GEORGE WASHINGTON HANCOCK--PART 1

 

George Washington Hancock–Payson Pioneer
Part 1

    George Washington Hancock, son of Solomon and Alta Adams Hancock, was born the 8th day of March 1826 in Columbia, Cuyahoga County, Ohio. He was the sixth child of his parents and at the time of his birth his father was thirty-three years old and his mother was thirty-one.
    When he was very young, the family moved from the place of his birth to Chagrin, in the same county and state, on a farm where the next few years of his life were spent. George was but four years old when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized. His parents and grandparents accepted the gospel and were among the first converts of the Church and were baptized in the year of 1830, a few months after its organization.
    Immediately after his baptism George's father, Solomon Hancock, left to fill a mission for the latter-day Saints Church and his mother, Alta, was left with the care of the six small children and to mourn the loss of their two first born.
    The father returned from his mission late in the fall of 1831 and in the following year he moved his family from Chagrin, Ohio to Jackson Co. Missouri and settled on the Big Blue river, six miles west of Independence, the gathering place of the saints. They encountered many hardships and endured severe sickness and the death of two more of their children on this journey. George was also very ill and nigh unto death, but through the blessings of the lord, the destroying angel passed by and his life was spared.
    After reaching the Big Blue river they planted a garden of corn and in the spring of 1833 they built themselves a house. Mob violence soon fell upon the Mormons at this time and after suffering severe persecutions and burnings the people of this place, on the tenth of Nov. 1833 fled from their home to Van Buren County. George, with many of the children, walked barefoot over burnt prairies’ suffering the gnawing ache of hunger, bleeding feet and chilled bodies from exposure of the wintry winds and storms.           
    On Nov. 13, his youthful eyes beheld the misery and the mercy of God in confounding the pursuing enemies as a meteoric drama shot forth stars from the heavens, falling as hail to the earth. The mob fled terrified, while the handful of saints rejoiced. They were pursued on the following day and once more deliverance came in the form of a terrible hailstorm, blinding the eyes of the pursuers, while the saints were protestingly sheltered in a cove of a hanging rock. Here their healthy appetites were appeased by the cooked meat of two raccoons, and the next day this little groups of thirty saints again took up their journey unmolested and arrived in Van Buren Co. Missouri.
    The Hancock's stayed at this settlement until the next spring and in April 1834 they crossed the Missouri river and settled in Clay Co. Missouri. While here his loyal young heart quickened its beat as he beheld with pride Zion's Camp marching through Clay County, on its way to redeem Zion, with his two uncles, Joseph and Levi in its ranks. At this time George, being eight years old, was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints by his uncle Levi Ward Hancock .
    In the fall the father, Solomon Hancock, started on another mission going east, leaving his wife, Alta, with four surviving children of their family of ten. George had known little during his youthful years of life but hunger, want, and hardships. The brightest spot of his life was his mother's love and her sympathetic care, and her courage and cheer. On Jan. 31, 1836 while his father was still upon his mission, the greatest tragedy of all came into his life-- his mother, having been very ill, died on this day and George was left motherless with only his two brothers and a sister to share his grief. The family consisted of Eliza, sixteen; Joseph, fourteen; Charles, thirteen; and George ten.
    With sorrow only their young hearts knew they laid their mother in a grave in this strange and unfriendly land. The children were left to the mercy of friends until their father returned, which was some months after, bringing their mother's niece, Phoebe Adams, who became their stepmother.
    Phoebe gave the children good kind motherly care and tenderly reared them through the perils of mob persecutions to manhood and womanhood and in her old age received their blessings.
    In 1836 the family once more were forced from their home in Clay Co., leaving the fresh grave of their dear wife and mother and moved to Caldwell Co. Missouri, and there helped to establish the city of Far West, the gathering place of the saints. There they bought land and built them a home and enjoyed peace and prosperity for a time. In 1838, the violence of the mobs broke out again and the Hancock family passed through those trying days in Missouri.    
    They finally fled from their home and possessions, valued at $1500, leaving all and again stained the soil of Missouri with their bleeding feet as they walked over its dreary prairie to a little settlement in Adams County. Illinois. There they lived on rented land until 1839 when they moved again going to Commerce Co., Hancock Co. Ill. which place afterward became Nauvoo, the beautiful, with the body of the saints.
    In 1841 they bought land from the state of Ill. and settled in Lims, later called Yelrome in Hancock Co. near the city of Nauvoo. At this place for a time they enjoyed peace and plenty by the labors of their own hands. George was now fifteen years old and at this place afforded his first and only schooling which lasted but three months.
    Tragedy and sorrow came to this boy once more however, when on the 27th of June 1844 their prophet and friend whom George loved dearly, Joseph and his brother Hyrum, the beloved patriarch, were martyred at Carthage Jail. George was a mourner with thousands of saints who viewed their remains in the Nauvoo Mansion House for the last time. This was a time of great anxiety and one of watchfulness by day and one of sleeplessness by night.
    In Feb. 1845 mobs once more terrorized the people of Ill. and threatened the lives of the saints in the settlement of Yelrome.
    Like the beasts of prey the mobs stealthily stole in the shadow of darkness and were not apprehended. When morning disclosed their losses, the thieves themselves made the first accusations, accusing the saints of their thefts, thus arousing prejudice in the minds of honest residents against the innocent Mormons.
    The president of this settlement, Isaac Morley, having been accused of theft and his life threatened, fled in grave fear to Nauvoo. President Brigham Young advised him to remove his family to Nauvoo and there to remain. The mobsters then proceeded to tear down and burn barns and houses belonging to the saints and went from one settlement to another and committed the most inhuman acts of vandalism.
    0n the 12th of Sept. 1845 George's father was put in charge of the settlements of the Hancock Co. and George and his brother shared many experiences with their father in his attempts to regain order and safety for the saints. On this condition George wrote a rhyme:
    On the tenth of Sept. 1845. The mob commenced their burnings.  The Mormons fro to drive   They came to Morley's settlement Determined to go through To drive the saints of God
To the city called Nauvoo

    On Nov. 20 1846 during the night the mob applied the torch to the Hancock barns and George and his father and brother hastened to put out the fire, but were soon fired upon and in self defense were forced to take up arms and participate in the battle which took the life of one of the saints, Brother Edmund Dwarf. The mob was scattered only a time and as persecutions and burnings continued, Brigham Young sent a message from Nauvoo for the families living in these settlements to prepare to leave and come to Nauvoo. Over a hundred teams were sent from Nauvoo to bring the people away and the mobsters were left to apply the torch as they choose.
    The Hancock's stayed in Nauvoo only about five weeks. The Militia had been sent to suppress the rnob and a compromise had been made whereby all Mormons might remain unmolested until the spring of 1846, during which time arrangements for the sale of all property should have been completed and at the expiration of this time all Mormons remaining would be expelled from the settlement and their property confiscated.
    The Hancock family returned to their farm to make a home for those who came to father their crops and to sell what they could of their possessions. On the first of April 1846 they took a last look at their hard earned home, realizing but a small part of its cost and turned their faces westward, making a road through the wilds of Iowa, and joined the Saints at Council Bluffs, in Pottawattamie Co., Iowa.
    At this time Brigham Young and his associates in the Church made plans for the saints to go west far beyond the savagery of. a civilized community where the worship might be enjoyed in peace and the Gospel of Jesus Christ could grow to the magnitude and greatness for which it was destined.
    The courage and confidence of the saints at this time may be understood, as we reflect upon the word of their mouthpiece, Brigham Young, "Come calm or strife, turmoil or peace, life or death, in the name of Israel our God we mean to conquer or die trying. We mean to open up the way for the salvation of the honest in heart for all nations or sacrifice everything in our stewardship, and if we fail in the attempt, having done all we could, our Father will not leave his flock without a shepherd."
    In view of this determination a camp was organized to go to the unknown west for the purpose of locating a resting place for the saints. On 29 June 1846, George's Father was called on this mountain mission and also to assist in securing money and volunteers to go with him. Solomon in company with Parley P. Pratt and Ezra T. Benson left his home and family and went to Mount Pisgah, returning the 4th of July 1846, having secured eighty-four volunteers to go as pioneers and $50.00 to help pay the way.
    Hope was inspired in the hearts of the Hancock family in the anticipation of a home of peace where nights might be spent in the blessed relaxation of undisturbed slumber and the waking hours in the realization of day dreams of happiness with a home to shelter them, a fire to warm them, and food to nourish their starving bodies.*