#52Ancestors - Week 11 - WHO WOULD I LIKE TO MEET

"Though hard to you this journey may appear, Grace shall be as your day." Come, Come Ye Saints, No. 30, Hymns of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 1985. Did my great-great-great-grandmother Alice Hardman Clayton ever feel the comfort from this hymn written by her husband, William Clayton? Following are some facts as documented online in FamilySearch and found in An Intimate Chronicle, the Journals of William Clayton. Alice was christened on 23 April 1816 in Kirkham, Lancashire, a daughter of Richard and Elizabeth Hardman. William Clayton's journals make mention of the Hardmans, and Alice in particular, on several instances in 1840 during his mission to Manchester, and I believe she had been baptized before that time. The 1841 England census has her living with her mother in Manchester, Lancashire, England, at the age of 20. She is listed on the Louisiana, New Orleans Passenger Lists, age 24, arrived 26 April 1842 on the John Cummins. Entry in Clayton's journal, 13 Sept 1844: "At 3 went to see Alice Hardman who is sick and was united in the E[ternal] C[ovenant]. Alice's marriage to Austin Sturgess on November 3, 1844, two months after her marriage to William, is witnessed in a civil ceremony performed by Levi Richards. On November 20, 1844, about three weeks after Alice married Mr. Sturgess, William married Alice's cousin, Jane. Alice would later divorce William in 1858 and Jane would also divorce William (An Intimate Chronicle, pg 149 fn112). Footnotes in An Intimate Chronicle state that Alice began the trek west on February 27, 1846 with William Clayton, two other wives, four children, and a mother-in-law. Records on FamilySearch indicate William and Alice had four children: Clara Agness born 1852, died 1856 Isabella Alice born 1854, died 1913 Aaron and Moses both born January 1857 and died October 1857. Alice dies and is buried in November 1894 in Glenwood, Sevier County, Utah. I wish that I could speak with Alice and find out about her life. The entry about William and Alice’s marriage stating Alice "is sick" makes me wonder if she was married because they thought she was going to die? How was she married again a few weeks later? What were her marriage circumstances? Did she ever love William Clayton? How did she feel about plural marriage? How devastating were the deaths of her three young children? Did she have a testimony of the gospel, and could say, "Our God will never us forsake"?

#52 Ancestors - Week 1 - BEGINNINGS

I’m receiving emails once a week beginning this year that gives a theme prompt to write about ancestors in an effort to share with others what we know or what we’ve learned through research.  I started receiving these last year also (and probably other years) but have never followed through.  Here’s hoping 2021 is a new beginning.

Week 1 – Beginnings

“Beginnings” made me wonder about the beginnings of church membership of my ancestors.  Our course of study in church this year is the Doctrine and Covenants and these first couple of weeks have concentrated on the restoration.  I wondered who was my first ancestor to be baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints?  I’ve not started putting church ordinance dates in my RootsMagic database yet so I didn’t have that information readily available.  I did a quick search on FamilySearch and found:

Name                                         Baptism Year

John Burt Sr                              1848

William Clayton                         1837

Caroline Knowles                      1841

Charles Cottrell                         1850

Raphael Henry Cottrell             1850

Charles Layton                          1849

Sarah Ambrosine Crockett        1849

Sarah Rogers                             1849

Some ancestors had baptism dates after they immigrated with the saints to Utah.  Did they come without being a baptized member?  

Caroline Knowles

I’m not sure that the baptism date is correct.  It doesn’t quite match up with the dates given in the history Sketch of Life of Caroline Knowles Webb, a Utah Pioneer of 1850 found in Family Search: “In the year 1847 [?], during the gold excitement of California, her father and mother and sister, Sarah, left the East to locate in California.  Caroline, who was then nineteen years old – and her two brothers, Thomas and Henry – became interested in Mormonism, and decided not to go to California, and against their parents wishes, who were very bitter towards Mormonism, Caroline and her brothers joined the church.”

William Clayton

From An Intimate Chronical: The Journals of William Clayton:  "On July 20, 1837, the six members of the first Mormon foreign mission landed in Liverpool amid both economic recession and national excitement; England’s newly-crowned Queen Victoria was preparing to name her cabinet.  The mission went directly thirty miles northwest to Lancashire, the scene of the textile mills which were an early expression of the Industrial Revolution.  The missionaries began preaching in the church of Reverend James Fielding in the large factory town of Preston.” [Footnote: “One of the Mormon missionaries, Joseph Fielding, was a British emigrant who had been invited by his brother, Reverend James Fielding, to return there to preach.  The Reverend cancelled his welcome to the Mormons”.]  “Twenty-three-year-old William Clayton, who lived across the river in the area of Penwortham parish, became an early convert to the new church.  On October 21, 1837, mission leader Heber C. Kimball baptized Clayton in the River Ribble.”

A quick check of the “Memories” on FamilySearch does not give much information concerning the baptism of the others listed above. 

I’m appreciative of my ancestors who joined the new church, immigrated to the United States and Utah and built a foundation upon which my faith would be laid.