JAMES THOMAS BEARD, Jr. (1889-1969)
I was born on November 3, 1889 at Coalville, Utah, the son of James Thomas Beard, Sr. and Mary Goodworth Beard. I had a sister, Mary Ann, nicknamed Mayme, who was one year and nine months older than I.
We lived on Grass Creek, Utah near Coalville, for about 10 ½ years. While we were in Grass Creek I had many memorable times. I used to go to Jed Lambert’s sawmill in Weber Canyon with Pa to learn and watch until I was old enough to help in the logging.
When I was about 6 years old, I went with Pa to the mill and helped drive the ox teams to skid the logs. Ma would pack an axe along and cut knots and limbs from the logs and she’d help me hook the heavy logs for skidding. While Ma was helping at the sawmill, Mayme was at home cooking and tending the other kids, Will, Dick, Joe, and the baby Jody.
In the summer months we moved to Lambert’s sawmill in the canyon so we could be near the work. We made our home in tents mostly, and sometimes in a log cabin. Ma had a garden that we lived from, and she stored some food for the winter. The kids and Ma picked elder berries, choke cherries and other wild fruit to bottle for the winter.
I remember on the 4th and 24th of July, we’d get to go to Kamas for the celebrations. I remember seeing the Indians run horse races with the white men. Sometimes the Indians won and sometimes the white men did. It was never one sided; most often a toss up between the two.
Sometimes the Indians would come to Grandma Goodworth’s door begging for food. I can still see Grandma splitting a loaf of bread lengthwise and spreading sugar on it, and the Indians would go away and eat it. They were never mean, just hungry and in search of food. The Indians would come down to Grass creek to the railroad and sit along the tracks like “black birds” and wait for the train. When it finally came they climbed up and sat on top of the cars and would ride up toward Park City.
In the winter lots of times Pa would run out of hay for the cattle, and he and I would go to Kamas with two racks and sleighs, and the ox teams. I would drive one outfit along as best I could alongside Pa. We would go one day and stay overnight with Grandma Goodworth and return to Grass creek the next day. This was when I was between the ages of 7 and 8 years old.
The mountain lions were bad in those days. Pa had a Clydesdale colt that he praised highly and took great pride in. One night the colt was killed and another was attacked, because the next morning we could see the claw marks over his rump. It seemed as though the lions preferred the tender meat of the colts to that of the other horses, because they were never harmed.
Pa hauled coal from the mines to the railroads during the winter months with the oxen. He got out of bed in the middle of the night lots of times, so he could get to the mines ahead of the men with horses and get back to the railroad on time.
Another baby girl, Sara was born in Coalville in 1899, just 8 months before the move to Idaho. Pa figured that if we moved to Wilford, Idaho we could acquire more land that wasn’t taken up, and it would mean better opportunities for our growing families. So, on the 8th of June, 1900 we started out for Idaho. Pa bought two horses, a saddle horse and a Shetland pony to drive the stock and cattle with, which numbered about 20 head. There was 3 yoke of oxen, “Brig and Dan” that I drove, and Pa drove 2 yoke on his wagon. “Star and Ben” and “Brod and Red” were worked in the lead. The two wagons were loaded with all our possessions and provisions to last us our trip and get us started in Idaho.
The Elijah Allen family traveled with us on our trip til we got out of Echo Canyon and to Randolph, and then the Allen family left and went on up ahead and left their son, Albert behind to drive their cattle along with ours. He and my brother Will drove the cattle most of the time. At Randolph we stopped to get the oxen shawed. Pa knew the blacksmith there, a Mr. Stonebreaker.
Then we went from there to the head of Bear Lake. As we were going down to the Bear Lake we had to rough lock the wagon wheels to go down the steep hill because there wasn’t any kind of road, just a saddle trail. I remember this very well, because on my wagon was bed steads and furniture and some of it got smashed up with the skidding and sliding of the wagon.
We drove on to the west side of Bear Lake and camped there over night. The next morning when we got up we found that the people that lived there had strychnine poisoning out for squirrels. We lost two cows and some cows and a bull ox was sick. We had to layover for two or three days for the cattle to get well, and the ox could work.
When we left there we went down Bear river to Soda Springs country. We camped one night at Soda Springs. No one lived there then. We left there over the valleys and hills on the road over to the Snake River. It took several days to travel this far. We camped at Snake River over night. The next morning we went to catch the horses and we couldn’t find them. Pa and another feller crossed the Snake River on the bridge and looked the brush over. About noon two guys from Lorenzo rode into camp. Pa asked if they’d seen our saddle horses. They said they had and they’d bring them back for $10.00. Pa gave the money and they returned the horses. We hitched up and left there by afternoon and traveled toward Wilford country. It was all sage brush then. I don’t remember how many days it took to go to Wilford, but we arrived in July.
When we got to Wilford we went to Aunt Maryanna Birch’s. She was Pa’s sister. We stayed there that night, but Albert Allen moved his cattle on to his parent’s place in Wilford. The next morning we went on up to the “Shane Ranch” that Pa and Ma had bought. They paid $1600 for 160 acres at $10.00 an acre. This is where we stayed and made our home. There was a little dirt roof cabin about 12’ X 16’ long. And there was also a granary there.
We farmed that year and there was some hay on the place. We hired Augusta Johnson to cut the hay. They were our neighbors that lived close by.
That fall the whole family packed up and moved to the Buttes on the north fork of the Snake River. We skidded logs off the Buttes for Fogg and Jacob Sawmill Company. They had a water mill at Warm River (they floated logs in the river) where it emptied into the Snake. We stayed up there about two months til the weather started to get cold. Then we went back to the ranch at East Wilford to spend the winter. We were moving out across the river from the bottom, and that night we camped at Warm River. We had to stay there a day or two to get settled up on the log sealing. Then we started out for home. We got as far as where the little town of Ashton is now and we had to camp there because of the wind and blizzard that came up. We’d like to froze to death that night out on that flat – we had to sleep under the wagon with the wind whip those canvases. No one lived there then and the nearest people were at Marysville where some people name Gouths ran a little store. The next morning it had cleared up and we built fires with wood we hauled along with us and went on home.
Christmas was spent at Wilford where we went to programs and parties. We kids got a few toys and clothes for Christmas and we were very tickled over them. They had a school house about ½ mile from our place and all of us but the baby Jody went to school there. There was quite a few other kids that went to school there, too. Some of them were young men about 18 or 19 years old that lived in that vicinity that didn’t want to go to school, so they tore the end out of the old school house. So we didn’t have school for a year or so after that.
Sometimes Pa and us kids would haul timber off the mountain above Canyon Creek and take it down to Sidoways Sawmill at Teton City. Sometimes Pa’d go up the Teton River to Moose Bottoms and I’d get to go with him. I’d drive one ox yoke and he’d drive two on sleighs. This was in 1901. In the spring when the ice in the river was breaking up we had to ford the river in two places. Pa got his rig across the river in with his two yokes. I was back in a ways, riding an ox and leading the other. Big chunks of ice floated down the rivers from an eddy up above and hit an ox in the legs, and the other one I was riding had to drag the other ox and the sleigh til we got out of the river.
We were sure lucky, the whole bunch of us – it seemed like there was always some dangerous thing happening to us. But there was always some power with us to protect us from getting hurt.
Also that spring we’d go up to Moose Bottoms and camp a night or two. Beaver Dick and his family of Indians camped near there and sometimes we’d camp with them. After Beaver Dick died, his squaw married a white man by the name of Weaver, so Pa got him to help us cut logs and we’d load and haul them down to the mill.
When we could, we broke up a lot of ground in Wilford and put in hay and grain.
Fogg and Jacobs had built a boom on our place on the river to catch the logs that the high river was bringing down. So, we rented our ranch to Oscar Johnson and went to work for Fogg and Jacobs again on the Teton River. We had a contract to skid logs into the river so we moved the whole family up there. We lived in tents and made our camp just above where Canyon Creek empties into Teton River. We moved in before high water that spring. After we moved in the water got so high that we couldn’t ford the river with a light rig. We had to leave the buggy or buckboard up on top of the hill on the west side of Canyon Creek. When we had to go to town to St. Anthony for supplies, we would take the horses and hook up, and then, when we came home we’d have to pack the groceries down the hill to camp.
I remember we had to go across the river to cut some cottonwood. We worked there all day til night and we had to ford the river back. The river had risen awfully high that day. When we were coming back, we had two yoke of oxen on the rig up ahead and one yoke with the chains hooked around the back bunk on the wagon. The two men that cut the logs, Pa, Will, and me were all on the wagon. The water was so high it was almost to the top of the wagons. A big tree root was rolling down the river and the wagon had just gone past it, and the yoke of oxen that was hooked behind saw the root rolling into them, and they surge to get around the wagon and the chain happened to come unhooked. This saved us from tipping the wagon over and probably drowning.
We stayed at Canyon Creek til fall and we went back on the ranch to help harvest crops for our share.
We had traded six cows to Ezra Buttes for 80 acres that joined our place across the river. After we moved over there Elva was born on the 26th of August, 1902.
The next spring of 1903, Fogg and Jacobs moved a sawmill on to our place and sawed all the timber that had floated down the year before. They built a dump cart to haul the sawdust out. They had shoveled the sawdust into a cart and then hauled it out and dumped it using an old mare to pull the cart. I worked 10 hours a day and earned $1.50 a day for me and the mare, and I boarded myself. It seemed like a lot of money then, because they paid a feller $1.50 a day to cut logs.
Pa homesteaded 160 acres in 1904, about ½ mile up the river from Teton River Bridge at Little Hog Holler.
In 1905, on the 15th of October, Elmer was born on the homestead. We were working for Ed Morris and Gilmore and putting in logs at their sawmill.
The summer of 1906 Ma and Will, Dick, Sara, and Joe went up to Ed Morris mill with Pa, and Mayme, Jody and I stayed on the ranch and took care of that and the other places. We were working for Ed Morris at Dry Creek. We used to go up the hill from the DeCosta place and loaded logs on the wagons and fastened trees on behind to hold the truck back. We’d done this several times and hadn’t logged up the trees, but had just left them along side the road. DeCosta, the guy that owned the ground where we were leaving them, came home in the night and ran over the logs. They were in the way of his travel, and he was there the next morning to meet and stop the folks from going through there. Pa and Will and DeCosta got into an argument. DeCosta took after Pa with an axe. So, Will hit DeCosta across the mouth with a bull whip stock to keep him away from Pa, therefore saving his life. After that we quit logging for awhile til Morris settle the dispute.
One other time Will and I were riding down the west side of DeCosta’s place and Will shot at a rabbit with his old pistle. DeCosta thought he was shooting at him, and he shot back towards us. Fortunately he didn’t hit us and we went on our way.
The spring of 1907, people started to move in and homestead and dry farm in the Bitch Creek area to Badger Creek, Squirrel Creek, and Drummond and Felt. The land was really filled up, and we sold lumber to them. Mayme was married in 1907 to Alma Burrell and they lived on his place in Wilford. Morris owed Pa a lot of money for logging, so we bought the mill at Big Bitch Creek. Pa gave Morris some cows for the balance of the payment. Then we moved the mill over to Teepee Creek. Dave was born on the 7th of July, 1907. We ran the mill for two years there at Teepee Creek, til the winter of 1908 and 1909. Ileen was born on the 29th of December, 1909.
In September of 1910 we moved the mill from Teepee Creek to South Leigh Canyon in Wyoming. We got the mill set up and built a house and barn and sawed a lot of lumber that fall.
That winter in December of January 1911 the snow got so deep we had to close the mill down and we went back to the ranch in Wilford to spend the winter. In the spring we rented the ground and places in Wilford. One place was rented to Oscar Johnson. Tom Wilcox was running the saw for us til he quit to work for Bean in Darby Canyon. So, in 1912 I took over the saw and run it all the time after that.
The whole family of us moved back to the mill in South Leigh. Will, Joe, Dick and I moved the cattle from Wilford to the O’Brien place because we had bought hay there. Dick and Joe stayed there to tend the cattle, and Will and I went back to the mill to cut logs. The snow was still too deep to move the cattle back up. When the snow melted enough so we could move up, we took the family and moved back. Me and Pa and Will took the oxen and two sleighs and skidded the logs and hauled them into the mill before the snow was all gone. Bill Simister and Will continued to cut the logs til we got them all in and then we started to saw. We sawed and worked all summer and fall and part of the winter til the snow was too deep again, and then we moved back to Wilford for the winter. Bill Simister stayed at So. Leigh in a little cabin he’d built and looked after the place til spring. In the spring of 1912 we did a lot of farming and broke up a lot of land, and then moved back to the mill in South Leigh, when we were able to work. We worked and hauled lumber all summer. We sold our lumber to people that were homesteading and needed to have houses. On September 11, 1912 another baby girl was still born. Her name was Violet Evelyn. There was just an old midwife, Mrs. Mason taking care of her and didn’t know what to do to save her. We buried her in the Cache-Clawson cemetery. There were only a few graves there at the time; two or three maybe.
We continued the fall logging and when winter came we went back to Wilford where we just fed our cattle.
In 1913 we came back to the mill and worked. On October 15, 1913 Sara wrote this in my book I used to keep records in: “Mr James T. Beard, Jr. October 15, 1913—The bookkeeper at James T. Beard, Sr. sawmill. He saws logs, cuts wood and timber, hauls, skids and lots of other things I would like to speak about, but, it will take so long to write them down and you see, I am keeping his book while he is down to St. Anthony.” I was at St. Anthony helping harvest the crops at the time. After that we continued to move back and forth from Wilford to the mill at the change of the seasons for the years 1913-1917. In 1913 we bought the home place from a Mr. Pickett. The place that Henry is living on now is the one. We had rented out the places at Wilford, all except the Shane place.
In 1913 Will and I used to do a lot of prospecting. We located a copper vein over in Moran Canyon. Israel Clark came to work at the mill in 1914. Then me and him and Will took our stuff over to the mine on a tobaggon and left it, about in June. The next weekend we had to take it down to where the vein was and do assessment work. We put out a notice, or filed on our claim to make it legal, then whenever we could leave the mill for a day we’d go over to work on the claim. In 1915 Andy Stone of St. Anthony, got a mining man from Montana to come in and look over the claim. He and Dick stayed there that summer for awhile and dug a tunnel back in on it. They decided they wanted to form a company. So, they did, and we sold two or three of the claims out of the company for $1800. We bought a Buick car for $800. That fall we got the Peas Brothers that lived at St. Anthony to go over and contract to built a tunnel back into the hill to cross cut the vein. They came out about in the spring of 1916 and never did any more work on it. They had a mine man look at it, and he said there was a million dollars worth of ore there, but it would cost that much to build a road, so the mine was closed down and it was put into the Teton National Park and that completely ended our interest in it. After this we did the same things as before. We logged and hauled lumber.
In 1917 Henry was born on the 15th of July. He was the baby of the family. Number 13. We rented the place where Dave is living now and that’s where he was born.
William Woolstenhulme and his family knew Ma and Pa in Utah and during the years Grandma Goodworth and William’s father got married and the Woolstenhulmes lived at Chapin near Driggs. We’d go to visit the Woolstenhulmes and that’s when I met Rachel and we started to go together. We were married February 26, 1918 at Driggs, Idaho by Probate Judge Mike Byrnes.
We lived with Pa and Ma and the rest of the family and worked on the ranch and the mill and the ranch at Wilford until May 29, 1918. At that time I was called into the Army. The First World War was going full blast at the time. I got a short furlough at haying time, and another one, and was home when Edna was born on the 4th of January, 1919. I had to leave my new family on the 11 of January to go back to San Francisco. I was discharged February 6, 1919 at Fort Logan, Colorado. After I came home from the Army I built a two room log house on the home ranch where we lived til George was born on August 7, 1920. In June 1920 I filed on 160 acres of land at Richvale, Idaho, and filed on some water for part of it. I built a small log house and we moved from it back and forth to the mill and the home ranch.
On January 8, 1926 Donald was born. We were living in a little house down where Dave Beard lives now. Mr. And Mrs. Chase lived there then. We couldn’t stay on the homestead in the winter, as there wasn’t much travel and the blizzards were bad, and with not much to do there, and with small children, we would move out. On October 1, 1927 Orin was born. Rachel was with her folks at that time. They lived in Chapin. The day he was born I went over there with the car. It had rained and the road west of Driggs was so muddy, I could hardly get there. That day I cut grain for Mr. Herman, an old bachelor. He wanted me to have dinner with him. He cooked chicken and the piece I got had the craw still in and it was full of grain.
That winter we moved in the Perry Little house as the older kids were in school. Pansy and Dick lived in part of the house. We moved back to the dry farm in the spring and back to Perry Little house in the winter again. The next spring on May 3, 1931 Virgil was born. Again we moved to the dry farm for the summer. We rented the place for a year or two before we sold the homestead and some cows, and bought our place at Clawson and moved here the 30th of October, 1931. I worked at the mill and here on the place, and did sawing at Jenkins mill at Victor.
On August 7, 1933, Carol was born. We were very hard up at the time. I remember I had to sell a black steer at the time to pay the doctor. We lived in the old log house, then we built this house we now live in at Clawson.
On March 19, 1942 Sherry was born and our problems started over as she was sick a lot with throat infections. When she was two years old she had her tonsils and front teeth out.
On July 16, 1944 we had our first Beard reunion in South Leigh Canyon.
Now going back a few years, let me tell you a few things that happened along the way and up until now.
The first few years on the dry farm was slow hard work, as I broke up a lot of the land with a hand plow, and had some help from Pa and my brothers. They would come with the oxen and harrow and level the land. We had to dig a well there and had to go down over 70 feet to reach water. There was water that came down from the coal mine canyon, but it was really muddy most of the time and had a lot of coal in it. It wasn’t very good for drinking or washing clothes. In the winter we had to haul water in barrels for the household use. Sometimes we didn’t have much money to do with, but we had a few chickens and milked a few cows and sometimes had a little cream to sell.
The year 1926 was our best year. We had a real good crop. I bought a team and harness, and a few other necessities.
Rachel’s mother passed away on July 4, 1931. Pa passed away on October 31, 1935. These were very sad days for us – along with the hard times to acquire money, it was all hard to take.
Edna married Calvin Kyte on October 17, 1938, and everything seemed to settle down again to be peaceful once more. In 1939 the world went to war, with the exception of the United States. But we all knew it wouldn’t be long til we would feel war on all of us again.
Rachel’s father died February 17, 1940 – another sad day in our lives.
December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor was bombed and the United States was included in the war. I knew my boys and my nephews would have to go and fight for their country, as I and my brothers did, but I never dreamed the next few years could bring my wife and I such terrible sorrow.
George was drafted and then was sent to the South Pacific Islands where he served on the Island of Ieyte. We received a telegram saying he had been wounded in action. We later received word that he had died on the 25th of October, 1944.
1944 – that year was, I think, the most terrible year of our lives. Carol wanted to go swimming on the 19th of July. She was in good hands and the others kids were going so she was permitted to go along. Something happened, I guess we’ll never know what, but we received word later that she had drowned.
Ervin was drafted in June 1944. He was stationed in Germany for awhile and was sent home safe and sound in 1946.
With the second world war behind us we tried to look forward to a little peace and happiness and we decided to build our new home. We cut and sawed the lumber for our new house. I and the boys with the help of our son-in-law, Calvin and a carpenter, we did most of the work on it.
Soon after this the Korean war broke out. I knew again I still had three boys at home; Donald, Orin, and Virgil. Donald was drafted in 1948 and spent time in Korea. He was discharged and was in the reserve and was called back and was in Hawaii waiting to be sent overseas when he was sent home again to stay, safe and unharmed.
Edna and Cal had 4 kids; Dell, Tommy, Patsy, and David. They are all married now. Dell married Marilyn Nyborg. They have three children, two girls and one boy: Heather, Blythe, and little Brian. Tommy married Janice Tonks, and had two children, Laurie and Danny. Another tragedy happened here. Tom was killed while working on construction on June 28, 1965. Patsy is married to Gary Fielding, who is serving in another war in Vietnam. David is married to Lydien Wade and they have one little boy, Jeremy. Calvin works on construction and they have a home in Clawson. Edna is a wonderful cook in a café.
Ervin married Reva on February 27, 1950. They have six children: Nolan, Susan, Tina, Diane, Sandra, and Brett. They live in Arco and have a farm there, and all the kids go to school.
Donald owns a ranch in Chapin, and runs cattle on it. He hasn’t gotten married yet.
Orin married Donita Larson, the 7th of August, 1952. They live on a ranch in Clawson and have two children, Jeffery and Jan, who are both teenagers and are going to high school.
Virgil married Dorlene Burgener on the 27th of November, 1952. They live in Darby and have cattle and a farm. They have four kids: Jenny, Kenneth, Becky, and Randy. The kids are all very musical and can all sing, and Jenny and Kenneth play the guitars.
Sherry married Gary Zohner June 14, 1963. They live in Cedron on a ranch. They have two kids, Mitchel and Jill.
On the 26th of February, 1968, Rachel and I celebrated 50 years of marriage. All of our children, grandchildren, and most of our great-grandchildren were present. We had a lovely day and we found it hard to believe it has been 50 years, but, we’re glad it has and we have so many family followers. As I tell about this I am getting close to 79 years old. I have seen so many things happen along the years. We came from Utah in oxen drawn wagons and now we could go that same distance in my car in a day. Back when Rachel and I were married we never dreamed about television, and the cars and planes and modern things they have now…the astronauts and their trips to the moon and wanting to land there. It is so different now - easier in some ways, harder in others.
We are proud of our children for they have all turned out to be good responsible adults and have become good parents and grandparents. These are our dreams – they have come true. What more could we ask for?
Tom died on July 28, 1969 at Driggs, Idaho. Rachel died on June 25, 1975 at Driggs, Idaho.
Rachel will be remembered for her fine cooking skills. Her daughters-in-law say no one made bread like grandma’s. Dorlene says she’d rather have a piece of grandma’s bread than cake.
Rachel cooked, cleaned, sewed and crocheted and gave many of her hand made items to her nieces, nephews, and grandchildren. She always had something for everyone. Everyone loved Aunt Rachel’s home cooked meals and loving hospitality. Every grandchild of Tom and Rachel’s received a quilt along with various other items.
Tom went to school until about the third grade, but he was a self taught man. He read and studied constantly to be on top of current events. He ran a sawmill all of his life along with farming and cattle ranching and was very successful financially. He was also noted as being the best sawyer in Teton County.
They are both greatly missed.
