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  Back to Art of the Old West
PIONEER WOMAN, Sarah Leavitt's Garden, Gunlock, Utah 1862 |
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 Original 32"x 40" Acrylic/Canvas Painting |
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Historical Background: Sarah Leavitt's Garden, Gunlock, Utah, 1862 Sarah Sturdevant Leavitt embodies all of the finer traits of the sturdy Mormon pioneer woman, willingness to labor without complaint, despite dreadful tragedy, and with a firm belief in the love of her Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. She also had a firm and abiding belief in Joseph Smith as a Prophet of God, and was living in Nauvoo at the time he and Hyrum were martyred in Carthage. She was born Sarah Sturdevant in 1799, in Lime, New Hampshire, the daughter of Lemuel Sturdevant and Priscilla Thompson. She said, "My parents were very strict with their children, being descendants of the old Pilgrims. They taught them every principle of truth and honor as they understood it themselves. They taught them to pray and read the Bible for themselves." Sarah wrote, "When I was 18 years old the Lord sent me a good husband (Jeremiah Leavitt II). We were married at my father's house, March 6, 1817, in the town of Barton, County of Orleans, State of Vermont." |
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After being influenced by her husband's sister, she read the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine
and Covenants. These confirmed her faith in the work. She said that she knew it was
the word of God and as revelation from Heaven and received it as such. The next thing
she felt was to gather with the Saints, but they did not have much means for such an
undertaking. They left for Kirtland, Ohio, in July of 1835, a journey of 800 miles.
Since she had no chance to be baptized earlier, upon arrival in the Kirtland Village,
she was baptized in the Chagrin River. Their money all spent by the time they arrived,
they stayed a year while Jeremiah worked with his team. Finally they were able to resume their journey on to Nauvoo, Illinois, and the center of the Church. After some land trading they purchased a farm at the mound (highest point in Hancock County), seven miles east of the City of Nauvoo. They were living there when word came that Joseph & Hyrum had been killed by powder and ball in the Carthage jail. She wrote in her history, "When the news came the whole city of Nauvoo was thunderstruck; such mourning and lamentation was seldom ever heard on the earth. We went to the city and was there when the bodies of the martyred prophets were brought into the city." Non Mormon's harsh intolerance to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints increased, bringing further depredations against the Saints throughout Hancock County. Soon the Leavitt's realized they had to leave...to save their lives. They traded their beautiful farm and a stack of 40 thousand bricks for what little they could get, a blanket and a yoke of oxen. Said Sarah, "I never had a murmuring thought pass my mind." They crossed the Mississippi River with the rest of the Saints; choosing to endure weeks of muddy roads, struggles through extensive mud bogs, in their trek toward the Rocky Mountains. At last they got to Mt. Pisgah, Iowa, in April 1846, where a few of the Saints had stopped, built small houses, put in crops, expecting to winter there. Jeremiah built his family a cabin, planted crops then prepared to go back to Bonaparte, Iowa, to work for provisions, to last his family until harvest. Their family still had two young boys and three girls still at home. Upon his departure for Bonaparte, he told Sarah of his love and asked her not to associate with any other. He died the 29th of August 1846, in Bonaparte, Iowa. She learned of her husband's passing when a messenger arrived at her door before dawn with a letter containing news of his death. She said, "It would be impossible for anyone to imagine my feelings...expecting him to come...It never entered my heart that he would die... My feelings were too intense to weep." She later recorded in her history in 1873, "Now to look at it, the spirit knew he would be gone till the resurrection and he did not want me to get married to any other one. When I heard of his death I thought I will keep that request sacred. Although I have had good offers I never was tempted to marry. I have lived a lonely life as a widow twenty-seven years, but my heart leaps for joy at the thoughts of meeting him at the great resurrection, never more to part." In 1847, Sarah and her family started on their journey to the Great Salt Lake Valley and arrived safely with her five remaining children. They joined the Saints living in the Tooele area, where her three daughters met and married William and Jacob Hamblin. When the Hamblins were called to go settle the Virgin River country, the Leavitt family went with them. They finally settled in a tiny place they named for her son-in-law, William "Gunlock" Hamblin. Widowed for 32 years, she passed away 5 April 1878 in Gunlock, Utah Territory, the mother of twelve, the grandmother of many. She was and is today revered as the beloved matriarch of Leavitt descendants numbering in the hundreds of thousands. The artist's wife Patreecia Leavitt Thomas, a second great granddaughter of Sarah Leavitt, was used as the model for this painting since there are no known photographs of Sarah's likeness. Patreecia is the same age as was Sarah Leavitt in 1862. |
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