From Logan, Cache Valley, Utah · earlier Sweden and Denmark (his parents)
Joseph C. Jenson — musician, violin-maker, piano tuner, harness- and cabinet-maker — homesteaded at Summit from 1909 with his wife Alice, whose brother Edward G. Smith took the neighbouring quarter. Family tradition credits him with supervising the first grade of the road over Jenson (Jensen) Pass toward Malad. His Jenson Orchestra played the valley’s dances, and three generations farmed the Summit place.
Arrived
1909 (homestead entry, probably early May; family tradition: 1907) year known
Joseph C. and Alice JensonDate unknownFOREWORD · THE ORIGINAL ACCOUNT
From the family history
The account first written for this family on ArbonValley.com, kept in full. The chapters after it add what the records and the other family histories tell.
Written by Jacob Andersen1 minute read
About this account · first posted December 30, 2018
Written for the original ArbonValley.com by Jacob Andersen. Memories and documents quoted in the account belong to the people who wrote them. This is the website publication date, not the date of every event described. References to “today” belong to the original account.
The Jenson family came to Arbon Valley in 1907, proving up on their land in the Summit area of Arbon Valley in 1914. Joseph C. Jenson contributed much to the valley, with his love of music and various abilities, including knowledge for how to build Jenson Pass.
At least two of Joseph’s sons farmed in the valley after his death in 1929. These were Don and Clyde. Clyde also had a great love of music, and even owned a Stradivarius violin at one time. Clyde added onto his land holdings through the years, and continued to farm the homestead, eventually passing it on to his son Joe Jenson. The house where Joe Jenson lived was actually the old Hardman homestead. It is the highest place on the valley floor, hence this area was called Summit.
Joseph Christensen Jenson, a “well known musician” of Logan’s Fifth Ward (by family tradition the organizer of Logan’s first brass band), filed on the NE¼ of Section 27 at Summit in 1909 with his second wife, Alice Girdlestone Smith; her brother Edward G. Smith filed the corner-adjoining quarter a few weeks later and lived next door. For some years the family came back from Cache Valley each spring by covered wagon over the Sublet Trail; by 1920 they wintered at Summit. His sons Don, Clyde and Vaughn did men’s work; eight-year-old Vaughn was killed in 1919 when his team ran away with a disc. Joseph received his patent in 1915 and that September bought the J. A. Gardner ranch for $2,900.
By family tradition, in 1910 Oneida County hired him to supervise a road to Malad. Neighbors built it with a Fresno scraper and giant powder; about 1921 it was rebuilt on the north side of the draw. He was remembered as the valley’s first commissioner of roads, though no county record of the appointment has been found, and the pass — “Jensen Pass” on federal maps — lies nearly four miles from his land; a Malad report of 1916 called the route “the Jensen road” without naming anyone.
After Joseph’s death in 1929 his widow Alice managed the wheat farm with her children until her death in 1936; Don farmed his own place nearby until 1940, when his family moved to Pocatello, and the brothers played as a dance band at the Arbon Valley Grange hall. Clyde, who disliked violin lessons as a boy, kept and enlarged the dry farm and owned an old violin he believed to be a 1733 Guarneri del Gesù, which the Utah Symphony’s concertmaster played in 1954–55; the family’s “Stradivarius” and Clyde’s own place in the Utah Symphony are not borne out by the records. Clyde’s son Joe and Joe’s wife Ann moved to Arbon Valley after their 1958 marriage and, by the original ArbonValley.com account, raised their family in the old Hardman homestead house near the highest point on the valley floor.
Earlier: Sweden and Denmark (father Jens Peter Christensen born in Sweden, mother in Denmark; Latter-day Saint converts). Route drawn only between places named in the family history; the lines are schematic, not trail routes.
Sweden and Denmark (father Jens Peter Christensen born in Sweden, mother in Denmark; Latter-day Saint converts)
Logan, Cache Valleyborn 1867
Summit, Bannock Valley (spring moves by covered wagon over the Sublet Trail)1909 (family tradition 1907)
13 people of the Jenson family on the valley map, household by household, and 3 histories of their own in the archive. Names open their histories; portraits open in the family album.
By family tradition organized Logan’s first brass band; made violins, tuned pianos, and made harnesses, cabinets and shoes. A “well known musician” of Logan’s Fifth Ward, he ran for Logan city marshal on the Socialist ticket in 1903. His father was born in Sweden and his mother in Denmark; both were Latter-day Saint converts.
Second wife of Joseph C. Jenson (married September 21, 1899, Bancroft, Idaho); sister of Edward G. Smith
More about Alice
Ran the farm with her sons after Joseph’s death at the start of the Depression. A daughter of the English converts Ralph Smith and Emma Girdlestone, she came to Summit with Joseph in 1909, when her brother Edward G. Smith took the corner-adjoining quarter. The 1930 census lists her as manager of the wheat farm, with Clyde, Ida, Vernon and George Merlin at home.
Son of Joseph C. Jenson and his first wife, Elizabeth Ann Adams; twin of Hazel
More about Oliver
The only child of Joseph’s first marriage to grow up. He was raised by his Adams grandparents in Logan and worked with cement crews there; no Arbon residence is known.
Son of Joseph and Alice Jenson; husband of Constance Evans (1928)
More about Don
Served in the Eastern States Mission from January 1926 to November 1927, his residence given as Arbon. He married Constance Evans in 1928 and farmed his own place at Summit until the family moved to Pocatello in 1940. In 1938–39 he was active in Arbon Ward leadership; one 1938 report calls him “Bishop”, but his office is not confirmed. Their daughters were Susie Adele (1931–2014) and Marilyn.
Studied at the Virtuoso Music School in Buffalo, New York (1928–29), and played saxophone in a ship’s band (1931). He kept and enlarged the Summit dry farm, living partly in Logan, and married Zella Buehler in 1933. He owned an old violin he attributed to Guarneri del Gesù (1733), which the Utah Symphony’s concertmaster Harold Wolf played in 1954–55; in later life he played in the Cache Chamber Orchestra (from 1972).
A Highland School pupil in 1917, she stayed on at Summit after her parents’ deaths: she headed her own household there in 1940 and in 1950 lived alone in the last house before the Power County line. She later lived in San Francisco and Pocatello.
Son of Joseph C. and Alice Jenson; husband of Rhea Lusk (married October 22, 1940, Malad)
More about Albert
Farmed at Summit with his brothers — self-employed at Arbon on his October 1940 draft card — and played in the family dance band. After his marriage he lived at Malad but went on farming, by his family’s account partly in Arbon Valley, for about thirty years. His wife Rhea was a daughter of Thomas Jenkins Lusk of Malad; their daughter Valaree married Ken Estep of Arbon.
GM
George Merlin Jenson
1916–1979
Son of Joseph C. and Alice Jenson; husband of Opal Lucille Wiedeman (married October 29, 1940)
More about George
Twelve when his father died, he farmed at Summit with his brothers until 1940 and played in their dance band at the Arbon Valley Grange hall. His wife Opal grew up in Arbon, a daughter of the homesteader Conrad W. Wiedeman; they made their home at Nampa.
THE LAND
Homesteads and land
3 places the Jenson family took up or held, 1909–1915, placed from the land patents, the entry registers and the family accounts.
Joseph C. Jenson’s 160-acre homestead, the NE¼ Sec. 27 T12S R33E (entered 1909, patented February 18, 1915). Its north-east corner meets Edward G. Smith’s quarter (SW¼ Sec. 23) at the corner of Sections 22, 23, 26 and 27.
J. A. Gardner’s ranch, bought by Joseph C. Jenson for $2,900 in September 1915: probably John A. Gardner’s 1914 homestead, the SE¼ Sec. 21 T12S R33E, the only Gardner patent in the township. It lies half a mile from the Jenson quarter at the nearest corners.
Jenson circle on the 2018 family map (a later home? uncertain)
year not recorded Approximate location
Centre of the “Jensen” circle on the 2018 version of the family map. It does not mark the homestead, which was the NE¼ Sec. 27 T12S R33E about 4.3 km to the south-south-west; the point lies in the SE¼ Sec. 11 T12S R33E, William H. Smith’s 1915 homestead. It may mark a later Jenson home — Don’s 1940 house and the 1950 Jenson homes near the county line were in this part of Summit — but that is not shown. The original ArbonValley.com account says Joe Jenson’s later home was the old Hardman homestead, “the highest place on the valley floor”; which house that was is not identified.
The land patents
The federal patents that made the homesteads theirs, from the General Land Office records.
Every date the valley map shows when you follow the Jenson family, era by era: the most telling of each era first, the rest a click away. Dates keep the sources’ own wording.
Homestead or landFamily historyEventValley firstTragedy
1893–1899 · 1 DATE
1890s Settlement
Homesteads, the first ditch, and the first winters.
November 1893Family history
Jenson’s Band plays a Logan dance
A Logan dance of November 1893 advertised “Music by Jenson’s Band,” possibly Joseph C. Jenson’s band.
Joseph Christensen Jenson, a Logan musician, cabinet maker and harness maker, and his wife Alice filed a homestead on the NE¼ of Section 27 at Summit in 1909 (the family remembered 1907); Alice’s brother Edward G. Smith filed the corner-adjoining quarter a few weeks later, and in May 1910 the two families were next-door neighbours. For some years the family returned from Cache Valley each spring by covered wagon over the Sublet Trail. The patent issued on February 18, 1915.
Joseph C. Jenson’s 160-acre homestead, the NE¼ Sec. 27 T12S R33E (entered 1909, patented February 18, 1915). Its north-east corner meets Edward G. Smith’s quarter (SW¼ Sec. 23) at the corner of Sections 22, 23, 26 and 27.
Farmers asked Oneida County for a real road to Malad, the county seat. By family tradition, in 1910 the county hired Summit homesteader Joseph C. Jenson to supervise it. Neighbors worked behind a horse-drawn Fresno scraper and blasted rock with giant powder; the narrow road had only a few turnouts. Sacked wheat took six horses to reach the divide. A county road-bond proposal of April 1911 included $500 for “completing grade of Malad Arbon road” without naming the route, and by 1916 a Malad report called the way over the pass “the Jensen road.”
A new county, roads and phones — and the first departures.
1915Homestead or land
Gardner ranch, bought 1915 (probably SE¼ Sec. 21)
J. A. Gardner’s ranch, bought by Joseph C. Jenson for $2,900 in September 1915: probably John A. Gardner’s 1914 homestead, the SE¼ Sec. 21 T12S R33E, the only Gardner patent in the township. It lies half a mile from the Jenson quarter at the nearest corners.
Seven months after his homestead patent, Joseph C. Jenson bought J. A. Gardner’s ranch for $2,900 — probably John A. Gardner’s 1914 homestead, the SE¼ of Section 21, half a mile from the Jenson quarter.
By the family’s account, a new grade was finished on the north side of the draw to make it easier to keep open in winter. The Jenson boys raked rocks off it — until sheep knocked them back down.
Clyde Jenson studied at the Virtuoso Music School in Buffalo, New York, graduating in 1929, and in 1931 played saxophone in a ship’s band between Seattle and the Orient.
Joseph C. Jenson died in Logan on June 16, 1929, after twenty years at Arbon. His widow Alice kept the Summit wheat farm going — the 1930 census lists her as its manager, with Clyde, Ida, Vernon and George Merlin at home — until her death at Malad in July 1936.
When the Summit Ward was disorganized on May 18, 1930, 61 of its members went to the Arbon Ward, probably the Jensons among them; by 1938–39 Don Jenson was active in Arbon Ward leadership.
In April 1940 the census listed four Jenson households side by side at Summit, those of Clyde, Ida, Vernon and Merlin, with Don’s further along the road.
Clyde Jenson, Ida Vilate Jenson, Albert Vernon Jenson, George Merlin Jenson and 1 more
October 16, 1940Family history
Three brothers register at Arbon
Clyde, Vernon and Merlin Jenson registered for the draft at Arbon on October 16, 1940, all three farming on their own account.
Clyde Jenson, Albert Vernon Jenson, George Merlin Jenson
Show 4 more from these years
1934–1939Family history
The Jenson brothers’ dance band
By the family’s account Don, Clyde, Vernon and Merlin played as a dance band on Saturday nights at the Grange hall in Arbon Valley; the Arbon Valley Grange kept records from 1934 to 1939.
The Curlew Stake was dissolved on February 11, 1940, and the Arbon Ward passed to the Pocatello Stake (from 1945 the West Pocatello Stake). By July 1940 Willard J. Andersen was bishop of the Arbon Ward, and he was still bishop in January 1949. When Joseph N. Arbon’s second term as bishop ended, and whether Don Jenson served between them, is not recorded.
The Utah Symphony’s concertmaster plays Clyde Jenson’s violin
Clyde Jenson owned an old violin he attributed to Joseph Guarnerius “del Gesù” of Cremona, 1733. The Logan Herald Journal reported in December 1954 that Utah Symphony concertmaster Harold Wolf had played it with the orchestra, and in November 1955 “Clyde Jenson of Arbon Valley” again lent it to Wolf for a recital and a subscription concert. The attribution was Clyde’s own and has not been tested.
After their marriage in July 1958, Clyde’s son Joe Jenson and Ann Eddy moved to Arbon Valley to farm and raise their family, the third generation of Jensons in the valley; by the original ArbonValley.com account they lived in the old Hardman homestead house at Summit.
Clyde Jenson took up the violin again about 1950 and from 1972 played in the new Cache Chamber Orchestra at Logan, which dedicated its tenth-anniversary concert to him, its oldest member, in 1983.
Joe and Ann Jenson’s son Joseph Clyde Jenson Jr., “of Arbon,” was called on a mission to Taiwan in 1988, one of the last records of the family living in the valley.
At the time of the archive’s accounts (2018–2019)Event
The valley the homesteaders made
The whole valley is now called Arbon. Of its four post offices (the accounts say five) one remains, in Pauline; instead of ten schools, Arbon Elementary teaches grades K–6 in two classrooms. The accounts name families still farming and ranching on or near the original homesteads, including Andersen, Bradley, Evans, Hayden, Hess, Jenson, Lusk, Swim, Ward and Williams.
Two roads compete for the title of the valley's first engineered road: a county road to American Falls laid out in 1908, and the grade over Jenson Pass toward Malad.
By family tradition supervised the first grade of the road to Malad over what federal maps call Jensen Pass (about 1910–12), the route to Malad for many years. No county record of the appointment has been found.
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE
The Jenson Orchestra
Joseph organized an orchestra that played at the valley’s dances; he made violins and tuned pianos across the region.
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE
The Jenson brothers’ dance band
In the 1930s Don, Clyde, Vernon and Merlin played Saturday dances at the Arbon Valley Grange hall (a family story; the Grange met from 1934 to 1939).
THE FAMILY ALBUM
Photographs
Portraits and family groups first. Each opens with its caption, date and where it came from.
Everything above comes from the archive’s family histories and the public records the valley map checked them against. Where accounts disagree, the page says so rather than choosing silently.
Where the accounts differ
Arrival: the homestead entry year (1909) is confirmed; the family’s 1907 may reflect use of the land before entry (possible).
Jenson Pass: Joseph’s supervision of the first grade and the pass’s namesake rest on family tradition (possible).
Don Jenson’s office in the Arbon Ward in 1938–39 (called “Bishop” once) is not confirmed (possible).
Which house was “the old Hardman homestead” where Joe and Ann lived, and who holds the Summit farm now, are not documented.
The month of Don’s 1940 move to Pocatello is uncertain: his brothers still gave his address as Arbon in October 1940.
The homestead is located from Joseph C. Jenson’s 1915 patent (NE¼ Sec. 27 T12S R33E). The earlier map point, from the 2018 version of the family map, lies about 4.3 km to the north-north-east on William H. Smith’s 1915 homestead; it may mark a later Jenson home, but that is not shown.
FamilySearch: Joseph is KWCY-ZZN. The record the original ArbonValley.com links (K2MH-W5F) is his first wife, Elizabeth Ann Adams (1870–1893).
Joseph’s first marriage (1890) produced the twins Oliver and Hazel (1890) and Alice Elizabeth (1893), who died in infancy, as did her mother, in September 1893; FamilySearch adds a second 1893 infant (see ‘Where the sources disagree’). Two children of the second marriage, Joseph Melvin (1901) and Lorene (1904–1908), died young in Logan.
Other Jensen and Jenson families in the valley are separate: the north-end Jensens of 1910 (probably Jens Peter Jensen and his sons Nephi and George; Waldemar Jensen), the Malad Jensens on the Daniels side, the Crystal Jensens (Hayden kin) and Jens N. Jensen of Mendon. No kinship to Joseph C. Jenson has been found.
The Buist page’s “Jensen” among names still familiar today probably means the Summit Jensons, the Hardmans’ 1910 neighbours; no Jensen family was at Buist in 1898.
Clyde’s wife Zella Buehler grew up on her father Henry Buehler’s farm at Daniels (1910–28), just over the pass; Merlin’s wife Opal was a daughter of the Arbon homesteader Conrad W. Wiedeman; Vernon’s wife Rhea was a daughter of Thomas Jenkins Lusk of Malad (probably of the Lusk family’s Tidwell line).
