Son of James Moses and Eliza Spencer

Married Phoebe Arabell Woodruff, 14 Jun 1875, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah

Children - Sarah Eliza Moses, Jesse Tilton Mose, Sylvia Arabell Moses, Wilford Newton Moses, James Julian Moses, David Courtney Moses, Ethel Woodruff Moses, Elmer Woodruff Moses, Phoebe Esther Moses, Harry B. Moses, Mary Woodruff Moses, Brigham Woodruff Moses, Clarence Fredrick Moses

Sketch - Jesse Tilton Noses Sr. born May 9th, 1848 at Council Bluffs, Iowa. He was the third child born to James Moses and Eliza Spencer. He spent his childhood days in Caanan Connecticut. He was the son of James who was the son of Jesse, the son of Joshua whose father was Joshua the son of John, the son of John, the son of John who came to New England and settled at Plymouth Massachusetts, between 1630 and 1640. This John Moses was a ship builder and probably came to this country in his own vessel.

At the age of thirteen he came with his father's family to Utah. They settled on Big Cottonwood creek about eight miles South East of Salt Lake City. There was a log schoolhouse about half a mile from their home where he went to the school taught by his sister Martha. Being in his early teens, like other boys, he liked to play pranks. Martha would sometimes send him home for her lunch and give him orders to bring her a bread and butter sandwich and an apple. He would tell his mother that Mat, as they called Martha, wanted sugar on her bread and butter. Mat couldn't eat it so Jesse got the sandwich with the sugar.

Jesse was an energetic lad and liked to do things for himself, so his father would give him the use of a piece of ground on which he would raise watermelons, pumpkins etc. and make a little money for himself. One year he raised a nice patch of melons, and fearing that some of the young folks in the neighborhood would come in at night and steal the melons, he circulated the story that he had doped some of the melons. So if anyone wanted melons they should come to him and get them. After the melons were gone he told what a joke he had played on them. He also had a nice patch of pumpkins and after the boys heard the joke that was played on them, they came in one night and destroyed his whole patch of pumpkins so the joke backfired on him.

Jesse was always busy in the wintertime. He would go into the canyon and get out logs for the sawmill or coal from the mines for some one. If he had nothing else to do he would chop down cottonwood trees and work them up in fire wood. This was always a winter's job and he and his family would have two and three years 5'supply of good dry wood on hand. The Moses family had several groves of cottonwood trees on the place so wood was never scarce.

Another project of his was seine fishing--in the late spring and early summer. One summer he fished with the Pettit brothers, Ezra being his brother-in-law. They had a 2200-foot seine and were fishing in Utah Lake for lake trout. Jesse and Brow Pettit would do the fishing and Ezra would haul the fish into Salt Lake and market them. He would make a trip every three days. In using the net they would fasten one end on the shore and put the net in the rowboat and one would row while the other unrolled the net. They would row out into the lake as far as the net would reach then circle back to shore. They sometimes would haul in a wagonload. Ezra would get back to the lake along toward evening to help clean the fish load up and drive back to Salt Lake in the nighttime. Jesse also fished some in Bear Lake, but the Pettit brothers did not go with him there.

Up to this time Jesse was in his middle twenties. He quit fishing and worked for a while for Wright A. Moore who owned a large ranch near Randolph. While working there he acquired a nice team of Morgan mares. This was a country where winter lasted about six months and some years it froze every month in the year. Jesse tells a story of Wright A. Moore starting to cut his hay on the morning of the Fourth of July and froze his feet. About this time Apostle Wilford Woodruff located his wife Sarah Brown and her family in Randolph.

The family consisting of three boys, Brigham, David, and Newton, and three girls - Phoebe Arabell, Sylva, and Mary. Jesse was paying some attention to Phoebe Arabell, who was familiarly known as Bell. She was not quite sixteen but had already been picked out to become a polygamist wife of one of the authorities. This she flatly refused to do but accepted the attention of Jesse, who had a nice team of horses and the finest cutter in the community. He christened the sleigh "Bell" in honor of his sweetheart and none rode in finer style that winter.

Arabell's sixteenth birthday was the 30th of the following May, 1875 and in June of that year they drove to Salt Lake and were married in the Endowment House. They returned to Randolph and lived during the winter in part of the Woodruff home. During the winter Jesse made several trips to Evanston, a distance of 40 miles, for coal. He would go to the mines one day, and load up and stay over night and come home the next day. On one of these trips it was so cold be had to get off his load and walk to keep warm. But he got tired and found too that his feet and legs were freezing so be got beck on his load and wrapped up in his bedding and depended on his team to take him home. This they did and as soon as they reached home they stopped just in front of the house, When the motion of the sleigh stopped it aroused him to consciousness and be got off his lot and managed to reach the door chich was but a few steps. As soon as he opened the door he fell to the floor unconscious. The folks worked with him all night but be had a narrow escape from freezing to death. This was a great setback to his health so be decided to get away from that cold country.

In March of 1875 their daughter Sarah was born, that fall they moved to Holiday Utah where he farmed with his father and did other work for two or three years...Sarah lived only ten or eleven months.

Jesse built a log room about 14 by 16 on the banks of Cottonwood creek not far from his father's home. It was in this log cabin that Jesse (the writer of this sketch) was born on January 28, 1878. In the summer of 1880 their daughter Sylva was born. In the following November Jesse with his family in company with Harvey Harper and his family moved to the Salt River Valley near Mesa Arizona. They had a good outfit of horses and wagons and a full head of stock. Harvey settled at Jonesville, now Lehi, on the banks of the Salt river. Jesse went three or four miles farther down the river and took up a homestead and built a willow hut on the banks of the Tempe canal...while there he did considerable freighting from Maricopa to Fort McDowel, a government post.

He subsequently moved up on the Mesa across the canal from the town of Mesa. The town at that time had about 300 inhabitants. It was a growing and thriving ward in the Maricopa stake. Jesse built an adobe house near the bank of this canal. Here three more boys were added to the family, Wilford Newton, James Julion, who died in infancy, and David Courtney. At this time mother's health was becoming a problem owing to the long hot summers. Father had acquired 80 acres of land at this place and had a few fruit trees including one or two almonds and a small grape vineyard all bearing as it didn't take more than two or three years to start bearing in that warn climate. He finally decided to move back to Utah. So after eight years we moved back to Holliday, Utah. He rented his father's farm for two years.

In the meantime grandfather Woodruff moved his Randolph family, the one of which mother was a part, to Smithfield, Cache Valley, Utah. So owing to mother's desire father located in that community and built a home in the Northeast part of town. He and some of his close neighbors acquired a spring just a few blocks from their homes and piped the water to their homes. It was the first water system constructed in Smithfield. His next move was in the mercantile business. Jesse Moves, B. R. Miles, James P. Low and Newton Woodruff were known as the Young Men's Coop. Jesse Moses was president and James P. low manager. After two years of successful business they bought the branch store of the ZCMI. They also established a feed store in Salt Lake City.

After a few successful years the stockholders decided to dissolve the corporation so they sold out to B. R. Miles. Father then concentrated on building up his dairy heard. A year or two later he bought another farm Just north of Smithfield. He took a great deal of interest in horticulture. He set out six or eight acres of apples consisting of several varieties. He had also several acres of raspberries.

In the fall of 1907 fathers apples bore quite heavy and the price was poor, a, he decided to make a few barrels of cider vinegar. He obtained a press and I helped him grind the apples. We had several pigs running loose. We bad dumped the pulp in a pile and after it was well fermented the pigs found it and liked the taste so they tanked up and ere long they were having a hilarious time rolling over and kicking their feet in the air and squealing. Unlike some men, however, they were satisfied with one bender. They didn't molest the pulp any more.

I will here give you a picture of the farm. It was located just two miles North of Smithfield. It contained about 40 acres in a square and faced the high way on the east. The house was made of brick kilned on the place and located about twenty rods west of the highway, about the center of the farm, north and south. A long hall ran north and south through the house. On the east was a living room twenty by sixteen feet south of which was the master bedroom. On the west side at the north was a commodious kitchen and south of it was another bed room. The upstairs was reached by a long stairway occupying part of the hallway. This upstairs afforded three bedrooms. There was no water system in the house nor out except a hundred foot well in the barnyard about eight rods north and west of the house so our convenience for bathing was a no. 3 galvanized tin tub. The water being heated on the cook stove. The toilet was an outdoor building some fifty feet west of the house in a yard containing some fruit and shade trees.

An irrigation canal running north separated the farm. On the bank of the canal was part of a row of silver leaf poplar trees. On the southeast part of the farm, father alternated crops of alfalfa hay and potatoes. He also planted a large patch of choice raspberries. To harvest the berries, mother would have people come from different parts of the valley to pick at shares. The Northeast part of the farm was alternated with hay and grain. On the west side was the railroad track. A lane running east and west from the highway to the railroad track separated the farm north and south. On this part of the farm, south of the lane, was the apple orchard. Just north of the lane was a small piece of ground containing a few choice apples for home use, also some prunes, plumbs and a patch of Potawatamie plumbs. The rest of the farm was alternated with hay grain and potatoes.

When father bought this farm be got a good heard of choice Roan Durham cows. He took a great pride in them. He had also a tract of sixty acres about two miles West consisting of hay and pasture.

Father was devoted to his God, to his family and kind and generous with his neighbors. While he acted as president of the young men's coop he insisted that tithing be paid from the profits before any dividends were paid. In his private affairs he was generous in the payment of his tithes and offerings. He and mother were greatly devoted to each other. Sometimes they would not see just alike in a problem but they would not get angry and storm at one another. One winter when we were all home we older ones would go to the neighbors and play cards. We came home a little late one evening and father and mother wanted to know what we were doing. We hesitated telling them but father insisted on knowing, so I told him we were playing cards. We figured on getting a real reprimand, but father said nothing. But the next day he bought a deck of cards and that evening he invited us to stay home and play with him. Mother was rather indignant about it and demanded that they be thrown in the fire. Father in his quiet way said, "Now Bell, Just a minute. I would such rather have them at home and know what they were doing than have them chase off every night and not know where they are. Well, father won the argument and we spent many pleasant evenings both at home and at the neighbors. We had other games as well as cards.

Father was generous and kind with his neighbors and tolerant to his opponents. If a neighbor needed a little help he could always find time to lend a helping hand. He raised lots of fruit and I never knew him to charge a neighbor for a few apples or a cup of berries. When folks would come from distances to pick berries he never would have hay to sell but would tell them to put their horse in the barn and feed it.

Shortly after our home in Smithfield was completed one of our neighbors had the misfortune to have their home burned down. Father was the first to invite them to his home until they could get adjusted some place.

Father had a tree of nice fall apples, which he left for the Indians. He would scold any of us if we took any of those apples.

Father was a man of medium height, fair complexion, with lots of dark hair and more a stubby beard. His eyes were light gray. He was strong for his size. He was very considerate of mother in a lot of little ways. In the spring when the flowers first came out he would bring a bouquet. When the berries started to ripen, she would get the first cup. He did many nice courtesies for her.

Written by Jesse Tilton Moses Jr.