I stopped ordering Patriarchal Blessings a year ago when I moved back to America, but I've started back up again. William Henry Bishop and Eliza Pratt Bishop are my 4th Great Grandparents through their daughter Vesta Lucetta Bishop Twitchell. My dad's biological brother Richard uploaded the following biography about William and Eliza now that the options of Photos, Documents, and Stories to FamilySearch:
William Henry Bishop was the son of Sylvanus and Rachel Spicer Bishop. He was born on the 11 September 1821 at Oswego, Oswego, New York. He spent his early childhood on his father’s farm and at age 15 went to work with his brother, Nelson Spicer Bishop, in Lorain County, Ohio, to learn the trade of a blacksmith.
After learning this trade, he went out on his own and moved to the town of La Port, Indiana. There he met some LDS missionaries and was baptized a member on the church on the 8 May 1840. Twenty days later his future wife Eliza Pratt was baptized. They dated for almost a year, and then they were married at her parents’ home on the 21 March 1841 by an LDS missionary, Elder Franklin Dewey Richards.
Eliza Pratt was born on the 8 February 1819 at Ripley, Chautauqua, New York to Nehemiah Pratt and Elizabeth Roberts. Eliza was the 9th child in a family of 11 children, which was made up of 5 girls and 6 boys. At age 5 her family moved to Greenfield, Erie, Pa. and when she was about age 20 her family moved to Noblesville, Hamilton, Indiana, where she was married to William Henry Bishop.
They had one child, Mary Elizabeth Bishop, born to them while living at La Porte, Indiana. In the fall of 1842 they moved to La Harpe, Hancock, Illinois, to be with the main body of the Saints. They stayed there until they were driven out by the mobs in 1846. Two children, Vesta Lucetta Bishop and William Sylvanus Bishop, were born to them while living at La Harpe.
Before leaving Nauvoo they received their Endowments but were not sealed.
They made their journey first to Harrison, Case, Missouri where a child was born and they named him Joseph Franklin Bishop. However, with traveling and the hard conditions they lived under, William Sylvanus and Joseph Franklin died and were both buried at their next stop which was Pisgah, Harrison, Iowa. Then they stopped at Mount Pisgah, Union, Iowa where Mahonri Moriancumer Bishop was born on the 25 November, 1848.
Eliza had learned the tailoring trade. She had washed, spun and dried the wool that she used to make clothes. Before crossing the plains she made a dress from the bark of a tree. Each time she washed it she always made sure it was dried properly. Most every one thought it was made of silk.
William, Eliza and their children crossed the plains with the James Pace Company in 1850. When camping in Echo Canyon, Utah, Eliza gave birth on the 16 September 1850 to a girl they named Penelope Bishop. Four days later they entered the Salt Lake Valley, making Salt Lake their home for 2 years.
Eliza’s brother, Samuel Pratt, and his family joined them in Salt Lake City and they were assigned to go together and settle in Provo. William was a Blacksmith and Samuel was a farmer. While living in Provo, William was sealed to a 2nd wife, Malinda Helman Case, in the Salt Lake Endowment House, on the 15 May 1853. She had been married and sealed to Elias H. Blackburn but that marriage and sealing had been canceled. She had one child Martha Blackburn who was born in Perry, Pike, Illinois.
William was called to help settle Fillmore, Utah. Eliza was expecting a child so he took with him Malinda. Eliza stayed in Provo to give birth on the 28 July 1853 to her 7th child, whom they named Eliza Eldula Bishop. Eliza joined them the next year.
Eliza and William would have three more children: Nelson Spicer Bishop, born the 1 November 1855; Heber Lafayette Bishop born the 15 December 1857; and Savalla Bishop born the 31 December 1859. He and Malinda had three children all born in Fillmore, Millard, Utah: Julia Ann Bishop, born 20 July 1854; Susan Arvilla Bishop, born the 13 December 1855; and Artemus Henry Bishop, born on the 7 April 1857.
When Malinda’s children were small, she took them for a visit to their grandparents, Gashum C. and Susan Fitchett Case, in California but she did not return to live with William in Fillmore. Later her children made visits to be with their father and other family members but would not move to Utah.
Only two members of Eliza’s family ever came west, her brother, Samuel, who remained in Provo, and her mother, Elizabeth Roberts Pratt, who made her home with Eliza in Fillmore, until her death on the 21 January 1867. Eliza’s father had died in 1855 at Union Mills, La Porte, Indiana at age 71.
In 1857 William was a member of the Utah Legislature and met with the first session that was held at the Fillmore State House, and later attended sessions that were held in Salt Lake City. William was called to be a Colonel in the Black Hawk War over men from Millard County. His service lasted until 1868, and about 70 white men and many natives were killed.
William and Eliza lived in a small log house at first, but later William built a four room brick home that is still used and standing at corner of 100 West & 300 North in Fillmore, Utah. Just before William’s death, he deeded part of the property, lot #221, over to his son-in-law, Brigham Melville, and lot #227, which housed the blacksmith shop, over to his son, Nelson S. Bishop.
During the gold rush days, William went out on the road with his portable blacksmith shop and repaired wagons and shoed animals for those going to and from the gold fields in Nevada and California. One night he showed his sack of gold dust to some friends, and the next morning found his friends gone and his gold dust also. William stayed on but told no one about his gold dust, and was able to take his earnings home to his family.
In the summer of 1880 at age 59, he took a trip back to the state of New York to see some of his family in that area, since none of them had visited him except his brother, Nelson, from whom he had learned his blacksmith trade. William only stayed a short time, and was very happy when he was able to return home and be with his family.
William was also a gunsmith and did work for many, even the Indians, putting sights on their guns and making awls for the squaws on which to sew their moccasins and clothing. The Indians around Fillmore were friendly and William treated them in a friendly manner, and they trusted him. They sometimes paid him with tallow. One day when Eliza was gone, William decided to make some home made soap, but there was not enough tallow for that batch, so William took some resin and added to the tallow, The family was delighted with the soap. It was the whitest and hardest soap they had ever used.
William was active in the church, serving as a ward teacher, and a member of the 42nd quorum and was their instructor. William felt the importance of temple sealing and had his sister-in-law, Clarissa Pratt, and his mother-in-law, Elizabeth Roberts who had joined them in Utah, sealed to him. Elizabeth died in 1867 and was buried in Fillmore, Millard, Utah.
From 1854 to 1884 (30 years) William Henry Bishop had lived in Fillmore, and seen all his children married and some pass away, and the trials that many of them faced, and met. He had a great love for each one of them. On the 10 August 1884, William Henry Bishop passed away at his home in Fillmore, and was buried in the city cemetery. He was age 63.
Eliza lived for 9 more years and passed away at age 76. She was buried next to her husband and her mother in the Fillmore City Cemetery.
(Information for this history was found in Builders of Early Millard, Biographies of Pioneers of Millard County 1850-1875, p 62-63; p 66-67, written by a daughter, Savalla Bishop Melville and abridged by a great-great grandson, Richard V Heaps, who comes through Vesta Lucetta Bishop)
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