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When they came to Utah they took up a homestead in Buysville. One year the grasshoppers came. Henry was helping his father to drive them from their fields. He looked behind them and said, 'Look, we are not doing any good. There are more behind us than in front of us'.
He left home and got work in a logging camp. That fall he bought a team and wagon and brought home a load of flour.
When he was 14 years old he hired out to go with a freight outfit to Dodge City, Kansas from Fort Bridger, Wyoming. He was barefoot when he left. He had ten head of oxen to take care of and drive. The first morning out he couldn't tell his oxen from the others in the herd. He just sat down on his wagon tongue and waited until his wagon boss came up. He said, "Why ain't you hooking up your steers, young feller?" After he told him, the wagon boss said, "I'll help you this time and you be ready tomorrow when the others are." The next morning Henry knew all his oxen because of the wagon dope he had dobbed on them and he knew their place in the team by where he had placed the dope. He said, "You bet I got 'em in and hooked up, too." He went on to haul freight for several years. He hauled grain from Utah and brought all kinds of freight back.
When Virginia City gold rnines first opened up, he and his pal put a pack on their backs in Peoche, Nevada, (a mining camp) and hiked to Virginia City, Nevada. When they crossed the desert Henry put a fifty cent piece in his mouth and kept it there all the way. He stood the dry, hot hike fine without water. The other man didn't and almost died. They ran out of food and stopped at a ranch. A lady came to the door when they knocked. He told her he was hungry and needed a meal. "I'm not begging, Madam, I'll pay for a meal." She told him she was alone and didn't want to fix him a meal. He said, "AIl right, Madam, but I'll shoot the first thing I see that I can eat." So she fixed a good meal which they felt saved their lives. He paid her for it and resumed his journey toward Virginia City.
Henry was a young man in his prime when they were building the railroad through Utah and he worked there two or three years. He carried ties on the trot and worked at it for ten hours a day. He said if you missed a tie or didn't trot they fired you and hired someone who could. Then in the evening he followed his favorite sport, namely fist fighting. He earned doubtful honor of being called "Big Fisted Nelson." He liked to fight and was a hard man to beat. The toughest, hardest men in the camps came to challenge him. He fought them all. One day a man came through looking for a fight, and the men, mostly Irish, persuaded Henry to fight with him. When the man came into the fight, Henry said he could tell he was a trained fighter and was in first class condition. He said he could see he was up against the wrong man that time. After the fight they told him it was the great prizefighter, John L. Sullivan. He was going from camp to camp fighting to keep trim and in shape.
Once when Henry was young the Indians raided the settlement and drove the cattle and horses away. The men rounded up the Indians and locked them in a schoolhouse. They told Henry to watch them while they went to look for stock. He was afraid the Indians would all come at him at once so he took a piece of chalk and drew a line across the floor in the middle of the schoolhouse. He told them he'd shoot anyone who crossed the line. He was alone with them all night.
He married a girl from Heber, a neighboring community. She was Mary Ellen Mc Millan. She was born in England and came to Utah, crossing the plains when she was eleven years old. They took up a homestead in Buysville next to his father's place. He worked in the Park City mines a lot in the winters. Twelve children were born to them. Their first baby was Mary Janette, born January 13, 1874; Pheobe Hannah, on March 2 1877; Henry Thomas Jr. on May 25, 1878; Margaret on Nov. 7, l879; Emma on July 28, 1881; Daniel (Uncle Dan) on April 13, 1884; Sarah Ann (Sadie) on June 29, 1886; William (Bill) on November 12, 1888; Joseph on July 9, 1890; Rose Ellen on September 19, 1892; Jessie Richmond on December 9, 1894 and Jean, the baby, on November 10, 1898.
When he was first married he said there was a lot he didn't know about farming. He often laughed and told about how he stacked his first hay crop. He came home from Park City, mowed his hay and racked it right up. Then he stacked it up and hurried back to Park to work. He said that fall he could have covered the whole stack with his hat. He soon became a first rate farmer and took particular care of his crops and animals. He trained his children to get up early in the morning. It seemed a hardship when they were small but in later years they were all glad they had that early rising habit.
They all tell about weeding the grain fields by hand. In fact, they weeded the whole place the same way. If they saw any weeds, especially wild oats, they had to pull them out. He hauled manure in the winter from the Heber Livery Stable to spread on his ground.
In those days people had very little money and for some it was a hard struggle just to have food. Henry Nelson gave freely of what he had to those who needed help. He gave flour, potatoes and meat to neighbors who were going without. He was water master there for years.
Two of his children, Tom and Fee (Pheobe) had moved to Idaho, and in 1906 Henry sold his place in Buysville and moved to Idaho in Fremont County, later changed to Teton. His place was on Fox Creek in the Chapin community. His wife, Mary Ellen, died at home in Chapin and was buried in Victor, Idaho in March, l9l8. Jean, the youngest, was the only child left at home with him. The others had all married and had homes of their own. About three years before he died he slipped on the ice and broke his hip. He never walked again. He spent his last days with his daughter Sadie and her family in Bates. He was in a wheel chair then. He passed away there on Nov. 16, l928. In his old age he received a pension from the government for fighting in a war with the Indians.