"Douring the winter Elizabeth was busy braiding straws and Jemima was busy douing the house work and sewing up the braid into hats and bonnets. In the sumer they had quite a runn of business so that we could get quite a nece few things in the house of what we was needing. My brother Edward and myself took a job of work from Bro. Thomas Ovard digging a doubell ditch around John Hindleys farm down on the bottams and Sister Ovard sent us up two pounds of butter once per week in part pay for our work. This came in real handey for meat was hard to get. But during the summer our wives was very busey. One braiding and the other was fixing hats and bonnits which brought in a little dried frute and mainly other things that came in usefull.

"Amongst other things I worked for a small pig thinking it whould come in very usefull the next summer. We both got plenty of work hearning one dollar and a half a day untill harvest and I started to mow grass agin 2 dollars a acer for the old gentleman Boley. Hafter hearning quite a little wheat off ove him I asked him if he whould let me cut some grass on shairs. He said yes a little and showed me the peace. I went home rejoicing that night for hay was fetching a good price then from 30 to 40 dollars a ton. I started cutting grass and my wife went with me to cok soup. Whilst working at this a wile James Sprattley came to me and asked me if I whould traid him my 3 year old steer that I had got from Brother John Binns. I said yes if you will trade me that pease of land that you got from Bro. Cunningham. Well he said I will if you give me one hundred and forty dollars for it. I gave him the steer and four tons of hay for the 140 dollars and he gave me a bill of sale for the land. .

John entered the New and Everlasting Covenant of Marriage, including the plurality of wives, when he married Elizabeth Jane Ginger 9 August 1869 in the Salt Lake Endowment House -- Daniel H. Wells, sealer. On a visit to the home of Elizabeth's brother in Salt Lake City, John and Jemima met Elizabeth and a friendship developed which resulted in the marriage of Elizabeth and John. 

A year later on 12 September 1870 Wilford Woodruff performed the sealing of John Durrant and Kezia Keys in the Endowment House - Joseph F. Smith and Bliss Smith witnesses. Keziah was an 1869 immigrant from Essex County, England who lived with his friend and her brother-in-law, William Paxman just three dwellings up the street [1870 Federal census - FHL 553,111]. Kezia had a two year old daughter whom John reared as his own. (Ada Alice was born 9 February 1868 in the Union Workhouse, Chelmsford, Essex, England.) Jemima and Elizabeth shared adjoining sides of the same house on Jackson Street in American Fork and Kezia lived on the State Road in a structure that had formerly been used as a granary. [1880 Federal Census - FHL 1,255,338 and FHL 218,674]

Returning once again to John's own story we learn of his efforts to establish a livelihood for his family.

"I then turned my attention to getting up a cane mill with Brother Paxman and Thomas Proctor. He came along one day and sais whats the reason mollasses cant be made here has good as it can in Salt Lake City. We said it can and better for the soil is better adapted for growing the cane here. Then he said whats to hinder us from making it. Then we said we thought of hiring a mill untill we could do better. What will a cane mill cost back in the states. It will be better to buy then to borrow. If you two will try and raise what money you can I will raise the balance and will put my monney by the side of your labour untill we own equall shairs. We agreed to do so and put it off untill the next spring. Now monney was very scarce with Bro. Paxman and myself. And what to do for money we did not know. But however we both had a pigg to kill in the winter so we fatted up our piggs good before killing them for we both had grain. But it won't fetch monney.

John and his brother, Edward appear in the 1866 Assessment Roll of Utah County (FHL 164,645). John has no cattle and one swine valued at $15.00. Edward has two cattle valued at $50.00. John has $200 stock in a trading/manufacturing companies and Edward has $50 in the same. Apparently the cane mill to make molasses was beginning to flourish. Sugar was a scarce item and high in price; thus syrup and molasses came into extensive use as substitutes. The mill that John had ownership in was located two blocks south and about a half block west of the Chipman Mercantile Company store. John, assisted by John Tracey, ran the mill with William Paxman as overseer. The mill operated by water power. 

[The process consisted in passing the cane through iron rolls operated by water power, which pressed out the juice and by means of a wooden spout conveyed it into a barrel to be dipped up in buckets into a boiling vat placed on a brick or adobe furnace. The vat was about twenty feet in length and divided into many sections. As the juice passed from one section to another, it was skimmed, and the skimmings preserved to be converted into vinegar. At the end of the cooking, the skimmings became a better quality and were in great demand by the boys and girls who brought their containers for skimmings to be made into candy.

When the liquid reached the last section of the vat and was sufficiently cooked and of the right consistency, it was run into a cooling vat, afterwards to be put in barrels. One-third of the molasses was retained by the mill for service rendered, and the other two-thirds turned over to the producer of the cane. Practically all the farmers had a patch of sorghum cane, and each farmer's cane was piled separately. The owner was required to furnish enough cedar wood to boil the juice from his pile of cane.] (Early History of American Fork, p. 102-103)

It is from Kezia's son, John Henry, that the cane mill venture unfolds in a family perspective and offers a glimpse into the practical aspects of tithe-paying which John taught his son. "My father owned one third interest in Uncle William Paxman's molasses mill and he operated it during the harvest season in the fall of the year. . . . There was usually a job for me to help and we got molasses for my work. Father always had arrangements made with the Bishop for a few empty barrels to give to the helpers and the farmers to put one-tenth of their earnings in if they wished. When Father said I had earned ten to fifteen gallons, he showed me where a can was to put my earnings in and also gave me instructions to put one-tenth in the tithing barrel." 

On the 19^th day of March A.D. 1866, John appeared before the court in Provo, Utah County Seat, and became a naturalized citizen of the United States. A careful reading of the application indicates "said declaration was made more than two years previous to this date."

John served in what was called the "Utah Indian War." The Territorial Militia service card on record for John Durrant - Series #0-6195 - indicates that John Durrant served as a private in Captain John Eldredge's Company. They were stationed at Camp Wells. John was enlisted 8 May to 18 October 1866. According to Jenson's Church Chronology, a company of armed militia from Salt Lake and Utah Counties was sent out to assist the settlers in Sanpete and Sevier Valleys in protecting themselves against the Indians. On May 1^st, President Brigham Young instructed the people in Sanpete, Piute and Sevier Counties to collect together in bodies of not less than 150 men, arm themselves well and protect their stock from the Indians. In June, the settlements on the Sevier river, south of Richfield, were broken up, because of Indian troubles, and the inhabitants sought protection in the larger towns. On Tuesday, June 26th, the Indians made a raid on Thistle Valley, Sanpete Co and drove off a band of horses and cattle from Spanish Fork, Utah Co. A company of men followed and overtook the thieves. In the battle which ensued, Jonathan Edmiston, of Manti, was killed, and others were wounded. Most of the stock was recovered. Inasmuch as John was a part of the Utah County unit, it is assumed that he participated in these events.

In the assessment roll of 1867, John appears without his brother, Edward who unexplainably died 23 July 1867. Newspapers covering this time do not exist and the cause of Edward's death is not shown in ward records. His widow remarried a man named Henry Cullom but still retained ties with John and his family. When Ellen D. Clarke added the manufacture of hats from native straw to her millinery shop in 1875, the Durrants became involved. John gathered the straw. His wife, Jemima, split it and then she and Edward's widow, Elizabeth Cullom braided it by hand. The braided straw was then bleached by putting it in a tight box in which sulphur was burning. Other women made the braided straw into hats. The plaiting of straw into braid was a cottage industry from old England in which John's family had engaged when he was a boy and in which John and Jemima had participated when they were first establishing their home in American Fork.
 

Click on arrow to view letters sent back to family in England by Elizabeth Cullom

By the time the 1870 assessment was made of Utah County, John's holdings of pigs had increased from one to twenty and in the federal census he listed his occupation as "brewer." Doubtless, this was a trade learned in his homeland where ale was the beverage of choice over water for health reasons. By 1872, he and William Paxman had equal value in the molasses mill. The molasses factory in American Fork continued up until 1900. As John would say, it was "right to his hand."

Alternately over the years, John's livelihood lay in agricultural areas. He is listed as a gardener, a vine dresser, a farmer. His early years as an agricultural laborer honed in him the skills he needed for the pioneer West. His son, John Henry, describes one such enterprise:

"My father, having some experience in England in working on a farm growing turnips for sheep feed, was chosen to take what boys he could and thin beets. He agreed with the Company to cut all hoes down to about four inches to block the beets. The price for this labor was about one dollar and fifty cents per day for men or anyone doing the same amount of work. I was one of them - working until the thinning was done on ten acres. That was the best job for cash that ever came our way. I enjoyed very much working with father, although he kept a keen eye on the work and did not allow any sluffing. This job was very tedious to place the beets so close because the machinery at that time was designed not to handle anything larger. It was thought at this time that a small beet had more sugar content than a large one and large beets were rejected. After several years the farmers objected to receiving the large beets back and after more research the company was convinced that there was as much sugar in a ton of large beets as there was in a ton of small ones."

John Henry, a son, writes: " Father gave each of us, that could not earn their own, a pair of homemade shoes which would see us through the winter. . . . We always had a good garden and never needed any other vegetables. As for groceries, we g ot along on very little from the store. We usually had a pig to kill in the fall of the year and father always took one ham from it to turn in for tithing."

American Fork emerged as basically an agricultural community. As was the case in much of Brigham Young's territorial colonization, water was a very important resource. Before the first settlers came to American Fork, American Creek, as it was sometimes called, was known for its pure mountain water to the early pioneers in their journeyings from their base in the Great Salt Lake valley to the south. This creek issuing from American Fork Canyon, ran in a southwesterly direction and emptied into Utah Lake.

"The first settlers located on American Fork Creek. An abundant supply of pure drinking and culinary water was indeed a real asset to the newcomers, who came primarily for the purpose of establishing a big pasture and cattle ranch. But as more people came, it was necessary to raise crops for their sustenance. The waters of the creek must be gotten out on to the land. The deficiency of rainfall during the summer season made this a necessity. Inasmuch as agricult ure was the main occupation of the people, water really became the life blood of the community. (Early History of American Fork, p. 31)

In the 1880's, watermasters were paid on the basis of acreage - 7 1/2 cents per acre and 20 cents for lots. The communities before mentioned were under the stewardship of the Stake Presidency which made judgments in the allotment of the water and recommendations regarding canals and ditches. For example, on June 19, 1886 the watermaster was instructed to cut off all land broken since 1881 because of complaints from the people on the West Field ditch. And "if that cut was not sufficient, to go back to 1879." Of course, difficulties of this nature arose in all communities that depended on the same source for water. Everyone had to work with what water there was and do so equitably.