JOHN WILLIAM JACKSON was born in Blackley, Lancaster, England. He is the son of Thomas Jackson and Alice Crompton.
The family came to America in 1853 and lived in Springfield, Illinois until 1856, when they came to Utah in the Nicholas Groesbecks' Independent Company when John was seven years old.
While in Payson, John was a member of the Drama club that put on a play every two weeks. The Mormon Church at that time, encouraged the young people to put on high-class plays as a source of entertainment. John almost always took the tragic part.
As a trade he chose cabinet making, an art he learned from his father. At that time, people were asked to be self-supporting in crafts as well as farming. "Store goods" were not desired to be bought from outside places if they could be made in Utah. However, when manufacturing became too hard to compete with, John took up building. A family home in Richfield was the last house he built when he was about seventy-two years old.
John married Sarah Ellenor Bingham in Salt Lake City on August 4, 1870. He also married another wife Margaret Jospehine Nordfors and was arrested for sentenced for unlawful cohabitation in 1889 by Judge John W. Judd, receiving a ten-month sentence of imprisonment. He was released a little early on June 11, 1890 for good behavior. John called the prison "Uncle Sam's Academy for Plural Marriage."
Before John reached Glenwood after his release from prison, his son William Andrew died of Membranous Croup on July 17, 1890. He and his wife Ellenor move to Fremont. Where they lived in a rough stone house in Old East Loa (the town was later moved to higher ground and renamed Lyman.
The Jacksons were the last family to abandon the old town site. An example of their kindness to the Indians was shown when they took in a baby and named her Eliza. Before she was old enough to start school, the family abandoned the old rock home and moved to town so the younger members of the family, including Liza could go to school.
John William Jackson died in Lyman, Wayne County, Utah.