Thomas Williams

Thomas Williams was born in Carno, Montgomeryshire, on 13 November 1821, to Thomas and Susanna (formerly Hughes). His father farmed wheat and oats, kept dairy cows, and made the family’s own butter and cheese; with a few vegetables the little farm was self-sufficient. Thomas senior died of a liver disease on 2 November 1845.

Susanna supplemented the family income on her fine oak loom, weaving Welsh flannel in constant local demand. Even after her husband’s death she regularly walked ten miles over the mountains to the market at Newtown to sell her cloth. She died in 1864.

It must have been a dramatic change when Thomas left the farm that had been in his family for generations and moved south to Tredegar, Monmouthshire, for work in the coal mines. There he married his first wife, Anne Thomas, on 13 April 1846; their son William was born at Tafarnau Bach, Bedwellty, on 8 August 1847. Some sources indicate Anne died in childbirth.

On 8 May 1853 Thomas married Harriet Davies, born in Tredegar on 6 April 1834 — not yet nineteen, and by all reports an excellent mother to six-year-old William. Three daughters followed in Tredegar: Hannah (1854), Martha (1856) and Susannah (1859).

When Thomas and Harriet heard the missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints preaching, they immediately embraced the message and were baptised. The plan was for Thomas to go first and make a home, and for his wife and children to follow.

Thomas crossed on the William Tapscott, which left Liverpool on 11 May 1860 and reached New York on 15 June — thirty-five days against contrary winds, with Asa Calkin presiding. “Union and good order prevailed during the whole voyage. Prayer was held every morning and evening, and on Sundays religious services were held on the deck.” Smallpox broke out on 3 June and the company spent several days in quarantine at New York harbour.

From New York the emigrants took the steamboat Isaac Newton up the Hudson to Albany, then the rails by Rochester and Niagara Falls — where the train paused seven hours so they could see the great waterfall — through Canada to Detroit, Chicago and Quincy, crossing the Mississippi to Hannibal and on to St. Joseph and up the Missouri to Florence, Nebraska.

From Florence, Thomas travelled with the Oscar O. Stoddard handcart company: 126 souls, 22 handcarts and 6 wagons, leaving on 6 July under Captain Oscar O. Stoddard. At St Joseph thirteen people were placed in hospital, but on closer examination were found well enough to rejoin the company the following day for the Missouri River passage; they reached Florence in the night between 30 June and 1 July. There Elder George Q. Cannon, the Church emigration agent, made the arrangements for crossing the plains, and the company was divided into three parts under Elders D. Fischer, Anders Christensen and Carl J. E. Fjeld. After 81 days they arrived in Salt Lake City on 24 September 1860, having suffered the ordinary hardships of handcart travel; considerable sickness prevailed, and a number of animals died, which made the last stage particularly hard.

After two years Harriet received word to come. But William was reportedly kidnapped by his grandparents, who disapproved of the church and did not want him to go to America. Arrangements were already made; the family had no alternative but to leave without William, whom they would never see again.

On 6 May 1862 they sailed from Liverpool aboard the Manchester, arriving at New York on 13 June. Near Winter Quarters the whole family fell ill, possibly from cholera. Martha, aged five, died on 28 June; Susannah, aged three, on 7 July. They were buried there on the plains. Harriet and Hannah continued with the Ansil P. Harmon Company, reaching the valley on 5 October — where Thomas met them, not knowing two of his children had died on the road and that William remained behind.

Thomas built the family home himself, making adobe bricks by hand from the abundant clay — trodden with straw and water, moulded, and stacked to dry in the sun. The family received a grant of 160 acres in Taylorsville signed by Ulysses S. Grant, taking in the site of the Old English Fort abandoned in 1858.

Thomas had been injured in a mine explosion from which he never fully recovered, and coal dust had damaged his lungs. He and Harriet had four more children — Ezra (1864), Joseph (1866), Parley (1868) and Zachariah David (1871). Thomas died on 10 May 1875, aged 55, and Harriet was again left alone to bring up her children; Zachariah died on 2 January 1877. On 15 May 1878, when Harriet was 44, she married John Joseph Williams (no relation), also 44; her sons were then 14, 12 and 10. In 1887 she donated land she had inherited from Thomas to the Church for use as a cemetery. She died on 10 May 1908, aged 73.