Ithamer Thomas Sprague 1807-1879
2010
Ithamer Thomas Sprague was born in New York to Hezikiah Sprague and Abigail Jeffers. He was the eighth child of eleven born to his parents. Ithamer is an unusual name. It was the name of one of the sons of Aaron, who was charged with administering the rites of the Temple in the days of Moses. Ithamer, along with his aged parents heard the missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints. Ithamer and his wife Elizabeth Goodner, known as Betsy, were baptized members of the church in 1840. While gathered with the Saints in Nauvoo, Illinois Ithamer owned and operated a boat on the Mississippi River. He sold that enterprise and became a blacksmith. Ithamer and his family left Nauvoo, Illinois as the persecutions increased and moved with a large group of Saints to Mt. Pisgah, Iowa prior to their full migration to Utah. While in Mt. Pisgah, the men left the came to hunt for food and while they were gone the mobbers came into the camp of several hundred women and children. Ithamer’s wife Elizabeth and their five children were among many who were killed. A commemorative park is on the spot where this tragedy took place. Unbelievably, Ithamer moved on with his widowed sister and his parents. His mother Abigail died at Winter Quarters in Florence, Nebraska. He continued on and arrived in The Salt Lake Valley in October of 1847. His father Hezikiah died in 1848, after only a few months in the valley. In 1848 he married direct ancestor Sarah Stedwell Wood Brown, whose story is interesting in its own right. Their daughter Sarah Sprague who married Nephi James Bates is our direct ancestor. They settled in the Brownsville Fort Region on the Weber River in Weber County, Utah. Ithamer and Sarah eventually divorced.
Ithamer and Elizabeth Goodner were the parents of five children. Ithamer and Sarah Stedwell were the parents of five children as well. In 1873, Ithamer married Mary Elizabeth Prince. They became the parents of four children. Ithamer and his family settled in the town of Bunkerville, Nevada where they were one of only a few communities which successfully lived the United Order. That means that they, as a community of Saints had all things in common. When Ithamer died, he was buried in the Bunkerville City Cemetery where two national historic plaques have been placed to recognize the accomplishments of the community and their contribution to the cotton industry. Cotton was their primary crop.
Ithamer and his father Hezikiah received their Patriarchal Blessings at the hand of the Patriarch Hyrum Smith, brother of the Prophet Joseph Smith.
This portrait of Ithamer hangs in the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers Museum in St. George, Washington County, Utah.
The migration of Ithamer Thomas Sprague
New York to Illinois to Iowa to Utah to Nevada