The Minor Family of Somerset

Marriage: In 1852, a friend, Brother Wimmer, drove up with a com
pany of emiGrants. When Levi came across to him he said, "Broth
er Levi. I have brought you a wife. "Levi said, "Well, that's n
ice," thinking little of it. But a fewminutes later a young gi
rl not yet twenty stepped from behind one of the wagons and wa
s introduced to him as Margery Wilkerson. A quick friendship be
tween Levi and Margery developed into a lifelong devotion. The
y were marriedfour months later, December 1852 in the Office o
f the President of the Churchof Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Sain
ts, Salt Lake City, Utah. Source: Some Incident in the life o
f Levi Stewart, Founder of Kanab Utah, History of Kane Co, by Ma
rjery Browne Cottam p 545 Researcher: Georgenia Stewart.
Death: InDecember of that same first year, 1870, came the trag
edy that was to leave its scar on the lives of this family and a
lmost disrupt the entire settlement of Kanab Utah. The Navajo a
nd Northern Indians had been making raids on the settlements. T
he young men took turns guarding the cattle at night from a smal
l dugout in the side of ahill. The other men took turns guardin
g the fort. Onc Jacob Hamblin persuaded the Navajos to come t
o Kanab and hold a peaceconference as there was always tension
. On the night of December 14, the guard who was to relieve Bro
ther Pugh as guard at one o'clock did not awaken butseemed to b
e overpowered with sleep. He was roused once, then twice, and e
ven started to dress. Brother Pugh went home and to bed, thinki
ng all was well, but in some way the guard fell back over on th
e bed asleep, leaving thefort unguarded. At four o'clock fir
e was discovered in the Stewart section of the fort. Little Luc
inda remembers how her father rushed to see what he could do. M
argery quickly threw a spread around herself and rushed over t
o the burning portion. Their own room was safe as it was separa
ted form the burning part by many feet. There was a space lef
t for another room which had not yet been built and which was pr
otected only by a row of wagons drawn together. These wagons we
re used as sleeping quarters for some of the older children. Th
e Kitchen roof was already ablaze so there was no hope of savin
g that part of the house. But in the bedroom next to it, the on
e on the corner, slept the boys, Margery's three, Artimacy's two
, a hired man, and Levi, the yougest son of the first wife Melin
da. This room had no windows as did none ofthe outside rooms o
f the fort in order to make them impregnable to the Indians. Th
e only exit was through the flaming Kitchen. Levi and the othe
r men, knowing that this bedroom held stores of kerosene and pow
der, seized axes and started battering out the logs of the wall
. They got two logs out and crawled through into the suffocatin
g smoke-filled room. They found the beds empty and no one in th
e room. It was impossible to get into the blazing infernoof th
e Kitchen. They knew that the smoking powder and kerosene migh
t explode any minutes so they crawled back out. Levi ordered th
e others out and carried two kegs of powder already smoking an
d dumped them into the creek. Then the kerosene exploded and we
nt up in flames.
Little did Levi realize what was happening on the other side o
f the Kitchen. When Margery rushed out of their bedroom, she im
mediately took in the situation and knew that the onlyhope fo
r the boys was through the Kitchen. Her mother's love was great
erthan her fears or her reasoning power, and unseen by any exce
pt her daughterElla, who happened to be there from Pipe Springs
, she rushed into the flames.Ella tried to follow her mother b
ut was held back by the men. Once in theKitchen, Margery met A
rtimacy's boy Alonzo Lafayette and the hired man, Harvey Stout
, who blinded by the smoke, were groping around tring to find a
n exit. She pushed them through the door and turned