Benjamin Gardner 1801- 1875
Benjamin and Electa Gardiner came to Nauvoo and settled 20 miles south at Bear Creek, on Green Plains, north of the Morley settlement. Benjamin owned 160 acres. They lived there until a mob came in and destroyed their home and crops. Many of the family were sick. The mob rode up in the morning and ordered the family out. Benjamin told the mob the family was sick and he had no place to take them. It make no difference to them. The mob helped carry the bedding out to the dew covered grass and then carried out the sick children. They set fire to the house and in the morning Electa cooked breakfast over the coals of the burning house. When news of this reached Nauvoo, Jonathan S. Wells went after Benjamin with his team and wagon. He took them to his home in Nauvoo where they stayed for some time. Benjamin later went back for some corn and things in the cellar but it was all taken by the mob.
Johathan S. Wells:
PROPERTY:
Nauvoo : Block 94, Lot 3, Tenant
T6R8, Sec 12, SE
(Partridge and White)
looking north it is the NE corner
Shadrack Holdaway, his father was Timothy Holdaway, gf of Marth Vilate Holdaway
PROPERTY:
T7 R8, Sec 9 10 acres NW/4
Shedrick joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Ladder Day Saints 30 April 1843 and that fall went to Nauvoo, remaining there until the Saints were driven out by the mob in 1846. While in Council Bluffs the call came for 500 men to volunteer for the War with Mexico and Shedrick Holdaway was one of them. He filled the position of teamster for Company C. of the Mormon Batallion under Captain James Brown and Lieutenant Rosencrans. He was with the company during the entire campaign until they were discharged from service 16 July 1847 at Los Angeles, after which time he spent six months working for Dan Williams. He bought a team and wagon and had made preparations to join the saints in UT when the news of the gold discovery was brought to Los Angeles.
On his way home he stopped for a little while at the Forks of the American River where he did a little mining and took out about three thousand dollars worth of gold dust. From books and the reproduction on the screen of life in CA during the gold rush, we gain a rather perfect idea of the lawlessness that prevailed. In the camp where he stayed he said that a night seldom passed without a man being killed either in a drunken brawl or by one of the few Spanish women who resented his indifference. He had boasted that she would get him yet.
He said that one night he awake from a sound sleep as he heard his mother call "Shedrick, Shedrick, Shedrick". He interrupted that to be a warning as his mother was still in IL, and he immediately arose and left the camp and started for Salt Lake. He arrived in the valley 24 October 1848 with three thousand dollars in gold dust and was the first man to pay his tithing in CA gold dust.