Hiram Gates/Emily Amanda Rockwell

 

Carole Gates Sorensen, Ed.D., GG Granddaughter

 

Hiram Gates, born 11 August 1802 in Upper Canada. was a young married man with three children when the Prophet Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon visited in Mount Pleasant in Upper Canada and baptized fourteen community members at Cooley Pond on October 27, 1833. Among those baptized was Mary Burtch Gates, mother of Hiram.¹   Henry Gates, drummer to Chief Joseph Brant (Mohawk) of Six Nations Indians did not embrace the faith. In 1836, new missionaries, Parley P. Pratt and Herber C. Kimball went to Mount Pleasant. At this time, Hiram’s wife, Sarah Maria and daughter Harriet Marie were baptized. Hiram remained agnostic until Sarah insisted on making the move to Nauvoo and Hiram personally met the Prophet Joseph Smith whom he adored.

 

Emily Amanda Rockwell was the daughter of Orrin Porter Rockwell and Luanna Beebe

She was born 31 January 1833 In Missouri. No one is sure of how or why she ended up in Salt Lake City in 1848-49. Her parents had split and Luanna had married Adelpheus Cutler. As far as anyone knew, the children were living with their mother, but apparently Emily was not.

 

The first hint we have of her presence in Salt Lake City appeared in the Journal History of the LDS Church, April 22, 1849 when President Brigham Young penned the following notation in his journal, “The Marshall (Horace Eldredge,) has returned unable to serve Judge Kimball’s warrant on account of high water on the Weber. Judge Kimball referred to Heber C. Kimball who had issued a warrant for the arrest of Hiram Gates and Levi Fifield² on charges of abducting Emily Amanda Rockwell. References to Emily’s trip across the desert with the two men are missing. Leonard Arrington, LDS Church Historian, advised the author that no such warrant or court record exists which would shed light on the “abduction.” After careful examination of the facts, I have concluded that Hiram and Levi Fifield may have been “called” to mine for gold and this arrest may have been a decoy tactic to discourage other Mormons from leaving the city.

Concurrently, Porter Rockwell and Amasa Lyman were called to the California Mission and began their journey from Salt Lake City to the California Mission on April 11. Porter was an excellent guide and had traveled this trail with the Mormon Battalion.

 

 

 

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¹ Smith Joseph, Diary.

² Levi Fifield was a Mormon Battalion Member of Company C who had been in the gold fields when gold was discovered there. He was a master blacksmith and pounded some of the first gold nuggets at Sutters Mill. He then returned to SLC with Jefferson Hunt.

 

 

 

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In the mother lode country, both Hiram and Porter were in the saloon business; “Porter owned three saloons: Brown’s Settlement (on Deer Creek, west of Shingle Springs,; the Round Tent on Murderer’s Bar a few miles east of present Auburn, and an inn at Buckeye Flat,”³  (Hiram owned the Slap Jack Bar and an inn in Greenwood).”

 

“In connection with the taverns. Rockwell apparently would haul whiskey into the area by pack train from Sacramento. When he would arrive on a hill overlooking the camp, he would loose a blast on a bugle, carried for that purpose, and his partner at the Saloon, would fire a signal shot to alert the miners working on the streams, that the business was open with a new supply of whiskey.”⁴   Yet, in spite of the close proximity of the “diggings” and the fact that few women were in the territory, there is no known record of communication between Rockwell and Gates; Rockwell and his daughter Emily.

 

Hiram was traced to the gold fields by studying a book, The California Trail by

George Stewart, Stewart described evening activities in which the sojourners were taught fancy dance steps — since Hiram was well known as a dancer master (conducting dancing schools in Nauvoo and Winter Quarters), I concluded this must be Hiram!

 

The Gates family arrived in Round Valley, El Dorado County, Alta California. in a train piloted by mountain man, Caleb Greenwood. Hiram apparently did not attempt to conceal his identity in spite of the warrant issued by Heber C. Kimball. Leonard Davis in Greenwood, California:  A Town That History Almost Forgot, wrote:

 

“The most notable arrivals in Long Valley during this period, however, was mountain man Caleb Greenwood, who with his half-breed son, John, arrived in the valley from Coloma in the summer of 1849; and a Mormon elder named Gates who reportedly emigrated from Salt Lake in 1849.”  He further informs us that, “Mrs. Gates was the first white woman in town (Emily Amanda).”  Shortly thereafter, Lewis Meyers, also a Mormon, brought his wife to town and their baby was the first baby born there.”⁵

Hiram’s two sons traveled alone across the Nevada desert following the death of their mother in Salt Lake City on August 18, 1849.

 

 

 

 

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³ Holland, S. Dennis Sierra Saints;  A Brief History of the Mormons in Western El Dorado County 1847-1997. S. D. Holland Publishing Co. 1997.p, 24

⁴ Ibid, 59-60

⁵ Davis Leonard M. Greenwood California:  A Town History Almost Forgot. Roseville Instant Printing Co., c1973