History of Parshall Terry III
Written by his great-granddaughter, Freda Sharp Jones, in 1986
(Transcribed and edited by his fourth-great-grandson, Jesse S. Crisler, 27 August 2003.)
Parshall Terry was born 30 September 1778 at Fort Niagara New York, son of Parshall
Terry and Amy Stevens. Little is known of his boyhood years. After the Revolutionary
War his father was given a large holding of land in Canada by the Crown of England.
In 1792 his father moved his family to the part of Canada now known as Toronto, but
then a wilderness. There he built a sawmill on the banks of the Don river; on 23 July
1808 he was drowned while fishing in the river not far from the mill.
It is not known how Parshall III came to Palmyra, New York, but his father’s brother
Joshua Terry and his wife Elizabeth Parshall and children were living on the north side
of the village. He stayed with them and later married their daughter Hannah, his first
cousin, on 16 March 1802. He and Hannah’s first seven children were born in Palmyra.
Sometime between 1817 and 1819 he moved his family to Albion, Home District, Upper
Canada. Here their remaining children were born, six more, making thirteen children
born to them. The third of the thirteen died at the age of two in Palmyra.
Albion was a new country and was heavily forested for miles around. The people were
so scattered that no school could be held except Sunday School, and it was sometimes
three miles away and never closer than two, but by this means the children learned
what little education they received except that taught to them by their mother Hannah.
Parshall’s daughter, Elizabeth Terry Kirby Heward, wrote in her diary, “My father was
an honest man and taught his children to be strictly honest and faithful and be sure to
fulfill every promise and obey the Golden Rule, ‘Do unto others as ye would have them
do unto you.'” The Parshall Terry home in Palmyra was east of the village; it was near
the home of Joseph Smith, Sr., and his family. They lived here from 1803 to 1818 when
they moved to Canada. The Prophet Joseph Smith, Jr., was born in Sharon, Windsor,
Vermont, 23 December 1805 and moved with his parents to Palmyra in the tenth year of
his life, about 1815. The families were close neighbors and friends for about three years
before the Terrys moved to Canada. Their second son, Jacob Er Terry, was six months
older than the boy Joseph, and they were schoolmates and good friends.
When the strange story of the heavenly vision and manifestation of the Father and the
Son appearing to the boy Joseph and the resulting restoration of the Church was
brought to them in Canada, they accepted it for they knew the boy was an honest and
truthful lad, and they respected the Smith family. They were all baptized and decided
to join the body of the Saints in Far West, Missouri.
From The History of Parshall Terry III
About 1820 they moved to Albion, Canada near present day Toronto where the Terry family lost contact with their Palmyra friends. Three more children were born in Albion: Amy 1821, Marilla 1823, Joshua 1825, Deborah 1827, and James 1830.
After a few years the Terrys were hearing rumors about a Joe Smith and a “gold Bible.” Having known Joseph Smith and his family as good people, the Terrys decided to reserve judgment until they had more information. In 1838 they learned that there were Mormon missionaries in the area.
By this time the Terrys were a large extended family with children and grandchildren. Elders Theodore Turley and Robert Thompson were invited into their various homes. The Terrys listened to the missionaries’ message and believed, and many of them were converted. Daughter Elizabeth bought a copy of the Book of Mormon even though her husband Kirby was negative about Mormonism. Just as the elders were handing Elizabeth the Book of Mormon, Kirby came into the room, grabbed the book, and threw it into a fire burning in the fireplace. Elizabeth rushed to the fireplace and snatched the book from the flames. Holding the book up for everyone to see, Elizabeth pointed out that not one page had been singed. The elders pronounced it a miracle.
Parshall and Hannah and most of their children and families were baptized and joined the saints in Far West, Missouri just in time to be run out of the state by Governor Boggs’ extermination order. The Terry families sought temporary refuge in Perry County, Illinois before joining the saints in Nauvoo.
Daughter Deborah, age 11, died due to exposure and hardships suffered in the exodus from Missouri. Son Jacob joined the family in Nauvoo where he asked to be baptized by his former classmate Joseph Smith. Daughter Elizabeth moved to Nauvoo after the death of her husband. Parshall III worked on the Nauvoo Temple. He and Hannah were sealed in the temple December 25, 1845.
From Elizabeth Terry Heward’s Journal:
For the benefit of my children I undertake to write a history of my life. I was born in the State of New York, town of Palmyra and the county of Ontario, the 17th of November, 1814. The country is now called Wain, where I was born. My name is Elizabeth Terry, daughter of Parshall and Hannah Terry, who (Parshall, was the son of Parshall and Amy Stevens, whose father was an Englishman, who came to this land with the Mayflower.) My Parents moved from Palmyra to the town of Sheldon, Gennesee County, New York, when I was two years old and when I was 4 years old they moved to Upper Canada.
We lived in several different place near Little York, (Since called Toronto) till the 2nd day of July, 1822; we moved to the Township of Albion, Home District upper Canada. It was a new country, with much timber upon the land, no prairies [without trees] hundreds of miles and very thinly inhabited. My parents were poor having been cheated out of their property by wicked men before leaving the States.
Father was very careful and industrious, but he always had poor health. They had thirteen children; Stevens, Jacob, Joel, David, Joshua, James Parshall, and Clark, who died when he was two years old. My sisters are: Dency, Jane, Amy, Marilla, and Deborah. The people lived so scattered that we could have no school only Sunday School and that was sometimes three miles from where we lived and never nearer than two miles. By this means, I got what little education I have except what little my mother was able to teach me until I was seventeen years old, then I went to school three months and what little I have been able to learn myself.
My father was an honest man and taught his children to be strictly honest and truthful, and to be sure to fulfill every promise, and always mind the Golden Rule -“Do unto others as we would have others do unto us.” I was naturally of a religious turn of mind and learned to pray when I was very young. In 1830, I joined the Baptist Church before I was sixteen years old, for I believed that I could not be saved unless I was baptized. I spent the time doing the best I knew until July 18, 1833, at which time I was married to a young Englishman named Francis Kirby. He was almost an entire stranger to us, but father advised me to marry him and go to keeping Tavern, but I soon found he was not such a companion as I wished to have for life.
In December of 1837, we heard there were “Mormon” preachers in Canada, about 20 miles from us. I sent for Brother Theodore Turley to come and preach at our home. He preached several times to us and I believed it was true. Kirby hated the Baptists, yet as soon as he found that I believed the Mormons, he hated them also, and would not let them preach anymore in our home, and swore that I should not go to hear them.
One very cold day in the winter, Brothers Turley and Robert B. Thompson called at our house on their way to my father’s where they were going to preach. George Thompson sold me a Book of Mormon for $1.25 and Kirby was near when I received the book and he snatched it out of my hand and threw it into the fire, which was very hot and it went in opened. Then he kicked it down between the stacks of wood. I was across the room from the fire, but I sprang as quick as I could and took out the book, which to our great astonishment was not burned and neither was there a letter scorched. Brother Turley took the book and presented it to Kirby and told him it was the word of God which if he did not receive, he would be damned. Kirby cooled down in a minute and told me to give them something to eat. Right then I received a testimony that the Book of Mormon was true.
He soon hardened his heart again and said he would burn Brother Thompson in the fire. He was now far worse against the Mormons than he had ever been against the Baptists. But in the most of this persecution, the Lord blessed me. I asked Kirby to let me go get baptized but he said I should not, but I kept praying to the Lord. On the 11th of Feb, 1838, Samuel and Dency Hackett, my sister and her husband, Francis Kirby and I went to my father’s to a meeting held there by R.B. Thompson. The spirit was poured out upon us. Brother Thompson spoke in tongues and prophesied that my brother, Joel, should be mighty in the work of the last days preaching the gospel to the nations. And he spoke of many more things. Kirby did not know there was to be a meeting until we got there as he had sworn that I should never attend another meeting and he raged like a mad man, but I acknowledged the hand of the Lord in this as well as in everything else.
In this way I passed my time until July 3, 1838. Brother John Hicks came to our house and the Lord in his mercy softened Kirby’s heart so that he let me be baptized, but charged me not to let it be known, but it could not be kept a secret, besides there were six or seven witnesses present, but Kirby told the neighbors that I was not baptized. My mother and father and their family came to our home and started for Toronto on their way to Far West, MO. Kirby and my sister, Dency and myself accompanied them to the city of Toronto and saw them on board the steamer “Transit” on the 10th.
Elizabeth Terry Heward
Parshall and Hannah had thirteen children born to them: Stevens, Jacob, Dency, Clark,
Joel, Elizabeth, David, Jane, Marilla, Amy, Joshua, Deborah, and James Parshall. Seven
of them came to Utah as pioneers, along with the children of those who were married
and the two children of their daughter Jane who had died at Winter Quarters. They
also had two nephews come to Utah as pioneers. They were all stalwart citizens and
members of the Church. Parshall died at the age of eighty-three at Draper, Utah, on 8
October 1861. He was a respected citizen, gentleman, friend, and neighbor.
——————
Added to Family Search by Benjamin Lee Heward, July 2019:
Recently my family and I visited Nauvoo Illinois. There, the Missionaries tell the story of Don Carlos Smith and other courageous men printing the Times and Seasons in essentially a damp basement. From the Biography Sketch from his wife, we read: “In May, 1841, he became associated with Don Carlos Smith in the editing of the Times and Seasons. On the 16th of August he was seized with the same disease of which Don Carlos had died on the 7th. The attachment between them was so strong, it seemed as though they could not long be separated. He died on the 27th, leaving one child; was interred in the burying ground on the 29th. By his special request no military procession was formed at his funeral.(History of the Church, Vol.4, Ch.24, p.411)”. Robert Blashel Thompson LRS4-8HZ was one of the two Missionaries [also Theodore Turley KWJV-HKX ] that taught Elizabeth (Terry) Kirby the Gospel in Canada; also Baptizing nearly her whole family {Hyrum Smith later married her to John Heward KWCY-7BX in Nauvoo IL}. I will always be grateful for their service to the Lord, as are thousands of descendants. He likely died from a bacterial pneumonia; at the young age of 30 Elder Robert B. Thompson has finished a great work on this earth, and accomplished much for the Lord whom he loved.
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