Mary Ann Pulsipher Terry
Wife of Thomas S. Terry

Facts Gathered and Arranged by

Nora Lund, wife of Terry, a Grandson

Mary Ann Pulsipher was born November 20, 1833, in Scott, Courtland County, New York. She was the eighth child born to Zera Pulsipher and Mary Brown Pulsipher. An odd coincident was the fact that this couples daughter (oldest), which was born May 30, 1816, was also named Mary Ann -- she died in infancy. It is strange they would name their fourth daughter, who lived, by the same name. It must have meant a great deal to them.

Mary Ann’s parents were good up-right people. They were just waiting to hear the true gospel and when Zerah heard a minister say that an ancient record, or Golden Bible, was causing quite a bit of discussion in Manchester, he said the remark went through him like a shock of electricity, and when there was a book of Mormon brought into town, he borrowed it, read it twice and knew it was true.

Elders soon followed and proclaimed powerful sermons to large congregations. A few days after, Zerah was thrashing in his barn when a ray of light came from Heaven. He looked up and saw Angels with the Book of Mormon telling him of its great revelations and truths.

Needless to say, he and his family were soon baptized, as most of his Baptist congregation. That was in 1831. Soon after Mary Ann’s birth, her father was on a mission and he baptized Wilford Woodruff, who later became President of the Church. This was in December of 1833 that he baptized him.

When this little girl was two years old the family moved to Kirtland, Ohio, where her father assisted in building the Temple. In 1838 he was ordained to the Council of the First Presidency of Seventies. From here on out the persecutions of the Saints were very great. They were obliged to go from place to place in an effort to have a little peace. During these trying days, Mary Ann’s grandmother Pulsipher died at the age of 85 years, at Far West, Missouri.

We are all familiar with the hardships of crossing the Plains. At this time Mary Ann was l5 years old, so she was able to assist in camp duties, and was obliged to walk a good share of the way. Her father was Captain of a company, and was advised to take ten wagons and go ahead to assist in making roads. With this responsibility of looking after other people, I imagine lots of the hard work of the journey fell on the mother and older boys, John and Charles.

The family arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on the 23rd of September 1848. They all began working to make a home and get something around them. Her father built a grist mill and ground wheat for other people to obtain bread for his family. He also erected a saw mill and soon had them a comfortable home built.

Mary Ann had some schooling, but she was just the type of a girl that any young man would consider very favorable as a wife. Consequently, when young Thomas S. Terry met her it was love at first sight. She was 16 and he was 24, but let us have his exact words.

"During the past winter I became acquainted with John Bills, by which means, on the 29th of July 1849, I became acquainted with Miss Mary Ann Pulsipher, who afterwards became my wife. I now thought of changing my situation in life. I, accordingly, made Miss Pulsipher my constant companion. She being the fifth daughter of a respectable family, who was of long and high standing in the Church. On the 25th of September, I visited her parents and family. I now obtained my anxious wish from Mr. Pulsipher, which was the company of his daughter."

"On the 25th of December 1849, I received the hand of Miss Mary Ann Pulsipher in marriage by Heber C. Kimball, I being at the time 24 years of age and my wife 16 years of age. I was married in the house of Mr. Pulsipher in the 16th Ward, Great Salt Lake City. Mr. Pulsipher honored his daughter and friends with a good wedding supper. The next day, the 26th, I moved my wife to Brother John Bills where I lived."

In November of l850 the young husband gave up the Bills farm which he had rented and took up 40 acres of land on Little Cottonwood. He built a house there, a little log cabin which they moved into December 1st. On the 14th day of December, at 8:00 o’clock in the morning, Mary Ann became a mother to a fine daughter, which they named Mary Ann to honor her 17 year old mother.

The young couple worked hard to make a living on their new land, but they were happy together, although they had good and bad luck with their crops and live stock.

On the 16th of February 1853, at 5:00 o’clock in the after-noon, Mary Ann became a mother for the second time; another girl, whom they named Adelia.

The grasshoppers came during the summer and devoured nearly all their crops. As if that wasn’t enough trouble, the Indian Chief Walker went on the warpath. The people living out on their farms were instructed to move together and build forts to protect themselves, which they did and the Indians’ plan was thwarted.

On the 18th of August 1853, Thomas and Mary Ann were sealed by President Brigham Young in the Council House in Salt Lake, and in March they received their endowments at the same place.

Thomas rented his farm and moved his family to Salt Lake and built a house there. On the 18th of October, l854, at 6:30 in the morning, Mary Ann again gave birth to a baby; another daughter, whom they called Celestia.

Along about this time the practice of plural marriage was extensively encouraged and practiced by the church leaders. So, Thomas decided to take another wife. He chose Eliza Jane, a younger sister of Mary Ann. They were married May 5, 1855 Eliza’s first child was a boy, Zerah Pulsipher Terry.

In the fall of l855, Thomas Terry was called on a mission to the East, laboring in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, his own home states. Before he started his labors, he went to see his mother and sister, Elizabeth. During his absence, the wives and children got along as best they could, with the help of their brother, Will, and their father and mother. But what made it difficult for Mary Ann was the fact that after her husband had been gone a few months, she passed again through the shadows and gave birth to another girl, January 9, 1857, Sarah Alydia, this time.

When the mission was completed and her husband was there to take care of things, it was a little easier. But he soon sought another wife; this was a very young girl by the name of Lucy Stevenson. He raised this girl from the dead through prayer and the power of the Priesthood, while crossing the plains. She liked to go dancing all the time and Thomas had other things to do, so she left him after a year or so.

In due tine, two more daughters were added to the family, Wilhelmina, born April 14, 1859, and Almira, born March 9, 1861.

At the October Conference of 1862, a large company of Saints were called to the Dixie Cotton Mission. This call included all of the Pulsipher family. Mary Ann’s father and mother, her sister, Almira, Mariah and William Burgess, Sarah and John Alger, as well as her own husband and her sister, Eliza Jane, and herself. Her brothers John, Charles and William had come south with the Vanguards in 1861. Records show, however, that those boys came back to Salt Lake to dispose of their property and they assisted their aging father and mother in the trip south.

The trip south was hard and a tiring one; then the children had whooping cough which added to the discomfort and danger of the trip, it being in the dead of winter. But Mary Ann was never one to complain.

The Pulsipher family traveled together until they reached a valley that lies between Johnson’s Fort and the present site of Cedar City. Here they separated; the brothers taking their parents with them, went west to Shoal Creek where they were engaged in taking care of the Church cattle. The others went on to St. George, arriving on New Year’s Day, 1863.

The site for a future home was uninviting enough, the little valley with alkaline soil, surrounded by red and black hills with the ever challenging Virgin River to the south. Mary Ann’s first home was a wagon box; here she gave birth to her seventh baby girl, March 20, 1863. They named her Lenora.

The Terrys weren’t to remain in St. George, however, because in May of 1863, Apostle Snow called them to join the Pulsiphers at Shoal Creek. No doubt Mary Ann was pleased to be with her family again.

There were friendly Indians living in this locality and other marauding bands who were not quite so peaceful. Apostle Snow advised the settlers to move closer together and build a fort for protection. So the families came from Clover Valley and they all moved to the elbow of the main canyon or Big Willow Bend where there was some fertile land for farming. Here they built a fort. In the center was built a log meeting house where all could assemble for public meetings.

Father Zerah Pulsipher presided at these meetings. On one occasion he told the people he had seen a vision of a neat little village spread around the fort, nice brick homes, streets broad with trees and streams of clear water in a ditch. Some of the people laughed at his dream. By 1868 the Indians had quieted down and the people of Shoal Creek wanted to abandon the place and move elsewhere, but Apostle Snow wanted them to stay.

Mary Ann’s husband, Thomas, asked for a town site be laid out and it was. They called it Hebron, after Hebron of the Bible days. Progress was made for some time here. Thomas acted as Bishop of the Ward for many years. Mary Ann was very well suited for a Bishop’s wife and assisted her husband all she could in his many duties.

Six miles to the west of Hebron was situated a nice spring of water called Moroni Springs, after the old Indian Chief by that name. Thomas saw the possibilities of a ranch that could be developed at this place. He built quite a spacious log cabin and later added a lumber building. Mary Ann lived in Hebron part of the time and at the Ranch the other part and her sister Eliza Jane took turns with the ranch life.

On February 22, 1866, Mary Ann was very happy to present Thomas with a fine baby boy, the first boy of her family of eight. Then in April of 1868, at Hebron, another girl was born; Minerva Susan. Again in 1870, Elizabeth was added to the family. She was born right there at the Terry Ranch. The next two were boys, Luther Murkins and Joseph Alma, both in Hebron. This making her the proud mother of twelve children, nine girls and three boys. They all lived to maturity, married and raised nice families to honor her.

The Terry Ranch was on the main traveled road between the towns on the northeast, namely, Cedar City, Parowan and to St. George on the south of the rich mining camps in Nevada to the west. Mary Ann had many visitors of all kinds stop at her door. She fed many at her table. Some were bums, and others paid their way, but none were turned away. It was a stopping place for the U. S. Mail carriers also.

Thomas had increased his dairy herd and many range cows were milked night and morning at the ranch. The milk was stored in a large rock cellar or milk house behind the house, close to the spring. Mary Ann made some of the best cheese and butter that could be had anywhere. When a surplus was acquired, Thomas would take it to Salt Lake and later to the mining camps in Nevada and by means of exchange would bring back necessary commodities for the family use.

Let me quote from what one of Mary Ann’s grand daughters (Minerva McElprang Guymon) remembers of this set-up. "Grandmother had a large family and some hired men to do for. She made cheese to ship. It was an astonishing sight to me to walk into her large rock cellar and see the large round cheese, row upon row, until the large shelves reached the ceiling. I remember so well some Indians sitting around on the ground eating pieces of cheese that grandmother had given them. One Indian was 115 years old.

Another grand daughter, Ethel Winsor Simkins, recently told me of her memories of the many shining tin milk cans that were put out by the cellar to sun every day. Walter Winsor, a grandson, says that he remembers hearing how well Grandma Terry was always prepared for entertaining the many travelers that stopped at the Ranch. On one occasion, without any advanced notice, she served 35 people, giving them hot biscuits and each a piece of pie.

In 1878, Mary Ann had to share her husband once more with another woman, This time it was Hannah Louisa Leavitt, a good, sensible girl of 23 years. Thomas made a home for her in Hebron. By this time his own children were mostly married and had children of their own. I have heard Aunt Alydia Winsor say she had one child when this happened.

I’m sure they lived quite harmoniously together, as Mary Ann and Hannah both were of that kind, sweet disposition and Thomas taught all his children that they were all equal in his love and affection.

A few years after this, the practice of plural marriage was discontinued by the Church. Those breaking the laws of the land by cohabitation, if caught, were imprisoned and punished. These were hard, trying years for Mary Ann and the other wives and their children because the husband and father had to be on the jump constantly. Thomas was obliged to take his wife, Hannah, and her children and hide them away down on the Beaver Dams.

The United States Officers who were so anxious to catch Thomas were Armstrong and McCeary. On one occasion these men were hot on the trail, but they stopped for a night’s rest at Hebron. His young grandchildren, Ethel and Andy Winsor, walked the five miles to the Ranch to warn their beloved grandfather and he was able to make his get-away. If older people had gone they would have been detected, thus the plans of heartless men were thwarted by a couple of brave little children.

This terrible anxiety went on until about 1894, before things quieted down to normal again and Thomas could again attend to his duties as Bishop and assist in the care of his family.

Mary Ann missed the good council and sweet association of her father and mother when they passed away, 1872 and 1886 respectively, both living to a good old age.

She was always proud of the accomplishments of her children. They have been outstanding leaders in Church affairs of the communities where they have lived. Mary Ann had indeed been a Pioneer, being born in the East; she was old enough to realize the hardships incurred when the family became members of the Mormon Church. The bitter persecutions in Nauvoo and vicinity. The tiring trek across the plains. The hard struggle of making a home and livelihood in the Salt Lake Valley. Marrying young and helping her husband make a home on their new farm land on Little Cottonwood; accepting the call to the Dixie Mission and doing their bit in St. George. Then, being called on to Shoal Creek and working so hard to try and make a go of that little settlement. Her share was not small in making a paying business out of their ranching venture. But she still had one more job of pioneering to do.

The town of Hebron had to be abandoned due to causes which story can be read elsewhere in this book. Another long story could be told concerning the development of Enterprise down the canyon to the east. Thomas and Mary Ann had faith in the building of a new settlement, and made a home therein.

Mary Ann loved to visit around with her children; those who had moved away and the ones who had made homes in Enterprise. Terry Lund remembers how delighted he was as a boy, to have Grandma Terry come to visit them in Paragonah. He describes her as being of average size, quite plump, with curly hair and a sweet face and very kind nature.

During the later years of her life, Thomas spent his most of time at Enterprise with Mary Ann. His wife, Eliza Jane of her family were comfortably situated at Panaca, Nevada. Hannah and her children were on the ranch at Beaver Dam.

As there must be a separation at some time, this dear soul passed away September 18, 1913, at Enterprise and was buried there at the age of 80 years.

The following poem is very typical of Mary Ann’s life:

Her feet that have mounted the steep hill of life
Have grown weary and spent and old
But the storms and suns that have swept o’er her sky
Have mellowed the grains to gold.

Her friendships so faithful has lightened the load
Of so many she’s happened to meet
So freely she’s given her council and help
A glorious harvest she’ll reap.

Sweet Angels of hope thru the days yet to come
Stay by us to comfort and guard
Let her full noble life be an ensign true
Upheld by our faith in God.

Exie Terry Blake Perkins - St. George, Utah, writes: "Mother always taught us children to call father’s first wife, grandma. How I did love her. I don’t think there was anyone who ever knew her that didn’t love her, she was so sweet and kind.

When we were expecting grandma for a visit to our ranch down on the Beaver Dams, I was so excited and happy. I enjoyed doing little things for her because she was always so appreciative. She never failed to bring us presents of some kind, isolated as we were; her thoughtfulness was certainly an uplift to us. I recall picking wild around cherries for her to make preserves, it was a tedious job but I loved to do it for her. When she got home, she would always send me something to show she remembered favors done for her.

Sometimes I visited her at the Terry Ranch with my niece Lenora Huntsman; we were about same age. I will never forget those enjoyable trips.

When I was in my teens I went to Price and Huntington to visit my half sisters, Allie, Adelia and Nora. When I thought I should be going home, father wrote that he was bringing grandma for a few months visit with her daughters and that I could stay and help take care of her. What a privilege it was to be so closely associated with grandma for those weeks. She was so grateful for every little thing done for her. Everyone over there loved her just as we did, even outside of the family.

Lenora Huntsman Lamoreaux, of Provo, Utah, says: "I was quite young when I used to stay with grandmother; I loved to go and she seemed glad to have me. I remember the house, the picture which is in the Terry History. It was a long house with one frame room, "the front room"; how clean and sweet this house always was. I thought that front room was the nicest place - so cool and pleasant on a hot summer day. I can see it now, with its pictures, the chairs with their lace "tidies" over the backs of them; (grandma knitted beautiful lace. I have some she made), the velvet cushions with pink roses on them, the rag carpet so clean and pretty on the floor. Grandma would let me dust the pretty things in there, if I would be careful, she was so particular that everything be in its place.

She had such a good clean bed. She just loved to cuddle us to her and go to sleep. In the morning she would go quietly about her work so as not to wake me, as she said I must get my rest to have a strong body. They had what they called the loft, up over the dining room in this log house, a kind of a bedroom where some could sleep. A stairs led up to it, when the wind blew it whistled down the stairs in mournful sounds. But it seems that I can still feel the protecting, loving care grandma gave me.

I always wondered how she could wash dishes and scald them in such hot water, it burned my hands. She had so many milk pans and buckets."

Adelia Winsor Shurtliff - Overton Nev. wishes to add: "I remember going to the Terry Ranch when I was a small child, especially on Thanksgiving. Grandmother was a good cook and everything tasted extra special. She was noted for her delicious pies. On Grandfather’s eightieth birthday his family gathered to the Ranch to celebrate, Everyone had such a good time together. A group of the young folks wanted a little excitement so they put nine year old lone Terry (Uncle Tommy’s girl) through the pantry to hand out a few pies. When the "pie crowd" was found out they jovially put a crown of flowers on lone’s head and all had their picture taken.

One day, as Uncle Lou Terry came to bid Grandmother ‘good morning’, he found her lying on the floor with her left side quite badly paralyzed. From then on she was lovingly cared for by her family. It was always a privilege for me to help care for her either at our place, at Uncle Joe Terry’s or at the Ranch where she loved to stay in the summer.

At the Ranch she would tell me pioneer stories as I sat close by making quilt blocks. She told me of being in the meeting of the Saints in Nauvoo, Ill. after the Prophet Joseph was killed. How Brigham Young looked and spoke like the Prophet as he addressed the meeting.

Grandmother told me how the mail and freight wagons used to come by the Ranch. It was a favorite place for the freighters to get a good meal. With the help of her girls she could cook potatoes, vegetables, bake a pie and hot biscuits and serve a crowd in half an hour. Of course she always had milk, cheese butter and other things on hand.

She taught me to always put every dish back in its place in the cupboard as I washed them, so she could find them in the dark if need be.

After Grandmother had her last stroke, Aunt Eliza, her sister and Grandfather’s second wife, spent quite a bit of time with her. Aunt Eliza was a very good practical nurse and did much to ease the suffering of people in that part of Utah and in and around Panaca Nev. where she lived her last days. On this particular day Grandmother walked down to the old rock cellar to see how it looked, but the exertion brought on the second stroke. Jake Busher, a native of Hungary, whom Uncle Lou had given work and that Grandmother had taught the gospel, the English language and our ways to, was coming through the meadow. He felt impressed to go to the cellar, there he found Grandmother unable to move. He got help and they moved her to our place (daughter Alydia’s) in town. Grandfather stayed there with her until she died. They were a very companionable couple and enjoyed visiting together. Grandmother was ready to go as she had lived five years

after her first stroke."