The Rees and Edmunds Families of Wales, Utah Historical Essay by Jeffrey E. Crosby

Elder William Henshaw of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints organized the first branch in south Wales at Penydarren, a small village near Merthyr Tydfil in 1843. Henshaw spoke only English and membership growth was slow. This changed in the spring of 1845 when Captain Dan Jones, a native Welshman, assumed leadership of the proselyting in Wales. Establishing his headquarters at Merthyr Tydfil, Jones began publishing a newspaper and proselyting tracts it Welsh. Under Jones' leadership, membership in Wales grew rapidly. At the end of 1848 there were 4,645 members in Wales--most of them in the southern region around Merthyr Tydfil. By 1851, there were more than 1,190 active members in the Merthyr Tydfil District alone.

Named for St. Tydfil--a Christian princess slain in the fifth century--the settlement of Merthyr Tydfil dates to Roman times. The town became an early industrial center in the 1750s, with four ironworks in operation by the 1840s. Collieries were also important to the region's economy in Victorian Britain. Experiencing the explosive growth typical of industrial Britain during the early decades of the 1800s, thousands of families located at Merthyr Tydfil looking for employment in the mines and foundries. During the 1840s, as the Mormon missionaries arrived in Wales, Merthyr Tydfil experienced, as did much of Britain, a serious depression. This depression seems to have made many individuals more receptive to new philosophies and religious ideals.

Many of these people, while looking for economic betterment, embraced various nonconformist religious societies. By 1850 the Church of England was a minority Protestant faith in South Wales, as seven out of every ten Protestants belonged to a nonconformist congregation. According to one study, in the early 1850s Mormon membership briefly rivaled the Baptists as

one of the leading churches in the region. One historian, Ronald Dennis, described the Merthyr Tydfil of the 1840s as a "radical cultural cauldron". For just over a decade, LDS missionaries prospered in South Wales. The success that Dan Jones had on his first mission from 1845 to 1848, was sustained by others until he returned four years later. Elder Jones began his second mission in 1852. His return to Utah in 1856 marked an end to Mormon growth in South Wales. Sailing on the S. Curling, Jones supervised a company of 707 Saints emigrating to Zion. Sailing with Jones in 1856 were three three families that had joined the Church during the preceeding decade--Thomas Rees, Nathaniel Edmunds and Henry Jenkins. Thomas John and Margret Davis Rees

One young couple who joined the LDS Church in Merthyr Tydfil during the early 1840s was Thomas John Rees and his wife, Margret Davis. Thomas came from an Anglican background, but Margret had been raised in a nonconformist household. Thomas was a coal miner. The couple was married at Merthyr Tydfil in September 1836. Thomas was twenty. Margret was seventeen. At the time of their marriage, Margret was a schoolteacher. According to two of their grandchildren, Thomas was illiterate when they met, and Margret later taught him to read and write.

Margret's nonconformist background seems to have drawn her to the message of the LDS missionaries. Margret was one of the first LDS converts in south Wales, being baptized on 11 July 1843. Thomas was baptized eight months later, on 10 February 1844. At the time of Thomas' baptism, the couple had three children, two boys, Henry and Alfred, and a daughter named Ann. Henry was the oldest, being six years old. Margret gave birth to Sarah, their fourth child, in May 1844. Five additional children--Eleanora, Helena, Nephi, Maria, and Lenora--would be born into the family at Merthyr Tydfil between 1846 and 1856. The youngest boy, named Daniel, died as an infant in 1855.

Feeding his family on a miner's wages must have proved difficult for Thomas, especially in the depressed economy of the 1840s. One evidence of the family's poverty is the early age at which Henry, the oldest son, entered the colliery. Henry began working in the coal mines by the time he was nine. Another evidence of their poverty was the length of time the family remained in Merthyr Tydfil after joining the LDS Church. The concept of gathering with the Saints in America was a preeminent part of the message taught by the Mormon missionaries in nineteenth century Britain. The converts were encouraged to save their money in anticipation of emigration. Despite their dedication to the gospel, the Rees family remained in Merthyr Tydfil for more than twelve years before joining the company led by Captain Dan Jones in 1856.

The cost of emigration by handcart in the 1850s was approximately nine pounds per person. With the birth of each child, the cost of emigration increased for Thomas and Margret. While attempting to save funds for their anticipated emigration to Zion, the Rees family continued to be active and involved in local Church affairs. For example, in 1846, Thomas attached his name to a published letter that denounced the activities of an apostate in the Merthyr Tydfil area. Later Thomas served as President of the White Lion Branch. All of the Rees children were baptized as they reached their eighth year, beginning with Henry in June of 1845. Their third son was named Nephi, for the Book of Mormon prophet.

One incident, dating from 1848, demonstrates how deeply Thomas and Margret were committed to the Church. In a letter written to the Welsh Church periodical, Prophet of the Jubilee, Thomas described the miraculous healing of his son Henry, after a colliery accident.

Two months ago, my eleven-year-old boy was crushed between the trams in Cyfarthfa Colliery, so that the bones of his leg were broken in two places. He was carried to my house; and according to the rules of the works, the doctor hired by the works came there soon, and set the bones in place, and put splints around the leg. The doctor said the bones were broken in two places. Soon after the doctor left I administered to the boy . . . and he was eased of all pain at that time, and the boy testified that he was completely well, and earnestly begged to take off the splints and get up from his bed; but we refused him this, lest we be punished by the doctors, as we and several other Saints who had been divinely healed had been threatened. The third day the doctor visited him again, and after looking at the leg, with great surprise he testified that the bones had knitted already. Again the doctor admitted that the bones had been broken in two places, and that he had never seen such healing before . . . [Henry] begged every day to get up and go outside, assuring us that he was quite well. Then we allowed him to go around, provided he took a stick in his hand and took care not to let the doctor see him outside . . . On the eleventh day the doctor came and asked where the boy was. My wife answered that he was in the field playing with the boys . . . [The doctor] refused to take off the splints, nonetheless. The next day the boy went past the shop of the doctors on his way to Merthyr, and they looked at him through the window in astonishment, and as soon as they took the splints off his leg, the boy went back to work completely well, where he has been working since that time until the present.

Nathaniel and Jane Jones Edmunds

Nathaniel Edmunds joined the LDS Church in 1847 or 1848, around the age of twenty. A worker in a rolling mill, Nathaniel gave up his employment to assume a missionary assignment for eighteen months. In 1851, Nathaniel married a young woman who had recently joined the Church, Jane Jones. He was twenty-four and she was nineteen. Their first child, David, died as a one month old infant in the winter of 1852. Their second child, John Jones Edmunds, was born in May of 1855. As an infant, John sailed with his parents for America aboard the S. Curling in April of the following year.

Henry and Martha John Jenkins

Henry Jenkins was born on the west coast of Wales at St. David. His wife, Martha, was born on the coast south-east of Merthyr Tydfil at Newport. The couple was married in 1843 at St. David, when Henry was twenty-two and Martha was thirty-two. Henry was a puddler by profession, having learned his trade in Carveleth and Swansea. At the time of their wedding, Martha had a five-year-old daughter, Margaret. The couple had two young sons die as infants in 1844 and 1846. They moved from St. David to Merthyr Tydfil between the birth of these two sons, in 1845 or 1846.

Martha and Margaret were both baptized into the LDS Church on the same evening in April of 1851. Henry also joined the Church about this time, but the date of his baptism is unknown. Martha was legally disinherited by her father after she joined the LDS Church.

The Jenkins family attended the White Lion Branch of the Church in Merthyr Tydfil. Their Branch President was Thomas John Rees. There is some evidence that Henry had a special gift for healing the sick. Margaret attended a singing school where the members could learn the hymns. Family tradition states that Martha stored money in a sock to pay for their emigration to Zion. This must have been a modest amount, as the Jenkins' sailed on the S. Curling and crossed the plains by handcart.

Handcart Pioneers

The S. Curling sailed from Liverpool on 19 April 1856. A square-rigged vessel, the S. Curling was 207 feet from bow to stern and displaced 1468 tons. The vessel was owned by four men from Maine, including the captain, Sanders Curling. Built of oak with iron and copper fittings, the vessel carried three masts. This was the second time that Church agents had chartered the S. Curling for an emigration company. The S. Curling was the fifth vessel chartered by the Church agents for the 1856 emigration and carried 707 Latter-day Saints. Their leader was Dan Jones. According to Church records, 279 of the emigrants were passengers who had purchased their own fares. The remaining 428 Saints had their fares paid by the Perpetual Emigration Fund (P.E.F.). This fund was developed as a means of bringing the poor to Zion. Members in Utah contributed to the fund in order to help the needy families in Europe. The families who then traveled with P.E.F. money were expected to repay the fund after they settled in Utah and signed a bond to that effect. Most of the Saints traveling with P.E.F. money in 1856 were destined to become members of the handcart companies, including the Rees, Edmunds and Jenkins families.

According to Dan Jones, the voyage of the S. Curling was uneventful, although they experienced two weeks of rough weather. Two infants were born, and six infants died during the voyage. Writing to the Millennial Star, Jones described their shipboard organization and routine.

[We] continued to be quite a devotional people. At 5 a.m. each day the bugle called the men out to clean their wards, and then to retire on deck while the ladies were dressing for morning prayers, at a quarter to six o'clock. At dusk the bugle called all hands to prayer again, by wards, and it pleased me much to see, by the almost universal willingness to go below, that the call was duly appreciated, nor was the scene less interesting to see seven hundred Saints on their way to Zion, pent up in so small a space, all bow the knee . . .

Our evenings , after meetings until bedtime, were spent in singing the songs of Zion; after which the men retired on deck, while the females retired to a better place . . .

Two wards at a time have a half hour for cooking breakfast, three quarters for dinner, and half an hour for supper, reversing alternately, and the intervals between meals for baking, &c. this dispenses with the throng around the galley, and each knows his turn by seeing the number of his ward over the door . . .

Upon reaching Iowa City, the Welsh emigrants from the S. Curling were formed into a single handcart company. Because the carts were not completed when they arrived, the Welsh Saints helped construct their handcarts.

This Welsh company was the third handcart company to depart in 1856, and the last group to reach Utah safely before the arrival of winter. They left Iowa City on Saturday, 28 June 1856 under the direction of Edward Bunker. A native of New England, Bunker was a veteran of the Mormon Battalion, and had crossed the plains between Iowa and Utah three times prior to 1856.

Returning from a three year mission in Great Britain, Captain Bunker found the journey difficult because of the language barrier. He wrote that

The Welsh had no experience at all [handling mules or oxen] 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 65 days. We were short of provisions all the way and would have suffered for food had not supplies reached us from the valley.

Henry Davis Rees celebrated his nineteenth birthday four days prior to their departure from Iowa City. Because his seventeen year-old sister, Ann, was an invalid, she rode across the plains in the handcart while Henry and his father, Thomas, pushed. Margret and the six younger children walked. Ann died five years later at the age of twenty-two. All of Leila's handcart ancestors successfully reached Utah except for Henry Jenkins. He died on the trail in Wyoming on 23 August, leaving his widow and daughter to continue alone.

Settlement of Coalbed

After the arrival of the Bunker handcart company, the Welsh emigrants dispersed throughout the territory. Martha and Margaret Jenkins remained in Salt Lake, living with the George Hales family. Nathaniel Edmunds located his family at Spanish Fork. Thomas Rees settled his family at Ogden in 1856. In the spring of 1857, Thomas Rees left his pregnant wife living in a dugout in Ogden with seven children and traveled to California on a cattle drive with his son, Henry. Both men remained in California for a time searching for gold. Upon returning, they found Margret and the children had relocated to Spanish Fork. The family had abandoned their home in Ogden at the approach of Federal troops, moving south as directed by Brigham Young in 1858.

A number of Welsh families gathered in Spanish Fork at the time of the move south, including the widowed Martha Jenkins and her daughter, Margaret. Upon his arrival in Spanish Fork, Henry D. Rees, resumed his courtship of Margaret Jenkins.

As teenagers in Merthyr Tydfil, Henry and Margaret had been involved in a Church sponsored singing school. Henry would walk Margaret home at night. While crossing the plains, Henry would carry Margaret across the streams. The couple were married in Spanish Fork the following winter in the dugout home of Nathaniel Edmunds, on 29 March 1859. The groom sold his gun for thirty dollars in order to pay for a wedding dinner and dance. Henry was just short of his twenty-second birthday, and Margaret had recently turned twenty-one.

That same spring, the newlyweds were called to help settle a new town in Sanpete County, called Coalbed. The reason for this call was Henry's experience as a coal miner. Several other Welsh families in Spanish Fork also moved to Coalbed at that time, including Henry's parents and the family of Nathaniel Edmunds.

John E. Rees and John Price had learned from an old Indian that there was "rock that would burn" in the mountains on the west side of the Sanpete Valley. Rees and Price sought out this coal deposit, and began working the site in 1857. The two men discovered that the coal deposit they found was good for blacksmithing. Rees and Price then sought permission from Church leaders to establish a settlement on the site.

Under the leadership of Rees and Price, about fifteen families established the first community at Coalbed in the spring of 1859. The early settlement was situated close to the mountains, with all the homes built on a north-south line along a single street. Most of the homes were built on the west side of the street. Corrals were constructed on the east side of the street to secure livestock. Behind the homes to the west, the settlers erected a small fort for protection from the Indians. The town was evacuated for a time during the Sanpete Indian troubles of the 1860s. The families dismantled their log homes and moved to Moroni during the Indian troubles. Several of the men from Coalbed fought against the Indians, including Henry D. Rees and Nathaniel Edmunds. Nathaniel Edmunds was present when Chief San Pitch was captured. He was also wounded, being shot in the ear. After peace was established, most of the families returned to Coalbed in 1868, including the Rees and Edmunds families.