John Smith ADAMS

                   NAME:
    John Smith (PAGE) ADAMS
NOTES:
    John Smith PAGE was adopted by Orson Bennett ADAMS and sealed to him. John's mother, Lucinda THORPE, died shortly after he was born. His father, James B. Finley PAGE, gave him to Orson B. & Susanna ADAMS, who adopted him. Orson B. then had John Finley (deceased child) and Lucinda THORPE all sealed to him 5 Mar 1880 - Sgeor.

SOURCES:
    1. Leeds Ward Records Film
    2. TIB Cards
    3. Death Certificate
    4. Endowment House Film

OCCUPATION:
    Laborer

NOTES:
    Sarah Jerusha Adams was the biological daughter of James B. Finely Page /Mary Lucinda Thorpe.  She was adopted by John S. Adams/Sarah Jane Averett.

HISTORICAL INFORMATION:
   Biography and additional information included in the notes section of this file.

http://adams.forefamilies.com/adamsjs.html
SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF
JOHN SMITH (PAGE) ADAMS 
Son of Lucinda Thorpe and J. Finley Page
Adopted son of Orson B. and Susann Smith Adams 

I've taken this history from an account compiled from the story told by John S. Adams at two interviews in November 1933, from incidents and dates collected by some of his children through recent years, and I've added some incidents related in a history by his daughter, Ann Adams Watts also written in 1933.  -CBA 

Forests were being cleared on Illinois townsites, two-story buildings were unusual, courthouses were being built, flatboats were floating down the rivers with their precious cargoes of English, Irish, and German immigrants. Illinois was becoming known as the land of opportunity when, on May 11, 1844 John Smith Page Adams was born. His parents were John Finley (Ann Adams Watts' history says that the father's name was James B. Finley Page) and Lucinda Thorpe Page. They lived at Macedonia, Hancock County, Illinois (now known as Webster). When the child was three weeks old his mother died. Four weeks later the father and grandmother, Rachel Page, took the child and his sister, Viola, to the home of Thoret and Mary Page Parsons at Quincy. At this home they met Orson Bennett Adams and his wife, Susann Smith Adams. This couple was childless, they were given the infant. Later, at Nauvoo, the child was blessed and given his name under the hands of Patriarch John Smith. 

    John S. Adams' Adoptive Parents 
   
   
   
   
Orson Adams
   Susanna Adams
   
They were good parents to him. John S. can remember being shown the jail where the prophet was so cruelly killed. He remembers seeing the buffalo as they crossed the plains and many other things for a child. 

When the Mormons were compelled to leave Nauvoo, the Adams family, with Mrs. Adams' parents, Dr. Priddie Meeks and Sarah Mahonri (Smith) Meeks were among the first to go. Father and Mother Adams were enlisted in Battalion service. Mr. Adams as sergeant (hunter and guard) and his wife as a nurse (and laundrywoman.) The child was left with the grandparents at the age of three years and came on to the valley with mule team in Jedediah M. Grant's company. They reached Salt Lake City in the autumn of 1847. His parents arriving a few days before him. 

Some recollections that he still carries at the age of ninety of the exodus are interesting to note. He recalls a Sunday service in an improvised chapel made of wagons drawn up in a double circle so close that the front wheel of one wagon locked with the rear wheel of the one ahead, and the tongue of one rested on the hub of the other. Here, secured as much as possible from the distracting influence of the outside, the Saints worshipped. John was the only child in the company and was the play-fellow of all. They taught him to dance and to sing -- songs for the entertainment of the camp. 

When they arrived at Salt Lake City they pitched their camp in the shadow of the great cottonwood tree that harbored a great eagle nest and stood near the place on which the Eagle Gate now stands. He recalls climbing the tree to look in the great nest. 

Father and Mother Adams, who came from Pueblo with detachment of sick of the battalion that came to the valley in the summer of 1847, built them a home out on Mill Creek near the great old cedar, the one tree of which the valley could boast. His father O.B. Adams put up the first sawmill on City Creek. Not far away along the same creek was another home that sheltered a little girl near his age, Emma Smith. These two were playmates. They spent much of their time together along the creek and by the mill pond, on which were launched the boats and rafts of fun-loving settlers. They often visited the Mill Creek school while still too young to be members. When the Adams family was called away she brought her pupils out to bid him goodbye. Tears fell down many little cheeks at the parting. 

In the second summer of the settlement the crickets came and food was scarce. The soldiers wages were almost exhausted. He spent fifty dollars for a hundred pounds of flour and the same amount of shorts. One morning Orson Adams came in and announced to his wife his determination to go to the States for supplies. He asked for food enough for his first lunch. For the rest he had his gun and trusted to it and a kind providence for sustenance.
There were always the Indians to be reckoned with, and the pioneer women learned to use a gun to protect themselves and their children. One day, while Orson was away n this trip east Chief Walker and some of his braves had taken too much "fire water". They were tearing around the Mill Creek homestead, Mother Adams sat in the door of her little home all day with the gun across her knees and her children John and Betsy in the room behind her. Besides John she had taken into her home two orphaned children, John Henderson and Betsy Caddle. 

When the express came in the fall, it brought a message from Orson Adams, telling his wife when she could expect him home if his team could hold out that long. The time came and passed and he didn't come. Mrs. Adams had a team of oxen yoked to a wagon and with John Henderson, only fourteen, she started to his relief. Being unable to manage the animals they never unyoked them from the wagon. For two nights the animals slept in their traces and with the first streak of dawn they were on their way. At the end of their third day, they met the husband whose team was almost exhausted. 

In the early winter of 1851, the Adams family took their cattle and goods in response to call and went with George A. Smith and company to settle on Little Salt Lake, a colony known as Parowan. On the way out from where Beaver now is, they had to cross a ledge down which the hundred and fifty wagons and old brass cannon had to be lowered with ropes. The first company over the cliff moved on to Little Creek and made camp. The second made camp at Wheat Grass, while the third was still laboring over the ledge. Late in the evening the two camps were roused by a volley from the cannon and several rapid rifle shots. To the startled colonists it could mean but one thing -- Indians. Those who were able tumbled out, some even forgot to dress in the excitement, and rushed out into the snow to learn what it was all about. Mrs. Adams calmly advised one man to go back and dress so that "in case there was trouble he would be in shape to do something." Sam Hamilton, from the first camp and Sam Lewis from the second went out to reconnoiter. They found Company Three celebrating the safe descent from the ledge and the arrival into the valley. 

The next day they moved on to the river where they found a quaking aspen pole standing, still bearing the remnant of the flag placed by some unknown hands. They camped by the flag pole on the south side of the river until the fort was built. After a short time at the fort, the Adams family moved to Red Creek where they took up a homestead. 

"Times were hard in those first years at Parowan" says John Adams. "The beaver built dams in the creek and shut off the water supply. The men would go in the day and clear them out and in the night the beaver would put them in again. The wheat was beginning to head but it was burning. The people held a meeting and prayed for relief. That night it snowed about twelve inches. The people were disheartened. They had water but the wheat all lay flat. During the day the sun came out and melted the snow. The wheat straightened up and they had a good crop." 

Late in the fall the Indians would come into town to glean in the grain fields. Indian children were the only playmates John Adams had while they lived on Red Creek. He learned their language and their temperaments and earned their friendship, an experience that served him well throughout his life.
In his fourteenth year he was left with his mother, while his father obeyed a call to a mission to the Spring Valley in the White Mountains of Nevada. This time Orson Adams undertook to prepare a home for his family before he moved them out. These Spring Valley settlers were attacked by Indians and lost all their horses and cattle. They were left empty handed with no animals for farm work. After two years, Adams returned to Parowan worn out and discouraged. His report induced the authorities to give up the mission. Express riders were to be sent to notify the settlers that they were released from the call. John Osborne and Orson Adams were asked to take the message but because of the illness of the elder Adams, John offered to go in his stead. The offer was accepted. This began a long period of service as express rider. 

At Parowan John S. became a minuteman at 16 years of age to scout and locate the Indians. He rode many a night to warn settlers of Indians in their locality. He also rode Pony Express in many a dangerous places. At one time he rode from Beaver to Washington to warn Erastus Snow that was wanted others of St. George for polygamy. John S. made the trip in 19 hours on one mule. He knew a cutoff that shortened the road. At Washington he learned he was ahead of the men so he sent a boy on to St. George to Erastus Snow and when the officers got there all the men with more than one wife had left town. The officers went back without the St. George men. 

In 1863 Orson B. Adams was called to Harrisburg to preside. Then the Blackhawk war broke out and there was a raid on Parowan. Parowan settlers sent a telegram to John asking him to come to their aid in defending the stock. They built a look-out tower thirty feet high on Little Creek. There he with three others stayed as picket guard. One man always was on the tower watching the country around. There were four other men whom they called "whisper in" who carried reports daily to the town. During this time, all community cattle were kept in a nearby forty acre meadow that was fenced. There was no more loss to the Indians. 

It was while he was living at Harrisburg that John met Jane Averett of Long Valley, and married her May 3, 1866. In the following August he was called to go with Captain James Andrus and a company of sixty men to Green River to receive cattle stolen by Blackhawk and his band. They left Gould's Ranch on August 16th. Before leaving President Erastus Snow talked to them and said if there were any who were not called but were hired to go he advised them to stay at home, and he warned each member against going ten feet away from the camp fire without his gun. They went down to Pipe Spring where they trailed a bunch of ten head of wild cattle. They caught and killed five of them for beef. Adams had a place in line in the front rank, just behind Bugler Thomas. As the company advanced, they crossed an old log lying in the path, up came a swarm of hornets. One stung Bugler Thomas on the lip and there were no more bugle calls on the journey; which was fortunate, as the bugle sound would have been a signal announcing their location to any Indians in the vicinity. One group of about ten men tied their guns to their saddles and let their horses trail along, while they walked at ease behind, then the Indians attacked them. Only one, Hy Pollette, was able to retrieve his gun. Lize Everett, the only hired man of the company, was killed. Several were wounded but only the one of the company of sixty died on the trip. They were to have met a company from Sanpete but the two groups missed each other in the mountains. One party alone was not strong enough to attack the Indians so they spent some time in futile search for the lost cattle, then returned home. The settlements in turn, as they passed through greeted them with feasting and dancing. Sixty days were occupied on the trip. During this time, they discovered wild potatoes, named Bear Valley, and gave the name Dirty Devil to a small muddy stream that ran through quick-sandy bottoms. Blackhawk later told them that, at one time, they were within three miles of the cattle and the camp where the women and old men were left unprotected. 

Reckless daring characterized the life of John S. Adams. The Indians knew him as "The Wildcat." He was a man of action with a keen sense of justice. He was not afraid to jeopardize his own security if he could help another, or if he could gain his aim against a foe. Above all he despised snobbery and prudishness. He had enemies and was criticized much. Certain persons had made threats against his life. Once he purchased from the church stock a horse, a young outlaw, which he named Old Blackhawk. He trained this horse so that none but himself could come near him. He was training the animal to obedience and endurance, with the idea in his mind of killing two or three men and using Blackhawk in his escape. Then came a crisis. One day Brother Erastus Snow and a Brother Birch were coming from the north to St. George. The Saints passed them along in relays from one settlement to the next along the way. They had reached Harrisburg and it became the duty of Orson Adams, as presiding Elder to convey them on the way to Washington. John was asked to take them. With this scheme of his in his mind, it took much persuasion to get him to consent. At that, he refused to let them ride in his new buggy but took them in the old wagon. He whipped his horses on to Washington. No one spoke during the whole ride. Arriving there, to their surprise they found no provisions made to take them on. Adams simply said, "Who the - --- wants their horses." and drove madly on to St. George to the home of Brother Snow. There he was invited to stay the night but refused, saying that it was not yet sundown and he would return to Harrisburg. Snow then asked him to take Birch home and then call back on his way out. When he returned, he found the gate open and Snow waiting to arrest him for cruelty to animals, thus he was persuaded to stay. The next morning he was out early, anxious to be off, but Snow did not appear. By nine o'clock he went to the house and left a message that he could wait no longer. Snow called from an inner room asking him in. To quote Adams account, "I went in. Brother Snow took my hand and just looked at the floor for several seconds. Then he raised his head looked at me and said, 'Don't do it.' I said, 'Don't do what?' 'You know,' he said, 'what you are planning. You have a black horse with a white cleft in his face.' And he described Old Blackhawk. 'He will do as you wish and your plan will succeed if you go ahead, but I say, don't do it' I wondered how he found out about it. I had not breathed a hint of the plot to a soul, certainly not to him. I thought about it on the way home. And when I arrived I said, 'Ma, if you will fix me up some grub, I'll go down and work on the temple a few days.'" 

The next important step in his life had its background in the mission of William Robb and the company to the Arapaho Indians. As they were returning, some Navajos attacked them and stole their horses. Three of the company, Ira Hatch, William Maxwell, and (probably) one McConnell, lost from their fellows were found by some Hopis who kept them hidden from Navajos all winter. Maxwell was a teacher and he gathered about him a number of Indian boys and organized a school. When they came home, Maxwell brought with him a youth named, Li, who lived with him a year in Spring Valley. When he returned, Maxwell accompanied him to the ri