 This
profile is completely documented and provided by permission from Craig Payne's
website: http://www.geocities.com:0080/Heartland/Meadows/8918/ Special
thanks to Craig for allowing the Tenney Family Association to include this
profile.
Born: July 28, 1817 at Ontario, Wayne County,
New York.
His parents were: Meshach Tenney and Phebe
Cram.
He married: Olive Strong March 18, 1841 in
Illinois. Her parents were Ezra Strong and Olive Lowell.
Their children:
(1) George Alma b: 6/21/1842
(2) Ammon Meshach b: 11/16/1844 married: Anna Sariah Eager
(3) Nathan Cram b: 4/4/1846
(4) Olive Eliza b: 4/27/1849 married: Joseph Smith McFate
(5) Nancy Ann b: 11/17/1851
(6) Phoebe Relief b: 1853 married: Mary Edna Norfleet
(7) Abby Celestia b: 11/17/1856
(8) John Lowell b: 7/29/1877 married: Mary Ann Oakley
(9) Samuel Benjamin b: 3/5/1858 married: Lora Isabelle Brown
(10) Marvelous Flood b: 1/18/1862
Other wives of Nathan Cram Tenney: Grace
Tibbits Jose 3/18/1859 and Nancy Beaufort Morris.
Nathan joined the church in Illinois as best as I can
figure in his time line. He was baptized in Nauvoo, Illinois on February 3, 1846
and his first son was born in 1840 in Berreman, Joe Davies, Illinois and I don't
know that this was an L. D. S. community. He also took out his endowments in the
Nauvoo Temple with his wife February 3, 1846, but they weren't sealed until
August 5, 1858 in Salt Lake City in the Endowment House. His son Ammon was born
November 16, 1844 at Rand, Lee County, Iowa, and I am fairly certain this was
where they came in contact with the church. One son, Nathan Cram, born April 4,
1846, was born at Winter Quarters in Nebraska, I read in one book that he came
to Utah in 1848. One very odd problem is I am still struggling to find them on
any Pioneer Company lists. Nathan and his family were in the Salt Lake valley
when his first daughter was born on April 27, 1849 near Big Cottonwood Canyon.
It was around 1849-50 that President Brigham Young called
Nathan to go to California to the fort at San Bernardino to be an interpreter
for the Saints there and serve as the Bishop there. He were in California by
1851 as his second daughter, Nancy Alice, was born at San Bernardino on November
17, 1851. While there, Nathan's wife Olive Strong taught school for the Saints
and the Mexican's living there at the time.
They lived in what was at first part of the San Gabriel
Mission that was constructed around 1830 on the San Bernardino Rancho. In the
1840's these building's were granted to Jose del Carmen Lugo and his brothers by
the government of Mexico. The building now called the Asistencia (which has been
rebuilt and is part of the San Bernardino County Museum system) was the home of
Jose del Carmen Lugo.
Around 1849 these buildings were sold to the 'Mormons' and
the Asistencia became the home of Bishop Nathan Cram Tenney. It was said it made
it convenient for him to supervise colony agriculture in that part of the
valley.
The Asistencia is now a California State Historic Landmark. It is # 42 in there
Landmark system. The address of the Asistencia is: 26930 Barton Road, East of
Nevada Street, Redlands.
In 1851, a fort was erected around the existing building by the Saints. It is
now called the Fort San Bernardino. There were many residents and buildings that
made up the fort. Nathan Tenney's had Plat # 71 for a time. Other residents or
plat owners were: Charles C. Rich (Apostle) and Amasa Lyman. There were some
stores, a restaurant, school, blacksmith shop, Meeting House, Tithing Office
& Store, and wagon shop. The fort consisted of nearly 100 plats. The Tenney
plat was on the West side of the fort about 3 plats from the North corner.
Nathan and his family were back in Southern Utah by 1858,
because he had a son, Samuel Benjamin, on July 29, 1858 in Cedar City, Iron
County, Utah. His last child was born in 1862 in Grafton, Washington County,
Utah. Grafton was established in 1859 by Nathan Cram Tenney and others from
Virgin, Utah. It was first called Wheeler then the name was changed to Grafton.
(Grafton, Mass. is by where the Tenney family lived when they came to America in
the late 1600's. The Tenney name is still found in Mass. and there are even
pictures of the old Tenney home in the area.) Grafton had a problem with
recurring serious flooding. The last of Nathan's children was a son born during
a horrible flood, and his mother named him Marvelous Flood Tenney on account of
his being born during the flood. Many still chuckle at this story. Because of
the flooding problem, Grafton became a ghost town in 1921. Vandalism has
destroyed most of the abandoned structures.
Grafton is two miles West of Rockville, Utah and 1/4 mile
south of the Virgin River. (Rockville is a small community on state road U-9,
four miles southwest of Springdale, Utah.) PHOTOS OF GRAFTON, UTAH
In about 1865, Nathan Cram had an experience with Indians
that was told to James H. McClintock for a book titled "Mormon
Settlement in Arizona" by Nathan's son Ammon Meshach Tenney who was
also present.
Pages 70-71: "Ammon M. Tenney in Phoenix
lately told the Author that the Navajo were the only Indians who ever really
fought the Mormons and the only tribe against which the Mormons were compelled
to depart from their rule against shedding of blood. It is not intended in this
work to go into history of the many encounters between the Utah Mormons and the
Arizona Navajo, but there should be inclusion of a story told by Tenney of an
experience in 1865 at a point eighteen miles west of Pipe Springs and six miles
southwest of Canaan, Utah. There were three Americans from Toquerville, the
elder Tenney (Nathan Cram), the narrator (Ammon M.), and Enoch
Dodge, the last known as one of the bravest of southern Utah pioneers. The three
were surrounded by sixteen Navajos, and, with their backs to the wall, fought
for an hour or more, finally abandoning their thirteen horses and running for
better shelter. Dodge was shot through the knee cap, a wound that incapacitated
him from the fight thereafter. The elder Tenney fell and broke his shoulder
blade and was stunned, though he was not shot. This left the fight upon the
younger Tenney, who managed to climb a twelve-foot rocky escarpment. He reached
down with his rifle and dragged up his father and Dodge. The three opportunely
found a little cave in which they secreted themselves until reasonably rested,
hearing the Indians searching for them on the plateau above. Then, in the
darkness, they made their way fifteen miles into Duncan's Retreat on the Virgin
River in Utah. 'There is one thing I will say for the Navajo,' Tenney declared
with fervor. 'He is a sure-enough fighting man. The sixteen of them stood
shoulder to shoulder, not taking cover, as almost any other southwestern Indian
would have done.'"
And another account out of the same book:
Pages 180-181: "Wild Celebration of St. John's
Day -- There was a wild time in St. John's on the day of the Mexican
population's patron saint, San Juan, June 24, 1882, when Nat Greer and a band of
Texas cowboys entered the Mexican town. The Greers had been unpopular with the
Mexicans since they had marked a Mexican with an ear 'underslope,' as cattle are
marked, this after a charge that their victim had been found in the act of
stealing a Greer colt. The fight that followed the Greer entry had nothing at
its initiation to do with the Mormon settlers. Assaulted by the Mexican police
and populace, eight of the band rode away and four were penned into an
uncompleted adobe house. Jim Vaughn of the raiders was killed and a Harris Greer
was wounded. On the attacking side was wounded Francisco Tafolla, whose son in
later years was killed while serving in the Arizona Rangers. It was declared
that several thousand shots had been fired, but there was a lull, in which the
part of peacemaker was taken up by 'Father' Nathan C. Tenney, a pioneer of
Woodruff and father of Ammon M. Tenney. He walked to the house and induced the
Greers to surrender. The Sheriff, E. S. Stover, was summoned and was in the act
of taking the men to jail when a shot was fired from a loft of the Barth house,
where a number of Mexicans had established themselves. The bullet, possibly
intended for a Greer, passed through the patriarch's head and neck killing him
instantly. The Greers were threatened by lynching, but were saved by the
sheriff's determination. Their case was taken to Prescott and they escaped with
light punishment.
In the fall of 1881 the community
knew a summary execution of two men and there were other deeds of disorder, but
in no wise did they affect the Mormon people, save that the lawless actions
unsettled the usual peaceful conditions."
Nathan Cram Tenney and his wife were both buried in the St.
Johns, Arizona Cemetery.
 
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