"Sketch of George Benjamin Wallace"

By Harriet Dudley Emmett (grandson)

The father of my mother Dorothy Ann Wallace was George Benjamin Wallace born February 16, 1817 at Epsom, Merrimack County, New Hampshire.  He was the son of John Wallace and Mary True.  Sometime in his early boyhood the family moved to Boston.  It was here he was educated and met a talented young lade from socially prominent and wealthy family by the name of Mary C. McMurphy.  They were married in 1840 and to them were born two daughters and a son.  Emma A., was born February 10, 1841; James B. was born 10 September 1841, Sarah Ellen was born 31 July, 1844, all in Boston.  Is was in December of 1842 that grandfather became a convert to Mormonism, being baptized and confirmed by Freeman Nickerson.  In 1844, he was ordained a High Priest by Brigham Young and was made presiding Elder of the Boston Branch.  At the time the Prophet Joseph Smith was candidate for President of the United States.  He was asked by the Prophet to be in charge of the electioneering in his behalf in the Boston area. This was the time when agitation over the slave question was being brought to the front as a national issue in the politics of the country.  At this time grandfather was carrying on an extensive lumber business in Boston employing hundred of men.

The feeling was running high against Mormons, the McMurphy family tried in every way to turn Mary against her husband.  She did not join the church, but would have gone with him when he decided to emigrate to Nauvoo.  In 1844, soon after the Prophets death, instead her parents came and literally carried her and her children away, refusing to let grandfather see them.  It must have been a sad day for him to leave a thriving business and most of all his wife and children whom he dearly loved.

In Nauvoo, he acted as undertaker during some of the most trying days experienced by the saints. That winter he met Melissa King Crowell whom he had known in Boston when her husband and she had applied to him for a recommend to the Nauvoo branch.  She had buried her husband and two children in Nauvoo and was alone and helpless. With grandfather’s loving and kind nature, I’m sure he was very kind to her.  And one day Brigham Young said to grandpa “Brother Wallace, I feel impressed that you should marry widow Crowell,” and grandpa said, “Allright, Brother Brigham, let us go and attend to it.”  When they reached Melissa’s abode and told her their mission, she gladly agreed and the ceremony was performed immediately, the date being June 4, 1845.  Polygamy was being practiced by members of the church, but George and Melissa decided to keep this marriage a secret from both of their families in Boston, grandfather still hoping to have Mary and his children come to him.

A letter to Melissa, after the death of her husband from a brother-in-law lets us realize how bitter were the feelings then against the Mormons, quote, “If you will consent to come home we will contrive some way to furnish the means to perform the journey with and I hope you will for I long to have away from amongst that bigoted superstitious and in my opinion wicked and intriguing people, for I cannot believe there can be much good derived from people that conduct in a way that Joe Smith and some of this principle men have done.  They are trying to deceive and blind your eyes all the time to make you think they are something more than human being.  But you may depend that God will not suffer such designing men to go on in their wickedness long, but will sooner or later bring them to some untimely end as he has your prophet Joe and his brother.  I should think that scene alone would be enough to open your eyes to the iniquity of those who pretend to be your spiritual teachers.”

Grandfather returned to Boston the following winter to again try to persuade Mary to come with him, but on February 3, 1846, Melissa wrote as follows – Dear George: I have bad news to write, all the twelve and High Councils and presidents of Seventies and police and a great many more are going from here in three or four days.  I do not know as yet what has occasioned the sudden move but there must be something.  It is not certain what I shall do, the Lord only knows.  Oh, how I wish that you were here.  They say they will only go four or five hundred miles then stop and wait for the weather to get warmer.  The Brethren haven’t made out very well as yet about selling their property.  Love, Melissa.

It was February 20, 1846 that grandfather arrived home and early in march, they too, followed the trek to Council Bluffs or Winter Quarters as it was then called. It was here on January 8, 1847, their first child was born.  They named her Mary Melissa.  After many weeks of preparation, they left Council Bluffs with the second group to cross the plains. Grandfather was captain of fifty in Abram O. Smoots company, arriving in Salt Lake City, September 20, 1847.  The day following their arrival their little baby girl died.  Brigham Young set grandfather apart to choose and plot a cemetery site and to be the sexton.  He chose the present site of the “ City Cemetery” and there they laid to rest Mary Melissa. The first burial in Salt Lake City, and there today you will find a granite sheet erected to her memory.

He built one of the best and most commodious homes in the Old Fort, now known as Pioneer Park, and the General authorities of the Church held many important meetings in his home.  On February 12, 1849, four of the apostles were set apart, namely Charles C. Rich, Lorenzo Snow, Erastus Snow and Franklin D. Richards, and on February 22, 1849 fifteen of the first Bishops were ordained there.

In the fall of 1849, when the first missionaries were called from Salt Lake City, grandfather was one of the number being called to Great Britain together with four apostles and many other Elders.  They journeyed across the mountains and plains once more.  On the way they had a thrilling encounter with a band of Crow Indians.  About 200 warriors, with was paint on their faces, screaming their was whoops, swooped down suddenly upon them barely giving them time to take cover; but just as suddenly as they came, they disappeared and no shots were fired.  From each heart arose prayers of thanksgiving unto their God, who had protected and save their lives.  Enroute grandfather stopped at his home in Boston where he again contacted his wife and children, but the news had spread of his marriage to Melissa.  Mary then sued for divorce, but she lived a lonely sad life and died at the early age of 35.  He arrived in England in June of 1850.  He was made councelor to Franklin D. Richards in the Presidency of the British Mission. Early in 1851, Joseph Richards, who was employed by the ship “Glorcosa” was ordained an Elder by George B. Wallace and authorized to preach the Gospel in India, making Elder Richards the first to preach the gospel or carry the gospel to India.  Among grandfathers many converts was the Davis family of London.  The family consisted of Edward Davis, his wife Sarah Drabble, three sons, Edward, Josiah and Samuel and three daughters Lydia, Hannah and Martha.  They emigrated to Utah.

After spending more than two years in England, he returned to Zion.  Wrote Elder Richards editorially, “With our blessings of thousands of Saints who had been instructed, strengthened and built up in their most holy faith, by his administration while on his late mission.”  Elder Wallace sailed from Liverpool March 20, 1852 and arrived in Salt Lake City the following August.

Again he yielded to obedience to the higher law of marriage, this time taking the three Davis sisters as his wives.  They all stood together and he married them be ages, Lydia 22, Hannah 20, and Martha 16.  Grandfather had built a comfortable home on the corner of 2^nd west and 1^st north where the three sisters lived together and raised most of their large families there.  The first home from the Old Fort was moved to his site and here Melissa lived with her children.

Edward Davis had a large silk factory in London and his three daughters had learned the trade of making silk ties, so for may years after their marriage, they supplied Z.C.M.I. with all its mens ties. They would take turns, one would take over the cooking and housekeeping, while the other two sewed, then rotate. Grandfather owned the ten acre block where the West High School now stands and here he raised the finest garden in the city and also started a nursery.  This enterprise grew so rapidly that he leased ground west of the river to enlarge his business.  The plants and trees from his nursery were freighted all over the Territory and as far north as Butte, Montana.

Here are some interesting family statistics of the years following his marriage to the Davis sisters; George Edward born July 24, 1853 to Lydia.  Sarah E. born to Hannah August 15, 1853.  Martha Melissa, August 27, 1853 to Martha and to Melissa (M.K.) was born Melissa King, October 14, 1853.  All four children were born in less than three months and so the family of George B. Wallace grew.  In all he was the father of 45 children.  My grandmother who was Hannah Davis had fourteen children and when grandpa bought land west of the Jordan river, now known as Granger, Hannah and her family moved to the farm, and her last four children were born there.  But I have heard my mother say she hardly knew who were her full or half brothers and sisters, it made no difference to her.

Upon one occasion my grandfather received complimentary tickets from a circus manager for himself and family.  Imagine the look upon the managers face when he saw grandfathers four wives and more than twenty children march past him.  George B. Wallace took an active part in church activities, especially the Great Salt Lake Stake of Zion, being a councilor to the President and later president of said stake.  As a member of the High Priests Quorum, he participated in the ceremonies of the laying of the corner stones of the Great Salt Lake Temple and offered the dedicatory prayer at the laying of the north-west corner stone of that noted structure.  From 1877 to the time of his death, which occurred at his residence in Granger January 30, 1900, he acted as President of the High Priests Quorum in the Salt Lake Stake of Zion.  I have a copy of his last will and testament.  In it he says, “I give and bequeath to my son James B. Wallace, the two family portraits (Paintings) of myself and his mother Mary C. McMurphy Wallace.”  It was a great comfort to have his son by Mary visit him and between there was great love and respect.  The children of James have also visited relatives in Utah.  They now reside in Cinn., Ohio.  Also, he mentions Edith and Herbert Yeaton, who were the children of his daughter Sarah Ellen by Mary.  Of his Utah family, 26 sons and daughters still living were mentioned in his will, as were Hannah, Etta Carlisle his grandchild, daughter of Henrietta Wallace Carlisle (deceased).