“For a time, all lived in one large house.”

Heber Z. Ricks had twelve wives, though it’s really not polite to count. He was a Mormon who really, really believed in the teachings of Brigham Young. The family man was profiled in the January 29, 1900 Brooklyn Daily Eagle. An excerpt:

“In the Valley of the Snake River, near where that stream forms the boundary line between Wyoming and Idaho, lives the father of the largest family on the American continent, and probably the world. The owner of this unique distinction is Heber Z. Ricks, one of the faithful followers in religion and practices of the late Brigham Young. Reliable persons who have known Ricks for many years say he has 12 wives and 66 children. Many of his sons and daughters have long since taken unto themselves helpmates for life and to these have been born 218 children, thereby bringing the number of souls in the Ricks family, exclusive of the venerable father, up to 296.

The members of the Ricks family are scattered over a stretch of country fourteen miles long by two miles wide. Heber Ricks has an even dozen ranches, which, with those of the sons and daughters, make quite a good size settlement. In the center of this settlement, a town called Ricksville has been established. Here are located a general store and a church. During week days the church is transformed into a school room, and a regularly employed teacher (usually one of the Ricks daughters) labors with the descendants of Heber Z. On Sundays, and not infrequently of an evening, services, which are, of course, strictly Mormon, are held. These religious meetings are usually presided over by the elder Ricks, and are very interesting, being conducted in that manner peculiar to the Mormon faith. In the absence of the ‘bishop,’ as the head of the family is known in the settlement, as is frequently the case when he makes a visit to one of his wives living in the extreme upper or lower ends of the colony, one of the sons will fill the pulpit and preach the doctrine of his father, says the Chicago Inter-Ocean. 

“Settling near Salt Lake, Ricks continued to take unto himself additional wives.”

Heber Z. Ricks is a giant in form and strength, although he is 77 years old. Little or nothing is known of his boyhood, except that he was reared on a farm in Western New York. He has never been known to say much about his early life other than he landed in St. Louis in 1842. From that city he went to a small settlement in the vicinity of where Independence, Mo., now stands, where he joined the Mormon Church. A little band of Mormons, with Ricks at their head, left the place early in the spring of 1848, and turned their faces toward Utah. Brigham Young’s party of 226 persons had gone on the previous year and left a faint trail, which Ricks and the party followed with great difficulty. The trail led them into the valley of the great Salt Lake, via Echo Canyon.

When Ricks left Missouri, it is said, he was a single man, but when he and his party reached Salt Lake valley, he was the possessor of five better halves. Settling near Salt Lake, Ricks continued to take unto himself additional wives until he had ten. In the year 1856, with the number of his wives increased to twelve, Ricks pulled up stakes and moved across the mountains through eastern Idaho to the valley of the Snake River. There, upon one of the most fertile spots to be found on the continent, he established himself. The first few years were ones of great activity for Ricks and his already large family. For a time, all lived in one large house, which was hastily erected, but later twelve houses, composed of roughly hewn logs, were constructed at different points along the river. To these were added, in due time, corrals and other outbuildings, and in a few years Ricksville was something more than a name.”