Henry Tingey Ancester

A Memory of Biggleswade.

My great grandfather Henry Tingey, was born November 18, 1819, in Biggleswade, Bedfordshire.  He was the son of James Tingey and Elizabeth Boniss.  James and Elizabeth, and family later moved from Bigglewade, Bedfordshire, and moved Lower Caldecut near the 46th milestone from London in the perish of Northhill.  The family of father and mother and two boys and four sisters were in the business of raising wholesale vegatable and garden seeds and were very successful.  
In 1849 the missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, (Mormons) told their gospel message to Henry and his wife Ann Young, (daughter of James and Lucy Young).  Henry and Ann joined the Latter-Day-Saint church and migrated to America in 1849.  They spent three years in St Louis, Missouri and then traveled by oxen and wagon train to Salt Lake City, Utah arriving in September 1853.  Henry became a very devote follower of the Mormon Church.  He settled in Sessions Settlement (now Bountiful, Utah), and later moved to Brigham City Utah, where he was in the garden and fruit business.  He was named Bishop of the First Ward in Brigham in 1877, and set apart by Brigham Young, who was the president of the LDS church at that time.  Henry Tingey was given a blessing that his family would be numerous.  This blessing was fulfilled as Henry lived during the time of polygamy and he married four wives and fathered 31 children.  Henry Tingey passed away at the age of 77, on February 14, 1896 in Brigham City, Utah.  He is essentially, the father of the well known, Tingey families in Davis and Box Elder Counties, in Utah.  Almost all of his children, grand children and great grand children, and great grand children (as of December 2007) number into the thousands and have been pillars, leaders and devote members of their community, and of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  Henry Tingey was truely regarded as noble man and respected citizen in Brigham City, Utah.  Biggleswade, England can be proud that such a good man was born in their city.  It is astonishment, that such a young man as Henry Tingey, could come from humble circumstances in England in 1849, and accomplish what he did as a pioneer in the American West,.