DAVID
BUTTARS
(DAVID BUTTAR)
1822-1912
PHOTOS
DAVID
BUTTARS
David was born in Scotland in 1822. He
was the youngest of fourteen children. He was a religious boy and played
the bellows in the pipe organ and the flute in the Presbyterian church.
As a boy, he was trained as a shoemaker. He joined the LDS church in 1851,
three years after he married Margaret Spalding.
He came to America with his wife and
three children in February 1854. One child was buried at sea. They arrived
in America seven weeks and two days later. They crossed the plains with
ox teams. One child had very bad cholera, but walked most of the way. After
gathering firewood one day, he discovered he had carried a rattlesnake
quite a distance. Another time, when rolling up his bed from under the
wagon, he noticed that a rattlesnake had been under his bed all night.
However, in spite of these incidents, he was never bitten. They arrived
in the Salt Lake Valley in the fall of 1854.
After being in the Salt Lake Valley
for five months, they moved to Lehi. David continued to make shoes but
walked 30 miles to Salt Lake City with his work on his back and brought
supplies the 30 miles back home again. David raised a team of oxen from
calves, as well as farmed a little.
Grasshoppers ate all the crops, and Lehi suffered
with no flour. David's family subsisted on bran and clabber milk. That
year their son, John, was born.
In 1863, David's wife died five days
after giving birth to a baby, leaving six small children, the oldest only
fourteen years old. They had no relatives to help. The baby died two weeks
later. Three years later David married Sarah Keep and adopted her daughter
Lucy Ann. After two years of marriage, they had a baby, which died after
only two months. They later had eight children together.
In 1869 they moved to Clarkston,
Utah. David was a firm believer in paying an honest tithing. He knew of
the Lord's promise of pouring down blessings from heaven on those who were
obedient to this commandment. In 1871, the sun was darkened with hoards
of grasshoppers infesting the area and eating the grain. This happened
three times. Crickets followed, eating what was left over. The crickets
were so large, the chickens could eat only three or four at a time. In
his great faith, David said, "I have paid my tithing and I will get something."
To help remove the grasshoppers, at night ropes were dragged over the wheat
to drive them into ditches where they were drowned with a water wheel.
David said, "The Lord helps those who help themselves." Then the sea gulls
came, gorging and vomiting. The wheat grew again; and that fall David harvested
1,300 bushels of grain, the largest crop he ever had.
To harvest the grain, it was first cradled,
then cut. Six hired men followed and bound it into bundles by hand. David
cured the wheat with lime, and planted it by broadcasting it by hand from
a sack he had around his neck. He also planted five to ten acres of potatoes.
He bought the first binder for harvesting in Clarkston, as well as the
first header.
Besides farming, the first few years
in Clarkston he also made shoes. The soles were attached to the shoes with
maple pegs, and there were no tucks.
David donated $300 per year to the Logan
Temple until it was finished. He did over two thousand endowments for his
ancestors, and paid for hundreds of names to be searched out.
He was the father of fifteen children.
He participated in polygamy for twenty years. He would have been jailed
when the Manifesto was signed, but he was too old, so he was only fined
$100, which he paid and came home happy.
He almost drowned,
along with his wife Sarah, on his way home from the temple when the bridge
over Bear River broke. Two men happened by or they never would have gotten
out.
In 1907, David paid $200 to help replace
a burned carpet in the Logan Temple. President Budge said he was an answer
to prayers.
He died at 90 years of age from cancer
in the eye.
David Buttars
Second photo of David Buttars
David Buttars & Sarah Keep and children
(taken about 1905)
David with Sarah in later years
Another photo of David and Sarah
David Buttars' home in Clarkston, Utah
Second photo of David Buttars' home in Clarkston,
Utah
Daughter, Mary Janet Buttars
Photo of Sarah Keep
