Sarah (Birch) Waters (1827 - 1914)

Born 19 Oct 1827 in Selsted, Kent, England

Ancestors

Wife of John Waters — married 23 Oct 1853 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah, USA

Descendants

Died 30 Nov 1914 at age 87 in Mapleton, Utah, Utah, United States

Problems/Questions Profile manager: David Allen [send private message]

Biography

This biography is a rough draft. It was auto-generated by a GEDCOM import and needs to be edited.

Note

Note: History of Sarah Birch Waters

Oct 19, 1827 - Nov 30, 1914

According to the request of my family and friends, who wish to know a little about my early life, I will try and write a few things as I remember them, but they will have to be written from memory as I have never kept a diary. Therefore, there may be some things left out that would be interesting, nevertheless, what I write will be true as near as I can remember.

I was born in a small village known as Selsted, Parish of Wooton, Kent, England, October 19, 1827. My parents? names were William and Mary Rogers Birch. To them were born eleven children, three sons and eight daughters, ten of whom grew to manhood and womanhood. My parents were hard-working honest people, who taught their children to be the same. We all worked at anything we could find to do, and , as there was very little chance to get an education, we soon began to work away from home. When I was nine years of age my father secured some land in the Parish of Swingfield where they built a small house and lived until their death.

I soon started to try to earn my own living, and went to stay with my cousins, Henry and Margaret Marsh, to help take care of the children. One night while they were in another part of the house I made up the fire in the fireplace and lay down by it and went to sleep. It soon burned up, igniting my clothing which was nearly burned from my body. Had it not been for the timely arrival of my cousins I should most likely have been burned to death. As it was I was taken home to stay until I was well again, when I began to go out again, and was home but very little after I was ten years of age. At the age of thirteen I went to live with a family who had previously been interest in me. There, with their assistance, I learned to write, as I could not go home more than twice a year, so I had to labor diligently all my spare moments until I learned sufficiently, in the two years I stayed with them, to be able to write to my mother so she could read it, Though after my letter was written I could scarcely read it myself. From this time on I continued to work at different kinds of employment until I decided to be a cook. Then I could always get a good position and also a good salary in wealthy peoples? homes, but still only having the privilege of going home for a few days once or twice a year until 1849, when my mother died on Christmas day, I being twenty-two years of age. It was a sad Christmas, indeed, for me.

In the summer of 1851, the Gospel was presented to me by my eldest sister?s (Harriet Birch 1820-1886) husband, Henry Goodsell. I was rather obstinate at first but I began to search the Scriptures. Though I was a great reader of the Bible, I had never understood it in the way he explained it. I obtained what Church books I could, and compared them with the Bible, asking the Lord to help me to understand. I was so closely watched that I had to keep my books and papers locked up, and I received no small amount of insults from the other servants, although we had been very friendly and comfortable before that. Sometimes I would walk several miles after dark without an escort, to meet an Elder of the Church, and then could only stay fifteen or twenty minutes to hear him explain the principles of the Gospel or answer some questions I wish to ask. Our mail was brought to the house every morning and I soon found my letters were in danger, but I had a good friend in a boy who brought them. When there was one for me he would have it in his pocket and not in the letter bag so he could give it to me privately. It was not very long, however, until I found there was a young man by the name of John Waters working at the same gentlemen?s house, who was interested in the Gospel, so we would talk it over whenever there was an opportunity, which was not very often. I therefore concluded to leave my place of employment and to go and stay with my eldest sister (Harriet Birch Goodsell), who was living in Dover, where I could get baptized and learn more of the principles of the Gospel, as there was a branch of the Church there.

On the sixth of November, 1851, I was baptized into the Church, an act which I have never regretted. Mr. Waters continued to work at the same place and I would keep him posted, as best I could, regarding the instructions of the Elders. He was soon convinced to the truth and on the twelfth of March, 1852, was baptized. I did not stay long with my sister but secured a situation in Dover where I could attend meetings and also be earning. Within a year I had saved enough money to pay for my transportation to America. My sister, (Harriet Birch Goodsell) together with her husband (Henry Goodsell) and family of three small children, and others including Mr. Waters, were preparing to emigrate to America and I also prepared for the journey which we expected would take about eight months.

On the eight of February, 1853, we bade farewell to the members of that Branch, our friends and loved ones, and started on our journey. We went by train to London where we stayed overnight. The next morning by daylight we boarded the train again and arrived at Liverpool after dark that night. We were taken to a comfortable hotel by one of the Elders, where we remained for a few days. There were twelve of us besides the captain in our little company. Four men, four women, and four children. We sailed from Liverpool on the fifteenth of February and arrived in New Orleans in five weeks. The quickest trip, the captain said, on record for a ship of that kind. The weather was pleasant.

There were three deaths, one marriage, and one or two births during the voyage. One of the number, a young man named Charles Jones, died of smallpox and was thrown overboard. Seven of the remaining eleven afterwards apostatized from the Church. The name of the captain was Owen. His wife?s name was Elvira, so the ship was called the Elvira Owen. There was 345 people on the ship. The captain of our little company was Joseph W. Young.

At New Orleans we were transferred to a steamer named the James Rob, and after eight days and nights we arrived at St Louis. Two or three days more took us to Keokuk, a small town on the Mississippi River. Here we camped and waited for five weeks for teams and wagons to take us across the plains. I secured work in the town so I could earn enough to purchase a few things I needed, before starting upon that long and tedious journey.

We left the camp ground but only traveled one day when we were delayed another week. Here by walking a short distance, we could see Nauvoo.  ?The City of the Saints? and the ruins of the Temple. We then traveled on daily for about three hundred miles to Council Bluffs where we stopped to get more supplies and spend the Fourth of July. Here, others joined our company and we were more completely organized, with Cryus H. Wheelock for captain to conduct us across the plains. I was to pay for my transportation by cooking, washing, and either leading or carrying one of my sister?s children.

After traveling several days through swamps and mud, we crossed the Missouri river and camped for another week at Winter Quarters where so many of the Saints died when they were driven from their homes in mid-winter. There were still traces of their huts and dugouts. It brought very solemn feelings to us as we looked over the situation and walked upon the ground where there had been so much death and suffering, and as we traveled on we daily passed graves where some had fallen by the wayside unable to travel further. Nothing very particular happened to our company the rest of the journey until we reached what was known as ?Little Mountain? where we camped for the last night before reaching Salt Lake City.

In the morning after breakfast myself and two or three others started out ahead of the teams for the City. I do not remember how far it was but we did not think it far. After coming thirteen hundred miles by land, walking most of the way, we had learned pretty well how it was done. We had not gone far when we were overtaken by some people who had met our company to look for friends whom they were expecting, but, failing to find them, they were returning. They invited us to ride, took us to their home in Salt Lake, gave us our supper, and made us comfortable until our wagons came in after dark, October 6, 1853. It would be impossible to tell how thankful we were to those people, and that we had reached our destination.

After a few days my sister and family went South to Salt Creek, now known as Nephi, to make their home, and I was left alone. About this time an old lady came to our camp and wanted someone to rent her farm and live in part of her house ten miles South of the City, so John Waters and I decided to accept her offer. We were married on the twenty-third of October, just seventeen days after arriving by the Patriarch known as Uncle John Smith. The next day a team came and took us to our new home. I felt that I had traveled far enough and was quite willing to stop.

I will try and tell what we had to start keeping house with. I had some sheets I brought from England. The old lady allowed us to use her stove to cook on. She loaned us an old home-made bedstead, a mattress made out of cat-tails and a quilt. Another lady loaned us a blanket. This comprised our bedding, and winter coming on. I had one china plate, one tin plate, two tumblers, one half-pint cup, two spoons, one wooden one, three knives and forks which I washed for while in the City, a wash dish, a bake kettle and a stove kettle, which I bought to cook in while crossing the plains. We had a box with our few clothes in which we used for a table. This made up our furnishings for our first housekeeping and we were truly thankful for what we had.

Winter, with its cold and snow, came early that year and we scarcely settled down when the old lady sold her home and went to California, which left us without shelter. However, we soon found another place to live and with it we found plenty of friends and also some work. I would go out washing, house-cleaning, sewing, or anything I might find to do. John would also work for anything we could use, and thus we passed the first winter in this country. We got along very well in the spring, working around among our neighbors, and had the prospect of a good garden when the grasshoppers came and cleared everything before them. They injured the wheat crop to a great extent, destroyed the corn, and laid their eggs to be hatched the next spring. This they did and again they soon took all kinds of vegetation, clearing whole fields of grain as soon as it came up, leaving everything perfectly bare. Then we were glad to eat buckwheat cakes instead of bread.

The next winter we both went into Big Cottonwood Canyon to work at a sawmill. I went to cook and John to drive team and haul logs to the mill. We stayed there until spring when we went back to the Valley and rented a place that could hardly be called a house. We took lumber for our pay for working at the mill. About this time we got a chance to trade for a piece of land. The man who owned the land was on a mission and his family was quite destitute, so we paid for it in anything we could get that they could use. The next thing needed was a house to live in. We had the lumber but needed the adobes, so we went to work and made them. This was a new kind of work so we were rather slow at it, but by July our adobes were ready to use. Now, in order to be close to our work, we set our lumber up tent fashion. Leaning together at the top but open at each end.

Here on the third of August 1855, our first baby, a son was born. This was rather a hard time for us as there was no flour to be bought and we only had some new potatoes with milk and butter to eat. However a friend came and told us he had some shorts we could have, which we gladly accepted to make bread from.

In a short time we were again ready to commence work on the house for we were anxious to have it to live in before winter came on. We could not hire help so John had to make the doors, door frames and window frames and window frames besides lay up the walls, while I mixed the mud and carried the adobes. We also plastered it ourselves so you may be sure it was a real home-made house. By this time it was getting cold and we could only have a fire in the open air so we moved into our new house without windows. Small window light were twenty-five cents each at that time. It was not long until we were able to get a few window lights and then we felt quite comfortable and thankful that we now had a home of our own, besides a cow, a pig, and a few chickens.

On the twelfth of December, 1856, when our little boy was sixteen months old, a baby girl was added to our family. She was very small and I had to carry her around on a pillow for some time. We enjoyed our new home for a little more than a year when another problem confronted us. In the spring of 1858, the word was sent that Johnston?s Army was marching upon us to destroy us, so by order of President Brigham Young everybody must vacate their homes and move South. This we did with many others. We traveled as far south as Springville where we decided to locate again and built up another home in the southeast corner of the city known as the Second Ward. Here we camped in a mud room, called a bastain, for several years, with the addition of another small room. During this time the Indians were very hostile. John was one of the Home Guard so I was left alone with the babies a great deal of the time. Many times I pulled our little table against the door and sat upon it with a crude weapon by my side to try to protect our little ones from the dangerous red man.

In the spring of 1860 John was called to go back to the States for supplies and immigrants. I now had three little children. Two of them were about the same size and I had three little dresses, so I would wash a dress and change one baby one day, then wash the dirty dress and have it ready for the other on the next day, thus being able to put a clean dress on them every other day. John, with some others, started for the states on the twenty-third of April, 1860, and was gone until nearly winter. During his absence, on the twenty-fourth of September, another baby boy was born. When he was but a few days old I carried squash from my garden to put them under shelter so they would not freeze, as it was very cold. We lived as best we could until the winter of 1864, when we again moved into a new adobe house before it was finished, and about three weeks before our sixth child was born.

Time went on with its numerous changes, John had traded a yoke of young cattle for a piece of land which helped to provide our living. Sometimes we would get along very well, while at other times necessaries were very scarce. At one time our cow strayed away. John went to hunt for her, and found her killed by the Indians on Union Bench now know as Mapleton. While looking at her, an Indian came riding up. He gave signs that if John molested the cow he could cut his throat, which he no doubt would have done. So all we got of our only cow was the hide and a little of the fat. At another time we had two cows. They both ate some poison weeds and died.

To us were born nine children, five boys and four girls, who grew to man and womanhood in the house we had built mostly ourselves. After a number of years John?s health began to fail, and after a period covering nearly twenty years of poor health he died on the fifteenth of April, 1887, only fifty-seven years of age. Five of our children had married and gone to various places to build homes of their own. I continued to live in the same place until the year 1892, when I sold my home in Second Ward and bought another in the First Ward of Springville.

In the spring of 1901, I had a severe sick spell which left me unable to care for my home, so I sold it and lived with some of my family for about two years when I again went to housekeeping in the little home in Mapleton. In October 1903, my daughter Sarah A. Matson, bought a home in Provo and I moved into one of her rooms. I am now seventy-six years of age. My children are all living. I have forty-four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

I continued to live in Provo until the spring of 1907, when I returned to Mapleton to live at the home of my daughter M. Esther Houtz, but my health failed considerably. After a short time I became somewhat improved and had a comfortable little house built near Esther where I am as contented and happy as an elderly person can expect to be with the infirmities of age creeping upon them. Here I may stay the remainder of my days, as I am now getting quite feeble. While living here my family came together, as was their custom, to honor me on my eight-first birthday. This was one of the most eventful days of my life for my younger brother, James Birch was here from California. This was the first time I could remember seeing him for about sixty-six years. He had never joined the Church but two of my sisters, Elizabeth Birch Fagg Swain Harker and Esther Birch Bennion, were baptized in England and came to Utah where they raised honorable families and died faithful Latter-Day Saints. My father was also baptized but never came to America. My Testimony is that the Gospel is true and in all the trails of life I have never had occasion to doubt it.

Affectionately dedicated to my family and friends

Sarah Birch Waters

Sarah Water?s daughter continues her mother?s story

She lived at our home until November 30, 1914, when she passed to the great beyond at the age of eight-seven years, one month and eleven days. With her passing went out the mortal life of a faithful Latter-day Saint, loved and loving mother and respected friend. While living in Springville, she was president of the Second Ward Primary Association for ten years. She also labored as a Relief Society teacher for a number of years and was a faithful Sunday School teacher for some time. She passed through many trials and privations, but through it all her own words were ?I always tried not to complain.? I well remember hearing her tell about helping Father do some plowing. He was driving the cattle (she could not do that) and she was trying to hold the plow. The sod was tough and heavy and the plow would throw her from one side of the furrow to the other. At last she became so weary she said, ?I can?t work unless I have something to eat.? ?That,? she said, ? was the nearest I ever came to complaining that I can remember.? At one time in the early days there was to be a public celebration and picnic. Two of her friends wanted her to go but she told them she could not. When they asked her why, she said she had no shoes, so they said they were going barefoot so she could go with them. Then she told them she had no bread for the picnic. They looked out into the garden and seeing plenty of nice greens they told her they had bread and if she would cook the greens they would take the bread and have a picnic together, which they did. At another time there was a celebration at the bowery and she was expected to help furnish the picnic. She took her portion and left it was returning home when a friend stopped her and asked if she was going to the celebration. She replied that she was not. The friend told her to go home and dress up and come back. She went home but could not dress up, for she had nothing better to put on. Her disposition was humble and unassuming, ever ready to do her part, always taking pleasure in recounting her experiences.

Mary Esther Waters Houtz Dec 5, 1928

Note: I added this history to add additional information about her sister Elizabeth Birch Fagg Swain Harker

Barbara Summers

Baptism

Baptism:

Date: 19 OCT 1827

Place: Wootton, Kent, England

Census

Census: with husband, nine children, second wife and child (I think)

Date: 1870

Place: Springville, Utah, Utah, USA

Census: she was living with her husband, six children, a second wife and five children

Date: 1880

Place: Springville, Utah, Utah, USA

WT_REMOVED_FOR_PRIVACY

Burial

Burial:

Date: 2 DEC 1914

Place: Springville, Utah, Utah, USA

Note: Springville Ever,

Marriage

Husband: William Hogben Henry Birch

Wife: Mary Ann Rogers

Child: Harriet Birch

Child: Mary Ann Birch

Child: William Henry Birch

Child: Charlotte Birch

Child: Sarah Birch

Child: Elizabeth Birch

Child: Esther Ann Birch

Child: George Richard Birch

Child: James Birch

Child: Jemima Caroline Birch

Child: Emily Ellen Birch

Marriage:

Date: 27 NOV 1819

Place: Brabourne, Kent, England^[1]

Sources

• WikiTree profile Birch-51 created through the import of Salmon tree.ged on May 31, 2011 by Rena Brewin. See the Changes page for the details of edits by Rena and others.

• Source: S110 Abbreviation: FamilySearchOrg Title: FamilySearchOrg (http://www.familysearch.org) Subsequent Source Citation Format: FamilySearchOrg BIBL FamilySearchOrg. http://www.familysearch.org. TMPLT TID 0 FIELD Name: Footnote VALUE FamilySearchOrg (http://www.familysearch.org) FIELD Name: ShortFootnote VALUE FamilySearchOrg FIELD Name: Bibliography VALUE FamilySearchOrg. http://www.familysearch.org.
• Source: S212 Abbreviation: Stamps Web Site Title: Diane Stamps, Stamps Web Site Subsequent Source Citation Format: Stamps Web Site BIBL Diane Stamps. Stamps Web Site. Text: MyHeritage.com family tree CONT Family site: Stamps Web Site CONT Family tree: 7259440-9 TMPLT TID 0 FIELD Name: Footnote VALUE Diane Stamps, Stamps Web Site FIELD Name: ShortFootnote VALUE Stamps Web Site FIELD Name: Bibliography VALUE Diane Stamps. Stamps Web Site. Repository: #R7 Page: Sarah Birch TMPLT FIELD Name: Page VALUE Sarah Birch Quality or Certainty of Data: 3 QUAL Information: P Data: Text: Added by confirming a Smart Match
• Repository: R7 Name: My Heritage Address: Web Address: www.myheritage.com

1. ↑ Source: #S110 TMPLT FIELD Name: Page

"United States Census, 1870," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MNCB-S89 : 12 April 2016), John Waters, Utah, United States; citing p. 31, family 213, NARA microfilm publication M593 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); FHL microfilm 553,111.