HIXSON FAMILY HISTORY
Compiled and typed by
Sterling King Hixson, 1959.
(Re-typed for digitizing by Richard S. Hixson, April 2006.)
The earliest known Hixson in our line at the present is Jodiah Hixson. We don’t know anything about him or where he was born other than it is supposed that he was born in the United States. The name of Hixson is not at all uncommon. Many contacts have been made but no connection has been made with any other lines. I have contacted a Mark Hixson of the General Electric Co. in San Francisco and uncle Karl Hixson has contacted a family in Los Angeles who are members of our own Church, but to no avail in establishing a line with them. I contacted a Hixson in Tennessee and there are many families in that state. There are so many in one area that a community is named Hixson. They all seem to think they originated in England. The following names comprise my pedigree:
Jodiah Hixson born 1724.
Mathew Hixson born 1757.
Richard Hixson born 1787 in Ohio.
Mathew Hixson born 1811 in Ohio.
James M. Hixson born 1833 in Indiana.
Vantyle M. Hixson born 1866 in Wanship, Utah.
Sometime in the early 1850’s my grandfather James M. Hixson came to Utah and settled in East Mill Creek, a community just to the Southeast of Salt Lake City. It was there that he made acquaintance with the Ranck family and married one of their daughters by the name of Margaret Elizabeth. They were married on November 27th, 1862. Shortly after that at the request of President Brigham young they moved to Wanship, Utah, and with tow other family settled that area. At the time it was on outpost and they had to fear hostile Indians. This town was named after a great Indian chief. Grandmother and her husband built a house known as the farm and it was between Wanship and Hoytsville. Later they built a house in the town of Wanship where they lived in the winter months. As the community grew, the need for an organized ward of the Church was evident. The Young’s settled there (my great grandparents on my mother’s side, and when Ebenezer R. Young was made Bishop, grandfather Hixson was made his first counselor. They built the church house out of native lumber and stone that was a beautiful landmark until just recently (1958) when it was destroyed by fire. Grandfather Hixson died 11 years before I was born. Grandmother Hixson lived to be 93 and I knew her well. She is one of the standout events that have affected my life to now. She was a sweet, kindly person and was liked as well as any person ever born. Many times have I spent vacations with her and been around when the neighbors would bring the sick into her front room so that the doctor from Coalville could operate on them. Many operations were performed successfully then that would be very risky in a modern hospital today. She told me many times about grandfather guarding the telegraph lines against the Indians.
This couple was the parents of 10 children of which 9 lived long and useful lives. Welcome Ray died when only 2 years old. My father was the third child of this marriage and born in Wanship on October 5th, 1866. He was raised in that township and met my mother who also was born there. Father was married to mother, Mary Edith King, on October 4th, 1892, by my mother’s grandfather, Ebenezer R. Young, the bishop. The ceremony was performed at Coalville, Utah. They were sealed to each other in the Salt Lake Temple shortly after, when the temple was completed and opened.
My father and mother lived in Warship at the start of their married life. Dad worked on the railroad section crew for some time, and then purchased a grocery business. Some few years later they decided to move away and try something else. They settled in Park City, Utah. This was a mining community about 25 miles closer to Salt Lake Valley. Dad worked in the mills where the gold and silver reached their final stages of processing. Up to this time, Lafe, Lee and Lisle were born in Wanship. Lee died about a year and half after birth of spinal menigitus. He was buried in the family plot at Wanship. Glenn was born in Park City shortly after the turn of the 20th century. At this time the family made another move to try to better themselves. They went to Stateline, Utah, a mining camp close to the Utah-Nevada border. I believe the nearest town in that area would be Ophir. My brother Lafe has told me about their experiences while in that mining camp and they shared their good fortune with their bad with many friends that they made while there. Dad was a good photographer and made many pictures that Lafe has in his possession now. At that time the art of photography was the big and coming thin g. It was here that brother Glen became ill and the folks took him to Salt Lake City for treatment. What ever it was cleared up but it was decided to move into the city for better living conditions.
Dad bought into a livery stable business where the present Greyhound bus depot is, West Temple and South Temple on the Southwest corner.
They rented a house at 353 West 3rd north, a house setting back off the street. Lafe recalls that they were force4d to move and at that time they bought a house at 727 4th Avenue. At that time, around 1905, the Avenues were conside3red the show place of the valley. It was in this house that I was born on April 12th, 1913. In 1906 dad sold his interest in the livery stable and went to work for the Utah Light and Traction Col., where he remained until he was pensioned in 1939. He said the reason for this change was that he could foresee the automobiles eventually crowding the horses out of the picture.
I faintly remember the influenza epidemic and the World War 1. It was at this time that mother became ill. After some length, she went to the hospital and was operated on. They found that she had cancer. Her mother at this time fell and broke her neck and was in a cast in the same hospital. Mother was brought home on August 19, 1919. She died and was buried in Wanship on August 22nd.
Within a short time Lafe married and then Glenn was married. In 1923 Lisle married and my Grandmother King took care of me for some time. She lived close by. On February 14th, 1924, dad married Agnes Lusty, and old acquaintance from Coalville and also connected with the family in as much as she was the sister of Lafe’s mother in law. Agnes took over the care of the home but shortly after dad bought a house at 1390 South 11th East in the city, close to the parents of Agnes. It was here that I was further raised until I married Ellen.
Dad lived until retirement age in 1939 and then spent a winter in the Hawaiian Islands while Lafe and his family was stationed in Hilo. Just before Christmas in 1942 dad suffered a mild heart attack and on April 3rd, 1943, died while working in his garden. He was buried my mother out at Wanship. At the time of this writing, Lafe, Lisle and Glenn are alive, as is Agnes. Some dates that are interesting that are connected with dad are the following. He was ordained a Seventy on January 19, 1914, by Joseph W. McMurrin, and to the office of a high priest on April 29th, 1928, by George E. Wooley. He received his patriarchal blessing on March 15, 1888, by John Smith. His marriage to Agnes was in the Salt Lake Temple by Apostle Joseph Fielding Smit
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