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Robert Bodily History
Born at Oxfordshire England, Died at St. George Utah
I was born March 9, 1844 at Oxfordshire, England, the second child of Robert and Jane Pittam Bodily. In 1846 my parents moved to South Africa, arriving in Cape Town, after a voyage of sixteen weeks and three days. We first settled In Cape Town at tile extreme south end of the Continent. My father, being a stonemason, was solicited by the English Government to go to Cape Town to assist in building the fortification of the town. After that work was completed and when I was 3 years of age, we moved around tile end of tile continent to a place called Algo Bay or Port Elizabeth. There my father again followed his Occupation and built and contracted building houses and stores. It was here that my parents first met my father’s particular friend, John Stock and family. They also made friends with a Mrs. Jane Rich.
After a few years (about 1852) my father concluded that it would be better for his family to be living on a farm. So he bought a farm about forty miles inland from Port Elizabeth, up the Bushman River. This was an old government grant of about 650 acres of land. Tile person living on that grant land was required by the government to keep everything that would be needed by the army moving up and down the country such as provisions, and the ability to repair equipment. Therefore, he carried on wagon making and blacksmithing.
Tile Bodily family was truly tile vanguard of civilization in that area. Their neighbors were the Boers, Garriffs, Bushmen and I Hottentots native black people of Africa. The land was in the midst of a primeval wilderness surrounded by jungles where roamed elephants, buffalo, gorillas, monkeys, wild pigs and all kind of animals. They had 110 Church, school or town within forty miles, therefore very little communication with the civilized world.
My older brother William learned wagon making and I learned to blacksmith. My younger brother, James, learned to paint the wagons. We had cattle and sheep and hogs. The mode of farming was very easy. We would plow the ground then sow it and harrow it in with a brush drag, for modern machinery was not known there at that time. That was all we had to do until harvest time as the rains fell often enough to keep the crops watered. Then men, mostly natives, would harvest it with a cycle, Circular in form and barbed oil one side. They would grab a handful of grain with the left hand and cut it with this cycle with the right hand and lay it in piles, enough to make a bundle. Then it would be tied and stood ill shocks. As soon as it was dry enough, it would be hauled and thrashed by placing a layer on the ground inside ail enclosure. Then horses or cattle would be turned ill and driven around until the grain was trod out of the straw, then blown out with the wind until clean enough to use. Then tile same ground would be plowed again and planted to corn and squash or perhaps melons. The ground would then be harrowed or dragged as before and that finished tile work again until harvest.
We began to prosper, With Our endeavors in cattle, and farming along with tile wagon making and blacksmithing. We made friends with some of tile natives and hired them to work for us. To protect our cattle and sheep from predatory animals my father kept a string of trained hounds.
I will now go back to the time when we were small. My parents were of a religious nature, and belonged to tile Church of England, which believed in God without body, parts or passion. But mother taught us to pray and although we were praying to something that did not exist, yet I feel thankful that my mother taught tile to pray, because it was a good habit. While we lived in tile city we always went to church oil Sunday. When we moved into tile Country mother and father would have us gather together and mother would read to LIS from the Bible. She would also tell Bible stories Such as Abraham and Isaac, Jacob and his 12 sons, Joseph who was sold into Egypt, and then tile children of Israel and all their journeying and Moses being raised up to deliver them. I recollect how interesting they were, and the impression they made.
This is about the way things went on until the year 1857, when it was reported that a very curious religious sect had arrived in Port Elizabeth and what bad people they were. But they were gaining quite a few converts. One day my father’s good friend John Stock, accompanied by an Elder from Utah, came to pay my parents a visit, and to tell them about the Gospel and the Mormon Church. They visited several times, teaching the family more each visit. As a result our family also joined the Church on May 3, 1857. Those who were baptized at that time were my parents, and the four oldest children, William, Robert, James and Mary Ann. The other children were not old enough. When we joined there was no thought of leaving South Africa, however, the spirit of gathering soon came over my parents and father commenced to make preparations to leave our farm and move to the United States and to Zion.
On March 22, 1860, 1 think it was, we started for Utah. There must have been between 50 and 60 in our company. We embarked on an old wooden sailing vessel called the “Alacrity.” We had not been going long before something began to happen. We all began to be sea sick, and would just as soon die as live, but as a general thing, in a few days we were alright. Then how hungry one would get. You could eat anything and never get enough. In a few days we called at Cape Town. I Here we took on some more passengers. We also saw again the fortification, which our father helped to build about fourteen years before.
This is great!