Robert R Archibald

Robert Russell Archibald son of Thomas Archibald and Elizabeth Russell Robert R. Archibald was a native of Scotland. He was always true to the best traits that are characteristic of the true Scot: love of liberty, loyalty to country and home, steadfastness of devotion, and thriftiness of habits and a love for the truth. These are the principles he strove to teach to his family, children and grandchildren. He was born May 18, 1842, in the little town of Linlithgowshire, Scotland. Linlilthgowshire was in the coal mining region. The men of the family were miners. As a child of nine his work began around the mines. He went down with the other boys and men into the dark unventilated depths where there was constant danger to life from foul gases. At this time a miners life was short, when measured in years; but so meager was the wage and so great the necessity to add to the family income that even young children had to toil at men’s work in order to live. The average day’s wage at this time for most work in the mines was eleven cents per day. To these people, forced to live under such conditions, the Gospel of Jesus Christ came as a bright star of hope. And to live in a land of freedom and opportunity became the greatest goal for them to strive for a way and money to go to America. Robert Russell was in love with his next door neighbor girl, Isabella Watson. He gave his mother all his savings to help her take her family of eight across the ocean in 1860, while he remained in Scotland. When Isabella was sixteen they were married in 1862. They had two children, Ellen and Elizabeth, before they could save passage money to America. Ellen died as a tiny baby and was buried in Scotland. In 1866 they came to America with Elizabeth. Isabella his wife could not see the truths in Mormonism at this time, but she believed so completely everything that her husband did was right that she left all her family and friends to follow him to his new home. They spent six weeks on the ocean. Isabella was very small, but she walked all of the way to Utah and carried baby Elizabeth on her back, Indian fashion, to help make the load lighter. They settled in Wellsville, Cache County, Utah on October 3, 1864, where Great-Grandmother was living. Here Robert engaged in farming and mining. Wellsville was at this time called Maugham’s Fort. He also did much work on the Logan Temple. Their thirteen children were named Ellen, Elizabeth, Mary Thomas, Robert, James, Margaret, Agnes, Christine, Isabelle, Jessie, William, David, and Franklin. In May 1883, Robert went with Thomas E. Ricks to settle the Snake River Valley. He took the two oldest children; Elizabeth and Thomas, with him while his wife Isabella remained in Wellsville. They took one team of small horses, two year old colt, two cows, one pig, and a few chickens in crates. Also some household goods, seed grain, feed for animals and farm implements. Robert Simms and his family accompanied them. They traveled about from twelve to twenty miles per day, and it took them about two weeks to travel from Wellsville to Rexburg, Idaho. They crossed the toil bridge at Idaho Falls, Idaho. It cost them $1.00 for a team and wagon, $.25 for the riding pony, and $.10 for each cow. They again crossed the River about six miles from Rexburg, paying the same price. In Rexburg they shared with their neighbors all the joys, sorrows, trials, hopes, ambitions and ideals felt by a colony of people settling a forbidding new country. Instead of the delicious fruits grown in such abundance in their native country now they had only the native fruits that grew wild. These they dried and cooked. They caught fish that came in schools in the streams and dried them for future use, usually boiling them for the table because they had no fat with which to fry them. Through the long cold winters which were unmodified as they now are, they had only small sheet iron stove with which to heat their homes, and only willows and green wood or sage-brush to burn. In severe cold weather it took one person feeding the flames to keep the room warm. In the summer of 1886 the dread diphtheria scourge attacked the community. Many a home sorrowed for the loss of their little children. In the home of Robert Russell and Isabella the plague came and nearly all of their large family were stricken. Within two weeks three of their little children were taken. So fearful was the disease and so busy were the people caring for the sick that frail little Isabella with the help of an elderly neighbor made the little garments in which her babes were buried and her husband Robert made the caskets and dug the graves of his children, he at the time being sexton of the cemetery in Rexburg, Idaho. Robert Russell [Archibald] took an active part in the development of the Snake River County. In building canals, churches, schools and helping on the community farms he was always there to help. He had a contract to build a part of the railroad when it came in the late nineties. He was the counselor to Bishop T. J. Winter in the Rexburg Second Ward and Third Ward for fourteen years. He had many fine traits of character and citizenship. For the thirty-six years he owned and operated his farm he never placed a mortgage on it or allowed the taxes to become delinquent. He never used a piece of machinery or an animal until it was paid for. He was a great reader and bequeathed to the family a love of literature and a desire for learning. He passed away June 23, 1926 at Rexburg, Idaho and was buried in the Rexburg Cemetery. Robert Russell [Archibald] has left to his family the principles that he loved and lived for, embodied in the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. To his latest generations he will throw the challenge of his devotion; that they prove their mettle as he proved his in the flames of his faith.