On April 24, 1935, the Deseret News in Salt Lake City printed a short history of the Arbon Ward under the heading "Encyclopedic History of the Church," by Andrew Jenson, the Assistant Church Historian. It followed the Latter-day Saint congregation of Bannock Valley from a branch in 1900 to a ward of about two hundred members at the end of 1930. The papers of those years had recorded much of the same story as it happened.
Jenson knew the valley. He had written to the Deseret Evening News from Arbon in 1906, calling it "a new settlement of Saints," and in August 1918 the American Falls Press reported him visiting at Crystal, "getting old records for the church history." His book of 1941 repeats the 1935 entry almost unchanged.
What the historian wrote
Jenson put the center of the ward at the village of Arbon, with the farms of the Latter-day Saints reaching about eight miles up and down the valley. Malad lay over the mountains by the Rocky Ridge road, and the nearest railroad station was American Falls. Stockmen, he wrote, had used the valley as summer range. It had once been part of the Fort Hall Indian Reservation, and an early try at raising grain had been given up because the valley, nearly 5,000 feet above sea level, was thought too high. In June 1892 David John Bowen and Samuel D. Davis of Samaria came over the mountains to look for land and water, and settlement followed in 1893 and 1894.
On August 19, 1900, the Saints of the valley were organized as the Arbon Branch of the Samaria Ward, with D. J. Bowen as presiding elder. Samaria lies over the mountains in Malad Valley, and Arbon was then in Oneida County; Power County was not created until 1913. Mrs. E. A. Logan's history of the valley, printed in the American Falls Press in March 1917, told the beginning this way:
In this year the L. D. S. church was organized on August 19th with ten families, besides a few single men. D. J. Bowen was first presiding elder. At first the meetings were held in the different homes in turns. The first Sunday school superintendent was J. R. Bailey and his assistants were E. H. Davis and Joe Arbon. The latter was the first bishop.
In 1907, by Jenson's account, the branch was made part of the Holbrook Ward, to the south, with Joseph N. Arbon presiding.
A ward of its own
On July 19, 1908, the branch became a ward, with Joseph N. Arbon, George Arbon's son, as its bishop. A Deseret News column of church anniversaries, printed on December 27, 1927, dated his ordination as bishop of the Arbon Ward, Malad Stake, to December 27, 1908; nothing found explains the five months between.
The ward soon divided. In March 1911 the Press reported that the new meeting house at the north end of the valley would be finished that week, and in June the Salt Lake Herald-Republican announced a new Meadow Ward, with Wilhelm Kowallis of Arbon (printed Kowalles) as bishop. That ward served the Pauline end of the valley. In 1915 the Arbon Ward moved from the Malad Stake to the new Curlew Stake, which took in Holbrook in Idaho and Snowville in Utah. The digitized text of the 1935 printing reads 1914 here; the 1941 book says 1915.
Jenson's bishops, as the 1941 book lists them (the 1935 text agrees where legible):
- Joseph N. Arbon, 1908–1914
- Edward H. Davis, 1914–1916
- David J. Bowen, 1916–1923
- Lorenzo B. Evans, 1923–1924
- Thomas S. Toyn, 1924–1925
- Joseph N. Arbon again, from 1925
The papers bear out the order. The Deseret Evening News list of new bishops of January 6, 1917, reported that David J. Bowen had succeeded Edward H. Davis, and a profile of Bowen in the Press that October spoke of him as bishop. Arbon notices of 1920 and 1921 name a "Bishop John Bowen," probably D. J. Bowen. The years are not always exact: the Press already called Lorenzo Evans "Bishop" in November 1922. The Lorenzo Bowen Evans family history on this site gives him the 1914–1916 term, but Jenson gives it to Edward Davis, and the 1917 list names Davis as the bishop Bowen succeeded.
Ward life in the papers
The local columns show the ward at work. In June 1916 the Arbon column reported the meeting house renovated with new paint and interior decorations. In May 1920 "Bishop John Bowen of Arbon ward" gave the prayer at a farewell for the David Ripleys, who were leaving for Oregon, and that July the Primary held a social and dance at the meeting house. In May 1921 the paper announced "a Ward Stake Conference at the L. D. S. Arbon meeting house," with visiting missionaries.
Ward members also traveled to the stake. In the fall of 1922 the Press's Arbon correspondent described the stake's day for its older members:
The old folks of Curlew Stake gathered at Holbrook Friday. Automobiles and buggies came from far and near, loaded with young and old, members of the Stake and friends. By noon the beautiful new Tabernacle was well filled. The Curlew Stake Presidency, a number of the high council and bishops were in attendance.
About 150 older people sat down at the first table and 180 younger ones after them. Those from Arbon included Bishop and Mrs. L. B. Evans, the J. R. Baileys, the E. H. Davises, the Thomas Toyns and Mrs. J. N. Arbon. In July 1924 the Salt Lake Tribune reported that the valley's three wards were holding Pioneer Day together at the schoolhouse near the Gem State Petroleum Company's oil well, and in July 1929 that Pioneer Day at Arbon would mark the completion of "the $11,000 meeting and amusement hall there."
Thirty years on
Jenson closed his entry with a count. At the end of 1930 the Arbon Ward had 203 members, including 42 children, and he gave the population of the whole Arbon precinct that year as 222. The 1941 book gives 203; the digitized 1935 text has lost the first digit. Joseph N. Arbon was then in his second term as bishop. His family history on this site says he oversaw the building of the Arbon church, dedicated in 1928 at a cost of $11,000, probably the hall the Tribune called completed in July 1929.
On this site: the Stories entries on the first congregation, the first bishop, the first meetinghouses and the first ward at Pauline, and the family histories of Joseph Nicholas Arbon, Edward H. Davis and Lorenzo Bowen Evans.
Sources
- Deseret News, April 24, 1935, page 4
- Andrew Jenson, Encyclopedic History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (1941), Arbon Ward
- Deseret Evening News, July 14, 1906, page 8
- American Falls Press, March 11, 1911, page 4
- Salt Lake Herald-Republican, June 28, 1911, page 9
- American Falls Press, June 1, 1916, page 1
- Deseret Evening News, January 6, 1917, page 30
- American Falls Press, March 29, 1917, page 7
- American Falls Press, October 26, 1917, page 3
- American Falls Press, August 2, 1918, page 2
- American Falls Press, May 28, 1920, page 2
- American Falls Press, July 23, 1920, page 9
- American Falls Press, April 8, 1921, page 2
- American Falls Press, May 27, 1921, page 2
- American Falls Press, November 2, 1922, page 2
- American Falls Press, September 13, 1923, page 2
- Salt Lake Tribune, July 24, 1924, page 16
- Deseret News, December 27, 1927, page 4
- Salt Lake Tribune, July 17, 1929, page 3