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JosephSmithSr.
So shall it be with my father: he shall be called a prince over his posterity, holding the keys of the patriarchal priesthood over the kingdom of God on earth, even the Church of the Latter Day Saints, and he shall sit in the general assembly of patriarchs, even in council with the Ancient of Days when he shall sit and all the patriarchs with him and shall enjoy his right and authority under the direction of the Ancient of Days. |
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RISLEY, Susan Amelia
1807 - 1888 (80 years) 
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Name RISLEY, Susan Amelia Birth 24 Aug 1807 Madison, Madison, New York, United States 
Gender Female WAC 30 Dec 1845 _TAG Reviewed on FS Death 18 Feb 1888 Fountain Green, Sanpete, Utah, United States Burial 21 Feb 1888 Manti, Sanpete, Utah, United States Headstones 
Submit Headstone Photo Person ID I21476 Joseph Smith Sr and Lucy Mack Smith Last Modified 19 Aug 2021
Father RISLEY, Elizabeth , b. 22 Dec 1779, Hartford, Hartford, Connecticut, United States Hartford, Hartford, Connecticut, United Statesd. 13 Sep 1841, Hubbardsville, Madison, New York, United States (Age 61 years) Mother MATSON, Amelia , b. 6 Jan 1781, Brookfield, Madison, New York, United States Brookfield, Madison, New York, United Statesd. 17 Mar 1868, Madison, Madison, New York, United States (Age 87 years) Marriage 21 Oct 1800 Brookfield, Madison, New York, United States Family ID F11668 Group Sheet | Family Chart
Family CHAPMAN, Welcome Sr. , b. 24 Jul 1805, Reedsboro, Bennington, Vermont, United States Reedsboro, Bennington, Vermont, United Statesd. 9 Dec 1893, Fountain Green, Sanpete, Utah, United States (Age 88 years) 
Children5 sons and 5 daughters Family ID F11673 Group Sheet | Family Chart Last Modified 24 Jan 2022
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Notes - Susan Amelia Risley was born in New York, 1807. She learned to sew, knit, tat, embroider, and weave cloth on a hand loom. She could card, spin wool and flax, braid straw, and make hat cut out.
Amelia was married to Welcome Chapman in 1832. Her first children were twins who died shortly after birth. In 1834, another daughter was born to them. Shortly after her birth, the Chapman's heard about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and were baptized.
About this time the persecution began, and they decided to join the main body of Saints in the West. Mob violence broke out where they settled and they had to vacate their home which the mob told them would be burned as soon as they were out of them. Later, they joined the Saints in Nauvoo, Illinois, hoping to live there, but the persecution soon began again.
In company with the Saints they crossed the Mississippi River and settled in Garden Grove, Illinois. They began their final journey across the Plains in 1848, well equipped with the necessities for the trip, including seed grain, beans, and a loom for weaving cloth. When they arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in the Fall of 1848, they found many in need of the seed they had brought with them, and they were happy to share, keeping only enough for seed the next spring.
The Chapman family were called to help settle Manti in 1850. Here Susan was called as the first president of the Relief Society of Manti.
Susan was skilled in the use of herbs, roots, bark, and berries as medicine and her services were in demand. She as always willing to help in cases of sickness and acted as midwife for many years. She even helped bring some of her great-grandchildren into the world.
Susan and her family lived for a time in Salt Lake where her husband was a stone cutter for the Salt Lake Temple. After his work on the Temple was finished the family moved back to Manti. Amelia passed away at the age of seventy-five years, and was laid out in two of the sheets she had made when she was a girl.
Information take from "Pioneer Women of Faith and Fortitude", volume 1, A to E, page 541 by International Society Daughters of Utah Pioneers.
Welcome and Susan Amelia Risley Chapman
Welcome and Susan Amelia Risley Chapman
written by Crystal (Potter) Lewis
typed by Kathryn Chapman and
Karen Chapman
The men of the early 19th century were afflicted with inflated
ego-in other words, most of them thought that the male of the
species were super-intelligent-the lord and master of his wife
and family and vastly superior to women (who had few rights or
privileges not sanctioned by her father, husband or other males).
If, in this history man is rather condemned for his attitude
and women is elevated above the level she should really occupy,
then it is because I am looking at the situations with 20th
century eyes, that have raised women to a new high level in life-
socially, mentally and in the business world.
Although Welcome Chapman, born July 24, 1805 in Reedsborough,
Vermont was more humble birth and early training than the woman he
married first, he always lorded it over her-his will had to be her will
and his word was always laws in their home.
The first we know of him, he was a fisherman on the rugged coast
of Maine also on Lake Ontario which was not far from his home. He had
also been apprenticed to a stone mason in his early years and learned
that trade.
About 1831 or 1832 Welcome Chapman met Susan Amelia Risley,
daughter of Eleazer and Amelia Risley, sturdy New Englands, highly
respected by their neighbors and fairly well to do. Amelia, as she was
called, was born in Madison, Madison County, New York, August 24, 1807.
We know that she had two or more sisters but do not know if there were
any boys in the Risley family. (Susan Amelia Risley had 6 sisters and 5
brothers.)
These girls were taught all the things it was thought necessary
for young ladies of that period to know. They learned to sew, knit, tat
and embroider, also to read, write and cipher. (do mathematics.) In
fact Amelia, after her marriage, found that she had a better education
then her husband, and was able to teach him a great deal. The Risley
girls also learned to card, spin, and weave wool, yarn and linen thread
and cloth, to braid straw to made hats and cut out, fit and sew all
kinds of clothing for men, women, and children.
Flax was raised on the Risley farm, from which the family
obtained through carding and spinning their own supply of linen thread
which was woven into sheets, pillow cases, chemise, petticoats, etc.
Each girl had one dozen sheets, two dozen pillowslips, a feather bed, a
pair of pillows besides a good supply of clothes in her hope chest.
This not only necessitated the girls carding and spinning but also
sewing each article with fine stitching, with needle and thread, (there
were no sewing machines of that time,) and the bleaching of linen
articles in the sunshine.
These articles were made of such excellent material and fine
workmanship that they were hard to wear out. Amelia's linen lasted
throughout her married life, in fact, when she died at the age of 75,
she was laid out in two of the sheets she had made when she was a
little girl.
Mr. and Mrs. Risley were very strict with their children, giving
their daughters very little chance to meet eligible young men. As an
unmarried girl past twenty in those days were
considered an old maid. Amelia was very concerned when she was twenty
and was unmarried.
When she was about 24, she met with Welcome Chapman, who wandered
into their village after a fishing trip. She fell in love with him and
he with her-almost immediately. The Risleys opposed marriage between
the two young people as they felt that fishing was a poorly paid,
uncertain occupation. However, Welcome began working at his trade of
stone mason and made enough success of it that he was given permission
to marry Amelia about early 1832 of late 1831. Welcome was age 26 and
Amelia at the age of 24.
The young couple moved to Hubbardsville nearby and established a
home. Their first children (twin girls) were born in 1833. They died
at birth or when very young.
On September 4, 1834, a little girl, whom they named Rosetta Ani
Chapman was born in Hubbardsville. She had dark eyes and hair. While
she was still a small baby, the Chapmans heard about the strange new
sect called "Mormons", that had sprung up near their home. They
investigated and accepted the Latter Day Saints together.
The Risleys bitterly opposed their daughters joining the Mormon
Church, but they didn't turn against her, but helped her financially,
as long as she was near them.
Their next child, also a daughter, was born 20 March 1837. She
was named Amelia but was very much like Rosetta.
As soon as the Chapmans joined the new church, persecutions
against them began, and their friends and neighbors shunned them and
looked down on them. This hurt Amelia very much, as her family had
always been one of the most prominent and highly respected families in
Madison County. However, she remained true to the faith she had
embraced, and to her husband, in spite of the persecutions.
When little Amelia was about a year old the Chapmans left
Hubbardsville and joined the main body of the Latter Day Saints farther
west. The Risleys tried to persuade them to remain in the New York
state. The two little girls, Rosetta and Amelia were their only
grandchildren and it was a very sad parting when time came to say
goodbye, for they couldn't persuade them to stay. However, they
provided their daughter and husband with a complete outfit for the
westward journey-two wagons, two yoke of oxen, bedding, utensils and
even food and clothes. Mrs. Chapman felt that she was leaving her dear
ones forever-and so it proved to be.
A few months later, after the Chapmans had established a
comfortable little home among the "Saints", mob violence broke out
against the Mormons. They were all given just a hours to vacate their
homes which were to be burned by the mob as soon as they were vacated.
This was no doubt in August 1838. The mob Crusade against Saints in
Missouri began in 1838. Hawns Mill Massacre was October 30,1838.
No one knows, at the time of this writing, what had become of the
outfit so generously given to the Chapmans by the Risleys, for it
appears they had only horse and no vehicle to move their belongings to
the home of friends several miles distant, out of the reach of the mob.
Mother Amelia was expecting another baby in a few months and her
health was very poor. Welcome took a chest of clothing and some bedding
each trip and the third one he took the baby in his arms, put little
Rosetta now 3 1/2 years old, behind him and was able to take two
pillows besides.
"I'll come back and get you next time, Amelia." he promised. "And
in the meantime you can pack the rest of the things and I'll see if I
can get someway to take them away before dark. The mob won't start
anything before dusk."
The road led through dense woods part of the way, and as he was
returning from the third trip the late afternoon sunshine was almost
shut out by the thick grove of trees, making it almost like twilight.
When about mile from home, he saw a strange object coming toward him
down the winding narrow road. Because of its ***** shape he couldn't
make out what it was. Bears were not unknown to those woods at that
time but it seemed too top-heavy for a bear. Besides a bear would
scarcely be so bold as to remain in the open road in plain sight of the
horseman that long and still approached him.
As he drew nearer, he could see that it was a woman with a heavy
on burden on her back. He urged his tired horse forward to investigate
and help if needed, and was shockingly surprised to find that it was
his own wife carrying her own feather bed.
Sliding quickly from his horse he exclaimed, "Oh Mother Amelia,
why have you done this? Are you trying to kill yourself?"
"Why Welcome", she protested, "you surely didn't think I was
going to let them old mobocrats have my best feather bed, did you, and
I am going to be sick in three months? It seemed like you were gone so
long this time, I was afraid they'd come back before you could get all
the things away and I knew we couldn't ride Old Rally and take the
feather bed."
"I'm afraid you'll be sick in less time than that", he told
her, sadly. But she wasn't - in spite of the hardships and privations
that followed in the next few weeks. (This all happened somewhere in
Ohio, or Missouri, no doubt.
Their first son whom they named Joseph Smith, was born. Here
Welcome worked at his trade of stone-mason, cutting stone for the
Nauvoo Temple. Two more sons were born to them in Illinois - Hyrum and
Levi. They established another comfortable home and enjoyed the
association of their friends and neighbors in the beautiful little city
of Nauvoo.
But the Saints, spite of their industry and faith in their
leaders, were not to enjoy the fruits of their labors very long, for
again mobs of violent men descended upon Nauvoo in 1846, and again the
people left their little homes, taking as much as possible of their
movable belongings and crossed the Mississippi River.
The Chapmans and others settled in Garden Grove, Iowa, where they
remained for about two years. By the time they were ready to begin
their final journey across the plains in 1848, they had six children in
the family. Their outfit was as nearly complete as most of their
garden seeds, bedding, and a loom for weaving clothe which Mrs. Chapman
could use with skill.
They had managed, somehow, to hold onto a few precious articles
through all the mobbings and movings they had encountered. Welcome
still possessed a black broadcloth suit and high silk hat which were
the pride of his heart and reserved to be worn on very special
occasions. Amelia still had her precious linen, her white wedding
gown, her black taffeta dress with the tiny black bonnet to wear on the
same occasions when Welcome donned his high silk hat.
When they arrived in Salt Lake Valley in the fall of 1848, they
found that some of the supplies - food especially - which they had
brought with them, were in great demand among the pioneers that had
already settled in the Valley. They shared what they could spare
keeping only enough for their own needs and seed for then next spring.
Mrs. Chapman turned most of the housework over to the two girls -
Rosetta now 14 and Amelia 12 years of age and turned her attention to
the weaving of linsey-woolsey cloth which was needed badly by the whole
community. This cloth, of a coarse wool woof and linen warp, was a
dull gray - sometimes dyed by the pioneer housewives with rude dyes
obtained from nature - berries, bark and roots - but more often used as
it came from the loom, for the making of clothes for men, women, and
children. It would withstand the hardest wear for years.
Clothes for the entire family had to be made in the home with
needle and thread, even the boy's trousers, jackets, caps, and even
hats and women's bonnets. Winter caps and jackets were often made of
fur and animal skins, while summer hats were made of hand-braided straw.
The Chapman girls learned to card and spin wool and to sew, cook,
and clean with the inadequate supplies of the household. Most of the
women and girls owned calico sunbonnets fitted with stiff slats to hold
them in shape and long caped in the back to guard the necks of the fair
wearers from the hot desert sun. A few of them had bright calico
dressed which they wore for best, and still fewer had black silk
dresses which they had brought across the plains, and tiny "boughten"
bonnets which were only brought out for special occasions.
Mrs. Chapman was glad that she kept her white wedding gown when
she learned that there was going to be a grand celebration on July 24,
1849, and girls with white dressed would be in great demand to walk in
the parade. She made the dress over for Rosetta, who with Brigham
Young's oldest girl, was chosen to lead the parade and carry the
American Flag. (These two girls no doubt lead the 24 girls, who
marched and sang in the parade.)
Jerome Kempton, whose history appears in later pages of this
book, married Rosetta Chapman when she was sixteen and a year later
married Amelia also as a plural wife when she was not quite fifteen.
This was after the Chapmans had moved in Manti where they had been
called by leaders of the Church to help settle.
In spite of her family and household duties, Mother Amelia
Chapman found time to work in the Church and observe social customs of
the day. She was president of the Relief Society for several years
there in Manti and fulfilled the duties of that office with honor and
ability.
During their entire sojourn in Manti, and Chapmans' home was
chief headquarters for Church authorities and official visitors from
Salt Lake City. Their home was better furnished than many of their
neighbors and Mrs. Chapman was an excellent cook and housekeeper.
President Brigham Young always made the Chapman home his
headquarters while he was visiting in Manti and nearby towns. An
incident relating to Pres. Young's carriage, while it stood in front of
the Chapman residence will be told later in the history of Harriet
Kempton Potter.
It is hard for housewives of today to realize how many things
that we consider absolute necessities, our pioneer women never knew
about or if they did, they were unable to get them. For example, the
rough wooden floors must be scrubbed with sand (not soap) and also
tables, chairs, stools and benches had to be cleaned the same way. What
little soap they had for washing clothes and bathing was made from wood
ashes and tallow, by a long tedious process. A form of alkali
called "saleratus", the pioneers gathered from the soil dissolved in
water, so that any soil adhering to it might settle to the bottom of
the vessel, and then the liquid was then carefully poured off, used
with sour milk or sour dough as we would use soda as a leavener in
making bread.
All ebidle plants or weeds that could be used for food, were
gathered and cooked for "greens". Mrs. Chapman was an authority on the
medicinal properties of many roots, herbs, berries and plants. She was
a midwife, and practical doctor and nurse and was often called, by her
neighbors for many miles around to assist at births, and treating cut,
burn, bruises and even contagious diseases.
Welcome had not had as many educational advantages as his wife,
but she willingly taught him all she knew and helped him in many ways
in his later public life. He was chosen as presiding elder of Manti
soon after arriving there and also was one of the first selectmen or
city councilmen as we now call them, belonged to the first militia 1850-
1853 and also helped build the Manti Temple as eh had helped with the
Nauvoo and Kirtland Temples, before crossing the plains. As has been
stated before, he was an excellent stone mason, and after so journing
in Manti a few years was called to go back to Salt Lake Temple.
Welcome married four other women as plural wives at intervals of
a few years apart-the last two were just young girls whom he married at
the same time, but who didn't live with him as wives.
The Chapmans were community builders wherever they lived and
raised a good honorable family. Amelia was always kind, generous and
self-sacrificing. She would often give to her grandchildren, neighbors
and friends food, clothing and toys that she made and no one knew of
her generosity except herself and the ones who received the gifts. She
acted as midwife for some of her grandchildren and even assisted at the
birth of some great-grandchildren.
The children of Welcome and Amelia Risley Chapman were Rosetta
Anis Chapman Kempton, Amelia C. Kempton, Joseph Smith Chapman, Hyrum
Chapman, Welcome Jr., Levi Chapman and Fidelia Chapman Babbitt, Almina
Chestina, Benjamin.
Amelia Chapman died at Fountain Green, 18 Feb. 1888 and Welcome
Chapman died at Fountain Green, 9 Dec.1893. They are both buried in
the Manti cemetery.
- Susan Amelia Risley was born in New York, 1807. She learned to sew, knit, tat, embroider, and weave cloth on a hand loom. She could card, spin wool and flax, braid straw, and make hat cut out.
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