Joseph Louis Boulden > Biography of Joseph Louis Boulden

A Brief Biography of Joseph Louis Boulden
by Larry L. Boulden

Joseph Louis Boulden was born on September 12, 1838 in Piqua, Miami County, Ohio to William Henry and Dorcas Boulden. The marriage was short lived and his father left when he was just a baby. Shortly thereafter Joseph moved into the home of his grandmother Nancy Boulden (Patterson). William Henry Boulden then married Elizabeth Daniels with whom he had 4 children. Joseph was very young when he joined the Army, fighting with the 1st New Mexico regiment on the Union side in the American Civil War. Upon leaving the army after the war he migrated to Utah and married Matilda Caroline "Tillie" Curtis on June 11, 1869. Joseph was a blacksmith by trade. He was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints but never part in the church. Joseph and Matilda were in the first group of settlers to reach Castle Dale, Utah and are honored to this day in the Castle Valley Pageant.

In May 1869, about the time, and perhaps at the very time, the golden spike was driven at Promontory Point, fifty miles northwest of Ogden, marking the joining of the two railroads, Erastus Curtis and family had pitched a tent in Ogden and were visiting his youngest sisters, Mary and Eliza Childs, both wives of John Childs. Erastus' and Mary Caroline's second daughter, Matilda, was with them, and though only 15 at the time, fell completely in love with Joseph Boulden, an employee of the Union Pacific Railroad, who was about 30. Joe was working as a blacksmith for the railroad and had shod mule teams for them to the end of the line in Utah. Matilda and Joe were married in Ogden, and soon after moved to Moroni, where the Curtis families were residing. Source, Anne Curtis

Erastus was one of the first settlers of Castle Valley (later Emery County). He and two of his sons came into the Valley in 1877. Matilda and Joe settled in Orangeville the following year in 1878. Matilda was the third white woman to settle on the Cottonwood Creek (her mother, Mary Caroline, was second and Erastus' second wife, Joanna Price Fullmer, was the first).

Matilda and Joe left Moroni with their son, William, and five month old baby, Curtis. They were accompanied by Mrs. Bessie Wilson. While enroute from Moroni by ox team, travelling just above Joe's Valley, and only one day's travel from Castle Valley, their baby died. Written record tells of Matilda sitting by the fire with a quilt wrapped around her and the baby to fight off the bitter cold, doctoring the baby for earache, colic and everything that could be thought of, but sadly to no avail. A man was sent to the valley on horseback to take the news and to make burial arrangements. Another man working at Horse Shoe Bend, took the Bouldens and the body of their baby down to the settlement in a horse-drawn wagon. No loose lumber was available so boards from a cupboard in the wagon were used to make the box in which to carry the baby. When they arrived in the Valley, they found that George Bruno had made a nice casket. At that time it was the custom to paint or cover a casket in black, and one of the dear sisters had taken the flounce from her black dress to cover the casket. It was lined inside with a white pillow case, and on the lid over the black cloth the initials E.C.B. were placed with bright headed tacks. The baby was at first buried on its Grandfather Curtis's farm, but later when the Castle Dale cemetery was laid out, the body was moved, and was one of the first to be buried there.
[George Bruno later married Emmaline Joanna, the daughter of Erastus and Joanna.]

Joe spent seven years as head smith at Winter Quarters at one time. Matilda would usually spend the summers with him, but would return to her home in Orangeville during the winter months to put the children in school.

The first public building in Orangeville was a log school house, eighteen by twenty-four feet, completed in time for a community Christmas celebration in 1880. The first play produced in Emery County, "The Lost Ship," was presented that year as part of this celebration. Listed as members of the cast were Matilda and Joe Boulden. Orangeville organized the Orangeville Dramatic Association. Members took great pride in the organization and new members were required to prove their talents through tryouts. They typically presented three or four plays each year through the 1880s and 1890s. Besides the Bouldens, Joanna's son, Charles Romine and his brother, Uriah, also participated in the first theatrical company, as well as members of the Fullmer Family. Source, [Castle Valley: A History of Emery County, p. 87, 88, 302, 312] The Winter Quarters spoken of above was a mine in the vicinity of Emery, and Carbon County to the north.