A History of
Johannes Gubler
compiled by Selina Gubler Hafen, Eliza Anna Hafen Gubler and Allyson Hunt Wood
Johannes, or John Gubler was born in Müllheim Dorf, Switzerland in November 1818 the third son of Hans Heinrich and Ann Margaretha Dinckel Gubler. He was baptized 18 November 1818 in the Evangelical Reformed Church in Müllheim, a Protestant Church reformed by Huldrych Zwingli.
The Gubler family was a name well known in the small village of Müllheim and ancestors had lived there for many years. The children of Hans Heinrich Gubler and Anna Margareth Dinkel are:
Joseph, chr. 16 Dec 1814 died after 1862 in Müllheim
Heinrich, born 4 June 1816 and chr 4 Jun 1816. died 1890 in Santa Clara, Utah
*Johannes (1818),
Dorothea, chr 13 Jan 1820 in Müllheim, died 18 May 1856 in Müllheim
Anna Margaretha, born 13 Mar 1821, chr 18 March and died 1 Mar 1846 in Müllheim.
Adam, christened 17 July 1822 and died 22 July 1826, aged 4 years
Jacob, born 6 Dec 1823, christened 7 Dec 1823 and died 5 Mar 1826, aged 2 years.
Eva, chr 11 Aug 1825 and died 26 Oct 1826, aged 14 months
Adam, chr 17 Jul 1822 and died 22 Jul 1826, aged 4 years
Anna, chr 8 Sep 1827
Susanna, born 1 Feb 1830 and chr. 2 Feb 1830
Konrad, chr. 3 July 1831, and died 23 Feb 1849.
Jakob, chr 10 May 1834.
*Kasper, born 1 Aug 1835, chr. 2 Aug 1835 and died 8 Dec 1917 in Utah
Elsabeth, chr 24 Apr 1837 and died 3 Jun 1848, aged 11 years
Although 15 children may cause one to wonder if the information is correct, John and Kasper’s histories are supported by the Family Book in the Müllheim Church.
The family belonged to the Evangelical Church of Müllheim where they worshiped regularly. As before their ancestors before them, they had strong spiritual feelings and they tried to follow the directings of the Holy Ghost. They raised their family to be God-fearing and to be good, upstanding members of their communities.
In the early part of the 1800’s, Müllheim was a small rural farming and winemaking village. Wine, fruit, flax and hemp as well as forestry, dairy farming and cheese making all added to the local economy. It is estimated there were about 50 families living in their little town.
Entry for Hans Heinrich Gubler and A. Margareth Dinkel family
As Johannes reached the age for courting and thinking about starting a family of his own, he met Maria (Mary) Ursula Müller who was from nearby Märwil, just over eight miles away. She was the daughter of Hans Ulrich Müller and Anna Vollenweider, who also had a large family. Johannes and Mary were married 29 Mar 1849 in Mary’s local church. Mary was the daughter of Hans Ulrich Müller and Anna Vollenweider.
Extracted information from the marriage record shows:
Name Johannes Gubler
Sex Male
Spouse’s Name Maria Ursula Mueller
Spouse’s Sex Female
Spouse’s Birth Date 10 Jan 1823
Spouse’s Father’s Name Ulrich
Spouse’s Mother’s Name Anna Vollenweider
Event Type Marriage
Event Date 18 Mar 1849
Event Place Bussnang, Thurgau,
Record Type Evangelisch
They were parents of seven children, three of whom died in infancy:
Ulrich (1850-1850), died at 3 months old
Anna Maria (1850-1926),
Louisa (1852-1930),
John Jr. (1853-1935),
Elizabeth (1855-1855), died at 9.5 months old
Herman (1956-1941),
Abraham (1859-1860), died at 2 years of age
Isaac (1862-1862). Born and died in Santa Clara as a newborn
All but Isaac were born in their homeland of Müllheim, Thurgau Canton, Switzerland.
In Switzerland they had a comfortable home, a small piece of land, and also a small store. John was a salesman. He would take the goods and go to different towns nearby and sell them. This was possibly made easier in 1855 when the train station Müllheim-Wigoltingen opened. Mary, his wife, took care of the vegetable garden besides her family.
Müllheim is in the center of the picture from 2008
The family had heard rumors about the Mormon Missionaries, but hadn't met them. As Mary was greatly opposed to the missionaries from the stories she had heard, John after visiting them, attended some of their meetings without her knowing it. We have to question whether he also was baptized without her knowledge as he was baptized 31 August 1856, in Mühlebach, near Armiswil, Thurgau, about 1½ years before she was. (He is the 35th person in the records of Landschlacht and our first family member to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). He had taken a liking to them and believed what they preached.
This beautiful home is from Mullheim, and said to be a Gubler home.
When I (Allyson) visited in 2005 the Johannes Gubler home was said to have been torn down, but there was a neighboring home that belonged to a Gubler from that same time frame.
One day he told Mary that there were some missionaries coming to hold a meeting at a nearby town and asked if she and the children would like to go with him and hear them. She consented to go and take the children, not knowing which church the missionaries represented. Mary liked the meeting and the doctrine they taught very much so they went often and it wasn't long until she was converted and baptized. Mary Ursula, his wife, was baptized 21 March 1858. None of the children were of the age of accountability, which is said to be eight years of age.
They were anxious to emigrate to America so they could live their religion and worship as they wanted to without being persecuted and shunned by their friends. They sold everything they had for just what they could get and left Switzerland in August 1859. They were six weeks on the Emerald Isle crossing the Atlantic Ocean from Liverpool to New York when he was 40 years old. Anna Mary was eight years old and she got very sick while crossing the ocean, so they had to remain in Williamsburg, a small town near New York, for two months until she was well enough to go on their journey by train to Florence, Nebraska, where the rest of their outfits were. That was as far as the train went and the Company stopped there to get their outfits ready to go on to Salt Lake City. They still had 1,000 miles to go with wagons pulled by oxen. The men worked day and night making wagons and getting their outfits ready for such a long journey. They were part of the Jesse Murphy Company formed 19 Jun 1860, and travelled the long distance, arriving in the Salt Lake Valley 30 Aug 1860 with their four of their surviving children: Anna Mary, Louisa, John Jr., and Herman.
It was a long tiresome trip across the plains. When they finally reached Ogden, they, like many others, were getting very low on food, so they stopped there and found work of different kinds to earn money for food.
John was given a piece of land to raise some crops. They lived there one year and the family was getting along quite nicely when, in October 1861, at the general conference of the Church, President Brigham Young called a company of 309 missionaries to go to southern Utah. The John and Mary Gubler family were included in the group designated as the Swiss Company. They all joined and formed a company with Daniel Bonelli of Salt Lake City as their leader. He could speak their language, which was German with a Swiss dialect, and English. Teams were provided by the Church to take them south. The route they followed was practically that of the state highway of today. As they had some experience in grape culture, they were told when they arrived in the south to go to Santa Clara to raise grapes and cotton, both of which had been grown there successfully prior to that time. An Indian mission had been established at Santa Clara a few years previously and approximately twenty families were living at the fort, called Fort Clara. The company arrived in the Santa Clara valley Nov. 28, 1861.
A survey of the new town site was made in December. The people assembled on the 22nd of Dec. for the dedication of the new site, at which Elder Daniel Bonelli offered the dedicatory prayer. Lots and vineyards were laid off and the settlers were given their plots of ground. During the month a dam in the creek and a ditch to the new town site had been built. This was completed by the 25th at a cost of $1,030. Men were given two dollars credit per day for their labor. The very day this was completed rain began to fall and it continued to rain for a prolonged period of time. On New Year's Eve a terrific flood swept away the Fort and other buildings of the original town site and destroyed the dam and canal just completed. They must now begin anew to build the town and all pertaining to it. They set to their task with vigor so that by the 16th of March they had again completed the construction of the dam in the creek and canal to the town site.
After the lots and vineyards had been platted, corresponding numbers were written on sheets of paper and placed in a hat. Brother Bonelli drew the numbers from the hat and allotted them to the various families. The land was nothing but sage brush and greasewood, and they had to clear it and make ditches. By spring their food supply was so low they had to gather pigweed to cook, which served as their food with a scanty bit of bread for many weeks. They were three weeks without any white bread and had just a bit of corn bread. In those days they would save a small dab of dough to start the next batch of bread. One day Herman found a piece of this sour dough which his mother had saved. It was dried and as hard as a rock, but he ate it eagerly. When Mary saw him it made her cry to think her boy had to go so hungry.
The first year their main crop was corn. Since better bread could be made with part wheat to go with the corn. Mary and all the children except Louisa went north with many other people to glean wheat for their winter bread. John stayed home to run the farm and Louisa stayed to cook and help him. This went on for several years. The last year they went north to glean wheat, John, the oldest son, became very sick with malaria. Then Mary and Herman contacted it so they had to return home.
At about this time they received $150 they still and coming from the sale of their home in Switzerland. With this they bought some land across the creek, known as the south fields. There were three rows of peach trees on the land just beginning to bear. The land was purchased from some English people who lived at the old fort. They dried the peaches and raised cane which they made into molasses. In the fall Mary went up north with the dried peaches and molasses and traded them for flour and potatoes. In this way they got along much better during the winters. John couldn't speak English very well so he took one of the boys along with him to interpret, and they made many life-long friends with whom they were able to stop overnight while on these trips.
In those first years there weren't any doctors or nurses so the women cared for each other when they had their babies. Mary acted as nurse to many women during their confinement.
After things were a little better, Mary bought a team of mules. Herman told of a trip his mother and father took to Salt Lake City with a load of dried peaches. They took him along to help drive as John didn't know much about driving or handling a team. In fact, he never had any experience with horses or mules, and he was quite nervous.
When they got to Cove Fort, one of their wheels was about to give way so the man living there told them if they would stop over a day, he would make them a new wheel. In those days they made the wheels from all wood. After the wheel was made, they went on their way and got along nicely until they were driving down main street in Salt Lake City. The Pony Express that carried the mail came along and frightened the mules. It caused them to run and tip the wagon over, and the dried peaches were scattered all over the streets. People came from every direction to help gather up the peaches. John was so excited about his load he hadn’t noticed Mary was hurt. He was told that she had been taken to the hospital. He was very excited and found she was badly injured, but the doctor told him she would be all right. She was in the hospital for three weeks before she could go home.
In those days grass grew along the sides of the roads. As there wasn't much hay, people turned their animals out at night to eat the grass. Sometimes they would stray off and the men would have to hunt them the next morning. This happened on their way home, and they spent all day looking for the mules but couldn't find them. That night they prayed to our Father in Heaven that they might find them. The next morning the mules were found next to where they were camped, and they went on their way rejoicing and thanking their Heavenly Father for helping them.
They lived in their dugouts until they could make a house of adobes. This they lived in for many years. Then John and the boys went up on the Pine Valley Mountain and worked to earn lumber to build a two-room frame house. Later they built a larger home which consisted of three large rooms and two porches.
It took Johannes, now Americanized to John, and the boys two years to clean and prepare two acres of land for cultivation. They raised cane which was made into molasses. They also raised different kinds of fruits. In the fall of each year, John went north with his produce to trade for grain, flour and other things the family would use. He could not speak English very well so Anna Mary, being the oldest child, went with him for company and to translate from Swiss to English. In those days they often met hostile Indians, but John would pray in silence to his Father in Heaven that they would not be harmed, and they knew their prayers were answered because they always returned home unmolested.
Once when John and Anna Mary were in Parowan with grist to be made into flour, they saw a large cloud of dust which proved to be a band of Indians. John and Anna Mary prayed, then John put Anna Mary out of sight. As the Indians came closer, they could see that they were on the war path. Their faces were painted; as they approached, they lined up on both sides of the wagon. John was impressed to make his horses go as fast as he could. The Indians just stood there. They were still standing still when John and Anna Mary disappeared from their sight. They went on their way and returned home in safety with grist, flour and bran.
John and Mary were always ready and willing to help do their part in building up the town and community. John helped build the first public building on the square which was made of adobes. This served as churchhouse, school house, and amusement hall for many years. John also assisted in the construction of the St. George Temple. He and the boys hauled lumber from the Pine Valley Mountain and Mount Trumble. In all their hardships and struggles they both stayed true and firm in their belief.
John's health was quite poor in his later years, but he was only bedfast a few days before his death. He died 2 January 1897, being 79 years old. Mary only lived four years after John's death. She had a severe stroke which caused her to become helpless. Her right side became paralyzed. Her children often took her in a wheel chair to visit relatives and friends. She was always cheerful and happy to get outside. She was patient and uncomplaining and appreciated everything that was done for her. She died 20 September 1901 at the age of 78. Both she and John were buried in the Santa Clara Cemetery and have nice headstones at their graves.
Compiled by Selina G. Hafen and Eliza H. Gubler. Additions and edits by Allyson Wood
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