JONAH EVANS AND FRANCES BOWEN

By Geraint Bowen

Jonah Evans was born into a Welsh speaking family on the 28th of February 1838 in a cottage in Llannewydd (Newchurch) near the town of Carmarthen in Dyfed, Wales. He was one of twelve children. His father's name was John Evans who was born on the 10th of July 1793 and who died on the 11th of July 1871. His mother's name was Esther Williams who was born on the 15th of April 1797 and who died on the 24 of July 1876.

John Evans, Jonah's father, was a farm hand employed by a local landowner. But as a result of an injury he was obliged to abandon farm work and he moved to the town of Carmarthen to seek work.

It appears that Jonah did not attend any day school. As a result, in his youth he knew very little English and his knowledge of numeration was almost nil. He seemed to be able to read Welsh but had not been taught to write it.

At the age of eight he found employment in a soap factory in Carmarthen earning 2 shillings a week. Two years later he started working on a farm known as Y Fforest in the vicinity of Carmarthen. He worked long hours, from four in the morning till nine at night each day.

At the age of fifteen he decided to join his brother Isaac who worked as a coal miner in a place called Bryntroedcam in the parish of Margam, not far from Port Talbot, West Glamorgan. It was during his years as a miner in Bryntroedcam that he met Frances Bowen, and they were married on the 3rd of December 1859 by the local Anglican priest, Thomas Evans. I have a copy of their marriage certificate. Both Jonah and Frances signed this certificate with a mark (cross) which suggests that they were both illiterate, but like Jonah, she, having had no day schooling but had attended a Welsh Sunday School, could read Welsh, but not write it.

Frances Bowen (or Fanny, as she was called,) was born on the 19th of June 1838 in Felin-foel, Llanelli in Carmarthenshire, the daughter of Thomas Bowen and Margaret Clement who were married on the 7 of December 1821. Frances had four sisters, Sarah, Elizabeth, Anne and Mary and two brothers, William and Thomas, my grandfather, who was born on the 20th of March 1832. He was the only member of the family who was born after the family had moved from Felin-foel to Y Fagwyr, Cwm-pant, Cilymaen-llwyd, Pwll, Penbre, the neighboring parish of Llanelli.

Thomas Bowen, the husband of Margaret Clement, was the son of Thomas Bowen and Ann Basset who were married in the parish church of Llanelli on the 27 of July 1790. I have been unable to trace the Bowens further back than that date, but one must emphasize that they were very much attached to the Welsh Baptist tradition.

However, in the late forties the Thomas Bowen and Margaret Clement's family, except for the eldest member of the family, William, moved to Bryntroedcam and both father and son, Thomas, worked in a pit known as Pwll y Slant. The family was instrumental in forming the new Jerusalem Baptist chapel in Bryntroedcam, However, tragedy soon followed as mother died in 1851 and father followed in 1853, both, so I understand, being buried in Capel y Groes Cemetery, Port Talbot. Frances became a house-maid in the home of a smith, John Jones and his wife in Farteg near Bryntroedcam.

After their marriage and the birth of their first child, Thomas Bowen Evans who was born on the 13th of February 1860, Jonah and Frances Evans set up home in Penhyddwaelod between Bryntroedcam and Cwmafon. That same year Jonah and Frances moved to Aberdare and Jonah worked for three years as a coal miner in a pit owned by the famous coal owner, Thomas Powell.

But before they left they had come under the influence of Mormon missionaries. Branches of the Church had been founded in Cwmbychan and Bryntroedcam and Jonah's brother, Isaac, was an early convert. Jonah got involved and he was baptized by his brother.

By moving to the Aberdare and Merthyr Tydfil district Jonah and Frances found themselves in the centre of the Welsh Mission Campaign and the drive to get Welsh people to emigrate to Salt Lake City, the New Jerusalem. Jonah and Frances were caught up in it and decided to emigrate. After three years working in the Powell Pit in Aberdare and having accumulated enough money, they left for London by train on Monday the 1st of June 1863, and on the 4th of June set sail from Tilbury, the port of London, aboard the 1,600 ton ship called Amazon.

The ship had been hired by George Q. Cannon, President of the European Mission. There were 897 Saints on board. It is reported that Charles Dickens, the famous English novelist came aboard to chat with the emigrants and he was very much impressed by their enthusiasm. Their departure is described as follows in the Emigration Records:

'The Welsh passengers included a brass band from South Wales and also

members of a choir on the way to Zion, and they discoursed sweet music

on the poop deck as the ship was departing the dock and sailed down the

River Thames.'

The Emigration Records also refer to the Evans family as follows: Jonah Evans, age 25, collier; Frances, age 25, wife; Thomas, son, age 3.

Jonah Evans had paid £11: 6: 0 for the sea journey and transport by rail from New York to Omaha (or Florence, as it was known then).

The Amazon reached New York on the 18th of July and the emigrants left New York by train on the 18th of July. The railroad at that time terminated at Omaha and was not extended west to Salt Lake City till the year 1869.

To cross the difficult terrain to Salt Lake Valley could only be done by oxen and wagons which were managed by Captain David D. MacArthur. There were 75 wagons in all, and the train left Omaha on the 1,000 mile trek on 6th of August which took them across Nebraska and Wyoming, up the valleys of the rivers Platte and Sweetwater, passing spots later to be called Torrington, Glenda, Devil's Gate through South Pass across Green River and to Salt Lake City.

Jonah and Frances Evans made their home in Brigham City and Jonah was employed there by the Brigham City Mercantile and Manufacturing Association and was responsible for a place called North Farm, two miles north of the city. Frances died on the birth of the eighth child, one only being a girl, and was buried in Brigham City. The names of the children were:

Thomas Bowen Evans, born 15 February, 1860 in Aberdare.

Margaret Ann Evans, born 6 August 1862, stillborn, in Aberdare.

Jonah Bowen Evans, born 6 March, 1867, Brigham City, Box Elder.

(Jonah was killed whilst working on the railroad at Tarice, Utah in 1887).

Isaac Bowen Evans, born 6 March, 1867, Brigham City.

Lorenzo Bowen Evans, born 24 March, 1869, Brigham City.

William Bowen Evans, born 18 May, 1872, Brigham City

David Bowen Evans, born 9 March, 1874, Brigham City.

Francis Bowen Evans, born 26 December 1876, Brigham City.

Jonah Evans on the 9 of July 1877 married Catherine Deer Clarkson, a native of Llangatwg, Neath, Glamorganshire who had emigrated to America in 1867, and in 1880 moved his family to Samaria in Oneida, a district thought at that time to be part of Utah territory.

The first white man to settle in the Samaria district was a Welshman named John Evan Price, a native of Llandeilo'r Fan, near Pont Senni in Breconshire who had come to Merthyr Tydfil in search of a job and had been converted to Mormonism. He sailed to New York and made his home for a while at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania where he with the help of other Welsh immigrants established a Welsh Mormon church. In 1865 forty of the members decided to move to Salt Lake City and settled in Brigham City. In 1867 he received a grant of land in the Malad Valley and moved there in 1868. Brigham Young encouraged other Welsh people to follow his example. One of the pioneers who accepted the challenge was Thomas Samuel Thomas, a native of Bedwellty in Gwent, (South East Wales), and he moved there in 1868 and others followed. On the 18th of December 1868, a Mormon Church was established in Samaria with Thomas Samuel Thomas as presbyter. By the year 1879 there were as many as 19 families (80 to 90 individuals) in the settlement. Samaria was declared a Ward and on the 31 of October Jonah Evans was 'ordained and set apart Bishop of the Ward', a position he held till his death.

In Samaria their dwelling was divided into two, one section for Jonah and his children, and the other for Catherine and her children from her first marriage, only to be enlarged as she gave birth to six more.

In 1882 Jonah Evans contemplated a third marriage and that to Jane Morse, a lady of Welsh descent who was born in Logan, Cache. She in due course gave birth to seven children. In 1891 Jonah and his large family moved to a new home in Pleasant View, Oneida.

Jonah Evans died of a heart attack in 1897. The funeral took place in Samaria Ward Meeting House with a number of bishops present together with the President of the Stake, O.C. Hoskins and the Counsellors William H. Gibbs and J.M. Mc Carry of the Stake Presidency. In the report of his death published in Deseret News (4 February, 1896), he is described as a 'kind father, a loving husband and a faithful Latter Day Saint'.