Lucy Jones Holbrook

1834 - 1860

Compiled by Debra Radack

    Lucy Jones was born 11 January 1834 in Llangyfelach, a parish about five miles north of Swansea, Glamorganshire, Wales.  She was the second of five children born to William Tayler Jones and Lucy Lewis.

    Lucy’s family joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at various times from July 1850 to April 1851 in Wales.  Lucy was baptized 10 November 1850 along with her younger sister, Hannah Jane.  On 10 February 1852, the family (minus the oldest son, Lewis) left Liverpool with 363 other Saints aboard the ship “Ellen Maria”* under the LDS leadership of Isaac C. Haight.  The “Ellen Maria” arrived in New Orleans 5 April 1852.

    Upon arrival in Utah, Lucy’s parents and siblings settled in Calls Fort (near Brigham City) where many other Welch immigrants had settled.

    On 9 April 1853, Lucy became a plural wife of David Candland.  Their daughter, Delphinia, was born a year later on 10 July 1854 in Salt Lake City.  On Christmas Day 1854, David took another wife, Bertha May King.  

    In a history of David Candland on file with the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, there is this rather dramatic tale of their marital problems:

 “. . .unknown to David, mischief was brewing in the hearts of those he believed to be true.  His two young wives, Lucy and Bertha, combined their ideas of dissatisfaction with their lot and demanded a divorce at once.  David tried to persuade them to patience and forbearance in all things where wrong existed.  President Young advised him to grant their wishes, and they were set free in April 1855."

    In an excerpt from David Candland’s journal, he states, “My wives Lucy and Bertha became so possessed of evil as to demand a bill of divorcement.”

    As in most such cases, there is likely another side to the story.  In a book written by Ann Eliza Webb Young (“Brigham Young’s apostate wife,” as she refers to herself), David Candland was a “prominent Mormon elder, and a confidential friend of the Prophet . . . He was, as he was pleased to term himself, an aristocrat and would not descend to the performance of menial labor; but, as the family must live somehow, the wives have to get along as best they can, but they live in the depths of poverty and degradation while he enjoys prophetic favor, stands high in the church, and is a Beau Brummell** in dress.”

    After the divorce, Lucy took their daughter, Delphinia, with her.  The baby became very ill, and in July, Lucy brought her back to David and his first wife, Mary Ann to care for.  Delphinia died 10 August 1855 and was buried in Salt Lake City, Utah.

    We don’t know how or when Lucy met Joseph Holbrook, but on 10 November 1855, they were married and sealed in Brigham Young’s office.  She was 21 years old; he was 49.  His first wife, Nancy Lampson had died in Nauvoo in July 1842 and he had married Hannah Flint in January 1843.  On 31 December 1850, he had married his cousin, Caroline Frances Angell, whose previous husband had deserted her and her three children at Winter Quarters in 1847.

    What little information we have about Lucy Jones Holbrook after their marriage comes from Joseph Holbrook’s History.  He writes, 

“Lucy Holbrook, my wife, had a daughter born Oct. 7, 1856 at 9 o’clock 35 minutes in the evening, and on the 15^th I blessed my daughter with the blessing of the Priesthood and named her Lucy Ann Holbrook.  She died of the smallpox November 20, 1856 at half past 2 o’clock in the morning, age six weeks and one day.  The smallpox came into my family by its being inoculated for the kind of pox as the smallpox was in the neighborhood but the inoculation turned out to be the smallpox in an adulterated state which some took the natural way and it proved fatal.  This was the case with Lucy Ann, my daughter.  They made a hospital of my house and there were 24 cases of it at my house but my child the only death.  There was one more death of a child about a mile from my house of the same disease but such was the caution used that it did not spread and become contagious.

“January 23, 1858, Lucy Holbrook had a son born thirty minutes after four in the morning and blessed him on the 30^th with a father’s blessing in the Holy Priesthood which may be sealed upon him forever and named him Joseph Jones Holbrook, after my own name.

“February 4, 1860 Lucy Holbrook had a son born thirty past eleven o’clock in the evening and blessed him on the 12^th day with a father’s blessing in the new and everlasting covenant to be sealed upon him forever and named him William Jones Holbrook after his grandfather William Jones.

“Lucy Holbrook complained somewhat during the season of weakness and some pain in her back.  She died Aug.  22, 1860, at 6 o’clock 10 minutes in the evening.  She was taken worse on the 21^st about ten o’clock and died the next day, confined about 30 hours of a liver complaint, age 26 years 2 months and 11 days.

Lucy Jones Holbrook was laid to rest in the family burial plot at the Bountiful City Cemetery.

“. . . William Jones Holbrook after his mother’s death became much afflicted for 4 or 5 months and his life was despaired of, after which he began to recover.

“. . .Hannah Holbrook moved to the Gorriange house in Bountiful Dec. 7, 1861 and took Joseph Jones and William Jones, Lucy Holbrook’s children, with her, for the purpose of keeping school.

1870 “. . .We have a school commenced in the stone house at $6.00 per quarter, her [Hannah Holbrook’s] scholars Joseph Hyrum, Brigham Moses, Joseph Jones and William Jones Holbrook are attending.”

*The “Ellen Maria” was a 768-ton ship built in 1849 by Harrison Springer at Richmond, Maine.  Her dimensions were 151' x 33' x 17'.

**Beau Brummell:  George Bryan Brummell (1778-1840) was an Englishman who became famous for his fashionable lifestyle.  He set styles for men’s clothes and manners for 20 years.