“By 1863 the splendid edifice known as the Bountiful Tabernacle had been built and dedicated. It was started in 1857 and had cost about $60,000.00, a considerable sum for those days, but it still stands after these seventy-six (now one hundred and forty-seven) years, one of the finest structures of its kind in existence and at the time of its erection the very best meeting house in the Church.
“Judson Tolman, maternal grandfather to Joseph T. Mabey’s children, had charge of getting timber for this structure out of the canyons east of town. Splendid trees for this purpose were found in what we know as “Meeting House Hollow” in Holbrook Canyon. Grandfather was chosen to do this work because he was the best woodsman in the settlement. He had learned his trade in Maine, which had graduated so many for this particular occupation. In handling logs he could do the work of two untrained men and do it better. Not large of body, but above the medium height, he was as wiry as an Indian pony and as strong as an ox. Untiring, industrious, dependable, he was just the man for the job. Even at the age of eighty, he could walk up the mountain slopes with the ease of a goat. When he was eighty-five he called on the writer just as the latter’s family was sitting down to breakfast about eight in the morning. During the course of the conversation that followed, we learned that he had already covered fourteen miles in his perambulations through the town!” (Mabey, Charles Rendell, Our Father’s House, Salt Lake City, Beverly Craftsman, 1947, pages. 97, 98).
(Contributed by the Thomas Tolman Family Organization. Excerpt from Judson Tolman: Pioneer, Lumberman, Patriarch by E. Dennis Tolman, Second Edition, 2004, page 141).