Brigham Spackman (1854-1939) Brigham Spackman (1854-1939)Brigham Spackman, the son of Henry Spackman and Ann Bond, was born 22 August 1854 in Burbage, Wiltshire, England. Four years before his birth, his parents became converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They remained in England for twenty more years before they immigrated to the United States. A son, Henry, Jr., was sent ahead to Utah to earn money for the family's passage. In June of 1873, Brigham and his father sailed to America on the SS Nevada. The rest of the family followed several months later and they settled in Lewiston, Cache County, Utah.
When Brigham was twenty-three, he married Laura Ellen Pitkin from nearby Millville. They lived nearly thirty years in the Lewiston area where they farmed and raised a family. A granddaughter described Brigham as a trim, handsome man of average height who usually wore a mustache. She said that he was always dressed nicely and didn't like to get his hands dirty. "He had a farm, but he was never a true farmer. His boys did most of the work with his direction," she said. According to one of his daughters, he was a religious man, but could be quick-tempered.
In 1910, Brigham moved his family to Lund, Idaho where he obtained a farm and invested money in the canal company that brought irrigation water to the area. The village of Lund was located five miles south of Bancroft and sixteen miles west of Soda Springs where roads from those two towns crossed. Originally the area was considered unfit for settlement for lack of water, but the irrigation canal opened up some farmland. The Spackman farm was located north of the crossroads and east of the main Bancroft road. While his son took care of the farm, Brigham worked with the water users.
After his wife Laura died, Brigham married a Swedish woman, Christina Carolina Anderson Holsten (Holstein). They built a home between Lund and Bancroft. Brigham died twenty-three years later on 27 December 1939 in Bancroft. He was eighty-five.
See history of Henry Spackman and Ann Bond
Laura Ellen Pitkin was the oldest of twelve children born to Ammon Paul Pitkin and Olive Chase. She was born 2 January 1862 in Millville, Cache, Utah where her grandfather was one of the first settlers. On 24 July 1877, Laura married a young Englishman, Brigham Spackman. She bore thirteen children, but only six lived to be adults. It must have been very difficult for her to lose those seven babies, some stillborn and some living only a few day or months. The Spackmans raised three sons (Henry Edwin, George Orren, and Brigham Harold) and three daughters (Lillie Mae, Iva, and LaVira) on farms in Lewiston, Utah and in Lund, Idaho.
Daughter LaVira said, "Mother was meek and submissive and would do all in her power to keep peace in the family. She loved to sing the church hymns. She had a little song book about two inches thick, three inches wide and four inches long. She pieced and quilted many quilts and was a good homemaker. She helped people who were in need." Laura died 18 November 1914 in Bancroft, Idaho, from what was described as a stomach tumor. She was fifty-two.
See history of Ammon Paul Pitkin and Olive Chase
See history of Brigham Harold Spackman and Eva Housmann