William Edwards was a native of Worchestershire in the West Midlands of England who immigrated to America and pioneered in southern Utah.
Early Years in the West Midlands of England
In 1841, William Edwards was born in Worchestershire, England, the son of Samuel James Edwards (1805-1890) and Ann Robinson (1806-1877). While he was very young, his parents converted to the Mormon Church.
Immigration to America and onto Utah
He immigrated to Utah with his parents in 1851 and he was baptized in 1852.
Moving to Iron County
In 1857, the Edwards family moved to Parowan in Iron County. Neither Edwards nor his father were listed in the Iron County muster rolls for 1857, perhaps because of their recent arrival in southern Utah.
Private William Edwards (not listed in 1857 militia rolls), Cedar City
In September 1857, Edwards was fifteen years old and living in Cedar City. Probably on Thursday the 10th, Edwards was among a detachment of militia reinforcements ordered to the Meadows. He described arriving at the Meadows that day, the council meeting that night that solidified a plan of action, and the massacre on Friday the 11th.
Move to Beaver County
Since at least 1857, settlers in Parowan and Cedar City had been visiting what would later be known as Beaver County to cut the tall grass that grew abundantly along the Beaver River. In 1859, Cedar City had fallen on hard times because of the collapse the ironworks and the pall cast over the community by the massacre at Mountain Meadows. In spring 1859, the Edwards family joined others departing Cedar City. Samuel Edwards and family including his son William were part of a small group who moved north to the future site of Beaver County where they initially pioneered a settlement along lower Beaver Creek which they named Lower Beaver. However, by summer 1860, they had determined that the water supply on the lower Beaver was inadequate to sustain their crops through the summer.
The colony split up with families moving to nearby Minersville, Adamsville or Greenville. The Edwards relocated to Greenville, five miles southwest of the town of Beaver. That year, 18-year-old William Edwards married 15- 1/2-year-old Scottish emigrant Helen (or Ellen) McCulloch Miller (1844-1908). It was the first marriage ceremony celebrated in Greenville.
They remained in Greenville for the rest of their lives and Helen bore Edwards twelve children, only four of whom survived to adulthood. Edwards' principal occupation was farming but he also served as constable and postmaster in Beaver for many years. From 1897 to 1913, Edwards served as a bishop of Greenville ward in Beaver County.
Edwards was not mentioned in Judge John Cradlebaugh's 1859 arrest warrant. None of the witnesses in the Lee trials identified him as a participant in the massacre or even present at the Meadows. Lee did not mention him in his posthumously-published Mormonism Unveiled, nor was he interviewed regarding or make statements about the massacre during the 1880s or 1890s as some other participants did.
Rather, in 1924, less than a year before his death and more than sixty-five years after the massacre, Edwards made a short affidavit concerning his presence at the massacre as a fifteen-year-old youth. His is probably the last of the militia statements on the massacre.
Yet there is little reason to doubt his statement: he was among several militia teenagers who had been pressed into joining the militia detachment bound for the Mountain Meadows and he witnessed the massacre.
Final Year
Edwards died in 1925, survived by his children and grandchildren.
References
Affidavit of William Edwards; Bagley, Blood of the Prophets, 140, 143, 346; Bigler and Bagley, Innocent Blood: Essential Narratives, 422-23; Merkley, ed., Monuments to Courage, 156, 157, 159; New.familysearch.org; Robinson, They Answered the Call: A History of Minersville, Utah, 5-7; Walker, et al, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, 191, 257, 354, fn. 37.
For full bibliographic information see Bibliography.
