William Austin

 

 

  Birth: 10 March 1800 in Westfield, Chautauqua, New York, USA

  Death: 3 July 1887 in Trenton, Cache, Utah, USA

 

 

William Austin was born to William Austin (1769-1858) and Elizabeth Stevenson (1772-1845) in either Chautauqua County or Washington County New York. It appears that soon after his birth, his family moved just across the border to Canada, where his younger siblings were born.

On 1 January 1822, William married Agnes Nancy Nicol in Hammond, New York. They were introduced to and joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints together, on 1 June 1838.

The couple did not have any children, but it appears that they adopted and raised the young Lucinda Shipman (1822-1906), daughter of Olive Lee and Daniel Shipman. While Lucinda was raised by the Austins, her legal name remained Shipman.

Some sources suggest that rather than adopting Lucinda, William married Olive Lee in 1828. This however, is most likely not the case as William was already married at the time (and this was before polygamy was practiced by select memebrs of the LDS church), and Olive was probably married to someone else as well.

The Austin family moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, were William helped in working on the temple. The quote below in from 3 August 1844:

“The new crane was put into operation. This crane was used to raise the stone for the greater portion of the upper north wall. Joshua Armstrong, with his assistant Charles R. Dana, was the principal mason who worked from this crane. The men who attended the crane were William W. Dryer, William Austin and Archibald Hill.”

 Clayton, "Nauvoo Temple History Journal," p. 28.

 

On 15 June 1846, William Austin married Isabella Nicol, the older sister of Agnes Nicol. This was Isabella’s second marriage. Her first husband, Simeon McIntier (with whom she had eight children), was sent away to fight in the Mexican-American War. Years later, mistakenly thinking that her husband was dead, Isabella married William Austin.

In 1852, William was 52 years old when he made the journey from the Eastern United States to Utah. He and his family traveled with the Robert Wimmer Company. It was during this time that 35 wagons were put under William’s direction. It was also on this journey that his second wife, Isabella Nicol died.

Left to Right: Agnes Nicol, William Austin and Agnes McIntier

William Austin married Agnes McIntier (the daughter of his second wife Isabella Nicol and her first husband Simeon McIntier) on 15 July 1853. The couple had eight children together: William McIntyre Austin, Maurice Austin, Robert Austin, Agnes Elizabeth Austin, Isabel Catharine Austin, Jannette Amelia Austin, Mary Stevenson Austin and Violet Nicol Austin.

William died in northern Utah, where he was also buried next to his wives, Agnes Nicol and Agnes McIntier.

It should be noted that in the Mormon Pioneer Database developed as part of LDS.org, reference is made to an autobiographical sketch written in 1882 referencing (or by) William Austin. This is not available on the internet, but resides in the Salt Lake archives.

Information about Lucinda Shipman:

http://www.wk77.net/wiki/index.php/Lucinda_Shipman_%28Austin%29,_1822

William Austin’s Find A Grave Profile:

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=42051285

Below is a tentative four generation pedigree chart for William Austin produced in RootsMagic 4 (click on image to enlarge):