Johann Daniel Bommeli AKA Daniel Bonelli

 Johann Daniel Bommeli was born in Switzerland, 25 Feb 1836.  His family joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1854.  After joining the church he changed his name to Bonelli and went by his middle name instead of his last name.  He served for a short time as a missionary, and attracted many converts.  However he was ordered out of the country for preaching to the Swiss people.

He immigrated to America in 1860.  He traveled on the ship George Washington.  He traveled with the James Darling Ross Company.  This was a down and out company where the church sent a wagon team to collect the incoming saints.  He traveled with the wagon company from Florence to Utah.  He had to learn how to handle an ox team.

The Swiss Saints were assigned to southern Utah.  Brigham Young indicated the single members should marry before they headed south.  He had met Ann Haigh on the trip, on the ship or in the wagon company.  They were married in the Endowment house in Salt Lake City 25 Oct 1861.  

In southern Utah they were tole to raise figs, grapes, sugar cane and tobacco.  A group of saints from there were called to settle along the Muddy River.  From there they settled in St. Thomas along the Colorado River.  This is where the Virgin River flows into the Colorado River.  It is now covered with Lake Mead.  Daniel established a far raising fruit trees.  He also planted many cottonwood trees.  When Brigham Young visited in 1870, he turned around and called the country desolate and decided the saints should move back to Utah.  He may have been influenced by flooding in addition to heat in the area.  There was also confusion about what sate they were in and whether they had to pay taxes to Nevada.  Daniel Bonelli and his wife did not leave while everyone else did.  He said he did not leave the church, the church left him.  Others later moved to the area and the town of St. Thomas was established as well as Overton, upstream.  Daniel Bonelli established a ferry across the Colorado River.  He is credited with naming Temple Bar along the Colorado River thinking it looked like the Mormon temple in Salt Lake.  He passed away in 1903 due to a stroke.  He was buried in St. Thomas.  When Lake Mead flooded the area his grave was moved to Mountain View Cemetery in Kingman Arizona.

He is the father of George Bonelli who built the Bonelli House in Kingman which is a living history museum in Kingman.  It in on the list of National Historic locations.