Sophia Merrell was born December 11, 1839 in Des Moines, Iowa, a daughter of Charles Merrell and Sarah Finley. Her parents joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the early 1840’s. She was baptized by her father in April of 1848 at the age of eight. As his third wife, she married and was sealed to Judson Tolman February 5, 1856 in President Brigham Young’s office. Her four children with Judson were born in Bountiful: Samuel Hardy, Esther Jane, Charles Nathan and Sarah Elvira (see list of children in Judson’s history).
Very little has been written about her life. Cerrissa Thompson, Sophia’s granddaughter, provided this information: “Sophia lived in a little dirt floor home on the back of Judson’s property. Sarah Lucretia, Judson’s first wife, lived on the front of the property in a big house and had fourteen children. Sophia had four children by Judson….When Sarah Lucretia died in 1869 and Judson married Zibiah Jane Stoker, Sophia was hurt and angered because Judson let Zibiah live in the big house instead of her and her four children.
“Sam, the oldest child, was so angered by the way his father had mistreated his mother, that he told others his mother would have starved to death if it hadn’t been for the Indians. This made him very bitter against marriage and the church, remaining a bachelor all his life.”
Sophia went to President Brigham Young and got a cancellation of her marriage to Judson September 10, 1869, just five months after his marriage to Zibiah Jane. Esther Jane Tolman, daughter of Judson and Sophia, wrote that her mother took her four children to Plymouth, Utah, then called Square Town.
Sophia’s marriage to Judson was cancelled a second time January 6, 1874. She married Garret Hopkins Wolverton as his second wife February 16, 1874. They were living in Plymouth when she died September 24,1875, giving birth to their first child, Abner Wolverton, who died one month later in October 1875. Sophia and the baby were buried in Willard, Utah (Willard, Utah, LDS Ward Record – film at LDS Family History Library.
After her death, Sophia and Judson’s son, Nathan, went to live with Sophia’s brothers in Portage, Utah. Esther Jane first lived with Sophia’s sister, Jane Merrell Cole, then also lived with her mother’s brothers, John and Joseph, in Portage. She visited her father when she was about fourteen, and re-joined his family, living first with her half brother, Add (Judson Adonirum) in Tooele and then her half-sister, Sarah Mabey, in Bountiful. The youngest daughter, Sarah Elvira, lived with Sophia’s mother in Willard, Utah. It is unknown where Sam went to live.
Compiled in October, 2000 by Pauline Hanks Christiansen, 2nd great granddaughter of Judson Tolman and Sarah Lucretia Holbrook.
(Contributed by the Thomas Tolman Family Organization. Excerpt from Judson Tolman: Pioneer, Lumberman, Patriarch by E. Dennis Tolman, Second Edition, 2004, pages 150-151.)
Bibliography
1. Willard, Utah, LDS Ward Record – film at LDS Family History Library (FHL #0027407).
2. Information given to Genevieve Tolman Hofhine by Cerrissa Thompson, grand daughter to Sophia, daughter of Esther Jane and Perry Sessions, copy on file at thomastolmafamily.org.
3. Memories of Esther Jane Tolman Sessions written October 25, 1951, copy on file at thomastolmanfamily.org.
4. 1880 Federal Census of Box Elder County, Utah – film at LDS Family History Library (FHL #125535).