Isaac Buhinin

Isaac Buhinin (also Behunnin)         1803

And Meribah Morton and Almina Tyler

Written by Dr. Barbara (Bobbi) Andersen, Wife of Phil Larsen Andersen, Great-great-great grandson of Isaac Buhinin, 9/84

Isaac Behunin, a Scotch-Irish American, was born 20 October, 1803 in Richland, Oswego County, New York. He was born two years before Joseph Smith was born. His father was Albert Behunin and his mother was Nancy Lord. Isaac joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the very beginning years of the church’s organization. Since he lived in the same geographical area, and at the same period of time as Joseph Smith, it is very likely that Isaac was well acquainted with most of the founders of the Church.

Records show that Isaac married Meribah Morton (born 16 March 1804) when he was twenty years old and she nineteen. Her father was Isaac Morton and her mother was Nancy Drake. Isaac and Meribah married on 25 December 1823 in Willistown, Vermont- Meribah’s home town. Wouldn’t it be interesting if we knew how these young people met? They were born in different states- he in New York and she in Vermont. Their courtship and marriage would undoubtedly have made a sweet story to tell.

This must have been an exciting time in history to have lived in America. The Declaration of Independence had just been signed twenty-seven years before Isaac was born.  Perhaps, Isaac’s parents had knwon George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Betsy Ross, or others who were working to make this land a free country. Since Isaac was born in 1803, his parents could have been in that part of the country around the 1770's. It is fun to speculate that those people could have had a part in the establishing of this country’s freedom.

Isaac and Meribah must have decided to make their home in Willistown, Vermont, because after they had been married two years, Meribah gave birth to twins (born 1825). Joseph was a little boy and Emma, the little girl. The twins died sometime before 1828, so they lived to be only three years old. Philo Marshall was born tho this couple on 4 February 1828. Philo could have lived to maturity because a genealogical family sheet showed he was endowed on 25 May 1892. He would have been sixty-four years old at that time, if he did the work himself. We have no other information about him.

Isaac and Meribah must have returned to Isaac’s birthplace of Richalnd, New York within three years after Philo was born because Isaac Morton was born in Richland, Oswego, New York on 9 September 1831.

Two years after Isaac Morton was born, Meribah gave birth to another baby boy, William Moronia (born 28 May, 1833 in Richland New York). We might wonder why that name-William Moronia- but when we realize that the Book of Mormon was published in 1830- where Isaac and Meribah were living, they must have made up their minds to join the Church before William was born .Some information we have tells that Isaac and Meribah joined the church in 1833 in Kirtland, Ohio and the name Moronia reflects Moroni’s name. Moroni is a character in the Book of Mormon.

Perhaps this young couple was on their way to join a group of Saints in Kirtland before William was born. The family must have made their way back to New York where William Moronia was born on 28 May 1933 in New York. Six weeks later, Meribah died of influenza on 12 July, 1833 in Kirtland, Ohio, while the Saints were being driven from Kirtland. People, at that time, must have thought nothing of traveling back and forth from one state to another even though travel was by horse and wagon.

Grief-striken Isaac, with two-year-old Isaac M. and two month old William returned to New York sometime within the next year. Perhaps, Philo aged six by that time, could have been with him also. Isaac was just thirty years old by that time.

Isaac Buhinin and Almina Tyler

Isaac met and then married Almina Tyler in October of 1834, place unknown. Their first baby, Andrew Ira, was born in Springfield, Pennsylvania on 14 August, 1835. Isaac was thirty-one and Almina was twenty-three when they got married. Almina was born 23 April, 1811 in Sempronious, New York. Her father was Andrews Tyler, and her mother was Elizabeth Comins.

Isaac must have made the trip from Kirtland, Ohio, back to Springfield, Pennsylvania after the death of his young wife, Meribah to find and marry Almina. Isaac and Almina may have known each other years before, since they were both born in New York, the same county. This young mother had the responsibility of caring for possibly a seven year old boy, a four year old boy and a two year old boy all during the first year of her marriage, and at the same time pregnant after one month of her wedding date.

When Andrew Aria was two years old, Alma M. was born on 12 March, 1837. Isaac’s first baby girl, Polly, since his little twin girl in 1825, was born next to this couple. Polly was born 19 June, 1838. She died the next year. Andrew Ira, Alma M. and Polly were all born in Springfield, Pennsylvania.

One source of information states that it was in Nauvoo, Illinois on 12 September 1839 that Isaac M. was baptized a member of the Church when he was eight years and three days old. The family must have left Springfield, Pennsylvania shortly after Polly died and went to Springfield, Illinois. They managed to go to Nauvoo so Isaac M. could be baptized there.

It was in Springfield, Il. That the next two babies were born to Almina and Isaac. Nancy Meribah, named after Isaac’s first wife, was born on 7 February, 1841 and Mosiah Stephen born on 18 May 1843.

The family then moved to Council Bluffs, Iowa, where the next two babies were born. Hyrum Smith Buhunin was born 22 April 1845 and Elijah Cutler was born 7 November 1847. The Behunins must have known Hyrum Smith and loved him to name their son after him.

The family had its reasons for staying in Iowa instead of crossing the plains with Brigham Young. Was Isaac asked to stay and help other Saints get ready or were there other problems of health or money? The baby Elijah Cutler was born in November of 1847 and the first company of Saints had arrived in Salt Lake Valley four months previously. Perhaps the pregnancy of Almina was the reason for the Behunins not leaving with the first company.. The reasons are known only by those early pioneers. We do know that Isaac and Almina came to Utah with one of the first handcard companies, captained by Daniel Spencer. While Isaac was in Kirtland he helped build the Temple and was a bodyguard to the Prophet Joseph Smith.

By the time the family came to Utah, we may conjecture that Isaac and Almina may have had in their charge the following children:

Perhaps, Philo- he would have been 20 years old

Isaac Morton- 18 years old

William Moronia- 16 years old

Andrew Ira- 14 years old

Alma M. - 12 years old

Nancy Meribah- 9 years old

Mosiah Stephen- 7 years old

Hyrum Smith- 5 years old

Elijah Cutler- 3 years old

Probably, 7 sons and 1 daughter, since there is no record of Philo.

The Buhinins in Utah

After the family arrived in Salt Lake City, which according to some data from research was 1849, they were called to settle in Provo. It was here that Almina Priscilla was born on 30 September, 1851. Geneological family sheets show that a baby boy named Benjamin was born in Provo on 4 February 1853. A history of Sanpete County relates that Isaac, wife and nine children, “drove his covered wagon to a lonely spot on Pine Creek and began a Mormon Town. The first settler of Ephraim was Isaac Buhinin who located on Pine Creek (now Cottonwood) where he claimed forty acres of land and made a dugout where he spent the winter of 1852-53.... Toward the close of 1853 he moved to Manti owning to Indian trouble- then to Spring City, then by 1854 settling again in Ephraim.

If both sources of the above information are correct, Almina must have given birth to Benjamin in February and the family immediately left Provo for Pine Creek to spend the winter of 1852-53. In the book, “Life Under the Horseshoe- a History of Spring City” the authors state that the winter of 1853-54 was a very hard winter because of cold temperatures, lack of food and Indian troubles. In the book, “A History of Sanpete” the author relates how it might have been for Isaac and Almina Behunin that winter in the dugout with their nine children:

“Can you picture Isaac Behinin? A tall man, perhaps, with a weatherbeaten face and a heavy beard building a dugout on the old “Postmaster place by the Crick? Eleven souls in a damp room... the endless winter... the children sick perhaps...the baby coughing... provisions running low...the cold days and the long bitter nights...the constant fear...February....March. Isaac, his gun ever close at hand...his wife running in from the woodpile saying, “Moccasin tracks, Isaac! Indians! They were here last night....”

April, and the growing fear... “Isaac, I saw them crouching behind the woodpile.”... May... and Isaac barricaded behind his dugout roof... an arrow whizzing past his head. Almina, white-faced, frantic calls out, “The baby, Isaac! An arrow grazed his head! Isaac, I can’t bear it any longer... We’ll be massacred... Let’s go back to Manti, Isaac!....

June...Isaac, his wife Almina, and the nine children packed into a covered wagon... the slow oxen plod toward the Fort at Manti.”

This description could have very easily been the sequence of events which took place that first winter in the spot where Ephraim now is located.

It mentioned in the above selection, that there were nine children with the Behunins. Since we have only a birth date for Philo, the oldest son of Isaac’s, he may have died when very young and would not have been with the family. Also, Isaac Morton, by that time would have been twenty-two years old. He may not have been with his father there at that age. If these rationalizations are correct there would have been nine children with Isaac and Almina, as stated, not eleven.

It is written in a daughter’s of Utah Pioneers publications, “These our Fathers” page 77, from memories of Mrs. Fannie Thompson, “When my father saw Isaac Behunin in 1853, Buhinin told him it was no use to settle in Pine Creek (Ephraim) as there was only water enough for his (Buhinin’s) farms.”

Apparently, the Behunins left Pine Creek for Manti, only to return to that cite in 1854, since Isaac was one of the builders of a fort in the winter of 1854. Some of the brethren hauled rocks to build a fort wall and inside they began to build houses of what materials they could get at that time. It was when they were finishing the fort that someone suggested the name be Fort Ephraim.

There is a Daughters of the Utah Pioneer monument on the south side of Snow College which names the Behunins as the first settlers of Ephraim. Isaac Behunin fought in the Walker and Black Hawk Wars. He earned the rank of Captain in those campaigns.

Isaac was asked, by Brigham Young to explore southern Utah and was one of those who named Zion’s Canyon. There is a Daughter’s of Utah Pioneers Monument #42 in Garden City, Utah, which tells of these adventures. It states:

Discovery of Zion Canyon- Erected November 12, 1936

“In 1859 Nephi Johnson, one of Brigham Young’s scouts, with a party of Indian guides, arrived at the mouth of the canyon. Due to superstition, the Indians refused to enter the Canyon. Nephi Johnson, alone, followed up river to the narrows, a place where the sun is seldom seen. Returning (probably to the rest of Brigham Young’s scouts) to the mouth at nightfall. Isaac Behunin, an early settler, seeing the spires, remarked, “Surely, this is God’s First Temple and should be called Zion.” William Heaps helped to build homes for the early settlers in the canyon.

Zion’s Park Camp

Isaac helped to build the St. George Temple. He also lived in Rockville, Utah and Long Valley. He died at Mt. Carmel on 15 May 1881 and is buried there. He was seventy-eight years old. Isaac was also the first settler of Springdale, Utah. Almina died two years later on 20 September 1883 at the age of seventy-two.

Epilogue

These histories of Isaac Behunin, Meribah Morton and Almina Tyler surely prove their strength, their love of the Lord and their devotion to the Church. They pioneered from New York and Vermont, through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa and the mountains and deserts of the Utah territory. They cleared a path to Sanpete county so those who followed had an easier chore and a safer place to live.

Pioneer, according to the dictionary, means “One who ventures into unknown or unclaimed territory to settle.” These pioneers did just that, not just with territory, but with previously unknown and untapped dimensions in human feelings. We are proud to be a part of their family.