Jacob Cloward Sr. and Ann Pluck Cloward (LARSON FAMILY)

Jacob and Ann Pluck Cloward

My fifth great-grandparents (Grandma Larson's 3rd great)

(taken from Family Search documents including Pioneer Women of Faith and Fortitude Vol. 1)

Jacob Cloward was born in Maryland, May 17, 1790.  Not much is said about his childhood, but he developed his trade as a blacksmith and a farmer and married Catherine Ann Pluck in February 1815.  Ann Pluck, as she was known, was a descendant of German Quakers in Pennsylvania and married Jacob at the age of 20 in Pennsylvania.  They had 10 children, one son dying in infancy.  

The Pluck family came into contact with the church and were baptized in the spring of 1842.  They followed the Saints to Nauvoo by the fall of 1843.  The whole family was well acquainted with the prophet Joseph Smith.  They recalled that one morning the Prophet Joseph came to their home, greeted the family, and then pulled Jacob aside.  He needed money right away, and the family was quick to help.  He later paid the money back.  The Cloward family was also among those who listened to the Prophet's last public speech, where he unsheathed his sword and said it would not be unsheathed again until his people had their rights, for he "would gladly give his life for them."

They watched Joseph and Hyrum ride to Carthage to surrender to the authorities and as they passed, Ann told her family that they would never see the Prophet alive again.  She was right, and her sons later recalled seeing the bodies of Joseph and Hyrum brought back to Nauvoo, lying side by side in their caskets in the Mansion House, and the great sorrow and lamentation of the Saints being "beyond description."  The family also witnessed the transfiguration of Brigham Young, and wondered at the time if the Prophet had risen from the dead.

One dark night a while later, a mob came to the Cloward home and demanded that Jacob denounce the Prophet or have his house burned.  Jacob said, "We cannot deny the testimony we have and will take our medicine."  The mob proceeded to order Ann and the children outside, and them burned the home, barn, and all their belongings, while also killing their animals.  The family shivered and wept as they watched their house burn, and Jacob was so heartbroken he had to leave until it was over.  The family worried he had been killed, but he said he just couldn't stand to be humiliated and see his family treated so.  He suffered a nervous breakdown as a result and never fully recovered his health.

The family crossed the river with many other Saints and camped on the other side, in great sorrow as they looked across the river at their once happy home.  They made preparations to follow Brigham Young west, and two of their sons were in the original scouting party with Brigham Young, reaching the Salt Lake Valley on July 22, 1847, and reporting to Brigham Young on what they found.  The rest of the family left Winter Quarters for Salt Lake in 1851.  Jacob was 61 years old and not in good health.  When the children asked their mother if she was worried about Father dying along the way, Ann replied, "If he does die, he will have his face pointed toward Zion!"

 They had many hardships along the way while crossing the plains, and once they arrived in Salt Lake, they immediately joined with the many Saints who were settling Provo.  Jacob, suffering from tuberculosis, never recovered his health after the strain of the mob experience, and died three weeks after reaching the valley, on December 5, 1851.  According to the sign near his current resting place, he was the second burial at the Temple Hill Cemetery in Provo, which was located at what is now the site of the Karl G. Maeser building on BYU campus.  The cemetery was later moved to its current location in Provo.

Ann lived there in Provo another 27 years as a widow, raising her younger children and living with her daughters in her older age.  She endured other hardships, living through some frightening experiences in the Black Hawk Indian War, and losing some of her adult children before she herself passed away at the age of 82, on May 5, 1878.  She was a faithful woman with a strong testimony of the gospel, and was buried near her husband Jacob in Provo.

 I'm thankful for the Cloward family's great faith and courage in the wake of much sorrow and tribulation.  They called the Prophet Joseph their friend, and never betrayed him.  They were great people who sacrificed much for their testimonies of the truth and their descendants are blessed because of them.