28 Dec 1839 – 12 Feb 1915
Son of Philip Cardon and Marthe Marie Tourn
John Paul Cardon
Extracted from “Whence & Whither” by Rebecca Cardon Hickman – compiled by H. Lynn Beus with Charlotte Gunnell.
In order to understand the background and characteristics of my grandfather, Paul Cardon, it would be well for the reader to review the history of the Vaudois or Waldenses of Italy, and their persecutions at the hands of religious leaders of their day, as told elsewhere in this book.
My Grandfather, John Paul Cardon, son of Phillippe Cardon and Marie Tourin, was born December 28. 1839 at Prarustin, Italy. His family had found a place of refuge in the Italian Alps during the awful persecutions that raged in the Piedmont valleys.
They were of the Vaudois or Waldenses, and Phillippe Cardon was the second person in all of the Italian Mission to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was the first person in his community, or locality, to join the church. This notable event took place under the direction of the late President Lorenzo F. Snow, who bad opened that mission but a short time before. My grandfather Cardon’s sister, Madelain Cardon Guild tells this story concerning an early experience with the gospel of Jesus Christ, as it was restored to the “Mormons” and the family’s conversion to it. This is found in her autobiography:
“When I was a child of about six or seven, in the year 1840-41, I received a remarkable manifestation, one which changed the career of my whole life. I desire to tell it just as it happened so that you may realize how I felt. I was upstairs in bed. A strange feeling came over me. It seemed that I was a young woman instead of a mere child. I thought I was on a small strip of meadow close to our vineyard, keeping father’s milk cows from the vineyard. It seemed that I was sitting on the grass reading a Sunday school book. I looked up and saw three strangers in front of me. As I looked into their faces. I dropped my eyes instantly, being very frightened. Suddenly the thought came to me that I must look them straight in the face, so that I might remember them in the future. I raised my eyes and looked them straight in the face. One of them, seeing that I was afraid said, ‘Fear not, for we are servants of God, and have come from afar to preach unto the world the everlasting gospel, which has been restored to the earth in these last days. for the redemption of mankind.’ They told me that God had spoken from the heavens and had revealed His everlasting Gospel to a young boy, Joseph Smith; that it should never more be taken away, but that His kingdom would be set up and that all the honest in heart would be gathered together. They told me that I would be the means of bringing my parents and family into this great gathering. Moreover, that the day was not far off when we would leave our homes and cross the great ocean. We would travel across the wilderness and go to Zion, where we would serve God according to the dictates of our conscience.
When they had finished their message to me they said they would soon return and visit me. They took some small books from their pockets and gave them to me saying, ‘Read these and learn.’ They then disappeared instantly”.
When I realized what had been said to me and what I had seen, I became frightened. I took my clothes in my arms and ran downstairs’ to where my mother was preparing breakfast for our family and hired men. As I came in she saw that I looked pale. She asked me if I was sick and I said no. Just at that instant I was unable to talk. My mother told me to sit on a chair and she would soon see to me, and learn what was wrong. Soon my father came in and she called his attention to me. She knew that I was not sick. that something had happened which caused me to look so strange. My father took me up. dressed me. and questioned me until I had told him all l had seen and heard.
Later in her life this scene was to be almost exactly duplicated in real life. Although she almost
forgot it in the years in which she was growing up, it made a deep and lasting impression on her
father and he always kept it in his mind.
In 1850, three Latter-day Saints, Elder Lorenzo F. Snow, a Brother Stenhouse, and Brother
Toronto, came to Italy to open that mission. They stopped at a town called Palais de Ia Tour,where they were not allowed a church or place of shelter in which to preach. Soon the people of Palais de la Tour became wild and crazy and organized into mobs and laid plans to drive these servants of the living God out of the country. Elder Snow called his companions together and proposed that all three of them go to the mountains and there fast and pray. This they did in humbleness of heart; they asked their Heavenly Father to look down upon them in mercy and guide them to the honest in heart and bless them in their labors. They were kneeling on a large flat rock on the mountain side, in fervent prayer to God that he might open the way before them that their journey and labor in that country might not be in vain. Instantly a voice came to them saying, “Cheer up, your prayer is granted and you shall meet with friends who shall protect you in your labor and who shall receive the gospel of Christ” (Elder Snow proposed that this mountain be known among people of God, henceforth and forever, as Mount Brigham and the rock upon which they stood as the Rock of Prophecy.)
Mrs. Guild writes further,
I well remember my father coming home on Friday or Saturday afternoon and asking my mother to get his Sunday clothes ready. He had just heard of these three strangers being at Palais de Ia Tour and preaching the same doctrine which the three strangers had taught me in my dream or vision when I was a child. I was just seventeen or eighteen years of age now. When he heard of their strange doctrine, he became so. excited and so intensely interested that he could not proceed with his work. After be changed his clothes he started afoot in search of the strangers. He traveled over mountains and through valleys and arrived on Sunday morning in time to hear Elder Lorenzo Snow preach. My dear father was most happy to hear the pure truth, so earnestly explained. His heart was full of joy. After the meeting my father approached these servants of the Lord, shook hands with them, and kindly invited them to come to our home where be desired them to make their headquarters. They kindly and willingly accepted his hospitality. On the way home my father related unto them all about what I had seen and heard in my dream or vision. He stored it in his heart and in his memory and had kept it in his bosom, a secret until now.When the Elders reached our house that Sunday evening they inquired for me, being interested in what my father had told them concerning me. I was not at home at the time, but was out on a small strip of meadow land. It seemed to be the identical spot I had seen in that vision of childhood so many years before. I was sitting on the grass reading a Sunday school book. I did not hear them until my father said to the elders, “This is my daughter who had the vision or dream concerning the strangers who told me to ‘Fear not for they are the servants of God.”‘ Upon being introduced, I shook hands with each of them. They took some tracts or small books from their pockets and spoke the very same words I had heard in my dream. Thus was that remarkable manifestation partly fulfilled. As you read further you will learn that it was fulfilled to the letter.
The elders preached the gospel to this family and they soon joined the church. The gospel was not well received in this community and soon the persecutions began against those who had joined the church. Many of the people who had joined the church could not withstand the trials and persecutions and fell away and were excommunicated.
The Cardon family made plans to emigrate. Due to the opposition arising against the saints. it was hard to dispose of their property and possessions for a fair price, but the Cardons were blessed and were able to sell their goods and raise enough money to come to Utah themselves. as well as to pay for another family of five persons to emigrate also. Among the first families to leave were the Cardons, Stalles. Gaudins, (Gaudins were my grandmother Cardon’s people) the Beuses and the Chatelains.
It was February 1854 when Phillippe Cardon, his wife and family, consisting of four sons and two daughters, left their native home to cast their lives and fortunes in with the “despised Mormons.” Having already endured persecutions for their honest belief, it was nothing new for them to share in the hardships and persecutions that followed the Saints.
On a later date when the gospel had taken root in Italy, Elder Snow wrote that they went to the mountains, climbed to Mount Brigham and the Rock of Prophecy and there, inspired by the grandeur of those lofty mountains and with the history of these people in mind, sang a Vaudois hymn, which has since become, in modified form, a much-sung hymn in the church: “For the Strength of the Hills We Bless Thee.”
They arrived in Utah, October 29,1854, with the Robert Campbell Company, settling in Weber County near Five Points, just north of Ogden. Their journey over land and sea was fraught with many dangers and trials. They had been promised that if they would live the principles of the gospel and trust in the Lord that they would reach their destination in safety, and this they did.
They remained in Ogden until the move south, which took place during the year 1858. My grandfather Cardon was engaged with the Utah Militia in the trouble with Johnson’s army, and was stationed as a guard at the head of Echo Canyon to prevent the approach of this army. He was instructed to set fire to the homes and grain if it was found to be necessary.
In the year 1857 be married Susannah Gaudin. who had come from the same valley of the Piedmont, was related to him, and had walked across the plains in the first handcart company. It was the Edmund Ellsworth Company, which had arrived in Utah September 26, 1856. nearly two years after the Cardons had arrived. From this union six sons and five daughters were born. In December 1869, just 12 years later, he married Magdalene Beus, who was also from the same country and had come, as a child. in the same handcart company as his first wife. From this union nine children were born.
When Johnston’s Army came. the saints were moved south and my grandmother, Susannah, accompanied them, carrying a small babe in her arms and walking much of the way. In the fall of 1859, Paul Cardon. his father, and a brother, Phillip, were called by President Brigham Young to go and help in the settlement of Cache Valley. Phillip later went to Mexico to help colonize, and another brother, Thomas, who had been in the army during the civil war, came to Cache Valley and there settled.
During the first spring in the valley they sowed over forty bushels of wheat. but reaped only seven bushels, due to the grasshoppers. There were only a few families in the valley at this time and the Cardons entered at once upon the activities necessary to protect themselves and neighbors against the then savage Indians, and to the work of building a new “Mormon settlement”
Paul Cardon assisted in erecting the first home in Logan, which was located on the block west of the old Lincoln Hotel. This was situated on the corner of First West and Center Street, where the Logan City school offices are now located. It was a home for a family by the name of Peacock.
He became actively engaged in defending the settlers against the many Indian raids that took place during the early settlement of Cache Valley, and risking his own life upon many occasions in defending others. He was almost constantly engaged in his work, neglecting his own personal affairs. This admirable quality characterized his entire life. He was very ambitious, quick, and full of energy. It was and has been said by those who knew him, that he didn’t consider that he was doing his best until be could look behind himself and see his coattails flying. He was prominently identified with the religious, social, military, and civil organizations of the early history of Logan City and Cache Valley. As a member of the church, be placed himself and all be possessed at its service, for it was because of his great love for the work of the Lord that be and his people had left their native land. In a military capacity he held the rank off first Lt. of Cavalry, having received his commission from the President of the United States. As a local officer be served as first Treasurer of Logan City, and for many years acted as Marshall. He had charge of the Temple Mill in Logan Canyon, which furnished the lumber for the Logan Temple. He assisted in the surveying and building of the Logan canyon road, thus connecting the Bear Lake region with Logan. In all the affairs of the valley he was foremost among men.
The following is taken from an article edited by President W. M. Everton and printed in his page in the Herald Journal, dated June 2, 1934: “He (Paul Cardon) assisted in building the first house in Logan, which was made of logs. He and his family lived in a log house themselves for some time, and in about 1869 or 1870 he built the first adobe house of any size to be erected in Logan. This was a very pretentious building for those days. costing in the neighborhood of five thousand dollars. Here, for ten yeas, Paul Cardon ran a hotel called the Cache Valley House … He helped in the construction of both the Logan-Richmond and the Logan-Hyde Park Canals. In about 1865 he was called by Peter Maughan to go with Thomas E. Rich, Joseph Rich, and Josiah Ricks and begin construction of a road through the canyon to Bear Lake. He spent three or four months each season for the next five years in this work. They followed an Indian trail up the left fork through Beaver and St. Charles Canyons, down to the settlement of St. Charles.
Prior to the building of the Temple Mill the scouts of the Coe and Carter outfit (railroad tie company) were annoyed at this invasion of their intended domain, but evidently determined to make this place (Temple Mill location) a base of operation in spite of priority claims. The local church officials, however, had their own scouts and when it was learned that Coe and Carter scouts had been Inspecting Maughan’s Fort they acted quietly to protect their interests. Paul Cardon was called, with George Batt and two or three other men to leave immediately for the canyon to commence construction of a saw mill in Maughan’s Fort and to be on hand to prevent its occupation by the Coe and Carter outfit.
John P. Cardon (son of Paul) was about nine years old at the time, but he remembers his father coming home one afternoon in great haste and asking his mother to get food packed for him to take to the canyon. At the same time be told little Johnnie to hitch the mules to the wagon and fill the wagon box with hay and corn while he gathered the necessary tools and clothing. They left early in the evening and proceeded to their destination without delay. When the Coe and Carter outfit arrived, some forty-eight hours later, they found the first logs laid out for a big saw mill and men busily engaged in constructing shelters, etc., but not too busy to tell visitors that they intended to continue occupation of Maughan’s Fort to the exclusion of any and all other outfits. It is thought that this event probably happened in 1876 or more likely in the spring or summer of 1877.
In 1880, Paul Cardon was called upon by the church authorities to build a large house which was to be used as a hotel and rooming house. This, they requested to be built, so that the many people who traveled here to work in the temple would have a decent and suitable place to stay. This building was located one-half block west of Main Street on First North, near where Dean C. Pack Motor company is now located. It was called the Cache Valley House. The Cardons continued to operate this business for about ten yeas, making friends with many people who came to Logan. He was instructed to make friends with the U.S. deputies who were in this part of the country trying to apprehend and punish polygamy offenders. There was a room especially constructed with very thin partitions, next to the room where these deputies were roomed, and the family took turns listening through this wall. Many plans were revealed this way, and my father has said many times he went out the back door of a home after warning the Saints, just before the deputies came in the front. He said he took many a fast run or ride to the various homes of the Saints to give them warning.
When the deputies became suspicious of my grandfather, be left Logan and went into the northwest to help build railroads. He took the older part of his family with him to work, and left his wives and the younger children here to run the hotel. This proved too much for them and they later sold it.
The Herald Journal, many years ago, printed an article which reads in part: “To the Italian origin of Paul Cardon. Cache Valley owes its mulberry trees and its attempts at silk culture. Both he and his wife, Susannah, had become familiar with all branches of silk culture in their youth, and seeing the climatic similarity of Cache Valley and northern Italy, they determined to start the culture here. They imported mulberry seeds and silk worms from France and for a while it appeared that Utah might become a center of the silk industry.” The trees grew well and some were still living a few years ago. I do not know of any at this time. Grandmother Cardon grew very proficient at this work. She reeled the first silk produced in Utah. She received many medals from all parts of the United States for the excellence of her work. She also taught this art to many other ladies of the church at the request of President Brigham Young.
Paul Cardon sang In the tabernacle choir for many years. My mother says she used to notice him there each Sunday when she was a child. She always admired him and called him “the pretty man”, even before she knew his name or that he would one day be her father-in-law. He had a fair, pinkish complexion, and was always neat and well-dressed and pleasant. He took pride in his appearance and so did grandmother. She made him hand-tucked white shirts and always kept his clothes clean and neat. He loved people and wanted to be with them. He loved parties and fun and the social activities of the community. He was always a gentleman in every sense of the word.
My mother has told me that he liked her and her family and was very pleased when father married her. He always treated her with kindness, consideration and affection. He loved to help people and was generous to a fault. He had the gift of being able to make money, but would give it away as fast as he made it. He had a rather quick temper, but was soon over it and did not hold any grudges. He was a forceful and attractive man.
My grandmother was six years older than my grandfather and due to that and other reasons, she
was not sure she should marry him. He persuaded her, however, and people who knew them have testified that they never had seen a more devoted couple than they were, even into old age. I have been told that he was always master in his home and that his wives and family always gave in to him and obeyed him. He always tried to do what was right and was a true and devoted husband and father all of his life. He ruled with love and understanding and sympathy.
I remember going to visit them, as a child, and I remember that both wives always lived in the same house, having separate apartments and furniture. [This conflicts with the information given in the history of Magdalene Beus, his second wife. Ed.] They seemed to love each other and never had any trouble or quarrels that I could learn of. We always went into “Aunty’s side of the house” to visit when we went to see Grandpa, and their boat house on the Bear River was a source of pride and admiration to me.
In 1900 Paul returned to his native land as a missionary and also to try to get some of the genealogy of his people. At this time he was 61 years old. Quoting from Elder Daniel B. Hill Richards, in his book, “The Scriptural Allegory:” “While still laboring as a missionary at Neuchatel, Switzerland, in the winter of 1900, Daniel B. Richards received an appointment from Platte D. Lyman, president of the European Mission at Liverpool and from Louis S. Cardon (my father) who was president of the Swiss and Italian Missions, to go into Italy and see what could be done in re-opening the Italian Mission and establishing a branch of the church there. April 26, 1900 I met Elder Paul Cardon of Cache County, Utah at the railroad station in Turin. He has come to this part of Italy to assist me in this part of the vineyard and also to look up his genealogy. Not a great distance from here was the home of his ancestors.”
“Elder Cardon located a lone woman over 80 years of age, who had once known him. We visited this woman in her cottage high on the top of the mountains, and conversed with her. She had forgotten her early faith and was now ashamed of the gospel of Christ.”
My father has told us that while Grandfather Cardon was laboring in Italy on his mission, he was moved by the poverty and great need of these people, and father had to practically take his purse away from him as he wanted to give more than he had to them. Only a few of these people ever joined the church.
In 1892 Paul and some of his younger family moved to Benson, where be bought a large farm. He became a member of the bishopric and was loved and honored by the good people of that area. They lived there until 1912 (ten yeas) and then. desiring to spend their remaining yeas among their children. and also to do the temple work for their kindred dead. they moved back to Logan. They located in the Logan Seventh Ward and lived there until the time of his death. Paul was the father of twenty children, and his posterity number into the hundreds. He died February 12, 1915, after a lingering illness. He had some type of stomach trouble which had afflicted him for some months previous to his death. It is generally supposed to have been cancer, in this more enlightened age.
A clipping from the Logan Republican dated February 16, 1915 says, in part: “In the passing of Paul Cardon another of the old faithful pioneers goes to his well-earned rest and leaves, in his large posterity, and multitudes of friends, the richest legacy that can come to any mortal. He is the last member of the second generation of Cardons to pass to the great beyond. Of him it can truthfully be said, ‘He was one of God’s noble men, an honest man … devoted to good works.’ He had his funeral in the old Seventh Ward chapel, and he is buried in the Logan City Cemetery.
–Rebecca Cardon Hickman, a granddaughter