Duritha Trail was born 5 January 1813 in Franklin, Simpson, Kentucky, daughter of wealthy land owners, Solomon Trail and Nancy Durant. Solomon Trail was the son of Baxill Trail and Barbara Frazer. Very little is known of her childhood except that she lived on a beautiful plantation - waited on by Negro slaves and all her needs and wants fulfilled.
She married David Lewis, 23 November 1834 in Franklin, Simpson, Kentucky. They were both baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 21 March 1835 by James Emmet and Peter Dustin.
Duritha's first child, Arminta, was born in 1836. They left Kentucky in 1837 with several other LDS families and traveled by covered wagon to Caldwell County, Missouri, where many of the Mormons were gathering. Among the group were two of David's brothers, Benjamin and Tarlton Lewis and their families. David took up some land, built a house, and began to farm. They lived about 18 miles from Far West, where Joseph Smith was living. The non-Mormons living in the vicinity began to persecute the Mormons - stealing their livestock and any loose property they could get their hands on. They accused the Mormons of all sorts of crimes and threatened them if they didn't leave the state. This persecution continued and grew worse. Finally the Mormons sent a delegation to their neighbors to ask if they could not live in peace with them. The delegates returned and reported that the people to told them that they would try to live in peace.
About this time several LDS families had arrived to join the group and were trying to get settled. A short time after they arrived, a group of the Mormon men gathered near Haun's Mill discussing the persecutions they had endured and how happy they were to get the delegates' message of peace on October 30, 1838.
Suddenly, they saw a large group of men on horseback galloping toward them, cursing, yelling, and shooting guns. They had no time to prepare a defense, but most of them fled to a nearby log blacksmith shop that offered very little protection because there was an open door on one side and large cracks between the logs. A few men ran for their nearby homes or hid in thickets nearby. The few who remained threw up their hands and begged for mercy, but were immediately shot down in cold blood. As soon as the hostile ruffians were close enough they began shooting into the blacksmith shop. David and his brother, Tarlton, were in the shop and saw several men shot down. Tarlton was shot through the shoulder as he and two other men left the shop.
David told in his autobiography how he remained calm and felt that his life would be spared. He left the shop alone and started toward his home. He had been ill so he could not run, but walked across a field, over a fence, crossed a creek, and climbed a bank on the other side. The mob had him in full view all that time and bullets fell around him thick as hail. Although he found five holes through his hat, coat, and trousers, not one of them grazed his skin.
Duritha, who had heard the screaming and shooting, had been praying for his safety and was so happy that he was safe. They took their little two year old daughter and hid in the thicket till the mob left. Benjamin died that night of wounds he had received, but Tarlton recovered from his wound and was one of the original pioneers with Brigham Young's company to reach Salt Lake City in 1847. In all - 23 men and 2 little boys died in that Haun's Mill Massacre. Later David Lewis was taken prisoner and held for about three weeks in a hostile camp nearby. He was mistreated and threatened. but somehow talked them out of killing him. He persuaded them to let him go home each evening and cut firewood for his wife and return to the camp the next morning. After a bad storm, the creek was so high that he could not cross it to get back to the camp. He called them to come and get him, but they called back and told him to go about his business. Although he and other Mormon men were ordered to leave Missouri they managed to stay until spring when they moved to Illinois.
In 1840 David took Duritha and their daughter, Arminta, back to Franklin, Simpson, Kentucky and left them with Duritha's parents and he went on an LDS mission for several months. Their son Preston King Lewis was born at the Trail home.
In 1841 the Lewis' again left Kentucky with good traveling outfits, 3 Negro slaves - 2 women and a man - clothes, money, and food supplies, all given to Duritha by her father. They stayed a few months in Macoupin County, Illinois, then moved to Nauvoo, where they lived about four years. Duritha's second son, David Jr., was born in Nauvoo 1 March 1843. David Sr. was a guard at the Nauvoo Temple when the sad news came that Joseph and Hyrum Smith had been killed in Carthage, Illinois.
They moved again to Council Bluffs, Iowa, where David worked as a cooper making wooden barrels, tubs, and kegs. He hired a young man named George Baker to help him. Their daughter, Arminta, was about 14 years old when she and Baker took David's best horse and eloped one night. They never saw her again, but heard rumors that she was married to Baker and they had a family.
Twins, a boy and a girl, were born to Duritha on 1 August 1948. They were named Siney and Olive; symbolic of Mt. Sinai and Mt. Olive in the Holy Land. In 1850 they crossed the plains to Salt Lake City. Duritha sold the women slaves to Reed Smoot's father and with what she received from them and what she had left from her inheritance she bought a small house and 10 acres of land where the City and County buildings now stand. They had brought a good supply of food and clothing, but that winter was long and hard. They, with most of their neighbors, suffered from cold and lack of food. The next spring David started farming again. In 1852 Duritha's last child William Trail Lewis was born when she was 38 years old.
David Lewis married Elizabeth Carson, 4 August 1852 and to them were born two daughters, Eliza Jane Lewis, born 18 June 1853 in Salt Lake City, and Elizabeth Ann Lewis, born 29 May 1854 in Parowan, Utah. In 1853 David, Elizabeth, and their first child went South to help colonize Parowan, Iron, Utah, leaving Duritha with 5 children, the oldest 13 years old and the Negro slave, Jerry. Preston and Jerry hauled wood from the canyons and did all sorts of work to help support the family. David Lewis died in Parowan, in September 1855. David Jr. died in California at age 23. Olive married a bishop as a plural wife but left him because his first wife was mean to her. Her second husband was Wylie Hill. Duritha's youngest child, William Trail Lewis, died at age 15.
Duritha married again, but we have no record of her second husband's name. She did not live with him long. According to all reports, Duritha's last days were spent in want and poverty. She died in Holladay, Utah at the age of 65 and was buried there as far as we know.