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Show GRAPHY OF WILLIAM MENDENHAU. William Mendenhall, son of Abraham and Elizabeth Wells Mendenhall, was born April 8, 1815 in Mill Creek Hundred, New Castle Co0 , State of Delaware. I was raised on a f ann. one mile north of Brandywine Springs, until fifteen years of age, when, on Nov. 30, 1830, I left my father !s home and went to West Chester, Chester Co., Pennsylvania, and lived with my brother , James while he taught me the br ick mason trade. For three years I served him as apprentice; part of the last season was spent. in Philadelphia laying brick on the Birard buildings. In the spring of !34 my brothers, James and George and I walked West to the state of Ohio to seek homes. We spent the entire summer looking around the country and working at our trade. Late in the fall, not having found a place suitable, we returned to _Delaware. On our return home James and I commenced business as contractors and builders. I continued in the business until 1842. I married Sarah Lovell Feb. 21, 1839. Early in the Spring of 1841, I first heard a Mormon Elder preach. I was at once convinced of the truthfulness of the gospel, and was baptized by Elder William A. Moore in Red Clay Creek, Dec. 12, 1841. In May, 1842, I started to Nauvoo, Ill. in company with Elias Harmer, Asher Baldwin and their families, leaving my wife and two children at her father's house in Delaware. We reached Nauvoo the last of May, and I at once went to work at my trade building brick houses. I worked at Nauvoo all summer and then returned to my home in Delaware late in the fall. On May 8, 1843, I started to Nauvoo with my wife and two children, Mary Frances and Thomas. My father-in- law, Richard Lovell, brought us in a wagon to Wilmington, from which place we went by steamboat down the Christiana river to the Delaware and up the Delaware to Philadelphia- |
