Bishop Thomas Harper

'Bishop' in this instance is not quite as grand as a 'Protestant Bishop'; in fact, Thomas was a Mormon Bishop.  Nevertheless, he was an American Pioneer and gave his name to the Township of Harper in Utah.  No photographs of him have survived.

Thomas is on the same section of the Morfitt Genealogy as General Joseph Wheeler, and that is really why we came across the General.  The Mormons consider genealogy to be of huge importance and they have the world's largest genealogy database at Salt Lake City, Utah.  That Thomas should have been a Mormon Bishop in Utah has ensured his genealogy has been explored by the best in the world - the Mormons.  In fact, the Mormons have traced Thomas Harper right back to the earliest Newloves on our Morfitt tree, thereby confirming our own research.

It is unnecessary to repeat part of the lineage of General Joseph Wheeler here.  We start with the marriage of John Harper and Ann Sessons (Sissons), but branch off from the General with the their son John Harper.

John Harper was born in 1805 in Yorkshire, England.  He married Eliza Rose Howdle and they both died in Yorkshire.  They had ten children, one of whom was Thomas Harper.

Thomas was born in 1829 in Riccall, Yorkshire, England.  In 1854, he married Hannah Jane Jones, a lass from Swansea, Wales in Salt Lake City, Utah.  So, at the age of 25, he was already in the heart of Mormon.  He died in 1899 in the town that then bore his name - Harper, Calls Fort, Box Elder, Utah.  His widow died in 1922 in Albion, Cassia, Idaho where one of their daughters had been married.  Between 1857 and 1880, they had  eleven children, only one of which died in childhood, so they must have been 'pioneering' under difficult circumstances.  As we will see - they had native Indians to contend with.

There is only one web site that we have found to be relevant:

Box Elder County Cities - Harper Ward

and it is worth repeating the narrative it contains here:

The section lying between the northern boundary line of Brigham City and the southern boundary line of Honeyville has been at various times known as Calls Fort, the North String, North Ward and Harper. Main street is about 8 miles long prompting the remark that “it is the longest church block in the state of Utah”.

Lewis N. Boothe, in a short sketch of Brigham City, said that before 1853 the following families had farms in this section, and he named them in their order going north from the Lucius Snow Farm: Joseph Clapper, William Lewis, William Morgan, Taylor Jones, David Powell, John Thomas, John Gibbs, Benjamin Philips, William C. Thomas, Capt. Thomas, John Jones, Henry Boothe and Joseph Grover.

John Gibbs was the first to establish a homestead about four miles north of Brigham City. He and George Foster built a little shanty of rocks in the spring of 1852 and made a few other improvements, but they moved to Brigham that winter. In the spring of 1853, they plowed and planted more ground, and other families moved their implements and belongings into rough log houses. These small homesteads survived the winter of 1853-54, making it the first permanent settlement north of Brigham City.

In 1854, families were joined by Anson Call of Bountiful who built a home and blacksmith shop which he surrounded with a wall 8 feet high and 3 thick as a protection against the Indians. The fort enclosed a tract of land 120 feet square. The following year, 1855, Thomas Harper and Chester Loveland arrived, and in 1861 the settlement was strengthened by the arrival of James Mann, George Whitworth, Joseph Orme, Jude Allen, John C. Dewey, Thomas Baty, Richard Baty and John P. Barnard.

In 1862 a schoolhouse was built, and by 1871 two rock schoolhouses were built in the Calls Fort Precinct. The North School was known as Calls Fort. The South School was known as Lake Side. The Calls Fort Schoolhouse (also known as the North School) measured 22 x 44 feet. The Lake Side school measured 22 x 36 feet. Each Sunday, a Sunday School was held in each school building. Sacrament meetings were held alternately in each schoolhouse until 1892 when a rock church building was constructed. An L.D.S.[LDS= Latter Day Saints - the Mormons] branch was organized in 1862, with Chester Loveland as Presiding Elder. He was followed by James May, Sr. and Thomas Harper. On August 19, 1877 the ward was organized and Thomas Harper was called to serve as Bishop. Bishops who followed him were: Thomas Yates, Thaddeous Wight, Henry Yates, Emery Wight, Joseph Yates, Paul Hunsaker, Elbert R. Beecher and Jack N. Webster. Bishop Webster was the last Bishop to serve in the original rock building. The building was sold in 1977, and the Ward moved to the Honeyville building. A few years later, with some boundary changes, the Ward moved to the Brigham City Utah North Stake Center in Brigham City. Clark Siddoway, Jerry Wilde and T. Brent Price served as Bishops there.

The area continues to grow. In the spring and summer of 1995, a water line was laid from Brigham City to the Honeyville City limits to serve the area.

The early names are interesting as a full genealogy shows.  For the first several decades after the formation of the 'outpost', only those names appeared in marriages, one family constantly marrying into another.