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Notes by Ben Parkinson
11 Dec 2001

William Barton Campbell Billingsley was the second child of Elijah R. and Emeline Northcott Billingsley, born 8 Jan 1831 in Gibson County, Tennessee, which was pretty much frontier then (Davy Crockett was a neighbor, and several Billingsleys went to Texas, at least one at about the same time he did). William's family moved to Pontotoc County, Mississippi, also recently settled, where his father Elijah was a judge. There is a tradition in the family that Elijah had a mansion and slaves, but the evidence I've been able to gather (tax and census records) leads me to believe this wasn't the case. His father did have quite a bit of land though and several slaves, so that could be the source of the stories.

Elijah joined the Church in 1845 and joined the Saints in Mt. Pisgah. Campbell was baptized August 1846 in Iowa at age 15, the third in his family. Gradually the whole family joined--either that or I'm just missing the earliest dates and the later ones are rebaptisms. The family came west in the William Snow-Joseph Young company in 1850. They lived in Mill Creek (Salt Lake) a couple of years and then moved to Provo, where Elijah was an alderman and later a prosecuting attorney. The family experienced the Walker War, the famine, and the honeydew miracle (see materials on Campbell's next older sister Miriam on my web page).

"History of Provo," in Tullidge's Quarterly Magazine, vol. 3, no. 3 (July, 1884), gives militia rosters from the Utah War period. Campbell appears on page 271: "August 18th [1857], Major Wm A. Follett, Sergt. Richard Sessions, Sidney Bailey, Thomas G. Wilson, Abraham Holladay, Martin W. Mills, Alva A. Zabriskie, Campbell Billingsley, Amos W. Haws, and Thomas Woolsey, pursuant to orders, went on a twenty day's trip around the headwaters of the Spanish Fork, Duchane, and Provo rivers." Beginning September 1 another company including Elijah Billingsley and Jas. A. Ivie "proceeded to explore the head waters of the south fork of Provo river and the surrounding country." Likely this expedition was to make the Mormons familiar with the country in case they had to fight or in case they were pushed south by the U.S. Army. The next spring and summer, all of northern Utah evacuated to Utah County the next summer. People were camped everywhere, and a baby was born in Elijah's granary.

Campbell appears as Barton C. Billingsley, with wife Elizabeth, and children Eliza A., William, Gideon, and Elijah in the 1856 Provo census. (I believe his full name is William Barton Campbell Billingsley.) He is listed in his father's family in Provo on the same census, along with all his siblings, including several who were deceased or like him married and moved away.

Elijah and his family went to the Muddy Mission after William was grown and wound up in Orderville during the United Order.

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From the Ivie Family Web Page
http://len.accessgenealogy.com
Len Evans <elgallo5@juno.com>

Elizabeth Caroline Ivie. Born 1837, Far West, Caldwell, Missouri. Married Campbell Billingsley. Died 28 July 1901.

Campbell Billingsley was living at Mt Pleasant, Sanpete, UT in 1860, a farmer with a family of five. In 1870 he was in Minersville, Beaver, UT, listed as a trader, with a family of nine. In 1890, he is listed as a stockholder of the Minersville Reservoir and Irrigation Company. Died 18 Nov, 1909

Lincoln Camp (c1872-5) was located near the Lincoln mine, near Minersville.

"Men were moving from Parowan, Cedar, Beaver, etc. Families moving in began to build or make dugouts in the sides of the hills along the creek. The creek water was made up from springs that were fed from the mine. When the water was pumped out of the mine, the creek became dry. Many families were living in tents and thus began a tent town. The saloon was located about one-half mile southwest of the mine, among the cottonwood trees by the creek. The saloon was run by two men, a Mr. Irish, and Bill Billingsley. The biggest tent town was built just north of the present road crossing the creek, another was just east of the mine. The miners and mill workers lived in tent houses and tents were continuous from the crossing to quite a distance above the mine, east...In the once booming town, considerable drinking & gambling among the lead miners and the smelter men caused many a night to be disturbed by the noise of fighting and gunfire." From They Answered the Call.

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From "A Mormon Wife . . . The Life Story of Augusta Winters Grant"
By Mary Grant Judd, Improvement Era, 1941

After a while we moved out on a farm at Twin Creek, about a mile and a half from the fort, where we went to a school taught by Cam Billingsley---that is all I ever heard him called. Here I remember the spelling class where we spelled "up" and went "down" to the foot of the class, the one getting to the top the greatest number of times during the week gaining the prize for being the best speller. I still have the little piece of paper decorated with fancy penmanship saying: "Hulda Winters is the best speller in the school." This caused some heartburnings in the "big girl" who stood up with us smaller girls in the class. It seemed to me that she was a grown woman, but she may not have been more than fourteen or so, for I was not over seven, I know, because I had my eighth birthday after we returned to Pleasant Grove.

[There is a Twin Creek in the Bear Lake area. Augusta (later?) went to the Timpanogos School in Provo.]

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More Notes by Len Evans
8 Dec 2001

Campbell Billingsley was living at Mt. Pleasant, Sanpete, UT in 1860, a farmer with a family of five. In 1870 he was in Minersville, Beaver, UT, listed as a trader, with a family of nine. In 1890, he is listed as a stockholder of the Minersville Reservoir and Irrigation Company. Died 18 Nov, 1909.

The 1860 and 1870 references are from an abstract of the Utah census. The 1890 reference is to the Beaver county history, They Answered the Call.

The following is from the biographical sketch of Benjamin Martin Ivie in The Builders of Early Millard:

"In 1863, when Martin was seventeen years old the Ivie family moved to Round Valley but instead of settling where most of the settlers had gathered, at what was called Graball, they went further south at a place called the Gap, where the little stream that came down from a natural lake fed by springs, ran down into the valley at the point where the James Ivie family stopped. The stream took the name of the Ivie Creek and was called by that name for years.

"The settlers at Grabal built a large log room which was used for every purpose, school, church, dances or funerals. When the young people gathered there for dancing in the evening, they often just had singing as the music for their dances, or some one who played the harmonica. Martin often found his way from the Ivie camp to the Graball recreation center where he met Martha Ann Memmott. They were married July 21, 1864, in Mt. Pleasant by Martin's brother-in-law. Cam Billingsley. They made their home in Round Valley later called Scipio. Martin, whose father had a saw mill, soon had a log house built for their home, as he had many brothers to help him do the building."

I am including an attachment showing a drawing of Fort Scipio 1866-7. You will notice that the cabin next to Richard Ivie's is labeled Bilingsley. [Click here to see the map. Ivies and Billingsleys are in the lower right--use your browser's scroll bars.]

I'm always amazed what we can come up with when we put our heads together. I think I have pretty much exhausted the Scipio records for that period, and there were no other references to Cam Bilingsley. I would think that Beaver county is a relatively untapped source. He seems to have been there the last 30 years of his life. If he was a trader at some point, that must have left some sort of paper trail. Not neccesarily the autobiography and letters we'd love to find, but every little piece helps fill in the story.