My whole life is online. Why?
Because
I'm a web site developer with no web site to developer but my own.
There are thousands of people living in Ogden and Salt Lake City, Utah today that have no idea what happened there in the mid 1800's when my ancestors, Utah Pioneers, migrated to the Salt Lake Valley.
The story of those pioneers are within this web site.
By Knowing who my ancestors were I am better able to know who I am. I have taken the time to learn the history I am connected to through the people who lived before me. There is indeed a part of them in me that I have connected with. The age of computers has mostly made this possible.
Jay Irvin is a descendant of Ezekiel Hadley and John Shaw.
Ezekiel Hadley born 1752 in Halesowen, England.
Ezekiel's son William Hadley born 1778 in Halesowen, Worcestershire County,
England had a son named Thomas E. Hadley born 1824 in Smethwick, Staffordshire,
England . Thomas E. Hadley was my great great grandfather and his son
Joseph
Ellsworth Hadley was my grandfather. He migrated to Brigham City, Utah when
he was 9 years old from Berkshire, MA.
His wife Dagmar Rasmussen was of Danish decent. Because his
ancestors were Mormon there is much history to be found about them. Many
immigrants to early Brigham City (Box Elder County) were of Danish Decent
brought over by Mormon Missionaries.
William Adams Hickman is probably the most interesting, flamboyant and
colorful ancestor I have.
Bill Hickman and Porter Rockwell were both body guards for the Mormon profits Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. Most
documentaries and histories of the time mention Porter Rockwell, and for what ever reason, leave out gg-great grandpa William Adams Hickman. Bill Hickman's daughter
Lerona Minerva Hickman was my grandma Betsy Grace (Vanderhoof) Shaw's mother.
"Wild Bill" Hickman's grave in the mountains west of Lander, Wyoming, was kept a secret from all but his first wife,
Bernetta, and three of his grown children and their spouses. Other Hickman descendants were never told. Evidently, the end
of their progenitor's life did not match his promising beginnings. Hickman's life has never been recounted before
except by Bill Hickman himself, and even then the story was incomplete. (Hope A. Hilton 1988) excerpt form
"Wild Bill" Hickman and the Mormon frontier.
Preface from Hope Hiltons book: A "Mormon mountain man" is in many ways a contradiction in terms.
Free-spirited explorers like Jim Bridger, William. Ashley, Jedediah Smith, and others were often un-churched,
single, buckskin-clad pioneers. Although William Adams Hickman was a trusted member of the church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon), husband to ten plural wives, including an Indian squaw, father to
thirty-five children, and one of Utah territory's earliest lawmen, he was also an independent, rough,
undisciplined mountain man and outlaw. As much at home in his trading post near Fort Bridger as in
his more comfortable house in the Salt Lake Valley, and responsible for more deaths than lives saved,
Hickman led an enigmatic eventful life.
There was never a time during Bill Hickman's
western experience that stories often exaggerated of his usually
"notorious" exploits were not related in homes throughout
the Salt Lake valley and elsewhere. His sixty-eight years took him
from Mormonism's beginnings to its periods of isolation and
adjustment during the 1850's and 1870's. He died in 1883 a
non-Mormon because of an excommunication he considered
unwarranted. Hickman's loyalty to the Mormon church
and its leaders continued until 1863, thirteen
years after his arrival in the Great Salt Lake Valley, when he accepted employment with the United States government. Earlier, he had served his church as one of the most valuable, effective Mormon guerrillas harassing federal troops during the 1856-58 Utah War. But after he took a position as a federal Indian guide, Mormon church leaders viewed him as a renegade church "spy," no longer worthy of their support and friendship. Read more about
- - > Wild Bill Hickman.
Family History
My grandma's mother's mother was one of William Adams Hickman's nine wives.
Her name was Minerva Wade.
September 1829 to 23 December 1918. They
married 1 May 1849; she was 19. Their 8 children were born William
Adams, Jr. 14 Feb 1850; Sarah Maria 15 Sep 1851 (she married William
Frances); Moses Edward 8 Aug 1853; Lerona Minerva 12 Jan 1856 (she
married Jesse Giles Vanderhoof); Margaret Wade 13 Mar 1858; Survivor 22
May 1860; Warren Wade 31 Aug 1862; Mary Ella 28 Sep 1865 (she married
Frederick Kohlhepp).

For more about my interesting family history click on: ancestry.aspx
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Last updated March 9 2010