Fielding Langford

• Name: Fielding Langford
• Born: October 24, 1804 Crab Orchard, Kentucky
• Died: August 1882 Near Oakley, Idaho
• Related through: Dan's grandfather Heber Langford

Fielding Langford was born October 24, 1804. He was the first member of the Langford family to join the LDS Church. He and his wife, Sarah Bethurum , were both born and raised in Kentucky. They were married in 1830 and sometime in the next five years moved to Clay Co., Indiana, being among its first settlers. In July 1843 Fielding was baptized into the Mormon Church. He was one of two individuals in the entire county that joined this "peculiar sect". The missionaries had been teaching in the area, and of the 10 children of Walker Langford, only Fielding joined the church. It is not known whether Sarah joined the Mormon Church at this time. If she did not, she certainly did not deter him from "gathering" with the Saints, and she was by his side during the difficult pioneering years in Utah.

Exactly when Fielding left Indiana to join the Saints is not known for sure. It is assumed that it was in 1846 after he sold his land. This was just after the Saints had just left Nauvoo. There, he must have found a dismal scene- the temple desecrated, homes deserted or taken over by others. Saints had been driven out of Nauvoo and had gathered in Council Bluffs and Pisgah Camps. For whatever reason, Fielding did not stay on at Winter Quarters for long, nor did he immigrate the next spring. Sarah had Kincaid relatives living in Platte Co., Missouri and so this is where they headed. While living in Indiana two of his eight children died and then he lost two more between the time he left Indiana and the time he crossed the plains in 1852. One was a teenage boy who had wanted badly to go to Zion and "see The Gatepost", but didn't make it. Perhaps it was because of the care given to these children that they waited, or for financial reasons. (Not sure what “The Gatepost” was if anybody knows let me know).

Finally in 1852 the Langfords headed back to Council Bluffs and joined a Mormon emigrant train to Utah. They traveled with the James Bay Company leaving May 27 and arriving in Salt Lake Valley August 13. There were about 190 people in this company including a contingent under the direction of John S. Higbee with a number of British converts. Also in this same company traveled the Isacc Turnbaugh family whose father's people, like the Langfords, had come from Kentucky, before moving to Illinois. James Harvey, Sr. later married Mary Caroline Turnbaugh, Isaac's daughter.

There is no information on where the Langfords moved directly after they arrived in Salt Lake Valley. By the 1860 Utah census we find them in Willard, Box Elder County, Utah and suppose that they were there as early as 1856. Fielding and Sarah moved to Malta, Idaho and sometime after that Sarah died in 1863 from an insect bite (we believe she was bit by a black widow spider) while harvesting her garden.

Fielding Langford and Christena Bocher family

Two years after her death, Fielding married a Swedish immigrant named Caroline Christena Bocher, 40 years his junior. They had five children and then divorced sometime after 1875. During this time he lived in Panaca, Nevada, which was then Washington County, Utah. The last two years of his life were spent at his daughter's home on Warm Creek Ranch near Oakley, Idaho. He was buried there in August of 1882.

This article was compiled and edited by Norene Green and Sharlene Gardner, July 1997.