Ebenezer: Carpenter, Millwright, Shipbuilder, Wheelwright, Cattleman, courageous, honest, religious, determined, independent, cultural, gardener, kind, hard-working faithful, missionary and patriarch.
And Mary Ann: Homemaker, Seamstress, Candlemaker, Spiritual, devoted wife, and mother of twelve children.
- “The Story of Ebenezer Bryce and Mary Ann Park,” essay by Ebenezer and Mary Ann’s great-great-granddaughter-in-law Marilyn Bryce, from The Bryce Book: 1886-1983. (Editor Fawn Smith Bryce, Bryce History Inc., Bryce Box 111, Pima, AZ 85543)
…continued from Ebenezer Bryce: Part 4
Bryce Family late 1800s
Front row: Hellen, Linn (Melinda), Addie, Sarah, George, Jim, John, Nancy, Dora, May
Row two: Ebb (Ebenezer Park), Bill, Al, Dick, Nell, Belle, Jan, Joe, Hebe, Rube
In the late 1870s, the weather in Bryce Canyon was not much better than that of Pine Valley, though there was less snow, at only 32 inches per year. Still, it was below freezing at night, and the climate did not facilitate the improvement of Mary Ann’s health for which the family had been hoping. In fact, after Mary Ann had her eleventh child, Heber Brooks, in 1878, she became so ill that she was confined to her bed. In 1879, the family decided that they would need to move farther south for the sake of her health.
At the time, there were several Mormon settlements in Arizona territory and western New Mexico territory. In the summer of 1880, three of Ebenezer and Mary’s sons, David (21), Bill (19), and Alma (18) were sent to scout out possible new Mormon settlements in southeast Arizona and southwest New Mexico. After making a sheep trade deal in St. John, Arizona, the boys split up. David traveled to New Mexico, and Bill and Alma headed south within Arizona. That fall, while her grownup children were out scouting, Mary Ann gave birth to her twelfth and last child, Rueben Adam.
The following summer David and Alma returned home, and Bill headed south across the Fort Apache Indian Reservation with three other men. Later the family got word that Bill had been killed while crossing the reservation. There is no record of their reaction upon hearing this terrible news.
In the fall of 1881, the Bryces sold the farm yet again and, instead of herding their flock of sheep over 700 miles, they traded most of them in Utah for sheep they would claim in St. John, Arizona. The sheep that they couldn’t trade, they sold. They outfitted three covered wagons, rounded up their cattle and horses, over a hundred head in all, and headed for Arizona. The oldest daughter, Ann, was married, so she stayed behind in Utah. The addition of the oldest son, Ebenezer Park or “Ebb,” his wife, their twenty-two-month-old son, and their ten-month-old daughter made a group of fifteen. Ebenezer and Mary Ann’s two youngest were thirty-three months and a year old, so there were a total of four children under the age of three in tow.
The group crossed the Colorado River at Lee’s Ferry and arrived at Silver Creek, just south of Snowflake, in November and stayed there for the winter. Much to their surprise, Bill, whom they’d presumed dead, rode into camp one evening. Again, there is no record of the family’s reaction, though we can assume it was a joyous reunion.
In early spring the Bryces headed to St. John to claim their sheep. Ebenezer and David sheared the sheep and took the wool to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to sell, stopping in the salt mines on the way back to get a load of salt for the cattle.
The family continued on, camping in Williams Valley, on the Frisco River in New Mexico, selling their sheep in Silver City, New Mexico, and, on Ebenezer’s birthday, November 17 of 1882, arriving in the Gila Valley in Arizona. The south bank of the Gila River was already settled, so Ebenezer and his family homesteaded the north side, checking the most important job—digging a canal for running a gristmill and irrigating their farms—off their to-do list first. Their cattle grazed on land that was part of the Gila Mountain Range and land leased from the Indian Agency at San Carlos Indian Reservation. The Mormon Church authorities asked Ebenezer and four other men to build a sawmill, planer, and a shingle mill on Graham Mountain, and slowly the homestead turned into a community. The Bryce family applied for a post office and became a town in 1883.
Mary Ann (Park) Bryce died on April 12, 1897, at the age of sixty, leaving two teenage boys at home. Ebenezer Adam Bryce died at home September 26, 1913, at the age of 83. The couple are buried side by side in the Bryce Cemetery, a public cemetery at the edge of their property.
My grandfather and father were born in Bryce, Arizona. In 1910, my dad’s parents, William Carlos (Carl) Bryce and Beulah Bertie (Means) Bryce homesteaded a farm in Ashurst, just a few miles down the Gila River and across the road from the land that my mom’s family would homestead in 1924. My dad, Carlos Howard Bryce, was fourteen and my mom, Louise Herbert, was eleven when they met. According to family legend, my dad was dating my mom’s older sister, Stella, until she left town to go on a Mormon mission. That’s when my mom swooped in. Mom and Dad eloped in 1931 and, two years later, at 9:20 a.m. on Thursday, November 9, 1933, my story began.
