A BRIEF SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF MARY JANE HICKERSON BINGHAM NADAULD, DAUGHTER OF GEORGE WASHINGTON HICKERSON AND SARAH WOOLSEY HICKERSON 65 No. West Temple Street, Salt Lake City, Utah--May 4, 1932

My Father and Mother were pioneers of 1848. My Father was born in Smith County, Tennessee, on the 13th of Dec., 1813. My Mother was born Oct. 2, 1820 at Danville or Lexington, Kentucky. My Father and Mother were married and had one child before they know of Mormonism. They were devoted to their religion after becoming converted--both lived and died true to the Faith. She is one of eleven children. I will give their names and birth places: Mary Jane's Brothers and Sisters...

Elizabeth Abigale Hickerson--Born July 22, 1839 at Fayette, Ill.

Isaac Woolsey Hickerson, Nov. 28, 1840--Fayette, Illinois (Unmarried)

Susannah Hickerson--Dec. 11, 1842--Fayette, Illinois.

Joseph William Hickerson--Mar. 21, 1845--Fayette, Illinois.

George Washington--Sept. 15, 1847--Florence, Nebraska

James Willard, May 25, 1849--Salt Lake City, Utah (Unmarried)

Sarah Catherine--Aug. 3, 1852--South Weber, Davis Co., Utah

Andrew Heber--Jan. 3, 1854--South Weber, Davis Co., Utah

Mary Jane--June 3, 1857, South Weber, Davis Co., Utah

Clarissa Melissa--Nov. 9, 1859, South Weber, Davis Co., Utah

Charles Erastus, Nov. 18, 1861--South Weber, Davis Co., Utah

My Father did not stay many years in Salt Lake City, as he did not care for city life. He originally owned the lot on which Walkers Bros. Bank is situated. He sold it to Walker Bros. for a yoke of oxen and I think an old wagon. First, when he came to Salt Lake he didn't stay long. He went to California looking for gold, was gone about a year and a half. Then it was when he came home he moved to South Weber, Davis Co., and got him a farm a very good farm. The land was so rich and productive. He soon had a beautiful orchard, hay land and green fields. He made us a three room log house with a thatch roof that just turned the rain beautifully. A nice cellar for the milk and butter and the best of all was made a nice well by the side of it. The water in that well was always deliciously cool besides we had the real old moss covered bucket that always hung in it. I remember the awful hurricane we used to have there in the mouth of Weber Canyon and it makes me think of the big long root cellar my Father had there. That hurricane always blew three days so whenever it started to blow my Father always had Mother and the small children stay down in the root cellar. We even slept there. We were afraid our roof would blow off,- but I got curious the third day and thought I would just venture up to see how the weather looked outside, but just as I reached the top a gust of wind took me off my feet and just blew me along through the air. My fath- er had a live fence growing between our lot and some swampy pasture land and so I lighted on that fence or else I don't know where he would have caught me. Whenever I turned over in the air. I could see him running after me as fast as he could, but after that they had no more trouble keeping me in but I have gotten ahead of my story. I can remember farther back than this for when Johnson's Army came I think I was about nine months old for it was early Spring of 1858. The Saints moved South and I remember well the grasshopper war but it seems through all this trouble and hard times the Lord was merciful to us for I've heard my Father and Mother say that we were never all day without some bread in our house and I remember well later on when we had to get all the apples we had from Salt Lake City and my how those smelling like that, since, but it wasn't long until my Father had a beautiful apple and peach orchard and hardly ever failed to bear. Being in the mouth of the canyon It seemed the can- yon wind always blew away the frost, that it never hurt the peach crop. When I think about it I know we were wonderfully blessed. In those days for although we were very scant for clothing we were always well and hearty and ready for our meals and I cannot remember any time that we didn't have plenty of good wholesome bread and fresh churned butter and milk right cool from the cellar and thinking of that cellar makes me think too of the lovely well of deliciously cool water just beside it nicely curved up and not without the old moss covered bucket that always hung in it. And My Father was an expert at making molasses and curing hams, making sour kraut and hominy, he being from the South. Well, just the word molasses always gives me a longing taste. There isn't any now days that can compare with it. I forgot to say when I was telling about that lovely well, we used to have that Father had a big fine young horse. We called him Jeff after Jeff Davis. And that horse would not drink out of an irrigation ditch if the water was not clear. The boys had always to bring him to the well and draw water for him but they liked to for they loved him. I love to let my mind dwell on this first home I ever had. I never have known a home that seemed just like that because there our family was all together. We were all children as you might say. Some of them were grown but we were all there together with Father and Mother and it seemed so good. I really think I didn't appreciate it. I just couldn't then like I could now, if I could have it over. My Father by this time, 1870 began to get quite a few head of stock, horses and cows and the range around Weber was eaten down for all farmers had their livestock, and a good deal of the range had been taken up for farming. So he decided to move south to a better range with his stock so late in the fall of 1870 we moved to Kanosh, Millard County, bought a farm on Corn Creek and were there a year, but the water didn't seem to agree with our family so he decided he would take us back home as he had not yet sold our place in Weber, so we made the trip again in just a year but he still had the farm in Millard and all his livestock, so he decided he would go back alone and try for a well of surface water so we could have good water to drink and after digging about 80 feet got a lovely well of water, so he sold the home and farm on the Weber and that has been our home since. In 1872 I married John Bingham, born May 30, 1855. Son of Sanford Bingham and Martha Ann Lewis. We were married on the 28th of October 1872 by. I think. Daniel H. Wells. Early in the winter of 1873 my husband's brother Sanford Bingham was called to go with a colony of others to settle Arizona and New Mexico, so there were a great many went down to explore the country before taking their families so my husband wanted to take the trip with him as the Navajo Indians were claimed to be on the uprising at that time and it wasn't safe to travel through that country without a good sized company. He was gone five months. Returned on the 22 of July. Our first baby was ten days old, John Moss Bingham, born July 12, 1873. My husband worked around Ogden at odd jobs anything he could get to do. Men's wages were very low in those days. The best wage was in a mining camp working at a smelter where a man was liable any time to become leaded and die and there they were only giving $3.50 per day. He had already moved to Kanosh, Millard, or at least Corn Creek where my Father lived. They called the little town Petersburg, after the oldest settler at that time, but has since been changed to Hatton. Frisco, Utah is about 75 or100 miles from there. It was a mining camp and so my husband used to go there to work and sometimes farther out in Nevada and sometimes away out east around Hiliard and Evanston, but he was gone almost all of a year. While we lived at Hatton two girls were born. Sarah Evelyn, born 6th of Dec. 1875 and Minnie Maud born Sept. 14, 1878. Sometime in the year of 1880 we moved back to Riverdale, Weber Co. , and were there and around Ogden, and that's where we separated in the spring of 1881, and in the Dec. of 1881 on the 28th, Martha Ann was born. That has always seemed an awful blow to me for all it was my own fault. I just felt that I couldn't live with him any more. I got it into my head that he didn't think anything of me. I was sure there was another woman between us. I couldn't think of staying with him and think there was probably another he wanted and loved more than he did me, but I have had all these years to learn my lesson and I think I have learned it pretty well. I have learned that in married life a person must give and take and stand pat to what they know to be the right. From that day to this I have felt as though I have gone through life alone, for all I've had a husband since I felt that I was alone. Well, I'm glad this trying ordeal is over for I have never liked to let my mind dwell on it much less having to write it. He married in about two years and raised a nice family. Was buried on 25th of Oct. 1924 at Cache Valley, Utah. I was married to Albert Nadauld on the 29th of Jan. 1887 in St. George Temple by David Cannon. Our children are: George Albert Nadauld., born in Kanosh, Utah--Oct. 25, 1887 Helen Alice Nadauld, born in Kanosh, Utah--Dec. 7, 1889, Jesse Orson Nadauld, born in Kanosh, Utah Aug. 30, 1892 died Mar. 9. 1913, Phillip Emery Nadauld born in Kanosh, Utah-- Nov. 3, 1894.