The Welsh Saints Project

Given Name: David
Surname: Jeremy

Gender: Male

Birth date: 14 November 1821

Birth place: Brechfa, Carmarthenshire, Wales

Death date: 3 April 1885

Death place: Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah, United States

Burial date: April 1885

Burial place: Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah, United States

Father: Thomas Jeremy
Mother: Sarah Evans

Siblings

Evans, Mary (1827-1905)

Married 14 May 1850 in Carmarthenshire, Wales

Left Liverpool, Lancashire, England on 17 April 1855 aboard the ship Chimborazo.
Arrived in Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States on 21 May 1855.

Obituary in the Deseret Evening News, Vol. XVIII, Saturday Evening, April 4, 1885, No. 112, page 5:

Sudden death: David Jeremy, of the 19th Ward of this city, a quiet and unassuming but very honorable man, and much respected by his acquaintances, died last night shortly before 12 o'clock, in an epileptic fit. He has been afflicted by spasms of this kind occasionally for upwards of 20 years, resulting, at least partially, so his friends think, from a severe injury received at the hands of a brutal mob while engaged in preaching the Gospel in his native country, upwards of 30 years ago. He also received a severe cold through working in the water to protect his water from overflow at the time of the freshets in 1862, since which time he has never been so well. He was a brother of Elder Thos. E. Jeremy of the 16th Ward of this city, and the son of Thomas and Sarah Jeremy. Born in Carmarthenshire, South Wales, Nov. 14, 1821; he embraced the Gospel in 1846 and, for some time was President of the Brechfa Branch of the Church in his native land. He emigrated to Utah in 1855, and ever since then has been a resident of this city. The funeral service over his remains will be held at the family residence in the 19th Ward, at 11 a.m., tomorrow.

David Jeremy's own account of being beaten by a mob:

Pontyfedwen, near Brechfa, October, 1854
Dear President Jones – Having improved somewhat from the effects of the cruel treatment I had lately, I shall tell you of the trouble which befell me. Last Sunday, in response to a sincere invitation we received, we went to preach near Llangeler; when we began the meeting through prayer a large group came from Saron Chapel (Independents) nearby, being led by an innkeeper by the name of John Davies, Groesffordd, who came to the side of us, and, bragging that he could shout louder than we, began shouting and crying out like a lunatic, until, after trying my best to speak, I had to be silent; by then lumps of dirt and rocks were thrown at us rapidly and frequently; Brother D. Thomas was hit in the face making his blood stream freely to the ground. I tried again to talk to them and reason with them, but the rocks were whistling more and more around our heads, and when we also heard them threaten and shout “away with them,” we fled from there believing they would not be so cruel as to follow after us, but follow us they did, about 30 or 40 of them close to our heels, and hurling rocks at us as if earnestly trying to kill us, and the rocks struck us so hard that it was only with great effort that we could keep our feet under us and flee, with them howling and following after us like bloodhounds after their prey. After following like that for a time, some of the mob shouted to catch and kill Daniel, that it was Daniel they wanted; this caused me to stop and try to persuade them not to kill me, while Daniel escaped through the bogs with part of the mob after him, but they failed to catch him. At that time one of the mob hit me in the head with a large rock with such force that it opened a wound to the bone about two inches long; while I was lying on the road in my blood I was kicked severely; their threats made me believe that they wanted to kill me, and I shouted out, Murder! Murder!! At this one of them cried out, “now you’ve finally killed him, his skull is broken.” At that a man by the name of Mr. Dafydd Evans came there, and shouting “you’ll not kill him before killing me, leave him alone;” and had it not been for this philanthropic friend, I have no doubt that the others would have killed me right then and there; but thanks to him and to the God that sent him there at that time, he drove them away, and with his help I somehow crawled to the house of Mr. H. Howells, Treolmawr, who took care of me and showed every kindness he could. Next day, since I was too weak to walk, Mr. Howells put me on his own horse, and took me back to the place where we were beaten so that I could recognize some who had beaten me, and we got most of their names. John Davis [spelled Davies earlier in the letter], Groesffordd, bragged about his cruelty, and he threatened fearlessly that he would use a gun instead of rocks the next time we came, and that he would for sure kill us even if he were hanged on the spot for doing so. But in spite of everything, through the mercy of our God, the two of us arrived back home alive, and our wounds are healing through the exercise of our Heavenly Father’s medicine; and this does not dishearten us from preaching his gospel according to his commandment; rather we are ready when it is necessary to die for him, knowing that he knows all things. We are, with our kind regards to you, Your brethren in Christ, David Jeremy Daniel Thomas [Translated from the original Welsh in Udgorn Seion [Zion’s Trumpet], 1854, pp. 569-70, by Ronald Dennis.]