John Price History

John Price History

John Price was born to William and Sarah Anne Price in Blaina, Monmouthshire, Wales, on April 12, 1820. Monmouthshire is east of Merthyr Tydfil near the Wales/England border. When John was a young boy, he and a friend heard that Mormon missionaries were baptizing people in a nearby river. They decided to go down and throw stones at them. The missionaries were conducting the meeting on the riverbank, singing a hymn, and having prayer. After the boys listened to the people sing and pray, their spirits changed; they could not throw their stones.

On May 14, 1842, John married Margaret James at Llanelly Church; Llanelly is a parish in Breconshire, a county which borders on Monmouthshire. One day John came home from his work in the mines to his wife Margaret. She told him that young men had visited her that day, speaking of a new religion. They returned many times to teach both John and Margaret about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. On March 28, 1843, Margaret gave birth to their son Edward.

John joined the Church on April 7, 1844. William Evans baptized him, and Elder William Davies, president of the Rhymney Branch of the Merthyr Conference, confirmed him a member of the Church. John was ordained a priest at the house of Elder W. Henshaw on Dec. 30, 1845, under the hands of Elders Abel Evans and William Evans. Afterward he went about the branches preaching the gospel as directed by the council at Merthyr, while still following his work as a miner.

Margaret read the Book of Mormon and decided to be baptized soon after John was ordained a priest. Of that occasion John wrote: "My beloved wife was baptized by Elder William Evans, to the great annoyance of her parents, who were rank Westlayan Methodists, but she continued faithful in the kingdom of God till on April 14, 1846, she died rejoicing in the blessings of the gospel, leaving a son under my care as the fruit of our short but happy union."

Margaret died at Beaufort Ironworks, Breconshire, Wales, and was buried at Blaina church yard beside her grandmother Mary Davies in Monmouthshire. Margaret's parents took little Edward into their home in Blaina.

After Margaret died, John served as a missionary. Of this experience he wrote in his journal: "I was counselled by Capt. Dan Jones, then president of the Church in Wales, to go on a mission to Pembrokeshire, which I instantly obeyed, leaving my child in the care of my mother-in-law." (Pembrokeshire is at the southwest tip of Wales.)

In his missionary journal John wrote of an experience in Little New Castle: "One time a mob beset the house while I was preaching, threw stones at the doors and windows. Once they threw a horse's legbone down the chimney, filling the house with smoke, dust, and soot, and so proud were they of their sport that they published in the news. After trying to save them till I was wearied, I left them to their fate and went in search of a people who would hear and obey the gospel. I went then to Letterstone, a village about two or three miles from Newcastle, where I was permitted by the trustees of the Westleyan Chapel to preach to a large and civil congregation. After meeting I was invited to a public house called The Harp, where I was kindly treated by the landlord and family, who gave me food and lodgings free of expense. One Thomas Evans, a Baptist, declared after meeting that he had never heard the gospel in purity before; he has since been baptized. When I returned to preach again, I was refused liberty in the chapel because I talked too much about water. However, I was permitted to preach in a blacksmith's shop, which I did to a large congregation, having the hearth for a pulpit. After preaching several times I could get none to obey though many confessed that they believed the principles to be true. I left Rhymney and went to work at Cwmbraen, where I commenced preaching and was soon called to preside over a small branch of the Church at the Rase containing 13 members. I commenced preaching and baptizing; the Lord wrought with me, for in two days less than 12 months I baptized 31."

John moved to Monkton, and after five years he met 19-year-old Margaret Edwards and performed her baptism at Rhymney. They were married in June of 1851 and lived in an apartment above Mrs. Sinette's grocery store. Nine months later their son John William was born there.

In a blessing John received the promise that he would come to the "land of the mountains." The Prices began saving their money to go to America. A little more than a year after their son Joseph was born in January of 1855, they sailed from Liverpool to America on April 19, 1856, on the ship Samuel Curling. Margaret's ticket was #44 and it cost five pounds. Children's tickets were four pounds, ten pence. John was 35 years old, Margaret 23, John William three, and Joseph 11 months. They joined 567 adults, 109 children under 12 years of age, and 27 infants under one year. The president of their group was Dan Jones with John Oakley and David Grant as his counselors. David Davis and Joseph Sawyer were cooks, and Edward Middleton was the steward.

On the voyage Margaret found a friend in Susanna Thain, a single sister only a year younger than she. Susanna helped with the children. Baby Joseph became ill from measles or some kind of skin eruption during the voyage and died. They wrapped him in a feather bed and tried to keep him until they reached the shore, but just as they neared land, the waves turned and drove them back. Thus they wrapped his body up and lowered it into the sea not far from Boston. Margaret was very weak, and the death of her son grieved her deeply.

On the very next day, May 23, 1856, the ship of Welsh members landed in Boston after 44 days at sea. They then boarded a train for Iowa City, Iowa. The train fare was $12.50 for the family of three. Margaret was expecting again so John opted to buy a wagon rather than the cheaper handcart mode of travel. Susanna Thain, on the other hand, left with the third handcart company, the Welsh Company consisting of 320 people and 64 handcarts led by Capt. Edward Bunker. John and Margaret followed with the Hunt Wagon Train. Each morning John milked their cow, and after they had their breakfast, the remainder of the milk he poured into a pail with a lid and hung it between the oxen. By the end of the day it had churned into a bit of cheese or butter. By the last part of October it had begun to snow. With the handcart saints walking alongside them for 1,300 miles, the Price family was also caught in the fierce storms and had only bread to eat. John put the bread under his arm to keep it from freezing and then gave it to Margaret, who was sick. She took a bite, and then he put it back under his arm. Southwest of what is now Casper, Wyoming, they finally made the last crossing of the Platte River by ferry. There the next baby came two months early, a little girl. They named her Elizabeth Edwards Price after Margaret's father Jenkin Edwards and her mother Elizabeth Clayton. She only lived for two days, dying on Nov. 1.

On Nov. 16 at Rocky Ridge the Martin Handcart Company finally saw 10 wagons of supplies coming to help from Salt Lake Valley. Two days later other teams with food and clothing reached them. Although it was snowing on the 19th, the emigrants, now securely tucked under wagon covers, crossed South Pass. The Hunt Wagon Train followed them to Bear River (Evanston, Wyoming). They camped on the Weber and then crossed Big Mountain. Here Joseph A. Young, his brother Brigham, Jr., and other young men were keeping the mountain roads open by packing the snow with moving animals. The emigrant wagons that now numbered 104 descended into Salt Lake Valley.

When finally the surviving three members of the Price family arrived in Salt Lake, they had traveled 2,431 miles from Boston. Their friend Susanna Thain met them when their wagon train reached Salt Lake, and Margaret and she renewed their friendship. Walking through the snow and cold had crippled Susanna for the rest of her life. Understanding the principle of polygamy, John, Margaret, and Susanna went to President Brigham Young's office on Nov. 15, 1857, where John and Susanna were married and John had all three of his wives sealed to him.

Two years later the family moved to Ogden. They lived in a willow house that was plastered with red mud. There Jenkin Edwards Price was born in October of 1858. Then Margaret (named after her mother) was born during the winter of 1860. Just after she was born, part of the willow house blew down so John carried Margaret and the new baby to a neighbor's house that wasn't much better. In Ogden John Price worked for Farr's. He didn't have much money, and many times he sat on the riverbank and dipped bread into the water to soften it enough to eat. After Margaret grew stronger, she went around doing washing. For pay she received buttermilk with a little bit of butter in it. One time when she was sick, she wanted some tea. John brought back two ounces, and she measured it into a spoon and added a few drops of water to drink it as a tonic.

John gathered his family and moved northward to Willard, Box Elder County. Tragedy struck once again when in March of 1863 five-year-old Jenkin Edwards died. But Thomas Edwin was born at the end of that year. On Feb. 1, 1866, John's wife Margaret, who had given him seven children, died giving birth to the eighth -- Catherine. Susanna wrapped a large chicken quill in a piece of white muslin and put this over a bottle for the motherless baby to suck. After each feeding she then unwound the fabric, washed it, boiled it, and dried it for the next feeding. Susanna was now the mother of the family. Crippled though she was, she went on to give birth to five children of her own. John later married and was sealed to Jane Lallis and to Margaret Eynon on Dec. 15, 1866.

In 1868 John moved with these three remaining wives to the Welsh settlement of Malad, Idaho. That summer the valley had produced wheat, oats, barley, potatoes, peas, squash, sugar cane, corn, and cucumbers, but the farmers had battled huge, black crickets. There was a grist mill, a sawmill, a day school, a martial band, and about 60 families. Daniel Daniels was the bishop. From 1871 to 1877 John was first counselor to Bishop Daniels of the Malad Branch. On May 27-28, 1874, Elders Erastus Snow and Lorenzo Snow presented the constitution of the United Order, and the people of Malad adopted it by unanimous vote. Bishop Daniels was president with John Price and John Williams as vice presidents and David R. Jones as secretary. The Malad choir also sang at the meetings. By 1877 the people amalgamated the cooperative interests and organized a company under the laws of Idaho with capital stock of $50,000 in $25-shares. The mercantile and milling interests now ran together, citizens were building a new wagon and blacksmith shop, and a dairy ran a little north of the city on the road to Weston, where the company had 200 acres of land. Bishop Daniels also took to Salt Lake that year a Malad subscription list for building the temple that added up to $4,000.

John's first home in Malad was on the corner of 100 North Main, and his property ran south across Bannock Street, joining the property of the Peck family. He then bought land on the northeast corner of 500 North 300 West. On June 30, 1879, he bought 160 acres of additional land. His proof of this purchase was Certificate #286 signed by President Rutherford B. Hayes. John built a small house on this land in the Deep Creek area. His wives planted flowers and a lilac bush. They spent the summers there farming the land and lived in town in the winter. When John died at age 63 on Feb. 13, 1883, of asthma, his five wives had given him 16 children, nine of them still living. He is buried in the Malad Cemetery.

Sources:

Archives, Salt Lake City, Utah, B.T.s of Monmouthshire, F Glam LI part 7-11, part 6-82, Alerystruth, Monmouthshire, Ped. Ref. Ser. 0091-657.

John Price Diary in the possession of Betty Richards family.

Probate Record, Oneida County, Idaho.

Somerset House General Registrar's Office, London, England, Marriage and Death Entries, IIDA 116495, 116468, 116267, 116465, MA 180104 - 186231.

"The Life of My Parents" by Margaret Price Evans.

Vicarage, Newland and Coleford, England, census of Wales, 1841, records of birth, deaths, marriages, and burials.