By Isabell John Griffiths 2nd child
William John was the oldest son of Thomas John and Margaret Thomas. He was born 7 Nov. 1841 in Killyladen, Pembrokeshire, South Wales. His younger years and up until he was twenty were spent in Wales.
All children at the age of seven were required to learn a trade of some kind. William was an apprentice, one bound to serve a certain number of years to learn some trade, but I do not know what trade he learned. When he was a little older he learned the shoe-maker trade. His father was a first class shoe maker and had so much business that it was necessary for the boys to help him. Williams and Charles went with him as he traveled from house to house making shoes for entire families and also for the servants in the household.
The girls were required to work and they worked in different factories. In March 1861 along with the father and mother and seven other children, left England for America, and the Gospel. An older sister, Phebe, stayed in England. She was married to James Cusworth. They lost track of her soon after they came to America.
The family spent 33 days on the ship coming to America. They spent 14 months in the vicinity of New Yor, Williamsburg, across the Hudson river. The Civil War was going on so they found work making boots, belts, and other military equipment as they were shoe makers.
In 1862 they began their journey on the train to Florence, Nebraska, and from there to Utah in wagon trains that were there from Salt Lake City, Utah to meet them. They came to Utah in the Henry Miller Company.
They arrived in Salt Lake City Oct. 17, 1862. They left that afternoon for Wellsville and arrived in Wellsville 22 Oct. 1862.
While they were in Wellsville, William married Sarah Ann Ashton in the Salt Lake Endowment house, 11 Nov. 1865. Their first child Margaret Ann was born in Wellsville. In 1867 they, with several families, moved over to the Malad Valley, to Hay Town (later called Portage.)
All of the recent immigrants were required to be re-baptized. So on the 26th of Nov. 1862 they all made their way to the Cub River and were re-baptized. They had no clothing to change into since their clothing had all been burned in a fire on the train from New York to Florence. So they walked home, a mile in the cold weather but none of them caught cold from it.
They moved to the Malad Valley with several other families and lived at Hay Town. That first summer they put up a lot of hay. They put it up in the United Order system. Some mowed, some bunched, and some hauled it in. They received hay in accordance to their labors. They stacked it in the old Fort style as a protection against the hostile Indians.
They moved to the West side for irrigation purposes. Their father and the boys took up homesteads. A strip of land extending from the mountains on the West side to the Malad River on the East. They all lived side by side on this land about 1 ½ miles long, on the North edge of Portage. It was called Johnstown. And is still known as that. Most of it is still owned by the John people.
On the 12 Feb. 1888 William John was made a High councilman. One of the first after Portage was made a town. These people helped to build the town of Portage. William was a Ward Teacher for several years. He was a man that could be depended on in anything he undertook to do in church, Civic or worldly affairs.
He helped to get the water in North and Middle Canyon for irrigation of the land. He also helped get the water into a ditch or canal from Samaria. It was so boggy that they gathered all the sacks they could, filled them with dirt and carried some of them on their backs to throw down so the oxen could keep from miring down, and also from getting down while trying to get through with the plows and scrapers.
He was the first to have a team of horses in Portage. People came from Malad and other places to see this grey team.
This family was thought a lot of and were an industrious and prosperous people. He married Jeanette Sinclair Heaten for time, 4 Oct 1879.
He married Mary Maria Landon 8 May 1884 in the Salt Lake Endowment House. William John and Mary Landon lived in Johnstown until they had 3 or 4 children and then he left for Arizona with Mary and moved Sarah Ann out by the Idaho line. (This was later owned by Scott Hall). His second wife Jeanette died in childbirth.
They also took with them one of Sarah Ann’s boys, Robert, age 15. As time went on all of his sons, with the exception of two, went to Arizona. They were all farmers and most of them had large families.
William died in Thatcher, Arizona 27 Dec, 1961. He had a sore on his foot, thought to be caused by a tack in his shoe. It wouldn’t heal. Infection set in. The doctors said it was cancer.