Cyrus Tolman
14 Feb 1865 – 20 Oct 1942
Son of Judson & Sarah Lucretia Holbrook Tolman
I was born February 14, 1865, at Bountiful, Utah. My father, Judson and my mother, Sarah Lucretia Holbrook Tolman, had lived in Bountiful for several years and were faithful workers in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. My mother had fourteen children of whom I was the twelfth. Mother died when I was four years old. Her youngest child was then a babe-in-arms. During this last illness Jane Z. Stoker worked for mother. When mother realized that she was not going to get well she requested that father marry Jane so she could care for her large family. On 5 April 1869 Father and Aunt Jane were married and I respected her as my second mother as long as she lived.
My schooling was very brief and my memory is very vague as to the facts regarding my education. I attended what was known as Aunt Hannah Holbrook’s school and my school teachers were Aunt Hannah (she was my grandfather’s second wife), Isabel Barlow and my brother Jaren. I advanced only to the second reader and to long division. Aunt Hannah’s method of punishment was to make us put our toes on one crack in the floor and bend over with our fingers on another crack. When we would move out of position a little she would crack us with a ruler and make us stay until she told us we could get up. We had no desks. Our benches were made of slabs with the flat side up with four wooden pegs for legs. The last few months that I was in school we had desks.
I was baptized when ten years old. The same year I was taken out of school and put into the timbers to work with my father and older brothers as a chore boy and horse wrangler. My father was a contractor and got out timber for the gold, silver and lead mines in Opher Canyon and Rush Valley. I had to lead a mule up and down the drag trails, dragging long logs; and later, when I learned to drive a team I hauled lumber on a wagon for a distance of seventeen miles to the railroad. Anson V. Call gave me a pocket-size New Testament from which I learned scripture while making these drives. My brothers would load the wagon for me and I would slide the load off as best I could when I got to the tracks. As soon as I had hauled enough to make a railroad car load, we would all go to the tracks and load it for shipment to Salt Lake City. My father and brothers owned their sawmill. I worked around the rough environment of the sawmill and lumber camps until I was seventeen years of age. At that time I went to the Portneuf Valley in Idaho, with my brothers, where I worked in the timber and helped to get the first timber that was used in the Oregon Short Line Railroad in the year 1882. We had the mill set at Mill Canyon the first year and in 1883 the mill was in Squaw Creek. While at Squaw Creek, we brought timber to the mill from North Canyon. I drove five yoke of oxen during the time I was working in these canyons. At times we would have as many as twelve yoke of oxen yoked together at one time, to pull a load out of a tight place. We drove the oxen by “Gee” and “Haw.” (“Gee” means turn to the right and “Haw” means turn to the left.) We also worked in what we called Nigger Gulch. These tree canyons are on the south and west side of the valley and are still heavily wooded. The towns of Bancroft, Chesterfield and Lund have arisen in this then open valley.
The Portneuf Valley was new country and was covered with bunch grass. Deer and elk and antelope roamed the valley in herds. I remember having counted as many as seventy-five in one bunch. I went to the valley with my brother to work during three summers, 1882, 1883, and 1884.
I was re-baptized and ordained an elder by Joseph T. Mabey. (They always re-baptized a person before they could be ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood or married in one of the temples.) This re-baptism took place at Beck’s Hot Springs just south of Bountiful. I held none of the offices in the Aaronic Priesthood because of the various types of work which I did, but I worked as second counselor to Joseph L. Holbrook and Henry Smedley in the Elders Quorum of the East Bountiful Ward in the Davis Stake, being set apart on the day of my ordination and serving in this office for three years. I was ordained a High Priest by Thomas Steed and went quorum teaching with Brother Wall. I was twenty-one years old at the time and I gained my testimony of the Gospel while visiting the older brethren of the High Priest Quorum, several of whom were personally acquainted with the Prophet Joseph Smith.
I was 5 feet 8 1/2 inches tall, weighed 175 pounds, have blue eyes, medium brown hair and fair complexion.
During the spring of 1884, while I was working with my father in Bountiful, I met Eliza Ann Riley. The next year in June, I started keeping company with her. The first time I went to see her, her father, about sundown said, “Come young man, it’s time you’re heading north.” I went with her for about fifteen months and several times went from Bountiful to Salt Lake City on horseback to visit her. It was a long ride on a bronco and because of my intense delight in breaking horses, I almost always went that way. We were married in the Logan Temple, September 16, 1886 by Brother Mariunus W. Merrill, who was president of the temple and also one of the Twelve Apostles. We traveled to Logan by the train. I had already been through the temple several times. The officers of the law were raiding the home of the polygamists here in Utah and it was common to see the polygamist’s wives hiding from the police.
We lived in Bountiful for seven years and were blessed with two children, Sarah Lovenia and Cyrus William. I built the home in which we lived. It was a two-story concrete building with four rooms and a pantry. The house was build by setting up wooden forms and then placing rocks in the space and pouring a mortar of lime and gravel.
In the fall of 1893 we moved to Chesterfield, Idaho arriving there August 27. We traveled by team and wagon and the trip took eight days. During the first year I worked with my brother on the farm. Our son Fred was born on the 8th of October.
I spent two winters working at Fox’s ranch on the Blackfoot river, feeding cattle and caring for stock. I worked sixteen or eighteen hours every day for eighteen dollars a month. In May, my wife and family joined me on the ranch where we lived for one year. We moved off the ranch in May and we had so much snow that it took me a week to break road from the ranch to the Little Blackfoot River, a distance of about six miles. While there I learned to make cheese. I went into the cheese business when we moved back to Chesterfield. I made cheese from 1898 till 1905.
We lived in a log house which consisted of only one room, when we first moved back to Chesterfield but I got out lumber and petitioned it so that we had two rooms. Frederick, Eliza Elvira, and Nancy Afton were born in this house. I later built two more rooms and a pantry onto the house. This house was located on the hill. It had a dirt roof and when it rained we had to put pans on the bed to keep it dry. The cheese house was out a short distance from the house on the west side. It was about sixteen feet long and ten feet wide. We had two big vats and then we would add coloring and rennet and heat it to about 82 degrees, the let it set until it was thick. The night’s milk was kept and mixed with the next mornings milk and then processed. We had two curd knives, one of them was a long knife with six or eight blades running vertically and the other had about thirty blades running horizontally. The blades were about an inch apart on these knives. The one with the vertical blades was used to cut the curd into strips, lengthwise and crosswise in the vats and the one with the horizontal blades was used to cut crosswise in the depth of the vat. After these three cuttings, the curd was in small cubes about an inch wide. After cutting the curd into cubes we would increase the temperature to about 92 degrees, then run off the whey, salt it and put it in the presses. The presses were of three sizes, the largest would make a 50 pound cheese, the next would make a cheese 25 pounds and the smallest would make a 5 to 15 pound cheese. The press was made of a wooden frame about 5 feet long and 18 inches wide. The base of this frame was a plank about 3 inches thick, above this was a big plank in which was inserted the screws for pressing the curd. We would put the metal hoops in this frame, line them with cheese cloth, insert a tight fitting lid, and then tighten the screws so as to press the cheese. It had to be left in the press 24 hours and after being taken from the press would be allowed to age to suit the taste of the consumer.
We operated the cheese press only during the summer, 4-5 months, and would rent cows on shares and pay the owner with cheese. We run about 80 head and hired a boy to herd them. When I quit making cheese, I sold the outfit, which cost me $100 and only got a five pound cheese as pay.
While still in the cheese business, I started carrying mail. A story account of my work as carrier, “A Million Mile Buggy Ride” was written by Dorothy Clapp Robinson. I first carried mail while working for Ira Call but later became a contractor for the route. At first my salary was $312.00 a year but by persistent effort I lengthened the route and when I retired I was getting $3,599.76 a year. I was 69 years old when I retired from active mail service.
The first offices I held in the church in Chesterfield were those of Sunday School Teacher and Ward Teacher. Later I was put in as a counselor to Bishop John Belfour. I also acted as a Home Missionary and traveled from Chesterfield to Oxford and Franklin by team and buggy to make visits. These trips would usually take three days, one to go, one to visit, and one to return. In the Oneida Stake Sunday School, I was first counselor to Nathan Barlow. I taught the Second Intermediate Sunday School Class and was Superintendent of the Chesterfield Ward Sunday School for ten years from about 1907-1917. The following is from a newspaper clipping:
‘Appreciation Shown for Long Service’
A large representation of the Chesterfield Ward gathered at their Amusement Hall, Friday, February 9, to do honor to Cyrus Tolman, their retiring Sunday School. Superintendent. Mr. Tolman, well known to many in the Bannock and Idaho Stake, as one of Uncle Sam’s old reliable mail carriers, has been equally faithful for ten years as Superintendent of the Chesterfield Sunday School. As a token of appreciation his co-workers presented him with a fine Morris chair, and the verses, printed below by special request, were recited at the presentation of the chair.
Interspersed with an evening’s dancing during which “Uncle Cy” strove to express his appreciation–at least to his lady co-workers, was rendered a pleasing program of readings and songs. Worthy of special note was the bountiful supper served by the ladies of the Ward, including ice cream to all present who were over forty years of age, and all under forty-one. All who were present report the affair to be one of the best and happiest events of the season.
- When we have all passed on
To that far glory land;
When those who so long labored here,
Shall have answered, by name.
To the roll call above,
And their praise or reward shall appear.
- In the many who bear their deeds
In the flesh, good or bad,
To the reckoning above;
He shall bear by the throne,
Those glad words, “well done,”
From the Master for whose sake he strove.
- And on earth, while he lives
And his sympathy gives,
To all who around him now stand;
Let us stop just a bit
And a few garland cast
From a grateful and God-fearing band.
- Day by day through the storms
Through the sunshine or cloud
He has brought us our news from away
But when Sunday has come
He has still traveled on,
To crown all his week with that day.
- With a smile for us all
And a cheery, “good day,”
He has toiled ever on in his place;
And to Sunday School came,
With that smile just the same,
Lighting up from within his kind face.
- And the children looked up
As he spoke to them all,
Ever ready to listen and heed;
For the preacher, who hears
And gets largest returns
Ever follows his word by his deed.
- And ‘twas no empty talk
From our dear “Uncle Cy”,
For he lived as he taught day by day;
And he still beckoned on
O’er the trail he had gone,
To point us along the right way.
- The way he has trod,
Toward the kingdom of God,
Where all of the good and the just;
When their life-work is o’er,
On that bright glory shore
Shall meet with God whom we trust.
- Year out and year in
He has still wearied not,
But his place always filled at his best;
Till we wonder at least,
In the years gone and past,
Did the busy hands ever find rest.
- At his post he would be
While the drones slumbered on,
For, as oft in the world’s busy swarm;
The most work is done,
The most reward won,
By those who have most to perform.
- Then we greet you my friend,
With a gratitude deep,
For all the kind things you have done;
May your recompense here,
Be our heartiest thanks,
Then eternal rewards you have won.
- May many more years,
With their harvest of good,
Come your full life to crown and to bless
Then give three hearty cheers
For our dear “Uncle Cy”
May his shadow never grow less.
–Mrs. E.E. Harwood
The officers and teachers of the Sunday School presented me with a gold watch chain on my fiftieth birthday.
When the Bannock Stake was organized I was put in as Superintendent of the Religion Class and served in this capacity until Religion Class work was discontinued. I was High Priest leader, Ward Teacher and High Councilman while living in the Bancroft Ward.
I have had several faith promoting experiences in my life since early manhood. My sister Martha had lock-jaw when I was a young man and had to be administered to several times and everyone had given up hope of her recovery. My father walked up to the side of the bed and blessed her, her jaw dropped before he had taken his hands from her head. Soon after this she was stricken deaf and dumb. She wrote on a paper that she wanted me to baptize her in warm springs. Father consented and I did so, she came out of the water able to talk and hear. Shortly after I was married I was working with Thomas Briggs cleaning out wells. One morning I said, “I feel impressed not to go down.” He said for me to go on, that the well was safe so I asked him to let me try the curb before going into the well. I sounded the curb and as I did so the ground gave way. Had I gone down the well, I would have been buried alive.
I was once kicked by a horse. He kicked me on the side of the head and I was completely unconscious for about 12 hours. Another time when loading a 500 pound barrel of vinegar it slipped and cut my leg open from my knee to my ankle. Dr. Valentine cared for it and poured a bottle if iodine into the cut without giving me an anesthetic. It took 14 stitches to close the gash.
On July 22, 1922, while carrying mail with a team of mules, I went to hit one of them with my whip. My whip was a piece of leather on the end of a willow. It was dry and hard. It hit the tug and the end broke off, flying back and hitting me in the left eye. A cataract formed over the pupil and destroyed the vision of that eye. We moved to Bancroft in the fall of 1922.
I have always tried to fulfill my obligations, both civil and ecclesiastical, and have given freely to help support missionaries in the mission field. I was on the building committee for both the Chesterfield amusement hall and the old Chesterfield school house. I have always paid an honest tithe and fast offering. I have sold my last cow, several times, in order to pay my tithing but have always been blessed because of my faithfulness in this law.
When in Bountiful, I hauled firewood to the Salt Lake Temple. This was given as a donation and was used to pay the workers.
Both my wife and I heard the Manifesto read October 6, 1890 and were both present at the dedication of the Salt Lake Temple.
We moved to Logan in October 1935 to do temple work. While working in the Logan Temple I have been endowed as proxy for 898 persons, 399 in 1936, 404 in 1937, and 95 in 1938 up to February 14. Roughly estimating the number, I would say that I have witnessed about 20,000 baptisms and about 25,000 sealing of husbands, wives and children.
September 16, 1936 my wife and I celebrated our Golden Wedding, being accompanied to the temple by our ten children and their husband and wives and 3 grandchildren.
After our Golden Wedding, my wife and I continued to do work for the dead in the Logan Temple and were blessed with health so that we were able to enjoy our work there to the utmost. During the last four years, I have been endowed for an additional 2,370 persons making a total number of endowments performed by me while living in Logan and attending sessions at the temple of 3,268. I have enjoyed the spirit of the work always and have a burning testimony of the divinity of the work in which I have been engaged. I have also continued to witness baptisms and sealing ordinances performed and have acted as proxy in many of these ordinances.
Since the Golden Wedding, I have enjoyed meeting with my family three times in family reunions. The first at Soda Springs, Idaho in August 1939, the second at Boise, Idaho, in August of 1941 and the last in Logan, Utah in June of 1942. Most of my children were able to attend these reunions and also a goodly number of my grandchildren and great grandchildren. These reunions were a source of you to me and I am deeply thankful for them.
My wife and I, with our children Myrintha and Elden, took a trip through Boise, Idaho in 1940 and enjoyed our visits with our children there very much. Our trip had a sad ending, however, as we were in an automobile accident on our return which put both my wife and myself in the hospital for treatment. I suffered two broken ribs and a fractured collar bone and was quite badly bruised up.
Again during the winter of 1941-42, I tripped and fell over a suitcase at home and badly damaged the ligaments in my legs and feet. After that, my feet have never felt like they were totally healed. Even with this handicap, however, I have continued my labors in the temple. I remained active in this work up to the time the temple closed for the summer in July 1942.
During the spring and summer of 1942, I was sick a good deal of the time and although not bedfast, was in a great deal of physical pain.. I believe I actually suffered more when I could see my friends and neighbors going about their labors in the temple and I was confined to my home. This added mental agony and unrest to my physical suffering.
I consulted a local doctor and was informed that an operation was the only possible means of relieving my condition. I have always dreaded undergoing an operation and declined to submit to such an ordeal until I had consulted Doctor Kackley in Soda Springs, Idaho. I have known Doctor Kackley for a good many years and feel that he will do all he can for me and, if it is at all possible to avoid an operation, I can do so by going to him for treatment.
Elden came home from Los Angeles September 21, and the following day took my wife and I to Soda Springs. That afternoon, September 22, 1942 I went into the Caribou County Hospital, under the care of Doctor Kackley for treatment. My condition proved to be as serious as the doctor in Logan had told me it was and after consultation with the doctor and with my wife and Myrintha and Elden I consented to be operated on.
(The following paragraphs pertaining to father’s illness during the period he was in the hospital is written by his youngest son, Elden.)
After taking father into the hospital and learning of his condition from Dr. Kackley, and of the absolute necessity of an operation as the only means of his becoming well again, Myrintha and I contacted all the members of the family and had them all come to Soda Springs to be with Father at the time of the operation. It took longer to get Father in strong enough physical condition for the operation than the doctor had anticipated and, as a result the whole family was able to arrive before he was taken into the operating room. Judson and his family, being the last to arrive, from Portland, got in Soda Springs only a couple of hours before he was taken into surgery.
The testimonies Father bore to his children while lying there in his sick bed, and the faith that he had, putting his complete trust in God, that the will of the Lord be done in his behalf, and that the doctor would be able to successfully do his work, will always be a source of strength and guidance to his family.
He once said that he was willing to undergo the operation. That if it was God’s will that he should continue his work in the temple, that he would be made whole and would be able to do so, that he would do so willingly and devoutly. But if his time was up and his Father in Heaven called him home, that he was ready to go. His family were all grown and he had ever so many relatives, loved ones and friends beyond the veil of death that he would be glad to meet and associate with them once more.
During his illness, he was administered to several time, and we of the family held family prayers at his bedside. In nearly every case, the person acting as mouthpiece asked of God that he be not allowed to suffer, that if his time was at hand that he be allowed to go in peach, and that if not, that he speedily recover and be able to again return to his labors in the House of the Lord. In his behalf, I feel I can safely say that to a noticeable degree these supplications were answered. On day Judson and I were talking while in the hospital room with Father and Judson said., “There is a living testimony of the answer to prayer. When a man can lie flat on his back in bed for hour after hour and never so much as move a muscle, he can’t possibly be suffering too severely.”
A diagnosis of Father’s condition after the operation proved that he had a cancer and Doctor Kackley told us that there was very little, if any, hope for him to ever recover. He said Father might live a month or he might only live a few days, but that there was nothing that medicine could do for him.
Father’s main diet, during the twenty-eight days he was in the hospital was ice water and ice. The last two weeks he only wanted ice. The condition of his body was such that he lived off of the energy stored in the muscles of his body. When that energy was consumed, the end was quick to come.
He died the morning of October 20, 1942 at about 10:40. I had been with him until just a few minutes prior to death and both Mother and I felt that the end was near. All that morning he had been having difficulty breathing. Mother and Myrintha were with him at the time of death. He died easily, another witness to the answer to prayer.
Funeral services were help in Bancroft, Idaho and in Logan, Utah. He was buried in Bountiful City Cemetery at Bountiful City, Utah, October 23, 1942. His sister Catherine (Kate) was waiting for us at the cemetery. She is the only one left of Grandma’s children. They opened the casket so that she could see him. She cried, “Oh, my darling brother!”
At the time of death Father was seventy-seven years, eight months and six days old. A good life, well lived, and loved by all who knew him.
(Part of this history, beginning with the paragraph immediately following the account of the Golden Wedding, was written by Elden A. Tolman, youngest son of Cyrus Tolman. This was written in first person to agree with the rest of the story. The first part of the history was written by Elvira Loveland, a daughter, and Elden A. Tolman under the direction of their father.)
February 14, 1938
73rd. Birthday
TO DAD
Never had much style about him, never cared for dress,
Sort of spent his life a sowin’ seeds of happiness
Doin’ little things for others, helpin’ where he could
Never makin’ much pretension, always doing good.
Home for him, was all for livin’ filled his heart with pride,
And his doors were ever open, latch string hung outside.
Folks who came were always welcome, loved to have them ‘round,
Wanted much of joy and laughter, seemed to love the sound.
Had his cares and had his troubles, same as all of us-
Figured them a part of livin’ never made much fuss.
Made the best of all God gave him, as through life he went.
Ever toiling, giving, taking, kind and provident.
Vain the tribute we would pay him, words cannot express
What it meant to have him with us, and our thankfulness.
Sweet the memory he has left us, though our hearts are sad.
Great the blessing that was given, Just to call him DAD.
Dad’s Birthday
Dear old Dad with eyes so fair,
As you sit alone in your old arm chair
You’ve been all that a Dad could possibly be,
Since we were little tots on your knee.
For 77 long hard years
You have brought us through trials, with prayers and with tears,
And now as your hair shines with silver and white,
If God will, your remaining years will be bright.
We know we have worried and grieved you too,
With the thoughtless deeds tat all children do,
And we’d give all we own to you, dear Dad,
To make up for the times we’ve made you sad.
But you are a good sport as only a Dad can be,
And always pretended our faults not to see,
But when an upright, honorable, good deed we’ve done,
You are happy and praise us right to the sun.
And now happy birthday to you dear Dad.
We’re thankful that we such a Father have had,
And we hope that many more years we can say,
To the best Dad on earth, “A HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!
PIONEER RESIDENT DIES
(Obituary)
Cyrus Tolman, pioneer resident of Chesterfield and Bancroft died Tuesday morning Oct. 20, 1942, at the Caribou County Hospital in Soda Springs. Mr. Tolman came to the hospital Sept. 22 and underwent a major operation.
Since the completion of his operation on Oct. 5 he has gradually become weaker until death Tuesday.
Mr. Tolman will long be remembered by residents of this area as one of those stalwart pioneers who came into the valley back in the late 1800’s and settled at Chesterfield.
Born at Bountiful City, Utah, Feb. 14, 1865, a son of Judson Tolman and Sarah Lucretia Holbrook, Mr. Tolman spent the early years of his life working with his father and brothers in the mines near that city. While still in his teens he worked near Bancroft getting out logs to be used for railroad ties by the Oregon Short Line Railroad. In those days two wheel carts and ox teams were the common means of transporting heavy loads and he was an expert at handling several head of oxen to move these loads.
A gentle, hard-working, peace loving man, he has spent his life time and talents in building up the communities in which he has lived, helping his friends and neighbors, and devoting much time to service in church activities.
He was married to Eliza Ann Riley in the Logan Temple on September 16, 1886. To this union was born 10 children, all of whom are sill living. (In 1942)
His career with the church has been one of varied and numerous responsibilities. Having served as second counselor in the Chesterfield Ward Bishopric, as Superintendent of Sunday Schools in that ward for fifteen years, and as Stake Superintendent of Religion Class in the Idaho Stake. He > was always active as a Ward Teacher wherever he lived and did much missionary work as home missionary and as a member of Stake High Council. He has sent four of his sons on missions for the Church and one of them served as Ward Bishop.
At the beginning of the century, he started working at Star Route Mail; Carrier between Chesterfield and Bancroft in the employee of Ira Call. Soon, however, he became contractor for the route and after that saw it extended through Lund, Central, Turner, Hatch, Toponce and Irvens. He retired from active service as mail carrier in 1934 turning the work over to his son.
Since retiring from mail service he has moved, with his wife, to Logan, Utah, where he has been actively engaged in Temple work for the past seven years.
He is survived by his widow, Mrs. Eliza Ann Riley Tolman, six sons, Cyrus William Tolman of Logan, Utah; Frederick Tolman of Rupert, Idaho; JudsonL, Tolman of Portland, Oregon; Olester Tolinan of Salt Lake City, Utah; Leonard R. Tolman of Bancroft, Idaho; and Elden A. Tolman of Logan, Utah. Four daughters, Mrs. Sarah L. Gooch of Ogden, Utah; Mrs. Elnora Loveland of Boise, Idaho; Mrs. Nancy A. Loveland, Meridian, Idaho; Mrs. Myrintha Hopkins of Soda Springs, Idaho; one sister, Mrs. Catherine Stoker of Clearfield, Utah; forty-eight grandchildren and 28 great grandchildren.
Funeral services will be held in the Bancroft Ward, Friday, Oct. 23, 1942, at 10:00 a.m. with Bishop Joseph C. Call presiding.
Friends may call at the home of his daughter, Mrs. A. R. Hopkins at Soda Springs, Idaho any time Thursday or at the Idaho Stake House in Bancroft Friday morning from 9:00 until time for the services.
SAYINGS AND ADVICE OF CYRUS TOLMAN
Never find fault with those in authority. If the wrong one is put in something will happen and he won’t be there long.
You go ahead and do your best and all will be well.
If you accept a position, do your best, always be there on the job.
He liked the scriptures: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Do not cross a bridge until you come to it. It takes two to make a quarrel. Always be kind to dumb animals. Make your word as good as your note.
If you can’t keep an appointment go to the one you had the appointment with in time, so as not to keep them waiting in disappointment.
Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face.
The measure you give unto others shall be measured back to you.
I’ll see your nose above your chin.
If you can’t say anything good about a person, don’t say anything.
A friend is worth more than a dollar.
I’ll break bone in your lip. ”
I’m dryer than a cork leg.
It’s better to wear out than to rust out.
1 feel like a band of wild mules.
Oh, she just got her nose poked out of joint.
What the han over are you doing?
SONGS:
Tarr-rra-boom-de-year, have you seen my girl today? No, but 1 saw her yesterday, riding on a load of hay.
With a baby on each knee, I’ll tell you what its lots of fun. When the butcher man comes along to collect his bill, With his double barrel dog and a gun…
A HALF-MILLION MILE BUGGY RIDE
(Cyrus Tolman: 14 Feb 1865 – 20 Oct 1942)
Written and submitted for publication at usual rates by
Dorthy Clapp Robinson, Boise, Idaho, Route 4
Around the world twenty-five times in a “whitetop” has all the earmarks of a record even in this day of marathons. A gentle-eyed, mild mannered old man named Cyrus Tolman holds that record. He lives in Chesterfield, Idaho. He did not, however, cover that distance for the sake of publicity as most holders of endurance-tests do; but it was all in his day’s work. In the thirty-five years he and his team have been jogging along they have twisted and turned and back tracked over Squaw Flat and the valley of the Upper Portneuf. Doesn’t that tell what his work is?
He is the mailman—that medium through which isolated ranchers touch the outside world. He drives the Star Route out from Bancroft, touching all the villages in the valley and the ranches between them. Since taking that contract he has traveled over six-hundred thousand miles.
In those years, nearly thirty-five, Mr. Tolman has never failed to bring the mail through. That is a record, far greater than the miles he has traveled; but it doesn’t mean so much until you know what the valley of the Upper Portneuf is like. This high dry valley has an altitude nearing six thousand feet and a variety of climates, the most persistent one, as the saying goes, being nine months winter and three months late fall.
This intrepid mailman has mastered all climates. He has hurried over his route when the very air was crackling with frost with the thermometer at forty six below. He has delivered his mail when he had to fight an insane blizzard every inch of the way. He has plowed through the treacherous gluey mud of Spring and braved the blinding heat of summer. Then as a reward for all that he has jogged over the same route through the misty languorous days of an Idaho Indian summer.
As a road opener Mr. Tolman has been infallible. What earthly excuse was there for a county to stand the expense of running a snow plow when the mailman opened roads as part of his day’s work? When God created Idaho he gave her just a few disadvantages. Wind is the name for most of them. What it, given a little snow, can do to a barren flat or a mountain curve no one knows better than Mr. Tolman. It is the regular thing in this valley for snow to lay three, four or more feet on the level for several months of the year. As for drifts~but Mr. Tolman has conquered them. If the horses couldn’t plunge through them he would get out and, wallowing badly at first, would tramp back and forth, back and forth until there was firm footing through the drift for both horses. If the drifts were too deep for that he took his every-present shovel and worked. Last winter he was over three hours going less than a mile and had help with his shoveling, too.
Once during a March storm he was from nine A. M. until four P. M. going eighteen miles and the last four miles he made on “shank’s ponies” with the first class mail on his back. There had come a thaw that melted the top of the snow; then came twenty below that froze it into glass; with that footing they faced a raging blizzard that left eighteen inches more snow.
In the spring driving along the road has all the thrill of driving over a narrow dugway. One step off the beaten road and down will go the outfit into the soft clinging snow. Whether or not the sleigh gets back on the road depends on the strength of the horses and the driver’s patience. No well trained horse ever leaves the road if he can help it except at hard packed “switches.”
In the days before fences when he could cut across, Mr. Tolman had to be very careful of sage brush. The snow over the brush would melt more easily and the crust was always thin and if a horse went through it onto a sage it was just too bad. After the season’s first heavy snow he would stop at Twenty Four Mile Creek and cut bundles of long slender willows. Then as he journeyed along he would stick one of these willows upright in the snow about every twenty five yards. They were his sign posts, his only guide across the trackless flat. During a blizzard they kept him from getting lost or going around in circles.
One would think that in such times he would be half-frozen before he reached home. On the contrary in all the years of exposure he has never had a finger or toe frozen or even badly frostbitten, though he has carried plenty frost and icicles in his eyebrows and moustache. He says he was born to buck snow. Even at his present age, sixty eight, he can stand the cold better than his occasional passengers. He dresses casually too, for such work—a sheepskin coat with felt boots.
“Cy”, as his friends call him, leaves home at five-thirty A.M. and if all goes well returns about seven-thirty P.M. There was one stretch of two or three months when he didn’t see his home in daylight. He had to be at the Post Office in Chesterfield at six A.M. He took that mail and what he picked up en route into Bancroft in time to meet a forenoon train. From there he circled through Lund, Turner, Central and other communities back to Bancroft to meet a late afternoon train; then north through Hatch, Topance and back home to Chesterfield. Being away all those years and still having his large family exceptionally well-raised tells what kind of a wife he has. No small amount of the credit for his perseverance belongs to her.
In the beginning his route was only a thirty-six mile circuit but as settlers crowded in the line of mail boxes was extended. In some cases he was instrumental in bringing delivery to isolated groups and that without having his pay increased. Now he travels over ninety miles with an average of one hundred stops. Of course there are many more mail boxes than that, there are as many as six on a wheel; but he knows he will stop at least one hundred times a day.
In the beginning, too, there was no parcel post. Only mail order houses and the mail man knew what that did to deliveries. But the extra work it brought to the mailman was more than compensated for by the joy it brought to the ranchers. Catalogue shopping has a thrill all its own. Mr. Tolman has carried as high as eighteen pouches of third and fourth class mail on a single trip. His largest single delivery was twenty bushels of peaches, sent from Brigham City, Utah, to some canning minded housewife
Being a Star Route man he has the privilege of hauling freight. For his ‘neighbors,’ as he calls them all, he has been a definite and infallible source of supply. He has bought everything “from a needle to a threshing machine.” He has matched a spool of thread and bought a five hundred pound barrel of vinegar. Incidentally, he had the calf of his left leg torn away delivering the vinegar. Sometimes he has taken a dozen eggs or a pound of butter to pay for what he was asked to get.
No story of Cyrus Tolman would be complete without mentioning his horses. Only the last six or seven summers has he had a car to drive—and that means summers. One year he drove a sleigh five months and eight days. After the snow he has to battle mud. During the worst of the weather it takes twelve horses to make the trip. He drives them in relays. Of the countless horses used during these many years Lark was the best beloved. He seemed utterly tireless; and had a fast swinging trot that no horse ever put in a harness with him could equal. He worked the mail route for sixteen years and died in the harness trying to pull the outfit from a mud hole. Acquaintances say “Cy” has always been kind to his horses, never overworking or abusing them in any way.
Mr. Tolman’s outstanding characteristic has been dependability. Never when he has given his word has he failed to make good. That has fostered an unusually strong sense of devotion to duty. He says he was trained to it in his youth and has never departed therefrom. In fact it was that quality that secured part of his present route for him in the beginning. In those days the distances were great and the people few, and contracts for delivering mail to great stretches of territory were let to stage companies or freighters. They in turn hired men to cover different portions of their deliveries. Mr. Tolman was a hired driver when the contractor under who he was working took French leave of the country. Left with the work but no pay Cyrus faced a problem. Well meaning friends advised him to stop delivering the mail thereby expediting the clearing up of the affair. But above his anxiety about his pay, and he needed it badly, was his sense of responsibility. He delivered the mail without a break and some months later was given the contract without bidding.
This dependability is matched by his courage. Nothing else could ever have carried him over those countless miles under all manner of conditions. Once when seventeen miles on his way his horses started to run away. In stopping them he had several ribs broken and was smashed and bruised generally; but finished his trip alone and on time. Another time the end of his whip, loaded with hardened mud broke off and flying back hit him in the eye. He gradually lost the sight of it. Though hurt many times he has almost never been ill.
After the coming of the telephone into the valley men would call others and say; “Stop Cy. There’s a terrible storm raging over here. He’ll never make it,” but “Cy” never turned back.
When asked if his work doesn’t become irksome Mr. Tolman was emphatic in his denial. It is his job, his chance to serve his fellow men. That he has served them faithfully and well is attested by the love they have for him. Many times when the going was hard men, other than the ones hired to do it, have had their teams harnessed ready to replace his tired ones. Many times when the wind whistling over the flat was unusually piercing women have met him at their mail boxes with a bowl of soup or a plate of hotcakes fixed so he could eat them as he drove. The first car he owned was a Model-T-Ford given him by the people he served
This veteran mail carrier is still full of vitality and will power. He grows a little sad when he thinks that in two more years he will have to rebid on his contract. Due to his age he worries a little as to the outcome. But if it isn’t given to him again he will rest happy in the knowledge that through a life time of service he has given the world the best there was in him and the best has come back added upon a thousand fold.
Visit FamilySearch to learn more about Cyrus Tolman. Visit the Thomas Tolman Family Organization to find out how you can get more involved in family history.