Thomas, Edward Phillip - Biography

Edward Phillip Thomas

By Edward Phillip Thomas

Being asked for the history of my life by my son Edelbert P. Thomas, I will attempt to recall as much as I can.

I, Edward Thomas, was born on the 22 of June, 1843 in a little village called Marcross in the county of Glamorganshire, South Wales, Great Britain. My father’s name was William Jones Thomas. He was the eldest one of my grandfather’s family. My mother’s name was Margaret Phillips. Father and mother had eight children. One daughter died at birth and was buried at Swansea, Wales. The rest of us grew up to man and womanhood. We had a little education in Wales.

Father was born at the Mascadlaur Farm, Glamorganshire, Wales. He died Oct. 26, 1866 at Salt Lake City from cancer of the stomach.

Mother was born at Monk Nash, Glamorganshire, Wales, Feb. 28, 1813. She died June 9, 1889.

Their children are as follows:

            Ann Thomas their oldest child was born January 16, 1842. She died at birth and was buried in Wales.

            Edward Phillip Thomas born June 22, 1843 at Glamorganshire, Wales.

William Jones Thomas was born November 28, 1846 at Eagles Bush, Glamorganshire, Wales. Died at Spanish Fork July 4.

Margaret Thomas born March 16, 1849 at Swansea, Wales. Died August 13, 1879 at Spanish Fork.

            Elizabeth Thomas was born Dec. 10, 1851, at Swansea, Wales.

            Llewelyn Thomas was born Dec. 23, 1852, at Swansea, Wales.

John Smith Thomas was born May 8, 1854, at Swansea, Wales. He died Oct. 13, 1905, at Spanish Fork.

My father joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in 1855 or 1856. I was baptized in 1856. We left Wales in 1857. We came as far as St. Louis. In July, my father went to work in the coal mines near there, and I went to work with him.

We worked there until the next May, when we went on a steamboat up the Missouri River to Florence, where we stopped for a short time. From there we started west, but we did not have teams enough to travel. Father rented a farm in Nebraska, and we tried farming, but soon we all took the Fever or Ague. There was not one able to wait upon another.

My father was very sick for thirteen months, and we got very poor. We had no cows, we simply had nothing. In November of either the first or second winter we were there, one day a great flock of wild chickens flying south was like a cloud in the sky. They flew against the trees and the house, stunning them, so we were able to kill them with sticks. We killed large numbers of them, and hung them in the trees and on the sides of the house. This was a Godsend to us, and saved us from suffering with hunger.

In April, of the following year, we were again greatly blessed. A strange man rode into the yard and spoke to mother in Welsh, saying: "How do you do?" He recognized mother as being Welsh by her dress. She answered him in Welsh. He then said, “I presume by the looks of your place that you folks are very poor.” He then said that he had been obliged to leave a good cow with a young calf some distance back on the road, and that if father would go back and get her and the calf that he may have them.

Father was still very weak from his illness, but was very glad for this chance. He took a rope and a cup, and went back to find the cow. When he reached the Missouri River, many cattle were being ferried across. Father had not seen anything of the cow and her calf yet, and he wondered how he would ever find her now, with all these other cattle around. Something seemed to tell father to ask the captain of the ferry boat, which he did. The captain said, “Yes, I saw them about an hour ago.”

While father was resting and trying to decide which way to go look for them, the captain shouted, “There’s your heifer now.” It seemed like an act of providence that she would come right to where he was. Father drank freely of the milk all the way home, which acted as a great bodybuilder to him. After getting the cow home, our living was greatly improved by having all that good nourishing milk.

We children worked for the farmers around there to help out while father was ill. When he got well, he took up 160 acres of ground. We built a house with no windows and a very poor door. The roof was covered with long grass laid on willows then dirt spread over. In three years we gained a great deal. We now had three yoke of oxen, a yoke of cows, and an old wagon. We again started for Utah.

On our way across the plains, a man by the name of Davis, who was traveling with us, had considerable trouble getting his ox team to go. One day they balked and father left his ox team in charge of Lew, who had been begging father for days to let him drive. He gave him instructions not to move until he returned. Instead Lew started the team, and he seemed to cast a spell over them, because they performed better than they ever had before. Instead of scolding Lew for disobeying his orders, father said, “Llewelyn, brother Davis has need for you.” From then on, Lew was in demand as a teamster. I came near browning in the Platte River that summer. Later on, we met a portion of Johnson’s army coming back from Utah. We met them on the Sweetwater in Wyoming. They took their bayonets to our cattle, and drove them into the tall sagebrush. At Devil’s Gate one yoke of our cattle got so tenderfooted we could hardly get them to move.

We arrived in Salt Lake City, October, 1861, and settled in the Eleventh Ward. That winter I lived with my uncle Samuel David on the Weber River below Ogden City. In the spring of 1862, I came back to Salt Lake and went to work bringing wood and lumber from the canyons, and any other work I could get. Later, on the same year, I went back to Missouri to meet the emigrants, and we were eight weeks coming back. John Woolley was our Captain and Joseph F. Smith was chaplain. I made three trips back to the Missouri River for emigrants while we were living in Salt Lake City. Former president Joseph F. Smith was captain of one of the companies.

After arriving in Utah, father received some money from his father’s estate, under the terms of a will dated January 24, 1863, and executed on November, 28, 1863. He willed each of his children (five of them) two hundred pounds (about one thousand dollars). When father received this money he went to Brigham Young and asked him what to do with it. He was advised to buy a threshing machine with it, which he did. He went back (1864) to Omaha and bought it and trailed it back to Utah by mule teams to Spanish Fork. This was the first threshing machine south of Salt Lake County.

I went by team and wagon to meet father. Soon after leaving Salt Lake, two men overtook me. They stopped me and climbed in the wagon and made themselves right at home. They rode along with me at ate my food until I thought we would be with out anything to eat. One of them took my rifle and shot some rabbits and the other one stole some vegetables along the road, which helped some. These men rode with me to Fort Bridger Wyoming. Here they got out and went into the Fort. This was early in the evening. I fed my horses, then hitched them back up and drove on without them.

When I reached the place where I was to meet father, the sun was just coming up, and I could see an object in the distance up on the ridge moving toward me. I could not make it out at first but as it came nearer, I recognized father’s walk. I ran to meet him. When we first met, neither one of us could speak. We walked some distance, then father said to me, “My boy, how is your mother and the folks?” I still couldn’t speak. It seemed like I just had to cry a little before I could answer him.

In the winter of 1864, we moved to Spanish Fork. The saints were colonizing both north and south of Salt Lake. Father was called to captain a number of Welsh families and settle in Malad, Idaho. We were all ready to go, when father was called into the church offices and asked if he would not go to Spanish Fork with several Welsh families, which he did.

Their first home was a two room adobe house, built on the corner where Ed. Williams now lives (corner of first east and first north). Later father made the adobes for a three room house with a cellar, he built this home on main street, where families came into his home to help them get located. Some of them remained with him for months. He helped them to make the adobes and to build their homes. Among the families taken in, were John P. Jones and Howell Davis. Llewelyn drove an ox team to Salt Lake to get the Jones family. Mr. Jones was so crippled with rheumatism that he had to be lifted out of the wagon, and he remained in this condition for two or three months. They lived with us all this time. Marinta Jones was born while they were with us.

In the spring of 1866, on the first day of May, I volunteered to go to Sanpete county to help the settlers against the Indians, in what is known as the Blackhawk War. We were gone about 80 days. After I got back, I went on express and my revolver kept striking against the back of the saddle until it went off. The ball passed through my right leg below the knee, making a seven inch wound. During this summer, my father got very sick with cancer of the stomach, and on the 26 of October 1866, he died in Salt Lake City, and was buried there. Twenty-six years later, my brother William and I moved father’s body from Salt Lake to Spanish Fork and buried his remains along side of mother, as he had requested us to do.

On the 20^th of December, 1866, I was married to Ann Badley. She was the oldest daughter of George and Eliza Badley of the Tenth Ward of Salt Lake City. We lived in Salt Lake during 1867. I hauled lumber from Cottonwood Canyon for the Tabernacle. In 1868, we moved to Spanish Fork.

The following children were born to us:

William George, born September 1867. Died on June 30, 1870.

Edward Badley born January 14, 1869. Died on July 10, 1870.

Llewelyn Park born August 3, 1871.

Annie Elizabeth born February 5, 1874.

John Arthur born October 21, 1875.

My wife Ann died in January 1878 and was buried in the Spanish Fork cemetery.

I was married to Almira Wilson Stoker March 13, 1879 in the endowment house in Salt Lake City.

The following children were born to us:

Phillip Sargent born January 20, 1880. Died November 4, 1882.

Melissa, our second child, was born June 23, 1882, and died September 22, 1882.

Edelbert Pascoe born October 10, 1883.

Margaret Estelle born August 26, 1886.

LeRoy Wilson Thomas born February 6, 1889.

Nathan Francis Thomas born July 21, 1891. Died March 16, 1892.

While he was fighting at gravely ford in Sanpete county in the Blackhawk War, a man from Springville was wounded and Edward was chosen to take him home. Soon after his return home Alma Dimick was killed by the Indians at Little Diamond in Spanish Fork Canyon. Edward volunteered to relay the sad news to Emphraim Dimick, who was down at Sanpete. It was on his return trip that his revolver went off making the seven inch wound in his leg.

He homesteaded a tract of land in Palmyra, moving there in the early seventies. His family was among the first to settle in that area.

He served as superintendent and manager of the Young Men’s Co-Op from 1881 to 1886. They then moved back to Palmyra to continue farming. Two years later, he was again called to manage the Co-Op and post office which was in the same building. After one year he went back to the farm. They lived in Palmyra for 24 years. Both of them were active in the church and community. They lived in a log house first, and then in a two story adobe house.

In 1913, he retired and bought the Wiley Thomas home on 1^st East and 1^st South in Spanish Fork. He and Almira were active in the Blackhawk organization. This was a social gathering for Veterans of the Blackhawk War. Every summer they pitched tents and camped out for several days with their families, holding programs and enjoying a fine time together.

Edward was an excellent penman and often had compliments on his handwriting.

He died in Spanish Fork December 13, 1922, at the age of 79.