William Stewart and Delpha Jones Stewart1
(1800 – 1891 / 1813 – 1850)
William STEWART
Born: 24 Oct 1800, Fayetteville, Cumberland, North Carolina
Parents: George STEWART and Rebecca UTLEY
Married: 9 Apr 1830, Cumberland, Cumberland, North Carolina
Died: 17 Oct 1891, Moab, Grand, Utah
Delpha JONES STEWART
Born: 5 May 1813, Cumberland, Cumberland, North Carolina
Parents: Alvin JONES and Elizabeth HOCKADAY
Married: 9 Apr 1830, Cumberland, Cumberland, North Carolina
Died: 23 Apr 1850, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah
William Stewart was born October 24, 1800 in
Fayetteville, Cumberland, North Carolina, son of George and
Rebecca Utley Stewart. He married Delpha Jones (b. 5 May
1813), daughter of Alvin Jones and Elizabeth Hockaday, on April
9, 1830 in Cumberland County, North Carolina where their first
three children were born. They were Mary Jane (1831); Caroline
William Stewart, 1800 - 18911
(1833); and Randolph Hockaday (1834). In about 1835 the
family moved to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where William’s brother George was already living.
William brought his widowed mother, Rebecca, with them. Six more children were born in
Alabama: Elizabeth (1837); John Calvin (1839); Joshua Laurence (1840); Moroni and Moronia
(1843); and China Ann (1845). William owned a large cotton plantation in Alabama, as his father
George had in North Carolina (George was one of the largest landowners in Wake County, North
Carolina, as verified by his will). William owned several cotton mills besides many Negro slaves.
His brother George was also a wealthy plantation owner, having a cotton gin, a grist mill, a saw
mill, and a large number of slaves (records indicate that George had $150,000 at the time he joined
the L.D.S. Church).
The Stewart family was well respected in the community and maintained a high social
position. George had a church built in the area, which he maintained and supported. One family
history indicates that George met the missionaries from the L.D.S. Church while on a business trip
to find a market for his crops and brought them back to teach his family. Another family history
tells that when the first missionaries came to Alabama, neighbors sent them to see George Stewart,
1
Written by Janis Pendleton Raje. Sources: materials in possession of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers (DUP) Pioneer
Museum Historical Library in Salt Lake City, Utah as of September 2002: under William Stewart –
a history of William Stewart submitted by Laura Stewart Godfrey, an excerpt from a published book (no reference
given), and a letter written by John C. Stewart; under Ruthinda Baker Stewart – histories authored by Colleen Beus
Tippets and Ruth Ann Burch Stowell. Also Journal History of the Church, 1844 – Feb 10 and April 12, 1845 – Feb.
2, page 16; Pioneers of 1847, by Susan Ward Easton; and Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel, 1847 - 1868, CD
reference. The photograph was taken in Iowa City, Iowa (undated), and came from the collection of Dale Pendleton
of Ogden, Utah. Last updated: November 2011.
William Stewart and Delpha Jones Stewart
who had outspokenly held similar views for a number of years. In any event, William and George
and their families were baptized by missionary Ben L. Clapp in May 1842.
According to the minutes of a conference held in Tuscaloosa, Alabama on the February 10,
1844, William was the representative of the Cypry (Sypsey) Branch, which consisted of 57
members, 5 elders, one priest, one teacher, and one deacon (as recorded by George W. Stewart,
Clerk). At the conference the following year (February 15, 1845), the Sypsey branch was
represented by George W. Stewart. William, who served as clerk of the conference, records: “The
presiding officer suggested to the conference the propriety of ordaining an High Priest in the
Sypsey Branch of the Church for the better regulation of business affairs therein, and the general
welfare of the branches in this State: and on motion of the chairman, it was resolved that Brother
William Stewart be ordained an High Priest by unanimous vote of the conference.” He was then
ordained a High Priest by President A. O. Smoot.
Soon opposition and persecution against them in Alabama mounted. The ministers
threatened them with the vengeance of God. Their friends turned against them. Their property was
destroyed. The cotton gin and mills burned. Their cattle, pigs, chicken, and horses were poisoned.
They tried in vain to sell their property, but found no buyers. In the spring of 1845, William,
George, and their families moved to join the Saints.2 It appears that while traveling across
Missouri, the Stewarts found and purchased a farm among a group of people in Dallas County who
claimed to be members of the Church, but who later turned out to be apostates from the Church.
The Stewarts stayed in Dallas for over a year while they gathered resources to continue the trip
West. They had settled, unfortunately, in a malaria district and soon the whole family had malaria.
Sadly, George died of plural pneumonia there in January 14, 1846, leaving a wife, Ruthinda
(Ruthy) Baker Stewart and 8 children. Before his death, he bore strong testimony of the Gospel and
admonished his family to adhere to its teachings. He advised them to join the main body of the
Saints.
When the Stewarts left Missouri, they had difficulty locating the Saints who had begun the
exodus from Nauvoo early in 1846. They had, however, joined the Saints by the spring of 1847
when the first company of pioneers, under the direction of Brigham Young, left for the West,
because George’s son James Stewart (age 22) was among that first company. A month later,
William and Delpha, their 7 living children (ages 16 to 2), Ruthy’s family, and Ruthy’s daughter’s
family (George and Cynthia Hill) came together with the A. O. Smoot Company under Captain
George B. Wallace. William’s eldest son, Randolph Hockaday Stewart, then 13 years old, drove an
ox team. Another son, John Calvin Stewart writes: “[Father] being an early riser, with his old flint
lock gun, most always had the campfire started by the time to others awoke.” The days were hot,
and the cattle and travelers often thirsty. Once the oxen on the wagon Cynthia was driving saw a
mirage and took off running for what they thought was water. Onlookers feared that the wagon
would overturn, but fortunately, the oxen became entangled in some brush and stopped. After
2
There were several men in early Church history by the name of William Stewart who journeyed to the Salt Lake
Valley. One became a state legislator, but it was not the same William Stewart described in this biography. Also,
one family history submitted to DUP indicates that the Stewart family moved to Nauvoo when John Calvin was just a
baby (he was born in April of 1839) and that William assisted in building the Nauvoo Temple. However, the primary
source about William and George (the records of the Sipsey Branch in the Journal History of the Church), places
them in Alabama in February 1845. The birth records of their children also place them in Alabama during this time
period. The Nauvoo Land and Records office record a William Stewart having property at Kimball 1 st, blk 6, lot 25,
N/2 pt. This may have been another individual. If William and his family did live in Nauvoo, it was not for very
long, since Nauvoo was evacuated early in 1846.
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William Stewart and Delpha Jones Stewart
Brigham Young had arrived and begun settling the valley, he sent some men and wagons back to
help those who were following. James Stewart was one of those. He met his family on September
5th at Pacific Springs, Wyoming. With the help of the extra wagon, the Stewarts were able to go
ahead of the main Smoot Company, arriving in the valley on September 18, 1847.
That first winter they lived in the old fort on City Creek in Salt Lake. They suffered many
hardships. Food was scarce and they lacked proper clothing for such a severe climate. Housing
space was so crowded that many of the Saints spent the winter in their wagons. As the weather
cooled, mice came in from the fields and settled into the hastily built log cabins. The cabins had
been built with green timber, and as the logs dried out, the bedbugs came out of the wood in mass
invasion. The first part of the winter was exceptionally mild, but as the season advanced, heavy
snows fell, then melted, and soaked through the dirt and willow roofs, and drizzled upon everything
and everyone inside. But the worst trial was the coming of the wolves. They came in droves, huge
white ones, to patrol the Fort, howling, and making the nights hideous with their cries. Sometimes
they would get so brave they would venture into the Fort and attack the cattle. They became so
intolerable that it became necessary to organize hunting parties to make war upon them and other
wild beasts. Naturally, there was a great deal of sickness in the Fort that winter. Ruthie’s 13-year
old daughter Mary Evaline died.3
William seems to have lived in Salt Lake City for awhile and raised corn in Bountiful.
Robert L. Thomas, who arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in July 1847 writes: “I had not been in the
valley long before we went bathing in the Great Salt Lake. William Stuart fitted me out as a
pioneer when he came on. I lived with him in Salt Lake City until March 1848, and when I left him
he gave me sixty pounds of shelled corn which was worth its weight in gold. . . . His farm was
where Bountiful is now.”4
In early March of 1848, William moved with his family and Ruthie’s family into Fort
Buenaventura in Weber Valley. The fort had been purchased, along with all of Weber Valley from
Miles Goodyear in January of that year by Captain James Brown, as commissioned by Brigham
Young. The deal included all the cabins in the fort, including the Miles Goodyear cabin, 75 head of
cattle, 75 goats, 12 sheep, and 6 horses. Original settlers included Captain Brown and his son Jesse
(who would later marry William and Delpha Stewart’s daughter Caroline), Daniel Burch (for whom
Burch Creek was named), Urban Stewart (no relation) and at least six other families. The
settlement was renamed Brownsville and later became Ogden. The Brown family occupied
Goodyear’s fort (Brown’s Fort) and the other settlers built homesteads along the Weber River to the
south and as distant as Mound Fort, two miles to the north beyond the Ogden River. 5 Either at that
time or a little later, William took up a homestead of one hundred and sixty acres some 4 miles
from Brownsville, in what is now called Harrisville. Thus, he was one of the original settlers of
Weber Valley.
3
For the account of this first winter, see the history of Ruthinda Baker Stewart by Colleen Beus Tippets, submitted to
the Daughters of Utah Pioneers in May 2001.
4
Our Pioneer Heritage: The First Company to Enter Salt Lake Valley, pp. 94-95. (Since there were no other known
pioneers in the valley at that time named William Stuart or Stewart, this seems to have reference to the William
Stewart of this biography.)
5
A History of Weber County, Richard C. Roberts & Richard W. Sadler, Utah State Historical Society, 1997, p. 55.
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William Stewart and Delpha Jones Stewart
Brown's Fort, depicted by Utah painter Farrell R. Collett, was a new name given to
Fort Buenaventura after it was purchased by the area's first Mormon settler, Captain
James Brown. William Stewart was one of the original Mormon settlers at this fort.6
Delpha may have remained in the Salt Lake City with the younger children, because her last
child, Delpha, was born in Salt Lake City on July 10, 1849. Delpha Jones Stewart died the
following year on April 25, 1850 in Salt Lake at the age of 37, leaving her husband and eight
children. Of Delpha’s death, William wrote to his children:
Dear and Beloved Children,
What can I say to you, why oh why is it so, why was my love torn from me?
It looks like the world is at an end to me, the thing I feared has happened to me. Dear
children, will you sympathize with me or will you heap sorrow on sorrow?
I do not know what we shall do at present, I want to see you very bad, but cannot
come, the children are too bad. Randolph H. Stewart, look well into our farming interest. I
am confined and cannot do anything. I do not know how I shall come out, without [unless]
things alter for my delivery.
I have to beg milk to give the little child. Caroline, will you be willing to take the
child with you if you can get milk, or would you rather I should let someone take it here in
town?
Tell Joshua I want to see him, your Mother wanted to see you all before she died, but
I saw no chance to get you here. There is something in her death that I do not now
understand, but foreseeing her death at diverse times made known in different ways. I am
6
History of Brownsville, at http://www.orsonprattbrown.com/CJB/-CaptainJamesBrown/brownsville.html.
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William Stewart and Delpha Jones Stewart
sure it is to fulfill a purpose yet unseen in part to me tho’. She said a short time before her
death she hated to leave me mightily. She also said she would have me in Eternity, yet the
space between how long, O Lord, or how short yet. I calculate with full assurance of heart
at this time if I were on a dying bed, if I should be worthy of lying on one to breath out my
life, I should be happy if her spirit should be dispatched from Paradise to welcome me home
to her.
Dear children, I cannot express my sorrow to you, so I close this letter by saying
may the grace of God be with us all and faith and charity be and abide with us forever and
ever.
/s/ William Stewart
William continued to work his Harrisville homestead. (He may have kept his home in Salt
Lake City for a while as well, as he appears there in the 1850 census7 He and his sons drove oxen
trains across the plains and helped belated immigrants reach Utah. His son John Calvin writes:
“I have heard him say that he had killed $1,000 worth of game with [his old flint lock gun]. In the
winter of 49, north of Ogden he killed 9 deer. I have seen him stand 50 yards from the trunk of a
tall cottonwood tree and pick a prairie chicken off the top. In the winter of 49 many of the Indians
would come to shoot with him. They would bet bullets but Father always won them.”
William Stewart never remarried. He moved to Moab with his daughter China Ann Lutz in
1881. Family stories tell that he refused to socialize because he was afraid he would be commanded
to practice polygamy. He walked to the Colorado River to fish nearly every day of his life in Moab
– even into his 91st year. He died in Moab on October 13, 1891.
Condensed Family Histories Related to William Stewart
Caroline Stewart Brown (1832 – 1920)8
Caroline Stewart, the second child of William and Delphia Stewart was born in 1832 on her
father’s plantation in Cumberland, North Carolina. She was baptized at the age of 15 in the North
Platte River in 1847 by her father as they crossed the plains with the Abraham Smoot Company.
Caroline was among the first families to arrive in the Salt Lake Valley with her parents, three sisters
and two brothers, and her aunt Ruthie’s large family. Her mother died in April of 1850 shortly after
the birth of little Delphia, (though Caroline does not appear to be living with her parents in Salt
Lake City at the time).
Caroline married John O’Laughlin in about 1851. Records indicate that they had two
children born in California (1852 and 1855) and that he died in Nevada in 1856. John may have
7
1850 U.S. Census for Great Salt Lake Territory: William Stewart (50), born in North Carolina; children - Caroline
(17), Randolph (16), Elizabeth (14), James (13), John (11), Joshua (9), Selvin (6), Caroline (5), Delphia (1). Appears to
be in the census record in Salt Lake City, next to the family of Francis M. Pomeroy.
8
Sources: Death notice of Mrs. Caroline S. Brown, “Sketch of Caroline Stewart Brown”, and “Sketch of the Life of
Jesse Sowell Brown,” from the Daughters of Utah Pioneers (DUP) Pioneer Museum Historical Library in Salt Lake
City, Utah; “History of Weber County,” Daughters of Utah Pioneers lesson for November 2003, pp. 101-102;
“Pioneers of Weber County,” Daughters of Utah Pioneers lesson for January 2004; “The Discovery of Gold in
California,” by Donald C. Cutter for the California Geological Survey; and Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel, 1847 1868, CD reference. Photographs from the history of Jesse Sowell Brown (http://www.orsonprattbrown.com/CJB/
1829-1905-Jesse/jesse-sowell-br.html. Written by Janis Pendleton Raje. Last revised November 2011.
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been a member of the Mormon Church who arrived with the William Snow/Joseph Young
Company in October of 1850. They may have divorced before his death.
She married secondly Jesse S. Brown, in Sacramento, California in July of 1857. Jesse was
the son of Captain James Brown, commander of Company C of the Mormon Battalion. At the age
of 18, he had been a member of the Battalion and had arrived in the Salt Lake Valley from Pueblo,
Colorado on July 29, 1847. Soon after their arrival, President Young asked Captain Brown, his son
Jesse, and 7 other men including Sam Brennon, to go to California to collect the money owed the
battalion members. They suffered many hardships during the journey, which took a month to go
and 48 days to return. They brought back wheat to plant, and rather than eat it, though they were
nearly starving, they ate roots and scraped rawhide. When Captain James Brown returned to Utah
in November of 1847, he was advised by Brigham Young to purchase the deed for the Weber
Valley from Miles Goodyear. The land was then opened for colonization without cost to the
settlers. Captain Brown first sent his sons Jesse and Alexander to take possession of the property in
January, then he moved there with his family in March, living for a time in Miles Goodyear’s cabin.
Caroline Stewart’s family and others joined the settlement a few days later. 9 The name of this
settlement was changed to Brown’s Fort, then Brownsville, and later became Ogden City. James
Brown was named the first Bishop of
the Weber region; he also built the
first bridges over the Weber and
Ogden Rivers. He died as a result of a
mill accident in 1854.
Jesse Brown, however, seems
to have returned to California at some
point, where he married Caroline
Stewart in Sacramento on July 10,
1857. (Gold had been discovered in
Sutter’s Mill, Sacramento by members
of the Mormon Battalion in January of
1847. This probably lured both John
O’Laughlin and Jesse Brown to the
area.) They had returned to Utah by
June of 1858 for the birth of their first
Caroline Stewart Brown and Jesse Sowell Brown
son, Jesse. He first moved to
Promontory where he worked for the
railroad and then later moved to West Second Street in Odgen on a 30 acre farm. (This became the
location of the railroad yards and depot.) They built an adobe house, a large cellar, a barn and a
granary. They raised nine children of their own and the two children from Caroline’s first marriage.
Caroline also helped to raise her youngest sister Delpha. Delpha spent much of her time at her
sister’s home where she learned to sew and cook and manage a home. Caroline was a faithful
worker in the Relief Society. She died in March of 1920 at the age of 88.
Randolph Hockaday Stewart10
Randolph Hockaday Stewart, the eldest son of William Stewart, was born in North Carolina
on July 20, 1834. He was 13 years old and drove an ox team when his family crossed the plains to
9
10
A History of Weber County, Richard C. Roberts & Richard W. Sadler, Utah State Historical Society, 1997, p. 55.
Condensed from the history of Randolph Hockaday Stewart, extracted from a published book (no reference given) in
the files of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers under William Stewart.
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William Stewart and Delpha Jones Stewart
Salt Lake City in 1847. As a teenager, he helped his father settle in northern Utah. When he was
around 20 years old, he was called into the army as a lieutenant, leading a troop to settle Indian
troubles. He was assigned to put an end to the trading of Piute Indian children for stolen horses by
the Walker Smith gang. Then gang would then sell the children as slaves in new Mexico. The
army troop, lead by Randolph Stewart, caught the gang and imprisoned them.
Randolph married Sarah Ann Taylor in 1861 and Maryetta Pearce in 1867. He was still a
young man when he was called as Bishop over the first white settlement in Rich County on the Bear
River. The settlement was named Randolph in his honor. He married his third wife, Sarah Jane
Blazzard Kennison, a widow with three children, while living there. In 1881 he was called as
Bishop of Moab and moved there. In Moab he homesteaded 40 acres of land. Each of the three
wives had their separate homes and he would spend a week with each. When polygamy was made
a federal offense, Randolph went into hiding, but eventually served time at the Utah State
Penitentiary rather than renounce the practice.
In 1897, at the Semi-Centennial Jubilee, Randolph H. Stewart was given one of thirteen
gold pins, honoring the first pioneers into Salt Lake Valley. He died in Moab in 1909.
Ruthinda (Ruthie) Baker Stewart11
Ruthinda Baker Stewart, the sister-in-law of William Stewart, was born in Augusta, Georgia
on January 24, 1807 to Nicholas Obediah Baker and Elizabeth Hicks. She grew up on the large
plantation her parents owned and enjoyed the cultured life of a well-to-do southern lady of that
period. In 1822 she married George Stewart, son of a wealthy plantation owner from Cumberland,
North Carolina. She was 15 at the time and he was 26. They build up a plantation in Tuscaloosa,
Alabama, which had a cotton gin, a grist mill, and a saw mill, as well as a large number of slaves.
George’s brother William bought a neighboring plantation in 1835 and moved his family there.
Ruthie’s position as mistress of the plantation was very demanding. She supervised the
cooking, carding, spinning, weaving, and sewing. She helped with the slaves’ babies as their
mothers worked in the fields. Although she was never robust, she was the mother of 9 children
during these plantation years (between1823 and 1841), so she gave considerable attention to their
care and education. The Stewart family was well respected in the community, with a certain social
position to maintain.
George and Ruthinda were taught the restored gospel by Benjamin F. Clapp in 1842. Their
family and the family of William Stewart were baptized by Elder Clapp on May 25. Among the
first members of the Church in Alabama, George and William served in leadership positions in the
Sypsey Branch, helping to build up the Church there.12 Persecution and opposition mounted. They
lost their friends and social position. Their property was destroyed and their livestock poisoned. It
was decided in 1845 that the Sypsey Branch should join the main body of the Church, but George
and William could find no buyers for their plantations. They left behind all they could not pack in
wagons and in the autumn of 1845, left their home, traveling through Mississippi, Tennessee and
Missouri.
George Stewart became ill and died in Missouri in January of 1846, 13 leaving Ruthie with
eight children and expecting a ninth. Fortunately, her eldest daughter Cynthia met a married
11
Condensed from the history of Ruthinda Baker Stewart by Colleen Beus Tippets, submitted to the Daughters of Utah
Pioneers in May 2001.
12
Journal History of the Church, 1844 – Feb 10 and April 12, 1845 – Feb. 2, page 16.
13
Ancestral File sources give George’s death date as January 1844, but the Journal History of the Church clearly places
George and his brother William in Alabama in April of 1845. Probably, then, his death has been recorded incorrectly
by one year. – Janis Raje
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George Hill, who, though not yet a member of the Church, promised to assist the family in reaching
the main body of the Saints. He traveled with Ruthie and her family to Mt. Pisgah and then on to
Winter Quarters. In the spring of 1847, Ruthie’s eldest son James traveled with the first company
to the Salt Lake Valley. Ruthie traveled with her family, accompanied by George and Cynthia Hill,
and William Stewart and his family to Salt Lake with the Abraham O. Smoot Company, reaching
the Salt Lake Valley in September of 1847. During that difficult first winter, Ruthie lost her
thirteen-year old daughter Mary Eveline.
In the spring of 1848, Ruthie and her family were sent along with William’s family to help
settle the Weber Valley, recently purchased from Miles Goodyear. They were among the original
settlers of Brownsville (now Ogden). The Stewarts settled on what was called Four Mile Creek,
located where Harrisville is today. When troubles with the Indians intensified, Ruthie settled near
the Ogden River on 33rd Street. After her children were grown, she went to live with Cynthia in
their lovely home on 25th street. The large gray adobe home reminded Ruthie of her plantation
home in Alabama. It was built in Colonial style with porches in the front and a flower garden.
Ruthie died here at the age of 64, having been a widow for 25 years.
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