William Greenwood was the son of William Greenwood.
Born 4th March 1819.
He was an overlooker [1839].
On 24th January 1839, he married Ann Hartley [1821-1897] at St Peter's Church, Burnley, Lancashire.
Ann, of Hill Top, Burnley, was the daughter of Mary (née Beck) & Barnard Hartley.She became interested by the preaching of the Latter Days Saints but was afraid to let her family know.
William also became curious and attended meetings with her.
Ann was baptised in September 1840 and William in June 1841
They decided to move to the USA.
Children:
When they decided to go to America, Ann's parents told her that if she ever wanted to return to England, they would send her the money.
After arriving in America, Ann became homesick and wanted to return home, but William refused to write the letter so a friend wrote it for her.
However, when she returned home, William came with her, taking their daughter Martha with them.
Martha died in Burnley, England in 1844.
William was still unhappy and decided to return to America with, or without, Ann, and he left without her [1846/7], but she eventually followed him to Warsaw, Illinois [September 1849].
In May 1852, they made plans to trek across the plains to join other church members in Utah, arriving in Salt Lake in November 1852.
About 3 weeks after arriving in Salt Lake and although they were very tired after the long arduous trip, they were ordered by the church to go to Cedar City to settle. This meant another long arduous trek to a new wild region where many earlier settlers had already left Cedar City for California. On the way to Cedar City they arrived at Beaver Valley and decided to settle there.
They lifted the wagon off its wheels and this became their home. They lived off the milk from their one cow, berries, fruit and greens from the wild.
Later, they built a log cabin and then a stone-built 6 bedroom house.
Ann died in 1897.
After her death, William went to live with his daughter Mary Ann and her husband Charles Dennis White.
There was a rail service from Beaver Valley to Milford (about 30 minutes away) so, in October 1899, Mary Ann, Charles Dennis and William decided to make a trip to Salt Lake. On the return trip, William was in a different carriage to his daughter, and – for some reason – he decided to get off the train when it stopped for a few moments at Clearwater. It was a stormy night and the wind blew William's hat off, and whilst trying to recover it, the train left without him. He started walking along the tracks until he met a railroad worker who soon realised that William was lost. William asked the way and the man pointed along the tracks. Next morning, the worker heard that the old man was missing so he returned to the place where he had last seen him. He followed the trail to the Sevier river where he found William's body. It appeared that he had slipped from the bank, and had fallen into 2 feet of water where he drowned [13th October 1899].
William was buried in Mountain View Cemetery, Beaver, Beaver County, Utah
This & associated entries use material contributed by Jeffrey Knowles
Page Ref: Y2
|
||
| site search by freefind |