As you might imagine, much has been written about Lemuel and trying to condense his life story to a few paragraphs is daunting at most. Here goes:
If you have ever been to Emerald Isle, North Carolina, you may have driven through Stump Sound, Sneed's Ferry, Onslow County, NC. That was the birthplace of Lemuel who was the 6th of 8 children . His parents were John Hardison Redd and Elizabeth Hancock (more about them later in a different blog entry). When 2 years old, Lemuel's family moved to Murfreesboro, Tennessee where they accepted the gospel, he being 6 years old at the time of his parents' baptisms. His family joined with the saints in Nauvoo, and when he was 14 the time had come for the saints to leave The City Beautiful for the great unknown of the West.
Lemuel certainly carried his load as a 14 year old youth. He drove an ox team the entire distance from St. Joseph, Missouri to the Great Salt Lake Valley. What a daunting task that must have been - especially since he and his father were stricken with cholera while on that difficult journey. After arriving in the valley in 1850, they were sent to settle in Spanish Fork.
Now, in the meantime, a prominent man in early church history by the name of John Lowe Butler (more on him in a future blog) had also moved his family to help establish Spanish Fork. And wouldn't you know: there he met and later married the charming, kind, gentle, and amiable Keziah Jane Butler on a cold winter day of January 2, 1856. Two years later they were sealed in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City.Being called to missions to help settle Las Vegas and New Harmony, Utah, he became a prominent leader in local civil government and was director of the Kanarra Cattle and Sheep Company.
In October of 1866, he married his second wife, 17-yr old Sarah Louisa Chamberlain. She had worked as a "mother's helper" to Keziah so the 2 women knew each other well. Keziah got along well with her and they not only shared a husband but they shared a duplex bought from John D. Lee. Each family had its half of the duplex which served both families for 20 years.
An excerpt from the book Saints Without Halos describes the purpose and unimaginabilitly of the Hole in the Rock expedition in the winter of 1879-1880:
"A year and a half after the death of Brigham Young, President John Taylor began urging the Latter-day Saints to settle the usable farm and grazing land of southeastern Utah's San Juan region while it was still available. Latter-day Saint settlements could help establish friendly relations with the Indians and do missionary work among them. Moreover, the wild and remote area of San Juan was becoming a refuge for bank and train robbers, cattle rustlers, and other desperadoes. 'Solid citizens' were needed to establish law and order."
Here follows a description of the actual physical Hole in the Rock.
"Finally, after weeks of work, the first wagon was lowered down the Hole-in-the-Rock chute, which has been described as a mine with the top blown off. Actually, it is not a 'hole" at all, but a narrow steep cut in the west wall of Glen Canyon. First came a sheer drop of almost 100 feet, then a little less steep decline of another 300 feet. Steps had been carved into the sandstone for footing. With ropes tied to the wagons and held by twenty men and boys, each wagon was slowly guided down the 'hole'. Jagged rocks tore at the feet of the horses and cattle. Slowly and painfully, the entire company of 230 persons, their wagons, provisions, and livestock made their way down to the river below.
Charlie Redd, one of Lemuel's grandsons, graphically described the last effort:
Aside from the Hole-in-the-Rock itself, this was the steepest crossing on the journey. Here again seven span of horses were used, so that some of the horses were on their knees, fighting to get up and to find a foothold, the still erect horses could plunge upward against the grade. On the worst slopes the men were forced to beat their jaded animals into giving all they had. After several pulls, rests, and pulls, many of the horses took to spasms and near-convulsions, so exhausted were they. By the time most of the outfits were across, the worst stretches could easily be identified by the dried blood and matted hair from the forelegs of the struggling teams. My father (young Lemuel) was a strong man and reluctant to display emotion; but when in later years the full pathos of San Juan Hill was recalled either by himself or someone else, the memory of such bitter struggles was too much for him and he wept."
With the federal polygamy ban, Lemuel Sr. was forced to live in exile. He moved his second family to Bluff, San Juan County, where they lived for 2 years before moving them to Colonia Juarez, Mexico.
First wife, Keziah, mother of 13 children, died in 1895. Sarah Louisa, mother of 14, passed away in 1907. Lemuel H. Redd, Sr. died in the summer of 1910 from injuries suffered in a fall while living in Mexico.
-For tons of reading on him, just google "Lemuel Harsison Redd, Sr."
-More specific resources for this post came from Biography of Lemuel Hardison Redd, by his daughter Ellen Redd Bryner
-Saints Without Halos by Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton, chapter 10.
