This is a transcript of the stories shared by Denton John at the 140th anniversary Thomas & Margaret John Family Reunion on June 16, 2023.

Part 1: Intro & Steve John

I am glad to be here. I’m glad that this organization continues to keep going. I’d say that about every three months, I get a call from somebody with the last name John, and they’re wondering about their ancestry. Wondering where they came into the picture. I got a call about six months ago, from a man from Oregon, his name was Steve John. And he didn’t know much about his background. He didn’t know much about the church or the LDS, that he knew of. So after we talked for a while, we figured out what one of Thomas’s sons was his grandfather. And his grandfather was Charles. Was it Charles that had three wives, he married three sisters? That's the right one. About the turn of the century, about 1900, the feds were getting really hot on the collar of the polygamists. And they came in and just were raising heck. The people had built their homes so that they had places to hide them. But Charles had married three sisters. Married one, and a few years later he married the second, and a few years later he married the third. And the sisters seemed to get along really good with him as their husband. One of the feds came in and really got rough on them. The three wives got together and they went to him and the oldest Williams girl was starting to have some health issues.  And so, they approach him and they said, “You've got us situated and so that we're okay. We can take care of ourselves and our kids. Take her and leave the country. Go somewhere else” And so, The story goes that he went down into Colorado. The other two wives went over to Lava Hot Springs. And then some of the John family are buried over in the Lava cemetery. So, this Steve John came from one of the other wives who stayed in Lava Hot Springs. And his dad and his family migrated out of the country here. And Steve was born in San Francisco. And then his father, he knew his grandfather well, he said. And he also, Steve’s father, after he left San Francisco went to Alaska. And they lived up there for a lot of years. And then moved back down and settled in a little place near Eugene, Oregon. And so, he wanted to know about it and he asked if there was a family organization. And I told him yes. I told him the third Saturday of  June every year Friday night and Saturday, but that's when it's held, and it’s held in Portage. And so he said last year he was going to come, but something came up and he didn’t. But I have his phone number and address in Oregon. 

Part 2: Denton John History

But I am constantly getting calls from California, South Carolina, all over the place. Because I’m one of the few John people left in Portage. And so, it’s funny they call some of the others and they all refer them to me. Because I guess I am supposed to be the old man. I am the youngest son of James John. My dad, Noah James. I am the youngest of 13 children. And there are only two of us left. We have a long history in our gene pool. My mother lived to be 100 and almost one. My dad died when he was 72 in a horse accident when I was in Saint Lewis in my residency. I have a brother that just died a year ago he was 97. And then sisters that lived, one of the 99, one to 98, one 96, one 90, one 92. So we do have a long gene pool in the family. And my chronology from Thomas John was his youngest son Henry was his youngest boy and then my dad was Henry’s youngest boy and I am my dad’s youngest boy. And Thomas, when he decided to how they were going to have things done, the old custom was that they gave it to the oldest son, they changed that, and moved it to the youngest son. And he said that way it will go through less people. And so, now I’m the fourth one down. I have his old violin, and I have his gold watch from when he used to put it on the pulpit so he would know how long he had left to talk. 

Part 3: Images and Poligamist

This was given to me by a polygamist guy from salt lake. His last name was Nelson. His mother was from here in Portage. And she married a guy, his name was Nelson. And he came home from the Logan Temple one day, they had about six or seven kids, he told her that it had been made known to him in the temple that he was supposed to take another wife. Now this… that was way after the proclamation against it. So he married another one and they moved down to Hillsdale to Colorado City and so, that's just some of the history. But I have- he gave me some pictures of Thomas. And then James. And then my grandfather Henry. And all of them were missionaries. I think Thomas went on three missions. Henry went on three missions. And my grandfather Henry had a heart attack when he was in Salt Lake and died on the street there. When taking one of his sons down to enter the mission home, and go on a mission. 

Part 4: Land & Johnstown

But James John, I own the land that he homesteaded. I own the land that, I know that I sound like I’m bragging and I don't mean to. But I just for very many years. I felt like I should buy some of this land. So there was a heritage of the John family to come back to. So, we have between me and my brother, and his two boys. We have the majority of what used to be Johnstown. Johnstown started at the last east-west street two blocks north of here. It went from there past the Idaho border. And they owned from the top of the mountain to the Malad River. So that's where their homesteads were. 

Part 5: Thomas John

So let me tell you what I know about Thomas. When Thomas, was a young man, him and his dad sometimes would run crosswise. And so, he spent most of his teenage years with his aunt. And she pretty much took care of him during those years. He was always a religious person. He was the Sunday school president of the denominational church over in England. He was very well educated. His aunt taught him to read and to write. So, one thing he always stressed with his family, and his posterity, was education. He didn't want any of his children or grandchildren, or any of the family that didn't know how to read and write. And so, there a wood cabin out north of town, that's where just on the edge of where his original cabin and homestead were. And I still have that cabin. And I’ve got to put a new roof on it. But it still looks pretty darn good. That was the first schoolhouse for the John family kids. Henry, my grandfather, spend a lot of time teaching in that little log cabin. 

Part 6: Conversion

So, Thomas heard about this new country. And he decided that maybe it would be good to come over and see what it had to offer. He came by himself. Left his family there. This was after he was married to Margaret Thomas. They had some children. Thomas came over, he came to New York, he decided it wasn’t so bad. He could go further west. So he went to Chicago. And he said, Chicago, it was so bad that the devil wouldn’t even live there. And so he went back to New York. Found a ship. And while he was on the decks or the waterfront there, he heard a couple of Mormon missionaries on a soapbox. And they were preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. He listened to them, and he was quite impressed. So, anyway, a ship came in and he went back to England. And when he got back to England his aunt had met him, and took him to her place, and that night she had been listening to some LDS missionaries. And was convinced that what they were saying was true. And so, she got him going to the meetings too. And he became convinced, and so the whole family joined the church. 

Part 7: Shoemakers

And when he was a shoemaker in Wales, that’s how he made his living, and his oldest two boys William and Charles, both were pretty good at it to. So, when, after he joined the church one of his shoe-making clients didn’t want anything to do with him. And so, he was going down the drain financially. So, he moved to England. The family went with him. And they prepared to come to the United States. And to come to the West. So, they were able to work enough to make enough money that they got passage, to come on a ship. They said it was a horrible ship. But they got to New York. And when the ship turned around to go back to England, the ship sank. So they had gotten to the United States and that was the end of its journey basically. But when they got to New York, coming through Ellis Island, the man who was doing the paperwork through Ellis Island asked him what he did in Wales. He told them that he was a shoemaker. And he said, (This is 1859), he said, “A shoemaker? We have a civil war going on in this country right now. The union army has quite a bit of money. The confederates don’t.” He said, “If you could hold up your journey going west, and make shoes, and boots for the union army, and leather pouches for their shooting materials, we will pay you handsomely. So that you have money to take the train to Chicago.” So, they stayed there for two years. Then in 1861, they came west.

Part 8: Coming West

And they came from New York to Chicago, on the railroad train. It was the old steam Puffer Billy. And on the way the conductor of the train found that they were Mormon. So, he set the baggage car on fire and burned everything they had. Except the violin that lays on this table back here that he was playing in coach where he was sitting. And he had a gold watch. An old Big Ben gold watch. That he used to lay on the pulpit when he would give sermons in church. So that he wouldn’t run overtime. So, I have the original pictures of him and his wife Margaret Thomas, and they're in original frames. They are up here the tables for you who want to see what they look like. So they have come down. So that they’re original. Are they drawings? No. They’re a print? They are prints. Oh wow! These are the original paintings I think they would have to say. Okay. So you said, you are the youngest sibling of 13? I am the youngest boy of Thomas’s youngest boy.  And you have one sibling still alive? I have one sibling left. She's a sister. Four years older than I am, she lives in Redding California. But, when they got to Chicago, they had been able to rifle around through the burned material of the car. They were able to find some of the money that hadn’t burned. They had it wrapped up in their belongings. And I would guess that it would be silver or gold because it didn't burn. So they were not quite penniless, but they had lost most of what they had. So, they went up to winter quarters, got into a wagon company and came west. My grandfather Henry, was a 11 year old boy at the time. He talked about, in his writings, he talks about how we felt the first time they got into a buffalo stampede. He talked about some of the delicious meals that they had on the plains. That they ate what they could. And talked about cooking food over buffalo chips. So there where some interesting things happening. 

Part 9: Settling in Utah

When they got to Salt Lake, they got here in about August- early September. And in Salt Lake, they were sent, they didn’t get to stay in Salt Lake the night. Brigham Young sent them directly over to a place over in Cache Valley. It was called Mountain Fort, and then after that it was called Old Mountain Fort, and there was a new Mountain Fort. And that’s where Wellsville and a little bit of Hyrum are today. So they where there, spent about two years. And they got there in time to help the farmers harvest their crops. They picked all their potatoes and they rented, I don’t even know if they rented it. One of the farmers that was there had part of an old grainery or something that he let them live in. And so, they lived in that for a couple years. But in the summertime, or the next summer, they came over to this valley. And it was called, there's a lot of springs on the east side of the valley. And there was a lot of wild grass hay. So they brought their scythes and sickles, and they harvested this grass hay. And if you have ever seen one of those big old sickles, that’s hard work. But they harvested the hay and they hauled it back to Cache Valley and sold it to have money, so they could make it through the winter. They did that for two years, and at the end of two years, they said let’s just cross the river. And go over onto the west side of the valley. 

Part 10: Portage

And so they came and readied, prepared to live here. They crossed the Malad River, came to the west side of the valley, and went out north of Portage here. There are two canyons that come out. One’s called North Canyon, there are springs and water that came out of there. And then there is Middle Canyon which comes out just south of that. There are springs that come out of that. And so they meet right down in the bottom of the canyons. There was just north of that, lived Charles John right out of town. And there is a little mound of volcanic rock and his cabin was just on the west side of that. And then, on the south side of the road there, was William’s cabin. That's where my house sits at the present time. And south of that, was James John’s Cabin. Down on 8800 West. It’s a paved road that goes north from Portage. About a mile to the north, was where Thomas settled. He started out with a log cabin, and after a few years, they added a brick house onto it. That cabin/house burned down after his grandaughter Rebecca and John Howell (Henry’s Daughter- Margaret Rebecca John & John Crumwell Howell) moved into it. And so, if you go out there there are still some old bricks from the house laying there. But about the only thing that is left there is, they had an old cistern that was lined with rocks and was covered over. And so they would take water out of the ditch, (they had dug ditches down here to irrigate the fields with) and they would fill that cistern with water. And there is an old concrete cistern and it’s out west of William’s place. And they would fill that with water and they piped it down to the house. And there is a cistern north of that, where Charles had piped down to his house. So a lot of interesting things happened.

Part 11: Johnstown Questions

Do some of you have questions? Maybe that will be a better way to go than listening to my boring voice. Yes, go ahead. So actually Johnstown was north here? Pardon, Johnstown? Was north of here? Yes. When you go out, the church, right here on the corner, is a road that goes north. Go two blocks, there is a road that goes east and west, go down to the paved road that goes north and south. And go north on that about a mile and a half, and that's where Thomas settled. Henry settled to the south of him. So Demour John actually lived, his house, was he in Johnstown? Parley Demour John? Yes, he was. Yeah, his father, (Demour’s Father) was Thomas Parley, who is my uncle. And the old house was so rickety that I had to have it torn down. It was not safe and the kids would go up and play in it. He had kind of excavated some of the basement under it. Then he changed his mind and moved out to Emmet Idaho, or somewhere. Do you know his- Demour’s kids? Do I what? Do you know Demour’s children? Some of them yes. Ida Juliene was his oldest one, then Tom, and Mark. Mark lives up in Sweet Idaho. Pardon? Mark lives up in Sweet Idaho. Mark. Oh does he? The last I heard anyway. Yeah. Mark was the sheriff of one of the counties out there. He retired from the military at the very top of his rank for unenlisted soldiers, he was an army ranger. So the majority of people that live here now, are they retired, or what do they do for a living? Most of them have jobs that they work out of town for. There aren't a whole lot of retired people here anymore. There aren’t very many of the old original families. The John family. I live here, I have two sons that live here. And then there's Mike and Devin who are Lorraine’s boys and they live here. And that's about the extent of what’s left of the John family here. And your two boys' names, what are your two boys' names? Chris. He was the one who has just been released recently as a bishop. And then Bob, he is the younger boy, he is the one that is heir apparent to all this property. So when they first came and acquired, (you talked about the land that slowly come back into the family) how did they originally acquire it? Did they homestead it and acquire it from the government? Did they acquire from the state? How did that happen originally? Nope. Originally when they got here, this was called the land of the Deseret. Okay. And so it was “Go and settle.” Really? And you find and you just claim what you could claim. Yes. Did you have to like, go in and have a deed written up for it? No. Oh wow! Now, later on, when Utah was trying to become a state, all that changed. That's when the homestead act went into effect. Did they already have their land before that? Yes, yup, they did. So up Middle Canyon, there is a spring. And Henry owned most of Middle Canyon as well. And that spring is where the Middle Canyon water ditch comes from now. But he built a cabin up there for his wife to live in in the summertime. And she would take the seven or eight milk cows up there and he built a cool house over the spring. And so, she would handle milk and take everything and make cheese, cottage cheese, all kinds of cheeses. And then she would bring them down to town on Saturday and sell them. So that was part of their revenue.

Part 12: First to Sow

Thomas John claims was the first man, who sowed the first bushel of wheat in this valley. But he wasn’t. Henry snuck in, reached his hand in the gunny sack that Thomas was carrying, and he grabbed a handful of wheat out and broadcast it. So he claimed that he was the first one. Thomas was recognized as the first guy to sow a bushel of wheat here. He and Henry always had a little squabble over that.

Part 13: Irrigation

So was this all dry-farmed? 

No, most of this out here was irrigated. 

Oh was it? 

Yeah, yeah. There was a lot of water that came out of those canyons. There was water that came clear… Well, they used to irrigate land that reached the canal out to the north of town here at my dad's place. So there were years when there wasn't much water. But when it came, there was all kinds of water coming out of those canyons.

I always thought it was a dry farming area. No, most of what I have is irrigated. But it is irrigated from wells. So, we have pivots on it, and wheel lines. A few hand lines but not many. Water is hard to come by in this valley anymore. Everywhere, yeah. 

Part 14: Johnstown changes to Portage

How did Johnstown and Portage merge?

No, there is, that was called Johnstown, and Portage was called Johnstown. When Lorenzo Snow was president of the Church. He came to Portage, or Johnstown at the time. It was considered a stake center for the current stake. That took in Malad, Stone, Holbrook, Snowville, Pocatello  Valley, and Portage. And so this was the stake center. So he came here for stake conference and when he came he talked to Thomas. And he said, “Thomas, do you know what this reminds me of?” Thomas said, “No.” And he said, “A place in Portage, Ohio where I was born and raised.” and he said, “Would you be offended if we changed the name from Johnstown to Portage?” And Thomas said, “How do you say no to a Prophet?” So the name was changed to Portage. And that is how that happened, just about.

Part 15: Church & School

So how did it happen that Malad ended up being the stake instead of Portage?

Malad grew a lot faster. When I was a kid growing up, there were four wards there.

There were what?

Four Wards in Malad. Most of our activities were scheduled around church. We had stake basketball tournaments. Did you ever hear how the war in heaven started? Ward basketball contest. But Portage was left in the Malad stake for a long time. So us kids went to Bear River to Garland high school.

And when I graduated from the 8th grade in Portage, we had a schoolhouse on the corner right here. And then I started my freshman year at Bear River High School. A few years after that, a guy named Brother Harris came, a seventy, and he had been Bishop in the Portage ward, he had been president in the Malad stake, and when he was made a seventy, he thought that probably was a good idea for the kids in Portage to go to school where the church was going. And at that time they had other wards that were out west of Malad; Carbon Valley, Pocatello Valley, and Stone. So they put Portage ward into the Feilding Utah Stake. So that put us, our kids going to High School, and to school with the same people that they would go to church with. This worked out considerably better in the long run.

Part 16: Fun & Games

So my sister tells the story of the time that there was a meeting in Malad and adults were meeting in Malad and when they were coming home they thought Portage was on fire.

Oh really?

The kids had gone and painted the porch lights red.

Halloweens used to be pretty wild here. And what else did you do for fun? We did a lot of fishing in the Malad River, we did a lot of ice skating in the wintertime, we did some cross-country skiing, and we had bobsleds. Have you ever hooked yourself onto the back side of a car on a snowy road? And they’d pull you. That’s called hookey-bobbing.

Part 17: Thomas’s Gold Watch

We have a question right here too. 

Yes. 

Have you heard? I’m sure you have heard. Thomas John’s pocket watch? 

He has it. 

I have it. 

He owns it. 

You have it?

He owns it! 

No. 

Yes.

Can I get a picture of it sometime?

I’ll bring it next year. It is really precious, it’s gold. When my dad gave it to me I said, “Well, how do you know if it’s gold Dad?” and he said, “Open the back on it. I wondered the same thing when I was a kid, I scratched the inside of the back cover of it with a pocket knife. It’s gold.” 

Part 18: Hunting

It was fun growing up here. We did a lot of hunting. Geese, ducks, and a lot of pheasants. And in fact, when I was going to college at Utah State, I used to keep hunting for turkey, and pheasants. We had pheasant one night a week. I would just come home on Friday night and sit on top of the barn and wait for the pheasants to come into the corn pit. They would be strung out for a mile along the fence lines with a lot of snow.

Part 19: Education

I have been very very blessed because my last name is John. My first name is Denton. But I always had one battle, people always turned it around backwards. I got into an afternoon college class once. I went to the professor after I had turned in all my exam papers up, and I had the highest score of the class on the exam. And I said, “Could you explain this ‘F’ on my report card?” And he said, “I don’t have a Denton John in this class I have a John Denton.” And I said, “No, look at my social security number on the class registration and you will see that you have a Denton John in the class.” And he was so embarrassed. He said, “I have it right on the registration card.” Somebody just thought that they knew better than I knew my own name. And he was very apologetic, and he changed it. One thing my dad always told me is to get an education. He said, “You can do whatever you want, but if you have an education you can be what you want to be.” I have a doctorate degree in general anesthesia, I did residency at the University of Utah medical school. I practiced for about 25 years in California. And then, I got allergic to fentanyl-based steroids in the operating room. So, to stay after that I had six months to live like that, what I was doing. So I moved back here.

Part 20: Johns & More Stories

So we have been able to accumulate a large percentage of all the old original homesteads. And next year, if you would like, we could arrange to take you on a tour and show you where each one of the original homesteads were. For Charles, there is still a little bit of the old foundation from the house that they had. There was a John guy, there was an article in the newspaper about him. He was celebrating his 100th birthday. His last name was John, he came from Cortez Colorado. I think he was one of Charles's descendants.

I think that would have been Henry. My great uncle. (Daniel Lewis John speaking)

I think it was William’s family that went to Idaho up north because there were a lot of people that were irrigating farmers out there. And one thing that did happen, was a lot of them were having the same problem with their name that I had with mine. I had that through medical school. I always had to make sure my name was right. And that they weren’t turning it around and giving some guy named John Denton the credit. But the one that went north to Idaho added ‘S’ to the end of John.

That was William’s line, wasn’t it?

Pardon?

Somebody on William’s line added the ‘S’ to Johns.

And they did very well. We have a medical doctor that practices, he was in Pocatello for a long time. We have a Johns that lives in Brigham that came from the family out in Idaho and he was very well educated. But we come from a good heritage, a good solid background. A few years ago there was a young guy here and they had an auction. And we had a BYU athletic shirt. And I kept running the auction up on him. I finally got it. I think I paid about $50 for it. I tried to find him a while later and I could never find him. Cause I was going to give it to him. BYU is about the only University in Utah that I haven’t taken classes at. But I wanted him to have it. It has never been worn and if he is here this year, I want to find him. He had horrible teeth. He really looked like he hadn’t been to a dentist. Nice, nice young man. You couldn’t have asked for anyone nicer than he was. So I still have that, still in the package. I can get a BYU athletic shirt anywhere. I would love for him to have it if he is around.

Sarah & Daniel John’s boys are at BYU. James and Uel are both at BYU. (Naomi John)

But it’s funny that you have never taken there. (Sarah John)

Well, I had a scholarship to BYU but I had a better one at Utah State.

Part 21: Violin

Well thank you. Thank you. Anybody else have questions?

Did you tell about the violin? 

Nope.

I heard about it personally, I don’t know if everybody heard it.

I do not play the violin. I play a little bit of piano. I play the trumpet, I play guitar, I don’t play the violin. This is the Violin that Thomas was playing on the train on the way from New York to Chicago.

Is that your son? Do you want me to hold it?

This was made by an old German violin maker. His name was Hopf.

Isn’t that beautiful? So he said it was one of the surviving things from the train. He had it on his personal possession, and so that is why it wasn’t burned in the fire. I just thought that was amazing.

He did mention that.

This is the original violin case. Look at the workmanship in that. That is the original leather pad that it rested on. That’s where the bow went.

Part 22: Indians and Moccasins

And then you also brought moccasins. Did you have a story about the moccasins?

Yes, I did. We have a tribe of Indians that lived in this little valley south of us. And I always thought that they were native to this valley. They’re not. Their chief was named Washakie. So there is a Washakie Wyoming that they originally came from. Excuse me, let me get this.

Chief Washakie is originally Shoshone.

Tell him to come over, we want to meet him.

There was quite a large number of the northwestern band of Shoshone that lived in Washakie Wyoming. We were going to school and I got to know most of those guys really well because we rode the school bus down to the high school. My mom and dad used to like the Indians. We had a couple of big old pine trees, it's a stony white house up here on the corner that I am going to have to tear down. That is where we lived. And these old Indians would come up and they would carry a little flour sack or a gunny sack, something with them, and they would take this old gummy stuff that comes out of the pine trees that you get all over you and it is hard to get off. They would gather that stuff off of those pine trees and put it into a little container. And they would take it home and they would melt it and process it someway so that it was a salve that would go across their eyelids. And they claimed that it kept them from going blind and that it made their eyesight better. We used to have jackrabbits everywhere. There were so many that we would have drives on Saturdays and we would fill the backs of a couple of pickup trucks with dead rabbits that we had been shooting. And we would take those and give them to the Indians. We had one of the chiefs, his name was Moroni Timbimboo. And his wife was always making nice leather things out of deer hides. So when I would shoot a deer in the fall I would take the deer hides to her and just give them to her. And she would always bring something back. This is a pair of Moccasins. I still have them. The one thing that you don’t want to do with them is to get them wet. They didn’t come to this valley until 1880. Brigham Young brought them. The winters were really rough over in Wyoming then, and so he came and he brought them over here. They build houses for them. And they bought a lot of the land around Washakie Ranch and they provided employment for the Indians. And so, some of those people were not very ambitious, and so they would show up for work, maybe. What it eventually turned into is that they all pretty much moved away. They own about 250 acres out there and they have a cemetery there. All the rest of it is just all sagebrush and natural. But it’s their organization that bought all of the land up north of Preston Idaho. Where they have made a park out of it now. A massacre site, The Bear River Massacre site where they went in and just massacred all of the Indians that they could catch. And they are trying to get it so that it goes back to normal, or what it was back then. They have planted trees along where the old ditches were. They have worked with the ditches so they have streams of water that run down through it now. So they’ve got it pretty much back to the way it was originally.

Part 23: Final Questions

Let me see if you have got any questions that I can answer.

In Charles’s writing or one of his descendants, they talked about their family going up the canyon and spending the summers up there. He was running sheep if I understood right. So I was wondering where that was.

It was Middle Canyon.

It was up Middle Canyon. I’ve never been any further than Portage. But, it sounds neat. Is that the same place you were talking about earlier that somebody else was?

Same place. They could have run them in North Canyon too, either canyon.

I just knew he talked about taking his little family up there and they spent the summer there and they come back in the fall.

Yup, same place. Anyone else?

Is your family worried about you?

Was that your son calling you?

Yes.

Thank you so much for sharing all of this! Thank you for the beautiful pictures and the family history. And yes we want to take you up on the tour next year offer. That would be wonderful.