Thomas HOWARD ³¹⁸

  General Notes:

History of Utah
by Orson F Whitney
Publisher: Salt Lake City, G.Q. Cannon, 1892-1904.

Page 526
THOMAS HOWARD.

THOMAS HOWARD, the veteran paper maker, was born March 4, 1815. in Wrexham, Denbighshire, North Wales, which place his parents, Thomas and Sarah Mackell Howard, quitted when he was only nine weeks old. They settled in Hampton Gay, Oxfordshire, England. whither they trudged on foot, with their infant in arms. The father was engaged to take charge of a paper mill, and the son followed the sire's vocation from childhood. The elder Howard was a deacon of the Established Church. There being no school in the village, the boy received practically no education, though he learned to read and write at home. At Hampton Gay he spent his first fourteen years, after which the family moved to Wooburn, in Buckinghamshire, where the father joined the Wesleyan Methodist Church. While yet a young man Thomas became a Latter-day Saint. His conversion to the Mormon faith caused him to be turned out of employment, and he was counseled by the Elders to emigrate to Utah, which he did in the year 1851.

Mr. Howard was first married in 1838, to Martha Savage, who died in January, 1844. He then married Sarah Langley, who came with him to America. In addition to his own family, numbering seven, he brought with him as far as St. Louis another family of eight persons, the recipients of his benevolence. They sailed from Liverpool on the 4th of March. Nine days out the Howards lost their youngest child, an infant who was buried in the sea. From New Orleans the party proceeded up the great rivers to Council Bluffs, where Mr. Howard purchased a wagon and cattle, and in a company commanded by Alfred Cordon crossed the plains. High water necessitated a circuitous route, and the long and wearisome journey ended at Salt Lake City on the 1st of October.

The Howards lived in the Tenth Ward for about eight months and then moved to Red Butte Canyon, to conduct a toll gate. Since that time they have resided successively in the Eleventh Ward, in Mill Creek and Sugar House Wards, and since 1878 in Salt Lake City. In 1854, by aid and permission of President Brigham Young, Mr. Howard, with a partner, Thomas Hollis, engaged in his early pursuit of paper making, occupying a small mill on the Temple block. He was among those who volunteered. at the call of President Young, in 1857, to settle the Snake River country, but after a short stay in that region was counseled to return. Ordained a Seventy in 1852, he was placed in the twenty-third quorum. In January, 1891, he became a High Priest. His wife Sarah died in 1885, and the next year he married his present wife, Sarah A. Shires. He is the father of nine children.

  Noted events in his life were:

1. Alt. Birth: England. ³¹⁸

2. Residence, Abt 1824, Hampton Gay, Oxfordshire, England. ³³⁶

3. Residence, 1829 or 1838, Wooburn, Buckinghamshire, England, Great Britain. ³³⁶

Thomas married Martha SAVAGE in 1838.³³⁶ (Martha SAVAGE was born in England ³¹⁸ and died in Jan 1844 ³³⁶.)

Thomas next married Sarah LANGLEY. (Sarah LANGLEY was born on 12 Sep 1820 in Flackwell Heath, Buckinghamshire, England,^338,339 died on 30 Jan 1885 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah, USA ^336,338,339 and was buried on 8 Feb 1885 in Salt Lake City Cemetery, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah ^338,339.)

Thomas next married Sarah A. SHIRES about 1886.³³⁶