Judson Tolman, son of Nathan and Sarah Hewitt Tolman, was born July 14, 1826, a short fifty years after the winning of American independence from Great Britain. The Tolman name, however, was part of American history since the arrival, in the 1630s, of Thomas Tolman, the original immigrant Tolman ancestor, who settled in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Judson’s birthplace was Hope, Lincoln County, Maine. (Note: Many earlier histories of Judson Tolman give his birth place incorrectly as Augusta, Kennebec, Maine. Please note that Hope, Lincoln, Maine has been documented as the correct location. It is located forty-five miles east-southeast of Augusta, very near the coast.) He was the eighth child born to Nathan and Sarah. His older siblings were four sisters and three brothers—Margaret (born February 2, 1812), Sarah (born March 13, 1814), Nathan (born October 8, 1815), Esther (born March 18, 1818), Cyrus (born April 6, 1820), John (born October 4, 1822), and Lucy (born July 3, 1824). Three younger siblings were born into the family—Benjamin Hewitt (born May 3, 1829), George Washington (born February 6, 1833), and James Llewellyn (born in 1836). The following year (1837) the family relocated to Iowa.
Judson’s Name
In recent years there has been much discussion as to whether Judson had the middle name of “Adonirum” (Adnyrum, Adoniran, J. A. Sen., etc.) A middle name does not appear in his primary records nor in other records he personally wrote. As late as 1982, when the priesthood blessing of Judson were restored, no middle name was used. Family members (including William Odell Tolman, Laurel Jensen Burningham, Samuel Ernest Tolman, Genevieve Tolman Hofhine, E. Dennis Tolman, Loa Don Hofhine Glade, Pauline Hanks Christiansen, John O. Tolman and Loraine Tolman Pace) have done research on Judson, his wives and families, with various conclusions. We feel that it is important to list any and all documentation that is pertinent to the life of Judson. However, in an attempt to avoid disharmony and confusion in the family and within the records, the Executive Board of the Thomas Tolman Family Organization on July 11, 2000 determined not to use a middle name for Judson on family group sheets or pedigree charts, but in applicable notes and sources only. All records will reflect the best, most accurate data available to date.
Judson’s Childhood
We have a rare glimpse into the childhood of Judson from a letter written by his older sister, Lucy, to her daughter Desdemonia in 1891: “I remember once while we lived in a log house when I was real small, Judson and I were sitting before the fier [fire] place a pounding on an olde tin pan when a snake as large as a big bull snake craled [crawled] out toards [towards] us. Mother tuck [took] the shovel and thrue [threw] it into the fier. Grand Mother Tolman [Margaret McCarter] lived not far from our house. I run as hard as I could and told her. She came up with [where] my mother had the snake on the Hirth [hearth] all kucked [cooked].”
The 1800s were a period of rapid westward expansion in the United States. It was this spirit that motivated Judson’s parents to move their young family in 1837 from Maine to Iowa, the year after James Llewellyn-their eleventh child—was born and in which Judson was eleven years old. We have no specific written record of their family, other than the usual statistical data of births and christenings in either Maine or Iowa. Margaret died (1824) in Maine, Sarah married (1833) and died (1903) in Maine and Nathan married (1835) in Maine so they likely did not go to Iowa. We do know that Cyrus, Benjamin Hewitt and George W. were converted in Iowa and Cyrus and Benjamin made the pilgrimage to Utah with Judson.
The Conversion of Judson Tolman
In 1844, the year of the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Judson came in contact with the Mormons at the age of eighteen. He apparently recorded the events in a journal or communicated them to his descendants, for Ann Lucretia Tolman McNeil, a granddaughter, shares the following invaluable details in her “Life Sketch:”
“Judson Tolman, my grandfather, was the first of my ancestors to join the church. There was an elder by the name of Amous Davis came to his house and left a Book of Mormon and after reading it thought it was true and joined the church. He came to Utah in 1848 and was the first man to drive a wagon into Tooele City and lived there three years, then came back to Bountiful where he now lives. The 14th of July he will be 90 years old. He has worked in the timbers most of his life.” (Note: Life Sketch of Ann Lucretia Tolman McNeil, provided by the International Society of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, Fackrell Camp, South Central Davis County, Utah. A copy is on file in the Thomas Tolman Family Genealogy Center, Bountiful, Utah. From the dates mentioned in this life sketch, it was apparently written just prior to Judson Tolman’s death in 1916.)
Judson Tolman was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on January 12, 1845. Common sense indicates that it was very cold on the day of his baptism, there being no heated fonts nor commodious buildings for such events. It is quite likely, therefore, that he was baptized in a convenient and frigid pond or river. In June of that same year, he was ordained a Seventy and, within the year, had relocated to the city of Nauvoo where the Mormons had built a thriving and beautiful city on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River.
January 12, 1845, Judson Tolman was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
From the historical facts noted above, we can surmise several important traits of Judson Tolman, i.e. his conversion was immediate and complete. He did not require—even at a young age—a great deal of time nor convincing to be moved to action by his newly acquired testimony. The freezing temperatures of the season did not cool the burning of his testimony nor motivate him to wait for a more comfortable occasion. His ordination almost immediately to the office of Seventy is further indication of his level of faithfulness.
5 June 1845: Judson was ordained to the Office of Seventy.
We have no record of Judson’s ever having corresponded with nor visited his mother or non-Mormon siblings after leaving Iowa. (It would not be surprising, however, to learn that Judson attempted to locate his family in Iowa while traveling to or from his mission assignment to Maine in 1877.) The timing of Judson’s conversion coincided very closely with that of his three brothers, Cyrus, Benjamin and George. Although George died at age 16 and did not come west, the other three were never separated in their faith and seldom in geography for well over a decade. (Note: When Judson did the endowment work in the Logan Temple, November 19,1886, for his brother, George (who died in 1849), he gave George’s baptismal date as April 1845, indicating George was baptized after Judson was baptized and before Cyrus or Benjamin were baptized.)
The violent deaths of the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum had a profound impact on the members of the infant L.D.S. Church. Apostates and pretenders to the prophetic mantle were motivated quickly by the adversary to create confusion and dissension. The faith of the membership, individually and collectively, was tested. Fear and apprehension were the order of the day, as armed mobs—many of them fueled by these same apostate Mormons—likewise, were motivated to crush the Church before it could rebound from the loss of its founder. That Judson Tolman was not led astray by either James Jesse Strang or Sidney Rigdon is a testimony to us that his heart was willing to follow the new prophet, Brigham Young, and the remainder of the Twelve. This, then, is the first in a series of important crossroads at which Judson Tolman chose to follow the Lord’s prophet and to faithfully pursue that road.
February 1, 1844: Nathan Tolman (Judson’s Father) died in Iowa, age 56 years.
Judson Tolman and the Joseph Holbrook Family
Not long after his arrival in Nauvoo, Judson met the young woman of his dreams—Sarah Lucretia Holbrook. The Prophet Joseph, by that time, had supervised the building of two magnificent temples and had restored the ordinances of the endowment and eternal marriage. Without access to a journal, we are left to wonder about Judson’s courtship with Sarah Lucretia Holbrook, then a lass of a mere thirteen years of age, having been born to Joseph and Nancy Lampson Holbrook on January 21, 1832. Joseph Holbrook was a man of considerable stature, maturity and property in Nauvoo. He had been a member of Zion’s Camp and had come out of that refiner’s fire profoundly committed to the gospel and to the prophet. There is substantial evidence in his journal that he and Judson became very close and that their lives were intertwined very tightly. (See Journal of Joseph Holbrook. A copy of the original manuscript is found at thomastolmanfamily.org).
Judson and Sarah Lucretia were married civilly in Nauvoo on January 12, 1846 (the anniversary of Judson’s baptism) and both were endowed in the Nauvoo Temple on February 3, 1846. (See Appendix III, “A Day To Remember” by John O. Tolman.) Records indicate that they were not sealed for time and eternity until December 20, 1852 in Salt Lake City. (See the letter of Val D. Greenwood, Manager of the Special Services Division of the Temple Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, dated 14 December 1981 and states: “We have verified that the first four children of Judson and Sarah Lucretia Holbrook were sealed to their parents on 10 November 1886 in the Logan Temple.” Their sealing to Judson and Sarah remains valid in spite of Judson’s later excommunication).
January 12,1846: Judson married Sarah Lucretia Holbrook in Nauvoo, Illinois.
February 3,1846: Judson and Sarah Lucretia were endowed in the Nauvoo Temple.
Less than a month passed following the marriage of Sarah Lucretia Holbrook and Judson Tolman before he was called upon to leave her for the first time to serve with the Hosea Stout Company in marking and preparing the route that the main bodies of Saints would follow across Iowa to Council Bluffs. The assigned task of this vanguard company was to build bridges wherever possible over streams and gullies that could not be traversed, Where bridge construction was not feasible, rafts were built to ferry wagons and teams across larger rivers. In his own words, Judson indicates that he served as a “guard” in the company. (Note: Tolman and Tolman, A Brief History of the Life of Judson Tolman, p. 27).
From the Journal of Joseph Holbrook, we learn that Judson was reunited with his young bride on June 2, 1846 at Eddyville, Iowa, on the Des Moines River, where she had traveled in the company of her father’s family since leaving Nauvoo. (Journal of Joseph Holbrook, p. 35).
On June 26, having traversed Iowa, they met with Brigham Young and were invited to join his company and to assist in the preparation of a large ferry to cross the Missouri which, at that season of the year, would have been swollen by the spring runoff from as far away as the Madison, the Gallatin and the Yellowstone Rivers as well as the many tributaries that flowed into the Missouri between the Rocky Mountains and their current location near Council Bluffs. On July 8, both Judson Tolman’s and Joseph Holbrook’s families joined the Prophet’s company. However, a few days later, a request came from the United States Government to Brigham Young that he supply five hundred volunteers to separate themselves from the main body of the saints and to march and fight for their country inthe War with Mexico. (Journal of Joseph Holbrook, p. 37).
The departure of the Mormon Battalion undoubtedly increased the hardships to be borne by now “abandoned” or “under-manned” families. The remaining men, with Judson and Joseph Holbrook among them, were forced to redouble their efforts. It is safe to presume that many of the women worked like their men-folk due to the difficulties of the day. Charles R. Mabey, quoting from Judson’s own words, indicates the following:
We were then organized into a company of 200 wagons under the leadership of George Miller and eleven other men, and started for the Mountains, but were stopped by Brigham Young, and wintered on the Puncah [Ponca] river, near the Missouri river, about 150 miles above the present Omaha. We then’ went to Winter Quarters in the spring, whence we continued the journey to the Valley, where we arrived in September, 1848, in Brigham Young’s company and in Daniel Garn’s Fifty. (Mabey, Charles R., Our Father’s House, p. 125. (See Appendix III, LDS Encyclopedia.)
During those difficult months in Winter Quarters, the saints who were left behind, by assignment, were expected to raise crops and money to prepare the way for the many thousands who would be arriving there and beginning their exodus to the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. One particularly poignant memory of Judson and Sarah Lucretia is recorded by her father, Joseph Holbrook: On 20 April, 18471 traveled six miles and met my family all well, almost out of bread stuff of every description, and so had some corn meal for them. Judson Tolman, my son-in-law, who had left me to return to his family, had helped move my family with his own, He buried his only child, a daughter about two weeks old, two or three days before at the burying grounds on the Bluffs near Puncah [Ponca], where about twenty-three of our brethren and sisters had been buried in our short stay in that place. Yet, in all our tribulations, we felt joyful.” (Journal of Joseph Holbrook, p. 51).
It is hard to imagine the range of difficulties and emotions that this young couple had experienced by this point in their married life. Judson was twenty years of age when he buried his first child, who had lived barely two weeks. This infant daughter, given the name of Sarah Margaret was born March 28, 1847. Her brief life ended on April 12. The young mother was fifteen years and three months old. Considering the rigors of having crossed Iowa in a rough-riding wagon and the lack of regular, nutritious food during her pregnancy, as described above, it should surprise no one that the infant perished. In a memorial address to his grandfather, delivered by Charles R. Mabey at the Bountiful Tabernacle the afternoon of Sunday, July 9, 1916, the following reaction is recorded:
I still see the father, aged twenty, with his girl wife, aged fourteen [fifteen], ill and unable to accompany him, placing his dead baby two weeks old under his right arm, carrying a shovel over his left shoulder and with this tender burden trudging back over the desert trail four miles to give that little white corpse a decent burial near a spot of greenery and civilization, with a coffin made of his own hands and a grave dug by his own exertions. (Mabey, Charles R., Our Father’s House, p. 128).
The poignancy of this moment and the impact of the pending departure for the Salt Lake Valley seem to have overshadowed (in our minds) the fact that Judson and Sarah Lucretia conceived a second child almost immediately. Nancy Jane Tolman was born February 4, 1848 and was barely four months of age when the young family commenced their crossing of the plains. Isn’t it similarly moving to visualize the young mother, now age sixteen, carrying the tiny infant daughter across the plains in her arms, sheltering her from the heat of the desert summer and the coolness of the mountain nights? Certainly Nancy was nursed at her mother’s breast throughout this journey. She endured the rigors of the trip well, grew to womanhood, married and raised a family of her own.
(Contributed by the Thomas Tolman Family Organization. Excerpts from Judson Tolman: Pioneer, Lumberman, Patriarch by E. Dennis Tolman, Second Edition, 2004, pages 1-9).