Parents: Jacob Haws and Hannah Neill. Married June 1, 1822 White* Co., IL to Hannah Whitcomb. They had 14 children. There is a link to the memorial page of all 14 children.

[This is a shorter version by the Sunflower Lady of a history obtained from the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. It was written by Edna Holdaway Bentwet, a great granddaughter, January 9, 1963. Also from "A Story of the Life of Gilberth Haws and Family Pioneer of 1848."]

Gilberth Haws was born 10 March 1801 in Logan, now Butler County, Kentucky, the eighth child of Jacob and Hannah Neill. He was of pioneer stock, his ancestors being among the early settlers of Augusta County, Virginia, and Towan County, North Carolina. Jacob Haws with his wife and two small sons left Burke County, North Carolina, before 1800 to make a home in Kentucky. They traveled by horseback with all their belongings going by way of the Wilderness Road, through the Cumberland Gap into Tennessee, entering Kentucky by the way of Nashville.

Soon after the death of Jacob Haws in 1813, his wife and family emigrated to Illinois and again were among the early settlers of that state. (Hannah remarried.)

Hannah Whitcomb was born 17 April 1806 in Cazenovia, Madison County, New York, daughter of Oliver and Olive Bidlack Whitcomb. Her family also were early pioneers of Illinois and here the Haws and Whitcomb families met. Two Haws brothers married two Whitcomb sisters; Benjamin Haws married Polly Whitcomb and Gilberth Haws married Hannah Whitcomb. They affiliated with no church until they were baptized in 1842 in Wayne County, Illinois. [Baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.]

Quoting from Lucinda Haws Holdaway's history [their daughter]:

"In 1845 Elders came to tell us that the saints were being mobbed and driven from their homes and that we had better prepare to go west with the company. We remained in Wayne County until May 1847, when my father and family prepared to go west. We went as far as Iowa and stopped at a little place called Mount Pisgah for the winter. We remained there until the spring of 1848, then started for Winter Quarters so that we might be ready to go west with the first company."

During the month of May 1848, preparations were made for the departure of the main body of the Saints on the Missouri River. President Young was General Superintendent of the companies and Gilberth and Hannah Haws were assigned to the 3rd Company under the supervision of Lorenzo Snow. This company consisted of 321 souls. Gilberth Haws had two wagons, one team of horses and five teams of oxen. Hannah drove the team of horses all the way across the Plains. The family consisted of father, mother, seven sons and six daughters.

[Lucinda Haws Holdaway history quote:] "On September 23, 1848, we arrived in Salt Lake Valley. My father then bought one of the little adobe houses in the Old Fort which was built by the pioneers who came the year before."

In March, 1849, Gilberth Haws and family were called to go south to Utah Valley. They helped build the first fort which was built near where the lower river [Provo] bridge now stands. In June, 1849, their second daughter Matilda died and was buried on a little knoll near the river and afterwards moved to the Provo City Cemetery. On 8 October 1849 their fourteenth child was born, Gilbert Oliver Haws, the second child born in Provo.

Gilberth Haws and wife and their fourteen sons and daughters were active members in laying the foundation and in the growth and prosperity of Provo, sharing all the privations and hardships incident to pioneer life.

The family were industrious pioneers. The older sons were engaged in all the Indian Wars and were on guard duty. Father and sons cultivated the soil, made ditches, roads and bricks, brought timber from the mountains for fuel and building purposes and the making of farm implements, tanned hides, made shoes for the family, laboring under the greatest difficulties with the crude implements in use at that time. Mother and daughters bore their share of the burdens as they converted the raw materials into food and clothing; cooking over a fireplace, grinding grains to make bread; spinning, weaving, knitting and sewing by hand for the family, gathering herbs, barks, bush and leaves for coloring yarns and cloth and making soap from wood ashes and grease scraps.

From 1848 to 1853 the family moved four times: first from Salt Lake to Provo in the first fort; then to the second fort which was built where North (Sowiette) Park is now located; then Gilberth took up the land known as the Tanner Farm, located west of the Provo River and just below the Carterville Road, on the north half of which the B.Y. U. Studio is now located, and moved there. During the time they lived on the farm, Provo City was laid out and when the Walker War broke out and with Indian troubles increasing, they moved into town in 1853 and located on 4th West and 1st North where they lived until their children were all married and scattered.

In April 1851 Gilberth Haws was elected a member of Provo City's first City Council and later as a Selectman. These positions he filled for several years. He owned an interest in the Provo Cooperative Mercantile Institution, the first of its kind in the Territory of Utah, and in the Provo Woolen Mills. He held many positions in the Church and was a High Priest at the time of his death
3 March 1877. His wife, Hannah, died 21 August 1880 and they are both buried in the Provo City Cemetery.

Three sons were called on missions: William Wallace to Illinois; Caleb William to England where he died 20 November 1871 of smallpox; and John Madison to the Southern States.

Three sons-in-laws, Walter Barney, Shedrick Holdaway and George Pickup were returned members of the Mormon Battalion.

*Illinois marriage record found on FamilyTree shows that they were married in White County instead of Wayne County as previously recorded. Wayne and White Counties are next to each other.