by Louis Bellamy Cardon 2008
Son of Philip Cardon and Martha Marie Tourn
The fifth of the nine children of Philippe Cardon and Marthe Marie Tourn was born on March 9, 1832, in Prarostino, Italy. His name was recorded on the parish record as “Philippe Cardon”, not “Louis Philippe”. Evidently it was after he came to Utah that he began using “Louis Philip” among his associates (reportedly taking the name “Louis” from Louis Malan his godfather, who presented him for baptism as a newborn infant). He was always called “Philip” by members of the family, but sometimes Louis Philip Cardon, Louis Cardon, Louis P. Cardon, or L.P. Cardon by others (Lucille Cardon Matthews, “A Brief Story of Louis Philip Cardon 1832-1911.” See Also “CARDONS! Descendants of Philippe Cardon and Marthe Marie Tourn, 1799-1986, “p. 15)
In 1852 he was baptized along with his parents and four siblings into the LDS church. He was ordained a Teacher in the Aaronic Priesthood before leaving Italy, and a High Priest at the age of 24, two years after his arrival in Utah (according to the Dublán Ward records quoted by Lucille Matthews).
He immigrated to Utah with his family (except for his oldest sister Anne) in 1854, and settled with his family in Ogden that year, just four years after the founding of that town.
The Cardons helped to settle the Stalé family in Ogden upon their arrival in Salt Lake in 1856, and Louis Philip married Marthe Susanne (Susette) Stalé the next year. He had previously married Sarah Ann Welborn. With Susette he had five children, but none with Sarah. The first two of the five children, Joseph and Emanuel, were born in Ogden in 1858 and 1859.
In 1861, the father Philippe and his sons Louis Philip and Paul were called by Brigham Young to take their families and help to settle Cache Valley. Paul helped to build the first house in Logan, a log cabin, and was in charge of the mill that produced lumber for the temple. Philippe and Louis Philip, skilled stone masons, built the fireplaces for many of the homes in Cache Valley, and worked on the temple. Paul was also the first treasurer of Logan City, and long-time town marshal.
After ten years in Logan, the Cardons were well established. But Logan itself was becoming a larger town, and at this time the U.S. Government’s prosecutions of polygamous families impelled Louis Philip to move with his two wives and three children to a still more outlying community, Oxford Idaho, at the northern extremity of Cache Valley. Here an additional two children were born.
By 1876 Oxford too was becoming unsafe for polygamous families. Federal authorities were arresting both husbands and wives for “unlawful cohabitation.” Consequently, a worried Louis Philip made a trip to Salt Lake City to seek Brigham Young’s advice.
Upon his return he reported that “Brigham Young rose from his chair, smote the palm of one hand with the doubled fist of the other and said ‘Brother Cardon, it is time for the Saints to settle Arizona, as I have been thinking about. Be here in a week with your wife and belongings. The company will be ready to leave then.” (Lucille Cardon Matthews, p. 8).
As it turned out, there were four companies involved in the move to Arizona. The captain of the company which included the Cardons was George Lake, bishop of the Oxford ward, who was moving for the same reason as Louis Philip. But the move was actually also a part of Brigham Young’s plan to plant colonies from Canada to Mexico. Circumstances had again made Louis Philip a pioneer.
The apostle Brigham Young (son of President Young), informed Louis Philip’s two older sons, Joseph (18) and Emanuel (17) that they were to consider themselves missionaries “called” to Arizona, and join the move south. A young lady accompanied Emanuel, and the company stopped long enough in Salt Lake for the two to be married. Joseph, who had a wife and one child at the time of the move, married two more a few years later. Louis Philip was accompanied by his second wife, Susette, while Sarah, the first wife (who was legal in the eyes of the law), remained for the time being in Oxford. (“CARDONS!”, p.9)
In Arizona, the Cardons participated in the establishment of several new settlements. At the first one, Obed, on the Little Colorado River, Louis Philip, being a stone mason, supervised the building of houses and also a nine-foot stone wall to guard against Indians. Unfortunately the site proved swampy and malarial, and had to be abandoned. Louis Philip and his sons and son-in-law were subsequently prominent in the settlement of Woodruff and Taylor. Joseph at age 20, directed the surveying of the Taylor site, and the four Cardon men (Louis Philip, his sons, and son-in-law) formed a company which took a freighting contract, worked on a railroad, and took 3000 sheep on shares, to earn money to supplement their pioneering farming efforts. (Lucille Mathews, pp. 9-11)
At this point, in 1884, polygamy prosecution again intervened. The Edmunds anti-polygamy law had been passed and Utah enforcement officers began making raids in Arizona. Consequently that fall, LDS president Taylor advised Louis Philip and Joseph to move to Mexico, where polygamy was legal.
Later, both Louis Philip and his sons Joseph and Emanuel would be placed on the honor roll of heads of founding families and builders of the Colony of Juarez. Louis Philip was prominent in the erection of homes, public buildings and the first mill for grinding grain. For himself, Louis Philip built a fine two story brick home, where he lived for many years. His youngest son, Louis Paul, after graduating from Brigham Young College in Logan in 1893 with high honors in mathematics and engineering, taught school for four years in Taylor, Arizona and then was called by President Woodruff to go to Mexico to help establish an educational system for the Church there. In Dublán he served as school principal for fourteen years, during which time the enrollment increased from 125 to 445 and the teaching staff increased from one to nine. At the same time he did the surveying of the reservoirs and canals for all the colonies, farmed extensively, and built a large house in Dublán. He married three wives (one before coming to Mexico) and fathered twenty-nine children (Louis Paul Cardon,” pp. 28-29)
The older Cardon children living in Dublán would later remember with great affection and respect their grandparents Philip and Sarah who lived in nearby Juarez until after 1900, as well as their grandmother Susette who lived next to Louis Paul in Dublán. While they loved their trips to visit their Grandpa Philip and “Grandma Juarez” (whom they loved dearly) they were happy when Philip and Sarah finally moved to Dublán. Louis Philip passed away on April 9, 1911, just the year before revolutionary disturbances caused a general exodus of the Mormon colonists from Mexico in 1912.
This exodus proved temporary for some and permanent for others. But in either case it detracts little from the pioneering heritage and the concrete achievements of Louis Philip Cardon and his family. Numerous places they settled or helped to develop owe something to those foundations. And a numerous progeny have been shaped in part, whether or not they recognize it, by attributes developed and passed on by these pioneers.
