JOHN LODWICK EDWARDS
Biographical Sketch
Willard, Utah
– October, 1917
I feel impressed to write a brief history of my life, giving
some incidents in which I personally figured as well as incidents in the lives
of the members of my family, and to include in the sketch some of my writings
to various newspapers which are accounts of trips made by me and which also
contain many of my personal experiences. This I will attempt to do and have the
record printed in pamphlet form for the future use and reference of myself and
family.
I was born at Farm Cwmnant, Parish
of Llanwenog, Cardiganshire, South Wales, July 2nd, 1838 at 1:00 o’clock a.m. My parents
were John Edwards and Ann Jones, and my grandparents on my father’s side were
John Edwards and Jane Lodwick, both from the Ayron
Valley, while my mother
came from Carmarthenshire and was the youngest in a family of fourteen. There
were only two children of our family that lived, myself and sister
Mary. My mother was an invalid, caused from being thrown from a horse when she
was a young girl, so that she was never a strong woman.
My sister and myself were religiously inclined, but my
father was more of a sporting nature, for he liked his drink and to have a good
time. My mother was a strong Presbyterian, and we lived about two miles from
the meeting house where my mother would go regularly on horseback to attend
divine service. I went along with her generally, and the biggest meeting of the
month was sacrament meeting which we never missed. From this early training I
learned to keep the Sabbath Day holy and spend the time in going to church to
worship my Maker.
Our farm was a large one and my father usually hired to men
for the entire year to help do the work. They would sit around in the evenings
and spin yarns about Jack Abertagan who lived near
the meeting house on his farm. One story was that Jack took the new preacher
home to dinner one day and invited him to come out to the stable and see his
fine horses, of which he was very proud. While Jack was a pointing out the
beauties of the animals the preacher started to tell him about the life of
Jesus and what he had done for us all, etc., and Jack agreed that he was a
“fine fellow, ,all right, but I’ll bet he did not have as fine a span of horses
as these.” Such funny stories as these interested me and sometimes the hired
men would discuss religion. One of them was a very staunch Baptist and, and he
always insisted that it was essential for a man to be baptized as Jesus was in
order to be accepted of the Lord.
As I grew in years I felt that I would like to join some
religious denomination, but I wanted to join the right one, and just about that
time Capt. Dan Jones, a Mormon missionary sent out from Nauvoo to preach the
gospel to the people in his native land, came to our locality and bore
testimony that the Gospel of Jesus Christ was again established upon the earth
as it anciently. I read the scriptures as he expounded them and found that his
testimony corresponded with the teachings of the Savior, so I became converted
along with my sister. We used to walk three miles to attend meeting at the Llanybyther branch where we mingled with the Saints and
rejoiced in our new found faith. Father came into the church a short time after
but my mother never joined. When the spirit of gathering to Zion came upon us,
mother said she would follow her children wherever they would go and so we
arranged to sell the farm which was heavily mortgaged because father had gone
security for so many of his friends. The result was we had a hard time to get
sufficient money to meet our obligations. And it took a great deal of money
too, so that when we got ready to start for America
we had only just enough to pay our emigration to Utah. I went on a trip through South Wales that winter to make a little money, and to
see the country before leaving it.
We started for America in the latter part of March, 1855,
journeying to Liverpool by train, and there we went on board the ship Chimborazo and set sail across the
mighty ocean. When we arrived at the mouth of the Delaware river,
a little tug named Jumbo towed us up the river to Philadelphia, where we landed safe after a
journey of six weeks.
The account of our journey across the plains is contained in
some of my newspaper article, so I will not mention it here except to state
that I was called upon to drive three yoke of cattle from Mormon Grove, six
miles out from Atchison, Kansas,
to Salt Lake City.
My mother died at Atchison,
and we buried her on the plains. I had in my wagon my father and sister Mary, Jeremiah Price and his large family, also a
young girl by the name of Rachel Bowen, who was Mary’s friend. We arrived in Salt Lake City in the
latter part of October, 1855, and during that winter my sister Mary became the
plural wife of Bishop Charles Hubbard of Willard.
I went to work at anything I could get until the move south,
an account of which is given in another of my articles to the newspaper which
appears on another page of this record. In 1861 I was called to go back to the Missouri River with four yoke of cattle to each wagon, to
help the emigrants across the plains. In 1863 I made another trip, each of
which required six months’ time.
On the 21st of November, 1863, I was married to Gwennie Davis in the Endowment House at Salt Lake City. My
wife’s parents were Titus Davis and Mary Bowen. She and I were born within a
mile of each other, and she was the girl I loved from my youth up. We were
blessed with eight children, all of whom were born at Willard, Uttah.
I became identified with the Co-Op or United Order, turning
in two yoke of cattle and a wagon and twenty head of range cattle at one time.
I was later appointed by President Lorenzo Snow to take charge of the Church
dry stock. In 1887 I was ordained acting bishop of Willard to serve while Bishop
George Facer was on the “underground”. I have served two terms as May of
Willard, the last time being elected by a unanimous vote.
