Experience Wheeler Rudd Hancock

21 December 1792

Material for this sketch was taken from the record of her daughter, Amy Hancock Hancock, b. 12 May 1835; from records of Erastus Harper Rudd, Jr.; from the cemetery records of Provo City Cemetery; and Church history records. [The account is unsigned, however, and the compiler and author is unknown, though likely is Amy Hancock or her son Asael Hancock.]

Experience Wheeler, daughter and fifth child of Randall and Experience Alden Wheeler, was born 21 December 1792, in Chesterfield County, New Hampshire.

Of her childhood and youth we know nothing at present.

On 28 November 1816 in her twenty-fourth year of age she was married to Erastus Harper Rudd, who was twenty-nine years old. He was born 23 June 1787 in Chesterfield, Cheshire County, New Hampshire, and was the son of John and Chloe Hill Rudd.

After their marriage they evidently moved to Springfield and Erie, Pennsylvania, and lived there until 1822, for at that place their first four children were born.

In 1822 they moved back to Chesterfield, Cheshire County, New Hampshire, where their other five children were born.

On 20 November 1833, her husband Erastus Harper Rudd, Sr. was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and she was converted and baptized soon after.

Very soon after their conversion the family moved to Kirtland, Geauga County, Ohio, and there dwelt with the Saints and partook of the spiritual gifts of the newly founded [restored] church.

In 1834 when the Prophet Joseph Smith called for volunteers to join the ranks called Zions Camp from the youth and strength of the Church, Erastus became one of the first volunteers. This camp was raised to march one thousand miles to Jackson County, Missouri, for the purpose of defending the ill-treated saints at that place.

With the prophet at the helm, Zions Camp took up their march not knowing what might befall either them or [the prophet] himself ere the mission of the camp was completed.

After many days of weary travel, foot sore and tired, with enemies before them and behind them, they marched on. When within the borderlands of their journey's end, misfortune befell the camp.

Due to complainings and rebellions in Camp, the innocent suffered with the unfaithful, and a scourge broke upon them in fulfillment of the word of the Lord, if they did not repent. This scourge was in the form of cholera, and this dread disease took the lives of many of the members of Zions Camp.

On 26 June 1834 at Rush Creek, Missouri, Erastus H. Rudd fell a victim to this disease and died and was buried on the banks of the creek. Thus Experience, his wife, was left a widow with a large family of children--eight in number ranging in age from the oldest at seventeen years to the baby who was less that two and one-half years old.

After the death of her husband in 1834, Experience was married to Joseph Hancock, son of Thomas Jr. and Amy Ward Hancock. Joseph had been a fellow soldier of her former husband in Zions Camp and also a fellow sufferer with cholera, but his life was spared after severe suffering. He was eight years younger than Experience, and was the widower of Betsy Johnson Hancock, who was the mother of his five young children.

Four of his children were living, ranging in ages from the oldest who was nine years to the youngest who was but four years old. The four-year-old was taken by Joseph's mother and raised by her. Thus the two families combined number was thirteen in all--the two parents, eight of Experience's children, and three of Joseph's.

Shortly after their marriage they took their family and gathered with the Saints and Hancock kin in Clay County, Missouri. There near Liberty on 12 May 1835 their first and only child was born, a daughter whom they named Amy Experience.

Due to prejudice the saints were driven from Clay County, and very shortly after they moved to Caldwell County, Missouri. There Joseph and his family located on Shoal Creek, a village near Haun's Mill.

At this place Joseph buried his second child, a daughter Clarissa Rhoda, aged ten years, who died in 1837. After the Missouri "war" was fought and lost by the saints, they once more were driven from their homes. From Caldwell County, Joseph and Experience and part of their large family were driven to the west banks of the Mississippi River during the cold month of November and located at Montrose, Iowa, across from the city of Nauvoo.

Some of Experience's children had married and remained in Clay County.

At Montrose they enjoyed peace and contentment for a period of nearly six years. Then the storm of persecution broke once more, and it was abated only by the blood of the Prophet of God and his brother the Patriarch. Experience's home in Montrose was a haven of shelter during the dark days of apostasy and rebellion prior to the cruel murder of these noble men.

Joseph and Hyrum Smith sought shelter and comfort in their friends' home when fleeing from the city of Nauvoo--when planning to go westward beyond the reach of the murderous demons who sought their lives. Joseph Hancock was a trusted and tried friend, and it was in his care the prophet intended to entrust their lives upon this journey west.

When the entreaty from friends and loved ones reached them, it was with sad hearts that Joseph and Hyrum bid farewell to these trusted friends and took the boat back across the river. Experience had hastily made a few hot biscuits to comfort and sustain their beloved leaders while crossing the river to Nauvoo.

When she beheld their lifeless forms at the Mansion House a few days later, grief filled her soul and tears flowed freely down her pale, saddened face.

On February 1846 under the leadership of Brigham Young, the Camp of Israel moved on, one hundred and forty-five miles west of Nauvoo to a spot in Iowa called Garden Grove. After a brief rest at this place, the Hancocks moved on thirty miles more and established Mt. Pisgah, Iowa. After staying here for a short time, they journeyed on to Council Bluffs, Iowa, on the east bank of the Missouri River.

In the spring of 1847, her husband Joseph Hancock was called by Brigham Young to go with the first company of pioneers westward as a hunter of game for the company.

Joseph accepted the call and left his wife and their children in the care of God, shouldered his musket, and walked all those weary miles to the Great Salt Lake Valley.

During his absence Experience suffered many hardships and exposures, and many days of ill health and an aching heart." Many of their children who had married left the church, and forsaken the fold.

During her husband's absence Experience took her little daughter Amy and went back to Liberty, Clay County, Missouri, where her children were living, and with every ounce of strength and wisdom she possessed she tried to persuade them to join the saints and come to Zion. She was not successful, so with a broken heart she turned from them and saw them no more in this world. Of her eight living children, two of them accepted the gospel--Erastus Harper Jr. was baptized in 1833 and Lorenzo Dow joined the church in 1842, and both remained faithful to the church to the end of their days. They both emigrated to Utah, but not before their mother had passed away.

Upon her arrival to their home in Council Bluffs, she found that her husband had returned from the Rocky Mountains after an absence of about ten months. He arrived 20 January 1848 after many hardships and privations.

Due to ill health and poor circumstances, the family could not return to the Great Salt Lake Valley as they had expected until two years later. They finally left Council Bluffs on 1 May 1851.

Soon after their arrival they moved to Provo and expected to make this their permanent home. Poor Experience was so ill and after a short time in Zion she passed away in October 1851 in her fifty-ninth year, leaving her husband and a heart-broken lonely little daughter who was but sixteen years old in a new and a strange wilderness to mourn her loss.

Experience was buried in Provo on College Hill, but after a few years the graves from this hill were moved to the present city cemetery.

Joseph Hancock went to California after the death of his wife and was gone for ten years. Her daughter Amy moved to Woods Cross in Davis County where she was married.

From her two sons Erastus Harper Rudd, Jr. and Lorenzo Dow Rudd descends a good and noble posterity, and from her daughter Amy descends another branch of whom she can well be proud.

May these descendents keep fresh in their memory the loyalty, and devotion which Was ever in the heart of Experience Wheeler Rudd Hancock and appreciate the heritage which is theirs through her and hold in sacredness the sufferings and hardships of this good woman that her posterity might enjoy the Zion of which she had but a glimpse.

ATT/GldExpHancock