Hans Lorentz Dastrup

Born 3 October 1813 in Denmark to Hans Jorgen Dastrup and Anne Marie Shiotz
Married Ane Marie Berg
Married Ane Marie Andersdatter 26 Apr 1862 in Salt Lake City
Hans Lorentz-Jacob-Lexia-Marie
Died 22 Oct 1893 in Sigurd
Buried in Sigurd

1860 Census
1880 Census


Here is a cake someone made to celebrate Hans' 200th birthday.  The information below comes from Stories from My Family Tree which was written and compiled by Jolene Dew. 

With high hopes of a new life, Hans Lorentz Dastrup, his wife Ane Marie Berg and their two sons, Peter and Hans Lorentz Jr., had joined the Church nearly two years before and were now on their way to Utah to live with the Saints.

They left their home in Copenhagen, Denmark, and with a company of Latter-day Saints, boarded the sailing ship John J. Boyd in December 1855. They were among 508 passengers. It was to be a very rough voyage. They were met with fierce head-winds most of the way. When the ship had struggled one third of the way to America, they were cruelly driven all the way back to the coast of Ireland. The Saints had faith and prayed that their ship would move forward again. Their prayers were answered and the ship sailed again toward America.

More problems awaited them. The ship caught fire twice, one time in the captain's cabin. This fire was so serious that some of the burning trunks and baggage had to be thrown overboard into the sea. A hole burned through the deck and the ship soon filled with smoke and fumes, forcing the passengers to go on deck in order to breathe. There was much sickness on the ship.

Several of the sailors were too sick to work and several of them died. At one time, the captain considered drafting passengers to help man the ship. There were 30 deaths aboard the ship. When someone died, they would hold the customary services preformed to bury the body at sea. The body was sewn in a canvas or sheet with a big lump of coal at the feet and laid on a plank. After a short funeral, the end of the plank was raised and the body slid off into its watery grave.

The captain was a very cruel man, ruling his ship in a very harsh way. At one time the ship sprang a leak. The sailors were working hard to get the water out, but one man was not working hard enough to suit the captain. He picked up a rope with a heavy hook on the end of it and struck the sailor on the head, killing him instantly.

Before the passage was completed, the drinking water became very bad and all that was left to eat were some hard sea biscuits and bad water. At one time the captain said to Knud Peterson, the leader of the Mormon group, "If I hadn't had these d----d Mormons on board I would have been in New York six weeks ago. Brother Peterson replied, "If you hadn't had Mormons on board, you would have been in hell six weeks ago."

One day in the early morning the captain and crew looked out to see a wrecked vessel. As they looked closer, they noticed that lashed to the side of the ship were the survivors of the wreck. The men had apparently tied themselves fast to the ship so the waves could not sweep them overboard into the sea. Immediately, the crew wanted to rescue the sailors of the disabled ship, but the captain felt otherwise. He did not want them brought aboard.

Mutiny occurred on the ship. The crew overpowered the captain and put him in confinement. The first mate, along with two sailors, took a small boat and rowed to the disabled ship. The second mate took charge of the ship while thirty-five sailors were rescued. The wrecked vessel was left to drift where it would.

They finally landed in New York, having been at sea for sixty-five days. When they landed, the captain was nowhere to be seen. It was thought that he feared the retaliation of the crew for his behavior and the murder of the sailor, so he had stowed away on a fishing boat or trading vessel, as several boats had met the ship a day or so before it landed. "He can try to run from men, but he can never run from God," was all the Mormons had to say about it.

Apostle John Taylor met the band of Mormons there and was very kind, helping them to travel on toward their new home in Utah.

Another Story:

Tall trees in Utah are evidence of lots of loving care. They are also a sign of a stream of water, or underground water--so necessary to life.

Many early pioneer homes were made of logs, but not because logs were plentiful. It was because the pioneers knew how to build homes of logs. A log home was small, and built with loving care. Trees were felled, skinned, cut to size: each log was fitted to the one beneath it and locked into place at a corner wall. The mortar between the logs was made of earth, moistened and kneaded and fitted into each crevice to seal out the winter's cold or the summer's heat.

It was cold and snowy in February of 1856 when Hans Lorentz Dastrup and his wife Ane Marie Berg came from Denmark with their sons Peter and Hans Lorentz Jr. They had a long and hard voyage across the ocean followed by a long arduous journey halfway across the United States to St. Louis. There they joined some Saints who were grouping to make the trek to Utah. Hans was called as the first counselor to the bishop there. During their year-long stay in St. Louis, their oldest son Peter died. The loss of their son was very hard on the whole family.

Finally in 1898, the Dastrup family started for Utah. Once in Utah, they looked for a place to live. They settled for a short time in Big Cottonwood. There Hans presided over the Danish Saints.

In Denmark, Hans had been an expert cabinet maker, but here on the frontier there was little call for this type of work. Hans was a "city boy" and felt he needed the advice and help of others if he were to learn about farming. His bishop encouraged him to settle near a town called Mt. Pleasant--even the name of the town seemed to encourage him to make his home there.

"Hans," said the Bishop, "the land here is good. There is plenty of water - like in Denmark. And your brothers and sisters in the Gospel will help you learn to farm. Why, you can even move into a ready-made log cabin on the property."

What an invitation!!! A new country, good land of his own, and a log cabin to call HOME. It sounded wonderfully good to him. In April 1862, before they left for Mt. Pleasant, Hans married a second wife in polygamy, Ane Marie Anderson, and in 1863, they all moved into the log cabin near Mt. Pleasant. Both wives called Ane Marie and a son with the same name as his father could become confusing.

The cabin home soon began to look lived-in and loved. It was probably about 12 feet square, with a sleeping loft. The room was probably about the size of a normal Primary classroom nowadays. But a whole, sometimes a very large family lived in that space. During the long winters, body warmth became part of the heat. Hans covered the floor with rough-sawed boards to keep the dirt settled.

On the east side of the room, he placed a very tiny stove, a cupboard, and a small kitchen table. The west side of the room was two-stepped higher and held a larger table to eat on and some chair and sitting space. Hans was a fine carpenter and made all the furniture for their needs-and some for the children as they married and set out to furnish homes of their own. In this log cabin, Hans and his family lived cozily. Hans and his second wife, Ane Marie, gave birth to five sons and five daughters. They raised crops to feed their family and worked anywhere they could get money to meet family needs. Sometimes the family would be separated while Hans worked elsewhere but the log cabin was called home for many years until 1877 when he moved to Vermillion (Sigurd).

At one time, when their son Jacob was about twelve years old and Annie was a baby, Ane Marie had gone for a visit with her family in Mt. Pleasant for a few days. A lady in the area was engaged to help Hans care for the children and do the cooking. In those days the walls of a log cabin were cleaned by painting them with lime mixed with water. It was a thin, white liquid about the consistency of milk, and they called it "whitewash." Each year the walls would get a new coat of "whitewash" to cover the dirt and make them fresh and clean again.

So, while Hans was in the fields working, and Ane Marie was visiting with her family in Mt. Pleasant, the hired lady decided she would decorate the house as a surprise for her employers. And what a surprise it was! She took a small bag of bluing (a chalk powder used with soap in the laundry to soften the water and make the clothes appear whiter) and made blue polka dots all over the walls. When Hans returned, he was both surprised and angry to find blue dots of various sizes all over the walls. But the children were delighted and laughed for many years at the memorable event.

When their son Jacob married Pauline Larson, Pauline's stepfather Thomas came to help them fire brick to build an additional room onto the log cabin. Hans and Ane Marie liked the new room so well that it was decided that they would live in the new room, and Jacob and Pauline began their married life in the original log cabin. The two families continued to enjoy the modified home until Leland was born. Then Jacob built a frame home for his wife and family.

Hans and his second wife remained in the brick home until all the children were raised, and then Jacob dragged the old log house down the hill to a spot by the chicken coop and divided it into a pig pen and a stable for the horse. He was pleased to have a stable with a roof so the horse could not jump out.