Thomas Sirls Terry

Thomas Sirls Terry was born in Bristol Township, Buicks County, Pennsylvania, on 3 Oct 1825 to Thomas Sirls and Mary Ann Murkins Terry. He went to work at age 7 in a local cotton mill, and at 17 was apprenticed to learn the trade of printing calico cloth. He first heard of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day-Saints in November 1841 and was taught and baptized by Joseph Newton on 12 Mar 1952. Always true to his new faith, he began a 1,030-mile journey west as a teamster on 19 Jun 1947 to join other church members, arriving in the Salt Lake Valley on 25 Sept 1847. In 1849 he became acquainted with Mary Ann Pulsipher, daughter of a prominent pioneer family, and they married on Christmas Day that year. On 5 May 1855 he took a second wife, Eliza Jane Pulsipher, Mary Ann's youngest sister. In October 1856 he was called to leave his families and farm and go on a mission, laboring in Philadelphia and New Jersey. Released from his mission by Parley P. Pratt, he was assigned as captain of a company of the Saints going west. In the fall of 1862 he was called to the Dixie Cotton Mission in southwestern Utah. After spending the winter in St. George, he moved his families to Shoal Creek, Hebron, in Washington County, Utah, and later built a ranch and stage station at Moroni Springs west of Hebron. In 1867 he was ordained a high priest and called as bishop of the Hebron Ward, serving as bishop for 27 years. In 1878 he married his third wife, Hannah Louisa Leavitt. Because of the Edmunds Tucker act, in 1885 he moved Hannah's family to the Beaver Dam Wash in Washington County, Hebron was abandoned, and he and his family moved to Enterprise, where he was called as a patriarch of the area. In words of encouragement to his 30 children, he recalled famine, starvation, weakness, darkness, and attacks on the church, yet declared that his faith remained firm and urged them to follow a righteous course through life and be steadfast in the commandments of Christ. Thomas Sirls Terry died on 12 Aug 1920 at age 95 and was buried in Enterprise, Utah.

Enterprise, Utah · United States