1. Eli Wiggell Eli Wiggell was born on November 5, 1811, in Painswick, Gloucs., England and went to South Africa with his parents in 1820. He married Susannah Bentley in 1831 in Grahamstown, South Africa by the Rev. William Shaw. He worked as a wagon maker in Grahamstown until the end of the Kaffir War of 1835. He then spent 2 years at Bathurst (1835-37), then worked at the shop of his brother George in Winterburg in 1838. From 1838 until 1842 he was a Wesleyan missionary to Bechuanaland, stationed in turn at Korrana, Mirametsue, and Thaba N’chu. He was with his father in the Winterburg from 1843 to 1845. They moved to Post Retief, Eli doing duty as a soldier and wagon maker. They had moved in from their farm in Winterberg, renting from Francis Parrott Bentley, Susannah’s father, to avoid the threat of the impending Kaffir War. They returned to their rented farm in 1847, but soon bought another farm from Mr. Bentley called Kaal Hock. Here they established a shop and dairy. They were again forced to take refuge in Post Retief in December of 1850 because of new rumors of war, only occasionally going out to the farm. In January, 1853, the family moved to a new farm granted to Eli for services in the Kaffir Wars. The site of their own choosing was on the Komani River, in a former mission station of the Bongolo Basin, just a few miles northeast of Queenstown. They named the farm Rockwood and established a grist mill and a wagon shop there.

2. While at Rockwood, in 1856, the Cattle Killing Delusion of Umhalakaza began, culminating in the great famine of February, 1857, in which thousands of natives starved to death. In that year the newspapers were filled with stories of Mormon missionaries in Capetown. It was also in that year that Eli traded part of his farm for a house in Queenstown belonging to his father-in-law, where the family lived for the next two years. In 1857, Eli was introduced, by his brother George, to one of the missionaries, William Holmes Walker. Eli later carried the message of Mormonism to two friends, Henry Talbot and Robert Wall. In 1858, Eli and his wife, journeyed to Winterburg to be baptized on March 1 by John Green. On June 1, 1858, following orders from Utah to rebaptize all the Saints, the entire Wiggel family was baptized all over again, in a river running down Rockwood Kloof, by John Wesley. At this time Eli was made an Elder. Eli continued his farming and wagon making until, in the spring of 1859, a flood washed Bongolo away. He then sold out for 1200 pounds to a Dutchman named Botha, and moved to Queenstown, where he and Henry Talbot took turns holding Mormon meetings. Robert Wall, baptized by Henry Talbot, died soon afterward, and, by his own request, was buried at Bongolo. A scandal , of some sort, ensued, stirred up by an irate Wesleyan preacher.

3. In April, 1860, Eli with his family, followed Henry Talbot to Port Elizabeth, arriving there May 14. Here he was appointed President of a Branch of forty members. Meetings were held three times a week in the Talbot home until a meeting house could be obtained. After eleven weeks of waiting, working at Church duties and his trade, Eli, and his family, along with the Talbots, embarked on the frigate, Race Horse, for America. They left on the afternoon of February 20, 1861, from Algoa Bay. The families arrived at East Boston, in the United States, on April 19, 1861, but stayed aboard a week until quarters were found on shore. After three weeks there and an additional three weeks in New Jersey, they traveled by rail to Florence, Nebraska. Here they joined the ox-team company of Homer Duncan. They crossed the plains that summer and arrived in Salt Lake City on September 28, 1861. In Salt Lake City the Wiggell family accepted the hospitality of Homer Duncan and shared his home in the Eleventh Ward. After several days, they rented a house in the Seventeenth Ward, and, in October, bought a four-bedroom house in the Fifteenth Ward near the Jordan River, for a new wagon and two yoke of oxen.

4. Eli worked at his trade all winter, and then, in the spring of 1862, after renting his home to his son, Jeremiah, he moved his family to Kaysville. He bought a thirty-acre farm, on Holmes Creek, near the Talbots, for four hundred dollars. There the family lived for three years. In 1864, he rented his farm to Thomas B. Talbot, a son-in-law, and returned to Salt Lake City to work at his trade. He sold the farm, in Kaysville, to Jeremiah in 1865. After Susannah died he married a lady from South Africa on October 2, 1869. With her consent, Eli departed on December 12, 1869 for a visit to his family in South Africa. His new wife stayed home with her four sons. He landed at Table Bay on March 24, 1870. He stayed there 3 years even working at his trade. He returned reaching Ogden on May 24, 1873. Shortly after he returned, he separated from his wife who had joined the Josephites. Eli remarried in 1874 to Mrs. Hammer, a widow, who outlived him. He died April 13, 1884 in Salt Lake City and was buried at Kaysville.

5. Charles Stuart Talbot & Descendants Charles Stuart Talbot was born August 5, 1840 at Grahamstown, South Africa, son of Henry Talbot and Ruth Sweetham. With his father’s family, he soon after lived at Salem, in the Zuurveld, when Henry was a freighter (hauler of merchandise by wagon), possibly between Grahamstown and Port Elizabeth. Then, in succession, the family lived on farms in the Winterburg in the Fort Beaufort District, at Battle Gat and Volver Fontaine in the Cradock District, and at Whitelsea in the Queenstown District. Nothing is known of how Henry acquired or disposed of these farms. On October 28, 1853 Henry was awarded a 5000 acre estate called Wellington on the Thorn River some miles south of Cathcart. The government granted him this farm on the edge of Kaffir Country, in the Amatola Range, as a reward for his services in the recent War of the Cattle killing Delusion, and largely because he had ten sons with whom to defend the frontier. Ruth, however, was unhappy in this situation, because she feared the destruction of her family in future wars. About 1858 the first Mormon missionaries appeared in the region. Without seeing the missionaries, the Henry Talbot family was converted by reading tracts brought to them by a friend, Eli Wiggell who was then living in the Winterburg. Charles was baptized and confirmed June 27, 1858, by John Wesley, possibly at Queenstown. He was then going on 18.

6. The following year, 1859, his father sold Wellington, for a sizable down payment, and moved his family to Port Elizabeth, on Algoa Bay, with the intention of sailing at once for America. The purchaser of his farm was supposed to send future payments on to America, but not one cent was ever collected of his outstanding debt. At Port Elizabeth, no boats were immediately available, so the Talbot and Wiggell families rented houses, and settled down for the next 18 months. In the meantime, they conducted regular church meetings, often using the Talbot home as a meeting house. During this time, some of the children got their first formal schooling. Some of the older boys, however, including Henry James, Thomas B., and perhaps even Charles, had, on occasion, been sent to Grahamstown during the winter months to attend school. Finally, on February 28, 1861, the Talbots and Wiggells set sail for America on the frigate, Race Horse. During the sea voyage, there were terrible storms, and at one time the ship almost floundered. They arrived at East Boston about April 20 and stayed in rented houses for 3 weeks, then stayed in New jersey for 3 weeks waiting for more emigrants. They then traveled by train, in a cattle-car, by way of Chicago, to Florence, Nebraska. There they were outfitted and joined the wagon train of Homer Duncan. They crossed the plains arriving at Salt Lake City on September 28, 1861. The two families spent the winter in Salt Lake City and the following spring moved to Kaysville where they secured farms. Henry Talbot bought a 40 acre farm with a small log house already on it from Lou Whitesides.

7. Because of the threat of Johnson's army, Brigham Young advised that all couples who were old enough should get married. Therefore, Charles and Rosanna Marie drove to Salt Lake City, by ox team, to the Old Endowment House on Temple Square. They were married, endowed, and sealed on July 5, 1862 by Wilford Woodruff. He had already been ordained a Seventy, on December 22, 1861, by Samuel Henderson, and was a member of the First Quorum of Seventies. The Charles Talbot family made their home in Kaysville for several years. Between 1863 and 1875, seven children were born, the first being Charles Henry and the last Venie June. The next child, Annie May, was born in Leamington in 1881. They probably moved to Leamington in 1877. Thomas B. Talbot, an older brother to Charles, had already gone there in 1874 and then moved to Oak City in 1883. Charles received his citizenship certificate on September 14, 1882 at Leamington. Charles and family were still there in 1886 when Elizabeth was born. He then followed Thomas B. to Oak City where Ester Ruth was born in 1890. His last move was to Hinckley, Utah in 1905 where he lived until his death. Charles was a farmer and stockman most of his life. He was a good provider and a loving husband and father. He liked his pipe and was a good musician. For years, he and his son, Joseph, played violin and banjo for the dances in Leamington and Oak City, usually accompanied on the organ by Charles W. Rawlinson or Maggie Finlinson. Charles also loved to whittle with a pocketknife.

8. He made little model oxen, and covered wagons. A chain he carved out of a solid block of wood was presented to the museum on Temple Square. He also loved to construct sailing ships inside glass bottles. Charles died October 29, 1919 at age 79 in Hinckley, Utah. He was buried November 1, at Oak City.

9. History of Rosanna (Rose) Marie Wiggell Talbot Rose was born August 31, 1846 at Post Retief, Fort Beaufort District, South Africa, near the beautiful Winterburg region. She was the daughter of Eli Wiggell and Susannah Bentley. At the time of her birth, the family was living within Post Retief while her father was doing duty as a soldier and wagon maker. They had moved in from their farm in Winterberg, renting from Francis Parrott Bentley, Susannah’s father, to avoid the threat of the impending Kaffir War. They returned to their rented farm in 1847, but soon bought another farm from Mr. Bentley called Kaal Hock. Here they established a shop and dairy. They were again forced to take refuge in Post Retief in December of 1850 because of new rumors of war, only occasionally going out to the farm. In January, 1853, the family moved to a new farm granted to Eli for services in the Kaffir Wars. The site of their own choosing was on the Komani River, in a former mission station of the Bongolo Basin, just a few miles northeast of Queenstown. They named the farm Rockwood and established a grist mill and a wagon shop there. One of the memories Rose Marie had of Africa was of the baboons that came to eat holes in the squash. One day as she and her sister were playing her sister shouted a warning to her. As she looked up she saw a Boa Constrictor coiled up ready to seize her. She remembers the cleanliness of the native servants and the childish pranks they played on them. One, in particular, was lying on

10. one’s back, with feet in the air, holding a broom stick between one’s feet with the broom stick dressed up as a woman facing up. The sudden bowing of the broom stick woman, and the sitting up of the real person, caused great fear among the little servant girls. She remembered the homes of the natives made of straw and plastered on the outside. There were ant hills several feet high, wild fruit, and a sense of peace and plenty. While at Rockwood, in 1856, the Cattle Killing Delusion of Umhalakaza began, culminating in the great famine of February, 1857, in which thousands of natives starved to death. In that year the newspapers were filled with stories of Mormon missionaries in Capetown. It was also in that year that Eli traded part of his farm for a house in Queenstown belonging to his father-in-law, where the family lived for the next two years. In 1857, Eli was introduced, by his brother George, to one of the missionaries, William Holmes Walker. Rose Marie later said that upon hearing the truth her father was enlightened at once. She had a memory of two little stools on either side of the fireplace where she and a sister sat far into the night listening to the Mormon Elders discussing with her parents about the vital message of Mormonism. She remembered a Brother Wall who walked a long distance each Sunday to be at the meetings, and when he died, he was buried on the Wiggell farm by his own request.

11. Eli later carried the message of Mormonism to two friends, Henry Talbot and Robert Wall. In 1858, Eli and his wife, journeyed to Winterburg to be baptized on March 1 by John Green. On June 1, 1858, following orders from Utah to rebaptize all the Saints, the entire Wiggel family was baptized all over again, in a river running down Rockwood Kloof, by John Wesley. At this time Eli was made an Elder. Eli continued his farming and wagon making until, in the spring of 1859, a flood washed Bongolo away. He then sold out for 1200 pounds to a Dutchman named Botha, and moved to Queenstown, where he and Henry Talbot took turns holding Mormon meetings. Robert Wall, as mentioned before, who was baptized by Henry Talbot, died soon afterward, and, by his own request, was buried at Bongolo. A scandal , of some sort, ensued, stirred up by an irate Wesleyan preacher. In April, 1860, Eli with his family, followed Henry Talbot to Port Elizabeth, arriving there May 14. Here he was appointed President of a Branch of forty members. Meetings were held three times a week in the Talbot home until a meeting house could be obtained. After eleven weeks of waiting, working at Church duties and his trade, Eli, and his family, along with the Talbots, embarked on the frigate, Race Horse, for America. They left on the afternoon of February 20, 1861, from Algoa Bay.

12. The families arrived at East Boston, in the United States, on April 19, 1861, but stayed aboard a week until quarters were found on shore. After three weeks there and an additional three weeks in New Jersey, they traveled by rail to Florence, Nebraska. Here they joined the ox-team company of Homer Duncan. They crossed the plains that summer and arrived in Salt Lake City on September 28, 1861. In Salt Lake City the Wiggell family accepted the hospitality of Homer Duncan and shared his home in the Eleventh Ward. After several days, they rented a house in the Seventeenth Ward, and, in October, bought a four-bedroom house in the Fifteenth Ward near the Jordan River, for a new wagon and two yoke of oxen. Eli worked at his trade all winter, and then, in the spring of 1862, after renting his home to his son, Jeremiah, he moved his family to Kaysville. He bought a thirty-acre farm, on Holmes Creek, near the Talbots, for four hundred dollars. There the family lived for three years. In 1864, he rented his farm to Thomas B. Talbot, a son-in-law, and returned to Salt Lake City to work at his trade. He sold the farm, in Kaysville, to Jeremiah in 1865.

13. Rosanna Marie had been with the family until they reached Kaysville. From the time of her sister, Margret’s, wedding to Thomas B. Talbot, on June 13, 1861, at Florence, Nebraska, her own romance had been budding. She had been singled out by another of the Talbot boys, Charles Stuart, as his future bride. When joshed by another girl in the company, Charles always replied, with a nod toward Rosanna: “No; I’m waiting for her to grow up!” So, on the advice of Brigham Young, that all who were old enough should get married, this young couple drove by ox-wagon to Salt Lake City and, on July 5, 1862, at the old Endowment House, were married, endowed, and sealed by Wilford Woodruff. Rose Marie had on a white blue dotted dress, tall button shoes, and wore a plain gold ring. Thereafter, her husband’s life was her life, and all his moves were her moves. They lived, in turn, at Kaysville, Leamington, Oak City, and Hinkley. At Leamington they lost three children to diphtheria, during an epidemic in the fall of 1882 and winter of 1883. In her earlier days, she made rugs out of bits of bright cloth, and one, a U.S. flag, which she sent to Governor Dern, was placed by him in the State Capitol. (The flag now lies folded in a display case in the Daughters of the Pioneers Museum near the capitol building.)

14. Rose and her husband, Charlie, were quite compatible and happy together. After his death, in 1919, she went to live with her daughter, Annie May, and husband, William H. Walker, in Sutherland, Utah. There she had a nice room and, to maintain her independence, did her own washing and cleaning, and read and wrote without wearing glasses. Her fine sense of color and harmony showed constantly in her arrangements of shells and the paper flowers she used to make. Rose carefully observed the Word of Wisdom, and attributed her good health at the age of ninety to this fact. She always drank Mormon tea in hot hater and milk. Late in life, she took an airplane ride while on a visit to California. At a party in honor of her ninetieth birthday, she danced a jig and sang on the program. She married at just a month under sixteen, and had been privileged to spend more than fifty-seven years and four months with her husband. After his death, she lived a little more than twenty-six years. She died April 8, 1943 at age ninety-six at Sutherland, Utah. She was taken back to Oak City to be buried next to her husband on April 10. At the time of her death she had 60 grandchildren, 125 great grandchildren, and 5 great great grandchildren. Written by Kenneth Larson Feb. 6, 1959

15. History of Margret Alice Wiggell Talbot’s Life Margret Alice Wiggell Talbot was born October 11, 1843 in Winterburg, South Africa. She was the sixth child of a family of nine children and the daughter of Eli and Susannah Bently Wiggell. Her parents were about seven or eight years old when they left England to come to Africa. They were some of the first settlers to go to South Africa. They went as volunteers to help colonize and settle the uncivilized country in the year 1820. They settled on the beach of Alego Bay, among the natives to make homes the best they could. The natives were very hostile. Many of the white settlers were killed and suffered terrible hardships. This place was later called Salem. When Margret Alice was very young, her family was compelled to leave their comfortable home, which they had worked hard for, to travel to Post Retief when war broke out with the natives. Their home in Salem was burned to the ground. They soon became the first settlers in Queenstown district. About this time, Margret Alice’s brother was captured by natives and endured a terrifying time before their mother retrieved him. In 1853 the Mormon Elders came. They had meetings every Sunday and many of the towns folk stayed for dinner prepared the day before. Among the Elders was William Walker (Simon Walker’s grandfather). The family was converted right away and were baptized by John Greene. Their great desire was to join the saints in Zion. They traveled to Port Elizabeth where they waited a year for a vessel that would take them to the United States.

16. They set sail on the 28th day of February 1861 and were on the ocean fifty-one days. About the middle of their voyage they met with a fierce storm which almost sank their ship. At one point the captain gave up and said, “It’s all off boys!” The families were locked down in their rooms to die in a watery grave. The ship listed to it’s side while the sailors pumped water out as fast as they could. Finally the ship rallied and all came out all right. The captain said it was the two Mormon families, on board, that saved it. He said that he had held his position for forty years and had never seen such a terrible storm. They landed in Boston, in April, and laid up there for three weeks for more emigrants. Then they traveled to New Jersey and stayed there for three more weeks. It was then off to Florence, Nebraska where they got their ox teams and were outfitted to cross the plains. It was at Florence that Margret Alice married Thomas B. Talbot who was part of the other family they had sailed with. They were married the 13th of June, 1861. The couple spent a three month honeymoon on the plains which was greatly enjoyed. The families came in Homer Duncan’s company. Homer was a very fine man, good and kind. When they came to a place where there was plenty of wood and water, they would wash, bake, and cook. Margret Alice would gather currants and make pies. They brought their cows along and had milk and butter all the way. The cream of the milk was churned to butter by the shake of the wagon. By the time they reached a place to camp there would be a ball of butter in the milk.

17. They arrived in Salt Lake on September 28, 1861. They stayed in the 11th Ward that winter and went on to Layton in the spring. In the early summer they came back to Salt Lake to take out their endowments on June 28, 1862. July 7th their oldest son was born who died seven months later. While in Layton, two sons and a daughter were born. Their means were pretty much exhausted by the time they arrived in a new country and crossed the plains. Margret Alice sold her wedding ring, a beautiful gold one, to help buy the necessities of life. She also had her hair cut off and received five dollars for it, since it had been almost to her knees. She would do cleaning with her baby either tied on her back or left laying under the oak brush with her apron covered over him for shade. She would thrash the grain on a canvas by beating it with a stick and letting the chaff blow off with the wind. She then carried it three miles to the store to sell it for twenty-five cents a bushel. She would pay a dollar for factory cloth and twenty-five cents for a spool of thread. The family then moved to West Jordan for a short period while two sons were born. They then moved to Lemington, in southern Utah, in 1874.. This was a very rough place where they had tough times pioneering. Here Margret Alice would gather sage brush and burn it to ash to make lye for soap. While in Lemington two daughters were born. They both died very young from diphtheria within four days of each other. The following spring their son died of the same disease. Margret Alice served as choir leader and as a Relief Society teacher.

18. They finally moved to Oak City about 1878. Here they were to stay for the rest of their lives. This was also a rough outpost taking a lot of hard work to make a home. Their youngest daughter was born here bringing the total to nine children, six of them preceding them in death. Margret Alice was a Relief Society Teacher here, for twenty five years, helping the poor and needy. In Oak City they had a lot of trouble. Two of their sons died within eleven weeks of each other, both leaving families. At the time of the writing of this history Margret Alice and Thomas were in their late sixties and still pretty well for their age. Thomas B. died November 4, 1929 Margret Alice died January 4, 1933 Written by Clara E. Talbot