Preece Family Tree

OBITUARY.

LEWIS. - Died in Spanish Fork, Utah, on the 4th inst., at the residence of his son Frederick G. Lewis, Brother John Lewis, at the ripe age of 72 years, 10 months and 23 days.

Deceased was born in Llandaff, Glamorganshire, South Wales, Dec. 11th, 1814. He was married twice, to Mary Ann John, Sep. 20th, 1835, (who bore him four sons and three daughters, and then died, May 10th, 1850), and to Priscilla M. Phillips, on the 30th day of August, 1851, who bore him a son and a daughter. She died June 24th, of the present year.

Brother Lewis joined the Wesleyan church in youth and continued a devout advocate of its doctrines until he heard the revealed truth from heaven preached by the lowly followers of Christ. He was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the town of Newport, Wales, by Elder Shurtliff, in March, 1853, from which time he has exercised his best efforts to lead a consistent life by harmonizing his works with his profession as a Latter-day Saint.

In the spring of 1853, he and his family, together with twenty-one members of the Cardiff branch, whose emigration he paid to the valley, bade adieu to home, friends and comforts, to make a new home with the Saints in the far off west. On their journey the dread cholera broke out among them, at which time Brother Lewis was a conspicuous person, because of his cheering visits among the sick, and the great power of healing God had blessed him with. Indeed he retained that power, as hundreds here can testify, until he was prostrated by the hand of death. At Kansas City he hired a blacksmith to make ox shoes for the entire herd. He arrived in Salt Lake City September 30th, 1854. Being a master mason he found ready employment on the Temple Block, where he worked about one year; he then moved north to Box Elder, where he became counselor to Bishop Alvin Nichols and was the first home missionary in that county.

In the spring of 1857 he and family moved to Spanish Fork, where he has resided ever since. In 1872 he went on a mission to his native land and was tireless in propogating the eternal principles of truth. While there, and ever since, his ambition was to enlighten the pathway of friend and stranger with the effuigence of truth. Where sickness was, there Brother Lewis was seen; where poverty, his means; and when duty called him he was always at his post.

The funeral services were held at the meeting-house, to which place his body was carried by sixteen High Priests. Bishop Evans, of Salem, and Bishop Snell, of this place, also Elders P. Syker and T. D. Evans delivered appropriate discourses.

He leaves 6 children, 39 grandchildren, and 10 great-grandchildren, besides a host of friends, to mourn his death.