William Mathews (1808-1888)


 * Mississippi Saints 1846 Pioneer Company

Mississippi Saints 1846 Pioneer Company
Numbered amoung the participants in the Mississippi Saints 1846 Pioneer Company, a early Mormon pioneer wagon train that left Mississippi in 1846 to join the Mormon exodus to Utah. This group Brigham Young's vanguard company and spent the winter of 1846/47 at  Fort Pueblo where the were joined by soldiers of the sick detachment of the Mormon Battalion. They reached Salt Lake City in late summer of 1847.

Sometime after his conversion to Mormonism, he went to Nauvoo, Illinois, where, at the request of President Brigham Young (1801-1877), he, with others, returned to the South carrying instructions to gather the Saints in the southern states who were ready to leave for the west. His wife was Elizabeth Adeline Bankhead who was born May 10, 1807, in York District, South Carolina.

California Mission
After the arrival of the family in the Valley, they went to Cottonwood, where they established a home until called to help with the settlement of San Bernardino, California. When the Saints were called back to Utah in 1858, the Mathews family settled in Beaver. William and Elizabeth were the parents of eleven children, namely: Thomas Marion, Jane Elizabeth, John Lynn, Ezekiel Cunningham, MarieCelesta, Elvira, Narcissa, Nancy Melissa, Benjamin, Emma Louise, Martha Roxanna and Sina Adeline.

It is said that all the members of this southern family spent the remainder of their lives in and around Beaver after returning to Utah, with the exception of William Mathews, who is believed to have moved to the southern part of the state where he later died. The following is all the information available on the children of William and Elizabeth Adeline Bankhead Mathews: Jane Elizabeth who was born October 28, 1831, married Allen Tanner. They made their permanent home in Beaver and reared a family of several children. They were well-respected citizens of the community.

John Lynn was born April 24, 1833. He married Mary Jane Cartwright and they made their home in Beaver, Utah. Ezekiel Cunningham was born June 5, 1836. Elizabeth Smithson became his wife. They homesteaded the Cunningham Mathew Ranch, eighteen miles northwest of Beaver for many years. It is still known by the cattle and sheepmen as a resting place while out on the west range. The house on the ranch which they built still stands. About 1876, Ezekiel and his wife erected and operated a fine brick hotel two stories high which was known as the Beaver Centennial Hotel. They were the parents of several children.

Ezekiel claimed there was an old Indian trail leading to Beaver Valley, then to his ranch and that the country around there was a favorite hunting ground of the Indians. The trail went past the ranch over the divide down the Hot Springs Pass to lower Milford Valley. There was also an Indian trail through Minersville Canyon and one through Big Canyon Pass or Soldier Pass to Milford Valley according to Mr. Mathews. In 1896 Ezekiel Cunningham Mathews died and was buried in the Beaver City cemetery.

Elvira Narcissa was born February 25, 1839. While living in San Bernardino, California in 1857, she married Dr. John Ward Christian. The next year she and her husband came to Utah with the William Mathews family, settling in Beaver. Elvira died in 1863 leaving two small children. Dr. Ward afterward married his first wife's youngest sister, Sina Adeline by whom he had eight children. Dr. Ward practiced medicine and was an outstanding member of the community until his death on January 11, 1921, at the age of 99 years. All are buried in the Mountain View Cemetery, Beaver, Utah.

Emma Louise was born March 18, 1844. She married William P. Smith. They, too, had a family who was numbered among the hard-working, and thrifty citizens of early Beaver. Martha Beaumont