George Southam, born October 29, 1831 in Oxfordshire, England. He joined the Latter Day Saint Branch in England. He was baptised in the Coventry Branch of the Worchshire Conference Sept. 1850 by Charles Anton and David Walker. He was confirmed by Thomas Broadhead Sept. 1850 in the same branch.

He was a weaver by trade having charge of three looms. He was considered to be a good weaver. He married Jane Carter, the daughter of John and Mary Carter the 29th of Nov. 1854 in Bambury Old England. They left England the 4^thof December 1854 and were on the ocean sixteen weeks. The only ships those days were sailing vessels. The sailing vessel met a storm after leaving Liverpool in the Irish Channel until the Presiding Elder of the British Mission told them to fast and pray, which they did and from then on they had no trouble. 

They were from December until the 22nd of February getting from Liverpool to New Orleans. After two or three days of resting they went up the Mississippi River to St. Louis, Missouri. The first employment George Southam had was helping put up ice and he and his wife lived in a rooming house where his wife sewed for people who lived there and helped with the living expenses. He did various other jobs while living in St. Louis. One son was born to them while they lived in St. Louis. His name was Fines Henry Southam, being named after a former sweetheart of his wife Jane. The child died when it was about a year old.

George Southam had typhoid fever while they were in St. Louis. They lived on the upper story of the house. His wife Jane had to give up her sewing to care for him. Their finances were very low and one night they were wondering where they were going to get food for the next day- on arising the next morning they found a loaf of bread on the table. Before he was well, one Sunday morning a knock was heard on the door, on answering it they met a man with a basket of food. He said that the woman he worked for and who was also the woman that Jane had sewed for had sent him with the food and that she hoped that they would not be offended. They knew that the Lord had blessed them and answered their prayers.

They left St. Louis in the spring of 1861 and took passage on a boat from St. Louis to Nebraska. This they did on the advice of the authorities of the Church. Owing to the rush of so many families emigrating to Utah that same year they were told that they must wait their turn. Their turn came in the spring. However, while they were waiting for their turn to come around, George went to the river to fish, fishing and hunting being a hobby of his. As he sat on the river bank he chanced to hear the remarks of other fishermen who were near. They were talking about a Company who were outfitting to go to California. The next morning he walked six miles to this Company. He inquired if it would be possible to go along with them. This particular Company had horses instead of oxen, they also had some mules. The Company consisted of all men. When he arrived they were preparing their wagons. They asked him many questions as to what he could do. He assured them that when working for anyone he tried to do as he was told. He informed them that he had a wife and she wanted to go too. They said that this might make a difference. He promised them that she would not be a burden to them. He also told them that she could sew and mend their clothes. They walked a little way off and talked it over and when they returned they said that if they still wanted to go to be ready by morning and they would call for them. They came with two wheels of a wagon on which they put their belongings and started on their way to Zion. Grandfather Southam often told how he herded horses and mules nineteen nights in a row with only what rest he could get as they were moving along in the daytime.

They were well equipped for a journey of that kind so did not endure the hardships that some of the Saints encountered. They were ahead of the Saints so had good feed for their animals. When they reached Utah he was offered $60 a month and board for he and his wife if they would go on to California with them. They reminded him of the advantages that a little money might give him and $60 was more than he had been used to, so he was undecided. He went to Bishop Layton for advice. The Bishop asked, "How long have you been coming this far, Brother Southam?" "Seven years," George replied. "Well, you should know the answer," said the Bishop, and so George Southam stayed in Utah and the Company moved on to California. He and Jane went to the Endowment House in 1861.

Jane could have no children and as polygamy was being lived at this time, Jane asked Father to marry someone that could give him a family. He had met Catherine Cameron by then, and so they were married Nov. 28, 1862 in Salt Lake City. Grandfather Cameron was managing Bishop Hunter's (the Second Presiding Bishop of the Church) ranch in Round Valley. That is where George Southam must have met Catherine Cameron.

George and Catherine Southam lived in Morgan, Utah until after the Union Pacific Railroad was finished. They had four children by then, Mamie, George Henry, Eliza, and Alice, then George moved both of his wives and the four children to North Evanston, Wyoming. Here he bought a home and they all lived together. George Southam never paid rent and always advised his children to own their home.

He worked for the Union Pacific Railroad in the shops, but also helped in the construction of the road while living in Morgan. While still living in Morgan he was called to go back in 1868 as a teamster in an ox train that was going to Sweetwater to get immigrants, the last immigration before the railroad was completed to Ogden. The children got word that the last company of immigrants were coming and all gathered together to watch for them. The first thing the children saw was an American flag that George Southam had bought somewhere, it was hoisted above the wagon so it was the first thing they could see as they came in sight. He drove an ox team and was the oldest of the teamsters and was recognized as being reliable. He did not stay with the train until it reached Salt Lake but stopped off at his home and reported to Salt Lake City later.

He worked for the railroad in Evanston for several years. George Southam's father-in-law, John Cameron had been called to Randolph, Utah to help settle there and lived as a neighbor to one of Wilford Woodruff's families. George Southam had always wanted to keep his family in a Latter Day Saint settlement so he bought land at Randolph and built a house and he and his oldest son batched there and tried to make a home to move the family to. However he never was able to move his family to this home so Mr. Cameron took care of the home at Randolph and also some cattle that Mr. Southam owned. This helped Grandfather Cameron as he was in very tight circumstances at this time.

Harry Southam, George Southam's oldest son tells this little incident: "It was while we were working on a ditch one day that a messenger came and told us we were to come to a meeting. It was the custom at that time that if important news or special instructions were about to be given, that several boys were sent to the different homes to inform the settlers of a meeting then we assembled at a public meeting place and instructions were given.

When we assembled this time a Mr. West spoke to us and said that a call had come for assistance in the building of the St. George Temple. Different ones got up in the meeting and volunteered different things toward it and my father George Southam offered $15 in stock. I knew what my father owned and just the load he was carrying and I thought to myself, "Old Boy, where are you going to get it?" As we went back to work I asked him where it was coming from. He looked down at me for a moment and then said, "You wait and see." A short while afterward my father and I were on our way to work on the same ditch when a man called my father and said there is a steer at the tithing yard that had been gathered in the roundup and it belonged to father. It turned out to be one that had not showed up in the roundup the year before and he could get no trace of it and had considered it lost. After talking to the man we walked on to work and my father looked down at me again and said, "Harry, you remember the steer I promised for the St. George Temple?" I replied, "Yes", and he said, "That's it." That was a lesson in faith that I never forgot."

While working for the Union Pacific Railroad George Southam saved enough to buy enough livestock and a ranch in Bear River, a small place eight miles south and a little east of Evanston, Wyoming. He disposed of his place at Randolph, Utah. He acquired the property, 160 acres under the Timber Act. The requirements of the act were that ten acres must be planted to timber before the title could be perfected from the government. Harry, the oldest son also tells this story: "I drove the cattle from our place to Evanston, a distance of about eleven miles. I was on foot and it was warm weather and I suffered because of thirst, to the extent of trying to drink water from where the cattle had walked in swampy country and a little had oozed up into the cow tracks. Father met me at night and stayed with me. They got my sister Mamie and the furniture and also brought a pony for me and when they reached the place where I was, I took the pony and drove the cattle the rest of the way out to the Ranch."

In the winter Mamie was sent to Salt Lake to school and the other children were sent to Randolph. This was 1880 to 1881, the year President Garfield was shot. The schooling was broken into a lot by an epidemic of diphtheria. Grandfather John Cameron paid for the children's schooling each month and the teacher's name was Zeak Lee. The children sawed wood in their spare time and it was later used by the Union Pacific Railroad for surveying stakes in staking the branch of the Oregon Short Line Railroad that connects from Granger, Wyoming, and goes through Twin Creeks to Idaho. Soon George Southam bought a home in town and the family lived in town and he went back and forth from the home in town to the ranch. He did this so that the children could be together and go to school.

On Dec. 24th 1885 George Southam went to the ranch to take care of the cattle. In the evening as he returned, he was crossing Bear River with a team and wagon. He had been crossing on the ice where the railroad bridge cast a shadow on the river as he thought the ice would be strongest there. This time the ice broke with the horses and they dragged him and the wagon into the river and they all drowned. The men on the passing train saw the accident and notified people at the first station. There was some difficulty in locating the body and they were almost ready to stop searching. One of the men said, "Well, I'll just cut the ice out in one more place and if I don't find him I'll quit." That was the time he was successful as his body was under the ice at that place. When his wife, Catherine attended the funeral the youngest baby John caught cold and died shortly after.