A Brief Testimony and life sketch of Daniel Edward Williams

The following paragraph was excerpted from a letter Daniel Williams wrote to his daughter, Mary Cunningham, dated 13 November 1877.  She was living in Azusa, California at the time.  This testimony, along with some letters Daniel wrote to her, are preserved in the Historical Library of the LDS Church in Salt Lake City. 

"Mary, I am still a firm believer in the principles of the Gospel, as they have been revealed by the Lord through the Prophet Joseph, in the organization of the church and Priesthood outside of which we can never gain an inheritance, and exaltation in the Kingdom of God.  Apart from this I would not give the snap of my fingers for all the religion, piety, devotion, or morality, that can be found in the world!!  This is my testimony after over thirty years trial.  Others may think and act as they please, God has left us all free to act upon our own agency; but he will judge us 'according to our works.'"

The Daniel Edward Williams who affirmed this testimony was the first of his family to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on March 18, 1847, in Wales.  This began a most devoted life to that Church, a life which ended in Tooele City, Utah on the 5th of June, 1882.  In 1852 he compiled a sketch of his life which he called his journal.  The original "journal" resides in the BYU Library Archives.  Copies have been made and it is from one of these that the following excerpts are taken.  Bernice Gray, a second great granddaughter of Daniel Williams, borrowed the original from the BYU library and had it transcribed for broader availability to family descendants and others who might be interested in early Church history.  The transcribed copy is 71 pages long and covers a period of approximately 50 years.

Bernice M. Gray wrote a brief life story of Daniel Williams.   A part of it is reproduced here to enhance and clarify Daniel's journal.

Daniel Williams was born December 23, 1802 in Penally, Pembrokeshire, South Wales.  He was the son of John and Anne Williams.  After the death of his father, Daniel’s mother went to Stepaside in the parish of St. Issels and took her four children with her.  Daniel tells about his brother, John, being his father in the gospel. We may safely assume that Daniel had one sister as he says he had two brothers and his mother had four children.

Daniel must have had the privilege of receiving a good education because in one of his early documents, he states his occupation as “schoolmaster.”  And he must have come from a religious family because he learned early to read the Bible and was accustomed to thinking about the state of his soul and how he could get deliverance from sin. Like Joseph Smith in America, he was earnestly seeking to know truth and which of all churches were right.

Daniel was first married to Catherine Jenkins in about 1827, and a son, John, was born to them 19 November of 1828.  Their daughter, Mary, was born 17 July 1830. Then Catherine passed away.

In 1838 Daniel removed to Ebbw Vale Iron Works in Monmouthshire with his family.  Here he came in contact with, read and kept in his possession a small tract entitled Remarkable Visions.  He says that it was written by Elder P. P. Pratt, but it was written by Orson Pratt.  Daniel read the tract and believed it was true.  The gospel had begun to spread in Wales and a small branch had been organized in Rhymney.  His brother, John Williams, went to hear them preach, was baptized and told his brother that this gospel is what he, Daniel, had been looking for, for twelve years.  He attended meetings and found their doctrines to be perfectly scriptural and he could not reject their testimony, so he was baptized March 18, 1847 by Elder William Davies...and confirmed a member of the Church.

It wasn't long until he was called to serve a mission by Dan Jones.  He served first in Glamorganshire in the lower parts, then in Carm Llynfi where his daughter was baptized, his son having been previously baptized in Rhymney.

He finished his first mission about November 1848 and then was sent to his home county of Pembrokeshire on a second mission.  He left his daughter at Swansea and he does not speak of her again.  We learn that she has gone to America and has met and married an older man named Charles P. Cunningham.  She went to California with the early Saints who settled in San Bernardino and she had her first child there in 1852.

Daniel tells about his missionary experiences in his journal and then he prepared to go to America.  He was clerk in a number of branches of the Church and in a number of Councils.  He was a well educated man being able to speak and write both Welsh and English.  He was called to be a counselor to John Morris, with John Evans, in the Pembrokeshire Conference on January 1, 1849.

He married a widow, Mary Howells, on January 1, 1852 and on April 8, 1853 he sailed with her and eleven other converts from their branch on the ship Jersey from Liverpool, England.

They crossed the plains to Salt Lake in the wagon train of Capt. Joseph Young, departing from Kanesville, Iowa on 1 July 1853.  (See Journal History in Church Historian’s Library.)  They arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in late September or early October of 1853.

Daniel was ordained a high priest on 7 April 1855 in Salt Lake City.  He was given a patriarchal blessing by G. John Young on 29 April 1861, in which he is described as a “mighty minister of salvation.”  He was also active in doing ordinance work for his ancestors in the Endowment House.

From Salt Lake City, Daniel and his wife settled in Tooele, Utah, where they purchased a home on 11 July 1864.  Daniel bought the home from John Tate for the price of one bay mare, one sorrel mare, one three year old heifer, and 20 dollars in currency.  Daniel is listed in the History of Tooele as one of the early teachers who taught in the first log schoolhouse.

Daniel’s wife, Mary, passed away December 13, 1874.  Daniel lived in Tooele until his death on June 5, 1882.  His brother, John, also settled in Tooele as did Daniel’s son, John, with his wife, Rebecca Evans, in 1862.  From 1874 until his death in 1882, Daniel wrote letters to his daughter, Mary Ann.  She had ten children: Eliza (Louisa), John Daniel, Olive, Maranda (Mattie), Orsini, Ida, Marge T., George Washington, Lucy M., Lincoln, and Elishart (Leitha).  Daniel’s son, John, and wife, Rebecca, raised seven out of fifteen children.