Lisania Fuller Whitmer
LISANIA FULLER HISTORICAL PROFILE
Lisania Fuller was born 25 January 1827 (some sources say 1828) in Cambria, Niagara County, New York. She was the oldest daughter of Lucius Hubbard Fuller (26 years old) and Experience Case (22 years old). She was the first of five children born to her parents. Her father’s people were of the old Puritan stock from Hartford, Connecticut and along the Atlantic seaboard. She is of the direct line of Samuel J. Fuller, who was the ship’s surgeon and physician on the Mayflower. Her mother’s people were from Michigan and accounted quite wealthy for those times.
New York was one of the last northern states to abolish slavery, but the year of Lisania’s birth slavery was outlawed and all slaves in the region had been freed. The family moved from Niagara, New York to Pontiac, Michigan about 1829. That same year Lisania’s little sister Dianah was born.
While a toddler Lisania lived through the Second Great Awakening, a Protestant revival movement prompted by deteriorating religious excitement and a lack of faithful devotion in the United States, numerous preachers traveled the country and gave lectures to crowds assembled in large camp meetings to rekindle faith among Americans.
This new-found religious fervor produced thousands of new members in existing churches and also formed the foundation of new denominations such as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which Lisania would later join.
In November 1832, when Lisania was 5 years old, her little brother Lyman was born. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to Iowa where the land was affordable and touted as being exceptionally fertile. They remained there until 1838 when they moved to Far West, Missouri where her little brother Lucius was born on 18 August 1838.
By 1844, Lisania’s parents and family were living in Warsaw, Illinois, just outside of Nauvoo. Here in May of 1844 her youngest brother Josephus was born. Lisania was 17 years old at the time. One month later Lisania married Hyrum Judd who was 19 at the time.
Lisania’s parents lived in Warsaw at the time of her marriage to Hyrum Judd. Warsaw was about fourteen miles from Carthage jail, where the Prophet Joseph was killed. Hyrum Judd worked as a teamster for Lucius H. Fuller and asked for the hand of his daughter. Lisania’s father is said to have objected to the marriage because of Hyrum’s
religion. This could explain why Hyrum and Lisania went across the river to Iowa to be married. Lisania was married to Hyrum Judd on 27 June 1844 in Churchville, Iowa, the night Joseph and Hyrum Smith were martyred in Carthage jail. The following year Lisania’s father passed away in Warsaw at the age of 44.
After their marriage, they lived at Colesville, Illinois and other places before moving to Council Bluffs with the Saints. Lisania was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ. in June of 1846 after they reached Council Bluffs. Her husband was a member prior to this time. From then on they cast their lot with the saints, sharing their hardships and drivings.
Hyrum and Lisania and their three-week-old baby daughter Clara Adelia, born 25 January 1846, were among the Saints who left Nauvoo in February of 1846. The journey was hard, and the conditions severe for adults. The old and the very young often died. Their little Clara was among those who died somewhere on the trail between Sugar Creek and Council Bluffs on 25 March 1846. They would have received word that Lisania’s mother too had passed away back in Warsaw, on 2 March 1846, at the young age of 40. Lisania had lost both her parents and a child by the age of 18.
They were camped at Council Bluffs, Iowa when the call was made for volunteers to recruit the Mormon Battalion. Hyrum enlisted in the Mormon Battalion in July 1846 as a teamster in Company E and took one of the first wagons across the Continent. Lisania stayed in Council Bluffs through the winter where she suffered greatly from cold, hunger and sickness, often without shelter. Just seven months after Hyrum left, on 7 February 1847, her second child Hyrum Jerome was born in a wagon box on a cold February night. The hardships she endured were almost past believing. She made buckskin gloves and men’s pants to help sustain herself and the child.
In the spring she made her way back to Warsaw, Illinois where she stayed until Hyrum came for her a year later.
Her father had died in April 1845 and her mother in 1846. Her two young brothers Lucius H., Jr. And Josephus had been placed with the family doctor as their guardian in May 1846.
Hyrum Judd was discharged in California and immediately left for Utah to join the Saints, expecting to find Lisania there. He arrived in Salt Lake in September or October 1847, and left a few days later for Council Bluffs. He did not get there until December and then had to journey on to Warsaw to find Lisania. It is not known how long they stayed in Warsaw, but they were in Kanesville, Iowa when their daughter Jane Lucinda was born 2 May 1849. Her little brother, Lucius Hubbard Fuller, Jr. Was with them as they crossed the plains to Salt Lake City in the fall of 1849.
They settled in Farmington, where she bore her fourth child and second son Arza on 10 January 1851. Later that year she was sealed on 7 July 1851 to Hyrum Judd. in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City. Another son, Don would be born on 27 July 1852. He was her fifth child. Then another son, Ira was born on 13 June 1856, while they were still living in Farmington.
Late, in 1855, Jacob Hamblin, Hyrum’s brother-in-law, and others were called to settle the Santa Clara area near St. George in Washington County. Hyrum Judd was called by the Church to join Jacob Hamblin in 1857. On 13 April 1857 a seventh child Ammon was born. Hyrum must have left his family in Farmington for a time, while Lisania was recovering from the birth of Ammon, and then returned for them later, because the entire family stayed in Farmington until the approach of Johnson’s Army in 1858. On 8 February 1848 Lisania bore her eighth child, named after Lucius, down in Santa Clara. She was 31 at the time. Lisania’s little brother Lucius followed her south, settling in Santa Clara, Utah and remaining there until his death in 1896.
In Santa Clara, they were said to have built a home and set out an orchard. But a great flood came and took it all away.
Life in communities along the Virgin River centered around water or the lack of it. Water was precious and had to be used with care. Household water was carried in barrels daily, which were filled before 7 a.m. when the cattle were brought to the river to drink. Wastewater was carefully collected to be given to the chickens or to water plants in the year. Saturday bath water graciously served more than one person and was later used to wash out sox or overalls before wiping up the floor.
On 21 January 1860, Lisania’s third daughter and ninth child was born into the family. The following year news was heard that the bloodiest conflict in American history began back east between the northern and southern states. The American Civil War claimed the lives of over 600,000 Americans. The members of Lisania’s community were protected from the ravages of this war as they were settling a territory of the United States not participating in the war. On 13 February 1862, Lisania’s fourth daughter and tenth child, Esther Diana, was born. The following year on 10 March 1863, Her eleventh child Anna was born while still living in Santa Clara.
In the spring of 1864, the Church leaders suggested that some of the families leave the overcrowded Santa Clara settlement and go to some valleys 75 miles northwest where it was suitable for dairy farms. This time Hyrum and his family settled in Meadow Valley (now Panaca near Pioche, Nevada), established a dairy business, and built another house.
In 1865 he received another call to help settle the community of Eagle Valley 20 miles north in Lincoln County. On 13 January 1865 their twelfth child and eighth son Daniel was born while the family was living in Ursine, Lincoln, Nevada. 4 months later on 15 April 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, 5 days after the official end of the Civil War.
Around that same time, Lisania and her family mourned the passing of their daughter Anna at the young age of 2. Three years later, while still in Lincoln County, their thirteenth child and ninth son Perry (Lyman Perry) was born on 20 September 1868. Then on 22 February 1871 Lisania bore her final child and tenth son Lafayette (Lafe) at the age of 44. Her child bearing years were over.
The spring of 1871 found them on the move again, 200 miles away to Kanab, Kane, Utah. Hyrum decided he would rather live in Panguitch than Kanab, so they loaded up again, arriving in Panguitch and the headwaters of the Sevier river in the fall of 1871. Their first home there was in the Old Fort. When land was plotted, the Judds acquired a full block. With the help of his boys, Hyrum built a comfortable home on one corner, and as the boys married, they built houses on the other corners.
Lisania had one of the first sewing machines in Panguitch. An agent from Salt Lake City came selling sewing machines. He had a light spring wagon and team. One of his horses got sick and died. Hyrum had some nice horses, so he traded one of them for a machine. The ladies from all around came to see and try it out.
In January 1876, Hyrum was called to leave his comfortable home and go back to the frontier to help settle the Little Colorado Mission in Arizona. What they could not carry in the wagons was sold or given away. They departed in October 1876 for a journey of nearly three months. When they arrived in the United Order settlement of Sunset, they stayed a while and then joined the colony. They had quarters at one corner of the fort. This was Indian territory, and they all lived inside the fort.
In June 1878, Lisania went back to Panguitch with her sons Frank, Lucius, Perry, Lafe and daughter Jane (shortly after the death of Jane’s husband). In 1879 Hyrum went back to Panguitch and took Mary Bowman as a plural wife. She was a young Swiss immigrant (Maria Bauman) about 18 years of age. They were married in the St. George Temple.
In 1880 Hyrum came to Panguitch again to get outfitted for another trip further into Arizona. This time he persuaded Lisania and the rest of the family to go with him. They went first to Sunset, arriving there about the first of December. This was a great family reunion, as they had not all been together for over three years.
In 1881 The entire family, including Hyrum’s second wife, Mary, moved to the Gila River Valley after the United Order at Sunset was disbanded. They went to a town called Smithville 12 miles from Fort Thomas. The first thing they did was to build a house, which was made from cottonwood logs standing up stockade fashion. The roof and the floor were both dirt. A big shed in front of the house covered with willow and brush provided some shade. The town had only one well, so water was a problem. They hauled their water from the well on “lizards” made from forked mesquite with a place fixed for the barrel. They would hitch up a horse to this and drag it to the well and back. There was a heavy growth of mesquite brush in the town when the Judds arrived, and there were no streets.
Life on the Gila was fraught with many dangers. The country was full of outlaws and bad men. Their horses and cattle were stolen. The Apache Indians who were supposed to be on a reservation 2 miles from there would steal out in small bands and make war on the settlers, driving off horses and cattle, often killing members of the colony.
In the mid 1880s polygamy became illegal in the U.S. and Church authorities advised polygamists to move their families to Mexico. Hyrum and his second wife Mary and some of his children went on to the Mexican Colonies. Lisania chose to stay with her younger sons in Arizona.
She did go to Mexico once with her son Lafe for a visit, stayed about a year, and then returned to the states. Hyrum died suddenly in Mexico in 1894. On 8 January 1895 she submitted an application for a Mexican War widow’s pension. She got her first payment in May 1906 for the sum of $12 per month.
On 30 August 1898 Lisania’s oldest son Hyrum Jerome passed away while living in the Mexican Colonies at the age of 51.
As she was nearing the end of her life, Lisania said goodbye to her son Lucius who died at the age of 56 in 1914. Then, just preceding her in death was her son Don who died at the age of 64 in 1917.
After the marriage of her youngest son, Lafayette (Lafe), she moved with him to Idaho on 30 August 1911, where she lived in Burley until October 17, 1917, she died at the home of her son Arza, at the advanced age of (90) ninety years. She was buried in Burley Idaho 20 Oct 1917.
In the final decades of her life Lisania would witness the invention of the radio, the automobile, and hear about man taking flight for the first time. She would learn about the tragic sinking of the Titanic, and finally watch as first Europe and then the rest of the world descended into the madness of World War I. She would pass away before it was resolved.
Lisania was the mother of 14 children and had moved just about the same number of times since reaching Utah. She left a posterity of about (400) four hundred souls. She died as she had lived, “True to the Faith”. Her life was spent in service to humanity. A typical pioneer– unafraid of hardships and dangers of frontier life. As wife, mother and home builder she had few equals, and there were none better. Her name is held in fond remembrance, and honored by a host of friends, both living and dead. Through the sacrifice and fortitude of such women was it possible to settle the Rocky Mountains.