Eliza Hancock Rudd

Eliza Hancock, daughter of Solomon and Alta Adams Hancock was born 7 May 1820 1n Elucid [Euclid], Cuyahoga Co. Ohio.

When she was ten years old she moved with her parents to the town of Chagrin in the same county of her birth.

In the fall of 1830 her parents were converted and baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and at that time she too was baptized and remained a faithful member all her life.

In 1833 she with her parents and family of six children moved from Ohio to Jackson Co., Mo. in keeping with the reve1ation from the Prophet Joseph Smith.

Upon that tragic journey the family was stricken with cholera while in camp on the banks of the Missouri River, and she suffered sickness and exposure like others, which took the lives of two of her baby brothers and stripped her mother of health for the rest of her life.

At Jackson Co., Mo., while living on the banks or the Big Blue River, she heard the terrorizing cries of white savages who tore the roofs from over their heads and sat fire to all they possessed.

She walked with bare bleeding feet over the burnt prairie stubble of Missouri, took refuge in a hanging rock, knew the ache of hunger, saw the fa1l1ng stars which frightened their persuers and finally like a lull in a storm found peace and shelter in Van Buren Co., Mo., which pitying hearts had kindly provided.

She gathered with the saints to Clay Co. Mo. and from there bid her father [who left on a mission to the] eastern states (goodbye) and was gone two years.

During his absence, on 31 Jan 1836 in Clay Co. Mo. she suffered the years who had known so much sorrow was stripped of her Mother's love her care and her comfort and her wisdom. Death had entered their habitations many times before, but it was never like this.

Eliza and her three brothers, Joseph, who was fourteen, Charles, thirteen and George, ten years of age buried her in a lonely grave in an unfriendly country and then sought to comfort each other in their grief until their father's return.

After many months he returned to his motherless children and brought with him their mother's niece, Phoebe Adams, whom he married as his wife and mother to them. This she truly was and in her they found comfort and blessings.

Eliza was married when she was about nineteen years of age to Erastus Harper Rudd Jr., son of Erastus Harper Sr. and Experience Wheeler Rudd. He was nine years older than Eliza and was born 22 Sep 1811 in Springfield, Erie Co., Penn. Erastus, like her own father and brothers was loyal and fear1ess in defense of the Gospel and the saints and together they endured the persecutions of their enemies and remained true and unmovable in their convict1ons. Unto them were born three

children, two daughters and one son.

Her days of married companionship had been just nine troubled years. She died in Pottawattmaie [Pottawattamie] Co., Iowa while enroute with the saints to the Rocky Mountains.

They had looked forward to peace and comforts and a long happy life together in the land of Zion, but this was not their lot. When death took her she was still in the bud of womanhood in her twenty-eighth year with hopes and ambitions before her. She died on 28 Jan 1848 leaving a kind husband and three motherless children aged eight, six and four years of age. She was buried near Canesville [Kanesville] Pottawattamie Co. Iowa on the barren wastelands in an unmarked,

forgotten grave.

Her only son died at the age of thirteen, but through her two daughters descend posterity who hold in living remembrance this gentle woman of sorrow, Eliza

Hancock Rudd.

Erastus Harper Rudd Jr. continued his westward trek and arrived in Great Salt Lake Valley in 1852 and located in Farmington, Davis Co., Ut.

He married twice after his wife's death and by these unions was the father of eight more children.

He died in the prime of life at the age of forty-six years of age in Farmington, Davis Co. Utah on 28 May 1863 and was buried in Farmington cemetery. A fire swept the cemetery many years ago and the markers were burned and now his grave cannot be located.

Children of Erastus Harper Rudd Jr. and Eliza Hancock Rudd:

Alta Experience b: 2 Feb 1840 Adams Co., Ill. Md: Cornelieus Milinger

Franklin Osro B. b: 22 Jan 1842 Hancock Co., Ill. Died: 22 Oct 1855 (aged 13)

(Dolly) Maria b: l5 Aug 1844 Hancock Co., Ill. Md: Mormon Lackoneus Barnard

d: 23 Mar 1910

Information for this sketch was taken from Church records

Record of Charles B. Hancock

Record of Lorenzo Dow Rudd g1ven by James Rudd