projects through the years and all the factors mentioned in the Tanner Family Daguerreotype analysis, I would be very surprised if there was one.

PS The man in the first picture seems to have some African-American or Indian heritage. That was not uncommon in colonial America, but I don't think DNA tests have shown that to be the case in the Tanner family. (But the DNA tests I saw were done many years ago. Perhaps if people in the family have had tests done more recently, they could share the results associated with the Tanner line.)

William Tanner Lives Again: A Summary of the Tanner Genealogy in 2014

I confess that I have not done much work on the Tanner line past John and Joshua Tanner. I knew the recorded history contained dubious genealogy and fake royal lines, but felt that those who were more interested would spend time on it, and I would continue to do what I do best: 19th century family and community history.

Then a couple of years ago some friends invited my family to vacation with them in New England. We returned home through Rhode Island and as we drove a few of the highways and byways of our smallest state, I was surprised by feelings of deep connection to the place and people.

Despite these feelings of connection, my list of projects often falls prey to the demands of everyday life and I have not done much work on the Tanner genealogy, but there has been a recent surge of interest in the subject, so here is a brief summary of the research.

This is how the family currently looks on FamilySearch Family Tree. This shows John Tanner's entry KWJ1-K2F and Joshua Tanner's entry L7BX-YNF. [1]

This chart shows that John Tanner (1778-1850) is the son of Joshua Tanner (1757-1807), the son of Francis Tanner (1708-1777), the son of William Tanner (1660-1757). From what I've gathered of the current dispute, most people agree on the first three generations but disagree on the identity of William Tanner and his parents and wives.

Finding Thankful, Joshua, and Tabitha

See previous discussions of the mystery surrounding Joshua Tanner's burial: (Surname books and the Reed's Corner Mystery) and (Joshua Tanner and the Elusive Reed's Corner).

In 1917 volunteers associated with the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) scoured the towns of Greenwich and Easton, New York, looking for old cemeteries and burials.  A distant cousin and local farmer, Oscar W. Tefft (1865-1934), drove around and cataloged all the old burial plots tucked into corners of area farms. Oscar was very interested in family and local history. He helped with the research for the book The Tefft Ancestry (Stocking, 1904).

When he drove up and down the old farm roads and highways in 1917, the burial locations he found had between one and a couple dozen headstones as well a variety of graves marked only by slates. [1]

Oscar listed 19 farm cemeteries and gave each a name: Koert L. Foster's Farm, Alpheus Barber Farm, Daniel Tefft Farm, William Hartshorn Farm, and so forth.

After Oscar and others finished their explorations, they compiled the lists and sent them to be published in The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record. 

Some of the cemeteries, particularly the larger ones, are still in existence, but a century later some may be unknown, or grave markers could be missing or inscriptions worn off, so Oscar Tefft and the others provided a valuable service to the community.

In recent years websites including GenWeb put this data online, but as with any type of indexed information, it's worth going back to the first known compilation.

— o o O o o —

Several months ago, Karen Bray Keeley noted on Family Tree that Joshua Tanner was buried in the William Hartshorn Farm Cemetery. She had seen the name "Joshua Turner" and recognized that the other burials in the small cemetery were Joshua and Thankful's grandchildren, so "Turner" was a misreading of Tanner, and now thanks to Karen we know where Joshua is buried.

I saw her note on Friday and although she used one of the secondary sources it was enough to find the original list.

As I read through the lists, many names were familiar: Tanner, Tefft, Barber, Kenyon. Since so many Tanner relatives migrated in great waves from Washington County, Rhode Island, to Washington County, New York, these families lived and died within miles of each other. [2]

The list cleared up a few mysteries.

John Tanner's first wife, Tabitha Bently Tanner, is buried in the Koert L. Foster Farm Cemetery, one mile north of Greenwich. [3] She is buried next to her father Elisha Bently, her sister Mercy Bently, and her mother Sarah Bently Rose. [4] This means that the Elisha Tanner who migrated west with John Tanner and his family was not Tabitha's father as Pioneers and Prominent Men claims. Instead the Elisha mentioned in the book may be a brother or other relative.

Here is the list showing Joshua Tanner, transcribed Turner, five grandchildren, and son-in-law John Wellwood. The death dates of the grandchildren are between 1816 and 1826, which indicates that Tanner relatives were living on the farm until at least that date.

No surprise:
Based on the Greenwich grave records, the information in this Tanner genealogy is largely incorrect.
From Maurice Tanner, Descendants of John Tanner, The Tanner Family Association, 1923.

Many of the family trees show the John and Esther Tanner Wellwood family living in Mexico, Oswego, New York, but they were clearly located in Greenwich, and Esther continued to live in the area until at least 1855. By 1860 she had joined one of her sons in Mexico, but it is incorrect to list her children as being born in Mexico. Additionally, many families list a son John in this family with the same death date as Esther's husband John. Due to the possible confusion created by this list, the existence of a son John needs to be proved separately.

— o o O o o —

The list of burials at the William Hartshorn Farm Cemetery includes an inscription on a stone that says simply "T.T." Thankful Tefft Tanner died in 1822, so there is a good chance that she died and was buried next to her husband on the farm where she had lived for decades.

Why would she have been buried in Greenwich when she was shown living in Greenfield, Saratoga, New York in the 1820 census? A quick look at Google suggests an answer: Greenfield was adjacent to Saratoga Springs, which was where people, including invalids, went to "take the waters," or use the mineral waters for their supposed health benefits. It makes more sense that she would have relocated temporarily for health reasons than that she would have randomly moved 23 miles west to a town with no known relatives.

Why didn't Thankful have a normal gravestone? There are at least four possible reasons.

First, she may have had one and it may have been broken or disappeared during the intervening century.

Second, she was a widow. It is likely that she would only have had a stake in any real property (farm land and dwellings) until her death, and living as a widow for so many years could have reduced her circumstances.

Third, her death occurred during the aftermath of the Great Panic of 1819. Times would have been hard and cash would have been scarce for farmers. 

Fourth, her oldest son John Tanner had moved to Bolton Landing and had a large family and many financial demands. Her daughter Esther Tanner Wellwood who, as the deaths of her children attests, lived there on the farm, was recently widowed. Thankful's youngest son William may have taken over the farm after John Wellwood died, and he was just starting out in life, so there may have been no family members able to purchase an expensive headstone.

— o o O o o —

These records leave a few questions. 

First, is there anything I missed? Do you read any of the records differently?

Second, where are these graves? I cannot find any of these farm cemeteries in FindAGrave or Billion graves except for the Alpheus Barber Cemetery. (That is the burial location for another of John Tanner's sisters and her gravestone is still there.) I have put out some requests for information, but have not heard back from anyone yet.

— o o O o o —

Thanks to Oscar Tefft we have a better picture of the Greenwich Era in the Tanner family history. In appreciation I left a "flower" and brief note on his FindAGrave entry.

Notes

[1] Although the following article is primarily about Dutch settlers in the region, it explains the different type of markers found in cemeteries from this era. (Brandon Richards, "Fieldstone Burial Markers in the Upper Mid-Atlantic Colonies," January 23, 2010, link.)

[2] The great family migration that John Tanner participated in while he was a boy certainly prepared him with the practical knowledge and experience he would need much later in life when his family moved in other great migrations: first to Kirtland, then to Missouri, Illinois, and Utah. The practical training he gave his sons benefitted many others in the Church as they helped lead wagon trains and freight back and forth between western settlements.

[3] The name is alternately listed Bently and Bentley. The government records from the time use "Bently" so I mostly use that, but it isn't too important; either spelling works.

[4] The others in the Koert Foster cemetery may also be Bently relatives.

Picture of rural Westchester County, New York cemetery from Flickr.