Martha Ann Bingham was born in Great Salt Lake City 29 January 1850. She was the second child and oldest daughter of Sanford Bingham and Martha Ann Lewis Bingham. Sanford was born 3 May 1821 in Concord, Essex, Vermont, the son of Erastus Bingham and Lucinda Gates. Martha Ann Lewis was the daughter of Benjamin Lewis who was killed in the Hauns Mill Massacre, and Joannah Ryon. She was born 20 February 1833 in Franklin, Simpson, Kentucky. Sanford died 21 November 1910 in Riverdale, Weber, Utah and Martha Ann Lewis died 19 November 1898 also in Riverdale, They were buried in the Ogden City Cemetery.

Martha's father and mother had been part of the great exodus from Nauvoo in 1846 and after many trials and hardships had made the long journey across the great plains in the Daniel Spencer's hundred and Erastus Bingham ten, arriving in the valley of the Great Salt Lake 19 September 1847.

After staying in Great Salt Lake City for a short time, Sanford and his brother Thomas, who had recently rejoined the family after being a member of the Mormon Battalion, commenced a public cattle herd in August of 1848 at a location 18 or 20 miles Southwest of the City and about two miles down the creek from what is now known as Bingham Canyon. Here they built a log cabin (which is now in Pioneer Village at Lagoon) and resided there until 1850. While herding the cattle they found the great body of ore and were told by Brigham Young to "let it lie". He knew that if too many people heard of it and came into the valley they would all starve as the pioneers had been almost devastated by hordes of crickets.

Soon after Martha's birth they were called by the Prophet to move to the Ogden area where they established Bingham's Fort, located just north of Ogden in a little settlement known then as the Lynn District. Martha lived in the Fort with her family and in 1853 settlers began to gather there because of problems with the Indians. At the close of 1854 there were 752 persons living in the Fort. About 1856 they were advised by Brigham Young to abandon the Fort and move to the Ogden site, then known as Brownsville, which was between the Ogden and Weber Rivers, and help there to build a city. As a result many of the settlers moved to that site and other small settlements in Weber County.

Martha was afraid of the Indians and would hide whenever she saw one. She was very young when Johnston's army came into the valley in 1857 and her family left the settlement and joined the general exodus south. She told of walking in bare feet behind the wagon and how the grass hoppers and crickets were so thick she could not help but step on them. The family went with the other settlers as far as Payson and when the trouble with the Army was settled, they returned to Ogden and resumed their activities.

Sanford's small, blonde, blue-eyed daughter had a great responsibility for a girl of her age. She helped with the spinning and weaving. When she was ten years old, she was so small she had to stand on a stool to reach the loom to weave cloth for the family use. She worked late at night, by the light of the tallow candles which she had helped to make. She helped her mother with the housework, washing, ironing and cooking and had the care of the younger children and the home while her mother, who was a midwife, was away from the home caring for the sick.

Erastus Bingham Jr., her father's brother, operated shingle mill up in Wheeler Basin, now known as Snow Basin. Martha told of an experience she had going there when she was young. She and her family were traveling by horse and wagon up through Ogden Canyon to the shingle mill for a visit. They made camp for the night some distance into the canyon and when all were settled down they suddenly heard a great deal of noise coming from further up the canyon. They crept up very quietly, and through the bushes saw a large fire with many painted Indians dancing around it. ~t the side of the fire wag a tall pole with many scalps fastened to it. Martha said she never forgot the sight of one scalp in particular, it was long and blond and it waved and shimmered in the firelight. They quietly crept back, broke camp and set out for home as fast as the horse and wagon would go. She always wondered who the hair had belonged to.

When Martha was about fourteen years of age she met the tall, strong son of Adam and Helen Sharp Fife. His name was Joseph and he had come to Utah from Scotland in 1851 with his parents and brothers and sisters. They had settled on some land just southwest of what was then known as Brownsville, now Ogden, in a small settlement eventually named Riverdale. The two young people fell deeply in love and even though Martha's father had leaned somewhat toward her marriage in polygamy with an older man, they managed, with the help of her mother, to go to Great Salt Lake City where they were married for time and all Eternity in the Endowment House on 16 February 1865. Martha was just 15 years old. She and Joseph moved to Riverdale to live in a two room log cabin with his mother and four sisters on an eighty acre farm which had been homesteaded by Joseph's father Adam, who had died in 1861. His mother, Helen died in 1866 leaving the four girls orphans, they lived with Joseph and Martha until they married, all except the youngest, Sarah, who lived with them all her life.

Martha's first child was born when she was sixteen years old, she was named Ellen for Joseph's mother. Ellen is the Scottish Helen. She was born in 1866 and over the years Martha became the mother of thirteen children of her own, was mother to Joseph's four sisters, and several orphan boys whom Joseph brought home.

Joseph's work as a freighter took him from home much of the time and it fell to Martha to take care of the farm while he was away. She planted the first Alfalfa grown in Riverdale, Joseph had purchased the seed in Great Salt Lake City, paying $30.00 a hundred pounds for it. Alfalfa was introduced into Utah at an early date, about 1850. Gold seekers who went to California by way of Cape Horn found Alfalfa growing in the-Spanish settlements of Chili. They carried the seed to California, and from that State it was brought by immigrants to Utah, where it soon became a favorite forage crop.

Martha told many times how she would take her oldest child Ellen, and seat her upon the ground to watch the baby, Joseph Adam, while she irrigated the crops. So much depended on her to keep the farm productive as well as to take care of their home and children and others dependant on her. She washed and carded the wool from the sheep, then wove the cloth, cut out the clothing for the family and sat in the evenings sewing by hand by the light of candles, or a dip, which was a long narrow strip of cloth placed in a bowl of mutton tallow and lighted. It burned like the wick of a candle until it was consumed.

Martha had learned mid wifery from her mother, Martha Ann Lewis Bingham, and she spent many hours with prospective mothers while they and she labored to deliver their babies. She could and did set broken bones, took care of accidental injuries and illnesses. One of her daughters in-law remarked later that when there was an illness in her home or a baby to be born, she knew they would be alright as soon as she saw Martha's red sweater coming through the field.

Martha raised all of her own thirteen children to adulthood, they all married and had children of their own. Her home was always full of many of her children and her young friends, and others whom she and Joseph were caring for. The dining table was always pulled out to it's greatest length at mealtime. One of her daughters, Katherine, said that when they made pies for dinner, there were rows and rows of them on a shelf in the pantry, and Lucinda, another daughter, said "the dishes were the worst, mountains and mountains of them, and we hat to get all that water from the well and heat it. But we always had room for anyone who came. No one ever went hungry from Ma's door."

Martha's children always spoke of the happiness, love and fun in the old home, which was down a lane from the main road, The lane was called "Kid Lane" I suppose because of the many children who lived there. The girls often told of how when they went to Church functions up the lane from the house, they always began to sing as they walked home, their signal to Martha that they were alright. She always met them at the door and they often said how comforting it was to see her there with the light from the lamps behind her, welcoming them home. As they grew older, toward the end of their own lives, each one of them said they wanted nothing more from Heaven than to be able to walk down that lane toward that little house and see their mother there to welcome them. That would be their Heaven.

Two of her daughters lost their husbands in identical accidents in 1913 on the Southern Pacific Railroad, just one week apart. This was a great blow to Martha and the family as both daughters had children and one daughter had a baby on the way. Four months after that baby's birth, Martha died at her home in Riverdale on 13 September 1914. A11 of her children were present. She had suffered for some time from an enlarged liver and a heart problem, she was sixty four years of age. She was buried in the Ogden City Cemetery 15 September 1914. She was a wonderful Pioneer wife and mother, she was kind to everyone and was greatly loved.

The thirteen children of Martha and Joseph were all born in Riverdale, Weber County Utah with her mother, Martha Ann Lewis Bingham in attendance.

I have researched this history for some time, much of it comes from records kept by my mother Lucinda Elizabeth Fife and notes I have taken when I visited with my Aunts, Katherine Fife Farr and Annie Layton.

Helen Thomson Miner

Brighton Camp

Far South East Salt Lake County

Daughters of the Utah Pioneers

Salt Lake City, Utah

September 1981

Read in DUP Brighton Camp Meeting 1 March 1982

Submitted to Central Camp 1 March 1982 to be placed in Archives at DUP Museum, Salt Lake City, Utah