Sarah Stedwell Wood Brown Sprague LeBaron Lewis 1814-1893
2010
Some stories are hard to read. The story of the life of Sarah Stedwell is one of those stories. She was born to Abraham Stedwell and Rebecca Shefield in New York. She was the second of ten children born to her parents. Her family moved from New York to Ohio and then to LaHarpe in Hancock County, Illinois. In 1832 she married Samuel Wood while still in Ohio. They became the parents of six children. Three died in infancy. Samuel and Sarah heard the Gospel from the missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints and were baptized. Sarah’s faith was strong and she was driven by the Spirit of Gathering. Samuel became discouraged while they were making the trek to Nauvoo and insisted on turning around. When Sarah would not, he took their oldest son Warren and went back to Ohio. Sarah continued to Nauvoo with her two sons Charles and Joseph. Samuel and Sarah must have divorced because in 1846 she married James Brown as a plural wife. He became know as Captain James Brown for his service in the Mormon Battalion. Sarah and James’ only child was born in 1846. His name was James Harvey Brown. She gave birth to him in her bedroom, which was an overturned wagon box. James, meanwhile left for California, taking one wife with him and leaving the other three to fend for themselves and to prepare themselves for the trek west. Sarah and the others were forced to leave Nauvoo due to the mobs and so traveled to Winter Quarters in Florence, Nebraska. There, they barely survived the winter. 600 Saints did not. They are buried there in the graveyard on the property where now stands the Winter Quarters Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints.
James Brown sent money for Sarah to buy a wagon and oxen. She and her three sons drove the wagon to Utah, arriving in 1848. Sarah, ever unhappy with polygamy, divorced James Brown and married an older man named Ithamer Thomas Sprague. He and Sarah are our direct ancestors through their daughter Sarah who married Nephi James Bates. She thought that her life would be better now. Sarah and Ithamer became the parents of five children. Ithamer was called to colonize in the remote area known as Dixie on the border of Utah and Arizona. Sarah did not want to leave her home and go to present day St. George with him. Sarah put her children in a wagon and set out for another destination, probably the home of a relative. When Ithamer heard what she had done, he gathered the authorities and pursued her. The law at that time gave the children to Ithamer. Our direct ancestor Sarah Sprague Bates did not see her mother again through her childhood. Not until her mother was 80 years of age did they meet again. Sarah next married Alonzo LeBaron and after his death she married a Mr. Lewis.
She spent her last days at the home of her son Joseph Wood in Cornish, Cache County, Utah where she died and was buried in the Cornish City Cemetery. She remained faithful to her beliefs until her death.
The migration of Sarah Stedwell Wood Brown Sprague LeBaron Lewis
New York to Ohio to Illinois to Nebraska to Utah