Monday, June 17, 2013

A Pioneer Trampoline



I’m sure most realized that one of the pre-requisites to being a pioneer was innovation. True, scientific inventions or new ideas or improved ways of doing things happened at a snail’s pace back then as compared to today. However, the pioneers had a way of re-purposing items for prolonged use once the item was completely worn out for its original intended use. For instance, what did the young boys on the trail use for a trampoline?

a.      Dead bloated oxen

b.      Blankets held tight on all sides by men

c.       Jumping on top of the wagon covers

d.      Digging a hole and stretching a buffalo hide over the hole

Yesterday’s answers:

1.      B.   An old wagon box


Almost all baptisms in early Utah took place outdoors in streams or lakes. LDS records identify but few baptismal fonts anywhere in Utah. In October 1856, the First Presidency dedicated a baptismal font located near the Endowment House in Salt Lake City. A year later, two Apostles helped dedicate a baptismal font in the city’s fourteenth ward. In 1861, Brigham Young had a large wagon boarded up to make a font a few rods east of his schoolhouse. About 10’ x 12’, it had two dressing rooms attached. The President dedicated it September 4, 1861, then told the ward bishops “they were quite welcome to use it for Baptizing, instead of the creek.”


Nearly Everything Imaginable, Walker, Ronald W., Doris R. Dant ed., (Provo, Utah: BYU Press, 1999), 270.


2.      B.   Plumbed in to allow for running water


In 1875 the Presiding Bishop asked Frederick Kesler, a millwright, to build a new baptismal font for a group baptism of Native Americans then visiting Salt Lake City. With boards and pipes, be built the font to run east to west so the officiator would stand facing south, letting the candidate rise facing east, as in the Resurrection. Kesler installed his font to have running, not standing, water, for he believed that baptism should be, like Jesus’ was, in running water.


Nearly Everything Imaginable, Walker, Ronald W., Doris R. Dant ed., (Provo, Utah: BYU Press, 1999), 270.

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