Davids Cabin

I received this article and Pictures from Uncle Dan, I don't know if everyone got the email but I thought you would be interested in the article and the pictures.  

Rebuilding famed Chesterfield cabin

BY EMILY JONES ejones@journalnet.com 

    CHESTERFIELD - It's hard to tell the story of Chesterfield without a mention of "Aunt" Ruth Call Davids. 

    She was a midwife trained in several herbal and natural remedies, and delivered most of the babies born in the community. Her ornate music organ, specially delivered to Bancroft and then transported by wagon to Chesterfield, is renowned. 

    And, as an American Indian woman in a primarily white community, she was a bit more conspicuous than other women. 

    "She was a great person," said Chesterfield Foundation member Chris Knox. 

   In the past, tour guides at the Chesterfield town site, a ghost town operated by the Chesterfield Foundation that is open for tours during the summer, have told Aunt Ruth's story next to her photo in the meeting house. They also talk about her in the Higgins House, where her organ is now located. 

    But Knox and others wanted to do more to tell the story of Davids and her many descendants still in the area. 

    "I thought it would be neat to tell her story from her cabin," Knox said. 

    Until recently, Aunt Ruth's cabin was located just over a small hill from the land owned by the Chesterfield Foundation. The foundation's rules say cabins can be moved to the original platted townsite for preservation as long as they are placed where a building once stood. So two years ago, members of the Chesterfield Foundation got permission from the family to move the now-dilapidated cabin from its original location to the Chesterfield townsite to be restored. 

    "It was in disrepair, and I thought we'd better do it while we can," Knox said. 

  With help from volunteers and Davids family members, the cabin was taken down, log by log. The logs stayed on the ground for two winters. It was then that Knox met Vernon Austin, a Blackfoot resident who is an expert in log-cabin restoration. Austin was able to help make sure the cabin was rebuilt on the Chesterfield townsite as accurately as possible. During the summer, volunteers dug a foundation, filled it with cement and lava rocks, and laid logs. The walls and roof of the cabin were finished this summer. In 2009, workers hope to begin laying the floor and working on the interior of the cabin. 

     It was a wonderful chance that Austin came when he did, Knox said. 

     "Chesterfield is a magical place," she said. "Things like that happen all the time." 

     Now Knox hopes that more of the stories about Aunt Ruth can be told. Ruth was a Piede Indian who was captured by another tribe as an infant and sold to the Anson Call family in Utah. She was adopted into the family, and Anson Call gave her his birth date so she would have a birthday like his other children. 

    She grew up in Utah and in 1863 married James Henry Davids. Her adopted father agreed to the marriage, but only if Ruth promised she would always be near her adopted family. 

    So in the early 1880s, both the Calls and Davids families moved to the Chesterfield area. 

    There, Ruth and her husband became active members of the church community. She was also known for her housekeeping and her ability to bake cookies, doughnuts, bread and mince pies. 

     In the summers, Knox said she often meets descendents of Ruth, many of whom still live in the area. 

     "She's a very beloved character in Chesterfield history," Knox said. 

 The cabin of Chesterfield area pioneer "Aunt" Ruth Call Davids has been moved into the Chesterfield townsite and is being rebuilt. SUBMITTED PHOTO 

 

 

 

SUBMITTED PHOTO An owl sits on the roof of pioneer "Aunt" Ruth Call Davids' cabin before it was moved to the Chesterfield townsite.