Robert Lemuel Campbell - 1858-1936 #4

About this time I got acquainted with Bro. Stains of New York and was invited over to Brooklyn on Sunday and went to the LDS meeting. I think the people's name was Blackburn. At times I was a little backward and not much doing, so I made arrangements to go West. I payed $58.00 and started West but before we got to Ogden something went wrong with the engine but they worked with it and we got to Ogden Sunday morning. Having to lay over for repairs we decided to have a look at Salt Lake City while we were so close.

We went to Salt Lake and it must have been 2 o'clock for the people were going to the Tabernacle but we thought we would follow the crowd which brought us to the Tabernacle grounds. We looked around and saw the work of the Temple. We stopped at the West door of the South Side. The others pushed us to get a seat, but I stayed in the doorway because Bro. Daynes was playing the organ. The tune sounded like he was playing Home Sweet Home. It came to me then, just where is your home. I had none and it had been that way it seemed a long while. While thinking over this a brother who was sitting on the end of the seat next to the door moved over a little way and made motion for me to come and sit down, which I did. He asked me a few questions while they were singing. I answered them the best I could just then.

After the meeting he invited me to his home. We had quite a talk. He showed me my Brother Will's and my Sister's picture which had been taken in London, but I did not know them. He told me that he had not long been released from the London branch and then said that the Mother of these two children was living at Rockville in the South of Utah, how she came to be out there and the children came about a year later. He said her name was Ruth Campbell and I resembled them in many ways. He wanted me to stop over night.

Next morning we went to the Tithing yard. He spoke to Bro. McMurrin who had charge of the hay and asked him if there was any teamsters from Dicksie[Dixie]. He motioned to Mr. William Wright to come over to where they were standing and asked him if he had anyone to drive his extra team. He said no, so during their conversation my mothers name was mentioned, where she was living with the two children and I was taking it all in, listening to every word.

He said he would be a few days as he wanted to see his parents that were living at Mill Creek. He asked me if I could drive a team. I told him that I couldn't say as I had never tried to, but I was willing to learn. He told Bro. George Taylor to see that I got to the Tithing yard early, so Bro. Taylor took me to Bro. John Morgan's place to live while I was in Salt Lake City. By the time he was ready, my money gave out and I didn't have enough to pay board, so he told me when I got work to send it back. I told him I would and bid them good-bye and went to the Tithing yard which was right East of the Temple and at the back where the Utah Hotel now stands.

He helped me to hitch up and we started down Main Street for three blocks, turned East one block, and then South on State Street, During the time it kept me busy watching so I didn't run into anyone and I also had to keep track of the other team, but when we got out of Salt Lake City, I had more time to look around and I thought I was just about it. After a few days the horses began to lag and he told me to hold the willing horse back so the other one could keep up, but how to do that sure got me for me to be up on a load of goods and hold that horse back I couldn't see how it was to be done. I told him I didn't understand, so he told me how it was done, but that didn't make much difference.

When we got along for a week we had to turn the horses loose at night. Some were hobbled and others not; then early in the morning we would have to follow the tracks, which he showed me how to do. Sometimes it would be near noon when we would get back to the wagons and besides I would sure be hungry. Of course we would not get very many miles in a day and we had to haul water for the horses in case we could not find a place where there was water for them. It was hauled in barrels on the side of the wagon box.

We finally got to Pocket where he lived. It was afternoon, I should judge about 4 o'clock as near as I could tell. I had to water the horses down at the river. He wanted me to ride one that was so broad that I could not straddle her very good. She walked down there very quietly, but coming back she wanted to trot and I was bouncing from one side to the other. At last, I was on the ground and she left me there. When I got back to the house they had a good laugh at me. They wanted me to go in and stay till morning, but I wanted to go on. They told me I would have to wade the river several times, but I thought the water would not hurt me and there was only one road as long as I kept near the river, so I thanked them and started out not knowing where I would wind up.

I kept on and it soon began to get dark. I got to where the road turned into the river. I considered for a while and then concluded to undress and tied my clothes in a bundle on my shoulders and went across without much bother, dressed myself and walked over to a corral where someone was milking cows right on the river banks.

I went and asked the young woman who was milking where to find the road up the river leading to Rockville. She gave me to understand that it would be dangerous to travel in the dark as I would have to wade the river six times. She was nearly through milking and asked me to come to the house and see Mr. Standworth. I followed her over to the house and she told him I wanted to go to Rockville.

He asked me who I was going to see there and I told him I was Mrs. Campbell's son or thought I was by what I was told by a person in Salt Lake City who had come off a mission. I told them his name was George H. Taylor and then the girl left the room crying because it was him that sent her and her brother to Utah.

Of course, it caused a little confusion while she was out she told some of the family that I was her brother. Brother Standsworth told me to wait for the night and they would take me to Rockville the next day. When I told them I would stop over night, the girl came and told me that she was my sister. I was surely taken back to think she was my sister.

I was made welcome in the home and early next morning they got the team ready so as to start soon as breakfast was cleared away and we all started for the journey in a light wagon. I felt truly thankful that I did not have to undertake that walk over such a road and to cross the river so many times, but the boy knew the road and I believe the horses did also for they were surely steady wading the river. They seemed to know just where the road went for to me it seemed that they were going up stream.

We arrived there safe and stopped at a little one room lumber house which they called the silk house. It was a place where the Relief Society of the Ward raised their silk worms and they would have to feed them Mulberry leaves until they got a proper age and they would crawl-off and bury themselves in a silk cocoon, something like some spiders do. The cocoons were then sent to Salt Lake City to the General Board and they would make it up. The General Board used to furnish the people down there the silkworms eggs and the women would take them and put them between their breasts until they were about ready to hatch. Then they'd put them in a warm room on shelves where they would soon be eating the leaves.

After they pulled up in front of the house, Mother came out. Of course, I knew her, but did not say anything to see if she knew me or expected that I was so close, but he hold up her hand and said, "There is my son Robert." My sister and myself got out of the wagon and Brother Standsworth said they would call later and they drove off.

Mother wanted to know everything. When I got through she related how she had come to Zion and about the two children coming from London and how many letters she had written to me, but they would come back unclaimed.

She said that she had begun to think I had met with some accident and she would not see me again. One day she was thinking about me and crying and Sister Smith came to see her. She asked Mother why she was so downhearted and Mother told her that she was thinking about me. After a while Sis Smith told her to cheer up for the Lord had a watchful eye over me from my birth and that I would be brought again to her and sooner than she expected. She said that she did not see how it could be possible for I did not know that she was in America.

Of course it did not take long to be noised about that another child of Sister Campbell had come to her from the old country. Even the Indians came. They would ask me if I was a Mormon and before I could answer they would say, "He no Mormon." I began to think perhaps they could tell for I could not say for myself that I was a Mormon as it took me a long time to get myself used to the ways of the people down there.

Mother asked me to go to meeting with her, but I refused for that was one thing I did not understand. One of the reasons was because on one of the vessels that I was aboard, One Sunday afternoon the Captain was holding services in the cabin and during the services a squall was coming up towards the ship. The Mate, being on deck yelled down the hallway, "All on deck and shorten sail." Of course we came out of the cabin in short notice and aloft we went to furl some of the sails which was very hard to do in heavy weather as the sails would flap so much it was difficult to hold on to them. The language that was used was not worth repeating and after that I did not take much stock in religion.

On this occasion there was something happened quite strange to me. A few nights before I was asleep in bed and I dreamed that I had a lantern and it was the only thing that I could call my own so I put this lantern in the window and I saw several men passing by the window and when they got to the window where my lantern was they would put their lantern close to mine. Of course, their lantern had a light in it, but the light of their lantern would not light mine and several men passed along and each did the same thing, even Bishop Smith, but my lantern would not take the light from theirs. At last they gave it up as a bad job. After a while I thought that I sat up in bed and I was thinking what those men wanted, holding their map to mine. While sitting there thinking about it a young woman came along with some others, but she had a lantern in her hand and they came in from of the window and when she put her lantern up to mine it took the light and began to burn as bright as hers.

Sometime after that, I don't remember how long, I went one Sunday morning while Sunday School was in session and sat on a pole fence, facing the meeting house, sunning myself. When the School was out the folks young and old as they passed me would not and pass by without a word, but they all seemed to be in a hurry going towards the Bishop's place. At last Bro. Hall's daughter with some of her friends came along and they stopped and asked me to go with them down to the Bishop's where they were going to be some people baptized in the river. She took hold of my hand and pulled me off my perch, so I went along.

When we arrived at the Bishop's place there was quite a lot of young people gathered there. We did not have to wait long before Bishop Smith, John C. Hall, and James Terry came out to the crowd and the bishop began to explain the principles of baptism and how it was brought about. Then he asked Brother Hall to choose the place in the river where it was safe while he gave instructions how to proceed. The baptisms were done according to age. There was a Brother named Olsen who was the oldest and he went first. While he was being baptized the Bishop said to me, you go next. As Brother Olsen came out I went in just as I was, for I had no idea of being baptized, but it did not last long until all the children who were to be baptized were through and confirmed right there by Bro. Terry and the Bishop. Bro. Terry was the one who confirmed me.