Question: What city in Utah did Simeon F. Howd help settle in 1856 after he had gone with Brigham Young in his Vanguard Company in 1847?
Answer: Simeon Fuller Howd, son of Samuel and Eunice Fuller Howd was born May 13, 1813, at Camden, New York. His mother died when he was six on 26 September 1819. He went to Winter Quarters and was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on 6 March 1847. Simeon married Lucinda Morgan (Turner) on March 16, 1847, at Winter Quarters, he being 33 and she 26 at the time of their marriage.
Simeon was then asked to be a member of the Brigham Young Vanguard Company. He left his bride of only a month to travel the trackless plains in search of a place of peace and rest for the Saints. Simeon was a member of the sixth ten, with Charles Shumway as the captain. The final start was made Saturday, April 17, 1847. After one hundred days of wilderness journey, he heard President Brigham Young say, “This is the right place.’ The Company entered the Great Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847.
Lucinda Morgan Howd was born November 1, 1820, at Monroe, County, Illinois. She was the daughter of Samuel and Sarah Tolbert Morgan. Her first marriage was to a man by the name of Nelson Turner. They joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and moved to Nauvoo. They had four or five children, with Martha being the only one who lived. Her husband left her, but Lucinda and Martha moved along with the Saints to Winter Quarters, where she met Simeon.
Simeon intended to return to Winter Quarters for Lucinda, but to his great surprise, on October 2 of that year (1847), she and Martha arrived in the Jedediah M. Grant, Joseph B. Noble Company.
Simeon helped to build the Salt Lake City Fort, which was their first shelter. They lived at Salt Lake for many years, enduring the hardships and privation of the early days. They witnessed the coming of the crickets which threatened the destruction of their crops. Lucinda and Simeon went to the fields, and there they witnessed the coming of the seagulls. They were among those who knelt in the fields and gave thanks to God. The first summer in the Valley, Lucinda said they had to measure out just so much for each day’s food, and many was the time she played sick so Simeon could have her piece of bread.
Soon after Simeon had built a comfortable home in the Salt Lake Valley, they were called by the authorities of the Church to assist in making a settlement in Parowan. Accompanied by other pioneers, they left Salt Lake City on December 1, 1850, and traveled by ox team and arrived at Center Creek, in Parowan, on January 13, 1851. The Indians were not friendly, so a fort was built for the people to live in as a place of protection. Soon the Indians became friendly, because the pioneers would rather feed them than have to fight them.
In the early part of January 1856, a public meeting was called at Parowan to consider the advisability of a number of its citizens colonizing Beaver Valley, in answer to a call made by the authorities of the Church. Because of a decision made at this meeting, a company of fourteen left Parowan in the early part of February with Simeon F. Howd as captain of the company, to make a settlement in Beaver Valley.
They arrived on the south bank of the Beaver River on February 6, 1856, under the leadership of Simeon Howd. There they began building homes. Simeon’s first home was a log house. Simeon F. Howd was set apart by George A. Smith as presiding elder over the Beaver Branch. He held the position of presiding elder over the branch until the branch was changed to the Beaver Ward, and Philo T. Farnsworth was made Bishop.
Simeon was a very active man in all the enterprises of the early days. He hauled tan bark for the new tannery. He would get cotton from Dixie to mix with the wool to make clothes for his family. Lucinda taught the older girls to card, spin and weave cloth to make into clothes for the family. She made candles that were used to give light to their home.
Through exposure and low living conditions and poor food, Simeon became ill. At the age of 65, while tending to the water on his farm, he died from a heart attack on May 13, 1878. He was buried in the Mountain View Cemetery in Beaver.
In the year 1869, Lucinda had been chosen as first counselor of the Relief Society, with Harriett Shepard as President. She held this position for two years. Her energetic labor was of great value to the Society. On November 1, 1871, she became president of the Relief Society and held this position a little less than five years. During this time Brigham Young asked the Relief Society to store grain for the time of need. Lucinda was determined that this request would be obeyed so with eight women taking their lunch they went in to the field to glean. Their efforts were rewarded with five sacks of heads of the precious grain.
On September 6, 1879, at the age of 59, Lucinda was chosen as first president of the Beaver Stake Relief Society, which position she held for over seventeen years. She then met with an accident in which she broke her hip. Because of much sickness and pain, she resigned her position as Relief Society Stake President on September 25, 1896. She was relieved of her suffering on July 26, 1902, at the age of 82. She was buried in the Mountain View Cemetery in Beaver ****beside Simeon.
Source: Excerpts from “The Life of Simeon F. and Lucinda Morgan Howd, Written by Mrs Rosella Murdock Eyre and Susie Veater Goff, for a Howd reunion about 1953 at Duck Creek, Utah; FindAGrave.com
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