Johns father Benjamin Boyce died when John was only 4 years old. Johns cousin Ira Hinkley was about 17 yrs old, and hearing of his aunts condition came back from Winter Quarters and drove their team to W.Q. John's mother married Hugh Day in 1847 and in 1850 emigrated to Utah. John was in his ninth year and walked across the plains all the way, helping to drive the loose cattle. I have not heard him tell of but one incident on that trip. One day he was sassy to an older man that had charge of the herd and John deservedly punished, and he always thought it served him right. John had little opportunity to attend school just a few months in the winter time. In summer he herded cows, taking them for miles along the Jordan River or up to the Warm Springs.
John had his endowments when 16. Then at ninteen years of age a call came in his Ward for volunteers to go back to the frontier and bring in emigrants. He volunteered along with William Newman, a life long friend and others. He took two yoke of oxen and made the trip, also the following year, on this last trip he met his first wife he did not know it then nor for several years after but he always admired her for her good nature and pleasant way under most trying circumstances. Elizabeth was traveling with her father and his wife and child. Her father had come to Utah some years before and her mother had died before he left Wales.
John Boyce spent his young manhood in farming. They rented a farm in Bountiful one or two seasons. He also worked on the Temple block helping break rock for the Temple, also as cabinet maker. He used to go the the canyon for wood and one of these trips he nearly lost his life. He was up on the load of wood binding it when the chain that he was binding it with brok and threw him full force into the rocky road, lighting on his neck and shoulders, causing him to loose consciousness. How long he laid there he never knew, but when he came to he managed to bind his load and drive home but said it was a miracle that his neck was not broken.
After his first marriage in the spring they moved to Coalsville where John ran a farm on shares for Arza Hinkley. They lived there four or five years. Their first boy was born there, John died at birth and was buried there.
Some time after this they went to Little Cottonwood to haul ore from Alta to old Granite, to some smelters that were there at one time.
About this time John bought a 40 acre farm from [Solomon Joseph] Despain and built a house and moved his family there, who had been living in Granite for some time. This was the winter.
One year from the following Jan. John married Ella Despain and in Nov his 1st wife died, also their infant son named James. There surely was sorrow in the home then. The mother & babe were both buried in the same casket. It seemed so sad. Her grave was the first in Granite Cemetery.
Johns second wife, Ella was living up by the rock Meeting House, not far from where Maxfields live, at the time but she moved down then and took charge at Johns household and cared for him and the children.