Pioneer's Information
Type of Pioneer: Early Pioneer
Pioneer's Name: Davenport, James (more stories about this Pioneer)
Birth Place: Danville, Caledonia, Vermont, USA
Date of Birth: Sat, 01 May, 1802
Date of Death: Mon, 23 Jul, 1883
Father: Squire Davenport (more stories with this pioneer)
Mother: Susannah Kittridge (more stories with this pioneer)
Spouse: Almira Phelps (more stories with this pioneer)
Other Spouses: (more stories with this pioneer)
Arrived in Utah: 1850
Education:
Profession: Blacksmith
Honors:
Civic Activities:
Church: LDS Church
Authentic Mormon Pioneer: Yes
Excerpt from Pioneer Story
A common source of merriment for the pioneers was to hold “mock trials” for various
trumped-up charges. One account described such a trial one night in May 1847 “Under a full moon which made the campsite nearly as bright as day.... The members of the camp were gathered around listening to the strains of the violin. Then we had a mock trial in the case of the camp vs. James Davenport. He was charged with blockading the highway and turning ladies out of their course. We laughed until our sides split at R. Jackson Redding acting as presiding judge.”
Full Pioneer Story
JAMES DAVENPORT AND ALMIRA PHELPS
Submitted By: Angus H. Belliston (more stories by this author)
JAMES DAVENPORT AND ALMIRA PHELPS
By Angus H. Belliston
James Davenport and Almira Phelps were my great-great grandparents -- great
grandparents of my mother, Elsie Maughan. James was born on 1 May 1802 in Danville,
Caledonia, Vermont. We know very little about Almira, except that she was born on 23 January, 1805 in Canajoharie, Montgomery County, New York, and was married to James on 4 September, 1822 in New York, when he was twenty and she seventeen.
The couple had eleven children. The birth places of the children reflect a family that
moved often before they settled down with the Saints. The eldest, Mary, was born in New York; the next, John, was born in Kentucky; the third, Almen, was born in Indiana; the fourth and fifth, Alfred and Martha, were born in Ohio; the next two, Sarah Mariah (my mother’s grandmother) and Lucinda, were born in different towns in Michigan. James Nephi, Antoinette and Heber were born in or near Nauvoo after 1841. Finally, Almira (named for her mother) was born in Florence, Nebraska just as her father was leaving for the West with Brigham Young in 1847.
James and Almira were among nearly six thousand who were endowed in the Nauvoo
Temple. They received these blessings on 31 December 1845. They were also among
approximately three thousand whose marriages were sealed in Brigham Young’s temple office. The sealing occurred on 3 February, 1846, four days before the temple closed forever.
It is most likely that James worked in his profession as a blacksmith in Nauvoo during the days of its growth and during the hectic days of preparation for the exodus. James and Almira and their small children joined the exodus from Nauvoo in the spring of 1846 and were living in Florence, Nebraska, or Winter Quarters, when Brigham Young invited James to join the first company of Pioneers going to the Salt Lake Valley. This meant that Almira and her young children would stay behind, and survive somehow, until James could return for them.
Although James was in the Pioneer Company, he did not enter the Valley with Brigham
Young. He served as a blacksmith for the company. When they reached the Platte River, he was asked by Brigham Young to stay there and help operate the ferry across the “Upper Crossing” of the Platte River (later Fort Casper). Pioneer emigrants were charged $1.50 per wagon, if they had the means. This provided another small source of income for the Latter-day Saints.
A common source of merriment for the pioneers was to hold “mock trials” for various
trumped-up charges. One account described such a trial one night in May 1847 “Under a full moon which made the campsite nearly as bright as day.... The members of the camp were gathered around listening to the strains of the violin. Then we had a mock trial in the case of the camp vs. James Davenport. He was charged with blockading the highway and turning ladies out of their course. We laughed until our sides split at R. Jackson Redding acting as presiding judge.”
Late in July, after the ferry had ceased operations due to the end of the high water season, James headed back to Winter Quarters, on the way meeting Jedediah Grant’s “Big Company” going west. There in Winter Quarters the family stayed until their little daughter, Almira, was three years old. In 1850 they joined with another company and went west to settle in Grantsville, near Tooele. This move brought their daughter, Sarah Mariah, into contact with her future husband, John Maughan, whom she married on 24 July, 1853.
During the “Utah War,” in 1857-58, Federal troops invaded Utah and settlers were
required to move temporarily away from the Salt Lake City area. This likely prompted the
Davenport family to return to Council Bluffs, Iowa. Later, in 1860, the family went west again, going first to Wellsville, which had recently been settled by Peter Maughan, and where John Maughan and Sarah Mariah were now living. From there they soon moved to the new village of Richmond, on the Utah-Idaho border, where they made their permanent home.
Some of the children had not come west, and James and Almira spent some time visiting with them in the Midwest. Both died and were buried in Richmond, Cache County, Utah -- she on 28 December, 1881 and he on 23 July, 1883.
Sources:
Elsie Maughan Belliston History (2005). Family history and genealogy records.
Virtues: Faith, Obedience, Stewardship