Marilla Terry- My Great, Great, Great Grandmother-Hepworth side.

Our ancestor Richard Terry came to America in 1635 and helped to make history in the new world.

Marilla Terry was born 2 June, 1823 in Albion Home District, Upper Canada, to Parshall Terry 3rd, and Ann Hannah Terry. They were first cousins, there were 13 children born into this family. 7 born in New York and the other 6 born in Canada with Marilla being the 10th child. This part of Canada was a wild and rugged land so it was hard work clearing it, but everyone pulled together in a united effort to clear it so homes could be built and a living made. There was a lot of brush and heavy undergrowth.
Marilla's early life would be spent in the same way as other frontier children. little schooling and just the bare necessities of life and very few pleasures.
About 1837 the Mormon Missionaries came to Albion, the Terry family were immediately interested because they were well acquainted with Joseph Smith and knew what a fine boy he was. Marilla's brother Jacob was a good friend of Joseph's, who was the same ages.
Marilla joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Feb. 1838 and with most of the family came to the United States to gather with the other Saints in Missouri.  When the family was driven from their home by an extermination order from Gov. Boggs, out into the bitter cold, Deborah, then age 11, died from exposure.
When Marilla was 18 she married John Crawford and had 2 sons, one dying in infancy and the other lived to be a mainstay in Marilla's life.
When John Crawford died in Dec. 1843, Marilla got along as best as she could with a son to care for. On Jan. 28, 1846 Marilla married Nils (Nilson) Hansen in the Nauvoo Temple. He had come from Norway with a young wife and 4 young children. His wife died leaving the children for him to care for. In 1848, Nils moved the family to Iowa, 20 miles from Glenwood. They lived there until 1861, 7 children were born there.
The family wanted to move to Utah but Nils wanted to go to California for the gold rush. He "fitted out" the wagon but he took his 10 year old son out of the wagon too try to make it harder for the family to leave. Marilla never seen her son again until he was a grown man. Nils had put him in the home of a good family while he went off to fight the Indians. He was never seen again. He died after 1865 in California.
Marilla was a tall and nervous person but she traveled across the plains with her family in the David H. Cannon Company, settling in Draper Utah.
When the call came from President Brigham Young for the Saints to go south to Dixie, Marilla and her family went with the others, they left in the fall of 1863. They arrived at a small settlement called Adventure, just East of Grafton in the Rockville area. Marilla's family was one of the first families to settle in Rockville.
The women as well as the men had to try to make a living out of an nonsupporting land which was surrounded with sage brush and mountains. Their first home was made out of rough rocks with mud placed between them to hold them in place. The roof was made out of logs hewn out and placed for rafters with cedar bark and a quantity of dirt over that which let the roof leak if it rained, and when there was a downpour, the place was covered with mud. There was one corner with a bed that did not leak and the children were put on the bed and all the neighbors came and stayed in the one room to try to stay dry.
Marilla had lots of fruit trees and two long rows of currents bushes in her lot. She had a small oval wood box that she kept her valuables in, it was believed to have been given to Marilla by her first husband, John Crawford. Her son John has it in his possession.
Marilla was a very intelligent person and people liked to talk with her. She had a small one room home in the center of town in the upper side of the street. She lived alone and her needs and wants were few. She looked after her family, yet she wouldn't let anyone help her unless it was with something she could not do. She was a very plain spoken person as well as being superstitious. She would never call "Come In" when some one was at the door because she thought she might be admitting the Devil in.
Marilla passed away in her home in Rockville, Utah on October 19, 1894 at the age of 72. She was survived by 2 sons, 4 daughters and 46 grandchildren.