John McNEIL and Mary Jane QUINN McNEIL:Pioneers Alone, by Wagon, Across the Plains
John McNEIL and Mary Jane QUINN McNEIL:
Pioneers Alone, by Wagon, Across the Plains
John McNeil, with his wife Margaret Jane Cavendish McNeil and their young son, immigrated from the Isle of Man to St. Louis, Missouri around 1853. Shortly thereafter, in 1854, his first wife died. He then met and married young Mary Jane Quinn, who had come as a 9-year-old Mormon convert with her family from Liverpool, England to the St. Louis area in 1849.
The couple had three children in St. Louis, and then prepared to move west to join the main body of Latter-day Saints in Utah. The family, including the young son from John McNeil's first marriage, left St. Louis in April, 1859, alone, and arrived in the Salt Lake valley in August, having traveled more than 1700 miles by themselves. Their stories, including journal excerpts, follow.
John's second wife is born:
In 1840, some seven years before John McNeil's first marriage to Margaret Jane CAVENDISH, a child was born in Liverpool, England named Mary Jane Quinn. She would later become John McNeil’s second wife.
In a document named, "The Life Story of Mary Jane Quinn McNeil" it says the following: "The first year of the Great Potato famine in Ireland was 1840. Mary Jane’s parents and other members of the family emigrated to England."
Mary Jane’s eldest sister, Elizabeth Ann, died in November 1846. The same year (1848) that John Edward McNeil (only child of Margaret Jane Cavendish McNeil and John McNeil) was born, Mary Jane Quinn was baptized, 18 May 1848.
Quinn family settles in St. Louis:
In March of 1849, 3 months after the birth of John and Margaret Jane McNeil’s son, Mary Jane Quinn went from Liverpool, England to New Orleans, Louisiana on the ship, "Hartley". Mary Jane Quinn was, at the time, 9 years of age according to ship records.
Mary Jane Quinn's family settled about 10 miles out in the suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri. Thomas Quinn, her father, was a blacksmith by trade and made squares and snaps for halters and bridles during the Civil War. (The Civil War didn't happen for quite some time after Mary Jane and John McNeil were married and had left St. Louis).
John McNeil marries Mary Jane Quinn and has more children:
John McNeil married Mary Jane Quinn on 14 December 1854 in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri. (John McNeil's first wife, Margaret Jane Cavendish McNeil, had died 27 June, 1854 in St. Louis, Missouri. According to an account of the life of John Edward McNeil, "John later met and married Mary Jane Quinn in September of 1854. Little John Edward had a mother again, a very kind and good one.")
Mary Jane Quinn (shown here in later pictures from Utah) was married to John McNeil when she was 14 years old and he was 31 years old. She was a mother at the age of 15. When she was 18 she was the mother of 3 children. John and Mary Jane had the following children in Missouri:
They had eight more children in Bountiful, Utah, for a total of 11 children). The children, with links to other web sites (where available) are listed at the end of this narrative.
John and Mary Jane lived in Banum Township, a suburb of St. Louis, where he made shoes and plated straw hats for plantation owners and for their slaves. John made shoes for their livelihood. He was paid very well for this.
Their sons, William and Thomas, were nearly the same size, being just 15 months apart. Mary Jane had a little wagon she used to put children in and walk ten miles to market. She would stay all night with her parents and return home the next day.
Their greatest desire was to go to the Great Salt Lake and they worked and planned to that end.
(Note about Mary Ann Smith, shown here later with John McNeil, who would eventually become John McNeil's third wife: When William Smith (Mary Ann Smith McNeil's father), had taken the trip from New York to St. Louis, Missouri in 1857, John and Mary Jane Quinn McNeil most likely lived in Banum Township, a suburb of St. Louis, and had the two oldest of their boys, Thomas and William Richard as well as John Edward (from John McNeil’s first marriage) who turned 9 in 1857. John Edward was about 9 years younger than his father’s second wife, Mary Jane. It appears that the William Smith family and the John McNeil family may have been living in St. Louis County, Missouri at the same time.)
The McNeil family prepares to leave for Utah
John McNeil prepared to make the trek to Utah in 1859. He helped the Saints repair their wagons and hand carts, and as a blacksmith aid, set and fit the iron tires. He stayed behind until he could supply himself with a wagon, two yoke of oxen, two heifers and a horse.
The following account is written by John McNeil’s 3rd wife, Mary Ann Smith McNeil, who appears to take excerpts from John McNeil’s own journal. Mary Ann Smith McNeil adds her comments parenthetically.
"I started April first in 1859 and crossed the plains with one wagon, two yoke of 3 year old steers, two yoke of heifers and some loose stock. The company consisted of myself, wife and four children. The company they should have started with, left before he got ready to go with them, but he (John McNeil) started out anyway (and this, I, Mary Ann Smith McNeil, 3rd wife, heard my husband tell our Bishop Hans Hansen of ShowLow) that when they got out quite a way from home, they came to where the roads forked and he stopped the team and said to his wife, Mary Jane, say I am going out there to pray to see which road to take and if ever you prayed in your life pray now and the first thought that comes into your mind that will be it. So when he got back to the wagon, he said have you got it and she was crying but nodded and pointed straight ahead and he said that's me, so they started on again and when they had went quite a long way on the road, they were met by a large band of Indians and they stopped them but as they couldn't under stand one another, he told his wife to get a dishpan and fill it with crackers to give the Indians, as they were very much afraid of them and it took three pan full to go one cracker around and when that was done, about a dozen chiefs went off to themselves and talked it over and when they came back, they motioned for them to move on. I sure think there was the hand of the Lord in the way they were preserved from being destroyed.
Said they traveled about 1700 miles and arrived in Utah all well and camped on the bench just below where Camp Douglas now stands, August first 1859 and did rejoice and thanked the Lord for preserving our lives to see the Valley of the Mountains, the gathering place of the saints. On the second we camped where the Bathhouse now stands. On the 4th we went to Bountiful and lived by Daniel Woods and harvested for him the next five days and wintered there and purchased 10 acres off him. 1860, next year, purchased a city lot of George Hogan and next 1861 year bought a house and lot off William Wood and lived there until 1870 and made me a farm two miles at the mouth of what is called North Canyon creek."
At the end of the account Mary Ann Smith MCNEIL wrote, she commented about this event:
"Hoping this little bit of history will be published in the Era, as it is the only bit of history of any one family traveling across the plains all alone and coming through alive and well."
The following are the children of Mary Jane QUINN McNEIL and John McNEIL:
A complete timeline of the John MCNEIL family, including a
family picture taken at Mary Jane Quinn McNeil's funeral in September, 1910, may be found at http://www.oocities.org/iflk/mcneiltime.html. Other links may be found at http://www.oocities.org/iflk/mcneildiary.html, and here:This history was collected by Peter McDonald; you may contact him at
Peter_McD@msn.com for more information. If you are related to any of these people, please contact Peter or the webmaster of this site, (who is the great-granddaughter of Harriet Jeannette McNeil BRADSHAW), at confwriter@writeme.com or dakuhns@hotmail.comUpdated 8 May, 2002
