George Derry
1824-1911
George Derry immigrated to America from Liverpool, England in 1856 on the Mormon ship
Horizon, at the age of thirty, with his wife Louisa, mother Amelia Street, and sons six-year-old Charles Henry Derry and three-year-old Moroni Wheldal Derry. (I am indebted to Linda Hedlund for sharing this and other information.) They had been converted to Mormonism in England, but were horrified, upon arriving in America, to learn of the doctrine of polygamy, which was then current in that church.
George and Louisa's party was supposed to meet up with a Mormon wagon train to travel to Salt Lake City, but, according to the story that George Derry's grandson George W. Derry told, they delayed too long in visiting friends in Council Bluffs or Omaha, Nebraska, and inadvertantly missed the wagon train. The wagon train left their meeting place, Blair, Nebraska, without them, but took all of their possessions which had been sent ahead, including their gold.
They are listed as members of the
Dan Jones/John A. Hunt wagon train, which
departed from Iowa City on 1 August 1856, and arrived in Salt Lake Valley around the 10th to 15th of December, 1856. "About 300 individuals and 56 wagons were in the company when it began its journey from the outfitting post." From looking at these records, one would think that George and Louisa were in that wagon train, but the autobiography of Charles Derry, George's brother, agrees that they were not. He believed that they chose to remain behind because they had been induced by his letters from Utah, and the influence of other friends, to stay behind. Charles wrote that they were extremely fortunate to miss the abuses, as he described them, of Brigham Young and his followers in Salt Lake City. Both George and Charles, with their families, left the larger Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, whose leaders, at the time, were teaching that all of the faithful were required to engage in polygamy, and joined the new Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which is today known as the Community of Christ. George Derry was ordained an elder in the
in 1862, according to
History of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I believe that he was never a preacher or missionary like his brother Charles, though. Later in life, Charles wrote, Louisa became involved in another popular movement of their time, spiritualism, of which Charles deeply disapproved on religious grounds.
From a short biography of George's son Arthur E. Derry, in the 1912
Compendium of History, Reminiscence, & Biography of Nebraska:
George Derry is a typical pioneer of Nebraska, his settlement in the state dating from 1857, settling in Dodge county. He came here from England, of which country he is a native, having been born in London, (Lanchestershire) in 1823. He grew to manhood in his native land and followed the occupation of bridle maker. He is now living in Decatur county, Iowa, where he is well-known and highly esteemed and respected. [His wife], Louisa (Weldon) Derry, was also born in England, her birth occurring in the year of 1821. Mr. George Derry ... , in 1857, left his native land and came to America where he could get land cheaper and where there were more opportunities for a man to support a family; he settled in Dodge county, Nebraska, where he took up a pre-emption and homestead claim, and built a log house, the roof being made of cornstalks. Here the family went through about every hardship and danger it was possible to encounter, suffering losses through every conceivable cause; this is not to be wondered at, as at that time this section of the country was almost unknown as a habitation for a white man; they had many scares from the red skins which then inhabited the western country; grasshoppers made their visit to Nebraska in 1873-74-75; the blizzards of 1869 and 1873 did a great deal of damage to those early settlers in that part of the state.
George and Louisa's children who survived infancy were Charles Henry Derry, Moroni Wheldal Derry, Arthur Edward Derry, Ada Louisa Derry, and George Herbert Derry. They also had five children who died in infancy. A complete list of all ten of George and Louisa's children's names and birth and death dates may be found at Linda Hedlund's listing of
Charles Derry's descendents.
Two years after Louisa's death in 1888, George married again, but that marriage ended in divorce, if I recall correctly.
I believe that George and Louisa Derry were buried in the
Rose Hill Cemetery, Decatur County, Iowa.
An autobiography written by George's brother, Charles, says only a little about George, but is very informative about what was going on at the time. A book-length version of this autobiography,
The Autobiography of Elder Charles Derry,
is available at a modest cost from
Restoration Bookstore, but a much briefer version is available online: see
Charles Derry.
Here is a link to
a copy of a page from the 1860 Census for Nebraska. It lists George Derry, age 34, farmer, Louisa Derry, age 36, Chas. Derry, age 10, Moroni Derry, age 8, and Arthur Derry, age 1. Only Arthur is listed as having been born in Nebraska.
Last updated: April 2005
(May 15, 2019: Link for wagon train info updated to point to the Internet Archive; link for
Compendium of History, Reminiscence, & Biography of Nebraska updated; link for
The Autobiography of Elder Charles Derry upodated, but apparently the book is not currently available.)
