Settling Preston, Idaho: The David, Serena, and Julia Jensen Family

R. Devan Jensen

America is a land of immigrants. People traveled here for a variety of reasons, including discontent with meager circumstances in their former homeland. Many came for religious reasons, including converts to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (nicknamed Mormons because of their acceptance of the Book of Mormon as scripture comparable to the Bible). Between 1850 and 1905, Scandinavia produced 22,653 Mormon converts who immigrated to America. Fifty-six percent were Danes, 32 percent Swedes, and 11 percent Norwegians.[i] This paper is a microhistory of the original settling of Preston, Idaho, by European immigrants, including Norwegian immigrants David Jensen (1835–1909), Bertha Sørine  Simensdatter (anglicized as Serena or Serina Petersen, 1841–84), and Julia Konstance Simensdatter (anglicized as Petersen, 1851–1920). Preston was founded in northern Cache Valley, a semiarid valley straddling southeastern Idaho and northern Utah. This is a story of the American dream and of building the kingdom of God. It is a story of a complex struggle for survival, of unfortunately displacing American Indians from their own homeland, and of building homes, schools, and canals to channel water from the Bear River and Cub River to make the desert “blossom as the rose” (Isaiah 35:1).

Beginnings in Norway

What motivated a Norwegian couple to move from their homeland to Idaho? David was born 15 April 1835 in the farming district of Østre Toten, about 150 miles northwest of Oslo (Christiania). David moved to Oslo because of the difficulties of leasing land. David’s uncle Ole Olsen lived on a farm called Maridalen. While living with Ole, David became acquainted with Serena and Julia Pedersen, who lived a good share of the time with their grandmother Anne Christensen Hansen on her little farm, Breke Maridalen. David married eighteen-year-old Serena on August 20, 1859, and after the death of the first son, Sigwardt (1860–61), they heard a local Mormon congregation singing “O My Father,” a hymn that testified of heavenly parents and life beyond the grave. After joining the church, they chose to heed the call to gather with their fellow church members in America, receiving financial assistance from the Perpetual Emigrating Fund.[ii] The total number of members emigrating from Scandinavia that year was 1,458, plus returning missionaries.

David and Serena left Norway on 13 April 1863 with Serena’s twelve-year-old sister, Julia. That day they started a trip to a new land of opportunity. The journey was long, hard, and tragic. They sailed from Oslo on the steamer Excellencen Toll,[iv] arriving two days later in Copenhagen, Denmark.[v] They remained in Copenhagen until 30 April. The next leg took them from Copenhagen to Kiel, Germany; and then on to Hamburg, Germany. Serena’s second child, Josephine, was born on 5 November 1862. She was not yet six months old when they started for America. They had to travel third class. At Hamburg, they changed to the steamship Roland, which took them to Grimsby, England. They spent twenty-seven days crossing the choppy North Sea on the Roland. The Roland had on board six hundred immigrants, forty steers, and several hundred sheep. A small ship, steerage passage, a small child, and a cargo of sheep and cattle made this ride most unpleasant. 

Trains took them from Grimsby to Liverpool, a journey of thirty-seven days. The Scandinavian-speaking members traveled together so they communicate. A contemporary letter described their journey: “While the majority of the emigrants left Grimsby for Liverpool, May 6, 1863, the Norwegians remained in Grimsby in charge of Elder Carl C. N. Dorius until May 20th, when they also traveled by rail to Liverpool, and on the same day went on board the ship Antarctic, on which also 60 passengers from Switzerland and many English emigrants went on board, making a company of 450 passengers. The Antarctic, which was a fine ship and well equipped for the voyage, sailed from Liverpool May 23rd. . . . Several deaths occurred on board, and several couples were married. The ship arrived in New York July 10, 1863, and the same day the journey was continued via Albany, Niagara, Detroit, Chicago and Quincy to St. Joseph, Mo., and thence by steamer to Florence, Nebraska.”[vi]

They traveled during the American Civil War, hearing cannon fire along the way. The Scandinavians crossed the plains in Captain Peter Nebeker’s company consisting of fifty wagons. This company arrived in Salt Lake City on 24 August 1863. While crossing the Great Plains, two adults and seven children died and were buried by the wayside. David and Serena’s second child, Josephine, died on 13 August 1863 at Holt County, Missouri. Their loss must have been extremely disheartening; still they pressed onward.

Settling in Franklin, Then Preston

Arriving in Utah Territory, the Jensens lived three years in the farming community of Lehi, where Serena gave birth to another son, David Henry Jensen, who also died in 1864. Church president Brigham Young asked colonizers to move northward to Cache Valley, where the population swelled from 2,605 to 8,229 between 1860 and 1870. During that same period, immigrants from Scandinavia tripled from 120 to 367. Immigrants from Great Britain doubled from 756 to 1,853.[vii] So European immigrants formed a large part of the colonizers of what is now southeastern Idaho.

In 1866 David and Serena moved to a fort called Franklin,[viii] thought to be part of Utah Territory but just north of the border. Shoshonis had long lived in the area and had become alarmed with the number of new arrivals.[ix] After reports of attacks on immigrants, in January of 1863 Colonel Patrick Connor and men massacred around four hundred Shoshonis at Battle Creek, northwest of today’s Preston.[x] The Mormon colonists nursed both the injured Indians and soldiers,[xi] for local Mormons tried to follow their leader Brigham Young’s policy of feeding the Indians rather than fighting them. That practice often required distributing tons of food during times of shortage.[xii] However, receiving food from the Mormons did not save Shoshonis from a prolonged retreat from their own ancestral homeland.[xiii] 

Franklin became the mother of small surrounding settlements, and Mormon colonists spread outward from there, looking for grass for their cattle and building summer homes to protect their squatter claims.[xiv] The area consists of rolling hills with Bear River to the west and Worm Creek and the Cub River to the east (then called “The Muddy”). William Head and David Winn settled in 1866 in “the Flat” (now Preston), flat land covered with sagebrush, rabbitbrush, and bluegrass. David worked at the Howarth sawmill in Franklin, frequently interacting with other settlers and with the Shoshonis. 

With Serena’s permission, David married her sister Julia as a second wife on 18 November 1868.[xv] David and Serena were sealed a few days later, on 23 November. Around that year, David scouted for land and settled in the eastward area called Worm Creek or “Egypt” because wheat grown there was used to provide food, like Egypt of the Old Testament period.[xvi] As in Egypt of old, water provided life-giving nutrients. When the Jensens settled in Worm Creek, David built a ditch on each side of the creek, and the two ditches made up the earliest water right there. Irrigation would become a lifelong project for Jensen.

Schools and Churches

David, Serena, and Julia reared fourteen children to adulthood and served as community and church leaders. Franklin had the first school in Idaho Territory,[xvii] and the children had difficulty walking the eight miles to Franklin. They had the same problem getting to church on Sundays. Thus, E. R. Laurence, William Garrison, Anne Lundgren, Joseph Clayton, David Jensen, and others met and decided to ask the bishop of the Franklin Ward to organize a branch of the church on Worm Creek. The request was granted. The Worm Creek Branch was organized with E. R. Laurence as the presiding elder.[xviii]

David and other settlers met in 1878 at the home of Anne Lundgren to plan construction of a combination school and church. Episcopal bishop Daniel S. Tuttle, another Cache Valley school builder, described the early Mormon schoolhouses thus: “It is true that they called their church ‘schoolhouses,’ and day-schools were kept in them. But they were under the control entirely of the ‘Church’ authorities, and payment of tuition was exacted. Besides they were very elementary affairs.”[xix]

David, William Garrison, E. R. Laurence, and Emil Petterborg went to the canyon and brought back logs to build the house. They built the house to the square by the winter of 1878–79, but it remained unfinished for the balance of that summer and the next.  While the building was under construction, people on the east and west sides of town met to establish a more central location for the school and church. Francis Wilcox, Nathan Porter, Elam Hollingsworth, Thomas Heller, Martin Johnson, Ben Lamont, Israel West, and Augustus Canfield met with Anne Lundgreen, William Garrison, E. R. Laurence, Emil Petterborg, Joseph Clayton, and David and decided to move the unfinished school to the top of a hill east of Worm Creek on the south line of Soren Peterson’s homestead. In 1879, the logs were moved to the new site on the top of Creamery Hollow. More logs were brought from the canyon to finish the house. The new house was twice the size of the first one. The finished house was sixteen feet by thirty-two feet.[xx]

With limited resources at hand, the schoolhouse hosted community activities such as socials, dances, weddings, and so on. Edward Clayton would set the pitch with his tuning fork and lead community singing. For dances, Nels and Baltzar Peterson would play their violins while Clayton, George and John Taylor played the accordion or mouth organ, and Soren Peterson “called” the dances. There were games, readings, and parties for many occasions.[xxi]

The presidency of the Cache Stake[xxii] at Logan met on 21 October 1879 to form the Worm Creek Ward with boundaries “commencing at the South of Mink Creek, thence running in a southerly direction through the foot hills to the Lewiston Canal, thence westerly along the bank of said canal to Worm Creek, thence to Bear River to the Railroad bridge, thence north and northeasterly along Bear River to the place of beginning.”[xxiii] Nahum Porter was bishop with David as first counselor, Elam Hollingsworth as second counselor, and Israel West as clerk. David also ran the local Sunday School.[xxiv] They soon organized the Female Relief Society[xxv] with Rachel Porter as president, Serena Jensen as first counselor, and Anne Lundgreen as second counselor.[xxvi] Two years later, they formed the Primary organization for children[xxvii] with Jennie Wilcox as president and Julia as first counselor. Julia later served as first counselor in the Relief Society presidency.[xxviii]

Preston received its name at a special meeting at the schoolhouse on 14 May 1881. Church leaders in Salt Lake City expressed concern that the word “worm” was inelegant for the name of a church unit. Rachel Porter, wife of Bishop Nahum Porter, suggested the ward be named “Preston” to honor William B. Preston, a bishop in the Cache Stake who later became the Presiding Bishop of the Church. Thereafter, Preston became the name of the ward and the community.[xxix]

Hard Labor to Build Canals

Although farming in the semiarid Cache Valley was difficult, the settlers achieve remarkable results by forming private canal companies, many of which continue to the present. Reflecting a communitarian rather than capitalistic goals, those companies placed the needs of the community above the needs of private individuals or corporations.

In the early 1880s, the settlers decided to bring irrigation water to the Preston bench, where the main part of town is located today. Jensen discussed the water problem with Joseph Clayton, Charles Spongborg, and Ole Petterborg. The men formed the Cub River and Worm Creek Canal Company, filing for water rights on 11 April 1880. Thirty-six men filed articles of incorporation in the Oneida County on 5 May, recording intentions to dig a canal ten feet deep from Cub River over the divide into Worm Creek. Those listed were Nahum Porter, F. L. Wilcox, William H. Head, David Jensen, W. C. Garrison, I. A. Canfield, and J. J. West. The company set up strict rules, and “no man could be admitted as a member of the company that had entered land any way except by the homestead and peremptory right. No man was allowed to sell his capital stock in the company to anyone that was objected to as a member.”[xxx]

For the months that the men worked on the ditch they camped on the river. Some took their wives up to cook for them. Many of the men grouped and had one woman cook for them, sharing everything in common.[xxxi]

Jensen took a contract to dig through Sand Rock Point. No one else seemed to want to do this work. All the work was done by hand without the use of drills, powder, or power machines. Cutting through the sand rock by hand was a slow process. Four to seven feet a day was a long and hard day’s work.[xxxii] He surveyed the canal with a spirit level, giving the canal an inch fall per rod. Serge C. Ballif described this canal work: “The real history of the work will never be written. As one old timer expressed it they ‘dug a little ditch to get a little water to raise a crop to get bread to get strength to dig more ditch.’”[xxxiii]

A history of Preston records that “after much manual labor of building fires to crack the rocks and leveling the canal, the ditch was completed by 1 July 1881. The entire community turned out to celebrate. Thomas Heller led a parade of settlers as they followed the water along the ditch. As the water made its way along, the people removed weeds and debris from its path. Where needed, the weak banks were hurriedly reinforced. When they saw the first water move over the hill, they took off their hats and gave the “Hosannah Shout” three times.[xxxiv] This sacred shout is normally reserved for dedication of temples, indicated local regard for the sacred, life-giving water. “With water now available on the Preston Flat, ditches could be made and additional acres cultivated. The hard work with hand tools and plow would now pay off in productivity as long as the water flowed. Despair was felt many times when the ditch would run dry and slides were discovered on the hillsides. Hasty repairs had to be made.”[xxxv]

 The settlers decided to enlarge the ditch in 1883–84. The original ten-foot ditch seemed too large an undertaking and it was reduced to six. Solid rock was a problem for which blasting was the only solution. They voted in 1883 to make the ditch ten feet wide in the bottom; all contract work was to be done by 10 May 1884. The work was divided into horse-team work and pick-and-shovel work. A contract was comprised of fifty feet. Each man who took a contract was compelled to take as much pick-and-shovel work as he did team work. One man found it advantageous to use a horse and a slip scraper on his pick-and-shovel contract. He was forced to discontinue using the horse. The pay was either in cash or irrigation stock.[xxxvi]

Although the people had earlier celebrated a small stream running in 1881, the canal was enlarged until a substantial amount ran in 1885. From 1885 to 1890, things went on quite smoothly. The minutes of the canal company reported that “by the fall of 1888, another canal known as the Preston, Mink Creek and Riverdale Canal was surveyed, taking its water from the Mink Creek. David Jensen, David Eames, James Johnson, and John A. Woolf were the directors. This canal follows the hill to the east, and like its predecessor on the Flat, washes out in the sandy soil occasionally. It was constructed at a cost of about thirty thousand dollars and took several years to complete.”[xxxvii]

The year 1890 was exceptionally dry, and for the first time the companies which were taking the waters from Cub River found there was not nearly as much water as had been counted on. The minutes of 27 December 1890 state, “The business of the meeting was then stated by Pres. Dd. Jensen, it being the choosing of a committee to meet with a committee of the Lewiston Water Ditch Company, to try and come to some understanding with regards to our claims.”[xxxviii]

At that point, contention over water rights broke out among the four ditch companies taking water from Cub River. Lewiston (Cub River Irrigation Co.) argued that they had the prior right against Whitney (Cub River Middle Ditch Co.), and Preston (Cub River and Worm Creek Co.), and Preston (Cub River Creek Canal Co.). The Franklin company later joined the struggle. From 1890 to 1905, the sentiment rose almost to war. As men worked their ditches in the spring most of the talk centered around the other company stealing their company. The affair naturally ended in court, and on 5 December 1905 District Judge Budge issued a decision allocating exact amounts of water to each company.[xxxix]

Because of David Jensen’s early efforts to form canal companies in southeastern Idaho and northern Utah, Einar O. Hammer called him the father of Idaho–Utah irrigation in a magazine published by the Sons of Norway, a historical society headquartered in Minnesota.[xl] Although this title likely overstates his contribution, it demonstrates Norwegian pride in those irrigation efforts. Years later, another Norwegian convert and immigrant, John A. Widtsoe (1872–1952), became director of the Agricultural Experiment Station at Utah State Agricultural College and wrote US national best-selling books on irrigation and dry farming.[xli] These two men are fine examples of Norwegian contributions to the irrigation of the American West.

Prosecution for Unlawful Cohabitation

During his canal-building years, Jensen experienced a setback when federal marshals began hunting him for unlawful cohabitation. Although the US had passed the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act in 1862, it was enforced until the Reynolds case of 1879 opened the floodgates of prosecution in Idaho.[xlii] “At the beginning of 1885 two political factors significantly increased the prosecution of Mormons,” wrote historians Fred Woods and Merle Wells:

The legality of the Edmunds Act, tested the previous year, had led to the arrest and conviction in Utah of Mormon leader Rudger Clawson for practicing polygamy. This success encouraged increased “polygamy hunting” for political agendas. The second major political factor that increased Mormon prosecutions at this time was the alignment of a vast majority of southeastern Idaho Mormons with the Democratic Party. They therefore demonstrated great political influence when they voted as a bloc. The anti-Mormon Republican Party led by U.S. Marshal Fred T. Dubois launched an all-out crusade against polygamy in an attempt to curtail this political power. An anti-Mormon Democratic faction joined his bipartisan crusade. Dubois and his deputies organized raids and were responsible for arresting many Mormons on the charge of violating the Edmunds Act.[xliii]

Caption: The David Jensen home about 1.5 miles east and four blocks north of the main intersection of Preston, Idaho. The people in the picture are gathered here for the funeral of Bertha Serena Petersen Jensen, who died 26 August 1884. The north part where the people are standing was built in the summer of 1871. The south part was added soon after. When they lived there, a shanty was added to the south end of the house. The north part of this house was the first house built on the Preston flat. It had a dirt roof. At the time the family moved from Franklin to Worm Creek, it had no floor, just the bare ground. When the south part was added, which also had a dirt roof, a rough board floor was placed in the two rooms. The log building in the rear was used by Joseph Clayton while he was building his log cabin one-half mile south of the homestead. Courtesy of Kathy J. H. Griffin.

Serena, his first wife, had died in 1884 (the year the Idaho Test Oath disenfranchised Mormons from voting), so technically David was a monogamist, but hid for a year from federal authorities who were trying to arrest him for unlawful cohabitation. While in hiding, he stayed at Marriner W. Merrill’s farm in Richmond, Utah Territory. Jensen was arrested in January of 1886 on the charge of unlawful cohabitation with his wives. The trial was to be at Blackfoot, Bingham County, Idaho. He was driven to trial by his fifteen-year-old son Oscar, who describes being traumatized by the ordeal and the long, lonely ride home alone. Jensen and the others were tried by a jury that was bitterly prejudiced and that was backed by Marshal Dubois for the express purpose of convicting the Mormons. He said while in the witness box and under oath that “he had a jury impaneled to try unlawful cohabitation cases that would convict Jesus Christ if he were on trial.”[xliv]

Jensen and the others were sentenced by Chief Justice J. B. Hays on 24 May 1886 to six months at the new Idaho Territorial Penitentiary and to pay a $300 fine.[xlv] Each person before sentenced was given the chance to recant and put his wives away and go free. Three promised to do this, and they were set free. Jensen refused to recant and thus became one of forty-seven men from southeastern Idaho who spent in the Idaho penitentiary due to unlawful cohabitation.[xlvi]

His experience offers a window into the legal trials and penitentiary experience. Those sentenced to Boise left Blackfoot on 31 May in charge of John R. Richards, the warden. They arrived at the penitentiary on the morning of 1 June. The penitentiary was situated about two and one-quarter miles south of Boise. They were ushered into the large stone building. They stood in line while two guards searched them carefully, taking watches, knives, pocketbooks, and money. Then they took their place of birth, height, complexion, age, weight, single or married status, and number of children. Jensen’s prisoner register number was 144.[xlvii]
The guards shaved off the prisoners’ beards—humiliating for the Mormon men—and told the men to put on the striped suits. These men were ushered into the yards with about seventy-five other prisoners. At 11:30 a.m. the whistle blew, and the prisoners were expected to go to their cells and be locked up until 8:30 the next morning. The prison was a double building; the outside wall was stone, and the inner wall or “cell house” was brick. The outside building was seventy feet long and forty feet wide and was thirty-seven feet high and covered with a sheet iron roof. The brick wall was about 14 inches thick, and the stone wall was about two feet thick. The floor was of stone flags. The structure was east of the center of a courtyard four hundred feet long, enclosed by a board fence twelve feet high, upon which are three guardhouses—one on the northeast corner, one by the north side, and one of the south side. The prison had a heavy double door in the north end. Between the stone and brick walls was a hall about eight feet wide and extending all around the cell house. The inside building was composed of forty-two cells, each six by eight feet and entered by means of a heavy flat iron, barred door. The cell house was divided into three stories, the upper ones being reached by an iron staircase leading up the north side of the buildings. Each cell was numbered and contained one double bunk (intended for two), one small table, two stools, one wooden bucket lined with earthen ware, two tin cups, knives, forks, and spoons.[xlviii]

Daily life involved mostly confinement with occasional opportunities to walk or engage in recreation. Alexander Nephi Stephens noted in his diary the following concerning himself and his cell mate Elijah Wilson, “We staid in our cells most all day, we went out about an hour and a half around the Prisoners. . . . Spent the rest of the day in reading and sitting around, could not get much exercise in our cell [as] it is about 6xl0ft.”[xlix] After serving his six-month sentence, he returned home to Preston. One can imagine the relief he and his family felt.

Oneida Stake Academy and Benson Park

Congress passed the Edmunds-Tucker Act in 1887, which disenfranchised the church, ended the Perpetual Emigrating Fund company, initiated federal control of the polls, pronounced children of polygamous marriages to be illegitimate, and denied Latter-day Saints the chance to serve on district school boards.[l] Consequently, in the spring of 1888, Church President Wilford Woodruff formed a General Board of Education. Woodruff, chairman of the board, sent a letter dated 3 June 1888, asking stakes to form private academies to teach a variety of subjects, including religion.[li] Thus began a series of thirty-three stake academies from Canada to Mexico.

Concluding a decade of intense federal prosecution, President Woodruff issued the Manifesto of 1890, ending the church official practice of plural marriage. Around that time, the Oneida Stake Academy first began meeting in Franklin, but the building was inadequate for the needs of the students. When the community decided to start construction of an academy building in Preston in 1890, Jensen became one of the largest donors.[lii] The academy building was completed in 1895 and provided the early education for the young people of Preston, including noted Mormon leaders such as church postle Matthew Cowley, church president Harold B. Lee, and Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson (who later become church president).

Jensen also donated money for the Preston Square (today’s Benson Park, where the academy building now stands).[liii] Ten men, one of which was David, were to contribute ten dollars apiece. The former owner of the land had agreed to sell this site for one hundred dollars. One of the original ten men paid ten dollars, and the other eight failed to do so. Jensen made up the balance.[liv]

In 1896 Julia’s feelings toward David were strained enough that she moved from the homestead into the southern part of Preston. David then married Leonore Agnete Olsen Finland (1864–1903) on 2 November 1897 in the Logan Temple, a post-Manifesto marriage that must have complicated Julia’s feelings, especially after David and Leonore made their home on the ranch.

After Leonore died on 5 June 1903, David’s health declined. During the last six months of his life, Julia cared for him in her home, and he died on 9 January 1909.[lv] At his funeral a soloist performed a moving rendition of “O My Father,” the important song that inspired the Jensens’ conversion.[lvi]

Preston in National News

              The settling of Preston is a complex story of displacing Native Americans while pursuing the American dream. It is a story of building the kingdom of God in the American West. During a difficult struggle for survival, the European and American settlers of Preston would build canals, homes, and schools that enabled the town to blossom like a rose. This new homeland for immigrants would produce a bumper crop of national and church leaders who knew how to tame the West through hard work. As a quirky conclusion, national attention focused on Preston after filmmaker Jared Hess shot Napoleon Dynamite on the original homestead of Norwegian immigrants David, Serena, and Julia Jensen.[lvii]

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[i] William Mulder, Homeward to Zion: The Mormon Migration from Scandinavia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1957), 107.

[ii] The church formed the Perpetual Educating Fund Company to lend money to emigrating members, asking them to repay the debt over an extended period.

[iii] Peter Olaff Thomassen, Report, in Andrew Jenson, History of the Scandinavian Mission (1927), 179.

[iv] The Excellencen Toll sailed between Oslo, Gothenburg, and Copenhagen, calling at smaller ports on the way. That year she was mastered by Captain O. Mattsson. http://www.norwayheritage.com/p_ship.asp?sh=exelt.

[v] Andrew Jenson, History of the Scandinavian Mission (Utah, 1927), 175.

[vi] Peter Nebeker, letter, in Journal History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, August 25, 1863, 1.

[vii] Ricks and Cooley, History of a Valley, 444, table 3.

[viii] The settlement of Franklin was named after Franklin D. Richards, a Mormon apostle who assisted many immigrants from Great Britain and Scandinavia.

[ix] For more about Shohoni culture in southeastern Idaho at the time, see Leonard J. Arrington, History of Idaho (Moscow: University of Idaho Press; Boise: Idaho State Historical Society, 1994), 1:45–49.

[x] “The name ‘Preston’ predates the definition of the land area comprising the city to which it is attached. When first adopted, the term was used to designate a ward of the L.D.S. Church. This greater Preston area was called ‘Worm Creek’ prior to 1881 and included the settlers of Worm Creek, Whitney, Glendale, and the Flat (or Preston now).” Clarence G. Judy, “A History of Preston, Idaho” (master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1961), 14. For context of the massacre, see Arrington, History of Idaho, 1:267.

[xi] Arrington, History of Idaho, 1:268.

[xii] Leonard J. Arrington, “Life and Labor Among the Pioneers,” in The History of a Valley: Cache Valley, Utah-Idaho, ed. Joel E. Ricks and Everett L. Cooley (Logan, UT: Cache Valley Centennial Commission, 1956), 144.

[xiii] Arrington, History of Idaho, 1:265.

[xiv] Arrington, History of Idaho, 1:277.

[xv] Latter-day Saints teach that marriage of one man to one woman is God’s standard except at specific periods when He has declared otherwise. In accord with teachings of church leaders, many members practiced plural marriage beginning in the early 1840s and for the next half century. See https://www.lds.org/topics/plural-marriage-and-families-in-early-utah?lang=eng.

[xvi] The Oneida Stake: 100 Years of LDS History in Southeast Idaho (Preston, ID: n.p., 1987), 204.

[xvii] J. Duncan Brite, “The Public Schools,” in Ricks, The History of a Valley, 343.

[xviii] David C. Jensen, “The Passing Years” (n.p., 1957), 15; copy in author’s possession.

[xix] Daniel S. Tuttle, as quoted in J. Duncan Brite, “Non-Mormon Schools and Churches,” in Ricks, The History of a Valley, 303.

[xx] Jensen, “The Passing Years,” 16.

[xxi] Judy, “History of Preston,” 35–36.

[xxii] A stake is a cluster of local Mormon congregations that is roughly equivalent to a Catholic diocese.

[xxiii] Preston Ward Historical Record A, 4, Journal History of the Church, September 1876, as cited 

[xxiv] The Trail Blazer: History of the Development of Southeastern Idaho (n.p.: Daughters of the Pioneers, 1930), 73.

[xxv] For the history of the founding of the Relief Society, see Daughters in My Kingdom: The History and Work of Relief Society (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2011), ch. 2.

[xxvi] Jensen, “The Passing Years,” 17.

[xxvii] The Primary organization was created on 25 August 1878 in Farmington, Utah, and later spread to other communities. See “The Organization of the Primary,” Friend, August 2009, 38.

[xxviii] Jensen, “The Passing Years,” 30.

[xxix] Baltzar William Peterson, Historical Scrapbook of Preston and Vicinity (Preston, ID: self-published, 1955), 109.

[xxx] Serge C. Ballif, Cub River and Worm Creek Canal Company minutes, in The Trail Blazer, 139.

[xxxi] The Trail Blazer, 140.

[xxxii] David C. Jensen, “The Passing Years,” 15.

[xxxiii] Serge C. Ballif, in The Trail Blazer, 140.

[xxxiv] Judy, “History of Preston, Idaho,” 38.

[xxxv] Judy, “History of Preston,” 38.

[xxxvi] The Trail Blazer, 139.

[xxxvii] The Trail Blazer, 140.

[xxxviii] The Trail Blazer, 140.

[xxxix] The Trail Blazer, 140.

[xl] Einar O. Hammer, “David Jensen—Father of Idaho–Utah Irrigation,” Sons of Norway 56, no. 5 (January 1959). Jensen is not mentioned in Kelly C. Harper, “The Mormon Role in Irrigation Beginnings and Diffusions in the Western States: An Historical Geography” (master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1974).

[xli] Widtsoe was born on the island of Frøya in Sør-Trøndelag, Norway. His best-selling books were titled The Principles of Irrigation Practice (New York: Macmillan, 1914) and Dry-Farming: A System of Agriculture for Countries Under a Low Rainfall (New York: Macmillan, 1920).

[xlii] “In 1878 the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints asked polygamist George Reynolds (former secretary to Brigham Young) to act as the guinea pig in a “test case” that would challenge the constitutionality of the Morrill Act. In Reynolds v. United States, the Church argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that the First Amendment explicitly protected the practice of polygamy under the Free Exercise Clause. All nine justices ruled unanimously against Reynolds on January 6, 1879. The High Court concluded that to allow polygamy would justify individuals trampling the laws of the land in favor of religious belief. If polygamy was to be allowed on religious grounds, why not allow human sacrifice, too? The Court infamously held that Americans had the right to any religious beliefs, but Congress had power to curtail the practice of those beliefs. In the wake of Reynolds, Congress passed legislation intended to cripple the Mormon Church.” Fred E. Woods and Merle W. Wells, “Inmates of Honor: Mormon Cohabs in Idaho Penitentiary, 1885–1890,” Idaho Yesterdays 40, no. 3 (Fall 1996): 13.

[xliii] Woods and Wells, “Inmates of Honor,” 14.

[xliv] B. H. Roberts, A Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints, 6 vols. (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 1965), 6:213–14.

[xlv] “Even today the maximum fine for a general misdemeanor offense is $300. Idaho Code section 18-113 also specifies that the maximum punishment for a misdemeanor must not exceed six months of incarceration, the fine, or both. Although a century has passed the fine has remained the same; but the average salary of a person is now about $30,000 a year, and in the late nineteenth century the average American earned only $400 to $500 per year. Thus, as Moeller observed, in the 1880s this was a very sizable fine, which most found to be a terrible burden.” Woods and Wells, “Inmates of Honor,” 14n8.

[xlvi] “Between January 5, 1885, and June 16, 1890, forty-eight Mormon men served time in the penitentiary. Of these forty-eight, forty-seven served time for the crime of unlawful cohabitation. All forty-eight were living in southeastern Idaho at the time of their arrest, and forty-seven were convicted in Bingham County. The majority of those found guilty of unlawful cohabitation were punished with the maximum fine of $300 and a prison term that ranged from three to six months.” Woods and Wells, “Inmates of Honor,” 14.

[xlvii] Idaho Penitentiary, 1864–1947, A Comprehensive Catalog (Idaho State Historical Society), https://history.idaho.gov/sites/default/files/uploads/inmates_1864-1947.pdf.

[xlviii] The Passing Years, 25.

[xlix] Alexander Nephi Stephens diary, 20 November 1887, as cited in Woods and Wells, “Inmates of Honor,” 17.

[l] Fred E. Woods, “The Forgotten Voice of the Oneida Stake Academy,” Mormon Historical Studies 4, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 81.

[li] Wilford Woodruff, 8 June 1888, in Messages of the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, comp. James R. Clark, 6 vols. (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1965–75), 3:168.

[lii] Barbara Thompson Dorigatti, comp., “Settlement of Idaho by Utah Pioneers: Franklin County and Southeastern Bear Lake County,” in Pioneer Pathways, vol. 8 (Salt Lake City: International Society Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 2005), 22.

[liii] In November 2003, the Oneida Stake Academy was moved from the Preston High School grounds to Benson Park.

[liv] Jensen, “The Passing Years,” 22.

[lv] Julia eventually moved in with her son Elmer in Burton, near Rexburg, Idaho, and died on March 11, 1920.

[lvi] “Funeral of David Jensen,” Preston News, January 21, 1909.

[lvii] Jared Hess is a descendant of David and Serena Jensen. Napoleon Dynamite had a budget of four hundred thousand dollars and earned more than forty-four million. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=napoleondynamite.htm.