Spence, Martha (Heywood) 1812-1873, Biographical info and photos.

(Martha Spence Heywood is the paternal great grandmother of the contributor)

Martha Spence Heywood

Biographical Notes, Links, and Photos

Links:  
               Brief Biographical Note by Miram B. Murphy
               Before Immigration  From Journal, to 1834.
               Castle Garden Immigration information.
               Pioneer Overland Travel Includes Trail Excerpts from her journal.
               Crossing the Plains with Frank Heywood  Exerpts from her journal                             regarding Frank and a poetic tribute to Frank at his death.
              A School Marm Joyce Kinkead
              Not by Bread Alone - The Journal of Martha Spence Heywood, 
                    Digital Copy via Utah Division of State History (1850-1856)
              Images
              A brief summary of Matha's early life  Hilliary Hunt
              Excerpts from Martha's Journal Neal DeGaston
              Brief Biographical note posted on FamilyTree
              Membership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1830 ...

Membership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1830 ...

                        

SUP-Pioneer Memorial Gallery Index Cards

Name: Martha Spence
Spouse: Joseph Leland Heywood
Pioneer: before 1869
Birth Date: 08 Mar 1812
Death Date: 05 Feb 1873
Birth Place: Dublin, Ireland
Death Place: Washington, Utah
Donor: Heywood Association via Kenneth Heywood

Notes from Utah Historical Quarterly

MARTHA SPENCE HEYWOOD: Martha has been described as one of the first "women of intellect" in Utah. She was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1821 and immigrated to America. There she moved to New York where she was converted to the Church and joined the Saints in Kanesville, Iowa. She was poetess and writer whose early works appeared in the Frontier Guardian, an LDS newspaper in Kanesville. She later married Joseph Heywood and moved to Salt Lake City where she participated in recitals and dramatic readings and later assisted in the founding of an Elocution Society. The Heywoods moved to Nephi where Martha attempted to start a class in French but failed because of the lack of books. While a teacher, wife and mother of two children, she helped organize the Mount Nebo Literary Association. They moved back to Salt Lake City in 1856 where she joined and later read her works in the "Polysophysical Society" which later was replaced by the Deseret Theological Class (Utah Historical Quarterly, Winter, 1975, Vol. 43, #1, pp 27-40). {Note: Over eight hundred early Irish Mormon convents have now been identified}  

     The webpage link, http://irishmormonhistory.byu.edu/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabindex=1&tabid=85&ResourceID=23, is not working at this time (25 Oct 2015) (RNH). 

Martha Spence Heywood 

Historical notes and comments by Miriam B. Murphy

Martha Spence Heywood was born in Ireland in 1812. She left with a sister for America in 1834 against their parents' wishes, arriving penniless in New York City. She sewed and "toiled & toiled late & early," and also traveled extensively in upstate New York and Canada, part of the time as an "Advent preacher . . . . enduring the scoffs and privations that attend such a course." In July 1848 she joined the Mormon Church and in 1850 traveled to Utah. She became a plural wife of Joseph L. Heywood, a merchant and the first U.S. marshal in Utah Territory. She had two children, one of whom died at the age of eighteen months.

A pioneer settler of Nephi, she lived for a time in a wagon box. Her husband visited the settlement several times a year, and she occasionally traveled to Salt Lake City. She supported herself by making hats and caps, and she trained other family members in hat making while her husband took orders, collected materials, and marketed the finished items. She also taught school in Nephi.

In 1861 she settled in Washington, north of St. George. There she became well known as a schoolteacher. She held classes in her home, charging three dollars a month, a fee that could be paid in produce or in chores. She died there in her sixty-first year.

Historians consider her diary of the years 1850 to 1856 one of the best personal accounts of that period in Utah. It documents, among other things, the new territory's intellectual life, the settlement of Nephi, and polygamous family life. Unflinching in her honesty, Martha Heywood records ambivalent feelings about her marriage and the dissatisfaction of some Nephi settlers with her husband's leadership. Her own self-examination was rigorous; and her diary remains a testament to her integrity.

See: Juanita Brooks, ed., Not by Bread Alone: The Journal of Martha Spence Heywood, 1850-56 (1978).

Images:        

Ship Helen, 13 December 1834, from Liverpool

Ann Marie Spence, 19, Female, Milliner
Martha Spence, 21,  Female, Milliner