Death Certificate
Joshua Terry, brother of Amy Terry, wife of Zemira Draper. According to The Peoples of Utah, edited by Helen Z. Papanikdas, published by the Utah State Historical Society in Salt Lake City, Utah, Joshua Terry was a pioneer of September 1847. Joshua is part of a remarkable family sage that in its wider implications suggests the elements of the Canadian experience in pioneer Utah. His grandfather, Pennsylvania born, Parshall Terry II, deserted the revolutionary. Joshua's father, Parshall III, was born in New York. Parshall III had seven children born in Palmyra and the last six, including Joshua, at Albion, Upper Canada.The parents and most of the children converted to Mormonism in 1838, immigrated to Missouri, and followed the body to Illinois and then to Utah. Joshua became a mountain man and associate of Jim Bridger, and his first two wives were Indians. When most of his family came west in 1849, he and Bridger helped them along their way at Fort Bridger with six fresh oxen to pull the wagons on the last leg of the trek. Joshua's sister, Amy, married one of Brigham Young's early Canadian converts, Zermira Draper, who, with his brother William, founded Draper, Utah. Many of the Terry family moved there, some for the rest of their lives. Nevertheless, Zemira and William Draper and James and Jacob Terry were called to Cotton Mission and settled in faraway Rockville. There Zemira helped build a sawmill, a molasses mill, and a cotton mill, all of which used water power from the Virgin River. Joshua eventually settled down at Draper and often served as a link between the whites and the Indians of the Great Basin. His half-bred son, George, appointed by church leaders to work with the Shoshones, eventually became one of their chiefs. Thus, the family blended into the Utah environment and even into the native populace of the area.—Reference: Information obtained from the book, The Peoples of Utah, edited by Helen Z. Papanikolas. Chapter 8, The Oft-crossed Border: Canadians in Utah, written by Maureen Ursenbach and Richard I. Jensen, pp 285-286.