John D. Lee
By his daughter Miriam Cornelius
When my mother and step-father came to Virgin there weren't many places here and they drove right through the town and when they reach the other side father stopped and mother ask him where it was and he said "You have seen it all."
Before he came to Utah father lived in Far West. He was a body guard of the Prophet Joseph Smith himself and was in all that terrible driving and mobbing. He came to Salt Lake City I think in 1847 with grandfather Groves and grandmother came in 1847. One of her or Aunt Lucy's children was born under an oak tree after they were driven from Illinois. Grandfather had a cow hitched with an oxen which he drove across the plains. Grandmother broke her leg. Right in the ankle and Brigham Young said to her. "Oh sister Groves don't you think you better stay back and wait till spring," and she said, "Don't let me stay. I want to come on. Yet set my leg, and swing me up in the bows of the wagon." Brigham Young said, "As your faith is so shall it be."
He was a wonderful man, so good to every one. He set her leg his own dear self and she came on to Utah and saw Brigham Young plant his cane and say, "This is where the Temple will be."
He prophesied here in Virgin and told us we would never amount to anything until we moved up on the higher ground, and I tell the boys we won't get nothing till we obey his counsel. When we moved the prophesy that from Virgin to Grafton will be one solid settlement will come to pass. And it's coming to pass. My they are going to make this all a reservoir and we will have to do as we should have long ago. You know when the other settlements got money for their new churches their was a lot of complaining here and I said then, "You will never get anything until you move up higher because that was the way it was prophesied, which is as it should be."
When we first came here that was years ago, Virgin was more of a town than it is now. We girls would go arm in arm up the road or the street and then some. This old church was built and these houses but they will all have to be moved.
My mother had eleven children. Father had given to the church and then trusted the Lord but Duffin Jim Duffin had the office and he told mother she could get all she needed for herself but not for the children. I was young but I got out and got me a job. I used to work for bran to help mother feed the other children, for you see, she told him, "If we had to starve she would too." My eyes were awful that year but the Lord blessed me.
Not many men would have done as my father. He promised that if anyone had to be tried for the Mountain Meadow trouble he would do it. He couldn't control the Indians they were that upset at the emigrants. They had poisoned the water and meal and the Indians had eaten off the meat, and many had died.
The men at the trial said to father, "You are not the man, we know you are not the right man." Father had given his word and the word was demanding some one to be punished, but now the truth will be brought to light. Why they would have driven and mobbed us if some one had not been willing. Father would have done anything for the church, he was that religious and he had seen so much he couldn't stand any more mobbing.