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Lucene Bird Bybee

Lucene Bird Bybee arrived as a body Feb. 7, 1831 in Barren Co. Ky., (Kane-tuck) she called it. She was the daughter of an old Southern family whose ancestors came from the Highlands of Scotland and settled in Virginia the early part of the 16th century.

The Bybees married into the Lanes, Kellys and the Lies. Lucene Bird Bybee was a second cousin to Robert E. Lee. They were a well bred lot, well educated, disliking anything vulgar. They were gentle very courteous and proud. She was a pretty dark complexioned girl witty and full of life. Her youth was spent in Kentucky. After the Civil War the old South they had known was gone. And the land was laid to waste so her folks moved up into Indiana to begin their lives anew. There they joined the L.D.S. Church in 1839 and moved into Illinois in 1842. They were driven from there in 1846 and started out West. They arrived in Salt Lake in the fall of 1849. They lived in Farmington then Ogden finally settled in Uintah 1860.

Lucene Bird Bybee married Doc Penrod in Uintah Jan. 4, 1862. He was the youngest of nine sons of Barbara Tope Penrod.

David Bybee was 29 years old when he got the contract with the County to build a bridge across the Weber river at the mouth of Weber Canyon, cement was not to be had. He made the abutments by laying on rocks then he built a road up the North side of the canyon following an old Indian trail. It was only wide enough for one wagon. This first bridge washed out one Spring when the water was unusually high. The Weber County road Commission decided to finance the building of another road up the South side of the canyon, in order to avoid the steep hills on the North side. They put the bridge across the river at Devils Gate.

David Bybee's mother-in-law who then was 72 years old spoke for the job of keeping the toll bridge. She was Barbara Tope Penrod, mother of Doc Penrod, 2nd husband of Lucene Bird Bybee. The purpose of this bridge and road up the canyon was for logging. David Bybee had a saw mill in the canyon which was on Jacob's creek. It is Thornleys Grove now.

Doc Penrod was working with David Bybee and they lived in Mountain Green in Weber Canyon in 1870. Annie Laurie and David, the twins of Lucene Bird Bybee and Doc Penrod, were seven years old when their grand mother Penrod gave up keeping the toll bridge because her health began to fail. She then moved up to Mountain Green and lived with her daughter Mary, until her death at the age of 77.

So between the thrifty industrious Bybees and the music loving Penrods the twins grew up. When they were two years old their companions in play were two cub bears. Annie Lauri was always afraid of bears, especially two legged ones, she used to say.


This fine history came from Frank D. Adams, son of Annie Laurie Penrod and Hyrum Adams.

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