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Life and Testimony of Amos Moses Virgin

[Amos Moses Virgin was born January 23, 1854, in Marston, Bedfordshire, England. After the family joined the church, they experienced a great deal of persecution and had to move to Birmingham to escape. But there, his father was killed in a mysterious accident at night by a locomotive which ran over him in a tunnel. He lived long enough to say that the locomotive had no light or signal on it to warn him of its approach. The family always felt it was a part of persistent persecution against the family for joining the church.

In May 1862, as a boy of twelve, Amos came with his widowed mother, a bother and a baby sister across the ocean to America. They sailed out of Liverpool on the William Tapscott with 378 other Saints. On their ship was Francis M. Lyman and other church leaders.

Amos told of reports on shipboard that a shark was following the ship, and he was allowed to go and see it. He also saw the ocean nearby covered with a large school of porpoises. There was a superstition among the ship’s crew that a death would occur or a bad storm would come in a day or two because of this sighting. A terrible storm did come later which broke down the main mast and the people were locked in their various decks. [They still believed this was just superstition.]

When they got to New York, they continued on with the Saints, and eventually walked on their way to Utah. Amos’ mother became very ill on the journey, and his baby sister died. Thirty people of this company died on the journey. They arrived in Utah on 19 October 1862.

After arriving in Utah, the family settled in Tooele, living with his aunt. But after a year, they moved to St. Charles, Bear Lake, Idaho. Amos helped his mother sustain the family there by fishing and trapping.

When grown, on September 27, 1875, Amos married Sarah Frances Merkley. Together they had ten children, the oldest was our ancestor, Sarah Frances Virgin Shirley.

Amos had never had the opportunity to obtain an education. But desiring learning, he organized study groups among the married couples in his community. They met in the Virgin home. They would read, discuss, and try to improve themselves intellectually.

He participated in other community projects too, which included, “wood hauling parties.” They went up into the timber and cut trees. Then they cut the wood and piled it in the public square in front of the school house. A day would be set for sawing and splitting the wood. Everyone would join in. That night, when the work was done, the whole town would join in a public dinner and dance. The entire wood supply was donated to the school for winter fuel.

After their daughter married James Frederick Shirley, and moved to Idaho, the Virgins decided to move there too. So in 1899, Amos and his wife, Sarah, along with their other eight children, bought a big 160 acre farm on the West side of his daughter. The properties were separated by a big canal and the main traveled road. Another daughter and husband had also previously moved to the area.

The path to the Virgin home was remembered by the family as being bordered with flowers of every kind. But their house was old and made of logs. These were pioneering families of the Snake River Valley.

The families enjoyed being together, especially their holidays. When they would spend Christmas at the Virgins, Amos, who had an organ with a tall upright back on it, and also a place to put a kerosene lamp, would play the organ and all would sing Christmas songs together. They rotated as to which house they celebrated holidays and birthdays. They held large family celebrations until the families grew so large they could not accommodate all of them in one house.

Amos truly loved music. He not only played the organ, but the fiddle, a Jews harp, and a harmonica. They held youth dances on some Saturday afternoons, and Amos would always be on hand to lead the marches and to call for the square dances.

Amos was a good honest man. His farm was large, and having no boys to help him, his girls often helped with the farm work, such as cutting and raking the hay and grain.

When winter came and the children could no longer walk to school, Amos would hook his team on the bobsleigh, with boards on each side for their back to lean against. Then he put some covers over a layer of straw, in the bottom of the sleigh, for the children to sit on, and additional quilts to pull around them, or even over their heads. On real cold days the children would find some hot bricks under the covers to keep their feet warm.

Always, because church was an important part of their lives, the family leaders would take turns each Sunday taking the families to Sunday School, or to meetings or entertainments of any kind. They always worked together as a team.

Amos had a good voice and loved to sing. His children and grandchildren remember going to his house and hearing him and his wife and others sing, “Come, Come Ye Saints,” “and “Brittania, Brittania, rules the waves, Britains never will be slaves.” They sang many other songs too. But these two were favorites.

He died 12 Oct., 1942, in Fish Haven, Idaho. Before he died, he did temple work for his parents, grandparents, and others. He died faithful to his covenants.

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