John Phelps & Mary Ann Leachmen

John Phelps parents were Joseph and Phebe Ann Place Phelps. The family was in New England long before the Revolutionary War days.  His parents moved to Canada, where John was born on Sept 5 1800, they later moved to Cincinnati.

            Mary Leachman was born on March 8, 1798 in Prince Williams Virginia. The Leachman's were early Virginia settlers and owned two plantations, "Pleasant Grove" and "Locust Grove". "Pleasant Grove" was still in the family as late as 1918. Mary Ann's Daughter, Phebe, used to say her mother was raised a lady and had servants to serve her. Records of these early settlers from Virginia were destroyed in Civil War days when Richmond, Virginia was burned.

Mary Ann Phelps (Daughter of John and Mary Phelps)

Emma Smith

In 1843, John and Mary were baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints along with their children Phebe, Mary Ann (our ancestor), and Alma. This family was probably converted by missionaries who had been sent out from Nauvoo to preach the gospel. Mary Ann and the Prophet's wife Emma were good Friends. At one time Joseph Smith placed his hands on Phebe’s head and she thrilled from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet.

The Nodaway County, Missouri, marriage records show that Phebe married Joseph stonebraker on 17 May 1849.  One month later her sister Mary Ann married Joseph's brother Joel Stonebraker on June 21, 1849. 

Later, in the year 1849, the Phelps family was in Winter Quarters, Nebraska. (Now Florence, Nebraska). Gigantic preparations were being made for a large migration to the mountains in the west. Most of the saints were in destitute circumstances. Ezra T. Benson, Aspsa M. Lyman, Erastus Snow, and I. A. Appleby were called to take a mission to the states for the purpose of getting aid. Some money was raised. New comers had to be located and looked after. Many were from England and Eastern Cities. They knew nothing of frontier life and did not have the means to continue on. There were crops to be planted and grown, harvested and the products to be sold to the best advantage. The government agents continued to prod the saints off the Indian Lands. Long trains of covered wagons were making their way west. The saints were trying to gather means oxen, wagons and food for the journey to Valley of the Great Salt Lake.

Captain David Evans

In the spring of 1850 the Phelps family joined Captain David Evans' Company at Winter Quarters and started for Utah. This took three months to reach the Salt Lake Valley. They arrived Sept. 15, 1850. This entire company went to Ogden, as they were asked to do. The Phelps and Stonebraker's settled near where the Ogden depot now stands. They ran an immigrant supply station while there.

When Johnston's army came into Utah, Brigham Young asked the Phelps and Stonebraker families to go to Fillmore.  That far south, the people had trouble with the Indians.

In 1862 the Stonebraker family decided to go back to Weber valley. When they arrived in Ogden, they found their homesteads resettled.

John, Mary, and their son Alma left Utah and moved to California. (We have no record of the year). They settled in the San Francisco Bay area. There is very little information about them, only that their son was 18 years old at the time they left Utah. After they got settled in California he fell in love. His mother opposed the marriage, so he and his sweetheart left California and went up the coast to the state of Washington. They were married and made a home if Garfield, Washington. He owned a large dry farm and some of his family live there. Mary Leachman Phelps died August 15, 1873 at Bodega, California, and was buried at Spring Hill, California. John Phelps came back to St. George, Utah.

(Written by Phebe’s youngest granddaughter Clairane Gunn Fawcett. Part of this information comes from oldest Granddaughter, Lovisa Stonebraker Calderwood who passed away August 1, 1964)

The death of John Phelps appears to be an unsolved murder in which he was poisoned.  The following was taken from the Deseret News on April 18, 1883, page 9:

THE KANAB POISONING.

THE INDIAN "WHITE EYE" SAID TO BE THE MURDERER.

Brother John Rider, of Kanab, sends us the following about the poisoning case at that place, of which we made mention a few days ago.

"By request I forward you the coroner's verdict and obituary of deceased. Since the inquest was over, one of Indians has confessed that Indian "White Eye" placed the strychnine in Brother John Phelps’s flour, and was held to appear before the Grand Jury at Beaver, at an examination before Justice Broadbent.

Territory of Utah, Kanab Precinct, Kane County.

An inquisition holden in Kanab, at the residence of T.G. Smith, on the 2d day of April, A.D. 1883, before Nephi Johnson, Esq., Justice of the Peace for the Johnson Precinct, in the county aforesaid, on the body of John Phelps there lying dead, by the jurors whose names are hereby subscribed.

The said jurors upon their oaths do say that the deceased came to his death from the effects of strychnine, feloniously placed in his food by persons unknown, but supposed to be two Indians who entered into his house in a secluded part of the canon in which his home was. No evidence of the fact, however, could be proved.

In testimony whereof the said jurors have hereunto set their hands the day and year aforesaid.

Joseph Smith

John Rider, B.T. Baird, Taylor Crosby, Jurors.

[Attest] Nephi Johnson, Justice of the Peace.

John Phelps, son of Joseph and Phoebe Place Phelps, was born Sept. 5th, 1800 in Canada, and moved from there to Cincinnati; Joined the Church in the early days; was well aquainted with the Prophet Joseph; came to Utah with the first company of Saints, and went back to assist in the hand-cart company; was called to "Dixie" to raise cotton, and about three years ago moved to Kanab.

Kanab Cemetery