Biography

Martha Ann Leggroan Roberts Stevens represents the generation of Black Latter-day Saints who were born to pioneer parents and who were raised in the faith that their parents first adopted. She also symbolizes the first generation of children born to formerly enslaved parents following the end of the U.S. Civil War. She grew up in Utah and then followed her parents to Idaho where she raised her own family and passed the faith of her convert parents on to at least two of her own children. Late in life, she nonetheless transitioned to the African Methodist Episcopal Church along with some of her children.

Martha Ann Leggroan was born on 5 December 1870 in Salt Lake City, Utah, to Ned and Susan Leggroan who had only recently relocated to Utah Territory from Mississippi. Her parents arrived in the spring of that year alongside Ned’s sister, Amanda Leggroan Chambers, and Amanda’s husband Samuel. All four adults were formerly enslaved in Mississippi. They set out to Utah in the hopes of building a better life. Samuel Chambers had converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a thirteen-year-old enslaved boy and now brought his wife and in laws with him to Utah where he was intent on worshipping among fellow Latter-day Saints.[1]

Ned and Susan joined the Chambers on their cross-country trek. Though both Ned and Susan had children from previous marriages, Martha was their first child together.[2] She would grow up and come of age with no personal memory of her parents’ former lives as enslaved people in the South. Nor would Martha remember a time when her parents were not Latter-day Saints. They both converted in 1873, when Martha was two-and-a-half years old. Her parents then raised their large family, including Martha, within the Latter-day Saint fold.[3]

The Leggroans and Chambers soon became integral members of the Black farming community that developed at Mill Creek on the east bench overlooking the Salt Lake Valley.[4] When Martha was born, her father Ned worked as a stable hand, but by the time she was ten, he tended his own land. The Leggroans lived in Butler at the time, but they had purchased farmland in Mill Creek, a region that over time would develop into a rich cultural space for Black Utahns and come to be known as “The Hill.”[5]

Martha was baptized, perhaps as early as 1879, after she turned eight, as was customary among Latter-day Saints. Her baptismal record, however, does not survive and so a precise baptismal date is unknown. She is listed as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on subsequent church records. She also ensured that her children were blessed in the faith and that two of them were baptized.[6]

Martha spent her teenage years no doubt helping with chores around the house and on the farm. She grew up among the children of Black pioneer families on “the hill,” many of whom were cousins and siblings. When Martha was eighteen years old she gave birth to her first child, a baby boy who she named William after his father, William Roberts, a teamster from Alabama who was four years older than Martha.[7] Less than two months later, on 7 August 1889, James C. Hamilton, a local Latter-day Saint, performed the wedding ceremony for Martha and Willian.[8] There is no evidence that William was a Latter-day Saint, but he seemed to support Martha in having their children blessed in the faith and raising them as Latter-day Saints.[9]

A year after their wedding the couple followed Martha’s family on their journey north to Bingham County, Idaho, where Ned and Susan homesteaded land roughly fifteen miles northeast of Idaho Falls in a remote area known as Milo.[10] No doubt the move to Idaho was difficult for Martha, especially with a young child to care for in addition to the typical stress associated with relocating.[11] Even still, the Leggroans were known for being especially close and Martha likely had support from her mother who had faced similar circumstances when she gave birth to Martha.

Martha mothered a total of five children: William Archibald, Alberta, Mattie, Mary Susan, and Eddie.[12] Martha, and presumably William, took at least four of her five infants before Martha’s Latter-day Saint congregation where local leaders gave them blessings. William and Alberta were also baptized into the faith in 1901. Ensuring that her children received these rituals offers an indication of Martha’s ongoing devotion to the faith of her youth.[13]

William worked as a teamster and general laborer, while Martha kept a restaurant for a time and worked at home.[14] Sometime between 1907 and 1910, Martha and William decided to move from Idaho back to Utah and return to Mill Creek. There, William would continue to work as a general laborer alongside his son, William Jr. The couple’s daughter Alberta, meanwhile, began working as a servant.[15] Martha and William’s stay in Utah, proved short lived, however. When William Jr. died of typhoid fever on 21 September 1911, the family lived in Idaho Falls. He was 22 years old at his passing.[16]

It is possible that Martha’s husband, William Sr. also passed away sometime before 1920, or that the couple divorced. In either case, the 1920 census found Martha still living in Idaho Falls but now married to John Francis Stevens, the grandson of Green Flake, an 1847 enslaved pioneer into the Salt Lake Valley. Martha’s youngest son, Eddie still lived at home.[17] John Francis (Frank) was a fellow Latter-day Saint who had his membership records transferred from Utah to Idaho, after he married Martha. A 1920 Latter-day Saint census record counted both Martha and Frank as members of the Church in the Idaho Falls Second Ward, an indication of Martha’s continuing affiliation with the Latter-day Saints up through the 1920s. At some point after relocating to Pocatello, she may have begun attending the African Methodist Episcopal Church (A.M.E.) with her daughter Mary and son Eddie who worshiped there. When Martha passed away, her funeral was held at the AME church in Pocatello, a signal of a faith transition in the last decade of her life.[18]

By 1930, Martha had moved with her son Eddie to a new home in Pocatello. Eddie worked as a janitor for the steam railroad while Martha remained at home. She is still listed as married in the 1930 census, but she appears as the sole head of household, perhaps an indication that she and Frank Stevens had separated. Stevens lived a few blocks away where he rented a room and worked as a laborer on the railroad. He listed his marital status as “widowed” rather than divorced. Whatever the circumstances, the 1930 census taker found Martha and Frank physically separated from each other but both still living in Pocatello.[19] Before she passed away, Martha lived with her daughter Mattie, after her son Eddie moved out following his marriage.[20]

Martha passed away on 12 June 1934 in Pocatello after suffering a stroke. She was 63 years old.[21] Despite being listed as widowed on her death certificate, Frank Stevens was still alive. He did not pass away until 1942 and had remarried by the time of his death.[22] Perhaps “widowed” for Martha referred to her first husband, William, whose date of death remains unknown. Martha’s funeral was held on 17 June 1934 in Pocatello at the African Methodist Episcopal Church and her body was then taken to Roseville Cemetery in Milo, Idaho, to be laid to rest in a five-person burial plot that she had purchased next to the one owned by her father. She was buried alongside her parents, her late son, and her extended family. Neither Frank nor William is included in the list of people laid to rest in the plot that Martha secured.[23]

By W. Paul Reeve and Wesley Acastre

[1] Tonya S. Reiter, “Edward ‘Ned’ Leggroan,” Century of Black Mormons; W. Paul Reeve, Let’s Talk About Race and Priesthood (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2023), chapter 2.

[2] Reiter, “Edward ‘Ned’ Leggroan,” Century of Black Mormons.

[3] “Correspondence,” The Elevator (San Francisco, California), 14 June 1873; Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Idaho Falls Ward, CR 375 8, box 3041, folder 0001, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[4] Tonya Reiter, “Life on the Hill: The Black Farming Families of Mill Creek,” Journal of Mormon History 44, no. 4 (October 2018): 72.

[5] Reiter, “Edward ‘Ned’ Leggroan,” Century of Black Mormons; Reiter, “Life on the Hill,” 68.

[6] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Eighth Ward, Part 1, CR 375 8, box 1862, folder 1, images 89, 90, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah; Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Mill Creek Ward, Microfilm 26147, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah; Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Ucon Ward, CR 375 8, box 7164, folder 1, images 49, 50, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah; Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Idaho Falls Ward, CR 375 8, box 3041, folder 0001, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah; Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Eagle Rock/Idaho Falls Ward, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah; “Stevens,” Presiding Bishopric stake and mission census, 1914-1935, CR 4 311, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah. We are indebted to Emily Marie Crumpton-Deason for finding and sharing these membership records with us.

[7] William A. Roberts’ death certificate gives a birthdate of 14 July 1890, which is incorrect. A Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ membership record, created closer to the date of his birth, lists his birthdate as 14 June 1889. See Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Eagle Rock/Idaho Falls Ward, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah and Idaho, State Board of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Certificates of Death, File No. 298, Registered No. 15, William A. Roberts, Idaho State Archives, Idaho Falls, Idaho.

[8] Utah, Salt Lake County, Marriages, 1871-1941, Martha Ann Leggroan and William Roberts, 7 August 1889.

[9] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Eagle Rock Ward, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah

[10] United States, 1900 Census, Idaho Falls, Bingham County, Idaho.

[11] “Ned Leggroan” The Times Register (Idaho Falls, Idaho), 2 February 1926.

[12] United States, 1900 Census, Idaho Falls, Bingham County, Idaho.

[13] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Eagle Creek/Idaho Falls Ward, CR 375 8, box 3041, folder 0001, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[14] United States, 1900 Census, Idaho Falls, Bingham County, Idaho; United States, 1910 Census, Mill Creek, Salt Lake County, Utah.

[15] United States, 1910 Census, Mill Creek, Salt Lake County, Utah.

[16] Idaho, State Board of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Certificates of Death, File No. 298, Registered No. 15, William A. Roberts, Idaho State Archives, Idaho Falls, Idaho.

[17] United States, 1920 Census, Idaho Falls, Bonneville County, Idaho.

[18] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Idaho Falls Ward, CR 375 8, box 3041, folder 0001, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah; “Stevens,” Presiding Bishopric stake and mission census, 1914-1935, CR 4 311, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah. “Martha Ann Stevens,” Pocatello Tribune (Pocatello, Idaho) 14 June 1934, 11; “Martha Ann Stevens,” Pocatello Tribune (Pocatello, Idaho) 17 June 1934, 5; Mary Roberts Mitchum, FindAGrave.com; Edward Blaine Roberts, FindAGrave.com.

[19] United States, 1930 Census, Pocatello, Bannock County, Idaho.

[20] “Martha Ann Stevens,” Pocatello Tribune (Pocatello, Idaho) 12 June 1934, 8; “Mrs. Martha Ann Stevens,” Salt Lake Tribune (Salt Lake City, Utah) 14 June 1934, 22; Utah, Weber County, Marriage License, Edward B. Roberts and Mabel McCally, 30 September 1931.

[21] Idaho, State Board of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Certificates of Death, File No. 89326, Registered No. 120, Martha Ann Stevens, Idaho State Archives, Pocatello, Idaho; “Martha Ann Stevens,” Pocatello Tribune (Pocatello, Idaho) 12 June 1934, 8; “Mrs. Martha Ann Stevens,” Salt Lake Tribune (Salt Lake City, Utah) 14 June 1934, 22; “Martha Ann Stevens,” Pocatello Tribune (Pocatello, Idaho) 14 June 1934, 11; “Martha Ann Stevens,” Pocatello Tribune (Pocatello, Idaho) 17 June 1934, 5.

[22] “John F. Stevens Succumbs,” The Post Register (Idaho Falls, Idaho) 24 April 1942, 10; “John Frank Stevens,” The Post Register (Idaho Falls, Idaho) 28 April 1942, 14.

[23] Idaho, Jefferson Star County, Cemetery Records, 1800-2000, Martha Stevens, 17 June 1934, 135.

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