Thomas Pierce

By Ruth Thomas (granddaughter) from material received from family records, Marianne P. Williams and Mary Pierce Thomas

Thomas Pierce was born in Denas, Wales, on June 27, 1849. He was the sixth child in a family of eight children. He had light brown hair and very blue eyes. His parents were Thomas (whose name should have been Thomas Thomas, but he was adopted by a family by the name of Pierce), and Margaret Thomas Pierce. His brothers and sisters were: William, Anne, Edmond, Margaret, John, Mary, and Catherine.

His sister, Mary, came to America two years before the other members of the family came. She sailed on the ship, "John Bright." She was married to William Bath and lived in Salt Lake City. Willis Bath is her son.

Thomas's father, a hostler and, later, a railroad man, died in Wales on May 14,1863. His mother and her youngest children joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. On April 28, 1866, Thomas Jr., Catherine, and Margaret sailed with their mother for America. They spent six weeks and three days on the ship and arrived in New York on June 11, 1866. They had a hazardous trip on the ship, "John Bright." It was stormy weather for three days. At one time the captain of the ship gave up hope of arriving in America at all. This was the eleventh trip that this brave captain had made with Mormons aboard. They arrived in Salt Lake City on September 5, 1866.

Her son, John, had left Wales sometime before the other members of the family did. They didn't hear anything from him again. His mother thought that he had sailed for America and that she would find him if she came here, but she could not find him. Her son, William, apparently died as a child. Nothing is said of him. Anne and Edmond remained in Wales. We do not know if they joined the church. Edmond wrote now and then. They both died in the 'Old Country.' We do not know anything of their families.

This mother and her three children arrived in New York and went on to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where so many Welsh people stayed. They then went to St. Louis and on to Omaha. For three weeks the family lived in a tent made of quilts. The weather was exceedingly hot when it was not raining. It rained much of the time and the strong wind blew their tent down often. They did their cooking on a camp­fire.

In July they joined Captain Samuel Wright's Company and started across the plains. The trip was eleven hundred miles. They walked all the way. It took then about two months.

They did not stay in Salt Lake City long. Margaret, the daughter, married John Edwards, a polygamist, and moved to Willard to live. He and Margaret had four children: David M., William, Kate (Vansickle), and Margaret (Rice). Then John Edwards married John Pierce's mother. They had no children. Later this same John Edwards married again.

In 1866, Tom Pierce was seventeen years old. He worked on the Edwards ranch in Willard and at mining camps nearby. From 1868 to 1869, he worked for the railroad company, laying track. He was present when the Golden Spike was driven at Promontory Point, Utah, linking the western and the eastern railroad tracks for the first time. It was a great historical event that helped change the history of America. It hastened the settling of the West.

During the next few years he drove oxen from Corrine, Utah, to Montana, worked on the farm of John H. Welsh in Montana, worked the John Edwards farm on shares, and worked in the mines in Little Cottonwood Canyon. In 1874, he worked for James Jones in Malad, Idaho. While at Malad, he stayed at the home of Jenkin Jones. He also worked for the Myers Koons family. While there he met Nettie Morgan. At this time Tom was twenty-nine years old. Nettie was a beautiful girl just seventeen. He had known Nettie's family in Wales and the two had much to talk and laugh about. How they must have enjoyed recalling scenes of their beloved homeland, and telling of the pleasant people they knew in Wales.

As a result of this friendship this young couple was married in the Myers Koons' fine home on December 17, 1879. They returned to Willard to make their home and their two oldest children, William Samuel and Thomas H., were born there. About four years after they were married they homesteaded a home in St. John, Idaho (just a few miles west of the city of Malad). Tom built a two-room log house near a running stream of water. They had a water pump just outside the kitchen door and another pump in the fruit orchard north of the house. The home was shaded with tall popular trees. Here Tom and Nettie lived for the rest of their lives. They had more rooms added to the house.

Other children born to Tom and Nettie Morgan Pierce were: Catherine, Margaret, Mary, John Morgan, David Earl, and Evan M.

Tom Pierce lived in an era of westward expansion and development of new frontiers. He helped dig the first irrigation ditches, build the first crude bridges over some of the mountain streams and rivers, bring out logs for the first church house, and was a helpful and friendly neighbor in this pioneering community. Means of transportation was scarce and roads were rough. Tom, and others, too, made many trips to Willard and back on foot. Willard is more than sixty miles away.

Tom's sister, Catherine, married Henry Jones and lived nearby. Their families have always felt a strong bond of affection for each other. Their mother, Margaret Pierce Edwards, died in Willard in April, 1887. John Edwards had died eleven years before, in 1876.

Tom Pierce became very deaf and, as a result, was a quiet man. He had a large wen grow on his neck. Today that wen could have been removed and possibly, his hearing restored. Tom possessed the clever wit of the Welsh people. He had a keen memory, especially for happenings in history. And he had an insatiable curiosity. These and his optimistic outlook on live he left as a legacy to his eight children and his many grandchildren.

Nettie died in St. John in December, 1914. At that time their daughter, Margaret, and sons, Davie and Evan, were at home. Margaret kept the family together until she married, then the boys stayed with Will and San until they were old enough to find work away from home. Tom Pierce visited each of his children for a month or two at a time each year. He made his regular home with Will and his family, however. Tom died in St. John on March 23,1922, at the age of seventy-three.

Before he died, the farm that he and Nettie had homesteaded years before was divided among his children. Each child received about seventeen acres of land. It was given with the stipulation that the land would always belong in the Pierce family. Things have changed. Such a small parcel had little value, the Pierce children are not interested in farming. And one by one the strips of land have been sold, not to members of the family. John is the only one who owns his land today.

(From St. John, Oneida County, Idaho: A collection of personal histories from the time of the first settlers to the present day, p. 220-221.)