Eliza Jane was born August 31, 1822, in Perry township, Wayne County, Indiana, the third of six children of Isaac Adamson and Nancy Garner. She was eleven years old when the family moved from Wayne County to Delaware County, Indiana. The move had not been fully completed when her father who was helping a neighbor raise a barn, was killed by falling from the roof.

Times were hard for her mother as the man whom the court had appointed as guardian for the minor children mishandled the money from the estate. The Adamson’s were of Quaker stock and strictly religious in their lifestyle.

When Eliza Jane was eighteen years old she married Moses Trader Shepherd on March 22, 1840 in Delaware County. Their first three children were born in Delaware County. Two of them died in infancy. The second child was a healthy girl, Priscilla.

The fourth child was Nancy Shepherd born in 1846. The 1850 census of Iowa says she was born in Missouri. She died just after the census was taken. It is not known why they were in Missouri or the exact location.*

Sometime during these years they came in contact with members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Moses was baptized in November of 1846. Eliza Jane was not baptized then. In fact, she returned to Delaware County, Indiana. Moses went on to Council Bluffs, Iowa, and affiliated with the Mormons settled there. He married a second wife, Martha Amanda Bryant.

Leaving Martha Amanda there, he went back to Indiana and persuaded Eliza Jane to go west with him. When they arrived at Council Bluffs, Martha Amanda had died giving birth to a baby boy, who was still born.

On August 9, 1849 a son, Aaron Adamson Shepherd was born in Council Bluffs. They remained in the settlement until 1852 when Brigham Young strongly urged all Saints to leave that place and go to the West. Another son, Peter Burr Shepherd (named for his grandfather) was born and died on the Plains. Thus, when they arrived in Utah only two of the six children born to them were still living.

They were sent with a group of Saints to make a settlement on the mouth of the Spanish Fork River in Utah County, which they called Palmyra. It was the winter camping ground of a group of Indians and they had a great deal of trouble with the Indians before they were finally able to live in peace on the land. Her husband was an Indian agent for the government. He made friends with the Indians and taught them better farming methods.

Two children, Eliza Jane and Moses Andrew, were born at Palmyra. The family then moved closer to Spanish Fork where the remaining three children were born: Benjamin Franklin, Isaac Garner, and Mary Elizabeth.

Moses married two other wives, one a widow with two sons Hannah Garlic Hatch. She also bore two sons by Moses Shepherd, Joseph and Daniel. The other wife was Mary Christina Poulsen, a widow from Denmark with two children. She bore him a daughter Rhoda Shepherd.

Moses Trader Shepherd died of typhoid fever at the age of forty-six. Eliza Jane still had six children at home, three of them under the age of ten years. Her oldest son Aaron Adamson though only seventeen years of age, was a great help to her then, and even after his marriage in 1869 continued to help her. Each of the Shepherd wives helped each other in their widowhood and their children remained very close throughout their lives.

Eliza Jane married the widower Stephen Markham, who at one time had served as a body guard to the Prophet Joseph Smith.

After his death she married Joseph Huff of Spanish Fork. After the untimely death of her son, Aaron Adamson Shepherd and his wife, Eliza Jane went back to her own log cabin to take care of one of the little orphaned children.

Her grand daughter Hannah lived with her until she suffered a paralyzing stroke in 1895. She then went to live with her daughter, Eliza Jane Shepherd Avery in Huntington, Utah, where she passed away on August 12, 1897. She is buried beside her husband in the Spanish Fork Cemetery.
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*Could it be possible that Moses had attempted to take his family to the Salt Lake Valley but failed having to stop then in Missouri to regroup, just as David Brinton’s (1814-1878) family had to when they left Winter Quarters for Salt Lake two years earlier? [See Brinton’s wife Harriet’s notes] 3


General source includes a portrait.3

This source indicates Moses and his wife Eliza Jane were married in Mt. Pleasant, IN. 1113

Martha’s polygamist husband Moses was baptized in November of 1846. Eliza Jane [his first wife] was not baptized then. In fact, she returned to Delaware County, Indiana. Moses went on to Council Bluffs, Iowa, and affiliated with the Mormons settled there. He married Martha as his second wife.

Leaving Martha Amanda there, he went back to Indiana and persuaded Eliza Jane to go west with him. When they arrived at Council Bluffs, Martha had died giving birth to a baby boy, who was still born. 1114

This source indicates her name was Hannah Garlic Hatch, a widow with two sons. She was baptized by the Prophet Joseph Smith.

Following her father’s death in 1843, Hanna’s mother sent her to work for Hyrum Smith [brother of the Prophet Joseph]

With her family she came to Utah by handcart in Captain Allen Weeks Company in 1848, for the most primitive years of struggle on the frontier. [See her mother’s notes]. 1118

Her first name appears in records spelled Hanna and Hannah. 3

A widow from Denmark with two children when she married Moses Trader Shepherd.
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This source indicated her last name was Olsen. 275