Biography of Stephen C. Perry (1818-1888)

Biography of Stephen C. Perry,

Pioneer of 1850

Written by Ruby Snow Jensen

His Granddaughter

Stephen C. Perry, son of Asahel Perry and Polly Chadwick was born December 22, 1818, Middlebury, Genesee, New York. He was a boy who had great love and respect for the teachings of his father and, firmly believing the word of the missionaries who came to his father's home, he was baptized a member of the church and left the town where he was born with his father and mother to go with the saints wherever they were called upon to move. He was ordained an elder in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on the sixth of April, 1840 by the Prophet Joseph Smith.

On June 6, 1840 Stephen C. Perry was married to Susannah Colista Hidden, daughter of Ebenezer Hidden. She was born at Holland, Erie County, New York, February 24, 1817. One son, Stephen Hidden Perry, was born to them on January 19, 1843. At the time of the baby's birth the mother died and two days later the baby died. They were both buried in the same casket.

On January 18, 1844, at Nauvoo, Illinois, Stephen C. Perry and Ann Marie Hulett were married. She was the daughter of Charles Hulett and Margaret Noah. She was born at Nelson, Portage county, Ohio. She had one brother and three sisters.

They made their home at Nauvoo, Illinois, where their first child was born in January, 1845. They left Nauvoo with the saints when they were driven from Missouri [does she mean Illinois?] and settled in Mt. Pisgah, Iowa. Here their first daughter was born--Tryphena Roseltha, June 19, 1847. In 1848 he went back to New York on a mission.

On December 31, 1849 a second son, Gerus Rosalvo, was born. In the spring of 1850 Stephen, his wife and two children and his father and mother started across the plains in Captain Bennett's company. The father and mother of Ann Marie were also in this company.

They arrived at Springville in October, 1850 and at first lived in small forts in the northwest part of town on Hobble Creek. Later a larger fort was built in the center of the townsite. In a very small house in this fort two more children were born to Stephen C. Perry and Ann Marie Hulett--John Sylvester and Colista Ann Boyer. They soon moved and built a house on their farming land south of the fort. Here Charles Asahel and one child who died in infancy were born. 

Ann Marie Hulett Perry was a very quiet, unassuming woman of sterling truth and was willing to do all she could to help anyone who needed any assistance. The trip across the plains must of necessity been very hard for these saints who had very little to start out on such a trip but, it being summertime, it was pleasant weather for traveling. Stephen's sister, Polly Marie Smith, and her husband, William, were in the same company so they had a sort of family party all the way.

Ann Marie Hulett Perry died at Springville, Utah on July 27, 1884.

On February 4, 1854, Stephen C. Perry entered the Order of Plural Marrieage [sic]. He took for a second wife Margaret Eleanor Stewart, who was born near Louisville, Kentucky on April 26, 1836, daughter of John Martin Stewart and Nancy King. To them were born three children, the oldest of whom, Harriet Perry Whiting, was the mother of fifteen children.

In 1855 Stephen C. Perry was called on a mission to help colonize Southern Utah and went with a party of elders to Las Vegas, where he spent two years away from his families of small children.

In the year 1857 he married Mary Boggs at Springville, Utah. To them were born eleven children: Hyrum Boggs Perry, Horace Brigham Perry, Parley Pratt Perry, Marcus Perry, Marian Perry, Frances Evaline Perry Snow, all of Mapleton, Utah; Harvey E. Perry of Arco, Idaho, Lucy Perry VanLeuvan of Springville, Utah, and George W. Perry of Vernal, Utah.

Mary Boggs Perry was born April 12, 1843, at Nauvoo, Illinois, the daughter of Francis Boggs and Evalina Martin. Her father came to Utah in the first company of Pioneers and she came in the second company when only four years old with her mother, brothers and sisters in Captain Spencer's company, arriving in Salt lake City, September, 1847.