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Emma Seraphine Smith Decker
Zechariah "Zack" Bruyn Decker, Jr.
Nathaniel Alvin Decker
Born: 19 July 1856 at Parowan, Iron, Utah, USAEmma Morris
Born: 27 January 1859 at Dukinfield, Chester, EnglandLIFE SKETCH of EMMA SERAPHINE SMITH DECKER
The meeting wouldn't be starting for a few minutes and Seraphine was grateful for a chance to relax. She sat on the hand-carved pew and rocked the baby on her lap, gazing tenderly as Jess Moroni sucked on his balled-up fist. He was just seven weeks old. Connie, age four years, sat beside her, trying to contain the wiggling of her little sister Inez. The boys, Nathaniel and Louis, had been allowed to run out and play, and Seraphine hoped they would expend some of their nervous energy so they would be quiet during the service. The afternoon session of the Parowan Stake conference was nearly ready to commence. The date was September 28, 1879.
The chapel was beginning to fill. Seraphine noticed Uncle Silas (Silas S. Smith, her father's brother) make his way to the rostrum. He took a seat between two men she didn't know and they began conferring in low voices. Seraphine suspected they were talking about the coming expedition to the San Juan. She had noticed many of the men standing in small groups outside and the mission call was the main topic of discussion. She remembered the shiver of apprehension she had felt at a previous conference when her husband's name had been read from the pulpit -- "Zechariah B. Decker, Jr." She dreaded giving up her comfortable home, her life-long friends here in Parowan, the beautiful new church house, to take her five little children off into the wilderness.
Seraphine came from good pioneer stock. Her father, Jesse N. Smith, had been only 12 years old when he helped his widowed mother by driving two yokes of oxen from the Missouri to the Salt Lake Valley. They arrived just two months behind the original pioneers. Her mother, Emma West, was just a young girl when her family made the trip from Nauvoo. But that was six years before Seraphine was born! How proud she was of her parents and grandparents, but how could she measure up to the example they set? She wasn't sure.
The meeting was called to order and everyone seemed impatient to hear from President Smith. When he addressed the congregation he told of the exploring expedition he had led to the San Juan River country during the preceding spring and summer. This was familiar to Seraphine as Zack had gone with them, and had told her in glowing terms how impressed how was with the area. Presdent Smith mentioned troubles they had with the Indians in Arizona, and the long trip home over the northern route -- 450 miles to go only 200 "as the crow flies."
He then introduced the two strangers on the stand. They were Bishop Andrew Schow and Constable Reuben Collett of Escalante. They both addressed the group and told how the Mormon leaders had assigned them the task of finding a short-cut across the Colorado River. They had found a way just above the confluence of the Colorado and the San Juan rivers. President Smith proposed that the San Juan Mission group take this route, and be ready to leave as soon as possible. He reached unanimous agreement.
The next few days were a bustle of activity. Cattle and horses had to be gathered from the mountain range south of Parowan, property had to be disposed of, and their wagons loaded with everything needed to make homes in a new area. Most of their furniture had to be left behind but Seraphine found room in one of their two wagons for her cast iron stove.
By October 25th they were ready ot leave. A group from Cedar City had gone through Parowan the afternoon before and they soon caught up with them. The weather was balmy -- Indian Summer, and traveling was pleasant. It was an impressive sight, the many covered wagons with their herds of livestock stretching out for two miles. They passed through Panguitch and turned up Red Rock Canyon. As they were crossing the divide snow began falling. Soon it got so deep the cattle had to be driven out in front to break the trail for the wagons.
At Escalante Seraphine was able to replenish some of the family's food supply, and then they headed southeast along the dry Kaiparowits Plateau. Before long the company had to build its own road across the ravines and washes. When they reached Forty Mile Spring they camped to allow the stragglers to gather. President Smith joined them with a few families from Red Rock. Within a few days the group had swelled to nearly 250 people, well over a thousand cattle and several hundred horses.
Scouts had been sent out to explore the route ahead. They had found a crack in the canyon wall above the Colorado. "Hole-in-the-Rock", they began calling it. They told of the boat Bishop Schow and Reuben Collett had used to cross the Colorado River. The traveled far enough up Cottonwood Canyon on the east side to become convinced that this was an impossible place for a wagon road. One scout called it "The worst country I ever saw!"
When they returned to Forty Mile Spring another problem had developed. Heavy snows had blocked the Escalante Mountains and there was no way back. A pall of gloom spread over the camp. President Smith discussed the problem with the leaders, then called a general meeting. Many bore their testimonies that they felt they had a divine calling and someone read from 1 Nephi 3:7 "...The Lord giveth no commandment ... save he shall prepare a way..." Seraphine and Zack felt a surge of determination to complete their mission, no matter what the obstacles.
President Smith left for Salt Lake City to procure blasting powder and tools and more provisions.
Seraphine was proud when Zack was chosen as one of the captains, but disappointed when he and the Parowan group were assigned the task of building a road up Cottonwood Canyon, for they would be gone all of each week. They had moved their camp to Fifty Mile Spring and the Cedar City group had camped on the Colorado Canyon rim. Each Monday morning Zack and his crew, which included his brothers James, Cornelius and Alvin, walked the four miles to the canyon rim, descended the cliff, rowed across the river and set up camp. They returned to their families on Saturday night.
The "Cedar boys" were miners from Wales, familiar with blasting powder, and their job was to widen the fissure at the top so wagons could be driven down. Ben Perkins was the leader of this group. Just below the crack was a stretch of near perpendicular rock. Holes were drilled and oak posts pounded in, the covered with brush and rock to make a narrow roadway jutting out from the cliff. It was called "Uncle Ben's dugway."
The weather turned cold and sometimes work had to be stopped, but it didn't prevent them from celebrating Christmas. A bonfire was lit near a natural rock floor, the camp's three fiddlers turned up, and polkas, Schottisches and the Virginia Reel kept things lively. Seraphine and Zack danced until midnight. Before going to bed the children had hung their stockings from the wagon wheels. On Christmas morning they were surprised to find them filled with parched corn, molasses candy and handmade dolls or toys. The did not think Santa could find them in such an out-ot-the-way place.
On January 26th the road down Hole-in-the-Rock as finished. The Cedar City camp was the first go down. Zack's 15-year-old brother, George, who was a stock wrangler for the company, sat on a rock ledge above the chute and watched the excitement.
The first two teams brought to the edge were terrified of the 2,000 foot incline with the river visible far below, and refused to move. Joe Barton then brought up his team of large wheel horses, slow and sure, feeling their way for both wer blind! The took the wagon down with every available man holding back on the ropes. The rest followed.
Zack and Seraphine broke camp at Fifty Mile Spring and drove to the canyon rim. Each wagon took its turn going down and Zack helped his brothers and many others of the company. Seraphine and the children waited patiently at the top, visiting with the other families until they were the only ones left. It was nearly sun-down when Seraphine spied her husband wearily climbing the trail. Jesse Moroni, who was six months old by now, had gone to sleep in her arms. She laid him in his bed in the rear wagon and called the children.
Zack was in a state of near exhaustion. His arms ached and his fingers burned from holding the ropes all day, but he couldn't rest until he got his wagons down. He wanted to camp by the river where there was plenty of firewood and water.
Seraphine was surprised that Zack was alone. She expected several others to come back and help them. Evidently Zack expected help to be waiting at the top. Where were those who had promised to help? Seraphine gazed down into the near darkness of the canyon, with the twinkle of many cook fires on both sides of the river. It was supper time and the men were with their families.
Zack let his temper boil over. Furiously he hitched his six-horse-and-mule team to the wagons, which were bolted together with a short tongue. He chained the rear wheels of the trailing wagon together, set the brake on the lead wagon, then valted (vaulted) onto the back of the inside wheel horse. Yelling at his family to follow on foot, he gathered the reins and lashed out at the swing horses just ahead and the leaders up front.
The team was terrified of the drop and Zack used the reins for a whip to force them over the edge. There was a squeal as the braked wheels skidded over the rock and started down the 45 percent grade. Suddenly a loud bang split the air -- the chain on the rear wheels had broken! Zack dug his heels in the flank of the horse he was riding and yelled frantically at the team. The mule beside him wasn't fast enough and the wagon crashed into his rump. The team lunged forward but the mule fell and was dragged down the steep embankment.
Seraphine watched in horror. The scream of the fallen mule sent chills up her spine. Then she remembered the baby. In the confusion she had forgotten him! Down the rocks she ran, slipping, falling against the wall of the narrow passageway, then running again. When the wagons hit the loose rubble at the bottom of the slide they came to a stop, held back by the mule which was tangled under the tongue. Seraphine caught the back of the wagon and threw herself in. Tearing through the jumble of bedding she found the baby and clasped him in her arms. He was completely unperturbed, and gave her a bright-eyed smile!
Seraphine proved herself to be a true pioneer, this was especially evident a month later when they were caught in a blizzard on Grey Mesa, the ridge high above the Colorado and San Juan rivers. There Olivia Larson gave birth to a baby boy while her husband, Mons, was trying to pitch a tent in the driving wind. Seraphine acted as midwife, and made Olivia as comfortable as circumstances would permit. The boy was names "Rio" after the river. (Mons Larson was later to become a relative when Seraphine's father took Mons' daughter Emma for a fifth wife after settling in Arizona.)
The trip they had expected to make in six weeks actually took over five months. They arrived on the present site of Bluff on April 6, 1880, too exhausted to go any further. But it was one of the greatest pioneering ventures of all time.
Editor's Note: After the 250 members of the San Juan Mission company arrived in southeastern Utah, some were released and resettled elsewhere. Mons Larson, who had not been called as a member of the group but had traveled with it in expectation of finding a shortcut across the Colorado, continued on to Arizona where he had previously taken his first family. His daughter Emma later married Jesse N. Smith, and his daughter Ellen married Jesse's son Silas D. Smith.
Silas S. Smith was released in 1882 as president of the San Juan group and was called the next year as the first president of the San Luis Stake in south-central Colorado.
Zack and Seraphine Decker moved on to Arizona in late 1881, joining Seraphine's parents
who had moved from Parowan to Snowflake. She died there in 1909 and he in 1939.
Source: "Pioneer Mother," by Cal Decker. The Kinsman, Summer 1880, pp. 6-8. (Mesa, Arizona:
Jesse N. Smith Family Association
Right-click [Mac Control-click] to open full-size image:
Emma Seraphine Smith Decker
Zechariah "Zack" Bruyn Decker, Jr.