“We are happy to work with the National Park Service to expand our research,” said University of Nebraska Project Director Mikal Brotnov Eckstrom. “Oklahoma is a state where the histories of formerly enslaved Americans and the forced migrations of many Native Nations come together. These histories help us understand the needs and desires of those intertwined histories with that of a burgeoning nation.”

“The Homesteader Project is invaluable,” said Homestead National Historical Park Superintendent Mark Engler. “Thanks to the collaborative efforts made possible by our neighboring Universities of Nebraska and Oklahoma we are adding the important history of Oklahoma, which had the largest number of homesteaders of African descent, to the research of Black homesteaders in other Great Plains states. This is an extremely important to provide opportunities for the public to connect with this lesser-known homesteading story.”

The multi-year project will be a partnership between the University of Nebraska’s Center for Great Plains Studies and the University of Oklahoma. Dr. Kalenda Eaton, Associate Professor in the Clara Luper Department of African and African American Studies at the University of Oklahoma, will lead the research team.

 “I am excited to lead the Oklahoma research team and enhance initiatives sponsored by the National Park Service,” said Professor Eaton. “As we build upon and honor the prior scholarship of Black historians, educators, and genealogists, we also will not forget the experiences of those who were brought to the region or sought refuge and built lives in western America--against all odds.”

On July 13, 2021, YCC, interns and I stocked 950 mussels into Cub Creek.  Here is a link to a story about the introduction: Game and Parks works to reintroduce mussels in Big Blue watershed - SOUTHEAST - NEWS CHANNEL NEBRASKA courtesy of Michael Shiveley at News Channel Nebraska.

Check out the video here, courtesy of Jon Vanderford with PureNebraska and 1011 News: Old-time wheat harvest at Homestead (1011now.com)

John B. Smithson’s story unfolds as part of the settlement history of the western part of the United States by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints beginning in the mid-1840s. It is an epic American story sometimes not thought of as having much connection to homesteading. But John B. Smithson’s life will show that for him the two were indeed connected, leading to his homesteading in the San Bernardino Mountains of southern California.

We’ll begin with the early life of this homesteader that was key to what happened to him later. John Bartley Smithson was born October 6, 1841, at Parkerville in Marion County, Alabama. He was a son of Allen Freeman Smithson and his wife Lettish Holladay.

According to information recorded by Smithson family descendants, several members of the family were converts to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Marion County, Alabama. Included were John B. Smithson’s parents, with John two years old at the time.

What happened next occurred because of the family’s new religious faith, with members of the L.D.S. church at that time in the South often not well accepted by others in their communities. In late June of 1844, the church’s founder, Joseph Smith, had been assassinated in Illinois and the church struggled to recover. By 1846, plans were made that resulted in most of its members leaving the Midwest and moving west. The Smithsons in Alabama decided to do the same.

Thus, in early 1846, the large party of Smithson relatives joined William Brown’s Company (one family account tells that it was led by William Crosby) in what was later called the “Mississippi Saints 1846 Pioneer Company.” It is also sometimes referred to as Brigham Young’s “vanguard company” for the very early westward travel by pioneer members of the L.D.S. church desiring to join with other followers of the besieged religion.

After starting in 1846, the Smithsons and other in the company travelled from Alabama through Mississippi by wagon train but only reached what is now the Pueblo, Colorado area before it was determined too late to proceed father. As a result, they overwintered in tents in Colorado at a time when the area was not yet a territory of the United States. The same was true for Utah where they traveled the next spring.

John B. Smithson’s own family story was that the next year after traveling to Colorado in 1846, they continued west and arrived on July 29, 1847, at what would soon become the Salt Lake City area. If their arrival date is correct, it means the Smithsons and others in the group of “Mississippi Saints” arrived there only five days after Brigham Smith’s first saw the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847.

Of note, July of 1847 was over six months before the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed ending the War with Mexico. By that agreement, Mexico ceded much of what is now Utah and other parts of the Southwest and southern California to the United States. Consequently, upon their arrival, Brigham Young and his followers rightly viewed the Salt Lake Valley as not part of the United States, calling it “Deseret” (a word from the Book of Mormon meaning “honeybee” and signifying industry.)

In 1849, the year after Utah became part of the United States, L.D.S. church members living in Deseret petitioned to enter the United States as a separate state. Statehood would give them more autonomy with L.D.S. settlers then able to elect their own state government and representatives, but it was denied.

Before their arrival in the Salt Lake Valley in mid-1847, John B. Smith’s parents had their 4^th child, a son Lehi Micajah Smithson (1847-1932), born March 20, 1847. Over two years later, John B. Smith’s mother Lettisha died on August 16, 1849, at age 26, with his father soon remarrying to Jenett Burton Taylor (1825-1912). In time, they would have 11 more children, with their oldest child named Nephi Smithson (1850-1901), born on September 16, 1850, near Salt Lake City.

Interestingly, the “1850 census of Utah” (apparently taken in early 1851 for the Smithson family), reported both Nephi at “age 6 months,” and his older half-brother Lehi, at “age 2 years,” (actually 3 years) as born in “Deseret.” But by that time, “Deseret” as a hoped-for separate political and religious entity had instead become part of Utah Territory, which was organized on September 9, 1850. Yet news of that event, which occurred in far-away Washington, D.C., only reached the new territory later. And when it did, some church members still clung to the name Deseret for their promised land.

In 1851, John B. Smithson’s father, Allen F. Smithson, decided to leave Utah and continue westward as part of a group of L.D.S. settlers headed for California after the gold discovery there in 1848. But instead of going to the gold rush part of California, the Smithsons instead traveled to San Bernardino County in southern California. John B. Smithson was about 10 at that time and it would be another four decades later before he would homestead in the region.

To follow his story further, we will turn to John B. Smithson’s remarkably informative obituary printed in the August 9, 1910, San Bernardino County Sun newspaper (p. 4). It appeared two days after his death in San Bernardino. It first summarizes his trip west from Alabama starting in 1846 at age five. But it also reports on what happened to him afterwards including in his later years working and living in the San Bernardino mountains where he filed for a homestead in the late 1800s. It is an area visited today by nature lovers and recreationists who continue to enjoy the region’s scenery just as Smithson did over a century ago. His obituary begins…

“John Bartley Smithson was born at Parkerville, Marion county, Alabama, October 6, 1841, and was the son of Allen F. Smithson and Luticia Holliday [sic] Smithson. [On] March 1, 1846, Mr. Allen F. Smithson and wife and family, including young John Bartley Smithson, started on their perilous journey to explore and settle in the great west. In the Rocky mountains, near Taos, he remembered seeing those well known mountaineers and trappers, Kit Carson, John Brown, James W. Waters, V. J. Herring and a portion of the party under Captain Jefferson Hunt. Passing on over the plains and mountains to Salt Lake, Utah, they remained for a time, then crossed the deserts with ox teams to San Bernardino, California, where they arrived June 24, 1851, and settled on some unsurveyed land near what is now the old City Cemetery, afterwards described as the corner of A and Seventh streets.

Father Smithson went back to Pareah, Utah, to serve as postmaster, while his son, John Bartley, returned to San Bernardino and found employment with some well known mill men … who furnished the first lumber to build the homes for the pioneers of San Bernardino. Here Mr. Smithson formed that strong attachment for our grand and inspiring mountains that followed him to his last conscious hours. The Smithson ranch, now known as Pinecrest, was his mountain home, where the family and numerous friends loved to assemble and enjoy the hospitality of a genuine pioneer. Many are the barbecues, family and social reunions, bonfires and picnics that memory recalls connected to the Smithson paradise.

Mr. Smithson was a past president of the San Bernardino Society of California Pioneers, and was highly esteemed by all its members. He and his beloved wife, Jane Smithson, and their family were prime movers in locating the pioneer camps in the most picturesque spots in our mountains, where from 100 to 300 of the happiest people on earth would enjoy life for two and three months at a time, one of the happiest of all these campers being no other than Mr. Smithson himself, realizing that all around him was joy and gladness that he and his family had caused to so many.

Mr. Smithson was a mountain road builder, as Supervisor West and many others know. He has been one of the builders of San Bernardino, and to such noble men we owe our improvement and prosperity. Upright and honest in all his dealings he leaves a good example to his family and his fellow man….”

Not told in his obituary was that he had married January 22, 1866, at age 24, in San Bernardino, California to Jane Cadd, who, at age 14, was 10 years younger than her husband. She was born July 5, 1851, at Primrose Farm, Adelaide, South Australia and died January 7, 1933, in San Bernardino, California. Between 1867 and 1889, John and Jane would have 12 children.

When Jane died in 1933, her obituary in the January 8, 1933, San Bernardino County Sun (p. 9) reported more on her early life and later married life with her husband until his death in 1910. It stated:

“Born in Australia on July 5, 1851, Mrs. Smithson came to America at the age of four, with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Cadd. They went to San Pedro and then came to San Bernardino. San Bernardino at that time, included little more than the old fort.

While still a little girl, Mrs. Smithson was taken by her parents to Salt Lake City, where they lived for a year, before returning to this city. They went and returned by ox cart.

She married John Bartley Smithson on Jan. 22, 1866, at the old Cadd ranch on West Seventh street [in San Bernardino]. There were 12 children, seven of whom survive her.

Mrs. Smithson spent many years of her early married life in the San Bernardino mountains. In a short magazine article written several months before her death, she said that she was one of the first women to travel over the old Mormon road to Crestline. Her husband founded what is now Pinecrest. He sold it to Dr. J. N. Baylis. It was known, then, as the Smithson ranch. [Note: In 2021, there is a Christian Conference Center at Pinecrest in the San Bernardino Mountains north of the city of San Bernardino.] Mr. Smithson worked as a logging contractor in the mountains and they lived at Lake Arrowhead, then Little Bear Lake, Grass Valley, Sawpit and Big Bear lake. Mr. and Mrs. Smithson operated a hotel in Sawpit canyon for many years. They also formerly owned the old Devore ranch…. She was an active member of the Pioneer Society and the Reorganized church of Latter Day Saints....”

Returning to other records documenting the story of John B. Smithson, the 1870 federal census of San Bernardino reported that he was then age 30 and working as a teamster at San Bernardino, California. At that time, his family included his wife Jane and their two oldest sons.

Subsequently, the 1880 census listed John B. Smithson and family (then with 5 children) in the same place with John again reported as a teamster. The 1900 and 1910 census returns continued reporting John and family at the same location, with his occupation in 1910 (the year he died) recorded as a wagon driver, hauling lumber. What the census did not report (though indicated in their obituaries), was that while John B. Smithson and his wife had a home in San Bernardino, they often stayed during the warmer months in the mountains north of the growing city of San Bernardino.

In 1887, the San Bernardino paper ran several notices that John B. Smithson had applied to purchase federal timber land under a law passed by Congress on June 3, 1878, entitled “An Act for the sale of timber lands in the State of California, Oregon, Nevada and Washington Territory.” This resulted in him buying 160 acres in the San Bernardino mountains between (and north of) Crestline and Lake Arrowhead on January 21, 1890.

It was around this time that John B. Smithson realized that he could also homestead land in the same, mostly forested region. Despite living much of the time in San Bernardino, he was able to meet the requirements for residency and farming for homesteading. On October 12, 1900, he was granted a 160-acre homestead. Details of his dwelling and what crop(s) he raised to qualify for receiving the land would be in his homestead file in the National Archives.

At the time of his death at age 69 on August 7, 1910, he was still enamored with the mountains north of San Bernardino – an area that was much different than Alabama where he had been born, or Utah where he spent more of his earlier years. Instead, by 1910, he had become a much-respected pioneer of San Bernardino – and a homesteader in his beloved mountains north of that city.

In sum, John B. Smithson’s story is yet another fascinating tale of one of the around 1.6 million people who claimed land under the 1862 Homestead Act. In his case, John’s story involves an epic chapter of how some areas of the western United States were settled by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As such, his history adds to our understanding of the many ways that homesteading occurred in the nation from the 1860s into the 1980s.

#1 - From the introductory film, to the museum, to the trails through the prairie, Homestead has a lot to explore and learn about! Make sure you are planning ahead and giving yourself plenty of time to experience all that the park has to offer.

#2 - Get the App! Download the National Park Service App to explore Homestead and other National Parks Service sites! The App has tools to help explore the park and important information about hours of operation and COVID-19 rules.

#3 - With over 100 species of birds that either reside in the park or migrate through it, there are always a multitude of birds to look at! Bring a pair of binoculars so that you can better identify them.

#4 - Explore the park. Complete the Junior Ranger or Not-so Junior Ranger books to learn more about the park and to earn a badge! These books offer opportunities to explore the park, engage children, and interact with the history here.

#5 - The Heritage Center has research computers equipped with Ancestry.com, Bureau of Land Management General Land Office records, and Fold3. These websites can be used to research your homesteading ancestors and find their land patents and/or case files.

#6 - Enjoy a picnic! There are picnic tables at both the Heritage Center and the Education Center.

#7 - Be curious and bring questions! Whether they be about the Homestead Act of 1862, how to research your homesteading ancestors, or the types of wildlife that call the park home. The rangers are ready to answer them!

#8 - Pack plenty of water and snacks if you are going out onto the prairie- especially during the afternoon!

#9 - In the spring and summer months, the weather can change quickly! Make sure to keep an eye out for incoming storms. If there is a storm, head to one of the buildings. Do not go outside again until 30 minutes after the last lightning strike. In the case of a tornado watch or warning, go to one of the buildings and follow the ranger’s directions.

#10 - Pets are only allowed in the parking lots and mowed lawn areas at Homestead National Historical Park. However, service animals are allowed in the buildings and on the trails.

Ranger Jon and VIP Rachel Z. at the Diller Picnic Parade, June 2021.