Essentials
Born: 14 May 1828; Gordon County, Georgia
Daughter of: Nathan Whitten WANSLEE and Grizzel Elizabeth TURNER
Married: Gad MORRIS, 6 January 1852; Rome, Floyd County, Georgia
Died: 8 Oct 1888; Safford, Graham County, Arizona

Page contents
One-minute history
Julia Ann Morris's story
Tragic Days at Savoia

BY DARYL JAMES
9 MARCH 2002
     Elizabeth Wanslee was born 14 May 1828 in the area known today as Gordon County, Georgia, to Nathan Whitten Wanslee and Grizzel Elizabeth Turner. Gordon County, established in 1850, was created from parts of Cass and Floyd counties and was named in honor of William Washington Gordon, the first president of the Georgia Central Railroad. Elizabeth was the oldest of 11 children in a family comprised of seven boys and four girls. Her ancestors were Southerners from South Carolina and Virginia.
     Many Cherokee lived in the area and used the land originally as a hunting ground. In 1825 the Cherokee Nation established its capital nearby at New Echota and adopted a constitution modeled after the U.S. Constitution. The tribe held its first election in 1828, the year Elizabeth was born. Conflicts increased in Gordon County between the white settlers and the Cherokee until the federal government forced the relocation of the tribe to Oklahoma in 1838. This is what historians refer to as the Trail of Tears.
     Elizabeth likely would have witnessed the beginning of this conflict in her childhood, although the political stand her parents took on the relocation is unknown. Regardless, the issue would have been of great interest to them.
     Vital records suggest the Wanslee family moved from Georgia in the 1840s to Alabama and then returned to Georgia. But little information exists on Elizabeth's childhood and family. The editors of Roadside Georgia say Gordon County remained agricultural prior to the Civil War, although the Western and Atlantic Railway stimulated some industry after 1848. Most likely, therefore, Elizabeth's father would have been a farmer. Her mother died in 1848 at age 42 when Elizabeth was 20, and her father eventually married a widow named Nancy Morris. Little is known about this marriage, which most likely took place after 1860.
     On 6 Jan. 1852, Elizabeth married Gadison "Gad" Morris in Rome, Floyd County, Georgia. Elizabeth was 23 at the time and Gad was about 21. Their first six children were born in Floyd County or neighboring Gordon County between 1853 and 1860. Then the Civil War broke out. Gad enlisted as a private in Company C, 40th Infantry Regiment of the Confederate Army on 1 May 1862, while residing at Floyd County, Georgia. Elizabeth was nearly 34 at this time and pregnant with the couple's seventh child, John Wesley Morris, who was born 4 Nov. 1862.
     Apparently, the Union army captured Gad shortly after his enlistment. Union records list him as a prisoner of war on 4 July 1863 at Vicksburg, Mass., and indicate he was paroled two days later. His war record during the next year is uncertain, although he must have had some contact with Elizabeth because she got pregnant about January 1864. Records list Gad as a P.O.W. again on 15 July 1864 at Floyd County, Ga. Later that month, on 27 July 1864, he took an Oath of Allegiance at Louisville, Ky., and was released on condition that he remain north of the Ohio River. It is unclear whether he was home with Elizabeth when their eighth child, William Morris, was born 16 Sept. 1864 in Rome, Floyd County.
     After the war the couple had two more children in Georgia and then moved to Des Arc, Prarie County, Ark., where their final child, Cicero Morris, was born 12 Sept. 1871. Gad and Elizabeth belonged to a Protestant chuch in Arkansas and treated the pastor with kindness. But when missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came to the area in the 1870s, Gad and Elizabeth accepted their message. They were taught by Henry G. Boyle, John McCallister and possibly John Wimmer. Church records indicate that Elizabeth was baptized first and that Gad and all of the couple's living children followed on 1 March 1877, weeks before the family left Arkansas with a company of Saints headed West. At least two of Elizabeth's brothers, Jesse Cleveland and Nathan Terry Wanslee, lived in the area and also joined the Church about this time. It is also possible that her father joined the Church, although he does not appear to be part of the Mormon company that left Arkansas in 1877.
     The Arkansas Travelers Party numbered some 140 converts and included 36 wagons. Gad and Elizabeth and their children put everything they owned into two small wagons that Gad had constructed. They followed the company west to Trinidad, Colo., where the party separated. One group went to Utah while another group, including the Morris family and certain Wanslee families, passed through Santa Fe and Albuquerque and settled in Savoia, N.M. (today known as Ramah). Here an epidemic of smallpox swept through the settlement. Many died, including Elizabeth's 24-year-old sister-in-law, Malinda Ann Evans (wife of Jesse Cleveland Wanslee). Five days after giving birth to a daughter, Malinda died and was buried on 10 Feb. 1878 at Savoia.
     After the smallpox passed, the company regrouped and continued west into Arizona, finally settling along the Little Colorado River at Brigham City. This settlement, founded two years earlier in 1876, operated in part under the United Order system. There was a fort 200 feet square, with sandstone walls seven feet high. Inside were 36 dwelling houses, each 15 by 13 feet. On the north side was the dining hall, 80 by 20 feet, with two rows of tables, to seat more than 150 persons. Adjoining was a kitchen, 25 by 20 feet, with an annexed bakehouse. Four women were called to be in charge of the kitchen, with others rotating to help them. A cellar, storehouse and a well were inside the enclosure and another well was outside near the kitchen. Other houses were built outside the fort. To the south were corrals and stockyards. The main industry was the farming of 274 acres, more than half in wheat. Milk and cheese were secured from the communal dairy at Dairy Spring. Wood was supplied by the communal sawmill near present day Mormon Lake, Ariz. J.A Woods taught the first school. Jesse O. Ballenger, the first leader, was succeeded in 1878 by George Lake about the time Elizabeth and Gad arrived with their party.
     Gad did not live long in Brigham City, however. One day after working in the field, he complained to Elizabeth that he wasn't feeling well. Without eating supper, he went to bed. After Elizabeth finished her spinning and the wheel was quiet, she called to her husband to inquire about how he was feeling. There was no answer. She called again and receiving no reply, she went to his bedside to find that he had passed away, probably of a heart attack. This was 21 March 1878.
     By 1881, because of several years of crop failures due to the dams they built washing out, the people of Brigham City were released from their callings and sent to other settlements. Elizabeth, along with her children and some of her Wanslee relatives, finally settled at Safford, Graham County, Ariz. Here she died on 8 Oct. 1888 at age 60.

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Life History of Julia Ann Morris

Julia Ann MORRIS Welker

BY BESSIE WELKER JACOBSON
DAUGHTER OF JULIA ANN MORRIS
GRANDDAUGHTER OF ELIZABETH WANSLEE
     Webmaster's note: Julia Ann Morris was about four years older than Cicero Morris, the youngest of Gad and Elizabeth Wanslee Morris' children. Much of what Bessie Welker writes about her mother's childhood also applies to Cicero.
     Mother (Julia Ann Morris) was born in Rome, Floyd Co., Georgia, on November 26, 1867 to Gad and Elizabeth Wanslee Morris. When Julia was nine years old, she with her parents and 10 brothers and sisters left their home in Georgia and moved to Arkansas in 1868, then from there to Arizona in 1877.
     She started school in Savaya, Mexico, in 1877, but had to quit school after her family moved to Safford, Ariz., in 1884.
     Webmaster's note: Savaya, Mexico, should almost certainly be Savoia, N.M., now called Ramah, McKinley County, N.M. The Morris family stayed briefly at Savoia but moved to northeastern Arizona by 1878. Julia's father, Gad Morris, died 21 March 1878 in Winslow, Ariz., when she was 10. It is unclear which trip the writer refers to below. Most likely, it is the journey of the Arkansas Travelers Party of 1877 -- from Des Arc, Ark., through Trinidad, Colo., to Savoia in northern New Mexico. Many from this party settled finally in the Safford area.
     It took the Morrises six months to make the journey with ox teams and wagons, and cows to help pull the wagons. They, with other families of the Mormon faith, endured many hardships.
     When they stopped and made camp for the night, they would have to put the wagons in a circle to protect them from the Indians. Fortunately, the Indians didn't bother them very much. Julia and her family would milk the cows to help out with the food supply, which was very skimpy. It was very hard for them to leave their home and most of their belongings behind. But, it was the faith they had in the Lord that urged them on. They had been called to settle Arizona.
     The Morrises tried to camp by streams or rivers so they could wash their clothes and bathe. They used the large rocks along the banks to scrub their clothes on to help get them clean. Sometimes, they would stay in one place for two or three days so they could do their washing and make their soap and their bread. They would pile rocks in a small circle and build a fire in it. After the fire died down but the rocks were still hot, they would put the bread on the rocks to bake.
     When the Morrises made soap, they would put the wood ashes from the campfire in a pan and cover the ashes with water and let it stand overnight. This made the lye they mixed with grease that they had saved from the meat they cooked along the way. They would boil this together until it was thick, and when it was cold they would cut it into pieces. They continued on their way with enough soap and bread to last them for a while, because it might be some time before they would be able to stop long enough to make more. They also gave the animals time to rest as well as the people, before they continued on their way.
     Julia's family first made their home in Snowflake, Ariz. By the time the cold weather came, the men had cut down trees and sawed logs to build a log house. They made a fireplace in one corner of the room to keep them warm. After a few years, they moved on to Safford, Ariz. This is where Julia met and married Father (John Quincy Welker). He had also moved to Arizona.
     Webmaster's note: Other accounts say the Morris family settled at Brigham City, Ariz., on the Little Colorado River. Brigham City is about 1.5 miles northeast of downtown Winslow, Ariz. The present life sketch of Julia Ann Morris is the only document I have found that places the Morris family at Snowflake (which is about 45 miles southeast of Brigham City). The log house to which the writer refers might be among those built at Savoia, N.M. Apparently, Bishop John Hunt and other men constructed a number of homes in Savoia made of pinion logs plastered with mud. All these homes were equipped with rock chimneys.
     She was sixteen years old when they were married on March 23, 1884, in Pima, Arizona. She and Father moved to Bloomington, Idaho, to help settle it. They were one of the first settlers there. They made their home in Worm Creek, south of Bloomington a few miles. They lived in a little one-room log house, with a dirt roof, and a dirt floor, for quite a few years. Father laid limbs and branches from the trees across the poles that were put across the top of the house. Then this was covered with dirt. When it rained, the water would run through on to the floor and beds. They would have to put pans or anything they had to catch the water and mud. They spread gunnysacks on the floor to protect them form the cold damp ground. They also had to hang sacks to the windows and door until Father could get some made. Father filled the space between the logs with thick clay and mud mixed with water, to keep the cold and wind out. For lights, they had what was called bitch. It was made by soaking a rag in grease and putting it in a large pan and there it was burned. And this made light for them to see by. For heat, Father dug a pit in the middle of the room and made a fire in it. They did their cooking on this and also kept warm.
     My brother Jacob and Morris were born. After a few years, Father moved the family into town, which had built up some by this time. The little town had a small grocery store that was run by a man named Sy Fayler, also a blacksmith shop where horses were fitted with steel shoes on their hoofs to protect their feet. This was run by a Mr. Painter. A church had also been built, from trees the men had brought out of the canyon and sawed into logs.
     Father and Mother and family moved into a four room, two story house. My grandfather and grandmother Welker, Father's parents, lived with them. My brother Clinton and myself were born there. My grandfather passed away the year I was born in 1911. I was about four years old when Grandmother passed on. All the children, except myself were brought into the world with the help of a midwife, as they were called. They were women from the town that would go help other women have their babies. They would stay and care for the mother and new baby for a few days, as at that time there were no doctors. After a few years, a doctor did come to town. His name was Doctor Hayward. It was he that brought me into the world.
     When I was about three years old, the church house burned to the ground. The men had to work hard again to build another one, which still stands today. My father worked very hard to feed and clothe the family. He would leave his wife and family for weeks at a time during the early summer, to shear sheep. He would work ten to twelve hours a day on farms, for fifty cents a day. In the fall of the year, he would take potatoes he and Mother had raised and harvested, with the help of the older boys to Logan and Brigham City, Utah with a team and wagon, and trade them for flour, sugar and honey for our winters use. We raised our own cows, pigs and chickens to help out with the meat supply. Mother worked very hard helping to raise a garden. She would dry corn and fruit for winter use. They were long hard years, but faith and trust in the Lord helped us to survive.
     Father and Mother worked and sacrificed all their lives to make life better and happier for their family. They were the most wonderful parents in all the world. One by one the family grew up and left the little house on the corner to make lives of their own. This left Father and Mother like they had first started out, just the two of them. God bless them.

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Travail and Tragic Days at Savoia

AUTHOR UNLISTED
FROM A COLLECTION OF HISTORICAL ARTICLES
KEPT ON RECORD AT THE SAFFORD FAMILY HISTORY LIBRARY
(ARTICLE DATED 9 APRIL 1980)
     Many emotions -- saddened ones -- swept over my wife and myself as we stood among graves in the older section of Savoia or now Ramah, N.M., cemetery.
     We were well aware of the fact, on this April 10, 1979 day, that the burial site was one where tears and tragedy had mixed; where men, women and children had been lowered to a last and most humble resting place. No few of the mouldering mounds, without doubt, marked graves belonging to members of the Arkansas Travelers Party of 1877.
     This party, numbering some 140 souls, was composed of LDS converts from Prairie County, Ark., and adjoining areas. LDS missionaries Henry G. Boyle, John Wimmer and John McAlister were active in the conversion of this group.
     Seeking greener fields and an unhampered religious freedom, the converts, during April 1877, left the streams and woods of Arkansas to make their homes in New Mexico's raw and unsettled lands.
     According to D.V.A. (Bood) Talley's precious diary, which records the travelers' route and adventures, the converts, on leaving their Arkansas homes, traveled westward until Trinidad, Colo., was reached. Here the party separated with one group of converts going into Utah while others passed through Santa Fe and Albuquerque before settling in Savoia (onion in the Spanish language). It was here that Bishop John Hunt, on church instruction, constructed a number of homes made of pinion logs plastered with mud, and all with rock chimneys.
     And it was here that an epidemic of smallpox cruelly wrought havoc among the Arkansas Travelers. Lost to the once dreaded killer in a land far from their Arkansas homeland were: Mrs. Thomas West, Mrs. Alonzo McGrath and daughter Mary, and Mrs. Jess Wanslee, mother of the now deceased Mrs. George Foote and Mrs. William Ellsworth. All of the above mentioned parties were buried in the Savoia or Ramah cemetery.
     Webmaster's note: "Mrs. Jess Wanslee" is Malinda Ann Evans (1853-1878), married to Elizabeth's Wanslee's younger brother, Jesse Cleveland Wanslee (1837-1908). "Mrs. George Foote" is Elizabeth Wanslee's niece, Rosanna Cooper Wanslee (1874-1973). "Mrs. William Ellsworth" is Elizabeth Wanslee's niece, Mary Elizabeth Wanslee (1875-1959).
     John West, the writer's dear and now departed friend, who supplied so much of the information appearing in the writer's story "Arkansas Travelers of 1877," remembered that every member of his family was deathly sick, but especially his father and mother. "Every inch of my father's body was covered with eruptions. Courageous neighbors attempted to relieve the family's sufferings by touching the eruptions with a feather that had been dipped in sweet oil."
     From his pallet in front of the rock fireplace, John witnessed a heart-rendering scene --
     "Sometimes during the night, I saw father leave his bed and crawl across the floor to my mother. He knew she was dying and I heard him say, 'Sally, I hate to give you up, but I've got to do it.'"
     Shortly after recovering from the devestating smallpox blow, many of the Arkansas converts slowly wended their way to Brigham City, to Snowflake and other norther Arizona points. No few of the converts eventually established homes in the Gila and Duncan Valleys, but especially in the Graham area. A partial list of this group would include D.V.A., K.V.B., Tom and Robert Talley families; the Mrs. Robert Golding family, the John Jackson Quinn family; the Scarlett family; the Gad Morris family; the Wilburn Dempsey family; the Alexander Stewart family; the John and William Waddell families; the Nathan Wanslee family; the John Evans family and two single men -- Austin Evans and Cyrus Spafford.
     Webmaster's note: The Nathan Wanslee mentioned above is Elizabeth Wanslee's brother Nathan Terry Wanslee, who died 15 Nov. 1924 in Safford, Graham County, Ariz. Another brother, Jesse Cleveland Wanslee, also traveled with the company.

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Grizzel Elizabeth
TURNER
Elizabeth WANSLEE
Nathan Whitten WANSLEE

CHILDREN WITH GAD MORRIS