Preece Family Tree

STALWART CITIZEN

Frederick Lewis, the son of John A. and Ann John Lewis, was born May 29th, 1844, in the port city of Cardiff, Glamorganshire, South Wales. His mother died just before his sixth birthday. His sister, Ann, was nearly fourteen and his sister, Mary, ten and a half years old. His little brother william, a surviving twin, was three and a half.

Frederick's father was a rock mason by trade and a master builder. He and his brother built the Cardiff docks. He owned and operated a store, owend and leased twelve houses, accumulating quite a fortune. He had private tutors and a governess for his children and in addition, Frederick went to a Wesleyan school for boys. Frederick was known all his life for his beautiful penmanship, was an excellent reader and expressed hismelf well. Cardiff was a bustling city, one of the chief coal shipping centers of the world. There were iron and steel works and flour mills, it was the county seat and the City and County Hall was located there. Frederick and his little brother often visited St. John's parish church, and when allowed would visit their mother's grave in the ancient churchyard that surrounded the edifice.

Frederick's father had been educated as a Wesleyan minister and did not hear of Mormonism until after his second marriage to Priscilla Phillips Merriman in 1851. Priscilla had a little daughter, Louise, and her deceased sister's daughter, Caroline Matthews, when they were married. The family studied the gospel carefully for two years before embracing it. Nine-year-old Frederick was baptized with his sister Mary and their father in 1853 before leaving their native land for America. They left Cardiff by train for Liverpool, England, January 22, 1854. Here the father secured first-class passage for his family on the sailing vessel Golconda, January 25, 1854. They arrived at New Orleans March 16, having spent seven weeks on the water. Some days the high winds would drive the vessel back farther than it had progressed the previous day. They sailed up the Mississippi on the boat John Simmons, were delayed -stranded on a sandbar, but finally reached St. Louis where they joined other Saints at McFee's Camp Grounds on the outskirts of the city where all were preparing to move on to Utah. After about three months of preparation and delay they departed with the Darwin Richards Company, arriving in Great Salt Lake City, September 30, 1854.

For a short time the Lewises remained in Salt Lake, the father working on the Temple block. One day, President Young approached him, placed four peach stones in the palm of his hand and sent him on a mission to begin an orchard in Brigham City. He started the first trees to bear peaches in that community. Here and in Willard he built stone houses with his young apprentice, Frederick, to help him. Some of the old rock houses still standing in Willard were built by them. The family lived in Brigham City until '58 the time of the move south when they too abandoned their homes, settling in Spanish Fork.

Frederick continued to wear the clothing he had brought with him from Wales which consisted of short black broad-cloth trousers and coat, black fine leather shoes and a black velvet cap. He was conspicuous among the boys who wore home-made cowhide boots, canvas pants and shirts and home braided straw hats. Naturally he was made the butt of their jokes and they delighted in tormenting him. His two sisters had married, but young Fred had a champion - little Agnes Ferguson who never failed to take his part. Perhaps it was his forbearance and his acceptance of life, as it was, that appealed to the diminutive Scottish lass who later became his wife. Agnes was not without a sense of humor. She and her twin Barbara looked so much alike they couldn't be identified and often worn some things of a different colour to set them apart. For a dance one night they added handkerchiefs to their costumes and wore them around their necks. During the evening they exchanged them. Fred was the victim of the joke; although he and Agnes were enngaged to be married, he took Barbara as far as the gate when she laughed and told him he had better go back and get Agnes. They were married January 28, 1865, at the home of Barbara and her husband, Willard Orson Creer and the following October were sealed in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City. In March 1868 death claimed their two-year-old, Barbara Catherine, and that summer Agnes' twin, Barbara Creer, died following the birth of a baby son, William Orson. The infant was brought to Agnes who was at the time nursing her own babe, Priscilla Merriman. He and his four-and-a-half-year-old sister became a part of the family.

In June of 1873 Fred and Agnes Lewis and John and Adlinda Koyle were having dinner together, as they often did, and the question came up as to what the young women would do if anything ever happened to their husbands. One of them jokingly proposed that if one of the men should die the other would marry his widow and take care of her and her family. This they agreed upon and strange as it may seem, in just one week John Koyle was killed in a rock quarry in Spanish Fork Canyon. It was three years before the promise was fulfilled. Agnes and Adlinda had always been friends and loved each other dearly. When Fred and Adlinda were married there were two young Lewis daughters, and now with Adlinda's six the number took a sudden jump to eleven children. Altogether Frederick Lewis fathered eight daughters and one son, helped raise Barbara's two and Adlinda's six children.

Fred built Agnes the home they lived in most of their lives on 1st South and 1st West in Spanish Fork. After the death of his father's wife, he moved him from his first home on North Main Street into a little log house next to his own. As a young man, Fred homesteaded a farm on Spanish Fork River and was a successful farmer. From 1862-76 he was the leader of the martial band in Spanish Fork. During the Indian War troubles he was a drum major for the county and stood guard when raids were suspected, at which time he beat his drum to warn the settlement. He was the city marshal of Spanish Fork from 1870-77.

In 1883 Fred responded to a mission call to Wales. On arrival he waent to Old St. John's Churchyard to visit his mother's grave, where he picked flowers which he pressed and sent to his sisters. He was a good missionary, and became a fluent speaker and upon his return home served as counselor to Bishop George D. Snell. He was an accomplished musician, and played the dulcimer for dances. The Lewis home was always open to their children and their friends. Their grandchildren still reminisce of the holidays when they all gathered in the parlor around the flickering fire, and listened to the scores of stories grandfather so enchantingly told. They recall, too, that as pre-teeners they were paid ten cents to go to the farm with Grandfather, fifteen cents if they stayed home.

On January 28, 1915, Fred and Agnes celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary in the Spanish Fork Auditorium when about four hundred guests gathered in a social and dance. It should be mentioned that at this date Fred had not yet lost a tooth. In the fall of 1918 he sold the old house in Spanish Fork and moved to Provo to be near "the girls." Frederick Lewis died Jun 28, 1920, and was buried at Spanish Fork. He was a gentleman - kind, thoughtful and understanding. He was honored and revered by his family for his teachings, his example, his love and his name. This was the heritage he bequeathed them.

Agnes Reid Ferguson Lewis died three months following the death of her husband, October 8, 1820. Adlinda Hillman Koyle Lewis preceded them by over four years, February 21, 1916.

- Agnes Lewis Crandall

MRS. ANN CLEGG, PIONEER, IS DEAD

Well Known Woman Passes Away at Heber City at Age of 78 Years.

Ann Clegg, 78 years of age, a pioneer of 1854 and also a pioneer of Heber City in 1872, widow of the late Bishop Henry Clegg of Heber City, died there Thursday.

Mrs. Clegg was a native of Cardiff, Wales, where she was born June 2, 1836. She was the eldest daughter of the Rev. John Lewis, a wealthy Methodist minister, who, with his brother, was an engineer during the building of the Cardiff docks, among the largest in the world.

With her father's family she emigrated to Utah in 1854. She was married in Salt Lake soon after her arrival and moved to Springville, and later went to Heber City.

Mrs. Clegg was the mother of eleven children, seven of whom are living, namely, John and Fred Clegg; Millie, Montgomery and Carlie Tidwell of Heber City; William J. Clegg of Provo; Juventa Tullidge and Brigham Clegg of Salt Lake City. She was stepmother to Israel Clegg of Springville, Utah.

She leaves numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren and other relatives and friends.

Mrs. Clegg's parents are dead. She had two brothers, William and Frederick Lewis, living at Spanish Fork, and a sister, Mary Hawkes, living at Franklin, Ida.

Henry Clegg, Jr.

Henry Clegg, Jr was born 7 June 1825 at Bamber Bridge, Lancashire, England to Henry Cardwell Clegg Sr. and Ellen Cardwell Clegg. He was the youngest of eight children in the family. Henry was 12 years of age when Heber C. Kimball and other LDS Missionaries from America arrived in Preston with the message of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. Henry Clegg Sr. and his brother Johnathan were in the marketplace when the missionaries arrived. They were among the first converts. Tradition has it that Henry Sr. was the second convert baptized in England. He ran a race to the River Ribble in Preston to see who was to be the first, but lost to George D. Watt, a younger man.

Little is known of Henry Jr.'s days as a youth. We know he acquired a good education and followed the shoe and clog making trade of his father. He and his young wife Hannah Eastman joined the LDS Church and were baptized March 1848. Together they worked and saved means to immigrate to Utah. They with their two young sons, Israel and Henry James, bid farewell to their loved ones, none of whom they ever saw again, with the exception of a brother Johnathan. Their oldest son Thomas was accidentally burned to death two years prior to that time. They set sail from Liverpool with many other Saints on the steamship "Juventa" on March 31, 1855. Six weeks later they landed in Philadelphia, then went by train to Pittsburgh; then by steamboat down the Ohio River to St. Louis. At Mormon Grove, near Atchinson, Kansas, they joined the Richard Ballantyne Company of 42 Saints and 45 ox-drawn wagons. Preparations were made for the long journey where they could enjoy their new-found religion free from persecution.

However, that wasn't the privilege of his dear wife Hannah, a frail little woman. The hardships of the long journey proved too much and she died March 28, 1855 and was buried in an unmarked grave. Shortly after, little Henry died and his father carried him back and placed him in the grave with his mother. Heartsick, he hastened to catch up with the Saints, taking his little son Israel by the hand. They started the 1000-mile trek across the plains. After four months they arrived in the Salt Lake Valley. Among those who greeted the travelers was a 19-year-old Welsh girl, Ann Lewis, who later became the bride of Henry Clegg, Jr. She came to Utah in 1854 in first class style in Darwin Richards Company. She was born June 25, 1836 in Cardiff, Wales. She married Henry Clegg, Jr. December 3, 1855. They resided in the 19th Ward where their first son, John, was born August 14, 1857. They received their endowments in the old Endowment House and were sealed by Brigham Young. The same day he married as his plural wife a young 17-year-old immigrant girl, Margaret Ann Griffiths. She was born in Liverpool April 5, 1840. She, with her father John Griffiths, a step-mother, two brothers and a sister, Jane, traveled in the ill-fated Edward Martin Handcart Company. Her Two brothers, 10 and 12 years of age, died of cold and hunger, and her father died the night they arrived in Salt Lake. Margaret Ann and her sister had frostbitten hands and feet.

In 1855, when Johnston's Army was sent to Utah with hostile intentions, Henry with other Saints left their homes and moved south. Henry took his two wives and two sons and made their home in Springville. He then joined other men in Echo Canyon to hold back the invasion of the army. When he returned, they decided to stay in Springville. He became a leading citizen. He was a fine musician. He played the dulcimer for dances. He organized and directed a choir of 60 voices. His wives were also good singers. They would sing with him when he gave lectures in nearby wards and towns.

He carried on his shoemaking trade. He managed to make one pair of shoes a year for each member of his family. Seeing the necessity of work for his sons he moved to Provo Valley, now Heber City, where his brother Johnathan had settled. In 1872 he and his wives and family moved to Heber. His son Israel had married and remained in Springville all his life.

Henry took up a homestead in southeastern Heber, where his sons farmed, perpetuated a sawmill and later a rock quarry. Henry went into the mercantile business. He again proved to be a prominent leader of the town in both civic and religious activities. He taught school, organized and directed the Band of Hope, and also played in the Martial Band and was bishop of the West Ward for many years. He was stake clerk, Sunday School superintendent and also served in the Wasatch Stake High Council. He was an expert mathematician and did much public work in that field.

He died at the age of 69 years on 30th of August 1894. Ann Lewis Clegg died the 11th of April 1913 at the age of 77. Margaret Griffith Clegg died 29th of July 1929 at the age of 89. They are buried in Heber cemetery.