William Wallace Haws

(1835 – 1895)

William Wallace Haws, son of Gilbert and Hannah Witcomb Haws, was born February 18, 1835, at Green Township, Wayne County, Illinois. 1835,  he was the seventh of fourteen children. He had six sisters and seven brothers. The father, Gilbert Haws, was born March 10, 1801, in Logan County, Kentucky. The mother, Hannah Witcomb, was born April 17, 1806, at Cazenvonia, Madison County, New York.  The couple first learned of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints about 1840. Previous to this time they had not affiliated with any church. They, with two of their daughters, Lucinda and Elizabeth, were baptized during the years 1842-1843. Gilbert and Hannah lived on a farm near Xenia, Illinois, in the northwestern part of Wayne County, helping with the sheep and cattle. 

In 1845, after the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph Smith, they received word from the Elders of the Church that a body of the Saints would leave the State of Illinois the next spring. Although they lived in Wayne County, some distance from Nauvoo, and suffered less persecution, they decided to leave with the others. They made their preparations and left Wayne county in May, 1847, leaving many friends and some relatives behind. 

The family traveled northwest through Illinois, crossed the Mississippi River into Iowa, beyond the first account of Saints at Garden Grove, to Mount Pisgah, about 200 miles from Nauvoo. Here they stayed the winter. William was 12 years old at the time. In the spring of 1848, the family continued on to Council Bluffs, then to Winter Quarters. They crossed the Missouri River in Lorenzo Snow’s company. Here they made preparations to go west with the first company of the season. In May, 1848, they left winter quarters for the Rocky Mountains. The trip was difficult. They washed clothes in cold water and use Buffalo chips for fuel, for wood was scarce. The crossing was not all hardship, however, for the 13-year-old boy enjoyed many adventures incident to the pioneers’ travels —the programs and dances at night, the herds of buffalo on the plains, and the ever present threat of molestation by the Indians. 

They arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on September 23, 1848, where the father bought one of the little adobe houses in the old fort which had been built by the pioneers the year before. The new Haws home was one room, 12 feet square. It had a fireplace and two portholes about 10 inches square on each side of the chimney. The roof of the house was made of logs across which willows and bushes were piled and covered with dirt. The floor was packed dirt.  The old fort was formed by a great many of these little houses built together in the shape of a square with all doors opening into the square.  Spaces were left for gates on the east and west sides of the fort. No windows were put into the house for fear that Indians, who were numerous and had attacked the fort, might again do so. The portals were on the outer wall to shoot through in case of attack. 

William Wallace, in company with Orville Cox, went to the Sessions settlement about 10 miles north of Salt Lake City to take care of his father’s animals grazing on land leased until they could locate on a place of their own. He was baptized in City Creek, November 18, 1848, by Brother E. Strong.   

In December 1848, three of his sisters were married to men who had just returned from service with the Mormon Battalion. Food was very scarce this first year in Utah. Few crops were planted and the harvest was meager. They have little corn for making bread but very little to go with it. Sometimes a beef was killed and a little meat rationed to each family. Dried buffalo meat was available at times, which was cut into small pieces and pounded and used to make gravy and soup, with flour added to make the gravy thick and more palatable.

In March of 1849 William’s father was called to help settle Utah Valley at what is now Provo.  John S. Higbee was called to organize this group of 150 people. They were met by Timpanogos ,or Ute Indians, who would not let the colonizers cross the Provo River until the interpreter had made a treaty with them that they would not drive the Indians from their lands. The treaty made, the company establish the Provo Branch of the Church, March 18, 1849, with John S. Higbee as President. 

William helped with the herding of the cows and though he was but 14 at the time he also helped build a fort. This year his sister Matilde died and was buried on a little knoll near the river. The body was later moved to the Provo Cemetery. His brother Gilbert Oliver was born in Provo, being the second white child to be born there. While they lived in and around Provo, they were harassed, quite severely at times by the Indians, and more than once had to move to the fort until the Indians were at peace again. 

On December 1, 1853, William was married to Barbara Belinda Mills, by Bishop J.O. Duke.  She was the third child of John and Jane Sanford Mills.  She was born July 1, 1836, at Suffan’s Creek, Pickering Township, Leads, Canada.  Her family was taught the Gospel and was baptized by Elder John Taylor.  Her parents and an older sister received their endowments in the Nauvoo Temple, having moved from Canada, settling in Nashville, Iowa, until the temple was completed.  In October of 1846, they started west, but spent the winter at Winter Quarters.  John Mills preceded his family to the Salt Lake Valley.  Jane and the children crossed later in the company of Morris Phelps, arriving in Lehi, Utah in the fall of 1851.  They soon moved to the Provo bench, where Barbara and William met and were married.  They lived that year with  Barbara’s parents, farming with her brother Martin W. Mills.  For several years they had a hard time getting enough to eat.  But they built a small home, helped to establish a sawmill and gave birth to two children, Hanna Jane and William Wallace. 

During the October Conference of 1871, William was called on a short term mission to the area around his old home of Xenia, Illinois. He visited and preached the Gospel to many of his relatives and saw the old homestead.  He was released from his mission in February 1872, but consumed a month returning home because of heavy snow.  He earned most of his passage home by shoveling snow so the train could travel. 

In May, 1875, Millie May was born and William became a member of the Provo police force in 1875, continuing at the same time to carry on his farming and wood hauling.  He married Martha Barrett, November 8, 1875, a twin, who was the eleventh child of William and Phoebe Colburn Barrett, recent immigrants to Provo from England.  Her twin stayed with an Aunt in England when the family came to the United States.  As a result the twins did not see each other for some 32 years, when Mary and her family came to America. Martha’s first child, Wallace John, was born February 21, 1878.   

Because of the crusade against polygamy, William Wallace was obliged to spend most of 1878 hiding in one place and another. In April 1879 he sold his property in Utah and moved with his sons William and George and their families to Show Low, Arizona, near Fort Apache, where they engaged in wood hauling for the fort, and in farming.  They provided butter and cheese and fresh produce for the fort. On April 15, 1881, Charles James, Martha’s second son was born. That fall his wife Barbara took her family to Provo so that the girls could go to school. He found out that the land he had settled on near the fort was government land, so he moved both his families to Smithsville (now called Pima), Arizona, where he started anew with his land clearing and planting crops. In the Arizona community they lived very happy lives and were able to build and make improvements on homes for both families. William established a sawmill at the mouth of a canyon in the Graham mountains nearby.   

By January, 1885, U.S. Marshals were moving into Arizona Territory and men with plural wives again went into hiding. William made immediate plans to move his family to Mexico. He first made a preliminary trip on horseback. At Corralitos he found a body of Saints in conditions similar to his own, with more families arriving each day. He stayed long enough to help plant crops on land rented from Mexican neighbors. In August he returned to Arizona and by September 14, 1885 was back in Mexico with Martha’s family. 

The Saints in Corralitos could not arrange for enough land in one tract to meet their needs, so they split up into two camps, renting land at Janos and Casas Grandes. William went with the Casas Grandes group which later established the colony of Colonia Juarez. The Janos group founded Colonia Diaz. A third group, called the Turley group, merged with the two larger groups, although for a while most of the Sunday services were held at the site of the Turley camp. 

In Mexico, William was helpful in laying out townsites, carrying the surveyor’s chain, digging ditches and planting crops.  When not busy with farm, church or community duties, he explored the mountain areas to the west in search of new townsites.  On one of these trips he located the areas later named Hop Valley, because of the many wild hops growing there, Corrales Basin and in the Strawberry Valley.  He helped build a road to get to these areas and planted crops such as potatoes, squash, beans and corn in the Strawberry Valley, so named because of the abundance of wild strawberries. Other locations nearby were Williams Ranch and Cave Valley, where a Ward was established. Near Cave Valley were many well-preserved cliff dwellings. 

In May, 1887, William was called as one of the several men to go with teams and wagons to meet a group of native Mexican Saints being moved from the interior of Mexico to the colonies. Efforts of these missionaries had been fruitful, but the lot of new converts was difficult because of persecution. It was thought best, to have the Mexican converts moved to the colonies. The men left on April 30, 1887 and returned May 10, traveling 260 miles. 

Among these converts was a widow and her children, Gertrude Guameros Paez, whom William married on March 1, 1888 as a plural wife. The men in the Church were advised in those times to marry widows as a way to help care for them. William built her a home in Corrales where she lived until his death, after which she moved to Colonia Juarez where her children could receive adequate schooling. Three children were born to this couple: two girls and a boy. One of these youngsters reached adulthood —Elizabeth. Gertrude’s children by her previous marriage moved back to the interior of Mexico after living in the colonies only a short time. After Elizabeth married, Gertrude also returned to her old home near Mexico City, where she died during the Mexican Revolution. 

William was happy with his family as at Corrales, where he built, planted, harvested and fenced.  Soon other families were also locating in the vicinity and a Branch of the Church was organized on April 28, 1889.  During this time, William helped survey and stake out the townsites for Colonia Pacheco. His son George and family moved to Pacheco in January, 1891 and William spent considerable time helping them build a home and getting crops planted.   

By this time many families had moved into the Corrales-Pacheco area:  The Staleys, Lunts, Naegles, Humphreys, Carlins, Smiths, McConkies, Farnsworth, Sellers, Spencers, Jarvises, and Cluffs to mention a few.

To get money to buy salt, sugar, clothing and other staples, William would haul lumber from the sawmills to the lower valleys to sell. During one of these trips, his eyes became terribly infected and he nearly lost his sight. His eyes troubled him for the remainder of his days.

He spent his days making a livelihood for his family by logging, hauling lumber, planting and harvesting his crops, in fair weather and foul. During one of his trips to the valley with lumber he contracted a heavy cold which kept him ill for many weeks. During this time he was clearing land in Galeana, with several other men, to give them more acreage on which to plant, they also built a reservoir to hold irrigation water. Here he contracted chills and fever, which bothered him more as time went on.

In December 1892 he went with a group of men to clear roadway to Colonia Chuhuichupa. The group some on horseback, some with teams and wagons, consisted of Alexander F. Macdonald, George Russell, David A. McClellan, John McNeil, William Ivins, Alfred Baker, Brigham Stowell, and George and William Wallace Haws. 

He was ordained a High Priest at meetings held in Pacheco by Apostle John Henry Smith in February 1893. He suffered from the chills and fever all that summer and on  August 3, 1894 his wife Martha gave birth to twins, Mary and Martha.  He suffered terribly as a result of the cold weather and exposure while working on the Galeana project, but was able to return to Colonia Pacheco.  William died on March 6, 1895 and was buried in  the cemetery at Colonia Pacheco.  He was survived by three widows, the two in Mexico and Barbara, who had remained in the United States.  Martha and her family stayed in Mexico until the Exodus in 1912.  The William Wallace Haws estate was divided equally among all three wives.

Nelle Spilsbury Hatch

Stalwart’s South of the Border page 254