William Whitehead 1839-1881 (or 1882)

               This information was taken from The Whitehead Family Magazine Number 10 June 1975.

William Whitehead was born the 23 of November. 1893 at Calfhey, Friar Mere, Saddleworth, Yorkshire, England.

He was the son of Martha Whitehead and Robert Wright, who was a machine printer at the Denshaw Print Works.  According to family history we grew up in the home of his grandparents, James Whitehead and Hannah Hepworth in Oldham.

It is said that he received a fine education in England.

He joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, but the date of his baptism seems uncertain.  According to the Franklin Ward records he was baptized by James Gledhill in November 1852 and confirmed the same month by William Scofield.  This would have made him about thirteen years old at the time.  However, according to the Temple Index Bureau record card he was baptized November 20, 1854.  This would have made him just a few days short of fifteen years old.

William emigrated to Utah in 1859.  he sailed on the William Tapscott a ship of 1,750 tons register. The ship had been chartered by the Church and sailed from England(probably Liverpool) for New York on April 11, 1859.  His age is given in the emigration records as twenty, though he would not have reached the full age of twenty until November of that year.  According to the emigration records, he gave his address as Manchester, and his occupation as factory worker.  The price of his ticket, steerage class, was 4.20 pounds.  There were 601 adults, 92 children, and 32 infants making a total of 725 emigrants from England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Switzerland.  Also, included were some missionaries according to family history was an Elder William Taylor with whom he later stayed in Lehi, Utah.

The William Tapscott arrived in New York after a pleasant voyage of 31 days.  According to the book, Handcarts to Zion, the party of emigrants left New York on May 14, 1859 on the Steamer Isaac Newton for Albany.  From Albany, they took the Hannibal and St.Joseph railway to St.Joseph, Missouri.  From there they took river boots on the Missouri River to Florence Nebraska.  Florence was the staging and departure point for the handcart companies.  

William Whitehead was a member of the eighth handcart company.  According to the book, Handcarts of Zion, the company was made up of 235 persons.  There were 60 handcarts, the 6 ox-drawn wagons to haul provisions and the sick.  George Rowley was captain of the company, and there was a sub-captain for each ten carts.  The carts each had a cover made from bed ticking and stretched over three bows.

The company started from Florence on June 9, 1859 and travelled four miles. On the tenth they laid over to get organized.  On the eleventh they started out in earnest and travelled sixteen miles. On the twelfth they traveled twenty-two miles and ran into swarms of big mosquitoes.  Provisions for ten days for one person included ten pounds of flour, one pound of bacon, a little sugar and salt.

The company met a large band of Sioux indians on July 3.  They were the first indians most of the emigrants had ever seen, and it was a terrifying experience for them.  The indians demanded food, and were given three sacks of flour and some bacon.  That night the indians staged a dance.  Next morning, the company left early hoping to elude the indians, but some of the indians followed them and tried to make a deal for a “white squaw”.  

There was another encounter with Indians in the Devil’s Gate area which frightened the immigrants.  There had just been a battle between two tribes.  The victorious tribe had a number of prisoners, and they invited a number of the men in the handcart company to visit their camp to watch the prisoners being tortured to death.  The men respectfully declined the invitation.

The company ran low on food and many were suffering from starvation when a supply wagon train from Salt Lake City reached them after traveling a night and day to come to their aid.

The company arrived in Salt Lake City on the afternoon of Sunday, September 4, 1859.  They were met on their arrival by a huge crowd, including two or three bands.  

According to family history, due to the extreme heat and exposure during the trek, and the strain of pulling the hand cart, William ruptured a blood vessel in his head and was in serious condition for sometime.  It is said that as a result of the hardship of the handcart journey, he was never a strong man.

William located at Lehi, living with Elder William Taylor, until his Aunt Mary brought him to Ogden.  Mary had promised to look after William until the Ramsbottom family could emigrate,  (William’s mother, Martha Whitehead married Henry Ramsbottom in August of 1853).

In the early spring of 1861, William along with his two cousins, Ben and James Chadwick, moved to Franklin, Idaho.  He helped Ben and James bring logs out of the canyon and helped them build a house for their mother (William’s Aunt Mary).

Margaret Green with her twins Hannah Jane and John Charles

According to family history, in 1862 William went back to Salt Lake City to meet his sweetheart whom he had left in England in 1859.  He expected to bring her back to Franklin with him.  However, when he arrived he found her already married.  On the way back from Salt Lake City, he married Margaret Green whom he had previously known in England.  Family records indicate the marriage date as March 28, 1862.  However, there seems reason to believe that the marriage may have actually taken place a year later in 1863.

In 1872, with his first wife’s consent, William married Alice Butterworth, and they all lived together in the same house.  Alice died soon after the birth of her first child, Alice Whitehead.

According to the records of District Court of the third Judicial District of the Territory of Idaho, i and for the County of Oneida, William Whitehead made application for and was granted United States citizenship on July 8, 1873.  According to family history, William was one of the first city councilmen chosen when Franklin was organized a city in 1878.

After his day’s work, William would read and study by candlelight until very late.  He was eager to learn and he attended the night school of William Wright.  he also attend the Elder’s School.  He was a bookkeeper for Merrick and Duffin, also for the first Co-op store.  He was ward clerk and choir leader and active in dramatics.  He was a member of the militia and was a minute-man.  He was also a good mason and farmer. (According to the 1880  census record he gave his occupation as stone mason).

William was always noted for his cleanliness and neatness of person.  It was said of him, “Every hair and thread must be laid just right at all times.”  

William had eleven children by his wife Margaret.  He loved his family dearly, but they were very poor.  He was a small man of medium complexion with blue eyes.

William's wife- Margaret Green Whitehead, with some of her children. Left to right back row: Jenette, Abraham Lorenzo, Peter Green, Martha Front Row: Mary, William James, Margaret Green Whitehead, John Charles, Margaret Elizabeth

He died of a ruptured appendix, but the date of his death does not seem certain.  the Archives of the Genealogical Society in Salt Lake City give the date as April 2, 1880.  Family records and the Franklin Ward records give the date as April 2, 1882.  If 1881 is the correct date, he would have been forty-one years old at the time.


I love this story told:

The following experience was told to Sarrah Eppich by an unidentified son of William Whitehead on February 21, 1940 at Cornish, Utah.

I left Monday morning to go up Maple Creek to chop log.  When I left Father was not feeling very well.  

Monday night, a strange woman came into my cabin and woke me.  She told me I was needed at home.  I woke the other men and asked then if they had seen her, but none of them had.  Then I got up and looked for tracks in the snow, but although it was three feet deep, there were no tracks.

The next morning I had just felled one tree and started on another when the same woman I had seen came and told me I was needed at home.  Then, in a flash, I saw my brother, Peter G., coming on a horse to meet me.  I told my friend and we locked the cabin and started down the canyon.  We met Peter, six years old at the time, at the bottom of Lowe’s Hill.  He was coming on a horse to meet us.

When I reached home my father was sitting in a big chair with a quilt wrapped around him.  I talked to him for a white, and then my mother came into the room and told me the cows had broken through the willow fence and got out.  I left to fix the fence, and when I returned they told me my father had just passed away.  He had died of appendicitis while sitting in the chair.

I have more information on his life and will get it to you soon.