HISTORY OF DANIEL
LEWIS
by
his daughter
Mary Elizabeth
(Lewis) Sorensen,
Driggs, Idaho
Daniel Lewis was born at Cayo,
Carmarthenshire, South Wales, September 22,
1834, the son of Joseph and Mary (Morgan) Lewis. He lived his early life in Wales working in and around the coal mines as a
very young boy and as a young man until he emigrated
to the United States.
He never attended school, but when he was twenty-eight he started to educate
himself with the help of Mother (who had a fair education) and he became one of
the best theological teachers in Summit Stake.
He was a convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints and was baptized by Elder Jacob Davis who also confirmed him October 20,
1854. He sailed from Liverpool April 19, 1856 on the ship "Samuel
Curling" with seven hundred and seven saints, under the direction of Dan
Jones, arriving at Boston
May 23, 1856. He and his brother, Morgan, Morgan's wife and two children *, did
not continue on with that company which, leaving Iowa City, made the rest of the trip with
handcarts. * *
Daniel Lewis and his brother and family went to Pennsylvania where they worked in the coal mines for a
time, then moved to Illinois, where they
continued working in the mines until they had enough money for the rest of the
journey to Utah.
They arrived in Utah
sometime in the spring of 1862. Daniel went to Salt Lake City; his brother and family to
Hoytsville,
Utah. Daniel married Mary Davis
on July 19, 1862 in the old Endowment House in Salt Lake City. * * * After his marriage he
went to Hoytsville where he joined his brother and
family for a short time, working for Samuel P. Hoyt as a farmhand. From Hoytsville, Utah
he moved with his wife to Rhodes Valley, now Kamas,
Utah. He was one of the early
pioneers of that valley. He helped build the fort against hostile Indians and
lived in that fort for a time. Then he bought a city lot in the northeast side
of present Kamas town site. On November 5, 1866 he married his plural wife,
Karen Marie Sorensen, in the Endowment House.
About 1870 he took up a homestead two and a half miles north
of Kamas. The town is now Marion,
Utah. There his second wife and
her children lived. As his work was on the farm he spent most of his time
there, as his first wife had no children and lived on a city lot.
During the year of 1868 the people of Rhodes Valley
had to move to another fort in the northern part of the valley or just out of
the valley to what is now Peoa. There, all the people
of that part of the country gathered together in a larger fort as the Indians
were very bad. Then they moved back again to the old fort at Kamas because
after 1870 the Indians were not so hostile, although they came from the
reservation each summer.
Daniel was a very hardworking man and very economical. He
never used tobacco, liquor or tea or coffee. He never used strong language of
any kind and did not believe in people using slang phrases. He was a sincerely
religious man. He held several offices in the church. He was President of the
Elders for twenty-two years, having to go long distances to the places of
meeting. They held their meetings in different wards once a month and some
months he would have to go eighteen miles to his meeting place, either by
horseback or team. He was also a Stake Home Missionary for years and it would
take him two days sometimes to fill an appointment because he had to go by team
as there was no railroad in our county then or now.
He filled a mission to Great Britain, being set apart by
Elder Franklin D. Richards on May 6, 1885. His work was in Wales all
through his mission. He was President of the South Wales Conference for one
year and a half. He returned home August, 1887. * * * *
While in London, on his way
home, he had the privilege of attending the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria, which he
enjoyed very much. He brought us all souvenirs of that event. The Jubilee was
to celebrate the fifty years of Queen Victoria's
reign.
He had only been home for a little over a year when he was
sentenced to go to prison for having two wives. He was sentenced by Judge Safford
of Third District Court of Salt Lake City to sixty days in prison and a fine of
sixty dollars. He was among so many of our men at that time. President George
Q. Cannon was one who was serving time then.
Daniel was the father of nine children, four boys and five
girls. One boy and two girls died in infancy. The other six lived to have
families of their own. He was a very conscientious man, believing in doing unto
others as he would be done by. He never was social minded, never danced and did
not like parties and did not go to them if he could get out of it. But on the
other hand he never missed a meeting or Sunday School
of which he was the Theological Teacher.
There is one incident in his life that I think is very
outstanding. One winter the hay was very scarce in our valley and it was being
sold for twenty-five dollars a ton. Father said he could never pay that for a
ton of hay and it was not worth more than twelve dollars a ton to anyone. So he
sold his for that price which caused a lot of criticism from those who sold for
higher prices.
Generally he had very good health, but just after arriving
in this country he got smallpox from which his life was despaired of. My aunt,
who helped to nurse, told me for six weeks they had to loosen the sheets from
his body. His body was almost covered with pox marks, but his face was hardly
marked at all.
He was very charitable to others and would never let us
criticize as he always said we did not know other people and until we were very
sure we had better not repeat or say anything. He was a most loving father, but
he expected strict obedience from his children, and we respected him for it.
Besides his farming, he used to log and freight to Park City.
Many times I have helped to pull his boots, so frozen he could not get them off
himself. His feet were really frozen several times, but still he would get
better, then go again. He was a good provider for his
family. He never went in debt. He only signed one note in his life and that was
for a Singer Sewing Machine for my mother.
In November 1905 he went for the mail on a horse that ran
away with him. It was a cold day and a bitter wind. From that trip he took very
ill and died three weeks after, December 11, 1905. He is buried in the Marion Cemetery,
Marion, Utah.
Notes (added by Sally Hursh):
* Morgan Lewis and family left Liverpool, England February 18, 1856 on the
ship Caravan with four hundred and fifty-seven people under Captain Daniel
Tyler. They landed at New York .
* * The third handcart company of 1856, the “Welsh Company”,
left from Iowa City, Iowa. (This was the handcart company that
Daniel Lewis would have traveled with had he not gone to Scranton, Pennsylvania
with his brothers, Morgan and John
M. Lewis.) Three hundred and twenty persons and sixty-four
handcarts made the trip from Florence,
Nebraska, in sixty-five days.
They tried to average twenty miles per day. There were eighteen cows along,
which provided milk, and enough beef cattle to kill one a week for food. They
had a pound of flour per person plus a little coffee, sugar and rice. They
killed three buffaloes. They ran out of flour at some point and it was two days
before they were re-supplied from Salt
Lake City. (Of the 707 passengers on the ship Samuel Curling only 320 left for the Salt Lake
Valley with this company
of handcarts. The distance between Iowa City, Iowa and Florence,
Nebraska is approximately 250
miles.)
Captain of the company, Edward Bunker, age thirty-four at
the time, wrote the following:
“I was given charge of a Welsh company and left Iowa City June 28, 1856.
We procured our provisions and teams to haul our supplies at Council Bluffs. After leaving Iowa City, we encountered
some heavy rain and windstorms which blew down our tents and washed away our
handcarts. I got a heavy drenching which brought on a spell of rheumatism that
confined me to my bed a portion of the journey. I had for my councilors
Brothers Grant, a Scotchman and tailor by trade, and MacDonald, a cabinetmaker,
neither of whom had much experience in handling teams. Both were returned missionaries.
The Welsh people had no experience and very few of them could speak English. This
made my burden very heavy. I had the mule team to drive and had to instruct the
teamsters about yoking the oxen. The journey from the Missouri River to Salt Lake City was
accomplished in sixty-five days. We were short of provisions all the way and
would have suffered for food had not supplies reached us from the valley.
However, we arrived safely in Salt
Lake City October 2, 1856. Other companies that
started in the latter part of the season were caught in the snow storms and
suffered severely from cold and hunger and many of them perished. When I arrived
home my health was very poor, having suffered a great deal while in England
from the cold damp climate.” (Autobiography of Edward Bunker, copyright 1997 by Edward Bunker
Family Association).
* * * Daniel Lewis and Mary Davis were married in Illinois. Their marriage
license was obtained May 10, 1860 at Rock
Island, Illinois,
Book A, p. 170. In the 1860 Census of Rock Island County, Illinois, Mary was
listed as wife of Daniel Lewis, coal miner, and they had been married within
the year.
* * * * Margaret Hansen remembers her grandmother, Mary
Elizabeth (Lewis) Sorensen, telling her that Daniel Lewis had a trunk in which
he kept all his missionary things. He kept some gold or silver coins in it
which he brought back from England.
He gave them to Mary Elizabeth to use for her missionaries, as he thought her
family would probably be the ones who would go on missions. Also, as a young
man, George Albert Smith used to come to the Daniel Lewis home and he and
Daniel would debate about religion.
