William Settles in Manti

The Dixie Train led by Daniel McArthur arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on October 3rd. The Sketch of William Fowler by the DUP, indicates that William arrived in Salt Lake on October 3rd. Harriet says, “When we finally reached the Valley we came down Emigration Canyon to what is now Sugar House Ward. My mother's Uncle Samuel Perks, who had married a sister of Grandmother Wright had come to Utah several years earlier . . . We visited with the family a few days and then Uncle Samuel P. took us up to the city” (Allen).
Brigham Young appears to have made it a regular thing to meet the wagon trains as they arrived. Harriet wrote, "President Young was always looking for someone to help with the colonies he had sent to various locations, and so looked among the incoming Saints to find men skilled in different arts and trades.” At this time he met William Fowler. Harriet mentions, “as there were a number of the leaders who had become acquainted with my father when on their missions in England,” he was not unknown to Brigham Young. He was met as “a friend” (Cheney, H). Brigham Young considered his good education and knowledge of music as well as his ill health. He then called him “to go to Manti to teach school and music.” This way William could contribute to the building up of Zion and also support his family in a way which was not too physically demanding.

Figure 8 William Fowler
William was too ill at this time to care for his brother Henry's family anymore. Martha and her two or three remaining children stayed in Salt Lake City where they could best get help and care for themselves until Henry could join them.
Harriet wrote, “After staying in Salt Lake six weeks at a Brother Long's we were sent [to Manti]. A man by the name of Isaac Laing with a pair of white mules took us in a covered wagon to Manti in November, 1863. When we arrived in Manti we stayed with a Brother Works, who by-the-way was a brother-in-law of President Young's . Then we got a house from a man by the name of John Alder”. (They would move several times while in Manti, so this would be their first home there. ) This house was a two-room log home.
“Father's health was poor still, and Mother had to help him a great deal. We would fold up the bedding and put it in the kitchen and arrange the seating of the children some way to sit on boards or chairs. I do not remember how many we had, but quite a roomful.” This was a tuition school from which they might earn a meager living.” We were glad to take anything we could use to eat or wear for pay. Father taught school all that winter. For many years that was all the time any school was held.” (Allen). [Ellen would eventually to most to all of the teaching when William got really ill]
“In the spring of '64 we moved to a house on the east side of town, a large log room.” With a fireplace of course. (Allen), [second house in Manti]
In the winter of 1864-1865 the school had only been in session for a little while and then they had to close down. A diphtheria plague swept the town and 22 people died. All gatherings were discontinued because of this plague. This made it doubly hard for the Fowlers, not only were all the children sick, but there only source of income was shut off. The people of Manti finally “tried a week solution of blue vitrol to gargle the throat and a laxative.” Harriet says that she, “Ammon and Florence had the disease but Mother used the remedy and also gave us olive oil. Father was so ill he could not even cut wood. Mother took in sewing and went out to do anything she could get to do to help with our living. The ward helped us a lot. I remember a Brother Denison being very kind. He got some others to help and got us a lot of wood. Also Brother Smith was very helpful. Once they brought us two chickens. We had been given a chicken several times to make soup for Father, but two surprised us. He told us a weasel had got in his hen house and sucked the blood from nine hens in the night so they could not use all and kindly brought some to use. It was an “ill wind,” but good for someone.
“William Bench was also a very good friend to anyone in need, and often came with a basket of delicacies for my dear father. That winter was a very trying one for us as Father was so ill Mother could not leave home very much. The snow was real deep. We got a small pig to use scraps we could not eat. One morning my brother Ammon came in and said, “The little pig is kneeling up in the corner saying his prayers, I guess.” Mother went out and found it frozen to death.
“In the spring of '65 we moved to another house farther north on the same street, an adobe house with two rooms. We children had recovered from diphtheria, but Father was steadily losing strength.” (Allen) [third home in Manti]
Though very sick William still played his violin.” Mrs. Jorgan Madsen has told us that, when she was a child, her mother being a near neighbor [to William Fowler] sent her many times with food and other things for their comfort. One day when sent on one of these errands, Brother Fowler was playing his violin and his wife was singing the words of his hymn [We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet}, they were trying to fit it to the melody he knew 'The Officers Funeral'“(DUP, sketch (see appendix)).
William contracted Tuberculosis (known as consumption at the time). Ellen worked outside the home for a while. She mostly did sewing since she was a good seamstress. (Peoples clothes were all made by hand then. ) However the sewing proved to be insufficient for their needs especially when William got ill enough for her to have to remain home to care for him.
Harriet and Ammon gathered all they could to burn for fuel. They hauled the tops of trees trimmed off by woodcutters from the foothills. They also tied a rope around the dry sagebrush and go round and round until it was pulled out. Then they would tie several together and drag them home to burn.
The neighbors often brought chicken or some other delicacy for William since he was so sick. The summer heat was very oppressive.” In July he got the dysentery and for six weeks was bedfast. He became so thin that Mother could lift him in or out of bed though she was a little woman” Ellen was five feet two inches and William was Five foot five inches tall.” There were no trees to shade the house from the intense heat, so Mother would make a pallet on the east room floor and carry him in there in the afternoons.” The east side of the house would have been a little cooler than the west side.
“On August 27, a Sunday it was, he was unable to speak, but motioned for Mother to get him a pencil and paper and she held it up for him to write on. I never forgot one sentence. (He had been suffering so long) He wrote.” Pray for me to die quick.”
“There were several friends in that Sunday, and some stayed with us. The other two children had gone to bed, but I sensed he was worse, and begged Mother to let me sit on the middle doorstep I would be very quiet, I promised, so I saw my dear Father die in my mother's arms. My first sight of death. I never forgot it.”
William was only 35 years old when he died. He was buried in the Manti cemetery.
As Latter-day Saints his children were concerned that He “had not been well enough to go to Salt Lake for his endowments, which at that time were given in the old endowment house. So when my brother was old enough and the St. George Temple was working, he had endowments for our father. As Mother had been to Salt Lake and had her endowments, I stood for her and Ammon for Father, and we were sealed for them. Then my Father-in-law and mother-in-law, Joseph S. Allen and Lucy D. Allen stood for our own parents, and we three children were sealed to our own parents.” (Allen). The endowments for William were done on 3 April 1879 along with the sealings. (Ellen had her own endowments done before then. The baptisms and endowments would be repeated in Aug 1968. )