The Immigrant Ancestors of Robert Rigby Hull

I am Robert Rigby Hull. Hooper, Weber County, Utah, is my homeland. My father and mother, Robert Hull and Elizabeth Liptrot Rigby, were born and lived in Hooper. All of my four grandparents, John Rigby and Grace Liptrot, William Gibson Hull and Eliza Lowe, were pioneers there, as well as three of my great grandparents, William Liptrot, Thomas Hull and Mary Benson, and one great, great grandparent, Janet Sharp Low. I will tell about these people as I proceed with writing my personal history. The town and these grandparents are integral parts of my history, as I was born of this heritage of people in Hooper and lived there until I was grown. These people are all buried in the Hooper cemetery except Thomas Hull, who was buried in Weston, Idaho.

Janet Sharp Low, with three of her sons Peter, Alexander and James, first settled in Franklin, Idaho, in 1860 as one of the first pioneers, and then moved to Hooper in 1868 as one of the original twenty-three families that settled there. Janet's third son, Thomas and his wife, Eliza Galloway, my great grandparents, arrived in Franklin in 1863. They raised a large family. They lived in Franklin and were buried there. Janet Sharp Low died in Hooper in 1874. Hers was one of the first graves in the Hooper Cemetery with the oldest birth date. She was eighty-three years old. She is my only great great grandparent to join the Latter-day Saint Church and die in Zion a faithful member of the church.

John Rigby and his wife, Grace Liptrot, three sons, John Thomas, William or "Willy", and Joseph, and Grace's father, William Liptrot, moved to Hooper in the fall of 1869 from Ogden. The reason for moving was that part of his twenty-two acres of land in Ogden was taken over by the railroad that came to Ogden in 1869. He was left with only ten acres and he felt that was not enough land. He applied for a homestead in West Hooper. This complied with a new Homestead Act which had just been passed. The "History of Hooper" by J.M. Belnap records on page thirty-five, "John Rigby was granted along with others, one hundred sixty acres of land in 1872". The Rigby's were certainly one of the first families in West Hooper.

Thomas Hull and Mary Benson were both born in Londonderry County, Ireland. They moved to Dalry, Scotland in 1841 because of a potato famine in Ireland. Mills were shut down and there were also family disputes. Thomas and Mary joined the Latter-day Saints Church in 1849 and 1850 and emigrated to Zion with their four sons and three daughters, in 1855. I do not know who persuaded whom but the Hulls and the Lows were very close friends. They both emigrated from Scotland in 1854 and 1855, settling together in Pennsylvania and Illinois for four years before coming west to Salt Lake, Franklin and finally, Hooper in 1868 as two of the original families, although they crossed the plains in different companies.

William Gibson Hull, a pioneer of Franklin, Idaho, was the third son of Thomas and Mary Benson Hull. He was born in Dalry, Scotland, September 1841, the first of their children to be born in Scotland. He went to Franklin, Idaho, in the spring of 1860 when he was eighteen years old. He married the oldest daughter of Thomas and Eliza Galloway Low, 27 December 1864, in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City, Utah. Thomas Low was the oldest son of Janet Sharp Low. He remained with his family in Franklin. This brings together a marriage between the Hull and Low Families.

William Gibson Hull and his wife, Eliza Low moved to Hooper in 1870, two years after his parents, Thomas and Mary Hull had moved there. They homesteaded one hundred sixty acres of land, or obtained some from the railroad. Three sons had been born in Franklin, six more were born in Hooper, making a total of nine sons. Six boys grew to manhood and were married in the Latter-day Saint Temple. The sixth son of William Gibson Hull and Eliza Low, was Robert Hull, who was born in Hooper, grew up to marry another Hooper girl, Elizabeth Liptrot Rigby, a daughter of John Rigby and Grace Liptrot, who became the parents of Robert Rigby Hull about whom this history is written.