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William Henry Adams Jr. came to Utah with his baby sister and parents when only three years old. During the time they were crossing the plains he was accidentally shot with a pepperbox pistol through both knees, the bullet lodging in the left knee. It was removed by Willard Richards with a knife. For a time it was feared he would never walk agam.
He Was a member of one of the first seven families to settle in Pleasant Grove. As a boy he tended cattle. As a teenager he camped nights and worked days to help widen the dugway at the Point of the Mountain between Salt Lake and Utah Valleys.
In 1853 when the grasshoppers took the crops, he and his family subsisted on boiled thistles, mushrooms, or any kind of roots or segos. He apprenticed as a stone and brick mason with his father. They built an adobe house in Pleasant Grove, as well as many other buildings there.
In 1867 he was called as a member of the cavalry to help guard the teams to and from Sanpete as people moved. He helped build a fort around Fountain Green. He was a veteran of the Black Hawk Indian War and was involved in many Indian fights and incipient Indian disturbances. He became one of the leading farmers of Fountain Green and was a director of the Fountain Green Co-op. After his marriage, he built a log house and later a brick home in north Fountain Green (Zion's Hill) that was used by at least five generations of the family. He also helped build a brick meetinghouse in Fountain Green.
He served a mission in 1880-1881 to the Southern States in Georgia where he organized a branch of twelve members and a Sunday School. He was released due to ill health. After returning, he was a Sunday School Superintendent for nineteen years. He also served as president of the Young Men.
William was an entertainer. He directed choirs, entertained on stage, called dances, played Jews harp and accordion and he and his wife led grand marches and danced all the dances of the time. He took an active part in Black Hawk encampment parties
speaking, singing or anything wanted.
He moved back to Pleasant Grove in 1900 where he was very active in the church.
He was sent on different home missions and was a traveling teacher. He became a good student of the Bible and was especially gifted in administering to the sick. He served forty years as a ward teacher. By occupation, he was a farmer and truck gardener in Pleasant Grove and for the last thirty years of his life, suffered with a severe cough.
Brother Joseph
Pioneer John
