TITLE PAGE PIONEER (full name) William N as h T h oma s BIRTH (date and place) DEA TH (date and. place) PAREN TS . MARRIED (who and date) ARRIVAL IN UTAH (date) (Company arrived with) HISTORY (who wrote) (date written} (who s ubmitted) (address) Haverdfordwes t, P e ro - 24 Feb r u ary 183 5 - brok es h ire, So. Wale s 14 Feb r u ar y 1923 - Log a n , Cache, Uta h Da v id Thomas Eli7abeth N as h Elbab e th Lalliss - 2 6 Oct ob e r 1857 Ma ry J a n e Obra y - 1 Janu ar y 1872 19 O cto b er 1862 Orton H eight - Capt ain W illiam Nash Thomas Octobe r 1903 L au ra T . Larsen 5803 W . Was a tch D riv e M or ga n , Uta h 8 4 0 50 CAMP & COUNTY SUBMITTING -W-e b-er- R-iv-e r- --------- Camp (Camp Historian & address) Mor gan - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Count y Jean B i gler ---------------------- Rt. 1 Box 2 50, Mor ga n , Uta h 8 4 0 50 County Historian & address} --------------------- Vel oy Tonks D ickso n P O B ox 2 0 3, M or gan, Uta h 8 40 50 SOURCE OF INFORMATION & PAGE NUMBERS: • WILLIAM NA~H THOMAS (A family history of William N ash Thomae, copied on this the 17th day of July 1919) William Nash Thomas, son of David Thomas and Eli:rabeth Nash Thomas. born on the 24th day of February 183 5', at Haverdfordwest, Pembrokeshire, South Wales. There were six children - - John born 18 February 1829, Ann born 21 February 1832, William Nash born 24 February 183 5, Jane born 10 April 1838, Sarah born 14 February 1841 , and James born 25 December 1843. All born in the same house. 11 1, William Nash Thomas, attended school until I was 9 years old, then had to do some work to help make a living for the family. At the a g e of 11 I went to work for Joeeph Potter to look after a billard hall. To look after the g ames and collect the pay. I worked there for t wo years. I then went to school for one year. I then worked for Mr. Jenkin Savoras at North Glamorganshire (? ). 80 miles from my home. I worked in a billard hall at the Castle Hotel. I returned home in February 18 5 1. I then found my father and his family were members of the Mormon Church. All of the family bore strong testimony of the truth of the work and the knowledge that the Lord had given them, and tha t the work they had done had been revealed and that the Gospel had been restored to the earth with all of its gifts and blessings, that the Savior had said should come. I believed them and attended their meetings and was baptized and confirmed a member of the Church on March 1851, baptiz.ed by John Griffiths and confirmed by Philip Sykos. I received a testimony of the divinity of the work and felt to rejoice that my sins had been remitted. Those were holy days e -2- for me. I was ordained a Deacon on 19 December 1851 by Daniel Williams. Ordained a Priest on 24 November 18 52 by Willam Bowen. Ordained an Elder by John Price on 24 August 1853. Ordained a Seventy on 2 June 18 77 by H. C. Jackson, and ordained a High Priest the 3 March 1905. In my earl y days in the Church I attended my meeting s on S undays and week n i g hts and traveled three to fifteen miles with other elders, but sometimes went alone and sang and prayed and told the people about the restoration of the Gospel, I enjoyed this labor , being directed by the Holy Spirit at all times. About the year 18 56, the law of t i thing was first give n to the m e mbers o f the Church, which I took hold of and paid an hones t tithing each month I was g etting small wa g es at the time. About the same time we were call ed upon to donate one weeks wa g e s to help build the Salt Lake Temple. This was freely paid by the Church members and we f elt so by doing , donating our money and services to the Lord at this time. I worked t en hours each week day and walked four and ten miles to and from work. In the year 18 5 7, our family moved to a town called Neyland and I g ot work at the lo comoti v e department of the Great W es t er n Railroad Company. I was married on October 2 6 , 18 5 7 , to Eli7abeth Lalliss. daught er of Richard and Dorothy Lalliss of the Town of Haverdfordwest, P embrokes hi re , by Richard James Re gis ter . At this time I was called to preside over a branch of the Church known as the Pembroke Branch. It was eleven miles each way and ther e were very few Church members. I continued this labor until I le ft to come to Utah in 18 6 2. In the spring of 1858, I started t o woi:k as fireman on a passenger steam-boat. At this time ear ning 13 shillings per week. I paid my tithing hon estl y. e -3- In a ehort time I was promoted to en gi neer and earned 20 shillings per week. Next year I got 35 shillings per week. Next I was raised to 65 shillings per week. I attribute this to the goodness of the Lord in paying an honest t ithi ng and my faithful la bor in His Church. During the 11 years in South Wales, after joining the Church, I had a g reat lot of walking to do. Sometimes more than 20 miles each way to hold meetings and to attend conferences. This was done on Sundays as I had to work six da ys a week. I walked one night 11 miles ·after work and crossed t wo rivers to I baptize Brother Frank Purser and all of his family, at the t ime of a reformation in the Church, and felt well in doing my duty. I have had many marvelous gifts in administering to the sick and casting out evil spirits when they wou ld tr o uble the saints. I left Liverp·ool on Tuesday, 15 May 18 6 2, on the sailing ship "William Tapriat (? ). We had a rough stormy voyage, lots of sickness and some deaths. Those that died were buried at sea. Mys elf and family were not sick. We arrived in New York on 2 6 June 18 6 2. There were 800 passeng ers on board. Myself and family stopped overnight at a hotel. We left New York on 27th of June on the Hudson River Railroad and arrived at Albai:iy on the 28th, then took the New York Central to Ni a g ra Falls, then took the Great Western Railroad to Winsor. then crossed the river in a boat to Detroit on the 30th, then took Michigan Central to Chicago where we arrived July 1st. Thence by the Chicag o Burlington and Quincy where we arrived on July 2, thence by steamboat to Hanibal, and left for St. Joseph where we arrived on July 4th and stopped_o vernight. We then took a boat for Florence, Nebraska. This was the worst part of the journey, so far, it was -4- very warm and the river so muddy that we could not drink it . There was col d water for the boat crew but none for the pass cngers. W c had one death on the boat and we stopped a short time to bury the body. We arrived at Florence on Sunday night, July 6th. We got ashore the best we could and stayed until daylight. Tlicn went one mile to camp. It was a nice clear morning but before we got camp fixed it began to rain in torrents, heavy wind with thunder and lightning . It was terrific . It nearly killed Brother Joseph W. Y "'ung. One man was kille·d by a bolt of lightning. W e were in a bad fix but we got our tents put up and dried our bedding and our oth er affects, fixed up and made ourselves comfortable. We stopped in F1orence until Thursday the 17th day of August. Then loaded our affects into wag ons, 18 passeng ers to each wa g on and twelve to each t ent. Myself and wife traveled on foot all the way to Salt Lake City. We had a very pleasant time taking all things into consideration. We had about one dozen deaths on the plains. It fell to my lot to dedicate mos t of the graves. This was sorrowful to lea v e our friends behind, we buried the dead at the first stopping place. We never started out with a dead body. We had a very g ood captain, Orton Hei ght. Also a g ood lot of teamsters. We had prayer every morning and night and lived up to the laws of the g ospel. We took our turns at guarding the camp and the cattle, and did all that we could or were asked to do. We waded through the col d rivers, Elkhorn and the South P latt several times and the Green River, and we kept iri g ood health. We arrived in Sr11t Lake City on the 19th of October. Brother John Isaac met us and brought us some cakes and milk. We stopped in th e city three weeks and worked with Brother John and William Gibly in the canyon g e tting firewood. For this I got pay in molasses, which we took to Paradise, Cache County, Utah. e e -5- We arrived on 11 Nove mber 1862. The n ext d ay I began to work helping thrash wheat. It was th e first day to thrash that season. Myself and famil y liv ed with Brother E. D. Miles and wife. The first I worked in the canyon all winter cutting logs to buil d a house to live in. I got a city l ot and built a house and p l ant e d the lot and kept working. I n the fall of 1863, I sold the house for a yolk of oxen and built me another one in the spring of 1864. I took up some land and raised some crops. In April of this year, I took a load of tithing wheat to Salt Lake City from Wells v ille with four yolk of oxen. In the fall of this year, the g rasshoppers came and laid their eggs and they hatched the next spring and ate nearl y all the g rain. They continued for about three years. In September 18 66, my father came to Utah and lived with us until he died. My mother died in South Wales. My father enjoyed good health and worked hard until the spring of 1873 when he fell down and broke a b l ood vessel and died 24 March 1874. In the spring of 1868, we people of Paradise, thought it best to move in a body thr ee and one half miles north of the old site where we could get more room a nd bett er prot ect ourselves from the Indians, as they were very troublesome in that part. W e took up n ew land for city lots and farms. and I g ot settled in our new home in this year. My sister , Jane Jones, and family came to Utah. They traveled part of the way by t rain and then with ox t eam. They stayed with u s that winter. On 1.1 November 18 68, myself and my wife, and several others went with - -6- ox team to Salt Lake City to get our endowments . On January l, 1872, Mary Jane Obray, daughter of George and Marie Obray, born at Poter (?) sealed by Daniel H. Wells inthe endowment house at Salt Lake City. On 1 July of this year, I went into the mountains about thirty miles east of Paradi~e and engaged in sawmilling. The same year I bought a shingle mill and commenced making shingles. On 1 June 1874, I took charge of building a water power saw mill for the people of Paradise and I took ,charg e of running it until the fall of 1876. In the summer of this year, I bought a saw mill to make lumber in connection with the shingle mill of Paradise. I also purchased a quarter section of land north of the Paradise townsight. For the next three years I was at home sawing lumber and ties for the Utah Northern Railway, since named the Oregon Short Line. I continued this work until 1 June 1880, when I purchased a steam saw mill at Beaver Canyon, Idaho, and did sawing for the Union Pacific Railway Company. In the spring of 1881, I bought two more steam saw mills and kept sawing with the three mills until 1885. In March 1889, on the advice of Apostle Thatcher, I went to Baker City, Oregon, to take up some timber land and moved my saw mills there from Beaver Canyon, Idaho. I went into partnership with several others and operated a company known as Oregon Lumber Company with a capital $ 100, 000 . I took $30, 000 aft er stopping there one year. I came home to Logan to help run the store. I went to Baker City to attend a July stockholders meeting in January 1890, they had another good report of last year's business. I was at the railway -7- station to return when two stockholders came to me and said that the bala nce sheets were false at the meeting and about three weeks that the company be dissolved, and they would come and take all of my property where they could find it, as the law of Oregon would permit them to do so. I stepped over and examined the books and found that they had tol d me the truth. I did not say one word to the bookkeeper about this matter but came home to Logan and fixed things up the best I could. Th e next morning I made arrang~ments with A. G . Darber to be my signee and made Thatcher Brothers Banking Company a preferred creditor. In one week after, they had officers come to Logan to take all my property but it was too late, they could only get their share. I then borrowed three thousand dollars. My son, John E. Thomas, and my nephew, John H. White, and got them to purchase the store goods and run the store under the name of J. E. Thomas, and did a g ood business and was soon out of debt, and kept one son on a mission in th e Eastern States for 27 months. In the city e l ection of 1895, I was elect ed a member of the city council of Log an, first precinct commencing 4 January 1900. For two years I filled this office with the best of my ability. And b elieve gave good satisfaction. On the 1 April 188 7. I bought one half interest of the Barber and Sons Impl.ement business. We sold the business to Co - op Wagon and Maching Company on January 1889. On June 1, I bought eleven hundred acres of plant land near Cache Junction I a l so bought three thousand dollars worth of livestock. I worked this land for about t w o years and made much improvem.ent. I sold this property to a Mitchell for fifteen thousan d dollars. I had broke up about twenty acres of this land and • I .... - 8- fenced a lar ge portion of it i n. On the 14 August 1884 , on the invitation of the Stake Pr esidency, myself and wife, Elizabeth, went to Rexburgh, Idaho , in the c ompany of John Taylor , Geor g e Q. Cannon, and several others. W e traveled with team from Market Lake to R exburgh. They went there t o more full y or g anize the stake. The next mor ning I went to a council meeting, when in the meeting th ere came a teleg ram that two elders had been killed by a mob i n Tennessee. When this message was read a voice spoke to me, 1 John Gibbs' he said, I said; 'What?' The voice said again •John Gibbs . ' When w e got out of th e meeting, I told Brother George Q. Cannon that I felt satisfied that John H. Gibbs was one of the elders that was k illed. He asked me how I knew . I told him of the voice that spoke to me. He said it was marvelous. In the aft ernoon meeting, the names came. Brother Cannon came to me and told me to cultivate that g ift that I had and it would be a blessin g to me . I have tried to do so and it has been a comfort to me . On 23 January 1900, my wife, Mary Jane, died at Paradise. She had been sick for several weeks. She left two sons, Willard and Orson. On 19 May 1901, my wife, Elizabeth, died after eight weeks of severe suffering. She was buried at Paradise. On Thursday eve ning , May 16th, she said to me , 11 1' ve had thr ee patria rical b less ings . I have been reading them today. They each one said that I should l ive as long as life was desireable to me, and I shall not die as long as I feel as I do now. 11 Only two days after this, when I got home from work she said to m e. "William, I have bee n talking to the girls today that I did not thi nk .it a sin that I would ask the Lord to take me to himself as I was tired of l iving. 11 I said to her, 11 Bessie we do not want to let you go. 11 -9- 11 1 know, 11 she said, 11 but my suffering has been so great that l want to go. 11 She then said, 11 1 want to ask you a favor. Will you do it? 11 l said, 11 What is it? 11 11 1 want you to put your hands upon my head and ask the Lord, in authority of the priesthood you hold, to take me this night. Will you do it? 11 l then said, 11 Bessie, l have never refused you anything you have asked me to do. 11 l administered to her and rebuked the pain, and asked the Lord to take her spirit that night as she reques t ed . When l got through she said that the Lord heard that and felt sure that she would die that night . One of my sons passed through the room and heard me and went and called Dr. Budge. He came and lo oked at my wife. Then he went into another room where the family was and said to them, "now if you keep quiet and m a ke no noise, you can come and see your mother die. 11 They promised that they would. This was about half past ten 0 1 clock. The doctor sat on the side of her and me on the other. All was quiet for ten minutes . She opened her eyes and said, 11 1 fee l happy and comfortable and lam going to die. 11 The doctor took her pulse and had his ear by her mouth, then said, 11 She has breathed her last breath but do not make a nois e, her heart is still beating. 11 Then said, 11 Y our mother is dead and if you want to cry you can, as you c annot disturb her now. 11 l was prepared for this . On the night before this, l was sitting on the sofa in front of the stove and l heard beautiful singing in the air the hymn foun d on pa g e 194 of the L. D.S. Hymn Book, 11 Let Us Pray Gl adl y, 11 pray in the house of Jehovah. The singing was bea utiful. She was buri ed at Pa ra dise. I kep t running the store for about ei ght e en months, then sold the store and contents to John Bench. 11 William Nash Thomas died 1 4 February 1923 in Logan, Utah.