Rowley Family History.pdf

Family Histories

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ROWLEY
TREASURES OF= TRUTH
FROM= THE LIVES OF
WILLIAM AND A=NN= J=EWELL ROWLEY
AND THEIR CHILDREN
           
H=ISTORIES
FAMILY

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‹ 1992, William =	 Ann Jewell Rowley Family. All rights reserved.  Printed in the 
United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any man-
ner whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief 
quotations =embodied =in =critical =articles =and =reviews. =For =more =information =contact 
StoryWorks Publishers, 146 South Archie Ave., Fruit Heights, UT 84037, by e-mail:  
sspubs@xmission.com, or worldwide web:  www.storyworkspublishers.com.
Soft cover edition, ‹ 2004, Frank D. Richardson.
First printing 1992
Second printing 1994
Third printing 1998
Fourth printing 1999
Fifth printing 2000
Sixth printing 2001
Seventh printing 2003
First soft cover printing 2004

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We gratefully acknowledge the selÁess efforts of the following 
members of the Rowley family, some of whom are now de-
ceased, who have prepared the brief biographies, life sketches, and 
histories upon which this book is based³
Charles O. Connelley
Olive Stone Guymon
Martha Ann Rowley Lunt
Nellie Rowley Mecham
James Parley Johnson
Ramona Rowley Munford
Louise Rowley Palmer
Maxine Poulsen
Harriett Rowley Richardson
Roberta Benson Rowley
Jesse Noah Rowley
Our special thanks are extended to Deane Johnson Cook of Hun-
tington, Utah.  Deane labored tirelessly for many years gathering the 
Rowley family histories from which this volume has been prepared.  
Being a granddaughter of Samuel and Ann Taylor Rowley, Deane 
personally knew many of those whose lives are recorded here while 
in her youth.  Her declining years were devoted largely to this project 
and to fostering the establishment of the Rowley family organization. 
She did much good among us.  We thank her for bringing us together 
that we might come to know one another and more about the lives 
of our ancestors.
We also appreciate the efforts of many others who have helped in 
writing, printing, and distributing this family history.
A=CKNOWLEDGMENTS
L

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he year is 2004.  Our place, the United States of America.  Our 
circumstance is one of boundless prosperity, good health, and 
JHQHUDO KDSSLQHVV 
The arm of the Lord is being bared, as prophesied, before the na-
tions of the earth.  His Church and kingdom, established in 1830, is 
spreading across the face of the free world.  Its members now number 
more than 12 million.  The Book of Mormon, a record of the ancient 
righteous inhabitants of this land, has been translated into more than 
100 languages and is being proclaimed throughout the world by more 
WKDQ        PLVVLRQDULHV 
Though there is much wickedness and misery in the world around 
us, to the faithful these are days long promised.  Zion is being es-
tablished and will be redeemed in the due time of the Lord.   We 
joyously await the return of the Lord Jesus Christ, who will come to 
reign personally upon the earth.
We are the happy guardians of the faith of our fathers.  It is by 
their vision, courage, and faith that we enjoy our present blessings.  
Our hearts are turned to them in admiration and deep gratitude.
This is their story³the story of William and Ann Jewell Rowley 
and their seven sons and daughters.  We are their children.  We write 
to you³who are our children³that you might know the source of 
your heritage and blessings.
Those about whom we write are long dead to this world.  But there 
are still a few living among us who knew them or who received from 
their parents the stories related in this volume.
This volume is our tribute to them and our gift to you.  We pray 
that you may come to know that your most precious possession is 
the legacy of faithfulness founded by these noble people and carried 
on by each of us.
   	  	  	 
P=REFACE
LL
T
³ The Rowley Family

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TABLE OF= C=ONTENTS
Part 1 ³ Lives of William and Ann Jewell Rowley =  =	1
Chapter 1 ³ England, Cradle of our Heritage =	 =	2
Chapter 2 ³ The Morning Breaks  =	 =	 =	9
Chapter 3 ³ The Spirit of Gathering =	 =	   =	21
Chapter 4 ³ Come to Zion, Come to Zion =	  =	32
Chapter 5 ³ The Camp Rolled On =	 =	   =	38
Chapter 6 ³ Life in Utah = =	 =	 =	  =	71
Part 2 ³ Lives of the Rowley Children =	 =	 =	83
Chapter 7 ³ Louisa Rowley Guymon =	 =	 =	86
Chapter 8 ³ Elizabeth Rowley Udall =	 =	 =	107
Chapter 9 ³ John Rowley  =	 =	 =	 =	146
Chapter 10 ³ Samuel Rowley =	 =	 =	 =	198
Chapter 11 ³ Richard Rowley =	 =	 =	 =	234
Chapter 12 ³ Thomas Rowley =	 =	 =	 =	249
Chapter 13 ³ Jane Rowley Connelley =	 =	 =	266
Appendices =	 =	 =	 =	 =	 =	 =	282
Appendix A ³ Plural Marriage =	 =	 =	 =	283
Appendix B ³ Willie Handcart Company Diary = =	295
Bibliography =	 =	 =	 =	 =	 =	357
Index = =	 =	 =	 =	 =	 =	 =	364
LLL

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LY
Handcart Pioneer Family
, sculpture by Torleif Knaphus.  
Courtesy Church Historical Department

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LIVES= OF= W=ILLIAM AND= A=NN= J=EWELL R=OWLEY=	PART 1
William Rowley
           
Ann Jewell Rowley
           
 

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´At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,μ said the gentleman, 
taking up a pen, ´it is more than usually desirable that we should make 
some slight provision for the poor and destitute who suffer greatly at the 
present time.  Many thousands are in want of common necessities; hun-
dreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.μ
´Are there no prisons?μ asked Scrooge.
´Plenty of prisons,μ said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
´And the Union workhouses?μ demanded Scrooge.  ´Are they still in 
RSHUDWLRQ"μ
´They are.  Still,μ returned the gentleman, ´I wish I could say they 
were not.μ
´The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigor, then?μ said 
Scrooge.
´Both very busy, sir.μ
´Oh, I was afraid, from what you said at Àrst, that something had oc-
curred to stop them in their useful course,μ said Scrooge.  ´I·m very glad 
to hear it.μ
´Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of 
mind or body to the multitude,μ returned the gentleman, ´a few of us are 
endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and 
means of warmth.  We choose this time because it is a time, of all others, 
when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices.  What shall I put you 
down for?μ
´Nothing,μ Scrooge replied.
´You wish to be anonymous?μ
´I wish to be left alone,μ said Scrooge.
  =	 =	 =	³ C=HARLES D=ICKENS, A CHRISTMAS= CAROL, 1843
 
CHAPTER 1	ENGLAND=, CRADLE OF= OUR= H=ERITAGE
O=ur story begins in eighteenth-century England.  With her colonial 
empire nearing its zenith, England had become the center of 
world commerce.  The abundance of raw materials shipped to Eng-
land from her colonies created new markets and increased demand for 
English products throughout Europe.  Old-fashioned hand manufac-
turing methods were too slow and labor-intensive to keep pace with 
the rising demand.  Inventive, enterprising men began to design and 
 

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test machines that would do the work of many people in a fraction of 
the time, thereby increasing the potential for proÀts.
Mechanization of the textile industry began in the 1730s.  The ma-
chines that received early patents were given descriptive names like 
the spinning jenny, the spinning mule, and the Áying shuttle.  They 
were powered by steam engines patterned after the 1712 invention of 
Thomas Newcomen and were continually improved upon by James 
Watt into the 1770s and 1780s.
During the same period, iron mills, railroads, canals and water-
ways, and the system of roads between cities were all dramatically 
improved.  The English had discovered that the secret to future wealth 
lay in the ability to produce and transport goods throughout the world 
World Book Encyclopedia, 1982, vol. 10, pp. 186-95=.
In the 1700s, England was ruled by German kings from the House 
of Hanover.  King George III, born in England, ascended the throne in 
1760 and ruled until 1820.   He reigned during the French and Ameri-
can revolutions and presided over most of the changes that occurred 
in England during the industrial revolution.
Though hated by the American colonists, George III did much 
to raise the prestige of the royal family in England and contributed 
constructively to many of the changes brought on by the industrial 
revolution.  His son, George IV, who ruled from 1820 to 1830, chose 
to have little involvement in the day-to-day affairs of the nation.   His 
private life was scandalous.   However,  he made important reforms 
in police administration and criminal law, fostered free trade, and 
encouraged greater tolerance toward dissenters from the Church of 
England, clearing the way for the introduction of the restored gospel 
to England =World Book, vol. 8, p. 110=.
In an atmosphere of greater religious freedom, numerous religious 
sects sprang into being.  Most were organized around the ministry of 
a popular Anglican clergyman or revivalist preacher.  Most attracted 
E=NGLAND, C=RADLE= =OF= OUR H=ERITAGE
 

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ROWLEY= FAMILY H=ISTORIES
a few hundred to a few thousand followers.  Many did not claim any 
divine authority and simply declared themselves to be seekers after 
truth.  They met to study the Bible and pray for further enlightenment.  
Still, while thousands of souls hungered for more truth, religious 
intolerance and persecution were common and religious liberty was 
more theory than practice in the 1830s =Bloxham, et al, Truth Will 
Prevail,  pp. 60-70=.
A century earlier, most Englishmen had lived on the land.  With 
the rise of industry came a decline in agriculture.  The poor migrated 
to cities where work could be found in factories.
The expanding economy allowed the population of England to 
double during the 60-year reign of George III.  For example, the city 
of Preston, which had only 16,000 inhabitants in 1800, grew to more 
than 53,000 by 1840 =Bloxham, et al,  p. 48=.  City governments could 
not keep pace with the exploding population.  Living conditions that 
were already bad became deplorable.  Garbage piled up in the streets, 
raw sewage seeped to the surface of the soil in the wet seasons, and 
entire neighborhoods were dingy with soot from factory smokestacks.  
While the rich grew richer, the poor became continually poorer and 
more wretched.   Prospects for any improvement seemed hopeless.
The industrial revolution restructured English society.  The inÁu-
ence of aristocratic land owners decreased as merchants and indus-
trialists gained additional wealth and power.  Factory cities became 
home to a ragged and sprawling working class.  By the early 1800s, a 
quarter of the married women in England were employed in factories 
and sweat shops, as were many of the children.  The working class 
lived in a form of economic bondage.  Workers received just enough 
wages to keep them alive, but not enough to enable them to rise above 
their poverty.
 Working conditions were abominable.  The poor and their children 
were treated with extreme cruelty.  In his autobiography, Thomas 

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E=NGLAND, C=RAD=LE= =OF= =OUR H=ERITAGE
Wright Kirby, an early English convert to Mormonism, recounts 
his experiences as a child working in a silk mill at Ditchingham, 
Norfolk³
Most of those who had charge of us younger Children were Ignorent and 
cruel to us and would whip us for the least little Mishap. . . .  There were 
women under them some of whom were of doubtful morality who were also 
very tyranical and would smack us over the head and ears, with their hand  
or  with  a stick  more because  they were  cross  than  for anything  else. 
. . and any being young children would begin crying and then they would 
whip us because we cried for nothing.
In winter we worked from 7 a.m. till 8 p.m.  They had half an hour 
Breakfast.  We used to eat in the ¶Breakfast Room· but the small children 
could seldom get to the Àre.  At 1 o·clock, dinner one hour.  At 5 p.m., 15 
minutes for tea as it was called.  Then work till 8 p.m.  Then I used to hunt 
up my sister Sarah Ann or Charlotte or both to go home with them. . . . My 
sisters and I had about 2 Miles to go [home]. . . and some part being over 
what is known as Ditchingham Dam.  There were then no houses or any-
thing to shelter us from the cold winds and storms and sometimes we did 
not have very good or warm Clothing or shoes.  And sometimes not very 
Much food as our wages was very low [Bloxham, et al, pp. 50-51; original 
VSHOOLQJ@ 
Another early convert, writing of his childhood working experi-
ences in England, told how the master to whom he was apprenticed 
beat him with a stirrup and ´pulled my ears until they were bleedingμ 
%OR[KDP  HW DO   S      
Economic conditions in England turned downward in the mid-1830s, 
ending a boom in the railroad and shipbuilding industries.  By 1836, the 
coal-mining, cotton, and woolen industries were critically depressed.  The 
depression deepened through 1842³economically the worst year of the 
century³before recovery began.
This was the England that Charles Dickens portrayed so skillfully 
in A Christmas Carol, written in 1843.  It was also the England into 
which William Rowley was born in 1784, at Grafton,  Flyford Parish, 
Worcestershire,  in the Midlands of England.
Nothing is known about William·s boyhood, but we know from the 
identifying ´Xμ which he and his Àrst wife Ann Taylor placed upon 
their marriage record in 1807 that neither  could write, nor  had  they 

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ROWLEY= FAMILY H=ISTORIES
Mars =Hill =lies =near =Suckley, =about =30 =miles =southwest =of =Worcester, =in =the 
English Midlands.
received the beneÀts of formal education.  We know from oral tradi-
tions that William became a successful farmer and orchard foreman 
and likely lived his entire life in a rural setting.
William Rowley and Ann Taylor were married in July 1807.  
They bore seven children between 1808 and 1827, whom they named 
James, Jane, Ann, William, George, Eliza, and Hannah.  According 
to family history, they lived in reasonably prosperous circumstances 
on a parcel of land called Mars Hill, which they apparently owned or 
VXSHULQWHQGHG 
Mars Hill was located in Suckley Parish, a few miles southwest of 
the city of Worcester, not far from the place of William·s birth.  Wil-
liam and Ann Taylor Rowley made their living by growing and selling 
hops and fruits.  They had sufÀcient means to employ a governess for 
their younger children.  The governess was a younger, single woman 
named Ann Jewell.  She was born in 1807, the same year that William 
Northern
Ireland
Ireland
England
Wales
Irish
Sea
Isle
of Man
London
Suckley
Worcester
Liverpool
Manchester
Preston
Minthrope
Loughbrickland
Courtesy Church Education System =CES

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E=NGLAND, C=RAD=LE= =OF= =OUR H=ERITAGE
and Ann Taylor were married.
In 1835, twenty-eight years after her marriage to William, Ann 
Taylor Rowley passed away.  William was about 50 years old when 
she died.  We do not know the makeup of the family at the time.  The 
youngest of the Rowley children, Hannah, would have been nine or 
ten years old.  Some of the older children certainly were married and 
would have been living on their own.  We also do not know how long 
Ann Jewell had been living in the Rowley home.
We do know, however, that William chose Ann Jewell to become 
his wife.  The couple were married in August 1835, and continued to 
live at Mars Hill, where their lives would soon be dramatically trans-
formed by the preaching of the restored gospel in Great Britain.
William and Ann Jewell gave birth to seven children between 
1837 and 1848.  The story of their lives spans more than a century  
and half the globe.  As you read the pages that follow, you will meet 
real-life characters who were heroes such as one seldom meets in 
This =is =a =photocopy =of =the =marriage =license =showing =the =names =of =William 
Rowley and Ann Jewell.  The marriage was performed in the Parish of Suckley, 
County of Worcester,  on 22 August 1835.   It displays the marks =Xs= of Will 
Rowley and Ann Jewell.

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ROWLEY= FAMILY H=ISTORIES
mortality.  They were common folk, unknown in their own time be-
yond the conÀnes of the communities in which they lived.  Yet, they 
participated in events so crucial to the establishment of the restored 
Church in this dispensation that reading their story introduces us to 
many of the early Church leaders and most of the dramatic moments 
in pioneer history.
Along the way we will meet Church President Wilford Woodruff 
as a young missionary in England.  We will meet Brigham Young; 
Apostles Heber C. Kimball, Franklin D. Richards, and Parley P. 
Pratt; and historical characters like John C. Fremont and Orrin Porter 
Rockwell.  We·ll become acquainted with the handcart companies of 
1856, the Mormon colonies in Mexico, the famous Hole-in-the-Rock 
expedition, the Utah Indian Wars, plural marriage, the establishment 
of the United Order, and the settling of Utah communities like Nephi, 
Parowan, Huntington, Bluff, Kanab, and Leeds.
Best of all, we will come to know the founders of the Rowley fam-
ily and discover how the events which overtook them molded their 
lives, strengthened their resolve, and carried them to glorious victory 
in their mortal probations.

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C=HAPTER 2
Queen Victoria ascended the throne and the year in which the Àrst 
messengers of the restored gospel set foot on English soil.
Victoria, the 18-year-old granddaughter of George III, was care-
fully schooled for her regal role.  Although her uncle, King Wil-
liam IV, had left the crown in shambles and the nation in a state of 
self-indulgence, Victoria ascended the English throne with dignity,  
determined to raise the nation to the greatness decreed for it by the 
Almighty.
Victoria·s personal life was beyond reproach.  Even though she was 
not an absolute ruling power in England·s constitutional monarchy, 
she quickly won favor with the people and their elected representa-
tives.  She reigned for 63 years, and stood among the most inÁuential 
monarchs in English history.  When domestic and international crises 
challenged her leadership, she worked cooperatively with wise and 
benevolent ministers like Sir Robert Peel, Lord Palmerston, Benjamin 
Disraeli, and William Gladstone.  She gradually helped to create a 
more livable environment for the common citizen, an environment 
that was also more conducive to the spread of the restored gospel  
World Book Encyclopedia, 1982, vol. 20, pp. 284-85=.
THE M=ORNING= B=REAKS
he year 1837, just one year after William Rowley and Ann Jew-
ell married, is pivotal in English history.  It is the year in which 
 
The Morning Breaks
  =	The morning breaks, the shadows Áee;
  =	Lo, Zion·s standard is unfurled!
  =	The dawning of a brighter day,
  =	Majestic rises on the world.
  =	 =	 =	³ P=ARLEY P. P=RATT
T

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ROWLEY= FAMILY H=ISTORIES
Victoria came to power in June 1837.  Barely a month later, on 19 
July 1837, the ship Garrick docked in Liverpool.  Among its passen-
gers  were seven elders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day 
Saints³four Americans and three Canadians.  Presiding over the 
group was Apostle Heber C. Kimball.  Of that day, Elder Kimball 
ZURWH³
I went to the side of the vessel and poured out my soul in praise and 
thanksgiving to God for the prosperous voyage, and for all the mercies 
which he had vouchsafed to me, and while thus engaged, and contemplat-
ing the scene presented to my view, the Spirit of the Lord rested upon me 
in a powerful manner:  my soul was Àlled with love and gratitude, and was 
humbled within me, while I covenanted to dedicate myself  to God, and to 
love and  serve Him with all my heart. . . .
Immediately after we anchored, a small boat came alongside . . . . When 
we were within six or seven feet of the pie