December’s Event: Christmas was celebrated this year for our group at the Intermediate School just north of the Church Welfare Farm. Our most sincere apologies to our members who did not know where to find us, the mistake was mine. I am so sorry. I will try to do a better job of helping you know the exact address.
Our dinner was catered this year by Danny Beardall, and was delicious, consisting of smoked pork and Dutch oven potatoes, with 
After the entertainment, David Hinton, our Area Vice President swore in the new board for 2011. They are: President-Elect Durward Wadsworth, President Darwin Leavitt, Past President, Larry LeBaron, Wayne Edwards, Antone Bringhurst, Garth Isom, Lee Beatty, DeLoy Evans, Steve Stout, Floyd Wilkinson, Don Tait, David Isom and David Hinton. We would like to extend our appreciation to these men for the many hours to put in to make this chapter fun and successful.
With a new year, we would like to give special recognition to the time and energy given to us by Larry LeBaron, our out-going president. We would also like to welcome our new president Darwin Leavitt. We wish him a successful year.
We would be grateful to Durward Wadsworth who has committed to be our president-elect for this next year. For those who don’t know, this requires a 3 year commitment to the board. So thank you Durward.
Upcoming events: The events in January, February, April, May, July, and one date in August have been confirmed. All other dates are tentative at this point. All dinner meetings will be on the 3rd Wednesday of the month. If there is to be a trek, it will be on a Saturday, probably the 3rd Saturday.
January 19, 2011 Jay Evans Musical event
February 16, 2011 Lyn Clark Pictorial History
March 16, 2011 Charles Inouye Japanese Interment Camp
April 20, 2011 Pioneer Essays
May 21, 2011 Trek to Peter’s Leap
June 18, 2011 Trek to Colorado City
July 20, 2011 Modern-day Pioneer Award
August 17, 2011 V. Dallas Merrill - Mormon connection at the Vatican
August 25 – 27, 2011 Nat’l Convention in SLC
September 2 – 3, 2011 Peach Days
September 21, 2011 To Be Determined...
October 19, 2011 Family Trek
November 16, 2011 To be determined
December 9th Christmas Dinner
A Window From the Past:
Excerpts from the Life of John Nock Hinton
After staying in Florence, Nebraska for a little while, two hundred teams and wagons loaded with provisions, arrived from Salt Lake City to bring them across the plains to Utah. The saints were divided into four companies. Brother and Sister Hinton being in Joseph Horn's company. They arrived in Salt Lake City on the 13th day of September 1861.
Their first child was a boy, John Maurice, born April 7, 1862. They remained in Salt Lake City a little more than a year, and Brother Hinton worked with Brother Capner all of that time, but the wages were small and fuel so hard to get, that they thought they might do better if they went south to Dixie.
John Nock had bought a city lot in Salt Lake, and was preparing to build, but sold it. He did not get anything for it at the time, as the man was too poor to pay him for it, but later sent a few things to Dixie. They sold the furniture that he had made for themselves, and among others, they sold a nice bureau. The man they sold it to owned a tin shop but had no money to pay them with, so they were able to barter for things out of his shop. From him they got a milk strainer and pans, a large camp kettle that was very useful on their trip to Dixie, and also a coffee mill that also came in handy as a wheat grinder.
After they arrived in Dixie, They used this mill to not only grind their own grain and cane seed but also allowed their neighbors to use it as well that they could all have flour for bread. They still had the old coffee mill at the time of their death and the children planned to send it to the museum in Salt Lake at the State Capital.
Sister Hinton bought two flat irons from some immigrants going through to California. She paid them with green beans and corn out of her garden. Late in December of 1862, they settled in Virgin. Their first home was a dugout, a hole dug in the ground or in a bank with dirt floor and dirt walls with ridge poles over the top then covered with brush first, then dirt.
Brother Hinton soon found employment, but wages were smaller than they were in Salt Lake City. He had to take anything he could use for his pay. In their poverty, they had to eat pigweed, and Lucerne greens. Many times they did not even have salt to put on them. It was very difficult for them when friends would come calling because they have very little to feed them with.
Brother Dorius Shirts owed Brother Hinton for work he had done, and was to pay him wheat when the threshing was done. The thresher was at Brother Shirts place that morning. After Brother Hinton had gone to work, Sister Hinton, with her baby in one arm and a sack in the other, went to Brother Shirts place and waited while they threshed, then took her wheat and baby home. Upon reaching home, she ground some wheat in the coffee mill, and then made mush, which they sprinkled with molasses for dinner.
This is just a small window view of life for the pioneers back in the early days of Utah and Washington County. Today I focused on John Nock Hinton because I have his life story as told by Leonora Meeks. I would like to be able to take a window view of other pioneers who helped settle this valley, and put it here in the newsletter. If you would contact me by phone 435-669-5993, or by e-mail: mcpinch@bajabb.com, I would be happy to come and pick the story up and place it in the newsletter.
