Lyman Wight (1796 - 1858)

Born 9 May 1796 in New England

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 31 Mar 1858 at age 61 in San Antonio, Texas, USA

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Biography

Lyman Wight is Notable.

Lyman Wight (May 9, 1796 – March 31, 1858) was an early leader in the Latter Day Saint movement. He was the leader of the Latter Day Saints in Davies County, Missouri in 1838. In 1841, he was ordained a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. After the death of Joseph Smith, Jr. resulted in a succession crisis, Wight led his own group of Latter Day Saints to Texas, where they created a settlement. While in Texas, Wight broke with other factions of Latter Day Saints, including the group led by Brigham Young. Wight was ordained president of his own church, but he later sided with the claims of William Smith and eventually of Joseph Smith III. After his death, most of the "Wightites" (as members of this church were called) joined with the Reorganization

By Irene Van Winkle

West Kerr Current

Often, new religions have turbulent beginnings, as they struggle to enter into the mainstream consciousness and become accepted.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is no exception. Its roots in Texas were planted on the frontier with the arrival of a splinter group led by Elder Lyman Wight, who was nicknamed “Wild Ram of the Mountain.” Although their presence as a group was fairly short-lived, their echoes still resonate in the generations that sprang up afterward. In later times, the church in Texas became better-established.

LDS churches in the Hill Country continue to thrive. Kerr County native and historian Sibyl Sutherland said she was the first person in Kerr County, along with her mother and others, baptized in the Mormon faith in the Guadalupe River by Turtle Creek on Sept 7, 1947, when they lived in Center Point.

Her husband’s (G.C.) great-grandfather was Joseph Lyman Sutherland, son of Colony members David and Jane Menzies Sutherland. The Sutherlands were baptised in Scotland by Orson Pratt, a close friend of the church’s founder, Joseph Smith.

Most of the Lyman Wight Colony’s settlements in the area, including Zodiac and Mormon Mill, were eventually destroyed and little remains thereof. Mountain Valley, their community in Bandera County, ended up at the bottom of Medina Lake in 1913 when the dam was built. The church had been besieged since it began, both from within and without.

After the death in 1844 of LDS founder Joseph Smith, killed by a mob in Illinois during his candidacy for president of the United States, Lyman Wight split from the church, rejecting the leadership of Smith’s successor, Brigham Young.

Wight arrived in Bandera with about 250 men, women and children, formed from 22 households. Some of their descendants remain there today, notably the Langfords, Hays and other clans.

The Langford/Hay group also includes the Banta, Minear, Bedwell and Chipman lines. Last weekend, a group of descendants held a family reunion in Bandera next door to the restored historic home of Benjamin Franklin “Frank” Langford, Jr. (1876-1950), and his wife, Mary Emma Hay (1880-1971), at the corner of Hackberry and 14th Streets.

The story of the home, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, explains the ties to various families, who were part of the early colony, who arrived just one year after Bandera was incorporated.

In 1890, John and Jennie Davenport Miller bought the site from colonists George and (his second wife) Virgine “Virginia” Minear Hay for $25. George and Frank’s father, Isaac “Berry” Langford, helped build a home for the Millers, who sold it in 1904 to Frank and Mary.

Frank and Mary had eight children: Cohen, Olin, Lora, Leotta, Othell, Eldon, Merle and Lera, and photo portraits of most of the family hang on the wall near the doorway of their house.

In 1915, Frank, Berry and Tom Noonan built additions to the L-shaped home, blocking off the first floor, and adding a second story with bedrooms, a sleeping porch and bathroom. They also donated land across the street for the Reorganized Church of Latter Day Saints, where now sits the still-active Community of Christ Church.

Lyman Wight’s followers, who began the trek into Texas in March, 1845, was comprised of 22 households, who came from places such as Scotland, Canada, New York, Connecticut, Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Most of them brought valuable skills, which came in very handy in their journeys: weaver, millwright, stonemason, furniture maker, carpenter, farmer and herdsman.

At least seven of the men had multiple wives. The precedent had been set by Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. Lyman Wight himself had three wives — Jane Margaret Ballantyne, Mary Hawley and Mary Ann Hobart, who together produced 14 children. His son, Orange Lysander, also had three wives who bore 14 offspring as well.

Other colonists with more than one wife included Ezra Alpheus Chipman, George Hawley, Ralph Jenkins, John F. Miller (with five wives) and George Montague, with three.

Fraught with hardships, discord and rejection, the Wight Colony meandered frequently. Wherever they went, although they traded and built communities, they never remained in one place very long, often due to financial hardships.

Earlier, when the Mormons had come to Nauvoo, Ill., Joseph Smith had sent inquiries about conditions in Texas. Although Lyman Wight got permission from Joseph Smith to come to Texas, after Smith’s death, the new leaders set their sights on Utah, which contributed to the rift. Departing from settlements in Wisconsin, across Iowa, Missouri and through Indian Territory, Wight’s party crossed the Red River at Preston and eventually arrived in November, 1845 at an abandoned fort in Grayson County, Texas.

After wintering there, they arrived in Austin in June of the following year but a flood destroyed their gristmill on the Colorado River. In 1847, the group reached a favorable spot across the Pedernales River, four miles southeast of Fredericksburg. After receiving permission from John O. Meusebach, who was in charge of helping to bring Germans to Texas, the band settled in the community they named Zodiac. The industrious group quickly built Gillespie County’s first sawmill and a new gristmill, and were able to supply the German community with seeds, flour and lumber. They also erected a temple, school and store, and helped build Fort Martin Scott.

Then disaster struck — Zodiac was hit by a large flood and most of it washed away. Undaunted and stubborn, Wight moved the colony to Hamilton Creek in Burnet County, establishing the Mormon Mill Colony five miles north of Marble Falls and 10 miles south of Burnet. They farmed and hunted, and built a three-story mill building with a 26-foot water wheel. Once more plagued by debt, Indian raids and criticism of their beliefs, they decided to move to Bandera County.

First, however, they returned to Zodiac to recover their millstones, which were found after Lyman Wight saw them in a vision. Just as Joseph Smith had visions upon which his religion was based, Lyman Wight also did. In one of them, he said he foresaw the Civil War.

After the colony left, Noah Smithwick, who bought the Mormon Mill property, built it up with a post office and school. Years later, its population dwindled. In 1901, the mill closed, the flume and other buildings burned down a year later, and in 1914, the rest of it went up in smoke. After four years in Bandera, in 1858, Lyman Wight died suddenly. He was buried in Zodiac, after which most of his colony dispersed. The following is a narrative of the Langford family, and related branches, taken mostly from information supplied by descendant, Lauren Langford, a doctor in Houston.

Early ancestor, Benjamin Langford (1780-1844), Sr., the son of Henry and Mary Langford, was born either in Virginia or Carolina and died in Pope County, Arkansas, and was a man of many accomplishments. Besides being a landowner who was willing to move, Benjamin became a justice of the peace, magistrate, commissioner and teacher.

In 1805, he married Martha “Patsy” Pace, who was born in South Carolina. That same year, Benjamin bought 218 acres in Mush Creek, a fork of the South Tygar River Greenville District. Within the next few years, he and Patsy had daughters Prudence, Sinai, Evaline, then Benjamin and Anna, all born in Greenville, S.C.

In 1815, along came son Milton Hazelton, and in 1819, John Pace, who was born in Jackson County, Alabama. Here, in 1820, Ben was commissioned as Justice of the Peace, and two years later, son Robert Berry was born. In 1830, the family settled in Boiling Springs, one of the first settlements in Pope County, about a mile west of where the city of Hector now stands. Along with the Langfords was Rev. Mahlon Bewley who, opened the first school in the area.

Benjamin and Patsy’s sixth child, Milton (1815-1893), was born in Greenville County, S.C. They moved west through Jackson County, Alabama (1819), and Crawford and Pope counties in Arkansas. by 1830. By 1837, in Fannin County, Republic of Texas, Milton applied for a land grant and received 640 acres. In 1841, the War Department of the Republic of Texas issued him a promissory note for horses sold, for a total of $810.

Milton married Mary Ann “Polly” Banta, daughter of Isaac William Banta and Elizabeth Barker, in Lamar County, Texas in 1843. Records show that he cosigned the first bond recorded after the organization of Hunt County and Isaac was a county founder. Some of the Banta clan who are connected to Andrew Kent’s line are buried in nearby Harper. Between 1845-1865, they had 10 children: Martha Evelyn, Benjamin Franklin (1847-1923), John D., Isaac Berry (1851-1914), Sinai W., Alfred W., Andrew E., Eliza, Lee Wilson and James Monroe.

During the Civil War, in 1864, after three of their children succumbed to smallpox, Milton and Polly moved south with their family in search of a less populated area and better grazing land for their livestock. They found plenty of grass and water on the Seco, but the Indians became so troublesome they could not keep horses to tend the stock. The family finally settled in Bandera for protection and school purposes.

Duty-bound to serve and protect, from 1868-1870, Milton was Bandera County sheriff, earning a whopping $25/year. Polly died in 1870 and was one of the first buried in Bandera Cemetery.

In 1872, Milton married Martha Ann Rowland Cryer in Medina County. Martha’s husband, David, died from Indians’ arrows while returning with supplies with another man named Foster. They were attacked near Sugar Loaf Mountain, between Hondo Canyon and Bandera.

Except for Benjamin Franklin and Isaac Berry, who remained in Bandera, the family moved to a ranch on the Dry Frio, in the old Tehuacana Community of Frio County.

Milton and Martha Ann had two children: Milton Madison and Mary. Milton helped organize the Tehuacana Community, giving property and buildings to the Methodist Episcopal Church South for a church and a school, and was a school trustee. After Martha Ann died in 1893, Milton returned to Bandera.

According to the 1953 Bandera Centennial published by J. Marvin Hunter, Milton’s son, Isaac Berry, called “Uncle Berry,” came to Bandera from Burnet in 1864 when he was 13 years old. He married Elizabeth Bird of Seguin in 1872, and had eight children. He served as justice of the peace, county commissioner, and held other posts.

Berry was an active businessman. As a carpenter, his shop was on Eleventh Street, and he built a two-story hotel at Cedar and Main streets, known as the Langford House. It later became Aileen Fitzgerald’s store, and then a Sinclair service station. Berry also ran a livery stable across the street from his hotel. Hunter said he went business with his brother, which became B.F. Langford & Son hardware store.

The known Hay family story (part of which was covered recently in the West Kerr Current with the history of J. Marvin Hunter) began with George Hay and his parents. George was born in Erskine, Renfrewshire, Scotland in 1836 to Alexandr (1808-1846) and Janet “Jessie” Ballentine (1813-1887). In 1841, he sailed with his parents to America on the ship, Tyrean, from Liverpool, England, landing in New Orleans two months later. From there they poled flatbeds up the Mississippi River to St. Louis.

Alexander and two small sons died, after which Jessie, with sons George and Alexander, and daughter Jennett, joined with the Lyman Wight Colony, and then to Nauvoo, Ill., where the Mormons had settled. George’s parents were the first in Scotland to be baptized in the Mormon faith, and they joined up with the Wight Colony that came to Bandera County. In 1856, Jessie was the first woman in the county to receive real property from the James, Herndon-Montel Co. Her home at 1106 Cypress St., which also was used as a hotel, boarding house, store, school, courthouse and post office, is still standing.

George’s first wife was Amanda Minear, also a member of the Mormon colony, and the couple had two children: Amanda Elam and George Alexander. Sadly, though, Amanda Minear died at the young age of 25 in 1863.

But life went on for George, and later he married Amanda’s sister, Virgine “Virginia,” who bore him nine children: Jessie Georgianna, Francis Towle, Janet Virginia, Charles Frederick William, Joseph A. M., Mary Emma, John Samuel Stevens; and twins, Ola Elva and Ora Elva.

Virginia and her family joined the Wight Colony after their father, William Minear, was murdered for his horse and saddle in Coryell County, Texas in 1850. Virginia’s mother, Lydia P. Hymer, at the time had six young children and was expecting the seventh.

A true pioneer, George protected the town from Indians, with Ballentyne’s Minute Men Ranger Company, and during the Civil War, in the Frontier Battalion. He also served as a judge, and was a merchant for the early settlers. He died at the age of 89 in 1925 and Virginia passed in 1941 at the age of 97, and they were buried in Bandera.

There are many more such stories of some of the other Mormon settlers, and when circumstances permit, they will also be included.

Sources

• Wikidata

• SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyman_Wight

• Johnson, Melvin C.; Polygamy on the Pedernales: Lyman Wight's Mormon Villages in Antebellum Texas, 1845-1858. Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1042&context=usupress_pubs&sei-redir=1#search=%22o.+lysander+wight%22

• http://wkcurrent.com/wights-mormons-in-texas-included-langford-hay-families-p1906-71.htm

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Stephanie Yarbrough for starting this profile.

Click the Changes tab for the details of contributions by Stephanie and others.