"What an astonishing life and what a remarkable biography. Lewis Barney's sojourn on the hard edge of the American frontier is a forgotten epic. Not only does this book tell of an amazing personal odyssey from his birth in upstate New York in 1808 to his death in Mancos, Colorado, in 1894, but Barney's tale represents a living evocation of some of the most significant themes in American history. Frederick Jackson Turner theorized that the frontier shaped our national character, but Lewis Barney's life stands as a testament to the real impact of the westering experience on a man and his family. Ron Barney's detailed biography of Lewis Barney provides a participant's view of Mormonism's first six decades of controversy, hardship, and triumph, viewed from the bottom of the social heap. Despite his wide-ranging experience and endless sacrifices, Lewis Barney was a worker in the Mormon vineyard, not one of the princes of the Kingdom of God whose lives have been so exhaustively celebrated. Barney's lack of status in this complex hierarchy adds tremendously to the value of this study, since so much nineteenth-century LDS biography has ignored the lives of ordinary people to celebrate a surprisingly small elite whose experiences were far different from those of the general Mormon population." —Will Bagley, editor of the series Kingdom in the West: The Mormons and the American Frontier and editor of The Pioneer Camp of the Saints: The 1846-1847 Mormon Trail Journals of Thomas Bullock. "This biography has relevance to both Mormon and American history." -- Charles S. Peterson, former editor of Western Historical Quarterly "What an astonishing life and what a remarkable biography." -- Will Bagley, editor of the series Kingdom in the West: The Mormons and the American Frontier One Side by Himself The Life and Times of Lewis Barney, 1808-1894 By Ronald O. Barney Utah State University Press Copyright © 2001 Utah State University Press All right reserved. ISBN: 978-0-87421-427-7 Contents Acknowledgments........................................................................................................ixIntroduction...........................................................................................................xiChapter 1 The Barneys on America's Frontier: The Holland Land Purchase, 1800-1811....................................1Chapter 2 The Silhouette of Ohio: Barneys in America's Interior, 1811-1826...........................................9Chapter 3 These Fertile Prairies: Yankees on the Illinois Frontier, 1826-1832........................................23Chapter 4 On My Farm: Lewis Barney Comes of Age, 1833-1839...........................................................38Chapter 5 An Honest, Industrious People: Conversion to Mormonism, 1839-1840..........................................47Chapter 6 Unaccustomed to City Life: Nauvoo and the Hancock Prairie, 1841-1844.......................................59Chapter 7 A Gloom over the Country: The Final Years in Hancock County, 1844-1846.....................................74Chapter 8 Midst Sighs and Lamentations: Iowa-Prelude to the West, 1846...............................................84Chapter 9 A Story Makes a People: The Exodus to Zion, 1847...........................................................95Chapter 10 A Band of Brethren: The Return to Winter Quarters, 1847....................................................106Chapter 11 Barney's Grove: Iowa and the Last Trek to Zion, 1847-1852..................................................117Chapter 12 We Managed to Live: The Palmyra Plain, 1852-1856...........................................................137Chapter 13 He Would Not Forsake His People: Spanish Fork and the Utah War, 1856-1858..................................153Chapter 14 We Left Them Crying: Spanish Fork and Springville, 1858-1861...............................................171Chapter 15 Busted Up: Utah's Sanpete and Sevier Valleys, 1861-1865....................................................183Chapter 16 Beginning to Be Old: The Indian War and the Railway, 1865-1869.............................................195Chapter 17 A Frontier Village: Monroe, Utah, 1871-1874................................................................211Chapter 18 A Division with the People: The Monroe United Order of Enoch, 1874-1878....................................222Chapter 19 The Salvation of Thy Relatives and Friends: The Last Years in Sevier Valley, 1877-1882.....................238Chapter 20 Better Situated: Farther into the Frontier, 1882-1886......................................................250Chapter 21 If It Takes the Rest of My Life: The Quixotical Family Kingdom, 1886-1894..................................270Barney Family Relationships............................................................................................287Notes..................................................................................