Adelia B. Cox Sidwell

“ Arriving at their destination, camp was made by the Morley's company on the south side of Temple Hill which was a sheltered spot. Now they must do their upmost in canyons, raising log cabins, sowing lumber on the saw pit, which was the most primitive of saw mills.
Orville was an expert at hewing and squaring the logs with his ax, and making everything as comfortable as possible in their home. All winter long they had to help the cattle find feed by shovelling snow in the meadows, as the snow lay four feet deep. ”

“ The first trip, he took with him his third wife, Eliza, and her one child, a little two year old girl; and Walter, a 14 year old son of the first wife, Elvira. The following year, after crops were in and the spring work done, he returned to Fairview after another section of his family—Mary, the second wife, and her five children. From that time on O.S. Cox's life is a volume of tragedy and hardship. The life in the burning desert is always more or less unpleasant, and pioneering is excessively hard. ”

“ So the weary pioneers moved again, this time only a few miles farther up the valley into a pleasant narrow cove, and went to work to build more dams, more ditches and more cabins. In one place the water had to be carried across a gulley, and it gave more trouble than all the rest of the canal. After a while Cox, without comment or consultation, went into the timber and found a very large log and felled it, made of it a huge trough, placed it across the gully and it reached far enough to secure a solid bed above the quicksand. ”

“ Orville met and loved Elvira in Far West, but was not baptized. He said he didn't propose to turn Mormon to procure a wife. When the Saints were driven from Missouri, he located near Lima, Illinois, with a group of Mormons and helped build the Morley settlement.
Nearing his 24th birthday, he was a thorough frontiersman, forester, lumberman, a splendid blacksmith, a natural born engineer; in short a genius and an all around good fellow. ”

“ Being expert in handling lumber, Cox was immediately sent into the canyon for logs. Houses must now be built. Among other timbers, he brought down a magnificent specimen of a pine for a "Liberty Pole", which he assisted in raising on Pioneer Square. It was the first pole to carry the stars and stripes in the city. One had been raised on Ensign Peak before. They wintered in Salt Lake Valley. There another son, Orville M., was born November 29, 1847. ”

“ There was not a great deal of property to divide, although some people came out with more property with others, according to the amount they consecrated in. Mary and Eliza, father's second and third wives, each received a team and wagon. Mary and her family located in Huntington, Emery County, Eliza and her family in Tropic, Garfield County. Father well along in years, and broken in health, could do little more than advise his sons. Eliza was dying of cancer. In 1886 Orville S. Cox came to Fairview to the best-provided for branch of his family. ”

“ Two home made wagons, without brakes—brakes were not needed on the eastern end of the journey—two yoke of oxen, three yoke of cows, a box of chickens on the back of a wagon, a wife and two children, with bedding and food, was the outfit that started across the plains the last of June 1847, singing the song "In the spring we'll take our journey. All to cross the grassy plains." He travelled in the hundred of Charles C. Rich, known as the Artillery Company. Cox was captain of one of the tens. ”

“ Ten years he labored faithfully for the upbuilding of Manti, and then like Boon and Crockett, "he wanted more elbow room" and moved to Fairview, Sanpete County. He also moved part of his family to Gunnison (Hog Wallow, it was called then) and raised two crops there. In February 1864, he moved part of his family to Glenwood, built a cabin there and raised a crop. He sold out and moved elsewhere to engineer ditches. He engineered over forty ditches in Utah and Nevada, as near as his children can remember in 1910, as well as doing all other kinds of pioneer work. ”

“ About sunset they got their steak, a generous load of the best cuts from the Buffalo, and started for camp. On and on they went. What they thought was a two mile stretch lengthened and lengthened, and their loads of meat grew heavier and heavier. They began to think they were lost; but the camp fires and stars told them they were going in the right direction. Finally they decided to fire their guns. This they did, and it filled the camp with alarm, least the hunters were in danger. Two or three men rushed away in the darkness to give aid, and they fired their guns to locate the hunters. ”

“ His two wives Elvira and Mary and many of his descendants were with him at the last.
The following are some of the thriving towns O.S. Cox assisted in founding: Lima, Ill.; Pisgah, Iowa; Salt Lake City, Bountiful, Manti, Gunnuson, Fairview, Glenwood of Utah; St. Thomas, St. Joseph, Overton of Nevada; Mt. Carmel, Orderville and Tropic of Utah.
If man ever earned his salvation, surely O.S. Cox did. Always found in the van where the hardest work was to be done, and if he advanced the cause one iota, no matter at what loss, or cost to himself, he considered he had been eminently successful. ”

“ Pisgah. In his devoted attachment to Lorenzo Snow, he was an enthusiast; also to Father Morley and he would follow their leadership anywhere. Orville and Elvira had their two children, Almer and Adelia.
An incident that illustrated the pioneer life of 1845-6 is told in the story of the "Last Match." In the winter of 1845-6 Orville S. Cox and two Whiting boys, cousins of Elvira, went from Pisgah with ox teams and wagons down into Missouri with a load of chairs to sell. Whitings had a shop in which they manufactured chairs. ”

“ Orville Southerland Cox
Biographical sketch of Orville Southerland Cox, Pioneer of 1847, partly from a sketch written by Adelia B. Cox Sidwell for the "Daughters of the Pioneers", Manti, Utah, 1913.
Orville S. Cox, was born in Plymouth, N.Y. November 25, 1814. He was one of a family of 12 children, ten of whom reached maturity. His father died when he was about fifteen years old. And he was then "bound out"; apprenticed to learn the trade of a blacksmith under a deacon Jones, who was considered an excellent man as he was a pillar of the church. ”