John Esplin

“Command Thy Passions, Control Thy Thoughts”
John Esplin

                                                             
Photo of Tanner Esplin: a descendent of John Esplin 
Photo taken by Jodi Esplin 

Web site: jodisperception.com, used with permission

 

            The sky was clear and especially blue.  The grass brushed John's legs and the wind blew across his face. As he hurried along the cow trail in his mind he chanted the words, “Command thy passions, Control thy thoughts” He did not know where the words had come from, maybe something his mother had drilled into the heads of his stubborn older brothers.  John did know that his passion was being out with the livestock. He loved the freedom and peace of the outdoors.

            John Esplin was born in a little cottage in Warden, Perth, Scotland.  He was the youngest of seven children: a tough wirily little guy, the shortest brother even after he was grown. 

At the age 9 John was excited to be trusted as one of the regular cattle herders among the Angus cattle in the highlands of Scotland.  

John wrote, ""From 9 years old to 15, I tended or herded cattle in summer and went to school three or four months in the year. Then I was engaged to James Jack for 3 years to learn tailoring."  John was a good reader, wrote a clear hand and was good with math. He walked 6 miles each way to school. He and his brother William must have enjoyed boyish pranks on those long walks. 

John's mother died when he was nineteen years old. A month after her death the family left the highlands and moved to Locke, Scotland, where they owned some houses and lots. Locke was a city with a large number of Irish workers and jute mills. 

One day in the spring of 1849, Johnny Robertson, a school buddy told John the most exciting news he had ever heard.  It was about a prophet on the earth today.

John was so excited about what he heard he wanted to learn more. He attended meetings with the missionaries. (Elder Richard Brown and Elder Hugh Findlay) and spent several months studying the gospel. What an exciting message.   He was baptized in the river Tay at Dundee  (Aug. 4th, 1849 Elder Brown and confirmed by Elder Findlay.)

            After being baptized by John was filled with happiness and hope. In his journal he wrote, “I rejoiced under the cheering influence of the Spirit of the Lord… and wondered why others could not believe and embrace the glorious principles.”  

           He tried to get his family, his father, older brothers and his sisters to see the light of truth he enjoyed in being a member of the restored gospel but they were not impressed by its teachings. 

A year after his baptism John made a decision. He would leave his home, and sail to America to join the saints. The Esplin’s were a close family and leaving them was one of the hardest things John would ever do. 

John with two boxes of apparel and one gun listed his occupation as Tailor and sailed to America, September 4, 1850 on the “North Atlantic” a ship with over 300 other Latter day Saints. 

Of that day John wrote, "A gentle breeze during the day.  A severe gale arose that night and continued unsettled till Saturday the 14th. During that time I suffered severely from sea sickness and fever. The rest of the passengers with a few exceptions also suffered most severely.”

For two long months they sailed. They arrived in New Orleans and then went up the Mississippi River on a steamer. John worked the winter in St. Louis and by spring he made his way to Council Bluffs, where many Mormons were waiting to make the trek west.

John wrote, “I worked my way across the plains by driving a team for Joshua Grant who was hauling freight for Dustin Amy, a tin smith. I arrived in Salt Lake Valley on September 28, 1851.”

After his long journey to America John received letters from home. His father wrote, “It was with much pleasure that I received your letter informing me about your pleasant voyage and safe arrival as I was very much concerned about you. …You mention your stability in the faith you profess. May God bless you in it, and may you ever bear in mind that Christ is the rock on which to build. If you build the house of your hopes on any other it may glitter in the sunshine of prosperity but will not stand in the day of God's wrath.” 

John cherished the letters he received.  His brother William wrote and said he would like to join John in America if they would accept someone of another creed. His brother-in-law David Annand said, "William is very steady at his work and drinks no spirits…Your father is in good health at present always ernest for a little more of this worlds treasure he thinks often of you and complains he is never to see you again,"

A letter from his brother David stated, "We have only one boy, two and one half years old…. He is a fine little fellow just like what you were yourself at his age" 

John had only been in Utah a little over a year when he received a letter from his brother-in-law containing sad news.  “I cannot delay any longer writing you owing to what has befallen your aged father, when I tell you that he is not more. After suffering sorely for ten days with a cold, under heavy distress, died on the 16th of December. Your father showed great signs of repentance and submission before he died.”  The letter also said “William sailed to Australia. He headed to the gold mines and was never heard from again”.

Years latter as John read the letters form his family he scribbled across a letter from his brother William, “O' Willie, where are you now?" April 1859, J. Esplin.

John hired on with Charles A. Harper in Big Cottonwood.  When Brother Harper was called on a mission to England  John rented his farm for a year. 

Margaret Webster, a cute little gal from Lancashire England caught his eye.  They married in November 1853 and moved to Salt Creek, now Nephi where they built their first home of willows woven together with a dirt roof.   Joseph Heywood, the first Utah Marshall and others had been called to settle the Salt Creek area.  The Ute Indian Chief, Chief Walker, was the terror of the whole western area, carrying on an extensive slave trade as well as a horse trade. John and Margaret fought the Indians at the time of the Walker War along with the other settlers. 

The day their 8th child, David, was born the Esplins were called to help settle what is now Nevada. They called it the Muddy Mission. In the Nevada desert they fought sand flies, mosquitoes, extreme heat and Indians.  In an Indian raid on ST. Joseph, the Indians carried off 60 head of cattle that were never recovered. This must have been devastating.

In 1870 the government shifted the Nevada State Line. The conversation would have gone like this, “They are making this area a part of Nevada? We have three years of back taxes to pay?  How in the world will we pay back taxes?  The Indians have carried off 60 head of cattle.  We may not even be able to feed our families.

Brigham Young recognizing the hardships of living on the desert and the impossibility of paying the high Nevada taxes released these destitute settlers from the Muddy Mission. He strongly suggested they help settle Long Valley and establish the United Order. John once again followed the direction of the prophet. In Long Valley as the United Order was set up John was given the responsibility and care of the livestock.

In the family bible John wrote, “we as a family lived and labored in the United Order until September 1885.”  When the Order broke up John bought a 20-acre farm. During his later years John had inflammatory rheumatism and also lameness caused by breaking his kneecap.  He kept on working even though he was a cripple.

John's grandchildren remember watching grandpa John trimming his beard and hair with a candle and knowing that it did not work so well when they tried it.  They remember he did his own tailoring and made a perfect buttonhole. 

Many in Long Valley remember John for his big heart and his favorite bull.  Riding a bull to town,  John would take food to widows or those in need, (always giving a whole ham, not a slice). John rode the bull to the edge of town, tied it up on a clump of cedars, and walked on in. The young boys of the settlement loved to snitch a ride while he was gone, being careful to have it tied back up before John returned. 

In his latter years as John fingered the letters he carried with him he read the saying he had written in the margin.  “Command your passions and control your thoughts.”  John realized his passion was still the open range but even more his passion was teaching his posterity to live righteously and love the Lord.  John and Margaret not only raised prize livestock but raised a righteous family of 13 children. Today it is hard to find an Esplin in the United States that do not live up to the motto of  “Command thy passions, Control thy thoughts” In the fall of 1885 while he was out working he became sick and being unable to walk, he crawled on his hands and knees to the house.  He died form the effects of a stroke October 19, 1895.