This history was included with others written and gathered by Oather Roper
John Henry Roper was born February 9, 1836 at Toynton Brige, Lincolnshire, England, the third child of John William Roper and Susannah Smith. His father was born about 1800. His mother was born March 23, 1804, at Cambridge, England. John William and Susannah were married October 18, 1831.
When Henry was five years of age his father left his mother. One evening he said he would stay with the children while Susannah went to a church meeting. While she was gone the father packed his clothes and early the next morning he left for Yorkshire. Two years later Susannah received a letter from a minister who was an old acquaintance, reporting that John has married another woman. He never returned to his family. Susannah worked hard and did fancy work to make a living for her family of three children.
Henry and his family first heard the Gospel as taught by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1846 and he was baptized September 11, 1846 at the age of ten.
His mother was counselled to gather to the land of Zion and to get her family ready and be in Liverpool, England by the 9th of January because there was a ship that was going to set sail that day. When they got there the ship was not ready and they did not sail until January 17, 1848. The name of the ship was “Ringfield.” The Captain was an Irishman and there were a lot of Irish people on board as well as English. Henry said, “Some of the folks by their actions thought that my mother had not been baptized enough. One night they thought they would baptize her a little more by throwing a slop bucket full of filthy slop all over us because we were Mormons and had no one to protect or defend us. We were the only Mormons on board the ship.” Henry washed tubs full of dirty dishes on board the ship to help pay their fare.
While on the ocean they were stalled for two weeks while there was a great calm and the wind did not blow enough to fill their sails so the ship could move. They also encountered some very rough weather. They were on the ocean nine weeks and three days.
The family arrived at New Orleans and took a steamer up the river to St. Louis. They stayed in St. Louis for two weeks, then went on board the steamer “Mundan” headed for Council Bluffs. The boat had only gone about one hundred and fifty miles when she struck a rock in the river. They were on the rock two nights and a day before the boat could be gotten off the rock. The passengers had to go into the woods to a place called Fishers Landing where they waited from two weeks while the boat went back to St. Louis for repairs. When the boat came back the passengers once again boarded and went taken to Council Bluffs. When they landed a man by the name of Brother Lott took their belongings and put them into a house built of sod. They stayed there for a week. Henry’s mother, Susannah Roper, had sent money ahead to buy cattle for the trip to Utah, so when they arrived at Council Bluffs there were two yoke of cattle and one cow waiting for them.
Henry relates: “One evening my mother told me I might go milk the cow. I took the brass bucket and went off to where the cow was. The cow was bought from a man named Brother Chapman. When I got there the cow was ready. Brother Chapman’s boys and girls were already milking their cows. They told me which cow was ours and for me to go and milk her. They said she was gentle. I went up to her and prepared to begin to milk. The first thing I knew the brass bucket was rolling over the yard to the amusement of the Chapman children. “The cow knew I was a green little English boy.”
The Roper family left Winter Quarters, Nebraska where the outfitting station was, on 29 May 1848. They were in the Heber C. Kimball’s ox team train, four among 662 souls, for the long journey to Salt Lake City. They arrived 23 September 1848.
The first winter in the Salt Lake Valley was hard, food was scarce so it was rationed. In the spring the children gathered greens and roots to eat.
After arriving in Salt Lake City, Henry worked for Willard Richards. One day a member of the Richards family became very ill. Brother Richards sent Henry to Brigham Young to ask him to come to the home and administer to the sick person. Brigham Young took a red handkercheif out of his pocket and told Henry to lay it over the face of the sick person and they would be healed. Henry did as he was told and the sick member of the Richards family was healed immediately. Henry also lived with the John Taylor family for a year.
The summer of 1849 the crickets came and nearly destroyed their crops. Many of them were larger than a mans thumb. The Roper family saw the Seagull miracle and how they saved the crops of the pioneers. Later they were plagued by grasshoppers. Henry states that he saw the time when they are an entire field clean in a single day.
In 1852 they left Salt Lake City and moved to Provo. Late in 1856 when the Martin Handcart Company came into Utah more dead than alive, President Young in a meeting asked the Saints to take the emigrants into their homes and nurse them back to health, both spiritually and bodily. Susannah Roper had a comfortable home for herself and children by this time. She volunteered to take a girl into her home to share their shelter and lodging. Charlotte Elizabeth Mellor was riding in one of the rescue wagons as her feet were so badly frost bitten she was unable to walk. This wagon stopped at the Roper home, and Susannah instructed her son, Henry to carry the young lady into the house. This is Henry Roper’s story: “Charlotte Mellor was only fourteen years old and light as a feather in my arms. As I carried her into my mothers home I looked into her dark eyes and saw love at first sight. And there our romance began. We were married February 4, 1857, just two months and a few days after having first met.” Charlotte had observed her 15th birthday in January.
In 1857 Johnston’s army came to Utah. Henry was called to help guard the valley. No battle took place and no one was hurt.
Henry and Charlotte made their first home in Provo where they resided for three years. Their first child, a son, Henry Hutchinson, was born 31 August 1858 in Provo and died at the age of three months. A daughter, Susannah was born 23 July 1859, also in Provo. Then they moved to Lehi where they lived two years. A third child, William was born February 2, 1861 in Lehi.
In 1861 Charlotte’s parents, James and Mary Ann Mellor were called to go to Warm Creek (Fayette) to start a settlement. The following year in the spring of 1862 Henry and Charlotte were called to help settle Gunnison in Sanpete County, known then as Hogwallow. Henry dug a hole in the river bank in a bend of the San Pitch River, some distance south of the river bed and covered the top with poles, willows and brush, then clay. The floor was packed dirt. A fireplace at one end served for heating and cooking. The front was built in with willows, grass, and mud, and had a canvas for the door.
Henry cleared some land and planted a crop of oats. He harvested the oats in the early fall of 1962. He cut the grain with a cradle, bound it in bundles by hand, and threshed it by tromping it out with his oxen. He fanned the chaff out by tossing it in the wind. This operation was performed on a wagon cover. The oats was bagged and loaded on a wagon and he went to Salt Lake with his crop to trade for supplies.
He arrived back in Hogwallow on November 25, 1862. When he arrived at his little home and went inside with a bundle of cloth under his arm, he was greeted by a lively wee bundle with black hair and dark eyes. Selena was born November 23, 1862. She was the third white child born in this part of the territory, or in Hogwallow. Rain was dripping through the mud roof and all the pots and pans were on the bed catching the rain in order to keep the bed and mother and child dry.
Soon the authorities of the Church advised the settlers to move to higher ground, which they did, and settled Gunnison. They were advised to build a fort for protection against the Indians. The outside walls of the fort were constructed, then individual homes were built inside with the fort wall serving as the back wall of each home. Gates were built at the north and south ends of the fort. Stone was used to build the wall of the houses. The fort was four blocks in size. There were eight lots in one block with a main road through each center of the four blocks. Stoves and lamps were not to be had, so folks cooked over a fire in the fireplace, which also furnished light and heat for the room. Sometimes fires died out in the night; and, when smoke was seen coming from a neighbors chimney, the children were sent to get some coals with which to start their fire.
Henry farmed in the summer and herded sheep in the winter. He also was a bee keeper much of his life. Charlotte carded and spun wool to make clothing for her children. She had helped pull a handcart nearly all the way across the plains with twin sisters in it. Her feet and legs were so badly frozen that she suffered the rest of her life from it. She waded the streams and suffered the hardships of the early winter weather.
Henry helped to quarry stone for many of the buildings in Gunnison, he also help construct roads and canals to help develop the country. He fought in the Black Hawk Indian War and nearly lost his life twice. At the close of the Black Hawk war he was given a medal and an Indian War Pension when the Congress of the United States recognized the Black Hawk veterans as contributing to the establishing of the United States. He also help furnish means of transportation and quarters for later emigrants, sending his only ox team back across the plains twice. The team later died on one of these trips. He was a High Priest in the Church and also served as Sunday School Superintendent in Gunnison and later in Lawrence. The family lived in Gunnison for twenty years.
In the spring of 1882 Henry sold his belongings and moved to Lawrence, Emery County. He took up a homestead on the Huntington River and built a small log house on his land and planted crops and an orchard.
Always active in the Church, Henry was a member of the 52nd and 82 Quorum of Seventies and later a High Priest. He sang in the ward choir and at one time was the choir leader. He and his wife were active in the social affairs of their community, and looked up to as respected citizens.
Four years after they moved to Lawrence, in 1886, Charlotte Elizabeth became ill on a Sunday and was buried the following Sunday. She died June 26, 1886 at the age of forty-four. She was buried in Lawrence, Emery County. To Henry and Charlotte were born thirteen children, six girls and seven boys, twelve lived to maturity, and raised families. Charlotte had black hair, brown eyes and was five foot two inches tall.
A year after Chalotte’s death Henry married Amy Selena Mathews Shaw, a cousin of Charlotte’s from England. They were married on June 5, 1887. On that same day Charlotte Elizabeth was sealed to Henry with Amy standing as proxy. Amy and Henry lived together 40 years. Charlotte was a very genteel woman and kind to everyone, whereas, Amy was a typical English lady and very blunt to everyone. Amy insisted that the children two were living at home live, eat, and sleep in a smaller lean-to which Henry built onto the main home.
Henry Roper had a sulky disposition. He had black eyes and in later years was hard of hearing. He was called “Pap” by his children and all who knew him. When he was close to 90 years of age, he was asked to be Santa Claus at the ward Christmas Party. He had a habit of saying “Oh, Ho Ho,” whenever he sat down. He was warned not to say that and all went well until near the end of the party when he forgot and said it as he sat down, then all the children knew who Santa was.
Amy died in the summer of 1927. Henry then went to Fayette to live with a daughter, Selena. He passed away 27 November 1928 and was buried in Huntington, Emery County. He was 92 years of age. He had six children, 55 grandchildren, 140 great grandchildren, and 2 great great grandchildren living at the time of his death.
He was a natural colonizer and is listed in the Prominent Men of Utah.