A SKETCH OF JAMES WRATHALL'S LIFE
By Percy Wrathall
(Percy, second son of James Wrathall, visited England with
his cousin, Alfred Stirk, and saw the country first-hand)
James Wrathall was born of poor, hard-working parents, who lived in the coldest, bleakest place in all England, At ten years of age, he was bound out, or apprenticed, to a farmer for two pounds a year - about $9.00.
About the time he finished apprenticeship, some Mormon Missionaries came around and converted John and George Hardy, who soon decided to set sail for America, and Father was invited to go along. He told the news to his parents and his mother objected. She did not want him to go to a "land of savages and wild Indians." Father, however, was determined not to work for the barest existence as his parents had done. He called attention to the other eight children, but his mother said, "James, there is none like thee."
He had faith and courage which the others lacked. I found out why when I was there - they all wanted guarantee of steady work and living quarters if they came to America. He, therefore, joined the Hardys and sailed for America. They were becalmed in mid-ocean for six weeks and would have perished if the Hardys had not loaded a ton or more potatoes for seed to be planted on land they hoped to acquire in America.
We next hear of him on a boat steaming up the Mississippi River. He told of being served corn bread which he thought was cake, but decided it must be made of sawdust.
In St. Louis he met John Gillespie and formed a life-long friendship. Mr. Gillespie later settled in Tooele, Utah. He also met Marinda Brown and Maria Watson, sister of Mary Leishman (his future wife).
Father next told me of seeing a woman alight from an oxcart as the emigrant train wended its weary way up the Platte River. As she set her foot upon the ground, a message from an unseen source told him he had seen his wife-to-be. She started walking along toward him at a pace faster than the oxen traveled. When she arrived at Dad's side, he told her he had seen someone at St. Louis who resembled her very much. She said she had three sisters there. He proposed to her before they reached Salt Lake Valley, but he was not the only suitor and he was doomed to wait several years for a final answer.
During this time of waiting, he went to the Pacific Coast and traveled in Nevada around the Comstock mines a year or so. He had as his sole possessions a Dutch oven, fourteen dollars in his pocket, and perhaps a buffalo robe. It was while on this trip that he saved the life of Mrs. James T. Wilson on the Carson River. (See Bancroft's History of Nevada**, in which Dad's name is spelled Warthold.)
From this time on, he seemed to have managed or been managed better. He soon in some way got hold of a few sheep which he housed in an old government wagon box and grazed them in and around the Fort. He gathered the potato peelings and fed the sheep when they came in at night.
Before many years, the sheep became too numerous to keep in or around Grantsville, so he had to employ some one (the Suttons were hired) to take them into Summit County for the summer.
In the early 1880's, Idaho began settling up, and he bought numerous scraps of land and helped others with money to get settled at Oakley. He sold others breeding animals, leased others flocks of sheep, and helped them in every way. He also helped people come to this country and establish homes.
About this time, high Church officials began to call at our home. I heard such statements as, "Yes, Brother Wrathall, we must have the money." I do not think he ever disappointed them.
During the period from 1885 to his death, he leased sheep to young men trying to get a start in business. Some made great success, and others did not do so well. He also aided many families in emigrating to America from their native lands, and assisted in establishing them after they arrived here.
Never in my life did I know him to turn away any one who asked for work or a chance to stay overnight in our home with no cost to them. Some tarried much too long, I am sorry to say, for the good of his young, impressionable sons.
His life was suddenly terminated. One morning he told me to get ready to take him to the railroad and that he was going to Idaho that night to put a man in the penitentiary, although it might be the last act of his life. He returned home in a few days and four days later passed away of pneumonia. He had leased 27,000 head of sheep to this man and caught him in the act of loading the last of them for shipment to market.
**The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Volume XXV (History of Nevada, Colorado and Wyoming), published in 1890, has a section on the Carson Valley settlement (pages 66 et seq.). See the HISTORY OF JAMES WRATHALL for more information.