BIOGRAPHY: Frank David Adams; Layton, Davis co., Utah

Transcribed by W. David Samuelsen for The USGenWeb Archives Project
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History of Utah
The Storied Domain
A Documentary History of Utah's Eventual Career
by J. Cecil Alter
Vol. 2, published 1932 (expired copyright)
The American Historical Society, Inc.

CAPT. FRANK DAVID ADAMS has an interesting record of service in army aviation,
is a successful business man of Layton, and among other distinctions the world
is indebted to him for his scholarly and literary talent in compiling and
editing the book Elias Adams, the Pioneer. While the primary purpose of this
is to tell the genealogy and the story of this branch of the Adams family, it
is also a well written account of the dramatic incidents connected with the
great Mormon emigration and the founding of Utah, in which Elias Adams had so
conspicuous a part.

Elias Adams, grandfather of Captain Adams, was born at Marlboro, Vermont,
February 18, 1792. The record of his ancestry runs back to England, Wales, the
Norman countries of Northern France to a mediaeval ancestry which included
Charlemagne and Charles Martel. Robert Adams, who was born in Devonshire,
England, in 1602, settled at Ipswich on Massachusetts Bay in 1635. His son
Jacob Adams was an early and influential settler of Suffield, Connecticut.
Lieut. Joel Adams, grandson of Jacob, was a soldier in the French war and was
the pioneer of the family at Marlboro, Vermont. He was the father of Job Adams
and grandfather of Elias.

Elias Adams at the age of twenty, in September, 1812, enlisted as a volunteer
for service in the War of 1812 and took part in some of the early battles and
campaigns along the Canadian border. Later he was sent south. While in the
army he was wounded three times. He continued in the service after the end of
the war, being discharged at New Madrid, Missouri, September 28, 1817. He then
settled in Illinois, founding the town of Quincy. The county of which Quincy
became the county seat was named Adams in his honor. At Quincy he was a brick
manufacturer and owner of a flour mill. About 1843 Elias Adams and his family
become converts to the Mormon faith and in that year moved to Nauvoo. After
the evacuation of Nauvoo and while the Mormons were struggling across Southern
Iowa to their winter quarters on the Missouri River, Elias Adams was appointed
by Brigham Young to look after the welfare of those temporarily making their
home at Mount Fisgah, Iowa. In the spring of 1850 preparations were completed
for a continuation of migration to the Rocky Mountains and on June 4, 1850, he
and his company started their trip from Council Bluffs up the valley of the
Platte over the Mormon trail. He reached Salt Lake City in September. A few
weeks later he located as his permanent home a spot twenty-five miles north of
Salt Lake City at Kaysville. Before the winter arrived he and his sons had
hauled from the canyon the red pine logs with which the pioneer home of the
Adams family was constructed. In pioneer enterprise and foresight Elias Adams
was one of Utah's most constructive citizens. He was a pioneer in planning and
undertaking irrigation work in hjs locality and participated to the full
extent of his power and influence in the work of empire building. Death came
to him February 17, 1886, the day before his ninety-fourth birthday. "He was a
fearless adventurer with excellent judgment and foresight, whose rugged path
was filled with toil and hardships which he braved in order to realize his
dreams and aspirations. He was a soldier, colonizer, home builder and pioneer
in many activities, all of which were successful."

The first wife of Elias Adams was Elmira Cadwell, whom he married in 1823. She
died about 1836. In 1837 he married Malinda, or Belinda, Railey, daughter of
Joseph and Catherine Railey. She was born in Kentucky, August 3, 1815, and
died at Layton, October 13, 1882. The descendants of Elias Adams comprise many
respected families over the West, and among them have been men and women who
held positions of trust in church, government and military and business life.
The second of the children born in Utah was Hyrum Adams, born at Layton, May
28, 1855. He has always lived at Layton, and since 1880 has been interested in
the sheep business. He was among the first to experiment in dry farming on the
range in Davis County. He and two of his brothers purchased the second grain
header in Layton. His farm adjoins the original homestead of his father. His
diversions have been athletics and hunting, and for a number of years he was
captain of the Layton baseball team. In this connection it should be noted
that another descendant of Elias Adams, a great-grandson, Spencer D. Adams,
was the first man from Utah to play baseball in the major leagues, being a
member of the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1923, was with the Washington Senators in
1925 and the New York Yankees in 1926, playing with the Washington and New
York teams when they won the world's championship.

Hyrum Adams married, January 15, 1877, Rose Higgs, who died in 1887, the
mother of six children. On June 13, 1889, Hyruin Adams married Annie L.
Penrod, who was born at Mountain Green, Morgan County, Utah, April 29, 1870,
daughter of William H. and Lucene Bird (Bybee) Penrod. In 1883 she went with
her parents to Arizona, but since her marriage has lived at Layton. She has
gained much distinction as an artist, painting in oil and pastel. She was the
mother of eight children, the second of whom is Capt. Frank David Adams.

Capt. Frank David Adams was born at Layton, October 24, 1893. He was educated
in local schools, and graduated from the Ogden High School. While there he was
a member of the football team. He then attended the Utah Agricultural College
at Logan. From February 9, 1915, to May 20, 1917, he labored as a missionary
for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints with headquarters at
Baltimore, Maryland, and during the last six months of the mission was
conference president. During this mission he traveled nearly 18,000 miles,
visiting thirty-one states. It was while searching through the volumes on
Adams genealogy in the Congressional Library at Washington, D. C., in 1916 for
information concerning his own ancestors that he conceived the plan of writing
the book which in 1929 was published under the title of Elias Adams, the
Pioneer.

Soon after his return from the mission he became interested in the air service
and on November 6, 1917, at San Francisco, enlisted as a first class private
in the United States Army. He graduated May 4, 1918, from the U. S. School of
Military Areonautics at the University of California, received his flying
instruction at Rockwell Field, San Diego, and on completing the course for
Flying Cadets was rated as a junior airplane pilot and commissioned as a
second lieutenant in the United States Army July 13, 1918. He was assigned to
the Bombing School for Airplane Pilots at Ellington Field, Houston, Texas,
where he continued until honorably discharged January 3, 1919. Captain Adams
then took passage on a steamship at New Orleans, and touched at the ports of
Havana, went through the Panama Canal, at various ports in Central America and
Mexico, and had completed a sea voyage of over 6,000 miles when he landed at
San Francisco.

On February 14, 1920, he was commissioned second lieutenant, Aviation Section
(flying status), Officers Reserve Corps of the Army of the United States. He
was promoted to first lieutenant May 19, 1922; and to captain in the Air Corps
January 2, 1929. On May 25, 1929, he left Salt Lake City in one of the five
army airplanes which flew to Casper, Wyoming, and return. They followed the
route taken by the Utah pioneers, traversing it in four and a half hours of
flying time, covering approximately 500 miles over the mountains through which
the first company of pioneers had traveled fifty-four days in 1847. Captain
Adams holds a certificate for an aviator pilot in the Federation Aeronautique
Internationale Aero Club of America. He is qualified as an expert with the U.
S. Army .45 Automatic Colt.

During the past ten years Captain Adams has been prominent in business at
Layton, being vice president of the Sanitary Market of that city and manager
of the 0. P. Skaggs Stores. He was counselor in the superintendency of the
Layton Sunday School from 1923 to 1926, and from 1926 to 1929 he was a member
of the Sunday School Stake Board of the North Davis Stake. On December 20,
1931, he was appointed first counselor to the bishop of the Layton Ward.

Captain Adams married in Salt Lake Temple, June 16, 1920, Leona Layton. She
was born at Layton, November 29, 1893, daughter of John H. and Hanna M.
(Phillips) Layton. Captain and Mrs. Adams have four children: Frankie Joan,
born December 22, 1921; Jean, born May 15, 1923, and died May 29, 1925; Carmen
Ruth, born September 18, 1924, and Luke Layton, born September 26, 1930. Mrs.
Adams has been a very ardent worker in her church, serving as class leader and
counselor in the Young Ladies Mutual Improvement Association of the West
Layton Ward, as organist and teacher in the Primary Association and teacher in
the Sunday `School, Mutual and Religion Class. She was a missionary in the
California mission at Oakland and Sacramento from April 14, 1918, to February
7, 1920.